It was the month of July. The Solent ran up green waves before a
full-blowing South-wester. Gay little yachts bounded out like foam, and
flashed their sails, light as sea-nymphs. A crown of deep Summer blue
topped the flying mountains of cloud.
By an open window that looked on the brine through nodding roses, our
young bridal pair were at breakfast, regaling worthily, both of them.
Had the Scientific Humanist observed them, he could not have contested
the fact, that as a couple who had set up to be father and mother of
Britons, they were doing their duty. Files of egg-cups with
disintegrated shells bore witness to it, and they were still at work,
hardly talking from rapidity of exercise. Both were dressed for an
expedition. She had her bonnet on, and he his yachting-hat. His sleeves
were turned over at the wrists, and her gown showed its lining on her
lap. At times a chance word might spring a laugh, but eating was the
business of the hour, as I would have you to know it always will be
where Cupid is in earnest. Tribute flowed in to them from the subject
land. Neglected lies Love’s penny-whistle on which they played so
prettily and charmed the spheres to hear them. What do they care for
the spheres, who have one another? Come, eggs! come, bread and butter!
come, tea with sugar in it and milk! and welcome, the jolly hours. That
is a fair interpretation of the music in them just now. Yonder
instrument was good only for the overture. After all, what finer
aspiration can lovers have, than to be free man and woman in the heart
of plenty? And is it not a glorious level to have attained? Ah,
wretched Scientific Humanist! not to be by and mark the admirable sight
of these young creatures feeding. It would have been a spell to
exorcise the Manichee, methinks.
The mighty performance came to an end, and then, with a flourish of his
table-napkin, husband stood over wife, who met him on the confident
budding of her mouth. The poetry of mortals is their daily prose. Is it
not a glorious level to have attained? A short, quick-blooded kiss,
radiant, fresh, and honest as Aurora, and then Richard says without
lack of cheer, “No letter to-day, my Lucy!” whereat her sweet eyes
dwell on him a little seriously, but he cries, “Never mind! he’ll be
coming down himself some morning. He has only to know her, and all’s
well! eh?” and so saying he puts a hand beneath her chin, and seems to
frame her fair face in fancy, she smiling up to be looked at.
“But one thing I do want to ask my darling,” says Lucy, and dropped
into his bosom with hands of petition. “Take me on board his yacht with
him to-day—not leave me with those people! Will he? I’m a good sailor,
he knows!”
“The best afloat!” laughs Richard, hugging her, “but, you know, you
darling bit of a sailor, they don’t allow more than a certain number on
board for the race, and if they hear you’ve been with me, there’ll be
cries of foul play! Besides, there’s Lady Judith to talk to you about
Austin, and Lord Mountfalcon’s compliments for you to listen to, and
Mr. Morton to take care of you.”
Lucy’s eyes fixed sideways an instant.
“I hope I don’t frown and blush as I did?” she said, screwing her
pliable brows up to him winningly, and he bent his cheek against hers,
and murmured something delicious.
“And we shall be separated for—how many hours? one, two, three hours!”
she pouted to his flatteries.
“And then I shall come on board to receive my bride’s congratulations.”
“And then my husband will talk all the time to Lady Judith.”
“And then I shall see my wife frowning and blushing at Lord
Mountfalcon.”
“Am I so foolish, Richard?” she forgot her trifling to ask in an
earnest way, and had another Aurorean kiss, just brushing the dew on
her lips, for answer.
After hiding a month in shyest shade, the pair of happy sinners had
wandered forth one day to look on men and marvel at them, and had
chanced to meet Mr. Morton of Poer Hall, Austin Wentworth’s friend, and
Ralph’s uncle. Mr. Morton had once been intimate with the baronet, but
had given him up for many years as impracticable and hopeless, for
which reason he was the more inclined to regard Richard’s misdemeanour
charitably, and to lay the faults of the son on the father; and
thinking society to be the one thing requisite to the young man, he had
introduced him to the people he knew in the island; among others to the
Lady Judith Felle, a fair young dame, who introduced him to Lord
Mountfalcon, a puissant nobleman; who introduced him to the yachtsmen
beginning to congregate; so that in a few weeks he found himself in the
centre of a brilliant company, and for the first time in his life
tasted what it was to have free intercourse with his fellow-creatures
of both sexes. The son of a System was, therefore, launched; not only
through the surf, but in deep waters.
Now the baronet had so far compromised between the recurrence of his
softer feelings and the suggestions of his new familiar, that he had
determined to act toward Richard with justness. The world called it
magnanimity, and even Lady Blandish had some thoughts of the same kind
when she heard that he had decreed to Richard a handsome allowance, and
had scouted Mrs. Doria’s proposal for him to contest the legality of
the marriage; but Sir Austin knew well he was simply just in not
withholding money from a youth so situated. And here again the world
deceived him by embellishing his conduct. For what is it to be just to
whom we love! He knew it was not magnanimous, but the cry of the world
somehow fortified him in the conceit that in dealing perfect justice to
his son he was doing all that was possible, because so much more than
common fathers would have done. He had shut his heart.
