MY FATHER ACTS THE CHARMER AGAIN
Kiomi's mother was seen in a turn of the gravel-cutting, bearing
purchases from Durstan village. She took the new circumstances in with
a single cast up of her wary eyelids; and her, and her skill in surgery
and art in medicine, I praised to lull her fears, which procured me the
denomination of old friend, as well as handsome gentleman: she went so
far as to add, in a fit of natural warmth, nice fellow; and it is the
truth, that this term effected wonders in flattering me: it seemed to
reveal to me how simple it was for Harry Richmond, one whom gipsies
could think a nice fellow, to be the lord of Janet's affections—to be
her husband. My heart throbbed; yet she was within range of a mile and
a half, and I did not wish to be taken to her. I did wish to smell the
piney air about the lake-palace; but the thought of Ottilia caused me
no quick pulsations.
My father remained an hour. He could not perceive the drift of my
objection to go either to Bulsted or to Riversley, and desire that my
misadventure should be unknown at those places. However, he obeyed me,
as I could always trust him to do scrupulously, and told a tale at
Bulsted. In the afternoon he returned in a carriage to convey me to the
seaside. When I was raised I fainted, and saw the last of the camp on
Durstan much as I had come to it first. Sickness and swimming of the
head continued for several days. I was persecuted with the sensation of
the carriage journey, and an iteration of my father's that ran: 'My
son's inanimate body in my arms,' or 'Clasping the lifeless body of my
sole son, Harry Richmond,' and other variations. I said nothing about
it. He told me aghast that I had spat blood. A battery of eight fists,
having it in the end all its own way, leaves a deeper indentation on
its target than a pistol-shot that passes free of the vital chords. My
convalescence in Germany was a melody compared with this. I ought to
have stopped in the tent, according to the wise old mother's advice,
given sincerely, for prudence counselled her to strike her canvas and
be gone. There I should have lain, interested in the progress of a bee,
the course of a beetle or a cloud, a spider's business, and the shaking
of the gorse and the heather, until good health had grown out of
thoughtlessness. The very sight of my father was as a hive of humming
troubles.
His intense anxiety about me reflected in my mind the endless worry I
had concerning him. It was the intellect which condemned him when he
wore a joyful air, and the sensations when he waxed over-solicitous.
Whether or not the sentences were just, the judges should have
sometimes shifted places. I was unable to divine why he fevered me so
much. Must I say it?—He had ceased to entertain me. Instead of a comic
I found him a tragic spectacle; and his exuberant anticipations, his
bursting hopes that fed their forcing-bed with the blight and decay of
their predecessors, his transient fits of despair after a touch at my
pulses, and exclamation of 'Oh, Richie, Richie, if only I had my boy up
and well!'—assuming that nothing but my tardy recovery stood in the way
of our contentment—were examples of downright unreason such as
contemplation through the comic glass would have excused; the tragic
could not. I knew, nevertheless, that to the rest of the world he was a
progressive comedy: and the knowledge made him seem more tragic still.
He clearly could not learn from misfortune; he was not to be contained.
Money I gave him freely, holding the money at my disposal his own; I
chafed at his unteachable spirit, surely one of the most tragical
things in life; and the proof of my love for him was that I thought it
so, though I should have been kinder had he amused me, as in the old
days.
Conceive to yourself the keeping watch over a fountain choked in its
spouting, incessantly labouring to spin a jet into the air; now for a
moment glittering and towering in a column, and once more straining to
mount. My father appeared to me in that and other images. He would have
had me believe him shooting to his zenith, victorious at last. I
likewise was to reap a victory of the highest kind from the attack of
the mysterious ruffians; so much; he said, he thought he could assure
me of. He chattered of an intimidated Government, and Dettermain and
Newson; duchesses, dukes, most friendly; innumerable invitations to
country castles; and among other things one which really showed him to
be capable of conceiving ideas and working from an initiative. But
this, too, though it accomplished a temporary service, he rendered
illusory to me by his unhappy manner of regarding it as an instance of
his now permanent social authority. He had instituted what he called
his JURY OF HONOUR COURT, composed of the select gentlemen of the
realm, ostensibly to weigh the causes of disputes between members of
their class, and decree the method of settlement: but actually, my
father admitted, to put a stop to the affair between Edbury and me.
