It was the evening before the wedding. In a low long room that was dark
with black oak panelling, and gloomy, moreover, by reason of the
smallness of the ivy-framed casement at one end, which alone admitted
the daylight into it, Lord Seely sat before the hearth.
Although it was August there was a fire. There were few evenings of the
year when a fire was not agreeable at Long Fells; and one was certainly
agreeable on this especial evening. The day had been rainy. The whole
house seemed dark and damp. A few logs that had been laid on the top of
the coal fire sputtered and smoked drearily. My lord sat in a large
high-backed chair, which nearly hid his diminutive figure from view,
except on the side of the fireplace. His head was sunk on his breast;
his hands were plunged deep into his pockets; his legs were stretched
out towards the hearth; his whole attitude was undignified. It was such,
an attitude as few of his friends or acquaintances had ever seen him in,
for it was nearly impossible for Lord Seely to be unconscious or
careless of the effect he was producing in the presence of an observer.
He was now absorbed in thought, and was allowing his outer man to
express the nature of his musings. They were not pleasant musings, as
any spectator would at once have pronounced who should have seen his
posture, and his pursed mouth, and his eyebrows knitted anxiously under
the bald yellow forehead. The entrance even of a footman into the room
would have produced an instant change in Lord Seely's demeanour. But no
footman was there to see his lordship sunk in a brown study.
At length he raised his head and glanced out of the window. It had
ceased to rain, but the drops were still trickling down the window-panes
from the points of the ivy leaves; and it was already so dark that the
firelight began to throw fantastic shadows from the quaint old
furniture, and to shine with a dull red glow on the polished oak panels.
Lord Seely rang the bell.
"Has Mr. Errington returned?" he asked of the servant who appeared in
answer to the summons.
"Not yet, my lord."
"Tell them to beg Mr. Errington, with my compliments, to do me the
favour to step here before he dresses for dinner."
"Yes, my lord."
"Don't light that lamp! or, stay; yes, you may light it. Put the shade
over it, and place it behind me. Draw the curtains across the window.
Take care that my message is given to Mr. Errington directly he comes
home."
The servant withdrew. And Lord Seely, when he was left alone, began to
walk up and down the room with his hands behind him. Thus Algernon found
him when, in about ten minutes, he appeared, rosy and fresh from his
ride.
"I must apologise for my muddy condition," he cried gaily. "Pawkins and
I rode over to Applethwaite to get something for Castalia that was found
wanting at the last moment. And I am splashed to the eyebrows. But I
thought it best to come just as I was, as your lordship's message was
pressing."
"Thank you. I am much obliged to you, Ancram. It is not, in truth, that
there is any such immediate hurry for what I have to say, that it might
not have waited an hour or so; but I thought it likely that we might not
have so good an opportunity of speaking alone together."
Lord Seely seated himself once more in the high-backed chair, but in a
very different attitude from his former one. He was upright, majestic,
with one hand in his breast, and the other reclining on the arm of his
chair. But on his face might be read, by one who knew it well, traces of
trouble and of being ill at ease. Algernon read my lord's countenance
well enough. He stood leaning easily on the mantel-shelf, tapping his
splashed boot with his riding-whip, and looking down on Lord Seely with
an air of quiet expectation.
"I have been having a serious conversation with Castalia," said my lord,
after a preliminary clearing of his throat.
Algernon said, smilingly, "I hope you have not found it necessary to
scold her, my lord? The phrase, 'Having a serious conversation' with any
one, always suggests to my mind the administering of a reprimand."
"No, Ancram. No; I have not found it necessary to scold Castalia. I am
very much attached to her, and very anxious for her happiness. She is
the child of my favourite sister."
The old man's voice was not so firm as usual when he said this; and he
looked up at Algernon with an appealing look.
Algernon could be pleasant, genial, even affectionate in his manner--but
never tender. That was more than he could compass by any movement of
imitative sympathy. He had never even been able so to simulate
tenderness as to succeed in singing a pathetic song. Perhaps he had
learned that it was useless to make the attempt. At all events, he did
not now attempt to exhibit any answering tenderness to Lord Seely's look
and tone of unwonted feeling, in speaking of his dead sister's child.
His reply was hard, clear, and cheerful, as the chirp of a canary bird.
"I know you have always been extremely good to Castalia, my lord. We are
both of us very sensible of your kindness, and very much obliged by it."
"No, no," said my lord, waving his hand. "No, no, no. Castalia owes me
nothing. She has been to me almost as my own daughter. There can be no
talk of obligations between her and me."
Then he paused, for what appeared to be a long time. In the silence of
the room the damp logs hissed like whispering voices.
