Enchanted Islands have not yet rooted out their old brood of dragons.
Wherever there is romance, these monsters come by inimical attraction.
Because the heavens are certainly propitious to true lovers, the beasts
of the abysses are banded to destroy them, stimulated by innumerable
sad victories; and every love-tale is an Epic Par of the upper and
lower powers. I wish good fairies were a little more active. They seem
to be cajoled into security by the happiness of their favourites;
whereas the wicked are always alert, and circumspect. They let the
little ones shut their eyes to fancy they are not seen, and then
commence.
These appointments and meetings, involving a start from the
dinner-table at the hour of contemplative digestion and prime claret;
the hour when the wise youth Adrian delighted to talk at his ease—to
recline in dreamy consciousness that a work of good was going on inside
him; these abstractions from his studies, excesses of gaiety, and
glumness, heavings of the chest, and other odd signs, but mainly the
disgusting behaviour of his pupil at the dinner-table, taught Adrian to
understand, though the young gentleman was clever in excuses, that he
had somehow learnt there was another half to the divided Apple of
Creation, and had embarked upon the great voyage of discovery of the
difference between the two halves. With his usual coolness Adrian
debated whether he might be in the observatory or the practical stage
of the voyage. For himself, as a man and a philosopher, Adrian had no
objection to its being either; and he had only to consider which was
temporarily most threatening to the ridiculous System he had to
support. Richard’s absence annoyed him. The youth was vivacious, and
his enthusiasm good fun; and besides, when he left table, Adrian had to
sit alone with Hippias and the Eighteenth Century, from both of whom he
had extracted all the amusement that could be got, and he saw his
digestion menaced by the society of two ruined stomachs, who bored him
just when he loved himself most. Poor Hippias was now so reduced that
he had profoundly to calculate whether a particular dish, or an
extra-glass of wine, would have a bitter effect on him and be felt
through the remainder of his years. He was in the habit of uttering his
calculations half aloud, wherein the prophetic doubts of experience,
and the succulent insinuations of appetite, contended hotly. It was
horrible to hear him, so let us pardon Adrian for tempting him to a
decision in favour of the moment.
“Happy to take wine with you,” Adrian would say, and Hippias would
regard the decanter with a pained forehead, and put up the doctor.
“Drink, nephew Hippy, and think of the doctor to-morrow!” the
Eighteenth Century cheerily ruffles her cap at him, and recommends her
own practice.
“It’s this literary work!” interjects Hippias, handling his glass of
remorse. “I don’t know what else it can be. You have no idea how
anxious I feel. I have frightful dreams. I’m perpetually anxious.”
“No wonder,” says Adrian, who enjoys the childish simplicity to which
an absorbed study of his sensational existence has brought poor
Hippias. “No wonder. Ten years of Fairy Mythology! Could anyone hope to
sleep in peace after that? As to your digestion, no one has a digestion
who is in the doctor’s hands. They prescribe from dogmas, and don’t
count on the system. They have cut you down from two bottles to two
glasses. It’s absurd. You can’t sleep, because your system is crying
out for what it’s accustomed to.”
Hippias sips his Madeira with a niggardly confidence, but assures
Adrian that he really should not like to venture on a bottle now: it
would be rank madness to venture on a bottle now, he thinks. Last night
only, after partaking, under protest, of that rich French dish, or was
it the duck?—Adrian advised him to throw the blame on that vulgar
bird.—Say the duck, then. Last night, he was no sooner stretched in
bed, than he seemed to be of an enormous size all his limbs—his nose,
his mouth, his toes—were elephantine! An elephant was a pigmy to him.
And his hugeousness seemed to increase the instant he shut his eyes. He
turned on this side; he turned on that. He lay on his back; he tried
putting his face to the pillow; and he continued to swell. He wondered
the room could hold him—he thought he must burst it—and absolutely lit
a candle, and went to the looking-glass to see whether he was bearable.
By this time Adrian and Richard were laughing uncontrollably. He had,
however, a genial auditor in the Eighteenth Century, who declared it to
be a new disease, not known in her day, and deserving investigation.