Consequently Richard did not want money. What he wanted more, and did
not get, was a word from his father, and though he said nothing to
sadden his young bride, she felt how much it preyed upon him to be at
variance with the man whom, now that he had offended him and gone
against him, he would have fallen on his knees to; the man who was as
no other man to him. She heard him of nights when she lay by his side,
and the darkness, and the broken mutterings, of those nights clothed
the figure of the strange stern man in her mind. Not that it affected
the appetites of the pretty pair. We must not expect that of Cupid
enthroned and in condition; under the influence of sea-air, too. The
files of egg-cups laugh at such an idea. Still the worm did gnaw them.
Judge, then, of their delight when, on this pleasant morning, as they
were issuing from the garden of their cottage to go down to the sea,
they caught sight of Tom Bakewell rushing up the road with a
portmanteau on his shoulders, and, some distance behind him, discerned
Adrian.
“It’s all right!” shouted Richard, and ran off to meet him, and never
left his hand till he had hauled him up, firing questions at him all
the way, to where Lucy stood.
“Lucy! this is Adrian, my cousin.”—“Isn’t he an angel?” his eyes seemed
to add; while Lucy’s clearly answered, “That he is!”
The full-bodied angel ceremoniously bowed to her, and acted with
reserved unction the benefactor he saw in their greetings. “I think we
are not strangers,” he was good enough to remark, and very quickly let
them know he had not breakfasted; on hearing which they hurried him
into the house, and Lucy put herself in motion to have him served.
“Dear old Rady,” said Richard, tugging at his hand again, “how glad I
am you’ve come! I don’t mind telling you we’ve been horridly wretched.”
“Six, seven, eight, nine eggs,” was Adrian’s comment on a survey of the
breakfast-table.
“Why wouldn’t he write? Why didn’t he answer one of my letters? But
here you are, so I don’t mind now. He wants to see us, does he? We’ll
go up to-night. I’ve a match on at eleven; my little yacht—I’ve called
her the ‘Blandish’—against Fred Cuirie’s ‘Begum.’ I shall beat, but
whether I do or not, we’ll go up to-night. What’s the news? What are
they all doing?”
“My dear boy!” Adrian returned, sitting comfortably down, “let me put
myself a little more on an equal footing with you before I undertake to
reply. Half that number of eggs will be sufficient for an unmarried
man, and then we’ll talk. They’re all very well, as well as I can
recollect after the shaking my total vacuity has had this morning. I
came over by the first boat, and the sea, the sea has made me love
mother earth, and desire of her fruits.”
Richard fretted restlessly opposite his cool relative.
“Adrian! what did he say when he heard of it? I want to know exactly
what words he said.”
“Well says the sage, my son! ‘Speech is the small change of Silence.’
He said less than I do.”
“That’s how he took it!” cried Richard, and plunged in meditation.
Soon the table was cleared, and laid out afresh, and Lucy preceded the
maid bearing eggs on the tray, and sat down unbonneted, and like a
thorough-bred housewife, to pour out the tea for him.
“Now we’ll commence,” said Adrian, tapping his egg with meditative
cheerfulness; but his expression soon changed to one of pain, all the
more alarming for his benevolent efforts to conceal it. Could it be
possible the egg was bad? oh, horror! Lucy watched him, and waited in
trepidation.
“This egg has boiled three minutes and three-quarters,” he observed,
ceasing to contemplate it.
“Dear, dear!” said Lucy, “I boiled them myself exactly that time.
Richard likes them so. And you like them hard, Mr. Harley?”
“On the contrary, I like them soft. Two minutes and a half, or
three-quarters at the outside. An egg should never rashly verge upon
hardness—never. Three minutes is the excess of temerity.”
“If Richard had told me! If I had only known!” the lovely little
hostess interjected ruefully, biting her lip.
“We mustn’t expect him to pay attention to such matters,” said Adrian,
trying to smile.
“Hang it! there are more eggs in the house,” cried Richard, and pulled
savagely at the bell.
Lucy jumped up, saying, “Oh, yes! I will go and boil some exactly the
time you like. Pray let me go, Mr. Harley.”
Adrian restrained her departure with a motion of his hand. “No,” he
said, “I will be ruled by Richard’s tastes, and heaven grant me his
digestion!”
Lucy threw a sad look at Richard, who stretched on a sofa, and left the
burden of the entertainment entirely to her. The eggs were a melancholy
beginning, but her ardour to please Adrian would not be damped, and she
deeply admired his resignation. If she failed in pleasing this glorious
herald of peace, no matter by what small misadventure, she apprehended
calamity; so there sat this fair dove with brows at work above her
serious smiling blue eyes, covertly studying every aspect of the
plump-faced epicure, that she might learn to propitiate him. “He shall
not think me timid and stupid,” thought this brave girl, and indeed
Adrian was astonished to find that she could both chat and be useful,
as well as look ornamental. When he had finished one egg, behold, two
fresh ones came in, boiled according to his prescription. She had
quietly given her orders to the maid, and he had them without fuss.
