POOR JOHN MELLISH COMES BACK AGAIN.
John Mellish grew weary of the great city of Paris. Better love,
and contentment, and a crust in a _mansarde_, than stalled oxen or
other costly food in the loftiest saloons _au premier_, with the most
obsequious waiters to do us homage, repressing so much as a smile at
our insular idiom. He grew heartily weary of the Rue de Rivoli, the
gilded railings of the Tuileries gardens, and the leafless trees behind
them. He was weary of the Place de la Concorde, and the Champs Elysées,
and the rattle of the hoofs of the troop about his Imperial Highness's
carriage, when Napoleon the Third, or the baby prince, took his airing.
The plot was yet a-hatching which was to come so soon to a climax in
the Rue Lepelletier. He was tired of the broad Boulevards, and the
theatres, and the cafés, and the glove-shops--tired of staring at the
jewellers' windows in the Rue de la Paix, picturing to himself the face
of Aurora Floyd under the diamond and emerald tiaras displayed therein.
He had serious thoughts at times of buying a stove and a basket of
charcoal, and asphyxiating himself quietly in the great gilded saloon
at Meurice's. What was the use of his money, or his dogs, or his
horses, or his broad acres? All these put together would not purchase
Aurora Floyd. What was the good of life, if it came to that, since the
banker's daughter refused to share it with him? Remember that this big,
blue-eyed, curly-haired John Mellish had been from his cradle a spoiled
child,--spoiled by poor relations and parasites, servants and toadies,
from the first hour to the thirtieth year of his existence,--and it
seemed such a very hard thing that this beautiful woman should be
denied to him. Had he been an eastern potentate, he would have sent
for his vizier, and would have had that official bow-strung before his
eyes, and so made an end of it; but being merely a Yorkshire gentleman
and landowner, he had no more to do but to bear his burden quietly. As
if he had ever borne anything quietly! He flung half the weight of his
grief upon his valet; until that functionary dreaded the sound of Miss
Floyd's name, and told a fellow-servant in confidence that his master
"made such a howling about that young woman as he offered marriage to
at Brighton, that there was no bearing him." The end of it all was,
that one night John Mellish gave sudden orders for the striking of
his tents, and early the next morning departed for the Great Northern
Railway, leaving only the ashes of his fires behind him.
It was only natural to suppose that Mr. Mellish would have gone
straight to his country residence, where there was much business to
be done by him: foals to be entered for coming races, trainers and
stable-boys to be settled with, the planning and laying down of a
proposed tan-gallop to be carried out, and a racing stud awaiting
the eye of the master. But instead of going from the Dover Railway
Station to the Great Northern Hotel, eating his dinner, and starting
for Doncaster by the express, Mr. Mellish drove to the Gloucester
Coffee-house, and there took up his quarters, for the purpose, as he
said, of seeing the Cattle-show. He made a melancholy pretence of
driving to Baker Street in a Hansom cab, and roamed hither and thither
for a quarter of an hour, staring dismally into the pens, and then fled
away precipitately from the Yorkshire gentlemen-farmers, who gave him
hearty greeting. He left the Gloucester the next morning in a dog-cart,
and drove straight to Beckenham. Archibald Floyd, who knew nothing of
this young Yorkshireman's declaration and rejection, had given him a
hearty invitation to Felden Woods. Why shouldn't he go there? Only to
make a morning call upon the hospitable banker; not to see Aurora; only
to take a few long respirations of the air she breathed before he went
back to Yorkshire.
Of course he knew nothing of Talbot Bulstrode's happiness; and it had
been one of the chief consolations of his exile to remember that that
gentleman had put forth in the same vessel, and had been shipwrecked
along with him.
He was ushered into the billiard-room, where he found Aurora Floyd
seated at a little table near the fire, making a pencil copy of a proof
engraving of one of Rosa Bonheur's pictures, while Talbot Bulstrode sat
by her side preparing her pencils.
