"Every man's progress is through a succession of
teachers."--EMERSON.
As John slowly climbed the hill of convalescence many visitors came to
relieve his solitude, and one of those who came the oftenest was Lord
Frederick Fane.
Lord Frederick was a square-shouldered, well-preserved, well set up,
carefully-padded man of close on sixty, with a thin-lipped, bloodless
face, and faded eyes, divided by a high nose.
"Do you like that man?" said Lord Hemsworth to John one day when he was
sitting with him, and Lord Frederick sent up to know whether the latter
would see him.
"No," said John.
"But you seem to see a good deal of him."
"He is civil to me, and I am not rude to him. He is a relation, you
know."
"I can't stand him," said Lord Hemsworth. "If he is coming up I shall
bolt;" and Lord Frederick entering at that moment, Lord Hemsworth took
his departure.
"You're better, John," said Lord Frederick, looking at him through his
half-closed eyes, and settling himself gently in a high chair, his hat
and one glove and crutch-handled stick held before him in his broad lean
hand.
"I feel more human," said John, "now that I'm shaved and dressed. When I
saw myself in the glass yesterday for the first time, I thought I was
Darwin's missing link."
"You look more human," said Lord Frederick, crossing one leg over the
other, and then contemplating his white spats for a change. "Able to
attend to business again yet?"
"Not yet. I have tried, but I am as weak as a worm that can't turn."
"Pity," said Lord Frederick, glancing at a sheaf of letters and some
opened telegrams on the table at John's elbow. "Things always happen at
inconvenient times," he went on. "Old Charlesworth might have chosen a
more opportune moment to die and leave Marchamley vacant again."
"He is not dead yet."
"I suppose both sides have been at you already to stand for it
yourself," hazarded Lord Frederick.
"Yes."
"I thought so."
Silence.
"Are you going to stand?"
"What is your opinion on the subject? I see you have one."
"Well," said Lord Frederick, "I look at it this way. I have often said
'Don't tie yourself.' I am all for young men keeping their hands free,
and seeing the ins and outs of life, before they settle down. But you
are not so very young, and a time comes when a sort of annoyance
attaches to freedom itself. It's a bore. Now as to this seat. Indecision
is all very well for a time; it enhances a man's value. You were quite
right not to stand three years ago; it has made you of more importance.
But that won't do much longer. You are bound to come to a decision for
your own advantage. Neutral ground is sometimes between two fires. I
should say 'stand,' if you ask me. Throw in your lot with the side on
which you are most likely to come to the front, and stand."
"And private opinions? How about them if they don't happen to fit? Throw
them overboard?"
"Yes," said Lord Frederick. "It has got to be done sooner or later. Why
not sooner? A free-lance is no manner of use. There's a hitch somewhere
in you, John, that if you don't look out will damn your career as a
public man. I don't know what your politics are. My own opinion, between
ourselves, is that you have not got any, but you are bound to have some,
and you may as well join forces with what will bring you forward most,
and start young. That's my advice."
"Thanks."
"There is not a man in the world with an ounce of brains who has not
high-flown ideas at your age," continued Lord Frederick. "I have had
them. Everybody has them. You buy them with your first razors. People
generally sicken with them just when they could make a push for
themselves, and while they are getting better, youth and opportunity
pass and don't come back. I've seen it over and over again. Every young
fool with a ginger moustache, when he first starts in public life, is
going to be a patriot, and do his d----d thinking for himself. He might
as well make his own clothes, and expect society to receive him in them.
By the time he is bald he has learnt better, and he's a party man, but he
has lost time in the meanwhile. You may depend upon it, a strong party
man is what is wanted. The country doesn't want individuals with brains;
they are mostly kicked out in the end. If you don't want to go with the
crowd, don't go against it, but throw yourself into it heart and soul,
and get in front of it on its own road. It's no good coming to the fore
unless you have a following."
"Thanks," said John again. His face was as expressionless as a mask. He
looked, as he lay back in his low couch, a strange mixture of feebleness
and power. It was as if a strong man armed kept watch within a house
tottering to its fall.
He put out his muscular, powerless hand, and took up one of the
telegrams.
"Charlesworth is not dead yet," he said.
Lord Frederick could take a hint.
"His death will put the Moretons in mourning again," he remarked. "Mrs.
Moreton's ball is doomed. I am sorry for that woman. She is cumbered
with much time-serving, and her ball fell through last year; this is the
second time it has happened. I have been asking her young men for her. I
put down your cousin in the Guards, the Apollo with the tow wig.
What's-his-name, Tempest?"
"Archibald."
"Yes. That would be a dangerous man, if he were not such a fool, but the
same placard that says he is to let says he is unfurnished, and it's
poor work taking an empty house, when it comes to living in it. Women
know that. He has let the soda water heiress slip through his fingers.
She is going to marry young Topham. I thought Apollo seemed rather down
on his luck when it was first given out, but he has consoled himself
since. Apparently he has a mission to married women. He is always with
Lady Verelst now; I saw him riding with her again this morning. I don't
know who mounts him, but he was on the best horse I've seen this season.
You are not such a f----, such a philanthropist as to lend him horses,
are you?"
"When I can't use them myself I have that amount of generosity."
