CHAPTER XII

Elba lay more sheltered from South-east winds under the slopes of down

than any other house in Crikswich. The South-caster struck off the cliff

to a martello tower and the house on the beach, leaving Elba to repose,

so that the worst wind for that coast was one of the most comfortable

for the owner of the hall, and he looked from his upper window on a sea

of crumbling grey chalk, lashed unremittingly by the featureless piping

gale, without fear that his elevated grounds and walls would be open

at high tide to the ravage of water. Van Diemen had no idea of calamity

being at work on land when he sat down to breakfast. He told Herbert

that he had prayed for poor fellows at sea last night. Mary Fellingham

and Annette were anxious to finish breakfast and mount the down to gaze

on the sea, and receiving a caution from Van Diemen not to go too near

the cliff, they were inclined to think he was needlessly timorous on

their account.

Before they were half way through the meal, word was brought in of great

breaches in the shingle, and water covering the common. Van Diemen sent

for his head gardener, whose report of the state of things outside took

the comprehensive form of prophecy; he predicted the fall of the town.

“Nonsense; what do you mean, John Scott?” said Van Diemen, eyeing his

orderly breakfast table and the man in turns. “It does n’t seem like

that, yet, does it?”

“The house on the beach won’t stand an hour longer, sir.”

“Who says so?”

“It’s cut off from land now, and waves mast-high all about it.”

“Mart Tinman?” cried Van Diemen.

All started; all jumped up; and there was a scampering for hats and

cloaks. Maids and men of the house ran in and out confirming the news of

inundation. Some in terror for the fate of relatives, others pleasantly

excited, glad of catastrophe if it but killed monotony, for at any rate

it was a change of demons.

The view from the outer bank of Elba was of water covering the space

of the common up to the stones of Marine Parade and Belle Vue. But at a

distance it had not the appearance of angry water; the ladies thought it

picturesque, and the house on the beach was seen standing firm. A second

look showed the house completely isolated; and as the party led by Van

Diemen circled hurriedly toward the town, they discerned heavy cataracts

of foam pouring down the wrecked mound of shingle on either side of the

house.

“Why, the outer wall’s washed away,” said Van Diemen. “Are they in real

danger?” asked Annette, her teeth chattering, and the cold and other

matters at her heart precluding for the moment such warmth of sympathy

as she hoped soon to feel for them. She was glad to hear her father say:

“Oh! they’re high and dry by this time. We shall find them in the

town And we’ll take them in and comfort them. Ten to one they have n’t

breakfasted. They sha’n’t go to an inn while I’m handy.”

He dashed ahead, followed closely by Herbert. The ladies beheld them

talking to townsfolk as they passed along the upper streets, and did not

augur well of their increase of speed. At the head of the town water was

visible, part of the way up the main street, and crossing it, the

ladies went swiftly under the old church, on the tower of which were

spectators, through the churchyard to a high meadow that dropped to a

stone wall fixed between the meadow and a grass bank above the level of

the road, where now salt water beat and cast some spray. Not less than

a hundred people were in this field, among them Crickledon and his wife.

All were in silent watch of the house on the beach, which was to east

of the field, at a distance of perhaps three stonethrows. The scene was

wild. Continuously the torrents poured through the shingleclefts, and

momently a thunder sounded, and high leapt a billow that topped the

house and folded it weltering.

“They tell me Mart Tinman’s in the house,” Van Diemen roared to Herbert.

He listened to further information, and bellowed: “There’s no boat!”

Herbert answered: “It must be a mistake, I think; here’s Crickledon says

he had a warning before dawn and managed to move most of his things, and

the people over there must have been awakened by the row in time to get

off.”

“I can’t hear a word you say;” Van Diemen tried to pitch his voice

higher than the wind. “Did you say a boat? But where?”

Crickledon the carpenter made signal to Herbert. They stepped rapidly up

the field.

“Women feels their weakness in times like these, my dear,” Mrs.

Crickledon said to Annette. “What with our clothes and our cowardice it

do seem we’re not the equals of men when winds is high.”

Annette expressed the hope to her that she had not lost much property.

Mrs. Crickledon said she was glad to let her know she was insured in

an Accident Company. “But,” said she, “I do grieve for that poor man

Tinman, if alive he be, and comes ashore to find his property wrecked

by water. Bless ye! he wouldn’t insure against anything less common than

fire; and my house and Crickledon’s shop are floating timbers by this

time; and Marine Parade and Belle Vue are safe to go. And it’ll be a

pretty welcome for him, poor man, from his investments.”

A cry at a tremendous blow of a wave on the doomed house rose from the

field. Back and front door were broken down, and the force of water

drove a round volume through the channel, shaking the walls.

“I can’t stand this,” Van Diemen cried.

Annette was too late to hold him back. He ran up the field. She was

preparing to run after when Mrs. Crickledon touched her arm and implored

her: “Interfere not with men, but let them follow their judgements when

it’s seasons of mighty peril, my dear. If any one’s guilty it’s me, for

minding my husband of a boat that was launched for a life-boat here,

and wouldn’t answer, and is at the shed by the Crouch--left lying there,

I’ve often said, as if it was a-sulking. My goodness!”

A linen sheet bad been flung out from one of the windows of the house on

the beach, and flew loose and flapping in sign of distress.

“It looks as if they had gone mad in that house, to have waited so long

for to declare theirselves, poor souls,” Mrs. Crickledon said, sighing.

She was assured right and left that signals had been seen before, and

some one stated that the cook of Mr. Tinman, and also Mrs. Cavely, were

on shore.

“It’s his furniture, poor man, he sticks to: and nothing gets round the

heart so!” resumed Mrs. Crickledon. “There goes his bed-linen!”

The sheet was whirled and snapped away by the wind; distended doubled,

like a flock of winter geese changeing alphabetical letters on the

clouds, darted this way and that, and finally outspread on the waters

breaking against Marine Parade.

“They cannot have thought there was positive danger in remaining,” said

Annette.

“Mr. Tinman was waiting for the cheapest Insurance office,” a man

remarked to Mrs. Crickledon.

“The least to pay is to the undertaker,” she replied, standing on

tiptoe. “And it’s to be hoped he ‘ll pay more to-day. If only those

walls don’t fall and stop the chance of the boat to save him for more

outlay, poor man! What boats was on the beach last night, high up and

over the ridge as they was, are planks by this time and only good for

carpenters.”

“Half our town’s done for,” one old man said; and another followed him

in a pious tone: “From water we came and to water we go.”

They talked of ancient inroads of the sea, none so serious as this

threatened to be for them. The gallant solidity, of the house on

the beach had withstood heavy gales: it was a brave house. Heaven be

thanked, no fishing boats were out. Chiefly well-to-do people would

be the sufferers--an exceptional case. For it is the mysterious and

unexplained dispensation that: “Mostly heaven chastises we.”

A knot of excited gazers drew the rest of the field to them. Mrs.

Crickledon, on the edge of the crowd, reported what was doing to Annette

and Miss Fellingham. A boat had been launched from the town. “Praise

the Lord, there’s none but coastguard in it!” she exclaimed, and excused

herself for having her heart on her husband.

Annette was as deeply thankful that her father was not in the boat.

They looked round and saw Herbert beside them. Van Diemen was in the

rear, panting, and straining his neck to catch sight of the boat now

pulling fast across a tumbled sea to where Tinman himself was perceived,

beckoning them wildly, half out of one of the windows.

“A pound apiece to those fellows, and two if they land Mart Tinman

dry; I’ve promised it, and they’ll earn it. Look at that! Quick, you

rascals!”

To the east a portion of the house had fallen, melted away. Where it

stood, just below the line of shingle, it was now like a structure

wasting on a tormented submerged reef. The whole line was given over to

the waves.

“Where is his sister?” Annette shrieked to her father.

“Safe ashore; and one of the women with her. But Mart Tinman would stop,

the fool! to-poor old boy! save his papers and things; and has n’t a

head to do it, Martha Cavely tells me. They’re at him now! They’ve got

him in! There’s another? Oh! it’s a girl, who would n’t go and leave

him. They’ll pull to the field here. Brave lads!--By jingo, why ain’t

Englishmen always in danger!--eh? if you want to see them shine!”

“It’s little Jane,” said Mrs. Crickledon, who had been joined by her

husband, and now that she knew him to be no longer in peril, kept her

hand on him to restrain him, just for comfort’s sake.

The boat held under the lee of the house-wreck a minute; then, as

if shooting a small rapid, came down on a wave crowned with foam, to

hurrahs from the townsmen.

“They’re all right,” said Van Diemen, puffing as at a mist before his

eyes. “They’ll pull westward, with the wind, and land him among us. I

remember when old Mart and I were bathing once, he was younger than me,

and could n’t swim much, and I saw him going down. It’d have been hard

to see him washed off before one’s eyes thirty years afterwards. Here

they come. He’s all right. He’s in his dressing-gown!”

The crowd made way for Mr. Van Diemen Smith to welcome his friend. Two

of the coastguard jumped out, and handed him to the dry bank, while

Herbert, Van Diemen, and Crickledon took him by hand and arm, and

hoisted him on to the flint wall, preparatory to his descent into the

field. In this exposed situation the wind, whose pranks are endless when

it is once up, seized and blew Martin Tinman’s dressing-gown wide as two

violently flapping wings on each side of him, and finally over his head.

Van Diemen turned a pair of stupefied flat eyes on Herbert, who cast

a sly look at the ladies. Tinman had sprung down. But not before the

world, in one tempestuous glimpse, had caught sight of the Court suit.

Perfect gravity greeted him from the crowd.

“Safe, old Mart! and glad to be able to say it,” said Van Diemen.

“We are so happy,” said Annette.

“House, furniture, property, everything I possess!” ejaculated Tinman,

shivering.

“Fiddle, man; you want some hot breakfast in you. Your sister has gone

on--to Elba. Come you too, old Man; and where’s that plucky little girl

who stood by--”

“Was there a girl?” said Tinman.

“Yes, and there was a boy wanted to help.” Van Diemen pointed at

Herbert.

Tinman looked, and piteously asked, “Have you examined Marine Parade and

Belle Vue? It depends on the tide!”

“Here is little Jane, sir,” said Mrs. Crickledon.

“Fall in,” Van Diemen said to little Jane.

The girl was bobbing curtseys to Annette, on her introduction by Mrs.

Crickledon.

“Martin, you stay at my house; you stay at Elba till you get things

comfortable about you, and then you shall have the Crouch for a year,

rent free. Eh, Netty?”

Annette chimed in: “Anything we can do, anything. Nothing can be too

much.”

Van Diemen was praising little Jane for her devotion to her master.

“Master have been so kind to me,” said little Jane.

“Now, march; it is cold,” Van Diemen gave the word, and Herbert stood

by Mary rather dejectedly, foreseeing that his prospects at Elba were

darkened.

“Now then, Mart, left leg forward,” Van Diemen linked his arm in his

friend’s.

“I must have a look,” Tinman broke from him, and cast a forlorn look of

farewell on the last of the house on the beach.

“You’ve got me left to you, old Mart; don’t forget that,” said Van

Diemen.

Tinman’s chest fell. “Yes, yes,” he responded. He was touched.

“And I told those fellows if they landed you dry they should have--I’d

give them double pay; and I do believe they’ve earned their money.”

“I don’t think I’m very wet, I’m cold,” said Tinman.

“You can’t help being cold, so come along.”

“But, Philip!” Tinman lifted his voice; “I’ve lost everything. I tried

to save a little. I worked hard, I exposed my life, and all in vain.”

The voice of little Jane was heard.

“What’s the matter with the child?” said Van Diemen.

Annette went up to her quietly.

But little Jane was addressing her master.

“Oh! if you please, I did manage to save something the last thing when

the boat was at the window, and if you please, sir, all the bundles is

lost, but I saved you a papercutter, and a letter Horse Guards, and here

they are, sir.”