We feel instinctively that the man who cuts lead-pencils, or holds
a skein of silk upon his outstretched hands, or carries lap-dogs,
opera-cloaks, camp-stools, or parasols, is "engaged." Even John Mellish
had learned enough to know this. He breathed a sigh so loud as to be
heard by Lucy and her mother seated by the other fireplace,--a sigh
that was on the verge of a groan,--and then held out his hand to
Miss Floyd. Not to Talbot Bulstrode. He had vague memories of Roman
legends floating in his brain, legends of superhuman generosity and
classic self-abnegation; but he could not have shaken hands with that
dark-haired young Cornishman, though the tenure of the Mellish estate
had hung upon the sacrifice. He could not do it. He seated himself a
few paces from Aurora and her lover, twisting his hat about in his hot,
nervous hands until the brim was well-nigh limp; and was powerless to
utter one sentence, even so much as some poor pitiful remark about the
weather.
He was a great spoiled baby of thirty years of age; and I am afraid
that, if the stern truth must be told, he saw Aurora Floyd across a
mist, that blurred and distorted the bright face before his eyes. Lucy
Floyd came to his relief, by carrying him off to introduce him to her
mother; and kind-hearted Mrs. Alexander was delighted with his frank,
fair English face. He had the good fortune to stand with his back to
the light, so that neither of the ladies detected that foolish mist in
his blue eyes.
Archibald Floyd would not hear of his visitor's returning to town
either that night or the next day.
"You must spend Christmas with us," he said, "and see the New Year
in, before you go back to Yorkshire. I have all my children about me
at this season, and it is the only time that Felden seems like an old
man's home. Your friend Bulstrode stops with us" (Mellish winced as he
received this intelligence), "and I sha'n't think it friendly if you
refuse to join our party."
What a pitiful coward this John Mellish must have been to accept
the banker's invitation, and send the Newport Pagnell back to the
Gloucester, and suffer himself to be led away by Mr. Floyd's own man
to a pleasant chamber, a few doors from the chintz-rooms occupied by
Talbot! But I have said before, that love is a cowardly passion. It is
like the toothache; the bravest and strongest succumb to it, and howl
aloud under the torture. I don't suppose the Iron Duke would have been
ashamed to own that he objected to having his teeth out. I have heard
of a great fighting man who could take punishment better than any other
of the genii of the ring, but who fainted away at the first grip of
the dentist's forceps. John Mellish consented to stay at Felden, and
he went between the lights into Talbot's dressing-room, to expostulate
with the captain upon his treachery.
Talbot did his best to console his doleful visitant.
"There are more women than one in the world," he said, after John had
unbosomed himself of his grief--he didn't think this, the hypocrite,
though he said it--"there are more women than one, my dear Mellish; and
there are many very charming and estimable girls, who would be glad to
win the affections of such a fellow as you."
"I hate estimable girls," said Mr. Mellish; "bother my affections!
nobody will ever win my affections; but I love her, I love that
beautiful black-eyed creature down-stairs, who looks at you with two
flashes of lightning, and rides like young Challoner in a cloth habit;
I love her, Bulstrode, and you told me that she'd refused you, and that
you were going to leave Brighton by the eight o'clock express, and
you didn't; and you sneaked back and made her a second offer, and she
accepted you, and, damme, it wasn't fair play."
Having said which, Mr. Mellish flung himself upon a chair, which
creaked under his weight, and fell to poking the fire furiously.
It was hard for poor Talbot to have to excuse himself for having won
Aurora's hand. He could not very well remind John Mellish that if Miss
Floyd had accepted him, it was perhaps because she preferred him to the
honest Yorkshireman. To John the matter never presented itself in this
light. The spoiled child had been cheated out of that toy above all
other toys, upon the possession of which he had set his foolish heart.
It was as if he had bidden for some crack horse at Tattersall's, in
fair and open competition with a friend, who had gone back after the
sale to outbid him in some underhand fashion. He could not understand
that there had been no dishonesty in Talbot's conduct, and he was
highly indignant when that gentleman ventured to hint to him that
perhaps, on the whole, it would have been wiser to have kept away from
Felden Woods.
Talbot Bulstrode had avoided any further allusion to Mr. Matthew
Harrison the dog-fancier; and this, the first dispute between the
lovers, had ended in the triumph of Aurora.
