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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 7 + +L. EMILIA BEGINS TO FEEL MERTHYR'S POWER +LI. A CHAPTER INTERRUPTED BY THE PHILOSOPHER +LII. A FRESH DUETT BETWEEN WILFRID AND EMILIA +LIII. ALDERMAN'S BOUQUET +LIIV. THE EXPLOSION AT BROOKFIELD +LV. THE TRAGEDY OF SENTIMENT +LVI. AN ADVANCE AND A CHECK. +LVII. CONTAINS A FURTHER ANATOMY OF WILFRID +LVIII. FROST ON THE MAY NIGHT. +LVIX. EMILIA'S GOOD-BYE + + + +CHAPTER L + +Emilia remained locked up with her mother all that evening. The good +little shrill woman, tender-eyed and slatternly, had to help try on +dresses, and run about for pins, and express her critical taste in +undertones, believing all the while that her daughter had given up music +to go mad with vanity. The reflection struck her, notwithstanding, that +it was a wiser thing for one of her sex to make friends among rich people +than to marry a foreign husband. + +The girl looked a brilliant woman in a superb Venetian dress of purple +velvet, which she called 'the Branciani dress,' and once attired in it, +and the rich purges and swelling creases over the shoulders puffed out to +her satisfaction, and the run of yellow braid about it properly inspected +and flattened, she would not return to her more homely wear, though very +soon her mother began to whimper and say that she had lost her so long, +and now that she had found her it hardly seemed the same child. Emilia +would listen to no entreaties to put away her sumptuous robe. She +silenced her mother with a stamp of her foot, and then sighed: "Ah! Why +do I always feel such a tyrant with you?" kissing her. + +"This dress," she said, and held up her mother's chin fondlingly between +her two hands, "this dress was designed by my friend Merthyr--that is, +Mr. Powys--from what he remembered of a dress worn by Countess Branciani, +of Venice. He had it made to give to me. It came from Paris. Countess +Branciani was one of his dearest friends. I feel that I am twice as much +his friend with this on me. Mother, it seems like a deep blush all over +me. I feel as if I looked out of a rose." + +She spread her hands to express the flower magnified. + +"Oh! what silly talk," said her mother: "it does turn your head, this +dress does!" + +"I wish it would give me my voice, mother. My father has no hope. I +wish he would send me news to make me happy about him; or come and run +his finger up the strings for hours, as he used to. I have fancied I +heard him at times, and I had a longing to follow the notes, and felt +sure of my semi-tones. He won't see me! Mother! he would think +something of me if he saw me now!" + +Her mother's lamentations reached that vocal pitch at last which Emilia +could not endure, and the little lady was despatched to her home under +charge of a servant. + +Emilia feasted on the looking-glass when alone. Had Merthyr, in +restoring her to health, given her an overdose of the poison? + +"Countess Branciani made the Austrian Governor her slave," she uttered, +planting one foot upon a stool to lend herself height. "He told her who +were suspected, and who would be imprisoned, and gave her all the State +secrets. Beauty can do more than music. I wonder whether Merthyr loved +her? He loves me!" + +Emilia was smitten with a fear that he would speak of it when she next +saw him. "Oh! I hope he will be just the same as he has been," she +sighed; and with much melancholy shook her head at her fair reflection, +and began to undress. It had not struck her with surprise that two men +should be loving her, until, standing away from the purple folds, she +seemed to grow smaller and smaller, as a fire-log robbed of its flame, +and felt insufficient and weak. This was a new sensation. She depended +no more on her own vital sincerity. It was in her nature, doubtless, to +crave constantly for approval, but in the service of personal beauty +instead of divine Art, she found herself utterly unwound without it: +victim of a sense of most uncomfortable hollowness. She was glad to +extinguish the candle and be covered up dark in the circle of her warmth. +Then her young blood sang to her again. + +An hour before breakfast every morning she read with Merthyr. Now, this +morning how was she to appear to him? There would be no reading, of +course. How could he think of teaching one to whom he trembled. Emilia +trusted that she might see no change in him, and, above all, that he +would not speak of his love for her. Nevertheless, she put on her robe +of conquest, having first rejected with distaste a plainer garb. She +went down the stairs slowly. Merthyr was in the library awaiting her. +"You are late," he said, eyeing the dress as a thing apart from her, and +remarking that it was hardly suited for morning wear. "Yellow, if you +must have a strong colour, and you wouldn't exhibit the schwartz-gelb of +the Tedeschi willingly. But now!" + +This was the signal for the reading to commence. + +"Wilfrid would not have been so cold to me," thought Emilia, turning the +leaves of Ariosto as a book of ashes. Not a word of love appeared to be +in his mind. This she did not regret; but she thirsted for the assuring +look. His eyes were quietly friendly. So friendly was he, that he +blamed her for inattention, and took her once to task about a melodious +accent in which she vulgarized the vowels. All the flattery of the +Branciani dress could not keep Emilia from her feeling of smallness. Was +it possible that he loved her? She watched him as eagerly as her shyness +would permit. Any shadow of a change was spied for. Getting no softness +from him, or superadded kindness, no shadow of a change in that +direction, she stumbled in her reading purposely, to draw down rebuke; +her construing was villanously bad. He told her so, and she replied: "I +don't like poetry." But seeing him exchange Ariosto for Roman History, +she murmured, "I like Dante." Merthyr plunged her remorselessly into the +second Punic war. + +But there was worse to follow. She was informed that after breakfast she +would be called upon to repeat the principal facts she had been reading +of. Emilia groaned audibly. + +"Take the book," said Merthyr. + +"It's so heavy," she complained. + +"Heavy?" + +"I mean, to carry about." + +"If you want to 'carry it about,' the boy shall follow you with it." + +She understood that she was being laughed at. Languor, coupled with the +consciousness of ridicule, overwhelmed her. + +"I feel I can't learn," she said. + +"Feel, that you must," was replied to her. + +"No; don't take any more trouble with me!" + +"Yes; I expect you to distinguish Scipio from Cicero, and not make the +mistake of the other evening, when you were talking to Mrs. Cameron." + +Emilia left him, abashed, to dread shrewdly their meeting within five +minutes at the breakfast-table; to dread eating under his eyes, with +doubts of the character of her acts generally. She was, indeed, his +humble scholar, though she seemed so full of weariness and revolt. He, +however, when alone, looked fixedly at the door through which she had +passed, and said, "She loves that man still. Similar ages, similar +tastes, I suppose! She is dressed to be ready for him. She can't learn: +she can do nothing. My work mayn't be lost, but it's lost for me." + +Merthyr did not know that Georgiana had betrayed him, but in no case +would he have given Emilia the signs she expected: in the first place, +because he had self-command; and, secondly, because of those years he +counted in advance of her. So she had the full mystery of his loving her +to think over, without a spot of the weakness to fasten on. + +Georgiana's first sight of Emilia in her Branciani dress shut her heart +against the girl with iron clasps. She took occasion to remark, "We need +not expect visitors so very early;" but the offender was impervious. +Breakfast finished, the reading with Merthyr recommenced, when Emilia, +having got over her surprise at the sameness of things this day, +acquitted herself better, and even declaimed the verses musically. +Seeing him look pleased, she spoke them out sonorously. Merthyr +applauded. Upon which Emilia said, with odd abruptness and solemnity, +"Will he come to-day?" It was beyond Merthyr's power of self-control to +consent to be taken into a consultation on this matter, and he attempted +to put it aside. "He may or he may not--probably to-morrow." + +"No; to-day, in the afternoon," said Emilia, "be near me." + +"I have engagements." + +"Some word, say, that will seem to be you with me." + +"Some flattery, or you won't remember it." + +"Yes, I like flattery." + +"Well, you look like Countess Branciani when, after thinking her husband +the basest of men, she discovered him to be the noblest." + +Emilia blushed. "That's not easily forgotten! But she must have looked +braver, bolder, not so under a burden as I feel." + +"The comparison was meant to suit the moment of your reciting." + +"Yes," said Emilia, half-mournfully, "then 'myself' doesn't sit on my +shoulders: I don't even care what I am." + +"That is what Art does for you." + +"Only by fits and starts now. Once I never thought of myself." + +There was a knock at the street-door, and she changed countenance. +Presently there came a gentle tap at their own door. + +"It is that woman," said Emilia. + +"I fancy it must be Lady Charlotte. You will not see her?" + +Merthyr was anticipating a negative, but Emilia said, "Let her come in." + +She gave her hand to the lady, and was the less concerned of the two. +Lady Charlotte turned away from her briskly. + +"Georgey didn't say anything of you in her letter, Merthyr; I am going up +to her, but I wished to satisfy myself that you were in town, first:--to +save half-a-minute, you see I anticipate the philosophic manly sneer. +Is it really true that you are going to mix yourself up in this mad +Italian business again? Now that you're a man, my dear Merthyr, it seems +almost inexcuseable--for a sensible Englishman!" + +Lady Charlotte laughed, giving him her hand at the same time. + +"Don't you know I swore an oath?" Merthyr caught up her tone. + +"Yes, but you never succeed. I complain that you never succeed. Of what +use on earth are all your efforts if you never succeed?" + +Emilia's voice burst out:-- + + "'Piacemi almen che i miei sospir sien quali + Spera 'l Tevero e 'l Arno, + E 'l Po,--'" + +Merthyr continued the ode, acting a similar fervour:-- + + "'Ben provvide Natura al nostro stato + Quando dell' Alpi schermo + Pose fra noi e la tedesca rabbis." + +"We are merely bondsmen to the re-establishment of the provisions of +nature." + +"And we know we shall succeed!" said Emilia, permitting her antagonism to +pass forth in irritable emphasis. + +Lady Charlotte quickly left them, to run up to Georgiana. She was not +long in the house. Emilia hung near Merthyr all day, and she was near +him when the knock was heard which she could suppose to be Wilfrid's, as +it proved. Wilfrid was ushered in to Georgiana. Delicacy had prevented +Merthyr from taking special notice to Emilia of Lady Charlotte's visit, +and he treated Wilfrid's similarly, saying, "Georgey will send down +word." + +"Only, don't leave me till she does," Emilia rejoined. + +Her agitation laid her open to be misinterpreted. It was increased when +she saw him take a book and sit in the armchair between two lighted +candles, calmly careless of her. She did not actually define to herself +that he should feel jealously, but his indifference was one extreme which +provoked her instinct to imagine a necessity for the other. Word came +from Georgiana, and Emilia moved to the door. "Remember, we dine half- +an-hour earlier to-day, on account of the Cameron party," was all that he +uttered. Emilia made an effort to go. She felt herself as a ship +sailing into perilous waters, without compass. Why did he not speak +tenderly? Before Georgiana had revealed his love for her, she had been +strong to see Wilfrid. Now, the idea smote her softened heart that +Wilfrid's passion might engulf her if she had no word of sustainment from +Merthyr. She turned and flung herself at his feet, murmuring, "Say +something to me." Merthyr divined this emotion to be a sort of foresight +of remorse on her part: he clasped the interwoven fingers of her hands, +letting his eyes dwell upon hers. The marvel of their not wavering or +softening meaningly kept her speechless. She rose with a strength not +her own: not comforted, and no longer speculating. It was as if she had +been eyeing a golden door shut fast, that might some day open, but was in +itself precious to behold. She arose with deep humbleness, which +awakened new ideas of the nature of worth in her bosom. She felt herself +so low before this man who would not be played upon as an obsequious +instrument--who would not leap into ardour for her beauty! +Before that man upstairs how would she feel? The question did not come +to her. She entered the room where he was, without a blush. Her step +was firm, and her face expressed a quiet gladness. Georgiana stayed +through the first commonplaces: then they were alone. + + + + +CHAPTER LI + +Commonplaces continued to be Wilfrid's refuge, for sentiment was surging +mightily within him. The commonplaces concerning father, sisters, +health, weather, sickened him when uttered, so much that for a time he +was unobservant of Emilia's ready exchange of them. To a compliment on +her appearance, she said: "You like this dress? I will tell you the +history of it. I call it the Branciani dress. Mr. Powys designed it for +me. The Countess Branciani was his friend. She used always to dress in +this colour; just in this style. She also was dark. And she imagined +that her husband favoured the Austrians. She believed he was an Austrian +spy. It was impossible for her not to hate him--" + +"Her husband!" quoth Wilfrid. The unexpected richness that had come upon +her beauty and the coolness of her prattle at such an interview amazed +and mortified him. + +"She supposed him to be an Austrian spy!" + +"Still he was her husband!" + +Emilia gave her features a moment's play, but she had not full command of +them, and the spark of scorn they emitted was very slight. + +"Ah!" his tone had fallen into a depth, "how I thank you for the honour +you have done me in desiring to see me once before you leave England! I +know that I have not merited it." + +More he said on this theme, blaming himself emphatically, until, startled +by the commonplaces he was uttering, he stopped short; and the stopping +was effective, if the speech was not. Where was the tongue of his +passion? He almost asked it of himself. Where was Hippogriff? He who +had burned to see her, he saw her now, fair as a vision, and yet in the +flesh! Why was he as good as tongue-tied in her presence when he had +such fires to pour forth? + +(Presuming that he has not previously explained it, the philosopher here +observes that Hippogriff, the foal of Fiery Circumstance out of +Sentiment, must be subject to strong sentimental friction before he is +capable of a flight: his appetites must fast long in the very eye of +provocation ere he shall be eloquent. Let him, the Philosopher, repeat +at the same time that souls harmonious to Nature, of whom there are few, +do not mount this animal. Those who have true passion are not at the +mercy of Hippogriff--otherwise Sur-excited Sentiment. You will mark in +them constantly a reverence for the laws of their being, and a natural +obedience to common sense. They are subject to storm, as in everything +earthly, and they need no lesson of devotion; but they never move to an +object in a madness.) + +Now this is good teaching: it is indeed my Philosopher's object--his +purpose--to work out this distinction; and all I wish is that it were +good for my market. What the Philosopher means, is to plant in the +reader's path a staring contrast between my pet Emilia and his puppet +Wilfrid. It would be very commendable and serviceable if a novel were +what he thinks it: but all attestation favours the critical dictum, that +a novel is to give us copious sugar and no cane. I, myself, as a reader, +consider concomitant cane an adulteration of the qualities of sugar. My +Philosopher's error is to deem the sugar, born of the cane, inseparable +from it. The which is naturally resented, and away flies my book back at +the heads of the librarians, hitting me behind them a far more grievous +blow. + +Such is the construction of my story, however, that to entirely deny the +Philosopher the privilege he stipulated for when with his assistance I +conceived it, would render our performance unintelligible to that acute +and honourable minority which consents to be thwacked with aphorisms and +sentences and a fantastic delivery of the verities. While my Play goes +on, I must permit him to come forward occasionally. We are indeed in a +sort of partnership, and it is useless for me to tell him that he is not +popular and destroys my chance. + + + + +CHAPTER LII + +"Don't blame yourself, my Wilfrid." + +Emilia spoke thus, full of pity for him, and in her adorable, deep-fluted +tones, after the effective stop he had come to. + +The 'my Wilfrid' made the owner of the name quiver with satisfaction. He +breathed: "You have forgiven me?" + +"That I have. And there was indeed no blame. My voice has gone. Yes, +but I do not think it your fault." + +"It was! it is!" groaned Wilfrid. "But, has your voice gone?" He leaned +nearer to her, drawing largely on the claim his incredulity had to +inspect her sweet features accurately. "You speak just as--more +deliciously than ever! I can't think you have lost it. Ah! forgive me! +forgive me!" + +Emilia was about to put her hand over to him, but the prompt impulse was +checked by a simultaneous feminine warning within. She smiled, saying: +"'I forgive' seems such a strange thing for me to say;" and to convey any +further meaning that might comfort him, better than words could do, she +held on her smile. The smile was of the acceptedly feigned, conventional +character; a polished Surface: belonging to the passage of the discourse, +and not to the emotions. Wilfrid's swelling passion slipped on it. +Sensitively he discerned an ease in its formation and disappearance that +shot a first doubt through him, whether he really maintained his empire +in her heart. If he did not reign there, why had she sent for him? He +attributed the unheated smile to a defect in her manner, that was always +chargeable with something, as he remembered. He began systematically to +account for his acts: but the man was so constituted that as he laid them +out for pardon, he himself condemned them most; and looking back at his +weakness and double play, he broke through his phrases to cry without +premeditation: "Can you have loved me then?" + +Emilia's cheeks tingled: "Don't speak of that night in Devon," she +replied. + +"Ah!" sighed he. "I did not mean then. Then you must have hated me." + +"No; for, what did I say? I said that you would come to me--nothing +more. I hated that woman. You? Oh, no!" + +"You loved me, then?" + +"Did I not offer to work for you, if you were poor? And--I can't +remember what I said. Please, do not speak of that night." + +"Emilia! as a man of honour, I was bound--" + +She lifted her hands: "Oh! be silent, and let that night die." + +"I may speak of that night when you drove home from Penarvon Castle, and +a robber? You have forgotten him, perhaps! What did he steal? not what +he came for, but something dearer to him than anything he possesses. How +can I say--? Dear to me? If it were dipped in my heart's blood!