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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/4484-0.txt b/4484-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7cceffb --- /dev/null +++ b/4484-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3421 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 4484 *** + +THE AMAZING MARRIAGE + +By George Meredith + +1895 + + + +BOOK 2. + +X. SMALL CAUSES +XI. THE PRISONER OF HIS WORD +XII. HENRIETTA'S LETTER TREATING OF THE GREAT EVENT +XIII. AN IRRUPTION OF MISTRESS GOSSIP IN BREACH OF THE CONVENTION +XIV. A PENDANT OF THE FOREGOING +XV. OPENING STAGE OF THE HONEYMOON +XVI. IN WHICH THE BRIDE FROM FOREIGN PARTS IS GIVEN A TASTE OF OLD + ENGLAND +XVII. RECORDS A SHADOW CONTEST CLOSE ON THE FOREGOING +XVIII. DOWN WHITECHAPEL WAY +XIX. THE GIRL MADGE + + + +CHAPTER X + +SMALL CAUSES + +A clock sounded one of the later morning hours of the night as Gower +Woodseer stood at his hotel door, having left Fleetwood with a band of +revellers. The night was now clear. Stars were low over the ridge of +pines, dropped to a league of our strange world to record the doings. +Beneath this roof lay the starry She. He was elected to lie beneath it +also: and he beheld his heavenly lady floating on the lull of soft white +cloud among her sister spheres. After the way of imaginative young men, +he had her features more accurately now she was hidden, and he idealized +her more. He could escape for a time from his coil of similes and paint +for himself the irids of her large, long, grey eyes darkly rimmed; purest +water-grey, lucid within the ring, beneath an arch of lashes. He had +them fast; but then he fell to contemplating their exceeding rareness; +And the mystery of the divinely grey swung a kindled fancy to the flight +with some queen-witch of woods, of whom a youth may dream under the spell +of twilights, East or West, among forest branches. + +She had these marvellous eyes and the glamour for men. She had not yet +met a man with the poetical twist in the brain to prize her elementally. +All admitted the glamour; none of her courtiers were able to name it, +even the poetical head giving it a name did not think of the witch in her +looks as a witch in her deeds, a modern daughter of the mediaeval. To +her giant squire the eyes of the lady were queer: they were unlit glass +lamps to her French suppliant; and to the others, they were attractively +uncommon; the charm for them being in her fine outlines, her stature, +carriage of her person, and unalterable composure; particularly her +latent daring. She had the effect on the general mind of a lofty crag- +castle with a history. There was a whiff of gunpowder exciting the +atmosphere in the anecdotal part of the history known. + +Woodseer sat for a certain time over his note-book. He closed it with a +thrilling conceit of the right thing written down; such as entomologists +feel when they have pinned the rare insect. But what is butterfly or +beetle compared with the chiselled sentences carved out of air to +constitute us part owner of the breathing image and spirit of an adored +fair woman? We repeat them, and the act of repeating them makes her come +close on ours, by virtue of the eagle thought in the stamped gold of the +lines. + +Then, though she is not ever to be absolutely ours (and it is an +impoverishing desire that she should be), we have beaten out the golden +sentence--the essential she and we in one. But is it so precious after +all? A suspicious ring of an adjective drops us on a sickening descent. + +The author dashed at his book, examined, approved, keenly enjoyed, and he +murderously scratched the adjective. She stood better without it, as a +bright planet star issuing from clouds, which are perhaps an adornment to +our hackneyed moon. This done, he restored the book to his coat's +breast-pocket, smiling or sneering at the rolls of bank-notes there, +disdaining to count them. They stuffed an inner waistcoat pocket and his +trousers also. They at any rate warranted that we can form a calculation +of the chances, let Lord Fleetwood rave as he may please. + +Woodseer had caught a glimpse of the elbow-point of his coat when +flinging it back to the chair. There was distinctly abrasion. +Philosophers laugh at such things. But they must be the very ancient +pallium philosophers, ensconced in tubs, if they pretend to merriment +over the spectacle of nether garments gapped at the spot where man is +most vulnerable. He got loose from them and held them up to the candle, +and the rays were admitted, neither winking nor peeping. Serviceable old +clothes, no doubt. Time had not dealt them the final kick before they +scored a good record. + +They dragged him, nevertheless, to a sort of confession of some weakness, +that he could not analyze for the swirl of emotional thoughts in the way; +and they had him to the ground. An eagle of the poetic becomes a mere +squat toad through one of these pretty material strokes. Where then is +Philosophy? But who can be philosopher and the fervent admirer of a +glorious lady? Ask again, who in that frowzy garb can presume to think +of her or stand within fifty miles of her orbit? + +A dreary two hours brought round daylight. Woodseer quitted his restless +bed and entered the abjured habiliments, chivalrous enough to keep from +denouncing them until he could cast the bad skin they now were to his +uneasy sensations. He remembered having stumbled and fallen on the slope +of the hill into this vale, and probably then the mischief had occurred +though a brush would have, been sufficient, the slightest collision. +Only, it was odd that the accident should have come to pass just previous +to his introduction. How long antecedent was it? He belaboured his +memory to reckon how long it was from the moment of the fall to the first +sight of that lady. + +His window looked down on the hotel stable-yard. A coach-house door was +open. Odd or not--and it certainly looked like fate--that he should be +bowing to his lady so shortly after the mishap expelling him, he had to +leave the place. A groom in the yard was hailed, and cheerily informed +him he could be driven to Carlsruhe as soon as the coachman had finished +his breakfast. At Carlsruhe a decent refitting might be obtained, and he +could return from exile that very day, thanks to the praiseworthy early +hours of brave old Germany. + +He had swallowed a cup of coffee with a roll of stale bread, in the best +of moods, and entered his carriage; he was calling the order to start +when a shout surprised his ear: 'The fiddler bolts!' + +Captain Abrane's was the voice. About twenty paces behind, Abrane, +Fleetwood, and one whom they called Chummy Potts, were wildly waving +arms. Woodseer could hear the captain's lowered roar: 'Race you, Chummy, +couple of louis, catch him first!' The two came pelting up to the +carriage abreast. + +They were belated revellers, and had been carelessly strolling under the +pinky cloudlets bedward, after a prolonged carousal with the sons and +daughters of hilarious nations, until the apparition of Virgin Luck on +the wing shocked all prospect of a dead fight with the tables that day. + +'Here, come, no, by Jove, you, Mr. Woodsir! won't do, not a bit! can't +let you go,' cried Abrane, as he puffed. 'What! cut and run and leave +us, post winnings--bankers--knock your luck on the head! What a fellow! +Can't let you. Countess never forgive us. You promised--swore it--play +for her. Struck all aheap to hear of your play! You've got the trick. +Her purse for you in my pocket. Never a fellow played like you. Cool as +a cook over a-gridiron! Comme un phare! St. Ombre says--that Frenchman. +You astonished the Frenchman! And now cut and run? Can't allow it. +Honour of the country at stake.' + +'Hands off!' Woodseer bellowed, feeling himself a leaky vessel in dock, +his infirmities in danger of exposure. 'If you pull!--what the deuce do +you want? Stop!' + +'Out you come,' said the giant, and laughed at the fun to his friends, +who were entirely harmonious when not violently dissenting, as is the way +with Night's rollickers before their beds have reconciled them to the +day-beams. + +Woodseer would have had to come and was coming; he happened to say: +'Don't knock my pipe out of my mouth,' and touched a chord in the giant. + +'All--right; smoke your pipe,' was answered to his remonstrance. + +During the amnesty, Fleetwood inquired: 'Where are you going?' + +'Far a drive,--to be sure. Don't you see!' + +'You'll return?' + +'I intend to return.' + +'He's beastly excited,' quoth Abrane. + +Fleetwood silenced him, though indeed Woodseer appeared suspiciously +restive. + +'Step down and have a talk with me before you start. You're not to go +yet.' + +'I must. I'm in a hurry.' + +'What 's the hurry?' + +'I want to smoke and think.' + +'Takes a carriage on the top of the morning to smoke and think! Hark at +that!' Abrane sang out. 'Oh, come along quietly, you fellow, there's a +good fellow! It concerns us all, every man Jack; we're all bound up in +your fortunes. Fellow with luck like yours can't pretend to behave +independently. Out of reason!' + +'Do you give me your word you return?' said Fleetwood. + +Woodseer replied: 'Very well, I do; there, I give my word. Hang it! +now I know what they mean by "anything for a quiet life." Just a shake +brings us down on that cane-bottomed chair!' + +'You return to-day?' + +'To-day, yes, yes.' + +Fleetwood signified the captive's release; and Abrane immediately +suggested: + +'Pop old Chummy in beside the fellow to mount guard.' + +Potts was hustled and precipitated into the carriage by the pair, with +whom he partook this last glimmer of their night's humorous +extravagances, for he was an easy creature. The carriage drove off. + +'Keep him company!' they shouted. + +'Escort him back!' said he, nodding. + +He remarked to Woodseer: 'With your permission,' concerning the seat he +took, and that 'a draught of morning air would do him good.' Then he +laughed politely, exchanged wavy distant farewells with his comrades, +touched a breast-pocket for his case of cigars, pulled forth one, +obtained 'the loan of a light,' blew clouds and fell into the anticipated +composure, quite understanding the case and his office. + +Both agreed as to the fine morning it was. Woodseer briefly assented to +his keeper's reiterated encomium on the morning, justified on oath. A +fine morning, indeed. 'Damned if I think I ever saw so fine a morning!' +Potts cried. He had no other subject of conversation with this hybrid: +and being equally disposed for hot discourse or for sleep, +the deprivation of the one and the other forced him to seek amusement +in his famous reading of character; which was profound among the biped +equine, jockeys, turfmen, sharpers, pugilists, demireps. He fronted +Woodseer with square shoulders and wide knees, an elbow on one, a fist on +the other, engaged in what he termed the 'prodding of his eel,' or +'nicking of his man,' a method of getting straight at the riddle of the +fellow by the test of how long he could endure a flat mute stare and +return look for look unblinking. The act of smoking fortifies and partly +covers the insolence. But if by chance an equable, not too narrowly +focussed, counterstare is met, our impertinent inquisitor may resemble +the fisherman pulled into deep waters by his fish. Woodseer perused his +man, he was not attempting to fathom him: he had besides other stuff in +his head. Potts had naught, and the poor particle he was wriggled under +detection. + +'Tobacco before breakfast!' he said disgustedly tossing his cigar to the +road. 'Your pipe holds on. Bad thing, I can tell you, that smoking on +an empty stomach. No trainer'd allow it, not for a whole fee or double. +Kills your wind. Let me ask you, my good sir, are you going to turn? +We've sat a fairish stretch. I begin to want my bath and a shave, linen +and coffee. Thirsty' as a dog.' + +He heard with stupefaction, that he could alight on the spot, if he +pleased, otherwise he would be driven into Carlsruhe. And now they had a +lingual encounter, hot against cool; but the eyes of Chummy Potts having +been beaten, his arguments and reproaches were not backed by the powerful +looks which are an essential part of such eloquence as he commanded. +They fled from his enemy's currishly, even while he was launching +epithets. His pathetic position subjected him to beg that Woodseer would +direct the driver to turn, for he had no knowledge of 'their German +lingo.' And said he: 'You've nothing to laugh at, that I can see. I'm +at your mercy, you brute; caught in a trap. I never walk;--and the sun +fit to fry a mackerel along that road! I apologize for abusing you; I +can't do more. You're an infernally clever player--there! And, upon my +soul, I could drink ditchwater! But if you're going in for transactions +at Carlsruhe, mark my words, your luck's gone. Laugh as much as you +like.' + +Woodseer happened to be smiling over the excellent reason for not turning +back which inflicted the wofulness. He was not without sympathy for a +thirsty wretch, and guessing, at the sight of an avenue of limes to the +left of the road, that a wayside inn was below, he said: 'You can have +coffee or beer in two minutes,' and told the driver where to pull up. + +The sight of a grey-jacketed, green-collared sportsman, dog at heel, +crossing the flat land to the hills of the forest, pricked him enviously, +and caused him to ask what change had come upon him, that he should be +hurrying to a town for a change of clothes. Just as Potts was about to +jump out, a carriage, with a second behind it, left the inn door. He +rubbed a hand on his unshaven chin, tried a glance at his shirt-front, +and remarking: 'It won't be any one who knows me,' stood to let the +carriages pass. In the first were a young lady and a gentleman: the lady +brilliantly fair, an effect of auburn hair and complexion, despite the +signs of a storm that had swept them and had not cleared from her +eyelids. Apparently her maid, a damsel sitting straight up, occupied the +carriage following; and this fresh-faced young person twice quickly and +bluntly bent her head as she was driven by. Potts was unacquainted with +the maid. But he knew the lady well, or well enough for her inattention +to be the bigger puzzle. She gazed at the Black Forest hills in the +steadiest manner, with eyes betraying more than they saw; which solved +part of the puzzle, of course. Her reasons for declining to see him were +exposed by the presence of the gentleman beside her. At the same time, +in so highly bred a girl, a defenceless exposure was unaccountable. Half +a nod and the shade of a smile would have been the proper course; and her +going along on the road to the valley seemed to say it might easily have +been taken; except that there had evidently been a bit of a scene. + +Potts ranked Henrietta's beauty far above her cousin Livia's. He was +therefore personally offended by her disregard of him, and her bit of a +scene with the fellow carrying her off did him injury on behalf of his +friend Fleetwood. He dismissed Woodseer curtly. Thirsting more to +gossip than to drink, he took a moody draught of beer at the inn, and by +the aid of a conveyance, hastily built of rotten planks to serve his +needs, and drawn by a horse of the old wars,' as he reported on his +arrival at Baden,--reached that home of the maltreated innocents twenty +minutes before the countess and her party were to start for lunch up the +Lichtenthal. Naturally, he was abused for letting his bird fly: but as +he was shaven, refreshed, and in clean linen, he could pull his shirt- +cuffs and take seat at his breakfast-table with equanimity while Abrane +denounced him. + +'I'll bet you the fellow's luck has gone,' said Potts. 'He 's no new +hand and you don't think him so either, Fleet. I've looked into the +fellow's eye and seen a leery old badger at the bottom of it. Talks vile +stuff. However, 'perhaps I didn't drive out on that sweltering Carlsruhe +road for nothing.' + +He screwed a look at the earl, who sent Abrane to carry a message and +heard the story Potts had to tell. + +'Henrietta Fakenham! no mistake about her; driving out from a pothouse; +man beside her, military man; might be a German. And, if you please, +quite unacquainted with your humble servant, though we were as close as +you to me. Something went wrong in that pothouse. Red eyes. There had +been a scene, one could swear. Behind the lady another carriage, and her +maid. Never saw the girl before, and sets to bowing and smirking at me, +as if I was the-fellow of all others! Comical. I made sure they were +bound for this place. They were on the Strasburg road. No sign of +them?' + +'You speak to me?' said Fleetwood. + +Potts muttered. He had put his foot into it. + +'You have a bad habit of speaking to yourself,' Fleetwood remarked, and +left him. He suffered from the rustics he had to deal with among his +class, and it was not needed that he should thunder at them to make his +wrath felt. + +Livia swam in, asking: 'What has come to Russett? He passed me in one of +his black fits.' + +The tale of the Carlsruhe road was repeated by Potts. She reproved him. +'How could you choose Russett for such a report as that! The admiral was +on the road behind. Henrietta--you're sure it was she? German girls +have much the same colouring. The gentleman with her must have been one +of the Court equerries. They were driving to some chateau or battlefield +the admiral wanted to inspect. Good-looking man? Military man?' + +'Oh! the man! pretty fair, I dare say,' Potts rejoined. 'If it wasn't +Henrietta Fakenham, I see with the back of my head. German girl! The +maid was a German girl.' + +'That may well be,' said Livia. + +She conceived the news to be of sufficient importance for her to +countermand the drive up the Lichtenthal, and take the Carlsruhe road +instead; for Henrietta was weak, and Chillon Kirby an arch-plotter, and +pleader too, one of the desperate lovers. He was outstaying his leave of +absence already, she believed; he had to be in England. If he feared to +lose Henrietta, he would not hesitate to carry her off. Livia knew him, +and knew the power of his pleading with a firmer woman than Henrietta. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +THE PRISONER OF HIS WORD + +Nothing to rouse alarm was discovered at Carlsruhe. Livia's fair cousin +was there with the red-haired gaunt girl of the mountains; and it was +frankly stated by Henrietta, that she had accompanied the girl a certain +distance along the Strasburg road, for her to see the last of her brother +Chillon on his way to England. Livia was not the woman to push +inquiries. On that subject, she merely said, as soon as they were alone +together: + +'You seem to have had the lion's share of the parting.' + +'Yes, we passed Mr. Chumley Potts,' was Henrietta's immediate answer; and +her reference to him disarmed Livia. + +They smiled at his name transiently, but in agreement: the tattler-spout +of their set was, a fatal person to encounter, and each deemed the sudden +apparition of him in the very early morning along the Carlsruhe road +rather magical. + +'You place particular confidence in Russett's fidelity to his word, +Riette--as you have been hearing yourself called. You should be serious +by this time. Russett won't bear much more. I counted on the night of +the Ball for the grand effect. You will extinguish every woman there-- +and if he is absent?' + +'I shall excuse him.' + +'You are not in a position to be so charitable. You ought to know your +position, and yourself too, a little better than you do. How could you +endure poverty? Chillon Kirby stands in his uniform, and all's told. He +can manoeuvre, we know. He got the admiral away to take him to those +reviews cleverly. But is he thinking of your interests when he does it? +He requires twenty years of active service to give you a roof to your +head. I hate such allusions. But look for a moment at your character: +you must have ordinary luxuries and pleasures, and if you were to find +yourself grinding against common necessities--imagine it! Russett is +quite manageable. He is, trust me! He is a gentleman; he has more +ability than most young men: he can do anything he sets his mind to do. +He has his great estates and fortune all in his own hands. We call him +eccentric. He is only young, with a lot of power. Add, he's in love, +and some one distracts him. Not love, do you say?--you look it. He +worships. He has no chance given him to show himself at his best. +Perhaps he is off again now. Will you bet me he is not?' + +'I should incline to make the bet, if I betted,' said Henrietta. 'His +pride is in his word, and supposing he's in love, it's with his pride, +which never quits him.' + +'There's firmness in a man who has pride of that kind. You must let me +take you back to Baden. I hold to having you with me to-day. You must +make an appearance there. The admiral will bring us his Miss Kirby to- +morrow, if he is bound to remain here to-night. There's no harm in his +bachelor dinners. I suspect his twinges of gout come of the prospect of +affairs when he lands in England. Remember our bill with Madame +Clemence. There won't be the ghost of a bank-note for me if Russett +quits the field; we shall all be stranded.' + +Henrietta inquired: 'Does it depend on my going with you to-day?' + +'Consider, that he is now fancying a thousand things. We won't talk of +the road to Paris.' + +A shot of colour swept over Henrietta. + +'I will speak to papa:--if he can let me go. He has taken to Miss +Kirby.' + +'Does she taste well?' + +Henrietta debated. 'It's impossible to dislike her. Oh! she is wild! +She knows absolutely nothing of the world. She can do everything we +can't--or don't dare to try.--Men would like her. Papa's beginning to +doat. He says she would have made a first-rate soldier. She fears blood +as little as her morning cup of milk. One of the orderlies fell rather +badly from a frightened horse close by our carriage. She was out in a +moment and had his head on her lap, calling to papa to keep the carriage +fast and block the way of the squadron, for the man's leg was hurt. I +really thought we were lost. At these manoeuvres anything may happen, at +any instant. Papa will follow the horse-artillery. You know his vanity +to be a military quite as much as a naval commander like the Greeks and +Romans, he says. We took the bruised man into our carriage and drove him +to camp, Carinthia nursing him on the way.' + +'Carinthia! She's well fitted with her name. What with her name and her +hair and her build and her singular style of attire, one wonders at her +coming into civilized parts. She 's utterly unlike Chillon.' + +Henrietta reddened at the mention of one of her own thoughts in the +contrasting of the pair. + +They had their points of likeness, she said. + +It did not concern Livia to hear what these were. Back to Baden, with +means to procure the pleasant shocks of the galvanic battery there, was +her thought; for she had a fear of the earl's having again departed in a +huff at Henrietta's behaviour. + +The admiral consented that his daughter should go, as soon as he heard +that Miss Kirby was to stay. He had when a young man met her famous +father; he vowed she was the Old Buccaneer young again in petticoats and +had made prize of an English man-of-war by storm; all the profit, +however, being his. This he proved with a courteous clasp of the girl +and a show of the salute on her cheek, which he presumed to take at the +night's farewell. 'She's my tonic,' he proclaimed heartily. She seemed +to Livia somewhat unstrung and toneless. The separation from her brother +in the morning might account for it. And a man of the admiral's age +could be excused if he exalted the girl. Senility, like infancy, is fond +of plain outlines for the laying on of its paints. The girl had rugged +brows, a short nose, red hair; no young man would look at her twice. She +was utterly unlike Chillon! Kissing her hand to Henrietta from the steps +of the hotel, the girl's face improved. + +Livia's little squire, Sir Meeson Corby, ejaculated as they were driving +down the main street, 'Fleetwood's tramp! There he goes. Now see, Miss +Fakenham, the kind of object Lord Fleetwood picks up and calls friend!-- +calls that object friend! . . But, what? He has been to a tailor and +a barber!' + +'Stop the coachman. Run, tell Mr. Woodseer I wish him to join us,' Livia +said, and Sir Meeson had to thank his tramp for a second indignity. He +protested, he simulated remonstrance,--he had to go, really feeling a +sickness. + +The singular-looking person, whose necessities or sense of the decencies +had, unknown to himself and to the others, put them all in motion that +day, swung round listening to the challenge to arms, as the puffy little +man's delivery of the countess's message sounded. He was respectably +clad, he thought, in the relief of his escape from the suit of clothes +discarded, and he silently followed Sir Meeson's trot to the carriage. +'Should have mistaken you for a German to-day, sir,' the latter said, +and trotted on. + +'A stout one,' Woodseer replied, with his happy indifference to his +exterior. + +His dark lady's eyes were kindly overlooking, like the heavens. Her fair +cousin, to whom he bowed, awakened him to a perception of the spectacle +causing the slight, quick arrest of her look, in an astonishment not +unlike the hiccup in speech, while her act of courtesy proceeded. At +once he was conscious of the price he paid for respectability, and saw +the Teuton skin on the slim Cambrian, baggy at shoulders, baggy at seat, +pinched at the knees, short at the heels, showing outrageously every spot +where he ought to have been bigger or smaller. How accept or how reject +the invitation to drive in such company to Baden! + +'You're decided enough, sir, in your play, they tell me,' the vindictive +little baronet commented on his hesitation, and Woodseer sprang to the +proffered vacant place. But he had to speak of his fly waiting for him +at the steps of a certain hotel. + +'Best hotel in the town!' Sir Beeson exclaimed pointedly to Henrietta, +reading her constraint with this comical object before her. It was the +admiral's hotel they stopped at. + +'Be so good as to step down and tell the admiral he is to bring Madame +Clemence in his carriage to-morrow; and on your way, you will dismiss Mr. +Woodseer's fly,' Livia mildly addressed her squire. He stared: again he +had to go, muttering: 'That nondescript's footman!' and his mischance in +being checked and crossed and humiliated perpetually by a dirty-fisted +vagabond impostor astounded him. He sent the flyman to the carriage for +orders. + +Admiral Fakenham and Carinthia descended. Sir Meeson heard her cry out: +'Is it you!' and up stood the pretentious lout in the German sack, +affecting the graces of a born gentleman fresh from Paris,--bowing, +smirking, excusing himself for something; and he jumped down to the young +lady, he talked intimately with her, with a joker's air; he roused the +admiral to an exchange of jokes, and the countess and Miss Fakenham more +than smiled; evidently at his remarks, unobservant of the preposterous +figure he cut. Sir Meeson Corby had intimations of the disintegration of +his country if a patent tramp burlesquing in those clothes could be +permitted to amuse English ladies of high station, quite at home with +them. Among the signs of England's downfall, this was decidedly one. +What to think of the admiral's favourite when, having his arm paternally +on her shoulder, she gave the tramp her hand at parting, and then +blushed! All that the ladies had to say about it was, that a spread of +colour rather went to change the character of her face. + +Carinthia had given Woodseer her hand and reddened under the recollection +of Chillon's words to her as they mounted the rise of the narrow vale, +after leaving the lame gentleman to his tobacco on the grass below the +rocks. Her brother might have counselled her wisely and was to be +obeyed. Only, the great pleasure in seeing the gentleman again inspired +gratitude: he brought the scene to her; and it was alive, it chatted and +it beckoned; it neighboured her home; she had passed it on her walk away +from her home; the gentleman was her link to the mountain paths; he was +just outside an association with her father and mother. At least, her +thinking of them led to him, he to them. Now that she had lost Chillon, +no one was near to do so much. Besides, Chillon loved Henrietta; he was +her own. His heart was hers and his mind his country's. This gentleman +loved the mountains; the sight of him breathed mountain air. To see him +next day was her anticipation: for it would be at the skirts of hilly +forest land, where pinetrees are a noble family, different from the dusty +firs of the weariful plains, which had tired her eyes of late. + +Baden was her first peep at the edges of the world since she had grown to +be a young woman. She had but a faint idea of the significance of +gambling. The brilliant lights, the band music, the sitting groups and +company of promenaders were novelties; the Ball of the ensuing night at +the Schloss would be a wonder, she acknowledged in response to Henrietta, +who was trying to understand her; and she admired her ball-dress, she +said, looking unintelligently when she heard that she would be guilty of +slaying numbers of gentlemen before the night was over. Madame Clemence +thought her chances in that respect as good as any other young lady's, +if only she could be got to feel interested. But at a word of the pine +forest, and saying she intended to climb the hills early with the light +in the morning, a pointed eagerness flushed Carinthia, the cold engraving +became a picture of colour. + +She was out with the earliest light. Yesterday's parting between Chillon +and Henrietta had taught her to know some little about love; and if her +voice had been heeded by Chillon's beloved, it would not have been a +parting. Her only success was to bring a flood of tears from Henrietta. +The tears at least assured her that her brother's beautiful girl had no +love for the other one,--the young nobleman of the great wealth, who was +to be at the Ball, and had 'gone flying,' Admiral Fakenham shrugged to +say; for Lord Fleetwood was nowhere seen. + +The much talk of him on the promenade overnight fetched his name to her +thoughts; he scarcely touched a mind that her father filled when she was +once again breathing early morning air among the stems of climbing pines, +broken alleys of the low-sweeping spruce branches and the bare straight +shafts carrying their heads high in the march upward. Her old father was +arch-priest of such forest land, always recoverable to her there. The +suggestion of mountains was enough to make her mind play, and her old +father and she were aware of one another without conversing in speech. +He pointed at things to observe; he shared her satisfied hunger for the +solitudes of the dumb and growing and wild sweet-smelling. He would not +let a sorrowful thought backward or an apprehensive idea forward disturb +the scene. A half-uprooted pine-tree stem propped mid-fall by standing +comrades, and the downy drop to ground and muted scurry up the bark of +long-brush squirrels, cocktail on the wary watch, were noticed by him as +well as by her; even the rotting timber drift, bark and cones on the +yellow pine needles, and the tortuous dwarf chestnut pushing level out, +with a strain of the head up, from a crevice of mossed rock, among ivy +and ferns; he saw what his girl saw. Power of heart was her conjuring +magician. + +She climbed to the rock-slabs above. This was too easily done. The poor +bit of effort excited her frame to desire a spice of danger, her walk was +towering in the physical contempt of a mountain girl for petty lowland +obstructions. And it was just then, by the chance of things--by the +direction of events, as Dame Gossip believes it to be--while colour, +expression, and her proud stature marked her from her sex, that a +gentleman, who was no other than Lord Fleetwood, passed Carinthia, +coming out of the deeper pine forest. + +Some distance on, round a bend of the path, she was tempted to adventure +by a projected forked head of a sturdy blunted and twisted little rock- +fostered forest tree pushing horizontally for growth about thirty feet +above the lower ground. She looked on it, and took a step down to the +stem soon after. + +Fleetwood had turned and followed, merely for the final curious peep at +an unexpected vision; he had noticed the singular shoot of thick timber +from the rock, and the form of the goose-neck it rose to, the sprout of +branches off the bill in the shape of a crest. And now a shameful spasm +of terror seized him at sight of a girl doing what he would have dreaded +to attempt. She footed coolly, well-balanced, upright. She seated +herself. + +And there let her be. She was a German girl, apparently. She had an air +of breeding, something more than breeding. German families of the nobles +give out, here and there, as the Great War showed examples of, intrepid +young women, who have the sharp lines of character to render them +independent of the graces. But, if a young woman out alone in the woods +was hardly to be counted among the well-born, she held rank above them. +Her face and bearing might really be taken to symbolize the forest life. +She was as individual a representative as the Tragic and Comic masks, and +should be got to stand between them for sign of the naturally straight- +growing untrained, a noble daughter of the woods. + +Not comparable to Henrietta in feminine beauty, she was on an upper +plateau, where questions as to beauty are answered by other than the +shallow aspect of a girl. But would Henrietta eclipse her if they were +side by side? Fleetwood recalled the strange girl's face. There was in +it a savage poignancy in serenity unexampled among women--or modern +women. One might imagine an apotheosis of a militant young princess of +Goths or Vandals, the glow of blessedness awakening her martial ardours +through the languor of the grave:--Woodseer would comprehend and hit on +the exact image to portray her in a moment, Fleetwood thought, and longed +for that fellow. + +He walked hurriedly back to the stunted rock tree. The damsel had +vanished. He glanced below. She had not fallen. He longed to tell +Woodseer he had seen a sort of Carinthia sister, cousin, one of the +family. A single glimpse of her had raised him out of his grovelling +perturbations, cooled and strengthened him, more than diverting the +course of the poison Henrietta infused, and to which it disgraced him +to be so subject. He took love unmanfully; the passion struck at his +weakness; in wrath at the humiliation, if only to revenge himself for +that, he could be fiendish; he knew it, and loathed the desired fair +creature who caused and exposed to him these cracks in his nature, whence +there came a brimstone stench of the infernal pits. And he was made for +better. Of this he was right well assured. Superior to station and to +wealth, to all mundane advantages, he was the puppet of a florid puppet +girl; and he had slept at the small inn of a village hard by, because it +was intolerable to him to see the face that had been tearful over her +lover's departure, and hear her praises of the man she trusted to keep +his word, however grievously she wounded him. + +He was the prisoner of his word;--rather like the donkeys known as +married men: rather more honourable than most of them. He had to be +present at the ball at the Schloss and behold his loathed Henrietta, +suffer torture of chains to the rack, by reason of his having promised +the bitter coquette he would be there. So hellish did the misery seem to +him, that he was relieved by the prospect of lying a whole day long in +loneliness with the sunshine of the woods, occasionally conjuring up the +antidote face of the wood-sprite before he was to undergo it. But, +as he was not by nature a dreamer, only dreamed of the luxury of being +one, he soon looked back with loathing on a notion of relief to come from +the state of ruminating animal, and jumped up and shook off another of +men's delusions--that they can, if they have the heart to suffer pain, +deaden it with any semi-poetical devices, similar to those which Rufus +Abrane's 'fiddler fellow' practised and was able to carry out because he +had no blood. The spite of a present entire opposition to Woodseer's +professed views made him exult in the thought, that the mouther of +sentences was likely to be at work stultifying them and himself in the +halls there below during the day. An imp of mischief offered consolatory +sport in those halls of the Black Goddess; already he regarded his recent +subservience to the conceited and tripped peripatetic philosopher as +among the ignominies he had cast away on his road to a general contempt; +which is the position of a supreme elevation for particularly sensitive +young men. + +Pleasure in the scenery had gone, and the wood-sprite was a flitted +vapour; he longed to be below there, observing Abrane and Potts and the +philosopher confounded, and the legible placidity of Countess Livia. +Nevertheless, he hung aloft, feeding where he could, impatient of the +solitudes, till night, when, according to his guess, the ladies were at +their robing. + +Half the fun was over: but the tale of it, narrated in turn by Abrane and +his Chummy Potts on the promenade, was a very good half. The fiddler had +played for the countess and handed her back her empty purse, with a bow +and a pretty speech. Nothing had been seen of him since. He had lost +all his own money besides. 'As of course he would,' said Potts. 'A +fellow calculating the chances catches at a knife in the air.' + +'Every franc-piece he had!' cried Abrane. 'And how could the jackass +expect to keep his luck! Flings off his old suit and comes back here +with a rig of German bags--you never saw such a figure!--Shoreditch Jew's +holiday!--why, of course, the luck wouldn't stand that.' + +They confessed ruefully to having backed him a certain distance, +notwithstanding. 'He took it so coolly, just as if paying for goods +across a counter.' + +'And he had something to bear, Braney, when you fell on him,' said Potts, +and murmured aside: 'He can be smartish. Hears me call Braney Rufus, and +says he, like a fellow-chin on his fiddle--"Captain Mountain, Rufus Mus'. +Not bad, for a counter."' + +Fleetwood glanced round: he could have wrung Woodseer's hand. He saw +young Cressett instead, and hailed him: 'Here you are, my gallant! You +shall flash your maiden sword tonight. When I was under your age by a +long count, I dealt sanctimoniousness a flick o' the cheek, and you +shall, and let 'em know you're a man. Come and have your first boar-hunt +along with me. Petticoats be hanged.' + +The boy showed some recollection of the lectures of his queen, but he had +not the vocables for resistance to an imperative senior at work upon +sneaking inclinations. 'Promised Lady F.'--do you hear him?' Fleetwood +called to the couple behind; and as gamblers must needs be parasites, +manly were the things they spoke to invigorate the youthful plunger and +second the whim of their paymaster. + +At half-past eleven, the prisoner of his word entered under the Schloss +partico, having vowed to himself on the way, that he would satisfy the +formulas to gain release by a deferential bow to the great personages, +and straightway slip out into the heavenly starlight, thence down among +the jolly Parisian and Viennese Bacchanals. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +HENRIETTA'S LETTER TREATING OF THE GREAT EVENT + +By the first light of an autumn morning, Henrietta sat at her travelling- +desk, to shoot a spark into the breast of her lover with the story of the +great event of the night. For there had been one, one of our biggest, +beyond all tongues and trumpets and possible anticipations. Wonder at it +hammered on incredulity as she wrote it for fact, and in writing had +vision of her lover's eyes over the page. + +'Monsieur Du Lac! + +'Grey Dawn. 