When Philip Lancaster and Mr. Grant reached the landing at the head of
the stairs, they faced each other for a moment; and then, by mutual
impulse as it were, Grant tacitly extended, and Philip as tacitly
accepted, an invitation to enter the former’s room. The mind resembles
the heart in this, that it sometimes feels an instinctive and
unexplained desire for the society of another mind. Cold and
self-sufficient though the intellect is, it cannot always endure
solitude and the corrosion of its unimparted thoughts. Therefore some of
the most permanent, though not the most ardent friendships have been
between men whose ground of meeting was exclusively intellectual. But
men, for some reason, are not willing to admit this, and generally
disguise the fact by a plausible obtrusion of other motives. So Mr.
Grant, as he opened the door (after the tacit transaction
abovementioned), said, “Step in, Lancaster, and help me through with a
glass of that French cognac and water.”
“Thank you, I will,” Lancaster replied.
But when the tumblers were filled and tasted, and the liquor pronounced
good, nothing more was said for some minutes. At last Lancaster got up
from his chair and began to pace about the room.
“It could be worked up into a good story, that character of the Marquise
Desmoines,” he said; “at least as I conceive it. If I were a story
writer instead of a poet, I would attempt it. You would need the right
sort of a man to bring into collision with her. While I was abroad, I
knew a fellow who, I think, would do. Came of good English stock, and
had talent--perhaps genius. His father was a poor man, though of noble
descent. Gave his son a good early training, followed up by the
university curriculum, and then sent him abroad, with two or three
hundred a year income. We’ll call him Yorke. The fellow’s idea at that
time was to enter the Church; he had eloquence when he was moved, a good
presence, and a sort of natural benevolence or humanity, the result of a
healthy constitution and digestion, and radical ignorance of the
wickedness of this world. The truth probably was that his benevolence
was condescension, and his humanity, good nature. As for religion, he
looked at it from the poetical side, saw that it was susceptible of a
pleasant symbolism, that the theory of right and wrong gave plenty of
scope for the philosophical subtlety and profundity in which he imagined
himself proficient, and that all he would have to do, as the
professional representative of religious ideas, would be to preach
poetical sermons, be the expectancy and rose of his parishioners, the
glass of goodness and the mould of self-complacency. He thought
everybody would be led by him and glorify him, that his chief difficulty
would be to keep their piety within practical bounds; and that the devil
himself would go near to break his sinful old heart because he could not
be numbered among the disciples of so inspired a young prig. It was a
lovely conception, wasn’t it? but he never got so far with it as even to
experience its idiocy. His first bout with theological and
ecclesiastical lore was enough for him. He found himself the captive of
a prison house of dogmas, superstitions, and traditions, instead of the
lord of a palace of freedom, beauty and blank verse. If this was
religion, he was made for something better; and he began to look about
him in search of it. There were plenty of ideas masquerading about just
then in the guise of freedom, and flaring the penny-dip of nationality
in people’s faces; and this fellow--what’s his name?--Yorke, gave
courteous entertainment to several of them. A German university is as
good a place as another to indulge in that sort of dissipation.
Freedom--that was the word; the right of a man to exploit his nature
from the top to the bottom--and having arrived at the bottom, to sit
down there and talk about the top. He had two or three years of this,
and arrived at such proficiency that he could give a reason for
everything, especially for those things that suited his inclination of
the moment; and could prove to demonstration that the proper moral
attitude of man was heels in the air and head downward. But unluckily
human nature is not inexhaustible, at all events in the case of my
single individual. The prospect may be large enough, but he only walks
in such few paths as are comfortably accessible to him; and as time goes
on, his round of exercise gets more and more contracted, until at last
he does little more than turn round on one heel, in the muddiest corner
of the whole estate. As Yorke, owing perhaps to the superior intellect
and moral organization on which he prided himself, arrived at this
corner rather more speedily than the majority of his associates, he was
better able than they to recognize its muddiness: and since mud, _quâ_
mud, was not irresistibly delightful to him, and he was not as yet
inextricably embedded in it, he thought it worth while to try and get
out of it; and made shift tolerably well to do so, though no doubt
carrying plenty of stains along with him. All this time he had been
secretly giving way to attacks of poetry, more or less modeled upon the
Byron and Shelley plan. One day he took these scraps out of the
portfolio in which he had hidden them, read them over, thought there was
genius in them here and there, and made up his mind to be a great poet.
There are always poetasters enough; but of great poets, you know, there
are never so many as not to leave room for one or two more.”
“Here, then,” observed Mr. Grant, who had followed this history with
complete attention--indeed he was an excellent listener--“here, then,
you and Mr. Yorke were on sympathetic ground. It was probably at this
epoch that you formed his acquaintance.”
