"THERE'S NOTHING HALF SO SWEET IN LIFE."
Four days had slipped away since Churchill's first arrival at Bissett
Grange, and he had begun to acknowledge to himself that they had
passed more pleasantly than any previous time in his recollection. The
mere fact of getting out of business was a great relief to him; he
revelled in the knowledge that he had nothing to do; and, in odd times
and seasons,--as he lay in bed of nights, for instance,--he would
chuckle at the thought that the coming morrow had for him no work and
no responsibilities in store; and when he went up to dress himself for
dinner, he would settle down into an easy-chair, or hang out of the
open window, and delight in the prospect of a good dinner and
delightful society, of music and conversation, from which no horrid
clock-striking would tear him away, and send him forth to dreary rooms
and brain-racking until the small hours of the morning. Society,
music, and conversation! It is true that he enjoyed them all; and yet,
when he came to analyse his happiness, he was fain to admit that they
all meant Barbara Lexden. As in a glass darkly, that tall majestic
figure moved through every thought, and sinuously wound itself round
every impulse of his heart. At first he laughed at his own weakness,
and tried to exorcise the spirit, to whose spells he found himself
succumbing, by rough usage and hard exercise. There is probably
nothing more serviceable in getting rid of a sharp attack of what is
commonly known as "spooniness"--when it is accidental, be it
remembered, not innate--than the eager pursuit of some healthy sport.
Men try wine and cards; both of which are instantaneous but fleeting
remedies, and which leave them in a state of reaction, when they are
doubly vulnerable; but shooting or hunting, properly pursued, are
thoroughly engrossing while they last, and when they are over
necessitate an immediate recourse to slumber from the fatigue which
they have induced. In the morning, even should opportunity offer, the
"spoony" stage is at its lowest ebb; it is rarely possible to work
oneself up to the proper pitch of silliness immediately after
breakfast, and then some farther sporting expedition is started, which
takes one out of harm's way. But in Churchill's case even this remedy
failed; he was not much of a sportsman; not that he shot badly, but
that he was perpetually _distrait_, and when reminded of his
delinquencies by a sharp, "Your bird, sir!" from one of his
companions, would fire so quickly, and with so much effect, as to
mollify the speaker, and lead him to believe that it was
shortsightedness, and not being a "Cockney"--that worst of imputations
amongst sportsmen--that led the stranger to miss marking the rise of
the covey. And yet Churchill displayed no lack of keen vision in
making out the exact whereabouts of a striped petticoat and a pair of
high-heeled Balmoral boots which crossed a stile a little in advance
of the servants bringing the luncheon; but these once seen, and their
wearer once talked to, sport was over with him for the day, and he
strolled back with Miss Lexden, at a convenient distance behind Miss
Townshend and Captain Lyster, who led the way.
"You are soon tired of your sport, Mr. Churchill," said Barbara; "I
should have thought that you would have followed ardently any pursuit
on which you entered."
"You do me a great deal too much honour, Miss Lexden," replied
Churchill, laughing; "my pursuits are of a very desultory nature, and
in all of them I observe Talleyrand's caution,--_Point de zèle_."
"And you carry that out in every thing?"
"In most things. Mine is a very easy-going, uneventful, unexcitable
life; I live thoroughly quietly; _da capo_--all over again; and it is
seldom that any thing breaks in upon the routine of my humdrum
existence."
"Then," said Barbara, looking saucily up at him from under her
hat--"then you do not follow the advice which your favourite
Talleyrand gave to the ambassadors whom he was despatching, _tenez
bonne table, et soignez les femmes_."
Churchill looked up, and for an instant caught her glance; then he
laughed lightly, and said,
"Well, not exactly; though the dinners at the club, even the modest
joint and the table-beer, are not by any means to be despised; and as
for the rest of it, not being a diplomatist, Miss Lexden, I have no
occasion to play the agreeable to any one save in my own house, and,
being a bachelor, the only woman I have to see to as properly
_soignée_ is my old mother, and I _do_ like her to have the best of
every thing."
