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diff --git a/old/4477.txt b/old/4477.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7598355 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/4477.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3067 @@ +The Project Gutenberg Etext of Lord Ormont and his Aminta, v1 +by George Meredith +#83 in our series by George Meredith + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing +this or any other Project Gutenberg file. + +We encourage you to keep this file, exactly as it is, on your own disk, +thereby keeping an electronic path open for future readers. + +Please do not remove this. + +This header should be the first thing seen when anyone starts to +view the etext. Do not change or edit it without written permission. +The words are carefully chosen to provide users with the information +they need to understand what they may and may not do with the etext. +To encourage this, we have moved most of the information to the end, +rather than having it all here at the beginning. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**Etexts Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These Etexts Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + +Information on contacting Project Gutenberg to get etexts, and +further information, is included below. We need your donations. + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a 501(c)(3) +organization with EIN [Employee Identification Number] 64-6221541 +Find out about how to make a donation at the bottom of this file. + + + +Title: Lord Ormont and his Aminta, v1 + +Author: George Meredith + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +Release Date: September, 2003 [Etext #4477] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on February 25, 2002] + + +The Project Gutenberg Etext Lord Ormont and his Aminta, v1, by Meredith +*********This file should be named 4477.txt or 4477.zip********** + + +Project Gutenberg Etexts are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we usually do not +keep etexts in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +The "legal small print" and other information about this book +may now be found at the end of this file. Please read this +important information, as it gives you specific rights and +tells you about restrictions in how the file may be used. + + + + +This etext was produced by Pat Castevans <patcat@ctnet.net> +and David Widger <widger@cecomet.net> + + + + +[NOTE: There is a short list of bookmarks, or pointers, at the end of the +file for those who may wish to sample the author's ideas before making an +entire meal of them. D.W.] + + + + + +LORD ORMONT AND HIS AMINTA. + +By George Meredith + + + +CONTENTS. + +BOOK 1. +I. LOVE AT A SCHOOL +II. LADY CHARLOTTE +III. THE TUTOR +IV. RECOGNITION +V. IN WHICH THE SHADES OF BROWNY AND MATEY ADVANCE AND RETIRE + +BOOK 2. +VI. IN A MOOD OF LANGUOR +VII. EXHIBITS EFFECTS OF A PRATTLER'S DOSES +VIII. MRS. LAWRENCE FINCHLEY +IX. A FLASH OF THE BRUISED WARRIOR +X. A SHORT PASSAGE IN THE GAME PLAYED BY TWO +XI. THE SECRETARY TAKEN AS AN ANTIDOTE + +BOOK 3. +XII. MORE OF CUPER'S BOYS +XIII. WAR AT OLMER +XIV. OLD LOVERS NEW FRIENDS +XV. SHOWING A SECRET FISHED WITHOUT ANGLING +XVI. ALONG TWO ROADS TO STEIGNTON + +BOOK 4. +XVII. LADY CHARLOTTE'S TRIUMPH +XVIII. A SCENE ON THE ROAD BACK +XIX. THE PURSUERS +XX. AT THE SIGN OF THE JOLLY CRICKETERS +XXI. UNDER-CURRENTS IN THE MINDS OF LADY CHARLOTTE AND LORD ORMONT +XXII. TREATS OF THE FIRST DAY OF THE CONTENTION OF BROTHER AND SISTER +XXIII. THE ORMONT JEWELS + +BOOK 5. +XXIV. LOVERS MATED +XXXV. PREPARATIONS FOR A RESOLVE +XXVI. VISITS OF FAREWELL +XXVII. A MARINE DUET +XXVIII. THE PLIGHTING +XXIX. AMINTA TO HER LORD +XXX. CONCLUSION + + + + +LORD ORMONT AND HIS AMINTA. + +BOOK 1. + +I. LOVE AT A SCHOOL +II. LADY CHARLOTTE +III. THE TUTOR +IV. RECOGNITION + + + +CHAPTER I. + +LOVE AT A SCHOOL + +A procession of schoolboys having to meet a procession of schoolgirls on +the Sunday's dead march, called a walk, round the park, could hardly go +by without dropping to a hum in its chatter, and the shot of incurious +half-eyes the petticoated creatures--all so much of a swarm unless you +stare at them like lanterns. The boys cast glance because it relieved +their heaviness; things were lumpish and gloomy that day of the week. +The girls, who sped their peep of inquisition before the moment of +transit, let it be seen that they had minds occupied with thoughts of +their own. + +Our gallant fellows forgot the intrusion of the foreign as soon as it had +passed. A sarcastic discharge was jerked by chance at the usher and the +governess--at the old game, it seemed; or why did they keep steering +columns to meet? There was no fun in meeting; it would never be +happening every other Sunday, and oftener, by sheer toss-penny accident. +They were moved like pieces for the pleasure of these two. + +Sometimes the meeting occurred twice during the stupid march-out, when it +became so nearly vexatious to boys almost biliously oppressed by the +tedium of a day merely allowing them to shove the legs along, ironically +naming it animal excise, that some among them pronounced the sham +variation of monotony to be a bothering nuisance if it was going to +happen every Sunday, though Sunday required diversions. They hated the +absurdity in this meeting and meeting; for they were obliged to +anticipate it, as a part of their ignominious weekly performance; and +they could not avoid reflecting on it, as a thing done over again: it had +them in front and in rear; and it was a kind of broadside mirror, +flashing at them the exact opposite of themselves in an identically +similar situation, that forced a resemblance. + +Touching the old game, Cuper's fold was a healthy school, owing to the +good lead of the head boy, Matey Weyburn, a lad with a heart for games +to bring renown, and no thought about girls. His emulation, the fellows +fancied, was for getting the school into a journal of the Sports. He +used to read one sent him by a sporting officer of his name, and talk +enviously of public schools, printed whatever they did--a privilege and +dignity of which, they had unrivalled enjoyment in the past, days, when +wealth was more jealously exclusive; and he was always prompting for +challenges and saving up to pay expenses; and the fellows were to laugh +at kicks and learn the art of self-defence--train to rejoice in whipcord +muscles. The son of a tradesman, if a boy fell under the imputation, +was worthy of honour with him, let the fellow but show grip and +toughness. He loathed a skulker, and his face was known for any boy who +would own to fatigue or confess himself beaten. "Go to bed," was one of +his terrible stings. Matey was good at lessons, too--liked them; liked +Latin and Greek; would help a poor stumbler. + +Where he did such good work was in sharpening the fellows to excel. He +kept them to the grindstone, so that they had no time for rusty brooding; +and it was fit done by exhortations off a pedestal, like St. Paul at the +Athenians, it breathed out of him every day of the week. He carried a +light for followers. Whatever he demanded of them, he himself did it +easily. He would say to boys, "You're going to be men," meaning +something better than women. There was a notion that Matey despised +girls. Consequently, never much esteemed, they were in disfavour. The +old game was mentioned only because of a tradition of an usher and +governess leering sick eyes until they slunk away round a corner and +married, and set up a school for themselves--an emasculate ending. +Comment on it came of a design to show that the whole game had been +examined dismissed as uninteresting and profitless. + +One of the boys alluded in Matey's presence to their general view upon +the part played by womankind on the stage, confident of a backing; and he +had it, in a way: their noble chief whisked the subject, as not worth a +discussion; but he turned to a younger chap, who said he detested girls, +and asked him how about a sister at home; and the youngster coloured, and +Matey took him and spun him round, with a friendly tap on the shoulder. + +Odd remarks at intervals caused it to be suspected that he had ideas +concerning girls. They were high as his head above the school; and there +they were left, with Algebra and Homer, for they were not of a sort to +inflame; until the boys noticed how he gave up speaking, and fell to hard +looking, though she was dark enough to get herself named Browny. In the +absence of a fair girl of equal height to set beside her, Browny shone. + +She had a nice mouth, ready for a smile at the corners, or so it was +before Matey let her see that she was his mark. Now she kept her mouth +asleep and her eyes half down, up to the moment of her nearing to pass, +when the girl opened on him, as if lifting her eyelids from sleep to the +window, a full side--look, like a throb, and no disguise--no slyness or +boldness either, not a bit of languishing. You might think her heart +came quietly out. + +The look was like the fall of light on the hills from the first of +morning. It lasted half a minute, and left a ruffle for a good half- +hour. Even the younger fellows, without knowing what affected them, were +moved by the new picture of a girl, as if it had been a frontispiece of a +romantic story some day to be read. She looked compelled to look, but +consenting and unashamed; at home in submission; just the look that wins +observant boys, shrewd as dogs to read by signs, if they are interested +in the persons. They read Browny's meaning: that Matey had only to come +and snatch her; he was her master, and she was a brave girl, ready to go +all over the world with him; had taken to him as he to her, shot for +shot. Her taking to the pick of the school was a capital proof that she +was of the right sort. To be sure, she could not much help herself. + +Some of the boys regretted her not being fair. But, as they felt, and +sought to explain, in the manner of the wag of a tail, with elbows and +eyebrows to one another's understanding, fair girls could never have let +fly such look; fair girls are softer, woollier, and when they mean to +look serious, overdo it by craping solemn; or they pinafore a jigging +eagerness, or hoist propriety on a chubby flaxen grin; or else they dart +an eye, or they mince and prim and pout, and are sigh-away and dying- +ducky, given to girls' tricks. Browny, after all, was the girl for +Matey. + +She won a victory right away and out of hand, on behalf of her cloud-and- +moon sisters, as against the sunny-meadowy; for slanting intermediates +are not espied of boys in anything: conquered by Browny; they went over +to her colour, equal to arguing, that Venus at her mightiest must have +been dark, or she would not have stood a comparison with the forest +Goddess of the Crescent, swanning it through a lake--on the leap for run +of the chase--watching the dart, with her humming bow at breast. The +fair are simple sugary thing's, prone to fat, like broad-sops in milk; +but the others are milky nuts, good to bite, Lacedaemonian virgins, hard +to beat, putting us on our mettle; and they are for heroes, and they can +be brave. So these boys felt, conquered by Browny. A sneaking native +taste for the forsaken side, known to renegades, hauled at them if her +image waned during the week; and it waned a little, but Sunday restored +and stamped it. + +By a sudden turn the whole upper-school had fallen to thinking of girls, +and the meeting on the Sunday was a prospect. One of the day-boarders +had a sister in the seminary of Miss Vincent. He was plied to obtain +information concerning Browny's name and her parents. He had it pat to +hand in answer. No parents came to see her; an aunt came now and then. +Her aunt's name was not wanted. Browny's name was Aminta Farrell. + +Farrell might pass; Aminta was debated. This female Christian name had +a foreign twang; it gave dissatisfaction. Boy after boy had a try at it, +with the same effect: you could not speak the name without a pursing of +the month and a puckering of the nose, beastly to see, as one little +fellow reminded them on a day when Matey was in more than common favour, +topping a pitch of rapture, for clean bowling, first ball, middle stump +on the kick, the best bat of the other eleven in a match; and, says this +youngster, drawling, soon after the cheers and claps had subsided to +business, "Aminta." + +He made it funny by saying it as if to himself and the ground, in a +subdued way, while he swung his leg on a half-circle, like a skater, +hands in pockets. He was a sly young rascal, innocently precocious +enough, and he meant no disrespect either to Browny or to Matey; but he +had to run for it, his delivery of the name being so like what was in the +breasts of the senior fellows, as to the inferiority of any Aminta to old +Matey, that he set them laughing; and Browny was on the field, to reprove +them, left of the tea-booth, with her school-mates, part of her head +under a scarlet parasol. + +A girl with such a name as Aminta might not be exactly up to the standard +of old Matey, still, if he thought her so and she had spirit, the school +was bound to subscribe; and that look of hers warranted her for taking +her share in the story, like the brigand's wife loading gnus for him +while he knocks over the foremost carabineer on the mountain-ledge below, +who drops on his back with a hellish expression. + +Browny was then clearly seen all round, instead of only front-face, +as on the Sunday in the park, when fellows could not spy backward after +passing. The pleasure they had in seeing her all round involved no fresh +stores of observation, for none could tell how she tied her back-hair, +which was the question put to them by a cynic of a boy, said to be queasy +with excess of sisters. They could tell that she was tall for a girl, +or tallish--not a maypole. She drank a cup of tea, and ate a slice of +bread-and-butter; no cake. + +She appeared undisturbed when Matey, wearing his holiday white ducks, +and all aglow, entered the booth. She was not expected to faint, only +she stood for the foreign Aminta more than for their familiar Browny in +his presence. Not a sign of the look which had fired the school did she +throw at him. Change the colour and you might compare her to a lobster +fixed on end, with a chin and no eyes. Matey talked to Miss Vincent up +to the instant of his running to bat. She would have liked to guess how +he knew she had a brother on the medical staff of one of the regiments in +India: she asked him twice, and his cheeks were redder than cricket in +the sun. He said he read all the reports from India, and asked her +whether she did not admire Lord Ormont, our general of cavalry, whose +charge at the head of fifteen hundred horse in the last great battle +shattered the enemy's right wing, and gave us the victory--rolled him up +and stretched him out like a carpet for dusting. Miss Vincent exclaimed +that it was really strange, now, he should speak of Lord Ormont, for she +had been speaking of him herself in morning to one of her young ladies, +whose mind was bent on his heroic deeds. Matey turned his face to the +group of young ladies, quite pleased that one of them loved his hero; and +he met a smile here and there--not from Miss Aminta Farrell. She was a +complete disappointment to the boys that day. "Aminta" was mouthed at +any allusions to her. + +So, she not being a match for Matey, they let her drop. The flush that +had swept across the school withered to a dry recollection, except when +on one of their Sunday afternoons she fanned the desert. Lord Ormont +became the subject of inquiry and conversation; and for his own sake--not +altogether to gratify Matey. The Saturday autumn evening's walk home, +after the race out to tea at a distant village, too late in the year for +cricket, too early for regular football, suited Matey, going at long +strides, for the story of his hero's adventures; and it was nicer than +talk about girls, and puzzling. Here lay a clear field; for he had the +right to speak of a cavalry officer: his father died of wounds in the +service, and Matey naturally intended to join the Dragoons; if he could +get enough money to pay for mess, he said, laughing. Lord Ormont was his +pattern of a warrior. We had in him a lord who cast off luxury to live +like a Spartan when under arms, with a passion to serve his country and +sustain the glory of our military annals. He revived respect for the +noble class in the hearts of Englishmen. He was as good an authority on +horseflesh as any Englishman alive; the best for the management of +cavalry: there never was a better cavalry leader. The boys had come to +know that Browny admired Lord Ormont, so they saw a double reason why +Matey should; and walking home at his grand swing in the October dusk, +their school hero drew their national hero closer to them. + +Every fellow present was dead against the usher, Mr. Shalders, when he +took advantage of a pause to strike in with his "Murat!" + +He harped on Murat whenever he had a chance. Now he did it for the +purpose of casting eclipse upon Major-General Lord Ormont, the son and +grandson of English earls; for he was an earl by his title, and Murat was +the son of an innkeeper. Shalders had to admit that Murat might have +served in the stables when a boy. Honour to Murat, of course, for +climbing the peaks! Shalders, too, might interest him in military +affairs and Murat; he did no harm, and could be amusing. It rather added +to his amount of dignity. It was rather absurd, at the same time, for an +English usher to be spouting and glowing about a French general, who had +been a stable-boy and became a king, with his Murat this, Murat that, and +hurrah Murat in red and white and green uniform, tunic and breeches, and +a chimney-afire of feathers; and how the giant he was charged at the head +of ten thousand horse, all going like a cataract under a rainbow over the +rocks, right into the middle of the enemy and through; and he a spark +ahead, and the enemy streaming on all sides flat away, as you see puffed +smoke and flame of a bonfire. That was fun to set boys jigging. No +wonder how in Russia the Cossacks feared him, and scampered from the +shadow of his plumes--were clouds flying off his breath! That was a +fine warm picture for the