It is exceedingly disagreeable to find that a scheme you have set your
head on, or a prospect which smiles before you, is displeasing to the
persons who surround you. It gives a cold shock to the glow of
anticipation.
Algernon did not perhaps care to sympathise very keenly with other
folks' pleasure, but he certainly desired that they should be pleased
with what pleased him, which is not quite the same thing.
His mother informed him--perhaps with a dash of the Ancram colouring;
although we have seen how unjustly the worthy lady was suspected of
falsehood by Dr. Bodkin on a late occasion--that Mr. Diamond disapproved
of his refusing Mr. Filthorpe's offer, and of his resolve to go to
London. Dr. Bodkin, Algernon knew, did not approve it; neither did
Minnie, although she had never said so in words. How unpleasantly chilly
people were, to be sure!
Mrs. Errington did not like Mr. Diamond. She mistrusted him. His silence
and gravity, his odd sarcastic smiles, and taciturn politeness, made her
uneasy. Despite the patronising way in which she had spoken of him to
Minnie Bodkin, in her heart she thought the young man to be horribly
presuming.
"I'm sure he doesn't appreciate you at all, Algy," she declared, winding
up a list of Mr. Diamond's defects and misdemeanours with this
culminating accusation.
Algy had a shrewd notion that Mr. Diamond's appreciation of himself was
likely to be a just one, and he was a little vexed and discomfited, that
his tutor had given him no word of praise behind his back. Mrs.
Errington saw that she had made an impression, and began to heighten and
embellish her statements accordingly. "But, my dear boy," said she, "how
can we expect him to recognise talents like yours--gentlemanly talents,
so to speak? The man himself is a mere plodder. Why, he was a sizar at
college!"
Algy felt himself to be a very generous fellow for continuing to "stand
up for old Diamond," as he phrased it.
"Well, ma'am, plenty of great men have been poor scholars. Dean Swift
was a sizar."
"And Dean Swift died in a madhouse! So you see, Algy!"
Mrs. Errington plumed herself a good deal upon this retort, and returned
to the attack upon Mr. Diamond with fresh vigour; being one of those
persons whose mode of warfare is elephantine, and who, never content
with merely killing their enemy, must ponderously stamp and mash every
semblance of humanity out of him.
Algernon did not like all this. His vanity was--at least during this
period of his life--a great deal more vulnerable than his mother's. And
she, although she doated on him, would say unpleasant things,
indignantly repeat mortifying remarks which had been made, and in a
hundred ways unconsciously wound the sensitive love of approbation which
was one of Algernon's tenderest (not to say weakest) points.
It was all very disagreeable. But it was not the worst he had to look
forward to. There was one person who would be so cast down, so
despairing, at the news of his going away, that--that--it would be quite
painful for a fellow to witness such grief. And yet it could not be
expected--it could never have been expected--that he should stay in
Whitford all his life! He must point that out to Rhoda.
Poor Rhoda!
For ten years, that is to say for more than half her life, Algernon
Errington had been an idol, a hero, to her. From the first day when,
peeping from behind the parlour door, she had beheld the strangers
enter--Mrs. Errington, majestic, in a huge hat and plume, such as young
readers may have seen in obsolete fashion books (the mode was so absurd
fifty years ago, and had none of that simple elegance which
distinguishes your costume, my dear young lady), and Algy, a lovely fair
child, in a black velvet suit and falling collar--from that moment the
boy had been a radiant apparition in her imagination. How small, and
poor, and shabby she felt, as she peeped out of the parlour at that
beautiful, blooming mother and son! Not poor and shabby in a milliner's
sense of the word, but literally of no account, or beauty, or value, in
the world, little shy motherless thing! She had an intense delight in
beauty, this Whitford grocer's daughter. And all her little life the
craving for beauty in her had been starved: not wilfully, but because
the very conception of such food as would wholesomely have fed it, was
wanting in the people with whom she lived.
That was a great day when she first, by chance, attracted Mrs.
