CHIEFLY UPON THE THEME OF A YOUNG MAID'S IMAGININGS
That Mausoleum at Dreux may touch to lift us. History, pleads for the
pride of the great discrowned Family giving her illumination there. The
pride is reverently postured, the princely mourning-cloak it wears
becomingly braided at the hem with fair designs of our mortal humility in
the presence of the vanquisher; against whom, acknowledgeing a visible
conquest of the dust, it sustains a placid contention in coloured glass
and marbles.
Mademoiselle de Seilles, a fervid Orleanist, was thanked for having
advised the curvature of the route homeward to visit 'the spot of so
impressive a monument': as it, was phrased by the Rev. Septimus Barmby;
whose exposition to Nesta of the beautiful stained-glass pictures of
incidents in the life of the crusading St. Louis, was toned to be
likewise impressive:--Colney Durance not being at hand to bewail the
pathos of his exhaustless 'whacking of the platitudes'; which still
retain their tender parts, but cry unheard when there is no cynic near.
Mr. Barmby laid-on solemnly.
Professional devoutness is deemed more righteous on such occasions than
poetic fire. It robes us in the cloak of the place, as at a funeral.
Generally, Mr. Barmby found, and justly, that it is in superior
estimation among his countrymen of all classes. They are shown by
example how to look, think, speak; what to do. Poets are disturbing;
they cannot be comfortably imitated, they are unsafe, not certainly the
metal, unless you have Laureates, entitled to speak by their pay and
decorations; and these are but one at a time-and a quotation may remind
us of a parody, to convulse the sacred dome! Established plain prose
officials do better for our English. The audience moved round with heads
of undertakers.
Victor called to recollection Fenellan's 'Rev. Glendoveer' while Mr.
Barmby pursued his discourse, uninterrupted by tripping wags. And those
who have schemes, as well as those who are startled by the criticism in
laughter to discover that they have cause for shunning it, rejoice when
wits are absent. Mr. Sowerby and Nesta interchanged a comment on Mr.
Barmby's remarks: The Fate of Princes! The Paths of Glory! St. Louis
was a very distant Roman Catholic monarch; and the young gentleman of
Evangelical education could admire him as a Crusader. St. Louis was for
Nesta a figure in the rich hues of royal Saintship softened to homeliness
by tears. She doated on a royalty crowned with the Saint's halo, that
swam down to us to lift us through holy human showers. She listened to
Mr. Barmby, hearing few sentences, lending his eloquence all she felt:
he rolled forth notes of a minster organ, accordant with the devotional
service she was holding mutely. Mademoiselle upon St. Louis: 'Worthy to
be named King of Kings!' swept her to a fount of thoughts, where the
thoughts are not yet shaped, are yet in the breast of the mother
emotions. Louise de Seilles had prepared her to be strangely and deeply
moved. The girl had a heart of many strings, of high pitch, open to be
musical to simplest wandering airs or to the gales. This crypt of the
recumbent sculptured figures and the coloured series of acts in the
passage of the crowned Saint thrilled her as with sight of flame on an
altar-piece of History. But this King in the lines of the Crucifixion
leading, gave her a lesson of life, not a message from death. With such
a King, there would be union of the old order and the new, cessation to
political turmoil: Radicalism, Socialism, all the monster names of things
with heads agape in these our days to gobble-up the venerable, obliterate
the beautiful, leave a stoniness of floods where field and garden were,
would be appeased, transfigured. She hoped, she prayed for that glorious
leader's advent.
On one subject, conceived by her only of late, and not intelligibly, not
communicably: a subject thickly veiled; one which struck at her through
her sex and must, she thought, ever be unnamed (the ardent young creature
saw it as a very thing torn by the winds to show hideous gleams of a body
rageing with fire behind the veil): on this one subject, her hopes and
prayers were dumb in her bosom. It signified shame. She knew not the
how, for she had no power to contemplate it: there was a torment of earth
and a writhing of lurid dust-clouds about it at a glimpse. But if the
new crusading Hero were to come attacking that--if some born prince nobly
man would head the world to take away the withering scarlet from the face
of women, she felt she could kiss the print of his feet upon the ground.
Meanwhile she had enjoyment of her plunge into the inmost forest-well of
mediaeval imaginativeness, where youthful minds of good aspiration
through their obscurities find much akin to them.
She had an eye for little Skepsey too: unaware that these French Princes
had hurried him off to Agincourt, for another encounter with them and the
old result--poor dear gentlemen, with whom we do so wish to be friendly!
What amused her was, his evident fatigue in undergoing the slow parade,
and sheer deference to his betters, as to the signification of a holiday
on arrested legs. Dudley Sowerby's attention to him, in elucidating the
scenes with historical scraps, greatly pleased her. The Rev. Septimus of
course occupied her chiefly.