boys on late autumn or early winter evenings, +Shalders warming his back at the grate, describing bivouacs in the snow. +They liked well enough to hear him when he was not opposing Matey and +Lord Ormont. He perked on his toes, and fetched his hand from behind him +to flourish it when his Murat came out. The speaking of his name clapped +him on horseback--the only horseback he ever knew. He was as fond of +giving out the name Murat as you see in old engravings of tobacco-shops +men enjoying the emission of their whiff of smoke. + +Matey was not inclined to class Lord Ormont alongside Murat, a first-rate +horseman and an eagle-eye, as Shalders rightly said; and Matey agreed +that forty thousand cavalry under your orders is a toss above fifteen +hundred; but the claim for a Frenchman of a superlative merit to swallow +and make nothing of the mention of our best cavalry generals irritated +him to call Murat a mountebank. + +Shalders retorted, that Lord Ormont was a reprobate. + +Matey hoped he would some day write us an essay on the morale of +illustrious generals of cavalry; and Shalders told him he did not advance +his case by talking nonsense. + +Each then repeated to the boys a famous exploit of his hero. Their +verdict was favourable to Lord Ormont. Our English General learnt riding +before he was ten years old, on the Pampas, where you ride all day, and +cook your steak for your dinner between your seat and your saddle. He +rode with his father and his uncle, Muncastle, the famous traveller, into +Paraguay. He saw fighting before he was twelve. Before he was twenty he +was learning outpost duty in the Austrian frontier cavalry. He served in +the Peninsula, served in Canada, served in India, volunteered for any +chance of distinction. No need to say much of his mastering the picked +Indian swordsmen in single combat: he knew their trick, and was quick to +save his reins when they made a dash threatening the headstroke--about +the same as disabling sails in old naval engagements. + +That was the part for the officer; we are speaking of the General. For +that matter, he had as keen an eye for the field and the moment for his +arm to strike as any Murat. One world have liked to see Murat matched +against the sabre of a wily Rajpoot! As to campaigns and strategy, Lord +Ormont's head was a map. What of Murat and Lord Ormont horse to horse +and sword to sword? Come, imagine that, if you are for comparisons. And +if Lord Ormont never headed a lot of thousands, it does not prove he was +unable. Lord Ormont was as big as Murat. More, he was a Christian to +his horses. How about Murat in that respect? Lord Ormont cared for his +men: did Murat so particularly much? And he was as cunning fronting +odds, and a thunderbolt at the charge. Why speak of him in the past? +He is an English lord, a lord by birth, and he is alive; things may be +expected of him to-morrow or next day. + +Shalders here cut Matey short by meanly objecting to that. + +"Men are mortal," he said, with a lot of pretended stuff, deploring our +human condition in the elegy strain; and he fell to reckoning the English +hero's age--as that he, Lord Ormont, had been a name in the world for the +last twenty-five years or more. The noble lord could be no chicken. We +are justified in calculating, by the course of nature, that his term of +activity is approaching, or has approached, or, in fact, has drawn to its +close. + +"If your estimate, sir, approaches to correctness," rejoined Matey-- +tellingly, his comrades thought. + +"Sixty, as you may learn some day, is a serious age, Matthew Weyburn." + +Matey said he should be happy to reach it with half the honours Lord +Ormont had won. + +"Excepting the duels," Shalders had the impudence to say. + +"If the cause is a good one!" cried Matey. + +"The cause, or Lord Ormont has been maligned, was reprehensible in the +extremest degree." Shalders cockhorsed on his heels to his toes and back +with a bang. + +"What was the cause, if you please, sir?" a boy, probably naughty, +inquired; and as Shalders did not vouchsafe a reply, the bigger boys +knew. + +They revelled in the devilish halo of skirts on the whirl encircling Lord +Ormont's laurelled head. + +That was a spark in their blood struck from a dislike of the tone assumed +by Mr. Shalders to sustain his argument; with his "men are mortal," and +talk of a true living champion as "no chicken," and the wordy drawl over +"justification for calculating the approach of a close to a term of +activity"--in the case of a proved hero! + +Guardians of boys should make sure that the boys are on their side before +they raise the standard of virtue. Nor ought they to summon morality for +support of a polemic. Matey Weyburn's object of worship rode superior to +a morality puffing its phrasy trumpet. And, somehow, the sacrifice of an +enormous number of women to Lord Ormont's glory seemed natural; the very +thing that should be, in the case of a first-rate military hero and +commander--Scipio notwithstanding. It brightens his flame, and it is +agreeable to them. That is how they come to distinction: they have no +other chance; they are only women; they are mad to be singed, and they +rush pelf-mall, all for the honour of the candle. + +Shortly after this discussion Matey was heard informing some of the +bigger fellows he could tell them positively that Lord Ormont's age was +under fifty-four--the prime of manhood, and a jolly long way off death! +The greater credit to him, therefore, if he bad been a name in the world +for anything like the period Shalders insinuated, "to get himself out of +a sad quandary." Matey sounded the queer word so as to fix it sticking +to the usher, calling him Mr. Peter Bell Shalders, at which the boys +roared, and there was a question or two about names, which belonged to +verses, for people caring to read poems. + +To the joy of the school he displayed a greater knowledge of Murat than +Shalders had: named the different places in Europe where Lord Ormont and +Murat were both springing to the saddle at the same time--one a Marshal, +the other a lieutenant; one a king, to be off his throne any day, the +other a born English nobleman, seated firm as fate. And he accused Murat +of carelessness of his horses, ingratitude to his benefactor, circussy +style. Shalders went so far as to defend Murat for attending to the +affairs of his kingdom, instead of galloping over hedges and ditches to +swell Napoleon's ranks in distress. Matey listened to him there; he +became grave; he nodded like a man saying, "I suppose we must examine +it in earnest." The school was damped to hear him calling it a nice +question. Still, he said he thought he should have gone; and that +settled it. + +The boys inclined to speak contemptuously of Shalders. Matey world +not let them; he contrasted Shalders with the other ushers, who had +no enthusiasms. He said enthusiasms were salt to a man; and he liked +Shalders for spelling at his battles and thinking he understood them, and +admiring Murat, and leading Virgil and parts of Lucan for his recreation. +He said he liked the French because they could be splendidly +enthusiastic. He almost lost his English flavour when he spoke in +downright approval of a small French fellow, coming from Orthez, near the +Pyrenees, for senselessly dashing and kicking at a couple of English who +jeered to hear Orthez named--a place trampled under Wellington's heels, +on his march across conquered France. The foreign little cockerel was a +clever lad, learning English fast, and anxious to show he had got hold of +the English trick of not knowing when he was beaten. His French vanity +insisted on his engaging the two, though one of them stood aside, and the +other let him drive his nose all the compass round at a poker fist. What +was worse, Matey examined these two, in the interests of fair play, as if +he doubted. + +Little Emile Grenat set matters right with his boast to vindicate his +country against double the number, and Matey praised him, though he knew +Emile had been floored without effort by the extension of a single fist. +He would not hear the French abused; he said they were chivalrous, they +were fine fellows, topping the world in some things; his father had +fought them and learnt to respect them. Perhaps his father had learnt to +respect Jews, for there was a boy named Abner, he protected, who smelt +Jewish; he said they ran us Gentiles hard, and carried big guns. + +Only a reputation like Matey's could have kept his leadership from a +challenge. Joseph Masner, formerly a rival, went about hinting and +shrugging; all to no purpose, you find boys born to be chiefs. On the +day of the snow-fight Matey won the toss, and chose J. Masner first pick; +and Masner, aged seventeen and some months, big as a navvy, lumbered +across to him and took his directions, proud to stand in the front +centre, at the head of the attack, and bear the brunt--just what he was +fit for, Matey gave no offence by choosing, half-way down the list, his +little French friend, whom he stationed beside himself, rather off his +battle-front, as at point at cricket, not quite so far removed. Two boys +at his heels piled ammunition. The sides met midway of a marshy ground, +where a couple of flat and shelving banks, formed for a broad new road, +good for ten abreast--counting a step of the slopes--ran transverse; and +the order of the game was to clear the bank and drive the enemy on to the +frozen ditch-water. Miss Vincent heard in the morning from the sister +of little Collett of the great engagement coming off; she was moved by +curiosity, and so the young ladies of her establishment beheld the young +gentlemen of Mr. Cuper's in furious division, and Matey's sore aim and +hard fling, equal to a slinger's, relieving J. Masner of a foremost +assailant with a spanker on the nob. They may have fancied him clever +for selecting a position rather comfortable, as things went, until they +had sight of him with his little French ally and two others, ammunition +boys to rear, descending one bank and scaling another right into the +flank of the enemy, when his old tower of a Masner was being heavily +pressed by numbers. Then came a fight hand to hand, but the enemy stood +in a clamp; not to split like a nut between crackers, they gave way and +rolled, backing in lumps from bank to ditch. + +The battle was over before the young ladies knew. They wondered to see +Matey shuffling on his coat and hopping along at easy bounds to pay his +respects to Miss Vincent, near whom was Browny; and this time he and +Browny talked together. He then introduced little Emile to her. She +spoke of Napoleon at Brienne, and complimented Matey. He said he was +cavalry, not artillery, that day. They talked to hear one another's +voices. By constantly appealing to Miss Vincent he made their +conversation together seem as under her conduct; and she took a slide on +some French phrases with little Emile. Her young ladies looked shrinking +and envious to see the fellows wet to the skin, laughing, wrestling, +linking arms; and some, who were clown-faced with a wipe of scarlet, +getting friends to rub their cheeks with snow, all of them happy as +larks in air, a big tea steaming for them at the school. Those girls +had a leap and a fail of the heart, glad to hug themselves in their dry +clothes, and not so warm as the dripping boys were, nor so madly fond of +their dress-circle seats to look on at a play they were not allowed even +to desire to share. They looked on at blows given and taken in good +temper, hardship sharpening jollity. The thought of the difference +between themselves and the boys must have been something like the tight +band--call it corset--over the chest, trying to lift and stretch for +draughts of air. But Browny's feeling naturally was, that all this +advantage for the boys came of Matey Weyburn's lead. + +Miss Vincent with her young ladies walked off in couples, orderly chicks, +the usual Sunday march of their every day. The school was coolish to +them; one of the fellows hummed bars of some hymn tune, rather faster +than church. And next day there was a murmur of letters passing between +Matey and Browny regularly, little Collett for postman. Anybody might +have guessed it, but the report spread a feeling that girls are not the +entirely artificial beings or flat targets we suppose. The school began +to brood, like air deadening on oven-heat. Winter is hen-mother to the +idea of love in schools, if the idea has fairly entered. Various girls of +different colours were selected by boys for animated correspondence, that +never existed and was vigorously prosecuted, with efforts to repress +contempt of them in courtship for their affections. They found their +part of it by no means difficult when they imagined the lines without +the words, or, better still, the letter without the lines. A holy +satisfaction belonged to the sealed thing; the breaking of the seal and +inspection of the contents imposed perplexity on that sentiment. They +thought of certain possible sentences Matey and Browny would exchange; +but the plain, conceivable, almost visible, outside of the letter had a +stronger spell for them than the visionary inside. This fancied +contemplation of the love-letter was reversed in them at once by the +startling news of Miss Vincent's discovery and seizure of the sealed +thing, and her examination of the burden it contained. Then their thirst +was for drama--to see, to drink every wonderful syllable those lovers had +written. + +Miss Vincent's hand was upon one of Matey's letters. She had come across +the sister of little Collett, Selina her name was, carrying it. She saw +nothing of the others. Aminta was not the girl to let her. Nor did Mr. +Cuper dare demand from Matey a sight or restitution of the young lady's +half of the correspondence. He preached heavily at Matey; deplored that +the boy he most trusted, etc.--the school could have repeated it without +hearing. We know the master's lecture in tones--it sings up to sing +down, and touches nobody. As soon as he dropped to natural talk, and +spoke of his responsibility and Miss Vincent's, Matey gave the word of +a man of honour that he would not seek to communicate farther with Miss +Farrell at the school. + +Now there was a regular thunder-hash among the boys on the rare occasions +when they met the girls. All that Matey and Browny were forbidden to +write they looked--much like what it had been before the discovery; +and they dragged the boys back from promised instant events. It was, +nevertheless, a heaving picture, like the sea in the background of a +marine piece at the theatre, which rouses anticipations of storm, and +shows readiness. Browny's full eyebrow sat on her dark eye like a cloud +of winter noons over the vanishing sun. Matey was the prisoner gazing at +light of a barred window and measuring the strength of the bars. She +looked unhappy, but looked unbeaten more. Her look at him fed the school +on thoughts of what love really is, when it is not fished out of books +and poetry. For though she was pale, starved and pale, they could see +she was never the one to be sighing; and as for him, he looked ground +dower all to edge. However much they puzzled over things, she made them +feel they were sure, as to her, that she drove straight and meant blood, +the life or death of it: all her own, if need be, and confidence in the +captain she had chosen. She could have been imagined saying, There is a +storm, but I am ready to embark with you this minute. + +That sign of courage in real danger ennobled her among girls. The name +Browny was put aside for a respectful Aminta. Big and bright events to +come out in the world were hinted, from the love of such a couple. The +boys were not ashamed to speak the very word love. How he does love that +girl! Well, and how she loves him! She did, but the boys had to be +seeing her look at Matey if they were to put the girl on some balanced +equality with a fellow she was compelled to love. It seemed to them that +he gave, and that she was a creature carried to him, like driftwood along +the current of the flood, given, in spite of herself. When they saw +those eyes of hers they were impressed with an idea of her as a voluntary +giver too; pretty well the half to the bargain; and it confused their +notion of feminine inferiority. They resolved to think her an +exceptional girl, which, in truth, they could easily do, for none +but an exceptional girl could win Matey to love her. + +Since nothing appeared likely to happen at the school, they speculated +upon what would occur out in the world, and were assisted to conjecture, +by a rumour, telling of Aminta Farrell's aunt as a resident at Dover. +Those were days when the benevolently international M. de Porquet had +begun to act as interpreter to English schools in the portico of the +French language; and under his guidance it was asked, in contempt of the +answer, Combien de postes d'ici a Douvres? But, accepting the rumour as +a piece of information, the answer became important. Ici was twenty +miles to the north-west of London. How long would it take Matey to reach +Donvres? Or at which of the combien did he intend to waylay and away +with Aminta? The boys went about pounding at the interrogative French +phrase in due sincerity, behind the burlesque of traveller bothering +coachman. Matey's designs could be finessed only by a knowledge of his +character: that he was not the fellow to give up the girl he had taken +to; and impediments might multiply, but he would bear them down. +Three days before the break-up of the school another rumour came tearing +through it: Aminta's aunt had withdrawn her from Miss Vincent's. And now +rose the question, two-dozen-mouthed, Did Matey know her address at +Douvres? His face grew stringy and his voice harder, and his eyes ready +to burst from a smother of fire. All the same, he did his work: he was +the good old fellow at games, considerate in school affairs, kind to the +youngsters; he was heard to laugh. He liked best the company of his +little French friend from Orthez, over whose shoulder his hand was laid +sometimes as they strolled and chatted in two languages. He really went +a long way to make French fellows popular, and the boys were sorry that +little Emile was off to finish his foreign education in Germany. His +English was pretty good, thanks to Matey. He went away, promising to +remember Old England, saying he was French first, and a Briton next. +He had lots of plunk; which accounted for Matey's choice of him as a +friend among the juniors. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +LADY CHARLOTTE + +Love-passages at a school must produce a ringing crisis if they are to +leave the rosy impression which spans the gap of holidays. Neither Matey +nor Browny returned to their yoke, and Cuper's boys recollected the +couple chiefly on Sundays. They remembered several of Matey's doings and +sayings: his running and high leaping, his bowling, a maxim or two of +his, and the tight strong fellow he was; also that the damsel's colour +distinctly counted for dark. She became nearly black in their minds. +Well, and Englishmen have been known to marry Indian princesses: some +have a liking for negresses. There are Nubians rather pretty in +pictures, if you can stand thick lips. Her colour does not matter, +provided the girl is of the right sort. The exchange of letters between +the lovers was mentioned. The discovery by Miss Vincent of their cool +habit of corresponding passed for an incident; and there it remained, +stiff as a poet, not being heated by a story to run. So the foregone +excitement lost warmth, and went out like a winter sun at noon or a match +lighted before the candle is handy. + +Lord Ormont continued to be a subject of discussion from time to time, +for he was a name in the newspapers; and Mr. Shalders had been worked by +Matey Weyburn into a state of raw antagonism at the mention of the +gallant General; he could not avoid sitting in judgement on him. + +According to Mr. Shalders, the opinion of all thoughtful people in +England was with John Company and the better part of the Press to condemn +Lord Ormont in his quarrel with the Commissioner of one of the Indian +provinces, who had the support of the Governor of his Presidency and of +the Viceroy; the latter not unreservedly, yet ostensibly inclined to +condemn a too prompt military hand. The Gordian knot of a difficulty cut +is agreeable in the contemplation of an official chief hesitating to use +the sword and benefiting by having it done for him. Lord Ormont +certainly cut the knot. + +Mr. Shalders was cornered by the boys, coming at him one after another +without a stop, vowing it was the exercise of a military judgement upon +a military question at a period of urgency, which had brought about the +quarrel with the Commissioner and the reproof of the Governor. He +betrayed the man completely cornered by generalizing. He said-- + +"We are a civilian people; we pride ourselves on having civilian +methods." + +"How can that be if we have won India with guns and swords?" + +"But that splendid jewel for England's tiara won," said he (and he might +as well have said crown), "we are bound to sheathe the sword and govern +by the Book of the Law." + +"But if they won't have the Book of the Law!" + +"They knew the power behind it." + +"Not if we knock nothing harder than the Book of the Law upon their +skulls." + +"Happily for the country, England's councils are not directed by boys!" + +"Ah, but we're speaking of India, Mr. Shalders." + +"You are presuming to speak of an act of insubordination committed by a +military officer under civilian command." + +"What if we find an influential prince engaged in conspiracy?" + +"We look for proof." + +"Suppose we have good proof?" + +"We summon him to exonerate himself." + +"No; we mount and ride straight away into his territory, spot the +treason, deport him, and rule in his place!" + +It was all very well for Mr. Shalders to say he talked to boys; he was +cornered again, as his shrug confessed. + +The boys asked among themselves whether he would have taken the same view +if his Murat had done it! + +These illogical boys fought for Matey Weyburn in their defence of Lord +Ormont. Somewhere, they wee sure, old Matey was hammering to the same +end--they could hear him. Thought of him inspired them to unwonted +argumentative energy, that they might support his cause; and scatter the +gloomy prediction of the school, as going to the dogs now Matey had left. + +The subject provoked everywhere in Great Britain a division similar to +that between master and boys at Cuper's establishment: one party for our +modern English magisterial methods with Indians, the other for the +decisive Oriental at the early time, to suit their native tastes; and the +Book of the Law is to be conciliatingly addressed to their sentiments by +a benign civilizing Power, or the sword is out smartly at the hint of a +warning to protect the sword's conquests. Under one aspect we appear +potteringly European; under another, drunk of the East. + +Lord Ormont's ride at the head of two hundred horsemen across a stretch +of country including hill and forest, to fall like a bolt from the blue +on the suspected Prince in the midst of his gathering warriors, was a +handsome piece of daring, and the high-handed treatment of the Prince was +held by his advocates to be justified by the provocation, and the result. +He scattered an unprepared body of many hundreds, who might have +enveloped him, and who would presumptively have stood their ground, had +they not taken his handful to be the advance of regiments. These are the +deeds that win empires! the argument in his favour ran. Are they of a +character to maintain empires? the counter-question was urged. Men of a +deliberative aspect were not wanting in approval of the sharp and summary +of the sword in air when we have to deal with Indians. They chose to +regard it as a matter of the dealing with Indians, and put aside the +question of the contempt of civil authority. + +Counting the cries, Lord Ormont won his case. Festival aldermen, smoking +clubmen, buckskin squires, obsequious yet privately excitable tradesmen, +sedentary coachmen and cabmen, of Viking descent, were set to think like +boys about him: and the boys, the women, and the poets formed a tipsy +chorea. Journalists, on the whole, were fairly halved, as regarded +numbers. In relation to weight, they were with the burgess and the +presbyter; they preponderated heavily in the direction of England's +burgess view of all cases disputed between civilian and soldier. +But that was when the peril was over. + +Admirers of Lord Ormont enjoyed a perusal of a letter addressed by him to +the burgess's journal; and so did his detractors. The printing of it was +an act of editorial ruthlessness. The noble soldier had no mould in his +intellectual or educational foundry for the casting of sentences; and the +editor's leading type to the letter, without further notice of the +writer--who was given a prominent place or scaffolding for the execution +of himself publicly, if it pleased him to do that thing--tickled the +critical mind. Lord Ormont wrote intemperately. + +His Titanic hurling of blocks against critics did no harm to an enemy +skilled in the use of trimmer weapons, notably the fine one of letting +big missiles rebound. He wrote from India, with Indian heat--"curry and +capsicums," it was remarked. He dared to claim the countenance of the +Commander-in-chief of the Army of India for an act disapproved by the +India House. Other letters might be on their way, curryer than the +preceding, his friends feared; and might also be malevolently printed, +similarly commissioning the reverberation of them to belabour his name +before the public. Admirers were still prepared to admire; but aldermen +not at the feast, squire-archs not in the saddle or at the bottle, some +few of the juvenile and female fervent, were becoming susceptible to a +frosty critical tone in the public pronunciation of Lord Ormont's name +since the printing of his letter and the letters it called forth. None +of them doubted that his case was good. The doubt concerned the effect +on it of his manner of pleading it. And if he damaged his case, he +compromised his admirers. Why, the case of a man who has cleverly won a +bold stroke for his country must be good, as long as he holds his tongue. +A grateful country will right him in the end: he has only to wait, and +not so very long. "This I did: now examine it." Nothing more needed to +be said by him, if that. + +True, he has a temper. It is owned that he is a hero. We take him with +his qualities, impetuosity being one, and not unsuited to his arm of the +service, as be has shown. If his temper is high, it is an element of a +character proved heroical. So has the sun his blotches, and we believe +that they go to nourish the luminary, rather than that they are a disease +of the photosphere. + +Lord Ormont's apologists had to contend with anecdotes and dicta now +pouring in from offended Britons, for illustration of an impetuosity +fit to make another Charley XII. of Sweden--a gratuitous Coriolanus +haughtiness as well, new among a people accustomed socially to bow the +head to their nobles, and not, of late, expecting a kick for their pains. +Newspapers wrote of him that, "a martinet to subordinates, he was known +for the most unruly of lieutenants." They alluded to current sayings, +as that he "habitually took counsel of his horse on the field when a +movement was entrusted to his discretion." Numerous were the +journalistic sentences running under an air of eulogy of the lordly +warrior purposely to be tripped, and producing their damnable effect, +despite the obvious artifice. The writer of the letter from Bombay, +signed Ormont, was a born subject for the antithetical craftsmen's +tricky springes. + +He was, additionally, of infamous repute for morale in burgess +estimation, from his having a keen appreciation of female beauty and +a prickly sense of masculine honour. The stir to his name roused +pestilential domestic stories. In those days the aristocrat still +claimed licence, and eminent soldier-nobles, comporting themselves as +imitative servants of their god Mars, on the fields of love and war, +stood necessarily prepared to vindicate their conduct as the field of the +measured paces, without deeming themselves bounden to defend the course +they took. Our burgess, who bowed head to his aristocrat, and hired the +soldier to fight for him, could not see that such mis-behaviour +necessarily ensued. Lord Ormont had fought duels at home and abroad. +His readiness to fight again, and against odds, and with a totally unused +weapon, was exhibited by his attack on the Press in the columns of the +Press. It wore the comical face to the friends deploring it, which +belongs to things we do that are so very like us. They agreed with his +devoted sister, Lady Charlotte Eglett, as to the prudence of keeping him +out of England for a time, if possible. + +At the first perusal of the letter, Lady Charlotte quitted her place in +Leicestershire, husband, horses, guests, the hunt, to scour across a +vacant London and pick up acquaintances under stress to be spots there in +the hunting season, with them to gossip for counsel on the subject of +"Ormont's hand-grenade," and how to stop and extinguish a second. She +was a person given to plain speech. "Stinkpot" she called it, when +acknowledging foul elements in the composition and the harm it did to +the unskilful balist. Her view of the burgess English imaged a mighty +monster behind bars, to whom we offer anything but our hand. As soon as +he gets held of that he has you; he won't let it loose with flesh on the +bones. We must offend him--we can't be man or woman without offending +his tastes and his worships; but while we keep from contact (i.e. +intercommunication) he may growl, he is harmless. Witness the many +occasions when her brother offended worse, and had been unworried, only +growled at, and distantly, not in a way to rouse concern; and at the neat +review, or procession into the City, or public display of any sort, +Ormont had but to show himself, he was the popular favourite immediately. +He had not committed the folly of writing a letter to a newspaper then. + +Lady Charlotte paid an early visit to the office of the great London +solicitor, Arthur Abner, who wielded the law as an instrument of +protection for countless illustrious people afflicted by what they stir +or attract in a wealthy metropolis. She went simply to gossip of her +brother's affairs with a refreshing man of the world, not given to +circumlocutions, and not afraid of her: she had no deeper object; +but fancying she heard the clerk, on his jump from the stool, inform her +that Mr. Abner was out, "Out?" she cried, and rattled the room, thumping, +under knitted brows. "Out of town?" For a man of business taking +holidays, when a lady craves for gossip, disappointed her faith in him as +cruelly as the shut-up, empty inn the broken hunter knocking at a hollow +door miles off home. + +Mr. Abner, hatted and gloved and smiling, came forth. "Going out, the +man meant, Lady Charlotte. At your service for five minutes." + +She complimented his acuteness, in the remark, "You see I've only come to +chat," and entered his room. + +He led her to her theme: "The excitement is pretty well over." + +"My brother's my chief care--always was. I'm afraid he'll be +pitchforking at it again, and we shall have another blast. That letter +ought never to have been printed. That editor deserves the horsewhip for +letting it appear. If he prints a second one I shall treat him as a +personal enemy." + +"Better make a friend of him." + +"How?" + +"Meet him at my table." + +She jumped an illumined half-about on her chair. "So I will, then. What +are the creature's tastes?" + +"Hunts, does he?" The editor rose in her mind from the state of neuter +to something of a man. "I recollect an article in that paper on the +Ormont duel. I hate duelling, but I side with my brother. I had to +laugh, though. Luckily, there's no woman on hand at present, as far as +I know. Ormont's not likely to be hooked by garrison women or blacks. +Those coloured women--some of ours too--send the nose to the clouds; +not a bad sign for health. And there are men like that old Cardinal +Guicciardini tells of...hum! Ormont's not one of them. I hope he'll +stay in India till this blows over, or I shall be hearing of +provocations." + +"You have seen the Duke?" + +She nodded. Her reserve was a summary of the interview. "Kind, as he +always is," she said. "Ormont has no chance of employment unless there's +a European war. They can't overlook him in case of war. He'll have to +pray for that." + +"Let us hope we shan't get it." + +"My wish; but I have to think of my brother. If he's in England with no +employment, he's in a mess with women and men both. He kicks if he's +laid aside to rust. He has a big heart. That's what I said: all he +wants is to serve his country. If you won't have war, give him Gibraltar +or Malta, or command of one of our military districts. The South-eastern +'ll be vacant soon. He'd like to be Constable of the Castle, and have an +eye on France." + +"I think he's fond of the French?" + +"Loves the French. Expects to have to fight them all the same. He loves +his country best. Here's the man everybody's abusing!" + +"I demur, my lady. I was dining the other day with a client of mine, and +a youngster was present who spoke of Lord Ormont in a way I should like +you to have heard. He seemed to know the whole of Lord Ormont's career, +from the time of the ride to Paraguay up to the capture of the plotting +Rajah. He carried the table." + +"Good boy! We must turn to the boys for justice, then. Name your day +for this man, this editor." + +"I will see him. You shall have the day to-night." + +Lady Charlotte and the editor met. She was racy, he anecdotal. Stag, +fox, and hare ran before them, over fields and through drawing-rooms: the +scent was rich. They found that they could talk to one another as they +thought; that he was not the Isle-bound burgess, nor she the postured +English great lady; and they exchanged salt, without which your current +scandal is of exhausted savour. They enjoyed the peculiar novel relish +of it, coming from a social pressman and a dame of high society. The +different hemispheres became known as one sphere to these birds of broad +wing convening in the upper blue above a quartered carcase earth. + +A week later a letter, the envelope of a bulky letter in Lord Ormont's +handwriting, reached Lady Charlotte. There was a line from the editor: + + "Would it please your ladyship to have this printed?" + +She read the letter, and replied: + + "Come to me for six days; you shall have the best mount in the + county." + +An editor devoid of malice might probably have forborne to print a letter +that appealed to Lady Charlotte, or touched her sensations, as if a +glimpse of the moon, on the homeward ride in winter on a nodding horse, +had suddenly bared to view a precipitous quarry within two steps. There +is no knowing: few men can forbear to tell a spicy story of their +friends; and an editor, to whom an exhibition of the immensely +preposterous on the part of one writing arrogantly must be provocative, +would feel the interests of his Journal, not to speak of the claims of +readers, pluck at him when he meditated the consignment of such a +precious composition to extinction. Lady Charlotte withheld a sight of +the letter from Mr. Eglett. She laid it in her desk, understanding well +that it was a laugh lost to the world. Poets could reasonably feign it +to shake the desk inclosing it. She had a strong sense of humour; her +mind reverted to the desk in a way to make her lips shut grimly. She +sided with her brother. + +Only pen in hand did he lay himself open to the enemy. In his personal +intercourse he was the last of men to be taken at a disadvantage. Lady +Charlotte was brought round to the distasteful idea of some help coming +from a legitimate adjunct at his elbow: a restraining woman--wife, it had +to be said. And to name the word wife for Thomas Rowsley, Earl of +Ormont, put up the porcupine quills she bristled with at the survey of a +sex thirsting, and likely to continue thirsting, for such honour. What +woman had she known fit to bear the name? She had assumed the judicial +seat upon the pretensions of several, and dismissed them to their limbo, +after testifying against them. Who is to know the fit one in these mines +of deception? Women of the class offering wives decline to be taken on +trial; they are boxes of puzzles--often dire surprises. Her