Miss Floyd was not a little embarrassed by the presence of John
Mellish, who roamed disconsolately about the big rooms, seating
himself ever and anon at one of the tables to peer into the lenses of
a stereoscope, or to take up some gorgeously-bound volume and drop it
on the carpet in gloomy absence of mind, and who sighed heavily when
spoken to, and was altogether far from pleasant company. Aurora's warm
heart was touched by the piteous spectacle of this rejected lover, and
she sought him out once or twice, and talked to him about his racing
stud, and asked him how he liked the hunting in Surrey; but John
changed from red to white, and from hot to cold, when she spoke to him,
and fled away from her with a scared and ghastly aspect, which would
have been grotesque had it not been so painfully real.
But by-and-by John found a more pitiful listener to his sorrows than
ever Talbot Bulstrode had been; and this gentle and compassionate
listener was no other than Lucy Floyd, to whom the big Yorkshireman
turned in his trouble. Did he know, or did he guess, by some wondrous
clairvoyance, that her griefs bore a common likeness to his own, and
that she was just the one person, of all others at Felden Woods, to be
pitiful to him and patient with him? He was by no means proud, this
transparent, boyish, babyish good fellow. Two days after his arrival at
Felden, he told all to poor Lucy.
"I suppose you know, Miss Floyd," he said, "that your cousin rejected
me. Yes, of course you do; I believe she rejected Bulstrode about the
same time; but some men haven't a ha'porth of pride: I must say I think
the captain acted like a sneak."
A sneak! Her idol, her adored, her demi-god, her dark-haired and
gray-eyed divinity, to be spoken of thus! She turned upon Mr. Mellish
with her fair cheeks flushed into a pale glow of anger, and told him
that Talbot had a right to do what he had done, and that whatever
Talbot did was right.
Like most men whose reflective faculties are entirely undeveloped,
John Mellish was blessed with a sufficiently rapid perception; a
perception sharpened just then by that peculiar sympathetic prescience,
that marvellous clairvoyance of which I have spoken; and in those few
indignant words, and that angry flush, he read poor Lucy's secret: she
loved Talbot Bulstrode as he loved Aurora--hopelessly.
How he admired this fragile girl, who was frightened of horses and
dogs, and who shivered if a breath of the winter air blew across the
heated hall, and who yet bore her burden with this quiet, uncomplaining
patience! while he, who weighed fourteen stone, and could ride forty
miles across country with the bitterest blasts of December blowing in
his face, was powerless to endure his affliction. It comforted him
to watch Lucy, and to read in those faint signs and tokens, which
had escaped even a mother's eye, the sad history of her unrequited
affection.
Poor John was too good-natured and unselfish to hold out for ever
in the dreary fortress of despair which he had built up for his
habitation; and on Christmas-eve, when there were certain rejoicings
at Felden, held in especial honour of the younger visitors, he gave
way, and joined in their merriment, and was more boyish than the
youngest of them, burning his fingers with blazing raisins, suffering
his eyes to be bandaged at the will of noisy little players at
blindman's-buff, undergoing ignominious penalties in their games of
forfeits, performing alternately innkeepers, sheriff's officers,
policemen, clergymen, and justices, in the acted charades, lifting
the little ones who wanted to see "de top of de Kitmat tee" in his
sturdy arms, and making himself otherwise agreeable and useful to young
people of from three to fifteen years of age; until at last, under
the influence of all this juvenile gaiety, and perhaps two or three
glasses of Moselle, he boldly kissed Aurora Floyd beneath the branch of
mistletoe, hanging, "for this night only," in the great hall at Felden
Woods.
And having done this, Mr. Mellish fairly lost his wits, and was "off
his head" for the rest of the evening; making speeches to the little
ones at the supper-table, and proposing Mr. Archibald Floyd and the
commercial interests of Great Britain, with three times three; leading
the chorus of those tiny treble voices with his own sonorous bass; and
weeping freely--he never quite knew why--behind his table-napkin. It
was through an atmosphere of tears, and sparkling wines, and gas, and
hot-house flowers, that he saw Aurora Floyd, looking, ah, how lovely!
in those simple robes of white which so much became her, and with a
garland of artificial holly round her head. The spiked leaves and the
scarlet berries formed themselves into a crown--I think, indeed, that a
cheese-plate would have been transformed into a diadem, if Miss Floyd
had been pleased to put it on her head--and she looked like the genius
of Christmas: something bright and beautiful; too beautiful to come
more than once a year.