"Ancram," Lord Seely said at length, "Castalia is very much attached to
you."
"I assure you, my lord, I am very grateful to her."
"Ahem! Castalia's is not an expansive nature. She was, perhaps, too much
repressed and chilled in childhood, by living with uncongenial persons.
But she is responsive to kindness, and it develops her best qualities. I
will frankly own, that I am very anxious about her future. You will not
owe me a grudge for saying that much, Ancram?"
"I never owe grudges, my lord. But I trust you have no doubt of my
behaving with kindness to Castalia?"
"No, Ancram. No; I hope not. I believe not."
"I am glad of that; because--the doubt would come rather too late to be
of much use, would it not?"
Algernon spoke with his old bright smile; but two things were observable
throughout this interview. Firstly, that Algernon, though still
perfectly respectful, no longer addressed his senior with the winning,
cordial deference of manner which had so captivated Lord Seely in the
beginning of their acquaintance. Secondly, that Lord Seely appeared
conscious of some reason in the young man's mind for dissatisfaction,
and to be desirous of deprecating that dissatisfaction.
At the same time, there seemed to be in Lord Seely an undercurrent of
feeling struggling for expression. He had the air of a man who, knowing
himself to have right and reason on his side in the main, yet is aware
of a tender point in his case which an unscrupulous adversary will not
hesitate to touch, and which he nervously shrinks from having touched.
He winced at Algernon's last words, and answered rather hotly, "It would
be too late. Your insinuation is a just one. If I had any misgivings I
ought to have expressed them, and acted on them before. But the fact is
that this--the final arrangement of this marriage--took me in a great
measure by surprise."
"So it did me, my lord!"
Lord Seely had been gazing moodily at the fire. He now suddenly raised
his eyes and looked searchingly at Algernon. The young man's face wore
an expression of candid amusement. His arched eyebrows were lifted, and
he was smiling as unconcernedly as if the subject in hand touched
himself no jot.
"I give you my word," he continued lightly, "that when Lady Seely first
spoke to me about it, I was--oh, 'astonished' is no word to express what
I felt!"
A dark red flush came into Lord Seely's withered cheeks, and mounted to
his forehead. He dropped his eyes, and moved uneasily on his chair,
passing one hand through the tuft of grey hair that stood up above his
ear. Algernon went on, with an almost boyish frankness of manner:
"Of course, you know, I should hardly have ventured to aspire to such an
idea quite unassisted. And I believe I said something or other to my
lady--very stumblingly, I have no doubt, for I remember feeling very
much bewildered. I said some word about my being a poor devil with
nothing in the world to offer to a lady in Miss Kilfinane's
position--except, of course, my undying devotion. Only one cannot live
altogether on that. But Lady Seely was very sanguine, and saw no
difficulties. She said it could be managed. And she was right, you see.
Where there's a will, there's a way. And I am really to be married to
Castalia to-morrow. It seems too good to be true!"
Lord Seely rose and faced the young man; and as he did so, his lordship
looked really dignified; for the sincere feeling within him had for once
obliterated his habitual uneasy self-consciousness.
"Ancram," he said, "I am afraid, from what Castalia tells me, that you
are greatly dissatisfied with the position I have been able to procure
for you."
"Oh, my lord, Castalia ought not to have said so! If she can content
herself in it for a time, how can I venture to complain?"
"I am sorry to find," continued Lord Seely, "that your circumstances are
more seriously embarrassed than I thought."
"Are they, my lord? I profess I don't know how to disembarrass them!"
"You are in debt----"
"I had the honour of avowing as much to your lordship when my marriage
was first discussed; as you, doubtless, remember?"
"Yes; and you named a sum which I----"
"Which your lordship was kind enough to pay. Certainly."
"But it now appears that that sum did not cover the whole of your
liabilities, Ancram. Castalia tells me that you have been annoyed by
applications for money quite recently."
Algernon smiled, and put his head on one side, as if trying to recall a
half-forgotten fact. "Well," said he at length, "upon my word I have
forgotten the exact sum which I did name to your lordship, but I have no
doubt it was correct at the time. The worst of it is, that my debts have
this unfortunate peculiarity--they won't stay paid!"
"It is a great pity, Ancram, for a young man to get into the habit of
thinking lightly of debt. It is, in fact," continued his lordship,
growing graver and graver as he spoke, "a fatal habit of mind."
"My dear lord, I don't think lightly of it by any means! But, really--is
it not best to accept the inevitable with some cheerfulness?"
"'The inevitable,' Ancram?"