She was happy to compare sensations with him, but hers were not of the
complex order, and a potion soon righted her. In fact, her system
appeared to be a debatable ground for aliment and medicine, on which
the battle was fought, and, when over, she was none the worse, as she
joyfully told Hippias. Never looked ploughman on prince, or village
belle on Court Beauty, with half the envy poor nineteenth-century
Hippias expended in his gaze on the Eighteenth. He was too serious to
note much the laughter of the young men.
This ‘Tragedy of a Cooking-Apparatus,’ as Adrian designated the malady
of Hippias, was repeated regularly ever evening. It was natural for any
youth to escape as quick as he could from such a table of stomachs.
Adrian bore with his conduct considerately, until a letter from the
baronet, describing the house and maternal System of a Mrs. Caroline
Grandison, and the rough grain of hopefulness in her youngest daughter,
spurred him to think of his duties, and see what was going on. He gave
Richard half-an-hour’s start, and then put on his hat to follow his own
keen scent, leaving Hippias and the Eighteenth Century to piquet.
In the lane near Belthorpe he met a maid of the farm not unknown to
him, one Molly Davenport by name, a buxom lass, who, on seeing him,
invoked her Good Gracious, the generic maid’s familiar, and was
instructed by reminiscences vivid, if ancient, to giggle.
“Are you looking for your young gentleman?” Molly presently asked.
Adrian glanced about the lane like a cool brigand, to see if the coast
was clear, and replied to her, “I am, miss. I want you to tell me about
him.”
“Dear!” said the buxom lass, “was you coming for me to-night to know?”
Adrian rebuked her: for her bad grammar, apparently.
“’Cause I can’t stop out long to-night,” Molly explained, taking the
rebuke to refer altogether to her bad grammar.
“You may go in when you please, miss. Is that any one coming? Come here
in the shade.”
“Now, get along!” said Miss Molly.
Adrian spoke with resolution. “Listen to me, Molly Davenport!” He put a
coin in her hand, which had a medical effect in calming her to
attention. “I want to know whether you have seen him at all?”
“Who? Your young gentleman? I sh’d think I did. I seen him to-night
only. Ain’t he grooved handsome. He’s al’ays about Beltharp now. It
ain’t to fire no more ricks. He’s afire ’unself. Ain’t you seen ’em
together? He’s after the missis”—
Adrian requested Miss Davenport to be respectful, and confine herself
to particulars. This buxom lass then told him that her young missis and
Adrian’s young gentleman were a pretty couple, and met one another
every night. The girl swore for their innocence.
“As for Miss Lucy, she haven’t a bit of art in her, nor have he.”
“They’re all nature, I suppose,” said Adrian. “How is it I don’t see
her at church?”
“She’s Catholic, or some think,” said Molly. “Her father was, and a
leftenant. She’ve a Cross in her bedroom. She don’t go to church. I see
you there last Sunday a-lookin’ so solemn,” and Molly stroked her hand
down her chin to give it length.
Adrian insisted on her keeping to facts. It was dark, and in the dark
he was indifferent to the striking contrasts suggested by the lass, but
he wanted to hear facts, and he again bribed her to impart nothing but
facts. Upon which she told him further, that her young lady was an
innocent artless creature who had been to school upwards of three years
with the nuns, and had a little money of her own, and was beautiful
enough to be a lord’s lady, and had been in love with Master Richard
ever since she was a little girl. Molly had got from a friend of hers
up at the Abbey, Mary Garner, the housemaid who cleaned Master
Richard’s room, a bit of paper once with the young gentleman’s
handwriting, and had given it to her Miss Lucy, and Miss Lucy had given
her a gold sovereign for it—just for his handwriting! Miss Lucy did not
seem happy at the farm, because of that young Tom, who was always
leering at her, and to be sure she was quite a lady, and could play,
and sing, and dress with the best.
“She looks like angels in her nightgown!” Molly wound up.
The next moment she ran up close, and speaking for the first time as if
there were a distinction of position between them, petitioned: “Mr.
