MAN IS NOT PERMITTED, WITH ULTIMATE IMPUNITY, TO EXASPERATE THE
ENVIES AND INSULT THE MISERIES OF THOSE AROUND HIM, BY A SYSTEMATIC
PERSEVERANCE IN WILFUL-CELIBACY. IN VAIN MAY HE SCHEME, IN THE
MARRIAGE OF INJURED FRIENDS, TO PROVIDE ARM-CHAIRS, AND FOOT-STOOLS,
AND PRATTLING BABIES FOR THE LUXURIOUS DELECTATION OF HIS INDOLENT
AGE. THE AVENGING EUMENIDES (BEING THEMSELVES ANCIENT VIRGINS
NEGLECTED) SHALL HUMBLE HIS INSOLENCE, BAFFLE HIS PROJECTS, AND
CONDEMN HIS DECLINING YEARS TO THE HORRORS OF SOLITUDE,--RARELY EVEN
WAKENING HIS SOUL TO THE GRACE OF REPENTANCE.
The Colonel, before returning home, dropped into the Clubs, and
took care to give to Darrell’s sudden disappearance a plausible and
commonplace construction. The season was just over. Darrell had gone to
the country. The town establishment was broken up, because the house
in Carlton Gardens was to be sold. Darrell did not like the
situation--found the air relaxing--Park Lane or Grosvenor Square were
on higher ground. Besides, the staircase was bad for a house of such
pretensions--not suited to large parties. Next season Darrell might be
in a position when he would have to give large parties, &c., &c. As no
one is inclined to suppose that a man will retire from public life just
when he has a chance of office, so the Clubs took Alban Morley’s remarks
unsuspiciously, and generally agreed that Darrell showed great tact in
absenting himself from town during the transition state of politics that
always precedes a CRISIS, and that it was quite clear that he calculated
on playing a great part when the CRISIS was over, by finding his house
had grown too small for him. Thus paving the way to Darrell’s easy
return to the world, should he repent of his retreat (a chance which
Alban by no means dismissed from his reckoning), the Colonel returned
home to find his nephew George awaiting him there. The scholarly
clergyman had ensconced himself in the back drawing-room, fitted up as
a library, and was making free with the books. “What have you there,
George?” asked the Colonel, after shaking him by the hand. “You seemed
quite absorbed in its contents, and would not have noticed my presence
but for Gyp’s bark.”
“A volume of poems I never chanced to meet before, full of true genius.”
“Bless me, poor Arthur Branthwaite’s poems. And you were positively
reading those--not induced to do so by respect for his father? Could you
make head or tail of them?”
“There is a class of poetry which displeases middle age by the very
attributes which render it charming to the young; for each generation
has a youth with idiosyncrasies peculiar to itself, and a peculiar
poetry by which those idiosyncrasies are expressed.”
Here George was beginning to grow metaphysical, and somewhat German,
when his uncle’s face assumed an expression which can only be compared
to that of a man who dreads a very severe and long operation. George
humanely hastened to relieve his mind.
“But I will not bore you at present.”
“Thank you,” said the Colonel, brightening up.
“Perhaps you will lend me the book. I am going down to Lady Montfort’s
by-and-by, and I can read it by the way.”
“Yes, I will lend it to you till next season. Let me have it again then,
to put on the table when Frank Vance comes to breakfast with me. The
poet was his brother-in-law; and though, for that reason, poets and
poetry are a sore subject with Frank, yet the last time he breakfasted
here, I felt, by the shake of his hand in parting, that he felt pleased
by a mark of respect to all that is left of poor Arthur Branthwaite. So
you are going to Lady Montfort? Ask her why she chits me!”
“My dear uncle! You know how secluded her life is at present; but she
has charged me to assure you of her unalterable regard for you; and
whenever her health and spirits are somewhat more recovered, I have
no doubt that she will ask you to give her the occasion to make that
assurance in person.”
COLONEL MORLEY.--“Can her health and spirits continue so long affected
by grief for the loss of that distant acquaintance whom the law called
her husband?”
GEORGE.--“She is very far from well, and her spirits are certainly much
broken. And now, uncle, for the little favour I came to ask. Since you
presented me to Mr. Darrell, he kindly sent me two or three invitations
to dinner, which my frequent absence from town would not allow me to
accept. I ought to call on him; and, as I feel ashamed not to have done
so before, I wish you would accompany me to his house. One happy word
from you would save me a relapse into stutter. When I want to apologise
I always stutter.”
“Darrell has left town,” said the Colonel, roughly, “you have missed an
opportunity that will never occur again. The most charming companion; an
intellect so manly, yet so sweet! I shall never find such another.” And
for the first time in thirty years a tear stole to Alban Morley’s eye.
GEORGE.--“When did he leave town?”
COLONEL MORLEY.--“Three days ago.”
GEORGE.--“Three days ago! and for the Continent again?”
COLONEL MORLEY.--“No; for the Hermitage, George. I have such a letter
from him! You know how many years he has been absent from the world.
When, this year, he re-appeared, he and I grew more intimate than we had
ever been since we had left school; for though the same capital held us
before, he was then too occupied for much familiarity with an idle man
like me. But just when I was intertwining what is left of my life with
the bright threads of his, he snaps the web asunder: he quits this
London world again; says he will return to it no more.”
GEORGE.--“Yet I did hear that he proposed to renew his parliamentary
career; nay, that he was about to form a second marriage, with Honoria
Vipont?”
COLONEL MORLEY.--“Mere gossip-not true. No, he will never marry again.
Three days ago I thought it certain that he would--certain that I should
find for my old age a nook in his home--the easiest chair in his social
circle; that my daily newspaper would have a fresh interest, in the
praise of his name or the report of his speech; that I should walk
proudly into White’s, sure to hear there of Guy Darrell; that I should
keep from misanthropical rust my dry knowledge of life, planning
shrewd panegyrics to him of a young happy wife, needing all his
indulgence--panegyrics to her of the high-minded sensitive man, claiming
tender respect and delicate soothing;--that thus, day by day, I should
have made more pleasant the home in which I should have planted myself,
and found in his children boys to lecture and girls to spoil. Don’t be
jealous, George. I like your wife, I love your little ones, and you
will inherit all I have to leave. But to an old bachelor, who would keep
young to the last, there is no place so sunny as the hearth of an
old school-friend. But my house of cards is blown down--talk of it no
more--‘tis a painful subject. You met Lionel Haughton here the last time
you called--how did you like him!”
“Very much indeed.”
“Well, then, since you cannot call on Darrell, call on him.”
GEORGE (with animation).--“It is just what I meant to do--what is his
address?”
COLONEL MORLEY--“There is his card--take it. He was here last night
to inquire if I knew where Darrell had gone, though no one in his
household, nor I either, suspected till this morning that Darrell had
left town for good. You will find Lionel at home, for I sent him word I
would call. But really I am not up to it now. Tell him from me that Mr.
Darrell will not return to Carlton Gardens this season, and is gone to
Fawley. At present Lionel need not know more--you understand? And now,
my dear George, good day.”