IN WHICH THE LAST ACT OF A COMEDY TAKES THE PLACE OF THE FIRST
Although it blew hard when Caesar crossed the Rubicon, the passage of
that river is commonly calm; calm as Acheron. So long as he gets his
fare, the ferryman does not need to be told whom he carries: he
pulls with a will, and heroes may be over in half-an-hour. Only when
they stand on the opposite bank, do they see what a leap they have
taken. The shores they have relinquished shrink to an infinite
remoteness. There they have dreamed: here they must act. There lie
youth and irresolution: here manhood and purpose. They are veritably
in another land: a moral Acheron divides their life. Their memories
scarce seem their own! The PHILOSOPHICAL GEOGRAPHY (about to be
published) observes that each man has, one time or other, a little
Rubicon--a clear or a foul water to cross. It is asked him: "Wilt
thou wed this Fate, and give up all behind thee?" And "I will,"
firmly pronounced, speeds him over. The above-named manuscript
authority informs us, that by far the greater number of carcases
rolled by this heroic flood to its sister stream below, are those of
fellows who have repented their pledge, and have tried to swim back
to the bank they have blotted out. For though every man of us may be
a hero for one fatal minute, very few remain so after a day's march
even: and who wonders that Madam Fate is indignant, and wears the
features of the terrible Universal Fate to him? Fail before her,
either in heart or in act, and lo, how the alluring loves in her
visage wither and sicken to what it is modelled on! Be your Rubicon
big or small, clear or foul, it is the same: you shall not return.
On--or to Acheron!--I subscribe to that saying of THE PILGRIM'S
SCRIP:
"The danger of a little knowledge of things is disputable: _but
beware the little knowledge of one's self!_"
Richard Feverel was now crossing the River of his Ordeal. Already
the mists were stealing over the land he had left: his life was cut
in two, and he breathed but the air that met his nostrils. His
father, his father's love, his boyhood and ambition, were shadowy.
His poetic dreams had taken a living attainable shape. He had a
distincter impression of the Autumnal Berry and her household than
of anything at Raynham. And yet the young man loved his father,
loved his home: and I daresay Caesar loved Rome: but whether he did
or no, Caesar when he killed the Republic was quite bald, and the
hero we are dealing with is scarce beginning to feel his despotic
moustache. Did he know what he was made of? Doubtless, nothing at
all. But honest passion has an instinct that can be safer than
conscious wisdom. He was an arrow drawn to the head, flying to the
bow. His audacious mendacities and subterfuges did not strike him as
in any way criminal; for he was perfectly sure that the winning and
securing of Lucy would in the end be boisterously approved of, and
in that case, were not the means justified? Not that he took trouble
to argue thus, as older heroes and self-convicting villains are in
the habit of doing, to deduce a clear conscience. Conscience and
Lucy went together.
It was a soft fair day. The Rubicon sparkled in the morning sun. One
of those days when London embraces the prospect of summer, and
troops forth all its babies. The pavement, the squares, the parks,
were early alive with the cries of young Britain. Violet and
primrose girls, and organ boys with military monkeys, and systematic
bands very determined in tone if not in tune, filled the atmosphere,
and crowned the blazing procession of omnibuses, freighted with
business men, Cityward, where a column of reddish brown
smoke,--blown aloft by the South-west, marked the scene of conflict
to which these persistent warriors repaired. Richard had seen much
of early London that morning. His plans were laid. He had taken care
to ensure his personal liberty against accidents, by leaving his
hotel and his injured uncle Hippias at sunrise. To-day or to-morrow
his father was to arrive. Farmer Blaize, Tom Bakewell reported to
him, was raging in town. Another day and she might be torn from him:
but to-day this miracle of creation would be his, and then from
those glittering banks yonder, let them summon him to surrender her
who dared! The position of things looked so propitious that he
naturally thought the powers waiting on love conspired in his
behalf. And she, too--since she must cross this river, she had sworn
to him to be brave, and do him honour, and wear the true gladness of
her heart in her face. Without a suspicion of folly in his acts, or
fear of results, Richard strolled into Kensington Gardens,
breakfasting on the foreshadow of his great joy, now with a vision
of his bride, now of the new life opening to him. Mountain masses of
clouds, rounded in sunlight, swung up the blue. The flowering
chestnut pavilions overhead rustled and hummed. A sound in his ears
as of a banner unfolding in the joyful distance lulled him.