The grateful little creature drew the square letter and paper-cutter

from her bosom, and held them out to Mr. Tinman.

It was a letter of the imposing size, with THE HORSE GUARDS very

distinctly inscribed on it in Tinman’s best round hand, to strike his

vindictive spirit as positively intended for transmission, and give him

sight of his power to wound if it pleased him; as it might.

“What!” cried he, not clearly comprehending how much her devotion had

accomplished for him.

“A letter to the Horse Guards!” cried Van Diemen.

“Here, give it me,” said little Jane’s master, and grasped it nervously.

“What’s in that letter?” Van Diemen asked. “Let me look at that letter.

Don’t tell me it’s private correspondence.”

“My dear Philip, dear friend, kind thanks; it’s not a letter,” said

Tinman.

“Not a letter! why, I read the address, ‘Horse Guards.’ I read it as it

passed into your hands. Now, my man, one look at that letter, or take

the consequences.”

“Kind thanks for your assistance, dear Philip, indeed! Oh! this? Oh!

it’s nothing.” He tore it in halves.

His face was of the winter sea-colour, with the chalk wash on it.

“Tear again, and I shall know what to think of the contents,” Van Diemen

frowned. “Let me see what you’ve said. You’ve sworn you would do it, and

there it is at last, by miracle; but let me see it and I’ll overlook it,

and you shall be my house-mate still. If not!----”

Tinman tore away.

“You mistake, you mistake, you’re entirely wrong,” he said, as he

pursued with desperation his task of rendering every word unreadable.

Van Diemen stood fronting him; the accumulation of stores of petty

injuries and meannesses which he had endured from this man, swelled

under the whip of the conclusive exhibition of treachery. He looked so

black that Annette called, “Papa!”

“Philip,” said Tinman. “Philip! my best friend!”

“Pooh, you’re a poor creature. Come along and breakfast at Elba, and you

can sleep at the Crouch, and goodnight to you. Crickledon,” he called to

the houseless couple, “you stop at Elba till I build you a shop.”

With these words, Van Diemen led the way, walking alone. Herbert was

compelled to walk with Tinman.

Mary and Annette came behind, and Mary pinched Annette’s arm so sharply

that she must have cried out aloud had it been possible for her to feel

pain at that moment, instead of a personal exultation, flying wildly

over the clash of astonishment and horror, like a sea-bird over the

foam.

In the first silent place they came to, Mary murmured the words: “Little

Jane.”

Annette looked round at Mrs. Crickledon, who wound up the procession,

taking little Jane by the hand. Little Jane was walking demurely, with a

placid face. Annette glanced at Tinman. Her excited feelings nearly rose

to a scream of laughter. For hours after, Mary had only to say to her:

“Little Jane,” to produce the same convulsion. It rolled her heart and

senses in a headlong surge, shook her to burning tears, and seemed to

her ideas the most wonderful running together of opposite things ever

known on this earth. The young lady was ashamed of her laughter; but

she was deeply indebted to it, for never was mind made so clear by that

beneficent exercise.

ETEXT EDITOR’S BOOKMARKS:

Adversary at once offensive and helpless provokes brutality

Causes him to be popularly weighed

Distinguished by his not allowing himself to be provoked

Eccentric behaviour in trifles

Excited, glad of catastrophe if it but killed monotony

Generally he noticed nothing

Good jokes are not always good policy

I make a point of never recommending my own house

Indulged in their privilege of thinking what they liked

Infants are said to have their ideas, and why not young ladies?

Lend him your own generosity

Men love to boast of things nobody else has seen

Naughtily Australian and kangarooly

Not in love--She was only not unwilling to be in love

Rich and poor ‘s all right, if I’m rich and you’re poor

She began to feel that this was life in earnest

She dealt in the flashes which connect ideas

She sought, by looking hard, to understand it better

Sunning itself in the glass of Envy

That which fine cookery does for the cementing of couples

The intricate, which she takes for the infinite

Tossed him from repulsion to incredulity, and so back

Two principal roads by which poor sinners come to a conscience

THE GENTLEMAN OF FIFTY AND THE DAMSEL OF NINETEEN

(An early uncompleted and hitherto unpublished fragment.)

By GEORGE MEREDITH

CHAPTER I

HE

Passing over Ickleworth Bridge and rounding up the heavily-shadowed

river of our narrow valley, I perceived a commotion as of bathers in a

certain bright space immediately underneath the vicar’s terrace-garden

steps. My astonishment was considerable when it became evident to me

that the vicar himself was disporting in the water, which, reaching no

higher than his waist, disclosed him in the ordinary habiliments of his

cloth. I knew my friend to be one of the most absent-minded of men,

and my first effort to explain the phenomenon of his appearance

there, suggested that he might have walked in, the victim of a fit of

abstraction, and that he had not yet fully comprehended his plight; but

this idea was dispersed when I beheld the very portly lady, his partner

in joy and adversity, standing immersed, and perfectly attired, some

short distance nearer to the bank. As I advanced along the bank opposed

to them, I was further amazed to hear them discoursing quite equably

together, so that it was impossible to say on the face of it whether a

catastrophe had occurred, or the great heat of a cloudless summer day

had tempted an eccentric couple to seek for coolness in the directest

fashion, without absolute disregard to propriety. I made a point

of listening for the accentuation of the ‘my dear’ which was being

interchanged, but the key-note to the harmony existing between husband

and wife was neither excessively unctuous, nor shrewd, and the connubial

shuttlecock was so well kept up on both sides that I chose to await the

issue rather than speculate on the origin of this strange exhibition. I

therefore, as I could not be accused of an outrage to modesty, permitted

myself to maintain what might be invidiously termed a satyr-like watch

from behind a forward flinging willow, whose business in life was to

look at its image in a brown depth, branches, trunk, and roots. The sole

indication of discomfort displayed by the pair was that the lady’s hand

worked somewhat fretfully to keep her dress from ballooning and puffing

out of all proportion round about her person, while the vicar, who stood

without his hat, employed a spongy handkerchief from time to time in

tempering the ardours of a vertical sun. If you will consent to imagine

a bald blackbird, his neck being shrunk in apprehensively, as you may

see him in the first rolling of the thunder, you will gather an image of

my friend’s appearance.

He performed his capital ablutions with many loud ‘poofs,’ and a casting

up of dazzled eyes, an action that gave point to his recital of the

invocation of Chryses to Smintheus which brought upon the Greeks

disaster and much woe. Between the lines he replied to his wife, whose

remarks increased in quantity, and also, as I thought, in emphasis,

under the river of verse which he poured forth unbaffled, broadening

his chest to the sonorous Greek music in a singular rapture of

obliviousness.

A wise man will not squander his laughter if he can help it, but will

keep the agitation of it down as long as he may. The simmering of humour

sends a lively spirit into the mind, whereas the boiling over is but

a prodigal expenditure and the disturbance of a clear current: for the

comic element is visible to you in all things, if you do but keep

your mind charged with the perception of it, as I have heard a great

expounder deliver himself on another subject; and he spoke very truly.

So, I continued to look on with the gravity of Nature herself, and I

could not but fancy, and with less than our usual wilfulness when we

fancy things about Nature’s moods, that the Mother of men beheld this

scene with half a smile, differently from the simple observation of

those cows whisking the flies from their flanks at the edge of the

shorn meadow and its aspens, seen beneath the curved roof of a broad

oak-branch. Save for this happy upward curve of the branch, we are

encompassed by breathless foliage; even the gloom was hot; the little

insects that are food for fish tried a flight and fell on the water’s

surface, as if panting. Here and there, a sullen fish consented to take

them, and a circle spread, telling of past excitement.

I had listened to the vicar’s Homeric lowing for the space of a minute

or so--what some one has called, the great beast-like, bellow-like, roar

and roll of the Iliad hexameter: it stopped like a cut cord. One of

the numerous daughters of his house appeared in the arch of white

cluster-roses on the lower garden-terrace, and with an exclamation,

stood petrified at the extraordinary spectacle, and then she laughed

outright. I had hitherto resisted, but the young lady’s frank and

boisterous laughter carried me along, and I too let loose a peal, and

discovered myself. The vicar, seeing me, acknowledged a consciousness

of his absurd position with a laugh as loud. As for the scapegrace

girl, she went off into a run of high-pitched shriekings like twenty

woodpeckers, crying: I Mama, mama, you look as if you were in Jordan!’

The vicar cleared his throat admonishingly, for it was apparent that

Miss Alice was giving offence to her mother, and I presume he thought it

was enough for one of the family to have done so.

‘Wilt thou come out of Jordan?’ I cried.

‘I am sufficiently baptized with the water,’ said the helpless man...

‘Indeed, Mr. Amble,’ observed his spouse, ‘you can lecture a woman for

not making the best of circumstances; I hope you’ll bear in mind that

it’s you who are irreverent. I can endure this no longer. You deserve

Mr. Pollingray’s ridicule.’

Upon this, I interposed: ‘Pray, ma’am, don’t imagine that you have

anything but sympathy from me.’--but as I was protesting, having my

mouth open, the terrible Miss Alice dragged the laughter remorselessly

out of me.

They have been trying Frank’s new boat, Mr. Pollingray, and they’ve

upset it. Oh! oh’ and again there was the woodpeckers’ chorus.

‘Alice, I desire you instantly to go and fetch John the gardener,’ said

the angry mother.

‘Mama, I can’t move; wait a minute, only a minute. John’s gone about the

geraniums. Oh! don’t look so resigned, papa; you’ll kill me! Mama, come

and take my hand. Oh! oh!’

The young lady put her hands in against her waist and rolled her body

like a possessed one.

‘Why don’t you come in through the boat-house?’ she asked when she had

mastered her fit.

‘Ah!’ said the vicar. I beheld him struck by this new thought.

‘How utterly absurd you are, Mr. Amble!’ exclaimed his wife, ‘when you

know that the boat-house is locked, and that the boat was lying under

the camshot when you persuaded me to step into it.’

Hearing this explanation of the accident, Alice gave way to an

ungovernable emotion.

‘You see, my dear,’ the vicar addressed his wife, she can do nothing;

it’s useless. If ever patience is counselled to us, it is when accidents

befall us, for then, as we are not responsible, we know we are in other

hands, and it is our duty to be comparatively passive. Perhaps I may say

that in every difficulty, patience is a life-belt. I beg of you to be

patient still.’

‘Mr. Amble, I shall think you foolish,’ said the spouse, with a nod of

more than emphasis.

My dear, you have only to decide,’ was the meek reply.

By this time, Miss Alice had so far conquered the fiend of laughter that

she could venture to summon her mother close up to the bank and extend a

rescuing hand. Mrs. Amble waded to within reach, her husband following.

Arrangements were made for Alice to pull, and the vicar to push; both in

accordance with Mrs. Amble’s stipulations, for even in her extremity

of helplessness she affected rule and sovereignty. Unhappily, at the

decisive moment, I chanced (and I admit it was more than an inadvertence

on my part, it was a most ill-considered thing to do) I chanced, I say,

to call out--and that I refrained from quoting Voltaire is something in

my favour:

‘How on earth did you manage to tumble in?’

There can be no contest of opinion that I might have kept my curiosity

waiting, and possibly it may be said with some justification that I

was the direct cause of my friend’s unparalleled behaviour; but could a

mortal man guess that in the very act of assisting his wife’s return to

dry land, and while she was--if I may put it so--modestly in his hands,

he would turn about with a quotation that compared him to old Palinurus,

all the while allowing his worthy and admirable burden to sink lower and

dispread in excess upon the surface of the water, until the vantage of

her daughter’s help was lost to her; I beheld the consequences of my

indiscretion, dismayed. I would have checked the preposterous Virgilian,

but in contempt of my uplifted hand and averted head, and regardless of

the fact that his wife was then literally dependent upon him, the vicar

declaimed (and the drenching effect produced by Latin upon a lady at

such a season, may be thought on):

Vix primos inopina quies laxaverat artus,

Et super incumbens, cum puppis parte revulsa

Cumque gubernaclo liquidas projecit in undas.’

