There is a terrace in Dorade, fenced in from every wind that blows,
except the south, and even that has to creep cautiously and cunningly
round a sharp corner to make its entrance good. Four small stunted palms
grow there; they look painfully out of place, and conscious of it; for
they are always bowing their heads in a meek humiliation, and shiver in
a strange unhealthy way at the slightest breeze, just as you may see
Asiatics doing in our "land of mist and snow." But the natives regard
those unhappy exotics with a fanatical pride, pointing them out to all
comers as living witnesses to the perfection of the climate; they would
gladly stone any irreverent stranger who should suggest a comparison
between their sacred shrubs and the giants of Indian seas. The only
inhabitant of the place who ever attained any eminence any where (he
really _was_ a good tailor), bequeathed a certain sum for the
beautifying of the renowned _allée_, instead of endowing charitable
institutions, and his townsmen endorsed the act by erecting a little
mural tablet to commemorate his public spirit.
The view is rather pretty, stretching over vineyards, and gardens, and
olive-grounds down to the shore, with the islands in the far foreground
rearing themselves against the sky, clear and blue, or if the weather is
misty to seaward, sleeping in an aureole of golden haze, so that the
whole effect would be cheerful if it were not for the melancholy
invalids who haunt the spot perpetually. Faces and figures are to be
seen sometimes that would send an uncomfortable shiver of revulsion
through you if you met them on the Boulevard des Italiens, strengthened
by your ante-prandian _absinthe_. Here, the place belonged to them so
completely, that a man in rude health felt like an unwarrantable
intruder, in which light I am sure the hypochondriacs always regarded
him. As such a one passed, you might see a glare, half-envious,
half-resentful, light up some hollow eyes, and thin parched lips worked
nervously, as though they were uttering a very equivocal blessing.
Does the character gain much by the extermination of more impulsive
passions, when their place is possessed by the two devils that neither
age nor sickness can exorcise--Avarice and Envy? It is with this last,
perhaps, that we have most to do; and the shadow of it, however
indistinct and distant, makes the landscape near the horizon look
somewhat dreary. The nature of many of us is so faulty and ill
regulated, that it may be doubted if even advancing years will make us
much better or wiser; but, when winter shall have closed in, and our hot
blood is more than cool, is there no chance of an "open season?" Must it
come to this--that the mere sight of the youth, and strength, and beauty
that have left us far behind shall stir our bile, as though it were an
insolent parade--that the choicest delicacies at our neighbor's
wedding-breakfast shall not pique our palate like the baked meats at his
funeral? Not so; if we must give ground let us retreat in good order,
leaving no shield behind us that our enemy may build into his trophy. If
we are rash enough to assail Lady Violet Vavasour with petitions for a
waltz, and see her look doubtfully down her scribbled tablets, till the
"sweetest lips that ever were kissed" can find no gentler answer than
the terrible "Engaged," let us not gnash suicidally our few remaining
teeth, even though Brabazon Leslie--all the handsomer for the scar on
his smooth forehead--should come up upon our traces, and ride roughshod
over those hieroglyphics, as he did at Balaclava through Russian
squadrons. Rather let us try to sympathize with his triumph, while he
carries off his beautiful prize from under the enemy's guns, as
Dundonald may have cut out a frigate beneath the batteries of Vera Cruz.
_Non omnia corripit ævum._ Hath the savor departed wholly from the
Gascon wine, because the name of no living love crowns the draught?
Shall we stay sullenly at home when all the world is flocking to the
tournament, because our limbs have stiffened so that we may no longer
sit saddlefast, and hold our own in the _mêlée_? A corner in the
cushioned gallery is left to us still. Come, comrade of mine--_nate
mecum Consule Manlio_--we will go up and lounge there among the
Chatelaines: some may be found good-natured enough to listen (in the
pauses of the tilting), while we tell how, not so many years back, plume
and pennon went down before our lance.
I place no great reliance on the Pleasures of Memory. But, if pearls and
bright shells be rarely found there, surely waifs, better than _echini_
and sting-rays, are to be gathered on the "shores of long ago." Ah,
cynic! you are strong enough to be merciful--just this once. Spare us
the string of examples that would overwhelm us utterly. Does it not
suffice that we confess the truth of that saddest adage, tolled in our
ears by every passing bell,
Those whom the gods love well die young?
Royston and his companion were crossing the terrace on their way home
when the former stopped suddenly.
"Go on, Hal," he said; "it is too late for you to be standing about, but
I must speak to that poor Châteaumesnil. I shall see you at dinner." He
went up to a wheeled chair that was being drawn by at the time.