When the clocks were striking 2 a.m., long after the little ones had
been carried away muffled up in opera-cloaks, terribly sleepy, and I'm
afraid in some instances under the influence of strong drink,--when
the elder guests had all retired to rest, and the lights, with a few
exceptions, were fled, the garlands dead, and all but Talbot and
John Mellish departed, the two young men walked up and down the long
billiard-room, in the red glow of the two declining fires, and talked
to each other confidentially. It was the morning of Christmas-day, and
it would have been strange to be unfriendly at such a time.
"If you'd fallen in love with the other one, Bulstrode," said John,
clasping his old school-fellow by the hand, and staring at him
pathetically, "I could have looked upon you as a brother; she's better
suited to you, twenty thousand times better adapted to you, than her
cousin, and you ought to have married her--in common courtesy--I mean
to say as an honourable--having very much compromised yourself by your
attentions--Mrs. Whatshername--the companion--Mrs. Powell--said so--you
ought to have married her."
"Married her! Married whom?" cried Talbot rather savagely, shaking off
his friend's hot grasp, and allowing Mr. Mellish to sway backward upon
the heels of his varnished boots in rather an alarming manner. "Who do
you mean?"
"The sweetest girl in Christendom--except one," exclaimed John,
clasping his hot hands and elevating his dim blue eyes to the ceiling;
"the loveliest girl in Christendom, except one--Lucy Floyd."
"Lucy Floyd!"
"Yes, Lucy; the sweetest girl in----"
"Who says that I ought to marry Lucy Floyd?"
"She says so--no, no, I don't mean that! I mean," said Mr. Mellish,
sinking his voice to a solemn whisper,--"I mean that Lucy Floyd loves
you! She didn't tell me so--oh, no, bless your soul,--she never uttered
a word upon the subject; but she loves you. Yes," continued John,
pushing his friend away from him with both hands, and staring at him as
if mentally taking his pattern for a suit of clothes, "that girl loves
you, and has loved you all along. I am not a fool, and I give you my
word and honour that Lucy Floyd loves you."
"Not a fool!" cried Talbot; "you're worse than a fool, John
Mellish--you're drunk!"
He turned upon his heel contemptuously, and taking a candle from a
table near the door, lighted it, and strode out of the room.
John stood rubbing his hands through his curly hair, and staring
helplessly after the captain.
"This is the reward a fellow gets for doing a generous thing," he
said, as he thrust his own candle into the burning coals, ignoring
any easier mode of lighting it. "It's hard, but I suppose it's human
nature."
Talbot Bulstrode went to bed in a very bad humour. Could it be true
that Lucy loved him? Could this chattering Yorkshireman have discovered
a secret which had escaped the captain's penetration? He remembered
how, only a short time before, he had wished that this fair-haired girl
might fall in love with him, and now all was trouble and confusion.
Guinevere was lady of his heart, and poor Elaine was sadly in the way.
Mr. Tennyson's wondrous book had not been given to the world in the
year fifty-seven, or no doubt poor Talbot would have compared himself
to the knight whose "honour rooted in dishonour stood." Had he been
dishonourable? Had he compromised himself by his attentions to Lucy?
Had he deceived that fair and gentle creature? The down pillows in the
chintz chamber gave no rest to his weary head that night; and when he
fell asleep in the late daybreak, it was to dream horrible dreams, and
to see in a vision Aurora Floyd standing on the brink of a clear pool
of water in a woody recess at Felden, and pointing down through its
crystal surface to the corpse of Lucy, lying pale and still amidst
lilies and clustering aquatic plants, whose long tendrils entwined
themselves with the fair golden hair.
He heard the splash of the water in that terrible dream, and awoke, to
find his valet breaking the ice in his bath in the adjoining room. His
perplexities about poor Lucy vanished in the broad daylight, and he
laughed at a trouble which must have grown out of his own vanity. What
was he, that young ladies should fall in love with him? What a weak
fool he must have been to have believed for one moment in the drunken
babble of John Mellish! So he dismissed the image of Aurora's cousin
from his mind, and had eyes, ears, and thought only for Aurora herself,
who drove him to Beckenham church in her basket-carriage, and sat by
his side in the banker's great square pew.