--" + +Emilia was far from being carried away by the recollection of the scene; +but remembering what her emotion had then been, she wondered at her +coolness now. + +"I may speak of Wilming Weir?" he insinuated. + +Her bosom rose softly and heavily. As if throwing off some cloak of +enchantment that clogged her spirit! "I was telling you of this dress," +she said: "I mean, of Countess Branciani. She thought her husband was +the Austrian spy who had betrayed them, and she said, "He is not worthy +to live. Everybody knew that she had loved him. I have seen his +portrait and hers. I never saw faces that looked so fond of life. She +had that Italian beauty which is to any other like the difference between +velvet and silk." + +"Oh! do I require to be told the difference?" Wilfrid's heart throbbed. + +"She," pursued Emilia, "she loved him still, I believe, but her country +was her religion. There was known to be a great conspiracy, and no one +knew the leader of it. All true Italians trusted Countess Branciani, +though she visited the Austrian Governor's house--a General with some +name on the teeth. One night she said to him, 'You have a spy who +betrays you.' The General never suspected Countess Branciani. Women are +devils of cleverness sometimes. + +"But he did suspect it must be her husband--thinking, I suppose, 'How +otherwise would she have known he was my spy?' He gave Count Branciani +secret work and high pay. Then he set a watch on him. Count Branciani +was to find out who was this unknown leader. He said to the Austrian +Governor, 'You shall know him in ten days.' This was repeated to +Countess Branciani, and she said to herself, 'My husband! you shall +perish, though I should have to stab you myself.'" + +Emilia's sympathetic hand twitched. Wilfrid's seized it, but it proved +no soft melting prize. She begged to be allowed to continue. He +entreated her to. Thereat she pulled gently for her hand, and +persisting, it was grudgingly let go. + +"One night Countess Branciani put the Austrians on her husband's track. +He knew that she was true to her country, and had no fear of her, whether +she touched the Black-yellow gold or not. But he did not confide any, of +his projects to her. And his reason was, that as she went to the +Governor's, she might accidentally, by a word or a sign, show that she +was an accomplice in the conspiracy. He wished to save her from a +suspicion. Brave Branciani!" + +Emilia had a little shudder of excitement. + +"Only," she added, "why will men always think women are so weak? The +Count worked with conspirators who were not dreaming they would do +anything, but were plotting to do it. The Countess belonged to the other +party--men who never thought they were strong enough to see their ideas +acting--I mean, not bold enough to take their chance. As if we die more +than one death, and the blood we spill for Italy is ever wasted! That +night the Austrian spy followed the Count to the meeting-house of the +conspirators. It was thought quite natural that the Count should go +there. But the spy, not having the password, crouched outside, and heard +from two that came out muttering, the next appointment for a meeting. +This was told to Countess Branciani, and in the meantime she heard from +the Austrian Governor that her husband had given in names of the +conspirators. She determined at once. 'Now may Christ and the Virgin +help me!'" + +Emilia struck her knees, while tears started through her shut eyelids. +The exclamation must have been caught from her father, who liked not the +priests of his native land well enough to interfere between his English +wife and their child in such a matter as religious training. + +"What happened?" said Wilfrid, vainly seeking for personal application +in this narrative. + +"Listen!--Ah!" she fought with her tears, and said, as they rolled down +her face: "For a miserable thing one can not help, I find I must cry. +This is what she did. She told him she knew of the conspiracy, and asked +permission to join it, swearing that she was true to Italy. He said he +believed her.--Oh, heaven!--And for some time she had to beg and beg; but +to spare her he would not let her join. I cannot tell why--he gave her +the password for the neat meeting, and said that an old gold coin must be +shown. She must have coaxed it, though he was a strong man, who could +resist women. I suppose he felt that he had been unkind.--Were I Queen +of Italy he should stand for ever in a statue of gold!--The next +appointed night a spy entered among the conspirators, with the password +and the coin. Did I tell you the Countess had one child--a girl! She +lives now, and I am to know her. She is like her mother. That little +girl was playing down the stairs with her nurse when a band of Austrian +soldiers entered the hall underneath, and an officer, with his sword +drawn, and some men, came marching up in their stiff way--the machines! +This officer stooped to her, and before the nurse could stop her, made +her say where her father was. Those Austrians make children betray their +parents! They don't think how we grow up to detest them. Do I? Hate is +not the word: it burns so hot and steady with me. The Countess came out +on the first landing; she saw what was happening. When her husband was +led out, she asked permission to embrace him. The officer consented, but +she had to say to him, 'Move back,' and then, with her lips to her +husband's cheek, 'Betray no more of them!' she whispered. Count +Branciani started. Now he understood what she had done, and why she had +done it. 'Ask for the charge that makes me a prisoner,' he said. Her +husband's noble face gave her a chill of alarm. The Austrian spoke. 'He +is accused of being the chief of the Sequin Club.' And then the Countess +looked at her husband; she sank at his feet. My heart breaks. Wilfrid! +Wilfrid! You will not wear that uniform? Say 'Never, never!' You will +not go to the Austrian army--Wilfrid? Would you be my enemy? Brutes, +knee-deep in blood! with bloody fingers! Ogres! Would you be one of +them? To see me turn my head shivering with loathing as you pass? This +is why I sent for you, because I loved you, to entreat you, Wilfrid, from +my soul, not to blacken the dear happy days when I knew you! Will you +hear me? That woman is changeing you--doing all this. Resist her! +Think of me in this one thing! Promise it, and I will go at once, and +want no more. I will swear never to trouble you. Oh, Wilfrid it's not +so much our being enemies, but what you become, I think of. If I say to +myself, 'He also, who was once my lover--Oh! paid murderer of my dear +people!'" + +Emilia threw up both hands to her eyes: but Wilfrid, all on fire with a +word, made one of her hands his own, repeating eagerly: "Once? once?" + +"Once?" she echoed him. + +"'Once my love?'" said he. "Not now?--does it mean, 'not now?' My +darling!--pardon me, I must say it. My beloved! you said: 'He who was +once my lover:'--you said that. What does it mean? Not that--not--? +does it mean, all's over? Why did you bring me here? You know I must +love you forever. Speak! 'Once?'" + +"'Once?'" Emilia was breathing quick, but her voice was well contained: +"Yes, I said 'once.' You were then." + +"Till that night in Devon? + +"Let it be." + +"But you love me still?" + +"We won't speak of it." + +"I see! You cannot forgive. Good heavens! I think I remember your +saying so once--Once! Yes, then: you said it then, during our 'Once;' +when I little thought you would be merciless to me--who loved you from +the first! the very first! I love you now! I wake up in the night, +thinking I hear your voice. You haunt me. Cruel! cold!--who guards you +and watches over you but the man you now hate? You sit there as if you +could make yourself stone when you pleased. Did I not chastise that man +Pericles publicly because he spoke a single lie of you? And by that act +I have made an enemy to our house who may crush us in ruin. Do I regret +it? No. I would do any madness, waste all my blood for you, die for +you!" + +Emilia's fingers received a final twist, and were dropped loose. She let +them hang, looking sadly downward. Melancholy is the most irritating +reply to passion, and Wilfrid's heart waged fierce at the sight of her, +grown beautiful!--grown elegant!--and to reject him! When, after a +silence which his pride would not suffer him to break, she spoke to ask +what Mr. Pericles had said of her, he was enraged, forgot himself, and +answered: "Something disgraceful." + +Deep colour came on Emilia. "You struck him, Wilfrid?" + +"It was a small punishment for his infamous lie, and, whatever might be +the consequences, I would do it again." + +"Wilfrid, I have heard what he has said. Madame Marini has told me. I +wish you had not struck him. I cannot think of him apart from the days +when I had my voice. I cannot bear to think of your having hurt him. He +was not to blame. That is, he did not say: it was not untrue." + +She took a breath to make this last statement, and continued with the +same peculiar implicity of distinctness, which a terrific thunder of +"What?" from Wilfrid did not overbear: "I was quite mad that day I went +to him. I think, in my despair I spoke things that may have led him to +fancy the truth of what he has said. On my honour, I do not know. And I +cannot remember what happened after for the week I wandered alone about +London. Mr. Powys found me on a wharf by the river at night." + +A groan burst from Wilfrid. Emilia's instinct had divined the antidote +that this would be to the poison of revived love in him, and she felt +secure, though he had again taken her hand; but it was she who nursed a +mere sentiment now, while passion sprang in him, and she was not prepared +for the delirium with which he enveloped her. She listened to his raving +senselessly, beginning to think herself lost. Her tortured hands were +kissed; her eyes gazed into. He interpreted her stupefaction as +contrition, her silence as delicacy, her changeing of colour as flying +hues of shame: the partial coldness at their meeting he attributed to the +burden on her mind, and muttering in a magnanimous sublimity that he +forgave her, he claimed her mouth with force. + +"Don't touch me!" cried Emilia, showing terror. + +"Are you not mine?" + +"You must not kiss me." + +Wilfrid loosened her waist, and became in a minute outwardly most cool +and courteous. + +"My successor may object. I am bound to consider him. Pardon me. +Once!--" + +The wretched insult and silly emphasis passed harmlessly from her: but a +word had led her thoughts to Merthyr's face, and what is meant by the +phrase 'keeping oneself pure,' stood clearly in Emilia's mind. She had +not winced; and therefore Wilfrid judged that his shot had missed because +there was no mark. With his eye upon her sideways, showing its circle +wide as a parrot's, he asked her one of those questions that lovers +sometimes permit between themselves. "Has another--?" It is here as it +was uttered. Eye-speech finished the sentence. + +Rapidly a train of thought was started in Emilia, and she came to this +conclusion, aloud: "Then I love nobody!" For the had never kissed +Merthyr, or wished for his kiss. + +"You do not?" said Wilfrid, after a silence. "You are generous in being +candid." + +A pressure of intensest sorrow bowed his head. The real feeling in him +stole to Emilia like a subtle flame. + +"Oh! what can I do for you?" she cried. + +"Nothing, if you do not love me," he was replying mournfully, when, "Yes! +yes!" rushed to his lips; "marry me: marry me to-morrow. You have loved +me. 'I am never to leave you!' Can you forget the night when you said +it? Emilia! Marry me and you will love me again. You must. This man, +whoever he is--Ah! why am I such a brute! Come! be mine! Let me call +you my own darling! Emilia!--or say quietly 'you have nothing to hope +for:' I shall not reproach you, believe me." + +He looked resigned. The abrupt transition had drawn her eyes to his. +She faltered: "I cannot be married." And then: "How could I guess that +you felt in this way?" + +"Who told me that I should?" said he. "Your words have come true. You +predicted that I should fly from 'that woman,' as you called her, and +come to you. See! here it is exactly as you willed it. You--you are +changed. You throw your magic on me, and then you are satisfied, and +turn elsewhere." + +Emilia's conscience smote her with a verification of this charge, and she +trembled, half-intoxicated for the moment, by the aspect of her power. +This filled her likewise with a dangerous pity for its victim; and now, +putting out both hands to him, her chin and shoulders raised +entreatingly, she begged the victim to spare her any word of marriage. + +"But you go, you run away from me--I don't know where you are or what you +are doing," said Wilfrid. "And you leave me to that woman. She loves +the Austrians, as you know. There! I will ask nothing--only this: I +will promise, if I quit the Queen's service for good, not to wear the +white uniform--" + +"Oh!" Emilia breathed inward deeply, scarce noticing the 'if' that +followed; nodding quick assent to the stipulation before she heard the +nature of it. It was, that she should continue in England. + +"Your word," said Wilfrid; and she pledged it, and did not think she was +granting much in the prospect of what she gained. + +"You will, then?" said he. + +"Yes, I will." + +"On your honour?" + +These reiterated questions were simply pretexts for steps nearer to the +answering lips. + +"And I may see you?" he went on. + +"Yes." + +"Wherever you are staying? And sometimes alone? Alone!--" + +"Not if you do not know that I am to be respected," said Emilia, huddled +in the passionate fold of his arms. He released her instantly, and was +departing, wounded; but his heart counselled wiser proceedings. + +"To know that you are in England, breathing the same air with me, near +me! is enough. Since we are to meet on those terms, let it be so. Let +me only see you till some lucky shot puts me out of your way." + +This 'some lucky shot,' which is commonly pointed at themselves by the +sentimental lovers, with the object of hitting the very centre of the +hearts of obdurate damsels, glanced off Emilia's, which was beginning to +throb with a comprehension of all that was involved in the word she had +given. + +"I have your promise?" he repeated: and she bent her head. + +"Not," he resumed, taking jealousy to counsel, now that he had advanced a +step: "Not that I would detain you against your will! I can't expect to +make such a figure at the end of the piece as your Count Branciani--who, +by the way, served his friends oddly, however well he may have served his +country." + +"His friends?" She frowned. + +"Did he not betray the conspirators? He handed in names, now and then." + +"Oh!" she cried, "you understand us no better than an Austrian. He +handed in names--yes he was obliged to lull suspicion. Two or three of +the least implicated volunteered to be betrayed by him; they went and +confessed, and put the Government on a wrong track. Count Branciani made +a dish of traitors--not true men--to satisfy the Austrian ogre. No one +knew the head of the plot till that +night of the spy. Do you not see?--he weeded the conspiracy!" + +"Poor fellow!" Wilfrid answered, with a contracted mouth: "I pity him +for being cut off from his handsome wife." + +"I pity her for having to live," said Emilia. + +And so their duett dropped to a finish. He liked her phrase better than +his own, and being denied any privileges, and feeling stupefied by a +position which both enticed and stung him, he remarked that he presumed +he must not detain her any longer; whereupon she gave him her hand. He +clutched the ready hand reproachfully. + +"Good-bye," said she. + +"You are the first to say it," he complained. + +"Will you write to that Austrian colonel, your cousin, to say "Never! +never!" to-morrow, Wilfrid?" + +"While you are in England, I shall stay, be sure of that." + +She bade him give her love to all Brookfield. + +"Once you had none to give but what I let you take back for the purpose!" +he said. "Farewell! I shall see the harp to-night. It stands in the +old place. I will not have it moved or touched till you--" + +"Ah! how kind you were, Wilfrid!" + +"And how lovely you are!" + +There was no struggle to preserve the backs of her fingers from his lips, +and, as this time his phrase was not palpably obscured by the one it +countered, artistic sentiment permitted him to go. + + + + +CHAPTER LIII + +A minute after his parting with Emilia, Wilfrid swung round in the street +and walked back at great strides. "What a fool I was not to see that she +was acting indifference!" he cried. "Let me have two seconds with her!" +But how that was to be contrived his diplomatic brain refused to say. +"And what a stiff, formal fellow I was all the time!" He considered that +he had not uttered a sentence in any way pointed to touch her heart. +"She must think I am still determined to marry that woman." + +Wilfrid had taken his stand on the opposite side of the street, and +beheld a male figure in the dusk, that went up to the house and then +stood back scanning the windows. Wounded by his audacious irreverence +toward the walls behind which his beloved was sheltered, Wilfrid crossed +and stared at the intruder. It proved to be Braintop. + +"How do you do, sir!--no! that can't be the house," stammered Braintop, +with a very earnest scrutiny. + +"What house? what do you want?" enquired Wilfrid. + +"Jenkinson," was the name that won the honour of rescuing Braintop from +this dilemma. + +"No; it is Lady Gosstre's house: Miss Belloni is living there; and stop: +you know her. Just wait, and take in two or three words from me, and +notice particularly how she is looking, and the dress she wears. You can +say--say that Mrs. Chump sent you to enquire after Miss Belloni's +health." + +Wilfrid tore a leaf from his pocket-book, and wrote: + +"I can be free to-morrow. One word! I shall expect it, with your name +in full." + +But even in the red heat of passion his born diplomacy withheld his own +signature. It was not difficult to override Braintop's scruples about +presenting himself, and Wilfrid paced a sentinel measure awaiting the +reply. "Free to-morrow," he repeated, with a glance at his watch under a +lamp: and thus he soliloquized: "What a time that fellow is! Yes, I can +be free to-morrow if I will. I wonder what the deuce Gambier had to do +in Monmouthshire. If he has been playing with my sister's reputation, he +shall have short shrift. That fellow Braintop sees her now--my little +Emilia! my bird! She won't have changed her dress till she has dined. +If she changes it before she goes out--by Jove, if she wears it to-night +before all those people, that'll mean 'Good-bye' to me: 'Addio, caro,' as +those olive women say, with their damned cold languor, when they have +given you up. She's not one of them! Good God! she came into the room +looking like a little Empress. I'll swear her hand trembled when I went, +though! My sisters shall see her in that dress. She must have a clever +lady's maid to have done that knot to her back hair. She's getting as +full of art as any of them--Oh! lovely little darling! And when she +smiles and holds out her hand! What is it--what is it about her? Her +upper lip isn't perfectly cut, there's some fault with her nose, but I +never saw such a mouth, or such a face. "Free to-morrow?" Good God! +she'll think I mean I'm free to take a walk!" + +At this view of the ghastly shortcoming of his letter as regards +distinctness, and the prosaic misinterpretation it was open to, Wilfrid +called his inventive wits to aid, and ran swiftly to the end of the +street. He had become--as like unto a lunatic as resemblance can +approach identity. Commanding the length of the pavement for an instant, +to be sure that no Braintop was in sight, he ran down a lateral street, +but the stationer's shop he was in search of beamed nowhere visible for +him, and he returned at the same pace to experience despair at the +thought that he might have missed Braintop issuing forth, for whom he +scoured the immediate neighbourhood, and overhauled not a few quiet +gentlemen of all ages. "An envelope!" That was the object of his +desire, and for that he wooed a damsel passing jauntily with a jug in her +hand, first telling her that he knew her name was Mary, at which singular +piece of divination she betrayed much