Errington's notice. She was too timid and too simple to scheme for that
end, as many children would have done, although she tremblingly desired
it. What a surprisingly splendid sight was the tortoise-shell work-box,
full of amber satin and silver! What a delightful revelation the sound
of the old harpsichord, touched by Mrs. Errington's plump white
fingers! What a perennial source of wonder and admiration were that
lady's accomplishments, and condescension, and kind soft voice!
As to Algernon, there never was such a clever and brilliant little boy.
At eight years old he could sing little songs to his mother's
accompaniment, in the sweetest piping voice. He could recite little
verses. He even drew quite so that you could tell--or Rhoda could--his
trees, houses, and men from one another.
In all the stories his mother told about the greatness of her family,
and in all the descriptions she gave of her ancestral home in
Warwickshire, Rhoda's imagination put in the boy as the central figure
of the piece. She could see him in the great hall hung round with
armour; although she knew that he had never been in the family mansion
in his life; in the grand drawing-room, with its purple carpet and gilt
furniture; above all, in the long portrait gallery, of which Rhoda was
never tired of hearing. Heaven knows how she, innocently, and Mrs.
Errington, exercising her hereditary talent, embellished and transformed
the old brick house in its deer park; or what enchanted landscapes the
child at all events conjured up, among the gentle slopes and tufted
woods of Warwickshire!
Even the period of hobbledehoydom, fatal to beauty, to grace, almost to
civilised humanity in most schoolboys, Algernon passed through
triumphantly. He had a great sense of humour, and fastidious pampered
habits of mind and body, which enabled him to look down with more or
less disdain--a good-humoured disdain, always, Algy was never
bitter--upon the obstreperous youth at the Whitford Grammar School.
One fight he had. He was forced into it by circumstances, against his
will. Not that he was a coward, but he had a greater, and more candidly
expressed regard for the ease and comfort of his body, than his
schoolfellows conceived to be compatible with pluck. However, our young
friend, if less stoical, was a great deal cleverer than the majority of
his peers; and perceiving that the moment had arrived when he must
either fight or lose caste altogether, he frankly accepted the former
alternative. He fought a boy bigger and heavier than himself, got beaten
(not severely, but fairly well beaten) and bore his defeat--in the
dialect of his compeers, "took his licking"--admirably. He was quite as
popular afterwards, as if he had thrashed his adversary, who was a
loutish boy, the cock of the school, as to strength. Had he bruised his
way to the perilous glory of being cock of the school himself, it would
have behoved him to maintain it against all comers; which is an anxious
and harassing position. Algy had not vanquished the victor, but he had
"taken his licking like a trump," and, on the whole, may be said to
have achieved his reputation, at the smallest cost possible under the
circumstances.
His mother and Rhoda almost shrieked at beholding his bruised cheek, and
bleeding lip, when he came home one half-holiday, from the field of
battle. Algy laughed as well as his swollen features would let him, and
calmed their feminine apprehensions. Nor would he accept his fond
parent's enthusiastic praise of his heroism, mingled with denunciations
of "that murderous young ruffian, Master Mannit."
"Pooh, ma'am," said the hero, "it's all brutal and low enough. We bumped
and thumped each other as awkwardly as possible. I fought because I was
obliged. And I didn't like it, and I shan't fight again if I can help
it. It is so stupid!"
The young fellow's great charm was to be unaffected. Even his
fine-gentlemanism sat quite easily on him, and was displayed with the
frankest good humour. Some one reproached him once with being more nice
than wise. "We can't all be wise, but we needn't be nasty!" returned
Algy, with quaint gravity. His temper was, as Minnie Bodkin had said,
nearly perfect. He had a singular knack of disarming anger or hostility.
You could not laugh Algernon out of any course he had set his heart
upon--a rare kind of strength at his age--but it was ten to one he would
laugh you into agreeing with him. Every one of his little gifts and
accomplishments was worth twice as much in him as it would have been in
clumsier hands.
If you had a heartache, I do not think that you would have found Algy's
companionship altogether soothing. Sorrow is apt to feel the very
sunshine cruelly bright and cheerful. But if you were merry and wanted
society: or bored, and wanted amusement: or dull and wanted
exhilarating, no better companion could be desired.
