OF THE SPRING PRIMROSE AND THE AUTUMNAL
When the young Experiment again knew the hours that rolled him
onward, he was in his own room at Raynham. Nothing had changed: only
a strong fist had knocked him down and stunned him, and he opened
his eyes to a grey world: he had forgotten what he lived for. He was
weak and thin, and with a pale memory of things. His functions were
the same, everything surrounding him was the same: he looked upon
the old blue hills, the far-lying fallows, the river, and the woods:
he knew them, they seemed to have lost recollection of him. Nor
could he find in familiar human faces the secret of intimacy of
heretofore. They were the same faces: they nodded and smiled to him.
What was lost he could not tell. Something had been knocked out of
him! He was sensible of his father's sweetness of manner, and he was
grieved that he could not reply to it, for every sense of shame and
reproach had strangely gone. He felt very useless. In place of the
fiery love for one, he now bore about a cold charity to all.
Thus in the heart of the young man died the Spring Primrose, and
while it died another heart was pushing forth the Primrose of
Autumn.
The wonderful change in Richard, and the wisdom of her admirer, now
positively proved, were exciting matters to Lady Blandish. She was
rebuked for certain little rebellious fancies concerning him that
had come across her enslaved mind from time to time. For was he not
almost a prophet? It distressed the sentimental lady that a love
like Richard's could pass off in mere smoke, and words such as she
had heard him speak in Abbey-wood resolve to emptiness. Nay, it
humiliated her personally, and the baronet's shrewd prognostication
humiliated her. For how should he know, and dare to say, that love
was a thing of the dust that could be trodden out under the heel of
science? But he had said so, and he had proved himself right. She
heard with wonderment that Richard of his own accord had spoken to
his father of the folly he had been guilty of, and had begged his
pardon. The baronet told her this, adding that the youth had done it
in a cold unwavering way, without a movement of his features: had
evidently done it to throw off the burden of the duty he had
conceived. He had thought himself bound to acknowledge that he had
been the Foolish Young Fellow, wishing, possibly, to abjure the fact
by an act of penance. He had also given satisfaction to Benson, and
was become a renovated peaceful spirit, whose main object appeared
to be to get up his physical strength by exercise and no expenditure
of speech.
In her company he was composed and courteous; even when they were
alone together, he did not exhibit a trace of melancholy. Sober he
seemed, as one who has recovered from a drunkenness and has
determined to drink no more. The idea struck her that he might be
playing a part, but Tom Bakewell, in a private conversation they
had, informed her that he had received an order from his young
master, one day while boxing with him, not to mention the young
lady's name to him as long as he lived; and Tom could only suppose
that she had offended him. Theoretically wise Lady Blandish had
always thought the baronet; she was unprepared to find him thus
practically sagacious. She fell many degrees; she wanted something
to cling to; so she clung to the man who struck her low. Love, then,
was earthly; its depth could be probed by science! A man lived who
could measure it from end to end; foretell its term; handle the
young cherub as were he a shot owl! We who have flown into
cousinship with the empyrean, and disported among immortal hosts,
our base birth as a child of Time is made bare to us!--our wings are
cut! Oh, then, if science is this victorious enemy of love, let us
love science! was the logic of the lady's heart; and secretly
cherishing the assurance that she should confute him yet, and prove
him utterly wrong, she gave him the fruits of present success, as it
is a habit of women to do; involuntarily partly. The fires took hold
of her. She felt soft emotions such as a girl feels, and they
flattered her. It was like youth coming back. Pure women have a
second youth. The Autumn primrose flourished.
We are advised by THE PILGRIM'S SCRIP that--
"The ways of women, which are Involution, and their practices, which
are Opposition, are generally best hit upon by guess work, and a
bold word;"--it being impossible to track them and hunt them down in
the ordinary style.
So that we may not ourselves become involved and opposed, let us
each of us venture a guess and say a bold word as to how it came
that the lady, who trusted love to be eternal, grovelled to him that
shattered her tender faith, and loved him.
Hitherto it had been simply a sentimental dalliance, and gossips had
maligned the lady. Just when the gossips grew tired of their
slander, and inclined to look upon her charitably, she set about to
deserve every word they had said of her; which may instruct us, if
you please, that gossips have only to persist in lying to be crowned
with verity, or that one has only to endure evil mouths for a period
to gain impunity. She was always at the Abbey now. She was much
closeted with the baronet. It seemed to be understood that she had
taken Mrs. Doria's place. Benson in his misogynic soul perceived
that she was taking Lady Feverel's: but any report circulated by
Benson was sure to meet discredit, and drew the gossips upon
himself; which made his meditations tragic. No sooner was one woman
defeated than another took the field! The object of the System was
no sooner safe than its great author was in danger!
