“No!--and why?” asked Darvil, coolly;--“why do you think I can mean you

no harm?”

“Because your annuity depends on me.”

“Shrewdly put--we’ll argufy that point. My life is a bad one, not worth

more than a year’s purchase; now, suppose you have more than forty

pounds about you--it may be better worth my while to draw my knife

across your gullet than to wait for the quarter-day’s ten pounds a

time. You see it’s all a matter of calculation, my dear, Mr.

What’s-your-name!”

“But,” replied the banker, and his teeth began to chatter, “I have not

forty pounds about me.”

“How do I know that?--you say so. Well, in the town yonder your word

goes for more than mine; I never gainsaid you when you put that to me,

did I? But here, by the haystack, my word is better than yours; and if

I say you must and shall have forty pounds about you, let’s see whether

you dare contradict me.”

“Look you, Darvil,” said the banker, summoning up all his energy and

intellect, for his moral power began now to back his physical cowardice,

and he spoke calmly, and even bravely, though his heart throbbed

aloud against his breast, and you might have knocked him down with a

feather--“the London runners are even now hot after you.”

“Ha!--you lie!”

“Upon my honour I speak the truth; I heard the news last evening. They

tracked you to C------; they tracked you out of the town; a word from me

would have given you into their hands. I said nothing--you are safe--you

may yet escape. I will even help you to fly the country, and live out

your natural date of years, secure and in peace.”

“You did not say that the other day in the snug drawing-room; you see I

have the best of it now--own that.”

“I do,” said the banker.

Darvil chuckled, and rubbed his hands.

The man of wealth once more felt his importance, and went on. “This is

one side of the question. On the other, suppose you rob and murder me,

do you think my death will lessen the heat of the pursuit against you?

The whole country will be in arms, and before forty-eight hours are over

you will be hunted down like a mad dog.”

Darvil was silent, as if in thought; and after a pause, replied: “Well,

you are a ‘cute one after all. What have you got about you? you know

you drove a hard bargain the other day--now it’s my market--fustian has

riz--kersey has fell.”

“All I have about me shall be yours,” said the banker, eagerly.

“Give it me, then.”

“There!” said the banker, placing his purse and pocketbook into Darvil’s

bands.

“And the watch?”

“The watch?--well there!”

“What’s that?”

The banker’s senses were sharpened by fear, but they were not so sharp

as those of Darvil; he heard nothing but the rain pattering on the

leaves, and the rush of water in the ditch at hand. Darvil stooped and

listened--till, raising himself again, with a deep-drawn breath, he

said, “I think there are rats in the haystack; they will be running over

me in my sleep; but they are playful creturs, and I like ‘em. And now,

my _dear_ sir, I am afraid I must put an end to you!”

“Good Heavens, what do you mean? How?”

“Man, there is another world!” quoth the ruffian, mimicking the banker’s

solemn tone in their former interview. “So much the better for you! In

that world they don’t tell tales.”

“I swear I will never betray you.”

“You do?--swear it, then.”

“By all my hopes of earth and heaven!”

“What a d-----d coward you be!” said Darvil, laughing scornfully.

“Go--you are safe. I am in good humour with myself again. I crow over

you, for no man can make me tremble. And villain as you think me, while

you fear me you cannot despise--you respect me. Go, I say--go.”

The banker was about to obey, when suddenly, from the haystack, a broad,

red light streamed upon the pair, and the next moment Darvil was seized

from behind, and struggling in the gripe of a man nearly as powerful

as himself. The light, which came from a dark-lanthorn, placed on

the ground, revealed the forms of a peasant in a smock-frock, and two

stout-built, stalwart men, armed with pistols--besides the one engaged

with Darvil.

The whole of this scene was brought as by the trick of the stage--as

by a flash of lightning--as by the change of a showman’s

phantasmagoria--before the astonished eyes of the banker. He stood

arrested and spell-bound, his hand on his bridle, his foot on his

stirrup. A moment more and Darvil had clashed his antagonist on the

ground; he stood at a little distance, his face reddened by the glare of

the lanthorn and fronting his assailants--that fiercest of all beasts,

a desperate man at bay! He had already succeeded in drawing forth his

pistols, and he held one in each hand--his eyes flashing from beneath

his bent brows and turning quickly from foe to foe! At last those

terrible eyes rested on the late reluctant companion of his solitude.

“So _you_ then betrayed me,” he said, very slowly, and directed his

pistol to the head of the dismounted horseman.

“No, no!” cried one of the officers, for such were Darvil’s assailants;

“fire away in this direction, my hearty--we’re paid for it. The

gentleman knew nothing at all about it.”

“Nothing, by G--!” cried the banker, startled out of his sanctity.

“Then I shall keep my shot,” said Darvil; “and mind, the first who

approaches me is a dead man.”

It so happened that the robber and the officers were beyond the distance

which allows sure mark for a pistol-shot, and each party felt the

necessity of caution.

“Your time is up, my swell cove!” cried the head of the detachment; “you

have had your swing, and a long one it seems to have been--you must now

give in. Throw down your barkers, or we must make mutton of you, and rob

the gallows.”

Darvil did not reply, and the officers, accustomed to hold life cheap,

moved on towards him--their pistols cocked and levelled.

Darvil fired--one of the men staggered and fell. With a kind of instinct

Darvil had singled out the one with whom he had before wrestled for

life. The ruffian waited not for the others--he turned and fled along

the fields.

“Zounds, he is off!” cried the other two, and they rushed after him in

pursuit. A pause--a shot--another--an oath--a groan--and all was still.

“It’s all up with him now,” said one of the runners, in the distance;

“he dies game.”

At these words, the peasant, who had before skulked behind the haystack,

seized the lanthorn from the ground, and ran to the spot. The banker

involuntarily followed.

There lay Luke Darvil on the grass--still living, but a horrible and

ghastly spectacle. One ball had pierced his breast, another had shot

away his jaw. His eyes rolled fearfully, and he tore up the grass with

his hands.

The officers looked coldly on. “He was a clever fellow!” said one.

“And has given us much trouble,” said the other; “let us see to Will.”

“But he’s not dead yet,” said the banker, shuddering.

“Sir, he cannot live a minute.”

Darvil raised himself bolt upright--shook his clenched fist at his

conquerors, and a fearful gurgling howl, which the nature of his wounds

did not allow him to syllable into a curse, came from his breast--with

that he fell flat on his back--a corpse.

“I am afraid, sir,” said the elder officer, turning away, “you had a

narrow escape--but how came you here?”

“Rather, how came _you_ here?”

“Honest Hodge there, with the lanthorn, had marked the fellow skulk

behind the haystack, when he himself was going out to snare rabbits. He

had seen our advertisement of Watts’ person, and knew that we were then

at a public house some miles off. He came to us--conducted us to the

spot--we heard voices--showed up the glim--and saw our man. Hodge, you

are a good subject, and love justice.”

“Yees, but I shall have the rewourd,” said Hodge, showing his teeth.

“Talk o’ that by and by,” said the officer. “Will, how are you, man?”

“Bad,” groaned the poor runner, and a rush of blood from the lips

followed the groan.

It was many days before the ex-member for C------ sufficiently recovered

the tone of his mind to think further of Alice; when he did, it was with

great satisfaction that he reflected that Darvil was no more, and that

the deceased ruffian was only known to the neighbourhood by the name of

Peter Watts.

BOOK V.

PARODY.

My hero, turned author, lies mute in this section,

You may pass by the place if you’re bored by reflection:

But if honest enough to be fond of the Muse,

Stay, and read where you’re able, and sleep where you choose.

THEOC. _Epig. in Hippon_.

CHAPTER I.

“My genius spreads her wing,

And flies where Britain courts the western spring.

* * * * *

Pride in their port, defiance in their eye,

I see the lords of human kind pass by,

Intent on high designs.”--GOLDSMITH.

I HAVE no respect for the Englishman who re-enters London after long

residence abroad without a pulse that beats quick and a heart that

heaves high. The public buildings are few, and, for the most part, mean;

the monuments of antiquity not comparable to those which the pettiest

town in Italy can boast of; the palaces are sad rubbish; the houses of

our peers and princes are shabby and shapeless heaps of brick. But

what of all this? the spirit of London is in her thoroughfares--her

population! What wealth--what cleanliness--what order--what animation!

How majestic, and yet how vivid, is the life that runs through her

myriad veins! How, as the lamps blaze upon you at night, and street

after street glides by your wheels, each so regular in its symmetry, so

equal in its civilization--how all speak of the CITY OF FREEMEN.

Yes, Maltravers felt his heart swell within him as the post-horses

whirled on his dingy carriage--over Westminster Bridge--along

Whitehall--through Regent Street--towards one of the quiet and

private-house-like hotels that are scattered round the neighbourhood of

Grosvenor Square.

Ernest’s arrival had been expected. He had written from Paris to

Cleveland to announce it; and Cleveland had, in reply, informed him

that he had engaged apartments for him at Mivart’s. The smiling waiters

ushered him into a spacious and well-aired room--the armchair was

already wheeled by the fire--a score or so of letters strewed the table,

together with two of the evening papers. And how eloquently of busy

England do those evening papers speak! A stranger might have felt that

he wanted no friend to welcome him--the whole room smiled on him a

welcome.

Maltravers ordered his dinner and opened his letters: they were of no

importance; one from his steward, one from his banker, another about the

county races, a fourth from a man he had never heard of, requesting the

vote and powerful interest of Mr. Maltravers for the county of B------,

should the rumour of a dissolution be verified; the unknown candidate

referred Mr. Maltravers to his “well-known public character.” From

these epistles Ernest turned impatiently, and perceived a little

three-cornered note which had hitherto escaped his attention. It was

from Cleveland, intimating that he was in town; that his health still

precluded his going out, but that he trusted to see his dear Ernest as

soon as he arrived.

Maltravers was delighted at the prospect of passing his evening so

agreeably; he soon despatched his dinner and his newspapers, and walked

in the brilliant lamplight of a clear frosty evening of early December

in London, to his friend’s house in Curzon Street: a small house,

bachelor-like and unpretending; for Cleveland spent his moderate though

easy fortune almost entirely at his country villa. The familiar face

of the old valet greeted Ernest at the door, and he only paused to hear

that his guardian was nearly recovered to his usual health, ere he

was in the cheerful drawing-room, and--since Englishmen do not

embrace--returning the cordial gripe of the kindly Cleveland.

“Well, my dear Ernest,” said Cleveland, after they had gone through

the preliminary round of questions and answers, “here you are at last:

Heaven be praised; and how well you are looking--how much you are

improved! It is an excellent period of the year for your _debut_ in

London. I shall have time to make you intimate with people before the

whirl of ‘the season’ commences.”

“Why, I thought of going to Burleigh, my country-place. I have not seen

it since I was a child.”

“No, no! you have had solitude enough at Como, if I may trust to your

letter; you must now mix with the great London world; and you will enjoy

Burleigh the more in the summer.”

“I fancy this great London world will give me very little pleasure; it

may be pleasant enough to young men just let loose from college, but

your crowded ball-rooms and monotonous clubs will be wearisome to one

who has grown fastidious before his time. _J’ai vecu beaucoup dans peu

d’annees_. I have drawn in youth too much upon the capital of existence

to be highly delighted with the ostentatious parsimony with which our

great men economise pleasure.”

“Don’t judge before you have gone through the trial,” said Cleveland:

“there is something in the opulent splendour, the thoroughly sustained

magnificence, with which the leaders of English fashion conduct even the

most insipid amusements, that is above contempt. Besides, you need not

necessarily live with the butterflies. There are plenty of bees that

will be very happy to make your acquaintance. Add to this, my dear

Ernest, the pleasure of being made of--of being of importance in your

own country. For you are young, well-born, and sufficiently handsome to

be an object of interest to mothers and to daughters; while your name,

and property, and interest, will make you courted by men who want

to borrow your money and obtain your influence in your county. No,

Maltravers, stay in London--amuse yourself your first year, and decide

on your occupation and career the next; but reconnoitre before you give

battle.”