Possibly his look of dismay at the offending eggs had not been
altogether involuntary, and her woman’s instinct, inexperienced as she
was, may have told her that he had come prepared to be not very well
satisfied with anything in Love’s cottage. There was mental faculty in
those pliable brows to see through, and combat, an unwitting wise
youth.
How much she had achieved already she partly divined when Adrian said:
“I think now I’m in case to answer your questions, my dear boy—thanks
to Mrs. Richard,” and he bowed to her his first direct acknowledgment
of her position. Lucy thrilled with pleasure.
“Ah!” cried Richard, and settled easily on his back.
“To begin, the Pilgrim has lost his Note-book, and has been persuaded
to offer a reward which shall maintain the happy finder thereof in an
asylum for life. Benson—superlative Benson—has turned his shoulders
upon Raynham. None know whither he has departed. It is believed that
the sole surviving member of the sect of the Shaddock-Dogmatists is
under a total eclipse of Woman.”
“Benson gone?” Richard exclaimed. “What a tremendous time it seems
since I left Raynham!”
“So it is, my dear boy. The honeymoon is Mahomet’s minute; or say, the
Persian King’s water-pail that you read of in the story: You dip your
head in it, and when you draw it out, you discover that you have lived
a life. To resume your uncle Algernon still roams in pursuit of the
lost one—I should say, hops. Your uncle Hippias has a new and most
perplexing symptom; a determination of bride-cake to the nose. Ever
since your generous present to him, though he declares he never
consumed a morsel of it, he has been under the distressing illusion
that his nose is enormous, and I assure you he exhibits quite a
maidenly timidity in following it—through a doorway, for instance. He
complains of its terrible weight. I have conceived that Benson
invisible might be sitting on it. His hand, and the doctor’s, are in
hourly consultation with it, but I fear it will not grow smaller. The
Pilgrim has begotten upon it a new Aphorism: that Size is a matter of
opinion.”
“Poor uncle Hippy!” said Richard, “I wonder he doesn’t believe in
magic. There’s nothing supernatural to rival the wonderful sensations
he does believe in. Good God! fancy coming to that!”
“I’m sure I’m very sorry,” Lucy protested, “but I can’t help laughing.”
Charming to the wise youth her pretty laughter sounded.
“The Pilgrim has your notion, Richard. Whom does he not forestall?
‘Confirmed dyspepsia is the apparatus of illusions,’ and he accuses the
Ages that put faith in sorcery, of universal indigestion, which may
have been the case, owing to their infamous cookery. He says again, if
you remember, that our own Age is travelling back to darkness and
ignorance through dyspepsia. He lays the seat of wisdom in the centre
of our system, Mrs. Richard: for which reason you will understand how
sensible I am of the vast obligation I am under to you at the present
moment, for your especial care of mine.”
Richard looked on at Lucy’s little triumph, attributing Adrian’s
subjugation to her beauty and sweetness. She had latterly received a
great many compliments on that score, which she did not care to hear,
and Adrian’s homage to a practical quality was far pleasanter to the
young wife, who shrewdly guessed that her beauty would not help her
much in the struggle she had now to maintain. Adrian continuing to
lecture on the excelling virtues of wise cookery, a thought struck her:
Where, where had she tossed Mrs. Berry’s book?
“So that’s all about the home-people?” said Richard.
“All!” replied Adrian. “Or stay: you know Clare’s going to be married?
Not? Your Aunt Helen”—
“Oh, bother my Aunt Helen! What do you think she had the impertinence
to write—but never mind! Is it to Ralph?”
“Your Aunt Helen, I was going to say, my dear boy, is an extraordinary
woman. It was from her originally that the Pilgrim first learnt to call
the female the practical animal. He studies us all, you know. The
Pilgrim’s Scrip is the abstract portraiture of his surrounding
relatives. Well, your Aunt Helen”—
“Mrs. Doria Battledoria!” laughed Richard.
“—being foiled in a little pet scheme of her own—call it a System if
you like—of some ten or fifteen years’ standing, with regard to Miss
Clare!”—
“The fair Shuttlecockiana!”
“—instead of fretting like a man, and questioning Providence, and
turning herself and everybody else inside out, and seeing the world
upside down, what does the practical animal do? She wanted to marry her
to somebody she couldn’t marry her to, so she resolved instantly to
marry her to somebody she could marry her to: and as old gentlemen
enter into these transactions with the practical animal the most
readily, she fixed upon an old gentleman; an unmarried old gentleman, a
rich old gentleman, and now a captive old gentleman. The ceremony takes
place in about a week from the present time. No doubt you will receive
your invitation in a day or two.”
