To quarrel with a man over his cups, or in any wise to molest him in his
drink, is an offense against the proprieties that even the good-natured
Epicurean can not find it in his easy heart to palliate or pardon. On
this point he speaks mildly, but very firmly:
Natis in usum lætitiæ scyphis
Pugnare, Thracum est. Tollite barbarum
Morem: verecundumque Bacchum
Sanguineis prohibete rixis.
The ghost of Banquo was an uncivilized spectre, or--strong as was the
provocation--it would have confronted Macbeth in any other place sooner
than the banqueting-hall. The worst deed in the life of a cruel, false
king was the setting on of the black bull's head before the doomed
Douglases; and perhaps Pope Alexander, though singularly exempt from all
vulgar prejudice, found it hard to obtain his own pontifical absolution
for the poisoned wine in which he pledged the Orsini and Colonna. In
these, and a hundred like instances, there was certainly the shadowy
excuse of political expediency or necessity; but what shall we say of
that individual who interrupts the harmony of a meeting solely to
gratify his own private pique or pleasure? Truly, with such enormities
Heaven "heads the count of crimes." I consider the most abominable act
of which Eris was ever guilty was the selection of that particular
moment for the production of the golden apple. If she was bound to make
herself obnoxious, she might have waited till the Olympians were sitting
in conclave, or at least at home again. It was infamous to disturb them
while doing justice to the talents of Peleus's _cordon-bleu_. I wish
very much that injured and querulous OEnone had met her somewhere on
the slopes of Ida, and "given her a piece of her mind."
On these grounds I venture to hope that all well-regulated readers will
concur with me in pronouncing Mr. Fullarton's conduct totally
indefensible. It would have been so easy to have communicated his
intelligence to any that it might concern, discreetly, at a fitting
place and time, instead of casting it into the midst of a convivial
assembly like a fulminating ball. Under other circumstances, he would
probably have taken the quieter course; but he had been smarting for
some time under a succession of provocations, real and fancied, from
Royston Keene, and his own misadventure that morning had filled the cup
of irritation brimful. It was the old exasperating feeling--
Earl Percy sees my fall.
Whatever might be the cost, he could not make up his mind to let slip so
fair a chance of embarrassing his imperturbable enemy. There is no
saying what he would have given to see that marvelous self-command for
once thoroughly break down. It is unfortunate that the best-laid plans
can not always insure a triumph. The chaplain certainly did succeed in
producing a "situation," and in reducing most of the party to that
uncomfortable frame of mind which is popularly described as "wishing
one's self any where;" but the person who seemed most completely
unconcerned was the man at whom the blow was leveled.
The major shook his head with a quick gesture of impatience, just as if
some insect had lighted on his forehead; beyond this, for any evidence
of his being annoyed by it, Mr. Fullarton's last remark might have
related to missionary prospects or Chinese politics. The steady color on
his swarthy face neither lost nor gained a shade. There was not a sign
of anger, or shame, or confusion in his clear, bold eyes; and, when he
answered, there was not one fresh furrow on the brow that, at lighter
provocation, was so apt to frown.
"I give you credit for being utterly ignorant of what you are talking
about, Mr. Fullarton. You could not possibly guess how disagreeable the
subject would be to me. As it can't be in the least interesting to any
one else, suppose we change it?"
Just the same cold, measured voice as ever, with only a slight sarcastic
inflection to vary the deep, grave tones; but a very close observer
might have seen his fingers clench the handle of a knife while he was
speaking, as if their gripe would have dinted the ivory.
It was hardly to be expected that the rest of the party would emulate
the _sang-froid_ of the Cool Captain. Sailing under false colors is a
convenient practice enough, and productive sometimes of many prizes; but
divers penalties attach to its detection, on land as well as on sea.
Indeed, it involves the necessity of _somebody's_ appearing as a
convicted impostor. On the present occasion--as the actor for whom the
character was cast utterly declined to play it--the part fell to poor
Harry Molyneux, who certainly looked it to perfection. In all his little
difficulties and troubles, when hard pressed, he was wont to fall back
upon the reserve of _la mignonne_, sure of meeting there with sympathy,
if not with succor. He dared not do so now. He dared not encounter the
reproach of the beautiful, gentle eyes that had never looked into his
own otherwise than trustfully since they first told the secret that she
loved him dearly. The half-smothered cry that broke from Fanny's lips
when the chaplain made his disclosure went straight to the heart of her
treacherous husband. He felt as if he deserved that those pretty lips
should never smile upon him again.