It is not easy when you are unacquainted with the language, to retort

upon Latin, even when the attempt to do so is made in English. Very few

even of the uneducated ears can tolerate such anti-climax vituperative

as English after sounding Latin. Mrs. Amble kept down those sentiments

which her vernacular might have expressed. I heard but one groan that

came from her as she lay huddled indistinguishably in the arms of her

husband.

‘Not--praecipitem! I am happy to say,’ my senseless friend remarked

further, and laughed cheerfully as he fortified his statement with a run

of negatives. ‘No, no’; in a way peculiar to him. ‘No, no. If I plant my

grey hairs anywhere, it will be on dry land: no. But, now, my dear; he

returned to his duty; why, you’re down again. Come: one, two, and up.’

He was raising a dead weight. The passion for sarcastic speech was

manifestly at war with common prudence in the bosom of Mrs. Amble;

prudence, however, overcame it. She cast on him a look of a kind that

makes matrimony terrific in the dreams of bachelors, and then wedding

her energy to the assistance given she made one of those senseless

springs of the upper half of the body, which strike the philosophic eye

with the futility of an effort that does not arise from a solid basis.

Owing to the want of concert between them, the vicar’s impulsive

strength was expended when his wife’s came into play. Alice clutched her

mother bravely. The vicar had force enough to stay his wife’s descent;

but Alice (she boasts of her muscle) had not the force in the other

direction--and no wonder. There are few young ladies who could pull

fourteen stone sheer up a camshot.

Mrs. Amble remained in suspense between the two.

Oh, Mr. Pollingray, if you were only on this side to help us,’ Miss

Alice exclaimed very piteously, though I could see that she was half mad

with the internal struggle of laughter at the parents and concern for

them.

‘Now, pull, Alice,’ shouted the vicar.

‘No, not yet,’ screamed Mrs. Amble; I’m sinking.’

‘Pull, Alice.’

‘Now, Mama.’

‘Oh!’

‘Push, Papa.’

‘I’m down.’

‘Up, Ma’am; Jane; woman, up.’

‘Gently, Papa: Abraham, I will not.’

‘My dear, but you must.’

‘And that man opposite.’

‘What, Pollingray? He’s fifty.’

I found myself walking indignantly down the path. Even now I protest my

friend was guilty of bad manners, though I make every allowance for him;

I excuse, I pass the order; but why--what justifies one man’s bawling

out another man’s age? What purpose does it serve? I suppose the

vicar wished to reassure his wife, on the principle (I have heard him

enunciate it) that the sexes are merged at fifty--by which he means, I

must presume, that something which may be good or bad, and is generally

silly--of course, I admire and respect modesty and pudeur as much as any

man--something has gone: a recognition of the bounds of division. There

is, if that is a lamentable matter, a loss of certain of our young

tricks at fifty. We have ceased to blush readily: and let me ask you to

define a blush. Is it an involuntary truth or an ingenuous lie? I know

that this will sound like the language of a man not a little jealous of

his youthful compeers. I can but leave it to rightly judging persons to

consider whether a healthy man in his prime, who has enough, and is not

cursed by ambition, need be jealous of any living soul.

A shriek from Miss Alice checked my retreating steps. The vicar was

staggering to support the breathing half of his partner while she

regained her footing in the bed of the river. Their effort to scale

the camshot had failed. Happily at this moment I caught sight of Master

Frank’s boat, which had floated, bottom upwards, against a projecting

mud-bank of forget-me-nots. I contrived to reach it and right it, and

having secured one of the sculls, I pulled up to the rescue; though

not before I had plucked a flower, actuated by a motive that I cannot

account for. The vicar held the boat firmly against the camshot, while

I, at the imminent risk of joining them (I shall not forget the combined

expression of Miss Alice’s retreating eyes and the malicious corners of

her mouth) hoisted the lady in, and the river with her. From the seat

of the boat she stood sufficiently high to project the step towards

land without peril. When she had set her foot there, we all assumed an

attitude of respectful attention, and the vicar, who could soar over

calamity like a fairweather swallow, acknowledged the return of his wife

to the element with a series of apologetic yesses and short coughings.

‘That would furnish a good concert for the poets,’ he remarked. ‘A

parting, a separation of lovers; “even as a body from the watertorn,”

or “from the water plucked”; eh? do you think--“so I weep round her,

tearful in her track,” an excellent--’

But the outraged woman, dripping in grievous discomfort above him, made

a peremptory gesture.

‘Mr. Amble, will you come on shore instantly, I have borne with your

stupidity long enough. I insist upon your remembering, sir, that you

have a family dependent upon you. Other men may commit these follies.’

This was a blow at myself, a bachelor whom the lady had never persuaded

to dream of relinquishing his freedom.

‘My dear, I am coming,’ said the vicar.

‘Then, come at once, or I shall think you idiotic,’ the wife retorted.

‘I have been endeavouring,’ the vicar now addressed me, ‘to prove by a

practical demonstration that women are capable of as much philosophy as

men, under any sudden and afflicting revolution of circumstances.’

‘And if you get a sunstroke, you will be rightly punished, and I shall

not be sorry, Mr. Amble.’

‘I am coming, my dear Jane. Pray run into the house and change your

things.’

‘Not till I see you out of the water, sir.’

‘You are losing your temper, my love.’

‘You would make a saint lose his temper, Mr. Amble.’

‘There were female saints, my dear,’ the vicar mildly responded; and

addressed me further: ‘Up to this point, I assure you, Pollingray, no

conduct could have been more exemplary than Mrs. Amble’s. I had got her

into the boat--a good boat, a capital boat--but getting in myself, we

overturned. The first impulse of an ordinary woman would have been to

reproach and scold; but Mrs. Amble succumbed only to the first impulse.

Discovering that all effort unaided to climb the bank was fruitless,

she agreed to wait patiently and make the best of circumstances; and she

did; and she learnt to enjoy it. There is marrow in every bone. My dear.

Jane, I have never admired you so much. I tried her, Pollingray, in

metaphysics. I talked to her of the opera we last heard, I think fifty

years ago. And as it is less endurable for a woman to be patient in

tribulation--the honour is greater, when she overcomes the fleshy trial.

Insomuch,’ the vicar put on a bland air of abnegation of honour, ‘that

I am disposed to consider any male philosopher our superior; when you’ve

found one, ha, ha--when you’ve found one. O sol pulcher! I am ready to

sing that the day has been glorious, so far. Pulcher ille dies.’

Mrs. Amble appealed to me. ‘Would anybody not swear that he is mad to

see him standing waist-deep in the water and the sun on his bald head,

I am reduced to entreat you not to--though you have no family of your

own--not to encourage him. It is amusing to you. Pray, reflect that such

folly is too often fatal. Compel him to come on shore.’

The logic of the appeal was no doubt distinctly visible in the lady’s

mind, though it was not accurately worded. I saw that I stood marked

to be the scape goat of the day, and humbly continued to deserve well,

notwithstanding. By dint of simple signs and nods of affirmative, and

a constant propulsion of my friend’s arm, I drew him into the boat,

and thence projected him up to the level with his wife, who had perhaps

deigned to understand that it was best to avoid the arresting of his

divergent mind by any remark during the passage, and remained silent. No

sooner was he established on his feet, than she plucked him away.

‘Your papa’s hat,’ she called, flashing to her daughter, and streamed

up the lawn into the rose-trellised pathways leading on aloft to the

vicarage house. Behind roses the weeping couple disappeared. The last

I saw of my friend was a smiting of his hand upon his head in a vain

effort to catch at one of the fleeting ideas sowed in him by the quick

passage of objects before his vision, and shaken out of him by abnormal

hurry. The Rev. Abraham Amble had been lord of his wife in the water,

but his innings was over. He had evidently enjoyed it vastly, and I now

understood why he had chosen to prolong it as much as possible. Your

eccentric characters are not uncommonly amateurs of petty artifice.

There are hours of vengeance even for henpecked men.

I found myself sighing over the enslaved condition of every Benedict of

my acquaintance, when the thought came like a surprise that I was alone

with Alice. The fair and pleasant damsel made a clever descent into the

boat, and having seated herself, she began to twirl the scull in the

rowlock, and said: ‘Do you feel disposed to join me in looking after the

other scull and papa’s hat, Mr. Pollingray?’ I suggested ‘Will you

not get your feet wet? I couldn’t manage to empty all the water in the

boat.’

‘Oh’ cried she, with a toss of her head; I wet feet never hurt young

people.’

There was matter for an admonitory lecture in this. Let me confess I was

about to give it, when she added: But Mr. Pollingray, I am really afraid

that your feet are wet! You had to step into the water when you righted

the boat:

My reply was to jump down by her side with as much agility as I

could combine with a proper discretion. The amateur craft rocked

threateningly, and I found myself grasped by and grasping the pretty

damsel, until by great good luck we were steadied and preserved from the

same misfortune which had befallen her parents. She laughed and blushed,

and we tottered asunder.

‘Would you have talked metaphysics to me in the water, Mr. Pollingray?’

Alice was here guilty of one of those naughty sort of innocent speeches

smacking of Eve most strongly; though, of course, of Eve in her best

days.

I took the rudder lines to steer against the sculling of her single

scull, and was Adam enough to respond to temptation: ‘I should perhaps

have been grateful to your charitable construction of it as being

metaphysics.’

She laughed colloquially, to fill a pause. It had not been coquetry:

merely the woman unconsciously at play. A man is bound to remember the

seniority of his years when this occurs, for a veteran of ninety and a

worn out young debauchee will equally be subject to it if they do

not shun the society of the sex. My long robust health and perfect

self-reliance apparently tend to give me unguarded moments, or lay me

open to fitful impressions. Indeed there are times when I fear I

have the heart of a boy, and certainly nothing more calamitous can be

conceived, supposing that it should ever for one instant get complete

mastery of my head. This is the peril of a man who has lived soberly.

Do we never know when we are safe? I am, in reflecting thereupon,

positively prepared to say that if there is no fool like what they

call an old fool (and a man in his prime, who can be laughed at, is the

world’s old fool) there is wisdom in the wild oats theory, and I shall

come round to my nephew’s way of thinking: that is, as far as Master

Charles by his acting represents his thinking. I shall at all events be

more lenient in my judgement of him, and less stern in my allocutions,

for I shall have no text to preach from.

We picked up the hat and the scull in one of the little muddy bays of

our brown river, forming an amphitheatre for water-rats and draped with

great dockleaves, nettle-flowers, ragged robins, and other weeds for

which the learned young lady gave the botanical names. It was pleasant

to hear her speak with the full authority of absolute knowledge of her

subject. She has intelligence. She is decidedly too good for Charles,

unless he changes his method of living.

‘Shall we row on?’ she asked, settling her arms to work the pair of

sculls.

‘You have me in your power,’ said I, and she struck out. Her shape is

exceedingly graceful; I was charmed by the occasional tightening in of

her lips as she exerted her muscle, while at intervals telling me of her

race with one of her boastful younger brothers, whom she had beaten. I

believe it is only when they are using physical exertion that the eyes

of young girls have entire simplicity--the simplicity of nature as

opposed to that other artificial simplicity which they learn from their

governesses, their mothers, and the admiration of witlings. Attractive

purity, or the nice glaze of no comprehension of anything which is

considered to be improper in a wicked world, and is no doubt very

useful, is not to my taste. French girls, as a rule, cannot compete

with our English in the purer graces. They are only incomparable when as

women they have resort to art.

Alice could look at me as she rowed, without thinking it necessary to

force a smile, or to speak, or to snigger and be foolish. I felt towards

the girl like a comrade.

