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| author | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 05:23:34 -0700 |
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| committer | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 05:23:34 -0700 |
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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/4493-0.txt b/4493-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..efaaf62 --- /dev/null +++ b/4493-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2281 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 4493 *** + +THE CASE OF GENERAL OPLE AND LADY CAMPER + +By George Meredith + + + + +CHAPTER I + +An excursion beyond the immediate suburbs of London, projected long +before his pony-carriage was hired to conduct him, in fact ever since his +retirement from active service, led General Ople across a famous common, +with which he fell in love at once, to a lofty highway along the borders +of a park, for which he promptly exchanged his heart, and so gradually +within a stone's-throw or so of the river-side, where he determined not +solely to bestow his affections but to settle for life. It may be seen +that he was of an adventurous temperament, though he had thought fit to +loosen his sword-belt. The pony-carriage, however, had been hired for +the very special purpose of helping him to pass in review the lines of +what he called country houses, cottages, or even sites for building, not +too remote from sweet London: and as when Coelebs goes forth intending to +pursue and obtain, there is no doubt of his bringing home a wife, the +circumstance that there stood a house to let, in an airy situation, at a +certain distance in hail of the metropolis he worshipped, was enough to +kindle the General's enthusiasm. He would have taken the first he saw, +had it not been for his daughter, who accompanied him, and at the age of +eighteen was about to undertake the management of his house. Fortune, +under Elizabeth Ople's guiding restraint, directed him to an epitome of +the comforts. The place he fell upon is only to be described in the +tongue of auctioneers, and for the first week after taking it he modestly +followed them by terming it bijou. In time, when his own imagination, +instigated by a state of something more than mere contentment, had been +at work on it, he chose the happy phrase, 'a gentlemanly residence.' For +it was, he declared, a small estate. There was a lodge to it, resembling +two sentry-boxes forced into union, where in one half an old couple sat +bent, in the other half lay compressed; there was a backdrive to +discoverable stables; there was a bit of grass that would have appeared a +meadow if magnified; and there was a wall round the kitchen-garden and a +strip of wood round the flower-garden. The prying of the outside world +was impossible. Comfort, fortification; and gentlemanliness made the +place, as the General said, an ideal English home. + +The compass of the estate was half an acre, and perhaps a perch or two, +just the size for the hugging love General Ople was happiest in giving. +He wisely decided to retain the old couple at the lodge, whose members +were used to restriction, and also not to purchase a cow, that would have +wanted pasture. With the old man, while the old woman attended to the +bell at the handsome front entrance with its gilt-spiked gates, he +undertook to do the gardening; a business he delighted in, so long as he +could perform it in a gentlemanly manner, that is to say, so long as he +was not overlooked. He was perfectly concealed from the road. Only one +house, and curiously indeed, only one window of the house, and further to +show the protection extended to Douro Lodge, that window an attic, +overlooked him. And the house was empty. + +The house (for who can hope, and who should desire a commodious house, +with conservatories, aviaries, pond and boat-shed, and other joys of +wealth, to remain unoccupied) was taken two seasons later by a lady, of +whom Fame, rolling like a dust-cloud from the place she had left, +reported that she was eccentric. The word is uninstructive: it does not +frighten. In a lady of a certain age, it is rather a characteristic of +aristocracy in retirement. And at least it implies wealth. + +General Ople was very anxious to see her. He had the sentiment of humble +respectfulness toward aristocracy, and there was that in riches which +aroused his admiration. London, for instance, he was not afraid to say +he thought the wonder of the world. He remarked, in addition, that the +sacking of London would suffice to make every common soldier of the +foreign army of occupation an independent gentleman for the term of his +natural days. But this is a nightmare! said he, startling himself with +an abhorrent dream of envy of those enriched invading officers: for Booty +is the one lovely thing which the military mind can contemplate in the +abstract. His habit was to go off in an explosion of heavy sighs when he +had delivered himself so far, like a man at war with himself. + +The lady arrived in time: she received the cards of the neighbourhood, +and signalized her eccentricity by paying no attention to them, excepting +the card of a Mrs. Baerens, who had audience of her at once. By express +arrangement, the card of General Wilson Ople, as her nearest neighbour, +followed the card of the rector, the social head of the district; and the +rector was granted an interview, but Lady Camper was not at home to +General Ople. She is of superior station to me, and may not wish to +associate with me, the General modestly said. Nevertheless he was +wounded: for in spite of himself, and without the slightest wish to +obtrude his own person, as he explained the meaning that he had in him, +his rank in the British army forced him to be the representative of it, +in the absence of any one of a superior rank. So that he was +professionally hurt, and his heart being in his profession, it may be +honestly stated that he was wounded in his feelings, though he said no, +and insisted on the distinction. Once a day his walk for constitutional +exercise compelled him to pass before Lady Camper's windows, which were +not bashfully withdrawn, as he said humorously of Douro Lodge, in the +seclusion of half-pay, but bowed out imperiously, militarily, like a +generalissimo on horseback, and had full command of the road and levels +up to the swelling park-foliage. He went by at a smart stride, with a +delicate depression of his upright bearing, as though hastening to greet +a friend in view, whose hand was getting ready for the shake. This much +would have been observed by a housemaid; and considering his fine figure +and the peculiar shining silveriness of his hair, the acceleration of his +gait was noticeable. When he drove by, the pony's right ear was flicked, +to the extreme indignation of a mettlesome little animal. It ensued in +consequence that the General was borne flying under the eyes of Lady +Camper, and such pace displeasing him, he reduced it invariably at a step +or two beyond the corner of her grounds. + +But neither he nor his daughter Elizabeth attached importance to so +trivial a circumstance. The General punctiliously avoided glancing at +the windows during the passage past them, whether in his wild career or +on foot. Elizabeth took a side-shot, as one looks at a wayside tree. +Their speech concerning Lady Camper was an exchange of commonplaces over +her loneliness: and this condition of hers was the more perplexing to +General Ople on his hearing from his daughter that the lady was very +fine-looking, and not so very old, as he had fancied eccentric ladies +must be. The rector's account of her, too, excited the mind. She had +informed him bluntly, that she now and then went to church to save +appearances, but was not a church-goer, finding it impossible to support +the length of the service; might, however, be reckoned in subscriptions +for all the charities, and left her pew open to poor people, and none but +the poor. She had travelled over Europe, and knew the East. Sketches in +watercolours of the scenes she had visited adorned her walls, and a pair +of pistols, that she had found useful, she affirmed, lay on the writing- +desk in her drawing-room. General Ople gathered from the rector that she +had a great contempt for men: yet it was curiously varied with +lamentations over the weakness of women. 'Really she cannot possibly be +an example of that,' said the General, thinking of the pistols. + +Now, we learn from those who have studied women on the chess-board, and +know what ebony or ivory will do along particular lines, or hopping, that +men much talked about will take possession of their thoughts; and +certainly the fact may be accepted for one of their moves. But the whole +fabric of our knowledge of them, which we are taught to build on this +originally acute perception, is shattered when we hear, that it is +exactly the same, in the same degree, in proportion to the amount of work +they have to do, exactly the same with men and their thoughts in the case +of women much talked about. So it was with General Ople, and nothing is +left for me to say except, that there is broader ground than the +chessboard. I am earnest in protesting the similarity of the singular +couples on common earth, because otherwise the General is in peril of the +accusation that he is a feminine character; and not simply was he a +gallant officer, and a veteran in gunpowder strife, he was also (and it +is an extraordinary thing that a genuine humility did not prevent it, and +did survive it) a lord and conqueror of the sex. He had done his pretty +bit of mischief, all in the way of honour, of course, but hearts had +knocked. And now, with his bright white hair, his close-brushed white +whiskers on a face burnt brown, his clear-cut features, and a winning +droop of his eyelids, there was powder in him still, if not shot. + +There was a lamentable susceptibility to ladies' charms. On the other +hand, for the protection of the sex, a remainder of shyness kept him from +active enterprise and in the state of suffering, so long as indications +of encouragement were wanting. He had killed the soft ones, who came to +him, attracted by the softness in him, to be killed: but clever women +alarmed and paralyzed him. Their aptness to question and require +immediate sparkling answers; their demand for fresh wit, of a kind that +is not furnished by publications which strike it into heads with a +hammer, and supply it wholesale; their various reading; their power of +ridicule too; made them awful in his contemplation. + +Supposing (for the inflammable officer was now thinking, and deeply +thinking, of a clever woman), supposing that Lady Camper's pistols were +needed in her defence one night: at the first report proclaiming her +extremity, valour might gain an introduction to her upon easy terms, and +would not be expected to be witty. She would, perhaps, after the +excitement, admit his masculine superiority, in the beautiful old +fashion, by fainting in his arms. Such was the reverie he passingly +indulged, and only so could he venture to hope for an acquaintance with +the formidable lady who was his next neighbour. But the proud society of +the burglarious denied him opportunity. + +Meanwhile, he learnt that Lady Camper had a nephew, and the young +gentleman was in a cavalry regiment. General Ople met him outside his +gates, received and returned a polite salute, liked his appearance and +manners and talked of him to Elizabeth, asking her if by chance she had +seen him. She replied that she believed she had, and praised his +horsemanship. The General discovered that he was an excellent sculler. +His daughter was rowing him up the river when the young gentleman shot +by, with a splendid stroke, in an outrigger, backed, and floating +alongside presumed to enter into conversation, during which he managed to +express regrets at his aunt's turn for solitariness. As they belonged to +sister branches of the same Service, the General and Mr. Reginald Roller +had a theme in common, and a passion. Elizabeth told her father that +nothing afforded her so much pleasure as to hear him talk with Mr. Roller +on military matters. General Ople assured her that it pleased him +likewise. He began to spy about for Mr. Roller, and it sometimes +occurred that they conversed across the wall; it could hardly be avoided. +A hint or two, an undefinable flying allusion, gave the General to +understand that Lady Camper had not been happy in her marriage. He was +pained to think of her misfortune; but as she was not over forty, the +disaster was, perhaps, not irremediable; that is to say, if she could be +taught to extend her forgiveness to men, and abandon her solitude. 'If,' +he said to his daughter, 'Lady Camper should by any chance be induced to +contract a second alliance, she would, one might expect, be humanized, +and we should have highly agreeable neighbours.' Elizabeth artlessly +hoped for such an event to take place. + +She rarely differed with her father, up to whom, taking example from the +world around him, she looked as the pattern of a man of wise conduct. + +And he was one; and though modest, he was in good humour with himself, +approved himself, and could say, that without boasting of success, he was +a satisfied man, until he met his touchstone in Lady Camper. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +This is the pathetic matter of my story, and it requires pointing out, +because he never could explain what it was that seemed to him so cruel in +it, for he was no brilliant son of fortune, he was no great pretender, +none of those who are logically displaced from the heights they have been +raised to, manifestly created to show the moral in Providence. He was +modest, retiring, humbly contented; a gentlemanly residence appeased his +ambition. Popular, he could own that he was, but not meteorically; +rather by reason of his willingness to receive light than his desire to +shed it. Why, then, was the terrible test brought to bear upon him, of +all men? He was one of us; no worse, and not strikingly or perilously +better; and he could not but feel, in the bitterness of his reflections +upon an inexplicable destiny, that the punishment befalling him, +unmerited as it was, looked like absence of Design in the scheme of +things, Above. It looked as if the blow had been dealt him by reckless +chance. And to believe that, was for the mind of General Ople the having +to return to his alphabet and recommence the ascent of the laborious +mountain of understanding. + +To proceed, the General's introduction to Lady Camper was owing to a +message she sent him by her gardener, with a request that he would cut +down a branch of a wychelm, obscuring her view across his grounds toward +the river. The General consulted with his daughter, and came to the +conclusion, that as he could hardly despatch a written reply to a verbal +message, yet greatly wished to subscribe to the wishes of Lady Camper, +the best thing for him to do was to apply for an interview. He sent word +that he would wait on Lady Camper immediately, and betook himself +forthwith to his toilette. She was the niece of an earl. + +Elizabeth commended his appearance, 'passed him,' as he would have said; +and well she might, for his hat, surtout, trousers and boots, were worthy +of an introduction to Royalty. A touch of scarlet silk round the neck +gave him bloom, and better than that, the blooming consciousness of it. + +'You are not to be nervous, papa,' Elizabeth said. + +'Not at all,' replied the General. 'I say, not at all, my dear,' +he repeated, and so betrayed that he had fallen into the nervous mood. +'I was saying, I have known worse mornings than this.' He turned to her +and smiled brightly, nodded, and set his face to meet the future. + +He was absent an hour and a half. + +He came back with his radiance a little subdued, by no means eclipsed; +as, when experience has afforded us matter for thought, we cease to shine +dazzlingly, yet are not clouded; the rays have merely grown serener. The +sum of his impressions was conveyed in the reflective utterance--'It only +shows, my dear, how different the reality is from our anticipation +of it!' + +Lady Camper had been charming; full of condescension, neighbourly, +friendly, willing to be satisfied with the sacrifice of the smallest +branch of the wych-elm, and only requiring that much for complimentary +reasons. + +Elizabeth wished to hear what they were, and she thought the request +rather singular; but the General begged her to bear in mind, that they +were dealing with a very extraordinary woman; 'highly accomplished, +really exceedingly handsome,' he said to himself, aloud. + +The reasons were, her liking for air and view, and desire to see into her +neighbour's grounds without having to mount to the attic. + +Elizabeth gave a slight exclamation, and blushed. + +'So, my dear, we are objects of interest to her ladyship,' said the +General. + +He assured her that Lady Camper's manners were delightful. Strange to +tell, she knew a great deal of his antecedent history, things he had not +supposed were known; 'little matters,' he remarked, by which his daughter +faintly conceived a reference to the conquests of his dashing days. Lady +Camper had deigned to impart some of her own, incidentally; that she was +of Welsh blood, and born among the mountains. 'She has a romantic look,' +was the General's comment; and that her husband had been an insatiable +traveller before he became an invalid, and had never cared for Art. +'Quite an extraordinary circumstance, with such a wife!' the General +said. + +He fell upon the wych-elm with his own hands, under cover of the leafage, +and the next day he paid his respects to Lady Camper, to inquire if her +ladyship saw any further obstruction to the view. + +'None,' she replied. 'And now we shall see what the two birds will do.' + +Apparently, then, she entertained an animosity to a pair of birds in the +tree. + +'Yes, yes; I say they chirp early in the morning,' said General Ople. + +'At all hours.' + +'The song of birds . . . ?' he pleaded softly for nature. + +'If the nest is provided for them; but I don't like vagabond chirping.' + +The General perfectly acquiesced. This, in an engagement with a clever +woman, is what you should do, or else you are likely to find yourself +planted unawares in a high wind, your hat blown off, and your coat-tails +anywhere; in other words, you will stand ridiculous in your bewilderment; +and General Ople ever footed with the utmost caution to avoid that +quagmire of the ridiculous. The extremer quags he had hitherto escaped; +the smaller, into which he fell in his agile evasions of the big, he had +hitherto been blest in finding none to notice. + +He requested her ladyship's permission to present his daughter. Lady +Camper sent in her card. + +Elizabeth Ople beheld a tall, handsomely-mannered lady, with good +features and penetrating dark eyes, an easy carriage of her person and +an agreeable voice, but (the vision of her age flashed out under the +compelling eyes of youth) fifty if a day. The rich colouring confessed +to it. But she was very pleasing, and Elizabeth's perception dwelt on it +only because her father's manly chivalry had defended the lady against +one year more than forty. + +The richness of the colouring, Elizabeth feared, was artificial, and it +caused her ingenuous young blood a shudder. For we are so devoted to +nature when the dame is flattering us with her gifts, that we loathe the +substitute omitting to think how much less it is an imposition than a +form of practical adoration of the genuine. + +Our young detective, however, concealed her emotion of childish horror. + +Lady Camper remarked of her, 'She seems honest, and that is the most we +can hope of girls.' + +'She is a jewel for an honest man,' the General sighed, 'some day!' + +'Let us hope it will be a distant day.' + +'Yet,' said the General, 'girls expect to marry.' + +Lady Camper fixed her black eyes on him, but did not speak. + +He told Elizabeth that her ladyship's eyes were exceedingly searching: +'Only,' said he, 'as I have nothing to hide, I am able to submit to +inspection'; and he laughed slightly up to an arresting cough, and made +the mantelpiece ornaments pass muster. + +General Ople was the hero to champion a lady whose airs of haughtiness +caused her to be somewhat backbitten. He assured everybody, that Lady +Camper was much misunderstood; she was a most remarkable woman; she was a +most affable and highly intelligent lady. Building up her attributes on +a splendid climax, he declared she was pious, charitable, witty, and +really an extraordinary artist. He laid particular stress on her +artistic qualities, describing her power with the brush, her water-colour +sketches, and also some immensely clever caricatures. As he talked of no +one else, his friends heard enough of Lady Camper, who was anything but a +favourite. The Pollingtons, the Wilders, the Wardens, the Baerens, the +Goslings, and others of his acquaintance, talked of Lady Camper and +General Ople rather maliciously. They were all City people, and they +admired the General, but mourned that he should so abjectly have fallen +at the feet of a lady as red with rouge as a railway bill. His not +seeing it showed the state he was in. The sister of Mrs. Pollington, an +amiable widow, relict of a large City warehouse, named Barcop, was +chilled by a falling off in his attentions. His apology for not +appearing at garden parties was, that he was engaged to wait on Lady +Camper. + +And at one time, her not condescending to exchange visits with the +obsequious General was a topic fertile in irony. But she did condescend. +Lady Camper came to his gate unexpectedly, rang the bell, and was let in +like an ordinary visitor. It happened that the General was gardening-- +not the pretty occupation of pruning--he was digging--and of necessity +his coat was off, and he was hot, dusty, unpresentable. From adoring +earth as the mother of roses, you may pass into a lady's presence without +purification; you cannot (or so the General thought) when you are caught +in the act of adoring the mother of cabbages. And though he himself +loved the cabbage equally with the rose, in his heart respected the +vegetable yet more than he esteemed the flower, for he gloried in his +kitchen garden, this was not a secret for the world to know, and he +almost heeled over on his beam ends when word was brought of the extreme +honour Lady Camper had done him. He worked his arms hurriedly into his +fatigue jacket, trusting to get away to the house and spend a couple of +minutes on his adornment; and with any other visitor it might have been +accomplished, but Lady Camper disliked sitting alone in a room. She was +on the square of lawn as the General stole along the walk. Had she kept +her back to him, he might have rounded her like the shadow of a dial, +undetected. She was frightfully acute of hearing. She turned while he +was in the agony of hesitation, in a queer attitude, one leg on the +march, projected by a frenzied tip-toe of the hinder leg, the very +fatallest moment she could possibly have selected for unveiling him. + +Of course there was no choice but to surrender on the spot. + +He began to squander his dizzy wits in profuse apologies. Lady Camper +simply spoke of the nice little nest of a garden, smelt the flowers, +accepted a Niel rose and a Rohan, a Cline, a Falcot, and La France. + +'A beautiful rose indeed,' she said of the latter, 'only it smells of +macassar oil.' + +'Really, it never struck me, I say it never struck me before,' rejoined +the General, smelling it as at a pinch of snuff. 'I was saying, I always +. . .' And he tacitly, with the absurdest of smiles, begged permission +to leave unterminated a sentence not in itself particularly difficult + +'I have a nose,' observed Lady Camper. + +Like the nobly-bred person she was, according to General Ople's version +of the interview on his estate, when he stood before her in his gardening +costume, she put him at his ease, or she exerted herself to do so; and if +he underwent considerable anguish, it was the fault of his excessive +scrupulousness regarding dress, propriety, appearance. + +He conducted her at her request to the kitchen garden and the handful of +paddock, the stables and coach-house, then back to the lawn. + +'It is the home for a young couple,' she said. + +'I am no longer young,' the General bowed, with the sigh peculiar to this +confession. 'I say, I am no longer young, but I call the place a +gentlemanly residence. I was saying, I . . .' + +'Yes, yes!' Lady Camper tossed her head, half closing her eyes, with a +contraction of the brows, as if in pain. + +He perceived a similar expression whenever he spoke of his residence. + +Perhaps it recalled happier days to enter such a nest. Perhaps it had +been such a home for a young couple that she had entered on her marriage +with Sir Scrope Camper, before he inherited his title and estates. + +The General was at a loss to conceive what it was. + +It recurred at another mention of his idea of the nature of the +residence. It was almost a paroxysm. He determined not to vex her +reminiscences again; and as this resolution directed his mind to his +residence, thinking it pre-eminently gentlemanly, his tongue committed +the error of repeating it, with 'gentleman-like' for a variation. + +Elizabeth was out--he knew not where. The housemaid informed him, that +Miss Elizabeth was out rowing on the water. + +'Is she alone?' Lady Camper inquired of him. + +'I fancy so,' the General replied. + +'The poor child has no mother.' + +'It has been a sad loss to us both, Lady Camper.' + +'No doubt. She is too pretty to go out alone.' + +'I can trust her.' + +'Girls!' + +'She has the spirit of a man.' + +'That is well. She has a spirit; it will be tried.' + +The General modestly furnished an instance or two of her spiritedness. + +Lady Camper seemed to like this theme; she looked graciously interested. + +'Still, you should not suffer her to go out alone,' she said. + +'I place implicit confidence in her,' said the General; and Lady Camper +gave it up. + +She proposed to walk down the lanes to the river-side, to meet Elizabeth +returning. + +The General manifested alacrity checked by reluctance. Lady Camper had +told him she objected to sit in a strange room by herself; after that, +he could hardly leave her to dash upstairs to change his clothes; yet +how, attired as he was, in a fatigue jacket, that warned him not to +imagine his back view, and held him constantly a little to the rear of +Lady Camper, lest she should be troubled by it;--and he knew the habit of +the second rank to criticise the front--how consent to face the outer +world in such style side by side with the lady he admired? + +'Come,' said she; and he shot forward a step, looking as if he had missed +fire. + +'Are you not coming, General?' + +He advanced mechanically. + +Not a soul met them down the lanes, except a little one, to whom Lady +Camper gave a small silver-piece, because she was a picture. + +The act of charity sank into the General's heart, as any pretty +performance will do upon a warm waxen bed. + +Lady Camper surprised him by answering his thoughts. 'No; it's for my +own pleasure.' + +Presently she said, 'Here they are.' + +General Ople beheld his daughter by the river-side at the end of the +lane, under escort of Mr. Reginald Rolles. + +It was another picture, and a pleasing one. The young lady and the young +gentleman wore boating hats, and were both dressed in white, and standing +by or just turning from the outrigger and light skiff they were about to +leave in charge of a waterman. Elizabeth stretched a finger at arm's- +length, issuing directions, which Mr. Rolles took up and worded further +to the man, for the sake of emphasis; and he, rather than Elizabeth, was +guilty of the half-start at sight of the persons who were approaching. + +'My nephew, you should know, is intended for a working soldier,' said +Lady Camper; 'I like that sort of soldier best.' + +General Ople drooped his shoulders at the personal compliment. + +She resumed. 