CECIL IN HIS TRUE COLOURS.
Cecil reached his own room with savage sullenness. He had asked
Blanche if she would share his poverty, and was delighted with her
answer; but--strange paradox--he had never seriously thought of
sharing it with her; and now his perplexity was how to escape from
his present dilemma. To marry upon his means was impossible;
impossible also to think of giving her up. To trust for one moment
to Vyner's liberality, he felt was futile; the mere avowal of his
attachment would be sufficient to close the doors against him for
ever.
Angrily he paced up and down his room, striving in vain to detect
some means of extricating himself. A fierce and contemptible
struggle between passion and interest agitated him: sometimes love
prevailed, and sometimes prudence.
In the midst of this self-struggle Captain Heath came in.
"I have come to speak with you," he said, "and trust you will regard
me as Blanche's elder brother, anxious to befriend you, but still
more anxious to protect her. Will you treat with me on those terms?"
"Certainly. You have already discovered our secret--how, I know
not--and there can be no impropriety in consulting with you; I have
perfect confidence in you."
"Your confidence is deserved. Now, tell me; you have yourself heard
from Vyner what I told you in the billiard-room. I told it you,
because I saw in what direction you turned your eyes, and wished you
to have a clear comprehension of the family affairs. Had only your
fancy been touched, my warning would have been in time; as it was,
your heart was engaged, and my warning came too late. I do not
repent it, however, the more so as it served to show me the strength
of your love. Pardon me for having misjudged you," holding out his
hand, "but I imagined that what I said respecting Blanche's poverty
would at once put a stop to your attentions. You have shown me how
ill I judged you. Will this confession, while it convinces you of my
sincerity, also purchase my forgiveness?"
Cecil coloured with shame, and pressed the outstretched hand in
silence.
"Now to your affairs. You wish to keep your attachment a secret.
For what purpose? How can it avail you? It must be discovered, and
then you will have lost all the advantages of openness."
"But what am I to do? Vyner will never give his consent. I am too
poor."
"If I may ask without indiscretion--what is your income? What are
your prospects?"
"My income is the interest of four thousand pounds; my prospects are
vague enough. I have some talent. Painting and literature are open
to me; but I should prefer diplomacy."
"You cannot marry on such prospects."
"No, indeed! But what am I to do?"
"I have but one suggestion to make. My brother is chairman to a
railway now in course of formation. The secretaryship is worth four
hundred a year. If you will accept of it, I think, by exerting
myself, I could secure it for you."
"I am much obliged to you," replied Cecil, coldly; "but that is not
at all in my way."
"You refuse?" said the astonished captain. "Refuse four hundred a
year?"
"Remember I am a gentleman's son," he said, haughtily, "and you will
appreciate my refusal."
"Upon my word, I do appreciate it, and at its real value! Here, I
offer you what certainly I should never have thought of offering you,
had it not been for her sake, a situation which thousands of
gentlemen's sons would be delighted to accept, a situation which,
with your own small property, will enable you to live in decent
comfort, and you refuse it?"
"Really, your officious indignation," said Cecil, getting angry in
his turn, "is somewhat out of place. You meant kindly, I dare say;
but once for all allow me to observe, that I neither am, nor ever
will be, a _quill-driver_."
"Not even for _her_ sake?"
"No; for no one will I degrade myself in my own eyes. If I must
work, it shall be in some gentlemanly department. I will either
paint or write for my livelihood, when I am condemned to gain it."
"And you pretend to love her?"
"I do; but I am sure she would be the first to dissuade me from such
a degradation as you propose. She has given her heart to a
gentleman, and not to a clerk."
"Bah! you talk in the language of a century ago. The pride which was
then, perhaps, excusable, becomes simply ridiculous now-a-days."
"And you, captain, are using language which, if it continues, I shall
demand an explanation----"
"You threaten?"
"I have no wish to do so; but the tone you adopt is such as I can no
longer permit."
"Well, I did not come to quarrel with you, so will abstain from
criticism. Only, let me ask you what you propose to do?"
"I propose nothing, I am totally at a loss."
"You positively refuse my offer?"
"Positively."
"You do not think of marrying upon your present means?"
