ONE of the most striking characteristics of our present age is the
singular mixture of frivolity and seriousness, the almost absurd
contrast between grave inquiry and reckless dissipation, which pervades
the well-to-do classes. Never was there a period when merely sensual
gratification was more highly prized and paid for; and never, perhaps, a
time when every rank in life was more eager in the pursuit of knowledge.
To produce this state of things a certain compromise was necessary;
and while the mere man of pleasure affected a taste for literature
and politics, the really active-minded either sought his relaxation,
or extended his influence, by mingling in scenes of frivolity and
amusement.
The age which made dandies philosophers made lord chancellors droll, and
bishops eccentric. A paradoxical spirit was abroad, and it seemed to be
a matter of pride with every one to do something out of his station. The
whole temper of society and the tone of conversation exhibited this new
taste.
Lady Hester Onslow was not a bad specimen of the prevailing mania. There
was by nature a certain fidgety, capricious volatility about her that
defied everything like a regular pursuit or a continued purpose. With a
reasonably quick apprehension and no judgment, in being everything,
she became nothing. Always mistaking sympathies for convictions, it was
quite sufficient to interest her imagination to secure her adhesion,
not, indeed, that it was worth much when obtained, seeing that she was
but a feeble ally at the best. Her employment of the day was a type
of herself. The mornings were passed in mesmeric experiences with her
doctor, or what she fancied were theological discussions with the Abbe
D'Esmonde.
It would be difficult to say in which the imaginative exaltation more
predominated. All the authentic and incredible phenomena of the one, all
the miraculous pretensions of the other, were too little for a credulity
that stopped at nothing. Of second sight, remote sympathy, and saintly
miracles she never could hear enough. “Give me facts,” she would say;
by which she meant narratives. “I will have no theories, doctor.” “Don't
bear me down with arguments, Monsieur l'Abbe.” “Facts, and facts alone,
have any influence with me.”
Now, such facts as she asked for were easily obtainable, and the
greatest miser need not have grudged her an ample meal of them. Many
of the facts, too, possessed the pleasing feature of being personal in
their interest. One day it was a charming young patient of the doctor,
who, having touched a tress of Lady Hester's hair, made the most
astonishing revelations of her Ladyship's disposition; telling facts of
her feelings, her nature, and even her affections, that “she knew were
only confided to her own heart.” Various little incidents of her daily
life were foretold, even to such minute matters as the purchase of
articles of jewelry, which she had not even seen at the time, and only
met her eyes by accident afterwards. The Abbe, with equal success,
assured her of the intense interest taken in her by the Church.
Beautifully bound and richly illustrated books were offered to her, with
the flattering addition that prayers were then being uttered at many
a shrine for her enlightenment in their perusal. Less asked to conform
herself to a new belief than to reconcile the faith to her own notions,
she was given the very widest latitude to her opinions. If she grew
impatient at argument, a subtle illustration, an apt metaphor, or
sometimes a happy mot settled the question. The Abbe was a clever
talker, and varied his subjects with all the skill of a master. He
knew how to invoke to his aid all that poetry, art, and romance could
contribute. The theme was a grand one when the imagination was to be
interested, and really deserved a better listener; for save when the
miraculous interposition of saints or the gaudy ceremonials of the
Church were spoken of, she heard the subject with indifference, if not
apathy. The consideration of self could, however, always bring her back;
and it was ever a successful flattery to assure her how fervently such
a cardinal prayed for her “right-mindedness,” and how eagerly even
his Holiness looked forward to the moment of counting her among his
children.
Her very tastes those same tastes that ascetic Protestantism was always
cavilling at were beautifully Roman. The Church liked display. Witness
her magnificence and splendor, her glorious cathedrals, the pomp and
grandeur of her ceremonial! As to music, the choir of the “Duomo” was
seraphic, and needed not the association of the dim vaulted aisles, the
distant altar, and the checkered rays of stained-glass windows to wrap
the soul in a fervor of enthusiasm. Even beauty was cherished by the
Church, and the fair Madonnas were types of an admiring love that was
beautifully catholic in its worship.
With all this, the work of conversion was a Penelope's web, that must
each day be begun anew, for, as the hour of the Cascini drew nigh, Lady
Hester's carriage drew up, and mesmerism, miracles, and all gave way to
the fresher interests of courtly loungers, chit-chat, and “bouquets of
camellias.”
For the next hour or so, her mind was occupied with the gossiping
stories of Florentine life, its surface details all recounted by the
simpering dandies who gathered around her carriage; its deeper not
unfrequently darker histories being the province of Mr. Albert Jekyl.
