PLEASANT, AND UNPLEASANT THINGS.
Everybody said, without one exception, unless it were that of some
low-minded fellow, that I had performed a most gallant, valiant, and you
might fairly term it, heroic deed. But I could not at all take this view
of it myself; not only because of that modesty which sometimes suffers
misunderstanding, from its terror of becoming conspicuous, but also
because I had acted purely from instinct, and without two thoughts. If
there had been two thoughts, the first would have been to save Laura--an
act of mere selfishness; and the second would have been to save
myself--an act of almost equal selfishness. However, casuistry is not in
my line, and if people chose to think me a very fine fellow, I should
have been guilty of self-assertion, if I had kept on contradicting them.
Nobody was allowed to contradict me, for at least a fortnight; and
everything was done to anticipate my wishes. I lay on a beautiful couch,
and read novels, for fear of any harm to my system; and although there
was a great deal of "_débris_" in them, and most of the heroes had been
pushed off cliffs, and some of them overwhelmed in caverns, I did not
find one who had saved, at a stroke, his lady-love's bones, and his
own, and a dragon's. And the best thing of all was, that Laura made a
point of coming to see me, three times every day. Her mother was
generally with her, it is true; but there are methods of exchanging
glances, over kind shoulders, or behind beloved backs; and sometimes
Lady Twentifold was called away, while her daughter must be left, just
to say good-bye.
In another thing also, I was very lucky. My affection for my mother was
intense and deep: but to be assured of her welfare was enough just now.
By no means did I want her indefatigable love, and assiduous devotion,
at this crisis. Lady Twentifold had written, in the-kindest manner, to
suggest that she could come to assuage anxiety, and contribute her
tender care; but the letter had arrived at "Placid Bower"--as we had
beautifully named our house--to distinguish it from the Boiling
scenes--one hour after my dear mother's hasty departure for the port of
Liverpool. By the earlier post, she had received a letter from the
Manager of a "Sailor's Refuge" there, requesting her to set off by the
next Express train, if she wished to see her dear brother William alive.
This was that very same Uncle Bill of mine, who had tossed me through
the ceiling, as above recorded; and partly in consequence of that
exploit, had betaken himself to the briny waves again, and had long been
supposed to be lying beneath them. That, however, he had forborne to do,
contriving on the contrary to keep above them, during many adventurous
years; until he was landed quite lately at Liverpool, in the last stage,
as every one declared, of a long low African fever. He had not heard a
word of our changes in life, but had given the address of the
Soap-works, and the new Boiler had forwarded the letter.
My mother's kind heart was affected deeply; and she left home in such a
hot flurry, with nothing but a few clothes and her cheque-book, that she
never even thought of leaving any address, or orders concerning her
letters. And we might have heard none of all this, for a month--for she
was rather superstitious about sending bad news, and had not heard a
word about my accident--except for the kindness of Miss Windsor, who
happened to call at "Placid Bower," as she often did for a good
luncheon. The cook gave her this, with much good-will, being troubled
with the knife-boy (who had tried to kiss her, and did not care, how or
when, he came home at night), as well as in distress, about her wages,
and the emptiness of the beer-cask; and then Polly, like the mistress of
the house, sat down, and examined the outsides of all the letters; not
in any spirit of curiosity, in which, (as she confessed) she had always
been too deficient, but to find whether she could be of any service.
Knowing Lady Twentifold's letter at a glance, not so much by the
post-mark, or the crest, as its "unstudied air of aristocracy," she went
to my four-legged desk, and wrote a letter beginning--"Dear Tommy"
(which some one far superior to herself considered a very great liberty
indeed, and had a great mind not to call me Tommy any more), and
covering four sides, with a galloping scrawl, all about nothing, except
that my mother had been suddenly called away to Liverpool, and no one
knew when she would come back again.
I endeavoured to reconcile my mind to this, trusting that my excellent
mother would take good care of herself, as she generally did, and
feeling how very much better it was, that her mind should be free from
anxiety, until I could announce my own recovery. And for this latter
blessing I was not in any haste, finding all my medicaments wonderfully
nice, and clinical treatment exceedingly fine.
"When are you coming downstairs, old chap?" Sir Roland inquired, in his
brisk short style, when I had endured with all resignation a fortnight
of these therapeutics. "The world won't stand still for the best of us,
you know. The Professor has packed up his bones, and is going. He can't
hope for any more big lizards; and of this one he has got every bit of
scurf left, I believe. Wonderful, what fancies people have! If you
offered him the Blue Ribbon, not a smile would appear on his philosophic
countenance. But offer him a thread from the tail, or the _pelvis_, or
the _pubes_, or whatever he calls it, of some hideous beast that died
when mirrors were invented, and you'll get a smile worth walking ten
miles to see. I tried to take a rise out of him the other day, with a
big marrow-bone I mashed up, and stuck together inside out; and I rode
twenty miles, to put the product into a petrifying well, for three days
and nights. I made sure of having him; it looked so natural, and every
bit of join was sawdered over with the drip-stuff.
"'New specimen from our cliff, sir,' I said. 'I hope it may induce you
to prolong your stay.'
"And really for a moment, he looked puzzled, and I made sure of having
fetched him. Then he stood up, and put his hand upon my shoulder; and
you should have seen the laugh in his great eyes.
"'I hope, my young friend, you will retire from the House, when the
question of our next grant is discussed,' he said; 'I shall put this in
a case, as a great curiosity; and label it "_Specimen of a Conservative
M.P._" The inversion, and the petrification, are the leading features of
the type.'
"What do you think of that now, Tommy?"
"Well, I think that it served you most splendidly right, and will teach
you how to play tricks with great men. I should like to have seen you,
with his strong hand on your shoulder."