"I can't think what has come to Benson," he said to Adrian.
"He seems to have received a fresh legacy of several pounds of
lead," returned the wise youth, and imitating Dr. Clifford's manner.
"Change is what he wants! distraction! send him to Wales for a
month, sir, and let Richard go with him. The two victims of woman
may do each other good."
"Unfortunately I can't do without him," said the baronet.
"Then we must continue to have him on our shoulders all day, and on
our chests all night!" Adrian ejaculated.
"I think while he preserves this aspect we won't have him at the
dinner-table," said the baronet.
Adrian thought that would be a relief to their digestions; and
added: "You know, sir, what he says?"
Receiving a negative, Adrian delicately explained to him that
Benson's excessive ponderosity of demeanour was caused by anxiety
for the safety of his master.
"You must pardon a faithful fool, sir," he continued, for the
baronet became red, and exclaimed:
"His stupidity is past belief! I have absolutely to bolt my
study-door against him."
Adrian at once beheld a charming scene in the interior of the study,
not unlike one that Benson had visually witnessed. For, like a wary
prophet, Benson, that he might have warrant for what he foretold of
the future, had a care to spy upon the present: warned haply by THE
PILGRIM'S SCRIP, of which he was a diligent reader, and which says,
rather emphatically: "Could we see Time's full face, we were wise of
him." Now to see Time's full face, it is sometimes necessary to look
through keyholes, the veteran having a trick of smiling peace to you
on one cheek and grimacing confusion on the other behind the
curtain. Decency and a sense of honour restrain most of us from
being thus wise and miserable for ever. Benson's excuse was that he
believed in his master, who was menaced. And moreover, notwithstanding
his previous tribulation, to spy upon Cupid was sweet to him. So he
peeped, and he saw a sight. He saw Time's full face; or, in other
words, he saw the wiles of woman and the weakness of man: which is
our history, as Benson would have written it, and a great many poets
and philosophers have written it.
Yet it was but the plucking of the Autumn primrose that Benson had
seen: a somewhat different operation from the plucking of the Spring
one: very innocent! Our staid elderly sister has paler blood, and
has, or thinks she has, a reason or two about the roots. She is not
all instinct. "For this high cause, and for that I know men, and
know him to be the flower of men, I give myself to him!" She makes
that lofty inward exclamation while the hand is detaching her from
the roots. Even so strong a self-justification she requires. She has
not that blind glory in excess which her younger sister can gild the
longest leap with. And if, moth-like, she desires the star, she is
nervously cautious of candles. Hence her circles about the dangerous
human flame are wide and shy. She must be drawn nearer and nearer by
a fresh _reason_. She loves to sentimentalize. Lady Blandish had
been sentimentalizing for ten years. She would have preferred to
pursue the game. The dark-eyed dame was pleased with her smooth life
and the soft excitement that did not ruffle it. Not willingly did
she let herself be won.
"Sentimentalists," says THE PILGRIM'S SCRIP, "are they who seek to
enjoy without incurring the Immense Debtorship for a thing done."
"It is," the writer says of Sentimentalism elsewhere, "a happy
pastime and an important science to the timid, the idle, and the
heartless; but a damning one to them who have anything to forfeit."
However, one who could set down the dying for love, as a
sentimentalism, can hardly be accepted as a clear authority.
Assuredly he was not one to avoid the incurring of the immense
debtorship in any way: but he was a bondsman still to the woman who
had forsaken him, and a spoken word would have made it seem his duty
to face that public scandal which was the last evil to him. What had
so horrified the virtuous Benson, Richard had already beheld in
Daphne's Bower; a simple kissing of the fair white hand! Doubtless
the keyhole somehow added to Benson's horror. The two similar
performances, so very innocent, had wondrous opposite consequences.
The first kindled Richard to adore Woman; the second destroyed
Benson's faith in Man. But Lady Blandish knew the difference between
the two. She understood why the baronet did not speak; excused, and
respected him for it. She was content, since she must love, to love
humbly, and she had, besides, her pity for his sorrows to comfort
her. A hundred fresh reasons for loving him arose and multiplied
every day. He read to her the secret book in his own handwriting,
composed for Richard's Marriage Guide: containing Advice and
Directions to a Young Husband, full of the most tender wisdom and
delicacy; so she thought; nay, not wanting in poetry, though neither
rhymed nor measured. He expounded to her the distinctive character
of the divers ages of love, giving the palm to the flower she put
forth, over that of Spring, or the Summer rose. And while they sat
and talked, "My wound has healed," he said. "How?" she asked. "At
the fountain of your eyes," he replied, and drew the joy of new life
from her blushes, without incurring further debtorship for a thing
done.