“I came to know him very well then, at all events,” replied Lancaster,
taking a sip from his tumbler, and then resuming his walk up and down
the room. “He had a curiously mixed character. It was difficult to help
liking him at first sight. He was handsome, cheerful, many-sided,
easy-natured; but though he loved his ease, both of mind and body, he
was capable on occasion of great physical or mental exertion. He was
more comprehensive than commanding; but perhaps he seemed less strong
than he really was, because he doubted the essential expediency or
virtue of any particular line of conduct; and would rather observe the
leadership of others than lead himself. He had great intuitive insight
into the moral constitution of other people, but was not so keen-eyed
toward his own structure; in considering an event, he had the habit of
taking it upon its artistic or symbolical side--it was a device to parry
the touch of realities. But often he allowed his imagination to get him
into real scrapes--imagine himself to be this or that person, for
instance, and act the character into actual consequences. He had a
quaint way with him, and shunned giving direct pain, or coming into
hostile collision with anybody; but the reason of that was, not the
generous humanity of a powerful spirit, but the knowledge of a secret
weakness that was in him, and a fear of revealing it. His weakness was a
passionate, violent temper, which, once he had given way to it, would
strip him of dignity and self-restraint, and uncover all manner of
hatreds, revenges, jealousies, burning envies, and remorseless
cruelties. There was nothing noble in his rage: it was underhand,
savage, and malignant. In fact, subtlety was at the very base of his
nature: so that he would constantly be secret and stealthy when there
was no reason for it: he would conceal a hundred things which he might
more conveniently to himself have left open; he would give a false
impression when he might more advantageously to himself have told the
truth; though I never met a man who could upon occasion speak the naked
truth more boldly and recklessly than he. I should say he was by
instinct and organization a coward, but a brave man by determination.
Back to a certain point he would yield and yield; but then he would leap
out and fight like a mad tiger. He was liable to wicked conceptions:
although, whether from constitution or caution, he commonly did what was
right, and did not like to be suspected of acts of which he secretly
knew himself either guilty or capable. In short, there was an ignoble,
treacherous region, underlying his visible and better character, which
he made use of that better character to disguise. The peril he stood in
was, lest the baser nature should get the upper hand; and if he was
saved from that, it was, I should say, by virtue of what may be called
his genius. It was his good genius in more senses than one. It filled
his imagination with lofty images: when his pen was in his hand no man
was more pure-minded, well-balanced and upright than he. In those moods
he was even reverential, which in practical affairs he never was. The
custom of those moods influenced him like association with good men and
women: or like some beneficent spell, which should suspend the action of
a poison until either it lost its virulence, or he had recovered
strength enough to disregard it. Have you heard enough about my friend
Yorke?”
In putting this abrupt question, Lancaster stopped as abruptly in his
walk, and fixed his eyes upon Mr. Grant, who lifted his face and met the
look thoughtfully.
“ ’Tis a portrait not devoid of life and substance, and does credit to
your discernment more than to your charity,” he replied. “But the
features are so true as to be in a measure typical; I have met men who
resembled him, and therefore I may modify your interpretation by my own.
With all his sensitiveness to rebuke and his fair-seeming, was he not a
man given to self-depreciation?”
“Sometimes--yes.”
“The issue of that kind of vanity which would simulate what is dark and
terrible, to make the hearers stare. He would not do the evil that he
uttered. Besides, he was aware of a certain softness or womanishness in
his nature, which his masculine taste condemned, and which he sought to
rectify at least in words.”
“But that would show a fear to let the truth about himself be known.”
“Aye; and a moral indifference to ill repute. On the other hand, I doubt
not he often sinned in thought, when a physical or mental fastidiousness
withheld him from fixing his thought in action. As to his genius, I
grant you it was purgative to him; but less because it put him in noble
company than because it gave vent through the imagination, and with
artistic balance, to the wickedness which might else have forced a less
harmless outlet. You say his general bearing was genial?”
“Yes; but his bearing was often much pleasanter than his feelings. He
disliked to say or hear ugly words; though he could write savage
letters, and could imagine himself being very stern in intercourse; but
when he came to the point, he was apt to sweeten off--more, I think,
from dread of being tempted to lose his temper than from natural
kindliness.”
“You judge him too harshly, because too minutely. Every human motive has
its shady side. He was a man--if I may hazard an opinion--who was never
so gay and good-humored as under specially trying or perilous
circumstances: upon slighter occasions he might be less agreeable.”
“You have chanced upon a truth there,” said Lancaster, apparently
somewhat impressed by his interlocutor’s sagacity. “We were once in a
boat together on the Lake of Geneva, and a storm put us in imminent
danger of our lives for a couple of hours. He was laughing and jesting
all the time--not cynically or mockingly, but from genuine
light-heartedness. Perhaps you can explain that?”