Harley! you won’t go for doin’ any harm to ’em ’cause of what I said,
will you now? Do say you won’t now, Mr. Harley! She is good, though
she’s a Catholic. She was kind to me when I was ill, and I wouldn’t
have her crossed—I’d rather be showed up myself, I would!”
The wise youth gave no positive promise to Molly, and she had to read
his consent in a relaxation of his austerity. The noise of a lumbering
foot plodding down the lane caused her to be abruptly dismissed. Molly
took to flight, the lumbering foot accelerated its pace, and the
pastoral appeal to her flying skirts was heard—“Moll! you theyre! It be
I—Bantam!” But the sprightly Silvia would not stop to his wooing, and
Adrian turned away laughing at these Arcadians.
Adrian was a lazy dragon. All he did for the present was to hint and
tease. “It’s the Inevitable!” he said, and asked himself why he should
seek to arrest it. He had no faith in the System. Heavy Benson had.
Benson of the slow thick-lidded antediluvian eye and loose-crumpled
skin; Benson, the Saurian, the woman-hater; Benson was wide awake. A
sort of rivalry existed between the wise youth and heavy Benson. The
fidelity of the latter dependant had moved the baronet to commit to him
a portion of the management of the Raynham estate, and this Adrian did
not like. No one who aspires to the honourable office of leading
another by the nose can tolerate a party in his ambition. Benson’s
surly instinct told him he was in the wise youth’s way, and he resolved
to give his master a striking proof of his superior faithfulness. For
some weeks the Saurian eye had been on the two secret creatures. Heavy
Benson saw letters come and go in the day, and now the young gentleman
was off and out every night, and seemed to be on wings. Benson knew
whither he went, and the object he went for. It was a woman—that was
enough. The Saurian eye had actually seen the sinful thing lure the
hope of Raynham into the shades. He composed several epistles of
warning to the baronet of the work that was going on; but before
sending one he wished to record a little of their guilty conversation;
and for this purpose the faithful fellow trotted over the dews to
eavesdrop, and thereby aroused the good fairy, in the person of Tom
Bakewell, the sole confidant of Richard’s state.
Tom said to his young master, “Do you know what, sir? You be watched!”
Richard, in a fury, bade him name the wretch, and Tom hung his arms,
and aped the respectable protrusion of the butler’s head.
“It’s he, is it?” cried Richard. “He shall rue it, Tom. If I find him
near me when we’re together he shall never forget it.”
“Don’t hit too hard, sir,” Tom suggested. “You hit mortal hard when
you’re in earnest, you know.”
Richard averred he would forgive anything but that, and told Tom to be
within hail to-morrow night—he knew where. By the hour of the
appointment it was out of the lover’s mind.
Lady Blandish dined that evening at Raynham, by Adrian’s pointed
invitation. According to custom, Richard started up and off, with few
excuses. The lady exhibited no surprise. She and Adrian likewise
strolled forth to enjoy the air of the Summer night. They had no
intention of spying. Still they may have thought, by meeting Richard
and his inamorata, there was a chance of laying a foundation of
ridicule to sap the passion. They may have thought so—they were on no
spoken understanding.
“I have seen the little girl,” said Lady Blandish. “She is pretty—she
would be telling if she were well set up. She speaks well. How absurd
it is of that class to educate their women above their station! The
child is really too good for a farmer. I noticed her before I knew of
this; she has enviable hair. I suppose she doesn’t paint her eyelids.
Just the sort of person to take a young man. I thought there was
something wrong. I received, the day before yesterday, an impassioned
poem evidently not intended for me. My hair was gold. My meeting him
was foretold. My eyes were homes of light fringed with night. I sent it
back, correcting the colours.”
“Which was death to the rhymes,” said Adrian. “I saw her this morning.
The boy hasn’t bad taste. As you say, she is too good for a farmer.
Such a spark would explode any System. She slightly affected mine. The
Huron is stark mad about her.”
“But we must positively write and tell his father,” said Lady Blandish.
The wise youth did not see why they should exaggerate a trifle. The
lady said she would have an interview with Richard, and then write, as
it was her duty to do. Adrian shrugged, and was for going into the
scientific explanation of Richard’s conduct, in which the lady had to
discourage him.