Oh, all my readers!--masculine especially--whose patience has carried
you thus far, remark, I beseech you, the dangers that attend any
dereliction from the duty of matrimonial confidence. What right have we
to lock up the secrets of our most intimate friends, far less our own,
instead of pouring them into the bosom of the [Greek: _bathukolpos
akoitis_], which is capacious enough to hold them all, were they tenfold
more numerous and weighty? Such reticence is rife with awful peril. In
our folly and blindness, we fancy ourselves secure, while the ground is
mined under our guilty feet, and the explosion is even now preparing,
from which only our _disjecta membra_ will emerge. Of course, some
cold-hearted caviler will begin to quote instances of carefully-planned
and promising conspiracies, which miscarried solely because the details
reached a feminine ear. It may have been so; but I don't see what
business conspiracies have to succeed at all. Long live the
Constitution! Truly, such delightful confidences must be something
one-sided, for the mildest Griselda of them all would be led as a
"Martha to the Stakes" sooner than concede to her husband the
unrestricted supervision of her correspondence. I have indeed a dim
recollection of having heard of _one_ bride of seventeen, who, during
the honeymoon, was weak and (_selon les dames_) wicked enough to submit
to profane male eyes epistles received from the friends of her youth, in
their simple entirety, instead of reading out an expurgated edition of
the same. She had been brought up in a very dungeon of decorum by a
terrible grandmother, a rigid moralist, whom no man ever yet beheld
without a shiver; and during those first few weeks after her escape she
was probably intoxicated by the novel sense of freedom, besides which,
she was perfectly infatuated about "Reginald;" but all this could not
exculpate her when arraigned before her peers. She lived long enough to
repent and to reassert, to some extent, her lost matronly dignity, but
she died very young--let us hope in fair course of nature. She had
violated the first law of a guild more numerous and influential than
that of the Freemasons. Examples are necessary from time to time, and,
though the _Vehme-gericht_ may pity the offender, it may not therefore
linger in its vengeance. Nevertheless, my brethren, our course is clear.
Let us resign to the chatelaine the key of the letter-bag and the
censorship thereof. If, after due warning, our light-minded friends
_will_ write to us in terms that mislike that excellent and punctilious
inspectress, they must aby it in the cold looks and bitter innuendoes
which will be their portion when they come to us in the next hunting
season. Our conscience, at least, will be pure and undefiled, and we
shall pass to the end of our pilgrimage _sans peur_, though perchance,
even then, not _sans reproche_. "Servitudes," as Miggs, the veteran
vestal remarked, "is no inheritance," but there are natures who thrive
rarely in this tranquil and inglorious condition. Such men live, as a
rule, pretty contentedly to a great old age, and die in the odor of
intense respectability. Salubrious, it seems, as well as creditable to
the patient, is a _régime_ of moderate hen-pecking, only it is necessary
that he should be of the intermediate species between Socrates and
Georges Dandin.
Mrs. Danvers would certainly have indulged openly in that immoderate
exultation to which all minor prophets are prone when their predictions
chance to be verified, but this was checked by her constitutional
timidity. She was horribly afraid of the effect that the revelation
might have on her patroness; therefore what precise meaning was implied
by the complicated contortions of her countenance no mortal can guess or
know. Her sensations probably resolved themselves into an excess of
admiration for the pastor in his new character of a denouncer of
detected guilt and champion of imperiled innocence, added to which was a
vague desire to lanch her own anathema maranatha at Royston Keene.
Dick Tresilyan took the whole thing with remarkable coolness, not to say
complacency. He nodded his head, and smiled, and winked cunningly aside
at Molyneux, as if to intimate that he had known all about it long ago,
and, indeed, so far he had been admitted into the major's confidence on
the night when the latter was supposed to have "lost his head." By what
sophistries Royston had succeeded in masking his purpose and making his
case good, even to such an unsuspicious mind and easy morality, the
devil could best tell, who in such schemes had rarely failed him.
We have left Cecil to the last. My proud, beautiful Cecil--was she not
born for better things than to be made the prize of all those plottings
and counter-plottings--to surrender the key of her heart's treasures to
one who was unworthy to kiss the hem of her robe--and now to have her
self-command tried so cruelly to gratify the wounded vanity of a weak,
shallow enthusiast?