natural astonishment. But a fine +round silver coin and an urgent request for an envelope, told her as +plainly as a blank confession that this was a lover. She informed him +that she lived three streets off, where there were shops. "Well, then," +said Wilfrid, "bring me the envelope here, and you'll have another +opportunity of looking down the area." + +"Think of yourself," replied she, saucily; but proved a diligent +messenger. Then Wilfrid wrote on a fresh slip: + +"When I said "Free," I meant free in heart and without a single chain to +keep me from you. From any moment that you please, I am free. This is +written in the dark." + +He closed the envelope, and wrote Emilia's name and the address as black +as his pencil could achieve it, and with a smart double-knock he +deposited the missive in the box. From his station opposite he guessed +the instant when it was taken out, and from that judged when she would be +reading it. Or perhaps she would not read it till she was alone? "That +must be her bedroom," he said, looking for a light in one of the upper +windows; but the voice of a fellow who went by with: "I should keep that +to myself, if I was you," warned him to be more discreet. + +"Well, here I am. I can't leave the street," quoth Wilfrid, to the stock +of philosophy at his disposal. He burned with rage to think of how he +might be exhibiting himself before Powys and his sister. + +It was half-past nine when a carriage drove up to the door. Into this +Mr. Powys presently handed Georgiana and Emilia. Braintop followed the +ladies, and then the coachman received his instructions and drove away. +Forthwith Wilfrid started in pursuit. He calculated that if his wind +held till he could jump into a light cab, his legitimate prey Braintop +might be caught. For, "they can't be taking him to any party with them!" +he chose to think, and it was a fair calculation that they were simply +conducting Braintop part of his way home. The run was pretty swift. +Wilfrid's blood was fired by the pace, until, forgetting the traitor +Braintop, up rose Truth from the bottom of the well in him, and he felt +that his sole desire was to see Emilia once more--but once! that night. +Running hard, in the midst of obstacles, and with eye and mind fined on +one object, disasters befell him. He knocked apples off a stall, and +heard vehement hallooing behind: he came into collision with a gentleman +of middle age courting digestion as he walked from his trusty dinner at +home to his rubber at the Club: finally he rushed full tilt against a +pot-boy who was bringing all his pots broadside to the flow of the +street. "By Jove! is this what they drink?" he gasped, and dabbed with +his handkerchief at the beer-splashes, breathlessly hailing the looked- +for cab, and, with hot brow and straightened-out forefinger, telling the +driver to keep that carriage in sight. The pot-boy had to be satisfied +on his master's account, and then on his own, and away shot Wilfrid, wet +with beer from throat to knee--to his chief protesting sense, nothing but +an exhalation of beer! "Is this what they drink?" he groaned, thinking +lamentably of the tastes of the populace. All idea of going near Emilia +was now abandoned. An outward application of beer quenched his frenzy. +She seemed as an unattainable star seen from the depths of foul pits. +"Stop!" he cried from the window. + +"Here we are, sir," said the cabman. + +The carriage had drawn up, and a footman's alarum awakened one of the +houses. The wretched cabman had likewise drawn up right under the +windows of the carriage. Wilfrid could have pulled the trigger of a +pistol at his forehead that moment. He saw that Miss Ford had recognized +him, and he at once bowed elegantly. She dropped the window, and said, +"You are in evening dress, I think; we will take you in with us." + +Wilfrid hoped eagerly he might be allowed to hand them to the door, and +made three skips across the mire. Emilia had her hands gathered away +from the chances of seizure. In wild rage he began protesting that he +could not possibly enter, when Georgiana said, "I wish to speak to you," +and put feminine pressure upon him. He was almost on the verge of the +word "beer," by way of despairing explanation, when the door closed +behind him. + +"Permit me to say a word to your recent companion. He is my father's +clerk. I had to see him on urgent business; that is why I took this +liberty," he said, and retreated. + +Braintop was still there, quietly posted, performing upon his head with a +pocket hair-brush. + +Wilfrid put Braintop's back to the light, and said, "Is my shirt soiled?" + +After a short inspection, Braintop pronounced that it was, "just a +little." + +"Do you smell anything?" said Wilfrid, and hung with frightful suspense +on the verdict. "A fellow upset beer on me." + +"It is beer!" sniffed Braintop. + +"What on earth shall I do?" was the rejoinder; and Wilfrid tried to +remember whether he had felt any sacred joy in touching Emilia's dress as +they went up the steps to the door. + +Braintop fumbled in the breast-pocket of his coat. "I happen to have," +he said, rather shamefacedly. + +"What is it?" + +"Mrs. Chump gave it to me to-day. She always makes me accept something: +I can't refuse. It's this:--the remains of some scent she insisted on my +taking, in a bottle." + +Wilfrid plucked at the stopper with a reckless desperation, saturated his +handkerchief, and worked at his breast as if he were driving a lusty +dagger into it. + +"What scent is it?" he asked hurriedly. + +"Alderman's Bouquet, sir." + +"Of all the detestable!---" Wilfrid had no time for more, owing to fresh +arrivals. He hastened in, with his smiling, wary face, half trusting +that there might after all be purification in Alderman's Bouquet, and +promising heaven due gratitude if Emilia's senses discerned not the curse +on him. In the hall a gust from the great opening contention between +Alderman's Bouquet and bad beer, stifled his sickly hope. Frantic, but +under perfect self-command outwardly, he glanced to right and left, for +the suggestion of a means of escape. They were seven steps up the stairs +before his wits prompted him to say to Georgiana, "I have just heard very +serious news from home. I fear--" + +"What?--or, pardon me: does it call you away?" she asked, and Emilia gave +him a steady look. + +"I fear I cannot remain here. Will you excuse me?" + +His face spoke plainly now of mental torture repressed. Georgiana put +her hand out in full sympathy, and Emilia said, in her deep whisper, "Let +me hear to-morrow." Then they bowed. Wilfrid was in the street again. + +"Thank God, I've seen her!" was his first thought, overhearing "What did +she think of me?" as he sighed with relief at his escape. For, lo! the +Branciani dress was not on her shoulders, and therefore he might imagine +what he pleased:--that she had arrayed herself so during the day to +delight his eyes; or that, he having seen her in it, she had determined +none others should. Though feeling utterly humiliated, he was yet happy. +Driving to the station, he perceived starlight overhead, and blessed it; +while his hand waved busily to conduct a current of fresh, oblivious air +to his nostrils. The quiet heavens seemed all crowding to look down on +the quiet circle of the firs, where Emilia's harp had first been heard by +him, and they took her music, charming his blood with imagined harmonies, +as he looked up to them. Thus all the way to Brookfield his fancy +soared, plucked at from below by Alderman's Bouquet. + +The Philosopher, up to this point rigidly excluded, rushes forward to the +footlights to explain in a note, that Wilfrid, thus setting a perfume to +contend with a stench, instead of wasting for time, change of raiment, +and the broad lusty airs of heaven to blow him fresh again, symbolizes +the vice of Sentimentalism, and what it is always doing. Enough! + + + + +CHAPTER LIV + +"Let me hear to-morrow." Wilfrid repeated Emilia's petition in the tone +she had used, and sent a delight through his veins even with that clumsy +effort of imitation. He walked from the railway to Brookfield through +the circle of firs, thinking of some serious tale of home to invent for +her ears to-morrow. Whatever it was, he was able to conclude it--"But +all's right now." He noticed that the dwarf pine, under whose spreading +head his darling sat when he saw her first, had been cut down. Its +absence gave him an ominous chill. + +The first sight that saluted him as the door opened, was a pile of Mrs. +Chump's boxes: he listened, and her voice resounded from the library. +Gainsford's eye expressed a discretion significant that there had been an +explosion in the house. + +"I sha'nt have to invent much," said Wilfrid to himself, bitterly. + +There was a momentary appearance of Adela at the library-door; and over +her shoulder came an outcry from Mrs. Chump. Arabella then spoke: Mr. +Pole and Cornelia following with a word, to which Mrs. Chump responded +shrilly: "Ye shan't talk to 'm, none of ye, till I've had the bloom of +his ear, now!" A confused hubbub of English and Irish ensued. The +ladies drew their brother into the library. + +Doubtless you have seen a favourite sketch of the imaginative youthful +artist, who delights to portray scenes on a raft amid the tossing waters, +where sweet and satiny ladies, in a pardonable abandonment to the +exigencies of the occasion, are exhibiting the full energy and activity +of creatures that existed before sentiment was born. The ladies of +Brookfield had almost as utterly cast off their garb of lofty reserve and +inscrutable superiority. They were begging Mrs. Chump to be, for pity's +sake, silent. They were arguing with the woman. They were +remonstrating--to such an extent as this, in reply to an infamous +outburst: "No, no: indeed, Mrs. Chump, indeed!" They rose, as she rose, +and stood about her, motioning a beseeching emphasis with their hands. +Not visible for one second was the intense indignation at their fate +which Wilfrid, spying keenly into them, perceived. This taught him that +the occasion was as grave as could be. In spite of the oily words his +father threw from time to time abruptly on the tumult, he guessed what +had happened. + +Briefly, Mrs. Chump, aided by Braintop, her squire, had at last hunted +Mr. Pericles down, and the wrathful Greek had called her a beggar. With +devilish malice he had reproached her for speculating in such and such +Bonds, and sending ventures to this and that hemisphere, laughing +infernally as he watched her growing amazement. "Ye're jokin', Mr. +Paricles," she tried to say and think; but the very naming of poverty had +given her shivers. She told him how she had come to him because of Mr. +Pole's reproach, which accused her of causing the rupture. Mr. Pericles +twisted the waxy points of his moustache. "I shall advise you, go home," +he said; "go to a lawyer: say, 'I will see my affairs, how zey stand.' +Ze man will find Pole is ruined. It may be--I do not know--Pole has left +a little of your money; yes, ma'am, it may be." + +The end of the interview saw Mrs. Chump flying past Mr. Pericles to where +Braintop stood awaiting her with a meditative speculation on that +official promotion which in his attention to the lady he anticipated. It +need scarcely be remarked that he was astonished to receive a scent- +bottle on the spot, as the only reward his meritorious service was +probably destined ever to meet with. Breathless in her panic, Mrs. Chump +assured him she was a howling beggar, and the smell of a scent was like a +crool blow to her;" above all, the smell of Alderman's Bouquet, which +Chump--"tell'n a lie, ye know, Mr. Braintop, said was after him. And I, +smell'n at 't over 'n Ireland--a raw garl I was--I just thought 'm a +prince, the little sly fella! And oh! I'm a beggar, I am!" With which, +she shouted in the street, and put Braintop to such confusion that he +hailed a cab recklessly, declaring to her she had no time to lose, if she +wished to catch the train. Mrs. Chump requested the cabman that as a man +possessed of a feeling heart for the interests of a helpless woman, he +would drive fast; and, at the station, disputed his charge on the ground +of the knowledge already imparted to him of her precarious financial +state. In this frame of mind she fell upon Brookfield, and there was +clamour in the house. Wilfrid arrived two hours after Mrs. Chump. For +that space the ladies had been saying over and over again empty words to +pacify her. The task now devolved on their brother. Mr. Pole, though he +had betrayed nothing under the excitement of the sudden shock, had lost +the proper control of his mask. Wilfrid commenced by fixedly listening +to Mrs. Chump until for the third time her breath had gone. Then, taking +on a smile, he said: "Perhaps you are aware that Mr. Pericles has a +particular reason for animosity tome. We've disagreed together, that's +all. I suppose it's the habit of those fellows to attack a whole family +where one member of it offends them." As soon as the meaning of this was +made clear to Mrs. Chump, she caught it to her bosom for comfort; and +finding it gave less than at the moment she required, she flung it away +altogether; and then moaned, a suppliant, for it once more. "The only +thing, if you are in a state of alarm about my father's affairs, is for +him to show you by his books that his house is firm," said Wilfrid, now +that he had so far helped to eject suspicion from her mind. + +"Will Pole do ut?" ejaculated Mrs. Chump, half off her seat. + +"Of course I will--of course! of course. Haven't I told you so?" said +Mr. Pole, blinking mightily from his armchair over the fire. "Sit down, +Martha." + +"Oh! but how'll I understand ye, Pole?" she cried. + +"I'll do my best to assist in explaining," Wilfrid condescended to say. + +The ladies were touched when Mrs. Chump replied, with something of a +curtsey, "I'll thank ye vary much, sir." She added immediately, "Mr. +Wilfrud," as if correcting the 'sir,' for sounding cold. + +It was so trustful and simple, that it threw alight on the woman under +which they had not yet beheld her. Compassion began to stir in their +bosoms, and with it an inexplicable sense of shame, which soon threw any +power of compassion into the background. They dared not ask themselves +whether it was true that their father had risked the poor thing's money +in some desperate stake. What hopeful force was left to them they +devoted to her property, and Adela determined to pray that night for its +safe preservation. The secret feeling in the hearts of the ladies was, +that in putting them on their trial with poverty, Celestial Powers would +never at the same time think it necessary to add disgrace. Consequently, +and as a defence against the darker dread, they now, for the first time, +fully believed that monetary ruin had befallen their father. They were +civil to Mrs. Chump, and forgiving toward her brogue, and her naked +outcries of complaint and suddenly--suggested panic; but their pity, save +when some odd turn in her conduct moved them, was reserved dutifully for +their father. His wretched sensations at the pouring of a storm of tears +from the exhausted creature, caused Arabella to rise and say to Mrs. +Chump kindly, "Now let me take you to bed." + +But such a novel mark of tender civility caused the woman to exclaim: +"Oh, dear! if ye don't sound like wheedlin' to keep me blind." + +Even this was borne with. "Come; it will do you good to rest," said +Arabella. + +"And how'll I sleep?" + +"By shutting my eye--peeps,"--as I used to tell my old nurse," said +Adela; and Mrs. Chump, accustomed to an occasional (though not public) +bit of wheedling from her, was partially reassured. + +"I'll sit with you till you do sleep," said Arabella. + +"Suppose," Mrs. Chump moaned, "suppose I'm too poor aver to repay ye? If +I'm a bankrup'?--oh!" + +Arabella smiled. "Whatever I may do is certainly not done for a +remuneration, and such a service as this, at least, you need not speak +of." + +Mrs. Chump's evident surprise, and doubt of the honesty of the change in +her manner, caused Arabella very acutely to feel its dishonesty. She +looked at Cornelia with envy. The latter lady was leaning meditatively, +her arm on a side of her chair, like a pensive queen, with a ready, mild, +embracing look for the company. 'Posture' seemed always to triumph over +action. + +Before quitting the room, Mrs. Chump asked Mr. Pole whether he would be +up early the next morning. + +"Very early,--you beat me, if you can," said he, aware that the question +was put as a test to his sincerity. + +"Oh, dear! Suppose it's onnly a false alarrm of the 'bomunable Mr. +Paricles--which annybody'd have listened to--ye know that!" said Mrs. +Chump, going forth. + +She stopped in the doorway, and turned her head round, sniffing, in a +very pronounced way. "Oh, it's you," she flashed on Wilfrid; "it's you, +my dear, that smell so like poor Chump. Oh! if we're not rooned, won't +we dine together! Just give me a kiss, please. The smell of ye's +comfortin'." + +Wilfrid bent his cheek forward, affecting to laugh, though the subject +was tragic to him. + +"Oh! perhaps I'll sleep, and not look in the mornin' like that beastly +tallow, Mr. Paricles says I spent such a lot of money on, speculator-- +whew, I hate ut!--and hemp too! Me!