Maltravers was not ill-pleased to follow his friend’s advice, since by

so doing he obtained his friend’s guidance and society. Moreover, he

deemed it wise and rational to see, face to face, the eminent men in

England, with whom, if he fulfilled his promise to De Montaigne, he

was to run the race of honourable rivalry. Accordingly, he consented to

Cleveland’s propositions.

“And have you,” said he, hesitating, as he loitered by the door after

the stroke of twelve had warned him to take his leave--“have you never

heard anything of my--my--the unfortunate Alice Darvil?”

“Who?--Oh, that poor young woman; I remember!--not a syllable.”

Maltravers sighed deeply and departed.

CHAPTER II.

“Je trouve que c’est une folie de vouloir etudier le monde en

simple spectateur. * * * Dans l’ecole du monde, comme dans

cette de l’amour, il faut commencer par pratiquer cc qu’on veut

apprendre.” *--ROUSSEAU.

* I find that it is a folly to wish to study the world like a simple

spectator. * * * In the school of the world, as in that of love, it is

necessary to begin by practising what we wish to learn.

ERNEST MALTRAVERS was now fairly launched upon the wide ocean of London.

Amongst his other property was a house in Seamore Place--that quiet, yet

central street, which enjoys the air without the dust of the park. It

had been hitherto let, and, the tenant now quitting very opportunely,

Maltravers was delighted to secure so pleasant a residence: for he

was still romantic enough to desire to look out upon trees and verdure

rather than brick houses. He indulged only in two other luxuries: his

love of music tempted him to an opera-box, and he had that English

feeling which prides itself in the possession of beautiful horses,--a

feeling that enticed him into an extravagance on this head that baffled

the competition and excited the envy of much richer men. But four

thousand a year goes a great way with a single man who does not gamble,

and is too philosophical to make superfluities wants.

The world doubled his income, magnified his old country-seat into a

superb chateau, and discovered that his elder brother, who was only

three or four years older than himself, had no children. The world was

very courteous to Ernest Maltravers.

It was, as Cleveland said, just at that time of year when people are

at leisure to make new acquaintances. A few only of the most difficult

houses in town were open; and their doors were cheerfully expanded to

the accomplished ward of the popular Cleveland. Authors and statesmen,

and orators, and philosophers--to all he was presented;--all seemed

pleased with him, and Ernest became the fashion before he was conscious

of the distinction. But he had rightly foreboded. He had commenced life

too soon; he was disappointed; he found some persons he could admire,

some whom he could like, but none with whom he could grow intimate,

or for whom he could feel an interest. Neither his heart nor his

imagination was touched; all appeared to him like artificial machines;

he was discontented with things like life, but in which something or

other was wanting. He more than ever recalled the brilliant graces of

Valerie de Ventadour, which had thrown a charm over the most frivolous

circles; he even missed the perverse and fantastic vanity of Castruccio.

The mediocre poet seemed to him at least less mediocre than the

worldlings about him. Nay, even the selfish good spirits and dry

shrewdness of Lumley Ferrers would have been an acceptable change to

the dull polish and unrevealed egotism of jealous wits and party

politicians. “If these are the flowers of the parterre, what must be the

weeds?” said Maltravers to himself, returning from a party at which he

had met half a score of the most orthodox lions.

He began to feel the aching pain of satiety.

But the winter glided away--the season commenced, and Maltravers was

whirled on with the rest into the bubbling vortex.

CHAPTER III.

“And crowds commencing mere vexation,

Retirement sent its invitation.”--SHENSTONE.

THE tench, no doubt, considers the pond in which he lives as the Great

World. There is no place, however stagnant, which is not the great world

to the creatures that move about, in it. People who have lived all their

lives in a village still talk of the world as if they had ever seen

it! An old woman in a hovel does not put her nose out of her door on a

Sunday without thinking she is going amongst the pomps and vanities

of the great world. _Ergo_, the great world is to all of us the little

circle in which we live. But as fine people set the fashion, so the

circle of fine people is called the Great World _par excellence_. Now

this great world is not a bad thing when we thoroughly understand it;

and the London great world is at least as good as any other. But then

we scarcely do understand that or anything else in our _beaux

jours_,--which, if they are sometimes the most exquisite, are also often

the most melancholy and the most wasted portion of our life. Maltravers

had not yet found out either _the set_ that pleased him or the species

of amusement that really amused. Therefore he drifted on and about

the vast whirlpool, making plenty of friends--going to balls and

dinners--and bored with both as men are who have no object in society.

Now the way society is enjoyed is to have a pursuit, a _metier_ of

some kind, and then to go into the world, either to make the individual

object a social pleasure, or to obtain a reprieve from some toilsome

avocation. Thus, if you are a politician--politics at once make an

object in your closet, and a social tie between others and yourself when

you are in the world. The same may be said of literature, though in a

less degree; and though, as fewer persons care about literature than

politics, your companions must be more select. If you are very young,

you are fond of dancing; if you are very profligate, perhaps you are

fond of flirtations with your friend’s wife. These last are objects in

their way: but they don’t last long, and, even with the most frivolous,

are not occupations that satisfy the whole mind and heart, in which

there is generally an aspiration after something useful. It is not

vanity alone that makes a man of the _mode_ invent a new bit or give

his name to a new kind of carriage; it is the influence of that mystic

yearning after utility, which is one of the master-ties between the

individual and the species.

Maltravers was not happy--that is a lot common enough; but he was not

amused--and that is a sentence more insupportable. He lost a great part

of his sympathy with Cleveland, for, when a man is not amused, he feels

an involuntary contempt for those who are. He fancies they are pleased

with trifles which his superior wisdom is compelled to disdain.

Cleveland was of that age when we generally grow social--for by being

rubbed long and often against the great loadstone of society, we obtain,

in a thousand little minute points, an attraction in common with our

fellows. Their petty sorrows and small joys--their objects of interest

or employment, at some time or other have been ours. We gather up a vast

collection of moral and mental farthings of exchange: and we scarcely

find any intellect too poor, but what we can deal with it in some

way. But in youth, we are egotists and sentimentalists, and Maltravers

belonged to the fraternity who employ

“The heart in passion and the head in rhymes.”

At length--just when London begins to grow most pleasant--when

flirtations become tender, and water-parties numerous--when birds sing

in the groves of Richmond, and whitebait refresh the statesman by the

shores of Greenwich,--Maltravers abruptly fled from the gay metropolis,

and arrived, one lovely evening in July, at his own ivy-grown porch of

Burleigh.

What a soft, fresh, delicious evening it was! He had quitted his

carriage at the lodge, and followed it across the small but picturesque

park alone and on foot. He had not seen the place since childhood--he

had quite forgotten its aspect. He now wondered how he could have lived

anywhere else. The trees did not stand in stately avenues, nor did the

antlers of the deer wave above the sombre fern; it was not the domain

of a grand seigneur, but of an old, long-descended English squire.

Antiquity spoke in the moss-grown palings in the shadowy groves, in

the sharp gable-ends and heavy mullions of the house, as it now came in

view, at the base of a hill covered with wood--and partially veiled by

the shrubs of the neglected pleasure-ground, separated from the park by

the invisible ha-ha. There, gleamed in the twilight the watery face

of the oblong fish-pool, with its old-fashioned willows at each

corner--there, grey and quaint, was the monastic dial--and there was the

long terrace walk, with discoloured and broken vases, now filled with

the orange or the aloe, which, in honour of his master’s arrival,

the gardener had extracted from the dilapidated green-house. The

very evidence of neglect around, the very weeds and grass on the

half-obliterated road, touched Maltravers with a sort of pitying and

remorseful affection for his calm and sequestered residence. And it was

not with his usual proud step and erect crest that he passed from the

porch to the solitary library, through a line of his servants:--the two

or three old retainers belonging to the place were utterly unfamiliar to

him, and they had no smile for their stranger lord.

CHAPTER IV.

“_Lucian._ He that is born to be a man neither should nor can

be anything nobler, greater, and better than a man.

“_Peregrine._ But, good Lucian, for the very reason that he may

not become less than a man, he should be always striving to be

more.”--WIELAND’S _Peregrinus Proteus_.

IT was two years from the date of the last chapter before Maltravers

again appeared in general society. These two years had sufficed to

produce a revolution in his fate. Ernest Maltravers had lost the happy

rights of the private individual; he had given himself to the Public; he

had surrendered his name to men’s tongues, and was a thing that all had

a right to praise, to blame, to scrutinise, to spy. Ernest Maltravers

had become an author.

Let no man tempt Gods and Columns, without weighing well the

consequences of his experiment. He who publishes a book, attended with a

moderate success, passes a mighty barrier. He will often look back with

a sigh of regret at the land he has left for ever. The beautiful and

decent obscurity of hearth and home is gone. He can no longer feel

the just indignation of manly pride when he finds himself ridiculed or

reviled. He has parted with the shadow of his life. His motives may

be misrepresented, his character belied; his manners, his person, his

dress, the “very trick of his walk” are all fair food for the cavil

and the caricature. He can never go back, he cannot even pause; he has

chosen his path, and all the natural feelings that make the nerve and

muscle of the active being urge him to proceed. To stop short is to

fail. He has told the world that he will make a name; and he must be

set down as a pretender, or toil on till the boast be fulfilled. Yet

Maltravers thought nothing of all this when, intoxicated with his own

dreams and aspirations, he desired to make a world his confidant; when

from the living nature, and the lore of books, and the mingled result of

inward study and external observation, he sought to draw forth something

that might interweave his name with the pleasurable associations of his

kind. His easy fortune and lonely state gave him up to his own thoughts

and contemplations; they suffused his mind, till it ran over upon the

page which makes the channel that connects the solitary Fountain with

the vast Ocean of Human Knowledge. The temperament of Maltravers was,

as we have seen, neither irritable nor fearful. He formed himself, as a

sculptor forms, with a model before his eyes and an ideal in his heart.

He endeavoured, with labour and patience, to approach nearer and nearer

with every effort to the standard of such excellence as he thought might

ultimately be attained by a reasonable ambition; and when, at last,

his judgment was satisfied, he surrendered the product with a tranquil

confidence to a more impartial tribunal.

His first work was successful; perhaps for this reason--that it bore the

stamp of the Honest and the Real. He did not sit down to report of what

he had never seen, to dilate on what he had never felt. A quiet and

thoughtful observer of life, his descriptions were the more vivid,

because his own first impressions were not yet worn away. His experience

had sunk deep; not on the arid surface of matured age, but in the

fresh soil of youthful emotions. Another reason, perhaps, that obtained

success for his essay was, that he had more varied and more elaborate

knowledge than young authors think it necessary to possess. He did not,

like Cesarini, attempt to make a show of words upon a slender capital of

ideas. Whether his style was eloquent or homely; it was still in him

a faithful transcript of considered and digested thought. A third

reason--and I dwell on these points not more to elucidate the career of

Maltravers than as hints which may be useful to others--a third reason

why Maltravers obtained a prompt and favourable reception from the

public was, that he had not hackneyed his peculiarities of diction

and thought in that worst of all schools for the literary novice--the

columns of a magazine. Periodicals form an excellent mode of

communication between the public and an author _already_ established,

who has lost the charm of novelty, but gained the weight of acknowledged

reputation; and who, either upon politics or criticism, seeks for

frequent and continuous occasions to enforce his peculiar theses and

doctrines. But, upon the young writer, this mode of communication, if

too long continued, operates most injuriously both as to his future

prospects and his own present taste and style. With respect to the

first, it familiarises the public to his mannerism (and all writers

worth reading have mannerism) in a form to which the said public are not

inclined to attach much weight. He forestalls in a few months what ought

to be the effect of years; namely, the wearying a world soon nauseated

with the _toujours perdrix_. With respect to the last, it induces a man

to write for momentary effects; to study a false smartness of style and

reasoning; to bound his ambition of durability to the last day of the

month; to expect immediate returns for labour; to recoil at the “hope

deferred” of serious works on which judgment is slowly formed. The

man of talent who begins young at periodicals, and goes on long, has

generally something crude and stunted about both his compositions and

his celebrity. He grows the oracle of small coteries; and we can rarely

get out of the impression that he is cockneyfied and conventional.

