BEFORE BREAKFAST
Cold through the night the dark-fringed stream had whispered under
Evan’s eyes, and the night breeze voiced “Fool, fool!” to him, not
without a distant echo in his heart. By symbols and sensations he knew
that Rose was lost to him. There was no moon: the water seemed aimless,
passing on carelessly to oblivion. Now and then, the trees stirred and
talked, or a noise was heard from the pastures. He had slain the life
that lived in them, and the great glory they were to bring forth, and
the end to which all things moved. Had less than the loss of Rose been
involved, the young man might have found himself looking out on a world
beneath notice, and have been sighing for one more worthy of his
clouded excellence but the immense misery present to him in the
contemplation of Rose’s sad restrained contempt, saved him from the
silly elation which is the last, and generally successful, struggle of
human nature in those who can so far master it to commit a sacrifice.
The loss of that brave high young soul—Rose, who had lifted him out of
the mire with her own white hands: Rose, the image of all that he
worshipped: Rose, so closely wedded to him that to be cut away from her
was to fall like pallid clay from the soaring spirit: surely he was
stunned and senseless when he went to utter the words to her mother!
Now that he was awake, and could feel his self-inflicted pain, he
marvelled at his rashness and foolishness, as perhaps numerous mangled
warriors have done for a time, when the battle-field was cool, and they
were weak, and the uproar of their jarred nerves has beset them, lying
uncherished.
By degrees he grew aware of a little consolatory touch, like the point
of a needle, in his consciousness. Laxley would certainly insult him!
In that case he would not refuse to fight him. The darkness broke and
revealed this happy prospect, and Evan held to it an hour, and could
hardly reject it when better thoughts conquered. For would it not be
sweet to make the strength of his arm respected? He took a stick, and
ran his eye musingly along the length, trifling with it grimly. The
great Mel had been his son’s instructor in the chivalrous science of
fence, and a _maître d’armes_ in Portugal had given him polish. In
Mel’s time duels with swords had been occasionally fought, and Evan
looked on the sword as the weapon of combat. Face to face with his
adversary—what then were birth or position? Action!—action! he sighed
for it, as I have done since I came to know that his history must be
morally developed. A glow of bitter pleasure exalted him when, after
hot passages, and parryings and thrusts, he had disarmed Ferdinand
Laxley, and bestowing on him his life, said: “Accept this worthy gift
of the son of a tailor!” and he wiped his sword, haply bound up his
wrist, and stalked off the ground, the vindicator of man’s natural
dignity. And then he turned upon himself with laughter, discovering a
most wholesome power, barely to be suspected in him yet; but of all the
children of glittering Mel and his solid mate, Evan was the best mixed
compound of his parents.
He put the stick back in its corner and eyed his wrist, as if he had
really just gone through the pretty scene he had just laughed at. It
was nigh upon reality, for it suggested the employment of a
handkerchief, and he went to a place and drew forth one that had the
stain of his blood on it, and the name of Rose at one end. The beloved
name was half-blotted by the dull-red mark, and at that sight a strange
tenderness took hold of Evan. His passions became dead and of old date.
This, then, would be his for ever! Love, for whom earth had been too
small, crept exultingly into a nut-shell. He clasped the treasure on
his breast, and saw a life beyond his parting with her.
Strengthened thus, he wrote by the morning light to Laxley. The letter
was brief, and said simply that the act of which Laxley had been
accused, Evan Harrington was responsible for. The latter expressed
regret that Laxley should have fallen under a false charge, and, at the
same time, indicated that if Laxley considered himself personally
aggrieved, the writer was at his disposal.
A messenger had now to be found to convey it to the village-inn.
Footmen were stirring about the house, and one meeting Evan close by
his door, observed with demure grin, that he could not find the
gentleman’s nether-garments. The gentleman, it appeared, was Mr. John
Raikes, who according to report, had been furnished with a bed at the
house, because of a discovery, made at a late period over-night, that
farther the gentleman could not go. Evan found him sleeping soundly.