'His pay is a matter of importance to him. You are aware +of the smallness of a subaltern's pay. + +'I,' said the General, 'I say I feel my poor half-pay, having always been +a working soldier myself, very important, I was saying, very important to +me!' + +'Why did you retire?' + +Her interest in him seemed promising. He replied conscientiously, +'Beyond the duties of General of Brigade, I could not, I say I could not, +dare to aspire; I can accept and execute orders; I shrink from +responsibility!' + +'It is a pity,' said she, 'that you were not, like my nephew Reginald, +entirely dependent on your profession.' + +She laid such stress on her remark, that the General, who had just +expressed a very modest estimate of his abilities, was unable to reject +the flattery of her assuming him to be a man of some fortune. He +coughed, and said, 'Very little.' The thought came to him that he might +have to make a statement to her in time, and he emphasized, 'Very little +indeed. Sufficient,' he assured her, 'for a gentlemanly appearance.' + +'I have given you your warning,' was her inscrutable rejoinder, uttered +within earshot of the young people, to whom, especially to Elizabeth, she +was gracious. The damsel's boating uniform was praised, and her sunny +flush of exercise and exposure. + +Lady Camper regretted that she could not abandon her parasol: 'I freckle +so easily.' + +The General, puzzling over her strange words about a warning, gazed at +the red rose of art on her cheek with an air of profound abstraction. + +'I freckle so easily,' she repeated, dropping her parasol to defend her +face from the calculating scrutiny. + +'I burn brown,' said Elizabeth. + +Lady Camper laid the bud of a Falcot rose against the young girl's cheek, +but fetched streams of colour, that overwhelmed the momentary comparison +of the sunswarthed skin with the rich dusky yellow of the rose in its +deepening inward to soft brown. + +Reginald stretched his hand for the privileged flower, and she let him +take it; then she looked at the General; but the General was looking, +with his usual air of satisfaction, nowhere. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +'Lady Camper is no common enigma,' General Ople observed to his daughter. + +Elizabeth inclined to be pleased with her, for at her suggestion the +General had bought a couple of horses, that she might ride in the park, +accompanied by her father or the little groom. Still, the great lady was +hard to read. She tested the resources of his income by all sorts of +instigation to expenditure, which his gallantry could not withstand; she +encouraged him to talk of his deeds in arms; she was friendly, almost +affectionate, and most bountiful in the presents of fruit, peaches, +nectarines, grapes, and hot-house wonders, that she showered on his +table; but she was an enigma in her evident dissatisfaction with him +for something he seemed to have left unsaid. And what could that be? + +At their last interview she had asked him, 'Are you sure, General, you +have nothing more to tell me?' + +And as he remarked, when relating it to Elizabeth, 'One might really be +tempted to misapprehend her ladyship's . . . I say one might commit +oneself beyond recovery. Now, my dear, what do you think she intended?' + +Elizabeth was 'burning brown,' or darkly blushing, as her manner was. + +She answered, 'I am certain you know of nothing that would interest her; +nothing, unless . . .' + +'Well?' the General urged her. + +'How can I speak it, papa?' + +'You really can't mean . . .' + +'Papa, what could I mean?' + +'If I were fool enough!' he murmured. 'No, no, I am an old man. I was +saying, I am past the age of folly.' + +One day Elizabeth came home from her ride in a thoughtful mood. She had +not, further than has been mentioned, incited her father to think of the +age of folly; but voluntarily or not, Lady Camper had, by an excess of +graciousness amounting to downright invitation; as thus, 'Will you +persist in withholding your confidence from me, General?' She added, 'I +am not so difficult a person.' These prompting speeches occurred on the +morning of the day when Elizabeth sat at his table, after a long ride +into the country, profoundly meditative. + +A note was handed to General Ople, with the request that he would step in +to speak with Lady Camper in the course of the evening, or next morning. +Elizabeth waited till his hat was on, then said, 'Papa, on my ride to- +day, I met Mr. Rolles.' + +'I am glad you had an agreeable escort, my dear.' + +'I could not refuse his company.' + +'Certainly not. And where did you ride?' + +'To a beautiful valley; and there we met . . ' + +'Her ladyship?' + +'Yes.' + +'She always admires you on horseback.' + +'So you know it, papa, if she should speak of it.' + +'And I am bound to tell you, my child,' said the General, 'that this +morning Lady Camper's manner to me was . . . if I were a fool . . . +I say, this morning I beat a retreat, but apparently she . . . I see +no way out of it, supposing she . . .' + +'I am sure she esteems you, dear papa,' said Elizabeth. 'You take to +her, my dear?' the General inquired anxiously; 'a little?--a little +afraid of her?' + +'A little,' Elizabeth replied, 'only a little.' + +'Don't be agitated about me.' + +'No, papa; you are sure to do right.' + +'But you are trembling.' + +'Oh! no. I wish you success.' + +General Ople was overjoyed to be reinforced by his daughter's good +wishes. He kissed her to thank her. He turned back to her to kiss her +again. She had greatly lightened the difficulty at least of a delicate +position. + +It was just like the imperious nature of Lady Camper to summon him in the +evening to terminate the conversation of the morning, from the visible +pitfall of which he had beaten a rather precipitate retreat. But if his +daughter cordially wished him success, and Lady Camper offered him the +crown of it, why then he had only to pluck up spirit, like a good +commander who has to pass a fordable river in the enemy's presence; a +dash, a splash, a rattling volley or two, and you are over, established +on the opposite bank. But you must be positive of victory, otherwise, +with the river behind you, your new position is likely to be ticklish. +So the General entered Lady Camper's drawing-room warily, watching the +fair enemy. He knew he was captivating, his old conquests whispered in +his ears, and her reception of him all but pointed to a footstool at her +feet. He might have fallen there at once, had he not remembered a hint +that Mr. Reginald Rolles had dropped concerning Lady Camper's amazing +variability. + +Lady Camper began. + +'General, you ran away from me this morning. Let me speak. And, by the +way, I must reproach you; you should not have left it to me. Things have +now gone so far that I cannot pretend to be blind. I know your feelings +as a father. Your daughter's happiness . . .' + +'My lady,' the General interposed, 'I have her distinct assurance that it +is, I say it is wrapt up in mine.' + +'Let me speak. Young people will say anything. Well, they have a +certain excuse for selfishness; we have not. I am in some degree bound +to my nephew; he is my sister's son.' + +'Assuredly, my lady. I would not stand in his light, be quite assured. +If I am, I was saying if I am not mistaken, I . . . and he is, or has +the making of an excellent soldier in him, and is likely to be a +distinguished cavalry officer.' + +'He has to carve his own way in the world, General.' + +'All good soldiers have, my lady. And if my position is not, after a +considerable term of service, I say if . . .' + +'To continue,' said Lady Camper: 'I never have liked early marriages. I +was married in my teens before I knew men. Now I do know them, and now . +. .' + +The General plunged forward: 'The honour you do us now:--a mature +experience is worth:--my dear Lady Camper, I have admired you:--and your +objection to early marriages cannot apply to . . . indeed, madam, +vigour, they say . . . though youth, of course . . . yet young +people, as you observe . . . and I have, though perhaps my reputation +is against it, I was saying I have a natural timidity with your sex, and +I am grey-headed, white-headed, but happily without a single malady.' + +Lady Camper's brows showed a trifling bewilderment. 'I am speaking of +these young people, General Ople.' + +'I consent to everything beforehand, my dear lady. He should be, I say +Mr. Rolles should be provided for.' + +'So should she, General, so should Elizabeth.' + +'She shall be, she will, dear madam. What I have, with your permission, +if--good heaven! Lady Camper, I scarcely know where I am. She would . . +. . I shall not like to lose her: you would not wish it. In time she +will . . . she has every quality of a good wife.' + +'There, stay there, and be intelligible,' said Lady Camper. 'She has +every quality. Money should be one of them. Has she money?' + +'Oh! my lady,' the General exclaimed, 'we shall not come upon your purse +when her time comes.' + +'Has she ten thousand pounds?' + +'Elizabeth? She will have, at her father's death . . . but as for my +income, it is moderate, and only sufficient to maintain a gentlemanly +appearance in proper self-respect. I make no show. I say I make no +show. A wealthy marriage is the last thing on earth I should have aimed +at. I prefer quiet and retirement. Personally, I mean. That is my +personal taste. But if the lady . . . . I say if it should happen that +the lady . . . . and indeed I am not one to press a suit: but if she who +distinguishes and honours me should chance to be wealthy, all I can do is +to leave her wealth at her disposal, and that I do: I do that +unreservedly. I feel I am very confused, alarmingly confused. Your +ladyship merits a superior . . . I trust I have not . . . I am +entirely at your ladyship's mercy.' + +'Are you prepared, if your daughter is asked in marriage, to settle ten +thousand pounds on her, General Ople?' + +The General collected himself. In his heart he thoroughly appreciated +the moral beauty of Lady Camper's extreme solicitude on behalf of his +daughter's provision; but he would have desired a postponement of that +and other material questions belonging to a distant future until his own +fate was decided. + +So he said: 'Your ladyship's generosity is very marked. I say it is very +marked.' + +'How, my good General Ople! how is it marked in any degree?' cried Lady +Camper. 'I am not generous. I don't pretend to be; and certainly I +don't want the young people to think me so. I want to be just. I have +assumed that you intend to be the same. Then will you do me the favour +to reply to me?' + +The General smiled winningly and intently, to show her that he prized +her, and would not let her escape his eulogies. + +'Marked, in this way, dear madam, that you think of my daughter's future +more than I. I say, more than her father himself does. I know I ought +to speak more warmly, I feel warmly. I was never an eloquent man, and +if you take me as a soldier, I am, as, I have ever been in the service, +I was saying I am Wilson Ople, of the grade of General, to be relied on +for executing orders; and, madam, you are Lady Camper, and you command +me. I cannot be more precise. In fact, it is the feeling of the +necessity for keeping close to the business that destroys what I would +say. I am in fact lamentably incompetent to conduct my own case.' + +Lady Camper left her chair. + +'Dear me, this is very strange, unless I am singularly in error,' she +said. + +The General now faintly guessed that he might be in error, for his part. + +But he had burned his ships, blown up his bridges; retreat could not be +thought of. + +He stood, his head bent and appealing to her sideface, like one +pleadingly in pursuit, and very deferentially, with a courteous +vehemence, he entreated first her ladyship's pardon for his presumption, +and then the gift of her ladyship's hand. + +As for his language, it was the tongue of General Ople. But his bearing +was fine. If his clipped white silken hair spoke of age, his figure +breathed manliness. He was a picture, and she loved pictures. + +For his own sake, she begged him to cease. She dreaded to hear of +something 'gentlemanly.' + +'This is a new idea to me, my dear General,' she said. 'You must give me +time. People at our age have to think of fitness. Of course, in a +sense, we are both free to do as we like. Perhaps I may be of some aid +to you. My preference is for absolute independence. And I wished to +talk of a different affair. Come to me tomorrow. Do not be hurt if I +decide that we had better remain as we are.' + +The General bowed. His efforts, and the wavering of the fair enemy's +flag, had inspired him with a positive re-awakening of masculine passion +to gain this fortress. He said well: 'I have, then, the happiness, +madam, of being allowed to hope until to-morrrow?' + +She replied, 'I would not deprive you of a moment of happiness. Bring +good sense with you when you do come.' + +The General asked eagerly, 'I have your ladyship's permission to come +early?' + +'Consult your happiness,' she answered; and if to his mind she seemed +returning to the state of enigma, it was on the whole deliciously. She +restored him his youth. He told Elizabeth that night; he really must +begin to think of marrying her to some worthy young fellow. 'Though,' +said he, with an air of frank intoxication, 'my opinion is, the young +ones are not so lively as the old in these days, or I should have been +besieged before now.' + +The exact substance of the interview he forbore to relate to his +inquisitive daughter, with a very honourable discretion. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +Elizabeth came riding home to breakfast from a gallop round the park, +and passing Lady Camper's gates, received the salutation of her parasol. +Lady Camper talked with her through the bars. There was not a sign to +tell of a change or twist in her neighbourly affability. She remarked +simply enough, that it was her nephew's habit to take early gallops, and +possibly Elizabeth might have seen him, for his quarters were proximate; +but she did not demand an answer. She had passed a rather restless +night, she said. 'How is the General?' + +'Papa must have slept soundly, for he usually calls to me through his +door when he hears I am up,' said Elizabeth. + +Lady Camper nodded kindly and walked on. + +Early in the morning General Ople was ready for battle. His forces were, +the anticipation of victory, a carefully arranged toilet, and an +unaccustomed spirit of enterprise in the realms of speech; for he was no +longer in such awe of Lady Camper. + +'You have slept well?' she inquired. + +'Excellently, my lady: + +'Yes, your daughter tells me she heard you, as she went by your door in +the morning for a ride to meet my nephew. You are, I shall assume, +prepared for business.' + +'Elizabeth? . . . to meet . . .?' General Ople's impression of +anything extraneous to his emotion was feeble and passed instantly. +'Prepared! Oh, certainly'; and he struck in a compliment on her +ladyship's fresh morning bloom. + +'It can hardly be visible,' she responded; 'I have not painted yet.' + +'Does your ladyship proceed to your painting in the very early morning?' + +'Rouge. I rouge.' + +'Dear me! I should not have supposed it.' + +'You have speculated on it very openly, General. I remember your trying +to see a freckle through the rouge; but the truth is, I am of a +supernatural paleness if I do not rouge, so I do. You understand, +therefore, I have a false complexion. Now to business.' + +'If your ladyship insists on calling it business. I have little to +offer--myself !' + +'You have a gentlemanly residence.' + +'It is, my lady, it is. It is a bijou.' + +'Ah!' Lady Camper sighed dejectedly. + +'It is a perfect bijou!' + +'Oblige me, General, by not pronouncing the French word as if you were +swearing by something in English, like a trooper.' + +General Ople started, admitted that the word was French, and apologized +for his pronunciation. Her variability was now visible over a corner of +the battlefield like a thunder-cloud. + +'The business we have to discuss concerns the young people, General.' + +'Yes,' brightened by this, he assented: 'Yes, dear Lady Camper; it is a +part of the business; it is a secondary part; it has to be discussed; I +say I subscribe beforehand. I may say, that honouring, esteeming you as +I do, and hoping ardently for your consent . . . . + +'They must have a home and an income, General.' + +'I presume, dearest lady, that Elizabeth will be welcome in your home. +I certainly shall never chase Reginald out of mine.' + +Lady Camper threw back her head. 'Then you are not yet awake, or you +practice the art of sleeping with open eyes! Now listen to me. I rouge, +I have told you. I like colour, and I do not like to see wrinkles or +have them seen. Therefore I rouge. I do not expect to deceive the world +so flagrantly as to my age, and you I would not deceive for a moment. I +am seventy.' + +The effect of this noble frankness on the General, was to raise him from +his chair in a sitting posture as if he had been blown up. + +Her countenance was inexorably imperturbable under his alternate blinking +and gazing that drew her close and shot her distant, like a mysterious +toy. + +'But,' said she, 'I am an artist; I dislike the look of extreme age, so I +conceal it as well as I can. You are very kind to fall in with the +deception: an innocent and, I think, a proper one, before the world, +though not to the gentleman who does me the honour to propose to me for +my hand. You desire to settle our business first. You esteem me; I +suppose you mean as much as young people mean when they say they love. +Do you? Let us come to an understanding.' + +'I can,' the melancholy General gasped, 'I say I can--I cannot--I cannot +credit your ladyship's . . .' + +'You are at liberty to call me Angela.' + +'Ange . . .' he tried it, and in shame relapsed. 'Madam, yes. +Thanks.' + +'Ah,' cried Lady Camper, 'do not use these vulgar contractions of decent +speech in my presence. I abhor the word "thanks." It is fit for +fribbles.' + +'Dear me, I have used it all my life,' groaned the General. + +'Then, for the remainder, be it understood that you renounce it. To +continue, my age is . . .' + +'Oh, impossible, impossible,' the General almost wailed; there was really +a crack in his voice. + +'Advancing to seventy. But, like you, I am happy to say I have not a +malady. I bring no invalid frame to a union that necessitates the +leaving of the front door open day and night to the doctor. My belief +is, I could follow my husband still on a campaign, if he were a warrior +instead of a pensioner.' + +General Ople winced. + +He was about to say humbly, 'As General of Brigade . . .' + +'Yes, yes, you want a commanding officer, and that I have seen, and that +has caused me to meditate on your proposal,' she interrupted him; while +he, studying her countenance hard, with the painful aspect of a youth who +lashes a donkey memory in an examination by word of mouth, attempted to +marshal her signs of younger years against her awful confession of the +extremely ancient, the witheringly ancient. But for the manifest rouge, +manifest in spite of her declaration that she had not yet that morning +proceeded to her paintbrush, he would have thrown down his glove to +challenge her on the subject of her age. She had actually charms. Her +mouth had a charm; her eyes were lively; her figure, mature if you like, +was at least full and good; she stood upright, she had a queenly seat. +His mental ejaculation was, 'What a wonderful constitution!' + +By a lapse of politeness, he repeated it to himself half aloud; he was +shockingly nervous. + +'Yes, I have finer health than many a younger woman,' she said. 'An +ordinary calculation would give me twenty good years to come. I am a +widow, as you know. And, by the way, you have a leaning for widows. +Have you not? I thought I had heard of a widow Barcop in this parish. +Do not protest. I assure you I am a stranger to jealousy. My income +. . .' + +The General raised his hands. + +'Well, then,' said the cool and self-contained lady, 'before I go +farther, I may ask you, knowing what you have forced me to confess, are +you still of the same mind as to marriage? And one moment, General. I +promise you most sincerely that your withdrawing a step shall not, as far +as it touches me, affect my neighbourly and friendly sentiments; not in +any degree. Shall we be as we were?' + +Lady Camper extended her delicate hand to him. + +He took it respectfully, inspected the aristocratic and unshrunken +fingers, and kissing them, said, 'I never withdraw from a position, +unless I am beaten back. Lady Camper, I . . .' + +'My name is Angela.' + +The General tried again: he could not utter the name. + +To call a lady of seventy Angela is difficult in itself. It is, it +seems, thrice difficult in the way of courtship. + +'Angela!' said she. + +'Yes. I say, there is not a more beautiful female name, dear Lady +Camper.' + +'Spare me that word "female" as long as you live. Address me by that +name, if you please.' + +The General smiled. The smile was meant for propitiation and sweetness. +It became a brazen smile. + +'Unless you wish to step back,' said she. + +'Indeed, no. I am happy, Lady Camper. My life is yours. I say, my life +is devoted to you, dear madam.' + +'Angela!' + +General Ople was blushingly delivered of the name. + +'That will do,' said she. 'And as I think it possible one may be admired +too much as an artist, I must request you to keep my number of years a +secret.' + +'To the death, madam,' said the General. + +'And now we will take a turn in the garden, Wilson Ople. And beware of +one thing, for a commencement, for you are full of weeds, and I mean to +pluck out a few: never call any place a gentlemanly residence in my +hearing, nor let it come to my ears that you have been using the phrase +elsewhere. Don't express astonishment. At present it is enough that I +dislike it. But this only,' Lady Camper added, 'this only if it is not +your intention to withdraw from your position.' + +'Madam, my lady, I was saying--hem!--Angela, I could not wish to +withdraw.' + +Lady Camper leaned with some pressure on his arm, observing, 'You have a +curious attachment to antiquities.' + +'My dear lady, it is your mind; I say, it is your mind: I was saying, +I am in love with your mind,' the General endeavoured to assure her, and +himself too. + +'Or is it my powers as an artist?' + +'Your mind, your extraordinary powers of mind.' + +'Well,' said Lady Camper, 'a veteran General of Brigade is as good a +crutch as a childless old grannam can have.' + +And as a crutch, General Ople, parading her grounds with the aged woman, +found himself used and treated. + +The accuracy of his perceptions might be questioned. He was like a man +stunned by some great tropical fruit, which responds to the longing of +his eyes by falling on his head; but it appeared to him, that she +increased in bitterness at every step they took, as if determined to make +him realize her wrinkles. + +He was even so inconsequent, or so little recognized his position, as to +object in his heart to hear himself called Wilson. + +It is true that she uttered Wilsonople as if the names formed one word. +And on a second occasion (when he inclined to feel hurt) she remarked, +'I fear me, Wilsonople, if we are to speak plainly, thou art but a fool.' +He, perhaps, naturally objected to that. He was, however, giddy, and +barely knew. + +Yet once more the magical woman changed. All semblance of harshness, and +harridan-like spike-tonguedness vanished when she said adieu. + +The astronomer, looking at the crusty jag and scoria of the magnified +moon through his telescope, and again with naked eyes at the soft-beaming +moon, when the crater-ridges are faint as eyebrow-pencillings, has a +similar sharp alternation of prospect to that which mystified General +Ople. + +But between watching an orb that is only variable at our caprice, and +contemplating a woman who shifts and quivers ever with her own, how vast +the difference! + +And consider that this woman is about to be one's wife! He could have +believed (if he had not known full surely that such things are not) he +was in the hands of a witch. + +Lady Camper's 'adieu' was perfectly beautiful--a kind, cordial, intimate, +above all, to satisfy his present craving, it was a lady-like adieu--the +adieu of a delicate and elegant woman, who had hardly left her anchorage +by forty to sail into the fifties. + +Alas! he had her word for it, that she was not less than seventy. And, +worse, she had betrayed most melancholy signs of sourness and agedness +as soon as he had sworn himself to her fast and fixed. + +'The road is open to you to retreat,' were her last words. + +'My road,' he answered gallantly, 'is forward.' + +He was drawing backward as he said it, and something provoked her to +smile. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +It is a noble thing to say that your road is forward, and it befits a man +of battles. General Ople was too loyal a gentleman to think of any other +road. Still, albeit not gifted with imagination, he could not avoid the +feeling that he had set his face to Winter. He found himself suddenly +walking straight into the heart of Winter, and a nipping Winter. For her +ladyship had proved acutely nipping. His little customary phrases, to +which Lady Camper objected, he could see no harm in whatever. Conversing +with her in the privacy of domestic life would never be the flowing +business that it is for other men. It would demand perpetual vigilance, +hop, skip, jump, flounderings, and apologies. + +This was not a pleasing prospect. + +On the other hand, she was the niece of an earl. She was wealthy. She +might be an excellent friend to Elizabeth; and she could be, when she +liked, both commandingly and bewitchingly ladylike. + +Good! But he was a General Officer of not more than fifty-five, in his +full vigour, and she a woman of seventy! + +The prospect was bleak. It resembled an outlook on the steppes. In +point of the discipline he was to expect, he might be compared to a raw +recruit, and in his own home! + +However, she was a woman of mind. One would be proud of her. + +But did he know the worst of her? A dreadful presentiment, that he did +not know the worst of her, rolled an ocean of gloom upon General Ople, +striking out one solitary thought in the obscurity, namely, that he was +about to receive punishment for retiring from active service to a life of +ease at a comparatively early age, when still in marching trim. And the +shadow of the thought was, that he deserved the punishment! + +He was in his garden with the dawn. Hard exercise is the best of opiates +for dismal reflections. The General discomposed his daughter by offering +to accompany her on her morning ride before breakfast. She considered +that it would fatigue him. 'I am not a man of eighty!' he cried. He +could have wished he had been. + +He led the way to the park, where they soon had sight of young Rolles, +who checked his horse and spied them like a vedette, but, perceiving that +he had been seen, came cantering, and hailing the General with hearty +wonderment. + +'And what's this the world says, General?' said he. 'But we all applaud +your taste. My aunt Angela was the handsomest woman of her time.' + +The General murmured in confusion, 'Dear me!' and looked at the young +man, thinking that he could not have known the time. + +'Is all arranged, my dear General?' + +'Nothing is arranged, and I beg--I say I beg . . . I came out for +fresh air and pace.'