The house was found after a great many not unpleasurable
researches--little expeditions, now and then, which Lady Caroline and
her husband took together, with reminiscences of their first honeymoon
travels, which had been so sweet. She forgot, as a woman is so ready to
do, all the little deceptions and disappointments of the intervening
years, and when they found at last the very thing they wanted the
elation and exhilaration of a new beginning entered fully into Carry’s
mind. If Edward had shown himself too contented with his life, too
little ambitious, too indifferent to any stimulant, there was something
in the fact of being unsettled, of having no certain motive of his life,
of moving about constantly from one place to another, which would very
well account for that. But when he was no longer subject to
interruption, when his time and his thoughts were free, who could doubt
that a new spring of energy would burst forth? In the old days, when
they had first met, he had been full of projects. Was not that one of
the charms that had caught her girlish heart? He had so fully meant to
make himself a great influence in the world, to help to sway the course
of events, to make the world a better place. They had talked of that
before even they talked of love--and her enthusiasm had been roused and
fired by his. He had told her--how well she remembered!--that it was a
mistake of dull minds to think that it was hard to obtain an influence
upon one’s fellow-men. On the contrary, if you are but in earnest--in
such earnest that none could mistake your sincerity and true
feeling--then the response, especially of the young, especially of the
working people, whom it was of so much importance to influence for good,
was most ready, almost immediate. So he said, discoursing for hours as
they wandered about the Swiss valley in which they had met, Carry
Lindores all in a flame of enthusiastic listening, responding with her
whole heart. What a beautiful lot it had seemed to her to share this
work and this life of this new crusader, this chief of men! She was not
Lady Caroline then, but a poor little girl in a faded frock, her father
far out of the succession, and no grandeur of rank or anything else
surrounding the wandering family. Carry’s imagination went back to that
moment with a leap, ignoring, oh so thankfully! all that had gone
between. She had hardly done much with her unfaithfulness to congeal her
Edward’s enthusiasm, to turn him from his hopefulness to misanthropy and
pessimism. He had fallen into apathy because he had been forsaken and
unhappy. But now everything was to begin anew--a settled home on English
ground, a position of his own in which his leisure and his peace should
be undisturbed and his mind free to throw itself into the old studies.
Who could doubt that with all this his energy and his enthusiasm would
come back to him again?
The house was near one of the charming little towns of Surrey. It was on
the slope of a hill, a house partly antique for beauty, and with a new
part built on behind, happily out of sight, for comfort. A wide
landscape of breezy undulations stretched before the windows; the town,
upon another low hill, all its red roofs picturesquely outlined among
the trees, stood out a charming object in the view, not near enough to
add any association of noise or gossip. The very railway ran in a
cutting, invisible, though near enough to be exceedingly convenient,
nothing but a puff of steam showing now and then over the trees. The
landscape embraced, as it were, two worlds--heather and fir trees on one
side, luxuriant English cornfields, woods, and villages on the other.
The altitude of their hillside was not great, but as there was nothing
greater about it, it might have been Mont Blanc for the feeling of wide
atmosphere and sky; yet they were within a mile or two of the little
country town, and within an hour and a half of London! What could be
more delightful, combining every advantage? Carry had all the delight of
a bride in furnishing her house--nay, of a bridegroom too, for one of
her chief cares was to fit up a study for Beaufort, in which every taste
should be satisfied. Though she was by nature so gentle and yielding a
woman, she it was who was the purveyor of everything, who had the purse
in her hands. The only thing upon which Beaufort had made a stand at the
time of his marriage was this--that the money which was hers should
remain with her, that he should have nothing to do with its expenditure.
He had his own little income, which was very small, yet sufficed for his
personal wants. He lived a fairy life, without any necessity for money,
his house kept for him, his living all arranged, everything that he
wanted or could desire coming without a thought; but he preserved his
feeling of independence by having nothing to do with the expenditure.