"Yes, my lord; in my position, debt was inevitable. I could not be a
member of your family circle, a frequent inmate of your house, doing the
things you did, going where you went, without incurring some expense."
It was no want of tact which made Algernon speak thus plainly and
coarsely. He did not fail (as his mother might have done) to perceive
that his words pained and mortified his hearer. He would by no means
have aimed such a shaft at Lady Seely, knowing that nature had
protected her feelings with a hide of some toughness; and knowing,
moreover, that my lady would unhesitatingly have flung back some verbal
missile, at least equally rough and heavy. But my lord was at once more
vulnerable and more scrupulous. And although Algernon was the last
person in the world to be guilty of gratuitous cruelty, yet, if one is
to fight, one had best use the most effective weapons, and take
advantage of any chink in the enemy's armour to drive one's javelin
home!
"I regret," said Lord Seely, with a little catching of the breath, like
a man who has received a cold douche, "I deplore that your intimacy with
my family should have led you into a false position."
"Not at all, my lord! My position in your family has been a very
pleasant one."
"I ought, perhaps--it was my duty--to have inquired more particularly
into your means, and to have ascertained whether they sufficed for the
life you were leading in London. You were very young, and without
experience. I--I reproach myself, Ancram."
"Don't do that, my lord! There is really no need. I'm sure nobody is the
worse for the few pounds I owe at this moment: not even my tailor, who
has cheated me handsomely, doing me the honour to treat me as one of
your lordship's own class!"
Lord Seely bent down his grey head and meditated with a pained and
anxious face. Then he looked up, and said:
"You know, Ancram, that I am not a rich man for one in my station."
Algernon bowed gracefully.
"Had I been so, I should have made a settlement upon Castalia; but,
although I have no daughters of my own to provide for," (with a little
sigh) "yet my property is very strictly tied up. There are claims on it,
too, of various sorts----" ("Lady Seely screws all she can out of him
for that nephew of hers," was Algy's mental comment.) "And, in brief, I
am not in a position to command any large sums of ready money. I believe
I said as much to you before?"
Algernon bowed again and smiled.
"Well, I repeat it now, in order to impress on you the fact, that
neither you nor Castalia must look to me for pecuniary help in the
future."
"Oh, my lord----"
"I do not say that Castalia might not have a right to ask such help of
me; but I merely assure you that it will be out of my power to grant it.
You, perhaps, scarcely realise how poor a man may be who has a fairly
large rent-roll?"
"I think I have begun to realise it, my lord."
Lord Seely looked quickly into the young man's face, but it was smiling
and inscrutable.
"Well," he resumed, "I will only add, that for this once, and presuming
your present debts are not heavy----"
"Oh dear no! A trifle."
"I will discharge them if you will let me have the amount accurately. I
have a great repugnance to the thought of Castalia--and you--beginning
your married life in debt."
"A thousand thanks. It will be better for us to start fair."
"I hope, Ancram, that you will use every endeavour to live clearly
within your means, and to make the best of your circumstances. The fact
is, this marriage has been hurried on----"
Algernon did not answer in words; but he gave an expressive shrug and
smile, which said, as plainly as possible, "I have not hurried it on!"
Lord Seely coloured deeply, and seemed to shrink bodily, as if he had
received a blow. He went on hastily, and with less than his usual
self-possession: "I--I have felt, rather than perceived, a--a little
touch of bitterness in your manner lately. There, there, we will not
quibble about the word! If not bitter, you have not been, at all events,
in the frame of mind I wished and hoped to find you in. You are young;
and youth is apt to be a little unreasonable in its expectations. I
own--I admit--that your worldly position will not be--a--exactly
brilliant. But I assure you that in these days there are many gentlemen
of good abilities, and industry, who would be glad of it."
"Oh, I am fully aware of my good fortune, my lord! Besides, you know,
this is only a stepping-stone."
"Yes; we--we hope so. But, Ancram--and this is what I had in my mind to
say to you frankly--don't neglect or despise the present employment, in
looking forward to something better."
"By no means!"
"For your own sake--your own sake, I earnestly advise you not to give
way to a feeling of discontent."
"Do I look discontented? Upon my word, your lordship is doing me
singular injustice!"
"There is a smiling discontent, as well as a frowning discontent: and I
don't know but that it is the worst of the two."
Algernon laughed outright.
"Well," said he, "you must own that it is a little difficult to give
satisfaction!"
