A MAN OF WAX.
It is not pleasant to tell how the foundations of a noble building are
sapped: to tell how the grand, strong trunk of a noble tree is hacked
and hewn until it falls; how the constant rippling of water wears away a
stone; how the association with baser minds takes away the bloom from
the pure ones; how the constant friction with the world takes the dainty
innocence of youth away. It is never pleasant to tell of untruth, or
infidelity, or sin. It is not pleasant to write here, little by little,
inch by inch, how Lord Chandos was persuaded, influenced, and overcome.
The story of man's perfidy is always hateful--the story of man's
weakness is always contemptible. Yet the strongest of men, Samson, fell
through the blandishments of a woman. Lord Chandos was neither as strong
as Samson nor as wise as Solomon; and that a clever woman should get the
upper hand of him was not to be wondered at.
He was a brave, gallant, generous gentleman, gay and genial; he could
not endure feeling unhappy, nor could he bear the thought of any other
person's unhappiness; he had no tragedy about him; he was kind of heart
and simple of mind; he was clever and gifted, but he was like wax in the
hands of a clever woman like Lady Lanswell.
He was singularly unsuspicious, believed in most things and most
persons; he never misjudged or gave any one credit for bad qualities. He
had no more intention of deserting Leone when he left England than he
had of seizing the crown of Turkey. His honest, honorable intention was
to return to her and marry her on the first hour that such a marriage
could be legal. He would have laughed to scorn any one who would have
hinted at such a thing. His love then was his life, and he had nothing
beside it.
Gradually, slowly but surely, other interests occupied him. A great
writer says: "Love is the life of a woman, but only an episode in the
life of a man." That was the difference--it was Leone's life; to him it
had been an episode--and now that the episode was somewhat passed, other
interests opened to him. He meant to be faithful to her and to marry
her; nothing should ever shake that determination; but he had ceased to
think it need be so hurriedly done; he need not certainly forego the
pleasure of the tour and hurry home for his birthday; that was quixotic
nonsense; any time that year would do. After his marriage he should lose
his mother and Lady Marion; he would enjoy their company as long as he
could; Leone was right, she had a luxurious home, the assurance of his
love and fidelity, the certainty of being his wife--a few weeks or
months would make but little difference to her. He did not think he had
done any great harm in going to Spain. One might call it a broken
promise; but then most promises are made with a proviso that they shall
be kept if possible; and this was not possible; he would have been very
foolish--so he said to himself--if he had made matters worse by refusing
to go with his mother to Spain. It would have increased her irritation
and annoyance all to no purpose.
He tried to convince himself that it was right; and he ended by
believing it.
He felt rather anxious as to what Leone would say--and the tone of her
letter rather surprised him. She had thought, long before she answered
him, reproaches were of no avail--they never are with men; if he had not
cared to keep his promise no sharply written words of hers could avail
to make him keep it. She made no complaint, no reproaches; she never
mentioned her pain or her sorrow; she said nothing of her long watch or
its unhappy ending; she did not even tell him of the delayed letter--and
he wondered. He was more uncomfortable than if her letter had been one
stinging reproach from beginning to end. He answered it--he wrote to her
often, but there was a change in the tone of her letters, and he was
half conscious of it.
He meant to be true to her--that was his only comfort in the after
years; he could not tell--nor did he know--how it first entered his mind
to be anything else. Perhaps my lady knew--for she had completely
changed her tactics--instead of ignoring Leone she talked of her
continually--never unkindly, but with a pitying contempt that insensibly
influenced Lord Chandos. She spoke of his future with deepest
compassion, as though he would be completely cut off from everything
that could make life worth living; she treated him as though he were an
unwilling victim to an unfortunate promise. It took some time to impress
the idea upon him--he had never thought of himself in that light at all.
A victim who was giving up the best mother, the kindest friend,
everything in life, to keep an unfortunate promise. My lady spoke of him
so continually in that light at last he began to believe it.
He was like wax in her hands; despite his warm and true love for his
wife that idea became firmly engraved on his mind--he was a victim.
When once she had carefully impressed that upon him my lady went
further; she began to question whether really, after all, his promise
bound him or not.
