FAIR FIGHTING
So the duel began. The moral battle that a man wages with his own temper,
his own passions, words, actions, his very thoughts, and a few days of
the uncongenial struggle seemed to have added years to Sir George’s life.
Of all the trials that could have been imposed on one of his nature,
this was, perhaps, the severest, to live day by day, and hour by hour,
on terms of covert enmity with the woman best loved—the friend most
frankly trusted in the world. Two of the chief props that uphold the
social fabric seemed cut away from under him. Outward sorrows, injuries,
vexations can be borne cheerfully enough while domestic happiness
remains, and the heart is at peace within. They do but beat outside, like
the blast of a storm on a house well warmed and water-tight. Neither can
the utmost perfidy of woman utterly demoralise him who owns some staunch
friend to trust, on whose vigorous nature he can lean, in whose manly
counsel he can take comfort, till the sharp anguish has passed away.
But when love and friendship fail both at once, there is great danger
of a moral recklessness which affirms, and would fain believe, that no
truth is left in the world. This is the worst struggle of all. Conduct
and character flounder in it hopelessly, because it affords no foothold
whence to make an upward spring, so that they are apt to sink and
disappear without even a struggle for extrication.
Sir George had indeed a purpose to preserve him from complete
demoralisation, but that purpose was in itself antagonistic to every
impulse and instinct of his nature. It did violence to his better
feelings, his education, his principles, his very prejudices and habits,
but he pursued it consistently nevertheless, whilst it poisoned every
hour of his life. He went about his daily avocations as usual. He never
thought of discontinuing those athletic exercises and field sports which
were elevated into an actual business by men of his station at that
period, but except for a few thrilling moments at long intervals, the
zest seemed to be gone from them all.
He flung his hawks aloft on the free open moor, and cursed them bitterly
when they failed to strike. He cheered his hounds in the deep wild dales
through which they tracked their game so busily, and hurried Emerald
or Grey Plover along at the utmost speed those generous animals could
compass, but was with a grim sullen determination to succeed, rather than
with the hearty jovial enthusiasm that naturally accompanies the chase.
Hawks, hounds, and horses were neither cordials nor stimulants now. Only
anodynes, and scarcely efficacious as such for more than a few minutes at
a time.
It had been settled that for a short period, depending on the alarm
felt by the country at the proposed rising, and consequent strictness
of search for suspected characters, Florian should remain domiciled as
before at Hamilton Hill. It was only stipulated that he should not show
himself abroad by daylight, nor hold open communication with such of his
confederates as might be prowling about the “Hamilton Arms.” With Sir
Marmaduke’s good-will, and the general laxity of justice prevailing in
the district, he seemed to incur far less peril by hiding in his present
quarters than by travelling southward even in disguise on his way to the
coast.
There were plenty more of his cloth, little distinguished by the
authorities indeed, from non-juring clergymen of the Church of England,
who remained quietly unnoticed, on sufferance as it were, in the northern
counties. Even if watched, Florian might pass for one of these, so his
daily life went on much as before Sir Marmaduke’s visit. He did not
write perhaps so many letters, for his correspondence with the continent
had been discontinued, but this increase of leisure only gave him more
time for Lady Hamilton’s society, and as he could not accompany her
husband to the moor, for fear of being seen, he now spent every day till
dinner-time under the same roof with Cerise.
Sir George used to wonder sometimes in his own heavy heart what they
could find to talk about through all those hours that seemed so long to
him in the saddle amongst the dales—the dales he had loved so dearly
a few short weeks ago, that seemed so wearisome, so gloomy, and so
endless now—wondered what charm his wife could discover in this young
priest’s society; in which of the qualities, he himself wanted, lay
the subtle influence that so entwined her when Florian first arrived,
that had changed her manner and depressed her spirits of late since
they had been more thrown together, and caused her to look so unhappy
now that they were soon to part. Stronger and stronger, struggle
as he might, grew a horrible conviction that she loved the visitor
in her heart. Like a gallant swimmer, beating against the tide, he
strove not to give way, battling inch by inch, gaining less with every
effort—stationary—receding—till, losing head and heart alike, and
wheeling madly with the current, he struck out in sheer despair for
the quicksands, instinctively preferring to meet rather than await
destruction.