He was to meet his bride at the church at a quarter past eleven. His
watch said a quarter to ten. He strolled on beneath the long-stemmed
trees toward the well dedicated to a saint obscure. Some people were
drinking at the well. A florid lady stood by a younger one, who had
a little silver mug half-way to her mouth, and evinced undisguised
dislike to the liquor of the salutary saint.
"Drink, child!" said the maturer lady. "That is only your second
mug. I insist upon your drinking three full ones every morning we're
in town. Your constitution positively requires iron!"
"But, mama," the other expostulated, "it's so nasty. I shall be
sick."
"Drink!" was the harsh injunction. "Nothing to the German waters, my
dear. Here, let me taste." She took the mug and gave it a flying
kiss. "I declare I think it almost nice--not at all objectionable.
Pray, taste it," she said to a gentleman standing below them to act
as cup-bearer.
An unmistakable cis-Rubicon voice replied: "Certainly, if it's good
fellowship; though I confess I don't think mutual sickness a very
engaging ceremony."
Can one never escape from one's relatives? Richard ejaculated
inwardly.
Without a doubt those people were Mrs. Doria, Clare, and Adrian. He
had them under his eyes.
Clare, peeping up from her constitutional dose to make sure no man
was near to see the possible consequence of it, was the first to
perceive him. Her hand dropped.
"Now, pray, drink, and do not fuss!" said Mrs. Doria.
"Mama!" Clare gasped.
Richard came forward and capitulated honourably, since retreat was
out of the question. Mrs. Doria swam to meet him: "My own boy! My
dear Richard!" profuse of exclamations. Clare shyly greeted him.
Adrian kept in the background.
"Why, we were coming for you to-day, Richard," said Mrs. Doria,
smiling effusion; and rattled on, "We want another cavalier. This is
delightful! My dear nephew! You have grown from a boy to a man. And
there's down on his lip! And what brings you here at such an hour in
the morning? Poetry, I suppose! Here, take my arm, child.--Clare!
finish that mug and thank your cousin for sparing you the third. I
always bring her, when we are by a chalybeate, to take the waters
before breakfast. We have to get up at unearthly hours. Think, my
dear boy! Mothers are sacrifices! And so you've been alone a
fortnight with your agreeable uncle! A charming time of it you must
have had! Poor Hippias! what may be his last nostrum?"
"Nephew!" Adrian stretched his head round to the couple. "Doses of
nephew taken morning and night fourteen days! And he guarantees that
it shall destroy an iron constitution in a month."
Richard mechanically shook Adrian's hand as he spoke.
"Quite well, Ricky?"
"Yes: well enough," Richard answered.
"Well?" resumed his vigorous aunt, walking on with him, while Clare
and Adrian followed. "I really never saw you looking so handsome.
There's something about your face--look at me--you needn't blush.
You've grown to an Apollo. That blue buttoned-up frock coat becomes
you admirably--and those gloves, and that easy neck-tie. Your style
is irreproachable, quite a style of your own! And nothing eccentric.
You have the instinct of dress. Dress shows blood, my dear boy, as
much as anything else. Boy!--you see, I can't forget old habits. You
were a boy when I left, and now!--Do you see any change in him,
Clare?" she turned half round to her daughter.
"Richard is looking very well, mama," said Clare, glancing at him
under her eyelids.
"I wish I could say the same of you, my dear.--Take my arm, Richard.
Are you afraid of your aunt? I want to get used to you. Won't it be
pleasant, our being all in town together in the season? How fresh
the Opera will be to you! Austin, I hear, takes stalls. You can come
to the Forey's box when you like. We are staying with the Foreys
close by here. I think it's a little too far out, you know; but they
like the neighbourhood. This is what I have always said: Give him
more liberty! Austin has seen it at last. How do you think Clare
looking?"