--Martha Chump! Do I want to hang +myself, and burn forty thousand pounds worth o' candles round my corpse +danglin' there? Now, there, now! Is that sense? And what'd Pole want +to buy me all that grease for? And where'd I keep ut, I'll ask ye? And +sure they wouldn't make me a bankrup' on such a pretence as that. For, +where's the Judge that's got the heart?" + +Having apparently satisfied her reason with these interrogations, Mrs. +Chump departed, shaking her head at Wilfrid: "Ye smile so nice, ye do!" +by the way. Cornelia and Adela then rose, and Wilfrid was left alone +with his father. + +It was natural that he should expect the moment for entire confidence +between them to have come. He crossed his legs, leaning over the +fireplace, and waited. The old man perceived him, and made certain +humming sounds, as of preparation. Wilfrid was half tempted to think he +wanted assistance, and signified attention; upon which Mr. Pole became +immediately absorbed in profound thought. + +"Singular it is, you know," he said at last, with a candid air, "people +who know nothing about business have the oddest ideas--no common sense in +'em!" + +After that he fell dead silent. + +Wilfrid knew that it would be hard for him to speak. To encourage him, +he said: "You mean Mrs. Chump, sir?" + +"Oh! silly woman--absurd! No, I mean all of you; every man Jack, as +Martha'd say. You seem to think--but, well! there! let's go to bed." + +"To bed?" cried Wilfrid, frowning. + +"Why, when it's two or three o'clock in the morning, what's an old fellow +to do? My feet are cold, and I'm queer in the back--can't talk! Light +my candle, young gentleman--my candle there, don't you see it? And you +look none of the freshest. A nap on your pillow'll do you no harm." + +"I wanted to talk to you a little, sir," said Wilfrid, about as much +perplexed as he was irritated. + +"Now, no talk of bankers' books to-night!" rejoined his father. "I can't +and won't. No cheques written 'tween night and morning. That's +positive. There! there's two fingers. Shall have three to-morrow +morning--a pen in 'em, perhaps." + +With which wretched pleasantry the little merchant nodded to his son, and +snatching up his candle, trotted to the door. + +"By the way, give a look round my room upstairs, to see all right when +you're going to turn in yourself," he said, before disappearing. + +The two fingers given him by his father to shake at parting, had told +Wilfrid more than the words. And yet how small were these troubles +around him compared with what he himself was suffering! He looked +forward to the bittersweet hour verging upon dawn, when he should be +writing to Emilia things to melt the vilest obduracy. The excitement +which had greeted him on his arrival at Brookfield was to be thanked for +its having made him partially forget his humiliation. He had, of course, +sufficient rational feeling to be chagrined by calamity, but his dominant +passion sucked sustaining juices from every passing event. + +In obedience to his father's request, Wilfrid went presently into the old +man's bedroom, to see that all was right. The curtains of the bed were +drawn close, and the fire in the grate burnt steadily. Calm sleep seemed +to fill the chamber. Wilfrid was retiring, with a revived anger at his +father's want of natural confidence in him, or cowardly secresy. His +name was called, and he stopped short. + +"Yes, sir?" he said. + +"Door's shut?" + +"Shut fast." + +The voice, buried in curtains, came after a struggle. + +"You've done this, Wilfrid. Now, don't answer:--I can't stand talk. And +you must undo it. Pericles can if he likes. That's enough for you to +know. He can. He won't see me. You know why. If he breaks with me-- +it's a common case in any business--I'm... we're involved together." +Then followed a deep sigh. The usual crisp brisk way of his speaking was +resumed in hollow tones: "You must stop it. Now, don't answer. Go to +Pericles to-morrow. You must. Nothing wrong, if you go at once." + +"But, Sir! Good heaven!" interposed Wilfrid, horrified by the thought of +the penance here indicated. + +The bed shook violently. + +"If not," was uttered with a sort of muted vehemence, "there's another +thing you can do. Go to the undertaker's, and order coffins for us all. +There--good night!" + +The bed shook again. Wilfrid stood eyeing the mysterious hangings, as if +some dark oracle had spoken from behind them. In fear of irritating the +old man, and almost as much in fear of bringing on himself a revelation +of the frightful crisis that could only be averted by his apologizing +personally to the man he had struck, Wilfrid stole from the room. + + + + +CHAPTER LV + +There is a man among our actors here who may not be known to you. It had +become the habit of Sir Purcell Barren's mind to behold himself as under +a peculiarly malign shadow. Very young men do the same, if they are much +afflicted: but this is because they are still boys enough to have the +natural sense to be ashamed of ill-luck, even when they lack courage to +struggle against it. The reproaching of Providence by a man of full +growth, comes to some extent from his meanness, and chiefly from his +pride. He remembers that the old Gods selected great heroes whom to +persecute, and it is his compensation for material losses to conceive +himself a distinguished mark for the Powers of air. One who wraps +himself in this delusion may have great qualities; he cannot be of a very +contemptible nature; and in this place we will discriminate more closely +than to call him fool. Had Sir Purcell sunk or bent under the thong that +pursued him, he might, after a little healthy moaning, have gone along as +others do. Who knows?--though a much persecuted man, he might have +become so degraded as to have looked forward with cheerfulness to his +daily dinner; still despising, if he pleased, the soul that would invent +a sauce. I mean to say, he would, like the larger body of our +sentimentalists, have acquiesced in our simple humanity, but without +sacrificing a scruple to its grossness, or going arm-in-arm with it by +any means. Sir Purcell, however, never sank, and never bent. He was +invariably erect before men, and he did not console himself with a murmur +in secret. He had lived much alone; eating alone; thinking alone. To +complain of a father is, to a delicate mind, a delicate matter, and Sir +Purcell was a gentleman to all about him. His chief affliction in his +youth, therefore, kept him dumb. A gentleman to all about him, he +unhappily forgot what was due to his own nature. Must we not speak under +pressure of a grief? Little people should know that they must: but then +the primary task is to teach them that they are little people. For, if +they repress the outcry of a constant irritation, and the complaint +against injustice, they lock up a feeding devil in their hearts, and they +must have vast strength to crush him there. Strength they must have to +kill him, and freshness of spirit to live without him, after he has once +entertained them with his most comforting discourses. Have you listened +to him, ever? He does this:--he plays to you your music (it is he who +first teaches thousands that they have any music at all, so guess what a +dear devil he is!); and when he has played this ravishing melody, he +falls to upon a burlesque contrast of hurdy-gurdy and bag-pipe squeal and +bellow and drone, which is meant for the music of the world. How far +sweeter was yours! This charming devil Sir Purcell had nursed from +childhood. + +As a child, between a flighty mother and a father verging to insanity +from caprice, he had grown up with ideas of filial duty perplexed, and +with a fitful love for either, that was not attachment: a baffled natural +love, that in teaching us to brood on the hardness of our lot, lays the +foundation for a perniciously mystical self-love. He had waged +precociously philosophic, when still a junior. His father had kept him +by his side, giving him no profession beyond that of the obedient +expectant son and heir. His first allusion to the youth's dependency had +provoked their first breach, which had been widened by many an +ostentatious forgiveness on the one hand, and a dumbly-protesting +submission on the other. His mother died away from her husband's roof. +The old man then sought to obliterate her utterly. She left her boy a +little money, and the injunction of his father was, that he was never to +touch it. He inherited his taste for music from her, and his father +vowed, that if ever he laid hand upon a musical instrument again, he +would be disinherited. All these signs of a vehement spiteful antagonism +to reason, the young man might have treated more as his father's +misfortune than his own, if he could only have brought himself to +acknowledge that such a thing as madness stigmatized his family. But the +sentimental mind conceived it as 'monstrous impiety' to bring this +accusation against a parent who did not break windows, or grin to +deformity. He behaved toward him as to a reasonable person, and felt the +rebellious rancour instead of the pity. Thus sentiment came in the way +of pity. By degrees, Sir Purcell transferred all his father's madness to +the Fates by whom he was persecuted. There was evidently madness +somewhere, as his shuddering human nature told him. It did not offend +his sentiment to charge this upon the order of the universe. + +Against such a wild-hitting madness, or concentrated ire of the superior +Powers, Sir Purcell stood up, taking blow upon blow. As organist of +Hillford Church, he brushed his garments, and put a polish on his +apparel, with an energetic humility that looked like unconquerable +patience; as though he had said: "While life is left in me, I will be +seen for what I am." We will vary it--"For what I think myself." In +reality, he fought no battle. He had been dead-beaten from his boyhood. +Like the old Spanish Governor, the walls of whose fortress had been +thrown down by an earthquake, and who painted streets to deceive the +enemy, he was rendered safe enough by his astuteness, except against a +traitor from within. + +One who goes on doggedly enduring, doggedly doing his best, must subsist +on comfort of a kind that is likely to be black comfort. The mere piping +of the musical devil shall not suffice. In Sir Purcell's case, it had +long seemed a magnanimity to him that he should hold to a life so +vindictively scourged, and his comfort was that he had it at his own +disposal. To know so much, to suffer, and still to refrain, flattered +his pride. "The term of my misery is in my hand," he said, softened by +the reflection. It is our lowest philosophy. + +But, when the heart of a man so fashioned is stirred to love a woman, it +has a new vital force, new health, and cannot play these solemn pranks. +The flesh, and all its fatality, claims him. When Sir Purcell became +acquainted with Cornelia, he found the very woman his heart desired, or +certainly a most admirable picture of her. It was, perhaps, still more +to the lady's credit, if she was only striving to be what he was learning +to worship. The beneficial change wrought in him, made him enamoured of +healthy thinking and doing. Had this, as a result of sharp mental +overhauling, sprung from himself, there would have been hope for him. +Unhappily, it was dependent on her who inspired it. He resolved that +life should be put on a fresh trial in her person; and expecting that +naturally to fail, of which he had always entertained a base conception, +he was perforce brought to endow her with unexampled virtues, in order to +keep any degree of confidence tolerably steadfast in his mind. The lady +accepted the decorations thus bestowed on her, with much grace and +willingness. She consented, little aware of her heroism, to shine forth +as an 'ideal;' and to this he wantonly pinned his faith. Alas! in our +world, where all things must move, it becomes, by-and-by, manifest that +an 'ideal,' or idol, which you will, has not been gifted with two legs. +What is, then, the duty of the worshipper? To make, as I should say, +some compromise between his superstitious reverence and his recognition +of facts. Cornelia, on her pedestal, could not prefer such a request +plainly; but it would have afforded her exceeding gratification, if the +man who adored her had quietly taken her up and fixed her in a fresh +post, of his own choosing entirely, in the new circles of changeing +events. Far from doing that, he appeared to be unaware that they went, +with the varying days, through circles, forming and reforming. He walked +rather as a man down a lengthened corridor, whose light to which he turns +is in one favourite corner, visible till he reaches the end. What +Cornelia was, in the first flaming of his imagination around her, she was +always, unaffected by circumstance, to remain. It was very hard. The +'ideal' did feel the want--if not of legs--of a certain tolerant +allowance for human laws on the part of her worshipper; but he was +remorselessly reverential, both by instinct and of necessity. Women are +never quite so mad in sentimentalism as men. + +We have now looked into the hazy interior of their systems--our last +halt, I believe, and last examination of machinery, before Emilia quits +England. + +About the time of the pairing of the birds, and subsequent to the +Brookfield explosion, Cornelia received a letter from her lover, bearing +the tone of a summons. She was to meet him by the decayed sallow--the +'fruitless tree,' as he termed it. Startled by this abruptness, her +difficulties made her take counsel of her dignity. "He knows that these +clandestine meetings degrade me. He is wanting in faith, to require +constant assurances. He will not understand my position!" She +remembered the day at Besworth, of which Adela (somewhat needlessly, +perhaps) had told her; that it had revealed two of the family, in +situations censurable before a gossiping world, however intrinsically +blameless. That day had been to the ladies a lesson of deference to +opinion. It was true that Cornelia had met her lover since, but she was +then unembarrassed. She had now to share in the duties of the household- +-duties abnormal, hideous, incredible. Her incomprehensible father was +absent in town. Daily Wilfrid conducted Adela thither on mysterious +business, and then Mrs. Chump was left to Arabella and herself in the +lonely house. Numberless things had to be said for the quieting of this +creature, who every morning came downstairs with the exclamation that she +could no longer endure her state of uncertainty, and was "off to a +lawyer." It was useless to attempt the posture of a reply. Words, and +energetic words, the woman demanded, not expostulations--petitions that +she would be respectful to the house before the household. Yes, +occasionally (so gross was she!) she had to be fed with lies. Arabella +and Cornelia heard one another mouthing these dreadful things, with a +wretched feeling of contemptuous compassion. The trial was renewed +daily, and it was a task, almost a physical task, to hold the woman back +from London, till the hour of lunch came. If they kept her away from her +bonnet till then they were safe. + +At this meal they had to drink champagne with her. Diplomatic Wilfrid +had issued the order, with the object, first, of dazzling her vision; and +secondly, to set the wheels of her brain in swift motion. The effect was +marvellous; and, had it not been for her determination never to drink +alone, the miserable ladies might have applauded it. Adela, on the rare +days when she was fortunate enough to reach Brookfield in time for +dinner, was surprised to hear her sisters exclaim, "Oh, the hatefulness +of that champagne!" She enjoyed it extremely. She, poor thing, had +again to go through a round of cabs and confectioners' shops in London. +"If they had said, 'Oh, the hatefulness of those buns and cold +chickens!'" she thought to herself. Not objecting to champagne at lunch +with any particular vehemence, she was the less unwilling to tell her +sisters what she had to do for Wilfrid daily. + +"Three times a week I go to see Emilia at Lady Gosstre's town-house. Mr. +Powys has gone to Italy, and Miss Ford remains, looking, if I can read +her, such a temper. On the other days I am taken by Wilfrid to the +arcades, or we hire a brougham to drive round the park,--for nothing but +the chance of seeing that girl an instant. Don't tell me it's to meet +Lady Charlotte! That lovely and obliging person it is certainly not my +duty to undeceive. She's now at Stornley, and speaks of our affairs to +everybody, I dare say. Twice a week Wilfrid--oh! quite casually! --calls +on Miss Ford, and is gratified, I suppose; for this is the picture:-- +There sits Emilia, one finger in her cheek, and the thumb under her chin, +and she keeps looking down so. Opposite is Miss Ford, doing some work-- +making lint for patriots, probably. Then Wilfrid, addressing +commonplaces to her; and then Emilia's father--a personage, I assure you! +up against the window, with a violin. I feel a bitter edge on my teeth +still! What do you think he does to please his daughter for one while +hour! He draws his fingers--does nothing else; she won't let him; she +won't hear a tune-up the strings in the most horrible caterwaul, up and +down. It is really like a thousand lunatics questioning and answering, +and is enough to make you mad; but there that girl sits, listening. +Exactly in this attitude--so. She scarcely ever looks up. My brother +talks, and occasionally steals a glance that way. We passed one whole +hour as I have described. In the middle of it, I happened to look at +Wilfrid's face, while the violin was wailing down. I fancied I heard the +despair of one of those huge masks in a pantomime. I was almost choked." + +When Adela had related thus much, she had to prevent downright revolt, +and spoil her own game, by stating that Wilfrid did not leave the house +for his special pleasure, and a word, as to the efforts he was making to +see Mr. Pericles, convinced the ladies that his situation was as pitiable +as their own. + +Cornelia refused to obey her lover's mandate, and wrote briefly. She +would not condescend to allude to the unutterable wretchedness afflicting +her, but spoke of her duty to her father being foremost in her prayers +for strength. Sir Purcell interpreted this as indicating the beginning +of their alienation. He chided her gravely in an otherwise pleasant +letter. She was wrong to base her whole reply upon the little sentence +of reproach, but self-justification was necessary to her spirit. Indeed, +an involuntary comparison of her two suitors was forced on her, and, dry +as was Sir Twickenham's mind, she could not but acknowledge that he had +behaved with an extraordinary courtesy, amounting to chivalry, in his +suit. On two occasions he had declined to let her be pressed to decide. +He came to the house, and went, like an ordinary visitor. She was +indebted to him for that splendid luxury of indecision, which so few of +the maids of earth enjoy for a lengthened term. The rude shakings given +her by Sir Purcell, at a time when she needed all her power of dreaming, +to support the horror of accumulated facts, was almost resented. "He as +much as says he doubts me, when this is what I endure!" she cried to +herself, as Mrs. Chump ordered her champagne-glass to be filled, with +"Now, Cornelia, my dear; if it's bad luck we're in for, there's nothin' +cheats ut like champagne," and she had to put the (to her) nauseous +bubbles to her lips. Sir Purcell had not been told of her tribulations, +and he had not expressed any doubt of her truth; but sentimentalists can +read one another with peculiar accuracy through their bewitching gauzes. +She read his unwritten doubt, and therefore expected her unwritten misery +to be read. + +So it is when you play at Life! When you will not go straight, you get +into this twisting maze. Now he wrote coldly, and she had to repress a +feeling of resentment at that also. She ascribed the changes of his tone +fundamentally to want of faith in her, and absolutely, during the +struggle she underwent, she by this means somehow strengthened her idea +of her own faithfulness. She would have phrased her projected line of +conduct thus: "I owe every appearance of assent to my poor father's +scheme, that will spare his health. I owe him everything, save the +positive sacrifice of my hand." In fact, she meant to do her duty to her +father up to the last moment, and then, on the extreme verge, to remember +her duty to her lover. But she could not write it down, and tell her +lover as much. She knew instinctively that, facing the eyes, it would +not look well. Perhaps, at another season, she would have acted and +thought with less folly; but the dull pain of her great uncertainty, and +the little stinging whips daily applied to her, exaggerated her tendency +to self-deception. "Who has ever had to bear so much?--what slave?" she +would exclaim, as a refuge from the edge of his veiled irony. For a +slave has, if not selection of what he will eat and drink, the option of +rejecting what is distasteful. Cornelia had not. She had to act a part +every day with Mrs. Chump, while all those she loved, and respected, and +clung to, were in the same conspiracy. The consolation of hating, or of +despising, her tormentress was denied. The thought that the poor +helpless creature had been possibly ruined by them, chastened Cornelia's +reflections mightily, and taught her to walk very humbly through the +duties of the day. Her powers of endurance were stretched to their +utmost. A sublime affliction would, as she felt bitterly, have enlarged +her soul. This sordid misery narrowed it. Why did not her lover, if his +love was passionate, himself cut the knot claim her, and put her to a +quick decision? She conceived that were he to bring on a supreme crisis, +her heart would declare itself. But he appeared to be wanting in that +form of courage. Does it become a beggar to act such valiant parts? +perhaps he was even then replying from his stuffy lodgings. + +The Spring was putting out primroses,--the first handwriting of the +year,--as Sir Purcell wrote to er prettily. Deire for fresh air, and the +neighbourhood of his beloved, sent him on a journey down to Hillford. +Near the gates of the Hillford station, he passed Wilfrid and Adela, +hurrying to catch the up-train, and received no recognition. His face +scarcely changed colour, but the birds on a sudden seemed to pipe far +away from him. He asked himself, presently, what were those black +circular spots which flew chasing along the meadows and the lighted +walks. It was with an effort that he got the landscape close about his +eyes, and remembered familiar places. He walked all day, making +occupation by directing his steps to divers eminences that gave a view of +the Brookfield chimneys. After night-fall he found himself in the +firwood, approaching the 'fruitless tree.' He had leaned against it +musingly, for a time, when he heard voices, as of a couple confident in +their privacy. + +The footman, Gainsford, was courting a maid of the Tinley's, and here, +being midway between the two houses, they met. He had to obtain pardon +for tardiness, by saying that dinner at Brookfield had been delayed for +the return of Mr. Pole. The damsel's questions showed her far advanced +in knowledge of affairs at Brookfield and may account for Laura Tinley's +gatherings of latest intelligence concerning those 'odd girls,' as she +impudently called the three. + +"Oh! don't you listen!" was the comment pronounced on Gainsford's stock +of information. But, he told nothing signally new. She wished to hear +something new and striking, "because," she said, "when I unpin Miss Laura +at night, I'm as likely as not to get a silk dress that ain't been worn +more than half-a-dozen times--if I manage. When I told her that Mr. +Albert, her brother, had dined at your place last Thursday--demeaning of +himself, I do think--there!