Abroad all the morning from daybreak, forcing himself to leave the house
lest he should be unable to resist the temptation of watching her, Sir
George gave Cerise ample opportunities to indulge in Florian’s society,
had she been so inclined. He thought she availed herself of them to
the utmost, he thought that while he was away chafing and fretting,
and eating his own heart far away on those bleak moors, Lady Hamilton,
passing gracefully amongst her rose-trees on the terrace, or sitting
at ease in her pretty boudoir, appreciated the long release from his
company, and made the most of it with her guest. He could fancy he saw
the pretty head droop, the soft cheek flush, the white hands wave. He
knew all her ways so well. But not for him now. Not for _him_!
Then Grey Plover would wince and swerve aside, scared by the fierce
energy of that half-spoken oath, or Emerald would plunge wildly forward,
maddened by the unaccustomed spur, the light grasp bearing suddenly so
hard upon the rein. But neither Emerald nor Grey Plover, mettled hunters
both, could afford more than a temporary palliative to the goad that
pricked their rider’s heart.
Sir George had better have been _more_ or _less_ suspicious. Had he
chosen to lower himself in his own eyes by ascertaining how Lady Hamilton
spent her mornings, he would have discovered that she employed herself in
filling voluminous sheets with her neat, illegible French hand, writing
in her boudoir, where she sat _alone_. Very unhappy poor Cerise was,
though she scorned to complain. Very pale she grew and languid, going
through her housekeeping duties with an effort, and ceasing altogether
from the carolling of those French ballads in which the Yorkshire
servants took an incomprehensible delight.
She seemed, worst sign of all, to have no heart even for her flowers now,
and did not visit the terrace for five days on a stretch. The very first
time she went there, George happened to spend the morning at home.
From the window of his room he could see one end of the terrace with some
difficulty, and a good deal of inconvenience to his neck; nevertheless,
catching a glimpse of his wife’s figure as she moved about amongst
her rose-trees, he could not resist watching it for a while, neither
suspiciously nor in anger, but with something of the dull aching
tenderness that looks its last on the dead face a man has loved best on
earth. It is, and it is _not_. The remnant left serves only to prove how
much is lost, and that which makes his deepest sorrow affords his sole
consolation—to feel that love remains while the loved one is for ever
gone.
Half a dozen times he rose from his occupation. It was but refitting some
tackle on the model brigantine, yet it connected itself, like everything
else, with _her_. Half a dozen times he sat down again with a crack in
his neck, and an inward curse on his own folly, but he went back once
more just the same. Then he resumed his work, smiling grimly while his
brown face paled, for Monsieur de St. Croix had just made his appearance
on the terrace.
“As usual, I suppose,” muttered Sir George, waxing an inch or two of
twine with the nicest care, and fitting it into a block the size of a
silver penny. But somehow he could not succeed in his manipulation;
he was inventing a self-reefing topsail, but he couldn’t get the four
haulyards taut enough, and do what he would the jack-stay came foul of
the yard. “As usual,” he repeated more bitterly. “Easy it is! He’s the
best helmsman who knows when to let the ship steer herself!” Then he
applied once more to his task, whistling an old French quickstep somewhat
out of time.
Florian had been watching his opportunity, and took advantage of it at
once. He, too, had suffered severely during the past few days. Perhaps,
in truth, his greatest torture was to have been deprived of Lady
Hamilton’s society. He fancied she avoided him, though in this he was
wrong, for lately she had hardly given him a thought, except of friendly
pity for his lot. Had it been otherwise, Cerise would have taken care to
allow no such interviews as the present, because she would have suspected
their danger. Young, frank, and as little of a coquette as it was
possible for her mother’s daughter to be, she had never yet even thought
of analysing her feelings towards Florian.
And he, too, was probably fool enough to shrink from the idea of her
shunning him, forgetting (as men always do forget, the fundamental
principles of gallantry in regard to the woman they really love) that
such a mistrust would have been a step, and a long one, towards the
interest he could not but feel anxious to inspire.