Its occupant was a man of large frame, as far as could be made out
through the thick wrappings of furs; his head was bent forward and low,
resting on his hands, that were crossed on a crutch-handle. He appeared
profoundly unconscious of all that was passing, and never moved till
Keene addressed him. Then, very slowly, he lifted up his face. Few of
us, fortunately for those who have strong imaginations and weak nerves,
see its like twice in a lifetime, or there would be wild work in
dreamland.
It was not distorted in any way, nor deformed, except by a ghastly,
livid pallor; gaunt and drawn as the features were, they still bore
evident traces of a rare manly beauty, that even the neglected beard of
iron-gray could not conceal. But it was the savage face of one who has
wrestled with physical pain till it has assumed almost the visible and
tangible shape of a personal enemy--a mocking devil, that always is
ready, with fresh ingenuity of torture, to answer and punish the
rebellious question, "Art thou come to torment me before my time?" The
lines on the forehead were so strongly marked and dreadfully distinct,
that, like the markings of the locust, they seemed to form characters
that might be read, if it were given to mortal cabalists to decipher the
handwriting of God.
Look once more: it is worth while, if you are curious in contrasts and
comparisons. Five years ago that bowed, blasted cripple was the most
reckless dare-devil, the most splendid Paladin, in all the army of
Algiers; the man for whom, after an unusually brilliant exploit, St.
Arnaud, loving him as his own right hand, could find no higher praise
than to write in his dispatches, "_Les 3me Chasseurs se sont conduits
en héros; leur chef-d'escadron en--Châteaumesnil._" And it was true that
the annals of his house could boast of no nobler soldier, though they
had been fighting hard since Clovis's day. His name is known very well
in Africa. The _spahis_ talk of it still over their watch-fires, and the
wild Bedouins load it with guttural curses--their lips white with hatred
and remembered fear: they do not forget how far and fast they fled into
their desert strong-holds, and never could shake off the light cloud of
whirling dust that told how Armand and his stanch gaze-hounds were hard
upon their trail.
Rheumatic fever, coming close on a severe bullet wound, had brought him
very near to death; and the first thing he heard when he began to
recover, was that he would never stand upright again.
He is answering Keene's salutation.
"My friend, you failed us last night at the Cercle, and yet we waited
for you long." A hoarse, hollow voice--very measured and slow, as if
carefully disciplined to repress groans--yet every now and then there
will come a modulation, that shows how rich and cheery it might have
been when trolling a _chanson à boire_--how clear and sonorous when,
over the stamping of hoofs and the rattle of scabbards, it rang out the
one word "Charge!"--how winning and musical when whispering into a
small, pink ear laid against his lips lovingly.
The Vicomte de Châteaumesnil cares for but one thing on earth now--play,
as deep as he can make or find it. It is not a pastime, or a
distraction, or an occasional fever-fit, but the sole interest of his
existence. A fearfully unworthy and unsatisfactory one, you will say.
Granted; but try and realize his condition.
He is not forty yet. All the passions of mature manhood were alive
within him; not one desire or impulse had been tamed by natural or even
premature decay at the time he was struck down, and cut off from every
object and aim of his former life, when it was too late to form or turn
to others. Imagine how eagerly his strong fiery nature must have grasped
at some of these--how it must have appreciated the alternations of
glory, pleasure, and peril--all worse than blanks now. You dare not
speak to him of woman's love. Worse than all other torments of the
Titan's bed of pain, would be wild dreams of impossible Oceanides!
Remember that his only change of scene is from one of the waters of
Marah to another, according to his own or his physician's fancy about
mineral springs. Remember, too, that the cleverest or the most sanguine
of them all have only ventured to promise an abatement of his agonies:
of their cessation they say no word; nor can they even prophesy that the
end will come quickly. He is not allowed to read much, even if his taste
lay that way, which it does not; for a literary _Chasseur d'Afrique_ is
such a whim as Nature never yet indulged herself in. So perhaps he
caught at the only resource that could have saved him from worse things;
under which, I presume, is to be included the temptation to take
laudanum in proportions by no means prescribed or sanctioned by the
Faculty.
Every day about noon his servant helped him into the card-room at the
club, and settled him at his own table, where, with the two hours
respite of dinner, he sat till midnight, ready to give battle to all
comers at all weapons, just as the Knights of Lyonnesse used to keep a
bridge or a pass while achieving their vows. It is needless to say that
the changes of good or bad luck affected him not at all. Few men of his
stamp indulge in the weakness of railing at Fortune, which is the
privilege and consolation of the _roturier_. Neither was he ever heard
to reproach a partner, or become bitter against an adversary. He seemed
to take a pleasure in disappointing those who were always expecting from
him some savage outbreak of temper: they judged from his appearance, and
had some grounds for their anticipations; for, winning or losing, that
strange look, half-weary, half-defiant, never was off his face. But,
with Armand de Châteaumesnil, the _grand seigneur_ had not been merged
in the soldier: the _brusquerie_ of the camp had not overlaid the manner
of the courtly school in which he and all his race had been trained; the
school of those who would stab their enemy to the heart with sarcasm or
innuendo, but scorned to stun him with blatant abuse--of those who would
never have dreamt of listening to a woman with covered head, though they
might be deaf as the nether millstone to her entreaties or her tears. It
was with the Revolution that the rapier went out, and the _savate_ came
in.