“Poor boy!” she sighed. “I am really sorry for him. I hope he will not
feel it too strongly. They feel strongly, father and son.”
“And select wisely,” Adrian added.
“That’s another thing,” said Lady Blandish.
Their talk was then of the dulness of neighbouring county people, about
whom, it seemed, there was little or no scandal afloat: of the lady’s
loss of the season in town, which she professed not to regret, though
she complained of her general weariness: of whether Mr. Morton of Poer
Hall would propose to Mrs. Doria, and of the probable despair of the
hapless curate of Lobourne; and other gossip, partly in French.
They rounded the lake, and got upon the road through the park to
Lobourne. The moon had risen. The atmosphere was warm and pleasant.
“Quite a lover’s night,” said Lady Blandish.
“And I, who have none to love—pity me!” The wise youth attempted a
sigh.
“And never will have,” said Lady Blandish, curtly. “You buy your
loves.”
Adrian protested. However, he did not plead verbally against the
impeachment, though the lady’s decisive insight astonished him. He
began to respect her, relishing her exquisite contempt, and he
reflected that widows could be terrible creatures.
He had hoped to be a little sentimental with Lady Blandish, knowing her
romantic. This mixture of the harshest common sense and an air of “I
know you men,” with romance and refined temperament, subdued the wise
youth more than a positive accusation supported by witnesses would have
done. He looked at the lady. Her face was raised to the moon. She knew
nothing—she had simply spoken from the fulness of her human knowledge,
and had forgotten her words. Perhaps, after all, her admiration, or
whatever feeling it was, for the baronet, was sincere, and really the
longing for a virtuous man. Perhaps she had tried the opposite set
pretty much. Adrian shrugged. Whenever the wise youth encountered a
mental difficulty he instinctively lifted his shoulders to equal
altitudes, to show that he had no doubt there was a balance in the
case—plenty to be said on both sides, which was the same to him as a
definite solution.
At their tryst in the wood, abutting on Raynham Park, wrapped in
themselves, piped to by tireless Love, Richard and Lucy sat, toying
with eternal moments. How they seem as if they would never end! What
mere sparks they are when they have died out! And how in the distance
of time they revive, and extend, and glow, and make us think them full
the half, and the best of the fire, of our lives!
With the onward flow of intimacy, the two happy lovers ceased to be so
shy of common themes, and their speech did not reject all as dross that
was not pure gold of emotion.
Lucy was very inquisitive about everything and everybody at Raynham.
Whoever had been about Richard since his birth, she must know the
history of, and he for a kiss will do her bidding.
Thus goes the tender duet:
“You should know my cousin Austin, Lucy.—Darling! Beloved!”
“My own! Richard!”
“You should know my cousin Austin. You shall know him. He would take to
you best of them all, and you to him. He is in the tropics now, looking
out a place—it’s a secret—for poor English working-men to emigrate to
and found a colony in that part of the world:—my white angel!”
“Dear love!”
“He is such a noble fellow! Nobody here understands him but me. Isn’t
it strange? Since I met you I love him better! That’s because I love
all that’s good and noble better now—Beautiful! I love—I love you!”
“My Richard!”
“What do you think I’ve determined, Lucy? If my father—but no! my
father does love me.—No! he will not; and we will be happy together
here. And I will win my way with you. And whatever I win will be yours;
for it will be owing to you. I feel as if I had no strength but
yours—none! and you make me—O Lucy!”
His voice ebbs. Presently Lucy murmurs—
“Your father, Richard.”
“Yes, my father?”
“Dearest Richard! I feel so afraid of him.”
“He loves me, and will love you, Lucy.”
“But I am so poor and humble, Richard.”
“No one I have ever seen is like you, Lucy.”
“You think so, because you”—
“What?”
“Love me,” comes the blushing whisper, and the duet gives place to dumb
variations, performed equally in concert.
It is resumed.
“You are fond of the knights, Lucy. Austin is as brave as any of
them.—My own bride! Oh, how I adore you! When you are gone, I could
fall upon the grass you tread upon, and kiss it. My breast feels empty
of my heart—Lucy! if we lived in those days, I should have been a
knight, and have won honour and glory for you. Oh! one can do nothing
now. My lady-love! My lady-love!—A tear?—Lucy?”