'You are greeted. This, if you have been tardy on the +journey home, will follow close on the heels of the prowest, I believe +truest, of knights, and bear perhaps to his quick mind some help to the +solution he dropped a hint of seeking. + +'The Ball in every way a success. Grand Duke and Duchess perfect in +courtesy, not a sign of the German morgue. Livia splendid. Compared to +Day and Night. But the Night eclipses the Day. A summer sea of dancing. +Who, think you, eclipsed those two? + +'I tell you the very truth when I say your Carinthia did. If you had +seen her,--the "poor dear girl" you sigh to speak of,--with the doleful +outlook on her fortunes: "portionless, unattractive!" Chillon, she was +magical! + +You cannot ever have seen her irradiated with happiness. Her pleasure in +the happiness of all around her was part of the charm. One should be a +poet to describe her. It would task an artist to paint the rose-crystal +she became when threading her way through the groups to be presented. +This is not meant to say that she looked beautiful. It was the something +above beauty--more unique and impressive--like the Alpine snow-cloak +towering up from the flowery slopes you know so well and I a little. + +'You choose to think, is it Riette who noticed my simple sister so +closely before . . .? for I suppose you to be reading this letter a +second time and reflecting as you read. In the first place, acquaintance +with her has revealed that she is not the simple person--only in her +manner. Under the beams of subsequent events, it is true I see her more +picturesquely. But I noticed also just a suspicion of the "grenadier" +stride when she was on the march to make her curtsey. But Livia had no +cause for chills and quivers. She was not the very strange bird +requiring explanatory excuses; she dances excellently, and after the +first dance, I noticed she minced her steps in the walk with her partner. +She catches the tone readily. If not the image of her mother, she has +inherited her mother's bent for the graces; she needs but a small amount +of practice. + +'Take my assurance of that; and you know who has critical eyes. Your +anxiety may rest; she is equal to any station. + +'As expected by me, my Lord Tyrant appeared, though late, near midnight. +I saw him bowing to the Ducal party. Papa had led your "simple sister" +there. Next I saw the Tyrant and Carinthia conversing. Soon they were +dancing together, talking interestedly, like cheerful comrades. Whatever +his faults, he has the merit of being a man of his word. He said he +would come, he did not wish to come, and he came. + +'His word binds him--I hope not fatally; irrevocably, it certainly does. +There is charm of character in that. His autocrat airs can be forgiven +to a man who so profoundly respects his word. + +'It occurred during their third dance. Your Riette was not in the +quadrille. O but she was a snubbed young woman last night! I refrain +--the examples are too minute for quotation. + +'A little later and he had vanished. Carinthia Kirby may already be +written Countess of Fleetwood! His hand was offered and hers demanded in +plain terms. Her brother would not be so astounded if he had seen the +brilliant creature she was--is, I could say; for when she left me here, +to go to her bed, she still wore the "afterglow." She tripped over to me +in the ball-room to tell me. I might doubt, she had no doubt whatever. +I fancied he had subjected her to some degree of trifling. He was in a +mood. His moods are known to me. But no, he was precise; her report of +him strikes the ear as credible, in spite of the marvel it insists on our +swallowing. + +"'Lord Fleetwood had asked me to marry him." Neither assurance nor +bashfulness; newspaper print; aid an undoubting air of contentment. + +'Imagine me hearing it. + +'"To be his wife?" + +'"He said wife." + +'"And you replied?" + +'"I--said I would." + +'"Tell me all?" + +'"He said we were plighted." + +'Now, "wife" is one of the words he abhors; and he loathes the hearing of +a girl as "engaged." However, "plighted" carried a likeness. + +'I pressed her: "My dear Carinthia, you thought him in earnest?" + +'"He was." + +'"How do you judge?" + +'"By his look when he spoke." + +'"Not by his words?" + +"'I repeat them to you." + +'She has repeated them to me here in my bedroom. There is no variation. +She remembers every syllable. He went so far as to urge her to say +whether she would as willingly utter consent if they were in a church and +a clergyman at the altar-rails. + +'That was like him. + +'She made answer: "Wherever it may be, I am bound, if I say yes." + +'She then adds: "He told me he joined hands with me." + +'"Did he repeat the word 'wife'?" + +'"He said it twice." + +'I transcribe verbatim scrupulously. There cannot be an error, Chillon. +It seems to show, that he has embraced the serious meaning of the word-- +or seriously embraced the meaning, reads' better. I have seen his lips +form "wife." + +'But why wonder so staringly? They both love the mountains. Both are +wildish. She was looking superb. And he had seen her do a daring thing +on the rocks on the heights in the early morning, when she was out by +herself, unaware of a spectator, he not knowing who she was;--the Fates +had arranged it so. That was why he took to her so rapidly. So he told +her. She likes being admired. The preparation for the meeting does +really seem "under direction." She likes him too, I do think. Between +her repetitions of his compliments, she praised his tone of voice, his +features. She is ready to have the fullest faith in the sincerity of his +offer; speaks without any impatience for the fulfilment. If it should +happen, what a change in the fortunes of a girl--of more than one, +possibly. + +'Now I must rest "eyelids fall." It will be with a heart galloping. +No rest for me till this letter flies. Good morning is my good night to +you, in a world that has turned over.' + +Henrietta resumes: + +'Livia will not hear of it, calls up all her pretty languor to put it +aside. It is the same to-day as last night. "Why mention Russett's +nonsense to me?" Carinthia is as quietly circumstantial as at first. +She and the Tyrant talked of her native home. Very desirous to see it! +means to build a mansion there! "He said it must be the most romantic +place on earth." + +'I suppose I slept. I woke with my last line to you on my lips, and the +great news thundering. He named Esslemont and his favourite--always +uninhabited--Cader Argau. She speaks them correctly. She has an +unfailing memory. The point is, that it is a memory. + +'Do not forget also--Livia is affected by her distaste--that he is a +gentleman. He plays with his nobility. With his reputation of +gentleman, he has never been known to play. You will understand the +slightly hypocritical air--it is not of sufficient importance for it to +be alluded to in papa's presence--I put on with her. + +'Yes, I danced nearly all the dances. One, a princeling in scarlet +uniform, appearing fresh from under earth; Prussian: a weighty young Graf +in green, between sage and bottle, who seemed to have run off a tree in +the forest, and was trimmed with silver like dew-drops: one in your +Austrian white, dragon de Boheme, if I caught his French rightly. Others +as well, a list. They have the accomplishment. They are drilled in it +young, as girls are, and so few Englishmen--even English officers. How +it may be for campaigning, you can pronounce; but for dancing, the +pantalon collant is the perfect uniform. Your critical Henrietta had not +to complain of her partners, in the absence of the one. + +'I shall be haunted by visions of Chillon's amazement until I hear or we +meet. I serve for Carinthia's mouthpiece, she cannot write it, she says. +It would be related in two copybook lines, if at all. + +'The amazement over London! The jewel hand of the kingdom gone in a +flash, to "a raw mountain girl," as will be said. I can hear Lady Endor, +Lady Eldritch, Lady Cowry. The reasonable woman should be Lady +Arpington. I have heard her speak of your mother, seen by her when she +was in frocks. + +'Enter the "plighted." Poor Livia! to be made a dowager of by any but a +damsel of the family. She may well ridicule "that nonsense of Russett's +last night"! Carinthia kisses, embraces, her brother. I am to say: +"What Henrietta tells you is true, Chillon." She is contented though she +has not seen him again and has not the look of expecting to see him. She +still wears the kind of afterglow. + +'Chillon's Viennese waltz was played by the band: played a second time, +special request, conveyed to the leader by Prince Ferdinand. True, most +true, she longs to be home across the water. But be it admitted, that to +any one loving colour, music, chivalry, the Island of Drab is an exile. +Imagine, then, the strange magnetism drawing her there! Could warmer +proof be given? + +'Adieu. Livia's "arch-plotter" will weigh the letter he reads to the +smallest fraction of a fraction before he moves a step. + +'I could leave it and come to it again and add and add. I foresee in +Livia's mind a dread of the aforesaid "arch," and an interdict. So the +letter must be closed, sealed and into the box, with the hand I still +call mine, though I should doubt my right if it were contested fervently. +I am singing the waltz. + + 'Adieu, + 'Ever and beyond it, + 'Your obedient Queen, + 'HENRIETTA. + +'P.S.-My Lord Tyrant has departed--as on other occasions. The prisoner +of his word is sure to take his airing before he presents himself to +redeem it. His valet is left to pay bills, fortunately for Livia. She +entrusted her purse yesterday to a man picked up on the road by my lord, +that he might play for her. Captain Abrane assured her he had a star, +and Mr. Potts thought him a rush compere, an adept of those dreadful +gambling tables. Why will she continue to play! The purse was returned +to her, without so much as a piece of silver in it; the man has flown. +Sir M. Corby says, he is a man whose hands betray him--or did to Sir M.; +expects to see him one day on the wrong side of the criminal bar. He +struck me as not being worse than absurd. He was, in any case, an unfit +companion, and our C. would help to rescue the Eccentric from such +complicating associates. I see worlds of good she may do. Happily, he +is no slave of the vice of gambling; so she would not suffer that +anxiety. I wish it could be subjoined, that he has no malicious pleasure +in misleading others. Livia is inconsolable over her pet, young Lord +Cressett, whom he yesterday induced to "try his luck"--with the result. +We leave, if bills are paid, in two days. Captain Abrane and Mr. Potts +left this afternoon; just enough to carry them home. Papa and your +blissful sister out driving. Riette within her four walls and signing +herself, + + 'THE PRISONER OF CHILLON.' + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +AN IRRUPTION. OF MISTRESS GOSSIP IN BREACH OF THE CONVENTION + +'It is a dark land,' Carinthia said, on seeing our Island's lowered +clouds in swift motion, without a break of their folds, above the sheer +white cliffs. + +--She said it, we know. That poor child Carinthia Jane, when first she +beheld Old England's shores, tossing in the packet-boat on a wild Channel +sea, did say it and think it, for it is in the family that she did; and +no wonder that she should, the day being showery from the bed of the sun, +after a frosty three days, at the close of autumn. We used to have an +eye of our own for English weather before printed Meteorological +Observations and Forecasts undertook to supplant the shepherd and the +poacher, and the pilot with his worn brown leather telescope tucked +beneath his arm. All three would have told you, that the end of a three +days' frost in the late season of the year and the early, is likely to +draw the warm winds from the Atlantic over Cornish Land's End and Lizard. + +Quite by chance of things, Carinthia Jane looked on the land of her +father and mother for the first time under those conditions. There can +be no harm in quoting her remark. Only--I have to say it--experience +causes apprehension, that we are again to be delayed by descriptions, and +an exposition of feelings; taken for granted,--of course, in a serious +narrative; which it really seems these moderns think designed for a +frequent arrest of the actors in the story and a searching of the +internal state of this one or that one of them: who is laid out stark +naked and probed and expounded, like as in the celebrated picture by a +great painter--and we, thirsting for events as we are, are to stop to +enjoy a lecture on Anatomy. And all the while the windows of the +lecture-room are rattling, if not the whole fabric shaking, with exterior +occurrences or impatience for them to come to pass. Every explanation is +sure to be offered by the course events may take; so do, in mercy, I say, +let us bide for them. + +She thought our Island all the darker because Henrietta had induced her +to talk on the boat of her mountain home and her last morning there for +the walk away with Chillon John. Soon it was to appear supernaturally +bright, a very magician's cave for brilliancy. + +Now, this had happened--and comment on it to yourselves, remembering +always, that Chillon John was a lover, and a lover has his excuses, +though they will not obviate the penalties he may incur; and dreadful +they were. After reading Henrietta's letter to him, he rode out of his +Canterbury quarters across the country to the borders of Sussex, where +his uncle Lord Levellier lived, on the ridge of ironstone, near the wild +land of a forest, Croridge the name of the place. Now, Chillon John knew +his uncle was miserly, and dreaded the prospect of having to support a +niece in the wretched establishment at Lekkatts, or, as it was popularly +called, Leancats; you can understand why. But he managed to assure +himself he must in duty consult with the senior and chief member of .his +family on a subject of such importance as the proposal of marriage to his +lordship's niece. + +The consultation was short: 'You will leave it to me,' his uncle said: +and we hear of business affairs between them, involving payment of moneys +due to the young man; and how, whenever he touched on them, his uncle +immediately fell back on the honour of the family and Carinthia Jane's +reputation, her good name to be vindicated, and especially that there +must be no delays, together with as close a reckoning as he could make of +the value of Lord Fleetwood's estates in Kent and in Staffordshire and +South Wales, and his house property in London. + +'He will have means to support her,' said the old lord, shrugging as if +at his own incapacity for that burden. + +The two then went to the workshops beside a large pond, where there was +an island bordered with birch trees and workmen's cottages near the main +building; and that was an arsenal containing every kind of sword and +lance and musket, rifle and fowling-piece and pistol, and more gunpowder +than was, I believe, allowed by law. For they were engaged in inventing +a new powder for howitzer shells, of tremendous explosive power. + +Nothing further did either of them say, concerning the marriage. Nor did +Carinthia Jane hear any mention of Lord Fleetwood from her brother on the +landingplace at Dover. She was taken to Admiral Baldwin Fakenham's house +in Hampshire; and there she remained, the delight of his life, during two +months, patiently expecting and rebuking the unmaidenliness of her +expectations, as honest young women in her position used to do. So did +they sometimes wait for years; they have waited until they withered into +their graves, like the vapours of a brief winter's day: a moving picture +of a sex restrained by modesty in those purer times from the taking of +one step forward unless inquired for. + +Two months she waited in our 'dark land.' January arrived, and her +brother. Henrietta communicated the news: + +'My Janey, you are asked by Lord Fleetwood whether it is your wish that +he should marry you.' + +Now, usually a well-born young woman's answer, if a willing one, is an +example of weak translation. Here it was the heart's native tongue, +without any roundabout, simple but direct. + +'Oh, I will, I am ready, tell him.' + +Remember, she was not speaking publicly. + +Henrietta knew the man enough to be glad he did not hear. She herself +would have felt a little shock on his behalf: only, that answer suited +the scheme of the pair of lovers. + +How far those two were innocent in not delivering the whole of Lord +Fleetwood's message to Carinthia Jane through Lord Levellier, we are +unable to learn. We may suspect the miserly nobleman of curtailing it +for his purposes; and such is my idea. But the answer would have been +the same, I am sure. + +In consequence and straight away, Chillon John betakes him to Admiral +Baldwin and informs him of Lord Fleetwood's proposal on the night at +Baden, and renewal of it through the mouth of Lord Levellier, not +communicating, however (he may really not have known), the story of how +it had been wrung from the earl by a surprise movement on the part of the +one-armed old lord, who burst out on him in the street from the ambush of +a Club-window, where he had been stationed every day for a fortnight, +indefatigably to watch for the passing of the earl, as there seemed no +other way to find him. They say, indeed, there was a scene, judging by +the result, and it would have been an excellent scene for the stage; +though the two noblemen were to all appearance politely exchanging their +remarks. But the audience hearing what passes, appreciates the courteous +restraint of an attitude so contrasting with their tempers. Behind the +ostentation of civility, their words were daggers. + +For it chanced, that the young earl, after a period of refuge at his +Welsh castle, supposing, as he well might, that his latest mad freak of +the proposal of his hand and title to the strange girl in a quadrille at +a foreign castle had been forgotten by her, and the risks of annoyance on +the subject had quite blown over, returned to town, happy in having done +the penance for his impulsiveness, and got clean again--that is to say, +struck off his fetters and escaped from importunities--the very morning +of the day when Lord Levellier sprang upon him! It shows the old +campaigner's shrewdness in guessing where his prey would come, and not +putting him on his guard by a call at his house. Out of the window he +looked for all the hours of light during an entire fortnight. 'In the +service of my sister's child,' he said. 'To save him from the cost of +maintaining her,' say his enemies. At any rate he did it. + +He was likely to have done the worse which I suspect. + +Now, the imparting of the wonderful news to Admiral Baldwin Fakenham +was, we read, the whiff of a tropical squall to lay him on his beam ends. +He could not but doubt; and his talk was like the sails of a big ship +rattling to the first puff of wind. He had to believe; and then, we +read, he was for hours like a vessel rolling in the trough of the sea. +Of course he was a disappointed father. Naturally his glance at the loss +to Henrietta of the greatest prize of the matrimonial market of all +Europe and America was vexing and saddening. Then he woke up to think of +the fortunes of his 'other girl,' as he named her, and cried: 'Crinny +catches him!' + +He cried it in glee and rubbed his hands. + +So thereupon, standing before him, Chillon John, from whom he had the +news, bent to him slightly, as his elegant manner was, and lengthened the +admiral's chaps with another proposal; easy, deliberate, precise, quite +the respectful bandit, if you please, determined on having his daughter +by all means, only much preferring the legal, formal, and friendly. Upon +that, in the moment of indecision, Henrietta enters, followed by Admiral +Baldwin's heroine, his Crinny, whom he embraced and kissed, congratulated +and kissed again. One sees the contrivance to soften him. + +So it was done, down in that Hampshire household on the heights near the +downs, whence you might behold, off a terra firma resembling a roll of +billows, England's big battle-ships in line fronting the island; when +they were a spectacle of beauty as well as power: which now they are no +more, but will have to be, if they are both to float and to fight. For I +have, had quoted to me by a great admirer of the Old Buccaneer, one of +the dark sayings in his MAXIMS FOR MEN, where Captain John Peter Kirby +commends his fellow-men to dissatisfaction with themselves if they have +not put an end to their enemy handsomely.. And he advises the copying of +Nature in this; whose elements have always, he says, a pretty, besides a +thorough, style of doing it, when they get the better of us; and the one +by reason of the other. He instances the horse, the yacht, and chiefly +the sword, for proof, that the handsomest is the most effective. And he +prints large: 'UGLY IS ONLY HALF WAY TO A THING.' To an invention, I +suppose he intends to say. But looking on our huge foundering sea- +monsters and the disappearance of the unwieldy in Nature, and the +countenances of criminals, who are, he bids us observe, always in the +long run beaten, I seem to see a meaning our country might meditate on. + +So, as I said, it was done; for Admiral Baldwin could refuse his Crinny +nothing; as little as he would deny anything to himself, the heartiest +of kindly hosts, fathers, friends. Carinthia Jane's grand good fortune +covered that pit, the question of money, somehow, and was, we may +conceive, a champagne wine in their reasoning faculties. The admiral was +in debt, Henrietta had no heritage, Chillon John was the heir of a +miserly uncle owing him sums and evading every application for them, yet +they behaved as people who had the cup of golden wishes. Perhaps it was +because Henrietta and her lover were so handsome a match as to make it +seem to them and others they must marry; and as to character, her father +could trust her to the man of her choice more readily than to the wealthy +young nobleman; of whose discreetness he had not the highest opinion. He +reconciled this view with his warm feeling for the Countess of Fleetwood +to be, by saying: 'Crinny will tame him!' His faith was in her dauntless +bold spirit, not thinking of the animal she was to tame. + +Countess Livia, after receiving Henrietta's letter of information, +descended on them and thought them each and all a crazed set. Love, +as a motive of action for a woman, she considered the female's lunacy +and suicide. Men are born subject to it, happily, and thus the balance +between the lordly half of creation and the frail is rectified. We women +dress, and smile, sigh, if you like, to excite the malady. But if we are +the fools to share it, we lose our chance; instead of the queens, we are +the slaves, and instead of a life of pleasure, we pass from fever to +fever at a tyrant's caprice: he does rightly in despising us. Ay, and +many a worthy woman thinks the same. Educated in dependency as they are, +they come to the idea of love to snatch at it for their weapon of the +man's weakness. For which my lord calls them heartless, and poets are +angry with them, rightly or wrongly. + +It must, I fear, be admitted for a truth, that sorrow is the portion of +young women who give the full measure of love to the engagement, marrying +for love. At least, Countess Livia could declare subsequently she had +foretold it and warned her cousin. Not another reflection do you hear +from me, if I must pay forfeit of my privilege to hurry you on past +descriptions of places and anatomy of character and impertinent talk +about philosophy in a story. When we are startled and offended by the +insinuated tracing of principal incidents to a thread-bare spot in the +nether garments of a man of no significance, I lose patience. + +Henrietta's case was a secondary affair. What with her passion--it was +nothing less--and her lover's cunning arts, and her father's consent +given, and in truth the look of the two together, the dissuasion of them +from union was as likely to keep them apart as an exhortation addressed +to magnet and needle. Countess Livia attacked Carinthia Jane and the +admiral backing her. But the admiral, having given his consent to his +daughter's marriage, in consequence of the earl's pledged word to 'his +other girl,' had become a zealot for this marriage and there was only not +a grand altercation on the subject because Livia shunned annoyances. +Alone with Carinthia Jane, as she reported to Henrietta, she spoke to a +block, that shook a head and wore a thin smile and nursed its own idea of +the better knowledge of Edward Russett, Earl of Fleetwood, gained in the +run of a silly quadrille at a ball: + +What is a young man's word to his partner in a quadrille? + +Livia put the question, she put it twice rather sternly, and the girl +came out with: 'Oh, he meant it!' + +The nature, the pride, the shifty and furious moods of Lord Fleetwood +were painted frightful to her. + +She had conceived her own image of him. + +Whether to set her down as an enamoured idiot or a creature not a whit +less artful than her brother, was Countess Livia's debate. Her +inclination was to misdoubt the daughter of the Old Buccaneer: she might +be simple, at her age, and she certainly was ignorant; but she clung to +her prize. Still the promise was extracted from her, that she would not +worry the earl to fulfil the word she supposed him to mean in its full +meaning. + +The promise was unreluctantly yielded. No, she would not write. Admiral +Fakenham, too, engaged to leave the matter to a man of honour. + +Meanwhile, Chillon John had taken a journey to Lekkatts; following which, +his uncle went to London. Lord Fleetwood heard that Miss Kirby kept him +bound. He was again the fated prisoner of his word. + +And following that, not so very long, there was the announcement of the +marriage of Chillon John Kirby Levellier, Lieutenant in the King's Own +Hussars, and Henrietta, daughter of Admiral Baldwin Fakenham. A county +newspaper paragraph was quoted for its eulogy of the Beauty of Hampshire +--not too strong, those acquainted with her thought. Interest at Court +obtained an advancement for the bridegroom: he was gazetted Captain +during his honeymoon, and his prospects under his uncle's name were +considerd fair, though certain people said at the time, it was likely to +be all he would get while old Lord Levellier of Leancats remained in the +flesh. + +Now, as it is good for those to tell who intend preserving their taste +for romance and hate anatomical lectures, we never can come to the exact +motives of any extraordinary piece of conduct on the part of man or +woman. Girls are to read; and the study of a boy starts from the monkey. +But no literary surgeon or chemist shall explain positively the cause of +the behaviour of men and women in their relations together; and speaking +to rescue my story, I say we must with due submission accept the facts. +We are not a bit the worse for wondering at them. So it happened that +Lord Fleetwood's reply to Lord Levellier's hammer--hammer by post and +messenger at his door, one may call it, on the subject of the celebration +of the marriage of the young Croesus and Carinthia Jane, in which there +was demand for the fixing of a date forthwith, was despatched on the day +when London had tidings of Henrietta Pakenham's wedding. + +The letter, lost for many years, turned up in the hands of a Kentish +auctioneer, selling it on behalf of a farm-serving man, who had it from +Lord Levellier's cook and housemaid, among the things she brought him as +her wifely portion after her master's death, and this she had not found +saleable in her husband's village at her price, but she had got the habit +of sticking to the scraps, being proud of hearing it said that she had +skinned Leancats to some profit: and her expectation proved correct after +her own demise, for her husband putting it up at the auction; our +relative on the mother's side, Dr. Glossop, interested in the documents +and particulars of the story as he was, had it knocked down to him, in +contest with an agent of a London gentleman, going as high as two pounds +ten shillings, for the sum of two pounds and fifteen shillings. Count +the amount that makes for each word of a letter a marvel of brevity, +considering the purport! But Dr. Glossop was right in saying he had it +cheap. The value of that letter may now be multiplied by ten: nor for +that sum would he part with it. + +Thus it ran, I need not refer to it in Bundle No. 3: + + 'MY LORD: I drive to your church-door on the fourteenth of the month + at ten A.M., to keep my appointment with Miss C. J. Kirby, if I do + not blunder the initials. + 'Your lordship's obedient servant, + 'FLEETWOOD.' + +That letter will ever be a treasured family possession with us. + +That letter was dated from Lord Fleetwood's Kentish mansion, Esslemont, +the tenth of the month. He must have quitted London for Esslemont, for +change of scene, for air, the moment after the news of Henrietta's +marriage. Carinthia Jane received the summons without transmission of +the letter from her uncle on the morning of the twelfth. It was a +peremptory summons. + +Unfortunately, Admiral Fakenham, a real knight and chevalier of those +past times, would not let her mount the downs to have her farewell view +of the big ships unaccompanied by him; and partly and largely in pure +chivalry, no doubt; but her young idea of England's grandeur, as shown in +her great vessels of war, thrilled him, too, and restored his youthful +enthusiasm for his noble profession or made it effervesce. However it +was, he rode beside her and rejoiced to hear the young girl's talk of her +father as a captain of one of England's thunderers, and of the cruelty of +that Admiralty to him: at which Admiral Baldwin laughed, but had not the +heart to disagree with her, for he could belabour the Admiralty in +season, cause or no cause. Altogether he much enjoyed the ride, +notwithstanding intimations of the approach of 'his visitor,' as he +called his attacks of gout. + +Riding home, however, the couple passed through a heavy rainfall, and the +next day, when he was to drive with the bride to Lekkatts, gout, the +fiercest he had ever known, chained him fast to his bed. Such are the +petty accidents affecting circumstances. They are the instruments of +Destiny. + +There he lay, protesting that the ceremony could not possibly be for the +fourteenth, because Countess Livia had, he now remembered, written of her +engagement to meet Russett on the night of that day at a ball at Mrs. +Cowper Quillett's place, Canleys, lying south of the Surrey hills: a +house famed for its gatherings of beautiful women; whither Lord Fleetwood +would be sure to engage to go, the admiral now said; and it racked him +like gout in his mind, and perhaps troubled his conscience about handing +the girl to such a young man. But he was lying on his back, the posture +for memory to play the fiend with us, as we read in the BOOK of MAXIMS of +the Old Buccaneer. Admiral Baldwin wished heartily to be present at his +Crinny's wedding 'to see her launched,' if wedding it was to be, and he +vowed the date of the fourteenth, in Lord Levellier's announcement of it, +must be an error and might be a month in advance, and ought to be. But +it was sheer talking and raving for a solace to his disappointment or his +anxiety. He had to let Carinthia Jane depart under the charge of his +housekeeper, Mrs. Carthew, a staid excellent lady, poorly gifted with +observation. + +Her report of the performance of the ceremony at Croridge village church, +a half mile from Lekkatts, was highly reassuring to the anxious old +admiral still lying on his back with memory and gout at their fiend's +play, and livid forecasts hovering. He had recollected that there had +been no allusion in Lord Levellier's message to settlements or any +lawyer's preliminaries, and he raged at himself for having to own it +would have been the first of questions on behalf of his daughter. + +'All passed off correctly,' Mrs. Carthew said. 'The responses of the +bride and bridegroom were particularly articulate.' + +She was reserved upon the question of the hospitality of Lekkatts. The +place had entertained her during her necessitated residence there, and +honour forbade her to smile concordantly at the rosy admiral's mention of +Leancats. She took occasion, however, to praise the Earl of Fleetwood's +eminently provident considerateness for his bride, inasmuch as he had +packed a hamper in his vehicle, which was a four-in-hand, driven by +himself. + +Admiral Baldwin inquired: 'Bride inside?' + +He was informed: 'The Countess of Fleetwood sat on the box on the left of +my lord.' + +She had made no moan about the absence of bridesmaids. + +'She appeared too profoundly happy to meditate an instant upon +deficiencies.' + +'How did the bridegroom behave?' + +'Lord Fleetwood was very methodical. He is not, or was not, voluntarily +a talker.' + +'Blue coat, brass buttons, hot-house flower? old style or new?' + +'His lordship wore a rather low beaver and a buttoned white overcoat, not +out of harmony with the bride's plain travelling-dress.' + +'Ah! he's a good whip, men say. Keeps first-rate stables, hacks, and +bloods. Esslemont hard by will be the place for their honeymoon, I +guess. And he's a lucky dog, if he knows his luck.' + +So said Admiral Baldwin. He was proceeding to say more, for he had a +prodigious opinion of the young countess and the benefit of her marriage +to the British race. As it concerned a healthy constitution and +motherhood, Mrs. Carthew coughed and retired. Nor do I reprove either +of them. The speculation and the decorum are equally commendable. +Masculine ideas are one thing; but let feminine ever be feminine, or our +civilization perishes. + +At Croridge village church, then, one of the smallest churches in the +kingdom, the ceremony was performed and duly witnessed, names written in +the vestry book, the clergyman's fee, the clerk, and the pew-woman, paid +by the bridegroom. And thus we see how a pair of lovers, blind with the +one object of lovers in view; and a miserly uncle, all on edge to save +himself the expense of supporting his niece; and an idolatrous old +admiral, on his back with gout; conduced in turn and together to the +marriage gradually exciting the world's wonder, till it eclipsed the +story of the Old Buccaneer and Countess Fanny, which it caused to be +discussed afresh. + +Mrs. Carthew remembered Carinthia Jane's last maiden remark and her first +bridal utterance. On the way, walking to the church of Croridge from +Lekkatts, the girl said: 'Going on my feet, I feel I continue the +mountain walk with my brother when we left our home.' And after leaving +the church, about to mount the coach, she turned to Mrs. Carthew, saying, +as she embraced her: + +'A happy bride's kiss should bring some good fortune.' And looking down +from her place on the top of the coach: + +'Adieu, dear Mrs. Carthew. A day of glory it is to-day.' She must +actually have had it in her sight as a day of glory: and it was a day of +the clouds off our rainy quarter, similar in every way to the day of her +stepping on English soil and saying: 'It is a dark land.' For the heart +is truly declared to be our colourist. A day having the gale in its +breast, sweeping the whole country and bending the trees for the twigs to +hiss like spray of the billows around our island, was a day of golden +splendour to the young bride of the Earl of Fleetwood, though he scarcely +addressed one syllable to her, and they sat side by side all but dumb, +he like a coachman driving an unknown lady fare, on a morning after a +night when his wife's tongue may have soured him for the sex. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +A PENDANT OF THE FOREGOING + +Mention has been omitted or forgotten by the worthy Dame, in her vagrant +fowl's treatment of a story she cannot incubate, will not relinquish, and +may ultimately addle, that the bridegroom, after walking with a +disengaged arm from the little village church at Croridge to his coach +and four at the cross of the roads to Lekkatts and the lowland, abruptly, +and as one pursuing a deferential line of conduct he had prescribed to +himself, asked his bride, what seat she would prefer. + +He shouted: 'Ives!' + +A person inside the coach appeared to be effectually roused. + +The glass of the window dropped. The head of a man emerged. It was the +head of one of the bargefaced men of the British Isles, broad, and +battered flattish, with sentinel eyes. + +In an instant the heavy-headed but not ill-looking fellow was nimble and +jumped from the coach. + +'Napping, my lord,' he said. + +Heavy though the look of him might be, his feet were light; they flipped +a bar of a hornpipe at a touch of the ground. Perhaps they were allowed +to go with their instinct for the dance, that his master should have a +sample of his wakefulness. He quenched a smirk and stood to take orders; +clad in a flat blue cap, a brown overcoat, and knee-breeches, as the +temporary bustle of his legs had revealed. + +Fleet-wood heard the young lady say: 'I would choose, if you please, to +sit beside you.' + +He gave a nod of enforced assent, glancing at the vacated box. + +The man inquired: 'A knee and a back for the lady to mount up, my lord?' + +'In!' was the smart command to him; and he popped in with the agility of +his popping out. + +Then Carinthia made reverence to the grey lean figure of her uncle and +kissed Mrs. Carthew. She needed no help to mount the coach. Fleetwood's +arm was rigidly extended, and he did not visibly wince when this foreign +girl sprang to the first hand-grip on the coach and said: 'No, my +husband, I can do it'; unaided,' was implied. + +Her stride from the axle of the wheel to the step higher would have been +a graceful spectacle on Alpine crags. + +Fleetwood swallowed that, too, though it conjured up a mocking +recollection of the Baden woods, and an astonished wild donkey preparing +himself for his harness. A sour relish of the irony in his present +position sharpened him to devilish enjoyment of it, as the finest form +of loathing: on the principle that if we find ourselves consigned to the +nether halls, we do well to dance drunkenly. He had cried for Romance-- +here it was! + +He raised his hat to Mrs. Carthew and to Lord Levellier. Previous to the +ceremony, the two noblemen had interchanged the short speech of mannered +duellists punctiliously courteous in the opening act. Their civility was +maintained at the termination of the deadly work. The old lord's bosom +thanked the young one for not requiring entertainment and a repast; the +young lord's thanked the old one for a strict military demeanour at an +execution and the abstaining from any nonsensical talk over the affair. + +A couple of liveried grooms at the horses' heads ran and sprang to the +hinder seats as soon as their master had taken the reins. He sounded the +whip caressingly: off those pretty trotters went. + +Mrs. Carthew watched them, waving to the bride. She was on the present +occasion less than usually an acute or a reflective observer, owing to +her admiration of lordly state and masculine commandership; and her +thought was: 'She has indeed made a brilliant marriage!' + +The lady thought it, notwithstanding an eccentricity in the wedding +ceremony, such as could not but be noticeable. But very wealthy noblemen +were commonly, perhaps necessarily, eccentric, for thus they proved +themselves egregious, which the world expected them to be. + +Lord Levellier sounded loud eulogies of the illustrious driver's team. +His meditation, as he subsequently stated to Chillon, was upon his +vanquished antagonist's dexterity, in so conducting matters, that he had +to be taken at once, with naught of the customary preface and apology for +taking to himself the young lady, of which a handsome settlement, is the +memorial. + +We have to suppose, that the curious occupant of the coach inside aroused +no curiosity in the pair of absorbed observers. + +Speculations regarding the chances of a fall of rain followed the coach +until it sank and the backs of the two liveried grooms closed the chapter +of the wedding, introductory to the honeymoon at Esslemont, seven miles +distant by road, to the right of Lekkatts. It was out of sight that the +coach turned to the left, Northwestward. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +OPENING STAGE OF THE HONEYMOON + +A famous maxim in the book of the Old Buccaneer, treating of PRECAUTION, +as 'The brave man's clean conscience,' with sound counsel to the +adventurous, has it:-- + +'Then you sail away into the tornado, happy as a sealed bottle of ripe +wine.' + +It should mean, that brave men entering the jaws of hurricanes are found +to have cheerful hearts in them when they know they have done their best. +But, touching the picture of happiness, conceive the bounteous Bacchic +spirit in the devoutness of a Sophocles, and you find comparison +neighbour closely between the sealed wine-flask and the bride, who is +being driven by her husband to the nest of the unknown on her marriage +morn. + +Seated beside him, with bosom at heave and shut mouth, in a strange land, +travelling cloud-like, rushing like the shower-cloud to the vale, this +Carinthia, suddenly wedded, passionately grateful for humbleness exalted, +virginly sensible of treasures of love to give, resembled the inanimate +and most inspiring, was mindless and inexpressive, past memory, beyond +the hopes, a thing of the thrilled blood and skylark air, since she laid +her hand in this young man's. His not speaking to her was accepted. +Her blood rather than recollection revived their exchanges during the +dance at Baden, for assurance that their likings were one, their aims +rapturously one; that he was she, she he, the two hearts making one soul. + +Could she give as much as he? It was hardly asked. If we feel we can +give our breath of life, the strength of the feeling fully answers. It +bubbles perpetually from the depth like a well-spring in tumult. Two +hearts that make one soul do not separately count their gifts. + +For the rest, her hunger to admire disposed her to an absorbing sentience +of his acts; the trifles, gestures, manner of this and that; which were +seized as they flew, and swiftly assimilated to stamp his personality. +Driving was the piece of skill she could not do. Her husband's mastery +of the reins endowed him with the beauty of those harmonious trotters he +guided and kept to their pace; and the humming rush of the pace, the +smooth torrent of the brown heath-knolls and reddish pits and hedge-lines +and grass-flats and copses pouring the counter-way of her advance, +belonged to his wizardry. The bearing of her onward was her abandonment +to him. Delicious as mountain air, the wind sang; it had a song of many +voices. Quite as much as on the mountains, there was the keen, the +blissful, nerve-knotting catch of the presence of danger in the steep +descents, taken as if swallowed, without swerve or check. She was in her +husband's hands. At times, at the pitch of a rapid shelving, that was +like a fall, her heart went down; and at the next throb exalted before it +rose, not reasoning why;--her confidence was in him; she was his comrade +whatever chanced. Up over the mountain-peaks she had known edged +moments, little heeded in their passage, when life is poised as a crystal +pitcher on the head, in peril of a step. Then she had been dependent on +herself. Now she had the joy of trusting to her husband. + +His hard leftward eye had view of her askant, if he cared to see how she +bore the trial; and so relentlessly did he take the slopes, that the man +inside pushed out an inquiring pate, the two grooms tightened arms across +their chests. Her face was calmly set, wakeful, but unwrinkled: the +creature did not count among timid girls--or among civilized. She had +got what she wanted from her madman--mad in his impulses, mad in his +reading of honour. She was the sister of Henrietta's husband. Henrietta +bore the name she had quitted. Could madness go beyond the marrying of +the creature? He chafed at her containment, at her courage, her silence, +her withholding the brazen or the fawnish look-up, either of which he +would have hated. + +He, however, was dragged to look down. Neither Gorgon nor Venus, nor a +mingling of them, she had the chasm of the face, recalling the face of +his bondage, seen first that night at Baden. It recalled and it was not +the face; it was the skull of the face, or the flesh of the spirit. +Occasionally she looked, for a twinkle or two, the creature or vision she +had been, as if to mock by reminding him. She was the abhorred delusion, +who captured him by his nerves, ensnared his word--the doing of a foul +witch. How had it leapt from his mouth? She must have worked for it. +The word spoken--she must have known it--he was bound, or the detested +Henrietta would have said: Not even true to his word! + +To see her now, this girl, insisting to share his name, for a slip of his +tongue, despite the warning sent her through her uncle, had that face +much as a leaden winter landscape pretends to be the country radiant in +colour. She belonged to the order of the variable animals--a woman +indeed!--womanish enough in that. There are men who love women--the idea +of woman. Woman is their shepherdess of sheep. He loved freedom, +loathed the subjection of a partnership; could undergo it only in +adoration of an ineffable splendour. He had stepped to the altar +fancying she might keep to her part of the contract by appearing the +miracle that subdued him. Seen by light of day, this bitter object +beside him was a witch without her spells; that is, the skeleton of the +seductive, ghastliest among horrors and ironies. Let her have the credit +of doing her work thoroughly before the exposure. She had done it. +She might have helped--such was the stipulation of his mad freak in +consenting to the bondage--yes, she might have helped to soften the sting +of his wound. She was beside him bearing his name, for the perpetual +pouring of an acid on the wound that vile Henrietta--poisoned honey of a +girl!--had dealt. + +He glanced down at his possession:--heaven and the yawning pit were the +contrast! Poisoned honey is after all honey while you eat it. Here +there was nothing but a rocky bowl of emptiness. And who was she? She +was the sister of Henrietta's husband. He was expected to embrace the +sister of Henrietta's husband. Those two were on their bridal tour. + +This creature was also the daughter of an ancient impostor and desperado +called the Old Buccaneer; a distinguished member of the family of the +Lincolnshire Kirbys, boasting a present representative grimly acquitted, +men said, on a trial for murder. An eminent alliance! Society +considered the Earl of Fleetwood wildish, though he could manage his +affairs. He and his lawyers had them under strict control. How of +himself? The prize of the English marriage market had taken to his bosom +for his winsome bride the daughter of the Old Buccaneer. He was to mix +his blood with the blood of the Lincolnshire Kirbys, lying pallid under +the hesitating acquittal of a divided jury. + +How had he come to this pass, which swung him round to think almost +regretfully of the scorned multitude of fair besiegers in the market, +some of whom had their unpoetic charms? + +He was renowned and unrivalled as the man of stainless honour: the +one living man of his word. He had never broken it--never would. There +was his distinction among the herd. In that, a man is princely above +princes. The nobility of Edward Russett, Earl of Fleetwood, surpassed +the nobility of common nobles. But, by all that is holy, he pays for +his distinction. + +The creature beside him is a franked issue of her old pirate of a father +in one respect--nothing frightens her. There she sits; not a screw of +her brows or her lips; and the coach rocked, they were sharp on a spill +midway of the last descent. It rocks again. She thinks it scarce worth +while to look up to reassure him. She is looking over the country. + +'Have you been used to driving?' he said. + +She replied: 'No, it is new to me on a coach.' + +Carinthia felt at once how wild the wish or half expectation that he +would resume the glowing communion of the night which had plighted them. + +She did not this time say 'my husband,' still it flicked a whip at his +ears. + +She had made it more offensive, by so richly toning the official title +just won from him as to ring it on the nerves; one had to block it or be +invaded. An anticipation that it would certainly recur haunted every +opening of her mouth. + +Now that it did not, he felt the gap, relieved, and yet pricked to +imagine a mimicry of her tones, for the odd foreignness of the word and +the sound. She had a voice of her own besides her courage. At the +altar, her responses had their music. No wonder: the day was hers. +'My husband' was a manner of saying 'my fish.' + +He, spoke very civilly. 