Alas, I fear he heard very little of the sermon that was preached that
day; but, for all that, I declare that he was a good and devout man: a
man whom God had blest with the gift of earnest belief; a man who took
all blessings from the hand of God reverently, almost fearfully; and as
he bowed his head at the end of that Christmas service of rejoicing and
thanksgiving, he thanked Heaven for his overflowing cup of gladness,
and prayed that he might become worthy of so much happiness.
He had a vague fear that he was too happy; too much bound up heart
and soul in the dark-eyed woman by his side. If she were to die! If
she were to be false to him! He turned sick and dizzy at the thought;
and even in that sacred temple the Devil whispered to him that there
were still pools, loaded pistols, and other certain remedies for such
calamities as those,--so wicked as well as cowardly a passion is this
terrible fever, Love!
The day was bright and clear, the light snow whitening the ground;
every line of hedge-top and tree cut sharply out against the cold blue
of the winter sky. The banker proposed that they should send home
the carriages, and walk down the hill to Felden; so Talbot Bulstrode
offered Aurora his arm, only too glad of the chance of a _tête-à-tête_
with his betrothed.
John Mellish walked with Archibald Floyd, with whom the Yorkshireman
was an especial favourite; and Lucy was lost amid a group of brothers,
sisters, and cousins.
"We were so busy all yesterday with the little people," said Talbot,
"that I forgot to tell you, Aurora, that I had had a letter from my
mother."
Miss Floyd looked up at him with her brightest glance. She was always
pleased to hear anything about Lady Bulstrode.
"Of course there is very little news in the letter," added Talbot, "for
there is rarely much to tell at Bulstrode. And yet--yes--there is one
piece of news which concerns yourself."
"Which concerns me?"
"Yes. You remember my cousin, Constance Trevyllian?"
"Y-es--"
"She has returned from Paris, her education finished at last, and
she, I believe, all-accomplished, and has gone to spend Christmas at
Bulstrode. Good heavens, Aurora! what is the matter?"
Nothing very much, apparently. Her face had grown as white as a
sheet of letter-paper; but the hand upon his arm did not tremble.
Perhaps, had he taken especial notice of it, he would have found it
preternaturally still.
"Aurora, what is the matter?"
"Nothing. Why do you ask?"
"Your face is as pale as----"
"It is the cold, I suppose," she said, shivering. "Tell me about your
cousin, this Miss Trevyllian; when did she go to Bulstrode Castle?"
"She was to arrive the day before yesterday. My mother was expecting
her when she wrote."
"Is she a favourite of Lady Bulstrode's?"
"No very especial favourite. My mother likes her well enough; but
Constance is rather a frivolous girl."
"The day before yesterday," said Aurora; "Miss Trevyllian was to arrive
the day before yesterday. The letters from Cornwall are delivered at
Felden early in the afternoon; are they not?"
"Yes, dear."
"You will have a letter from your mother today, Talbot."
"A letter to-day! oh, no, Aurora, she never writes two days running;
seldom more than once a week."
Miss Floyd did not make any answer to this, nor did her face regain its
natural hue during the whole of the homeward walk. She was very silent,
only replying in the briefest manner to Talbot's inquiries.
"I am sure that you are ill, Aurora," he said, as they ascended the
terrace steps.
"I am ill."
"But, dearest, what is it? Let me tell Mrs. Alexander, or Mrs. Powell.
Let me go back to Beckenham for the doctor."
She looked at him with a mournful earnestness in her eyes.
"My foolish Talbot," she said, "do you remember what Macbeth said to
_his_ doctor? There are diseases that cannot be ministered to. Let me
alone; you will know soon enough--you will know very soon, I dare say."
"But, Aurora, what do you mean by this? What can there be upon your
mind?"
"Ah, what indeed! Let me alone, let me alone, Captain Bulstrode."
He had caught her hand; but she broke from him, and ran up the
staircase, in the direction of her own apartments.
Talbot hurried to Lucy, with a pale, frightened, face.
"Your cousin is ill, Lucy," he said; "go to her, for Heaven's sake, and
see what is wrong."
Lucy obeyed immediately; but she found the door of Miss Floyd's room
locked against her; and when she called to Aurora, and implored to be
admitted, that young lady cried out--
"Go away, Lucy Floyd! go away, and leave me to myself, unless you want
to drive me mad!"