Periodicals sadly mortgaged the claims that Hazlitt, and many others of

his contemporaries, had upon a vast reversionary estate of Fame. But

I here speak too politically; to some the _res angustoe domi_ leave no

option. And, as Aristotle and the Greek proverb have it, we cannot carve

out all things with the knife of the Delphic cutler.

The second work that Maltravers put forth, at an interval of eighteen

months from the first, was one of a graver and higher nature; it served

to confirm his reputation: and that is success enough for a second

work, which is usually an author’s “_pons asinorum_.” He who, after a

triumphant first book, does not dissatisfy the public with a second,

has a fair chance of gaining a fixed station in literature. But now

commenced the pains and perils of the after-birth. By a maiden effort an

author rarely makes enemies. His fellow-writers are not yet prepared

to consider him as a rival; if he be tolerably rich, they unconsciously

trust that he will not become a regular, or, as they term it, “a

professional” author: he did something just to be talked of; he may

write no more, or his second book may fail. But when that second book

comes out, and does not fail, they begin to look about them; envy

wakens, malice begins. And all the old school--gentlemen who have

retired on their pensions of renown--regard him as an intruder: then

the sneer, then the frown, the caustic irony, the biting review, the

depreciating praise. The novice begins to think that he is further from

the goal than before he set out upon the race.

Maltravers had, upon the whole, a tolerably happy temperament; but

he was a very proud man, and he had the nice soul of a courageous,

honourable, punctilious gentleman. He thought it singular that society

should call upon him, as a gentleman, to shoot his best friend, if that

friend affronted him with a rude word; and yet that, as an author, every

fool and liar might, with perfect impunity, cover reams of paper with

the most virulent personal abuse of him.

It was one evening in the early summer that, revolving anxious and

doubtful thoughts, Ernest sauntered gloomily along his terrace,

“And watched with wistful eyes the setting sun.”

when he perceived a dusty travelling carriage whirled along the road

by the ha-ha, and a hand waved in recognition from the open window. His

guests had been so rare, and his friends were so few, that Maltravers

could not conjecture who was his intended visitant. His brother, he

knew, was in London. Cleveland, from whom he had that day heard, was at

his villa. Ferrers was enjoying himself in Vienna. Who could it be? We

may say of solitude what we please; but, after two years of solitude,

a visitor is a pleasurable excitement. Maltravers retraced his steps,

entered his house, and was just in time to find himself almost in the

arms of De Montaigne.

CHAPTER V.

“Quid tam dextro pede concipis ut te,

Conatus non poeniteat, votique peracti?” *--JUV.

* What, under such happy auspices do you conceive that you may not

repent of your endeavour and accomplished wish?

“YES,” said De Montaigne, “in my way I also am fulfilling my destiny. I

am a member of the _Chambre des Deputes_, and on a visit to England upon

some commercial affairs. I found myself in your neighbourhood, and, of

course, could not resist the temptation: so you must receive me as your

guest for some days.”

“I congratulate you cordially on your senatorial honours. I have already

heard of your rising name.”

“I return the congratulations with equal warmth. You are bringing my

prophecies to pass. I have read your works with increased pride at our

friendship.”

Maltravers sighed slightly, and half turned away.

“The desire of distinction,” said he, after a pause, “grows upon us till

excitement becomes disease. The child who is born with the mariner’s

instinct laughs with glee when his paper bark skims the wave of a pool.

By and by nothing will content him but the ship and the ocean.--Like the

child is the author.”

“I am pleased with your simile,” said De Montaigne, smiling. “Do not

spoil it, but go on with your argument.”

Maltravers continued: “Scarcely do we win the applause of a moment,

ere we summon the past and conjecture the future. Our contemporaries no

longer suffice for competitors, our age for the Court to pronounce on

our claims: we call up the Dead as our only true rivals--we appeal to

Posterity as our sole just tribunal. Is this vain in us? Possibly. Yet

such vanity humbles. ‘Tis then only we learn all the difference between

Reputation and Fame--between To-Day and Immortality!”

“Do you think,” replied De Montaigne, “that the dead did not feel the

same when they first trod the path that leads to the life beyond life?

Continue to cultivate the mind, to sharpen by exercise the genius, to

attempt to delight or to instruct your race; and even supposing you fall

short of every model you set before you--supposing your name moulder

with your dust, still you will have passed life more nobly than the

unlaborious herd. Grant that you win not that glorious accident, ‘a name

below,’ how can you tell but what you may have fitted yourself for high

destiny and employ in the world not of men, but of spirits? The powers

of the mind are things that cannot be less immortal than the mere

sense of identity; their acquisitions accompany us through the Eternal

Progress; and we may obtain a lower or a higher grade hereafter,

in proportion as we are more or less fitted by the exercise of our

intellect to comprehend and execute the solemn agencies of God. The wise

man is nearer to the angels than the fool is. This may be an apocryphal

dogma, but it is not an impossible theory.”

“But we may waste the sound enjoyments of actual life in chasing the

hope you justly allow to be ‘apocryphal;’ and our knowledge may go for

nothing in the eyes of the Omniscient.”

“Very well,” said De Montaigne, smiling; “but answer me honestly. By the

pursuits of intellectual ambition do you waste the sound enjoyments of

life? If so, you do not pursue the system rightly. Those pursuits

ought only to quicken your sense for such pleasures as are the true

relaxations of life. And this, with you peculiarly, since you are

fortunate enough not to depend for subsistence upon literature;--did you

do so, I might rather advise you to be a trunkmaker than an author. A

man ought not to attempt any of the highest walks of Mind and Art, as

the mere provision of daily bread; not literature alone, but everything

else of the same degree. He ought not to be a statesman, or an orator,

or a philosopher, as a thing of pence and shillings: and usually all

men, save the poor poet, feel this truth insensibly.”

“This may be fine preaching,” said Maltravers; “but you may be quite

sure that the pursuit of literature is a pursuit apart from the ordinary

objects of life, and you cannot command the enjoyments of both.”

“I think otherwise,” said De Montaigne; “but it is not in a country

house eighty miles from the capital, without wife, guests, or friends,

that the experiment can be fairly made. Come, Maltravers, I see before

you a brave career, and I cannot permit you to halt at the onset.”

“You do not see all the calumnies that are already put forth against me,

to say nothing of all the assurances (and many by clever men) that there

is nothing in me!”

“Dennis was a clever man, and said the same thing of your Pope. Madame

de Sevigne was a clever woman, but she thought Racine would never be

very famous. Milton saw nothing in the first efforts of Dryden that made

him consider Dryden better than a rhymester. Aristophanes was a good

judge of poetry, yet how ill he judged of Euripides! But all this is

commonplace, and yet you bring arguments that a commonplace answers in

evidence against yourself.”

“But it is unpleasant not to answer attacks--not to retaliate on

enemies.”

“Then answer attacks, and retaliate on enemies.”

“But would that be wise?”

“If it give you pleasure--it would not please _me_.”

“Come, De Montaigne, you are reasoning Socratically. I will ask you

plainly and bluntly, would you advise an author to wage war on his

literary assailants, or to despise them?”

“Both; let him attack but few, and those rarely. But it is his policy to

show that he is one whom it is better not to provoke too far. The author

always has the world on his side against the critics, if he choose

his opportunity. And he must always recollect that he is ‘A STATE’ in

himself, which must sometimes go to war in order to procure peace. The

time for war or for peace must be left to the State’s own diplomacy and

wisdom.”

“You would make us political machines.”

“It would make every man’s conduct more or less mechanical; for system

is the triumph of mind over matter; the just equilibrium of all the

powers and passions may seem like machinery. Be it so. Nature meant the

world--the creation--man himself, for machines.”

“And one must even be in a passion mechanically, according to your

theories.”

“A man is a poor creature who is not in a passion sometimes; but a very

unjust, or a very foolish one, if he be in a passion with the wrong

person, and in the wrong place and time. But enough of this, it is

growing late.”

“And when will Madame visit England?”

“Oh, not yet, I fear. But you will meet Cesarini in London this year

or the next. He is persuaded that you did not see justice done to his

poems, and is coming here as soon as his indolence will let him, to

proclaim your treachery in a biting preface to some toothless satire.”

“Satire!”

“Yes; more than one of your poets made their way by a satire, and

Cesarini is persuaded he shall do the same. Castruccio is not as

far-sighted as his namesake, the Prince of Lucca. Good night, my dear

Ernest.”

CHAPTER VI.

“When with much pains this boasted learning’s got,

‘Tis an affront to those who have it not.”

CHURCHILL: _The Author_.

THERE was something in De Montaigne’s conversation, which, without

actual flattery, reconciled Maltravers to himself and his career. It

served less, perhaps, to excite than to sober and brace his mind. De

Montaigne could have made no man rash, but he could have made many men

energetic and persevering. The two friends had some points in common;

but Maltravers had far more prodigality of nature and passion about

him--had more of flesh and blood, with the faults and excellences of

flesh and blood. De Montaigne held so much to his favourite doctrine

of moral equilibrium, that he had really reduced himself in much to

a species of clockwork. As impulses are formed from habits, so the

regularity of De Montaigne’s habits made his impulses virtuous and just,

and he yielded to them as often as a hasty character might have done;

but then those impulses never urged to anything speculative or daring.

De Montaigne could not go beyond a certain defined circle of action. He

had no sympathy for any reasonings based purely on the hypotheses of the

imagination: he could not endure Plato, and he was dumb to the eloquent

whispers of whatever was refining in poetry or mystical in wisdom.

Maltravers, on the contrary, not disdaining Reason, ever sought

to assist her by the Imaginative Faculty, and held all philosophy

incomplete and unsatisfactory that bounded its inquiries to the limits

of the Known and Certain. He loved the inductive process; but he carried

it out to Conjecture as well as Fact. He maintained that, by a similar

hardihood, all the triumphs of science, as well as art, had been

accomplished--that Newton, that Copernicus, would have done nothing

if they had not imagined as well as reasoned, guessed as well as

ascertained. Nay, it was an aphorism with him, that the very soul of

philosophy is conjecture. He had the most implicit confidence in the

operations of the mind and the heart properly formed, and deemed

that the very excesses of emotion and thought, in men well trained by

experience and study, are conducive to useful and great ends. But

the more advanced years, and the singularly practical character of De

Montaigne’s views, gave him a superiority in argument over Maltravers

which the last submitted to unwillingly. While, on the other hand, De

Montaigne secretly felt that his young friend reasoned from a broader

base, and took in a much wider circumference; and that he was, at once,

more liable to failure and error, and more capable of new discovery and

of intellectual achievement. But their ways in life being different,

they did not clash; and De Montaigne, who was sincerely interested in

Ernest’s fate, was contented to harden his friend’s mind against

the obstacles in his way, and leave the rest to experiment and to

Providence. They went up to London together: and De Montaigne returned

to Paris. Maltravers appeared once more in the haunts of the gay and

great. He felt that his new character had greatly altered his

position. He was no longer courted and caressed for the same vulgar

and adventitious circumstances of fortune, birth, and connections, as

before--yet for circumstances that to him seemed equally unflattering.

He was not sought for his merit, his intellect, his talents; but for

his momentary celebrity. He was an author in fashion, and run after as

anything else in fashion might have been. He was invited, less to be

talked to than to be stared at. He was far too proud in his temper,

and too pure in his ambition, to feel his vanity elated by sharing the

enthusiasm of the circles with a German prince or an industrious flea.

