The passions will dispense
To such a wild and rapid eloquence,
Will to the weakest mind their strength impart,
And give the tongue the language of the heart.
CRABBE.
It was a very eventful day for Margaret on which Miss Gage and her
brother were to dine at Ashdale, for it might actually be termed a
party, and she was to preside at the head of the table.
She took infinite pains with her toilet; chose her very prettiest silk,
and allowed her maid as much time as she liked to dress her hair:
instead of starting up, as she did on common occasions, after the first
half-minute, wringing into a perfect cable the beautiful profusion of
her tresses behind, and fastening them up with a comb to the great
discomposure of her attendant. All the time the airy plaits were
weaving, which were to form the pretty coiffure, designated as the
_antique moderne_, Margaret was convincing herself that she was not
taking all this trouble because Hubert Gage was coming. Nothing could be
so unlikely, or so undignified; it was entirely on account of his sister
Elizabeth.
She was dressed so early, that she had plenty of time to spare. She
thought she should like to play on the organ; but Land was busy, so was
the footman, she dared not ask the coachman to blow: Mason would, she
knew, be shocked at the idea; so she sent down to the gardener's boy,
who spent the best part of his time in the kitchen, and he came up, shy
and awkward enough, but very willing to do his best. Unfortunately, he
occasionally left off blowing to listen with open mouth to her
performance, thus causing a sudden stop that was very provoking to her.
She was improving so nicely too--her little foot stole over the pedals
with as much ease as her fingers over the notes; and when she was in the
midst of a very pretty effect, that sharp cessation of sound quite
destroyed her patience.
"There, you naughty little boy," said she, "don't you see the wind is
out? You must not do that again!"
The little boy, who was a great deal bigger by the way than herself,
_did_ do it again, and always in the most provoking places, though the
moment she looked he began to blow with renewed vigour.
"I declare," cried Margaret, stamping her foot on the pedals, and
producing thereby an awful roar, "I will tell my Uncle Grey the very
next time!"
This was not a very formidable threat; but the boy pleaded that she did
play so beautiful he could not help it; and she forgot her anger.
Now, at the moment she stamped, one of the gallery doors opened, and
Mr. Haveloc came out, intending to go down to the drawing-room; but
attracted by the singular sound that met his ear, he remained in the
doorway listening. He was very much amused by the short dialogue which
he overheard, and delighted when Margaret resumed her more regular
performance; for she had that fine sensibility for music which imparts
to the finger a charm that cannot be acquired, but which is an absolute
requisite to persons of the same temperament.
"There goes seven, Miss," said the boy, as Margaret was bringing to a
conclusion one of Handel's choruses.
"How tiresome!" cried Margaret, "Oh, dear! and I promised Mr. Grey that
I would always shut up the organ. I shall be late, that I shall! Oh! do
hold the candle for me!"
"Allow me to save you the trouble," said Mr. Haveloc, coming forward,
"it is the least I can do in return for your music."
"For my music!" gasped Margaret; while all the blunders she had been
committing rushed into her mind, turning her quite sick with shame.
"You may trust me to leave all right," said Mr. Haveloc, beginning to
put in the stops, "I am used to an organ."
"Oh! thank you, I will then," said Margaret, and taking up her gloves,
she lost no time in making her way down stairs.
The Gages' carriage was drawing up as she took her seat beside her
uncle. She could not command her complexion, and it rose amazingly as
Miss Gage entered with her brother.
Elizabeth was more dressed than at her own house, and poor Margaret
ascribed her calm, graceful appearance to the stiff violet watered silk,
and the delicate pearl brooch and bracelets which she wore. Her bouquet
was composed of geraniums this time, and Margaret began to undervalue
her azalias now.
While Mr. Grey was talking to Miss Gage, Hubert Gage, leaning on the
back of Margaret's chair, entered into conversation with an air of so
much intimacy, that she could hardly feel shy of him. He enquired about
her pets, and she confided to him that she had a beautiful bullfinch
which could whistle two tunes, and draw up a bucket of water; and that
Mr. Grey had an eagle in the court-yard which had a great many odd ways;
and that she had not a lap-dog yet, but that Mr. Grey meant to see about
it.