Mademoiselle was always near, to receive his repeated expressions of
gratitude for the route she had counselled. Without personal objections
to a well-meaning orderly man, whose pardonable error it was to be aiming
too considerably higher than his head, she did but show him the voluble
muteness of a Frenchwoman's closed lips; not a smile at all, and
certainly no sign of hostility; when bowing to his reiterated compliment
in the sentence of French. Mr. Barmby had noticed (and a strong
sentiment rendered him observant, unwontedly) a similar alert immobility
of her lips, indicating foreign notions of this kind or that, in England:
an all but imperceptible shortening or loss of corners at the mouth, upon
mention of marriages of his clergy: particularly once, at his reading of
a lengthy report in a newspaper of a Wedding Ceremony involving his
favourite Bishop for bridegroom: a report to make one glow like Hymen
rollicking the Torch after draining the bumper to the flying slipper.
He remembered the look, and how it seemed to intensify on the slumbering
features, at a statement, that his Bishop was a widower, entering into
nuptials in his fifty-fourth year. Why not? But we ask it of Heaven and
Man, why not? Mademoiselle was pleasant: she was young or youngish; her
own clergy were celibates, and--no, he could not argue the matter with a
young or youngish person of her sex. Could it be a reasonable woman--
a woman!--who, disapproved the holy nuptials of the pastors of the
flocks? But we are forbidden to imagine the conducting of an argument
thereon with a lady.
Luther . . . but we are not in Luther's time:--Nature . . . no,
nor can there possibly be allusions to Nature. Mr. Barmby wondered at
Protestant parents taking a Papistical governess for their young flower
of English womanhood. However, she venerated St. Louis; he cordially
also; there they met; and he admitted, that she had, for a Frenchwoman,
a handsome face, and besides an agreeably artificial ingenuousness in
the looks which could be so politely dubious as to appear only dubiously
adverse.
The spell upon Nesta was not blown away on English ground; and when her
father and mother were comparing their impressions, she could not but
keep guard over the deeper among her own. At the Chateau de Gisors,
leftward off Vernon on Seine, it had been one of romance and wonderment,
with inquisitive historic soundings of her knowledge and mademoiselle's,
a reverence for the prisoner's patient holy work, and picturings of his
watchful waiting daily, Nail in hand, for the heaven-sent sunlight on the
circular dungeon-wall through the slits of the meurtrieres. But the
Mausoleum at Dreux spake religiously; it enfolded Mr. Barmby, his voice
re-edified it. The fact that he had discoursed there, though not a word
of the discourse was remembered, allied him to the spirit of a day rather
increasing in sacredness as it receded and left her less the possessor of
it, more the worshipper.
Mademoiselle had to say to herself: 'Impossible!' after seeing the drift
of her dear Nesta's eyes in the wake of the colossal English clergyman.
She fed her incredulousness indignantly on the evidence confounding it.
Nataly was aware of unusual intonations, treble-stressed, in the Bethesda
and the Galilee of Mr. Barmby on Concert evenings: as it were, the
towering wood-work of the cathedral organ in quake under emission of its
multitudinous outroar. The 'Which?' of the Rev. Septimus, addressed to
Nesta, when song was demanded of him; and her 'Either'; and his gentle
hesitation, upon a gaze at her for the directing choice, could not be
unnoticed by women.
Did he know a certain thing?--and dream of urging the suit, as an
indulgent skipper of parental pages?
Such haunting interrogations were the conspirators' daggers out at any
instant, or leaping in sheath, against Nataly's peace of mind. But she
trusted her girl's laughing side to rectify any little sentimental
overbalancing. She left the ground where maternal meditations are
serious, at an image of Mr. Barmby knocking at Nesta's heart as a lover.
Was it worth inquiry?
A feminine look was trailed across the eyes of mademoiselle, with mention
of Mr. Barmby's name.
Mademoiselle rippled her shoulders. 'We are at present much enamoured of
Bethesda.'
That watchfullest showing no alarm, the absurdity of the suspicion
smothered it.
Nataly had moreover to receive startling new guests:
Lady Rodwell Blachington: Mrs. Fanning, wife of the General: young Mrs.
Blathenoy, wife of the great bill-broker: ladies of Wrensham and about.
And it was a tasking of her energies equal to the buffeting of recurrent
waves on deep sea. The ladies were eager for her entry into Lakelands.