'That was the origin of the notion, Richie. I carried it on. I dined
some of the best men of our day. I seized the opportunity when our
choicest “emperor” was rolling on wheels to propound my system. I
mention the names of Bramham DeWitt, Colonel Hibbert Segrave, Lord
Alonzo Carr, Admiral Loftus, the Earl of Luton, the Marquis of
Hatchford, Jack Hippony, Monterez Williams,—I think you know him?—and
little Dick Phillimore, son of a big-wig, a fellow of a capital wit and
discretion; I mention them as present to convince you we are not
triflers, dear boy. My argument ran, it is absurd to fight; also it is
intolerable to be compelled to submit to insult. As the case stands, we
are under a summary edict of the citizens, to whom chivalry is unknown.
Well, well, I delivered a short speech. Fighting, I said, resembled
butting,—a performance proper to creatures that grow horns instead of
brains . . . not to allude to a multitude of telling remarks; and the
question “Is man a fighting animal?” my answer being that he is not
born with spurs on his heels or horns to his head and that those who
insisted on fighting should be examined by competent anatomists,
“ologists” of some sort, to decide whether they have the excrescences,
and proclaim them... touching on these lighter parts of my theme with
extreme delicacy. But—and here I dwelt on my point: Man, if not a
fighting animal in his glorious—I forgot what—is a sensitive one, and
has the idea of honour. “Hear,” from Colonel Segrave, and Sir Weeton
Slater—he was one of the party. In fine, Richie, I found myself wafted
into a breathing oration. I cannot, I confess it humbly, hear your
“hear, hear,” without going up and off, inflated like a balloon. “Shall
the arbitration of the magistracy, indemnifications in money awarded by
the Law-courts, succeed in satisfying,”—but I declare to you, Richie,
it was no platform speech. I know your term—“the chaincable sentence.”
Nothing of the kind, I assure you. Plain sense, as from gentlemen to
gentlemen. We require, I said, a protection that the polite world of
Great Britain does not now afford us against the aggressions of the
knave, the fool, and the brute. We establish a Court. We do hereby—no,
no, not the “hereby”; quite simply, Richie—pledge ourselves—I said some
other word not “pledge” to use our utmost authority and influence to
exclude from our circles persons refusing to make the reparation of an
apology for wanton common insults: we renounce intercourse with men
declining, when guilty of provoking the sentiment of hostility, to
submit to the jurisdiction of our Court. All I want you to see is the
notion. We raise the shield against the cowardly bully which the laws
have raised against the bloody one. “And gentlemen,”' my father resumed
his oration, forgetting my sober eye for a minute—'“Gentlemen, we are
the ultimate Court of Appeal for men who cherish their honour, yet
abstain from fastening it like a millstone round the neck of their
common-sense.” Credit me, Richie, the proposition kindled. We cited
Lord Edbury to appear before us, and I tell you we extracted an ample
apology to you from that young nobleman. And let me add, one that I,
that we, must impose it upon an old son to accept. He does! Come, come.
And you shall see, Richie, society shall never repose an inert mass
under my leadership. I cure it; I shake it and cure it.'
He promenaded the room, repeating: 'I do not say I am possessed of a
panacea,' and bending to my chin as he passed; 'I maintain that I can
and do fulfil the duties of my station, which is my element, attained
in the teeth of considerable difficulties, as no other man could, be he
prince or Prime Minister. Not one,' he flourished, stepping onward.
'And mind you, Richie, this,' he swung round, conscious as ever of the
critic in me, though witless to correct his pomp of style, 'this is not
self-glorification. I point you facts. I have a thousand
schemes—projects. I recognize the value of early misfortune. The
particular misfortune of princes born is that they know nothing of the
world—babies! I grant you, babies. Now, I do. I have it on my
thumbnail. I know its wants. And just as I succeeded in making you a
member of our Parliament in assembly, and the husband of an hereditary
princess—hear me—so will I make good my original determination to be in
myself the fountain of our social laws, and leader. I have never, I
believe—to speak conscientiously—failed in a thing I have once
determined on.'
