THE MAN OF THE WORLD SHOWS MORE INDIFFERENCE TO THE THINGS AND
DOCTRINES OF THE WORLD THAN MIGHT BE SUPPOSED.--BUT HE VINDICATES
HIS CHARACTER, WHICH MIGHT OTHERWISE BE JEOPARDISED, BY THE
ADROITNESS WITH WHICH, HAVING RESOLVED TO ROAST CHESTNUTS IN THE
ASHES OF ANOTHER MAN'S HEARTH, HE HANDLES THEM WHEN HOTTEST BY THE
PROXY OF A--CAT'S PAW.
In the letter which George told Waife he had received from his uncle,
George had an excuse for the delicate and arduous mission he undertook,
which he did not confide to the old man, lest it should convey more hopes
than its nature justified. In this letter, Alban related, with a degree
of feeling that he rarely manifested, his farewell conversation with
Lionel, who had just departed to join his new regiment. The poor young
man had buoyed himself up with delighted expectations of the result of
Sophy's prolonged residence under Darrell's roof; he had persuaded his
reason that when Darrell had been thus enabled to see and judge of her
for himself, he would be irresistibly attracted towards her; that
Innocence, like Truth, would be mighty and prevail; Darrell was engaged
in the attempt to clear William Losely's name and blood from the taint of
felony;--Alban was commissioned to negotiate with Jasper Losely on any
terms that would remove all chance of future disgrace from that quarter.
Oh yes! to poor Lionel's eyes obstacles vanished--the future became
clear. And thus, when, after telling him of his final interview with the
Minister, Darrell said, "I trust that, in bringing to William Losely this
intelligence, I shall at least soften his disappointment, when I make it
thoroughly clear to him how impossible it is that his Sophy can ever be
more to me--to us--than a stranger whose virtues create an interest in
her welfare"--Lionel was stunned as by a blow. Scarcely could he murmur:
"You have seen her--and your resolve remains the same."
"Can you doubt it?" answered Darrell, as if in surprise. "The resolve
may now give me pain on my account, as before it gave me pain on yours.
But if not moved by your pain, can I be moved by mine? That would be a
baseness." The Colonel, in depicting Lionel's state of mind after the
young soldier had written his farewell to Waife, and previous to quitting
London, expressed very gloomy forebodings. "I do not say," wrote he,
"that Lionel will guiltily seek death in the field, nor does death there
come more to those who seek than to those who shun it; but he will go
upon a service exposed to more than ordinary suffering, privation, and
disease--without that rallying power of hope--that Will, and Desire to
Live, which constitute the true stamina of Youth. And I have always set
a black mark upon those who go into war joyless and despondent. Send a
young fellow to the camp with his spirits broken, his heart heavy as a
lump of lead, and the first of those epidemics, which thin ranks more
than the cannon, says to itself, 'There is a man for me!' Any doctor
will tell you that, even at home, the gay and light-hearted walk safe
through the pestilence, which settles on the moping as malaria settles
on a marsh. Confound Guy Darrell's ancestors, they have spoilt Queen
Victoria as good a young soldier as ever wore a sword by his side! Six
months ago, and how blithely Lionel Haughton looked forth to the future!
--all laurel!--no cypress! And now I feel as if I had shaken hands with
a victim sacrificed by Superstition to the tombs of the dead. I cannot
blame Darrell: I dare say in the same position I might do the same. But
no; on second thoughts, I should not. If Darrell does not choose to
marry and have sons of his own, he has no right to load a poor boy with
benefits, and say: 'There is but one way to prove your gratitude;
remember my ancestors, and be miserable for the rest of your days!'
Darrell, forsooth, intends to leave to Lionel the transmission of the old
Darrell name; and the old Darrell name must not be tarnished by the
marriage on which Lionel has unluckily set his heart! I respect the old
name; but it is not like the House of Vipont--a British Institution. And
if some democratical cholera, which does not care a rush for old names,
carries off Lionel, what becomes of the old name then? Lionel is not
Darrell's son; Lionel need not perforce take the old name. Let the young
man live as Lionel Haughton, and the old name die with Guy Darrell!