He was genial with his equals, affable to his inferiors, modest towards
his superiors--and had not a grain of veneration in his whole
composition.
At seventeen years old Algernon left the Grammar School. But he
continued to "read" with Mr. Diamond for nearly a twelvemonth. "My son
is studying the classics with Mr. Diamond," Mrs. Errington would say; "I
can't send my boy to the University, where all his forefathers
distinguished themselves. But he has had the education of a gentleman."
It was a very desultory kind of reading at the best, and it was
interrupted by the long Midsummer holidays, during which Mr. Diamond
went away from Whitford, no one knew exactly whither. And during these
same holidays, Mrs. Errington, who said she required change of air, had
taken lodgings in a little quiet Welsh village, and obtained Mr.
Maxfield's permission to have Rhoda with her.
That was a time of joy for the girl. It did not at all detract from
Rhoda's happiness, that she was required to wait hand and foot on Mrs.
Errington; to bring her her breakfast in bed; to trim her caps, to mend
her stockings; to iron out scraps of fine lace and muslin; to walk with
her when she was minded to stroll into the village; to order the dinner;
to make the pudding--a culinary operation too delicate for the fingers
of the rustic with whom they lodged--to listen to her patroness when it
pleased her to talk; and to play interminable games of cribbage with her
when she was tired of talking. All these things were a labour of love to
Rhoda. And Mrs. Errington was kind to the girl in her own way.
And above all, was not Algy there? Those were happy days in the Welsh
village. On the long delicious summer afternoons, when Mrs. Errington
was asleep after dinner, Rhoda would sit out of doors with her sewing;
on a bench under the parlour window, so as to be within call of her
patroness; and Algy would lounge beside her with a book; or make short
excursions to get her wild flowers, which he would toss into her lap,
laughing at her ecstasy of gratitude. "Oh, Algy!" she would cry, "Oh,
how good of you! How lovely they are!" The words written down are not
eloquent, but Rhoda's looks and tones made them so.
"They are not half so lovely," Algy would answer, "as properly educated
garden flowers; nor so sweet either. But I know you like that sort of
herbage."
Rhoda never forgot those days. How should she forget them?--since it was
at this period that Algernon first discovered that he was in love with
her. Perhaps he might never have made the discovery if they had all
stayed at Whitford. There he saw her, as he had seen her since her
childhood, surrounded by coarse common people, and living their life,
more or less. It is not every one who can be expected to recognise your
diamond, if you set it in lead. Rhoda was always sweet, always gentle,
always pretty, but she formed part and parcel of old Max's
establishment. When the boy and girl were quite small, she used to help
him with his lessons (her one year's seniority made a greater difference
between them then, than it did later) and had always been used to do him
sisterly service in a hundred ways. And all this was by no means
favourable to the young gentleman's falling in love with her.
But at Llanryddan, Rhoda appeared under quite a different aspect. She
looked prettier than ever before, Algernon thought. And perhaps she
really was so; for there is no such cosmetic for the complexion as
happiness. Apart from her vulgar relations, and treated as a lady by the
few strangers with whom they came in contact, it was surprising to find
how good her manners were, and how much natural grace she possessed.
Mrs. Errington had taught her what may be termed the technicalities of
polite behaviour. From her own heart and native sensibility she had
learnt the essentials. The people in the village turned their heads to
admire her, as she walked modestly along. Who could help admiring her?
Algernon decided that there was not one among the young ladies of
Whitford who could compare with Rhoda. "She is ten times as pretty as
those raw-boned McDougalls, and twenty times as well bred as Alethea
Dockett, and ever so much cleverer than Miss Pawkins," he reflected.
Minnie Bodkin never came into his head in the list of damsels with whom
Rhoda could be compared. Minnie occupied a place apart, quite removed
from any idea of love-making.
Dear Little Rhoda! How fond she was of him!