The single wish that I might be a boy again, to find pleasure in his
talk, was all that remained to combat the distaste I had for such
oppressive deliveries of a mind apparently as little capable of being
seated as a bladder charged with gas. I thanked him for getting rid of
Edbury, and a touch of remorse pricked me, it is true, on his turning
abruptly and saying: 'You see me in my nakedness, Richie. To you and my
valet, the heart, the body!' He was too sympathetic not to have a keen
apprehension of a state of hostility in one whom he loved. If I had
inclined to melt, however, his next remark would have been enough to
harden me: 'I have fought as many battles, and gained as startling
victories as Napoleon Buonaparte; he was an upstart.' The word gave me
a jerk.
Sometimes he would indulge me transparently in a political controversy,
confessing that my dialectical dexterity went far to make a Radical of
him. I had no other amusement, or I should have held my peace. I tried
every argument I could think of to prove to him that there was neither
honour, nor dignity, nor profit in aiming at titular distinctions not
forced upon us by the circumstances of our birth. He kept his position
with much sly fencing, approaching shrewdness; and, whatever I might
say, I could not deny that a vile old knockknee'd world, tugging its
forelock to the look of rank and chink of wealth, backed him, if he
chose to be insensible to radical dignity.
'In my time,' said he, 'all young gentlemen were born Tories. The
doctor no more expected to see a Radical come into the world from a
good family than a radish. But I discern you, my dear boy. Our reigning
Families must now be active; they require the discipline I have
undergone; and I also dine at aldermen's tables, and lay a
foundation-stone—as Jorian says—with the facility of a hen-mother: that
should not suffice them. 'Tis not sufficient for me. I lay my stone,
eat my dinner, make my complimentary speech—and that is all that is
expected of us; but I am fully aware we should do more. We must lead,
or we are lost. Ay, and—to quote you a Lord Mayor's barge is a pretty
piece of gilt for the festive and luxurious to run up the river Thames
in and mark their swans. I am convinced there is something deep in
that. But what am I to do? Would you have me frown upon the people?
Richie, it is prudent—I maintain it righteous, nay, it is, I affirm
positively, sovereign wisdom—to cultivate every flower in the British
bosom. Riposte me—have you too many? Say yes, and you pass my guard.
You cannot. I fence you there. This British loyalty is, in my
estimation, absolutely beautiful. We grow to a head in our old England.
The people have an eye! I need no introduction to them. We reciprocate
a highly cordial feeling when they line the streets and roads with
respectful salutations, and I acknowledge their demonstrative goodwill.
These things make us a nation. By heaven, Richie, you are, on this
occasion, if your dad may tell you so, wrong. I ask pardon for my
bluntness; but I put it to you, could we, not travelling as personages
in our well-beloved country, count on civility to greet us everywhere?
Assuredly not. My position is, that by consenting to their honest
enthusiasm, we—the identical effect you are perpetually crying out
for—we civilize them, we civilize them. Goodness!—a Great Britain
without Royalty!'
He launched on a series of desolate images. In the end, he at least
persuaded himself that he had an idea in his anxiety to cultivate the
primary British sentiment.
We moved from town to town along the South coast; but it was vain to
hope we might be taken for simple people. Nor was he altogether to
blame, except in allowing the national instinct for 'worship and
reverence' to air itself unrebuked. I fled to the island. Temple ran
down to meet me there, and I heard that Janet had written to him for
news of me. He entered our hotel a private person; when he passed out,
hats flew off before him. The modest little fellow went along a double
line of attentive observers on the pier, and came back, asking me in
astonishment who he was supposed to be.
'I petitioned for privacy here!' exclaimed my father. It accounted for
the mystery.
Temple knew my feelings, and did but glance at me.
Close upon Temple's arrival we had a strange couple of visitors.
