“_To the foolish give counsel from the head; to the wise from the
heart!_”
--Cervanto Y'ALVEZ.
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VER since I became secretary I had been as one dead to my friends.
Except the General, I had seen none of them. One or two, including Dick
Shafthead, had called upon me, only to be told that I might not return
until long after midnight (for I was occasionally in the habit of dining
with one of my employers after my labors). When I thought of Dick, my
conscience smote me. I intended always to write to him, and also to
Lumme, to explain my disappearance, but never took pen in hand. I heard
nothing from France, nothing about the packing-case; nor did I trouble
my head about this silence. The present moment was enough for me. To
Halfred I had only mentioned that I was busily employed in a distant
part of London, and I fear my servant's vivid imagination troubled him
considerably, for he was earnestly solicitous about my welfare.
“It ain't nothing I can lend a 'and in, sir?” he inquired one day.
“I am afraid not,” I replied.
He hesitated, uncertain how best to express his doubts politely and
indicate a general warning.
“You'll excuse me, sir, for saying so,” he remarked at last, “but Mr.
Titch 'e says that furriners sometimes gets themselves into trouble
without knowing as 'ow they are doing anything wrong.”
“Tell Mr. Titch, with my compliments, to go to the devil and mind his
own business,” I replied, with, I think, pardonable wrath.
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“Yes, sir; very good, sir,” said Halfred, hastily; but I do not know
that his doubts were removed. However I consoled myself for my want
of confidence in him by thinking that he had now a fair field with
Aramatilda.
On the evening of that day when we had despatched Mrs. Martin to
the seaside, I returned earlier than usual and sat in my easy-chair
ruminating on the joys and drawbacks of platonic friendship. “Yes,” I
said to myself, “it is pleasant, it is pure--devilish pure--and it is
elevating. But altogether satisfactory? No, to be candid; something
begins to be lacking. If I had had the audacity this morning--what would
she have said? Despised me? Alas, no doubt! Yet, is there not something
delicate, ideal, out of all ordinary experience in our relations? And
would I risk the loss of this? Never!”
At this point there came a knock upon the door, and in walked my dear
Dick Shafthead.
“Found you at last,” he said. “Well, monsieur, give an account of
yourself. What have you been doing--burgling or duelling or what?”
His manner was as cool and unpretentiously friendly as ever; he was the
same, yet with a subtle difference I was instantly conscious of. There
was I know not what of kindness in his eye, of greater courtesy in his
voice. Somehow there seemed a more sympathetic air about him. Slight
though it was, this something insensibly drew forth my confidence.
Naturally, I should have hesitated to confess my little experiment in
Plato and my improbable vocation to such a satirical critic. I could
picture the grim smile with which he would listen, the dry comments he
would make. But this evening I was emboldened to make a clean breast of
it, and, though his smile was certainly sometimes a little more humorous
than sympathetic, yet he heard me with a surprising appearance of
interest.
“Then she's deuced pretty and embarrassingly proper?” he said, when I
had finished the outline of my story.
“Indeed, my friend, she is both.”
“Novel experience?” he suggested.
“Entirely novel.”
“And what's to be the end of it?”
I shrugged my shoulders.
“Going to marry her?”
“Marry!” I exclaimed. “I have told you we are not even lovers. Dick, I
cannot tell you what my feeling is towards her, because I do not know
it myself. Yes, perhaps it is love. She has virtues; I have told you
them--her truth, her high spirit, her--”
“Yes, yes,” interrupted Dick, with something of his old brutality,
“you've given me the list already. Let's hear her faults.”
“She is so full of delightful faults I know not where to begin.
Perverse, sometimes inconsiderate, without knowledge of herself.
Divide these up into the little faults they give rise to in different
circumstances, and you get a picture of an imperfect but charming
woman.”
“It is evident _you_ don't know what falling in love means,” said Dick.
I looked at him hard.
“Do you?” I asked.
Dick actually blushed.
“Well,” he replied, with a smile that had a little tenderness as well
as humor, “since you are a man of feeling, monsieur, and by way of
being--don't you know?--yourself, I might as well tell you. I've rather
played the fool, I expect.”
He said this with an air of sincerity, but it was clear he did not think
himself so very stupid in the matter.
“My dear friend,” I cried, “I am all ears and sympathy--also intelligent
advice.”
And then the story came out. I shall not give it in Dick's words, for
these were not selected with a view to romantic effect, and the story
deserves better treatment.
It appeared that, some twenty years before, a cousin of Lady Shafthead's
had taken a step which forever disgraced her in the eyes of her
impecunious but ancient family. She had, in fact, married the local
attorney, a vulgar but insinuating person with a doubtful reputation
for honesty and industry. The consequences bore out the warnings of her
family; he went from bad to worse, and she from discomfort to misery,
until, at last, they both died, leaving not a single penny in the
world, but, instead, a little orphan daughter. Of all the scandalized
relations, Lady Shafthead had alone come to the rescue. She had the girl
educated in a respectable school, and now, when she was nineteen years
of age, gave her a home until she could find a profession for herself.
