'ÉVEILLONS LE PLAISIR, SON AURORE EST LA NUIT.'
The supper at the 'Waterfowl' was a success. Every one, except perhaps
Clissold, was in the humour to be pleased with everything, and even
Clissold could not find it in his heart to make himself vehemently
disagreeable amidst mirth so harmless, gaiety so childishly simple.
To an actor, supper after the play is just the one crowning delight
of life—that glimpse of paradise upon earth which we all get in
some shape or other. A supper at a comfortable hostelry like the
'Waterfowl,' where the landlord knew how to do things in good style
for a customer who could pay the piper, was certainly not to be
despised. In this northern district there was a liberal plenty, a
bounteous wealth of provision hardly known elsewhere. Tea at Eborsham
meant dinner and breakfast rolled into one. Supper at Eborsham meant
aldermanic barn-door fowls, and a mighty home-cured ham, weighing
five-and-twenty pounds, or so—lobsters nestling among crisp green
lettuces—pigeon pie—cheese-cakes—tarts—and, lest these lighter
trifles should fail to satisfy appetite, a lordly cold sirloin by way
of _corps de reserve_, to come in at a critical juncture, like Blucher
at Waterloo.
Mr. Dempson made himself the life of the party. The small melancholy
man who had bewailed the decline of the drama, vanished altogether at
sight of that plenteously-furnished table, and in his place appeared a
jester of the first water. So James Penwyn thought at any rate, as he
laughed—with youth's gay silver-clear laughter—at the low comedian's
jokes. Even Miss Villeroy was sprightly, though she had a worn look
about the eyes, as if she had aged herself prematurely with the woes
of Mrs. Haller, and other heroines of tragedy. Justina sat next to
James Penwyn, and was supremely happy, though only an hour ago she had
shed tears of girlish shame at the idea of coming to a supper party in
her threadbare brown merino gown—last winter's gown—which she was
obliged to wear in the warm glad spring for want of fitter raiment.
No one thought of her shabby gown, however, when the pale young face
brightened and flushed with unwonted pleasure, and the large thoughtful
eyes took a new light, and darkened to a deeper grey.
James Penwyn did his uttermost to make her happy and at ease, and
succeeded only too well. There is no impression so swift and so vivid
as that which the first admirer makes upon a girl of seventeen. The
tender words, the subdued tones, the smiles, the praises, have such a
freshness. The adulation of a Cæsar in after years would hardly seem so
sweet as these first flatteries of commonplace youth to the girl on the
threshold of womanhood.
Mr. Elgood saw what was going on, but was by no means alarmed by
the aspect of affairs. He felt himself quite able to take care of
Justina, even if Mr. Penwyn had been a hardened libertine instead of
a kind-hearted youth fresh from the university. He had no desire to
stifle admiration which might mean very little, but which would most
likely result in liberal patronage for his own benefit, and a trifling
present or two for Justina, a ring, or a bracelet, or a box of gloves.
'I don't want to stand in Justina's light,' mused Mr. Elgood, as he
leaned back in his chair and sipped his last glass of champagne, when
the pleasures of the table had given way to an agreeable sense of
repletion.
'What did that gipsy woman mean by the line of life, and the planets?'
asked Justina. She had lost all sense of shyness by this time, and she
and James were talking to each other in lowered voices, as much alone
as if the rest of the party had been pictures on the wall. Maurice
marked them as he sat a little way apart from the others, smoking his
black-muzzled pipe.
'Pshaw, only the professional jargon. What does she know of the
planets?'
'But she stared at your hand in such a curious way, and looked so awful
that she frightened me. Do tell me what she meant.'
James laughed, and laid his left hand in Justina's, palm upwards.
'Look there,' he said; 'you see that line, a curved channel that goes
from below the first finger to the base of the thumb—that is to say,
it should go to the base of the thumb, but in my hand it doesn't.
See where the line disappears, midway, just by that seam left by my
pocket-knife. You can see no line beyond that scar, _ergo_ the line
never travelled further than that point.'
Justina closely scrutinized the strong unwrinkled palm.
'What does that mean?' she asked; 'I don't understand even now.'
'It means a short life and a merry one.'
The rare bloom faded from Justina's cheek.
'You don't believe in that?' she said, anxiously.
'No more than I believe in gipsies, or spirit-rappers, or the cave of
Trophonius,' answered James, gaily. 'What a silly child you are to look
so scared!'
Justina gave a little sigh, and then tried to smile. Even this first
dawn of a girlish fancy, airy as a butterfly's passion for a rose,
brought new anxieties along with it. The gipsy's cant was an evil omen
that disturbed her like a shapeless fear. Women resemble those mediæval
roysterers of whom the old chronicler wrote. They take their pleasure
sadly.