She heard that Victor had appointed Lady Blachington's third son to the
coveted post of clerk in the Indian house of Inchling and Radnor. These
are the deluge days when even aristocracy will cry blessings on the man
who procures a commercial appointment for one of its younger sons
offended and rebutted by the barrier of Examinations for the Civil
Service. 'To have our Adolphus under Mr. Victor Radnor's protection, is
a step!' Lady Blachington said. Nataly was in an atmosphere of hints and
revealings. There were City Dinners, to which one or other of the
residents about Lakelands had been taken before he sat at Victor's London
table. He was already winning his way, apparently without effort, to be
the popular man of that neighbourhood. A subterranean tide or a slipping
of earth itself seemed bearing her on. She had his promise indeed, that
he would not ask of her to enter Lakelands until the day of his freedom
had risen; but though she could trust to his word, the heart of the word
went out of it when she heard herself thanked by Lady Blachington (who
could so well excuse her at such a time of occupation for not returning
her call, that she called in a friendly way a second time, warmly to
thank her) for throwing open the Concert room at Lakelands in August, to
an Entertainment in assistance of the funds for the purpose of erecting
an East of London Clubhouse, where the children of the poor by day could
play, and their parents pass a disengaged evening. Doubtless a worthy
Charity. Nataly was alive to the duties of wealth. Had it been simply a
demand for a donation, she would not have shown that momentary pucker of
the brows, which Lady Blachington read as a contrast with the generous
vivacity of the husband.
Nataly read a leaf of her fate in this announcement. Nay, she beheld
herself as the outer world wexedly beholds a creature swung along to the
doing of things against the better mind. An outer world is thoughtless
of situations which prepare us to meet the objectionable with a will
benumbed;--if we do not, as does that outer world, belong to the party of
the readily heroical. She scourged her weakness: and the intimation of
the truth stood over her, more than ever manifest, that the deficiency
affecting her character lay in her want of language. A tongue to speak
and contend, would have helped her to carve a clearer way. But then
again, the tongue to speak must be one which could reproach, and strike
at errors; fence, and continually summon resources to engage the
electrical vitality of a man like Victor. It was an exultation of their
life together, a mark of his holiness for them both, that they had never
breathed a reproach upon one another.
She dropped away from ideas of remonstrance; faintly seeing, in her sigh
of submission, that the deficiency affecting her character would have
been supplied by a greater force of character, pressing either to speech
or acts. The confession of a fated inevitable in the mind, is weakness
prostrate. She knew it: but she could point to the manner of man she was
matched with; and it was not a poor excuse.
Mr. Barmby, she thought, deserved her gratitude in some degree for
stepping between Mr. Sowerby and Nesta. The girl not having
inclinations, and the young gentleman being devoid of stratagem, they
were easily kept from the dangerous count of two.
Mademoiselle would have said, that the shepherd also had rarely if ever a
minute quite alone with her lamb. Incredulously she perceived signs of a
shock. The secret following the signs was betrayed by Nesta in return
for a tender grasp of hands and a droll flutter of eyelids. Out it came,
on a nod first; then a dreary mention of a date, and an incident, to
bring it nearer to comprehension. Mr. Barmby--and decide who will
whether it is that Love was made to elude or that curates impelled by his
fires are subtle as nether--had outwitted French watchfulness by stealing
minutes enough on a day at Lakelands to declare himself. And no wonder
the girl looked so forlorn: he had shivered her mediaeval forest-palace
of illuminated glass, to leave her standing like a mountain hind, that
sniffs the tainted gale off the crag of her first quick leap from hounds;
her instincts alarmed, instead of rich imagination colouring and
fostering.
She had no memory for his words; so, and truly, she told her Louise:
meaning that she had only a spiceless memory; especially for the word
love in her ears from the mouth of a man.
There had been a dream of it; with the life-awakening marvel it would be,
the humbleness it would bring to her soul beneath the golden clothing of
her body: one of those faint formless dreams, which are as the bend of
grasses to the breath of a still twilight. She lived too spiritedly to
hang on any dream; and had moreover a muffled dread-shadow-sister to the
virginal desire--of this one, as of a fateful power that might drag her
down, disorder, discolour. But now she had heard it: the word, the very
word itself! in her own ears! addressed to her! in a man's voice! The
first utterance had been heard, and it was over; the chapter of the book
of bulky promise of the splendours and mysteries;--the shimmering woods
and bushy glades, and the descent of the shape celestial, and the
recognition--the mutual cry of affinity; and overhead the crimson
outrolling of the flag of beneficent enterprises hand in hand, all was at
an end. These, then, are the deceptions our elders tell of! That
masculine voice should herald a new world to the maiden. The voice she
had heard did but rock to ruin the world she had been living in.
Mademoiselle prudently forbore from satirical remarks on his person or on
his conduct. Nesta had nothing to defend: she walked in a bald waste.
