“Mr. Emlyn, I suppose, would call her perfectly brought up,--well

educated. He would not raise his eyebrows at her as he does at me,--poor

me, Cinderella!”

“Ah, Miss Mordaunt, you need not envy her. Again let me say that you

could very soon educate yourself to the level of any young ladies who

adorn the Court balls.”

“Ay; but then I should not be a poem,” said Lily, with a shy, arch

side-glance at his face.

They were now on the bridge, and before Kenelm could answer Lily resumed

quickly, “You need not come any farther; it is out of your way.”

“I cannot be so disdainfully dismissed, Miss Mordaunt; I insist on

seeing you to at least your garden gate.”

Lily made no objection and again spoke,--

“What sort of country do you live in when at home; is it like this?”

“Not so pretty; the features are larger, more hill and dale and

woodland: yet there is one feature in our grounds which reminds me a

little of this landscape,--a light stream, somewhat wider, indeed,

than your brooklet; but here and there the banks are so like those by

Cromwell Lodge that I sometimes start and fancy myself at home. I have

a strange love for rivulets and all running waters, and in my foot

wanderings I find myself magnetically attracted towards them.”

Lily listened with interest, and after a short pause said, with a

half-suppressed sigh, “Your home is much finer than any place here, even

than Braefieldville, is it not? Mrs. Braefield says your father is very

rich.”

“I doubt if he is richer than Mr. Braefield; and, though his house may

be larger than Braefieldville, it is not so smartly furnished, and has

no such luxurious hothouses and conservatories. My father’s tastes are

like mine, very simple. Give him his library, and he would scarcely miss

his fortune if he lost it. He has in this one immense advantage over

me.”

“You would miss fortune?” said Lily, quickly.

“Not that; but my father is never tired of books. And shall I own it?

there are days when books tire me almost as much as they do you.”

They were now at the garden gate. Lily, with one hand on the latch, held

out the other to Kenelm, and her smile lit up the dull sky like a burst

of sunshine, as she looked in his face and vanished.

BOOK VII.

CHAPTER I.

KENELM did not return home till dusk, and just as he was sitting down to

his solitary meal there was a ring at the bell, and Mrs. Jones ushered

in Mr. Thomas Bowles.

Though that gentleman had never written to announce the day of his

arrival, he was not the less welcome.

“Only,” said Kenelm, “if you preserve the appetite I have lost, I fear

you will find meagre fare to-day. Sit down, man.”

“Thank you, kindly, but I dined two hours ago in London, and I really

can eat nothing more.”

Kenelm was too well-bred to press unwelcome hospitalities. In a very few

minutes his frugal repast was ended; the cloth removed, the two men were

left alone.

“Your room is here, of course, Tom; that was engaged from the day I

asked you, but you ought to have given me a line to say when to expect

you, so that I could have put our hostess on her mettle as to dinner or

supper. You smoke still, of course: light your pipe.”

“Thank you, Mr. Chillingly, I seldom smoke now; but if you will excuse a

cigar,” and Tom produced a very smart cigar-case.

“Do as you would at home. I shall send word to Will Somers that you and

I sup there to-morrow. You forgive me for letting out your secret.

All straightforward now and henceforth. You come to their hearth as a

friend, who will grow dearer to them both every year. Ah, Tom, this love

for woman seems to me a very wonderful thing. It may sink a man into

such deeps of evil, and lift a man into such heights of good.”

“I don’t know as to the good,” said Tom, mournfully, and laying aside

his cigar.

“Go on smoking: I should like to keep you company; can you spare me one

of your cigars?”

Tom offered his case. Kenelm extracted a cigar, lighted it, drew a few

whiffs, and, when he saw that Tom had resumed his own cigar, recommenced

conversation.

“You don’t know as to the good; but tell me honestly, do you think if

you had not loved Jessie Wiles, you would be as good a man as you are

now?”

“If I am better than I was, it is not because of my love for the girl.”

“What then?”

“The loss of her.”

Kenelm started, turned very pale, threw aside the cigar, rose, and

walked the room to and fro with very quick but very irregular strides.

Tom continued quietly. “Suppose I had won Jessie and married her, I

don’t think any idea of improving myself would have entered my head. My

uncle would have been very much offended at my marrying a day-labourer’s

daughter, and would not have invited me to Luscombe. I should have

remained at Graveleigh, with no ambition of being more than a common

farrier, an ignorant, noisy, quarrelsome man; and if I could not have

made Jessie as fond of me as I wished, I should not have broken myself

of drinking, and I shudder to think what a brute I might have been, when

I see in the newspapers an account of some drunken wife-beater. How do

we know but what that wife-beater loved his wife dearly before marriage,

and she did not care for him? His home was unhappy, and so he took to

drink and to wife-beating.”

“I was right, then,” said Kenelm, halting his strides, “when I told you

it would be a miserable fate to be married to a girl whom you loved to

distraction, and whose heart you could never warm to you, whose life you

could never render happy.”

“So right!”

“Let us drop that part of the subject at present,” said Kenelm,

reseating himself, “and talk about your wish to travel. Though contented

that you did not marry Jessie, though you can now, without anguish,

greet her as the wife of another, still there are some lingering

thoughts of her that make you restless; and you feel that you could more

easily wrench yourself from these thoughts in a marked change of scene

and adventure, that you might bury them altogether in the soil of a

strange land. Is it so?”

“Ay, something of that, sir.”

Then Kenelm roused himself to talk of foreign lands, and to map out a

plan of travel that might occupy some months. He was pleased to find

that Tom had already learned enough of French to make himself understood

at least upon commonplace matters, and still more pleased to discover

that he had been not only reading the proper guide-books or manuals

descriptive of the principal places in Europe worth visiting, but that

he had acquired an interest in the places; interest in the fame attached

to them by their history in the past, or by the treasures of art they

contained.

So they talked far into the night; and when Tom retired to his room,

Kenelm let himself out of the house noiselessly, and walked with slow

steps towards the old summer-house in which he had sat with Lily. The

wind had risen, scattering the clouds that had veiled the preceding day,

so that the stars were seen in far chasms of the sky beyond,--seen for

a while in one place, and, when the swift clouds rolled over them there,

shining out elsewhere. Amid the varying sounds of the trees, through

which swept the night gusts, Kenelm fancied he could distinguish the

sigh of the willow on the opposite lawn of Grasmere.

CHAPTER II.

KENELM despatched a note to Will Somers early the next morning, inviting

himself and Mr. Bowles to supper that evening. His tact was sufficient

to make him aware that in such social meal there would be far less

restraint for each and all concerned than in a more formal visit

from Tom during the day-time; and when Jessie, too, was engaged with

customers to the shop.

But he led Tom through the town and showed him the shop itself, with

its pretty goods at the plate-glass windows, and its general air of

prosperous trade; then he carried him off into the lanes and fields of

the country, drawing out the mind of his companion, and impressed with

great admiration of its marked improvement in culture, and in the trains

of thought which culture opens out and enriches.

But throughout all their multiform range of subject Kenelm could

perceive that Tom was still preoccupied and abstracted: the idea of the

coming interview with Jessie weighed upon him.

When they left Cromwell Lodge at nightfall, to repair to the supper at

Will’s; Kenelm noticed that Bowles had availed himself of the contents

of his carpet-bag to make some refined alterations in his dress. The

alterations became him.

When they entered the parlour, Will rose from his chair with the

evidence of deep emotion on his face, advanced to Tom, took his hand and

grasped and dropped it without a word. Jessie saluted both guests alike,

with drooping eyelids and an elaborate curtsy. The old mother alone was

perfectly self-possessed and up to the occasion.

“I am heartily glad to see you, Mr. Bowles,” said she, “and so all three

of us are, and ought to be; and if baby was older, there would be four.”

“And where on earth have you hidden baby?” cried Kenelm. “Surely he

might have been kept up for me to-night, when I was expected; the last

time I supped here I took you by surprise, and therefore had no right to

complain of baby’s want of respect to her parents’ friends.”

Jessie raised the window-curtain, and pointed to the cradle behind it.

Kenelm linked his arm in Tom’s, led him to the cradle, and, leaving

him alone to gaze on the sleeping inmate, seated himself at the table,

between old Mrs. Somers and Will. Will’s eyes were turned away towards

the curtain, Jessie holding its folds aside, and the formidable Tom,

who had been the terror of his neighbourhood, bending smiling over

the cradle: till at last he laid his large hand on the pillow, gently,

timidly, careful not to awake the helpless sleeper, and his lips moved,

doubtless with a blessing; then he, too, came to the table, seating

himself, and Jessie carried the cradle upstairs.

Will fixed his keen, intelligent eyes on his bygone rival; and noticing

the changed expression of the once aggressive countenance, the changed

costume in which, without tinge of rustic foppery, there was the token

of a certain gravity of station scarcely compatible with a return to old

loves and old habits in the village world, the last shadow of jealousy

vanished from the clear surface of Will’s affectionate nature.

“Mr. Bowles,” he exclaimed, impulsively, “you have a kind heart, and a

good heart, and a generous heart. And your corning here to-night on this

friendly visit is an honour which--which”--“Which,” interrupted Kenelm,

compassionating Will’s embarrassment, “is on the side of us single men.

In this free country a married man who has a male baby may be father

to the Lord Chancellor or the Archbishop of Canterbury. But--well, my

friends, such a meeting as we have to-night does not come often; and

after supper let us celebrate it with a bowl of punch. If we have

headaches the next morning none of us will grumble.”

Old Mrs. Somers laughed out jovially. “Bless you, sir, I did not think

of the punch; I will go and see about it,” and, baby’s socks still in

her hands, she hastened from the room.

What with the supper, what with the punch, and what with Kenelm’s art

of cheery talk on general subjects, all reserve, all awkwardness, all

shyness between the convivialists, rapidly disappeared. Jessie mingled

in the talk; perhaps (excepting only Kenelm) she talked more than the

others, artlessly, gayly, no vestige of the old coquetry; but, now and

then, with a touch of genteel finery, indicative of her rise in life,

and of the contact of the fancy shopkeeper with noble customers. It was

a pleasant evening; Kenelm had resolved that it should be so. Not a

hint of the obligations to Mr. Bowles escaped until Will, following his

visitor to the door, whispered to Tom, “You don’t want thanks, and I

can’t express them. But when we say our prayers at night, we have always

asked God to bless him who brought us together, and has since made us

so prosperous,--I mean Mr. Chillingly. To-night there will be another

besides him, for whom we shall pray, and for whom baby, when he is

older, will pray too.”

Therewith Will’s voice thickened; and he prudently receded, with no

unreasonable fear lest the punch might make him too demonstrative of

emotion if he said more.

Tom was very silent on the return to Cromwell Lodge; it did not seem the

silence of depressed spirits, but rather of quiet meditation, from which

Kenelm did not attempt to rouse him.

It was not till they reached the garden pales of Grasmere that Tom,

stopping short, and turning his face to Kenelm, said, “I am very

grateful to you for this evening,--very.”

“It has revived no painful thoughts then?”

“No; I feel so much calmer in mind than I ever believed I could have

been, after seeing her again.”

“Is it possible!” said Kenelm, to himself. “How should I feel if I ever

saw in Lily the wife of another man, the mother of his child?” At that

question he shuddered, and an involuntary groan escaped from his lips.

Just then having, willingly in those precincts, arrested his steps when

Tom paused to address him, something softly touched the arm which he had

rested on the garden pale. He looked, and saw that it was Blanche.

The creature, impelled by its instincts towards night-wanderings, had,

somehow or other, escaped from its own bed within the house, and hearing

a voice that had grown somewhat familiar to its ear, crept from among

the shrubs behind upon the edge of the pale. There it stood, with arched

back, purring low as in pleased salutation.