brother knew +them well enough to shy at the box. Her brother Rowsley had a funny +pride, like a boy at a game, at the never having been caught by one among +the many he made captive. She let him have it all to himself. + +He boasted it to a sister sharing the pride exultant in the cry of the +hawk, scornful of ambitions poultry, a passed finger-post to the plucked, +and really regretful that no woman had been created fit for him. When +she was not aiding with her brother, women, however contemptible for +their weakness, appeared to her as better than barn-door fowl, or vermin +in their multitudes gnawing to get at the cheese-trap. She could be +humane, even sisterly, with women whose conduct or prattle did not +outrage plain sense, just as the stickler for the privileges of her class +was large-heartedly charitable to the classes flowing in oily orderliness +round about below it--if they did so flow. Unable to read woman's +character, except upon the broadest lines as it were the spider's main +threads of its web, she read men minutely, from the fact that they were +neither mysteries nor terrors to her; but creatures of importunate +appetites, humorous objects; very manageable, if we leave the road to +their muscles, dress their wounds, smoothe their creases, plume their +vanity; and she had an unerring eye for the man to be used when a blow +was needed, methods for setting him in action likewise. She knew how +much stronger than ordinary men the woman who can put them in motion. +They can be set to serve as pieces of cannon, under compliments on their +superior powers, which were not all undervalued by her on their own +merits, for she worshipped strength. But the said, with a certain amount +of truth, that the women unaware of the advantage Society gave them (as +to mastering men) were fools. + +Tender, is not a word coming near to Lady Charlotte. Thoughtful on +behalf of the poor foolish victims of men she was. She had saved some, +avenged others. It should be stated, that her notion of saving was the +saving of them from the public: she had thrown up a screen. The saving +of them from themselves was another matter--hopeless, to her thinking. +How preach at a creature on the bend of passion's rapids! One might as +well read a chapter from the Bible to delirious patients. When once a +woman is taken with the love-passion, we must treat her as bitten; hide +her antics from the public: that is the principal business. If she +recovers, she resumes her place, and horrid old Nature, who drove her to +the frenzy, is unlikely to bother or, at least, overthrow her again, +unless she is one of the detestable wantons, past compassion or +consideration. In the case reviewed, the woman has gone through fire, +and is none the worse for her experiences: worth ten times what she was, +to an honest man, if men could be got to see it. Some do. Of those men +who do not, Lady Charlotte spoke with the old family-nurse humour, which +is familiar with the tricks and frailties of the infants; and it is a +knife to probe the male, while seemingly it does the part of the napkin-- +pities and pats. They expect a return of much for the little that is +next to nothing. They are fall of expectations: and of what else? +They are hard bargainers. + +She thought this of men; and she liked men by choice. She had old +nurse's preference for the lustier male child. The others are puling +things, easier to rear, because they bend better; and less esteemed, +though they give less trouble, rouse less care. But when it came to the +duel between the man and the woman, her sense of justice was moved to +join her with the party of her unfairly handled sisters--a strong party, +if it were not so cowardly, she had to think. + +Mr. Eglett, her husband, accepted her--accepted the position into which +he naturally fell beside her, and the ideas she imposed on him; for she +never went counter to his principles. These were the fixed principles of +a very wealthy man, who abhorred debt, and was punctilious in veracity, +scrupulous in cleanliness of mind and body, devoted to the honour of his +country, the interests of his class. She respected the high landmark +possessing such principles; and she was therefore enabled to lead without +the wish to rule. As it had been between them at the beginning, so it +was now, when they were grandparents running on three lines of progeny +from two daughters and a son: they were excellent friends. Few couples +can say more. The union was good English grey--that of a prolonged +November, to which we are reconciled by occasions for the hunt and the +gun. She was, nevertheless, an impassioned woman. The feeling for her +brother helped to satisfy her heart's fires, though as little with her +brother as with her husband was she demonstrative. Lord Ormont +disrelished the caresses of relatives. + +She, for her part, had so strong a sympathy on behalf of poor gentlemen +reduced to submit to any but a young woman's hug, that when, bronzed from +India, he quitted the carriage and mounted her steps at Olmer, the desire +to fling herself on his neck and breast took form in the words: "Here you +are home again, Rowsley; glad to have you." They shook hands firmly. + +He remained three days at Olmer. His temper was mild, his frame of mind +bad as could be. Angry evaporations had left a residuum of solid scorn +for these "English," who rewarded soldierly services as though it were a +question of damaged packages of calico. He threatened to take the first +offer of a foreign State "not in insurrection." But clear sky was +overhead. He was the Rowsley of the old boyish delight in field sports, +reminiscences of prowlings and trappings in the woods, gropings along +water-banks, enjoyment of racy gossip. He spoke wrathfully of "one of +their newspapers" which steadily persisted in withholding from +publication every letter he wrote to it, after printing the first. +And if it printed one, why not the others? + +Lady Charlotte put it on the quaintness of editors. + +He had found in London, perhaps, reason for saying that he should do +well to be "out of this country" as early as he could; adding, presently, +that he meant to go, though "it broke his heart to keep away from a six +months' rest at Steignton," his Wiltshire estate. + +No woman was in the field. Lady Charlotte could have submitted to the +intrusion of one of those at times wholesome victims, for the sake of the +mollification the unhappy proud thing might bring to a hero smarting +under injustice at the hands of chiefs and authorities. + +He passed on to Steignton, returned to London, and left England for +Spain, as he wrote word, saying he hoped to settle at Steignton neat +year. He was absent the next year, and longer. Lady Charlotte had the +surprising news that Steignton was let, shooting and all, for five years; +and he had no appointment out of England or at home. When he came to +Olmer again he was under one of his fits of reserve, best undisturbed. +Her sympathy with a great soldier snubbed, an active man rusting, kept +her from remonstrance. + +Three years later she was made meditative by the discovery of a woman's +being absolutely in the field, mistress of the field; and having been +there for a considerable period, dating from about the time when he +turned his back on England to visit a comrade-in-arms condemned by the +doctors to pass the winter in Malaga; and it was a young woman, a girl +in her teens, a handsome girl. Handsome was to be expected; Ormont +bargained for beauty. But report said the girl was very handsome, and +showed breeding: she seemed a foreigner, walked like a Goddess, sat her +horse the perfect Amazon. Rumour called her a Spaniard. + +"Not if she rides!" Lady Charlotte cut that short. + +Rumour had subsequently more to say. The reporter in her ear did not +confirm it, and she was resolutely deaf to a story incredible of her +brother--the man, of all men living, proudest of his name, blood, +station. So proud was he by nature, too, that he disdained to complain +of rank injustice; he maintained a cheerful front against adversity and +obloquy. And this man of complete self-command, who has every form of +noble pride, gets cajoled like a twenty-year-old yahoo at college! Do +you imagine it? To suppose of a man cherishing the name of Ormont, that +he would bestow it legally on a woman, a stranger, and imperil his race +by mixing blood with a creature of unknown lineage, was--why, of course, +it was to suppose him struck mad, and there never had been madness among +the Ormonts: they were too careful of the purity of the strain. Lady +Charlotte talked. She was excited, and ran her sentences to blanks, a +cunning way for ministering consolation to her hearing, where the +sentence intended a question, and the blank ending caught up the query +tone and carried it dwindling away to the most distant of throttled +interrogatives. She had, in this manner, only to ask,--her hearing +received the comforting answer it desired; for she could take that thin +far sound as a travelling laughter of incredulity, triumphant derision. + +This meant to her--though she scarcely knew it, though the most wilful of +women declined to know it--a state of alarm. She had said of her brother +in past days that he would have his time of danger after striking sixty. +The dangerous person was to be young. + +But, then, Ormont had high principles with regard to the dues to his +family. His principles could always be trusted. The dangerous young +person would have to be a person of lineage, of a certain station at +least: no need for a titled woman, only for warranted good blood. Is +that to be found certificated out of the rolls of Society? It may just +possibly be found, without certificate, however, in those muddled caverns +where the excluded intermingle. Here and there, in a peasant family, +or a small country tradesman's just raised above a peasant, honest +regenerating blood will be found. Nobles wanting refreshment from the +soil might do worse than try a slip of one of those juicy weeds; ill- +fated, sickly Royalties would be set-up striding through another half- +century with such invigoration, if it could be done for them! There are +tales. The tales are honourably discredited by the crazy constitutions +of the heirs to the diadem. + +Yes, but we are speculating on the matter seriously, as though it were +one of intimate concern to the family. What is there to make us think +that Ormont would marry? Impossible to imagine him intimidated. +Unlikely that he, a practised reader of women, having so little of the +woman in him, would be melted by a wily girl; as women in the twilight +situation have often played the trick to come into the bright beams. +How? They do a desperate thing, and call it generosity, and then they +appeal from it to my lord's generosity; and so the two generosities drive +off in a close carriage with a friend and a professional landlady for the +blessing of the parson, and are legitimately united. Women have won +round fools to give way in that way. And quite right too! thought Lady +Charlotte, siding with nature and justice, as she reflected that no woman +created would win round her brother to give way in that way. He was too +acute. The moment the woman showed sign of becoming an actress, her doom +was written. "Poor idiot!" was not uncharitably inscribed by the +sisterly lady on the tombstone of hopes aimed with scarce pardonable +ambition at her brother. + +She blew away the rumour. Ormont, she vowed, had not entitled any woman +to share and bear his title. And this was her interpretation of the +report: he permitted (if he did permit) the woman to take his name, +that he might have a scornful fling at the world maltreating him. +Besides, the name was not published, it was not to be seen in the papers; +it passed merely among male friends, tradesmen, servants: no great harm +in that. + +Listen further. Here is an unknown girl: why should he marry her? +A girl consenting to the place beside a man of his handsome ripe age, +is either bought, or she is madly enamoured; she does not dictate terms. +Ormont is not of the brute buyers in that market. One sees it is the +girl who leads the dance. A girl is rarely so madly enamoured as when +she falls in love with her grandfather; she pitches herself at his head. +This had not happened for the first time in Ormont's case; and he had +never proposed marriage. Why should he do it now? + +But again, if the girl has breeding to some extent, he might think it her +due that she should pass under the safeguard of his name, out of sight. + +Then, so far the report is trustworthy. We blow the rumour out of +belief. A young woman there is: she is not a wife. Lady Charlotte +allowed her the fairly respectable post of Hecate of the Shades, as long +as the girl was no pretender to the place and name in the upper sphere. +Her deductions were plausible, convincing to friends shaken by her +vehement manner of coming at them. She convinced herself by means of her +multitude of reasons for not pursuing inquiry. Her brother said nothing. +There was no need for him to speak. He seemed on one or two occasions in +the act of getting himself together for the communication of a secret; +and she made ready to listen hard, with ears, eyebrows, shut month, and a +gleam at the back of her eyes, for a signification of something she would +refer him to after he had spoken. He looked at her and held his peace, +or virtually held it,--that is, he said not one word on the subject she +was to have told him she had anticipated. Lady Charlotte ascribed it to +his recollection of the quick blusher, the pained blusher, she was in her +girlhood at mention or print of the story of men and women. Who, not +having known her, could conceive it! But who could conceive that, behind +the positive, plain-dealing, downright woman of the world, there was at +times, when a nerve was touched or an old blocked path of imagination +thrown open, a sensitive youthfulness; still quick to blush as far as the +skin of a grandmother matron might show it! + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +THE TUTOR + +There was no counting now on Lord Ormont's presence in the British +gathering seasons, when wheatears wing across our fields or swallows +return to their eaves. He forsook the hunt to roam the Continent, one of +the vulgar band of tourists, honouring town only when Mayflies had flown, +and London's indiscriminate people went about without their volatile +heads. + +Lady Charlotte put these changed conditions upon the behaviour of the +military authorities to her brother, saying that the wonder was he did +not shake the dust of his country from his feet. In her wise head she +rejoiced to think he was not the donkey she sketched for admiration; and +she was partly consoled, or played at the taking of a comfort needed in +her perpetual struggle with a phantom of a fact, by the reflection that a +young woman on his arm would tense him to feel himself more at home +abroad. Her mind's habit of living warmly beside him in separation was +vexed by the fixed intrusion of a female third person, who checked the +run of intimate chatter, especially damped the fancied talk over early +days--of which the creature was ignorant; and her propinquity to him +arrested or broke the dialogue Lady Charlotte invented and pressed to +renew. But a wife, while letting him be seen, would have insisted on +appropriating the thought of him--all his days, past as well as present. +An impassioned sister's jealousy preferred that it should not be a wife +reigning to dispute her share of her brother in imagination. + +Then came a rumour, telling of him as engaged upon the composition of his +Memoirs. + +Lady Charlotte's impulsive outcry: "Writing them?" signified her grounds +for alarm. + +Happily, Memoirs are not among the silly deeds done in a moment; they +were somewhere ahead and over the hills: a band of brigands rather than a +homely shining mansion, it was true; but distant; and a principal +question shrieked to know whether he was composing them for publication. +She could look forward with a girl's pleasure to the perusal of them in +manuscript, in a woody nook, in a fervour of partizanship, easily +avoiding sight of errors, grammatical or moral. She chafed at the +possible printing and publishing of them. That would be equivalent to an +exhibition of him clean-stripped for a run across London--brilliant in +himself, spotty in the offence. Published Memoirs indicate the end of a +man's activity, and that he acknowledges the end; and at a period of Lord +Ormont's life when the denial of it should thunder. They are his final +chapter, making mummy of the grand figure they wrap in the printed stuff. +They are virtually his apology. Can those knowing Lord Ormont hear him +apologize? But it is a craven apology if we stoop to expound: we are +seen as pleading our case before the public. Call it by any name you +please, and under any attitude, it is that. And set aside the writing: +it may be perfect; the act is the degradation. It is a rousing of +swarms. His friends and the public will see the proudest nobleman of his +day, pleading his case in mangled English, in the headlong of an out- +poured, undrilled, rabble vocabulary, doubling the ridicule by his +imperturbability over the ridicule he excites: he who is no more +ridiculous, cried the partizan sister, conjuring up the scene, not an ace +more ridiculous, than a judge of assize calling himself miserable sinner +on Sunday before the parson, after he has very properly condemned half a +score of weekday miserable sinners to penal servitude or the rope. +Nobody laughs at the judge. Everybody will be laughing at the scornful +man down half-way to his knee-cape with a stutter of an apology for +having done his duty to his country, after stigmatizing numbers for +inability or ill-will to do it. But Ormont's weapon is the sword, not a +pen! Lady Charlotte hunted her simile till the dogs had it or it ran to +earth. + +She struck at the conclusion, that the young woman had been persuading +him. An adoring young woman is the person to imagine and induce to the +commission of such folly. "What do you think? You have seen her, you +say?" she asked of a man she welcomed for his flavour of the worldling's +fine bile. + +Lord Adderwood made answer: "She may be having a hand in it. She +worships, and that is your way of pulling gods to the ground." + +"Does she understand good English?" + +"Speaks it." + +"Can she write?" + +"I have never had a letter from her." + +"You tell me Morsfield admires the woman--would marry her to-morrow, +if he could get her." + +"He would go through the ceremony Ormont has performed, I do not doubt." + +"I don't doubt all of you are ready. She doesn't encourage one?" + +"On the contrary, all." + +"She's clever. This has been going on for now seven years, and, as far +as I know, she has my brother fast." + +"She may have done the clever trick of having him fast from the +beginning." + +"She'd like people to think it." + +"She has an aunt to advertise it." + +"Ormont can't swallow the woman, I'm told." + +"Trying, if one is bound to get her down!" + +"Boasts of the connection everywhere she's admitted, Randeller says." + +"Randeller procures the admission to various parti-coloured places." + +"She must be a blinking moll-owl! And I ask any sane Christian or Pagan- +-proof enough!