Accordingly he soon repelled the advances made to him, was reserved and

supercilious to fine ladies, refused to be the fashion, and became very

unpopular with the literary exclusives. They even began to run down the

works, because they were dissatisfied with the author. But Maltravers

had based his experiments upon the vast masses of the general Public. He

had called the PEOPLE of his own and other countries to be his audience

and his judges; and all the coteries in the world could have not injured

him. He was like the member for an immense constituency, who may offend

individuals, so long as he keep his footing with the body at large. But

while he withdrew himself from the insipid and the idle, he took care

not to become separated from the world. He formed his own society

according to his tastes: took pleasure in the manly and exciting topics

of the day; and sharpened his observation and widened his sphere as an

author, by mixing freely and boldly with all classes as a citizen. But

literature became to him as art to the artist--as his mistress to the

lover--an engrossing and passionate delight. He made it his glorious

and divine profession--he loved it as a profession--he devoted to its

pursuits and honours his youth, cares, dreams--his mind, and his heart,

and his soul. He was a silent but intense enthusiast in the priesthood

he had entered. From LITERATURE he imagined had come all that makes

nations enlightened and men humane. And he loved Literature the more,

because her distinctions were not those of the world--because she had

neither ribbands, nor stars, nor high places at her command. A name in

the deep gratitude and hereditary delight of men--this was the title

she bestowed. Hers was the Great Primitive Church of the world, without

Popes or Muftis--sinecures, pluralities and hierarchies. Her servants

spoke to the earth as the prophets of old, anxious only to be heard and

believed. Full of this fanaticism, Ernest Maltravers pursued his way

in the great procession of the myrtle-bearers to the sacred shrine.

He carried the thyrsus, and he believed in the god. By degrees his

fanaticism worked in him the philosophy which De Montaigne would have

derived from sober calculation; it made him indifferent to the thorns in

the path, to the storms in the sky. He learned to despise the enmity he

provoked, the calumnies that assailed him. Sometimes he was silent, but

sometimes he retorted. Like a soldier who serves a cause, he believed

that when the cause was injured in his person, the weapons confided to

his hands might be wielded without fear and without reproach. Gradually

he became feared as well as known. And while many abused him, none could

contemn.

It would not suit the design of this work to follow Maltravers step by

step in his course. I am only describing the principal events, not the

minute details, of his intellectual life. Of the character of his

works it will be enough to say that, whatever their faults, they were

original--they were his own. He did not write according to copy, nor

compile from commonplace books. He was an artist, it is true,--for what

is genius itself but art? but he took laws, and harmony, and order,

from the great code of Truth and Nature: a code that demands intense and

unrelaxing study--though its first principles are few and simple: that

study Maltravers did not shrink from. It was a deep love of truth that

made him a subtle and searching analyst, even in what the dull world

considers trifles; for he knew that nothing in literature is in itself

trifling--that it is often but a hairsbreadth that divides a truism from

a discovery. He was the more original, because he sought rather after

the True than the New. No two minds are ever the same; and therefore

any man who will give us fairly and frankly the results of his own

impressions, uninfluenced by the servilities of imitation, will be

original. But it was not from originality, which really made his

predominant merit, that Maltravers derived his reputation, for his

originality was not of that species which generally dazzles the

vulgar--it was not extravagant nor _bizarre_--he affected no system and

no school. Many authors of his day seemed more novel and _unique_ to the

superficial. Profound and durable invention proceeds by subtle and fine

gradations--it has nothing to do with those jerks and starts, those

convulsions and distortions, which belong not to the vigour and health,

but to the epilepsy and disease, of Literature.

CHAPTER VII.

“Being got out of town, the first thing I did was to give my

mule her head.”--_Gil Blas_.

ALTHOUGH the character of Maltravers was gradually becoming more hard

and severe,--although as his reason grew more muscular, his imagination

lost something of its early bloom, and he was already very different

from the wild boy who had set the German youths in a blaze, and had

changed into a Castle of Indolence the little cottage tenanted with

Poetry and Alice,--he still preserved many of his old habits; he loved,

at frequent intervals, to disappear from the great world--to get rid of

books and friends, and luxury and wealth, and make solitary excursions,

sometimes on foot, sometimes on horseback, through this fair garden of

England.

It was one soft May-day that he found himself on such an expedition,

slowly riding through one of the green lanes of ------shire. His cloak

and his saddle-bags comprised all his baggage, and the world was before

him “where to choose his place of rest.” The lane wound at length into

the main road, and just as he came upon it he fell in with a gay party

of equestrians.

Foremost of its cavalcade rode a lady in a dark green habit, mounted

on a thoroughbred English horse, which she managed with so easy a grace

that Maltravers halted in involuntary admiration. He himself was a

consummate horseman, and he had the quick eye of sympathy for those who

shared the accomplishment. He thought, as he gazed, that he had never

seen but one woman whose air and mien on horseback were so full of

that nameless elegance which skill and courage in any art naturally

bestow--that woman was Valerie de Ventadour. Presently, to his great

surprise, the lady advanced from her companions, neared Maltravers, and

said, in a voice which he did not at first distinctly recognise--“Is it

possible?--do I see Mr. Maltravers?”

She paused a moment, and then threw aside her veil, and Ernest

beheld--Madame de Ventadour! By this time a tall, thin gentleman had

joined the Frenchwoman.

“Has _madame_ met with an acquaintance?” said he; “and, if so, will she

permit me to partake her pleasure?”

The interruption seemed a relief to Valerie;--she smiled and coloured.

“Let me introduce you to Mr. Maltravers. Mr. Maltravers, this is my

host, Lord Doningdale.”

The two gentlemen bowed, the rest of the cavalcade surrounded the

trio, and Lord Doningdale, with a stately yet frank courtesy, invited

Maltravers to return with the party to his house, which was about

four miles distant. As may be supposed, Ernest readily accepted the

invitation. The cavalcade proceeded, and Maltravers hastened to seek an

explanation from Valerie. It was soon given. Madame de Ventadour had

a younger sister, who had lately married a son of Lord Doningdale.

The marriage had been solemnized in Paris, and Monsieur and Madame de

Ventadour had been in England a week on a visit to the English peer.

The _rencontre_ was so sudden and unexpected that neither recovered

sufficient self-possession for fluent conversation. The explanation

given, Valerie sank into a thoughtful silence, and Maltravers rode by

her side equally taciturn, pondering on the strange chance which, after

the lapse of years, had thrown them again together.

Lord Doningdale, who at first lingered with his other visitors, now

joined them, and Maltravers was struck with his high-bred manner, and a

singular and somewhat elaborate polish in his emphasis and expression.

They soon entered a noble park, which attested far more care and

attention than are usually bestowed upon those demesnes, so peculiarly

English. Young plantations everywhere contrasted the venerable

groves--new cottages of picturesque design adorned the outskirts--and

obelisks and columns, copied from the antique, and evidently of recent

workmanship, gleamed upon them as they neared the house--a large pile,

in which the fashion of Queen Anne’s day had been altered into the

French roofs and windows of the architecture of the Tuileries. “You

reside much in the country, I am sure, my lord,” said Maltravers.

“Yes,” replied Lord Doningdale, with a pensive air, “this place is

greatly endeared to me. Here his Majesty Louis XVIII., when in England,

honoured me with an annual visit. In compliment to him, I sought to

model my poor mansion into an humble likeness of his own palace, so

that he might as little as possible miss the rights he had lost. His

own rooms were furnished exactly like those he had occupied at the

Tuileries. Yes, the place is endeared to me--I think of the old

times with pride. It is something to have sheltered a Bourbon in his

misfortunes.”

“It cost _milord_ a vast sum to make these alterations,” said Madame de

Ventadour, glancing archly at Maltravers.

“Ah, yes,” said the old lord; and his face, lately elated, became

overcast--“nearly three hundred thousand pounds: but what then?--_‘Les

souvenirs, madame, sont sans prix_!’”

“Have you visited Paris since the restoration, Lord Doningdale,” asked

Maltravers.

His lordship looked at him sharply, and then turned his eye to Madame de

Ventadour.

“Nay,” said Valerie; laughing, “I did not dictate the question.”

“Yes,” said Lord Doningdale, “I have been at Paris.”

“His Majesty must have been delighted to return your lordship’s

hospitality.”

Lord Doningdale looked a little embarrassed, and made no reply, but put

his horse into a canter.

“You have galled our host,” said Valerie, smiling. “Louis XVIII. and his

friends lived here as long as they pleased, and as sumptuously as

they could; their visits half ruined the owner, who is the model of a

_gentilhomme_ and _preux chevalier_. He went to Paris to witness

their triumph; he expected, I fancy, the order of the St. Esprit. Lord

Doningdale has royal blood in his veins. His Majesty asked him once

to dinner, and, when he took leave, said to him, ‘We are happy, Lord

Doningdale, to have thus requited our obligations to your lordship.’

Lord Doningdale went back in dudgeon, yet he still boasts of his

_souvenirs_, poor man.”

“Princes are not grateful, neither are republics,” said Maltravers.

“Ah, who is grateful,” rejoined Valerie, “except a dog and a woman?”

Maltravers found himself ushered into a vast dressing-room, and was

informed, by a French valet, that in the country Lord Doningdale dined

at six--the first bell would ring in a few minutes. While the valet was

speaking, Lord Doningdale himself entered the room. His lordship had

learned, in the meanwhile, that Maltravers was of the great and ancient

commoner’s house whose honours were centred in his brother; and yet

more, that he was the Mr. Maltravers whose writings every one talked of,

whether for praise or abuse. Lord Doningdale had the two characteristics

of a high-bred gentleman of the old school--respect for birth and

respect for talent; he was, therefore, more than ordinarily courteous to

Ernest, and pressed him to stay some days with so much cordiality, that

Maltravers could not but assent. His travelling toilet was scanty, but

Maltravers thought little of dress.

CHAPTER VIII.

“It is the soul that sees. The outward eyes

Present the object, but the mind descries;

And thence delight, disgust, or cool indifference rise.

“CRABBE.

WHEN Maltravers entered the enormous saloon, hung with damask, and

decorated with the ponderous enrichments and furniture of the time

of Louis XIV. (that most showy and barbarous of all tastes, which has

nothing in it of the graceful, nothing of the picturesque, and which,

nowadays, people who should know better imitate with a ludicrous

servility), he found sixteen persons assembled. His host stepped up from

a circle which surrounded him, and formally presented his new visitor

to the rest. He was struck with the likeness which the sister of

Valerie bore to Valerie herself; but it was a sobered and chastened

likeness--less handsome, less impressive. Mrs. George Herbert--such was

the name she now owned--was a pretty, shrinking, timid girl, fond of her

husband, and mightily awed by her father-in-law. Maltravers sat by her,

and drew her into conversation. He could not help pitying the poor lady,

when he found she was to live altogether at Doningdale Park--remote

from all the friends and habits of her childhood--alone, so far as the

affections were concerned, with a young husband, who was passionately

fond of field-sports, and who, from the few words Ernest exchanged with

him, seemed to have only three ideas--his dogs, his horses, and his

wife. Alas! the last would soon be the least in importance. It is a

sad position--that of a lively young Frenchwoman entombed in an

English country-house! Marriages with foreigners are seldom fortunate

experiments. But Ernest’s attention was soon diverted from the sister by

the entrance of Valerie herself, leaning on her husband’s arm. Hitherto

he had not very minutely observed what change time had effected in

her--perhaps he was half afraid. He now gazed at her with curious

interest. Valerie was still extremely handsome, but her face had grown

sharper, her form thinner and more angular; there was something in her

eye and lip, discontented, restless, almost querulous:--such is the too

common expression in the face of those born to love, and condemned to

be indifferent. The little sister was more to be envied of the two--come

what may, she loved her husband, such as he was, and her heart might

ache, but it was not with a void.

