JANET RENOUNCES ME
An illness of old Sewis, the butler,--amazingly resembling a sick monkey
in his bed,--kept me from paying a visit to Temple and seeing my father
for several weeks, during which time Janet loyally accustomed the squire
to hear of the German princess, and she did it with a decent and
agreeable cheerfulness that I quite approved of. I should have been
enraged at a martyr-like appearance on her part, for I demanded a
sprightly devotion to my interests, considering love so holy a thing,
that where it existed, all surrounding persons were bound to do it homage
and service. We were thrown together a great deal in attending on poor
old Sewis, who would lie on his pillows recounting for hours my father's
midnight summons of the inhabitants of Riversley, and his little Harry's
infant expedition into the world. Temple and Heriot came to stay at the
Grange, and assisted in some rough scene-painting--torrid colours
representing the island of Jamaica. We hung it at the foot of old
Sewis's bed. He awoke and contemplated it, and went downstairs the same
day, cured, he declared: the fact being that the unfortunate picture
testified too strongly to the reversal of all he was used to in life, in
having those he served to wait on him. The squire celebrated his
recovery by giving a servants' ball. Sewis danced with the handsomest
lass, swung her to supper, and delivered an extraordinary speech,
entirely concerning me, and rather to my discomposure, particularly so
when it was my fate to hear that the old man had made me the heir of his
savings. Such was his announcement, in a very excited voice, but
incidentally upon a solemn adjuration to the squire to beware of his
temper--govern his temper and not be a turncoat.
We were present at the head of the supper-table to hear our healths
drunk. Sewis spoke like a half-caste oblivious of his training, and of
the subjects he was at liberty to touch on as well. Evidently there was
a weight of foreboding on his mind. He knew his master well. The squire
excused him under the ejaculation, 'Drunk, by the Lord!' Sewis went so
far as to mention my father 'He no disgrace, sar, he no disgrace, I say!
but he pull one way, old house pull other way, and 'tween 'em my little
Harry torn apieces, squire. He set out in the night "You not enter it
any more!" Very well. I go my lawyer next day. You see my Will,
squire. Years ago, and little Harry so high. Old Sewis not the man to
change. He no turncoat, squire. God bless you, my master; you
recollect, and ladies tell you if you forget, old Sewis no turncoat. You
hate turncoat. You taught old Sewis, and God bless you, and Mr. Harry,
and British Constitution, all Amen!'
With that he bounded to bed. He was dead next morning.
The squire was humorous over my legacy. It amounted to about seventeen
hundred pounds invested in Government Stock, and he asked me what I meant
to do with it; proposed a Charity to be established on behalf of decayed
half-castes, insisting that servants' money could never be appropriated
to the uses of gentlemen. All the while he was muttering, 'Turncoat!
eh? turncoat?'--proof that the word had struck where it was aimed. For
me, after thinking on it, I had a superstitious respect for the legacy,
so I determined, in spite of the squire's laughter over 'Sixty pounds per
annum!' to let it rest in my name: I saw for the first time the
possibility that I might not have my grandfather's wealth to depend upon.
He warned me of growing miserly. With my father in London, living freely
on my property, I had not much fear of that. However, I said discreetly,
'I don't mind spending when I see my way.'
'Oh! see your way,' said he. 'Better a niggard than a chuckfist. Only,
there 's my girl: she 's good at accounts. One 'll do for them, Harry?--
ha'n't been long enough at home yet?'
Few were the occasions when our conversation did not diverge to this sort
of interrogation. Temple and Heriot, with whom I took counsel, advised
me to wait until the idea of the princess had worn its way into his
understanding, and leave the work to Janet. 'Though,' said Heriot to me
aside, 'upon my soul, it's slaughter.' He believed that Janet felt
keenly. But then, she admired him, and so they repaid one another.