This latter step did not meet with Sir Philip's approval. He had
lent the father money, and in return had had his name forged for a
considerable amount; besides, he did not approve of bourgeois relations.
However, he had reluctantly enough consented to let Miss Agnes Grey
spend a few months at his house on the understanding that, as soon as
an occupation was found, that was to be the last of the unworthy
connection.
At this stage in the story--about a fortnight ago--fate and a
short-sighted guest put a charge of shot into the baronet's left
shoulder. At first it was feared the accident might be dangerous; Dick
was hurriedly summoned home, and there he found Miss Agnes Grey grown
(so he assured me) into one of the most charming girls imaginable.
He had known her and been fond of her, in a patronizing way, for some
years. Now he saw her with tears in her voice, anxious about his father,
devoted to his mother, and all the time feeling herself a forlorn and
superfluous dependant. What would any chivalrous young man, with an
unattached heart, have done under these circumstances? What would I have
done myself? Fallen in love, of course--or something like it.
Well, Dick did not do things by halves. He fell completely in love;
circumstances hurried matters to an issue, and he discovered himself
beloved in turn. Little was said, and little was done; but quite enough
to enable a discerning eye to see at the first glance that something had
happened to Dick.
And here he sat, with his blue eyes looking far through the walls of my
room, and his mouth compressed, giving his confidence not to one of
his oldest and most discreet friends, but to one who could share a
sentiment. A strange state of things for Dick Shafthead!
“It is an honorable passion?” I asked.
“What the devil--” began Dick.
“Pardon,” I interposed. “I believe you. But the world is complex, and I
merely asked. You are then engaged?”
Dick frowned.
“We haven't used that word,” he replied.
“But you intend to be?”
He was silent for a little, and then, with some bitterness, said: “My
earnings for the last three years average £37, 11s., 4d. I have had two
briefs precisely this term, and I am thirty years old. It would be an
excellent thing to get engaged.”
“But your father; he will surely help you?”
“He will see me damned first.”
“Then he will not approve of Miss Grey?”
“He will not.”
“Have you asked him?”
“No.”
Again Dick was silent for a minute, and then he went on: “Look here,
d'Haricot, old man, this is how it is. I know my father; he's one of the
best, but if I've got any prejudices I inherit them honestly. What he
likes he likes, and what he doesn't like he doesn't like. He doesn't
like Agnes, he doesn't like her family--or didn't like 'em. He doesn't
like younger sons marrying poor girls. On the other hand, he does like
the 'right kind of people,' as he calls 'em, and the right sort of
marriage, and he does like me too well, I think, to see me doing what he
doesn't like. I have only a hundred a year of my own, and expectations
from an aunt of fifty-two who has never had a day's illness in her life.
You see?”
“What will you do?” I asked.
“What can I do?” he replied, and added, “it is pleasant folly.”
His brows were knitted, his mouth shut tight, his eyes hard. He had come
down to stern realities and the mood of tenderness had passed.
“But you really love her?” I said.
His face lit up for a moment. “I do,” he answered, and then quickly the
face clouded again.
“My friend,” I said, “I, too, have a friend--a girl, whom I place before
the rest of the world; I share your sentiments and I judge your case for
you. What is life without woman, without love? Would you place your
income, your prospects, the sordid aspects of your life, even the
displeasure of relations, before the most sacred passion of your heart?
Dick, if you do not say to this dear girl, 'I love you; let the devil
himself try to part us! I shall not think of you as the same friend.”
He gave a quick glance, and in his eye I saw that my audience was with
me in spirit.
“And my father? Tell him that too?” he said, dryly in tone, but not
unmoved, I was sure.
“Tell him that your veneration, your homage, belongs to him, but that
your soul is your own! Tell him that you are not afraid to take some
risk for one you love! Are you afraid, Dick?”
He gave a short laugh.
“I'd risk something,” he replied.
“Only something? And for Agnes Grey, Dick? Think of the future without
her, the life you have been leading repeated from day to day, now that
you have known her. Is that pleasant? Is she not worth some risk--a good
deal of risk?”
He rose and then he smiled; and he had a very pleasant smile.
“Thanks,” he said; “you're a good chap, monsieur. I wish you had to
tackle the governor, though.”
“Let me!” I exclaimed.
“Well,” he said, “if I want an eloquent counsel I know where to look for
one. Good-night.”
“You will dare it?” I asked, as he went towards the door.
“Shouldn't be surprised,” he answered, and with a friendly nod was gone.
I said to myself that I had done a splendid night's work. Also I began
to apply my principles to my own case.
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