IT is somewhat more than a year and a half since Kenelm Chillingly
left England, and the scene now is in London, during that earlier and
more sociable season which precedes the Easter holidays,--season in
which the charm of intellectual companionship is not yet withered away
in the heated atmosphere of crowded rooms,--season in which parties
are small, and conversation extends beyond the interchange of
commonplace with one's next neighbour at a dinner-table,--season in
which you have a fair chance of finding your warmest friends not
absorbed by the superior claims of their chilliest acquaintances.
There was what is called a /conversazione/ at the house of one of
those Whig noblemen who yet retain the graceful art of bringing
agreeable people together, and collecting round them the true
aristocracy, which combines letters and art and science with
hereditary rank and political distinction,--that art which was the
happy secret of the Lansdownes and Hollands of the last generation.
Lord Beaumanoir was himself a genial, well-read man, a good judge of
art, and a pleasant talker. He had a charming wife, devoted to him
and to her children, but with enough love of general approbation to
make herself as popular in the fashionable world as if she sought in
its gayeties a refuge from the dulness of domestic life.
Amongst the guests at the Beaumanoirs, this evening were two men,
seated apart in a small room, and conversing familiarly. The one
might be about fifty-four; he was tall, strongly built, but not
corpulent, somewhat bald, with black eyebrows, dark eyes, bright and
keen, mobile lips round which there played a shrewd and sometimes
sarcastic smile.
This gentleman, the Right Hon. Gerard Danvers, was a very influential
member of Parliament. He had, when young for English public life,
attained to high office; but--partly from a great distaste to the
drudgery of administration; partly from a pride of temperament, which
unfitted him for the subordination that a Cabinet owes to its chief;
partly, also, from a not uncommon kind of epicurean philosophy, at
once joyous and cynical, which sought the pleasures of life and held
very cheap its honours--he had obstinately declined to re-enter
office, and only spoke on rare occasions. On such occasions he
carried great weight, and, by the brief expression of his opinions,
commanded more votes than many an orator infinitely more eloquent.
Despite his want of ambition, he was fond of power in his own
way,--power over the people who /had/ power; and, in the love of
political intrigue, he found an amusement for an intellect very subtle
and very active. At this moment he was bent on a new combination
among the leaders of different sections in the same party, by which
certain veterans were to retire, and certain younger men to be
admitted into the Administration. It was an amiable feature in his
character that he had a sympathy with the young, and had helped to
bring into Parliament, as well as into office, some of the ablest of a
generation later than his own. He gave them sensible counsel, was
pleased when they succeeded, and encouraged them when they
failed,--always provided that they had stuff enough in them to redeem
the failure; if not, he gently dropped them from his intimacy, but
maintained sufficiently familiar terms with them to be pretty sure
that he could influence their votes whenever he so desired.
The gentleman with whom he was now conversing was young, about
five-and-twenty; not yet in Parliament, but with an intense desire to
obtain a seat in it, and with one of those reputations which a youth
carries away from school and college, justified, not by honours purely
academical, but by an impression of ability and power created on the
minds of his contemporaries and endorsed by his elders. He had done
little at the University beyond taking a fair degree, except acquiring
at the debating society the fame of an exceedingly ready and adroit
speaker. On quitting college he had written one or two political
articles in a quarterly review, which created a sensation; and though
belonging to no profession, and having but a small yet independent
income, society was very civil to him, as to a man who would some day
or other attain a position in which he could damage his enemies and
serve his friends. Something in this young man's countenance and
bearing tended to favour the credit given to his ability and his
promise. In his countenance there was no beauty; in his bearing no
elegance. But in that countenance there was vigour, there was energy,
there was audacity. A forehead wide but low, protuberant in those
organs over the brow which indicate the qualities fitted for
perception and judgment,--qualities for every-day life; eyes of the
clear English blue, small, somewhat sunken, vigilant, sagacious,
penetrating; a long straight upper lip, significant of resolute
purpose; a mouth in which a student of physiognomy would have detected
a dangerous charm. The smile was captivating, but it was artificial,
surrounded by dimples, and displaying teeth white, small, strong, but
divided from each other. The expression of that smile would have been
frank and candid to all who failed to notice that it was not in
harmony with the brooding forehead and the steely eye; that it seemed
to stand distinct from the rest of the face, like a feature that had
learned its part. There was that physical power in the back of the
head which belongs to men who make their way in life,--combative and
destructive. All gladiators have it; so have great debaters and great
reformers,--that is, reformers who can destroy, but not necessarily
reconstruct. So, too, in the bearing of the man there was a hardy
self-confidence, much too simple and unaffected for his worst enemy to
call it self-conceit. It was the bearing of one who knew how to
maintain personal dignity without seeming to care about it. Never
servile to the great, never arrogant to the little; so little
over-refined that it was never vulgar,--a popular bearing.