“No further than to remind you that great or dangerous crises burn the
pretense out of a man and leave him sincere: and then it will be known,
to others as well as to himself, whether he be brave or craven. In the
case of your friend Yorke, with his dread of being accused of fine
feelings, imminent peril would annul that dread, because he would
perceive that no one about him was likely to be in a state of mind
serene enough to be critical: therefore his self-consciousness would
leave him, and he would become his spontaneous self. The chief vice of
your friend seems to me, indeed, to be that same self-consciousness. He
would be for ever watching and speculating about himself. Pray, did you
consider him of a fickle disposition?”
“He has given many instances of it, both in mind and heart.”
“Nevertheless,” rejoined Mr. Grant, taking a pinch of snuff between his
fingers, and regarding Lancaster with a smile of quiet penetration,
“nevertheless I will wager that he was, at bottom, no more fickle than
you or I. His fickleness was of the surface merely; within, he was
perhaps more constant than most men.”
“You speak confidently, sir.”
“Nay, I am no conjuror, nor no dogmatist either. Your friend’s character
is, in reality, not quite so complex as it appears. What are its main
elements? Powerful imagination, independence, affability, love of
approbation, evidenced by the pride that veils it; a skeptical habit of
conversation, to conceal a perhaps too credulous faith, unweariable
spiritual curiosity, noble ideals; modesty, unless depreciated,
sensitiveness to beauty, and docility unless opposed. That enumeration
might be condensed, but let it pass. Here, then, we have a man open to
an unusual variety of impressions, and fond of experimenting on himself;
in the habit, therefore, of regarding himself as a third person. What
more probable than that such a man should imagine changes in his beliefs
or affections, and should amuse himself by acting as if those changes
were actual? Yet, when it came to some vital matter, his deeper-rooted
sense of right and justice would take the reins again, and curb the
vagaries of his fancy.”
“But it might happen,” said Lancaster, “that some person became involved
in this amusing experiment of his, who should mistake the experiment for
earnest. What would my friend’s sense of right and justice have to say
to that?”
“Nay, that lies between him and his conscience,” quoth Mr. Grant,
applying the pinch of snuff to his nostrils, “and you and I have no
concern with it.”
Lancaster took a couple of turns up and down the room, and then seated
himself in a chair at the opposite side of the table. “Enough about my
friend Yorke,” he said; “between your analysis and mine, he has grown
too big for his share in the story. What I intended was to bring him
into relations with a woman who should be a match for him: and this
Marquise Desmoines, as I conceive her, will answer the purpose as well
as another. Even while yet a girl at school, she had, as Marion’s
anecdote showed, the instinct of woman’s power and conquest. She had
already divided the human race into male and female, and had appraised
the weapons available on her side. She had perceived that the weak
point of woman is the heart, and was resolved to fence her own with
triple steel. To marry a rich foreign nobleman of more than thrice her
age was precisely her affair. She would have the world before her, as
well as at her feet. She was--I imagine her to have been--beautiful,
dimpled, luxurious, skeptical, and witty. She was energetic by nature,
selfish by philosophy, clever and worldly-wise by training. She could
appreciate you like a friend, rally you like a critic, flatter and
wheedle you like a mistress. She would caress you one moment, scoff at
you the next, and put you in the wrong be your argument what it might.
She could speak in double meaning, startle you, deceive you, and forgive
you. She was fond of intrigue for its own sake, fertile in resources and
expedients; she was willful and wayward from calculation, and dangerous
at all times. She was indolently despotic, fond of playing with her
sensations, and amusing herself with her passions. She was the heroine
of a hundred perilous anecdotes, which showed rather the audacity of
genius than commonplace impropriety. She could say with grace and charm
things that no other woman could say at all. She could assume a fatal
innocence and simplicity; and to have seen her blush was an
unforgettable experience in a man’s life. Physical exercise, especially
dancing and riding, were indispensable to her; her toilets, baths,
clothes, and equipment were ideals of luxury. She was superstitious,
because she believed in no religion; indifferent to inflicting
suffering, because never suffering herself; but she loved the pleasure
of pleasing, was kindly in disposition, mindful of benefits as well as
of injuries; and in her loftier moods she could be royally or savagely
generous, as well as fiercely implacable. She had a lawyer’s head for
business; was a better companion for men than for women; was even
capable of genuine friendship, and could give sound and honest advice:
and it was at such times that the real power and maturity of her
understanding were revealed. That is the sort of woman that the plot of
my story requires her to have been. When Yorke met her, she was the
Circe of a distinguished company of noblemen, authors, actors, artists,
abbés, soldiers, wits, and humorists; all of whom, by her magic, she
could cause to assume the forms of turkey-cocks, magpies, poodles,
monkeys, hogs, puppies, parrots, boa-constrictors, and other animals,
according to their several dispositions. But Yorke was the Ulysses upon
whom her spells had only so much effect as to incline him to spend most
of his time in her company.”