Hubert Gage, with an air of great interest, recommended her to have an
Italian greyhound, and then told her that her hands were like snow; but
Margaret never could recollect how he managed to introduce that piece of
information.
Then Mr. Haveloc came down and planted himself beside Miss Gage's chair
until dinner was announced.
Mr. Grey gave his arm to Miss Gage, and Hubert took possession of
Margaret, begging her to observe how much more fortunate he was now,
than the last time he had the pleasure of seeing her.
As they entered the dining-room everybody was surprised to see Mr.
Casement calmly standing before the fire.
Mr. Haveloc, who followed Hubert Gage, caught up his eye-glass, dropped
it with an air of great vexation, and exclaimed, in a suppressed tone,
"Good Heaven, Hubert! is that fellow not dead yet?"
"I wish anybody could tell me when he _would_ die," said Hubert,
laughing; "but I am firmly persuaded, for my part, that he is the
Wandering Jew."
"Ay! here I am," said Mr. Casement, in reply to Mr. Grey's exclamation
of surprise; "Miss Gage, your servant. So you two young fellows are
returned at the same time. No fear of your not coming back--eh! a bad
shilling! you know the saying."
Hubert Gage burst into a hearty laugh at this address; but Mr. Haveloc
knit his brows with an air of extreme disgust.
By this time, as everybody was seated, and Hubert helping the soup for
Margaret, Mr. Casement bethought himself of something disagreeable to
say to her.
"Ain't you very much obliged to me, little woman," he said, "for coming
straight in here, and so leaving you to the young sparks? Suppose I had
taken you into dinner?"
"Mr. Casement," said Miss Gage, in her very calm manner, "you know I
always keep you in order. You must not forget I am here."
Mr. Casement made a contortion he meant for a smile, and vowed he was
her slave.
Mr. Haveloc told Miss Gage that everybody present owed her a vote of
thanks. A remark which Mr. Casement did not forget.
When a convenient pause occurred, he leaned forward, and said, in a
sufficiently marked tone, "Oh, by the bye, Claude! and how are all our
friends at Florence?" Margaret absolutely turned pale, and could not
avoid glancing anxiously at Mr. Haveloc.
He merely replied, taking up his glass to examine the dish he was about
to carve. "I did not know, Mr. Casement, that you had any friends in any
part of the world."
Margaret was the only person who observed that his hand trembled.
Miss Gage was pleased with his reply, for she knew the ill-natured point
of the remark. Hubert laughed so heartily, that he was forced at
intervals to beg Margaret's pardon for being so rude. Mr. Grey tried to
turn the conversation. Mr. Casement looked sullen; and Mr. Haveloc,
still appearing occupied with the dish before him, said, "There are two
ways of carving these birds; which do you like best?"
"Oh! the old fashioned way, don't you Sir?" asked Miss Gage of Mr. Grey,
"it is much the best."
"Yes; all old fashioned ways are in my opinion;" said Mr. Grey smiling,
"but then I am an old man."
Margaret could not easily regain her composure of feeling after this
incident; she pitied Mr. Haveloc, she admired Miss Gage, and she envied
the readiness with which she directed the conversation into other
channels until all constraint seemed banished from the party.
In the evening Hubert Gage beset Margaret with entreaties that she would
play; and with a feeling of intense misery, she sat down to the piano
and played a Fantasia by Moscheles with great delicacy and effect. Miss
Gage turned round in the midst of her conversation with Mr. Grey, and
told Margaret that she could take no excuses from her in future, now
that she had shown how she could perform.
Then Mr. Casement begged Miss Gage to play some old airs, which she did
with the utmost good humour; and afterwards sang whatever she was asked
with an ease and sweetness that delighted Margaret; who for her own part
would have much preferred dying at once to singing before half-a-dozen
people.
In the midst of the singing, Mr. Gage begged Margaret to tell him the
names of some fine prints he was looking at, which she did as far as she
knew them; while in return, when he came to any very beautiful face in
the collection, he informed her that it was strikingly like her's, with
any little additional compliment that his fancy suggested. Margaret was
not quite so over-powered by this as might have been expected, for she
was listening all the time to a conversation between Miss Gage and Mr.
Haveloc.