"Your mother lives with you?"
"Yes, and will, so far as I can see, until the end of the chapter."
"She--you must be very fond of her!" said Barbara, as by a sudden
impulse, looking up at his kindling eyes and earnest face.
"I am very proud of her," he replied; "she is more like my sister than
my mother; enters into all my hopes and fears, shares all my
aspirations, and consoles me in all my doubts."
"More like your wife, then," said Barbara, with a slight sneer. "You
have in her a rare combination of virtues."
"No," said Churchill; "not rare, I am disposed to think. I don't
suppose that, in your class,--where maternity means nothing in
particular to sons, and merely chaperonage, or the part of buffer, to
ward off paternal anger for bills incurred, to daughters,--such
characters flourish; but in mine they are common enough."--("A little
touch of old Harding's Radicalism in that speech, by Jove!" thought he
to himself.)
"I don't exactly fallow your reference to my class as distinct from
your own. I suppose we mix amongst pretty much the same people, though
as individuals we have not met before. But," added Barbara, with a
smile, "now that that great occurrence has taken place, I don't think
we need enter into lengthy disquisitions as to the charms and duties
of maternity; indeed, we will not, for I shall ask you to observe the
only conditions which I require from my friends."
"And they are--?" asked Churchill.
"_Qu'on exécute mes orders_, as Louis Napoleon said when asked what
should be done on the Second of December. So long as my commands are
obeyed, I am amiability itself."
"And suppose they were disobeyed?" asked Churchill again.
"Then--but I won't tell you what would happen! I don't think you'll
ever have the chance of knowing; do you think you shall? Not that I
like amiable people generally--do you? Your blue-eyed girls, with
colourless hair like blotting-paper, and--but I forgot I was talking
to an author. I suppose you're making fun of all I say?"
"On the contrary," said Churchill, struggling to keep his gravity, and
producing a small memorandum-book, "I purpose making a note of that
description for use on a future occasion. There is a spiteful
simplicity in that phrase about 'blotting-paper hair' which is really
worth embalming in a leader."
"Now I know you're laughing, and I hate to be laughed at--"
"By no means; I subscribe the roll. I am now one of the _âmes
damnées_, sworn to obey the spell of the sorceress; and the spell
is--?"
"Nothing. Never mind. You will know easily enough when it is once
uttered. Now they're coming back to us, and I've lost my glove. Have
you seen it? How very absurd!"
As she spoke, they came up with Lyster and Miss Townshend, who were
waiting for them at a gate leading into the Grange lands.
"How slowly you walk, Miss Lexden!" said Lyster; "Miss Townshend
thought you never would come up with us."
Miss Townshend, with much curl-tossing and laughter, declared she had
never said any thing of the kind.
"Quite otherwise," replied Barbara; "from the earnest manner in which
you were carrying on the conversation, there could be no doubt that it
was you who were going ahead."
"I?--I give you my word I was merely talking of scenery, and telling
Miss Townshend how much I should like to show her Rome."
"And promising, when there, to enter into the spirit of the proverb,
and do as the Romans--eh, Captain Lyster?"
"Oh, ah,--yes! I see what you mean. That's not so bad, eh, Mr.
Churchill? You might use that in some of your thingummies, eh? Though
I don't know that there's much difference between Rome and any other
place, after all. It's rather like London, I think."
"Is it?" said Churchill. "I confess my short sojourn there gave me a
very different idea."
"Well, I don't know; it's mouldier and more tumbledown, certainly, but
there are some parts of it that are uncommonly like the unfinished
streets in the new part of Belgravia. And people walk about, and eat
and drink, and flirt, you know, just as they do in town. There's a
Colosseum at Rome, too, as well as in London, only the one in Rome
isn't in such good repair."
This was said in perfect good faith; and the others shouted with
laughter at it, in the midst of which they came to a stile, joining
upon the Paddock, and here they parted into couples again, only this
time Churchill and Barbara took the lead.