Kenelm bent down and covered with kisses the blue ribbon which Lily’s

hand had bound round the favourite’s neck. Blanche submitted to the

caress for a moment, and then catching a slight rustle among the shrubs

made by some awaking bird, sprang into the thick of the quivering leaves

and vanished.

Kenelm moved on with a quick impatient stride, and no further words were

exchanged between him and his companion till they reached their lodging

and parted for the night.

CHAPTER III.

THE next day, towards noon, Kenelm and his visitor, walking together

along the brook-side, stopped before Izaak Walton’s summer-house, and,

at Kenelm’s suggestion, entered therein to rest, and more at their ease

to continue the conversation they had begun.

“You have just told me,” said Kenelm, “that you feel as if a load were

taken off your heart, now that you have again met Jessie Somers, and

that you find her so changed that she is no longer the woman you loved.

As to the change, whatever it be, I own, it seems to me for the better,

in person, in manners, in character; of course I should not say this, if

I were not convinced of your perfect sincerity when you assured me that

you are cured of the old wound. But I feel so deeply interested in the

question how a fervent love, once entertained and enthroned in the heart

of a man so earnestly affectionate and so warm-blooded as yourself, can

be, all of a sudden, at a single interview, expelled or transferred into

the calm sentiment of friendship, that I pray you to explain.”

“That is what puzzles me, sir,” answered Tom, passing his hand over his

forehead. “And I don’t know if I can explain it.

“Think over it, and try.”

Tom mused for some moments and then began. “You see, sir, that I was

a very different man myself when I fell in love with Jessie Wiles, and

said, ‘Come what may, that girl shall be my wife. Nobody else shall have

her.’”

“Agreed; go on.”

“But while I was becoming a different man, when I thought of her--and I

was always thinking of her--I still pictured her to myself as the same

Jessie Wiles; and though, when I did see her again at Graveleigh, after

she had married--the day--”

“You saved her from the insolence of the Squire.”

“She was but very recently married. I did not realize her as married. I

did not see her husband, and the difference within myself was only

then beginning. Well, so all the time I was reading and thinking, and

striving to improve my old self at Luscombe, still Jessie Wiles haunted

me as the only girl I had ever loved, ever could love; I could not

believe it possible that I could ever marry any one else. And lately I

have been much pressed to marry some one else; all my family wish it:

but the face of Jessie rose up before me, and I said to myself, ‘I

should be a base man if I married one woman, while I could not get

another woman out of my head.’ I must see Jessie once more, must learn

whether her face is now really the face that haunts me when I sit alone;

and I have seen her, and it is not that face: it may be handsomer, but

it is not a girl’s face, it is the face of a wife and a mother. And,

last evening, while she was talking with an open-heartedness which I

had never found in her before, I became strangely conscious of the

difference in myself that had been silently at work within the last two

years or so. Then, sir, when I was but an ill-conditioned, uneducated,

petty village farrier, there was no inequality between me and a peasant

girl; or, rather, in all things except fortune, the peasant girl

was much above me. But last evening I asked myself, watching her and

listening to her talk, ‘If Jessie were now free, should I press her to

be my wife?’ and I answered myself, ‘No.’”

Kenelm listened with rapt attention, and exclaimed briefly, but

passionately, “Why?”

“It seems as if I were giving myself airs to say why. But, sir, lately I

have been thrown among persons, women as well as men, of a higher class

than I was born in; and in a wife I should want a companion up to their

mark, and who would keep me up to mine; and ah, sir, I don’t feel as if

I could find that companion in Mrs. Somers.”

“I understand you now, Tom. But you are spoiling a silly romance of

mine. I had fancied the little girl with the flower face would grow up

to supply the loss of Jessie; and, I am so ignorant of the human heart,

I did think it would take all the years required for the little girl to

open into a woman, before the loss of the old love could be supplied. I

see now that the poor little child with the flower face has no chance.”

“Chance? Why, Mr. Chillingly,” cried Tom, evidently much nettled, “Susey

is a dear little thing, but she is scarcely more than a mere charity

girl. Sir, when I last saw you in London you touched on that matter as

if I were still the village farrier’s son, who might marry a village

labourer’s daughter. But,” added Tom, softening down his irritated tone

of voice, “even if Susey were a lady born I think a man would make a

very great mistake, if he thought he could bring up a little girl to

regard him as a father; and then, when she grew up, expect her to accept

him as a lover.”

“Ah, you think that!” exclaimed Kenelm, eagerly, and turning eyes that

sparkled with joy towards the lawn of Grasmere. “You think that; it is

very sensibly said,--well, and you have been pressed to marry, and have

hung back till you had seen again Mrs. Somers. Now you will be better

disposed to such a step; tell me about it?”

“I said, last evening, that one of the principal capitalists at

Luscombe, the leading corn-merchant, had offered to take me into

partnership. And, sir, he has an only daughter, she is a very amiable

girl, has had a first-rate education, and has such pleasant manners and

way of talk, quite a lady. If I married her I should soon be the first

man in Luscombe, and Luscombe, as you are no doubt aware, returns two

members to Parliament; who knows, but that some day the farrier’s son

might be--” Tom stopped abruptly, abashed at the aspiring thought which,

while speaking, had deepened his hardy colour and flashed from his

honest eyes.

“Ah!” said Kenelm, almost mournfully, “is it so? must each man in his

life play many parts? Ambition succeeds to love, the reasoning brain to

the passionate heart. True, you are changed; my Tom Bowles is gone.”

“Not gone in his undying gratitude to you, sir,” said Tom, with great

emotion. “Your Tom Bowles would give up all his dreams of wealth or of

rising in life, and go through fire and water to serve the friend who

first bid him be a new Tom Bowles! Don’t despise me as your own work:

you said to me that terrible day, when madness was on my brow and crime

within my heart, ‘I will be to you the truest friend man ever found in

man.’ So you have been. You commanded me to read; you commanded me to

think; you taught me that body should be the servant of mind.”

“Hush, hush, times are altered; it is you who can teach me now. Teach

me, teach me; how does ambition replace love? How does the desire to

rise in life become the all-mastering passion, and, should it prosper,

the all-atoning consolation of our life? We can never be as happy,

though we rose to the throne of the Caesars, as we dream that we

could have been, had Heaven but permitted us to dwell in the obscurest

village, side by side with the woman we love.”

Tom was exceedingly startled by such a burst of irrepressible passion

from the man who had told him that, though friends were found only once

in a life, sweethearts were as plentiful as blackberries.

Again he swept his hand over his forehead, and replied hesitatingly: “I

can’t pretend to say what maybe the case with others. But to judge by my

own case, it seems to me this: a young man who, out of his own business,

has nothing to interest or excite him, finds content, interest, and

excitement when he falls in love; and then, whether for good or ill, he

thinks there is nothing like love in the world, he don’t care a fig for

ambition then. Over and over again did my poor uncle ask me to come to

him at Luscombe, and represent all the worldly advantage it would be

to me; but I could not leave the village in which Jessie lived, and,

besides, I felt myself unfit to be anything higher than I was. But

when I had been some time at Luscombe, and gradually got accustomed to

another sort of people, and another sort of talk, then I began to feel

interest in the same objects that interested those about me; and when,

partly by mixing with better educated men, and partly by the pains I

took to educate myself, I felt that I might now more easily rise above

my uncle’s rank of life than two years ago I could have risen above

a farrier’s forge, then the ambition to rise did stir in me, and grew

stronger every day. Sir, I don’t think you can wake up a man’s intellect

but what you wake with it emulation. And, after all, emulation is

ambition.”

“Then, I suppose, I have no emulation in me, for certainly I have no

ambition.”

“That I can’t believe, sir; other thoughts may cover it over and keep it

down for a time. But sooner or later, it will force its way to the top,

as it has done with me. To get on in life, to be respected by those who

know you, more and more as you grow older, I call that a manly desire. I

am sure it comes as naturally to an Englishman as--as--”

“As the wish to knock down some other Englishman who stands in his way

does. I perceive now that you were always a very ambitious man, Tom; the

ambition has only taken another direction. Caesar might have been

“‘But the first wrestler on the green.’

“And now, I suppose, you abandon the idea of travel: you will return to

Luscombe, cured of all regret for the loss of Jessie; you will marry the

young lady you mention, and rise, through progressive steps of alderman

and mayor, into the rank of member for Luscombe.”

“All that may come in good time,” answered Tom, not resenting the tone

of irony in which he was addressed, “but I still intend to travel: a

year so spent must render me all the more fit for any station I aim at.

I shall go back to Luscombe to arrange my affairs, come to terms with

Mr. Leland the corn-merchant, against my return, and--”

“The young lady is to wait till then.”

“Emily--”

“Oh, that is the name? Emily! a much more elegant name than Jessie.”

“Emily,” continued Tom, with an unruffled placidity,--which, considering

the aggravating bitterness for which Kenelm had exchanged his wonted

dulcitudes of indifferentism, was absolutely saintlike, “Emily knows

that if she were my wife I should be proud of her, and will esteem me

the more if she feels how resolved I am that she shall never be ashamed

of me.”

“Pardon me, Tom,” said Kenelm softened, and laying his hand on his

friend’s shoulder with brotherlike tenderness. “Nature has made you a

thorough gentleman; and you could not think and speak more nobly if you

had come into the world as the head of all the Howards.”

CHAPTER IV.

TOM went away the next morning. He declined to see Jessie again, saying

curtly, “I don’t wish the impression made on me the other evening to

incur a chance of being weakened.”

Kenelm was in no mood to regret his friend’s departure. Despite all

the improvement in Tom’s manners and culture, which raised him so

much nearer to equality with the polite and instructed heir of the

Chillinglys, Kenelm would have felt more in sympathy and rapport with

the old disconsolate fellow-wanderer who had reclined with him on the

grass, listening to the minstrel’s talk or verse, than he did with

the practical, rising citizen of Luscombe. To the young lover of Lily

Mordaunt there was a discord, a jar, in the knowledge that the human

heart admits of such well-reasoned, well-justified transfers of

allegiance; a Jessie to-day, or an Emily to-morrow; “La reine est morte:

vive la reine”

An hour or two after Tom had gone, Kenelm found himself almost

mechanically led towards Braefieldville. He had instinctively divined

Elsie’s secret wish with regard to himself and Lily, however skilfully

she thought she had concealed it.

At Braefieldville he should hear talk of Lily, and in the scenes where

Lily had been first beheld.

He found Mrs. Braefield alone in the drawing-room, seated by a table

covered with flowers, which she was assorting and intermixing for the

vases to which they were destined.

It struck him that her manner was more reserved than usual and somewhat

embarrassed; and when, after a few preliminary matters of small talk,

he rushed boldly _in medias res_ and asked if she had seen Mrs. Cameron

lately, she replied briefly, “Yes, I called there the other day,”

and immediately changed the conversation to the troubled state of the

Continent.

Kenelm was resolved not to be so put off, and presently returned to the

charge.

“The other day you proposed an excursion to the site of the Roman villa,

and said you would ask Mrs. Cameron to be of the party. Perhaps you have

forgotten it?”

“No; but Mrs. Cameron declines. We can ask the Emlyns instead. He will

be an excellent _cicerone_.”

“Excellent! Why did Mrs. Cameron decline?”

Elsie hesitated, and then lifted her clear brown eyes to his face, with

a sudden determination to bring matters to a crisis.

“I cannot say why Mrs. Cameron declined, but in declining she acted very

wisely and very honourably. Listen to me, Mr. Chillingly. You know how

highly I esteem, and how cordially I like you, and judging by what I

felt for some weeks, perhaps longer, after we parted at Tor Hadham--”

Here again she hesitated, and, with a half laugh and a slight blush,

again went resolutely on. “If I were Lily’s aunt or elder sister, I

should do as Mrs. Cameron does; decline to let Lily see much more of a

young gentleman too much above her in wealth and station for--”

“Stop,” cried Kenelm, haughtily, “I cannot allow that any man’s wealth

or station would warrant his presumption in thinking himself above Miss

Mordaunt.”