--would my brother Rowsley let his wife visit those places, +those people? Monstrous to have the suspicion that he would, you know +him! Mrs. Lawrence Finchley, for example. I say nothing to hurt the +poor woman; I back her against her imbecile of a husband. He brings a +charge he can't support; she punishes him by taking three years' lease of +independence and kicks up the grass all over the paddock, and then comes +cuckoo, barking his name abroad to have her home again. You can win the +shyest filly to corn at last. She goes, and he digests ruefully the +hotch-potch of a dish the woman brings him. Only the world spies a side- +head at her, husbanded or not, though the main fault was his, and she had +a right to insist that he should be sure of his charge before he smacked +her in the face with it before the world. In dealing with a woman, a man +commonly prudent--put aside chivalry, justice, and the rest--should bind +himself to disbelieve what he can't prove. Otherwise, let him expect his +whipping, with or without ornament. My opinion is, Lawrence Finchley had +no solid foundation for his charge, except his being an imbecile. She +wasn't one of the adventurous women to jump the bars,--the gate had to be +pushed open, and he did it. There she is; and I ask you, would my +brother Rowsley let his wife be intimate with her? And there are others. +And, sauf votre respect, the men--Morsfield for one, Randeller another!" + +"They have a wholesome dread of the lion." + +"If they smell a chance with the lion's bone--it's the sweeter for being +the lion's. These metaphors carry us off our ground. I must let these +Ormont Memoirs run and upset him, if they get to print. I've only to +oppose, printed they'll be. The same if I say a word of this woman, he +marries her to-morrow morning. You speak of my driving men. Why can't I +drive Ormont? Because I'm too fond of him. There you have the secret of +the subjection of women: they can hold their own, and a bit more, when +they've no enemy beating inside." + +"Hearts!--ah, well, it's possible. I don't say no; I've not discovered +them," Lord Adderwood observed. + +They are rarely discovered in the haunts he frequented. + +Her allusion to Mrs. Lawrence Finchley rapped him smartly, and she +admired his impassiveness under the stroke. Such a spectacle was one of +her pleasures. + +Lady Charlotte mentioned incidentally her want of a tutor for her +grandson Leo during the winter holidays. He suggested an application to +the clergyman of her parish. She was at feud with the Rev. Stephen +Hampton-Evey, and would not take, she said, a man to be a bootblack in +her backyard or a woman a scullery-wench in her kitchen upon his +recommendation. She described the person of Mr. Hampton-Evey, his manner +of speech, general opinions, professional doctrines; rolled him into a +ball and bowled him, with a shrug for lamentation, over the decay of the +good old order of manly English Protestant clergymen, who drank their +port, bothered nobody about belief, abstained from preaching their +sermon, if requested; were capital fellows in the hunting-field, too; for +if they came, they had the spur to hunt in the devil's despite. Now we +are going to have a kind of bitter, clawed, forked female, in vestments +over breeches. "How do you like that bundling of the sexes?" + +Lord Adderwood liked the lines of division to be strictly and invitingly +definite. He was thinking, as he reviewed the frittered appearance of +the Rev. Stephen Hampton-Evey in Lady Charlotte's hinds, of the +possibility that Lord Ormont, who was reputed to fear nobody, feared her. +In which case, the handsome young woman passing among his associates as +the pseudo Lady Ormont might be the real one after all, and Isabella +Lawrence Finchley prove right in the warning she gave to dogs of chase. + +The tutor required by Lady Charlotte was found for her by Mr. Abner. +Their correspondence on the subject filled the space of a week, and then +the gentleman hired to drive a creaky wheel came down from London to +Olmer, arriving late in the evening. + +Lady Charlotte's blunt "Oh!" when he entered her room and bowed upon the +announcement of his name, was caused by an instantaneous perception and +refection that it would be prudent to keep her grand-daughter Philippa, +aged between seventeen and eighteen, out of his way. + +"You are friend of Mr. Abner's, are you?" + +He was not disconcerted. He replied, in an assured and pleasant voice, +"I have hardly the pretension to be called a friend, madam." + +"Are you a Jew?" + +Her abruptness knocked something like a laugh almost out of him, but he +restrained the signs of it. + +"I am not." + +"You wouldn't be ashamed to tell me you were one if you were?" + +"Not at all." + +"You like the Jews?" + +"Those I know I like." + +"Not many Christians have the good sense and the good heart of Arthur +Abner. Now go and eat. Come back to me when you've done. I hope you +are hungry. Ask the butler for the wine you prefer." + +She had not anticipated the enrolment in her household of a man so young +and good-looking. These were qualifications for Cupid's business, which +his unstrained self-possession accentuated to a note of danger to her +chicks, because she liked the taste of him. Her grand-daughter Philippa +was in the girl's waxen age; another, Beatrice, was coming to it. Both +were under her care; and she was a vigilant woman, with an intuition and +a knowledge of sex. She did not blame Arthur Abner for sending her a +good-looking young man; she had only a general idea that tutors in a +house, and even visiting tutors, should smell of dust and wear a snuffy +appearance. The conditions will not always insure the tutors from +foolishness, as her girl's experience reminded her, but they protect the +girl. + +"Your name is Weyburn; your father was an officer in the army, killed on +the battle-field, Arthur Abner tells me," was her somewhat severely-toned +greeting to the young tutor on his presenting himself the second time. + +It had the sound of the preliminary of an indictment read in a Court of +Law. + +"My father died of his wounds in hospital," he said. + +"Why did you not enter the service?" + +"Want of an income, my lady." + +"Bad look-out. Army or Navy for gentlemen, if they stick to the school +of honour. The sedentary professions corrupt men: bad for the blood. +Those monastery monks found that out. They had to birch the devil out of +them three times a day and half the night, howling like full-moon dogs +all through their lives, till the flesh was off them. That was their +exercise, if they were for holiness. My brother, Lord Ormont, has never +been still in his youth or his manhood. See him now. He counts his +years by scores; and be has about as many wrinkles as you when you're +smiling. His cheeks are as red as yours now you're blushing. You ought +to have left off that trick by this time. It's well enough in a boy." + +Against her will she was drawn to the young man, and her consciousness of +it plucked her back to caution with occasional jerks--quaint alternations +of the familiar and the harshly formal, in the stranger's experience. + +"If I have your permission, Lady Charlotte," said he, "the reason why I +mount red a little--if I do it--is, you mention Lord Ormont, and I have +followed his career since I was the youngest of boys." + +"Good to begin with the worship of a hero. He can't sham, can't deceive +--not even a woman; and you're old enough to understand the temptation: +they're so silly. All the more, it's a point of honour with a man of +honour to shield her from herself. When it's a girl--" + +The young man's eyebrows bent. + +"Chapters of stories, if you want to hear them," she resumed; "and I can +vouch some of them true. Lord Ormont was never one of the wolves in a +hood. Whatever you hear of him; you may be sure he laid no trap. He's +just the opposite to the hypocrite; so hypocrites date him. I've heard +them called high-priests of decency. Then we choose to be indecent and +honest, if there's a God to worship. Fear, they're in the habit of +saying--we are to fear God. A man here, a Rev. Hampton-Evey, you'll hear +him harp on 'fear God.' Hypocrites may: honest sinners have no fear. +And see the cause: they don't deceive themselves--that is why. Do you +think we call love what we fear? They love God, or they disbelieve. +And if they believe in Him, they know they can't conceal anything from +Him. Honesty means piety: we can't be one without the other. And here +are people--parsons--who talk of dying as going into the presence of our +Maker, as if He had been all the while outside the world He created. +Those parsons, I told the Rev. Hampton-Evey here, make infidels--they +make a puzzle of their God. I'm for a rational Deity. They preach up +a supernatural eccentric. I don't say all: I've heard good sermons, +and met sound-headed clergymen--not like that gaping Hampton-Evey, +when a woman tells him she thinks for herself. We have him sitting on +our pariah. A free-thinker startles him as a kind of demon; but a female +free-thinker is one of Satan's concubines. He took it upon himself to +reproach me--flung his glove at my feet, because I sent a cheque to a +poor man punished for blasphemy. The man had the right to his opinions, +and he had the courage of his opinions. I doubt whether the Rev. +Hampton-Evey would go with a willing heart to prison for his. All the +better for him if he comes head-up out of a trial. But now see: all +these parsons and judges and mobcaps insist upon conformity. A man with +common manly courage comes before them, and he's cast in penalties. Yet +we know from history, in England, France, Germany, that the time of +nonconformity brought out the manhood of the nation. Now, I say, a +nation, to be a nation, must have men--I mean brave men. That's what +those hosts of female men combine to try to stifle. They won't succeed, +but we shall want a war to teach the country the value of courage. You +catch what I am driving at? They accuse my brother of immorality because +he makes no pretence to be better than the men of his class." + +Weyburn's eyelids fluttered. Her kite-like ascent into the general, with +the sudden drop on her choice morsel, switched his humour at the moment +when he was respectfully considering that her dartings and gyrations had +motive as mach as the flight of the swallow for food. They had meaning; +and here was one of the great ladies of the land who thought for herself, +and was thoughtful for the country. If she came down like a bird winged, +it was her love of her brother that did it. His look at Lady Charlotte +glistened. + +She raised her defences against the basilisk fascinating Philippa; and +with a vow to keep them apart and deprive him of his chance, she relapsed +upon the stiff frigidity which was not natural to her. It lasted long +enough to put him on his guard under the seductions of a noble dame's +condescension to a familiar tone. But, as he was too well bred to show +the change in his mind for her change of manner, and as she was the +sister of his boyhood's hero, and could be full of flavour, his eyes +retained something of their sparkle. They were ready to lighten again, +in the way peculiar to him, when she, quite forgetting her defence of +Philippa, disburdened herself of her antagonisms and enthusiasms, her +hates and her loves all round the neighbourhood and over the world, won +to confidential communication by this young man's face. She confessed as +much, had he been guided to perceive it. She said, "Arthur Abner's a +reader of men: I can trust his word about them." + +Presently, it is true, she added: "No man's to be relied upon where +there's a woman." She refused her implicit trust to saints--"if ever a +man really was a saint before he was canonized!" + +Her penetrative instinct of sex kindled the scepticism. Sex she saw at +play everywhere, dogging the conduct of affairs, directing them at times; +she saw it as the animation of nature, senselessly stigmatized, +hypocritically concealed, active in our thoughts where not in our deeds; +and the declining of the decorous to see it, or admit the sight, got them +abhorred bad names from her, after a touch at the deadly poison coming of +that blindness, or blindfoldedness, and a grimly melancholy shrug over +the cruelties resulting--cruelties chiefly affecting women. + +"You're too young to have thought upon such matters," she said, for a +finish to them. + +That was hardly true. + +"I have thought," said Weyburn, and his head fell to reckoning of the +small sum of his thoughts upon them. + +He was pulled up instantly for close inspection by the judge. "What is +your age?" + +"I am in my twenty-sixth year." + +"You have been among men: have you studied women?" + +"Not largely, Lady Charlotte. Opportunity has been wanting at French and +German colleges." + +"It's only a large and a close and a pretty long study of them that can +teach you anything; and you must get rid of the poetry about them, and be +sure you haven't lost it altogether. That's what is called the golden +mean. I'm not for the golden mean in every instance; it's a way of +exhorting to brutal selfishness. I grant it's the right way in those +questions. You'll learn in time." Her scanning gaze at the young man's +face drove him along an avenue of his very possible chances of learning. +"Certain to. But don't tell me that at your age you have thought about +women. You may say you have felt. A young man's feelings about women +are better reading for him six or a dozen chapters farther on. Then he +can sift and strain. It won't be perfectly clear, but it will do." + +Mr. Eglett hereupon threw the door open, and ushered in Master Leo. + +Lady Charlotte noticed that the tutor shook the boy's hand offhandedly, +with not a whit of the usual obtrusive geniality, and merely dropped him +a word. Soon after, he was talking to Mr. Eglett of games at home and +games abroad. Poor fun over there! We head the world in field games, at +all events. He drew a picture of a foreigner of his acquaintance looking +on at football. On the other hand, French boys and German, having passed +a year or two at an English school, get the liking for our games, and do +a lot of good when they go home. The things we learn from them are to +dance, to sing, and to study:--they are more in earnest than we about +study. They teach us at fencing too. The tutor praised fencing as an +exercise and an accomplishment. He had large reserves of eulogy for +boxing. He knew the qualities of the famous bruisers of the time, cited +fisty names, whose owners were then to be seen all over an admiring land +in prints; in the glorious defensive-offensive attitude, England's own-- +Touch me, if you dare! with bullish, or bull-dog, or oak-bole fronts for +the blow, handsome to pugilistic eyes. + +The young tutor had lighted on a pet theme of Mr. Eglett's--the excelling +virtues of the practice of pugilism in Old England, and the school of +honour that it is to our lower population. "Fifty times better for them +than cock-fighting," he exclaimed, admitting that he could be an +interested spectator at a ring or the pit cock-fighting or ratting. + +"Ratting seems to have more excuse," the tutor said, and made no sign of +a liking for either of those popular pastimes. As he disapproved without +squeamishness, the impulsive but sharply critical woman close by nodded; +and she gave him his dues for being no courtier. + +Leo had to be off to bed. The tutor spared him any struggle over +the shaking of hands, and saying, "Goodnight, Leo," continued the +conversation. The boy went away, visibly relieved of the cramp that +seizes on a youngster at the formalities pertaining to these chilly +and fateful introductions. + +"What do you think of the look of him?" Mr. Eglett asked. + +The tutor had not appeared to inspect the boy. "Big head," he remarked. +"Yes, Leo won't want pushing at books when he's once in harness. He will +have six weeks of me. It's more than the yeomanry get for drill per +annum, and they're expected to know something of a soldier's duties. +There's a chance of putting him on the right road in certain matters. +We'll walk, or ride, or skate, if the frost holds to-morrow: no lessons +the first day." + +"Do as you think fit," said lady Charlotte. + +The one defect she saw in the tutor did not concern his pupil. And a +girl, if hit, would be unable to see that this tutor, judged as a man, +was to some extent despicable for accepting tutorships, and, one might +say, dishonouring the family of a soldier of rank and distinction, by +coming into houses at the back way, with footing enough to air his graces +when once established there. He ought to have knocked at every door in +the kingdom for help, rather than accept tutorships, and disturb +households (or providently-minded mistresses of them) with all sorts of +probably groundless apprehensions, founded naturally enough on the good +looks he intrudes. + +This tutor committed the offence next day of showing he had a firm and +easy seat in the saddle, which increased Lady Charlotte's liking for him +and irritated her watchful forecasts. She rode with the young man after +lunch, "to show him the country," and gave him a taste of what he took +for her variable moods. He misjudged her. Like a swimmer going through +warm and cold springs of certain lake