We went no further than Hatchard’s mile, where the water plumps the poor

sleepy river from a sidestream, and, as it turned the boat’s head quite

round, I let the boat go. These studies of young women are very well

as a pastime; but they soon cease to be a recreation. She forms an

agreeable picture when she is rowing, and possesses a musical laugh. Now

and then she gives way to the bad trick of laughing without caring or

daring to explain the cause for it. She is moderately well-bred. I hope

that she has principle. Certain things a man of my time of life learns

by associating with very young people which are serviceable to him. What

a different matter this earth must be to that girl from what it is to

me! I knew it before. And--mark the difference--I feel it now.

CHAPTER II

SHE

Papa never will cease to meet with accidents and adventures. If he only

walks out to sit for half an hour with one of his old dames, as he calls

them, something is sure to happen to him, and it is almost as sure that

Mr. Pollingray will be passing at the time and mixed up in it.

Since Mr. Pollingray’s return from his last residence on the Continent,

I have learnt to know him and like him. Charles is unjust to his

uncle. He is not at all the grave kind of man I expected from Charles’s

description. He is extremely entertaining, and then he understands the

world, and I like to hear him talk, he is so unpretentious and uses just

the right words. No one would imagine his age, from his appearance, and

he has more fun than any young man I have listened to.

But, I am convinced I have discovered his weakness. It is my fatal.

peculiarity that I cannot be with people ten minutes without seeing some

point about them where they are tenderest. Mr. Pollingray wants to be

thought quite youthful. He can bear any amount of fatigue; he is always

fresh and a delightful companion; but you cannot get him to show even

a shadow of exhaustion or to admit that he ever knew what it was to lie

down beaten. This is really to pretend that he is superhuman. I like

him so much that I could wish him superior to such--it is nothing other

than--vanity. Which is worse? A young man giving himself the air of

a sage, or--but no one can call Mr. Pollingray an old man. He is a

confirmed bachelor. That puts the case. Charles, when he says of him

that he is a ‘gentleman in a good state of preservation,’ means to be

ironical. I doubt whether Charles at fifty would object to have the same

said of Mr. Charles Everett. Mr. Pollingray has always looked to his

health. He has not been disappointed. I am sure he was always very good.

But, whatever he was, he is now very pleasant, and he does not talk to

women as if he thought them singular, and feel timid, I mean, confused,

as some men show that they feel--the good ones. Perhaps he felt so once,

and that is why he is still free. Charles’s dread that his uncle will

marry is most unworthy. He never will, but why should he not? Mama

declares that he is waiting for a woman of intellect, I can hear her:

‘Depend upon it, a woman of intellect will marry Dayton Manor.’ Should

that mighty event not come to pass, poor Charles will have to sink the

name of Everett in that of Pollingray. Mr. Pollingray’s name is the

worst thing about him. When I think of his name I see him ten times

older than he is. My feelings are in harmony with his pedigree

concerning the age of the name. One would have to be a woman of profound

intellect to see the advantage of sharing it.

‘Mrs. Pollingray!’ She must be a lady with a wig.

It was when we were rowing up by Hatchard’s mill that I first perceived

his weakness, he was looking at me so kindly, and speaking of his

friendship for papa, and how glad he was to be fixed at last, near to us

at Dayton. I wished to use some term of endearment in reply, and said, I

remember, ‘Yes, and we are also glad, Godpapa.’ I was astonished that he

should look so disconcerted, and went on: ‘Have you forgotten that you

are my godpapa?’

He answered: ‘Am I? Oh! yes--the name of Alice.’

Still he looked uncertain, uncomfortable, and I said, ‘Do you want to

cancel the past, and cast me off?’

‘No, certainly not’; he, I suppose, thought he was assuring me.

I saw his lips move at the words I cancel the past,’ though he did not

speak them out. He positively blushed. I know the sort of young man

he must have been. Exactly the sort of young man mama would like for

a son-in-law, and her daughters would accept in pure obedience when

reduced to be capable of the virtue by rigorous diet, or consumption.

He let the boat go round instantly. This was enough for me. It struck

me then that when papa had said to mama (as he did in that absurd

situation) ‘He is fifty,’ Mr. Pollingray must have heard it across the

river, for he walked away hurriedly. He came back, it is true, with the

boat, but I have my own ideas. He is always ready to do a service, but

on this occasion I think it was an afterthought. I shall not venture to

call him ‘Godpapa’ again.

Indeed, if I have a desire, it is that I may be blind to people’s

weakness. My insight is inveterate. Papa says he has heard Mr.

Pollingray boast of his age. If so, there has come a change over him.

I cannot be deceived. I see it constantly. After my unfortunate speech,

Mr. Pollingray shunned our house for two whole weeks, and scarcely bowed

to us when coming out of church. Miss Pollingray idolises him--spoils

him. She says that he is worth twenty of Charles. Nous savons ce que

nous savons, nous autres. Charles is wild, but Charles would be above

these littlenesses. How could Miss Pollingray comprehend the romance of

Charles’s nature?

My sister Evelina is now Mr. Pollingray’s favourite. She could not say

Godpapa to him, if she would. Persons who are very much petted at home,

are always establishing favourites abroad. For my part, let them praise

me or not, I know that I can do any thing I set my mind upon. At present

I choose to be frivolous. I know I am frivolous. What then? If there is

fun in the world am I not to laugh at it? I shall astonish them by and

by. But, I will laugh while I can. I am sure, there is so much misery in

the world, it is a mercy to be able to laugh. Mr. Pollingray may think

what he likes of me. When Charles tells me that I must do my utmost to

propitiate his uncle, he cannot mean that I am to refrain from laughing,

because that is being a hypocrite, which I may become when I have gone

through all the potential moods and not before.

It is preposterous to suppose that I am to be tied down to the views of

life of elderly people.

I dare say I did laugh a little too much the other night, but could

I help it? We had a dinner party. Present were Mr. Pollingray, Mrs.

Kershaw, the Wilbury people (three), Charles, my brother Duncan,

Evelina, mama, papa, myself, and Mr. and Mrs. (put them last for

emphasis) Romer Pattlecombe, Mrs. Pattlecombe (the same number of

syllables as Pollingray, and a ‘P’ to begin with) is thirty-one years

her husband’s junior, and she is twenty-six; full of fun, and always

making fun of him, the mildest, kindest, goody old thing, who has never

distressed himself for anything and never will. Mrs. Romer not only

makes fun, but is fun. When you have done laughing with her, you can

laugh at her. She is the salt of society in these parts. Some one, as we

were sitting on the lawn after dinner, alluded to the mishap to papa and

mama, and mama, who has never forgiven Mr. Pollingray for having seen

her in her ridiculous plight, said that men were in her opinion greater

gossips than women. ‘That is indisputable, ma’am,’ said Mr. Pollingray,

he loves to bewilder her; ‘only, we never mention it.’

‘There is an excuse for us,’ said Mrs. Romer; ‘our trials are so great,

we require a diversion, and so we talk of others.’

‘Now really,’ said Charles, ‘I don’t think your trials are equal to

ours.’

For which remark papa bantered him, and his uncle was sharp on him; and

Charles, I know, spoke half seriously, though he was seeking to draw

Mrs. Romer out: he has troubles.

From this, we fell upon a comparison of sufferings, and Mrs. Romer took

up the word. She is a fair, smallish, nervous woman, with delicate hands

and outlines, exceedingly sympathetic; so much so that while you are

telling her anything, she makes half a face in anticipation, and is

ready to shriek with laughter or shake her head with uttermost grief;

and sometimes, if you let her go too far in one direction, she does

both. All her narrations are with ups and downs of her hands, her eyes,

her chin, and her voice. Taking poor, good old Mr. Romer by the roll

of his coat, she made as if posing him, and said: ‘There! Now, it’s

all very well for you to say that there is anything equal to a woman’s

sufferings in this world. I do declare you know nothing of what we

unhappy women have to endure. It’s dreadful! No male creature can

possibly know what tortures I have to undergo.’

Mama neatly contrived, after interrupting her, to divert the subject.

I think that all the ladies imagined they were in jeopardy, but I knew

Mrs. Romer was perfectly to be trusted. She has wit which pleases,

jusqu’aux ongles, and her sense of humour never overrides her discretion

with more than a glance--never with preparation.

‘Now,’ she pursued, ‘let me tell you what excruciating trials I have to

go through. This man,’ she rocked the patient old gentleman to and fro,

‘this man will be the death of me. He is utterly devoid of a sense of

propriety. Again and again I say to him--cannot the tailor cut down

these trowsers of yours? Yes, Mr. Amble, you preach patience to women,

but this is too much for any woman’s endurance. Now, do attempt to

picture to yourself what an agony it must be to me:--he will shave, and

he will wear those enormously high trowsers that, when they are braced,

reach up behind to the nape of his neck! Only yesterday morning, as I

was lying in bed, I could see him in his dressing-room. I tell you: he

will shave, and he will choose the time for shaving early after he has

braced these immensely high trowsers that make such a placard of him.

Oh, my goodness! My dear Romer, I have said to him fifty times if I have

said it once, my goodness me! why can you not get decent trowsers such

as other men wear? He has but one answer--he has been accustomed to wear

those trowsers, and he would not feel at home in another pair. And what

does he say if I continue to complain? and I cannot but continue to

complain, for it is not only moral, it is physical torment to see

the sight he makes of himself; he says: “My dear, you should not have

married an old man.” What! I say to him, must an old man wear antiquated

trowsers? No! nothing will turn him; those are his habits. But, you

have not heard the worst. The sight of those hideous trowsers totally

destroying all shape in the man, is horrible enough; but it is

absolutely more than a woman can bear to see him--for he will

shave--first cover his face with white soap with that ridiculous

centre-piece to his trowsers reaching quite up to his poll, and then,

you can fancy a woman’s rage and anguish! the figure lifts its nose by

the extremist tip. Oh! it’s degradation! What respect can a woman have

for her husband after that sight? Imagine it! And I have implored him

to spare me. It’s useless. You sneer at our hbops and say that you

are inconvenienced by them but you gentlemen are not degraded,--Oh!

unutterably!--as I am every morning of my life by that cruel spectacle

of a husband.’

I have but faintly sketched Mrs. Romer’s style. Evelina, who is prudish

and thinks her vulgar, refused to laugh, but it came upon me, as the

picture of ‘your own old husband,’ with so irresistibly comic an effect

that I was overcome by convulsions of laughter. I do not defend myself.

It was as much a fit as any other attack. I did all I could to arrest

it. At last, I ran indoors and upstairs to my bedroom and tried hard to

become dispossessed. I am sure I was an example of the sufferings of my

sex. It could hardly have been worse for Mrs. Romer than it was for me.

I was drowned in internal laughter long after I had got a grave face.

Early in the evening Mr. Pollingray left us.

CHAPTER III

HE

I am carried by the fascination of a musical laugh. Apparently I am

doomed to hear it at my own expense. We are secure from nothing in this

life.

I have determined to stand for the county. An unoccupied man is a prey

to every hook of folly. Be dilettante all your days, and you might as

fairly hope to reap a moral harvest as if you had chased butterflies.

The activities created by a profession or determined pursuit are

necessary to the growth of the mind.

Heavens! I find myself writing like an illegitimate son of La

Rochefoucauld, or of Vauvenargues. But, it is true that I am fifty years

old, and I am not mature. I am undeveloped somewhere.

The question for me to consider is, whether this development is to be

accomplished by my being guilty of an act of egregious folly.

Dans la cinquantaine! The reflection should produce a gravity in men.

Such a number of years will not ring like bridal bells in a man’s ears.

I have my books about me, my horses, my dogs, a contented household. I

move in the centre of a perfect machine, and I am dissatisfied. I rise

early. I do not digest badly. What is wrong?