Thus Carry combined everything in her own person, the bride and the
bridegroom--even something of the mother. Her drawing-room was fitted up
according to all the new lights. She had weaknesses towards the
æsthetic, and something of the delicacy of those heroines of Mr. Du
Maurier whose _bibelots_ are their religion, and who cannot be happy in
a room which has curtains not of the right tint. But even the anxiety to
secure everything right in the drawing-room was secondary to her anxiety
about the library, which was to be Beaufort’s room, the future centre of
all his occupations. He had himself a number of books laid up in various
stores, and they had bought a number more in their wanderings--fine old
examples in delicate old vellum like ivory and luxurious editions. Carry
was occupied for weeks in arranging them, in procuring the right kind of
bookcases, and hanging and decorating the room in just the subdued
beauty which is appropriate for a place of study. There was one great
window commanding the finest view, there was another looking into a
sunny nook of the garden. The writing table stood within reach of the
fire, and near that sunny window, so that it might always command both
warmth and light. The chairs were few, but luxurious to sit in, and
moving at a touch, without noise, upon the deep, mossy softness of the
carpet. The bookcases were inlaid and exquisite with lines of delicate
sculpture and gilding between the shelves, out of which the mellow gold
of the old bindings and the sober background of Russia leather and the
tempered ivory of the vellum showed like a picture. He had not even seen
it till it was completed. No lover ever spent upon his lady’s boudoir
more tender care and delicate fancy than Carry lavished upon her
husband’s study. When they went down finally to take possession of
Easton Manor there were various things incomplete in the rest of the
house, but this was perfect. She took him by the arm and led him to the
door. ‘This is my present to you, Edward,’ she said, a little breathless
with happiness and anxiety to know if it would please him. At this
period when furniture is supposed to make so great a part of our
comfort, the moment was intense--would it please him, after all?
It did please him, or, at least, he graciously declared it did, with an
enthusiasm perhaps a little strained, but Carry, who was half crying
with joy and pleasure, never found this out, if, indeed, there was
anything to find out. She ran about the room, pointing out
everything--all the details of the arrangements, the drawers for papers,
the portfolios for prints, the shelves that could be filled at pleasure,
the space that still was vacant to be filled up. Everything that heart
could desire was in this dilettante shrine. There was a little picture
on the mantelpiece, an original, a lovely little Fra Angelico, in the
daintiest of carved shrines, which good luck had thrown in their way in
Italy--a gem for an emperor’s closet. He gave a little cry when he saw
this. ‘Carry, your own picture--the one you love best!’
‘I shall love it better here than anywhere else,’ said Carry, falling
a-weeping and a-laughing with a joy that was not hysterical, but only
driven to the bounds of all things to find expression. She was so happy!
She had never in all her life been so happy before. In her own house,
her own home, all hers and his, the sanctuary of their joint life to
come. When a woman comes to this climax of happiness, she generally does
so more thoroughly with her _arrière-pensée_ than a man. Only one thing
could have made Carry’s bliss more exquisite--if he had done it for
her--and yet, on the whole, I am not sure that to have done it for him
was not a higher pleasure still. Little Janet had held by her mother’s
dress coming into the new, strange house, and thus had been swept into
this rapture without intention, and stood gazing at it with great eyes,
half wondering, half critical. What there was to cry about Janet did not
know. She was a spectator, though she was only a child, and broke the
spell. Lady Car felt more than Beaufort did what the interruption was.
And thus the edge was a little taken off her delight. But in the
evening, when Janet was happily in bed, she led her husband back to his
beautiful room. He would rather, perhaps, as a matter of fact, have
remained in the uncompleted drawing-room with her. A thing which is
incomplete has a charm of its own. He was suggesting various things
which were needed to fill up, and enjoying the occupation. He had even
made a few rough sketches, rough, yet full of ‘feeling,’ showing with
only a line or two how many improvements could still be made. She was
delighted by the suggestions, but a little impatient, longing to make
sure that he had seen all the many luxuries provided for himself. She
took his arm when he had shown her where he would place the little
fantastic Venetian _étagère_. ‘Yes, Edward; but I don’t want to stay
here any longer: I want to spend the first evening in the library, in
your own room.’