“Dearest! Ah, Richard! I am not a lady.”
“Who dares say that? Not a lady—the angel I love!”
“Think, Richard, who I am.”
“My beautiful! I think that God made you, and has given you to me.”
Her eyes fill with tears, and, as she lifts them heavenward to thank
her God, the light of heaven strikes on them, and she is so radiant in
her pure beauty that the limbs of the young man tremble.
“Lucy! O heavenly spirit! Lucy!”
Tenderly her lips part—“I do not weep for sorrow.”
The big bright drops lighten, and roll down, imaged in his soul.
They lean together—shadows of ineffable tenderness playing on their
thrilled cheeks and brows.
He lifts her hand, and presses his mouth to it. She has seen little of
mankind, but her soul tells her this one is different from others, and
at the thought, in her great joy, tears must come fast, or her heart
will break—tears of boundless thanksgiving. And he, gazing on those
soft, ray-illumined, dark-edged eyes, and the grace of her loose
falling tresses, feels a scarce-sufferable holy fire streaming through
his members.
It is long ere they speak in open tones.
“O happy day when we met!”
What says the voice of one, the soul of the other echoes.
“O glorious heaven looking down on us!”
Their souls are joined, are made one for evermore beneath that bending
benediction.
“O eternity of bliss!”
Then the diviner mood passes, and they drop to earth.
“Lucy! come with me to-night, and look at the place where you are some
day to live. Come, and I will row you on the lake. You remember what
you said in your letter that you dreamt?—that we were floating over the
shadow of the Abbey to the nuns at work by torchlight felling the
cypress, and they handed us each a sprig. Why, darling, it was the best
omen in the world, their felling the old trees. And you write such
lovely letters. So pure and sweet they are. I love the nuns for having
taught you.”
“Ah, Richard! See! we forget! Ah!” she lifts up her face pleadingly, as
to plead against herself, “even if your father forgives my birth, he
will not my religion. And, dearest, though I would die for you I cannot
change it. It would seem that I was denying God; and—oh! it would make
me ashamed of my love.”
“Fear nothing!” He winds her about with his arm. “Come! He will love us
both, and love you the more for being faithful to your father’s creed.
You don’t know him, Lucy. He seems harsh and stern—he is full of
kindness and love. He isn’t at all a bigot. And besides, when he hears
what the nuns have done for you, won’t he thank them, as I do? And—oh!
I must speak to him soon, and you must be prepared to see him soon, for
I cannot bear your remaining at Belthorpe, like a jewel in a sty. Mind!
I’m not saying a word against your uncle. I declare I love everybody
and everything that sees you and touches you. Stay! it is a wonder how
you could have grown there. But you were not born there, and your
father had good blood. Desborough!—here was a Colonel Desborough—never
mind! Come!”
She dreads to. She begs not to. She is drawn away.
The woods are silent, and then—
“What think you of that for a pretty pastoral?” says a very different
voice.
Adrian reclined against a pine overlooking the fern-covert. Lady
Blandish was recumbent upon the brown pine-droppings, gazing through a
vista of the lower greenwood which opened out upon the moon-lighted
valley, her hands clasped round one knee, her features almost stern in
their set hard expression.
They had heard, by involuntarily overhearing about as much as may be
heard in such positions, a luminous word or two.
The lady did not answer. A movement among the ferns attracted Adrian,
and he stepped down the decline across the pine-roots to behold heavy
Benson below; shaking fern-seed and spidery substances off his crumpled
skin.
“Is that you, Mr. Hadrian?” called Benson, starting, as he puffed, and
exercised his handkerchief.
“Is it you, Benson, who have had the audacity to spy upon these
Mysteries?” Adrian called back, and coming close to him, added, “You
look as if you had just been well thrashed.”
“Isn’t it dreadful, sir?” snuffled Benson. “And his father in
ignorance, Mr. Hadrian!”