How much the poor youth wanted a friend! Fortune had given him instead
a born buffoon; and it is perhaps the greatest evil of a position like
Evan’s, that, with cultured feelings, you are likely to meet with none
to know you. Society does not mix well in money-pecking spheres. Here,
however, was John Raikes, and Evan had to make the best of him.
“Eh?” yawned Jack, awakened; “I was dreaming I was Napoleon Bonaparte’s
right-hand man.”
“I want you to be mine for half-an-hour,” said Evan.
Without replying, the distinguished officer jumped out of bed at a
bound, mounted a chair, and peered on tip-toe over the top, from which,
with a glance of self-congratulation, he pulled the missing piece of
apparel, sighed dejectedly as he descended, while he exclaimed:
“Safe! but no distinction can compensate a man for this state of
intolerable suspicion of everybody. I assure you, Harrington, I
wouldn’t be Napoleon himself—and I have always been his peculiar
admirer—to live and be afraid of my valet! I believe it will develop
cancer sooner or later in me. I feel singular pains already. Last
night, after crowning champagne with ale, which produced a sort of
French Revolution in my interior—by the way, that must have made me
dream of Napoleon last night, with my lower members in revolt against
my head, I had to sit and cogitate for hours on a hiding-place for
these—call them what you will. Depend upon it, Harrington, this world
is no such funny affair as we fancy.”
“Then it is true, that you could let a man play pranks on you,” said
Evan. “I took it for one of your jokes.”
“Just as I can’t believe that you’re a tailor,” returned Jack. “It’s
not a bit more extraordinary.”
“But, Jack, if you cause yourself to be contemptible——”
“Contemptible!” cried Jack. “This is not the tone I like. Contemptible!
why it’s my eccentricity among my equals. If I dread the profane
vulgar, that only proves that I’m above them. _Odi_, etc. Besides,
Achilles had his weak point, and egad, it was when he faced about! By
Jingo! I wish I’d had that idea yesterday. I should have behaved
better.”
Evan could see that the creature was beginning to rely desperately on
his humour.
“Come,” he said, “be a man to-day. Throw off your motley. When I met
you that night so oddly, you had been acting like a worthy fellow,
trying to earn your bread in the best way you could—”
“And precisely because I met you, of all men, I’ve been going round and
round ever since,” said Jack. “A clown or pantaloon would have given me
balance. Say no more. You couldn’t help it. We met because we were the
two extremes.”
Sighing, “What a jolly old inn!” Raikes rolled himself over in the
sheets, and gave two or three snug jolts indicative of his
determination to be comfortable while he could.
“Do you intend to carry on this folly, Jack?”
“Say, sacrifice,” was the answer. “I feel it as much as you possibly
could, Mr. Harrington. Hear the facts,” Jack turned round again. “Why
did I consent to this absurdity? Because of my ambition. That old
fellow, whom I took to be a clerk of Messrs. Grist, said: ‘You want to
cut a figure in the world—you’re armed now.’ A sort of Fortunatus’s
joke. It was his way of launching me. But did he think I intended this
for more than a lift? I his puppet? He, sir, was my tool! Well, I came.
All my efforts were strained to shorten the period of penance. I had
the best linen, and put on captivating manners. I should undoubtedly
have won some girl of station, and cast off my engagement like an old
suit, but just mark!—now mark how Fortune tricks us! After the pic-nic
yesterday, the domestics of the house came to clear away, and the band
being there, I stopped them and bade them tune up, and at the same time
seizing the maid Wheedle, away we flew. We danced, we whirled, we
twirled. Ale upon this! My head was lost. ‘Why don’t it last for ever?’
says I. ‘I wish it did,’ says she. The naivete enraptured me. ‘Oooo!’ I
cried, hugging her, and then, you know, there was no course open to a
man of honour but to offer marriage and make a lady of her. I proposed:
she accepted me, and here I am, eternally tied to this accurst
insignia, if I’m to keep my promise! Isn’t that a sacrifice, friend H.?