"Come, if you can laugh like that, you heartless radical, there can't be
much the matter with your inner parts, unless it is your heartless
heart. And very little wrong with your outward either, to judge by the
colour on your cheeks, when I came in. You were as bright, as 'a red red
rose newly blown in June.'"
"Because your sweet sister had just been with me," thought I; but I only
said, "Yes, I am a little better. My strength is coming back to me
gradually, I believe. With your dear mother's wonderful kindness, and
the help of a good constitution, I hope to be toddling about as usual,
before very long. But Professor Megalow says, that I must shun most
carefully every possible form of excitement."
"No doubt of that. But you appeared to me to be in a state of
excitement, when I came in. And there was somebody going down the other
stairs, I thought; a quick light foot it seemed to be."
"There are so many echoes in this house," I answered, throwing one
weary arm across my face; "if you had only got to keep in one room, and
listen to them, hour after hour, as I have got to do, you would find out
that a very little thing excites one."
"Well, I beg your pardon, dear Tommy," he replied; "I should be the last
to hurry you, I am sure; after all the great things that you have done
for us. But I do want you to be about again, for a lot of reasons; if it
were only to canvass Larkmount, before they forget your exploit, and
before that very dainty colour has time to get spoilt. All the Larkmount
females will be in love with you; and everything is driven by the
thimble there. The Rads are going to be fools enough, I hear, to bring
forward an oily fellow, fifty years old, pitted with the small-pox, and
with stubby black hair, against your soft carmine, and ambrosial curls.
And another thing I forgot to tell you, Counterpagne will be here
to-morrow, or the next day; and he is such an awful stick over the wine.
He thinks himself wronged, with less than two hours of it; and what I
shall do with him, when the Professor is gone, surpasses my imagination.
He never says anything, except what he has read in the papers of the
morning; and whatever they have said, he repeats word for word, for he
has got a tremendous memory. And he does it all the same, if he has
happened to get hold of a Radical journal, before the sound doctrine;
whichever side he gets first, he swallows; and his stubbornness, pegs
him fast to it; and whatever the other side says is therefore all
rubbish, and rot, and roguery. His temper is none of the best; and that
makes it so much harder to get on with him."
"But what can you do with him, all day long, if he is that sort of
fellow?" I asked; "surely he must be even worse, before he has read
anything at all; because he must want you, to settle his mind."
"Not at all; he would resent it deeply. He must have a thing in type,
and take it in slowly, before his opinion--as he calls it--can be
formed. And then, I am relieved of him for several hours, and am only
too glad to be out of the way, while he marches all over the gardens,
and shrubberies, and even the chase--as he calls the home-farm--for
hours of spooning with poor Laura."
"What an atrocious thing to do!" I cried, feeling indignation almost
lift me from the couch. "It is bad enough to spoil your evenings; but to
ruin all her mornings is ten thousand times worse. How can you bring
yourself to allow it?"
"I am thankful for the mercies that I thus ensue," he answered, with
heartless, and most infinite levity; "what can be the value of a girl's
time, Tommy? And she likes it, of course--for he makes fine speeches. Or
if she doesn't like it, why she ought to do so, and the sooner she
learns the way the better. She will have to put up with him, all day
long, as soon as they are married, which it is high time now to settle.
I may tell you, in confidence, that Counterpagne is just the fellow to
be made a fool of; and so we must fix him, before that happens. Not that
he is any great catch, you know. He will take quite as much as he
brings; and his family is ever so much newer than ours is, for he only
belongs to us in the female line. Still, this 'alliance' (as the cads of
the papers call it) has been determined on, for very good reasons; and
it plugs up a leak in some wicked old will."
"A very wicked will, I call it, a very wicked will, and a still more
wicked deed--to bind two persons together for life, without asking
whether they suit each other. If you were a beautiful, clever,
sweet-tempered, warm-hearted, pure-minded, and lovely young lady,
without a particle of selfishness, or two thoughts of a trumpery
coronet--how would you like to marry Lord Counterpagne, taking him
according to your own account? His temper is bad, to begin with--and to
end with too, for any one who cares about his sister's welfare. Roly,
bad temper is the curse of life. Those who are plagued with it, should
live apart, or only with those they are afraid of; unless they have
enough of self-knowledge, and enough strong will, to quench it utterly.
Has the Earl of Counterpagne got those?"
"If he has, he has concealed them from me, thus far. He thinks his bad
temper a very fine thing. But, my dear Tommy, what concern is this of
yours?"
"None, I suppose; because she is not my sister. But I will say my say,
and have done with it; and you may think me an upstart meddler, if you
like. All of you have been so kind to me, and above all your dear
mother, that I would rather die out of the way, than see a great misery
falling upon you. And the greatest misery in all the world is, for a
gentle, sweet, loving, and sensitive creature, to be shackled for life
to a man, conceited, stuck-up, narrow-minded, cold-hearted, selfish, and
above all black-tempered. And if you bring such a thing to pass, you
will rue it to the last day of your life, dear Roland."
"Come, come, he is not half so bad as all that?" Sir Roland replied,
with more self-command, than I expected from him. "Counterpagne is a
gentleman, in his way, and only requires humouring. Tommy, I thank you
for your warning, which is uncommonly impressive, and
disinterested"--here he fixed his piercing eyes on mine, but I was not
thinking of myself at all, in the larger interests my own words had
aroused; "but you have talked a great deal too much for your good. Go to
sleep, and allow me to consider--what comes next."
He was going to say something harsher, as I saw. But his manly sense of
my condition, and of the service I had been happy enough to render,
withheld him from speaking out his mind, just then. And I was glad, when
he was gone, and I could think things over.