"H'm! Well, he makes good use of his opportunities to cheer up Lady
Verelst. I wish you would flirt more with married women, John. You would
find your account in it. I did at your age. You see you are too eligible
to go on much with girls, and that's the truth. You would be watched.
But you don't pay enough attention to women, and three-quarters of the
world is made up of them. You are too much of a Puritan, but you may
remember human nature is like a short-footed stocking. If you darn it up
at the heel it will come out at the toe. It's no manner of use to ignore
women. People who do always come the worst croppers in the end. A
flirtation with a fast, married woman would peel your illusions off you
like the skin off an orange. All young men believe in women--till they
know them. He! He! If I were a rabbit I should take a personal interest
in the habits of birds of prey. I told Hemsworth something of the kind
the other day, but he is bent on making a fool of himself."
"He knows his own affairs best."
"I fancy I know them better than he does. Miss Di is young, but she is
uncommonly well aware of her own value, and she is looking higher. I
should not wonder if she tried to marry you. She'll take him in five
years' time, if he is still willing, and she outstands her market: but
in the mean time she keeps him dangling. I told him so, and that I
admired her for it. She holds her head high, but she is a splendid
creature, and no mistake. She has not that expectant anxious look about
her that you see in other girls, and she is not made up. It's sterling
good looks in her case. If you are interested in that quarter, you may
take my word for it, it is all genuine, even to her hair. That is why
her frank manner is so telling; it's of a piece with the rest. She
knows how to play her cards. The old woman has taught her a thing or
two."
"What a knowledge you have of--human nature."
"I have looked about," said Lord Frederick, rising as gently as he had
sat down, and pulling up his shirt collar. "I had my eyes opened pretty
young, and I have kept them open ever since. Glad you're better. That
black devil in tights of a poodle wants shaving as much as you did last
time I saw you. No, don't ring for that melancholy valet. I will let
myself out. I dare say I shall be in again in the course of a day or
two. Ta, ta."
John crushed the telegram he was still holding into a hard ball as soon
as his self-constituted guide, philosopher, and friend had left the
room.
Cynicism was not new to him. It is cheap enough to be universally
appropriated by the poor in spirit, for whom generosity and tolerance
are commodities too expensive to be indulged in. Our belief in human
nature is a foot rule, by which we may be accurately measured ourselves.
There are those in whose enlightened eyes, purity herself is only a
courtesan in fancy dress. John had already had many teachers, for he was
a man who was being educated regardless of expense; but perhaps to no
two persons did he owe so much as to Mr. Goodwin and Lord Frederick
Fane. Our elders act as danger-signals oftener than they know.
John's room looked out across the Park. His couch had been drawn near
the open window, and to lie and watch the passing crowd of carriages and
pedestrians was almost as much excitement as he could bear after the
darkened rooms and enforced quiet of the last few weeks. John, with
Lindo erect on the vacant chair beside him, saw Lord Frederick's
hansom, with his pale profile inside it, turn down Park Lane below his
windows. Pain had burned all John's energy out of him for the time, and
he had soon forgotten his annoyance in watching the people attempting to
cross the thoroughfare, and in counting the omnibuses that passed. It
was all he was up to. It was about five in the afternoon, and carriage
after carriage turned into the Park at the gates opposite his window.
There went Lady Delmour with her brand new daughter, a sweet, wild rose
from the country, that must be perfected by London smuts and gaslight.
John pointed her out to Lindo, but he only yawned and looked the other
way. There was Mrs. Barker walking with her husband. Those two white
parasols he had danced with somewhere, but he could not put a name to
them. Neither could Lindo when asked. Another red omnibus. That was the
tenth red one within the last half-hour. Royalty went flashing by,
bowing and bowed to. John obliged Lindo, whom he suspected of democratic
tendencies, to make a bow also. He hoped his nurse would not come in and
send him back to bed yet. It was really very interesting watching the
passers-by. Was that--no, it was not--yes, it was Lady Verelst with red
parasol and husband to match, in the victoria with the greys. There was
actually Duchess, his old polo pony whom he had not seen since he sold
her three years ago, looking as spry as ever. John craned his neck to
see the last of the bob-tail of his old favourite whisk round the
corner. A moment later Mrs. Courtenay and Di, erect and fair beside her,
spun past in the opposite direction. Before he had time to realize that
he had seen her, almost before he had recognized her, the momentary
glimpse struck him like a blow. His head swam, his heart, so languid
the moment before, leapt up and struggled like a maddened caged animal.
She had passed some time before he was conscious of anything but the one
fact that he had seen her.
He stumbled to his feet and walked unsteadily across the room, clutching
at the furniture. He seemed to have left his legs behind.
"What am I doing?" he said to himself half aloud, holding on to and
swaying against a table. "What has happened? Why did I get up?"
He dragged himself back to his couch again, and sank down exhausted. The
excursion had been too much for him. He had not walked so far before. He
was bewildered.
Through the open window came the jingle, and the "clip-clop" and the
hum. Another red omnibus passed. But there was a loud knocking at the
door of John's heart that deafened him to all beside; the peremptory
knocking as of one armed with a claim, who stood without and would not
be denied.
END OF VOL. I.
PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED,
LONDON AND BECCLES. _D. & Co._