There’s no course open to me. The poor girl is madly in love. She
called me a ‘rattle!’ As a gentleman, I cannot recede.”
Evan got up and burst into damnable laughter at this burlesque of
himself. Telling the fellow the service he required, and receiving a
groaning assurance that the letter should, without loss of time, be
delivered in proper style, the egoist, as Jack heartily thought him,
fell behind his; knitted brows, and, after musing abstractedly, went
forth to light upon his fate.
But a dread of meeting had seized both Rose and Evan. She had exhausted
her first sincerity of unbelief in her interview with Juliana: and he
had begun to consider what he could say to her. More than the three
words “I did it,” would not be possible; and if she made him repeat
them, facing her truthful eyes, would he be man enough to strike her
bared heart twice? And, ah! the sullen brute he must seem, standing
before her dumb, hearing her sigh, seeing her wretched effort not to
show how unwillingly her kind spirit despised him. The reason for the
act—she would ask for that! Rose would not be so philosophic as her
mother. She would grasp at every chance to excuse the deed. He cried
out against his scheming sister in an agony, and while he did so,
encountered Miss Carrington and Miss Bonner in deep converse. Juliana
pinched her arm, whereupon Miss Carrington said: “You look merry this
morning, Mr. Harrington”: for he was unawares smiling at the image of
himself in the mirror of John Raikes. That smile, transformed to a
chuckling grimace, travelled to Rose before they met.
Why did she not come to him?
A soft voice at his elbow made his blood stop. It was Caroline. She
kissed him, answering his greeting: “Is it good morning?”
“Certainly,” said he. “By the way, don’t forget that the coach leaves
early.”
“My darling Evan! you make me so happy. For it was really a mistaken
sense of honour. For what can at all excuse a falsehood, you know,
Evan!”
Caroline took his arm, and led him into the sun, watching his face at
times. Presently she said: “I want just to be assured that you thought
more wisely than when you left us last night.”
“More wisely?” Evan turned to her with a playful smile.
“My dear brother! you did not do what you said you would do?”
“Have you ever known me not to do what I said I would do?”
“Evan! Good heaven! you did it? Then how can you remain here an
instant? Oh, no, no!—say no, darling!”
“Where is Louisa?” he inquired.
“She is in her room. She will never appear at breakfast, if she knows
this.”
“Perhaps more solitude would do her good,” said Evan.
“Remember, if this should prove true, think how you punish her!”
On that point Evan had his own opinion.
“Well, I shall never have to punish you in this way, my love,” he said
fondly, and Caroline dropped her eyelids.
“Don’t think that I am blaming her,” he added, trying to feel as
honestly as he spoke. “I was mad to come here. I see it all now. Let us
keep to our place. We are all the same before God till we disgrace
ourselves.” Possibly with that sense of shame which some young people
have who are not professors of sounding sentences, or affected by
missionary zeal, when they venture to breathe the holy name, Evan
blushed, and walked on humbly silent. Caroline murmured: “Yes, yes! oh,
brother!” and her figure drew to him as if for protection. Pale, she
looked up.
“Shall you always love me, Evan?”
“Whom else have I to love?”
“But always—always? Under any circumstances?”
“More and more, dear. I always have, and shall. I look to you now. I
have no home but in your heart now.”
She was agitated, and he spoke warmly to calm her.
The throb of deep emotion rang in her rich voice. “I will live any life
to be worthy of your love, Evan,” and she wept.
To him they were words and tears without a history.
Nothing further passed between them. Caroline went to the Countess:
Evan waited for Rose. The sun was getting high. The face of the stream
glowed like metal. Why did she not come? She believed him guilty from
the mouth of another? If so, there was something less for him to lose.
And now the sacrifice he had made did whisper a tale of mortal
magnificence in his ears: feelings that were not his noblest stood up
exalted. He waited till the warm meadow-breath floating past told that
the day had settled into heat, and then he waited no more, but quietly
walked into the house with the strength of one who has conquered more
than human scorn.