“Above her in natural grace and refinement, certainly not. But in the

world there are other considerations which, perhaps, Sir Peter and Lady

Chillingly might take into account.”

“You did not think of that before you last saw Mrs. Cameron.”

“Honestly speaking, I did not. Assured that Miss Mordaunt was a

gentlewoman by birth, I did not sufficiently reflect upon other

disparities.”

“You know, then, that she is by birth a gentlewoman?”

“I only know it as all here do, by the assurance of Mrs. Cameron, whom

no one could suppose not to be a lady. But there are different degrees

of lady and of gentleman, which are little heeded in the ordinary

intercourse of society, but become very perceptible in questions of

matrimonial alliance; and Mrs. Cameron herself says very plainly that

she does not consider her niece to belong to that station in life from

which Sir Peter and Lady Chillingly would naturally wish their son

should select his bride. Then (holding out her hand) pardon me if I have

wounded or offended you. I speak as a true friend to you and to Lily

both. Earnestly I advise you, if Miss Mordaunt be the cause of your

lingering here, earnestly I advise you to leave while yet in time for

her peace of mind and your own.”

“Her peace of mind,” said Kenelm, in low faltering tones, scarcely

hearing the rest of Mrs. Braefield’s speech. “Her peace of mind? Do

you sincerely think that she cares for me,--could care for me,--if I

stayed?”

“I wish I could answer you decidedly. I am not in the secrets of her

heart. I can but conjecture that it might be dangerous for the peace of

any young girl to see too much of a man like yourself, to divine that he

loved her, and not to be aware that he could not, with the approval of

his family, ask her to become his wife.”

Kenelm bent his face down, and covered it with his right hand. He did

not speak for some moments. Then he rose, the fresh cheek very pale, and

said,--

“You are right. Miss Mordaunt’s peace of mind must be the first

consideration. Excuse me if I quit you thus abruptly. You have given me

much to think of, and I can only think of it adequately when alone.”

CHAPTER V.

FROM KENELM CHILLINGLY TO SIR PETER CHILLINGLY.

MY FATHER, MY DEAR FATHER,--This is no reply to your letters. I know

not if itself can be called a letter. I cannot yet decide whether it be

meant to reach your hands. Tired with talking to myself, I sit down to

talk to you. Often have I reproached myself for not seeing every fitting

occasion to let you distinctly know how warmly I love, how deeply I

reverence you; you, O friend, O father. But we Chillinglys are not a

demonstrative race. I don’t remember that you, by words, ever expressed

to me the truth that you loved your son infinitely more than he

deserves. Yet, do I not know that you would send all your beloved old

books to the hammer rather than I should pine in vain for some untried,

if sinless, delight on which I had set my heart? And do you not

know equally well, that I would part with all my heritage, and turn

day-labourer, rather than you should miss the beloved old books?

That mutual knowledge is taken for granted in all that my heart yearns

to pour forth to your own. But, if I divine aright, a day is coming

when, as between you and me, there must be a sacrifice on the part of

one to the other. If so, I implore that the sacrifice may come from

you. How is this? How am I so ungenerous, so egotistical, so selfish, so

ungratefully unmindful of all I already owe to you, and may never repay?

I can only answer, “It is fate, it is nature, it is love”--

*****

Here I must break off. It is midnight, the moon halts opposite to the

window at which I sit, and on the stream that runs below there is a long

narrow track on which every wave trembles in her light; on either side

of the moonlit track all the other waves, running equally to their grave

in the invisible deep, seem motionless and dark. I can write no more.

.........

(Dated two days later.)

They say she is beneath us in wealth and station. Are we, my father--we,

two well-born gentlemen--coveters of gold or lackeys of the great? When

I was at college, if there were any there more heartily despised than

another it was the parasite and the tuft-hunter; the man who chose his

friends according as their money or their rank might be of use to him.

If so mean where the choice is so little important to the happiness and

career of a man who has something of manhood in him, how much more mean

to be the parasite and tuft-hunter in deciding what woman to love, what

woman to select as the sweetener and ennobler of one’s everyday life!

Could she be to my life that sweetener, that ennobler? I firmly believe

it. Already life itself has gained a charm that I never even guessed in

it before; already I begin, though as yet but faintly and vaguely, to

recognize that interest in the objects and aspirations of my fellow-men

which is strongest in those whom posterity ranks among its ennoblers. In

this quiet village it is true that I might find examples enough to prove

that man is not meant to meditate upon life, but to take active part in

it, and in that action to find his uses. But I doubt if I should have

profited by such examples; if I should not have looked on this

small stage of the world as I have looked on the large one, with the

indifferent eyes of a spectator on a trite familiar play carried on

by ordinary actors, had not my whole being suddenly leaped out of

philosophy into passion, and, at once made warmly human, sympathized

with humanity wherever it burned and glowed. Ah, is there to be

any doubt of what station, as mortal bride, is due to her,--her, my

princess, my fairy? If so, how contented you shall be, my father, with

the worldly career of your son! how perseveringly he will strive

(and when did perseverance fail?) to supply all his deficiencies of

intellect, genius, knowledge, by the energy concentrated on a single

object which--more than intellect, genius, knowledge, unless they attain

to equal energy equally concentrated--commands what the world calls

honours.

Yes, with her, with her as the bearer of my name, with her to whom I,

whatever I might do of good or of great, could say, “It is thy work,”

I promise that you shall bless the day when you took to your arms a

daughter.

.........

“Thou art in contact with the beloved in all that thou feelest elevated

above thee.” So it is written by one of those weird Germans who search

in our bosoms for the seeds of buried truths, and conjure them into

flowers before we ourselves were even aware of the seeds.

Every thought that associates itself with my beloved seems to me born

with wings.

.........

I have just seen her, just parted from her. Since I had been

told--kindly, wisely told--that I had no right to hazard her peace of

mind unless I were privileged to woo and to win her, I promised myself

that I would shun her presence until I had bared my heart to you, as I

am doing now, and received that privilege from yourself; for even had I

never made the promise that binds my honour, your consent and blessing

must hallow my choice. I do not feel as if I could dare to ask one

so innocent and fair to wed an ungrateful, disobedient son. But this

evening I met her, unexpectedly, at the vicar’s, an excellent man, from

whom I have learned much; whose precepts, whose example, whose delight

in his home, and his life at once active and serene, are in harmony with

my own dreams when I dream of her.

I will tell you the name of the beloved; hold it as yet a profound

secret between you and me. But oh for the day when I may hear you call

her by that name, and print on her forehead the only kiss by man of

which I should not be jealous.

It is Sunday, and after the evening service it is my friend’s custom

to gather his children round him, and, without any formal sermon or

discourse, engage their interests in subjects harmonious to associations

with the sanctity of the day; often not directly bearing upon religion;

more often, indeed, playfully starting from some little incident or some

slight story-book which had amused the children in the course of the

past week, and then gradually winding into reference to some sweet moral

precept or illustration from some divine example. It is a maxim with

him that, while much that children must learn they can only learn well

through conscious labour, and as positive task-work, yet Religion should

be connected in their minds not with labour and task-work, but should

become insensibly infused into their habits of thought, blending

itself with memories and images of peace and love; with the indulgent

tenderness of the earliest teachers, the sinless mirthfulness of the

earliest home; with consolation in after sorrows, support through after

trials, and never parting company with its twin sister, Hope.

I entered the vicar’s room this evening just as the group had collected

round him. By the side of his wife sat a lady in whom I feel a keen

interest. Her face wears that kind of calm which speaks of the lassitude

bequeathed by sorrow. She is the aunt of my beloved one. Lily had

nestled herself on a low ottoman, at the good pastor’s feet, with one

of his little girls, round whose shoulder she had wound her arm. She is

much more fond of the companionship of children than that of girls of

her own age. The vicar’s wife, a very clever woman, once, in my hearing,

took her to task for this preference, asking her why she persisted in

grouping herself with mere infants who could teach her nothing? Ah!

could you have seen the innocent, angel-like expression of her face when

she answered simply, “I suppose because with them I feel safer, I mean

nearer to God.”

Mr. Emlyn--that is the name of the vicar--deduced his homily this

evening from a pretty fairy tale which Lily had been telling to his

children the day before, and which he drew her on to repeat.

Take, in brief, the substance of the story:--

“Once on a time, a king and queen made themselves very unhappy because

they had no heir to their throne; and they prayed for one; and lo, on

some bright summer morning, the queen, waking from sleep, saw a cradle

beside her bed, and in the cradle a beautiful sleeping babe. Great

day throughout the kingdom! But as the infant grew up, it became very

wayward and fretful: it lost its beauty; it would not learn its lessons;

it was as naughty as a child could be. The parents were very sorrowful;

the heir, so longed for, promised to be a great plague to themselves

and their subjects. At last one day, to add to their trouble, two little

bumps appeared on the prince’s shoulders. All the doctors were consulted

as to the cause and the cure of this deformity. Of course they tried

the effect of back-bands and steel machines, which gave the poor little

prince great pain, and made him more unamiable than ever. The bumps,

nevertheless, grew larger, and as they increased, so the prince sickened

and pined away. At last a skilful surgeon proposed, as the only chance

of saving the prince’s life, that the bumps should be cut out; and the

next morning was fixed for that operation. But at night the queen saw,

or dreamed she saw, a beautiful shape standing by her bedside. And it

said to her reproachfully, ‘Ungrateful woman! How wouldst thou repay me

for the precious boon that my favour bestowed on thee! In me behold the

Queen of the Fairies. For the heir to thy kingdom, I consigned to thy

charge an infant from Fairyland, to become a blessing to thee and to

thy people; and thou wouldst inflict upon it a death of torture by the

surgeon’s knife.’ And the queen answered, ‘Precious indeed thou mayest

call the boon,--a miserable, sickly, feverish changeling.’

“‘Art thou so dull,’ said the beautiful visitant, ‘as not to comprehend

that the earliest instincts of the fairy child would be those of

discontent, at the exile from its native home? and in that discontent it

would have pined itself to death, or grown up, soured and malignant,

a fairy still in its power but a fairy of wrath and evil, had not the

strength of its inborn nature sufficed to develop the growth of its

wings. That which thy blindness condemns as the deformity of the

human-born, is to the fairy-born the crowning perfection of its beauty.

Woe to thee, if thou suffer not the wings of the fairy child to grow.’

“And the next morning the queen sent away the surgeon when he came with

his horrible knife, and removed the back-board and the steel machines

from the prince’s shoulders, though all the doctors predicted that the

child would die. And from that moment the royal heir began to recover

bloom and health. And when at last, out of those deforming bumps,

budded delicately forth the plumage of snow-white wings, the wayward

peevishness of the prince gave place to sweet temper. Instead of

scratching his teachers, he became the quickest and most docile of

pupils, grew up to be the joy of his parents and the pride of their

people; and people said, ‘In him we shall have hereafter such a king as

we have never yet known.’”

Here ended Lily’s tale. I cannot convey to you a notion of the pretty,

playful manner in which it was told. Then she said, with a grave shake

of the head, “But you do not seem to know what happened afterwards. Do

you suppose that the prince never made use of his wings? Listen to me.

It was discovered by the courtiers who attended on His Royal Highness

that on certain nights, every week, he disappeared. In fact, on these

nights, obedient to the instinct of the wings, he flew from palace

halls into Fairyland; coming back thence all the more lovingly disposed

towards the human home from which he had escaped for a while.”

“Oh, my children,” interposed the preacher earnestly, “the wings would

be given to us in vain if we did not obey the instinct which allures us

to soar; vain, no less, would be the soaring, were it not towards

the home whence we came, bearing back from its native airs a stronger

health, and a serener joy; more reconciled to the duties of earth by

every new flight into heaven.”