"I think she's made another _coup_," said Lyster, looking at them, as
they immediately fell into earnest conversation. "She certainly is
wonderful,--never misses fire!"
"If I were Barbara, I should be careful about any flirtation with Mr.
Churchill. They're dreadful people, these poets, you know,--at least
so I've always heard; and if you give them any encouragement, and then
won't marry them, they cry out, and abuse you terribly in books and
newspapers."
"That would be awful!" said Lyster; "as bad as having your letters
read out in a breach-of-promise case, by Jove! Never could understand
how fellows wrote such spoony letters to women,--never could fancy how
they thought of all the things they said."
And yet I think, if Captain Lyster had been rigorously cross-examined,
he must needs have confessed that he himself had never, throughout the
whole course of his previous life, gone through so much actual
thinking as since he knew Miss Townshend. There was, perhaps, no
species of flirtation in which he was not an adept, for he had
sufficient brains to do what he called the "talkee-talkee;" while his
natural idleness enabled him to carry on a silent _solitude à deux_,
and to make great play with an occasional elevation of the eyebrow or
touch of the hand. He had run through a thorough course of garrison
hacks, and had seen all the best produce of the export Indian market;
he had met the beauties of the season at London balls and in country
houses, and his listlessness and languor had hitherto carried him
through scot-free. But now he was certainly "fetched," as his friends
would call it, and began to feel an interest in Miss Townshend which
he had never felt for any other person. There had been a two days'
flirtation between him and Barbara Lexden; but they were so utterly
unsuited, that, at the end of that time, they, as it were, showed
their hands to each other, and then, with a laugh, threw up their
cards. The flirtation was never renewed; but a curious, strange
friendship,--exhibited in the conversation about the coming
professor,--and always half raillery on both sides, existed between
them. But "this little Townshend girl," as he thought of her in his
dreamy reveries, was quite another matter; she was so jolly and
good-tempered, and so approachable, and never gave herself any airs,
and never wanted talking to or that sort of thing, but could amuse
herself always, as chirpy as a bird, by Jove! And these attributes had
an immense amount of weight with taciturn Fred Lyster, who, moreover,
had recently discovered a bald spot about the size of a sixpence at
the top of his back-parting, and who immediately perceived imminent
age, determined on marriage, and even thought of making his will. And
little Miss Townshend walks by his side, and prattles away, and
laughs, saucily tossing her curls in the air, and is as merry as
possible; save when, stealing an occasional glance from under her hat,
she detects her companion's eyes very earnestly fixed upon her, and
then a serious expression will settle on her face for an instant, and
something like a sigh escape her.
We are a strange race! Here are two couples engaged in the same
pursuit, and yet how different is the process! While Lyster is
strolling idly by Miss Townshend's side, and listening to her little
nonsense, Churchill and Barbara are stepping ahead, thoroughly
engrossed in their conversation. He is talking now, telling her of a
German adventure of his; how, with some other students, he made the
descent of the Rhine on one of the timber-rafts; how they came to
grief just below the Lôrely, and were all nearly drowned. He tells
this with great animation and with many gestures, acting out his
story, as is his wont; and throughout all he has a sensation of
pleasure as he catches glimpses of her upturned earnest face, lighting
up at the special bits of the narrative, always eager and attentive.