“And that cold, icy, wretched Clare has consented to marry an old man!”
groaned Richard. “I’ll put a stop to that when I go to town.”
Richard got up and strode about the room. Then he bethought him it was
time to go on board and make preparations.
“I’m off,” he said. “Adrian, you’ll take her. She goes in the Empress,
Mountfalcon’s vessel. He starts us. A little schooner-yacht—such a
beauty! I’ll have one like her some day. Good-bye, darling!” he
whispered to Lucy, and his hand and eyes lingered on her, and hers on
him, seeking to make up for the priceless kiss they were debarred from.
But she quickly looked away from him as he held her:—Adrian stood
silent: his brows were up, and his mouth dubiously contracted. He spoke
at last.
“Go on the water?”
“Yes. It’s only to St. Helen’s. Short and sharp.”
“Do you grudge me the nourishment my poor system has just received, my
son?”
“Oh, bother your system! Put on your hat, and come along. I’ll put you
on board in my boat.”
“Richard! I have already paid the penalty of them who are condemned to
come to an island. I will go with you to the edge of the sea, and I
will meet you there when you return, and take up the Tale of the
Tritons: but, though I forfeit the pleasure of Mrs. Richard’s company,
I refuse to quit the land.”
“Yes, oh, Mr. Harley!” Lucy broke from her husband, “and I will stay
with you, if you please. I don’t want to go among those people, and we
can see it all from the shore.
“Dearest! I don’t want to go. You don’t mind? Of course, I will go if
you wish, but I would so much rather stay;” and she lengthened her plea
in her attitude and look to melt the discontent she saw gathering.
Adrian protested that she had much better go; that he could amuse
himself very well till their return, and so forth; but she had schemes
in her pretty head, and held to it to be allowed to stay in spite of
Lord Mountfalcon’s disappointment, cited by Richard, and at the great
risk of vexing her darling, as she saw. Richard pished, and glanced
contemptuously at Adrian. He gave way ungraciously.
“There, do as you like. Get your things ready to leave this evening.
No, I’m not angry.”—Who could be? he seemed as he looked up from her
modest fondling to ask Adrian, and seized the indemnity of a kiss on
her forehead, which, however, did not immediately disperse the shade of
annoyance he felt.
“Good heavens!” he exclaimed. “Such a day as this, and a fellow refuses
to come on the water! Well, come along to the edge of the sea.”
Adrian’s angelic quality had quite worn off to him. He never thought of
devoting himself to make the most of the material there was: but
somebody else did, and that fair somebody succeeded wonderfully in a
few short hours. She induced Adrian to reflect that the baronet had
only to see her, and the family muddle would be smoothed at once. He
came to it by degrees; still the gradations were rapid. Her manner he
liked; she was certainly a nice picture: best of all, she was sensible.
He forgot the farmer’s niece in her, she was so very sensible. She
appeared really to understand that it was a woman’s duty to know how to
cook.
But the difficulty was, by what means the baronet could be brought to
consent to see her. He had not yet consented to see his son, and
Adrian, spurred by Lady Blandish, had ventured something in coming
down. He was not inclined to venture more. The small debate in his mind
ended by his throwing the burden on time. Time would bring the matter
about. Christians as well as Pagans are in the habit of phrasing this
excuse for folding their arms; “forgetful,” says The Pilgrim’s Scrip,
“that the devil’s imps enter into no such armistice.”
As she loitered along the shore with her amusing companion, Lucy had
many things to think of. There was her darling’s match. The yachts were
started by pistol-shot by Lord Mountfalcon on board the Empress, and
her little heart beat after Richard’s straining sails. Then there was
the strangeness of walking with a relative of Richard’s, one who had
lived by his side so long. And the thought that perhaps this night she
would have to appear before the dreaded father of her husband.
“O Mr. Harley!” she said, “is it true—are we to go tonight? And me,”
she faltered, “will he see me?”
“Ah! that is what I wanted to talk to you about,” said Adrian. “I made
some reply to our dear boy which he has slightly misinterpreted. Our
second person plural is liable to misconstruction by an ardent mind. I
said ‘see you,’ and he supposed—now, Mrs. Richard, I am sure you will
understand me. Just at present perhaps it would be advisable—when the
father and son have settled their accounts, the daughter-in-law can’t
be a debtor.”...
Lucy threw up her blue eyes. A half-cowardly delight at the chance of a
respite from the awful interview made her quickly apprehensive.
“O Mr. Harley! you think he should go alone first?”
“Well, that is my notion. But the fact is, he is such an excellent
husband that I fancy it will require more than a man’s power of
persuasion to get him to go.”
“But I will persuade him, Mr. Harley.”
“Perhaps, if you would...”
“There is nothing I would not do for his happiness,” murmured Lucy.
The wise youth pressed her hand with lymphatic approbation. They walked
on till the yachts had rounded the point.
“Is it to-night, Mr. Harley?” she asked with some trouble in her voice
now that her darling was out of sight.