'Can I have been guilty of leading him to think . . .?' she said, in a
tone that writhed, at a second discussion of this hapless affair.
'They choose to think,' mademoiselle replied. 'It is he or another. My
dear and dearest, you have entered the field where shots fly thick, as
they do to soldiers in battle; and it is neither your fault nor any
one's, if you are hit.'
Nesta gazed at her, with a shy supplicating cry of 'Louise.'
Mademoiselle immediately answered the tone of entreaty. 'Has it happened
to me? I am of the age of eight and twenty; passable, to look at: yes,
my dear, I have gone through it. To spare you the questions tormenting
you, I will tell you, that perhaps our experience of our feelings comes
nigh on a kind of resemblance. The first gentleman who did me the honour
to inform me of his passion, was a hunchback.'
Nesta cried 'Oh!' in a veritable pang of sympathy, and clapped hands to
her ears, to shut out Mr. Barmby's boom of the terrific word attacking
Louise from that deformed one.
Her disillusionment became of the sort which hears derision. A girl of
quick blood and active though unregulated intellect, she caught at the
comic of young women's hopes and experiences, in her fear of it.
'My own precious poor dear Louise! what injustice there is in the world
for one like my Louise to have a hunchback to be the first . . . !'
'But, my dear, it did me no harm.'
'But if it had been known!'
'But it was known!'
Nesta controlled a shuddering: 'It is the knowledge of it in ourselves--
that it has ever happened;--you dear Louise, who deserve so much better!
And one asks--Oh, why are we not left in peace! And do look at the
objects it makes of us!' Mademoiselle: could see, that the girl's
desperation had got hold of her humour for a life-buoy. 'It is really
worse to have it unknown--when you are compelled to be his partner in
sharing the secret, and feel as if it were a dreadful doll you conceal
for fear that everybody will laugh at its face.'
She resumed her seriousness: 'I find it so hard to be vexed with him and
really really like him. For he is a good man; but he will not let one
shake him off. He distresses: because we can't quite meet as we did.
Last Wednesday Concert evening, he kept away; and I am annoyed that I was
glad.'
'Moths have to pass through showers, and keep their pretty patterns from
damage as best they can,' said mademoiselle.
Nesta transformed herself into a disciple of Philosophy on the spot.
'Yes, all these feelings of ours are moth-dust! One feels them. I
suppose they pass. They must. But tell me, Louise, dear soul, was your
poor dear good little afflicted suitor--was he kindly pitied?'
'Conformably with the regulations prescribed to young damsels who are in
request to surrender the custody of their hands. It is easy to commit a
dangerous excess in the dispensing of that article they call pity of
them.'
'And he--did he?--vowed to you he could not take No for an answer?'
At this ingenuous question, woefully uttered, mademoiselle was pricked,
to smile pointedly. Nesta had a tooth on her under-lip. Then, shaking
vapours to the winds, she said: 'It is an honour, to be asked; and we
cannot be expected to consent. So I shall wear through it.--Only I do
wish that Mr. Fenellan would not call him The Inchcape Bell!' She
murmured this to herself.
Mr. Barmby was absent for two weeks. 'Can anything have offended him?'
Victor inquired, in some consternation, appreciating the man's worth, and
the grand basso he was; together with the need for him at the Lakelands
Concert in August.
Nataly wrote Mr. Barmby a direct invitation. She had no reply. Her
speculations were cut short by Victor, who handed her a brief note
addressed to him and signed by the Rev. Septimus, petitioning for a
private interview.
The formality of the request incensed Victor. 'Now, dear love, you see
Colney's meaning, when he says, there are people who have no intimacy in
them. Here's a man who visits me regularly once a week or more, has been
familiar for years--four, at least; and he wants to speak to me, and must
obtain the "privilege" by special appointment! What can be the meaning
of it?'
'You will hear to-morrow afternoon,' Nataly said, seeing one paved way to
the meaning--a too likely meaning. . . 'He hasn't been . . . nothing
about Fredi, surely!'
'I have had no information.'
'Impossible! Barmby has good sense; Bottesini can't intend to come
scraping on that string. But we won't lose him; he's one of us. Barmby
counts for more at a Charity Concert than all the catalogue, and
particularly in the country. But he's an excellent fellow--eh?'
'That he is,' Nataly agreed.
Victor despatched a cheerful curt consent to see Mr. Barmby privately on
the late afternoon of the day to follow.
Nesta, returning home from the park at that hour of the interview,
ignorant of Mr. Barmby's purpose though she was, had her fires
extinguished by the rolling roar of curfew along the hall-passage,
out of the library.