All night Richard tossed on his bed with his heart in a rapid canter,
and his brain bestriding it, traversing the rich untasted world, and
the great Realm of Mystery, from which he was now restrained no longer.
Months he had wandered about the gates of the Bonnet, wondering,
sighing, knocking at them, and getting neither admittance nor answer.
He had the key now. His own father had given it to him. His heart was a
lightning steed, and bore him on and on over limitless regions bathed
in superhuman beauty and strangeness, where cavaliers and ladies leaned
whispering upon close green swards, and knights and ladies cast a
splendour upon savage forests, and tilts and tourneys were held in
golden courts lit to a glorious day by ladies’ eyes, one pair of which,
dimly visioned, constantly distinguishable, followed him through the
boskage and dwelt upon him in the press, beaming while he bent above a
hand glittering white and fragrant as the frosted blossom of a May
night.
Awhile the heart would pause and flutter to a shock: he was in the act
of consummating all earthly bliss by pressing his lips to the small
white hand. Only to do that, and die! cried the Magnetic Youth: to
fling the Jewel of Life into that one cup and drink it off! He was
intoxicated by anticipation. For that he was born. There was, then,
some end in existence, something to live for! to kiss a woman’s hand,
and die! He would leap from the couch, and rush to pen and paper to
relieve his swarming sensations. Scarce was he seated when the pen was
dashed aside, the paper sent flying with the exclamation, “Have I not
sworn I would never write again?” Sir Austin had shut that
safety-valve. The nonsense that was in the youth might have poured
harmlessly out, and its urgency for ebullition was so great that he was
repeatedly oblivious of his oath, and found himself seated under the
lamp in the act of composition before pride could speak a word.
Possibly the pride even of Richard Feverel had been swamped if the act
of composition were easy at such a time, and a single idea could stand
clearly foremost; but myriads were demanding the first place; chaotic
hosts, like ranks of stormy billows, pressed impetuously for
expression, and despair of reducing them to form, quite as much as
pride, to which it pleased him to refer his incapacity, threw down the
powerless pen, and sent him panting to his outstretched length and
another headlong career through the rosy-girdled land.
Toward morning the madness of the fever abated somewhat, and he went
forth into the air. A lamp was still burning in his father’s room, and
Richard thought, as he looked up, that he saw the ever-vigilant head on
the watch. Instantly the lamp was extinguished, the window stood cold
against the hues of dawn.
Strong pulling is an excellent medical remedy for certain classes of
fever. Richard took to it instinctively. The clear fresh water,
burnished with sunrise, sparkled against his arrowy prow; the soft deep
shadows curled smiling away from his gliding keel. Overhead solitary
morning unfolded itself, from blossom to bud, from bud to flower;
still, delicious changes of light and colour, to whose influences he
was heedless as he shot under willows and aspens, and across sheets of
river-reaches, pure mirrors to the upper glory, himself the sole tenant
of the stream. Somewhere at the founts of the world lay the land he was
rowing toward; something of its shadowed lights might be discerned here
and there. It was not a dream, now he knew. There was a secret abroad.
The woods were full of it; the waters rolled with it, and the winds.
Oh, why could not one in these days do some high knightly deed which
should draw down ladies’ eyes from their heaven, as in the days of
Arthur! To such a meaning breathed the unconscious sighs of the youth,
when he had pulled through his first feverish energy.
He was off Bursley, and had lapsed a little into that musing quietude
which follows strenuous exercise, when he heard a hail and his own name
called. It was no lady, no fairy, but young Ralph Morton, an irruption
of miserable masculine prose. Heartily wishing him abed with the rest
of mankind, Richard rowed in and jumped ashore. Ralph immediately
seized his arm, saying that he desired earnestly to have a talk with
him, and dragged the Magnetic Youth from his water-dreams, up and down
the wet mown grass. That he had to say seemed to be difficult of
utterance, and Richard, though he barely listened, soon had enough of
his old rival’s gladness at seeing him, and exhibited signs of
impatience; whereat Ralph, as one who branches into matter somewhat
foreign to his mind, but of great human interest and importance, put
the question to him:
“I say, what woman’s name do you like best?”
“I don’t know any,” quoth Richard, indifferently. “Why are you out so
early?”
In answer to this, Ralph suggested that the name of Mary might be
considered a pretty name.
Richard agreed that it might be; the housekeeper at Raynham, half the
women cooks, and all the housemaids enjoyed that name; the name of Mary
was equivalent for women at home.
“Yes, I know,” said Ralph. “We have lots of Marys. It’s so common. Oh!
I don’t like Mary best. What do you think?”
Richard thought it just like another.
“Do you know,” Ralph continued, throwing off the mask and plunging into
the subject, “I’d do anything on earth for some names—one or two. It’s
not Mary, nor Lucy. Clarinda’s pretty, but it’s like a novel. Claribel,
I like. Names beginning with ‘Cl’ I prefer. The ‘Cl’s’ are always
gentle and lovely girls you would die for! Don’t you think so?”