.. + +The General rode frantically. + +In spite of the fresh air, he was unable to eat at breakfast. He was +bound, of course, to present himself to Lady Camper, in common civility, +immediately after it. + +And first, what were the phrases he had to avoid uttering in her +presence? He could remember only the 'gentlemanly residence.' And it +was a gentlemanly residence, he thought as he took leave of it. It was +one, neatly named to fit the place. Lady Camper is indeed a most +eccentric person! he decided from his experience of her. + +He was rather astonished that young Rolles should have spoken so coolly +of his aunt's leaning to matrimony; but perhaps her exact age was unknown +to the younger members of her family. + +This idea refreshed him by suggesting the extremely honourable nature of +Lady Camper's uncomfortable confession. + +He himself had an uncomfortable confession to make. He would have to +speak of his income. He was living up to the edges of it. + +She is an upright woman, and I must be the same! he said, fortunately not +in her hearing. + +The subject was disagreeable to a man sensitive on the topic of money, +and feeling that his prudence had recently been misled to keep up +appearances. + +Lady Camper was in her garden, reclining under her parasol. A chair was +beside her, to which, acknowledging the salutation of her suitor, she +waved him. + +'You have met my nephew Reginald this morning, General?' + +'Curiously, in the park, this morning, before breakfast, I did, yes. +Hem! I, I say I did meet him. Has your ladyship seen him?' + +'No. The park is very pretty in the early morning.' + +'Sweetly pretty.' + +Lady Camper raised her head, and with the mildness of assured +dictatorship, pronounced: 'Never say that before me.' + +'I submit, my lady,' said the poor scourged man. + +'Why, naturally you do. Vulgar phrases have to be endured, except when +our intimates are guilty, and then we are not merely offended, we are +compromised by them. You are still of the mind in which you left me +yesterday? You are one day older. But I warn you, so am I.' + +'Yes, my lady, we cannot, I say we cannot check time. Decidedly of the +same mind. Quite so.' + +'Oblige me by never saying "Quite so." My lawyer says it. It reeks of +the City of London. And do not look so miserable.' + +'I, madam? my dear lady!' the General flashed out in a radiance that +dulled instantly. + +'Well,' said she cheerfully, 'and you're for the old woman?' + +'For Lady Camper.' + +'You are seductive in your flatteries, General. Well, then, we have to +speak of business.' + +'My affairs----' General Ople was beginning, with perturbed forehead; but +Lady Camper held up her finger. + +'We will touch on your affairs incidentally. Now listen to me, and do +not exclaim until I have finished. You know that these two young ones +have been whispering over the wall for some months. They have been +meeting on the river and in the park habitually, apparently with your +consent.' + +'My lady!' + +'I did not say with your connivance.' + +'You mean my daughter Elizabeth?' + +'And my nephew Reginald. We have named them, if that advances us. Now, +the end of such meetings is marriage, and the sooner the better, if they +are to continue. I would rather they should not; I do not hold it good +for young soldiers to marry. But if they do, it is very certain that +their pay will not support a family; and in a marriage of two healthy +young people, we have to assume the existence of the family. You have +allowed matters to go so far that the boy is hot in love; I suppose the +girl is, too. She is a nice girl. I do not object to her personally. +But I insist that a settlement be made on her before I give my nephew one +penny. Hear me out, for I am not fond of business, and shall be glad to +have done with these explanations. Reginald has nothing of his own. He +is my sister's son, and I loved her, and rather like the boy. He has at +present four hundred a year from me. I will double it, on the condition +that you at once make over ten thousand--not less; and let it be yes or +no!--to be settled on your daughter and go to her children, independent +of the husband--cela va sans dire. Now you may speak, General.' + +The General spoke, with breath fetched from the deeps: + +'Ten thousand pounds! Hem! Ten! Hem, frankly--ten, my lady! One's +income--I am quite taken by surprise. I say Elizabeth's conduct--though, +poor child! it is natural to her to seek a mate, I mean, to accept a +mate and an establishment, and Reginald is a very hopeful fellow--I was +saying, they jump on me out of an ambush, and I wish them every +happiness. And she is an ardent soldier, and a soldier she must marry. +But ten thousand!' + +'It is to secure the happiness of your daughter, General.' + +'Pounds! my lady. It would rather cripple me.' + +'You would have my house, General; you would have the moiety, as the +lawyers say, of my purse; you would have horses, carriages, servants; I +do not divine what more you would wish to have.' + +'But, madam--a pensioner on the Government! I can look back on past +services, I say old services, and I accept my position. But, madam, a +pensioner on my wife, bringing next to nothing to the common estate! I +fear my self-respect would, I say would . . .' + +'Well, and what would it do, General Ople?' + +'I was saying, my self-respect as my wife's pensioner, my lady. I could +not come to her empty-handed.' + +'Do you expect that I should be the person to settle money on your +daughter, to save her from mischances? A rakish husband, for example; +for Reginald is young, and no one can guess what will be made of him.' + +'Undoubtedly your ladyship is correct. We might try absence for the poor +girl. I have no female relation, but I could send her to the sea-side to +a lady-friend.' + +'General Ople, I forbid you, as you value my esteem, ever--and I repeat, +I forbid you ever--to afflict my ears with that phrase, "lady-friend!"' + +The General blinked in a state of insurgent humility. + +These incessant whippings could not but sting the humblest of men; and +'lady-friend,' he was sure, was a very common term, used, he was sure, +in the very best society. He had never heard Her Majesty speak at levees +of a lady-friend, but he was quite sure that she had one; and if so, what +could be the objection to her subjects mentioning it as a term to suit +their own circumstances? + +He was harassed and perplexed by old Lady Camper's treatment of him, and +he resolved not to call her Angela even upon supplication--not that day, +at least. + +She said, 'You will not need to bring property of any kind to the common +estate; I neither look for it nor desire it. The generous thing for you +to do would be to give your daughter all you have, and come to me.' + +'But, Lady Camper, if I denude myself or curtail my income--a man at his +wife's discretion, I was saying a man at his wife's mercy . . . !' + +General Ople was really forced, by his manly dignity, to make this +protest on its behalf. He did not see how he could have escaped doing +so; he was more an agent than a principal. 'My wife's mercy,' he said +again, but simply as a herald proclaiming superior orders. + +Lady Camper's brows were wrathful. A deep blood-crimson overcame the +rouge, and gave her a terrible stormy look. + +'The congress now ceases to sit, and the treaty is not concluded,' was +all she said. + +She rose, bowed to him, 'Good morning, General,' and turned her back. + +He sighed. He was a free man. But this could not be denied--whatever +the lady's age, she was a grand woman in her carriage, and when looking +angry, she had a queenlike aspect that raised her out of the reckoning of +time. + +So now he knew there was a worse behind what he had previously known. +He was precipitate in calling it the worst. 'Now,' said he to himself, +'I know the worst !' + +No man should ever say it. Least of all, one who has entered into +relations with an eccentric lady. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +Politeness required that General Ople should not appear to rejoice in his +dismissal as a suitor, and should at least make some show of holding +himself at the beck of a reconsidering mind. He was guilty of running up +to London early next day, and remaining absent until nightfall; and he +did the same on the two following days. When he presented himself at +Lady Camper's lodge-gates, the astonishing intelligence, that her +ladyship had departed for the Continent and Egypt gave him qualms of +remorse, which assumed a more definite shape in something like awe of her +triumphant constitution. He forbore to mention her age, for he was the +most honourable of men, but a habit of tea-table talkativeness impelled +him to say and repeat an idea that had visited him, to the effect, that +Lady Camper was one of those wonderful women who are comparable to +brilliant generals, and defend themselves from the siege of Time by +various aggressive movements. Fearful of not being understood, owing to +the rarity of the occasions when the squat plain squad of honest Saxon +regulars at his command were called upon to explain an idea, he re-cast +the sentence. But, as it happened that the regulars of his vocabulary +were not numerous, and not accustomed to work upon thoughts and images, +his repetitions rather succeeded in exposing the piece of knowledge he +had recently acquired than in making his meaning plainer. So we need not +marvel that his acquaintances should suppose him to be secretly aware of +an extreme degree in which Lady Camper was a veteran. + +General Ople entered into the gaieties of the neighbourhood once more, +and passed through the Winter cheerfully. In justice to him, however, +it should be said that to the intent dwelling of his mind upon Lady +Camper, and not to the festive life he led, was due his entire ignorance +of his daughter's unhappiness. She lived with him, and yet it was in +other houses he learnt that she was unhappy. After his last interview +with Lady Camper, he had informed Elizabeth of the ruinous and +preposterous amount of money demanded of him for a settlement upon her +and Elizabeth, like the girl of good sense that she was, had replied +immediately, 'It could not be thought of, papa.' + +He had spoken to Reginald likewise. The young man fell into a dramatic +tearing-of-hair and long-stride fury, not ill becoming an enamoured +dragoon. But he maintained that his aunt, though an eccentric, was a +cordially kind woman. He seemed to feel, if he did not partly hint, that +the General might have accepted Lady Camper's terms. The young officer +could no longer be welcome at Douro Lodge, so the General paid him a +morning call at his quarters, and was distressed to find him breakfasting +very late, tapping eggs that he forgot to open--one of the surest signs +of a young man downright and deep in love, as the General knew from +experience--and surrounded by uncut sporting journals of past weeks, +which dated from the day when his blow had struck him, as accurately as +the watch of the drowned man marks his minute. Lady Camper had gone to +Italy, and was in communication with her nephew: Reginald was not further +explicit. His legs were very prominent in his despair, and his fingers +frequently performed the part of blunt combs; consequently the General +was impressed by his passion for Elizabeth. The girl who, if she was +often meditative, always met his eyes with a smile, and quietly said +'Yes, papa,' and 'No, papa,' gave him little concern as to the state of +her feelings. Yet everybody said now that she was unhappy. Mrs. Barcop, +the widow, raised her voice above the rest. So attentive was she to +Elizabeth that the General had it kindly suggested to him, that some one +was courting him through his daughter. He gazed at the widow. Now she +was not much past thirty; and it was really singular--he could have +laughed--thinking of Mrs. Barcop set him persistently thinking of Lady +Camper. That is to say, his mad fancy reverted from the lady of perhaps +thirty-five to the lady of seventy. + +Such, thought he, is genius in a woman! Of his neighbours generally, +Mrs. Baerens, the wife of a German merchant, an exquisite player on the +pianoforte, was the most inclined to lead him to speak of Lady Camper. +She was a kind prattling woman, and was known to have been a governess +before her charms withdrew the gastronomic Gottfried Baerens from his +devotion to the well-served City club, where, as he exclaimed (ever +turning fondly to his wife as he vocalized the compliment), he had found +every necessity, every luxury, in life, 'as you cannot have dem out of +London--all save de female!' Mrs. Baerens, a lady of Teutonic +extraction, was distinguishable as of that sex; at least, she was not +masculine. She spoke with great respect of Lady Camper and her family, +and seemed to agree in the General's eulogies of Lady Camper's +constitution. Still he thought she eyed him strangely. + +One April morning the General received a letter with the Italian +postmark. Opening it with his usual calm and happy curiosity, he +perceived that it was composed of pen-and-ink drawings. And suddenly +his heart sank like a scuttled ship. He saw himself the victim of a +caricature. + +The first sketch had merely seemed picturesque, and he supposed it a +clever play of fancy by some travelling friend, or perhaps an actual +scene slightly exaggerated. Even on reading, 'A distant view of the city +of Wilsonople,' he was only slightly enlightened. His heart beat still +with befitting regularity. But the second and the third sketches +betrayed the terrible hand. The distant view of the city of Wilsonople +was fair with glittering domes, which, in the succeeding near view, +proved to have been soap-bubbles, for a place of extreme flatness, begirt +with crazy old-fashioned fortifications, was shown; and in the third +view, representing the interior, stood for sole place of habitation, a +sentry-box. + +Most minutely drawn, and, alas! with fearful accuracy, a military +gentleman in undress occupied the box. Not a doubt could exist as to the +person it was meant to be. + +The General tried hard to remain incredulous. He remembered too well who +had called him Wilsonople. + +But here was the extraordinary thing that sent him over the neighbourhood +canvassing for exclamations: on the fourth page was the outline of a +lovely feminine hand, holding a pen, as in the act of shading, and under +it these words: 'What I say is, I say I think it exceedingly unladylike.' + +Now consider the General's feelings when, turning to this fourth page, +having these very words in his mouth, as the accurate expression of his +thoughts, he discovered them written! + +An enemy who anticipates the actions of our mind, has a quality of the +malignant divine that may well inspire terror. The senses of General +Ople were struck by the aspect of a lurid Goddess, who penetrated him, +read him through, and had both power and will to expose and make him +ridiculous for ever. + +The loveliness of the hand, too, in a perplexing manner contested his +denunciation of her conduct. It was ladylike eminently, and it involved +him in a confused mixture of the moral and material, as great as young +people are known to feel when they make the attempt to separate them, in +one of their frenzies. + +With a petty bitter laugh he folded the letter, put it in his breast- +pocket, and sallied forth for a walk, chiefly to talk to himself about +it. But as it absorbed him entirely, he showed it to the rector, whom he +met, and what the rector said is of no consequence, for General Ople +listened to no remarks, calling in succession on the Pollingtons, the +Goslings, the Baerens, and others, early though it was, and the lords of +those houses absent amassing hoards; and to the ladies everywhere he +displayed the sketches he had received, observing, that Wilsonople meant +himself; and there he was, he said, pointing at the capped fellow in the +sentry-box, done unmistakably. The likeness indeed was remarkable. +'She is a woman of genius,' he ejaculated, with utter melancholy. Mrs. +Baerens, by the aid of a magnifying glass, assisted him to read a line +under the sentry-box, that he had taken for a mere trembling dash; it +ran, A gentlemanly residence. + +'What eyes she has!' the General exclaimed; 'I say it is miraculous what +eyes she has at her time of . . . I was saying, I should never have +known it was writing.' + +He sighed heavily. His shuddering sensitiveness to caricature was +increased by a certain evident dread of the hand which struck; the +knowing that he was absolutely bare to this woman, defenceless, open to +exposure in his little whims, foibles, tricks, incompetencies, in what +lay in his heart, and the words that would come to his tongue. He felt +like a man haunted. + +So deeply did he feel the blow, that people asked how it was that he +could be so foolish as to dance about assisting Lady Camper in her +efforts to make him ridiculous; he acted the parts of publisher and agent +for the fearful caricaturist. In truth, there was a strangely double +reason for his conduct; he danced about for sympathy, he had the +intensest craving for sympathy, but more than this, or quite as much, he +desired to have the powers of his enemy widely appreciated; in the first +place, that he might be excused to himself for wincing under them, and +secondly, because an awful admiration of her, that should be deepened by +a corresponding sentiment around him, helped him to enjoy luxurious +recollections of an hour when he was near making her his own--his own, +in the holy abstract contemplation of marriage, without realizing their +probable relative conditions after the ceremony. + +'I say, that is the very image of her ladyship's hand,' he was especially +fond of remarking, 'I say it is a beautiful hand.' + +He carried the letter in his pocket-book; and beginning to fancy that she +had done her worst, for he could not imagine an inventive malignity +capable of pursuing the theme, he spoke of her treatment of him with +compassionate regret, not badly assumed from being partly sincere. + +Two letters dated in France, the one Dijon, the other Fontainebleau, +arrived together; and as the General knew Lady Camper to be returning to +England, he expected that she was anxious to excuse herself to him. His +fingers were not so confident, for he tore one of the letters to open it. + +The City of Wilsonople was recognizable immediately. So likewise was the +sole inhabitant. + +General Ople's petty bitter laugh recurred, like a weak-chested patient's +cough in the shifting of our winds eastward. + +A faceless woman's shadow kneels on the ground near the sentry-box, +weeping. A faceless shadow of a young man on horseback is beheld +galloping toward a gulf. The sole inhabitant contemplates his largely +substantial full fleshed face and figure in a glass. + +Next, we see the standard of Great Britain furled; next, unfurled and +borne by a troop of shadows to the sentrybox. The officer within says, +'I say I should be very happy to carry it, but I cannot quit this +gentlemanly residence.' + +Next, the standard is shown assailed by popguns. Several of the shadows +are prostrate. 'I was saying, I assure you that nothing but this +gentlemanly residence prevents me from heading you,' says the gallant +officer. + +General Ople trembled with protestant indignation when he saw himself +reclining in a magnified sentry-box, while detachments of shadows hurry +to him to show him the standard of his country trailing in the dust; and +he is maliciously made to say, 'I dislike responsibility. I say I am a +fervent patriot, and very fond of my comforts, but I shun +responsibility.' + +The second letter contained scenes between Wilsonople and the Moon. + +He addresses her as his neighbour, and tells her of his triumphs over the +sex. + +He requests her to inform him whether she is a 'female,' that she may be +triumphed over. + +He hastens past her window on foot, with his head bent, just as the +General had been in the habit of walking. + +He drives a mouse-pony furiously by. + +He cuts down a tree, that she may peep through. + +Then, from the Moon's point of view, Wilsonople, a Silenus, is discerned +in an arm-chair winking at a couple too plainly pouting their lips for a +doubt of their intentions to be entertained. + +A fourth letter arrived, bearing date of Paris. This one illustrated +Wilsonople's courtship of the Moon, and ended with his 'saying,' in his +peculiar manner, 'In spite of her paint I could not have conceived her +age to be so enormous.' + +How break off his engagement with the Lady Moon? Consent to none of her +terms! + +Little used as he was to read behind a veil, acuteness of suffering +sharpened the General's intelligence to a degree that sustained him in +animated dialogue with each succeeding sketch, or poisoned arrow whirring +at him from the moment his eyes rested on it; and here are a few samples: + +'Wilsonople informs the Moon that she is "sweetly pretty." + +'He thanks her with "thanks" for a handsome piece of lunar green cheese. + +'He points to her, apparently telling some one, "my lady-friend." + +'He sneezes "Bijou! bijou! bijou!"' + +They were trifles, but they attacked his habits of speech; and he began +to grow more and more alarmingly absurd in each fresh caricature of his +person. + +He looked at himself as the malicious woman's hand had shaped him. It +was unjust; it was no resemblance--and yet it was! There was a corner of +likeness left that leavened the lump; henceforth he must walk abroad with +this distressing image of himself before his eyes, instead of the +satisfactory reflex of the man who had, and was happy in thinking that he +had, done mischief in his time. Such an end for a conquering man was too +pathetic. + +The General surprised himself talking to himself in something louder than +a hum at neighbours' dinner-tables. He looked about and noticed that +people were silently watching him. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +Lady Camper's return was the subject of speculation in the neighbourhood, +for most people thought she would cease to persecute the General with her +preposterous and unwarrantable pen-and-ink sketches when living so +closely proximate; and how he would behave was the question. Those who +made a hero of him were sure he would treat her with disdain. Others +were uncertain. He had been so severely hit that it seemed possible he +would not show much spirit. + +He, for his part, had come to entertain such dread of the post, that Lady +Camper's return relieved him of his morning apprehensions; and he would +have forgiven her, though he feared to see her, if only she had promised +to leave him in peace for the future. He feared to see her, because of +the too probable furnishing of fresh matter for her ladyship's hand. Of +course he could not avoid being seen by her, and that was a particular +misery. A gentlemanly humility, or demureness of aspect, when seen, +would, he hoped, disarm his enemy. It should, he thought. He had borne +unheard-of things. No one of his friends and acquaintances knew, they +could not know, what he had endured. It has caused him fits of +stammering. It had destroyed the composure of his gait. Elizabeth had +informed him that he talked to himself incessantly, and aloud. She, poor +child, looked pale too. She was evidently anxious about him. + +Young Rolles, whom he had met now and then, persisted in praising his +aunt's good heart. So, perhaps, having satiated her revenge, she might +now be inclined for peace, on the terms of distant civility. + +'Yes! poor Elizabeth!' sighed the General, in pity of the poor girl's +disappointment; 'poor Elizabeth! she little guesses what her father has +gone through. Poor child! I say, she hasn't an idea of my sufferings.' + +General Ople delivered his card at Lady Camper's lodgegates and escaped +to his residence in a state of prickly heat that required the brushing +of his hair with hard brushes for several minutes to comfort and +re-establish him. + +He had fallen to working in his garden, when Lady Camper's card was +brought to him an hour after the delivery of his own; a pleasing +promptitude, showing signs of repentance, and suggesting to the General +instantly some sharp sarcasms upon women, which he had come upon in +quotations in the papers and the pulpit, his two main sources of +information. + +Instead of handing back the card to the maid, he stuck it in his hat and +went on digging. + +The first of a series of letters containing shameless realistic +caricatures was handed to him the afternoon following. They came fast +and thick. Not a day's interval of grace was allowed. Niobe under the +shafts of Diana was hardly less violently and mortally assailed. The +deadliness of the attack lay in the ridicule of the daily habits of one +of the most sensitive of men, as to his personal appearance, and the +opinion of the world. He might have concealed the sketches, but he could +not have concealed the bruises, and people were perpetually asking the +unhappy General what he was saying, for he spoke to himself as if he were +repeating something to them for the tenth time. + +'I say,' said he, 'I say that for a lady, really an educated lady, to +sit, as she must--I was saying, she must have sat in an attic to have the +right view of me. And there you see--this is what she has done. This is +the last, this is the afternoon's delivery. Her ladyship has me +correctly as to costume, but I could not exhibit such a sketch to +ladies.' + +A back view of the General was displayed in his act of digging. + +'I say I could not allow ladies to see it,' he informed the gentlemen, +who were suffered to inspect it freely. + +'But you see, I have no means of escape; I am at her mercy from morning +to night,' the General said, with a quivering tongue, 'unless I stay at +home inside the house; and that is death to me, or unless I abandon the +place, and my lease; and I shall--I say, I shall find nowhere in England +for anything like the money or conveniences such a gent--a residence you +would call fit for a gentleman. I call it a bi . . . it is, in short, +a gem. But I shall have to go.' + +Young Rolles offered to expostulate with his aunt Angela. + +The General said, 'Tha . . . I thank you very much. I would not have her +ladyship suppose I am so susceptible. I hardly know,' he confessed +pitiably, 'what it is right to say, and what not--what not. I-I-I never +know when I am not looking a fool. I hurry from tree to tree to shun the +light. I am seriously affected in my appetite. I say, I shall have to +go.' + +Reginald gave him to understand that if he flew, the shafts would follow +him, for Lady Camper would never forgive his running away, and was quite +equal to publishing a book of the adventures of Wilsonople. + +Sunday afternoon, walking in the park with his daughter on his arm, +General Ople met Mr. Rolles. He saw that the young man and Elizabeth +were mortally pale, and as the very idea of wretchedness directed his +attention to himself, he addressed them conjointly on the subject of his +persecution, giving neither of them a chance of speaking until they were +constrained to part. + +A sketch was the consequence, in which a withered Cupid and a fading +Psyche were seen divided by Wilsonople, who keeps them forcibly asunder +with policeman's fists, while courteously and elegantly entreating them +to hear him. 'Meet,' he tells them, 'as often as you like, in my +company, so long as you listen to me'; and the pathos of his aspect makes +hungry demand for a sympathetic audience. + +Now, this, and not the series representing the martyrdom of the old +couple at Douro Lodge Gates, whose rigid frames bore witness to the close +packing of a gentlemanly residence, this was the sketch General Ople, in +his madness from the pursuing bite of the gadfly, handed about at Mrs. +Pollington's lawn-party. Some have said, that he should not have +betrayed his daughter; but it is reasonable to suppose he had no idea of +his daughter's being the Psyche. Or if he had, it was indistinct, owing +to the violence of his personal emotion. Assuming this to have been the +very sketch; he handed it to two or three ladies in turn, and was heard +to deliver himself at intervals in the following snatches: 'As you like, +my lady, as you like; strike, I say strike; I bear it; I say I bear it +. . . . If her ladyship is unforgiving, I say I am enduring . . . +I may go, I was saying I may go mad, but while I have my reason I walk +upright, I walk upright.' + +Mr. Pollington and certain City gentlemen hearing the poor General's +renewed soliloquies, were seized with disgust of Lady Camper's conduct, +and stoutly advised an application to the Law Courts. + +He gave ear to them abstractedly, but after pulling out the whole chapter +of the caricatures (which it seemed that he kept in a case of morocco +leather in his breast-pocket), showing them, with comments on them, and +observing, 'There will be more, there must be more, I say I am sure there +are things I do that her ladyship will discover and expose,' he declined +to seek redress or simple protection; and the miserable spectacle was +exhibited soon after of this courtly man listening to Mrs. Barcop on the +weather, and replying in acquiescence: 'It is hot.--If your ladyship will +only abstain from colours. Very hot as you say, madam,--I do not +complain of pen and ink, but I would rather escape colours. And I dare +say you find it hot too?' + +Mrs. Barcop shut her eyes and sighed over the wreck of a handsome +military officer. + +She asked him: 'What is your objection to colours?' + +His hand was at his breast-pocket immediately, as he said: 'Have you not +seen?'