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diff --git a/4476-0.txt b/4476-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d27e7fc --- /dev/null +++ b/4476-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,17811 @@ +Project Gutenberg’s One of Our Conquerors, Complete, by George Meredith + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: One of Our Conquerors, Complete + +Author: George Meredith + +Release Date: October 13, 2006 [EBook #4476] +Last Updated: August 25, 2016 + + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ONE OF OUR CONQUERORS, COMPLETE *** + + + +Produced by David Widger + + + + + +ONE OF OUR CONQUERORS, Complete + +By George Meredith + + +1897 + + + + +CONTENTS: + + + BOOK 1. + I. ACROSS LONDON BRIDGE + II. THROUGH THE VAGUE TO THE INFINITELY LITTLE + III. OLD VEUVE + IV. THE SECOND BOTTLE + V. THE LONDON WALK WESTWARD + VI. NATALY + VII. BETWEEN A GENERAL MAN OF THE WORLD AND A PROFESSIONAL + VIII. SOME FAMILIAR GUESTS. + IX. AN INSPECTION OF LAKELANDS + X. SKEPSEY IN MOTION + XI. WHEREIN WE BEHOLD THE COUPLE JUSTIFIED OF LOVE HAVING SIGHT OF + THEIR SCOURGE + + BOOK 2. + XII. TREATS OF THE DUMBNESS POSSIBLE WITH MEMBERS OF A HOUSEHOLD + HAVING ONE HEART + XIII. THE LATEST OF MRS. BURMAN + XIV. DISCLOSES A STAGE ON THE DRIVE TO PARIS + XV. A PATRIOT ABROAD + XVI. ACCOUNTS FOR SKEPSEY’S MISCONDUCT, SHOWING HOW IT AFFECTED + NATALY + XVII. CHIEFLY UPON THE THEME OF A YOUNG MAID’S IMAGININGS + XVIII. SUITORS FOR THE HAND OF NESTA VICTORIA + + BOOK 3. + XIX. TREATS OF NATURE AND CIRCUMSTANCE AND THE DISSENSION BETWEEN + THEM AND OF A SATIRIST’S MALIGNITY IN THE DIRECTION OF HIS + COUNTRY + XX. THE GREAT ASSEMBLY AT LAKELAND + XXI. DARTREY FENELLAN + XXII. CONCERNS THE INTRUSION OF JARNIMAN + XXIII. TREATS OF THE LADIES’ LAPDOG TASSO FOR AN INSTANCE OF MOMENTOUS + EFFECTS PRODUCED BY VERY MINOR CAUSES + XXIV. NESTA’S ENGAGEMENT + + BOOK 4. + XXV. NATALY IN ACTION + XXVI. IN WHICH WE SEE A CONVENTIONAL GENTLE MAN ENDEAVOURING TO + EXAMINE A SPECTRE OF HIMSELF + XXVII. CONTAINS WHAT IS A SMALL THING OR A GREAT, AS THE SOUL OF THE + CHIEF ACTOR MAY DECIDE + XXVIII. MRS. MARSETT + XXIX. SHOWS ONE OF THE SHADOWS OF THE WORLD CROSSING A VIRGIN’S MIND + XXX. THE BURDEN UPON NESTA + XXXI. SHOWS HOW THE SQUIRES IN A CONQUEROR’S SERVICE HAVE AT TIMES TO + DO KNIGHTLY CONQUEST OF THEMSELVES + XXXII. SHOWS HOW TEMPER MAY KINDLE TEMPER AND AN INDIGNANT WOMAN GET + HER WEAPON + XXXIII. A PAIR OF WOOERS + XXXIV. CONTAINS DEEDS UNRELATED AND EXPOSITIONS OF FEELINGS + XXXV. IN WHICH AGAIN WE MAKE USE OF THE OLD LAMPS FOR LIGHTING AN + ABYSMAL DARKNESS + + BOOK 5. + XXXVI. NESTA AND HER FATHER + XXXVII. THE MOTHER--THE DAUGHTER + XXXVIII. NATALY, NESTA, AND DARTREY FENELLAN + XXXIX. A CHAPTER IN THE SHADOW OF MRS. MARSETT + XL. AN EXPIATION + XLI. THE NIGHT OF THE GREAT UNDELIVERED SPEECH + XLII. THE LAST + + + + + +CHAPTER I. ACROSS LONDON BRIDGE + +A gentleman, noteworthy for a lively countenance and a waistcoat to +match it, crossing London Bridge at noon on a gusty April day, was +almost magically detached from his conflict with the gale by some sly +strip of slipperiness, abounding in that conduit of the markets, which +had more or less adroitly performed the trick upon preceding passengers, +and now laid this one flat amid the shuffle of feet, peaceful for the +moment as the uncomplaining who have gone to Sabrina beneath the tides. +He was unhurt, quite sound, merely astonished, he remarked, in reply to +the inquiries of the first kind helper at his elbow; and it appeared an +acceptable statement of his condition. He laughed, shook his coat-tails, +smoothed the back of his head rather thoughtfully, thankfully received +his runaway hat, nodded bright beams to right and left, and making light +of the muddy stigmas imprinted by the pavement, he scattered another +shower of his nods and smiles around, to signify, that as his good +friends would wish, he thoroughly felt his legs and could walk unaided. +And he was in the act of doing it, questioning his familiar behind +the waistcoat amazedly, to tell him how such a misadventure could have +occurred to him of all men, when a glance below his chin discomposed his +outward face. ‘Oh, confound the fellow!’ he said, with simple frankness, +and was humorously ruffled, having seen absurd blots of smutty knuckles +distributed over the maiden waistcoat. + +His outcry was no more than the confidential communication of a genial +spirit with that distinctive article of his attire. At the same time, +for these friendly people about him to share the fun of the annoyance, +he looked hastily brightly back, seeming with the contraction of his +brows to frown, on the little band of observant Samaritans; in the +centre of whom a man who knew himself honourably unclean, perhaps +consequently a bit of a political jewel, hearing one of their number +confounded for his pains, and by the wearer of a superfine dashing-white +waistcoat, was moved to take notice of the total deficiency of gratitude +in this kind of gentleman’s look and pocket. If we ask for nothing for +helping gentlemen to stand upright on their legs, and get it, we expect +civility into the bargain. Moreover, there are reasons in nature why we +choose to give sign of a particular surliness when our wealthy superiors +would have us think their condescending grins are cordials. + +The gentleman’s eyes were followed on a second hurried downward grimace, +the necessitated wrinkles of which could be stretched by malevolence to +a semblance of haughty disgust; reminding us, through our readings in +journals, of the wicked overblown Prince Regent and his Court, together +with the view taken of honest labour in the mind of supercilious +luxury, even if indebted to it freshly for a trifle; and the hoar-headed +nineteenth-century billow of democratic ire craved the word to be set +swelling. + +‘Am I the fellow you mean, sir?’ the man said. + +He was answered, not ungraciously: ‘All right, my man.’ + +But the balance of our public equanimity is prone to violent antic +bobbings on occasions when, for example, an ostentatious garment shall +appear disdainful our class and ourself, and coin of the realm has not +usurped command of one of the scales: thus a fairly pleasant answer, +cast in persuasive features, provoked the retort: + +‘There you’re wrong; nor wouldn’t be.’ + +‘What’s that?’ was the gentleman’s musical inquiry. + +‘That’s flat, as you was half a minute ago,’ the man rejoined. + +‘Ah, well, don’t be impudent,’ the gentleman said, by way of amiable +remonstrance before a parting. + +‘And none of your dam punctilio,’ said the man. + +Their exchange rattled smartly, without a direct hostility, and the +gentleman stepped forward. + +It was observed in the crowd, that after a few paces he put two fingers +on the back of his head. + +They might suppose him to be condoling with his recent mishap. But, +in fact, a thing had occurred to vex him more than a descent upon the +pavement or damage to his waistcoat’s whiteness: he abominated the +thought of an altercation with a member of the mob; he found that +enormous beat comprehensible only when it applauded him; and besides +he wished it warmly well; all that was good for it; plentiful dinners, +country excursions, stout menagerie bars, music, a dance, and to bed: he +was for patting, stroking, petting the mob, for tossing it sops, never +for irritating it to show an eye-tooth, much less for causing it to +exhibit the grinders: and in endeavouring to get at the grounds of his +dissension with that dirty-fisted fellow, the recollection of the word +punctilio shot a throb of pain to the spot where his mishap had rendered +him susceptible. Headache threatened--and to him of all men! But was +there ever such a word for drumming on a cranium? Puzzles are presented +to us now and then in the course of our days; and the smaller they +are the better for the purpose, it would seem; and they come in +rattle-boxes, they are actually children’s toys, for what they contain, +but not the less do they buzz at our understandings and insist that they +break or we, and, in either case, to show a mere foolish idle rattle in +hollowness. Or does this happen to us only after a fall? + +He tried a suspension of his mental efforts, and the word was like the +clapper of a disorderly bell, striking through him, with reverberations, +in the form of interrogations, as to how he, of all men living, could by +any chance have got into a wrangle, in a thoroughfare, on London +Bridge, of all places in the world!--he, so popular, renowned for his +affability, his amiability; having no dislike to common dirty dogs, +entirely the reverse, liking them and doing his best for them; and +accustomed to receive their applause. And in what way had he offered a +hint to bring on him the charge of punctilio? + +‘But I am treating it seriously!’ he said, and jerked a dead laugh while +fixing a button of his coat. + +That he should have treated it seriously, furnished next the subject of +cogitation; and here it was plainly suggested, that a degradation of +his physical system, owing to the shock of the fall, must be seen and +acknowledged; for it had become a perverted engine, to pull him down +among the puerilities, and very soon he was worrying at punctilio anew, +attempting to read the riddle of the application of it to himself, angry +that he had allowed it to be the final word, and admitting it a famous +word for the closing of a controversy:--it banged the door and rolled +drum-notes; it deafened reason. And was it a London cockney crow-word of +the day, or a word that had stuck in the fellow’s head from the perusal +of his pothouse newspaper columns? + +Furthermore, the plea of a fall, and the plea of a shock from a fall, +required to account for the triviality of the mind, were humiliating to +him who had never hitherto missed a step, or owned to the shortest of +collapses. This confession of deficiency in explosive repartee--using +a friend’s term for the ready gift--was an old and a rueful one with +Victor Radnor. His godmother Fortune denied him that. She bestowed it +on his friend Fenellan, and little else. Simeon Fenellan could clap the +halter on a coltish mob; he had positively caught the roar of cries and +stilled it, by capping the cries in turn, until the people cheered him; +and the effect of the scene upon Victor Radnor disposed him to rank the +gift of repartee higher than a certain rosily oratorical that he was +permitted to tell himself he possessed, in bottle if not on draught. Let +it only be explosive repartee: the well-fused bomb, the bubble to +the stone, echo round the horn. Fenellan, would have discharged an +extinguisher on punctilio in emission. Victor Radnor was unable to cope +with it reflectively. + +No, but one doesn’t like being beaten by anything! he replied to an +admonishment of his better mind, as he touched his two fingers, more +significantly dubious than the whole hand, at the back of his head, +and checked or stemmed the current of a fear. For he was utterly unlike +himself; he was dwelling on a trifle, on a matter discernibly the +smallest, an incident of the streets; and although he refused to feel a +bump or any responsive notification of a bruise, he made a sacrifice of +his native pride to his intellectual, in granting that he must have been +shaken, so childishly did he continue thinking. + +Yes, well, and if a tumble distorts our ideas of life, and an odd word +engrosses our speculations, we are poor creatures, he addressed another +friend, from whom he stood constitutionally in dissent naming him +Colney; and under pressure of the name, reviving old wrangles between +them upon man’s present achievements and his probable destinies: +especially upon England’s grandeur, vitality, stability, her intelligent +appreciation of her place in the universe; not to speak of the historic +dignity of London City. Colney had to be overcome afresh, and he +fled, but managed, with two or three of his bitter phrases, to make a +cuttle-fish fight of it, that oppressively shadowed his vanquisher: + +The Daniel Lambert of Cities: the Female Annuitant of Nations:--and such +like, wretched stuff, proper to Colney Durance, easily dispersed and +out-laughed when we have our vigour. We have as much as we need of it +in summoning a contemptuous Pooh to our lips, with a shrug at venomous +dyspepsia. + +Nevertheless, a malignant sketch of Colney’s, in the which Hengist +and Horsa, our fishy Saxon originals, in modern garb of liveryman and +gaitered squire, flat-headed, paunchy, assiduously servile, are shown +blacking Ben-Israel’s boots and grooming the princely stud of the Jew, +had come so near to Victor Radnor’s apprehensions of a possible, if not +an impending, consummation, that the ghastly vision of the Jew Dominant +in London City, over England, over Europe, America, the world (a picture +drawn in literary sepia by Colney: with our poor hang neck population +uncertain about making a bell-rope of the forelock to the Satyr-snouty +master; and the Norman Lord de Warenne handing him for a lump sum son +and daughter, both to be Hebraized in their different ways), fastened on +the most mercurial of patriotic men, and gave him a whole-length plunge +into despondency. + +It lasted nearly a minute. His recovery was not in this instance due +to the calling on himself for the rescue of an ancient and glorious +country; nor altogether to the spectacle of the shipping, over the +parapet, to his right: the hundreds of masts rising out of the merchant +river; London’s unrivalled mezzotint and the City’ rhetorician’s +inexhaustible argument: he gained it rather from the imperious demand of +an animated and thirsty frame for novel impressions. Commonly he was +too hot with his business, and airy fancies above it when crossing the +bridge, to reflect in freshness on its wonders; though a phrase could +spring him alive to them; a suggestion of the Foreigner, jealous, +condemned to admire in despair of outstripping, like Satan worsted; +or when a Premier’s fine inflation magnified the scene at City +banquets--exciting while audible, if a waggery in memory; or when +England’s cherished Bard, the Leading Article, blew bellows, and wind +primed the lieges. + +That a phrase on any other subject was of much the same effect, in +relation to it, may be owned; he was lightly kindled. The scene, +however, had a sharp sparkle of attractiveness at the instant. Down went +the twirling horizontal pillars of a strong tide from the arches of the +bridge, breaking to wild water at a remove; and a reddish Northern cheek +of curdling pipeing East, at shrilly puffs between the Tower and +the Custom House, encountered it to whip and ridge the flood against +descending tug and long tail of stern-ajerk empty barges; with a steamer +slowly noseing round off the wharf-cranes, preparing to swirl the screw; +and half-bottom-upward boats dancing harpooner beside their whale; along +an avenue, not fabulously golden, of the deputy masts of all nations, a +wintry woodland, every rag aloft curling to volume; and here the spouts +and the mounds of steam, and rolls of brown smoke there, variously +undulated, curved to vanish; cold blue sky ashift with the whirl and +dash of a very Tartar cavalry of cloud overhead. + +Surely a scene pretending to sublimity? + +Gazeing along that grand highway of the voyageing forest, your London +citizen of good estate has reproached his country’s poets for not +pouring out, succinctly and melodiously, his multitudinous larvae of +notions begotten by the scene. For there are times when he would, pay +to have them sung; and he feels them big; he thinks them human in their +bulk; they are Londinensian; they want but form and fire to get them +scored on the tablets of the quotable at festive boards. This he can +promise to his poets. As for otherwhere than at the festive, Commerce +invoked is a Goddess that will have the reek of those boards to fill her +nostrils, and poet and alderman alike may be dedicate to the sublime, +she leads them, after two sniffs of an idea concerning her, for the dive +into the turtle-tureen. Heels up they go, poet first--a plummet he! + +And besides it is barely possible for our rounded citizen, in the mood +of meditation, to direct his gaze off the bridge along the waterway +North-eastward without beholding as an eye the glow of whitebait’s +bow-window by the riverside, to the front of the summer sunset, a league +or so down stream; where he sees, in memory savours, the Elysian end of +Commerce: frontispiece of a tale to fetch us up the out-wearied spectre +of old Apicius; yea, and urge Crispinus to wheel his purse into the +market for the purchase of a costlier mullet! + +But is the Jew of the usury gold becoming our despot-king of Commerce? + +In that case, we do not ask our country’s poets to compose a single +stanza of eulogy’s rhymes--far from it. Far to the contrary, we bid +ourselves remember the sons of whom we are; instead of revelling in +the fruits of Commerce, we shoot scornfully past those blazing bellied +windows of the aromatic dinners, and beyond Thames, away to the +fishermen’s deeps, Old England’s native element, where the strenuous +ancestry of a race yet and ever manful at the stress of trial are heard +around and aloft whistling us back to the splendid strain of muscle, +and spray fringes cloud, and strong heart rides the briny scoops and +hillocks, and Death and Man are at grip for the haul. + +There we find our nationality, our poetry, no Hebrew competing. + +We do: or there at least we left it. Whether to recover it when wanted, +is not so certain. Humpy Hengist and dumpy Horsa, quitting ledger and +coronet, might recur to their sea bowlegs and red-stubble chins, might +take to their tarpaulins again; they might renew their manhood on the +capture of cod; headed by Harald and Hardiknut, they might roll surges +to whelm a Dominant Jew clean gone to the fleshpots and effeminacy. +Aldermen of our ancient conception, they may teach him that he has been +backsliding once more, and must repent in ashes, as those who are for +jewels, titles, essences, banquets, for wallowing in slimy spawn of +lucre, have ever to do. They dispossess him of his greedy gettings. + +And how of the Law? + +But the Law is always, and must ever be, the Law of the stronger. +--Ay, but brain beats muscle, and what if the Jew should prove to have +superior power of brain? A dreaded hypothesis! Why, then you see the +insurgent Saxon seamen (of the names in two syllables with accent on +the first), and their Danish captains, and it may be but a remnant of +high-nosed old Norman Lord de Warenne beside them, in the criminal box: +and presently the Jew smoking a giant regalia cigar on a balcony giving +view of a gallows-tree. But we will try that: on our side, to back a +native pugnacity, is morality, humanity, fraternity--nature’s rights, +aha! and who withstands them? on his, a troop of mercenaries! + +And that lands me in Red Republicanism, a hop and a skip from Socialism! +said Mr. Radnor, and chuckled ironically at the natural declivity he had +come to. Still, there was an idea in it.... + +A short run or attempt at running after the idea, ended in pain to +his head near the spot where the haunting word punctilio caught at any +excuse for clamouring. + +Yet we cannot relinquish an idea that was ours; we are vowed to the +pursuit of it. Mr. Radnor lighted on the tracks, by dint of a thought +flung at his partner Mr. Inchling’s dread of the Jews. Inchling dreaded +Scotchmen as well, and Americans, and Armenians, and Greeks: latterly +Germans hardly less; but his dread of absorption in Jewry, signifying +subjection, had often precipitated a deplorable shrug, in which Victor +Radnor now perceived the skirts of his idea, even to a fancy that +something of the idea must have struck Inchling when he shrugged: +the idea being... he had lost it again. Definition seemed to be an +extirpation enemy of this idea, or she was by nature shy. She was very +feminine; coming when she willed and flying when wanted. Not until +nigh upon the close of his history did she return, full-statured and +embraceable, to Victor Radnor. + + + + +CHAPTER II. THROUGH THE VAGUE TO THE INFINITELY LITTLE + +The fair dealing with readers demands of us, that a narrative shall not +proceed at slower pace than legs of a man in motion; and we are still +but little more than midway across London Bridge. But if a man’s mind is +to be taken as a part of him, the likening of it, at an introduction, to +an army on the opening march of a great campaign, should plead excuses +for tardy forward movements, in consideration of the large amount of +matter you have to review before you can at all imagine yourselves to +have made his acquaintance. This it is not necessary to do when you are +set astride the enchanted horse of the Tale, which leaves the man’s +mind at home while he performs the deeds befitting him: he can indeed be +rapid. Whether more active, is a question asking for your notions of the +governing element in the composition of man, and of hid present business +here. The Tale inspirits one’s earlier ardours, when we sped without +baggage, when the Impossible was wings to imagination, and heroic +sculpture the simplest act of the chisel. It does not advance, ‘tis +true; it drives the whirligig circle round and round the single existing +central point; but it is enriched with applause of the boys and girls of +both ages in this land; and all the English critics heap their +honours on its brave old Simplicity: our national literary flag, which +signalizes us while we float, subsequently to flap above the shallows. +One may sigh for it. An ill-fortuned minstrel who has by fateful +direction been brought to see with distinctness, that man is not as much +comprised in external features as the monkey, will be devoted to the +task of the fuller portraiture. + +After his ineffectual catching at the volatile idea, Mr. Radnor found +repose in thoughts of his daughter and her dear mother. They had begged +him to put on an overcoat this day of bitter wind, or a silken kerchief +for the throat. Faithful to the Spring, it had been his habit since +boyhood to show upon his person something of the hue of the vernal +month, the white of the daisied meadow, and although he owned a light +overcoat to dangle from shoulders at the Opera crush, he declined to +wear it for protection. His gesture of shaking and expanding whenever +the tender request was urged on him, signified a physical opposition to +the control of garments. Mechanically now, while doating in fancy over +the couple beseeching him, he loosened the button across his defaced +waistcoat, exposed a large measure of chest to flaws of a wind barbed on +Norwegian peaks by the brewers of cough and catarrh--horrid women of the +whistling clouts, in the pay of our doctors. He braved them; he starved +the profession. He was that man in fifty thousand who despises hostile +elements and goes unpunished, calmly erect among a sneezing and tumbled +host, as a lighthouse overhead of breezy fleets. The coursing of his +blood was by comparison electrical; he had not the sensation of cold, +other than that of an effort of the elements to arouse him; and so quick +was he, through this fine animation, to feel, think, act, that the three +successive tributaries of conduct appeared as an irreflective flash and +a gamester’s daring in the vein to men who had no deep knowledge of him +and his lightning arithmetic for measuring, sounding, and deciding. + +Naturally he was among the happiest of human creatures; he willed it so, +with consent of circumstances; a boisterous consent, as when votes are +reckoned for a favourite candidate: excepting on the part of a small +band of black dissentients in a corner, a minute opaque body, devilish +in their irreconcilability, who maintain their struggle to provoke +discord, with a cry disclosing the one error of his youth, the sole bad +step chargeable upon his antecedents. But do we listen to them? Shall +we not have them turned out? He gives the sign for it; and he leaves his +buoying constituents to outroar them: and he tells a friend that it +was not, as one may say, an error, although an erratic step: but let us +explain to our bosom friend; it was a step quite unregretted, gloried +in; a step deliberately marked, to be done again, were the time renewed: +it was a step necessitated (emphatically) by a false preceding step; +and having youth to plead for it, in the first instance, youth and +ignorance; and secondly, and O how deeply truly! Love. Deep true love, +proved by years, is the advocate. + +He tells himself at the same time, after lending ear to the advocate’s +exordium and a favourite sentence, that, judged by the Powers (to them +only can he expose the whole skeleton-cupboard of the case), judged by +those clear-sighted Powers, he is exonerated. + +To be exonerated by those awful Powers, is to be approved. + +As to that, there is no doubt: whom they, all-seeing, discerning as they +do, acquit they justify. + +Whom they justify, they compliment. + +They, seeing all the facts, are not unintelligent of distinctions, as +the world is. + +What, to them, is the spot of the error?--admitting it as an error. +They know it for a thing of convention, not of Nature. We stand forth to +plead it in proof of an adherence to Nature’s laws: we affirm, that far +from a defilement, it is an illumination and stamp of nobility. On the +beloved who shares it with us, it is a stamp of the highest nobility. +Our world has many ways for signifying its displeasure, but it cannot +brand an angel. + +This was another favourite sentence of Love’s grand oration for the +defence. So seductive was it to the Powers who sat in judgement on the +case, that they all, when the sentence came, turned eyes upon the angel, +and they smiled. + +They do not smile on the condemnable. + +She, then, were he rebuked, would have strength to uplift him. And who, +calling her his own, could be placed in second rank among the blissful! + +Mr. Radnor could rationally say that he was made for happiness; he +flew to it, he breathed, dispensed it. How conceive the clear-sighted +celestial Powers as opposing his claim to that estate? Not they. He +knew, for he had them safe in the locked chamber of his breast, to yield +him subservient responses. The world, or Puritanic members of it, had +pushed him to the trial once or twice--or had put on an air of doing +so; creating a temporary disturbance, ending in a merry duet with his +daughter Nesta Victoria: a glorious trio when her mother Natalia, sweet +lily that she was, shook the rainwater from her cup and followed the +good example to shine in the sun. + +He had a secret for them. + +Nesta’s promising soprano, and her mother’s contralto, and his +baritone--a true baritone, not so well trained as their accurate +notes--should be rising in spirited union with the curtain of that +secret: there was matter for song and concert, triumph and gratulation +in it. And during the whole passage of the bridge, he had not once +cast thought on a secret so palpitating, the cause of the morning’s +expedition and a long year’s prospect of the present day! It seemed to +have been knocked clean out of it--punctilioed out, Fenellan might say. +Nor had any combinations upon the theme of business displaced it. Just +before the fall, the whole drama of the unfolding of that secret was +brilliant to his eyes as a scene on a stage. + +He refused to feel any sensible bruise on his head, with the admission +that he perhaps might think he felt one which was virtually no more than +the feeling of a thought;--what his friend Dr. Peter Yatt would define +as feeling a rotifer astir in the curative compartment of a homoeopathic +globule: and a playful fancy may do that or anything. Only, Sanity does +not allow the infinitely little to disturb us. + +Mr. Radnor had a quaint experience of the effects of the infinitely +little while threading his way to a haberdasher’s shop for new white +waistcoats. Under the shadow of the representative statue of City +Corporations and London’s majesty, the figure of Royalty, worshipful in +its marbled redundancy, fronting the bridge, on the slope where the seas +of fish and fruit below throw up a thin line of their drift, he +stood contemplating the not unamiable, reposefully-jolly, Guelphic +countenance, from the loose jowl to the bent knee, as if it were a +novelty to him; unwilling to trust himself to the roadway he had often +traversed, equally careful that his hesitation should not be seen. A +trifle more impressible, he might have imagined the smoky figure and +magnum of pursiness barring the City against him. He could have laughed +aloud at the hypocrisy behind his quiet look of provincial wonderment +at London’s sculptor’s art; and he was partly tickled as well by the +singular fit of timidity enchaining him. Cart, omnibus, cab, van, +barrow, donkey-tray, went by in strings, broken here and there, and he +could not induce his legs to take advantage of the gaps; he listened +to a warning that he would be down again if he tried it, among those +wheels; and his nerves clutched him, like a troop of household women, to +keep him from the hazard of an exposure to the horrid crunch, pitiless +as tiger’s teeth; and we may say truly, that once down, or once out of +the rutted line, you are food for lion and jackal--the forces of the +world will have you in their mandibles. + +An idea was there too; but it would not accept pursuit. + +‘A pretty scud overheard?’ said a voice at his ear. + +‘For fine!--to-day at least,’ Mr. Radnor affably replied to a stranger; +and gazing on the face of his friend Fenellan, knew the voice, and +laughed: ‘You?’ He straightened his back immediately to cross the road, +dismissing nervousness as a vapour, asking, between a cab and a van: +‘Anything doing in the City?’ For Mr. Fenellan’s proper station faced +Westward. + +The reply was deferred until they had reached the pavement, when Mr. +Fenellan said: ‘I’ll tell you,’ and looked a dubious preface, to his +friend’s thinking. + +But it was merely the mental inquiry following a glance at mud-spots on +the coat. + +‘We’ll lunch; lunch with me, I must eat, tell me then,’ said Mr. Radnor, +adding within himself: ‘Emptiness! want of food!’ to account for recent +ejaculations and qualms. He had not eaten for a good four hours. + +Fenellan’s tone signified to his feverish sensibility of the moment, +that the matter was personal; and the intimation of a touch on domestic +affairs caused sinkings in his vacuity, much as though his heart were +having a fall. + +He mentioned the slip on the bridge, to explain his: need to visit a +haberdasher’s shop, and pointed at the waistcoat. + +Mr. Fenellan was compassionate over the ‘Poor virgin of the smoky city!’ + +‘They have their ready-made at these shops--last year’s: perhaps, never +mind, do for the day,’ said Mr. Radnor, impatient for eating, now that +he had spoken of it. ‘A basin of turtle; I can’t wait. A brush of the +coat; mud must be dry by this time. Clear turtle, I think, with a bottle +of the Old Veuve. Not bad news to tell? You like that Old Veuve?’ + +‘Too well to tell bad news of her,’ said Mr. Fenellan in a manner to +reassure his friend, as he intended. ‘You wouldn’t credit it for the +Spring of the year, without the spotless waistcoat?’ + +‘Something of that, I suppose.’ And so saying, Mr. Radnor entered the +shop of his quest, to be complimented by the shopkeeper, while the +attendants climbed the ladder to upper stages for white-waistcoat boxes, +on his being; the first bird of the season; which it pleased him to +hear; for the smallest of our gratifications in life could give a happy +tone to this brightly-constituted gentleman. + + + + +CHAPTER III. OLD VEUVE + +They were known at the house of the turtle and the attractive Old +Veuve: a champagne of a sobered sweetness, of a great year, a great age, +counting up to the extremer maturity attained by wines of stilly depths; +and their worthy comrade, despite the wanton sparkles, for the promoting +of the state of reverential wonderment in rapture, which an ancient wine +will lead to, well you wot. The silly girly sugary crudity his given +way to womanly suavity, matronly composure, with yet the sparkles; they +ascend; but hue and flavour tell of a soul that has come to a lodgement +there. It conducts the youthful man to temples of dusky thought: +philosophers partaking of it are drawn by the arms of garlanded nymphs +about their necks into the fathomless of inquiries. It presents us with +a sphere, for the pursuit of the thing we covet most. It bubbles over +mellowness; it has, in the marriage with Time, extracted a spice of +individuality from the saccharine: by miracle, one would say, were it +not for our knowledge of the right noble issue of Time when he and +good things unite. There should be somewhere legends of him and the +wine-flask. There must be meanings to that effect in the Mythology, +awaiting unravelment. For the subject opens to deeper than cellars, and +is a tree with vast ramifications of the roots and the spreading growth, +whereon half if not all the mythic Gods, Inferior and Superior, Infernal +and Celestial, might be shown sitting in concord, performing in concert, +harmoniously receiving sacrificial offerings of the black or the +white; and the black not extinguishing the fairer fellow. Tell us of a +certainty that Time has embraced the wine-flask, then may it be asserted +(assuming the great year for the wine, i.e. combinations above) that +a speck of the white within us who drink will conquer, to rise in main +ascension over volumes of the black. It may, at a greater venture, but +confidently, be said in plain speech, that the Bacchus of auspicious +birth induces ever to the worship of the loftier Deities. + +Think as you will; forbear to come hauling up examples of malarious men, +in whom these pourings of the golden rays of life breed fogs; and be +moved, since you are scarcely under an obligation to hunt the meaning, +in tolerance of some dithyrambic inebriety of narration (quiverings of +the reverent pen) when we find ourselves entering the circle of a +most magnetic polarity. Take it for not worse than accompanying choric +flourishes, in accord with Mr. Victor Radnor and Mr. Simeon Fenellan at +their sipping of the venerable wine. + +Seated in a cosy corner, near the grey City window edged with a sooty +maze, they praised the wine, in the neuter and in the feminine; that for +the glass, this for the widow-branded bottle: not as poets hymning; +it was done in the City manner, briefly, part pensively, like men +travelling to the utmost bourne of flying flavour (a dell in infinite +nether), and still masters of themselves and at home. + +Such a wine, in its capturing permeation of us, insists on being for a +time a theme. + +‘I wonder!’ said Mr. Radnor, completely restored, eyeing his +half-emptied second glass and his boon-fellow. + +‘Low!’ Mr. Fenellan shook his head. + +‘Half a dozen dozen left?’ + +‘Nearer the half of that. And who’s the culprit?’ + +‘Old days! They won’t let me have another dozen out of the house now.’ + +‘They’ll never hit on such another discovery in their cellar, unless +they unearth a fifth corner.’ + +‘I don’t blame them for making the price prohibitive. And sound as +ever!’ + +Mr. Radnor watched the deliberate constant ascent of bubbles through +their rose-topaz transparency. He drank. That notion of the dish of +turtle was an inspiration of the right: he ought always to know it for +the want of replenishment when such a man as he went quaking. His latest +experiences of himself were incredible; but they passed, as the dimples +of the stream. He finished his third glass. The bottle, like the +cellar-wine, was at ebb: unlike the cellar-wine, it could be set flowing +again: He prattled, in the happy ignorance of compulsion: + +‘Fenellan, remember, I had a sort of right to the wine--to the best I +could get; and this Old Veuve, more than any other, is a bridal wine! We +heard of Giulia Sanfredini’s marriage to come off with the Spanish Duke, +and drank it to the toast of our little Nesta’s godmother. I ‘ve told +you. We took the girl to the Opera, when quite a little one--that +high:--and I declare to you, it was marvellous! Next morning after +breakfast, she plants herself in the middle of the room, and strikes +her attitude for song, and positively, almost with the Sanfredini’s +voice--illusion of it, you know,--trills us out more than I could have +believed credible to be recollected by a child. But I’ve told you the +story. We called her Fredi from that day. I sent the diva, with +excuses and compliments, a nuptial present-necklace, Roman goldwork, +locket-pendant, containing sunny curl, and below a fine pearl; really +pretty; telling her our grounds for the liberty. She replied, accepting +the responsible office; touching letter--we found it so; framed in +Fredi’s room, under her godmother’s photograph. Fredi has another +heroine now, though she worships her old one still; she never abandons +her old ones. You’ve heard the story over and over!’ + +Mr. Fenellan nodded; he had a tenderness for the garrulity of Old Veuve, +and for the damsel. Chatter on that subject ran pleasantly with their +entertainment. + +Mr. Radnor meanwhile scribbled, and despatched a strip of his Note-book, +bearing a scrawl of orders, to his office. He was now fully himself, +benevolent, combative, gay, alert for amusement or the probeing of +schemes to the quick, weighing the good and the bad in them with his +fine touch on proportion. + +‘City dead flat? A monotonous key; but it’s about the same as fetching a +breath after a run; only, true, it lasts too long--not healthy! Skepsey +will bring me my letters. I was down in the country early this morning, +looking over the house, with Taplow, my architect; and he speaks fairly +well of the contractors. Yes, down at Lakelands; and saw my first lemon +butterfly in a dell of sunshine, out of the wind, and had half a mind +to catch it for Fredi,--and should have caught it myself, if I had! The +truth is, we three are country born and bred; we pine in London. Good +for a season; you know my old feeling. They are to learn the secret of +Lakelands to-morrow. It ‘s great fun; they think I don’t see they’ve had +their suspicion for some time. You said--somebody said--“the eye of a +needle for what they let slip of their secrets, and the point of it +for penetrating yours”:--women. But no; my dear souls didn’t prick +and bother. And they dealt with a man in armour. I carry them down to +Lakelands to-morrow, if the City’s flat.’ + +‘Keeping a secret’s the lid on a boiling pot with you,’ Mr. Fenellan +said; and he mused on the profoundness of the flavour at his lips. + +‘I do it.’ + +‘You do: up to bursting at the breast.’ + +‘I keep it from Colney!’ + +‘As Vesuvius keeps it from Palmieri when shaking him.’ + +‘Has old Colney an idea of it?’ + +‘He has been foretelling an eruption of an edifice.’ + +The laugh between them subsided to pensiveness. + +Mr. Fenellan’s delay in the delivery of his news was eloquent to reveal +the one hateful topic; and this being seen, it waxed to such increase of +size with the passing seconds, that prudence called for it. + +‘Come!’ said Mr. Radnor. + +The appeal was understood. + +‘Nothing very particular. I came into the City to look at a warehouse +they want to mount double guard on. Your idea of the fireman’s +night-patrol and wires has done wonders for the office.’ + +‘I guarantee the City if all my directions are followed.’ + +Mr. Fenellan’s remark, that he had nothing very particular to tell, +reduced it to the mere touch upon a vexatious matter, which one has +to endure in the ears at times; but it may be postponed. So Mr. Radnor +encouraged him to talk of an Insurance Office Investment. Where it is +all bog and mist, as in the City to-day, the maxim is, not to take a +step, they agreed. Whether it was attributable to an unconsumed glut +of the markets, or apprehension of a panic, had to be considered. Both +gentlemen were angry with the Birds on the flags of foreign nations, +which would not imitate a sawdust Lion to couch reposefully. Incessantly +they scream and sharpen talons. + +‘They crack the City bubbles and bladders, at all events,’ Mr. Fenellan +said. ‘But if we let our journals go on making use of them, in the shape +of sham hawks overhead, we shall pay for their one good day of the +game with our loss of the covey. An unstable London’s no world’s +market-place.’ + +‘No, no; it’s a niggardly national purse, not the journals,’ Mr. Radnor +said. ‘The journals are trading engines. Panics are grist to them; so +are wars; but they do their duty in warning the taxpayer and rousing +Parliament. Dr. Schlesien’s right: we go on believing that our God +Neptune will do everything for us, and won’t see that Steam has +paralyzed his Trident: good! You and Colney are hard on Schlesien--or +at him, I should say. He’s right: if we won’t learn that we have become +Continentals, we shall be marched over. Laziness, cowardice, he says.’ + +‘Oh, be hanged!’ interrupted Fenellan. ‘As much of the former as you +like. He ‘s right about our “individualismus” being another name for +selfishness, and showing the usual deficiency in external features; it’s +an individualism of all of a pattern, as when a mob cuts its lucky, each +fellow his own way. Well, then, conscript them, and they’ll be all of a +better pattern. The only thing to do, and the cheapest. By heaven! it’s +the only honourable thing to do.’ + +Mr. Radnor disapproved. ‘No conscription here.’ + +‘Not till you’ve got the drop of poison in your blood, in the form of an +army landed. That will teach you to catch at the drug.’ + +‘No, Fenellan! Besides they’ve got to land. I guarantee a trusty army +and navy under a contract, at two-thirds of the present cost. We’ll +start a National Defence Insurance Company after the next panic.’ + +‘During,’ said Mr. Fenellan, and there was a flutter of laughter at the +unobtrusive hint for seizing Dame England in the mood. + +Both dropped a sigh. + +‘But you must try and run down with us to Lakelands to-morrow,’ Mr. +Radnor resumed on a cheerfuller theme. ‘You have not yet seen all I +‘ve done there. And it ‘s a castle with a drawbridge: no exchangeing +of visits, as we did at Craye Farm and at Creckholt; we are there for +country air; we don’t court neighbours at all--perhaps the elect; it +will depend on Nataly’s wishes. We can accommodate our Concert-set, and +about thirty or forty more, for as long as they like. You see, that was +my intention--to be independent of neighbouring society. Madame Callet +guarantees dinners or hot suppers for eighty--and Armandine is the last +person to be recklessly boasting.--When was it I was thinking last of +Armandine?’ He asked himself that, as he rubbed at the back of his head. + +Mr. Fenellan was reading his friend’s character by the light of his +remarks and in opposition to them, after the critical fashion of +intimates who know as well as hear: but it was amiably and trippingly, +on the dance of the wine in his veins. + +His look, however, was one that reminded; and Mr. Radnor cried: ‘Now! +whatever it is!’ + +‘I had an interview: I assure you,’ Mr. Fenellan interposed to pacify: +‘the smallest of trifles, and to be expected: I thought you ought to +know it:--an interview with her lawyer; office business, increase of +Insurance on one of her City warehouses.’ + +‘Speak her name, speak the woman’s name; we’re talking like a pair of +conspirators,’ exclaimed Mr. Radnor. + +‘He informed me that Mrs. Burman has heard of the new mansion.’ + +‘My place at Lakelands?’ + +Mr. Radnor’s clear-water eyes hardened to stony as their vision ran +along the consequences of her having heard it. + +‘Earlier this time!’ he added, thrummed on the table, and thumped with +knuckles. ‘I make my stand at Lakelands for good! Nothing mortal moves +me!’ + +‘That butler of hers--’ + +‘Jarniman, you mean: he’s her butler, yes, the scoundrel--h’m-pah! +Heaven forgive me! she’s an honest woman at least; I wouldn’t rob her of +her little: fifty-nine or sixty next September, fifteenth of the month! +with the constitution of a broken drug-bottle, poor soul! She hears +everything from Jarniman: he catches wind of everything. All foreseen, +Fenellan, foreseen. I have made my stand at Lakelands, and there’s my +flag till it’s hauled down over Victor Radnor. London kills Nataly as +well as Fredi--and me: that is--I can use the words to you--I get back +to primal innocence in the country. We all three have the feeling. +You’re a man to understand. My beasts, and the wild flowers, +hedge-banks, and stars. Fredi’s poetess will tell you. Quiet waters +reflecting. I should feel it in Paris as well, though they have +nightingales in their Bois. It’s the rustic I want to bathe me; and I +had the feeling at school, biting at Horace. Well, this is my Sabine +Farm, rather on a larger scale, for the sake of friends. Come, and pure +air, water from the springs, walks and rides in lanes, high sand-lanes; +Nataly loves them; Fredi worships the old roots of trees: she calls them +the faces of those weedy sandy lanes. And the two dear souls on their +own estate, Fenellan! And their poultry, cows, cream. And a certain +influence one has in the country socially. I make my stand on a +home--not empty punctilio.’ + +Mr. Fenellan repeated, in a pause, ‘Punctilio,’ and not emphatically. + +‘Don’t bawl the word,’ said Mr. Radnor, at the drum of whose ears it +rang and sang. ‘Here in the City the woman’s harmless; and here,’ he +struck his breast. ‘But she can shoot and hit another through me. Ah, +the witch!--poor wretch! poor soul! Only, she’s malignant. I could +swear! But Colney ‘s right for once in something he says about +oaths--“dropping empty buckets,” or something.’ + +‘“Empty buckets to haul up impotent demons, whom we have to pay as +heavily as the ready devil himself,”’ Mr. Fenellan supplied the phrase. +‘Only, the moment old Colney moralizes, he’s what the critics call +sententious. We’ve all a parlous lot too much pulpit in us.’ + +‘Come, Fenellan, I don’t think...’ + +‘Oh, yes, but it’s true of me too.’ + +‘You reserve it for your enemies.’ + +‘I ‘d like to distract it a bit from the biggest of ‘em.’ He pointed +finger at the region of the heart. + +‘Here we have Skepsey,’ said Mr. Radnor, observing the rapid approach +of a lean small figure, that in about the time of a straight-aimed +javelin’s cast, shot from the doorway to the table. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. THE SECOND BOTTLE + +This little dart of a man came to a stop at a respectful distance from +his master, having the look of an arrested needle in mechanism. His lean +slip of face was an illumination of vivacious grey from the quickest +of prominent large eyes. He placed his master’s letters legibly on the +table, and fell to his posture of attention, alert on stiff legs, the +hands like sucking-cubs at play with one another. + +Skepsey waited for Mr. Fenellan to notice him. + +‘How about the Schools for Boxing?’ that gentleman said. + +Deploring in motion the announcement he had to make, Skepsey replied: ‘I +have a difficulty in getting the plan treated seriously: a person of no +station:--it does not appear of national importance. Ladies are against. +They decline their signatures; and ladies have great influence; because +of the blood; which we know is very slight, rather healthy than not; and +it could be proved for the advantage of the frailer sex. They seem to be +unaware of their own interests--ladies. The contention all around us is +with ignorance. My plan is written; I have shown it, and signatures +of gentlemen, to many of our City notables favourable in most cases: +gentlemen of the Stock Exchange highly. The clergy and the medical +profession are quite with me.’ + +‘The surgical, perhaps you mean?’ + +‘Also, sir. The clergy strongly.’ + +‘On the grounds of--what, Skepsey?’ + +‘Morality. I have fully explained to them:--after his work at the desk +all day, the young City clerk wants refreshment. He needs it, must +have it. I propose to catch him on his way to his music-halls and other +places, and take him to one of our establishments. A short term of +instruction, and he would find a pleasure in the gloves; it would +delight him more than excesses-beer and tobacco. The female in her right +place, certainly.’ Skepsey supplicated honest interpretation of his +hearer, and pursued, + +‘It would improve his physical strength, at the same time add to his +sense of personal dignity.’ + +‘Would you teach females as well--to divert them from their +frivolities?’ + +‘That would have to be thought over, sir. It would be better for them +than using their nails.’ + +‘I don’t know, Skepsey: I’m rather a Conservative there.’ + +‘Yes; with regard to the female, sir: I confess, my scheme does not +include them. They dance; that is a healthy exercise. One has only to +say, that it does not add to the national force, in case of emergency. +I look to that. And I am particular in proposing an exercise independent +of--I have to say--sex. Not that there is harm in sex. But we are for +training. I hope my meaning is clear?’ + +‘Quite. You would have boxing with the gloves to be a kind of monastic +recreation.’ + +‘Recreation is the word, sir; I have often admired it,’ said Skepsey, +blinking, unsure of the signification of monastic. + +‘I was a bit of a boxer once,’ Mr. Fenellan said, conscious of height +and breadth in measuring the wisp of a figure before him. + +‘Something might be done with you still, sir.’ + +Skepsey paid him the encomium after a respectful summary of his gifts in +a glimpse. Mr. Fenellan bowed to him. + +Mr. Radnor raised head from the notes he was pencilling upon letters +perused. + +‘Skepsey’s craze: regeneration of the English race by boxing--nucleus of +a national army?’ + +‘To face an enemy at close quarters--it teaches that, sir. I have always +been of opinion, that courage may be taught. I do not say heroism. And +setting aside for a moment thoughts of an army, we create more valuable +citizens. Protection to the weak in streets and by-places--shocking +examples of ruffians maltreating women, in view of a crowd.’ + +‘One strong man is an overmatch for your mob,’ said Mr. Fenellan. + +Skepsey toned his assent to the diminishing thinness where a suspicion +of the negative begins to wind upon a distant horn. + +‘Knowing his own intentions; and before an ignorant mob:--strong, you +say, sir? I venture my word that a decent lad, with science, would beat +him. It is a question of the study and practice of first principles.’ + +‘If you were to see a rascal giant mishandling a woman?’ Skepsey +conjured the scene by bending his head and peering abstractedly, as if +over spectacles. + +‘I would beg him to abstain, for his own sake.’ + +Mr. Fenellan knew that the little fellow was not boasting. + +‘My brother Dartrey had a lesson or two from you in the first +principles, I think?’ + +‘Captain Dartrey is an athlete, sir: exceedingly quick and clever; a +hard boxer to beat.’ + +‘You will not call him captain when you see him; he has dismissed the +army.’ + +‘I much regret it, sir, much, that we have lost him. Captain Dartrey +Fenellan was a beautiful fencer. He gave me some instruction; unhappily, +I have to acknowledge, too late. It is a beautiful art. Captain Dartrey +says, the French excel at it. But it asks for a weapon, which nature has +not given: whereas the fists...’ + +‘So,’ Mr. Radnor handed notes and papers to Skepsey: ‘No sign of life?’ + +‘It is not yet seen in the City, sir.’ + +‘The first principles of commercial activity have retreated to earth’s +maziest penetralia, where no tides are! is it not so, Skepsey?’ said +Mr. Fenellan, whose initiative and exuberance in loquency had been +restrained by a slight oppression, known to guests; especially to the +guest in the earlier process of his magnification and illumination by +virtue of a grand old wine; and also when the news he has to communicate +may be a stir to unpleasant heaps. The shining lips and eyes of +his florid face now proclaimed speech, with his Puckish fancy +jack-o’-lanterning over it. ‘Business hangs to swing at every City door, +like a ragshop Doll, on the gallows of overproduction. Stocks and Shares +are hollow nuts not a squirrel of the lot would stop to crack for sight +of the milky kernel mouldered to beard. + +Percentage, like a cabman without a fare, has gone to sleep inside his +vehicle. Dividend may just be seen by tiptoe: stockholders, twinkling +heels over the far horizon. Too true!--and our merchants, brokers, +bankers, projectors of Companies, parade our City to remind us of the +poor steamed fellows trooping out of the burst-boiler-room of the big +ship Leviathan, in old years; a shade or two paler than the crowd o’ the +passengers, apparently alive and conversible, but corpses, all of them +to lie their length in fifteen minutes.’ + +‘And you, Fenellan?’ cried his host, inspired for a second bottle by the +lovely nonsense of a voluble friend wound up to the mark. + +‘Doctor of the ship! with this prescription!’ Mr. Fenellan held up his +glass. + +‘Empty?’ + +Mr. Fenellan made it completely so. ‘Confident!’ he affirmed. + +An order was tossed to the waiter, and both gentlemen screwed their +lips in relish of his heavy consent to score off another bottle from the +narrow list. + +‘At the office in forty minutes,’ Skepsey’s master nodded to him and +shot him forth, calling him back: ‘By the way, in case a man named +Jarniman should ask to see me, you turn him to the rightabout.’ + +Skepsey repeated: ‘Jarniman!’ and flew. + +‘A good servant,’ Mr. Radnor said. ‘Few of us think of our country +so much, whatever may be said of the specific he offers. Colney has +impressed him somehow immensely: he studies to write too; pushes to +improve himself; altogether a worthy creature.’ + +The second bottle appeared. The waiter, in sincerity a reluctant +executioner, heightened his part for the edification of the admiring +couple. + +‘Take heart, Benjamin,’ said Mr. Fenellan; ‘it’s only the bottle dies; +and we are the angels above to receive the spirit.’ + +‘I’m thinking of the house,’ Benjamin replied. He told them that again. + +‘It ‘s the loss of the fame of having the wine, that he mourns. But, +Benjamin,’ said Mr. Fenellan, ‘the fame enters into the partakers of it, +and we spread it, and perpetuate it for you.’ + +‘That don’t keep a house upright,’ returned Benjamin. + +Mr. Fenellan murmured to himself: ‘True enough, it ‘s elegy--though we +perform it through a trumpet; and there’s not a doubt of our being down +or having knocked the world down, if we’re loudly praised.’ + +Benjamin waited to hear approval sounded on the lips uncertain as a +woman is a wine of ticklish age. The gentlemen nodded, and he retired. + +A second bottle, just as good as the first, should, one thoughtlessly +supposes, procure us a similar reposeful and excursive enjoyment, as of +men lying on their backs and flying imagination like a kite. The effect +was quite other. Mr. Radnor drank hastily and spoke with heat: ‘You told +me All? tell me that!’ + +Mr. Fenellan gathered himself together; he sipped, and relaxed his +bracing. But there really was a bit more to tell: not much, was it? Not +likely to puff a gale on the voluptuous indolence of a man drawn along +by Nereids over sunny sea-waves to behold the birth of the Foam-Goddess? +‘According to Carling, her lawyer; that is, he hints she meditates a +blow.’ + +‘Mrs. Burman means to strike a blow?’ + +‘The lady.’ + +‘Does he think I fear any--does he mean a blow with a weapon? Is it a +legal...? At last? Fenellan!’ + +‘So I fancied I understood.’ + +‘But can the good woman dream of that as a blow to strike and hurt, for +a punishment?--that’s her one aim.’ + +‘She may have her hallucinations.’ + +‘But a blow--what a word for it! But it’s life to us life! It’s the blow +we’ve prayed for. Why, you know it! Let her strike, we bless her. We’ve +never had an ill feeling to the woman; utterly the contrary--pity, pity, +pity! Let her do that, we’re at her feet, my Nataly and I. If you knew +what my poor girl suffers! She ‘s a saint at the stake. Chiefly on +behalf of her family. Fenellan, you may have a sort of guess at my +fortune: I’ll own to luck; I put in a claim to courage and calculation.’ + +‘You’ve been a bulwark to your friends.’ + +‘All, Fenellan, all-stocks, shares, mines, companies, industries at +home and--abroad--all, at a sweep, to have the woman strike that blow! +Cheerfully would I begin to build a fortune over again--singing! Ha! the +woman has threatened it before. It’s probably feline play with us.’ + +His chin took support, he frowned. + +‘You may have touched her.’ + +‘She won’t be touched, and she won’t be driven. What ‘s the secret of +her? I can’t guess, I never could. She’s a riddle.’ + +‘Riddles with wigs and false teeth have to be taken and shaken for the +ardently sought secret to reveal itself,’ said Mr. Fenellan. + +His picture, with the skeleton issue of any shaking, smote Mr. Radnor’s +eyes, they turned over. ‘Oh!--her charms! She had a desperate belief +in her beauty. The woman ‘s undoubtedly charitable; she’s not without a +mind--sort of mind: well, it shows no crack till it’s put to use. Heart! +yes, against me she has plenty of it. They say she used to be courted; +she talked of it: “my courtiers, Mr. Victor!” There, heaven forgive me, +I wouldn’t mock at her to another.’ + +‘It looks as if she were only inexorably human,’ said Mr. Fenellan, +crushing a delicious gulp of the wine, that foamed along the channel to +flavour. ‘We read of the tester of a bandit-bed; and it flattened unwary +recumbents to pancakes. An escape from the like of that seems pleadable, +should be: none but the drowsy would fail to jump out and run, or the +insane.’ + +Mr. Radnor was taken with the illustration of his case. ‘For the sake of +my sanity, it was! to preserve my.... but any word makes nonsense of +it. Could--I must ask you--could any sane man--you were abroad in those +days, horrible days! and never met her: I say, could you consent to +be tied--I admit the vow, ceremony, so forth-tied to--I was +barely twenty-one: I put it to you, Fenellan, was it in reason an +engagement--which is, I take it, a mutual plight of faith, in good +faith; that is, with capacity on both sides to keep the engagement: +between the man you know I was in youth and a more than middle-aged +woman crazy up to the edge of the cliff--as Colney says half the world +is, and she positively is when her spite is roused. No, Fenellan, I have +nothing on my conscience with regard to the woman. She had wealth: I +left her not one penny the worse for--but she was not one to reckon it, +I own. She could be generous, was, with her money. If she had struck +this blow--I know she thought of it: or if she would strike it now, I +could not only forgive her, I could beg forgiveness.’ + +A sight of that extremity fetched prickles to his forehead. + +‘You’ve borne your part bravely, my friend.’ + +‘I!’ Mr. Radnor shrugged at mention of his personal burdens. ‘Praise my +Nataly if you like! Made for one another, if ever two in this world! You +know us both, and do you doubt it? The sin would have been for us two to +meet and--but enough when I say, that I am she, she me, till death and +beyond it: that’s my firm faith. Nataly teaches me the religion of +life, and you may learn what that is when you fall in love with a woman. +Eighteen-nineteen-twenty years!’ + +Tears fell from him, two drops. He blinked, bugled in his throat, eyed +his watch, and smiled: ‘The finishing glass! We should have had to put +Colney to bed. Few men stand their wine. You and I are not lamed by it; +we can drink and do business: my first experience in the City was, +that the power to drink--keeping a sound head--conduces to the doing of +business.’ + +‘It’s a pleasant way of instructing men to submit to their conqueror.’ + +‘If it doubles the energies, mind.’ + +‘Not if it fiddles inside. I confess to that effect upon me. I’ve a +waltz going on, like the snake with the tail in his mouth, eternal; and +it won’t allow of a thought upon Investments.’ + +‘Consult me to-morrow,’ said Mr. Radnor, somewhat pained for having +inconsiderately misled the man he had hitherto helpfully guided. ‘You’ve +looked at the warehouse?’ + +‘That’s performed.’ + +‘Make a practice of getting over as much of your business in the early +morning as you well can.’ + +Mr. Radnor added hints of advice to a frail humanity he was indulgent, +the giant spoke in good fellowship. It would have been to have strained +his meaning, for purposes of sarcasm upon him, if one had taken him to +boast of a personal exemption from our common weakness. + +He stopped, and laughed: ‘Now I ‘m pumping my pulpit-eh? You come with +us to Lakelands. I drive the ladies down to my office, ten A.M.: if it’s +fine; train half-past. We take a basket. By the way, I had no letter +from Dartrey last mail.’ + +‘He has buried his wife. It happens to some men.’ + +Mr. Radnor stood gazing. He asked for the name of the place of the +burial. He heard without seizing it. A simulacrum spectre-spark of +hopefulness shot up in his imagination, glowed and quivered, darkening +at the utterance of the Dutch syllables, leaving a tinge of witless +envy. Dartrey--Fenellan had buried the wife whose behaviour vexed and +dishonoured him: and it was in Africa! One would have to go to Africa +to be free of the galling. But Dartrey had gone, and he was free!--The +strange faint freaks of our sensations when struck to leap and throw off +their load after a long affliction, play these disorderly pranks on the +brain; and they are faint, but they come in numbers, they are recurring, +always in ambush. We do not speak of them: we have not words to stamp +the indefinite things; generally we should leave them unspoken if we had +the words; we know them as out of reason: they haunt us, pluck at us, +fret us, nevertheless. + +Dartrey free, he was relieved of the murderous drama incessantly in the +mind of shackled men. + +It seemed like one of the miracles of a divine intervention, that +Dartrey should be free, suddenly free; and free while still a youngish +man. He was in himself a wonderful fellow, the pick of his country +for vigour, gallantry, trustiness, high-mindedness; his heavenly good +fortune decked him as a prodigy. + +‘No harm to the head from that fall of yours?’ Mr. Fenellan said. + +‘None.’ Mr. Radnor withdrew his hand from head to hat, clapped it on and +cried cheerily: ‘Now to business’; as men may, who have confidence in +their ability to concentrate an instant attention upon the substantial. +‘You dine with us. The usual Quartet: Peridon, Pempton, Colney, Yatt, or +Catkin: Priscilla Graves and Nataly--the Rev. Septimus; Cormyn and his +wife: Young Dudley Sowerby and I--flutes: he has precision, as naughty +Fredi said, when some one spoke of expression. In the course of the +evening, Lady Grace, perhaps: you like her.’ + +‘Human nature in the upper circle is particularly likeable.’ + +‘Fenellan,’ said Mr. Radnor, emboldened to judge hopefully of his +fortunes by mere pressure of the thought of Dartrey’s, ‘I put it to +you: would you say, that there is anything this time behind your friend +Carling’s report?’ + +Although it had not been phrased as a report, Mr. Fenellan’s answering +look and gesture, and a run of indiscriminate words, enrolled it in that +form, greatly to the inspiriting of Mr. Radnor. + +Old Veuve in one, to the soul of Old Veuve in the other, they recalled +a past day or two, touched the skies; and merriment or happiness in +the times behind them held a mirror to the present: or the hour of the +reverse of happiness worked the same effect by contrast: so that notions +of the singular election of us by Dame Fortune, sprang like vinous +bubbles. For it is written, that however powerful you be, you shall not +take the Winegod on board to entertain him as a simple passenger; +and you may captain your vessel, you may pilot it, and keep to your +reckonings, and steer for all the ports you have a mind to, even to +doing profitable exchange with Armenian and Jew, and still you shall do +the something more, which proves that the Winegod is on board: he is the +pilot of your blood if not the captain of your thoughts. + +Mr. Fenellan was unused to the copious outpouring of Victor Radnor’s +confidences upon his domestic affairs; and the unwonted excitement of +Victor’s manner of speech would have perplexed him, had there not been +such a fiddling of the waltz inside him. + +Payment for the turtle and the bottles of Old Veuve was performed +apart with Benjamin, while Simeon Fenellan strolled out of the +house, questioning a tumbled mind as to what description of suitable +entertainment, which would be dancing and flirting and fal-lallery in +the season of youth, London City could provide near meridian hours for +a man of middle age carrying his bottle of champagne, like a guest of an +old-fashioned wedding-breakfast. For although he could stand his wine +as well as his friend, his friend’s potent capacity martially after the +feast to buckle to business at a sign of the clock, was beyond him. It +pointed to one of the embodied elements, hot from Nature’s workshop. It +told of the endurance of powers, that partly explained the successful, +astonishing career of his friend among a people making urgent, if +unequal, demands perpetually upon stomach and head. + + + + +CHAPTER V. THE LONDON WALK WESTWARD + +In that nationally interesting Poem, or Dramatic Satire, once famous, +THE RAJAH IN LONDON (London, Limbo and Sons, 1889), now obliterated +under the long wash of Press-matter, the reflection--not unknown to +philosophical observers, and natural perhaps in the mind of an Oriental +Prince--produced by his observation of the march of London citizens +Eastward at morn, Westward at eve, attributes their practice to a +survival of the Zoroastrian form of worship. His Minister, favourable +to the people or for the sake of fostering an idea in his Master’s head, +remarks, that they show more than the fidelity of the sunflower to her +God. The Rajah, it would appear, frowns interrogatively, in the princely +fashion, accusing him of obscureness of speech:--princes and the louder +members of the grey public are fraternally instant to spurn at the whip +of that which they do not immediately comprehend. It is explained by the +Minister: not even the flower, he says, would hold constant, as they, +to the constantly unseen--a trebly cataphractic Invisible. The Rajah +professes curiosity to know how it is that the singular people nourish +their loyalty, since they cannot attest to the continued being of the +object in which they put their faith. He is informed by his prostrate +servant of a settled habit they have of diligently seeking their +Divinity, hidden above, below; and of copiously taking inside them doses +of what is denied to their external vision: thus they fortify credence +chemically on an abundance of meats and liquors; fire they eat, and they +drink fire; they become consequently instinct with fire. Necessarily +therefore they believe in fire. Believing, they worship. Worshipping, +they march Eastward at morn, Westward at eve. For that way lies the key, +this way the cupboard, of the supplies, their fuel. + +According to Stage directions, THE RAJAH AND HIS MINISTER Enter a +Gin-Palace.--It is to witness a service that they have learnt to +appreciate as Anglicanly religious. + +On the step of the return to their Indian clime, they speak of the +hatted sect, which is most, or most commercially, succoured and fattened +by our rule there: they wave adieu to the conquering Islanders, as to +‘Parsees beneath a cloud.’ + +The two are seen last on the deck of the vessel, in perusal of a medical +pamphlet composed of statistics and sketches, traceries, horrid blots, +diagrams with numbers referring to notes, of the various maladies caused +by the prolonged prosecution of that form of worship. + +‘But can they suffer so and live?’ exclaims the Rajah, vexed by the +physical sympathetic twinges which set him wincing. + +‘Science,’ his Minister answers, ‘took them up where Nature, in pity +of their martyrdom, dropped them. They do not live; they are engines, +insensible things of repairs and patches; insteamed to pursue their +infuriate course, to the one end of exhausting supplies for the renewing +of them, on peril of an instant suspension if they deviate a step or +stop: nor do they.’ + +The Rajah is of opinion, that he sails home with the key of the riddle +of their power to vanquish. In some apparent allusion to an Indian story +of a married couple who successfully made their way, he accounts for +their solid and resistless advance, resembling that of-- + + The doubly-wedded man and wife, + Pledged to each other and against the world + With mutual union. + +One would like to think of the lengthened tide-flux of pedestrian +citizens facing South-westward, as being drawn by devout attraction to +our nourishing luminary: at the hour, mark, when the Norland cloud-king, +after a day of wild invasion, sits him on his restful bank of bluefish +smack-o’-cheek red above Whitechapel, to spy where his last puff of icy +javelins pierces and dismembers the vapoury masses in cluster about +the circle of flame descending upon the greatest and most elevated of +Admirals at the head of the Strand, with illumination of smoke-plumed +chimneys, house-roofs, window-panes, weather-vanes, monument and +pedimental monsters, and omnibus umbrella. One would fair believe that +they advance admireing; they are assuredly made handsome by the beams. +No longer mere concurrent atoms of the furnace of business (from +coal-dust to sparks, rushing, as it were, on respiratory blasts of an +enormous engine’s centripetal and centrifugal energy), their step is +leisurely to meet the rosy Dinner, which is ever a see-saw with the God +of Light in his fall; the mask of the noble human visage upon them +is not roughened, as at midday, by those knotted hard ridges of the +scrambler’s hand seen from forehead down to jaw; when indeed they have +all the appearance of sour scientific productions. And unhappily for +the national portrait, in the Poem quoted, the Rajah’s Minister chose +an hour between morning and meridian, or at least before an astonished +luncheon had come to composure inside their persons, for drawing his +Master’s attention to the quaint similarity of feature in the units of +the busy antish congregates they had travelled so far to visit and to +study: + + These Britons wear + The driven and perplexed look of men + Begotten hastily ‘twixt business hours + +It could not have been late afternoon. + +These Orientals should have seen them, with Victor Radnor among them, +fronting the smoky splendours of the sunset. In April, the month of +piled and hurried cloud, it is a Rape of the Sabines overhead from +all quarters, either one of the winds brawnily larcenous; and London, +smoking royally to the open skies, builds images of a dusty epic fray +for possession of the portly dames. There is immensity, swinging motion, +collision, dusky richness of colouring, to the sight; and to the mind +idea. London presents it. If we can allow ourselves a moment for not +inquireing scrupulously (you will do it by inhaling the aroma of the +ripe kitchen hour), here is a noble harmony of heaven and the earth of +the works of man, speaking a grander tongue than barren sea or wood or +wilderness. Just a moment; it goes; as, when a well-attuned barrel-organ +in a street has drawn us to recollections of the Opera or Italy, another +harshly crashes, and the postman knocks at doors, and perchance a +costermonger cries his mash of fruit, a beggar woman wails her hymn. For +the pinched are here, the dinnerless, the weedy, the gutter-growths, +the forces repressing them. That grand tongue of the giant City +inspires none human to Bardic eulogy while we let those discords be. An +embittered Muse of Reason prompts her victims to the composition of +the adulatory Essay and of the Leading Article, that she may satiate an +angry irony ‘upon those who pay fee for their filling with the stuff. +Song of praise she does not permit. A moment of satisfaction in a +striking picture is accorded, and no more. For this London, this +England, Europe, world, but especially this London, is rather a thing +for hospital operations than for poetic rhapsody; in aspect, too, +streaked scarlet and pock-pitted under the most cumbrous of jewelled +tiaras; a Titanic work of long-tolerated pygmies; of whom the leaders, +until sorely discomforted in body and doubtful in soul, will give +gold and labour, will impose restrictions upon activity, to maintain +a conservatism of diseases. Mind is absent, or somewhere so low down +beneath material accumulations that it is inexpressive, powerless to +drive the ponderous bulk to such excisings, purgeings, purifyings as +might--as may, we will suppose, render it acceptable, for a theme of +panegyric, to the Muse of Reason; ultimately, with her consent, to the +Spirit of Song. + +But first there must be the cleansing. When Night has fallen upon +London, the Rajah remarks: + + Monogamic Societies present + A decent visage and a hideous rear. + +His Minister (satirically, or in sympathetic Conservatism) would +have them not to move on, that they may preserve among beholders the +impression of their handsome frontage. Night, however, will come; and +they, adoreing the decent face, are moved on, made to expose what the +Rajah sees. Behind his courteousness, he is an antagonistic observer of +his conquerors; he pushes his questions farther than the need for them; +his Minister the same; apparently to retain the discountenanced people +in their state of exposure. Up to the time of the explanation of the +puzzle on board the departing vessel (on the road to Windsor, at the +Premier’s reception, in the cell of the Police, in the presence of the +Magistrate-whose crack of a totally inverse decision upon their +case, when he becomes acquainted with the titles and station of +these imputedly peccant, refreshes them), they hold debates over the +mysterious contrarieties of a people professing in one street what they +confound in the next, and practising by day a demureness that yells with +the cat of the tiles at night. + +Granting all that, it being a transient novelist’s business to please +the light-winged hosts which live for the hour, and give him his only +chance of half of it, let him identify himself with them, in keeping to +the quadrille on the surface and shirking the disagreeable. + +Clouds of high colour above London City are as the light of the Goddess +to lift the angry heroic head over human. They gloriously transfigure. +A Murillo beggar is not more precious than sight of London in any of the +streets admitting coloured cloud-scenes; the cunning of the sun’s hand +so speaks to us. And if haply down an alley some olive mechanic of +street-organs has quickened little children’s legs to rhythmic footing, +they strike on thoughts braver than pastoral. Victor Radnor, lover of +the country though he was, would have been the first to say it. He +would indeed have said it too emphatically. Open London as a theme, to a +citizen of London ardent for the clear air out of it, you have roused +an orator; you have certainly fired a magazine, and must listen to his +reminiscences of one of its paragraphs or pages. + +The figures of the hurtled fair ones in sky were wreathing Nelson’s +cocked hat when Victor, distinguishably bright-faced amid a crowd of +the irradiated, emerged from the tideway to cross the square, having +thoughts upon Art, which were due rather to the suggestive proximity of +the National Gallery than to the Flemish mouldings of cloud-forms under +Venetian brushes. His purchases of pictures had been his unhappiest +ventures. He had relied and reposed on the dicta of newspaper critics; +who are sometimes unanimous, and are then taken for guides, and are +fatal. He was led to the conclusion that our modern-lauded pictures do +not ripen. They have a chance of it, if abused. But who thinks of +buying the abused? Exalted by the critics, they have, during the days +of Exhibition, a glow, a significance or a fun, abandoning them where +examination is close and constant, and the critic’s trumpet-note +dispersed to the thinness of the fee for his blowing. As to foreign +pictures, classic pictures, Victor had known his purse to leap for a +Raphael with a history in stages of descent from the Master, and critics +to swarm: a Raphael of the dealers, exposed to be condemned by +the critics, universally derided. A real Raphael in your house is +aristocracy to the roof-tree. But the wealthy trader will reach to title +before he may hope to get the real Raphael or a Titian. Yet he is the +one who would, it may be, after enjoyment of his prize, bequeath it to +the nation--PRESENTED TO THE NATION BY VICTOR MONTGOMERY RADNOR. There +stood the letters in gilt; and he had a thrill of his generosity; +for few were the generous acts he could not perform; and if an object +haunted the deed, it came of his trader’s habit of mind. + +He revelled in benevolent projects of gifts to the nation, which +would coat a sensitive name. Say, an ornamental City Square, flowers, +fountains, afternoon bands of music--comfortable seats in it, and a +shelter, and a ready supply of good cheap coffee or tea. Tobacco? why +not rolls of honest tobacco! nothing so much soothes the labourer. A +volume of plans for the benefit of London smoked out of each ascending +pile in his brain. London is at night a moaning outcast round the +policeman’s’ legs. What of an all-night-long, cosy, brightly lighted, +odoriferous coffee-saloon for rich or poor, on the model of the +hospitable Paduan? Owner of a penny, no soul among us shall be rightly +an outcast.... + +Dreams of this kind are taken at times by wealthy people as a cordial +at the bar of benevolent intentions. But Victor was not the man to steal +his refreshments in that known style. He meant to make deeds of them, as +far as he could, considering their immense extension; and except for the +sensitive social name, he was of single-minded purpose. + +Turning to the steps of a chemist’s shop to get a prescription made up +for his Nataly’s doctoring of her domestics, he was arrested by a rap +on his elbow; and no one was near; and there could not be a doubt of +the blow--a sharp hard stroke, sparing the funny-bone, but ringing. His +head, at the punctilio bump, throbbed responsively--owing to which +or indifference to the prescription, as of no instant requirement, +he pursued his course, resembling mentally the wanderer along a misty +beach, who hears cannon across the waters. + +He certainly had felt it. He remembered the shock: he could not remember +much of pain. How about intimations? His asking caused a smile. + +Very soon the riddle answered itself. He had come into view of the +diminutive marble cavalier of the infantile cerebellum; recollecting a +couplet from the pen of the disrespectful Satirist Peter, he thought of +a fall: his head and his elbow responded simultaneously to the thought. + +All was explained save his consequent rightabout from the chemist’s +shop: and that belongs to the minor involutions of circumstances and +the will. It passed like a giver’s wrinkle. He read the placards of the +Opera; reminding himself of the day when it was the single Opera-house; +and now we have two-or three. We have also a distracting couple of +Clowns and Pantaloons in our Pantomimes: though Colney says that the +multiplication of the pantaloon is a distinct advance to representative +truth--and bother Colney! Two Columbines also. We forbear to speak +of men, but where is the boy who can set his young heart upon two +Columbines at once! Victor felt the boy within him cold to both: and in +his youth he had doated on the solitary twirling spangled lovely Fairy. +The tale of a delicate lady dancer leaping as the kernel out of a nut +from the arms of Harlequin to the legalized embrace of a wealthy brewer, +and thenceforth living, by repute, with unagitated legs, as holy +a matron, despite her starry past, as any to be shown in a country +breeding the like abundantly, had always delighted him. It seemed a +reconcilement of opposing stations, a defeat of Puritanism. Ay, and poor +women!--women in the worser plight under the Puritan’s eye. They may be +erring and good: yes, finding the man to lift them the one step up! Read +the history of the error. But presently we shall teach the Puritan to +act by the standards of his religion. All is coming right--must come +right. Colney shall be confounded. + +Hereupon Victor hopped on to Fenellan’s hint regarding the designs of +Mrs. Burman. + +His Nataly might have to go through a short sharp term of +scorching--Godiva to the gossips. + +She would come out of it glorified. She would be reconciled with her +family. With her story of her devotion to the man loving her, the world +would know her for the heroine she was: a born lady, in appearance +and manner an empress among women. It was a story to be pleaded in +any court, before the sternest public. Mrs. Burman had thrown her into +temptation’s way. It was a story to touch the heart, as none other ever +written of over all the earth was there a woman equalling his Nataly! + +And their Nesta would have a dowry to make princesses envious:--she +would inherit... he ran up an arithmetical column, down to a line of +figures in addition, during three paces of his feet. Dartrey Fenellan +had said of little Nesta once, that she had a nature pure and sparkling +as mid-sea foam. Happy he who wins her! But she was one of the young +women who are easily pleased and hardly enthralled. Her father strained +his mind for the shape of the man to accomplish the feat. Whether she +had an ideal of a youth in her feminine head, was beyond his guessing. +She was not the damsel to weave a fairy waistcoat for the identical +prince, and try it upon all comers to discover him: as is done by +some; excuseably, if we would be just. Nesta was of the elect, for whom +excuses have not to be made. She would probably like a flute-player +best; because her father played the flute, and she loved him--laughably +a little maiden’s reason! Her father laughed at her. + +Along the street of Clubs, where a bruised fancy may see black balls +raining, the narrow way between ducal mansions offers prospect of the +sweep of greensward, all but touching up to the sunset to draw it to the +dance. + +Formerly, in his very early youth, he clasped a dream of gaining way +to an alliance with one of these great surrounding houses; and he had +a passion for the acquisition of money as a means. And it has to be +confessed, he had sacrificed in youth a slice of his youth, to gain it +without labour--usually a costly purchase. It had ended disastrously: +or say, a running of the engine off the rails, and a speedy +re-establishment of traffic. Could it be a loss, that had led to the +winning of his Nataly? Can we really loathe the first of the steps when +the one in due sequence, cousin to it, is a blessedness? If we have been +righted to health by a medical draught, we are bound to be respectful to +our drug. And so we are, in spite of Nature’s wry face and shiver at +a mention of what we went through during those days, those horrible +days:--hide them! + +The smothering of them from sight set them sounding he had to listen. +Colney Durance accused him of entering into bonds with somebody’s +grandmother for the simple sake of browsing on her thousands: a picture +of himself too abhorrent to Victor to permit of any sort of acceptance. +Consequently he struck away to the other extreme of those who have a +choice in mixed motives: he protested that compassion had been the cause +of it. Looking at the circumstance now, he could see, allowing for human +frailty-perhaps a wish to join the ranks of the wealthy compassion for +the woman as the principal motive. How often had she not in those old +days praised his generosity for allying his golden youth to her withered +age--Mrs. Burman’s very words! And she was a generous woman or had been: +she was generous in saying that. Well, and she was generous in having +a well-born, well-bred beautiful young creature like Nataly for +her companion, when it was a case of need for the dear girl; and +compassionately insisting, against remonstrances: they were spoken by +him, though they were but partial. How, then, had she become--at least, +how was it that she could continue to behave as the vindictive Fury who +persecuted remorselessly, would give no peace, poisoned the wells round +every place where he and his dear one pitched their tent! + +But at last she had come to charity, as he could well believe. Not too +late! Victor’s feeling of gratitude to Mrs. Burman assured him it was +genuine because of his genuine conviction, that she had determined to +end her incomprehensibly lengthened days in reconcilement with him: and +he had always been ready to ‘forget and forgive.’ A truly beautiful old +phrase! It thrilled off the most susceptible of men. + +His well-kept secret of the spacious country-house danced him behind a +sober demeanour from one park to another; and along beside the drive +to view of his townhouse--unbeloved of the inhabitants, although by +acknowledgement it had, as Fredi funnily drawled, to express her sense +of justice in depreciation, ‘good accommodation.’ Nataly was at home, +he was sure. Time to be dressing: sun sets at six-forty, he said, and +glanced at the stained West, with an accompanying vision of outspread +primroses flooding banks of shadowy fields near Lakelands. + +He crossed the road and rang. + +Upon the opening of the door, there was a cascade of muslin downstairs. +His darling Fredi stood out of it, a dramatic Undine. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. NATALY + +‘Il segreto!’ the girl cried commandingly, with a forefinger at his +breast. + +He crossed arms, toning in similar recitative, with anguish, ‘Dove +volare!’ + +They joined in half a dozen bars of operatic duet. + +She flew to him, embraced and kissed. + +‘I must have it, my papa! unlock. I’ve been spying the bird on its +hedgerow nest so long! And this morning, my own dear cunning papa, +weren’t you as bare as winter twigs? “Tomorrow perhaps we will have a +day in the country.” To go and see the nest? Only, please, not a big +one. A real nest; where mama and I can wear dairymaid’s hat and apron +all day--the style you like; and strike roots. We’ve been torn away two +or three times: twice, I know.’ + +‘Fixed, this time; nothing shall tear us up,’ said her father, moving on +to the stairs, with an arm about her. + +‘So, it is...?’ + +‘She’s amazed at her cleverness!’ + +‘A nest for three?’ + +‘We must have a friend or two.’ + +‘And pretty country?’ + +‘Trust her papa for that.’ + +‘Nice for walking and running over fields? No rich people?’ + +‘How escape that rabble in England! as Colney says. It’s a place for +being quite independent of neighbours, free as air.’ + +‘Oh! bravo!’ + +‘And Fredi will have her horse, and mama her pony-carriage; and Fredi +can have a swim every Summer morning.’ + +‘A swim?’ Her note was dubious. ‘A river?’ + +‘A good long stretch--fairish, fairish. Bit of a lake; bathing-shed; the +Naiad’s bower: pretty water to see.’ + +‘Ah. And has the house a name?’ + +‘Lakelands. I like the name.’ + +‘Papa gave it the name!’ + +‘There’s nothing he can conceal from his girl. Only now and then a +little surprise.’ + +‘And his girl is off her head with astonishment. But tell me, who has +been sharing the secret with you?’ + +‘Fredi strikes home! And it is true, you dear; I must have a confidant: +Simeon Fenellan.’ + +‘Not Mr. Durance?’ + +He shook out a positive negative. ‘I leave Col to his guesses. He’d have +been prophesying fire the works before the completion.’ + +‘Then it is not a dear old house, like Craye and Creckholt?’ + +‘Wait and see to-morrow.’ + +He spoke of the customary guests for concert practice; the music, +instrumental and vocal; quartet, duet, solo; and advising the girl to be +quick, as she had but twenty-five minutes, he went humming and trilling +into his dressing-room. + +Nesta signalled at her mother’s door for permission to enter. She +slipped in, saw that the maid was absent, and said: ‘Yes, mama; and +prepare, I feared it; I was sure.’ + +Her mother breathed a little moan: ‘Not a cottage?’ + +‘He has not mentioned it to Mr. Durance.’ + +‘Why not?’ + +‘Mr. Fenellan has been his confidant.’ + +‘My darling, we did wrong to let it go on, without speaking. You don’t +know for certain yet?’ + +‘It’s a large estate, mama, and a big new house.’ + +Nataly’s bosom sank. ‘Ah me! here’s misery! I ought to have known. +And too late now it has gone so far! But I never imagined he would be +building.’ + +She caught herself languishing at her toilette-glass, as, if her beauty +were at stake; and shut her eyelids angrily. To be looking in that +manner, for a mere suspicion, was too foolish. But Nesta’s divinations +were target-arrows; they flew to the mark. Could it have been expected +that Victor would ever do anything on a small scale? O the dear little +lost lost cottage! She thought of it with a strain of the arms of +womanhood’s longing in the unblessed wife for a babe. For the secluded +modest cottage would not rack her with the old anxieties, beset her with +suspicions.... + +‘My child, you won’t possibly have time before the dinner-hour,’ she +said to Nesta, dismissing her and taking her kiss of comfort with a +short and straining look out of the depths. + +Those bitter doubts of the sentiments of neighbours are an incipient +dislike, when one’s own feelings to the neighbours are kind, could be +affectionate. We are distracted, perverted, made strangers to ourselves +by a false position. + +She heard his voice on a carol. Men do not feel this doubtful position +as women must. They have not the same to endure; the world gives them +land to tread, where women are on breaking seas. Her Nesta knew no more +than the pain of being torn from a home she loved. But now the girl +was older, and if once she had her imagination awakened, her fearful +directness would touch the spot, question, bring on the scene to-come, +necessarily to come, dreaded much more than death by her mother. But +if it might be postponed till the girl was nearer to an age of grave +understanding, with some knowledge of our world, some comprehension of a +case that could be pleaded! + +He sang: he never acknowledged a trouble, he dispersed it; and in her +present wrestle with the scheme of a large country estate involving new +intimacies, anxieties, the courtship of rival magnates, followed by the +wretched old cloud, and the imposition upon them to bear it in silence +though they knew they could plead a case, at least before charitable and +discerning creatures or before heaven, the despondent lady could have +asked whether he was perfectly sane. + +Who half so brilliantly!--Depreciation of him, fetched up at a stroke +the glittering armies of her enthusiasm. He had proved it; he proved it +daily in conflicts and in victories that dwarfed emotional troubles +like hers: yet they were something to bear, hard to bear, at times +unbearable. + +But those were times of weakness. Let anything be doubted rather than +the good guidance of the man who was her breath of life! Whither he led, +let her go, not only submissively, exultingly. + +Thus she thought, under pressure of the knowledge, that unless rushing +into conflicts bigger than conceivable, she had to do it, and should +therefore think it. + +This was the prudent woman’s clear deduction from the state wherein she +found herself, created by the one first great step of the mad woman. +Her surrender then might be likened to the detachment of a flower on the +river’s bank by swell of flood: she had no longer root of her own; away +she sailed, through beautiful scenery, with occasionally a crashing +fall, a turmoil, emergence from a vortex, and once more the sunny +whirling surface. Strange to think, she had not since then power to +grasp in her abstract mind a notion of stedfastness without or within. + +But, say not the mad, say the enamoured woman. Love is a madness, having +heaven’s wisdom in it--a spark. But even when it is driving us on the +breakers, call it love: and be not unworthy of it, hold to it. She and +Victor had drunk of a cup. The philtre was in her veins, whatever the +directions of the rational mind. + +Exulting or regretting, she had to do it, as one in the car with a +racing charioteer. Or up beside a more than Titanically audacious +balloonist. For the charioteer is bent on a goal; and Victor’s course +was an ascension from heights to heights. He had ideas, he mastered +Fortune. He conquered Nataly and held her subject, in being above his +ambition; which was now but an occupation for his powers, while the aim +of his life was at the giving and taking of simple enjoyment. In spite +of his fits of unreasonableness in the means--and the woman loving +him could trace them to a breath of nature--his gentle good friendly +innocent aim in life was of this very simplest; so wonderful, by +contrast with his powers, that she, assured of it as she was by +experience of him, was touched, in a transfusion of her feelings through +lucent globes of admiration and of tenderness, to reverence. There +had been occasions when her wish for the whole world to have proof and +exhibition of his greatness, goodness, and simplicity amid his gifts, +prompted her incitement of him to stand forth eminently: [‘lead a +kingdom,’ was the phrase behind the curtain within her shy bosom;) and +it revealed her to herself, upon reflection, as being still the Nataly +who drank the cup with him, to join her fate with his. + +And why not? Was that regretted? Far from it. In her maturity, the woman +was unable to send forth any dwelling thought or more than a flight +of twilight fancy, that cancelled the deed of her youth, and therewith +seemed to expunge near upon the half--of her term of years. If it came +to consideration of her family and the family’s opinion of her conduct, +her judgement did not side with them or with herself, it whirled, swam +to a giddiness and subsided. + +Of course, if she and Victor were to inhabit a large country-house, they +might as well have remained at Craye Farm or at Creckholt; both places +dear to them in turn. Such was the plain sense of the surface +question. And how strange it was to her, that he, of the most quivering +sensitiveness on her behalf; could not see, that he threw her into +situations where hard words of men and women threatened about her head; +where one or two might on a day, some day, be heard; and where, in the +recollection of two years back, the word ‘Impostor’ had smacked her on +both cheeks from her own mouth. + +Now once more they were to run the same round of alarms, undergo the +love of the place, with perpetual apprehensions of having to leave it: +alarms, throbbing suspicions, like those of old travellers through the +haunted forest, where whispers have intensity of meaning, and unseeing +we are seen, and unaware awaited. + +Nataly shook the rolls of her thick brown hair from her forehead; she +took strength from a handsome look of resolution in the glass. She could +always honestly say, that her courage would not fail him. + +Victor tapped at the door; he stepped into the room, wearing his evening +white flower over a more open white waistcoat; and she was composed and +uninquiring. Their Nesta was heard on the descent of the stairs, with a +rattle of Donizetti’s Il segreto to the skylights. + +He performed his never-omitted lover’s homage. + +Nataly enfolded him in a homely smile. ‘A country-house? We go and see +it to-morrow?’ + +‘And you’ve been pining for a country home, my dear soul.’ + +‘After the summer six weeks, the house in London does not seem a home to +return to.’ + +‘And next day, Nataly draws five thousand pounds for the first sketch of +the furniture.’ + +‘There is the Creckholt...’ she had a difficulty in saying. + +‘Part of it may do. Lakelands requires--but you will see to-morrow.’ + +After a close shutting of her eyes, she rejoined: ‘It is not a cottage?’ + +‘Well, dear, no: when the Slave of the Lamp takes to building, he does +not run up cottages. And we did it without magic, all in a year; which +is quite as good as a magical trick in a night.’ He drew her close to +him. ‘When was it my dear girl guessed me at work?’ + +‘It was the other dear girl. Nesta is the guesser.’ + +‘You were two best of souls to keep from bothering me; and I might have +had to fib; and we neither of us like that.’ He noticed a sidling of her +look. ‘More than the circumstances oblige:--to be frank. But now we +can speak of them. Wait--and the change comes; and opportunely, I have +found. It’s true we have waited long; my darling has had her worries. +However, it ‘s here at last. Prepare yourself. I speak positively. You +have to brace up for one sharp twitch--the woman’s portion! as Natata +says--and it’s over.’ He looked into her eyes for comprehension; and not +finding inquiry, resumed: ‘Just in time for the entry into Lakelands. +With the pronouncement of the decree, we present the licence... at an +altar we’ve stood before, in spirit... one of the ladies of your family +to support you:--why not? Not even then?’ + +‘No, Victor; they have cast me off.’ + +‘Count on my cousins, the Duvidney ladies. Then we can say, that those +two good old spinsters are less narrow than the Dreightons. I have to +confess I rather think I was to blame for leaving Creckholt. Only, if +I see my girl wounded, I hate the place that did the mischief. You and +Fredi will clap hands for the country about Lakelands.’ + +‘Have you heard from her... of her... is it anything, Victor?’ Nataly +asked him shyly; with not much of hope, but some readiness to be +inflated. The prospect of an entry into the big new house, among a new +society, begirt by the old nightmares and fretting devils, drew her into +staring daylight or furnace-light. + +He answered: ‘Mrs. Burman has definitely decided. In pity of us?--to be +free herself?--who can say! She ‘s a woman with a conscience--of a kind: +slow, but it brings her to the point at last. You know her, know her +well. Fenellan has it from her lawyer--her lawyer! a Mr. Carting; a +thoroughly trustworthy man--’ + +‘Fenellan, as a reporter?’ + +‘Thoroughly to be trusted on serious matters. I understand that Mrs. +Burman:--her health is awful: yes, yes; poor woman! poor woman! we feel +for her:--she has come to perceive her duty to those she leaves behind. +Consider: she HAS used the rod. She must be tired out--if human. And she +is. One remembers traits.’ + +Victor sketched one or two of the traits allusively to the hearer +acquainted with them. They received strong colouring from midday’s Old +Veuve in his blood. His voice and words had a swing of conviction: they +imparted vinousness to a heart athirst. + +The histrionic self-deceiver may be a persuasive deceiver of another, +who is again, though not ignorant of his character, tempted to swallow +the nostrums which have made so gallant a man of him: his imperceptible +sensible playing of the part, on a substratum of sincereness, induces +fascinatingly to the like performance on our side, that we may be armed +as he is for enjoying the coveted reality through the partial simulation +of possessing it. And this is not a task to us when we have looked our +actor in the face, and seen him bear the look, knowing that he is not +intentionally untruthful; and when we incline to be captivated by his +rare theatrical air of confidence; when it seems as an outside thought +striking us, that he may not be altogether deceived in the present +instance; when suddenly an expectation of the thing desired is born and +swims in a credible featureless vagueness on a misty scene: and when we +are being kissed and the blood is warmed. In fine, here as everywhere +along our history, when the sensations are spirited up to drown the +mind, we become drift-matter of tides, metal to magnets. And if we are +women, who commonly allow the lead to men, getting it for themselves +only by snaky cunning or desperate adventure, credulity--the continued +trust in the man--is the alternative of despair. + +‘But, Victor, I must ask,’ Nataly said: ‘you have it through Simeon +Fenellan; you have not yourself received the letter from her lawyer?’ + +‘My knowledge of what she would do near the grave--poor soul, yes! I +shall soon be hearing.’ + +‘You do not, propose to enter this place until--until it is over?’ + +‘We enter this place, my love, without any sort of ceremony. We live +there independently, and we can we have quarters there for our friends. +Our one neighbour is London--there! And at Lakelands we are able to +entertain London and wife;--our friends, in short; with some, what +we have to call, satellites. You inspect the house and grounds +to-morrow--sure to be fair. Put aside all but the pleasant recollections +of Craye and Creckholt. We start on a different footing. Really nothing +can be simpler. Keeping your town-house, you are now and then in +residence at Lakelands, where you entertain your set, teach them to feel +the charm of country life: we have everything about us; could have had +our own milk and cream up to London the last two months. Was it very +naughty?--I should have exploded my surprise! You will see, you will see +to-morrow.’ + +Nataly nodded, as required. ‘Good news from the mines?’ she said. + +He answered: ‘Dartrey is--yes, poor fellow! Dartrey is confident, from +the yield of stones, that the value of our claim counts in a number +of millions. The same with the gold. But gold-mines are lodgeings, not +homes.’ + +‘Oh, Victor! if money...! But why did you say “poor fellow” of Dartrey +Fenellan?’ + +‘You know how he’s...’ + +‘Yes, yes,’ she said hastily. ‘But has that woman been causing fresh +anxiety?’ + +‘And Natata’s chief hero on earth is not to be named a poor fellow,’ +said he, after a negative of the head on a subject they neither of them +liked to touch. + +Then he remembered that Dartrey Fenellan was actually a lucky fellow; +and he would have mentioned the circumstance confided to him by Simeon, +but for a downright dread of renewing his painful fit of envy. He had +also another, more distant, very faint idea, that it had better not be +mentioned just yet, for a reason entirely undefined. + +He consulted his watch. The maid had come in for the robeing of her +mistress. Nataly’s mind had turned to the little country cottage which +would have given her such great happiness. She raised her eyes to him; +she could not check their filling; they were like a river carrying +moonlight on the smooth roll of a fall. + +He loved the eyes, disliked the water in them. With an impatient, +‘There, there!’ and a smart affectionate look, he retired, thinking in +our old satirical vein of the hopeless endeavour to satisfy a woman’s +mind without the intrusion of hard material statements, facts. Even +the best of women, even the most beautiful, and in their moments of +supremest beauty, have this gross ravenousness for facts. You must not +expect to appease them unless you administer solids. It would almost +appear that man is exclusively imaginative and poetical; and that his +mate, the fair, the graceful, the bewitching, with the sweetest and +purest of natures, cannot help being something of a groveller. + +Nataly had likewise her thoughts. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. BETWEEN A GENERAL MAN OF THIN WORLD AND A PROFESSIONAL. +Rather earlier in the afternoon of that day, Simeon Fenellan, thinking +of the many things which are nothing, and so melancholy for lack of +amusements properly to follow Old Veuve, that he could ask himself +whether he had not done a deed of night, to be blinking at his +fellow-men like an owl all mad for the reveller’s hoots and flights +and mice and moony roundels behind his hypocritical judex air of moping +composure, chanced on Mr. Carling, the solicitor, where Lincoln’s Inn +pumps lawyers into Fleet Street through the drain-pipe of Chancery Lane. +He was in the state of the wine when a shake will rouse the sluggish +sparkles to foam. Sight of Mrs. Burman’s legal adviser had instantly +this effect upon him: his bubbling friendliness for Victor Radnor, and +the desire of the voice in his bosom for ears to hear, combined like the +rush of two waves together, upon which he may be figured as the boat: he +caught at Mr. Carling’s hand more heartily than their acquaintanceship +quite sanctioned; but his grasp and his look of overflowing were +immediately privileged; Mr. Carling, enjoying this anecdotal gentleman’s +conversation as he did, liked the warmth, and was flattered during the +squeeze with a prospect of his wife and friends partaking of the fun +from time to time. + +‘I was telling my wife yesterday your story of the lady contrabandist: I +don’t think she has done laughing since,’ Mr. Calling said. + +Fenellan fluted: ‘Ah?’ He had scent, in the eulogy of a story grown flat +as Election hats, of a good sort of man in the way of men, a step or two +behind the man of the world. He expressed profound regret at not having +heard the silvery ring of the lady’s laughter. + +Carling genially conceived a real gratification to be conferred on his +wife. ‘Perhaps you will some day honour us?’ + +‘You spread gold-leaf over the days to come, sir.’ + +‘Now, if I might name the day?’ + +‘You lump the gold and make it current coin;--says the blushing bride, +who ought not to have delivered herself so boldly, but she had forgotten +her bashful part and spoilt the scene, though, luckily for the damsel, +her swain was a lover of nature, and finding her at full charge, +named the very next day of the year, and held her to it, like the +complimentary tyrant he was.’ + +‘To-morrow, then!’ said Carling intrepidly, on a dash of enthusiasm, +through a haggard thought of his wife and the cook and the netting of +friends at short notice. He urged his eagerness to ask whether he might +indeed have the satisfaction of naming to-morrow. + +‘With happiness,’ Fenellan responded. + +Mrs. Carling was therefore in for it. + +‘To-morrow, half-past seven: as for company to meet you, we will do what +we can. You go Westward?’ + +‘To bed with the sun,’ said the reveller. + +‘Perhaps by Covent Garden? I must give orders there.’ + +‘Orders given in Covent Garden, paint a picture for bachelors of the +domestic Paradise an angel must help them to enter! Ah, dear me! Is +there anything on earth to compare with the pride of a virtuous life?’ + +‘I was married at four and twenty,’ said Carling, as one taking up +the expository second verse of a poem; plain facts, but weighty and +necessary: ‘my wife was in her twentieth year: we have five children; +two sons, three daughters, one married, with a baby. So we are +grandfather and mother, and have never regretted the first step, I may +say for both of us.’ + +‘Think of it! Good luck and sagacity joined hands overhead on the day +you proposed to the lady: and I’d say, that all the credit is with her, +but that it would seem to be at the expense of her sex.’ + +‘She would be the last to wish it, I assure you.’ + +‘True of all good women! You encourage me, touching a matter of deep +interest, not unknown to you. The lady’s warm heart will be with us. +Probably she sees Mrs. Burman?’ + +‘Mrs. Burman Radnor receives no one.’ + +A comic severity in the tone of the correction was deferentially +accepted by Fenellan. + +‘Pardon. She flies her flag, with her captain wanting; and she has, +queerly, the right. So, then, the worthy dame who receives no one, +might be treated, it struck us, conversationally, as a respectable +harbour-hulk, with more history than top-honours. But she has the +indubitable legal right to fly them--to proclaim it; for it means little +else.’ + +‘You would have her, if I follow you, divest herself of the name?’ + +‘Pin me to no significations, if you please, O shrewdest of the +legal sort! I have wit enough to escape you there. She is no doubt an +estimable person.’ + +‘Well, she is; she is in her way a very good woman.’ + +‘Ah. You see, Mr. Carling, I cannot bring myself to rank her beside +another lady, who has already claimed the title of me; and you will +forgive me if I say, that your word “good” has a look of being stuck +upon the features we know of her, like a coquette’s naughty patch; or +it’s a jewel of an eye in an ebony idol: though I’ve heard tell she +performs her charities.’ + +‘I believe she gives away three parts of her income and that is large.’ + +‘Leaving the good lady a fine fat fourth.’ + +‘Compare her with other wealthy people.’ + +‘And does she outshine the majority still with her personal attractions. + +Carling was instigated by the praise he had bestowed on his wife +to separate himself from a female pretender so ludicrous; he sought +Fenellan’s nearest ear, emitting the sound of ‘hum.’ + +‘In other respects, unimpeachable!’ + +‘Oh! quite!’ + +‘There was a fishfag of classic Billingsgate, who had broken her +husband’s nose with a sledgehammer fist, and swore before the +magistrate, that the man hadn’t a crease to complain of in her +character. We are condemned, Mr. Carling, sometimes to suffer in the +flesh for the assurance we receive of the inviolability of those moral +fortifications.’ + +‘Character, yes, valuable--I do wish you had named to-night for doing me +the honour of dining with me!’ said the lawyer impulsively, in a rapture +of the appetite for anecdotes. ‘I have a ripe Pichon Longueville, ‘65.’ + +‘A fine wine. Seductive to hear of. I dine with my friend Victor Radnor. +And he knows wine.--There are good women in the world, Mr. Carling, +whose characters...’ + +‘Of course, of course there are; and I could name you some. We +lawyers...!’ + +‘You encounter all sorts.’ + +‘Between ourselves,’ Carling sank his tones to the indiscriminate, where +it mingled with the roar of London. + +‘You do?’ Fenellan hazarded a guess at having heard enlightened liberal +opinions regarding the sex. ‘Right!’ + +‘Many!’ + +‘I back you, Mr. Carling.’ + +The lawyer pushed to yet more confidential communication, up to the +verge of the clearly audible: he spoke of examples, experiences. +Fenellan backed him further. + +‘Acting on behalf of clients, you understand, Mr. Fenellan.’ + +‘Professional, but charitable; I am with you.’ + +‘Poor things! we--if we have to condemn--we owe them something.’ + +‘A kind word for poor Polly Venus, with all the world against her! She +doesn’t hear it often.’ + +‘A real service,’ Carling’s voice deepened to the legal ‘without +prejudice,’--‘I am bound to say it--a service to Society.’ + +‘Ah, poor wench! And the kind of reward she gets?’ + +‘We can hardly examine... mysterious dispensations... here we are to +make the best we can of it.’ + +‘For the creature Society’s indebted to? True. And am I to think there’s +a body of legal gentlemen to join with you, my friend, in founding an +Institution to distribute funds to preach charity over the country, and +win compassion for her, as one of the principal persons of her time, +that Society’s indebted to for whatever it’s indebted for?’ + +‘Scarcely that,’ said Carling, contracting. + +‘But you ‘re for great Reforms?’ + +‘Gradual.’ + +‘Then it’s for Reformatories, mayhap.’ + +‘They would hardly be a cure.’ + +‘You ‘re in search of a cure?’ + +‘It would be a blessed discovery.’ + +‘But what’s to become of Society?’ + +‘It’s a puzzle to the cleverest.’ + +‘All through History, my dear Mr. Carling, we see that. + +‘Establishments must have their sacrifices. Beware of interfering: eh?’ + +‘By degrees, we may hope....’ + +‘Society prudently shuns the topic; and so ‘ll we. For we might tell of +one another, in a fit of distraction, that t’ other one talked of it, +and we should be banished for an offence against propriety. You should +read my friend Durance’s Essay on Society. Lawyers are a buttress of +Society. But, come: I wager they don’t know what they support until they +read that Essay.’ + +Carling had a pleasant sense of escape, in not being personally asked to +read the Essay, and not hearing that a copy of it should be forwarded to +him. + +He said: ‘Mr. Radnor is a very old friend?’ + +‘Our fathers were friends; they served in the same regiment for years. I +was in India when Victor Radnor took the fatal!’ + +‘Followed by a second, not less...?’ + +‘In the interpretation of a rigid morality arming you legal gentlemen to +make it so!’ + +‘The Law must be vindicated.’ + +‘The law is a clumsy bludgeon.’ + +‘We think it the highest effort of human reason--the practical +instrument.’ + +‘You may compare it to a rustic’s finger on a fiddlestring, for the +murdered notes you get out of the practical instrument. + +‘I am bound to defend it, clumsy bludgeon or not.’ + +‘You are one of the giants to wield it, and feel humanly, when, by +chance, down it comes on the foot an inch off the line.--Here’s a peep +of Old London; if the habit of old was not to wash windows. I like these +old streets!’ + +‘Hum,’ Carling hesitated. ‘I can remember when the dirt at the windows +was appalling.’ + +‘Appealing to the same kind of stuff in the passing youngster’s +green-scum eye: it was. And there your Law did good work.--You’re for +Bordeaux. What is your word on Burgundy?’ + +‘Our Falernian!’ + +‘Victor Radnor has the oldest in the kingdom. But he will have the best +of everything. A Romanee! A Musigny! Sip, my friend, you embrace the +Goddess of your choice above. You are up beside her at a sniff of that +wine.--And lo, venerable Drury! we duck through the court, reminded a +bit by our feelings of our first love, who hadn’t the cleanest of faces +or nicest of manners, but she takes her station in memory because we +were boys then, and the golden halo of youth is upon her.’ + +Carling, as a man of the world, acquiesced in souvenirs he did not +share. He said urgently: ‘Understand me; you speak of Mr. Radnor; pray, +believe I have the greatest respect for Mr. Radnor’s abilities. He is +one of our foremost men... proud of him. Mr. Radnor has genius; I +have watched him; it is genius; he shows it in all he does; one of the +memorable men of our times. I can admire him, independent of--well, +misfortune of that kind... a mistaken early step. Misfortune, it is to +be named. Between ourselves--we are men of the world--if one could +see the way! She occasionally... as I have told you. I have ventured +suggestions. As I have mentioned, I have received an impression...’ + +‘But still, Mr. Carling, if the lady doesn’t release him and will keep +his name, she might stop her cowardly persecutions.’ + +‘Can you trace them?’ + +‘Undisguised!’ + +‘Mrs. Burman Radnor is devout. I should not exactly say revengeful. +We have to discriminate. I gather, that her animus is, in all honesty, +directed at the--I quote--state of sin. We are mixed, you know.’ + +The Winegod in the blood of Fenellan gave a leap. ‘But, fifty thousand +times more mixed, she might any moment stop the state of sin, as she +calls it, if it pleased her.’ + +‘She might try. Our Judges look suspiciously on long delayed actions. +And there are, too, women who regard the marriage-tie as indissoluble. +She has had to combat that scruple.’ + +‘Believer in the renewing of the engagement overhead!--well. But put a +by-word to Mother Nature about the state of sin. Where, do you imagine, +she would lay it? You’ll say, that Nature and Law never agreed. They +ought.’ + +‘The latter deferring to the former?’ + +‘Moulding itself on her swelling proportions. My dear dear sir, the +state of sin was the continuing to live in defiance of, in contempt of, +in violation of, in the total degradation of, Nature.’ + +‘He was under no enforcement to take the oath at the altar.’ + +‘He was a small boy tempted by a varnished widow, with pounds of barley +sugar in her pockets;--and she already serving as a test-vessel or +mortar for awful combinations in druggery! Gilt widows are equal to +decrees of Fate to us young ones. Upon my word, the cleric who unites, +and the Law that sanctions, they’re the criminals. Victor Radnor is the +noblest of fellows, the very best friend a man can have. I will tell +you: he saved me, after I left the army, from living on the produce of +my pen--which means, if there is to be any produce, the prostrating of +yourself to the level of the round middle of the public: saved me from +that! Yes, Mr. Carling, I have trotted our thoroughfares a poor Polly of +the pen; and it is owing to Victor Radnor that I can order my thoughts +as an individual man again before I blacken paper. Owing to him, I have +a tenderness for mercenaries; having been one of them and knowing how +little we can help it. He is an Olympian--who thinks of them below. +The lady also is an admirable woman at all points. The pair are a mated +couple, such as you won’t find in ten households over Christendom. Are +you aware of the story?’ + +Carling replied: ‘A story under shadow of the Law, has generally two +very distinct versions.’ + +‘Hear mine.--And, by Jove! a runaway cab. No, all right. But a crazy cab +it is, and fit to do mischief in narrow Drury. Except that it’s sheer +riff-raff here to knock over.’ + +‘Hulloa?--come!’ quoth the wary lawyer. + +‘There’s the heart I wanted to rouse to hear me! One may be sure that +the man for old Burgundy has it big and sound, in spite of his legal +practices; a dear good spherical fellow! Some day, we’ll hope, you will +be sitting with us over a magnum of Victor Radnor’s Romance Conti aged +thirty-one: a wine, you’ll say at the second glass, High Priest for the +celebration of the uncommon nuptials between the body and the soul of +man.’ + +‘You hit me rightly,’ said Carting, tickled and touched; sensually +excited by the bouquet of Victor Radnor’s hospitality and companionship, +which added flavour to Fenellan’s compliments. These came home to him +through his desire to be the ‘good spherical fellow’; for he, like +modern diplomatists in the track of their eminent Berlinese New Type of +the time, put on frankness as an armour over wariness, holding craft +in reserve: his aim was at the refreshment of honest fellowship: by +no means to discover that the coupling of his native bias with his +professional duty was unprofitable nowadays. Wariness, however, was not +somnolent, even when he said: ‘You know, I am never the lawyer out of my +office. Man of the world to men of the world; and I have not lost by +it. I am Mrs. Barman Radnor’s legal adviser: you are Mr. Victor Radnor’s +friend. They are, as we see them, not on the best of terms. I would +rather--at its lowest, as a matter of business--be known for having +helped them to some kind of footing than send in a round bill to my +client--or another. I gain more in the end. Frankly, I mean to prove, +that it’s a lawyer’s interest to be human.’ + +‘Because, now, see!’ said Fenellan, ‘here’s the case. Miss Natalia +Dreighton, of a good Yorkshire family--a large one, reads an +advertisement for the post of companion to a lady, and answers it, and +engages herself, previous to the appearance of the young husband. Miss +Dreighton is one of the finest young women alive. She has a glorious +contralto voice. Victor and she are encouraged by Mrs. Barman to sing +duets together. Well? + +Why, Euclid would have theorem’d it out for you at a glance at the trio. +You have only to look on them, you chatter out your three Acts of a +Drama without a stop. If Mrs. Barman cares to practise charity, she has +only to hold in her Fury-forked tongue, or her Jarniman I think ‘s the +name.’ + +Carting shrugged. + +‘Let her keep from striking, if she’s Christian,’ pursued Fenetlan, +‘and if kind let her resume the name of her first lord, who did a better +thing for himself than for her, when he shook off his bars of bullion, +to rise the lighter, and left a wretched female soul below, with the +devil’s own testimony to her attractions--thousands in the Funds, houses +in the City. She threw the young couple together. And my friend Victor +Radnor is of a particularly inflammable nature. Imagine one of us in +such a situation, Mr. Carting!’ + +‘Trying!’ said the lawyer. + +‘The dear fellow was as nigh death as a man can be and know the +sweetness of a woman’s call to him to live. And here’s London’s garden +of pines, bananas, oranges; all the droppings of the Hesperides here! We +don’t reflect on it, Mr. Carling.’ + +‘Not enough, not enough.’ + +‘I feel such a spout of platitudes that I could out With a Leading +Article on a sheet of paper on your back while you’re bending over the +baskets. I seem to have got circularly round again to Eden when I enter +a garden. Only, here we have to pay for the fruits we pluck. Well, and +just the same there; and no end to the payment either. We’re always +paying! By the way, Mrs. Victor Radnor’s dinner-table’s a spectacle. Her +taste in flowers equals her lord’s in wine. But age improves the wine +and spoils the flowers, you’ll say. Maybe you’re for arguing that lovely +women show us more of the flower than the grape, in relation to the +course of time. I pray you not to forget the terrible intoxicant she +is. We reconcile it, Mr. Carling, with the notion that the grape’s +her spirit, the flower her body. Or is it the reverse? Perhaps an +intertwining. But look upon bouquets and clusters, and the idea of +woman springs up at once, proving she’s composed of them. I was about +to remark, that with deference to the influence of Mrs. Burman’s +legal adviser, an impenitent or penitent sinner’s pastor, the Reverend +gentleman ministering to her spiritual needs, would presumptively +exercise it, in this instance, in a superior degree.’ + +Carling murmured: ‘The Rev. Groseman Buttermore’; and did so for +something of a cover, to continue a run of internal reflections: as, +that he was assuredly listening to vinous talk in the streets by day; +which impression placed him on a decorous platform above the +amusing gentleman; to whom, however, he grew cordial, in recognizing +consequently, that his exuberant flow could hardly be a mask; and that +an indication here and there of a trap in his talk, must have been due +rather to excess of wariness, habitual in the mind of a long-headed man, +whose incorrigibly impulsive fits had necessarily to be rectified by a +vigilant dexterity. + +‘Buttermore!’ ejaculated Fenellan: ‘Groseman Buttermore! Mrs. +Victor’s Father Confessor is the Rev. Septimus Barmby. Groseman +Buttermore--Septimus Barmby. Is there anything in names? Truly, unless +these clerical gentlemen take them up at the crossing of the roads +long after birth, the names would appear the active parts of them, +and themselves mere marching supports, like the bearers of street +placard-advertisements. Now, I know a Septimus Barmby, and you a +Groseman Buttermore, and beyond the fact that Reverend starts up before +their names without mention, I wager it’s about all we do know of them. +They’re Society’s trusty rock-limpets, no doubt.’ + +‘My respect for the cloth is extreme.’ Carling’s short cough prepared +the way for deductions. ‘Between ourselves, they are men of the world.’ + +Fenellan eyed benevolently the worthy attorney, whose innermost imp +burst out periodically, like a Dutch clocksentry, to trot on his own +small grounds for thinking himself of the community of the man of +the world. ‘You lawyers dress in another closet,’ he said. ‘The Rev. +Groseman has the ear of the lady?’ + +‘He has:--one ear.’ + +‘Ah? She has the other open for a man of the world, perhaps.’ + +‘Listens to him, listens to me, listens to Jarniman; and we neither of +us guide her. She’s very curious--a study. You think you know her--next +day she has eluded you. She’s emotional, she’s hard; she’s a woman, +she’s a stone. Anything you like; but don’t count on her. And another +thing--I’m bound to say it of myself,’ Carling claimed close hearing of +Fenellan over a shelf of saladstuff, ‘no one who comes near her has any +real weight with her in this matter.’ + +‘Probably you mix cream in your salad of the vinegar and oil,’ said +Fenellan. ‘Try jelly of mutton.’--‘You give me a new idea. Latterly, +fond as I am of salads, I’ve had rueful qualms. We’ll try it.’ + +‘You should dine with Victor Radnor.’ + +‘French cook, of course!’ + +‘Cordon bleu.’ + +‘I like to be sure of my cutlet.’ + +‘I like to be sure of a tastiness in my vegetables.’ + +‘And good sauces!’ + +‘And pretty pastry. I said, Cordon bleu. The miracle is, it ‘s a woman +that Victor Radnor has trained: French, but a woman; devoted to him, as +all who serve him are. Do I say “but” a woman? There’s not a Frenchman +alive to match her. Vatel awaits her in Paradise with his arms extended; +and may he wait long!’ + +Carling indulged his passion for the genuine by letting a flutter of +real envy be seen. ‘My wife would like to meet such a Frenchwoman. It +must be a privilege to dine with him--to know him. I know what he has +done for English Commerce, and to build a colossal fortune: genius, as I +said: and his donations to Institutions. Odd, to read his name and Mrs. +Burman Radnor’s at separate places in the lists! Well, we’ll hope. It’s +a case for a compromise of sentiments and claims.’ + +‘A friend of mine, spiced with cynic, declares that there’s always an +amicable way out of a dissension, if we get rid of Lupus and Vulpus.’ + +Carling spied for a trap in the citation of Lupus and Vulpus; he +saw none, and named the square of his residence on the great Russell +property, and the number of the house, the hour of dinner next day. +He then hung silent, breaking the pause with his hand out and a sharp +‘Well?’ that rattled a whirligig sound in his head upward. His leave of +people was taken in this laughing falsetto, as of one affected by the +curious end things come to. + +Fenellan thought of him for a moment or two, that he was a better than +the common kind of lawyer; who doubtless knew as much of the wrong side +of the world as lawyers do, and held his knowledge for the being a man +of the world:--as all do, that have not Alpine heights in the mind to +mount for a look out over their own and the world’s pedestrian tracks. +I could spot the lawyer in your composition, my friend, to the exclusion +of the man he mused. But you’re right in what you mean to say of +yourself: you’re a good fellow, for a lawyer, and together we may manage +somehow to score a point of service to Victor Radnor. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. SOME FAMILIAR GUESTS + +Nesta read her mother’s face when Mrs. Victor entered the drawing-room +to receive the guests. She saw a smooth fair surface, of the kind as +much required by her father’s eyes as innocuous air by his nostrils: and +it was honest skin, not the deceptive feminine veiling, to make a dear +man happy over his volcano. Mrs. Victor was to meet the friends with +whom her feelings were at home, among whom her musical gifts gave her +station: they liked her for herself; they helped her to feel at home +with herself and be herself: a rarer condition with us all than is +generally supposed. So she could determine to be cheerful in the +anticipation of an evening that would at least be restful to the outworn +sentinel nerve of her heart, which was perpetually alert and signalling +to the great organ; often colouring the shows and seems of adverse +things for an apeing of reality with too cruel a resemblance. One of the +scraps of practical wisdom gained by hardened sufferers is, to keep from +spying at horizons when they drop into a pleasant dingle. Such is the +comfort of it, that we can dream, and lull our fears, and half think +what we wish: and it is a heavenly truce with the fretful mind divided +from our wishes. + +Nesta wondered at her mother’s complacent questions concerning this +Lakelands: the house, the county, the kind of people about, the features +of the country. Physically unable herself to be regretful under a burden +three parts enrapturing her, the girl expected her mother to display +a shadowy vexation, with a proud word or two, that would summon +her thrilling sympathy in regard to the fourth part: namely, the +aristocratic iciness of country magnates, who took them up and cast them +off; as they had done, she thought, at Craye Farm and at Creckholt: she +remembered it, of the latter place, wincingly, insurgently, having loved +the dear home she had been expelled from by her pride of the frosty +surrounding people--or no, not all, but some of them. And what had +roused their pride? + +Striking for a reason, her inexperience of our modern England, +supplemented by readings in the England of a preceding generation, had +hit on her father’s profession of merchant. It accounted to her for the +behaviour of the haughty territorial and titled families. But certain +of the minor titles headed City Firms, she had heard; certain of the +families were avowedly commercial. ‘They follow suit,’ her father +said at Creckholt, after he had found her mother weeping, and decided +instantly to quit and fly once more. But if they followed suit in such +a way, then Mr. Durance must be right when he called the social English +the most sheepy of sheep:--and Nesta could not consent to the cruel +verdict, she adored her compatriots. Incongruities were pacified for her +by the suggestion of her quick wits, that her father, besides being a +merchant, was a successful speculator; and perhaps the speculator is not +liked by merchants; or they were jealous of him; or they did not like +his being both. + +She pardoned them with some tenderness, on a suspicion that a quaint old +high-frilled bleached and puckered Puritanical rectitude (her thoughts +rose in pictures) possibly condemned the speculator as a description +of gambler. An erratic severity in ethics is easily overlooked by the +enthusiast for things old English. She was consciously ahead of them in +the knowledge that her father had been, without the taint of gambling, +a beneficent speculator. The Montgomery colony in South Africa, and his +dealings with the natives in India, and his Railways in South America, +his establishment of Insurance Offices, which were Savings Banks, and +the Stores for the dispensing of sound goods to the poor, attested it. O +and he was hospitable, the kindest, helpfullest of friends, the dearest, +the very brightest of parents: he was his girl’s playmate. She could be +critic of him, for an induction to the loving of him more justly: yet +if he had an excessive desire to win the esteem of people, as these keen +young optics perceived in him, he strove to deserve it; and no one could +accuse him of laying stress on the benefits he conferred. Designedly, +frigidly to wound a man so benevolent, appeared to her as an +incomprehensible baseness. The dropping of acquaintanceship with him, +after the taste of its privileges, she ascribed, in the void of any +better elucidation, to a mania of aristocratic conceit. It drove her, +despite her youthful contempt of politics, into a Radicalism that could +find food in the epigrams of Mr. Colney Durance, even when they passed +her understanding; or when he was not too distinctly seen by her to be +shooting at all the parties of her beloved England, beneath the wicked +semblance of shielding each by turns. + +The young gentleman introduced to the Radnor Concert-parties by Lady +Grace Halley as the Hon. Dudley Sowerby, had to bear the sins of his +class. Though he was tall, straight-featured, correct in costume, +appearance, deportment, second son of a religious earl and no scandal +to the parentage, he was less noticed by Nesta than the elderly and the +commoners. Her father accused her of snubbing him. She reproduced her +famous copy of the sugared acid of Mr. Dudley Sowerby’s closed mouth: a +sort of sneer in meekness, as of humility under legitimate compulsion; +deploring Christianly a pride of race that stamped it for this cowled +exhibition: the wonderful mimicry was a flash thrown out by a born +mistress of the art, and her mother was constrained to laugh, and so +was her father; but he wilfully denied the likeness. He charged her with +encouraging Colney Durance to drag forth the sprig of nobility, in the +nakedness of evicted shell-fish, on themes of the peril to England, +possibly ruin, through the loss of that ruling initiative formerly +possessed, in the days of our glory, by the titular nobles of the land. +Colney spoke it effectively, and the Hon. Dudley’s expressive lineaments +showed print of the heaving word Alas, as when a target is penetrated, +centrally. And he was not a particularly dull fellow ‘for his class and +country,’ Colney admitted; adding: ‘I hit his thought and out he came.’ +One has, reluctantly with Victor Radnor, to grant, that when a man’s +topmost unspoken thought is hit, he must be sharp on his guard to keep +from coming out:--we have won a right to him. + +‘Only, it’s too bad; it ‘s a breach of hospitality,’ Victor said, both +to Nesta and to Nataly, alluding to several instances of Colney’s ironic +handling of their guests, especially of this one, whom Nesta would +attack, and Nataly would not defend. + +They were alive at a signal to protect the others. Miss Priscilla +Graves, an eater of meat, was ridiculous in her ant’alcoholic +exclusiveness and scorn: Mr. Pempton, a drinker of wine, would laud +extravagantly the more transparent purity of vegetarianism. Dr. Peter +Yatt jeered at globules: Dr. John Cormyn mourned over human creatures +treated as cattle by big doses. The Rev. Septimus Barmby satisfactorily +smoked: Mr. Peridon traced mortal evil to that act. Dr. Schlesien had +his German views, Colney Durance his ironic, Fenellan his fanciful and +free-lance. And here was an optimist, there a pessimist; and the rank +Radical, the rigid Conservative, were not wanting. All of them were +pointedly opposed, extraordinarily for so small an assembly: absurdly, +it might be thought: but these provoked a kind warm smile, with the +exclamation: ‘They are dears!’ They were the dearer for their fads and +foibles. + +Music harmonized them. Music, strangely, put the spell on Colney +Durance, the sayer of bitter things, manufacturer of prickly balls, in +the form of Discord’s apples of whom Fenellan remarked, that he took to +his music like an angry little boy to his barley-sugar, with a growl +and a grunt. All these diverse friends could meet and mix in Victor’s +Concert-room with an easy homely recognition of one another’s musical +qualities, at times enthusiastic; and their natural divergencies and +occasional clashes added a salient tastiness to the group of whom Nesta +could say: ‘Mama, was there ever such a collection of dear good souls +with such contrary minds?’ Her mother had the deepest of reasons for +loving them, so as not to wish to see the slightest change in their +minds, that the accustomed features making her nest of homeliness and +real peace might be retained, with the humour of their funny silly +antagonisms and the subsequent march in concord; excepting solely as +regarded the perverseness of Priscilla Graves in her open contempt +of Mr. Pempton’s innocent two or three wine-glasses. The vegetarian +gentleman’s politeness forbore to direct attention to the gobbets of +meat Priscilla consumed, though he could express disapproval in general +terms; but he entertained sentiments as warlike to the lady’s habit of +‘drinking the blood of animals.’ The mockery of it was, that Priscilla +liked Mr. Pempton and admired his violoncello-playing, and he was +unreserved in eulogy of her person and her pure soprano tones. Nataly +was a poetic match-maker. Mr. Peridon was intended for Mademoiselle de +Seilles, Nesta’s young French governess; a lady of a courtly bearing, +with placid speculation in the eyes she cast on a foreign people, and +a voluble muteness shadowing at intervals along the line of her closed +lips. + +The one person among them a little out of tune with most, was Lady Grace +Halley. Nataly’s provincial gentlewoman’s traditions of the manners +indicating conduct, reproved unwonted licences assumed by Lady Grace; +who, in allusion to Hymen’s weaving of a cousinship between the earldom +of Southweare and that of Cantor, of which Mr. Sowerby sprang, set her +mouth and fan at work to delineate total distinctions, as it were +from the egg to the empyrean. Her stature was rather short, all of it +conversational, at the eyebrows, the shoulders, the finger-tips, the +twisting shape; a ballerina’s expressiveness; and her tongue dashed +half sentences through and among these hieroglyphs, loosely and funnily +candid. Anybody might hear that she had gone gambling into the City, and +that she had got herself into a mess, and that by great good luck she +had come across Victor Radnor, who, with two turns of the wrist, had +plucked her out of the mire, the miraculous man! And she had vowed to +him, never again to run doing the like without his approval. + +The cause of her having done it, was related with the accompaniments; +brows twitching, flitting smiles, shrugs, pouts, shifts of posture: she +was married to a centaur; out of the saddle a man of wood, ‘an excellent +man.’ For the not colloquial do not commit themselves. But one wants a +little animation in a husband. She called on bell-motion of the head +to toll forth the utter nightcap negative. He had not any: out of the +saddle, he was asleep:--‘next door to the Last Trump,’ Colney Durance +assisted her to describe the soundest of sleep in a husband, after +wooing her to unbosom herself. She was awake to his guileful arts, +and sailed along with him, hailing his phrases, if he shot a good one; +prankishly exposing a flexible nature, that took its holiday thus in a +grinding world, among maskers, to the horrification of the prim. So to +refresh ourselves, by having publicly a hip-bath in the truth while we +shock our hearers enough to be discredited for what we reveal, was a +dexterous merry twist, amusing to her; but it was less a cynical malice +than her nature that she indulged, ‘A woman must have some excitement.’ +The most innocent appeared to her the Stock Exchange. The opinions of +husbands who are not summoned to pay are hardly important; they vary. + +Colney helped her now and then to step the trifle beyond her stride, +but if he was humorous, she forgave; and if together they appalled the +decorous, it was great gain. Her supple person, pretty lips, the +style she had, gave a pass to the wondrous confidings, which were for +masculine ears, whatever the sex. Nataly might share in them, but women +did not lead her to expansiveness; or not the women of the contracted +class: Miss Graves, Mrs. Cormyn, and others at the Radnor Concerts. She +had a special consideration for Mademoiselle de Seilles, owing to her +exquisite French, as she said; and she may have liked it, but it was the +young Frenchwoman’s air of high breeding that won her esteem. Girls were +spring frosts to her. Fronting Nesta, she put on her noted smile, or +wood-cut of a smile, with its label of indulgence; except when the girl +sang. Music she loved. She said it was the saving of poor Dudley. It +distinguished him in the group of the noble Evangelical Cantor Family; +and it gave him a subject of assured discourse in company; and oddly, +it contributed to his comelier air. Flute [This would be the German +Blockeflute or our Recorder. D.W.] in hand, his mouth at the blow-stop +was relieved of its pained updraw by the form for puffing; he preserved +a gentlemanly high figure in his exercises on the instrument, out of ken +of all likeness to the urgent insistency of Victor Radnor’s punctuating +trunk of the puffing frame at almost every bar--an Apollo brilliancy in +energetic pursuit of the nymph of sweet sound. Too methodical one, too +fiery the other. + +In duets of Hauptmann’s, with Nesta at the piano, the contrast of dull +smoothness and overstressed significance was very noticeable beside the +fervent accuracy of her balanced fingering; and as she could also flute, +she could criticize; though latterly, the flute was boxed away from +lips that had devoted themselves wholly to song: song being one of the +damsel’s present pressing ambitions. She found nothing to correct in +Mr. Sowerby, and her father was open to all the censures; but her father +could plead vitality, passion. He held his performances cheap after the +vehement display; he was a happy listener, whether to the babble of +his ‘dear old Corelli,’ or to the majesty of the rattling heavens and +swaying forests of Beethoven. + +His air of listening was a thing to see; it had a look of disembodiment; +the sparkle conjured up from deeps, and the life in the sparkle, as of +a soul at holiday. Eyes had been given this man to spy the pleasures +and reveal the joy of his pasture on them: gateways to the sunny +within, issues to all the outer Edens. Few of us possess that double +significance of the pure sparkle. It captivated Lady Grace. She said a +word of it to Fenellan: ‘There is a man who can feel rapture!’ He had +not to follow the line of her sight: she said so on a previous evening, +in a similar tone; and for a woman to repeat herself, using the very +emphasis, was quaint. She could feel rapture; but her features and limbs +were in motion to designate it, between simply and wilfully; she had +the instinct to be dimpling, and would not for a moment control it, and +delighted in its effectiveness: only when observing that winged sparkle +of eyes did an idea of envy, hardly a consciousness, inform her of being +surpassed; and it might be in the capacity to feel besides the gift to +express. Such a reflection relating to a man, will make women mortally +sensible that they are the feminine of him. + +‘His girl has the look,’ Fenellan said in answer. + +She cast a glance at Nesta, then at Nataly. + +And it was true, that the figure of a mother, not pretending to the +father’s vividness, eclipsed it somewhat in their child. The mother gave +richness of tones, hues and voice, and stature likewise, and the thick +brown locks, which in her own were threads of gold along the brush from +the temples: she gave the girl a certain degree of the composure of +manner which Victor could not have bestowed; she gave nothing to clash +with his genial temper; she might be supposed to have given various +qualities, moral if you like. But vividness was Lady Grace’s admirable +meteor of the hour: she was unable to perceive, so as to compute, the +value of obscurer lights. Under the charm of Nataly’s rich contralto +during a duet with Priscilla Graves, she gesticulated ecstasies, and +uttered them, and genuinely; and still, when reduced to meditations, +they would have had no weight, they would hardly have seemed an apology +for language, beside Victor’s gaze of pleasure in the noble forthroll of +the notes. + +Nataly heard the invitation of the guests of the evening to Lakelands +next day. + +Her anxieties were at once running about to gather provisions for the +baskets. She spoke of them at night. But Victor had already put the +matter in the hands of Madame Callet; and all that could be done, would +be done by Armandine, he knew. ‘If she can’t muster enough at home, +she’ll be off to her Piccadilly shop by seven A.M. Count on plenty for +twice the number.’ + +Nataly was reposing on the thought that they were her friends, when +Victor mentioned his having in the afternoon despatched a note to his +relatives, the Duvidney ladies, inviting them to join him at the station +to-morrow, for a visit of inspection to the house of his building on his +new estate. He startled her. The Duvidney ladies were, to his knowledge, +of the order of the fragile minds which hold together by the cement of +a common trepidation for the support of things established, and have +it not in them to be able to recognize the unsanctioned. Good women, +unworldly of the world, they were perforce harder than the world, from +being narrower and more timorous. + +‘But, Victor, you were sure they would refuse!’ + +He answered: ‘They may have gone back to Tunbridge Wells. By the way, +they have a society down there I want for Fredi. Sure, do you say, my +dear? Perfectly sure. But the accumulation of invitations and refusals +in the end softens them, you will see. We shall and must have them for +Fredi.’ + +She was used to the long reaches of his forecasts, his burning activity +on a project; she found it idle to speak her thought, that his ingenuity +would have been needless in a position dictated by plain prudence, and +so much happier for them. + +They talked of Mrs. Burman until she had to lift a prayer to be saved +from darker thoughts, dreadfully prolific, not to be faced. Part of her +prayer was on behalf of Mrs. Burman, for life to be extended to her, if +the poor lady clung to life--if it was really humane to wish it for her: +and heaven would know: heaven had mercy on the afflicted. + +Nataly heard the snuffle of hypocrisy in her prayer. She had to cease to +pray. + + + + +CHAPTER IX. AN INSPECTION OF LAKELANDS + +One may not have an intention to flourish, and may be pardoned for a +semblance of it, in exclaiming, somewhat royally, as creator and owner +of the place: ‘There you see Lakelands.’ + +The conveyances from the railway station drew up on a rise of road +fronting an undulation, where our modern English architect’s fantasia +in crimson brick swept from central gables to flying wings, over pents, +crooks, curves, peaks, cowled porches, balconies, recesses, projections, +away to a red village of stables and dependent cottages; harmonious +in irregularity; and coloured homely with the greensward about it, the +pines beside it, the clouds above it. Not many palaces would be reckoned +as larger. The folds and swells and stream of the building along the +roll of ground, had an appearance of an enormous banner on the wind. +Nataly looked. Her next look was at Colney Durance. She sent the +expected nods to Victor’s carriage. She would have given the whole +prospect for the covering solitariness of her chamber. A multitude of +clashing sensations, and a throat-thickening hateful to her, compelled +her to summon so as to force herself to feel a groundless anger, +directed against none, against nothing, perfectly crazy, but her only +resource for keeping down the great wave surgent at her eyes. + +Victor was like a swimmer in morning sea amid the exclamations +encircling him. He led through the straight passage of the galleried +hall, offering two fair landscapes at front door and at back, down to +the lake, Fredi’s lake; a good oblong of water, notable in a district +not abounding in the commodity. He would have it a feature of the +district; and it had been deepened and extended; up rose the springs, +many ran the ducts. Fredi’s pretty little bathshed or bower had a space +of marble on the three-feet shallow it overhung with a shade of carved +woodwork; it had a diving-board for an eight-feet plunge; a punt and +small row-boat of elegant build hard by. Green ran the banks about, and +a beechwood fringed with birches curtained the Northward length: morning +sun and evening had a fair face of water to paint. Saw man ever the like +for pleasing a poetical damsel? So was Miss Fredi, the coldest of the +party hitherto, and dreaming a preference of ‘old places’ like Creckholt +and Craye Farm, ‘captured to be enraptured,’ quite according to man’s +ideal of his beneficence to the sex. She pressed the hand of her young +French governess, Louise de Seilles. As in everything he did for his +girl, Victor pointed boastfully to his forethought of her convenience +and her tastes: the pine-panels of the interior, the shelves for her +books, pegs to hang her favourite drawings, and the couch-bunk under a +window to conceal the summerly recliner while throwing full light on +her book; and the hearth-square for logs, when she wanted fire: because +Fredi bathed in any weather: the oaken towel-coffer; the wood-carvings +of doves, tits, fishes; the rod for the flowered silken hangings she was +to choose, and have shy odalisque peeps of sunny water from her couch. + +‘Fredi’s Naiad retreat, when she wishes to escape Herr Strauscher or +Signor Ruderi,’ said Victor, having his grateful girl warm in an arm; +‘and if they head after her into the water, I back her to leave them +puffing; she’s a dolphin. That water has three springs and gets all the +drainage of the upland round us. I chose the place chiefly on account of +it and the pines. I do love pines!’ + +‘But, excellent man! what do you not love?’ said Lady Grace, with the +timely hit upon the obvious, which rings. + +‘It saves him from accumulation of tissue,’ said Colney. + +‘What does?’ was eagerly asked by the wife of the homoeopathic Dr. John +Cormyn, a sentimental lady beset with fears of stoutness. + +Victor cried: ‘Tush; don’t listen to Colney, pray.’ + +But she heard Colney speak of a positive remedy; more immediately +effective than an abjuration of potatoes and sugar. She was obliged by +her malady to listen, although detesting the irreverent ruthless man, +who could direct expanding frames, in a serious tone, to love; love +everybody, everything; violently and universally love; and so without +intermission pay out the fat created by a rapid assimilation of +nutriment. Obeseness is the most sensitive of our ailments: probably as +being aware, that its legitimate appeal to pathos is ever smothered in +its pudding-bed of the grotesque. She was pained, and showed it, and +was ashamed of herself for showing it; and that very nearly fetched the +tear. + +‘Our host is an instance in proof,’ Colney said. He waved hand at the +house. His meaning was hidden; evidently he wanted victims. Sight +of Lakelands had gripped him with the fell satiric itch; and it is a +passion to sting and tear, on rational grounds. His face meanwhile, +which had points of the handsome, signified a smile asleep, as if +beneath a cloth. Only those who knew him well were aware of the +claw-like alertness under the droop of eyelids. + +Admiration was the common note, in the various keys. The station +selected for the South-eastward aspect of the dark-red gabled pile on +its white shell-terrace, backed by a plantation of tall pines, a mounded +and full-plumed company, above the left wing, was admired, in files and +in volleys. Marvellous, effectively miraculous, was the tale of the vow +to have the great edifice finished within one year: and the strike of +workmen, and the friendly colloquy with them, the good reasoning, the +unanimous return to duty; and the doubling, the trebling of the number +of them; and the most glorious of sights--O the grand old English +working with a will! as Englishmen do when they come at last to heat; +and they conquer, there is then nothing that they cannot conquer. So +the conqueror said.--And admirable were the conservatories running three +long lines, one from the drawing-room, to a central dome for tropical +growths. And the parterres were admired; also the newly-planted Irish +junipers bounding the West-walk; and the three tiers of stately descent +from the three green terrace banks to the grassy slopes over the lake. +Again the lake was admired, the house admired. Admiration was evoked for +great orchid-houses ‘over yonder,’ soon to be set up. + +Off we go to the kitchen-garden. There the admiration is genial, +practical. We admire the extent of the beds marked out for asparagus, +and the French disposition of the planting at wide intervals; and the +French system of training peach, pear, and plum trees on the walls to +win length and catch sun, we much admire. We admire the gardener. We are +induced temporarily to admire the French people. They are sagacious +in fruit-gardens. They have not the English Constitution, you think +rightly; but in fruit-gardens they grow for fruit, and not, as Victor +quotes a friend, for wood, which the valiant English achieve. We hear +and we see examples of sagacity; and we are further brought round to +the old confession, that we cannot cook; Colney Durance has us there; we +have not studied herbs and savours; and so we are shocked backward +step by step until we retreat precipitately into the nooks where waxen +tapers, carefully tended by writers on the Press, light-up mysterious +images of our national selves for admiration. Something surely we do, or +we should not be where we are. But what is it we do (excepting cricket, +of course) which others cannot do? Colney asks; and he excludes cricket +and football. + +An acutely satiric man in an English circle, that does not resort to the +fist for a reply to him, may almost satiate the excessive fury roused +in his mind by an illogical people of a provocative prosperity, mainly +tongueless or of leaden tongue above the pressure of their necessities, +as he takes them to be. They give him so many opportunities. They are +angry and helpless as the log hissing to the saw. Their instinct to make +use of the downright in retort, restrained as it is by a buttoned coat +of civilization, is amusing, inviting. Colney Durance allured them to +the quag’s edge and plunged them in it, to writhe patriotically; and +although it may be said, that they felt their situation less than did he +the venom they sprang in his blood, he was cruel; he caused discomfort. +But these good friends about him stood for the country, an illogical +country; and as he could not well attack his host Victor Radnor, an +irrational man, he selected the abstract entity for the discharge of his +honest spite. + +The irrational friend was deeper at the source of his irritation than +the illogical old motherland. This house of Lakelands, the senselessness +of his friend in building it and designing to live in it, after +experiences of an incapacity to stand in a serene contention with the +world he challenged, excited Colney’s wasp. He was punished, half way +to frenzy behind his placable demeanour, by having Dr. Schlesien for +chorus. And here again, it was the unbefitting, not the person, which +stirred his wrath. A German on English soil should remember the dues of +a guest. At the same time, Colney said things to snare the acclamation +of an observant gentleman of that race, who is no longer in his first +enthusiasm for English beef and the complexion of the women. ‘Ah, ya, +it is true, what you say: “The English grow as fast as odders, but +they grow to corns instead of brains.” They are Bull. Quaat true.’ He +bellowed on a laugh the last half of the quotation. + +Colney marked him. His encounters with Fenellan were enlivening +engagements and left no malice; only a regret, when the fencing passed +his guard, that Fenellan should prefer to flash for the minute. He would +have met a pert defender of England, in the person of Miss Priscilla +Graves, if she had not been occupied with observation of the bearing +of Lady Grace Halley toward Mr. Victor Radnor; which displeased her on +behalf of Mrs. Victor; she was besides hostile by race and class to an +aristocratic assumption of licence. Sparing Colney, she with some scorn +condemned Mr. Pempton for allowing his country to be ridiculed without +a word. Mr. Pempton believed that the Vegetarian movement was +more progressive in England than in other lands, but he was at the +disadvantage with the fair Priscilla, that eulogy of his compatriots +on this account would win her coldest approval. ‘Satire was never an +argument,’ he said, too evasively. + +The Rev. Septimus Barmby received the meed of her smile, for saying in +his many-fathom bass, with an eye on Victor: ‘At least we may boast of +breeding men, who are leaders of men.’ + +The announcement of luncheon, by Victor’s butler Arlington, opportunely +followed and freighted the remark with a happy recognition of that which +comes to us from the hands of conquerors. Dr. Schlesien himself, no +antagonist to England, but like Colney Durance, a critic, speculated in +view of the spread of pic-nic provision beneath the great glass dome, as +to whether it might be, that these English were on another start out of +the dust in vigorous commercial enterprise, under leadership of one of +their chance masterly minds-merchant, in this instance: and be debated +within, whether Genius, occasionally developed in a surprising superior +manner by these haphazard English, may not sometimes wrest the prize +from Method; albeit we count for the long run, that Method has assurance +of success, however late in the race to set forth. + +Luncheon was a merry meal, with Victor and Nataly for host and hostess; +Fenellan, Colney Durance, and Lady Grace Halley for the talkers. A gusty +bosom of sleet overhung the dome, rattled on it, and rolling Westward, +became a radiant mountain-land, partly worthy of Victor’s phrase: ‘A +range of Swiss Alps in air.’ + +‘With periwigs Louis Quatorze for peaks,’ Colney added. + +And Fenellan improved on him: ‘Or a magnified Bench of Judges at the +trial of your caerulean Phryne.’ + +The strip of white cloud flew on a whirl from the blue, to confirm it. + +But Victor and Lady Grace rejected any play of conceits upon nature. +Violent and horrid interventions of the counterfeit, such mad similes +appeared to them, when pure coin was offered. They loathed the Rev. +Septimus Barmby for proclaiming, that he had seen ‘Chapters of Hebrew +History in the grouping of clouds.’ + +His gaze was any one of the Chapters upon Nesta. The clerical +gentleman’s voice was of a depth to claim for it the profoundest which +can be thought or uttered; and Nesta’s tender youth had taken so strong +an impression of sacredness from what Fenellan called ‘his chafer +tones,’ that her looks were often given him in gratitude, for the mere +sound. Nataly also had her sense of safety in acquiescing to such a +voice coming from such a garb. Consequently, whenever Fenellan and +Colney were at him, drawing him this way and that for utterances +cathedral in sentiment and sonorousness, these ladies shed protecting +beams; insomuch that he was inspired to the agreeable conceptions +whereof frequently rash projects are an issue. + +Touching the neighbours of Lakelands, they were principally enriched +merchants, it appeared; a snippet or two of the fringe of aristocracy +lay here and there among them; and one racy-of-the-soil old son of +Thames, having the manners proper to last century’s yeoman. Mr. Pempton +knew something of this quaint Squire of Hefferstone, Beaves Urmsing by +name; a ruddy man, right heartily Saxon; a still glowing brand amid the +ashes of the Heptarchy hearthstone; who had a song, The Marigolds, which +he would troll out for you anywhere, on any occasion. To have so near +to the metropolis one from the centre of the venerable rotundity of +the country, was rare. Victor exclaimed ‘Come!’ in ravishment over the +picturesqueness of a neighbour carrying imagination away to the founts +of England; and his look at Nataly proposed. Her countenance was +inapprehensive. He perceived resistance, and said: ‘I have met two +or three of them in the train: agreeable men: Gladding, the banker; a +General Fanning; that man Blathenoy, great billbroker. But the fact +is, close on London, we’re independent of neighbours; we mean to be. +Lakelands and London practically join.’ + +‘The mother city becoming the suburb,’ murmured Colney, in report of the +union. + +‘You must expect to be invaded, sir,’ said Mr. Sowerby; and Victor +shrugged: ‘We are pretty safe.’ + +‘The lock of a door seems a potent security until some one outside is +heard fingering the handle nigh midnight,’ Fenellan threw out his airy +nothing of a remark. + +It struck on Nataly’s heart. ‘So you will not let us be lonely here,’ +she said to her guests. + +The Rev. Septimus Barmby was mouthpiece for congregations. Sound of a +subterranean roar, with a blast at the orifice, informed her of their +‘very deep happiness in the privilege.’ + +He comforted her. Nesta smiled on him thankfully. + +‘Don’t imagine, Mrs. Victor, that you can be shut off from neighbours, +in a house like this; and they have a claim,’ said Lady Grace, quitting +the table. + +Fenellan and Colney thought so: + +‘Like mice at a cupboard.’ + +‘Beetles in a kitchen.’ + +‘No, no-no, no!’ Victor shook head, pitiful over the good people likened +to things unclean, and royally upraising them: in doing which, he +scattered to vapour the leaden incubi they had been upon his flatter +moods of late. ‘No, but it’s a rapture to breathe the air here!’ His +lifted chest and nostrils were for the encouragement of Nataly to soar +beside him. + +She summoned her smile and nodded. + +He spoke aside to Lady Grace: ‘The dear soul wants time to compose +herself after a grand surprise.’ + +She replied: ‘I think I could soon be reconciled. How much land?’ + +‘In treaty for some hundred and eighty or ninety acres... in all +at present three hundred and seventy, including plantations, lake, +outhouses.’ + +‘Large enough; land paying as it does--that is, not paying. We shall be +having to gamble in the City systematically for subsistence.’ + +‘You will not so much as jest on the subject.’ + +Coming from such a man, that was clear sky thunder. The lady played +it off in a shadowy pout and shrug while taking a stamp of his +masterfulness, not so volatile. + +She said to Nataly: ‘Our place in Worcestershire is about half the size, +if as much. Large enough when we’re not crowded out with gout and can +open to no one. Some day you will visit us, I hope.’ + +‘You we count on here, Lady Grace.’ + +It was an over-accentuated response; unusual with this well-bred woman; +and a bit of speech that does not flow, causes us to speculate. The lady +resumed: ‘I value the favour. We’re in a horsey-doggy-foxy circle down +there. We want enlivening. If we had your set of musicians and talkers!’ + +Nataly smiled in vacuous kindness, at a loss for the retort of a +compliment to a person she measured. Lady Grace also was an amiable +hostile reviewer. Each could see, to have cited in the other, defects +common to the lower species of the race, admitting a superior personal +quality or two; which might be pleaded in extenuation; and if the +apology proved too effective, could be dispersed by insistence upon it, +under an implied appeal to benevolence. When we have not a liking for +the creature whom we have no plain cause to dislike, we are minutely +just. + +During the admiratory stroll along the ground-floor rooms, Colney +Durance found himself beside Dr. Schlesien; the latter smoking, +striding, emphasizing, but bearable, as the one of the party who was +not perpetually at the gape in laudation. Colney was heard to say: +‘No doubt: the German is the race the least mixed in Europe: it might +challenge aboriginals for that. Oddly, it has invented the Cyclopaedia +for knowledge, the sausage for nutrition! How would you explain it?’ + +Dr. Schlesien replied with an Atlas shrug under fleabite to the +insensately infantile interrogation. + +He in turn was presently heard. + +‘But, my good sir! you quote me your English Latin. I must beg of you +you write it down. It is orally incomprehensible to Continentals.’ + +‘We are Islanders!’ Colney shrugged in languishment. + +‘Oh, you do great things...’ Dr. Schlesien rejoined in kindness, making +his voice a musical intimation of the smallness of the things. + +‘We build great houses, to employ our bricks’ + +‘No, Colney, to live in,’ said Victor. + +‘Scarcely long enough to warm them.’ + +‘What do you... fiddle!’ + +‘They are not Hohenzollerns!’ + +‘It is true,’ Dr. Schlesien called. ‘No, but you learn discipline; you +build. I say wid you, not Hohenzollerns you build! But you shall look +above: Eyes up. Ire necesse est. Good, but mount; you come to something. +Have ideas.’ + +‘Good, but when do we reach your level?’ + +‘Sir, I do not say more than that we do not want instruction from +foreigners.’ + +‘Pupil to paedagogue indeed. You have the wreath in Music, in +Jurisprudence, Chemistry, Scholarship, Beer, Arms, Manners.’ + +Dr. Schlesien puffed a tempest of tobacco and strode. + +‘He is chiselling for wit in the Teutonic block,’ Colney said, falling +back to Fenellan. + +Fenellan observed: ‘You might have credited him with the finished +sculpture.’ + +‘They’re ahead of us in sticking at the charge of wit.’ + +‘They’ve a widening of their swallow since Versailles.’ + +‘Manners?’ + +‘Well, that’s a tight cravat for the Teutonic thrapple! But he’s off by +himself to loosen it.’ + +Victor came on the couple testily. ‘What are you two concocting! I +say, do keep the peace, please. An excellent good fellow; better up in +politics than any man I know; understands music; means well, you can +see. You two hate a man at all serious. And he doesn’t bore with his +knowledge. A scholar too.’ + +‘If he’ll bring us the atmosphere of the groves of Academe, he may swing +his ferule pickled in himself, and welcome,’ said Fenellan. + +‘Yes!’ Victor nodded at a recognized antagonism in Fenellan; ‘but +Colney’s always lifting the Germans high above us.’ + +‘It’s to exercise his muscles.’ + +Victor headed to the other apartments, thinking that the Rev. Septimus +and young Sowerby, Old England herself, were spared by the diversion +of these light skirmishing shots from their accustomed victims to the +‘masculine people of our time. His friends would want a drilling to be +of aid to him in his campaign to come. For it was one, and a great one. +He remembered his complete perception of the plan, all the elements of +it, the forward whirling of it, just before the fall on London Bridge. +The greatness of his enterprise laid such hold of him that the smallest +of obstacles had a villanous aspect; and when, as anticipated, Colney +and Fenellan were sultry flies for whomsoever they could fret, he was +blind to the reading of absurdities which caused Fredi’s eyes to stream +and Lady Grace beside him to stand awhile and laugh out her fit. Young +Sowerby appeared forgiving enough--he was a perfect gentleman: but +Fredi’s appalling sense of fun must try him hard. And those young +fellows are often more wounded by a girl’s thoughtless laughter than by +a man’s contempt. Nataly should have protected him. Her face had the +air of a smiling general satisfaction; sign of a pleasure below the +mark required; sign too of a sleepy partner for a battle. Even in the +wonderful kitchen, arched and pillared (where the explanation came to +Nesta of Madame Callet’s frequent leave of absence of late, when an +inferior dinner troubled her father in no degree), even there his Nataly +listened to the transports of the guests with benign indulgence. + +‘Mama!’ said Nesta, ready to be entranced by kitchens in her bubbling +animation: she meant the recalling of instances of the conspirator her +father had been. + +‘You none of you guessed Armandine’s business!’ Victor cried, in a glee +that pushed to make the utmost of this matter and count against chagrin. +‘She was off to Paris; went to test the last inventions:--French brains +are always alert:--and in fact, those kitchen-ranges, gas and coal, and +the apparatus for warming plates and dishes, the whole of the battery is +on the model of the Duc d’Ariane’s--finest in Europe. Well,’ he agreed +with Colney, ‘to say France is enough.’ + +Mr. Pempton spoke to Miss Graves of the task for a woman to conduct a +command so extensive. And, as when an inoffensive wayfarer has chanced +to set foot near a wasp’s nest, out on him came woman and her champions, +the worthy and the sham, like a blast of powder. + +Victor ejaculated: ‘Armandine!’ Whoever doubted her capacity, knew not +Armandine; or not knowing Armandine, knew not the capacity in women. + +With that utterance of her name, he saw the orangey spot on London +Bridge, and the sinking Tower and masts and funnels, and the rising of +them, on his return to his legs; he recollected, that at the very edge +of the fall he had Armandine strongly in his mind. She was to do her +part: Fenellan and Colney on the surface, she below: and hospitality +was to do its part, and music was impressed--the innocent Concerts; his +wealth, all his inventiveness were to serve;--and merely to attract +and win the tastes of people, for a social support to Lakelands! Merely +that? Much more:--if Nataly’s coldness to the place would but allow him +to form an estimate of how much. At the same time, being in the grasp of +his present disappointment, he perceived a meanness in the result, +that was astonishing and afflicting. He had not ever previously felt +imagination starving at the vision of success. Victor had yet to learn, +that the man with a material object in aim, is the man of his object; +and the nearer to his mark, often the farther is he from a sober self; +he is more the arrow of his bow than bow to his arrow. This we pay for +scheming: and success is costly; we find we have pledged the better half +of ourselves to clutch it; not to be redeemed with the whole handful of +our prize! He was, however, learning after his leaping fashion. Nataly’s +defective sympathy made him look at things through the feelings she +depressed. A shadow of his missed Idea on London Bridge seemed to cross +him from the close flapping of a wing within reach. He could say only, +that it would, if caught, have been an answer to the thought disturbing +him. + +Nataly drew Colney Durance with her eyes to step beside her, on the +descent to the terrace. Little Skepsey hove in sight, coming swift as +the point of an outrigger over the flood. + + + + +CHAPTER X. SKEPSEY IN MOTION + +The bearer of his master’s midday letters from London shot beyond +Nataly as soon as seen, with an apparent snap of his body in passing. He +steamed to the end of the terrace and delivered the packet, returning +at the same rate of speed, to do proper homage to the lady he so much +respected. He had left the railway-station on foot instead of taking a +fly, because of a calculation that he would save three minutes; which +he had not lost for having to come through the raincloud. ‘Perhaps the +contrary,’ Skepsey said: it might be judged to have accelerated his +course: and his hat dripped, and his coat shone, and he soaped his +hands, cheerful as an ouzel-cock when the sun is out again. + +‘Many cracked crowns lately, in the Manly Art?’ Colney inquired of him. +And Skepsey answered with precision of statement: ‘Crowns, no, sir; the +nose, it may happen; but it cannot be said to be the rule.’ + +‘You are of opinion, that the practice of Scientific Pugilism offers us +compensation for the broken bridge of a nose?’ + +‘In an increase of manly self-esteem: I do, sir, yes.’ + +Skepsey was shy of this gentleman’s bite; and he fancied his defence had +been correct. Perceiving a crumple of the lips of Mr. Durance, he took +the attitude of a watchful dubiety. + +‘But, my goodness, you are wet through!’ cried Nataly, reproaching +herself for the tardy compassion; and Nesta ran up to them and heaped +a thousand pities on her ‘poor dear Skip,’ and drove him in beneath the +glass-dome to the fragments of pic-nic, and poured champagne for him, +‘lest his wife should have to doctor him for a cold,’ and poured afresh, +when he had obeyed her: ‘for the toasting of Lakelands, dear Skepsey!’ +impossible to resist: so he drank, and blinked; and was then told, that +before using his knife and fork he must betake himself to some fire +of shavings and chips, where coffee was being made, for the purpose of +drying his clothes. But this he would not hear of: he was pledged to +business, to convey his master’s letters, and he might have to catch a +train by the last quarter-minute, unless it was behind the time-tables; +he must hold himself ready to start. Entreated, adjured, commanded, +Skepsey commiseratingly observed to Colney Durance, ‘The ladies do not +understand, sir!’ For Turk of Constantinople had never a more haremed +opinion of the unfitness of women in the brave world of action. The +persistence of these ladies endeavouring to obstruct him in the course +of his duty, must have succeeded save that for one word of theirs he had +two, and twice the promptitude of motion. He explained to them, as to +good children, that the loss of five minutes might be the loss of a +Post, the loss of thousands of pounds, the loss of the character of a +Firm; and he was away to the terrace. Nesta headed him and waved him +back. She and her mother rebuked him: they called him unreasonable; +wherein they resembled the chief example of the sex to him, in a wife he +had at home, who levelled that charge against her husband when most she +needed discipline: the woman laid hand on the very word legitimately his +own for the justification of his process with her. + +‘But, Skips! if you are ill and we have to nurse you!’ said Nesta. + +She forgot the hospital, he told her cordially, and laughed at the +notion of a ducking producing a cold or a cold a fever, or anything +consumption, with him. So the ladies had to keep down their anxious +minds and allow him to stand in wet clothing to eat his cold pie and +salad. + +Miss Priscilla Graves entering to them, became a witness that they were +seductresses for inducing him to drink wine--and a sparkling wine. + +‘It is to warm him,’ they pleaded; and she said: ‘He must be warm from +his walk’; and they said: ‘But he is wet’; and said she, without a show +of feeling: ‘Warm water, then’; and Skepsey writhed, as if in the grasp +of anatomists, at being the subject of female contention or humane +consideration. Miss Graves caught signs of the possible proselyte in +him; she remarked encouragingly: + +‘I am sure he does not like it; he still has a natural taste.’ + +She distressed his native politeness, for the glass was in his hand, and +he was fully aware of her high-principled aversion; and he profoundly +bowed to principles, believing his England to be pillared on them; and +the lady looked like one who bore the standard of a principle; and if we +slap and pinch and starve our appetites, the idea of a principle seems +entering us to support. Subscribing to a principle, our energies are +refreshed; we have a faith in the country that was not with us before +the act; and of a real well-founded faith come the glowing thoughts +which we have at times: thoughts of England heading the nations; when +the smell of an English lane under showers challenges Eden, and the +threading of a London crowd tunes discords to the swell of a cathedral +organ. It may be, that by the renunciation of any description of +alcohol, a man will stand clearer-headed to serve his country. He may +expect to have a clearer memory, for certain: he will not be asking +himself, unable to decide, whether his master named a Mr. Journeyman or +a Mr. Jarniman, as the person he declined to receive. Either of the +two is repulsed upon his application, owing to the guilty similarity of +sounds but what we are to think of is, our own sad state of inefficiency +in failing to remember; which accuses our physical condition, therefore +our habits.--Thus the little man debated, scarcely requiring more than +to hear the right word, to be a convert and make him a garland of the +proselyte’s fetters. + +Destructively for the cause she advocated, Miss Priscilla gestured the +putting forth of an abjuring hand, with the recommendation to him, so to +put aside temptation that instant; and she signified in a very ugly jerk +of her features, the vilely filthy stuff Morality thought it, however +pleasing it might be to a palate corrupted by indulgence of the sensual +appetites. + +But the glass had been handed to him by the lady he respected, who +looked angelical in offering it, divinely other than ugly; and to her +he could not be discourteous; not even to pay his homage to the +representative of a principle. He bowed to Miss Graves, and drank, and +rushed forth; hearing shouts behind him. + +His master had a packet of papers ready, easy for the pocket. + +‘By the way, Skepsey,’ he said, ‘if a man named Jarniman should call at +the office, I will see him.’ + +Skepsey’s grey eyes came out. + +Or was it Journeyman, that his master would not see; and Jarniman that +he would? + +His habit of obedience, pride of apprehension, and the time to catch +the train, forbade inquiry. Besides he knew of himself of old, that his +puzzles were best unriddled running. + +The quick of pace are soon in the quick of thoughts. + +Jarniman, then, was a man whom his master, not wanting to see, one day, +and wanting to see, on another day, might wish to conciliate: a case of +policy. Let Jarniman go. Journeyman, on the other hand, was nobody +at all, a ghost of the fancy. Yet this Journeyman was as important an +individual, he was a dread reality; more important to Skepsey in +the light of patriot: and only in that light was he permitted of a +scrupulous conscience and modest mind to think upon himself when the +immediate subject was his master’s interests. For this Journeyman had +not an excuse for existence in Mr. Radnor’s pronunciation: he was born +of the buzz of a troubled ear, coming of a disordered brain, consequent +necessarily upon a disorderly stomach, that might protest a degree of +comparative innocence, but would be shamed utterly under inspection of +the eye of a lady of principle. + +What, then, was the value to his country of a servant who could not +accurately recollect his master’s words! Miss Graves within him asked +the rapid little man, whether indeed his ideas were his own after +draughts of champagne. + +The ideas, excited to an urgent animation by his racing trot, were a +quiverful in flight over an England terrible to the foe and dancing on +the green. Right so: but would we keep up the dance, we must be red iron +to touch: and the fighter for conquering is the one who can last and has +the open brain;--and there you have a point against alcohol. Yes, and +Miss Graves, if she would press it, with her natural face, could be +pleasant and persuasive: and she ought to be told she ought to marry, +for the good of the country. Women taking liquor: Skepsey had a vision +of his wife with rheumy peepers and miauly mouth, as he had once beheld +the creature:--Oh! they need discipline not such would we have for the +mothers of our English young. Decidedly the women of principle are bound +to enter wedlock; they should be bound by law. Whereas, in the opposing +case--the binding of the unprincipled to a celibate state--such a law +would have saved Skepsey from the necessitated commission of deeds of +discipline with one of the female sex, and have rescued his progeny from +a likeness to the corn-stalk reverting to weed. He had but a son for +England’s defence; and the frame of his boy might be set quaking by a +thump on the wind of a drum; the courage of William Barlow Skepsey would +not stand against a sheep; it would wind-up hares to have a run at him +out in the field. Offspring of a woman of principle!... but there is no +rubbing out in life: why dream of it? Only that one would not have one’s +country the loser! + +Dwell a moment on the reverse--and first remember the lesson of +the Captivity of the Jews and the outcry of their backsliding and +repentance:--see a nation of the honourably begotten; muscular men +disdaining the luxuries they will occasionally condescend to taste, +like some tribe in Greece; boxers, rowers, runners, climbers; braced, +indomitable; magnanimous, as only the strong can be; an army at word, +winning at a stroke the double battle of the hand and the heart: men +who can walk the paths through the garden of the pleasures. They receive +fitting mates, of a build to promise or aid in ensuring depth of chest +and long reach of arm for their progeny. + +Down goes the world before them. + +And we see how much would be due for this to a corps of ladies like Miss +Graves, not allowed to remain too long on the stalk of spinsterhood. Her +age might count twenty-eight: too long! She should be taught that +men can, though truly ordinary women cannot, walk these orderly paths +through the garden. An admission to women, hinting restrictions, on a +ticket marked ‘in moderation’ (meaning, that they may pluck a flower or +fruit along the pathway border to which they are confined), speedily, +alas, exhibits them at a mad scramble across the pleasure-beds. They +know not moderation. Neither for their own sakes nor for the sakes of +Posterity will they hold from excess, when they are not pledged to shun +it. + +The reason is, that their minds cannot conceive the abstract, as men do. + +But there are grounds for supposing that the example before them of a +sex exercising self-control in freedom, would induce women to pledge +themselves to a similar abnegation, until they gain some sense of touch +upon the impalpable duty to the generations coming after us thanks to +the voluntary example we set them. + +The stupendous task, which had hitherto baffled Skepsey in the course of +conversational remonstrances with his wife;--that of getting the Idea of +Posterity into the understanding of its principal agent, might then be +mastered. + +Therefore clearly men have to begin the salutary movement: it manifestly +devolves upon them. Let them at once take to rigorous physical +training. Women under compulsion, as vessels: men in their magnanimity, +patriotically, voluntarily. + +Miss Graves must have had an intimation for him; he guessed it; and it +plunged him into a conflict with her, that did not suffer him to +escape without ruefully feeling the feebleness of his vocabulary: and +consequently he made a reluctant appeal to figures, and it hung upon the +bolder exhibition of lists and tables as to whether he was beaten; and +if beaten, he was morally her captive; and this being the case, nothing +could be more repulsive to Skepsey; seeing that he, unable of his nature +passively or partially to undertake a line of conduct, beheld himself +wearing a detestable ‘ribbon,’ for sign of an oath quite needlessly +sworn (simply to satisfy the lady overcoming him with nimbler tongue), +and blocking the streets, marching in bands beneath banners, howling +hymns. + +Statistics, upon which his master and friends, after exchanging opinions +in argument, always fell back, frightened him. As long as they had +no opponents of their own kind, they swept the field, they were +intelligible, as the word ‘principle’ had become. But the appearance of +one body of Statistics invariably brought up another; and the strokes +and counterstrokes were like a play of quarter-staff on the sconce, +to knock all comprehension out of Skepsey. Otherwise he would not +unwillingly have inquired to-morrow into the Statistics of the +controversy between the waters of the wells and of the casks, prepared +to walk over to the victorious, however objectionable that proceeding. +He hoped to question his master some day except that his master would +very naturally have a tendency to sum-up in favour of wine--good +wine, in moderation; just as Miss Graves for the cup of tea--not so +thoughtfully stipulating that it should be good and not too copious. +Statistics are according to their conjurors; they are not independent +bodies, with native colours; they needs must be painted by the different +hands they pass through, and they may be multiplied; a nought or so +counts for nothing with the teller. Skepsey saw that. Yet they can +overcome: even as fictitious battalions, they can overcome. He shrank +from the results of a ciphering match having him for object, and was +ashamed of feeling to Statistics as women to giants; nevertheless he +acknowledged that the badge was upon him, if Miss Graves should beat +her master in her array of figures, to insist on his wearing it, as she +would, she certainly would. And against his internal conviction perhaps; +with the knowledge that the figures were an unfortified display, and his +oath of bondage an unmanly servility, the silliest of ceremonies! He was +shockingly feminine to Statistics. + +Mr. Durance despised them: he called them, arguing against Mr. Radnor, +‘those emotional things,’ not comprehensibly to Skepsey. But Mr. +Durance, a very clever gentleman, could not be right in everything. He +made strange remarks upon his country. Dr. Yatt attributed them to the +state of ‘his digestion. + +And Mr. Fenellan had said of Mr. Durance that, as ‘a barrister wanting +briefs, the speech in him had been bottled too long and was an overripe +wine dripping sour drops through the rotten cork.’ Mr. Fenellan said it +laughing, he meant no harm. Skepsey was sure he had the words. He heard +no more than other people hear; he remembered whole sentences, and many: +on one of his runs, this active little machine, quickened by motion to +fire, revived the audible of years back; whatever suited his turn of +mind at the moment rushed to the rapid wheels within him. His master’s +business and friends, his country’s welfare and advancement, these, with +records, items, anticipations, of the manlier sports to decorate, were +his current themes; all being chopped and tossed and mixed in salad +accordance by his fervour of velocity. And if you would like a further +definition of Genius, think of it as a form of swiftness. It is the +lively young great-grandson, in the brain, of the travelling force which +mathematicians put to paper, in a row of astounding ciphers, for the +motion of earth through space; to the generating of heat, whereof +is multiplication, whereof deposited matter, and so your chaos, your +half-lighted labyrinth, your, ceaseless pressure to evolvement; and then +Light, and so Creation, order, the work of Genius. What do you say? + +Without having a great brain, the measure of it possessed by Skepsey was +alive under strong illumination. In his heart, while doing penance for +his presumptuousness, he believed that he could lead regiments of men. +He was not the army’s General, he was the General’s Lieutenant, now and +then venturing to suggest a piece of counsel to his Chief. On his own +particular drilled regiments, his Chief may rely; and on his knowledge +of the country of the campaign, roads, morasses, masking hills, dividing +rivers. He had mapped for himself mentally the battles of conquerors in +his favourite historic reading; and he understood the value of a plan, +and the danger of sticking to it, and the advantage of a big army for +flanking; and he manoeuvred a small one cunningly to make it a bolt at +the telling instant. Dartrey Fenellan had explained to him Frederick’s +oblique attack, Napoleon’s employment of the artillery arm preparatory +to the hurling of the cataract on the spot of weakness, Wellington’s +parallel march with Marmont up to the hour of the decisive cut through +the latter at Salamanca; and Skepsey treated his enemy to the like, +deferentially reporting the engagement to a Chief whom his modesty kept +in eminence, for the receiving of the principal honours. As to his men, +of all classes and sorts, they are so supple with training that they +sustain a defeat like the sturdy pugilist a knock off his legs, and up +smiling a minute after--one of the truly beautiful sights on this +earth! They go at the double half a day, never sounding a single pair +of bellows among them. They have their appetites in full control, to eat +when they can, or cheerfully fast. They have healthy frames, you see; +and as the healthy frame is not artificially heated, it ensues that, +under any title you like, they profess the principles--into the bog we +go, we have got round to it!--the principles of those horrible marching +and chanting people! + +Then, must our England, to be redoubtable to the enemy, be a detestable +country for habitation? + +Here was a knot. + +Skepsey’s head dropped lower, he went as a ram. The sayings of Mr. +Durance about his dear England: that ‘her remainder of life is in the +activity of her diseases’--that ‘she has so fed upon Pap of Compromise +as to be unable any longer to conceive a muscular resolution’: that ‘she +is animated only as the carcase to the blow-fly’; and so forth:--charged +on him during his wrestle with his problem. And the gentlemen had said, +had permitted himself to say, that our England’s recent history was a +provincial apothecary’s exhibition of the battle of bane and antidote. +Mr. Durance could hardly mean it. But how could one answer him when he +spoke of the torpor of the people, and of the succeeding Governments as +a change of lacqueys--or the purse-string’s lacqueys? He said, that Old +England has taken to the arm-chair for good, and thinks it her whole +business to pronounce opinions and listen to herself; and that, in the +face of an armed Europe, this great nation is living on sufferance. Oh! + +Skepsey had uttered the repudiating exclamation. + +‘Feel quite up to it?’ he was asked by his neighbour. + +The mover of armed hosts for the defence of the country sat in a +third-class carriage of the train, approaching the first of the stations +on the way to town. He was instantly up to the level of an external +world, and fell into give and take with a burly broad communicative man; +located in London, but born in the North, in view of Durham cathedral, +as he thanked his Lord; who was of the order of pork-butcher; which +succulent calling had carried him down to near upon the borders of +Surrey and Sussex, some miles beyond the new big house of a Mister +whose name he had forgotten, though he had heard it mentioned by an +acquaintance interested in the gentleman’s doings. But his object was to +have a look at a rare breed of swine, worth the journey; that didn’t +run to fat so much as to flavour, had longer legs, sharp snouts to plump +their hams; over from Spain, it seemed; and the gentleman owning +them was for selling them, finding them wild past correction. But the +acquaintance mentioned, who was down to visit t’ other gentleman’s big +new edifice in workmen’s hands, had a mother, who had been cook to a +family, and was now widow of a cook’s shop; ham, beef, and sausages, +prime pies to order; and a good specimen herself; and if ever her son +saw her spirit at his bedside, there wouldn’t be room for much else in +that chamber--supposing us to keep our shapes. But he was the right sort +of son, anxious to push his mother’s shop where he saw a chance, and +do it cheap; and those foreign pigs, after a disappointment to their +importer, might be had pretty cheap, and were accounted tasty. + +Skepsey’s main thought was upon war: the man had discoursed of pigs. + +He informed the man of his having heard from a scholar, that pigs had +been the cause of more bloody battles than any other animal. + +How so? the pork-butcher asked, and said he was not much of a scholar, +and pigs might be provoking, but he had not heard they were a cause of +strife between man and man. For possession of them, Skepsey explained. +Oh! possession! Why, we’ve heard of bloody battles for the possession of +women! Men will fight for almost anything they care to get or call their +own, the pork-butcher said; and he praised Old England for avoiding war. +Skepsey nodded. How if war is forced on us? Then we fight. Suppose we +are not prepared?--We soon get that up. Skepsey requested him to state +the degree of resistance he might think he could bring against a pair of +skilful fists, in a place out of hearing of the police. + +‘Say, you!’ said the pork-butcher, and sharply smiled, for he was a man +of size. + +‘I would give you two minutes,’ rejoined Skepsey, eyeing him intently +and kindly: insomuch that it could be seen he was not in the conundrum +vein. + +‘Rather short allowance, eh, master?’ said the bigger man. ‘Feel here’; +he straightened out his arm and doubled it, raising a proud bridge of +muscle. + +Skepsey performed the national homage to muscle. + +‘Twice that, would not help without the science,’ he remarked, and let +his arm be gripped in turn. + +The pork-butcher’s throat sounded, as it were, commas and colons, +punctuations in his reflections, while he tightened fingers along the +iron lump. ‘Stringy. You’re a wiry one, no mistake.’ It was encomium. +With the ingrained contempt of size for a smallness that has not yet +taught it the prostrating lesson, he said: ‘Weight tells.’ + +‘In a wrestle,’ Skepsey admitted. ‘Allow me to say, you would not touch +me.’ + +‘And how do you know I’m not a trifle handy with the maulers myself?’ + +‘You will pardon me for saying, it would be worse for you if you were.’ + +The pork-butcher was flung backward. ‘Are you a Professor, may I +inquire?’ + +Skepsey rejected the title. ‘I can engage to teach young men, upon a +proper observance of first principles.’ + +‘They be hanged!’ cried the ruffled pork-butcher. ‘Our best men never +got it out of books. Now, you tell me--you’ve got a spiflicating style +of talk about you--no brag, you tell me--course, the best man wins, if +you mean that: now, if I was one of ‘em, and I fetches you a bit of a +flick, how then? Would you be ready to step out with a real Professor?’ + +‘I should claim a fair field,’ was the answer, made in modesty. + +‘And you’d expect to whop me with they there principles of yours?’ + +‘I should expect to.’ + +‘Bang me!’ was roared. After a stare at the mild little figure with the +fitfully dead-levelled large grey eyes in front of him, the pork-butcher +resumed: ‘Take you for the man you say you be, you’re just the man for +my friend Jam and me. He dearly loves to see a set-to, self the same. +What prettier? And if you would be so obliging some day as to favour us +with a display, we’d head a cap conformably, whether you’d the best of +it, according to your expectations, or t’ other way:--For there never +was shame in a jolly good licking as the song says: that is, if you take +it and make it appear jolly good. And find you an opponent meet and fit, +never doubt. Ever had the worse of an encounter, sir?’ + +‘Often, Sir.’ + +‘Well, that’s good. And it didn’t destroy your confidence?’ + +‘Added to it, I hope.’ + +At this point, it became a crying necessity for Skepsey to escape from +an area of boastfulness, into which he had fallen inadvertently; and he +hastened to apologize ‘for his personal reference,’ that was intended +for an illustration of our country caught unawares by a highly trained +picked soldiery, inferior in numbers to the patriotic levies, but sharp +at the edge and knowing how to strike. Measure the axe, measure the +tree; and which goes down first? + +‘Invasion, is it?--and you mean, we’re not to hit back?’ the +pork-butcher bellowed, and presently secured a murmured approbation from +an audience of three, that had begun to comprehend the dialogue, and +strengthened him in a manner to teach Skepsey the foolishness of ever +urging analogies of too extended a circle to close sharply on the mark. +He had no longer a chance, he was overborne, identified with the fated +invader, rolled away into the chops of the Channel, to be swallowed +up entire, and not a rag left of him, but John Bull tucking up his +shirtsleeves on the shingle beach, ready for a second or a third; crying +to them to come on. + +Warmed by his Bullish victory, and friendly to the vanquished, the +pork-butcher told Skepsey he should like to see more of him, and +introduced himself on a card Benjamin Shaplow, not far from the Bank. + +They parted at the Terminus, where three shrieks of an engine, sounding +like merry messages of the damned to their congeners in the anticipatory +stench of the cab-droppings above, disconnected sane hearing; perverted +it, no doubt. Or else it was the stamp of a particular name on his mind, +which impressed Skepsey, as he bored down the street and across the +bridge, to fancy in recollection, that Mr. Shaplow, when reiterating the +wish for self and friend to witness a display of his cunning with the +fists, had spoken the name of Jarniman. An unusual name yet more +than one Jarniman might well exist. And unlikely that a friend of the +pork-butcher would be the person whom Mr. Radnor first prohibited and +then desired to receive. It hardly mattered:--considering that the Dutch +Navy did really, incredible as it seems now, come sailing a good way +up the River Thames, into the very main artery of Old England. And +what thought the Tower of it? Skepsey looked at the Tower in sympathy, +wondering whether the Tower had seen those impudent Dutch a nice people +at home, he had heard. Mr. Shaplow’s Jarniman might actually be Mr. +Radnor’s, he inclined to think. At any rate he was now sure of the name. + + + + +CHAPTER XI. WHEREIN WE BEHOLD THE COUPLE JUSTIFIED OF LOVE HAVING SIGHT +OF THEIR SCOURGE + +Fenellan, in a musing exclamation, that was quite spontaneous, had put +a picture on the departing Skepsey, as observed from an end of the +Lakelands upper terrace-walk. + +‘Queer little water-wagtail it is!’ And Lady Grace Halley and Miss +Graves and Mrs. Cormyn, snugly silken dry ones, were so taken with the +pretty likeness after hearing Victor call the tripping dripping creature +the happiest man in England, that they nursed it in their minds for a +Bewick tailpiece to the chapter of a pleasant rural day. It imbedded the +day in an idea that it had been rural. + +We are indebted almost for construction to those who will define us +briefly: we are but scattered leaves to the general comprehension of +us until such a work of binding and labelling is done. And should the +definition be not so correct as brevity pretends to make it at one +stroke, we are at least rendered portable; thus we pass into the +conceptions of our fellows, into the records, down to posterity. +Anecdotes of England’s happiest man were related, outlines of +his personal history requested. His nomination in chief among the +traditionally very merry Islanders was hardly borne out by the tale +of his enchainment with a drunken yokefellow--unless upon the Durance +version of the felicity of his countrymen; still, the water-wagtail +carried it, Skepsey trotted into memories. Heroes conducted up Fame’s +temple-steps by ceremonious historians, who are studious, when the +platform is reached, of the art of setting them beneath the flambeau +of a final image, before thrusting them inside to be rivetted on their +pedestals, have an excellent chance of doing the same, let but the +provident narrators direct that image to paint the thing a moth-like +humanity desires, in the thing it shrinks from. Miss Priscilla Graves +now fastened her meditations upon Skepsey; and it was important to him. + +Tobacco withdrew the haunting shadow of the Rev. Septimus Barmby from +Nesta. She strolled beside Louise de Seilles, to breathe sweet-sweet in +the dear friend’s ear and tell her she loved her. The presence of the +German had, without rousing animosity, damped the young Frenchwoman, +even to a revulsion when her feelings had been touched by hearing praise +of her France, and wounded by the subjects of the praise. She bore the +national scar, which is barely skin-clothing of a gash that will not +heal since her country was overthrown and dismembered. Colney Durance +could excuse the unreasonableness in her, for it had a dignity, and she +controlled it, and quietly suffered, trusting to the steady, tireless, +concentrated aim of her France. In the Gallic mind of our time, France +appears as a prematurely buried Glory, that heaves the mound oppressing +breath and cannot cease; and calls hourly, at times keenly, to be +remembered, rescued from the pain and the mould-spots of that foul +sepulture. Mademoiselle and Colney were friends, partly divided by +her speaking once of revanche; whereupon he assumed the chair of the +Moralist, with its right to lecture, and went over to the enemy; his +talk savoured of a German. Our holding of the balance, taking two sides, +is incomprehensible to a people quivering with the double wound to body +and soul. She was of Breton blood. Cymric enough was in Nesta to catch +any thrill from her and join to her mood, if it hung out a colour sad or +gay, and was noble, as any mood of this dear Louise would surely be. + +Nataly was not so sympathetic. Only the Welsh and pure Irish are quick +at the feelings of the Celtic French. Nataly came of a Yorkshire stock; +she had the bravery, humaneness and generous temper of our civilized +North, and a taste for mademoiselle’s fine breeding, with a distaste +for the singular air of superiority in composure which it was granted to +mademoiselle to wear with an unassailable reserve when the roughness of +the commercial boor was obtrusive. She said of her to Colney, as they +watched the couple strolling by the lake below: ‘Nesta brings her out of +her frosts. I suppose it’s the presence of Dr. Schlesien. I have known +it the same after an evening of Wagner’s music.’ + +‘Richard Wagner Germanized ridicule of the French when they were down,’ +said Colney. ‘She comes of a blood that never forgives.’ + +‘“Never forgives” is horrible to think of! I fancied you liked your +“Kelts,” as you call them.’ + +Colney seized on a topic that shelved a less agreeable one that he saw +coming. ‘You English won’t descend to understand what does not resemble +you. The French are in a state of feverish patriotism. You refuse to +treat them for a case of fever. They are lopped of a limb: you tell them +to be at rest!’ + +‘You know I am fond of them.’ + +‘And the Kelts, as they are called, can’t and won’t forgive injuries; +look at Ireland, look at Wales, and the Keltic Scot. Have you heard them +talk? It happened in the year 1400: it’s alive to them as if it were +yesterday. Old History is as dead to the English as their first father. +They beg for the privilege of pulling the forelock to the bearers of the +titles of the men who took their lands from them and turn them to the +uses of cattle. The Saxon English had, no doubt, a heavier thrashing +than any people allowed to subsist ever received: you see it to this +day; the crick of the neck at the name of a lord is now concealed and +denied, but they have it and betray the effects; and it’s patent in +their Journals, all over their literature. Where it’s not seen, another +blood’s at work. The Kelt won’t accept the form of slavery. Let him be +servile, supple, cunning, treacherous, and to appearance time-serving, +he will always remember his day of manly independence and who robbed +him: he is the poetic animal of the races of modern men.’ + +‘You give him Pagan colours.’ + +‘Natural colours. He does not offer the other cheek or turn his back to +be kicked after a knock to the ground. Instead of asking him to forgive, +which he cannot do, you must teach him to admire. A mercantile community +guided by Political Economy from the ledger to the banquet presided over +by its Dagon Capital, finds that difficult. However, there ‘s the secret +of him; that I respect in him. His admiration of an enemy or oppressor +doing great deeds, wins him entirely. He is an active spirit, not your +negative passive letter-of-Scripture Insensible. And his faults, short +of ferocity, are amusing.’ + +‘But the fits of ferocity!’ + +‘They are inconscient, real fits. They come of a hot nerve. He is +manageable, sober too, when his mind is charged. As to the French +people, they are the most mixed of any European nation; so they are +packed with contrasts: they are full of sentiment, they are sharply +logical; free-thinkers, devotees; affectionate, ferocious; frivolous, +tenacious; the passion of the season operating like sun or moon on these +qualities; and they can reach to ideality out of sensualism. Below your +level, they’re above it: a paradox is at home with them!’ + +‘My friend, you speak seriously--an unusual compliment,’ Nataly said, +and ungratefully continued: ‘You know what is occupying me. I want your +opinion. I guess it. I want to hear--a mean thirst perhaps, and you +would pay me any number of compliments to avoid the subject; but let me +hear:--this house!’ + +Colney shrugged in resignation. ‘Victor works himself out,’ he replied. + +‘We are to go through it all again?’ + +‘If you have not the force to contain him.’ + +‘How contain him?’ + +Up went Colney’s shoulders. + +‘You may see it all before you,’ he said, ‘straight as the Seine +chaussee from the hill of La Roche Guyon.’ + +He looked for her recollection of the scene. + +‘Ah, the happy ramble that year!’ she cried. ‘And my Nesta just seven. +We had been six months at Craye. Every day of our life together looks +happy to me, looking back, though I know that every day had the same +troubles. I don’t think I’m deficient in courage; I think I could +meet.... But the false position so cruelly weakens me. I am no woman’s +equal when I have to receive or visit. It seems easier to meet the worst +in life-danger, death, anything. Pardon me for talking so. Perhaps we +need not have left Craye or Creckholt...?’ she hinted an interrogation. +‘Though I am not sorry; it is not good to be where one tastes poison. +Here it may be as deadly, worse. Dear friend, I am so glad you remember +La Roche Guyon. He was popular with the dear French people.’ + +‘In spite of his accent.’ + +‘It is not so bad?’ + +‘And that you’ll defend!’ + +‘Consider: these neighbours we come among; they may have heard...’ + +‘Act on the assumption.’ + +‘You forget the principal character. Victor promises; he may have learnt +a lesson at Creckholt. But look at this house he has built. How can +I--any woman--contain him! He must have society.’ + +‘Paraitre!’ + +‘He must be in the front. He has talked of Parliament.’ + +Colney’s liver took the thrust of a skewer through it. He spoke as in +meditative encomium: ‘His entry into Parliament would promote himself +and family to a station of eminence naked over the Clock Tower of the +House.’ + +She moaned. ‘At the vilest, I cannot regret my conduct--bear what I may. +I can bear real pain: what kills me is, the suspicion. And I feel it +like a guilty wretch! And I do not feel the guilt! I should do the same +again, on reflection. I do believe it saved him. I do; oh! I do, I do. +I cannot expect my family to see with my eyes. You know them--my brother +and sisters think I have disgraced them; they put no value on my saving +him. It sounds childish; it is true. He had fallen into a terrible black +mood.’ + +‘He had an hour of gloom.’ + +‘An hour!’ + +‘But an hour, with him! It means a good deal.’ + +‘Ah, friend, I take your words. He sinks terribly when he sinks at +all.--Spare us a little while.--We have to judge of what is good in the +circumstances: I hear your reply! But the principal for me to study is +Victor. You have accused me of being the voice of the enamoured woman. +I follow him, I know; I try to advise; I find it is wisdom to submit. My +people regard my behaviour as a wickedness or a madness. I did save him. +I joined my fate with his. I am his mate, to help, and I cannot oppose +him, to distract him. I do my utmost for privacy. He must entertain. +Believe me, I feel for them--sisters and brother. And now that my +sisters are married... My brother has a man’s hardness.’ + +‘Colonel Dreighton did not speak harshly, at our last meeting.’ + +‘He spoke of me?’ + +‘He spoke in the tone of a brother.’ + +‘Victor promises--I won’t repeat it. Yes, I see the house! There appears +to be a prospect, a hope--I cannot allude to it. Craye and Creckholt may +have been some lesson to him. Selwyn spoke of me kindly? Ah, yes, it is +the way with my people to pretend that Victor has been the ruin of me, +that they may come round to family sentiments. In the same way, +his relatives, the Duvidney ladies, have their picture of the woman +misleading him. Imagine me the naughty adventuress!’--Nataly falsified +the thought insurgent at her heart, in adding: ‘I do not say I am +blameless.’ It was a concession to the circumambient enemy, of whom even +a good friend was apart, and not better than a respectful emissary. The +dearest of her friends belonged to that hostile world. Only Victor, no +other, stood with her against the world. Her child, yes; the love of her +child she had; but the child’s destiny was an alien phantom, looking at +her with harder eyes than she had vision of in her family. She did not +say she was blameless, did not affect the thought. She would have wished +to say, for small encouragement she would have said, that her case could +be pleaded. + +Colney’s features were not inviting, though the expression was not +repellent. She sighed deeply; and to count on something helpful by +mentioning it, reverted to the ‘prospect’ which there appeared to be. +‘Victor speaks of the certainty of his release.’ + +His release! Her language pricked a satirist’s gallbladder. Colney +refrained from speaking to wound, and enjoyed a silence that did it. + +‘Do you see any possibility?--you knew her,’ she said coldly. + +‘Counting the number of times he has been expecting the release, he is +bound to believe it near at hand.’ + +‘You don’t?’ she asked: her bosom was up in a crisis of expectation for +the answer: and on a pause of half-a-minute, she could have uttered the +answer herself. + +He perceived the insane eagerness through her mask, and despised it, +pitying the woman. ‘And you don’t,’ he said. ‘You catch at delusions, +to excuse the steps you consent to take. Or you want me to wear the +blinkers, the better to hoodwink your own eyes. You see it as well as +I: If you enter that house, you have to go through the same as at +Creckholt:--and he’ll be the first to take fright.’ + +‘He finds you in tears: he is immensely devoted; he flings up all to +protect “his Nataly.”’ + +‘No: you are unjust to him. He would fling up all:’-- + +‘But his Nataly prefers to be dragged through fire? As you please!’ + +She bowed to her chastisement. One motive in her consultation with him +came of the knowledge of his capacity to inflict it and his honesty in +the act, and a thirst she had to hear the truth loud-tongued from him; +together with a feeling that he was excessive and satiric, not to be +read by the letter of his words: and in consequence, she could bear +the lash from him, and tell her soul that he overdid it, and have an +unjustly-treated self to cherish.--But in very truth she was a woman who +loved to hear the truth; she was formed to love the truth her position +reduced her to violate; she esteemed the hearing it as medical to her; +she selected for counsellor him who would apply it: so far she went on +the straight way; and the desire for a sustaining deception from the +mouth of a trustworthy man set her hanging on his utterances with an +anxious hope of the reverse of what was to come and what she herself +apprehended, such as checked her pulses and iced her feet and fingers. +The reason being, not that she was craven or absurd or paradoxical, +but that, living at an intenser strain upon her nature than she or any +around her knew, her strength snapped, she broke down by chance there +where Colney was rendered spiteful in beholding the display of her +inconsequent if not puling sex. + +She might have sought his counsel on another subject, if a paralyzing +chill of her frame in the foreview of it had allowed her to speak: she +felt grave alarms in one direction, where Nesta stood in the eye of her +father; besides an unformed dread that the simplicity in generosity of +Victor’s nature was doomed to show signs of dross ultimately, under the +necessity he imposed upon himself to run out his forecasts, and scheme, +and defensively compel the world to serve his ends, for the protection +of those dear to him. + +At night he was particularly urgent with her for the harmonious duet in +praise of Lakelands; and plied her with questions all round and about +it, to bring out the dulcet accord. He dwelt on his choice of costly +marbles, his fireplace and mantelpiece designs, the great hall, and +suggestions for imposing and beautiful furniture; concordantly enough, +for the large, the lofty and rich of colour won her enthusiasm; but +overwhelmingly to any mood of resistance; and strangely in a man who had +of late been adopting, as if his own, a modern tone, or the social and +literary hints of it, relating to the right uses of wealth, and the duty +as well as the delight of living simply. + +‘Fredi was pleased.’ + +‘Yes, she was, dear.’ + +‘She is our girl, my love. “I could live and die here!” Live, she may. +There’s room enough.’ + +Nataly saw the door of a covert communication pointed at in that remark. +She gathered herself for an effort to do battle. + +‘She’s quite a child, Victor.’ + +‘The time begins to run. We have to look forward now:--I declare, it’s I +who seem the provident mother for Fredi!’ + +‘Let our girl wait; don’t hurry her mind to... She is happy with her +father and mother. She is in the happiest time of her life, before those +feelings distract.’ + +‘If we see good fortune for her, we can’t let it pass her.’ + +A pang of the resolution now to debate the case with Victor, which +would be of necessity to do the avoided thing and roll up the forbidden +curtain opening on their whole history past and prospective, was met in +Nataly’s bosom by the more bitter immediate confession that she was +not his match. To speak would be to succumb; and shamefully after the +effort; and hopelessly after being overborne by him. There was not the +anticipation of a set contest to animate the woman’s naturally valiant +heart; he was too strong: and his vividness in urgency overcame her in +advance, fascinated her sensibility through recollection; he fanned an +inclination, lighted it to make it a passion, a frenzied resolve--she +remembered how and when. She had quivering cause to remember the fateful +day of her step, in a letter received that morning from a married +sister, containing no word of endearment or proposal for a meeting. An +unregretted day, if Victor would think of the dues to others; that is, +would take station with the world to see his reflected position, instead +of seeing it through their self-justifying knowledge of the honourable +truth of their love, and pressing to claim and snatch at whatsoever the +world bestows on its orderly subjects. + +They had done evil to no one as yet. Nataly thought that; +not-withstanding the outcry of the ancient and withered woman who bore +Victor Radnor’s name: for whom, in consequence of the rod the woman had +used, this tenderest of hearts could summon no emotion. If she had it, +the thing was not to be hauled up to consciousness. Her feeling was, +that she forgave the wrinkled Malignity: pity and contrition dissolving +in the effort to produce the placable forgiveness. She was frigid +because she knew rightly of herself, that she in the place of power +would never have struck so meanly. But the mainspring of the feeling +in an almost remorseless bosom drew from certain chance expressions of +retrospective physical distaste on Victor’s part;--hard to keep from a +short utterance between the nuptial two, of whom the unshamed exuberant +male has found the sweet reverse in his mate, a haven of heavenliness, +to delight in:--these conjoined with a woman’s unspoken pleading ideas +of her own, on her own behalf, had armed her jealously in vindication of +Nature. + +Now, as long as they did no palpable wrong about them, Nataly could +argue her case in her conscience--deep down and out of hearing, where +women under scourge of the laws they have not helped decree may and do +deliver their minds. She stood in that subterranean recess for Nature +against the Institutions of Man: a woman little adapted for the post of +revel; but to this, by the agency of circumstances, it had come; she who +was designed by nature to be an ornament of those Institutions opposed +them and when thinking of the rights and the conduct of the decrepit +Legitimate--virulent in a heathen vindictiveness declaring itself +holy--she had Nature’s logic, Nature’s voice, for self-defence. It was +eloquent with her, to the deafening of other voices in herself, even to +the convincing of herself, when she was wrought by the fires within to +feel elementally. The other voices within her issued of the acknowledged +dues to her family and to the world--the civilization protecting women: +sentences thereanent in modern books and Journals. But the remembrance +of moods of fiery exaltation, when the Nature she called by name of Love +raised the chorus within to stop all outer buzzing, was, in a perpetual +struggle with a whirlpool, a constant support while she and Victor +were one at heart. The sense of her standing alone made her sway; and +a thought of differences with him caused frightful apprehensions of the +abyss. + +Luxuriously she applied to his public life for witness that he had +governed wisely as well as affectionately so long; and he might +therefore, with the chorussing of the world of public men, expect a +woman blindfold to follow his lead. But no; we may be rebels against +our time and its Laws: if we are really for Nature, we are not lawless. +Nataly’s untutored scruples, which came side by side with her ability to +plead for her acts, restrained her from complicity in the ensnaring of +a young man of social rank to espouse the daughter of a couple socially +insurgent-stained, to common thinking, should denunciation come. The +Nature upholding her fled at a vision of a stranger entangled. Pitiable +to reflect, that he was not one of the adventurer-lords of prey who hunt +and run down shadowed heiresses and are congratulated on their luck in +a tolerating country! How was the young man to be warned? How, under the +happiest of suppositions, propitiate his family! And such a family, if +consenting with knowledge, would consent only for the love of money. It +was angling with as vile a bait as the rascal lord’s. Humiliation hung +on the scheme; it struck to scorching in the contemplation of it. And it +darkened her reading of Victor’s character. + +She did not ask for the specification of a ‘good fortune that might +pass’; wishing to save him from his wonted twists of elusiveness, and +herself with him from the dread discussion it involved upon one point. + +‘The day was pleasant to all, except perhaps poor mademoiselle,’ she +said. + +‘Peridon should have come?’ + +‘Present or absent, his chances are not brilliant, I fear.’ + +‘And Pempton and Priscy!’ + +‘They are growing cooler!’ + +‘With their grotesque objections to one another’s habits at table!’ + +‘Can we ever hope to get them over it?’ + +‘When Priscy drinks Port and Pempton munches beef, Colney says.’ + +‘I should say, when they feel warmly enough to think little of their +differences.’ + +‘Fire smoothes the creases, yes; and fire is what they’re both wanting +in. Though Priscy has Concert-pathos in her voice:--couldn’t act a bit! +And Pempton’s ‘cello tones now and then have gone through me--simply +from his fiddle-bow, I believe. Don’t talk to me of feeling in a couple, +within reach of one another and sniffing objections.--Good, then, for a +successful day to-day so far?’ + +He neared her, wooing her; and she assented, with a franker smile than +she had worn through the day. + +The common burden on their hearts--the simple discussion to come of the +task of communicating dire actualities to their innocent Nesta--was laid +aside. + + + + +CHAPTER XII. TREATS OF THE DUMBNESS POSSIBLE WITH MEMBERS OF A HOUSEHOLD +HAVING ONE HEART + +Two that live together in union are supposed to be intimate on every +leaf. Particularly when they love one another and the cause they have +at heart is common to them in equal measure, the uses of a cordial +familiarity forbid reserves upon important matters between them, as +we think; not thinking of an imposed secretiveness, beneath the false +external of submissiveness, which comes of an experience of repeated +inefficiency to maintain a case in opposition, on the part of the +loquently weaker of the pair. In Constitutional Kingdoms a powerful +Government needs not to be tyrannical to lean oppressively; it is more +serviceable to party than agreeable to country; and where the alliance +of men and women binds a loving couple, of whom one is a torrent of +persuasion, their differings are likely to make the other resemble a log +of the torrent. It is borne along; it dreams of a distant corner of the +way for a determined stand; it consents to its whirling in anticipation +of an undated hour when it will no longer be neutral. + +There may be, moreover, while each has the key of the fellow breast, a +mutually sensitive nerve to protest against intrusion of light or sound. +The cloud over the name of their girl could now strike Nataly and +Victor dumb in their taking of counsel. She divined that his hint had +encouraged him to bring the crisis nearer, and he that her comprehension +had become tremblingly awake. They shrank, each of them, the more from +an end drawing closely into view. All subjects glooming off or darkening +up to it were shunned by them verbally, and if they found themselves +entering beneath that shadow, conversation passed to an involuntary +gesture, more explicit with him, significant of the prohibited, though +not acknowledging it. + +All the stronger was it Victor’s purpose, leaping in his fashion to the +cover of action as an escape from perplexity, to burn and scheme for +the wedding of their girl--the safe wedding of that dearest, to have her +protected, secure, with the world warm about her. And he well knew why +his Nataly had her look of a closed vault (threatening, if opened, to +thunder upon Life) when he dropped his further hints. He chose to call +it feminine inconsistency, in a woman who walked abroad with a basket +of marriage-ties for the market on her arm. He knew that she would soon +have to speak the dark words to their girl; and the idea of any doing +of it, caught at his throat. Reasonably she dreaded the mother’s task; +pardonably indeed. But it is for the mother to do, with a girl. He +deputed it lightly to the mother because he could see himself stating +the facts to a son. ‘And, my dear boy, you will from this day draw your +five thousand a year, and we double it on the day of your marriage, +living at Lakelands or where you will.’ + +His desire for his girl’s protection by the name of one of our great +Families, urged him to bind Nataly to the fact, with the argument, that +it was preferable for the girl to hear their story during her green +early youth, while she reposed her beautiful blind faith in the +discretion of her parents, and as an immediate step to the placing of +her hand in a husband’s. He feared that her mother required schooling +to tell the story vindicatingly and proudly, in a manner to distinguish +instead of degrading or temporarily seeming to accept degradation. + +The world would weigh on her confession of the weight of the world on +her child; she would want inciting and strengthening, if one judged of +her capacity to meet the trial by her recent bearing; and how was he +to do it! He could not imagine himself encountering the startled, +tremulous, nascent intelligence in those pure brown darklashed eyes of +Nesta; he pitied the poor mother. Fancifully directing her to say this +and that to the girl, his tongue ran till it was cut from his heart and +left to wag dead colourless words. + +The prospect of a similar business of exposition, certainly devolving +upon the father in treaty with the fortunate youth, gripped at his +vitals a minute, so intense was his pride in appearing woundless and +scarless, a shining surface, like pure health’s, in the sight of men. +Nevertheless he skimmed the story, much as a lecturer strikes his wand +on the prominent places of a map, that is to show us how he arrived +at the principal point, which we are all agreed to find chiefly +interesting. This with Victor was the naming of Nesta’s bridal +endowment. He rushed to it. ‘My girl will have ten thousand a year +settled on her the day of her marriage.’ Choice of living at Lakelands +was offered. + +It helped him over the unpleasant part of that interview. At the +same time, it moved him to a curious contempt of the youth. He had +to conjure-up an image of the young man in person, to correct the +sentiment:--and it remained as a kind of bruise only half cured. + +Mr. Dudley Sowerby was not one of the youths whose presence would +rectify such an abstract estimate of the genus pursuer. He now came +frequently of an evening, to practise a duet for flutes with Victor;--a +Mercadante, honeyed and flowing; too honeyed to suit a style that, as +Fenellan characterized it to Nataly, went through the music somewhat +like an inquisitive tourist in a foreign town, conscientious to get to +the end of the work of pleasure; until the notes had become familiar, +when it rather resembled a constable’s walk along the midnight streets +into collision with a garlanded roysterer; and the man of order and +the man of passion, true to the measure though they were, seeming to +dissent, almost to wrangle, in their different ways of winding out the +melody, on to the last movement; which was plainly a question between +home to the strayed reveller’s quarters or off to the lockup. Victor was +altogether the younger of the two. But his vehement accompaniment was +a tutorship; Mr. Sowerby improved; it was admitted by Nesta and +mademoiselle that he gained a show of feeling; he had learnt that +feeling was wanted. Passion, he had not a notion of: otherwise he would +not be delaying; the interview, dramatized by the father of the young +bud of womanhood, would be taking place, and the entry into Lakelands +calculable, for Nataly’s comfort, as under the aegis of the Cantor +earldom. Gossip flies to a wider circle round the members of a great +titled family, is inaudible; or no longer the diptherian whisper the +commonalty hear of the commonalty: and so we see the social uses of our +aristocracy survive. We do not want the shield of any family; it is the +situation that wants it; Nataly ought to be awake to the fact. One blow +and we have silenced our enemy: Nesta’s wedding-day has relieved her +parents. + +Victor’s thoughts upon the instrument for striking that, blow, led him +to suppose Mr. Sowerby might be meditating on the extent of the young +lady’s fortune. He talked randomly of money, in a way to shatter +Nataly’s conception of him. He talked of City affairs at table, as it +had been his practice to shun the doing; and hit the resounding note +on mines, which have risen in the market like the crest of a serpent, +casting a certain spell upon the mercantile understanding. ‘Fredi’s +diamonds from her own mine, or what once was--and she still reserves a +share,’ were to be shown to Mr. Sowerby. + +Nataly respected the young fellow for not displaying avidity at the +flourish of the bait, however it might be affecting him; and she fancied +that he did laboriously, in his way earnestly, study her girl, to sound +for harmony between them, previous to a wooing. She was a closer reader +of social character than Victor; from refraining to run on the broad +lines which are but faintly illustrative of the individual one in +being common to all--unless we have hit by chance on an example of the +downright in roguery or folly or simple goodness. Mr. Sowerby’g bearing +to Nesta was hardly warmed by the glitter of diamonds. His next visit +showed him livelier in courtliness, brighter, fresher; but that was +always his way at the commencement of every visit, as if his reflections +on the foregone had come to a satisfactory conclusion; and the labours +of the new study of the maiden ensued again in due course to deaden him. + +Gentleman he was. In the recognition of his quality as a man of +principle and breeding, Nataly was condemned by thoughts of Nesta’s +future to question whether word or act of hers should, if inclination +on both sides existed, stand between her girl and a true gentleman. +She counselled herself, as if the counsel were in requisition, to be +passive; and so doing, she more acutely than Victor--save in his chance +flashes--discerned the twist of her very nature caused by their false +position. And her panacea for ills, the lost little cottage, would not +have averted it: she would there have had the same coveting desire to +name a man of breeding, honour, station, for Nesta’s husband. Perhaps in +the cottage, choosing at leisure, her consent to see the brilliant young +creature tied to the best of dull men would have been unready, without +the girl to push it. For the Hon. Dudley was lamentably her pupil in +liveliness; he took the second part, as it is painful for a woman +with the old-fashioned ideas upon the leading of the sexes to behold; +resembling in his look the deaf, who constantly require to have an +observation repeated; resembling the most intelligent of animals, which +we do not name, and we reprove ourselves for seeing likeness. + +Yet the likeness or apparent likeness would suggest that we have not so +much to fear upon the day of the explanation to him. Some gain is there. +Shameful thought! Nataly hastened her mind to gather many instances or +indications testifying to the sterling substance in young Mr. Sowerby, +such as a mother would pray for her son-in-law to possess. She +discovered herself feeling as the burdened mother, not providently for +her girl, in the choice of a mate. The perception was clear, and not the +less did she continue working at the embroidery of Mr. Sowerby on the +basis of his excellent moral foundations, all the while hoping, praying, +that he might not be lured on to the proposal for Nesta. But her +subservience to the power of the persuasive will in Victor--which was +like the rush of a conflagration--compelled her to think realizingly of +any scheme he allowed her darkly to read. + +Opposition to him, was comparable to the stand of blocks of timber +before flame. Colney Durance had done her the mischief we take from the +pessimist when we are overweighted: in darkening the vision of external +aid from man or circumstance to one who felt herself mastered. Victor +could make her treacherous to her wishes, in revolt against them, though +the heart protested. His first conquest of her was in her blood, to +weaken a spirit of resistance. For the precedent of submission is a +charm upon the faint-hearted through love: it unwinds, unwills them. +Nataly resolved fixedly, that there must be a day for speaking; and +she had her moral sustainment in the resolve; she had also a tormenting +consciousness of material support in the thought, that the day was +not present, was possibly distant, might never arrive. Would Victor’s +release come sooner? And that was a prospect bearing resemblance to +hopes of the cure of a malady through a sharp operation. + +These were matters going on behind the curtain; as wholly vital to her, +and with him at times almost as dominant, as the spiritual in memory, +when flesh has left but its shining track in dust of a soul outwritten; +and all their talk related to the purchase of furniture, the expeditions +to Lakelands, music, public affairs, the pardonable foibles of +friends created to amuse their fellows, operatic heroes and heroines, +exhibitions of pictures, the sorrows of Crowned Heads, so serviceable +ever to mankind as an admonition to the ambitious, a salve to the +envious!--in fine, whatsoever can entertain or affect the most social +of couples, domestically without a care to appearance. And so far they +partially--dramatically--deceived themselves by imposing on the world +while they talked and duetted; for the purchase of furniture from a +flowing purse is a cheerful occupation; also a City issuing out of +hospital, like this poor City of London, inspires good citizens to +healthy activity. But the silence upon what they were most bent on, had +the sinister effect upon Victor, of obscuring his mental hold of the +beloved woman, drifting her away from him. In communicating Fenellan’s +news through the lawyer Carling of Mrs. Burman’s intentions, he was +aware that there was an obstacle to his being huggingly genial, +even candidly genial with her, until he could deal out further +news, corroborative and consecutive, to show the action of things as +progressive. Fenellan had sunk into his usual apathy:--and might plead +the impossibility of his moving faster than the woman professing to +transform herself into, beneficence out of malignity;--one could +hear him saying the words! Victor had not seen him since last Concert +evening, and he deemed it as well to hear the words Fenellan’s mouth +had to say. He called at an early hour of the Westward tidal flow at the +Insurance Office looking over the stormy square of the first of Seamen. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. THE LATEST OF MRS. BURMAN + +After cursory remarks about the business of the Office and his friend’s +contributions to periodical literature, in which he was interested for +as long as he had assurance that the safe income depending upon official +duties was not endangered by them, Victor kicked his heels to and fro. +Fenellan waited for him to lead. + +‘Have you seen that man, her lawyer, again?’ + +‘I have dined with Mr. Carling:--capital claret.’ + +Emptiness was in the reply. + +Victor curbed himself and said: ‘By the way, you’re not likely to have +dealings with Blathenoy. The fellow has a screw to the back of a shifty +eye; I see it at work to fix the look for business. I shall sit on the +Board of my Bank. One hears things. He lives in style at Wrensham. By +the way, Fredi has little Mab Mountney from Creckholt staying with her. +You said of little Mabsy--“Here she comes into the room all pink and +white, like a daisy.” She’s the daisy still; reminds us of our girl at +that age.--So, then, we come to another dead block!’ + +‘Well, no; it’s a chemist’s shop, if that helps us on,’ said Fenellan, +settling to a new posture in his chair. ‘She’s there of an afternoon for +hours.’ + +‘You mean it’s she?’ + +‘The lady. I ‘ll tell you. I have it from Carling, worthy man; and +lawyers can be brought to untruss a point over a cup of claret. He’s a +bit of a “Mackenzie Man,” as old aunts of mine used to say at home--a +Man of Feeling. Thinks he knows the world, from having sifted and sorted +a lot of our dustbins; as the modern Realists imagine it’s an exposition +of positive human nature when they’ve pulled down our noses to the worst +parts--if there’s a worse where all are useful: but the Realism of the +dogs is to have us by the nose:--excite it and befoul it, and you’re +fearfully credible! You don’t read that olfactory literature. However, +friend Carling is a conciliatory carle. Three or four days of the week +the lady, he says, drives to her chemist’s, and there she sits in the +shop; round the corner, as you enter; and sees all Charing in the shop +looking-glass at the back; herself a stranger spectacle, poor lady, if +Carling’s picture of her is not overdone; with her fashionable no-bonnet +striding the contribution chignon on the crown, and a huge square green +shade over her forehead. Sits hours long, and cocks her ears at orders +of applicants for drugs across the counter, and sometimes catches wind +of a prescription, and consults her chemist, and thinks she ‘ll try +it herself. It’s a basket of medicine bottles driven to Regent’s Park +pretty well every day.’ + +‘Ha! Regent’s Park!’ exclaimed Victor, and shook at recollections of the +district and the number of the house, dismal to him. London buried +the woman deep until a mention of her sent her flaring over London. ‘A +chemist’s shop! She sits there?’ + +‘Mrs. Burman. We pass by the shop.’ + +‘She had always a turn for drugs.--Not far from here, did you say? And +every day! under a green shade?’ + +‘Dear fellow, don’t be suggesting ballads; we’ll go now,’ said Fenellan. +‘It ‘s true it’s like sitting on the banks of the Stygian waters.’ + +He spied at an obsequious watch, that told him it was time to quit the +office. + +‘You’ve done nothing?’ Victor asked in a tone of no expectation. + +‘Only to hear that her latest medical man is Themison.’ + +‘Where did you hear?’ + +‘Across the counter of Boyle and Luckwort, the lady’s chemists. I +called the day before yesterday, after you were here at our last Board +Meeting.’ + +‘The Themison?’ + +‘The great Dr. Themison; who kills you kindlier than most, and is much +in request for it.’ + +‘There’s one of your echoes of Colney!’ Victor cried. ‘One gets dead +sick of that worn-out old jibeing at doctors. They don’t kill, you know +very well. It ‘s not to their interest to kill. They may take the relish +out of life; and upon my word, I believe that helps to keep the patient +living!’ + +Fenellan sent an eye of discreet comic penetration travelling through +his friend. + +‘The City’s mending; it’s not the weary widow woman of the day when we +capsized the diurnal with your royal Old Veuve,’ he said, as they trod +the pavement. ‘Funny people, the English! They give you all the primeing +possible for amusement and jollity, and devil a sentry-box for the +exercise of it; and if you shake a leg publicly, partner or not, you’re +marched off to penitence. I complain, that they have no philosophical +appreciation of human nature.’ + +‘We pass the shop?’ Victor interrupted him. + +‘You’re in view of it in a minute. And what a square, for recreative +dancing! And what a people, to be turning it into a place of political +agitation! And what a country, where from morning to night it’s an +endless wrangle about the first conditions of existence! Old Colney +seems right now and then: they ‘re the offspring of pirates, and they +‘ve got the manners and tastes of their progenitors, and the trick of +quarrelling everlastingly over the booty. I ‘d have band-music here for +a couple of hours, three days of the week at the least; and down in the +East; and that forsaken North quarter of London; and the Baptist South +too. But just as those omnibus-wheels are the miserable music of this +London of ours, it ‘s only too sadly true that the people are in the +first rumble of the notion of the proper way to spend their lives. Now +you see the shop: Boyle and Luckwort: there.’ + +Victor looked. He threw his coat open, and pulled the waistcoat, and +swelled it, ahemming. ‘That shop?’ said he. And presently: ‘Fenellan, +I’m not superstitious, I think. Now listen; I declare to you, on the day +of our drinking Old Veuve together last--you remember it,--I walked +home up this way across the square, and I was about to step into that +identical shop, for some household prescription in my pocket, having +forgotten Nataly’s favourite City chemists Fenbird and Jay, when--I’m +stating a fact--I distinctly--I ‘m sure of the shop--felt myself plucked +back by the elbow; pulled back the kind of pull when you have to put a +foot backward to keep your equilibrium.’ + +So does memory inspired by the sensations contribute an additional item +for the colouring of history. + +He touched the elbow, showed a flitting face of crazed amazement in +amusement, and shrugged and half-laughed, dismissing the incident, as +being perhaps, if his hearer chose to have it so, a gem of the rubbish +tumbled into the dustcart out of a rather exceptional householder’s +experience. + +Fenellan smiled indulgently. ‘Queer things happen. I recollect reading +in my green youth of a clergyman, who mounted a pulpit of the port where +he was landed after his almost solitary rescue from a burning ship at +midnight in mid-sea, to inform his congregation, that he had overnight +of the catastrophe a personal Warning right in his ear from a Voice, +when at his bed or bunk-side, about to perform the beautiful ceremony of +undressing: and the Rev. gentleman was to lie down in his full uniform, +not so much as to relieve himself of his boots, the Voice insisted +twice; and he obeyed it, despite the discomfort to his poor feet; and +he jumped up in his boots to the cry of Fire, and he got them +providentially over the scuffling deck straight at the first rush into +the boat awaiting them, and had them safe on and polished the day he +preached the sermon of gratitude for the special deliverance. There was +a Warning! and it might well be called, as he called it, from within. +We’re cared for, never doubt. Aide-toi. Be ready dressed to help +yourself in a calamity, or you’ll not stand in boots at your next +Sermon, contrasting with the burnt. That sounds like the moral.’ + +‘She could have seen me,’ Victor threw out an irritable suggestion. The +idea of the recent propinquity set hatred in motion. + +‘Scarcely likely. I’m told she sits looking on her lap, under the +beetling shade, until she hears an order for tinctures or powders, or a +mixture that strikes her fancy. It’s possible to do more suicidal things +than sit the afternoons in a chemist’s shop and see poor creatures get +their different passports to Orcus.’ + +Victor stepped mutely beneath the windows of the bellied glass-urns of +chemical wash. The woman might be inside there now! She might have +seen his figure in the shop-mirror! And she there! The wonder of it all +seemed to be, that his private history was not walking the streets. +The thinness of the partition concealing it, hardly guaranteed a day’s +immunity: because this woman would live in London, in order to have +her choice of a central chemist’s shop, where she could feed a ghastly +imagination on the various recipes... and while it would have been so +much healthier for her to be living in a recess of the country! + +He muttered: ‘Diseases--drugs!’ + +Those were the corresponding two strokes of the pendulum which kept the +woman going. + +‘And deadly spite.’ That was the emanation of the monotonous horrible +conflict, for which, and by which, the woman lived. + +In the neighbourhood of the shop, he could not but think of her through +the feelings of a man scorched by a furnace. + +A little further on, he said: ‘Poor soul!’ He confessed to himself, that +latterly he had, he knew not why, been impatient with her, rancorous +in thought, as never before. He had hitherto aimed at a picturesque +tolerance of her vindictiveness; under suffering, both at Craye and +Creckholt; and he had been really forgiving. He accused her of dragging +him down to humanity’s lowest. + +But if she did that, it argued the possession of a power of a sort. + +Her station in the chemist’s shop he passed almost daily, appeared to +him as a sudden and a terrific rush to the front; though it was only a +short drive from the house in Regent’s Park; but having shaken-off +that house, he had pushed it back into mists, obliterated it. The woman +certainly had a power. + +He shot away to the power he knew of in himself; his capacity for +winning men in bodies, the host of them, when it came to an effort of +his energies: men and, individually, women. Individually, the women were +to be counted on as well; warm supporters. + +It was the admission of a doubt that he might expect to enroll them +collectively. Eyeing the men, he felt his command of them. Glancing at +congregated women, he had a chill. The Wives and Spinsters in ghostly +judicial assembly: that is, the phantom of the offended collective +woman: that is, the regnant Queen Idea issuing from our concourse of +civilized life to govern Society, and pronounce on the orderly, the +tolerable, the legal, and banish the rebellious: these maintained an +aspect of the stand against him. + +Did Nataly read the case: namely, that the crowned collective woman is +not to be subdued? And what are we to say of the indefinite but forcible +Authority, when we see it upholding Mrs. Burman to crush a woman like +Nataly! + +Victor’s novel exercises in reflection were bringing him by hard degrees +to conceive it to be the impalpable which has prevailing weight. Not +many of our conquerors have scored their victories on the road of that +index: nor has duration been granted them to behold the minute measure +of value left even tangible after the dust of the conquest subsides. +The passing by a shop where a broken old woman might be supposed to +sit beneath her green forehead-shade--Venetian-blind of a +henbane-visage!--had precipitated him into his first real grasp of the +abstract verity: and it opens on to new realms, which are a new world +to the practical mind. But he made no advance. He stopped in a fever of +sensibility, to contemplate the powerful formless vapour rolling from a +source that was nothing other than yonder weak lonely woman. + +In other words, the human nature of the man was dragged to the school +of its truancy by circumstances, for him to learn the commonest of sums +done on a slate, in regard to payment of debts and the unrelaxing grip +of the creditor on the defaulter. Debtors are always paying like those +who are guilty of the easiest thing in life, the violation of Truth, +they have made themselves bondmen to pay, if not in substance, then in +soul; and the nipping of the soul goes on for as long as the concrete +burden is undischarged. You know the Liar; you must have seen him +diminishing, until he has become a face without features, withdrawn to +humanity’s preliminary sketch (some half-dozen frayed threads of woeful +outline on our original tapestry-web); and he who did the easiest of +things, he must from such time sweat in being the prodigy of inventive +nimbleness, up to the day when he propitiates Truth by telling it +again. There is a repentance that does reconstitute! It may help to the +traceing to springs of a fable whereby men have been guided thus far out +of the wood. + +Victor would have said truly that he loved Truth; that he paid every +debt with a scrupulous exactitude: money, of course; and prompt +apologies for a short brush of his temper. Nay, he had such a conscience +for the smallest eruptions of a transient irritability, that the wish +to say a friendly mending word to the Punctilio donkey of London Bridge, +softened his retrospective view of the fall there, more than once. +Although this man was a presentation to mankind of the force in Nature +which drives to unresting speed, which is the vitality of the heart seen +at its beating after a plucking of it from the body, he knew himself for +the reverse of lawless; he inclined altogether to good citizenship. +So social a man could not otherwise incline. But when it came to the +examination of accounts between Mrs. Burman and himself, spasms of +physical revulsion, loathings, his excessive human nature, put her out +of Court. To men, it was impossible for him to speak the torments of +those days of the monstrous alliance. The heavens were cognizant. He +pleaded his case in their accustomed hearing:--a youngster tempted by +wealth, attracted, besought, snared, revolted, etc. And Mrs. Burman, +when roused to jealousy, had shown it by teazing him for a confession of +his admiration of splendid points in the beautiful Nataly, the priceless +fair woman living under their roof, a contrast of very life, with the +corpse and shroud; and she seen by him daily, singing with him, her +breath about him, her voice incessantly upon every chord of his being! + +He pleaded successfully. But the silence following the verdict was +heavy; the silence contained an unheard thunder. It was the sound, as +when out of Court the public is dissatisfied with a verdict. Are we +expected to commit a social outrage in exposing our whole case to the +public?--Imagine it for a moment as done. Men are ours at a word--or at +least a word of invitation. Women we woo; fluent smooth versions of our +tortures, mixed with permissible courtship, win the individual woman. +And that unreasoning collective woman, icy, deadly, condemns the +poor racked wretch who so much as remembers them! She is the enemy of +Nature.--Tell us how? She is the slave of existing conventions.--And +from what cause? She is the artificial production of a state that exalts +her so long as she sacrifices daily and hourly to the artificial. + +Therefore she sides with Mrs. Burman--the foe of Nature: who, with +her arts and gold lures, has now possession of the Law (the brass idol +worshipped by the collective) to drive Nature into desolation. + +He placed himself to the right of Mrs. Burman, for the world to behold +the couple: and he lent the world a sigh of disgust. + +What he could not do, as in other matters he did, was to rise above the +situation, in a splendid survey and rapid view of the means of reversing +it. He was too social to be a captain of the socially insurgent; +imagination expired. + +But having a courageous Nataly to second him!--how then? It was the +succour needed. Then he would have been ready to teach the world that +Nature--honest Nature--is more to be prized than Convention: a new Era +might begin. + +The thought was tonic for an instant and illuminated him springingly. It +sank, excused for the flaccidity by Nataly’s want of common adventurous +daring. She had not taken to Lakelands; she was purchasing furniture +from a flowing purse with a heavy heart--unfeminine, one might say; she +preferred to live obscurely; she did not, one had to think--but it +was unjust: and yet the accusation, that she did not cheerfully make a +strain and spurt on behalf of her child, pressed to be repeated. + +These short glimpses at reflection in Victor were like the verberant +twang of a musical instrument that has had a smart blow, and wails away +independent of the player’s cunning hand. He would have said, that he +was more his natural self when the cunning hand played on him, to make +him praise and uplift his beloved: mightily would it have astonished him +to contemplate with assured perception in his own person the Nature he +invoked. But men invoking Nature, do not find in her the Holy Mother she +in such case becomes to her daughters, whom she so persecutes. Men call +on her for their defence, as a favourable witness: she is a note of +their rhetoric. They are not bettered by her sustainment; they have not, +as women may have, her enaemic aid at a trying hour. It is not an effort +at epigram to say, that whom she scourges most she most supports. + +An Opera-placard drew his next remark to Fenellan. + +‘How Wagner seems to have stricken the Italians! Well, now, the Germans +have their Emperor to head their armies, and I say that the German +emperor has done less for their lasting fame and influence than Wagner +has done. He has affected the French too; I trace him in Gounod’s Romeo +et Juliette--and we don’t gain by it; we have a poor remuneration for +the melody gone; think of the little shepherd’s pipeing in Mireille; and +there’s another in Sapho-delicious. I held out against Wagner as long as +I could. The Italians don’t much more than Wagnerize in exchange for +the loss of melody. They would be wiser in going back to Pergolese, +Campagnole. The Mefistofole was good--of the school of the foreign +master. Aida and Otello, no. I confess to a weakness for the old +barleysugar of Bellini or a Donizetti-Serenade. Aren’t you seduced by +cadences? Never mind Wagner’s tap of his paedagogue’s baton--a cadence +catches me still. Early taste for barley-sugar, perhaps! There’s a march +in Verdi’s Attila and I Lombardi, I declare I’m in military step when +I hear them, as in the old days, after leaving the Opera. Fredi takes +little Mab Mountney to her first Opera to-night. Enough to make us old +ones envious! You remember your first Opera, Fenellan? Sonnambula, with +me. I tell you, it would task the highest poetry--say, require, if +you like--showing all that’s noblest, splendidest, in a young man, to +describe its effect on me. I was dreaming of my box at the Opera for +a year after. The Huguenots to-night. Not the best suited for little +Mabsy; but she’ll catch at the Rataplan. Capital Opera; we used to +think it the best, before we had Tannhauser and Lohengrin and the +Meistersinger.’ + +Victor hinted notes of the Conspiration Scene closing the Third Act of +the Huguenots. That sombre Chorus brought Mrs. Burman before him. He +drummed the Rataplan, which sent her flying. The return of a lively +disposition for dinner and music completed his emancipation from the +yoke of the baleful creature sitting half her days in the chemist’s +shop; save that a thought of drugs brought the smell, and the smell the +picture; she threatened to be an apparition at any moment pervading him +through his nostrils. He spoke to Fenellan of hunger for dinner, a need +for it; singular in one whose appetite ran to the stroke of the hour +abreast with Armandine’s kitchen-clock. Fenellan proposed a glass of +sherry and bitters at his Club over the way. He had forgotten a shower +of black-balls (attributable to the conjurations of old Ate) on +a certain past day. Without word of refusal, Victor entered a +wine-merchant’s office, where he was unknown, and stating his wish for +bitters and dry sherry, presently received the glass, drank, nodded +to the administering clerk, named the person whom he had obliged and +refreshed, and passed out, remarking to Fenellan: ‘Colney on Clubs! he’s +right; they’re the mediaeval in modern times, our Baron’s castles, minus +the Baron; dead against public life and social duties. Business excuses +my City Clubs; but I shall take my name off my Club up West.’ + +‘More like monasteries, with a Committee for Abbot, and Whist for +the services,’ Fenellan said. ‘Or tabernacles for the Chosen, and +Grangousier playing Divinity behind the veil. Well, they’re social.’ + +‘Sectionally social, means anything but social, my friend. However--and +the monastery had a bell for the wanderer! Say, I’m penniless or +poundless, up and down this walled desert of a street, I feel, I must +feel, these palaces--if we’re Christian, not Jews: not that the Jews are +uncharitable; they set an: example, in fact....’ + +He rambled, amusingly to the complacent hearing of Fenellan, who thought +of his pursuit of wealth and grand expenditure. + +Victor talked as a man having his mind at leaps beyond the subject. He +was nearing to the Idea he had seized and lost on London Bridge. + +The desire for some good news wherewith to inspirit Nataly, withdrew him +from his ineffectual chase. He had nought to deliver; on the contrary, +a meditation concerning her comfort pledged him to concealment which was +the no step, or passive state, most abhorrent to him. + +He snatched at the name of Themison. + +With Dr. Themison fast in his grasp, there was a report of progress to +be made to Nataly; and not at all an empty report. + +Themison, then: he leaned on Themison. The woman’s doctor should have an +influence approaching to authority with her. + +Land-values in the developing Colonies, formed his theme of discourse to +Fenellan: let Banks beware. + +Fenellan saw him shudder and rub the back of his head. ‘Feel the wind?’ +he said. + +Victor answered him with that humane thrill of the deep tones, which at +times he had: ‘No: don’t be alarmed; I feel the devil. If one has wealth +and a desperate wish, he will speak. All he does, is to make me more +charitable to those who give way to him. I believe in a devil.’ + +‘Horns and tail?’ + +‘Bait and hook.’ + +‘I haven’t wealth, and I wish only for dinner,’ Fenellan said. + +‘You know that Armandine is never two minutes late. By the way, you +haven’t wealth--you have me.’ + +‘And I thank God for you!’ said Fenellan, acutely reminiscent of his +having marked the spiritual adviser of Mrs. Burman, the Rev. Groseman +Buttermore, as a man who might be useful to his friend. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV. DISCLOSES A STAGE ON THE DRIVE TO PARIS + +A fortnight later, an extremely disconcerting circumstance occurred: +Armandine was ten minutes behind the hour with her dinner. But the +surprise and stupefaction expressed by Victor, after glances at +his watch, were not so profound as Fenellan’s, on finding himself +exchangeing the bow with a gentleman bearing the name of Dr. Themison. +His friend’s rapidity in pushing the combinations he conceived, was +known: Fenellan’s wonder was not so much that Victor had astonished +him again, as that he should be called upon again to wonder at his +astonishment. He did; and he observed the doctor and Victor and Nataly: +aided by dropping remarks. Before the evening was over, he gathered +enough of the facts, and had to speculate only on the designs. Dr. +Themison had received a visit from the husband of Mrs. Victor Radnor +concerning her state of health. At an interview with the lady, laughter +greeted him; he was confused by her denial of the imputation of a single +ailment: but she, to recompose him, let it be understood, that she was +anxious about her husband’s condition, he being certainly overworked; +and the husband’s visit passed for a device on the part of the wife. She +admitted a willingness to try a change of air, if it was deemed good +for her husband. Change of air was prescribed to each for both. ‘Why not +drive to Paris?’ the doctor said, and Victor was taken with the phrase. + +He told Fenellan at night that Mrs. Burman, he had heard, was by +the sea, on the South coast. Which of her maladies might be in the +ascendant, he did not know. He knew little. He fancied that Dr. Themison +was unsuspicious of the existence of a relationship between him and Mrs. +Burman: and Fenellan opined, that there had been no communication upon +private affairs. What, then, was the object in going to Dr. Themison? He +treated her body merely; whereas the Rev. Groseman Buttermore could +be expected to impose upon her conduct. Fenellan appreciated his own +discernment of the superior uses to which a spiritual adviser may +be put, and he too agreeably flattered himself for the corrective +reflection to ensue, that he had not done anything. It disposed him +to think a happy passivity more sagacious than a restless activity. +We should let Fortune perform her part at the wheel in working out her +ends, should we not?--for, ten to one, nine times out of ten we are +thwarting her if we stretch out a hand. And with the range of enjoyments +possessed by Victor, why this unceasing restlessness? Why, when we are +not near drowning, catch at apparent straws, which may be instruments +having sharp edges? Themison, as Mrs. Burman’s medical man, might tell +the lady tales that would irritate her bag of venom. + +Rarely though Fenellan was the critic on his friend, the shadow cast +over his negligent hedonism by Victor’s boiling pressure, drove him +into the seat of judgement. As a consequence, he was rather a dull +table-guest in the presence of Dr. Themison, whom their host had pricked +to anticipate high entertainment from him. He did nothing to bridge the +crevasse and warm the glacier air at table when the doctor, anecdotal +intentionally to draw him out, related a decorous but pungent story of +one fair member of a sweet new sisterhood in agitation against the fixed +establishment of our chain-mail marriage-tie. An anecdote of immediate +diversion was wanted, expected: and Fenellan sat stupidly speculating +upon whether the doctor knew of a cupboard locked. So that Dr. Themison +was carried on by Lady Grace Halley’s humourous enthusiasm for the +subject to dilate and discuss and specify, all in the irony of a +judicial leaning to the side of the single-minded social adventurers, +under an assumed accord with his audience; concluding: ‘So there’s an +end of Divorce.’ + +‘By the trick of multiplication,’ Fenellan, now reassured, was content +to say. And that did not extinguish the cracker of a theme; handled very +carefully, as a thing of fire, it need scarce be remarked, three young +women being present. + +Nataly had eyes on her girl, and was pleased at an alertness shown by +Mr. Sowerby to second her by crossing the dialogue. As regarded her +personal feelings, she was hardened, so long as the curtains were about +her to keep the world from bending black brows of inquisition upon one +of its culprits. But her anxiety was vigilant to guard her girl from +an infusion of any of the dread facts of life not coming through the +mother’s lips: and she was a woman having the feminine mind’s pudency +in that direction, which does not consent to the revealing of much. Here +was the mother’s dilemma: her girl--Victor’s girl, as she had to think +in this instance,--the most cloudless of the young women of earth, +seemed, and might be figured as really, at the falling of a crumb off +the table of knowledge, taken by the brain to shoot up to terrific +heights of surveyal; and there she rocked; and only her youthful +healthiness brought her down to grass and flowers. She had once or twice +received the electrical stimulus, to feel and be as lightning, from a +seizure of facts in infinitesimal doses, guesses caught off maternal +evasions or the circuitous explanation of matters touching sex in here +and there a newspaper, harder to repress completely than sewer-gas in +great cities: and her mother had seen, with an apprehensive pang of +anguish, how witheringly the scared young intelligence of the innocent +creature shocked her sensibility. She foresaw the need to such a +flameful soul, as bride, wife, woman across the world, of the very +princeliest of men in gifts of strength, for her sustainer and guide. +And the provident mother knew this peerless gentleman: but he had his +wife. + +Delusions and the pain of the disillusioning were to be feared for the +imaginative Nesta; though not so much as that on some future day of a +perchance miserable yokemating--a subjection or an entanglement--the +nobler passions might be summoned to rise for freedom, and strike a line +to make their logically estimable sequence from a source not honourable +before the public. Constantly it had to be thought, that the girl was +her father’s child. + +At present she had no passions; and her bent to the happiness she could +so richly give, had drawn her sailing smoothly over the harbour-bar of +maidenhood; where many of her sisters are disconcerted to the loss of +simplicity. If Nataly with her sleepless watchfulness and forecasts +partook of the French mother, Nesta’s Arcadian independence likened her +somewhat in manner to the Transatlantic version of the English girl. Her +high physical animation and the burden of themes it plucked for delivery +carried her flowing over impediments of virginal self-consciousness, to +set her at her ease in the talk with men; she had not gone through the +various Nursery exercises in dissimulation; she had no appearance of +praying forgiveness of men for the original sin of being woman; and no +tricks of lips or lids, or traitor scarlet on the cheeks, or assumptions +of the frigid mask, or indicated reserve-cajoleries. Neither ignorantly +nor advisedly did she play on these or other bewitching strings of her +sex, after the fashion of the stamped innocents, who are the boast +of Englishmen and matrons, and thrill societies with their winsome +ingenuousness; and who sometimes when unguarded meet an artful +serenader, that is a cloaked bandit, and is provoked by their +performances, and knows anthropologically the nature behind the devious +show; a sciential rascal; as little to be excluded from our modern +circles as Eve’s own old deuce from Eden’s garden whereupon, opportunity +inviting, both the fool and the cunning, the pure donkey princess of +insular eulogy, and the sham one, are in a perilous pass. + +Damsels of the swiftness of mind of Nesta cannot be ignorant utterly +amid a world where the hints are hourly scattering seed of the inklings; +when vileness is not at work up and down our thoroughfares, proclaiming +its existence with tableau and trumpet. Nataly encountered her girl’s +questions, much as one seeks to quiet an enemy. The questions had soon +ceased. Excepting repulsive and rejected details, there is little to +be learnt when a little is known: in populous communities, density only +will keep the little out. Only stupidity will suppose that it can be +done for the livelier young. English mothers forethoughtful for their +girls, have to take choice of how to do battle with a rough-and-tumble +Old England, that lumbers bumping along, craving the precious things, +which can be had but in semblance under the conditions allowed by +laziness to subsist, and so curst of its shifty inconsequence as to +worship in the concrete an hypocrisy it abhors in the abstract. Nataly +could smuggle or confiscate here and there a newspaper; she could not +interdict or withhold every one of them, from a girl ardent to be in +the race on all topics of popular interest: and the newspapers are +occasionally naked savages; the streets are imperfectly garmented even +by day; and we have our stumbling social anecdotist, our spot-mouthed +young man, our eminently silly woman; our slippery one; our slimy one, +the Rahab of Society; not to speak of Mary the maid and the footman +William. A vigilant mother has to contend with these and the like in an +increasing degree. How best? + +There is a method: one that Colney Durance advocated. The girl’s +intelligence and sweet blood invited a trial of it. Since, as he argued, +we cannot keep the poisonous matter out, mothers should prepare and +strengthen young women for the encounter with it, by lifting the veil, +baring the world, giving them knowledge to arm them for the fight they +have to sustain; and thereby preserve them further from the spiritual +collapse which follows the nursing of a false ideal of our life in +youth:--this being, Colney said, the prominent feminine disease of the +time, common to all our women; that is, all having leisure to shine in +the sun or wave in the wind as flowers of the garden. + +Whatever there was of wisdom in his view, he spoilt it for English +hearing, by making use of his dry compressed sentences. Besides he was a +bachelor; therefore but a theorist. And his illustrations of his +theory were grotesque; meditation on them extracted a corrosive acid to +consume, in horrid derision, the sex, the nation, the race of man. The +satirist too devotedly loves his lash to be a persuasive teacher. Nataly +had excuses to cover her reasons for not listening to him. + +One reason was, as she discerned through her confusion at the thought, +that the day drew near for her speaking fully to Nesta; when, between +what she then said and what she said now, a cruel contrast might strike +the girl and in toneing revelations now, to be more consonant with +them then;--in softening and shading the edges of social misconduct, it +seemed painfully possible to be sowing in the girl’s mind something +like the reverse of moral precepts, even to smoothing the way to a +rebelliousness partly or wholly similar to her own. But Nataly’s chief +and her appeasing reason for pursuing the conventional system with this +exceptional young creature, referred to the sentiments on that subject +of the kind of young man whom a mother elects from among those present +and eligible, as perhaps next to worthy to wed the girl, by virtue of +good promise in the moral department. She had Mr. Dudley Sowerby under +view; far from the man of her choice and still the practice of decorum, +discretion, a pardonable fastidiousness, appears, if women may make any +forecast of the behaviour of young men or may trust the faces they +see, to, promise a future stability in the husband. Assuredly a Dudley +Sowerby would be immensely startled to find in his bride a young woman +more than babily aware of the existence of one particular form of +naughtiness on earth. + +Victor was of no help: he had not an idea upon the right education of +the young of the sex. Repression and mystery, he considered wholesome +for girls; and he considered the enlightening of them--to some extent--a +prudential measure for their defence; and premature instruction is +a fire-water to their wild-in-woods understanding; and histrionic +innocence is no doubt the bloom on corruption; also the facts of current +human life, in the crude of the reports or the cooked of the sermon in +the newspapers, are a noxious diet for our daughters; whom nevertheless +we cannot hope to be feeding always on milk: and there is a time when +their adorable pretty ignorance, if credibly it exists out of noodledom, +is harmful:--but how beautiful the shining simplicity of our dear young +English girls! He was one of the many men to whose minds women come +in pictures and are accepted much as they paint themselves. Like his +numerous fellows, too, he required a conflict with them, and a worsting +at it, to be taught, that they are not the mere live stock we scheme to +dispose of for their good: unless Love should interpose, he would have +exclaimed. He broke from his fellows in his holy horror of a father’s +running counter to love. Nesta had only to say, that she loved another, +for Dudley Sowerby to be withdrawn into the background of aspirants. But +love was unknown to the girl. + +Outwardly, the plan of the Drive to Paris had the look of Victor’s +traditional hospitality. Nataly smiled at her incorrigibly lagging +intelligence of him, on hearing that he had invited a company: ‘Lady +Grace, for gaiety; Peridon and Catkin, fiddles; Dudley Sowerby and +myself, flutes; Barmby, intonation; in all, nine of us; and by the dear +old Normandy route, for the sake of the voyage, as in old times; towers +of Dieppe in the morning-light; and the lovely road to the capital! Just +three days in Paris, and home by any of the other routes. It’s the drive +we want. Boredom in wet weather, we defy; we have our Concert--an hour +at night and we’re sure of sleep.’ It had a sweet simple air, befitting +him; as when in bygone days they travelled with the joy of children. For +travelling shook Nataly out of her troubles and gave her something of +the child’s inheritance of the wisdom of life--the living ever so little +ahead of ourselves; about as far as the fox in view of the hunt. That is +the soul of us out for novelty, devouring as it runs, an endless feast; +and the body is eagerly after it, recording the pleasures, a daily +chase. Remembrance of them is almost a renewal, anticipation a revival. +She enraptured Victor with glimpses of the domestic fun she had ceased +to show sign of since the revelation of Lakelands. Her only regret was +on account of the exclusion of Colney Durance from the party, because +of happy memories associating him with the Seine-land, and also that +his bilious criticism of his countrymen was moderated by a trip to the +Continent. Fenellan reported Colney to be ‘busy in the act of distilling +one of his Prussic acid essays.’ Fenellan would have jumped to go. He +informed Victor, as a probe, that the business of the Life Insurance was +at periods ‘fearfully necrological! Inexplicably, he was not invited. +Did it mean, that he was growing dull? He looked inside instead of out, +and lost the clue. + +His behaviour on the evening of the departure showed plainly what would +have befallen Mr. Sowerby on the expedition, had not he as well +as Colney been excluded. Two carriages and a cab conveyed the +excursionists, as they merrily called themselves, to the terminus. +They were Victor’s guests; they had no trouble, no expense, none of +the nipper reckonings which dog our pleasures; the state of pure bliss. +Fenellan’s enviousness drove him at the Rev. Mr. Barmby until the latter +jumped to the seat beside Nesta in her carriage, Mademoiselle de Seilles +and Mr. Sowerby facing them. Lady Grace Halley, in the carriage behind, +heard Nesta’s laugh; which Mr. Barmby had thought vacuous, beseeming +little girls, that laugh at nothings. She questioned Fenellan. + +‘Oh,’ said he, ‘I merely mentioned that the Rev. gentleman carries his +musical instrument at the bottom of his trunk.’ + +She smiled: ‘And who are in the cab?’ + +‘Your fiddles are in the cab, in charge of Peridon and Catkin. Those two +would have writhed like head and tail of a worm, at a division on the +way to the station. Point a finger at Peridon, you run Catkin through +the body. They’re a fabulous couple.’ + +Victor cut him short. ‘I deny that those two are absurd.’ + +‘And Catkin’s toothache is a galvanic battery upon Peridon.’ + +Nataly strongly denied it. Peridon and Catkin pertained to their genial +picture of the dear sweet nest in life; a dale never traversed by the +withering breath they dreaded. + +Fenellan then, to prove that he could be as bad in his way as Colney, +fell to work on the absent Miss Priscilla Graves and Mr. Pempton, with +a pitchfork’s exaltation of the sacred attachment of the divergently +meritorious couple, and a melancholy reference to implacable obstacles +in the principles of each. The pair were offending the amatory corner in +the generous good sense of Nataly and Victor; they were not to be hotly +protected, though they were well enough liked for their qualities, +except by Lady Grace, who revelled in the horrifying and scandalizing of +Miss Graves. Such a specimen of the Puritan middle English as Priscilla +Graves, was eastwind on her skin, nausea to her gorge. She wondered +at having drifted into the neighbourhood of a person resembling in her +repellent formal chill virtuousness a windy belfry tower, down among +those districts of suburban London or appalling provincial towns passed +now and then with a shudder, where the funereal square bricks-up the +Church, that Arctic hen-mother sits on the square, and the moving dead +are summoned to their round of penitential exercise by a monosyllabic +tribulation-bell. Fenellan’s graphic sketch of the teetotaller woman +seeing her admirer pursued by Eumenides flagons--abominations of +emptiness--to the banks of the black river of suicides, where the +one most wretched light is Inebriation’s nose; and of the vegetarian +violoncello’s horror at his vision of the long procession of the +flocks and herds into his lady’s melodious Ark of a mouth, excited and +delighted her antipathy. She was amused to transports at the station, on +hearing Mr. Barmby, in a voice all ophicleide, remark: ‘No, I carry no +instrument.’ The habitation of it at the bottom of his trunk, was not +forgotten when it sounded. + +Reclining in warmth on the deck of the vessel at night, she said, just +under Victor’s ear: ‘Where are those two?’ + +‘Bid me select the couple,’ said he. + +She rejoined: ‘Silly man’; and sleepily gave him her hand for good +night, and so paralyzed his arm, that he had to cover the continued +junction by saying more than he intended: ‘If they come to an +understanding!’ + +‘Plain enough on one side.’ + +‘You think it suitable?’ + +‘Perfection; and well-planned to let them discover it.’ ‘This is really +my favourite route; I love the saltwater and the night on deck.’ + +‘Go on.’ + +‘How?’ + +‘Number your loves. It would tax your arithmetic.’ + +‘I can hate.’ + +‘Not me?’ + +Positively the contrary, an impulsive squeeze of fingers declared it; +and they broke the link, neither of them sensibly hurt; though a leaf +or two of the ingenuities, which were her thoughts, turned over in the +phantasies of the lady; and the gentleman was taught to feel that a +never so slightly lengthened compression of the hand female shoots +within us both straight and far and round the corners. There you have +Nature, if you want her naked in her elements, for a text. He loved his +Nataly truly, even fervently, after the twenty years of union; he looked +about at no other woman; it happened only that the touch of one, the +chance warm touch, put to motion the blind forces of our mother so +remarkably surcharging him. But it was without kindling. The lady, the +much cooler person, did nurse a bit of flame. She had a whimsical liking +for the man who enjoyed simple things when commanding the luxuries; and +it became a fascination, by extreme contrast, at the reminder of his +adventurous enterprises in progress while he could so childishly enjoy. +Women who dance with the warrior-winner of battles, and hear him talk +his ball-room trifles to amuse, have similarly a smell of gunpowder to +intoxicate them. + +For him, a turn on the deck brought him into new skies. Nataly lay +in the cabin. She used to be where Lady Grace was lying. A sort of +pleadable, transparent, harmless hallucination of the renewal of old +service induced him to refresh and settle the fair semi-slumberer’s +pillow, and fix the tarpaulin over her silks and wraps; and bend his +head to the soft mouth murmuring thanks. The women who can dare the nuit +blanche, and under stars; and have a taste for holiday larks after their +thirtieth, are rare; they are precious. Nataly nevertheless was approved +for guarding her throat from the nightwind. And a softer southerly +breath never crossed Channel! The very breeze he had wished for! Luck +was with him. + +Nesta sat by the rails of the vessel beside her Louise. Mr. Sowerby in +passing, exchanged a description of printed agreement with her, upon the +beauty of the night--a good neutral topic for the encounter of the sexes +not that he wanted it neutral; it furnished him with a vocabulary. Once +he perceptibly washed his hands of dutiful politeness, in addressing +Mademoiselle de Seilles, likewise upon the beauty of the night; and the +French lady, thinking--too conclusively from the breath on the glass +at the moment, as it is the Gallic habit--that if her dear Nesta must +espouse one of the uninteresting creatures called men in her native +land, it might as well be this as another, agreed that the night was +very beautiful. + +‘He speaks grammatical French,’ Nesta commented on his achievement. ‘He +contrives in his walking not to wet his boots,’ mademoiselle rejoined. + +Mr. Peridon was a more welcome sample of the islanders, despite an +inferior pretension to accent. He burned to be near these ladies, and +he passed them but once. His enthusiasm for Mademoiselle de Seilles was +notorious. Gratefully the compliment was acknowledged by her, in her +demure fashion; with a reserve of comic intellectual contempt for the +man who could not see that women, or Frenchwomen, or eminently she among +them, must have their enthusiasm set springing in the breast before they +can be swayed by the most violent of outer gales. And say, that she +is uprooted;--he does but roll a log. Mr. Peridon’s efforts to perfect +himself in the French tongue touched her. + +A night of May leaning on June, is little more than a deliberate wink of +the eye of light. Mr. Barmby, an exile from the ladies by reason of an +addiction to tobacco, quitted the forepart of the vessel at the first +greying. Now was the cloak of night worn threadbare, and grey astir for +the heralding of gold, day visibly ready to show its warmer throbs. +The gentle waves were just a stronger grey than the sky, perforce of an +interfusion that shifted gradations; they were silken, in places oily +grey; cold to drive the sight across their playful monotonousness for +refuge on any far fisher-sail. + +Miss Radnor was asleep, eyelids benignly down, lips mildly closed. The +girl’s cheeks held colour to match a dawn yet unawakened though born. +They were in a nest shading amid silks of pale blue, and there was +a languid flutter beneath her chin to the catch of the morn-breeze. +Bacchanal threads astray from a disorderly front-lock of rich brown hair +were alive over an eyebrow showing like a seal upon the lightest and +securest of slumbers. + +Mr. Barmby gazed, and devoutly. Both the ladies were in their oblivion; +the younger quite saintly; but the couple inseparably framed, elevating +to behold; a reproach to the reminiscence of pipes. He was near; and +quietly the eyelids of mademoiselle lifted on him. Her look was grave, +straight, uninquiring, soon accurately perusing; an arrow of Artemis +for penetration. He went by, with the sound in the throat of a startled +bush-bird taking to wing; he limped off some nail of the deck, as if +that young Frenchwoman had turned the foot to a hoof. Man could not be +more guiltless, yet her look had perturbed him; nails conspired; in his +vexation, he execrated tobacco. And ask not why, where reason never was. + +Nesta woke babbling on the subject she had relinquished for sleep. +Mademoiselle touched a feathery finger at her hair and hood during their +silvery French chimes. + +Mr. Sowerby presented the risen morning to them, with encomiums, after +they had been observing every variation in it. He spoke happily of +the pleasant passage, and of the agreeable night; particularly of +the excellent idea of the expedition by this long route at night; +the prospect of which had disfigured him with his grimace of +speculation--apparently a sourness that did not exist. Nesta had a +singular notion, coming of a girl’s mingled observation and intuition, +that the impressions upon this gentleman were in arrear, did not strike +him till late. Mademoiselle confirmed it when it was mentioned; she +remembered to have noticed the same in many small things. And it was a +pointed perception. + +Victor sent his girl down to Nataly, with a summons to hurry up and see +sunlight over the waters. Nataly came; she looked, and the outer wakened +the inner, she let the light look in on her, her old feelings danced to +her eyes like a string of bubbles in ascent. ‘Victor, Victor, it seems +only yesterday that we crossed, twelve years back--was it?--and in May, +and saw the shoal of porpoises, and five minutes after, Dieppe in view. +Dear French people! I share your love for France.’ + +‘Home of our holidays!--the “drives”; and they may be the happiest. +And fifty minutes later we were off the harbour; and Natata landed, a +stranger; and at night she was the heroine of the town.’ + +Victor turned to a stately gentleman and passed his name to Nataly: ‘Sir +Rodwell Balchington, a neighbour of Lakelands! She understood that Lady +Grace Halley was acquainted with Sir Rodwell:--hence this dash of +brine to her lips while she was drinking of happy memories, and Victor +evidently was pluming himself upon his usual luck in the fortuitous +encounter with an influential neighbour of Lakelands. He told Sir +Rodwell the story of how they had met in the salle a manger of the +hotel the impresario of a Concert in the town, who had in his hand +the doctor’s certificate of the incapacity of the chief cantatrice to +appear, and waved it, within a step of suicide. ‘Well, to be brief, my +wife--“noble dame Anglaise,” as the man announced her on the Concert +platform, undertook one of the songs, and sang another of her own-pure +contralto voice, as you will say; with the result that there was +a perfect tumult of enthusiasm. Next day, the waiters of the hotel +presented her with a bouquet of Spring flowers, white, and central +violets. It was in the Paris papers, under the heading: Une amie d’outre +Manche--I think that was it?’ he asked Nataly. + +‘I forget,’ said she. + +He glanced at her: a cloud had risen. He rallied her, spoke of the old +Norman silver cross which the manager of the Concert had sent, humbly +imploring her to accept the small memento of his gratitude. She nodded +an excellent artificial brightness. + +And there was the coast of France under young sunlight over the waters. +Once more her oft-petitioning wish through the years, that she had +entered the ranks of professional singers, upon whom the moral scrutiny +is not so microscopic, invaded her, resembling a tide-swell into +rock-caves, which have been filled before and left to emptiness, and +will be left to emptiness again. Nataly had the intimation visiting +us when, in a decline of physical power, the mind’s ready vivacity to +conjure illusions forsakes us; and it was, of a wall ahead, and a force +impelling her against it, and no hope of deviation. And this is the +featureless thing, Destiny; not without eyes, if we have a conscience to +throw them into it to look at us. + +Counsel to her to live in the hour, came, as upon others on the vessel, +from an active breath of the salt prompting to healthy hunger; and +hardly less from the splendour of the low full sunlight on the waters, +the skimming and dancing of the thousands of golden shells away from +under the globe of fire. + + + + +CHAPTER XV. A PATRIOT ABROAD + +Nine days after his master’s departure, Daniel Skepsey, a man of some +renown of late, as a subject of reports and comments in the newspapers, +obtained a passport, for the identification, if need were, of his +missing or misapprehended person in a foreign country, of the language +of which three unpronounceable words were knocking about his head to +render the thought of the passport a staff of safety; and on the morning +that followed he was at speed through Normandy, to meet his master +rounding homeward from Paris, at a town not to be spoken as it is +written, by reason of the custom of the good people of the country, with +whom we would fain live on neighbourly terms:--yes, and they had proof +of it, not so very many years back, when they were enduring the worst +which can befall us--though Mr. Durance, to whom he was indebted for the +writing of the place of his destination large on a card, and the wording +of the French sound beside it, besides the jotting down of trains and +the station for the change of railways, Mr. Durance could say, that the +active form of our sympathy consisted in the pouring of cheeses upon +them when they were prostrate and unable to resist! + +A kind gentleman, Mr. Durance, as Daniel Skepsey had recent cause to +know, but often exceedingly dark; not so patriotic as desireable, it +was to be feared; and yet, strangely indeed, Mr. Durance had said cogent +things on the art of boxing and on manly exercises, and he hoped--he +was emphatic in saying he hoped--we should be regenerated. He must have +meant, that boxing--on a grand scale would contribute to it. He said, +that a blow now and then was wholesome for us all. He recommended a +monthly private whipping for old gentlemen who decline the use of the +gloves, to disperse their humours; not excluding Judges and Magistrates: +he could hardly be in earnest. He spoke in a clergyman’s voice, and said +it would be payment of good assurance money, beneficial to their souls: +he seemed to mean it. He said, that old gentlemen were bottled vapours, +and it was good for them to uncork them periodically. He said, they +should be excused half the strokes if they danced nightly--they resented +motion. He seemed sadly wanting in veneration. + +But he might not positively intend what he said. Skepsey could overlook +everything he said, except the girding at England. For where is a braver +people, notwithstanding appearances! Skepsey knew of dozens of gallant +bruisers, ready for the cry to strip to the belt; worthy, with a little +public encouragement, to rank beside their grandfathers of the Ring, +in the brilliant times when royalty and nobility countenanced the manly +art, our nursery of heroes, and there was not the existing unhappy +division of classes. He still trusted to convince Mr. Durance, by means +of argument and happy instances, historical and immediate, that the +English may justly consider themselves the elect of nations, for +reasons better than their accumulation of the piles of gold-better than +‘usurers’ reasons,’ as Mr. Durance called them. Much that Mr. Durance +had said at intervals was, although remembered almost to the letter of +the phrase, beyond his comprehension, and he put it aside, with penitent +blinking at his deficiency. + +All the while, he was hearing a rattle of voluble tongues around him, +and a shout of stations, intelligible as a wash of pebbles, and blocks +in a torrent. Generally the men slouched when they were not running. At +Dieppe he had noticed muscular fellows; he admitted them to be nimbler +on the legs than ours; and that may count both ways, he consoled a +patriotic vanity by thinking; instantly rebuking the thought; for he +had read chapters of Military History. He sat eyeing the front row of +figures in his third-class carriage, musing on the kind of soldiers we +might, heaven designing it, have to face, and how to beat them; until +he gazed on Rouen, knowing by the size of it and by what Mr. Durance had +informed him of the city on the river, that it must be the very city +of Rouen, not so many years back a violated place, at the mercy of a +foreign foe. Strong pity laid hold of Skepsey. He fortified the heights +for defence, but saw at a glance that it was the city for modern +artillery to command, crush and enter. He lost idea of these afflicted +people as foes, merely complaining of their attacks on England, and +their menaces in their Journals and pamphlets; and he renounced certain +views of the country to be marched over on the road by this route to +Paris, for the dictation of terms of peace at the gates of the French +capital, sparing them the shameful entry; and this after the rout of +their attempt at an invasion of the Island! + +A man opposite him was looking amicably on his lively grey eyes. Skepsey +handed a card from his pocket. The man perused it, and crying: ‘Dreux?’ +waved out of the carriage-window at a westerly distance, naming Rouen +as not the place, not at all, totally other. Thus we are taught, that +a foreign General, ignorant of the language, must confine himself to +defensive operations at home; he would be a child in the hands of the +commonest man he meets. Brilliant with thanks in signs, Skepsey drew +from his friend a course of instruction in French names, for our +necessities on a line of march. The roads to Great Britain’s metropolis, +and the supplies of forage and provision at every stage of a march on +London, are marked in the military offices of these people; and that, +with their barking Journals, is a piece of knowledge to justify a +belligerent return for it. Only we pray to be let live peacefully. + +Fervently we pray it when this good man, a total stranger to us, +conducts an ignorant foreigner from one station to another through the +streets of Rouen, after a short stoppage at the buffet and assistance in +the identification of coins; then, lifting his cap to us, retires. + +And why be dealing wounds and death? It is a more blessed thing to keep +the Commandments. But how is it possible to keep the Commandments if you +have a vexatious wife? + +Martha Skepsey had given him a son to show the hereditary energy in his +crying and coughing; and it was owing, he could plead, to her habits +and her tongue, that he sometimes, that he might avoid the doing of +worse--for she wanted correction and was improved by it--courted the +excitement of a short exhibition of skill, man to man, on publicans’ +first floors. He could have told the magistrates so, in part apology for +the circumstances dragging him the other day, so recently, before his +Worship; and he might have told it, if he had not remembered Captain +Dartrey Fenellan’s words about treating women chivalrously which was +interpreted by Skepsey as correcting them, when called upon to do +it, but never exposing them only, if allowed to account for the +circumstances pushing us into the newspapers, we should not present so +guilty a look before the public. + +Furthermore, as to how far it is the duty of a man to serve his master, +there is likewise question: whether is he, while receiving reproof +and punishment for excess of zeal in the service of his master, not to +mention the welfare of the country, morally--without establishing it as +a principle--exonerated? Miss Graves might be asked save that one would +not voluntarily trouble a lady on such subjects. But supposing, says the +opposing counsel, now at work in Skepsey’s conscience, supposing this +act, for which, contraveneing the law of the land, you are reproved and +punished, to be agreeable to you, how then? We answer, supposing it--and +we take uncomplainingly the magistrate’s reproof and punishment--morally +justified can it be expected of us to have the sense of guilt, although +we wear and know we wear a guilty look before the public? + +His master and the dear ladies would hear of it; perhaps they knew of it +now; with them would rest the settlement of the distressing inquiry. The +ladies would be shocked ladies cannot bear any semblance of roughness, +not even with the gloves:--and knowing, as they must, that our practise +of the manly art is for their protection. + +Skepsey’s grievous prospect of the hour to come under judgement of a sex +that was ever a riddle unread, clouded him on the approach to Dreux. He +studied the country and the people eagerly; he forbore to conduct great +military operations. Mr. Durance had spoken of big battles round about +the town of Dreux; also of a wonderful Mausoleum there, not equally +interesting. The little man was in deeper gloom than a day sobering on +crimson dusk when the train stopped and his quick ear caught the sound +of the station, as pronounced by his friend at Rouen. + +He handed his card to the station-master. A glance, and the latter +signalled to a porter, saying: ‘Paradis’; and the porter laid hold of +Skepsey’s bag. Skepsey’s grasp was firm; he pulled, the porter pulled. +Skepsey heard explanatory speech accompanying a wrench. He wrenched back +with vigour, and in his own tongue exclaimed, that he held to the bag +because his master’s letters were in the bag, all the way from England. +For a minute, there was a downright trial of muscle and will: the porter +appeared furiously excited, Skepsey had a look of cooled steel. Then the +Frenchman, requiring to shrug, gave way to the Englishman’s eccentric +obstinacy, and signified that he was his guide. Quite so, and Skepsey +showed alacrity and confidence in following; he carried his bag. But +with the remembrance of the kindly serviceable man at Rouen, he sought +to convey to the porter, that the terms of their association were +cordial. A waving of the right hand to the heavens ratified the +treaty on the French side. Nods and smiles and gesticulations, with +across-Channel vocables, as it were Dover cliffs to Calais sands and +back, pleasantly beguiled the way down to the Hotel du Paradis, under +the Mausoleum heights, where Skepsey fumbled at his pocket for coin +current; but the Frenchman, all shaken by a tornado of negation, clapped +him on the shoulder, and sang him a quatrain. Skepsey had in politeness +to stand listening, and blinking, plunged in the contrition of +ignorance, eclipsed. He took it to signify something to the effect, +that money should not pass between friends. It was the amatory farewell +address of Henri IV. to his Charmante Gabrielle; and with + + ‘Perce de mille lords, + L’honneur m’appelle + Au champ de Mars,’ + +the Frenchman, in a backing of measured steps, apologized for his +enforced withdrawal from the stranger who had captured his heart. + +Skepsey’s card was taken in the passage of the hotel. A clean-capped +maid, brave on the legs, like all he had seen of these people, preceded +him at quick march to an upper chamber. When he descended, bag in hand, +she flung open the salon-door of a table d’hote, where a goodly number +were dining and chattering; waiters drew him along to the section +occupied by his master’s party. A chair had been kept vacant for him; +his master waved a hand, his dear ladies graciously smiled; he struck +the bag in front of a guardian foot, growing happy. He could fancy they +had not seen the English newspapers. And his next observation of the +table showed him wrecked and lost: Miss Nesta’s face was the oval of +a woeful O at his wild behaviour in England during their absence. She +smiled. Skepsey had nevertheless to consume his food--excellent, +very tasty soup-with the sour sauce of the thought that he must be +tongue-tied in his defence for the time of the dinner. + +‘No, dear Skips, please! you are to enjoy yourself,’ said Nesta. + +He answered confusedly, trying to assure her that he was doing so, and +he choked. + +His master had fixed his arrival for twenty minutes earlier. Skepsey +spoke through a cough of long delays at stations. The Rev. Septimus +Barmby, officially peacemaker, sounded the consequent excuse for a +belated comer. It was final; such is the power of sound. Looks were +cast from the French section of the table at the owner of the prodigious +organ. Some of the younger men, intent on the charms of Albion’s +daughters, expressed in a sign and a word or two alarm at what might be +beneath the flooring: and ‘Pas encore Lui!’ and ‘Son avant-courrier!’ +and other flies of speech passed on a whiff, under politest of cover, +not to give offence. But prodigies, claim attention. + +Our English, at the close of the dinner, consented to say it was good, +without specifying a dish, because a selection of this or that would +have seemed to italicize, and commit, them, in the presence of ladies, +to a notice of the matter of-course, beneath us, or the confession of +a low sensual enjoyment; until Lady Grace Halley named the particular +dressing of a tete de veau approvingly to Victor; and he stating, that +he had offered a suggestion for the menu of the day, Nataly exclaimed, +that she had suspected it: upon which Mr. Sowerby praised the menu, +Mr. Barmby, Peridon and Catkin named other dishes, there was the right +after-dinner ring in Victor’s ears, thanks to the woman of the world +who had travelled round to nature and led the shackled men to deliver +themselves heartily. One tap, and they are free. That is, in the moments +after dinner, when nature is at the gates with them. Only, it must be a +lady and a prevailing lady to give the tap. They need (our English) and +will for the ages of the process of their transformation need a queen. + +Skepsey, bag in hand, obeyed the motion of his master’s head and +followed him. + +He was presently back, to remain with the ladies during his master’s +perusal of letters. Nataly had decreed that he was not to be troubled; +so Nesta and mademoiselle besought him for a recital of his French +adventures; and strange to say, he had nothing to tell. The journey, +pregnant at the start, exciting in the course of it, was absolutely +blank at the termination. French people had been very kind; he could not +say more. But there was more; there was a remarkable fulness, if only +he could subordinate it to narrative. The little man did not know, that +time was wanted for imagination to make the roadway or riverway of a +true story, unless we press to invent; his mind had been too busy on +the way for him to clothe in speech his impressions of the passage +of incidents at the call for them. Things had happened, numbers of +interesting minor things, but they all slipped as water through the +fingers; and he being of the band of honest creatures who will +not accept a lift from fiction, drearily he sat before the ladies, +confessing to an emptiness he was far from feeling. + +Nesta professed excessive disappointment. ‘Now, if it had been in +England, Skips!’ she said, under her mother’s gentle gloom of brows. + +He made show of melancholy submission. + +‘There, Skepsey, you have a good excuse, we are sure,’ Nataly said. + +And women, when they are such ladies as these, are sent to prove to us +that they can be a blessing; instead of the dreadful cry to Providence +for the reason of the spread of the race of man by their means! He +declared his readiness, rejecting excuses, to state his case to them, +but for his fear of having it interpreted as an appeal for their +kind aid in obtaining his master’s forgiveness. Mr. Durance had very +considerately promised to intercede. Skepsey dropped a hint or two of +his naughty proceedings drily aware that their untutored antipathy to +the manly art would not permit of warmth. + +Nesta said: ‘Do you know, Skips, we saw a grand exhibition of fencing in +Paris.’ + +He sighed. ‘Ladies can look on at fencing! foils and masks! Captain +Dartrey Fenellan has shown me, and says, the French are our masters at +it.’ He bowed constrainedly to mademoiselle. + +‘You box, M. Skepsey!’ she said. + +His melancholy increased: ‘Much discouragement from Government, Society! +If ladies... but I do not venture. They are not against Games. But +these are not a protection... to them, when needed; to the country. +The country seems asleep to its position. Mr. Durance has remarked on +it:--though I would not always quote Mr. Durance... indeed, he says, +that England has invested an Old Maid’s All in the Millennium, and is +ruined if it delays to come. “Old Maid,” I do not see. I do not--if +I may presume to speak of myself in the same breath with so clever +a gentleman, agree with Mr. Durance in everything. But the +chest-measurement of recruits, the stature of the men enlisted, prove +that we are losing the nursery of our soldiers.’ + +‘We are taking them out of the nursery, Skips, if you ‘re for quoting +Captain Dartrey,’ said Nesta. ‘We’ll never haul down our flag, though, +while we have him!’ + +‘Ah! Captain Dartrey!’ Skepsey was refreshed by the invocation of the +name. + +A summons to his master’s presence cut short something he was beginning +to say about Captain Dartrey. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI. ACCOUNTS FOR SKEPSEY’S MISCONDUCT, SHOWING HOW IT AFFECTED +NATALY + +His master opened on the bristling business. + +‘What’s this, of your name in the papers, your appearing before a +magistrate, and a fine? Tell the tale shortly.’ + +Skepsey fell upon his attitude for dialectical defence the modest form +of the two hands at rolling play and the head deferentially sidecast. +But knowing that he had gratified his personal tastes in the act of +serving his master’s interests, an interfusion of sentiments plunged +him into self-consciousness; an unwonted state with him, clogging to a +simple story. + +‘First, sir, I would beg you to pardon the printing of your name beside +mine...’ + +‘Tush: on with you.’ + +‘Only to say, necessitated by the circumstances of the case. I read, +that there was laughter in the court at my exculpation of my conduct--as +I have to call it; and there may have been. I may have expressed myself +.... I have a strong feeling for the welfare of the country.’ + +‘So, it seems, you said to the magistrate. Do you tell me, that the +cause of your gross breach of the law, was a consideration for the +welfare of the country? Run on the facts.’ + +‘The facts--I must have begun badly, sir.’ Skepsey rattled the dry facts +in his head to right them. From his not having begun well, they had +become dry as things underfoot. It was an error to have led off with the +sentiments. ‘Two very, two very respectable persons--respectable--were +desirous to witness a short display of my, my system, I would say; of my +science, they call it.’ + +‘Don’t be nervous. To the point; you went into a field five miles out +of London, in broad day, and stood in a ring, the usual Tiff-raff about +you!’ + +‘With the gloves: and not for money, Sir: for the trial of skill; not +very many people. I cannot quite see the breach of the law.’ + +‘So you told the magistrate. You were fined for your inability to quite +see. And you had to give security.’ + +‘Mr. Durance was kindly responsible for me, sir: an acquaintance of the +magistrate.’ + +‘This boxing of yours is a positive mania, Skepsey. You must try to get +the better of it--must! And my name too! I’m to be proclaimed, as +having in my service an inveterate pugilist--who breaks the law from +patriotism! Male or female, these very respectable persons--the people +your show was meant for?’ + +‘Male, sir. Females!... that is, not the respectable ones.’ + +‘Take the opinion of the respectable ones for your standard of behaviour +in future.’ + +‘It was a mere trial of skill, sir, to prove to one of the spectators, +that I could be as good as my word. I wished I may say, to conciliate +him, partly. He would not--he judged by size--credit me with... he +backed my adversary Jerry Scroom--a sturdy boxer, without the knowledge +of the first principles.’ + +‘You beat him?’ + +‘I think I taught the man that I could instruct, sir; he was +complimentary before we parted. He thought I could not have lasted. +After the second round, the police appeared.’ + +‘And you ran!’ + +‘No, sir; I had nothing on my conscience.’ + +‘Why not have had your pugilistic display in a publican’s room in town, +where you could have hammer-nailed and ding-donged to your heart’s +content for as long as you liked!’ + +‘That would have been preferable, from the point of view of safety from +intrusion, I can admit-speaking humbly. But one of the parties--I had a +wish to gratify him--is a lover of old English times and habits and our +country scenes. He wanted it to take place on green grass. We drove over +Hampstead in three carts and a gig, as a company of pleasure--as it +was. A very beautiful morning. There was a rest at a public-house. Mr. +Shaplow traces the misfortune to that. Mr. Jarniman, I hear, thinks it +what he calls a traitor in the camp. I saw no sign; we were all merry +and friendly.’ + +‘Jarniman?’ said Victor sharply. ‘Who is the Jarniman?’ + +‘Mr. Jarniman is, I am to understand from the acquaintance introducing +us--a Mr. Shaplow I met in the train from Lakelands one day, and again +at the corner of a street near Drury Lane, a ham and beef shop kept by +a Mrs. Jarniman, a very stout lady, who does the chief carving in the +shop, and is the mother of Mr. Jarniman: he is in a confidential place, +highly trusted.’ Skepsey looked up from the hands he soaped: ‘He is +a curious mixture; he has true enthusiasm for boxing, he believes in +ghosts. He mourns for the lost days of prize-fighting, he thinks that +spectres are on the increase. He has a very large appetite, depressed +spirits. Mr. Shaplow informs me he is a man of substance, in the service +of a wealthy lady in poor health, expecting a legacy and her appearance +to him. He has the look--Mr. Shaplow assures me he does not drink to +excess: he is a slow drinker.’ + +Victor straightened: ‘Bad way of health, you said?’ + +‘Mr. Jarniman spoke of his expectations, as being immediate: he put it, +that he expected her spirit to be out for him to meet it any day--or +night. He desires it. He says, she has promised it--on oath, he says, +and must feel that she must do her duty to him before she goes, if she +is to appear to him with any countenance after. But he is anxious for +her in any case to show herself, and says, he should not have the heart +to reproach her. He has principles, a tear for suffering; he likes to be +made to cry. Mrs. Jarniman, his mother, he is not married, is much the +same so far, except ghosts; she will not have them; except after strong +tea, they come, she says, come to her bed. She is foolish enough to +sleep in a close-curtained bed. But the poor lady is so exceedingly +stout that a puff of cold would carry her off, she fears.’ + +Victor stamped his foot. ‘This man Jarniman serves a lady now in +a--serious, does he say? Was he precise?’ + +‘Mr. Jarniman spoke of a remarkable number of diseases; very +complicated, he says. He has no opinion of doctors. He says, that the +lady’s doctor and the chemist--she sits in a chemist’s shop and +swallows other people’s prescriptions that take her fancy. He says, her +continuing to live is wonderful. He has no reason to hurry her, only for +the satisfaction of a natural curiosity.’ + +‘He mentioned her name?’ + +‘No name, sir.’ + +Skepsey’s limpid grey eyes confirmed the negative to Victor, who was +assured that the little man stood clean of any falsity. + +‘You are not on equal terms. You and the magistrate have helped him to +know who it is you serve, Skepsey.’ + +‘Would you please to direct me, sir.’ + +‘Another time. Now go and ease your feet with a run over the town. +We have music in half an hour. That you like, I know. See chiefly to +amusing yourself.’ + +Skepsey turned to go; he murmured, that he had enjoyed his trip. + +Victor checked him: it was to ask whether this Jarniman had specified +one, any one of the numerous diseases afflicting his aged mistress. + +Now Jarniman had shocked Skepsey with his blunt titles for a couple of +the foremost maladies assailing the poor lady’s decayed constitution: +not to be mentioned, Skepsey’s thought, in relation to ladies; whose +organs and functions we, who pay them a proper homage by restricting +them to the sphere so worthily occupied by their mothers up to the very +oldest date, respectfully curtain; their accepted masters are chivalrous +to them, deploring their need at times for the doctors and drugs. He +stood looking most unhappy. ‘She was to appear, sir, in a few--perhaps a +week, a month.’ + +A nod dismissed him. + +The fun of the expedition (and Dudley Sowerby had wound himself up to +relish it) was at night in the towns, when the sound of instrumental and +vocal music attracted crowds beneath the windows of the hotel, and +they heard zon, zon, violon, fete et basse; not bad fluting, excellent +fiddling, such singing as a maestro, conducting his own Opera, would +have approved. So Victor said of his darlings’ voices. Nesta’s and +her mother’s were a perfect combination; Mr. Barmby’s trompe in union, +sufficiently confirmed the popular impression, that they were artistes. +They had been ceremoniously ushered to their carriages, with expressions +of gratitude, at the departure from Rouen; and the Boniface at Gisors +had entreated them to stay another night, to give an entertainment. +Victor took his pleasure in letting it be known, that they were a quiet +English family, simply keeping-up the habits they practiced in Old +England: all were welcome to hear them while they were doing it; but +they did not give entertainments. + +The pride of the pleasure of reversing the general idea of English +dulness among our neighbours, was perceived to have laid fast hold +of Dudley Sowerby at Dreux. He was at the window from time to time, +counting heads below. For this reason or a better, he begged Nesta to +supplant the flute duet with the soprano and contralto of the Helena +section of the Mefistofele, called the Serenade: La Luna immobile. She +consulted her mother, and they sang it. The crowds below, swollen to +a block of the street, were dead still, showing the instinctive +good manners of the people. Then mademoiselle astonished them with a +Provencal or Cevennes air, Huguenot, though she was Catholic; but +it suited her mezzo-soprano tones; and it rang massively of the +martial-religious. To what heights of spiritual grandeur might not +a Huguenot France have marched! Dudley Sowerby, heedlessly, under an +emotion that could be stirred in him with force, by the soul of religion +issuing through music, addressed his ejaculation to Lady Grace Halley. +She did nor shrug or snub him, but rejoined: ‘I could go to battle with +that song in the ears.’ She liked seeing him so happily transformed; and +liked the effect of it on Nesta when his face shone in talking. He was +at home with the girl’s eyes, as he had never been. A song expressing in +one of the combative and devotional, went to the springs of his blood; +for he was of an old warrior race, beneath the thick crust of imposed +peaceful maxims and commercial pursuits and habitual stiff correctness. +As much as wine, will music bring out the native bent of the civilized +man: endow him with language too. He was as if unlocked; he met +Nesta’s eyes and ran in a voluble interchange, that gave him flattering +after-thoughts; and at the moment sensibly a new and assured, or to some +extent assured, station beside a girl so vivid; by which the young lady +would be helped to perceive his unvoiced solider gifts. + +Nataly observed them, thinking of Victor’s mastering subtlety. She had +hoped (having clearly seen the sheep’s eye in the shepherd) that Mr. +Barmby would be watchful to act as a block between them; and therefore +she had stipulated for his presence on the journey. She remembered +Victor’s rapid look of readiness to consent:--he reckoned how naturally +Mr. Barmby would serve as a foil to any younger man. Mr. Barmby had +tried all along to perform his part: he had always been thwarted; +notably once at Gisors, where by some cunning management he and +mademoiselle found themselves in the cell of the prisoner’s Nail-wrought +work while Nesta had to take Sowerby’s hand for help at a passage here +and there along the narrow outer castle-walls. And Mr. Barmby, upon +occasions, had set that dimple in Nesta’s cheek quivering, though Simeon +Fenellan was not at hand, and there was no telling how it was done, +beyond the evidence that Victor willed it so. + +From the day of the announcement of Lakelands, she had been brought +more into contact with his genius of dexterity and foresight than ever +previously: she had bent to the burden of it more; had seen herself and +everybody else outstripped--herself, of course; she did not count in a +struggle with him. But since that red dawn of Lakelands, it was +almost as if he had descended to earth from the skies. She now saw his +mortality in the miraculous things he did. The reason of it was, +that through the perceptible various arts and shifts on her level, an +opposing spirit had plainer view of his aim, to judge it. She thought it +a mean one. + +The power it had to hurry her with the strength of a torrent to an end +she dreaded, impressed her physically; so far subduing her mind, in +consequence, as to keep the idea of absolute resistance obscure, though +her bosom heaved with the breath; but what was her own of a mind hung +hovering above him, criticizing; and involuntarily, discomfortingly. +She could have prayed to be led blindly or blindly dashed on: she +could trust him for success; and her critical mind seemed at times a +treachery. Still she was compelled to judge. + +When he said to her at night, pressing both her hands: ‘This is the +news of the day, my love! It’s death at last. We shall soon be thanking +heaven for freedom’; her fingers writhed upon his and gripped them in a +torture of remorse on his behalf. A shattering throb of her heart gave +her sight of herself as well. For so it is with the woman who loves in +subjection, she may be a critic of the man, she is his accomplice.’ + +‘You have a letter, Victor?’ + +‘Confirmation all round: Fenellan, Themison, and now Skepsey.’ + +He told her the tale of Skepsey and Jarniman, colouring it, as any +interested animated conduit necessarily will. Neither of them smiled. + +The effort to think soberly exhausted and rolled her back on credulity. + +It might not be to-day or next week or month: but so much testimony +pointed to a day within the horizon, surely! + +She bowed her head to heaven for forgiveness. The murderous hope stood +up, stood out in forms and pictures. There was one of a woman at her +ease at last in the reception of guests; contrasting with an ironic +haunting figure of the woman of queenly air and stature under a finger +of scorn for a bold-faced impostor. Nataly’s lips twitched at the +remembrance of quaint whimpers of complaint to the Fates, for directing +that a large instead of a rather diminutive woman should be the +social offender fearing exposure. Majesty in the criminal’s dock, is a +confounding spectacle. To the bosom of the majestic creature, all her +glorious attributes have become the executioner’s implements. She must +for her soul’s health believe that a day of release and exoneration +approaches. + +‘Barmby!--if my dear girl would like him best,’ Victor said, in +tenderest undertones, observing the shadowing variations of her face; +and pierced her cruelly, past explanation or understanding;--not that +she would have objected to the Rev. Septimus as officiating clergyman. + +She nodded. Down rolled the first big tear. + +We cry to women; Land, ho!--a land of palms after storms at sea; and at +once they inundate us with a deluge of eye-water. + +‘Half a minute, dear Victor, not longer,’ Nataly said, weeping, near on +laughing over his look of wanton abandonment to despair at sight of +her tears. ‘Don’t mind me. I am rather like Fenellan’s laundress, the +tearful woman whose professional apparatus was her soft heart and a cake +of soap. Skepsey has made his peace with you?’ + +Victor answered: ‘Yes, yes; I see what he has been about. We’re a mixed +lot, all of us-the best! You’ve noticed, Skepsey has no laugh: however +absurd the thing he tells you, not a smile!’ + +‘But you trust his eyes; you look fathoms into them. Captain Dartrey +thinks him one of the men most in earnest of any of his country.’ + +‘So Nataly of course thinks the same. And he’s a worthy little +velocipede, as Fenellan calls him. One wishes Colney had been with us. +Only Colney!--pity one can’t cut his talons for the space before they +grow again.’ + +Ay, and in the presence of Colney Durance, Victor would not have been +so encouraging, half boyishly caressing, with Dudley Sowerby! It was the +very manner to sow seed of imitativeness in the girl, devoted as she was +to her father. Nataly sighed, foreseeing evil, owning it a superstition, +feeling it a certainty. We are easily prophets, sure of being justified, +when the cleverness of schemes devoted to material ends appears most +delicately perfect. History, the tales of households, the tombstone, are +with us to inspire. In Nataly’s bosom, the reproof of her inefficiency +for offering counsel where Victor for his soul’s sake needed it, was +beginning to thunder at whiles as a reproach of unfittingness in his +mate, worse than a public denunciation of the sin against Society. + +It might be decreed that she and Society were to come to reconcilement. +A pain previously thought of, never previously so realized, seized her +at her next sight of Nesta. She had not taken in her front mind the +contrast of the innocent one condemned to endure the shadow from which +the guilty was by a transient ceremony released. Nature could at a push +be eloquent to defend the guilty. Not a word of vindicating eloquence +rose up to clear the innocent. Nothing that she could do; no +devotedness, not any sacrifice, and no treaty of peace, no possible joy +to come, nothing could remove the shadow from her child. She dreamed +of the succour in eloquence, to charm the ears of chosen juries while a +fact spoke over the population, with a relentless rolling out of its one +hard word. But eloquence, powerful on her behalf, was dumb when referred +to Nesta. It seemed a cruel mystery. How was it permitted by the +Merciful Disposer! .... Nataly’s intellect and her reverence clashed. +They clash to the end of time if we persist in regarding the Spirit of +Life as a remote Externe, who plays the human figures, to bring about +this or that issue, instead of being beside us, within us, our breath, +if we will; marking on us where at each step we sink to the animal, +mount to the divine, we and ours who follow, offspring of body or mind. +She was in her error, from judgeing of the destiny of man by the fate +of individuals. Chiefly her error was, to try to be thinking at all amid +the fevered tangle of her sensations. + +A darkness fell upon the troubled woman, and was thicker overhead when +her warm blood had drawn her to some acceptance of the philosophy of +existence, in a savour of gratification at the prospect of her equal +footing with the world while yet she lived. She hated herself for +taking pleasure in anything to be bestowed by a world so hap-hazard, +ill-balanced, unjust; she took it bitterly, with such naturalness as +not to be aware that it was irony and a poisonous irony moving her to +welcome the restorative ceremony because her largeness of person had a +greater than common need of the protection. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII. CHIEFLY UPON THE THEME OF A YOUNG MAID’S IMAGININGS + +That Mausoleum at Dreux may touch to lift us. History, pleads for the +pride of the great discrowned Family giving her illumination there. +The pride is reverently postured, the princely mourning-cloak it wears +becomingly braided at the hem with fair designs of our mortal humility +in the presence of the vanquisher; against whom, acknowledgeing a +visible conquest of the dust, it sustains a placid contention in +coloured glass and marbles. + +Mademoiselle de Seilles, a fervid Orleanist, was thanked for having +advised the curvature of the route homeward to visit ‘the spot of so +impressive a monument’: as it, was phrased by the Rev. Septimus Barmby; +whose exposition to Nesta of the beautiful stained-glass pictures +of incidents in the life of the crusading St. Louis, was toned to be +likewise impressive:--Colney Durance not being at hand to bewail the +pathos of his exhaustless ‘whacking of the platitudes’; which still +retain their tender parts, but cry unheard when there is no cynic near. +Mr. Barmby laid-on solemnly. + +Professional devoutness is deemed more righteous on such occasions than +poetic fire. It robes us in the cloak of the place, as at a funeral. +Generally, Mr. Barmby found, and justly, that it is in superior +estimation among his countrymen of all classes. They are shown by +example how to look, think, speak; what to do. Poets are disturbing; +they cannot be comfortably imitated, they are unsafe, not certainly the +metal, unless you have Laureates, entitled to speak by their pay and +decorations; and these are but one at a time-and a quotation may remind +us of a parody, to convulse the sacred dome! Established plain prose +officials do better for our English. The audience moved round with heads +of undertakers. + +Victor called to recollection Fenellan’s ‘Rev. Glendoveer’ while Mr. +Barmby pursued his discourse, uninterrupted by tripping wags. And those +who have schemes, as well as those who are startled by the criticism in +laughter to discover that they have cause for shunning it, rejoice when +wits are absent. Mr. Sowerby and Nesta interchanged a comment on Mr. +Barmby’s remarks: The Fate of Princes! The Paths of Glory! St. Louis +was a very distant Roman Catholic monarch; and the young gentleman of +Evangelical education could admire him as a Crusader. St. Louis was +for Nesta a figure in the rich hues of royal Saintship softened to +homeliness by tears. She doated on a royalty crowned with the Saint’s +halo, that swam down to us to lift us through holy human showers. She +listened to Mr. Barmby, hearing few sentences, lending his eloquence all +she felt: he rolled forth notes of a minster organ, accordant with the +devotional service she was holding mutely. Mademoiselle upon St. Louis: +‘Worthy to be named King of Kings!’ swept her to a fount of thoughts, +where the thoughts are not yet shaped, are yet in the breast of the +mother emotions. Louise de Seilles had prepared her to be strangely and +deeply moved. The girl had a heart of many strings, of high pitch, open +to be musical to simplest wandering airs or to the gales. This crypt of +the recumbent sculptured figures and the coloured series of acts in the +passage of the crowned Saint thrilled her as with sight of flame on an +altar-piece of History. But this King in the lines of the Crucifixion +leading, gave her a lesson of life, not a message from death. With such +a King, there would be union of the old order and the new, cessation +to political turmoil: Radicalism, Socialism, all the monster names of +things with heads agape in these our days to gobble-up the venerable, +obliterate the beautiful, leave a stoniness of floods where field and +garden were, would be appeased, transfigured. She hoped, she prayed for +that glorious leader’s advent. + +On one subject, conceived by her only of late, and not intelligibly, not +communicably: a subject thickly veiled; one which struck at her through +her sex and must, she thought, ever be unnamed (the ardent young +creature saw it as a very thing torn by the winds to show hideous gleams +of a body rageing with fire behind the veil): on this one subject, her +hopes and prayers were dumb in her bosom. It signified shame. She knew +not the how, for she had no power to contemplate it: there was a torment +of earth and a writhing of lurid dust-clouds about it at a glimpse. +But if the new crusading Hero were to come attacking that--if some born +prince nobly man would head the world to take away the withering scarlet +from the face of women, she felt she could kiss the print of his feet +upon the ground. Meanwhile she had enjoyment of her plunge into the +inmost forest-well of mediaeval imaginativeness, where youthful minds of +good aspiration through their obscurities find much akin to them. + +She had an eye for little Skepsey too: unaware that these French Princes +had hurried him off to Agincourt, for another encounter with them and +the old result--poor dear gentlemen, with whom we do so wish to be +friendly! What amused her was, his evident fatigue in undergoing the +slow parade, and sheer deference to his betters, as to the signification +of a holiday on arrested legs. Dudley Sowerby’s attention to him, in +elucidating the scenes with historical scraps, greatly pleased her. The +Rev. Septimus of course occupied her chiefly. + +Mademoiselle was always near, to receive his repeated expressions of +gratitude for the route she had counselled. Without personal objections +to a well-meaning orderly man, whose pardonable error it was to be +aiming too considerably higher than his head, she did but show him the +voluble muteness of a Frenchwoman’s closed lips; not a smile at all, and +certainly no sign of hostility; when bowing to his reiterated compliment +in the sentence of French. Mr. Barmby had noticed (and a strong +sentiment rendered him observant, unwontedly) a similar alert immobility +of her lips, indicating foreign notions of this kind or that, in +England: an all but imperceptible shortening or loss of corners at the +mouth, upon mention of marriages of his clergy: particularly once, at +his reading of a lengthy report in a newspaper of a Wedding Ceremony +involving his favourite Bishop for bridegroom: a report to make one glow +like Hymen rollicking the Torch after draining the bumper to the flying +slipper. He remembered the look, and how it seemed to intensify on the +slumbering features, at a statement, that his Bishop was a widower, +entering into nuptials in his fifty-fourth year. Why not? But we ask it +of Heaven and Man, why not? Mademoiselle was pleasant: she was young or +youngish; her own clergy were celibates, and--no, he could not argue +the matter with a young or youngish person of her sex. Could it be a +reasonable woman--a woman!--who, disapproved the holy nuptials of the +pastors of the flocks? But we are forbidden to imagine the conducting of +an argument thereon with a lady. + +Luther... but we are not in Luther’s time:--Nature... no, nor can there +possibly be allusions to Nature. Mr. Barmby wondered at Protestant +parents taking a Papistical governess for their young flower of English +womanhood. However, she venerated St. Louis; he cordially also; there +they met; and he admitted, that she had, for a Frenchwoman, a handsome +face, and besides an agreeably artificial ingenuousness in the looks +which could be so politely dubious as to appear only dubiously adverse. + +The spell upon Nesta was not blown away on English ground; and when her +father and mother were comparing their impressions, she could not but +keep guard over the deeper among her own. At the Chateau de Gisors, +leftward off Vernon on Seine, it had been one of romance and wonderment, +with inquisitive historic soundings of her knowledge and mademoiselle’s, +a reverence for the prisoner’s patient holy work, and picturings of his +watchful waiting daily, Nail in hand, for the heaven-sent sunlight on +the circular dungeon-wall through the slits of the meurtrieres. But the +Mausoleum at Dreux spake religiously; it enfolded Mr. Barmby, his voice +re-edified it. The fact that he had discoursed there, though not a +word of the discourse was remembered, allied him to the spirit of a +day rather increasing in sacredness as it receded and left her less the +possessor of it, more the worshipper. + +Mademoiselle had to say to herself: ‘Impossible!’ after seeing the drift +of her dear Nesta’s eyes in the wake of the colossal English clergyman. +She fed her incredulousness indignantly on the evidence confounding +it. Nataly was aware of unusual intonations, treble-stressed, in the +Bethesda and the Galilee of Mr. Barmby on Concert evenings: as it were, +the towering wood-work of the cathedral organ in quake under emission of +its multitudinous outroar. The ‘Which?’ of the Rev. Septimus, addressed +to Nesta, when song was demanded of him; and her ‘Either’; and his +gentle hesitation, upon a gaze at her for the directing choice, could +not be unnoticed by women. + +Did he know a certain thing?--and dream of urging the suit, as an +indulgent skipper of parental pages? + +Such haunting interrogations were the conspirators’ daggers out at any +instant, or leaping in sheath, against Nataly’s peace of mind. But +she trusted her girl’s laughing side to rectify any little sentimental +overbalancing. She left the ground where maternal meditations are +serious, at an image of Mr. Barmby knocking at Nesta’s heart as a lover. +Was it worth inquiry? + +A feminine look was trailed across the eyes of mademoiselle, with +mention of Mr. Barmby’s name. + +Mademoiselle rippled her shoulders. ‘We are at present much enamoured of +Bethesda.’ + +That watchfullest showing no alarm, the absurdity of the suspicion +smothered it. + +Nataly had moreover to receive startling new guests: + +Lady Rodwell Blachington: Mrs. Fanning, wife of the General: young Mrs. +Blathenoy, wife of the great bill-broker: ladies of Wrensham and about. +And it was a tasking of her energies equal to the buffeting of recurrent +waves on deep sea. The ladies were eager for her entry into Lakelands. +She heard that Victor had appointed Lady Blachington’s third son to the +coveted post of clerk in the Indian house of Inchling and Radnor. These +are the deluge days when even aristocracy will cry blessings on the +man who procures a commercial appointment for one of its younger sons +offended and rebutted by the barrier of Examinations for the Civil +Service. ‘To have our Adolphus under Mr. Victor Radnor’s protection, is +a step!’ Lady Blachington said. Nataly was in an atmosphere of hints +and revealings. There were City Dinners, to which one or other of the +residents about Lakelands had been taken before he sat at Victor’s +London table. He was already winning his way, apparently without effort, +to be the popular man of that neighbourhood. A subterranean tide or +a slipping of earth itself seemed bearing her on. She had his promise +indeed, that he would not ask of her to enter Lakelands until the day of +his freedom had risen; but though she could trust to his word, the +heart of the word went out of it when she heard herself thanked by Lady +Blachington (who could so well excuse her at such a time of occupation +for not returning her call, that she called in a friendly way a second +time, warmly to thank her) for throwing open the Concert room at +Lakelands in August, to an Entertainment in assistance of the funds for +the purpose of erecting an East of London Clubhouse, where the children +of the poor by day could play, and their parents pass a disengaged +evening. Doubtless a worthy Charity. Nataly was alive to the duties of +wealth. Had it been simply a demand for a donation, she would not have +shown that momentary pucker of the brows, which Lady Blachington read as +a contrast with the generous vivacity of the husband. + +Nataly read a leaf of her fate in this announcement. Nay, she beheld +herself as the outer world wexedly beholds a creature swung along to the +doing of things against the better mind. An outer world is thoughtless +of situations which prepare us to meet the objectionable with a will +benumbed;--if we do not, as does that outer world, belong to the party +of the readily heroical. She scourged her weakness: and the intimation +of the truth stood over her, more than ever manifest, that the +deficiency affecting her character lay in her want of language. A tongue +to speak and contend, would have helped her to carve a clearer way. But +then again, the tongue to speak must be one which could reproach, and +strike at errors; fence, and continually summon resources to engage the +electrical vitality of a man like Victor. It was an exultation of their +life together, a mark of his holiness for them both, that they had never +breathed a reproach upon one another. + +She dropped away from ideas of remonstrance; faintly seeing, in her sigh +of submission, that the deficiency affecting her character would have +been supplied by a greater force of character, pressing either to speech +or acts. The confession of a fated inevitable in the mind, is weakness +prostrate. She knew it: but she could point to the manner of man she was +matched with; and it was not a poor excuse. + +Mr. Barmby, she thought, deserved her gratitude in some degree +for stepping between Mr. Sowerby and Nesta. The girl not having +inclinations, and the young gentleman being devoid of stratagem, they +were easily kept from the dangerous count of two. + +Mademoiselle would have said, that the shepherd also had rarely if ever +a minute quite alone with her lamb. Incredulously she perceived signs of +a shock. The secret following the signs was betrayed by Nesta in return +for a tender grasp of hands and a droll flutter of eyelids. Out it came, +on a nod first; then a dreary mention of a date, and an incident, +to bring it nearer to comprehension. Mr. Barmby--and decide who will +whether it is that Love was made to elude or that curates impelled by +his fires are subtle as nether--had outwitted French watchfulness by +stealing minutes enough on a day at Lakelands to declare himself. And +no wonder the girl looked so forlorn: he had shivered her mediaeval +forest-palace of illuminated glass, to leave her standing like a +mountain hind, that sniffs the tainted gale off the crag of her +first quick leap from hounds; her instincts alarmed, instead of rich +imagination colouring and fostering. + +She had no memory for his words; so, and truly, she told her Louise: +meaning that she had only a spiceless memory; especially for the word +love in her ears from the mouth of a man. + +There had been a dream of it; with the life-awakening marvel it would +be, the humbleness it would bring to her soul beneath the golden +clothing of her body: one of those faint formless dreams, which are as +the bend of grasses to the breath of a still twilight. She lived +too spiritedly to hang on any dream; and had moreover a muffled +dread-shadow-sister to the virginal desire--of this one, as of a fateful +power that might drag her down, disorder, discolour. But now she had +heard it: the word, the very word itself! in her own ears! addressed to +her! in a man’s voice! The first utterance had been heard, and it was +over; the chapter of the book of bulky promise of the splendours and +mysteries;--the shimmering woods and bushy glades, and the descent of +the shape celestial, and the recognition--the mutual cry of affinity; +and overhead the crimson outrolling of the flag of beneficent +enterprises hand in hand, all was at an end. These, then, are the +deceptions our elders tell of! That masculine voice should herald a new +world to the maiden. The voice she had heard did but rock to ruin the +world she had been living in. + +Mademoiselle prudently forbore from satirical remarks on his person or +on his conduct. Nesta had nothing to defend: she walked in a bald waste. + +‘Can I have been guilty of leading him to think...?’ she said, in a tone +that writhed, at a second discussion of this hapless affair. + +‘They choose to think,’ mademoiselle replied. ‘It is he or another. My +dear and dearest, you have entered the field where shots fly thick, +as they do to soldiers in battle; and it is neither your fault nor any +one’s, if you are hit.’ + +Nesta gazed at her, with a shy supplicating cry of ‘Louise.’ + +Mademoiselle immediately answered the tone of entreaty. ‘Has it happened +to me? I am of the age of eight and twenty; passable, to look at: yes, +my dear, I have gone through it. To spare you the questions tormenting +you, I will tell you, that perhaps our experience of our feelings comes +nigh on a kind of resemblance. The first gentleman who did me the honour +to inform me of his passion, was a hunchback.’ + +Nesta cried ‘Oh!’ in a veritable pang of sympathy, and clapped hands to +her ears, to shut out Mr. Barmby’s boom of the terrific word attacking +Louise from that deformed one. + +Her disillusionment became of the sort which hears derision. A girl of +quick blood and active though unregulated intellect, she caught at the +comic of young women’s hopes and experiences, in her fear of it. + +‘My own precious poor dear Louise! what injustice there is in the world +for one like my Louise to have a hunchback to be the first...!’ + +‘But, my dear, it did me no harm.’ + +‘But if it had been known!’ + +‘But it was known!’ + +Nesta controlled a shuddering: ‘It is the knowledge of it in +ourselves--that it has ever happened;--you dear Louise, who deserve so +much better! And one asks--Oh, why are we not left in peace! And do look +at the objects it makes of us!’ Mademoiselle: could see, that the girl’s +desperation had got hold of her humour for a life-buoy. ‘It is really +worse to have it unknown--when you are compelled to be his partner in +sharing the secret, and feel as if it were a dreadful doll you conceal +for fear that everybody will laugh at its face.’ + +She resumed her seriousness: ‘I find it so hard to be vexed with him and +really really like him. For he is a good man; but he will not let one +shake him off. He distresses: because we can’t quite meet as we did. +Last Wednesday Concert evening, he kept away; and I am annoyed that I +was glad.’ + +‘Moths have to pass through showers, and keep their pretty patterns from +damage as best they can,’ said mademoiselle. + +Nesta transformed herself into a disciple of Philosophy on the spot. +‘Yes, all these feelings of ours are moth-dust! One feels them. I +suppose they pass. They must. But tell me, Louise, dear soul, was your +poor dear good little afflicted suitor--was he kindly pitied?’ + +‘Conformably with the regulations prescribed to young damsels who are in +request to surrender the custody of their hands. It is easy to commit +a dangerous excess in the dispensing of that article they call pity of +them.’ + +‘And he--did he?--vowed to you he could not take No for an answer?’ + +At this ingenuous question, woefully uttered, mademoiselle was pricked, +to smile pointedly. Nesta had a tooth on her under-lip. Then, shaking +vapours to the winds, she said: ‘It is an honour, to be asked; and we +cannot be expected to consent. So I shall wear through it.--Only I +do wish that Mr. Fenellan would not call him The Inchcape Bell!’ She +murmured this to herself. + +Mr. Barmby was absent for two weeks. ‘Can anything have offended him?’ +Victor inquired, in some consternation, appreciating the man’s worth, +and the grand basso he was; together with the need for him at the +Lakelands Concert in August. + +Nataly wrote Mr. Barmby a direct invitation. She had no reply. Her +speculations were cut short by Victor, who handed her a brief note +addressed to him and signed by the Rev. Septimus, petitioning for a +private interview. + +The formality of the request incensed Victor. ‘Now, dear love, you see +Colney’s meaning, when he says, there are people who have no intimacy in +them. Here’s a man who visits me regularly once a week or more, has been +familiar for years--four, at least; and he wants to speak to me, and +must obtain the “privilege” by special appointment! What can be the +meaning of it?’ + +‘You will hear to-morrow afternoon,’ Nataly said, seeing one paved way +to the meaning--a too likely meaning... ‘He hasn’t been... nothing about +Fredi, surely!’ + +‘I have had no information.’ + +‘Impossible! Barmby has good sense; Bottesini can’t intend to come +scraping on that string. But we won’t lose him; he’s one of us. Barmby +counts for more at a Charity Concert than all the catalogue, and +particularly in the country. But he’s an excellent fellow--eh?’ + +‘That he is,’ Nataly agreed. + +Victor despatched a cheerful curt consent to see Mr. Barmby privately on +the late afternoon of the day to follow. + +Nesta, returning home from the park at that hour of the interview, +ignorant of Mr. Barmby’s purpose though she was, had her fires +extinguished by the rolling roar of curfew along the hall-passage, out +of the library. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII. SUITORS FOR THE HAND OF NESTA VICTORIA + +When, upon the well-known quest, the delightful singer Orpheus took that +downward way, coming in sight of old Cerberus centiceps, he astutely +feigned inattention to the hostile appearances of the multiple beast, +and with a wave of his plectrum over the responsive lyre, he at the +stroke raised voice. This much you know. It may be communicated to you, +that there was then beheld the most singular spectacle ever exhibited +on the dizzy line of division between the living and the dead. For those +unaccustomed musical tones in the last thin whiff of our sustaining air +were so smartingly persuasive as to pierce to the vitals of the faithful +Old Dog before his offended sentiments had leisure to rouse their heads +against a beggar of a mortal. The terrible sugariness which poured into +him worked like venom to cause an encounter and a wrestling: his battery +of jaws expressed it. They gaped. At the same time, his eyeballs gave +up. All the Dog, that would have barked the breathing intruder an +hundredfold back to earth, was one compulsory centurion yawn. Tears, +issue of the frightful internal wedding of the dulcet and the sour (a +ravishing rather of the latter by the former), rolled off his muzzles. + +Now, if you are not for insisting that a magnificent simile shall be +composed of exactly the like notes in another octave, you will catch +the fine flavour of analogy and be wafted in a beat of wings across +the scene of the application of the Rev. Septimus Barmby to Mr. Victor +Radnor, that he might enter the house in the guise of suitor for +the hand of Nesta Victoria. It is the excelling merit of similes and +metaphors to spring us to vault over gaps and thickets and dreary +places. But, as with the visits of Immortals, we must be ready to +receive them. Beware, moreover, of examining them too scrupulously: +they have a trick of wearing to vapour if closely scanned. Let it be +gratefully for their aid. + +So far the comparison is absolute, that Mr. Barmby passed: he was at +liberty to pursue his quest. + +Victor could not explain how he had been brought to grant it. He was at +pains to conceal the bewilderment Mr. Barmby had cast on him, and make +Nataly see the smallness of the grant:--both of them were unwilling to +lose Barmby; there was not the slightest fear about Fredi, he said; +and why should not poor Barmby have his chance with the others in the +race!--and his Nataly knew that he hated to speak unkindly: he could cry +the negative like a crack of thunder in the City. But such matters as +these! and a man pleading merely for the right to see the girl!--and +pleading in a tone... ‘I assure you, my love, he touched chords.’ + +‘Did he allude to advantages in the alliance with him?’ Nataly asked +smoothly. + +‘His passion--nothing else. Candid enough. And he had a tone--he has +a tone, you know. It ‘s not what he said. Some allusion to belief in a +favourable opinion of him... encouragement... on the part of the mama. +She would have him travelling with us! I foresaw it.’ + +‘You were astonished when it came.’ + +‘We always are.’ + +Victor taunted her softly with having encouraged Mr. Barmby. + +She had thought in her heart--not seriously; on a sigh of +despondency--that Mr. Barmby espousing the girl would smooth a troubled +prospect: and a present resentment at her weakness rendered her shrewd +to detect Victor’s cunning to cover his own: a thing imaginable of him +previously in sentimental matters, yet never accurately and so legibly +printed on her mind. It did not draw her to read him with a novel +familiarity; it drew her to be more sensible of foregone intimations of +the man he was--irresistible in attack, not impregnably defensive. Nor +did he seem in this instance humanely considerate: if mademoiselle’s +estimate of the mind of the girl was not wrong, then Mr. Barmby’s +position would be both a ridiculous and a cruel one. She had some silly +final idea that the poor man might now serve permanently to check the +more dreaded applicant: a proof that her ordinary reflectiveness was +blunted. + +Nataly acknowledged, after rallying Victor for coming to have his +weakness condoned, a justice in his counter-accusation, of a loss of her +natural cheerfulness, and promised amendment, with a steely smile, that +his lips mimicked fondly; and her smile softened. To strengthen the dear +soul’s hopes, he spoke, as one who had received the latest information, +of Dr. Themison and surgeons; little conscious of the tragic depths he +struck or of the burden he gave her heart to bear. Her look alarmed him. +She seemed to be hugging herself up to the tingling scalp, and was in a +moment marble to sight and touch. She looked like the old engravings of +martyrs taking the bite of the jaws of flame at the stake. + +He held her embraced, feeling her body as if it were in the awful grip +of fingers from the outside of life. + +The seizure was over before it could be called ominous. When it was once +over, and she had smiled again and rebuked him for excessive anxiety, +his apprehensions no longer troubled him, but subsided sensationally +in wrath at the crippled woman who would not obey the dictate of her +ailments instantly to perish and spare this dear one annoyance. + +Subsequently, later than usual, he performed his usual mental penance +for it. In consequence, the wrath, and the wish, and the penitence, +haunted him, each swelling to possession of him in turn; until they +united to head a plunge into retrospects; which led to his reviewing the +army of charges against Mrs. Burman. + +And of this he grew ashamed, attributing it to the morbid indulgence in +reflection: a disease never afflicting him anterior to the stupid fall +on London Bridge. He rubbed instinctively for the punctilio-bump, and +could cheat his fancy to think a remainder of it there, just below, +half an inch to the right of, the spot where a phrenologist, invited by +Nataly in old days, had marked philo-progenitiveness on his capacious +and enviable cerebrum. He knew well it was a fancy. But it was a fact +also, that since the day of the fall (never, save in merest glimpses, +before that day), he had taken to look behind him, as though an eye had +been knocked in the back of his head. + +Then, was that day of the announcement of Lakelands to Nataly, to be +accounted a gloomy day? He would not have it so. + +She was happily occupied with her purchases of furniture, Fredi with +her singing lessons, and he with his business; a grasp of many ribands, +reining-in or letting loose; always enjoyable in the act. Recently only +had he known when at home, a relaxation, a positive pleasure in looking +forward to the hours of the City office. This was odd, but so it was; +and looking homeward from the City, he had a sense of disappointment +when it was not Concert evening. The Cormyns, the Yatts, and Priscilla +Graves, and Pempton, foolish fellow, and that bothering Barmby, and +Peridon and Catkin, were the lineing of his nest. Well, and so they +had been before Lakelands rose. What had induced!... he suddenly felt +foreign to himself. The shrouded figure of his lost Idea on London +Bridge went by. + +A peep into the folds of the shroud was granted him:--Is it a truth, +that if we are great owners of money, we are so swollen with a force not +native to us, as to be precipitated into acts the downright contrary of +our tastes? + +He inquired it of his tastes, which have the bad habit of unmeasured +phrasing when they are displeased, and so they yield no rational +answer. Still he gave heed to violent extraneous harpings against money. +Epigrams of Colney’s; abuse of it and the owners of it by Socialist +orators reported in some newspaper corner; had him by the ears. + +They ceased in the presence of Lady Grace Halley, who entered his +office to tell him she was leaving town for Whinfold, her husband’s +family-seat, where the dear man lay in evil case. She signified her +resignation to the decrees from above, saying generously: + +‘You look troubled, my friend. Any bad City news?’ + +‘I look troubled?’ Victor said laughing, and bethought him of what the +trouble might be. ‘City news would not cause the look. Ah, yes;--I was +talking in the street to a friend of mine on horseback the other day, +and he kept noticing his horse’s queer starts. We spied half a dozen +children in the gutter, at the tail of the horse, one of them plucking +at a hair. “Please, sir, may I have a hair out of your horse’s tail?” + said the mite. We patted the poor horse that grew a tail for urchins to +pluck at. Men come to the fathers about their girls. It’s my belief that +mothers more easily say no. If they learn the word as maids, you’ll say! +However, there’s no fear about my girl. Fredi’s hard to snare. And what +brings you Cityward?’ + +‘I want to know whether I shall do right in selling out of the Tiddler +mine.’ + +‘You have multiplied your investment by ten.’ + +‘If it had been thousands!’ + +‘Clearly, you sell; always jump out of a mounted mine, unless you’re at +the bottom of it.’ + +‘There are City-articles against the mine this morning--or I should have +been on my way to Whinfold at this moment. The shares are lower.’ + +‘The merry boys are at work to bring your balloon to the ground, that +you may quit it for them to ascend. Tiddler has enemies, like the best +of mines: or they may be named lovers, if you like. And mines that have +gone up, go down for a while before they rise again; it’s an affair of +undulations; rocket mines are not so healthy. The stories are false, for +the time. I had the latest from Dartrey Fenellan yesterday. He’s here +next month; some time in August.’ + +‘He is married, is he not?’ + +‘Was.’ + +Victor’s brevity sounded oddly to Lady Grace. + +‘Is he not a soldier?’ she said. + +‘Soldiers and parsons!’ Victor interjected. + +Now she saw. She understood the portent of Mr. Barmby’s hovering offer +of the choice of songs, and the recent tremulousness of the welling +Bethesda. + +But she had come about her own business; and after remarking, that when +there is a prize there must be competition, or England will have +to lower her flag, she declared her resolve to stick to Tiddler, +exclaiming: ‘It’s only in mines that twenty times the stake is not a +dream of the past!’ + +‘The Riviera green field on the rock is always open to you,’ said +Victor. + +She put out her hand to be taken. ‘Not if you back me here. It really +is not gambling when yours is the counsel I follow. And if I’m to be +a widow, I shall have to lean on a friend, gifted like you. I love +adventure, danger;--well, if we two are in it; just to see my captain +in a storm. And if the worst happens, we go down together. It ‘s the +detestation of our deadly humdrum of modern life; some inherited love of +fighting.’ + +‘Say, brandy.’ + +‘Does not Mr. Durance accuse you of an addiction to the brandy novel?’ + +‘Colney may call it what he pleases. If I read fiction, let it be +fiction; airier than hard fact. If I see a ballet, my troop of short +skirts must not go stepping like pavement policemen. I can’t read dull +analytical stuff or “stylists” when I want action--if I’m to give my +mind to a story. I can supply the reflections. I’m English--if Colney +‘s right in saying we always come round to the story with the streak of +supernaturalism. + +I don’t ask for bloodshed: that’s what his “brandy” means.’ + +‘But Mr. Durance is right, we require a shedding; I confess I expect +it where there’s love; it’s part of the balance, and justifies one’s +excitement. How otherwise do you get any real crisis? I must read and +live something unlike this flat life around us.’ + +‘There’s the Adam life and the Macadam life, Fenellan says. Pass it in +books, but in life we can have quite enough excitement coming out of our +thoughts. No brandy there! And no fine name for personal predilections +or things done in domino!’ Victor said, with his very pleasant face, +pressing her hand, to keep the act of long holding it in countenance and +bring it to a well-punctuated conclusion: thinking involuntarily of the +other fair woman, whose hand was his, and who betrayed a beaten visage +despite--or with that poor kind of--trust in her captain. But the +thought was not guilty of drawing comparisons. ‘This is one that I could +trust, as captain or mate,’ he pressed the hand again before dropping +it. + +‘You judge entirely by the surface, if you take me for a shifty person +at the trial,’ said Lady Grace. + +Skepsey entered the room with one of his packets, and she was reminded +of trains and husbands. + +She left Victor uncomfortably rufed: and how? for she had none of the +physical charms appealing peculiarly to the man who was taken with +grandeur of shape. She belonged rather to the description physically +distasteful to him. + +It is a critical comment on a civilization carelessly distilled from the +jealous East, when visits of fair women to City offices can have this +effect. If the sexes are separated for an hour, the place where one is +excluded or not common to see, becomes inflammable to that appearing +spark. He does outrage to a bona Dea: she to the monasticism of the +Court of Law: and he and she awaken unhallowed emotions. Supposing, +however, that western men were to de-orientalize their gleeful notions +of her, and dis-Turk themselves by inviting the woman’s voluble tongue +to sisterly occupation there in the midst of the pleading Court, as +in the domestic circle: very soon would her eyes be harmless: unless +directed upon us with intent. + +That is the burning core of the great Question, our Armageddon in +Morality: Is she moral? Does she mean to be harmless? Is she not +untamable Old Nature? And when once on an equal footing with her lordly +half, would not the spangled beauty, in a turn, like the realistic +transformation-trick of a pantomime, show herself to be that wanton +old thing--the empress of disorderliness? You have to recollect, as the +Conservative acutely suggests, that her timidities, at present urging +her to support Establishments, pertain to her state of dependence. The +party views of Conservatism are, must be, founded, we should remember, +on an intimate acquaintance with her in the situations where she +is almost unrestrictedly free and her laughter rings to confirm the +sentences of classical authors and Eastern sages. Conservatives know +what they are about when they refuse to fling the last lattice of an +ancient harem open to air and sun-the brutal dispersers of mystery, +which would despoil an ankle of its flying wink. + +Victor’s opinions were those of the entrenched majority; objecting to +the occult power of women, as we have the women now, while legislating +to maintain them so; and forbidding a step to a desperately wicked +female world lest the step should be to wickeder. His opinions were in +the background, rarely stirred; but the lady had brought them forward; +and he fretted at his restlessness, vexed that it should be due to the +intrusion of the sex instead of to the charms of the individual. No +sting of the sort had bothered him, he called to mind, on board the +Channel boat-nothing to speak of. ‘Why does she come here! Why didn’t +she go to her husband! She gets into the City scramble blindfold, and +catches at the nearest hand to help her out! Nice woman enough.’ Yes, +but he was annoyed with her for springing sensations that ran altogether +heartless to the object, at the same time that they were disloyal to the +dear woman their natural divinity. And between him and that dear woman, +since the communication made by Skepsey in the town of Dreux, nightly +the dividing spirit of Mrs. Burman lay cold as a corpse. They both felt +her there. They kissed coldly, pressed a hand, said good night. + +Next afternoon the announcement by Skepsey of the Hon. Dudley Sowerby, +surprised Victor’s eyebrows at least, and caused him genially to review +the visit of Lady Grace. + +Whether or not Colney Durance drew his description of a sunken nobility +from the ‘sick falcon’ distinguishing the handsome features of Mr. +Sowerby, that beaked invalid was particularly noticeable to Victor +during the statement of his case, although the young gentleman was far +from being one, in Colney’s words, to enliven the condition of domestic +fowl with an hereditary turn for ‘preying’; eminently the reverse; he +was of good moral repute, a worker, a commendable citizen. But there was +the obligation upon him to speak--it is expected in such cases, if only +as a formality--of his ‘love’: hard to do even in view and near to the +damsel’s reddening cheeks: it perplexed him. He dropped a veil on the +bashful topic; his tone was the same as when he reverted to the material +points; his present income, his position in the great Bank of Shotts +and Co., his prospects, the health of the heir to the Cantor earldom. +He considered that he spoke to a member of the City merchants, whose +preference for the plain positive, upon the question of an alliance +between families by marriage, lends them for once a resemblance +to lords. When a person is not read by character, the position or +profession is called on to supply raised print for the finger-ends to +spell. + +Hard on poor Fredi! was Victor’s thought behind the smile he bent +on this bald Cupid. She deserved a more poetical lover! His paternal +sympathies for the girl besought in love, revived his past feelings as +a wooer; nothing but a dread of the influence of Mr. Barmby’s toned +eloquence upon the girl, after her listening to Dudley Sowerby’s +addresses, checked his contempt for the latter. He could not despise the +suitor he sided with against another and seemingly now a more dangerous. +Unable quite to repress the sentiment, he proceeded immediately to +put it to his uses. For we have no need to be scrupulously formal and +precise in the exposition of circumstances to a fellow who may thank the +stars if such a girl condescends to give him a hearing. He had this idea +through the conception of his girl’s generosity. And furthermore, the +cognizant eye of a Lucretian Alma Mater having seat so strongly in +Victor, demanded as a right an effusion of the promising amorous graces +on the part of the acceptable applicant to the post of husband of +that peerless. These being absent, evidently non-existent, it seemed +sufficient for the present, after the fashion of the young gentleman, to +capitulate the few material matters briefly. + +They were dotted along with a fine disregard of the stateliness of the +sum to be settled on Nesta Victoria, and with a distant but burning wish +all the while, that the suitor had been one to touch his heart and open +it, inspiriting it--as could have been done--to disclose for good and +all the things utterable. Victor loved clear honesty, as he loved light: +and though he hated to be accused of not showing a clean face in the +light, he would have been moved and lifted to confess to a spot by +the touch at his heart. Dudley Sowerby’s deficiencies, however, were +outweighed by the palpable advantages of his birth, his prospects, and +his good repute for conduct; add thereto his gentlemanly manners. Victor +sighed again over his poor Fredi; and in telling Mr. Sowerby that the +choice must be left to her, he had the regrets of a man aware of +his persuasive arts and how they would be used, to think that he was +actually making the choice. + +Observe how fatefully he who has a scheme is the engine of it; he is no +longer the man of his tastes or of his principles; he is on a line of +rails for a terminus; and he may cast languishing eyes across +waysides to right and left, he has doomed himself to proceed, with a +self-devouring hunger for the half desired; probably manhood gone at +the embrace of it. This may be or not, but Nature has decreed to him the +forfeit of pleasure. She bids us count the passage of a sober day for +the service of the morrow; that is her system; and she would have +us adopt it, to keep in us the keen edge for cutting, which is the +guarantee of enjoyment: doing otherwise, we lose ourselves in one or +other of the furious matrix instincts; we are blunt to all else. + +Young Dudley fully agreed that the choice must be with Miss Radnor; +he alluded to her virtues, her accomplishments. He was waxing to +fervidness. He said he must expect competitors; adding, on a start, +that he was to say, from his mother, she, in the case of an intention to +present Miss Radnor at Court.... + +Victor waved hand for a finish, looking as though, his head had come out +of hot water. He sacrificed Royalty to his necessities, under a kind of +sneer at its functions: ‘Court! my girl? But the arduous duties are over +for the season. We are a democratic people retaining the seductions of +monarchy, as a friend says; and of course a girl may like to count +among the flowers of the kingdom for a day, in the list of Court +presentations; no harm. Only there’s plenty of time... very young girls +have their heads turned--though I don’t say, don’t imagine, my girl +would. By and by perhaps.’ + +Dudley was ushered into Mr. Inchling’s room and introduced to the +figure-head of the Firm of Inchling, Pennergate, and Radnor: a +respectable City merchant indeed, whom Dudley could read-off in a +glimpse of the downright contrast to his partner. He had heard casual +remarks on the respectable City of London merchant from Colney Durance. +A short analytical gaze at him, helped to an estimate of the powers +of the man who kept him up. Mr. Inchling was a florid City-feaster, +descendant of a line of City merchants, having features for a wife to +identify; as drovers, they tell us, can single one from another of their +round-bellied beasts. Formerly the leader of the Firm, he was now, after +dreary fits of restiveness, kickings, false prophecies of ruin, Victor’s +obedient cart-horse. He sighed in set terms for the old days of the +Firm, when, like trouts in the current, the Firm had only to gape for +shoals of good things to fatten it: a tale of English prosperity in +quiescence; narrated interjectorily among the by-ways of the City, and +wanting only metre to make it our national Poem. + +Mr. Inchling did not deny that grand mangers of golden oats were still +somehow constantly allotted to him. His wife believed in Victor, +and deemed the loss of the balancing Pennergate a gain. Since that +lamentable loss, Mr. Inchling, under the irony of circumstances the Tory +of Commerce, had trotted and gallopped whither driven, racing like mad +against his will and the rival nations now in the field to force the +pace; a name for enterprise; the close commercial connection of a man +who speculated--who, to put it plainly, lived on his wits; hurried +onward and onward; always doubting, munching, grumbling at satisfaction, +in perplexity of the gratitude which is apprehensive of black Nemesis at +a turn of the road,--to confound so wild a whip as Victor Radnor. He had +never forgiven the youth’s venture in India of an enormous purchase +of Cotton many years back, and which he had repudiated, though not his +share of the hundreds of thousands realized before the refusal to ratify +the bargain had come to Victor. Mr. Inchling dated his first indigestion +from that disquieting period. He assented to the praise of Victor’s +genius, admitting benefits; his heart refused to pardon, and +consequently his head wholly to trust, the man who robbed him of his +quondam comfortable feeling of security. And if you will imagine the +sprite of the aggregate English Taxpayer personifying Steam as the +malignant who has despoiled him of the blessed Safety-Assurance he once +had from his God Neptune against invaders, you will comprehend the state +of Mr. Inchling’s mind in regard to his terrific and bountiful, but very +disturbing partner. + +He thanked heaven to his wife often, that he had nothing to do with +North American or South American mines and pastures or with South Africa +and, gold and diamonds: and a wife must sometimes listen, mastering her +inward comparisons. Dr. Schlesien had met and meditated on this example +of the island energy. Mr. Inchling was not permitted by his wife to be +much the guest of the Radnor household, because of the frequent meeting +there with Colney Durance; Colney’s humour for satire being instantly in +bristle at sight of his representative of English City merchants: +‘over whom,’ as he wrote of the venerable body, ‘the disciplined and +instructed Germans not deviously march; whom acute and adventurous +Americans, with half a cock of the eye in passing, compassionately +outstrip.’ He and Dr. Schlesien agreed upon Mr. Inchling. Meantime +the latter gentleman did his part at the tables of the wealthier City +Companies, and retained his appearance of health; he was beginning to +think, upon a calculation of the increased treasures of those Companies +and the country, that we, the Taxpayer, ought not to leave it altogether +to Providence to defend them; notwithstanding the watchful care of us +hitherto shown by our briny Providence, to save us from anxiety and +expense. But there are, he said, ‘difficulties’; and the very word +could stop him, as commonly when our difficulty lies in the exercise of +thinking. + +Victor’s African room, containing large wall-maps of auriferous regions, +was inspected; and another, where clerks were busy over miscellaneous +Continents. Dudley Sowerby hoped he might win the maiden. + +He and Victor walked in company Westward. The shop of Boyle and +Luckwort, chemists, was not passed on this occasion. Dudley grieved that +he had to be absent from the next Concert for practise, owing to his +engagement to his mother to go down to the family seat near Tunbridge +Wells. Victor mentioned his relatives, the Duvidney maiden ladies, +residing near the Wells. They measured the distance between Cronidge and +Moorsedge, the two houses, as for half an hour on horseback. + +Nesta told her father at home that the pair of them had been observed +confidentially arm in arm, and conversing so profoundly. + +‘Who, do you think, was the topic?’ Victor asked. + +She would not chase the little blue butterfly of a guess. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX. TREATS OF NATURE AND CIRCUMSTANCE AND THE DISSENSION +BETWEEN THEM AND OF A SATIRIST’S MALIGNITY IN THE DIRECTION OF HIS +COUNTRY + +There is at times in the hearts of all men of active life a vivid wild +moment or two of dramatic dialogue between the veteran antagonists, +Nature and Circumstance, when they, whose business it should be to be +joyfully one, furiously split; and the Dame is up with her shrillest +querulousness to inquire of her offspring, for the distinct original +motive of his conduct. Why did he bring her to such a pass! And what is +the gain? If he be not an alienated issue of the great Mother, he will +strongly incline to her view, that he put himself into harness to join +with a machine going the dead contrary way of her welfare; and thereby +wrote himself donkey, for his present reading. Soldiers, heroes, even +the braided, even the wearers of the gay cock’s feathers, who get +the honours and the pocket-pieces, know the moment of her electrical +eloquence. They have no answer for her, save an index at the machine +pushing them on yet farther under the enemy’s line of fire, where they +pluck the golden wreath or the livid, and in either case listen no more. +They glorify her topping wisdom while on the march to confound it. +She is wise in her way. But, it is asked by the disputant, If we had +followed her exclusively, how far should we have travelled from our +starting-point? We of the world and its prizes and duties must do her +an injury to make her tongue musical to us, and her argument worthy of +attention. So it seems. How to keep the proper balance between those two +testy old wranglers, that rarely pull the right way together, is as much +the task for men in the grip of the world, as for the wanton youthful +fry under dominion of their instincts; and probably, when it is done, +man will have attained the golden age of his retirement from service. + +Why be scheming? Victor asked. Unlike the gallant soldiery, his question +was raised in the blush of a success, from an examination of the +quality of the thing won; although it had not changed since it was first +coveted; it was demonstrably the same: and an astonishing dry stick +he held, as a reward for perpetual agitations and perversions of his +natural tastes. Here was a Dudley Sowerby, the direct issue of the +conception of Lakelands; if indeed they were not conceived together +in one; and the young gentleman had moral character, good citizen +substance, and station, rank, prospect of a title; and the grasp of him +was firm. Yet so far was it from hearty, that when hearing a professed +satirist like Colney Durance remark on the decorous manner of Dudley’s +transparent courtship of the girl, under his look of an awakened +approval of himself, that he appeared to be asking everybody:--Do you +not think I bid fair for an excellent father of Philistines?--Victor had +a nip of spite at the thought of Dudley’s dragging him bodily to be the +grandfather. Poor Fredi, too!--necessarily the mother: condemned by +her hard fate to feel proud of Philistine babies! Though women soon get +reconciled to it! Or do they? They did once. What if his Fredi turned +out one of the modern young women, who have drunk of ideas? He caught +himself speculating on that, as on a danger. The alliance with Dudley +really seemed to set him facing backward. + +Colney might not have been under prompting of Nataly when he derided +Dudley; but Victor was at war with the picture of her, in her +compression of a cruel laugh, while her eyelids were hard shut, as if to +exclude the young patriarch of Philistines’ ridiculous image. + +He hearkened to the Nature interrogating him, why had he stepped on a +path to put division between himself and his beloved?--the smallest +of gaps; and still the very smallest between nuptial lovers is a +division--and that may become a mortal wound to their one-life. Why +had he roused a slumbering world? Glimpses of the world’s nurse-like, +old-fashioned, mother-nightcap benevolence to its kicking favourites; +its long-suffering tolerance for the heroic breakers of its rough-cast +laws, while the decent curtain continues dropped, or lifted only +ankle-high; together with many scenes, lively suggestions, of the +choice of ways he liked best, told of things, which were better things, +incomprehensibly forfeited. So that the plain sense of value insisted on +more than one weighing of the gain in hand: a dubious measure. + +He was as little disposed to reject it as to stop his course at a +goal of his aim. Nevertheless, a gain thus poorly estimated, could not +command him to do a deed of humiliation on account of it. The speaking +to this dry young Dudley was not imperative at present. A word would do +in the day to come. + +Nataly was busy with her purchases of furniture, and the practise for +the great August Concert. He dealt her liberal encouragements, up to the +verge of Dr. Themison’s latest hummed words touching Mrs. Burman, from +which he jumped in alarm lest he should paralyze her again: the dear +soul’s dreaded aspect of an earthy pallor was a spectre behind her +cheeks, ready to rush forth. Fenellan brought Carling to dine with him; +and Themison was confirmed by Carting, with incidents in proof; Caning +by Jarniman, also with incidents; one very odd one--or so it seemed, in +the fury of the first savour of it:--she informed Jarniman, Skepsey said +his friend Jarniman said, that she had dreamed of making her appearance +to him on the night of the 23rd August, and of setting the date on the +calendar over his desk, when she entered his room: ‘Sitting-room, not +bedroom; she was always quite the lady,’ Skepsey reported his Jarniman. +Mrs. Burman, as a ghost, would respect herself; she would keep to her +character. Jarniman quite expected the dream to be verified; she was +a woman of her word: he believed she had received a revelation of the +approaching fact: he was preparing for the scene. + +Victor had to keep silent and discourse of general prosperity. His happy +vivaciousness assisted him to feel it by day. Nataly heard him at night, +on a moan: ‘Poor soul!’ and loudly once while performing an abrupt +demi-vault from back to side: ‘Perhaps now!’ in a voice through doors. +She schooled herself to breathe equably. + +Not being allowed to impart the distressing dose of comfort he was +charged with, he swallowed it himself; and these were the consequences. +And an uneasy sleep was traditionally a matter for grave debate in the +Radnor family. The Duvidney ladies, Dorothea and Virginia, would have +cited ancestral names, showing it to be the worst of intimations. At +night, lying on his back beneath a weight of darkness, one heavily +craped figure, distinguishable through the gloom, as a blot on a black +pad, accused the answering darkness within him, until his mind +was dragged to go through the whole case by morning light; and the +compassionate man appealed to common sense, to stamp and pass his +delectable sophistries; as, that it was his intense humaneness, which +exposed him to an accusation of inhumanity; his prayer for the truly +best to happen, which anticipated Mrs. Burman’s expiry. They were simple +sophistries, fabricated to suit his needs, readily taking and bearing +the imprimatur of common sense. They refreshed him, as a chemical scent +a crowded room. + +All because he could not open his breast to Nataly, by reason of her +feebleness; or feel enthusiasm in the possession of young Dudley! A +dry stick indeed beside him on the walk Westward. Good quality wood, no +doubt, but dry, varnished for conventional uses. Poor dear Fredi would +have to crown it like the May-day posy of the urchins of Craye Farm and +Creckholt! + +Dudley wished the great City-merchant to appreciate him as a diligent +student of commercial matters: rivalries of Banks; Foreign and Municipal +Loans, American Rails, and Argentine; new Companies of wholesome +appearance or sinister; or starting with a dram in the stomach, or born +to bleat prostrate, like sheep on their backs in a ditch; Trusts and +Founders; Breweries bursting vats upon the markets, and England +prone along the gutters, gobbling, drunk for shares, and sober in the +possession of certain of them. But when, as Colney says, a grateful +England has conferred the Lordship on her Brewer, he gratefully +hands-over the establishment to his country; and both may disregard the +howls of a Salvation Army of shareholders.--Beaten by the Germans in +Brewery, too! Dr. Schlesien has his right to crow. We were ahead of +them, and they came and studied us, and they studied Chemistry as well; +while we went on down our happy-go-lucky old road; and then had to hire +their young Professors, and then to import their beer. + +Have the Germans more brains than we English? Victor’s blood up to the +dome of his cranium knocked the patriotic negative. But, as old Colney +says (and bother him, for constantly intruding!), the comfortably +successful have the habit of sitting, and that dulls the brain yet more +than it eases the person: hence are we outpaced; we have now to know +we are racing. Victor scored a mark for one of his projects. A +well-conducted Journal of the sharpest pens in the land might, at a +sacrifice of money grandly sunk, expose to his English how and to what +degree their sports, and their fierce feastings, and their opposition to +ideas, and their timidity in regard to change, and their execration of +criticism applied to themselves, and their unanimous adoption of it +for a weapon against others, are signs of a prolonged indulgence in the +cushioned seat. Victor saw it. But would the people he loved? He +agreed with Colney, forgetting the satirist’s venom: to-wit; that the +journalists should be close under their editor’s rod to put it in sound +bold English;--no metaphors, no similes, nor flowery insubstantiality: +but honest Saxon manger stuff: and put it repeatedly, in contempt of the +disgust of iteration; hammering so a soft place on the Anglican skull, +which is rubbed in consequence, and taught at last through soreness +to reflect.--A Journal?--with Colney Durance for Editor?--and +called conformably THE WHIPPING-TOP? Why not, if it exactly hits the +signification of the Journal and that which it would have the country do +to itself, to keep it going and truly topping? For there is no vulgarity +in a title strongly signifying the intent. Victor wrote it at night, +naming Colney for Editor, with a sum of his money to be devoted to the +publication, in a form of memorandum; and threw it among the papers in +his desk. + +Young Dudley had a funny inquisitiveness about Dartrey Fenellan; owing +to Fredi’s reproduction or imitation of her mother’s romantic sentiment +for Dartrey, doubtless: a bit of jealousy, indicating that the dry +fellow had his feelings. Victor touched--off an outline of Dartrey’s +history and character:--the half-brother of Simeon, considerably +younger, and totally different. ‘Dartrey’s mother was Lady Charlotte +Kiltorne, one of the Clanconans; better mother than wife, perhaps; and +no reproach on her, not a shadow; only she made the General’s Bank-notes +fly black paper. And--if you ‘re for heredity--the queer point is, +that Simeon, whose mother was a sober-minded woman, has always been the +spendthrift. Dartrey married one of the Hennen women, all an odd lot, +all handsome. I met her once. Colney said, she came up here with a +special commission from the Prince of Darkness. There are women who stir +the unholy in men--whether they mean it or not, you know.’ + +Dudley pursed to remark, that he could not say he did know. And good for +Fredi if he did not know, and had his objections to the knowledge! But +he was like the men who escape colds by wrapping in comforters instead +of trusting to the spin of the blood. + +‘She played poor Dartrey pranks before he buried--he, behaved well to +her; and that says much for him; he has: a devil of a temper. I ‘ve seen +the blood in his veins, mount to cracking. But there’s the man: because +she was a woman, he never let it break out with her. And, by heaven, +he had cause. She couldn’t be left. She tricked him, and she loved +him-passionately, I believe. You don’t understand women loving the +husband they drag through the mire?’ + +Dudley did not. He sharpened his mouth. + +‘Buried, you said, sir?--a widower?’ + +‘I’ve no positive information; we shall hear when he: comes back,’ +Victor replied hurriedly. ‘He got a drenching of all the damns in the +British service from his. Generalissimo one day at a Review, for a +trooper’s negligence-button or stock missing, or something; and off goes +Dartrey to his hut, and breaks his sword, and sends in his resignation. +Good soldier lost. And I can’t complain; he has been a right-hand man to +me over in Africa. But a man ought to have some control of his temper, +especially a soldier.’ + +Dudley put emphasis into his acquiescence. + +‘Worse than that temper of Dartrey’s, he can’t forgive an injury. He +bears a grudge against his country. You’ve heard Colney Durance abuse +old England. It’s three parts factitious-literary exercise. It ‘s milk +beside the contempt of Dartrey’s shrug. He thinks we’re a dead people, +if a people; “subsisting on our fat,” as Colney says.’ + +‘I am not of opinion that we show it,’ observed Dudley. + +‘We don’t,’ Victor agreed. He disrelished his companion’s mincing tone +of a monumental security, and yearned for Dartrey or Simeon or Colney to +be at his elbow rather than this most commendable of orderly citizens, +who little imagined the treacherous revolt from him in the bosom of the +gentleman cordially signifying full agreement. But Dudley was not gifted +to read behind words and looks. + +They were in the Park of the dwindling press of carriages, and here was +this young Dudley saying, quite commendably: ‘It’s a pity we seem to +have no means of keeping our parks select.’ + +Victor flung Simeon Fenellan at him in thought. He remembered a fable of +Fenellan’s, about a Society of the Blest, and the salt it was to them to +discover an intruder from below, and the consequent accelerated measure +in their hymning. + +‘Have you seen anything offensive to you?’ he asked. + +‘One sees notorious persons.’ + +Dudley spoke aloof from them--‘out of his cold attics,’ Fenellan would +have said. + +Victor approved: with the deadened feeling common to us when first in +sad earnest we consent to take life as it is. + +He perceived, too, the comicality of his having to resign himself to the +fatherly embrace of goodness. + +Lakelands had him fast, and this young Dudley was the kernel of +Lakelands. If he had only been intellectually a little flexible in his +morality! But no; he wore it cap a pie, like a mediaeval knight his +armour. One had to approve. And there was no getting away from him. He +was good enough to stay in town for the practise of the opening overture +of the amateurs, and the flute-duet, when his family were looking for +him at Tunbridge Wells; and almost every day Victor was waylaid by him +at a corner of the Strand. + +Occasionally, Victor appeared at the point of interception armed +with Colney Durance, for whom he had called in the Temple, bent on +self-defence, although Colney was often as bitter to his taste as to +Dudley’s. Latterly the bitter had become a tonic. We rejoice in the +presence of goodness, let us hope; and still an impersonation of +conventional, goodness perpetually about us depresses. Dudley drove +him to Colney for relief. Besides it pleased Nataly that he should be +bringing Colney home; it looked to her as if he were subjecting Dudley +to critical inspection before he decided a certain question much, and +foolishly, dreaded by the dear soul. That quieted her. And another +thing, she liked him to be with Colney, for a clog on him; as it were, a +tuning-fork for the wild airs he started. A little pessimism, also, she +seemed to like; probably as an appeasement after hearing, and having +to share, high flights. And she was, in her queer woman’s way, always +reassured by his endurance of Colney’s company:--she read it to mean, +that he could bear Colney’s perusal of him, and satiric stings. Victor +had seen these petty matters among the various which were made to serve +his double and treble purposes; now, thanks to the operation of young +Dudley within him, he felt them. Preferring Fenellan’s easy humour to +Colney’s acid, he was nevertheless braced by the latter’s antidote to +Dudley, while reserving his entire opposition in the abstract. + +For Victor Radnor and Colney Durance were the Optimist and Pessimist of +their society. They might have headed those tribes in the country. At a +period when the omnibus of the world appears to its quaint occupants +to be going faster, men are shaken into the acceptation, if not +performance, of one part or the other as it is dictated to them by their +temperaments. Compose the parts, and you come nigh to the meaning of +the Nineteenth Century: the mother of these gosling affirmatives and +negatives divorced from harmony and awakened by the slight increase +of incubating motion to vitality. Victor and Colney had been champion +duellists for the rosy and the saturnine since the former cheerfully +slaved for a small stipend in the City of his affection, and the latter +entered on an inheritance counted in niggard hundreds, that withdrew +a briefless barrister disposed for scholarship from the forlornest +of seats in the Courts. They had foretold of one another each the +unfulfilled; each claimed the actual as the child of his prediction. +Victor was to have been ruined long back; Colney the prey of independent +bachelors. Colney had escaped his harpy, and Victor could be called a +millionaire and more. Prophesy was crowned by Colney’s dyspepsia, by +Victor’s ticklish domestic position. Their pity for one another, their +warm regard, was genuine; only, they were of different temperaments; +and we have to distinguish, that in many estimable and some gifted human +creatures, it is the quality of the blood which directs the current of +opinion. + +Victor played-off Colney upon Dudley, for his internal satisfaction, and +to lull Nataly and make her laugh; but he could not, as she hoped he +was doing, take Colney into his confidence; inasmuch as the Optimist, +impelled by his exuberant anticipatory trustfulness, is an author, and +does things; whereas the Pessimist is your chaired critic, with the +delivery of a censor, generally an undoer of things. Our Optimy has +his instinct to tell him of the cast of Pessimy’s countenance at the +confession of a dilemma-foreseen! He hands himself to Pessimy, as it +were a sugar-cane, for the sour brute to suck the sugar and whack +with the wood. But he cannot perform his part in return; he gets no +compensation: Pessimy is invulnerable. You waste your time in hurling a +common ‘tu-quoque’ at one who hugs the worst. + +The three walking in the park, with their bright view, and black view, +and neutral view of life, were a comical trio. They had come upon the +days of the unfanned electric furnace, proper to London’s early August +when it is not pipeing March. Victor complacently bore heat as well as +cold: but young Dudley was a drought, and Colney a drug to refresh it; +and why was he stewing in London? It was for this young Dudley, who +resembled a London of the sparrowy roadways and wearisome pavements and +blocks of fortress mansions, by chance a water-cart spirting a stale +water: or a London of the farewell dinner-parties, where London’s +professed anecdotist lays the dust with his ten times told: Why was not +Nataly relieved of her dreary round of the purchases of furniture! They +ought all now to be in Switzerland or Tyrol. Nesta had of late been +turning over leaves of an Illustrated book of Tyrol, dear to her after +a run through the Innthal to the Dolomites one splendid August; and she +and Nataly had read there of Hofer, Speckbacker, Haspinger; and wrath +had filled them at the meanness of the Corsican, who posed after it +as victim on St. Helena’s rock; the scene in grey dawn on Mantua’s +fortress-walls blasting him in the Courts of History, when he strikes +for his pathetic sublime. + +Victor remembered how he had been rhetorical, as the mouthpiece of +his darlings. But he had in memory prominently now the many glorious +pictures of that mountain-land beckoning to him, waving him to fly forth +from the London oven:--lo, the Tyrolese limestone crags with livid peaks +and snow lining shelves and veins of the crevices; and folds of pinewood +undulations closed by a shoulder of snow large on the blue; and a +dazzling pinnacle rising over green pasture-Alps, the head of it +shooting aloft as the blown billow, high off a broken ridge, and +wide-armed in its pure white shroud beneath; tranced, but all motion in +immobility, to the heart in the eye; a splendid image of striving, up to +crowned victory. And see the long valley-sweeps of the hanging meadows +and maize, and lower vineyards and central tall green spires! Walking +beside young Dudley, conversing, observing too, Victor followed the +trips and twists of a rill, that was lured a little further down through +scoops, ducts, and scaffolded channels to serve a wainwright. + +He heard the mountain-song of the joyful water: a wren-robin-thrush on +the dance down of a faun; till it was caught and muted, and the silver +foot slid along the channel, swift as moonbeams through a cloud, with an +air of ‘Whither you will, so it be on’; happy for service as in freedom. +Then the yard of the inn below, and the rillwater twirling rounded +through the trout-trough, subdued, still lively for its beloved onward: +dues to business, dues to pleasure; a wedding of the two, and the wisest +on earth:-eh? like some one we know, and Nataly has made the comparison. +Fresh forellen for lunch: rhyming to Fenellan, he had said to her; and +that recollection struck the day to blaze; for his friend was a ruined +military captain living on a literary quill at the time; and Nataly’s +tender pleading, ‘Could you not help to give him another chance, dear +Victor?’--signifying her absolute trust in his ability to do that or +more or anything, had actually set him thinking of the Insurance Office; +which he started to prosperity, and Fenellan in it, previously an +untutored rill of the mountains, if ever was one. + +Useless to be dwelling on holiday pictures: Lakelands had hold of him! + +Colney or somebody says, that the greater our successes, the greater the +slaves we become.--But we must have an aim, my friend, and success must +be the aim of any aim!--Yes, and, says Colney, you are to rejoice in the +disappointing miss, which saved you from being damned by your bullet on +the centre.--You’re dead against Nature, old Colney.--That is to carry +the flag of Liberty.--By clipping a limb! + +Victor overcame the Pessimist in his own royal cranium-Court. He +entertained a pronounced dissension with bachelors pretending to +independence. It could not be argued publicly, and the more the +pity:--for a slight encouragement, he would have done it: his +outlook over the waves of bachelors and (by present conditions mostly +constrained) spinsters--and another outlook, midnight upon Phlegethon to +the thoughts of men, made him deem it urgent. And it helped the plea in +his own excuse, as Colney pointed out to the son of Nature. That, he +had to admit, was true. He charged it upon Mrs. Burman, for twisting the +most unselfish and noblest of his thoughts; and he promised himself +it was to cease on the instant when the circumstance, which Nature was +remiss in not bringing about to-day or to-morrow, had come to pass. He +could see his Nataly’s pained endurance beneath her habitual submission. +Her effort was a poor one, to conceal her dread of the day of the +gathering at Lakelands. + +On the Sunday previous to the day, Dr. Themison accompanied the +amateurs by rail to Wrensham, to hear ‘trial of the acoustics’ of the +Concert-hall. They were a goodly company; and there was fun in the +railway-carriage over Colney’s description of Fashionable London’s vast +octopus Malady-monster, who was letting the doctor fly to the tether of +its longest filament for an hour, plying suckers on him the while. He +had the look, to general perception, of a man but half-escaped: and as +when the notes of things taken by the vision in front are being set down +upon tablets in the head behind. Victor observed his look at Nataly. The +look was like a door aswing, revealing in concealing. She was not or did +not appear struck by it; perhaps, if observant, she took it for a busy +professional gentleman’s holiday reckoning of the hours before the +return train to his harness, and his arrangements for catching it. She +was, as she could be on a day of trial, her enchanting majestic self +again--defying suspicions. She was his true mate for breasting a world +honoured in uplifting her. + +Her singing of a duet with Nesta, called forth Dr. Themison’s very warm +applause. He named the greatest of contraltos. Colney did better service +than Fenellan at the luncheon-table: he diverted Nataly and captured +Dr. Themison’s ear with the narrative of his momentous expedition of +European Emissaries, to plead the cause of their several languages at +the Court of Japan: a Satiric Serial tale, that hit incidentally the +follies of the countries of Europe, and intentionally, one had to think, +those of Old England. Nesta set him going. Just when he was about +to begin, she made her father laugh by crying out in a rapture, ‘Oh! +Delphica!’ For she was naughtily aware of Dudley Sowerby’s distaste for +the story and disgust with the damsel Delphica. + +Nesta gave Dr. Themison the preliminary sketch of the grand object of +the expedition: indeed one of the eminent ones of the world; matter +for an Epic; though it is to be feared, that our part in it will not +encourage a Cis-Atlantic bard. To America the honours from beginning to +end belong. + +So, then, Japan has decided to renounce its language, for the adoption +of the language it may choose among the foremost famous European +tongues. Japan becomes the word for miraculous transformations of a +whole people at the stroke of a wand; and let our English enrol it as +the most precious of the powerful verbs. An envoy visits the principal +Seats of Learning in Europe. He is of a gravity to match that of his +unexampled and all but stupefying mission. A fluent linguist, yet an +Englishman, the slight American accent contracted during a lengthened +residence in the United States is no bar to the patriotism urging him +to pay his visit of exposition and invitation from the Japanese Court +to the distinguished Doctor of Divinity Dr. Bouthoin. The renown of Dr. +Bouthoin among the learned of Japan has caused the special invitation to +him; a scholar endowed by an ample knowledge and persuasive eloquence to +cite and instance as well as illustrate the superior advantages to Japan +and civilization in the filial embrace of mother English. ‘For to this +it must come predestinated,’ says the astonishing applicant. ‘We seem +to see a fitness in it,’ says the cogitative Rev. Doctor. ‘And an Island +England in those waters, will do wonders for Commerce,’ adds the former. +‘We think of things more pregnant,’ concludes the latter, with a dry +gleam of ecclesiastical knowingness. And let the Editor of the Review +upon his recent pamphlet, and let the prelate reprimanding him, and let +the newspapers criticizing his pure Saxon, have a care! + +Funds, universally the most convincing of credentials, are placed at +Dr. Bouthoin’s disposal: only it is requested, that for the present the +expedition be secret. ‘Better so,’ says pure Saxon’s champion. On a +day patented for secresy, and swearing-in the whole American Continent +through the cables to keep the secret by declaring the patent, the Rev. +Dr. Bouthoin, accompanied by his curate, the Rev. Mancate Semhians, +stumbling across portmanteaux crammed with lexicons and dictionaries and +other tubes of the voice of Hermes, takes possession of berths in +the ship Polypheme, bound, as they mutually conceive, for the biggest +adventure ever embarked on by a far-thoughted, high-thoughted, patriotic +pair speaking pure Saxon or other. + +Colney, with apologies to his hearers, avoided the custom of our period +(called the Realistic) to create, when casual opportunity offers, a +belief in the narrative by promoting nausea in the audience. He passed +under veil the Rev. Doctor’s acknowledgement of Neptune’s power, and the +temporary collapse of Mr. Semhians. Proceeding at once to the comments +of these high-class missionaries on the really curious inquisitiveness +of certain of the foreign passengers on board, he introduced to them +the indisputably learned, the very argumentative, crashing, arrogant, +pedantic, dogmatic, philological German gentleman, Dr. Gannius, reeking +of the Teutonic Professor, as a library volume of its leather. With him +is his fairhaired artless daughter Delphica. An interesting couple for +the beguilement of a voyage: she so beautifully moderates his irascible +incisiveness! Yet there is a strange tone that they have. What, then, +of the polite, the anecdotic Gallic M. Falarique, who studiously engages +the young lady in colloquy when Mr. Semhians is agitating outside them +to say a word? What of that outpouring, explosive, equally voluble, +uncontrolled M. Bobinikine, a Mongol Russian, shaped, featured, hued +like the pot-boiled, round and tight young dumpling of our primitive +boyhood, which smokes on the dish from the pot? And what of another, +hitherto unnoticed, whose nose is of the hooked vulturine, whose name +transpires as Pisistratus Mytharete? He hears Dr. Bouthoin declaim some +lines of Homer, and beseeches him for the designation of that language. +Greek, is it? Greek of the Asiatic ancient days of the beginning of +the poetic chants? Dr. Gannius crashes cachinnation. Dr. Bouthoin caps +himself with the offended Don. Mr. Semhians opens half an eye and a +whole mouth. There must be a mystery, these two exclaim to one another +in privacy. Delphica draws Mr. Semhians aside. + +Blushing over his white necktie, like the coast of Labrador at the +transient wink of its Jack-in-the-box Apollo, Mr. Semhians faintly tells +of a conversation he has had with the ingenuous fair one; and she ardent +as he for the throning of our incomparable Saxon English in the mouths +of the races of mankind. Strange!--she partly suspects the Frenchman, +the Russian, the attentive silent Greek, to be all of them bound for the +Court of Japan. Concurrents? Can it be? We are absolutely to enter on +a contention with rivals? Dr. Bouthoin speaks to Dr. Gannius. He is +astonished, he says; he could not have imagined it! + +‘Have you ever imagined anything?’ Dr. Gannius asks him. Entomologist, +botanist, palaeontologist, philologist, and at sound of horn a ready +regimental corporal, Dr. Gannius wears good manners as a pair of +bath-slippers, to rally and kick his old infant of an Englishman; who, +in awe of his later renown and manifest might, makes it a point of +discretion to be ultra-amiable; for he certainly is not in training, he +has no alliances, and he must diplomatize; and the German is a strong +one; a relative too; he is the Saxon’s cousin, to say the least. +This German has the habit of pushing past politeness to carry his +argumentative war into the enemy’s country: and he presents on all sides +a solid rampart of recent great deeds done, and mailed readiness for the +doing of more, if we think of assailing him in that way. We are really +like the poor beasts which have cast their shells or cases, helpless +flesh to his beak. So we are cousinly. + +Whether more amused than amazed, we know not, Dr. Gannius hears from +‘our simpleton of the pastures,’ as he calls the Rev. Doctor to his +daughter, that he and Mr. Semhians have absolutely pushed forth +upon this most mighty of enterprises naked of any backing from their +Government! Babes in the Wood that they are! ‘a la grace de dieu’ +at every turn that cries for astutia, they show no sign or symbol of +English arms behind them, to support--and with the grandest of national +prizes in view!--the pleading oration before the Court of the elect, +erudites, we will call them, of an intelligent, yet half barbarous, +people; hesitating, these, between eloquence and rival eloquence, +cunning and rival cunning. Why, in such a case, the shadow-nimbus of +Force is needed to decide the sinking of the scale. But have these +English never read their Shakespeare, that they show so barren an +acquaintance with human, to say nothing of semi-barbaric, nature? But +it is here that we Germans prove our claim to being the sons of his +mind.--Dr. Gannius, in contempt, throws off the mask: he also is a +concurrent. And not only is he the chosen by election of the chief +Universities of his land, he has behind him, as Athene dilating +Achilles, the clenched fist of the Prince of thunder and lightning of +his time. German, Japan shall be! he publicly swears before them all. +M. Falarique damascenes his sharpest smile; M. Bobinikine double-dimples +his puddingest; M. Mytharete rolls a forefinger over his beak; Dr. +Bouthoin enlarges his eye on a sunny mote. And such is the masterful +effect of a frank diplomacy, that when one party shows his hand, the +others find the reverse of concealment in hiding their own. + +Dr. Bouthoin and Mr. Semhians are compelled to suspect themselves to be +encompassed with rivals, presumptively supported by their Governments. +The worthy gentlemen had hoped to tumble into good fortune, as in the +blessed old English manner. ‘It has even been thus with us: unhelped we +do it!’ exclaims the Rev. Doctor. He is roused from dejection by hearing +Mr. Semhians shyly (he has published verse) tell of the fairtressed +Delphica’s phosphorial enthusiasm for our galaxy of British Poets. +Assisted by Mr. Semhians, he begins to imagine, that he has, in the +person of this artless devotee an ally, who will, through her worship +of our poets (by treachery to her sire-a small matter) sacrifice her +guttural tongue, by enabling him (through the exercise of her arts, +charms, intrigues--also a small matter) to obtain the first audience +of the Japanese erudites. Delphica, with each of the rivals in turn, +is very pretty Comedy. She is aware that M. Falarique is her most +redoubtable adversary, by the time that the vast fleet of steamboats +(containing newspaper reporters) is beheld from the decks of the +Polypheme puffing past Sandy Hook. + +There Colney left them, for the next instalment of the serial. + +Nesta glanced at Dudley Sowerby. She liked him for his pained frown at +the part his countrymen were made to play, but did wish that he would +keep from expressing it in a countenance that suggested a worried knot; +and mischievously she said: ‘Do you take to Delphica?’ + +He replied, with an evident sincerity, ‘I cannot say I do.’ + +Had Mr. Semhians been modelled on him? + +‘One bets on the German, of course--with Colney Durance,’ Victor said to +Dr. Themison, leading him over the grounds of Lakelands. + +‘In any case, the author teaches us to feel an interest in the rivals. I +want to know what comes of it,’ said the doctor. + +‘There’s a good opportunity, one sees. But, mark me, it will all end in +satire upon poor Old England. According to Colney, we excel in nothing.’ + +‘I do not think there is a country that could offer the entertainment +for which I am indebted to you to-day.’ + +‘Ah, my friend, and you like their voices? The contralto?’ + +‘Exquisite.’ + +Dr. Themison had not spoken the name of Radnor. + +‘Shall we see you at our next Concert-evening in town?’ said Victor; +and hearing ‘the privilege’ mentioned, his sharp bright gaze cleared to +limpid. ‘You have seen how it stands with us here!’ At once he related +what indeed Dr. Themison had begun speculatively to think might be the +case. + +Mrs. Burman Radnor had dropped words touching a husband, and of her +desire to communicate with him, in the event of her being given over to +the surgeons: she had said, that her husband was a greatly gifted +man; setting her head in a compassionate swing. This revelation of the +husband soon after, was filling. And this Mr. Radnor’s comrade’s manner +of it, was winning: a not too self-justifying tone; not void of feeling +for the elder woman; with a manly eulogy of the younger, who had flung +away the world for him and borne him their one dear child. Victor took +the blame wholly upon himself. ‘It is right that you should know,’ he +said to the doctor’s thoughtful posture; and he stressed the blame; +and a flame shot across his eyeballs. He brought home to his hearer the +hurricane of a man he was in the passion: indicating the subjection +of such a temperament as this Victor Radnor’s to trials of the moral +restraints beyond his human power. + +Dr. Themison said: ‘Would you--we postpone that as long as we can: but +supposing the poor lady...?’ + +Victor broke in: ‘I see her wish: I will.’ + +The clash of his answer rang beside Dr. Themison’s faltering query. + +We are grateful when spared the conclusion of a sentence born to +stammer. If for that only, the doctor pressed Victor’s hand warmly. + +‘I may, then, convey some form of assurance, that a request of the kind +will be granted?’ he said. + +‘She has but to call me to her,’ said Victor, stiffening his back. + + + + +CHAPTER XX. THE GREAT ASSEMBLY AT LAKELANDS + +Round the neighbourhood of Lakelands it was known that the day of the +great gathering there had been authoritatively foretold as fine, by +Mr. Victor Radnor; and he delivered his prophecy in the teeth of +the South-western gale familiar to our yachting month; and he really +inspired belief or a kind of trust; some supposing him to draw from +reserves of observation, some choosing to confide in the singularly +winged sparkle of his eyes. Lady Rodwell Blachington did; and young Mrs. +Blathenoy; and Mrs. Fanning; they were enamoured of it. And when women +stand for Hope, and any worshipped man for Promise, nothing less than +redoubled confusion of him dissolves the union. Even then they cling to +it, under an ejaculation, that it might and should have been otherwise; +fancy partly has it otherwise, in her caerulean home above the weeping. +So it is good at all points to prophecy with the aspect of the radiant +day foretold. + +A storm, bearing battle overhead, tore the night to pieces. Nataly’s +faith in the pleasant prognostic wavered beneath the crashes. She had +not much power of heart to desire anything save that which her bosom +disavowed. Uproar rather appeased her, calmness agitated. She wished +her beloved to be spared from a disappointment, thinking he deserved all +successes, because of the rigours inflicted by her present tonelessness +of blood and being. Her unresponsive manner with him was not due to lack +of fire in the blood or a loss of tenderness. The tender feeling, under +privations unwillingly imposed, though willingly shared, now suffused +her reflections, owing to a gratitude induced by a novel experience of +him; known, as it may chance, and as it does not always chance, to both +sexes in wedded intimacy here and there; known to women whose mates are +proved quick to compliance with delicate intuitions of their moods of +nature. A constant, almost visible, image of the dark thing she desired, +and was bound not to desire, and was remorseful for desiring, oppressed +her; a perpetual consequent warfare of her spirit and the nature subject +to the thousand sensational hypocrisies invoked for concealment of its +reviled brutish baseness, held the woman suspended from her emotions. +She coldly felt that a caress would have melted her, would have been +the temporary rapture. Coldly she had the knowledge that the considerate +withholding of it helped her spirit to escape a stain. Less coldly, she +thanked at heart her beloved, for being a gentleman in their yoke. It +plighted them over flesh. + +He talked to her on the pillow, just a few sentences; and, unlike +himself, a word of City affairs: ‘That fellow Blathenoy, with his +increasing multitude of bills at the Bank: must watch him there, sit +there regularly. One rather likes his wife. By the way, if you see him +near me to-morrow, praise the Spanish climate; don’t forget. He heads +the subscription list of Lady Blachington’s Charity.’ + +Victor chuckled at Colney’s humping of shoulders and mouth, while +the tempest seemed echoing a sulphurous pessimist. ‘If old Colney had +listened to me, when India gave proof of the metal and South Africa +began heaving, he’d have been a fairly wealthy man by now... ha! it +would have genialized him. A man may be a curmudgeon with money: the +rule is for him to cuddle himself and take a side, instead of dashing at +his countrymen all round and getting hated. Well, Colney popular, can’t +be imagined; but entertaining guests would have diluted his acid. He +has the six hundred or so a year he started old bachelor on; add his +miserable pay for Essays. Literature! Of course, he sours. But don’t +let me hear of bachelors moralists. There he sits at his Temple Chambers +hatching epigrams... pretends to have the office of critic! Honest old +fellow, as far as his condition permits. I tell him it will be fine +to-morrow.’ + +‘You are generally right, dear,’ Nataly said. + +Her dropping breath was audible. + +Victor smartly commended her to slumber, with heaven’s blessing on her +and a dose of soft nursery prattle. + +He squeezed her hand. He kissed her lips by day. She heard him sigh +settling himself into the breast of night for milk of sleep, like one of +the world’s good children. She could have turned to him, to show him she +was in harmony with the holy night and loving world, but for the fear +founded on a knowledge of the man he was; it held her frozen to the +semblance of a tombstone lady beside her lord, in the aisle where horror +kindles pitchy blackness with its legions at one movement. Verily it was +the ghost of Mrs. Burman come to the bed, between them. + +Meanwhile the sun of Victor Radnor’s popularity was already up over the +extended circle likely to be drenched by a falsification of his daring +augury, though the scud flew swift, and the beeches raved, and the oaks +roared and snarled, and pine-trees fell their lengths. Fine tomorrow, to +a certainty! he had been heard to say. The doubt weighed for something; +the balance inclined with the gentleman who had become so popular: for +he had done the trick so suddenly, like a stroke of the wizard; and was +a real man, not one of your spangled zodiacs selling for sixpence and +hopping to a lucky hit, laughed at nine times out of ten. The reasoning +went--and it somewhat affected the mansion as well as the cottage,--that +if he had become popular in this astonishing fashion, after making one +of the biggest fortunes of modern times, he might, he must, have secret +gifts. ‘You can’t foretell weather!’ cried a pothouse sceptic. But the +workmen at Lakelands declared that he had foretold it. Sceptics among +the common folk were quaintly silenced by other tales of him, being a +whiff from the delirium attending any mention of his name. + +How had he become suddenly so popular as to rouse in the mind of Mr. +Caddis, the sitting Member for the division of the county (said to +have the seat in his pocket), a particular inquisitiveness to know the +bearing of his politics? Mr. Radnor was rich, true: but these are days +when wealthy men, ambitious of notoriety, do not always prove faithful +to their class; some of them are cunning to bid for the suffrages of the +irresponsible, recklessly enfranchised, corruptible masses. Mr. Caddis, +if he had the seat in his pocket, had it from the support of a class +trusting him to support its interests: he could count on the landowners, +on the clergy, on the retired or retiring or comfortably cushioned +merchants resident about Wrensham, on the many obsequious among +electoral shopmen; annually he threw open his grounds, and he +subscribed, patronized, did what was expected; and he was not popular; +he was unpopular. Why? But why was the sun of this 23rd August, shining +from its rise royally upon pacified, enrolled and liveried armies of +cloud, more agreeable to earth’s populations than his pinched appearance +of the poor mopped red nose and melancholic rheumy eyelets on a January +day! Undoubtedly Victor Radnor risked his repute of prophet. Yet his +popularity would have survived the continuance of the storm and deluge. +He did this:--and the mystery puzzling the suspicious was nothing +wonderful: in addition to a transparent benevolence, he spread a sort of +assurance about him, that he thought the better of the people for their +thinking well of themselves. It came first from the workmen at his +house. ‘The right sort, and no humbug: likes you to be men.’ Such a +report made tropical soil for any new seed. + +Now, it is a postulate, to strengthen all poor commoners, that not even +in comparison with the highest need we be small unless we yield to think +it of ourselves. Do but stretch a hand to the touch of earth in you, and +you spring upon combative manhood again, from the basis where all are +equal. Humanity’s historians, however, tell us, that the exhilaration +bringing us consciousness of a stature, is gas which too frequently +has to be administered. Certes the cocks among men do not require the +process; they get it off the sight of the sun arising or a simple hen +submissive: but we have our hibernating bears among men, our yoked oxen, +cab horses, beaten dogs; we have on large patches of these Islands, +a Saxon population, much wanting assistance, if they are not to feel +themselves beaten, driven, caught by the neck, yoked and heavyheaded. +Blest, then, is he who gives them a sense of the pride of standing on +legs. Beer, ordinarily their solitary helper beneath the iron canopy +of wealth, is known to them as a bitter usurer; it knocks them flat +in their persons and their fortunes, for the short spell of recreative +exaltation. They send up their rough glory round the name of the +gentleman--a stranger, but their friend: and never is friend to be +thought of as a stranger--who manages to get the holiday for Wrensham +and thereabout, that they may hurl away for one jolly day the old hat of +a doddered humbleness, and trip to the strains of the internal music he +has unwound. + +Says he: Is it a Charity Concert? Charity begins at home, says he: and +if I welcome you gentry on behalf of the poor of London, why, it follows +you grant me the right to make a beginning with the poor of our parts +down here. He puts it so, no master nor mistress neither could refuse +him. Why, the workmen at his house were nigh pitching the contractors +all sprawling on a strike, and Mr. Radnor takes train, harangues ‘em and +rubs ‘em smooth; ten minutes by the clock, they say; and return train to +his business in town; by reason of good sense and feeling, it was; poor +men don’t ask for more. A working man, all the world over, asks but +justice and a little relaxation--just a collar of fat to his lean. + +Mr. Caddis, M.P., pursuing the riddle of popularity, which irritated and +repelled as constantly as it attracted him, would have come nearer to an +instructive presentment of it, by listening to these plain fellows, than +he was in the line of equipages, at a later hour of the day. The remarks +of the comfortably cushioned and wheeled, though they be eulogistic +to extravagance, are vapourish when we court them for nourishment; +substantially, they are bones to the cynical. He heard enumerations +of Mr. Radnor’s riches, eclipsing his own past compute. A merchant, a +holder of mines, Director of a mighty Bank, projector of running rails, +a princely millionaire, and determined to be popular--what was the aim +of the man? It is the curse of modern times, that we never can be sure +of our Parliamentary seat; not when we have it in our pockets! The +Romans have left us golden words with regard to the fickleness of the +populace; we have our Horace, our Juvenal, we have our Johnson; and in +this vaunted age of reason it is, that we surrender ourselves into the +hands of the populace! Panem et circenses! Mr. Caddis repeated it, after +his fathers; his fathers and he had not headed them out of that original +voracity. There they were, for moneyed legislators to bewail their +appetites. And it was an article of his legislation, to keep them there. + +Pedestrian purchasers of tickets for the Charity Concert, rather openly, +in an envelope of humour, confessed to the bait of the Radnor bread with +bit of fun. Savoury rumours were sweeping across Wrensham. Mr. Radnor +had borrowed footmen of the principal houses about. Cartloads of +provisions had been seen to come. An immediate reward of a deed of +benevolence, is a thing sensibly heavenly; and the five-shilling tickets +were paid for as if for a packet on the counter. Unacquainted with Mr. +Radnor, although the reports of him struck a summons to their gastric +juices, resembling in its effect a clamorous cordiality, they were +chilled, on their steps along the halfrolled new gravel-roads to the +house, by seeing three tables of prodigious length, where very evidently +a feast had raged: one to plump the people--perhaps excessively courted +by great gentlemen of late; shopkeepers, the villagers, children. These +had been at it for two merry hours. They had risen. They were beef and +pudding on legs; in some quarters, beer amiably manifest, owing to the +flourishes of a military band. Boys, who had shaken room through their +magical young corporations for fresh stowage, darted out of a chasing +circle to the crumbled cornucopia regretfully forsaken fifteen minutes +back, and buried another tart. Plenty still reigned: it was the will of +the Master that it should. + +We divert our attention, resigned in stoic humour, to the bill of the +Concert music, handed us with our tickets at the park-gates: we have no +right to expect refreshment; we came for the music, to be charitable. +Signora Bianca Luciani: of whom we have read almost to the hearing her; +enough to make the mistake at times. The grand violinist Durandarte: +forcibly detained on his way to America. Mr. Radnor sent him a blank +cheque:--no!--so Mr. Radnor besought him in person: he is irresistible; +a great musician himself; it is becoming quite the modern style. We have +now English noblemen who play the horn, the fife--the drum, some say! We +may yet be Merrie England again, with our nobles taking the lead. + +England’s nobles as a musical band at the head of a marching and dancing +population, pictured happily an old Conservative country, that retained +its members of aristocracy in the foremost places while subjecting +them to downright uses. Their ancestors, beholding them there, would be +satisfied on the point of honour; perhaps enlivened by hearing them at +fife and drum. + +But middle-class pedestrians, having paid five shillings for a ticket to +hear the music they love, and not having full assurance of refreshment, +are often, latterly, satirical upon their superiors; and, over this +country at least, require the refreshment, that the democratic sprouts +in them may be reconciled with aristocracy. Do not listen to them +further on the subject. They vote safely enough when the day comes, if +there is no praetematurally strong pull the other way. + +They perceive the name of the Hon. Dudley Sowerby, fourth down the +Concert-bill; marked for a flute-duet with Mr. Victor Radnor, Miss Nesta +Victoria Radnor accompanying at the piano. It may mean?... do you want +a whisper to suggest to you what it may mean? The father’s wealth is +enormous; the mother is a beautiful majestic woman in her prime. And +see, she sings: a wonderful voice. And lower down, a duet with her +daughter: violins and clarionet; how funny; something Hungarian. And +in the Second Part, Schubert’s Ave Maria--Oh! when we hear that, we +dissolve. She was a singer before he married her, they say: a lady by +birth one of the first County families. But it was a gift, and she could +not be kept from it, and was going, when they met--and it was love! the +most perfect duet. For him she abandoned the Stage. You must remember, +that in their young days the Stage was many stages beneath the esteem +entertained for it now. Domestic Concerts are got up to gratify her: a +Miss Fredericks: good old English name. Mr. Radnor calls his daughter, +Freddy; so Mr. Taplow, the architect, says. They are for modern music +and ancient. Tannhauser, Wagner, you see. Pergolese. + +Flute-duet, Mercadante. Here we have him! O--Durandarte: Air Basque, +variations--his own. Again, Senor Durandarte, Mendelssohn. Encore +him, and he plays you a national piece. A dark little creature a +Life-guardsman could hold-up on his outstretched hand for the fifteen +minutes of the performance; but he fills the hall and thrills the heart, +wafts you to heaven; and does it as though he were conversing with his +Andalusian lady-love in easy whispers about their mutual passion +for Spanish chocolate all the while: so the musical critic of the +Tirra-Lirra says. Express trains every half hour from London; all the +big people of the city. Mr. Radnor commands them, like Royalty. Totally +different from that old figure of the wealthy City merchant; young, +vigorous, elegant, a man of taste, highest culture, speaks the languages +of Europe, patron of the Arts, a perfect gentleman. His mother was one +of the Montgomerys, Mr. Taplow says. + +And it was General Radnor, a most distinguished officer, dying knighted. +But Mr. Victor Radnor would not take less than a Barony--and then only +with descent of title to his daughter, in her own right. + +Mr. Taplow had said as much as Victor Radnor chose that he should say. + +Carriages were in flow for an hour: pedestrians formed a wavy coil. +Judgeing by numbers, the entertainment was a success; would the hall +contain them? Marvels were told of the hall. Every ticket entered and +was enfolded; almost all had a seat. Chivalry stood. It is a breeched +abstraction, sacrificeing voluntarily and genially to the Fair, for a +restoring of the balance between the sexes, that the division of good +things be rather in the fair ones’ favour, as they are to think: with +the warning to them, that the establishment of their claim for equality +puts an end to the priceless privileges of petticoats. Women must be +mad, to provoke such a warning; and the majority of them submissively +show their good sense. They send up an incense of perfumery, all the +bouquets of the chemist commingled; most nourishing to the idea of +woman in the nose of man. They are a forest foliage--rustle of silks and +muslins, magic interweaving, or the mythology, if you prefer it. See, +hear, smell, they are Juno, Venus, Hebe, to you. We must have poetry +with them; otherwise they are better in the kitchen. Is there--but there +is not; there is not present one of the chivalrous breeched who could +prefer the shocking emancipated gristly female, which imposes propriety +on our sensations and inner dreams, by petrifying in the tender bud of +them. + +Colonel Corfe is the man to hear on such a theme. He is a colonel of +Companies. But those are his diversion, as the British Army has been +to the warrior. Puellis idoneus, he is professedly a lady’s man, a +rose-beetle, and a fine specimen of a common kind: and he has been that +thing, that shining delight of the lap of ladies, for a spell of years, +necessitating a certain sparkle of the saccharine crystals preserving +him, to conceal the muster. He has to be fascinating, or he would look +outworn, forlorn. On one side of him is Lady Carmine; on the other, +Lady Swanage; dames embedded in the blooming maturity of England’s +conservatory. Their lords (an Earl, a Baron) are of the lords who go +down to the City to sow a title for a repair of their poor incomes, and +are to be commended for frankly accepting the new dispensation while +they retain the many advantages of the uncancelled ancient. Thus gently +does a maternal Old England let them down. Projectors of Companies, +Directors, Founders; Railway magnates, actual kings and nobles (though +one cannot yet persuade old reverence to do homage with the ancestral +spontaneity to the uncrowned, uncoroneted, people of our sphere); +holders of Shares in gold mines, Shares in Afric’s blue mud of the +glittering teeth we draw for English beauty to wear in the ear, on the +neck, at the wrist; Bankers and wives of Bankers. Victor passed among +them, chatting right and left. + +Lady Carmine asked him: ‘Is Durandarte counted on?’ + +He answered: ‘I made sure of the Luciani.’ + +She serenely understood. Artistes are licenced people, with a Bohemian +instead of the titular glitter for the bewildering of moralists; as +paste will pass for diamonds where the mirror is held up to Nature by +bold supernumeraries. + +He wished to introduce Nesta. His girl was on the raised orchestral +flooring. Nataly held her fast to a music-scroll. + +Mr. Peridon, sad for the absence and cause of absence of Louise de +Seilles,--summoned in the morning abruptly to Bourges, where her brother +lay with his life endangered by an accident at Artillery practise,--Mr. +Peridon was generally conductor. Victor was to lead the full force of +amateurs in the brisk overture to Zampa. He perceived a movement of +Nataly, Nesta, and Peridon. ‘They have come,’ he said; he jumped on the +orchestra boards and hastened to greet the Luciani with Durandarte in +the retiring-room. + +His departure raised the whisper that he would wield the baton. An +opinion was unuttered. His name for the flute-duet with the Hon. Dudley +Sowerby had not provoked the reserve opinion; it seemed, on the whole, +a pretty thing in him to condescend to do: the sentiment he awakened +was not flustered by it. But the act of leading, appeared as an official +thing to do. Our soufe of sentiment will be seen subsiding under +a breath, without a repressive word to send it down. Sir Rodwell +Blachington would have preferred Radnor’s not leading or playing either. +Colonel Corfe and Mr. Caddis declined to consider such conduct English, +in a man of station... notwithstanding Royal Highnesses, who are at +least partly English: partly, we say, under our breath, remembering our +old ideal of an English gentleman, in opposition to German tastes. It is +true, that the whole country is changeing, decomposing! + +The colonel fished for Lady Carmine’s view. And Lady Swanage too? Both +of the distinguished ladies approved of Mr. Radnor’s leading--for a +leading off. Women are pleased to see their favourite in the place of +prominence--as long as Fortune swims him unbuffeted, or one should say, +unbattered, up the mounting wave. Besides these ladies had none of +the colonel’s remainder of juvenile English sense of the manly, his +adolescent’s intolerance of the eccentric, suspicion and contempt of any +supposed affectation, which was not ostentatiously, stalkingly practised +to subdue the sex. And you cannot wield a baton without looking +affected. And at one of the Colonel’s Clubs in town, only five years +back, an English musical composer, who had not then made his money--now +by the mystery of events knighted!--had been (he makes now fifteen +thousand a year) black-balled. ‘Fiddler? no; can’t admit a Fiddler to +associate on equal terms with gentlemen.’ Only five years back: and at +present we are having the Fiddler everywhere. + +A sprinkling of the minor ladies also would have been glad if Mr. Radnor +had kept himself somewhat more exclusive. Dr. Schlesien heard remarks, +upon which his weighty Teutonic mind sat crushingly. Do these English +care one bit for music?--for anything finer than material stuffs?--what +that man Durance calls, ‘their beef, their beer, and their pew in +eternity’? His wrath at their babble and petty brabble doubted that they +did. + +But they do. Art has a hold of them. They pay for it; and the thing +purchased grapples. It will get to their bosoms to breathe from them in +time: entirely overcoming the taste for feudalism, which still a little +objects to see their born gentleman acting as leader of musicians. A +people of slow movement, developing tardily, their country is wanting +in the distincter features, from being always in the transitional state, +like certain sea-fish rolling head over-you know not head from tail. +Without the Welsh, Irish, Scot; in their composition, there would not be +much of the yeasty ferment: but it should not be forgotten that Welsh, +Irish, Scot, are now largely of their numbers; and the taste for +elegance, and for spiritual utterance, for Song, nay, for Ideas, is +there among them, though it does not everywhere cover a rocky surface to +bewitch the eyes of aliens;--like Louise de Seilles and Dr. Schlesien, +for example; aliens having no hostile disposition toward the people they +were compelled to criticize; honourably granting, that this people has a +great history. Even such has the Lion, with Homer for the transcriber of +his deeds. But the gentle aliens would image our emergence from wildness +as the unsocial spectacle presented by the drear menagerie Lion, alone +or mated; with hardly an animated moment save when the raw red joint is +beneath his paw, reminding him of the desert’s pasture. + +Nevertheless, where Strength is, there is hope:--it may be said more +truly than of the breath of Life; which is perhaps but the bucket of +breath, muddy with the sediment of the well: whereas we have in Strength +a hero, if a malefactor; whose muscles shall haul him up to the light he +will prove worthy of, when that divinity has shown him his uncleanness. +And when Strength is not exercising, you are sure to see Satirists +jump on his back. Dozens, foreign and domestic, are on the back of Old +England; a tribute to our quality if at the same time an irritating +scourge. The domestic are in excess; and let us own that their view of +the potentate, as an apathetic beast of power, who will neither show the +power nor woo the graces; pretending all the while to be eminently above +the beast, and posturing in an inefficient mimicry of the civilized, +excites to satire. Colney Durance had his excuses. He could point to the +chief creative minds of the country for generations, as beginning their +survey genially, ending venomously, because of an exasperating unreason +and scum in the bubble of the scenes, called social, around them. Viola +under his chin, he gazed along the crowded hall, which was to him a rich +national pudding of the sycophants, the hypocrites, the burlies, the +idiots; dregs of the depths and froth of the surface; bowing to one, +that they may scorn another; instituting a Charity, for their poorer +fawning fellows to relieve their purses and assist them in tricking the +world and their Maker: and so forth, a tiresome tirade: and as it was +not on his lips, but in the stomach of the painful creature, let him +grind that hurdy-gurdy for himself. His friend Victor set it stirring: +Victor had here what he aimed at! + +How Success derides Ambition! And for this he imperilled the happiness +of the worthy woman he loved! Exposed her to our fen-fogs and foul +snakes--of whom one or more might be in the assembly now: all because +of his insane itch to be the bobbing cork on the wave of the minute! +Colney’s rapid interjections condensed upon the habitual shrug at human +folly, just when Victor, fronting the glassy stare of Colonel Corfe, +tapped to start his orchestra through the lively first bars of the +overture to Zampa. + +We soon perceive that the post Mr. Radnor fills he thoroughly fills, +whatever it may be. Zampa takes horse from the opening. We have no +amateur conductor riding ahead: violins, ‘cellos, piano, wind-stops: +Peridon, Catkin, Pempton, Yatt, Cormyn, Colney, Mrs. Cormyn, Dudley +Sowerby: they are spirited on, patted, subdued, muted, raised, rushed +anew, away, held in hand, in both hands. Not earnestness worn as a +cloak, but issuing, we see; not simply a leader of musicians, a leader +of men. The halo of the millionaire behind, assures us of a development +in the character of England’s merchant princes. The homage we pay him +flatters us. A delightful overture, masterfully executed; ended too +soon; except that the programme forbids the ordinary interpretation +of prolonged applause. Mr. Radnor is one of those who do everything +consummately. And we have a monition within, that a course of spiritual +enjoyment will rouse the call for bodily refreshment. His genial nod and +laugh and word of commendation to his troop persuade us oddly, we know +not how, of provision to come. At the door of the retiring-room, see, he +is congratulated by Luciani and Durandarte. Miss Priscilla Graves is +now to sing a Schumann. Down later, it is a duet with the Rev. Septimus +Barmby. We have nothing to be ashamed of in her, before an Italian +Operatic singer! Ices after the first part is over. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI. DARTREY FENELLAN + +Had Nataly and Nesta known who was outside helping Skepsey to play ball +with the boys, they would not have worked through their share of the +performance with so graceful a composure. Even Simeon Fenellan was +unaware that his half-brother Dartrey had landed in England. Dartrey +went first to Victor’s office, where he found Skepsey packing the +day’s letters and circulars into the bag for the delivery of them +at Lakelands. They sprang a chatter, and they missed the last of the +express trains which did, not greatly signify, Skepsey said, ‘as it was +a Concert.’ To hear his hero talk, was the music for him; and he richly +enjoyed the pacing along the railway-platform. + +Arrived on the grounds, they took opposite sides in a game of rounders, +at that moment tossing heads or tails for innings. These boys were +slovenly players, and were made unhappy by Skepsey’s fussy instructions +to them in smartness. They had a stupid way of feeding the stick, and +they ran sprawling; it concerned Great Britain for them to learn how to +use their legs. It was pitiful for the country to see how lumpish her +younger children were. Dartrey knew his little man and laughed, after +warning him that his English would want many lessons before they +stomached the mixture of discipline and pleasure. So it appeared: the +pride of the boys in themselves, their confidence, enjoyment of the +game, were all gone; and all were speedily out but Skepsey; who ran for +the rounder, with his coat off, sharp as a porpoise, and would have got +it, he had it in his grasp, when, at the jump, just over the line of the +goal, a clever fling, if ever was, caught him a crack on that part of +the human frame where sound is best achieved. Then were these young +lumps transformed to limber, lither, merry fellows. They rejoiced +Skepsey’s heart; they did everything better, ran and dodged and threw in +a style to win the nod from the future official inspector of Games and +Amusements of the common people; a deputy of the Government, proposed by +Skepsey to his hero with a deferential eagerness. Dartrey clapped him on +the shoulder, softly laughing. + +‘System--Mr. Durance is right--they must have system, if they are to +appreciate a holiday,’ Skepsey said; and he sent a wretched gaze around, +at the justification of some of the lurid views of Mr. Durance, in signs +of the holiday wasted;--impoverishing the country’s manhood in a small +degree, it may be argued, but we ask, can the country afford it, while +foreign nations are drilling their youth, teaching them to be ready to +move in squads or masses, like the fist of a pugilist. Skepsey left +it to his look to speak his thought. He saw an enemy in tobacco. The +drowsiness of beer had stretched various hulks under trees. Ponderous +cricket lumbered half-alive. Flabby fun knocked-up a yell. And it was +rather vexatious to see girls dancing in good time to the band-music. +One had a male-partner, who hopped his loutish burlesque of the thing he +could not do. + +Apparently, too certainly, none but the girls had a notion of orderly +muscular exercise. Of what use are girls! Girls have their one mission +on earth; and let them be healthy by all means, for the sake of +it; only, they should not seem to prove that old England is better +represented on the female side. Skepsey heard, with a nip of spite at +his bosom, a small body of them singing in chorus as they walked in +step, arm in arm, actually marched: and to the rearward, none of these +girls heeding; there were the louts at their burlesque of jigs and +fisticuffs! ‘Cherry Ripe,’ was the song. + +‘It’s delightful to hear them!’ said Dartrey. + +Skepsey muttered jealously of their having been trained. + +The song, which drew Dartrey Fenellan to the quick of an English home, +planted him at the same time in Africa to hear it. Dewy on a parched +forehead it fell, England the shedding heaven. + +He fetched a deep breath, as of gratitude for vital refreshment. He had +his thoughts upon the training of our English to be something besides +the machinery of capitalists, and upon the country as a blessed mother +instead of the most capricious of maudlin step-dames. + +He flicked his leg with the stick he carried, said: ‘Your master’s the +man to make a change among them, old friend!’ and strolled along to +a group surrounding two fellows who shammed a bout at single-stick. +Vacuity in the attack on either side, contributed to the joint success +of the defense. They paused under inspection; and Dartrey said: ‘You’re +burning to give them a lesson, Skepsey.’ + +Skepsey had no objection to his hero’s doing so, though at his personal +cost. + +The sticks were handed to them; the crowd increased; their rounders boys +had spied them, and came trooping to the scene. Skepsey was directed to +hit in earnest. His defensive attitude flashed, and he was at head and +right and left leg, and giving point, recovering, thrusting madly, and +again at shoulder and thigh, with bravos for reward of a man meaning +business; until a topper on his hat, a cut over the right thigh, and the +stick in his middlerib, told the spectators of a scientific adversary; +and loudly now the gentleman was cheered. An undercurrent of warm +feeling ran for the plucky little one at it hot again in spite of the +strokes, and when he fetched his master a handsome thud across the +shoulder, and the gentleman gave up and complimented him, Skepsey had +applause. + +He then begged his hero to put the previous couple in position, through +a few of the opening movements. They were horribly sheepish at first. +Meantime two boys had got hold of sticks, and both had gone to work in +Skepsey’s gallant style; and soon one was howling. He excused himself, +because of the funny-bone, situated, in his case, higher than usual up +the arm. And now the pair of men were giving and taking cuts to make a +rhinoceros caper. + +‘Very well; begin that way; try what you can bear,’ said Dartrey. + +Skepsey watched them, in felicity for love of the fray, pained by the +disregard of science. + +Comments on the pretty play, indicating a reminiscent acquaintance with +it, and the capacity for critical observations, were started. Assaults, +wonderful tricks of a slashing Life-Guardsman, one spectator had +witnessed at an exhibition in a London hall. Boxing too. You may see +displays of boxing still in places. How about a prizefight?--With money +on it?--Eh, but you don’t expect men to stand up to be knocked into +rumpsteaks for nothing?--No, but it’s they there bets!--Right, and +that’s a game gone to ruin along of outsiders.--But it always was and it +always will be popular with Englishmen! + +Great English names of young days, before the wintry shadow of the Law +had blighted them, received their withered laurels. Emulous boys were in +the heroic posture. Good! sparring does no hurt: Skepsey seized a likely +lad, Dartrey another. Nature created the Ring for them. Now then, arms +and head well up, chest hearty, shoulders down, out with the right fist, +just below the level of the chin; out with the left fist farther, right +out, except for that bit of curve; so, and draw it slightly back for +wary-pussy at the spring. Firm you stand, feeling the muscles of both +legs, left half a pace ahead, right planted, both stringy. None of your +milk-pail looks; show us jaw, you bulldogs. Now then, left from the +shoulder, straight at right of head.--Good, and alacrity called on +vigour in Skepsey’s pupil; Dartrey’s had the fist on his mouth before he +could parry right arm up. ‘Foul blow!’ Dartrey cried. Skepsey vowed to +the contrary. Dartrey reiterated his charge. Skepsey was a figure of +negation, gesticulating and protesting. Dartrey appealed tempestuously +to the Ring; Skepsey likewise, in a tone of injury. He addressed a +remonstrance to Captain Dartrey. + +‘Hang your captain, sir! I call you a coward; come on,’ said the +resolute gentleman, already in ripe form for the attack. His blue eyes +were like the springing sunrise over ridges of the seas; and Skepsey +jumped to his meaning. + +Boys and men were spectators of a real scientific set-to, a lovely show. +They were half puzzled, it seemed so deadly. And the little one got in +his blows at the gentleman, who had to be hopping. Only, the worse the +gentleman caught it, the friendlier his countenance became. That was the +wonder, and that gave them the key. But it was deliciously near to the +real thing. + +Dartrey and Skepsey shook hands. + +‘And now, you fellows, you’re to know, that this is one of the +champions; and you take your lesson from him and thank him,’ Dartrey +said, as he turned on his heel to strike and greet the flow from the +house. + +‘Dartrey come!’ Victor, Fenellan, Colney, had him by the hand in turn. +Pure sweetness of suddenly awakened joy sat in Nataly’s eyes as she swam +to welcome him, Nesta moved a step, seemed hesitating, and she tripped +forward. ‘Dear Captain Dartrey!’ + +He did not say: ‘But what a change in you!’ + +‘It is blue-butterfly, all the same,’ Nataly spoke to his look. + +Victor hurriedly pronounced the formal introduction between the Hon. +Dudley Sowerby and Captain Dartrey Fenellan. The bronze face and the +milky bowed to one another ceremoniously; the latter faintly flushing. + +‘So here you are at last,’ Victor said. ‘You stay with us.’ + +‘To-morrow or later, if you’ll have me. I go down to my people +to-night.’ + +‘But you stay in England now?’ Nataly’s voice wavered on the question. + +‘There’s a chance of my being off to Upper Burmah before the week’s +ended.’ + +‘Ah, dear, dear!’ sighed Fenellan; ‘and out of good comes evil!--as +grandfather Deucalion exclaimed, when he gallantly handed up his +dripping wife from the mud of the Deluge waters. Do you mean to be +running and Dewing it on for ever, with only a nod for friends, Dart?’ + +‘Lord, Simmy, what a sound of home there is in your old nonsense!’ +Dartrey said. + +His eyes of strong dark blue colour and the foreign swarthiness of his +brows and cheeks and neck mixed the familiar and the strange, in the +sight of the women who knew him. + +The bill-broker’s fair-tressed young wife whispered of curiosity +concerning him to Nataly. He dressed like a sailor, he stood like a +soldier: and was he married? Yes, he was married. + +Mrs. Blathenoy imagined a something in Mrs. Radnor’s tone. She could +account for it; not by the ordinary reading of the feminine in the +feminine, but through a husband who professed to know secrets. She +was young in years and experience, ten months wedded, disappointedly +awakened, enlivened by the hour, kindled by a novel figure of man, +fretful for a dash of imprudence. This Mrs. Radnor should be the one to +second her very innocent turn for a galopade; her own position allowed +of any little diverting jig or reel, or plunge in a bath--she required +it, for the domestic Jacob Blathenoy was a dry chip: proved such, +without a day’s variation during the whole of the ten wedded months. +Nataly gratified her spoken wish. Dartrey Fenellan bowed to the lady, +and she withdrew him, seeing composedly that other and greater ladies +had the wish ungratified. Their husbands were not so rich as hers, and +their complexions would hardly have pleased the handsome brown-faced +officer so well. + +Banquet, equal to a blast of trumpet, was the detaining word for the +multitude. It circulated, one knows not how. Eloquent as the whiffs to +the sniffs (and nowhere is eloquence to match it, when the latter are +sharpened from within to without), the word was very soon over the +field. Mr. Carling may have helped; he had it from Fenellan; and he +was among the principal groups, claiming or making acquaintances, as a +lawyer should do. The Concert was complimentarily a topic: Durandarte +divine!--did not everybody think so? Everybody did, in default of a term +for overtopping it. Our language is poor at hyperbole; our voices +are stronger. Gestures and heaven-sent eyeballs invoke to display the +ineffable. Where was Durandarte now? Gone; already gone; off with the +Luciani for evening engagements; he came simply to oblige his dear +friend Mr. Radnor. Cheque fifty guineas: hardly more on both sides than +an exchange of smiles. Ah, these merchant-princes! What of Mr. Radnor’s +amateur instrumentalists? Amateurs, they are not to be named: perfect +musicians. Mr. Radnor is the perfection of a host. Yes, yes; Mrs. +Radnor; Miss Radnor too: delicious voices; but what is it about Mr. +Radnor so captivating! He is not quite English, yet he is not at all +foreign. Is he very adventurous in business, as they say? + +‘Soundest head in the City of London,’ Mr. Blathenoy remarked. + +Sir Rodwell Blachington gave his nod. + +The crowd interjected, half-sighing. We ought to be proud of such a man! +Perhaps we are a trifle exaggerating, says its heart. But that we are +wholly grateful to him, is a distinct conclusion. And he may be one of +the great men of his time: he has a quite individual style of dress. + +Lady Rodwell Blachington observed to Colney Durance: + +‘Mr. Radnor bids fair to become the idol of the English people.’ + +‘If he can prove himself to be sufficiently the dupe of the English +people,’ said Colney. + +‘Idol--dupe?’ interjected Sir Rodwell, and his eyebrows fixed at the +perch of Colney’s famous ‘national interrogation’ over vacancy of +understanding, as if from the pull of a string. He had his audience with +him; and the satirist had nothing but his inner gush of acids at sight +of a planted barb. + +Colney was asked to explain. He never explained. He performed a series +of astonishing leaps, like the branchy baboon above the traveller’s head +in the tropical forest, and led them into the trap they assisted him to +prepare for them. ‘No humour, do you say? The English have no humour?’ a +nephew of Lady Blachington’s inquired of him, with polite pugnacity, and +was cordially assured, that ‘he vindicated them.’ + +‘And Altruistic! another specimen of the modern coinage,’ a classical +Church dignitary, in grammarian disgust, remarked to a lady, as they +passed. + +Colney pricked-up his ears. It struck him that he might fish for +suggestions in aid of the Grand Argument before the Elders of the Court +of Japan. Dr. Wardan, whose recognition he could claim, stated to him, +that the lady and he were enumerating words of a doubtfully legitimate +quality now being inflicted upon the language. + +‘The slang from below is perhaps preferable?’ said Colney. + +‘As little-less.’ + +‘But a pirate-tongue, cut-off from its roots, must continue to practise +piracy, surely, or else take reinforcements in slang, otherwise it is +inexpressive of new ideas.’ + +‘Possibly the new ideas are best expressed in slang.’ + +‘If insular. They will consequently be incommunicable to foreigners. +You would, then, have us be trading with tokens instead of a precious +currency? Yet I cannot perceive the advantage of letting our ideas be +clothed so racy of the obscener soil; considering the pretensions of the +English language to become the universal. If we refuse additions from +above, they force themselves on us from below.’ + +Dr. Wardan liked the frame of the observations, disliked the substance. + +‘One is to understand that the English language has these pretensions?’ +he said:--he minced in his manner, after the well-known mortar-board +and tassel type; the mouthing of a petrifaction: clearly useless to the +pleadings of the patriotic Dr. Bouthoin and his curate. + +He gave no grip to Colney, who groaned at cheap Donnish sarcasm, and let +him go, after dealing him a hard pellet or two in a cracker-covering. + +There was Victor all over the field netting his ephemerae! And he who +feeds on them, to pay a price for their congratulations and flatteries, +he is one of them himself! + +Nesta came tripping from the Rev. Septimus Barmby. ‘Dear Mr. Durance, +where is Captain Dartrey?’ + +Mrs. Blathenoy had just conducted her husband through a crowd, for an +introduction of him to Captain Dartrey. That was perceptible. + +Dudley Sowerby followed Nesta closely: he struck across the path of the +Rev. Septimus: again he had the hollow of her ear at his disposal. + +‘Mr. Radnor was excellent. He does everything consummately: really, we +are all sensible of it. I am. He must lead us in a symphony. These light +“champagne overtures” of French composers, as Mr. Fenellan calls +them, do not bring out his whole ability:--Zampa, Le Pre aux clercs, +Masaniello, and the like.’ + +‘Your duet together went well.’ + +‘Thanks to you--to you. You kept us together.’ + +‘Papa was the runaway or strain-the-leash, if there was one.’ + +‘He is impetuous, he is so fervent. But, Miss Radnor, I could not be the +runaway-with you... with you at the piano. Indeed, I... shall we stroll +down? I love the lake.’ + +‘You will hear the bell for your cold dinner very soon.’ + +‘I am not hungry. I would so much rather talk--hear you. But you are +hungry? You have been singing twice: three times! Opera singers, they +say, eat hot suppers; they drink stout. And I never heard your voice +more effective. Yours is a voice that... something of the feeling one +has in hearing cathedral voices: carry one up. I remember, in Dresden, +once, a Fraulein Kuhnstreich, a prodigy, very young, considering her +accomplishments. But it was not the same.’ + +Nesta wondered at Dartrey Fenellan for staying so long with Mr. and Mrs. +Blathenoy. + +‘Ah, Mr. Sowerby, if I am to have flattery, I cannot take it as a +milliner’s dumb figure wears the beautiful dress; I must point out my +view of some of my merits.’ + +‘Oh! do, I beg, Miss... You have a Christian name and I too: and once +... not Mr. Sowerby: yes, it was Dudley! + +‘Quite accidentally, and a world of pardons entreated.’ + +‘And Dudley begged Dudley might be Dudley always!’ + +He was deepening to the Barmby intonation--apparently Cupid’s; but a +shade more airily Pagan, not so fearfully clerical. + +Her father had withdrawn Dartrey Fenellan from Mr. and Mrs. Blathenoy. +Dr. Schlesien was bowing with Dartrey. + +‘And if Durandarte would only--but you are one with Miss Graves to +depreciate my Durandarte, in favour of the more classical Jachimo; whom +we all admire; but you shall be just,’ said she, and she pouted. She had +seen her father plant Dartrey Fenellan in the midst of a group of City +gentlemen. + +Simeon touched among them to pluck at his brother. He had not a chance; +he retired, and swam into the salmon-net of seductive Mrs. Blathenoy’s +broad bright smile. + +‘It’s a matter of mines, and they’re hovering in the attitude of +the query, like corkscrews over a bottle, profoundly indifferent to +blood-relationships,’ he said to her. + +‘Pray, stay and be consoled by me,’ said the fair young woman. ‘You +are to point me out all the distinguished people. Is it true, that your +brother has left the army?’ + +‘Dartrey no longer wears the red. Here comes Colonel Corfe, who does. +England has her army still!’ + +‘His wife persuaded him?’ + +‘You see he is wearing the black.’ + +‘For her? How very very sad! Tell me--what a funnily dressed woman +meeting that gentleman!’ + +‘Hush--a friend of the warrior. Splendid weather, Colonel Corfe.’ + +‘Superb toilettes!’ The colonel eyed Mrs. Blathenoy dilatingly, +advanced, bowed, and opened the siege. + +She decided a calculation upon his age, made a wall of it, smilingly +agreed with his encomium of the Concert, and toned her voice to +Fenellan’s comprehension: ‘Did it occur recently?’ + +‘Months; in Africa; I haven’t the date.’ + +‘Such numbers of people one would wish to know! Who are those ladies +holding a Court, where Mr. Radnor is?’ + +‘Lady Carmine, Lady Swanage--if it is your wish?’ interposed the +colonel. + +She dealt him a forgiving smile. ‘And that pleasant-looking old +gentleman?’ + +Colonel Corfe drew-up. Fenellan said: ‘Are we veterans at forty or so?’ + +‘Well, it ‘s the romance, perhaps!’ She raised her shoulders. + +The colonel’s intelligence ran a dog’s nose for a lady’s interjections. +‘The romance?... at forty, fifty? gone? Miss Julinks, the great heiress +and a beauty; has chosen him over the heads of all the young men of his +time. Cranmer Lotsdale. Most romantic history!’ + +‘She’s in love with that, I suppose.’ + +‘Now you direct my attention to him,’ said Fenellan, ‘the writing of the +romantic history has made the texture look a trifle thready. You have a +terrible eye.’ + +It was thrown to where the person stood who had first within a few +minutes helped her to form critical estimates of men, more consciously +to read them. + +‘Your brother stays in England?’ + +‘The fear is, that he’s off again.’ + +‘Annoying for you. If I had a brother, I would not let him go.’ + +‘How would you detain him?’ + +‘Locks and bolts, clock wrong, hands and arms, kneeling--the fourth act +of the Huguenots!’ + +‘He went by way of the window, I think. But that was a lover.’ + +‘Oh! well!’ she flushed. She did not hear the ‘neglected and astonished +colonel speak, and she sought diversion in saying to Fenellan: ‘So many +people of distinction are assembled here to-day! Tell me, who is that +pompous gentleman, who holds his arms up doubled, as he walks?’ + +‘Like flappers of a penguin: and advances in jerks: he is head of the +great Firm of Quatley Brothers: Sir Abraham: finances or farms one of +the South American Republics: we call him, Pride of Port. He consumes it +and he presents it.’ + +‘And who is that little man, who stops everybody?’ + +‘People of distinction indeed! That little man--is your upper lip +underrateing him?... When a lady’s lip is erratically disdainful, +it suggests a misuse of a copious treasury, deserving to be mulcted, +punished--how?--who can say?--that little man, now that little man, with +a lift of his little finger, could convulse the Bacon Market!’ + +Mrs. Blathenoy shook. Hearing Colonel Corfe exclaim: + +‘Bacon Market!’ she let fly a peal. Then she turned to a fresh +satellite, a round and a ruddy, ‘at her service ever,’ Mr. Beaves +Urmsing, and repeated Fenellan’s words. He, in unfeigned wonderment at +such unsuspected powers, cried: ‘Dear me!’ and stared at the little man, +making the pretty lady’s face a twinkling dew. + +He had missed the Concert. Was it first-rate? Ecstasy answered in the +female voice. + +‘Hem’d fool I am to keep appointments!’ he muttered. + +She reproved him: ‘Fie, Mr. Urmsing; it’s the making of them, not the +keeping!’ + +‘Ah, my dear ma’am, if I’d had Blathenoy’s luck when he made a certain +appointment. And he was not so much older than me? The old ones get the +prizes!’ + +Mr. Beaves Urmsing prompted Colonel Corfe to laugh in triumph. The +colonel’s eyebrows were up in fixity over sleepy lids. He brightened to +propose the conducting of the pretty woman to the banquet. + +‘We shall see them going in,’ said she. ‘Mr. Radnor has a French cook, +who does wonders. But I heard him asking for Mr. Beaves Urmsing. I’m +sure he expected The Marigolds at his Concert.’ + +‘Anything to oblige the company,’ said the rustic ready chorister, +clearing his throat. + +The lady’s feet were bent in the direction of a grassy knoll, where +sunflowers, tulips, dahlias, peonies, of the sex eclipsed at a distance +its roses and lilies. Fenellan saw Dartrey, still a centre of the +merchantmen, strolling thither. + +‘And do you know, your brother is good enough to dine with us next week, +Thursday, down here,’ she murmured. ‘I could venture to command?--if you +are not induced.’ + +‘Whichever word applies to a faithful subject.’ + +‘I do so wish your brother had not left the army!’ + +‘You have one son of Mars.’ + +Her eyes took the colonel up to cast him down: he was not the antidote. +She said to him: ‘Luciani’s voice wears better than her figure.’ + +The colonel replied: ‘I remember,’ and corrected himself, ‘at Eton, in +jackets: she was not so particularly slim; never knew how to dress. You +beat Italians there! She moved one as a youngster.’ + +‘Eton boys are so susceptible!’ + +‘Why, hulloa, don’t I remember her coming out!--and do you mean to tell +me,’ Mr. Beaves Urmsing brutally addressed the colonel, ‘that you were +at Eton when... why, what age do you give the poor woman, then!’ He +bellowed, ‘Eh?’ as it were a bull crowing. + +The colonel retreated to one of his defensive corners. ‘I am not aware +that I meant to tell you anything.’ + +Mr. Beaves Urmsing turned square-breasted on Fenellan: ‘Fellow’s a born +donkey!’ + +‘And the mother lived?’ said Fenellan. + +Mr. Beaves Urmsing puffed with wrath at the fellow. + +Five minutes later, in the midst of the group surrounding and +felicitating Victor, he had sight of Fenellan conversing with fair ones, +and it struck a light in him; he went three steps backward, with shouts. +‘Dam funny fellow! eh? who is he? I must have that man at my table. +Worth fifty Colonel Jackasses! And I ‘ve got a son in the Guards: and as +much laugh in him, he ‘s got, as a bladder. But we’ll make a party, eh, +Radnor? with that friend o’ yours. Dam funny fellow! and precious little +of it going on now among the young lot. They’re for seeing ghosts and +gaping their jaws; all for the quavers instead of the capers.’ + +He sounded and thrummed his roguish fling-off for the capers. A second +glimpse of Fenellan agitated the anecdote, as he called it, seizing +Victor’s arm, to have him out of earshot of the ladies. Delivery, +not without its throes, was accomplished, but imperfectly, owing to +sympathetic convulsions, under which Mr. Beaves Urmsing’s countenance +was crinkled of many colours, as we see the Spring rhubarb-leaf. Unable +to repeat the brevity of Fenellan’s rejoinder, he expatiated on it to +convey it, swearing that it was the kind of thing done in the old days, +when men were witty dogs:--‘pat! and pat back! as in the pantomime.’ + +‘Repartee!’ said Victor. ‘He has it. You shall know him. You’re the man +for him.’ + +‘He for me, that he is!--“Hope the mother’s doing well? My card”:--eh? +Grave as an owl! Look, there goes the donkey, lady to right and left, +all ears for him--ha! ha! I must have another turn with your friend. +“Mother lived, did she?” Dam funny fellow, all of the olden time! And +a dinner, bachelor dinner, six of us, at my place, next week, say +Wednesday, half-past six, for a long evening--flowing bowl--eh, shall it +be?’ + +Nesta came looking to find her Captain Dartrey. + +Mr. Beaves Urmsing grew courtly of the olden time. He spied Colonel +Corfe anew, and ‘Donkey!’ rose to split the roar at his mouth, and full +of his anecdote, he pursued some congenial acquaintances, crying to his +host: ‘Wednesday, mind! eh? by George, your friend’s gizzarded me for +the day!’ + +Plumped with the rich red stream of life, this last of the squires of +old England thumped along among the guests, a very tuning-fork to keep +them at their pitch of enthusiasm. He encountered Mr. Caddis, and it was +an encounter. Mr. Caddis represented his political opinions; but here +was this cur of a Caddis whineing his niminy note from his piminy nob, +when he was asked for his hearty echo of the praises of this jolly good +fellow come to waken the neighbourhood, to be a blessing, a blazing +hearth, a fall of manna:--and thank the Lord for him, you desertdog! ‘He +‘s a merchant prince, and he’s a prince of a man, if you’re for titles. +Eh? you “assent to my encomiums.” You’ll be calling me Mr. Speaker next. +Hang me, Caddis, if those Parliamentary benches of yours aren’t freezing +you from your seat up, and have got to your jaw--my belief!’ + +Mr. Caddis was left reflecting, that we have, in the dispensations +of Providence, when we have a seat, to submit to castigations from +butcherly men unaccountably commissioned to solidify the seat. He could +have preached a discourse upon Success, to quiet the discontentment of +the unseated. And our world of seats oddly gained, quaintly occupied, +maliciously beset, insensately envied, needs the discourse. But it was +not delivered, else would it have been here written down without mercy, +as a medical prescript, one of the grand specifics. He met Victor, +and, between his dread of him and the counsels of a position subject +to stripes, he was a genial thaw. Victor beamed; for Mr. Caddis had +previously stood eminent as an iceberg of the Lakelands’ party. Mr. +Inchling and Mr. Caddis were introduced. The former in Commerce, the +latter in Politics, their sustaining boast was, the being our stable +Englishmen; and at once, with cousinly minds, they fell to chatting upon +the nothings agreeably and seriously. Colney Durance forsook a set of +ladies for fatter prey, and listened to them. What he said, Victor did +not hear. The effect was always to be seen, with Inchling under Colney. +Fenellan did better service, really good service. + +Nataly played the heroine she was at heart. Why think of her as having +to act a character! Twice had Carling that afternoon, indirectly and +directly, stated Mrs. Burman to be near the end we crape a natural, a +defensible, satisfaction to hear of:--not wishing it--poor woman!--but +pardonably, before man and all the angels, wishing, praying for the +beloved one to enter into her earthly peace by the agency of the other’s +exit into her heavenly. + +Fenellan and Colney came together, and said a word apiece of their +friend. + +‘In his element! The dear old boy has the look of a goldfish, king of +his globe.’ + +‘The dear old boy has to me the look of a pot on the fire, with a loose +lid.’ + +I may have the summons from Themison to-morrow, Victor thought. The +success of the day, was a wine that rocked the soberest of thoughts. +For, strange to confess, ever since the fall on London Bridge, his +heart, influenced in some degree by Nataly’s depression perhaps, had +been shadowed by doubts of his infallible instinct for success. Here, at +a stroke, and before entering the house, he had the whole neighbourhood +about him: he could feel that he and Nataly stood in the minds of the +worthy people variously with the brightness if not with the warmth +distinguishable in the bosom of Beaves Urmsing--the idea of whom gave +Lakelands an immediate hearth-glow. + +Armandine was thirteen minutes, by his watch, behind the time she had +named. Small blame to her. He excused her to Lady Carmine, Lady Swanage, +Lady Blachington, Mrs. Fanning, Sir Abraham Quatley, Mr. Danny (of Bacon +fame) and the rest of the group surrounding Nataly on the mound leftward +of the white terraces descending to the lake; where she stood beating +her foot fretfully at the word brought by Nesta, that Dartrey Fenellan +had departed. It was her sunshine departed. But she went through her +task of conversing amiably. Colney, for a wonder, consented to be useful +in assisting Fenellan to relate stories of French Cooks; which were, +like the Royal Hanoverian oyster, of an age for offering acceptable +flavour to English hearers. Nesta drew her mother’s attention to +Priscilla Graves and Skepsey; the latter bending head and assenting. +Nataly spoke of the charm of Priscilla’s voice that day, in her duet +with the Rev. Septimus. Mr. Pempton looked; he saw that Priscilla was +proselytizing. She was perfection to him but for one blotting thing. +With grief on his eyelids, he said to Nataly or to himself: ‘Meat!’ + +‘Dear friend, don’t ride your hobby over us,’ she replied. + +‘But it’s with that object they mount it,’ said Victor. + +The greater ladies of the assembly were quite ready to accuse the +sections, down to the individuals, of the social English (reserving our +elect) of an itch to be tyrants. + +Colney was apologizing for them, with his lash: ‘It’s merely the +sensible effect of a want of polish of the surface when they rub +together.’ + +And he heard Carling exclaim to Victor: ‘How comes the fellow here!’ + +Skepsey had rushed across an open space to intercept a leisurely +progressive man, whose hat was of the shape Victor knew; and the man +wore the known black gaiters. In appearance, he had the likeness of a +fallen parson. + +Carling and Victor crossed looks that were questions carrying their +answers. + +Nataly’s eyes followed Victor’s. ‘Who is the man?’ she said; and she got +no reply beyond a perky sparkle in his gaze. + +Others were noticing the man, who was trying to pass by Skepsey, now on +his right side, now on his left. + +‘There’ll be no stopping him,’ Carling said, and he slipped to the +rear.’ + +At this juncture, Armandine’s mellow bell proclaimed her readiness. + +Victor rubbed the back of his head. Nataly asked him: ‘Dear, is it that +man?’ + +He nodded scantly: ‘Expected, expected. I think we have our summons from +Armandine. One moment--poor soul! poor soul! Lady Carmine--Sir Abraham +Quatley. Will you lead? Lady Blachington, I secure you. One moment.’ + +He directed Nataly to pair a few of the guests; he hurried down the +slope of sward. + +Nataly applied to Colney Durance. ‘Do you know the man?--is it that +man?’ + +Colney rejoined: ‘The man’s name is Jarniman.’ + +Armandine’s bell swung melodiously. The guests had grouped, thickening +for the stream to procession. Mrs. Blathenoy claimed Fenellan; she +requested him to tell her whether he had known Mrs. Victor Radnor many +years. She mused. ‘You like her?’ + +‘One likes one’s dearest of friends among women, does one not?’ + +The lady nodded to his response. ‘And your brother?’ + +‘Dartrey is devoted to her.’ + +‘I am sure,’ said she, ‘your brother is a chivalrous gentleman. I +like her too.’ She came to her sentiment through the sentiment of the +chivalrous gentleman. Sinking from it, she remarked that Mr. Radnor +was handsome still. Fenellan commended the subject to her, as one to +discourse of when she met Dartrey. A smell of a trap-hatch, half-open, +afflicted and sharpened him. It was Blathenoy’s breath: husbands of +young wives do these villanies, for the sake of showing their knowledge. +Fenellan forbore to praise Mrs. Victor: he laid his colours on Dartrey. +The lady gave ear till she reddened. He meant no harm, meant nothing but +good; and he was lighting the most destructive of our lower fires. + +Visibly, that man Jarniman was disposed of with ease. As in the +street-theatres of crowing Punch, distance enlisted pantomime to do the +effective part of the speeches. Jarniman’s hat was off, he stood bent, +he delivered his message. He was handed over to Skepsey’s care for the +receiving of meat and drink. Victor returned; he had Lady Blachington’s +hand on his arm; he was all hers, and in the heart of his company of +guests at the same time. Eyes that had read him closely for years, +were unable to spell a definite signification on his face, below the +overflowing happiness of the hospitable man among contented guests. He +had in fact something within to enliven him; and that was the more than +suspicion, amounting to an odour of certainty, that Armandine intended +one of her grand surprises for her master, and for the hundred and fifty +or so to be seated at her tables in the unwarmed house of Lakelands. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII. CONCERNS THE INTRUSION OF JARNIMAN + +Armandine did her wonders. There is not in the wide range of the Muses +a more responsive instrument than man to his marvellous cook; and if +his notes were but as flowing as his pedals are zealous, we should be +carried on the tale of the enthusiasm she awakened, away from the rutted +highroad, where History now thinks of tightening her girdle for an +accelerated pace. + +The wonders were done: one hundred and seventy guests plenteously fed +at tables across the great Concert Hall, down a length of the +conservatory-glass, on soups, fish, meats, and the kitchen-garden, under +play of creative sauces, all in the persuasive steam of savouriness; +every dish, one may say, advancing, curtseying, swimming to be your +partner, instead of passively submitting to the eye of appetite, +consenting to the teeth, as that rather melancholy procession of the +cold, resembling established spinsters thrice-corseted in decorum, will +appear to do. Whether Armandine had the thought or that she simply acted +in conformity with a Frenchwoman’s direct good sense, we do require to +smell a sort of animation in the meats we consume. We are still perhaps +traceably related to the Adamite old-youngster just on his legs, +who betrayed at every turn his Darwinian beginnings, and relished +a palpitating unwillingness in the thing refreshing him; only we +young-oldsters cherish the milder taste for willingness, with a throb of +the vanquished in it. And a seeming of that we get from the warm roast. +The banquet to be fervently remembered, should smoke, should send out +a breath to meet us. Victor’s crowded saloon-carriage was one voice +of eulogy, to raise Armandine high as the finale rockets bursting +over Wrensham Station at the start Londonward. How had she managed? We +foolishly question the arts of magicians. + +Mr. Pempton was an apparent dissentient, as the man must be who is +half a century ahead of his fellows in humaneness, and saddened by the +display of slaughtered herds and their devourers. He had picked out +his vegetable and farinaceous morsels, wherever he could get them +uncontaminated; enough for sustenance; and the utmost he could show was, +that he did not complain. When mounted and ridden by the satirist, in +wrath at him for systematically feasting the pride of the martyr on +the maceration of his animal part, he put on his martyr’s pride, which +assumed a perfect contentment in the critical depreciation of opposing +systems: he was drawn to state, as he had often done, that he considered +our animal part shamefully and dangerously over nourished, and that +much of the immorality of the world was due to the present excessive +indulgence in meats. ‘Not in drink?’ Miss Graves inquired. ‘No,’ he said +boldly; ‘not equally; meats are more insidious. I say nothing of taking +life--of fattening for that express purpose: diseases of animals: bad +blood made: cruelty superinduced: it will be seen to be, it will be +looked back on, as a form of, a second stage of, cannibalism. Let that +pass. I say, that for excess in drinking, the penalty is paid instantly, +or at least on the morrow.’ + +‘Paid by the drunkard’s wife, you should say.’ + +‘Whereas intemperance in eating, corrupts constitutionally, more +spiritually vitiates, we think: on the whole, gluttony is the +least-generous of the vices.’ + +Colney lured Mr. Pempton through a quagmire of the vices to declare, +that it brutalized; and stammeringly to adopt the suggestion, that our +breeding of English ladies--those lights of the civilized world--can +hardly go with a feeding upon flesh of beasts. Priscilla regretted that +champagne should have to be pleaded in excuse of impertinences to her +sex. They were both combative, nibbed for epigram, edged to inflict +wounds; and they were set to shudder openly at one another’s practises; +they might have exposed to Colney which of the two maniacal sections of +his English had the vaster conceit of superiority in purity; they were +baring themselves, as it were with a garment flung-off at each retort. +He reproached them for undermineing their countrymen; whose Falstaff +panics demanded blood of animals to restore them; and their periods of +bragging, that they should brandify their wits to imagine themselves +Vikings. + +Nataly interposed. She was vexed with him. He let his eyelids drop: but +the occasion for showing the prickliness of the bristly social English, +could not be resisted. Dr. Peter Yatt was tricked to confess, that small +annoyances were, in his experience, powerful on the human frame; and Dr. +John Cormyn was very neatly brought round to assure him he was mistaken +if he supposed the homoeopathic doctor who smoked was exercising a +destructive influence on the efficacy of the infinitesimal doses +he prescribed; Dr. Yatt chuckled a laugh at globules; Dr. Cormyn at +patients treated as horses; while Mr. Catkin was brought to praise the +smoke of tobacco as our sanctuary from the sex; and Mr. Peridon quietly +denied, that the taking of it into his nostrils from the puffs of his +friend caused him sad silences: Nesta flew to protect the admirer of +her beloved Louise. Her subsiding young excitement of the day set her +Boating on that moony melancholy in Mr. Peridon. + +No one could understand the grounds for Colney’s more than usual +waspishness. He trotted out the fulgent and tonal Church of the Rev. +Septimus; the skeleton of worship, so truly showing the spirit, in that +of Dudley Sowerby’s family; maliciously admiring both; and he had a spar +with Fenellan, ending in a snarl and a shout. Victor said to him: ‘Yes, +here, as much as you like, old Colney, but I tell you, you’ve staggered +that poor woman Lady Blachington to-day, and her husband too; and I +don’t know how many besides. What the pleasure of it can be, I can’t +guess.’ + +‘Nor I,’ said Fenellan, ‘but I’ll own I feel envious; like the girl +among a family of boys I knew, who were all of them starved in their +infancy by a miserly father, that gave them barely a bit of Graves to +eat and not a drop of Pempton to drink; and on the afternoon of his +funeral, I found them in the drawing-room, four lank fellows, heels up, +walking on their hands, from long practice; and the girl informed me, +that her brothers were able so to send the little blood they had in +their bodies to their brains, and always felt quite cheerful for it, +happy, and empowered to deal with the problems of the universe; as they +couldn’t on their legs; but she, poor thing, was forbidden to do the +same! And I’m like her. I care for decorum too much to get the brain +to act on Colney’s behaviour; but I see it enraptures him and may be +comprehensible to the topsy-turvy.’ + +Victor rubbed hands. It was he who filled Colney’s bag of satiric spite. +In addition to the downright lunacy of the courting of country society, +by means of the cajolements witnessed this day, a suspicion that Victor +was wearing a false face over the signification--of Jarniman’s visit +and meant to deceive the trustful and too-devoted loving woman he seemed +bound to wreck, irritated the best of his nature. He had a resolve to +pass an hour with the couple, and speak and insist on hearing plain +words before the night had ended. But Fenellan took it out of him. +Victor’s show of a perfect contentment emulating Pempton’s, incited +Colney to some of his cunning rapier-thrusts with his dancing adversary; +and the heat which is planted in us for the composition: of those cool +epigrams, will not allow plain words to follow. Or, handing him over to +the police of the Philistines, you may put it, that a habit of assorting +spices will render an earnest simplicity distasteful. He was invited +by Nataly to come home with them; her wish for his presence, besides +personal, was moved by an intuition, that his counsel might specially +benefit them. He shrugged; he said he had work at his chambers. + +‘Work!’ Victor ejaculated: he never could reach to a right comprehension +of labour, in regard to the very unremunerative occupation of +literature. Colney he did not want, and he let him go, as Nataly +noticed, without a sign of the reluctance he showed when the others, +including Fenellan, excused themselves. + +‘So! we’re alone?’ he said, when the door of the hall had closed +on them. He kept Nesta talking of the success of the day until she, +observing her mother’s look, simulated the setting-in of a frenzied +yawn. She was kissed, and she tripped to her bed. + +‘Now we are alone,’ Nataly said. + +‘Well, dear, and the day was, you must own... ‘ he sought to trifle with +her heavy voice; but she recalled him: ‘Victor!’ and the naked anguish +in her cry of his name was like a foreign world threatening the one he +filled. + +‘Ah, yes; that man, that Jarniman. You saw him, I remember. You +recollected him?--stouter than he was. In her service ever since. Well, +a little drop of bitter, perhaps: no harm, tonic.’ + +‘Victor, is she very ill?’ + +‘My love, don’t feel at your side: she is ill, ill, not the extreme +case: not yet: old and ill. I told Skepsey to give the man refreshment: +he had to do his errand.’ + +‘What? why did he come?’ + +‘Curious; he made acquaintance with Skepsey, and appears to have +outwitted poor Skepsey, as far as I see it. But if that woman thinks +of intimidating me now--!’ His eyes brightened; he had sprung from +evasions. ‘Living in flagrant sin, she says: you and I! She will not +have it; warns me. Heard this day at noon of company at Lakelands. +Jarniman off at once. Are to live in obscurity;--you and I! if together! +Dictates from her death-bed-I suppose her death-bed.’ + +‘Dearest,’ Nataly pressed hand on her left breast, ‘may we not think +that she may be right?’ + +‘An outrageous tyranny of a decrepit woman naming herself wife when she +is only a limpet of vitality, with drugs for blood, hanging-on to blast +the healthy and vigorous! I remember old Colney’s once, in old days, +calling that kind of marriage a sarcophagus. It was to me. There I +lay--see myself lying! wasting! Think what you can good of her, by all +means! From her bed! despatches that Jarniman to me from her bedside, +with the word, that she cannot in her conscience allow--what imposition +was it I practised?... flagrant sin?--it would have been an infinitely +viler.... She is the cause of suffering enough: I bear no more from her; +I’ve come to the limit. She has heard of Lakelands: she has taken one of +her hatreds to the place. She might have written, might have sent me a +gentleman, privately. No: it must be done in dramatic style-for effect: +her confidential--lawyer?--doctor?--butler! Perhaps to frighten me:--the +boy she knew, and--poor soul! I don’t mean to abuse her: but such +conduct as this is downright brutal. I laugh at it, I snap my fingers. +I can afford to despise it. Only I do say it deserves to be called +abominable.’ + +‘Victor, has she used a threat?’ + +‘Am I brought to listen to any of her threats!--Funny thing, I ‘m +certain that woman never can think of me except as the boy she knew. I +saw her first when she was first a widow. She would keep talking to me +of the seductions of the metropolis--kept informing me I was a young +man... shaking her head. I ‘ve told you. She--well, I know we are +mixtures, women as well as men. I can, I hope, grant the same--I believe +I can--allowances to women as to men; we are poor creatures, all of +using one sense: though I won’t give Colney his footing; there’s a +better way of reading us. I hold fast to Nature. No violation of Nature, +my good Colney! We can live the lives of noble creatures; and I say that +happiness was meant for us:--just as, when you sit down to your dinner, +you must do it cheerfully, and you make good blood: otherwise all’s +wrong. There’s the right answer to Colney! But when a woman like +that .... and marries a boy: well, twenty-one--not quite that: and an +innocent, a positive innocent--it may seem incredible, after a term of +school-life: it was a fact: I can hardly understand it myself when I +look back. Marries him! And then sets to work to persecute him, because +he has blood in his veins, because he worships beauty; because he seeks +a real marriage, a real mate. And, I say it! let the world take its own +view, the world is wrong! because he preferred a virtuous life to the +kind of life she would, she must--why, necessarily!--have driven him to, +with a mummy’s grain of nature in his body. And I am made of flesh, I +admit it.’ + +‘Victor, dearest, her threat concerns only your living at Lakelands.’ + +‘Pray, don’t speak excitedly, my love,’ he replied to the woman whose +tones had been subdued to scarce more than waver. ‘You see how I meet +it: water off a duck’s back, or Indian solar beams on the skin of a +Hindoo! I despise it hardly worth contempt;--But, come: our day was +a good one. Fenellan worked well. Old Colney was Colney Durance, of +course. He did no real mischief.’ + +‘And you will not determine to enter Lakelands--not yet, dear?’ said +Nataly. + +‘My own girl, leave it all to me.’ + +‘But, Victor, I must, must know.’ + +‘See the case. You have lots of courage. We can’t withdraw. Her +intention is mischief. I believe the woman keeps herself alive for it: +we’ve given her another lease!--though it can only be for a very short +time; Themison is precise; Carling too. If we hold back--I have great +faith in Themison--the woman’s breath on us is confirmed. We go down, +then; complete the furnishing, quite leisurely; accept--listen--accept +one or two invitations: impossible to refuse!--but they are +accepted!--and we defy her: a crazy old creature: imagines herself the +wife of the ex-Premier, widow of Prince Le Boo, engaged to the Chinese +Ambassador, et caetera. Leave the tussle with that woman to me. No, we +don’t repeat the error of Crayc Farm and Creckholt. And here we +have stout friends. Not to speak of Beaver Urmsing: a picture of Old +Christmas England! You took to him?--must have taken to Beaver Urmsing! +The Marigolds! And Sir Rodwell and Lady Blachington are altogether +above the mark of Sir Humphrey and Lady Pottil, and those half and half +Mountneys. There’s a warm centre of home in Lakelands. But I know my +Nataly: she is thinking of our girl. Here is the plan: we stand our +ground: my dear soul won’t forsake me only there’s the thought of Fredi, +in the event... improbable enough. I lift Fredi out of the atmosphere +awhile; she goes to my cousins the Duvidney ladies.’ + +Nataly was hit by a shot. ‘Can you imagine it, Victor?’ + +‘Regard it as done.’ + +‘They will surely decline!’ + +‘Their feeling for General Radnor is a worship.’ + +‘All the more...?’ + +‘The son inherits it. He goes to them personally. Have you ever known me +personally fail? Fredi stays at Moorsedge for a month or two. Dorothea +and Virginia Duvidney will give her a taste of a new society; good for +the girl. All these little shiftings can be turned to good. Meantime, I +say, we stand our ground: but you are not to be worried; for though we +have gone too far to recede, we need not and we will not make the entry +into Lakelands until--you know: that is, auspiciously, to suit you in +every way. Thus I provide to meet contingencies. What one may really +fancy is, that the woman did but threaten. There’s her point of view to +be considered: silly, crazy; but one sees it. We are not sure that she +struck a blow at Craye or Creckholt. I wonder she never wrote. She was +frightened, when she came to manage her property, of signing her name to +anything. Absurd, that sending of Jarniman! However, it’s her move; we +make a corresponding disposition of our chessmen.’ + +‘And I am to lose my Nesta for a month?’ Nataly said, after catching +here and there at the fitful gleams of truce or comfort dropped from his +words. And simultaneously, the reproach of her mind to her nature for +again and so constantly yielding to the domination of his initiative: +unable to find the words, even the ideas, to withstand him,--brought +big tears. Angry at herself both for the internal feebleness and the +exhibition of it, she blinked and begged excuse. There might be nothing +that should call her to resist him. She could not do much worse than +she had done to-day. The reflection, that to-day she had been actually +sustained by the expectation of a death to come, diminished her estimate +of to-morrow’s burden on her endurance, in making her seem a less +criminal woman, who would have no such expectation: which was virtually +a stab at a fellow creature’s future. Her head was acute to work in the +direction of the casuistries and the sensational webs and films. Facing +Victor, it was a block. + +But the thought came: how could she meet those people about Lakelands, +without support of the recent guilty whispers! She said coldly, her +heart shaking her: ‘You think there has been a recovery?’ + +‘Invalids are up and down. They are--well, no; I should think she dreads +the...’ he kept ‘surgeon’ out of hearing. ‘Or else she means this for +the final stroke: “though I’m lying here, I can still make him feel.” + That, or--poor woman--she has her notions of right and wrong.’ + +‘Could we not now travel for a few weeks, Victor?’ + +‘Certainly, dear; we will, after we have kept our engagements to dine--I +accepted--with the Blathenoys, the Blachingtons, Beaver Urmsing.’ + +Nataly’s vision of the peaceful lost little dairy cottage swelled to +brilliance, like the large tear at the fall; darkening under her present +effort to comprehend the necessity it was for him to mix and be foremost +with the world. Unable to grasp it perfectly in mind, her compassionate +love embraced it: she blamed herself, for being the obstruction to him. + +‘Very well,’ she said on a sigh. ‘Then we shall not have to let our girl +go from us?’ + +‘Just a few weeks. In the middle of dinner, I scribbled a telegram to +the Duvidneys, for Skepsey to take.’ + +‘Speaking of Nesta?’ + +‘Of my coming to-morrow. They won’t stop me. I dine with them, sleep at +the Wells; hotel for a night. We are to be separated for a night.’ + +She laid her hand in his and gave him a passing view of her face: ‘For +two, dear. I am... that man’s visit--rather shaken: I shall have a +better chance of sleeping if I know I am not disturbing you.’ + +She was firm; and they kissed and parted. Each had an unphrased +speculation upon the power of Mrs. Burman to put division between them. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII. TREATS OF THE LADIES’ LAPDOG TASSO FOR AN INSTANCE OF +MOMENTOUS EFFECTS PRODUCED BY VERY MINOR CAUSES + +The maiden ladies Dorothea and Virginia Duvidney were thin--sweet +old-fashioned grey gentlewomen, demurely conscious of their excellence +and awake to the temptation in the consciousness, who imposed a certain +reflex primness on the lips of the world when addressing them or when +alluding to them. For their appearance was picturesque of the ancestral +time, and their ideas and scrupulousness of delivery suggested the +belated in ripeness; orchard apples under a snow-storm; or any image +that will ceremoniously convey the mind’s profound appreciation together +with the tooth’s panic dread of tartness. They were by no means tart; +only, as you know, the tooth is apprehensively nervous; an uninviting +sign will set it on edge. Even the pen which would sketch them has a +spell on it and must don its coat of office, walk the liveried footman +behind them. + +Their wealth, their deeds of charity, their modesty, their built grey +locks, their high repute; a ‘Chippendale elegance’ in a quaintly formal +correctness, that they had, as Colney Durance called it; gave them some +queenliness, and allowed them to claim the ear as an oracle and banish +rebellious argument. Intuitive knowledge, assisted by the Rev. Stuart +Rem and the Rev. Abram Posterley, enabled them to pronounce upon men and +things; not without effect; their country owned it; the foreigner beheld +it. Nor were they corrupted by the servility of the surrounding ear. +They were good women, striving to be humbly good. They might, for all +the little errors they nightly unrolled to then perceptions, have stood +before the world for a study in the white of our humanity. And this may +be but a washed wall, it is true: revolutionary sceptics are measuring +the depths of it. But the hue refreshes, the world admires; and we +know it an object of aim to the bettermost of the wealthy. If, happily, +complacent circumstances have lifted us to the clean paved platform out +of grip of puddled clay and bespattering wheeltracks, we get our chance +of coming to it. + +Possessing, for example, nine thousand pounds per annum in Consols, and +not expending the whole of it upon our luxuries, we are, without further +privation, near to kindling the world’s enthusiasm for whiteness. Yet +there, too, we find, that character has its problems to solve; there are +shades in salt. We must be charitable, but we should be just; we give to +the poor of the land, but we are eminently the friends of our servants; +duty to mankind diverts us not from the love we bear to our dog; and +with a pathetic sorrow for silt, we discard it from sight and hearing. +We hate dirt. Having said so much, having shown it, by sealing the +mouth of Mr. Stuart Rem and iceing the veins of Mr. Abram Posterley, in +relation to a dreadful public case and a melancholy private, we have a +pleased sense of entry into the world’s ideal. + +At the same time, we protest our unworthiness. Acknowledgeing that they +were not purely spotless, these ladies genuinely took the tiny fly-spot +for a spur to purification; and they viewed it as a patch to raise +in relief their goodness. They gazed on it, saw themselves in it, and +veiled it: warned of the cunning of an oft-defeated Tempter. + +To do good and sleep well, was their sowing and their reaping. Uneasy +consciences could not have slept. The sleeping served for proof of an +accurate reckoning and an expungeing of the day’s debits. They differed +in opinion now and then, as we see companion waves of the river, blown +by a gust, roll a shadow between them; and almost equally transient were +their differences with a world that they condemned when they could not +feel they (as an embodiment of their principles) were leading it. The +English world at times betrayed a restiveness in the walled pathway of +virtue; for, alas, it closely neighbours the French; only a Channel, +often dangerously smooth, to divide: but it is not perverted for long; +and the English Funds are always constant and a tower. Would they be +suffered to be so, if libertinism were in the ascendant? + +Colney Durance was acquainted with the Duvidney ladies. Hearing of the +journey to them and the purport of it, he said, with the mask upon glee: +‘Then Victor has met his match!’ Nataly had sent for him to dine with +her in Victor’s absence: she was far from grieved, as to the result, by +his assurance to her, that Victor had not a chance. Colney thought so. +‘Just like him! to be off gaily to try and overcome or come over the +greatest power in England.’ They were England herself; the squat +old woman she has become by reason of her overlapping numbers of +the comfortable fund-holder annuitants: a vast body of passives and +negatives, living by precept, according to rules of precedent, +and supposing themselves to be righteously guided because of their +continuing undisturbed. Them he branded, as hypocritical materialists, +and the country for pride in her sweetmeat plethora of them:--mixed with +an ancient Hebrew fear of offence to an inscrutable Lord, eccentrically +appeasable through the dreary iteration of the litany of sinfulness. He +was near a truth; and he had the heat of it on him. + +Satirists in their fervours might be near it to grasp it, if they could +be moved to moral distinctness, mental intention, with a preference of +strong plain speech over the crack of their whips. Colney could not or +would not praise our modern adventurous, experimental, heroic, tramping +active, as opposed to yonder pursy passives and negatives; he had +occasions for flicking the fellow sharply: and to speak of the Lord as +our friend present with us, palpable to Reason, perceptible to natural +piety solely through the reason, which justifies punishment; that would +have stopped his mouth upon the theme of God-forsaken creatures. Our +satirist is an executioner by profession, a moralist in excuse, or +at the tail of it; though he thinks the position reversed, when he +moralizes angrily to have his angry use of the scourge condoned. +Nevertheless, he fills a serviceable place; and certainly he is not +happy in his business. Colney suffered as heavily as he struck. If he +had been no more than a mime in the motley of satire, he would have +sucked compensation from the acid of his phrases, for the failure to +prick and goad, and work amendment. + +He dramatized to Nataly some of the scene going on at the Wells: +Victor’s petition; his fugue in urgency of it; the brief reply of Miss +Dorothea and her muted echo Miss Virginia. He was rather their apologist +for refusing. But, as when, after himself listening to their ‘views,’ he +had deferentially withdrawn from the ladies of Moorsedge, and had then +beheld their strangely-hatted lieutenants and the regiments of the +toneless respectable on the pantiles and the mounts, the curse upon +the satirist impelled him to generalize. The quiet good ladies were +multiplied: they were ‘the thousands of their sisters, petticoated +or long-coated or buck-skinned; comfortable annuitants under clerical +shepherding, close upon outnumbering the labourers they paralyze at home +and stultify abroad.’ Colney thumped away. The country’s annuitants had +for type ‘the figure with the helmet of the Owl-Goddess and the trident +of the Earth-shaker, seated on a wheel, at the back of penny-pieces; in +whom you see neither the beauty of nakedness nor the charm of drapery; +not the helmet’s dignity or the trident’s power; but she has patently +that which stops the wheel; and poseing for representative of an +imperial nation, she helps to pass a penny.’ So he passed his +epigram, heedless of the understanding or attention of his hearer; who +temporarily misjudged him for a man impelled by the vanity of literary +point and finish, when indeed it was hot satiric spite, justified of its +aim, which crushed a class to extract a drop of scathing acid, in the +interests of the country, mankind as well. Nataly wanted a picture +painted, colours and details, that she might get a vision of the scene +at Moorsedge. She did her best to feel an omen and sound it, in his +question ‘whether the yearly increasing army of the orderly annuitants +and their parasites does not demonstrate the proud old country as a +sheath for pith rather than of the vital run of sap.’ + +Perhaps it was patriotic to inquire; and doubtless she was the weakest +of women; she could follow no thought; her heart was beating blindly +beside Victor, hopeing for the refusal painful to her through his +disappointment. + +‘You think me foolish,’ she made answer to one of Colney’s shrugs; ‘and +it has come to that pitch with me, that I cannot be sensible of a merit +except in being one with him--obeying, is the word. And I have never yet +known him fail. That terrible Lakelands wears a different look to me, +when I think of what he can do; though I would give half my days to +escape it.’ + +She harped on the chord of feverish extravagance; the more hateful to +Colney because of his perceiving, that she simulated a blind devotedness +to stupefy her natural pride; and he was divided between stamping on her +for an imbecile and dashing at Victor for a maniac. But her situation +rendered her pitiable. ‘You will learn tomorrow what Victor has done,’ +he said, and thought how the simple words carried the bitterness. + +That was uttered within a few minutes of midnight, when the ladies of +Moorsedge themselves, after an exhausting resistance to their dearest +relative, were at the hall-door of the house with Victor, saying the +good-night, to which he responded hurriedly, cordially, dumbly, a +baffled man. They clasped hands. Miss Dorothea said: + +‘You, Victor, always.’ Miss Virginia said: ‘You will be sure of +welcome.’ He walked out upon the moonless night; and for lack of any +rounded object in the smothering darkness to look at, he could nowhere +take moorings to gather himself together and define the man who had +undergone so portentous a defeat. He was glad of quarters at an hotel, a +solitary bed, absence from his Nataly. + +For their parts, the ladies were not less shattered. They had no triumph +in their victory: the weight of it bore them down. They closed, locked, +shot the bolts and fastened the chain of the door. They had to be +reminded by the shaking of their darling dog Tasso’s curly silky coat, +that he had not taken his evening’s trot to notify malefactors of his +watchfulness and official wrath at sound of footfall or a fancied one. +Without consultation, they unbolted the door, and Tasso went forth, to +‘compose his vesper hymn,’ as Mr. Posterley once remarked amusingly. + +Though not pretending to the Muse’s crown so far, the little dog had +qualities to entrance the spinster sex. His mistresses talked of him; +of his readiness to go forth; of the audible first line of his hymn +or sonnet; of his instinct telling him that something was wrong in the +establishment. For most of the servants at Moorsedge were prostrated by +a fashionable epidemic; a slight attack, the doctor said; but Montague, +the butler, had withdrawn for the nursing of his wife; Perrin, the +footman, was confined to his chamber; Manton, the favourite maid, had +appeared in the morning with a face that caused her banishment to bed; +and the cook, Mrs. Bannister, then sighingly agreed to send up cold meat +for the ladies’ dinner. Hence their melancholy inhospitality to their +cousin Victor, who had, in spite of his errors, the right to claim his +place at their table, was ‘of the blood,’ they said. He was recognized +as the living prince of it. His every gesture, every word, recalled the +General. The trying scene with him had withered them, they did not speak +of it; each had to the other the look of a vessel that has come out of +a gale. Would they sleep? They scarcely dared ask it of themselves. They +had done rightly; silence upon that reflection seemed best. It was +the silence of an inward agitation; still they knew the power of good +consciences to summon sleep. + +Tasso was usually timed for five minutes. They were astonished to +discover by the clock, that they had given him ten. He was very quiet: +if so, and for whatever he did, he had his reason, they said: he was a +dog endowed with reason: endowed--and how they wished that Mr. Stuart +Rem would admit it!--with, their love of the little dog believed (and +Mr. Posterley acquiesced), a soul. Do but think it of dear animals, and +any form of cruelty to them becomes an impossibility, Mr. Stuart +Rem! But he would not be convinced: ungenerously indeed he named Mr. +Posterley a courtier. The ladies could have retorted, that Mr. Posterley +had not a brother who was the celebrated surgeon Sir Nicholas Rem. + +Usually Tasso came running in when the hall-door was opened to him. Not +a sound of him could be heard. The ladies blew his familiar whistle. +He trotted back to a third appeal, and was, unfortunately for them, not +caressed; he received reproaches from two forefingers directed straight +at his reason. He saw it and felt it. The hug of him was deferred to the +tender good-night to him in his basket at the foot of the ladies’ beds. + +On entering their spacious bed-chamber, they were so fatigued that +sleep appeared to their minds the compensating logical deduction. Miss +Dorothea suppressed a yawn, and inflicted it upon Miss Virginia, who +returned it, with an apology, and immediately had her sister’s hand on +her shoulder, for, an attempted control of one of the irresistibles; a +spectacle imparting bitter shudders and shots to the sympathetic jawbones +of an observer. Hand at mouth, for not in privacy would they have been +guilty of exposing a grimace, they signified, under an interim smile, +their maidenly submission to the ridiculous force of nature: after +which, Miss Virginia retired to the dressing-room, absorbed in woeful +recollection of the resolute No they had been compelled to reiterate, +in response to the most eloquent and, saving for a single instance, +admirable man, their cousin, the representative of ‘the blood,’ +supplicating them. A recreant thankfulness coiled within her bosom at +the thought, that Dorothea, true to her office of speaker, had tasked +herself with the cruel utterance and repetition of the word. Victor’s +wonderful eyes, his voice, yet more than his urgent pleas; and also, in +the midst of his fiery flood of speech, his gentleness, his patience, +pathos, and a man’s tone through it all; were present to her. + +Disrobed, she knocked at the door. + +‘I have called to you twice,’ Dorothea said; and she looked a motive for +the call. + +‘What is it?’ said Virginia, with faltering sweetness, with a terrible +divination. + +The movement of a sigh was made. ‘Are you aware of anything, dear?’ + +Virginia was taken with the contrary movement of a sniff. But the fear +informing it prevented it from being venturesome. Doubt of the pure +atmosphere of their bed-chamber, appeared to her as too heretic even for +the positive essay. In affirming, that she was not aware of anything, +her sight fell on Tasso. His eyeballs were those of a little dog that +has been awfully questioned. + +‘It is more than a suspicion,’ said Dorothea; and plainly now, while +open to the seductions of any pleasing infidel testimony, her nose in +repugnance convicted him absolutely. + +Virginia’s nose was lowered a few inches; it inhaled and stopped midway. +‘You must be mistaken, dear. He never... ‘ + +‘But are you insensible to the...’ Dorothea’s eyelids fainted. + +Virginia dismissed the forlornest of efforts at incredulity. A whiff of +Tasso had smitten her. ‘Ah!’ she exclaimed and fell away. ‘Is it Tasso! +How was it you noticed nothing before undressing, dear?’ + +‘Thinking of what we have gone through to-night! I forgot him. At last +the very strange... The like of it I have not ever!... And upon that +thick coat! And, dear, it is late. We are in the morning hours.’ + +‘But, my dear-Oh, dear, what is to be done with him?’ + +That was the crucial point for discussion. They had no servant to +give them aid; Manton, they could not dream of disturbing. And Tasso’s +character was in the estimate; he hated washing; it balefully depraved +his temper; and not only, creature of habit that he was, would he +decline to lie down anywhere save in their bedroom, he would lament, +plead, insist unremittingly, if excluded; terrifying every poor +invalid of the house. Then again, were they at this late hour to dress +themselves, and take him downstairs, and light a fire in the kitchen, +and boil sufficient water to give him a bath and scrubbing? Cold water +would be death to him. Besides, he would ring out his alarum for the +house to hear, pour out all his poetry, poor dear, as Mr. Posterley +called it, at a touch of cold water. The catastrophe was one to weep +over, the dilemma a trial of the strongest intelligences. + +In addition to reviews of their solitary alternative-the having of a +befouled degraded little dog in their chamber through the night, they +were subjected to a conflict of emotions when eyeing him: and there +came to them the painful, perhaps irreverent, perhaps uncharitable, +thought:--that the sinner who has rolled in the abominable, must cleanse +him and do things to polish him and perfume before again embraced even +by the mind: if indeed we can ever have our old sentiment for him again! +Mr. Stuart Rem might decide it for them. Nay, before even the heart +embraces him, he must completely purify himself. That is to say, the +ordinary human sinner--save when a relative. Contemplating Tasso, the +hearts of the ladies gushed out in pity of an innocent little +dog, knowing not evil, dependent on his friends for help to be +purified;--necessarily kept at a distance: the very look of him +prescribed extreme separation, as far as practicable. But they had proof +of a love almost greater than it was previous to the offence, in the +tender precautions they took to elude repulsion. + +He was rolling on the rug, communicating contagion. Flasks of +treble-distilled lavender water, and their favourite, traditional in the +family, eau d’Arquebusade, were on the toilet-table. They sprinkled +his basket, liberally sprinkled the rug and the little dog. +Perfume-pastilles were in one of the sitting-rooms below; and Virginia +would have gone down softly to fetch a box, but Dorothea restrained her, +in pity for the servants, with the remark: ‘It would give us a nightmare +of a Roman Catholic Cathedral!’ A bit of the window was lifted by +Dorothea, cautiously, that prowling outsiders might not be attracted. +Tasso was wooed to his basket. He seemed inquisitive; the antidote of +his naughtiness excited him; his tail circled after his muzzle several +times; then he lay. A silken scarf steeped in eau d’Arquebusade was +flung across him. + +Their customary devout observances concluded, lights were extinguished, +and the ladies kissed, and entered their beds. + +Their beds were not homely to them. Dorothea thought that Virginia was +long in settling herself. Virginia did not like the sound of Dorothea’s +double sigh. Both listened anxiously for the doings of Tasso. He rested. + +He was uneasy; he was rounding his basket once more; unaware of the +exaggeration of his iniquitous conduct, poor innocent, he shook that +dreadful coat of his! He had displaced the prophylactic cover of the +scarf. + +He drove them in a despair to speculate on the contention between the +perfume and the stench in junction, with such a doubt of the victory +of which of the two, as drags us to fear our worst. It steals into our +nostrils, possesses them. As the History of Mankind has informed us, we +were led up to our civilization by the nose. But Philosophy warns us on +that eminence; to beware of trusting exclusively to our conductor, lest +the mind of us at least be plunged back into barbarism. The ladies +hated both the cause and the consequence, they had a revulsion from the +object, of the above contention. But call it not a contention: there is +nobility in that. This was a compromise, a degrading union, with very +sickening results. Whether they came of an excess of the sprinkling, +could not well be guessed. The drenching at least was righteously +intended. + +Beneath their shut eyelids, they felt more and more the oppression of a +darkness not laden with slumber. They saw it insolidity; themselves +as restless billows, driven dashing to the despondent sigh. Sleep was +denied them. + +Tasso slept. He had sinned unknowingly, and that is not a spiritual sin; +the chastisement confers the pardon. + +But why was this ineffable blessing denied to them? Was it that they +might have a survey of all the day’s deeds and examine them under the +cruel black beams of Insomnia? + +Virginia said: ‘You are wakeful.’ + +‘Thoughtful,’ was the answer. + +A century of the midnight rolled on. + +Dorothea said: ‘He behaved very beautifully.’ + +‘I looked at the General’s portrait while he besought us,’ Virginia +replied. + +‘One sees him in Victor, at Victor’s age. Try to sleep.’ + +‘I do. I pray that you may.’ + +Silence courted slumber. Their interchange of speech from the posture of +bodies on their backs, had been low and deliberate, in the tone of +the vaults. Dead silence recalled the strangeness of it. The night +was breathless; their open window a peril bestowing no boon. They were +mutually haunted by sound of the gloomy query at the nostrils of each +when drawing the vital breath. But for that, they thought they might +have slept. + +Bed spake to bed: + +‘The words of Mr. Stuart Rem last Sunday!’ ‘He said: “Be just.” Could +one but see direction!’ + +‘In obscurity, feeling is a guide.’ + +‘The heart.’ + +‘It may sometimes be followed.’ + +‘When it concerns the family.’ + +‘He would have the living, who are seeking peace, be just.’ + +‘Not to assume the seat of justice.’ + +Again they lay as tombstone effigies, that have committed the passage of +affairs to another procession of the Ages. + +There was a gentle sniff, in hopeless confirmation of the experience of +its predecessors. A sister to it ensued. + +‘Could Victor have spoken so, without assurance in his conscience, that +his entreaty was righteously addressed to us? that we...’ + +‘And no others!’ + +‘I think of his language. He loves the child.’ + +‘In heart as in mind, he is eminently gifted; acknowledgeing error.’ + +‘He was very young.’ + +The huge funereal minutes conducted their sonorous hearse, the hour. + +It struck in the bed-room: Three. + +No more than three of the clock, it was the voice telling of half the +precious restorative night-hours wasted. + +Now, as we close our eyelids when we would go to sleep, so must we, +in expectation of the peace of mind granting us the sweet oblivion, +preliminarily do something which invokes, that we may obtain it. + +‘Dear,’ Dorothea said. + +‘I know indeed,’ said Virginia. + +‘We may have been!’ + +‘Not designingly.’ + +‘Indeed not. But harsh it may be named, if the one innocent is to be the +sufferer.’ + +‘The child can in no sense be adjudged guilty.’ + +‘It is Victor’s child.’ + +‘He adores the child.’ + +Wheels were in mute motion within them; and presently the remark was +tossed-up: + +‘In his coming to us, it is possible to see paternal solicitude’ + +Thence came fruit of reflection: + +‘To be instrumental as guides to a tender young life!’ + +Reflection heated with visions: + +‘Once our dream!’ + +They had the happier feeling of composure, though Tasso possessed +the room. Not Tasso, but a sublimated offensiveness, issue of the +antagonistically combined, dispersed to be the more penetrating; +insomuch that it seemed to them they could not ever again make use of +eau d’Arquebusade without the vitiating reminder. So true were the words +of Mr. Stuart Rem: ‘Half measures to purification are the most delusive +of our artifices.’ Fatigue and its reflections helped to be peacefuller. +Their souls were mounting to a serenity above the nauseating +degradation, to which the poor little dog had dragged them. + +‘Victor gave his promise.’ + +‘At least, concession would not imply contact with the guilty.’ + +Both sighed as they took up the burden of the vaporous Tasso to drop +him; with the greater satisfaction in the expelling of their breath. + +‘It might be said, dear, that concession to his entreaty does not in any +way countenance the sin.’ + +‘I can see, dear, how it might be read as a reproof.’ + +Their exchange of sentences followed meditative pauses; Dorothea +leading. + +‘To one so sensitive as Victor!’ + +‘A month or two of our society for the child!’ + +‘It is not the length of time.’ + +‘The limitation assures against maternal claims.’ + +‘She would not dare.’ + +‘He used the words: “her serious respect” for us. I should not wish to +listen to him often.’ + +‘We listen to a higher.’ + +‘It may really be, that the child is like him.’ + +‘Not resembling Mr. Stuart Rem’s Clementina!’ + +‘A week of that child gave us our totally sleepless night.’ ‘One thinks +more hopefully of a child of Victor’s.’ + +‘He would preponderate.’ + +‘He would.’ + +They sighed; but it was now with the relief of a lightened oppression. + +‘If, dear, in truth the father’s look is in the child, he has the +greater reason to desire for her a taste of our atmosphere.’ + +‘Do not pursue it. Sleep.’ + +‘One prayer!’ + +‘Your mention of our atmosphere, dear, destroys my power to frame one. +Do you, for two. But I would cleanse my heart.’ + +‘There is none purer.’ + +‘Hush.’ + +Virginia spoke a more fervent word of praise of her sister, and had not +the hushing response to it. She heard the soft regular breathing. Her +own was in downy fellowship with it a moment later. + +At the hour of nine, in genial daylight, sitting over the crumbs of his +hotel breakfast, Victor received a little note that bore the handwriting +of Dorothea Duvidney. + + ‘Dear Victor, we are prepared to receive the child for a month. + In haste, before your train. Our love. D. and V.’ + +His face flashed out of cloud. + +A more precious document had never been handed to him. It chased back to +midnight the doubt hovering over his belief in himself;--phrased to +say, that he was no longer the Victor Radnor known to the world. And it +extinguished a corpse-like recollection of a baleful dream in the night. +Here shone radiant witness of his being the very man; save for the spot +of his recent confusion in distinguishing his identity or in feeling +that he stood whole and solid.--Because of two mature maiden ladies? +Yes, because of two maiden ladies, my good fellow. And friend Colney, +you know the ladies, and what the getting round them for one’s purposes +really means. + +The sprite of Colney Durance had struck him smartly overnight. Victor’s +internal crow was over Colney now. And when you have the optimist +and pessimist acutely opposed in a mixing group, they direct lively +conversations at one another across the gulf of distance, even of +time. For a principle is involved, besides the knowledge of the other’s +triumph or dismay. The couple are scales of a balance; and not before +last night had Victor ever consented to think of Colney ascending while +he dropped low to graze the pebbles. + +He left his hotel for the station, singing the great aria of the fourth +Act of the Favorita: neglected since that mighty German with his +Rienzi, and Tannhauser, and Tristan and Isolda, had mastered him, to +the displacement of his boyhood’s beloved sugary -inis and -antes +and-zettis; had clearly mastered, not beguiled, him; had wafted him up +to a new realm, invigorating if severer. But now his youth would have +its voice. He travelled up to town with Sir Abraham Quatley and talked, +and took and gave hints upon City and Commercial affairs, while the +honeyed Italian of the conventional, gloriously animal, stress and +flutter had a revel in his veins, now and then mutedly ebullient at the +mouth: honeyed, golden, rich in visions;--having surely much more of +Nature’s encouragement to her children? + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV. NESTA’S ENGAGEMENT + +A word in his ear from Fenellan, touching that man Blathenoy, set the +wheels of Victor’s brain at work upon his defences, for a minute, on +the walk Westward. Who knew?--who did not know! He had a torpid +consciousness that he cringed to the world, with an entreaty to the +great monster to hold off in ignorance; and the next instant, he had +caught its miserable spies by the lurcher neck and was towering. He +dwelt on his contempt of them, to curtain the power they could stir. + +‘The little woman, you say, took to Dartrey?’ + +Fenellan, with the usual apologetic moderation of a second statement, +thought ‘there was the look of it.’ + +‘Well, we must watch over her. Dartrey!--but Dartrey’s an honest fellow +with women. But men are men. Very few men spare a woman when the mad fit +is on her. A little woman-pretty little woman!--wife to Jacob Blathenoy! +She mustn’t at her age have any close choosing--under her hand. And +Dartrey’s just the figure to strike a spark in a tinder-box head.’ + +‘With a husband who’d reduce Minerva’s to tinder, after a month of him!’ + +‘He spent his honeymoon at his place at Wrensham; told me so.’ Blathenoy +had therefore then heard of the building of Lakelands by the Victor +Radnor of the City; and had then, we guess--in the usual honeymoon +boasting of a windbag with his bride--wheezed the foul gossip, to hide +his emptiness and do duty for amusement of the pretty little caged bird. +Probably so. But Victor knew that Blathenoy needed him and feared +him. Probably the wife had been enjoined to keep silence; for the +Blachingtons, Fannings and others were, it could be sworn, blank and +unscratched folio sheets on the subject:--as yet; unless Mrs. Burman had +dropped venom. + +‘One pities the little woman, eh, Fenellan?’ + +‘Dartrey won’t be back for a week or so; and they’re off to Switzerland, +after the dinner they give. I heard from him this morning; one of the +Clanconans is ill. + +‘Lucky. But wherever Blathenoy takes her, he must be the same “arid +bore,” as old Colney says.’ + +‘A domestic simoom,’ said Fenellan, booming it: and Victor had a +shudder. + +‘Awful thing, marriage, to some women! We chain them to that domestic +round; most of them haven’t the means of independence or a chance of +winning it; and all that’s open to them, if they’ve made a bad cast for +a mate--and good Lord! how are they to know before it’s too late!--they +haven’t a choice except to play tricks or jump to the deuce or sit and +“drape in blight,” as Colney has it; though his notion of the optional +marriages, broken or renewed every seven years!--if he means it. You +never know, with him. It sounds like another squirt of savage irony. +It’s donkey nonsense, eh?’ + +‘The very hee-haw of nonsense,’ Fenellan acquiesced. + +‘Come, come; read your Scriptures; donkeys have shown wisdom,’ Victor +said, rather leaning to the theme of a fretfulness of women in the legal +yoke. ‘They’re donkeys till we know them for prophets. Who can tell! +Colney may be hailed for one fifty years hence.’ + +Fenellan was not invited to enter the house, although the loneliness +of his lodgeings was known, and also, that he played whist at his Club. +Victor had grounds for turning to him at the door and squeezing his +hand warmly, by way of dismissal. In ascribing them to a weariness at +Fenellan’s perpetual acquiescence, he put the cover on them, and he +stamped it with a repudiation of the charge, that Colney’s views upon +the great Marriage Question were the ‘very hee-haw of nonsense.’ They +were not the hee-haw; in fact, viewing the host of marriages, they were +for discussion; there was no bray about them. He could not feel them to +be absurd while Mrs. Burman’s tenure of existence barred the ceremony. +Anything for a phrase! he murmured of Fenellan’s talk; calling him, Dear +old boy, to soften the slight. + +Nataly had not seen Fenellan or heard from Dartrey; so she continued to +be uninformed of her hero’s release; and that was in the order of happy +accidents. She had hardly to look her interrogation for the news; it +radiated. But he stated such matter-of-course briefly. ‘The good ladies +are ready to receive our girl.’ + +Her chagrin resolved to a kind of solace of her draggled pride, in the +idea, that he who tamed everybody to submission, might well have command +of her. + +The note, signed D. and V., was shown. + +There stood the words. And last night she had been partly of the opinion +of Colney Durance. She sank down among the unreasoning abject;--not this +time with her perfect love of him, but with a resistance and a dubiety +under compression. For she had not quite comprehended why Nesta should +go. This readiness of the Duvidney ladies to receive the girl, stopped +her mental inquiries. + +She begged for a week’s delay; ‘before the parting’; as her dear old +silly mother’s pathos whimpered it, of the separation for a month! and +he smiled and hummed pleasantly at any small petition, thinking her in +error to expect Dartrey’s return to town before the close of a week; and +then wondering at women, mildly denouncing in his heart the mothers who +ran risk of disturbing their daughters’ bosoms with regard to particular +heroes married or not. Dartrey attracted women: he was one of the men +who do it without effort. Victor’s provident mind blamed the mother for +the indiscreetness of her wish to have him among them. But Dudley had +been making way bravely of late; he improved; he began to bloom, like a +Spring flower of the garden protected from frosts under glass; and Fredi +was the sheltering and nourishing bestower of the lessons. One could +see, his questions and other little points revealed, that he had a +certain lover’s dread of Dartrey Fenellan; a sort of jealousy: Victor +understood the feeling. To love a girl, who has her ideal of a man +elsewhere in another; though she may know she never can wed the man, and +has not the hope of it; is torment to the lover quailing, as we do in +this terrible season of the priceless deliciousness, stripped against +all the winds that blow; skinless at times. One gets up a sympathy for +the poor shy dependent shivering lover. Nevertheless, here was young +Dudley waking, visibly becoming bolder. As in the flute-duets, he gained +fire from concert. The distance between Cronidge and Moorsedge was two +miles and a quarter. + +Instead of the delay of a whole week, Victor granted four days, which +embraced a musical evening at Mrs. John Cormyn’s on the last of the +days, when Nesta was engaged to sing with her mother a duet of her own +composition, the first public fruit of her lessons in counterpoint from +rigid Herr Strauscher, who had said what he had said, in letting it +pass: eulogy, coming from him. So Victor heard, and he doated am the +surprise to come for him, in a boyish anticipation. The girl’s little +French ballads under tutelage of Louise de Seilles promised, though they +were imitative. If Strauscher let this pass... Victor saw Grand Opera +somewhere to follow; England’s claim to be a creative musical nation +vindicated; and the genius of the fair sex as well. + +He heard the duet at Mrs. Cormyn’s; and he imagined a hearing of +his Fredi’s Opera, and her godmother’s delight in it; the once famed +Sanfredini’s consent to be the diva at a rehearsal, and then her +compelling her hidalgo duque to consent further: an event not +inconceivable. For here was downright genius; the flowering aloe of the +many years in formation; and Colney admitted the song to have a streak +of genius; though he would pettishly and stupidly say, that our modern +newspaper Press is able now to force genius for us twenty or so to the +month, excluding Sundays-our short pauses for the incubation of it. Real +rare genius was in that song, nothing forced; and exquisite melody; one +of those melodies which fling gold chains about us and lead us off, lead +us back into Eden. Victor hummed at bars of it on the drive homeward. +His darlings had to sing it again in the half-lighted drawing-room. +The bubble-happiness of the three was vexed only by tidings heard from +Colney during the evening of a renewed instance of Skepsey’s misconduct. +Priscilla Graves had hurried away to him at the close of Mr. John +Cormyn’s Concert, in consequence; in grief and in sympathy. Skepsey was +to appear before the magistrate next morning, for having administered +physical chastisement to his wife during one of her fits of drunkenness. +Colney had seen him. His version of the story was given, however, in the +objectionable humorous manner: none could gather from it of what might +be pleaded for Skepsey. His ‘lesson to his wife in the art of pugilism, +before granting her Captain’s rank among the Defensive Amazons of Old +England,’ was the customary patent absurdity. But it was odd, that +Skepsey always preferred his appeal for help to Colney Durance. Nesta +proposed following Priscilla that night. She had hinted her wish, on the +way home; she was urgent, beseeching, when her father lifted praises +of her: she had to start with her father by the train at seven in the +morning, and she could not hear of poor Skepsey for a number of hours. +She begged a day’s delay; which would enable her, she said, to join them +in dining at the Blachingtons’, and seeing dear Lakelands again. ‘I was +invited, you know.’ She spoke in childish style, and under her eyes she +beheld her father and mother exchange looks. He had a fear that Nataly +might support the girl’s petition. Nataly read him to mean, possible +dangers among the people at Wrensham. She had seemed hesitating. After +meeting Victor’s look, her refusal was firm. She tried to make it one of +distress for the use of the hard word to her own dear girl. Nesta spied +beneath. + +But what was it? There was a reason for her going! She had a right to +stay, and see and talk with Captain Dartrey, and she was to be deported! + +So now she set herself to remember little incidents at Creckholt: +particularly a conversation in a very young girl’s hearing, upon Sir +Humphrey and Lady Pottil’s behaviour to the speakers, her parents. She +had then, and she now had, an extraordinary feeling, as from a wind +striking upon soft summer weather off regions of ice, that she was in +her parents’ way. How? The feeling was irrational; it could give her +no reply, or only the multitudinous which are the question violently +repeated. She slept on it. + +She and her father breakfasted by the London birds’ first twitter. +They talked of Skepsey. She spoke of her going as exile. ‘No,’ said he, +‘you’re sure to meet friends.’ + +Her cheeks glowed. It came wholly through the suddenness of the +recollection, that the family-seat of one among the friends was near the +Wells. + +He was allowed to fancy, as it suited him to fancy, that a vivid secret +pleasure laid the colour on those ingenuous fair cheeks. + +‘A solitary flute for me, for a month! I shall miss my sober comrade: +got the habit of duetting: and he’s gentle, bears with me.’ + +Tears lined her eyelids. ‘Who would not be, dearest dada! But there is +nothing to bear except the honour.’ + +‘You like him? You and I always have the same tastes, Fredi.’ + +Now there was a reddening of the sun at the mount; all the sky aflame. +How could he know that it was not the heart in the face! She reddened +because she had perused his wishes; had detected a scheme striking off +from them, and knew a man to be the object of it; and because she had at +the same time the sense of a flattery in her quick divination; and she +was responsively emotional, her blood virginal; often it was a tropical +lightning. + +It looked like the heart doing rich painter’s work on maiden features. +Victor was naturally as deceived as he wished to be. + +From his being naturally so, his remarks on Dudley had an air of +embracing him as one of the family. ‘His manner to me just hits me.’ + +‘I like to see him with you,’ she said. + +Her father let his tongue run: ‘One of the few young men I feel +perfectly at home with! I do like dealing with a gentleman. I can +confide in a gentleman: honour, heart, whatever I hold dearest.’ + +There he stopped, not too soon. The girl was mute, fully agreeing, +slightly hardening. She had a painful sense of separation from her dear +Louise. And it was now to be from her mother as well: she felt the pain +when kissing her mother in bed. But this was moderated by the prospect +of a holiday away out of reach of Mr. Barmby’s pursuing voice, whom her +mother favoured: and her mother was concealing something from her; +so she could not make the confidante of her mother. Nataly had no +forewarnings. Her simple regrets filled her bosom. All night she had +been taking her chastisement, and in the morning it seemed good to her, +that she should be denuded, for her girl to learn the felicity of having +relatives. + +For some reason, over which Nataly mused in the succeeding hours, the +girl had not spoken of any visit her mother was to pay to the Duvidney +ladies or they to her. Latterly she had not alluded to her mother’s +family. It might mean, that the beloved and dreaded was laying finger +on a dark thing in the dark; reading syllables by touch; keeping silence +over the communications to a mind not yet actively speculative, as it is +a way with young women. ‘With young women educated for the market, to +be timorous, consequently secretive, rather snaky,’ Colney Durance had +said. Her Nesta was not one of the ‘framed and glazed’ description, +cited by him, for an example of the triumph of the product; ‘exactly +harmonious with the ninny male’s ideal of female innocence.’ No; but +what if the mother had opened her heart to her girl? It had been of late +her wish or a dream, shaping hourly to a design, now positively to go +through that furnace. Her knowledge of Victor’s objection, restrained +an impulse that had not won spring enough to act against his counsel or +vivify an intelligence grown dull in slavery under him, with regard +to the one seeming right course. The adoption of it would have wounded +him--therefore her. She had thought of him first; she had also thought +of herself, and she blamed herself now. She went so far as to think, +that Victor was guilty of the schemer’s error of counting human +creatures arithmetically, in the sum, without the estimate of +distinctive qualities and value here and there. His return to a +shivering sensitiveness on the subject of his girl’s enlightenment +‘just yet,’ for which Nataly pitied and loved him, sharing it, with +humiliation for doing so, became finally her excuse. We must have some +excuse, if we would keep to life. + +Skepsey’s case appeared in the evening papers. He confessed, ‘frankly,’ +he said, to the magistrate, that, ‘acting under temporary exasperation, +he had lost for a moment a man’s proper self-command.’ He was as frank +in stating, that he ‘occupied the prisoner’s place before his Worship a +second time, and was a second time indebted to the gentleman, Mr. Colney +Durance, who so kindly stood by him.’ There was hilarity in the Court at +his quaint sententious envelopment of the idiom of the streets, which +he delivered with solemnity: ‘He could only plead, not in absolute +justification--an appeal to human sentiments--the feelings of a man of +the humbler orders, returning home in the evening, and his thoughts upon +things not without their importance, to find repeatedly the guardian +of his household beastly drunk, and destructive.’ Colney made the case +quite intelligible to the magistrate; who gravely robed a strain of the +idiomatic in the officially awful, to keep in tune with his delinquent. +No serious harm had been done to the woman. Skepsey was admonished and +released. His wife expressed her willingness to forgive him, now he had +got his lesson; and she hoped he would understand, that there was no +need for a woman to learn pugilism. Skepsey would have explained; but +the case was over, he was hustled out. + +However, a keen young reporter present smelt fun for copy; he followed +the couple; and in a particular evening Journal, laughable matter was +printed concerning Skepsey’s view of the pugilism to be imparted to +women for their physical-protection in extremity, and the distinction +of it from the blow conveying the moral lesson to them; his wife having +objected to the former, because it annoyed her and he pestered her; and +she was never, she said, ready to stand up to him for practice, as he +called it, except when she had taken more than he thought wholesome +for her: he had no sense. There was a squabble between them, because +he chose to scour away to his master’s office instead of conducting her +home with the honours. Nesta read the young reporter’s version, with +shrieks. She led the ladies of Moorsedge to discover amusement in it. + +At first, as her letter to her mother described them, they were like a +pair of pieces of costly China, with the settled smile, and cold. She +saw but the outside of them, and she continued reporting the variations, +which steadily determined the warmth. On the night of the third day, +they kissed her tenderly; they were human figures. + +No one could be aware of the trial undergone by the good ladies in +receiving her: Victor’s child; but, as their phrase would have run, +had they dared to give it utterance to one another, a child of sin. How +foreign to them, in that character, how strange, when she was looked on +as an inhabitant of their house, they hardly dared to estimate; until +the timorous estimation, from gradually swelling, suddenly sank; nature +invaded them; they could discard the alienating sense of the taint; and +not only did they no longer fear the moment when Mr. Stuart Rem or Mr. +Posterley might call for evening tea, but they consulted upon inviting +the married one of those gentlemen, to ‘divert dear Nesta.’ Every night +she slept well. In all she did, she proved she was ‘of the blood.’ She +had Victor’s animated eyes; she might have, they dreaded to think, +his eloquence. They put it down to his eloquence entirely, that their +resistance to his petition had been overcome, for similarly with the +treatment of the private acts of royal personages by lacquey History, +there is, in the minds of the ultra-civilized, an insistance, that +any event having a consequence in matters personal to them, be at all +hazards recorded with the utmost nicety in decency. By such means, they +preserve the ceremonial self-respect, which is a necessity of their +existence; and so they maintain the regal elevation over the awe-struck +subjects of their interiors; who might otherwise revolt, pull down, +scatter, dishonour, expose for a shallow fiction the holiest, the most +vital to them. A democratic evil spirit is abroad, generated among +congregations, often perilously communicating its wanton laughter to the +desperate wickedness they know (not solely through the monition of Mr. +Stuart Rem) to lurk within. It has to be excluded: on certain points +they must not think. The night of Tasso was darkly clouded in the minds +of the pure ladies: a rift would have seized their half-slumbering sense +of smell, to revive the night, perhaps disorder the stately march of +their intelligences. + +Victor’s eloquence, Victor’s influence, Victor’s child he carried them +as a floodstream, insomuch, that their reception of this young creature +of the blot on her birth, was regarded by them in the unmentioned +abstract, and the child’s presence upon earth seen with the indulgence +(without the naughty curiosity) of the loyal moral English for the +numerous offspring of the peccadillos of their monarchs. These things +pass muster from being ‘Britannically cocooned in the purple,’ says our +irreverent satirist; and the maiden ladies’ passion of devotion to ‘the +blood’ helped to blind them; but still more so did the imperious urgency +to curtain closely the night of Tasso, throwing all its consequences +upon Victor’s masterful tongue. Whence it ensued (and here is the danger +for illogical individuals as well as vast communities, who continue to +batten upon fiction when the convenience of it has taken the place of +pleasure), that they had need to exalt his eloquence, for a cloak to +their conduct; and doing it, they fell into a habit of yielding to him; +they disintegrated under him; rules, principles, morality, were shaken +to some confusion. And still proceeding thus, they now and then glanced +back, more wonderingly than convicted sinners upon their days of early +innocence, at the night when successfully they withstood him. They +who had doubted of the rightness of letting Victor’s girl come into +collision with two clerical gentlemen, one of whom was married, +permitted him now to bring the Hon. Dudley Sowerby to their house, and +make appointments to meet Mr. Dudley Sowerby under a roof that sheltered +a young lady, evidently the allurement to the scion of aristocracy; +of whose family Mr. Stuart Rem had spoken in the very kindling hushed +tones, proper to the union of a sacerdotal and an English citizen’s +veneration. + +How would it end? And if some day this excellent Mr. Dudley Sowerby +reproached them! He could not have a sweeter bride, one more truly a +lady in education and manners; but the birth! the child’s name! Their +trouble was emitted in a vapour of interjections. Very perplexing was it +for the good ladies of strict principles to reflect, as dimly they +did, that the concrete presence of dear Nesta silenced and overcame +objections to her being upon earth. She seemed, as it were, a draught of +redoubtable Nature inebriating morality. But would others be similarly +affected? Victor might get his release, to do justice to the mother: it +would not cover the child. Prize as they might the quality of the Radnor +blood (drawn from the most ancient of original Britain’s princes), there +was also the Cantor blood for consideration; and it was old, noble, +proud. Would it be satisfied in matching itself with great wealth, a +radiant health, and the good looks of a young flower? For the sake of +the dear girl, the ladies hoped that it would; and they enlarged the +outline of their wedding present, while, in their minds, the noble +English family which could be satisfied so, was lowered, partaking of +the taint they had personally ceased to recognize. + +Of one thing they were sure, and it enlisted them: the gentleman loved +the girl. Her love of him, had it been prominent to view, would have +stirred a feminine sigh; not more, except a feminine lecture to follow. +She was quite uninflamed, fresh and cool as a spring. His ardour had no +disguise. They measured him by the favourite fiction’s heroes of their +youth, and found him to gaze, talk, comport himself, according to the +prescription; correct grammar, finished sentences, all that is expected +of a gentleman enamoured; and ever with the watchful intentness for +his lady’s faintest first dawn of an inclining to a wish. Mr. Dudley +Sowerby’s eye upon Nesta was really an apprentice. There is in Love’s +young season a magnanimity in the male kind. Their superior strength +and knowledge are made subservient to the distaff of the weaker and +shallower: they crown her queen; her look is their mandate. So was it +when Sir Charles and Sir Rupert and the estimable Villiers Davenant +touched maidenly hearts to throb: so is it now, with the Hon. Dudley +Sowerby. + +Very haltingly, the ladies were guilty of a suggestion to Victor. ‘Oh! +Fredi?’ said he; ‘admires her, no doubt; and so do I, so we all do; +she’s one of the nice girls; but as to Cupid’s darts, she belongs to the +cucumber family, and he shoots without fireing. We shall do the mischief +if we put an interdict. Don’t you remember the green days when obstacles +were the friction to light that match?’ Their pretty nod of assent +displayed the virgin pride of the remembrance: they dreamed of having +once been exceedingly wilful; it refreshed their nipped natures; and +dwelling on it, they forgot to press their suggestion. Incidentally, +he named the sum his Fredi would convey to her husband; with, as was +calculable, the further amount his only child would inherit. A curious +effect was produced on them. Though they were not imaginatively +mercenary, as the creatures tainted with wealth commonly are, they +talked of the sum over and over in the solitude of their chamber. ‘Dukes +have married for less.’ Such an heiress, they said, might buy up a +Principality. Victor had supplied them with something of an apology to +the gentleman proposing to Nesta in their house. + +The chronicle of it is, that Dudley Sowerby did this on the fifteenth +day of September; and that it was not known to the damsel’s parents +before the twenty-third; as they were away on an excursion in South +Tyrol:--away, flown, with just a word of the hurried departure to their +envious, exiled girl; though they did not tell her of new constructions +at the London house partly causing them to fly. Subject to their +consent, she wrote, she had given hers. The letter was telegramic on the +essential point. She wrote of Mr. Barmby’s having visited Mr. Posterley +at the Wells, and she put it just as flatly. Her principal concern, to +judge by her writing, was, to know what Mr. Durance had done, during her +absence, with the group of emissary-advocates of the various tongues of +Europe on board the steam-Liner conducting them the first stage of their +journey to the Court of Japan. + +Mr. Simeon Fenellan had written his opinion, that all these delegates of +the different European nationalities were nothing other than dupes of +a New-York Syndicate of American Humorists, not without an eye on the +mainchance; and he was sure they would be set to debate publicly, before +an audience of high-priced tickets, in the principal North American +Cities, previous to the embarcation for Japan at San Francisco. Mr. +Fenellan eulogized the immense astuteness of Dr. Gannius in taking +his daughter Delphica with him. Dr. Gannius had singled forth poor Dr. +Bouthoin for the object of his attacks; but Nesta was chiefly anxious +to hear of Delphica’s proceedings; she was immensely interested in +Delphica, and envied her; and the girl’s funny speculations over the +play of Delphica’s divers arts upon the Greek, and upon the Russian, +and upon the English curate Mr. Semhians, and upon M. Falarique--set +Gallically pluming and crowing out of an Alsace-Lorraine growl--were +clever. Only, in such a letter, they were amazing. + +Nataly received it at Campiglio, when about to start for an excursion +down the Sarca Valley to Arco. Her letter of reply was delayed. One to +Victor from Dudley Sowerby, awaited them, on their return. ‘Confirms +Fredi,’ he said, showing it, and praising it as commendable, properly +fervid. She made pretence to read, she saw the words. + +Her short beat of wings was over. She had joined herself with Victor’s +leap for a change, thirsting for the scenery of the white peaks in +heaven, to enjoy through his enjoyment, if her own capacity was dead: +and she had found it revive, up to some recovery of her old songful +readiness for invocations of pleasure. Escape and beauty beckoned ahead; +behind were the chains. These two letters of the one fact plucked her +back. The chained body bore the fluttering spirit: or it was the spirit +in bonds, that dragged the body. Both were abashed before the image of +her girl. Out of the riddle of her strange Nesta, one thing was clear: +she did not love the man: and Nataly tasted gladness in that, from the +cup of poisonous regrets at the thought. Her girl’s heart would not +be broken. But if he so strongly loved her, as to hold to this +engagement?... It might then be worse. She dropped a plumb-line into the +young man, sounding him by what she knew of him and judged. She had to +revert to Nesta’s charm, for the assurance of his anchored attachment. + +Her holiday took the burden of her trouble, and amid the beauty of a +disenchanted scene, she resumed the London incubus. + +‘You told him of her being at the Wells? in the neighbourhood, Victor?’ + +‘Didn’t you know, my dear, the family-seat is Cronidge, two miles out +from the Wells?--and particularly pretty country.’ + +‘I had forgotten, if I ever heard. You will not let him be in +ignorance?’ + +‘My dear love, you are pale about it. This is a matter between men. I +write, thanking for the honour and so forth; and I appoint an interview; +and I show him my tablets. He must be told, necessarily. Incidents of +this kind come in their turn. If Dudley does not account himself the +luckiest young fellow in the kingdom, he’s not worthy of his good +fortune. I wish they were both here now, honeymooning among these peaks, +seeing the crescent over one, as we did last night!’ + +‘Have you an idea, in reading Nesta’s letter?’ + +‘Seems indifferent?--mere trick to hide the blushes. And I, too, I’m +interested in Delphica. Delphica and Falarique will be fine stage +business. Of course, Dr. Bouthoin and his curate!--we know what Old +England has to expect from Colney.’ + +‘At any rate, Mr. Durance hurts no one. You will, in your letter, +appoint the day of the interview?’ + +‘Hurts himself! Yes, dearest; appoint for--ten days homeward--eleventh +day from to-day. And you to Fredi: a bit of description--as you can, my +Nataly! Happy to be a dolomite, to be painted by Nataly’s pen.’ + +The sign is evil, when we have a vexatious ringing in the ear of some +small piece of familiar domestic chatter, and subject it to scrutiny, +hang on it, worry and magnify it. What will not creatures under sway +of the sensational life, catch at to emphasize and strengthen distaste, +until distaste shall have a semblance of reason, in the period of the +mind’s awakening to revolt! Nataly shrank from the name of dolomite, +detested the name, though the scenes regained their beauty or something +of it beneath her showery vision. Every time Victor spoke of dolomites +on the journey homeward, she had at heart an accusation of her +cowardice, her duplicity, frailty, treachery to the highest of her +worship and sole support of her endurance in the world: not much blaming +him: but the degrading view of herself sank them both. On a shifty soil, +down goes the idol. For him she could plead still, for herself she could +not. + +The smell of the Channel brine inspirited her sufficiently to cast off +the fit and make it seem, in the main, a bodily depression; owing to +causes, of which she was beginning to have an apprehensive knowledge: +and they were not so fearful to her as the gloom they displaced. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV. NATALY IN ACTION + +A ticket of herald newspapers told the world of Victor’s returning to +his London. Pretty Mrs. Blathenoy was Nataly’s first afternoon visitor, +and was graciously received; no sign of inquiry for the cause of the +lady’s alacrity to greet her being shown. Colney Durance came in, +bringing the rumour of an Australian cantatrice to kindle Europe; Mr. +Peridon, a seeker of tidings from the city of Bourges; Miss Priscilla +Graves, reporting of Skepsey, in a holiday Sunday tone, that his +alcoholic partner might at any moment release him; Mr. Septimus Barmby, +with a hanged heavy look, suggestive of a wharfside crane swinging the +ponderous thing he had to say. ‘I have seen Miss Radnor.’ + +‘She was well?’ the mother asked, and the grand basso pitched forth an +affirmative. + +‘Dear sweet girl she is!’ Mrs. Blathenoy exclaimed to Colney. + +He bowed. ‘Very sweet. And can let fly on you, like a haggis, for a +scratch.’ + +She laughed, glad of an escape from the conversational formalities +imposed on her by this Mrs. Victor Radnor’s mighty manner. ‘But what +girl worth anything!... + +We all can do that, I hope, for a scratch!’ + +Mr. Barmby’s Profession dissented. + +Mr. Catkin appeared; ten minutes after his Peridon. He had met Victor +near the Exchange, and had left him humming the non fu sogno of ERNANI. + +‘Ah, when Victor takes to Verdi, it’s a flat City, and wants a burst of +drum and brass,’ Colney said; and he hummed a few bars of the march in +Attila, and shrugged. He and Victor had once admired that blatancy. + +Mr. Pempton appeared, according to anticipation. He sat himself beside +Priscilla. Entered Mrs. John Cormyn, voluminous; Mrs. Peter Yatt, +effervescent; Nataly’s own people were about her and she felt at home. + +Mrs. Blathenoy pushed a small thorn into it, by speaking of Captain +Fenellan, and aside, as if sharing him with her. Nataly heard that +Dartrey had been the guest of these Blathenoys. Even Dartrey was but a +man! + +Rather lower under her voice, the vain little creature asked: ‘You knew +her?’ + +‘Her?’ + +The cool counter-interrogation was disregarded. ‘So sad! In the desert! +a cup of pure water worth more than barrow-loads of gold! Poor woman!’ + +‘Who?’ + +‘His wife.’ + +‘Wife!’ + +‘They were married?’ + +Nataly could have cried: Snake! Her play at brevity had certainly been +foiled. She nodded gravely. A load of dusky wonders and speculations +pressed at her bosom. She disdained to question the mouth which had +bitten her. + +Mrs. Blathenoy, resolving, that despite the jealousy she excited, she +would have her friend in Captain Fenellan, whom she liked--liked, she +was sure, quite as innocently as any other woman of his acquaintance +did, departed and she hugged her innocence defiantly, with the mournful +pride which will sometimes act as a solvent. + +A remark or two passed among the company upon her pretty face. + +Nataly murmured to Colney: ‘Is there anything of Dartrey’s wife?’ + +‘Dead,’ he answered. + +‘When?’ + +‘Months back. I had it from Simeon. You didn’t hear?’ + +She shook her head. Her ears buzzed. If he had it from Simeon Fenellan, +Victor must have known it. + +Her duties of hostess were conducted with the official smile. + +As soon as she stood alone, she dropped on a chair, like one who has +taken a shot in the heart, and that hideous tumult of wild cries at her +ears blankly ceased. Dartrey, Victor, Nesta, were shifting figures of +the might-have-been for whom a wretched erring woman, washed clean of +her guilt by death, in a far land, had gone to her end: vainly gone: and +now another was here, a figure of wood, in man’s shape, conjured up by +one of the three, to divide the two others; likely to be fatal to her +or to them: to her, she hoped, if the choice was to be: and beneath the +leaden hope, her heart set to a rapid beating, a fainter, a chill at the +core. + +She snatched for breath. She shut her eyes, and with open lips, lay +waiting; prepared to thank the kindness about to hurry her hence, out of +the seas of pain, without pain. + +Then came sighs. The sad old servant in her bosom was resuming his +labours. + +But she had been near it--very near it? A gush of pity for Victor, +overwhelmed her hardness of mind. + +Unreflectingly, she tried her feet to support her, and tottered to +the door, touched along to the stairs, and descended them, thinking +strangely upon such a sudden weakness of body, when she would no longer +have thought herself the weak woman. Her aim was to reach the library. +She sat on the stairs midway, pondering over the length of her +journey: and now her head was clearer; for she was travelling to get +Railway-guides, and might have had them from the hands of a footman, and +imagined that she had considered it prudent to hide her investigation of +those books: proofs of an understanding fallen backward to the state of +infant and having to begin our drear ascent again. + +A slam of the kitchen stair-door restored her. She betrayed no infirmity +of footing as she walked past Arlington in the hall; and she was alive +to the voice of Skepsey presently on the door-steps. Arlington brought +her a note. + +Victor had written: ‘My love, I dine with Blathenoy in the City, at the +Walworth. Business. Skepsey for clothes. Eight of us. Formal. A thousand +embraces. Late.’ + +Skepsey was ushered in. His wife had expired at noon, he said; and he +postured decorously the grief he could not feel, knowing that a lady +would expect it of him. His wife had fallen down stone steps; she died +in hospital. He wished to say, she was no loss to the country; but +he was advised within of the prudence of abstaining from comment +and trusting to his posture, and he squeezed a drop of conventional +sensibility out of it, and felt improved. + +Nataly sent a line to Victor: ‘Dearest, I go to bed early, am tired. +Dine well. Come to me in the morning.’ + +She reproached herself for coldness to poor Skepsey, when he had gone. +The prospect of her being alone until the morning had been so absorbing +a relief. + +She found a relief also in work at the book of the trains. A walk to +the telegraph-station strengthened her. Especially after despatching +a telegram to Mr. Dudley Sowerby at Cronidge, and one to Nesta at +Moorsedge, did she become stoutly nerved. The former was requested to +meet her at Penhurst station at noon. Nesta was to be at the station for +the Wells at three o’clock. + +From the time of the flying of these telegrams, up to the tap of +Victor’s knuckle on her bed-room door next morning, she was not more +reflectively conscious than a packet travelling to its destination by +pneumatic tube. Nor was she acutely impressionable to the features and +the voice she loved. + +‘You know of Skepsey?’ she said. + +‘Ah, poor Skepsey!’ Victor frowned and heaved. + +‘One of us ought to stand beside him at the funeral.’ + +‘Colney or Fenellan?’ + +‘I will ask Mr. Durance.’ + +‘Do, my darling.’ + +‘Victor, you did not tell me of Dartrey’s wife.’ + +‘There again! They all get released! Yes, Dartrey! Dartrey has his luck +too.’ + +She closed her eyes, with the desire to be asleep. + +‘You should have told me, dear.’ + +‘Well, my love! Well--poor Dartrey! I fancy I hadn’t a confirmation of +the news. I remember a horrible fit of envy on hearing the hint: not +much more than a hint: serious illness, was it?--or expected event. +Hardly worth while to trouble my dear soul, till certain. Anything about +wives, forces me to think of myself--my better self!’ + +‘I had to hear of it first from Mrs. Blathenoy.’ + +‘You’ve heard of duels in dark rooms:--that was the case between +Blathenoy and me last night for an hour.’ + +She feigned somnolent fatigue over her feverish weariness of heart. He +kissed her on the forehead. + +Her spell-bound intention to speak of Dudley Sowerby to him, was broken +by the sounding of the hall-door, thirty minutes later. She had lain in +a trance. + +Life surged to her with the thought, that she could decide and take +her step. Many were the years back since she had taken a step; less +independently then than now; unregretted, if fatal. Her brain was heated +for the larger view of things and the swifter summing of them. It could +put the man at a remove from her and say, that she had lived with him +and suffered intensely. It gathered him to her breast rejoicing in their +union: the sharper the scourge, the keener the exultation. But she had +one reproach to deafen and beat down. This did not come on her from the +world: she and the world were too much foot to foot on the antagonist’s +line, for her to listen humbly. It came of her quick summary survey of +him, which was unnoticed by the woman’s present fiery mind as being +new or strange in any way: simply it was a fact she now read; and +it directed her to reproach herself for an abasement beneath his +leadership, a blind subserviency and surrender of her faculties to his +greater powers, such as no soul of a breathing body should yield to man: +not to the highest, not to the Titan, not to the most Godlike of men. +Under cloak, they demand it. They demand their bane. + +And Victor!... She had seen into him. + +The reproach on her was, that she, in her worship, had been slave, not +helper. Scarcely was she irreproachable in the character of slave. If it +had been utter slave! she phrased the words, for a further reproach. She +remembered having at times murmured, dissented. And it would have been +a desperate proud thought to comfort a slave, that never once had she +known even a secret opposition to the will of her lord. + +But she had: she recalled instances. Up they rose; up rose everything +her mind ranged over, subsiding immediately when the service was done. +She had not conceived her beloved to be infallible, surest of guides in +all earthly-matters. Her intellect had sometimes protested. + +What, then, had moved her to swamp it? + +Her heart answered. And that heart also was arraigned: and the heart’s +fleshly habitation acting on it besides: so flagellant of herself was +she: covertly, however, and as the chaste among women can consent to let +our animal face them. Not grossly, still perceptibly to her penetrative +hard eye on herself, she saw the senses of the woman under a charm. She +saw, and swam whirling with a pang of revolt from her personal being and +this mortal kind. + +Her rational intelligence righted her speedily. She could say in truth, +by proof, she loved the man: nature’s love, heart’s love, soul’s love. +She had given him her life. + +It was a happy cross-current recollection, that the very beginning and +spring of this wild cast of her life, issued from something he said and +did (merest of airy gestures) to signify the blessing of life--how good +and fair it is. A drooping mood in her had been struck; he had a look +like the winged lyric up in blue heavens: he raised the head of the +young flower from its contemplation of grave-mould. That was when he +had much to bear: Mrs. Burman present: and when the stranger in their +household had begun to pity him and have a dread of her feelings. The +lucent splendour of his eyes was memorable, a light above the rolling +oceans of Time. + +She had given him her life, little aid. She might have closely +counselled, wound in and out with his ideas. Sensible of capacity, she +confessed to the having been morally subdued, physically as well; swept +onward; and she was arrested now by an accident, like a waif of the +river-floods by the dip of a branch. Time that it should be! But was not +Mr. Durance, inveighing against the favoured system for the education of +women, right when he declared them to be unfitted to speak an opinion +on any matter external to the household or in a crisis of the household? +She had not agreed with him: he presented stinging sentences, which +irritated more than they enlightened. Now it seemed to her, that the +model women of men make pleasant slaves, not true mates: they lack the +worldly training to know themselves or take a grasp of circumstances. + +There is an exotic fostering of the senses for women, not the +strengthening breath of vital common air. If good fortune is with them, +all may go well: the stake of their fates is upon the perpetual smooth +flow of good fortune. She had never joined to the cry of the women. Few +among them were having it in the breast as loudly. + +Hard on herself, too, she perceived how the social rebel had reduced +her mind to propitiate a simulacrum, reflected from out, of an enthroned +Society within it, by an advocacy of the existing laws and rules +and habits. Eminently servile is the tolerated lawbreaker: none so +conservative. Not until we are driven back upon an unviolated Nature, do +we call to the intellect to think radically: and then we begin to think +of our fellows. + +Or when we have set ourselves in motion direct for the doing of the +right thing: have quitted the carriage at the station, and secured the +ticket, and entered the train, counting the passage of time for a simple +rapid hour before we have eased heart in doing justice to ourself and to +another; then likewise the mind is lighted for radiation. That doing of +the right thing, after a term of paralysis, cowardice--any evil name--is +one of the mighty reliefs, equal to happiness, of longer duration. + +Nataly had it. But her mind was actually radiating, and the comfort +to her heart evoked the image of Dartrey Fenellan. She saw a possible +reason for her bluntness to the coming scene with Dudley. + +At once she said, No! and closed the curtain; knowing what was behind, +counting it nought. She repeated almost honestly her positive negative. +How we are mixed of the many elements! she thought, as an observer; and +self-justifyingly thought on, and with truth, that duty urged her upon +this journey; and proudly thought, that she had not a shock of the +painful great organ in her breast at the prospect at the end, or any +apprehension of its failure to carry her through. + +Yet the need of peace or some solace needed to prepare her for her +interview turned her imagination burningly on Dartrey. She would not +allow herself to meditate over hopes and schemes:--Nesta free: Dartrey +free. She vowed to her soul sacredly--and she was one of those in whom +the Divinity lives, that they may do so--not to speak a word for the +influencing of Dudley save the one fact. Consequently, for a personal +indulgence, she mused; she caressed maternally the object of her musing; +of necessity, she excluded Nesta; but in tenderness she gave Dartrey a +fair one to love him. + +The scene was waved away. That one so loving him, partly worthy of him, +ready to traverse the world now beside him--who could it be other than +she who knew and prized his worth? Foolish! It is one of the hatefuller +scourges upon women whenever, a little shaken themselves, they muse upon +some man’s image, that they cannot put in motion the least bit of drama +without letting feminine self play a part; generally to develop into a +principal part... The apology makes it a melancholy part. + +Dartrey’s temper of the caged lion dominated by his tamer, served as +keynote for any amount of saddest colouring. He controlled the brute: +but he held the contempt of danger, the love of strife, the passion for +adventure; he had crossed the desert of human anguish. He of all men +required a devoted mate, merited her. Of all men living, he was the +hardest to match with a woman--with a woman deserving him. + +The train had quitted London. Now for the country, now for free +breathing! She who two days back had come from Alps, delighted in the +look on flat green fields. It was under the hallucination of her saying +in flight adieu to them, and to England; and, that somewhere hidden, to +be found in Asia, Africa, America, was the man whose ideal of life was +higher than enjoyment. His caged brute of a temper offered opportunities +for delicious petting; the sweetest a woman can bestow: it lifts her +out of timidity into an adoration still palpitatingly fearful. Ah, but +familiarity, knowledge, confirmed assurance of his character, lift her +to another stage, above the pleasures. May she not prove to him how +really matched with him she is, to disdain the pleasures, cheerfully +accept the burdens, meet death, if need be; readily face it as the +quietly grey to-morrow: at least, show herself to her hero for a +woman--the incredible being to most men--who treads the terrors as well +as the pleasures of humanity beneath her feet, and may therefore have +some pride in her stature. Ay, but only to feel the pride of standing +not so shamefully below his level beside him. + +Woods were flying past the carriage-windows. Her solitary companion +was of the class of the admiring gentlemen. Presently he spoke. She +answered. He spoke again. Her mouth smiled, and her accompanying look of +abstract benevolence arrested the tentative allurement to conversation. + +New ideas were set revolving in her. Dartrey and Victor grew to +a likeness; they became hazily one man, and the mingled phantom +complimented her on her preserving a good share of the beauty of her +youth. The face perhaps: the figure rather too well suits the years! she +replied. To reassure her, this Dartrey-Victor drew her close and kissed +her; and she was confused and passed into the breast of Mrs. Burman +expecting an operation at the hands of the surgeons. The train had +stopped. ‘Penhurst?’ she said. + +‘Penhurst is the next station,’ said the gentleman. Here was a theme for +him! The stately mansion, the noble grounds, and Sidney! He discoursed +of them. + +The handsome lady appeared interested. She was interested also by his +description of a neighbouring village, likely one hundred years hence +to be a place of pilgrimage for Americans and for Australians. Age, he +said, improves true beauty; and his eyelids indicated a levelling to +perform the soft intentness. Mechanically, a ball rose in her throat; +the remark was illuminated by a saying of Colney’s, with regard to his +countrymen at the play of courtship. No laughter came. The gentleman +talked on. + +All fancies and internal communications left her. Slowness of motion +brought her to the plain piece of work she had to do, on a colourless +earth, that seemed foggy; but one could see one’s way. Resolution is a +form of light, our native light in this dubious world. + +Dudley Sowerby opened her carriage-door. They greeted. + +‘You have seen Nesta?’ she said. + +‘Not for two days. You have not heard? The Miss Duvidneys have gone to +Brighton.’ + +‘They are rather in advance of the Season.’ + +She thanked him for meeting her. He was grateful for the summons. + +Informing the mother of his betrothed, that he had ridden over from +Cronidge, he speculated on the place to select for her luncheon, and +he spoke of his horse being led up and down outside the station. Nataly +inquired for the hour of the next train to London. He called to one of +the porters, obtained and imparted the time; evidently now, as shown by +an unevenness of his lifted brows, expecting news of some little weight. + +‘Your husband is quite well?’ he said, in affection for the name of +husband. + +‘Mr. Radnor is well; I have to speak to you; I have more than time.’ + +‘You will lunch at the inn?’ + +‘I shall not eat. We will walk.’ + +They crossed the road and passed under trees. + +‘My mother was to have called on the Miss Duvidneys. They left +hurriedly; I think it was unanticipated by Nesta. I venture... you +pardon the liberty... she allows me to entertain hopes. Mr. Radnor, I am +hardly too bold in thinking... I trust, in appealing to you... at least +I can promise! + +‘Mr. Sowerby, you have done my daughter the honour to ask her hand in +marriage.’ + +He said: ‘I have,’ and had much to say besides, but deferred: a blow was +visible. The father had been more encouraging to him than the mother. + +‘You have not known of any circumstance that might cause hesitation in +asking?’ + +‘Miss Radnor?’ + +‘My daughter:--you have to think of your family.’ + +‘Indeed, Mrs. Radnor, I was coming to London tomorrow, with the consent +of my family.’ + +‘You address me as Mrs. Radnor. I have not the legal right to the name.’ + +‘Not legal!’ said he, with a catch at the word. + +He spun round in her sight, though his demeanour was manfully rigid. + +‘Have I understood, madam...?’ + +‘You would not request me to repeat it. Is that your horse the man is +leading?’ + +‘My horse: it must be my horse.’ + +‘Mount and ride back. Leave me: I shall not eat. Reflect, by yourself. +You are in a position of one who is not allowed to decide by his +feelings. Mr. Radnor you know where to find.’ + +‘But surely, some food? I cannot have misapprehended?’ + +‘I cannot eat. I think you have understood me clearly.’ + +‘You wish me to go?’ + +‘I beg.’ + +‘It pains me, dear madam.’ + +‘It relieves me, if you will. Here is your horse.’ + +She gave her hand. He touched it and bent. He looked at her. A surge +of impossible questions rolled to his mouth and rolled back, with the +thought of an incredible thing, that her manner, more than her words, +held him from doubting. + +‘I obey you,’ he said. + +‘You are kind.’ + +He mounted horse, raised hat, paced on, and again bowing, to one of the +wayside trees, cantered. The man was gone; but not from Nataly’s vision +that face of wet chalk under one of the shades of fire. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI. IN WHICH WE SEE A CONVENTIONAL GENTLEMAN ENDEAVOURING TO +EXAMINE A SPECTRE OF HIMSELF + +Dudley rode back to Cronidge with his thunderstroke. It filled him, as +in those halls of political clamour, where explanatory speech is not +accepted, because of a drowning tide of hot blood on both sides. He +sought to win attention by submitting a resolution, to the effect, that +he would the next morning enter into the presence of Mr. Victor Radnor, +bearing his family’s feelings, for a discussion upon them. But the +brutish tumult, in addition to surcharging, encased him: he could not +rightly conceive the nature of feelings: men were driving shoals; he had +lost hearing and touch of individual men; had become a house of angrily +opposing parties. + +He was hurt, he knew; and therefore he supposed himself injured, though +there were contrary outcries, and he admitted that he stood free; he had +not been inextricably deceived. + +The girl was caught away to the thinnest of wisps in a dust-whirl. +Reverting to the father and mother, his idea of a positive injury, that +was not without its congratulations, sank him down among his disordered +deeper sentiments; which were a diver’s wreck, where an armoured livid +subtermarine, a monstrous puff-ball of man, wandered seriously light in +heaviness; trembling his hundredweights to keep him from dancing like +a bladder-block of elastic lumber; thinking occasionally, amid the +mournful spectacle, of the atmospheric pipe of communication with the +world above, whereby he was deafened yet sustained. One tug at it, and +he was up on the surface, disengaged from the hideous harness, joyfully +no more that burly phantom cleaving green slime, free! and the roaring +stopped; the world looked flat, foreign, a place of crusty promise. +His wreck, animated by the dim strange fish below, appeared fairer; it +winked lurefully when abandoned. + +The internal state of a gentleman who detested intangible metaphor as +heartily as the vulgarest of our gobblegobbets hate it, metaphor only +can describe; and for the reason, that he had in him just something +more than is within the compass of the language of the meat-markets. +He had--and had it not the less because he fain would not have +had--sufficient stuff to furnish forth a soul’s epic encounter between +Nature and Circumstance: and metaphor, simile, analysis, all the +fraternity of old lamps for lighting our abysmal darkness, have to be +rubbed, that we may get a glimpse of the fray. + +Free, and rejoicing; without the wish to be free; at the same time +humbly and sadly acquiescing in the stronger claim of his family +to pronounce the decision: such was the second stage of Dudley’s +perturbation after the blow. A letter of Nesta’s writing was in his +pocket: he knew her address. He could not reply to her until he had seen +her father: and that interview remained necessarily prospective until he +had come to his exact resolve, not omitting his critical approval of the +sentences giving it shape, stamp, dignity--a noble’s crest, as it were. + +Nesta wrote briefly. The apostrophe was, ‘Dear Mr. Sowerby.’ She +had engaged to send her address. Her father had just gone. The Miss +Duvidneys had left the hotel yesterday for the furnished house facing +the sea. According to arrangements, she had a livery-stable hack, and +had that morning trotted out to the downs with a riding-master and +company, one of whom was ‘an agreeable lady.’ + +He noticed approvingly her avoidance of an allusion to the ‘Delphica’ of +Mr. Durance’s incomprehensible serial story, or whatever it was; which, +as he had shown her, annoyed him, for its being neither fact nor fun; +and she had insisted on the fun; and he had painfully tried to see it +or anything of a meaning; and it seemed to him now, that he had been +humiliated by the obedience to her lead: she had offended by her harping +upon Delphica. However, here it was unmentioned. He held the letter out +to seize it in the large, entire. + +Her handwriting was good, as good as the writing of the most agreeable +lady on earth. Dudley did not blame her for letting the lady be deceived +in her--if she knew her position. She might be ignorant of it. And to +strangers, to chance acquaintances, even to friends, the position, of +the loathsome name, was not materially important. Marriage altered the +view. He sided with his family. + +He sided, edgeing away, against his family. But a vision of the earldom +coming to him, stirred reverential objections, composed of all which +his unstained family could protest in religion, to repudiate an alliance +with a stained house, and the guilty of a condonation of immorality. Who +would have imagined Mr. Radnor a private sinner flaunting for one of the +righteous? And she, the mother, a lady--quite a lady; having really +a sense of duty, sense of honour! That she must be a lady, Dudley +was convinced. He beheld through a porous crape, woven of formal +respectfulness, with threads of personal disgust, the scene, striking +him drearly like a distant great mansion’s conflagration across moorland +at midnight, of a lady’s breach of bonds and plunge of all for love. How +had it been concealed? In Dudley’s upper sphere, everything was exposed: +Scandal walked naked and unashamed-figurante of the polite world. But +still this lady was of the mint and coin, a true lady. Handsome now, +she must have been beautiful. And a comprehensible pride (for so would +Dudley have borne it) keeps the forsaken man silent up to death:... +grandly silent; but the loss of such a woman is enough to kill a man! +Not in time, though! Legitimacy evidently, by the mother’s confession, +cannot protect where it is wanted. Dudley was optically affected by a +round spot of the world swinging its shadow over Nesta. + +He pitied, and strove to be sensible of her. The effort succeeded so +well, that he was presently striving to be insensible. The former state, +was the mounting of a wall; the latter, was a sinking through a chasm. +There would be family consultations, abhorrent; his father’s agonized +amazement at the problem presented to a family of scrupulous principles +and pecuniary requirements; his mother’s blunt mention of the abominable +name--mediaevally vindicated in champions of certain princely families +indeed, but morally condemned; always under condemnation of the Church: +a blot: and handed down: Posterity, and it might be a titled posterity, +crying out. A man in the situation of Dudley could not think solely of +himself. The nobles of the land are bound in honour to their posterity. +There you have one of the prominent permanent distinctions between them +and the commonalty. + +His mother would again propose her chosen bride for him: Edith Averst, +with the dowry of a present one thousand pounds per annum, and prospect +of six or so, excluding Sir John’s estate, Carping, in Leicestershire; a +fair estate, likely to fall to Edith; consumption seized her brothers as +they ripened. A fair girl too; only Dudley did not love her; he wanted +to love. He was learning the trick from this other one, who had become +obscured and diminished, tainted, to the thought of her; yet not +extinct. Sight of her was to be dreaded. + +Unguiltily tainted, in herself she was innocent. That constituted the +unhappy invitation to him to swallow one half of his feelings, which +had his world’s blessing on it, for the beneficial enlargement and +enthronement of the baser unblest half, which he hugged and distrusted. +Can innocence issue of the guilty? He asked it, hopeing it might be +possible: he had been educated in his family to believe, that the laws +governing human institutions are divine--until History has altered them. +They are altered, to present a fresh bulwark against the infidel. His +conservative mind, retiring in good order, occupied the next rearward +post of resistance. Secretly behind it, the man was proud of having +a heart to beat for the cause of the besiegeing enemy, in the present +instance. When this was blabbed to him, and he had owned it, he +attributed his weakness to excess of nature, the liking for a fair +face.--Oh, but more! spirit was in the sweet eyes. She led him--she did +lead him in spiritual things; led him out of common circles of thought, +into refreshing new spheres; he had reminiscences of his having relished +the juices of the not quite obviously comic, through her indications: +and really, in spite of her inferior flimsy girl’s education, she could +boast her acquirements; she was quick, startlingly; modest, too, in +commerce with a slower mind that carried more; though she laughed +and was a needle for humour: she taught him at times to put away his +contempt of the romantic; she had actually shown him, that his expressed +contempt of it disguised a dread: as it did, and he was conscious of the +foolishness of it now while pursuing her image, while his intelligence +and senses gave her the form and glory of young morning. + +Wariness counselled him to think it might be merely the play of her +youth; and also the disposition of a man in harness of business, +exaggeratingly to prize an imagined finding of the complementary +feminine of himself. Venerating purity as he did, the question, whether +the very sweetest of pure young women, having such an origin, must not +at some time or other show trace of the origin, surged up. If he could +only have been sure of her moral exemption from taint, a generous +ardour, in reserve behind his anxious dubieties, would have precipitated +Dudley to quench disapprobation and brave the world under a buckler of +those monetary advantages, which he had but stoutly to plead with the +House of Cantor, for the speedy overcoming of a reluctance to receive +the nameless girl and prodigious heiress. His family’s instruction of +him, and his inherited tastes, rendered the aspect of a Nature stripped +of the clothing of the laws offensive down to devilish: we grant her +certain steps, upon certain conditions accompanied by ceremonies; and +when she violates them, she becomes visibly again the revolutionary +wicked old beast bent on levelling our sacredest edifices. An alliance +with any of her votaries, appeared to Dudley as an act of treason to his +house, his class, and his tenets. And nevertheless he was haunted by a +cry of criminal happiness for and at the commission of the act. + +He would not decide to be ‘precipitate,’ and the days ran their course, +until Lady Grace Halley arrived at Cronidge, a widow. Lady Cantor spoke +to her of Dudley’s unfathomable gloom. Lady Grace took him aside. + +She said, without preface: ‘You’ve heard, have you!’ + +‘You were aware of it?’ said he, and his tone was irritable with a +rebuke. + +‘Coming through town, for the first time yesterday. I had it--of all +men!--from a Sir Abraham Quatley, to whom I was recommended to go, about +my husband’s shares in a South American Railway; and we talked, and it +came out. He knows; he says, it is not generally known; and he likes, +respects Mr. Victor Radnor; we are to keep the secret. Hum? He had heard +of your pretensions; and our relationship, etc.: “esteemed” it--you know +the City dialect--his duty to mention, etc. That was after I had spied +on his forehead the something I wormed out of his mouth. What are you +going to do?’ + +‘What can I do!’ + +‘Are you fond of the girl?’ + +An attachment was indicated, as belonging to the case. She was not a +woman to whom the breathing of pastoral passion would be suitable; yet +he saw that she despised him for a lover; and still she professed to +understand his dilemma. Perplexity at the injustice of fate and persons +universally, put a wrinkled mask on his features and the expression +of his feelings. They were torn, and the world was torn; and what he +wanted, was delay, time for him to define his feelings and behold a +recomposed picture of the world. He had already taken six days. He +pleaded the shock to his family. + +‘You won’t have such a chance again,’ she said. Shrugs had set in. + +They agreed as to the behaviour of the girl’s mother. It reflected on +the father, he thought. + +‘Difficult thing to proclaim, before an engagement!’ Her shoulders were +restless. + +‘When a man’s feelings get entangled!’ + +‘Oh! a man’s feelings! I’m your British Jury for, a woman’s.’ + +‘He has married her?’ + +She declared to not knowing particulars. She could fib smoothly. + +The next day she was on the line to London, armed with the proposal of +an appointment for the Hon. Dudley to meet ‘the girl’s father.’ + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII. CONTAINS WHAT IS A SMALL THING OR A GREAT, AS THE SOUL OF +THE CHIEF ACTOR MAY DECIDE + +Skepsey ushered Lady Grace into his master’s private room, and +entertained her during his master’s absence. He had buried his wife, +he said: she feared, seeing his posture of the soaping of hands at one +shoulder, that he was about to bewail it; and he did wish to talk of it, +to show his modest companionship with her in loss, and how a consolation +for our sorrows may be obtained: but he won her approval, by taking +the acceptable course between the dues to the subject and those to his +hearer, as a model cab should drive considerate equally of horse and +fare. + +A day of holiday at Hampstead, after the lowering of the poor woman’s +bones into earth, had been followed by a descent upon London; and at +night he had found himself in the immediate neighbourhood of a public +house, noted for sparring exhibitions and instructions on the first +floor; and he was melancholy, unable quite to disperse ‘the ravens’ +flocking to us on such days: though, if we ask why we have to go out of +the world, there is a corresponding inquiry, of what good was our coming +into it; and unless we are doing good work for our country, the answer +is not satisfactory--except, that we are as well gone. Thinking which, +he was accosted by a young woman: perfectly respectable, in every way: +who inquired if he had seen a young man enter the door. She described +him, and reviled the temptations of those houses; and ultimately, as she +insisted upon going in to look for the young man and use her persuasions +to withdraw him from ‘that snare of Satan,’ he had accompanied her, and +he had gone upstairs and brought the young man down. But friends, or +the acquaintances they call friends, were with him, and they were ‘in +drink,’ and abused the young woman; and she had her hand on the young +man’s arm, quoting Scripture. Sad to relate of men bearing the name +of Englishmen--and it was hardly much better if they pleaded +intoxication!--they were not content to tear the young man from her +grasp, they hustled her, pushed her out, dragged her in the street. + +‘It became me to step to her defence: she was meek,’ said Skepsey. ‘She +had a great opinion of the efficacy of quotations from Scripture; she +did not recriminate. I was able to release her and the young man she +protected, on condition of my going upstairs to give a display of my +proficiency. I had assured them, that the poor fellows who stood against +me were not a proper match. And of course, they jeered, but they had +the evidence, on the pavement. So I went up with them. I was heavily +oppressed, I wanted relief, I put on the gloves. He was a bigger +man; they laughed at the little one. I told them, it depended upon a +knowledge of first principles, and the power to apply them. I will not +boast, my lady: my junior by ten years, the man went down; he went down +a second time; and the men seemed surprised; I told them, it was nothing +but first principles put into action. I mention the incident, for the +extreme relief it afforded me at the close of a dark day.’ + +‘So you cured your grief!’ said Lady Grace; and Skepsey made way for his +master. + +Victor’s festival-lights were kindled, beholding her; cressets on the +window-sill, lamps inside. + +‘Am I so welcome?’ There was a pull of emotion at her smile. ‘What with +your little factotum and you, we are flattered to perdition when we come +here. He has been proposing, by suggestion, like a Court-physician, +the putting on of his boxing-gloves, for the consolation of the +widowed:--meant most kindly! and it’s a thousand pities women haven’t +their padded gloves.’ + +‘Oh! but our boxing-gloves can do mischief enough. You have something to +say, I see.’ + +‘How do you see?’ + +‘Tusk, tush.’ + +The silly ring of her voice and the pathless tattle changed; she talked +to suit her laden look. ‘You hit it. I come from Dudley. He knows the +facts. I wish to serve you, in every way.’ + +Victor’s head had lifted. + +‘Who was it?’ + +‘No enemy.’ + +‘Her mother. She did rightly! + +‘Certainly she did,’ said Victor, and he thought that instantaneously of +the thing done. ‘Oh, then she spoke to him! She has kept it from me. +For now nearly a week--six days--I’ve seen her spying for something she +expected, like a face behind a door three inches ajar. She has not been +half alive; she refused explanations;--she was expecting to hear from +him, of him:--the decision, whatever it’s to be!’ + +‘I can’t aid you there,’ said Lady Grace. ‘He’s one of the unreadables. +He names Tuesday next week.’ + +‘By all means.’ + +‘She?’ + +‘Fredi?--poor Fredi!--ah, my poor girl, yes!--No, she knows nothing. +Here is the truth of it.--she, the legitimate, lives: they say she +lives. Well, then, she lives against all rules physical or medical, +lives by sheer force of will--it’s a miracle of the power of a human +creature to .... I have it from doctors, friends, attendants, they +can’t guess what she holds on, to keep her breath. All the happiness in +life!--if only it could benefit her. But it ‘s the cause of death to us. +Do you see, dear friend;--you are a friend, proved friend,’ he took her +hand, and held and pressed it, in great need of a sanguine response to +emphasis; and having this warm feminine hand, his ideas ran off with +it. ‘The friend I need! You have courage. My Nataly, poor dear--she can +endure, in her quiet way. A woman of courage would take her place beside +me and compel the world to do her homage, help;--a bright ready smile +does it! She would never be beaten. Of course, we could have lived under +a bushel--stifled next to death! But I am for light, air-battle, if you +like. I want a comrade, not a--not that I complain. I respect, pity, +love--I do love her, honour: only, we want something else--courage--to +face the enemy. Quite right, that she should speak to Dudley Sowerby. He +has to know, must know; all who deal closely with us must know. But see +a moment: I am waiting to see the impediment dispersed, which puts +her at an inequality with the world: and then I speak to all whom it +concerns--not before: for her sake. How is it now? Dudley will ask... +you understand. And when I am forced to confess, that the mother, +the mother of the girl he seeks in marriage, is not yet in that state +herself, probably at that very instant the obstacle has crumbled +to dust! I say, probably: I have information--doctors, friends, +attendants--they all declare it cannot last outside a week. But you are +here--true, I could swear! a touch of a hand tells me. A woman’s hand? +Well, yes: I read by the touch of a woman’s hand:--betrays more than her +looks or her lips!’ He sank his voice. ‘I don’t talk of condoling: if +you are in grief, you know I share it.’ He kissed her hand, and laid it +on her lap; eyed it, and met her eyes; took a header into her eyes, and +lost himself. A nip of his conscience moved his tongue to say: ‘As for +guilt, if it were known... a couple of ascetics--absolutely!’ But this +was assumed to be unintelligible; and it was merely the apology to his +conscience in communion with the sprite of a petticoated fair one who +was being subjected to tender little liberties, necessarily addressed +in enigmas. He righted immediately, under a perception of the +thoroughbred’s contempt for the barriers of wattled sheep; and caught +the word ‘guilt,’ to hide the Philistine citizen’s lapse, by relating +historically, in abridgement, the honest beauty of the passionate loves +of the two whom the world proscribed for honestly loving. There was no +guilt. He harped on the word, to erase the recollection of his first use +of it. + +‘Fiddle,’ said Lady Grace. ‘The thing happened. You have now to carry it +through. You require a woman’s aid in a social matter. Rely on me, for +what I can do. You will see Dudley on Tuesday? I will write. Be plain +with him; not forgetting the gilding, I need not remark. Your Nesta has +no aversion?’ + +‘Admires, respects, likes; is quite--is willing.’ + +‘Good enough beginning.’ She rose, for the atmosphere was heated, rather +heavy. ‘And if one proves to be of aid, you’ll own that a woman has her +place in the battle.’ + +The fair black-clad widow’s quick and singular interwreathing of the +evanescent pretty pouts and frowns dimpled like the brush of the wind +on a sunny pool in a shady place; and her forehead was close below his +chin, her lips not far. Her apparel was attractively mourning. + +Widows in mourning, when they do not lean over extremely to the Stygian +shore, with the complexions of the drugs which expedited the defunct +to the ferry, provoke the manly arm within reach of them to pluck their +pathetic blooming persons clean away from it. What of the widow who +visibly likes the living? Compassion; sympathy, impulse; and gratitude, +impulse again, living warmth; and a spring of the blood to wrestle +with the King of Terrors for the other poor harper’s half-night +capped Eurydice; and a thirst, sudden as it is overpowering; and the +solicitude, a reflective solicitude, to put the seal on a thing and call +it a fact, to the astonishment of history; and a kick of our naughty +youth in its coffin; all the insurgencies of Nature, with her colonel of +the regiment absent, and her veering trick to drive two vessels at the +cross of a track into collision, combine for doing that, which is very +much more, and which affects us at times so much less than did the +pressure of a soft wedded hand by our own elsewhere pledged one. On +the contrary, we triumph, we have the rich flavour of the fruit for our +pains; we commission the historian to write in hieroglyphs a round big +fact. + +The lady passed through the trial submitting, stiffening her shoulders, +and at the close, shutting her eyes. She stood cool in her blush, and +eyed him, like one gravely awakened. Having been embraced and kissed, +she had to consider her taste for the man, and acknowledge a neatness +of impetuosity in the deed; and he was neither apologizing culprit +nor glorying-bandit when it was done, but something of the lyric God +tempering his fervours to a pleased sereneness, not offering a renewal +of them. He glowed transparently. He said: ‘You are the woman to take +a front place in the battle!’ With this woman beside him, it was a +conquered world. + +Comparisons, in the jotting souvenirs of a woman of her class and set, +favoured him; for she disliked enterprising libertines and despised +stumbling youths; and the genial simple glow of his look assured her, +that the vanished fiery moment would not be built on by a dating master. +She owned herself. Or did she? Some understanding of how the other woman +had been won to the leap with him, was drawing in about her. She would +have liked to beg for the story; and she could as little do that as +bring her tongue to reproach. If we come to the den! she said to her +thought of reproach. Our semi-civilization makes it a den, where a scent +in his nostrils will spring the half-tamed animal away to wildness. And +she had come unanticipatingly, without design, except perhaps to get a +superior being to direct and restrain a gambler’s hand perhaps for the +fee of a temporary pressure. + +‘I may be able to help a little--I hope!’ she fetched a breath to say, +while her eyelids mildly sermonized; and immediately she talked of her +inheritance of property in stocks and shares. + +Victor commented passingly on the soundness of them, and talked of +projects he entertained:--Parliament! ‘But I have only to mention it at +home, and my poor girl will set in for shrinking.’ + +He doated on the diverse aspect of the gallant woman of the world. + +‘You succeed in everything you do,’ said she, and she cordially believed +it; and that belief set the neighbour memory palpitating. Success folded +her waist, was warm upon her lips: she worshipped the figure of Success. + +‘I can’t consent to fail, it’s true, when my mind is on a thing,’ Victor +rejoined. + +He looked his mind on Lady Grace. The shiver of a maid went over her. +These transparent visages, where the thought which is half design is +perceived as a lightning, strike lightning into the physically feebler. +Her hand begged, with the open palm, her head shook thrice; and though +she did not step back, he bowed to the negation, and then she gave him +a grateful shadow of a smile, relieved, with a startled view of how +greatly relieved, by that sympathetic deference in the wake of the +capturing intrepidity. + +‘I am to name Tuesday for Dudley?’ she suggested. + +‘At any hour he pleases to appoint.’ + +‘A visit signifies...’ + +‘Whatever it signifies!’ + +‘I’m thinking of the bit of annoyance.’ + +‘To me? Anything appointed, finds me ready the next minute.’ + +Her smile was flatteringly bright. ‘By the way, keep your City people +close about you: entertain as much as possible; dine them,’ she said. + +‘At home?’ + +‘Better. Sir Rodwell Blachington, Sir Abraham Quatley: and their wives. +There’s no drawing back now. And I will meet them.’ + +She received a compliment. She was on the foot to go. + +But she had forgotten the Tiddler mine. + +The Tiddler mine was leisurely mounting. Victor stated the figures; he +saluted her hand, and Lady Grace passed out, with her heart on the top +of them, and a buzz about it of the unexpected having occurred She had +her experiences to match new patterns in events; though not very many. +Compared with gambling, the game of love was an idle entertainment. +Compared with other players, this man was gifted. + +Victor went in to Mr. Inchling’s room, and kept Inchling from speaking, +that he might admire him for he knew not what, or knew not well what. +The good fellow was devoted to his wife. Victor in old days had called +the wife Mrs. Grundy. She gossiped, she was censorious; she knew--could +not but know--the facts; yet never by a shade was she disrespectful. He +had a curious recollection of how his knowledge of Inchling and his +wife being always in concert, entirely--whatever they might think +in private--devoted to him in action, had influenced, if it had not +originally sprung, his resolve to cast off the pestilential cloak +of obscurity shortening his days, and emerge before a world he could +illumine to give him back splendid reflections. Inchling and his wife, +it was: because the two were one: and if one, and subservient to him, +knowing all the story, why, it foreshadowed a conquered world. + +They were the one pulse of the married Grundy beating in his hand. So it +had been. + +He rattled his views upon Indian business, to hold Inchling silent, and +let his mind dwell almost lovingly on the good faithful spouse, who had +no phosphorescent writing of a recent throbbing event on the four walls +of his room. + +Nataly was not so generously encountered in idea. + +He felt and regretted this. He greeted her with a doubled +affectionateness. Her pitiable deficiency of courage, excusing a man for +this and that small matter in the thick of the conflict, made demands on +him for gentle treatment. + +‘You have not seen any one?’ she asked. + +‘City people. And you, my love?’ + +‘Mr. Barmby called. He has gone down to Tunbridge Wells for a week, to +some friend there.’ She added, in pain of thought: ‘I have seen Dartrey. +He has brought Lord Clanconan to town, for a consultation, and expects +he will have to take him to Brighton.’ + +‘Brighton? What a life for a man like Dartrey, at Brighton!’ + +Her breast heaved. ‘If I cannot see my Nesta there, he will bring her up +to me for a day: + +‘But, my dear, I will bring her up to you, if it is your wish to see +her.’ + +‘It is becoming imperative that I should.’ + +‘No hurry, no hurry: wait till the end of next week. And I must see +Dartrey, on business, at once!’ + +She gave the address in a neighbouring square. He had minutes to spare +before dinner, and flew. She was not inquisitive. + +Colney Durance had told Dartrey that Victor was killing her. She had +little animation; her smiles were ready, but faint. After her interview +with Dudley, there had been a swoon at home; and her maid, sworn to +secrecy, willingly spared a tender-hearted husband--so good a master. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII. MRS. MARSETT + +Little acts of kindness were not beyond the range of Colney Durance, +and he ran down to Brighton, to give the exiled Nesta some taste of +her friendly London circle. The Duvidney ladies knew that the dreaded +gentleman had a regard for the girl. Their own, which was becoming +warmer than they liked to think, was impressed by his manner of +conversing with her. ‘Child though she was,’ he paid her the compliment +of a sober as well as a satirical review of the day’s political +matter and recent publications; and the ladies were introduced, in +a wonderment, to the damsel Delphica. They listened placidly to a +discourse upon her performances, Japanese to their understandings. + +At New York, behold, another adventurous representative and advocate +of the European tongues has joined the party: Signor Jeridomani: a +philologer, of course; a politician in addition; Macchiavelli redivivus, +it seems to fair Delphica. The speech he delivers at the Syndicate +Delmonico Dinner, is justly applauded by the New York Press as a +masterpiece of astuteness. He appears to be the only one of the party +who has an eye for the dark. She fancies she may know a more widely +awake in the abstract. But now, thanks to jubilant Journals and Homeric +laughter over the Continent, the secret is out, in so far as the +concurrents are all unmasked and exposed for the edification of the +American public. Dr. Bouthoin’s eyebrows are up, Mr. Semhians disfigures +his name by greatly gaping. Shall they return to their Great Britain +indignant? Patriotism, with the sauce of a luxurious expedition at no +cost to the private purse, restrains them. Moreover, there is no sign of +any one of the others intending to quit the expedition; and Mr. Semhians +has done a marvel or two in the cricket-field: Old England looks up +where she can. What is painfully extraordinary to our couple, they find +in the frigid attitude of the Americans toward their ‘common tongue’; +together with the rumour of a design to despatch an American rival +emissary to Japan. + +Nesta listened, inquired, commented, laughed; the ladies could not have +a doubt that she was interested and understood. She would have sketches +of scenes between Delphica and M. Falarique, with whom the young +Germania was cleverly ingenuous indeed--a seminary Celimene; and between +Delphica and M. Mytharete, with whom she was archaeological, ravishingly +amoebaean of Homer. Dr. Gannius holds a trump card in his artless +daughter, conjecturally, for the establishment of the language of the +gutturals in the far East. He has now a suspicion, that the inventive M. +Falarique, melted down to sobriety by misfortune, may some day startle +their camp by the cast of more than a crow into it, and he is bent +on establishing alliances; frightens the supple Signor Jeridomani to +lingual fixity; eulogizes Football, with Dr. Bouthoin; and retracts, or +modifies, his dictum upon the English, that, ‘masculine brawn they have +in their bodies, but muscle they have not in their feminine minds’; +to exalt them, for a signally clean, if a dense, people: ‘Amousia, not +Alousia, is their enemy:’--How, when we have the noblest crop of poets? +‘You have never heartily embraced those aliens among you until you +learnt from us, that you might brag of them.’--Have they not endowed us +with the richest of languages? ‘The words of which are used by you, +as old slippers, for puns.’ Mr. Semhians has been superciliously +and ineffectively punning in foreign presences: he and his chief are +inwardly shocked by a new perception; What if, now that we have the +populace for paymaster, subservience to the literary tastes of the +populace should reduce the nation to its lowest mental level, and render +us not only unable to compete with the foreigner, but unintelligible to +him, although so proudly paid at home! Is it not thus that nations are +seen of the Highest to be devouring themselves? + +‘For,’ says Dr. Gannius, as if divining them, ‘this excessive and +applauded productiveness, both of your juvenile and your senile, in +your modern literature, is it ever a crop? Is it even the restorative +perishable stuff of the markets? Is it not rather your street-pavement’s +patter of raindrops, incessantly in motion, and as fruitful?’ Mr. +Semhians appeals to Delphica. ‘Genius you have,’ says she, stiffening +his neck-band, ‘genius in superabundance’:--he throttles to the +complexion of the peony:--‘perhaps criticism is wanting.’ Dr. Gannius +adds: ‘Perhaps it is the drill-sergeant everywhere wanting for an +unrivalled splendid rabble!’ + +Colney left the whole body of concurrents on the raised flooring of a +famous New York Hall, clearly entrapped, and incited to debate before +an enormous audience, as to the merits of their respective languages. +‘I hear,’ says Dr. Bouthoin to Mr. Semhians (whose gape is daily +extending), ‘that the tickets cost ten dollars!’ + +There was not enough of Delphicafor Nests. + +Colney asked: ‘Have you seen any of our band?’ + +‘No,’ she said, with good cheer, and became thoughtful, conscious of a +funny reason for the wish to hear of the fictitious creature disliked by +Dudley. A funny and a naughty reason, was it? Not so very naughty: but +it was funny; for it was a spirit of opposition to Dudley, without an +inferior feeling at all, such as girls should have. + +Colney brought his viola for a duet; they had a pleasant musical +evening, as in old days at Creckholt; and Nesta, going upstairs with the +ladies to bed, made them share her father’s amused view of the lamb +of the flock this bitter gentleman became when he had the melodious +instrument tucked under his chin. He was a guest for the night. Dressing +in the early hour, Nests saw him from her window on the parade, and soon +joined him, to hear him at his bitterest, in the flush of the brine. +‘These lengths of blank-faced terraces fronting sea!’ were the +satirist’s present black beast. ‘So these moneyed English shoulder +to the front place; and that is the appearance they offer to their +commercial God!’ He gazed along the miles of ‘English countenance,’ +drearily laughing. Changeful ocean seemed to laugh at the spectacle. +Some Orphic joke inspired his exclamation: ‘Capital!’ + +‘Come where the shops are,’ said Nesta. + +‘And how many thousand parsons have you here?’ + +‘Ten, I think,’ she answered in his vein, and warmed him; leading him +contemplatively to scrutinize her admirers: the Rev. Septimus; Mr. +Sowerby. + +‘News of our friend of the whimpering flute?’ + +‘Here? no. I have to understand you!’ + +Colney cast a weariful look backward on the ‘regiments of Anglo-Chinese’ +represented to him by the moneyed terraces, and said: ‘The face of a +stopped watch!--the only meaning it has is past date.’ + +He had no liking for Dudley Sowerby. But it might have been an allusion +to the general view of the houses. But again, ‘the meaning of it past +date,’ stuck in her memory. A certain face close on handsome, had a +fatal susceptibility to caricature. + +She spoke of her ‘exile’: wanted Skepsey to come down to her; moaned +over the loss of her Louise. The puzzle of the reason for the long +separation from her parents, was evident in her mind, and unmentioned. + +They turned on to the pier. + +Nesta reminded him of certain verses he had written to celebrate her +visit to the place when she was a child: + + ‘“And then along the pier we sped, + And there we saw a Whale + He seemed to have a Normous Head, + And not a bit of Tail!”’ + +‘Manifestly a foreigner to our shores, where the exactly inverse +condition rules,’ Colney said. + + ‘“And then we scampered on the beach, + To chase the foaming wave; + And when we ran beyond its reach + We all became more brave.”’ + +Colney remarked: ‘I was a poet--for once.’ + +A neat-legged Parisianly-booted lady, having the sea, winds very +enterprising with her dark wavy, locks and jacket and skirts, gave a cry +of pleasure and--a silvery ‘You dear!’ at sight of Nesta; then at sight +of one of us, moderated her tone to a propriety equalling the most +conventional. ‘We ride to-day?’ + +‘I shall be one,’ said Nesta. + +‘It would not be the commonest pleasure to me, if you were absent.’ + +‘Till eleven, then!’ + +‘After my morning letter to Ned.’ + +She sprinkled silvery sound on that name or on the adieu, blushed, +blinked, frowned, sweetened her lip-lines, bit at the underone, and +passed in a discomposure. + +‘The lady?’ Colney asked. + +‘She is--I meet her in the troop conducted by the riding-master: Mrs. +Marsett.’ + +‘And who is Ned?’ + +‘It is her husband, to whom she writes every morning. He is a captain in +the army, or was. He is in Norway, fishing.’ + +‘Then the probability is, that the English officer continues his +military studies.’ + +‘Do you not think her handsome, Mr. Durance?’ + +‘Ned may boast of his possession, when he has trimmed it and toned it a +little! + +‘She is different, if you are alone with her.’ + +‘It is not unusual,’ said Colney. + +At eleven o’clock he was in London, and Nesta rode beside Mrs. Marsett +amid the troop. + +A South-easterly wind blew the waters to shifty goldleaf prints of +brilliance under the sun. + +‘I took a liberty this morning, I called you “Dear” this morning,’ +the lady said. ‘It’s what I feel, only I have no right to blurt out +everything I feel, and I was ashamed. I am sure I must have appeared +ridiculous. I got quite nervous.’ + +‘You would not be ridiculous to me.’ + +‘I remember I spoke of Ned! + +‘You have spoken of him before.’ + +‘Oh! I know: to you alone. I should like to pluck out my heart and pitch +it on the waves, to see whether it would sink or swim. That’s a funny +idea, isn’t it! I tell you everything that comes up. What shall I +do when I lose you! You always make me feel you’ve a lot of poetry +ready-made in you.’ + +‘We will write. And you will have your husband then.’ + +‘When I had finished my letter to Ned, I dropped my head on it and +behaved like a fool for several minutes. I can’t bear the thought of +losing you!’ + +‘But you don’t lose me,’ said Nesta; ‘there is no ground for your +supposing that you will. And your wish not to lose me, binds me to you +more closely.’ + +‘If you knew!’ Mrs. Marsett caught at her slippery tongue, and she +carolled: ‘If we all knew everything, we should be wiser, and what a +naked lot of people we should be!’ + +They were crossing the passage of a cavalcade of gentlemen, at the end +of the East Cliff. One among them, large and dominant, with a playful +voice of brass, cried out: + +‘And how do you do, Mrs. Judith Marsett--ha? Beautiful morning?’ + +Mrs. Marsett’s figure tightened; she rode stonily erect, looked level +ahead. Her woman’s red mouth was shut fast on a fighting underlip. + +‘He did not salute you,’ Nesta remarked, to justify her for not having +responded. + +The lady breathed a low thunder: ‘Coward!’ + +‘He cannot have intended to insult you,’ said Nesta. + +‘That man knows I will not notice him. He is a beast. He will learn that +I carry a horsewhip.’ + +‘Are you not taking a little incident too much to heart?’ + +The sigh of the heavily laden came from Mrs. Marsett. + +‘Am I pale? I dare say. I shall go on my knees tonight hating myself +that I was born “one of the frail sex.” We are, or we should ride at the +coward and strike him to the ground. Pray, pray do not look distressed! +Now you know my Christian name. That dog of a man barks it out on the +roads. It doesn’t matter.’ + +‘He has offended you before?’ + +‘You are near me. They can’t hurt me, can’t touch me, when I think that +I ‘m talking with you. How I envy those who call you by your Christian +name!’ + +‘Nesta,’ said smiling Nesta. The smile was forced, that she might show +kindness, for the lady was jarring on her. + +Mrs. Marsett opened her lips: ‘Oh, my God, I shall be crying!--let’s +gallop. No, wait, I’ll tell you. I wish I could! I will tell you of that +man. That man is Major Worrell. One of the majors who manage to get to +their grade. A retired warrior. He married a handsome woman, above him +in rank, with money; a good woman. She was a good woman, or she would +have had her vengeance, and there was never a word against her. She must +have loved that--Ned calls him, full-blooded ox. He spent her money and +he deceived her.--You innocent! Oh, you dear! I’d give the world to have +your eyes. I’ve heard tell of “crystal clear,” but eyes like yours have +to tell me how deep and clear. Such a world for them to be in! I did +pray, and used your name last night on my knees, that you--I said +Nesta--might never have to go through other women’s miseries. Ah me! I +have to tell you he deceived her. You don’t quite understand.’ + +‘I do understand,’ said Nesta. + +‘God help you!--I am excited to-day. That man is poison to me. His wife +forgave him three times. On three occasions, that unhappy woman forgave +him. He is great at his oaths, and a big breaker of them. She walked +out one November afternoon and met him riding along with a notorious +creature. You know there are bad women. They passed her, laughing. And +look there, Nesta, see that groyne; that very one.’ Mrs. Marsett pointed +her whip hard out. ‘The poor lady went down from the height here; she +walked into that rough water look!--steadying herself along it, and +she plunged; she never came out alive. A week after her burial, Major +Worrell--I ‘ve told you enough.’ + +‘We ‘ll gallop now,’ said Nesta. + +Mrs. Marsett’s talk, her presence hardly less, affected the girl with +those intimations of tumult shown upon smooth waters when the great +elements are conspiring. She felt that there was a cause why she had to +pity, did pity her. It might be, that Captain Marsett wedded one who was +of inferior station,’ and his wife had to bear blows from cruel people. +The supposition seemed probable. The girl accepted it; for beyond it, as +the gathering of the gale masked by hills, lay a brewing silence. What? +She did not reflect. Her quick physical sensibility curled to some +breath of heated atmosphere brought about her by this new acquaintance: +not pleasant, if she had thought of pleasure: intensely suggestive of +our life at the consuming tragic core, round which the furnace pants. +But she was unreflecting, feeling only a beyond and hidden. + +Besides, she was an exile. Spelling at dark things in the dark, getting +to have the sight which peruses darkness, she touched the door of a +mystery that denied her its key, but showed the lock; and her life was +beginning to know of hours that fretted her to recklessness. Her friend +Louise was absent: she had so few friends--owing to that unsolved +reason: she wanted one, of any kind, if only gentle: and this lady +seemed to need her: and she flattered; Nesta was in the mood for +swallowing and digesting and making sweet blood of flattery. + +At one time, she liked Mrs. Marsett best absent: in musing on her, +wishing her well, having said the adieu. For it was wearisome to +hear praises of ‘innocence’; and women can do so little to cure that +‘wickedness of men,’ among the lady’s conversational themes; and ‘love’ +too: it may be a ‘plague,’ and it may be ‘heaven’: it is better left +unspoken of. But there were times when Mrs. Marsett’s looks and tones +touched compassion to press her hand: an act that had a pledgeing +signification in the girl’s bosom: and when, by the simple avoidance of +ejaculatory fervours, Mrs. Marsett’s quieted good looks had a shadow of +a tender charm, more pathetic than her outcries were. + +These had not always the sanction of polite usage: and her English +was guilty of sudden lapses to the Thameswater English of commerce +and drainage instead of the upper wells. But there are many uneducated +ladies in the land. Many, too, whose tastes in romantic literature +betray now and then by peeps a similarity to Nesta’s maid Mary’s. Mrs. +Marsett liked love, blood, and adventure. She had, moreover, a favourite +noble poet, and she begged Nesta’s pardon for naming him, and she would +not name him, and told her she must not read him until she was a married +woman, because he did mischief to girls. Thereupon she fell into one +of her silences, emerging with a cry of hate of herself for having ever +read him. She did not blame the bard. And, ah, poor bard! he fought his +battle: he shall not be named for the brand on the name. He has lit a +sulphur match for the lover of nature through many a generation; and to +be forgiven by sad frail souls who could accuse him of pipeing devil’s +agent to them at the perilous instant--poor girls too!--is chastisement +enough. This it is to be the author of unholy sweets: a Posterity +sitting in judgement will grant, that they were part of his honest +battle with the hypocrite English Philistine, without being dupe of the +plea or at all the thirsty swallower of his sugary brandy. Mrs. Marsett +expressed aloud her gladness of escape in never having met a man like +him; followed by her regret that ‘Ned’ was so utterly unlike; except +‘perhaps’--and she hummed; she was off on the fraternity in wickedness. + +Nesta’s ears were fatigued. ‘My mother writes of you,’ she said, to vary +the subject. + +Mrs. Marsett looked. She sighed downright: ‘I have had my dream of +a friend!--It was that gentleman with you on the pier! Your mother +objects?’ + +‘She has inquired, nothing more.’ + +‘I am not twenty-three: not as old as I should be, for a guide to you. +I know I would never do you harm. That I know. I would walk into that +water first, and take Mrs. Worrell’s plunge:--the last bath; a thorough +cleanser for a woman! Only, she was a good woman and didn’t want it, as +we--as lots of us do:--to wash off all recollection of having met a man! +Your mother would not like me to call you Nesta! I have never begged you +to call me Judith. Damnable name!’ Mrs. Marsett revelled in the heat of +the curse on it, as a relief to torture of the breast, until a sense of +the girl’s alarmed hearing sent the word reverberating along her nerves +and shocked her with such an exposure of our Shaggy wild one on a lady’s +lips. She murmured: ‘Forgive me,’ and had the passion to repeat the +epithet in shrieks, and scratch up male speech for a hatefuller; but the +twitch of Nesta’s brows made her say: ‘Do pardon me. I did something +in Scripture. Judith could again. Since that brute Worrell crossed me +riding with you, I loathe my name; I want to do things. I have offended +you.’ + +‘We have been taught differently. I do not use those words. Nothing +else.’ + +‘They frighten you.’ + +‘They make me shut; that is all.’ + +‘Supposing you were some day to discover... ta-tata, all the things +there are in the world.’ Mrs. Marsett let fly an artificial chirrup. +‘You must have some ideas of me.’ + +‘I think you have had unhappy experiences.’ + +‘Nesta... just now and then! the first time we rode out together, +coming back from the downs, I remember, I spoke, without thinking--I was +enraged--of a case in the newspapers; and you had seen it, and you were +not afraid to talk of it. I remember I thought, Well, for a girl, she’s +bold! I thought you knew more than a girl ought to know: until--you +did--you set my heart going. You spoke of the poor women like an angel +of compassion. You said, we were all mixed up with their fate--I forget +the words. But no one ever heard in Church anything that touched me so. +I worshipped you. You said, you thought of them often, and longed to +find out what you could do to help. And I thought, if they could +hear you, and only come near you, as I was--ah, my heaven! Unhappy +experiences? Yes. But when men get women on the slope to their +perdition, they have no mercy, none. They deceive, and they lie; they +are false in acts and words; they do as much as murder. They’re never +hanged for it. They make the Laws! And then they become fathers of +families, and point the finger at the “wretched creatures.” They have a +dozen names against women, for one at themselves.’ + +‘It maddens me at times to think...!’ said Nesta, burning with the sting +of vile names. + +Oh, there are bad women as well as bad men: but men have the power and +the lead, and they take advantage of it; and then they turn round and +execrate us for not having what they have robbed us of!’ + +‘I blame women--if I may dare, at my age,’ said Nesta, and her bosom +heaved. ‘Women should feel for their sex; they should not allow the +names; they should go among their unhappier sisters. At the worst, they +are sisters! I am sure, that fallen cannot mean--Christ shows it does +not. He changes the tone of Scripture. The women who are made outcasts, +must be hopeless and go to utter ruin. We should, if we pretend to be +better, step between them and that. There cannot be any goodness unless +it is a practiced goodness. Otherwise it is nothing more than paint on +canvas. You speak to me of my innocence. What is it worth, if it is only +a picture and does no work to help to rescue? I fear I think most of the +dreadful names that redden and sicken us.--The Old Testament!--I have a +French friend, a Mademoiselle Louise de Seines--you should hear her: she +is intensely French, and a Roman Catholic, everything which we are not: +but so human, so wise, and so full of the pride of her sex! I love +her. It is love. She will never marry until she meets a man who has +the respect for women, for all women. We both think we cannot separate +ourselves from our sisters. She seems to me to wither men, when she +speaks of their injustice, their snares to mislead and their cruelty +when they have succeeded. She is right, it is the--brute: there is no +other word.’ + +‘And French and good!’ Mrs. Marsett ejaculated. ‘My Ned reads French +novels, and he says, their women.... But your mademoiselle is a real +one. If she says all that, I could kneel to her, French or not. Does she +talk much about men and women?’ + +‘Not often: we lose our tempers. She wants women to have professions; at +present they have not much choice to avoid being penniless. Poverty, and +the sight of luxury! It seems as if we produced the situation, to create +an envious thirst, and cause the misery. Things are improving for them; +but we groan at the slowness of it.’ + +Mrs. Marsett now declared a belief, that women were nearly quite as bad +as men. ‘I don’t think I could take up with a profession. Unless to be a +singer. Ah! Do you sing?’ + +Nesta smiled: ‘Yes, I sing.’ + +‘How I should like to hear you! My Ned’s a thorough +Englishman--gentleman, you know: he cares only for sport; Shooting, +Fishing, Hunting; and Football, Cricket, Rowing, and matches. He’s +immensely proud of England in those things. And such muscle he has! +though he begins to fancy his heart’s rather weak. It’s digestion, I +tell him. But he takes me to the Opera sometimes--Italian Opera; he +can’t stand German. Down at his place in Leicestershire, he tells me, +when there ‘s company, he has--I’m sure you sing beautifully. When I +hear beautiful singing, even from a woman they tell tales of, upon my +word, it’s true, I feel my sins all melting out of me and I’m new-made: +I can’t bear Ned to speak. Would you one day, one afternoon, before the +end of next week?--it would do me such real good, you can’t guess how +much; if I could persuade you! I know I’m asking something out of rules. +For just half an hour: I judge by your voice in talking. Oh! it would do +me good-good-good to hear you sing. There is a tuned piano--a cottage; I +don’t think it sounds badly. You would not see any great harm in calling +on me? once!’ + +‘No,’ said Nesta. And it was her nature that projected the word. Her +awakened wits were travelling to her from a distance, and she had an +intimation of their tidings; and she could not have said what they +were; or why, for a moment, she hesitated to promise she would come. Her +vision of the reality of things was without written titles, to put the +stamp of the world on it. She felt this lady to be one encompassed +and in the hug of the elementary forces, which are the terrors to +inexperienced pure young women. But she looked at her, and dared trust +those lips, those eyes. She saw, through whatever might be the vessel, +the spirit of the woman; as the upper nobility of our brood are enabled +to do in a crisis mixed of moral aversion and sisterly sympathy, when +nature cries to them, and the scales of convention, the mud-spots of +accident, even naughtiness, even wickedness, all misfortune’s issue, if +we but see the one look upward, fall away. Reason is not excluded from +these blind throbs of a blood that strikes to right the doings of the +Fates. Nesta did not err in her divination of the good and the bad +incarnate beside her, though both good and bad were behind a curtain; +the latter sparing her delicate senses, appealing to chivalry, to the +simply feminine claim on her. Reason, acting in her heart as a tongue of +the flames of the forge where we all are wrought, told her surely that +the good predominated. She had the heart which is at our primal fires +when nature speaks. + +She gave the promise to call on Mrs. Marsett and sing to her. + +‘An afternoon? Oh! what afternoon?’ she was asked, and she said: ‘This +afternoon, if you like.’ + +So it was agreed: Mrs. Marsett acted violently the thrill of delight she +felt in the prospect. + +The ladies Dorothea and Virginia, consulted, and pronounced the name +of Marsett to be a reputable County name. ‘There was a Leicestershire +baronet of the name of Marsett.’ They arranged to send their +button-blazing boy at Nesta’s heels. Mrs. Marsett resided in a +side-street not very distant from the featureless but washed and orderly +terrace of the glassy stare at sea. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX. SHOWS ONE OF THE SHADOWS OF THE WORLD CROSSING A VIRGIN’S +MIND + +Nasta and her maid were brought back safely through the dusk by their +constellation of a boy, to whom the provident ladies had entrusted her. +They could not but note how short her syllables were. Her face was +only partly seen. They had returned refreshed from their drive on the +populous and orderly parade---so fair a pattern of their England!--after +discoursing of ‘the dear child,’ approving her manners, instancing +proofs of her intelligence, nay, her possession of ‘character.’ They did +so, notwithstanding that these admissions were worse than their +growing love for the girl, to confound established ideas. And now, in +thoughtfulness on her behalf, Dorothea said, ‘We have considered, Nesta, +that you may be lonely; and if it is your wish, we will leave our +card on your new acquaintance.’ Nesta took her hand and kissed it; she +declined, saying, ‘No,’ without voice. + +They had two surprises at the dinner-hour. One was the card of Dartrey +Fenellan, naming an early time next day for his visit; and the other was +the appearance of the Rev. Stuart Rem, a welcome guest. He had come to +meet his Bishop. + +He had come also with serious information for the ladies, regarding +the Rev. Abram Posterley. No sooner was this out of his mouth than both +ladies exclaimed: + +‘Again!’ So serious was it, that there had been a consultation at the +Wells; Mr. Posterley’s friend, the Rev. Septimus Barmby, and his own +friend, the Rev. Groseman Buttermore, had journeyed from London to sit +upon the case: and, ‘One hoped,’ Mr. Stuart Rem said, ‘poor Posterley +would be restored to the senses he periodically abandoned.’ He laid a +hand on Tasso’s curls, and withdrew it at a menace of teeth. Tasso would +submit to rough caresses from Mr. Posterley; he would not allow Mr. +Stuart Rem to touch him. Why was that? Perhaps for the reason of Mr. +Posterley’s being so emotional as perpetually to fall a victim to some +bright glance and require the rescue of his friends; the slave of woman +had a magnet for animals! + +Dorothea and Virginia were drawn to compassionate sentiments, in spite +of the provokeing recurrence of Mr. Posterley’s malady. He had not +an income to support a wife. Always was this unfortunate gentleman +entangling himself in a passion for maid or widow of the Wells and it +was desperate, a fever. Mr. Stuart Rem charitably remarked on his +taking it so severely because of his very scrupulous good conduct. +They pardoned a little wound to their delicacy, and asked: ‘On this +occasion?’ Mr. Stuart Rem named a linendraper’s establishment near the +pantiles, where a fair young woman served. ‘And her reputation?’ That +was an article less presentable through plate-glass, it seemed: Mr. +Stuart Rem drew a prolonged breath into his nose. + +‘It is most melancholy!’ they said in unison. ‘Nothing positive,’ said +he. ‘But the suspicion of a shadow, Mr. Stuart Rem! You will not +permit it?’ He stated, that his friend Buttermore might have influence. +Dorothea said: ‘When I think of Mr. Posterley’s addiction to ceremonial +observances, and to matrimony, I cannot but think of a sentence that +fell from Mr. Durance one day, with reference to that division of our +Church: he called it:--you frown! and I would only quote Mr. Durance +to you in support of your purer form, as we hold it to be--with the +candles, the vestments, Confession, alas! he called it, “Rome and a +wife.”’ + +Mr. Stuart Rem nodded an enforced assent: he testily dismissed mention +of Mr. Durance, and resumed on Mr. Posterley. + +The good ladies now, with some of their curiosity appeased, +considerately signified to him, that a young maiden was present. + +The young maiden had in heart stuff to render such small gossip a hum +of summer midges. She did not imagine the dialogue concerned her in any +way. She noticed Mr. Stuart Rem’s attentive scrutiny of her from time +to time. She had no sensitiveness, hardly a mind for things about her. +To-morrow she was to see Captain Dartrey. She dwelt on that prospect, +for an escape from the meshes of a painful hour--the most woeful of the +hours she had yet known-passed with Judith Marsett: which dragged her +soul through a weltering of the deeps, tossed her over and over, still +did it with her ideas. It shocked her nevertheless to perceive how much +of the world’s flayed life and harsh anatomy she had apprehended, and +so coldly, previous to Mrs. Marsett’s lift of the veil in her story +of herself: a skipping revelation, terrible enough to the girl; whose +comparison of the previously suspected things with the things now +revealed imposed the thought of her having been both a precocious and +a callous young woman: a kind of ‘Delphica without the erudition,’ her +mind phrased it airily over her chagrin.--And the silence of Dudley +proved him to have discovered his error in choosing such a person--he +was wise, and she thanked him. She had an envy of the ignorant-innocents +adored by the young man she cordially thanked for quitting her. She +admired the white coat of armour they wore, whether bestowed on them by +their constitution or by prudence. For while combating mankind now on +Judith Marsett’s behalf, personally she ran like a hare from the mere +breath of an association with the very minor sort of similar charges; +ardently she desired the esteem of mankind; she was at moments abject. +But had she actually been aware of the facts now known? + +Those wits of the virgin young, quickened to shrewdness by their budding +senses--and however vividly--require enlightenment of the audible and +visible before their sterner feelings can be heated to break them +away from a blushful dread and force the mind to know. As much as the +wilfully or naturally blunted, the intelligently honest have to learn by +touch: only, their understandings cannot meanwhile be so wholly obtuse +as our society’s matron, acting to please the tastes of the civilized +man--a creature that is not clean-washed of the Turk in him--barbarously +exacts. The signor aforesaid is puzzled to read the woman, who is +after all in his language; but when it comes to reading the maiden, she +appears as a phosphorescent hieroglyph to some speculative Egyptologer; +and he insists upon distinct lines and characters; no variations, if he +is to have sense of surety. Many a young girl is misread by the amount +she seems to know of our construction, history, and dealings, when it +is not more than her sincere ripeness of nature, that has gathered the +facts of life profuse about her, and prompts her through one or other of +the instincts, often vanity, to show them to be not entirely strange to +her; or haply her filly nature is having a fling at the social harness +of hypocrisy. If you (it is usually through the length of ears of +your Novelist that the privilege is yours) have overheard queer +communications passing between girls, and you must act the traitor +eavesdropper or Achilles masquerader to overhear so clearly, these, +be assured, are not specially the signs of their corruptness. Even the +exceptionally cynical are chiefly to be accused of bad manners. Your +Moralist is a myopic preacher, when he stamps infamy, on them, or on our +later generation, for the kick they have at grandmother decorum, because +you do not or cannot conceal from them the grinning skeleton behind it. + +Nesta once had dreams of her being loved: and she was to love in return +for a love that excused her for loving double, treble; as not her lover +could love, she thought with grateful pride in the treasure she was to +pour out at his feet; as only one or two (and they were women) in the +world had ever loved. Her notion of the passion was parasitic: man the +tree, woman the bine: but the bine was flame to enwind and to soar, +serpent to defend, immortal flowers to crown. The choice her parents had +made for her in Dudley, behind the mystery she had scent of, nipped her +dream, and prepared her to meet, as it were, the fireside of a November +day instead of springing up and into the dawn’s blue of full summer +with swallows on wing. Her station in exile at the Wells of the weariful +rich, under the weight of the sullen secret, unenlivened by Dudley’s +courtship, subdued her to the world’s decrees; phrased thus: ‘I am not +to be a heroine.’ The one golden edge to the view was, that she would +greatly please her father. + +Her dream of a love was put away like a botanist’s pressed weed. +But after hearing Judith Marsett’s wild sobs, it had no place in her +cherishing. For, above all, the unhappy woman protested love to have +been the cause of her misery. She moaned of ‘her Ned’; of his goodness, +his deceitfulness, her trustfulness; his pride and the vileness of his +friends; her longsuffering and her break down of patience. It was done +for the proof of her unworthiness of Nesta’s friendship: that she might +be renounced, and embraced. She told the pathetic half of her story, to +suit the gentle ear, whose critical keenness was lost in compassion. +How deep the compassion, mixed with the girl’s native respect for the +evil-fortuned, may be judged by her inaccessibility to a vulgar tang +that she was aware of in the deluge of the torrent, where Innocence and +Ned and Love and a proud Family and that beast Worrell rolled together +in leaping and shifting involutions. + +A darkness of thunder was on the girl. Although she was not one to +shrink beneath it like the small bird of the woods, she had to say +within herself many times, ‘I shall see Captain Dartrey to-morrow,’ for +a recovery and a nerving. And with her thought of him, her tooth was at +her underlip, she struggled abashed, in hesitation over men’s views of +her sex, and how to bring a frank mind to meet him; to be sure of his +not at heart despising; until his character swam defined and bright +across her scope. ‘He is good to women.’ Fragments of conversation, +principally her father’s, had pictured Captain Dartrey to her most +manfully tolerant toward a frivolous wife. + +He came early in the morning, instantly after breakfast. + +Not two minutes had passed before she was at home with him. His words, +his looks, revived her spirit of romance, gave her the very landscapes, +and new ones. Yes, he was her hero. But his manner made him also an +adored big brother, stamped splendid by the perils of life. He sat +square, as if alert to rise, with an elbow on a knee, and the readiest +turn of head to speakers, the promptest of answers, eyes that were a +brighter accent to the mouth, so vividly did look accompany tone. He +rallied her, chatted and laughed; pleased the ladies by laughing +at Colney Durance, and inspired her with happiness when he spoke of +England:--that ‘One has to be in exile awhile, to see the place she +takes.’ + +‘Oh, Captain Dartrey, I do like to hear you say so,’ she cried; his +voice was reassuring also in other directions: it rang of true man. + +He volunteered, however, a sad admission, that England had certainly +lost something of the great nation’s proper conception of Force: the +meaning of it, virtue of it, and need for it. ‘She bleats for a lesson, +and will get her lesson.’ + +But if we have Captain Dartrey, we shall come through! So said the +sparkle of Nesta’s eyes. + +‘She is very like her father,’ he said to the ladies. + +‘We think so,’ they remarked. + +‘There’s the mother too,’ said he; and Nesta saw that the ladies +shadowed. + +They retired. Then she begged him to ‘tell her of her own dear mother.’ +The news gave comfort, except for the suspicion, that the dear mother +was being worn by her entertaining so largely. ‘Papa is to blame,’ said +Nesta. + +‘A momentary strain. Your father has an idea of Parliament; one of the +London Boroughs.’ + +‘And I, Captain Dartrey, when do I go back to them?’ + +‘Your mother comes down to consult with you. And now, do we ride +together?’ + +‘You are free?’ + +‘My uncle, Lord Clan, lets me out.’ + +‘To-day?’ + +‘Why, yes!’ + +‘This morning?’ + +‘In an hour’s time.’ + +‘I will be ready.’ + +Nesta sent a line of excuse to Mrs. Marsett, throwing in a fervent +adjective for balm. + +That fair person rode out with the troop under conduct of the hallowing +squire of the stables, and passed by Nesta on horseback beside Dartrey +Fenellan at the steps of a huge hotel; issuing from which, pretty Mrs. +Blathenoy was about to mount. Mrs. Marsett looked ahead and coloured, +but she could not restrain one look at Nesta, that embraced her +cavalier. Nesta waved hand to her, and nodded. Mrs. Marsett withdrew her +eyes; her doing so, silent though it was, resembled the drag back to sea +of the shingle-wave below her, such a screaming of tattle she heard in +the questions discernible through the attitude of the cavalier and of +the lady, who paused to stare, before the leap up in the saddle. ‘Who +is she?--what is she?--how did you know her?--where does she come +from?--wears her hat on her brows!--huge gauntlets out of style!--shady! +shady! shady!’ And as always during her nervous tumults, the name of +Worrell made diapason of that execrable uproar. Her hat on her brows had +an air of dash, defying a world it could win, as Ned well knew. But she +scanned her gauntlets disapprovingly. This town, we are glad to think, +has a bright repute for glove-shops. And Mrs. Marsett could applaud +herself for sparing Ned’s money; she had mended her gloves, if they were +in the fashion.--But how does the money come? Hark at that lady and that +gentleman questioning Miss Radnor of everything, everything in the world +about her! Not a word do they get from Miss Radnor. And it makes them +the more inquisitive. Idle rich people, comfortably fenced round, are +so inquisitive! And Mrs. Marsett, loving Nesta for the notice of her, +maddened by the sting of tongues it was causing, heard the wash of the +beach, without consciousness of analogies, but with a body ready to jump +out of skin, out of life, in desperation at the sound. + +She was all impulse; a shifty piece of unmercenary stratagem +occasionally directing it. Arrived at her lodgings, she wrote to Nesta: +‘I entreat you not to notice me, if you pass me on the road again. Let +me drop, never mind how low I go. I was born to be wretched. A line from +you, just a line now and then, only to show me I am not forgotten. I +have had a beautiful dream. I am not bad in reality; I love goodness, +I know. I cling to the thought of you, as my rescue, I declare. Please, +let me hear: if it’s not more than “good day” and your initials on a +post-card.’ + +The letter brought Nesta in person to her. + + + + +CHAPTER XXX. THE BURDEN UPON NESTA + +Could there be confidences on the subject of Mrs. Marsett with Captain +Dartrey?--Nesta timidly questioned her heart: she knocked at an iron +door shut upon a thing alive. The very asking froze her, almost to +stopping her throbs of pity for the woman. With Captain Dartrey, if with +any one; but with no one. Not with her mother even. Toward her mother, +she felt guilty of knowing. Her mother had a horror of that curtain. +Nesta had seen it, and had taken her impressions; she, too, shrank from +it; the more when impelled to draw near it. Louise de Seilles would +have been another self; Louise was away; when to return, the dear friend +could not state. Speaking in her ear, would have been possible; the +theme precluded writing. + +It was ponderous combustible new knowledge of life for a girl to hold +unaided. In the presence of the simple silvery ladies Dorothea and +Virginia, she had qualms, as if she were breaking out in spots before +them. The ladies fancied, that Mr. Stuart Rem had hinted to them oddly +of the girl; and that he might have meant, she appeared a little too +cognizant of poor Mr. Abram Posterley’s malady--as girls in these +terrible days, only too frequently, too brazenly, are. They discoursed +to her of the degeneracy of the manners, nay, the morals of young +Englishwomen, once patterns! They sketched the young English gentlewoman +of their time; indeed a beauty; with round red cheeks, and rounded open +eyes, and a demure shut mouth, a puppet’s divine ignorance; inoffensive +in the highest degree, rightly worshipped. They were earnest, and Nesta +struck at herself. She wished to be as they had been, reserving her +painful independence. + +They were good: they were the ideal women of our country; which demands +if it be but the semblance of the sureness of stationary excellence; +such as we have in Sevres and Dresden, polished bright and smooth +as ever by the morning’s flick of a duster; perhaps in danger of +accidents--accidents must be kept away; but enviable, admirable, we +think, when we are not thinking of seed sown or help given to the +generations to follow. Nesta both envied and admired; she revered them; +yet her sharp intelligence, larger in the extended boundary of thought +coming of strange crimson-lighted new knowledge, discerned in a dimness +what blest conditions had fixed them on their beautiful barren eminence. +Without challengeing it, she had a rebellious rush of sympathy for our +evil-fortuned of the world; the creatures in the battle, the wounded, +trodden, mud-stained: and it alarmed her lest she should be at heart one +out of the fold. + +She had the sympathy, nevertheless, and renewing and increasing with the +pulsations of a compassion that she took for her reflective survey. The +next time she saw Dartrey Fenellan, she was assured of him, as being the +man who might be spoken to; and by a woman: though not by a girl; not +spoken to by her. The throb of the impulse precipitating speech subsided +to a dumb yearning. He noticed her look: he was unaware of the human sun +in the girl’s eyes taking an image of him for permanent habitation in +her breast. That face of his, so clearly lined, quick, firm, with the +blue smile on it like the gleam of a sword coming out of sheath, did not +mean hardness, she could have vowed. O that some woman, other than the +unhappy woman herself, would speak the words denied to a girl! He was +the man who would hearken and help. Essential immediate help was to be +given besides the noble benevolence of mind. Novel ideas of manliness +and the world’s need for it were printed on her understanding. For what +could women do in aid of a good cause! She fawned: she deemed herself +very despicably her hero’s inferior. The thought of him enclosed her. In +a prison, the gaoler is a demi-God-hued bright or black, as it may be; +and, by the present arrangement between the sexes, she, whom the world +allowed not to have an intimation from eye or ear, or from nature’s +blood-ripeness in commune with them, of certain matters, which it +suffers to be notorious, necessarily directed her appeal almost in +worship to the man, who was the one man endowed to relieve, and who +locked her mouth for shame. + +Thus was she, too, being put into her woman’s harness of the bit and +the blinkers, and taught to know herself for the weak thing, the gentle +parasite, which the fiction of our civilization expects her, caressingly +and contemptuously, to become in the active, while it is exacted of +hero Comedy of Clowns!--that in the passive she be a rockfortress +impregnable, not to speak of magically encircled. She must also have +her feelings; she must not be an unnatural creature. And she must have +a sufficient intelligence; for her stupidity does not flatter the +possessing man. It is not an organic growth that he desires in his mate, +but a happy composition. You see the world which comes of the pair. + +This burning Nesta, Victor’s daughter, tempered by Nataly’s milder +blood, was a girl in whom the hard shocks of the knowledge of life, +perforce of the hardness upon pure metal, left a strengthening for +generous imagination. She did not sit to brood on her injured senses +or set them through speculation touching heat; they were taken up +and consumed by the fire of her mind. Nor had she leisure for the +abhorrences, in a heart all flowing to give aid, and uplift and restore. +Self was as urgent in her as in most of the young; but the gift of +humour, which had previously diverted it, was now the quick feeling for +her sisterhood, through the one piteous example she knew; and broadening +it, through her insurgent abasement on their behalf, which was her +scourged pride of sex. She but faintly thought of blaming the men whom +her soul besought for justice, for common kindness, to women. There was +the danger, that her aroused young ignorance would charge the whole of +the misery about and abroad upon the stronger of those two: and another +danger, that the vision of the facts below the surface would discolour +and disorder her views of existence. But she loved, she sprang to, the +lighted world; and she had figures of male friends, to which to cling; +and they helped in animating glorious historical figures on the world’s +library-shelves or under yet palpitating earth. Promise of a steady +balance of her nature, too, was shown in the absence of any irritable +urgency to be doing, when her bosom bled to help. Beyond the resolve, +that she would not abandon the woman who had made confession to her, she +formed no conscious resolutions. Far ahead down her journey of the years +to come, she did see muffled things she might hope and would strive to +do. They were chrysalis shapes. Above all, she flew her blind quickened +heart on the wings of an imaginative force; and those of the young +who can do that, are in their blood incorruptible by dark knowledge, +irradiated under darkness in the mind. Let but the throb be kept for +others. That is the one secret, for redemption; if not for preservation. + +Victor descended on his marine London to embrace his girl, full of +regrets at Fredi’s absence from the great whirl ‘overhead,’ as places of +multitudinous assembly, where he shone, always appeared to him. But it +was not to last long; she would soon be on the surface again! At the +first clasp of her, he chirped some bars of her song. He challenged her +to duet before the good ladies, and she kindled, she was caught up +by his gaiety, wondering at herself; faintly aware of her not being +spontaneous. And she made her father laugh, just in the old way; and +looked at herself in his laughter, with the thought, that she could +not have become so changed; by which the girl was helped to jump to her +humour. Victor turned his full front to Dorothea and Virginia, one +sunny beam of delight and although it was Mr. Stuart Rem who was naughty +Nesta’s victim, and although it seemed a trespass on her part to speak +in such a manner of a clerical gentleman, they were seized; they were +the opposite partners of a laughing quadrille, lasting till they were +tired out. + +Victor had asked his girl, if she sang on a Sunday. The ladies +remembered, that she had put the question for permission to Mr. Stuart +Rem, who was opposed to secular singing. + +‘And what did he say?’ said Victor. + +Nesta shook her head: ‘It was not what he said, papa; it was his look. +His duty compelled him, though he loves music. He had the look of a +Patriarch putting his handmaiden away into the desert.’ + +Dorothea and Virginia, in spite of protests within, laughed to streams. +They recollected the look; she had given the portrait of Mr. Stuart Rem +in the act of repudiating secular song. + +‘Victor conjured up a day when this darling Fredi, a child, stood before +a famous picture in the Brera, at Milan; when he and her mother noticed +the child’s very studious graveness; and they had talked of it; he +remarking, that she disapproved of the Patriarch; and Nataly, that she +was taken with Hagar’s face. + +He seemed surprised at her not having heard from Dudley. + +‘How is that?’ said he. + +‘Most probably because he has not written, papa.’ + +He paused after the cool reply. She had no mournful gaze at all; but +in the depths of the clear eyes he knew so well, there was a coil of +something animate, whatever it might be. And twice she drew a heavy +breath. + +He mentioned it in London. Nataly telegraphed at night for her girl to +meet her next day at Dartrey’s hotel. + +Their meeting was incomprehensibly joyless to the hearts of each, +though it was desired, and had long been desired, and mother was mother, +daughter daughter, without diminution of love between them. They held +hands, they kissed and clasped, they showered their tender phrases with +full warm truth, and looked into eyes and surely saw one another. But +the heart of each was in a battle of its own, taking wounds or crying +for supports. Whether to speak to her girl at once, despite the now +vehement contrary counsel of Victor, was Nataly’s deliberation, under +the thought of the young creature’s perplexity in not seeing her at the +house of the Duvidney ladies: while Nesta conjured in a flash the past +impressions of her mother’s shrinking distaste from any such hectic +themes as this which burdened and absorbed her; and she was almost +joining to it, through sympathy with any thought or feeling of one in +whom she had such pride; she had the shudder of revulsion. Further, +Nataly put on, rather cravenly an air, of distress, or she half +designingly permitted her trouble to be seen, by way of affecting her +girl’s recollection when the confession was to come, that Nesta might +then understand her to have been restrained from speaking, not evasive +of her duty. The look was interpreted by Nesta as belonging to +the social annoyances dating, in her calendar, from Creckholt, +apprehensively dreaded at Lakelands. She hinted asking, and her mother +nodded; not untruthfully; but she put on a briskness after the nod; and +a doubt was driven into Nesta’s bosom. + +Her dear Skepsey was coming down to her for a holiday, she was glad +to hear. Of Dudley, there was no word. Nataly shunned his name, with +a superstitious dread lest any mention of him should renew pretensions +that she hoped, and now supposed, were quite withdrawn. So she had told +poor Mr. Barmby only yesterday, at his humble request to know. He had +seen Dudley on the pantiles, walking with a young lady, he said. And +‘he feared,’ he said; using, a pardonable commonplace of deceit. Her +compassion accounted for the ‘fear’ which was the wish, and caused her +not to think it particularly strange, that he should imagine Dudley to +have quitted the field. Now that a disengaged Dartrey Fenellan was at +hand, poor Mr. Barmby could have no chance. + +Dartrey came to her room by appointment. She wanted to see him alone, +and he informed her, that Mrs. Blathenoy was in the hotel, and would +certainly receive and amuse Nesta for any length of time. + +‘I will take her up,’ said Nataly, and rose, and she sat immediately, +and fluttered a hand at her breast. She laughed: ‘Perhaps I’m tired!’ + +Dartrey took Nesta. + +He returned, saying: ‘There’s a lift in the hotel. Do the stairs affect +you at all?’ + +She fenced his sharp look. ‘Laziness, I fancy; age is coming on. How is +it Mrs. Blathenoy is here?’ + +‘Well! how?’ ‘Foolish curiosity?’ ‘I think I have made her of service. +I did not bring the lady here.’ ‘Of service to whom?’ ‘Why, to Victor!’ +‘Has Victor commissioned you?’ ‘You can bear to hear it. Her husband +knows the story. He has a grudge... commercial reasons. I fancy it is, +that Victor stood against his paper at the table of the Bank. Blathenoy +vowed blow for blow. But I think the little woman holds him in. She says +she does.’ ‘Victor prompted you?’ ‘It occurred as it occurred.’ ‘She +does it for love of us?--Oh! I can’t trifle. Dartrey!’ ‘Tell me.’ +‘First, you haven’t let me know what you think of my Nesta.’ ‘She’s a +dear good girl.’ ‘Not so interesting to you as a flighty little woman!’ +‘She has a speck of some sort on her mind.’ Nataly spied at Dudley’s +behaviour, and said: ‘That will wear away. Is Mr. Blathenoy much here?’ +‘As often as he can come, I believe.’ ‘That is...?’ ‘I have seen him +twice.’ ‘His wife remains?’ ‘Fixed here for the season.’ ‘My friend!’ +‘No harm, no harm!’ ‘But-to her!’ ‘You have my word of honour.’ ‘Yes: +and she is doing you a service, at your request; you occasionally reward +her with thanks; and she sees you are a man of honour. Do you not know +women?’ + +Dartrey blew his pooh-pooh on feminine suspicions. ‘There’s very little +left of the Don Amoroso in me. Women don’t worship stone figures.’ + +‘They do: like the sea-birds. And what do you say to me, Dartrey?--I can +confess it: I am one of them: I love you. When last you left England, +I kissed your hand. It was because of your manly heart in that stone +figure. I kept from crying: you used to scorn us English for the +“whimpering fits” you said we enjoy and must have in books, if we can’t +get them up for ourselves. I could have prayed to have you as brother +or son. I love my Victor the better for his love of you. Oh!--poor +soul--how he is perverted since that building of Lakelands! He cannot +take soundings of the things he does. Formerly he confided in me, in all +things: now not one;--I am the chief person to deceive. If only he had +waited! We are in a network of intrigues and schemes, every artifice in +London--tempting one to hate simple worthy people, who naturally have +their views, and see me an impostor, and tolerate me, fascinated by +him:--or bribed--it has to be said. There are ways of bribeing. I trust +he may not have in the end to pay too heavily for succeeding. He seems +a man pushed by Destiny; not irresponsible, but less responsible than +most. He is desperately tempted by his never failing. Whatever he +does!.. it is true! And it sets me thinking of those who have never had +an ailment, up to a certain age, when the killing blow comes. Latterly +I have seen into him: I never did before. Had I been stronger, I might +have saved, or averted.... But, you will say, the stronger woman would +not have occupied my place. I must have been blind too. I did not +see, that his nature shrinks from the thing it calls up. He dreads the +exposure he courts--or has to combat with all his powers. It has been +a revelation to me of him life as well. Nothing stops him. Now it is +Parliament--a vacant London Borough. He counts on a death: Ah! terrible! +I have it like a snake’s bite night and day.’ + +Nataly concluded: ‘There: it has done me some good to speak. I feel so +base.’ She breathed heavily. + +Dartrey took her hand and bent his lips to it. ‘Happy the woman who has +not more to speak! How long will Nesta stay here?’ + +‘You will watch over her, Dartrey? She stays-her father wishes--up +to--ah! We can hardly be in such extreme peril. He has her doctor, her +lawyer, and her butler--a favourite servant--to check, and influence, +her: She--you know who it is!--does not, I am now convinced, mean +persecution. She was never a mean-minded woman. Oh! I could wish she +were. They say she is going. Then I am to be made an “honest woman +of.” Victor wants Nesta, now that she is away, to stay until... You +understand. He feels she is safe from any possible kind of harm with +those good ladies. And I feel she is the safer for having you near. +Otherwise, how I should pray to have you with us! Daily I have to +pass through, well, something like the ordeal of the red-hot +ploughshares--and without the innocence, dear friend! But it’s best that +my girl should not have to be doing the same; though she would have the +innocence. But she writhes under any shadow of a blot. And for her +to learn the things that are in the world, through her mother’s +history!--and led to know it by the falling away of friends, or say, +acquaintances! However ignorant at present, she learns from a mere +nothing. I dread!.... In a moment, she is a blaze of light. There have +been occurrences. Only Victor could have overcome them! I had to think +it better for my girl, that she was absent. We are in such a whirl up +there! So I work round again to “how long?” and the picture of myself +counting the breaths of a dying woman. The other day I was told I was +envied!’ + +‘Battle, battle, battle; for all of us, in every position!’ said Dartrey +sharply, to clip a softness: ‘except when one’s attending on an invalid +uncle. Then it’s peace; rather like extinction. And I can’t be crying +for the end either. I bite my moustache and tap foot on the floor, out +of his hearing; make believe I’m patient. Now I ‘ll fetch Nesta.’ + +Mrs. Blathenoy came down with an arm on Nesta’s shoulder. She held a +telegram, and said to Nataly-- + +‘What can this mean? It’s from my husband; he puts “Jacob”: my husband’s +Christian name:--so like my husband, where there’s no concealment! +There--he says: + +“Down to-night else pack ready start to-morrow.” Can it signify, affairs +are bad with my husband in the city?’ + +It had that signification to Nataly’s understanding. At the same time, +the pretty little woman’s absurd lisping repetition of ‘my husband’ did +not seem without design to inflict the wound it caused. + +In reality, it was not malicious; it came of the bewitchment of a +silly tongue by her knowledge of the secret to be controlled: and after +contrasting her fortunes with Nataly’s, on her way downstairs, she had +comforted herself by saying, that at least she had a husband. She was +not aware that she dealt a hurt until she had found a small consolation +in the indulgence: for Captain Dartrey Fenellan admired this commanding +figure of a woman, who could not legally say that which the woman he +admired less, if at all, legally could say. + +‘I must leave you to interpret,’ Nataly remarked. + +Mrs. Blathenoy resented her unbefitting queenly style. For this +reason, she abstained from an intended leading up to mention of the +‘singular-looking lady’ seen riding with Miss Radnor more than once; and +as to whom, Miss Radnor (for one gives her the name) had not just now, +when questioned, spoken very clearly. So the mother’s alarms were not +raised. + +And really it was a pity, Mrs. Blathenoy said to Dartrey subsequently; +finding him colder than before Mrs. Radnor’s visit; it was a pity, +because a young woman in Miss Radnor’s position should not by any +possibility be seen in association with a person of commonly doubtful +appearance. + +She was denied the petulant satisfaction of rousing the championship +bitter to her. Dartrey would not deliver an opinion on Miss Radnor’s +conduct. He declined, moreover, to assist in elucidating the telegram by +‘looking here,’ and poring over the lines beside a bloomy cheek. He was +petulantly whipped on the arm with her glove, and pouted at. And it was +then--and then only or chiefly through Nataly’s recent allusion--that +the man of honour had his quakings in view of the quagmire, where he was +planted on an exceedingly narrow causeway, not of the firmest. For +she was a pretty little woman, one of the prize gifts of the present +education of women to the men who are for having them quiescent domestic +patterns; and her artificial ingenuousness or candid frivolities came to +her by nature to kindle the nature of the gentleman on the other bank of +the stream, and witch him to the plunge, so greatly mutually regretted +after taken: an old duet to the moon. + +Dartrey escaped to the Club, where he had a friend. The friend was +Colonel Sudley, one of the modern studious officers, not in good +esteem with the authorities. He had not forgiven Dartrey for the +intemperateness which cut off a brilliant soldier from the service. He +was reduced to acknowledge, however, that there was a sparkling defence +for him to reply with, in the shape of a fortune gained and where we +have a Society forcing us to live up to an expensive level, very +trying to a soldier’s income, a fortune gained will offer excuses for +misconduct short of disloyal or illegal. They talked of the state of the +Army: we are moving. True, and at the last Review, the ‘march past’ +was performed before a mounted generalissimo profoundly asleep, head on +breast. Our English military ‘moving’ may now be likened to Somnolency +on Horseback. ‘Oh, come, no rancour,’ said the colonel; ‘you know he’s a +kind old boy at heart; nowhere a more affectionate man alive!’ + +‘So the sycophants are sure of posts!’ + +‘Come, I say! He’s devoted to the Service.’ + +‘Invalid him, and he shall have a good epitaph.’ + +‘He’s not so responsible as the taxpayer.’ + +‘There you touch home. Mother Goose can’t imagine the need for defence +until a hand’s at her feathers.’ + +‘What about her shrieks now and then?’ + +‘Indigestion of a surfeit?’ + +They were in a laughing wrangle when two acquaintances of the colonel’s +came near. One of them recognized Dartrey. He changed a prickly subject +to one that is generally as acceptable to the servants of Mars. His +companion said: ‘Who is the girl out with Judith Marsett?’ He flavoured +eulogies of the girl’s good looks in easy garrison English. She was +praised for sitting her horse well. One had met her on the parade, in +the afternoon, walking with Mrs. Marsett. Colonel Sudley had seen them +on horseback. He remarked to Dartrey: + +‘And by the way, you’re a clean stretch ahead of us. I’ve seen you go +by these windows, with the young lady on one side, and a rather pretty +woman on the other too.’ + +‘Nothing is unseen in this town!’ Dartrey rejoined. + +Strolling to his quarters along the breezy parade at night, he proposed +to himself, that he would breathe an immediate caution to Nesta. How had +she come to know this Mrs. Marsett? But he was more seriously thinking +of what Colney Durance called ‘The Mustard Plaster’; the satirist’s +phrase for warm relations with a married fair one: and Dartrey, clear of +any design to have it at his breast, was beginning to take intimations +of pricks and burns. They are an almost positive cure of inflammatory +internal conditions. They were really hard on him, who had none to be +cured. + +The hour was nigh midnight. As he entered his hotel, the porter ran off +to the desk in his box, and brought him a note, saying, that a lady +had left it at half-past nine. Left it?--Then the lady could not be the +alarming lady. He was relieved. The words of the letter were cabalistic; +these, beneath underlined address: + +‘I beg you to call on me, if I do not see you this evening. It is +urgent; you will excuse me when I explain. Not late to-morrow. I am sure +you will not fail to come. I could write what would be certain to bring +you. I dare not trust any names to paper.’ + +The signature was, Judith Marsett. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI. SHOWS HOW THE SQUIRES IN A CONQUEROR’S SERVICE HAVE AT +TIMES TO DO KNIGHTLY CONQUEST OF THEMSELVES + +By the very earliest of the trains shot away to light and briny air from +London’s November gloom, which knows the morning through increase of +gasjets, little Skepsey was hurried over suburban chimneys, in his +friendly third-class carriage; where we have reminders of ancient +pastoral times peculiar to our country, as it may chance; but where a +man may speak to his neighbour right off without being deemed offensive. +That is homely. A social fellow knitting closely to his fellows when he +meets them, enjoys it, even at the cost of uncushioned seats he can, if +imps are in him, merryandrew as much as he pleases; detested punctilio +does not reign there; he can proselytize for the soul’s welfare; decry +or uphold the national drink; advertize a commercial Firm deriving +prosperity from the favour of the multitude; exhort to patriotism. All +is accepted. Politeness is the rule, according to Skepsey’s experience +of the Southern part of the third-class kingdom. And it is as well to +mark the divisions, for the better knowledge of our countrymen. The +North requires volumes to itself. + +The hard-grained old pirate-stock Northward has built the land, and is +to the front when we are at our epic work. Meanwhile it gets us a blowzy +character, by shouldering roughly among the children of civilization. +Skepsey, journeying one late afternoon up a Kentish line, had, in both +senses of the word, encountered a long-limbed navvy; an intoxicated, +he was compelled by his manly modesty to desire to think; whose loathly +talk, forced upon the hearing of a decent old woman opposite him, +passed baboonish behaviour; so much so, that Skepsey civilly intervened; +subsequently inviting him to leave the carriage and receive a lesson at +the station they were nearing. Upon his promising faithfully, that it +should be a true and telling lesson, the navvy requested this pygmy +spark to flick his cheek, merely to show he meant war in due sincerity; +and he as faithfully, all honour, promising not to let it bring about a +breakage of the laws of the Company, Skepsey promptly did the deed. So +they went forth. + +Skepsey alluded to the incident, for an example of the lamentable +deficiency in science betrayed by most of our strong men when put to it; +and the bitter thought, that he could count well nigh to a certainty on +the total absence of science in the long-armed navvy, whose fist on +his nose might have been as the magnet of a pin, was chief among his +reminiscences after the bout, destroying pleasure for the lover of Old +England’s might. One blow would have sent Skepsey travelling. He was not +seriously struck once. They parted, shaking hands; the navvy confessing +himself to have ‘drunk a drop’; and that perhaps accounted for his +having been ‘topped by a dot on him.’ + +He declined to make oath never to repeat his offence; but said, sending +his vanquisher to the deuce, with an amicable push at his shoulder, +‘Damned if I ever forget five foot five stretched six foot flat!’ + +Skepsey counted his feet some small amount higher; but our hearty +rovers’ sons have their ballad moods when giving or taking a thrashing. +One of the third-class passengers, a lad of twenty, became Skepsey’s +pupil, and turned out clever with the gloves, and was persuaded to enter +the militia, and grew soon to be a corporal. Thus there was profit of +the affair, though the navvy sank out of sight. Let us hope and pray he +will not insult the hearing of females again. If only females knew how +necessary it is, for their sakes, to be able to give a lesson now and +then! Ladies are positively opposed. And Judges too, who dress so like +them. The manhood of our country is kept down, in consequence. Mr. +Durance was right, when he said something about the state of war being +wanted to weld our races together: and yet we are always praying for the +state of peace, which causes cracks and gaps among us! Was that what +he meant by illogical? It seemed to Skepsey--oddly, considering his +inferior estimate of the value of the fair sex--that a young woman with +whom he had recently made acquaintance; and who was in Brighton now, +upon missionary work; a member of the ‘Army,’ an officer of advancing +rank, Matilda Pridden, by name; was nearer to the secret of the right +course of conduct for individual citizens and the entire country than +any gentleman he knew. + +Yes, nearer to it than his master was! Thinking of Mr. Victor Radnor, +Skepsey fetched a sigh. He had knocked at his master’s door at the +office one day, and imagining the call to enter, had done so, and had +seen a thing he could not expunge. Lady Grace Halley was there. From +matters he gathered, Skepsey guessed her to be working for his master +among the great folks, as he did with Jarniman, and Mr. Fenellan with +Mr. Carling. But is it usual; he asked himself--his natural veneration +framing the rebuke to his master thus--to repay the services of a +lady so warmly?--We have all of us an ermined owl within us to sit in +judgement of our superiors as well as our equals; and the little man, +notwithstanding a servant’s bounden submissiveness, was forced to hear +the judicial pronouncement upon his master’s behaviour. His master had, +at the same time, been saying most weighty kind words more and more of +late: one thing:--that, if he gave all he had to his fellows, and +did all he could, he should still be in their debt. And he was a very +wealthy gentleman. What are we to think? The ways of our superiors are +wonderful. We do them homage: still we feel, we painfully feel, we are +beginning to worship elsewhere. It is the pain of a detachment of the +very roots of our sea-weed heart from a rock. Mr. Victor Radnor was an +honour to his country. Skepsey did not place the name of Matilda Pridden +beside it or in any way compare two such entirely different persons. At +the same time and most earnestly, while dreading to hear, he desired +to have Matilda Pridden’s opinion of the case distressing him. He never +could hear it, because he could never be allowed to expound the case to +her. Skepsey sighed again: he as much as uttered: Oh, if we had a few +thousands like her!--But what if we do have them? They won’t marry! +There they are, all that the country requires in wives and mothers; and +like Miss Priscilla Graves, they won’t marry! + +He looked through sad thoughts across the benches of the compartments +to the farther end of the carriage, where sat the Rev. Septimus Barmby, +looking at him through a meditation as obscure if not so mournful. Few +are the third-class passengers outward at that early hour in the winter +season, and Skepsey’s gymnastics to get beside the Rev. Septimus were +unimpeded; though a tight-packed carriage of us poor journaliers would +not have obstructed them with as much as a sneer. Mr. Barmby and Skepsey +greeted. The latter said, he had a holiday, to pay a visit to Miss +Nesta. The former said, he hoped he should see Miss Nesta. Skepsey then +rapidly brought the conversation to a point where Matilda Pridden was +comprised. He discoursed of the ‘Army’ and her position in the Army, +giving instances of her bravery, the devotion shown by her to the cause +of morality, in all its forms. Mr. Barmby had his fortunes on his hands +at the moment, he could not lend an attentive ear; and he disliked this +Army, the title it had taken, and the mixing of women and men in its +ranks; not to speak of a presumption in its proceedings, and the public +marching and singing. Moreover, he enjoyed his one or two permissible +glasses: he doubted that the Chiefs of the Army had common benevolence +for the inoffensive pipe. But the cause of morality was precious to him; +morality and a fit of softness, and the union of the happiest contrast +of voices, had set him for a short while, before the dawn of Nesta’s +day, hankering after Priscilla Graves. Skepsey’s narrative of Matilda +Pridden’s work down at the East of London; was effective; it had the +ring to thrill a responsive chord in Mr. Barmby, who mused on London’s +East, and martyrly service there. His present expectations were of a +very different sort; but a beautiful bride, bringing us wealth, is no +misleading beam, if we direct the riches rightly. Septimus, a solitary +minister in those grisly haunts of the misery breeding vice, must needs +accomplish less than a Septimus the husband of one of England’s chief +heiresses:--only not the most brilliant, owing to circumstances known to +the Rev. Groseman Buttermore: strangely, and opportunely, revealed: for +her exceeding benefit, it may be hoped. She is no longer the ignorant +girl, to reject the protecting hand of one whose cloth is the best of +cloaking. A glance at Dudley Sowerby’s defection, assures our worldly +wisdom too, that now is the time to sue. + +Several times while Mr. Barmby made thus his pudding of the desires of +the flesh and the spirit, Skepsey’s tales of Matilda Pridden’s heroism +caught his attention. He liked her deeds; he disliked the position in +which the young woman placed herself to perform them; and he said so. +Women are to be women, he said. + +Skepsey agreed: ‘If we could get men to do the work, sir!’ + +Mr. Barmby was launching forth: Plenty of men!--His mouth was blocked by +the reflection, that we count the men on our fingers; often are we, as +it were, an episcopal thumb surveying scarce that number of followers! +He diverged to censure of the marchings and the street-singing: the +impediment to traffic, the annoyance to a finely musical ear. +He disapproved altogether of Matilda Pridden’s military display, +pronouncing her to be, ‘Doubtless a worthy young person.’ + +‘Her age is twenty-seven,’ said Skepsey, spying at the number of his +own. + +‘You have known her long?’ Mr. Barmby asked. + +‘Not long, sir. She has gone through trouble. She believes very strongly +in the will:--If I will this, if I will that, and it is the right +will, not wickedness, it is done--as good as done; and force is quite +superfluous. In her sermons, she exhorts to prayer before action.’ + +‘Preaches?’ + +‘She moves a large assembly, sir.’ + +‘It would seem, that England is becoming Americanized!’ exclaimed +the Conservative in Mr. Barmby. Almost he groaned; and his gaze was +fish-like in vacancy, on hearing the little man speak of the present +intrepid forwardness of the sex to be publicly doing. It is for men the +most indigestible fact of our century: one that--by contrast throws an +overearthly holiness on our decorous dutiful mothers, who contentedly +worked below the surface while men unremittingly attended to their +interests above. + +Skepsey drew forth a paper-covered shilling-book: a translation from the +French, under a yelling title of savage hate of Old England and cannibal +glee at her doom. Mr. Barmby dropped his eyelashes on it, without +comment; nor did he reply to Skepsey’s forlorn remark: ‘We let them +think they could do it!’ + +Behold the downs. Breakfast is behind them. Miss Radnor likewise: if the +poor child has a name. We propose to supply the deficiency. She does not +declare war upon tobacco. She has a cultured and a beautiful voice. We +abstain from enlargeing on the charms of her person. She has resources, +which representatives of a rival creed would plot to secure. + +‘Skepsey, you have your quarters at the house of Miss Radnor’s +relatives?’ said Mr. Barmby, as they emerged from tunnelled chalk. + +‘Mention, that I think of calling in the course of the day.’ + +A biscuit had been their breakfast without a name. + +They parted at the station, roused by the smell of salt to bestow a +more legitimate title on the day’s restorative beginning. Down the +hill, along by the shops, and Skepsey, in sight of Miss Nesta’s terrace, +considered it still an early hour for a visitor; so, to have the sea +about him, he paid pier-money, and hurried against the briny wings of +a South-wester; green waves, curls of foam, flecks of silver, under +low-flying grey-dark cloud-curtains shaken to a rift, where at one +shot the sun had a line of Nereids nodding, laughing, sparkling to him. +Skepsey enjoyed it, at the back of thoughts military and naval. Visible +sea, this girdle of Britain, inspired him to exultations in reverence. +He wished Mr. Durance could behold it now and have such a breastful. +He was wishing he knew a song of Britain and sea, rather fancying Mr. +Durance to be in some way a bar to patriotic poetical recollection, when +he saw his Captain Dartrey mounting steps out of an iron anatomy of the +pier, and looking like a razor off a strap. + +‘Why, sir!’ cried Skepsey. + +‘Just a plunge and a dozen strokes,’ Dartrey said; ‘and you’ll come to +my hotel and give me ten minutes of the “recreation”; and if you don’t +come willingly, I shall insult your country.’ + +‘Ah! I wish Mr. Durance were here,’ Skepsey rejoined. + +‘It would upset his bumboat of epigrams. He rises at ten o’clock to +a queasy breakfast by candlelight, and proceeds to composition. His +picture of the country is a portrait of himself by the artist.’ + +‘But, sir, Captain Dartrey, you don’t think as Mr. Durance does of +England!’ + +‘There are lots to flatter her, Skepsey! A drilling can’t do her harm. +You’re down to see Miss Nesta. Ladies don’t receive quite so early. +And have you breakfasted? Come on with me quick.’ Dartrey led him on, +saying: ‘You have an eye at my stick. It was a legacy to me, by word of +mouth, from a seaman of a ship I sailed in, who thought I had done him a +service; and he died after all. He fell overboard drunk. He perished +of the villain stuff. One of his messmates handed me the stick in Cape +Town, sworn to deliver it. A good knot to grasp; and it ‘s flexible +and strong; stick or rattan, whichever you please; it gives point or +caresses the shoulder; there’s no break in it, whack as you may. They +call it a Demerara supple-jack. I’ll leave it to you.’ + +Skepsey declared his intention to be the first to depart. He tried +the temper of the stick, bent it a bit, and admired the prompt +straightening. + +‘It would give a good blow, sir.’ + +‘Does its business without braining.’ + +Perhaps for the reason, that it was not a handsome instrument for +display on fashionable promenades, Dartrey chose it among his collection +by preference; as ugly dogs of a known fidelity are chosen for +companions. The Demerara supple-jack surpasses bull-dogs in its fashion +of assisting the master; for when once at it, the clownish-looking thing +reflects upon him creditably, by developing a refined courtliness of +style, while in no way showing a diminution of jolly ardour for the +fray. It will deal you the stroke of a bludgeon with the playfulness of +a cane. It bears resemblance to those accomplished natural actors, +who conversationally present a dramatic situation in two or three +spontaneous flourishes, and are themselves again, men of the world, the +next minute. + +Skepsey handed it back. He spoke of a new French rifle. He mentioned, in +the form of query for no answer, the translation of the barking little +volume he had shown to Mr. Barmby: he slapped at his breast-pocket, +where it was. Not a ship was on the sea-line; and he seemed to deplore +that vacancy. + +‘But it tells both ways,’ Dartrey said. ‘We don’t want to be hectoring +in the Channel. All we want, is to be sure of our power, so as not to +go hunting and fawning for alliances. Up along that terrace Miss Nesta +lives. Brighton would be a choice place for a landing.’ + +Skepsey temporized, to get his national defences, by pleading the +country’s love of peace. + +‘Then you give-up your portion of the gains of war--an awful +disgorgement,’ said Dartrey. ‘If you are really for peace, you toss all +your spare bones to the war-dogs. Otherwise, Quakerly preaching is taken +for hypocrisy.’ + +‘I ‘m afraid we are illogical, sir,’ said Skepsey, adopting one of the +charges of Mr. Durance, to elude the abominable word. + +‘In you run, my friend.’ Dartrey sped him up the steps of the hotel. + +A little note lay on his breakfast-table. His invalid uncle’s valet gave +the morning’s report of the night. + +The note was from Mrs. Blathenoy: she begged Captain Dartrey, in double +underlinings of her brief words, to mount the stairs. He debated, and he +went. + +She was excited, and showed a bosom compressed to explode: she had been +weeping. ‘My husband is off. He bids me follow him. What would you have +me do?’ + +‘Go.’ + +‘You don’t care what may happen to your friends, the Radnors?’ + +‘Not at the cost of your separation from your husband.’ + +‘You have seen him!’ + +‘Be serious.’ + +‘Oh, you cold creature! You know--you see: I can’t conceal. And you tell +me to go. “Go!” Gracious heavens! I’ve no claim on you; I haven’t been +able to do much; I would have--never mind! believe me or not. And now +I’m to go: on the spot, I suppose. You’ve seen the man I ‘m to go to, +too. I would bear it, if it were not away from... out of sight of I’m a +fool of a woman, I know. There’s frankness for you! and I could declare +you’re saying “impudence” in your heart--or what you have for one. Have +you one?’ + +‘My dear soul, it ‘s a flint. So just think of your duty.’ Dartrey +played the horrid part of executioner with some skill. + +Her bosom sprang to descend into abysses. + +‘And never a greater fool than when I sent for you to see such a face +as I’m showing!’ she cried, with lips that twitched and fingers that +plucked at her belt. ‘But you might feel my hatred of being tied +to--dragged about over the Continent by that... perhaps you think a +woman is not sensible of vulgarity in her husband! I ‘m bothering you? I +don’t say I have the slightest claim. You never made love to me, never! +Never so much as pressed my hand or looked. Others have--as much as I +let them. And before I saw you, I had not an idea of another man but +that man. So you advise me to go?’ + +‘There’s no other course.’ + +‘No other course. I don’t see one. What have I been dreaming of! Usually +a woman feeling...’ she struck at her breast, ‘has had a soft word in +her ear. “Go!” I don’t blame you, Captain Dartrey. At least, you ‘re not +the man to punish a woman for stripping herself, as I ‘ve done. I call +myself a fool--I’m a lunatic. Trust me with your hand.’ + +‘There you are.’ + +She grasped the hand, and shut her eyes to make a long age of the +holding on to him. ‘Oh, you dear dear fellow!--don’t think me unwomanly; +I must tell you now: I am naked and can’t disguise. I see you are +ice--feel: and if you were different, I might be. You won’t be hurt by +hearing you’ve made yourself dear to me--without meaning to, I know! +It began that day at Lakelands; I fell in love with you the very first +minute I set eyes on you! There’s a confession for a woman to make! and +a married woman! I’m married, and I no more feel allegiance, as they +call it, than if there never had been a ceremony and no Jacob Blathenoy +was in existence. And why I should go to him! But you shan’t be +troubled. I did not begin to live, as a woman, before I met you. I can +speak all this to you because--we women can’t be deceived in that--you +are one of the men who can be counted on for a friend.’ + +‘I hope so,’ Dartrey said, and his mouth hardened as nature’s +electricity shot sparks into him from the touch and rocked him. + +‘No, not yet: I will soon let it drop,’ said she, and she was just then +thrillingly pretty; she caressed the hand, placing it at her throat and +moving her chin on it, as women fondle birds. ‘I am positively to go, +then?’ + +‘Positively, you are to go; and it’s my command.’ + +‘Not in love with any one at all?’ + +‘Not with a soul.’ + +‘Not with a woman?’ + +‘With no woman.’ + +‘Nor maid?’ + +‘No! and no to everything. And an end to the catechism!’ + +‘It is really a flint that beats here?’ she said, and with a shyness +in adventurousness, she struck the point of her forefinger on the rib. +‘Fancy me in love with a flint! And running to be dutiful to a Jacob +Blathenoy, at my flint’s command. I’m half in love with doing what I +hate, because this cold thing here bids me do it. I believe I married +for money, and now it looks as if I were to have my bargain with poverty +to bless it.’ + +‘There I may help,’ said Dartrey, relieved at sight of a loophole, to +spring to some initiative out of the paralysis cast on him by a pretty +little woman’s rending of her veil. A man of honour alone with a woman +who has tossed concealment to the winds, is a riddled target indeed: +he is tempted to the peril of cajoleing, that he may escape from the +torment and the ridicule; he is tempted to sigh for the gallant spirit +of his naughty adolescence. ‘Come to me--will you?--apply to me, if +there’s ever any need. I happen to have money. And forgive me for naming +it.’ + +She groaned: ‘Don’t! I’m, sure, and I thought it from the first, you’re +one of the good men, and the woman who meets you is lucky, and wretched, +and so she ought to be! Only to you should I!... do believe that! I +won’t speak of what excuses I’ve got. You’ve seen.’ + +‘Don’t think of them: there’ll be danger in it. + +‘Shall you think of me in danger?’ + +‘Silly, silly! Don’t you see you have to do with a flint! I’ve gone +through fire. And if I were in love with you, I should start you off to +your husband this blessed day.’ + +‘And you’re not the slightest wee wee bit in love with me!’ + +‘Perfectly true; but I like you; and if we’re to be hand in hand, in the +time to come, you must walk firm at present.’ + +‘I’m to go to-day?’ + +‘You are.’ + +‘Without again.’ + +The riddled target kicked. Dartrey contrasted Jacob Blathenoy with the +fair wife, and commiseratingly exonerated her; he lashed at himself +for continuing to be in this absurdest of postures, and not absolutely +secure for all that. His head shook. ‘Friends, you’ll find best.’ + +‘Well!’ she sighed, ‘I feel I’m doomed to go famished through life. +There’s never to be such a thing as, love, for me! I can’t tell you no +woman could: though you’ll say I’ve told enough. I shall burn with shame +when I think of it. I could go on my knees to have your arms round me +once. I could kill myself for saying it!--I should feel that I had one +moment of real life.--I know I ought to admire you. They say a woman +hates if she’s refused. I can’t: I wish I were able to. I could have +helped the Radnors better by staying here and threatening never to go to +him unless he swore not to do them injury. He’s revengeful. Just as you +like. You say “Go,” and I go. There. I may kiss your hand?’ + +‘Give me yours.’ + +Dartrey kissed the hand. She kissed the mark of his lips. He got himself +away, by promising to see her to the train for Paris. Outside her door, +he was met by the reflection, coming as a thing external, that he +might veraciously and successfully have pleaded a passionate hunger for +breakfast: nay, that he would have done so, if he had been downright in +earnest. For she had the prettiness to cast a spell; a certain curve at +the lips, a fluttering droop of the eyelids, a corner of the eye, that +led long distances away to forests and nests. This little woman had the +rosy-peeping June bud’s plumpness. What of the man who refused to kiss +her once? Cold antecedent immersion had to be thanked; and stringent +vacuity; perhaps a spotting ogre-image of her possessor. Some sense of +right-doing also, we hope. Dartrey angrily attributed his good conduct +to the lowest motives. He went so far as to accuse himself of having +forborne to speak of breakfast, from a sort of fascinated respect for +the pitch of a situation that he despised and detested. Then again, when +beginning to eat, his good conduct drew on him a chorus of the jeers of +all the martial comrades he had known. But he owned he would have had +less excuse than they, had he taken advantage of a woman’s inability, at +a weak moment, to protect herself: or rather, if he had not behaved in +a manner to protect her from herself. He thought of his buried wife, and +the noble in the base of that poor soul; needing constantly a present +helper, for the nobler to conquer. Be true man with a woman, she must be +viler than the devil has yet made one, if she does not follow a strong +right lead:--but be patient, of course. And the word patience here means +more than most men contain. Certainly a man like Jacob Blathenoy was a +mouthful for any woman: and he had bought his wife, he deserved no +pity. Not? Probably not. That view, however, is unwholesome and opens +on slides. Pity of his wife, too, gets to be fervidly active with her +portrait, fetches her breath about us. As for condemnation of the poor +little woman, her case was not unexampled, though the sudden flare of it +startled rather. Mrs. Victor could read men and women closely. Yes, and +Victor, when he schemed--but Dartrey declined to be throwing blame right +or left. More than by his breakfast, and in a preferable direction, he +was refreshed by Skepsey’s narrative of the deeds of Matilda Pridden. + +‘The right sort of girl for you to know, Skepsey,’ he said. ‘The best in +life is a good woman.’ + +Skepsey exhibited his book of the Gallic howl. + +‘They have their fits now and then, and they’re soon over and +forgotten,’ Dartrey said. ‘The worst of it is, that we remember.’ + +After the morning’s visit to his uncle, he peered at half a dozen sticks +in the corner of the room, grasped their handles, and selected the +Demerara supple-jack, for no particular reason; the curved knot was +easy to the grasp. It was in his mind, that this person signing herself +Judith Marsett, might have something to say, which intimately concerned +Nesta. He fell to brooding on it, until he wondered why he had not been +made a trifle anxious by the reading of the note overnight. Skepsey was +left at Nesta’s house. + +Dartrey found himself expected by the servant waiting on Mrs. Marsett. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII. SHOWS HOW TEMPER MAY KINDLE TEMPER AND AN INDIGNANT WOMAN +GET HER WEAPON + +Judith Marsett stood in her room to receive Nesta’s hero. She was +flushed, and had thinned her lips for utterance of a desperate thing, +after the first severe formalities. + +Her aim was to preserve an impressive decorum. She was at the same time +burning to speak out furious wrath, in words of savage rawness, if they +should come, as a manner of slapping the world’s cheek for the state +to which it reduces its women; whom one of the superior creatures can +insult, and laugh. + +Men complaining of the ‘peace which is near their extinction,’ have but +to shuffle with the sex; they will experience as remarkable a change as +if they had passed off land on to sea. + +Dartrey had some flitting notion of the untamed original elements +women can bring about us, in his short observant bow to Mrs. Marsett, +following so closely upon the scene with Mrs. Blathenoy. + +But this handsome woman’s look of the dull red line of a sombre fire, +that needed only stir of a breath to shoot the blaze, did not at all +alarm him. He felt refreshingly strung by it. + +She was discerned at a glance to be an aristocratic member of regions +where the senses perpetually simmer when they are not boiling. The +talk at the Club recurred to him. How could Nesta have come to know the +woman? His questioning of the chapter of marvellous accidents, touched +Nesta simply, as a young girl to be protected, without abhorrently +involving the woman. He had his ideas of the Spirit of Woman stating +her case to the One Judge, for lack of an earthly just one: a story +different from that which is proclaimed pestilential by the body of +censors under conservatory glass; where flesh is delicately nurtured, +highly prized; spirit not so much so; and where the pretty tricking of +the flesh is taken for a spiritual ascendancy. + +In spite of her turbulent breast’s burden to deliver, Mrs. Marsett’s +feminine acuteness was alive upon Dartrey, confirming here and there +Nesta’s praises of him. She liked his build and easy carriage of a +muscular frame: her Ned was a heavy man. More than Dartrey’s figure, +as she would have said, though the estimate came second, she liked his +manner with her. Not a doubt was there, that he read her position. She +could impose upon some: not upon masculine eyes like these. They did +not scrutinize, nor ruffle a smooth surface with a snap at petty +impressions; and they were not cynically intimate or dominating or +tentatively amorous: clear good fellowship was in them. And it was a +blessedness (whatever might be her feeling later, when she came to thank +him at heart) to be in the presence of a man whose appearance breathed +of offering her common ground, whereon to meet and speak together, +unburdened by the hunting world, and by the stoneing world. Such common +ground seems a kind of celestial to the better order of those excluded +from it. + +Dartrey relieved her midway in a rigid practice of the formalities: ‘I +think I may guess that you have something to tell me relating to Miss +Radnor?’ + +‘It is.’ Mrs. Marsett gathered up for an immediate plunge, and deferred +it. ‘I met her--we went out with the riding-master. She took to me. +I like her--I could say’ (the woman’s voice dropped dead low, in a +tremble), ‘I love her. She is young: I could kneel to her. Do you know a +Major Worrell?’ + +‘Worrell? no.’ + +‘He is a-calls himself a friend of my--of Captain Marsett’s. He met us +out one day.’ + +‘He permitted himself to speak to Miss Radnor?’ + +She rejoiced in Dartrey’s look. ‘Not then. First let me tell you. I can +hardly tell you. But Miss Radnor tells me you are not like other men. +You have made your conclusions already. Are you asking what right I +had to be knowing her? It is her goodness. Accident began it; I did not +deceive her; as soon as ever I could I--I have Captain Marsett’s promise +to me: at present he’s situated, he--but I opened my heart to her: as +much as a woman can. It came! Did I do very wrong?’ + +‘I’m not here to decide: continue, pray.’ + +Mrs. Marsett aimed at formal speech, and was driving upon her natural in +anger. ‘I swear I did it for the best. She is an innocent girl... young +lady: only she has a head; she soon reads things. I saw the kind of +cloud in her. I spoke. I felt bound to: she said she would not forsake +me.--I was bound to! And it was enough to break my heart, to think of +her despising me. No, she forgave, pitied;--she was kind. Those are the +angels who cause us to think of changeing. I don’t care for sermons, but +when I meet charity: I won’t bore you!’ + +‘You don’t.’ + +‘My... Captain Marsett can’t bear--he calls it Psalmody. He thinks +things ought always to be as they are, with women and men; and women +preachers he does detest. She is not one to preach. You are waiting to +hear what I have to tell. That man Major Worrell has tried to rob me of +everything I ever had to set a value on:--love, I ‘d say;--he laughs at +a woman like me loving.’ + +Dartrey nodded, to signify a known sort of fellow. + +‘She came here.’ Mrs. Marsett’s tears had risen. ‘I ought not to have +let her come. I invited her--for once: I am lonely. None of my sex--none +I could respect! I meant it for only once. She promised to sing to me. +And, Oh! how she sings! You have heard her. My whole heart came out. I +declare I believe girls exist who can hear our way of life--and I’m not +so bad except compared with that angel, who heard me, and was and is, I +could take oath, no worse for it. Some girls can; she is one. I am all +for bringing them up in complete innocence. If I was a great lady, +my daughters should never know anything of the world until they were +married. But Miss Radnor is a young lady who cannot be hurt. She is +above us. Oh! what a treasure for a man!--and my God! for any man born +of woman to insult a saint, as she is!--He is a beast!’ + +‘Major Worrell met her here?’ + +‘Blame me as much as you like: I do myself. Half my rage with him is at +myself for putting her in the way of such a beast to annoy. Each time +she came, I said it was to be the last. I let her see what a mercy from +heaven she was to me. She would come. It has not been many times. She +wishes me either to... Captain Marsett has promised. And nothing seems +hard--to me when my own God’s angel is by. She is! I’m not such a +bad woman, but I never before I knew her knew the meaning of the word +virtue. There is the young lady that man worried with his insulting +remarks! though he must have known she was a lady:--because he found her +in my rooms.’ + +‘You were present when, as you say, he insulted her?’ + +‘I was. Here it commenced; and he would see her downstairs.’ + +‘You heard?’ + +‘Of course, I never left her.’ + +‘Give me a notion...’ + +‘To get her to make an appointment: to let him conduct her home.’ + +‘She was alone?’ + +‘Her maid was below.’ + +‘And this happened...?’ + +‘Yesterday, after dark. My Ned--Captain Marsett encourages him to be +familiar. I should be the lowest of women if I feared the threats of +such a reptile of a man. I could tell you more. I can’t always refuse +his visits, though if Ned knew the cur he is! Captain Marsett is +easy-going.’ + +‘I should like to know where he lives.’ + +She went straight to the mantelpiece, and faced about with a card, +handing it, quite aware that it was a charge of powder. + +Desperate things to be done excused the desperate said; and especially +they seemed a cover to the bald and often spotty language leaping out of +her, against her better taste, when her temper was up. + +‘Somewhere not very distant,’ said Dartrey perusing. ‘Is he in the town +to-day, do you know?’ + +‘I am not sure; he may be. Her name...’ + +‘Have no fear. Ladies’ names are safe.’ + +‘I am anxious that she may not be insulted again.’ + +‘Did she show herself conscious of it?’ + +‘She stopped speaking: she looked at the door. She may come again--or +never! through that man!’ + +‘You receive him, at his pleasure?’ + +‘Captain Marsett wishes me to. He is on his way home. He calls Major +Worrell my pet spite. All I want is; not to hear of the man. I swear he +came yesterday on the chance of seeing--for he forced his way up past my +servant; he must have seen Miss Radnor’s maid below.’ + +‘You don’t mean, that he insulted her hearing?’ + +‘Oh! Captain Fenellan, you know the style.’ + +‘Well, I thank you,’ Dartrey said. ‘The young lady is the daughter of my +dearest friends. She’s one of the precious--you’re quite right. Keep the +tears back.’ + +‘I will.’ She heaved open-mouthed to get physical control of the tide. +‘When you say that of her!--how can I help it? It’s I fear, because I +fear... and I’ve no right to expect ever... but if I’m never again to +look on that dear face, tell her I shall--I shall pray for her in my +grave. Tell her she has done all a woman can, an angel can, to save my +soul. I speak truth: my very soul! I could never go to the utter bad +after knowing her. I don’t--you know the world--I’m a poor helpless +woman!--don’t swear to give up my Ned if he does break the word he +promised once; I can’t see how I could. I haven’t her courage. I +haven’t--what it is! You know her: it’s in her eyes and her voice. If I +had her beside me, then I could starve or go to execution--I could, I am +certain. Here I am, going to do what you men hate. Let me sit.’ + +‘Here’s a chair,’ said Dartrey. ‘I’ve no time to spare; good day, for +the present. You will permit me to call.’ + +‘Oh! come’; she cried, out of her sobs, for excuse. They were genuine, +or she would better have been able to second her efforts to catch a +distinct vision of his retreating figure. + +She beheld him, when he was in the street, turn for the district where +Major Worrell had his lodgeings. That set her mind moving, and her tears +fell no longer. + +Major Worrell was not at home. Dartrey was informed that he might be at +his Club. + +At the Club he heard of the major as having gone to London and being +expected down in the afternoon. Colonel Sudley named the train: an +early train; the major was engaged to dine at the Club. Dartrey had +information supplied to him concerning Major Worrell and Captain +Marsett, also Mrs. Marsett. She had a history. Worthy citizens read the +description of history with interest when the halo of Royalty is round +it. They may, if their reading extends, perceive, that it has been the +main turbid stream in old Mammon’s train since he threw his bait for +flesh. They might ask, too, whether it is likely to cease to flow while +he remains potent. The lady’s history was brief, and bore recital in a +Club; came off quite honourably there. Regarding Major Worrell, the tale +of him showed him to have a pass among men. He managed cleverly to +get his pleasures out of a small income and a ‘fund of anecdote.’ His +reputation indicated an anecdotist of the table, prevailing in the +primitive societies, where the art of conversing does not come by +nature, and is exercised in monosyllabic undertones or grunts until +the narrator’s well-masticated popular anecdote loosens a digestive +laughter, and some talk ensues. He was Marsett’s friend, and he boasted +of not letting Ned Marsett make a fool of himself. + +Dartrey was not long in shaping the man’s character: Worrell belonged +to the male birds of upper air, who mangle what female prey they are +forbidden to devour. And he had Miss Radnor’s name: he had spoken her +name at the Club overnight. He had roused a sensation, because of a man +being present, Percy Southweare, who was related to a man as good as +engaged to marry her. The major never fell into a quarrel with sons of +nobles, if he could help it, or there might have been a pretty one. + +So Colonel Sudley said. + +Dartrey spoke musing: ‘I don’t know how he may class me; I have an +account to square with him.’ + +‘It won’t do in these days, my good friend. Come and cool yourself; and +we’ll lunch here. I shan’t leave you.’ + +‘By all means. We’ll lunch, and walk up to the station, and you will +point him out to me.’ + +Dartrey stated Major Worrell’s offence. The colonel was not astonished; +but evidently he thought less of Worrell’s behaviour to Miss Radnor in +Mrs. Marsett’s presence than of the mention of her name at the Club: and +that, he seemed to think, had a shade of excuse against the charge of +monstrous. He blamed the young lady who could go twice to visit a Mrs. +Marsett; partly exposed a suspicion of her. Dartrey let him talk. They +strolled along the parade, and were near the pier. + +Suddenly saying: ‘There, beside our friend in clerical garb: here she +comes; judge if that is the girl for the foulest of curs to worry, no +matter where she’s found.’ Dartrey directed the colonel’s attention to +Nesta and Mr. Barmby turning off the pier and advancing. + +He saluted. She bowed. There was no contraction of her eyelids; and her +face was white. The mortal life appeared to be deadened in her cold wide +look; as when the storm-wind banks a leaden remoteness, leaving blown +space of sky. + +The colonel said: ‘No, that’s not the girl a gentleman would offend.’ + +‘What man!’ cried Dartrey. ‘If we had a Society for the trial of your +gentleman!--but he has only to call himself gentleman to get grant of +licence: and your Society protects him. It won’t punish, and it won’t +let you. But you saw her: ask yourself--what man could offend that +girl!’ + +‘Still, my friend, she ought to keep clear of the Marsetts.’ + +‘When I meet him, I shall treat him as one out of the law.’ + +‘You lead on to an ultimate argument with the hangman.’ + +We ‘ll dare it, to waken the old country. Old England will count none +but Worrells in time. As for discreet, if you like!--the young lady +might have been more discreet. She’s a girl with a big heart. If we were +all everlastingly discreet!’ + +Dartrey may have meant, that the consequence of a prolonged conformity +would be the generation of stenches to shock to purgeing tempests the +tolerant heavens over such smooth stagnancy. He had his ideas about +movement; about the good of women, and the health of his England. The +feeling of the hopelessness of pleading Nesta’s conduct, for the perfect +justification of it to son or daughter of our impressing conventional +world--even to a friend, that friend a true man, a really chivalrous +man--drove him back in a silence upon his natural brotherhood with souls +that dare do. It was a wonder, to think of his finding this kinship in +a woman. In a girl?--and the world holding that virgin spirit to be +unclean or shadowed because its rays were shed on foul places? He +clasped the girl. Her smitten clear face, the face of the second sigh +after torture, bent him in devotion to her image. + +The clasping and the worshipping were independent of personal ardours: +quaintly mixed with semi-paternal recollections of the little ‘blue +butterfly’ of the days at Craye. Farm and Creckholt; and he had heard +of Dudley Sowerby’s pretensions to; her hand. Nesta’s youthfulness cast +double age on him from the child’s past. He pictured the child; pictured +the girl, with her look of solitariness of sight; as in the desolate +wide world, where her noble compassion for a woman had unexpectedly, +painfully, almost by transubstantiation, rack-screwed her to woman’s +mind. And above sorrowful, holy were those eyes. + +They held sway over Dartrey, and lost it some steps on; his demon temper +urgeing him to strike at Major Worrell, as the cause of her dismayed +expression. He was not the happier for dropping to his nature; but we +proceed more easily, all of us, when the strain which lifts us a foot or +two off our native level is relaxed. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII. A PAIR OF WOOERS + +That ashen look of the rise out of death from one of our mortal wounds, +was caused by deeper convulsions in Nesta’s bosom than Dartrey could +imagine. + +She had gone for the walk with Mr. Barmby, reading the omen of his tones +in the request. Dorothea and Virginia would have her go. The clerical +gentleman, a friend of the Rev. Abram Posterley; and one who deplored +poor Mr. Posterley’s infatuation; and one besides who belonged to +Nesta’s musical choir in London: seemed a safe companion for the child. +The grand organ of Mr. Barmby’s voice, too, assured them of a devout +seriousness in him, that arrested any scrupulous little questions. They +could not conceive his uttering the nonsensical empty stuff, compliments +to their beauty and what not, which girls hear sometimes from +inconsiderate gentlemen, to the having of their heads turned. Moreover, +Nesta had rashly promised her father’s faithful servant Skepsey to walk, +out with him in the afternoon; and the ladies hoped she would find the +morning’s walk to have been enough; good little man though Skepsey was, +they were sure. But there is the incongruous for young women of station +on a promenade. + +Mr. Barmby headed to the pier. After pacing up and down between the +briny gulls and a polka-band, he made his way forethoughtfully to the +glass-sheltered seats fronting East: where, as his enthusiasm for the +solemnity of the occasion excited him to say, ‘We have a view of the +terraces and the cliffs’; and where not more than two enwrapped +invalid figures were ensconsed. Then it was, that Nesta recalled her +anticipation of his possible design; forgotten by her during their talk +of her dear people: Priscilla Graves and Mr. Pempton, and the Yatts, and +Simeon Fenellan, Peridon and Catkin, and Skepsey likewise; and the very +latest news of her mother. She wished she could have run before him, to +spare him. He would not notice a sign. Girls must wait and hear. + +It was an oratorio. She watched the long wave roll on to the sinking +into its fellow; and onward again for the swell and the weariful lapse; +and up at last bursting to the sheet of white. The far-heard roar and +the near commingled, giving Mr. Barmby a semblance to the powers of +ocean. + +At the first direct note, the burden of which necessitated a pause, she +petitioned him to be her friend, to think of himself as her friend. + +But a vessel laden with merchandize, that has crossed wild seas for this +particular port, is hardly to be debarred from discharging its goods +on the quay by simple intimations of their not being wanted. We are +precipitated both by the aim and the tedium of the lengthened voyage to +insist that they be seen. We believe perforce in their temptingness; and +should allurement fail, we fall back to the belief in our eloquence. An +eloquence to expose the qualities they possess, is the testification in +the promise of their excellence. She is to be induced by feeling to see +it. We are asking a young lady for the precious gift of her hand. +We respect her; and because of our continued respect, despite an +obstruction, we have come to think we have a claim upon her gratitude; +could she but be led to understand how different we are from some other +man!--from one hitherto favoured among them, unworthy of this prize, +however personally exalted and meritorious. + +The wave of wide extension rolled and sank and rose, heaving lifeless +variations of the sickly streaks on its dull green back. + +Dudley Sowerby’s defection was hinted at and accounted for, by the +worldly test of worldly considerations. + +What were they?--Nesta glanced. + +An indistinct comparison was modestly presented, of one unmoved by +worldly considerations. + +But what were they? She was wakened by a lamp, and her darkness was all +inflammable to it. + +‘Oh! Mr. Barmby, you have done me the honour to speak before; you know +my answer,’ she said. + +‘You were then subject to an influence. A false, I may say wicked, +sentiment upholding celibacy.’ + +‘My poor Louise? She never thought of influencing me. She has her views, +I mine. Our friendship does not depend on a “treaty of reciprocity.” + We are one at heart, each free to judge and act, as it should be in +friendship. I heard from her this morning. Her brother will be able to +resume his military duties next month. Then she will return to me.’ + +‘We propose!’ rejoined Mr. Barmby. + +Beholding the involuntary mercurial rogue-dimple he had started from a +twitch at the corner, of her lips, the good gentleman pursued: ‘Can we +dare write our designs for the month to come? Ah!--I will say--Nesta! +give me the hope I beg to have. See the seriousness. You are at liberty. +That other has withdrawn his pretensions. We will not blame him. He +is in expectation of exalted rank. Where there is any shadow...!’ Mr. +Barmby paused on his outroll of the word; but immediately, not intending +to weigh down his gentle hearer with the significance in it, resumed at +a yet more sonorous depth: ‘He is under the obligation to his family; +an old, a venerable family. In the full blaze of public opinion! His +conduct can be palliated by us, too. There is a right and wrong in minor +things, independent of the higher rectitude. We pardon, we can partly +support, the worldly view.’ + +‘There is a shadow?’ said Nesta; and her voice was lurefully +encouraging. + +He was on the footing where men are precipitated by what is within them +to blunder. ‘On you--no. On you personally, not at all. No. It could not +be deemed so. Not by those knowing, esteeming--not by him who loves +you, and would, with his name, would, with his whole strength, envelop, +shield ... certainly, certainly not.’ + +‘It is on my parents?’ she said. + +‘But to me nothing, nothing, quite nought! To confound the innocent with +the guilty!... and excuses may exist. We know but how little we know!’ + +‘It is on both my parents?’ she said; with a simplicity that induced him +to reply: ‘Before the world. But not, I repeat...’ + +The band-instruments behind the sheltering glass flourished on their +termination of a waltz. + +She had not heeded their playing. Now she said: + +‘The music is over; we must not be late at lunch’; and she stood up and +moved. + +He sprang to his legs and obediently stepped out: + +‘I shall have your answer to-day, this evening? Nesta!’ + +‘Mr. Barmby, it will be the same. You will be kind to me in not asking +me again.’ + +He spoke further. She was dumb. + +Had he done ill or well for himself and for her when he named the shadow +on her parents? He dwelt more on her than on himself: he would not have +wounded her to win the blest affirmative. Could she have been entirely +ignorant?--and after Dudley Sowerby’s defection? For such it was: the +Rev. Stuart Rem had declared the union between the almost designated +head of the Cantor family and a young person of no name, of worse than +no birth, impossible: ‘absolutely and totally impossible,’ he, had said, +in his impressive fashion, speaking from his knowledge of the family, +and an acquaintance with Dudley. She must necessarily have learnt why +Dudley Sowerby withdrew. No parents of an attractive daughter should +allow her to remain unaware of her actual position in the world. It is +criminal, a reduplication of the criminality! Yet she had not spoken as +one astonished. She was mysterious. Women are so: young women most +of all. It is undecided still whether they do of themselves conceive +principles, or should submit to an imposition of the same upon them in +terrorem. Mysterious truly, but most attractive! As Lady Bountiful of a +district, she would have in her maturity the majestic stature to suit +a dispensation of earthly good things. And, strangely, here she was, at +this moment, rivalling to excelling all others of her sex (he verified +it in the crowd of female faces passing), when they, if they but knew +the facts, would visit her very appearance beside them on a common +footing as an intrusion and a scandal. To us who know, such matters are +indeed wonderful! + +Moved by reflective compassion, Mr. Barmby resumed the wooer’s note, +some few steps after he had responded to the salutation of Dartrey +Fenellan and Colonel Sudley. She did not speak. She turned her forehead +to him; and the absence of the world from her eyes chilled his tongue. + +He declined the pleasure of the lunch with the Duvidney ladies. He +desired to be alone, to question himself fasting, to sound the deed he +had done; for he had struck on a suspicion of selfishness in it: and +though Love must needs be an egoism, Love is no warrant for the doing +of a hurt to the creature beloved. Thoughts upon Skepsey and the tale +of his Matilda Pridden’s labours in poor neighbourhoods, to which he had +been inattentive during the journey down to the sea, invaded him; they +were persistent. He was a worthy man, having within him the +spiritual impulse curiously ready to take the place where a material +disappointment left vacancy. The vulgar sort embrace the devil at that +stage. Before the day had sunk, Mr. Barmby’s lowest wish was, to be a +light, as the instrument of his Church in her ministrations amid the +haunts of sin and slime, to such plain souls as Daniel Skepsey and +Matilda Pridden. And he could still be that, if Nesta, in the chapters +of the future, changed her mind. She might; for her good she would; he +reserved the hope. His light was one to burn beneath an extinguisher. + +At the luncheon table of the Duvidney ladies, it was a pain to Dorothea +and Virginia to witness how poor the appetite their Nesta brought in +from the briny blowy walk. They prophesied against her chances of a good +sleep at night, if she did not eat heartily. Virginia timidly remarked +on her paleness. Both of them put their simple arts in motion to let her +know, that she was dear to them: so dear as to make them dread the hour +of parting. They named their dread of it. They had consulted in private +and owned to one another, that they did really love the child, and dared +not look forward to what they would do without her. The dear child’s +paleness and want of appetite (they remembered they were observing +a weak innocent girl) suggested to them mutually the idea of a young +female heart sickening, for the old unhappy maiden reason. But, if +only she might return with them to the Wells, the Rev. Stuart Rem would +assure her to convince her of her not being quite, quite forsaken. He, +or some one having sanction from Victor, might ultimately (the ladies +waiting anxiously in the next room, to fold her on the warmth of their +bosoms when she had heard) impart to her the knowledge of circumstances, +which would, under their further tuition concerning the particular +sentiments of great families and the strict duties of the scions of +the race, help to account for and excuse the Hon. Dudley Sowerby’s +behaviour. + +They went up to the drawing-room, talking of Skepsey and his tale of +Miss Pridden, for Nesta’s amusement. Any talk of her Skepsey usually +quickened her lips to reminiscent smiles and speech. Now she held on to +gazeing; and sadly, it seemed; as if some object were not present. + +For a vague encouragement, Dorothea said: ‘One week, and we are back +home at Moorsedge!’--not so far from Cronidge, was implied, for the +administering of some foolish temporary comfort. And it was as when a +fish on land springs its hollow sides in alien air for the sustaining +element; the girl panted; she clasped Dorothea’s hand and looked at +Virginia: ‘My mother--I must see her!’ she said. They were slightly +stupefied by the unwonted mention of her mother. They made no reply. +They never had done so when there was allusion to her mother. Their +silence now struck a gong at the girl’s bosom. + +Dorothea had it in mind to say, that if she thirsted for any special +comfort, the friends about her would offer consolation for confidence. + +Before she could speak, Perrin the footman entered, bearing the card of +the Hon. Dudley Sowerby. + +Mr. Dudley Sowerby begged for an immediate interview with Miss Radnor. + +The ladies were somewhat agitated, but no longer perplexed as to their +duties. They had quitted Moorsedge to avoid the visit of his family. +If he followed, it signified that which they could not withstand:--The +‘Tivoli falls!’ as they named the fateful tremendous human passion, from +the reminiscences of an impressive day on their travels in youth; when +the leaping torrent had struck upon a tale of love they were reading. +They hurriedly entreated Nesta to command her nerves; peremptorily +requested her to stay where she was; showed her spontaneously, by way of +histrionic adjuration, the face to be worn by young ladies at greetings +on these occasions; kissed her and left her; Virginia whispering: ‘He is +true!’ + +Dudley entered the drawing-room, charged with his happy burden of a love +that had passed through the furnace. She stood near a window, well in +the light; she hardly gave him welcome. His address to her was hurried, +rather uncertain, coherent enough between the drop and the catch of +articulate syllables. He found himself holding his hat. He placed it on +the table, and it rolled foolishly; but soon he was by her side, having +two free hands to claim her one. + +‘You are thinking, you have not heard from me! I have been much +occupied,’ he said. ‘My brother is ill, very ill. I have your pardon?’ + +‘Indeed you have--if it has to be asked.’ + +‘I have it?’ + +‘Have I to grant it?’ + +‘I own to remissness! + +‘I did not blame you.’ + +‘Nesta...!’ + +Her coldness was unshaken. + +He repeated the call of her name. ‘I should have written--I ought to +have written!--I could not have expressed... You do forgive? So many +things!’ + +‘You come from Cronidge to-day?’ + +‘From my family--to you.’ + +She seemed resentful. His omissions as a correspondent were explicable +in a sentence. It had to be deferred. + +Reviewing for a moment the enormous internal conflict undergone by +him during the period of the silence between them, he wondered at the +vastness of the love which had conquered objections, to him so poignant. + +There was at least no seeing of the public blot on her birth when +looking on her face. Nor when thinking of the beauty of her character, +in absence or in presence, was there any. He had mastered distaste to +such a degree, that he forgot the assistance he had received from the +heiress for enabling him to appreciate the fair young girl. Money is the +imperious requirement of superior station; and more money and more: in +these our modern days of the merchant’s wealth, and the miner’s, and the +gigantic American and Australian millionaires, high rank is of necessity +vowed, in peril of utter eclipse; to the possession of money. Still it +is, when assured, a consideration far to the rear with a gentleman in +whose bosom love and the buzzing world have fought their battle out. He +could believe it thoroughly fought out, by the prolonged endurance of +a contest lasting many days and nights; in the midst of which, at +one time, the task of writing to tell her of his withdrawal from the +engagement, was the cause of his omission to write. + +As to her character, he dwelt on the charm of her recovered features, to +repress an indicative dread of some intrepid force behind it, that might +be unfeminine, however gentle the external lineaments. Her features, +her present aristocratic deficiency of colour, greatly pleased him; her +character would submit to moulding. Of all young ladies in the world, +she should be the one to shrink from a mental independence and hold to +the guidance of the man ennobling her. Did she? Her eyes were reading +him. She had her father’s limpid eyes, and when they concentrated rays, +they shot. + +‘Have you seen my parents, Mr. Sowerby?’ + +He answered smilingly, for reassuringly: ‘I have seen them.’ + +‘My mother?’ + +‘From your mother first. But am I not to be Dudley?’ + +‘She spoke to you? She told you?’ + +‘And yesterday your father--a second time.’ + +Some remainder of suspicion in the dealing with members of this family, +urged Dudley to say: ‘I understood from them, you were not?... that you +were quite...?’ + +‘I have heard: I have guessed: it was recently--this morning, as +it happened. I wish to go to my mother to-day. I shall go to her +to-morrow.’ + +‘I might offer to conduct you-now!’ + +‘You are kind; I have Skepsey.’ She relieved the situation of its +cold-toned strain in adding: ‘He is a host.’ + +‘But I may come?--now! Have I not the right? You do not deny it me?’ + +‘You are very generous.’ + +‘I claim the right, then. Always. And subsequently, soon after, my +mother hopes to welcome you at Cronidge. She will be glad to hear of +your naming of a day. My father bids me... he and all our family.’ + +‘They are very generous.’ + +‘I may send them word this evening of a day you name?’ + +‘No, Mr. Sowerby. + +‘Dudley?’ + +‘I cannot say it. I have to see my parents.’ + +‘Between us, surely?’ + +‘My whole heart thanks you for your goodness to me. I am unable to say +more.’ + +He had again observed and he slightly crisped under the speculative +look she directed on him: a simple unstrained look, that had an air of +reading right in, and was worse to bear with than when the spark +leaped upon some thought from her eyes: though he had no imagination of +anything he concealed--or exposed, and he would have set it down to her +temporary incredulousness of his perfect generosity or power to overcome +the world’s opinion of certain circumstances. That had been a struggle! +The peculiar look was not renewed. She spoke warmly of her gratitude. +She stated, that she must of necessity see her parents at once. She +submitted to his entreaty to conduct her to them on the morrow. It +was in the manner of one who yielded step by step, from inability to +contend. + +Her attitude continuing unchanged, he became sensible of a monotony +in the speech with which he assailed it, and he rose to leave, not +dissatisfied. She, at his urgent request, named her train for London in +the early morning. He said it was not too early. He would have desired +to be warmed; yet he liked her the better for the moral sentiment +controlling the physical. He had appointments with relatives or +connections in the town, and on that pretext he departed, hoping for +the speedy dawn of the morrow as soon as he had turned his back on the +house. + +No, not he the man to have pity of women underfoot! That was the +thought, unrevolved, unphrased, all but unconscious, in Nesta: and while +her heart was exalting him for his generosity. Under her present sense +of the chilling shadow, she felt the comfort there was in being grateful +to him for the golden beams which his generosity cast about her. But she +had an intelligence sharp to pierce, virgin though she was; and with the +mark in sight, however distant, she struck it, unerring as an Artemis +for blood of beasts: those shrewd young wits, on the lookout to find +a champion, athirst for help upon a desolate road, were hard as any +judicial to pronounce the sentence upon Dudley in that respect. She +raised him high; she placed herself low; she had a glimpse of the +struggle he had gone through; love of her had helped him, she believed. +And she was melted; and not the less did the girl’s implacable intuition +read with the keenness of eye of a man of the world the blunt division +in him, where warm humanity stopped short at the wall of social concrete +forming a part of this rightly esteemed young citizen. She, too, was +divided: she was at his feet; and she rebuked herself for daring to +judge--or rather, it was, for having a reserve in her mind upon a +man proving so generous with her. She was pulled this way and that +by sensibilities both inspiring to blind gratitude and quickening her +penetrative view. The certainty of an unerring perception remained. + +Dorothea and Virginia were seated in the room below, waiting for their +carriage, when the hall-door spoke of the Hon. Dudley’s departure; soon +after, Nesta entered to them. She swam up to Dorothea’s lap, and dropped +her head on it, kneeling. + +The ladies feared she might be weeping. Dorothea patted her thick brown +twisted locks of hair. Unhappiness following such an interview, struck +them as an ill sign. + +Virginia bent to the girl’s ear, and murmured: ‘All well?’ + +She replied: ‘He has been very generous.’ + +Her speaking of the words renewed an oppression, that had darkened her +on the descent of stairs. For sensibilities sharp as Nesta’s, are not to +be had without their penalties: and she who had gone nigh to summing in +a flash the nature of Dudley, sank suddenly under that affliction often +besetting the young adventurous mind, crushing to young women:--the +fascination exercised upon them by a positive adverse masculine attitude +and opinion. Young men know well what it is: and if young women have +by chance overcome their timidity, to the taking of any step out of +the trim pathway, they shrink, with a sense of forlornest isolation. It +becomes a subjugation; inciting to revolt, but a heavy weight to cast +off. Soon it assumed its material form for the contention between +her and Dudley, in the figure of Mrs. Marsett. The Nesta who had been +instructed to know herself to be under a shadow, heard, she almost +justified Dudley’s reproaches to her, for having made the acquaintance +of the unhappy woman, for having visited her, for having been, though +but for a minute, at the mercy of a coarse gentleman’s pursuit. The +recollection was a smart buffet. + +Her lighted mind punished her thus through her conjuring of Dudley’s +words, should news of her relations with Mrs. Marsett reach him:--and +she would have to tell him. Would he not say: ‘I have borne with +the things concerning your family. All the greater reason why I must +insist’--he would assuredly say he insisted (her humour caught at the +word, as being the very word one could foresee and clearly see him +uttering in a fit of vehemence) on her immediate abandonment of ‘that +woman.’ + +And with Nesta’s present enlightenment by dusky beams, upon her +parentage, she listened abjectly to Dudley, or the opinion of the +majority. Would he not say or think, that her clinging to Mrs. Marsett +put them under a kind of common stamp, or gave the world its option to +class them together? + +These were among the ideas chasing in a head destined to be a +battle-field for the enrichment of a harvest-field of them, while the +girl’s face was hidden on Dorothea’s lap, and her breast heaved and +heaved. + +She distressed them when she rose, by saying she must instantly see her +mother. + +They saw the pain their hesitation inflicted, and Dorothea said: ‘Yes, +dear; any day you like.’ + +‘To-morrow--I must go to her to-morrow!’ + +A suggestion of her mother’s coming down, was faintly spoken by one +lady, echoed in a quaver by the other. + +Nesta shook her head. To quiet the kind souls, she entreated them to +give their promise that they would invite her again. + +Imagining the Hon. Dudley to have cast her off, both ladies embraced +her: not entirely yielding-up their hearts to her, by reason of +the pernicious new ideas now in the world to sap our foundations of +morality; which warned them of their duty to uphold mentally his quite +justifiable behaviour, even when compassionating the sufferings of the +guiltless creature loved by them. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIV. CONTAINS DEEDS UNRELATED AND EXPOSITIONS OF FEELINGS + +All through the afternoon and evening Skepsey showed indifference to +meals by continuing absent: and he was the one with whom Nesta would +have felt at home; more at home than with her parents. He and the cool +world he moved in were a transparency of peace to her mind; even to his +giving of some portion of it, when she had the dear little man present +to her in a vivid image of a fish in a glass globe, wandering round and +round, now and then shooting across, just as her Skepsey did: he carried +his head semihorizontally at his arrowy pace; plain to read though he +was, he appeared, under that image created of him, animated by motives +inducing to speculation. + +She thought of him till she could have reproached him for not returning +and helping her to get away from the fever of other thoughts:--this +anguish twisting about her parents, and the dreadful trammels of +gratitude to a man afflictingly generous, the frown of congregated +people. + +The latter was the least of evils; she had her charges to bring against +them for injustice: uncited, unstirred charges, they were effective as +a muffled force to sustain her: and the young who are of healthy lively +blood and clean conscience have either emotion or imagination to fold +them defensively from an enemy world; whose power to drive them forth +into the wilderness they acknowledge. But in the wilderness their souls +are not beaten down by breath of mortals; they burn straight flame there +up to the parent Spirit. + +She could not fancy herself flying thither;--where to be shorn and naked +and shivering is no hardship, for the solitude clothes, and the sole +true life in us resolves to that steady flame;--she was restrained by +Dudley’s generosity, which held her fast to have the forgiveness for +her uncommitted sin dashed in her face. He surprised her; the unexpected +quality in him seemed suddenly to have snared her fast: and she did not +obtain release after seeing behind it;--seeing it, by the light of +what she demanded, personal, shallow, a lover’s generosity. So her +keen intellect saw it; and her young blood (for the youthful are thus +divided) thrilled in thinking it must be love! The name of the sacred +passion lifted it out of the petty cabin of the individual into a +quiring cathedral universal, and subdued her. It subdued her with +an unwelcome touch of tenderness when she thought of it as involving +tenderness for her mother, some chivalrous respect for her mother. +Could he love the daughter without some little, which a more intimate +knowledge of her dear mother would enlarge? The girl’s heart flew to her +mother, clung to her, vindicated her dumbly. It would not inquire, and +it refused to hear, hungering the while. She sent forth her flights +of stories in elucidation of the hidden; and they were like white bird +after bird winging to covert beneath a thundercloud; until her breast +ached for the voice of the thunder: harsh facts: sure as she was of her +never losing her filial hold of the beloved. She and her mother grew +together, they were one. Accepting the shadow, they were the closer one +beneath it. She had neither vision nor active thought of her father, in +whom her pride was. + +At the hour of ten, the ladies retired for the enjoyment of their sweet +reward. Manton, their maid, came down to sit with Nesta on the watch for +Skepsey. Perrin, the footman, returning, as late as twenty minutes to +eleven, from his tobacco promenade along the terrace, reported to Manton +‘a row in town’; and he repeated to Nesta the policeman’s opinion and +his own of the ‘Army’ fellows, and the way to treat them. Both were for +rigour. + +‘The name of “Army” attracts poor Skepsey so, I am sure he would join +it, if they would admit him,’ Nesta said. + +‘He has an immense respect for a young woman, who belongs to his “Army”; +and one doesn’t know what may have come,’ said Manton. + +Two or three minutes after eleven, a feeble ring at the bell gained +admission for some person: whispering was heard in the passage. + +Manton played eavesdropper, and suddenly bursting on Skepsey, arrested +him when about to dash upstairs. His young mistress’s voice was a +sufficient command; he yielded; he pitched a smart sigh and stepped +into her presence for his countenance to be seen, or the show of a +countenance, that it presented. + +‘Skepsey wanted to rush to bed without saying good night to me?’ said +she; leaving unnoticed, except for woefulness of tone, his hurried +shuffle of remarks on ‘his appearance,’ and ‘little accidents’; ending +with an inclination of his disgraceful person to the doorway, and a +petition: ‘If I might, Miss Nesta?’ The implied pathetic reference to +a surgically-treated nose under a cross of strips of plaster, could not +obtain dismissal for him. And he had one eye of sinister hue, showing +beside its lighted-grey fellow as if a sullen punished dragonwhelp had +couched near some quick wood-pigeon. The two eyes blinked rapidly. +He was a picture of Guilt in the nude, imploring to be sent into +concealment. + +The cruelty of detaining him was evident. + +‘Yes, if you must,’ Nesta said. ‘But, dear Skepsey, will it be the +magistrate again to-morrow?’ + +He feared it would be; he fancied it would needs be. He concluded +by stating, that he was bound to appear before the magistrate in the +morning; and he begged assistance to keep it from the knowledge of the +Miss Duvidneys, who had been so kind to him. + +‘Has there been bailing of you again, Skepsey?’ + +‘A good gentleman, a resident,’ he replied; ‘a military gentleman; +indeed, a colonel of the cavalry; but, it may so be, retired; and +anxious about our vast possessions; though he thinks a translation of +a French attack on England unimportant. He says, the Germans despise us +most.’ + +‘Then this gentleman thinks you have a good case?’ + +‘He is a friend of Captain Dartrey’s.’ + +Hearing that name, Nesta said: ‘Now, Skepsey, you must tell me +everything. You are not to mind your looks. I believe, I do always +believe you mean well.’ + +‘Miss Nesta, it depends upon the magistrate’s not being prejudiced +against the street-processionists! + +‘But you may expect justice from the magistrate, if your case is good?’ + +‘I would not say no, Miss Nesta. But we find, the opinion of the public +has its effect with magistrates--their sentences. They are severe on +boxing. They have latterly treated the “Army” with more consideration, +owing to the change in the public view. I myself have changed.’ + +‘Have you joined it?’ + +‘I cannot say I am a member of it.’ + +‘You walked in the ranks to-day, and you were maltreated? Your friend +was there?’ + +‘I walked with Matilda Pridden; that is, parallel, along the pavement.’ + +‘I hope she came out of it unhurt?’ + +‘It is thanks to Captain Dartrey, Miss Nesta?’ + +This time Nesta looked her question. + +Manton interposed: ‘You are to speak, Mr. Skepsey’; and she stopped a +flood of narrative, that was knocking in his mind to feel its head and +to leap--an uninterrupted half-minute more would have shaped the story +for the proper flow. + +He began, after attending to the throb of his bruises in a manner to +correct them rather than solace; and the beginning was the end: +‘Captain Dartrey rescued us, before Matilda Pridden suffered harm, to +mention--the chin, slight, teeth unshaken; a beautiful set. She is angry +with Captain Dartrey, for having recourse to violence in her defence: it +is against her principles. “Then you die,” she says; and our principles +are to gain more by death. She says, we are alive in them; but worse if +we abandon them for the sake of living.--I am a little confused; she is +very abstruse.--Because, that is the corruptible life, she says. I have +found it quite impossible to argue with her; she has always a complete +answer; wonderful. In case of Invasion, we are to lift our voices to the +Lord; and the Lord’s will shall be manifested. If we are robbed, we ask, +How came we by the goods? It is unreasonable; it strikes at rights +of property. But I have to go on thinking. When in danger, she sings +without excitement. When the blow struck her, she stopped singing only +an instant. She says, no one fears, who has real faith. She will not let +me call her brave. She cannot admire Captain Dartrey. Her principles are +opposed. She said to him, “Sir, you did what seemed to you right.” She +thinks every blow struck sends us back to the state of the beasts. Her +principles...’ + +‘How was it Captain Dartrey happened to be present, Skepsey?’ + +‘She is very firm. You cannot move her.--Captain Dartrey was on his way +to the station, to meet a gentleman from London, Miss Nesta. He carried +a stick--a remarkable stick--he had shown to me in the morning, and he +has given it me now. He says, he has done his last with it. He seems to +have some of Matilda Pridden’s ideas about fighting, when it’s over. He +was glad to be rid of the stick, he said.’ + +‘But who attacked you? What were the people?’ + +‘Captain Dartrey says, England may hold up her head while she breeds +young women like Matilda Pridden: right or wrong, he says: it is the +substance.’ + +Hereupon Manton, sick of Miss Pridden, shook the little man with +a snappish word, to bring him to attention. She got him together +sufficiently for him to give a lame version of the story; flat until +he came to his heroine’s behaviour, when he brightened a moment, and +he sank back absorbed in her principles and theories of life. It was +understood by Nesta, that the processionists, going at a smart pace, +found their way blocked and were assaulted in one of the sidestreets; +and that Skepsey rushed to the defence of Matilda Pridden; and that, +while they were engaged, Captain Dartrey was passing at the end of the +street, and recognized one he knew in the thick of it and getting the +worst of it, owing to numbers. ‘I will show you the stick he did it +with, Miss Nests’; said Skepsey, regardless of narrative; and darted +out of the room to bring in the Demerara supple-jack; holding which, he +became inspired to relate something of Captain Dartrey’s deeds. + +They gave no pleasure to his young lady, as he sadly perceived:--thus it +is with the fair sex ever, so fond of heroes! She shut her eyes from +the sight of the Demerara supple-jack descending right and left upon the +skulls of a couple of bully lads. ‘That will do--you were rescued. And +now go to bed, Skepsey; and be up at seven to breakfast with me,’ Nesta +said, for his battle-damaged face would be more endurable to behold +after an interval, she hoped; and she might in the morning dissociate +its evil look from the deeds of Captain Dartrey. + +The thought of her hero taking active part in a streetfray, was +repulsive to her; it swamped his brilliancy. And this distressed her, by +withdrawing the support which the thought of him had been to her since +mid-day. She lay for sleepless hours, while nursing a deeper pain, under +oppression of repugnance to battle-dealing, bloodshedding men. It was +long before she grew mindful of the absurdity of the moan recurring +whenever reflection wearied. Translated into speech, it would have run: + +‘In a street of the town! with a stick!’--The vulgar picture pursued her +to humiliation; it robbed her or dimmed her possession of the one bright +thing she had remaining to her. So she deemed it during the heavy sighs +of night; partly conscious, that in some strange way it was as much +as tossing her to the man who never could have condescended to the +pugnacious using of a stick in a street. He, on the contrary, was a +cover to the shamefaced. + +Her heart was weak that night. She hovered above it, but not so detached +as to scorn it for fawning to one--any one--who would offer her and her +mother a cover from scorn. And now she exalted Dudley’s generosity, +now clung to a low idea of a haven in her father’s wealth; and she was +unaware, that the second mood was deduced from the first. She did know +herself cowardly: she had, too, a critic in her clear head, to spurn at +the creature who could think of purchasing the world’s respect. Dudley’s +generosity sprang up to silence the voice. She could praise him, on a +review of it, for delicacy, moreover; and the delicacy laid her under +a more positive obligation. Her sense of it was not without a toneless +quaint faint savour of the romantic, that her humour little humorously +caught at, to paint her a picture of former heroes of fiction, who win +their trying lady by their perfection of good conduct on a background of +high birth; and who are not seen to be wooden before the volume closes. +Her fatigue of sleeplessness plunged her into the period of poke-bonnets +and peaky hats to admire him; giving her the kind of sweetness we may +imagine ourselves to get in the state of tired horse munching hay. If +she had gone to her bed with a noble or simply estimable plain image of +one of her friends in her heart, to sustain it, she would not have been +thus abject. Skepsey’s discoloured eye, and Captain Dartrey’s behaviour +behind it, threw her upon Dudley’s generosity, as being the shield for +an outcast. Girls, who see at a time of need their ideal extinguished in +its appearing tarnished, are very much at the disposal of the pressing +suitor. Nesta rose in the black winter morn, summoning the best she +could think of to glorify Dudley, that she might not feel so doomed. + +According to an agreement overnight, she went to the bedroom of Dorothea +and Virginia, to assure them of her having slept well, and say the +good-bye to them and their Tasso. The little dog was the growl of a +silken ball in a basket. His mistresses excused him, because of his +being unused to the appearance of any person save Manton in their +bedroom. Dorothea, kissing her, said: ‘Adieu, dear child; and there is +home with us always, remember. And, after breakfast, however it may +be, you will, for our greater feeling of security, have--she has our +orders--Manton--your own maid we consider too young for a guardian--to +accompany you. We will not have it on our consciences, that by any +possibility harm came to you while you were under our charge. The good +innocent girl we received from the hands of your father, we return to +him; we are sure of that.’ + +Nesta said: ‘Mr. Sowerby promised he would come.’ + +‘However it may be,’ Dorothea repeated her curtaining phrase. + +Virginia put in a word of apology for Tasso’s temper he enjoyed +ordinarily a slumber of half an hour’s longer duration. He was, Dorothea +feelingly added, regularity itself. Virginia murmured: ‘Except once!’ +and both were appalled by the recollection of that night. It had, +nevertheless, caused them to reperuse the Rev. Stuart Rem’s published +beautiful sermon ON DIRT; the words of which were an antidote to the +night of Tasso in the nostrils of Mnemosyne; so that Dorothea could +reply to her sister, slightly by way of a reproval, quoting Mr. Stuart +Rem at his loftiest: ‘“Let us not bring into the sacred precincts +Dirt from the roads, but have a care to spread it where it is a +fructification.”’ Virginia produced the sequent sentence, likewise +weighty. Nesta stood between the thin division of their beds, her right +hand given to one, her left to the other. They had the semblance of a +haven out of storms. + +She reflected, after shutting the door of their room, that the residing +with them had been a means of casting her--it was an effort to remember +how--upon the world where the tree of knowledge grows. She had eaten; +and she might be the worse for it; but she was raised to a height that +would not let her look with envy upon peace and comfort. Luxurious quiet +people were as ripening glass-house fruits. Her bitter gathering of the +knowledge of life had sharpened her intellect; and the intellect, even +in the young, is, and not less usefully, hard metal rather than fallow +soil. But for the fountain of human warmth at her breast, she might +have been snared by the conceit of intellect, to despise the simple and +conventional, or shed the pity which is charity’s contempt. She had only +to think of the kindness of the dear good ladies; her heart jumped to +them at once. And when she fancied hearing those innocent souls of women +embracing her and reproaching her for the knowledge of life she now +bore, her words down deep in her bosom were: It has helped me to bear +the shock of other knowledge! How would she have borne it before she +knew of the infinitely evil? Saving for the tender compassion weeping +over her mother, she had not much acute personal grief. + +For this world condemning her birth, was the world tolerant of that +infinitely evil! Her intellect fortified her to be combative by +day, after the night of imagination; which splendid power is not so +serviceable as the logical mind in painful seasons: for night revealed +the world snorting Dragon’s breath at a girl guilty of knowing its +vilest. More than she liked to recall, it had driven her scorched, half +withered, to the shelter of Dudley. The daylight, spreading thin at the +windows, restored her from that weakness. ‘We will quit England,’ she +said, thinking of her mother and herself, and then of her father’s +surely following them. She sighed thankfully, half way through the +breakfast with Skepsey, at sight of the hour by the clock; she was +hurriedly sentient of the puzzle of her feelings, when she guessed at +a chance that Dudley would be delayed. She supposed herself as possibly +feeling not so well able to keep every thought of her head brooding on +her mother in Dudley’s company. + +Skepsey’s face was just sufferable by light of day, if one pitied +reflecting on his honest intentions; it ceased to discolour another. +He dropped a few particulars of his hero in action; but the heroine +eclipsed. He was heavier than ever with his Matilda Pridden. At the +hour for departure, Perrin had a conveyance at the door. Nesta sent off +Skepsey with a complimentary message to Captain Dartrey. Her maid Mary +begged her to finish her breakfast; Manton suggested the waiting a +further two or three minutes. ‘We must not be late,’ Nesta said; and +when the minute-hand of the clock marked ample time for the drive to the +station, she took her seat and started, keeping her face resolutely +set seaward, having at her ears the ring of a cry that was to come +from Manton. But Manton was dumb; she spied no one on the pavement who +signalled to stop them. And no one was at the station to greet them. +They stepped into a carriage where they were alone. Dudley with his +dreaded generosity melted out of Nesta’s thoughts, like the vanishing +steam-wreath on the dip between the line and the downs. + +She passed into music, as she always did under motion of carriages and +trains, whether in happiness or sadness: and the day being one that +had a sky, the scenic of music swung her up to soar. None of her heavy +burdens enchained, though she knew the weight of them, with those of +other painful souls. The pipeing at her breast gave wings to large and +small of the visible; and along the downs went stateliest of flowing +dances; a copse lengthened to forest; a pool of cattle-water caught +grey for flights through enchantment. Cottage-children, wherever seen in +groups, she wreathed above with angels to watch them. Her mind all the +while was busy upon earth, embracing her mother, eyeing her father. +Imagination and our earthly met midway, and still she flew, until she +was brought to the ground by a shot. She struggled to rise, uplifting +Judith Marsett: a woman not so very much older than her own teens, in +the count of years, and ages older; and the world pulling at her heels +to keep her low. That unhappiest had no one but a sisterly girl to help +her: and how she clung to the slender help! Who else was there? + +The good and the bad in the woman struck separate blows upon the +girl’s resonant nature. She perceived the good, and took it into her +reflections. The bad she divined: it approached like some threat of +inflammation. Natures resonant as that which animated this girl, are +quick at the wells of understanding: and she had her intimations of the +world’s wisdom in withholding contagious presences from the very +mangy of the young, who may not have an aim, or ideal, or strong human +compassion, for a preservative. She was assured of her possessing it. +She asked herself in her mother’s voice, and answered mutely. She had +the certainty: for she rebuked the slavish feverishness of the passion, +as betrayed by Mrs. Marsett; and the woman’s tone, as of strung wires +ringing on a rage of the wind. Then followed her cry for the man who +could speak to Captain Marsett of his duty in honour. An image of one, +accompanying the faster beats of her heart, beguiled her to think away +from the cause. He, the one man known to her, would act the brother’s +part on behalf of the hapless creature. + +Nesta just imagined her having supplicated him, and at once imagination +came to dust. She had to thank him she knelt to him. For the first +time of her life she found herself seized with her sex’s shudder in the +blood. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXV. IN WHICH AGAIN WE MAKE USE OF THE OLD LAMPS FOR LIGHTING +AN ABYSMAL DARKNESS + +And if Nesta had looked out of her carriage-window soon after the train +began to glide, her eagle of imagination would have reeled from the +heights, with very different feelings, earlier, perhaps a captive, at +sight of the tardy gentleman rushing along the platform, and bending ear +to the footman Perrin, and staring for one lost. + +The snaky tail of the train imparted to Dudley an apprehension of the +ominous in his having missed her. It wound away, and left regrets, which +raised a chorus of harsh congratulations from the opposite party of his +internal parliament. + +Neither party could express an opinion without rousing the other to an +uproar. + +He had met his cousin Southweare overnight. He had heard, that there was +talk of Miss Radnor. Her name was in the mouth of Major Worrell. It +was coupled with the name of Mrs. Marsett. A military captain, in the +succession to be Sir Edward Marsett, bestowed on her the shadow of his +name. + +It could be certified, that Miss Radnor visited the woman at her house. +What are we to think of Miss Radnor, save that daughters of depraved +parents!... A torture undeserved is the Centaur’s shirt for driving +us to lay about in all directions. He who had swallowed so much--a +thunderbolt: a still undigested discharge from the perplexing heavens +jumped frantic under the pressure upon him of more, and worse. A girl +getting herself talked of at a Club! And she of all young ladies should +have been the last to draw round her that buzz of tongues. On such a +subject!--The parents pursuing their career of cynical ostentation in +London, threw an evil eye of heredity on their offspring in the egg; +making anything credible, pointing at tendencies. + +An alliance with her was impossible. So said disgust. Anger came like +a stronger beast, and extinguished the safety there was in the thing it +consumed, by growing so excessive as to require tempering with drops of +compassion; which prepared the way for a formal act of cold forgiveness; +and the moment that was conceived, he had a passion to commit the +horrible magnanimity, and did it on a grand scale, and dissolved his +Heart in the grandeur, and slaved himself again. + +Far from expungeing the doubt of her, forgiveness gave it a stamp and +an edge. His renewed enslavement set him perusing his tyrant keenly, as +nauseated captives do; and he saw, that forgiveness was beside the case. +For this Nesta Victoria Radnor would not crave it or accept it. He had +mentally played the woman to her superior vivaciousness too long for him +to see her taking a culprit’s attitude. What she did, she intended to +do. The mother would not have encouraged her. The father idolized her; +and the father was a frank hedonist, whose blood... speculation on +horseback gallops to barren extremes. Eyes like hers--if there had not +been the miserable dupes of girls! Conduct is the sole guide to female +character. That likewise may be the hypocrite’s mask. + +Popular artists, intent to gratify the national taste for effects called +realistic, have figured in scenes of battle the raying fragments of a +man from impact of a cannon-ball on his person. Truly thus it may be +when flesh contends. But an image of the stricken and scattered mind +of the man should, though deficient in the attraction, have a greater +significance, forasmuch as it does not exhibit him entirely liquefied +and showered into space; it leaves him his legs for the taking of +further steps. Dudley, standing on the platform of Nesta’s train, one +half minute too late, according to his desire before he put himself in +motion, was as wildly torn as the vapour shredded streaming to fingers +and threads off the upright columnar shot of the shriek from the boiler. +He wished every mad antagonism to his wishes: that he might see her, be +blind to her; embrace, discard; heal his wound, and tear it wider. He +thanked her for the grossness of an offence precluding excuses. He was +aware of a glimmer of advocacy in the very grossness. He conjured-up her +features, and they said, her innocence was the sinner; they scoffed at +him for the dupe he was willing to be. She had enigma’s mouth, with the +eyes of morning. + +More than most girls, she was the girl-Sphinx to him because of her +having ideas--or what he deemed ideas. She struck a toneing warmth +through his intelligence, not dissimilar to the livelier circulation of +the blood in the frame breathing mountain air. She really helped +him, incited him to go along with this windy wild modern time more +cheerfully, if not quite hopefully. For she had been the book of Romance +he despised when it appeared as a printed volume: and which might have +educated the young man to read some among our riddles in the book of +humanity. The white he was ready to take for silver the black were all +black; the spotted had received corruption’s label. Her youthful French +governess Mademoiselle de Seilles was also peculiarly enigmatic at the +mouth conversant, one might expect, with the disintegrating literature +of her country. In public, the two talked of St. Louis. One of them in +secret visits a Mrs. Marsett. The Southweare women, the Hennen women, +and Lady Evelina Reddish, were artless candid creatures in their early +days, not transgressing in a glance. Lady Grace Halley had her fit of +the devotional previous to marriage. No girl known to Dudley by report +or acquaintance had committed so scandalous an indiscretion as Miss +Radnor’s: it pertained to the insolently vile. + +And on that ground, it started the voluble defence. For certain +suspected things will dash suspicion to the rebound, when they are +very dark. As soon as the charge against her was moderated, the defence +expired. He heard the world delivering its judgement upon her; and he +sorrowfully acquiesced. She passed from him. + +When she was cut off, she sang him in the distance a remembered saying +of hers, with the full melody of her voice. One day, treating of modern +pessimism, he had draped a cadaverous view of our mortal being in a +quotation of the wisdom of the Philosopher Emperor: ‘To set one’s love +upon the swallow is a futility.’ And she, weighing it, nodded, and +replied: ‘May not the pleasure for us remain if we set our love upon the +beauty of the swallow’s flight?’ + +There was, for a girl, a bit of idea, real idea, in that meaning, of +course, the picture we are to have of the bird’s wings in motion, it +has often been admired. Oh! not much of an idea in itself: feminine and +vague. But it was pertinent, opportune; in this way she stimulated. +And the girl who could think it, and call on a Mrs. Marsett, was of the +class of mixtures properly to be handed over to chemical experts for +analysis! + +She had her aspirations on behalf of her sex: she and Mademoiselle de +Seilles discussed them; women were to do this, do that:--necessarily a +means of instructing a girl to learn what they did do. If the lower part +of her face had been as reassuring to him as the upper, he might have +put a reluctant faith in the pure-mindedness of these aspirations, +without reverting to her origin, and also to recent rumours of her +father and Lady Grace Halley. As it was, he inquired of the cognizant, +whether an intellectual precocity, devoted by preference to questions +affecting the state of women, did not rather more than suggest the +existence of urgent senses likewise. She, a girl under twenty, had an +interest in public matters, and she called on a Mrs. Marsett. To plead +her simplicity, was to be absolutely ignorant of her. + +He neighboured sagacity when he pointed that interrogation relating +to Nesta’s precociousness of the intelligence. For, as they say in +dactylomancy, the ‘psychical’ of women are not disposed in their +sensitive early days to dwell upon the fortunes of their sex: a thought +or two turns them facing away, with the repugnant shiver. They worship +at a niche in the wall. They cannot avoid imputing some share of +foulness to them that are for scouring the chamber; and the civilized +male, keeping his own chamber locked, quite shares their pale taper’s +view. The full-blooded to the finger-tips, on the other hand, are likely +to be drawn to the subject, by noble inducement as often as by base: +Nature at flood being the cause in either instance. This young Nature of +the good and the bad, is the blood which runs to power of heart as +well as to thirsts of the flesh. Then have men to sound themselves, +to discover how much of Nature their abstract honourable conception or +representative eidolon of young women will bear without going to pieces; +and it will not be much, unless they shall have taken instruction +from the poet’s pen: for a view possibly of Nature at work to cast the +slough, when they see her writhing as in her ugliest old throes. If they +have learnt of Nature’s priest to respect her, they will less distrust +those rare daughters of hers who are moved by her warmth to lift her +out of slime. It is by her own live warmth that it has to be done: cold +worship at a niche in the wall will not do it.--Well, there is an index, +for the enlargement of your charity. + +But facts were Dudley’s teachers. Physically, morally, mentally, he +read the world through facts; that is to say, through the facts he +encountered: and he was in consequence foredoomed to a succession of +bumps; all the heavier from his being, unlike the horned kind, not +unimpressible by the hazy things outside his experience. Even at his +darkest over Nesta, it was his indigestion of the misconduct of her +parents, which denied to a certain still small advocate within him +the right to raise a voice: that good fellow struck the attitude +for pleading, and had to be silent; for he was Instinct; at best a +stammering speaker in the Court of the wigged Facts. Instinct of this +Nesta Radnor’s character would have said a brave word, but for her +deeds bearing witness to her inheritance of a lawlessly adventurous +temperament. + +What to do? He was no nearer to an answer when the wintry dusk had +fallen on the promenading crowds. To do nothing, is the wisdom of those +who have seen fools perish. Facts had not taught him, that the doing +nothing, for a length of days after the first shock he sustained, was +the reason of how it came that Nesta knitted closer her acquaintance +with the ‘agreeable lady’ she mentioned in her letter to Cronidge. Those +excellent counsellors of a mercantile community gave him no warnings, +that the ‘masterly inactive’ part, so greatly esteemed by him for the +conduct of public affairs, might be perilous in dealings with a vivid +girl: nor a hint, that when facts continue undigested, it is because the +sensations are as violent as hysterical females to block them from the +understanding. His Robin Goodfellow instinct tried to be serviceable +at a crux of his meditations, where Edith Averst’s consumptive brothers +waved faded hands at her chances of inheriting largely. Superb for the +chances: but what of her offspring? And the other was a girl such as +the lusty Dame Dowager of fighting ancestors would have signalled to the +heir of the House’s honours for the perpetuation of his race. No doubt: +and the venerable Dame (beautiful in her old-lace frame, or say foliage) +of the Ages backward, temp: Ed: III. inflated him with a thought of +her: and his readings in modern books on heredity, pure blood, physical +regeneration, pronounced approval of Nesta Radnor: and thereupon +instinct opened mouth to speak; and a lockjaw seized it under that scowl +of his presiding mistrust of Nature. + +He clung to his mistrust the more because of a warning he had from the +silenced natural voice: somewhat as we may behold how the Conservatism +of a Class, in a world of all the evidences showing that there is no +stay to things, comes of the intuitive discernment of its finality. His +mistrust was his own; and Nesta was not; not yet; though a step would +make her his own. Instinct prompting to the step, was a worthless +adviser. It spurred him, nevertheless. + +He called at the Club for his cousin Southweare, with whom he was not in +sympathy; and had information that, Southweare said, ‘made the girl +out all right.’ Girls in these days do things which the sainted +stay-at-homes preceding them would not have dreamed of doing. Something +had occurred, relating to Major Worrell: he withdrew Miss Radnor’s name, +acknowledged himself mistaken or amended his report of her, in some +way, not quite intelligible. Dudley was accosted by Simeon Fenellan; +subsequently by Dartrey. There was gossip over the latter gentleman’s +having been up before the magistrate, talk of a queer kind of stick, +and Dartrey said, laughing, to Simeon: ‘Rather lucky I bled the +rascal’;--whatever the meaning. She nursed one of her adorations for +this man, who had yesterday, apparently, joined in a street-fray; so she +partook of the stain of the turbid defacing all these disorderly people. + +At his hotel at breakfast the next morning, a newspaper furnished an +account of Captain Dartrey Fenellan’s participation in the strife, after +mention of him as nephew of the Earl of Clanconan, ‘now a visitor to +our town’; and his deeds were accordant with his birth. Such writing +was enough to send Dudley an eager listener to Colney Durance. What a +people! + +Mr. Dartrey Fenellan’s card compelled Dudley presently to receive him. + +Dartrey, not debarred by considerations, that an allusion to Miss Radnor +could be conveyed only in the most delicately obscure manner, spared him +no more than the plain English of his relations with her. Requested to +come to the Club, at a certain hour of the afternoon, that he might hear +Major Worrell’s personal contradiction of scandal involving the young +lady’s name, together with his apology, etc., Dudley declined: and he +was obliged to do it curtly; words were wanting. They are hard to find +for wounded sentiments rendered complex by an infusion of policy. His +present mood, with the something new to digest, held the going to Major +Worrell a wrong step; he behaved as if the speaking to Dartrey Fenellan +pledged him hardly less. And besides he had a physical abhorrence, under +dictate of moral reprobation, of the broad-shouldered sinewy man, whose +look of wiry alertness pictured the previous day’s gory gutters. + +Dartrey set sharp eyes on him for an instant, bowed; and went. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVI. NESTA AND HER FATHER + +The day of Nesta’s return was one of a number of late when Victor +was robbed of his walk Westward by Lady Grace Halley, who seduced his +politeness with her various forms of blandishment to take a seat in her +carriage; and she was a practical speaker upon her quarter of the world +when she had him there. Perhaps she was right in saying--though she had +no right to say--that he and she together might have the world under +their feet. It was one of those irritating suggestions which expedite +us up to a bald ceiling, only to make us feel the gas-bladder’s tight +extension upon emptiness: It moved him to examine the poor value of his +aim, by tying him to the contemptible means: One estimate involved the +other, whichever came first. Somewhere he had an idea, that would +lift and cleanse all degradations. But it did seem as if he were not +enjoying: things pleasant enough in the passage of them were barren, if +not prickly, in the retrospect. + +He sprang out at the head of the park, for a tramp round it, in the +gloom of the girdle of lights, to recover his deadened relish of the +thin phantasmal strife to win an intangible prize. His dulled physical +system asked, as with the sensations of a man at the start from sleep in +the hurrying grip of steam, what on earth he wanted to get, and what was +the substance of his gains: what! if other than a precipitous intimacy, +a deep crumbling over deeper, with a little woman amusing him in remarks +of a whimsical nudity; hardly more. Nay, not more! he said; and at the +end of twenty paces, he saw much more; the campaign gathered a circling +suggestive brilliancy, like the lamps about the winter park; the +Society, lured with glitter, hooked by greed, composed a ravishing +picture; the little woman was esteemed as a serviceable lieutenant; and +her hand was a small soft one, agreeable to fondle--and avaunt! But so +it is in war: we must pay for our allies. What if it had been, that +he and she together, with their united powers...? He dashed the silly +vision aside, as vainer than one of the bubble-empires blown by boys; +and it broke, showing no heart in it. His heart was Nataly’s. + +Let Colney hint his worst; Nataly bore the strain, always did bear any +strain coming in the round of her duties: and if she would but walk, +or if she danced at parties, she would scatter the fits of despondency +besetting the phlegmatic, like this day’s breeze the morning fog; or as +he did with two minutes of the stretch of legs. + +Full of the grandeur of that black pit of the benighted London, with its +ocean-voice of the heart at beat along the lighted outer ring, Victor +entered at his old door of the two houses he had knocked into one: a +surprise for Fredi!--and heard that his girl had arrived in the morning. + +‘And could no more endure her absence from her Mammy O!’ The songful +satirical line spouted in him, to be flung at his girl, as he ran +upstairs to the boudoir off the drawing-room. + +He peeped in. It was dark. Sensible of presences, he gradually discerned +a thick blot along the couch to the right of the door, and he drew near. +Two were lying folded together; mother and daughter. He bent over them. +His hand was taken and pressed by Fredi’s; she spoke; she said tenderly: +‘Father.’ Neither of the two made a movement. He heard the shivering +rise of a sob, that fell. The dry sob going to the waste breath was +Nataly’s. His girl did not speak again. + +He left them. He had no thought until he stood in his dressing-room, +when he said ‘Good!’ For those two must have been lying folded together +during the greater part of the day: and it meant, that the mother’s +heart had opened; the girl knew. Her tone: ‘Father,’ sweet, was heavy, +too, with the darkness it came out of. + +So she knew. Good. He clasped them both in his heart; tempering his pity +of those dear ones with the thought, that they were of the sex which +finds enjoyment in a day of the mutual tear; and envying them; he +strained at a richness appearing in the sobs of their close union. + +All of his girl’s loving soul flew to her mother; and naturally: She +would not be harsh on her father. She would say he loved! And true: he +did love, he does love; loves no woman but the dear mother. + +He flicked a short wring of the hand having taken pressure from an +alien woman’s before Fredi pressed it, and absolved himself in the act; +thinking, How little does a woman know how true we can be to her when we +smell at a flower here and there!--There they are, stationary; women +the flowers, we the bee; and we are faithful in our seeming volatility; +faithful to the hive!--And if women are to be stationary, the reasoning +is not so bad. Funny, however, if they here and there imitatively spread +a wing, and treat men in that way? It is a breach of the convention; we +pay them our homage, that they may serve as flowers, not to be volatile +tempters. Nataly never had been one of the sort: Lady Grace was. No +necessity existed for compelling the world to bow to Lady Grace, while +on behalf of his Nataly he had to... Victor closed the curtain over a +gulf-revealed by an invocation of Nature, and showing the tremendous +force he partook of so largely, in her motive elements of the +devourer. Horrid to behold, when we need a gracious presentation of the +circumstances. She is a splendid power for as long as we confine her +between the banks: but she has a passion to discover cracks; and if we +give her headway, she will find one, and drive at it, and be through, +uproarious in her primitive licentiousness, unless we labour body and +soul like Dutchmen at the dam. Here she was, and not desired, almost +detested! Nature detested! It had come about through the battle for +Nataly; chiefly through Mrs. Burman’s tenacious hold of the filmy thread +she took for life and was enabled to use as a means for the perversion +besides bar to the happiness of creatures really living. We may well +marvel at the Fates, and tell them they are not moral agents! + +Victor’s reflections came across Colney Durance, who tripped and stopped +them. + +Dressed with his customary celerity, he waited for Nesta, to show her +the lighted grand double drawing-room: a further proof of how Fortune +favoured him: she was to be told, how he one day expressed a wish for +greater space, and was informed on the next, that the neighbour house +was being vacated, and the day following he was in treaty for the +purchase of it; returning from Tyrol, he found his place habitable. + +Nesta came. Her short look at him was fond, her voice not faltering; she +laid her hand under his arm and walked round the spacious room, +praising the general design, admiring the porcelain, the ferns, friezes, +hangings, and the grand piano, the ebony inlaid music-stands, the +firegrates and plaques, the ottomans, the tone of neutral colour that, +as in sound, muted splendour. He told her it was a reception night, with +music: and added: ‘I miss my... seen anybody lately?’ + +‘Mr. Sowerby?’ said she. ‘He was to have escorted me back. He may have +overslept himself.’ + +She spoke it plainly; when speaking of the dear good ladies, she set +a gentle humour at play, and comforted him, as she intended, with a +souvenir of her lively spirit, wanting only in the manner of gaiety. + +He allowed, that she could not be quite gay. + +More deeply touched the next minute, he felt in her voice, in her look, +in her phrasing of speech, an older, much older daughter than the Fredi +whom he had conducted to Moorsedge. ‘Kiss me,’ he said. + +She turned to him full-front, and kissed his right cheek and left, and +his forehead, saying: ‘My love! my papa! my own dear dada!’ all the +words of her girlhood in her new sedateness; and smiling: like the moral +crepuscular of a sunlighted day down a not totally inanimate Sunday +Londen street. + +He strained her to his breast. ‘Mama soon be here?’ + +‘Soon.’ + +That was well. And possibly at the present moment applying, with +her cunning hand, the cosmetics and powders he could excuse for a +concealment of the traces of grief. + +Satisfied in being a superficial observer, he did not spy to see more +than the world would when Nataly entered the dining-room at the quiet +family dinner. She performed her part for his comfort, though not +prattling; and he missed his Fredi’s delicious warble of the prattle +running rill-like over our daily humdrum. Simeon Fenellan would have +helped. Then suddenly came enlivenment: a recollection of news in the +morning’s paper. ‘No harm before Fredi, my dear. She’s a young woman +now. And no harm, so to speak-at least, not against the Sanfredini. +She has donned her name again, and a villa on Como, leaving her +‘duque’;--paragraph from a Milanese musical Journal; no particulars. +Now, mark me, we shall have her at Lakelands in the Summer. If only we +could have her now!’ + +‘It would be a pleasure,’ said Nataly. Her heart had a blow in the +thought, that a lady of this kind would create the pleasure by not +bringing criticism. + +‘The godmother?’ he glistened upon Nesta. + +She gave him low half-notes of the little blue butterfly’s imitation +of the superb contralto; and her hand and head at turn to hint the +theatrical operatic attitude. + +‘Delicious!’ he cried, his eyelids were bedewed at the vision of the +three of them planted in the past; and here again, out of the dark wood, +where something had required to be said, and had been said; and all +was happily over, owing to the goodness and sweetness of the two dear +innocents;--whom heaven bless! Jealousy of their naturally closer +heart-at-heart, had not a whisper for him; part of their goodness and +sweetness was felt to be in the not excluding him. + +Nesta engaged to sing one of the ‘old duets with her mother. She saw her +mother’s breast lift in a mechanical effort to try imaginary notes, as +if doubtful of her capacity, more at home in the dumb deep sigh they +fell to. Her mother’s heroism made her a sacred woman to the thoughts of +the girl, overcoming wonderment at the extreme submissiveness. + +She put a screw on her mind to perceive the rational object there +might be for causing her mother to go through tortures in receiving and +visiting; and she was arrested by the louder question, whether she could +think such a man as her father irrational. + +People with resounding names, waves of a steady stream, were announced +by Arlington, just as in the days, that seemed remote, before she went +to Moorsedge; only they were more numerous, and some of the titles had +ascended a stage. There were great lords, there were many great ladies; +and Lady Grace Halley shuffling amid them, like a silken shimmer in +voluminous robes. + +They crowded about their host where he stood. ‘He, is their Law!’ Colney +said, speaking unintelligibly, in the absence of the Simeon Fenellan +regretted so loudly by Mr. Beaves Urmsing. They had an air of +worshipping, and he of swimming. + +There were also City magnates, and Lakelands’ neighbours: the gentleman +representing Pride of Port, Sir Abraham Quatley; and Colonel Corfe; Sir +Rodwell and Lady Blachington; Mrs. Fanning; Mr. Caddis. Few young +men and maids were seen. Dr. John Cormyn came without his wife, not +mentioning her. Mrs. Peter Yatt touched the notes for voices at the +piano. Priscilla Graves was a vacancy, and likewise the Rev. Septimus +Barmby. Peridon and Catkin, and Mr. Pempton took their usual places. +There was no fluting. A famous Canadian lady was the principal singer. +A Galician violinist, zig-zagging extreme extensions and contractions of +his corporeal frame in execution, and described by Colney as ‘Paganini +on wall,’ failed to supplant Durandarte in Nesta’s memory. She was asked +by Lady Grace for the latest of Dudley. Sir Abraham Quatley named him +with handsome emphasis. Great dames caressed her; openly approved; +shadowed the future place among them. + +Victor alluded at night to Mrs. John Cormyn’s absence. He said: ‘A +homoeopathic doctor’s wife!’ nothing more; and by that little, he +prepared Nesta for her mother’s explanation. The great London people, +ignorant or not, were caught by the strong tide he created, and carried +on it. But there was a bruiting of the secret among their set; and the +one to fall away from her, Nataly marvellingly named Mrs. John Cormyn; +whose marriage was of her making. She did not disapprove Priscilla’s +behaviour. Priscilla had come to her and, protesting affection, had +openly stated, that she required time and retirement to recover her +proper feelings. Nataly smiled a melancholy criticism of an inconsequent +or capricious woman, in relating to Nesta certain observations Priscilla +had dropped upon poor faithful Mr. Pempton, because of his concealment +from her of his knowledge of things for this faithful gentleman had been +one of the few not ignorant. The rumour was traceable to the City. + +‘Mother, we walk on planks,’ Nesta said. + +Nataly answered: ‘You will grow used to it.’ + +Her mother’s habitual serenity in martyrdom was deceiving. Nesta had a +transient suspicion, that she had grown, from use, to like the whirl of +company, for oblivion in the excitement; and as her remembrance of her +own station among the crowding people was a hot flush, the difference of +their feelings chilled her. + +Nataly said: ‘It is to-morrow night again; we do not rest.’ She smiled; +and at once the girl read woman’s armour on the dear face, and asked +herself, Could I be so brave? The question following was a speechless +wave, that surged at her father. She tried to fathom the scheme he +entertained. The attempt obscured her conception of the man he was. +She could not grasp him, being too young for knowing, that young heads +cannot obtain a critical hold upon one whom they see grandly succeeding +it is the sun’s brilliance to their eyes. + +Mother and daughter slept together that night, and their embrace was +their world. + +Nesta delighted her father the next day by walking beside him into the +City, as far as the end of the Embankment, where the carriage was in +waiting with her maid to bring her back; and at his mere ejaculation +of a wish, the hardy girl drove down in the afternoon for the walk home +with him. Lady Grace Halley was at the office. ‘I’m an incorrigible +Stock Exchange gambler,’ she said. + +‘Only,’ Victor bade her beware, ‘Mines are undulating in movement, and +their heights are a preparation for their going down.’ + +She said she ‘liked a swing.’ + +Nesta looked at them in turn. + +The day after and the day after, Lady Grace was present. She made play +with Dudley’s name. + +This coming into the City daily of a girl, for the sake of walking back +in winter weather with her father, struck her as ambiguous: either a +jealous foolish mother’s device, or that of a weak man beating about +for protection. But the woman of the positive world soon read to the +contrary; helped a little by the man, no doubt. She read rather too much +to the contrary, and took the pedestrian girl for perfect simplicity in +her tastes, when Nesta had so far grown watchful as to feel relieved by +the lady’s departure. Her mother, without sympathy for the lady, was too +great of soul for jealousy. Victor had his Nataly before him at a hint +from Lady Grace: and he went somewhat further than the exact degree +when affirming, that Nataly could not scheme, and was incapable of +suspecting.--Nataly could perceive things with a certain accuracy: she +would not stoop to a meanness. ‘Plot? Nataly?’ said he, and shrugged. +In fact, the void of plot, drama, shuffle of excitement, reflected upon +Nataly. He might have seen as tragic as ever dripped on Stage, had he +looked. + +But the walk Westward with his girl, together with pride in a daughter +who clove her way through all weathers, won his heart to exultation. He +told her: ‘Fredi does her dada so much good’; not telling her in what, +or opening any passage to the mystery of the man he was. She was trying +to be a student of life, with her eyes down upon hard earth, despite +of her winged young head; she would have compassed him better had he +dilated in sublime fashion; but he baffled her perusal of a man of +power by the simpleness of his enjoyment of small things coming in his +way;--the lighted shops, the crowd, emergence from the crowd, or the +meeting near midwinter of a soft warm wind along the Embankment, and +dark Thames magnificently coroneted over his grimy flow. There is no +grasping of one who quickens us. + +His flattery of his girl, too, restored her broken feeling of personal +value; it permeated her nourishingly from the natural breath of him that +it was. + +At times he touched deep in humaneness; and he set her heart leaping on +the flash of a thought to lay it bare, with the secret it held, for his +help. That was a dream. She could more easily have uttered the words +to Captain Dartrey, after her remembered abashing holy tremour of +the vision of doing it and casting herself on noblest man’s +compassionateness; and her imagined thousand emotions;--a rolling music +within her, a wreath of cloudglory in her sky;--which had, as with +virgins it may be, plighted her body to him for sheer urgency of soul; +drawn her by a single unwitting-to-brain, conscious-in-blood, shy curl +outward of the sheathing leaf to the flowering of woman to him; even to +the shore of that strange sea, where the maid stands choosing this one +man for her destiny, as in a trance. So are these young ones unfolded, +shade by shade; and a shade is all the difference with them; they can +teach the poet to marvel at the immensity of vitality in ‘the shadow of +a shade.’ + +Her father shut the glimpse of a possible speaking to him of Mrs. +Marsett, with a renewal of his eulogistic allusions to Dudley Sowerby: +the ‘perfect gentleman, good citizen’; prospective heir to an earldom +besides. She bowed to Dudley’s merits; she read off the honorific +pedimental letters of a handsome statue, for a sign to herself that she +passed it. + +She was unjust, as Victor could feel, though he did not know how +coldly unjust. For among the exorbitant requisitions upon their +fellow-creatures made by the young, is the demand, that they be +definite: no mercy is in them for the transitional. And Dudley--and it +was under her influence, and painfully, not ignobly--was in process of +development: interesting to philosophers, if not to maidens. + +Victor accused her of paying too much heed to Colney Durance’s epigrams +upon their friends. He quite joined with his English world in its +opinion, that epigrams are poor squibs when they do not come out of +great guns. Epigrams fired at a venerable nation, are surely the poorest +of popgun paper pellets. The English kick at the insolence, when +they are not in the mood for pelleting themselves, or when the armed +Foreigner is overshadowing and braceing. Colney’s pretentious and +laboured Satiric Prose Epic of ‘THE RIVAL TONGUES,’ particularly +offended him, as being a clever aim at no hitting; and sustained him, +inasmuch as it was an acid friend’s collapse. How could Colney expect +his English to tolerate such a spiteful diatribe! The suicide of Dr. +Bouthoin at San Francisco was the finishing stroke to the chances of +success of the Serial;--although we are promised splendid evolutions on +the part of Mr. Semhians; who, after brilliant achievements with bat +and ball, abandons those weapons of Old England’s modern renown, for a +determined wrestle with our English pronunciation of words, and rescue +of the spelling of them from the printer. His headache over the present +treatment of the verb ‘To bid,’ was a quaint beginning for one who had +soon to plead before Japanese, and who acknowledged now ‘in contrition +of spirit,’ that in formerly opposing the scheme for an Academy, he +helped to the handing of our noble language to the rapid reporter of +news for an apathetic public. Further, he discovered in astonishment the +subordination of all literary Americans to the decrees of their literary +authorities; marking a Transatlantic point of departure, and contrasting +ominously with the unruly Islanders ‘grunting the higgledy-piggledy of +their various ways, in all the porker’s gut-gamut at the rush to the +trough.’ After a week’s privation of bat and ball, he is, lighted or +not, a gas-jet of satire upon his countrymen. As for the ‘pathetic +sublimity of the Funeral of Dr. Bouthoin,’ Victor inveighed against +an impious irony in the over dose of the pathos; and the same might +be suspected in Britannia’s elegy upon him, a strain of hot eulogy +throughout. Mr. Semhians, all but treasonably, calls it, Papboat and +Brandy:--‘our English literary diet of the day’: stimulating and +not nourishing. Britannia’s mournful anticipation, that ‘The shroud +enwinding this my son is mine!’--should the modern generation depart +from the track of him who proved himself the giant in mainly supporting +her glory--was, no doubt, a high pitch of the note of Conservatism. But +considering, that Dr. Bouthoin ‘committed suicide under a depression +of mind produced by a surfeit of unaccustomed dishes, upon a physical +system inspired by the traditions of exercise, and no longer relieved by +the practice’--to translate from Dr. Gannius: we are again at war with +the writer’s reverential tone, and we know not what to think: except, +that Mr. Durance was a Saturday meat market’s butcher in the Satiric +Art. + +Nesta found it pleasanter to see him than to hear of his work: which, +to her present feeling, was inhuman. As little as our native public, had +she then any sympathy for the working in the idea: she wanted throbs, +visible aims, the Christian incarnate; she would have preferred the tale +of slaughter--periodically invading all English classes as a flush from +the undrained lower, Vikings all--to frigid sterile Satire. And truly +it is not a fruit-bearing rod. Colney had to stand on the defence of +it against the damsel’s charges. He thought the use of the rod, while +expressing profound regret at a difference of opinion between him and +those noble heathens, beneficial for boys; but in relation to their +seniors, and particularly for old gentlemen, he thought that the +sharpest rod to cut the skin was the sole saving of them. Insensibility +to Satire, he likened to the hard-mouthed horse; which is doomed to the +worser thing in consequence. And consequently upon the lack of it, and +of training to appreciate it, he described his country’s male venerables +as being distinguishable from annuitant spinsters only in presenting +themselves forked. + +‘He is unsuccessful and embittered, Victor said to Nesta. ‘Colney will +find in the end, that he has lost his game and soured himself by never +making concessions. Here’s this absurd Serial--it fails, of course; +and then he has to say, it’s because he won’t tickle his English, won’t +enter into a “frowzy complicity” with their tastes.’ + +‘But--I think of Skepsey honest creatures respect Mr. Durance, and he is +always ready to help them,’ said Nesta. + +‘If he can patronize.’ + +‘Does he patronize me, dada?’ + +‘You are one of his exceptions. Marry a title and live in state--and +then hear him! I am successful, and the result of it is, that he won’t +acknowledge wisdom in anything I say or do; he will hardly acknowledge +the success. It is “a dirty road to success,” he says. So that, if +successful, I must have rolled myself in mire. I compelled him to +admit he was wrong about your being received at Moorsedge: a bit of a +triumph!’ + +Nesta’s walks with her father were no loss of her to Nataly; the girl +came back to her bearing so fresh and so full a heart; and her father +was ever prouder of her: he presented new features of her in his +quotations of her sayings, thoughtful sayings. ‘I declare she helps one +to think,’ he said. ‘It ‘s not precocity; it ‘s healthy inquiry. She +brings me nearer ideas of my own, not yet examined, than any one else +does. I say, what a wife for a man!’ + +‘She takes my place beside you, dear, now I am not quite strong,’ said +Nataly. ‘You have not seen...?’ + +‘Dudley Sowerby? He’s at Cronidge, I believe. His elder brother’s in a +bad way. Bad business, this looking to a death.’ + +Nataly eyes revealed a similar gulf. + +Let it be cast on Society, then! A Society opposing Nature forces us +to these murderous looks upon impediments. But what of a Society in the +dance with Nature? Victor did not approve of that. He began, under the +influence of Nesta’s companionship, to see the Goddess Nature there is +in a chastened nature. And this view shook the curtain covering his lost +Idea. He felt sure he should grasp it soon and enter into its daylight: +a muffled voice within him said, that he was kept waiting to do so by +the inexplicable tardiness of a certain one to rise ascending to her +spiritual roost. She was now harmless to strike: Themison, Carling, +Jarniman, even the Rev. Groseman Buttermore, had been won to the cause +of humanity. Her ascent, considering her inability to do further harm +below, was most mysteriously delayed. Owing to it, in a manner almost as +mysterious, he was kept crossing a bridge having a slippery bit on it. +Thanks to his gallant Fredi, he had found his feet again. But there was +a bruise where, to his honour, he felt tenderest. And Fredi away, he +might be down again--for no love of a slippery bit, proved slippery, +one might guess, by a predecessor or two. Ta-ta-ta-to and mum! Still, in +justice to the little woman, she had been serviceable. + +She would be still more so, if a member of Parliament now on his back +here we are with the murder-eye again! + +Nesta’s never speaking of Lakelands clouded him a little, as an +intimation of her bent of mind. + +‘And does my girl come to her dada to-day?’ he said, on the fifth +morning since her return; prepared with a villanous resignation to hear, +that this day she abstained, though he had the wish for her coming. + +‘Why, don’t you know,’ said she, ‘we all meet to have tea in Mr. +Durance’s chambers; and I walk back with you, and there we are joined by +mama; and we are to have a feast of literary celebrities.’ + +‘Colney’s selection of them! And Simeon Fenellan, I hope. Perhaps +Dartrey. Perhaps... eh?’ + +She reddened. So Dudley Sowerby’s unspoken name could bring the blush +to her cheeks. Dudley had his excuses in his brother’s condition. His +father’s health, too, was--but this was Dudley calculating. Where there +are coronets, calculations of this sort must needs occur; just as where +there are complications. Odd, one fancies it, that we walking along the +pavement of civilized life, should be perpetually summoning Orcus to our +aid, for the sake of getting a clear course. + +‘And supposing a fog, my dearie?’ he said. + +‘The daughter in search of her father carries a lamp to light her to him +through densest fogs as well as over deserts,’ etc. She declaimed a long +sentence, to set the ripple running in his features; and when he left +the room for a last word with Armandine, she flung arms round her +mother’s neck, murmuring: ‘Mother! mother!’ a cry equal to ‘I am sure I +do right,’ and understood so by Nataly approving it; she too on the line +of her instinct, without an object in sight. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVII. THE MOTHER-THE DAUGHTER + +Taking Nesta’s hand, on her entry into his chambers with her father, +Colney Durance bowed over it and kissed it. The unusual performance +had a meaning; she felt she was praised. It might be because she made +herself her father’s companion. ‘I can’t persuade him to put on a +great-coat,’ she said. ‘You would defeat his aim at the particular +waistcoat of his ambition,’ said Colney, goaded to speak, not anxious to +be heard. + +He kept her beside him, leading her about for introductions to multiform +celebrities of both sexes; among them the gentleman editing the Magazine +which gave out serially THE RIVAL TONGUES: and there was talk of a +dragon-throated public’s queer appetite in Letters. The pained Editor +deferentially smiled at her cheerful mention of Delphica. ‘In, book +form, perhaps!’ he remarked, with plaintive’ resignation; adding: ‘You +read it?’ And a lady exclaimed: ‘We all read it!’ + +But we are the elect, who see signification and catch flavour; and we +are reminded of an insatiable monster how sometimes capricious is his +gorge. ‘He may happen to be in the humour for a shaking!’ Colney’s poor +consolation it was to say of the prospects of his published book: for +the funny monster has been known to like a shaking. + +‘He takes it kinder tickled,’ said Fenellan, joining the group and +grasping Nesta’s hand with a warmth that thrilled her and set her +guessing. ‘A taste of his favourite Cayenne lollypop, Colney; it fetches +the tear he loves to shed, or it gives him digestive heat in the bag of +his literary receptacle-fearfully relaxed and enormous! And no wonder; +his is to lie him down on notion of the attitude for reading, his back; +and he has in a jiffy the funnel of the Libraries inserted into his +mouth, and he feels the publishers pouring their gallons through it +unlimitedly; never crying out, which he can’t; only swelling, which +he’s obliged to do, with a non-nutritious inflation; and that’s his +intellectual enjoyment; bearing a likeness to the horrible old torture +of the baillir d’eau; and he’s doomed to perish in the worst book-form +of dropsy. You, my dear Colney, have offended his police or excise, who +stand by the funnel, in touch with his palate, to make sure that nothing +above proof is poured in; and there’s your misfortune. He’s not half a +bad fellow, you find when you haven’t got to serve him.’ + +‘Superior to his official parasites, one supposes!’ Colney murmured. + +The celebrities were unaffectedly interested in a literary failure +having certain merits; they discussed it, to compliment the crownless +author; and the fervider they, the more was he endowed to read the +meanness prompting the generosity. Publication of a book, is the +philosopher’s lantern upon one’s fellows. + +Colney was caught away from his private manufactory of acids by hearing +Simeon Fenellan relate to Victor some of the recent occurrences at +Brighton. Simeon’s tone was unsatisfying; Colney would have the word; +he was like steel on the grindstone for such a theme of our national +grotesque-sublime. + +‘That Demerara Supple-jack, Victor! Don’t listen to Simeon; he’s a man +of lean narrative, fit to chronicle political party wrangles and +such like crop of carcase prose: this is epical. In DRINK we have Old +England’s organic Epic; Greeks and Trojans; Parliamentary Olympus, +ennobled brewers, nasal fanatics, all the machinery to hand. Keep a +straight eye on the primary motives of man, you’ll own the English +produce the material for proud verse; they’re alive there! Dartrey’s +Demerara makes a pretty episode of the battle. I haven’t seen it--if +it’s possible to look on it: but I hear it is flexible, of a vulgar +appearance in repose, Jove’s lightning at one time, the thong of AEacus +at another. Observe Dartrey marching off to the Station, for the purpose +of laying his miraculous weapon across the shoulders of a son of Mars, +who had offended. But we have his name, my dear Victor! His name, +Simeon?--Worrell; a Major Worrell: his offence being probably, that +he obtained military instruction in the Service, and left it at his +convenience, for our poor patch and tatter British Army to take in +his place another young student, who’ll grow up to do similarly. And +Dartrey, we assume, is off to stop that system. You behold Sir Dartrey +twirling the weapon in preparatory fashion; because he is determined +we shall have an army of trained officers instead of infant amateurs +heading heroic louts. Not a thought of Beer in Dartrey!--always +unpatriotic, you ‘ll say. Plato entreats his absent mistress to fix eyes +on a star: eyes on Beer for the uniting of you English! I tell you no +poetic fiction. Seeing him on his way, thus terribly armed, and knowing +his intent, Venus, to shield a former favourite servant of Mars, +conjured the most diverting of interventions, in the shape of a young +woman in a poke-bonnet, and Skepsey, her squire, marching with a +dozen or so, informing bedevilled mankind of the hideousness of our +hymnification when it is not under secluding sanction of the Edifice, +and challengeing criticism; and that was hard by, and real English, +in the form of bludgeons, wielded by a battalion of the national idol +Bungay Beervat’s boys; and they fell upon the hymners. Here you fill in +with pastoral similes. They struck the maid adored by Skepsey. And that +was the blow which slew them! Our little man drove into the press with +a pair of fists able to do their work. A valiant skiff upon a sea +of enemies, he was having it on the nob, and suddenly the Demerara +lightened. It flailed to thresh. Enough to say, brains would have come. +The Bungays made a show of fight. No lack of blood in them, to stock a +raw shilling’s worth or gush before Achilles rageing. You perceive the +picture, you can almost sing the ballad. We want only a few names of +the fallen. It was the carving of a maitre chef, according to Skepsey: +right-left-and point, with supreme precision: they fell, accurately +sliced from the joint. Having done with them, Dartrey tossed the +Demerara to Skepsey, and washed his hands of battle; and he let his +major go unscathed. Phlebotomy sufficient for the day!’ + +Nesta’s ears hummed with the name of Major Worrell. + +‘Skepsey did come back to London with a rather damaged frontispiece,’ +Victor said. ‘He can’t have joined those people?’ + +‘They may suit one of your militant peacemakers,’ interposed Fenellan. +‘The most placable creatures alive, and the surest for getting-up a +shindy.’ + +‘Suit him! They’re the scandal of our streets.’ Victor was pricked with +a jealousy of them for beguiling him of his trusty servant. + +‘Look at your country, see where it shows its vitality,’ said Colney. +‘You don’t see elsewhere any vein in movement-movement,’ he harped on +the word Victor constantly employed to express the thing he wanted +to see. ‘Think of that, when the procession sets your teeth on +edge. They’re honest foes of vice, and they move:--in England! +Pulpit-preaching has no effect. For gross maladies, gross remedies. +You may judge of what you are by the quality of the cure. Puritanism, I +won’t attempt to paint--it would barely be decent; but compare it with +the spectacle of English frivolity, and you’ll admit it to be the best +show you make. It may still be the saving of you--on the level of the +orderly ox: I ‘ve not observed that it aims at higher. And talking of +the pulpit, Barmby is off to the East, has accepted a Shoreditch curacy, +Skepsey tells me.’ + +‘So there’s the reason for our not seeing him!’ Victor turned to Nesta. + +‘Papa, you won’t be angry with Skepsey if he has joined those people,’ +said Nesta. ‘I’m sure he thinks of serving his country, Mr. Durance.’ + +Colney smiled on her. ‘And you too?’ + +‘If women knew how!’ + +‘They’re hitting on more ways at present than the men--in England.’ + +‘But, Mr. Durance, it speaks well for England when they’re allowed the +chance here.’ + +‘Good!’ Fenellan exclaimed. ‘And that upsets his placement of the modern +national genders: Germany masculine, France feminine, Old England what +remains.’ + +Victor ruffled and reddened on his shout of ‘Neuter?’ + +Their circle widened. Nesta knew she was on promotion, by her being led +about and introduced to ladies. They were encouraging with her. One of +them, a Mrs. Marina Floyer, had recently raised a standard of feminine +insurrection. She said: ‘I hear your praises from Mr. Durance. He rarely +praises. You have shown capacity to meditate on the condition of women, +he says.’ + +Nesta drew a shorter breath, with a hope at heart. She speculated in the +dark, as to whether her aim to serve and help was not so friendless. And +did Mr. Durance approve? But surely she stood in a glorious England if +there were men and women to welcome a girl to their councils. Oh! that +is the broad free England where gentlemen and gentlewomen accept of the +meanest aid to cleanse the land of its iniquities, and do not suffer +shame to smite a young face for touching upon horrors with a pure +design. + +She cried in her bosom: I feel! She had no other expression for that +which is as near as great natures may come to the conceiving of the +celestial spirit from an emissary angel; and she trembled, the fire ran +through her. It seemed to her, that she would be called to help or that +certainly they were nearing to an effacement of the woefullest of evils; +and if not helping, it would still be a blessedness for her to kneel +thanking heaven. + +Society was being attacked and defended. She could but studiously +listen. Her father was listening. The assailant was a lady; and she had +a hearing, although she treated Society as a discrowned monarch on trial +for an offence against a more precious: viz., the individual cramped +by brutish laws: the individual with the ideas of our time, righteously +claiming expansion out of the clutches of a narrow old-world +disciplinarian-that giant hypocrite! She flung the gauntlet at +externally venerable Institutions; and she had a hearing, where +horrification, execration, the foul Furies of Conservatism would in a +shortly antecedent day have been hissing and snakily lashing, hounding +her to expulsion. Mrs. Marina Floyer gravely seconded her. Colney did +the same. Victor turned sharp on him. ‘Yes,’ Colney said; ‘we unfold the +standard of extremes in this country, to get a single step taken: that’s +how we move: we threaten death to get footway. Now, mark: Society’s +errors will be admitted.’ + +A gentleman spoke. He began by admitting Society’s errors. Nevertheless, +it so distinctly exists for the common good, that we may say of Society +in relation to the individual, it is the body to the soul. We may +wash, trim, purify, but we must not maim it. The assertion of our +individuality in opposition to the Government of Society--this existing +Society--is a toss of the cap for the erasure of our civilization, et +caetera. + +Platitudes can be of intense interest if they approach our case.--But, +if you please, we ask permission to wash, trim, purify, and we do not +get it.--But you have it! Because we take it at our peril; and you, who +are too cowardly to grant or withhold, call-up the revolutionary from +the pits by your slackness:--etc. There was a pretty hot debate. Both +assailant and defendant, to Victor’s thinking, spoke well, and each +the right thing and he could have made use of both, but he could answer +neither. He beat about for the cause of this deficiency, and discovered +it in his position. Mentally, he was on the side of Society. Yet he was +annoyed to find the attack was so easily answerable when the defence +unfolded. But it was absurd to expect it would not be. And in fact, +a position secretly rebellious is equal to water on the brain for +stultifying us. + +Before the controversy was over, a note in Nataly’s handwriting called +him home. She wrote: ‘Make my excuses. C. D. will give Nesta and some +lady dinner. A visitor here. Come alone, and without delay. Quite well, +robust. Impatient to consult with you, nothing else.’ + +Nesta was happy to stay; and Victor set forth. + +The visitor? plainly Dudley. Nataly’s trusting the girl to the chance of +some lady being present, was unlike her. Dudley might be tugging at the +cord; and the recent conversation upon Society, rendered one of its gilt +pillars particularly estimable.--A person in the debate had declared +this modern protest on behalf of individualism to represent Society’s +Criminal Trial. And it is likely to be a long one. And good for the +world, that we see such a Trial!--Well said or not, undoubtedly Society +is an old criminal: not much more advanced than the state of spiritual +worship where bloody sacrifice was offered to a hungry Lord. But it has +a case for pleading. We may liken it, as we have it now, to the +bumping lumberer’s raft; suitable along torrent waters until we come to +smoother. Are we not on waters of a certain smoothness at the reflecting +level?--enough to justify demands for a vessel of finer design. If +Society is to subsist, it must have the human with the logical argument +against the cry of the free-flags, instead of presenting a block’s +obtuseness. That, you need not hesitate to believe, will be rolled +downward and disintegrated, sooner than later. A Society based on the +logical concrete of humane considerateness:--a Society prohibiting to +Mrs. Burman her wielding of a life-long rod.... + +The personal element again to confuse inquiry!--And Skepsey and Barmby +both of them bent on doing work without inquiry of any sort! They were +enviable: they were good fellows. Victor clung to the theme because it +hinted of next door to his lost Idea. He rubbed the back of his head, +fancying a throb there. Are civilized creatures incapable of abstract +thought when their social position is dubious? For if so, we never can +be quit of those we forsake.--Apparently Mrs. Burman’s unfathomed power +lay in her compelling him to summon the devilish in himself and play +upon the impish in Society, that he might overcome her. + +Victor’s house-door stopped this current. + +Nataly took his embrace. + +‘Nothing wrong?’ he said, and saw the something. It was a favourable +moment to tell her what she might not at another time regard as a small +affair. ‘News in the City to-day of that South London borough being +vacated. Quatley urges me. A death again! I saw Pempton, too. Will you +credit me when I tell you he carries his infatuation so far, that he +has been investing in Japanese and Chinese Loans, because they are less +meat-eaters than others, and vegetarians are more stable, and outlast us +all!--Dudley the visitor?’ ‘Mr. Sowerby has been here,’ she said, in a +shaking low voice. + +Victor held her hand and felt a squeeze more nervous than affectionate. + +‘To consult with me,’ she added. ‘My maid will go at ten to bring Nesta; +Mr. Durance I can count on, to see her safe home. Ah!’ she wailed. + +Victor nodded, saying: ‘I guess. And, my love, you will receive Mrs. +John Cormyn to-morrow morning. I can’t endure gaps. Gaps in our circle +must never be. Do I guess?--I spoke to Colney about bringing her home.’ + +Nataly sighed: ‘Ah! make what provision we will! Evil--Mr. Sowerby has +had a great deal to bear.’ + +‘A worldling may think so.’ + +Her breast heaved, and the wave burst: but her restraining of tears +froze her speech. + +‘Victor! Our Nesta! Mr. Sowerby is unable to explain. And how the +Miss Duvidneys!... At that Brighton!’--The voice he heard was not his +darling’s deep rich note, it had dropped to toneless hoarseness: ‘She +has been permitted to make acquaintance--she has been seen riding +with--she has called upon--Oh! it is one of those abandoned women. In +her house! Our girl! Our Nesta! She was insulted by a man in the woman’s +house. She is talked of over Brighton. The mother!--the daughter! And +grant me this--that never was girl more carefully... never till she was +taken from me. Oh! do not forget. You will defend me? You will say, +that her mother did with all her soul strive... It is not a rumour. Mr. +Sowerby has had it confirmed.’ A sob caught her voice. + +Victor’s hands caressed to console: ‘Dudley does not propose to...?’ + +‘Nesta must promise... but how it happened? How! An acquaintance +with--contact with!--Oh! cruel!’ Each time she ceased speaking, the +wrinkles of a shiver went over her, and the tone was of tears coming, +but she locked them in. + +‘An accident!’ said Victor; ‘some misunderstanding--there can’t be +harm. Of course, she promises--hasn’t to promise. How could a girl +distinguish! He does not cast blame on her?’ + +‘Dear, if you would go down to Dartrey to-morrow. He knows:--it is over +the Clubs there; he will tell you, before a word to Nesta. Innocent, +yes! Mr. Sowerby has not to be assured of that. Ignorant of the +character of the dreadful woman? Ah, if I could ever in anything think +her ignorant! She frightens me. Mr. Sowerby is indulgent. He does +me justice. My duty to her--I must defend myself--has been my first +thought. I said in my prayers--she at least!... We have to see the more +than common reasons why she, of all girls, should--he did not hint it, +he was delicate: her name must not be public.’ + +‘Yes, yes, Dudley is without parallel as a gentleman,’ said Victor. ‘It +does not suit me to hear the word “indulgent.” My dear, if you were down +there, you would discover that the talk was the talk of two or three +men seeing our girl ride by--and she did ride with a troop: why, we’ve +watched them along the parade, often. Clear as day how it happened! I’ll +go down early to-morrow.’ + +He fancied Nataly was appeased. And even out of this annoyance, there +was the gain of her being won to favour Dudley’s hitherto but tolerated +suit. + +Nataly also had the fancy, that the calm following on her anguish, was +a moderation of it. She was kept strung to confide in her girl by the +recent indebtedness to her for words heavenly in the strengthening +comfort they gave. But no sooner was she alone than her torturing +perplexities and her abasement of the hours previous to Victor’s coming +returned. + +For a girl of Nesta’s head could not be deceived; she had come home with +a woman’s intelligence of the world, hard knowledge of it--a knowledge +drawn from foul wells, the unhappy mother imagined: she dreaded to probe +to the depth of it. She had in her wounded breast the world’s idea, that +corruption must come of the contact with impurity. + +Nataly renewed her cry of despair: ‘The mother!--the daughter!’--her +sole revelation of the heart’s hollows in her stammered speaking to +Victor. + +She thanked heaven for the loneliness of her bed, where she could +repeat: ‘The mother!--the daughter!’ hearing the world’s words:--the +daughter excused, by reason of her having such a mother; the mother +unpitied for the bruiting of her brazen daughter’s name: but both alike +consigned to the corners of the world’s dust-heaps. She cried out, that +her pride was broken. Her pride, her last support of life, had gone to +pieces. The tears she restrained in Victor’s presence, were called on to +come now, and she had none. It might be, that she had not strength for +weeping. She was very weak. Rising from bed to lock her door against +Nesta’s entry to the room on her return at night, she could hardly +stand: a chill and a clouding overcame her. The quitted bed seemed the +haven of a drifted wreck to reach. + +Victor tried the handle of a locked door in the dark of the early winter +morning. ‘The mother!--the daughter!’ had swung a pendulum for some time +during the night in him, too. He would rather have been subjected to the +spectacle of tears than have heard that toneless voice, as it were the +dry torrent-bed rolling blocks instead of melodious, if afflicting, +waters. + +He told Nesta not to disturb her mother, and murmured of a headache: +‘Though, upon my word, the best cure for mama would be a look into +Fredi’s eyes!’ he said, embracing his girl, quite believing in her, just +a little afraid of her. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVIII. NATALY, NESTA, AND DARTREY FENELLAN + +Pleasant things, that come to us too late for our savour of the +sweetness in them, toll ominously of life on the last walk to its end. +Yesterday, before Dudley Sowerby’s visit, Nataly would have been stirred +where the tears we shed for happiness or repress at a flattery dwell +when seeing her friend Mrs. John Cormyn enter her boudoir and hearing +her speak repentantly, most tenderly. Mrs. John said: ‘You will believe +I have suffered, dear; I am half my weight, I do think’: and she did not +set the smile of responsive humour moving; although these two ladies had +a key of laughter between them. Nataly took her kiss; held her hand, and +at the parting kissed her. She would rather have seen her friend than +not: so far she differed from a corpse; but she was near the likeness to +the dead in the insensibility to any change of light shining on one who +best loved darkness and silence. She cried to herself wilfully, that +her pride was broken: as women do when they spurn at the wounding of +a dignity they cannot protect and die to see bleeding; for in it they +live. + +The cry came of her pride unbroken, sore bruised, and after a certain +space for recovery combative. She said: + +Any expiation I could offer where I did injury, I would not refuse; I +would humble myself and bless heaven for being able to pay my debt--what +I can of it. All I contend against is, injustice. And she sank into +sensational protests of her anxious care of her daughter, too proud to +phrase them. + +Her one great affliction, the scourging affliction of her utter +loneliness;--an outcast from her family; daily, and she knew not +how, more shut away from the man she loved; now shut away from her +girl;--seemed under the hand of the angel of God. The abandonment of her +by friends, was merely the light to show it. + +Midday’s post brought her a letter from Priscilla Graves, entreating +to be allowed to call on her next day.--We are not so easily cast off! +Nataly said, bitterly, in relation to the lady whose offending had not +been so great. She wrote: ‘Come, if sure that you sincerely wish to.’ + +Having fasted, she ate at lunch in her dressing-room, with some taste of +the food, haunted by an accusation of gluttony because of her eating at +all, and a vile confession, that she was enabled to eat, owing to the +receipt of Priscilla’s empty letter: for her soul’s desire was to be +doing a deed of expiation, and the macerated flesh seemed her assurance +to herself of the courage to make amends.--I must have some strength, +she said wearifully, in apology for the morsel consumed. + +Nesta’s being in the house with her, became an excessive irritation. +Doubts of the girl’s possible honesty to speak a reptile truth under +question; amazement at her boldness to speak it; hatred of, the mouth +that could: and loathing of the words, the theme; and abomination of +herself for conjuring fictitious images to rouse real emotions; all ran +counterthreads, that produced a mad pattern in the mind, affrighting +to reason: and then, for its preservation, reason took a superrational +leap, and ascribed the terrible injustice of this last cruel stroke to +the divine scourge, recognized divine by the selection of the mortal +spot for chastisement. She clasped her breast, and said: It is mortal. +And that calmed her. + +She said, smiling: I never felt my sin until this blow came! Therefore +the blow was proved divine. Ought it not to be welcomed?--and she +appearing no better than one of those, the leprous of the sex! And +brought to acknowledgement of the likeness by her daughter! + +Nataly drank the poison distilled from her exclamations and was ice. She +had denied herself to Nesta’s redoubled petition. Nesta knocking at the +door a third time and calling, tore the mother two ways: to have her +girl on her breast or snap their union in a word with an edge. She heard +the voice of Dartrey Fenellan. + +He was admitted. ‘No, dear,’ she said to Nesta; and Nesta’s, ‘My own +mother,’ consentingly said, in tender resignation, as she retired, +sprang a stinging tear to the mother’s eyelids. + +Dartrey looked at the door closing on the girl. + +‘Is it a very low woman?’ Nataly asked him in a Church whisper, with a +face abashed. + +‘It is not,’ said he, quick to meet any abruptness. + +‘She must be cunning.’ + +‘In the ordinary way. We say it of Puss before the hounds.’ + +‘To deceive a girl like Nesta!’ + +‘She has done no harm.’ + +‘Dartrey, you speak to a mother. You have seen the woman? She is?--ah!’ + +‘She is womanly, womanly.’ + +‘Quite one of those...?’ + +‘My dear soul! You can’t shake them off in that way. She is one of us. +If we have the class, we can’t escape from it. They are not to bear all +the burden because they exist. We are the bigger debtors. I tell you she +is womanly.’ + +‘It sounds like horrid cynicism.’ + +‘Friends of mine would abuse it for the reverse.’ + +‘Do not make me hate your chivalry. This woman is a rod on my back. +Provided only she has not dropped venom into Nesta’s mind!’ + +‘Don’t fear!’ + +‘Can you tell me you think she has done no harm to my girl?’ + +‘To Nesta herself?--not any: not to a girl like your girl.’ + +‘To my girl’s name? Speak at once. But I know she has. She induced Nesta +to go to her house. My girl was insulted in this woman’s house.’ + +Dartrey’s forehead ridged with his old fury and a gust of present +contempt. ‘I can tell you this, that the fellow who would think harm of +it, knowing the facts ‘s not worthy of touching the tips of the fingers +of your girl.’ + +‘She is talked of!’ + +‘A good-looking girl out riding with a handsome woman on a parade of +idlers!’ + +‘The woman is notorious.’ Nataly said it shivering. + +He shook his head. ‘Not true.’ + +‘She has an air of a lady?’ + +‘She sits a horse well.’ + +‘Would she to any extent deceive me--impose on me here?’ + +‘No.’ + +‘Ah!’ Nataly moaned.... + +‘But what?’ said Dartrey. ‘There was no pretence. Her style is not worse +than that of some we have seen. There was no effort to deceive. The +woman’s plain for you and me to read, she has few of the arts; one or +two tricks, if you like: and these were not needed for use. There are +women who have them, and have not been driven or let slip into the +wilderness.’ + +‘Yes; I know!--those ideas of yours!’ Nataly had once admired him for +his knightliness toward the weakest women and the women underfoot. ‘You +have spoken to this woman? She boasted of acquaintance with Nesta?’ + +‘She thanked God for having met her.’ + +‘Is it one of the hysterical creatures?’ + +Mrs. Marsett appeared fronting Dartrey. + +He laughed to himself. ‘A clever question. There is a leaning to +excitement of manner at times. It ‘s not hysteria. Allow for her +position.’ + +Nataly took the unintended blow, and bowed to it; and still more harshly +said: ‘What rank of life does the woman come from?’ + +‘The class educated for a skittish career by your popular Stage and your +Book-stalls. I am not precise?’ + +‘Leave Mr. Durance. Is she in any degree commonly well bred?... +behaviour, talk-her English.’ + +‘I trench on Mr. Durance in replying. Her English is passable. You may +hear...’ + +‘Everywhere, of course! And this woman of slipshod English and excited +manners imposed upon Nesta!’ + +‘It would not be my opinion.’ + +‘Did not impose on her!’ + +‘Not many would impose on Nesta Radnor for long.’ + +‘Think what that says, Dartrey!’ + +‘You have had a detestable version of the story.’ + +‘Because an excited creature thanks God to you for having met her!’ + +‘She may. She’s a better woman for having met her. Don’t suppose we’re +for supernatural conversions. The woman makes no show of that. But she +has found a good soul among her sex--her better self in youth, as one +guesses; and she is grateful--feels farther from exile in consequence. +She has found a lady to take her by the hand!--not a common case. She +can never go to the utterly bad after knowing Nesta. I forget if +she says it; I say it. You have heard the story from one of your +conventional gentlemen.’ + +‘A true gentleman. I have reason to thank him. He has not your ideas on +these matters, Dartrey. He is very sensitive... on Nesta’s behalf.’ + +‘With reference to marriage. I’ll own I prefer another kind of +gentleman. I ‘ve had my experience of that kind of gentleman. Many +of the kind have added their spot to the outcasts abominated for +uncleanness--in holy unction. Many?--I won’t say all; but men who +consent to hear black words pitched at them, and help to set good women +facing away from them, are pious dolts or rascal dogs of hypocrites. +They, if you’ll let me quote Colney Durance to you to-day--and how is it +he is not in favour?--they are tempting the Lord to turn the pillars of +Society into pillars of salt. Down comes the house. And priests can +rest in sight of it!--They ought to be dead against the sanctimony +that believes it excommunicates when it curses. The relationship is +not dissolved so cheaply, though our Society affects to think it is. +Barmby’s off to the East End of this London, Victor informs me:--good +fellow! And there he’ll be groaning over our vicious nature. Nature is +not more responsible for vice than she is for inhumanity. Both bad, but +the latter’s the worse of the two.’ + +Nataly interposed: ‘I see the contrast, and see whom it’s to strike.’ + +Dartrey sent a thought after his meaning. ‘Hardly that. Let it stand. +He ‘s only one with the world: but he shares the criminal infamy for +crushing hope out of its frailest victims. They’re that--no sentiment. +What a world, too, look behind it!--brutal because brutish. The world +may go hang: we expect more of your gentleman. To hear of Nesta down +there, and doubt that she was about good work; and come complaining! He +had the privilege of speaking to her, remonstrating, if he wished. There +are men who think--men!--the plucking of sinners out of the mire a dirty +business. They depute it to certain officials. And your women--it’s the +taste of the world to have them educated so, that they can as little +take the humane as the enlightened view. Except, by the way, sometimes, +in secret;--they have a sisterly breast. In secret, they do occasionally +think as they feel. In public, the brass mask of the Idol they call +Propriety commands or supplies their feelings and thoughts. I won’t +repeat my reasons for educating them differently. At present we have but +half the woman to go through life with--and thank you.’ + +Dartrey stopped. ‘Don’t be disturbed,’ he added. ‘There’s no ground for +alarm. Not of any sort.’ + +Nataly said: ‘What name?’ + +‘Her name is Mrs. Marsett.’ + +‘The name is...?’ + +‘Captain Marsett: will be Sir Edward. He came back from the Continent +yesterday.’ + +A fit of shuddering seized Nataly. It grew in violence, and speaking +out of it, with a pause of sickly empty chatter of the jaws, she said: +‘Always that name?’ + +‘Before the maiden name? May have been or not.’ + +‘Not, you say?’ + +‘I don’t accurately know.’ + +Dartrey sprang to his legs. ‘My dear soul! dear friend--one of the best! +if we go on fencing in the dark, there’ll be wounds. Your way of taking +this affair disappointed me. Now I understand. It’s the disease of a +trouble, to fly at comparisons. No real one exists. I wished to protect +the woman from a happier sister’s judgement, to save you from alarm +concerning Nesta:--quite groundless, if you’ll believe me. Come, there’s +plenty of benevolent writing abroad on these topics now: facts are +more looked at, and a good woman may join us in taking them without +the horrors and loathings of angels rather too much given to claim +distinction from the luckless. A girl who’s unprotected may go through +adventures before she fixes, and be a creature of honest intentions. +Better if protected, we all agree. Better also if the world did not +favour the girl’s multitude of enemies. Your system of not dealing with +facts openly is everyway favourable to them. I am glad to say, Victor +recognizes what corruption that spread of wealth is accountable for. +And now I must go and have a talk with the--what a change from the blue +butterfly! Eaglet, I ought to have said. I dine with you, for Victor may +bring news.’ + +‘Would anything down there be news to you, Dartrey?’ + +‘He makes it wherever he steps.’ + +‘He would reproach me for not detaining you. Tell Nesta I have to lie +down after talking. She has a child’s confidence in you.’ + +A man of middle age! he said to himself. It is the particular +ejaculation which tames the senior whose heart is for a dash of holiday. +He resolved, that the mother might trust to the discretion of a man of +his age; and he went down to Nesta, grave with the weight his count of +years should give him. Seeing her, the light of what he now knew of her +was an ennobling equal to celestial. For this fair girl was one of the +active souls of the world--his dream to discover in woman’s form. She, +the little Nesta, the tall pure-eyed girl before him, was, young though +she was, already in the fight with evil: a volunteer of the army of the +simply Christian. The worse for it? Sowerby would think so. She was not +of the order of young women who, in sheer ignorance or in voluntary, +consent to the peace with evil, and are kept externally safe from the +smirch of evil, and are the ornaments of their country, glory of a +country prizing ornaments higher than qualities. + +Dartrey could have been momentarily incredulous of things revealed by +Mrs. Marsett--not incredulous of the girl’s heroism: that capacity +he caught and gauged in her shape of head, cut of mouth, and the +measurements he was accustomed to make at a glance:--but her beauty, or +the form of beauty which was hers, argued against her having set foot of +thought in our fens. Here and far there we meet a young saint vowed to +service along by those dismal swamps: and saintly she looks; not of this +earth. Nesta was of the blooming earth. Where do we meet girl or woman +comparable to garden-flowers, who can dare to touch to lift the spotted +of her sex? He was puzzled by Nesta’s unlikeness in deeds and in aspect. +He remembered her eyes, on the day when he and Colonel Sudley beheld +her; presently he was at quiet grapple with her mind. His doubts cleared +off. Then the question came, How could a girl of heroical character be +attached to the man Sowerby? That entirely passed belief. + +And was it possible his wishes beguiled his hearing? Her tones were +singularly vibrating. + +They talked for a while before, drawing a deep breath, she said: ‘I +fancy I am in disgrace with my mother.’ + +‘You have a suspicion why?’ said he. + +‘I have.’ + +She would have told him why: the words were at her lips. Previous to her +emotion on the journey home, the words would have come out. They were +arrested by the thunder of the knowledge, that the nobleness in him +drawing her to be able to speak of scarlet matter, was personally +worshipped. + +He attributed the full rose upon her cheeks to the forbidding subject. + +To spare pain, he said: ‘No misunderstanding with the dear mother will +last the day through. Can I help?’ + +‘Oh, Captain Dartrey!’ + +‘Drop the captain. Dartrey will do.’ + +‘How could I!’ + +‘You’re not wanting in courage, Nesta.’ + +‘Hardly for that!’ + +‘By-and-by, then.’ + +‘Though I could not say Mr. Fenellan.’ + +‘You see; Dartrey, it must be.’ + +‘If I could!’ + +‘But the fellow is not a captain: and he is a friend, an old friend, +very old friend: he’ll be tipped with grey in a year or two.’ + +‘I might be bolder then.’ + +‘Imagine it now. There is no disloyalty in your calling your friends by +their names.’ + +Her nature rang to the implication. ‘I am not bound.’ Dartrey hung fast, +speculating on her visibly: ‘I heard you were?’ + +‘No. I must be free.’ + +‘It is not an engagement?’ + +‘Will you laugh?--I have never quite known. My father desired it: and +my desire is to please him. I think I am vain enough to think I read +through blinds and shutters. The engagement--what there was--has been, +to my reading, broken more than once. I have not considered it, to +settle my thoughts on it, until lately: and now I may suspect it to be +broken. I have given cause--if it is known. There is no blame elsewhere. +I am not unhappy, Captain Dartrey.’ + +‘Captain by courtesy. Very well. Tell me how Nesta judges the engagement +to be broken?’ + +She was mentally phrasing before she said: ‘Absence.’ + +‘He was here yesterday.’ + +All that the visit embraced was in her expressive look, as of sight +drawing inward, like our breath in a spell of wonderment. ‘Then I +understand; it enlightens me. + +My own mother!--my poor mother! he should have come to me. I was the +guilty person, not she; and she is the sufferer. That, if in life were +direct retribution! but the very meaning of having a heart, is to suffer +through others or for them.’ + +‘You have soon seen that, dear girl,’ said Dartrey. + +‘So, my own mother, and loving me as she does, blames me!’ Nesta sighed; +she took a sharp breath. ‘You? do you blame me too?’ + +He pressed her hand, enamoured of her instantaneous divination and +heavenly candour. + +But he was admonished, that to speak high approval would not be +honourable advantage taken of the rival condemning; and he said: ‘Blame? +Some think it is not always the right thing to do the right thing. I’ve +made mistakes, with no bad design. A good mother’s view is not often +wrong.’ + +‘You pressed my hand,’ she murmured. + +That certainly had said more. + +‘Glad to again,’ he responded. It was uttered airily and was meant to be +as lightly done. + +Nesta did not draw back her hand. ‘I feel strong when you press it.’ +Her voice wavered, and as when we hear a flask sing thin at the filling, +ceased upon evidence of a heart surcharged. How was he to relax the +pressure!--he had to give her the strength she craved: and he vowed it +should be but for half a minute, half a minute longer. + +Her tears fell; she eyed him steadily; she had the look of sunlight in +shower. + +‘Oldish men are the best friends for you, I suppose,’ he said; and her +gaze turned elusive phrases to vapour. + +He was compelled to see the fiery core of the raincloud lighting it +for a revealment, that allowed as little as it retained of a shadow of +obscurity. + +The sight was keener than touch and the run of blood with blood to +quicken slumbering seeds of passion. + +But here is the place of broken ground and tangle, which calls to +honourable men, not bent on sport, to be wary to guard the gunlock. He +stopped the word at his mouth. It was not in him to stop or moderate the +force of his eyes. She met them with the slender unbendingness that was +her own; a feminine of inspirited manhood. There was no soft expression, +only the direct shot of light, on both sides; conveying as much as is +borne from sun to earth, from earth to sun. And when such an exchange +has come between the two, they are past plighting, they are the wedded +one. + +Nesta felt it, without asking whether she was loved. She was his. She +had not a thought of the word of love or the being beloved. Showers +of painful blissfulness went through her, as the tremours of a shocked +frame, while she sat quietly, showing scarce a sign; and after he had +let her hand go, she had the pressure on it. The quivering intense of +the moment of his eyes and grasp was lord of her, lord of the day and +of all days coming. That is how Love slays Death. Never did girl so give +her soul. + +She would have been the last to yield it unreservedly to a man untrusted +for the character she worshipped. But she could have given it to +Dartrey, despite his love of another, because it was her soul, without +any of the cravings, except to bestow. + +He perceived, that he had been carried on for the number of steps which +are countless miles and do not permit the retreat across the desert +behind; and he was in some amazement at himself, remindful of the +different nature of our restraining power when we have a couple playing +on it. Yet here was this girl, who called him up to the heights of +young life again: and a brave girl; and she bled for the weak, had no +shrinking from the women underfoot: for the reason, that she was a girl +sovereignly pure, angelically tender. Was there a point of honour to +hold him back? + +Nataly entered the room. She kissed Nesta, and sat silent. + +‘Mother, will you speak of me to him, if I go out?’ Nesta said. + +‘We have spoken,’ her mother replied, vexed by the unmaidenly allusion +to that theme. + +She would have asked, How did you guess I knew of it?--but that the Why +should I speak of you to him? struck the louder note in her bosom: and +then, What is there that this girl cannot guess!--filled the mother’s +heart with apprehensive dread: and an inward cry, What things will she +not set going, to have them discussed. And the appalling theme, sitting +offensive though draped in their midst, was taken for a proof of the +girl’s unblushingness. After standing as one woman against the world so +long, Nataly was relieved to be on the side of a world now convictedly +unjust to her in the confounding of her with the shameless. Her mind had +taken the brand of that thought:--And Nesta had brought her to it:--And +Dudley Sowerby, a generous representative of the world, had kindly, +having the deputed power to do so, sustained her, only partially blaming +Nesta, not casting them off; as the world, with which Nataly felt, under +a sense of the protection calling up all her gratitude to young Dudley, +would have approved his doing. + +She was passing through a fit of the cowardice peculiar to the tediously +strained, who are being more than commonly tried--persecuted, as they +say when they are not supplicating their tyrannical Authority for +aid. The world will continue to be indifferent to their view of it +and behaviour toward it until it ceases to encourage the growth of +hypocrites. + +These are moments when the faces we are observing drop their charm, +showing us our perversion internal, if we could but reflect, to see it. +Very many thousand times above Dudley Sowerby, Nataly ranked Dartrey +Fenellan; and still she looked at him, where he sat beside Nesta, +ungenially, critical of the very features, jealously in the interests of +Dudley; and recollecting, too, that she had once prayed for one exactly +resembling Dartrey Fenellan to be her Nesta’s husband. But, as she would +have said, that was before the indiscretion of her girl had shown her +to require for her husband a man whose character and station guaranteed +protection instead of inciting to rebellion. And Dartrey, the loved and +prized, was often in the rebel ranks; he was dissatisfied with matters +as they are; was restless for action, angry with a country denying it to +him; he made enemies, he would surely bring down inquiries about Nesta’s +head, and cause the forgotten or quiescent to be stirred; he would +scarcely be the needed hand for such a quiver of the lightnings as Nesta +was. + +Dartrey read Nataly’s brows. This unwonted uncomeliness of hers was an +indication to one or other of our dusky pits, not a revealing. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIX. A CHAPTER IN THE SHADOW OF MRS. MARSETT + +He read her more closely when Arlington brought in the brown paper +envelope of the wires--to which the mate of Victor ought to have become +accustomed. She took it; her eyelids closed, and her features were +driven to whiteness. ‘Only these telegrams,’ she said, in apology. + +‘Lakelands on fire?’ Dartrey murmured to Nesta; and she answered: ‘I +should not be sorry.’ + +Nataly coldly asked her why she would not be sorry. + +Dartrey interposed: ‘I’m sure she thinks Lakelands worries her mother.’ + +‘That ranks low among the worries,’ Nataly sighed, opening the envelope. + +Nesta touched her arm: ‘Mother! even before Captain Dartrey, if you will +let me!’--she turned to him: ‘before...’ at the end of her breath she +said: ‘Dartrey Fenellan. You shall see my whole heart, mother.’ + +Her mother looked from her at him. + +‘Victor returns by the last train. He telegraphs, that he dines with--’ +She handed the paper to Dartrey. + +‘Marsett,’ he read aloud; and she flushed; she was angry with him for +not knowing, that the name was a term of opprobrium flung at her. + +‘It’s to tell you he has done what he thought good,’ said Dartrey. ‘In +other words, as I interpret, he has completed his daughter’s work. So we +won’t talk about it till he comes. You have no company this evening?’ + +‘Oh! there is a pause to-night! It’s nearly as unceasing as your brother +Simeon’s old French lady in the ronde with her young bridegroom, till +they danced her to pieces. I do get now and then an hour’s repose,’ +Nataly added, with a vision springing up of the person to whom the story +had applied. + +‘My dear, you are a good girl to call me Dartrey,’ the owner of the name +said to Nesta. + +Nataly saw them both alert, in the terrible manner peculiar to both, for +the directest of the bare statements. She could have protested, that her +love of truth was on an equality with theirs; and certainly, that her +regard for decency was livelier. Pass the deficiency in a man. But a +girl who could speak, by allusion, of Mrs. Marsett--of the existence of +a Mrs. Marsett--in the presence of a man: and he excusing, encouraging: +and this girl her own girl;--it seemed to her, that the world reeled; +she could hardly acknowledge the girl; save under the penitential +admission of her sin’s having found her out. + +She sent Nesta to her room when they went upstairs to dress, unable +to endure her presence after seeing her show a placid satisfaction at +Dartrey’s nod to the request for him to sleep in the house that night. +It was not at all a gleam of pleasure, hardly an expression; it was a +manner of saying, One drop more in my cup of good fortune! an absurd and +an offensive exhibition of silly optimism of the young, blind that they +are! + +For were it known, and surely the happening of it would be known, +that Dudley Sowerby had shaken off the Nesta of no name, who was the +abominable Mrs. Marsett’s friend, a whirlwind with a trumpet would sweep +them into the wilderness on a blast frightfuller than any ever heard. + +Nataly had a fit of weeping for want of the girl’s embrace, against +whom her door was jealously locked. She hoped those two would talk much, +madly if they liked, during dinner, that she might not be sensible, +through any short silence, of the ardour animating them: especially +glowing in Nesta, ready behind her quiet mask to come brazenly forth. +But both of them were mercilessly ardent; and a sickness of the fear, +that they might fall on her to capture her and hurry her along with them +perforce of the allayed, once fatal, inflammable element in herself, +shook the warmth from her limbs: causing her to say to herself aloud +in a ragged hoarseness, very strangely: Every thought of mine now has a +physical effect on me! + +They had not been two minutes together when she descended to them. Yet +she saw the girl’s heart brimming, either with some word spoken to +her or for joy of an unmaidenly confession. During dinner they talked, +without distressful pauses. Whatever said, whatever done, was manifestly +another drop in Nesta’s foolish happy cup. Could it be all because +Dartrey Fenellan countenanced her acquaintance with that woman? The +mother had lost hold of her. The tortured mother had lost hold of +herself. + +Dartrey in the course of the evening, begged to hear the contralto; and +Nataly, refusing, was astounded by the admission in her blank mind of +the truth of man’s list of charges against her sex, starting from their +capriciousness for she could have sung in a crowded room, and she had +now a desire for company, for stolid company or giddy, an ocean of it. +This led to her thinking, that the world of serious money-getters, +and feasts, and the dance, the luxurious displays, and the reverential +Sunday service, will always ultimately prove itself right in opposition +to critics and rebels, and to any one vainly trying to stand alone: and +the thought annihilated her; for she was past the age of the beginning +again, and no footing was left for an outsider not self-justified in +being where she stood. She heard Dartrey’s praise of Nesta’s voice for +tearing her mother’s bosom with notes of intolerable sweetness; and it +was haphazard irony, no doubt; we do not the less bleed for the accident +of a shot. + +At last, after midnight Victor arrived. + +Nesta most impudently expected to be allowed to remain. ‘Pray, go, +dear,’ her mother said. Victor kissed his Fredi. ‘Some time to-morrow,’ +said he; and she forbore to beseech him. + +He stared, though mildly, at sight of her taking Dartrey’s hand for the +good-night and deliberately putting her lips to it. + +Was she a girl whose notion of rectifying one wrong thing done, was to +do another? Nataly could merely observe. A voice pertaining to no +one present, said in her ear:--Mothers have publicly slapped their +daughter’s faces for less than that!--It was the voice of her incapacity +to cope with the girl. She watched Nesta’s passage from the room, +somewhat affected by the simple bearing for which she was reproaching +her. + +‘And our poor darling has not seen a mountain this year!’ Victor +exclaimed, to have mentionable grounds for pitying his girl. ‘I promised +Fredi she should never count a year without Highlands or Alps. You +remember, mama?--down in the West Highlands. Fancy the dear bit of +bundle, Dartrey!--we had laid her in her bed; she was about seven or +eight; and there she lay wide awake. “What ‘s Fredi thinking of?”--“I’m +thinking of the tops of the mountains at night, dada.”--She could climb +them now; she has the legs.’ + +Nataly said: ‘You have some report to make. You dined with those +people?’ + +‘The Marsetts: yes:--well-suited couple enough. It’s to happen before +Winter ends--at once; before Christmas; positively before next Spring. +Fredi’s doing! He has to manage, arrange.--She’s a good-looking woman, +good height, well-rounded; well-behaved, too: she won’t make a bad Lady +Marsett. Every time that woman spoke of our girl, the tears jumped to +her eyelids.’ + +‘Come to me before you go to bed,’ Nataly said, rising, her voice +foundering; ‘Good-night, Dartrey.’ + +She turned to the door; she could not trust herself to shake hands with +composure. Not only was it a nauseous mixture she was forced to gulp +from Victor, it burned like a poison. + +‘Really Fredi’s doing--chiefly,’ said Victor, as soon as Dartrey and he +were alone, comfortably settled in the smoking-room. ‘I played the +man of pomp with Marsett--good heavy kind of creature: attached to the +woman. She’s the better horse, as far as brains go. Good enough Lady +Marsett. I harped on Major Worrell: my daughter insulted. He knew of +it--spoke of you properly. The man offered all apologies; he has told +the Major he is no gentleman, not a fit associate for gentlemen:--quite +so--and has cut him dead. Will marry her, as I said, make her as worthy +as he can of the honour of my daughter’s acquaintance. Rather comical +grimace, when he vowed he’d fasten the tie. He doesn’t like marriage. +But, he can’t give her up. And she’s for patronizing the institution. +But she is ready to say good-bye to him “rather than see the truest +lady in the world insulted”--her words. And so he swallows his dose +for health, and looks a trifle sourish. Antecedents, I suppose: has to +stomach them. But if a man’s fond of a woman--if he knows he saves her +from slipping lower--and it’s an awful world, for us to let a woman be +under its wheels:--I say, a woman who has a man to lean on, unless she’s +as downright corrupt as two or three of the men we’ve known:--upon my +word, Dartrey, I come round to some of your ideas on these matters. It’s +this girl of mine, this wee bit of girl in her little nightshirt with +the frill, astonishes me most:--“thinking of the tops of the mountains +at night!” She has positively done the whole of this work-main part. I +smiled when I left the house, to have to own our little Fredi starting +us all on the road. It seems, Marsett had sworn he would; amorous vow, +you know; he never came nearer to doing it. I hope it’s his better +mind now; I do hope the man won’t have cause to regret it. He speaks of +Nesta--sort of rustic tone of awe. Mrs. Marsett has impressed him. He +expects the title soon, will leave the army--the poor plucked British +army, as you call it!--and lead the life of a country squire: hunting! +Well, it’s not only the army, it’s over Great Britain, with this +infernal wealth of ours!--and all for pleasure--eh?--or Paradise lost +for a sugar plum! Eh, Dartrey? Upon my word, it appears to me, Esau’s +the Englishman, Jacob the German, of these times. I wonder old Colney +hasn’t said it. If we’re not plucked, as your regiments are of the +officers who have learnt their work, we’re emasculated:--the nation’s +half made-up of the idle and the servants of the idle.’ + +‘Ay, and your country squires and your manufacturers contrive to give +the army a body of consumptive louts fit for nothing else than to take +the shilling--and not worth it,’ said Dartrey. + +‘Sounds like old Colney,’ Victor remarked to himself. ‘But, believe me, +I’m ashamed of the number of servants who wait on me. It wouldn’t +so much matter, as Skepsey says, if they were trained to arms and +self-respect. That little fellow Skepsey’s closer to the right notion, +and the right practice, too, than any of us. With his Matilda Pridden! +He has jumped out of himself to the proper idea of women, too. And +there’s a man who has been up three times before the magistrates, and is +considered a disorderly subject--one among the best of English citizens, +I declare! I never think of Skepsey without the most extraordinary, +witless kind of envy--as if he were putting in action an idea I once +had and never quite got hold of again. The match for him is Fredi. She +threatens to be just as devoted, just as simple, as he. I positively +doubt whether any of us could stop her, if she had set herself to do a +thing she thought right.’ + +‘I should not like to think our trying it possible,’ said Dartrey. + +‘All very well, but it’s a rock ahead. We shall have to alter our +course, my friend. You know, I dined with that couple, after the private +twenty minutes with Marsett: he formally propounded the invitation, as +we were close on his hour, rather late: and I wanted to make the +woman happy, besides putting a seal of cordiality on his good +intentions--politic! And subsequently I heard from her, that--you’ll +think nothing of it!--Fredi promised to stand by her at the altar.’ + +Dartrey said, shrugging: ‘She needn’t do that.’ + +‘So we may say. You’re dealing with Nesta Victoria. Spare me a contest +with that girl, I undertake to manage any man or woman living.’ + +‘When the thing to be done is thought right by her.’ + +‘But can we always trust her judgement, my dear Dartrey?’ + +‘In this case, she would argue, that her resolution to keep her promise +would bind or help to bind Marsett to fulfil his engagement.’ + +‘Odd, her mother has turned dead round in favour of that fellow Dudley +Sowerby! I don’t complain; it suits; but one thinks--eh?--women!’ + +‘Well, yes, one thinks or should think, that if you insist on having +women rooted to the bed of the river, they’ll veer with the tides, like +water-weeds, and no wonder.’ + +‘Your heterodoxy on that subject is a mania, Dartrey. We can’t have +women independent.’ + +‘Then don’t be exclaiming about their vagaries.’ + +Victor mused: ‘It’s wonderful: that little girl of mine!--good height +now: but what a head she has! Oh, she’ll listen to reason: only mark +what I say:--with that quiet air of hers, the husband, if a young +fellow, will imagine she’s the most docile of wives in the world. And +as to wife, I’m not of the contrary opinion. But qua individual female, +supposing her to have laid fast hold of an idea of duty, it’s he who’ll +have to turn the corner second, if they’re to trot in the yoke together. +Or it may be an idea of service to a friend--or to her sex! That Mrs. +Marsett says she feels for--“bleeds” for her sex. The poor woman didn’t +show to advantage with me, because she was in a fever to please:--talks +in jerks, hot phrases. She holds herself well. At the end of the dinner +she behaved better. Odd, you can teach women with hints and a lead. But +Marsett ‘s Marsett to the end. Rather touching!--the poor fellow +said: Deuce of a bad look-out for me if Judith doesn’t have a child! +First-rate sportsman, I hear. He should have thought of his family +earlier. You know, Dartrey, the case is to be argued for the family as +well. You won’t listen. And for Society too! Off you go.’ + +A battery was opened on that wall of composite. + +‘Ah, well,’ said Victor. ‘But I may have to beg your help, as to the +so-called promise to stand at the altar. I don’t mention it upstairs.’ + +He went to Nataly’s room. + +She was considerately treated, and was aware of being dandled, that she +might have sleep. + +She consented to it, in a loathing of the topic.--Those women invade +us--we cannot keep them out! was her inward cry: with a reverberation of +the unfailing accompaniment: The world holds you for one of them! + +Victor tasked her too much when his perpetual readiness to doat upon +his girl for whatever she did, set him exalting Nesta’s conduct. She +thought: Was Nesta so sympathetic with her mother of late by reason of a +moral insensibility to the offence? + +This was her torture through the night of a labouring heart, that +travelled to one dull shock, again and again repeated:--the apprehended +sound, in fact, of Dudley Sowerby’s knock at the street door. Or +sometimes a footman handed her his letter, courteously phrased to +withdraw from the alliance. Or else he came to a scene with Nesta, and +her mother was dragged into it, and the intolerable subject steamed +about her. The girl was visioned as deadly. She might be indifferent to +the protection of Dudley’s name. Robust, sanguine, Victor’s child, she +might--her mother listened to a devil’s whisper--but no; Nesta’s aim was +at the heights; she was pure in mind as in body. No, but the world would +bring the accusation; and the world would trace the cause: Heredity, +it would say. Would it say falsely? Nataly harped on the interrogation +until she felt her existence dissolving to a dark stain of the earth, +and she found herself wondering at the breath she drew, doubting that +another would follow, speculating on the cruel force which keeps us to +the act of breathing.--Though I could draw wild blissful breath if I +were galloping across the moors! her worn heart said to her youth: and +out of ken of the world, I could regain a portion of my self-esteem. +Nature thereat renewed her old sustainment with gentle murmurs, that +were supported by Dr. Themison’s account of the virtuous married lady +who chafed at the yoke on behalf of her sex, and deemed the independent +union the ideal. Nataly’s brain had a short gallop over moorland. It +brought her face to face with Victor’s girl, and she dropped once more +to her remorse in herself and her reproaches of Nesta. The girl had +inherited from her father something of the cataract’s force which won +its way by catching or by mastering, uprooting, ruining! + +In the morning she was heavily asleep. Victor left word with Nesta, +that the dear mother was not to be disturbed. Consequently, when Dudley +called to see Mrs. Victor Radnor, he was informed that Miss Radnor would +receive him. + +Their interview lasted an hour. + +Dudley came to Victor in the City about luncheon time. + +His perplexity of countenance was eloquent. He had, before seeing the +young lady, digested an immense deal more, as it seemed to him, than any +English gentleman should be asked to consume. She now referred him +to her father, who had spent a day in Brighton, and would, she said, +explain whatever there was to be explained. But she added, that if she +was expected to abandon a friend, she could not. Dudley had argued with +her upon the nature of friendship, the measurement of its various dues; +he had lectured on the choice of friends, the impossibility for young +ladies, necessarily inexperienced, to distinguish the right class of +friends, the dangers they ran in selecting friends unwarranted by the +stamp of honourable families. + +‘And what did Fredi say to that?’ Victor inquired. + +‘Miss Radnor said--I may be dense, I cannot comprehend--that the +precepts were suitable for seminaries of Pharisees. When it is a +question of a young lady associating with a notorious woman!’ + +‘Not notorious. You spoil your case if you “speak extremely,” as a +friend says. I saw her yesterday. She worships “Miss Radnor.”’ + +Nesta will know when she is older; she will thank me,’ said Dudley +hurriedly. ‘As it is at present, I may reckon, I hope, that the +association ceases. Her name: I have to consider my family.’ + +‘Good anchorage! You must fight it out with the girl. And depend +upon this--you’re not the poorer for being the husband of a girl of +character; unless you try to bridle her. She belongs to her time. I +don’t mind owning to you, she has given me a lead.--Fredi ‘ll be merry +to-night. Here’s a letter I have from the Sanfredini, dated Milan, fresh +this morning; invitation to bring the god-child to her villa on Como in +May; desirous to embrace her. She wrote to the office. Not a word of her +duque. She has pitched him to the winds. You may like to carry it off to +Fredi and please her.’ + +‘I have business,’ Dudley replied. + +‘Away to it, then!’ said Victor. ‘You stand by me?--we expect our South +London borough to be open in January; early next year, at least; may be +February. You have family interest there.’ + +‘Personally, I will do my best,’ Dudley said; and he escaped, feeling, +with the universal censor’s angry spite, that the revolutions of the +world had made one of the wealthiest of City men the head of a set of +Bohemians. And there are eulogists of the modern time! And the man’s +daughter was declared to belong to it! A visit in May to the Italian +cantatrice separated from her husband, would render the maiden an +accomplished flinger of caps over the windmills. + +At home Victor discovered, that there was not much more than a truce +between Nesta and Nataly. He had a medical hint from Dr. Themison, +and he counselled his girl to humour her mother as far as could be: +particularly in relation to Dudley, whom Nataly now, womanlike, after +opposing, strongly favoured. How are we ever to get a clue to the +labyrinthine convolutions and changeful motives of the sex! Dartrey’s +theories were absurd. Did Nataly think them dangerous for a young woman? +The guess hinted at a clue of some sort to the secret of her veering. + +‘Mr. Sowerby left me with an adieu,’ said Nesta. + +‘Mr. Sowerby! My dear, he is bound, bound in honour, bound at heart. You +did not dismiss him?’ + +‘I repeated the word he used. I thought of mother. The blood leaves her +cheeks at a disappointment now. She has taken to like him.’ + +‘Why, you like him!’ + +‘I could not vow.’ + +‘Tush.’ + +‘Ah, don’t press me, dada. But you will see, he has disengaged himself.’ + +He had done it, though not in formal speech. Slow digestion of his +native antagonism to these Bohemians, to say nothing of his judicial +condemnation of them, brought him painfully round to the writing of a +letter to Nataly; cunningly addressed to the person on whom his instinct +told him he had the strongest hold. + +She schooled herself to discuss the detested matter forming Dudley’s +grievance and her own with Nesta; and it was a woeful half-hour for +them. But Nataly was not the weeper. + +Another interview ensued between Nesta and her suitor. Dudley bore no +resemblance to Mr. Barmby, who refused to take the word no from her, and +had taken it, and had gone to do holy work, for which she revered him. +Dudley took the word, leaving her to imagine freedom, until once more +her mother or her father, inspired by him, came interceding, her mother +actually supplicating. So that the reality of Dudley’s love rose to +conception like a London dawn over Nesta; and how, honourably, decently, +positively, to sever herself from it, grew to be an ill-visaged problem. +She glanced in soul at Dartrey Fenellan for help; she had her wild +thoughts. Having once called him Dartrey, the virginal barrier to +thoughts was broken; and but for love of her father, for love and pity +of her mother, she would have ventured the step to make the man who had +her whole being in charge accept or reject her. Nothing else appeared in +prospect. Her father and mother were urgently one to favour Dudley; and +the sensitive gentleman presented himself to receive his wound and to +depart with it. But always he returned. At last, as if under tuition, +he refrained from provoking a wound; he stood there to win her upon any +terms; and he was a handsome figure, acknowledged by the damsel to +be increasing in good looks as more and more his pretensions became +distasteful to her. The slight cast of sourness on his lower features +had almost vanished, his nature seemed to have enlarged. He complimented +her for her ‘generous benevolence,’ vaguely, yet with evident +sincereness; he admitted, that the modern world is ‘attempting +difficulties with at least commendable intentions’; and that the +position of women demands improvement, consideration for them also. +He said feelingly: ‘They have to bear extraordinary burdens!’ There he +stopped. + +The sharp intelligence fronting him understood, that this compassionate +ejaculation was the point where she, too, must cry halt. He had, +however--still under tuition, perhaps--withdrawn his voice from the +pursuit of her; and so she in gratitude silenced her critical mind +beneath a smooth conceit of her having led him two steps to a broader +tolerance. Susceptible as she was, she did not influence him without +being affected herself in other things than her vanity: his prudishness +affected her. Only when her heart flamed did she disdain that real haven +of refuge, with its visionary mount of superiority, offered by Society +to its effect, in the habit of ignoring the sins it fosters under +cloak;--not less than did the naked barbaric time, and far more to the +vitiation of the soul. He fancied he was moulding her; therefore winning +her. It followed, that he had the lover’s desire for assurance of +exclusive possession; and reflecting, that he had greatly pardoned, +he grew exacting. He mentioned his objections to some of Mr. Dartrey +Fenellan’s ideas. + +Nesta replied: ‘I have this morning had two letters to make me happy.’ + +A provoking evasion. He would rather have seen antagonism bridle and +stiffen her figure. ‘Is one of them from that gentleman?’ + +‘One is from my dear friend Louise de Seilles. She comes to me early +next month.’ + +‘The other?’ + +‘The other is also from a friend.’ + +‘A dear friend?’ + +‘Not so dear. Her letter gives me happiness.’ + +‘She writes--not from France: from...? you tempt me to guess.’ + +‘She writes to tell me, that Mr. Dartrey Fenellan has helped her in a +way to make her eternally thankful.’ + +‘The place she writes from is...?’ + +The drag of his lips betrayed his enlightenment insisted on doubting. He +demanded assurance. + +‘It matters in no degree,’ she said. + +Dudley ‘thought himself excusable for inquiring.’ + +She bowed gently. + +The stings and scorpions and degrading itches of this nest of wealthy +Bohemians enraged him. + +‘Are you--I beg to ask--are you still:--I can hardly think it--Nesta!--I +surely have a claim to advise:--it cannot be with your mother’s +consent:--in communication, in correspondence with...?’ + +Again she bowed her head; saying: ‘It is true.’ + +‘With that person?’ + +He could not but look the withering disgust of the modern world in a +conservative gentleman who has been lured to go with it a little way, +only to be bitten. ‘I decline to believe it,’ he said with forcible +sound. + +‘She is married,’ was the rather shameless, exasperating answer. + +‘Married or not!’ he cried, and murmured: ‘I have borne--. These may be +Mr. Dartrey Fenellan’s ideas; they are not mine. I have--Something +at least is due to me: Ask any lady:--there are clergymen, I know, +clergymen who are for uplifting--quite right, but not associating:--to +call one of them a friend! Ask any lady, any! Your mother...’ + +‘I beg you will not distress my mother,’ said Nesta. + +‘I beg to know whether this correspondence is to continue?’ said Dudley. + +‘All my life, if I do not feel dishonoured by it.’ + +‘You are.’ He added hastily: ‘Counsels of prudence--there is not a lady +living who would tell you otherwise. At all events, in public opinion, +if it were known--and it would certainly be known,--a lady, wife +or spinster, would suffer--would not escape the--at least shadow of +defilement from relationship, any degree of intimacy with... hard words +are wholesome in such a case: “touch pitch,” yes! My sense is coherent.’ + +‘Quite,’ said Nesta. + +‘And you do not agree with me?’ + +‘I do not.’ + +‘Do you pretend to be as able to judge as I?’ + +‘In this instance, better.’ + +‘Then I retire. I cannot retain my place here. You may depend upon it, +the world is not wrong when it forbids young ladies to have cognizance +of women leading disorderly lives.’ + +‘Only the women, Mr. Sowerby?’ + +‘Men, too, of course.’ + +‘You do not exclude the men from Society.’ + +‘Oh! one reads that kind of argument in books.’ + +‘Oh! the worthy books, then. I would read them, if I could find them.’ + +‘They are banned by self-respecting readers.’ + +‘It grieves me to think differently.’ + +Dudley looked on this fair girl, as yet innocent girl; and contrasting +her with the foulness of the subject she dared discuss, it seemed +to him, that a world which did not puff at her and silence, if not +extinguish, was in a state of liquefaction. + +Remembering his renewed repentances his absence, he said: ‘I do hope +you may come to see, that the views shared by your mother and me are not +erroneous.’ + +‘But do not distress her,’ Nesta implored him. ‘She is not well. When +she has grown stronger, her kind heart will move her to receive the +lady, so that she may not be deprived of the society of good women. I +shall hope she will not disapprove of me. I cannot forsake a friend.’ + +‘I beg to say good-bye,’ said Dudley. + +She had seen a rigidity smite him as she spoke; and so little startling +was it, that she might have fancied it expected, save for her knowing +herself too serious to have played at wiles to gain her ends. + +He ‘wished her prudent advisers.’ + +She thanked him. ‘In a few days, Louise de Seilles will be here.’ + +A Frenchwoman and Papist! was the interjection of his twist of brows. + +Surely I must now be free? she thought when he had covered his farewell +under a salutation regretful in frostiness. + +A week later, she had the embrace of her Louise, and Armandine was made +happy with a piece of Parisian riband. + +Winter was rapidly in passage: changes were visible everywhere; Earth +and House of Commons and the South London borough exhibited them; Mrs. +Burman was the sole exception. To the stupefaction of physicians, in a +manner to make a sane man ask whether she was not being retained as an +instrument for one of the darker purposes of Providence--and where are +we standing if we ask such things?--she held on to her thread of life. + +February went by. And not a word from Themison; nor from Carling, nor +from the Rev. Groseman Buttermore, nor from Jarniman. That is to say, +the two former accepted invitations to grand dinners; the two latter +acknowledged contributions to funds in which they were interested; but +they had apparently grown to consider Mrs. Burman as an establishment, +one of our fixtures. On the other hand, there was nothing to be feared +from her. Lakelands feared nothing: the entry into Lakelands was decreed +for the middle of April. Those good creatures enclosed the poor woman +and nourished her on comfortable fiction. So the death of the member +for the South London borough (fifteen years younger than the veteran in +maladies) was not to be called premature, and could by no possibility +lead to an exposure of the private history of the candidate for his +vacant seat. + + + + +CHAPTER XL. AN EXPIATION + +Nataly had fallen to be one of the solitary who have no companionship +save with the wound they nurse, to chafe it rather than try at healing. +So rational a mind as she had was not long in outliving mistaken +impressions; she could distinguish her girl’s feeling, and her aim; she +could speak on the subject with Dartrey; and still her wound bled on. +Louise de Seilles comforted her partly, through an exaltation of Nesta. +Mademoiselle, however, by means of a change of tone and look when Dudley +Sowerby and Dartrey Fenellan were the themes, showed a too pronounced +preference of the more unstable one:--or rather, the man adventurous out +of the world’s highways, whose image, as husband of such a daughter +as hers, smote the wounded mother with a chillness. Mademoiselle’s +occasional thrill of fervency in an allusion to Dartrey, might have +tempted a suspicious woman to indulge suppositions, accounting for the +young Frenchwoman’s novel tenderness to England, of which Nesta proudly, +very happily boasted. The suspicion proposed itself, and was rejected: +for not even the fever of an insane body could influence Nataly’s +generous character, to let her moods divert and command her thoughts of +persons. + +Her thoughts were at this time singularly lucid upon everything about +her; with the one exception of the reason why she had come to favour +Dudley, and how it was she had been smitten by that woman at Brighton +to see herself in her position altogether with the world’s relentless, +unexamining hard eyes. Bitterness added, of Mrs. Marsett: She is made +an honest woman!--And there was a strain of the lower in Nataly, to +reproach the girl for causing the reflection to be cast on the unwedded. +Otherwise her mind was open; she was of aid to Victor in his confusion +over some lost Idea he had often touched on latterly. And she was the +one who sent him ahead at a trot under a light, by saying: ‘You would +found a new and more stable aristocracy of the contempt of luxury’ when +he talked of combatting the Jews with a superior weapon. That being, +in fact, as Colney Durance had pointed out to him, the weapon of +self-conquest used by them ‘before they fell away to flesh-pottery.’ +Was it his Idea? He fancied an aching at the back of his head when +he speculated. But his Idea had been surpassingly luminous, alive, a +creation; and this came before him with the yellow skin of a Theory, +bred, born of books. Though Nataly’s mention of the aristocracy of +self-denying discipline struck a Lucifer in his darkness. + +Nesta likewise helped: but more in what she did than in what she said: +she spoke intelligently enough to make him feel a certain increase of +alarm, amounting to a cursory secret acknowledgement of it, both at her +dealings with Dudley and with himself. She so quietly displaced the +lady visiting him at the City offices. His girl’s disregard of +hostile weather, and her company, her talk, delighted him: still +he remonstrated, at her coming daily. She came: nor was there an +instigation on the part of her mother, clearly none: her mother asked +him once whether he thought she met the dreadful Brighton woman. His +Fredi drove constantly to walk back beside him Westward, as he loved +to do whenever it was practicable; and exceeding the flattery of his +possession of the gallant daughter, her conversation charmed him to +forget a disappointment caused by the defeat and entire exclusion of the +lady visiting him so complimentarily for his advice on stocks, shares, +mines, et caetera. The lady resisted; she was vanquished, as the shades +are displaced by simple apparition of daylight. + +His Fredi was like the daylight to him; she was the very daylight to his +mind, whatsoever their theme of converse for by stimulating that ready +but vagrant mind to quit the leash of the powerful senses and be +a ethereally excursive, she gave him a new enjoyment; which led to +reflections--a sounding of Nature, almost a question to her, on the +verge of a doubt. Are we, in fact, harmonious with the Great Mother when +we yield to the pressure of our natures for indulgence? Is she, when +translated into us, solely the imperious appetite? Here was Fredi, his +little Fredi--stately girl that she had grown, and grave, too, for all +her fun and her sail on wings--lifting him to pleasures not followed +by clamorous, and perfectly satisfactory, yet discomposingly violent, +appeals to Nature. They could be vindicated. Or could they, when they +would not bear a statement of the case? He could not imagine himself +stating it namelessly to his closest friend--not to Simeon Fenellan. As +for speaking to Dartrey, the notion took him with shivers:--Young Dudley +would have seemed a more possible confidant:--and he represented the +Puritan world.--And young Dudley was getting over Fredi’s infatuation +for the woman she had rescued: he was beginning to fancy he saw a right +enthusiasm in it;--in the abstract; if only the fair maid would drop +an unseemly acquaintance. He had called at the office to say so. Victor +stammered the plea for him. + +‘Never, dear father,’ came the smooth answer: a shocking answer in +contrast with the tones. Her English was as lucid as her eyes when she +continued up to the shock she dealt: ‘Do not encourage a good man to +waste his thoughts upon me. I have chosen my mate, and I may never marry +him. I do not know whether he would marry me. He has my soul. I have no +shame in saying I love him. It is to love goodness, greatness of heart. +He is a respecter of women--of all women; not only the fortunate. He is +the friend of the weaker everywhere. He has been proved in fire. He does +not sentimentalize over poor women, as we know who scorns people for +doing:--and that is better than hardness, meaning kindly. He is not one +of the unwise advocates. He measures the forces against them. He reads +their breasts. He likes me. He is with me in my plans. He has not said, +has not shown, he loves me. It is too high a thought for me until I hear +it.’ + +‘Has your soul!’ was all that Victor could reply, while the whole +conception of Lakelands quaked under the crumbling structure. + +Remonstrance, argument, a word for Dudley, swelled to his lips and sank +in dumbness. Her seeming intuition--if it was not a perception--of +the point where submission to the moods of his nature had weakened his +character, and required her defence of him, struck Victor with a serious +fear of his girl: and it was the more illuminatingly damnatory for being +recognized as the sentiment which no father should feel. He tried to +think she ought not to be so wise of the things of the world. An effort +to imagine a reproof, showed him her spirit through her eyes: in her +deeds too: she had already done work on the road:--Colney Durance, +Dartrey Fenellan, anything but sentimentalists either of them, strongly +backing her, upholding her. Victor could no longer so naturally name her +Fredi. + +He spoke it hastily, under plea of some humorous tenderness, when +he ventured. When Dudley, calling on him in the City to discuss the +candidature for the South London borough, named her Fredi, that he +might regain a vantage of familiarity by imitating her father, it struck +Victor as audacious. It jarred in his recollection, though the heir of +the earldom spoke in the tone of a lover, was really at high pitch. He +appeared to be appreciating her, to have suffered stings of pain; he +offered himself; he made but one stipulation. Victor regretfully assured +him, he feared he could do nothing. The thought of his entry into +Lakelands, with Nesta Victoria refusing the foundation stone of the +place, grew dim. + +But he was now canvassing for the Borough, hearty at the new business +as the braced swimmer on seas, which instantly he became, with an end in +view to be gained. + +Late one April night, expecting Nataly to have gone to bed, and Nesta +to be waiting for him, he reached home, and found Nataly in her +sitting-room alone. ‘Nesta was tired,’ she said: ‘we have had a scene; +she refuses Mr. Sowerby; I am sick of pressing it; he is very much in +earnest, painfully; she blames him for disturbing me; she will not +see the right course:--a mother reads her daughter! If my girl has not +guidance!--she means rightly, she is rash.’ + +Nataly could not utter all that her insaneness of feeling made her think +with regard to Victor’s daughter--daughter also of the woman whom her +hard conscience accused of inflammability. ‘Here is a note from Dr. +Themison, dear.’ + +Victor seized it, perused, and drew the big breath. + +‘From Themison,’ he said; he coughed. + +‘Don’t think to deceive me,’ said she. ‘I have not read the contents, I +know them.’ + +‘The invitation at last, for to-morrow, Sunday, four P.M. Odd, that next +day at eight of the evening I shall be addressing our meeting in the +Theatre. Simeon speaks. Beaves Urmsing insists on coming, Tory though he +is. Those Tories are jollier fellows than--well, no wonder! There will +be no surgical... the poor woman is very low. A couple of days at the +outside. Of course, I go.’ + +‘Hand me the note, dear.’ + +It had to be given up, out of the pocket. + +‘But,’ said Victor, ‘the mention of you is merely formal.’ + +She needed sleep: she bowed her head. + +Nataly was the first at the breakfast-table in the morning, a fair +Sunday morning. She was going to Mrs. John Cormyn’s Church, and she +asked Nesta to come with her. + +She returned five minutes before the hour of lunch, having left Nesta +with Mrs. John. Louise de Seilles undertook to bring Nesta home at +the time she might choose. Fenellan, Mr. Pempton, Peridon and Catkin, +lunched and chatted. Nataly chatted. At a quarter to three o’clock +Victor’s carriage was at the door. He rose: he had to keep an +appointment. Nataly said to him publicly: ‘I come too.’ He stared and +nodded. In the carriage, he said: ‘I’m driving to the Gardens, for a +stroll, to have a look at the beasts. Sort of relief. Poor crazy woman! +However, it ‘s a comfort to her: so...!’ + +‘I like to see them,’ said Nataly. ‘I shall see her. I have to do it.’ + +Up to the gate of the Gardens Victor was arguing to dissuade his dear +soul from this very foolish, totally unnecessary, step. Alighting, he +put the matter aside, for good angels to support his counsel at the +final moment. + +Bears, lions, tigers, eagles, monkeys: they suggested no more than he +would have had from prints; they sprang no reflection, except, that the +coming hour was a matter of indifference to them. They were about him, +and exercised so far a distraction. He took very kindly to an old mother +monkey, relinquishing her society at sight of Nataly’s heave of the +bosom. Southward, across the park, the dread house rose. He began +quoting Colney Durance with relish while sarcastically confuting the +cynic, who found much pasture in these Gardens. Over Southward, too, he +would be addressing a popular assembly to-morrow evening. Between now +and then there was a ditch to jump. He put on the sympathetic face +of grief. ‘After all, a caged wild beast hasn’t so bad a life,’ he +said.--To be well fed while they live, and welcome death as a release +from the maladies they develop in idleness, is the condition of wealthy +people:--creatures of prey? horrible thought! yet allied to his Idea, +it seemed. Yes, but these good caged beasts here set them an example, +in not troubling relatives and friends when they come to the gasp! Mrs. +Burman’s invitation loomed as monstrous--a final act of her cruelty. +His skin pricked with dews. He thought of Nataly beside him, jumping the +ditch with him, as a relief--if she insisted on doing it. He hoped she +would not, for the sake of her composure. + +It was a ditch void of bottom. But it was a mere matter of an hour, +less. The state of health of the invalid could bear only a few minutes. +In any case, we are sure that the hour will pass. Our own arrive? +Certainly. + +‘Capital place for children,’ he exclaimed. And here startlingly before +him in the clusters of boys and girls, was the difference between young +ones and their elders feeling quite as young: the careless youngsters +have not to go and sit in the room with a virulent old woman, and +express penitence and what not, and hear words of pardon, after their +holiday scamper and stare at the caged beasts. + +Attention to the children precipitated him upon acquaintances, hitherto +cleverly shunned. He nodded them off, after the brightest of greetings. + +Such anodyne as he could squeeze from the incarcerated wild creatures, +was exhausted. He fell to work at Nataly’s ‘aristocracy of the contempt +of luxury’; signifying, that we the wealthy will not exist to pamper +flesh, but we live for the promotion of brotherhood:--ay, and that our +England must make some great moral stand, if she is not to fall to +the rear and down. Unuttered, it caught the skirts of the Idea: it +evaporated when spoken. Still, this theme was almost an exorcism of Mrs. +Burman. He consulted his watch. ‘Thirteen minutes to four. I must be +punctual,’ he said. Nataly stepped faster. + +Seated in the carriage, he told her he had never felt the horror of that +place before. ‘Put me down at the corner of the terrace, dear: I won’t +drive to the door.’ + +‘I come with you, Victor,’ she replied. + +After entreaties and reasons intermixed, to melt her resolve, he saw she +was firm: and he asked himself, whether he might not be constitutionally +better adapted to persuade than to dissuade. The question thumped. +Having that house of drugs in view, he breathed more freely for the +prospect of feeling his Nataly near him beneath the roof. + +‘You really insist, dear love?’ he appealed to her: and her answer: +‘It must be,’ left no doubt: though he chose to say: ‘Not because of +standing by me?’ And she said: ‘For my peace, Victor.’ They stepped to +the pavement. The carriage was dismissed. + +Seventeen houses of the terrace fronting the park led to the funereal +one: and the bell was tolled in the breast of each of the couple +advancing with an air of calmness to the inevitable black door. + +Jarniman opened it. ‘His mistress was prepared to see them.’--Not +like one near death.--They were met in the hall by the Rev. Groseman +Buttermore. ‘You will find a welcome,’ was his reassurance to them: +gently delivered, on the stoop of a large person. His whispered tones +were more agreeably deadening than his words. + +Mr. Buttermore ushered them upstairs. + +‘Can she bear it?’ Victor said, and heard: ‘Her wish ten minutes.’ + +‘Soon over,’ he murmured to Nataly, with a compassionate exclamation for +the invalid. + +They rounded the open door. They were in the drawing-room. It was +furnished as in the old time, gold and white, looking new; all the same +as of old, save for a division of silken hangings; and these were pale +blue: the colour preferred by Victor for a bedroom. He glanced at the +ceiling, to bathe in a blank space out of memory. Here she lived,--here +she slept, behind the hangings. There was refreshingly that little +difference in the arrangement of the room. The corner Northward was +occupied by the grand piano; and Victor had an inquiry in him:--tuned? +He sighed, expecting a sight to come through the hangings. Sensible that +Nataly trembled, he perceived the Rev. Groseman Buttermore half across a +heap of shawl-swathe on the sofa. + +Mrs. Burman was present; seated. People may die seated; she had always +disliked the extended posture; except for the night’s rest, she used to +say; imagining herself to be not inviting the bolt of sudden death, in +her attitude when seated by day:--and often at night the poor woman +had to sit up for the qualms of her dyspepsia!--But I ‘m bound to think +humanely, be Christian, be kind, benignant, he thought, and he fetched +the spirit required, to behold her face emerge from a pale blue silk +veiling; as it were, the inanimate wasted led up from the mould by +morning. + +Mr. Buttermore signalled to them to draw near. + +Wasted though it was, the face of the wide orbits for sunken eyes was +distinguishable as the one once known. If the world could see it and +hear, that it called itself a man’s wife! She looked burnt out. + +Two chairs had been sent to front the sofa. Execution there! Victor +thought, and he garrotted the unruly mind of a man really feeling +devoutness in the presence of the shadow thrown by the dread Shade. + +‘Ten minutes,’ Mr. Buttermore said low, after obligingly placing them on +the chairs. + +He went. They were alone with Mrs. Burman. + +No voice came. They were unsure of being seen by the floating grey +of eyes patient to gaze from their vast distance. Big drops fell from +Nataly’s. Victor heard the French timepiece on the mantel-shelf, where a +familiar gilt Cupid swung for the seconds: his own purchase. The time of +day on the clock was wrong; the Cupid swung. + +Nataly’s mouth was taking breath of anguish at moments. More than a +minute of the terrible length of the period of torture must have gone: +two, if not three. + +A quaver sounded. ‘You have come.’ The voice was articulate, thinner +than the telephonic, trans-Atlantic by deep-sea cable. + +Victor answered: ‘We have.’ + +Another minute must have gone in the silence. And when we get to five +minutes we are on the descent, rapidly counting our way out of the +house, into the fresh air, where we were half an hour back, among those +happy beasts in the pleasant Gardens! + +Mrs. Burman’s eyelids shut. ‘I said you would come.’ + +Victor started to the fire-screen. ‘Your sight requires protection.’ + +She dozed. ‘And Natalia Dreighton!’ she next said. + +They were certainly now on the five minutes. Now for the slide downward +and outward! Nataly should never have been allowed to come. + +‘The white waistcoat!’ struck his ears. + +‘Old customs with me, always!’ he responded. ‘The first of April, +always. White is a favourite. Pale blue, too. But I fear--I hope you +have not distressing nights? In my family we lay great stress on the +nights we pass. My cousins, the Miss Duvidneys, go so far as to judge of +the condition of health by the nightly record.’ + +‘Your daughter was in their house.’ + +She knew everything! + +‘Very fond of my daughter--the ladies,’ he remarked. + +‘I wish her well.’ + +‘You are very kind.’ + +Mrs. Burman communed within or slept. ‘Victor, Natalia, we will pray,’ +she said. + +Her trembling hands crossed their fingers. Nataly slipped to her knees. + +The two women mutely praying, pulled Victor into the devotional hush. It +acted on him like the silent spell of service in a Church. He forgot +his estimate of the minutes, he formed a prayer, he refused to hear the +Cupid swinging, he droned a sound of sentences to deaden his ears. Ideas +of eternity rolled in semblance of enormous clouds. Death was a black +bird among them. The piano rang to Nataly’s young voice and his. The +gold and white of the chairs welcomed a youth suddenly enrolled +among the wealthy by an enamoured old lady on his arm. Cupid +tick-ticked.--Poor soul! poor woman! How little we mean to do harm when +we do an injury! An incomprehensible world indeed at the bottom and at +the top. We get on fairly at the centre. Yet it is there that we do the +mischief making such a riddle of the bottom and the top. What is to be +said! Prayer quiets one. Victor peered at Nataly fervently on her knees +and Mrs. Burman bowed over her knotted fingers. The earnestness of both +enforced an effort at a phrased prayer in him. Plungeing through a wave +of the scent of Marechale, that was a tremendous memory to haul him +backward and forward, he beheld his prayer dancing across the furniture; +a diminutive thin black figure, elvish, irreverent, appallingly unlike +his proper emotion; and he brought his hands just to touch, and got to +the edge of his chair, with split knees. At once the figure vanished. +By merely looking at Nataly, he passed into her prayer. A look at Mrs. +Burman made it personal, his own. He heard the cluck of a horrible sob +coming from him. After a repetition of his short form of prayer deeply +stressed, he thanked himself with the word ‘sincere,’ and a queer +side-thought on our human susceptibility to the influence of posture. We +are such creatures. + +Nataly resumed her seat. Mrs. Burman had raised her head. She said: ‘We +are at peace.’ She presently said, with effort: ‘It cannot last with me. +I die in nature’s way. I would bear forgiveness with me, that I may have +it above. I give it here, to you, to all. My soul is cleansed, I trust. +Much was to say. My strength will not. Unto God, you both!’ + +The Rev. Groseman Buttermore was moving on slippered step to the back of +the sofa. Nataly dropped before the unseeing, scarce breathing, lady +for an instant. Victor murmured an adieu, grateful for being spared the +ceremonial shake of hands. He turned away, then turned back, praying for +power to speak, to say that he had found his heart, was grateful, would +hold her in memory. He fell on a knee before her, and forgot he had done +so when he had risen. They were conducted by the Rev. gentleman to the +hall-door: he was not speechless. Jarniman uttered something. + +That black door closed behind them. + + + + +CHAPTER XLI. THE NIGHT OF THE GREAT UNDELIVERED SPEECH + +To a man issuing from a mortuary where a skull had voice, London may +be restorative as air of Summer Alps. It is by contrast blooming life. +Observe the fellowship of the houses shoulder to shoulder; and that +straight ascending smoke of the preparation for dinner; and the good +policeman yonder, blessedly idle on an orderly Sabbath evening; and the +families of the minor people trotting homeward from the park to tea; +here and again an amiable carriage of the superimposed people driving +to pay visits; they are so social, friendly, inviting to him; they strip +him of the shroud, sing of the sweet old world. He cannot but be moved +to the extremity of the charitableness neighbouring on tears. + +A stupefaction at the shock of the positive reminder, echo of the fact +still shouting in his breast, that he had seen Mrs. Burman, and that the +interview was over--the leaf turned and the book shut held Victor in a +silence until his gratefulness to London City was borne down by the more +human burst of gratitude to the dying woman, who had spared him, as much +as she could, a scene of the convulsive pathetic, and had not called on +him for any utterance of penitence. That worm-like thread of voice came +up to him still from sexton-depths: it sounded a larger forgiveness +without the word. He felt the sorrow of it all, as he told Nataly; at +the same time bidding her smell ‘the marvellous oxygen of the park.’ He +declared it to be quite equal to Lakelands. + +She slightly pressed his arm for answer. Perhaps she did not feel +so deeply? She was free of the horrid associations with the scent of +Marechale. At any rate, she had comported herself admirably! + +Victor fancied he must have shuddered when he passed by Jarniman at the +door, who was almost now seeing his mistress’s ghost--would have the +privilege to-morrow. He called a cab and drove to Mrs. John Cormyn’s, +at Nataly’s request, for Nesta and mademoiselle: enjoying the Londonized +odour of the cab. Nataly did not respond to his warm and continued +eulogies of Mrs. Burman; she rather disappointed him. He talked of the +gold and white furniture, he just alluded to the Cupid: reserving his +mental comment, that the time-piece was all astray, the Cupid regular on +the swing:--strange, touching, terrible, if really the silly gilt +figure symbolized!... And we are a silly figure to be sitting in a cab +imagining such things!--When Nesta and mademoiselle were opposite, he +had the pleasure to see Nataly take Nesta’s hand and hold it until they +reached home. Those two talking together in the brief words of their +deep feeling, had tones that were singularly alike: the mezzo-soprano +filial to the divine maternal contralto. Those two dear ones mounted to +Nataly’s room. + +The two dear ones showed themselves heart in heart together once more; +each looked the happier for it. Dartrey was among their dinner-guests, +and Nataly took him to her little blue-room before she went to bed. He +did not speak of their conversation to Victor, but counselled him to +keep her from excitement. ‘My dear fellow, if you had seen her with Mrs. +Burman!’ Victor said, and loudly praised her coolness. She was never +below a situation, he affirmed. + +He followed his own counsel to humour his Nataly. She began panting at +a word about Mr. Barmby’s ready services. When, however, she related +the state of affairs between Dartrey and Nesta, by the avowal of each +of them to her, he said, embracing her: ‘Your wisdom shall guide us, my +love,’ and almost extinguished a vexation by concealing it. + +She sighed: ‘If one could think, that a girl with Nesta’s revolutionary +ideas of the duties of women, and their powers, would be safe--or at all +rightly guided by a man who is both one of the noblest and the wildest +in the ideas he entertains!’ + +Victor sighed too. He saw the earldom, which was to dazzle the gossips, +crack on the sky in a futile rocket-bouquet. + +She was distressed; she moaned: ‘My girl! my girl: I should wish to +leave her with one who is more fixed--the old-fashioned husband. New +ideas must come in politics, but in Society!--and for women! And the +young having heads, are the most endangered. Nesta vows her life to it! +Dartrey supports her!’ + +‘See Colney,’ said Victor. ‘Odd, Colney does you good; some queer way he +has. Though you don’t care for his RIVAL TONGUES,--and the last number +was funny, with Semhians on the Pacific, impressively addressing a +farewell to his cricket-bat, before he whirls it away to Neptune--and +the blue hand of his nation’s protecting God observed to seize it!--Dead +failure with the public, of course! However, he seems to seem wise with +you. The poor old fellow gets his trouncing from the critics monthly. +See Colney to-morrow, my love. Now go to sleep. We have got over the +worst. I speak at my Meeting to-morrow and am a champagne-bottle of +notes and points for them.’ + +His lost Idea drew close to him in sleep: or he thought so, when awaking +to the conception of a people solidified, rich and poor, by the common +pride of simple manhood. But it was not coloured, not a luminous globe: +and the people were in drab, not a shining army on the march to meet the +Future. It looked like a paragraph in a newspaper, upon which a Leading +Article sits, dutifully arousing the fat worm of sarcastic humour under +the ribs of cradled citizens, with an exposure of its excellent folly. +He would not have it laughed at; still he could not admit it as more +than a skirt of the robe of his Idea. For let none think him a mere City +merchant, millionnaire, boon-fellow, or music-loving man of the world. +He had ideas to shoot across future Ages;--provide against the shrinkage +of our Coal-beds; against, and for, if you like, the thickening, +jumbling, threatening excess of population in these Islands, in Europe, +America, all over our habitable sphere. Now that Mrs. Burman, on her +way to bliss, was no longer the dungeon-cell for the man he would +show himself to be, this name for successes, corporate nucleus of the +enjoyments, this Victor Montgomery Radnor, intended impressing himself +upon the world as a factory of ideas. Colney’s insolent charge, that +the English have no imagination--a doomed race, if it be true!--would +be confuted. For our English require but the lighted leadership to come +into cohesion, and step ranked, and chant harmoniously the song of their +benevolent aim. And that astral head giving, as a commencement, example +of the right use of riches, the nation is one, part of the riddle of the +future solved. + +Surely he had here the Idea? He had it so warmly, that his bath-water +heated. Only the vision was wanted. + +On London Bridge he had seen it--a great thing done to the flash of +brilliant results. That was after a fall. + +There had been a fall also of the scheme of Lakelands. + +Come to us with no superstitious whispers of indications and +significations in the fall!--But there had certainly been a moral fall, +fully to the level of the physical, in the maintaining of that scheme of +Lakelands, now ruined by his incomprehensible Nesta--who had saved him +from falling further. His bath-water chilled. He jumped out and rubbed +furiously with his towels and flesh-brushes, chasing the Idea for simple +warmth, to have Something inside him, to feel just that sustainment; +with the cry: But no one can say I do not love my Nataly! And he tested +it to prove it by his readiness to die for her: which is heroically +easier than the devotedly living, and has a weight of evidence in our +internal Courts for surpassing the latter tedious performance. + +His Nesta had knocked Lakelands to pieces. Except for the making +of money, the whole year of an erected Lakelands, notwithstanding +uninterrupted successes, was a blank. Or rather we have to wish it were +a blank. The scheme departs: payment for the enlisted servants of it +is in prospect. A black agent, not willingly enlisted, yet pointing to +proofs of service, refuses payment in ordinary coin; and we tell him we +owe him nothing, that he is not a man of the world, has no understanding +of Nature: and still the fellow thumps and alarums at a midnight door we +are astonished to find we have in our daylight house. How is it? Would +other men be so sensitive to him? Victor was appeased by the assurance +of his possession of an exceptionally scrupulous conscience; and he +settled the debate by thinking: ‘After all, for a man like me, battling +incessantly, a kind of Vesuvius, I must have--can’t be starved, must be +fed--though, pah! But I’m not to be questioned like other men.--But how +about an aristocracy of the contempt of distinctions?--But there is +no escaping distinctions! my aristocracy despises indulgence.--And +indulges?--Say, an exceptional nature! Supposing a certain beloved woman +to pronounce on the case?--She cannot: no woman can be a just judge of +it.’---He cried: My love of her is testified by my having Barmby handy +to right her to-day, tomorrow, the very instant the clock strikes the +hour of my release! + +Mention of the clock swung that silly gilt figure. Victor entered into +it, condemned to swing, and be a thrall. His intensity of sensation +launched him on an eternity of the swinging in ridiculous nakedness +to the measure of time gone crazy. He had to correct a reproof of Mrs. +Burman, as the cause of the nonsense. He ran down to breakfast, hopeing +he might hear of that clock stopped, and that sickening motion with it. + +Another letter from the Sanfredini in Milan, warmly inviting to her +villa over Como, acted on him at breakfast like the waving of a banner. +‘We go,’ Victor said to Nataly, and flattered-up a smile about her +lips--too much a resurrection smile. There was talk of the Meeting +at the theatre: Simeon Fenellan had spoken there in the cause of the +deceased Member, was known, and was likely to have a good reception. Fun +and enthusiasm might be expected. + +‘And my darling will hear her husband speak to-night,’ he whispered as +he was departing; and did a mischief, he had to fear, for a shadowy +knot crossed Nataly’s forehead, she seemed paler. He sent back Nesta and +mademoiselle, in consequence, at the end of the Green Park. + +Their dinner-hour was early; Simeon Fenellan, Colney Durance, and +Mr. Peridon--pleasing to Nataly for his faithful siege of the French +fortress--were the only guests. When they rose, Nataly drew Victor +aside. He came dismayed to Nesta. She ran to her mother. ‘Not hear papa +speak? Oh, mother, mother! Then I stay with her. But can’t she come? He +is going to unfold ideas to us. There!’ + +‘My naughty girl is not to poke her fun at orators,’ Nataly said. ‘No, +dearest; it would agitate me to go. I’m better here. I shall be at peace +when the night is over.’ + +‘But you will be all alone here, dear mother.’ + +Nataly’s eyes wandered to fall on Colney. He proposed to give her his +company. She declined it. Nesta ventured another entreaty, either that +she might be allowed to stay or have her mother with her at the Meeting. + +‘My love,’ Nataly said, ‘the thought of the Meeting--’ She clasped at +her breast; and she murmured: ‘I shall be comforted by your being with +him. There is no danger there. But I shall be happy, I shall be at peace +when this night is over.’ + +Colney persuaded her to have him for companion. Mr. Peridon, who was to +have driven with Nesta and mademoiselle, won admiration by proposing to +stay for an hour and play some of Mrs. Radnor’s favourite pieces. Nesta +and Victor overbore Nataly’s objections to the lover’s generosity. So +Mr. Peridon was left. Nesta came hurrying back from the step of the +carriage to kiss her mother again, saying: ‘Just one last kiss, my own! +And she’s not to look troubled. I shall remember everything to tell my +own mother. It will soon be over.’ + +Her mother nodded; but the embrace was passionate. + +Nesta called her father into the passage, bidding him prohibit any +delivery to her mother of news at the door. ‘She is easily startled now +by trifles--you have noticed?’ + +Victor summoned his recollections and assured her he had noticed, as he +believed he had ‘The dear heart of her is fretting for the night to be +over! And think! seven days, and she is in Lakelands. A fortnight, and +we have our first Concert. Durandarte! Oh, the dear heart ‘ll be at +peace when I tell her of a triumphant Meeting. Not a doubt of that, even +though Colney turns the shadow of his back on us.’ + +‘One critic the less for you!’ said Nesta. Skepsey was to meet her +carriage at the theatre. + +Ten minutes later, Victor and Simeon Fenellan were proceeding +thitherward on foot. + +‘I have my speech,’ said Victor. ‘You prepare the way for me, following +our influential friend Dubbleson; Colewort winds up; any one else +they shout for. We shall have a great evening. I suspect I shall find +Themison or Jarniman when I get home. You don’t believe in intimations? +I’ve had crapy processions all day before my eyes. No wonder, after +yesterday!’ + +‘Dubbleson mustn’t drawl it out too long,’ said Fenellan. + +‘We ‘ll drop a hint. Where’s Dartrey?’ + +‘He’ll come. He’s in one of his black moods: not temper. He’s got a +notion he killed his wife by dragging her to Africa with him. She was +not only ready to go, she was glad to go. She had a bit of the heroine +in her and a certainty of tripping to the deuce if she was left to +herself.’ + +‘Tell Nataly that,’ said Victor. ‘And tell her about Dartrey. Harp on +it. Once she was all for him and our girl. But it’s a woman--though the +dearest! I defy any one to hit on the cause of their changes. We must +make the best of things, if we’re for swimming. The task for me to-night +will be, to keep from rolling out all I’ve got in my head. And I’m +not revolutionary, I’m for stability. Only I do see, that the firm +stepping-place asks for a long stride to be taken. One can’t get the +English to take a stride--unless it’s for a foot behind them: bother +old Colney! Too timid, or too scrupulous, down we go into the mire. +There!--But I want to say it! I want to save the existing order. I want, +Christianity, instead of the Mammonism we ‘re threatened with. Great +fortunes now are becoming the giants of old to stalk the land: or +mediaeval Barons. Dispersion of wealth, is the secret. Nataly’s of that +mind with me. A decent poverty! She’s rather wearying, wants a change. +I’ve a steam-yacht in my eye, for next month on the Mediterranean. All +our set. She likes quiet. I believe in my political recipe for it.’ + +He thumped on a method he had for preserving aristocracy--true +aristocracy, amid a positively democratic flood of riches. + +‘It appears to me, you’re on the road of Priscilla Graves and Pempton,’ +observed Simeon. ‘Strike off Priscilla’s viands and friend Pempton’s +couple of glasses, and there’s your aristocracy established; but with +rather a dispersed recognition of itself.’ + +‘Upon my word, you talk like old Colney, except for a twang of your +own,’ said Victor. ‘Colney sours at every fresh number of that Serial. +The last, with Delphica detecting the plot of Falarique, is really not +so bad. The four disguised members of the Comedie Francaise on board the +vessel from San Francisco, to declaim and prove the superior merits of +the Gallic tongue, jumped me to bravo the cleverness. And Bobinikine +turning to the complexion of the remainder of cupboard dumplings +discovered in an emigrant’s house-to-let! And Semhians--I forget what +and Mytharete’s forefinger over the bridge of his nose, like a pensive +vulture on the skull of a desert camel! But, I complain, there’s nothing +to make the English love the author; and it’s wasted, he’s basted, and +the book ‘ll have no sale. I hate satire.’ + +‘Rough soap for a thin skin, Victor. Does it hurt our people much?’ + +‘Not a bit; doesn’t touch them. But I want my friends to succeed!’ + +Their coming upon Westminster Bridge changed the theme. Victor wished +the Houses of Parliament to catch the beams of sunset. He deferred to +the suggestion, that the Hospital’s doing so seemed appropriate. + +‘I’m always pleased to find a decent reason for what is,’ he said. Then +he queried: ‘But what is, if we look at it, and while we look, Simeon? +She may be going--or she’s gone already, poor woman! I shall have that +scene of yesterday everlastingly before my eyes, like a drop-curtain. +Only, you know, Simeon, they don’t feel the end, as we in health +imagine. Colney would say, we have the spasms and they the peace. I +‘ve a mind to send up to Regent’s Park with inquiries. It would look +respectful. God forgive me!--the poor woman perverts me at every turn. +Though I will say, a certain horror of death I had--she whisked me out +of it yesterday. I don’t feel it any longer. What are you jerking at?’ + +‘Only to remark, that if the thing’s done for us, we haven’t it so much +on our sensations.’ + +‘More, if we’re sympathetic. But that compels us to be philosophic--or +who could live! Poor woman!’ + +‘Waft her gently, Victor!’ + +‘Tush! Now for the South side of the Bridges; and I tell you, Simeon, +what I can’t mention to-night: I mean to enliven these poor dear people +on their forsaken South of the City. I ‘ve my scheme. Elected or not, I +shall hardly be accused of bribery when I put down my first instalment.’ + +Fenellan went to work with that remark in his brain for the speech he +was to deliver. He could not but reflect on the genial man’s willingness +and capacity to do deeds of benevolence, constantly thwarted by the +position into which he had plunged himself. + +They were received at the verge of the crowd outside the theatre-doors +by Skepsey, who wriggled, tore and clove a way for them, where all were +obedient, but the numbers lumped and clogged. When finally they reached +the stage, they spied at Nesta’s box, during the thunder of the rounds +of applause, after shaking hands with Mr. Dubbleson, Sir Abraham +Quatley, Dudley Sowerby, and others; and with Beaves Urmsing--a +politician ‘never of the opposite party to a deuce of a funny +fellow!--go anywhere to hear him,’ he vowed. + +‘Miss Radnor and Mademoiselle de Seilles arrived quite safely,’ said +Dudley, feasting on the box which contained them and no Dartrey Fenellan +in it. + +Nesta was wondering at Dartrey’s absence. Not before Mr. Dubbleson, the +chairman, the ‘gentleman of local influence,’ had animated the drowsed +wits and respiratory organs of a packed audience by yielding place to +Simeon, did Dartrey appear. Simeon’s name was shouted, in proof of +the happy explosion of his first anecdote, as Dartrey took seat behind +Nesta. ‘Half an hour with the dear mother,’ he said. + +Nesta’s eyes thanked him. She pressed the hand of a demure young woman +sitting close behind. Louise de Seilles. ‘You know Matilda Pridden.’ + +Dartrey held his hand out. ‘Has she forgiven me?’ + +Matilda bowed gravely, enfolding her affirmative in an outline of the +no need for it, with perfect good breeding. Dartrey was moved to think +Skepsey’s choice of a woman to worship did him honour. He glanced at +Louise. Her manner toward Matilda Pridden showed her sisterly with +Nesta. He said: ‘I left Mr. Peridon playing.--A little anxiety to hear +that the great speech of the evening is done; it’s nothing else. I’ll +run to her as soon as it’s over.’ + +‘Oh, good of you! And kind of Mr. Peridon!’ She turned to Louise, who +smiled at the simple art of the exclamation, assenting. + +Victor below, on the stage platform, indicated the waving of a hand +to them, and his delight at Simeon’s ringing points: which were, to +Dartrey’s mind, vacuously clever and crafty. Dartrey despised effects +of oratory, save when soldiers had to be hurled on a mark--or citizens +nerved to stand for their country. + +Nesta dived into her father’s brilliancy of appreciation, a trifle +pained by Dartrey’s aristocratic air when he surveyed the herd of heads +agape and another cheer rang round. He smiled with her, to be with her, +at a hit here and there; he would not pretend an approval of this manner +of winning electors to consider the country’s interests and their own. +One fellow in the crowded pit, affecting a familiarity with Simeon, +that permitted the taking of liberties with the orator’s Christian +name, mildly amused him. He had no objection to hear ‘Simmy’ shouted, as +Louise de Seilles observed. She was of his mind, in regard to the rough +machinery of Freedom. + +Skepsey entered the box. + +‘We shall soon be serious, Miss Nesta,’ he said, after a look at Matilda +Pridden. + +There was a prolonged roaring--on the cheerful side. + +‘And another word about security that your candidate will keep his +promises,’ continued Simeon: ‘You have his word, my friends!’ And he +told the story of the old Governor of Goa, who wanted money and summoned +the usurers, and they wanted security; whereupon he laid his Hidalgo +hand on a cataract of Kronos-beard across his breast, and pulled +forth three white hairs, and presented them: ‘And as honourably to +the usurious Jews as to the noble gentleman himself, that security was +accepted!’ + +Emerging from hearty clamours, the illustrative orator fell upon the +question of political specifics:--Mr. Victor Radnor trusted to English +good sense too profoundly to be offering them positive cures, as they +would hear the enemy say he did. Yet a bit of a cure may be offered, +if we ‘re not for pushing it too far, in pursuit of the science of +specifics, in the style of the foreign physician, probably Spanish, +who had no practice, and wished for leisure to let him prosecute his +anatomical and other investigations to discover his grand medical +nostrum. So to get him fees meanwhile he advertised a cure for +dyspepsia--the resource of starving doctors. And sure enough his patient +came, showing the grand fat fellow we may be when we carry more of the +deciduously mortal than of the scraggy vital upon our persons. Any one +at a glance would have prescribed water-cresses to him: water-cresses +exclusively to eat for a fortnight. And that the good physician did. +Away went his patient, returning at the end of the fortnight, lean, and +with the appetite of a Toledo blade for succulent slices. He vowed he +was the man. Our estimable doctor eyed him, tapped at him, pinched his +tender parts; and making him swear he was really the man, and had eaten +nothing whatever but unadulterated water-cresses in the interval, seized +on him in an ecstasy by the collar of his coat, pushed him into the +surgery, knocked him over, killed him, cut him up, and enjoyed the +felicity of exposing to view the very healthiest patient ever seen under +dissecting hand, by favour of the fortunate discovery of the specific +for him. All to further science!--to which, in spite of the petitions +of all the scientific bodies of the civilized world, he fell a martyr +on the scaffold, poor gentleman! But we know politics to be no such +empirical science. + +Simeon ingeniously interwove his analogy. He brought it home to Beaves +Urmsing, whose laugh drove any tone of apology out of it. Yet the orator +was asked: ‘Do you take politics for a joke, Simmy?’ + +He countered his questioner: ‘Just to liberate you from your moribund +state, my friend.’ And he told the story of the wrecked sailor, found +lying on the sands, flung up from the foundered ship of a Salvation +captain, and how, that nothing could waken him, and there he lay fit +for interment; until presently a something of a voice grew down into his +ears; and it was his old chum Polly, whom he had tied to a board to +give her a last chance in the surges; and Polly shaking the wet from her +feathers, and shouting: ‘Polly tho dram dry!’--which struck on the nob +of Jack’s memory, to revive all the liquorly tricks of the cabin under +Salvationism, and he began heaving, and at last he shook in a lazy way, +and then from sputter to sputter got his laugh loose; and he sat up, and +cried; ‘That did it! Now to business!’ for he was hungry. ‘And when I +catch the ring of this world’s laugh from you, my friend...!’ Simeon’s +application of the story was drowned. + +After the outburst, they heard his friend again interruptingly: ‘You +keep that tongue of yours from wagging, as it did when you got round the +old widow woman for her money, Simmy!’ + +Victor leaned forward. Simeon towered. He bellowed + +‘And you keep that tongue of yours from committing incest on a lie!’ + +It was like a lightning-flash in the theatre. The man went under. +Simeon flowed. Conscience reproached him with the little he had done for +Victor, and he had now his congenial opportunity. + +Up in the box, the powers of the orator were not so cordially esteemed. +To Matilda Pridden, his tales were barely decently the flesh and the +devil smothering a holy occasion to penetrate and exhort. Dartrey sat +rigid, as with the checked impatience for a leap. Nesta looked at Louise +when some one was perceived on the stage bending to her father: It +was Mr. Peridon; he never once raised his face. Apparently he was not +intelligible or audible but the next moment Victor sprang erect. Dartrey +quitted the box. Nesta beheld her father uttering hurried words to right +and left. He passed from sight, Mr. Peridon with him; and Dartrey did +not return. + +Nesta felt her father’s absence as light gone: his eyes rayed light. +Besides she had the anticipation of a speech from him, that would win +Matilda Pridden. She fancied Simeon Fenellan to be rather under the +spell of the hilarity he roused. A gentleman behind him spoke in his +ear; and Simeon, instead of ceasing, resumed his flow. Matilda Pridden’s +gaze on him and the people was painful to behold: Nesta saw her mind. +She set herself to study a popular assembly. It could be serious to the +call of better leadership, she believed. Her father had been telling +her of late of a faith he had in the English, that they (or so her +intelligence translated his remarks) had power to rise to spiritual +ascendancy, and be once more the Islanders heading the world of a new +epoch abjuring materialism--some such idea; very quickening to her, +as it would be to this earnest young woman worshipped by Skepsey. Her +father’s absence and the continued shouts of laughter, the insatiable +thirst for fun, darkened her in her desire to have the soul of the good +working sister refreshed. They had talked together; not much: enough for +each to see at either’s breast the wells from the founts of life. + +The box-door opened, Dartrey came in. He took her hand. She stood-up to +his look. He said to Matilda Pridden: ‘Come with us; she will need you.’ + +‘Speak it,’ said Nesta. + +He said to the other: ‘She has courage.’ + +‘I could trust to her,’ Matilda Pridden replied. + +Nesta read his eyes. ‘Mother?’ + +His answer was in the pressure. + +‘Ill?’ + +‘No longer.’ + +‘Oh! Dartrey.’ Matilda Pridden caught her fast. + +‘I can walk, dear,’ Nesta said. + +Dartrey mentioned her father. + +She understood: ‘I am thinking of him.’ + +The words of her mother: ‘At peace when the night is over,’ rang. Along +the gassy passages of the back of the theatre, the sound coming from an +applausive audience was as much a thunder as rage would have been. It +was as void of human meaning as a sea. + + + + +CHAPTER XLII. THE LAST + +In the still dark hour of that April morning, the Rev. Septimus Barmby +was roused by Mr. Peridon, with a scribbled message from Victor, which +he deciphered by candlelight held close to the sheet of paper, between +short inquiries and communications, losing more and more the sense of +it as his intelligence became aware of what dread blow had befallen the +stricken man. He was bidden come to fulfil his promise instantly. He +remembered the bearing of the promise. Mr. Peridon’s hurried explanatory +narrative made the request terrific, out of tragically lamentable. A +semblance of obedience had to be put on, and the act of dressing aided +it. Mr. Barmby prayed at heart for guidance further. + +The two gentlemen drove Westward, speaking little; they had the dry sob +in the throat. + +‘Miss Radnor?’ Mr. Barmby asked. + +‘She is shattered; she holds up; she would not break down.’ + +‘I can conceive her to possess high courage.’ + +‘She has her friend Mademoiselle de Seilles.’ + +Mr. Barmby remained humbly silent. Affectionate deep regrets moved him +to say: ‘A loss irreparable. We have but one voice of sorrow. And how +sudden! The dear lady had no suffering, I trust.’ + +‘She fell into the arms of Mr. Durance. She died in his arms. She +was unconscious, he says. I left her straining for breath. She said +“Victor”; she tried to smile:--I understood I was not to alarm him.’ + +‘And he too late!’ + +‘He was too late, by some minutes.’ + +‘At least I may comfort. Miss Radnor must be a blessing to him.’ + +‘They cannot meet. Her presence excites him.’ + +That radiant home of all hospitality seemed opening on from darker +chambers to the deadly dark. The immorality in the moral situation +could not be forgotten by one who was professionally a moralist. But an +incorruptible beauty in the woman’s character claimed to plead for her +memory. Even the rigorous in defence of righteous laws are softened by +a sinner’s death to hear excuses, and may own a relationship, haply +perceive the faint nimbus of the saint. Death among us proves us to be +still not so far from the Nature saying at every avenue to the mind: +‘Earth makes all sweet.’ + +Mr. Durance had prophesied a wailful end ever to the carol of Optimists! +Yet it is not the black view which is the right view. There is one +between: the path adopted by Septimus Barmby:--if he could but induce +his brethren to enter on it! The dreadful teaching of circumstances +might help to the persuading of a fair young woman, under his +direction... having her hand disengaged. Mr. Barmby started himself in +the dream of his uninterred passion for the maiden: he chased it, seized +it, hurled it hence, as a present sacrilege:--constantly, and at the +pitch of our highest devotion to serve, are we assailed by the tempter! +Is it, that the love of woman is our weakness? For if so, then would +a celibate clergy have grant of immunity. But, alas, it is not so with +them! We have to deplore the hearing of reports too credible. Again we +are pushed to contemplate woman as the mysterious obstruction to the +perfect purity of soul. Nor is there a refuge in asceticism. No +more devilish nourisher of pride do we find than in pain voluntarily +embraced. And strangely, at the time when our hearts are pledged to +thoughts upon others, they are led by woman to glance revolving upon +ourself, our vile self! Mr. Barmby clutched it by the neck. + +Light now, as of a strong memory of day along the street, assisted him +to forget himself at the sight of the inanimate houses of this London, +all revealed in a quietness not less immobile than tombstones of an +unending cemetery, with its last ghost laid. Did men but know it!--The +habitual necessity to amass matter for the weekly sermon, set him noting +his meditative exclamations, the noble army of platitudes under haloes, +of good use to men: justifiably turned over in his mind for their good. +He had to think, that this act of the justifying of the act reproached +him with a lack of due emotion, in sympathy with agonized friends truly +dear. Drawing near the hospitable house, his official and a cordial +emotion united, as we see sorrowful crape-wreathed countenances. His +heart struck heavily when the house was visible. + +Could it be the very house? The look of it belied the tale inside. But +that threw a ghostliness on the look. + +Some one was pacing up and down. They greeted Dudley Sowerby. His +ability to speak was tasked. They gathered, that mademoiselle and ‘a +Miss Pridden’ were sitting with Nesta, and that their services in a +crisis had been precious. At such times, one of them reflected, woman +has indeed her place: when life’s battle waxes red. Her soul must be +capable of mounting to the level of the man’s, then? It is a lesson! + +Dudley said he was waiting for Dr. Themison to come forth. He could not +tear himself from sight of the house. + +The door opened to Dr. Themison departing, Colney Durance and Simeon +Fenellan bare-headed. Colney showed a face with stains of the lashing of +tears. + +Dr. Themison gave his final counsels. ‘Her father must not see her. For +him, it may have to be a specialist. We will hope the best. Mr. Dartrey +Fenellan stays beside him:--good. As to the ceremony he calls for, a +form of it might soothe:--any soothing possible! No music. I will return +in a few hours.’ + +He went on foot. + +Mr. Barmby begged advice from Colney and Simeon concerning the message +he had received--the ceremony requiring his official presidency. Neither +of them replied. They breathed the morning air, they gave out long-drawn +sighs of relief, looking on the trees of the park. + +A man came along the pavement, working slow legs hurriedly. Simeon ran +down to him. + +‘Humour, as much as you can,’ Colney said to Mr. Barmby. ‘Let him +imagine.’ + +‘Miss Radnor?’ + +‘Not to speak of her.’ + +‘The daughter he so loves?’ + +Mr. Barmby’s tender inquisitiveness was unanswered. Were they inducing +him to mollify a madman? But was it possible to associate the idea of +madness with Mr. Radnor? + +Simeon ran back. ‘Jarniman,’ he remarked. ‘It’s over!’ + +‘Now!’ Colney’s shoulders expressed the comment. ‘Well, now, Mr. Barmby, +you can do the part desired. Come in. It’s morning!’ He stared at the +sky. + +All except Dudley passed in. + +Mr. Barmby wanted more advice, his dilemma being acute. It was +moderated, though not more than moderated, when he was informed of +the death of Mrs. Burman Radnor; an event that occurred, according to +Jarniman’s report, forty-five minutes after Skepsey had a second time +called for information of it at the house in Regent’s Park--five hours +and a half, as Colney made his calculation, after the death of Nataly. +He was urged by some spur of senseless irony to verify the calculation +and correct it in the minutes. + +Dudley crossed the road. No sign of the awful interior was on any of the +windows of the house either to deepen awe or relieve. They were blank +as eyeballs of the mindless. He shivered. Death is our common cloak; but +Calamity individualizes, to set the unwounded speculating whether indeed +a stricken man, who has become the cause of woeful trouble, may not be +pointing a moral. Pacing on the Park side of the house, he saw Skepsey +drive up and leap out with a gentleman, Mr. Radnor’s lawyer. Could it +be, that there was no Will written? Could a Will be executed now? The +moral was more forcibly suggested. Dudley beheld this Mr. Victor Radnor +successful up all the main steps, persuasive, popular, brightest of the +elect of Fortune, felled to the ground within an hour, he and all his +house! And if at once to pass beneath the ground, the blow would have +seemed merciful for him. Or if, instead of chattering a mixture of the +rational and the monstrous, he had been heard to rave like the utterly +distraught. Recollection of some of the things he shouted, was an +anguish: A notion came into the poor man, that he was the dead one of +the two, and he cried out: ‘Cremation? No, Colney’s right, it robs us of +our last laugh. I lie as I fall.’ He ‘had a confession for his Nataly, +for her only, for no one else.’ He had ‘an Idea.’ His begging of Dudley +to listen without any punctilio (putting a vulgar oath before it), was +the sole piece of unreasonableness in the explanation of the idea: and +that was not much wilder than the stuff Dudley had read from reports of +Radical speeches. He told Dudley he thought him too young to be ‘best +man to a widower about to be married,’ and that Barmby was ‘coming all +haste to do the business, because of no time to spare.’ + +Dudley knew but the half, and he did not envy Dartrey Fenellan his task +of watching over the wreck of a splendid intelligence, humouring and +restraining. According to the rumours, Mr. Radnor had not shown the +symptoms before the appearance of his daughter. For awhile he hung, +and then fell, like an icicle. Nesta came with a cry for her father. He +rose: Dartrey was by. Hugged fast in iron muscles, the unhappy creature +raved of his being a caged lion. These things Dudley had heard in the +house. + +There are scenes of life proper to the grave-cloth. + +Nataly’s dead body was her advocate with her family, with friends, with +the world. Victor had more need of a covering shroud to keep calamity +respected. Earth makes all sweet: and we, when the privilege is granted +us, do well to treat the terribly stricken as if they had entered to the +bosom of earth. + +That night’s infinite sadness was concentrated upon Nesta. She had need +of her strength of mind and body. + +The night went past as a year. The year followed it as a refreshing +night. Slowly lifting her from our abysses, it was a good angel to the +girl. Permission could not be given for her to see her father. She had a +home in the modest home of Louise de Seilles on the borders of Dauphins; +and with French hearts at their best in winningness around her, she +learned again, as an art, the natural act of breathing calmly; she had +by degrees a longing for the snow-heights. When her imagination could +perch on them with love and pride, she began to recover the throb for +a part in human action. It set her nature flowing to the mate she had +chosen, who was her counsellor, her supporter, and her sword. She had +awakened to new life, not to sink back upon a breast of love, though +thoughts of the lover were as blows upon strung musical chords of her +bosom. Her union with Dartrey was for the having an ally and the being +an ally, in resolute vision of strife ahead, through the veiled dreams +that bear the blush. This was behind a maidenly demureness. Are not +young women hypocrites? Who shall fathom their guile! A girl with a +pretty smile, a gentle manner, a liking for wild flowers up on the +rocks; and graceful with resemblances to the swelling proportions of +garden-fruits approved in young women by the connoisseur eye of man; +distinctly designed to embrace the state of marriage, that she might (a +girl of singularly lucid and receptive eyes) the better give battle to +men touching matters which they howl at an eccentric matron for naming. +So it was. And the yielding of her hand to Dartrey, would have appeared +at that period of her revival, as among the baser compliances of the +fleshly, if she had not seen in him, whom she owned for leader, her +fellow soldier, warrior friend, hero, of her own heart’s mould, but a +greater. + +She was on Como, at the villa of the Signora Giulia Sanfredini, when +Dudley’s letter reached her, with the supplicating offer of the share of +his earldom. An English home meanwhile was proposed to her at the house +of his mother the Countess. He knew that he did not write to a brilliant +heiress. The generosity she had always felt that he possessed, he thus +proved in figures. They are convincing and not melting. But she was +moved to tears by his goodness in visiting her father, as well as by the +hopeful news he sent. He wrote delicately, withholding the title of her +father’s place of abode. There were expectations of her father’s perfect +recovery; the signs were auspicious; he appeared to be restored to +the ‘likeness to himself’ in the instances Dudley furnished:--his +appointment with him for the flute-duet next day; and particularly his +enthusiastic satisfaction with the largeness and easy excellent service +of the residence ‘in which he so happily found himself established.’ He +held it to be, ‘on the whole, superior to Lakelands.’ The smile and the +tear rolled together in Nesta reading these words. And her father spoke +repeatedly of longing to embrace his Fredi, of the joy her last letter +had given him, of his intention to send an immediate answer: and he +showed Dudley a pile of manuscript ready for the post. He talked of +public affairs, was humorous over any extravagance or eccentricity +in the views he took; notably when he alluded to his envy of little +Skepsey. He said he really did envy; and his daughter believed it and +saw fair prospects in it. + +Her grateful reply to the young earl conveyed all that was perforce +ungentle, in the signature of the name of Nesta Victoria Fenellan:--a +name he was to hear cited among the cushioned conservatives, and plead +for as he best could under a pressure of disapprobation, and compelled +esteem, and regrets. + +The day following the report of her father’s wish to see her, she and +her husband started for England. On that day, Victor breathed his last. +Dudley had seen the not hopeful but an ominous illumination of the +stricken man; for whom came the peace his Nataly had in earth. Often did +Nesta conjure up to vision the palpitating form of the beloved mother +with her hand at her mortal wound in secret through long years of the +wearing of the mask to keep her mate inspirited. Her gathered knowledge +of things and her ruthless penetrativeness made it sometimes hard for +her to be tolerant of a world, whose tolerance of the infinitely evil +stamped blotches on its face and shrieked in stains across the skin +beneath its gallant garb. That was only when she thought of it as the +world condemning her mother. She had a husband able and ready, in return +for corrections of his demon temper, to trim an ardent young woman’s +fanatical overflow of the sisterly sentiments; scholarly friends, too, +for such restrainings from excess as the mind obtains in a lamp +of History exhibiting man’s original sprouts to growth and fitful +continuation of them. Her first experience of the grief that is +in pleasure, for those who have passed a season, was when the old +Concert-set assembled round her. When she heard from the mouth of +a living woman, that she had saved her from going under the world’s +waggon-wheels, and taught her to know what is actually meant by the good +living of a shapely life, Nesta had the taste of a harvest happiness +richer than her recollection of the bride’s, though never was bride in +fuller flower to her lord than she who brought the dower of an equal +valiancy to Dartrey Fenellan. You are aware of the reasons, the many, +why a courageous young woman requires of high heaven, far more than the +commendably timid, a doughty husband. She had him; otherwise would that +puzzled old world, which beheld her step out of the ranks to challenge +it, and could not blast her personal reputation, have commissioned a paw +to maul her character, perhaps instructing the gossips to murmur of her +parentage. Nesta Victoria Fenellan had the husband who would have the +world respectful to any brave woman. This one was his wife. + +Daniel Skepsey rejoices in service to his new master, owing to the +scientific opinion he can at any moment of the day apply for, as to the +military defences of the country; instead of our attempting to arrest +the enemy by vociferations of persistent prayer:--the sole point of +difference between him and his Matilda; and it might have been fatal but +that Nesta’s intervention was persuasive. The two members of the Army +first in the field to enrol and give rank according to the merits +of either, to both sexes, were made one. Colney Durance (practically +cynical when not fancifully, men said) stood by Skepsey at the altar. +His published exercises in Satire produce a flush of the article in the +Reviews of his books. Meat and wine in turn fence the Hymen beckoning +Priscilla and Mr. Pempton. The forms of Religion more than the Channel’s +division of races keep Louise de Seilles and Mr. Peridon asunder: and +in the uniting of them Colney is interested, because it would have so +pleased the woman of the loyal heart no longer beating. He let Victor’s +end be his expiation and did not phrase blame of him. He considered the +shallowness of the abstract Optimist exposed enough in Victor’s history. +He was reconciled to it when, looking on their child, he discerned, that +for a cancelling of the errors chargeable to them, the father and mother +had kept faith with Nature. + + ETEXT EDITOR’S BOOKMARKS + + Admiration of an enemy or oppressor doing great deeds + All of us an ermined owl within us to sit in judgement + An incomprehensible world indeed at the bottom and at the top + Aristocratic assumption of licence + Arrest the enemy by vociferations of persistent prayer + Ask not why, where reason never was + Belief in the narrative by promoting nausea in the audience + But what is it we do (excepting cricket, of course) + Cannot be any goodness unless it is a practiced goodness + Claim for equality puts an end to the priceless privileges + Consent of circumstances + Consent to take life as it is + Continued trust in the man--is the alternative of despair + Country prizing ornaments higher than qualities + Cover of action as an escape from perplexity + Critical fashion of intimates who know as well as hear + Death is our common cloak; but Calamity individualizes + Despises hostile elements and goes unpunished + Dialogue between Nature and Circumstance + Dithyrambic inebriety of narration + Dudley was not gifted to read behind words and looks + Eminently servile is the tolerated lawbreaker + Exuberant anticipatory trustfulness + Fell to chatting upon the nothings agreeably and seriously + Feminine; coming when she willed and flying when wanted + Fire smoothes the creases + Frankness as an armour over wariness + Greater our successes, the greater the slaves we become + Half designingly permitted her trouble to be seen + Half a dozen dozen left + Happy the woman who has not more to speak + Hard to bear, at times unbearable + Haremed opinion of the unfitness of women + He sinks terribly when he sinks at all + He never acknowledged a trouble, he dispersed it + He never explained + He neared her, wooing her; and she assented + He prattled, in the happy ignorance of compulsion + Heathen vindictiveness declaring itself holy + Honest creatures who will not accept a lift from fiction + How little we mean to do harm when we do an injury + How Success derides Ambition! + If only been intellectually a little flexible in his morality + If we are robbed, we ask, How came we by the goods? + If we are really for Nature, we are not lawless + In the pay of our doctors + In bottle if not on draught (oratory) + Intrusion of hard material statements, facts + Judgeing of the destiny of man by the fate of individuals + Kelts, as they are called, can’t and won’t forgive injuries + Let but the throb be kept for others--That is the one secret + Love must needs be an egoism + Man with a material object in aim, is the man of his object + Memory inspired by the sensations + Nation’s half made-up of the idle and the servants of the idle + Naturally as deceived as he wished to be + Nature and Law never agreed + Nature could at a push be eloquent to defend the guilty + Nature’s logic, Nature’s voice, for self-defence + Next door to the Last Trump + No companionship save with the wound they nurse + Not to go hunting and fawning for alliances + Not always the right thing to do the right thing + Obeseness is the most sensitive of our ailments + Official wrath at sound of footfall or a fancied one + Once out of the rutted line, you are food for lion and jackal + One wants a little animation in a husband + Optional marriages, broken or renewed every seven years + People of a provocative prosperity + Pessimy is invulnerable + Portrait of himself by the artist + Put into her woman’s harness of the bit and the blinkers + Repeatedly, in contempt of the disgust of iteration + Satirist is an executioner by profession + Satirist too devotedly loves his lash to be a persuasive teacher + Self-deceiver may be a persuasive deceiver of another + Semblance of a tombstone lady beside her lord + Share of foulness to them that are for scouring the chamber + She was not his match--To speak would be to succumb + She disdained to question the mouth which had bitten her + Slap and pinch and starve our appetites + Slave of existing conventions + Smallest of our gratifications in life could give a happy tone + Smothered in its pudding-bed of the grotesque (obesity) + Snuffle of hypocrisy in her prayer + Startled by the criticism in laughter + State of feverish patriotism + Statistics are according to their conjurors + Subterranean recess for Nature against the Institutions of Man + Tale, which leaves the man’s mind at home + The banquet to be fervently remembered, should smoke + The homage we pay him flatters us + The effects of the infinitely little + The night went past as a year + The old confession, that we cannot cook (The English) + The worst of it is, that we remember + The face of a stopped watch + The impalpable which has prevailing weight + There is little to be learnt when a little is known + They helped her to feel at home with herself + They kissed coldly, pressed a hand, said good night + They do not live; they are engines + Thought of differences with him caused frightful apprehensions + To do nothing, is the wisdom of those who have seen fools perish + Universal censor’s angry spite + Unshamed exuberant male has found the sweet reverse in his mate + We have come to think we have a claim upon her gratitude + We must have some excuse, if we would keep to life + We cannot relinquish an idea that was ours + We’ve all a parlous lot too much pulpit in us + Whimpering fits you said we enjoy and must have in books + Who enjoyed simple things when commanding the luxuries + Who enjoyed simple things when commanding the luxuries + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg’s One of Our Conquerors, Complete, by George Meredith + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ONE OF OUR CONQUERORS, COMPLETE *** + +***** This file should be named 4476-0.txt or 4476-0.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/4/4/7/4476/ + +Produced by David Widger + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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