Monsieur de Ventadour soon shuffled up to Maltravers--his nose longer

than ever.

“Hein--hein--how d’ye do--how d’ye do?--charmed to see you--saw madame

before me--hein--hein--I suspect--I suspect--”

“Mr. Maltravers, will you give Madame de Ventadour your arm?” said Lord

Doningdale, as he stalked on to the dining-room with a duchess on his

own.

“And you have left Naples,” said Maltravers: “left it for good?”

“We do not think of returning.”

“It was a charming place--how I loved it!--how well I remember it!”

Ernest spoke calmly--it was but a general remark.

Valerie sighed gently.

During dinner, the conversation between Maltravers and Madame de

Ventadour was vague and embarrassed. Ernest was no longer in love with

her--he had outgrown that youthful fancy. She had exercised influence

over him--the new influences that he had created had chased away her

image. Such is life. Long absences extinguish all the false lights,

though not the true ones. The lamps are dead in the banquet-room of

yesterday; but a thousand years hence, and the stars we look on to-night

will burn as brightly. Maltravers was no longer in love with Valerie.

But Valerie--ah, perhaps _hers_ had been true love!

Maltravers was surprised when he came to examine the state of his own

feelings--he was surprised to find that his pulse did not beat quicker

at the touch of one whose very glance had once thrilled him to the

soul--he was surprised, but rejoiced. He was no longer anxious to seek,

but to shun excitement, and he was a better and a higher being than he

had been on the shores of Naples.

CHAPTER IX.

“Whence that low voice, a whisper from the heart,

That told of days long past?”--WORDSWORTH.

ERNEST stayed several days at Lord Doningdale’s, and every day he rode

out with Valerie, but it was with a large party; and every evening he

conversed with her, but the whole world might have overheard what they

said. In fact, the sympathy that had once existed between the young

dreamer and the proud, discontented woman had in much passed away.

Awakened to vast and grand objects, Maltravers was a dreamer no more.

Inured to the life of trifles she had once loathed, Valerie had settled

down into the usages and thoughts of the common world--she had no longer

the superiority of earthly wisdom over Maltravers, and his romance was

sobered in its eloquence, and her ear dulled to its tone. Still Ernest

felt a deep interest in her, and still she seemed to feel a sensitive

pride in his career.

One evening Maltravers had joined a circle in which Madame de Ventadour,

with more than her usual animation, presided--and to which, in her

pretty, womanly, and thoroughly French way, she was lightly laying down

the law on a hundred subjects--Philosophy, Poetry, Sevres china, and the

balance of power in Europe. Ernest listened to her, delighted, but not

enchanted. Yet Valerie was not natural that night--she was speaking from

forced spirits.

“Well,” said Madame de Ventadour at last, tired, perhaps of the part she

had been playing, and bringing to a sudden close an animated description

of the then French court--“well, see now if we ought not to be ashamed

of ourselves--our talk has positively interrupted the music. Did you see

Lord Doningdale stop it with a bow to me, as much as to say, with his

courtly reproof, ‘It shall not disturb you, madam’? I will no longer be

accessory to your crime of bad taste!”

With this the Frenchwoman rose, and, gliding through the circle, retired

to the further end of the room. Ernest followed her with his eyes.

Suddenly she beckoned to him, and he approached and seated himself by

her side.

“Mr. Maltravers,” said Valerie, then, with great sweetness in her

voice,--“I have not yet expressed to you the delight I have felt from

your genius. In absence you have suffered me to converse with you--your

books have been to me dear friends; as we shall soon part again, let me

now tell you of this, frankly and without compliment.”

This paved the way to a conversation that approached more on the

precincts of the past than any they had yet known. But Ernest was

guarded; and Valerie watched his words and looks with an interest she

could not conceal--an interest that partook of disappointment.

“It is an excitement,” said Valerie, “to climb a mountain, though it

fatigue; and though the clouds may even deny us a prospect from its

summit--it is an excitement that gives a very universal pleasure, and

that seems almost as if it were the result of a common human instinct

which makes us desire to rise--to get above the ordinary thoroughfares

and level of life. Some such pleasure you must have in intellectual

ambition, in which the mind is the upward traveller.”

“It is not the _ambition_ that pleases,” replied Maltravers, “it is the

following a path congenial to our tastes, and made dear to us in a short

time by habit. The moments in which we look beyond our work, and fancy

ourselves seated beneath the Everlasting Laurel, are few. It is the work

itself, whether of action or literature, that interests and excites

us. And at length the dryness of toil takes the familiar sweetness of

custom. But in intellectual labour there is another charm--we become

more intimate with our own nature. The heart and the soul grow friends,

as it were, and the affections and the aspirations unite. Thus, we

are never without society--we are never alone; all that we have read,

learned and discovered, is company to us. This is pleasant,” added

Maltravers, “to those who have no clear connections in the world

without.”

“And is that your case?” asked Valerie, with a timid smile.

“Alas, yes! and since I conquered one affection,--Madame de Ventadour, I

almost think I have outlived the capacity of loving. I believe that when

we cultivate very largely the reason or the imagination, we blunt, to

a certain extent, our young susceptibilities to the fair impressions

of real life. From ‘idleness,’ says the old Roman poet, ‘Love feeds his

torch.’”

“You are too young to talk thus.”

“I speak as I feel.”

Valerie said no more. Shortly afterwards Lord Doningdale approached

them, and proposed that they should make an excursion the next day to

see the ruins of an old abbey, some few miles distant.

CHAPTER X.

“If I should meet thee

After long years,

How shall I greet thee?”--BYRON.

IT was a smaller party than usual the next day, consisting only of

Lord Doningdale, his son George Herbert, Valerie and Ernest. They were

returning from the ruins, and the sun, now gradually approaching the

west, threw its slant rays over the gardens and houses of a small,

picturesque town, or, perhaps, rather village, on the high North Road.

It is one of the prettiest places in England, that town or village,

and boasts an excellent old-fashioned inn, with a large and quaint

pleasure-garden. It was through the long and straggling street that our

little party slowly rode, when the sky became suddenly overcast, and, a

few large hailstones falling, gave notice of an approaching storm.

“I told you we should not get safely through the day,” said George

Herbert. “Now we are in for it.”

“George, that is a vulgar expression,” said Lord Doningdale, buttoning

up his coat. While he spoke, a vivid flash of lightning darted across

their very path, and the sky grew darker and darker.

“We may as well rest at the inn,” said Maltravers: “the storm is coming

on apace, and Madame de Ventadour--”

“You are right,” interrupted Lord Doningdale; and he put his horse into

a canter.

They were soon at the door of the old hotel. Bells rang dogs

barked--hostlers ran. A plain, dark, travelling post-chariot was before

the inn-door; and, roused perhaps by the noise below, a lady in the

“first-floor front, No. 2,” came to the window. This lady owned the

travelling-carriage, and was at this time alone in that apartment. As

she looked carelessly at the party, her eyes rested on one form--she

turned pale, uttered a faint cry, and fell senseless on the floor.

Meanwhile, Lord Doningdale and his guests were shown into the room next

to that tenanted by the lady. Properly speaking, both the rooms made

one long apartment for balls and county meetings, and the division was

formed by a thin partition, removable at pleasure. The hail now came on

fast and heavy, the trees groaned, the thunder roared; and in the large,

dreary room there was a palpable and oppressive sense of coldness and

discomfort. Valerie shivered--a fire was lighted--and the Frenchwoman

drew near to it.

“You are wet, my dear lady,” said Lord Doningdale. “You should take off

that close habit, and have it dried.”

“Oh, no; what matters it?” said Valerie bitterly, and almost rudely.

“It matters everything,” said Ernest; “pray be ruled.”

“And do you care for me?” murmured Valerie.

“Can you ask that question?” replied Ernest, in the same tone, and with

affectionate and friendly warmth.

Meanwhile, the good old lord had summoned the chambermaid, and, with the

kindly imperiousness of a father, made Valerie quit the room. The three

gentlemen, left together, talked of the storm, wondered how long it

would last, and debated the propriety of sending to Doningdale for the

carriage. While they spoke, the hail suddenly ceased, though clouds in

the distant horizon were bearing heavily up to renew the charge. George

Herbert, who was the most impatient of mortals, especially of rainy

weather in a strange place, seized the occasion, and insisted on riding

to Doningdale, and sending back the carriage.

“Surely a groom would do as well, George,” said the father.

“My dear father, no; I should envy the rogue too much. I am bored to

death here. Marie will be frightened about us. Brown Bess will take me

back in twenty minutes. I am a hardy fellow, you know. Good-bye.”

Away darted the young sportsman, and in two minutes they saw him spur

gaily from the inn-door.

“It is very odd that _I_ should have such a son,” said Lord Doningdale,

musingly,--“a son who cannot amuse himself indoors for two minutes

together. I took great pains with his education, too. Strange that

people should weary so much of themselves that they cannot brave the

prospect of a few minutes passed in reflection--that a shower and the

resources of their own thoughts are evils so galling--very strange

indeed. But it is a confounded climate this, certainly. I wonder when it

will clear up.”

Thus muttering, Lord Doningdale walked, or rather marched, to and fro

the room, with his hands in his coat pockets, and his whip sticking

perpendicularly out of the right one. Just at this moment the waiter

came to announce that his lordship’s groom was without, and desired much

to see him. Lord Doningdale had then the pleasure of learning that his

favourite grey hackney, which he had ridden, winter and summer, for

fifteen years, was taken with shivers, and, as the groom expressed it,

seemed to have “the colic in its bowels!”

Lord Doningdale turned pale, and hurried to the stables without saying a

word.

Maltravers, who, plunged in thought, had not overheard the low and brief

conference between master and groom, remained alone, seated by the fire,

his head buried in his bosom, and his arms folded.

Meanwhile, the lady, who occupied the adjoining chamber, had recovered

slowly from her swoon. She put both hands to her temples, as if trying

to recollect her thoughts. Hers was a fair, innocent, almost childish

face; and now, as a smile shot across it, there was something so sweet

and touching in the gladness it shed over that countenance, that you

could not have seen it without strong and almost painful interest.

For it was the gladness of a person who has known sorrow. Suddenly she

started up, and said: “No, then! I do not dream. He is come back--he is

here--all will be well again! Ha! it is his voice. Oh, bless him, it is

_his_ voice!” She paused, her finger on her lip, her face bent down. A

low and indistinct sound of voices reached her straining ear through the

thin door that divided her from Maltravers. She listened intently, but

she could not overhear the import. Her heart beat violently. “He is not

alone!” she murmured, mournfully. “I will wait till the sound ceases,

and then I will venture in!”

And what was the conversation carried on in that chamber? We must return

to Ernest. He was sitting in the same thoughtful posture when Madame de

Ventadour returned.

The Frenchwoman coloured when she found herself alone with Ernest, and

Ernest himself was not at his ease.

“Herbert has gone home to order the carriage, and Lord Doningdale has

disappeared, I scarce know whither. You do not, I trust, feel the worse

for the rain?”

“No,” said Valerie.

“Shall you have any commands in London?” asked Maltravers; “I return to

town to-morrow.”

“So soon!” and Valerie sighed. “Ah!” she added, after a pause, “we

shall not meet again for years, perhaps. Monsieur de Ventadour is to

be appointed ambassador to the Court and so--and so--. Well, it is no

matter. What has become of the friendship we once swore to each other?”

“It is here,” said Maltravers, laying his hand on his heart. “Here, at

least, lies the half of that friendship which was my charge; and more

than friendship, Valerie de Ventadour--respect--admiration--gratitude.