As he thus completed the moral of Lily’s fairy tale, the girl rose

from her low seat, took his hand, kissed it reverently, and walked away

towards the window. I could see that she was affected even to tears,

which she sought to conceal. Later in the evening, when we were

dispersed on the lawn, for a few minutes before the party broke up, Lily

came to my side timidly and said, in a low whisper,--

“Are you angry with me? what have I done to displease you?”

“Angry with you; displeased? How can you think of me so unjustly?”

“It is so many days since you have called, since I have seen you,”

she said so artlessly, looking up at me with eyes in which tears still

seemed to tremble.

Before I could trust myself to reply, her aunt approached, and noticing

me with a cold and distant “Good-night,” led away her niece.

I had calculated on walking back to their home with them, as I generally

have done when we met at another house. But the aunt had probably

conjectured I might be at the vicarage that evening, and in order to

frustrate my intention had engaged a carriage for their return. No doubt

she has been warned against permitting further intimacy with her niece.

My father, I must come to you at once, discharge my promise, and receive

from your own lips your consent to my choice; for you will consent, will

you not? But I wish you to be prepared beforehand, and I shall therefore

put up these disjointed fragments of my commune with my own heart and

with yours, and post them to-morrow. Expect me to follow them after

leaving you a day free to consider them alone,--alone, my dear father:

they are meant for no eye but yours.

K. C.

CHAPTER VI.

THE next day Kenelm walked into the town, posted his voluminous letter

to Sir Peter, and then looked in at the shop of Will Somers, meaning to

make some purchases of basket-work or trifling fancy goods in Jessie’s

pretty store of such articles, that might please the taste of his

mother.

On entering the shop his heart beat quicker. He saw two young forms

bending over the counter, examining the contents of a glass case. One

of these customers was Clemmy; in the other there was no mistaking the

slight graceful shape of Lily Mordaunt. Clemmy was exclaiming, “Oh, it

is so pretty, Mrs. Somers! but,” turning her eyes from the counter to a

silk purse in her hand, she added sorrowfully, “I can’t buy it. I have

not got enough, not by a great deal.”

“And what is it, Miss Clemmy?” asked Kenelm.

The two girls turned round at his voice, and Clemmy’s face brightened.

“Look here,” she said, “is it not too lovely?”

The object thus admired and coveted was a little gold locket, enriched

by a cross composed of small pearls.

“I assure you, miss,” said Jessie, who had acquired all the coaxing arts

of her trade, “it is really a great bargain. Miss Mary Burrows, who was

here just before you came, bought one not nearly so pretty and gave ten

shillings more for it.”

Miss Mary Burrows was the same age as Miss Clementina Emlyn, and there

was a rivalry as to smartness between those youthful beauties. “Miss

Burrows!” sighed Clemmy, very scornfully.

But Kenelm’s attention was distracted from Clemmy’s locket to a little

ring which Lily had been persuaded by Mrs. Somers to try on, and which

she now drew off and returned with a shake of the head. Mrs. Somers, who

saw that she had small chance of selling the locket to Clemmy, was now

addressing herself to the elder girl more likely to have sufficient

pocket-money, and whom, at all events, it was quite safe to trust.

“The ring fits you so nicely, Miss Mordaunt, and every young lady of

your age wears at least one ring; allow me to put it up.” She added in

a lower voice, “Though we only sell the articles in this case on

commission, it is all the same to us whether we are paid now or at

Christmas.”

“‘Tis no use tempting me, Mrs. Somers,” said Lily, laughing, and then

with a grave air, “I promised Lion, I mean my guardian, never to run

into debt, and I never will.”

Lily turned resolutely from the perilous counter, taking up a paper

that contained a new ribbon she had bought for Blanche, and Clemmy

reluctantly followed her out of the shop.

Kenelm lingered behind and selected very hastily a few trifles, to be

sent to him that evening with some specimens of basket-work left to

Will’s tasteful discretion; then purchased the locket on which Clemmy

had set her heart; but all the while his thoughts were fixed on the ring

which Lily had tried on. It was no sin against etiquette to give the

locket to a child like Clemmy, but would it not be a cruel impertinence

to offer a gift to Lily?

Jessie spoke: “Miss Mordaunt took a great fancy to this ring, Mr.

Chillingly. I am sure her aunt would like her to have it. I have a great

mind to put it by on the chance of Mrs. Cameron’s calling here. It would

be a pity if it were bought by some one else.”

“I think,” said Kenelm, “that I will take the liberty of showing it to

Mrs. Cameron. No doubt she will buy it for her niece. Add the price

of it to my bill.” He seized the ring and carried it off; a very poor

little simple ring, with a single stone shaped as a heart, not half the

price of the locket.

Kenelm rejoined the young ladies just where the path split into two, the

one leading direct to Grasmere, the other through the churchyard to

the vicarage. He presented the locket to Clemmy with brief kindly words

which easily removed any scruple she might have had in accepting it;

and, delighted with her acquisition, she bounded off to the vicarage,

impatient to show the prize to her mamma and sisters, and more

especially to Miss Mary Burrows, who was coming to lunch with them.

Kenelm walked on slowly by Lily’s side.

“You have a good heart, Mr. Chillingly,” said she, somewhat abruptly.

“How it must please you to give such pleasure! Dear little Clemmy!”

This artless praise, and the perfect absence of envy or thought of self

evinced by her joy that her friend’s wish was gratified, though her own

was not, enchanted Kenelm.

“If it pleases to give pleasure,” said he, “it is your turn to be

pleased now; you can confer such pleasure upon me.”

“How?” she asked, falteringly, and with quick change of colour.

“By conceding to me the same right your little friend has allowed.”

And he drew forth the ring.

Lily reared her head with a first impulse of haughtiness. But when

her eyes met his the head drooped down again, and a slight shiver ran

through her frame.

“Miss Mordaunt,” resumed Kenelm, mastering his passionate longing to

fall at her feet and say, “But, oh! in this ring it is my love that

I offer,--it is my troth that I pledge!” “Miss Mordaunt, spare me the

misery of thinking that I have offended you; least of all would I do so

on this day, for it may be some little while before I see you again.

I am going home for a few days upon a matter which may affect the

happiness of my life, and on which I should be a bad son and an

unworthy gentleman if I did not consult him who, in all that concerns

my affections, has trained me to turn to him, the father; in all that

concerns my honour to him, the gentleman.”

A speech more unlike that which any delineator of manners and morals in

the present day would put into the mouth of a lover, no critic in “The

Londoner” could ridicule. But, somehow or other, this poor little tamer

of butterflies and teller of fairy tales comprehended on the instant all

that this most eccentric of human beings thus frigidly left untold.

Into her innermost heart it sank more deeply than would the most ardent

declaration put into the lips of the boobies or the scamps in whom

delineators of manners in the present day too often debase the

magnificent chivalry embodied in the name of “lover.”

Where these two had, while speaking, halted on the path along the

brook-side, there was a bench, on which it so happened that they had

seated themselves weeks before. A few moments later on that bench they

were seated again.

And the trumpery little ring with its turquoise heart was on Lily’s

finger, and there they continued to sit for nearly half an hour;

not talking much, but wondrously happy; not a single vow of troth

interchanged. No, not even a word that could be construed into “I love.”

And yet when they rose from the bench, and went silently along the

brook-side, each knew that the other was beloved.

When they reached the gate that admitted into the garden of Grasmere,

Kenelm made a slight start. Mrs. Cameron was leaning over the gate.

Whatever alarm at the appearance Kenelm might have felt was certainly

not shared by Lily; she advanced lightly before him, kissed her aunt on

the cheek, and passed on across the lawn with a bound in her step and

the carol of a song upon her lips.

Kenelm remained by the gate, face to face with Mrs. Cameron. She opened

the gate, put her arm in his, and led him back along the brook-side.

“I am sure, Mr. Chillingly,” she said, “that you will not impute to my

words any meaning more grave than that which I wish them to convey,

when I remind you that there is no place too obscure to escape from the

ill-nature of gossip, and you must own that my niece incurs the chance

of its notice if she be seen walking alone in these by-paths with a

man of your age and position, and whose sojourn in the neighbourhood,

without any ostensible object or motive, has already begun to excite

conjecture. I do not for a moment assume that you regard my niece in any

other light than that of an artless child, whose originality of tastes

or fancy may serve to amuse you; and still less do I suppose that she

is in danger of misrepresenting any attentions on your part. But for her

sake I am bound to consider what others may say. Excuse me, then, if I

add that I think you are also bound in honour and in good feeling to do

the same. Mr. Chillingly, it would give me a great sense of relief if it

suited your plans to move from the neighbourhood.”

“My dear Mrs. Cameron,” answered Kenelm, who had listened to this speech

with imperturbable calm of visage, “I thank you much for your candour,

and I am glad to have this opportunity of informing you that I am about

to move from this neighbourhood, with the hope of returning to it in

a very few days and rectifying your mistake as to the point of view

in which I regard your niece. In a word,” here the expression of his

countenance and the tone of his voice underwent a sudden change, “it is

the dearest wish of my heart to be empowered by my parents to assure you

of the warmth with which they will welcome your niece as their daughter,

should she deign to listen to my suit and intrust me with the charge of

her happiness.”

Mrs. Cameron stopped short, gazing into his face with a look of

inexpressible dismay.

“No! Mr. Chillingly,” she exclaimed, “this must not be,--cannot be. Put

out of your mind an idea so wild. A young man’s senseless romance.

Your parents cannot consent to your union with my niece; I tell you

beforehand they cannot.”

“But why?” asked Kenelm, with a slight smile, and not much impressed by

the vehemence of Mrs. Cameron’s adjuration.

“Why?” she repeated passionately; and then recovering something of her

habitual weariness of quiet. “The why is easily explained. Mr. Kenelm

Chillingly is the heir of a very ancient house and, I am told, of

considerable estates. Lily Mordaunt is a nobody, an orphan, without

fortune, without connection, the ward of a humbly born artist, to

whom she owes the roof that shelters her; she is without the ordinary

education of a gentlewoman; she has seen nothing of the world in which

you move. Your parents have not the right to allow a son so young

as yourself to throw himself out of his proper sphere by a rash and

imprudent alliance. And, never would I consent, never would Walter

Melville consent, to her entering into any family reluctant to receive

her. There,--that is enough. Dismiss the notion so lightly entertained.

And farewell.”

“Madam,” answered Kenelm very earnestly, “believe me, that had I not

entertained the hope approaching to conviction that the reasons you urge

against my presumption will not have the weight with my parents which

you ascribe to them, I should not have spoken to you thus frankly. Young

though I be, still I might fairly claim the right to choose for myself

in marriage. But I gave to my father a very binding promise that I would

not formally propose to any one till I had acquainted him with my desire

to do so, and obtained his approval of my choice; and he is the last man

in the world who would withhold that approval where my heart is set on

it as it is now. I want no fortune with a wife, and should I ever care

to advance my position in the world, no connection would help me like

the approving smile of the woman I love. There is but one qualification

which my parents would deem they had the right to exact from my

choice of one who is to bear our name. I mean that she should have the

appearance, the manners, the principles, and--my mother at least might

add--the birth of a gentlewoman. Well, as to appearance and manners, I

have seen much of fine society from my boyhood, and found no one among

the highest born who can excel the exquisite refinement of every look,

and the inborn delicacy of every thought, in her of whom, if mine, I

shall be as proud as I shall be fond. As to defects in the frippery

and tinsel of a boarding-school education, they are very soon remedied.

Remains only the last consideration,--birth. Mrs. Braefield informs me

that you have assured her that, though circumstances into which as yet

I have no right to inquire, have made her the ward of a man of humble

origin, Miss Mordaunt is of gentle birth. Do you deny that?”