The question had to be repeated. Richard surveyed his cousin
hastily, and praised her looks.
"Pale!" Mrs. Doria sighed.
"Rather pale, aunt."
"Grown very much--don't you think, Richard?"
"Very tall girl indeed, aunt."
"If she had but a little more colour, my dear Richard! I'm sure I
give her all the iron she can swallow, but that pallor still
continues. I think she does not prosper away from her old
companion. She was accustomed to look up to you, Richard"----
"Did you get Ralph's letter, aunt?" Richard interrupted her.
"Absurd!" Mrs. Doria pressed his arm. "The nonsense of a boy! Why
did you undertake to forward such stuff?"
"I'm certain he loves her," said Richard, in a serious way.
The maternal eyes narrowed on him. "Life, my dear Richard, is a game
of cross-purposes," she observed, dropping her fluency, and was
rather angered to hear him laugh. He excused himself by saying that
she spoke so like his father.
"You breakfast with us," she freshened off again. "The Foreys wish
to see you; the girls are dying to know you. Do you know, you have a
reputation on account of that"--she crushed an intruding
adjective--"System you were brought up on. You mustn't mind it. For
my part, I think you look a credit to it. Don't be bashful with
young women, mind! As much as you please with the old ones. You know
how to behave among men. There you have your Drawing-room Guide! I'm
sure I shall be proud of you. Am I not?"
Mrs. Doria addressed his eyes coaxingly.
A benevolent idea struck Richard, that he might employ the minutes
to spare, in pleading the case of poor Ralph; and, as he was drawn
along, he pulled out his watch to note the precise number of minutes
he could dedicate to this charitable office.
"Pardon me," said Mrs. Doria. "You want manners, my dear boy. I
think it never happened to me before that a man consulted his watch
in my presence."
Richard mildly replied that he had an engagement at a particular
hour, up to which he was her servant.
"Fiddlededee!" the vivacious lady sang. "Now I've got you, I mean to
keep you. Oh! I've heard all about you. This ridiculous indifference
that your father makes so much of! Why, of course, you wanted to see
the world! A strong, healthy young man shut up all his life in a
lonely house--no friends, no society, no amusements but those of
rustics! Of course you were indifferent! Your intelligence and
superior mind alone saved you from becoming a dissipated country
boor.--Where are the others?"
Clare and Adrian came up at a quick pace.
"My damozel dropped something," Adrian explained.
Her mother asked what it was.
"Nothing, mama," said Clare, demurely, and they proceeded as before.
Overborne by his aunt's fluency of tongue, and occupied in acute
calculation of the flying minutes, Richard let many pass before he
edged in a word for Ralph. When he did, Mrs. Doria stopped him
immediately.
"I must tell you, child, that I refuse to listen to such rank
idiotcy."
"It's nothing of the kind, aunt."
"The fancy of a boy."
"He's not a boy. He's half-a-year older than I am!"
"You silly child! The moment you fall in love, you all think
yourselves men."
"On my honour, aunt! I believe he loves her thoroughly."
"Did he tell you so, child?"
"Men don't speak openly of those things," said Richard.
"Boys do," said Mrs. Doria.
"But listen to me in earnest, aunt. I want you to be kind to Ralph.
Don't drive him to--You may be sorry for it. Let him--do let him
write to her, and see her. I believe women are as cruel as men in
these things."
"I never encourage absurdity, Richard."
"What objection have you to Ralph, aunt?"
"Oh, they're both good families. It's not that absurdity, Richard.
It will be to his credit to remember that his first fancy wasn't a
dairymaid." Mrs. Doria pitched her accent tellingly. It did not
touch her nephew.
"Don't you want Clare ever to marry?" He put the last point of
reason to her.
Mrs. Doria laughed. "I hope so, child. We must find some comfortable
old gentleman for her."
"What infamy!" mutters Richard.
"And I engage Ralph shall be ready to dance at her wedding, or eat a
hearty breakfast--We don't dance at weddings now, and very properly.