The calamity of my case is that I am in danger of betraying what is

wrong with me to others, without knowing it myself. Some woman will be

suspecting and tattling, because she has nothing else to do. Girls

have wonderfully shrewd eyes for a weakness in the sex which they are

instructed to look upon as superior. But I am on my guard.

The fact is manifest: I feel I have been living more or less uselessly.

It is a fat time. There are a certain set of men in every prosperous

country who, having wherewithal, and not being compelled to toil, become

subjected to the moral ideal. Most of them in the end sit down with our

sixth Henry or second Richard and philosophise on shepherds. To be no

better than a simple hind! Am I better? Prime bacon and an occasional

draft of shrewd beer content him, and they do not me. Yet I am sound,

and can sit through the night and be ready, and on the morrow I shall

stand for the county.

I made the announcement that I had thoughts of entering Parliament,

before I had half formed the determination, at my sister’s lawn party

yesterday.

‘Gilbert!’ she cried, and raised her hands. A woman is hurt if you do

not confide to her your plans as soon as you can conceive them. She must

be present to assist at the birth, or your plans are unblessed plans.

I had been speaking aside in a casual manner to my friend Amble, whose

idea is that the Church is not represented with sufficient strength

in the Commons, and who at once, as I perceived, grasped the notion

of getting me to promote sundry measures connected with schools and

clerical stipends, for his eyes dilated; he said: ‘Well, if you do, I

can put you up to several things,’ and imparting the usual chorus of

yesses to his own mind, he continued absently: ‘Pollingray might be made

strong on church rates. There is much to do. He has lived abroad and

requires schooling in these things. We want a man. Yes, yes, yes. It’s a

good idea; a notion.’

My sister, however, was of another opinion. She did me the honour to

take me aside.

‘Gilbert, were you serious just now?’

‘Quite serious. Is it not my characteristic?’

‘Not on these occasions. I saw the idea come suddenly upon you. You were

looking at Charles.’

‘Continue: and at what was he looking?’

‘He was looking at Alice Amble.’

‘And the young lady?’

‘She looked at you.’

I was here attacked by a singularly pertinacious fly, and came out of

the contest with a laugh.

‘Did she have that condescension towards me? And from the glance,

my resolution to enter Parliament was born? It is the French

vaudevilliste’s doctrine of great events from little causes. The slipper

of a soubrette trips the heart of a king and changes the destiny of a

nation-the history of mankind. It may be true. If I were but shot into

the House from a little girl’s eye!’

With this I took her arm gaily, walked with her, and had nearly

overreached myself with excess of cunning. I suppose we are reduced to

see more plainly that which we systematically endeavour to veil from

others. It is best to flutter a handkerchief, instead of nailing up a

curtain. The principal advantage is that you may thereby go on deceiving

yourself, for this reason: few sentiments are wholly matter of fact; but

when they are half so, you make them concrete by deliberately seeking

either to crush or conceal them, and you are doubly betrayed--betrayed

to the besieging eye and to yourself. When a sentiment has grown to be a

passion (mercifully may I be spared!) different tactics are required. By

that time, you will have already betrayed yourself too deeply to dare to

be flippant: the investigating eye is aware that it has been purposely

diverted: knowing some things, it makes sure of the rest from which

you turn it away. If you want to hide a very grave case, you must speak

gravely about it.--At which season, be but sure of your voice, and

simulate a certain depth of sentimental philosophy, and you may once

more, and for a long period, bewilder the investigator of the secrets

of your bosom. To sum up: in the preliminary stages of a weakness, be

careful that you do not show your own alarm, or all will be suspected.

Should the weakness turn to fever, let a little of it be seen, like a

careless man, and nothing will really be thought.

I can say this, I can do this; and is it still possible that a pin’s

point has got through the joints of the armour of a man like me?

Elizabeth quitted my side with the conviction that I am as considerate

an uncle as I am an affectionate brother.

I said to her, apropos, ‘I have been observing those two. It seems to me

they are deciding things for themselves.’

‘I have been going to speak to you about them Gilbert,’ said she.

And I: ‘The girl must be studied. The family is good. While Charles is

in Wales, you must have her at Dayton. She laughs rather vacantly, don’t

you think? but the sound of it has the proper wholesome ring. I will

give her what attention I can while she is here, but in the meantime I

must have a bride of my own and commence courting.’

‘Parliament, you mean,’ said Elizabeth with a frank and tender smile.

The hostess was summoned to welcome a new guest, and she left me,

pleased with her successful effort to reach my meaning, and absorbed by

it.

I would not have challenged Machiavelli; but I should not have

encountered the Florentine ruefully. I feel the same keen delight in

intellectual dexterity. On some points my sister is not a bad match for

me. She can beat me seven games out of twelve at chess; but the five I

win sequently, for then I am awake. There is natural art and artificial

art, and the last beats the first. Fortunately for us, women are

strangers to the last. They have had to throw off a mask before they

have, got the schooling; so, when they are thus armed we know what we

meet, and what are the weapons to be used.

Alice, if she is a fine fencer at all, will expect to meet the ordinary

English squire in me. I have seen her at the baptismal font! It is

inconceivable. She will fancy that at least she is ten times more subtle

than I. When I get the mastery--it is unlikely to make me the master.

What may happen is, that the nature of the girl will declare itself,

under the hard light of intimacy, vulgar. Charles I cause to be absent

for six weeks; so there will be time enough for the probation. I do not

see him till he returns. If by chance I had come earlier to see him and

he to allude to her, he would have had my conscience on his side, and

that is what a scrupulous man takes care to prevent.

I wonder whether my friends imagine me to be the same man whom they knew

as Gilbert Pollingray a month back? I see the change, I feel the change;

but I have no retrospection, no remorse, no looking forward, no feeling:

none for others, very little, for myself. I am told that I am losing

fluency as a dinner-table talker. There is now more savour to me in a

silvery laugh than in a spiced wit. And this is the man who knows

women, and is far too modest to give a decided opinion upon any of their

merits. Search myself through as I may, I cannot tell when the change

began, or what the change consists of, or what is the matter with me,

or what charm there is in the person who does the mischief. She is

the counterpart of dozens of girls; lively, brown-eyed, brown-haired,

underbred--it is not too harsh to say so--underbred slightly;

half-educated, whether quickwitted I dare not opine. She is undoubtedly

the last whom I or another person would have fixed upon as one to work

me this unmitigated evil. I do not know her, and I believe I do not care

to know her, and I am thirsting for the hour to come when I shall study

her. Is not this to have the poison of a bite in one’s blood? The wrath

of Venus is not a fable. I was a hard reader and I despised the sex

in my youth, before the family estates fell to me; since when I have

playfully admired the sex; I have dallied with a passion, and not read

at all, save for diversion: her anger is not a fable. You may interpret

many a mythic tale by the facts which lie in your own blood. My emotions

have lain altogether dormant in sentimental attachment. I have, I

suppose, boasted of, Python slain, and Cupid has touched me up with an

arrow. I trust to my own skill rather than to his mercy for avoiding a

second from his quiver. I will understand this girl if I have to submit

to a close intimacy with her for six months. There is no doubt of the

elegance of her movements. Charles might as well take his tour, and

let us see him again next year. Yes, her movements are (or will be)

gracious. In a year’s time she will have acquired the fuller tones and

poetry of womanliness. Perhaps then, too, her smile will linger instead

of flashing. I have known infinitely lovelier women than she. One I have

known! but let her be. Louise and I have long since said adieu.

CHAPTER IV

SHE

Behold me installed in Dayton Manor House, and brought here for the

express purpose (so Charles has written me word) of my being studied,

that it may be seen whether I am worthy to be, on some august future

occasion--possibly--a member (Oh, so much to mumble!) of this

great family. Had I known it when I was leaving home, I should have

countermanded the cording of my boxes. If you please, I do the packing,

and not the cording. I must practise being polite, or I shall be

horrifying these good people.

I am mortally offended. I am very very angry. I shall show temper.

Indeed, I have shown it. Mr. Pollingray must and does think me a goose.

Dear sir, and I think you are justified. If any one pretends to guess

how, I have names to suit that person. I am a ninny, an ape, and mind

I call myself these bad things because I deserve worse. I am flighty,

I believe I am heartless. Charles is away, and I suffer no pangs. The

truth is, I fancied myself so exceedingly penetrating, and it was my

vanity looking in a glass. I saw something that answered to my nods and

howd’ye-do’s and--but I am ashamed, and so penitent I might begin making

a collection of beetles. I cannot lift up my head.

Mr. Pollingray is such a different man from the one I had imagined! What

that one was, I have now quite forgotten. I remember too clearly what

the wretched guesser was. I have been three weeks at Dayton, and if

my sisters know me when I return to the vicarage, they are not foolish

virgins. For my part, I know that I shall always hate Mrs. Romer

Pattlecombe, and that I am unjust to the good woman, but I do hate her,

and I think the stories shocking, and wonder intensely what it was that

I could have found in them to laugh at. I shall never laugh again for

many years. Perhaps, when I am an old woman, I may. I wish the time had

come. All young people seem to me so helplessly silly. I am one of them

for the present, and have no hope that I can appear to be anything else.

The young are a crowd--a shoal of small fry. Their elders are the select

of the world.

On the morning of the day when I was to leave home for Dayton, a

distance of eight miles, I looked out of my window while dressing--as

early as halfpast seven--and I saw Mr. Pollingray’s groom on horseback,

leading up and down the walk a darling little, round, plump, black cob

that made my heart leap with an immense bound of longing to be on it and

away across the downs. And then the maid came to my door with a letter:

‘Mr. Pollingray, in return for her considerate good behaviour and

saving of trouble to him officially, begs his goddaughter to accept

the accompanying little animal: height 14 h., age 31 years; hunts, is

sure-footed, and likely to be the best jumper in the county.’

I flew downstairs. I rushed out of the house and up to my treasure, and

kissed his nose and stroked his mane. I could not get my fingers away

from him. Horses are so like the very best and beautifullest of women

when you caress them. They show their pleasure so at being petted. They

curve their necks, and paw, and look proud. They take your flattery

like sunshine and are lovely in it. I kissed my beauty, peering at his

black-mottled skin, which is like Allingborough Heath in the twilight.

The smell of his new saddle and bridle-leather was sweeter than a garden

to me. The man handed me a large riding-whip mounted with silver. I

longed to jump up and ride till midnight.

Then mama and papa came out and read the note and looked, at my darling

little cob, and my sisters saw him and kissed me, for they are not

envious girls. The most distressing thing was that we had not a

riding-habit in the family. I was ready to wear any sort. I would have

ridden as a guy rather than not ride at all. But mama gave me a promise

that in two days a riding-habit should be sent on to Dayton, and I had

to let my pet be led back from where he came. I had no life till I was

following him. I could have believed him to be a fairy prince who had

charmed me. I called him Prince Leboo, because he was black and good. I

forgive anybody who talks about first love after what my experience has

been with Prince Leboo.

What papa thought of the present I do not know, but I know very well

what mama thought: and for my part I thought everything, not distinctly

including that, for I could not suppose such selfishness in one so

generous as Mr. Pollingray. But I came to Dayton in a state of arrogant

pride, that gave assurance if not ease to my manners. I thanked Mr.

Pollingray warmly, but in a way to let him see it was the matter of a

horse between us. ‘You give, I register thanks, and there’s an end.’

‘He thinks me a fool! a fool!

‘My habit,’ I said, ‘comes after me. I hope we shall have some rides

together.’

‘Many,’ replied Mr. Pollingray, and his bow inflated me with ideas of my

condescension.

And because Miss Pollingray (Queen Elizabeth he calls her) looked half

sad, I read it--! I do not write what I read it to be.

Behold the uttermost fool of all female creation led over the house by

Mr. Pollingray. He showed me the family pictures.

‘I am no judge of pictures, Mr. Pollingray.’

‘You will learn to see the merits of these.’