"As to the poor girl's birth and parentage, I believe we shall never know
them. I quite agree with Darrell that it will be wisest never to
inquire. But I dismiss, as farfetched and improbable, his supposition
that she is Gabrielle Desmaret's daughter. To me it is infinitely more
likely, either that the deposition of the nurse, which poor Willy gave to
Darrell, and which Darrell showed to me, is true (only that Jasper was
conniving at the temporary suspension of his child's existence while it
suited his purpose)--or that, at the worst, this mysterious young lady is
the daughter of the artiste. In the former supposition, as I have said
over and over again, a marriage between Lionel and Sophy is precisely
that which Darrell should desire; in the latter case, of course, if
Lionel were the head of the House of Vipont, the idea of such an union
would be inadmissible. But Lionel, /entre nous/, is the son of a ruined
spendthrift by a linen-draper's daughter. And Darrell has but to give
the handsome young couple five or six thousand a year, and I know the
world well enough to know that the world will trouble itself very little
about their pedigrees. And really Lionel should be left wholly free to
choose whether he prefer a girl whom he loves with his whole heart, five
or six thousand a year, happiness, and the chance of honours in a
glorious profession to which he will then look with glad spirits--or a
life-long misery, with the right, after Darrell's death--that I hope will
not be these thirty years--to bear the name of Darrell instead of
Haughton; which, if I were the last of the Haughtons, and had any family
pride--as, thank Heaven I have not--would be a painful exchange to me;
and dearly bought by the addition of some additional thousands a year,
when I had grown perhaps as little disposed to spend them as Guy Darrell
himself is. But, after all, there is one I compassionate even more than
young Haughton. My morning rides of late have been much in the direction
of Twickenham, visiting our fair cousin Lady Montfort. I went first to
lecture her for letting these young people see so much of each other.
But my anger melted into admiration and sympathy when I found with what
tender, exquisite, matchless friendship she had been all the while
scheming for Darrell's happiness; and with what remorse she now
contemplated the sorrow which a friendship so grateful, and a belief so
natural, had innocently occasioned. That remorse is wearing her to
death. Dr. F.------, who attended poor dear Willy, is also attending
her; and he told me privately that his skill was in vain--that her case
baffled him; and he had very serious apprehensions. Darrell owes some
consideration to such a friend. And to think that here are lives
permanently embittered, if not risked, by the ruthless obstinacy of the
best-hearted man I ever met! Now, though I have already intimated my
opinions to Darrell with a candour due to the oldest and dearest of my
friends, yet I have never, of course, in the letters I have written to
him or the talk we have had together, spoken out so plainly as I do in
writing to you. And having thus written, without awe of his grey eye and
dark brow, I have half as mind to add 'seize him in a happy moment and
show him this letter.' Yes, I give you full leave; show it to him if you
think it would avail. If not, throw it into the fire, and--pray Heaven
for those whom we poor mortals cannot serve."
On the envelope Alban had added these words: "But of course, before
showing the enclosed, you will prepare Darrell's mind to weigh its
contents." And probably it was in that curt and simple injunction that
the subtle man of the world evinced the astuteness of which not a trace
was apparent in the body of his letter.
Though Alban's communication had much excited his nephew, yet George had
not judged it discreet to avail himself of the permission to show it to
Darrell. It seemed to him that the pride of his host would take much
more offence at its transmission through the hands of a third person than
at the frank tone of its reasonings and suggestions. And George had
determined to re-enclose it to the Colonel, urging him to forward it
himself to Darrell just as it was, with but a brief line to say, "that,
on reflection, Alban submitted direct to his old school-fellow the
reasonings and apprehensions which he had so unreservedly poured forth in
a letter commenced without the intention at which the writer arrived at
the close." But now that the preacher had undertaken the duty of an
advocate, the letter became his brief.
George passed through the library, through the study, up the narrow stair
that finally conducted to the same lofty cell in which Darrell had
confronted the midnight robber who claimed a child in Sophy. With a
nervous hand George knocked at the door.
Unaccustomed to any intrusion on the part of guest or household in that
solitary retreat, somewhat sharply, as if in anger, Darrell's voice
answered the knock.
"Who's there?"
"George Morley."
Darrell opened the door.