Then home to luncheon, for, as Haggerstone related, she dined always
after the Opera, and it was then, somewhere verging on midnight, that
she really began to live. Then, in all the blaze of dress and jewels,
with beauty little impaired by years, and a manner the perfection of
that peculiar school to which she attached herself, she was indeed a
most attractive person.
Kate Dalton's life was, of course, precisely the same. Except the few
hours given to controversial topics, and which she passed in reading,
and the occasional change from driving to riding in the Cascini, Kate's
day was exactly that of her friend. Not, however, with the same results;
for while one was wearied with the same routine of unvarying pleasure,
tired of the monotonous circle of amusement, the other became each day
more and more enamored of a life so unchanging in its happiness. What
was uniformity to Lady Hester, imparted a sense of security to Kate. It
was not alone the splendor that surrounded her, the thousand objects of
taste and elegance that seemed to multiply around them, that captivated
her so much, it was the absence of all care, the freedom from every
thought that this state was a mere passing one. This Kate felt to be the
very highest of enjoyments, and when at night she whispered to herself,
“To-morrow will be like to-day,” she had said everything that could
brighten anticipation.
Her father's letter was the first shock to this delightful illusion. Her
own false position of splendor, in contrast to his poverty, now came up
palpably before her, and in place of those blissful reveries in which
she often passed hours, there rose to her mind the bitter self-accusings
of a penitent spirit. She never slept through the night; the greater
part of it she spent in tears. Her absence from home, brief as it was,
was quite enough to make her forget much of its daily life. She could,
it is true, recall the penury and the privation, but not the feelings
that grew out of them. “How changed must he have become to stoop to
this!” was the exclamation that she uttered again and again. “Where was
all that Dalton pride they used to boast of? What become of that family
dignity which once was their bulwark against every blow of Fortune?”
To these thoughts succeeded the sadder one, of what course remained for
her to adopt? a difficulty the greater since she but half understood
what was required of her. He spoke of a bill, and yet the letter
contained none: before she broke the seal, it felt as though there was
an enclosure, yet she found none; and if there were, of what use would
it be? It was perfectly impossible that she could approach Sir Stafford
with such a request; every sense of shame, delicacy, and self-respect
revolted at the very thought. Still less could she apply to Lady Hester,
whose extravagant and wasteful habits always placed her in want of
money; and yet to refuse her father on grounds which he would deem
purely selfish was equally out of the question. She well knew that in
a moment of anger and impatience stung by what he would call the
ingratitude of his children he would probably himself write to Sir
Stafford, narrating every circumstance that drove him to the step. Oh,
that she had never left him, never ceased to live the life of want and
hardship to which time had accustomed her! all the poverty she had ever
known brought no such humiliation as this! Poor Nelly's lot now was a
hundredfold superior to hers. She saw, too, that reserve once broken on
such a theme, her father would not scruple to renew the application
as often as he needed money. It was clear enough that he saw no
embarrassment, nor any difficulty for her in the matter; that it neither
could offend her feelings nor compromise her position. Could she descend
to an evasive or equivocal reply, his temper would as certainly
boil over, and an insulting letter would at once be addressed to Sir
Stafford. Were she to make the request and fail, he would order her
home, and under what circumstances should she leave the house of her
benefactors! And yet all this was better than success.
In such harassing reflections warring and jarring in her mind, the long
hours of the night were passed. She wept, too: the bitterest tears are
those that are wrung from shame and sorrow mingled. Many a generous
resolve, many a thought of self-devotion and sacrifice rose to her mind;
at moments she would have submitted herself to any wound to self-esteem
to have obtained her father's kind word, and at others all the indignity
of a false position overwhelmed her, and she cried as if her very heart
were bursting.
Wearied and fevered, she arose and went into the garden. It was one of
the brilliant mornings which for a week or ten days in Italy represent
the whole season of spring. Although still early, the sun was hot, and
the flowers and shrubs, refreshed by the heavy dew, were bursting out
into renewed luxuriance in the warm glow. The fountains sparkled, and
the birds were singing, and all seemed animated by that joyous spirit
which seems the very breath of early morning, all save poor Kate, who,
with bent-down head and slow step, loitered along the walks, lost in her
gloomiest thoughts.
To return home again was the only issue she could see to her
difficulties, to share the humble fortunes of her father and sister,
away from a world in which she had no pretension to live! And this, too,
just when that same world had cast its fascinations round her, just when
its blandishments had gained possession of her heart, and made her feel
that all without its pale was ignoble and unworthy. No other course
seemed, however, to offer itself, and she had just determined on its
adoption, when the short, quick step of some one following her made her
turn her head. As she did so, her name was pronounced, and Mr. Albert
Jekyl, with his hat courteously removed, advanced towards her.
“I see with what care Miss Dalton protects the roses of her cheeks,”
said he, smiling; “and yet how few there are that know this simple
secret.”
