When Magdalen and her father met in the shrubbery Mr. Vanstone’s face
showed plainly that something had happened to please him since he had
left home in the morning. He answered the question which his daughter’s
curiosity at once addressed to him by informing her that he had just
come from Mr. Clare’s cottage; and that he had picked up, in that
unpromising locality, a startling piece of news for the family at
Combe-Raven.
On entering the philosopher’s study that morning, Mr. Vanstone had
found him still dawdling over his late breakfast, with an open letter
by his side, in place of the book which, on other occasions, lay ready
to his hand at meal-times. He held up the letter the moment his visitor
came into the room, and abruptly opened the conversation by asking Mr.
Vanstone if his nerves were in good order, and if he felt himself
strong enough for the shock of an overwhelming surprise.
“Nerves!” repeated Mr. Vanstone. “Thank God, I know nothing about my
nerves. If you have got anything to tell me, shock or no shock, out
with it on the spot.”
Mr. Clare held the letter a little higher, and frowned at his visitor
across the breakfast-table. “What have I always told you?” he asked,
with his sourest solemnity of look and manner.
“A great deal more than I could ever keep in my head,” answered Mr.
Vanstone.
“In your presence and out of it,” continued Mr. Clare, “I have always
maintained that the one important phenomenon presented by modern
society is—the enormous prosperity of Fools. Show me an individual
Fool, and I will show you an aggregate Society which gives that
highly-favored personage nine chances out of ten—and grudges the tenth
to the wisest man in existence. Look where you will, in every high
place there sits an Ass, settled beyond the reach of all the greatest
intellects in this world to pull him down. Over our whole social
system, complacent Imbecility rules supreme—snuffs out the searching
light of Intelligence with total impunity—and hoots, owl-like, in
answer to every form of protest, See how well we all do in the dark!
One of these days that audacious assertion will be practically
contradicted, and the whole rotten system of modern society will come
down with a crash.”
“God forbid!” cried Mr. Vanstone, looking about him as if the crash was
coming already.
“With a crash!” repeated Mr. Clare. “There is my theory, in few words.
Now for the remarkable application of it which this letter suggests.
Here is my lout of a boy—”
“You don’t mean that Frank has got another chance?” exclaimed Mr.
Vanstone.
“Here is this perfectly hopeless booby, Frank,” pursued the
philosopher. “He has never done anything in his life to help himself,
and, as a necessary consequence, Society is in a conspiracy to carry
him to the top of the tree. He has hardly had time to throw away that
chance you gave him before this letter comes, and puts the ball at his
foot for the second time. My rich cousin (who is intellectually fit to
be at the tail of the family, and who is, therefore, as a matter of
course, at the head of it) has been good enough to remember my
existence; and has offered his influence to serve my eldest boy. Read
his letter, and then observe the sequence of events. My rich cousin is
a booby who thrives on landed property; he has done something for
another booby who thrives on Politics, who knows a third booby who
thrives on Commerce, who can do something for a fourth booby, thriving
at present on nothing, whose name is Frank. So the mill goes. So the
cream of all human rewards is sipped in endless succession by the
Fools. I shall pack Frank off to-morrow. In course of time he’ll come
back again on our hands, like a bad shilling; more chances will fall in
his way, as a necessary consequence of his meritorious imbecility.
Years will go on—I may not live to see it, no more may you—it doesn’t
matter; Frank’s future is equally certain either way—put him into the
army, the Church, politics, what you please, and let him drift: he’ll
end in being a general, a bishop, or a minister of State, by dint of
the great modern qualification of doing nothing whatever to deserve his
place.” With this summary of his son’s worldly prospects, Mr. Clare
tossed the letter contemptuously across the table and poured himself
out another cup of tea.
Mr. Vanstone read the letter with eager interest and pleasure. It was
written in a tone of somewhat elaborate cordiality; but the practical
advantages which it placed at Frank’s disposal were beyond all doubt.
The writer had the means of using a friend’s interest—interest of no
ordinary kind—with a great Mercantile Firm in the City; and he had at
once exerted this influence in favor of Mr. Clare’s eldest boy. Frank
would be received in the office on a very different footing from the
footing of an ordinary clerk; he would be “pushed on” at every
available opportunity; and the first “good thing” the House had to
offer, either at home or abroad, would be placed at his disposal. If he
possessed fair abilities and showed common diligence in exercising
them, his fortune was made; and the sooner he was sent to London to
begin the better for his own interests it would be.
“Wonderful news!” cried Mr. Vanstone, returning the letter. “I’m
delighted—I must go back and tell them at home. This is fifty times the
chance that mine was. What the deuce do you mean by abusing Society?
Society has behaved uncommonly well, in my opinion. Where’s Frank?”
“Lurking,” said Mr. Clare. “It is one of the intolerable peculiarities
of louts that they always lurk. I haven’t seen _my_ lout this morning.
It you meet with him anywhere, give him a kick, and say I want him.”
Mr. Clare’s opinion of his son’s habits might have been expressed more
politely as to form; but, as to substance, it happened, on that
particular morning, to be perfectly correct. After leaving Magdalen,
Frank had waited in the shrubbery, at a safe distance, on the chance
that she might detach herself from her sister’s company, and join him
again. Mr. Vanstone’s appearance immediately on Norah’s departure,
instead of encouraging him to show himself, had determined him on
returning to the cottage. He walked back discontentedly; and so fell
into his father’s clutches, totally unprepared for the pending
announcement, in that formidable quarter, of his departure for London.