The room in which these gentlemen were seated was separated from the
general suite of apartments by a lobby off the landing-place, and
served for Lady Beaumanoir's boudoir. Very pretty it was, but simply
furnished, with chintz draperies. The walls were adorned with
drawings in water-colours, and precious specimens of china on fanciful
Parian brackets. At one corner, by a window that looked southward and
opened on a spacious balcony, glazed in and filled with flowers, stood
one of those high trellised screens, first invented, I believe, in
Vienna, and along which ivy is so trained as to form an arbour.
The recess thus constructed, and which was completely out of sight
from the rest of the room, was the hostess's favourite writing-nook.
The two men I have described were seated near the screen, and had
certainly no suspicion that any one could be behind it.
"Yes," said Mr. Danvers, from an ottoman niched in another recess of
the room, "I think there will be an opening at Saxboro' soon: Milroy
wants a Colonial Government; and if we can reconstruct the Cabinet as
I propose, he would get one. Saxboro' would thus be vacant. But, my
dear fellow, Saxboro' is a place to be wooed through love, and only
won through money. It demands liberalism from a candidate,--two kinds
of liberalism seldom united; the liberalism in opinion which is
natural enough to a very poor man, and the liberalism in expenditure
which is scarcely to be obtained except from a very rich one. You may
compute the cost of Saxboro' at L3000 to get in, and about L2000 more
to defend your seat against a petition,--the defeated candidate nearly
always petitions. L5000 is a large sum; and the worst of it is, that
the extreme opinions to which the member for Saxboro' must pledge
himself are a drawback to an official career. Violent politicians are
not the best raw material out of which to manufacture fortunate
placemen."
"The opinions do not so much matter; the expense does. I cannot
afford L5000, or even L3000."
"Would not Sir Peter assist? He has, you say, only one son; and if
anything happen to that son, you are the next heir."
"My father quarrelled with Sir Peter, and harassed him by an imprudent
and ungracious litigation. I scarcely think I could apply to him for
money to obtain a seat in Parliament upon the democratic side of the
question; for, though I know little of his politics, I take it for
granted that a country gentleman of old family and L10,000 a year
cannot well be a democrat."
"Then I presume you would not be a democrat if, by the death of your
cousin, you became heir to the Chillinglys."
"I am not sure what I might be in that case. There are times when a
democrat of ancient lineage and good estates could take a very high
place amongst the aristocracy."
"Humph! my dear Gordon, /vous irez loin/."
"I hope to do so. Measuring myself against the men of my own day, I
do not see many who should outstrip me."
"What sort of a fellow is your cousin Kenelm? I met him once or twice
when he was very young, and reading with Welby in London. People then
said that he was very clever; he struck me as very odd."
"I never saw him, but from all I hear, whether he be clever or whether
he be odd, he is not likely to do anything in life,--a dreamer."
"Writes poetry perhaps?"
"Capable of it, I dare say."
Just then some other guests came into the room, amongst them a lady of
an appearance at once singularly distinguished and singularly
prepossessing, rather above the common height, and with a certain
indescribable nobility of air and presence. Lady Glenalvon was one of
the queens of the London world, and no queen of that world was ever
less worldly or more queen-like. Side by side with the lady was Mr.