--though but a few minutes back he had shown her the contents of +the packet, including a hurried glance of the famous digging scene. + +By this time the entire district was in fervid sympathy with General +Ople. The ladies did not, as their lords did, proclaim astonishment +that a man should suffer a woman to goad him to a state of semi-lunacy; +but one or two confessed to their husbands, that it required a great +admiration of General Ople not to despise him, both for his +susceptibility and his patience. As for the men, they knew him to have +faced the balls in bellowing battle-strife; they knew him to have endured +privation, not only cold but downright want of food and drink--an almost +unimaginable horror to these brave daily feasters; so they could not +quite look on him in contempt; but his want of sense was offensive, and +still more so his submission to a scourging by a woman. Not one of them +would have deigned to feel it. Would they have allowed her to see that +she could sting them? They would have laughed at her. Or they would +have dragged her before a magistrate. + +It was a Sunday in early Summer when General Ople walked to morning +service, unaccompanied by Elizabeth, who was unwell. The church was of +the considerate old-fashioned order, with deaf square pews, permitting +the mind to abstract itself from the sermon, or wrestle at leisure with +the difficulties presented by the preacher, as General Ople often did, +feeling not a little in love with his sincere attentiveness for grappling +with the knotty point and partially allowing the struggle to be seen. + +The Church was, besides, a sanctuary for him. Hither his enemy did not +come. He had this one place of refuge, and he almost looked a happy man +again. + +He had passed into his hat and out of it, which he habitually did +standing, when who should walk up to within a couple of yards of him +but Lady Camper. Her pew was full of poor people, who made signs of +retiring. She signified to them that they were to sit, then quietly +took her seat among them, fronting the General across the aisle. + +During the sermon a low voice, sharp in contradistinction to the monotone +of the preacher's, was heard to repeat these words: 'I say I am not sure +I shall survive it.' Considerable muttering in the same quarter was +heard besides. + +After the customary ceremonious game, when all were free to move, of +nobody liking to move first, Lady Camper and a charity boy were the +persons who took the lead. But Lady Camper could not quit her pew, owing +to the sticking of the door. She smiled as with her pretty hand she +twice or thrice essayed to shake it open. General Ople strode to her +aid. He pulled the door, gave the shadow of a respectful bow, and no +doubt he would have withdrawn, had not Lady Camper, while acknowledging +the civility, placed her prayer-book in his hands to carry at her heels. +There was no choice for him. He made a sort of slipping dance back for +his hat, and followed her ladyship. All present being eager to witness +the spectacle, the passage of Lady Camper dragging the victim General +behind her was observed without a stir of the well-dressed members of the +congregation, until a desire overcame them to see how Lady Camper would +behave to her fish when she had him outside the sacred edifice. + +None could have imagined such a scene. Lady Camper was in her carriage; +General Ople was holding her prayer-book, hat in hand, at the carriage +step, and he looked as if he were toasting before the bars of a furnace; +for while he stood there, Lady Camper was rapidly pencilling outlines in +a small pocket sketchbook. There are dogs whose shyness is put to it to +endure human observation and a direct address to them, even on the part +of their masters; and these dear simple dogs wag tail and turn their +heads aside waveringly, as though to entreat you not to eye them and talk +to them so. General Ople, in the presence of the sketchbook, was much +like the nervous animal. He would fain have run away. He glanced at it, +and round about, and again at it, and at the heavens. Her ladyship's +cruelty, and his inexplicable submission to it, were witnessed of the +multitude. + +The General's friends walked very slowly. Lady Camper's carriage whirled +by, and the General came up with them, accosting them and himself +alternately. They asked him where Elizabeth was, and he replied, +'Poor child, yes! I am told she is pale, but I cannot, believe I am so +perfectly, I say so perfectly ridiculous, when I join the responses.' He +drew forth half a dozen sheets, and showed them sketches that Lady Camper +had taken in church, caricaturing him in the sitting down and the +standing up. She had torn them out of the book, and presented them to +him when driving off. 'I was saying, worship in the ordinary sense will +be interdicted to me if her ladyship . . .,' said the General, woefully +shuffling the sketch-paper sheets in which he figured. + +He made the following odd confession to Mr. and Mrs. Gosling on the +road:--that he had gone to his chest, and taken out his sword-belt to +measure his girth, and found himself thinner than when he left the +service, which had not been the case before his attendance at the last +levee of the foregoing season. So the deduction was obvious, that Lady +Camper had reduced him. She had reduced him as effectually as a +harassing siege. + +'But why do you pay attention to her? Why . . . !' exclaimed Mr. +Gosling, a gentleman of the City, whose roundness would have turned a +rifle-shot. + +'To allow her to wound you so seriously!' exclaimed Mrs. Gosling. + +'Madam, if she were my wife,' the General explained, 'I should feel it. +I say it is the fact of it; I feel it, if I appear so extremely +ridiculous to a human eye, to any one eye.' + +'To Lady Camper's eye.' + +He admitted it might be that. He had not thought of ascribing the +acuteness of his pain to the miserable image he presented in this +particular lady's eye. No; it really was true, curiously true: another +lady's eye might have transformed him to a pumpkin shape, exaggerated all +his foibles fifty-fold, and he, though not liking it, of course not, +would yet have preserved a certain manly equanimity. How was it Lady +Camper had such power over him?--a lady concealing seventy years with a +rouge-box or paint-pot! It was witchcraft in its worst character. He +had for six months at her bidding been actually living the life of a +beast, degraded in his own esteem; scorched by every laugh he heard; +running, pursued, overtaken, and as it were scored or branded, and then +let go for the process to be repeated. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +Our young barbarians have it all their own way with us when they fall +into love-liking; they lead us whither they please, and interest us in +their wishings, their weepings, and that fine performance, their +kissings. But when we see our veterans tottering to their fall, we +scarcely consent to their having a wish; as for a kiss, we halloo at them +if we discover them on a byway to the sacred grove where such things are +supposed to be done by the venerable. And this piece of rank injustice, +not to say impoliteness, is entirely because of an unsound opinion that +Nature is not in it, as though it were our esteem for Nature which caused +us to disrespect them. They, in truth, show her to us discreet, +civilized, in a decent moral aspect: vistas of real life, views of the +mind's eye, are opened by their touching little emotions; whereas those +bully youngsters who come bellowing at us and catch us by the senses +plainly prove either that we are no better than they, or that we give our +attention to Nature only when she makes us afraid of her. If we cared +for her, we should be up and after her reverentially in her sedater +steps, deeply studying her in her slower paces. She teaches them nothing +when they are whirling. Our closest instructors, the true philosophers-- +the story-tellers, in short-will learn in time that Nature is not of +necessity always roaring, and as soon as they do, the world may be said +to be enlightened. Meantime, in the contemplation of a pair of white +whiskers fluttering round a pair of manifestly painted cheeks, be assured +that Nature is in it: not that hectoring wanton--but let the young have +their fun. Let the superior interest of the passions of the aged be +conceded, and not a word shall be said against the young. + +If, then, Nature is in it, how has she been made active? The reason of +her launch upon this last adventure is, that she has perceived the person +who can supply the virtue known to her by experience to be wanting. +Thus, in the broader instance, many who have journeyed far down the road, +turn back to the worship of youth, which they have lost. Some are for +the graceful worldliness of wit, of which they have just share enough to +admire it. Some are captivated by hands that can wield the rod, which in +earlier days they escaped to their cost. In the case of General Ople, it +was partly her whippings of him, partly her penetration; her ability, +that sat so finely on a wealthy woman, her indifference to conventional +manners, that so well beseemed a nobly-born one, and more than all, her +correction of his little weaknesses and incompetencies, in spite of his +dislike of it, won him. He began to feel a sort of nibbling pleasure in +her grotesque sketches of his person; a tendency to recur to the old ones +while dreading the arrival of new. You hear old gentlemen speak fondly +of the swish; and they are not attached to pain, but the instrument +revives their feeling of youth; and General Ople half enjoyed, while +shrinking, Lady Camper's foregone outlines of him. For in the distance, +the whip's-end may look like a clinging caress instead of a stinging +flick. But this craven melting in his heart was rebuked by a very worthy +pride, that flew for support to the injury she had done to his devotions, +and the offence to the sacred edifice. After thinking over it, he +decided that he must quit his residence; and as it appeared to him in the +light of duty, he, with an unspoken anguish, commissioned the house-agent +of his town to sell his lease or let the house furnished, without further +parley. + +From the house-agent's shop he turned into the chemist's, for a tonic-- +a foolish proceeding, for he had received bracing enough in the blow he +had just dealt himself, but he had been cogitating on tonics recently, +imagining certain valiant effects of them, with visions of a former +careless happiness that they were likely to restore. So he requested to +have the tonic strong, and he took one glass of it over the counter. + +Fifteen minutes after the draught, he came in sight of his house, and +beholding it, he could have called it a gentlemanly residence aloud under +Lady Camper's windows, his insurgency was of such violence. He talked of +it incessantly, but forbore to tell Elizabeth, as she was looking pale, +the reason why its modest merits touched him so. He longed for the hour +of his next dose, and for a caricature to follow, that he might drink and +defy it. A caricature was really due to him, he thought; otherwise why +had he abandoned his bijou dwelling? Lady Camper, however, sent none. +He had to wait a fortnight before one came, and that was rather a +likeness, and a handsome likeness, except as regarded a certain +disorderliness in his dress, which he knew to be very unlike him. Still +it despatched him to the looking-glass, to bring that verifier of facts +in evidence against the sketch. While sitting there he heard the +housemaid's knock at the door, and the strange intelligence that his +daughter was with Lady Camper, and had left word that she hoped he would +not forget his engagement to go to Mrs. Baerens' lawn-party. + +The General jumped away from the glass, shouting at the absent Elizabeth +in a fit of wrath so foreign to him, that he returned hurriedly to have +another look at himself, and exclaimed at the pitch of his voice, 'I say +I attribute it to an indigestion of that tonic. Do you hear?' The +housemaid faintly answered outside the door that she did, alarming him, +for there seemed to be confusion somewhere. His hope was that no one +would mention Lady Camper's name, for the mere thought of her caused a +rush to his head. 'I believe I am in for a touch of apoplexy,' he said +to the rector, who greeted him, in advance of the ladies, on Mr. Baerens' +lawn. He said it smilingly, but wanting some show of sympathy, instead +of the whisper and meaningless hand at his clerical band, with which the +rector responded, he cried, 'Apoplexy,' and his friend seemed then to +understand, and disappeared among the ladies. + +Several of them surrounded the General, and one inquired whether the +series was being continued. He drew forth his pocket-book, handed her +the latest, and remarked on the gross injustice of it; for, as he +requested them to take note, her ladyship now sketched him as a person +inattentive to his dress, and he begged them to observe that she had +drawn him with his necktie hanging loose. 'And that, I say that has +never been known of me since I first entered society.' + +The ladies exchanged looks of profound concern; for the fact was, the +General had come without any necktie and any collar, and he appeared to +be unaware of the circumstance. The rector had told them, that in answer +to a hint he had dropped on the subject of neckties, General Ople +expressed a slight apprehension of apoplexy; but his careless or merely +partial observance of the laws of buttonment could have nothing to do +with such fears. They signified rather a disorder of the intelligence. +Elizabeth was condemned for leaving him to go about alone. The situation +was really most painful, for a word to so sensitive a man would drive him +away in shame and for good; and still, to let him parade the ground in +the state, compared with his natural self, of scarecrow, and with the +dreadful habit of talking to himself quite rageing, was a horrible +alternative. Mrs. Baerens at last directed her husband upon the General, +trembling as though she watched for the operations of a fish torpedo; and +other ladies shared her excessive anxiousness, for Mr. Baerens had the +manner and the look of artillery, and on this occasion carried a +surcharge of powder. + +The General bent his ear to Mr. Baerens, whose German-English and +repeated remark, 'I am to do it wid delicassy,' did not assist his +comprehension; and when he might have been enlightened, he was petrified +by seeing Lady Camper walk on the lawn with Elizabeth. The great lady +stood a moment beside Mrs. Baerens; she came straight over to him, +contemplating him in silence. + +Then she said, 'Your arm, General Ople,' and she made one circuit of the +lawn with him, barely speaking. + +At her request, he conducted her to her carriage. He took a seat beside +her, obediently. He felt that he was being sketched, and comported +himself like a child's flat man, that jumps at the pulling of a string. + +'Where have you left your girl, General?' + +Before he could rally his wits to answer the question, he was asked: + +'And what have you done with your necktie and collar?' + +He touched his throat. + +'I am rather nervous to-day, I forgot Elizabeth,' he said, sending his +fingers in a dotting run of wonderment round his neck. + +Lady Camper smiled with a triumphing humour on her close-drawn lips. + +The verified absence of necktie and collar seemed to be choking him. + +'Never mind, you have been abroad without them,' said Lady Camper, 'and +that is a victory for me. And you thought of Elizabeth first when I drew +your attention to it, and that is a victory for you. It is a very great +victory. Pray, do not be dismayed, General. You have a handsome +campaigning air. And no apologies, if you please; I like you well enough +as you are. There is my hand.' + +General Ople understood her last remark. He pressed the lady's hand in +silence, very nervously. + +'But do not shrug your head into your shoulders as if there were any +possibility of concealing the thunderingly evident,' said Lady Camper, +electrifying him, what with her cordial squeeze, her kind eyes, and her +singular language. 'You have omitted the collar. Well? The collar is +the fatal finishing touch in men's dress; it would make Apollo look +bourgeois.' + +Her hand was in his: and watching the play of her features, a spark +entered General Ople's brain, causing him, in forgetfulness of collar and +caricatures, to ejaculate, 'Seventy? Did your ladyship say seventy? +Utterly impossible! You trifle with me.' + +'We will talk when we are free of this accompaniment of carriage-wheels, +General,' said Lady Camper. + +'I will beg permission to go and fetch Elizabeth, madam.' + +'Rightly thought of. Fetch her in my carriage. And, by the way, Mrs. +Baerens was my old music-mistress, and is, I think, one year older than +I. She can tell you on which side of seventy I am.' + +'I shall not require to ask, my lady,' he said, sighing. + +'Then we will send the carriage for Elizabeth, and have it out together +at once. I am impatient; yes, General, impatient: for what?-- +forgiveness.' + +'Of me, my lady?' The General breathed profoundly. + +'Of whom else? Do you know what it is?-I don't think you do. You +English have the smallest experience of humanity. I mean this: to strike +so hard that, in the end, you soften your heart to the victim. Well, +that is my weakness. And we of our blood put no restraint on the blows +we strike when we think them wanted, so we are always overdoing it.' + +General Ople assisted Lady Camper to alight from the carriage, which was +forthwith despatched for Elizabeth. + +He prepared to listen to her with a disconnected smile of acute +attentiveness. + +She had changed. She spoke of money. Ten thousand pounds must be +settled on his daughter. 'And now,' said she, 'you will remember that +you are wanting a collar.' + +He acquiesced. He craved permission to retire for ten minutes. + +'Simplest of men! what will cover you?' she exclaimed, and peremptorily +bidding him sit down in the drawing-room, she took one of the famous pair +of pistols in her hand, and said, 'If I put myself in a similar position, +and make myself decodletee too, will that satisfy you? You see these +murderous weapons. Well, I am a coward. I dread fire-arms. They are +laid there to impose on the world, and I believe they do. They have +imposed on you. Now, you would never think of pretending to a moral +quality you do not possess. But, silly, simple man that you are! You +can give yourself the airs of wealth, buy horses to conceal your +nakedness, and when you are taken upon the standard of your apparent +income, you would rather seem to be beating a miserly retreat than behave +frankly and honestly. I have a little overstated it, but I am near the +mark.' + +'Your ladyship wanting courage!' cried the General. + +'Refresh yourself by meditating on it,' said she. 'And to prove it to +you, I was glad to take this house when I knew I was to have a gallant +gentleman for a neighbour. No visitors will be admitted, General Ople, +so you are bare-throated only to me: sit quietly. One day you speculated +on the paint in my cheeks for the space of a minute and a half:--I had +said that I freckled easily. Your look signified that you really could +not detect a single freckle for the paint. I forgave you, or I did not. +But when I found you, on closer acquaintance, as indifferent to your +daughter's happiness as you had been to her reputation . . .' + +'My daughter! her reputation! her happiness !' + +General Ople raised his eyes under a wave, half uttering the outcries. + +'So indifferent to her reputation, that you allowed a young man to talk +with her over the wall, and meet her by appointment: so reckless of the +girl's happiness, that when I tried to bring you to a treaty, on her +behalf, you could not be dragged from thinking of yourself and your own +affair. When I found that, perhaps I was predisposed to give you some of +what my sisters used to call my spice. You would not honestly state the +proportions of your income, and you affected to be faithful to the woman +of seventy. Most preposterous! Could any caricature of mine exceed in +grotesqueness your sketch of yourself? You are a brave and a generous +man all the same: and I suspect it is more hoodwinking than egotism--or +extreme egotism--that blinds you. A certain amount you must have to be a +man. You did not like my paint, still less did you like my sincerity; +you were annoyed by my corrections of your habits of speech; you were +horrified by the age of seventy, and you were credulous--General Ople, +listen to me, and remember that you have no collar on--you were credulous +of my statement of my great age, or you chose to be so, or chose to seem +so, because I had brushed your cat's coat against the fur. And then, +full of yourself, not thinking of Elizabeth, but to withdraw in the +chivalrous attitude of the man true to his word to the old woman, only +stickling to bring a certain independence to the common stock, because-- +I quote you! and you have no collar on, mind--"you could not be at your +wife's mercy," you broke from your proposal on the money question. Where +was your consideration for Elizabeth then? + +'Well, General, you were fond of thinking of yourself, and I thought I +would assist you. I gave you plenty of subject matter. I will not say +I meant to work a homoeopathic cure. But if I drive you to forget your +collar, is it or is it not a triumph? + +'No,' added Lady Camper, 'it is no triumph for me, but it is one for you, +if you like to make the most of it. Your fault has been to quit active +service, General, and love your ease too well. It is the fault of your +countrymen. You must get a militia regiment, or inspectorship of +militia. You are ten times the man in exercise. Why, do you mean to +tell me that you would have cared for those drawings of mine when +marching?' + +'I think so, I say I think so,' remarked the General seriously. + +'I doubt it,' said she. 'But to the point; here comes Elizabeth. If you +have not much money to spare for her, according to your prudent +calculation, reflect how this money has enfeebled you and reduced you to +the level of the people round about us here--who are, what? Inhabitants +of gentlemanly residences, yes! But what kind of creature? They have no +mental standard, no moral aim, no native chivalry. You were rapidly +becoming one of them, only, fortunately for you, you were sensitive to +ridicule.' + +'Elizabeth shall have half my money settled on her,' said the General; +'though I fear it is not much. And if I can find occupation, my lady...' + +'Something worthier than that,' said Lady Camper, pencilling outlines +rapidly on the margin of a book, and he saw himself lashing a pony; 'or +that,' and he was plucking at a cabbage; 'or that,' and he was bowing to +three petticoated posts. + +'The likeness is exact,' General Ople groaned. + +'So you may suppose I have studied you,' said she. 'But there is no real +likeness. Slight exaggerations do more harm to truth than reckless +violations of it. + +You would not have cared one bit for a caricature, if you had not nursed +the absurd idea of being one of our conquerors. It is the very tragedy +of modesty for a man like you to have such notions, my poor dear good +friend. The modest are the most easily intoxicated when they sip at +vanity. And reflect whether you have not been intoxicated, for these +young people have been wretched, and you have not observed it, though one +of them was living with you, and is the child you love. There, I have +done. Pray show a good face to Elizabeth.' + +The General obeyed as well as he could. He felt very like a sheep that +has come from a shearing, and when released he wished to run away. But +hardly had he escaped before he had a desire for the renewal of the +operation. 'She sees me through, she sees me through,' he was heard +saying to himself, and in the end he taught himself, to say it with a +secret exultation, for as it was on her part an extraordinary piece of +insight to see him through, it struck him that in acknowledging the truth +of it, he made a discovery of new powers in human nature. + +General Ople studied Lady Camper diligently for fresh proofs of her +penetration of the mysteries in his bosom; by which means, as it happened +that she was diligently observing the two betrothed young ones, he began +to watch them likewise, and took a pleasure in the sight. Their +meetings, their partings, their rides out and home furnished him themes +of converse. He soon had enough to talk of, and previously, as he +remembered, he had never sustained a conversation of any length with +composure and the beneficent sense of fulness. Five thousand pounds, to +which sum Lady Camper reduced her stipulation for Elizabeth's dowry, he +signed over to his dear girl gladly, and came out with the confession to +her ladyship that a well-invested twelve thousand comprised his fortune. +She shrugged she had left off pulling him this way and that, so his +chains were enjoyable, and he said to himself: 'If ever she should in the +dead of night want a man to defend her!' He mentioned it to Reginald, +who had been the repository of Elizabeth's lamentations about her father +being left alone, forsaken, and the young man conceived a scheme for +causing his aunt's great bell to be rung at midnight, which would +certainly have led to a dramatic issue and the happy re-establishment of +our masculine ascendancy at the close of this history. But he forgot it +in his bridegroom's delight, until he was making his miserable official +speech at the wedding-breakfast, and set Elizabeth winking over a tear. +As she stood in the hall ready to depart, a great van was observed in the +road at the gates of Douro Lodge; and this, the men in custody declared +to contain the goods and knick-knacks of the people who had taken the +house furnished for a year, and were coming in that very afternoon. + +'I remember, I say now I remember, I had a notice,' the General said +cheerily to his troubled daughter. + +'But where are you to go, papa?' the poor girl cried, close on sobbing. + +'I shall get employment of some sort,' said he. 'I was saying I want it, +I need it, I require it.' + +'You are saying three times what once would have sufficed for,' said Lady +Camper, and she asked him a few questions, frowned with a smile, and +offered him a lodgement in his neighbour's house. + +'Really, dearest Aunt Angela?' said Elizabeth. + +'What else can I do, child? I have, it seems, driven him out of a +gentlemanly residence, and I must give him a ladylike one. True, I would +rather have had him at call, but as I have always wished for a policeman +in the house, I may as well be satisfied with a soldier.' + +'But if you lose your character, my lady?' said Reginald. + +'Then I must look to the General to restore it.' + +General Ople immediately bowed his head over Lady Camper's fingers. + +'An odd thing to happen to a woman of forty-one!' she said to her great +people, and they submitted with the best grace in the world, while the +General's ears tingled till he felt younger than Reginald. This, his +reflections ran, or it would be more correct to say waltzed, this is the +result of painting!--that you can believe a woman to be any age when her +cheeks are tinted! + +As for Lady Camper, she had been floated accidentally over the ridicule +of the bruit of a marriage at a time of life as terrible to her as her +fiction of seventy had been to General Ople; she resigned herself to let +things go with the tide. She had not been blissful in her first +marriage, she had abandoned the chase of an ideal man, and she had found +one who was tunable so as not to offend her ears, likely ever to be a +fund of amusement for her humour, good, impressible, and above all, very +picturesque. There is the secret of her, and of how it came to pass that +a simple man and a complex woman fell to union after the strangest +division. + + + + +ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS: + +Can believe a woman to be any age when her cheeks are tinted +Modest are the most easily intoxicated when they sip at vanity +Nature is not of necessity always roaring +Only to be described in the tongue of auctioneers +Respected the vegetable yet more than he esteemed the flower +She seems honest, and that is the most we can hope of girls +Spare me that word "female" as long as you live +The mildness of assured dictatorship +When we see our veterans tottering to their fall + + +[The End] + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 4493 *** 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 Case of General Opel + +Author: George Meredith + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +Release Date: September, 2003 [Etext #4493] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on March 5, 2002] + + +The Project Gutenberg Etext The Case of General Opel by George Meredith +**********This file should be named 4493.txt or 4493.