“No,” said Mrs. Cameron, hesitating, but with a flash of pride in her

eyes as she went on. “No. I cannot deny that my niece is descended from

those who, in point of birth, were not unequal to your own ancestors.

But what of that?” she added, with a bitter despondency of tone.

“Equality of birth ceases when one falls into poverty, obscurity,

neglect, nothingness!”

“Really this is a morbid habit on your part. But, since we have thus

spoken so confidentially, will you not empower me to answer the question

which will probably be put to me, and the answer to which will, I doubt

not, remove every obstacle in the way of my happiness? Whatever the

reasons which might very sufficiently induce you to preserve, whilst

living so quietly in this place, a discreet silence as to the parentage

of Miss Mordaunt and your own,--and I am well aware that those whom

altered circumstances of fortune have compelled to altered modes of life

may disdain to parade to strangers the pretensions to a higher station

than that to which they reconcile their habits,--whatever, I say,

such reasons for silence to strangers, should they preclude you from

confiding to me, an aspirant to your niece’s hand, a secret which, after

all, cannot be concealed from her future husband?”

“From her future husband? of course not,” answered Mrs. Cameron. “But I

decline to be questioned by one whom I may never see again, and of whom

I know so little. I decline, indeed, to assist in removing any obstacle

to a union with my niece, which I hold to be in every way unsuited to

either party. I have no cause even to believe that my niece would accept

you if you were free to propose to her. You have not, I presume, spoken

to her as an aspirant to her hand. You have not addressed to her

any declaration of your attachment, or sought to extract from her

inexperience any words that warrant you in thinking that her heart will

break if she never sees you again.”

“I do not merit such cruel and taunting questions,” said Kenelm,

indignantly. “But I will say no more now. When we again meet let me hope

you will treat me less unkindly. Adieu!”

“Stay, sir. A word or two more. You persist in asking your father and

Lady Chillingly to consent to your proposal to Miss Mordaunt?”

“Certainly I do.”

“And you will promise me, on your word as a gentleman, to state fairly

all the causes which might fairly operate against their consent,--the

poverty, the humble rearing, the imperfect education of my niece,--so

that they might not hereafter say you had entrapped their consent, and

avenge themselves for your deceit by contempt for her?”

“Ah, madam, madam, you really try my patience too far. But take my

promise, if you can hold that of value from one whom you can suspect of

deliberate deceit.”

“I beg your pardon, Mr. Chillingly. Bear with my rudeness. I have been

so taken by surprise, I scarcely know what I am saying. But let us

understand each other completely before we part. If your parents

withhold their consent you will communicate it to me; me only, not to

Lily. I repeat I know nothing of the state of her affections. But it

might embitter any girl’s life to be led on to love one whom she could

not marry.”

“It shall be as you say. But if they do consent?”

“Then you will speak to me before you seek an interview with Lily, for

then comes another question: Will her guardian consent?--and--and--”

“And what?”

“No matter. I rely on your honour in this request, as in all else.

Good-day.”

She turned back with hurried footsteps, muttering to herself, “But they

will not consent. Heaven grant that they will not consent, or if they

do, what--what is to be said or done? Oh, that Walter Melville were

here, or that I knew where to write to him!”

On his way back to Cromwell Lodge, Kenelm was overtaken by the vicar.

“I was coming to you, my dear Mr. Chillingly, first to thank you for the

very pretty present with which you have gladdened the heart of my little

Clemmy, and next to ask you to come with me quietly to-day to meet Mr.

-----, the celebrated antiquarian, who came to Moleswich this morning

at my request to examine that old Gothic tomb in our churchyard. Only

think, though he cannot read the inscription any better than we can, he

knows all about its history. It seems that a young knight renowned for

feats of valour in the reign of Henry IV. married a daughter of one of

those great Earls of Montfichet who were then the most powerful family

in these parts. He was slain in defending the church from an assault by

some disorderly rioters of the Lollard faction; he fell on the very spot

where the tomb is now placed. That accounts for its situation in the

churchyard, not within the fabric. Mr. ----- discovered this fact in

an old memoir of the ancient and once famous family to which the young

knight Albert belonged, and which came, alas! to so shameful an end,

the Fletwodes, Barons of Fletwode and Malpas. What a triumph over pretty

Lily Mordaunt, who always chose to imagine that the tomb must be that of

some heroine of her own romantic invention! Do come to dinner; Mr. -----

is a most agreeable man, and full of interesting anecdotes.”

“I am so sorry I cannot. I am obliged to return home at once for a few

days. That old family of Fletwode! I think I see before me, while we

speak, the gray tower in which they once held sway; and the last of the

race following Mammon along the Progress of the Age,--a convicted felon!

What a terrible satire on the pride of birth!”

Kenelm left Cromwell Lodge that evening, but he still kept on his

apartments there, saying he might be back unexpectedly any day in the

course of the next week.

He remained two days in London, wishing all that he had communicated to

Sir Peter in writing to sink into his father’s heart before a personal

appeal to it.

The more he revolved the ungracious manner in which Mrs. Cameron had

received his confidence, the less importance he attached to it. An

exaggerated sense of disparities of fortune in a person who appeared

to him to have the pride so common to those who have known better days,

coupled with a nervous apprehension lest his family should ascribe to

her any attempt to ensnare a very young man of considerable worldly

pretensions into a marriage with a penniless niece, seemed to account

for much that had at first perplexed and angered him. And if, as he

conjectured, Mrs. Cameron had once held a much higher position in the

world than she did now,--a conjecture warranted by a certain peculiar

conventional undeniable elegance which characterized her habitual

manner,--and was now, as she implied, actually a dependant on the bounty

of a painter who had only just acquired some professional distinction,

she might well shrink from the mortification of becoming an object of

compassion to her richer neighbours; nor, when he came to think of it,

had he any more right than those neighbours to any confidence as to

her own or Lily’s parentage, so long as he was not formally entitled to

claim admission into her privity.

London seemed to him intolerably dull and wearisome. He called nowhere

except at Lady Glenalvon’s; he was glad to hear from the servants that

she was still at Exmundham. He relied much on the influence of the queen

of the fashion with his mother, whom he knew would be more difficult to

persuade than Sir Peter, nor did he doubt that he should win to his side

that sympathizing and warm-hearted queen.

CHAPTER VII.

IT is somewhere about three weeks since the party invited by Sir Peter

and Lady Chillingly assembled at Exmundham, and they are still there,

though people invited to a country house have seldom compassion

enough for the dulness of its owner to stay more than three days. Mr.

Chillingly Mivers, indeed, had not exceeded that orthodox limit. Quietly

observant, during his stay, of young Gordon’s manner towards Cecilia,

and hers towards him, he had satisfied himself that there was no

cause to alarm Sir Peter, or induce the worthy baronet to regret the

invitation he had given to that clever kinsman. For all the visitors

remaining Exmundham had a charm.

To Lady Glenalvon, because in the hostess she met her most familiar

friend when both were young girls, and because it pleased her to note

the interest which Cecilia Travers took in the place so associated with

memories of the man to whom it was Lady Glenalvon’s hope to see her

united. To Chillingly Gordon, because no opportunity could be so

favourable for his own well-concealed designs on the hand and heart of

the heiress. To the heiress herself the charm needs no explanation.

To Leopold Travers the attractions of Exmundham were unquestionably less

fascinating. Still even he was well pleased to prolong his stay. His

active mind found amusement in wandering over an estate the acreage of

which would have warranted a much larger rental, and lecturing Sir Peter

on the old-fashioned system of husbandry which that good-natured easy

proprietor permitted his tenants to adopt, as well as on the number of

superfluous hands that were employed on the pleasure-grounds and in the

general management of the estate, such as carpenters, sawyers, woodmen,

bricklayers, and smiths.

When the Squire said, “You could do just as well with a third of those

costly dependants,” Sir Peter, unconsciously plagiarizing the answer of

the old French grand seigneur, replied, “Very likely. But the question

is, could the rest do just as well without me?”

Exmundham, indeed, was a very expensive place to keep up. The house,

built by some ambitious Chillingly three centuries ago, would have been

large for an owner of thrice the revenues; and though the flower-garden

was smaller than that at Braefieldville, there were paths and drives

through miles of young plantations and old woodlands that furnished lazy

occupation to an army of labourers. No wonder that, despite his nominal

ten thousand a year, Sir Peter was far from being a rich man. Exmundham

devoured at least half the rental. The active mind of Leopold Travers

also found ample occupation in the stores of his host’s extensive

library.

Travers, never much of a reader, was by no means a despiser of learning,

and he soon took to historical and archaeological researches with the

ardour of a man who must always throw energy into any pursuit that

occasion presents as an escape from indolence. Indolent Leopold Travers

never could be. But, more than either of these resources of occupation,

the companionship of Chillingly Gordon excited his interest and

quickened the current of his thoughts. Always fond of renewing his own

youth in the society of the young, and of the sympathizing temperament

which belongs to cordial natures, he had, as we have seen, entered very

heartily into the ambition of George Belvoir, and reconciled himself

very pliably to the humours of Kenelm Chillingly. But the first of these

two was a little too commonplace, the second a little too eccentric, to

enlist the complete good-fellowship which, being alike very clever and

very practical, Leopold Travers established with that very clever and

very practical representative of the rising generation, Chillingly

Gordon. Between them there was this meeting-ground, political and

worldly, a great contempt for innocuous old-fashioned notions; added to

which, in the mind of Leopold Travers, was a contempt--which would

have been complete, but that the contempt admitted dread--of harmful

new-fashioned notions which, interpreted by his thoughts, threatened

ruin to his country and downfall to the follies of existent society,

and which, interpreted by his language, tamed itself into the man of the

world’s phrase, “Going too far for me.” Notions which, by the much

more cultivated intellect and the immeasurably more soaring ambition of

Chillingly Gordon, might be viewed and criticised thus: “Could I accept

these doctrines? I don’t see my way to being Prime Minister of a country

in which religion and capital are still powers to be consulted. And,

putting aside religion and capital, I don’t see how, if these doctrines

passed into law, with a good coat on my back I should not be a sufferer.

Either I, as having a good coat, should have it torn off my back as a

capitalist, or, if I remonstrated in the name of moral honesty, be put

to death as a religionist.”

Therefore when Leopold Travers said, “Of course we must go on,”

Chillingly Gordon smiled and answered, “Certainly, go on.” And when

Leopold Travers added, “But we may go too far,” Chillingly Gordon shook

his dead, and replied, “How true that is! Certainly too far.”

Apart from the congeniality of political sentiment, there were other

points of friendly contact between the older and younger man. Each was

an exceedingly pleasant man of the world; and, though Leopold Travers

could not have plumbed certain deeps in Chillingly Gordon’s nature,--and

in every man’s nature there are deeps which his ablest observer cannot

fathom,--yet he was not wrong when he said to himself, “Gordon is a

gentleman.”

Utterly would my readers misconceive that very clever young man, if they

held him to be a hypocrite like Blifil or Joseph Surface. Chillingly

Gordon, in every private sense of the word, was a gentleman. If he had

staked his whole fortune on a rubber at whist, and an undetected glance

at his adversary’s hand would have made the difference between loss and

gain, he would have turned away his head and said, “Hold up your cards.”

Neither, as I have had occasion to explain before, was he actuated

by any motive in common with the vulgar fortune-hunter in his secret

resolve to win the hand of the heiress. He recognized no inequality of

worldly gifts between them. He said to himself, “Whatever she may give

me in money, I shall amply repay in worldly position if I succeed, and

succeed I certainly shall. If I were as rich as Lord Westminster, and

still cared about being Prime Minister, I should select her as the most

fitting woman I have seen for a Prime Minister’s wife.”