I won my grandfather's confidence in practical matters on a trip we took
into Wales. But it was not enough for me to be a man of business, he
affirmed; he wanted me to have some ambition; why not stand for our
county at the next general election? He offered me his Welsh borough if
I thought fit to decline a contest. This was to speak as mightily as a
German prince. Virtually, in wealth and power, he was a prince; but of
how queer a kind! He was immensely gratified by my refraining to look
out for my father on our return journey through London, and remarked,
that I had not seen him for some time, he supposed. To which I said, no,
I had not, He advised me to let the fellow run his length. Suggesting
that he held it likely I contributed to 'the fellow's' support: he said
generously, 'Keep clear of him, Hal: I add you a thousand a year to your
allowance,' and damned me for being so thoughtful over it. I found
myself shuddering at a breath of anger from him. Could he not with a
word dash my hopes for ever? The warning I had taken from old Sewis
transformed me to something like a hypocrite, and I dare say I gave the
squire to understand, that I had not seen my father for a very long
period and knew nothing of his recent doings.
'Been infernally quiet these last two or three years,' the squire
muttered of the object of his aversion. 'I heard of a City widow last,
sick as a Dover packet-boat 'bout the fellow! Well, the women are
ninnies, but you're a man, Harry; you're not to be taken in any longer,
eh?'
I replied that I knew my father better now, and was asked how the deuce
I knew him better; it was the world I knew better after my stay on the
Continent.
I contained myself enough to say, 'Very well, the world, sir.'
'Flirted with one of their princesses?' He winked.
'On that subject I will talk to you some other time,' said I.
'Got to pay an indemnity? or what?' He professed alarm, and pushed for
explanations, with the air of a man of business ready to help me if need
were. 'Make a clean breast of it, Harry. You 're not the son of Tom
Fool the Bastard for nothing, I'll swear. All the same you're Beltham;
you're my grandson and heir, and I'll stand by you. Out with 't! She's
a princess, is she?'
The necessity for correcting his impressions taught me to think the
moment favourable. I said, 'I am engaged to her, sir.'
He returned promptly: 'Then you'll break it off.'
I shook my head.
'Why, you can't jilt my girl at home!' said he.
'Do you find a princess objectionable, sir?'
'Objectionable? She's a foreigner. I don't know her. I never saw her.
Here's my Janet I've brought up for you, under my own eyes, out of the
way of every damned soft-sawderer, safe and plump as a melon under a
glass, and you fight shy of her, and go and engage yourself to a
foreigner I don't know and never saw! By George, Harry, I'll call in a
parson to settle you soon as ever we sight Riversley. I'll couple you,
by George, I will! 'fore either of you know whether you're on your legs
or your backs.'
We were in the streets of London, so he was obliged to moderate his
vehemence.
'Have you consulted Janet?' said I.
'Consulted her? ever since she was a chick with half a feather on.'
'A chick with half a feather on,' I remarked, 'is not always of the same
mind as a piece of poultry of full plumage.'
'Hang your sneering and your talk of a fine girl, like my Janet, as a
piece of poultry, you young rooster! You toss your head up like a cock
too conceited to crow. I 'll swear the girl 's in love with you. She
does you the honour to be fond of you. She 's one in a million. A
handsome girl, straight-backed, honest, just a dash, and not too much, of
our blood in her.'
'Consult her again, sir,' I broke in. 'You will discover she is not of
your way of thinking.'
'Do you mean to say she's given you a left-hander, Harry?'
'I have only to say that I have not given her the option.'
He groaned going up the steps of his hotel, faced me once or twice, and
almost gained my sympathy by observing, 'When we're boys, the old ones
worry us; when we're old ones, the boys begin to tug!' He rarely spoke
so humanely,--rarely, at least, to me.
For a wonder, he let the matter drop: possibly because he found me
temperate. I tried the system on him with good effect during our stay in
London; that is, I took upon myself to be always cool, always courteous,
deliberate in my replies, and not uncordial, though I was for
representing the reserved young man. I obtained some praise for my style
and bearing among his acquaintances. To one lady passing an encomium on
me, he said, 'Oh, some foreign princess has been training him,' which
seemed to me of good augury.