“I don’t imagine your eloquence even will get him to leave you
to-night,” Adrian replied gallantly. “Besides, I must speak for myself.
To achieve the passage to an island is enough for one day. No necessity
exists for any hurry, except in the brain of that impetuous boy. You
must correct it, Mrs. Richard. Men are made to be managed, and women
are born managers. Now, if you were to let him know that you don’t want
to go to-night, and let him guess, after a day or two, that you would
very much rather... you might affect a peculiar repugnance. By taking
it on yourself, you see, this wild young man will not require such
frightful efforts of persuasion. Both his father and he are exceedingly
delicate subjects, and his father unfortunately is not in a position to
be managed directly. It’s a strange office to propose to you, but it
appears to devolve upon you to manage the father through the son.
Prodigal having made his peace, you, who have done all the work from a
distance, naturally come into the circle of the paternal smile, knowing
it due to you. I see no other way. If Richard suspects that his father
objects for the present to welcome his daughter-in-law, hostilities
will be continued, the breach will be widened, bad will grow to worse,
and I see no end to it.”
Adrian looked in her face, as much as to say: Now are you capable of
this piece of heroism? And it did seem hard to her that she should have
to tell Richard she shrank from any trial. But the proposition chimed
in with her fears and her wishes: she thought the wise youth very wise:
the poor child was not insensible to his flattery, and the subtler
flattery of making herself in some measure a sacrifice to the home she
had disturbed. She agreed to simulate as Adrian had suggested.
Victory is the commonest heritage of the hero, and when Richard came on
shore proclaiming that the Blandish had beaten the Begum by seven
minutes and three-quarters, he was hastily kissed and congratulated by
his bride with her fingers among the leaves of Dr. Kitchener, and
anxiously questioned about wine.
“Dearest! Mr. Harley wants to stay with us a little, and he thinks we
ought not to go immediately—that is, before he has had some letters,
and I feel... I would so much rather...”
“Ah! that’s it, you coward!” said Richard. “Well, then, to-morrow. We
had a splendid race. Did you see us?”
“Oh, yes! I saw you and was sure my darling would win.” And again she
threw on him the cold water of that solicitude about wine. “Mr. Harley
must have the best, you know, and we never drink it, and I’m so silly,
I don’t know good wine, and if you would send Tom where he can get good
wine. I have seen to the dinner.”
“So that’s why you didn’t come to meet me?”
“Pardon me, darling.”
“Well, I do, but Mountfalcon doesn’t, and Lady Judith thinks you ought
to have been there.”
“Ah, but my heart was with you!”
Richard put his hand to feel for the little heart: her eyelids
softened, and she ran away.
It is to say much of the dinner that Adrian found no fault with it, and
was in perfect good-humour at the conclusion of the service. He did not
abuse the wine they were able to procure for him, which was also much.
The coffee, too, had the honour of passing without comment. These were
sound first steps toward the conquest of an epicure, and as yet Cupid
did not grumble.
After coffee they strolled out to see the sun set from Lady Judith’s
grounds. The wind had dropped. The clouds had rolled from the zenith,
and ranged in amphitheatre with distant flushed bodies over sea and
land: Titanic crimson head and chest rising from the wave faced
Hyperion falling. There hung Briareus with deep-indented trunk and
ravined brows, stretching all his hands up to unattainable blue
summits. North-west the range had a rich white glow, as if shining to
the moon, and westward, streams of amber, melting into upper rose, shot
out from the dipping disk.
“What Sandoe calls the passion-flower of heaven,” said Richard under
his breath to Adrian, who was serenely chanting Greek hexameters, and
answered, in the swing of the caesura, “He might as well have said
cauliflower.”
Lady Judith, with a black lace veil tied over her head, met them in the
walk. She was tall and dark; dark-haired, dark-eyed, sweet and
persuasive in her accent and manner. “A second edition of the
Blandish,” thinks Adrian. She welcomed him as one who had claims on her
affability. She kissed Lucy protectingly, and remarking on the wonders
of the evening, appropriated her husband. Adrian and Lucy found
themselves walking behind them.
The sun was under. All the spaces of the sky were alight, and Richard’s
fancy flamed.
“So you’re not intoxicated with your immense triumph this morning?”
said Lady Judith.
“Don’t laugh at me. When it’s over I feel ashamed of the trouble I’ve
taken. Look at that glory!—I’m sure you despise me for it.”
“Was I not there to applaud you? I only think such energies should be
turned into some definitely useful channel. But you must not go into
the Army.”
“What else can I do?”
“You are fit for so much that is better.”
“I never can be anything like Austin.”
“But I think you can do more.”
“Well, I thank you for thinking it, Lady Judith. Something I will do. A
man must deserve to live, as you say.
“Sauces,” Adrian was heard to articulate distinctly in the rear,
“Sauces are the top tree of this science. A woman who has mastered
sauces sits on the apex of civilization.”