waters, he thought her a capricious +ladyship, dangerous for intimacy, alluring to the deeps and gripping with +cramps. + +She pushed him to defend his choice of the tutor's profession. + +"Think you understand boys?" she caught up his words; "you can't. You +can humour them, as you humour women. They're just as hard to read. And +don't tell me a young man can read women. Boys and women go on their +instincts. Egyptologists can spell you hieroglyphs; they'd be stumped, +as Leo would say, to read a spider out of an ink-pot over a sheet of +paper." + +"One gets to interpret by degrees, by observing their habits," the tutor +said, and vexed her with a towering complacency under provocation that +went some way further to melt the woman she was, while her knowledge of +the softness warned her still more of the duty of playing dragon round +such a young man in her house. The despot is alert at every issue, to +every chance; and she was one, the wakefuller for being benevolent; her +mind had no sleep by day. + +For a month she subjected Mr. Matthew Weyburn to the microscope of her +observation and the probe of her instinct. He proved that he could +manage without cajoling a boy. The practical fact established, by +agreement between herself and the unobservant gentleman who was her +husband, Lady Charlotte allowed her meditations to drop an indifferent +glance at the speculative views upon education entertained by this young +tutor. To her mind they were flighty; but she liked him, and as her +feelings dictated to her mind when she had not to think for others, she +spoke of his views toleratingly, almost with an implied approval, after +passing them through the form of burlesque to which she customarily +treated things failing to waft her enthusiasm. In regard to Philippa, he +behaved well: he bestowed more of his attention on Beatrice, nearer Leo's +age, in talk about games and story-books and battles; nothing that he did +when the girls were present betrayed the strutting plumed cock, bent to +attract, or the sickly reptile, thirsty for a prize above him and meaning +to have it, like Satan in Eden. Still, of course, he could not help his +being a handsome fellow, having a vivid face and eyes transparent, +whether blue or green, to flame of the brain exciting them; and that +becomes a picture in the dream of girls--a picture creating the dream +often. And Philippa had asked her grandmother, very ingenuously indeed, +with a most natural candour, why "they saw so little of Leo's hero." +Simple female child! + +However, there was no harm done, and Lady Charlotte liked him. She liked +few. Forthwith, in the manner of her particular head, a restless head, +she fell to work at combinations. + +Thus:--he is a nice young fellow, well bred, no cringing courtier, +accomplished, good at classics, fairish at mathematics, a scholar in +French, German, Italian, with a shrewd knowledge of the different races, +and with sound English sentiment too, and the capacity for writing good +English, although in those views of his the ideas are unusual, therefore +un-English, profoundly so. But his intentions are patriotic; they would +not displease Lord Ormont. He has a worship of Lord Ormont. All we can +say on behalf of an untried inferior is in that,--only the valiant admire +devotedly. Well, he can write grammatical, readable English. What if +Lord Ormont were to take him as a secretary while the Memoirs are in +hand? He might help to chasten the sentences laughed at by those +newspapers. Or he might, being a terrible critic of writing, and funny +about styles, put it in an absurd light, that would cause the Memoirs to +be tossed into the fire. He was made for the post of secretary! The +young man's good looks would be out of harm's way then. If any sprig of +womankind come across him there, it will, at any rate, not be a girl. +Women must take care of themselves. Only the fools among them run to +mischief in the case of a handsome young fellow. + +Supposing a certain woman to be one of the fools? Lady Charlotte merely +suggested it in the dashing current of her meditations--did not strike it +out interrogatively. The woman would be a fine specimen among her class; +that was all. For the favourite of Lord Ormont to stoop from her place +beside him--ay, but women do; heroes have had the woeful experience of +that fact. First we see them aiming themselves at their hero; next they +are shooting an eye at the handsome man. The thirst of nature comes +after that of their fancy, in conventional women. Sick of the hero +tried, tired of their place in the market, no longer ashamed to +acknowledge it, they begin to consult their own taste for beauty--they +have it quite as much as the men have it; and when their worshipped +figure of manliness, in a romantic sombrero, is a threadbare giant, +showing bruises, they sink on their inherent desire for a dance with the +handsome man. And the really handsome man is the most extraordinary of +the rarities. No wonder that when he appears he slays them, walks over +them like a pestilence! + +This young Weyburn would touch the fancy of a woman of a romantic turn. +Supposing her enthusiastic in her worship of the hero, after a number of +years--for anything may be imagined where a woman is concerned--why, +another enthusiasm for the same object, and on the part of a stranger, a +stranger with effective eyes, rapidly leads to sympathy. Suppose the +reverse--the enthusiasm gone to dust, or become a wheezy old bellows, as +it does where there's disparity of age, or it frequently does--then the +sympathy with a good-looking stranger comes more rapidly still. + +These were Lady Charlotte's glances right and left--idle flights of the +eye of a mounted Amazon across hedges at the canter along the main road +of her scheme; which was to do a service to the young man she liked and +to the brother she loved, for the marked advantage of both equally; +perhaps for the chance of a little gossip to follow about that tenacious +woman by whom her brother was held hard and fast, kept away from friends +and relatives, isolated, insomuch as to have given up living on his +estate--the old home!--because he would not disgrace it or incur odium by +taking her there. + +In consequence of Lord Ormont's resistance to pressure from her on two or +three occasions, she chose to nurse and be governed by the maxim for +herself: Never propose a plan to him, if you want it adopted. That was +her way of harmlessly solacing love's vindictiveness for an injury. + +She sent Arthur Abner a letter, thanking him for his recommendation of +young Mr. Weyburn, stating her benevolent wishes as regarded the young +man and "those hateful Memoirs," requesting that her name should not be +mentioned in the affair, because she was anxious on all grounds to have +the proposal accepted by her brother. She could have vowed to herself +that she wrote sincerely. + +"He must want a secretary. He would be shy at an offer of one from me. +Do you hint it, if you get a chance. You gave us Mr. Weyburn, and Mr. +Eglett and I like him. Ormont would too, I am certain. You have obliged +him before; this will be better than anything you have done for us. It +will stop the Memoirs, or else give them a polish. Your young friend has +made me laugh over stuff taken for literature until we put on our +spectacles. Leo jogs along in harness now, and may do some work at +school yet." + +Having posted her letter, she left the issue to chance, as we may when +conscience is easy. An answer came the day before Weyburn's departure. +Arthur Abner had met Lord Ormont in the street, had spoken of the rumour +of Memoirs promised to the world, hinted at the possible need for a +secretary; "Lord Ormont would appoint a day to see Mr. Weyburn." + +Lady Charlotte considered that to be as good as the engagement. + +"So we keep you in the family," she said. "And now look here: you ought +to know my brother's ways, if you're going to serve him. You'll have to +guess at half of everything he tells you; he'll expect you to know the +whole. There's no man so secret. Why? He fears nothing; I can't tell +why. And what his mouth shuts on, he exposes as if in his hand. Of +course he's proud, and good reason. You'll see when you mustn't offend. +A lady's in the house--I hear of it. She takes his name, they say. She +may be a respectable woman--I've heard no scandal. We have to hear of a +Lady Ormont out of Society! We have to suppose it means there's not to +be a real one. He can't marry if he has allowed her to go about bearing +his name. She has a fool of an aunt, I'm told; as often in the house as +not. Good proof of his fondness for the woman, if he swallows half a +year of the aunt! Well, you won't, unless you've mere man's eyes, be +able to help seeing him trying to hide what he suffers from that aunt. +He bears it, like the man he is; but woe to another betraying it! She +has a tongue that goes like the reel of a rod, with a pike bolting out of +the shallows to the snag he knows--to wind round it and defy you to pull. +Often my brother Rowsley and I have fished the day long, and in hard +weather, and brought home a basket; and he boasted of it more than of +anything he has ever done since. That woman holds him away from me now. +I say no harm of her. She may be right enough from her point of view; or +it mayn't be owing to her. I wouldn't blame a woman. Well, but my point +with you is, you swallow the woman's aunt--the lady's aunt--without +betraying you suffer at all. Lord Ormont has eyes of an eagle for a +speck above the surface. All the more because the aunt is a gabbling +idiot does he--I say it seeing it--fire up to defend her from the sneer +of the lip or half a sign of it! No, you would be an your guard; I can +trust you. Of course you'd behave like the gentleman you are where any +kind of woman's concerned; but you mustn't let a shadow be seen, think +what you may. The woman--lady--calling herself Lady Ormont,--poor woman, +I should do the same in her place,--she has a hard game to play; I have +to be for my family: she has manners, I'm told; holds herself properly. +She fancies she brings him up to the altar, in the end, by decent +behaviour. That's a delusion. It's creditable to her, only she can't +understand the claims of the family upon a man like my brother. When you +have spare time--'kick-ups,' he need to call it, writing to me from +school--come here; you're welcome, after three days' notice. I shall be +glad to see you again. You've gone some way to make a man of Leo." + +He liked her well: he promised to come. She was a sinewy bite of the +gentle sex, but she had much flavour, and she gave nourishment. + +"Let me have three days' notice," she repeated. + +"Not less, Lady Charlotte," said he. + +Weyburn received intimation from Arthur Abner of the likely day Lord +Ormont would appoint, and he left Olmer for London to hold himself in +readiness. Lady Charlotte and Leo drove him to meet the coach. +Philippa, so strangely baffled in her natural curiosity, begged for a +seat; she begged to be allowed to ride. Petitions were rejected. She +stood at the window seeing "Grandmama's tutor," as she named him, carried +off by grandmama. Her nature was avenged on her tyrant grandmama: it +brought up almost to her tongue thoughts which would have remained +subterranean, under control of her habit of mind, or the nursery's +modesty, if she had been less tyrannically treated. They were +subterranean thoughts, Nature's original, such as the sense of injustice +will rouse in young women; and they are better unstirred, for they ripen +girls over-rapidly when they are made to revolve near the surface. It +flashed on the girl why she had been treated tyrannically. + +"Grandmama has good taste in tutors," was all that she said while the +thoughts rolled over. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +RECOGNITION + +Our applicant for the post of secretary entered the street of Lord +Ormont's London house, to present himself to his boyhood's hero by +appointment. + +He was to see, perhaps to serve, the great soldier. Things had come to +this; and he thought it singular. But for the previous introduction to +Lady Charlotte, he would have thought it passing wonderful. He ascribed +it to the whirligig. + +The young man was not yet of an age to gather knowledge of himself and of +life from his present experience of the fact, that passionate devotion to +an object strikes a vein through circumstances, as a travelling run of +flame darts the seeming haphazard zigzags to catch at the dry of dead +wood amid the damp; and when passion has become quiescent in the admirer, +there is often the unsubsided first impulsion carrying it on. He will +almost sorely embrace his idol with one or other of the senses. + +Weyburn still read the world as it came to him, by bite, marvelling at +this and that, after the fashion of most of us. He had not deserted his +adolescent's hero, or fallen upon analysis of a past season. But he was +now a young man, stoutly and cognizantly on the climb, with a good aim +overhead, axed green youth's enthusiasms a step below his heels: one of +the lovers of life, beautiful to behold, when we spy into them; generally +their aspect is an enlivenment, whatever may be the carving of their +features. For the sake of holy unity, this lover of life, whose gaze +was to the front in hungry animation, held fast to his young dreams, +perceiving a soul of meaning in them, though the fire might have gone +out; and he confessed to a past pursuit of delusions. Young men of this +kind will have, for the like reason, a similar rational sentiment on +behalf of our world's historic forward march, while admitting that +history has to be taken from far backward if we would gain assurance +of man's advance. It nerves an admonished ambition. + +He was ushered into a London house's library, looking over a niggard +enclosure of gravel and dull grass, against a wall where ivy dribbled. +An armchair was beside the fireplace. To right and left of it a floreate +company of books in high cases paraded shoulder to shoulder, without a +gap; grenadiers on the line. Weyburn read the titles on their scarlet- +and-blue facings. They were approved English classics; honoured +veterans, who have emerged from the conflict with contemporary opinion, +stamped excellent, or have been pushed by the roar of contemporaneous +applauses to wear the leather-and-gilt uniform of our Immortals, until a +more qualmish posterity disgorges them. The books had costly bindings. +Lord Ormont's treatment of Literature appeared to resemble Lady +Charlotte's, in being reverential and uninquiring. The books she bought +to read were Memoirs of her time by dead men and women once known to her. +These did fatigue duty in cloth or undress. It was high drill with all +of Lord Ormont's books, and there was not a modern or a minor name among +the regiments. They smelt strongly of the bookseller's lump lots by +order; but if a show soldiery, they were not a sham, like a certain row +of venerably-titled backs, that Lady Charlotte, without scruple, left +standing to blow an ecclesiastical trumpet of empty contents; any one +might have his battle of brains with them, for the twining of an absent +key. + +The door opened. Weyburn bowed to his old star in human shape: a grey +head on square shoulders, filling the doorway. He had seen at Olmer Lady +Charlotte's treasured miniature portrait of her brother; a perfect +likeness, she said--complaining the neat instant of injustice done to +the fire of his look. + +Fire was low down behind the eyes at present. They were quick to scan +and take summary of their object, as the young man felt while observing +for himself. Height and build of body were such as might be expected in +the brother of Lady Charlotte and from the tales of his prowess. Weyburn +had a glance back at Cuper's boys listening to the tales. + +The soldier-lord's manner was courteously military--that of an +established superior indifferent to the deferential attitude he must +needs enact. His curt nick of the head, for a response to the visitor's +formal salutation, signified the requisite acknowledgment, like a city +creditor's busy stroke of the type-stamp receipt upon payment. + +The ceremony over, he pitched a bugle voice to fit the contracted area: +"I hear from Mr. Abner that you have made acquaintance with Olmer. Good +hunting country there." + +"Lady Charlotte kindly gave me a mount, my lord." + +"I knew your father by name--Colonel Sidney Weyburn. You lost him at +Toulouse. We were in the Peninsula; I was at Talavera with him. Bad day +for our cavalry." + +"Our officers were young at their work then." + +"They taught the Emperor's troops to respect a charge of English horse. +It was teaching their fox to set traps for them." + +Lord Ormont indicated a chair. He stood. + +"The French had good cavalry leaders," Weyburn said, for cover to a +continued study of the face, + +"Montbrun, yes: Murat, Lassalle, Bessieres. Under the Emperor they had." + +"You think them not at home in the saddle, my lord?" + +"Frenchmen have nerves; horses are nerves. They pile excitement too +high. When cool, they're among the best. None of them had head for +command of all the arms." + +"One might say the same of Seidlitz and Ziethen?" + +"Of Ziethen. Seidlitz had a wider grasp, I suppose." He pursed his +month, pondering. "No; and in the Austrian service, too; generals of +cavalry are left to whistle for an independent command. There's a +jealousy of our branch!" The injured warrior frowned and hummed. +He spoke his thought mildly: "Jealousy of the name of soldier in this +country! Out of the service, is the place to recommend. I'd have +advised a son of mine to train for a jockey rather than enter it. We +deal with that to-morrow, in my papers. You come to me? Mr. Abner has +arranged the terms? So I see you at ten in the morning. I am glad to +meet a young man--Englishman--who takes an interest in the service." + +Weyburn fancied the hearing of a step; he heard the whispering dress. It +passed him; a lady went to the armchair. She took her seat, as she had +moved, with sedateness, the exchange of a toneless word with my lord. +She was a brune. He saw that when he rose to do homage. + +Lord Ormont resumed: "Some are born to it, must be soldiers; and in peace +they are snubbed by the heads; in war they are abused by the