His earnestness seems infectious. She has dropped all her society
drawl, all her society tricks and byplay, and shows more of the real
woman than she has for many a day. They talk of Germany and its
literature, of Goethe and Schiller and Heine; and he tells her some of
those stories of Hoffmann which are such special favourites with
_Bürschen_. Thus they pass on to our home poets; and here Barbara is
the talker, Churchill listening and occasionally commenting. Barbara
has read much, and talks well. It is an utter mistake to suppose that
women nowadays have what we have been accustomed, as a term of
reproach, to call "miss-ish" taste in books or art. Five minutes'
survey of that room which Barbara called her own in her aunt's house
in Gloucester Place would have served to dispel any such idea. On the
walls were proofs of Leonardo's "Last Supper" and Landseers "Shoeing
the Horse;" a print of Delaroche's "Execution of Lady Jane Grey;" a
large framed photograph of Gerome's "Death of Cæsar;" an old-fashioned
pencil-sketch of Barbara's father, taken in the old days by D'Orsay
long before he ever thought of turning that pencil to actual use; and
a coloured photograph--a recent acquisition--of a girl sitting over a
wood-fire in a dreamy attitude, burning her love-letters, called
"L' Auto da Fé." On the bookshelves you would have found Milton,
Thomas à-Kempis, _David Copperfield_, _The Christmas Carol_, a
much-used Tennyson, Keats, George Herbert's Poems, Quarles' _Emblems_,
_The Christian Year_, Carlyle's _French Revolution_, Dante, Schiller,
_Faust_, Tupper (of course! "and it is merely envy that makes you
laugh at him," she always said), _The Newcomes_, and a quarto
Shakespeare. No French novels, I am glad to say; but a fat little
Béranger, and a yellow-covered Alfred de Musset are on the
mantelpiece, while a brass-cross-bearing red-edged Prayer-Book lies
on the table by the bed. Barbara's books were not show-books; they all
bore more or less the signs of use; but she had read them in a
desultory manner, and had never thoroughly appreciated the pleasure to
be derived from them. She had never lived in a reading set; for when
old Miss Lexden had mastered the police intelligence and the
fashionable news from the _Post_, her intellectual exercises were at
an end for the day; and her friends were very much of the same
calibre. So now for the first time Barbara heard literature talked of
by one who had hitherto made it his worship, and who spoke of it with
mingled love and reverence--spoke without lecturing, leading his
companion into her fair share of the talk, mingling apt quotation with
caustic comment or enthusiastic eulogy, until they found themselves,
to Barbara's surprise, at the hall-door.
I am glad that it is my province as historian to discourse to my
readers of the thoughts, impulses, and motives influencing the
characters in this story, else it would be difficult for me to convey
so much of their inner life as I wish to be known, and which yet would
not crop out in the course of the action. In writing a full-flavoured
romance of the sensational order, it is not, perhaps, very difficult
to imbue your readers with a proper notion of your characters'
character. The gentleman who hires two masked assassins to waylay his
brother at the foot of the bridge has evidently no undue veneration
for the Sixth Commandment; while the marchioness who, after having
only once seen the young artist in black velvet, gives him the gold
key leading to her secret apartments, and makes an assignation with
him at midnight, is palpably not the style of person whom you would
prefer as governess for your daughters. But in a commonplace story of
every-day life, touching upon such ordinary topics as walks and
dinners and butchers' meat, marrying and giving in marriage, running
into debt, and riding horses in Rotten Row,--where (at least; so far
as my experience serves) you find no such marked outlines of
character, you must bring to your aid all that quality of work which
in the sister art is known by the title pre-Raphaelitic, and show
virtue in the cut of a coat and vice in the adjustment of a cravat.
Moreover, we pen-and-ink workers have, in such cases, an advantage
over our brethren of the pencil, inasmuch as we can take our readers
by the button-hole, and lead them out of the main current of the
story, showing them our heroes and heroines in _déshabille_, and,
through the medium of that window which Vulcan wished had been fixed
in the human breast--and which really is there, for the novelist's
inspection--making them acquainted with the inmost thoughts and
feelings of the puppets moving before them.
When Barbara went to her room that night and surrendered herself to
Parker and the hair-brushes, that pattern of ladies'-maids thought
that she had never seen her mistress so preoccupied since Karl von
Knitzler, an _attaché_ of the Austrian Embassy,--who ran for a whole
season in the ruck of the Lexden's admirers, and at last thought he
had strength for the first flight,--had received his _coup de grâce_.