The moon was at the full. There she sailed, a silver targe, above the
distant hill-tops. James looked up at her, looked into that profound
world above, which draws the fancies of youth with irresistible power.
The room opened on the garden by two long windows, and the one nearest
to Mr. Penwyn's end of the table stood open.
'Let us get away from the smoke,' he said, vexed to see Clissold's
eye upon him, fixed and gloomy. The room was tolerably full of
tobacco-smoke by this time, and Mr. Elgood was urging Mr. Dempson to
favour the company with his famous song, 'The Ship's Carpen_teer_.'
'Come into the garden, Maud,' said James, gaily, flinging a look of
defiance at his monitor.
Justina blushed, hesitated, and obeyed him. They went out into the
moonlit night together, and strolled side by side across the rustic
garden, a slope of grass on which the most ancient of apple-trees, and
pear-trees, big enough to have been mistaken for small elms, cast their
crooked shadows. It was more orchard than garden, a homely, useful
place altogether. Potherbs grew among the rose-bushes on the border
by the boundary hedge, and on one side of the inn there was a patch of
ground that grew cabbages and broad-beans; but all the rest was grass
and apple-trees.
At the end of that grassy slope ran the river, silver-shining under
the moon. Eborsham, seen across the level landscape, looked a
glorified city in that calm and mellow light. The boy and girl walked
silently down to the river's brim and looked at the distant hills
and woods, scattered cottages with lowly thatched roofs and antique
chimney-stacks, here and there the white walls of a mansion silvered
by the moon, and, dominating all in sublime and gloomy grandeur, the
mighty towers of the cathedral, God's temple, rising, like fortalice
and sanctuary, above all human habitations, as of old the Acropolis.
Justina gazed and was silent. It was one of those rare moments of
exaltation which poets tell us are worth a lifetime of sluggish
feeling. The girl felt as if she had never lived till now.
'Pretty, isn't it?' remarked James, very much in the tone of Brummel,
who after watching a splendid sunset was pleased to observe, 'How well
he does it!'
'It is too beautiful,' said Justina.
'Why too beautiful?'
'I don't know. It hurts me somehow, like actual pain!'
'You are like Byron's Lara,—
"But a night like this,
A night of beauty, mocked such breast as his."
I hope it is not a case of bad conscience with you, as it was with him?'
'No, it is not my conscience. The worst I have ever done has been to
grumble at the profession; and though father says it is wicked, the
thought of my wickedness has never troubled me. But to me there's
something awful in the beauty of night and stillness, a solemnity that
chills me. I feel as if there were some trouble hanging over me, some
great sorrow. Don't you?'
'Not the least in the world. I think moonlight awfully jolly. Would you
much mind my lighting a cigar? You'll hardly feel the effects of the
smoke out here.'
'I never feel it anywhere,' answered Justina, frankly. 'Father hardly
ever leaves off smoking.'
There was a weeping willow at the edge of the garden, a willow whose
lower branches dipped into the river, and just beside the willow a
bench where these two seated themselves, in the full glory of the
moon. A much better place than the dusky summerhouse, which might
peradventure be a harbour for frogs, snails, or spiders. They sat
by the river's brim, and talked—talked as easily as if they had a
thousand ideas in common, these two, who had never met until to-day,
and whose lives lay so far apart.
They had youth and hope in common, and that bond was enough to unite
them.
James asked Justina a good many questions about stage life, and was
surprised to find the illusions of his boyhood vanish before stern
truth.
'I thought it was such a jolly life, and the easiest in the world,' he
said. 'I've often fancied I should like to be an actor. I think I could
do it pretty well. I can imitate Buckstone, and Charles Mathews.'
'Pray don't think of it,' exclaimed Justina. 'You'd be tired to death
in a year.'
'I dare say I should. I'm not much of a fellow for sticking to
anything. I got "ploughed" a year ago at Oxford, and now I've been
trying to read with Clissold walking through England and Wales, and
putting up at all the quietest places we can find. Clissold is a
first-rate coach, and it won't be his fault if I don't get my degree
next time. How do you like him?'
'I don't know. I haven't thought about him, answered the girl, simply.
This younger and fairer stranger had made her oblivious of Maurice
Clissold, with his tall, strong frame, dark, penetrating eyes, and
broad brow. Too manly a man altogether to be admired by a girl of
seventeen.
'He is as good a fellow as ever breathed; a little bitter, perhaps; but
most wholesome things are bitter,' said James. 'He has his crotchets.