It's a horrid sad business, not to be treated with levity.--Is that
his regiment?" she said, as they passed out of the hussar-sentinelled
gardens. "Tush, tush, child; Master Ralph will recover, as--hem!
others have done. A little headache--you call it heartache--and up
you rise again, looking better than ever. No doubt, to have a grain
of sense forced into your brains, you poor dear children! must be
painful. Girls suffer as much as boys, I assure you. More, for their
heads are weaker, and their appetites less constant. Do I talk like
your father now? Whatever makes the boy fidget at his watch so?"
Richard stopped short. Time spoke urgently.
"I must go," he said.
His face did not seem good for trifling. Mrs. Doria would trifle in
spite.
"Listen, Clare! Richard is going. He says he has an engagement. What
possible engagement can a young man have at eleven o'clock in the
morning?--unless it's to be married!" Mrs. Doria laughed at the
ingenuity of her suggestion.
"Is the church handy, Ricky?" said Adrian. "You can still give us
half-an-hour if it is. The celibate hours strike at Twelve." And he
also laughed in his fashion.
"Won't you stay with us, Richard?" Clare asked. She blushed timidly,
and her voice shook.
Something indefinite--a sharp-edged thrill in the tones made the
burning bridegroom speak gently to her.
"Indeed, I would, Clare; I should like to please you, but I have a
most imperative appointment--that is, I promised--I must go. I shall
see you again"----
Mrs. Doria took forcible possession of him. "Now, do come, and don't
waste words. I insist upon your having some breakfast first, and
then, if you really must go, you shall. Look! there's the house. At
least you will accompany your aunt to the door."
Richard conceded this. She little imagined what she required of him.
Two of his golden minutes melted into nothingness. They were growing
to be jewels of price, one by one more and more precious as they
ran, and now so costly-rare--rich as his blood! not to kindest
relations, dearest friends, could he give another. The die is cast!
Ferryman! push off.
"Good-bye!" he cried, nodding bluffly at the three as one, and fled.
They watched his abrupt muscular stride through the grounds of the
house. He looked like resolution on the march. Mrs. Doria, as usual
with her out of her brother's hearing, began rating the System.
"See what becomes of that nonsensical education! The boy really does
not know how to behave like a common mortal. He has some paltry
appointment, or is mad after some ridiculous idea of his own, and
everything must be sacrificed to it! That's what Austin calls
concentration of the faculties. I think it's more likely to lead to
downright insanity than to greatness of any kind. And so I shall
tell Austin. It's time he should be spoken to seriously about him."
"He's an engine, my dear aunt," said Adrian. "He isn't a boy, or a
man, but an engine. And he appears to have been at high pressure
since he came to town--out all day and half the night."
"He's mad!" Mrs. Doria interjected.
"Not at all. Extremely shrewd is Master Ricky, and carries as open
an eye ahead of him as the ships before Troy. He's more than a match
for any of us. He is for me, I confess."
"Then," said Mrs. Doria, "he does astonish me!"
Adrian begged her to retain her astonishment till the right season,
which would not be long arriving.
Their common wisdom counselled them not to tell the Foreys of their
hopeful relative's ungracious behaviour. Clare had left them. When
Mrs. Doria went to her room her daughter was there, gazing down at
something in her hand, which she guiltily closed.
In answer to an inquiry why she had not gone to take off her things,
Clare said she was not hungry. Mrs. Doria lamented the obstinacy of
a constitution that no quantity of iron could affect, and eclipsed
the looking-glass, saying: "Take them off here, child, and learn to
assist yourself."
She disentangled her bonnet from the array of her spreading hair,
talking of Richard, and his handsome appearance, and extraordinary
conduct. Clare kept opening and shutting her hand, in an attitude
half pensive, half-listless. She did not stir to undress. A joyous
dimple hung in one pale cheek, and she drew long, even breaths.
Mrs. Doria, assured by the glass that she was ready to show, came to
her daughter.
"Now, really," she said, "you are too helpless, my dear. You cannot
do a thing without a dozen women at your elbow. What will become of
you? You will have to marry a millionaire.--What's the matter with
you, child?"