My friends Temple and Heriot were among the Riversley guests at
Christmas. We rode over to John Thresher's, of whom we heard that the
pretty Mabel Sweetwinter had disappeared, and understood that suspicion
had fallen upon one of us gentlemen. Bob, her brother, had gone the way
of the bravest English fellows of his class-to America. We called on the
miller, a soured old man. Bob's evasion affected him more than Mabel's,
Martha Thresher said, in derision of our sex. I was pained to hear from
her that Bob supposed me the misleader of his sister; and that he had, as
she believed, left England, to avoid the misery of ever meeting me again,
because he liked me so much. She had been seen walking down the lanes
with some one resembling me in figure. Heriot took the miller's view,
counting the loss of one stout young Englishman to his country of far
greater importance than the escapades of dozens of girls, for which
simple creatures he had no compassion: he held the expression of it a
sham. He had grown coxcombical. Without talking of his conquests, he
talked largely of the ladies who were possibly in the situation of
victims to his grace of person, though he did not do so with any unctuous
boasting. On the contrary, there was a rather taking undertone of regret
that his enfeebled over-fat country would give her military son no
worthier occupation. He laughed at the mention of Julia Bulsted's name.
'She proves, Richie, marriage is the best of all receipts for women, just
as it's the worst for men. Poor Billy Bulsted, for instance, a first-
rate seaman, and his heart's only half in his profession since he and
Julia swore their oath; and no wonder,--he made something his own that
won't go under lock and key. No military or naval man ought ever to
marry.'
'Stop,' said Temple, 'is the poor old country------ How about continuing
the race of heroes?'
Heriot commended him to rectories, vicarages, and curates' lodgings for
breeding grounds, and coming round to Julia related one of the racy
dialogues of her married life. 'The saltwater widow's delicious. Billy
rushes home from his ship in a hurry. What's this Greg writes me?--That
he 's got a friend of his to drink with him, d' ye mean, William?--
A friend of yours, ma'am.--And will you say a friend of mine is not a
friend of yours, William?--Julia, you're driving me mad!--And is that far
from crazy, where you said I drove you at first sight of me, William?
Back to his ship goes Billy with a song of love and constancy.'
I said nothing of my chagrin at the behaviour of the pair who had
furnished my first idea of the romantic beauty of love.
'Why does she talk twice as Irish as she used to, Heriot?'
'Just to coax the world to let her be as nonsensical as she likes. She's
awfully dull; she has only her nonsense to amuse her. I repeat: soldiers
and sailors oughtn't to marry. I'm her best friend. I am, on my honour:
for I 'm going to make Billy give up the service, since he can't give her
up. There she is!' he cried out, and waved his hat to a lady on
horseback some way down the slope of a road leading to the view of our
heathland:
'There's the only girl living fit to marry a man and swear she 'll stick
to him through life and death.'
He started at a gallop. Temple would have gone too at any possible
speed, for he knew as well as I did that Janet was the girl alone capable
of winning a respectful word from Heriot; but I detained him to talk of
Ottilia and my dismal prospect of persuading the squire to consent to my
proposal for her, and to dower her in a manner worthy a princess. He
doled out his yes and no to me vacantly. Janet and Heriot came at a
walking pace to meet us, he questioning her, she replying, but a little
differently from her usual habit of turning her full face to the speaker.
He was evidently startled, and, to judge from his posture, repeated his
question, as one would say, 'You did this?' She nodded, and then uttered
some rapid words, glanced at him, laughed shyly, and sank her features
into repose as we drew near. She had a deep blush on her face. I
thought it might be, that Janet and her loud champion had come to
particular terms, a supposition that touched me with regrets for Temple's
sake. But Heriot was not looking pleased. It happened that whatever
Janet uttered struck a chord of opposition in me. She liked the Winter
and the Winter sunsets, had hopes of a frost for skating, liked our
climate, thought our way of keeping Christmas venerable, rejoiced in
dispensing the squire's bounties--called them bounties, joined Heriot
in abusing foreign countries to the exaltation of her own: all this with
'Well, Harry, I'm sorry you don't think as we do. And we do, don't we?'
she addressed him.