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 CASE OF GENERAL OPLE AND LADY CAMPER + +By George Meredith + +CHAPTER I + +An excursion beyond the immediate suburbs of London, projected long +before his pony-carriage was hired to conduct him, in fact ever since his +retirement from active service, led General Ople across a famous common, +with which he fell in love at once, to a lofty highway along the borders +of a park, for which he promptly exchanged his heart, and so gradually +within a stone's-throw or so of the river-side, where he determined not +solely to bestow his affections but to settle for life. It may be seen +that he was of an adventurous temperament, though he had thought fit to +loosen his sword-belt. The pony-carriage, however, had been hired for +the very special purpose of helping him to pass in review the lines of +what he called country houses, cottages, or even sites for building, not +too remote from sweet London: and as when Coelebs goes forth intending to +pursue and obtain, there is no doubt of his bringing home a wife, the +circumstance that there stood a house to let, in an airy situation, at a +certain distance in hail of the metropolis he worshipped, was enough to +kindle the General's enthusiasm. He would have taken the first he saw, +had it not been for his daughter, who accompanied him, and at the age of +eighteen was about to undertake the management of his house. Fortune, +under Elizabeth Ople's guiding restraint, directed him to an epitome of +the comforts. The place he fell upon is only to be described in the +tongue of auctioneers, and for the first week after taking it he modestly +followed them by terming it bijou. In time, when his own imagination, +instigated by a state of something more than mere contentment, had been +at work on it, he chose the happy phrase, 'a gentlemanly residence.' For +it was, he declared, a small estate. There was a lodge to it, resembling +two sentry-boxes forced into union, where in one half an old couple sat +bent, in the other half lay compressed; there was a backdrive to +discoverable stables; there was a bit of grass that would have appeared a +meadow if magnified; and there was a wall round the kitchen-garden and a +strip of wood round the flower-garden. The prying of the outside world +was impossible. Comfort, fortification; and gentlemanliness made the +place, as the General said, an ideal English home. + +The compass of the estate was half an acre, and perhaps a perch or two, +just the size for the hugging love General Ople was happiest in giving. +He wisely decided to retain the old couple at the lodge, whose members +were used to restriction, and also not to purchase a cow, that would have +wanted pasture. With the old man, while the old woman attended to the +bell at the handsome front entrance with its gilt-spiked gates, he +undertook to do the gardening; a business he delighted in, so long as he +could perform it in a gentlemanly manner, that is to say, so long as he +was not overlooked. He was perfectly concealed from the road. Only one +house, and curiously indeed, only one window of the house, and further to +show the protection extended to Douro Lodge, that window an attic, +overlooked him. And the house was empty. + +The house (for who can hope, and who should desire a commodious house, +with conservatories, aviaries, pond and boat-shed, and other joys of +wealth, to remain unoccupied) was taken two seasons later by a lady, of +whom Fame, rolling like a dust-cloud from the place she had left, +reported that she was eccentric. The word is uninstructive: it does not +frighten. In a lady of a certain age, it is rather a characteristic of +aristocracy in retirement. And at least it implies wealth. + +General Ople was very anxious to see her. He had the sentiment of humble +respectfulness toward aristocracy, and there was that in riches which +aroused his admiration. London, for instance, he was not afraid to say +he thought the wonder of the world. He remarked, in addition, that the +sacking of London would suffice to make every common soldier of the +foreign army of occupation an independent gentleman for the term of his +natural days. But this is a nightmare! said he, startling himself with +an abhorrent dream of envy of those enriched invading officers: for Booty +is the one lovely thing which the military mind can contemplate in the +abstract. His habit was to go off in an explosion of heavy sighs when he +had delivered himself so far, like a man at war with himself. + +The lady arrived in time: she received the cards of the neighbourhood, +and signalized her eccentricity by paying no attention to them, excepting +the card of a Mrs. Baerens, who had audience of her at once. By express +arrangement, the card of General Wilson Ople, as her nearest neighbour, +followed the card of the rector, the social head of the district; and the +rector was granted an interview, but Lady Camper was not at home to +General Ople. She is of superior station to me, and may not wish to +associate with me, the General modestly said. Nevertheless he was +wounded: for in spite of himself, and without the slightest wish to +obtrude his own person, as he explained the meaning that he had in him, +his rank in the British army forced him to be the representative of it, +in the absence of any one of a superior rank. So that he was +professionally hurt, and his heart being in his profession, it may be +honestly stated that he was wounded in his feelings, though he said no, +and insisted on the distinction. Once a day his walk for constitutional +exercise compelled him to pass before Lady Camper's windows, which were +not bashfully withdrawn, as he said humorously of Douro Lodge, in the +seclusion of half-pay, but bowed out imperiously, militarily, like a +generalissimo on horseback, and had full command of the road and levels +up to the swelling park-foliage. He went by at a smart stride, with a +delicate depression of his upright bearing, as though hastening to greet +a friend in view, whose hand was getting ready for the shake. This much +would have been observed by a housemaid; and considering his fine figure +and the peculiar shining silveriness of his hair, the acceleration of his +gait was noticeable. When he drove by, the pony's right ear was flicked, +to the extreme indignation of a mettlesome little animal. It ensued in +consequence that the General was borne flying under the eyes of Lady +Camper, and such pace displeasing him, he reduced it invariably at a step +or two beyond the corner of her grounds. + +But neither he nor his daughter Elizabeth attached importance to so +trivial a circumstance. The General punctiliously avoided glancing at +the windows during the passage past them, whether in his wild career or +on foot. Elizabeth took a side-shot, as one looks at a wayside tree. +Their speech concerning Lady Camper was an exchange of commonplaces over +her loneliness: and this condition of hers was the more perplexing to +General Ople on his hearing from his daughter that the lady was very +fine-looking, and not so very old, as he had fancied eccentric ladies +must be. The rector's account of her, too, excited the mind. She had +informed him bluntly, that she now and then went to church to save +appearances, but was not a church-goer, finding it impossible to support +the length of the service; might, however, be reckoned in subscriptions +for all the charities, and left her pew open to poor people, and none but +the poor. She had travelled over Europe, and knew the East. Sketches in +watercolours of the scenes she had visited adorned her walls, and a pair +of pistols, that she had found useful, she affirmed, lay on the writing- +desk in her drawing-room. General Ople gathered from the rector that she +had a great contempt for men: yet it was curiously varied with +lamentations over the weakness of women. 'Really she cannot possibly be +an example of that,' said the General, thinking of the pistols. + +Now, we learn from those who have studied women on the chess-board, and +know what ebony or ivory will do along particular lines, or hopping, that +men much talked about will take possession of their thoughts; and +certainly the fact may be accepted for one of their moves. But the whole +fabric of our knowledge of them, which we are taught to build on this +originally acute perception, is shattered when we hear, that it is +exactly the same, in the same degree, in proportion to the amount of work +they have to do, exactly the same with men and their thoughts in the case +of women much talked about. So it was with General Ople, and nothing is +left for me to say except, that there is broader ground than the +chessboard. I am earnest in protesting the similarity of the singular +couples on common earth, because otherwise the General is in peril of the +accusation that he is a feminine character; and not simply was he a +gallant officer, and a veteran in gunpowder strife, he was also (and it +is an extraordinary thing that a genuine humility did not prevent it, and +did survive it) a lord and conqueror of the sex. He had done his pretty +bit of mischief, all in the way of honour, of course, but hearts had +knocked. And now, with his bright white hair, his close-brushed white +whiskers on a face burnt brown, his clear-cut features, and a winning +droop of his eyelids, there was powder in him still, if not shot. + +There was a lamentable susceptibility to ladies' charms. On the other +hand, for the protection of the sex, a remainder of shyness kept him from +active enterprise and in the state of suffering, so long as indications +of encouragement were wanting. He had killed the soft ones, who came to +him, attracted by the softness in him, to be killed: but clever women +alarmed and paralyzed him. Their aptness to question and require +immediate sparkling answers; their demand for fresh wit, of a kind that +is not furnished by publications which strike it into heads with a +hammer, and supply it wholesale; their various reading; their power of +ridicule too; made them awful in his contemplation. + +Supposing (for the inflammable officer was now thinking, and deeply +thinking, of a clever woman), supposing that Lady Camper's pistols were +needed in her defence one night: at the first report proclaiming her +extremity, valour might gain an introduction to her upon easy terms, and +would not be expected to be witty. She would, perhaps, after the +excitement, admit his masculine superiority, in the beautiful old +fashion, by fainting in his arms. Such was the reverie he passingly +indulged, and only so could he venture to hope for an acquaintance with +the formidable lady who was his next neighbour. But the proud society of +the burglarious denied him opportunity. + +Meanwhile, he learnt that Lady Camper had a nephew, and the young +gentleman was in a cavalry regiment. General Ople met him outside his +gates, received and returned a polite salute, liked his appearance and +manners and talked of him to Elizabeth, asking her if by chance she had +seen him. She replied that she believed she had, and praised his +horsemanship. The General discovered that he was an excellent sculler. +His daughter was rowing him up the river when the young gentleman shot +by, with a splendid stroke, in an outrigger, backed, and floating +alongside presumed to enter into conversation, during which he managed to +express regrets at his aunt's turn for solitariness. As they belonged to +sister branches of the same Service, the General and Mr. Reginald Roller +had a theme in common, and a passion. Elizabeth told her father that +nothing afforded her so much pleasure as to hear him talk with Mr. Roller +on military matters. General Ople assured her that it pleased him +likewise. He began to spy about for Mr. Roller, and it sometimes +occurred that they conversed across the wall; it could hardly be avoided. +A hint or two, an undefinable flying allusion, gave the General to +understand that Lady Camper had not been happy in her marriage. He was +pained to think of her misfortune; but as she was not over forty, the +disaster was, perhaps, not irremediable; that is to say, if she could be +taught to extend her forgiveness to men, and abandon her solitude. 'If,' +he said to his daughter, 'Lady Camper should by any chance be induced to +contract a second alliance, she would, one might expect, be humanized, +and we should have highly agreeable neighbours.' Elizabeth artlessly +hoped for such an event to take place. + +She rarely differed with her father, up to whom, taking example from the +world around him, she looked as the pattern of a man of wise conduct. + +And he was one; and though modest, he was in good humour with himself, +approved himself, and could say, that without boasting of success, he was +a satisfied man, until he met his touchstone in Lady Camper. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +This is the pathetic matter of my story, and it requires pointing out, +because he never could explain what it was that seemed to him so cruel in +it, for he was no brilliant son of fortune, he was no great pretender, +none of those who are logically displaced from the heights they have been +raised to, manifestly created to show the moral in Providence. He was +modest, retiring, humbly contented; a gentlemanly residence appeased his +ambition. Popular, he could own that he was, but not meteorically; +rather by reason of his willingness to receive light than his desire to +shed it. Why, then, was the terrible test brought to bear upon him, of +all men? He was one of us; no worse, and not strikingly or perilously +better; and he could not but feel, in the bitterness of his reflections +upon an inexplicable destiny, that the punishment befalling him, +unmerited as it was, looked like absence of Design in the scheme of +things, Above. It looked as if the blow had been dealt him by reckless +chance. And to believe that, was for the mind of General Ople the having +to return to his alphabet and recommence the ascent of the laborious +mountain of understanding. + +To proceed, the General's introduction to Lady Camper was owing to a +message she sent him by her gardener, with a request that he would cut +down a branch of a wychelm, obscuring her view across his grounds toward +the river. The General consulted with his daughter, and came to the +conclusion, that as he could hardly despatch a written reply to a verbal +message, yet greatly wished to subscribe to the wishes of Lady Camper, +the best thing for him to do was to apply for an interview. He sent word +that he would wait on Lady Camper immediately, and betook himself +forthwith to his toilette. She was the niece of an earl. + +Elizabeth commended his appearance, 'passed him,' as he would have said; +and well she might, for his hat, surtout, trousers and boots, were worthy +of an introduction to Royalty. A touch of scarlet silk round the neck +gave him bloom, and better than that, the blooming consciousness of it. + +'You are not to be nervous, papa,' Elizabeth said. + +'Not at all,' replied the General. 'I say, not at all, my dear,' +he repeated, and so betrayed that he had fallen into the nervous mood. +'I was saying, I have known worse mornings than this.' He turned to her +and smiled brightly, nodded, and set his face to meet the future. + +He was absent an hour and a half. + +He came back with his radiance a little subdued, by no means eclipsed; +as, when experience has afforded us matter for thought, we cease to shine +dazzlingly, yet are not clouded; the rays have merely grown serener. The +sum of his impressions was conveyed in the reflective utterance--'It only +shows, my dear, how different the reality is from our anticipation +of it!' + +Lady Camper had been charming; full of condescension, neighbourly, +friendly, willing to be satisfied with the sacrifice of the smallest +branch of the wych-elm, and only requiring that much for complimentary +reasons. + +Elizabeth wished to hear what they were, and she thought the request +rather singular; but the General begged her to bear in mind, that they +were dealing with a very extraordinary woman; 'highly accomplished, +really exceedingly handsome,' he said to himself, aloud. + +The reasons were, her liking for air and view, and desire to see into her +neighbour's grounds without having to mount to the attic. + +Elizabeth gave a slight exclamation, and blushed. + +'So, my dear, we are objects of interest to her ladyship,' said the +General. + +He assured her that Lady Camper's manners were delightful. Strange to +tell, she knew a great deal of his antecedent history, things he had not +supposed were known; 'little matters,' he remarked, by which his daughter +faintly conceived a reference to the conquests of his dashing days. Lady +Camper had deigned to impart some of her own, incidentally; that she was +of Welsh blood, and born among the mountains. 'She has a romantic look,' +was the General's comment; and that her husband had been an insatiable +traveller before he became an invalid, and had never cared for Art. +'Quite an extraordinary circumstance, with such a wife!' the General +said. + +He fell upon the wych-elm with his own hands, under cover of the leafage, +and the next day he paid his respects to Lady Camper, to inquire if her +ladyship saw any further obstruction to the view. + +'None,' she replied. 'And now we shall see what the two birds will do.' + +Apparently, then, she entertained an animosity to a pair of birds in the +tree. + +'Yes, yes; I say they chirp early in the morning,' said General Ople. + +'At all hours.' + +'The song of birds . . . ?' he pleaded softly for nature. + +'If the nest is provided for them; but I don't like vagabond chirping.' + +The General perfectly acquiesced. This, in an engagement with a clever +woman, is what you should do, or else you are likely to find yourself +planted unawares in a high wind, your hat blown off, and your coat-tails +anywhere; in other words, you will stand ridiculous in your bewilderment; +and General Ople ever footed with the utmost caution to avoid that +quagmire of the ridiculous. The extremer quags he had hitherto escaped; +the smaller, into which he fell in his agile evasions of the big, he had +hitherto been blest in finding none to notice. + +He requested her ladyship's permission to present his daughter. Lady +Camper sent in her card. + +Elizabeth Ople beheld a tall, handsomely-mannered lady, with good +features and penetrating dark eyes, an easy carriage of her person and +an agreeable voice, but (the vision of her age flashed out under the +compelling eyes of youth) fifty if a day. The rich colouring confessed +to it. But she was very pleasing, and Elizabeth's perception dwelt on it +only because her father's manly chivalry had defended the lady against +one year more than forty. + +The richness of the colouring, Elizabeth feared, was artificial, and it +caused her ingenuous young blood a shudder. For we are so devoted to +nature when the dame is flattering us with her gifts, that we loathe the +substitute omitting to think how much less it is an imposition than a +form of practical adoration of the genuine. + +Our young detective, however, concealed her emotion of childish horror. + +Lady Camper remarked of her, 'She seems honest, and that is the most we +can hope of girls.' + +'She is a jewel for an honest man,' the General sighed, 'some day!' + +'Let us hope it will be a distant day.' + +'Yet,' said the General, 'girls expect to marry.' + +Lady Camper fixed her black eyes on him, but did not speak. + +He told Elizabeth that her ladyship's eyes were exceedingly searching: +'Only,' said he, 'as I have nothing to hide, I am able to submit to +inspection'; and he laughed slightly up to an arresting cough, and made +the mantelpiece ornaments pass muster. + +General Ople was the hero to champion a lady whose airs of haughtiness +caused her to be somewhat backbitten. He assured everybody, that Lady +Camper was much misunderstood; she was a most remarkable woman; she was a +most affable and highly intelligent lady. Building up her attributes on +a splendid climax, he declared she was pious, charitable, witty, and +really an extraordinary artist. He laid particular stress on her +artistic qualities, describing her power with the brush, her water-colour +sketches, and also some immensely clever caricatures. As he talked of no +one else, his friends heard enough of Lady Camper, who was anything but a +favourite. The Pollingtons, the Wilders, the Wardens, the Baerens, the +Goslings, and others of his acquaintance, talked of Lady Camper and +General Ople rather maliciously. They were all City people, and they +admired the General, but mourned that he should so abjectly have fallen +at the feet of a lady as red with rouge as a railway bill. His not +seeing it showed the state he was in. The sister of Mrs. Pollington, an +amiable widow, relict of a large City warehouse, named Barcop, was +chilled by a falling off in his attentions. His apology for not +appearing at garden parties was, that he was engaged to wait on Lady +Camper. + +And at one time, her not condescending to exchange visits with the +obsequious General was a topic fertile in irony. But she did condescend. +Lady Camper came to his gate unexpectedly, rang the bell, and was let in +like an ordinary visitor. It happened that the General was gardening-- +not the pretty occupation of pruning--he was digging--and of necessity +his coat was off, and he was hot, dusty, unpresentable. From adoring +earth as the mother of roses, you may pass into a lady's presence without +purification; you cannot (or so the General thought) when you are caught +in the act of adoring the mother of cabbages. And though he himself +loved the cabbage equally with the rose, in his heart respected the +vegetable yet more than he esteemed the flower, for he gloried in his +kitchen garden, this was not a secret for the world to know, and he +almost heeled over on his beam ends when word was brought of the extreme +honour Lady Camper had done him. He worked his arms hurriedly into his +fatigue jacket, trusting to get away to the house and spend a couple of +minutes on his adornment; and with any other visitor it might have been +accomplished, but Lady Camper disliked sitting alone in a room. She was +on the square of lawn as the General stole along the walk. Had she kept +her back to him, he might have rounded her like the shadow of a dial, +undetected. She was frightfully acute of hearing. She turned while he +was in the agony of hesitation, in a queer attitude, one leg on the +march, projected by a frenzied tip-toe of the hinder leg, the very +fatallest moment she could possibly have selected for unveiling him. + +Of course there was no choice but to surrender on the spot. + +He began to squander his dizzy wits in profuse apologies. Lady Camper +simply spoke of the nice little nest of a garden, smelt the flowers, +accepted a Niel rose and a Rohan, a Cline, a Falcot, and La France. + +'A beautiful rose indeed,' she said of the latter, 'only it smells of +macassar oil.' + +'Really, it never struck me, I say it never struck me before,' rejoined +the General, smelling it as at a pinch of snuff. 'I was saying, I always +. . .' And he tacitly, with the absurdest of smiles, begged permission +to leave unterminated a sentence not in itself particularly difficult + +'I have a nose,' observed Lady Camper. + +Like the nobly-bred person she was, according to General Ople's version +of the interview on his estate, when he stood before her in his gardening +costume, she put him at his ease, or she exerted herself to do so; and if +he underwent considerable anguish, it was the fault of his excessive +scrupulousness regarding dress, propriety, appearance. + +He conducted her at her request to the kitchen garden and the handful of +paddock, the stables and coach-house, then back to the lawn. + +'It is the home for a young couple,' she said. + +'I am no longer young,' the General bowed, with the sigh peculiar to this +confession. 'I say, I am no longer young, but I call the place a +gentlemanly residence. I was saying, I . . .' + +'Yes, yes!' Lady Camper tossed her head, half closing her eyes, with a +contraction of the brows, as if in pain. + +He perceived a similar expression whenever he spoke of his residence. + +Perhaps it recalled happier days to enter such a nest. Perhaps it had +been such a home for a young couple that she had entered on her marriage +with Sir Scrope Camper, before he inherited his title and estates. + +The General was at a loss to conceive what it was. + +It recurred at another mention of his idea of the nature of the +residence. It was almost a paroxysm. He determined not to vex her +reminiscences again; and as this resolution directed his mind to his +residence, thinking it pre-eminently gentlemanly, his tongue committed +the error of repeating it, with 'gentleman-like' for a variation. + +Elizabeth was out--he knew not where. The housemaid informed him, that +Miss Elizabeth was out rowing on the water. + +'Is she alone?' Lady Camper inquired of him. + +'I fancy so,' the General replied. + +'The poor child has no mother.' + +'It has been a sad loss to us both, Lady Camper.' + +'No doubt. She is too pretty to go out alone.' + +'I can trust her.' + +'Girls!' + +'She has the spirit of a man.' + +'That is well. She has a spirit; it will be tried.' + +The General modestly furnished an instance or two of her spiritedness. + +Lady Camper seemed to like this theme; she looked graciously interested. + +'Still, you should not suffer her to go out alone,' she said. + +'I place implicit confidence in her,' said the General; and Lady Camper +gave it up. + +She proposed to walk down the lanes to the river-side, to meet Elizabeth +returning. + +The General manifested alacrity checked by reluctance. Lady Camper had +told him she objected to sit in a strange room by herself; after that, +he could hardly leave her to dash upstairs to change his clothes; yet +how, attired as he was, in a fatigue jacket, that warned him not to +imagine his back view, and held him constantly a little to the rear of +Lady Camper, lest she should be troubled by it;--and he knew the habit of +the second rank to criticise the front--how consent to face the outer +world in such style side by side with the lady he admired? + +'Come,' said she; and he shot forward a step, looking as if he had missed +fire. + +'Are you not coming, General?' + +He advanced mechanically. + +Not a soul met them down the lanes, except a little one, to whom Lady +Camper gave a small silver-piece, because she was a picture. + +The act of charity sank into the General's heart, as any pretty +performance will do upon a warm waxen bed. + +Lady Camper surprised him by answering his thoughts. 'No; it's for my +own pleasure.' + +Presently she said, 'Here they are.' + +General Ople beheld his daughter by the river-side at the end of the +lane, under escort of Mr. Reginald Rolles. + +It was another picture, and a pleasing one. The young lady and the young +gentleman wore boating hats, and were both dressed in white, and standing +by or just turning from the outrigger and light skiff they were about to +leave in charge of a waterman. Elizabeth stretched a finger at arm's- +length, issuing directions, which Mr. Rolles took up and worded further +to the man, for the sake of emphasis; and he, rather than Elizabeth, was +guilty of the half-start at sight of the persons who were approaching. + +'My nephew, you should know, is intended for a working soldier,' said +Lady Camper; 'I like that sort of soldier best.' + +General Ople drooped his shoulders at the personal compliment. + +She resumed. 