'Oblige me by telling me what name you are +accustomed to answer to.' + +She seemed unaware of an Arctic husband, and replied: 'My father called +me Carin--short for Carinthia. My mother called me Janey; my second name +is Jane. My brother Chillon says both. Henrietta calls me Janey.' + +The creature appeared dead flesh to goads. But the name of her sister- +in-law on her lips returned the stroke neatly. She spared him one whip, +to cut him with another. + +'You have not informed me which of these names you prefer.' + +'Oh, my husband, it is as you shall please.' + +Fleetwood smartened the trot of his team, and there was a to-do with the +rakish leaders. + +Fairies of a malignant humour in former days used to punish the +unhappiest of the naughty men who were not favourites, by suddenly +planting a hump on their backs. Off the bedevilled wretches pranced, +and they kicked, they snorted, whinnied, rolled, galloped, outflying the +wind, but not the dismal rider. Marriage is our incubus now. No +explanation is offered of why we are afflicted; we have simply offended, +or some one absent has offended, and we are handy. The spiteful hag of +power ties a wife to us; perhaps for the reason, that we behaved in the +spirit of a better time by being chivalrously honourable. Wives are just +as inexplicable curses, just as ineradicable and astonishing as humps +imposed on shapely backs. + +Fleetwood lashed his horses until Carinthia's low cry of entreaty rose to +surprise. That stung him. + +'Leave the coachman to his devices: we have an appointment and must keep +it,' he said. + +'They go so willingly.' + +'Good beasts, in their way.' + +'I do not like the whip.' + +'I have the same objection.' + +They were on the level of the vale, going along a road between farms and +mansions, meadows and gardenplots and park-palings. A strong warm wind +drove the pack of clouds over the tree-tops and charged at the branches. +English scenery, animating air; a rouse to the blood and the mind. +Carinthia did not ask for hues. She had come to love of the dark land +with the warm lifting wind, the big trees and the hedges, and the stately +houses, and people requiring to be studied, who mean well and are warm +somewhere below, as chimneypots are, though they are so stiff. + +English people dislike endearments, she had found. It might be that her +husband disliked any show of fondness. He would have to be studied very +much. He was not like others, as Henrietta had warned her. From +thinking of him fervidly, she was already past the marvel of the thought +that she called him husband. At the same time, a curious intimation, +gathered she knew not whence, of the word 'husband' on a young wife's +lips as being a foreign sound in England, advised her to withhold it. +His behaviour was instructing her. + +'Are you weather-wise?--able to tell when the clouds will hold off or +pelt,' he said, to be very civil to a neighbour. + +She collected her understanding, apparently; treating a conversational +run of the tongue as a question to be pondered; and the horses paid for +it. Ordinarily he was gentle with his beasts. He lashed at her in his +heart for perverting the humanest of men. + +'Father was,' she replied. + +'Oh! I have heard of him.' + +Her face lightened. 'Father had a great name in England.' + +'The Old Buccaneer, I think.' + +'I do not know. He was a seaman of the navy, like Admiral Fakenham is. +Weather at sea, weather on the mountains, he could foretell it always. +He wrote a book; I have a copy you will read. It is a book of Maxims. +He often speaks of the weather. English weather and women, he says. +But not my mother. My mother he stood aside by herself--pas capricieuse +du tout! Because she would be out in the weather and brave the weather. +She rode, she swam, best of any woman. If she could have known you, what +pleasure for me! Mother learnt to read mountain weather from father. +I did it too. But sometimes on the high fields' upper snows it is very +surprising. Father has been caught. Here the cloud is down near the +earth and the strong wind keeps the rain from falling. How long the wind +will blow I cannot guess. But you love the mountains. We spoke . . . +And mountains' adventures we both love. I will talk French if you like, +for, I think, German you do not speak. I may speak English better than +French; but I am afraid of my English with you.' + +'Dear me!' quoth Fleetwood, and he murmured politely and cursorily, +attentive to his coachman business. She had a voice that clove the noise +of the wheels, and she had a desire to talk--that was evident. Talk of +her father set her prattling. It became clear also to his not dishonest, +his impressionable mind, that her baby English might be natural. Or she +was mildly playing on it, to give herself an air. + +He had no remembrance of such baby English at Baden. There, however, +she was in a state of enthusiasm--the sort of illuminated transparency +they show at the end of fireworks. Mention of her old scapegrace of a +father lit her up again. The girl there and the girl here were no doubt +the same. It could not be said that she had duped him; he had done it +for himself--acted on by a particular agency. This creature had not the +capacity to dupe. He had armed a bluntwitted young woman with his +idiocy, and she had dealt the stroke; different in scarce a degree by +nature from other young women of prey. + +But her look at times, and now and then her voice, gave sign that she +counted on befooling him as well, to reconcile him to his bondage. The +calculation was excessive. No woman had done it yet. Idiocy plunged him +the step which reawakened understanding; and to keep his whole mind alert +on guard against any sort of satisfaction with his bargain, he frankly +referred to the cause. Not female arts, but nature's impulses, it was +his passion for the wondrous in the look of a woman's face, the new +morning of the idea of women in the look, and the peep into imaginary +novel character, did the trick of enslaving him. Call it idiocy. Such +it was. Once acknowledged, it is not likely to recur. An implacable +reason sits in its place, with a keen blade for efforts to carry the +imposture further afield or make it agreeable. Yet, after giving his +word to Lord Levellier, he had prodded himself to think the burden of +this wild young woman might be absurdly tolerable and a laugh at the +world. + +A solicitude for the animal was marked by his inquiry 'You are not hungry +yet?' + +'Oh no, not yet,' said she, oddly enlivened. + +They had a hamper and were independent of stoppages for provision, he +informed her. What more delightful? cried her look, seeing the first +mid-day's rest and meal with Chillon on the walk over the mountain from +their empty home. + +She could get up enthusiasm for a stocked hamper! And when told of some +business that drew him to a meadow they were nearing, she said she would +be glad to help, if she could. 'I learn quickly, I know.' + +His head acquiesced. The daughter of the Old Buccaneer might learn the +business quickly, perhaps; a singularly cutting smile was on his tight +lips, in memory of a desire he had as a boy to join hands with an +Amazonian damsel and be out over the world for adventures, comrade and +bride as one. Here the creature sat. Life is the burlesque of young +dreams; or they precipitate us on the roar and grin of a recognized beast +world. + +The devil possessing him gnawed so furiously that a partial mitigation of +the pain was afforded by sight of waving hats on a hill-rise of the road. +He flourished his whip. The hats continued at wind-mill work. It +signified brisk news to him, and prospect of glee to propitiate any +number of devils. + +'You will want a maid to attend on you,' he said. + +She replied: 'I am not used to attendance on me. Henrietta's maid would +help. I did not want her. I had no maid at home. I can do for myself. +Father and mother liked me to be very independent.' + +He supposed he would have to hear her spelling her words out next. + +The hill-top was gained; twenty paces of pretty trotting brought up the +coach beside an inn porch, in the style of the finish dear to whips, and +even imperative upon them, if they love their art. Two gentlemen stood +in the road, and a young woman at the inn door; a dark-haired girl of an +anxious countenance. Her puckers vanished at some signal from inside the +coach. + +'All right, Madge; nothing to fear,' Fleetwood called to her, and she +curtseyed. + +He alighted, saying to her, before he spoke to his friends: 'I've brought +him safe; had him under my eye the last four and twenty hours. He'll do +the trick to-day. You don't bet?' + +'Oh! my lord, no.' + +'Help the lady down. Out with you, Ines!' + +The light-legged barge-faced man touched ground capering. He was greeted +'Kit' by the pair of gentlemen, who shook hands with him, after he had +faintly simulated the challenge to a jig with Madge. She flounced from +him, holding her arms up to the lady. Landlord, landlady, and hostler +besought the lady to stay for the fixing of a ladder. Carinthia stepped, +leaped, and entered the inn, Fleetwood remarking: + +'We are very independent, Chummy Potts.' + +'Cordy bally, by Jove!' Potts cried. But the moment after this +disengaged ejaculation, he was taken with a bewilderment. 'At the +Opera?' he questioned of his perplexity. + +'No, sir, not at the Opera,' Fleetwood rejoined. 'The lady's last public +appearance was at the altar.' + +'Sort of a suspicion of having seen her somewhere. Left her husband +behind, has she?' + +'You see: she has gone in.' + +The scoring of a proposition of Euclid on the forehead of Potts amused +him and the other gentleman, who was hailed 'Mallard!' and cared nothing +for problems involving the female of man when such work was to the fore +as the pugilistic encounter of the Earl of Fleetwood's chosen Kit Ines, +with Lord Brailstone's unbeaten and well-backed Ben Todds. + +Ines had done pretty things from the age of seventeen to his twenty-third +year. Remarkably clever things they were, to be called great in the +annals of the Ring. The point, however, was, that the pockets of his +backers had seriously felt his latest fight. He received a dog's licking +at the hands of Lummy Phelps, his inferior in skill, fighting two to one +of the odds; and all because of his fatal addiction to the breaking of +his trainer's imposed fast in liquids on, the night before the battle. +Right through his training, up to that hour, the rascal was devout; the +majority's money rattled all on the snug safe side. And how did he get +at the bottle? His trainers never could say. But what made him turn +himself into a headlong ass, when he had only to wait a night to sit +among friends and worshippers drinking off his tumbler upon tumbler with +the honours? It was past his wits to explain. Endurance of his +privation had snapped in him; or else, which is more likely, this Genius +of the Ring was tempted by his genius on the summit of his perfected +powers to believe the battle his own, and celebrate it, as became a +victor despising the drubbed antagonist. + +In any case, he drank, and a minor man gave him the dog's licking.. +'Went into it puffy, came out of it bunged,' the chronicle resounding +over England ran. Old England read of an 'eyeless carcase' heroically +stepping up to time for three rounds of mashing punishment. If he had +won the day after all, the country would have been electrified. It +sympathized on the side of his backers too much to do more than nod a +short approval of his fortitude. To sink with flag flying is next to +sinking the enemy. There was talk of a girl present at the fight, and of +how she received the eyeless, almost faceless, carcase of her sweetheart +Kit, and carried him away in a little donkey-cart, comfortably cushioned +to meet disaster. This petty incident drew the attention of the Earl of +Fleetwood, then beginning to be known as the diamond of uncounted facets, +patron of the pick of all departments of manly activity in England. + +The devotion of the girl Madge to her sweetheart was really a fine story. +Fleetwood touched on it to Mr. Mallard, speaking of it like the gentleman +he could be, while Chumley Potts wagged impatient acquiescence in a +romantic episode of the Ring, that kept the talk from the hotter theme. + +'Money's Bank of England to-day, you think?' he interposed, and had his +answer after Mallard had said: + +'The girl 's rather good-looking, too.' + +'You may double your bets, Chummy. I had the fellow to his tea at my +dinner-table yesterday evening; locked him in his bedroom, and had him +up and out for a morning spin at six. His trainer, Flipper's on the +field, drove from Esslemont at nine, confident as trumps.' + +'Deuce of a good-looking girl,' Potts could now afford to say; and he +sang out: 'Feel fit, lucky dog?' + +'Concert pitch!' was the declaration of Kit Ives. + +'How about Lord Brailstone's man?' + +'Female partner in a quadrille, sir.' + +'Ah!' Potts doated on his limbs with a butcher's eye for prize joints. + +'Cock-sure has crowed low by sunset,' Mallard observed. + +Fleetwood offered him to take his bets. + +'You're heavy on it with Brailstone?' said Mallard. + +'Three thousand.' + +'I'd back you for your luck blindfold.' + +A ruffle of sourness shot over the features of the earl, and was noticed +by both eager betters, who exchanged a glance. + +Potts inspected his watch, and said half aloud: 'Liver, ten to one! That +never meant bad luck--except bad to act on. We slept here last night, +you know. It 's a mile and a quarter from the Royal Sovereign to the +field of glory. Pretty well time to start. Brailstone has a drive of a +couple of miles. Coaches from London down by this time. Abrane's dead +on Ben Todds, any odds. Poor old Braney! "Steady man, Todds." Backs +him because he's a "respectable citizen,"--don't drink. A prize-fighter +total abstainer has no spurts. Old Braney's branded for the losing side. +You might bet against Braney blindfold, Mallard. How long shall you take +to polish him off, Kit Ines?' + +The opponent of Ben Todds calculated. + +'Well, sir, steady Benny ought to be satisfied with his dose in, say, +about forty minutes. Maybe he won't own to it before an hour and ten. +He's got a proud English stomach.' + +'Shall we be late?' Potts asked. + +'Jump in,' Fleetwood said to his man. 'We may be five minutes after +time, Chummy. I had a longer drive, and had to get married on the way, +and--ah, here they are!' + +'Lady coming?' + +'I fancy she sticks to the coach; I don't know her tastes. Madge must +see her through it, that's positive.' + +Potts deferred his astonishment at the things he was hearing and seeing, +which were only Fleetwood's riddles. The fight and the bets rang every +other matter out of his head. He beheld the lady, who had come down from +the coach like a columbine, mount it like Bean-stalk Jack. Madge was not +half so clever, and required a hand at her elbow. + +After, giving hurried directions to Rundles, the landlord of the Royal +Sovereign, Fleetwood took the reins, and all three gentlemen touched hats +to the curtseying figure of Mrs. Rundles. + +'You have heard, I dare say--it's an English scene,' he spoke, partly +turning his face, to Carinthia; 'particularly select to-day. Their +Majesties might look on, as the Caesars did in Rome. Pity we can't +persuade them. They ought to set the fashion. Here we have the English +people at their grandest, in prime condition, if they were not drunk +overnight; and dogged, perfectly awake, magnanimous, all for fair play; +fine fellows, upon my word. A little blood, of course.' + +But the daughter of the Old Buccaneer would have inherited a tenderness +for the sight of blood. She should make a natural Lady Patroness of +England's National Sports. We might turn her to that purpose; wander +over England with a tail of shouting riff-raft; have exhibitions, join +in them, display our accomplishments; issue challenges to fence, shoot, +walk, run, box, in time: the creature has muscle. It's one way of +crowning a freak; we follow the direction, since the deed done can't +be undone; and a precious poetical life, too! You may get as royally +intoxicated on swipes as on choice wine; win a name for yourself as +the husband of such a wife; a name in sporting journals and shilling +biographies: quite a revival of the Peerage they have begun to rail at! + +'I would not wish to leave you,' said Carinthia. + +'You have chosen,' said Fleetwood. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +IN WHICH THE BRIDE FROM FOREIGN PARTS IS GIVEN A TASTE OF OLD ENGLAND + +Cheers at an open gate of a field saluted the familiar scarlet of the +Earl of Fleetwood's coach in Kentish land. They were chorister cheers, +the spontaneous ringing out of English country hearts in homage to the +nobleman who brightened the heaviness of life on English land with a +spectacle of the noble art distinguishing their fathers. He drove along +over muffling turf; ploughboys and blue butcher-boys, and smocked old +men, with an approach to a hundred-weight on their heels, at the trot to +right and left; all hoping for an occasional sight of the jewel called +Kitty, that he carried inside. Kitty was there. + +Kitty's eyes are shut. Think of that: cradled innocence and angels' +dreams and the whole of the hymn just before ding-dong-bang on noses and +jaws! That means confidence? Looks like it. But Kitty's not asleep you +try him. He's only quiet because he has got to undergo great exertion. +Last fight he was knocked out of time, because he went into it honest +drunk, they tell. And the earl took him up, to give him a chance of +recovering his good name, and that's Christian. But the earl, he knows +a man as well as a horse. He's one to follow. Go to a fayte down at +Esslemont, you won't forget your day. See there, he's brought a lady on +the top o' the coach. That seems for to signify he don't expect it's +going to be much of a bloody business. But there's no accounting. +Anyhow, Broadfield 'll have a name in the papers for Sunday reading. +In comes t' other lord's coach. They've timed it together closes they +have. + +They were pronounced to be both the right sort of noblemen for the +country. Lord Brailstone's blue coach rattled through an eastern gate to +the corner of the thirty-acre meadow, where Lord Fleetwood had drawn up, +a toss from the ring. The meeting of the blue and scarlet coaches drew +forth Old England's thunders; and when the costly treasures contained in +them popped out heads, the moment was delirious. Kit Ines came after his +head on a bound. Ben Todds was ostentatiously deliberate: his party said +he was no dancing-master. He stepped out, grave as a barge emerging from +a lock, though alive to the hurrahs of supporters and punctilious in +returning the formal portion of his rival's too roguish nod. Their look +was sharp into the eyes, just an instant. + +Brailstone and Fleetwood jumped to the grass and met, talking and +laughing, precise upon points of business, otherwise cordial: +plenipotentiaries of great powers, whom they have set in motion and +bind to the ceremonial opening steps, according to the rules of civilized +warfare. They had a short colloquy with newspaper reporters;-- +an absolutely fair, square, upright fight of Britons was to be +chronicled. Captain Abrane, a tower in the crowd, registered bets +whenever he could. Curricles, gigs, carts, pony-traps, boys on ponies, +a swarm on legs, flowed to the central point and huddled there. + +Was either champion born in Kent? An audacious boy proclaimed Kit +Ines a man of Kent. Why, of course he was! and that was why the Earl +of Fleetwood backed our cocky Kitty, and means to land him on the top of +his profession. Ben Todds was shuffled aside; as one of their Londoners, +destitute of county savour. + +All very well, but have a spy at Benny Todds. Who looks the square man? +And hear what that big gentleman of the other lord's party says. A +gentleman of his height and weight has a right to his opinion. He 's +dead against Kit Ines: it's fists, not feet, he says, 'll do it to-day; +stamina, he says. Benny has got the stamina. + +Todds' possession of the stamina, and the grand voice of Captain Abrane, +and the Father Christmas, roast-beef-of-Old England face of the umpire +declared to be on the side of Lord Brailstone's colour blue, darkened +the star of Kit Ines till a characteristic piece of behaviour was espied. +He dashed his cap into the ring and followed it, with the lightest of +vaults across the ropes. There he was, the first in the ring: and that +stands for promise of first blow, first blood, first flat knock-down, +and last to cry for quarter. His pair of seconds were soon after him. +Fleetwood mounted his box. + +'Is it to fight?' said Carinthia. + +'To see which is the master.' + +'They fight to see?' + +'Generally until one or the other can't see. You are not obliged to see +it; you can be driven away if you wish.' + +'I will be here, if you are here.' + +'You choose it.' + +Fleetwood leaned over to Chumley Potts on the turf. 'Abrane's ruining +himself.' + +Potts frankly hoped that his friend might be doing so. 'Todds is jolly +well backed. He's in prime condition. He's the favourite of the knowing +ones.' + +'You wouldn't have the odds, if he weren't.' + +'No; but the odds are like ten per cent.: they conjure the gale, and be +hanged,' said Potts; he swore at his betting mania, which destroyed the +pleasure of the show he loved. + +All in the ring were shaking hands. Shots of a desire to question and +comment sped through Carinthia's veins and hurt her. She had gathered +that she spoke foolishly to her husband's ear, so she kept her mouth +shut, though the unanswered of her inquisitive ignorance in the strange +land pricked painfully at her bosom. She heard the girl behind her say: +'Our colours!' when the colour scarlet unwound with Lord Brailstone's +blue was tied to the stake: and her husband nodded; he smiled; he liked +to hear the girl. + +Potts climbed up, crying: 'Toilets complete! Now for paws out, and then +at it, my hearties!' + +Choice of corners under the leaden low cloud counted for little. A +signal was given; a man outside the ring eyed a watch, raised a hand; the +two umpires were on foot in their places; the pair of opposing seconds +hurried out cheery or bolt-business words to their men; and the champions +advanced to the scratch. Todds first, by the courtesy of Ines, whose +decorous control of his legs at a weighty moment was rightly read by his +party. + +Their hands grasped firmly: thereupon becoming fists of a hostile couple +in position. And simply to learn which of us two is the better man! Or +in other words, with four simple fists to compass a patent fact and stand +it on the historic pedestal, with a little red writing underneath: you +never can patent a fact without it. But mark the differences of this kind +of contention from all other--especially the Parliamentary: this is +positive, it has a beginning and an end; and it is good-humoured from +beginning to end; trial of skill, trial of stamina; Nature and Art; Old +English; which made us what we are; and no rancours, no vows of +vengeance; the beaten man of the two bowing to the bit of history he has +helped to make. + +Kittites had need to be confident in the skill of their lither lad. His +facer looked granite. Fronting that mass, Kit you might--not to lash +about for comparisons--call a bundle of bamboo. Ay, but well knitted, +springy, alive every inch of him; crafty, too, as you will soon bear +witness. He knows he has got his task, and he's the man to do it. + +There was wary sparring, and mirrors watched them. + +'Bigger fellow: but have no fear,' the earl said over his shoulder to +Madge. + +She said in return: 'Oh, I don't know, I'm praying.' + +Kit was now on his toes, all himself, like one who has found the key. +He feinted. Quick as lightning, he landed a bolt on Ben's jib, just at +the toll-bar of the bridge, between the eyes, and was off, out of reach, +elastic; Ben's counter fell short by a couple of inches. Cheers for +first blow. + +The earl clucked to Madge. Her gaze at the ring was a sullen intensity. + +Will you believe it?--Ben received a second spanking cracker on the +spectacles-seat: neat indeed; and, poor payment for the compliment, he +managed to dig a drive at the ribs. As much of that game as may suit +you, sturdy Ben! But hear the shout, and behold! + +First blood to Kit Ines! That tell-tale nose of old Ben's has mounted +the Earl of Fleetwood's colours, and all his party are looking +Brailstone-blue. + +'So far!' said Fleetwood. His grooms took an indication: the hamper was +unfastened; sandwiches were handed. Carinthia held one; she tried to +nibble, in obedience to her husband's example. Madge refused a bite of +food. + +Hearing Carinthia say to her: 'I hope he will not be beaten, I hope, I +hope,' she made answer: 'You are very good, Miss'; and the young lady +flushed. + +Gentlemen below were talking up to the earl. A Kentish squire of an +estate neighbouring Esslemont introduced a Welsh squire he had driven to +see the fun, by the name of Mr. Owain Wythan, a neighbour of the earl's +down in Wales. Refreshments were offered. Carinthia submissively sipped +the sparkling wine, which stings the lips when they are indisposed to it. +The voice of the girl Madge rang on the tightened chords of her breast. +Madge had said she was praying: and to pray was all that could be done by +two women. Her husband could laugh loudly with Mr. Potts and the other +gentlemen and the strangers. He was quite sure the man he supported +would win; he might have means of knowing. Carinthia clung to his bare +words, for the sake of the girl. + +A roaring peal went up from the circle of combat. Kit had it this time. +Attacking Ben's peepers, he was bent on defending his own, and he caught +a bodyblow that sent him hopping back to his pair of seconds, five clear +hops to the rear, like a smashed surge-wave off the rock. He was +respectful for the remainder of the round. But hammering at the system +he had formed, in the very next round he dropped from a tremendous +repetition of the blow, and lay flat as a turbot. The bets against him +had simultaneously a see-saw rise. + +'Bellows, he appears to have none,' was the comment of Chumley Potts. + +'Now for training, Chummy!' said Lord Fleetwood. + +'Chummy!' signifying a crow over Potts, rang out of the hollows of +Captain Abrane on Lord Brailstone's coach. + +Carinthia put a hand behind her to Madge. It was grasped, in gratitude +for sympathy or in feminine politeness. The girl murmured: 'I've seen +worse.' She was not speaking to ears. + +Lord Fleetwood sat watch in hand. 'Up,' he said; and, as if hearing him, +Kit rose from the ministering second's knee. He walked stiffly, squared +after the fashion of a man taught caution. Ben made play. They rounded +the ring, giving and taking. Ben rushed, and had an emollient; spouted +again and was corked; again, and received a neat red-waxen stopper. He +would not be denied at Kit's door, found him at home and hugged him. Kit +got himself to grass, after a spell of heavy fibbing, Ben's game. + +It did him no great harm; it might be taken for an enlivener; he was dead +on his favourite spot the ensuing round, played postman on it. So +cleverly, easily, dancingly did he perform the double knock and the +retreat, that Chumley Potts was moved to forget his wagers and exclaim: +'Racket-ball, by Jove!' + +'If he doesn't let the fellow fib the wind out of him,' Mallard addressed +his own crab eyeballs. + +Lord Fleetwood heard and said coolly: 'Tightstrung. I kept him fasting +since he earned his breakfast. You don't wind an empty rascal fit for +action. A sword through the lungs won't kill when there's no air in +them.' + +That was printed in the 'Few Words before the Encounter', in the Book Of +MAXIMS FOR MEN. Carinthia, hearing everything her husband uttered, +burned to remind him of the similarity between his opinions and her +father's. + +She was learning, that for some reason, allusions to her father were not +acceptable. She squeezed the hand of Madge, and felt a pressure, like a +scream, telling her the girl's heart was with the fight beneath them. +She thought it natural for her. She wished she could continue looking as +intently. She looked because her husband looked. The dark hills and +clouds curtaining the run of the stretch of fields relieved her sight. + +The clouds went their way; the hills were solid, but like a blue smoke; +the scene here made them very distant and strange. Those two men were +still hitting, not hating one another; only to gratify a number of +unintelligible people and win a success. But the earth and sky seemed to +say, What is the glory? They were insensible to it, as they are not-- +they are never insensible to noble grounds of strife. They bless the +spot, they light lamps on it; they put it into books of history, make it +holy, if the cause was a noble one or a good one. + +Or supposing both those men loved the girl, who loved one of them! Then +would Carinthia be less reluctantly interested in their blows. + +Her infant logic stumbled on for a reason while she repressed the torture +the scene was becoming, as though a reason could be found by her +submissive observation of it. And she was right in believing that a +reason for the scene must or should exist. Only, like other bewildered +instinctive believers, she could not summon the great universe or a +life's experience to unfold it. Her one consolation was in squeezing the +hand of the girl from time to time. + +Not stealthily done, it was not objected to by the husband whose eye was +on all. But the persistence in doing it sank her from the benignity of +her station to the girl's level: it was conduct much too raw, and grated +on the deed of the man who had given her his name. + +Madge pleased him better. She had the right to be excited, and she was +very little demonstrative. She had--well, in justice, the couple of them +had, only she had it more--the tone of the women who can be screwed to +witness a spill of blood, peculiarly catching to hear;--a tone of every +string in them snapped except the silver string. Catching to hear? It +is worth a stretching of them on the rack to hear that low buzz-hum of +their inner breast . . . By heaven! we have them at their best when +they sing that note. + +His watch was near an hour of the contest, and Brailstone's man had +scored first knock-down blow, a particularly clean floorer. Thinking of +that, he was cheered by hearing Chummy Potts, whose opinions he despised, +cry out to Abrane:-- + +'Yeast to him!' For the face of Todds was visibly swelling to the ripest +of plums from Kit's deliveries. + +Down he went. He had the sturdy legs which are no legs to a clean blow. +Odds were offered against him. + +'Oh! pretty play with your right, Kit!' exclaimed Mallard, as Kit fetched +his man an ugly stroke on the round of the waist behind, and the crowd +sent up the name of the great organs affected: a sickener of a stroke, if +dealt soundly. It meant more than 4 showed. Kit was now for taking +liberties. Light as ever on his pins, he now and then varied his +attentions to the yeasty part, delivering a wakener in unexpected +quarters: masterly as the skilled cook's carving of a joint with hungry +guests for admirers. + +'Eh, Madge?' the earl said. + +She kept her sight fixed, replying: 'Yes, I think . . .' Carinthia +joined with her: 'I must believe it that he will: but will the other man, +poor man, submit? I entreat him to put away his pride. It is his--oh, +poor man!' + +Ben was having it hot and fast on a torso physiognomy. + +The voices of these alien women thrilled the fray and were a Bardic harp +to Lord Fleetwood. + +He dropped a pleasant word on the heads in the curricle. + +Mr. Owain Wythan looked up. 'Worthy of Theocritus. It's the Boxing Twin +and the Bembrycian giant. The style of each. To the letter!' + +'Kit is assiduously fastening Ben's blinkers,' Potts remarked. + +He explained to the incomprehensible lady he fancied he had somewhere +seen, that the battle might be known as near the finish by the behaviour +on board Lord Brailstone's coach. + +'It's like Foreign Affaits and the Stock Exchange,' he said to the more +intelligent males. 'If I want to know exactly how the country stands, I +turn to the Money Article in the papers. That's a barometrical +certainty. No use inquiring abroad. Look at old Rufus Abrane. I see +the state of the fight on the old fellow's mug. He hasn't a bet left in +him!' + +'Captain Mountain--Rufus Mus!' cried Lord Fleetwood, and laughed at the +penetrative portrait Woodseer's epigram sketched; he had a desire for the +presence of the singular vagabond. + +The Rufus Mus in the Captain Mountain exposed his view of the encounter, +by growing stiller, apparently growing smaller, without a squeak, like +the entrapped; and profoundly contemplative, after the style of the +absolutely detached, who foresee the fatal crash, and are calculating, +far ahead of events, the means for meeting their personal losses. + +The close of the battle was on the visage of Rufus Abrane fifteen minutes +before that Elgin marble under red paint in the ring sat on the knee of a +succouring seconder, mopped, rubbed, dram-primed, puppy-peeping, +inconsolably comforted, preparatory to the resumption of the great-coat +he had so hopefully cast from his shoulders. Not downcast by any means. +Like an old Roman, the man of the sheer hulk with purple eyemounds found +his legs to do the manful thing, show that there was no bad blood, stand +equal to all forms. Ben Todds, if ever man in Old England, looked the +picture you might label 'Bellyful,' it was remarked. Kit Ines had an +appearance of springy readiness to lead off again. So they faced on the +opening step of their march into English History. + +Vanquisher and vanquished shook hands, engaged in a parting rally of +good-humoured banter; the beaten man said his handsome word; the best man +capped it with a compliment to him. They drink of different cups to-day. +Both will drink of one cup in the day to come. But the day went too +clearly to crown the light and the tight and the right man of the two, +for moralizing to wag its tail at the end. Oldsters and youngsters +agreed to that. Science had done it: happy the backers of Science! Not +one of them alluded to the philosophical 'hundred years hence.' For when +England, thanks to a spirited pair of our young noblemen, has exhibited +one of her characteristic performances consummately, Philosophy is bidden +fly; she is a foreign bird. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +RECORDS A SHADOW CONTEST CLOSE ON THE FOREGOING + +Kit Ines cocked an eye at Madge, in the midst of the congratulations and +the paeans pumping his arms. As he had been little mauled, he could +present a face to her, expecting a wreath of smiles for the victor. + +What are we to think of the contrarious young woman who, when he lay +beaten, drove him off the field and was all tenderness and devotion? +She bobbed her head, hardly more than a trifle pleased, one might say. +Just like females. They're riddles, not worth spelling. Then, drunk +I'll get to-night, my pretty dear! the man muttered, soured by her +inopportune staidness, as an opponent's bruisings could never have +rendered him. + +She smiled a lively beam in answer to the earl; 'Oh yes I 'm glad. It's +your doing, my lord.' Him it was that she thanked, and for the moment +prized most. The female riddle is hard to read, because it is compounded +of sensations, and they rouse and appeal to the similar cockatrices in +us, which either hiss back or coil upon themselves. She admired Kit Ines +for his valour: she hated that ruinous and besotting drink. It flung +skeletons of a married couple on the wall of the future. Nevertheless +her love had been all maternal to him when he lay chastised and disgraced +on account of his vice. Pity had done it. Pity not being stirred, her +admiration of the hero declared victorious, whose fortunes in uncertainty +had stopped the beating of her heart, was eclipsed by gratitude toward +his preserver, and a sentiment eclipsed becomes temporarily coldish, +against our wish and our efforts, in a way to astonish; making her think +that she cannot hold two sentiments at a time; when it is but the fact +that she is unable to keep the two equally warm. + +Carinthia said to her: 'He is brave.' + +'Oh yes, he's brave,' Madge assented. + +Lord Brailstone, flourishing his whip, cried out: 'At Canleys to-night?' + +The earl nodded: 'I shall be there.' + +'You, too, Chummy?' came from Abrane. + +'To see you dance,' Potts rejoined, and mumbled + +'But will he dance! Old Braney's down on his luck; he's a specimen of a +fellow emptier and not lighter. And won't be till supper-time. But, I +say, Fleet, how the deuce?--funny sort of proceeding!--You haven't +introduced me.' + +'The lady bears my name, Mr. Chumley Potts.' + +With a bow to the lady's profile and a mention of a glimpse at Baden, +Potts ejaculated: 'It happened this morning?' + +'You allude to the marriage. It happened this morning.' + +'How do I get to Canleys?' + +'I drive you. Another team from the Esslemont stables is waiting at the +Royal.' + +'You stay at Canleys?' + +'No.' + +'No? Oh! Funny, upon my word. Though I don't know why not--except that +people . . .' + +'Count your winnings, Chummy.' + +Fleetwood remarked to his bride: 'Our friend has the habit of +soliloquizing in company. I forgot to tell you of an appointment of mine +at a place called Canleys, about twenty miles or more from here. I gave +my word, so I keep it. The landlady at the inn, Mrs. Rundles, motherly +kind of woman; she will be attentive. They don't cook badly, for an +English inn, I have heard. Madge here will act as your lady's-maid for +the time. You will find her serviceable; she's a bruiser's lass and +something above it. Ines informed me, Madge, you were going to friends of +yours at the Wells. You will stay at the Royal and wait on this lady, +who bears my name. You understand?--A girl I can trust for courage, if +the article is in request,' he resumed to his bride; and talked generally +of the inn and the management of it, and its favoured position outside +the village and contiguous to the river, upon which it subsisted. + +Carinthia had heard. She was more than ever the stunned young woman she +had been since her mounting of the coach, between the village church and +Lekkatts. + +She said not a word. Why should she? her object was won. Give her +that, and a woman's tongue will consent to rest. The dreaded weapon +rest, also when she is kept spinning by the whip. She gives out a +pleasant hum, too. Her complexion must be pronounced dull in repose. +A bride on her travels with an aspect of wet chalk, rather helps to +scare mankind from marriage: which may be good or bad; but she reflects a +sicklier hue on the captured Chessman calling her his own. Let her shine +in privacy. + +Fleetwood drew up at the Royal Sovereign, whereof the reigning monarch, +in blue uniform on the signboard, curtseyed to his equally windy +subjects; and a small congregation of the aged, and some cripples and +infants, greeted the patron of Old England's manfullest display, cheering +at news of the fight, brought them by many little runners. + +'Your box has been conveyed to your room,' he said to his bride. + +She bowed. This time she descended the coach by the aid of the ladder. + +Ines, victorious in battle, had scant notice from his love. 'Yes, I 'm +glad,' and she passed him to follow her newly constituted mistress. His +pride was dashed, all the foam of the first draw on the top of him blown +off, as he figuratively explained the cause of his gloom to the earl. +'I drink and I gets a licking--that girl nurses and cossets me. I don't +drink and I whops my man--she shows me her back. Ain't it encouragement, +my lord?' + +'You ought to know them by this time, you dolt,' returned his patron, +and complimented him on his bearing in the fight. 