‘In the library,’ he said with a slight vexation; then recovering
himself he followed her impulse with the best grace in the world. Poor
Carry! it would ill become him not to humour her. ‘But is there a lamp
there?’ he said. She laughed for pleasure at the question. A lamp!
There was the most beautiful arrangement of lights which the art of that
period had yet devised. The reign of the electric light had not begun,
but candles with every kind of silvery shading that had been then
invented were round the walls, and the light was so soft, so equable, so
diffused, that no electric lighting could have been more perfect. ‘You
who are so fond of light, how could you think I would forget that?’ she
said.
‘You never forget anything: you are my good angel,’ he said, holding her
in his arms: the perfect tenderness and the perfect taste went to his
heart. ‘You are too good to me--and all this is far too good for a
useless fellow who never did anything.’
‘It is the circumstances that are to blame for that,’ she said, vaguely.
‘You have never had the leisure and the ease that is necessary for great
work.’
He laughed a little, and perhaps coloured too, could she have seen it in
the flattering soft glow of the shaded light. ‘I am afraid,’ he said,
‘that a man who is overcome by circumstances is rather a poor sort of
creature; but we won’t enter into that.’
‘No, indeed,’ she said; ‘there is no such question before the house,
Edward. Now sit down in your own chair and let us talk. How many talks
we are to have here! This is the place where we shall discuss
everything, and you will tell me how your thoughts are taking shape, and
read me a page here and there, and here I’ll bring my little troubles to
be calmed down, but never to interrupt anything, you may trust me for
that.’
‘My love,’ he cried, ‘I trust you for everything; but, Carry, I am sadly
afraid you are preparing disappointment for yourself. I am by no means
sure that I could write anything were I to try; and as for plans----’
‘Don’t say that, Edward. Don’t you remember how we used to talk in the
dark old Kander Thal long ago? You had planned it out all so clearly. I
think _I_ could write down the plan, and even the names of the chapters,
if you have forgotten. But I am sure you have not forgotten. It has
only been suspended for want of time--for want of the books you
needed--for want--oh! if I might flatter myself so far?--for want,
perhaps, of me; but that’s the vainest thing to say.’
‘It is the only truth in the whole matter,’ he said--‘for want of you! I
think I must have invented that plan on the spot to please you.’
‘Hush, hush!’ said Carry, putting up her hand to his mouth. ‘Don’t
blaspheme. You were full of it, it was a new world to me. First to think
that I _knew_ a man with such great things in his mind, then that he
would talk to me about it, then that my enthusiasm helped him on a
little, that he looked to me for sympathy. Edward,’ she said, with a
little nervous laugh, changing colour, and casting down her eyes, ‘I
wrote some little verses about it in the old days, but never finished
them, and this morning I found them, and scribbled a little more.’
‘My love, my love!’ he cried, in a troubled tone, in which love, shame,
compunction, and even a far-off trembling of ridicule had place. What
could he say to this? The romance, the sentiment, the good faith, the
enthusiasm, altogether overwhelmed him. He could have laughed, he could
have wept, he did not know what to say. How he despised himself for
being so much below her expectations, for being, as he said himself,
such a poor creature! He changed colour; her moist eyes, her little
verses filled him with shame and penitence, yet a rueful amusement too.
The verses were very pretty: he did not despise them, it was only
himself whom he despised.
‘My darling, that’s so long ago! I was a fool, puffed up by your
enthusiasm and by seeing that you believed in me. A young man, don’t you
know, is always something of an actor when he begins to see that a girl
has faith in him. It is--how long, Carry?--fifteen years ago?’
‘And what of that?’ she said. ‘If I could pick up my little thread, as I
tell you, how much more easily could you pick up your great one? This
was why I wanted to be within reach of London, within reach of the
great libraries. It is quite easy to run up for the day to refer to
anything you want--indeed, I might do it for you if you were very busy.