“He shall know, Benson! He shall know how, you have endangered your
valuable skin in his service. If Mr. Richard had found you there just
now I wouldn’t answer for the consequences.”
“Ha!” Benson spitefully retorted. “This won’t go on; Mr. Hadrian. It
shan’t, sir. It will be put a stop to tomorrow, sir. I call it
corruption of a young gentleman like him, and harlotry, sir, I call it.
I’d have every jade flogged that made a young innocent gentleman go on
like that, sir.”
“Then, why didn’t you stop it yourself, Benson? Ah, I see! you
waited—what? This is not the first time you have been attendant on
Apollo and Miss Dryope? You have written to headquarters?”
“I did my duty, Mr. Hadrian.”
The wise youth returned to Lady Blandish, and informed her of Benson’s
zeal. The lady’s eyes flashed. “I hope Richard will treat him as he
deserves,” she said.
“Shall we home?” Adrian inquired.
“Do me a favour;” the lady replied. “Get my carriage sent round to meet
me at the park-gates.”
“Won’t you?”—
“I want to be alone.”
Adrian bowed and left her. She was still sitting with her hands clasped
round one knee, gazing towards the dim ray-strewn valley.
“An odd creature!” muttered the wise youth. “She’s as odd as any of
them. She ought to be a Feverel. I suppose she’s graduating for it.
Hang that confounded old ass of a Benson! He has had the impudence to
steal a march on me!”
The shadow of the cypress was lessening on the lake. The moon was
climbing high. As Richard rowed the boat, Lucy, sang to him softly. She
sang first a fresh little French song, reminding him of a day when she
had been asked to sing to him before, and he did not care to hear. “Did
I live?” he thinks. Then she sang to him a bit of one of those majestic
old Gregorian chants, that, wherever you may hear them, seem to build
up cathedral walls about you. The young man dropped the sculls. The
strange solemn notes gave a religious tone to his love, and wafted him
into the knightly ages and the reverential heart of chivalry.
Hanging between two heavens on the lake: floating to her voice: the
moon stepping over and through white shoals of soft high clouds above
and below: floating to her void—no other breath abroad! His soul went
out of his body as he listened.
They must part. He rows her gently shoreward.
“I never was so happy as to-night,” she murmurs.
“Look, my Lucy. The lights of the old place are on the lake. Look where
you are to live.”
“Which is your room, Richard?”
He points it out to her.
“O Richard! that I were one of the women who wait on you! I should ask
nothing more. How happy she must be!”
“My darling angel-love. You shall be happy; but all shall wait on you,
and I foremost, Lucy.”
“Dearest! may I hope for a letter?”
“By eleven to-morrow. And I?”
“Oh! you will have mine, Richard.”
“Tom shall wait for it. A long one, mind! Did you like my last song?”
She pats her hand quietly against her bosom, and he knows where it
rests. O love! O heaven!
They are aroused by the harsh grating of the bow of the boat against
the shingle. He jumps out, and lifts her ashore.
“See!” she says, as the blush of his embrace subsides—“See!” and
prettily she mimics awe and feels it a little, “the cypress does point
towards us. O Richard! it does!”
And he, looking at her rather than at the cypress, delighting in her
arch grave ways—
“Why, there’s hardly any shadow at all, Lucy. She mustn’t dream, my
darling! or dream only of me.”
“Dearest! but I do.”
“To-morrow, Lucy! The letter in the morning, and you at night. O happy
to-morrow!”
“You will be sure to be there, Richard?”
“If I am not dead, Lucy.”
“O Richard! pray, pray do not speak of that. I shall not survive you.”
“Let us pray, Lucy, to die together, when we are to die. Death or life,
with you! Who is it yonder? I see some one—is it Tom? It’s Adrian!”
“Is it Mr. Harley?” The fair girl shivered.
“How dares he come here!” cried Richard.
The figure of Adrian, instead of advancing, discreetly circled the
lake. They were stealing away when he called. His call was repeated.
Lucy entreated Richard to go to him; but the young man preferred to
summon his attendant, Tom, from within hail, and send him to know what
was wanted.
“Will he have seen me? Will he have known me?” whispered Lucy,
tremulously.