'You shall have your +two hundred, and something will be added. Hold handy here till I mount. +I start in ten minutes.' + +Whether to speak a polite adieu to the bride, whose absurd position +she had brought on her own head, was debated for half a minute. He +considered that the wet chalk-quarry of a beauty had at all events the +merit of not being a creature to make scenes. He went up to the sitting- +room. If she was not there, he would leave his excuses. + +She was there, and seated; neither crying, nor smiling, nor pointedly +serious in any way, not conventionally at her ease either. And so +clearly was he impressed by her transparency in simplicity of expression, +that he took without a spurn at it the picture of a woman half drained +of her blood, veiling the wound. And a young woman, a stranger to +suffering: perhaps--as the creatures do looking for the usual flummery +tenderness, what they call happiness; wondering at the absence of it and +the shifty ghost of a husband she has got by floundering into the bog +known as Marriage. She would have it, and here she was! + +He entered the situation and was possessed by the shivering delicacy +of it. Surface emotions were not seen on her. She might be a creature +with a soul. Here and there the thing has been found in women. It is +priceless when found, and she could not be acting. One might swear the +creature had no power to act. + +She spoke without offence, the simplest of words, affected no +solicitudes, put on no gilt smiles, wore no reproaches: spoke to him as +if so it happened--he had necessarily a journey to perform. One could +see all the while big drops falling from the wound within. One could +hear it in her voice. Imagine a crack of the string at the bow's deep +stress. Or imagine the bow paralyzed at the moment of the deepest +sounding. And yet the voice did not waver. She had now the richness of +tone carrying on a music through silence. + +Well, then, at least, he had not been the utterly duped fool he thought +himself since the consent was pledged to wed her. + +More, she had beauty--of its kind. Or splendour or grandeur, was the +term for it. But it bore no name. None of her qualities--if they were +qualities--had a name. She stood with a dignity that the word did not +express. She endured meekly, when there was no meekness. Pain breathed +out of her, and not a sign of pain was visible. She had, under his +present observation of her, beauty, with the lines of her face breaking +in revolt from beauty--or requiring a superterrestrial illumination to +show the harmony. He, as he now saw, had erred grossly in supposing her +insensitive, and therefore slow of a woman's understanding. She drew the +breath of pain through the lips: red lips and well cut. Her brown eyes +were tearless, not alluring or beseeching or repelling; they did but +look, much like the skies opening high aloof on a wreck of storm. Her +reddish hair-chestnut, if you will--let fall a skein over one of the +rugged brows, and softened the ruggedness by making it wilder, as if a +great bird were winging across a shoulder of the mountain ridges. +Conceived of the mountains, built in their image, the face partook +alternately of mountain terror or splendour; wholly, he remembered, +of the splendour when her blood ran warm. No longer the chalk-quarry +face,--its paleness now was that of night Alps beneath a moon chasing the +shadows. + +She might be casting her spells again. + +'You remember I told you,' he said, 'I have given my word--I don't break +it--to be at a Ball. Your uncle was urgent to have the ceremony over. +These clashes occur. The people here--I have spoken of that: people of +good repute for attention to guests. I am uncertain of the time . . . +we have all to learn to wait. So then, good-bye till we meet.' + +He was experiencing a novel nip of torment, of just the degree which +takes a partial appeasement from the inflicting of it, and calls up a +loathed compassion. She might have been in his arms for a step, though +she would not have been the better loved. + +He was allowed his escape, bearing with him enough of husband to execrate +another enslaving pledge of his word, that begat a frenzy to wreak some +caresses on the creature's intolerably haunting image. Of course, he +could not return to her. How would she receive him? There was no salt +in the thought of it; she was too submissive. + +However, there would be fun with Chummy Potts on the drive to Canleys; +fun with Rufus Abrane at Mrs. Cowper Quillett's; and with the Countess +Livia, smothered, struggling, fighting for life with the title of +Dowager. A desire for unbridled fun had hold of any amount of it, to +excess in any direction. And though this cloud as a dry tongue after +much wine craves water, glimpses of his tramp's walk with a fellow tramp +on a different road, enjoying strangely healthy vagabond sensations and +vast ideas; brought the vagrant philosopher refreshfully to his mind: +chiefly for the reason that while in Woodseer's company he had hardly +suffered a stroke of pain from the thought of Henrietta. She was now a +married woman, he was a married man by the register. Stronger proof of +the maddest of worlds could not be furnished. + +Sane in so mad a world, a man is your flabby citizen among outlaws, good +for plucking. Fun, at any cost, is the one object worth a shot in such a +world. And the fun is not to stop. If it does, we are likely to be got +hold of, and lugged away to the altar--the terminus. That foul disaster +has happened, through our having temporarily yielded to a fit of the +dumps and treated a mad world's lunatic issue with some seriousness. But +fun shall be had with the aid of His Highness below. The madder the +world, the madder the fun. And the mixing in it of another element, +which it has to beguile us--romance--is not at all bad cookery. Poetic +romance is delusion--a tale of a Corsair; a poet's brain, a bottle of +gin, and a theatrical wardrobe. Comic romance is about us everywhere, +alive for the tapping. + +A daughter of the Old Buccaneer should participate in it by right of +birth: she would expect it in order to feel herself perfectly at home. +Then, be sure, she finds an English tongue and prattles away as merrily +as she does when her old scapegrace of a father is the theme. Son-in-law +to him! But the path of wisdom runs in the line of facts, and to have +wild fun and romance on this pantomime path, instead of kicking to break +away from it, we follow things conceived by the genius of the situation, +for the delectation of the fair Countess of Fleetwood and the earl, her +delighted husband, quite in the spirit of the Old Buccaneer, father of +the bride. + +Carinthia sat beside the fire, seeing nothing in the room or on the road. +Up in her bedchamber, the girl Madge was at her window. She saw Lord +Fleetwood standing alone, laughing, it seemed, at some thought; he threw +up his head. Was it a newly married man leaving his bride and laughing? +The bride was a dear lady, fit for better than to be driven to look on at +a prize-fight--a terrible scene to a lady. She was left solitary: and +this her wedding day? The earl had said it, he had said she bore his +name, spoke of coming from the altar, and the lady had blushed to hear +herself called Miss. The pressure of her hand was warm with Madge: her +situation roused the fervid latent sisterhood in the breast of women. + +Before he mounted the coach, Lord Fleetwood talked to Kit Ives. He +pointed at an upper window, seemed to be issuing directions. Kit nodded; +he understood it, whatever it was. You might have said, a pair of +burglars. The girl ran downstairs to bid her lover good-bye and show him +she really rejoiced in his victory. Kit came to her saying: 'Given my +word of honour I won't make a beast of myself to-night. Got to watch +over you and your lady.' + +Lord Fleetwood started his fresh team, casting no glance at the windows +of the room where his bride was. He and the gentlemen on the coach were +laughing. + +His leaving of his young bride to herself this day was classed among the +murky flashes which distinguished the deeds of noblemen. But his +laughter on leaving her stamped it a cruelty; of the kind that plain +mortals, who can be monsters, commit. Madge conceived a pretext for +going into the presence of her mistress, whose attitude was the same as +when she first sat in the chair. The lady smiled and said: 'He is not +hurt much?' She thought for them about her. + +The girl's, heart of sympathy thumped, and her hero became a very minute +object. He had spoken previously of the making or not making a beast of +himself; without inflicting a picture of the beast. His words took shape +now, and in consequence a little self-pity began to move. It stirred to +swell the great wave of pity for the lady, that was in her bosom. 'Oh, +he!' she said, and extinguished the thought of him; and at once her +under-lip was shivering, her eyes filled and poured. + +Carinthia rose anxiously. The girl dropped at her feet. 'You have been +so good to me to-day, my lady! so good to me to-day! I can't help it-- +I don't often just for this moment; I've been excited. Oh, he's well, he +will do; he's nothing. You say "poor child!" But I'm not; it's only. +excitement. I do long to serve you the best I can.' + +She stood up in obedience and had the arms of her young mistress pressing +her. Tears also were streaming from Carinthia's eyes. Heartily she +thanked the girl for the excuse to cry. + +They were two women. On the road to Canleys, the coach conveying men +spouted with the lusty anecdote, relieved of the interdict of a +tyrannical sex. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +DOWN WHITECHAPEL WAY + +Contention begets contention in a land of the pirate races. Gigs were +at high rival speed along the road from the battle-field to London. +They were the electrical wires of the time for an expectant population +bursting to have report of so thundering an event as the encounter of two +champion light weights, nursed and backed by a pair of gallant young +noblemen, pick of the whole row of coronets above. London panted gaping +and the gigs flew with the meat to fill it. + +Chumley Potts offered Ambrose Mallard fair odds that the neat little trap +of the chief sporting journal, which had a reputation to maintain, would +be over one or other of the bridges crossing the Thames first. Mallard +had been struck by the neat little trap of an impudent new and lower- +priced journal, which had a reputation to gain. He took the proffered +odds, on the cry as of a cracker splitting. Enormous difficulties in +regard to the testimony and the verifications were discussed; they were +overcome. Potts was ready for any amount of trouble; Mallard the same. +There was clearly a race. There would consequently be a record. Visits +to the offices of those papers, perhaps half a day at the south end of +London or on Westminster bridge, examining witnesses, corner shopmen, +watermen, and the like, would or should satisfactorily establish the +disputed point. + +Fleetwood had his fun; insomuch that he laughed himself into a sentiment +of humaneness toward the couple of donkeys and forgot his contempt of +them. Their gamblings and their bets increased his number of dependents; +and imbeciles were preferable to dolts or the dry gilt figures of the +circle he had to move in. Matter for some astonishment had been +furnished to the latter this day; and would cause an icy Signor stare +and rather an angry Signora flutter. A characteristic of that upper +circle, as he knew it, is, that the good are dull, the vicious very bad. +They had nothing to please him but manners. Elsewhere this land is a +land of no manners. Take it and make the most of it, then, for its +quality of brute honesty: which is found to flourish best in the British +prize-ring. + +His irony landed him there. It struck the country a ringing blow. But +it struck an almost effacing one at the life of the young nobleman of +boundless wealth, whose highest renown was the being a patron of +prizefighters. Husband of the daughter of the Old Buccaneer as well! +perchance as a result. That philosopher tramp named her 'beautiful +Gorgon.' She has no beauty; and as for Gorgon, the creature has a look +of timid softness in waiting behind her rocky eyes. A barbaric damsel +beginning to nibble at civilization, is nearer the mark; and ought she to +be discouraged? + +Fleetwood's wrath with his position warned him against the dupery of any +such alcove thoughts. For his wrath revenged him, and he feared the +being stripped of it, lest a certain fund of his own softness, that he +knew of; though few did, should pull him to the creature's feet. She +belonged to him indeed; so he might put her to the trial of whether she +had a heart and personal charm, without the ceremony of wooing--which, +in his case, tempted to the feeling desperately earnest and becoming +enslaved. He speculated upon her eyelids and lips, and her voice, when +melting, as women do in their different ways; here and there with an +execrable--perhaps pardonable--art; one or two divinely. The vision drew +him to a headlong plunge and swim of the amorous mind, occupying a +minute, filling an era. He corrected the feebleness, and at the same +time threw a practical coachman's glance on peculiarities of the road, +requiring some knowledge of it if traversed backward at a whipping pace +on a moonless night. The drive from Canleys to the Royal Sovereign could +be done by good pacers in an hour and a half, little more--with Ives and +the stables ready, and some astonishment in a certain unseen chamber. +Fleetwood chuckled at a vision of romantic devilry--perfectly legitimate +too. Something, more to inflict than enjoy, was due to him. + +He did, not phrase it, that a talk with the fellow Woodseer of his +mountains and his forests, and nature, philosophy, poetry, would have +been particularly healthy for him, almost as good as the good counsel be +needed and solicited none to give him. It swept among his ruminations +while he pricked Potts and Mallard to supply his craving for satanical +fare. + + +Gower Woodseer; the mention of whom is a dejection to the venerable +source of our story, was then in the act of emerging from the Eastward +into the Southward of the line of Canterbury's pilgrims when they set +forth to worship, on his homeward course, after a walk of two days out of +Dover. He descended London's borough, having exactly twopence halfpenny +for refreshment; following a term of prudent starvation, at the end of +the walk. It is not a district seductive to the wayfarer's appetite; +as, for example, one may find the Jew's fry of fish in oil, inspiriting +the Shoreditch region, to be. Nourishment is afforded, according to the +laws of England's genius in the arts of refection, at uninviting shops, +to the necessitated stomach. A penn'orth of crumb of bread, assisted on +its laborious passage by a penn'orth of the rinsings of beer, left the +natural philosopher a ha'penny for dessert at the stall of an applewoman, +where he withstood an inclination toward the juicy fruit and chose nuts. +They extend a meal, as a grimace broadens the countenance, illusorily; +but they help to cheat an emptiness in time, where it is nearly as +offensive to our sensations as within us; and that prolonged occupation +of the jaws goes a length to persuade us we are filling. All the better +when the substance is indigestible. Tramps of the philosophical order, +who are the practically sagacious, prefer tough grain for the teeth. +Woodseer's munching of his nuts awakened to fond imagination the picture +of his father's dinner, seen one day and little envied: a small slice of +cold boiled mutton-flesh in a crescent of white fat, with a lump of dry +bread beside the plate. + +Thus he returned to the only home he had, not disheartened, and bearing +scenes that outvied London's print-shops for polychrome splendour, an +exultation to recall. His condition, moreover, threw his father's life +and work into colour: the lean Whitechapel house of the minister among +the poor; the joy in the saving of souls, if he could persuade himself +that such good labour advanced: and at the fall of light, the pastime +task of bootmaking--a desireable occupation for a thinker. Thought flies +best when the hands are easily busy. Cobblers have excursive minds. +Their occasional rap at the pegs diversifies the stitchings and is often +happily timed to settle an internal argument. Seek in a village for +information concerning the village or the state of mankind, you will be +less disappointed at the cobbler's than elsewhere, it has been said. + +As Gower had anticipated, with lively feelings of pleasure, Mr. Woodseer +was at the wonted corner of his back room, on the stool between two +tallow candleflames, leather scented strongly, when the wanderer stood +before him, in the image of a ball that has done with circling about a +stable point. + +'Back?' the minister sang out at once, and his wrinkles gleamed: + +Their hands grasped. + +'Hungry, sir, rather.' + +'To be sure, you are. One can read it on your boots. Mrs. Jones will +spread you a table. How many miles to-day? Show the soles. They tell a +tale of wear.' + +They had worn to resemble the thin-edged layers of still upper cloud +round the peep of coming sky. + +'About forty odd to-day, sir. They've done their hundreds of miles and +have now come to dock. I 'll ask Mrs. Jones to bring me a plate here.' + +Gower went to the housekeeper in the kitchen. His father's front door +was unfastened by day; she had not set eyes on him yet, and Mr. Woodseer +murmured: + +'Now she's got the boy. There 's clasping and kissing. He's all wild +Wales to her.' + +The plate of meat was brought by Mary Jones with Gower beside her, and a +sniffle of her happiness audible. She would not, although invited to +stay and burning to hear Gower, wait in the room where father and son had +to talk together after a separation, long to love's counting. She was a +Welshwoman of the pure blood, therefore delicately mannered by nature. + +'Yes, dear lad, tobacco helps you on to the marrow of your story, and I +too will blow the cloud,' said Mr. Woodseer, when the plate was pushed +aside and the pipe appeared. + +So Gower's recital of his wanderings began, more puffs than speech at the +commencement. He was alternately picturesque and sententious until he +reached Baden; there he became involved, from thinking of a revelation of +beauty in woman. + +Mr. Woodseer rapped the leather on his block. + +'A place where they have started public gambling, I am told.' + +'We must look into all the corners of the world to know it, sir, and the +world has to be riddled or it riddles us.' + +'Ah. Did you ever tell a lie, Gower Woodseer?' + +'I played.' + +'You played. The Lord be thanked you have kept your straight tongue! +The Lord can always enter a heart of truth. Sin cannot dwell with it. +But you played for gain, and that was a licenced thieving; and that was a +backsliding; and there will have to be a climbing up. And what that +means, your hold on truth will learn. Touch sin and you accommodate +yourself to its vileness. Ay, you love nature. Nature is not anchorage +for vessels like men. If you loved the Book you would float in harbour. +You played. I do trust you lost.' + +'You have your wish, sir.' + +'To have won their money, Gower! Rather starve.' + +'I did.' + +'Your reason for playing, poor lad?' + +'The reason eludes reason.' + +'Not in you.' + +'Sight of the tables; an itch to try them--one's self as well; a notion +that the losers were playing wrong. In fine, a bit of a whirl of a +medley of atoms; I can't explain it further.' + +'Ah. The tippler's fumes in his head! Spotty business, Gower Woodseer. +"Lead us not into temptation" is worldly wisdom in addition to heavenly.' + +After listening to an extended homily, with a general assent and +tobacco's phlegm, Gower replied to his father's 'You starved manfully?' +nodding: 'From Baden to Nancy. An Alsatian cottager at times helped me +along, milk and bread.' + +'Wholesome for body and for soul.' + +'Entering Nancy I subscribed to the dictum of our first fathers, which +dogs would deliver, if they could speak: that there is no driver like +stomach: and I went head on to the College, saw the Principal: plea of +urgency. No engagement possible, to teach either French or English. But +he was inquisitive touching the urgency. That was my chance. The French +are humane when they are not suspicious of you. They are generous, if +you put a light to their minds. As I was dealing with a scholarly one, +I made use of such ornamental literary skill as I possessed, to prove +urgency. He supplied me with bread, fruit, and wine. In the end he +procured me pupils. I lodged over a baker's shop. I had food walks, and +learnt something of forestry there--a taking study. When I had saved +enough to tramp it home, I said my adieux to that good friend and tramped +away, entering London with about the same amount in small coin as when I +entered Nancy. A manner of exactly hitting the mark, that some would not +find so satisfactory as it is to me.' + +The minister sighed. 'There comes in the "philosophy," I suppose. When +will you understand, that this "philosophy" is only the passive of a +religious faith? It seems to suit you gentlemen of the road while you +are young. Work among the Whitechapel poor. It would be a way for +discovering the shallows of your "philosophy" earlier.' + +Gower asked him: 'Going badly here, sir?' + +'Murders, robberies, misusage of women, and misconduct of women!--Drink, +in short: about the same amount. Drink is their death's river, rolling +them on helpless as corpses, on to--may they find mercy! I and a few +stand--it's in the tide we stand here, to stop them, pluck them out, make +life a bit sweet to them before the poor bodies go beneath. But come! +all's not dark, we have our gleams. I speak distressed by one of our +girls: a good girl, I believe; and the wilfullest that ever had command +of her legs. A well-favoured girl! You'll laugh, she has given her +heart to a prize-fighter. Well, you can say, she might have chosen +worse. He drinks, she hates it; she loves the man and hates his vice. +He swears amendment, is hiccupping at night; fights a match on the +morrow, and gets beaten out of formation. No matter: whenever, wherever, +that man goes to his fight, that girl follows to nurse him after it. +He's her hero. Women will have one, and it's their lottery. You read of +such things; here we have it alive and walking. I am led to think they +'re an honest couple. They come of established families. Her mother was +out of Caermarthen; died under my ministration, saintly, forgiving the +drunkard. You may remember the greengrocer, Tobias Winch? He passed +away in shrieks for one drop. I had to pitch my voice to the top notes +to get hearing for the hymn. He was a reverent man, with the craving by +fits. That should have been a lesson to Madge.' + +'A little girl at the greengrocer's hard by? She sold me apples; rather +pretty,' said Gower. + +'A fine grown girl now--Madge Winch; a comely wench she is. It breaks +her sister Sarah's heart. They both manage the little shop; they make it +prosper in a small way; enough, and what need they more? Then +Christopher Ines has on one of his matches. Madge drives her cart out, +if it 's near town. She's off down into Kent to-day by coach, Sarah +tells me. A great nobleman patronizes Christopher; a Lord Fleetwood, +a lord of wealth. And he must be thoughtful for these people: he sent +Sarah word that Christopher should not touch drink. You may remember a +butcher Ines in the street next to us. Christopher was a wild lad, +always at "best man" with every boy he met: went to sea--ran away. He +returned a pugilist. The girl will be nursing him now. I have spoken to +her of him; and I trust to her; but I mourn her attachment to the man who +drinks.' + +'The lord's name?' said Gower. + +'Lord Fleetwood, Sarah named him. And so it pleases him to spend his +money!' + +'He has other tastes. I know something of him, sir. He promises to be a +patron of Literature as well. His mother was a South Wales woman.' + +'Could he be persuaded to publish a grand edition of the Triads?' Mr. +Woodseer said at once. + +'No man more likely.' + +'If you see him, suggest it.' + +'Very little chance of my meeting him again. But those Triads! They're +in our blood. They spring to tie knots in the head. They push me to +condense my thoughts to a tight ball. They were good for primitive +times: but they--or the trick of the mind engendered by them--trip my +steps along the lines of composition. I produce pellets instead of +flowing sheets. It'll come right. At present I 'm so bent to pick and +perfect, polish my phrase, that I lose my survey. As a consequence, my +vocabulary falters.' + +'Ah,' Mr. Woodseer breathed and smote. 'This Literature is to be your +profession for the means of living?' + +'Nothing else. And I'm so low down in the market way of it, that I could +not count on twenty pounds per annum. Fifty would give me standing, an +independent fifty.' + +'To whom are you crying, Gower?' + +'Not to gamble, you may be sure.' + +'You have a home.' + +'Good work of the head wants an easy conscience. I've too much of you in +me for a comfortable pensioner.' + +'Or is it not, that you have been living the gentleman out there, with +just a holiday title to it?' + +Gower was hit by his father's thrust. 'I shall feel myself a pieman's +chuckpenny as long as I'm unproductive, now I 've come back and have to +own to a home,' he said. + +Tea brought in by Mrs. Mary Jones rather brightened him until he +considered that the enlivenment was due to a purchase by money, +of which he was incapable, and he rejected it, like an honourable man. +Simultaneously, the state of depression threw critic shades on a prized +sentence or two among his recent confections. It was rejected for the +best of reasons and the most discomforting: because it racked our +English; signifying, that he had not yet learnt the right use of his +weapons. + +He was in this wrestle, under a placid demeanour, for several days, +hearing the shouts of Whitechapel Kit's victory, and hearing of Sarah +Winch's anxiety on account of her sister Madge; unaffected by sounds of +joy or grief, in his effort to produce a supple English, with Baden's +Madonna for sole illumination of his darkness. To her, to the +illimitable gold-mist of perspective and the innumerable images the +thought of her painted for him, he owed the lift which withdrew him from +contemplation of himself in a very disturbing stagnant pool of the +wastes; wherein often will strenuous youth, grown faint, behold a face +beneath a scroll inscribed Impostor. All whose aim was high have spied +into that pool, and have seen the face. His glorious lady would not let +it haunt him. + +The spell she cast had likewise power to raise him clean out of a +neighbourhood hinting Erebus to the young man with thirst for air, +solitudes, and colour. Scarce imaginable as she was, she reigned here, +in the idea of her, more fixedly than where she had been visible; as it +were, by right of her being celestially removed from the dismal place. +He was at the same time not insensible to his father's contented +ministrations among these homes of squalor; they pricked the curiosity, +which was in the youthful philosopher a form of admiration. For his +father, like all Welshmen, loved the mountains. Yet here he lived, +exhorting, ministering, aiding, supported up to high good cheer by some, +it seemed, superhuman backbone of uprightness;--his religious faith? +Well, if so, the thing might be studied. But things of the frozen +senses, lean and hueless things, were as repellent to Gower's imagination +as his father's dishes to an epicure. What he envied was, the worthy old +man's heart of feeling for others: his feeling at present for the girl +Sarah Winch and her sister Madge, who had not been heard of since she +started for the fight. Mr. Woodseer had written to her relatives at the +Wells, receiving no consolatory answer. + +He was relieved at last; and still a little perplexed. Madge had +returned, he informed Gower. She was well, she was well in health; he +had her assurances that she was not excited about herself. + +'She has brought a lady with her, a great lady to lodge with her. She +has brought the Countess of Fleetwood to lodge with her.' + +Gower heard those words from his father; and his father repeated them. +To the prostrate worshipper of the Countess of Fleetwood, they were a +blow on the head; madness had set in here, was his first recovering +thought, or else a miracle had come to pass. Or was it a sham Countess +of Fleetwood imposing upon the girl? His father was to go and see the +great lady, at the greengrocer's shop; at her request, according to +Madge. Conjectures shot their perishing tracks across a darkness that +deepened and made shipwreck of philosophy. Was it the very Countess of +Fleetwood penitent for her dalliance with the gambling passion, in +feminine need of pastor's aid, having had report from Madge of this good +shepherd? His father expressed a certain surprise; his countenance was +mild. He considered it a merely strange occurrence. + +Perhaps, in a crisis, a minister of religion is better armed than a +philosopher. Gower would not own that, but he acknowledged the +evidences, and owned to envy; especially when he accompanied his father +to the greengrocer's shop, and Mr. Woodseer undisturbedly said: + +'Here is the place.' The small stuffed shop appeared to grow +portentously cavernous and waveringly illumined. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +THE GIRL MADGE + +Customers were at the counter of the shop, and these rational figures, +together with the piles of cabbages, the sacks of potatoes, the pale +small oranges here and there, the dominant smell of red herrings, denied +the lurking of an angelical presence behind them. + +Sarah Winch and a boy served at the counter. Sarah led the Mr. Woodseers +into a corner knocked off the shop and called a room. Below the top bars +of a wizened grate was a chilly fire. London's light came piecemeal +through a smut-streaked window. If the wonderful was to occur, this was +the place to heighten it. + +'My son may be an intruder,' Mr. Woodseer said. 'He is acquainted with a +Lord Fleetwood . . .' + +'Madge will know, sir,' replied Sarah, and she sent up a shrill cry for +Madge from the foot of the stairs. + +The girl ran down swiftly. She entered listening to Sarah, looking at +Gower; to whom, after a bob and pained smile where reverence was owing, +she said, 'Can you tell me, sir, please, where we can find Lord Fleetwood +now?' + +Gower was unable to tell. Madge turned to Mr. Woodseer, saying soon +after: 'Oh, she won't mind; she'll be glad, if he knows Lord Fleetwood. +I'll fetch her.' + +The moments were of the palpitating order for Gower, although his common +sense lectured the wildest of hearts for expecting such a possibility as +the presence of his lofty lady here. + +And, of course, common sense proved to be right: the lady was quite +another. But she struck on a sleeping day of his travels. Her face was +not one to be forgotten, and to judge by her tremble of a smile, she +remembered him instantly. + +They were soon conversing, each helping to paint the scene of the place +where they had met. + +'Lord Fleetwood has married me,' she said. + +Gower bent his head; all stood silent. + +'May I?' said Madge to her. 'It is Lord Fleetwood's wedded wife, sir. +He drove her from her uncle's, on her wedding day, the day of a prize- +fight, where I was; he told me to wait on his lady at an inn there, as I +'ve done and will. He drove away that evening, and he hasn't'--the +girl's black eyebrows worked: 'I've not seen him since. He's a great +nobleman, yes. He left his lady at the inn, expenses paid. He left her +with no money. She stayed on till her heart was breaking. She has come +to London to find him. She had to walk part of the way. She has only a +change of linen we brought in a parcel. She's a stranger to England: she +knows nobody in London. She had no place to come to but this poor hole +of ours she 's so good as let welcome her. We can't do better, and it 's +no use to be ashamed. She 's not a lady to scorn poor people.' + +The girl's voice hummed through Gower. + +He said: 'Lord Fleetwood may not be in London,' and chafed at himself for +such a quaver. + +'It's his house we want, sir, he has not been at his house in Kent. We +want his London house.' + +'My dear lady,' said Mr. Woodseer; 'it might be as well to communicate +the state of things to your family without delay. My son will call at +any address you name; or if it is a country address, I can write the +items, with my assurances of your safety under my charge, in my house, +which I beg you to make your home. My housekeeper is known to Sarah and +Madge for an excellent Christian woman.' + +Carinthia replied: 'You are kind to me, sir. I am grateful. I have an +uncle; I would not disturb my uncle; he is inventing guns and he wishes +peace. It is my husband I have come to find. He did not leave me in +anger.' + +She coloured. With a dimple of tenderness at one cheek, looking from +Sarah to Madge, she said: 'I would not leave my friends; they are sisters +to me.' Sarah, at these words, caught up her apron. Madge did no more +than breathe deep and fast. + +An unoccupied cold parlour in Mr. Woodseer's house that would be heated +for a guest, urged him to repeat his invitation, but he took the check +from Gower, who suggested the doubt of Mary Jones being so good an +attendant upon Lady Fleetwood as Madge. 'And Madge has to help in the +shop at times.' + +Madge nodded, looked into the eyes of her mistress, which sanctioned her +saying: 'She will like it best here, she is my lady and I understand her +best. My lady gives no trouble: she is hardy, she's not like other +ladies. I and Sarah sleep together in the room next. I can hear +anything she wants. She takes us as if she was used to it.' + +Sarah had to go to serve a customer. Madge made pretence of pricking her +ears and followed into the shop. + +'Your first visit to London is in ugly weather, Lady Fleetwood,' said +Gower. + +'It is my first,' she answered. + +How the marriage came about, how the separation, could not be asked and +was not related. + +'Our district is not all London, my dear lady,' said Mr. Woodseer. +'Good hearts are here, as elsewhere, and as many, if one looks behind the +dirt. I have found it since I laboured amongst them, now twenty years. +Unwashed human nature, though it is natural to us to wash, is the most +human, we find.' + +Gower questioned the naturalness of human nature's desire to wash; and +they wrangled good-humouredly, Carinthia's eyes dwelling on them each in +turn; until Mr. Woodseer, pursuing the theme started by him to interest +her, spoke of consolations derived from his labours here, in exchange for +the loss of his mountains. Her face lightened. + +'You love the mountains?' + +'I am a son of the mountains.' + +'Ah, I love them! Father called me a daughter of the mountains. I was +born in the mountains. I was leaving my mountains on the day, I think it +yesterday, when I met this gentleman who is your son.' + +'A glorious day it was!' Gower exclaimed. + +'It was a day of great glory for me,' said Carinthia. 'Your foot did not +pain you for long?' + +'The length of two pipes. You were with your brother.' + +'With my brother. My brother has married a most beautiful lady. He is +now travelling his happy time--my Chillon !' + +There came a radiance on her under-eyelids. There was no weeping. + +Struck by the contrast between the two simultaneous honeymoons, and a +vision of the high-spirited mountain girl, seen in this place a young +bride seeking her husband, Gower Woodseer could have performed that +unphilosophical part. He had to shake himself. She seemed really a +soaring bird brought down by the fowler. + +Lord Fleetwood's manner of abandoning her was the mystery. + +Gower stood waiting for her initiative, when the minister interposed: +'There are books, books of our titled people-the Peers, books of the +Peerage. They would supply the address. My son will discover where to +examine them. He will find the address. Most of the great noblemen have +a London house.' + +'My husband has a house in London,' Carinthia said. + +'I know him, to some degree,' said Gower. + +She remarked: 'I have heard that you do.' + +Her lips were shut, as to any hint at his treatment of her. + +Gower went into the shop to speak with Madge. The girl was talking in +the business tone to customers; she finished her commission hurriedly and +joined him on the pavement by the doorstep. Her voice was like the +change for the swing of a door from street to temple. + +'You've seen how brave she is, sir. She has things to bear. Never +cries, never frets. Her marriage day--leastways . . . I can't, no +girl can tell. A great nobleman, yes. She waited, believing in him; +she does. She hasn't spoken to me of what she's had to bear. I don't +know; I guess; I'm sure I'm right--and him a man! Girls learn to know +men, call them gentlemen or sweeps. She thinks she has only to meet him +to persuade him she 's fit to be loved by him. She thinks of love. +Would he--our tongues are tied except among ourselves to a sister. +Leaves her by herself, with only me, after--it knocks me dumb! Many a +man commits a murder wouldn't do that. She could force him to--no, it +isn't a house she wants, she wants him. He's her husband, Mr. Woodseer. +You will do what you can to help; I judge by your father. I and Sarah +'ll slave for her to be as comfortable--as we--can make her; we can't +give her what she 's used to. I shall count the hours.' + +'You sold me apples when your head was just above the counter,' said +Gower. + +'Did I?--you won't lose time, sir?' she rejoined. 'Her box is down at +the beastly inn in Kent. Kind people, I dare say; their bill was paid +any extent, they said. And he might do as he liked in it--enter it like +a thief, if it pleased him, and off like one, and they no wiser. She +walked to his big house Esslemont for news of him. And I'm not a +snivelling wench either; but she speaks of him a way to make a girl +drink her tears, if they ain't to be let fall.' + +'But you had a victory down there,' Gower hinted congratulations. + +'Ah,' said she. + +'Christopher Ines is all right now?' + +'I've as good as lost my good name for Kit Ines, Mr. Woodseer.' + +'Not with my dad, Madge.' + +'The minister reads us at the heart. Shall we hear the street of his +house in London before night?' + +'I may be late.' + +'I'll be up, any hour, for a rap at the shutters. I want to take her to +the house early next morning. She won't mind the distance. She lies in +bed, her eyes shut or open, never sleeping, hears any mouse. It +shouldn't go on, if we can do a thing to help.' + +'I'm off,' said Gower, unwontedly vexed at his empty pocket, that could +not offer the means for conveyance to a couple of young women. + +The dark-browed girl sent her straight eyes at him. They pushed him to +hasten. On second thoughts, he stopped and hailed her; he was moved to +confirm an impression of this girl's features. + +His mind was directed to the business burning behind them, honestly +enough, as soon as he had them in sight again. + +'I ought to have the address of some of her people, in case,' he said. + +'She won't go to her uncle, I 'm sure of that,' said Madge. 'He 's a +lord and can't be worried. It 's her husband to find first.' + +'If he's to be found!--he's a lord, too. Has she no other relatives or +friends?' + +'She loves her brother. He's an officer. He's away on honeymoon. +There 's an admiral down Hampshire way, a place I've been near and seen. +I'd not have you go to any of them, sir, without trying all we can do to +find Lord Fleetwood. It's Admiral Fakenham she speaks of; she's fond of +him. She's not minded to bother any of her friends about herself.' + +'I shall see you to-night,' said Gower, and set his face Westward, +remembering that his father had named Caermarthen as her mother's +birthplace. + +Just in that tone of hers do Welshwomen talk of their country; of its +history, when at home, of its mountains, when exiled: and in a language +like hers, bare of superlatives to signify an ardour conveyed by the fire +of the breath. Her quick devotion to a lady exciting enthusiasm through +admiring pity for the grace of a much-tried quiet sweetness, was +explained; apart from other reasons, feminine or hidden, which might +exist. Only a Welsh girl would be so quick and all in it, with a voice +intimating a heated cauldron under her mouth. None but a Welsh-blooded +girl, risking her good name to follow and nurse the man she considered a +hero, would carry her head to look virgin eyes as she did. One could +swear to them, Gower thought. Contact with her spirited him out of his +mooniness. + +He had the Cymric and Celtic respect of character; which puts aside the +person's environments to face the soul. He was also an impressionable +fellow among his fellows, a philosopher only at his leisure, in his +courted solitudes. Getting away some strides from this girl of the +drilling voice,--the shudder-voice, he phrased it,--the lady for whom she +pleaded came clearer into his view and gradually absorbed him; though it +was an emulation with the girl Madge, of which he was a trifle conscious, +that drove him to do his work of service in the directest manner. He +then fancied the girl had caught something of the tone of her lady: the +savage intensity or sincerity; and he brooded on Carinthia's position, +the mixture of the astounding and the woful in her misadventure. One +could almost laugh at our human fate, to think of a drop off the radiant +mountain heights upon a Whitechapel greengrocer's shop, gathering the +title of countess midway. + +But nothing of the ludicrous touched her; no, and if we bring reason to +scan our laugh at pure humanity, it is we who are in the place of the +ridiculous, for doing what reason disavows. Had he not named her, +Carinthia, Saint and Martyr, from a first perusal of her face? And Lord +Fleetwood had read and repeated it. Lord Fleetwood had become the +instrument to martyrize her? That might be; there was a hoard of bad +stuff in his composition besides the precious: and this was a nobleman +owning enormous wealth, who could vitiate himself by disposing of a +multitude of men and women to serve his will, a shifty will. Wealth +creates the magician, and may breed the fiend within him. In the hands +of a young man, wealth is an invitation to devilry. Gower's idea of the +story of Carinthia inclined to charge Lord Fleetwood with every possible +false dealing. He then quashed the charge, and decided to wait for +information. + +At the second of the aristocratic Clubs of London's West, into which he +stepped like an easy member, the hall-porter did not examine his clothing +from German hat to boots, and gave him Lord Fleetwood's town address. +He could tell Madge at night by the door of the shuttered shop, that Lord +Fleetwood had gone down to Wales. + +'It means her having to wait,' she said. 'The minister has been to the +coach-office, to order up her box from that inn. He did it in his name; +they can't refuse; no money's owing. She must have a change. Sally has +fifteen pounds locked up in case of need.' + +Sally's capacity and economy fetched the penniless philosopher a slap. + +'You've taken to this lady,' he said. + +'She held my hand, while Kit Ines was at his work; and I was new to her, +and a prize-fighter's lass, they call me:--upon the top of that +nobleman's coach, where he made me sit, behind her, to see the fight; +and she his wedded lady that morning. A queer groom. He may keep Kit +Ines from drink, he's one of you men, and rides over anything in his way. +I can't speak about it; I could swear it before a judge, from what I +know. Those Rundles at that inn don't hear anything it suits him to do. +All the people down in those parts are slaves to him. And I thought he +was a real St. George before,--yes, ready I was to kiss the ground his +feet crossed. If you could, it's Chinningfold near where Admiral +Fakenham lives, down Hampshire way. Her friends ought to hear what's +happened to her. They'll find her in a queer place. She might go to the +minister's. I believe she's happier with us girls.' + +Gower pledged his word to start for Chinningfold early as the light next +day. He liked the girl the better, in an amicable fashion, now that his +nerves had got free of the transient spell of her kettle tone--the hardly +varied one note of a heart boiling with sisterly devotion to a misused +stranger of her sex;--and, after the way of his race, imagination sprang +up in him, at the heels of the quieted senses, releasing him from the +personal and physical to grasp the general situation and place the +protagonist foremost. + +He thought of Carinthia, with full vision of her. Some wrong had been +done, or some violation of the right, to guess from the girl Madge's +molten words in avoidance of the very words. It implied--though it might +be but one of Love's shrewder discords--such suspected traitorous dealing +of a man with their sister woman as makes the world of women all woman +toward her. They can be that, and their being so illuminates their +hidden sentiments in relation to the mastering male, whom they uphold. + +But our uninformed philosopher was merely picking up scraps of sheddings +outside the dark wood of the mystery they were to him, and playing +imagination upon them. This primary element of his nature soon enthroned +his chosen lady above their tangled obscurities. Beneath her tranquil +beams, with the rapture of the knowledge that her name on earth was +Livia, he threaded East London's thoroughfares,--on a morning when day +and night were made one by fog, to journey down to Chinningfold, by +coach, in the service of the younger Countess of Fleetwood, whose right +to the title he did not doubt, though it directed surprise movements at +his understanding from time to time. + + + + +ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS: + +Cock-sure has crowed low by sunset +Drink is their death's river, rolling them on helpless +Father and she were aware of one another without conversing +Fun, at any cost, is the one object worth a shot +He was the prisoner of his word +Heartily she thanked the girl for the excuse to cry +Hearts that make one soul do not separately count their gifts +Life is the burlesque of young dreams +Make a girl drink her tears, if they ain't to be let fall +On a morning when day and night were made one by fog +Poetic romance is delusion +Push me to condense my thoughts to a tight ball +She endured meekly, when there was no meekness +She seemed really a soaring bird brought down by the fowler +She stood with a dignity that the word did not express +There is no driver like stomach +Touch sin and you accommodate yourself to its vileness +You played for gain, and that was a licenced thieving + + +[The End] + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 4484 *** diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. 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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: The Amazing Marriage, v2 + +Author: George Meredith + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +Release Date: September, 2003 [Etext #4484] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on February 26, 2002] + + +The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Amazing Marriage, v2, by Meredith +********This file should be named 4484.txt or 4484.