In her wonderment Parker gave two or three hardish tugs at the hair
which she was manipulating, but received no reproof; for the inside of
that little head was so busy as to render it almost insensible to the
outside friction. Barbara was thinking of Mr. Churchill--as yet she
had not even thought of him by his Christian name, scarcely perhaps
knew it--and of the strange interest which he seemed to have aroused
in her. The tones of his voice yet seemed ringing in her ears; she
remembered his warm, earnest manner when speaking from himself, and
the light way in which he fell into her tone of jesting badinage.
Then, with something like a jar, she recollected his suppressed sneer
at the difference in their "class," and her foot tapped angrily on the
floor as the recollection rose in her mind. Mingled strangely with
these were reminiscences of his comely head, white shapely hands,
strong figure, and well-made boots; of the way in which he sat and
walked; of--and then, with a start which nearly hurled one of the
brushes out of Parker's hand, she gathered herself together as she
felt the whole truth rush upon her, and knew that she was thinking too
much of the man and determined that she would so think no more. Who
was he, living away in some obscure region in London among a set of
people whom no one knew, leading a life which would not be tolerated
by any of her friends, to engross _her_ thoughts? Between them rolled
a gulf, wide and impassable, on the brink of which they might indeed
stand for a few minutes interchanging casual nothings in the course of
life's journey, but which rendered closer contact impossible. And
yet--but Barbara determined there should be no "and yet;" and with
this determination full upon her, she dismissed Parker and fell
asleep.
And Churchill--what of him? Alas, regardless of his doom, that little
victim played! When old Marmaduke gave the signal for retiring,
Churchill would not, on this night, follow the other men into
the smoking-room. The politics, the ribaldry, the scandal, the
horsey-doggy talk, would be all more intolerable than ever; he wanted
to be alone, to go through that process, so familiar to him on all
difficult occasions, of "thinking it out;" so he told Gumble to take a
bottle of claret to his room, and, arrived there, he lit his old
meerschaum, and leant out of the window gazing over the distant
moonlit park. But this time the "thinking it out" failed dismally;
amid the white smoke-wreaths curling before him rose a tall, slight
grateful figure; in his ear yet lingered the sound of a clear low
voice; his hand yet retained the thrill which ran through him as she
touched it in wishing him "good night." He thought of _her_ as he had
never thought of woman before, and he gloried in the thought: he was
no love-sick boy, to waste in fond despair, and sicken in his longing;
he was a strong, healthy man, with a faultless digestion, an earnest
will, a clear conscience, and a heart thinking no guile. There was the
difference in the rank, certainly--and in connexion with this
reflection a grim smile crossed his face as he remembered Harding, and
his caution about "swells"--but what of that? Did not good education,
and a life that would bear scrutiny, lift a man to any rank? and would
not she--and then he drew from his pocket a dainty, pearl-gray glove
(Jouvin's two-buttoned, letter B), and pressed it to his lips. It
_was_ silly, ladies and gentlemen, I admit; but then, you know, it
never happened to any of _us_; and though "the court, the camp, the
grove" suffer, we have the pleasure of thinking that the senate, the
bar, the commerce of England, and the public press, always escape
scot-free.
Breakfast at Bissett Grange lasted from nine--at the striking of which
hour old Sir Marmaduke entered the room, and immediately rang the bell
for a huge smoking bowl of oatmeal porridge, his invariable matutinal
meal--until twelve; by which time the laziest of the guests had
generally progressed from Yorkshire-pie, through bacon, eggs, and
Finnan haddies, down to toast and marmalade, and were sufficiently
refected. Barbara was always one of the last; she was specially late
on the morning after the talk just described; and on her arrival in
the breakfast-room found only Mr. and Mrs. Vincent, who always
lingered fondly over their meals, and who, so long as the cloth
remained on the table, sat pecking and nibbling, like a couple of old
sparrows, at the dishes within reach of them; Captain Lyster, who
between his sips of coffee was dipping into _Bell's Life_; and Sir
Marmaduke himself, who had returned from a brisk walk round the
grounds and the stables and the farm, and was deep in the columns of
the _Times_. But, to her astonishment, the place at table next hers
had evidently not yet been occupied. The solid white breakfast-set was
unused, the knives and forks were unsoiled; and yet Mr. Churchill, who
had hitherto occupied that place, had usually finished his meal and
departed before Barbara arrived. This morning, however, was clearly an
exception; he had not yet breakfasted, for by his plate lay three
unopened letters addressed to him. Barbara noticed this--noticed
moreover that the top letter, in a long shiny pink envelope, was
addressed in a scrawly, unmistakably female hand, and had been
redirected in a larger, bolder writing. As she seated herself, with
her eyes, it must be confessed, on this dainty missive, the door
opened, and Churchill entered. After a general salutation, he was
beginning a half-laughing apology for his lateness as he sat down,
when his eye lit on the pink envelope. He changed colour slightly;
then, before commencing his breakfast, took up his letters and placed
them in the breast-pocket of his shooting-coat.