“And if he does, love?” said Richard.
“Oh! if he does, dearest—I don’t know, but I feel such a presentiment.
You have not spoken of him to-night, Richard. Is he good?”
“Good?” Richard clutched her hand for the innocent maiden phrase. “He’s
very fond of eating; that’s all I know of Adrian.”
Her hand was at his lips when Tom returned.
“Well, Tom?”
“Mr. Adrian wishes particular to speak to you, sir,” said Tom.
“Do go to him, dearest! Do go!” Lucy begs him.
“Oh, how I hate Adrian!” The young man grinds his teeth.
“Do go!” Lucy urges him. “Tom—good Tom—will see me home. To-morrow,
dear love! To-morrow!”
“You wish to part from me?”
“Oh, unkind! but you must not come with me now. It may be news of
importance, dearest. Think, Richard!”
“Tom! go back!”
At the imperious command the well-drilled Tom strides off a dozen
paces, and sees nothing. Then the precious charge is confided to him. A
heart is cut in twain.
Richard made his way to Adrian. “What is it you want with me, Adrian?”
“Are we seconds, or principals, O fiery one?” was Adrian’s answer. “I
want nothing with you, except to know whether you have seen Benson.”
“Where should I see Benson? What do I know of Benson’s doings?”
“Of course not—such a secret old fist as he is! I want some one to tell
him to order Lady Blandish’s carriage to be sent round to the
park-gates. I thought he might be round your way over there—I came upon
him accidentally just now in Abbey-wood. What’s the matter, boy?”
“You saw him there?”
“Hunting Diana, I suppose. He thinks she’s not so chaste as they say,”
continued Adrian. “Are you going to knock down that tree?”
Richard had turned to the cypress, and was tugging at the tough wood.
He left it and went to an ash.
“You’ll spoil that weeper,” Adrian cried. “Down she comes! But
good-night, Ricky. If you see Benson mind you tell him.”
Doomed Benson following his burly shadow hove in sight on the white
road while Adrian spoke. The wise youth chuckled and strolled round the
lake, glancing over his shoulder every now and then.
It was not long before he heard a bellow for help—the roar of a dragon
in his throes. Adrian placidly sat down on the grass, and fixed his
eyes on the water. There, as the roar was being repeated amid horrid
resounding echoes, the wise youth mused in this wise—
“‘The Fates are Jews with us when they delay a punishment,’ says The
Pilgrim’s Scrip, or words to that effect. The heavens evidently love
Benson, seeing that he gets his punishment on the spot. Master Ricky is
a peppery young man. He gets it from the apt Gruffudh. I rather believe
in race. What a noise that old ruffian makes! He’ll require poulticing
with The Pilgrim’s Scrip. We shall have a message to-morrow, and a
hubbub, and perhaps all go to town, which won’t be bad for one who’s
been a prey to all the desires born of dulness. Benson howls: there’s
life in the old dog yet! He bays the moon. Look at her. She doesn’t
care. It’s the same to her whether we coo like turtle-doves or roar
like twenty lions. How complacent she looks! And yet she has just as
much sympathy for Benson as for Cupid. She would smile on if both were
being birched. Was that a raven or Benson? He howls no more. It sounds
guttural: frog-like—something between the brek-kek-kek and the hoarse
raven’s croak. The fellow’ll be killing him. It’s time to go to the
rescue. A deliverer gets more honour by coming in at the last gasp than
if he forestalled catastrophe.—Ho, there, what’s the matter?”
So saying, the wise youth rose, and leisurely trotted to the scene of
battle, where stood St. George puffing over the prostrate Dragon.
“Holloa, Ricky! is it you?” said Adrian. “What’s this? Whom have we
here?—Benson, as I live!”
“Make this beast get up,” Richard returned, breathing hard, and shaking
his great ash-branch.
“He seems incapable, my dear boy. What have you been up to?—Benson!
Benson!—I say, Ricky, this looks bad.”
“He’s shamming!” Richard clamoured like a savage. “Spy upon me, will
he? I tell you, he’s shamming. He hasn’t had half enough. Nothing’s too
bad for a spy. Let him getup!”