Very few men came up to his standard of play; for he was hard to please
in style as well as in stakes. Keene did fully; and this, with a certain
similarity of tastes, accounted for his liking the latter so well. He
had little regard to throw away, and was chary of it in proportion. On
the other hand, Royston treated the invalid with an amount of deference
very unusual with him, in whom the bump of Veneration was probably
represented by a cavity.
The two were still talking on the terrace, when a man passed them, who
lifted his hat slightly, and then sighed audibly, looking upward with an
ostentatious contrition, as though he apologized to heaven for such a
bowing-down to Rimmon. This was the Rev. James Fullarton, British
chaplain at Dorade. A difficult and anomalous position--in which the
unlucky divine, in addition to his anxiety about the conscientious
discharge of his duties, has to cultivate the friendship of a vast
number of unrighteous Mammons, if he would be allowed to perform his
functions at all. Our countrymen are popularly supposed to take out a
special license for liberty of thought and action as soon as they cross
the Channel; and the pastor's pulpit-cushion can hardly be stuffed with
roses when every other member of his congregation--embracing devotees of
about a dozen different shades of High, Low, and Broad Church--thinks it
his or her daily duty to decide, if the formula--_Quamdiu se bene
gesserit_--has been duly complied with. Perhaps foreign air and warmer
climates develop, like a hot-bed, our innate instinct of
destructiveness. Look at portly respectable fathers of
families--householders who, at home, have accepted their spiritual
position without a murmur for a quarter of a century, roused to revolt
by no vexed question of copes, candles, or church-rates--even these can
not escape contagion. When once the game is afoot, they will open on the
scent with the perseverance of the steadiest "line-hunter," and join in
the "worry" as savagely as the youngest hound. I remember seeing a
similar case in Scotland, where a minister was preaching before "the
Men" who were appointed to judge of his qualifications. Right in front
of him, on a low bench, sat the awful Three, silent, stolid, and stern.
His best rounded periods, his neatest imagery, his aptest quotations,
brought no light into their vacant gray eyes: perhaps they were looking
beyond all these, straight at the doctrine. The breeze blew freshly
from the German Ocean, over the purple hills; but it brought no coolness
to that miserable Boanerges. How he _did_ perspire! I could not wonder
at it; and though he preached for ninety-five minutes, and wearied me
even to death, I bore him no enmity, but pitied him from my soul.
Mr. Fullarton, however, had steered through the reefs and quicksands
with better skill or luck than his fellows, and, judging from the
ruddiness of his broad, beardless face, and the amplitude of his black
waistcoat, the cares of office had not hitherto affected his health
materially. He was a well-meaning, conscientious man, ready to work hard
for his flock and his family; indeed, barring a certain frail leaning
toward _gourmandise_, of which a full pendulous lip told tales, and an
occasional infirmity of temper, he had as few outward failings as could
be desired. For one of no extreme views, he could count an extraordinary
number of adherents. Without being particularly agreeable or
instructive, he possessed a rather imposing readiness and rotundity of
speech, and had a knack of turning his arm-chair into a pulpit somewhat
oftener than was quite in good taste. However, I suppose the best of us
will talk "shop" when we see a fair opening. He had a large wife and
several small children. No one admired him more devotedly than this
truly excellent woman. As far as sharing in her husband's successes
went, or partaking in any other advantages of society, she might as well
have been the squaw of an Iowa brave; for her time was more than taken
up in tending her offspring, and in providing for her lord the savory
meats in which he delighted; but she looked the picture of contentment,
and so nobody thought it necessary to pity her.
From the first moment of their meeting, the chaplain had entertained a
nervous dislike, approaching to a presentiment, toward Royston Keene. He
regarded him as a brand likely to inflame others, but itself by no means
to be plucked from the burning. The latter saw his gesture as he passed,
and smiled--not pleasantly. "Remark the shepherd, M. le Vicomte," he
said; "he sees the wolves prowling, and trembles for his lambs."
"One wolf, at least, is toothless," answered Châteaumesnil. "What have
we to do with lambs, except _en suprême_? But the sun is down; I must go
home, or these cursed pains will avenge themselves. Till this evening."
"I will not fail; but you will permit me to accompany you so far," said
Keene, bending over the invalid with the grand courteous air that became
him well; and he walked by the other's side till they reached his door,
talking over the varying fortunes of last night's play.