‘I’m afraid not, though I were to study them for years.’

‘You may have that opportunity.’

‘Oh! that is more than I can expect.’

‘You will develop intelligence on such subjects by and by.’

A dull sort of distant blow struck me in this remark; but I paid no heed

to it.

He led me over the gardens and the grounds. The Great John Methlyn

Pollingray planted those trees, and designed the house, and the

flower-garden still speaks of his task; but he is not my master, and

consequently I could not share his three great-grandsons’ veneration

for him. There are high fir-woods and beech woods, and a long ascending

narrow meadow between them, through which a brook falls in continual

cascades. It is the sort of scene I love, for it has a woodland grandeur

and seclusion that leads, me to think, and makes a better girl of me.

But what I said was: ‘Yes, it is the place of all others to come and

settle in for the evening of one’s days.’

‘You could not take to it now?’ said Mr. Pollingray.

‘Now?’ my expression of face must have been a picture.

‘You feel called upon to decline such a residence in the morning of your

days?’

He persisted in looking at me as he spoke, and I felt like something

withering scarlet.

I am convinced he saw through me, while his face was polished brass.

My self-possession returned, for my pride was not to be dispersed

immediately.

‘Please, take me to the stables,’ I entreated; and there I was at home.

There I saw my Prince Leboo, and gave him a thousand caresses.’

‘He knows me already,’ I said.

Then he is some degrees in advance of me,’ said Mr. Pollingray.

Is not cold dissection of one’s character a cruel proceeding? And I

think, too, that a form of hospitality like this by which I am invited

to be analysed at leisure, is both mean and base. I have been kindly

treated and I am grateful, but I do still say (even though I may have

improved under it) it is unfair.

To proceed: the dinner hour arrived. The atmosphere of his own house

seems to favour Mr. Pollingray as certain soils and sites favour others.

He walked into the dining-room between us with his hands behind him,

talking to us both so easily and smoothly cheerfully--naturally and

pleasantly--inimitable by any young man! You hardly feel the change

of room. We were but three at table, but there was no lack of

entertainment. Mr. Pollingray is an admirable host; he talks just enough

himself and helps you to talk. What does comfort me is that it gives

him real pleasure to see a hearty appetite. Young men, I know it for

a certainty, never quite like us to be so human. Ah! which is right? I

would not miss the faith in our nobler essence which Charles has.

But, if it nobler? One who has lived longer in the world ought to know

better, and Mr. Pollingray approves of naturalness in everything. I have

now seen through Charles’s eyes for several months; so implicitly that

I am timid when I dream of trusting to another’s judgement. It is,

however, a fact that I am not quite natural with Charles.

Every day Mr. Pollingray puts on evening dress out of deference to his

sister. If young men had these good habits they would gain our respect,

and lose their own self-esteem less early.

After dinner I sang. Then Mr. Pollingray read an amusing essay to us,

and retired to his library. Miss Pollingray sat and talked to me of

her brother, and of her nephew--for whom it is that Mr. Pollingray

is beginning to receive company, and is going into society. Charles’s

subsequently received letter explained the ‘receive company.’ I could

not comprehend it at the time.

‘The house has been shut up for years, or rarely inhabited by us for

more than a month in the year. Mr. Pollingray prefers France. All his

associations, I may say his sympathies, are in France. Latterly he seems

to have changed a little; but from Normandy to Touraine and Dauphiny--we

had a triangular home over there. Indeed, we have it still. I am never

certain of my brother.’

While Miss Pollingray was speaking, my eyes were fixed on a Vidal crayon

drawing, faintly coloured with chalks, of a foreign lady--I could have

sworn to her being French--young, quite girlish, I doubt if her age was

more than mine.

She is pretty, is she not?’ said Miss Pollingray.

She is almost beautiful,’ I exclaimed, and Miss Pollingray, seeing my

curiosity, was kind enough not to keep me in suspense.

‘That is the Marquise de Mazardouin--nee Louise de Riverolles. You will

see other portraits of her in the house. This is the most youthful of

them, if I except one representing a baby, and bearing her initials.’

I remembered having noticed a similarity of feature in some of the

portraits in the different rooms. My longing to look at them again was

like a sudden jet of flame within me. There was no chance of seeing them

till morning; so, promising myself to dream of the face before me, I

dozed through a conversation with my hostess, until I had got the French

lady’s eyes and hair and general outline stamped accurately, as I hoped,

on my mind. I was no sooner on my way to bed than all had faded. The

torment of trying to conjure up that face was inconceivable. I lay, and

tossed, and turned to right and to left, and scattered my sleep; but by

and by my thoughts reverted to Mr. Pollingray, and then like sympathetic

ink held to the heat, I beheld her again; but vividly, as she must have

been when she was sitting to the artist. The hair was naturally crisped,

waving thrice over the forehead and brushed clean from the temples,

showing the small ears, and tied in a knot loosely behind. Her eyebrows

were thick and dark, but soft; flowing eyebrows; far lovelier, to my

thinking, than any pencilled arch. Dark eyes, and full, not prominent.

I find little expression of inward sentiment in very prominent eyes. On

the contrary they seem to have a fish-like dependency of gaze on what is

without, and show fishy depths, if any. For instance, my eyes are rather

prominent, and I am just the little fool--but the French lady is my

theme. Madame la Marquise, your eyes are sweeter to me than celestial.

I never saw such candour and unaffected innocence in eyes before. Accept

the compliment of the pauvre Anglaise. Did you do mischief with them?

Did Vidal’s delicate sketch do justice to you? Your lips and chin and

your throat all repose in such girlish grace, that if ever it is my good

fortune to see you, you will not be aged to me!

I slept and dreamed of her.

In the morning, I felt certain that she had often said: ‘Mon cher

Gilbert,’ to Mr. Pollingray. Had he ever said: ‘Ma chere Louise?’ He

might have said: ‘Ma bien aimee!’ for it was a face to be loved.

My change of feeling towards him dates from that morning. He had

previously seemed to me a man so much older. I perceived in him now a

youthfulness beyond mere vigour of frame. I could not detach him from my

dreams of the night. He insists upon addressing me by the terms of

our ‘official’ relationship, as if he made it a principle of our

intercourse.

‘Well, and is your godpapa to congratulate you on your having had a

quiet rest?’ was his greeting.

I answered stupidly: ‘Oh, yes, thank you,’ and would have given worlds

for the courage to reply in French, but I distrusted my accent. At

breakfast, the opportunity or rather the excuse for an attempt, was

offered. His French valet, Francois, waits on him at breakfast. Mr.

Pollingray and his sister asked for things in the French tongue, and,

as if fearing some breach of civility, Mr. Pollingray asked me if I knew

French.

Yes, I know it; that is, I understand it,’ I stuttered. Allons, nous

parlerons francais,’ said he. But I shook my head, and remained like a

silly mute.

I was induced towards the close of the meal to come out with a few

French words. I was utterly shamefaced. Mr. Pollingray has got the

French manner of protesting that one is all but perfect in one’s

speaking. I know how absurd it must have sounded. But I felt his

kindness, and in my heart I thanked him humbly. I believe now that a

residence in France does not deteriorate an Englishman. Mr. Pollingray,

when in his own house, has the best qualities of the two countries. He

is gay, and, yes, while he makes a study of me, I am making a study of

him. Which of us two will know the other first? He was papa’s college

friend--papa’s junior, of course, and infinitely more papa’s junior now.

I observe that weakness in him, I mean, his clinging to youthfulness,

less and less; but I do see it, I cannot be quite in error. The truth

is, I begin to feel that I cannot venture to mistrust my infallible

judgement, or I shall have no confidence in myself at all.

After breakfast, I was handed over to Miss Pollingray, with the

intimation that I should not see him till dinner.

‘Gilbert is anxious to cultivate the society of his English neighbours,

now that he has, as he supposes, really settled among them,’ she

remarked to me. ‘At his time of life, the desire to be useful is

almost a malady. But, he cherishes the poor, and that is more than an

occupation, it is a virtue.’

Her speech has become occasionally French in the construction of the

sentences.

‘Mais oui,’ I said shyly, and being alone with her, I was not rebuffed

by her smile, especially as she encouraged me on.

I am, she told me, to see a monde of French people here in September.

So, the story of me is to be completer, or continued in September. I

could not get Miss Pollingray to tell me distinctly whether Madame la

Marquise will be one of the guests. But I know that she is not a widow.

In that case, she has a husband. In that case, what is the story of her

relations towards Mr. Pollingray? There must be some story. He would not

surely have so many portraits of her about the house (and they travel

with him wherever he goes) if she were but a lovely face to him. I

cannot understand it. They were frequent, constant visitors to one

another’s estates in France; always together. Perhaps a man of Mr.

Pollingray’s age, or perhaps M. le Marquis--and here I lose myself.

French habits are so different from ours. One thing I am certain of: no

charge can be brought against my Englishman. I read perfect rectitude

in his face. I would cast anchor by him. He must have had a dreadful

unhappiness.

Mama kept her promise by sending my riding habit and hat punctually, but

I had run far ahead of all the wishes I had formed when I left home,

and I half feared my ride out with Mr. Pollingray. That was before I had

received Charles’s letter, letting me know the object of my invitation

here. I require at times a morbid pride to keep me up to the work.

I suppose I rode befittingly, for Mr. Pollingray praised my seat on

horseback. I know I can ride, or feel the ‘blast of a horse like my

own’--as he calls it. Yet he never could have had a duller companion.

My conversation was all yes and no, as if it went on a pair of crutches

like a miserable cripple. I was humiliated and vexed. All the while I

was trying to lead up to the French lady, and I could not commence with

a single question. He appears to, have really cancelled the past in

every respect save his calling me his goddaughter. His talk was of the

English poor, and vegetation, and papa’s goodness to his old dames in

Ickleworth parish, and defects in my education acknowledged by me, but

not likely to restore me in my depressed state. The ride was beautiful.

We went the length of a twelve-mile ridge between Ickleworth and

Hillford, over high commons, with immense views on both sides, and

through beech-woods, oakwoods, and furzy dells and downs spotted with

juniper and yewtrees--old picnic haunts of mine, but Mr. Pollingray’s

fresh delight in the landscape made them seem new and strange. Home

through the valley.

The next day Miss Pollingray joined us, wearing a feutre gris and green

plume, which looked exceedingly odd until you became accustomed to it.

Her hair has decided gray streaks, and that, and the Queen Elizabeth

nose, and the feutre gris!--but she is so kind, I could not even smile

in my heart. It is singular that Mr. Pollingray, who’s but three years

her junior, should look at least twenty years younger--at the very

least. His moustache and beard are of the colour of a corn sheaf, and

his blue eyes shining over them remind me of summer. That describes him.

He is summer, and has not fallen into his autumn yet. Miss Pollingray

helped me to talk a little. She tried to check her brother’s enthusiasm

for our scenery, and extolled the French paysage. He laughed at her, for

when they were in France it was she who used to say, ‘There is nothing

here like England!’ Miss Fool rode between them attentive to the

jingling of the bells in her cap: ‘Yes’ and ‘No’ at anybody’s command,

in and out of season.

Thank you, Charles, for your letter! I was beginning to think my

invitation to Dayton inexplicable, when that letter arrived. I cannot

but deem it an unworthy baseness to entrap a girl to study her without

a warning to her. I went up to my room after I had read it, and wrote

in reply till the breakfast-bell rang. I resumed my occupation an hour

later, and wrote till one o’clock. In all, fifteen pages of writing,

which I carefully folded and addressed to Charles; sealed the envelope,

stamped it, and destroyed it. I went to bed. ‘No, I won’t ride out

to-day, I have a headache!’ I repeated this about half-a-dozen times to

nobody’s knocking on the door, and when at last somebody knocked I

tried to repeat it once, but having the message that Mr. Pollingray

particularly wished to have my company in a ride, I rose submissively

and cried. This humiliation made my temper ferocious. Mr. Pollingray

observed my face, and put it down in his notebook. ‘A savage

disposition,’ or, no, ‘An untamed little rebel’; for he has hopes of me.