'Mistress Dolly Disher and her husband,' my father introduced them. She
called him by one of his Christian names inadvertently at times. The
husband was a confectioner, a satisfied shade of a man who reserved the
exercise of his will for his business, we learnt; she, a bustling,
fresh-faced woman of forty-five, with still expressive dark eyes, and,
I guessed, the ideal remainder of a passion in her bosom. The guess was
no great hazard. She was soon sitting beside me, telling me of the
'years' she had known my father, and of the most affectionate friend
and perfect gentleman he was of the ladies who had been in love with
him; 'no wonder': and of his sorrows and struggles, and his beautiful
voice, and hearts that bled for him; and of one at least who prayed and
trusted he would be successful at last.
Temple and the pallid confectioner spent the day on board a yacht with
my father. Mrs. Dolly stayed to nurse me and persuade me to swallow
medicine. She talked of her youth, when, as a fashionable bootmaker's
daughter, she permitted no bills to be sent in to Mr. Richmond,
alleging, as a sufficient reason for it to her father, that their
family came from Richmond in Yorkshire. Eventually, the bills were
always paid. She had not been able to manage her husband so well; and
the consequence was, that (she breathed low) an execution was out;
'though I tell him,' she said tremulously, 'he's sure to be paid in the
long run, if only he'll wait. But no; he is you cannot think how
obstinate in his business. And my girl Augusta waiting for Mr. Roy
Richmond, the wish of our hearts! to assist at her wedding; and can we
ask it, and have an execution hanging over him? And for all my
husband's a guest here, he's as likely as not to set the officers at
work, do what I will, to-morrow or any day. Your father invited us, Mr.
Harry. I forced my husband to come, hoping against hope; for your papa
gave the orders, relying on me, as he believed he might, and my husband
undertook them, all through me. There it stops; he hears reports, and
he takes fright: in goes the bill: then it's law, and last Oh! I'm
ashamed.'
Mr. Disher's bill was for supplying suppers to the Balls. He received
my cheque for the amount in full, observing that he had been confident
his wife was correct when she said it would be paid, but a tradesman's
business was to hasten the day of payment; and, for a penance, he
himself would pacify the lawyers.
On hearing of the settlement of Mr. Disher's claim, my father ahem'd,
speechless, which was a sign of his swallowing vexation. He remarked
that I had, no doubt with the best intentions, encroached on his
liberty. 'I do not like to have my debts disturbed.' He put it to me,
whether a man, carrying out a life-long plan, would not be disconcerted
by the friendliest intervention. This payment to Disher he pronounced
fatal in policy. 'You have struck a heavy blow to my credit, Richie.
Good little Mistress Dolly brought the man down here—no select addition
to our society—and we were doing our utmost to endure him, as the
ladies say, for the very purpose... but the error stands committed! For
the future, friend Disher will infallibly expect payments within the
year. Credit for suppers is the guarantee of unlimited entertainments.
And I was inspiring him with absolute confidence for next year's
campaign. Money, you are aware, is no longer a question to terrify me.
I hold proofs that I have conclusively frightened Government, and you
know it. But this regards the manipulation of the man Disher. He will
now dictate to me. A refresher of a few hundreds would have been
impolitic to this kind of man; but the entire sum! and to a creditor in
arms! You reverse the proper situations of gentleman and tradesman. My
supperman, in particular, should be taught to understand that he is
bound up in my success. Something frightened him; he proceeded at law;
and now we have shown him that he has frightened us. An execution? My
dear boy, I have danced an execution five years running, and ordered,
consecutively, at the same house. Like other matters, an execution
depends upon how you treat it. The odds are that we have mortally
offended Mistress Dolly.' He apologized for dwelling on the subject,
with the plea that it was an essential part of his machinery of action,
and the usual comparison of 'the sagacious General' whose forethought
omitted no minutiae. I had to listen.
The lady professed to be hurt. The payment, however, put an end to the
visit of this couple. Politic or not, it was a large sum to disburse,
and once more my attention became fixed on the probable display of
figures in my bankers' book. Bonds and bills were falling due: the
current expenses were exhausting. I tried to face the evil, and take a
line of conduct, staggering, as I did on my feet. Had I been well
enough, I believe I should have gone to my grandfather, to throw myself
on his good-nature; such was the brain's wise counsel: but I was all
nerves and alarms, insomuch that I interdicted Temple's writing to
Janet, lest it should bring on me letters from my aunt Dorothy, full of
advice that could no longer be followed, well-meant cautions that might
as well be addressed to the mile-posts behind me. Moreover, Janet would
be flying on the wind to me, and I had a craving for soft arms and the
look of her eyebrows, that warned me to keep her off if I intended to
act as became a man of good faith.