Clare undid her tight-shut fingers, as if to some attraction of her
eyes, and displayed a small gold hoop on the palm of a green glove.
"A wedding-ring!" exclaimed Mrs. Doria, inspecting the curiosity
most daintily.
There on Clare's pale green glove lay a wedding-ring!
Rapid questions as to where, when, how, it was found, beset Clare,
who replied: "In the Gardens, mama. This morning. When I was walking
behind Richard."
"Are you sure he did not give it you, Clare?"
"Oh no, mama! he did not give it me!"
"Of course not! only he does such absurd things! I thought,
perhaps--these boys are so exceedingly ridiculous!" Mrs. Doria had
an idea that it might have been concerted between the two young
gentlemen, Richard and Ralph, that the former should present this
token of hymeneal devotion from the latter to the young lady of his
love; but a moment's reflection, exonerated boys even from such
preposterous behaviour.
"Now, I wonder," she speculated on Clare's cold face, "I do wonder
whether it's lucky to find a wedding-ring. What very quick eyes you
have, my darling!" Mrs. Doria kissed her. She thought it must be
lucky, and the circumstance made her feel tender to her child. Her
child did not move to the kiss.
"Let's see whether it fits," said Mrs. Doria, almost infantine with
surprise and pleasure.
Clare suffered her glove to be drawn off. The ring slid down her
long thin finger, and settled comfortably.
"It does!" Mrs. Doria whispered. To find a wedding-ring is open to
any woman; but to find a wedding-ring that fits may well cause a
superstitious emotion. Moreover, that it should be found while
walking in the neighbourhood of the identical youth whom a mother
has destined for her daughter, gives significance to the gentle
perturbation of ideas consequent on such a hint from Fortune.
"It really fits!" she pursued. "Now I never pay any attention to the
nonsense of omens and that kind of thing" (had the ring been a
horseshoe Mrs. Doria would have picked it up and dragged it
obediently home), "but this, I must say, is odd--to find a ring that
fits!--singular! It never happened to me. Sixpence is the most I
ever discovered, and I have it now. Mind you keep it, Clare--this
ring. And," she laughed, "offer it to Richard when he comes; say,
you think he must have dropped it."
The dimple in Clare's cheek quivered.
Mother and daughter had never spoken explicitly of Richard. Mrs.
Doria, by exquisite management, had contrived to be sure that on one
side there would be no obstacle to her project of general happiness,
without, as she thought, compromising her daughter's feelings
unnecessarily. It could do no harm to an obedient young girl to hear
that there was no youth in the world like a certain youth. He the
prince of his generation, she might softly consent, when requested,
to be his princess; and if never requested (for Mrs. Doria envisaged
failure), she might easily transfer her softness to squires of lower
degree. Clare had always been blindly obedient to her mother (Adrian
called them Mrs. Doria Battledoria and the fair Shuttlecockiana),
and her mother accepted in this blind obedience the text of her
entire character. It is difficult for those who think very earnestly
for their children to know when their children are thinking on their
own account. The exercise of their volition we construe as revolt.
Our love does not like to be invalided and deposed from its command,
and here I think yonder old thrush on the lawn who has just kicked
the last of her lank offspring out of the nest to go shift for
itself, much the kinder of the two, though sentimental people do
shrug their shoulders at these unsentimental acts of the creatures
who never wander from nature. Now, excess of obedience is, to one
who manages most exquisitely, as bad as insurrection. Happily Mrs.
Doria saw nothing in her daughter's manner save a want of iron. Her
pallor, her lassitude, the tremulous nerves in her face, exhibited
an imperious requirement of the mineral.
"The reason why men and women are mysterious to us, and prove
disappointing," we learn from THE PILGRIM'S SCRIP, "is, that we will
read them from our own book; just as we are perplexed by reading
ourselves from theirs."
