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SWORD AND GOWN.
A Novel.
BY THE AUTHOR OF
"GUY LIVINGSTONE."
NEW YORK:
FRANKLIN SQUARE.
1859.
[Transcriber's note: the author was George Alfred Lawrence]
CHAPTER I.
"There _is_ something in this climate, after all. I suppose there are
not many places where one could lie on the shore in December, and enjoy
the air as much as I have done for the last two hours."
Harry Molyneux turned his face seaward again as he spoke, and drank in
the soft breeze eagerly; he could scarcely help thanking it aloud, as it
stole freshly over his frame, and played gently with his hair, and left
a delicate caress on his cheek--the cheek that was now always so pale,
save in the one round scarlet spot where, months ago, Consumption had
hung out her flag of "No surrender."
There is enough in the scene to justify an average amount of enthusiasm.
Those steep broken hills in the background form the frontier fortress of
the maritime Alps, the last outwork of which is the rocky spur on which
Molyneux and his companion are lying. Fir woods feather the sky-line;
and from among these, here and there, the tall stone pines stand up
alone, like sentinels--steady, upright, and unwearied, though their
guard has not been relieved for centuries. All around, wild myrtle, and
heath, and eglantine curl and creep up the stems of the olives, trying,
from the contact of their fresh youth, to infuse new life and sap into
the gray, gnarled old trees, even as a fair Jewish maiden once strove to
cherish her war-worn, decrepit king. There are other flowers too left,
though December has begun, enough to give a faint fragrance to the air
and gay colors to the ground. Just below their feet is a narrow strip of
dark ribbed sand, and then the tangle of weed, scarcely stirred by the
water, that all along this coast fringes like a beard the languid lip of
the Mediterranean Sea.
Molyneux appreciated and admired all this, after his simple fashion, and
said so; his companion did not answer immediately; he only shrugged his
shoulders and lifted his eyebrows, as if he could have disputed the
point if it had not been too much trouble. An optimist in nothing, least
of all was Royston Keene grateful or indulgent to the beauties and
bounties of inanimate creation.
"Ah well!" Harry went on, resignedly, "I know it's useless trying to get
a compliment to Nature out of you. I ought to have given you up that
night when we showed you the Alps from the terrace at Berne. You had
never seen the Jungfrau before, and she had got her prettiest pink
evening dress on, poor thing! and all you would say was, 'There's not
much the matter with the view.'"
"It was a concession to your wife's enthusiasm," Keene replied; "a
sudden check might have been dangerous just then, or I should have
spoken more bitterly, after being brought out to look at mountains, when
I was dusty and travel-stained, wanting baths, and dinners, and other
necessaries of life."
The voice was deep-toned and melodious enough that spoke these words,
but too slow and deliberate to be quite a pleasant one, though there was
nothing like a drawl in it. One could easily fancy such a voice ironical
or sarcastic, but hardly raised much in anger; in the imperative mood it
might be very successful, but it seemed as if it could never have
pleaded or prayed. It matched the speaker's exterior singularly well.
Had you seen him for the first time--couchant, as he was then--you would
have had only an impression of great length and laziness; but as you
gazed on, the vast deep chest expanded under your eye; the knotted
muscles, without an ounce of superfluous flesh to dull their outline,
developed themselves one by one; so that gradually you began to realize
the extent of his surpassing bodily powers, and wondered that you could
have been deceived even for a moment. The face guarded its secret far
more successfully. The features were bold and sharply cut, bronzed up to
the roots of the crisp light-brown beard and hair, except where the
upper brow retained its original fairness--presenting a startling
contrast, like a wreath of snow lying late in spring-time high up on the
side of a black fell. You would hardly say that they were devoid of
expression, any more than that a perfectly drilled soldier is incapable
of activity; but you got puzzled in making out what their natural
expression was: it was not sternness, far less ferocity--the face was
much too impassible for either; and yet its listlessness could never be
mistaken for languor. The thin short lips might be very pitiless when
compressed, very contemptuous and provocative when curling; but the
enormous mustache, sweeping over them like a wave, and ending in a clean
stiff upward curve, made even this a matter of mere conjecture. The
cold, steady, dark eyes seldom flashed or glittered; but, when their
pupils contracted, there came into them a sort of sullen, suppressed,
inward light, like that of jet or cannel coal. One curious thing about
them was, that they never seemed to care about following you, and yet
you felt you could not escape from them. The first hand-gripe, however,
settled the question with most people: few, after experiencing the
involuntary pressure, when he did not in the least mean to be cordial,
doubted that there were passions in Royston Keene--difficult perhaps to
rouse, but yet more difficult to appease or subdue.