Elizabeth had risen from the piano, and was standing with a sheet of
music in her hand talking to Mr. Haveloc about Metastasio: this led to
some remarks upon the early poetry, and the early paintings of Italy,
and the infancy of art in general.
Miss Gage remarked that the infancy of poetry was unmarked by those
signs of feebleness and inaccuracy that denoted the first stages of
painting.
"It was true," he replied, "the imagination was at once transferred into
words, unfettered by those mechanical means which were needed to express
thought upon the canvass; because the soul was the elder and the nobler
born, and its work was performed without the tedious interval of
experience which was necessary to bring to perfection the physical
powers. He thought the best that could be said of painting was, that it
was a high order of imitation."
Miss Gage mentioned the delight bequeathed to a succession of ages by a
beautiful picture or statue.
"It is true," he said, "but it is a delight for which the eye must be
trained, and the mind prepared. It is in a great measure an artificial
enjoyment; for I need not remind Miss Gage that the raptures of most
persons with regard to art are purely affected. But every poet who
deserves the name, appeals at once to the common and spontaneous
feelings of mankind; and can be discerned, not by the ignorant indeed,
but without any especial cultivation."
Miss Gage said something of the difficulties of art, and the respect due
to those who surmounted them.
"I confess," said Mr. Haveloc, "I cannot see much to respect in a
successful painter. I allow him great acquirement; a highly trained eye;
the mastery of a very difficult and laborious process, and certainly a
perception of the most ingenious arrangement of his subject. But, good
Heaven! at what an immeasurable distance are these from the gifts that
constitute a poet. Where is the exquisite atmosphere of music that
suggests to him his delicious rhyme? Where the invisible and mystic
shadows that invite him to weave his tissue of unreal scenes? Where the
deep and solemn philosophy which reveals to him the strange sources of
those emotions which are known to common men by their outward workings
alone? No, Miss Gage, I cannot admit toil is a sign of worth, for I
know many baubles that are difficult of attainment."
"Ah! you think all that very fine!" said Mr. Casement looking up from
his game of piquet, "but it is sheer nonsense every word of it."
Mr. Haveloc did not deign to utter a word in reply to this flattering
tribute. Elizabeth smiled, and moved to the table where Hubert and
Margaret were looking at the engravings.
"Do not these," she asked, "go far to shake your opinion? And is not the
ideal in art worthy of as much veneration as the highest efforts of the
poet?"
"I must be uncourteous enough," said Mr. Haveloc, "to differ from you in
your estimate of the Ideal over the Real in art. I do not think that the
purely Ideal either elevates or instructs; in fact unless the Real is
the basis of the design, it is an illusion that only makes one
discontented with nature."
"But in that case, the antique----" said Miss Gage.
"It is the exquisite reality of the greatest works of ancient art which
makes them so invaluable;" said Mr. Haveloc, "the form may be ideal, but
the expression is real. It is the concentration of all nature in its
fitness for the quality or emotion intended to be displayed, that
constitutes their inapproachable beauty and grace. Beauty being the
proportion of form; and grace, the proportion of action to the feeling
meant to be expressed."
"I am not quite willing to cede the Ideality of the ancient statues,"
said Miss Gage; "but I can conceive that a different order of excellence
is demanded of sculpture from that of painting."
"For sculpture is to painting what Epic is to Tragic poetry. The
External against the Internal;" rejoined Mr. Haveloc, "the one demanding
perfection of form--the other relying chiefly upon truth of expression."
"Guido then ought to have been a sculptor," said Miss Gage.
"Yes!" he replied. "In Guido's pictures the Ideal prevails after this
fashion; in the omission of accident, or defect in his forms--that is,
in the omission of character or individuality. They are beautiful
embellishments to a room--great technical achievements; but they do not
appeal to the depths of the heart, although much beauty will often
affect the feelings."
"I understand the distinction," said Elizabeth, "Murillo appeals to the
sympathies by taking beings made of common clay, forms that have
existed--more powerful agents than only such as might exist--and
elevating them by the profound sensibilities with which he has endowed
them."