Here Lancaster paused, and drank off the remains of his tumbler of
brandy and water.
“Well?” said Mr. Grant, moving the bottle toward him.
“No more, thank you,” said Lancaster.
“You are not going to leave your drama just as the curtain is ready to
go up?”
“I have come to the end of my invention.”
“Ah! I should scarce have thought you had begun upon it, as yet,”
returned the other dryly.
Lancaster made no reply. At last Mr. Grant said, “Unless my genealogical
inferences are at fault, you and Sir Francis Bendibow should be of kin.”
“It is one of the impertinences of human society,” said Lancaster, with
a twitching of his eyebrows, “that whatever filibuster happens to marry
the sister of your father has a right to call you nephew. It might as
reasonably be decreed that because I happen to cut the throat of some
hook-nosed old money-lender, his women and children would have the right
to style themselves my cousins and aunts. That law might, to be sure,
prove a beneficial one, for it would do more than hanging to put a stop
to murder. But the other law makes marriage a nuisance, and one of these
days the nephews will arise and compel its repeal at the sword’s point.
Meanwhile I remain the baronet’s nephew and your humble servant.”
“You would abolish all but blood-relatives then?” said Mr. Grant,
resting his elbows on the arms of his chair and interlacing his fingers.
“I would have no buts; abolish the whole of them!” exclaimed
Lancaster--“even the rich uncles and the pretty cousins. Take a leaf
from the book of animals, and let each human creature stand on his own
basis and do the best he can with it. When I found a republic there
shall be no genealogies and no families. So long as they exist we shall
never know what we are really made of.”
“The Bendibow Bank is, however, a highly prosperous and trustworthy
concern?”
“You must get my uncle to sing its eulogies for you; I know nothing. But
I am of opinion that Miss Marion Lockhart has an intuition for detecting
humbugs. That Charles Grantley affair ... is none of mine. But Sir
Francis had two sides to him in his youth, and there may be some
passages in his account book that he would deprecate publishing.”
“Ah! I had contemplated calling at the bank to-morrow--”
“Oh, don’t interpret my prejudices and antipathies as counsel!”
interrupted the young man, throwing back his hair from his forehead and
smiling. “The bank is as sound as the Great Pyramid, I doubt not. Bless
your heart, everybody banks there! If they ruin you, you will have all
the best folks in London for your fellow-bankrupts. I’m afraid I’ve
bored you shamefully, but a little brandy goes a long way with me.”
“You have said nothing that has failed to interest me,” returned the old
gentleman courteously. “As you may conceive, I find myself somewhat
lonely. In twenty years such friends as may have been mine in England
have disappeared, and the circumstances in which those years have been
passed--in India--have precluded my finding others. At your age one can
afford to wish to abolish kindred, but by the time you have lived thirty
years longer you may understand how I would rather wish to create new
kindred in the place of those whom fate has abolished for me. Human
beings need one another, Mr. Lancaster. God has no other way of
ministering to us than through our fellow-creatures. I esteem myself
fortunate, therefore, in having met with yourself and with these kind
ladies. You cannot know me as the vanished friends I spoke of would know
me--my origin, my early life, my ambitions, my failures; but you can
know me as an inoffensive old gentleman whose ambition for the rest of
his life is to make himself agreeable to somebody. If you and I had been
young men together in London thirty years ago, doubtless we might have
found ourselves in accord on many points of speculation and philosophy
wherein now I should be disposed to challenge some of your conclusions.
But intellectual agreement is not the highest basis of friendship
between man and man. I, at all events, have been led by experience to
value men for what I think they are, more than for what they think they
are. I will make no other comment than that on the brilliant and
ingenious ... confidence, shall I call it?--with which you have honored
me to-night. If it should ever occur to you to present me to your friend
Yorke, under his true name, I am sure that I should enjoy his
acquaintance, and that I should recognize him from your description.
Perhaps he might be able to reinforce your invention as to the Marquise
Perdita. Well, well, I am detaining you. Good-night!”
Lancaster colored a little at the latter sentence and a cloud passed
over his face, but in another moment his eyebrows lifted with a smile.
“God knows what induces me to masquerade so,” he said. “I care to
conceal myself only from those who can see nothing on any terms--which
is certainly not your category. Let Yorke and Lancaster be one in
future. As for Perdita ... there goes twelve o’clock! I was startled at
hearing her name to-night; she has just returned to London in the
capacity of widow. It only needed that ... however, what is that to you?
Good-night.”
“Perdita, a pretty name, is it not?” said Mr. Grant musingly, as he
followed the other to the door. “It makes one hope there may be some
leaven of Shakspeare’s Perdita in her, after all.”
“ ’Tis an ominous name, though--too ominous in this case for even
Shakspeare to save it, I’m afraid,” returned Lancaster. With that he
went out and left Mr. Grant to his meditations.