--I got a pair of silk stockings,--not letting +her see I knew what it was for, of coursed and about Mrs. Dump,--Stump;-- +I can't recollect the woman's name; and her calling of your master a +bankrupt, right out, and wanting her money of him,--there! if Miss Laura +didn't give me a pair of lavender kid-gloves out of her box!--and I wish +you would leave my hands alone, when you know I shouldn't be so silly as +to wear them in the dark; and for you, indeed!" + +But Gainsford persisted, upon which there was fooling. All this was too +childish for Sir Purcell to think it necessary to give warning of his +presence. They passed, and when they had gone a short way the damsel +cried, "Well, that is something," and stopped. "Married in a month!" she +exclaimed. "And you don't know which one?" + +"No," returned Gainsford; "master said 'one of you' as they was at +dinner, just as I come into the room. He was in jolly spirits, and kept +going so: "What's a month! champagne, Gainsford," and you should have +sees Mrs.--not Stump, but Chump. She'll be tipsy to-night, and I shall +bust if I have to carry of her upstairs. Well, she is fun!--she don't +mind handin' you a five-shilling piece when she's done tender: but I have +nearly lost my place two or three time along of that woman. She'd split +logs with laughing:--no need of beetle and wedges! 'Och!' she sings out, +'by the piper!'--and Miss Cornelia sitting there--and, 'Arrah!'--bother +the woman's Irish," (thus Gainsford gave up the effort at imitation, with +a spirited Briton's mild contempt for what he could not do) "she pointed +out Miss Cornelia and said she was like the tinker's dog:--there's the +bone he wants himself, and the bone he don't want anybody else to have. +Aha! ain't it good?" + +"Oh! the tinker's dog! won't I remember that!" said the damsel, "she +can't be such a fool." + +"Well, I don't know," Gainsford meditated critically. "She is; and yet +she ain't, if you understand me. What I feel about her is--hang it! she +makes ye laugh." + +Sir Purcell moved from the shadow of the tree as noiselessly as he could, +so that this enamoured couple might not be disturbed. He had already +heard more than he quite excused himself for hearing in such a manner, +and having decided not to arrest the man and make him relate exactly what +Mr. Pole had spoken that evening at the Brookfield dinner-table, he +hurried on his return to town. + +It was not till he had sight of his poor home; the solitary company of +chairs; the sofa looking bony and comfortless as an old female house +drudge; the table with his desk on it; and, through folding-doors, his +cold and narrow bed; not till then did the fact of his great loss stand +before him, and accuse him of living. He seated himself methodically and +wrote to Cornelia. His fancy pictured her now as sharp to every turn of +language and fall of periods: and to satisfy his imagined, rigorous +critic, he wrote much in the style of a newspaper leading article. No +one would have thought that tragic meaning underlay those choice and +sounding phrases. On reperusing the composition, he rejected it, but +only to produce one of a similar cast. He could not get to nature in his +tone. He spoke aloud a little sentence now and then, that had the ring +of a despairing tenderness. Nothing of the sort inhabited his written +words, wherein a strained philosophy and ironic resignation went on +stilts. "I should desire to see you once before I take a step that some +have not considered more than commonly serious," came toward the +conclusion; and the idea was toyed with till he signed his name. "A +plunge into the deep is of little moment to one who has been stripped of +all clothing. Is he not a wretch who stands and shivers still?" This +letter, ending with a short and not imperious, or even urgent, request +for an interview, on the morrow by the 'fruitless tree,' he sealed for +delivery into Cornelia's hands some hours before the time appointed. He +then wrote a clear business letter to his lawyer, and one of studied +ambiguity to a cousin on his mother's side. His father's brother, +Percival Barrett, to whom the estates had gone, had offered him an +annuity of five hundred pounds: "though he had, as his nephew was aware, +a large family." Sir Purcell had replied: "Let me be the first to +consider your family," rejecting the benevolence. He now addressed his +cousin, saying: "What would you think of one who accepts such a gift?--of +me, were you to hear that I had bowed my head and extended my hand? +Think this, if ever you hear of it: that I have acceded for the sake of +winning the highest prize humanity can bestow: that I certainly would not +have done it for aught less than the highest." After that he went to his +narrow bed. His determination was to write to his uncle, swallowing +bitter pride, and to live a pensioner, if only Cornelia came to her +tryst, "the last he would ask of her," as he told her. Once face to face +with his beloved, he had no doubt of his power; and this feeling which he +knew her to share, made her reluctance to meet him more darkly +suspicious. + +As he lay in the little black room, he thought of how she would look when +a bride, and of the peerless beauty towering over any shades of +earthliness which she would present. His heated fancy conjured up every +device and charm of sacredness and adoring rapture about that white +veiled shape, until her march to the altar assumed the character of a +religious procession--a sight to awe mankind! And where, when she stood +before the minister in her saintly humility, grave and white, and tall-- +where was the man whose heart was now racing for that goal at her right +hand? He felt at the troubled heart and touched two fingers on the rib, +mock-quietingly, and smiled. Then with great deliberation he rose, lit a +candle, unlocked a case of pocket-pistols, and loaded them: but a second +idea coming into his head, he drew the bullet out of one, and lay down +again with a luxurious speculation on the choice any hand might possibly +make of the life-sparing or death-giving of those two weapons. In his +neat half-slumber he was twice startled by a report of fire-arms in a +church, when a crowd of veiled women and masked men rushed to the +opening, and a woman throwing up the veil from her face knelt to a corpse +that she lifted without effort, and weeping, laid it in a grave, where it +rested and was at peace, though multitudes hurried over it, and new stars +came and went, and the winds were strange with new tongues. The sleeper +saw the morning upon that corpse when light struck his eyelids, and he +awoke like a man who knew no care. + +His landlady's little female scrubber was working at the grate in his +sitting-room. He had endured many a struggle to prevent service of this +nature being done for him by one of the sex--at least, to prevent it +within his hearing and sight. He called to her to desist; but she +replied that she had her mistress's orders. Thereupon he maintained that +the grate did not want scrubbing. The girl took this to be a matter of +opinion, not a challenge to controversy, and continued her work in +silence. Irritated by the noise, but anxious not to seem harsh, he said: +"What on earth are you about, when there was no fire there yesterday?" + +"There ain't no stuff for afire now, sir," said she. + +"I tell you I did not light it." + +"It's been and lit itself then," she mumbled. + +"Do you mean to say you found the fire burnt out, when you entered the +room this morning?" + +She answered that she had found it so, and lots of burnt paper lying +about. + +The symbolism of this fire burnt out, that had warmed and cheered none, +oppressed his fancy, and he left the small maid-of-all-work to triumph +with black-lead and brushes. + +She sang out, when she had done: "If you please, sir, missus have had a +hamper up from the country, and would you like a country aig, which is +quite fresh, and new lay. And missus say, she can't trust the bloaters +about here bein' Yarmouth, but there's a soft roe in one she've squeezed; +and am I to stop a water-cress woman, when the last one sold you them, +and all the leaves jellied behind 'em, so as no washin' could save you +from swallowin' some, missus say?" + +Sir Purcell rolled over on his side. "Is this going to be my epitaph?" +he groaned; for he was not a man particular in his diet, or exacting in +choice of roes, or panting for freshness in an egg. He wondered what his +landlady could mean by sending up to him, that morning of all others, to +tempt his appetite after her fashion. "I thought I remembered eating +nothing but toast in this place;" he observed to himself. A grunting +answer had to be given to the little maid, "Toast as usual." She +appeared satisfied, but returned again, when he was in his bath, to ask +whether he had said "No toast to-day?" + +"Toast till the day of my death--tell your mistress that!" he replied; +and partly from shame at his unaccountable vehemence, he paused in his +sponging, meditated, and chilled. An association of toast with spectral +things grew in his mind, when presently the girl's voice was heard: +"Please, sir, did say you'd have toast, or not, this morning?" It cost +him an effort to answer simply, "Yes." + +That she should continue, "Not sir?" appeared like perversity. "No aig?" +was maddening. + +"Well, no; never mind it this morning," said he. + +"Not this morning," she repeated. + +"Then it will not be till the day of your death, as you said," she is +thinking that, was the idea running in his brain, and he was half ready +to cry out "Stop," and renew his order for toast, that he might seem +consecutive. The childishness of the wish made him ask himself what it +mattered. "I said 'Not till the day;' so, none to-day would mean that I +have reached the day." Shivering with the wet on his pallid skin, he +thought this over. + +His landlady had used her discretion, and there was toast on the table. +A beam of Spring's morning sunlight illuminated the toast-rack. He sat, +and ate, and munched the doubt whether "not till" included the final day, +or stopped short of it. By this the state of his brain may be conceived. +A longing for beauty, and a dark sense of an incapacity to thoroughly +enjoy it, tormented him. He sent for his landlady's canary, and the +ready shrill song of the bird persuaded him that much of the charm of +music is wilfully swelled by ourselves, and can be by ourselves +withdrawn: that is to say, the great chasm and spell of sweet sounds is +assisted by the force of our imaginations. What is that force?--the heat +and torrent of the blood. When that exists no more--to one without hope, +for instance--what is music or beauty? Intrinsically, they are next to +nothing. He argued it out so, and convinced himself of his own +delusions, till his hand, being in the sunlight, gave him a pleasant +warmth. "That's something we all love," he said, glancing at the blue +sky above the roofs. "But there's little enough of it in this climate," +he thought, with an eye upon the darker corners of his room. When he had +eaten, he sent word to his landlady to make up his week's bill. The week +was not at an end, and that good woman appeased before him, astonished, +saying: "To be sure, your habits is regular, but there's little items one +I'll guess at, and how make out a bill, Sir Purcy, and no items?" + +He nodded his head. + +"The country again?" she asked smilingly. + +"I am going down there," he said. + +"And beautiful at this time of the year, it is! though, for market +gardening, London beats any country I ever knew; and if you like creature +comforts, I always say, stop in London! And then the policemen! who +really are the greatest comfort of all to us poor women, and seem sent +from above especially to protect our weakness. I do assure you, Sir +Purcy, I feel it, and never knew a right-minded woman that did not. And +how on earth our grandmothers contrived to get about without them! But +there! people who lived before us do seem like the most uncomfortable! +When--my goodness! we come to think there was some lived before tea! +Why, as I say over almost every cup I drink, it ain't to be realized. It +seems almost wicked to say it, Sir Purcy; but it's my opinion there ain't +a Christian woman who's not made more of a Christian through her tea. +And a man who beats his wife my first question is, 'Do he take his tea +regular?' For, depend upon it, that man is not a tea-drinker at all." + +He let her talk away, feeling oddly pleased by this mundane chatter, as +was she to pour forth her inmost sentiments to a baronet. + +When she said: "Your fire shall be lighted to-night to welcome you," the +man looked up, and was going to request that the trouble might be spared, +but he nodded. His ghost saw the burning fire awaiting him. Or how if +it sparkled merrily, and he beheld it with his human eyes that night? +His beloved would then have touched him with her hand--yea, brought the +dead to life! He jumped to his feet, and dismissed the worthy dame. On +both sides of him, 'Yes,' and 'No,' seemed pressing like two hostile +powers that battled for his body. They shrieked in his ears, plucked at +his fingers. He heard them hushing deeply as he went to his pistol-case, +and drew forth one--he knew not which. + + + + +CHAPTER LVI + +On a wild April morning, Emilia rose from her bed and called to mind a +day of the last year's Spring when she had watched the cloud streaming +up, and felt that it was the curtain of an unknown glory. But now it +wore the aspect of her life itself, with nothing hidden behind those +stormy folds, save peace. South-westward she gazed, eyeing eagerly the +struggle of twisting vapour; long flying edges of silver went by, and +mounds of faint crimson, and here and there a closing space of blue, +swift as a thought of home to a soldier in action. The heavens were like +a battle-field. Emilia shut her lips hard, to check an impulse of prayer +for Merthyr fighting in Italy: for he was in Italy, and she once more +among the Monmouth hills: he was in Italy fighting, and she chained here +to her miserable promise! Three days after she had given the promise to +Wilfrid, Merthyr left, shaking her hand like any common friend. +Georgiana remained, by his desire, to protect her. Emilia had written to +Wilfrid for release, but being no apt letter-writer, and hating the task, +she was soon involved by him in a complication of bewildering sentiments, +some of which she supposed she was bound to feel, while perhaps one or +two she did feel, at the summons. The effect was that she lost the true +wording of her blunt petition for release: she could no longer put it +bluntly. But her heart revolted the more, and gave her sharp eyes to see +into his selfishness. The purgatory of her days with Georgiana, when the +latter was kept back from her brother in his peril, spurred Emilia to +renew her appeal; but she found that all she said drew her into +unexpected traps and pitfalls. There was only one thing she could say +plainly: "I want to go." If she repeated this, Wilfrid was ready with +citations from her letters, wherein she had said 'this,' and 'that,' and +many other phrases. His epistolary power and skill in arguing his own +case were creditable to him. Affected as Emilia was by other sensations, +she could not combat the idea strenuously suggested by him, that he had +reason to complain of her behaviour. He admitted his special faults, +but, by distinctly tracing them to their origin, he complacently hinted +the excuse for them. Moreover, and with artistic ability, he painted +such a sentimental halo round the 'sacredness of her pledged word,' that +Emilia could not resist a superstitious notion about it, and about what +the breaking of it would imply. Georgiana had removed her down to +Monmouth to be out of his way. A constant flight of letters pursued them +both, for Wilfrid was far too clever to allow letters in his hand-writing +to come for one alone of two women shut up in a country-house together. +He saw how the letterless one would sit speculating shrewdly and +spitefully; so he was careful to amuse his mystified Dragon, while he +drew nearer and nearer to his gold apple. Another object was, that by +getting Georgiana to consent to become in part his confidante, he made it +almost a point of honour for her to be secret with Lady Charlotte. + +At last a morning came with no Brookfield letter for either of them. The +letters stopped from that time. It was almost as if a great buzzing had +ceased in Emilia's ears, and she now heard her own sensations clearly. +To Georgiana's surprise, she manifested no apprehension or regret. "Or +else," the lady thought, "she wears a mask to me;" and certainly it was a +pale face that Emilia was beginning to wear. At last came April and its +wild morning. No little female hypocrisies passed between them when they +met; they shook hands at arm's length by the breakfast-table. Then +Emilia said: "I am ready to go to Italy: I will go at once." + +Georgiana looked straight at her, thinking: "This is a fit of indignation +with Wilfrid." She answered: "Italy! I fancied you had forgotten there +was such a country." + +"I don't forget my country and my friends," said Emilia, + +"At least, I must ask the ground of so unexpected a resolution," was +rejoined. + +"Do you remember what Merthyr wrote in his letter from Arona? How long +it takes to understand the meaning of some, words! He says that I should +not follow an impulse that is not the impulse of all my nature--myself +altogether. Yes! I know what that means now. And he tells me that my +life is worth more than to be bound to the pledge of a silly moment. It +is! He, Georgey, unkind that you are!