One is that I am to be a model master of Penwyn by and by, go into
Parliament, marry an heiress, set up as a fine old English gentleman,
in fact. Rather a wearisome _métier_, I should think. The worst of it
is, he keeps it continually before my mind's eye, is always reminding
me of how much I owe to Penwyn Manor and my race, and won't let me
get much enjoyment out of youth's brief holiday. He's a good fellow,
but I might love him better if I didn't respect him so much. He was a
great favourite of my poor mother's. A romantic story, by the way. She
was engaged to Maurice's father some years before she married mine. He
was a captain in the East India Company's service, and fell fighting
the niggers at Goojerat. Years afterwards, when my father was dead and
gone, Clissold and I met at Eton. My mother burst into tears when she
heard my schoolfellow's name, and asked me to bring him to see her. Of
course I obeyed, and from that time to the day of her death my mother
had a second son in Maurice. I think she loved him as well as she loved
me.'
'And you were never jealous?'
'No, I was too fond of both of them for that. And then my dear mother
was all love, all tenderness. I could afford to share her affection
with my adopted brother. And now tell me something about your own life.'
'There is so little to tell,' answered the girl, drearily. 'Ever since
I can remember we have lived the same kind of life—sometimes in one
town, sometimes in another. When father could afford the money he used
to send me to a day school, so I've been a little educated somehow,
only I dare say I'm very ignorant, because my education used to stop
sometimes, and by the time it began again I had forgotten a good deal.'
'Poor child,' murmured James, compassionately. 'Is your mother still
living?'
'She died seven years ago. She had had so much trouble, it wore her out
at last.' And Justina paid her dead mother the tribute of a hidden tear.
'I say, Jim, do you know that it is half-past two o'clock, and that Mr.
Elgood is waiting for his daughter?' asked the voice of common sense in
the tones of Maurice Clissold.
The two children started up from the bench by the willow, scared by
the sudden question. There stood Mr. Clissold, tall and straight, and
severe-looking.
'I heard the cathedral clock a few minutes ago, and I am quite aware
of the time. If Mr. Elgood wants his daughter he can come for her
himself,' replied James.
Mr. Penwyn was resolved to make a stand against his mentor, and he felt
that now was the time for action.
Mr. Elgood and Mr. Dempson came strolling out into the garden, cigars
in their mouths. Penwyn's choicest brand had been largely sacrificed at
the altar of hospitality.
'Judy, have you forgotten the time?' asked the heavy father, with
accents that had a _legato_ sound—one syllable gliding gently
into another,—a tone that was all sweetness and affection, though
indistinct.
'Yes, father,' answered the girl, innocently. 'It's so beautiful out
here.'
'Beautiful,' echoed the father, thickly. '"Look how the floor of
heaven is thick inlaid with—what's its names—of bright gold." Come,
Jessica—Judy—put on your bonnet and shawl. Mrs. Dempson has been fast
asleep for the last half-hour. "But look! The morn, in russet mantle
clad, walks o'er the dew of yon high eastern hill," which reminds me
that we have nearly a mile to walk before we get home.'
'I'll go with you,' said James. 'I want to arrange about to-morrow. We
must make up a jolly party for the races. I'll get a roomy carriage
that will hold all of us.'
'I haven't seen a race in anything like comfort for the last fifteen
years,' responded Mr. Elgood.
'We'll make a day of it. Clissold and I will come to the theatre in the
evening.'
'Make your own engagements if you please, James, and allow me to make
mine,' said Mr. Clissold. 'I shall not go to the races to-morrow—or
if I do, it will be by myself, and on foot; and I shall not go to the
theatre in the evening.'
'Please yourself,' answered James, offended.
They were all ready by this time. Mrs. Dempson had been awakened, and
shaken out of the delusion that she had fallen asleep on the sofa in
her own lodgings, and somewhat harshly reminded that she had a mile or
so to walk before she could obtain complete repose. Mr. Dempson had
finished his cigar, and accepted another as solace during the homeward
walk. Justina had put on her shabby little bonnet and mantle. Every one
was ready.
The players took their leave of Maurice Clissold, who was but coldly
civil. James Penwyn went out with them, and gave his arm to Justina, as
if it were the most natural thing in the world. These two walked on in
front, the other three straggling after them—walked arm in arm along
the lonely footpath. The low murmur of the river sounded near—the
stream showed silvery now and again between a break in the screen of
alders.
They talked as they had talked in the garden—about each other—their
thoughts—and fancies—hopes—dreams—imaginings.
Oh youth! oh glamour! Strange world in which for the first bright years
we live as in a dream! Sweet dawn of life, when nothing in this world
seems so real as the hopes that are never to know fruition!