"Decidedly not."
"Then you have but one course: to relinquish your claim."
"I have thought of that."
As this confession escaped him, a sudden light shone in the captain's
eyes, a sparkle of unexpected triumph which did not escape his rival.
It was a double betrayal. Cecil betrayed his selfishness--the
captain his love.
"I have thought of it," he repeated, "but I cannot make the
sacrifice. I love her too much. It may be selfish, but I feel it
impossible to give her up."
He watched the captain's countenance with malicious joy as he spoke
this, conscious that every phrase was an arrow to pierce his rival's
heart.
"But you must decide either to marry her, or----"
"Or," interrupted Cecil, with a sneer, "relinquish my claim in your
favour, eh?"
Captain Heath shook slightly, and then fixing his full gaze upon
Cecil, said quietly,--
"How little you know the man whom you so wantonly insult!"
He left the room.
"_He_ loves her," said Cecil to himself, bewildered at the discovery.
"Loves her! What, then, is the meaning of his conduct? He acts as
sentinel during our interview--takes upon himself to break the matter
to her father, if I wish it--offers me a situation to enable me to
marry. Oh! it is preposterous! I should be a fool indeed to believe
it! Loves her! loves her and assists a rival! There is some cunning
scheme in all this. I cannot divine _what_ it is, but I am certain
_that_ it is.
"He loves her. Let me see: first, he endeavours to frighten me away
by explaining the state of Vyner's affairs. That is intelligible
enough: he wanted me to take the alarm and decamp. Failing in that,
he suddenly changes tactics, and officiously thrusts himself between
us as a patron and protector. The scoundrel!"
Yes, scoundrel! for doing that which, in its simple heroism, so
distances all ordinary actions, that it looks like a meanness. Thus
are men judged. If a man perform some act of ostentatious grandeur,
the town will ring with loud applause; but unless the act is
striking, and the motive clearly intelligible, he is sure to be
maligned. Men only credit in others the kind of virtue they feel
capable of themselves; as Sallust says of the readers of
history,--"ubi de magnâ virtute et gloriâ bonorum memores quæ sibi
quisque facilia factu putat, æquo animo accipit; supra ea veluti
ficta pro falsis ducit."
Captain Heath's self-sacrifice was one demanding the greatest moral
fortitude, precisely because it had no adventitious aid from the
anticipation of applause; it required an immense effort, and could
have no éclat. It was a victory to be gained after a fierce combat,
and to be followed by no flourish of trumpets. Strength of mind
gained the victory; and the pleasure derived from all exercise of
strength was the reward.
Although I uphold such actions as heroic, as springing from true
moral greatness, and worthy of our deepest reverence, yet it must not
be supposed that there is anything marvellous in this
self-abnegation. The followers of De la Rochefoucauld might find out
egotism even here, if they used their cold scalpel aright. They
might say Captain Heath was convinced that Blanche loved another, and
all his efforts to prevent that would be useless. Finding himself
thus completely excluded from all hope of obtaining her, he made up
his mind to the defeat, and instead of allowing himself to be made
miserable by idle regrets and idler jealousy, he gave himself the
delight of assisting her.
To Cecil, however, who was certainly so incapable of such conduct as
to be incapable of believing it, the captain was evidently a
scoundrel, whom he would first outwit and then challenge.
To outwit him, he determined to carry Blanche off.
Cecil, vacillating between his passion and his prudence, between his
love for Blanche and his horror at poverty, suddenly lost all
hesitation, the instant he was aware of a rival. The selfishness
which had made him unwilling to encounter poverty, to rush into the
great battle of life, there to gain a footing for the sake of
Blanche, now made him ready to run all risks for the sake of
triumphing over a rival. No suggestions assailed him now respecting
the imprudence of marriage; no horrors at bringing a family into the
world without the means of properly providing for them; no thought of
what she would suffer now disturbed him, as it had before. And why?
because it then was only a mask under which he hid the face of his
own selfishness from himself. The one-absorbing thought was how to
quickly call her his; how to irrevocably bind her to him.
"He thinks to dupe me, does he? He shall find out his mistake. I
will this instant go to her, and arrange our flight."