'His pay is a matter of importance to him. You are aware +of the smallness of a subaltern's pay. + +'I,' said the General, 'I say I feel my poor half-pay, having always been +a working soldier myself, very important, I was saying, very important to +me!' + +'Why did you retire?' + +Her interest in him seemed promising. He replied conscientiously, +'Beyond the duties of General of Brigade, I could not, I say I could not, +dare to aspire; I can accept and execute orders; I shrink from +responsibility!' + +'It is a pity,' said she, 'that you were not, like my nephew Reginald, +entirely dependent on your profession.' + +She laid such stress on her remark, that the General, who had just +expressed a very modest estimate of his abilities, was unable to reject +the flattery of her assuming him to be a man of some fortune. He +coughed, and said, 'Very little.' The thought came to him that he might +have to make a statement to her in time, and he emphasized, 'Very little +indeed. Sufficient,' he assured her, 'for a gentlemanly appearance.' + +'I have given you your warning,' was her inscrutable rejoinder, uttered +within earshot of the young people, to whom, especially to Elizabeth, she +was gracious. The damsel's boating uniform was praised, and her sunny +flush of exercise and exposure. + +Lady Camper regretted that she could not abandon her parasol: 'I freckle +so easily.' + +The General, puzzling over her strange words about a warning, gazed at +the red rose of art on her cheek with an air of profound abstraction. + +'I freckle so easily,' she repeated, dropping her parasol to defend her +face from the calculating scrutiny. + +'I burn brown,' said Elizabeth. + +Lady Camper laid the bud of a Falcot rose against the young girl's cheek, +but fetched streams of colour, that overwhelmed the momentary comparison +of the sunswarthed skin with the rich dusky yellow of the rose in its +deepening inward to soft brown. + +Reginald stretched his hand for the privileged flower, and she let him +take it; then she looked at the General; but the General was looking, +with his usual air of satisfaction, nowhere. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +'Lady Camper is no common enigma,' General Ople observed to his daughter. + +Elizabeth inclined to be pleased with her, for at her suggestion the +General had bought a couple of horses, that she might ride in the park, +accompanied by her father or the little groom. Still, the great lady was +hard to read. She tested the resources of his income by all sorts of +instigation to expenditure, which his gallantry could not withstand; she +encouraged him to talk of his deeds in arms; she was friendly, almost +affectionate, and most bountiful in the presents of fruit, peaches, +nectarines, grapes, and hot-house wonders, that she showered on his +table; but she was an enigma in her evident dissatisfaction with him +for something he seemed to have left unsaid. And what could that be? + +At their last interview she had asked him, 'Are you sure, General, you +have nothing more to tell me?' + +And as he remarked, when relating it to Elizabeth, 'One might really be +tempted to misapprehend her ladyship's . . . I say one might commit +oneself beyond recovery. Now, my dear, what do you think she intended?' + +Elizabeth was 'burning brown,' or darkly blushing, as her manner was. + +She answered, 'I am certain you know of nothing that would interest her; +nothing, unless . . .' + +'Well?' the General urged her. + +'How can I speak it, papa?' + +'You really can't mean . . .' + +'Papa, what could I mean?' + +'If I were fool enough!' he murmured. 'No, no, I am an old man. I was +saying, I am past the age of folly.' + +One day Elizabeth came home from her ride in a thoughtful mood. She had +not, further than has been mentioned, incited her father to think of the +age of folly; but voluntarily or not, Lady Camper had, by an excess of +graciousness amounting to downright invitation; as thus, 'Will you +persist in withholding your confidence from me, General?' She added, 'I +am not so difficult a person.' These prompting speeches occurred on the +morning of the day when Elizabeth sat at his table, after a long ride +into the country, profoundly meditative. + +A note was handed to General Ople, with the request that he would step in +to speak with Lady Camper in the course of the evening, or next morning. +Elizabeth waited till his hat was on, then said, 'Papa, on my ride to- +day, I met Mr. Rolles.' + +'I am glad you had an agreeable escort, my dear.' + +'I could not refuse his company.' + +'Certainly not. And where did you ride?' + +'To a beautiful valley; and there we met . . ' + +'Her ladyship?' + +'Yes.' + +'She always admires you on horseback.' + +'So you know it, papa, if she should speak of it.' + +'And I am bound to tell you, my child,' said the General, 'that this +morning Lady Camper's manner to me was . . . if I were a fool . . . +I say, this morning I beat a retreat, but apparently she . . . I see +no way out of it, supposing she . . .' + +'I am sure she esteems you, dear papa,' said Elizabeth. 'You take to +her, my dear?' the General inquired anxiously; 'a little?--a little +afraid of her?' + +'A little,' Elizabeth replied, 'only a little.' + +'Don't be agitated about me.' + +'No, papa; you are sure to do right.' + +'But you are trembling.' + +'Oh! no. I wish you success.' + +General Ople was overjoyed to be reinforced by his daughter's good +wishes. He kissed her to thank her. He turned back to her to kiss her +again. She had greatly lightened the difficulty at least of a delicate +position. + +It was just like the imperious nature of Lady Camper to summon him in the +evening to terminate the conversation of the morning, from the visible +pitfall of which he had beaten a rather precipitate retreat. But if his +daughter cordially wished him success, and Lady Camper offered him the +crown of it, why then he had only to pluck up spirit, like a good +commander who has to pass a fordable river in the enemy's presence; a +dash, a splash, a rattling volley or two, and you are over, established +on the opposite bank. But you must be positive of victory, otherwise, +with the river behind you, your new position is likely to be ticklish. +So the General entered Lady Camper's drawing-room warily, watching the +fair enemy. He knew he was captivating, his old conquests whispered in +his ears, and her reception of him all but pointed to a footstool at her +feet. He might have fallen there at once, had he not remembered a hint +that Mr. Reginald Rolles had dropped concerning Lady Camper's amazing +variability. + +Lady Camper began. + +'General, you ran away from me this morning. Let me speak. And, by the +way, I must reproach you; you should not have left it to me. Things have +now gone so far that I cannot pretend to be blind. I know your feelings +as a father. Your daughter's happiness . . .' + +'My lady,' the General interposed, 'I have her distinct assurance that it +is, I say it is wrapt up in mine.' + +'Let me speak. Young people will say anything. Well, they have a +certain excuse for selfishness; we have not. I am in some degree bound +to my nephew; he is my sister's son.' + +'Assuredly, my lady. I would not stand in his light, be quite assured. +If I am, I was saying if I am not mistaken, I . . . and he is, or has +the making of an excellent soldier in him, and is likely to be a +distinguished cavalry officer.' + +'He has to carve his own way in the world, General.' + +'All good soldiers have, my lady. And if my position is not, after a +considerable term of service, I say if . . .' + +'To continue,' said Lady Camper: 'I never have liked early marriages. I +was married in my teens before I knew men. Now I do know them, and now . +. .' + +The General plunged forward: 'The honour you do us now:--a mature +experience is worth:--my dear Lady Camper, I have admired you:--and your +objection to early marriages cannot apply to . . . indeed, madam, +vigour, they say . . . though youth, of course . . . yet young +people, as you observe . . . and I have, though perhaps my reputation +is against it, I was saying I have a natural timidity with your sex, and +I am grey-headed, white-headed, but happily without a single malady.' + +Lady Camper's brows showed a trifling bewilderment. 'I am speaking of +these young people, General Ople.' + +'I consent to everything beforehand, my dear lady. He should be, I say +Mr. Rolles should be provided for.' + +'So should she, General, so should Elizabeth.' + +'She shall be, she will, dear madam. What I have, with your permission, +if--good heaven! Lady Camper, I scarcely know where I am. She would . . +. . I shall not like to lose her: you would not wish it. In time she +will . . . she has every quality of a good wife.' + +'There, stay there, and be intelligible,' said Lady Camper. 'She has +every quality. Money should be one of them. Has she money?' + +'Oh! my lady,' the General exclaimed, 'we shall not come upon your purse +when her time comes.' + +'Has she ten thousand pounds?' + +'Elizabeth? She will have, at her father's death . . . but as for my +income, it is moderate, and only sufficient to maintain a gentlemanly +appearance in proper self-respect. I make no show. I say I make no +show. A wealthy marriage is the last thing on earth I should have aimed +at. I prefer quiet and retirement. Personally, I mean. That is my +personal taste. But if the lady . . . . I say if it should happen that +the lady . . . . and indeed I am not one to press a suit: but if she who +distinguishes and honours me should chance to be wealthy, all I can do is +to leave her wealth at her disposal, and that I do: I do that +unreservedly. I feel I am very confused, alarmingly confused. Your +ladyship merits a superior . . . I trust I have not . . . I am +entirely at your ladyship's mercy.' + +'Are you prepared, if your daughter is asked in marriage, to settle ten +thousand pounds on her, General Ople?' + +The General collected himself. In his heart he thoroughly appreciated +the moral beauty of Lady Camper's extreme solicitude on behalf of his +daughter's provision; but he would have desired a postponement of that +and other material questions belonging to a distant future until his own +fate was decided. + +So he said: 'Your ladyship's generosity is very marked. I say it is very +marked.' + +'How, my good General Ople! how is it marked in any degree?' cried Lady +Camper. 'I am not generous. I don't pretend to be; and certainly I +don't want the young people to think me so. I want to be just. I have +assumed that you intend to be the same. Then will you do me the favour +to reply to me?' + +The General smiled winningly and intently, to show her that he prized +her, and would not let her escape his eulogies. + +'Marked, in this way, dear madam, that you think of my daughter's future +more than I. I say, more than her father himself does. I know I ought +to speak more warmly, I feel warmly. I was never an eloquent man, and +if you take me as a soldier, I am, as, I have ever been in the service, +I was saying I am Wilson Ople, of the grade of General, to be relied on +for executing orders; and, madam, you are Lady Camper, and you command +me. I cannot be more precise. In fact, it is the feeling of the +necessity for keeping close to the business that destroys what I would +say. I am in fact lamentably incompetent to conduct my own case.' + +Lady Camper left her chair. + +'Dear me, this is very strange, unless I am singularly in error,' she +said. + +The General now faintly guessed that he might be in error, for his part. + +But he had burned his ships, blown up his bridges; retreat could not be +thought of. + +He stood, his head bent and appealing to her sideface, like one +pleadingly in pursuit, and very deferentially, with a courteous +vehemence, he entreated first her ladyship's pardon for his presumption, +and then the gift of her ladyship's hand. + +As for his language, it was the tongue of General Ople. But his bearing +was fine. If his clipped white silken hair spoke of age, his figure +breathed manliness. He was a picture, and she loved pictures. + +For his own sake, she begged him to cease. She dreaded to hear of +something 'gentlemanly.' + +'This is a new idea to me, my dear General,' she said. 'You must give me +time. People at our age have to think of fitness. Of course, in a +sense, we are both free to do as we like. Perhaps I may be of some aid +to you. My preference is for absolute independence. And I wished to +talk of a different affair. Come to me tomorrow. Do not be hurt if I +decide that we had better remain as we are.' + +The General bowed. His efforts, and the wavering of the fair enemy's +flag, had inspired him with a positive re-awakening of masculine passion +to gain this fortress. He said well: 'I have, then, the happiness, +madam, of being allowed to hope until to-morrrow?' + +She replied, 'I would not deprive you of a moment of happiness. Bring +good sense with you when you do come.' + +The General asked eagerly, 'I have your ladyship's permission to come +early?' + +'Consult your happiness,' she answered; and if to his mind she seemed +returning to the state of enigma, it was on the whole deliciously. She +restored him his youth. He told Elizabeth that night; he really must +begin to think of marrying her to some worthy young fellow. 'Though,' +said he, with an air of frank intoxication, 'my opinion is, the young +ones are not so lively as the old in these days, or I should have been +besieged before now.' + +The exact substance of the interview he forbore to relate to his +inquisitive daughter, with a very honourable discretion. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +Elizabeth came riding home to breakfast from a gallop round the park, +and passing Lady Camper's gates, received the salutation of her parasol. +Lady Camper talked with her through the bars. There was not a sign to +tell of a change or twist in her neighbourly affability. She remarked +simply enough, that it was her nephew's habit to take early gallops, and +possibly Elizabeth might have seen him, for his quarters were proximate; +but she did not demand an answer. She had passed a rather restless +night, she said. 'How is the General?' + +'Papa must have slept soundly, for he usually calls to me through his +door when he hears I am up,' said Elizabeth. + +Lady Camper nodded kindly and walked on. + +Early in the morning General Ople was ready for battle. His forces were, +the anticipation of victory, a carefully arranged toilet, and an +unaccustomed spirit of enterprise in the realms of speech; for he was no +longer in such awe of Lady Camper. + +'You have slept well?' she inquired. + +'Excellently, my lady: + +'Yes, your daughter tells me she heard you, as she went by your door in +the morning for a ride to meet my nephew. You are, I shall assume, +prepared for business.' + +'Elizabeth? . . . to meet . . .?' General Ople's impression of +anything extraneous to his emotion was feeble and passed instantly. +'Prepared! Oh, certainly'; and he struck in a compliment on her +ladyship's fresh morning bloom. + +'It can hardly be visible,' she responded; 'I have not painted yet.' + +'Does your ladyship proceed to your painting in the very early morning?' + +'Rouge. I rouge.' + +'Dear me! I should not have supposed it.' + +'You have speculated on it very openly, General. I remember your trying +to see a freckle through the rouge; but the truth is, I am of a +supernatural paleness if I do not rouge, so I do. You understand, +therefore, I have a false complexion. Now to business.' + +'If your ladyship insists on calling it business. I have little to +offer--myself !' + +'You have a gentlemanly residence.' + +'It is, my lady, it is. It is a bijou.' + +'Ah!' Lady Camper sighed dejectedly. + +'It is a perfect bijou!' + +'Oblige me, General, by not pronouncing the French word as if you were +swearing by something in English, like a trooper.' + +General Ople started, admitted that the word was French, and apologized +for his pronunciation. Her variability was now visible over a corner of +the battlefield like a thunder-cloud. + +'The business we have to discuss concerns the young people, General.' + +'Yes,' brightened by this, he assented: 'Yes, dear Lady Camper; it is a +part of the business; it is a secondary part; it has to be discussed; I +say I subscribe beforehand. I may say, that honouring, esteeming you as +I do, and hoping ardently for your consent . . . . + +'They must have a home and an income, General.' + +'I presume, dearest lady, that Elizabeth will be welcome in your home. +I certainly shall never chase Reginald out of mine.' + +Lady Camper threw back her head. 'Then you are not yet awake, or you +practice the art of sleeping with open eyes! Now listen to me. I rouge, +I have told you. I like colour, and I do not like to see wrinkles or +have them seen. Therefore I rouge. I do not expect to deceive the world +so flagrantly as to my age, and you I would not deceive for a moment. I +am seventy.' + +The effect of this noble frankness on the General, was to raise him from +his chair in a sitting posture as if he had been blown up. + +Her countenance was inexorably imperturbable under his alternate blinking +and gazing that drew her close and shot her distant, like a mysterious +toy. + +'But,' said she, 'I am an artist; I dislike the look of extreme age, so I +conceal it as well as I can. You are very kind to fall in with the +deception: an innocent and, I think, a proper one, before the world, +though not to the gentleman who does me the honour to propose to me for +my hand. You desire to settle our business first. You esteem me; I +suppose you mean as much as young people mean when they say they love. +Do you? Let us come to an understanding.' + +'I can,' the melancholy General gasped, 'I say I can--I cannot--I cannot +credit your ladyship's . . .' + +'You are at liberty to call me Angela.' + +'Ange . . .' he tried it, and in shame relapsed. 'Madam, yes. +Thanks.' + +'Ah,' cried Lady Camper, 'do not use these vulgar contractions of decent +speech in my presence. I abhor the word "thanks." It is fit for +fribbles.' + +'Dear me, I have used it all my life,' groaned the General. + +'Then, for the remainder, be it understood that you renounce it. To +continue, my age is . . .' + +'Oh, impossible, impossible,' the General almost wailed; there was really +a crack in his voice. + +'Advancing to seventy. But, like you, I am happy to say I have not a +malady. I bring no invalid frame to a union that necessitates the +leaving of the front door open day and night to the doctor. My belief +is, I could follow my husband still on a campaign, if he were a warrior +instead of a pensioner.' + +General Ople winced. + +He was about to say humbly, 'As General of Brigade . . .' + +'Yes, yes, you want a commanding officer, and that I have seen, and that +has caused me to meditate on your proposal,' she interrupted him; while +he, studying her countenance hard, with the painful aspect of a youth who +lashes a donkey memory in an examination by word of mouth, attempted to +marshal her signs of younger years against her awful confession of the +extremely ancient, the witheringly ancient. But for the manifest rouge, +manifest in spite of her declaration that she had not yet that morning +proceeded to her paintbrush, he would have thrown down his glove to +challenge her on the subject of her age. She had actually charms. Her +mouth had a charm; her eyes were lively; her figure, mature if you like, +was at least full and good; she stood upright, she had a queenly seat. +His mental ejaculation was, 'What a wonderful constitution!' + +By a lapse of politeness, he repeated it to himself half aloud; he was +shockingly nervous. + +'Yes, I have finer health than many a younger woman,' she said. 'An +ordinary calculation would give me twenty good years to come. I am a +widow, as you know. And, by the way, you have a leaning for widows. +Have you not? I thought I had heard of a widow Barcop in this parish. +Do not protest. I assure you I am a stranger to jealousy. My income +. . .' + +The General raised his hands. + +'Well, then,' said the cool and self-contained lady, 'before I go +farther, I may ask you, knowing what you have forced me to confess, are +you still of the same mind as to marriage? And one moment, General. I +promise you most sincerely that your withdrawing a step shall not, as far +as it touches me, affect my neighbourly and friendly sentiments; not in +any degree. Shall we be as we were?' + +Lady Camper extended her delicate hand to him. + +He took it respectfully, inspected the aristocratic and unshrunken +fingers, and kissing them, said, 'I never withdraw from a position, +unless I am beaten back. Lady Camper, I . . .' + +'My name is Angela.' + +The General tried again: he could not utter the name. + +To call a lady of seventy Angela is difficult in itself. It is, it +seems, thrice difficult in the way of courtship. + +'Angela!' said she. + +'Yes. I say, there is not a more beautiful female name, dear Lady +Camper.' + +'Spare me that word "female" as long as you live. Address me by that +name, if you please.' + +The General smiled. The smile was meant for propitiation and sweetness. +It became a brazen smile. + +'Unless you wish to step back,' said she. + +'Indeed, no. I am happy, Lady Camper. My life is yours. I say, my life +is devoted to you, dear madam.' + +'Angela!' + +General Ople was blushingly delivered of the name. + +'That will do,' said she. 'And as I think it possible one may be admired +too much as an artist, I must request you to keep my number of years a +secret.' + +'To the death, madam,' said the General. + +'And now we will take a turn in the garden, Wilson Ople. And beware of +one thing, for a commencement, for you are full of weeds, and I mean to +pluck out a few: never call any place a gentlemanly residence in my +hearing, nor let it come to my ears that you have been using the phrase +elsewhere. Don't express astonishment. At present it is enough that I +dislike it. But this only,' Lady Camper added, 'this only if it is not +your intention to withdraw from your position.' + +'Madam, my lady, I was saying--hem!--Angela, I could not wish to +withdraw.' + +Lady Camper leaned with some pressure on his arm, observing, 'You have a +curious attachment to antiquities.' + +'My dear lady, it is your mind; I say, it is your mind: I was saying, +I am in love with your mind,' the General endeavoured to assure her, and +himself too. + +'Or is it my powers as an artist?' + +'Your mind, your extraordinary powers of mind.' + +'Well,' said Lady Camper, 'a veteran General of Brigade is as good a +crutch as a childless old grannam can have.' + +And as a crutch, General Ople, parading her grounds with the aged woman, +found himself used and treated. + +The accuracy of his perceptions might be questioned. He was like a man +stunned by some great tropical fruit, which responds to the longing of +his eyes by falling on his head; but it appeared to him, that she +increased in bitterness at every step they took, as if determined to make +him realize her wrinkles. + +He was even so inconsequent, or so little recognized his position, as to +object in his heart to hear himself called Wilson. + +It is true that she uttered Wilsonople as if the names formed one word. +And on a second occasion (when he inclined to feel hurt) she remarked, +'I fear me, Wilsonople, if we are to speak plainly, thou art but a fool.' +He, perhaps, naturally objected to that. He was, however, giddy, and +barely knew. + +Yet once more the magical woman changed. All semblance of harshness, and +harridan-like spike-tonguedness vanished when she said adieu. + +The astronomer, looking at the crusty jag and scoria of the magnified +moon through his telescope, and again with naked eyes at the soft-beaming +moon, when the crater-ridges are faint as eyebrow-pencillings, has a +similar sharp alternation of prospect to that which mystified General +Ople. + +But between watching an orb that is only variable at our caprice, and +contemplating a woman who shifts and quivers ever with her own, how vast +the difference! + +And consider that this woman is about to be one's wife! He could have +believed (if he had not known full surely that such things are not) he +was in the hands of a witch. + +Lady Camper's 'adieu' was perfectly beautiful--a kind, cordial, intimate, +above all, to satisfy his present craving, it was a lady-like adieu--the +adieu of a delicate and elegant woman, who had hardly left her anchorage +by forty to sail into the fifties. + +Alas! he had her word for it, that she was not less than seventy. And, +worse, she had betrayed most melancholy signs of sourness and agedness +as soon as he had sworn himself to her fast and fixed. + +'The road is open to you to retreat,' were her last words. + +'My road,' he answered gallantly, 'is forward.' + +He was drawing backward as he said it, and something provoked her to +smile. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +It is a noble thing to say that your road is forward, and it befits a man +of battles. General Ople was too loyal a gentleman to think of any other +road. Still, albeit not gifted with imagination, he could not avoid the +feeling that he had set his face to Winter. He found himself suddenly +walking straight into the heart of Winter, and a nipping Winter. For her +ladyship had proved acutely nipping. His little customary phrases, to +which Lady Camper objected, he could see no harm in whatever. Conversing +with her in the privacy of domestic life would never be the flowing +business that it is for other men. It would demand perpetual vigilance, +hop, skip, jump, flounderings, and apologies. + +This was not a pleasing prospect. + +On the other hand, she was the niece of an earl. She was wealthy. She +might be an excellent friend to Elizabeth; and she could be, when she +liked, both commandingly and bewitchingly ladylike. + +Good! But he was a General Officer of not more than fifty-five, in his +full vigour, and she a woman of seventy! + +The prospect was bleak. It resembled an outlook on the steppes. In +point of the discipline he was to expect, he might be compared to a raw +recruit, and in his own home! + +However, she was a woman of mind. One would be proud of her. + +But did he know the worst of her? A dreadful presentiment, that he did +not know the worst of her, rolled an ocean of gloom upon General Ople, +striking out one solitary thought in the obscurity, namely, that he was +about to receive punishment for retiring from active service to a life of +ease at a comparatively early age, when still in marching trim. And the +shadow of the thought was, that he deserved the punishment! + +He was in his garden with the dawn. Hard exercise is the best of opiates +for dismal reflections. The General discomposed his daughter by offering +to accompany her on her morning ride before breakfast. She considered +that it would fatigue him. 'I am not a man of eighty!' he cried. He +could have wished he had been. + +He led the way to the park, where they soon had sight of young Rolles, +who checked his horse and spied them like a vedette, but, perceiving that +he had been seen, came cantering, and hailing the General with hearty +wonderment. + +'And what's this the world says, General?' said he. 'But we all applaud +your taste. My aunt Angela was the handsomest woman of her time.' + +The General murmured in confusion, 'Dear me!' and looked at the young +man, thinking that he could not have known the time. + +'Is all arranged, my dear General?' + +'Nothing is arranged, and I beg--I say I beg . . . I came out for +fresh air and pace.'