In her eyes it did not--certainly not. The whole thing was a most
unfortunate mistake; but that he should consider himself bound by such a
piece of boyish folly was madness.
So that the second stage of his progress toward falsehood was that,
besides looking on himself as a kind of victim, he began to think that
he was not bound by his promise. If it had been an error at first it was
an error now; and the countess repeated for him very often the story of
the Marquis of Atherton, who married the daughter of a lodge-keeper in
his nineteenth year. His parents interfered; the marriage was set aside.
What was the consequence? Two years after the girl married the butler,
and they bought the Atherton Arms. The marquis, in his twenty-fifth
year, married a peeress in her own right, and was now one of the first
men in England. My lady often repeated that anecdote; it had made a
great impression on her, and it certainly produced an effect on Lord
Chandos.
My lady had certainly other influences to bring to bear. The uncle of
Lady Erskine, the Duke of Lester, was one of the most powerful nobles in
England--the head of the Cabinet, the most influential peer in the House
of Lords, the grandest orator and the most respected of men. My lady
enjoyed talking about him--she brought forward his name continually, and
was often heard to say that whoever had the good fortune to marry Lady
Erskine was almost sure to succeed the duke in his numerous honors. Lord
Chandos, hearing her one day, said:
"I will win honors, mother--win them for myself--and that will be better
than succeeding another man."
She looked at him with a half-sad, half-mocking smile.
"I have no ambition, no hope for you, Lance. You have taken your wife
from a dairy--the most I can hope is that you may learn to be a good
judge of milk."
He turned from her with a hot flush of anger on his face. Yet the sharp,
satirical shaft found its way to his heart. He thought of the words and
brooded over them--they made more impression on him than any others had
done. In his mother's mind he had evidently lost his place in the
world's race, never to regain it.
The duke--who knew nothing of the conspiracy, and knew nothing of the
young lord's story, except that he had involved himself in some tiresome
dilemma from which his parents had rescued him--the Duke of Lester, who
heard Lord Chandos spoken of as one likely to marry his niece, took a
great fancy to him; he had no children of his own; he was warmly
attached to his beautiful niece; it seemed very probable that if Lord
Chandos married Lady Erskine, he would have before him one of the most
brilliant futures that could fall to any man's lot. Many people hinted
at it, and constant dropping wears away a stone.
The last and perhaps the greatest hold that the countess had over her
son was the evident liking of Lady Marion for him. In this, as in
everything else, she was most diplomatic; she never expressed any wish
that he should marry her; but she had a most sympathetic manner of
speaking about her.
"I doubt, Lance," she said one day, "whether we have done wisely--at
least whether I have done wisely--in allowing Lady Marion to see so much
of you; she is so sweet and so gentle--I am quite distressed about it."
"Why, mother? I see no cause for distress," he said, abruptly.
"No, my dear; men all possess the happy faculty of never seeing that
which lies straight before their eyes. It is one of their special
gifts--you have it to perfection."
"Do speak out what you mean, mother; that satire of yours puzzles me.
What do I not see that I ought to see?"
"Nothing very particular. What I mean is this, Lance, that I am almost
afraid Lady Marion has been too much with us for her peace of mind. I
think, when you go back to England on this wild-goose chase of yours,
that she will feel it deeply."
He looked anxiously at her.
"Do you, mother, really think that?" he asked.
"I do, indeed. Of course I know, Lance, no words of mine will ever
avail; but it seems to me you are in this position--if you leave Lady
Marion and return to your pretty dairy-maid that Lady Marion will never
be happy again. If you marry Lady Marion and dower that young person
with a good fortune she will marry some one in her own rank of life and
be much happier than she could be with you."
"Ah, mother," he said, sadly, "you do not know Leone."
"No, and never shall; but I know one thing--if I stood in your place and
was compelled to make one or the other unhappy, I know which it would
be. In marrying Lady Marion you make yourself at once and you delight
me, you gratify every one who knows and loves you. In marrying that
tempestuous young person you cut yourself adrift from fame, friends, and
parents."
"But honor, mother, what about my honor?"
"You lose it in marrying a dairy-maid. You preserve it in marrying Lady
Marion."
And with this Parthian shot my lady left him.