--he does not distrust me; but +always advises and helps me: Merthyr waits for me. I cannot be instantly +ready for every meaning in the world. What I want to do, is to see +Wilfrid: if not, I will write to him. I will tell him that I intend to +break my promise." + +A light of unaffected pride shone from the girl's face, as she threw down +this gauntlet to sentimentalism. + +"And if he objects?" said Georgiana. + +"If he objects, what can happen? If he objects by letter, I am gone. I +shall not write for permission. I shall write what my will is. If I see +him, and he objects, I can look into his eyes and say what I think right. +Why, I have lived like a frozen thing ever since I gave him my word. I +have felt at times like a snake hissing at my folly. I think I have felt +something like men when they swear." + +Georgiana's features expressed a slight but perceptible disgust. Emilia +continued humbly: "Forgive me. I wish you to know how I hate the word I +gave that separates me from Merthyr in my Italy, and makes you dislike +your poor Emilia. You do. I have pardoned it, though it was twenty +stabs a day." + +"But, why, if this promise was so hateful to you, did you not break it +before?" asked Georgiana. + +"I had not the courage," Emilia stooped her head to confess; "and +besides," she added, curiously half-closing her eyelids, as one does to +look on a minute object, "I could not see through it before." + +"If," suggested Georgiana, "you break your word, you release him from +his." + +"No! if he cannot see the difference," cried Emilia, wildly, "then let +him keep away from me for ever, and he shall not have the name of friend! +Is there no difference--I wish you would let me cry out as they do in +Shakespeare, Georgey!" Emilia laughed to cover her vehemence. "I want +something more than our way of talking, to witness that there is such a +difference between us. Am I to live here till all my feelings are burnt +out, and my very soul is only a spark in a log of old wood? and to keep +him from murdering my countrymen, or flogging the women of Italy! God +knows what those Austrians would make him do. He changes. He would +easily become an Austrian. I have heard him once or twice, and if I had +shut my eyes, I might have declared an Austrian spoke. I wanted to keep +him here, but it is not right that I--I should be caged till I scarcely +feel my finger-ends, or know that I breathe sensibly as you and others +do. I am with Merthyr. That is what I intend to tell him." + +She smiled softly up to Georgiana's cold eyes, to get a look of +forgiveness for her fiery speaking. + +"So, then, you love my brother?" said Georgiana. + +Emilia could have retorted, "Cruel that you are!" The pain of having an +unripe feeling plucked at without warning, was bitter; but she repressed +any exclamation, in her desire to maintain simple and unsensational +relations always with those surrounding her. + +"He is my friend," she said. "I think of something better than that +other word. Oh, that I were a man, to call him my brother-in-arms! +What's a girl's love in return for his giving his money, his heart, and +offering his life every day for Italy?" + +As soon as Georgiana could put faith in her intention to depart, she gave +her a friendly hand and embrace. + +Two days later they were at Richford, with Lady Gosstre. The journals +were full of the Italian uprising. There had been a collision between +the Imperial and patriotic forces, near Brescia, from which the former +had retired in some confusion. Great things were expected of Piedmont, +though many, who had reason to know him, distrusted her king. All +Lombardy awaited the signal from Piedmont. Meanwhile blood was flowing. + +In the excitement of her sudden rush from dead monotony to active life, +Emilia let some time pass before she wrote to Wilfrid. Her letter was in +her hand, when one was brought in to her from him. It ran thus:-- + +"I have just returned home, and what is this I hear? Are you utterly +faithless? Can I not rely on you to keep the word you have solemnly +pledged! Meet me at once. Name a place. I am surrounded by misery and +distraction. I will tell you all when we meet. I have trusted that you +were firm. Write instantly. I cannot ask you to come here. The house +is broken up. There is no putting to paper what has happened. My father +lies helpless. Everything rests on me. I thought that I could rely on +you." + +Emilia tore up her first letter, and replied:-- + +"Come here at once. Or, if you would wish to meet me elsewhere, it shall +be where you please: but immediately. If you have heard that I am going +to Italy, it is true. I break my promise. I shall hope to have your +forgiveness. My heart bleeds for my dear Cornelia, and I am eager to see +my sisters, and embrace them, and share their sorrow. If I must not +come, tell them I kiss them. Adieu!" + +Wilfrid replied:-- + +"I will be by Richford Park gates to-morrow at a quarter to nine. You +speak of your heart. I suppose it is a habit. Be careful to put on a +cloak or thick shawl; we have touches of frost. If I cannot amuse you, +perhaps the nightingales will. Do you remember those of last year? I +wonder whether we shall hear the same?--we shall never hear the same." + +This iteration, whether cunningly devised or not, had a charm for +Emilia's ear. She thought: "I had forgotten all about them." When she +was in her bedroom at night, she threw up her window. April was leaning +close upon May, and she had not to wait long before a dusky flutter of +low notes, appearing to issue from the great rhododendron bank across the +lawn, surprised her. She listened, and another little beginning was +heard, timorous, shy, and full of mystery for her. The moon hung over +branches, some that showed young buds, some still bare. Presently the +long, rich, single notes cut the air, and melted to their glad delicious +chuckle. The singer was answered from a farther bough, and again from +one. It grew to be a circle of melody round Emilia at the open window. +Was it the same as last year's? The last year's lay in her memory faint +and well-nigh unawakened. There was likewise a momentary sense of +unreality in this still piping peacefulness, while Merthyr stood in a +bloody-streaked field, fronting death. And yet the song was sweet. +Emilia clasped her arms, shut her eyes, and drank it in. Not to think at +all, or even to brood on her sensations, but to rest half animate and let +those divine sounds find a way through her blood, was medicine to her. + +Next day there were numerous visits to the house. Emilia was reserved, +and might have been thought sad, but she welcomed Tracy Runningbrook +gladly, with "Oh! my old friend!" and a tender squeeze of his hand. + +"True, if you like; hot, if you like; but I old?" cried Tracy. + +"Yes, because I seem to have got to the other side of you; I mean, I know +you, and am always sure of you," said Emilia. "You don't care for music; +I don't care for poetry, but we're friends, and I am quite certain of +you, and think you 'old friend' always." + +"And I," said Tracy, better up to the mark by this time, "I think of you, +you dear little woman, that I ought to be grateful to you, for, by +heaven! you give me, every time I see you, the greatest temptation to be +a fool and let me prove that I'm not. Altro! altro!" + +"A fool!" said Emilia caressingly; showing that his smart insinuation had +slipped by her. + +The tale of Brookfield was told over again by Tracy, and Emilia +shuddered, though Merthyr and her country held her heart and imagination +active and in suspense, from moment to moment. It helped mainly to +discolour the young world to her eyes. She was under the spell of an +excitement too keen and quick to be subdued, by the sombre terrors of a +tragedy enacted in a house that she had known. Brookfield was in the +talk of all who came to Richford. Emilia got the vision of the wretched +family seated in the library as usual, when upon midnight they were about +to part, and a knock came at the outer door, and two men entered the +hall, bearing a lifeless body with a red spot above the heart. She saw +Cornelia fall to it. She saw the pale-faced family that had given her +shelter, and moaned for lack of a way of helping them and comforting +them. She reproached herself for feeling her own full physical life so +warmly, while others whom she had loved were weeping. It was useless to +resist the tide of fresh vitality in her veins, and when her thoughts +turned to their main attraction, she was rejoicing at the great strength +she felt coming to her gradually. Her face was smooth and impassive: +this new joy of strength came on her like the flowing of a sea to a, +land-locked water. "Poor souls!" she sighed for her friends, while +irrepressible exultation filled her spirit. + +That afternoon, in the midst of packing and preparations for the journey, +at all of which Lady Gosstre smiled with a complacent bewilderment, a +card, bearing the name of Miss Laura Tinley, was sent up to Emilia. She +had forgotten this person, and asked Lady Gosstre who it was. Arabella's +rival presented herself most winningly. For some time, Emilia listened +to her, with wonder that a tongue should be so glib on matters of no +earthly interest. At last, Laura said in an undertone: "I am the bearer +of a message from Mr. Pericles; do you walk at all in the garden?" + +Emilia read her look, and rose. Her thoughts struck back on the creature +that she was when she had last seen Mr. Pericles, and again, by contrast, +on what she was now. Eager to hear of him, or rather to divine the +mystery in her bosom aroused by the unexpected mention of his name, she +was soon alone with Laura in the garden. + +"Oh, those poor Poles!" Laura began. + +"You were going to say something of Mr. Pericles," said Emilia. + +"Yes, indeed, my dear; but, of course, you have heard all the details of +that dreadful night? It cannot be called a comfort to us that it enables +my brother Albert to come forward in the most disinterested--I might +venture to say, generous--manner, and prove the chivalry of his soul; +still, as things are, we are glad, after such misunderstandings, to prove +to that sorely-tried family who are their friends. I--you would little +think so from their treatment of me--I was at school with them. I knew +them before they became unintelligible, though they always had a turn for +it. To dress well, to be refined, to marry well--I understand all that +perfectly; but who could understand them? Not they themselves, I am +certain! And now penniless! and not only that, but lawyers! You know +that Mrs. Chump has commenced an action?--no? Oh, yes! but I shall have +to tell you the whole story." + +"What is it?--they want money?" said Emilia. + +"I will tell you. Our poor gentlemanly organist, whom you knew, was +really a baronet's son, and inherited the title." + +Emilia interrupted her: "Oh, do let me hear about them!" + +"Well, my dear, this unfortunate--I may call him 'lover,' for if a man +does not stamp the truth of his affection with a pistol, what other means +has he? And just a word as to romance. I have been sighing for it--no +one would think so--all my life. And who would have thought that these +poor Poles should have lived to convince me of the folly! Oh, delicious +humdrum!--there is nothing like it. But you are anxious, naturally. +Poor Sir Purcell Barren--he may or may not have been mad, but when he was +brought to the house at Brookfield--quite by chance--I mean, his body-- +two labouring men found him by a tree--I don't know whether you +remembered a pollard-willow that stood all white and rotten by the water +in the fir-wood:--well, as I said, mad or not, no sooner did poor +Cornelia see him than she shrieked that she was the cause of his death. +He was laid in the hall--which I have so often trod! and there Cornelia +sat by his poor dead body, and accused Wilfrid and her father of every +unkindness. They say that the scene was terrible. Wilfrid--but I need +not tell you his character. He flutters from flower to flower, but he +has feeling Now comes the worst of all--in one sense; that is, looking on +it as people of the world; and being in the world, we must take a worldly +view occasionally. Mr. Pole--you remember how he behaved once at +Besworth: or, no; you were not there, but he used your name. His mania +was, as everybody could see, to marry his children grandly. I don't +blame him in any way. Still, he was not justified in living beyond his +means to that end, speculating rashly, and concealing his actual +circumstances. Well, Mr. Pericles and he were involved together; that +is, Mr. Pericles--" + +"Is Mr. Pericles near us now?" said Emilia quickly. + +"We will come to him," Laura resumed, with the complacency of one who saw +a goodly portion of the festival she was enjoying still before her. "I +was going to say, Mr. Pericles had poor Mr. Pole in his power; has him, +would be the correcter tense. And Wilfrid, as you may have heard, had +really grossly insulted him, even to the extent of maltreating him--a +poor foreigner--rich foreigner, if you like! but not capable of standing +against a strong young man in wrath. However, now there can be little +doubt that Wilfrid repents. He had been trying ever since to see Mr. +Pericles; and the very morning of that day, I believe, he saw him and +humbled himself to make an apology. This had put Mr. Pole in good +spirits, and in the evening--he and Mrs. Chump were very fond of their +wine after dinner--he was heard that very evening to name a day for his +union with her; for that had been quite understood, and he had asked his +daughters and got their consent. The sight of Sir Purcell's corpse, and +the cries of Cornelia, must have turned him childish. I cannot conceive +a situation so harrowing as that of those poor children hearing their +father declare himself an impostor! a beggar! a peculator! He cried, +poor unhappy man, real tears! The truth was that his nerves suddenly +gave way. For, just before--only just before, he was smiling and talking +largely. He wished to go on his knees to every one of them, and kept +telling them of his love--the servants all awake and listening! and more +gossiping servants than the Poles always, by the most extraordinary +inadvertence, managed to get, you never heard of! Nothing would stop him +from humiliating himself! No one paid any attention to Mrs. Chump until +she started from her chair. They say that some of the servants who were +crying outside, positively were compelled to laugh when they heard her +first outbursts. And poor Mr. Pole confessed that he had touched her +money. He could not tell her how much. Fancy such a scene, with a dead +man in the house! Imagination almost refuses to conjure it up! Not to +dwell on it too long--for, I have never endured such a shock as it has +given me--Mrs. Chump left the house, and the next thing received from her +was a lawyer's letter. Business men say she is not to blame: women may +cherish their own opinion. But, oh, Miss Belloni! is it not terrible? +You are pale." + +Emilia behind what she felt for her friends, had a dim comprehension of +the meaning of their old disgust at Laura, during this narration. But, +hearing the word of pity, she did not stop to be critical. "Can you do +nothing for them?" she said abruptly. + +The thought in Laura's shocked grey eyes was, "They have done little +enough for you," i.e., toward making you a lady. "Oh!" she cried; "I can +you teach me what to do? I must be extremely delicate, and calculate +upon what they would accept from me. For--so I hear--they used to--and +may still--nourish a--what I called--silly--though not in unkindness-- +hostility to our family--me. And perhaps now natural delicacy may render +it difficult for them to..." + +In short, to accept an alms from Laura Tinley; so said her pleading look +for an interpretation. + +"You know Mr. Pericles," said Emilia, "he can do the mischief--can he +not? Stop him." + +Laura laughed. "One might almost say that you do not know him, Miss +Belloni. What is my influence? I have neither a voice, nor can I play +on any instrument. I would--indeed I will--do my best my utmost; only, +how even to introduce the subject to him? Are not you the person? He +speaks of you constantly. He has consulted doctors with regard to your +voice, and the only excuse, dear Miss Belloni, for my visit to you to- +day, is my desire that any misunderstanding between you may be cleared. +Because, I have just heard--Miss Belloni will forgive me!--the origin of +it; and tidings coming that you were in the neighbourhood, I thought-- +hoped that I might be the means of re-uniting two evidently destined to +be of essential service to one another. And really, life means that, +does it not?" + +Emilia was becoming more critical of this tone the more she listened. +She declared, her immediate willingness to meet Mr. Pericles. With +which, and Emilia's assurance that she would write, and herself make the +appointment, Laura retired, in high glee at the prospect of winning the +gratitude of the inscrutable millionaire. It was true that the absence +of any rivalry for the possession of the man took much of his sweetness +from him. She seemed to be plucking him from the hands of the dead, and +half recognized that victory over uncontesting rivals claps the laurel- +wreath rather rudely upon our heads. + +Emilia lost no time in running straight to Georgiana, who was busy at her +writing-desk. She related what she had just heard, ending breathlessly: +"Georgey! my dear! will you help them?" + +"In what possible way can I do so?" said Georgiana. To-morrow night we +shall have left England." + +"But to-day we are here." Emilia pressed a hand to her bosom: "my heart +feels hollow, and my friends cry out in it. I cannot let him suffer." +She looked into Georgiana's eyes. "Will you not help them?--they want +money." + +The lady reddened. "Is it not preposterous to suppose that I can offer +them assistance of such a kind?" + +"Not you," returned Emilia, sighing; and in an under-breath, "me--will +you lend it to me? Merthyr would. I shall repay it. I cannot tell what +fills me with this delight, but I know I am able to repay any sum. Two +thousand pounds would help them. I think--I think my voice has come +back." + +"Have you tried it?" said Georgiana, to produce a diversion from the +other topic. + +"No; but believe me when I tell you, it must be. I scarcely feel the +floor; no misery touches me. I am only sorry for my friends, not down on +the ground with them. Believe me! And I have been studying all this +while. I have not lost an hour. I would accept a part, and step on the +boards within a week, and be certain to succeed. I am just as willing to +go to the Conservatorio and submit to discipline. Only, dear friend, +believe me, that I ask for money now, because I am sure I can repay it. +I want to send it immediately, and then, good-bye to England." + +Georgiana closed her desk. She had been suspicious at first of another +sentiment in the background, but was now quite convinced of the +simplicity of Emilia's design. She said: "I will tell you exactly how I +am placed. I do not know, that under any circumstances, I could have +given into your hands so large a sum as this that you ask for. My +brother has a fortune; and I have also a little property. When I say my +brother has a fortune, he has the remains of one. All that has gone has +been devoted to relieve your countrymen, and further the interests he has +nearest at heart. What is left to him, I believe, he has now thrown into +the gulf. You have heard Lady Charlotte call him a fanatic." + +Emilia's lip quivered. + +"You must not blame her for that," Georgiana continued. "Lady Gosstre +thinks much the same. The world thinks with them. I love him, and prove +my love by trusting him, and wish to prove my love by aiding him, and +being always at hand to succour, as I should be now, but that I obeyed +his dearest wish in resting here to watch over you. I am his other self. +I have taught him to feel that; so that in his devotion to this cause he +may follow every impulse he has, and still there is his sister to fall +back on. My child! see what I have been doing. I have been calculating +here." Georgiana took a scroll from her desk, and laid it under Emilia's +eyes. "I have reckoned our expenses as far as Turin, and have only +consented to take Lady Gosstre's valet for courier, just to please her. +I know that he will make the cost double, and I feel like a miser about +money. If Merthyr is ruined, he will require every farthing that I have +for our common subsistence. Now do you understand? I can hardly put the +case more plainly. It is out of my power to do what you ask me to do." + +Emilia sighed lightly, and seemed not much cast down by the refusal. She +perceived that it was necessarily positive, and like all minds framed to +resolve to action, there was an instantaneous change of the current of +her thoughts in another