country. +They don't understand in England how to treat an army; how to make one +either! + +"The gentleman--Mr. Weyburn: Mr. Arthur Abner's recommendation," he added +hurriedly, with a light wave of his hand and a murmur, that might be the +lady's title; continuing: "A young man of military tastes should take +service abroad. They're in earnest about it over there. Here they play +at it; and an army's shipped to land without commissariat, ambulances, +medical stores, and march against the odds, as usual--if it can march! + +"Albuera, my lord?" + +"Our men can spurt, for a flick o' the whip. They're expected to be +constantly ready for doing prodigies--to repair the country's omissions. +All the country cares for is to hope Dick Turpin may get to York. Our +men are good beasts; they give the best in 'em, and drop. More's the +scandal to a country that has grand material and overtasks it. A blazing +disaster ends the chapter!" + +This was talk of an injured veteran. It did not deepen the hue of his +ruddied skin. He spoke in the tone of matter of fact. Weyburn had been +prepared for something of the sort by his friend, Arthur Abner. He noted +the speaker's heightened likeness under excitement to Lady Charlotte. +Excitement came at an early call of their voices to both; and both had +handsome, open features, bluntly cut, nothing of aquiline or the +supercilious; eyes bluish-grey, in arched recesses, horny between the +thick lids, lively to shoot their meaning when the trap-mouth was active; +effectively expressing promptitute for combat, pleasure in attack, +wrestle, tag, whatever pertained to strife; an absolute sense of their +right. + +As there was a third person present at this dissuasion of military +topics, the silence of the lady drew Weyburn to consult her opinion in +her look. + +It was on him. Strange are the woman's eyes which can unoffendingly +assume the privilege to dwell on such a living object as a man without +become gateways for his return look, and can seem in pursuit of thoughts +while they enfold. They were large dark eyes, eyes of southern night. +They sped no shot; they rolled forth an envelopment. A child among toys, +caught to think of other toys, may gaze in that way. But these were a +woman's eyes. + +He gave Lord Ormont his whole face, as an auditor should. He was +interested besides, as he told a ruffled conscience. He fell upon the +study of his old hero determinedly. + +The pain of a memory waking under pillows, unable to do more than strain +for breath, distracted his attention. There was a memory: that was all +he knew. Or else he would have lashed himself for hanging on the +beautiful eyes of a woman. To be seeing and hearing his old hero was +wonder enough. + +Recollections of Lady Charlotte's plain hints regarding the lady present +resolved to the gross retort, that her eyes were beautiful. And be knew +them--there lay the strangeness. They were known beautiful eyes, in a +foreign land of night and mist. + +Lord Ormont was discoursing with racy eloquence of our hold on India: his +views in which respect were those of Cuper's boys. Weyburn ventured a +dot-running description of the famous ride, and out flew an English +soldier's grievance. But was not the unjustly-treated great soldier +well rewarded, whatever the snubs and the bitterness, with these large +dark eyes in his house, for his own? Eyes like these are the beginning +of a young man's world; they nerve, inspire, arm him, colour his life; he +would labour, fight, die for them. It seemed to Weyburn a blessedness +even to behold them. So it had been with him at the early stage; and his +heart went swifter, memory fetched a breath. Memory quivered eyelids, +when the thought returned--of his having known eyes as lustrous. First +lights of his world, they had more volume, warmth, mystery--were sweeter. +Still, these in the room were sisters to them. They quickened throbs; +they seemed a throb of the heart made visible. + +That was their endowment of light and lustre simply, and the mystical +curve of the lids. For so they could look only because the heart was +disengaged from them. They were but heavenly orbs. + +The lady's elbow was on an arm of her chair, her forefinger at her left +temple. Her mind was away, one might guess; she could hardly be +interested in talk of soldiering and of foreign army systems, jealous +English authorities and officials, games, field-sports. She had personal +matters to think of. + +Adieu until to-morrow to the homes she inhabited! The street was a +banishment and a relief when Weyburn's first interview with Lord Ormont +was over. + +He rejoiced to tell his previous anticipations that he had not been +disappointed; and he bade hero-worshippers expect no gilded figure. We +gather heroes as we go, if we are among the growing: our constancy is +shown in the not discarding of our old ones. He held to his earlier +hero, though he had seen him, and though he could fancy he saw round him. + +Another, too, had been a hero-lover. How did that lady of night's eyes +come to fall into her subjection? + +He put no question as to the name she bore; it hung in a black suspense-- +vividly at its blackest illuminated her possessor. A man is a hero to +some effect who wins a woman like this; and, if his glory bespells her, +so that she flings all to the winds for him, burns the world; if, for +solely the desperate rapture of belonging to him, she consents of her +free will to be one of the nameless and discoloured, he shines in a way +to make the marrow of men thrill with a burning envy. For that must be +the idolatrous devotion desired by them all. + +Weyburn struck down upon his man's nature--the bad in us, when beauty of +woman is viewed; or say, the old original revolutionary, best kept +untouched; for a touch or a meditative pause above him, fetches him up to +roam the civilized world devouringly and lawlessly. It is the special +peril of the young lover of life, that an inflammability to beauty in +women is in a breath intense with him. He is, in truth, a thinly-sealed +volcano of our imperishable ancient father; and has it in him to be the +multitudinously-amorous of the mythologic Jove. Give him head, he can be +civilization's devil. Is she fair and under a shade?--then is she doubly +fair. The shadow about her secretes mystery, just as the forest breeds +romance: and mystery is a measureless realm. If we conceive it, we have +a mysterious claim on her who is the heart of it. + +He marched on that road to the music of sonorous brass for some drunken +minutes. + +The question came, What of the man who takes advantage of her self- +sacrifice? + +It soon righted him, and he did Lord Ormont justice, and argued the case +against Lady Charlotte's naked hints. + +This dark-eyed heroine's bearing was assured, beyond an air of +dependency. Her deliberate short nod to him at his leave-taking, and the +toneless few words she threw to my lord, signified sufficiently that she +did not stand defying the world or dreading it. + +She had by miracle the eyes which had once charmed him--could again-- +would always charm. She reminded him of Aminta Farrell's very eyes under +the couchant-dove brows--something of her mouth, the dimple running from +a corner. She had, as Aminta had, the self-collected and self-cancelled +look, a realm in a look, that was neither depth nor fervour, nor a +bestowal, nor an allurement; nor was it an exposure, though there seemed +no reserve. One would be near the meaning in declaring it to bewilder +men with the riddle of openhandedness. We read it--all may read it--as +we read inexplicable plain life; in which let us have a confiding mind, +despite the blows at our heart, and some understanding will enter us. + +He shut the door upon picture and speculations, returning to them by +another door. The lady had not Aminta's freshness: she might be taken +for an elder sister of Aminta. But Weyburn wanted to have her position +defined before he set her beside Aminta. He writhed under Lady +Charlotte's tolerating scorn of "the young woman." It roused an uneasy +sentiment of semi-hostility in the direction of my lord; and he had no +personal complaint to make. + +Lord Ormont was cordial on the day of the secretary's installation; as +if--if one might dare to guess it--some one had helped him to a friendly +judgement. + +The lady of Aminta's eyes was absent at the luncheon table. She came +into the room a step, to speak to Lord Ormont, dressed for a drive to pay +a visit. + +The secretary was unnoticed. + +Lord Ormont put inquiries to him at table, for the why of his having +avoided the profession of arms; and apparently considered that the +secretary had made a mistake, and that he would have committed a greater +error in becoming a soldier--"in this country." A man with a grievance +is illogical under his burden. He mentioned the name "Lady Ormont" +distinctly during some remarks on travel. Lady Ormont preferred the +Continent. + +Two days later she came to the armchair, as before, met Weyburn's eyes +when he raised them; gave him no home in hers--not a temporary shelter +from the pelting of interrogations. She hardly spoke. Why did she come? + +But how was it that he was drawn to think of her? Absent or present, she +was round him, like the hills of a valley. She was round his thoughts-- +caged them; however high, however far they flew, they were conscious of +her. + +She took her place at the midday meal. She had Aminta's voice in some +tones; a mellower than Aminta's--the voice of one of Aminta's family. +She had the trick of Aminta's upper lip in speaking. Her look on him was +foreign; a civil smile as they conversed. She was very much at home with +my lord, whom she rallied for his addiction to his Club at a particular +hour of the afternoon. She conversed readily. She reminded him, +incidentally that her aunt would arrive early next day. He informed her, +some time after, of an engagement "to tiffin with a brother officer," and +she nodded. + +They drove away together while the secretary was at his labour of sorting +the heap of autobiographical scraps in a worn dispatch-box, pen and +pencil jottings tossed to swell the mess when they had relieved an angry +reminiscence. He noticed, heedlessly at the moment, feminine handwriting +on some few clear sheets among them. + +Next day he was alone in the library. He sat before the box, opened it +and searched, merely to quiet his annoyance for having left those sheets +of the fair amanuensis unexamined. They were not discoverable. They had +gone. + +He stood up at the stir of the door. It was she, and she acknowledged +his bow; she took her steps to her chair. + +He was informed that Lord Ormont had an engagement, and he remarked, +"I can do the work very well." She sat quite silent. + +He read first lines of the scraps, laid them in various places, as in a +preparation for conjurer's tricks at cards; refraining from a glance, +lest he should disconcert the eyes he felt to be on him fitfully. + +At last she spoke, and he knew Aminta in his hearing and sight. + +"Is Emile Grenat still anglomane?" + +An instant before her voice was heard he had been persuading himself +that the points of unlikeness between his young Aminta and this tall and +stately lady of the proud reserve in her bearing flouted the resemblance. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +IN WHICH THE SHADES OF BROWNY AND MATEY ADVANCE AND RETIRE + + +"Emile is as anglomane as ever, and not a bit less a Frenchman," Weyburn +said, in a tone of one who muffles a shock at the heart. + +"It would be the poorer compliment to us," she rejoined. + +They looked at one another; she dropped her eyelids, he looked away. + +She had the grand manner by nature. She was the woman of the girl once +known. + +"A soldier, is he?" + +"Emile's profession and mine are much alike, or will be." + +"A secretary?" + +Her deadness of accent was not designed to carry her opinion of the post +of secretary. + +It brought the reply: "We hope to be schoolmasters." + +She drew in a breath; there was a thin short voice, hardly voice, as when +one of the unschooled minor feelings has been bruised. After a while she +said-- + +"Does he think it a career?" + +"Not brilliant." + +"He was formed for a soldier." + +"He had to go as the road led." + +"A young man renouncing ambition!" + +"Considering what we can do best." + +"It signifies the taste for what he does." + +"Certainly that." + +Weyburn had senses to read the word "schoolmaster" in repetition behind +her shut mouth. He was sharply sensible of a fall. + +The task with his papers occupied him. If he had a wish, it was to sink +so low in her esteem as to be spurned. A kick would have been a +refreshment. Yet he was unashamed of the cause invoking it. We are +instruments to the touch of certain women, and made to play strange +tunes. + +"Mr. Cuper flourishes?" + +"The school exists. I have not been down there. I met Mr. Shalders +yesterday. He has left the school." + +"You come up from Olmer?" + +"I was at Olmer last week, Lady Ormont." + +An involuntary beam from her eyes thanked him for her title at that +juncture of the dialogue. She grew more spirited. + +"Mr. Shalders has joined the Dragoons, has he?" + +"The worthy man has a happy imagination. He goes through a campaign +daily." + +"It seems to one to dignify his calling." + +"I like his enthusiasm." + +The lady withdrew into her thoughts; Weyburn fell upon his work. + +Mention of the military cloak of enthusiasm covering Shalders, brought +the scarce credible old time to smite at his breast, in the presence of +these eyes. A ringing of her title of Lady Ormont rendered the present +time the incredible. + +"I can hardly understand a young Frenchman's not entering the army," she +said. + +"The Napoleonic legend is weaker now," said he. + +"The son of an officer!" + +"Grandson." + +"It was his choice to be,--he gave it up without reluctance?" + +"Emile obeyed the command of his parents," Weyburn answered; and he was +obedient to the veiled direction of her remark, in speaking of himself: +"I had a reason, too." + +"One wonders!" + +"It would have impoverished my mother's income to put aside a small +allowance for me for years. She would not have hesitated. I then set my +mind on the profession of schoolmaster." + +"Emile Grenat was a brave boy. Has he no regrets?" + +"Neither of us has a regret." + +"He began ambitiously." + +"It's the way at the beginning." + +"It is not usually abjured." + +"I'm afraid we neither of us 'dignify our calling' by discontent with +it!" + +A dusky flash, worth seeing, came on her cheeks. "I respect +enthusiasms," she said; and it was as good to him to hear as the begging +pardon, though clearly she could not understand enthusiasm for the +schoolmaster's career. + +Light of evidence was before him, that she had a friendly curiosity to +know what things had led to their new meeting under these conditions. +He sketched them cursorily; there was little to tell--little, that is; +appealing to a romantic mind for interest. Aware of it, by sympathy, +he degraded the narrative to a flatness about as cheering as a suburban +London Sunday's promenade. Sympathy caused the perverseness. He felt +her disillusionment; felt with it and spread a feast of it. She had to +hear of studies at Caen and at a Paris Lycee; French fairly mastered; +German, the same; Italian, the same; after studies at Heidelberg, Asti, +and Florence; between four and five months at Athens (he was needlessly +precise), in tutorship with a young nobleman: no events, nor a spot of +colour. Thus did he wilfully, with pain to himself, put an extinguisher +on the youth painted brilliant and eminent in a maiden's imagination. + +"So there can no longer be thought of the army," she remarked; and the +remark had a sort of sigh, though her breathing was equable. + +"Unless a big war knocks over all rules and the country comes praying us +to serve," he said. + +"You would not refuse then?" + +"Not in case of need. One may imagine a crisis when they would give +commissions to men of my age or older for the cavalry--heavy losses of +officers." + +She spoke, as if urged by a sting to revert to the distasteful: "That +profession--must you not take...enter into orders if you aim at any +distinction?" + +"And a member of the Anglican Church would not be allowed to exchange his +frock for a cavalry sabre," said he. "That is true. I do not propose to +settle as a schoolmaster in England." + +"Where?" + +"On the Continent." + +"Would not America be better?" + +"It would not so well suit the purpose in view for us." + +"There are others besides?" + +"Besides Emile, there is a German and an Italian and a Swiss." + +"It is a Company?" + +"A Company of schoolmasters! Companies of all kinds are forming. +Colleges are Companies. And they have their collegians. Our aim is at +pupils; we have no ambition for any title higher than School and +Schoolmaster; it is not a Company." + +So, like Nature parading her skeleton to youthful adorers of her face, he +insisted on reducing to hideous material wreck the fair illusion, which +had once arrayed him in alluring promise. + +She explained; "I said, America. You would be among Protestants in +America." + +"Catholics and Protestants are both welcome to us, according to our +scheme. And Germans, French, English, Americans, Italians, if they will +come; Spaniards and Portuguese, and Scandinavians, Russians as well. And +Jews; Mahommedans too, if only they will come! The more mixed, the more +it hits our object." + +"You have not stated where on the Continent it is to be." + +"The spot fixed on is in Switzerland." + +"You will have scenery." + +"I hold to that, as an influence." + +A cool vision of the Bernese Alps encircled the young schoolmaster; and +she said, "It would influence girls; I dare say." + +"A harder matter with boys, of course--at first. We think we may make it +serve." + +"And where is the spot? Is that fixed on?" + +"Fifteen miles from Berne, on elevated land, neighbouring a water, not +quite to be called a lake, unless in an auctioneer's advertisement." + +"I am glad of the lake. I could not look on a country home where there +was no swimming. You will be head of the school." + +"There must be a head." + +"Is the school likely to be established soon?" + +He fell into her dead tone: "Money is required for establishments. +I have a Reversion coming some day; I don't dabble in post obits." + +He waited for farther questions. They were at an end. + +"You have your work to do, Mr. Weyburn." + +Saying that, she bowed an implied apology for having kept him from it, +and rose. She bowed again as she passed through the doorway, in +acknowledgment of his politeness. + +Here; then, was the end of the story of Browny and Matey. Such was his +thought under the truncheon-stroke of their colloquy. Lines of Browny's +letters were fiery waving ribands about him, while the coldly gracious +bow of the Lady wrote Finis. + +The gulf between the two writings remained unsounded. It gave a heave to +the old passion; but stirred no new one; he had himself in hand now, and +he shut himself up when the questions bred of amazement buzzed and +threatened to storm. After all, what is not curious in this world? The +curious thing would be if curious things should fail to happen. Men have +been saying it since they began to count and turn corners. And let us +hold off from speculating when there is or but seems a shadow of +unholiness over that mole-like business. There shall be no questions; +and as to feelings, the same. They, if petted for a moment beneath the +shadow, corrupt our blood. Weyburn was a man to have them by the throat +at the birth. + +Still they thronged; heavy work of strangling had to be done. Her tone +of disappointment with the schoolmaster bit him, and it flattered him. +The feelings leapt alive, equally venomous from the wound and the caress. +They pushed to see, had to be repelled from seeing, the girl Browny in +the splendid woman; they had lightning memories: not the pain of his grip +could check their voice on the theme touching her happiness or the +reverse. And this was an infernal cunning. He paused perforce to +inquire, giving them space for the breeding of their multitudes. Was she +happy? Did she not seem too meditative, enclosed, toneless, at her age? +Vainly the persecuted fellow said to himself: "But what is it to me +now?"