He had the cruelty to say so.

‘What I am, I shall remain,’ said I.

He informed me that it was perfectly natural for me to think it; and

on my replying that persons ought to know themselves best: ‘At my age,

perhaps,’ he said, and added, ‘I cannot speak very confidently of my

knowledge of myself.’

‘Then you make us out to be nothing better than puppets, Mr.

Pollingray.’

‘If we have missed an early apprenticeship to the habit of self-command,

ma filleule.’

‘Merci, mon parrain.’

He laughed. My French, I suppose.

I determined that, if he wanted to study me, I would help him.

‘I can command myself when I choose, but it is only when I choose.’

This seemed to me quite a reasonable speech, until I found him looking

for something to follow, in explanation, and on coming to sift my

meaning, I saw that it was temper, and getting more angry, continued:

‘The sort of young people who have such wonderful command of themselves

are not the pleasantest.’

‘No,’ he said; ‘they disappoint us. We expect folly from the young.’

I shut my lips. Prince Leboo knew that he must go, and a good gallop

reconciled me to circumstances. Then I was put to jumping little furzes

and ditches, which one cannot pretend to do without a fair appearance

of gaiety; for, while you are running the risk of a tumble, you are

compelled to look cheerful and gay, at least, I am. To fall frowning

will never do. I had no fall. My gallant Leboo made my heart leap with

love of him, though mill-stones were tied to it. I may be vexed when I

begin, but I soon ride out a bad temper. And he is mine! I am certainly

inconstant to Charles, for I think of Leboo fifty times more. Besides,

there is no engagement as yet between Charles and me. I have first to be

approved worthy by Mr. and Miss Pollingray: two pairs of eyes and ears,

over which I see a solemnly downy owl sitting, conning their reports of

me. It is a very unkind ordeal to subject any inexperienced young woman

to. It was harshly conceived and it is being remorselessly executed. I

would complain more loudly--in shrieks--if I could say I was unhappy;

but every night I look out of my window before going to bed and see the

long falls of the infant river through the meadow, and the dark woods

seeming to enclose the house from harm: I dream of the old inhabitant,

his ancestors, and the numbers and numbers of springs when the

wildflowers have flourished in those woods and the nightingales have

sung there. And I feel there will never be a home to me like Dayton.

CHAPTER V

HE

For twenty years of my life I have embraced the phantom of the fairest

woman that ever drew breath. I have submitted to her whims, I have

worshipped her feet, I have, I believe, strengthened her principle. I

have done all in my devotion but adopt her religious faith. And I have,

as I trusted some time since, awakened to perceive that those twenty

years were a period of mere sentimental pastime, perfectly useless,

fruitless, unless, as is possible, it has saved me from other follies.

But it was a folly in itself. Can one’s nature be too stedfast? The

question whether a spice of frivolousness may not be a safeguard has

often risen before me. The truth, I must learn to think, is, that my

mental power is not the match for my ideal or sentimental apprehension

and native tenacity of attachment. I have fallen into one of the pits of

a well-meaning but idle man. The world discredits the existence of pure

platonism in love. I myself can barely look back on those twenty years

of amatory servility with a full comprehension of the part I have been

playing in them. And yet I would not willingly forfeit the exalted

admiration of Louise for my constancy: as little willingly as I would

have imperilled her purity. I cling to the past as to something in which

I have deserved well, though I am scarcely satisfied with it. According

to our English notions I know my name. English notions, however, are not

to be accepted in all matters, any more than the flat declaration of a

fact will develop it in alt its bearings. When our English society

shall have advanced to a high civilization, it will be less expansive

in denouncing the higher stupidities. Among us, much of the social

judgement of Bodge upon the relations of men to women is the stereotyped

opinion of the land. There is the dictum here for a man who adores a

woman who is possessed by a husband. If he has long adored her, and

known himself to be preferred by her in innocency of heart; if he has

solved the problem of being her bosom’s lord, without basely seeking to

degrade her to being his mistress; the epithets to characterise him in

our vernacular will probably be all the less flattering. Politically we

are the most self-conscious people upon earth, and socially the frankest

animals. The terrorism of our social laws is eminently serviceable, for

without it such frank animals as we are might run into bad excesses.

I judge rather by the abstract evidence than by the examples our fair

matrons give to astounded foreigners when abroad.

Louise writes that her husband is paralysed. The Marquis de Mazardouin

is at last tasting of his mortality. I bear in mind the day when he

married her. She says that he has taken to priestly counsel, and, like

a woman, she praises him for that. It is the one thing which I have

not done to please her. She anticipates his decease. Should she be

free--what then? My heart does not beat the faster for the thought.

There are twenty years upon it, and they make a great load. But I have

a desire that she should come over to us. The old folly might rescue me

from the new one. Not that I am any further persecuted by the dread that

I am in imminent danger here. I have established a proper mastery over

my young lady. ‘Nous avons change de role’. Alice is subdued; she laughs

feebly, is becoming conscious--a fact to be regretted, if I desired to

check the creature’s growth. There is vast capacity in the girl. She

has plainly not centred her affections upon Charles, so that a man’s

conscience might be at ease if--if he chose to disregard what is due to

decency. But, why, when I contest it, do I bow to the world’s opinion

concerning disparity of years between husband and wife? I know

innumerable cases of an old husband making a young wife happy. My

friend, Dr. Galliot, married his ward, and he had the best wife of any

man of my acquaintance. She has been publishing his learned manuscripts

ever since his death. That is an extreme case, for he was forty-five

years her senior, and stood bald at the altar. Old General Althorpe

married Julia Dahoop, and, but for his preposterous jealousy of her,

might be cited in proof that the ordinary reckonings are not to be a

yoke on the neck of one who earnestly seeks to spouse a fitting mate,

though late in life. But, what are fifty years? They mark the prime of a

healthy man’s existence. He has by that time seen the world, can decide,

and settle, and is virtually more eligible--to use the cant phrase of

gossips--than a young man, even for a young girl. And may not some fair

and fresh reward be justly claimed as the crown of a virtuous career?

I say all this, yet my real feeling is as if I were bald as Dr. Galliot

and jealous as General Althorpe. For, with my thorough knowledge of

myself, I, were I like either one of them, should not have offered

myself to the mercy of a young woman, or of the world. Nor, as I am and

know myself to be, would I offer myself to the mercy of Alice Amble.

When my filleule first drove into Dayton she had some singularly

audacious ideas of her own. Those vivid young feminine perceptions and

untamed imaginations are desperate things to encounter. There is nothing

beyond their reach. Our safety from them lies in the fact that they are

always seeing too much, and imagining too wildly; so that, with a little

help from us, they may be taught to distrust themselves; and when they

have once distrusted themselves, we need not afterwards fear them: their

supernatural vitality has vanished. I fancy my pretty Alice to be in

this state now. She leaves us to-morrow. In the autumn we shall have her

with us again, and Louise will scan her compassionately. I desire that

they should meet. It will be hardly fair to the English girl, but, if

I stand in the gap between them, I shall summon up no small quantity of

dormant compatriotic feeling. The contemplation of the contrast, too,

may save me from both: like the logic ass with the two trusses of hay on

either side of him.

CHAPTER VI

SHE

I am at home. There was never anybody who felt so strange in her home.

It is not a month since I left my sisters, and I hardly remember that

I know them. They all, and even papa, appear to be thinking about such

petty things. They complain that I tell them nothing. What have I to

tell? My Prince! my own Leboo, if I might lie in the stall with you,

then I should feel thoroughly happy! That is, if I could fall asleep.

Evelina declares we are not eight miles from Dayton. It seems to me I

am eight millions of miles distant, and shall be all my life travelling

along a weary road to get there again just for one long sunny day.

And it might rain when I got there after all! My trouble nobody knows.

Nobody knows a thing!

The night before my departure, Miss Pollingray did me the honour

to accompany me up to my bedroom. She spoke to me searchingly about

Charles; but she did not demand compromising answers. She is not in

favour of early marriages, so she merely wishes to know the footing upon

which we stand: that of friends. I assured her we were simply friends.

‘It is the firmest basis of an attachment,’ she said; and I did not look

hurried.

But I gained my end. I led her to talk of the beautiful Marquise. This

is the tale. Mr. Pollingray, when a very young man, and comparatively

poor, went over to France with good introductions, and there saw and

fell in love with Louise de Riverolles. She reciprocated his passion.

If he would have consented to abjure his religion and worship with her,

Madame de Riverolles, her mother, would have listened to her entreaties.

But Gilbert was firm. Mr. Pollingray, I mean, refused to abandon his

faith. Her mother, consequently, did not interfere, and Monsieur de

Riverolles, her father, gave her to the Marquis de Marzardouin, a roue

young nobleman, immensely rich, and shockingly dissipated. And she

married him. No, I cannot understand French girls. Do as I will, it is

quite incomprehensible to me how Louise, loving another, could suffer

herself to be decked out in bridal finery and go to the altar and

take the marriage oaths. Not if perdition had threatened would I have

submitted. I have a feeling that Mr. Pollingray should have shown at

least one year’s resentment at such conduct; and yet I admire him for

his immediate generous forgiveness of her. It was fatherly. She was

married at sixteen. His forgiveness was the fruit of his few years’

seniority, said Miss Pollingray, whose opinion of the Marquise I cannot

arrive at. At any rate, they have been true and warm friends ever since,

constantly together interchangeing visits. That is why Mr. Pollingray

has been more French than English for those long years.

Miss Pollingray concluded by asking me what I thought of the story. I

said: ‘It is very strange French habits are so different from ours. I

dare say... I hope..., perhaps... indeed, Mr. Pollingray seems happy

now.’ Her idea of my wits must be that they are of the schoolgirl

order--a perfect receptacle for indefinite impressions.

‘Ah!’ said she. ‘Gilbert has burnt his heart to ashes by this time.’

I slept with that sentence in my brain. In the morning, I rose and

dressed, dreaming. As I was turning the handle of my door to go down to

breakfast, suddenly I swung round in a fit of tears. It was so piteous

to think that he should have waited by her twenty years in a slow

anguish, his heart burning out, without a reproach or a complaint. I saw

him, I still see him, like a martyr.

‘Some people,’ Miss Pollingray said, I permitted themselves to think

evil of my brother’s assiduous devotion to a married woman. There is not

a spot on his character, or on that of the person whom Gilbert loved.’

I would believe it in the teeth of calumny. I would cling to my belief

in him if I were drowning.

I consider that those twenty years are just nothing, if he chooses to

have them so. He has lived embalmed in a saintly affection. No wonder he

considers himself still youthful. He is entitled to feel that his future

is before him.

No amount of sponging would get the stains away from my horrid red

eyelids. I slunk into my seat at the breakfast-table, not knowing that

one of the maids had dropped a letter from Charles into my hand, and

that I had opened it and was holding it open. The letter, as I found

afterwards, told me that Charles has received an order from his uncle

to go over to Mr. Pollingray’s estate in Dauphiny on business. I am not

sorry that they should have supposed I was silly enough to cry at the

thought of Charles’s crossing the Channel. They did imagine it, I know;

for by and by Miss Pollingray whispered: ‘Les absents n’auront pas tort,

cette fois, n’est-ce-pas? ‘And Mr. Pollingray was cruelly gentle: an

air of ‘I would not intrude on such emotions’; and I heightened their

delusions as much as I could: there was no other way of accounting for

my pantomime face. Why should he fancy I suffered so terribly? He talked

with an excited cheerfulness meant to relieve me, of course, but there

was no justification for his deeming me a love-sick kind of woe-begone

ballad girl. It caused him likewise to adopt a manner--what to call it,

I cannot think: tender respect, frigid regard, anything that accompanies

and belongs to the pressure of your hand with the finger-tips. He said

goodbye so tenderly that I would have kissed his sleeve. The effort to

restrain myself made me like an icicle. Oh! adieu, mon parrain!