direction. + +"Then, my darling, my one prayer!" she said. "Postpone our going for a +week. I will try to get help for them elsewhere." + +Georgiana was pleased by Emilia's manner of taking the rebuff; but it +required an altercation before she consented to this postponement; she +nodded her head finally in anger. + + + + +CHAPTER LVII + +By the park-gates that evening, Wilfrid received a letter from the hands +of Tracy Runningbrook. It said: "I am not able to see you now. When I +tell you that I will see you before I leave England, I insist upon your +believing me. I have no head for seeing anybody now. Emilia"--was the +simple signature, perused over and over again by this maddened lover, +under the flitting gate-lamp, after Tracy had left him. The coldness of +Emilia's name so briefly given, concentrated every fire in his heart. +What was it but miserable cowardice, he thought, that prevented him from +getting the peace poor Barrett had found? Intolerable anguish weakened +his limbs. He flung himself on a wayside bank, grovelling, to rise again +calm and quite ready for society, upon the proper application of the +clothes-brush. Indeed; he patted his shoulder and elbow to remove the +soil of his short contact with earth, and tried a cigar: but the first +taste of the smoke sickened his lips. Then he stood for a moment as a +man in a new world. This strange sensation of disgust with familiar +comforting habits, fixed him in perplexity, till a rushing of wild +thoughts and hopes from brain to heart, heart to brain, gave him insight, +and he perceived his state, and that for all he held to in our life he +was dependent upon another; which is virtually the curse of love. + +"And he passed along the road," adds the Philosopher, "a weaker man, a +stronger lover. Not that love should diminish manliness or gains by so +doing; but travelling to love by the ways of Sentiment, attaining to the +passion bit by bit, does full surely take from us the strength of our +nature, as if (which is probable) at every step we paid fee to move +forward. Wilfrid had just enough of the coin to pay his footing. He was +verily fining himself down. You are tempted to ask what the value of him +will be by the time that he turns out pure metal? I reply, something +considerable, if by great sacrifice he gets to truth--gets to that +oneness of feeling which is the truthful impulse. At last, he will stand +high above them that have not suffered. The rejection of his cigar." + +This wages too absurd. At the risk of breaking our partnership for ever, +I intervene. My Philosopher's meaning is plain, and, as usual, good; but +not even I, who have less reason to laugh at him than anybody, can +gravely accept the juxtaposition of suffering and cigars. And, moreover, +there is a little piece of action in store. + +Wilfrid had walked half way to Brookfield, when the longing to look upon +the Richford chamber-windows stirred so hotly within him that he returned +to the gates. He saw Captain Gambier issuing on horseback from under the +lamp. The captain remarked that it was a fine night, and prepared to +ride off, but Wilfrid requested him to dismount, and his voice had the +unmistakeable ring in it by which a man knows that there must be no +trifling. The captain leaned forward to look at him before he obeyed the +summons, All self-control had abandoned Wilfrid in the rage he felt at +Gambier's having seen Emilia, and the jealous suspicion that she had +failed to keep her appointment for the like reason. + +"Why do you come here?" he said, hoarsely. + +"By Jove! that's an odd question," said the captain, at once taking his +ground. + +"Am I to understand that you've been playing with my sister, as you do +with every other woman?" + +Captain Gambier murmured quietly, "Every other woman?" and smoothed his +horse's neck. "They're not so easily played with, my dear fellow. You +speak like a youngster." + +"I am the only protector of my sister's reputation," said Wilfrid, "and, +by heaven! if you have cast her over to be the common talk, you shall +meet me." + +The captain turned to his horse, saying, "Oh! Well!" Being mounted, he +observed: "My dear Pole, you might have sung out all you had to say. Go +to your sister, and if she complains of my behaviour, I'll meet you. Oh, +yes! I'll meet you; I have no objection to excitement. You're in the +hands of an infernally clever woman, who does me the honour to wish to +see my blood on the carpet, I believe; but if this is her scheme, it's +not worthy of her ability. She began pretty well. She arranged the +preliminaries capitally. Why, look here," he relinquished his ordinary +drawl; "I'll tell you something, which you may put down in my favour or +not--just as you like. That woman did her best to compromise your sister +with me on board the yacht. I can't tell you how, and won't. Of course, +I wouldn't if I could; but I have sense enough to admire a very charming +person, and I did the only honourable thing in my power. It's your +sister, my good fellow, who gave me my dismissal. We had a little common +sense conversation--in which she shines. I envy the man that marries +her, but she denies me such luck. There! if you want to shoot me for my +share in that transaction, I'll give you your chance: and if you do, my +dear Pole, either you must be a tremendous fool, or that woman's ten +times cleverer than I thought. You know where to find me. Good night." + +The captain gave heel to his horse, hearing no more. + +Adela confirmed to Wilfrid what Gambier had spoken; and that it was she +who had given him his dismissal. She called him by his name, "Augustus," +in a kindly tone, remarking, that Lady Charlotte had persecuted him +dreadfully. "Poor Augustus! his entire reputation for evil is owing to +her black paint-brush. There is no man so easily 'hooked,' as Mrs. +Bayruffle would say, as he, though he has but eight hundred a year: +barely enough to live on. It would have been cruel of me to keep him, +for if he is in love, it's with Emilia." + +Wilfrid here took upon himself to reproach her for a certain negligence +of worldly interests. She laughed and blushed with humorous +satisfaction; and, on second thoughts, he changed his opinion, telling +her that he wished he could win his freedom as she had done. + +"Wilfrid," she said suddenly, "will you persuade Cornelia not to wear +black?" + +"Yes, if you wish it," he replied. + +"You will, positively? Then listen, dear. I don't like the prospect of +your alliance with Lady Charlotte." + +Wilfrid could not repress a despondent shrug. + +"But you can get released," she cried; and ultimately counselled him: +"Mention the name of Lord Eltham before her once, when you are alone. +Watch the result. Only, don't be clumsy. But I need not tell you that." + +For hours he cudgelled his brains to know why she desired Cornelia not to +wear black, and when the light broke in on him he laughed like a jolly +youth for an instant. The reason why was in a web so complicated, that, +to have divined what hung on Cornelia's wearing of black, showed a rare +sagacity and perception of character on the little lady's part. As +thus:--Sir Twickenham Pryme is the most sensitive of men to ridicule and +vulgar tattle: he has continued to visit the house, learning by degrees +to prefer me, but still too chivalrous to withdraw his claim to Cornelia, +notwithstanding that he has seen indications of her not too absolute +devotion towards him:--I have let him become aware that I have broken +with Captain Gambier (whose income is eight hundred a year merely), for +the sake of a higher attachment: now, since the catastrophe, he can with +ease make it appear to the world that I was his choice from the first, +seeing that Cornelia will assuredly make no manner of objection:--but, if +she, with foolish sentimental persistence, assumes the garb of sorrow, +then Sir Twickenham's ears will tingle; he will retire altogether; he +will not dare to place himself in a position which will lend a colour to +the gossip, that jilted by one sister, he flew for consolation to the +other; jilted, too, for the mere memory of a dead man! an additional +insult! + +Exquisite intricacy! Wilfrid worked through all the intervolutions, and +nearly forgot his wretchedness in admiration of his sister's mental +endowments. He was the more willing to magnify them, inasmuch as he +thereby strengthened his hope that liberty would follow the speaking of +the talismanic name of Eltham to Lady Charlotte, alone. He had come to +look upon her as the real barrier between himself and Emilia. + +"I think we have brains," he said softly, on his pillow, upon a review of +the beggared aspect of his family; and he went to sleep with a smile on +his face. + + + + +CHAPTER LVIII + +A sharp breath of air had passed along the dews, and all the young green +of the fresh season shone in white jewels. The sky, set with very dim +distant stars, was in grey light round a small brilliant moon. Every +space of earth lifted clear to her; the woodland listened; and in the +bright silence the nightingales sang loud. + +Emilia and Tracy Runningbrook were threading their way toward a lane over +which great oak branches intervolved; thence under larches all with +glittering sleeves, and among spiky brambles, with the purple leaf and +the crimson frosted. The frost on the edges of the brown-leaved bracken +gave a faint colour. Here and there, intense silver dazzled their eyes. +As they advanced amid the icy hush, so hard and instant was the ring of +the earth under them, their steps sounded as if expected. + +"This night seems made for me!" said Emilia. + +Tracy had no knowledge of the object of the expedition. He was her +squire simply; had pitched on a sudden into an enamoured condition, and +walked beside her, caring little whither he was led, so that she left him +not. + +They came upon a clearing in the wood where a tournament of knights might +have been held. Ranged on two sides were rows of larches, and forward, +fit to plume a dais, a clump of tall firs stood with a flowing silver fir +to right and left, and the white stems of the birch-tree shining from +among them. This fair woodland court had three broad oaks, as for +gateways; and the moon was above it. Moss and the frosted brown fern +were its flooring. + +Emilia said eagerly, "This way," and ran under one of the oaks. She +turned to Tracy following: "There is no doubt of it." Her hand was lying +softly on her throat. + +"Your voice?" Tracy divined her. + +She nodded, but frowned lovingly at the shout he raised, and he +understood that there was haply some plot to be worked out. The open +space was quite luminous in the middle of those three deep walls of +shadow. Emilia enjoined him to rest where he was, and wait for her on +that spot like a faithful sentinel, whatsoever ensued. Coaxing his +promise, she entered the square of white light alone. Presently she +stood upon a low mound, so that her whole figure was distinct, while the +moon made her features visible. + +Expectancy sharpened the stillness to Tracy's ears. A nightingale began +the charm. He was answered by another. Many were soon in song, till +even the pauses were sweet with them. Tracy had the thought that they +were calling for Emilia to commence; that it was nature preluding the +divine human voice, weaving her spell for it. He was seized by a thirst +to hear the adorable girl, who stood there patiently, with her face +lifted soft in moonlight. And then the blood thrilled along his veins, +as if one more than mortal had touched him. It seemed to him long before +he knew that Emilia's voice was in the air. + +In such a place, at such a time, there is no wizardry like a woman's +voice. Emilia had gained in force and fulness. She sang with a stately +fervour, letting the notes flow from her breast, while both her arms hung +loose, and not a gesture escaped her. Tracy's fiery imagination set him +throbbing, as to the voice of the verified spirit of the place. He heard +nothing but Emilia, and scarce felt that it was she, or that tears were +on his eyelids, till her voice sank richly, deep into the bosom of the +woods. Then the stillness, like one folding up a precious jewel, seemed +to pant audibly. + +"She's not alone!" This was human speech at his elbow, uttered in some +stupefied amazement. In an extremity of wrath, Tracy turned about to +curse the intruder, and discerned Wilfrid, eagerly bent forward on the +other side of the oak by which he leaned. Advancing toward Emilia, two +figures were seen. Mr. Pericles in his bearskin was easily to be +distinguished. His companion was Laura Tinley. The Greek moved at rapid +strides, and coming near upon Emilia, raised his hands as in exclamation. +At once he disencumbered his shoulders of the enormous wrapper, held it +aloft imperiously, and by main force extinguished Emilia. Laura's shrill +laugh resounded. + +"Oh! beastly bathos!" Tracy groaned in his heart. "Here we are down in +Avernus in a twinkling!" + +There was evidently quick talk going on among the three, after which +Emilia, heavily weighted, walked a little apart with Mr. Pericles, who +looked lean and lank beside her, and gesticulated in his wildest manner. +Tracy glanced about for Wilfrid. The latter was not visible, but, +stepping up the bank of sand and moss, appeared a lady in shawl and hat, +in whom he recognized Lady Charlotte. He went up to her and saluted. + +"Ah! Tracy," she said. "I saw you leave the drawing room, and expected +to find you here. So, the little woman has got her voice again; but why +on earth couldn't she make the display at Richford? It's very pretty, +and I dare say you highly approve of this kind of romantic interlude, +Signor Poet, but it strikes me as being rather senseless." + +"But, are you alone? What on earth brings you here?" asked Tracy. + +"Oh!" the lady shrugged. "I've a guard to the rear. I told her I would +come. She said I should hear something to-night, if I did. I fancied +naturally the appointment had to do with her voice, and wished to please +her. It's only five minutes from the west-postern of the park. Is she +going to sing any more? There's company apparently. Shall we go and +declare ourselves?" + +"I'm on duty, and can't," replied Tracy, and twisting his body in an +ecstasy, added: "Did you hear her?" + +Lady Charlotte laughed softly. "You speak as if you had taken a hurt, my +dear boy. This sort of scene is dangerous to poets. But, I thought you +slighted music." + +"I don't know whether I'm breathing yet," Tracy rejoined. She's a +Goddess to me from this moment. Not like music? Am I a dolt? She would +raise me from the dead, if she sang over me. Put me in a boat, and let +her sing on, and all may end! I could die into colour, hearing her! +That's the voice they hear in heaven." + +"When they are good, I suppose," the irreverent lady appended. "What's +that?" And she held her head to listen. + +Emilia's mortal tones were calling Wilfrid's name. The lady became +grave, as with keen eyes she watched the open space, and to a second call +Wilfrid presented himself in a leisurely way from under cover of the +trees; stepping into the square towards the three, as one equal to all +occasions, and specially prepared for this. He was observed to bow to +Mr. Pericles, and the two men extended hands, Laura Tinley standing +decently away from them. + +Lady Charlotte could not contain her mystification. "What does it mean?" +she said. "Wilfrid was to be in town at the Ambassador's to-night! He +wrote to me at five o'clock from his Club! Is he insane? Has he lost +every sense of self-interest? He can't have made up his mind to miss his +opportunity, when all the introductions are there! Run, like a good +creature, Tracy, and see if that is Wilfrid, and come back and tell me; +but don't sag I am here." + +"Desert my post?" Tracy hugged his arms tight together. "Not if I +freeze here!" + +The doubt in Lady Charlotte's eyes was transient. She dropped her glass. +Visible adieux were being waved between Mr. Pericles and Laura Tinley on +the one hand, and Wilfrid and Emilia, on the other. After which, and at +a quick pace, manifestly shivering, Mr. Pericles drew Laura into the +shadows, and Emilia, clad in the immense bearskin, as with a trailing +black barbaric robe, walked toward the oaks. Wilfrid's head was stooped +to a level with Emilia's, into whose face he was looking obliviously, +while the hot words sprang from his lips. They neared the oak, and +Emilia slanted her direction, so as to avoid the neighbourhood of the +tree. Tracy felt a sudden grasp of his arm. It was momentary, coming +simultaneously with a burst of Wilfrid's voice. + +"Do I know what I love, you ask? I love your footprints! Everything you +have touched is like fire to me. Emilia! Emilia!" + +"Then," came the clear reply, "you do not love Lady Charlotte?" + +"Love her!" he shouted scornfully, and subdued his voice to add: "she has +a good heart, and whatever scandal is talked of her and Lord Eltham, she +is a well-meaning friend. But, love her! You, you I love!" + +"Theatrical business," Lady Charlotte murmured, and imagined she had +expected it when she promised Emilia she would step out into the night +air, as possibly she had. + +The lady walked straight up to them. + +"Well, little one!" she addressed Emilia; "I am glad you have recovered +your voice. You play the game of tit-for-tat remarkably well. We will +now sheath our battledores. There is my hand." + +The unconquerable aplomb in Lady Charlotte, which Wilfrid always +artistically admired, and which always mastered him; the sight of her +pale face and courageous eyes; and her choice of the moment to come +forward and declare her presence;--all fell upon the furnace of Wilfrid's +heart like a quenching flood. In a stupefaction, he confessed to himself +that he could say actually nothing. He could hardly look up. + +Emilia turned her eyes from the outstretched hand, to the lady's face. + +"What will it mean?" she said. + +"That we are quits, I presume; and that we bear no malice. At any rate, +that I relinquish the field. I like a hand that can deal a good stroke. +I conceived you to be a mere little romantic person, and correct my +mistake. You win the prize, you see." + +"You would have made him an Austrian, and he is now safe from that. I +win nothing more," said Emilia. + +When Tracy and Emilia stood alone, he cried out in a rapture of praise, +"Now I know what a power you have. You may bid me live or die." + +The recent scene concerned chiefly the actors who had moved onward: it +had touched Emilia but lightly, and him not at all. But, while he +magnified the glory of her singing, the imperishable note she had sounded +this night, and the power and the triumph that would be hers, Emilia's +bosom began to heave, and she checked him with a storm of tears. +"Triumph! yes! what is this I have done? Oh, Merthyr, my, true hero! He +praises me and knows nothing of how false I have been to you. I am a +slave! I have sold myself--sold myself!" She dropped her face in her +hands, broken with grief. "He fights," she pursued; "he fights for my +country. I feel his blood--it seems to run from my body as it runs from +his. Not if he is dying--I dare not go to him if he is dying! I am in +chains. I have sworn it for money. See what a different man Merthyr is +from any on earth! Would he shoot himself for a woman? Would he grow +meaner the more he loved her? My hero! my hero! and Tracy, my friend! +what is my grief now? Merthyr is my hero, but I hear him--I hear him +speaking it into my ears with his own lips, that I do not love him. And +it is true. I never should have sold myself for three weary years away +from him, if I had loved him. I know it now it is done. I thought more +of my poor friends and Wilfrid, than of Merthyr, who bleeds for my +country! And he will not spurn me when we meet. Yes, if he lives, he +will come to me gentle as a ghost that has seen God!" + +She abandoned herself to weeping. Tracy, in a tender reverence for one +who could speak such solemn matter spontaneously, supported her, and felt +her tears as a rain of flame on his heart. + +The nightingales were mute. Not a sound was heard from bough or brake. + + + + +CHAPTER LIX + +A wreck from the last Lombard revolt landed upon our shores in June. His +right arm was in a sling, and his Italian servant following him, kept +close by his side, with a ready hand, as if fearing that at any moment +the wounded gentleman's steps might fail. There was no public war going +on just then: for which reason he was eyed suspiciously by the rest of +the passengers making their way up the beach; who seemed to entertain an +impression that he had no business at such a moment to be crippled, and +might be put down as one of those foreign fools who stand out for a +trifle as targets to fools a little luckier than themselves. Here, +within our salt girdle, flourishes common sense. We cherish life; we +abhor bloodshed; we have no sympathy with your juvenile points of honour: +we are, in short, a civilized people; and seeing that Success has made us +what we are, we advise other nations to succeed, or be quiet. Of all of +which the gravely-smiling gentleman appeared well aware; for, with an eye +that courted none, and a perfectly calm face, he passed through the +crowd, only once availing himself of his brown-faced Beppo's +spontaneously depressed shoulder when a twinge of pain shooting from his +torn foot took his strength away. While he remained in sight, some +speculation as to his nationality continued: he had been heard to speak +nothing but Italian, and yet the flower of English cultivation was +signally manifest in his style and bearing. The purchase of that day's +journal, giving information that the Lombard revolt was fully, it was +thought finally, crushed out, and the insurgents scattered, hanged, or +shot, suggested to a young lady in a group melancholy with luggage, that +the wounded gentleman was one who had escaped from the Austrians. + +"Only, he is English." + +"If he is, he deserves what he's got." + +A stout Briton delivered this sentence, and gave in addition. a sermon +on meddling, short, emphatic, and not uncheerful apparently, if estimated +by the hearty laugh that closed it; though a lady remarked, "Oh, dear me! +You are very sweeping." + +"By George! ma'am," cried the Briton, holding out his newspaper, "here's +a leader on the identical subject, with all my views in it! Yes! those +Italians are absurd: they never were a people: never agreed. Egad! the +only place they're fit for is the stage. Art! if you like. They know +all about colouring canvas, and sculpturing. I don't deny 'em their +merits, and I don't mind listening to their squalling, now and then: +though, I'll tell you what: have you ever noticed the calves of those +singers?