'I reserve a point,' he said, and not playfully.
She appeared distressed, and courted a change of expression in his
features, and I have to confess that never having seen her gaze upon
any one save myself in that fashion, which was with her very winning,
especially where some of her contralto tones of remonstrance or entreaty
aided it, I felt as a man does at a neighbour's shadow cast over his
rights of property.
Heriot dropped to the rear: I was glad to leave her with Temple, and glad
to see them canter ahead together on the sand of tie heaths.
'She has done it,' Heriot burst out abruptly. 'She has done it!' he said
again. 'Upon my soul, I never wished in my life before that I was a
marrying man: I might have a chance of ending worth something. She has
won the squire round with a thundering fib, and you're to have the German
if you can get her. Don't be in a hurry. The squire 'll speak to you
to-night: but think over it. Will you? Think what a girl this is. I
believe on my honour no man ever had such an offer of a true woman.
Come, don't think it's Heriot speaking--I've always liked her, of course.
But I have always respected her, and that's not of course. Depend upon
it, a woman who can be a friend of men is the right sort of woman to make
a match with. Do you suppose she couldn't have a dozen fellows round her
at the lift of her finger? the pick of the land! I'd trust her with an
army. I tell you, Janet Ilchester 's the only girl alive who'll double
the man she marries. I don't know another who wouldn't make the name of
wife laugh the poor devil out of house and company. She's firm as a
rock; and sweet as a flower on it! Will that touch you? Bah! Richie,
let's talk like men. I feel for her because she's fond of you, and I
know what it is when a girl like that sets her heart on a fellow.
There,' he concluded, 'I 'd ask you to go down on your knees and pray
before you decide against her!'
Heriot succeeded in raising a certain dull indistinct image in my mind of
a well-meaning girl, to whom I was bound to feel thankful, and felt so.
I thanked Heriot, too, for his friendly intentions. He had never seen
the Princess Ottilia. And at night I thanked my grandfather. He bore
himself, on the whole, like the good and kindly old gentleman Janet loved
to consider him. He would not stand in my light, he said, recurring to
that sheet-anchor of a tolerant sentence whenever his forehead began to
gather clouds. He regretted that Janet was no better than her sex in her
preference for rakes, and wished me to the deuce for bringing Heriot into
the house, and not knowing when I was lucky. 'German grandchildren, eh!'
he muttered. No Beltham had ever married a foreigner. What was the time
fixed between us for the marriage? He wanted to see his line safe before
he died. 'How do I know this foreign woman'll bear?' he asked, expecting
an answer. His hand was on the back of a chair, grasping and rocking it;
his eyes bent stormily on the carpet; they were set blinking rapidly
after a glance at me. Altogether his self-command was creditable to
Janet's tuition.
Janet met me next day, saying with some insolence (so it struck me from
her liveliness): 'Well, it's all right, Harry? Now you'll be happy, I
hope. I did not shine in my reply. Her amiable part appeared to be to
let me see how brilliant and gracious the commonplace could be made to
look. She kept Heriot at the Grange, against the squire's remonstrance
and her mother's. 'It 's to keep him out of harm's way: the women he
knows are not of the best kind for him,' she said, with astounding
fatuity. He submitted, and seemed to like it. She must be teaching
Temple to skate figures in the frost, with a great display of good-
humoured patience, and her voice at musical pitches. But her principal
affectation was to talk on matters of business with Mr. Burgin and Mr.