Richard had never been acquainted with any of them to inspire that
emotion. Indeed these urgent appeals to his fancy in feminine names at
five o’clock in the morning slightly surprised him, though he was but
half awake to the outer world. By degrees he perceived that Ralph was
changed. Instead of the lusty boisterous boy, his rival in manly
sciences, who spoke straightforwardly and acted up to his speech, here
was an abashed and blush-persecuted youth, who sued piteously for a
friendly ear wherein to pour the one idea possessing him. Gradually,
too, Richard apprehended that Ralph likewise was on the frontiers of
the Realm of Mystery, perhaps further toward it than he himself was;
and then, as by a sympathetic stroke, was revealed to him the wonderful
beauty and depth of meaning in feminine names. The theme appeared novel
and delicious, fitted to the season and the hour. But the hardship was,
that Richard could choose none from the number; all were the same to
him; he loved them all.
“Don’t you really prefer the ‘Cl’s’?” said Ralph, persuasively.
“Not better than the names ending in ‘a’ and ‘y,’ Richard replied,
wishing he could, for Ralph was evidently ahead of him.
“Come under these trees,” said Ralph. And under the trees Ralph
unbosomed. His name was down for the army: Eton was quitted for ever.
In a few months he would have to join his regiment, and before he left
he must say goodbye to his friends.... Would Richard tell him Mrs.
Forey’s address? he had heard she was somewhere by the sea. Richard did
not remember the address, but said he would willingly take charge of
any letter and forward it.
Ralph dived his hand into his pocket. “Here it is. But don’t let
anybody see it.”
“My aunt’s name is not Clare,” said Richard, perusing what was composed
of the exterior formula. “You’ve addressed it to Clare herself.”
That was plain to see.
“Emmeline Clementina Matilda Laura, Countess Blandish,” Richard
continued in a low tone, transferring the names, and playing on the
musical strings they were to him. Then he said: “Names of ladies! How
they sweeten their names!”
He fixed his eyes on Ralph. If he discovered anything further he said
nothing, but bade the good fellow good-bye, jumped into his boat, and
pulled down the tide. The moment Ralph was hidden by an abutment of the
banks, Richard perused the address. For the first time it struck him
that his cousin Clare was a very charming creature: he remembered the
look of her eyes, and especially the last reproachful glance she gave
him at parting. What business had Ralph to write to her? Did she not
belong to Richard Feverel? He read the words again and again: Clare
Doria Forey. Why, Clare was the name he liked best—nay, he loved it.
Doria, too—she shared his own name with him. Away went his heart, not
at a canter now, at a gallop, as one who sights the quarry. He felt too
weak to pull. Clare Doria Forey—oh, perfect melody! Sliding with the
tide, he heard it fluting in the bosom of the hills.
When nature has made us ripe for love, it seldom occurs that the Fates
are behindhand in furnishing a temple for the flame.
Above green-flashing plunges of a weir, and shaken by the thunder
below, lilies, golden and white, were swaying at anchor among the
reeds. Meadow-sweet hung from the banks thick with weed and trailing
bramble, and there also hung a daughter of earth. Her face was shaded
by a broad straw hat with a flexible brim that left her lips and chin
in the sun, and, sometimes nodding, sent forth a light of promising
eyes. Across her shoulders, and behind, flowed large loose curls, brown
in shadow, almost golden where the ray touched them. She was simply
dressed, befitting decency and the season. On a closer inspection you
might see that her lips were stained. This blooming young person was
regaling on dewberries. They grew between the bank and the water.
Apparently she found the fruit abundant, for her hand was making pretty
progress to her mouth. Fastidious youth, which revolts at woman
plumping her exquisite proportions on bread-and-butter, and would (we
must suppose) joyfully have her scraggy to have her poetical, can
hardly object to dewberries. Indeed the act of eating them is dainty
and induces musing. The dewberry is a sister to the lotus, and an
innocent sister. You eat: mouth, eye, and hand are occupied, and the
undrugged mind free to roam. And so it was with the damsel who knelt
there. The little skylark went up above her, all song, to the smooth
southern cloud lying along the blue: from a dewy copse dark over her
nodding hat the blackbird fluted, calling to her with thrice mellow
note: the kingfisher flashed emerald out of green osiers: a bow-winged
heron travelled aloft, seeking solitude a boat slipped toward her,
containing a dreamy youth; and still she plucked the fruit, and ate,
and mused, as if no fairy prince were invading her territories, and as
if she wished not for one, or knew not her wishes. Surrounded by the
green shaven meadows, the pastoral summer buzz, the weir-fall’s
thundering white, amid the breath and beauty of wild flowers, she was a
bit of lovely human life in a fair setting; a terrible attraction. The
Magnetic Youth leaned round to note his proximity to the weir-piles,
and beheld the sweet vision. Stiller and stiller grew nature, as at the
meeting of two electric clouds. Her posture was so graceful, that
though he was making straight for the weir, he dared not dip a scull.
Just then one enticing dewberry caught her eyes. He was floating by
unheeded, and saw that her hand stretched low, and could not gather
what it sought. A stroke from his right brought him beside her. The
damsel glanced up dismayed, and her whole shape trembled over the
brink. Richard sprang from his boat into the water. Pressing a hand
beneath her foot, which she had thrust against the crumbling wet sides
of the bank to save herself, he enabled her to recover her balance, and
gain safe earth, whither he followed her.