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 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.] + + + + +THE AMAZING MARRIAGE + +By George Meredith + +1895 + + + +BOOK 2. + +X. SMALL CAUSES +XI. THE PRISONER OF HIS WORD +XII. HENRIETTA'S LETTER TREATING OF THE GREAT EVENT +XIII. AN IRRUPTION OF MISTRESS GOSSIP IN BREACH OF THE CONVENTION +XIV. A PENDANT OF THE FOREGOING +XV. OPENING STAGE OF THE HONEYMOON +XVI. IN WHICH THE BRIDE FROM FOREIGN PARTS IS GIVEN A TASTE OF OLD + ENGLAND +XVII. RECORDS A SHADOW CONTEST CLOSE ON THE FOREGOING +XVIII. DOWN WHITECHAPEL WAY +XIX. THE GIRL MADGE + + + +CHAPTER X + +SMALL CAUSES + +A clock sounded one of the later morning hours of the night as Gower +Woodseer stood at his hotel door, having left Fleetwood with a band of +revellers. The night was now clear. Stars were low over the ridge of +pines, dropped to a league of our strange world to record the doings. +Beneath this roof lay the starry She. He was elected to lie beneath it +also: and he beheld his heavenly lady floating on the lull of soft white +cloud among her sister spheres. After the way of imaginative young men, +he had her features more accurately now she was hidden, and he idealized +her more. He could escape for a time from his coil of similes and paint +for himself the irids of her large, long, grey eyes darkly rimmed; purest +water-grey, lucid within the ring, beneath an arch of lashes. He had +them fast; but then he fell to contemplating their exceeding rareness; +And the mystery of the divinely grey swung a kindled fancy to the flight +with some queen-witch of woods, of whom a youth may dream under the spell +of twilights, East or West, among forest branches. + +She had these marvellous eyes and the glamour for men. She had not yet +met a man with the poetical twist in the brain to prize her elementally. +All admitted the glamour; none of her courtiers were able to name it, +even the poetical head giving it a name did not think of the witch in her +looks as a witch in her deeds, a modern daughter of the mediaeval. To +her giant squire the eyes of the lady were queer: they were unlit glass +lamps to her French suppliant; and to the others, they were attractively +uncommon; the charm for them being in her fine outlines, her stature, +carriage of her person, and unalterable composure; particularly her +latent daring. She had the effect on the general mind of a lofty crag- +castle with a history. There was a whiff of gunpowder exciting the +atmosphere in the anecdotal part of the history known. + +Woodseer sat for a certain time over his note-book. He closed it with a +thrilling conceit of the right thing written down; such as entomologists +feel when they have pinned the rare insect. But what is butterfly or +beetle compared with the chiselled sentences carved out of air to +constitute us part owner of the breathing image and spirit of an adored +fair woman? We repeat them, and the act of repeating them makes her come +close on ours, by virtue of the eagle thought in the stamped gold of the +lines. + +Then, though she is not ever to be absolutely ours (and it is an +impoverishing desire that she should be), we have beaten out the golden +sentence--the essential she and we in one. But is it so precious after +all? A suspicious ring of an adjective drops us on a sickening descent. + +The author dashed at his book, examined, approved, keenly enjoyed, and he +murderously scratched the adjective. She stood better without it, as a +bright planet star issuing from clouds, which are perhaps an adornment to +our hackneyed moon. This done, he restored the book to his coat's +breast-pocket, smiling or sneering at the rolls of bank-notes there, +disdaining to count them. They stuffed an inner waistcoat pocket and his +trousers also. They at any rate warranted that we can form a calculation +of the chances, let Lord Fleetwood rave as he may please. + +Woodseer had caught a glimpse of the elbow-point of his coat when +flinging it back to the chair. There was distinctly abrasion. +Philosophers laugh at such things. But they must be the very ancient +pallium philosophers, ensconced in tubs, if they pretend to merriment +over the spectacle of nether garments gapped at the spot where man is +most vulnerable. He got loose from them and held them up to the candle, +and the rays were admitted, neither winking nor peeping. Serviceable old +clothes, no doubt. Time had not dealt them the final kick before they +scored a good record. + +They dragged him, nevertheless, to a sort of confession of some weakness, +that he could not analyze for the swirl of emotional thoughts in the way; +and they had him to the ground. An eagle of the poetic becomes a mere +squat toad through one of these pretty material strokes. Where then is +Philosophy? But who can be philosopher and the fervent admirer of a +glorious lady? Ask again, who in that frowzy garb can presume to think +of her or stand within fifty miles of her orbit? + +A dreary two hours brought round daylight. Woodseer quitted his restless +bed and entered the abjured habiliments, chivalrous enough to keep from +denouncing them until he could cast the bad skin they now were to his +uneasy sensations. He remembered having stumbled and fallen on the slope +of the hill into this vale, and probably then the mischief had occurred +though a brush would have, been sufficient, the slightest collision. +Only, it was odd that the accident should have come to pass just previous +to his introduction. How long antecedent was it? He belaboured his +memory to reckon how long it was from the moment of the fall to the first +sight of that lady. + +His window looked down on the hotel stable-yard. A coach-house door was +open. Odd or not--and it certainly looked like fate--that he should be +bowing to his lady so shortly after the mishap expelling him, he had to +leave the place. A groom in the yard was hailed, and cheerily informed +him he could be driven to Carlsruhe as soon as the coachman had finished +his breakfast. At Carlsruhe a decent refitting might be obtained, and he +could return from exile that very day, thanks to the praiseworthy early +hours of brave old Germany. + +He had swallowed a cup of coffee with a roll of stale bread, in the best +of moods, and entered his carriage; he was calling the order to start +when a shout surprised his ear: 'The fiddler bolts!' + +Captain Abrane's was the voice. About twenty paces behind, Abrane, +Fleetwood, and one whom they called Chummy Potts, were wildly waving +arms. Woodseer could hear the captain's lowered roar: 'Race you, Chummy, +couple of louis, catch him first!' The two came pelting up to the +carriage abreast. + +They were belated revellers, and had been carelessly strolling under the +pinky cloudlets bedward, after a prolonged carousal with the sons and +daughters of hilarious nations, until the apparition of Virgin Luck on +the wing shocked all prospect of a dead fight with the tables that day. + +'Here, come, no, by Jove, you, Mr. Woodsir! won't do, not a bit! can't +let you go,' cried Abrane, as he puffed. 'What! cut and run and leave +us, post winnings--bankers--knock your luck on the head! What a fellow! +Can't let you. Countess never forgive us. You promised--swore it--play +for her. Struck all aheap to hear of your play! You've got the trick. +Her purse for you in my pocket. Never a fellow played like you. Cool as +a cook over a-gridiron! Comme un phare! St. Ombre says--that Frenchman. +You astonished the Frenchman! And now cut and run? Can't allow it. +Honour of the country at stake.' + +'Hands off!' Woodseer bellowed, feeling himself a leaky vessel in dock, +his infirmities in danger of exposure. 'If you pull!--what the deuce do +you want? Stop!' + +'Out you come,' said the giant, and laughed at the fun to his friends, +who were entirely harmonious when not violently dissenting, as is the way +with Night's rollickers before their beds have reconciled them to the +day-beams. + +Woodseer would have had to come and was coming; he happened to say: +'Don't knock my pipe out of my mouth,' and touched a chord in the giant. + +'All--right; smoke your pipe,' was answered to his remonstrance. + +During the amnesty, Fleetwood inquired: 'Where are you going?' + +'Far a drive,--to be sure. Don't you see!' + +'You'll return?' + +'I intend to return.' + +'He's beastly excited,' quoth Abrane. + +Fleetwood silenced him, though indeed Woodseer appeared suspiciously +restive. + +'Step down and have a talk with me before you start. You're not to go +yet.' + +'I must. I'm in a hurry.' + +'What 's the hurry?' + +'I want to smoke and think.' + +'Takes a carriage on the top of the morning to smoke and think! Hark at +that!' Abrane sang out. 'Oh, come along quietly, you fellow, there's a +good fellow! It concerns us all, every man Jack; we're all bound up in +your fortunes. Fellow with luck like yours can't pretend to behave +independently. Out of reason!' + +'Do you give me your word you return?' said Fleetwood. + +Woodseer replied: 'Very well, I do; there, I give my word. Hang it! +now I know what they mean by "anything for a quiet life." Just a shake +brings us down on that cane-bottomed chair!' + +'You return to-day?' + +'To-day, yes, yes.' + +Fleetwood signified the captive's release; and Abrane immediately +suggested: + +'Pop old Chummy in beside the fellow to mount guard.' + +Potts was hustled and precipitated into the carriage by the pair, with +whom he partook this last glimmer of their night's humorous +extravagances, for he was an easy creature. The carriage drove off. + +'Keep him company!' they shouted. + +'Escort him back!' said he, nodding. + +He remarked to Woodseer: 'With your permission,' concerning the seat he +took, and that 'a draught of morning air would do him good.' Then he +laughed politely, exchanged wavy distant farewells with his comrades, +touched a breast-pocket for his case of cigars, pulled forth one, +obtained 'the loan of a light,' blew clouds and fell into the anticipated +composure, quite understanding the case and his office. + +Both agreed as to the fine morning it was. Woodseer briefly assented to +his keeper's reiterated encomium on the morning, justified on oath. A +fine morning, indeed. 'Damned if I think I ever saw so fine a morning!' +Potts cried. He had no other subject of conversation with this hybrid: +and being equally disposed for hot discourse or for sleep, +the deprivation of the one and the other forced him to seek amusement +in his famous reading of character; which was profound among the biped +equine, jockeys, turfmen, sharpers, pugilists, demireps. He fronted +Woodseer with square shoulders and wide knees, an elbow on one, a fist on +the other, engaged in what he termed the 'prodding of his eel,' or +'nicking of his man,' a method of getting straight at the riddle of the +fellow by the test of how long he could endure a flat mute stare and +return look for look unblinking. The act of smoking fortifies and partly +covers the insolence. But if by chance an equable, not too narrowly +focussed, counterstare is met, our impertinent inquisitor may resemble +the fisherman pulled into deep waters by his fish. Woodseer perused his +man, he was not attempting to fathom him: he had besides other stuff in +his head. Potts had naught, and the poor particle he was wriggled under +detection. + +'Tobacco before breakfast!' he said disgustedly tossing his cigar to the +road. 'Your pipe holds on. Bad thing, I can tell you, that smoking on +an empty stomach. No trainer'd allow it, not for a whole fee or double. +Kills your wind. Let me ask you, my good sir, are you going to turn? +We've sat a fairish stretch. I begin to want my bath and a shave, linen +and coffee. Thirsty' as a dog.' + +He heard with stupefaction, that he could alight on the spot, if he +pleased, otherwise he would be driven into Carlsruhe. And now they had a +lingual encounter, hot against cool; but the eyes of Chummy Potts having +been beaten, his arguments and reproaches were not backed by the powerful +looks which are an essential part of such eloquence as he commanded. +They fled from his enemy's currishly, even while he was launching +epithets. His pathetic position subjected him to beg that Woodseer would +direct the driver to turn, for he had no knowledge of 'their German +lingo.' And said he: 'You've nothing to laugh at, that I can see. I'm +at your mercy, you brute; caught in a trap. I never walk;--and the sun +fit to fry a mackerel along that road! I apologize for abusing you; I +can't do more. You're an infernally clever player--there! And, upon my +soul, I could drink ditchwater! But if you're going in for transactions +at Carlsruhe, mark my words, your luck's gone. Laugh as much as you +like.' + +Woodseer happened to be smiling over the excellent reason for not turning +back which inflicted the wofulness. He was not without sympathy for a +thirsty wretch, and guessing, at the sight of an avenue of limes to the +left of the road, that a wayside inn was below, he said: 'You can have +coffee or beer in two minutes,' and told the driver where to pull up. + +The sight of a grey-jacketed, green-collared sportsman, dog at heel, +crossing the flat land to the hills of the forest, pricked him enviously, +and caused him to ask what change had come upon him, that he should be +hurrying to a town for a change of clothes. Just as Potts was about to +jump out, a carriage, with a second behind it, left the inn door. He +rubbed a hand on his unshaven chin, tried a glance at his shirt-front, +and remarking: 'It won't be any one who knows me,' stood to let the +carriages pass. In the first were a young lady and a gentleman: the lady +brilliantly fair, an effect of auburn hair and complexion, despite the +signs of a storm that had swept them and had not cleared from her +eyelids. Apparently her maid, a damsel sitting straight up, occupied the +carriage following; and this fresh-faced young person twice quickly and +bluntly bent her head as she was driven by. Potts was unacquainted with +the maid. But he knew the lady well, or well enough for her inattention +to be the bigger puzzle. She gazed at the Black Forest hills in the +steadiest manner, with eyes betraying more than they saw; which solved +part of the puzzle, of course. Her reasons for declining to see him were +exposed by the presence of the gentleman beside her. At the same time, +in so highly bred a girl, a defenceless exposure was unaccountable. Half +a nod and the shade of a smile would have been the proper course; and her +going along on the road to the valley seemed to say it might easily have +been taken; except that there had evidently been a bit of a scene. + +Potts ranked Henrietta's beauty far above her cousin Livia's. He was +therefore personally offended by her disregard of him, and her bit of a +scene with the fellow carrying her off did him injury on behalf of his +friend Fleetwood. He dismissed Woodseer curtly. Thirsting more to +gossip than to drink, he took a moody draught of beer at the inn, and by +the aid of a conveyance, hastily built of rotten planks to serve his +needs, and drawn by a horse of the old wars,' as he reported on his +arrival at Baden,--reached that home of the maltreated innocents twenty +minutes before the countess and her party were to start for lunch up the +Lichtenthal. Naturally, he was abused for letting his bird fly: but as +he was shaven, refreshed, and in clean linen, he could pull his shirt- +cuffs and take seat at his breakfast-table with equanimity while Abrane +denounced him. + +'I'll bet you the fellow's luck has gone,' said Potts. 'He 's no new +hand and you don't think him so either, Fleet. I've looked into the +fellow's eye and seen a leery old badger at the bottom of it. Talks vile +stuff. However, 'perhaps I didn't drive out on that sweltering Carlsruhe +road for nothing.' + +He screwed a look at the earl, who sent Abrane to carry a message and +heard the story Potts had to tell. + +'Henrietta Fakenham! no mistake about her; driving out from a pothouse; +man beside her, military man; might be a German. And, if you please, +quite unacquainted with your humble servant, though we were as close as +you to me. Something went wrong in that pothouse. Red eyes. There had +been a scene, one could swear. Behind the lady another carriage, and her +maid. Never saw the girl before, and sets to bowing and smirking at me, +as if I was the-fellow of all others! Comical. I made sure they were +bound for this place. They were on the Strasburg road. No sign of +them?' + +'You speak to me?' said Fleetwood. + +Potts muttered. He had put his foot into it. + +'You have a bad habit of speaking to yourself,' Fleetwood remarked, and +left him. He suffered from the rustics he had to deal with among his +class, and it was not needed that he should thunder at them to make his +wrath felt. + +Livia swam in, asking: 'What has come to Russett? He passed me in one of +his black fits.' + +The tale of the Carlsruhe road was repeated by Potts. She reproved him. +'How could you choose Russett for such a report as that! The admiral was +on the road behind. Henrietta--you're sure it was she? German girls +have much the same colouring. The gentleman with her must have been one +of the Court equerries. They were driving to some chateau or battlefield +the admiral wanted to inspect. Good-looking man? Military man?' + +'Oh! the man! pretty fair, I dare say,' Potts rejoined. 'If it wasn't +Henrietta Fakenham, I see with the back of my head. German girl! The +maid was a German girl.' + +'That may well be,' said Livia. + +She conceived the news to be of sufficient importance for her to +countermand the drive up the Lichtenthal, and take the Carlsruhe road +instead; for Henrietta was weak, and Chillon Kirby an arch-plotter, and +pleader too, one of the desperate lovers. He was outstaying his leave of +absence already, she believed; he had to be in England. If he feared to +lose Henrietta, he would not hesitate to carry her off. Livia knew him, +and knew the power of his pleading with a firmer woman than Henrietta. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +THE PRISONER OF HIS WORD + +Nothing to rouse alarm was discovered at Carlsruhe. Livia's fair cousin +was there with the red-haired gaunt girl of the mountains; and it was +frankly stated by Henrietta, that she had accompanied the girl a certain +distance along the Strasburg road, for her to see the last of her brother +Chillon on his way to England. Livia was not the woman to push +inquiries. On that subject, she merely said, as soon as they were alone +together: + +'You seem to have had the lion's share of the parting.' + +'Yes, we passed Mr. Chumley Potts,' was Henrietta's immediate answer; and +her reference to him disarmed Livia. + +They smiled at his name transiently, but in agreement: the tattler-spout +of their set was, a fatal person to encounter, and each deemed the sudden +apparition of him in the very early morning along the Carlsruhe road +rather magical. + +'You place particular confidence in Russett's fidelity to his word, +Riette--as you have been hearing yourself called. You should be serious +by this time. Russett won't bear much more. I counted on the night of +the Ball for the grand effect. You will extinguish every woman there-- +and if he is absent?' + +'I shall excuse him.' + +'You are not in a position to be so charitable. You ought to know your +position, and yourself too, a little better than you do. How could you +endure poverty? Chillon Kirby stands in his uniform, and all's told. He +can manoeuvre, we know. He got the admiral away to take him to those +reviews cleverly. But is he thinking of your interests when he does it? +He requires twenty years of active service to give you a roof to your +head. I hate such allusions. But look for a moment at your character: +you must have ordinary luxuries and pleasures, and if you were to find +yourself grinding against common necessities--imagine it! Russett is +quite manageable. He is, trust me! He is a gentleman; he has more +ability than most young men: he can do anything he sets his mind to do. +He has his great estates and fortune all in his own hands. We call him +eccentric. He is only young, with a lot of power. Add, he's in love, +and some one distracts him. Not love, do you say?--you look it. He +worships. He has no chance given him to show himself at his best. +Perhaps he is off again now. Will you bet me he is not?' + +'I should incline to make the bet, if I betted,' said Henrietta. 'His +pride is in his word, and supposing he's in love, it's with his pride, +which never quits him.' + +'There's firmness in a man who has pride of that kind. You must let me +take you back to Baden. I hold to having you with me to-day. You must +make an appearance there. The admiral will bring us his Miss Kirby to- +morrow, if he is bound to remain here to-night. There's no harm in his +bachelor dinners. I suspect his twinges of gout come of the prospect of +affairs when he lands in England. Remember our bill with Madame +Clemence. There won't be the ghost of a bank-note for me if Russett +quits the field; we shall all be stranded.' + +Henrietta inquired: 'Does it depend on my going with you to-day?' + +'Consider, that he is now fancying a thousand things. We won't talk of +the road to Paris.' + +A shot of colour swept over Henrietta. + +'I will speak to papa:--if he can let me go. He has taken to Miss +Kirby.' + +'Does she taste well?' + +Henrietta debated. 'It's impossible to dislike her. Oh! she is wild! +She knows absolutely nothing of the world. She can do everything we +can't--or don't dare to try.--Men would like her. Papa's beginning to +doat. He says she would have made a first-rate soldier. She fears blood +as little as her morning cup of milk. One of the orderlies fell rather +badly from a frightened horse close by our carriage. She was out in a +moment and had his head on her lap, calling to papa to keep the carriage +fast and block the way of the squadron, for the man's leg was hurt. I +really thought we were lost. At these manoeuvres anything may happen, at +any instant. Papa will follow the horse-artillery. You know his vanity +to be a military quite as much as a naval commander like the Greeks and +Romans, he says. We took the bruised man into our carriage and drove him +to camp, Carinthia nursing him on the way.' + +'Carinthia! She's well fitted with her name. What with her name and her +hair and her build and her singular style of attire, one wonders at her +coming into civilized parts. She 's utterly unlike Chillon.' + +Henrietta reddened at the mention of one of her own thoughts in the +contrasting of the pair. + +They had their points of likeness, she said. + +It did not concern Livia to hear what these were. Back to Baden, with +means to procure the pleasant shocks of the galvanic battery there, was +her thought; for she had a fear of the earl's having again departed in a +huff at Henrietta's behaviour. + +The admiral consented that his daughter should go, as soon as he heard +that Miss Kirby was to stay. He had when a young man met her famous +father; he vowed she was the Old Buccaneer young again in petticoats and +had made prize of an English man-of-war by storm; all the profit, +however, being his. This he proved with a courteous clasp of the girl +and a show of the salute on her cheek, which he presumed to take at the +night's farewell. 'She's my tonic,' he proclaimed heartily. She seemed +to Livia somewhat unstrung and toneless. The separation from her brother +in the morning might account for it. And a man of the admiral's age +could be excused if he exalted the girl. Senility, like infancy, is fond +of plain outlines for the laying on of its paints. The girl had rugged +brows, a short nose, red hair; no young man would look at her twice. She +was utterly unlike Chillon! Kissing her hand to Henrietta from the steps +of the hotel, the girl's face improved. + +Livia's little squire, Sir Meeson Corby, ejaculated as they were driving +down the main street, 'Fleetwood's tramp! There he goes. Now see, Miss +Fakenham, the kind of object Lord Fleetwood picks up and calls friend!-- +calls that object friend! . . But, what? He has been to a tailor and +a barber!' + +'Stop the coachman. Run, tell Mr. Woodseer I wish him to join us,' Livia +said, and Sir Meeson had to thank his tramp for a second indignity. He +protested, he simulated remonstrance,--he had to go, really feeling a +sickness. + +The singular-looking person, whose necessities or sense of the decencies +had, unknown to himself and to the others, put them all in motion that +day, swung round listening to the challenge to arms, as the puffy little +man's delivery of the countess's message sounded. He was respectably +clad, he thought, in the relief of his escape from the suit of clothes +discarded, and he silently followed Sir Meeson's trot to the carriage. +'Should have mistaken you for a German to-day, sir,' the latter said, +and trotted on. + +'A stout one,' Woodseer replied, with his happy indifference to his +exterior. + +His dark lady's eyes were kindly overlooking, like the heavens. Her fair +cousin, to whom he bowed, awakened him to a perception of the spectacle +causing the slight, quick arrest of her look, in an astonishment not +unlike the hiccup in speech, while her act of courtesy proceeded. At +once he was conscious of the price he paid for respectability, and saw +the Teuton skin on the slim Cambrian, baggy at shoulders, baggy at seat, +pinched at the knees, short at the heels, showing outrageously every spot +where he ought to have been bigger or smaller. How accept or how reject +the invitation to drive in such company to Baden! + +'You're decided enough, sir, in your play, they tell me,' the vindictive +little baronet commented on his hesitation, and Woodseer sprang to the +proffered vacant place. But he had to speak of his fly waiting for him +at the steps of a certain hotel. + +'Best hotel in the town!' Sir Beeson exclaimed pointedly to Henrietta, +reading her constraint with this comical object before her. It was the +admiral's hotel they stopped at. + +'Be so good as to step down and tell the admiral he is to bring Madame +Clemence in his carriage to-morrow; and on your way, you will dismiss Mr. +Woodseer's fly,' Livia mildly addressed her squire. He stared: again he +had to go, muttering: 'That nondescript's footman!' and his mischance in +being checked and crossed and humiliated perpetually by a dirty-fisted +vagabond impostor astounded him. He sent the flyman to the carriage for +orders. + +Admiral Fakenham and Carinthia descended. Sir Meeson heard her cry out: +'Is it you!' and up stood the pretentious lout in the German sack, +affecting the graces of a born gentleman fresh from Paris,--bowing, +smirking, excusing himself for something; and he jumped down to the young +lady, he talked intimately with her, with a joker's air; he roused the +admiral to an exchange of jokes, and the countess and Miss Fakenham more +than smiled; evidently at his remarks, unobservant of the preposterous +figure he cut. Sir Meeson Corby had intimations of the disintegration of +his country if a patent tramp burlesquing in those clothes could be +permitted to amuse English ladies of high station, quite at home with +them. Among the signs of England's downfall, this was decidedly one. +What to think of the admiral's favourite when, having his arm paternally +on her shoulder, she gave the tramp her hand at parting, and then +blushed! All that the ladies had to say about it was, that a spread of +colour rather went to change the character of her face. + +Carinthia had given Woodseer her hand and reddened under the recollection +of Chillon's words to her as they mounted the rise of the narrow vale, +after leaving the lame gentleman to his tobacco on the grass below the +rocks. Her brother might have counselled her wisely and was to be +obeyed. Only, the great pleasure in seeing the gentleman again inspired +gratitude: he brought the scene to her; and it was alive, it chatted and +it beckoned; it neighboured her home; she had passed it on her walk away +from her home; the gentleman was her link to the mountain paths; he was +just outside an association with her father and mother. At least, her +thinking of them led to him, he to them. Now that she had lost Chillon, +no one was near to do so much. Besides, Chillon loved Henrietta; he was +her own. His heart was hers and his mind his country's. This gentleman +loved the mountains; the sight of him breathed mountain air. To see him +next day was her anticipation: for it would be at the skirts of hilly +forest land, where pinetrees are a noble family, different from the dusty +firs of the weariful plains, which had tired her eyes of late. + +Baden was her first peep at the edges of the world since she had grown to +be a young woman. She had but a faint idea of the significance of +gambling. The brilliant lights, the band music, the sitting groups and +company of promenaders were novelties; the Ball of the ensuing night at +the Schloss would be a wonder, she acknowledged in response to Henrietta, +who was trying to understand her; and she admired her ball-dress, she +said, looking unintelligently when she heard that she would be guilty of +slaying numbers of gentlemen before the night was over. Madame Clemence +thought her chances in that respect as good as any other young lady's, +if only she could be got to feel interested. But at a word of the pine +forest, and saying she intended to climb the hills early with the light +in the morning, a pointed eagerness flushed Carinthia, the cold engraving +became a picture of colour. + +She was out with the earliest light. Yesterday's parting between Chillon +and Henrietta had taught her to know some little about love; and if her +voice had been heeded by Chillon's beloved, it would not have been a +parting. Her only success was to bring a flood of tears from Henrietta. +The tears at least assured her that her brother's beautiful girl had no +love for the other one,--the young nobleman of the great wealth, who was +to be at the Ball, and had 'gone flying,' Admiral Fakenham shrugged to +say; for Lord Fleetwood was nowhere seen. + +The much talk of him on the promenade overnight fetched his name to her +thoughts; he scarcely touched a mind that her father filled when she was +once again breathing early morning air among the stems of climbing pines, +broken alleys of the low-sweeping spruce branches and the bare straight +shafts carrying their heads high in the march upward. Her old father was +arch-priest of such forest land, always recoverable to her there. The +suggestion of mountains was enough to make her mind play, and her old +father and she were aware of one another without conversing in speech. +He pointed at things to observe; he shared her satisfied hunger for the +solitudes of the dumb and growing and wild sweet-smelling. He would not +let a sorrowful thought backward or an apprehensive idea forward disturb +the scene. A half-uprooted pine-tree stem propped mid-fall by standing +comrades, and the downy drop to ground and muted scurry up the bark of +long-brush squirrels, cocktail on the wary watch, were noticed by him as +well as by her; even the rotting timber drift, bark and cones on the +yellow pine needles, and the tortuous dwarf chestnut pushing level out, +with a strain of the head up, from a crevice of mossed rock, among ivy +and ferns; he saw what his girl saw. Power of heart was her conjuring +magician. + +She climbed to the rock-slabs above. This was too easily done. The poor +bit of effort excited her frame to desire a spice of danger, her walk was +towering in the physical contempt of a mountain girl for petty lowland +obstructions. And it was just then, by the chance of things--by the +direction of events, as Dame Gossip believes it to be--while colour, +expression, and her proud stature marked her from her sex, that a +gentleman, who was no other than Lord Fleetwood, passed Carinthia, +coming out of the deeper pine forest. + +Some distance on, round a bend of the path, she was tempted to adventure +by a projected forked head of a sturdy blunted and twisted little rock- +fostered forest tree pushing horizontally for growth about thirty feet +above the lower ground. She looked on it, and took a step down to the +stem soon after. + +Fleetwood had turned and followed, merely for the final curious peep at +an unexpected vision; he had noticed the singular shoot of thick timber +from the rock, and the form of the goose-neck it rose to, the sprout of +branches off the bill in the shape of a crest. And now a shameful spasm +of terror seized him at sight of a girl doing what he would have dreaded +to attempt. She footed coolly, well-balanced, upright. She seated +herself. + +And there let her be. She was a German girl, apparently. She had an air +of breeding, something more than breeding. German families of the nobles +give out, here and there, as the Great War showed examples of, intrepid +young women, who have the sharp lines of character to render them +independent of the graces. But, if a young woman out alone in the woods +was hardly to be counted among the well-born, she held rank above them. +Her face and bearing might really be taken to symbolize the forest life. +She was as individual a representative as the Tragic and Comic masks, and +should be got to stand between them for sign of the naturally straight- +growing untrained, a noble daughter of the woods. + +Not comparable to Henrietta in feminine beauty, she was on an upper +plateau, where questions as to beauty are answered by other than the +shallow aspect of a girl. But would Henrietta eclipse her if they were +side by side? Fleetwood recalled the strange girl's face. There was in +it a savage poignancy in serenity unexampled among women--or modern +women. One might imagine an apotheosis of a militant young princess of +Goths or Vandals, the glow of blessedness awakening her martial ardours +through the languor of the grave:--Woodseer would comprehend and hit on +the exact image to portray her in a moment, Fleetwood thought, and longed +for that fellow. + +He walked hurriedly back to the stunted rock tree. The damsel had +vanished. He glanced below. She had not fallen. He longed to tell +Woodseer he had seen a sort of Carinthia sister, cousin, one of the +family. A single glimpse of her had raised him out of his grovelling +perturbations, cooled and strengthened him, more than diverting the +course of the poison Henrietta infused, and to which it disgraced him +to be so subject. He took love unmanfully; the passion struck at his +weakness; in wrath at the humiliation, if only to revenge himself for +that, he could be fiendish; he knew it, and loathed the desired fair +creature who caused and exposed to him these cracks in his nature, whence +there came a brimstone stench of the infernal pits. And he was made for +better. Of this he was right well assured. Superior to station and to +wealth, to all mundane advantages, he was the puppet of a florid puppet +girl; and he had slept at the small inn of a village hard by, because it +was intolerable to him to see the face that had been tearful over her +lover's departure, and hear her praises of the man she trusted to keep +his word, however grievously she wounded him. + +He was the prisoner of his word;--rather like the donkeys known as +married men: rather more honourable than most of them. He had to be +present at the ball at the Schloss and behold his loathed Henrietta, +suffer torture of chains to the rack, by reason of his having promised +the bitter coquette he would be there. So hellish did the misery seem to +him, that he was relieved by the prospect of lying a whole day long in +loneliness with the sunshine of the woods, occasionally conjuring up the +antidote face of the wood-sprite before he was to undergo it. But, +as he was not by nature a dreamer, only dreamed of the luxury of being +one, he soon looked back with loathing on a notion of relief to come from +the state of ruminating animal, and jumped up and shook off another of +men's delusions--that they can, if they have the heart to suffer pain, +deaden it with any semi-poetical devices, similar to those which Rufus +Abrane's 'fiddler fellow' practised and was able to carry out because he +had no blood. The spite of a present entire opposition to Woodseer's +professed views made him exult in the thought, that the mouther of +sentences was likely to be at work stultifying them and himself in the +halls there below during the day. An imp of mischief offered consolatory +sport in those halls of the Black Goddess; already he regarded his recent +subservience to the conceited and tripped peripatetic philosopher as +among the ignominies he had cast away on his road to a general contempt; +which is the position of a supreme elevation for particularly sensitive +young men. + +Pleasure in the scenery had gone, and the wood-sprite was a flitted +vapour; he longed to be below there, observing Abrane and Potts and the +philosopher confounded, and the legible placidity of Countess Livia. +Nevertheless, he hung aloft, feeding where he could, impatient of the +solitudes, till night, when, according to his guess, the ladies were at +their robing. + +Half the fun was over: but the tale of it, narrated in turn by Abrane and +his Chummy Potts on the promenade, was a very good half. The fiddler had +played for the countess and handed her back her empty purse, with a bow +and a pretty speech. Nothing had been seen of him since. He had lost +all his own money besides. 'As of course he would,' said Potts. 'A +fellow calculating the chances catches at a knife in the air.' + +'Every franc-piece he had!' cried Abrane. 'And how could the jackass +expect to keep his luck! Flings off his old suit and comes back here +with a rig of German bags--you never saw such a figure!--Shoreditch Jew's +holiday!--why, of course, the luck wouldn't stand that.' + +They confessed ruefully to having backed him a certain distance, +notwithstanding. 'He took it so coolly, just as if paying for goods +across a counter.' + +'And he had something to bear, Braney, when you fell on him,' said Potts, +and murmured aside: 'He can be smartish. Hears me call Braney Rufus, and +says he, like a fellow-chin on his fiddle--"Captain Mountain, Rufus Mus'. +Not bad, for a counter."' + +Fleetwood glanced round: he could have wrung Woodseer's hand. He saw +young Cressett instead, and hailed him: 'Here you are, my gallant! You +shall flash your maiden sword tonight. When I was under your age by a +long count, I dealt sanctimoniousness a flick o' the cheek, and you +shall, and let 'em know you're a man. Come and have your first boar-hunt +along with me. Petticoats be hanged.' + +The boy showed some recollection of the lectures of his queen, but he had +not the vocables for resistance to an imperative senior at work upon +sneaking inclinations. 'Promised Lady F.'--do you hear him?' Fleetwood +called to the couple behind; and as gamblers must needs be parasites, +manly were the things they spoke to invigorate the youthful plunger and +second the whim of their paymaster. + +At half-past eleven, the prisoner of his word entered under the Schloss +partico, having vowed to himself on the way, that he would satisfy the +formulas to gain release by a deferential bow to the great personages, +and straightway slip out into the heavenly starlight, thence down among +the jolly Parisian and Viennese Bacchanals. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +HENRIETTA'S LETTER TREATING OF THE GREAT EVENT + +By the first light of an autumn morning, Henrietta sat at her travelling- +desk, to shoot a spark into the breast of her lover with the story of the +great event of the night. For there had been one, one of our biggest, +beyond all tongues and trumpets and possible anticipations. Wonder at it +hammered on incredulity as she wrote it for fact, and in writing had +vision of her lover's eyes over the page. + +'Monsieur Du Lac! + +'Grey Dawn. 