Trewint, the squire's lawyer and bailiff, on mines and interest, on money
and economical questions; not shrinking from politics either, until the
squire cries out to the males assisting in the performance, 'Gad, she 's
a head as good as our half-dozen put together,' and they servilely joined
their fragmentary capitals in agreement. She went so far as to retain
Peterborough to teach her Latin. He was idling in the expectation of a
living in the squire's gift.
The annoyance for me was that I could not detach myself from a
contemplation of these various scenes, by reverting to my life in
Germany. The preposterous closing of my interview with Ottilia blocked
the way, and I was unable to write to her--unable to address her even in
imagination, without pangs of shame at the review of the petty conspiracy
I had sanctioned to entrap her to plight her hand to me, and without
perpetually multiplying excuses for my conduct. So to escape them I was
reduced to study Janet, forming one of her satellites. She could say to
me impudently, with all the air of a friendly comrade, 'Had your letter
from Germany yet, Harry?' She flew--she was always on the chase. I saw
her permit Heriot to kiss her hand, and then the squire appeared, and
Heriot and she burst into laughter, and the squire, with a puzzled face,
would have the game explained to him, but understood not a bit of it,
only growled at me; upon which Janet became serious and chid him. I was
told by my aunt Dorothy to admire this behaviour of hers. One day she
certainly did me a service: a paragraph in one of the newspapers spoke of
my father, not flatteringly: 'Richmond is in the field again,' it
commenced. The squire was waiting for her to hand the paper to him.
None of us could comprehend why she played him off and denied him his
right to the first perusal of the news; she was voluble, almost witty,
full of sprightly Roxalana petulance.
'This paper,' she said, 'deserves to be burnt,' and she was allowed to
burn it--money article, mining column as well--on the pretext of an
infamous anti-Tory leader, of which she herself composed the first
sentence to shock the squire completely. I had sight of that paper some
time afterwards. Richmond was in the field again, it stated, with mock
flourishes. But that was not the worst. My grandfather's name was down
there, and mine, and Princess Ottilia's. My father's connection with the
court of Eppenwelzen-Sarkeld was alluded to as the latest, and next to
his winning the heiress of Riversley, the most successful of his
ventures, inasmuch as his son, if rumour was to be trusted, had obtained
the promise of the hand of the princess. The paragraph was an excerpt
from a gossiping weekly journal, perhaps less malevolent than I thought
it. There was some fun to be got out of a man who, the journal in
question was informed, had joined the arms of England and a petty German
principality stamped on his plate and furniture.
My gratitude to Janet was fervent enough when I saw what she had saved me
from. I pressed her hand and held it. I talked stupidly, but I made my
cruel position intelligible to her, and she had the delicacy, on this
occasion, to keep her sentiments regarding my father unuttered. We sat
hardly less than an hour side by side--I know not how long hand in hand.
The end was an extraordinary trembling in the limb abandoned to me. It
seized her frame. I would have detained her, but it was plain she
suffered both in her heart and her pride. Her voice was under fair
command-more than mine was. She counselled me to go to London, at once.
'I would be off to London if I were you, Harry,'--for the purpose of
checking my father's extravagances,--would have been the further wording,
which she spared me; and I thanked her, wishing, at the same time,
that she would get the habit of using choicer phrases whenever there
might, by chance, be a stress of emotion between us. Her trembling,
and her 'I'd be off,' came into unpleasant collision in the recollection.
I acknowledge to myself that she was a true and hearty friend. She
listened with interest to my discourse on the necessity of my being in
Parliament before I could venture to propose formally for the hand of the
princess, and undertook to bear the burden of all consequent negotiations
with my grandfather. If she would but have allowed me to speak of
Temple, instead of saying, 'Don't, Harry, I like him so much!' at the
very mention of his name, I should have sincerely felt my indebtedness to
her, and some admiration of her fine spirit and figure besides. I could
not even agree with my aunt Dorothy that Janet was handsome. When I had
to grant her a pardon I appreciated her better.