Fair weather, sunny green sea-water speckled with yachts shooting and
bounding, and sending me the sharp sense of life there is in dashed-up
fountains of silvery salt-spray, would have quickened my blood sooner
but for this hot-bed of fruitless adventure, tricksy precepts, and
wisdom turned imp, in which my father had again planted me. To pity him
seemed a childish affectation. His praise of my good looks pleased me,
for on that point he was fitted to be a judge, and I was still fancying
I had lost them on the heath. Troops of the satellites of his grand
parade surrounded him. I saw him walk down the pier like one breaking
up a levee. At times he appeared to me a commanding phantasm in the
midst of phantasm figures of great ladies and their lords, whose names
he told off on his return like a drover counting his herd; but within
range of his eye and voice the reality of him grew overpowering. It
seduced me, and, despite reason, I began to feel warm under his
compliments. He was like wine. Gaiety sprang under his feet. Sitting at
my window, I thirsted to see him when he was out of sight, and had
touches of the passion of my boyhood.
I listened credulously, too, as in the old days, when he repeated, 'You
will find I am a magician, and very soon, Richie, mark me.' His manner
hinted that there was a surprise in store. 'You have not been on the
brink of the grave for nothing.' He resembled wine in the other
conditions attached to its rare qualities. Oh for the choice of having
only a little of him, instead of having him on my heart! The unfilial
wish attacked me frequently: he could be, and was, so ravishing to
strangers and light acquaintances. Did by chance a likeness exist
between us? My sick fancy rushed to the Belthams for a denial. There
did, of some sort, I knew; and the thought partitioned my dreamy ideas,
of which the noblest, taking advantage of my physical weakness,
compelled me to confess that it was a vain delusion for one such as I
to hope for Ottilia. This looking at the roots of yourself, if you are
possessed of a nobler half that will do it, is a sound corrective of an
excessive ambition. Unfortunately it would seem that young men can do
it only in sickness. With the use of my legs, and open-air breathing, I
became compact, and as hungry and zealous on behalf of my
individuality, as proud of it as I had ever been: prouder and hungrier.
My first day of outing, when, looking at every face, I could reflect on
the miraculous issue of mine almost clear from its pummelling, and
above all, that my nose was safe—not stamped with the pugilist's
brand—inspired a lyrical ebullition of gratitude. Who so intoxicated as
the convalescent catching at health?
I met Charles Etherell on the pier, and heard that my Parliamentary
seat was considered in peril, together with a deal of gossip about my
disappearance.
My father, who was growing markedly restless, on the watch for letters
and new arrivals, started to pay Chippenden a flying visit. He begged
me urgently to remain for another few days, while he gathered
information, saying my presence at his chief quarters did him infinite
service, and I always thought that possible. I should find he was a
magician, he repeated, with a sort of hesitating fervour.
I had just waved my hand to him as the boat was bearing him away from
the pier-head, when a feminine voice murmured in my ear, 'Is not this
our third meeting, Mr. Harry Richmond?—Venice, Elbestadt, and the Isle
of Wight?' She ran on, allowing me time to recognize Clara Goodwin.
'What was your last adventure? You have been ill. Very ill? Has it been
serious?'
I made light of it. 'No: a tumble.'
'You look pale,' she said quickly.
'That's from grieving at the loss of my beauty, Miss Goodwin.'
'Have you really not been seriously ill?' she asked with an astonishing
eagerness.
I told her mock-loftily that I did not believe in serious illnesses
coming to godlike youth, and plied her in turn with inquiries.
'You have not been laid up in bed?' she persisted.
'No, on my honour, not in bed.'
'Then,' said she, 'I would give much to be able to stop that boat.'
She amazed me. 'Why?'
'Because it's going on a bad errand,' she replied.
'Miss Goodwin, you perplex me. My father has started in that boat.'