Had she been more experienced or less preoccupied, she must have learned
the truth from his changing colour, his faltering step, his awkward
address, to all others so quiet, graceful, and polite. She was thinking
of George, she was low-spirited and unhappy. Florian’s society was a
change and a distraction. She welcomed him with a kind greeting and a
bewitching smile.
The more anxious men are to broach an interesting subject, the more
surely do they approach it by a circuitous route. Florian asked half a
dozen questions concerning the budding, grafting, and production of roses
in general, before he dared approach the topic nearest his heart. Cerise
answered good-humouredly, and became more cheerful under the influence of
fresh air, a gleam of sun, and the scent of her favourite flowers.
Bending sedulously over an especial treasure, she did not remark how long
a silence was preserved by her companion, though rising she could not
fail to observe the agitation of his looks nor the shaking hands with
which he strove to assist her in a task already done.
“These are very late roses,” said he, in a tone strangely earnest for the
enunciation of so simple a remark. “There are still half a dozen more
buds to blow, and winter has already arrived.”
“That’s why I am so fond of them,” she replied. “Winter comes too early
both in the garden and in the house. I like to keep my flowers as long as
I can, and my illusions too.”
She sighed while she spoke, and Florian, looking tenderly in her face,
noticed its air of languor and despondency. A wild, mad hope shot through
his heart, and coming close to her side, he resumed—
“It will be a week at least before this green bud blows, and in a week,
Lady Hamilton, I shall be gone.”
“So soon?” she said, in a low, tender voice, modulated to sadness by
thoughts of her own in no way connected with his approaching departure.
“I had hoped you would stay with us the whole winter, Monsieur de St.
Croix. We shall miss you dreadfully.”
“I shall be gone,” he repeated, mournfully, “and a man in my position can
less control his own movements than a wisp of seaweed on the wave. In a
day or two, perhaps in a few hours, I must wish you good-bye, and—and—it
is more than probable that I shall never see you again.”
Clasping her hands, she looked at him with her blue eyes wide open,
like a child who is half-grieved, half-frightened, to see its plaything
broken, yet not entirely devoid of curiosity to know what there is
inside. Like a flash came back to him the white walls, the drooping
laburnums, the trellised beech-walk in the convent garden, and before him
stood Mademoiselle de Montmirail, the Cerise of the old, wild, hopeless
days, whom he ought never to have loved, whom least of all should he dare
to think of now.
“Do you remember our Lady of Succour?” said he; “do you remember the
pleasant spring-time, the smiling fields, and the sunny skies of our
own Normandy? How different from these grey, dismal hills! And do you
remember the day you told me your mother recalled you to Paris? You
cannot have forgotten it! Lady Hamilton, everything else is changed, but
I alone remain the same.”
The broken voice, the trembling gestures betrayed deep and uncontrollable
emotion. Even Cerise could not but feel that this man was strangely
affected by her presence, that his self-command was every moment
forsaking him, and that already words might be hovering on his lips to
which she must not listen. Perhaps, too, there was some little curiosity
to hear what those words could be—some half-scornful reflection that when
spoken it would be time enough to disapprove—some petulant triumph to
think that everybody was not distant, reserved, impenetrable, like Sir
George.
“And who wishes you to change?” said she, softly. “Not I for one.”
“I shall remember those words when I am far away,” he answered,
passionately. “Remember them! I shall think of them day by day, and hour
by hour, long after you have forgotten there was ever such a person
in existence as Florian de St. Croix. Your director, your worshipper.
Cerise! your slave!”
She turned on him angrily. All her dignity was aroused by such an appeal
in such a tone, made to _her_, a wedded wife, but her indignation,
natural as it was, changed to pity when she marked his pale, worn face,
his imploring looks, his complete prostration, as it seemed, both of mind
and body. It was no fault of hers, yet was it the wreck she herself had
made. Angry! No, she could not be angry, when she thought of all he must
have suffered, and for _her_; when she remembered how this man had never
so much as asked for a kind word in exchange for the sacrifice of his
soul.