--The Browny days were over. The passion for the younger Aminta was +over--buried; and a dream of power belonging to those days was not yet +more than visionary. It had moved her once, when it was a young +soldier's. She treated the schoolmaster's dream as vapour, and the old +days as dead and ghostless. She did rightly. How could they or she or +he be other than they were! + +With that sage exclamation, he headed into the Browny days and breasted +them; and he had about him the living foamy sparkle of the very time, +until the Countess of Ormont breathed the word "Schoolmaster"; when, at +once, it was dusty land where buoyant waters had been, and the armies of +the facts, in uniform drab, with some feathers and laces, and a +significant surpliced figure, decorously covering the wildest of Cupids, +marched the standard of the winking gold-piece, which is their nourishing +sun and eclipser of all suns that foster dreams. + +As you perceive, he was drawing swiftly to the vortex of the fools, and +round and round he went, lucky to float. + +His view of the business of the schoolmaster plucked him from the whirl. +She despised it; he upheld it. He stuck to his view, finding their +antagonism on the subject wholesome for him. All that she succeeded in +doing was to rob it of the aurora colour clothing everything on which +Matey Weyburn set his aim. Her contempt of it, whether as a profession +in itself or as one suitable to the former young enthusiast for arms, +dwarfed it to appear like the starved plants under Greenland skies. But +those are of a sturdy genus; they mean to live; they live, perforce, of +the right to live; they will prove their right in a coming season, when +some one steps near and wonders at them, and from more closely observing; +gets to understand, learning that the significance and the charm of earth +will be as well shown by them as by her tropical fair flaunters or the +tenderly-nurtured exotics. + +An unopened coffer of things to be said in defence of--no, on behalf of +--no, in honour of the Profession of Schoolmaster, perhaps to the +convincing of Aminta, Lady Ormont, was glanced at; a sentence or two +leapt out and stepped forward, and had to retire. He preferred to the +fathering of tricky, windy phrases, the being undervalued--even by her. +He was taught to see again how Rhetoric haunts, and Rhetoric bedevils, +the vindication of the clouded, especially in the case of a disesteemed +Profession requiring one to raise it and impose it upon the antagonistic +senses for the bewildering of the mind. One has to sound it loudly; +there is no treating it, as in the advocacy of the cases of flesh and +blood, with the masterly pathos of designed simplicity. And Weyburn was +Cuper's Matey Weyburn still in his loathing of artifice to raise emotion, +loathing of the affected, the stilted, the trumpet of speech--always +excepting school-exercises in the tongues, the unmasking of a Catiline, +the address of a General, Athenian or other, to troops. + +He kept his coffer shut; and, for a consequence, he saw the contents as +an avenue of blossom leading to vistas of infinite harvest. + +She was Lady Ormont: Aminta shared the title of his old hero! He refused +to speculate upon how it had come to pass, and let the curtain hang, +though dramas and romances, with the miracles involved in them, were +agitated by a transient glimpse at the curtain. + +Well! and he hoped to be a member of the Profession she despised: hoped +it with all his heart. And one good effect of his giving his heart to +the hope was, that he could hold from speculating and from feeling, even +from pausing to wonder at the most wonderful turn of events. Blessed +antagonism drove him to be braced by thoughts upon the hardest of the +schoolmaster's tasks--bright winter thoughts, prescribing to him +satisfaction with a faith in the sowing, which may be his only reaping. +Away fly the boys in sheaves. After his toil with them, to instruct, +restrain, animate, point their minds, they leave him, they plunge into +the world and are gone. Will he see them again? It is a flickering +perhaps. To sustain his belief that he has done serviceable work, he +must be sore of his having charged them with good matter. How can the +man do it, if, during his term of apprenticeship, he has allowed himself +to dally here and there, down to moony dreamings over inscrutable +beautiful eyes of a married lady; for the sole reason that he meets her +unexpectedly, after an exchange of letters with her in long-past days at +school, when she was an inexperienced girl, who knew not what she vowed, +and he a flighty-headed youngster, crying out to be the arrow of any bow +that was handy? Yea, she was once that girl, named Browny by the boys. + +Temptation threw warm light on the memory, and very artfully, by +conjuring up the faces, cries, characters, all the fun of the boys. +There was no possibility of forgetting her image in those days; he had, +therefore, to live with it and to live near the grown woman--Time's +present answer to the old riddle. It seemed to him, that instead of +sorting Lord Ormont's papers, he ought to be at sharp exercise. +According to his prescript, sharp exercise of lungs and limbs is a man's +moral aid against temptation. He knew it as the one trusty antidote for +him, who was otherwise the vessel of a temperament pushing to mutiny. +Certainly it is the best philosophy youth can pretend to practise; and +Lord Ormont kept him from it! Worse than that, the slips and sheets of +paper in the dispatch-box were not an exercise of the mind even; there +was nothing to grapple with--no diversion; criticism passed by them +indulgently, if not benevolently. + +Quite apart from the subject inscribed on them, Weyburn had now and again +a blow at the breast, of untraceable origin. For he was well enough +aware that the old days when Browny imagined him a hero, in drinking his +praises of a brighter, were drowned. They were dead; but here was she +the bride of the proved hero. His praises might have helped in causing +her willingness--devotional readiness, he could fancy--to yield her hand. +Perhaps at the moment when the hero was penning some of the Indian slips +here, the boy at school was preparing Aminta; but he could not be +responsible for a sacrifice of the kind suggested by Lady Charlotte. And +no, there had been no such sacrifice, although Lord Ormont's inexplicable +treatment of his young countess, under cover of his notorious reputation +with women, conduced to the suspicion. + +While the vagrant in Weyburn was thus engaged, his criticism of the +soldier-lord's field-English on paper let the stuff go tolerantly +unexamined, but with a degree of literary contempt at heart for the +writer who had that woman-scented reputation and expressed himself so +poorly. The sentiment was outside of reason. We do, nevertheless, +expect our Don Juans to deliver their minds a trifle elegantly; if not in +classic English, on paper; and when we find one of them inflicting +cruelty, as it appears, and the victim is a young woman, a beautiful +young woman, she pleads to us poetically against the bearish sentences of +his composition. We acknowledge, however, that a mere sentiment, +entertained possibly by us alone, should not be permitted to condemn him +unheard. + +Lady Ormont was not seen again. After luncheon at a solitary table, the +secretary worked till winter's lamps were lit; and then shone freedom, +with assurance to him that he would escape from the miry mental ditch he +had been floundering in since Aminta revealed herself. Sunday was the +glorious day to follow, with a cleansing bath of a walk along the +southern hills; homely English scenery to show to a German friend, one of +his "Company." Half a dozen good lads were pledged to the walk; bearing +which in view, it could be felt that this nonsensical puzzlement over his +relations to the moods and tenses of a married woman would be bounced out +of recollection before nightfall. The landscape given off any of the +airy hills of Surrey would suffice to do it. + +A lady stood among her boxes below, as he descended the stairs to cross +the hall. He knew her for the person Lady Charlotte called "the woman's +aunt," whom Lord Ormont could not endure--a forgiven old enemy, Mrs. +Nargett Pagnell. + +He saluted. She stared, and corrected her incivility with "Ah, yes," and +a formal smile. + +If not accidentally delayed on her journey, she had been needlessly the +cause why Lord Ormont hugged his Club during the morning and afternoon. +Weyburn was pushed to think of the matter by remembrance of his foregone +resentment at her having withdrawn Aminta from Miss Vincent's three days +earlier than the holiday time. The resentment was over; but a germ of it +must have sprang from the dust to prompt the kindling leap his memory +took, out of all due connection; like a lightning among the crags. It +struck Aminta smartly. He called to mind the conversation at table +yesterday. Had she played on Lord Ormont's dislike of the aunt to drive +him forth for some purpose of her own? If so, the little trick had been +done with deplorable spontaneity or adeptness of usage. What was the +purpose?--to converse with an old acquaintance, undisturbed by Lord +Ormont and her aunt? Neatly done, supposing the surmise correct. + +But what was there in the purpose? He sifted rapidly for the gist of the +conversation; reviewed the manner of it, the words, the sound they had, +the feelings they touched; then owned that the question could not be +answered. Owning, further, that the recurrence of these idiotic +speculations, feelings, questions, wrote him down as both dull fellow and +impertinent, he was unabled to restore Aminta to the queenly place she +took above the schoolmaster, who was very soon laughing at his fever or +flash of the afternoon. The day had brought a great surprise, nothing +more. Twenty minutes of fencing in the a salle d'armes of an Italian +captain braced him to health, and shifted scenes of other loves, lighter +loves, following the Browny days--not to be called loves; in fact; hardly +beyond inclinations. Nevertheless, inclinations are an infidelity. To +meet a married woman, and be mooning over her because she gave him her +eyes and her handwriting when a girl, was enough to rouse an honest +fellow's laugh at himself, in the contemplation of his intermediate +amorous vagabondage. Had he ever known the veritable passion after +Browny sank from his ken? Let it be confessed, never. His first love +was his only true love, despite one shuddering episode, oddly humiliating +to recollect, though he had not behaved badly. So, then, by right of his +passion, thus did eternal justice rule it: that Browny belonged, to Matey +Weyburn, Aminta to Lord Ormont. Aminta was a lady blooming in the flesh, +Browny was the past's pale phantom; for which reason he could call her +his own, without harm done to any one, and with his usual appetite for +dinner, breakfast, lunch, whatever the meal supplied by the hour. + +It would somewhat alarmingly have got to Mr. Weyburn's conscience through +a disturbance of his balance, telling him that he was on a perilous road, +if his relish for food had been blunted. He had his axiom on the +subject, and he was wrong in the general instance, for the appetites of +rogues and ogres are not known to fail. As regarded himself, he was +eminently right; and he could apply it to boys also, to all young people +--the unlaunched, he called them. He counted himself among the launched, +no doubt, and had breasted seas; but the boy was alive, a trencherman +lad, in the coming schoolmaster, and told him profitable facts concerning +his condition; besides throwing a luminous ray on the arcane of our +elusive youthful. If they have no stout zest for eating, put Query +against them. + +His customary enjoyment of dinner convinced Mr. Weyburn that he had not +brooded morbidly over his phantom Browny, and could meet Aminta, Countess +of Ormont, on the next occasion with the sentiments proper to a common +official. Did she not set him a commendable example? He admired her for +not concealing her disdain of the aspirant schoolmaster, quite +comprehending, by sympathy, why the woman should reproach the girl who +had worshipped heroes, if this was a full-grown specimen; and the reply +of the shamed girl, that in her ignorance she could not know better. He +spared the girl, but he laughed at the woman he commended, laughed at +himself. + +Aminta's humour was being stirred about the same time. She and her aunt +were at the dinner-table in the absence of my lord. The dinner had +passed with the stiff dialogue peculiar to couples under supervision of +their inferiors; and, as soon as the room was clear, she had asked her +aunt, touching the secretary: "Have you seen him?" + +Mrs. Nargett Pagnell's answer could have been amusing only to one whose +intimate knowledge of her found it characteristically salt; for she was a +lady of speech addressed ever directly or roundabout to the chief point +of business between herself and her hearer, and the more she was brief, +oblique, far-shooting, the more comically intelligible she was to her +niece. She bent her head to signify that she had seen the secretary, and +struck the table with both hands, exclaiming: + +"Well, to be sure, Lord Ormont!" + +Their discussion, before they descended the stairs to dinner, concerned +his lordship's extraordinary indifference to the thronging of handsome +young men around his young countess. + +Here, the implication ran, is one established in the house. + +Aminta's thoughts could be phrased: "Yes, that is true, for one part of +it." + +As for the other part, the ascent of a Phoebus Apollo, with his golden +bow and quiver off the fairest of Eastern horizon skies, followed +suddenly by the sight of him toppling over in Mr. Cuper's long-skirted +brown coat, with spectacles and cane, is an image that hardly exceeds the +degradation she conceived. It was past ludicrous; yet admitted of no +woefulness, nothing soothingly pathetic. It smothered and barked at the +dreams of her blooming spring of life, to which her mind had latterly +been turning back, for an escape from sour, one may say cynical, +reflections, the present issue of a beautiful young woman's first savour +of battle with the world. + + + + +ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS: + +A female free-thinker is one of Satan's concubines +A free-thinker startles him as a kind of demon +All that Matey and Browny were forbidden to write they looked +Cajoled like a twenty-year-old yahoo at college +Could not understand enthusiasm for the schoolmaster's career +Curious thing would be if curious things should fail to happen +Few men can forbear to tell a spicy story of their friends +He began ambitiously--It's the way at the beginning +He loathed a skulker +I'm for a rational Deity +Loathing of artifice to raise emotion +Nevertheless, inclinations are an infidelity +Published Memoirs indicate the end of a man's activity +The despot is alert at every issue, to every chance +Things were lumpish and gloomy that day of the week +We shall want a war to teach the country the value of courage +You'll have to guess at half of everything he tells you +You're going to be men, meaning something better than women + +[The End] + + + + +*********************************************************************** +The Project Gutenberg Etext Lord Ormont and his Aminta, v1, by Meredith +*********This file should be named gm83v10.txt or gm83v10.zip********** + +Corrected EDITIONS of our etexts get a new NUMBER, gm83v11.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, gm83v10a.txt + +This etext was produced by Pat Castevans <patcat@ctnet.net> +and David Widger <widger@cecomet.net> + +More information about this book is at the top of this file. + +We are now trying to release all our etexts one year in advance +of the official release dates, leaving time for better editing. +Please be encouraged to tell us about any error or corrections, +even years after the official publication date. + +Please note neither this listing nor its contents are final til +midnight of the last day of the month of any such announcement. +The official release date of all Project Gutenberg Etexts is at +Midnight, Central Time, of the last day of the stated month. 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