.. + +The General rode frantically. + +In spite of the fresh air, he was unable to eat at breakfast. He was +bound, of course, to present himself to Lady Camper, in common civility, +immediately after it. + +And first, what were the phrases he had to avoid uttering in her +presence? He could remember only the 'gentlemanly residence.' And it +was a gentlemanly residence, he thought as he took leave of it. It was +one, neatly named to fit the place. Lady Camper is indeed a most +eccentric person! he decided from his experience of her. + +He was rather astonished that young Rolles should have spoken so coolly +of his aunt's leaning to matrimony; but perhaps her exact age was unknown +to the younger members of her family. + +This idea refreshed him by suggesting the extremely honourable nature of +Lady Camper's uncomfortable confession. + +He himself had an uncomfortable confession to make. He would have to +speak of his income. He was living up to the edges of it. + +She is an upright woman, and I must be the same! he said, fortunately not +in her hearing. + +The subject was disagreeable to a man sensitive on the topic of money, +and feeling that his prudence had recently been misled to keep up +appearances. + +Lady Camper was in her garden, reclining under her parasol. A chair was +beside her, to which, acknowledging the salutation of her suitor, she +waved him. + +'You have met my nephew Reginald this morning, General?' + +'Curiously, in the park, this morning, before breakfast, I did, yes. +Hem! I, I say I did meet him. Has your ladyship seen him?' + +'No. The park is very pretty in the early morning.' + +'Sweetly pretty.' + +Lady Camper raised her head, and with the mildness of assured +dictatorship, pronounced: 'Never say that before me.' + +'I submit, my lady,' said the poor scourged man. + +'Why, naturally you do. Vulgar phrases have to be endured, except when +our intimates are guilty, and then we are not merely offended, we are +compromised by them. You are still of the mind in which you left me +yesterday? You are one day older. But I warn you, so am I.' + +'Yes, my lady, we cannot, I say we cannot check time. Decidedly of the +same mind. Quite so.' + +'Oblige me by never saying "Quite so." My lawyer says it. It reeks of +the City of London. And do not look so miserable.' + +'I, madam? my dear lady!' the General flashed out in a radiance that +dulled instantly. + +'Well,' said she cheerfully, 'and you're for the old woman?' + +'For Lady Camper.' + +'You are seductive in your flatteries, General. Well, then, we have to +speak of business.' + +'My affairs----' General Ople was beginning, with perturbed forehead; but +Lady Camper held up her finger. + +'We will touch on your affairs incidentally. Now listen to me, and do +not exclaim until I have finished. You know that these two young ones +have been whispering over the wall for some months. They have been +meeting on the river and in the park habitually, apparently with your +consent.' + +'My lady!' + +'I did not say with your connivance.' + +'You mean my daughter Elizabeth?' + +'And my nephew Reginald. We have named them, if that advances us. Now, +the end of such meetings is marriage, and the sooner the better, if they +are to continue. I would rather they should not; I do not hold it good +for young soldiers to marry. But if they do, it is very certain that +their pay will not support a family; and in a marriage of two healthy +young people, we have to assume the existence of the family. You have +allowed matters to go so far that the boy is hot in love; I suppose the +girl is, too. She is a nice girl. I do not object to her personally. +But I insist that a settlement be made on her before I give my nephew one +penny. Hear me out, for I am not fond of business, and shall be glad to +have done with these explanations. Reginald has nothing of his own. He +is my sister's son, and I loved her, and rather like the boy. He has at +present four hundred a year from me. I will double it, on the condition +that you at once make over ten thousand--not less; and let it be yes or +no!--to be settled on your daughter and go to her children, independent +of the husband--cela va sans dire. Now you may speak, General.' + +The General spoke, with breath fetched from the deeps: + +'Ten thousand pounds! Hem! Ten! Hem, frankly--ten, my lady! One's +income--I am quite taken by surprise. I say Elizabeth's conduct--though, +poor child! it is natural to her to seek a mate, I mean, to accept a +mate and an establishment, and Reginald is a very hopeful fellow--I was +saying, they jump on me out of an ambush, and I wish them every +happiness. And she is an ardent soldier, and a soldier she must marry. +But ten thousand!' + +'It is to secure the happiness of your daughter, General.' + +'Pounds! my lady. It would rather cripple me.' + +'You would have my house, General; you would have the moiety, as the +lawyers say, of my purse; you would have horses, carriages, servants; I +do not divine what more you would wish to have.' + +'But, madam--a pensioner on the Government! I can look back on past +services, I say old services, and I accept my position. But, madam, a +pensioner on my wife, bringing next to nothing to the common estate! I +fear my self-respect would, I say would . . .' + +'Well, and what would it do, General Ople?' + +'I was saying, my self-respect as my wife's pensioner, my lady. I could +not come to her empty-handed.' + +'Do you expect that I should be the person to settle money on your +daughter, to save her from mischances? A rakish husband, for example; +for Reginald is young, and no one can guess what will be made of him.' + +'Undoubtedly your ladyship is correct. We might try absence for the poor +girl. I have no female relation, but I could send her to the sea-side to +a lady-friend.' + +'General Ople, I forbid you, as you value my esteem, ever--and I repeat, +I forbid you ever--to afflict my ears with that phrase, "lady-friend!"' + +The General blinked in a state of insurgent humility. + +These incessant whippings could not but sting the humblest of men; and +'lady-friend,' he was sure, was a very common term, used, he was sure, +in the very best society. He had never heard Her Majesty speak at levees +of a lady-friend, but he was quite sure that she had one; and if so, what +could be the objection to her subjects mentioning it as a term to suit +their own circumstances? + +He was harassed and perplexed by old Lady Camper's treatment of him, and +he resolved not to call her Angela even upon supplication--not that day, +at least. + +She said, 'You will not need to bring property of any kind to the common +estate; I neither look for it nor desire it. The generous thing for you +to do would be to give your daughter all you have, and come to me.' + +'But, Lady Camper, if I denude myself or curtail my income--a man at his +wife's discretion, I was saying a man at his wife's mercy . . . !' + +General Ople was really forced, by his manly dignity, to make this +protest on its behalf. He did not see how he could have escaped doing +so; he was more an agent than a principal. 'My wife's mercy,' he said +again, but simply as a herald proclaiming superior orders. + +Lady Camper's brows were wrathful. A deep blood-crimson overcame the +rouge, and gave her a terrible stormy look. + +'The congress now ceases to sit, and the treaty is not concluded,' was +all she said. + +She rose, bowed to him, 'Good morning, General,' and turned her back. + +He sighed. He was a free man. But this could not be denied--whatever +the lady's age, she was a grand woman in her carriage, and when looking +angry, she had a queenlike aspect that raised her out of the reckoning of +time. + +So now he knew there was a worse behind what he had previously known. +He was precipitate in calling it the worst. 'Now,' said he to himself, +'I know the worst !' + +No man should ever say it. Least of all, one who has entered into +relations with an eccentric lady. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +Politeness required that General Ople should not appear to rejoice in his +dismissal as a suitor, and should at least make some show of holding +himself at the beck of a reconsidering mind. He was guilty of running up +to London early next day, and remaining absent until nightfall; and he +did the same on the two following days. When he presented himself at +Lady Camper's lodge-gates, the astonishing intelligence, that her +ladyship had departed for the Continent and Egypt gave him qualms of +remorse, which assumed a more definite shape in something like awe of her +triumphant constitution. He forbore to mention her age, for he was the +most honourable of men, but a habit of tea-table talkativeness impelled +him to say and repeat an idea that had visited him, to the effect, that +Lady Camper was one of those wonderful women who are comparable to +brilliant generals, and defend themselves from the siege of Time by +various aggressive movements. Fearful of not being understood, owing to +the rarity of the occasions when the squat plain squad of honest Saxon +regulars at his command were called upon to explain an idea, he re-cast +the sentence. But, as it happened that the regulars of his vocabulary +were not numerous, and not accustomed to work upon thoughts and images, +his repetitions rather succeeded in exposing the piece of knowledge he +had recently acquired than in making his meaning plainer. So we need not +marvel that his acquaintances should suppose him to be secretly aware of +an extreme degree in which Lady Camper was a veteran. + +General Ople entered into the gaieties of the neighbourhood once more, +and passed through the Winter cheerfully. In justice to him, however, +it should be said that to the intent dwelling of his mind upon Lady +Camper, and not to the festive life he led, was due his entire ignorance +of his daughter's unhappiness. She lived with him, and yet it was in +other houses he learnt that she was unhappy. After his last interview +with Lady Camper, he had informed Elizabeth of the ruinous and +preposterous amount of money demanded of him for a settlement upon her +and Elizabeth, like the girl of good sense that she was, had replied +immediately, 'It could not be thought of, papa.' + +He had spoken to Reginald likewise. The young man fell into a dramatic +tearing-of-hair and long-stride fury, not ill becoming an enamoured +dragoon. But he maintained that his aunt, though an eccentric, was a +cordially kind woman. He seemed to feel, if he did not partly hint, that +the General might have accepted Lady Camper's terms. The young officer +could no longer be welcome at Douro Lodge, so the General paid him a +morning call at his quarters, and was distressed to find him breakfasting +very late, tapping eggs that he forgot to open--one of the surest signs +of a young man downright and deep in love, as the General knew from +experience--and surrounded by uncut sporting journals of past weeks, +which dated from the day when his blow had struck him, as accurately as +the watch of the drowned man marks his minute. Lady Camper had gone to +Italy, and was in communication with her nephew: Reginald was not further +explicit. His legs were very prominent in his despair, and his fingers +frequently performed the part of blunt combs; consequently the General +was impressed by his passion for Elizabeth. The girl who, if she was +often meditative, always met his eyes with a smile, and quietly said +'Yes, papa,' and 'No, papa,' gave him little concern as to the state of +her feelings. Yet everybody said now that she was unhappy. Mrs. Barcop, +the widow, raised her voice above the rest. So attentive was she to +Elizabeth that the General had it kindly suggested to him, that some one +was courting him through his daughter. He gazed at the widow. Now she +was not much past thirty; and it was really singular--he could have +laughed--thinking of Mrs. Barcop set him persistently thinking of Lady +Camper. That is to say, his mad fancy reverted from the lady of perhaps +thirty-five to the lady of seventy. + +Such, thought he, is genius in a woman! Of his neighbours generally, +Mrs. Baerens, the wife of a German merchant, an exquisite player on the +pianoforte, was the most inclined to lead him to speak of Lady Camper. +She was a kind prattling woman, and was known to have been a governess +before her charms withdrew the gastronomic Gottfried Baerens from his +devotion to the well-served City club, where, as he exclaimed (ever +turning fondly to his wife as he vocalized the compliment), he had found +every necessity, every luxury, in life, 'as you cannot have dem out of +London--all save de female!' Mrs. Baerens, a lady of Teutonic +extraction, was distinguishable as of that sex; at least, she was not +masculine. She spoke with great respect of Lady Camper and her family, +and seemed to agree in the General's eulogies of Lady Camper's +constitution. Still he thought she eyed him strangely. + +One April morning the General received a letter with the Italian +postmark. Opening it with his usual calm and happy curiosity, he +perceived that it was composed of pen-and-ink drawings. And suddenly +his heart sank like a scuttled ship. He saw himself the victim of a +caricature. + +The first sketch had merely seemed picturesque, and he supposed it a +clever play of fancy by some travelling friend, or perhaps an actual +scene slightly exaggerated. Even on reading, 'A distant view of the city +of Wilsonople,' he was only slightly enlightened. His heart beat still +with befitting regularity. But the second and the third sketches +betrayed the terrible hand. The distant view of the city of Wilsonople +was fair with glittering domes, which, in the succeeding near view, +proved to have been soap-bubbles, for a place of extreme flatness, begirt +with crazy old-fashioned fortifications, was shown; and in the third +view, representing the interior, stood for sole place of habitation, a +sentry-box. + +Most minutely drawn, and, alas! with fearful accuracy, a military +gentleman in undress occupied the box. Not a doubt could exist as to the +person it was meant to be. + +The General tried hard to remain incredulous. He remembered too well who +had called him Wilsonople. + +But here was the extraordinary thing that sent him over the neighbourhood +canvassing for exclamations: on the fourth page was the outline of a +lovely feminine hand, holding a pen, as in the act of shading, and under +it these words: 'What I say is, I say I think it exceedingly unladylike.' + +Now consider the General's feelings when, turning to this fourth page, +having these very words in his mouth, as the accurate expression of his +thoughts, he discovered them written! + +An enemy who anticipates the actions of our mind, has a quality of the +malignant divine that may well inspire terror. The senses of General +Ople were struck by the aspect of a lurid Goddess, who penetrated him, +read him through, and had both power and will to expose and make him +ridiculous for ever. + +The loveliness of the hand, too, in a perplexing manner contested his +denunciation of her conduct. It was ladylike eminently, and it involved +him in a confused mixture of the moral and material, as great as young +people are known to feel when they make the attempt to separate them, in +one of their frenzies. + +With a petty bitter laugh he folded the letter, put it in his breast- +pocket, and sallied forth for a walk, chiefly to talk to himself about +it. But as it absorbed him entirely, he showed it to the rector, whom he +met, and what the rector said is of no consequence, for General Ople +listened to no remarks, calling in succession on the Pollingtons, the +Goslings, the Baerens, and others, early though it was, and the lords of +those houses absent amassing hoards; and to the ladies everywhere he +displayed the sketches he had received, observing, that Wilsonople meant +himself; and there he was, he said, pointing at the capped fellow in the +sentry-box, done unmistakably. The likeness indeed was remarkable. +'She is a woman of genius,' he ejaculated, with utter melancholy. Mrs. +Baerens, by the aid of a magnifying glass, assisted him to read a line +under the sentry-box, that he had taken for a mere trembling dash; it +ran, A gentlemanly residence. + +'What eyes she has!' the General exclaimed; 'I say it is miraculous what +eyes she has at her time of . . . I was saying, I should never have +known it was writing.' + +He sighed heavily. His shuddering sensitiveness to caricature was +increased by a certain evident dread of the hand which struck; the +knowing that he was absolutely bare to this woman, defenceless, open to +exposure in his little whims, foibles, tricks, incompetencies, in what +lay in his heart, and the words that would come to his tongue. He felt +like a man haunted. + +So deeply did he feel the blow, that people asked how it was that he +could be so foolish as to dance about assisting Lady Camper in her +efforts to make him ridiculous; he acted the parts of publisher and agent +for the fearful caricaturist. In truth, there was a strangely double +reason for his conduct; he danced about for sympathy, he had the +intensest craving for sympathy, but more than this, or quite as much, he +desired to have the powers of his enemy widely appreciated; in the first +place, that he might be excused to himself for wincing under them, and +secondly, because an awful admiration of her, that should be deepened by +a corresponding sentiment around him, helped him to enjoy luxurious +recollections of an hour when he was near making her his own--his own, +in the holy abstract contemplation of marriage, without realizing their +probable relative conditions after the ceremony. + +'I say, that is the very image of her ladyship's hand,' he was especially +fond of remarking, 'I say it is a beautiful hand.' + +He carried the letter in his pocket-book; and beginning to fancy that she +had done her worst, for he could not imagine an inventive malignity +capable of pursuing the theme, he spoke of her treatment of him with +compassionate regret, not badly assumed from being partly sincere. + +Two letters dated in France, the one Dijon, the other Fontainebleau, +arrived together; and as the General knew Lady Camper to be returning to +England, he expected that she was anxious to excuse herself to him. His +fingers were not so confident, for he tore one of the letters to open it. + +The City of Wilsonople was recognizable immediately. So likewise was the +sole inhabitant. + +General Ople's petty bitter laugh recurred, like a weak-chested patient's +cough in the shifting of our winds eastward. + +A faceless woman's shadow kneels on the ground near the sentry-box, +weeping. A faceless shadow of a young man on horseback is beheld +galloping toward a gulf. The sole inhabitant contemplates his largely +substantial full fleshed face and figure in a glass. + +Next, we see the standard of Great Britain furled; next, unfurled and +borne by a troop of shadows to the sentrybox. The officer within says, +'I say I should be very happy to carry it, but I cannot quit this +gentlemanly residence.' + +Next, the standard is shown assailed by popguns. Several of the shadows +are prostrate. 'I was saying, I assure you that nothing but this +gentlemanly residence prevents me from heading you,' says the gallant +officer. + +General Ople trembled with protestant indignation when he saw himself +reclining in a magnified sentry-box, while detachments of shadows hurry +to him to show him the standard of his country trailing in the dust; and +he is maliciously made to say, 'I dislike responsibility. I say I am a +fervent patriot, and very fond of my comforts, but I shun +responsibility.' + +The second letter contained scenes between Wilsonople and the Moon. + +He addresses her as his neighbour, and tells her of his triumphs over the +sex. + +He requests her to inform him whether she is a 'female,' that she may be +triumphed over. + +He hastens past her window on foot, with his head bent, just as the +General had been in the habit of walking. + +He drives a mouse-pony furiously by. + +He cuts down a tree, that she may peep through. + +Then, from the Moon's point of view, Wilsonople, a Silenus, is discerned +in an arm-chair winking at a couple too plainly pouting their lips for a +doubt of their intentions to be entertained. + +A fourth letter arrived, bearing date of Paris. This one illustrated +Wilsonople's courtship of the Moon, and ended with his 'saying,' in his +peculiar manner, 'In spite of her paint I could not have conceived her +age to be so enormous.' + +How break off his engagement with the Lady Moon? Consent to none of her +terms! + +Little used as he was to read behind a veil, acuteness of suffering +sharpened the General's intelligence to a degree that sustained him in +animated dialogue with each succeeding sketch, or poisoned arrow whirring +at him from the moment his eyes rested on it; and here are a few samples: + +'Wilsonople informs the Moon that she is "sweetly pretty." + +'He thanks her with "thanks" for a handsome piece of lunar green cheese. + +'He points to her, apparently telling some one, "my lady-friend." + +'He sneezes "Bijou! bijou! bijou!"' + +They were trifles, but they attacked his habits of speech; and he began +to grow more and more alarmingly absurd in each fresh caricature of his +person. + +He looked at himself as the malicious woman's hand had shaped him. It +was unjust; it was no resemblance--and yet it was! There was a corner of +likeness left that leavened the lump; henceforth he must walk abroad with +this distressing image of himself before his eyes, instead of the +satisfactory reflex of the man who had, and was happy in thinking that he +had, done mischief in his time. Such an end for a conquering man was too +pathetic. + +The General surprised himself talking to himself in something louder than +a hum at neighbours' dinner-tables. He looked about and noticed that +people were silently watching him. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +Lady Camper's return was the subject of speculation in the neighbourhood, +for most people thought she would cease to persecute the General with her +preposterous and unwarrantable pen-and-ink sketches when living so +closely proximate; and how he would behave was the question. Those who +made a hero of him were sure he would treat her with disdain. Others +were uncertain. He had been so severely hit that it seemed possible he +would not show much spirit. + +He, for his part, had come to entertain such dread of the post, that Lady +Camper's return relieved him of his morning apprehensions; and he would +have forgiven her, though he feared to see her, if only she had promised +to leave him in peace for the future. He feared to see her, because of +the too probable furnishing of fresh matter for her ladyship's hand. Of +course he could not avoid being seen by her, and that was a particular +misery. A gentlemanly humility, or demureness of aspect, when seen, +would, he hoped, disarm his enemy. It should, he thought. He had borne +unheard-of things. No one of his friends and acquaintances knew, they +could not know, what he had endured. It has caused him fits of +stammering. It had destroyed the composure of his gait. Elizabeth had +informed him that he talked to himself incessantly, and aloud. She, poor +child, looked pale too. She was evidently anxious about him. + +Young Rolles, whom he had met now and then, persisted in praising his +aunt's good heart. So, perhaps, having satiated her revenge, she might +now be inclined for peace, on the terms of distant civility. + +'Yes! poor Elizabeth!' sighed the General, in pity of the poor girl's +disappointment; 'poor Elizabeth! she little guesses what her father has +gone through. Poor child! I say, she hasn't an idea of my sufferings.' + +General Ople delivered his card at Lady Camper's lodgegates and escaped +to his residence in a state of prickly heat that required the brushing +of his hair with hard brushes for several minutes to comfort and +re-establish him. + +He had fallen to working in his garden, when Lady Camper's card was +brought to him an hour after the delivery of his own; a pleasing +promptitude, showing signs of repentance, and suggesting to the General +instantly some sharp sarcasms upon women, which he had come upon in +quotations in the papers and the pulpit, his two main sources of +information. + +Instead of handing back the card to the maid, he stuck it in his hat and +went on digging. + +The first of a series of letters containing shameless realistic +caricatures was handed to him the afternoon following. They came fast +and thick. Not a day's interval of grace was allowed. Niobe under the +shafts of Diana was hardly less violently and mortally assailed. The +deadliness of the attack lay in the ridicule of the daily habits of one +of the most sensitive of men, as to his personal appearance, and the +opinion of the world. He might have concealed the sketches, but he could +not have concealed the bruises, and people were perpetually asking the +unhappy General what he was saying, for he spoke to himself as if he were +repeating something to them for the tenth time. + +'I say,' said he, 'I say that for a lady, really an educated lady, to +sit, as she must--I was saying, she must have sat in an attic to have the +right view of me. And there you see--this is what she has done. This is +the last, this is the afternoon's delivery. Her ladyship has me +correctly as to costume, but I could not exhibit such a sketch to +ladies.' + +A back view of the General was displayed in his act of digging. + +'I say I could not allow ladies to see it,' he informed the gentlemen, +who were suffered to inspect it freely. + +'But you see, I have no means of escape; I am at her mercy from morning +to night,' the General said, with a quivering tongue, 'unless I stay at +home inside the house; and that is death to me, or unless I abandon the +place, and my lease; and I shall--I say, I shall find nowhere in England +for anything like the money or conveniences such a gent--a residence you +would call fit for a gentleman. I call it a bi . . . it is, in short, +a gem. But I shall have to go.' + +Young Rolles offered to expostulate with his aunt Angela. + +The General said, 'Tha . . . I thank you very much. I would not have her +ladyship suppose I am so susceptible. I hardly know,' he confessed +pitiably, 'what it is right to say, and what not--what not. I-I-I never +know when I am not looking a fool. I hurry from tree to tree to shun the +light. I am seriously affected in my appetite. I say, I shall have to +go.' + +Reginald gave him to understand that if he flew, the shafts would follow +him, for Lady Camper would never forgive his running away, and was quite +equal to publishing a book of the adventures of Wilsonople. + +Sunday afternoon, walking in the park with his daughter on his arm, +General Ople met Mr. Rolles. He saw that the young man and Elizabeth +were mortally pale, and as the very idea of wretchedness directed his +attention to himself, he addressed them conjointly on the subject of his +persecution, giving neither of them a chance of speaking until they were +constrained to part. + +A sketch was the consequence, in which a withered Cupid and a fading +Psyche were seen divided by Wilsonople, who keeps them forcibly asunder +with policeman's fists, while courteously and elegantly entreating them +to hear him. 'Meet,' he tells them, 'as often as you like, in my +company, so long as you listen to me'; and the pathos of his aspect makes +hungry demand for a sympathetic audience. + +Now, this, and not the series representing the martyrdom of the old +couple at Douro Lodge Gates, whose rigid frames bore witness to the close +packing of a gentlemanly residence, this was the sketch General Ople, in +his madness from the pursuing bite of the gadfly, handed about at Mrs. +Pollington's lawn-party. Some have said, that he should not have +betrayed his daughter; but it is reasonable to suppose he had no idea of +his daughter's being the Psyche. Or if he had, it was indistinct, owing +to the violence of his personal emotion. Assuming this to have been the +very sketch; he handed it to two or three ladies in turn, and was heard +to deliver himself at intervals in the following snatches: 'As you like, +my lady, as you like; strike, I say strike; I bear it; I say I bear it +. . . . If her ladyship is unforgiving, I say I am enduring . . . +I may go, I was saying I may go mad, but while I have my reason I walk +upright, I walk upright.' + +Mr. Pollington and certain City gentlemen hearing the poor General's +renewed soliloquies, were seized with disgust of Lady Camper's conduct, +and stoutly advised an application to the Law Courts. + +He gave ear to them abstractedly, but after pulling out the whole chapter +of the caricatures (which it seemed that he kept in a case of morocco +leather in his breast-pocket), showing them, with comments on them, and +observing, 'There will be more, there must be more, I say I am sure there +are things I do that her ladyship will discover and expose,' he declined +to seek redress or simple protection; and the miserable spectacle was +exhibited soon after of this courtly man listening to Mrs. Barcop on the +weather, and replying in acquiescence: 'It is hot.--If your ladyship will +only abstain from colours. Very hot as you say, madam,--I do not +complain of pen and ink, but I would rather escape colours. And I dare +say you find it hot too?' + +Mrs. Barcop shut her eyes and sighed over the wreck of a handsome +military officer. + +She asked him: 'What is your objection to colours?' + +His hand was at his breast-pocket immediately, as he said: 'Have you not +seen?'