'You are greeted. This, if you have been tardy on the +journey home, will follow close on the heels of the prowest, I believe +truest, of knights, and bear perhaps to his quick mind some help to the +solution he dropped a hint of seeking. + +'The Ball in every way a success. Grand Duke and Duchess perfect in +courtesy, not a sign of the German morgue. Livia splendid. Compared to +Day and Night. But the Night eclipses the Day. A summer sea of dancing. +Who, think you, eclipsed those two? + +'I tell you the very truth when I say your Carinthia did. If you had +seen her,--the "poor dear girl" you sigh to speak of,--with the doleful +outlook on her fortunes: "portionless, unattractive!" Chillon, she was +magical! + +You cannot ever have seen her irradiated with happiness. Her pleasure in +the happiness of all around her was part of the charm. One should be a +poet to describe her. It would task an artist to paint the rose-crystal +she became when threading her way through the groups to be presented. +This is not meant to say that she looked beautiful. It was the something +above beauty--more unique and impressive--like the Alpine snow-cloak +towering up from the flowery slopes you know so well and I a little. + +'You choose to think, is it Riette who noticed my simple sister so +closely before . . .? for I suppose you to be reading this letter a +second time and reflecting as you read. In the first place, acquaintance +with her has revealed that she is not the simple person--only in her +manner. Under the beams of subsequent events, it is true I see her more +picturesquely. But I noticed also just a suspicion of the "grenadier" +stride when she was on the march to make her curtsey. But Livia had no +cause for chills and quivers. She was not the very strange bird +requiring explanatory excuses; she dances excellently, and after the +first dance, I noticed she minced her steps in the walk with her partner. +She catches the tone readily. If not the image of her mother, she has +inherited her mother's bent for the graces; she needs but a small amount +of practice. + +'Take my assurance of that; and you know who has critical eyes. Your +anxiety may rest; she is equal to any station. + +'As expected by me, my Lord Tyrant appeared, though late, near midnight. +I saw him bowing to the Ducal party. Papa had led your "simple sister" +there. Next I saw the Tyrant and Carinthia conversing. Soon they were +dancing together, talking interestedly, like cheerful comrades. Whatever +his faults, he has the merit of being a man of his word. He said he +would come, he did not wish to come, and he came. + +'His word binds him--I hope not fatally; irrevocably, it certainly does. +There is charm of character in that. His autocrat airs can be forgiven +to a man who so profoundly respects his word. + +'It occurred during their third dance. Your Riette was not in the +quadrille. O but she was a snubbed young woman last night! I refrain +--the examples are too minute for quotation. + +'A little later and he had vanished. Carinthia Kirby may already be +written Countess of Fleetwood! His hand was offered and hers demanded in +plain terms. Her brother would not be so astounded if he had seen the +brilliant creature she was--is, I could say; for when she left me here, +to go to her bed, she still wore the "afterglow." She tripped over to me +in the ball-room to tell me. I might doubt, she had no doubt whatever. +I fancied he had subjected her to some degree of trifling. He was in a +mood. His moods are known to me. But no, he was precise; her report of +him strikes the ear as credible, in spite of the marvel it insists on our +swallowing. + +"'Lord Fleetwood had asked me to marry him." Neither assurance nor +bashfulness; newspaper print; aid an undoubting air of contentment. + +'Imagine me hearing it. + +'"To be his wife?" + +'"He said wife." + +'"And you replied?" + +'"I--said I would." + +'"Tell me all?" + +'"He said we were plighted." + +'Now, "wife" is one of the words he abhors; and he loathes the hearing of +a girl as "engaged." However, "plighted" carried a likeness. + +'I pressed her: "My dear Carinthia, you thought him in earnest?" + +'"He was." + +'"How do you judge?" + +'"By his look when he spoke." + +'"Not by his words?" + +"'I repeat them to you." + +'She has repeated them to me here in my bedroom. There is no variation. +She remembers every syllable. He went so far as to urge her to say +whether she would as willingly utter consent if they were in a church and +a clergyman at the altar-rails. + +'That was like him. + +'She made answer: "Wherever it may be, I am bound, if I say yes." + +'She then adds: "He told me he joined hands with me." + +'"Did he repeat the word 'wife'?" + +'"He said it twice." + +'I transcribe verbatim scrupulously. There cannot be an error, Chillon. +It seems to show, that he has embraced the serious meaning of the word-- +or seriously embraced the meaning, reads' better. I have seen his lips +form "wife." + +'But why wonder so staringly? They both love the mountains. Both are +wildish. She was looking superb. And he had seen her do a daring thing +on the rocks on the heights in the early morning, when she was out by +herself, unaware of a spectator, he not knowing who she was;--the Fates +had arranged it so. That was why he took to her so rapidly. So he told +her. She likes being admired. The preparation for the meeting does +really seem "under direction." She likes him too, I do think. Between +her repetitions of his compliments, she praised his tone of voice, his +features. She is ready to have the fullest faith in the sincerity of his +offer; speaks without any impatience for the fulfilment. If it should +happen, what a change in the fortunes of a girl--of more than one, +possibly. + +'Now I must rest "eyelids fall." It will be with a heart galloping. +No rest for me till this letter flies. Good morning is my good night to +you, in a world that has turned over.' + +Henrietta resumes: + +'Livia will not hear of it, calls up all her pretty languor to put it +aside. It is the same to-day as last night. "Why mention Russett's +nonsense to me?" Carinthia is as quietly circumstantial as at first. +She and the Tyrant talked of her native home. Very desirous to see it! +means to build a mansion there! "He said it must be the most romantic +place on earth." + +'I suppose I slept. I woke with my last line to you on my lips, and the +great news thundering. He named Esslemont and his favourite--always +uninhabited--Cader Argau. She speaks them correctly. She has an +unfailing memory. The point is, that it is a memory. + +'Do not forget also--Livia is affected by her distaste--that he is a +gentleman. He plays with his nobility. With his reputation of +gentleman, he has never been known to play. You will understand the +slightly hypocritical air--it is not of sufficient importance for it to +be alluded to in papa's presence--I put on with her. + +'Yes, I danced nearly all the dances. One, a princeling in scarlet +uniform, appearing fresh from under earth; Prussian: a weighty young Graf +in green, between sage and bottle, who seemed to have run off a tree in +the forest, and was trimmed with silver like dew-drops: one in your +Austrian white, dragon de Boheme, if I caught his French rightly. Others +as well, a list. They have the accomplishment. They are drilled in it +young, as girls are, and so few Englishmen--even English officers. How +it may be for campaigning, you can pronounce; but for dancing, the +pantalon collant is the perfect uniform. Your critical Henrietta had not +to complain of her partners, in the absence of the one. + +'I shall be haunted by visions of Chillon's amazement until I hear or we +meet. I serve for Carinthia's mouthpiece, she cannot write it, she says. +It would be related in two copybook lines, if at all. + +'The amazement over London! The jewel hand of the kingdom gone in a +flash, to "a raw mountain girl," as will be said. I can hear Lady Endor, +Lady Eldritch, Lady Cowry. The reasonable woman should be Lady +Arpington. I have heard her speak of your mother, seen by her when she +was in frocks. + +'Enter the "plighted." Poor Livia! to be made a dowager of by any but a +damsel of the family. She may well ridicule "that nonsense of Russett's +last night"! Carinthia kisses, embraces, her brother. I am to say: +"What Henrietta tells you is true, Chillon." She is contented though she +has not seen him again and has not the look of expecting to see him. She +still wears the kind of afterglow. + +'Chillon's Viennese waltz was played by the band: played a second time, +special request, conveyed to the leader by Prince Ferdinand. True, most +true, she longs to be home across the water. But be it admitted, that to +any one loving colour, music, chivalry, the Island of Drab is an exile. +Imagine, then, the strange magnetism drawing her there! Could warmer +proof be given? + +'Adieu. Livia's "arch-plotter" will weigh the letter he reads to the +smallest fraction of a fraction before he moves a step. + +'I could leave it and come to it again and add and add. I foresee in +Livia's mind a dread of the aforesaid "arch," and an interdict. So the +letter must be closed, sealed and into the box, with the hand I still +call mine, though I should doubt my right if it were contested fervently. +I am singing the waltz. + + 'Adieu, + 'Ever and beyond it, + 'Your obedient Queen, + 'HENRIETTA. + +'P.S.-My Lord Tyrant has departed--as on other occasions. The prisoner +of his word is sure to take his airing before he presents himself to +redeem it. His valet is left to pay bills, fortunately for Livia. She +entrusted her purse yesterday to a man picked up on the road by my lord, +that he might play for her. Captain Abrane assured her he had a star, +and Mr. Potts thought him a rush compere, an adept of those dreadful +gambling tables. Why will she continue to play! The purse was returned +to her, without so much as a piece of silver in it; the man has flown. +Sir M. Corby says, he is a man whose hands betray him--or did to Sir M.; +expects to see him one day on the wrong side of the criminal bar. He +struck me as not being worse than absurd. He was, in any case, an unfit +companion, and our C. would help to rescue the Eccentric from such +complicating associates. I see worlds of good she may do. Happily, he +is no slave of the vice of gambling; so she would not suffer that +anxiety. I wish it could be subjoined, that he has no malicious pleasure +in misleading others. Livia is inconsolable over her pet, young Lord +Cressett, whom he yesterday induced to "try his luck"--with the result. +We leave, if bills are paid, in two days. Captain Abrane and Mr. Potts +left this afternoon; just enough to carry them home. Papa and your +blissful sister out driving. Riette within her four walls and signing +herself, + + 'THE PRISONER OF CHILLON.' + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +AN IRRUPTION. OF MISTRESS GOSSIP IN BREACH OF THE CONVENTION + +'It is a dark land,' Carinthia said, on seeing our Island's lowered +clouds in swift motion, without a break of their folds, above the sheer +white cliffs. + +--She said it, we know. That poor child Carinthia Jane, when first she +beheld Old England's shores, tossing in the packet-boat on a wild Channel +sea, did say it and think it, for it is in the family that she did; and +no wonder that she should, the day being showery from the bed of the sun, +after a frosty three days, at the close of autumn. We used to have an +eye of our own for English weather before printed Meteorological +Observations and Forecasts undertook to supplant the shepherd and the +poacher, and the pilot with his worn brown leather telescope tucked +beneath his arm. All three would have told you, that the end of a three +days' frost in the late season of the year and the early, is likely to +draw the warm winds from the Atlantic over Cornish Land's End and Lizard. + +Quite by chance of things, Carinthia Jane looked on the land of her +father and mother for the first time under those conditions. There can +be no harm in quoting her remark. Only--I have to say it--experience +causes apprehension, that we are again to be delayed by descriptions, and +an exposition of feelings; taken for granted,--of course, in a serious +narrative; which it really seems these moderns think designed for a +frequent arrest of the actors in the story and a searching of the +internal state of this one or that one of them: who is laid out stark +naked and probed and expounded, like as in the celebrated picture by a +great painter--and we, thirsting for events as we are, are to stop to +enjoy a lecture on Anatomy. And all the while the windows of the +lecture-room are rattling, if not the whole fabric shaking, with exterior +occurrences or impatience for them to come to pass. Every explanation is +sure to be offered by the course events may take; so do, in mercy, I say, +let us bide for them. + +She thought our Island all the darker because Henrietta had induced her +to talk on the boat of her mountain home and her last morning there for +the walk away with Chillon John. Soon it was to appear supernaturally +bright, a very magician's cave for brilliancy. + +Now, this had happened--and comment on it to yourselves, remembering +always, that Chillon John was a lover, and a lover has his excuses, +though they will not obviate the penalties he may incur; and dreadful +they were. After reading Henrietta's letter to him, he rode out of his +Canterbury quarters across the country to the borders of Sussex, where +his uncle Lord Levellier lived, on the ridge of ironstone, near the wild +land of a forest, Croridge the name of the place. Now, Chillon John knew +his uncle was miserly, and dreaded the prospect of having to support a +niece in the wretched establishment at Lekkatts, or, as it was popularly +called, Leancats; you can understand why. But he managed to assure +himself he must in duty consult with the senior and chief member of .his +family on a subject of such importance as the proposal of marriage to his +lordship's niece. + +The consultation was short: 'You will leave it to me,' his uncle said: +and we hear of business affairs between them, involving payment of moneys +due to the young man; and how, whenever he touched on them, his uncle +immediately fell back on the honour of the family and Carinthia Jane's +reputation, her good name to be vindicated, and especially that there +must be no delays, together with as close a reckoning as he could make of +the value of Lord Fleetwood's estates in Kent and in Staffordshire and +South Wales, and his house property in London. + +'He will have means to support her,' said the old lord, shrugging as if +at his own incapacity for that burden. + +The two then went to the workshops beside a large pond, where there was +an island bordered with birch trees and workmen's cottages near the main +building; and that was an arsenal containing every kind of sword and +lance and musket, rifle and fowling-piece and pistol, and more gunpowder +than was, I believe, allowed by law. For they were engaged in inventing +a new powder for howitzer shells, of tremendous explosive power. + +Nothing further did either of them say, concerning the marriage. Nor did +Carinthia Jane hear any mention of Lord Fleetwood from her brother on the +landingplace at Dover. She was taken to Admiral Baldwin Fakenham's house +in Hampshire; and there she remained, the delight of his life, during two +months, patiently expecting and rebuking the unmaidenliness of her +expectations, as honest young women in her position used to do. So did +they sometimes wait for years; they have waited until they withered into +their graves, like the vapours of a brief winter's day: a moving picture +of a sex restrained by modesty in those purer times from the taking of +one step forward unless inquired for. + +Two months she waited in our 'dark land.' January arrived, and her +brother. Henrietta communicated the news: + +'My Janey, you are asked by Lord Fleetwood whether it is your wish that +he should marry you.' + +Now, usually a well-born young woman's answer, if a willing one, is an +example of weak translation. Here it was the heart's native tongue, +without any roundabout, simple but direct. + +'Oh, I will, I am ready, tell him.' + +Remember, she was not speaking publicly. + +Henrietta knew the man enough to be glad he did not hear. She herself +would have felt a little shock on his behalf: only, that answer suited +the scheme of the pair of lovers. + +How far those two were innocent in not delivering the whole of Lord +Fleetwood's message to Carinthia Jane through Lord Levellier, we are +unable to learn. We may suspect the miserly nobleman of curtailing it +for his purposes; and such is my idea. But the answer would have been +the same, I am sure. + +In consequence and straight away, Chillon John betakes him to Admiral +Baldwin and informs him of Lord Fleetwood's proposal on the night at +Baden, and renewal of it through the mouth of Lord Levellier, not +communicating, however (he may really not have known), the story of how +it had been wrung from the earl by a surprise movement on the part of the +one-armed old lord, who burst out on him in the street from the ambush of +a Club-window, where he had been stationed every day for a fortnight, +indefatigably to watch for the passing of the earl, as there seemed no +other way to find him. They say, indeed, there was a scene, judging by +the result, and it would have been an excellent scene for the stage; +though the two noblemen were to all appearance politely exchanging their +remarks. But the audience hearing what passes, appreciates the courteous +restraint of an attitude so contrasting with their tempers. Behind the +ostentation of civility, their words were daggers. + +For it chanced, that the young earl, after a period of refuge at his +Welsh castle, supposing, as he well might, that his latest mad freak of +the proposal of his hand and title to the strange girl in a quadrille at +a foreign castle had been forgotten by her, and the risks of annoyance on +the subject had quite blown over, returned to town, happy in having done +the penance for his impulsiveness, and got clean again--that is to say, +struck off his fetters and escaped from importunities--the very morning +of the day when Lord Levellier sprang upon him! It shows the old +campaigner's shrewdness in guessing where his prey would come, and not +putting him on his guard by a call at his house. Out of the window he +looked for all the hours of light during an entire fortnight. 'In the +service of my sister's child,' he said. 'To save him from the cost of +maintaining her,' say his enemies. At any rate he did it. + +He was likely to have done the worse which I suspect. + +Now, the imparting of the wonderful news to Admiral Baldwin Fakenham +was, we read, the whiff of a tropical squall to lay him on his beam ends. +He could not but doubt; and his talk was like the sails of a big ship +rattling to the first puff of wind. He had to believe; and then, we +read, he was for hours like a vessel rolling in the trough of the sea. +Of course he was a disappointed father. Naturally his glance at the loss +to Henrietta of the greatest prize of the matrimonial market of all +Europe and America was vexing and saddening. Then he woke up to think of +the fortunes of his 'other girl,' as he named her, and cried: 'Crinny +catches him!' + +He cried it in glee and rubbed his hands. + +So thereupon, standing before him, Chillon John, from whom he had the +news, bent to him slightly, as his elegant manner was, and lengthened the +admiral's chaps with another proposal; easy, deliberate, precise, quite +the respectful bandit, if you please, determined on having his daughter +by all means, only much preferring the legal, formal, and friendly. Upon +that, in the moment of indecision, Henrietta enters, followed by Admiral +Baldwin's heroine, his Crinny, whom he embraced and kissed, congratulated +and kissed again. One sees the contrivance to soften him. + +So it was done, down in that Hampshire household on the heights near the +downs, whence you might behold, off a terra firma resembling a roll of +billows, England's big battle-ships in line fronting the island; when +they were a spectacle of beauty as well as power: which now they are no +more, but will have to be, if they are both to float and to fight. For I +have, had quoted to me by a great admirer of the Old Buccaneer, one of +the dark sayings in his MAXIMS FOR MEN, where Captain John Peter Kirby +commends his fellow-men to dissatisfaction with themselves if they have +not put an end to their enemy handsomely.. And he advises the copying of +Nature in this; whose elements have always, he says, a pretty, besides a +thorough, style of doing it, when they get the better of us; and the one +by reason of the other. He instances the horse, the yacht, and chiefly +the sword, for proof, that the handsomest is the most effective. And he +prints large: 'UGLY IS ONLY HALF WAY TO A THING.' To an invention, I +suppose he intends to say. But looking on our huge foundering sea- +monsters and the disappearance of the unwieldy in Nature, and the +countenances of criminals, who are, he bids us observe, always in the +long run beaten, I seem to see a meaning our country might meditate on. + +So, as I said, it was done; for Admiral Baldwin could refuse his Crinny +nothing; as little as he would deny anything to himself, the heartiest +of kindly hosts, fathers, friends. Carinthia Jane's grand good fortune +covered that pit, the question of money, somehow, and was, we may +conceive, a champagne wine in their reasoning faculties. The admiral was +in debt, Henrietta had no heritage, Chillon John was the heir of a +miserly uncle owing him sums and evading every application for them, yet +they behaved as people who had the cup of golden wishes. Perhaps it was +because Henrietta and her lover were so handsome a match as to make it +seem to them and others they must marry; and as to character, her father +could trust her to the man of her choice more readily than to the wealthy +young nobleman; of whose discreetness he had not the highest opinion. He +reconciled this view with his warm feeling for the Countess of Fleetwood +to be, by saying: 'Crinny will tame him!' His faith was in her dauntless +bold spirit, not thinking of the animal she was to tame. + +Countess Livia, after receiving Henrietta's letter of information, +descended on them and thought them each and all a crazed set. Love, +as a motive of action for a woman, she considered the female's lunacy +and suicide. Men are born subject to it, happily, and thus the balance +between the lordly half of creation and the frail is rectified. We women +dress, and smile, sigh, if you like, to excite the malady. But if we are +the fools to share it, we lose our chance; instead of the queens, we are +the slaves, and instead of a life of pleasure, we pass from fever to +fever at a tyrant's caprice: he does rightly in despising us. Ay, and +many a worthy woman thinks the same. Educated in dependency as they are, +they come to the idea of love to snatch at it for their weapon of the +man's weakness. For which my lord calls them heartless, and poets are +angry with them, rightly or wrongly. + +It must, I fear, be admitted for a truth, that sorrow is the portion of +young women who give the full measure of love to the engagement, marrying +for love. At least, Countess Livia could declare subsequently she had +foretold it and warned her cousin. Not another reflection do you hear +from me, if I must pay forfeit of my privilege to hurry you on past +descriptions of places and anatomy of character and impertinent talk +about philosophy in a story. When we are startled and offended by the +insinuated tracing of principal incidents to a thread-bare spot in the +nether garments of a man of no significance, I lose patience. + +Henrietta's case was a secondary affair. What with her passion--it was +nothing less--and her lover's cunning arts, and her father's consent +given, and in truth the look of the two together, the dissuasion of them +from union was as likely to keep them apart as an exhortation addressed +to magnet and needle. Countess Livia attacked Carinthia Jane and the +admiral backing her. But the admiral, having given his consent to his +daughter's marriage, in consequence of the earl's pledged word to 'his +other girl,' had become a zealot for this marriage and there was only not +a grand altercation on the subject because Livia shunned annoyances. +Alone with Carinthia Jane, as she reported to Henrietta, she spoke to a +block, that shook a head and wore a thin smile and nursed its own idea of +the better knowledge of Edward Russett, Earl of Fleetwood, gained in the +run of a silly quadrille at a ball: + +What is a young man's word to his partner in a quadrille? + +Livia put the question, she put it twice rather sternly, and the girl +came out with: 'Oh, he meant it!' + +The nature, the pride, the shifty and furious moods of Lord Fleetwood +were painted frightful to her. + +She had conceived her own image of him. + +Whether to set her down as an enamoured idiot or a creature not a whit +less artful than her brother, was Countess Livia's debate. Her +inclination was to misdoubt the daughter of the Old Buccaneer: she might +be simple, at her age, and she certainly was ignorant; but she clung to +her prize. Still the promise was extracted from her, that she would not +worry the earl to fulfil the word she supposed him to mean in its full +meaning. + +The promise was unreluctantly yielded. No, she would not write. Admiral +Fakenham, too, engaged to leave the matter to a man of honour. + +Meanwhile, Chillon John had taken a journey to Lekkatts; following which, +his uncle went to London. Lord Fleetwood heard that Miss Kirby kept him +bound. He was again the fated prisoner of his word. + +And following that, not so very long, there was the announcement of the +marriage of Chillon John Kirby Levellier, Lieutenant in the King's Own +Hussars, and Henrietta, daughter of Admiral Baldwin Fakenham. A county +newspaper paragraph was quoted for its eulogy of the Beauty of Hampshire +--not too strong, those acquainted with her thought. Interest at Court +obtained an advancement for the bridegroom: he was gazetted Captain +during his honeymoon, and his prospects under his uncle's name were +considerd fair, though certain people said at the time, it was likely to +be all he would get while old Lord Levellier of Leancats remained in the +flesh. + +Now, as it is good for those to tell who intend preserving their taste +for romance and hate anatomical lectures, we never can come to the exact +motives of any extraordinary piece of conduct on the part of man or +woman. Girls are to read; and the study of a boy starts from the monkey. +But no literary surgeon or chemist shall explain positively the cause of +the behaviour of men and women in their relations together; and speaking +to rescue my story, I say we must with due submission accept the facts. +We are not a bit the worse for wondering at them. So it happened that +Lord Fleetwood's reply to Lord Levellier's hammer--hammer by post and +messenger at his door, one may call it, on the subject of the celebration +of the marriage of the young Croesus and Carinthia Jane, in which there +was demand for the fixing of a date forthwith, was despatched on the day +when London had tidings of Henrietta Pakenham's wedding. + +The letter, lost for many years, turned up in the hands of a Kentish +auctioneer, selling it on behalf of a farm-serving man, who had it from +Lord Levellier's cook and housemaid, among the things she brought him as +her wifely portion after her master's death, and this she had not found +saleable in her husband's village at her price, but she had got the habit +of sticking to the scraps, being proud of hearing it said that she had +skinned Leancats to some profit: and her expectation proved correct after +her own demise, for her husband putting it up at the auction; our +relative on the mother's side, Dr. Glossop, interested in the documents +and particulars of the story as he was, had it knocked down to him, in +contest with an agent of a London gentleman, going as high as two pounds +ten shillings, for the sum of two pounds and fifteen shillings. Count +the amount that makes for each word of a letter a marvel of brevity, +considering the purport! But Dr. Glossop was right in saying he had it +cheap. The value of that letter may now be multiplied by ten: nor for +that sum would he part with it. + +Thus it ran, I need not refer to it in Bundle No. 3: + + 'MY LORD: I drive to your church-door on the fourteenth of the month + at ten A.M., to keep my appointment with Miss C. J. Kirby, if I do + not blunder the initials. + 'Your lordship's obedient servant, + 'FLEETWOOD.' + +That letter will ever be a treasured family possession with us. + +That letter was dated from Lord Fleetwood's Kentish mansion, Esslemont, +the tenth of the month. He must have quitted London for Esslemont, for +change of scene, for air, the moment after the news of Henrietta's +marriage. Carinthia Jane received the summons without transmission of +the letter from her uncle on the morning of the twelfth. It was a +peremptory summons. + +Unfortunately, Admiral Fakenham, a real knight and chevalier of those +past times, would not let her mount the downs to have her farewell view +of the big ships unaccompanied by him; and partly and largely in pure +chivalry, no doubt; but her young idea of England's grandeur, as shown in +her great vessels of war, thrilled him, too, and restored his youthful +enthusiasm for his noble profession or made it effervesce. However it +was, he rode beside her and rejoiced to hear the young girl's talk of her +father as a captain of one of England's thunderers, and of the cruelty of +that Admiralty to him: at which Admiral Baldwin laughed, but had not the +heart to disagree with her, for he could belabour the Admiralty in +season, cause or no cause. Altogether he much enjoyed the ride, +notwithstanding intimations of the approach of 'his visitor,' as he +called his attacks of gout. + +Riding home, however, the couple passed through a heavy rainfall, and the +next day, when he was to drive with the bride to Lekkatts, gout, the +fiercest he had ever known, chained him fast to his bed. Such are the +petty accidents affecting circumstances. They are the instruments of +Destiny. + +There he lay, protesting that the ceremony could not possibly be for the +fourteenth, because Countess Livia had, he now remembered, written of her +engagement to meet Russett on the night of that day at a ball at Mrs. +Cowper Quillett's place, Canleys, lying south of the Surrey hills: a +house famed for its gatherings of beautiful women; whither Lord Fleetwood +would be sure to engage to go, the admiral now said; and it racked him +like gout in his mind, and perhaps troubled his conscience about handing +the girl to such a young man. But he was lying on his back, the posture +for memory to play the fiend with us, as we read in the BOOK of MAXIMS of +the Old Buccaneer. Admiral Baldwin wished heartily to be present at his +Crinny's wedding 'to see her launched,' if wedding it was to be, and he +vowed the date of the fourteenth, in Lord Levellier's announcement of it, +must be an error and might be a month in advance, and ought to be. But +it was sheer talking and raving for a solace to his disappointment or his +anxiety. He had to let Carinthia Jane depart under the charge of his +housekeeper, Mrs. Carthew, a staid excellent lady, poorly gifted with +observation. + +Her report of the performance of the ceremony at Croridge village church, +a half mile from Lekkatts, was highly reassuring to the anxious old +admiral still lying on his back with memory and gout at their fiend's +play, and livid forecasts hovering. He had recollected that there had +been no allusion in Lord Levellier's message to settlements or any +lawyer's preliminaries, and he raged at himself for having to own it +would have been the first of questions on behalf of his daughter. + +'All passed off correctly,' Mrs. Carthew said. 'The responses of the +bride and bridegroom were particularly articulate.' + +She was reserved upon the question of the hospitality of Lekkatts. The +place had entertained her during her necessitated residence there, and +honour forbade her to smile concordantly at the rosy admiral's mention of +Leancats. She took occasion, however, to praise the Earl of Fleetwood's +eminently provident considerateness for his bride, inasmuch as he had +packed a hamper in his vehicle, which was a four-in-hand, driven by +himself. + +Admiral Baldwin inquired: 'Bride inside?' + +He was informed: 'The Countess of Fleetwood sat on the box on the left of +my lord.' + +She had made no moan about the absence of bridesmaids. + +'She appeared too profoundly happy to meditate an instant upon +deficiencies.' + +'How did the bridegroom behave?' + +'Lord Fleetwood was very methodical. He is not, or was not, voluntarily +a talker.' + +'Blue coat, brass buttons, hot-house flower? old style or new?' + +'His lordship wore a rather low beaver and a buttoned white overcoat, not +out of harmony with the bride's plain travelling-dress.' + +'Ah! he's a good whip, men say. Keeps first-rate stables, hacks, and +bloods. Esslemont hard by will be the place for their honeymoon, I +guess. And he's a lucky dog, if he knows his luck.' + +So said Admiral Baldwin. He was proceeding to say more, for he had a +prodigious opinion of the young countess and the benefit of her marriage +to the British race. As it concerned a healthy constitution and +motherhood, Mrs. Carthew coughed and retired. Nor do I reprove either +of them. The speculation and the decorum are equally commendable. +Masculine ideas are one thing; but let feminine ever be feminine, or our +civilization perishes. + +At Croridge village church, then, one of the smallest churches in the +kingdom, the ceremony was performed and duly witnessed, names written in +the vestry book, the clergyman's fee, the clerk, and the pew-woman, paid +by the bridegroom. And thus we see how a pair of lovers, blind with the +one object of lovers in view; and a miserly uncle, all on edge to save +himself the expense of supporting his niece; and an idolatrous old +admiral, on his back with gout; conduced in turn and together to the +marriage gradually exciting the world's wonder, till it eclipsed the +story of the Old Buccaneer and Countess Fanny, which it caused to be +discussed afresh. + +Mrs. Carthew remembered Carinthia Jane's last maiden remark and her first +bridal utterance. On the way, walking to the church of Croridge from +Lekkatts, the girl said: 'Going on my feet, I feel I continue the +mountain walk with my brother when we left our home.' And after leaving +the church, about to mount the coach, she turned to Mrs. Carthew, saying, +as she embraced her: + +'A happy bride's kiss should bring some good fortune.' And looking down +from her place on the top of the coach: + +'Adieu, dear Mrs. Carthew. A day of glory it is to-day.' She must +actually have had it in her sight as a day of glory: and it was a day of +the clouds off our rainy quarter, similar in every way to the day of her +stepping on English soil and saying: 'It is a dark land.' For the heart +is truly declared to be our colourist. A day having the gale in its +breast, sweeping the whole country and bending the trees for the twigs to +hiss like spray of the billows around our island, was a day of golden +splendour to the young bride of the Earl of Fleetwood, though he scarcely +addressed one syllable to her, and they sat side by side all but dumb, +he like a coachman driving an unknown lady fare, on a morning after a +night when his wife's tongue may have soured him for the sex. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +A PENDANT OF THE FOREGOING + +Mention has been omitted or forgotten by the worthy Dame, in her vagrant +fowl's treatment of a story she cannot incubate, will not relinquish, and +may ultimately addle, that the bridegroom, after walking with a +disengaged arm from the little village church at Croridge to his coach +and four at the cross of the roads to Lekkatts and the lowland, abruptly, +and as one pursuing a deferential line of conduct he had prescribed to +himself, asked his bride, what seat she would prefer. + +He shouted: 'Ives!' + +A person inside the coach appeared to be effectually roused. + +The glass of the window dropped. The head of a man emerged. It was the +head of one of the bargefaced men of the British Isles, broad, and +battered flattish, with sentinel eyes. + +In an instant the heavy-headed but not ill-looking fellow was nimble and +jumped from the coach. + +'Napping, my lord,' he said. + +Heavy though the look of him might be, his feet were light; they flipped +a bar of a hornpipe at a touch of the ground. Perhaps they were allowed +to go with their instinct for the dance, that his master should have a +sample of his wakefulness. He quenched a smirk and stood to take orders; +clad in a flat blue cap, a brown overcoat, and knee-breeches, as the +temporary bustle of his legs had revealed. + +Fleet-wood heard the young lady say: 'I would choose, if you please, to +sit beside you.' + +He gave a nod of enforced assent, glancing at the vacated box. + +The man inquired: 'A knee and a back for the lady to mount up, my lord?' + +'In!' was the smart command to him; and he popped in with the agility of +his popping out. + +Then Carinthia made reverence to the grey lean figure of her uncle and +kissed Mrs. Carthew. She needed no help to mount the coach. Fleetwood's +arm was rigidly extended, and he did not visibly wince when this foreign +girl sprang to the first hand-grip on the coach and said: 'No, my +husband, I can do it'; unaided,' was implied. + +Her stride from the axle of the wheel to the step higher would have been +a graceful spectacle on Alpine crags. + +Fleetwood swallowed that, too, though it conjured up a mocking +recollection of the Baden woods, and an astonished wild donkey preparing +himself for his harness. A sour relish of the irony in his present +position sharpened him to devilish enjoyment of it, as the finest form +of loathing: on the principle that if we find ourselves consigned to the +nether halls, we do well to dance drunkenly. He had cried for Romance-- +here it was! + +He raised his hat to Mrs. Carthew and to Lord Levellier. Previous to the +ceremony, the two noblemen had interchanged the short speech of mannered +duellists punctiliously courteous in the opening act. Their civility was +maintained at the termination of the deadly work. The old lord's bosom +thanked the young one for not requiring entertainment and a repast; the +young lord's thanked the old one for a strict military demeanour at an +execution and the abstaining from any nonsensical talk over the affair. + +A couple of liveried grooms at the horses' heads ran and sprang to the +hinder seats as soon as their master had taken the reins. He sounded the +whip caressingly: off those pretty trotters went. + +Mrs. Carthew watched them, waving to the bride. She was on the present +occasion less than usually an acute or a reflective observer, owing to +her admiration of lordly state and masculine commandership; and her +thought was: 'She has indeed made a brilliant marriage!' + +The lady thought it, notwithstanding an eccentricity in the wedding +ceremony, such as could not but be noticeable. But very wealthy noblemen +were commonly, perhaps necessarily, eccentric, for thus they proved +themselves egregious, which the world expected them to be. + +Lord Levellier sounded loud eulogies of the illustrious driver's team. +His meditation, as he subsequently stated to Chillon, was upon his +vanquished antagonist's dexterity, in so conducting matters, that he had +to be taken at once, with naught of the customary preface and apology for +taking to himself the young lady, of which a handsome settlement, is the +memorial. + +We have to suppose, that the curious occupant of the coach inside aroused +no curiosity in the pair of absorbed observers. + +Speculations regarding the chances of a fall of rain followed the coach +until it sank and the backs of the two liveried grooms closed the chapter +of the wedding, introductory to the honeymoon at Esslemont, seven miles +distant by road, to the right of Lekkatts. It was out of sight that the +coach turned to the left, Northwestward. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +OPENING STAGE OF THE HONEYMOON + +A famous maxim in the book of the Old Buccaneer, treating of PRECAUTION, +as 'The brave man's clean conscience,' with sound counsel to the +adventurous, has it:-- + +'Then you sail away into the tornado, happy as a sealed bottle of ripe +wine.' + +It should mean, that brave men entering the jaws of hurricanes are found +to have cheerful hearts in them when they know they have done their best. +But, touching the picture of happiness, conceive the bounteous Bacchic +spirit in the devoutness of a Sophocles, and you find comparison +neighbour closely between the sealed wine-flask and the bride, who is +being driven by her husband to the nest of the unknown on her marriage +morn. + +Seated beside him, with bosom at heave and shut mouth, in a strange land, +travelling cloud-like, rushing like the shower-cloud to the vale, this +Carinthia, suddenly wedded, passionately grateful for humbleness exalted, +virginly sensible of treasures of love to give, resembled the inanimate +and most inspiring, was mindless and inexpressive, past memory, beyond +the hopes, a thing of the thrilled blood and skylark air, since she laid +her hand in this young man's. His not speaking to her was accepted. +Her blood rather than recollection revived their exchanges during the +dance at Baden, for assurance that their likings were one, their aims +rapturously one; that he was she, she he, the two hearts making one soul. + +Could she give as much as he? It was hardly asked. If we feel we can +give our breath of life, the strength of the feeling fully answers. It +bubbles perpetually from the depth like a well-spring in tumult. Two +hearts that make one soul do not separately count their gifts. + +For the rest, her hunger to admire disposed her to an absorbing sentience +of his acts; the trifles, gestures, manner of this and that; which were +seized as they flew, and swiftly assimilated to stamp his personality. +Driving was the piece of skill she could not do. Her husband's mastery +of the reins endowed him with the beauty of those harmonious trotters he +guided and kept to their pace; and the humming rush of the pace, the +smooth torrent of the brown heath-knolls and reddish pits and hedge-lines +and grass-flats and copses pouring the counter-way of her advance, +belonged to his wizardry. The bearing of her onward was her abandonment +to him. Delicious as mountain air, the wind sang; it had a song of many +voices. Quite as much as on the mountains, there was the keen, the +blissful, nerve-knotting catch of the presence of danger in the steep +descents, taken as if swallowed, without swerve or check. She was in her +husband's hands. At times, at the pitch of a rapid shelving, that was +like a fall, her heart went down; and at the next throb exalted before it +rose, not reasoning why;--her confidence was in him; she was his comrade +whatever chanced. Up over the mountain-peaks she had known edged +moments, little heeded in their passage, when life is poised as a crystal +pitcher on the head, in peril of a step. Then she had been dependent on +herself. Now she had the joy of trusting to her husband. + +His hard leftward eye had view of her askant, if he cared to see how she +bore the trial; and so relentlessly did he take the slopes, that the man +inside pushed out an inquiring pate, the two grooms tightened arms across +their chests. Her face was calmly set, wakeful, but unwrinkled: the +creature did not count among timid girls--or among civilized. She had +got what she wanted from her madman--mad in his impulses, mad in his +reading of honour. She was the sister of Henrietta's husband. Henrietta +bore the name she had quitted. Could madness go beyond the marrying of +the creature? He chafed at her containment, at her courage, her silence, +her withholding the brazen or the fawnish look-up, either of which he +would have hated. + +He, however, was dragged to look down. Neither Gorgon nor Venus, nor a +mingling of them, she had the chasm of the face, recalling the face of +his bondage, seen first that night at Baden. It recalled and it was not +the face; it was the skull of the face, or the flesh of the spirit. +Occasionally she looked, for a twinkle or two, the creature or vision she +had been, as if to mock by reminding him. She was the abhorred delusion, +who captured him by his nerves, ensnared his word--the doing of a foul +witch. How had it leapt from his mouth? She must have worked for it. +The word spoken--she must have known it--he was bound, or the detested +Henrietta would have said: Not even true to his word! + +To see her now, this girl, insisting to share his name, for a slip of his +tongue, despite the warning sent her through her uncle, had that face +much as a leaden winter landscape pretends to be the country radiant in +colour. She belonged to the order of the variable animals--a woman +indeed!--womanish enough in that. There are men who love women--the idea +of woman. Woman is their shepherdess of sheep. He loved freedom, +loathed the subjection of a partnership; could undergo it only in +adoration of an ineffable splendour. He had stepped to the altar +fancying she might keep to her part of the contract by appearing the +miracle that subdued him. Seen by light of day, this bitter object +beside him was a witch without her spells; that is, the skeleton of the +seductive, ghastliest among horrors and ironies. Let her have the credit +of doing her work thoroughly before the exposure. She had done it. +She might have helped--such was the stipulation of his mad freak in +consenting to the bondage--yes, she might have helped to soften the sting +of his wound. She was beside him bearing his name, for the perpetual +pouring of an acid on the wound that vile Henrietta--poisoned honey of a +girl!--had dealt. + +He glanced down at his possession:--heaven and the yawning pit were the +contrast! Poisoned honey is after all honey while you eat it. Here +there was nothing but a rocky bowl of emptiness. And who was she? She +was the sister of Henrietta's husband. He was expected to embrace the +sister of Henrietta's husband. Those two were on their bridal tour. + +This creature was also the daughter of an ancient impostor and desperado +called the Old Buccaneer; a distinguished member of the family of the +Lincolnshire Kirbys, boasting a present representative grimly acquitted, +men said, on a trial for murder. An eminent alliance! Society +considered the Earl of Fleetwood wildish, though he could manage his +affairs. He and his lawyers had them under strict control. How of +himself? The prize of the English marriage market had taken to his bosom +for his winsome bride the daughter of the Old Buccaneer. He was to mix +his blood with the blood of the Lincolnshire Kirbys, lying pallid under +the hesitating acquittal of a divided jury. + +How had he come to this pass, which swung him round to think almost +regretfully of the scorned multitude of fair besiegers in the market, +some of whom had their unpoetic charms? + +He was renowned and unrivalled as the man of stainless honour: the +one living man of his word. He had never broken it--never would. There +was his distinction among the herd. In that, a man is princely above +princes. The nobility of Edward Russett, Earl of Fleetwood, surpassed +the nobility of common nobles. But, by all that is holy, he pays for +his distinction. + +The creature beside him is a franked issue of her old pirate of a father +in one respect--nothing frightens her. There she sits; not a screw of +her brows or her lips; and the coach rocked, they were sharp on a spill +midway of the last descent. It rocks again. She thinks it scarce worth +while to look up to reassure him. She is looking over the country. + +'Have you been used to driving?' he said. + +She replied: 'No, it is new to me on a coach.' + +Carinthia felt at once how wild the wish or half expectation that he +would resume the glowing communion of the night which had plighted them. + +She did not this time say 'my husband,' still it flicked a whip at his +ears. + +She had made it more offensive, by so richly toning the official title +just won from him as to ring it on the nerves; one had to block it or be +invaded. An anticipation that it would certainly recur haunted every +opening of her mouth. + +Now that it did not, he felt the gap, relieved, and yet pricked to +imagine a mimicry of her tones, for the odd foreignness of the word and +the sound. She had a voice of her own besides her courage. At the +altar, her responses had their music. No wonder: the day was hers. +'My husband' was a manner of saying 'my fish.' + +He, spoke very civilly. 