“You give me a credit I have no claim to, Mr. Jekyl. I have almost
forgotten the sight of a rising sun, but this morning I did not feel
quite well a headache a sleepless night--”
“Perhaps caused by anxiety,” interposed he, quietly. “I wish I had
discovered your loss in time, but I only detected that it must be yours
when I reached home.”
“I don't comprehend you,” said she, with some hesitation.
“Is not this yours, Miss Dalton?” said he, producing the bill, which had
fallen unseen from her father's letter. “I found it on the floor of the
small boudoir, and not paying much attention to it at the time, did
not perceive the signature, which would at once have betrayed the
ownership.”
“It must have dropped from a letter I was reading,” said Kate, whose
cheek was now scarlet, for she knew Jekyl well enough to be certain that
her whole secret was by that time in his hands. Slighter materials than
this would have sufficed for his intelligence to construct a theory
upon. Nothing in his manner, however, evinced this knowledge, for he
handed her the paper with an air of most impassive quietude; while,
as if to turn her thoughts from any unpleasantness of the incident, he
said,
“You haven't yet heard, I suppose, of Lady Hester's sudden resolve to
quit Florence?”
“Leave Florence! and for where?” asked she, hurriedly.
“For Midchekoff's villa at Como. We discussed it all last night after
you left, and in twenty-four hours we are to be on the road.”
“What is the reason of this hurried departure?”
“The Ricketts invasion gives the pretext; but of course you know
better than I do what a share the novelty of the scheme lends to its
attractions.”
“And we are to leave this to-morrow?” said Kate, rather to herself than
for her companion.
Jekyl marked well the tone and the expression of the speaker, but said
not a word.
Kate stood for a few seconds lost in thought. Her difficulties were
thickening around her, and not a gleam of light shone through the gloomy
future before her. At last, as it were overpowered by the torturing
anxieties of her situation, she covered her face with her hands to hide
the tears that would gush forth in spite of her.
“Miss Dalton will forgive me,” said Jekyl, speaking in a low and most
respectful voice, “if I step for once from the humble path I have
tracked for myself in life, and offer my poor services as her adviser.”
Nothing could be more deferential than the speech, or the way in which
it was uttered, and yet Kate heard it with a sense of pain. She felt
that her personal independence was already in peril, and that the meek
and bashful Mr. Jekyl had gained a mastery over her. He saw all this, he
read each struggle of her mind, and, were retreat practicable, he
would have retreated; but, the step once taken, the only course was
“forwards.”
“Miss Dalton may reject my counsels, but she will not despise the
devotion in which they are proffered. A mere accident” here he glanced
at the paper which she still held in her fingers “a mere accident has
shown me that you have a difficulty; one for which neither your habits
nor knowledge of life can suggest the solution.” He paused, and a very
slight nod from Kate emboldened him to proceed. “Were it not so,
Miss Dalton were the case one for which your own exquisite tact could
suffice, I never would have ventured on the liberty. I, who have watched
you with wondering admiration, directing and guiding your course amid
shoals and reefs and quicksands, where the most skilful might have found
shipwreck, it would have been hardihood indeed for me to have offered my
pilotage. But here, if I err not greatly, here is a new and unknown sea,
and here I may be of service to you.”
“Is it so plain, then, what all this means?” said Kate, holding out the
bill towards Jekyl.
“Alas! Miss Dalton,” said he, with a faint smile, “these are no enigmas
to us who mix in all the worries and cares of life.”
“Then how do you read the riddle?” said she, almost laughing at the easy
flippancy of his tone.
“Mr. Dalton being an Irish gentleman of a kind disposition and facile
temper, suffers his tenantry to run most grievously into arrear. They
won't pay, and he won't make them; his own creditors having no sympathy
with such proceedings, become pressing and importunate. Mr. Dalton grows
angry, and they grow irritable; he makes his agent write to them, they
'instruct' their attorney to write to him. Mr. D. is puzzled, and were
it not that But, may I go on?”
“Of course; proceed,” said she, smiling.
“You'll not be offended, though?” said he, “because, if I have not the
privilege of being frank, I shall be worthless to you.”
“There is no serious offence without intention.”
“Very true; but I do not wish there should be even a trivial
transgression.”
“I 'm not afraid. Go on,” said she, nodding her head.
“Where was I, then? Oh! I remember. I said that Mr. Dalton, seeing
difficulties thickening and troubles gathering, suddenly bethinks him
that he has a daughter, a young lady of such attractions that, in a
society where wealth and splendor and rank hold highest place, her
beauty has already established a dominion which nothing, save her
gentleness, prevents being a despotism.”
“Mr. Jekyl mistakes the part of a friend when he becomes flatterer.”