“Insatiate youth! do throw away that enormous weapon.”
“He has written to my father,” Richard shouted. “The miserable spy! Let
him get up!”
“Ooogh? I won’t!” huskily groaned Benson. “Mr. Hadrian, you’re a
witness—he’s my back!”—Cavernous noises took up the tale of his
maltreatment.
“I daresay you love your back better than any part of your body now,”
Adrian muttered. “Come, Benson! be a man. Mr. Richard has thrown away
the stick. Come, and get off home, and let’s see the extent of the
damage.”
“Ooogh! he’s a devil! Mr. Hadrian, sir, he’s a devil!” groaned Benson,
turning half over in the road to ease his aches.
Adrian caught hold of Benson’s collar and lifted him to a sitting
posture. He then had a glimpse of what his hopeful pupil’s hand could
do in wrath. The wretched butler’s coat was slit and welted; his hat
knocked in; his flabby spirit so broken that he started and trembled if
his pitiless executioner stirred a foot. Richard stood over him,
grasping his great stick; no dawn of mercy for Benson in any corner of
his features.
Benson screwed his neck round to look up at him, and immediately
gasped, “I won’t get up! I won’t! He’s ready to murder me again!—Mr.
Hadrian! if you stand by and see it, you’re liable to the law, sir—I
won’t get up while he’s near.” No persuasion could induce Benson to try
his legs while his executioner stood by.
Adrian took Richard aside: “You’ve almost killed the poor devil, Ricky.
You must be satisfied with that. Look at his face.”
“The coward bobbed while I struck” said Richard. “I marked his back. He
ducked. I told him he was getting it worse.”
At so civilized piece of savagery, Adrian opened his mouth wide.
“Did you really? I admire that. You told him he was getting it worse?”
Adrian opened his mouth again to shake another roll of laughter out.
“Come,” he said, “Excalibur has done his word. Pitch him into the lake.
And see—here comes the Blandish. You can’t be at it again before a
woman. Go and meet her, and tell her the noise was an ox being
slaughtered. Or say Argus.”
With a whirr that made all Benson’s bruises moan and quiver, the great
ash-branch shot aloft, and Richard swung off to intercept Lady
Blandish.
Adrian got Benson on his feet. The heavy butler was disposed to summon
all the commiseration he could feel for his bruised flesh. Every
half-step he attempted was like a dislocation. His groans and grunts
were frightful.
“How much did that hat cost, Benson?” said Adrian, as he put it on his
head.
“A five-and-twenty shilling beaver, Mr. Hadrian!” Benson caressed its
injuries.
“The cheapest policy of insurance I remember to have heard of!” said
Adrian.
Benson staggered, moaning at intervals to his cruel comforter.
“He’s a devil, Mr. Hadrian! He’s a devil, sir, I do believe, sir.
Ooogh! he’s a devil!—I can’t move, Mr. Hadrian. I must be fetched. And
Dr. Clifford must be sent for, sir. I shall never be fit for work
again. I haven’t a sound bone in my body, Mr. Hadrian.”
“You see, Benson, this comes of your declaring war upon Venus. I hope
the maids will nurse you properly. Let me see: you are friends with the
housekeeper, aren’t you? All depends upon that.”
“I’m only a faithful servant, Mr. Hadrian,” the miserable butler
snarled.
“Then you’ve got no friend but your bed. Get to it as quick as
possible, Benson.”
“I can’t move.” Benson made a resolute halt. “I must be fetched,” he
whinnied. “It’s a shame to ask me to move, Mr. Hadrian.”
“You will admit that you are heavy, Benson,” said Adrian, “so I can’t
carry you. However, I see Mr. Richard is very kindly returning to help
me.”
At these words heavy Benson instantly found his legs, and shambled on.
Lady Blandish met Richard in dismay.
“I have been horribly frightened,” she said. “Tell me, what was the
meaning of those cries I heard?”
“Only some one doing justice on a spy,” said Richard, and the lady
smiled, and looked on him fondly, and put her hand through his hair.
“Was that all? I should have done it myself if I had been a man. Kiss
me.”