At a time of life when passion and fancy, most strong, might have left

me an idle and worthless voluptuary, you convinced me that the world has

virtue, and that woman is too noble to be our toy--the idol of to-day,

the victim of to-morrow. Your influence, Valerie, left me a more

thoughtful man--I hope a better one.”

“Oh!” said Madame de Ventadour, strongly affected; “I bless you for what

you tell me: you cannot know--you cannot guess how sweet it is to me.

Now I recognise you once more. What--what did my resolution cost me? Now

I am repaid!”

Ernest was moved by her emotion, and by his own remembrances; he took

her hand, and pressing it with frank and respectful tenderness--“I did

not think, Valerie,” said he, “when I reviewed the past, I did not think

that you loved me--I was not vain enough for that; but, if so, how

much is your character raised in my eyes--how provident, how wise your

virtue! Happier and better for both, our present feelings, each to each,

than if we had indulged a brief and guilty dream of passion, at war with

all that leaves passion without remorse, and bliss without alloy. Now--”

“Now,” interrupted Valerie, quickly, and fixing on him her dark

eyes--“now you love me no longer! Yet it is better so. Well, I will go

back to my cold and cheerless state of life, and forget once more that

Heaven endowed me with a heart!”

“Ah, Valerie! esteemed, revered, still beloved, not indeed with the

fires of old, but with a deep, undying, and holy tenderness, speak not

thus to me. Let me not believe you unhappy; let me think that, wise,

sagacious, brilliant as you are, you have employed your gifts to

reconcile yourself to a common lot. Still let me look up to you when I

would despise the circles in which you live, and say: ‘On that pedestal

an altar is yet placed, to which the heart may bring the offerings of

the soul.’”

“It is in vain--in vain that I struggle,” said Valerie, half-choked

with emotion, and clasping her hands passionately. “Ernest, I love you

still--I am wretched to think you love me no more: I would give you

nothing--yet I exact all; my youth is going--my beauty dimmed--my very

intellect is dulled by the life I lead; and yet I ask from you that

which your young heart once felt for me. Despise me, Maltravers, I am

not what I seemed--I am a hypocrite--despise me.”

“No,” said Ernest, again possessing himself of her hand, and falling on

his knee by her side. “No, never-to-be-forgotten, ever-to-be-honoured

Valerie, hear me.” As he spoke, he kissed the hand he held; with the

other, Valerie covered her face and wept bitterly, but in silence.

Ernest paused till the burst of her feelings had subsided, her hand

still in his--still warmed by his kisses--kisses as pure as cavalier

ever impressed on the hand of his queen.

At this time, the door communicating with the next room gently opened.

A fair form--a form fairer and younger than that of Valerie de

Ventadour--entered the apartment; the silence had deceived her--she

believed that Maltravers was alone. She had entered with her heart

upon her lips; love, sanguine, hopeful love, in every vein, in every

thought--she had entered dreaming that across that threshold life would

dawn upon her afresh--that all would be once more as it had been,

when the common air was rapture. Thus she entered; and now she

stood spell-bound, terror-stricken, pale as death--life turned to

stone--youth--hope--bliss were for ever over to her! Ernest kneeling to

another was all she saw! For this had she been faithful and true amidst

storm and desolation; for this had she hoped--dreamed--lived. They did

not note her; she was unseen--unheard. And Ernest, who would have gone

barefoot to the end of the earth to find her, was in the very room with

her, and knew it not!

“Call me again _beloved_!” said Valerie, very softly.

“Beloved Valerie, hear me.”

These words were enough for the listener; she turned noiselessly away:

humble as that heart was, it was proud. The door closed on her--she had

obtained the wish of her whole being--Heaven had heard her prayer--she

had once more seen the lover of her youth; and thenceforth all was night

and darkness to her. What matter what became of her? One moment, what

an effect it produces upon years!--ONE MOMENT!--virtue, crime, glory,

shame, woe, rapture, rest upon moments! Death itself is but a moment,

yet Eternity is its successor!

“Hear me!” continued Ernest, unconscious of what had passed--“hear me;

let us be what human nature and worldly forms seldom allow those of

opposite sexes to be--friends to each other, and to virtue also--friends

through time and absence--friends through all the vicissitudes of

life--friends on whose affection shame and remorse never cast a

shade--friends who are to meet hereafter! Oh! there is no attachment so

true, no tie so holy, as that which is founded on the old chivalry of

loyalty and honour; and which is what love would be, if the heart and

the soul were unadulterated by clay.”

There was in Ernest’s countenance an expression so noble, in his voice

a tone so thrilling, that Valerie was brought back at once to the

nature which a momentary weakness had subdued. She looked at him with

an admiring and grateful gaze, and then said, in a calm but low voice,

“Ernest, I understand you; yes, your friendship is dearer to me than

love.”

At this time they heard the voice of Lord Doningdale on the stairs.

Valerie turned away. Maltravers, as he rose, extended his hand; she

pressed it warmly, and the spell was broken, the temptation conquered,

the ordeal passed. While Lord Doningdale entered the room, the carriage,

with Herbert in it, drove to the door. In a few minutes the little

party were within the vehicle. As they drove away, the hostlers were

harnessing the horses to the dark green travelling-carriage. From the

window, a sad and straining eye gazed upon the gayer equipage of the

peer--that eye which Maltravers would have given his whole fortune to

meet again. But he did not look up; and Alice Darvil turned away, and

her fate was fixed!

CHAPTER XI.

“Strange fits of passion I have known.

And I will dare to tell.”--WORDSWORTH.

“* * * * * The food of hope

Is meditated action.”--WORDSWORTH.

MALTRAVERS left Doningdale the next day. He had no further conversation

with Valerie; but when he took leave of her, she placed in his hand a

letter, which he read as he rode slowly through the beech avenues of the

park. Translated, it ran thus:

“Others would despise me for the weakness I showed--but you will not!

It is the sole weakness of a life. None can know what I have passed

through--what hours of dejection and gloom. I, whom so many envy! Better

to have been a peasant girl, with love, than a queen whose life is but

a dull mechanism. You, Maltravers, I never forgot in absence; and your

image made yet more wearisome and trite the things around me. Years

passed, and your name was suddenly on men’s lips. I heard of you

wherever I went--I could not shut you from me. Your fame was as if you

were conversing by my side. We met at last, suddenly and unexpectedly.

I saw that you loved me no more, and that thought conquered all my

resolves: anguish subdues the nerves of the mind as sickness those of

the body. And thus I forgot, and humbled, and might have undone myself.

Juster and better thoughts are once more awakened within me, and when

we meet again I shall be worthy of your respect. I see how dangerous are

that luxury of thought, that sin of discontent which I indulged. I

go back to life, resolved to vanquish all that can interfere with its

claims and duties. Heaven guide and preserve you, Ernest. Think of me

as one whom you will not blush to have loved--whom you will not blush

hereafter to present to your wife. With so much that is soft, as well as

great within you, you were not formed like me--to be alone.

“FAREWELL!”

Maltravers read, and re-read this letter; and when he reached his home,

he placed it carefully amongst the things he most valued. A lock of

Alice’s hair lay beside it--he did not think that either was dishonoured

by the contact.

With an effort, he turned himself once more to those stern yet high

connections which literature makes with real life. Perhaps there was a

certain restlessness in his heart which induced him ever to occupy his

mind. That was one of the busiest years of his life--the one in which he

did most to sharpen jealousy and confirm fame.

CHAPTER XII.

“In effect he entered my apartment.”--_Gil Blas_.

“‘I am surprised,’ said he, ‘at the caprice of Fortune,

who sometimes delights in loading an execrable author

with favours, whilst she leaves good writers to perish

for want.’”--_Gil Blas_.

IT was just twelve months after his last interview with Valerie, and

Madame de Ventadour had long since quitted England, when one morning, as

Maltravers sat alone in his study, Castruccio Cesarini was announced.

“Ah, my dear Castruccio, how are you?” cried Maltravers, eagerly, as the

opening door presented the form of the Italian.

“Sir,” said Castruccio, with great stiffness, and speaking in French,

which was his wont when he meant to be distant--“sir, I do not come

to renew our former acquaintance--you are a great man [here a bitter

sneer], I an obscure one [here Castruccio drew himself up]--I only come

to discharge a debt to you which I find I have incurred.”

“What tone is this, Castruccio; and what debt do you speak of?”

“On my arrival in town yesterday,” said the poet solemnly, “I went to

the man whom you deputed some years since to publish my little volume,

to demand an account of its success; and I found that it had cost one

hundred and twenty pounds, deducting the sale of forty-nine copies which

had been sold. _Your_ books sell some thousands, I am told. It is

well contrived--mine fell still-born, no pains were taken with it--no

matter--[a wave of the hand]. You discharged this debt, I repay you:

there is a cheque for the money. Sir, I have done! I wish you a good

day, and health to enjoy _your_ reputation.”

“Why, Cesarini, this is folly.”

“Sir--”

“Yes, it is folly; for there is no folly equal to that of throwing away

friendship in a world where friendship is so rare. You insinuate that I

am to blame for any neglect which your work experienced. Your publisher

can tell you that I was more anxious about your book than I have ever

been about my own.”

“And the proof is that forty-nine copies were sold!”

“Sit down, Castruccio; sit down, and listen to reason;” and Maltravers

proceeded to explain, and soothe, and console. He reminded the poor

poet that his verses were written in a foreign tongue--that even English

poets of great fame enjoyed but a limited sale for their works--that it

was impossible to make the avaricious public purchase what the stupid

public would not take an interest in--in short, he used all those

arguments which naturally suggested themselves as best calculated to

convince and soften Castruccio; and he did this with so much evident

sympathy and kindness, that at length the Italian could no longer

justify his own resentment. A reconciliation took place, sincere on the

part of Maltravers, hollow on the part of Cesarini; for the disappointed

author could not forgive the successful one.

“And how long shall you stay in London?”

“Some months.”

“Send for your luggage, and be my guest.”

“No; I have taken lodgings that suit me. I am formed for solitude.”

“While you stay here, you will, however, go into the world.”

“Yes, I have some letters of introduction, and I hear that the English

can honour merit, even in an Italian.”

“You hear the truth, and it will amuse you, at least, to see our eminent

men. They will receive you most hospitably. Let me assist you as a

cicerone.”

“Oh, your _valuable_ time!”

“Is at your disposal: but where are you going?”

“It is Sunday, and I have had my curiosity excited to hear a celebrated

preacher--Mr. ------, who they tell me, is now more talked of than _any

author_ in London.”

“They tell you truly--I will go with you--I myself have not yet heard

him, but proposed to do so this very day.”

“Are you not jealous of a man so much spoken of?”

“Jealous!--why, I never set up for a popular preacher!--_ce n’est pas

mon metier_.”

“If I were a _successful_ author, I should be jealous if the

dancing-dogs were talked of.”

“No, my dear Cesarini, I am sure you would not. You are a little

irritated at present by natural disappointment; but the man who has as

much success as he deserves is never morbidly jealous, even of a rival

in his own line. Want of success sours us; but a little sunshine smiles

away the vapours. Come, we have no time to lose.”

Maltravers took his hat, and the two young men bent their way to ------

Chapel. Cesarini still retained the singular fashion of his dress,

though it was now made of handsomer materials, and worn with more

coxcombry and pretension. He had much improved in person--had been

admired in Paris, and told that he looked like a man of genius--and,

with his black ringlets flowing over his shoulders, his long moustache,

his broad Spanish-shaped hat, and eccentric garb, he certainly did not

look like other people. He smiled with contempt at the plain dress of

his companion. “I see,” said he, “that you follow the fashion, and look

as if you passed your life with _elegans_ instead of students. I wonder

you condescend to such trifles as fashionably-shaped hats and coats.”

“It would be worse trifling to set up for originality in hats and

coats, at least in sober England. I was born a gentleman, and I dress my

outward frame like others of my order. Because I am a writer, why should

I affect to be different from other men?”