Chillingly Mivers. Gordon and Mivers interchanged friendly nods, and
the former sauntered away and was soon lost amid a crowd of other
young men, with whom, as he could converse well and lightly on things
which interested them, he was rather a favourite, though he was not an
intimate associate. Mr. Danvers retired into a corner of the
adjoining lobby, where he favoured the French ambassador with his
views on the state of Europe and the reconstruction of Cabinets in
general.
"But," said Lady Glenalvon to Chillingly Mivers, "are you quite sure
that my old young friend Kenelm is here? Since you told me so, I have
looked everywhere for him in vain. I should so much like to see him
again."
"I certainly caught a glimpse of him half an hour ago; but before I
could escape from a geologist who was boring me about the Silurian
system, Kenelm had vanished."
"Perhaps it was his ghost!"
"Well, we certainly live in the most credulous and superstitious age
upon record; and so many people tell me that they converse with the
dead under the table that it seems impertinent in me to say that I
don't believe in ghosts."
"Tell me some of those incomprehensible stories about table-rapping,"
said Lady Glenalvon. "There is a charming, snug recess here behind
the screen."
Scarcely had she entered the recess when she drew back with a start
and an exclamation of amaze. Seated at the table within the recess,
his chin resting on his hand, and his face cast down in abstracted
revery, was a young man. So still was his attitude, so calmly
mournful the expression of his face, so estranged did he seem from all
the motley but brilliant assemblage which circled around the solitude
he had made for himself, that he might well have been deemed one of
those visitants from another world whose secrets the intruder had
wished to learn. Of that intruder's presence he was evidently
unconscious. Recovering her surprise, she stole up to him, placed her
hand on his shoulder, and uttered his name in a low gentle voice. At
that sound Kenelm Chillingly looked up.
"Do you not remember me?" asked Lady Glenalvon. Before he could
answer, Mivers, who had followed the marchioness into the recess,
interposed.
"My dear Kenelm, how are you? When did you come to London? Why have
you not called on me; and what on earth are you hiding yourself for?"
Kenelm had now recovered the self-possession which he rarely lost long
in the presence of others. He returned cordially his kinsman's
greeting, and kissed with his wonted chivalrous grace the fair hand
which the lady withdrew from his shoulder and extended to his
pressure. "Remember you!" he said to Lady Glenalvon with the
kindliest expression of his soft dark eyes; "I am not so far advanced
towards the noon of life as to forget the sunshine that brightened its
morning. My dear Mivers, your questions are easily answered. I
arrived in England two weeks ago, stayed at Exmundham till this
morning, to-day dined with Lord Thetford, whose acquaintance I made
abroad, and was persuaded by him to come here and be introduced to his
father and mother, the Beaumanoirs. After I had undergone that
ceremony, the sight of so many strange faces frightened me into
shyness. Entering this room at a moment when it was quite deserted, I
resolved to turn hermit behind the screen."
"Why, you must have seen your cousin Gordon as you came into the
room."
"But you forget I don't know him by sight. However, there was no one
in the room when I entered; a little later some others came in, for I
heard a faint buzz, like that of persons talking in a whisper.
However, I was no eavesdropper, as a person behind a screen is on the
dramatic stage."
This was true. Even had Gordon and Danvers talked in a louder tone,
Kenelm had been too absorbed in his own thoughts to have heard a word
of their conversation.
"You ought to know young Gordon; he is a very clever fellow, and has
an ambition to enter Parliament. I hope no old family quarrel between
his bear of a father and dear Sir Peter will make you object to meet
him."
"Sir Peter is the most forgiving of men, but he would scarcely forgive
me if I declined to meet a cousin who had never offended him."
"Well said. Come and meet Gordon at breakfast to-morrow,--ten
o'clock. I am still in the old rooms."
While the kinsmen thus conversed, Lady Glenalvon had seated herself on
the couch beside Kenelm, and was quietly observing his countenance.
Now she spoke. "My dear Mr. Mivers, you will have many opportunities
of talking with Kenelm; do not grudge me five minutes' talk with him
now."
"I leave your ladyship alone in your hermitage. How all the men in
this assembly will envy the hermit!"