It must be acknowledged that this sort of self-commune, if not that of

a very ardent lover, is very much that of a sensible man setting high

value on himself, bent on achieving the prizes of a public career, and

desirous of securing in his wife a woman who would adorn the station

to which he confidently aspired. In fact, no one so able as Chillingly

Gordon would ever have conceived the ambition of being Minister of

England if in all that in private life constitutes the English gentleman

he could be fairly subject to reproach.

He was but in public life what many a gentleman honest in private life

has been before him, an ambitious, resolute egotist, by no means without

personal affections, but holding them all subordinate to the objects

of personal ambition, and with no more of other principle than that

of expediency in reference to his own career than would cover a silver

penny. But expediency in itself he deemed the statesman’s only rational

principle. And to the consideration of expediency he brought a very

unprejudiced intellect, quite fitted to decide whether the public

opinion of a free and enlightened people was for turning St. Paul’s

Cathedral into an Agapemone or not.

During the summer weeks he had thus vouchsafed to the turfs and groves

of Exmundham, Leopold Travers was not the only person whose good opinion

Chillingly Gordon had ingratiated. He had won the warmest approbation

from Mrs. Campion. His conversation reminded her of that which she had

enjoyed in the house of her departed spouse. In talking with Cecilia she

was fond of contrasting him to Kenelm, not to the favour of the

latter, whose humours she utterly failed to understand, and whom she

pertinaciously described as “so affected.” “A most superior young man

Mr. Gordon, so well informed, so sensible,--above all, so natural.” Such

was her judgment upon the unavowed candidate to Cecilia’s hand; and

Mrs. Campion required no avowal to divine the candidature. Even Lady

Glenalvon had begun to take friendly interest in the fortunes of this

promising young man. Most women can sympathize with youthful ambition.

He impressed her with a deep conviction of his abilities, and still more

with respect for their concentration upon practical objects of power

and renown. She too, like Mrs. Campion, began to draw comparisons

unfavourable to Kenelm between the two cousins: the one seemed so

slothfully determined to hide his candle under a bushel, the other so

honestly disposed to set his light before men. She felt also annoyed and

angry that Kenelm was thus absenting himself from the paternal home at

the very time of her first visit to it, and when he had so felicitous

an opportunity of seeing more of the girl in whom he knew that Lady

Glenalvon deemed he might win, if he would properly woo, the wife that

would best suit him. So that when one day Mrs. Campion, walking through

the gardens alone with Lady Glenalvon while from the gardens into the

park went Chillingly Gordon, arm-in-arm with Leopold Travers, abruptly

asked, “Don’t you think that Mr. Gordon is smitten with Cecilia, though

he, with his moderate fortune, does not dare to say so? And don’t you

think that any girl, if she were as rich as Cecilia will be, would be

more proud of such a husband as Chillingly Gordon than of some silly

earl?”

Lady Glenalvon answered curtly, but somewhat sorrowfully, “Yes.”

After a pause she added, “There is a man with whom I did once think she

would have been happier than with any other. One man who ought to be

dearer to me than Mr. Gordon, for he saved the life of my son, and who,

though perhaps less clever than Mr. Gordon, still has a great deal of

talent within him, which might come forth and make him--what shall I

say?--a useful and distinguished member of society, if married to a girl

so sure of raising any man she marries as Cecilia Travers. But if I am

to renounce that hope, and look through the range of young men brought

under my notice, I don’t know one, putting aside consideration of rank

and fortune, I should prefer for a clever daughter who went heart and

soul with the ambition of a clever man. But, Mrs. Campion, I have not

yet quite renounced my hope; and, unless I do, I yet think there is one

man to whom I would rather give Cecilia, if she were my daughter.”

Therewith Lady Glenalvon so decidedly broke off the subject of

conversation that Mrs. Campion could not have renewed it without such a

breach of the female etiquette of good breeding as Mrs. Campion was the

last person to adventure.

Lady Chillingly could not help being pleased with Gordon. He was light

in hand, served to amuse her guests, and made up a rubber of whist in

case of need.

There were two persons, however, with whom Gordon made no ground;

namely, Parson John and Sir Peter. When Travers praised him one day for

the solidity of his parts and the soundness of his judgment, the Parson

replied snappishly, “Yes, solid and sound as one of those tables you

buy at a broker’s; the thickness of the varnish hides the defects in

the joints: the whole framework is rickety.” But when the Parson was

indignantly urged to state the reason by which he arrived at so harsh

a conclusion, he could only reply by an assertion which seemed to his

questioner a declamatory burst of parsonic intolerance.

“Because,” said Parson John, “he has no love for man, and no reverence

for God. And no character is sound and solid which enlarges its surface

at the expense of its supports.”

On the other hand, the favour with which Sir Peter had at first regarded

Gordon gradually vanished, in proportion as, acting on the hint Mivers

had originally thrown out but did not deem it necessary to repeat, he

watched the pains which the young man took to insinuate himself into

the good graces of Mr. Travers and Mrs. Campion, and the artful and

half-suppressed gallantry of his manner to the heiress.

Perhaps Gordon had not ventured thus “to feel his way” till after Mivers

had departed; or perhaps Sir Peter’s parental anxiety rendered him, in

this instance, a shrewder observer than was the man of the world,

whose natural acuteness was, in matters of affection, not unfrequently

rendered languid by his acquired philosophy of indifferentism.

More and more every day, every hour, of her sojourn beneath his roof,

did Cecilia become dearer to Sir Peter, and stronger and stronger became

his wish to secure her for his daughter-in-law. He was inexpressibly

flattered by her preference for his company: ever at hand to share his

customary walks, his kindly visits to the cottages of peasants or the

homesteads of petty tenants; wherein both were sure to hear many a

simple anecdote of Master Kenelm in his childhood, anecdotes of whim or

good-nature, of considerate pity or reckless courage.

Throughout all these varieties of thought or feeling in the social

circle around her, Lady Chillingly preserved the unmoved calm of her

dignified position. A very good woman certainly, and very ladylike. No

one could detect a flaw in her character, or a fold awry in her flounce.

She was only, like the gods of Epicurus, too good to trouble her serene

existence with the cares of us simple mortals. Not that she was without

a placid satisfaction in the tribute which the world laid upon her

altars; nor was she so supremely goddess-like as to soar above the

household affections which humanity entails on the dwellers and denizens

of earth. She liked her husband as much as most elderly wives like their

elderly husbands. She bestowed upon Kenelm a liking somewhat more warm,

and mingled with compassion. His eccentricities would have puzzled her,

if she had allowed herself to be puzzled: it troubled her less to pity

them. She did not share her husband’s desire for his union with Cecilia.

She thought that her son would have a higher place in the county if he

married Lady Jane, the Duke of Clanville’s daughter; and “that is what

he ought to do,” said Lady Chillingly to herself. She entertained

none of the fear that had induced Sir Peter to extract from Kenelm

the promise not to pledge his hand before he had received his father’s

consent. That the son of Lady Chillingly should make a _mesalliance_,

however crotchety he might be in other respects, was a thought that it

would have so disturbed her to admit that she did not admit it.

Such was the condition of things at Exmundham when the lengthy

communication of Kenelm reached Sir Peter’s hands.

BOOK VIII.

CHAPTER I.

NEVER in his whole life had the mind of Sir Peter been so agitated as it

was during and after the perusal of Kenelm’s flighty composition. He had

received it at the breakfast-table, and, opening it eagerly, ran his eye

hastily over the contents, till he very soon arrived at sentences

which appalled him. Lady Chillingly, who was fortunately busied at the

tea-urn, did not observe the dismay on his countenance. It was visible

only to Cecilia and to Gordon. Neither guessed who that letter was from.

“No bad news, I hope,” said Cecilia, softly.

“Bad news,” echoed Sir Peter. “No, my dear, no; a letter on business.

It seems terribly long,” and he thrust the packet into his pocket,

muttering, “see to it by and by.”

“That slovenly farmer of yours, Mr. Nostock, has failed, I suppose,”

said Mr. Travers, looking up and observing a quiver on his host’s

lip. “I told you he would,--a fine farm too. Let me choose you another

tenant.”

Sir Peter shook his head with a wan smile.

“Nostock will not fail. There have been six generations of Nostocks on

the farm.”

“So I should guess,” said Travers, dryly.

“And--and,” faltered Sir Peter, “if the last of the race fails, he must

lean upon me, and--if one of the two break down--it shall not be--”

“Shall not be that cross-cropping blockhead, my dear Sir Peter. This is

carrying benevolence too far.”

Here the tact and _savoir vivre_ of Chillingly Gordon came to the rescue

of the host. Possessing himself of the “Times” newspaper, he uttered an

exclamation of surprise, genuine or simulated, and read aloud an extract

from the leading article, announcing an impending change in the Cabinet.

As soon as he could quit the breakfast-table, Sir Peter hurried into

his library and there gave himself up to the study of Kenelm’s unwelcome

communication. The task took him long, for he stopped at intervals,

overcome by the struggle of his heart, now melted into sympathy with the

passionate eloquence of a son hitherto so free from amorous romance, and

now sorrowing for the ruin of his own cherished hopes. This uneducated

country girl would never be such a helpmate to a man like Kenelm as

would have been Cecilia Travers. At length, having finished the letter,

he buried his head between his clasped hands, and tried hard to

realize the situation that placed the father and son into such direct

antagonism.

“But,” he murmured, “after all it is the boy’s happiness that must be

consulted. If he will not be happy in my way, what right have I to say

that he shall not be happy in his?”

Just then Cecilia came softly into the room. She had acquired the

privilege of entering his library at will; sometimes to choose a book of

his recommendation, sometimes to direct and seal his letters,--Sir Peter

was grateful to any one who saved him an extra trouble,--and

sometimes, especially at this hour, to decoy him forth into his wonted

constitutional walk.

He lifted his face at the sound of her approaching tread and her winning

voice, and the face was so sad that the tears rushed to her eyes on

seeing it. She laid her hand on his shoulder, and said pleadingly, “Dear

Sir Peter, what is it,--what is it?”

“Ah--ah, my dear,” said Sir Peter, gathering up the scattered sheets of

Kenelm’s effusion with hurried, trembling hands. “Don’t ask,--don’t talk

of it; ‘tis but one of the disappointments that all of us must undergo,

when we invest our hopes in the uncertain will of others.”

Then, observing that the tears were trickling down the girl’s fair, pale

cheeks, he took her hand in both his, kissed her forehead, and said,

whisperingly, “Pretty one, how good you have been to me! Heaven bless

you. What a wife you will be to some man!”

Thus saying, he shambled out of the room through the open casement. She

followed him impulsively, wonderingly; but before she reached his side

he turned round, waved his hand with a gently repelling gesture, and

went his way alone through dense fir-groves which had been planted in

honour of Kenelm’s birth.

CHAPTER II.

KENELM arrived at Exmundham just in time to dress for dinner. His

arrival was not unexpected, for the morning after his father had

received his communication, Sir Peter had said to Lady Chillingly--“that

he had heard from Kenelm to the effect that he might be down any day.”

“Quite time he should come,” said Lady Chillingly. “Have you his letter

about you?”

“No, my dear Caroline. Of course he sends you his kindest love, poor

fellow.”

“Why poor fellow? Has he been ill?”

“No; but there seems to be something on his mind. If so we must do what

we can to relieve it. He is the best of sons, Caroline.”

“I am sure I have nothing to say against him, except,” added her

Ladyship, reflectively, “that I do wish he were a little more like other

young men.”

“Hum--like Chillingly Gordon, for instance?”

“Well, yes; Mr. Gordon is a remarkably well-bred, sensible young man.

How different from that disagreeable, bearish father of his, who went to

law with you!”

“Very different indeed, but with just as much of the Chillingly blood in

him. How the Chillinglys ever gave birth to a Kenelm is a question much

more puzzling.”

“Oh, my dear Sir Peter, don’t be metaphysical. You know how I hate

puzzles.”