She did not flinch or start when Mr. Fullarton's words caught her ear,
but a heavy, chill faintness stole over her, till she felt all her limbs
benumbed, and every thing before her eyes grew misty and dim. The
numbness passed away almost immediately, but still the figures around
her appeared distorted and fantastically exaggerated; they seemed to be
tossing and whirling round one steadfast centre, as the dead leaves in
winter eddy round the marble head of a statue; that single centre-object
remained, throughout, distinct and unaltered in its aspect, while all
else was confused and uncertain--the face of Royston Keene. The sight of
that face--not defiant or even stern, but immutable in its cold
tranquillity--acted on Cecil as a magical restorative; it seemed as
though he were able, by some mesmeric influence, to impart to her a
portion of his own miraculous self-control. Before his reply to the
chaplain was ended, she threw back her proud head with the old imperial
gesture, as if scorning her own momentary weakness; no mist or shadow
clouded the brilliant violet eyes; she might speak safely now, without
risking a false note in the music. It was no light peril that she
escaped; the betrayal of emotion under such circumstances would have
weighed down a meeker spirit than The Tresilyan's with a sense of
ineffaceable shame; for remember--however marked her partiality for
Keene might have been--there had been no suspicion of an engagement
between them. Had she broken down then, she would not have forgiven
Royston to her dying day: she never _did_ forgive the chaplain. As it
was--by a strange anomaly--at the very moment when she became aware of
having been deluded and misled, in intention if not by actually spoken
words--when she had most reason to hate or despise the "enemy who had
done her this dishonor"--she felt his hold upon her heart strengthened,
as though he had justified his right to command it. Not to women alone,
but to all beautiful, wild creatures, the ancient aphorism applies: the
harder they are to discipline, the better they love their tamer. Cecil
thought, "there is not another man alive whose eyes could meet mine so
daringly:" and the haughty spirit bowed itself, and did obeisance to its
suzerain. Different in many respects as good can be from evil--in one,
those two were as fairly matched as Thiodolf and Isolde. Who can tell
what wealth of happiness might have been stored up for both, if they had
only not met--too late?
These two words seem to me the most of any that are written or spoken.
They strike the key-note of so many human agonies, that they might form
a motto, apter than Dante's, for the gates of hell. Very few may hear
them without a melancholy thrill; well--if they do not bring a bitter
pang. Like those awful conjurations that blanched in utterance the lips
of the boldest magi, they have a fearful power to wake the dead. Lo!
they are scarcely syllabled when there is a stir in the grave-yard
where sad or guilty memories lie buried; the air is alive with phantoms;
the watcher may close his eyes if he will: not the less is he sensible
of the presence of those pale ghosts that come trooping to their
vengeance. Many, many hours must pass before the spell is learned that
will send them back to their tombs again.
Not long ago I heard a story that bears upon this. The man of whom it
was told lost his love after he had fairly wooed and won her. It matters
not what suspicion, or misconception, or treachery parted them; but
parted they were for eight miserable years. Then the lady repented or
relented, and came to her lover to make her confession. When she had
done speaking, she looked up into his face: she saw no light of gladness
or welcome there--only a deepening and darkening of the weary look of
pain: the arms whose last tender clasp she had not forgotten yet, never
opened to draw her to his breast. He bent his head down upon his shaking
hands, and the heavy drops that are sometimes wrung from strong men in
their agony began to trickle through his fingers. In old days he could
never bear to see her sad for a moment; now, he sat as though he heard
her not, while she lay at his feet, wailing to be forgiven. When he
could perfectly control his voice he said,
"More than once, in my dreams, I have seen you so, and I have heard you
say what you have said to-day. I answered then as I answer now--I never
can forgive you. I do not know that you would not regain your old
ascendency; I believe you are as dangerous, and I as weak, as ever. But
I do know that, the more fascinating I found you, the harder it would be
to bear. Thinking of what I had missed through that accursed time of
famine would drive me mad soon. I have got used to my present burden: I
won't give you the chance of making it heavier. Those tears of mine were
selfish as well as childish; they were given to the happiness and hope
that you killed eight years ago. Stay--we parted with a show of kindness
then; we will not part in anger now."
He laid his lips on her forehead as he raised her up--a grave, cold,
passionless kiss, such as is pressed on the brow of a dear friend lying
in his shroud. They never met alone again.
It is exasperating to think how long I have taken to describe events and
emotions that passed in the space of a few minutes; but to place all the
_dramatis personæ_ in their proper positions does take time, unless the
stage-manager is very experienced. Will you be good enough to imagine
the picnic broken up (_not_ in confusion), and the "strayed revelers" on
their way to Dorade? Nothing worthy of note occurred on the spot; a
commonplace conversation having been started and maintained in a way
equally creditable to all parties concerned.