"Domus et placens Uxor."
FAIRTHORN FINDS NOTHING /PLACENS/ IN THE /UXOR/, TO WHOM /DOMUS/ IS
INDEBTED FOR ITS DESTRUCTION.
Another day! Lionel is expected to arrive an hour or two after noon.
Darrell is in his room--his will once more before him. He has drawn up a
rough copy of the codicil by which Fawley is to pass away, and the name
of Darrell be consigned to the care of grateful Learning, linked with
prizes and fellowships;--a public property--lost for ever to private
representatives of its sepulchred bearers. Preparations for departure
from the doomed dwelling-house have begun. There are large boxes on the
floor; and favourite volumes--chiefly in science or classics--lie piled
beside them for selection.
What is really at the bottom of Guy Darrell's heart? Does he feel
reconciled to his decision? Is the virtue of his new self-sacrifice in
itself a consoling reward? Is that cordial urbanity, that cheerful
kindness, by which he has been yet more endearing himself to his guests,
sincere or assumed? As he throws aside his pen, and leans his cheek on
his hand, the expression of his countenance may perhaps best answer those
questions. It has more unmingled melancholy than was habitual to it
before, even when in his gloomiest moods; but it is a melancholy much
more soft and subdued; it is the melancholy of resignation--that of a man
who has ceased a long struggle--paid his offering to the appeased
Nemesis, in casting into the sea the thing that had been to him the
dearest.
But in resignation, when complete, there is always a strange relief.
Despite that melancholy, Darrell is less unhappy than he has been for
years. He feels as if a suspense has passed--a load been lifted from his
breast. After all, he has secured, to the best of his judgment, the
happiness of the living, and, in relinquishing the object to which his
own life has been vainly devoted, and immolating the pride attached to
it, he has yet, to use his own words, paid his "dues to the dead." No
descendant from a Jasper Losely and a Gabrielle Desmarets will sit as
mistress of the house in which Loyalty and Honour had garnered, with the
wrecks of fortune, the memories of knightly fame--nor perpetuate the name
of Darrell through children whose blood has a source in the sink of
infamy and fraud. Nor was this consolation that of a culpable pride; it
was bought by the abdication of a pride that had opposed its prejudices
to living worth--to living happiness. Sophy would not be punished for
sins not her own--Lionel not barred from a prize that earth never might
replace. What mattered to them a mouldering, old, desolate manor-house
--a few hundreds of pitiful acres? Their children would not be less
blooming if their holiday summer-noons were not shaded by those darksome
trees--nor less lively of wit if their school themes were signed in the
name, not of Darrell, but Haughton.
A slight nervous knock at the door. Darrell has summoned Fairthorn;
Fairthorn enters. Darrell takes up a paper; it contains minute
instructions as to the demolition of the two buildings. The materials of
the new pile may be disposed of, sold, carted away--anyhow, anywhere.
Those of the old house are sacred--not a brick to be carried from the
precincts around it. No; from foundation to roof, all to be piously
removed--to receive formal interment deep in the still bosom of the
little lake, and the lake to be filled up and turfed over. The pictures
and antiquities selected for the Darrell Museum are, of course, to be
carefully transported to London--warehoused safely till the gift from
owner to nation be legally ratified. The pictures and articles of less
value will be sent to an auction. But when it came to the old family
portraits in the Manorhouse, the old homely furniture, familiarised to
sight and use and love from infancy, Darrell was at a loss; his invention
failed. That question was reserved for further consideration.
"And why," says Fairthorn, bluntly and coarsely, urging at least
reprieve; "why, if it must be, not wait till you are no more? Why must
the old house be buried before you are?"
"Because," answered Darrell, "such an order, left by will, would seem a
reproach to my heirs; it would wound Lionel to the quick. Done in my
lifetime, and just after I have given my blessing on his marriage, I can
suggest a thousand reasons for an old man's whim; and my manner alone
will dispel all idea of a covert affront to his charming innocent bride."
"I wish she were hanged, with all my heart," muttered Fairthorn, "coming
here to do such astonishing mischief! But, sir, I can't obey you; 'tis
no use talking. You must get some one else. Parson Morley will do it--
with pleasure too, no doubt; or that hobbling old man whom I suspect to
be a conjurer. Who knows but what he may get knocked on the head as he
is looking on with his wicked one eye; and then there will be an end of
him, too, which would be a great satisfaction!"
"Pshaw, my dear Dick; there is no one else I can ask but you. The Parson
would argue; I've had enough of his arguings; and the old man is the last
whom my own arguings could deceive. Fiat justitia."
"Don't, sir, don't; you are breaking my heart--'tis a shame, sir," sobbed
the poor faithful rebel.
"Well, Dick, then I must see it done myself; and you shall go on first to
Sorrento, and hire some villa to suit us. I don't see why Lionel should
not be married next week; then the house will be clear. And--yes--it was
cowardly in me to shrink. Mine be the task. Shame on me to yield it to
another. Go back to thy flute, Dick.
'Neque tibias
Euterpe cohibet, nec Polyhymnia
Lesboum refugit tendere barbiton!'"
At that last remorseless shaft from the Horatian quiver, "Venenatis
gravida sagittis," Fairthorn could stand ground no longer; there was a
shamble--a plunge--and once more the man was vanished.