“I see that you are not above the weakness of your countryman Congreve,”

said Cesarini, “who deemed it finer to be a gentleman than an author.”

“I always thought that anecdote misconstrued. Congreve had a proper and

manly pride, to my judgment, when he expressed a dislike to be visited

merely as a raree-show.”

“But is it policy to let the world see that an author is like other

people? Would he not create a deeper personal interest if he showed

that even in person alone he was unlike the herd? He ought to be seen

seldom--not to stale his presence--and to resort to the arts that belong

to the royalty of intellect as well as the royalty of birth.”

“I dare say an author, by a little charlatanism of that nature, might be

more talked of--might be more adored in the boarding-schools, and make a

better picture in the exhibition. But I think, if his mind be manly,

he would lose in self-respect at every quackery of the sort. And my

philosophy is, that to respect oneself is worth all the fame in the

world.”

Cesarini sneered and shrugged his shoulders; it was quite evident that

the two authors had no sympathy with each other.

They arrived at last at the chapel, and with some difficulty procured

seats.

Presently the service began. The preacher was a man of unquestionable

talent and fervid eloquence; but his theatrical arts, his affected

dress, his artificial tones and gestures; and, above all, the fanatical

mummeries which he introduced into the House of God, disgusted

Maltravers, while they charmed, entranced, and awed Cesarini. The one

saw a mountebank and impostor--the other recognised a profound artist

and an inspired prophet.

But while the discourse was drawing towards a close, while the preacher

was in one of his most eloquent bursts--the ohs! and ahs! of which

were the grand prelude to the pathetic peroration--the dim outline of a

female form, in the distance, riveted the eyes and absorbed the thoughts

of Maltravers. The chapel was darkened, though it was broad daylight;

and the face of the person that attracted Ernest’s attention was

concealed by her head-dress and veil. But that bend of the neck, so

simply graceful, so humbly modest, recalled to his heart but one image.

Every one has, perhaps, observed that there is a physiognomy (if the

bull may be pardoned) of _form_ as well as face, which it rarely happens

that two persons possess in common. And this, with most, is peculiarly

marked in the turn of the head, the outline of the shoulders, and the

ineffable something that characterises the postures of each individual

in repose. The more intently he gazed, the more firmly Ernest

was persuaded that he saw before him the long-lost, the

never-to-be-forgotten mistress of his boyish days, and his first love.

On one side of the lady in question sat an elderly gentleman, whose eyes

were fixed upon the preacher; on the other, a beautiful little girl,

with long fair ringlets, and that cast of features which, from its

exquisite delicacy and expressive mildness, painters and poets call

the “angelic.” These persons appeared to belong to the same party.

Maltravers literally trembled, so great were his impatience and

agitation. Yet still, the dress of the supposed likeness of Alice, the

appearance of her companions, were so evidently above the ordinary rank,

that Ernest scarcely ventured to yield to the suggestions of his own

heart. Was it possible that the daughter of Luke Darvil, thrown upon

the wide world, could have risen so far beyond her circumstances and

station? At length the moment came when he might resolve his doubts--the

discourse was concluded--the extemporaneous prayer was at an end--the

congregation broke up, and Maltravers pushed his way, as well as he

could, through the dense and serried crowd. But every moment some

vexatious obstruction, in the shape of a fat gentleman or three

close-wedged ladies, intercepted his progress. He lost sight of the

party in question amidst the profusion of tall bonnets and waving

plumes. He arrived at last, breathless and pale as death (so great was

the struggle within him), at the door of the chapel. He arrived in time

to see a plain carriage with servants in grey undress liveries, driving

from the porch--and caught a glimpse, within the vehicle, of the golden

ringlets of a child. He darted forward, he threw himself almost before

the horses. The coachman drew in, and with an angry exclamation, very

much like an oath, whipped his horses aside and went off. But that

momentary pause sufficed.--“It is she--it is! O Heaven, it is Alice!”

murmured Maltravers. The whole place reeled before his eyes, and he

clung, overpowered and unconscious, to a neighbouring lamp-post for

support. But he recovered himself with an agonising effort, as the

thought struck upon this heart that he was about to lose sight of her

again for ever. And he rushed forward, like one frantic, in pursuit of

the carriage. But there was a vast crowd of other carriages, besides

stream upon stream of foot-passengers,--for the great and the gay

resorted to that place of worship, as a fashionable excitement in a

dull day. And after a weary and a dangerous chase, in which he had been

nearly run over three times, Maltravers halted at last, exhausted and

in despair. Every succeeding Sunday, for months, he went to the same

chapel, but in vain; in vain, too, he resorted to every public haunt of

dissipation and amusement. Alice Darvil he beheld no more!

CHAPTER XIII.

“Tell me, sir,

Have you cast up your state, rated your land,

And find it able to endure the charge?”

_The Noble Gentleman_.

By degrees, as Maltravers sobered down from the first shock of that

unexpected meeting, and from the prolonged disappointment that followed

it, he became sensible of a strange kind of happiness or contentment.

Alice was not in poverty, she was not eating the unhallowed bread of

vice, or earning the bitter wages of laborious penury. He saw her in

reputable, nay, opulent circumstances. A dark nightmare, that had often,

amidst the pleasures of youth, or the triumphs of literature, weighed

upon his breast, was removed. He breathed more freely--he could sleep

in peace. His conscience could no longer say to him, “She who slept upon

thy bosom is a wanderer upon the face of the earth--exposed to every

temptation, perishing perhaps for want.” That single sight of Alice

had been like the apparition of the injured Dead conjured up at

Heraclea--whose sight could pacify the aggressor and exorcise the

spectres of remorse. He was reconciled with himself, and walked on to

the Future with a bolder step and a statelier crest. Was she married to

that staid and sober-looking personage whom he had beheld with her?

was that child the offspring of their union? He almost hoped so--it was

better to lose than to destroy her. Poor Alice! could she have dreamed,

when she sat at his feet gazing up into his eyes, that a time would come

when Maltravers would thank Heaven for the belief that she was happy

with another?

Ernest Maltravers now felt a new man: the relief of conscience operated

on the efforts of his genius. A more buoyant and elastic spirit entered

into them--they seemed to breathe as with a second youth.

Meanwhile, Cesarini threw himself into the fashionable world, and to his

own surprise was _feted_ and caressed. In fact, Castruccio was exactly

the sort of person to be made a lion of. The letters of introduction

that he had brought from Paris were addressed to those great personages

in England between whom and personages equally great in France

politics makes a bridge of connection. Cesarini appeared to them as an

accomplished young man, brother-in-law to a distinguished member of the

French Chamber. Maltravers, on the other hand, introduced him to the

literary dilettanti, who admire all authors that are not rivals. The

singular costume of Cesarini, which would have revolted persons in an

Englishman, enchanted them in an Italian. He looked, they said, like

a poet. Ladies like to have verses written to them, and Cesarini, who

talked very little, made up for it by scribbling eternally. The young

man’s head soon grew filled with comparisons between himself in London

and Petrarch at Avignon. As he had always thought that fame was in the

gift of lords and ladies, and had no idea of the multitude, he fancied

himself already famous. And, since one of his strongest feelings was

his jealousy of Maltravers, he was delighted at being told he was a

much more interesting creature than that haughty personage, who wore

his neckcloth like other people, and had not even those indispensable

attributes of genius--black curls and a sneer. Fine society, which, as

Madame de Stael well says, depraves the frivolous mind and braces the

strong one, completed the ruin of all that was manly in Cesarini’s

intellect. He soon learned to limit his desire of effect or distinction

to gilded saloons; and his vanity contented itself upon the scraps and

morsels from which the lion heart of true ambition turns in disdain.

But this was not all. Cesarini was envious of the greater affluence

of Maltravers. His own fortune was in a small capital of eight or nine

thousand pounds: but, thrown in the midst of the wealthiest society in

Europe, he could not bear to sacrifice a single claim upon its esteem.

He began to talk of the satiety of wealth, and young ladies listened to

him with remarkable interest when he did so--he obtained the reputation

of riches--he was too vain not to be charmed with it. He endeavoured to

maintain the claim by adopting the extravagant excesses of the day. He

bought horses--he gave away jewels--he made love to a marchioness

of forty-two, who was very kind to him and very fond of _ecarte_--he

gambled--he was in the high road to destruction.

BOOK VI.

Perchance you say that gold’s the arch-exceller,

And to be rich is sweet?--EURIP. _Ion._, line 641.

* * * ‘Tis not to be endured,

To yield our trodden path and turn aside,

Giving our place to knaves.--_Ibid._, line 648

CHAPTER I.

“L’adresse et l’artifice out passe dans mon coeur;

Qu’ou a sous cet habit et d’esprit et de ruse.” *--REGNARD.

* Subtility and craft have taken possession of my heart; but under this

habit one exhibits both shrewdness and wit.

IT was a fine morning in July, when a gentleman who had arrived in town

the night before--after an absence from England of several years--walked

slowly and musingly up the superb thoroughfare which connects the

Regent’s park with St. James’s.

He was a man, who, with great powers of mind, had wasted his youth in

a wandering vagabond kind of life, but who had worn away the love of

pleasure, and began to awaken to a sense of ambition.

“It is astonishing how this city is improved,” said he to himself.

“Everything gets on in this world with a little energy and bustle--and

everybody as well as everything. My old cronies, fellows not half so

clever as I am, are all doing well. There’s Tom Stevens, my very fag at

Eton--snivelling little dog he was too!--just made under-secretary

of state. Pearson, whose longs and shorts I always wrote, is now

head-master to the human longs and shorts of a public school--editing

Greek plays, and booked for a bishopric. Collier, I see by the papers,

is leading his circuit--and Ernest Maltravers (but _he_ had some talent)

has made a name in the world. Here am I, worth them all put together,

who have done nothing but spend half my little fortune in spite of all

my economy. Egad, this must have an end. I must look to the main chance;

and yet, just when I want his help the most, my worthy uncle thinks fit

to marry again. Humph--I’m too good for this world.”

While thus musing, the soliloquist came in direct personal contact with

a tall gentleman, who carried his head very high in the air, and did not

appear to see that he had nearly thrown our abstracted philosopher off

his legs.

“Zounds, sir, what do you mean?” cried the latter.

“I beg your par--” began the other, meekly, when his arm was seized,

and the injured man exclaimed, “Bless me, sir, is it indeed _you_ whom I

see?”

“Ha!--Lumley?”

“The same; and how fares it, any dear uncle? I did not know you were in

London. I only arrived last night. How well you are looking!”

“Why, yes, Heaven be praised, I am pretty well.”

“And happy in your new ties? You must present me to Mrs. Templeton.”

“Ehem,” said Mr. Templeton, clearing his throat, and with a slight but

embarrassed smile, “I never thought I should marry again.”

“_L’homme propose et Dieu dispose_,” observed Lumley Ferrers; for it was

he.

“Gently, my dear nephew,” replied Mr. Templeton, gravely; “those phrases

are somewhat sacrilegious; I am an old-fashioned person, you know.”

“Ten thousand apologies.”

“_One_ apology will suffice; these hyperboles of phrase are almost

sinful.”

“Confounded old prig!” thought Ferrers; but he bowed sanctimoniously.

“My dear uncle, I have been a wild fellow in my day; but with years

comes reflection; and under your guidance, if I may hope for it, I trust

to grow a wiser and a better man.”

“It is well, Lumley,” returned the uncle, “and I am very glad to see

you returned to your own country. Will you dine with me to-morrow? I am

living near Fulham. You had better bring your carpet-bag, and stay with

me some days; you will be heartily welcome, especially if you can shift

without a foreign servant. I have a great compassion for papists, but--”

“Oh, my dear uncle, do not fear; I am not rich enough to have a foreign

servant, and have not travelled over three-quarters of the globe without

learning that it is possible to dispense with a valet.”