Briareus reddened duskily seaward. The West was all a burning rose.
“How can men see such sights as those, and live idle?” Richard resumed.
“I feel ashamed of asking my men to work for me.—Or I feel so now.”
“Not when you’re racing the Begum, I think. There’s no necessity for
you to turn democrat like Austin. Do you write now?”
“No. What is writing like mine? It doesn’t deceive me. I know it’s only
the excuse I’m making to myself for remaining idle. I haven’t written a
line since—lately.”
“Because you are so happy.”
“No, not because of that. Of course I’m very happy...” He did not
finish.
Vague, shapeless ambition had replaced love in yonder skies. No
Scientific Humanist was by to study the natural development, and guide
him. This lady would hardly be deemed a very proper guide to the
undirected energies of the youth, yet they had established relations of
that nature. She was five years older than he, and a woman, which may
explain her serene presumption.
The cloud-giants had broken up: a brawny shoulder smouldered over the
sea.
“We’ll work together in town, at all events,” said Richard,
“Why can’t we go about together at night and find out people who want
help?”
Lady Judith smiled, and only corrected his nonsense by saying, “I think
we mustn’t be too romantic. You will become a knight-errant, I suppose.
You have the characteristics of one.”
“Especially at breakfast,” Adrian’s unnecessarily emphatic
gastronomical lessons to the young wife here came in.
“You must be our champion,” continued Lady Judith: “the rescuer and
succourer of distressed dames and damsels. We want one badly.”
“You do,” said Richard, earnestly: “from what I hear: from what I
know!” His thoughts flew off with him as knight-errant hailed shrilly
at exceeding critical moment by distressed dames and damsels. Images of
airy towers hung around. His fancy performed miraculous feats. The
towers crumbled. The stars grew larger, seemed to throb with lustre.
His fancy crumbled with the towers of the air, his heart gave a leap,
he turned to Lucy.
“My darling! what have you been doing?” And as if to compensate her for
his little knight-errant infidelity, he pressed very tenderly to her.
“We have been engaged in a charming conversation on domestic cookery,”
interposed Adrian.
“Cookery! such an evening as this?” His face was a handsome likeness of
Hippias at the presentation of bridecake.
“Dearest! you know it’s very useful,” Lucy mirthfully pleaded.
“Indeed I quite agree with you, child,” said Lady Judith, “and I think
you have the laugh of us. I certainly will learn to cook some day.”
“Woman’s mission, in so many words,” ejaculated Adrian.
“And pray, what is man’s?”
“To taste thereof, and pronounce thereupon.”
“Let us give it up to them,” said Lady Judith to Richard. “You and I
never will make so delightful and beautifully balanced a world of it.”
Richard appeared to have grown perfectly willing to give everything up
to the fair face, his bridal Hesper.
Next day Lucy had to act the coward anew, and, as she did so, her heart
sank to see how painfully it affected him that she should hesitate to
go with him to his father. He was patient, gentle; he sat down by her
side to appeal to her reason, and used all the arguments he could think
of to persuade her.
“If we go together and make him see us both: if he sees he has nothing
to be ashamed of in you—rather everything to be proud of; if you are
only near him, you will not have to speak a word, and I’m certain—as
certain as that I live—that in a week we shall be settled happily at
Raynham. I know my father so well, Lucy. Nobody knows him but I.”
Lucy asked whether Mr. Harley did not.
“Adrian? Not a bit. Adrian only knows a part of people, Lucy; and not
the best part.”
Lucy was disposed to think more highly of the object of her conquest.
“Is it he that has been frightening you, Lucy?”
“No, no, Richard; oh, dear no!” she cried, and looked at him more
tenderly because she was not quite truthful.
“He doesn’t know my father at all,” said Richard. But Lucy had another
opinion of the wise youth, and secretly maintained it. She could not be
won to imagine the baronet a man of human mould, generous, forgiving,
full of passionate love at heart, as Richard tried to picture him, and
thought him, now that he beheld him again through Adrian’s embassy. To
her he was that awful figure, shrouded by the midnight. “Why are you so
harsh?” she had heard Richard cry more than once. She was sure that
Adrian must be right.
“Well, I tell you I won’t go without you,” said Richard, and Lucy
begged for a little more time.
Cupid now began to grumble, and with cause. Adrian positively refused
to go on the water unless that element were smooth as a plate. The
South-west still joked boisterously at any comparison of the sort; the
days were magnificent; Richard had yachting engagements; and Lucy
always petitioned to stay to keep Adrian company, conceiving it her
duty as hostess. Arguing with Adrian was an absurd idea. If Richard
hinted at his retaining Lucy, the wise youth would remark: “It’s a
wholesome interlude to your extremely Cupidinous behaviour, my dear
boy.”
Richard asked his wife what they could possibly find to talk about.
“All manner of things,” said Lucy; “not only cookery. He is so amusing,
though he does make fun of The Pilgrim’s Scrip, and I think he ought
not. And then, do you know, darling—you won’t think me vain?—I think he
is beginning to like me a little.”