--I mean, the men. Perhaps not--for they' ve got none. They're +sticks, not legs. Who can think much of fellows with such legs? Now, +the next time you go to the Italian Opera, notice 'em. Ha! ha!--well, +that would sound queer, told at secondhand; but, just look at their legs, +ma'am, and ask yourself whether there's much chance for a country that +stands on legs like those! Let them paint, and carve blocks, and sing. +They're not fit for much else, as far as I can see." + +Thus, in the pride of his manliness, the male Briton. A shrill cry drew +the attention of this group once more to the person who had just kindly +furnished a topic. He had been met on his way by a lady unmistakeably +foreign in her appearance. "Marini!" was the word of the cry; and the +lady stood with her head bent and her hands stiffened rigidly. + +"Lost her husband, I dare say!" the Briton murmured. "Perhaps he's one +of the 'hanged, or shot,' in the list here Hanged! shot! Ask those +Austrians to be merciful, and that's their reply. Why, good God! it's +like the grunt of a savage beast! Hanged! shot!--count how many for one +day's work! Ten at Verona; fifteen at Mantua; five--there, stop! If we +enter into another alliance with those infernal ruffians!--if they're not +branded in the face of Europe as inhuman butchers! if I--by George! if I +were an Italian I'd handle a musket myself, and think great guns +the finest music going. Mind, if there's a subscription for the widows +of these poor fellows, I put down my name; so shall my wife, so shall my +daughters, so we will all, down to the baby!" + +Merthyr's name was shouted first on his return to England by Mrs. Chump. +He was waiting on the platform of the London station for the train to +take him to Richford, when, "Oh! Mr. Pow's, Mr. Pow's!" resounded, and +Mrs. Chump fluttered before him. She was on her way to Brookfield, she +said; and it was, she added, her firm belief that heaven had sent him to +her sad, not deeming "that poor creature, Mr. Braintop, there, sufficient +for the purpose. For what I've got to go through, among them at +Brookfield, Mr. Pow's, it's perf'ctly awful. Mr. Braintop," she turned +to the youth, "you may go now. And don't go takin' ship and sailin' for +Italy after the little Belloni, for ye haven't a chance--poor fella! +though he combs 's hair so careful, Mr. Pow's, and ye might almost laugh +and cry together to see how humble he is, and audacious too--all in a +lump. For, when little Belloni was in the ship, ye know, and she +thinkin', 'not one of my friends near to wave a handkerchief!' behold, +there's that boy Braintop just as by maguc, and he wavin' his best, which +is a cambric, and a present from myself, and precious wet that night, ye +might swear; for the quiet lovers, Mr. Pow's, they cry, they do, +buckutsful!" + +"And is Miss Belloni gone?" said Merthyr, looking steadily for answer. + +"To be sure, sir, she has; but have ye got a squeak of pain? Oh, dear! +it makes my blood creep to see a man who's been where there's been firing +of shots in a temper. Ye're vary pale, sir." + +"She went--on what day?" asked Merthyr. + +"Oh! I can't poss'bly tell ye that, Mr. Pow's, havin' affairs of my own +most urrgent. But, Mr. Paricles has got her at last. That's certain. +Gall'ns of tears has poor Mr. Braintop cried over it, bein' one of the +mew-in-a-corner sort of young men, ye know, what never win the garl, but +cry enough to float her and the lucky fella too, and off they go, and he +left on the shore." + +Merthyr looked impatiently out of the window. His wounds throbbed and +his forehead was moist. + +"With Mr. Pericles?" he queried, while Mrs. Chump was giving him the +reasons for the immediate visit to Brookfield. + +"They're cap'tal friends again, ye know, Mr. Pow's, Mr. Paricles and +Pole; and Pole's quite set up, and yesterday mornin' sends me two +thousand pounds--not a penny less! and ye'll believe me, I was in a stiff +gape for five minutes when Mr. Braintop shows the money. What a +temptation for the young man! But Pole didn't know his love for little +Belloni." + +"Has she no one with her?" Merthyr seized the opportunity of her name +being pronounced to get clear tidings of her, if possible. + +"Oh, dear, yes, Mr. Paricles is with her," returned Mrs. Chump. "And, as +I was sayin', sir, two thousand pounds! I ran off to my lawyer; for, +it'll seem odd to ye, now, Mr. Pow's, that know my 'ffection for the +Poles, poor dears, I'd an action against 'em. 'Stop ut,' I cries out to +the man: if he'd been one o' them that wears a wig, I couldn't ha' spoken +so--'Stop ut,' I cries, not a bit afraid of 'm. I wouldn't let the man +go on, for all I want to know is, that I'm not rrooned. And now I've got +money, I must have friends; for when I hadn't, ye know, my friends seemed +against me, and now I have, it's the world that does, where'll I hide it? +Oh, dear! now I'm with you, I don't mind, though this brown-faced +forr'ner servant of yours, he gives me shivers. Can he understand +English?--becas I've got ut all in my pockut!" + +Merthyr sighed wearily for release. At last the train slackened speed, +and the well-known fir-country appeared in sight. Mrs. Chump caught him +by the arm as he prepared to alight. "Oh! and are ye goin' to let me +face the Poles without anyone to lean on in that awful moment, and no one +to bear witness how kind I've spoken of 'em. Mr. Pow's! will ye prove +that you're a blessed angel, sir, and come, just for five minutes--which +is a short time to do a thing for a woman she'll never forget." + +"Pray spare me, madam," Merthyr pleaded. "I have much to learn at +Richford." + +"I cann't spare ye, sir," cried Mrs. Chump. "I cann't go before that +fam'ly quite alone. They're a tarr'ble fam'ly. Oh! I'll be goin' on my +knees to ye, Mr. Pow's. Weren't ye sent by heaven now? And you to run +away! And if you're woundud, won't I have a carr'ge from the station, +which'll be grander to go in, and impose on 'em, ye know. Pray, sir! I +entreat ye!" + +The tears burst from her eyes, and her hot hand clung to his imploringly. + +Merthyr was a witness of the return of Mrs. Chump to Brookfield. In that +erewhile abode of Fine Shades, the Nice Feelings had foundered. The +circle of a year, beginning so fairly for them, enfolded the ladies and +their first great scheme of life. Emilia had been a touchstone to this +family. They could not know it in their deep affliction, but in manger +they had much improved. Their welcome of Mrs. Chump was an admirable +seasoning of stateliness with kindness. Cornelia and Arabella took her +hand, listening with an incomparable soft smile to her first +protestations, which they quieted, and then led her to Mr. Pole; of whom +it may be said, that an accomplished coquette could not in his situation +have behaved with a finer skill; so that, albeit received back into the +house, Mrs. Chump had yet to discover what her footing there was to be, +and trembled like the meanest of culprits. Mr. Pole shook her hand +warmly, tenderly, almost tearfully, and said to the melted woman: "You're +right, Martha; it's much better for us to examine accounts in a friendly +way, than to have strangers and lawyers, and what not--people who can't +possibly know the whole history, don't you see--meddling and making a +scandal; and I'm much obliged to you for coming." + +Vainly Mrs. Chump employed alternately innuendo and outcry to make him +perceive that her coming involved a softer business, and that to money, +she having it now, she gave not a thought. He assured her that in future +she must; that such was his express desire; that it was her duty to +herself and others. And while saying this, which seemed to indicate that +widowhood would be her state as far as he was concerned, he pressed her +hand with extreme sweetness, and his bird's-eyes twinkled obligingly. It +is to be feared that Mr. Pole had passed the age of improvement, save in +his peculiar art. After a time Nature stops, and says to us 'thou art +now what thou wilt be.' + +Cornelia was in black from neck to foot. She joined the conversation as +the others did, and indeed more flowingly than Adela, whose visage was +soured. It was Cornelia to whom Merthyr explained his temporary +subjection to the piteous appeals of Mrs. Chump. She smiled humorously +to reassure him of her perfect comprehension of the apology for his +visit, and of his welcome: and they talked, argued a little, differed,, +until the terrible thought that he talked, and even looked like some one +else, drew the blood from her lips, and robbed her pulses of their play. +She spoke of Emilia, saying plainly and humbly: "All we have is owing to +her." Arabella spoke of Emilia likewise, but with a shade of the +foregone tone of patronage. "She will always be our dear little sister." +Adela continued silent, as with ears awake for the opening of a door. +Was it in ever-thwarted anticipation of the coming of Sir Twickenham? + +Merthyr's inquiry after Wilfrid produced a momentary hesitation on +Cornelia's Part--"He has gone to Verona. We have an uncle in the +Austrian service," she said; and Merthyr bowed. + +What was this tale of Emilia, that grew more and more perplexing as he +heard it bit by bit? The explanation awaited him at Richford. There, +when Georgiana had clasped her brother in one last jealous embrace, she +gave him the following letter straightway, to save him, haply, from the +false shame of that eager demand for one, which she saw ready to leap to +words in his eyes. He read it, sitting in the Richford library alone, +while the great rhododendron bloomed outside, above the shaven sunny +sward, looking like a monstrous tropic bird alighted to brood an hour in +full sunlight. + +"My Friend!" + +"I would say my Beloved! I will not write it, for it would be false. I +have read of the defeat. Why was a battle risked at that cruel place! +Here are we to be again for so many years before we can win God to be on +our side! And I--do you not know? we used to talk of it!--I never can +think it the Devil who has got the upper hand. What succeeds, I always +think should succeed--was meant to, because the sky looks clear over it. +This knocks a blow at my heart and keeps it silent and only just beating. +I feel that you are safe. That, I am thankful for. If you were not, God +would warn me, and not let me mock him with thanks when I pray. I pray +till my eyelids burn, on purpose to get a warning if there is any black +messenger to be sent to me. I do not believe it. + +"For three years I am a prisoner. I go to the Conservatorio in Milan +with Mr. Pericles, and my poor little mother, who cries, asking me where +she will be among such a people, until I wonder she should be my mother. +My voice has returned. Oh, Merthyr! my dear, calm friend! to keep +calling you friend, and friend, puts me to sleep softly!--Yes, I have my +voice. I felt I had it, like some one in a room with us when we will not +open our eyes. There was misery everywhere, and yet I was glad. I kept +it secret. I began to feel myself above the world. I dreamed of what I +would do for everybody. I thought of you least! I tell you so, and take +a scourge and scourge myself, for it is true that in her new joy this +miserable creature that I am thought of you least. Now I have the +punishment! + +"My friend! the Poles were at the mercy of Mr. Pericles: Wilfrid had +struck him: Mr. Pericles was angry and full of mischief. Those dear +people had been kind to me, and I heard they were poor. I felt money in +my breast, in my throat, that only wanted coining. I went to Georgiana, +and oh! how truly she proved to me that she loves you better than I do. +She refused to part with money that you might soon want. I laid a scheme +for Mr. Pericles to hear me sing. He heard me, and my scheme succeeded. +If Italy knew as well as I, she would never let her voice be heard till +she is sure of it:--Yes! from foot to head, I knew it was impossible to +fail. If a country means to be free, the fire must run through it and +make it feel that certainty. Then--away the whitecoat! I sang, and the +man twisted, as if I had bent him in my hand. He rushed to me, and +offered me any terms I pleased, if for three years I would go to the +Conservatorio at Milan, and learn submissively. It is a little grief to +me that I think this man loves music more deeply than I do. In the two +things I love best, the love of others exceeds mine. I named a sum of +money--immense! and I desired that Mr. Pericles should assist Mr. Pole in +his business. He consented at once to everything. The next day he gave +me the money, and I signed my name and pledged my honour to an +engagement. My friends were relieved. + +"It was then I began to think of you. I had not to study the matter long +to learn that I did not love you: and I will not trust my own feelings as +they come to me now. I judge myself by my acts, or, Merthyr! I should +sink to the ground like a dead body when I think of separation from you +for three years. But, what am I? I am a raw girl. I command nothing +but raw and flighty hearts of men. Are they worth anything? Let me +study three years, without any talk of hearts at all. It commenced too +early, and has left nothing to me but a dreadful knowledge of the +weakness in most people:--not in you! + +"If I might call you my Beloved! and so chain myself to you, I think I +should have all your firmness and double my strength. I will not; for I +will not have what I do not deserve. I think of you reading this, till I +try to get to you; my heart is like a bird caught in the hands of a cruel +boy. By what I have done I know I do not love you. Must we half-despise +a man to love him? May no dear woman that I know ever marry the man she +first loves! My misery now is gladness, is like rain-drops on rising +wings, if I say to myself 'Free! free, Emilia!' I am bound for three +years, but I smile at such a bondage to my body. Evviva! my soul is +free! Three years of freedom, and no sounding of myself--three years of +growing, and studying; three years of idle heart!--Merthyr! I throb to +think that those three years--true man! my hero, I may call you!--those +three years may make me worthy of you. And if you have given all to +Italy, that a daughter of Italy should help to return it, seems, my +friend, so tenderly sweet--here is the first drop from my eyes! + +"I would break what you call a Sentiment: I broke my word to Wilfrid. +But this sight of money has a meaning that I cannot conquer. I know you +would not wish me to for your own pleasure; and therefore I go. I hope +to be growing; I fly like a seed to Italy. Let me drill, and take sharp +words, and fret at trifles! I lift my face to that prospect as if I +smelt new air. I am changeing--I have no dreams of Italy, no longings, +but go to see her like a machine ready to do my work. Whoever speaks to +me, I feel that I look at them and know them. I see the faults of my +country--Oh, beloved Breseians! not yours, Florentines! nor yours, dear +Venice! We will be silent when they speak of the Milanese, till Italy +can say to them, 'That conduct is not Italian, my children.' I see the +faults. Nothing vexes me. + +"Addio! My friend, we will speak English in dear England! Tell all that +I shall never forget England! My English Merthyr! the blood you have +shed is not for a woman. The blood that you have shed, laurels spring +from it! For a woman, the blood spilt is sickly and poor, and nourishes +nothing. I shudder at the thought of one we knew. He makes Love seem +like a yellow light over a plague-spotted city, like a painting I have +seen. Goodbye to the name of Love for three years! My engagement to Mr. +Pericles is that I am not to write, not to receive letters. To you I say +now, trust me for three years! Merthyr's answer is already in my bosom. +Beloved!--let me say it once--when the answer to any noble thing I might +ask of you is in my bosom instantly, is not that as much as marriage? +But be under no deception. See me as I am. Oh, good-bye! good-bye! +Good-bye to you! Good-bye to England! + + "I am, + + "Most humbly and affectionately, + "Your friend, + "And her daughter by the mother's side, + + "Emilia Alessandra Belloni." + + + + +ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS: + +A plunge into the deep is of little moment +And he passed along the road, adds the Philosopher +It was as if she had been eyeing a golden door shut fast +My engagement to Mr. Pericles is that I am not to write +Man who beats his wife my first question is, 'Do he take his tea?' +Oh! beastly bathos +On a wild April morning +Once my love? said he. Not now?--does it mean, not now? +So it is when you play at Life! When you will not go straight +To know that you are in England, breathing the same air with me +We are, in short, a civilized people +We have now looked into the hazy interior of their systems +What was this tale of Emilia, that grew more and more perplexing + + + + +End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of Sandra Belloni, v7 +by George Meredith + diff --git a/4419.zip b/4419.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..18b332f --- /dev/null +++ b/4419.zip diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. 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