“As to being rich enough,” observed Mr. Templeton, with a calculating

air, “seven hundred and ninety-five pounds ten shillings a year will

allow a man to keep two servants, if he pleases; but I am glad to find

you economical at all events. We meet to-morrow, then, at six o’clock.”

“_Au revoir_--I mean, God bless you.

“Tiresome old gentleman that,” muttered Ferrers, “and not so cordial as

formerly; perhaps his wife is _enceinte_, and he is going to do me

the injustice of having another heir. I must look to this; for without

riches, I had better go back and live _au cinquieme_ at Paris.”

With this conclusion, Lumley quickened his pace, and soon arrived at

Seamore Place. In a few moments more he was in the library well stored

with books, and decorated with marble busts and images from the studios

of Canova and Thorwaldsen.

“My master, sir, will be down immediately,” said the servant who

admitted him; and Ferrers threw himself on a sofa, and contemplated the

apartment with an air half envious and half cynical.

Presently the door opened, and “My dear Ferrers!” “Well, _mon cher_, how

are you?” were the salutations hastily exchanged.

After the first sentences of inquiry, gratulation, and welcome, had

cleared the way for more general conversation,--“Well, Maltravers,” said

Ferrers, “so here we are together again, and after a lapse of so many

years! both older, certainly; and you, I suppose, wiser. At all events,

people think you so; and that’s all that’s important in the question.

Why, man, you are looking as young as ever, only a little paler and

thinner; but look at me--I am not very _much_ past thirty, and I am

almost an old man; bald at the temples, crows’ feet, too, eh! Idleness

ages one damnably.”

“Pooh, Lumley, I never saw you look better. And are you really come to

settle in England?”

“Yes, if I can afford it. But at my age, and after having seen so much,

the life of an idle, obscure _garcon_ does not content me. I feel that

the world’s opinion, which I used to despise, is growing necessary to

me. I want to be something. What can I be? Don’t look alarmed, I won’t

rival you. I dare say literary reputation is a fine thing, but I

desire some distinction more substantial and worldly. You know your own

country; give me a map of the roads to Power.”

“To Power! Oh, nothing but law, politics, and riches.”

“For law I am too old; politics, perhaps, might suit me; but riches, my

dear Ernest--ah, how I long for a good account with my banker!”

“Well, patience and hope. Are you are not a rich uncle’s heir?”

“I don’t know,” said Ferrers, very dolorously; “the old gentleman has

married again, and may have a family.”

“Married!--to whom?”

“A widow, I hear; I know nothing more, except that she has a child

already. So you see she has got into a cursed way of having children.

And perhaps, by the time I’m forty, I shall see a whole covey of cherubs

flying away with the great Templeton property!”

“Ha, ha; your despair sharpens your wit, Lumley; but why not take a leaf

out of your uncle’s book, and marry yourself?”

“So I will when I can find an heiress. If that is what you meant to

say--it is a more sensible suggestion than any I could have supposed to

come from a man who writes books, especially poetry: and your advice is

not to be despised. For rich I will be; and as the fathers (I don’t

mean of the Church, but in Horace) told the rising generation, the first

thing is to resolve to be rich, it is only the second thing to consider

how.”

“Meanwhile, Ferrers, you will be my guest.”

“I’ll dine with you to-day; but to-morrow I am off to Fulham, to be

introduced to my aunt. Can’t you fancy her?--grey _gros-de-Naples_ gown:

gold chain with an eyeglass; rather fat; two pugs, and a parrot! ‘Start

not, this is fancy’s sketch!’ I have not yet seen the respectable

relative with my physical optics. What shall we have for dinner? Let

me choose, you were always a bad caterer.” As Ferrers thus rattled on,

Maltravers felt himself growing younger: old times and old adventures

crowded fast upon him; and the two friends spent a most agreeable day

together. It was only the next morning that Maltravers, in thinking

over the various conversations that had passed between them, was forced

reluctantly to acknowledge that the inert selfishness of Lumley Ferrers

seemed now to have hardened into a resolute and systematic want of

principle, which might, perhaps, make him a dangerous and designing man,

if urged by circumstances into action.

CHAPTER II.

“_Dauph._ Sir, I must speak to you. I have been long your

despised kinsman.

“_Morose._ Oh, what thou wilt, nephew.”--EPICENE.

“Her silence is dowry eno’--exceedingly soft spoken; thrifty

of her speech, that spends but six words a day.”--_Ibid._

THE coach dropped Mr. Ferrers at the gate of a villa about three miles

from town. The lodge-keeper charged himself with the carpet-bag, and

Ferrers strolled, with his hands behind him (it was his favourite

mode of disposing of them), through the beautiful and elaborate

pleasure-grounds.

“A very nice, snug little box (jointure-house, I suppose)! I would not

grudge that, I’m sure, if I had but the rest. But here, I suspect, comes

madam’s first specimen of the art of having a family.” This last thought

was extracted from Mr. Ferrers’s contemplative brain by a lovely little

girl, who came running up to him, fearless and spoilt as she was; and,

after indulging a tolerable stare, exclaimed, “Are you come to see papa,

sir?”

“Papa!--the deuce!”--thought Lumley; “and who is papa, my dear?”

“Why, mamma’s husband. He is not my papa by rights.”

“Certainly not, my love; not by rights--I comprehend.”

“Eh!”

“Yes, I am going to see your papa by wrongs--Mr. Templeton.”

“Oh, this way, then.”

“You are very fond of Mr. Templeton, my little angel.”

“To be sure I am. You have not seen the rocking-horse he is going to

give me.”

“Not yet, sweet child! And how is mamma?”

“Oh, poor, dear mamma,” said the child, with a sudden change of voice,

and tears in her eyes. “Ah, she is not well!”

“In the family way, to a dead certainty!” muttered Ferrers with a groan:

“but here is my uncle. Horrid name! Uncles were always wicked fellows.

Richard the Third and the man who did something or other to the babes in

the wood were a joke to my hard-hearted old relation, who has robbed me

with a widow! The lustful, liquorish old--My _dear_ sir, I’m so glad to

see you!”

Mr. Templeton, who was a man very cold in his manners, and always either

looked over people’s heads or down upon the ground, just touched his

nephew’s outstretched hand, and telling him he was welcome, observed

that it was a very fine afternoon.

“Very, indeed; sweet place this; you see, by the way, that I have

already made acquaintance with my fair cousin-in-law. She is very

pretty.”

“I really think she is,” said Mr. Templeton, with some warmth, and

gazing fondly at the child, who was now throwing buttercups up in the

air, and trying to catch them. Mr. Ferrers wished in his heart that they

had been brickbats!

“Is she like her mother?” asked the nephew.

“Like whom, sir?”

“Her mother--Mrs. Templeton.”

“No, not very; there is an air, perhaps, but the likeness is not

remarkably strong. Would you not like to go to your room before dinner?”

“Thank you. Can I not first be presented to Mrs. Tem--”

“She is at her devotions, Mr. Lumley,” interrupted Mr. Templeton,

grimly.

“The she-hypocrite!” thought Ferrers. “Oh, I am delighted that your

pious heart has found so congenial a helpmate!”

“It is a great blessing, and I am grateful for it. This is the way to

the house.”

Lumley, now formally installed in a grave bedroom, with dimity curtains

and dark-brown paper with light-brown stars on it, threw himself into

a large chair, and yawned and stretched with as much fervour as if he

could have yawned and stretched himself into his uncle’s property. He

then slowly exchanged his morning dress for a quiet suit of black, and

thanked his stars that, amidst all his sins, he had never been a dandy,

and had never rejoiced in a fine waistcoat--a criminal possession that

he well knew would have entirely hardened his uncle’s conscience

against him. He tarried in his room till the second bell summoned him to

descend; and then, entering the drawing-room, which had a cold look

even in July, found his uncle standing by the mantelpiece, and a young,

slight, handsome woman, half-buried in a huge but not comfortable

_fauteuil_.

“Your aunt, Mrs. Templeton; madam, my nephew, Mr. Lumley Ferrers,” said

Templeton, with a wave of the hand.

“John,--dinner!”

“I hope I am not late!”

“No,” said Templeton, gently, for he had always liked his nephew, and

began now to thaw towards him a little on seeing that Lumley put a good

face upon the new state of affairs.

“No, my dear boy--no; but I think order and punctuality cardinal virtues

in a well-regulated family.”

“Dinner, sir,” said the butler, opening the folding-doors at the end of

the room.

“Permit me,” said Lumley, offering his arm to his aunt. “What a lovely

place this is!”

Mrs. Templeton said something in reply, but what it was Ferrers could

not discover, so low and choked was the voice.

“Shy,” thought he: “odd for a widow! but that’s the way those

husband-buriers take us in!”

Plain as was the general furniture of the apartment, the natural

ostentation of Mr. Templeton broke out in the massive value of the

plate, and the number of the attendants. He was a rich man, and he

was proud of his riches: he knew it was respectable to be rich, and he

thought it was moral to be respectable. As for the dinner, Lumley knew

enough of his uncle’s tastes to be prepared for viands and wines that

even he (fastidious gourmand as he was) did not despise.

Between the intervals of eating, Mr. Ferrers endeavoured to draw his

aunt into conversation, but he found all his ingenuity fail him. There

was, in the features of Mrs. Templeton, an expression of deep but

calm melancholy, that would have saddened most persons to look upon,

especially in one so young and lovely. It was evidently something beyond

shyness or reserve that made her so silent and subdued, and even in

her silence there was so much natural sweetness, that Ferrers could not

ascribe her manner to haughtiness or the desire to repel. He was rather

puzzled; “for though,” thought he, sensibly enough, “my uncle is not a

youth, he is a very rich fellow; and how any widow, who is married again

to a rich old fellow, can be melancholy, passes my understanding!”

Templeton, as if to draw attention from his wife’s taciturnity, talked

more than usual. He entered largely into politics, and regretted that in

times so critical he was not in parliament.

“Did I possess your youth and your health, Lumley, I would not neglect

my country--Popery is abroad.”

“I myself should like very much to be in parliament,” said Lumley,

boldly.

“I dare say you would,” returned the uncle, drily. “Parliament is very

expensive--only fit for those who have a large stake in the country.

Champagne to Mr. Ferrers.”

Lumley bit his lip, and spoke little during the rest of the dinner. Mr.

Templeton, however, waxed gracious by the time the dessert was on the

table; and began cutting up a pineapple, with many assurances to Lumley

that gardens were nothing without pineries. “Whenever you settle in the

country, nephew, be sure you have a pinery.”

“Oh, yes,” said Lumley, almost bitterly, “and a pack of hounds, and a

French cook; they will all suit my fortune very well.”

“You are more thoughtful on pecuniary matters than you used to be,” said

the uncle.

“Sir,” replied Ferrers, solemnly, “in a very short time I shall be what

is called a middle-aged man.”

“Humph!” said the host.

There was another silence. Lumley was a man, as we have said, or implied

before, of great knowledge of human nature, at least the ordinary sort

of it, and he now revolved in his mind the various courses it might

be wise to pursue towards his rich relation. He saw that, in delicate

fencing, his uncle had over him the same advantage that a tall man has

over a short one with the physical sword-play;--by holding his weapon in

a proper position, he kept the other at arm’s length. There was a grand

reserve and dignity about the man who had something to give away, of

which Ferrers, however actively he might shift his ground and flourish

his rapier, could not break the defence. He determined, therefore, upon

a new game, for which his frankness of manner admirably adapted him.

Just as he formed this resolution, Mrs. Templeton rose, and with a

gentle bow, and soft though languid smile, glided from the room. The

two gentlemen resettled themselves, and Templeton pushed the bottle to

Ferrers.

“Help yourself, Lumley! your travels seem to have deprived you of your

high spirits--you are pensive.”

“Sir,” said Ferrers, abruptly, “I wish to consult you.”