His profession was evident. Indeed, it must be confessed that the
dragoon is not easily dissembled. I know a very meritorious
parish-priest, of fair repute too as a preacher, who has striven for
years, hard but unavailingly, to divest himself of the martial air he
brought with him out of the K.D.G. He strides down the village street
with a certain swagger and roll, as if the steel scabbard were still
trailing at his heel, acknowledging rustic bows with a slight quick
motion of the finger, like troopers' salutes; on the smooth shaven face
is shadowed forth the outline of a beard, nurtured and trimmed in old
days with more than horticultural science; in the pulpit and
reading-desk gown and surplice hang uneasily, like a disguise, on the
erect soldierly figure, and the effect of his ministrations is thereby
sadly marred; for apposite text, earnest exhortation, and grave rebuke
flow with a curious inconsistency from the lips of that well-meaning but
unmitigated Plunger.
Royston Keene was no exception to this rule, though he did not like to
be told so, and rather ignored the profession than otherwise. Perhaps he
had begun it early enough to have got tired of it; for he had now been
for some time on half-pay, and a brevet-major, after doing good service
in the Indian wars, and was not yet thirty-four. Molyneux had served in
the same light cavalry regiment as his subaltern, and there the
foundation was laid of their close alliance. It was not a very fair or
well-balanced one, being made up of implicit obedience, reliance, and
reverence on the one side, and a sort of protecting condescension on the
other--much like the old Roman relation between Client and Patron;
nevertheless it had outlasted many more sympathetic and better-looking
friendships.
They used to say of "The Cool Captain" (so he was always called off
parade), that "he could bring a boy to his bearings sooner than any man
in the army." Yet he was a favorite with them all. There was a regular
ovation among those "Godless horsemen" whenever he came into the Club,
or into their mess-rooms; they hung upon his simplest words with a
touchingly devout attention, and thought it was their own stupidity when
they could see nothing in them to laugh at or admire; they wrote off all
that they could remember of his sarcasms and repartees--generally
strangely travestied and spoiled by carriage--to unlucky comrades,
martyrized on far-off detachments, or vegetating with friends in the
country; the more ambitious, after much private practice, strove to
imitate his way of twisting his mustache as he stood before the fire,
though with some, to whom nature had been niggard of hirsute honors, it
was grasping a shadow and fighting with the air.
Certainly Molyneux never was so happy as in that society. Fond as he was
of his pretty wife, her influence was as nothing in the scale. She
complained of this, half in earnest, soon after they were married. The
fever of post-nuptial felicity was strong upon Harry just then, but he
did not attempt to deny the imputation. He only said, "My pet, I have
known him so much the longest!" I wonder, now, how many brides would
have admitted that somewhat unsatisfactory and illogical excuse? Fanny
Molyneux did; she was the best-natured little woman alive, and wise,
too, in her generation, for she never brought matters to a crisis, or
measured her strength against the "heavy-weight."
Indeed, they got on together extremely well. Whenever Keene happened to
be with them--which was not often--she gave up the management of Harry's
Foreign Affairs to him, reserving to herself the control of the Home
Department, and, between the two, they ruled their vassal right royally.
After some months' acquaintance they became the greatest friends; on
Royston's side it was one of the few quite pure and unselfish feelings
he had ever cherished toward one of her sex not nearly akin to him in
blood. He always seemed to look on her as a very nice, but rather
spoiled child, to be humored and petted to any amount, but very seldom
to be reasoned with or gravely consulted. Considering her numerous
fascinations, and the little practice he had had in the paternal or
fraternal line, he really did it remarkably well: be it understood, it
was only _en petite comité_ that all this went on; in general society
his manner was strictly formal and deferential. It provoked her though,
sometimes, and one day she ventured to say, "I wish you would learn to
treat me like a grown-up woman!" Royston's eyes darkened strangely; and
one glance flashed out of the gloom that made her shrink away from him
then, and blush painfully when she thought of it afterward alone. He was
frowning, too, as he answered, in a voice unusually harsh and
constrained, "It seems to me we go on very well as it is. But women
never _will_ leave well alone." She did not like to analyze his answer
or her own feelings too closely, so she tried to persuade herself it was
a very rude speech, and that she ought to be offended at it. There was a
coolness between those two for some days, amounting to distant courtesy.
But the dignified style did not suit _ma mignonne_ (as Harry delighted
to call her) at all, and was, indeed, a lamentable failure; it made her
look as if she had been trying on one of her great-grandmother's
short-waisted dresses; so they soon fell back into their old ways, and,
like the model prince and princess, "lived very happily ever afterward."