Altogether Rhoda appeared in a new light, and the new light became her
mightily. Yes; Algy was certainly in love with her, he acknowledged to
himself. There was no scene, no declaration. It all came to pass very
gradually. In Rhoda the sense of this love stole on as subtly as the
dawn. Before she had begun to watch the glowing streaks of rose-colour,
it was daylight! And then how warm and golden it grew in her little
world! How the birds chirped and fluttered, and the flowers breathed
sweet breath, and a thousand diamond drops stood on the humblest blades
of grass!
If she had been nine years old, instead of nearly nineteen, she could
scarcely have given less heed to the worldly aspects of the situation.
Algernon perhaps more consciously set aside considerations of the
future. He was but a boy, however; and he always had a great gift of
enjoying the present moment, and sending Janus-headed Care, that looks
forward and backward, to the deuce. As yet there was no Lord Seely on
his horizon; no London society; no diplomatic career. The latter indeed
was but an Ancramism of his mother's, when she spoke of it to Mr.
Diamond, and Algy at that time had never entertained the idea of it.
So these two young persons sat side by side, on the bench outside the
Welsh cottage, and were as happy as the midsummer days were long.
But long as the midsummer days were, they passed. Then came the time for
going back to Whitford. The day before their return home Rhoda received
a shock of pain--the first, but not the last, which she ever felt from
this love of hers--at these words, said carelessly, but in a low voice,
by Algy, as he lounged at her side, watching the sunset:
"Rhoda, darling, you must not say a word to any one about--about you and
me, you know."
Not say a word! What had she to say? And to whom? "No, Algy," she
answered, in a faint little voice, and began to meditate. The idea had
been presented to her for the first time that it was her duty, or Algy's
duty, to drag their secret from its home in Fairyland, and subject it to
the eyes and tongues of mortals. But being once there, the idea stayed
in her mind and would not be banished. Her father--Mrs. Errington--what
would they say if they knew that--that she had dared to love Algernon?
The future began to look terribly hard to her. The glittering mist which
had hidden it was drawn away like a gauze curtain. How could she not
have seen it all before? Would any one believe for evermore that she had
been such a child, such a fool, so selfishly absorbed in her pleasant
day-dreams, as not to calculate the cost of it for one moment until now?
"Oh, Algy!" the poor child broke out, lifting a pale face and startled
eyes to his; "if we could only go on for ever as we are! If it would be
always summer, and we two could stay in this village, and never go back,
or see any of the people again--except father," she added hastily. And a
pang of remorse smote her as her conscience told her that the father who
loved her so well, and was so good to her, whatever he might be to
others, was not at all necessary to the happiness of her existence
henceforward.
"Don't let's be miserable now, at all events," returned Algernon
cheerfully. "Look at that purple bar of cloud on the gold! I wonder if I
could paint that. I wish I had my colour-box here. The pencil sketches
are so dreary after all that colour."
Rhoda had no doubt that Algernon could paint "that," or anything else he
applied his brush to. After a while she said, with her heart beating
violently, and the colour coming and going in her cheeks: "Don't you
think it would be wrong, deceitful--to--if we--not to tell----" Poor
Rhoda could not frame her sentence, and was obliged to leave it
unfinished.
"Deceitful! Am I generally deceitful, Rhoda? Oh, I say, don't cry;
there's a pet! Don't, my darling! I can't bear to see you sorry. But,
look here, Rhoda, dear; I'm so young yet, that it wouldn't do to talk
about being in love, or anything of that sort. Though I know I shall
never change, they would declare I didn't know my own mind, and would
make a joke of it"--this shot told with Rhoda, who shrank from ridicule,
as a sensitive plant shrinks from the north wind--"and bother my--our
lives out. Can't you see old Grimgriffin's great front teeth grinning at
us?"
It was in these terms that Algy was wont to allude to that respectable
spinster, Miss Elizabeth Grimshaw.
Rhoda knew that Algy wished and expected her to smile when he said that;
and she tried to please him, but the smile would not come. Her lip
quivered, and tears began to gather in her eyes again. She would have
sobbed outright if she had tried to speak. The more she thought the
sadder and more frightened she grew. Ridicule was painful, but that was
not the worst. Her father! Mrs. Errington! She lay awake half the night,
terrifying herself with imaginations of their wrath.