'Oblige me by telling me what name you are +accustomed to answer to.' + +She seemed unaware of an Arctic husband, and replied: 'My father called +me Carin--short for Carinthia. My mother called me Janey; my second name +is Jane. My brother Chillon says both. Henrietta calls me Janey.' + +The creature appeared dead flesh to goads. But the name of her sister- +in-law on her lips returned the stroke neatly. She spared him one whip, +to cut him with another. + +'You have not informed me which of these names you prefer.' + +'Oh, my husband, it is as you shall please.' + +Fleetwood smartened the trot of his team, and there was a to-do with the +rakish leaders. + +Fairies of a malignant humour in former days used to punish the +unhappiest of the naughty men who were not favourites, by suddenly +planting a hump on their backs. Off the bedevilled wretches pranced, +and they kicked, they snorted, whinnied, rolled, galloped, outflying the +wind, but not the dismal rider. Marriage is our incubus now. No +explanation is offered of why we are afflicted; we have simply offended, +or some one absent has offended, and we are handy. The spiteful hag of +power ties a wife to us; perhaps for the reason, that we behaved in the +spirit of a better time by being chivalrously honourable. Wives are just +as inexplicable curses, just as ineradicable and astonishing as humps +imposed on shapely backs. + +Fleetwood lashed his horses until Carinthia's low cry of entreaty rose to +surprise. That stung him. + +'Leave the coachman to his devices: we have an appointment and must keep +it,' he said. + +'They go so willingly.' + +'Good beasts, in their way.' + +'I do not like the whip.' + +'I have the same objection.' + +They were on the level of the vale, going along a road between farms and +mansions, meadows and gardenplots and park-palings. A strong warm wind +drove the pack of clouds over the tree-tops and charged at the branches. +English scenery, animating air; a rouse to the blood and the mind. +Carinthia did not ask for hues. She had come to love of the dark land +with the warm lifting wind, the big trees and the hedges, and the stately +houses, and people requiring to be studied, who mean well and are warm +somewhere below, as chimneypots are, though they are so stiff. + +English people dislike endearments, she had found. It might be that her +husband disliked any show of fondness. He would have to be studied very +much. He was not like others, as Henrietta had warned her. From +thinking of him fervidly, she was already past the marvel of the thought +that she called him husband. At the same time, a curious intimation, +gathered she knew not whence, of the word 'husband' on a young wife's +lips as being a foreign sound in England, advised her to withhold it. +His behaviour was instructing her. + +'Are you weather-wise?--able to tell when the clouds will hold off or +pelt,' he said, to be very civil to a neighbour. + +She collected her understanding, apparently; treating a conversational +run of the tongue as a question to be pondered; and the horses paid for +it. Ordinarily he was gentle with his beasts. He lashed at her in his +heart for perverting the humanest of men. + +'Father was,' she replied. + +'Oh! I have heard of him.' + +Her face lightened. 'Father had a great name in England.' + +'The Old Buccaneer, I think.' + +'I do not know. He was a seaman of the navy, like Admiral Fakenham is. +Weather at sea, weather on the mountains, he could foretell it always. +He wrote a book; I have a copy you will read. It is a book of Maxims. +He often speaks of the weather. English weather and women, he says. +But not my mother. My mother he stood aside by herself--pas capricieuse +du tout! Because she would be out in the weather and brave the weather. +She rode, she swam, best of any woman. If she could have known you, what +pleasure for me! Mother learnt to read mountain weather from father. +I did it too. But sometimes on the high fields' upper snows it is very +surprising. Father has been caught. Here the cloud is down near the +earth and the strong wind keeps the rain from falling. How long the wind +will blow I cannot guess. But you love the mountains. We spoke . . . +And mountains' adventures we both love. I will talk French if you like, +for, I think, German you do not speak. I may speak English better than +French; but I am afraid of my English with you.' + +'Dear me!' quoth Fleetwood, and he murmured politely and cursorily, +attentive to his coachman business. She had a voice that clove the noise +of the wheels, and she had a desire to talk--that was evident. Talk of +her father set her prattling. It became clear also to his not dishonest, +his impressionable mind, that her baby English might be natural. Or she +was mildly playing on it, to give herself an air. + +He had no remembrance of such baby English at Baden. There, however, +she was in a state of enthusiasm--the sort of illuminated transparency +they show at the end of fireworks. Mention of her old scapegrace of a +father lit her up again. The girl there and the girl here were no doubt +the same. It could not be said that she had duped him; he had done it +for himself--acted on by a particular agency. This creature had not the +capacity to dupe. He had armed a bluntwitted young woman with his +idiocy, and she had dealt the stroke; different in scarce a degree by +nature from other young women of prey. + +But her look at times, and now and then her voice, gave sign that she +counted on befooling him as well, to reconcile him to his bondage. The +calculation was excessive. No woman had done it yet. Idiocy plunged him +the step which reawakened understanding; and to keep his whole mind alert +on guard against any sort of satisfaction with his bargain, he frankly +referred to the cause. Not female arts, but nature's impulses, it was +his passion for the wondrous in the look of a woman's face, the new +morning of the idea of women in the look, and the peep into imaginary +novel character, did the trick of enslaving him. Call it idiocy. Such +it was. Once acknowledged, it is not likely to recur. An implacable +reason sits in its place, with a keen blade for efforts to carry the +imposture further afield or make it agreeable. Yet, after giving his +word to Lord Levellier, he had prodded himself to think the burden of +this wild young woman might be absurdly tolerable and a laugh at the +world. + +A solicitude for the animal was marked by his inquiry 'You are not hungry +yet?' + +'Oh no, not yet,' said she, oddly enlivened. + +They had a hamper and were independent of stoppages for provision, he +informed her. What more delightful? cried her look, seeing the first +mid-day's rest and meal with Chillon on the walk over the mountain from +their empty home. + +She could get up enthusiasm for a stocked hamper! And when told of some +business that drew him to a meadow they were nearing, she said she would +be glad to help, if she could. 'I learn quickly, I know.' + +His head acquiesced. The daughter of the Old Buccaneer might learn the +business quickly, perhaps; a singularly cutting smile was on his tight +lips, in memory of a desire he had as a boy to join hands with an +Amazonian damsel and be out over the world for adventures, comrade and +bride as one. Here the creature sat. Life is the burlesque of young +dreams; or they precipitate us on the roar and grin of a recognized beast +world. + +The devil possessing him gnawed so furiously that a partial mitigation of +the pain was afforded by sight of waving hats on a hill-rise of the road. +He flourished his whip. The hats continued at wind-mill work. It +signified brisk news to him, and prospect of glee to propitiate any +number of devils. + +'You will want a maid to attend on you,' he said. + +She replied: 'I am not used to attendance on me. Henrietta's maid would +help. I did not want her. I had no maid at home. I can do for myself. +Father and mother liked me to be very independent.' + +He supposed he would have to hear her spelling her words out next. + +The hill-top was gained; twenty paces of pretty trotting brought up the +coach beside an inn porch, in the style of the finish dear to whips, and +even imperative upon them, if they love their art. Two gentlemen stood +in the road, and a young woman at the inn door; a dark-haired girl of an +anxious countenance. Her puckers vanished at some signal from inside the +coach. + +'All right, Madge; nothing to fear,' Fleetwood called to her, and she +curtseyed. + +He alighted, saying to her, before he spoke to his friends: 'I've brought +him safe; had him under my eye the last four and twenty hours. He'll do +the trick to-day. You don't bet?' + +'Oh! my lord, no.' + +'Help the lady down. Out with you, Ines!' + +The light-legged barge-faced man touched ground capering. He was greeted +'Kit' by the pair of gentlemen, who shook hands with him, after he had +faintly simulated the challenge to a jig with Madge. She flounced from +him, holding her arms up to the lady. Landlord, landlady, and hostler +besought the lady to stay for the fixing of a ladder. Carinthia stepped, +leaped, and entered the inn, Fleetwood remarking: + +'We are very independent, Chummy Potts.' + +'Cordy bally, by Jove!' Potts cried. But the moment after this +disengaged ejaculation, he was taken with a bewilderment. 'At the +Opera?' he questioned of his perplexity. + +'No, sir, not at the Opera,' Fleetwood rejoined. 'The lady's last public +appearance was at the altar.' + +'Sort of a suspicion of having seen her somewhere. Left her husband +behind, has she?' + +'You see: she has gone in.' + +The scoring of a proposition of Euclid on the forehead of Potts amused +him and the other gentleman, who was hailed 'Mallard!' and cared nothing +for problems involving the female of man when such work was to the fore +as the pugilistic encounter of the Earl of Fleetwood's chosen Kit Ines, +with Lord Brailstone's unbeaten and well-backed Ben Todds. + +Ines had done pretty things from the age of seventeen to his twenty-third +year. Remarkably clever things they were, to be called great in the +annals of the Ring. The point, however, was, that the pockets of his +backers had seriously felt his latest fight. He received a dog's licking +at the hands of Lummy Phelps, his inferior in skill, fighting two to one +of the odds; and all because of his fatal addiction to the breaking of +his trainer's imposed fast in liquids on, the night before the battle. +Right through his training, up to that hour, the rascal was devout; the +majority's money rattled all on the snug safe side. And how did he get +at the bottle? His trainers never could say. But what made him turn +himself into a headlong ass, when he had only to wait a night to sit +among friends and worshippers drinking off his tumbler upon tumbler with +the honours? It was past his wits to explain. Endurance of his +privation had snapped in him; or else, which is more likely, this Genius +of the Ring was tempted by his genius on the summit of his perfected +powers to believe the battle his own, and celebrate it, as became a +victor despising the drubbed antagonist. + +In any case, he drank, and a minor man gave him the dog's licking.. +'Went into it puffy, came out of it bunged,' the chronicle resounding +over England ran. Old England read of an 'eyeless carcase' heroically +stepping up to time for three rounds of mashing punishment. If he had +won the day after all, the country would have been electrified. It +sympathized on the side of his backers too much to do more than nod a +short approval of his fortitude. To sink with flag flying is next to +sinking the enemy. There was talk of a girl present at the fight, and of +how she received the eyeless, almost faceless, carcase of her sweetheart +Kit, and carried him away in a little donkey-cart, comfortably cushioned +to meet disaster. This petty incident drew the attention of the Earl of +Fleetwood, then beginning to be known as the diamond of uncounted facets, +patron of the pick of all departments of manly activity in England. + +The devotion of the girl Madge to her sweetheart was really a fine story. +Fleetwood touched on it to Mr. Mallard, speaking of it like the gentleman +he could be, while Chumley Potts wagged impatient acquiescence in a +romantic episode of the Ring, that kept the talk from the hotter theme. + +'Money's Bank of England to-day, you think?' he interposed, and had his +answer after Mallard had said: + +'The girl 's rather good-looking, too.' + +'You may double your bets, Chummy. I had the fellow to his tea at my +dinner-table yesterday evening; locked him in his bedroom, and had him +up and out for a morning spin at six. His trainer, Flipper's on the +field, drove from Esslemont at nine, confident as trumps.' + +'Deuce of a good-looking girl,' Potts could now afford to say; and he +sang out: 'Feel fit, lucky dog?' + +'Concert pitch!' was the declaration of Kit Ives. + +'How about Lord Brailstone's man?' + +'Female partner in a quadrille, sir.' + +'Ah!' Potts doated on his limbs with a butcher's eye for prize joints. + +'Cock-sure has crowed low by sunset,' Mallard observed. + +Fleetwood offered him to take his bets. + +'You're heavy on it with Brailstone?' said Mallard. + +'Three thousand.' + +'I'd back you for your luck blindfold.' + +A ruffle of sourness shot over the features of the earl, and was noticed +by both eager betters, who exchanged a glance. + +Potts inspected his watch, and said half aloud: 'Liver, ten to one! That +never meant bad luck--except bad to act on. We slept here last night, +you know. It 's a mile and a quarter from the Royal Sovereign to the +field of glory. Pretty well time to start. Brailstone has a drive of a +couple of miles. Coaches from London down by this time. Abrane's dead +on Ben Todds, any odds. Poor old Braney! "Steady man, Todds." Backs +him because he's a "respectable citizen,"--don't drink. A prize-fighter +total abstainer has no spurts. Old Braney's branded for the losing side. +You might bet against Braney blindfold, Mallard. How long shall you take +to polish him off, Kit Ines?' + +The opponent of Ben Todds calculated. + +'Well, sir, steady Benny ought to be satisfied with his dose in, say, +about forty minutes. Maybe he won't own to it before an hour and ten. +He's got a proud English stomach.' + +'Shall we be late?' Potts asked. + +'Jump in,' Fleetwood said to his man. 'We may be five minutes after +time, Chummy. I had a longer drive, and had to get married on the way, +and--ah, here they are!' + +'Lady coming?' + +'I fancy she sticks to the coach; I don't know her tastes. Madge must +see her through it, that's positive.' + +Potts deferred his astonishment at the things he was hearing and seeing, +which were only Fleetwood's riddles. The fight and the bets rang every +other matter out of his head. He beheld the lady, who had come down from +the coach like a columbine, mount it like Bean-stalk Jack. Madge was not +half so clever, and required a hand at her elbow. + +After, giving hurried directions to Rundles, the landlord of the Royal +Sovereign, Fleetwood took the reins, and all three gentlemen touched hats +to the curtseying figure of Mrs. Rundles. + +'You have heard, I dare say--it's an English scene,' he spoke, partly +turning his face, to Carinthia; 'particularly select to-day. Their +Majesties might look on, as the Caesars did in Rome. Pity we can't +persuade them. They ought to set the fashion. Here we have the English +people at their grandest, in prime condition, if they were not drunk +overnight; and dogged, perfectly awake, magnanimous, all for fair play; +fine fellows, upon my word. A little blood, of course.' + +But the daughter of the Old Buccaneer would have inherited a tenderness +for the sight of blood. She should make a natural Lady Patroness of +England's National Sports. We might turn her to that purpose; wander +over England with a tail of shouting riff-raft; have exhibitions, join +in them, display our accomplishments; issue challenges to fence, shoot, +walk, run, box, in time: the creature has muscle. It's one way of +crowning a freak; we follow the direction, since the deed done can't +be undone; and a precious poetical life, too! You may get as royally +intoxicated on swipes as on choice wine; win a name for yourself as +the husband of such a wife; a name in sporting journals and shilling +biographies: quite a revival of the Peerage they have begun to rail at! + +'I would not wish to leave you,' said Carinthia. + +'You have chosen,' said Fleetwood. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +IN WHICH THE BRIDE FROM FOREIGN PARTS IS GIVEN A TASTE OF OLD ENGLAND + +Cheers at an open gate of a field saluted the familiar scarlet of the +Earl of Fleetwood's coach in Kentish land. They were chorister cheers, +the spontaneous ringing out of English country hearts in homage to the +nobleman who brightened the heaviness of life on English land with a +spectacle of the noble art distinguishing their fathers. He drove along +over muffling turf; ploughboys and blue butcher-boys, and smocked old +men, with an approach to a hundred-weight on their heels, at the trot to +right and left; all hoping for an occasional sight of the jewel called +Kitty, that he carried inside. Kitty was there. + +Kitty's eyes are shut. Think of that: cradled innocence and angels' +dreams and the whole of the hymn just before ding-dong-bang on noses and +jaws! That means confidence? Looks like it. But Kitty's not asleep you +try him. He's only quiet because he has got to undergo great exertion. +Last fight he was knocked out of time, because he went into it honest +drunk, they tell. And the earl took him up, to give him a chance of +recovering his good name, and that's Christian. But the earl, he knows +a man as well as a horse. He's one to follow. Go to a fayte down at +Esslemont, you won't forget your day. See there, he's brought a lady on +the top o' the coach. That seems for to signify he don't expect it's +going to be much of a bloody business. But there's no accounting. +Anyhow, Broadfield 'll have a name in the papers for Sunday reading. +In comes t' other lord's coach. They've timed it together closes they +have. + +They were pronounced to be both the right sort of noblemen for the +country. Lord Brailstone's blue coach rattled through an eastern gate to +the corner of the thirty-acre meadow, where Lord Fleetwood had drawn up, +a toss from the ring. The meeting of the blue and scarlet coaches drew +forth Old England's thunders; and when the costly treasures contained in +them popped out heads, the moment was delirious. Kit Ines came after his +head on a bound. Ben Todds was ostentatiously deliberate: his party said +he was no dancing-master. He stepped out, grave as a barge emerging from +a lock, though alive to the hurrahs of supporters and punctilious in +returning the formal portion of his rival's too roguish nod. Their look +was sharp into the eyes, just an instant. + +Brailstone and Fleetwood jumped to the grass and met, talking and +laughing, precise upon points of business, otherwise cordial: +plenipotentiaries of great powers, whom they have set in motion and +bind to the ceremonial opening steps, according to the rules of civilized +warfare. They had a short colloquy with newspaper reporters;-- +an absolutely fair, square, upright fight of Britons was to be +chronicled. Captain Abrane, a tower in the crowd, registered bets +whenever he could. Curricles, gigs, carts, pony-traps, boys on ponies, +a swarm on legs, flowed to the central point and huddled there. + +Was either champion born in Kent? An audacious boy proclaimed Kit +Ines a man of Kent. Why, of course he was! and that was why the Earl +of Fleetwood backed our cocky Kitty, and means to land him on the top of +his profession. Ben Todds was shuffled aside; as one of their Londoners, +destitute of county savour. + +All very well, but have a spy at Benny Todds. Who looks the square man? +And hear what that big gentleman of the other lord's party says. A +gentleman of his height and weight has a right to his opinion. He 's +dead against Kit Ines: it's fists, not feet, he says, 'll do it to-day; +stamina, he says. Benny has got the stamina. + +Todds' possession of the stamina, and the grand voice of Captain Abrane, +and the Father Christmas, roast-beef-of-Old England face of the umpire +declared to be on the side of Lord Brailstone's colour blue, darkened +the star of Kit Ines till a characteristic piece of behaviour was espied. +He dashed his cap into the ring and followed it, with the lightest of +vaults across the ropes. There he was, the first in the ring: and that +stands for promise of first blow, first blood, first flat knock-down, +and last to cry for quarter. His pair of seconds were soon after him. +Fleetwood mounted his box. + +'Is it to fight?' said Carinthia. + +'To see which is the master.' + +'They fight to see?' + +'Generally until one or the other can't see. You are not obliged to see +it; you can be driven away if you wish.' + +'I will be here, if you are here.' + +'You choose it.' + +Fleetwood leaned over to Chumley Potts on the turf. 'Abrane's ruining +himself.' + +Potts frankly hoped that his friend might be doing so. 'Todds is jolly +well backed. He's in prime condition. He's the favourite of the knowing +ones.' + +'You wouldn't have the odds, if he weren't.' + +'No; but the odds are like ten per cent.: they conjure the gale, and be +hanged,' said Potts; he swore at his betting mania, which destroyed the +pleasure of the show he loved. + +All in the ring were shaking hands. Shots of a desire to question and +comment sped through Carinthia's veins and hurt her. She had gathered +that she spoke foolishly to her husband's ear, so she kept her mouth +shut, though the unanswered of her inquisitive ignorance in the strange +land pricked painfully at her bosom. She heard the girl behind her say: +'Our colours!' when the colour scarlet unwound with Lord Brailstone's +blue was tied to the stake: and her husband nodded; he smiled; he liked +to hear the girl. + +Potts climbed up, crying: 'Toilets complete! Now for paws out, and then +at it, my hearties!' + +Choice of corners under the leaden low cloud counted for little. A +signal was given; a man outside the ring eyed a watch, raised a hand; the +two umpires were on foot in their places; the pair of opposing seconds +hurried out cheery or bolt-business words to their men; and the champions +advanced to the scratch. Todds first, by the courtesy of Ines, whose +decorous control of his legs at a weighty moment was rightly read by his +party. + +Their hands grasped firmly: thereupon becoming fists of a hostile couple +in position. And simply to learn which of us two is the better man! Or +in other words, with four simple fists to compass a patent fact and stand +it on the historic pedestal, with a little red writing underneath: you +never can patent a fact without it. But mark the differences of this kind +of contention from all other--especially the Parliamentary: this is +positive, it has a beginning and an end; and it is good-humoured from +beginning to end; trial of skill, trial of stamina; Nature and Art; Old +English; which made us what we are; and no rancours, no vows of +vengeance; the beaten man of the two bowing to the bit of history he has +helped to make. + +Kittites had need to be confident in the skill of their lither lad. His +facer looked granite. Fronting that mass, Kit you might--not to lash +about for comparisons--call a bundle of bamboo. Ay, but well knitted, +springy, alive every inch of him; crafty, too, as you will soon bear +witness. He knows he has got his task, and he's the man to do it. + +There was wary sparring, and mirrors watched them. + +'Bigger fellow: but have no fear,' the earl said over his shoulder to +Madge. + +She said in return: 'Oh, I don't know, I'm praying.' + +Kit was now on his toes, all himself, like one who has found the key. +He feinted. Quick as lightning, he landed a bolt on Ben's jib, just at +the toll-bar of the bridge, between the eyes, and was off, out of reach, +elastic; Ben's counter fell short by a couple of inches. Cheers for +first blow. + +The earl clucked to Madge. Her gaze at the ring was a sullen intensity. + +Will you believe it?--Ben received a second spanking cracker on the +spectacles-seat: neat indeed; and, poor payment for the compliment, he +managed to dig a drive at the ribs. As much of that game as may suit +you, sturdy Ben! But hear the shout, and behold! + +First blood to Kit Ines! That tell-tale nose of old Ben's has mounted +the Earl of Fleetwood's colours, and all his party are looking +Brailstone-blue. + +'So far!' said Fleetwood. His grooms took an indication: the hamper was +unfastened; sandwiches were handed. Carinthia held one; she tried to +nibble, in obedience to her husband's example. Madge refused a bite of +food. + +Hearing Carinthia say to her: 'I hope he will not be beaten, I hope, I +hope,' she made answer: 'You are very good, Miss'; and the young lady +flushed. + +Gentlemen below were talking up to the earl. A Kentish squire of an +estate neighbouring Esslemont introduced a Welsh squire he had driven to +see the fun, by the name of Mr. Owain Wythan, a neighbour of the earl's +down in Wales. Refreshments were offered. Carinthia submissively sipped +the sparkling wine, which stings the lips when they are indisposed to it. +The voice of the girl Madge rang on the tightened chords of her breast. +Madge had said she was praying: and to pray was all that could be done by +two women. Her husband could laugh loudly with Mr. Potts and the other +gentlemen and the strangers. He was quite sure the man he supported +would win; he might have means of knowing. Carinthia clung to his bare +words, for the sake of the girl. + +A roaring peal went up from the circle of combat. Kit had it this time. +Attacking Ben's peepers, he was bent on defending his own, and he caught +a bodyblow that sent him hopping back to his pair of seconds, five clear +hops to the rear, like a smashed surge-wave off the rock. He was +respectful for the remainder of the round. But hammering at the system +he had formed, in the very next round he dropped from a tremendous +repetition of the blow, and lay flat as a turbot. The bets against him +had simultaneously a see-saw rise. + +'Bellows, he appears to have none,' was the comment of Chumley Potts. + +'Now for training, Chummy!' said Lord Fleetwood. + +'Chummy!' signifying a crow over Potts, rang out of the hollows of +Captain Abrane on Lord Brailstone's coach. + +Carinthia put a hand behind her to Madge. It was grasped, in gratitude +for sympathy or in feminine politeness. The girl murmured: 'I've seen +worse.' She was not speaking to ears. + +Lord Fleetwood sat watch in hand. 'Up,' he said; and, as if hearing him, +Kit rose from the ministering second's knee. He walked stiffly, squared +after the fashion of a man taught caution. Ben made play. They rounded +the ring, giving and taking. Ben rushed, and had an emollient; spouted +again and was corked; again, and received a neat red-waxen stopper. He +would not be denied at Kit's door, found him at home and hugged him. Kit +got himself to grass, after a spell of heavy fibbing, Ben's game. + +It did him no great harm; it might be taken for an enlivener; he was dead +on his favourite spot the ensuing round, played postman on it. So +cleverly, easily, dancingly did he perform the double knock and the +retreat, that Chumley Potts was moved to forget his wagers and exclaim: +'Racket-ball, by Jove!' + +'If he doesn't let the fellow fib the wind out of him,' Mallard addressed +his own crab eyeballs. + +Lord Fleetwood heard and said coolly: 'Tightstrung. I kept him fasting +since he earned his breakfast. You don't wind an empty rascal fit for +action. A sword through the lungs won't kill when there's no air in +them.' + +That was printed in the 'Few Words before the Encounter', in the Book Of +MAXIMS FOR MEN. Carinthia, hearing everything her husband uttered, +burned to remind him of the similarity between his opinions and her +father's. + +She was learning, that for some reason, allusions to her father were not +acceptable. She squeezed the hand of Madge, and felt a pressure, like a +scream, telling her the girl's heart was with the fight beneath them. +She thought it natural for her. She wished she could continue looking as +intently. She looked because her husband looked. The dark hills and +clouds curtaining the run of the stretch of fields relieved her sight. + +The clouds went their way; the hills were solid, but like a blue smoke; +the scene here made them very distant and strange. Those two men were +still hitting, not hating one another; only to gratify a number of +unintelligible people and win a success. But the earth and sky seemed to +say, What is the glory? They were insensible to it, as they are not-- +they are never insensible to noble grounds of strife. They bless the +spot, they light lamps on it; they put it into books of history, make it +holy, if the cause was a noble one or a good one. + +Or supposing both those men loved the girl, who loved one of them! Then +would Carinthia be less reluctantly interested in their blows. + +Her infant logic stumbled on for a reason while she repressed the torture +the scene was becoming, as though a reason could be found by her +submissive observation of it. And she was right in believing that a +reason for the scene must or should exist. Only, like other bewildered +instinctive believers, she could not summon the great universe or a +life's experience to unfold it. Her one consolation was in squeezing the +hand of the girl from time to time. + +Not stealthily done, it was not objected to by the husband whose eye was +on all. But the persistence in doing it sank her from the benignity of +her station to the girl's level: it was conduct much too raw, and grated +on the deed of the man who had given her his name. + +Madge pleased him better. She had the right to be excited, and she was +very little demonstrative. She had--well, in justice, the couple of them +had, only she had it more--the tone of the women who can be screwed to +witness a spill of blood, peculiarly catching to hear;--a tone of every +string in them snapped except the silver string. Catching to hear? It +is worth a stretching of them on the rack to hear that low buzz-hum of +their inner breast . . . By heaven! we have them at their best when +they sing that note. + +His watch was near an hour of the contest, and Brailstone's man had +scored first knock-down blow, a particularly clean floorer. Thinking of +that, he was cheered by hearing Chummy Potts, whose opinions he despised, +cry out to Abrane:-- + +'Yeast to him!' For the face of Todds was visibly swelling to the ripest +of plums from Kit's deliveries. + +Down he went. He had the sturdy legs which are no legs to a clean blow. +Odds were offered against him. + +'Oh! pretty play with your right, Kit!' exclaimed Mallard, as Kit fetched +his man an ugly stroke on the round of the waist behind, and the crowd +sent up the name of the great organs affected: a sickener of a stroke, if +dealt soundly. It meant more than 4 showed. Kit was now for taking +liberties. Light as ever on his pins, he now and then varied his +attentions to the yeasty part, delivering a wakener in unexpected +quarters: masterly as the skilled cook's carving of a joint with hungry +guests for admirers. + +'Eh, Madge?' the earl said. + +She kept her sight fixed, replying: 'Yes, I think . . .' Carinthia +joined with her: 'I must believe it that he will: but will the other man, +poor man, submit? I entreat him to put away his pride. It is his--oh, +poor man!' + +Ben was having it hot and fast on a torso physiognomy. + +The voices of these alien women thrilled the fray and were a Bardic harp +to Lord Fleetwood. + +He dropped a pleasant word on the heads in the curricle. + +Mr. Owain Wythan looked up. 'Worthy of Theocritus. It's the Boxing Twin +and the Bembrycian giant. The style of each. To the letter!' + +'Kit is assiduously fastening Ben's blinkers,' Potts remarked. + +He explained to the incomprehensible lady he fancied he had somewhere +seen, that the battle might be known as near the finish by the behaviour +on board Lord Brailstone's coach. + +'It's like Foreign Affaits and the Stock Exchange,' he said to the more +intelligent males. 'If I want to know exactly how the country stands, I +turn to the Money Article in the papers. That's a barometrical +certainty. No use inquiring abroad. Look at old Rufus Abrane. I see +the state of the fight on the old fellow's mug. He hasn't a bet left in +him!' + +'Captain Mountain--Rufus Mus!' cried Lord Fleetwood, and laughed at the +penetrative portrait Woodseer's epigram sketched; he had a desire for the +presence of the singular vagabond. + +The Rufus Mus in the Captain Mountain exposed his view of the encounter, +by growing stiller, apparently growing smaller, without a squeak, like +the entrapped; and profoundly contemplative, after the style of the +absolutely detached, who foresee the fatal crash, and are calculating, +far ahead of events, the means for meeting their personal losses. + +The close of the battle was on the visage of Rufus Abrane fifteen minutes +before that Elgin marble under red paint in the ring sat on the knee of a +succouring seconder, mopped, rubbed, dram-primed, puppy-peeping, +inconsolably comforted, preparatory to the resumption of the great-coat +he had so hopefully cast from his shoulders. Not downcast by any means. +Like an old Roman, the man of the sheer hulk with purple eyemounds found +his legs to do the manful thing, show that there was no bad blood, stand +equal to all forms. Ben Todds, if ever man in Old England, looked the +picture you might label 'Bellyful,' it was remarked. Kit Ines had an +appearance of springy readiness to lead off again. So they faced on the +opening step of their march into English History. + +Vanquisher and vanquished shook hands, engaged in a parting rally of +good-humoured banter; the beaten man said his handsome word; the best man +capped it with a compliment to him. They drink of different cups to-day. +Both will drink of one cup in the day to come. But the day went too +clearly to crown the light and the tight and the right man of the two, +for moralizing to wag its tail at the end. Oldsters and youngsters +agreed to that. Science had done it: happy the backers of Science! Not +one of them alluded to the philosophical 'hundred years hence.' For when +England, thanks to a spirited pair of our young noblemen, has exhibited +one of her characteristic performances consummately, Philosophy is bidden +fly; she is a foreign bird. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +RECORDS A SHADOW CONTEST CLOSE ON THE FOREGOING + +Kit Ines cocked an eye at Madge, in the midst of the congratulations and +the paeans pumping his arms. As he had been little mauled, he could +present a face to her, expecting a wreath of smiles for the victor. + +What are we to think of the contrarious young woman who, when he lay +beaten, drove him off the field and was all tenderness and devotion? +She bobbed her head, hardly more than a trifle pleased, one might say. +Just like females. They're riddles, not worth spelling. Then, drunk +I'll get to-night, my pretty dear! the man muttered, soured by her +inopportune staidness, as an opponent's bruisings could never have +rendered him. + +She smiled a lively beam in answer to the earl; 'Oh yes I 'm glad. It's +your doing, my lord.' Him it was that she thanked, and for the moment +prized most. The female riddle is hard to read, because it is compounded +of sensations, and they rouse and appeal to the similar cockatrices in +us, which either hiss back or coil upon themselves. She admired Kit Ines +for his valour: she hated that ruinous and besotting drink. It flung +skeletons of a married couple on the wall of the future. Nevertheless +her love had been all maternal to him when he lay chastised and disgraced +on account of his vice. Pity had done it. Pity not being stirred, her +admiration of the hero declared victorious, whose fortunes in uncertainty +had stopped the beating of her heart, was eclipsed by gratitude toward +his preserver, and a sentiment eclipsed becomes temporarily coldish, +against our wish and our efforts, in a way to astonish; making her think +that she cannot hold two sentiments at a time; when it is but the fact +that she is unable to keep the two equally warm. + +Carinthia said to her: 'He is brave.' + +'Oh yes, he's brave,' Madge assented. + +Lord Brailstone, flourishing his whip, cried out: 'At Canleys to-night?' + +The earl nodded: 'I shall be there.' + +'You, too, Chummy?' came from Abrane. + +'To see you dance,' Potts rejoined, and mumbled + +'But will he dance! Old Braney's down on his luck; he's a specimen of a +fellow emptier and not lighter. And won't be till supper-time. But, I +say, Fleet, how the deuce?--funny sort of proceeding!--You haven't +introduced me.' + +'The lady bears my name, Mr. Chumley Potts.' + +With a bow to the lady's profile and a mention of a glimpse at Baden, +Potts ejaculated: 'It happened this morning?' + +'You allude to the marriage. It happened this morning.' + +'How do I get to Canleys?' + +'I drive you. Another team from the Esslemont stables is waiting at the +Royal.' + +'You stay at Canleys?' + +'No.' + +'No? Oh! Funny, upon my word. Though I don't know why not--except that +people . . .' + +'Count your winnings, Chummy.' + +Fleetwood remarked to his bride: 'Our friend has the habit of +soliloquizing in company. I forgot to tell you of an appointment of mine +at a place called Canleys, about twenty miles or more from here. I gave +my word, so I keep it. The landlady at the inn, Mrs. Rundles, motherly +kind of woman; she will be attentive. They don't cook badly, for an +English inn, I have heard. Madge here will act as your lady's-maid for +the time. You will find her serviceable; she's a bruiser's lass and +something above it. Ines informed me, Madge, you were going to friends of +yours at the Wells. You will stay at the Royal and wait on this lady, +who bears my name. You understand?--A girl I can trust for courage, if +the article is in request,' he resumed to his bride; and talked generally +of the inn and the management of it, and its favoured position outside +the village and contiguous to the river, upon which it subsisted. + +Carinthia had heard. She was more than ever the stunned young woman she +had been since her mounting of the coach, between the village church and +Lekkatts. + +She said not a word. Why should she? her object was won. Give her +that, and a woman's tongue will consent to rest. The dreaded weapon +rest, also when she is kept spinning by the whip. She gives out a +pleasant hum, too. Her complexion must be pronounced dull in repose. +A bride on her travels with an aspect of wet chalk, rather helps to +scare mankind from marriage: which may be good or bad; but she reflects a +sicklier hue on the captured Chessman calling her his own. Let her shine +in privacy. + +Fleetwood drew up at the Royal Sovereign, whereof the reigning monarch, +in blue uniform on the signboard, curtseyed to his equally windy +subjects; and a small congregation of the aged, and some cripples and +infants, greeted the patron of Old England's manfullest display, cheering +at news of the fight, brought them by many little runners. + +'Your box has been conveyed to your room,' he said to his bride. + +She bowed. This time she descended the coach by the aid of the ladder. + +Ines, victorious in battle, had scant notice from his love. 'Yes, I 'm +glad,' and she passed him to follow her newly constituted mistress. His +pride was dashed, all the foam of the first draw on the top of him blown +off, as he figuratively explained the cause of his gloom to the earl. +'I drink and I gets a licking--that girl nurses and cossets me. I don't +drink and I whops my man--she shows me her back. Ain't it encouragement, +my lord?' + +'You ought to know them by this time, you dolt,' returned his patron, +and complimented him on his bearing in the fight. 