"This is horrible, Miss Lexden," he said, "bringing these dreadful
hours into the country; here--where you should enjoy the breezy call
of incense-breathing morn, the cock's shrill clarion, and all the rest
of it--to come down to your breakfast just when the bucolic mind is
pondering on the immediate advent of its dinner."
"Be good enough to include yourself in this sweeping censure, Mr.
Churchill," said Barbara. "I was down before you; but I accepted my
position, nor, however late I might have been, should I have
attempted--"
"I congratulate you, sir," interrupted Mr. Vincent, dallying with a
lump of marmalade on a wedge of toast,--"I congratulate you, Mr.
Churchill, on a prudence which but few men of your age possess."
"You are very good, but I scarcely follow you."
"I saw you--I saw you put away your letters until after breakfast. A
great stroke that! Men generally are so eager to get at their letters,
that they plunge into them at once, before meals little thinking that
the contents may have horrible influence on their digestion."
"I am sorry to say that I was influenced by no such sanitary
precautions. My correspondence will keep; and I have yet to learn that
to read letters in the presence of ladies is--"
"Pray, make no apologies, as far as I am concerned," said Barbara,
with a curl of her lip and an expansion of nostril; "if you have any
wish to read your doubtless important correspondence--"
"I have no such wish, Miss Lexden. _Litera scripta manet_; which,
being interpreted, means, my letters will keep. And now, Mr. Vincent,
I'll trouble you for a skilful help of that game-pie."
Churchill remained firm; he was still at breakfast, and his letters
remained unopened in his pocket, when Barbara left the room to prepare
for a drive with Miss Townshend. As they reëntered the avenue after a
two hours' turn round the Downs, they met Captain Lyster in a
dog-cart.
"I have been over to Brighton," he explained; "drove Churchill to the
station. He got some news this morning, and is obliged to run up to
town for a day or two. But he's coming back, Miss Lexden."
"Is he, indeed!" said Barbara. "What splendid intelligence! I should
think, Captain Lyster, that, since the announcement of the fall of
Sebastopol, England has scarcely heard such glorious news as that Mr.
Churchill is coming back to Bissett." And, with a clear, ringing
laugh, she pulled the ponies short up at the hall-door, jumped from
the carriage, and passed to her room.
"She don't like his going, all the same,--give you my word," said
Lyster, simply, to Miss Townshend.
And she did not. She coupled his sudden departure with the receipt of
that pink envelope and the address in the feminine scrawl. Who was the
writer of that letter? What could the business be to take him away so
hastily? With her head leaning on her hand, she sits before her
dressing-table pondering these things. It certainly _was_ a woman's
writing. Is this quiet, sedate, self-possessed man a flirt? Does he
carry on a correspondence with-- And if he does, what is it to her?
She is nothing to him--and yet--who _can_ it be? It was a woman's
hand! She wonders where he is at that moment; she would like to see
him just for an instant.
If she could have had her wish, she would have seen him by himself in
a railway-carriage, an unheeded _Times_ lying across his knee, and in
his hand a little pearl-gray kid-glove.