“And yet, Caroline, I have to thank you for a puzzle which I can never

interpret by my brain. There are a great many puzzles in human nature

which can only be interpreted by the heart.”

“Very true,” said Lady Chillingly. “I suppose Kenelm is to have his old

room, just opposite to Mr. Gordon’s.”

“Ay--ay, just opposite. Opposite they will be all their lives. Only

think, Caroline, I have made a discovery!”

“Dear me! I hope not. Your discoveries are generally very expensive, and

bring us in contact with such very odd people.”

“This discovery shall not cost us a penny, and I don’t know any people

so odd as not to comprehend it. Briefly it is this: To genius the

first requisite is heart; it is no requisite at all to talent. My dear

Caroline, Gordon has as much talent as any young man I know, but he

wants the first requisite of genius. I am not by any means sure that

Kenelm has genius, but there is no doubt that he has the first requisite

of genius,--heart. Heart is a very perplexing, wayward, irrational

thing; and that perhaps accounts for the general incapacity to

comprehend genius, while any fool can comprehend talent. My dear

Caroline, you know that it is very seldom, not more than once in three

years, that I presume to have a will of my own against a will of yours;

but should there come a question in which our son’s heart is concerned,

then (speaking between ourselves) my will must govern yours.”

“Sir Peter is growing more odd every day,” said Lady Chillingly to

herself when left alone. “But he does not mean ill, and there are worse

husbands in the world.”

Therewith she rang for her maid, gave requisite orders for the preparing

of Kenelm’s room, which had not been slept in for many months, and then

consulted that functionary as to the adaptation of some dress of hers,

too costly to be laid aside, to the style of some dress less costly

which Lady Glenalvon had imported from Paris as _la derniere mode_.

On the very day on which Kenelm arrived at Exmundham, Chillingly Gordon

had received this letter from Mr. Gerald Danvers.

DEAR GORDON,--In the ministerial changes announced as rumour in the

public papers, and which you may accept as certain, that sweet little

cherub--is to be sent to sit up aloft and pray there for the life of

poor Jack; namely, of the government he leaves below. In accepting the

peerage, which I persuaded him to do,--creates a vacancy for the

borough of -----, just the place for you, far better in every way than

Saxborough. ----- promises to recommend you to his committee. Come to

town at once. Yours, etc.

G. DANVERS.

Gordon showed this letter to Mr. Travers, and, on receiving the hearty

good-wishes of that gentleman, said, with emotion partly genuine, partly

assumed, “You cannot guess all that the realization of your good-wishes

would be. Once in the House of Commons, and my motives for action are

so strong that--do not think me very conceited if I count upon

Parliamentary success.”

“My clear Gordon, I am as certain of your success as I am of my own

existence.”

“Should I succeed,--should the great prizes of public life be within

my reach,--should I lift myself into a position that would warrant my

presumption, do you think I could come to you and say, ‘There is an

object of ambition dearer to me than power and office,--the hope of

attaining which was the strongest of all my motives of action? And in

that hope shall I also have the good-wishes of the father of Cecilia

Travers?”

“My dear fellow, give me your hand; you speak manfully and candidly as a

gentleman should speak. I answer in the same spirit. I don’t pretend

to say that I have not entertained views for Cecilia which included

hereditary rank and established fortune in a suitor to her hand, though

I never should have made them imperative conditions. I am neither

potentate nor _parvenu_ enough for that; and I can never forget” (here

every muscle in the man’s face twitched) “that I myself married for

love, and was so happy. How happy Heaven only knows! Still, if you had

thus spoken a few weeks ago, I should not have replied very favourably

to your question. But now that I have seen so much of you, my answer is

this: If you lose your election,--if you don’t come into Parliament

at all, you have my good-wishes all the same. If you win my daughter’s

heart, there is no man on whom I would more willingly bestow her hand.

There she is, by herself too, in the garden. Go and talk to her.”

Gordon hesitated. He knew too well that he had not won her heart, though

he had no suspicion that it was given to another. And he was much

too clever not to know also how much he hazards who, in affairs of

courtship, is premature.

“Ah!” he said, “I cannot express my gratitude for words so generous,

encouragement so cheering. But I have never yet dared to utter to Miss

Travers a word that would prepare her even to harbour a thought of me as

a suitor. And I scarcely think I should have the courage to go through

this election with the grief of her rejection on my heart.”

“Well, go in and win the election first; meanwhile, at all events, take

leave of Cecilia.”

Gordon left his friend, and joined Miss Travers, resolved not indeed

to risk a formal declaration, but to sound his way to his chances of

acceptance.

The interview was very brief. He did sound his way skilfully, and felt

it very unsafe for his footsteps. The advantage of having gained the

approval of the father was too great to be lost altogether, by one of

those decided answers on the part of the daughter which allow of no

appeal, especially to a poor gentleman who wooes an heiress.

He returned to Travers, and said simply, “I bear with me her good-wishes

as well as yours. That is all. I leave myself in your kind hands.”

Then he hurried away to take leave of his host and hostess, say a few

significant words to the ally he had already gained in Mrs. Campion, and

within an hour was on his road to London, passing on his way the train

that bore Kenelm to Exmundham. Gordon was in high spirits. At least he

felt as certain of winning Cecilia as he did of winning his election.

“I have never yet failed in what I desired,” said he to himself,

“because I have ever taken pains not to fail.”

The cause of Gordon’s sudden departure created a great excitement in

that quiet circle, shared by all except Cecilia and Sir Peter.

CHAPTER III.

KENELM did not see either father or mother till he appeared at dinner.

Then he was seated next to Cecilia. There was but little conversation

between the two; in fact, the prevalent subject of talk was general and

engrossing, the interest in Chillingly Gordon’s election; predictions

of his success, of what he would do in Parliament. “Where,” said Lady

Glenalvon, “there is such a dearth of rising young men, that if he were

only half as clever as he is he would be a gain.”

“A gain to what?” asked Sir Peter, testily. “To his country? about which

I don’t believe he cares a brass button.”

To this assertion Leopold Travers replied warmly, and was not less

warmly backed by Mrs. Campion.

“For my part,” said Lady Glenalvon, in conciliatory accents, “I think

every able man in Parliament is a gain to the country; and he may not

serve his country less effectively because he does not boast of his

love for it. The politicians I dread most are those so rampant in France

nowadays, the bawling patriots. When Sir Robert Walpole said, ‘All

those men have their price,’ he pointed to the men who called themselves

‘patriots.’”

“Bravo!” cried Travers.

“Sir Robert Walpole showed his love for his country by corrupting it.

There are many ways besides bribing for corrupting a country,” said

Kenelm, mildly, and that was Kenelm’s sole contribution to the general

conversation.

It was not till the rest of the party had retired to rest that the

conference, longed for by Kenelm, dreaded by Sir Peter, took place in

the library. It lasted deep into the night; both parted with lightened

hearts and a fonder affection for each other. Kenelm had drawn so

charming a picture of the Fairy, and so thoroughly convinced Sir Peter

that his own feelings towards her were those of no passing youthful

fancy, but of that love which has its roots in the innermost heart,

that though it was still with a sigh, a deep sigh, that he dismissed

the thought of Cecilia, Sir Peter did dismiss it; and, taking comfort at

last from the positive assurance that Lily was of gentle birth, and

the fact that her name of Mordaunt was that of ancient and illustrious

houses, said, with half a smile, “It might have been worse, my dear

boy. I began to be afraid that, in spite of the teachings of Mivers and

Welby, it was ‘The Miller’s Daughter,’ after all. But we still have

a difficult task to persuade your poor mother. In covering your first

flight from our roof I unluckily put into her head the notion of Lady

Jane, a duke’s daughter, and the notion has never got out of it. That

comes of fibbing.”

“I count on Lady Glenalvon’s influence on my mother in support of

your own,” said Kenelm. “If so accepted an oracle in the great world

pronounce in my favour, and promise to present my wife at Court and

bring her into fashion, I think that my mother will consent to allow us

to reset the old family diamonds for her next reappearance in London.

And then, too, you can tell her that I will stand for the county. I will

go into Parliament, and if I meet there our clever cousin, and find that

he does not care a brass button for the country, take my word for it, I

will lick him more easily than I licked Tom Bowles.”

“Tom Bowles! who is he?--ah! I remember some letter of yours in which

you spoke of a Bowles, whose favourite study was mankind, a moral

philosopher.”

“Moral philosophers,” answered Kenelm, “have so muddled their brains

with the alcohol of new ideas that their moral legs have become shaky,

and the humane would rather help them to bed than give them a licking.

My Tom Bowles is a muscular Christian, who became no less muscular, but

much more Christian, after he was licked.”

And in this pleasant manner these two oddities settled their conference,

and went up to bed with arms wrapped round each other’s shoulder.

CHAPTER IV.

KENELM found it a much harder matter to win Lady Glenalvon to his side

than he had anticipated. With the strong interest she had taken in

Kenelm’s future, she could not but revolt from the idea of his union

with an obscure portionless girl whom he had only known a few weeks,

and of whose very parentage he seemed to know nothing, save an assurance

that she was his equal in birth. And, with the desire, which she had

cherished almost as fondly as Sir Peter, that Kenelm might win a bride

in every way so worthy of his choice as Cecilia Travers, she felt not

less indignant than regretful at the overthrow of her plans.

At first, indeed, she was so provoked that she would not listen to

his pleadings. She broke away from him with a rudeness she had never

exhibited to any one before, refused to grant him another interview in

order to re-discuss the matter, and said that, so far from using her

influence in favour of his romantic folly, she would remonstrate well

with Lady Chillingly and Sir Peter against yielding their assent to his

“thus throwing himself away.”

It was not till the third day after his arrival that, touched by the

grave but haughty mournfulness of his countenance, she yielded to the

arguments of Sir Peter in the course of a private conversation with that

worthy baronet. Still it was reluctantly (she did not fulfil her threat

of remonstrance with Lady Chillingly) that she conceded the point,

that a son who, succeeding to the absolute fee-simple of an estate, had

volunteered the resettlement of it on terms singularly generous to both

his parents, was entitled to some sacrifice of their inclinations on a

question in which he deemed his happiness vitally concerned; and that he

was of age to choose for himself independently of their consent, but for

a previous promise extracted from him by his father, a promise which,

rigidly construed, was not extended to Lady Chillingly, but confined

to Sir Peter as the head of the family and master of the household. The

father’s consent was already given, and, if in his reverence for both

parents Kenelm could not dispense with his mother’s approval, surely

it was the part of a true friend to remove every scruple from his

conscience, and smooth away every obstacle to a love not to be condemned

because it was disinterested.

After this conversation, Lady Glenalvon sought Kenelm, found him

gloomily musing on the banks of the trout-stream, took his arm, led him

into the sombre glades of the fir-grove, and listened patiently to

all he had to say. Even then her woman’s heart was not won to his

reasonings, until he said pathetically, “You thanked me once for saving

your son’s life: you said then that you could never repay me; you can

repay me tenfold. Could your son, who is now, we trust, in heaven, look

down and judge between us, do you think he would approve you if you

refuse?”

Then Lady Glenalvon wept, and took his hand, kissed his forehead as

a mother might kiss it, and said, “You triumph; I will go to Lady

Chillingly at once. Marry her whom you so love, on one condition: marry

her from my house.”

Lady Glenalvon was not one of those women who serve a friend by

halves. She knew well how to propitiate and reason down the apathetic

temperament of Lady Chillingly; she did not cease till that lady herself

came into Kenelm’s room, and said very quietly,--

“So you are going to propose to Miss Mordaunt, the Warwickshire

Mordaunts I suppose? Lady Glenalvon says she is a very lovely girl,

and will stay with her before the wedding. And as the young lady is an

orphan Lady Glenalvon’s uncle the Duke, who is connected with the eldest

branch of the Mordaunts, will give her away. It will be a very brilliant

affair. I am sure I wish you happy; it is time you should have sown your

wild oats.”