Algy found an opportunity the next morning to whisper to her a few
words. "Don't look so melancholy, Rhoda. They'll wonder at Whitford
what's the matter if you go back with such a wan face. And as to what
you said about deceit, why we shan't pretend not to love each other!
Look here, we must have patience! I shall always love you, darling, and
I'm sure to get my own way with my mother in the long run; I always do."
So then there would be obstacles to contend with on Mrs. Errington's
part, and Algy acknowledged that there would. Of course she had known
before that it must be so. But Algy had declared that he would always
love her; that was the one comforting thought to which she clung. Rhoda
had grown from a child to a woman since yesterday. Algy was only older
by four-and-twenty hours.
After their return to Whitford came Mr. Filthorpe's letter. Then his
mother's application to Lady Seely, brought about by an old acquaintance
of Mrs. Errington, who lived in London, and kept up an intermittent
correspondence with her. Both these events were talked over in Rhoda's
presence. Indeed, the girl filled the part towards Mrs. Errington that
the confidant enacts towards the prima donna in an Italian opera. Mrs.
Errington was always singing scenas to her, which, so far as Rhoda's
share in them went, might just as well have been uttered in the shape of
a soliloquy. But the lady was used to her confidant, and liked to have
her near, to take her hand in the impressive passages, and to walk up
the stage with her during the symphony.
So Rhoda heard Algernon's prospects canvassed. In her heart she longed
that he should accept Mr. Filthorpe's offer. It would keep him nearer to
her in every sense. She had few opportunities of talking with him alone
now--far fewer than at dear Llanryddan; but she was able to say a few
words privately to him one afternoon (the very afternoon of Dr. Bodkin's
whist-party), and she timidly hinted that if Algy went to Bristol,
instead of to London amongst all those great folks, she would not feel
that she had lost him so completely.
"My dear child!" exclaimed Algy, whose outlook on life had a good deal
changed during the last three months, "how can you talk so? Fancy me on
Filthorpe's office stool!"
"London is such a long way off, Algy," murmured the girl plaintively.
"And then, amongst all those grand people, lords and ladies, you--you
may grow different."
"Upon my word, my dear Rhoda, your appreciation of me is highly
flattering! For my part it seems to me more likely that I should grow
'different' in the society of Bristol tradesmen than amongst my own kith
and kin--people like myself and my parents in education and manners. I
am a gentleman, Rhoda. Lord Seely is not more."
Rhoda shrank back abashed before this magnificent young gentleman. Such
a flourish was very unusual in Algernon. But the Ancram strain in him
had been asserting itself lately. He was sorry when he saw the poor
girl's hurt look and downcast eyes, from which the big tears were
silently falling one by one. He took her in his arms, and kissed her
pale cheeks, and brought a blush on to them, and an April smile to her
lips; and called her his own dear pretty Rhoda, whom he could never,
never forget.
"Perhaps it would be best to forget me, Algy," she faltered. And
although his loving words, and flatteries, and caresses, were
inexpressibly sweet to her, the pain remained at her heart.
She never again ventured to say a word to him about his plans. She would
listen, meekly and admiringly, to his vivid pictures of all the fine
things he was to do in the future: pictures in which her figure
appeared--like the donor of a great altarpiece, full of splendid saints
and golden-crowned angels--kneeling in one corner. And she would sit in
silent anguish whilst Mrs. Errington expatiated on her son's prospects;
wherein, of late, a "great alliance" played a large part. But she could
not rouse herself to elation or enthusiasm. This mattered little to Mrs.
Errington, who only required her confidante to stand tolerably still
with her back to the audience. But it worried Algernon to see Rhoda's
sad, downcast face, irresponsive to any of his bright anticipations. It
must be owned that the young fellow's position was not entirely
pleasant. Yet his admirable temper and spirits scarcely flagged. He was
never cross, except, now and then, just a very little to his mother. And
if no one else in the world less deserved his ill-humour, at least no
one else in the world was so absolutely certain to forgive him for it!