“There is no flattery in a plain unadorned truth,” said he, hastily.
“And were it all as you say,” rejoined she, speaking with a heightened
color and a flashing eye, “how could such circumstances be linked with
those you spoke of?”
“Easily enough, if I did but dare to tell it,” was his reply.
“It is too late for reserve; go on freely,” said she, with a faint sigh.
Jekyl resumed,
“Mr. Dalton knows there are thousands could have told him so that his
daughter may be a princess to-morrow if she wishes it. She has but to
choose her rank and her nationality, and there is not a land in Europe
in whose peerage she may not inscribe her name. It is too late for
reserve,” said he, quickly, “and consequently too late for resentment.
You must not be angry with me now; I am but speaking in your presence
what all the world says behind your back. Hearing this, and believing
it, as all believe it, what is there more natural than that he should
address himself to her at whose disposal lie all that wealth can
compass? The sun bestows many a gleam of warmth and brightness before he
reaches the zenith. Do not mistake me. This request was scarcely fair;
it was ill-advised. Your freedom should never have been jeopardized
for such a mere trifle. Had your father but seen with his own eyes your
position here, he would never have done this; but, being done, there is
no harm in it.”
“But what am I to do?” said Kate, trembling with embarrassment and
vexation together.
“Send the money, of course,” said he, coolly.
“But how from what source?”
“Your own benevolence, none other,” said he, as calmly.
“There is no question of a favor, no stooping to an obligation
necessary. You will simply give your promise to repay it at some future
day, not specifying when; and I will find a banker but too happy to
treat with you.”
“But what prospect have I of such ability to pay? what resources can I
reckon upon?”
“You will be angry if I repeat myself,” said Jekyl, with deep humility.
“I am already angry with myself that I should have listened to your
proposal so indulgently; my troubles must, indeed, have affected me
deeply when I so far forgot myself.”
Jekyl dropped his head forward on his breast, and looked a picture of
sorrow; after a while he said,
“Sir Stafford Onslow would, I well know, but be honored by your asking
him the slight favor; but I could not counsel you to do so. Your
feelings would have to pay too severe a sacrifice, and hence I advise
making it a mere business matter; depositing some ornament a necklace
you were tired of, a bracelet, anything in fact, a nothing and thus
there is neither a difficulty nor a disclosure.”
“I have scarcely anything,” said Kate; “and what I have, have been all
presents from Lady Hester.”
“Morlache would be quite content with your word,” said Jekyl, blandly.
“And if I should be unable to acquit the debt, will these few things I
possess be sufficient to do it?”
“I should say double the amount, as a mere guess.”
“Can I dare I take your counsel?” cried she, in an accent of intense
anxiety.
“Can you reject it, when refusal will be so bitter?”
Kate gave a slight shudder, as though that pang was greater than all the
rest.
“There is fortunately no difficulty in the matter whatever,” said Jekyl,
speaking rapidly. “You will, of course, have many things to purchase
before you leave this. Well; take the carriage and your maid, and drive
to the Ponte Vecchio. The last shop on the right-hand side of the bridge
is 'Morlache's.' It is unpromising enough outside, but there is wealth
within to subsidize a kingdom. I will be in waiting to receive you,
and in a few minutes the whole will be concluded; and if you have your
letter ready, you can enclose the sum, and post it at once.”
If there were many things in this arrangement which shocked Kate, and
revolted against her sense of delicacy and propriety, there was one
counterpoise more than enough to outweigh them all: she should be
enabled to serve her father, she, who alone of all his children had
never contributed, save by affection, to his comfort, should now
materially assist him. She knew too well the sufferings and anxieties
his straitened fortune cost him, she witnessed but too often the
half-desperation in which he would pass days, borne down and almost
broken-hearted! and she had witnessed that outbreak of joy he would
indulge in when an unexpected help had suddenly lifted him from the
depth of his poverty. To be the messenger of such good tidings to be
associated in his mind with this assistance, to win his fervent “God
bless you!” she would have put life itself in peril; and when Jekyl
placed so palpably before her the promptitude with which the act could
be accomplished, all hesitation ceased, and she promised to be punctual
at the appointed place by three o'clock that same afternoon.
“It is too early to expect to see Lady Hester,” said Jekyl; “and indeed,
my real business here this morning was with yourself, so that now I
shall drive out to Midchekoff's and make all the arrangements about the
villa. Till three, then, good-bye!”
“Good-bye,” said Kate, for the first time disposed to feel warmly to the
little man, and half reproach herself with some of the prejudices she
used to entertain regarding him.
Jekyl now took his way to the stables, and ordering a brougham to be got
ready for him, sauntered into the house, and took his coffee while he
waited.