Two days after the consent thus formally given, Kenelm quitted

Exmundham. Sir Peter would have accompanied him to pay his respects to

the intended, but the agitation he had gone through brought on a sharp

twinge of the gout, which consigned his feet to flannels.

After Kenelm had gone, Lady Glenalvon went into Cecilia’s room. Cecilia

was seated very desolately by the open window. She had detected that

something of an anxious and painful nature had been weighing upon the

minds of father and son, and had connected it with the letter which had

so disturbed the even mind of Sir Peter; but she did not divine what the

something was, and if mortified by a certain reserve, more distant than

heretofore, which had characterized Kenelm’s manner towards herself,

the mortification was less sensibly felt than a tender sympathy for the

sadness she had observed on his face and yearned to soothe. His reserve

had, however, made her own manner more reserved than of old, for which

she was now rather chiding herself than reproaching him.

Lady Glenalvon put her arms round Cecilia’s neck and kissed her,

whispering, “That man has so disappointed me: he is so unworthy of the

happiness I had once hoped for him!”

“Whom do you speak of?” murmured Cecilia, turning very pale.

“Kenelm Chillingly. It seems that he has conceived a fancy for some

penniless girl whom he has met in his wanderings, has come here to

get the consent of his parents to propose to her, has obtained their

consent, and is gone to propose.”

Cecilia remained silent for a moment with her eyes closed, then she

said, “He is worthy of all happiness, and he would never make an

unworthy choice. Heaven bless him--and--and--” She would have added,

“his bride,” but her lips refused to utter the word bride.

“Cousin Gordon is worth ten of him,” cried Lady Glenalvon, indignantly.

She had served Kenelm, but she had not forgiven him.

CHAPTER V.

KENELM slept in London that night, and, the next day, being singularly

fine for an English summer, he resolved to go to Moleswich on foot. He

had no need this time to encumber himself with a knapsack; he had left

sufficient change of dress in his lodgings at Cromwell Lodge.

It was towards the evening when he found himself in one of the prettiest

rural villages by which

“Wanders the hoary Thames along

His silver-winding way.”

It was not in the direct road from London to Moleswich, but it was a

pleasanter way for a pedestrian. And when, quitting the long street of

the sultry village, he came to the shelving margin of the river, he was

glad to rest a while, enjoy the cool of the rippling waters, and listen

to their placid murmurs amid the rushes in the bordering shallows. He

had ample time before him. His rambles while at Cromwell Lodge had made

him familiar with the district for miles round Moleswich, and he knew

that a footpath through the fields at the right would lead him, in less

than an hour, to the side of the tributary brook on which Cromwell Lodge

was placed, opposite the wooden bridge which conducted to Grasmere and

Moleswich.

To one who loves the romance of history, English history, the whole

course of the Thames is full of charm. Ah! could I go back to the days

in which younger generations than that of Kenelm Chillingly were unborn,

when every wave of the Rhine spoke of history and romance to me, what

fairies should meet on thy banks, O thou our own Father Thames! Perhaps

some day a German pilgrim may repay tenfold to thee the tribute rendered

by the English kinsman to the Father Rhine.

Listening to the whispers of the reeds, Kenelm Chillingly felt the

haunting influence of the legendary stream. Many a poetic incident or

tradition in antique chronicle, many a votive rhyme in song, dear to

forefathers whose very names have become a poetry to us, thronged dimly

and confusedly back to his memory, which had little cared to retain such

graceful trinkets in the treasure-house of love. But everything that,

from childhood upward, connects itself with romance, revives with yet

fresher bloom in the memories of him who loves.

And to this man, through the first perilous season of youth, so

abnormally safe from youth’s most wonted peril,--to this would-be

pupil of realism, this learned adept in the schools of a Welby or a

Mivers,--to this man, love came at last as with the fatal powers of

the fabled Cytherea; and with that love all the realisms of life became

ideals, all the stern lines of our commonplace destinies undulated into

curves of beauty, all the trite sounds of our every-day life attuned

into delicacies of song. How full of sanguine yet dreamy bliss was his

heart--and seemed his future--in the gentle breeze and the softened glow

of that summer eve! He should see Lily the next morn, and his lips were

now free to say all that they had as yet suppressed.

Suddenly he was roused from the half-awake, half-asleep happiness that

belongs to the moments in which we transport ourselves into Elysium, by

the carol of a voice more loudly joyous than that of his own heart--

“Singing, singing,

Lustily singing,

Down the road, with his dogs before,

Came the Ritter of Nierestein.”

Kenelm turned his head so quickly that he frightened Max, who had for

the last minute been standing behind him inquisitively with one paw

raised, and sniffing, in some doubt whether he recognized an old

acquaintance; but at Kenelm’s quick movement the animal broke into a

nervous bark, and ran back to his master.

The minstrel, little heeding the figure reclined on the bank, would have

passed on with his light tread and his cheery carol, but Kenelm rose to

his feet, and holding out his hand, said, “I hope you don’t share Max’s

alarm at meeting me again?”

“Ah, my young philosopher, is it indeed you?”

“If I am to be designated a philosopher it is certainly not I. And,

honestly speaking, I am not the same. I, who spent that pleasant day

with you among the fields round Luscombe two years ago--”

“Or who advised me at Tor Hadham to string my lyre to the praise of a

beefsteak. I, too, am not quite the same,--I, whose dog presented you

with the begging-tray.”

“Yet you still go through the world singing.”

“Even that vagrant singing time is pretty well over. But I disturbed you

from your repose; I would rather share it. You are probably not going my

way, and as I am in no hurry, I should not like to lose the opportunity

chance has so happily given me of renewing acquaintance with one who has

often been present to my thoughts since we last met.” Thus saying, the

minstrel stretched himself at ease on the bank, and Kenelm followed his

example.

There certainly was a change in the owner of the dog with the

begging-tray, a change in costume, in countenance, in that indescribable

self-evidence which we call “manner.” The costume was not that Bohemian

attire in which Kenelm had first encountered the wandering minstrel, nor

the studied, more graceful garb, which so well became his shapely form

during his visit to Luscombe. It was now neatly simple, the cool and

quiet summer dress any English gentleman might adopt in a long rural

walk. And as he uncovered his head to court the cooling breeze, there

was a graver dignity in the man’s handsome Rubens-like face, a line of

more concentrated thought in the spacious forehead, a thread or two of

gray shimmering here and there through the thick auburn curls of hair

and beard. And in his manner, though still very frank, there was just

perceptible a sort of self-assertion, not offensive, but manly; such

as does not misbecome one of maturer years, and of some established

position, addressing another man much younger than himself, who in

all probability has achieved no position at all beyond that which the

accident of birth might assign to him.

“Yes,” said the minstrel, with a half-suppressed sigh, “the last year

of my vagrant holidays has come to its close. I recollect that the first

day we met by the road-side fountain, I advised you to do like me, seek

amusement and adventure as a foot-traveller. Now, seeing you, evidently

a gentleman by education and birth, still a foot-traveller, I feel as if

I ought to say, ‘You have had enough of such experience: vagabond life

has its perils as well as charms; cease it, and settle down.’”

“I think of doing so,” replied Kenelm, laconically.

“In a profession?--army, law, medicine?”

“No.”

“Ah, in marriage then. Right; give me your hand on that. So a petticoat

indeed has at last found its charm for you in the actual world as well

as on the canvas of a picture?”

“I conclude,” said Kenelm, evading any direct notice of that playful

taunt, “I conclude from your remark that it is in marriage _you_ are

about to settle down.”

“Ay, could I have done so before I should have been saved from many

errors, and been many years nearer to the goal which dazzled my sight

through the haze of my boyish dreams.”

“What is that goal,--the grave?”

“The grave! That which allows of no grave,--fame.”

“I see--despite of what you just now said--you still mean to go through

the world seeking a poet’s fame.”

“Alas! I resign that fancy,” said the minstrel, with another half-sigh.

“It was not indeed wholly, but in great part the hope of the poet’s fame

that made me a truant in the way to that which destiny, and such few

gifts as Nature conceded to me, marked out for my proper and only goal.

But what a strange, delusive Will-o’-the-Wisp the love of verse-making

is! How rarely a man of good sense deceives himself as to other things

for which he is fitted, in which he can succeed; but let him once drink

into his being the charm of verse-making, how the glamour of the charm

bewitches his understanding! how long it is before he can believe that

the world will not take his word for it, when he cries out to sun, moon,

and stars, ‘I, too, am a poet.’ And with what agonies, as if at the

wrench of soul from life, he resigns himself at last to the conviction

that whether he or the world be right, it comes to the same thing. Who

can plead his cause before a court that will not give him a hearing?”

It was with an emotion so passionately strong, and so intensely painful,

that the owner of the dog with the begging-tray thus spoke, that Kenelm

felt, through sympathy, as if he himself were torn asunder by the wrench

of life from soul. But then Kenelm was a mortal so eccentric that, if

a single acute suffering endured by a fellow mortal could be brought

before the evidence of his senses, I doubt whether he would not have

suffered as much as that fellow-mortal. So that, though if there were a

thing in the world which Kenelm Chillingly would care not to do, it was

verse-making, his mind involuntarily hastened to the arguments by which

he could best mitigate the pang of the verse-maker.

Quoth he: “According to my very scanty reading, you share the love

of verse-making with men the most illustrious in careers which have

achieved the goal of fame. It must, then, be a very noble love:

Augustus, Pollio, Varius, Maecenas,--the greatest statesmen of their

day,--they were verse-makers. Cardinal Richelieu was a verse-maker;

Walter Raleigh and Philip Sidney, Fox, Burke, Sheridan, Warren

Hastings, Canning, even the grave William Pitt,--all were verse-makers.

Verse-making did not retard--no doubt the qualities essential to

verse-making accelerated--their race to the goal of fame. What great

painters have been verse-makers! Michael Angelo, Leonardo da Vinci,

Salvator Rosa”--and Heaven knows how may other great names Kenelm

Chillingly might have proceeded to add to his list, if the minstrel had

not here interposed.

“What! all those mighty painters were verse-makers?”

“Verse-makers so good, especially Michael Angelo,--the greatest painter

of all,--that they would have had the fame of poets, if, unfortunately

for that goal of fame, their glory in the sister art of painting did not

outshine it. But when you give to your gift of song the modest title of

verse-making, permit me to observe that your gift is perfectly distinct

from that of the verse-maker. Your gift, whatever it may be, could not

exist without some sympathy with the non verse-making human heart.

No doubt in your foot travels, you have acquired not only observant

intimacy with external Nature in the shifting hues at each hour of a

distant mountain, in the lengthening shadows which yon sunset casts on

the waters at our feet, in the habits of the thrush dropped fearlessly

close beside me, in that turf moistened by its neighbourhood to those

dripping rushes, all of which I could describe no less accurately than

you,--as a Peter Bell might describe them no less accurately than a

William Wordsworth. But in such songs of yours as you have permitted me

to hear, you seem to have escaped out of that elementary accidence

of the poet’s art, and to touch, no matter how slightly, on the only

lasting interest which the universal heart of man can have in the song

of the poet; namely, in the sound which the poet’s individual sympathy

draws forth from the latent chords in that universal heart. As for what

you call ‘the world,’ what is it more than the fashion of the present

day? How far the judgment of that is worth a poet’s pain I can’t pretend

to say. But of one thing I am sure, that while I could as easily square

the circle as compose a simple couplet addressed to the heart of a

simple audience with sufficient felicity to decoy their praises

into Max’s begging-tray, I could spin out by the yard the sort of

verse-making which characterizes the fashion of the present day.”

Much flattered, and not a little amused, the wandering minstrel turned

his bright countenance, no longer dimmed by a cloud, towards that of his

lazily reclined consoler, and answered gayly,--