ETEXT EDITOR’S BOOKMARKS:

A wise man will not squander his laughter if he can help it

A woman is hurt if you do not confide to her your plans

Gentleman in a good state of preservation

Imparting the usual chorus of yesses to his own mind

In every difficulty, patience is a life-belt

Knew my friend to be one of the most absent-minded of men

Rapture of obliviousness

Telling her anything, she makes half a face in anticipation

When you have done laughing with her, you can laugh at her

THE SENTIMENTALISTS

AN UNFINISHED COMEDY

By George Meredith

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

HOMEWARE.

PROFESSOR SPIRAL.

ARDEN,............. In love with Astraea.

SWITHIN,........... Sympathetics. OSIER,

DAME DRESDEN,...... Sister to Homeware.

ASTRAEA,........... Niece to Dame Dresden and Homeware.

LYRA,.............. A Wife.

LADY OLDLACE.

VIRGINIA.

WINIFRED.

THE SENTIMENTALISTS

AN UNFINISHED COMEDY

The scene is a Surrey garden in early summer. The paths are shaded by

tall box-wood hedges. The--time is some sixty years ago.

SCENE I

PROFESSOR SPIRAL, DAME DRESDEN, LADY OLDLACE,

VIRGINIA, WINIFRED, SWITHIN, and OSIER

(As they slowly promenade the garden, the professor is delivering one of

his exquisite orations on Woman.)

SPIRAL: One husband! The woman consenting to marriage takes but one. For

her there is no widowhood. That punctuation of the sentence called death

is not the end of the chapter for her. It is the brilliant proof of her

having a soul. So she exalts her sex. Above the wrangle and clamour of

the passions she is a fixed star. After once recording her obedience

to the laws of our common nature--that is to say, by descending once to

wedlock--she passes on in sovereign disengagement--a dedicated widow.

(By this time they have disappeared from view. HOMEWARE appears;

he craftily avoids joining their party, like one who is unworthy of

such noble oratory. He desires privacy and a book, but is disturbed

by the arrival of ARDEN, who is painfully anxious to be polite to

‘her uncle Homeware.’)

SCENE II

HOMEWARE, ARDEN

ARDEN: A glorious morning, sir.

HOMEWARE: The sun is out, sir.

ARDEN: I am happy in meeting you, Mr. Homeware.

HOMEWARE: I can direct you to the ladies, Mr. Arden. You will find them

up yonder avenue.

ARDEN: They are listening, I believe, to an oration from the mouth of

Professor Spiral.

HOMEWARE: On an Alpine flower which has descended to flourish on English

soil. Professor Spiral calls it Nature’s ‘dedicated widow.’

ARDEN: ‘Dedicated widow’?

HOMEWARE: The reference you will observe is to my niece Astraea.

ARDEN: She is dedicated to whom?

HOMEWARE: To her dead husband! You see the reverse of Astraea, says the

professor, in those world-infamous widows who marry again.

ARDEN: Bah!

HOMEWARE: Astraea, it is decided, must remain solitary, virgin cold,

like the little Alpine flower. Professor Spiral has his theme.

ARDEN: He will make much of it. May I venture to say that I prefer my

present company?

HOMEWARE: It is a singular choice. I can supply you with no weapons for

the sort of stride in which young men are usually engaged. You belong to

the camp you are avoiding.

ARDEN: Achilles was not the worse warrior, sir, for his probation in

petticoats.

HOMEWARE: His deeds proclaim it. But Alexander was the better chieftain

until he drank with Lais.

ARDEN: No, I do not plead guilty to Bacchus.

HOMEWARE: You are confessing to the madder form of drunkenness.

ARDEN: How, sir, I beg?

HOMEWARE: How, when a young man sees the index to himself in everything

spoken!

ARDEN: That might have the look. I did rightly in coming to you, sir.

HOMEWARE: ‘Her uncle Homeware’?

ARDEN: You read through us all, sir.

HOMEWARE: It may interest you to learn that you are the third of the

gentlemen commissioned to consult the lady’s uncle Homeware.

ARDEN: The third.

HOMEWARE: Yes, she is pursued. It could hardly be otherwise. Her

attractions are acknowledged, and the house is not a convent. Yet, Mr.

Arden, I must remind you that all of you are upon an enterprise held to

be profane by the laws of this region. Can you again forget that Astraea

is a widow?

ARDEN: She was a wife two months; she has been a widow two years.

HOMEWARE: The widow of the great and venerable Professor Towers is not

to measure her widowhood by years. His, from the altar to the tomb. As

it might be read, a one day’s walk!

ARDEN: Is she, in the pride of her youth, to be sacrificed to a

whimsical feminine delicacy?

HOMEWARE: You have argued it with her?

ARDEN: I have presumed.

HOMEWARE: And still she refused her hand!

ARDEN: She commended me to you, sir. She has a sound judgement of

persons.

HOMEWARE: I should put it that she passes the Commissioners of Lunacy,

on the ground of her being a humorous damsel. Your predecessors had also

argued it with her; and they, too, discovered their enemy in a whimsical

feminine delicacy. Where is the difference between you? Evidently

she cannot perceive it, and I have to seek: You will have had many

conversations with Astraea?

ARDEN: I can say, that I am thrice the man I was before I had them.

HOMEWARE: You have gained in manhood from conversations with a widow in

her twenty-second year; and you want more of her.

ARDEN: As much as I want more wisdom.

HOMEWARE: You would call her your Muse?

ARDEN: So prosaic a creature as I would not dare to call her that.

HOMEWARE: You have the timely mantle of modesty, Mr. Arden. She has

prepared you for some of the tests with her uncle Homeware.

ARDEN: She warned me to be myself, without a spice of affectation.

HOMEWARE: No harder task could be set a young man in modern days. Oh,

the humorous damsel. You sketch me the dimple at her mouth.

ARDEN: Frankly, sir, I wish you to know me better; and I think I can

bear inspection. Astraea sent me to hear the reasons why she refuses me

a hearing.

HOMEWARE: Her reason, I repeat, is this; to her idea, a second wedlock

is unholy. Further, it passes me to explain. The young lady lands

us where we were at the beginning; such must have been her humorous

intention.

ARDEN: What can I do?

HOMEWARE: Love and war have been compared. Both require strategy and

tactics, according to my recollection of the campaign.

ARDEN: I will take to heart what you say, sir.

HOMEWARE: Take it to head. There must be occasional descent of lovers’

heads from the clouds. And Professor Spiral,--But here we have a belated

breeze of skirts.

(The reference is to the arrival of LYRA, breathless.)

SCENE III

HOMEWARE, ARDEN, LYRA

LYRA: My own dear uncle Homeware!

HOMEWARE: But where is Pluriel?

LYRA: Where is a woman’s husband when she is away from him?

HOMEWARE: In Purgatory, by the proper reckoning. But hurry up the

avenue, or you will be late for Professor Spiral’s address.

LYRA: I know it all without hearing. Their Spiral! Ah, Mr. Arden! You

have not chosen badly. The greater my experience, the more do I value my

uncle Homeware’s company.

(She is affectionate to excess but has a roguish eye withal, as of

one who knows that uncle Homeware suspects all young men and most

young women.)

HOMEWARE: Agree with the lady promptly, my friend.

ARDEN: I would gladly boast of so lengthened an experience, Lady

Pluriel.

LYRA: I must have a talk with Astraea, my dear uncle. Her letters breed

suspicions. She writes feverishly. The last one hints at service on the

West Coast of Africa.

HOMEWARE: For the draining of a pestiferous land, or an enlightenment of

the benighted black, we could not despatch a missionary more effective

than the handsomest widow in Great Britain.

LYRA: Have you not seen signs of disturbance?

HOMEWARE: A great oration may be a sedative.

LYRA: I have my suspicions.

HOMEWARE: Mr. Arden, I could counsel you to throw yourself at Lady

Pluriel’s feet, and institute her as your confessional priest.

ARDEN: Madam, I am at your feet. I am devoted to the lady.

LYRA: Devoted. There cannot be an objection. It signifies that a man

asks for nothing in return!

HOMEWARE: Have a thought upon your words with this lady, Mr. Arden!

ARDEN: Devoted, I said. I am. I would give my life for her.

LYRA: Expecting it to be taken to-morrow or next day? Accept my

encomiums. A male devotee is within an inch of a miracle. Women had been

looking for this model for ages, uncle.

HOMEWARE: You are the model, Mr Arden!

LYRA: Can you have intended to say that it is in view of marriage you

are devoted to the widow of Professor Towers?

ARDEN: My one view.

LYRA: It is a star you are beseeching to descend.

ARDEN: It is.

LYRA: You disappoint me hugely. You are of the ordinary tribe after all;

and your devotion craves an enormous exchange, infinitely surpassing the

amount you bestow.

ARDEN: It does. She is rich in gifts; I am poor. But I give all I have.

LYRA: These lovers, uncle Homeware!

HOMEWARE: A honey-bag is hung up and we have them about us. They would

persuade us that the chief business of the world is a march to the

altar.

ARDEN: With the right partner, if the business of the world is to be

better done.

LYRA: Which right partner has been chosen on her part, by a veiled

woman, who marches back from the altar to discover that she has chained

herself to the skeleton of an idea, or is in charge of that devouring

tyrant, an uxorious husband. Is Mr. Arden in favour with the Dame,

uncle?

HOMEWARE: My sister is an unsuspicious potentate, as you know.

Pretenders to the hand of an inviolate widow bite like waves at a rock.

LYRA: Professor Spiral advances rapidly.

HOMEWARE: Not, it would appear, when he has his audience of ladies and

their satellites.

LYRA: I am sure I hear a spring-tide of enthusiasm coming.

ARDEN: I will see.

(He goes up the path.)

LYRA: Now! my own dear uncle, save me from Pluriel. I have given him the

slip in sheer desperation; but the man is at his shrewdest when he is

left to guess at my heels. Tell him I am anywhere but here. Tell him I

ran away to get a sense of freshness in seeing him again. Let me have

one day of liberty, or, upon my word, I shall do deeds; I shall console

young Arden: I shall fly to Paris and set my cap at presidents and

foreign princes. Anything rather than be eaten up every minute, as I am.

May no woman of my acquaintance marry a man of twenty years her senior!

She marries a gigantic limpet. At that period of his life a man becomes

too voraciously constant.

HOMEWARE: Cupid clipped of wing is a destructive parasite.

LYRA: I am in dead earnest, uncle, and I will have a respite, or else

let decorum beware!

(Arden returns.)

ARDEN: The ladies are on their way.

LYRA: I must get Astraea to myself.

HOMEWARE: My library is a virgin fortress, Mr. Arden. Its gates are open

to you on other topics than the coupling of inebriates.

(He enters the house--LYRA disappears in the garden--Spiral’s

audience reappear without him.)

SCENE IV

DAME DRESDEN, LADY OLDLACE, VIRGINIA, WINIFRED,

ARDEN, SWITHIN, OSIER

LADY OLDLACE: Such perfect rhythm!

WINIFRED: Such oratory!

LADY OLDLACE: A master hand. I was in a trance from the first sentence

to the impressive close.

OSIER: Such oratory is a whole orchestral symphony.

VIRGINIA: Such command of intonation and subject!

SWITHIN: That resonant voice!

LADY OLDLACE: Swithin, his flow of eloquence! He launched forth!

SWITHIN: Like an eagle from a cliff.

OSIER: The measure of the words was like a beat of wings.

SWITHIN: He makes poets of us.

DAME DRESDEN: Spiral achieved his pinnacle to-day!

VIRGINIA: How treacherous is our memory when we have most the longing to

recall great sayings!