The tears stood in her eyes, and when she spoke again her voice was very
low and pitiful.
“Florian,” said she, “listen to me. If not for your own sake, at least
for mine, forbear to speak words that can never be unsaid. You have been
to me, I hope and believe, the truest friend man ever was to woman. Do
you think I have forgotten the white chapel above Port Welcome, or the
bright morning that made me a happy wife?” Her face clouded, but she
resumed in a more composed tone, “We have all our own burdens to bear,
our own trials to get through. It is not for _me_ to teach _you_ that
this world is no place of unchequered sunshine. You are right. I shall,
perhaps, never see you again. Nay; it is far better so. But let me always
remember you hereafter as the Florian St. Croix, on whose truth, and
unselfishness, and right feeling Cerise Hamilton could rely, even if the
whole world besides should fail, and turn against her at her need!”
He was completely unmanned. Her feminine instinct had taught her to use
the only weapon against which he was powerless, and she conquered, as a
woman always does conquer, when madly loved by him who has excited her
interest, her pity, and her vanity, but who has failed to touch her heart.
“And you _will_ remember me? Promise that!” was all he could answer.
“It is enough; it is my reward. What happiness have I, but to obey your
lightest wish?”
“You go to France?” she asked, cheerfully, opining with some discretion
that it would be well to turn the conversation as soon as possible into a
less compromising channel. “You will see the Marquise? You will be near
her, at any rate? Will you charge yourself with a packet I have been
preparing for days, hoping it would be conveyed to my dear mother by no
hand but yours?”
It was a masterly stroke enough. It not only changed the whole
conversation, but gave Cerise an opportunity of escaping into the house,
and breaking up the interview.
He bowed assent of course. He would have bowed assent had she bid him
shed his own blood then and there on the gravel-walk at her feet; but
when she left him to fetch her packet, he waited for her return with the
open mouth and fixed gaze of one who has been vouchsafed a vision from
another world, and looks to see it just once again before he dies.
The rigging of the brigantine proceeded but slowly. Sir George could not
apply himself to his task for five minutes at a time; and had the tackle
of the real ‘Bashful Maid’ ever become so hopelessly fouled and tangled
as her model’s, she must have capsized with the first breeze that filled
her sails. His right hand had forgotten its cunning, and his very head
seemed so utterly confused that, to use his own professional metaphor,
“He didn’t know truck from taffrail; the main-brace from the captain’s
quadrant.”
What a lengthened interview was held by those two on the terrace! Again
and again rising and dislocating his neck to look—there they were still!
In the same place, in the same attitude, the same earnest conversation!
What subject could there be but one to bear all this discussion
from two young people like these? So much at least he had learned
_en mousquetaire_, but it is difficult to look at such matters _en
mousquetaire_, when they affect oneself. Ha! She is gone at last. And he,
why does he stand there watching like an idiot? Sir George turned once
more to the brigantine, and her dolphin-striker snapped short off between
his fingers.
Again to the window. Florian not gone yet! And with reason, too, as it
seems; for Lady Hamilton returns, and places a packet in his hand. He
kisses hers as he bends over it, and hides the packet carefully away
in his breast. Zounds! This is too much. But Sir George will command
himself. Yes, he will command himself from respect to his own character,
if for nothing else.
So with an affectation of carelessness, so marked as to be utterly
transparent, the baronet walked down to the garden-door, where he could
not fail to meet his wife as she re-entered the house for a second time,
leaving Florian without. It added little to his peace of mind that her
manner was flurried, and traces of recent tears were on her face.
“Cerise,” said he, and she looked up smiling; “I beg your pardon, Lady
Hamilton, may I ask what was that packet you brought out even now, and
delivered to Monsieur de St. Croix?”
She flashed at him a glance of indignant reproach, not, as he believed,
to reprove his curiosity, but because he had checked himself in calling
her by the name he loved.
“They are letters for Madame le Marquise, Sir George,” she answered,
coldly; and, without turning her head, walked haughtily past him into the
house.