--though but a few minutes back he had shown her the contents of +the packet, including a hurried glance of the famous digging scene. + +By this time the entire district was in fervid sympathy with General +Ople. The ladies did not, as their lords did, proclaim astonishment +that a man should suffer a woman to goad him to a state of semi-lunacy; +but one or two confessed to their husbands, that it required a great +admiration of General Ople not to despise him, both for his +susceptibility and his patience. As for the men, they knew him to have +faced the balls in bellowing battle-strife; they knew him to have endured +privation, not only cold but downright want of food and drink--an almost +unimaginable horror to these brave daily feasters; so they could not +quite look on him in contempt; but his want of sense was offensive, and +still more so his submission to a scourging by a woman. Not one of them +would have deigned to feel it. Would they have allowed her to see that +she could sting them? They would have laughed at her. Or they would +have dragged her before a magistrate. + +It was a Sunday in early Summer when General Ople walked to morning +service, unaccompanied by Elizabeth, who was unwell. The church was of +the considerate old-fashioned order, with deaf square pews, permitting +the mind to abstract itself from the sermon, or wrestle at leisure with +the difficulties presented by the preacher, as General Ople often did, +feeling not a little in love with his sincere attentiveness for grappling +with the knotty point and partially allowing the struggle to be seen. + +The Church was, besides, a sanctuary for him. Hither his enemy did not +come. He had this one place of refuge, and he almost looked a happy man +again. + +He had passed into his hat and out of it, which he habitually did +standing, when who should walk up to within a couple of yards of him +but Lady Camper. Her pew was full of poor people, who made signs of +retiring. She signified to them that they were to sit, then quietly +took her seat among them, fronting the General across the aisle. + +During the sermon a low voice, sharp in contradistinction to the monotone +of the preacher's, was heard to repeat these words: 'I say I am not sure +I shall survive it.' Considerable muttering in the same quarter was +heard besides. + +After the customary ceremonious game, when all were free to move, of +nobody liking to move first, Lady Camper and a charity boy were the +persons who took the lead. But Lady Camper could not quit her pew, owing +to the sticking of the door. She smiled as with her pretty hand she +twice or thrice essayed to shake it open. General Ople strode to her +aid. He pulled the door, gave the shadow of a respectful bow, and no +doubt he would have withdrawn, had not Lady Camper, while acknowledging +the civility, placed her prayer-book in his hands to carry at her heels. +There was no choice for him. He made a sort of slipping dance back for +his hat, and followed her ladyship. All present being eager to witness +the spectacle, the passage of Lady Camper dragging the victim General +behind her was observed without a stir of the well-dressed members of the +congregation, until a desire overcame them to see how Lady Camper would +behave to her fish when she had him outside the sacred edifice. + +None could have imagined such a scene. Lady Camper was in her carriage; +General Ople was holding her prayer-book, hat in hand, at the carriage +step, and he looked as if he were toasting before the bars of a furnace; +for while he stood there, Lady Camper was rapidly pencilling outlines in +a small pocket sketchbook. There are dogs whose shyness is put to it to +endure human observation and a direct address to them, even on the part +of their masters; and these dear simple dogs wag tail and turn their +heads aside waveringly, as though to entreat you not to eye them and talk +to them so. General Ople, in the presence of the sketchbook, was much +like the nervous animal. He would fain have run away. He glanced at it, +and round about, and again at it, and at the heavens. Her ladyship's +cruelty, and his inexplicable submission to it, were witnessed of the +multitude. + +The General's friends walked very slowly. Lady Camper's carriage whirled +by, and the General came up with them, accosting them and himself +alternately. They asked him where Elizabeth was, and he replied, +'Poor child, yes! I am told she is pale, but I cannot, believe I am so +perfectly, I say so perfectly ridiculous, when I join the responses.' He +drew forth half a dozen sheets, and showed them sketches that Lady Camper +had taken in church, caricaturing him in the sitting down and the +standing up. She had torn them out of the book, and presented them to +him when driving off. 'I was saying, worship in the ordinary sense will +be interdicted to me if her ladyship . . .,' said the General, woefully +shuffling the sketch-paper sheets in which he figured. + +He made the following odd confession to Mr. and Mrs. Gosling on the +road:--that he had gone to his chest, and taken out his sword-belt to +measure his girth, and found himself thinner than when he left the +service, which had not been the case before his attendance at the last +levee of the foregoing season. So the deduction was obvious, that Lady +Camper had reduced him. She had reduced him as effectually as a +harassing siege. + +'But why do you pay attention to her? Why . . . !' exclaimed Mr. +Gosling, a gentleman of the City, whose roundness would have turned a +rifle-shot. + +'To allow her to wound you so seriously!' exclaimed Mrs. Gosling. + +'Madam, if she were my wife,' the General explained, 'I should feel it. +I say it is the fact of it; I feel it, if I appear so extremely +ridiculous to a human eye, to any one eye.' + +'To Lady Camper's eye.' + +He admitted it might be that. He had not thought of ascribing the +acuteness of his pain to the miserable image he presented in this +particular lady's eye. No; it really was true, curiously true: another +lady's eye might have transformed him to a pumpkin shape, exaggerated all +his foibles fifty-fold, and he, though not liking it, of course not, +would yet have preserved a certain manly equanimity. How was it Lady +Camper had such power over him?--a lady concealing seventy years with a +rouge-box or paint-pot! It was witchcraft in its worst character. He +had for six months at her bidding been actually living the life of a +beast, degraded in his own esteem; scorched by every laugh he heard; +running, pursued, overtaken, and as it were scored or branded, and then +let go for the process to be repeated. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +Our young barbarians have it all their own way with us when they fall +into love-liking; they lead us whither they please, and interest us in +their wishings, their weepings, and that fine performance, their +kissings. But when we see our veterans tottering to their fall, we +scarcely consent to their having a wish; as for a kiss, we halloo at them +if we discover them on a byway to the sacred grove where such things are +supposed to be done by the venerable. And this piece of rank injustice, +not to say impoliteness, is entirely because of an unsound opinion that +Nature is not in it, as though it were our esteem for Nature which caused +us to disrespect them. They, in truth, show her to us discreet, +civilized, in a decent moral aspect: vistas of real life, views of the +mind's eye, are opened by their touching little emotions; whereas those +bully youngsters who come bellowing at us and catch us by the senses +plainly prove either that we are no better than they, or that we give our +attention to Nature only when she makes us afraid of her. If we cared +for her, we should be up and after her reverentially in her sedater +steps, deeply studying her in her slower paces. She teaches them nothing +when they are whirling. Our closest instructors, the true philosophers-- +the story-tellers, in short-will learn in time that Nature is not of +necessity always roaring, and as soon as they do, the world may be said +to be enlightened. Meantime, in the contemplation of a pair of white +whiskers fluttering round a pair of manifestly painted cheeks, be assured +that Nature is in it: not that hectoring wanton--but let the young have +their fun. Let the superior interest of the passions of the aged be +conceded, and not a word shall be said against the young. + +If, then, Nature is in it, how has she been made active? The reason of +her launch upon this last adventure is, that she has perceived the person +who can supply the virtue known to her by experience to be wanting. +Thus, in the broader instance, many who have journeyed far down the road, +turn back to the worship of youth, which they have lost. Some are for +the graceful worldliness of wit, of which they have just share enough to +admire it. Some are captivated by hands that can wield the rod, which in +earlier days they escaped to their cost. In the case of General Ople, it +was partly her whippings of him, partly her penetration; her ability, +that sat so finely on a wealthy woman, her indifference to conventional +manners, that so well beseemed a nobly-born one, and more than all, her +correction of his little weaknesses and incompetencies, in spite of his +dislike of it, won him. He began to feel a sort of nibbling pleasure in +her grotesque sketches of his person; a tendency to recur to the old ones +while dreading the arrival of new. You hear old gentlemen speak fondly +of the swish; and they are not attached to pain, but the instrument +revives their feeling of youth; and General Ople half enjoyed, while +shrinking, Lady Camper's foregone outlines of him. For in the distance, +the whip's-end may look like a clinging caress instead of a stinging +flick. But this craven melting in his heart was rebuked by a very worthy +pride, that flew for support to the injury she had done to his devotions, +and the offence to the sacred edifice. After thinking over it, he +decided that he must quit his residence; and as it appeared to him in the +light of duty, he, with an unspoken anguish, commissioned the house-agent +of his town to sell his lease or let the house furnished, without further +parley. + +From the house-agent's shop he turned into the chemist's, for a tonic-- +a foolish proceeding, for he had received bracing enough in the blow he +had just dealt himself, but he had been cogitating on tonics recently, +imagining certain valiant effects of them, with visions of a former +careless happiness that they were likely to restore. So he requested to +have the tonic strong, and he took one glass of it over the counter. + +Fifteen minutes after the draught, he came in sight of his house, and +beholding it, he could have called it a gentlemanly residence aloud under +Lady Camper's windows, his insurgency was of such violence. He talked of +it incessantly, but forbore to tell Elizabeth, as she was looking pale, +the reason why its modest merits touched him so. He longed for the hour +of his next dose, and for a caricature to follow, that he might drink and +defy it. A caricature was really due to him, he thought; otherwise why +had he abandoned his bijou dwelling? Lady Camper, however, sent none. +He had to wait a fortnight before one came, and that was rather a +likeness, and a handsome likeness, except as regarded a certain +disorderliness in his dress, which he knew to be very unlike him. Still +it despatched him to the looking-glass, to bring that verifier of facts +in evidence against the sketch. While sitting there he heard the +housemaid's knock at the door, and the strange intelligence that his +daughter was with Lady Camper, and had left word that she hoped he would +not forget his engagement to go to Mrs. Baerens' lawn-party. + +The General jumped away from the glass, shouting at the absent Elizabeth +in a fit of wrath so foreign to him, that he returned hurriedly to have +another look at himself, and exclaimed at the pitch of his voice, 'I say +I attribute it to an indigestion of that tonic. Do you hear?' The +housemaid faintly answered outside the door that she did, alarming him, +for there seemed to be confusion somewhere. His hope was that no one +would mention Lady Camper's name, for the mere thought of her caused a +rush to his head. 'I believe I am in for a touch of apoplexy,' he said +to the rector, who greeted him, in advance of the ladies, on Mr. Baerens' +lawn. He said it smilingly, but wanting some show of sympathy, instead +of the whisper and meaningless hand at his clerical band, with which the +rector responded, he cried, 'Apoplexy,' and his friend seemed then to +understand, and disappeared among the ladies. + +Several of them surrounded the General, and one inquired whether the +series was being continued. He drew forth his pocket-book, handed her +the latest, and remarked on the gross injustice of it; for, as he +requested them to take note, her ladyship now sketched him as a person +inattentive to his dress, and he begged them to observe that she had +drawn him with his necktie hanging loose. 'And that, I say that has +never been known of me since I first entered society.' + +The ladies exchanged looks of profound concern; for the fact was, the +General had come without any necktie and any collar, and he appeared to +be unaware of the circumstance. The rector had told them, that in answer +to a hint he had dropped on the subject of neckties, General Ople +expressed a slight apprehension of apoplexy; but his careless or merely +partial observance of the laws of buttonment could have nothing to do +with such fears. They signified rather a disorder of the intelligence. +Elizabeth was condemned for leaving him to go about alone. The situation +was really most painful, for a word to so sensitive a man would drive him +away in shame and for good; and still, to let him parade the ground in +the state, compared with his natural self, of scarecrow, and with the +dreadful habit of talking to himself quite rageing, was a horrible +alternative. Mrs. Baerens at last directed her husband upon the General, +trembling as though she watched for the operations of a fish torpedo; and +other ladies shared her excessive anxiousness, for Mr. Baerens had the +manner and the look of artillery, and on this occasion carried a +surcharge of powder. + +The General bent his ear to Mr. Baerens, whose German-English and +repeated remark, 'I am to do it wid delicassy,' did not assist his +comprehension; and when he might have been enlightened, he was petrified +by seeing Lady Camper walk on the lawn with Elizabeth. The great lady +stood a moment beside Mrs. Baerens; she came straight over to him, +contemplating him in silence. + +Then she said, 'Your arm, General Ople,' and she made one circuit of the +lawn with him, barely speaking. + +At her request, he conducted her to her carriage. He took a seat beside +her, obediently. He felt that he was being sketched, and comported +himself like a child's flat man, that jumps at the pulling of a string. + +'Where have you left your girl, General?' + +Before he could rally his wits to answer the question, he was asked: + +'And what have you done with your necktie and collar?' + +He touched his throat. + +'I am rather nervous to-day, I forgot Elizabeth,' he said, sending his +fingers in a dotting run of wonderment round his neck. + +Lady Camper smiled with a triumphing humour on her close-drawn lips. + +The verified absence of necktie and collar seemed to be choking him. + +'Never mind, you have been abroad without them,' said Lady Camper, 'and +that is a victory for me. And you thought of Elizabeth first when I drew +your attention to it, and that is a victory for you. It is a very great +victory. Pray, do not be dismayed, General. You have a handsome +campaigning air. And no apologies, if you please; I like you well enough +as you are. There is my hand.' + +General Ople understood her last remark. He pressed the lady's hand in +silence, very nervously. + +'But do not shrug your head into your shoulders as if there were any +possibility of concealing the thunderingly evident,' said Lady Camper, +electrifying him, what with her cordial squeeze, her kind eyes, and her +singular language. 'You have omitted the collar. Well? The collar is +the fatal finishing touch in men's dress; it would make Apollo look +bourgeois.' + +Her hand was in his: and watching the play of her features, a spark +entered General Ople's brain, causing him, in forgetfulness of collar and +caricatures, to ejaculate, 'Seventy? Did your ladyship say seventy? +Utterly impossible! You trifle with me.' + +'We will talk when we are free of this accompaniment of carriage-wheels, +General,' said Lady Camper. + +'I will beg permission to go and fetch Elizabeth, madam.' + +'Rightly thought of. Fetch her in my carriage. And, by the way, Mrs. +Baerens was my old music-mistress, and is, I think, one year older than +I. She can tell you on which side of seventy I am.' + +'I shall not require to ask, my lady,' he said, sighing. + +'Then we will send the carriage for Elizabeth, and have it out together +at once. I am impatient; yes, General, impatient: for what?-- +forgiveness.' + +'Of me, my lady?' The General breathed profoundly. + +'Of whom else? Do you know what it is?-I don't think you do. You +English have the smallest experience of humanity. I mean this: to strike +so hard that, in the end, you soften your heart to the victim. Well, +that is my weakness. And we of our blood put no restraint on the blows +we strike when we think them wanted, so we are always overdoing it.' + +General Ople assisted Lady Camper to alight from the carriage, which was +forthwith despatched for Elizabeth. + +He prepared to listen to her with a disconnected smile of acute +attentiveness. + +She had changed. She spoke of money. Ten thousand pounds must be +settled on his daughter. 'And now,' said she, 'you will remember that +you are wanting a collar.' + +He acquiesced. He craved permission to retire for ten minutes. + +'Simplest of men! what will cover you?' she exclaimed, and peremptorily +bidding him sit down in the drawing-room, she took one of the famous pair +of pistols in her hand, and said, 'If I put myself in a similar position, +and make myself decodletee too, will that satisfy you? You see these +murderous weapons. Well, I am a coward. I dread fire-arms. They are +laid there to impose on the world, and I believe they do. They have +imposed on you. Now, you would never think of pretending to a moral +quality you do not possess. But, silly, simple man that you are! You +can give yourself the airs of wealth, buy horses to conceal your +nakedness, and when you are taken upon the standard of your apparent +income, you would rather seem to be beating a miserly retreat than behave +frankly and honestly. I have a little overstated it, but I am near the +mark.' + +'Your ladyship wanting courage!' cried the General. + +'Refresh yourself by meditating on it,' said she. 'And to prove it to +you, I was glad to take this house when I knew I was to have a gallant +gentleman for a neighbour. No visitors will be admitted, General Ople, +so you are bare-throated only to me: sit quietly. One day you speculated +on the paint in my cheeks for the space of a minute and a half:--I had +said that I freckled easily. Your look signified that you really could +not detect a single freckle for the paint. I forgave you, or I did not. +But when I found you, on closer acquaintance, as indifferent to your +daughter's happiness as you had been to her reputation . . .' + +'My daughter! her reputation! her happiness !' + +General Ople raised his eyes under a wave, half uttering the outcries. + +'So indifferent to her reputation, that you allowed a young man to talk +with her over the wall, and meet her by appointment: so reckless of the +girl's happiness, that when I tried to bring you to a treaty, on her +behalf, you could not be dragged from thinking of yourself and your own +affair. When I found that, perhaps I was predisposed to give you some of +what my sisters used to call my spice. You would not honestly state the +proportions of your income, and you affected to be faithful to the woman +of seventy. Most preposterous! Could any caricature of mine exceed in +grotesqueness your sketch of yourself? You are a brave and a generous +man all the same: and I suspect it is more hoodwinking than egotism--or +extreme egotism--that blinds you. A certain amount you must have to be a +man. You did not like my paint, still less did you like my sincerity; +you were annoyed by my corrections of your habits of speech; you were +horrified by the age of seventy, and you were credulous--General Ople, +listen to me, and remember that you have no collar on--you were credulous +of my statement of my great age, or you chose to be so, or chose to seem +so, because I had brushed your cat's coat against the fur. And then, +full of yourself, not thinking of Elizabeth, but to withdraw in the +chivalrous attitude of the man true to his word to the old woman, only +stickling to bring a certain independence to the common stock, because-- +I quote you! and you have no collar on, mind--"you could not be at your +wife's mercy," you broke from your proposal on the money question. Where +was your consideration for Elizabeth then? + +'Well, General, you were fond of thinking of yourself, and I thought I +would assist you. I gave you plenty of subject matter. I will not say +I meant to work a homoeopathic cure. But if I drive you to forget your +collar, is it or is it not a triumph? + +'No,' added Lady Camper, 'it is no triumph for me, but it is one for you, +if you like to make the most of it. Your fault has been to quit active +service, General, and love your ease too well. It is the fault of your +countrymen. You must get a militia regiment, or inspectorship of +militia. You are ten times the man in exercise. Why, do you mean to +tell me that you would have cared for those drawings of mine when +marching?' + +'I think so, I say I think so,' remarked the General seriously. + +'I doubt it,' said she. 'But to the point; here comes Elizabeth. If you +have not much money to spare for her, according to your prudent +calculation, reflect how this money has enfeebled you and reduced you to +the level of the people round about us here--who are, what? Inhabitants +of gentlemanly residences, yes! But what kind of creature? They have no +mental standard, no moral aim, no native chivalry. You were rapidly +becoming one of them, only, fortunately for you, you were sensitive to +ridicule.' + +'Elizabeth shall have half my money settled on her,' said the General; +'though I fear it is not much. And if I can find occupation, my lady...' + +'Something worthier than that,' said Lady Camper, pencilling outlines +rapidly on the margin of a book, and he saw himself lashing a pony; 'or +that,' and he was plucking at a cabbage; 'or that,' and he was bowing to +three petticoated posts. + +'The likeness is exact,' General Ople groaned. + +'So you may suppose I have studied you,' said she. 'But there is no real +likeness. Slight exaggerations do more harm to truth than reckless +violations of it. + +You would not have cared one bit for a caricature, if you had not nursed +the absurd idea of being one of our conquerors. It is the very tragedy +of modesty for a man like you to have such notions, my poor dear good +friend. The modest are the most easily intoxicated when they sip at +vanity. And reflect whether you have not been intoxicated, for these +young people have been wretched, and you have not observed it, though one +of them was living with you, and is the child you love. There, I have +done. Pray show a good face to Elizabeth.' + +The General obeyed as well as he could. He felt very like a sheep that +has come from a shearing, and when released he wished to run away. But +hardly had he escaped before he had a desire for the renewal of the +operation. 'She sees me through, she sees me through,' he was heard +saying to himself, and in the end he taught himself, to say it with a +secret exultation, for as it was on her part an extraordinary piece of +insight to see him through, it struck him that in acknowledging the truth +of it, he made a discovery of new powers in human nature. + +General Ople studied Lady Camper diligently for fresh proofs of her +penetration of the mysteries in his bosom; by which means, as it happened +that she was diligently observing the two betrothed young ones, he began +to watch them likewise, and took a pleasure in the sight. Their +meetings, their partings, their rides out and home furnished him themes +of converse. He soon had enough to talk of, and previously, as he +remembered, he had never sustained a conversation of any length with +composure and the beneficent sense of fulness. Five thousand pounds, to +which sum Lady Camper reduced her stipulation for Elizabeth's dowry, he +signed over to his dear girl gladly, and came out with the confession to +her ladyship that a well-invested twelve thousand comprised his fortune. +She shrugged she had left off pulling him this way and that, so his +chains were enjoyable, and he said to himself: 'If ever she should in the +dead of night want a man to defend her!' He mentioned it to Reginald, +who had been the repository of Elizabeth's lamentations about her father +being left alone, forsaken, and the young man conceived a scheme for +causing his aunt's great bell to be rung at midnight, which would +certainly have led to a dramatic issue and the happy re-establishment of +our masculine ascendancy at the close of this history. But he forgot it +in his bridegroom's delight, until he was making his miserable official +speech at the wedding-breakfast, and set Elizabeth winking over a tear. +As she stood in the hall ready to depart, a great van was observed in the +road at the gates of Douro Lodge; and this, the men in custody declared +to contain the goods and knick-knacks of the people who had taken the +house furnished for a year, and were coming in that very afternoon. + +'I remember, I say now I remember, I had a notice,' the General said +cheerily to his troubled daughter. + +'But where are you to go, papa?' the poor girl cried, close on sobbing. + +'I shall get employment of some sort,' said he. 'I was saying I want it, +I need it, I require it.' + +'You are saying three times what once would have sufficed for,' said Lady +Camper, and she asked him a few questions, frowned with a smile, and +offered him a lodgement in his neighbour's house. + +'Really, dearest Aunt Angela?' said Elizabeth. + +'What else can I do, child? I have, it seems, driven him out of a +gentlemanly residence, and I must give him a ladylike one. True, I would +rather have had him at call, but as I have always wished for a policeman +in the house, I may as well be satisfied with a soldier.' + +'But if you lose your character, my lady?' said Reginald. + +'Then I must look to the General to restore it.' + +General Ople immediately bowed his head over Lady Camper's fingers. + +'An odd thing to happen to a woman of forty-one!' she said to her great +people, and they submitted with the best grace in the world, while the +General's ears tingled till he felt younger than Reginald. This, his +reflections ran, or it would be more correct to say waltzed, this is the +result of painting!--that you can believe a woman to be any age when her +cheeks are tinted! + +As for Lady Camper, she had been floated accidentally over the ridicule +of the bruit of a marriage at a time of life as terrible to her as her +fiction of seventy had been to General Ople; she resigned herself to let +things go with the tide. She had not been blissful in her first +marriage, she had abandoned the chase of an ideal man, and she had found +one who was tunable so as not to offend her ears, likely ever to be a +fund of amusement for her humour, good, impressible, and above all, very +picturesque. There is the secret of her, and of how it came to pass that +a simple man and a complex woman fell to union after the strangest +division. + + + + +ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS: + +Can believe a woman to be any age when her cheeks are tinted +Modest are the most easily intoxicated when they sip at vanity +Nature is not of necessity always roaring +Only to be described in the tongue of auctioneers +Respected the vegetable yet more than he esteemed the flower +She seems honest, and that is the most we can hope of girls +Spare me that word "female" as long as you live +The mildness of assured dictatorship +When we see our veterans tottering to their fall + + +[The End] + + + + +******************************************************************** +The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Case of General Opel, by Meredith +********This file should be named gm99v10.txt or gm99v10.zip******** + +Corrected EDITIONS of our etexts get a new NUMBER, gm99v11.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, gm99v10a.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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