Mrs. Doria read her daughter from her own book, and she was gay; she
laughed with Adrian at the breakfast-table, and mock-seriously
joined in his jocose assertion that Clare was positively and by all
hymeneal auspices betrothed to the owner of that ring, be he who he
may, and must, whenever he should choose to come and claim her, give
her hand to him (for everybody agreed the owner must be masculine,
as no _woman_ would drop a wedding-ring), and follow him whither he
listed all the world over. Amiable giggling Forey girls called
Clare, The Betrothed. Dark man, or fair? was mooted. Adrian threw
off the first strophe of Clare's fortune in burlesque rhymes, with
an insinuating gipsy twang. Her aunt Forey warned her to have her
dresses in readiness. Her grandpapa Forey pretended to grumble at
bridal presents being expected from grandpapas. This one smelt
orange-flower, another spoke solemnly of an old shoe. The finding of
a wedding-ring was celebrated through all the palpitating
accessories and rosy ceremonies involved by that famous instrument.
In the midst of the general hilarity, Clare showed her deplorable
want of iron by bursting into tears.
Did the poor mocked-at heart divine what might be then enacting?
Perhaps, dimly, as we say: that is, without eyes.
At an altar stand two fair young creatures, ready with their oaths.
They are asked to fix all time to the moment, and they do so. If
there is hesitation at the immense undertaking, it is but maidenly.
She conceives as little mental doubt of the sanity of the act as he.
Over them hangs a cool young curate in his raiment of office. Behind
are two apparently lucid people, distinguished from each other by
sex and age; the foremost a bunch of simmering black satin; under
her shadow a cock-robin in the dress of a gentleman, big joy
swelling out his chest, and pert satisfaction cocking his head.
These be they who stand here in place of parents to the young
couple. All is well. The service proceeds.
Firmly the bridegroom tells forth his words. This hour of the
complacent giant at least is his, and that he means to hold him
bound through the eternities, men may hear. Clearly, and with brave
modesty, speaks she: no less firmly, though her body trembles: her
voice just vibrating while the tone travels on, like a smitten vase.
Time hears sentence pronounced on him: the frail hands bind his huge
limbs and lock the chains. He is used to it: he lets them do as they
will.
Then comes that period when they are to give their troth to each
other. The Man with his right hand takes the Woman by her right
hand: the Woman with her right hand takes the Man by his right
hand.--Devils dare not laugh at whom Angels crowd to contemplate.
Their hands are joined; their blood flows as one stream. Adam and
fair Eve front the generations. Are they not lovely? Purer fountains
of life were never in two bosoms.
And then they loose their hands, and the cool curate doth bid the
Man to put a ring on the Woman's fourth finger, counting thumb. And
the Man thrusts his hand into one pocket, and into another, forward
and back many times: into all his pockets. He remembers that he felt
for it, and felt it in his waistcoat pocket, when in the Gardens.
And his hand comes forth empty. And the Man is ghastly to look at!
Yet, though Angels smile, shall not Devils laugh! The curate
deliberates. The black satin bunch ceases to simmer. He in her
shadow changes from a beaming cock-robin to an inquisitive sparrow.
Eyes multiply questions: lips have no reply. Time ominously shakes
his chain, and in the pause a sound of mockery stings their ears.
Think ye a hero is one to be defeated in his first battle? Look at
the clock! there are but seven minutes to the stroke of the celibate
hours: the veteran is surely lifting his two hands to deliver fire,
and his shot will sunder them in twain so nearly united. All the
jewellers of London speeding down with sacks full of the nuptial
circlet cannot save them!
The battle must be won on the field, and what does the hero now? It
is an inspiration! For who else would dream of such a reserve in
the rear? None see what he does; only that the black-satin bunch is
remonstratingly agitated, stormily shaken, and subdued: and as
though the menacing cloud had opened, and dropped the dear token
from the skies at his demand, he produces the symbol of their
consent, and the service proceeds: "With this ring I thee wed."
They are prayed over and blest. For good, or for ill, this deed is
done. The names are registered; fees fly right and left: they thank,
and salute, the curate, whose official coolness melts into a smile
of monastic gallantry: the beadle on the steps waves off a gaping
world as they issue forth: bridegroom and bridesman recklessly
scatter gold on him: carriage doors are banged to: the coachmen
drive off, and the scene closes, everybody happy.