His light smooth tone jarred disagreeably on Lord Seely. If the latter
had thought to make any impression on the young man, to draw from him
any outburst of feeling, he had signally failed. Algernon's words could
not be objected to, but the tone in which they were uttered was
completely nonchalant. His nonchalance increased in proportion to Lord
Seely's earnestness. A year ago Algernon would have brought his manner
into harmony with my lord's mood. He would have been grave, attentive,
eager to show his appreciation of my lord's kindness, and his value for
my lord's advice. But now there was some malice in his smiling
good-humour; a little cruelty in the brightness of his unruffled
serenity. He was genuinely tickled at seeing the pompous little nobleman
embarrassed in speaking to him, Algernon Errington, and he enjoyed what
comedy there might be in the situation none the less because his patron
suffered.
In truth, Algernon was discontented. His was not a gnawing, black sort
of discontent. He neither grew lean, nor yellow, nor morose; but his
irony was sometimes flavoured with acidity; and instead of being easily
tolerant of such follies as zeal, enthusiasm, or fervent reverence, he
was now apt to speak of them with a disdainful superiority. And he had,
too, an air of having washed his hands of any concern with his own
career; of laying the responsibility on Destiny, or whomsoever it might
concern; of awaiting, with sarcastic patience, the next turn of the
wheel--as if life were neither a battle nor a march, but a gigantic game
of rouge-et-noir, with terrible odds in favour of the bank.
Lord Seely was no match for this youth of two-and-twenty. Lord Seely had
intended to impress him deeply; to read him a lecture, in which Olympian
severity should be tempered by mercy; to convince him, by dignified and
condescending methods, of his great good fortune in having secured the
hand of Castalia Kilfinane of Kauldkail; and of his great
unreasonableness (not to say presumption) in not accepting that boon on
bended knee, instead of grumbling at being made postmaster of Whitford.
But in order to make an impression, it does not suffice to have tools
only; the surface to be impressed must also exist, and be adapted to the
operation. How impress the bright, cool, shining liquid bosom of a lake,
for instance? Oar and keel, pebble and arrow, wind and current, are
alike powerless to make a furrow that shall last.
Lord Seely laboured under the disadvantage, in this crisis, of feeling
for other persons with some keenness; a circumstance which frittered
away his power considerably, and made him vacillating. Algernon's
capacities for feeling were, on this occasion, steadily concentrated on
himself, and this gave his behaviour a solid consistency, which was felt
even beneath the surface-lightness of his manner.
"I hope," said Lord Seely, rather sadly than solemnly--"I do most
earnestly hope, Ancram, that you will be happy in this marriage!"
"Your lordship is very good. I assure you, I feel your goodness."
He said it as if he had been accepting an invitation to dinner.
"And--and that you will do your best to make Castalia happy?"
"You may rely on my doing my best."
"There are discrepancies, perhaps--disparities--but but those marriages
are not always the happiest in which the external circumstances on both
sides seem to be best matched. You are young. You are untrammelled. You
have no irrevocable past behind you to regret. I do not see--no, I do
not see why, with mutual regard and respect, you should not make a good
life of it."
"These are the most lugubrious nuptial felicitations that ever were
offered to a bridegroom, I should fancy!" thought Algernon. And he had
some difficulty in keeping his countenance, so vividly did he feel the
ludicrous aspect of his lordship's well-meant effort at "impressing"
him.
"I should feel some sense of responsibility if--if things were not to
turn out as brightly as we hope--and believe--and believe they will turn
out."
"Oh, don't distress yourself about that, my lord!" cried Algernon. (He
had very nearly said "don't apologise!") "There is the dressing-bell,"
he added, with alacrity, taking his hat up from the table. "If your
lordship has no further commands, I think I----"
"Yes; go, Ancram. I will not detain you longer. Remember," said Lord
Seely, taking the young man's hand between both his own, and speaking in
a tremulous voice, "remember, Ancram, that I wish to serve you. My
intention all along has been to do my best for you. You have been a very
pleasant inmate in my home. Ancram, be good to Castalia. For good or for
evil, you are her fate now. No one can come between you. Be good to
her."
"My dear lord, I beg you to believe that I will make Castalia's
happiness the study of my life. And--oh, I have no doubt we shall get on
capitally. With your interest, it can't be long before we get into a
better berth. I know you'll do your best for us, for Castalia's sake;
oh, and mine, too, I am happy to believe. Yes, certainly. I really am in
such a state of mud that I believe my very hair is splashed. It will
take me all the time there remains for dressing to get myself
presentably clean, positively. _Au revoir_, my lord. And thank you very,
very much."
With his jauntiest step, and brightest smile, Algernon left the room.
Lord Seely returned to his chair before the hearth, resumed his moody,
musing attitude, and sat there, alone, with his head sunk on his breast
until they called him to dinner.