And I can see that you have no interruptions, Edward. We must settle our
hours and everything from that point of view.’
He felt himself at liberty to laugh as she came down to this more
familiar ground. ‘I fear,’ he said, ‘all my plans were in the air--they
never came to execution of any kind. I don’t know even, as I told you,
whether I can write _at all_.’
‘Edward!’ she cried, in an indignant tone.
‘Well, my love’--the flattery went to his heart, notwithstanding all he
knew against it--‘that is the easiest of the matter to be sure; but
everybody can write nowadays, and why should the world listen to me more
than another? Besides, my favourite questions of social economy, as
against political, have all been _exploités_ by other hands since then.’
‘Not by other hands so capable as yours.’
‘Oh, Carry!’ he cried, with a laugh in which there was pleasure as well
as a little ridicule; ‘I fear you have a quite unwarrantable confidence
in me; I am only----’
‘Hush!’ she said, again putting up her hand to his mouth; ‘I don’t want
to hear your opinion of yourself. I am a better judge than you are on
that point. Besides, let us hear who have written on that question?’ She
sat quite upright in her chair. ‘Bring them forward, and let them be
judged,’ she said.
‘I cannot bring forth a whole school of writers before your tribunal, my
lady. Well,’ he said, laughing, ‘there’s Ruskin for one--who has said
all I once wanted to say, in an incomparable way, and gone a great deal
further than I could go.’
‘Ah!’ she cried; ‘that is just the whole matter. Mr. Ruskin is
incomparable, as you say, but he goes a great deal too far. He is a
poet. People adore him, but don’t put serious faith in him. Mr. Ruskin
has nothing to do with it, Edward: he could not forestall _you_.’
‘No, no more than the sun could forestall a farthing candle. Carry, my
dear, don’t make me blush for myself. Come,’ he added, ‘let me see the
little verses--for the moment that is more to the point. Perhaps when
you have showed me how you have picked up your threads I may see how to
pick up mine.’
‘Should you really like to see them, Edward? They are nothing: they are
very little verses indeed. I have left them in my writing-book.’
‘Get them, then,’ he said, opening the door for her, with a smile. Poor
Lady Car! She raised a happy face to him as she passed, with eyes
glistening, still a little moist, very bright, full of sweetness and
gentle agitation. The soft sound of her dress, sweeping after her, the
graceful movement, the gracious turn of the head, were all so many
exquisite additional details to the exquisite room, so perfect in every
point, in which she had housed him. But Beaufort’s face was full of
uneasiness and perplexity. He had floated so far away from those
innocent days in the Kander Thal. He had ceased to believe in the
panaceas that had seemed all-powerful to him then. The wrongs of
political economy and the rights of the helpless had ceased to occupy
his mind. He had become one of the helpless himself, and yet had
drifted, and been not much the worse. Now he had drifted into the most
charming, sunshiny, landlocked harbour, where no fierce wind could
trouble him more. He had no desire to invent labours and troubles for
himself, to spend his strength in putting up beacons and lighthouses to
which the people whom they were intended to help would pay no attention.
He opened one of the windows and looked out upon the night, upon the
soft, undulating landscape, half-lighted by a misty moon. Everything
looked like peace out of doors, peace and every tranquil pleasure that
the soul could desire were within. He gave an impatient laugh at himself
and his wife, and life in general, as he stood cooling his hot forehead,
looking out waiting her return. He was quite contented; why should he
be goaded forth to fight with windmills which he no longer believed to
be knights in armour? Don Quixote disenchanted, ready himself to burn
all his chevalier books, and see the fun of his misadventures, but urged
to take the field by some delicate Dulcinea, could not have been more
embarrassed and disturbed. It was too annoying to be amusing, and too
tender and beautiful either to be angry with or to laugh at. What under
these circumstances was a man who had long abandoned the heroic to do?