Richard laughed at the humble mind of his Beauty.
“Doesn’t everybody like you, admire you? Doesn’t Lord Mountfalcon, and
Mr. Morton, and Lady Judith?”
“But he is one of your family, Richard.”
“And they all will, if she isn’t a coward.”
“Ah, no!” she sighs, and is chidden.
The conquest of an epicure, or any young wife’s conquest beyond her
husband, however loyally devised for their mutual happiness, may be
costly to her. Richard in his hours of excitement was thrown very much
with Lady Judith. He consulted her regarding what he termed Lucy’s
cowardice. Lady Judith said: “I think she’s wrong, but you must learn
to humour little women.”
“Then would you advise me to go up alone?” he asked, with a cloudy
forehead.
“What else can you do? Be reconciled yourself as quickly as you can.
You can’t drag her like a captive, you know?”
It is not pleasant for a young husband, fancying his bride the peerless
flower of Creation, to learn that he must humour a little woman in her.
It was revolting to Richard.
“What I fear,” he said, “is, that my father will make it smooth with
me, and not acknowledge her: so that whenever I go to him, I shall have
to leave her, and tit for tat—an abominable existence, like a ball on a
billiard-table. I won’t bear that ignominy. And this I know, I know!
she might prevent it at once, if she would only be brave, and face it.
You, you, Lady Judith, you wouldn’t be a coward?”
“Where my old lord tells me to go, I go,” the lady coldly replied.
“There’s not much merit in that. Pray, don’t cite me. Women are born
cowards, you know.”
“But I love the women who are not cowards.”
“The little thing—your wife has not refused to go?”
“No—but tears! Who can stand tears?”
Lucy had come to drop them. Unaccustomed to have his will thwarted, and
urgent where he saw the thing to do so clearly, the young husband had
spoken strong words: and she, who knew that she would have given her
life by inches for him; who knew that she was playing a part for his
happiness, and hiding for his sake the nature that was worthy his
esteem; the poor little martyr had been weak a moment.
She had Adrian’s support. The wise youth was very comfortable. He liked
the air of the Island, and he liked being petted. “A nice little woman!
a very nice little woman!” Tom Bakewell heard him murmur to himself
according to a habit he had; and his air of rather succulent patronage
as he walked or sat beside the innocent Beauty, with his head thrown
back and a smile that seemed always to be in secret communion with his
marked abdominal prominence, showed that she was gaining part of what
she played for. Wise youths who buy their loves, are not unwilling,
when opportunity offers, to try and obtain the commodity for nothing.
Examinations of her hand, as for some occult purpose, and unctuous
pattings of the same, were not infrequent. Adrian waxed now and then
Anacreontic in his compliments. Lucy would say: “That’s worse than Lord
Mountfalcon.”
“Better English than the noble lord deigns to employ—allow that?” quoth
Adrian.
“He is very kind,” said Lucy.
“To all, save to our noble vernacular,” added Adrian. “He seems to
scent a rival to his dignity there.”
It may be that Adrian scented a rival to his lymphatic emotions.
“We are at our ease here in excellent society,” he wrote to Lady
Blandish. “I am bound to confess that the Huron has a happy fortune, or
a superlative instinct. Blindfold he has seized upon a suitable mate.
She can look at a lord, and cook for an epicure. Besides Dr. Kitchener,
she reads and comments on The Pilgrim’s Scrip. The ‘Love’ chapter, of
course, takes her fancy. That picture of Woman, ‘Drawn by Reverence and
coloured by Love,’ she thinks beautiful, and repeats it, tossing up
pretty eyes. Also the lover’s petition: ‘Give me purity to be worthy
the good in her, and grant her patience to reach the good in me.’ ’Tis
quite taking to hear her lisp it. Be sure that I am repeating the
petition! I make her read me her choice passages. She has not a bad
voice.
“The Lady Judith I spoke of is Austin’s Miss Menteith, married to the
incapable old Lord Felle, or Fellow, as the wits here call him. Lord
Mountfalcon is his cousin, and her—what? She has been trying to find
out, but they have both got over their perplexity, and act respectively
the bad man reproved and the chaste counsellor; a position in which our
young couple found them, and haply diverted its perils. They had quite
taken them in hand. Lady Judith undertakes to cure the fair Papist of a
pretty, modest trick of frowning and blushing when addressed, and his
lordship directs the exuberant energies of the original man. ’Tis thus
we fulfil our destinies, and are content. Sometimes they change pupils;
my lord educates the little dame, and my lady the hope of Raynham. Joy
and blessings unto all! as the German poet sings. Lady Judith accepted
the hand of her decrepit lord that she might be of potent service to
her fellow-creatures. Austin, you know, had great hopes of her.