"Exactly," returned Mr. Haveloc. "His Virgin, in his great picture of
the Holy Family, is a woman of humble life, in simple garments, and not
remarkable for beauty of form; he has painted her with faultless truth,
and inspired her face with an expression of maternal love, so tender,
so earnest, so overwhelming in its fulness and its anxiety, that I
should think few people could view it without being deeply affected."
"It is only when truth is outdone," said Miss Gage, "that I object to
the Ideal. As for instance, when Raphael, a name I do not mention but
with the deepest respect, depicts the Virgin Mary with all the delicate
beauty of a pampered Princess, and attired in the most gorgeous
garments."
"Yes," he said, "although he has thrown into the features all the
refinement of intellect and tenderness of feeling of which woman is
capable; high-born, caressed, educated, magnificent woman. I do consider
that Murillo has bequeathed a grander lesson to the future, has achieved
more in art, and awakened our sympathies at a purer source, by his
strict adherence to nature, than Raphael by his exquisite and ideal
conception of female grace."
"In fact," said Miss Gage, "to go a little aside of the old saying, you
think that truth is the well from which every poet and every artist
should draw their inspiration; and that no important, no ultimate good
can result from any exaggeration, even when the falsehood is enlisted on
the side of unearthly and transcendent beauty."
"I need not say, Miss Gage," said Mr. Haveloc, "that I could not have
expressed my meaning so completely as you have done."
"You young fellows," said Mr. Casement, rising from the table, "you
think you know everything now-a-days."
Margaret who had been looking up in Miss Gage's face listening--her
features radiant with breathless and earnest attention--looked round at
Mr. Casement with something like horror in her countenance. She was
shocked that he should interrupt a discourse so replete to her with new
and interesting ideas.
Mr. Haveloc's scorn prevented his taking up the remark; Miss Gage who
was well accustomed to tolerate Mr. Casement, turned round with some
playfulness of manner:
"If I were not going away, Mr. Casement," she said, "I hear the
carriage, Hubert--I should take you very seriously to task. Pray, Mr.
Haveloc, before I go, acknowledge that Murillo is a poet of the highest
order, and an exception to those artists whom you have praised for mere
mechanical excellence."
"I do acknowledge," he replied, "that in his hands the pencil becomes a
sceptre, to which every enlightened mind must do homage."
When Mr. Haveloc returned from seeing Miss Gage to her carriage, he
found Mr. Grey just concluding his encomiums upon Margaret for having
behaved so very prettily to his guests. He turned round and asked Mr.
Haveloc if Miss Gage did not sing charmingly.
Mr. Haveloc hesitated a little, and at length said, "that her singing
was rather sensible than impassioned."
"Why really, Claude," said Mr. Grey, "in a wife I should prefer the
sensible style."
"My dear Sir," returned Mr. Haveloc with a short laugh, "I have no idea
of presuming to aspire to Miss Gage's hand. I imagine that even the
industry of scandal could attribute nothing to our intercourse but the
most distant acquaintance."
He spoke with some bitterness, but Mr. Grey who was singularly exempt
from irritable feelings himself, seldom detected them in others.
"I don't know, Claude," he said; "I thought she looked splendid this
evening. She is the handsomest woman in the county; and when I saw you
talking so nicely together, I wished with all my heart it might come to
something."
"I wish her a better fate, Sir," said Mr. Haveloc turning away.
"Why, Claude, ay to be sure! One should not talk of such matters before
little people. Going away my little pet? Good night--sleep well!"
Margaret had a great deal to think about when she found herself in her
own room. Miss Mason tangled and untangled her hair at pleasure; her
thoughts were too busy in recalling all that had been said and done that
evening. She had heard persons talk who possessed ideas; who had
thought, and formed opinions upon different subjects; this was such a
different thing from school knowledge, that she felt confused for some
time in the uncertainty she felt as to the means of acquiring such
mental power herself. She determined at least to be guided by Miss Gage,
who she was sure would direct her as to the books she ought to read; and
perhaps in time she might become wise enough to talk to persons who knew
as much as Mr. Haveloc. She wished again that he had not been so wicked;
but she remembered with displeasure Mr. Casement's impertinent allusion
to his former conduct. She was convinced he was very sorry for it, and
though she sincerely wished him out of the house, she was employed in
pitying him, when Miss Mason having concluded her duties, wished her
young lady good night.