'Yes, I saw him.' She glanced hastily at the foam in a way to show
indifference. 'What I am saying concerns others... who have heard you
were dangerously ill. I have sent for them to hasten across.'
'My aunt and Miss Ilchester?'
'No.'
'Who are they? Miss Goodwin, I'll answer any question. I've been
queerish, that's true. Now let me hear who they are, when you arrived,
when you expect them. Where are they now?'
'As to me,' she responded with what stretched on my ears like an
insufferable drawl, 'I came over last night to hire a furnished house
or lodgings. Papa has an appointment attached to the fortifications
yonder. We'll leave the pier, if you please. You draw too much
attention on ladies who venture to claim acquaintance with so important
a gentleman.'
We walked the whole length of the pier, chatting of our former
meetings.
'Not here,' she said, as soon as I began to question.
I was led farther on, half expecting that the accessories of time and
place would have to do with the revelation.
The bitter creature drew me at her heels into a linendraper's shop.
There she took a seat, pitched her voice to the key of a lady's at a
dinner-table, when speaking to her cavalier of the history or attire of
some one present, and said, 'You are sure the illness was not at all
feigned?'
She had me as completely at her mercy in this detestable shop as if I
had been in a witness-box.
'Feigned!' I exclaimed.
'That is no answer. And pray remember where you are.'
'No, the illness was not feigned.'
'And you have not made the most of it?'
'What an extraordinary thing to say!'
'That is no answer. And please do not imagine yourself under the
necessity of acting every sentiment of your heart before these people.'
She favoured a shopman with half-a-dozen directions.
'My answer is, then, that I have not made the most of it,' I said.
'Not even by proxy?'
'Once more I'm adrift.'
'You are certainly energetic. I must address you as a brother, or it
will be supposed we are quarrelling. Harry, do you like that pattern?'
'Yes. What's the meaning of proxy?'
'With the accent you give it, heaven only knows what it means. I would
rather you did not talk here like a Frenchman relating his last
love-affair in company.
Must your voice escape control exactly at the indicatory words? Do you
think your father made the most of it?'
'Of my illness? Oh! yes; the utmost. I should undoubtedly think so.
That's his way.'
'Why did you permit it?'
'I was what they call “wandering” half the time. Besides, who could
keep him in check? I rarely know what he is doing.'
'You don't know what he wrote?'
'Wrote?'
'That you were dying.'
'Of me? To whom?'
She scrutinized me, and rose from her chair. 'I must try some other
shop. How is it, that if these English people cannot make a “berthe”
fit to wear, they do not conceive the idea of importing such things
from Paris? I will take your arm, Harry.'
'You have bought nothing,' I remarked.
'I have as much as I went for,' she replied, and gravely thanked the
assistant leaning on his thumbs across the counter; after which,
dropping the graceless play of an enigma, she inquired whether I had
forgotten the Frau von Dittmarsch.
I had, utterly; but not her maiden name of Sibley.
'Miss Goodwin, is she one of those who are coming to the island?'
'Frau von Dittmarsch? Yes. She takes an interest in you. She and I have
been in correspondence ever since my visit to Sarkeld. It reminds me,
you may vary my maiden name with the Christian, if you like. Harry, I
believe you are truthful as ever, in spite—'
'Don't be unjust,' said I.
'I wish I could think I was!' she rejoined. 'Frau von Dittmarsch was at
Sarkeld, and received terrible news of you. She called on me, at my
father's residence over the water yonder, yesterday afternoon, desiring
greatly to know—she is as cautious as one with a jewel in her
custody—how it fared with you, whether you were actually in a dying
state. I came here to learn; I have friends here: you were not alone,
or I should have called on you. The rumour was that you were very ill;
so I hired a furnished place for Frau von Dittmarsch at once. But when
I saw you and him together, and the parting between you, I began to
have fears; I should have countermanded the despatch I sent by the
boat, had it been possible.'
'It has gone! And tell me the name of the other.'
'Frau von Dittmarsch has a husband.'
'Not with her now. Oh! cruel! speak: her name?'
'Her name, Harry?' Her title is Countess von Delzenburg.'
'Not princess?'
'Not in England.'
Then Ottilia was here!
My father was indeed a magician!