“I have for the first time in my career a field of lords to study. I
think it is not without meaning that I am introduced to it by a
yeoman’s niece. The language of the two social extremes is similar. I
find it to consist in an instinctively lavish use of vowels and
adjectives. My lord and Farmer Blaize speak the same tongue, only my
lord’s has lost its backbone, and is limp, though fluent. Their
pursuits are identical; but that one has money, or, as the Pilgrim
terms it, vantage, and the other has not. Their ideas seem to have a
special relationship in the peculiarity of stopping where they have
begun. Young Tom Blaize with vantage would be Lord Mountfalcon. Even in
the character of their parasites I see a resemblance, though I am bound
to confess that the Hon. Peter Brayder, who is my lord’s parasite, is
by no means noxious.
“This sounds dreadfully democrat. Pray, don’t be alarmed. The discovery
of the affinity between the two extremes of the Royal British Oak has
made me thrice conservative. I see now that the national love of a lord
is less subservience than a form of self-love; putting a gold-lace hat
on one’s image, as it were, to bow to it. I see, too, the admirable
wisdom of our system:—could there be a finer balance of power than in a
community where men intellectually nil, have lawful vantage and a
gold-lace hat on? How soothing it is to intellect—that noble rebel, as
the Pilgrim has it—to stand, and bow, and know itself superior! This
exquisite compensation maintains the balance: whereas that period
anticipated by the Pilgrim, when science shall have produced an
intellectual aristocracy, is indeed horrible to contemplate. For what
despotism is so black as one the mind cannot challenge? ’Twill be an
iron Age. Wherefore, madam, I cry, and shall continue to cry, ‘Vive
Lord Mountfalcon! long may he sip his Burgundy! long may the bacon-fed
carry him on their shoulders!’
“Mr. Morton (who does me the honour to call me Young Mephisto, and
Socrates missed) leaves to-morrow to get Master Ralph out of a scrape.
Our Richard has just been elected member of a Club for the promotion of
nausea. Is he happy? you ask. As much so as one who has had the
misfortune to obtain what he wanted can be. Speed is his passion. He
races from point to point. In emulation of Leander and Don Juan, he
swam, I hear, to the opposite shores the other day, or some
world-shaking feat of the sort: himself the Hero whom he went to meet:
or, as they who pun say, his Hero was a Bet. A pretty little domestic
episode occurred this morning. He finds her abstracted in the fire of
his caresses: she turns shy and seeks solitude: green jealousy takes
hold of him: he lies in wait, and discovers her with his new rival—a
veteran edition of the culinary Doctor! Blind to the Doctor’s great
national services, deaf to her wild music, he grasps the intruder,
dismembers him, and performs upon him the treatment he has recommended
for dressed cucumber. Tears and shrieks accompany the descent of the
gastronome. Down she rushes to secure the cherished fragments: he
follows: they find him, true to his character, alighted and straggling
over a bed of blooming flowers. Yet ere a fairer flower can gather him,
a heel black as Pluto stamps him into earth, flowers and all:—happy
burial! Pathetic tribute to his merit is watering his grave, when by
saunters my Lord Mountfalcon. ‘What’s the mattah?’ says his lordship,
soothing his moustache. They break apart, and ’tis left to me to
explain from the window. My lord looks shocked, Richard is angry with
her for having to be ashamed of himself, Beauty dries her eyes, and
after a pause of general foolishness, the business of life is resumed.
I may add that the Doctor has just been dug up, and we are busy, in the
enemy’s absence, renewing old Aeson with enchanted threads. By the way,
a Papist priest has blest them.”
A month had passed when Adrian wrote this letter. He was very
comfortable; so of course he thought Time was doing his duty. Not a
word did he say of Richard’s return, and for some reason or other
neither Richard nor Lucy spoke of it now.
Lady Blandish wrote back: “His father thinks he has refused to come to
him. By your utter silence on the subject, I fear that it must be so.
Make him come. Bring him by force. Insist on his coming. Is he mad? He
must come at once.”
To this Adrian replied, after a contemplative comfortable lapse of a
day or two, which might be laid to his efforts to adopt the lady’s
advice, “The point is that the half man declines to come without the
whole man. The terrible question of sex is our obstruction.”
Lady Blandish was in despair. She had no positive assurance that the
baronet would see his son; the mask put them all in the dark; but she
thought she saw in Sir Austin irritation that the offender, at least
when the opening to come and make his peace seemed to be before him,
should let days and weeks go by. She saw through the mask sufficiently
not to have any hope of his consenting to receive the couple at
present; she was sure that his equanimity was fictitious; but she
pierced no farther, or she might have started and asked herself, Is
this the heart of a woman?
The lady at last wrote to Richard. She said: “Come instantly, and come
alone.” Then Richard, against his judgment, gave way. “My father is not
the man I thought him!” he exclaimed sadly, and Lucy felt his eyes
saying to her: “And you, too, are not the woman I thought you.” Nothing
could the poor little heart reply but strain to his bosom and
sleeplessly pray in his arms all the night.