'You shall have your +two hundred, and something will be added. Hold handy here till I mount. +I start in ten minutes.' + +Whether to speak a polite adieu to the bride, whose absurd position +she had brought on her own head, was debated for half a minute. He +considered that the wet chalk-quarry of a beauty had at all events the +merit of not being a creature to make scenes. He went up to the sitting- +room. If she was not there, he would leave his excuses. + +She was there, and seated; neither crying, nor smiling, nor pointedly +serious in any way, not conventionally at her ease either. And so +clearly was he impressed by her transparency in simplicity of expression, +that he took without a spurn at it the picture of a woman half drained +of her blood, veiling the wound. And a young woman, a stranger to +suffering: perhaps--as the creatures do looking for the usual flummery +tenderness, what they call happiness; wondering at the absence of it and +the shifty ghost of a husband she has got by floundering into the bog +known as Marriage. She would have it, and here she was! + +He entered the situation and was possessed by the shivering delicacy +of it. Surface emotions were not seen on her. She might be a creature +with a soul. Here and there the thing has been found in women. It is +priceless when found, and she could not be acting. One might swear the +creature had no power to act. + +She spoke without offence, the simplest of words, affected no +solicitudes, put on no gilt smiles, wore no reproaches: spoke to him as +if so it happened--he had necessarily a journey to perform. One could +see all the while big drops falling from the wound within. One could +hear it in her voice. Imagine a crack of the string at the bow's deep +stress. Or imagine the bow paralyzed at the moment of the deepest +sounding. And yet the voice did not waver. She had now the richness of +tone carrying on a music through silence. + +Well, then, at least, he had not been the utterly duped fool he thought +himself since the consent was pledged to wed her. + +More, she had beauty--of its kind. Or splendour or grandeur, was the +term for it. But it bore no name. None of her qualities--if they were +qualities--had a name. She stood with a dignity that the word did not +express. She endured meekly, when there was no meekness. Pain breathed +out of her, and not a sign of pain was visible. She had, under his +present observation of her, beauty, with the lines of her face breaking +in revolt from beauty--or requiring a superterrestrial illumination to +show the harmony. He, as he now saw, had erred grossly in supposing her +insensitive, and therefore slow of a woman's understanding. She drew the +breath of pain through the lips: red lips and well cut. Her brown eyes +were tearless, not alluring or beseeching or repelling; they did but +look, much like the skies opening high aloof on a wreck of storm. Her +reddish hair-chestnut, if you will--let fall a skein over one of the +rugged brows, and softened the ruggedness by making it wilder, as if a +great bird were winging across a shoulder of the mountain ridges. +Conceived of the mountains, built in their image, the face partook +alternately of mountain terror or splendour; wholly, he remembered, +of the splendour when her blood ran warm. No longer the chalk-quarry +face,--its paleness now was that of night Alps beneath a moon chasing the +shadows. + +She might be casting her spells again. + +'You remember I told you,' he said, 'I have given my word--I don't break +it--to be at a Ball. Your uncle was urgent to have the ceremony over. +These clashes occur. The people here--I have spoken of that: people of +good repute for attention to guests. I am uncertain of the time . . . +we have all to learn to wait. So then, good-bye till we meet.' + +He was experiencing a novel nip of torment, of just the degree which +takes a partial appeasement from the inflicting of it, and calls up a +loathed compassion. She might have been in his arms for a step, though +she would not have been the better loved. + +He was allowed his escape, bearing with him enough of husband to execrate +another enslaving pledge of his word, that begat a frenzy to wreak some +caresses on the creature's intolerably haunting image. Of course, he +could not return to her. How would she receive him? There was no salt +in the thought of it; she was too submissive. + +However, there would be fun with Chummy Potts on the drive to Canleys; +fun with Rufus Abrane at Mrs. Cowper Quillett's; and with the Countess +Livia, smothered, struggling, fighting for life with the title of +Dowager. A desire for unbridled fun had hold of any amount of it, to +excess in any direction. And though this cloud as a dry tongue after +much wine craves water, glimpses of his tramp's walk with a fellow tramp +on a different road, enjoying strangely healthy vagabond sensations and +vast ideas; brought the vagrant philosopher refreshfully to his mind: +chiefly for the reason that while in Woodseer's company he had hardly +suffered a stroke of pain from the thought of Henrietta. She was now a +married woman, he was a married man by the register. Stronger proof of +the maddest of worlds could not be furnished. + +Sane in so mad a world, a man is your flabby citizen among outlaws, good +for plucking. Fun, at any cost, is the one object worth a shot in such a +world. And the fun is not to stop. If it does, we are likely to be got +hold of, and lugged away to the altar--the terminus. That foul disaster +has happened, through our having temporarily yielded to a fit of the +dumps and treated a mad world's lunatic issue with some seriousness. But +fun shall be had with the aid of His Highness below. The madder the +world, the madder the fun. And the mixing in it of another element, +which it has to beguile us--romance--is not at all bad cookery. Poetic +romance is delusion--a tale of a Corsair; a poet's brain, a bottle of +gin, and a theatrical wardrobe. Comic romance is about us everywhere, +alive for the tapping. + +A daughter of the Old Buccaneer should participate in it by right of +birth: she would expect it in order to feel herself perfectly at home. +Then, be sure, she finds an English tongue and prattles away as merrily +as she does when her old scapegrace of a father is the theme. Son-in-law +to him! But the path of wisdom runs in the line of facts, and to have +wild fun and romance on this pantomime path, instead of kicking to break +away from it, we follow things conceived by the genius of the situation, +for the delectation of the fair Countess of Fleetwood and the earl, her +delighted husband, quite in the spirit of the Old Buccaneer, father of +the bride. + +Carinthia sat beside the fire, seeing nothing in the room or on the road. +Up in her bedchamber, the girl Madge was at her window. She saw Lord +Fleetwood standing alone, laughing, it seemed, at some thought; he threw +up his head. Was it a newly married man leaving his bride and laughing? +The bride was a dear lady, fit for better than to be driven to look on at +a prize-fight--a terrible scene to a lady. She was left solitary: and +this her wedding day? The earl had said it, he had said she bore his +name, spoke of coming from the altar, and the lady had blushed to hear +herself called Miss. The pressure of her hand was warm with Madge: her +situation roused the fervid latent sisterhood in the breast of women. + +Before he mounted the coach, Lord Fleetwood talked to Kit Ives. He +pointed at an upper window, seemed to be issuing directions. Kit nodded; +he understood it, whatever it was. You might have said, a pair of +burglars. The girl ran downstairs to bid her lover good-bye and show him +she really rejoiced in his victory. Kit came to her saying: 'Given my +word of honour I won't make a beast of myself to-night. Got to watch +over you and your lady.' + +Lord Fleetwood started his fresh team, casting no glance at the windows +of the room where his bride was. He and the gentlemen on the coach were +laughing. + +His leaving of his young bride to herself this day was classed among the +murky flashes which distinguished the deeds of noblemen. But his +laughter on leaving her stamped it a cruelty; of the kind that plain +mortals, who can be monsters, commit. Madge conceived a pretext for +going into the presence of her mistress, whose attitude was the same as +when she first sat in the chair. The lady smiled and said: 'He is not +hurt much?' She thought for them about her. + +The girl's, heart of sympathy thumped, and her hero became a very minute +object. He had spoken previously of the making or not making a beast of +himself; without inflicting a picture of the beast. His words took shape +now, and in consequence a little self-pity began to move. It stirred to +swell the great wave of pity for the lady, that was in her bosom. 'Oh, +he!' she said, and extinguished the thought of him; and at once her +under-lip was shivering, her eyes filled and poured. + +Carinthia rose anxiously. The girl dropped at her feet. 'You have been +so good to me to-day, my lady! so good to me to-day! I can't help it-- +I don't often just for this moment; I've been excited. Oh, he's well, he +will do; he's nothing. You say "poor child!" But I'm not; it's only. +excitement. I do long to serve you the best I can.' + +She stood up in obedience and had the arms of her young mistress pressing +her. Tears also were streaming from Carinthia's eyes. Heartily she +thanked the girl for the excuse to cry. + +They were two women. On the road to Canleys, the coach conveying men +spouted with the lusty anecdote, relieved of the interdict of a +tyrannical sex. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +DOWN WHITECHAPEL WAY + +Contention begets contention in a land of the pirate races. Gigs were +at high rival speed along the road from the battle-field to London. +They were the electrical wires of the time for an expectant population +bursting to have report of so thundering an event as the encounter of two +champion light weights, nursed and backed by a pair of gallant young +noblemen, pick of the whole row of coronets above. London panted gaping +and the gigs flew with the meat to fill it. + +Chumley Potts offered Ambrose Mallard fair odds that the neat little trap +of the chief sporting journal, which had a reputation to maintain, would +be over one or other of the bridges crossing the Thames first. Mallard +had been struck by the neat little trap of an impudent new and lower- +priced journal, which had a reputation to gain. He took the proffered +odds, on the cry as of a cracker splitting. Enormous difficulties in +regard to the testimony and the verifications were discussed; they were +overcome. Potts was ready for any amount of trouble; Mallard the same. +There was clearly a race. There would consequently be a record. Visits +to the offices of those papers, perhaps half a day at the south end of +London or on Westminster bridge, examining witnesses, corner shopmen, +watermen, and the like, would or should satisfactorily establish the +disputed point. + +Fleetwood had his fun; insomuch that he laughed himself into a sentiment +of humaneness toward the couple of donkeys and forgot his contempt of +them. Their gamblings and their bets increased his number of dependents; +and imbeciles were preferable to dolts or the dry gilt figures of the +circle he had to move in. Matter for some astonishment had been +furnished to the latter this day; and would cause an icy Signor stare +and rather an angry Signora flutter. A characteristic of that upper +circle, as he knew it, is, that the good are dull, the vicious very bad. +They had nothing to please him but manners. Elsewhere this land is a +land of no manners. Take it and make the most of it, then, for its +quality of brute honesty: which is found to flourish best in the British +prize-ring. + +His irony landed him there. It struck the country a ringing blow. But +it struck an almost effacing one at the life of the young nobleman of +boundless wealth, whose highest renown was the being a patron of +prizefighters. Husband of the daughter of the Old Buccaneer as well! +perchance as a result. That philosopher tramp named her 'beautiful +Gorgon.' She has no beauty; and as for Gorgon, the creature has a look +of timid softness in waiting behind her rocky eyes. A barbaric damsel +beginning to nibble at civilization, is nearer the mark; and ought she to +be discouraged? + +Fleetwood's wrath with his position warned him against the dupery of any +such alcove thoughts. For his wrath revenged him, and he feared the +being stripped of it, lest a certain fund of his own softness, that he +knew of; though few did, should pull him to the creature's feet. She +belonged to him indeed; so he might put her to the trial of whether she +had a heart and personal charm, without the ceremony of wooing--which, +in his case, tempted to the feeling desperately earnest and becoming +enslaved. He speculated upon her eyelids and lips, and her voice, when +melting, as women do in their different ways; here and there with an +execrable--perhaps pardonable--art; one or two divinely. The vision drew +him to a headlong plunge and swim of the amorous mind, occupying a +minute, filling an era. He corrected the feebleness, and at the same +time threw a practical coachman's glance on peculiarities of the road, +requiring some knowledge of it if traversed backward at a whipping pace +on a moonless night. The drive from Canleys to the Royal Sovereign could +be done by good pacers in an hour and a half, little more--with Ives and +the stables ready, and some astonishment in a certain unseen chamber. +Fleetwood chuckled at a vision of romantic devilry--perfectly legitimate +too. Something, more to inflict than enjoy, was due to him. + +He did, not phrase it, that a talk with the fellow Woodseer of his +mountains and his forests, and nature, philosophy, poetry, would have +been particularly healthy for him, almost as good as the good counsel be +needed and solicited none to give him. It swept among his ruminations +while he pricked Potts and Mallard to supply his craving for satanical +fare. + + +Gower Woodseer; the mention of whom is a dejection to the venerable +source of our story, was then in the act of emerging from the Eastward +into the Southward of the line of Canterbury's pilgrims when they set +forth to worship, on his homeward course, after a walk of two days out of +Dover. He descended London's borough, having exactly twopence halfpenny +for refreshment; following a term of prudent starvation, at the end of +the walk. It is not a district seductive to the wayfarer's appetite; +as, for example, one may find the Jew's fry of fish in oil, inspiriting +the Shoreditch region, to be. Nourishment is afforded, according to the +laws of England's genius in the arts of refection, at uninviting shops, +to the necessitated stomach. A penn'orth of crumb of bread, assisted on +its laborious passage by a penn'orth of the rinsings of beer, left the +natural philosopher a ha'penny for dessert at the stall of an applewoman, +where he withstood an inclination toward the juicy fruit and chose nuts. +They extend a meal, as a grimace broadens the countenance, illusorily; +but they help to cheat an emptiness in time, where it is nearly as +offensive to our sensations as within us; and that prolonged occupation +of the jaws goes a length to persuade us we are filling. All the better +when the substance is indigestible. Tramps of the philosophical order, +who are the practically sagacious, prefer tough grain for the teeth. +Woodseer's munching of his nuts awakened to fond imagination the picture +of his father's dinner, seen one day and little envied: a small slice of +cold boiled mutton-flesh in a crescent of white fat, with a lump of dry +bread beside the plate. + +Thus he returned to the only home he had, not disheartened, and bearing +scenes that outvied London's print-shops for polychrome splendour, an +exultation to recall. His condition, moreover, threw his father's life +and work into colour: the lean Whitechapel house of the minister among +the poor; the joy in the saving of souls, if he could persuade himself +that such good labour advanced: and at the fall of light, the pastime +task of bootmaking--a desireable occupation for a thinker. Thought flies +best when the hands are easily busy. Cobblers have excursive minds. +Their occasional rap at the pegs diversifies the stitchings and is often +happily timed to settle an internal argument. Seek in a village for +information concerning the village or the state of mankind, you will be +less disappointed at the cobbler's than elsewhere, it has been said. + +As Gower had anticipated, with lively feelings of pleasure, Mr. Woodseer +was at the wonted corner of his back room, on the stool between two +tallow candleflames, leather scented strongly, when the wanderer stood +before him, in the image of a ball that has done with circling about a +stable point. + +'Back?' the minister sang out at once, and his wrinkles gleamed: + +Their hands grasped. + +'Hungry, sir, rather.' + +'To be sure, you are. One can read it on your boots. Mrs. Jones will +spread you a table. How many miles to-day? Show the soles. They tell a +tale of wear.' + +They had worn to resemble the thin-edged layers of still upper cloud +round the peep of coming sky. + +'About forty odd to-day, sir. They've done their hundreds of miles and +have now come to dock. I 'll ask Mrs. Jones to bring me a plate here.' + +Gower went to the housekeeper in the kitchen. His father's front door +was unfastened by day; she had not set eyes on him yet, and Mr. Woodseer +murmured: + +'Now she's got the boy. There 's clasping and kissing. He's all wild +Wales to her.' + +The plate of meat was brought by Mary Jones with Gower beside her, and a +sniffle of her happiness audible. She would not, although invited to +stay and burning to hear Gower, wait in the room where father and son had +to talk together after a separation, long to love's counting. She was a +Welshwoman of the pure blood, therefore delicately mannered by nature. + +'Yes, dear lad, tobacco helps you on to the marrow of your story, and I +too will blow the cloud,' said Mr. Woodseer, when the plate was pushed +aside and the pipe appeared. + +So Gower's recital of his wanderings began, more puffs than speech at the +commencement. He was alternately picturesque and sententious until he +reached Baden; there he became involved, from thinking of a revelation of +beauty in woman. + +Mr. Woodseer rapped the leather on his block. + +'A place where they have started public gambling, I am told.' + +'We must look into all the corners of the world to know it, sir, and the +world has to be riddled or it riddles us.' + +'Ah. Did you ever tell a lie, Gower Woodseer?' + +'I played.' + +'You played. The Lord be thanked you have kept your straight tongue! +The Lord can always enter a heart of truth. Sin cannot dwell with it. +But you played for gain, and that was a licenced thieving; and that was a +backsliding; and there will have to be a climbing up. And what that +means, your hold on truth will learn. Touch sin and you accommodate +yourself to its vileness. Ay, you love nature. Nature is not anchorage +for vessels like men. If you loved the Book you would float in harbour. +You played. I do trust you lost.' + +'You have your wish, sir.' + +'To have won their money, Gower! Rather starve.' + +'I did.' + +'Your reason for playing, poor lad?' + +'The reason eludes reason.' + +'Not in you.' + +'Sight of the tables; an itch to try them--one's self as well; a notion +that the losers were playing wrong. In fine, a bit of a whirl of a +medley of atoms; I can't explain it further.' + +'Ah. The tippler's fumes in his head! Spotty business, Gower Woodseer. +"Lead us not into temptation" is worldly wisdom in addition to heavenly.' + +After listening to an extended homily, with a general assent and +tobacco's phlegm, Gower replied to his father's 'You starved manfully?' +nodding: 'From Baden to Nancy. An Alsatian cottager at times helped me +along, milk and bread.' + +'Wholesome for body and for soul.' + +'Entering Nancy I subscribed to the dictum of our first fathers, which +dogs would deliver, if they could speak: that there is no driver like +stomach: and I went head on to the College, saw the Principal: plea of +urgency. No engagement possible, to teach either French or English. But +he was inquisitive touching the urgency. That was my chance. The French +are humane when they are not suspicious of you. They are generous, if +you put a light to their minds. As I was dealing with a scholarly one, +I made use of such ornamental literary skill as I possessed, to prove +urgency. He supplied me with bread, fruit, and wine. In the end he +procured me pupils. I lodged over a baker's shop. I had food walks, and +learnt something of forestry there--a taking study. When I had saved +enough to tramp it home, I said my adieux to that good friend and tramped +away, entering London with about the same amount in small coin as when I +entered Nancy. A manner of exactly hitting the mark, that some would not +find so satisfactory as it is to me.' + +The minister sighed. 'There comes in the "philosophy," I suppose. When +will you understand, that this "philosophy" is only the passive of a +religious faith? It seems to suit you gentlemen of the road while you +are young. Work among the Whitechapel poor. It would be a way for +discovering the shallows of your "philosophy" earlier.' + +Gower asked him: 'Going badly here, sir?' + +'Murders, robberies, misusage of women, and misconduct of women!--Drink, +in short: about the same amount. Drink is their death's river, rolling +them on helpless as corpses, on to--may they find mercy! I and a few +stand--it's in the tide we stand here, to stop them, pluck them out, make +life a bit sweet to them before the poor bodies go beneath. But come! +all's not dark, we have our gleams. I speak distressed by one of our +girls: a good girl, I believe; and the wilfullest that ever had command +of her legs. A well-favoured girl! You'll laugh, she has given her +heart to a prize-fighter. Well, you can say, she might have chosen +worse. He drinks, she hates it; she loves the man and hates his vice. +He swears amendment, is hiccupping at night; fights a match on the +morrow, and gets beaten out of formation. No matter: whenever, wherever, +that man goes to his fight, that girl follows to nurse him after it. +He's her hero. Women will have one, and it's their lottery. You read of +such things; here we have it alive and walking. I am led to think they +'re an honest couple. They come of established families. Her mother was +out of Caermarthen; died under my ministration, saintly, forgiving the +drunkard. You may remember the greengrocer, Tobias Winch? He passed +away in shrieks for one drop. I had to pitch my voice to the top notes +to get hearing for the hymn. He was a reverent man, with the craving by +fits. That should have been a lesson to Madge.' + +'A little girl at the greengrocer's hard by? She sold me apples; rather +pretty,' said Gower. + +'A fine grown girl now--Madge Winch; a comely wench she is. It breaks +her sister Sarah's heart. They both manage the little shop; they make it +prosper in a small way; enough, and what need they more? Then +Christopher Ines has on one of his matches. Madge drives her cart out, +if it 's near town. She's off down into Kent to-day by coach, Sarah +tells me. A great nobleman patronizes Christopher; a Lord Fleetwood, +a lord of wealth. And he must be thoughtful for these people: he sent +Sarah word that Christopher should not touch drink. You may remember a +butcher Ines in the street next to us. Christopher was a wild lad, +always at "best man" with every boy he met: went to sea--ran away. He +returned a pugilist. The girl will be nursing him now. I have spoken to +her of him; and I trust to her; but I mourn her attachment to the man who +drinks.' + +'The lord's name?' said Gower. + +'Lord Fleetwood, Sarah named him. And so it pleases him to spend his +money!' + +'He has other tastes. I know something of him, sir. He promises to be a +patron of Literature as well. His mother was a South Wales woman.' + +'Could he be persuaded to publish a grand edition of the Triads?' Mr. +Woodseer said at once. + +'No man more likely.' + +'If you see him, suggest it.' + +'Very little chance of my meeting him again. But those Triads! They're +in our blood. They spring to tie knots in the head. They push me to +condense my thoughts to a tight ball. They were good for primitive +times: but they--or the trick of the mind engendered by them--trip my +steps along the lines of composition. I produce pellets instead of +flowing sheets. It'll come right. At present I 'm so bent to pick and +perfect, polish my phrase, that I lose my survey. As a consequence, my +vocabulary falters.' + +'Ah,' Mr. Woodseer breathed and smote. 'This Literature is to be your +profession for the means of living?' + +'Nothing else. And I'm so low down in the market way of it, that I could +not count on twenty pounds per annum. Fifty would give me standing, an +independent fifty.' + +'To whom are you crying, Gower?' + +'Not to gamble, you may be sure.' + +'You have a home.' + +'Good work of the head wants an easy conscience. I've too much of you in +me for a comfortable pensioner.' + +'Or is it not, that you have been living the gentleman out there, with +just a holiday title to it?' + +Gower was hit by his father's thrust. 'I shall feel myself a pieman's +chuckpenny as long as I'm unproductive, now I 've come back and have to +own to a home,' he said. + +Tea brought in by Mrs. Mary Jones rather brightened him until he +considered that the enlivenment was due to a purchase by money, +of which he was incapable, and he rejected it, like an honourable man. +Simultaneously, the state of depression threw critic shades on a prized +sentence or two among his recent confections. It was rejected for the +best of reasons and the most discomforting: because it racked our +English; signifying, that he had not yet learnt the right use of his +weapons. + +He was in this wrestle, under a placid demeanour, for several days, +hearing the shouts of Whitechapel Kit's victory, and hearing of Sarah +Winch's anxiety on account of her sister Madge; unaffected by sounds of +joy or grief, in his effort to produce a supple English, with Baden's +Madonna for sole illumination of his darkness. To her, to the +illimitable gold-mist of perspective and the innumerable images the +thought of her painted for him, he owed the lift which withdrew him from +contemplation of himself in a very disturbing stagnant pool of the +wastes; wherein often will strenuous youth, grown faint, behold a face +beneath a scroll inscribed Impostor. All whose aim was high have spied +into that pool, and have seen the face. His glorious lady would not let +it haunt him. + +The spell she cast had likewise power to raise him clean out of a +neighbourhood hinting Erebus to the young man with thirst for air, +solitudes, and colour. Scarce imaginable as she was, she reigned here, +in the idea of her, more fixedly than where she had been visible; as it +were, by right of her being celestially removed from the dismal place. +He was at the same time not insensible to his father's contented +ministrations among these homes of squalor; they pricked the curiosity, +which was in the youthful philosopher a form of admiration. For his +father, like all Welshmen, loved the mountains. Yet here he lived, +exhorting, ministering, aiding, supported up to high good cheer by some, +it seemed, superhuman backbone of uprightness;--his religious faith? +Well, if so, the thing might be studied. But things of the frozen +senses, lean and hueless things, were as repellent to Gower's imagination +as his father's dishes to an epicure. What he envied was, the worthy old +man's heart of feeling for others: his feeling at present for the girl +Sarah Winch and her sister Madge, who had not been heard of since she +started for the fight. Mr. Woodseer had written to her relatives at the +Wells, receiving no consolatory answer. + +He was relieved at last; and still a little perplexed. Madge had +returned, he informed Gower. She was well, she was well in health; he +had her assurances that she was not excited about herself. + +'She has brought a lady with her, a great lady to lodge with her. She +has brought the Countess of Fleetwood to lodge with her.' + +Gower heard those words from his father; and his father repeated them. +To the prostrate worshipper of the Countess of Fleetwood, they were a +blow on the head; madness had set in here, was his first recovering +thought, or else a miracle had come to pass. Or was it a sham Countess +of Fleetwood imposing upon the girl? His father was to go and see the +great lady, at the greengrocer's shop; at her request, according to +Madge. Conjectures shot their perishing tracks across a darkness that +deepened and made shipwreck of philosophy. Was it the very Countess of +Fleetwood penitent for her dalliance with the gambling passion, in +feminine need of pastor's aid, having had report from Madge of this good +shepherd? His father expressed a certain surprise; his countenance was +mild. He considered it a merely strange occurrence. + +Perhaps, in a crisis, a minister of religion is better armed than a +philosopher. Gower would not own that, but he acknowledged the +evidences, and owned to envy; especially when he accompanied his father +to the greengrocer's shop, and Mr. Woodseer undisturbedly said: + +'Here is the place.' The small stuffed shop appeared to grow +portentously cavernous and waveringly illumined. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +THE GIRL MADGE + +Customers were at the counter of the shop, and these rational figures, +together with the piles of cabbages, the sacks of potatoes, the pale +small oranges here and there, the dominant smell of red herrings, denied +the lurking of an angelical presence behind them. + +Sarah Winch and a boy served at the counter. Sarah led the Mr. Woodseers +into a corner knocked off the shop and called a room. Below the top bars +of a wizened grate was a chilly fire. London's light came piecemeal +through a smut-streaked window. If the wonderful was to occur, this was +the place to heighten it. + +'My son may be an intruder,' Mr. Woodseer said. 'He is acquainted with a +Lord Fleetwood . . .' + +'Madge will know, sir,' replied Sarah, and she sent up a shrill cry for +Madge from the foot of the stairs. + +The girl ran down swiftly. She entered listening to Sarah, looking at +Gower; to whom, after a bob and pained smile where reverence was owing, +she said, 'Can you tell me, sir, please, where we can find Lord Fleetwood +now?' + +Gower was unable to tell. Madge turned to Mr. Woodseer, saying soon +after: 'Oh, she won't mind; she'll be glad, if he knows Lord Fleetwood. +I'll fetch her.' + +The moments were of the palpitating order for Gower, although his common +sense lectured the wildest of hearts for expecting such a possibility as +the presence of his lofty lady here. + +And, of course, common sense proved to be right: the lady was quite +another. But she struck on a sleeping day of his travels. Her face was +not one to be forgotten, and to judge by her tremble of a smile, she +remembered him instantly. + +They were soon conversing, each helping to paint the scene of the place +where they had met. + +'Lord Fleetwood has married me,' she said. + +Gower bent his head; all stood silent. + +'May I?' said Madge to her. 'It is Lord Fleetwood's wedded wife, sir. +He drove her from her uncle's, on her wedding day, the day of a prize- +fight, where I was; he told me to wait on his lady at an inn there, as I +'ve done and will. He drove away that evening, and he hasn't'--the +girl's black eyebrows worked: 'I've not seen him since. He's a great +nobleman, yes. He left his lady at the inn, expenses paid. He left her +with no money. She stayed on till her heart was breaking. She has come +to London to find him. She had to walk part of the way. She has only a +change of linen we brought in a parcel. She's a stranger to England: she +knows nobody in London. She had no place to come to but this poor hole +of ours she 's so good as let welcome her. We can't do better, and it 's +no use to be ashamed. She 's not a lady to scorn poor people.' + +The girl's voice hummed through Gower. + +He said: 'Lord Fleetwood may not be in London,' and chafed at himself for +such a quaver. + +'It's his house we want, sir, he has not been at his house in Kent. We +want his London house.' + +'My dear lady,' said Mr. Woodseer; 'it might be as well to communicate +the state of things to your family without delay. My son will call at +any address you name; or if it is a country address, I can write the +items, with my assurances of your safety under my charge, in my house, +which I beg you to make your home. My housekeeper is known to Sarah and +Madge for an excellent Christian woman.' + +Carinthia replied: 'You are kind to me, sir. I am grateful. I have an +uncle; I would not disturb my uncle; he is inventing guns and he wishes +peace. It is my husband I have come to find. He did not leave me in +anger.' + +She coloured. With a dimple of tenderness at one cheek, looking from +Sarah to Madge, she said: 'I would not leave my friends; they are sisters +to me.' Sarah, at these words, caught up her apron. Madge did no more +than breathe deep and fast. + +An unoccupied cold parlour in Mr. Woodseer's house that would be heated +for a guest, urged him to repeat his invitation, but he took the check +from Gower, who suggested the doubt of Mary Jones being so good an +attendant upon Lady Fleetwood as Madge. 'And Madge has to help in the +shop at times.' + +Madge nodded, looked into the eyes of her mistress, which sanctioned her +saying: 'She will like it best here, she is my lady and I understand her +best. My lady gives no trouble: she is hardy, she's not like other +ladies. I and Sarah sleep together in the room next. I can hear +anything she wants. She takes us as if she was used to it.' + +Sarah had to go to serve a customer. Madge made pretence of pricking her +ears and followed into the shop. + +'Your first visit to London is in ugly weather, Lady Fleetwood,' said +Gower. + +'It is my first,' she answered. + +How the marriage came about, how the separation, could not be asked and +was not related. + +'Our district is not all London, my dear lady,' said Mr. Woodseer. +'Good hearts are here, as elsewhere, and as many, if one looks behind the +dirt. I have found it since I laboured amongst them, now twenty years. +Unwashed human nature, though it is natural to us to wash, is the most +human, we find.' + +Gower questioned the naturalness of human nature's desire to wash; and +they wrangled good-humouredly, Carinthia's eyes dwelling on them each in +turn; until Mr. Woodseer, pursuing the theme started by him to interest +her, spoke of consolations derived from his labours here, in exchange for +the loss of his mountains. Her face lightened. + +'You love the mountains?' + +'I am a son of the mountains.' + +'Ah, I love them! Father called me a daughter of the mountains. I was +born in the mountains. I was leaving my mountains on the day, I think it +yesterday, when I met this gentleman who is your son.' + +'A glorious day it was!' Gower exclaimed. + +'It was a day of great glory for me,' said Carinthia. 'Your foot did not +pain you for long?' + +'The length of two pipes. You were with your brother.' + +'With my brother. My brother has married a most beautiful lady. He is +now travelling his happy time--my Chillon !' + +There came a radiance on her under-eyelids. There was no weeping. + +Struck by the contrast between the two simultaneous honeymoons, and a +vision of the high-spirited mountain girl, seen in this place a young +bride seeking her husband, Gower Woodseer could have performed that +unphilosophical part. He had to shake himself. She seemed really a +soaring bird brought down by the fowler. + +Lord Fleetwood's manner of abandoning her was the mystery. + +Gower stood waiting for her initiative, when the minister interposed: +'There are books, books of our titled people-the Peers, books of the +Peerage. They would supply the address. My son will discover where to +examine them. He will find the address. Most of the great noblemen have +a London house.' + +'My husband has a house in London,' Carinthia said. + +'I know him, to some degree,' said Gower. + +She remarked: 'I have heard that you do.' + +Her lips were shut, as to any hint at his treatment of her. + +Gower went into the shop to speak with Madge. The girl was talking in +the business tone to customers; she finished her commission hurriedly and +joined him on the pavement by the doorstep. Her voice was like the +change for the swing of a door from street to temple. + +'You've seen how brave she is, sir. She has things to bear. Never +cries, never frets. Her marriage day--leastways . . . I can't, no +girl can tell. A great nobleman, yes. She waited, believing in him; +she does. She hasn't spoken to me of what she's had to bear. I don't +know; I guess; I'm sure I'm right--and him a man! Girls learn to know +men, call them gentlemen or sweeps. She thinks she has only to meet him +to persuade him she 's fit to be loved by him. She thinks of love. +Would he--our tongues are tied except among ourselves to a sister. +Leaves her by herself, with only me, after--it knocks me dumb! Many a +man commits a murder wouldn't do that. She could force him to--no, it +isn't a house she wants, she wants him. He's her husband, Mr. Woodseer. +You will do what you can to help; I judge by your father. I and Sarah +'ll slave for her to be as comfortable--as we--can make her; we can't +give her what she 's used to. I shall count the hours.' + +'You sold me apples when your head was just above the counter,' said +Gower. + +'Did I?--you won't lose time, sir?' she rejoined. 'Her box is down at +the beastly inn in Kent. Kind people, I dare say; their bill was paid +any extent, they said. And he might do as he liked in it--enter it like +a thief, if it pleased him, and off like one, and they no wiser. She +walked to his big house Esslemont for news of him. And I'm not a +snivelling wench either; but she speaks of him a way to make a girl +drink her tears, if they ain't to be let fall.' + +'But you had a victory down there,' Gower hinted congratulations. + +'Ah,' said she. + +'Christopher Ines is all right now?' + +'I've as good as lost my good name for Kit Ines, Mr. Woodseer.' + +'Not with my dad, Madge.' + +'The minister reads us at the heart. Shall we hear the street of his +house in London before night?' + +'I may be late.' + +'I'll be up, any hour, for a rap at the shutters. I want to take her to +the house early next morning. She won't mind the distance. She lies in +bed, her eyes shut or open, never sleeping, hears any mouse. It +shouldn't go on, if we can do a thing to help.' + +'I'm off,' said Gower, unwontedly vexed at his empty pocket, that could +not offer the means for conveyance to a couple of young women. + +The dark-browed girl sent her straight eyes at him. They pushed him to +hasten. On second thoughts, he stopped and hailed her; he was moved to +confirm an impression of this girl's features. + +His mind was directed to the business burning behind them, honestly +enough, as soon as he had them in sight again. + +'I ought to have the address of some of her people, in case,' he said. + +'She won't go to her uncle, I 'm sure of that,' said Madge. 'He 's a +lord and can't be worried. It 's her husband to find first.' + +'If he's to be found!--he's a lord, too. Has she no other relatives or +friends?' + +'She loves her brother. He's an officer. He's away on honeymoon. +There 's an admiral down Hampshire way, a place I've been near and seen. +I'd not have you go to any of them, sir, without trying all we can do to +find Lord Fleetwood. It's Admiral Fakenham she speaks of; she's fond of +him. She's not minded to bother any of her friends about herself.' + +'I shall see you to-night,' said Gower, and set his face Westward, +remembering that his father had named Caermarthen as her mother's +birthplace. + +Just in that tone of hers do Welshwomen talk of their country; of its +history, when at home, of its mountains, when exiled: and in a language +like hers, bare of superlatives to signify an ardour conveyed by the fire +of the breath. Her quick devotion to a lady exciting enthusiasm through +admiring pity for the grace of a much-tried quiet sweetness, was +explained; apart from other reasons, feminine or hidden, which might +exist. Only a Welsh girl would be so quick and all in it, with a voice +intimating a heated cauldron under her mouth. None but a Welsh-blooded +girl, risking her good name to follow and nurse the man she considered a +hero, would carry her head to look virgin eyes as she did. One could +swear to them, Gower thought. Contact with her spirited him out of his +mooniness. + +He had the Cymric and Celtic respect of character; which puts aside the +person's environments to face the soul. He was also an impressionable +fellow among his fellows, a philosopher only at his leisure, in his +courted solitudes. Getting away some strides from this girl of the +drilling voice,--the shudder-voice, he phrased it,--the lady for whom she +pleaded came clearer into his view and gradually absorbed him; though it +was an emulation with the girl Madge, of which he was a trifle conscious, +that drove him to do his work of service in the directest manner. He +then fancied the girl had caught something of the tone of her lady: the +savage intensity or sincerity; and he brooded on Carinthia's position, +the mixture of the astounding and the woful in her misadventure. One +could almost laugh at our human fate, to think of a drop off the radiant +mountain heights upon a Whitechapel greengrocer's shop, gathering the +title of countess midway. + +But nothing of the ludicrous touched her; no, and if we bring reason to +scan our laugh at pure humanity, it is we who are in the place of the +ridiculous, for doing what reason disavows. Had he not named her, +Carinthia, Saint and Martyr, from a first perusal of her face? And Lord +Fleetwood had read and repeated it. Lord Fleetwood had become the +instrument to martyrize her? That might be; there was a hoard of bad +stuff in his composition besides the precious: and this was a nobleman +owning enormous wealth, who could vitiate himself by disposing of a +multitude of men and women to serve his will, a shifty will. Wealth +creates the magician, and may breed the fiend within him. In the hands +of a young man, wealth is an invitation to devilry. Gower's idea of the +story of Carinthia inclined to charge Lord Fleetwood with every possible +false dealing. He then quashed the charge, and decided to wait for +information. + +At the second of the aristocratic Clubs of London's West, into which he +stepped like an easy member, the hall-porter did not examine his clothing +from German hat to boots, and gave him Lord Fleetwood's town address. +He could tell Madge at night by the door of the shuttered shop, that Lord +Fleetwood had gone down to Wales. + +'It means her having to wait,' she said. 'The minister has been to the +coach-office, to order up her box from that inn. He did it in his name; +they can't refuse; no money's owing. She must have a change. Sally has +fifteen pounds locked up in case of need.' + +Sally's capacity and economy fetched the penniless philosopher a slap. + +'You've taken to this lady,' he said. + +'She held my hand, while Kit Ines was at his work; and I was new to her, +and a prize-fighter's lass, they call me:--upon the top of that +nobleman's coach, where he made me sit, behind her, to see the fight; +and she his wedded lady that morning. A queer groom. He may keep Kit +Ines from drink, he's one of you men, and rides over anything in his way. +I can't speak about it; I could swear it before a judge, from what I +know. Those Rundles at that inn don't hear anything it suits him to do. +All the people down in those parts are slaves to him. And I thought he +was a real St. George before,--yes, ready I was to kiss the ground his +feet crossed. If you could, it's Chinningfold near where Admiral +Fakenham lives, down Hampshire way. Her friends ought to hear what's +happened to her. They'll find her in a queer place. She might go to the +minister's. I believe she's happier with us girls.' + +Gower pledged his word to start for Chinningfold early as the light next +day. He liked the girl the better, in an amicable fashion, now that his +nerves had got free of the transient spell of her kettle tone--the hardly +varied one note of a heart boiling with sisterly devotion to a misused +stranger of her sex;--and, after the way of his race, imagination sprang +up in him, at the heels of the quieted senses, releasing him from the +personal and physical to grasp the general situation and place the +protagonist foremost. + +He thought of Carinthia, with full vision of her. Some wrong had been +done, or some violation of the right, to guess from the girl Madge's +molten words in avoidance of the very words. It implied--though it might +be but one of Love's shrewder discords--such suspected traitorous dealing +of a man with their sister woman as makes the world of women all woman +toward her. They can be that, and their being so illuminates their +hidden sentiments in relation to the mastering male, whom they uphold. + +But our uninformed philosopher was merely picking up scraps of sheddings +outside the dark wood of the mystery they were to him, and playing +imagination upon them. This primary element of his nature soon enthroned +his chosen lady above their tangled obscurities. Beneath her tranquil +beams, with the rapture of the knowledge that her name on earth was +Livia, he threaded East London's thoroughfares,--on a morning when day +and night were made one by fog, to journey down to Chinningfold, by +coach, in the service of the younger Countess of Fleetwood, whose right +to the title he did not doubt, though it directed surprise movements at +his understanding from time to time. + + + + +ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS: + +Cock-sure has crowed low by sunset +Drink is their death's river, rolling them on helpless +Father and she were aware of one another without conversing +Fun, at any cost, is the one object worth a shot +He was the prisoner of his word +Heartily she thanked the girl for the excuse to cry +Hearts that make one soul do not separately count their gifts +Life is the burlesque of young dreams +Make a girl drink her tears, if they ain't to be let fall +On a morning when day and night were made one by fog +Poetic romance is delusion +Push me to condense my thoughts to a tight ball +She endured meekly, when there was no meekness +She seemed really a soaring bird brought down by the fowler +She stood with a dignity that the word did not express +There is no driver like stomach +Touch sin and you accommodate yourself to its vileness +You played for gain, and that was a licenced thieving + + +[The End] + + + + +*************************************************************************** +The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Amazing Marriage, v2, by George Meredith +************This file should be named gm90v10.txt or gm90v10.zip*********** + +Corrected EDITIONS of our etexts get a new NUMBER, gm90v11.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, gm90v10a.txt + +This etext was produced by 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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