In the meantime, Mr. Vanstone had communicated his news—in the first
place, to Magdalen, and afterward, on getting back to the house, to his
wife and Miss Garth. He was too unobservant a man to notice that
Magdalen looked unaccountably startled, and Miss Garth unaccountably
relieved, by his announcement of Frank’s good fortune. He talked on
about it, quite unsuspiciously, until the luncheon-bell rang—and then,
for the first time, he noticed Norah’s absence. She sent a message
downstairs, after they had assembled at the table, to say that a
headache was keeping her in her own room. When Miss Garth went up
shortly afterward to communicate the news about Frank, Norah appeared,
strangely enough, to feel very little relieved by hearing it. Mr.
Francis Clare had gone away on a former occasion (she remarked), and
had come back. He might come back again, and sooner than they any of
them thought for. She said no more on the subject than this: she made
no reference to what had taken place in the shrubbery. Her
unconquerable reserve seemed to have strengthened its hold on her since
the outburst of the morning. She met Magdalen, later in the day, as if
nothing had happened: no formal reconciliation took place between them.
It was one of Norah’s peculiarities to shrink from all reconciliations
that were openly ratified, and to take her shy refuge in
reconciliations that were silently implied. Magdalen saw plainly, in
her look and manner, that she had made her first and last protest.
Whether the motive was pride, or sullenness, or distrust of herself, or
despair of doing good, the result was not to be mistaken—Norah had
resolved on remaining passive for the future.
Later in the afternoon, Mr. Vanstone suggested a drive to his eldest
daughter, as the best remedy for her headache. She readily consented to
accompany her father; who thereupon proposed, as usual, that Magdalen
should join them. Magdalen was nowhere to be found. For the second time
that day she had wandered into the grounds by herself. On this
occasion, Miss Garth—who, after adopting Norah’s opinions, had passed
from the one extreme of over-looking Frank altogether, to the other
extreme of believing him capable of planning an elopement at five
minutes’ notice—volunteered to set forth immediately, and do her best
to find the missing young lady. After a prolonged absence, she returned
unsuccessful—with the strongest persuasion in her own mind that
Magdalen and Frank had secretly met one another somewhere, but without
having discovered the smallest fragment of evidence to confirm her
suspicions. By this time the carriage was at the door, and Mr. Vanstone
was unwilling to wait any longer. He and Norah drove away together; and
Mrs. Vanstone and Miss Garth sat at home over their work.
In half an hour more, Magdalen composedly walked into the room. She was
pale and depressed. She received Miss Garth’s remonstrances with a
weary inattention; explained carelessly that she had been wandering in
the wood; took up some books, and put them down again; sighed
impatiently, and went away upstairs to her own room.
“I think Magdalen is feeling the reaction, after yesterday,” said Mrs.
Vanstone, quietly. “It is just as we thought. Now the theatrical
amusements are all over, she is fretting for more.”
Here was an opportunity of letting in the light of truth on Mrs.
Vanstone’s mind, which was too favorable to be missed. Miss Garth
questioned her conscience, saw her chance, and took it on the spot.
“You forget,” she rejoined, “that a certain neighbor of ours is going
away to-morrow. Shall I tell you the truth? Magdalen is fretting over
the departure of Francis Clare.”
Mrs. Vanstone looked up from her work with a gentle, smiling surprise.
“Surely not?” she said. “It is natural enough that Frank should be
attracted by Magdalen; but I can’t think that Magdalen returns the
feeling. Frank is so very unlike her; so quiet and undemonstrative; so
dull and helpless, poor fellow, in some things. He is handsome, I know,
but he is so singularly unlike Magdalen, that I can’t think it
possible—I can’t indeed.”
“My dear good lady!” cried Miss Garth, in great amazement; “do you
really suppose that people fall in love with each other on account of
similarities in their characters? In the vast majority of cases, they
do just the reverse. Men marry the very last women, and women the very
last men, whom their friends would think it possible they could care
about. Is there any phrase that is oftener on all our lips than ‘What
can have made Mr. So-and-So marry that woman?’—or ‘How could Mrs.
So-and-So throw herself away on that man?’ Has all your experience of
the world never yet shown you that girls take perverse fancies for men
who are totally unworthy of them?”
“Very true,” said Mrs. Vanstone, composedly. “I forgot that. Still it
seems unaccountable, doesn’t it?”
“Unaccountable, because it happens every day!” retorted Miss Garth,
good-humoredly. “I know a great many excellent people who reason
against plain experience in the same way—who read the newspapers in the
morning, and deny in the evening that there is any romance for writers
or painters to work upon in modern life. Seriously, Mrs. Vanstone, you
may take my word for it—thanks to those wretched theatricals, Magdalen
is going the way with Frank that a great many young ladies have gone
before her. He is quite unworthy of her; he is, in almost every
respect, her exact opposite—and, without knowing it herself, she has
fallen in love with him on that very account. She is resolute and
impetuous, clever and domineering; she is not one of those model women
who want a man to look up to, and to protect them—her beau-ideal
(though she may not think it herself) is a man she can henpeck. Well!
one comfort is, there are far better men, even of that sort, to be had
than Frank. It’s a mercy he is going away, before we have more trouble
with them, and before any serious mischief is done.”
“Poor Frank!” said Mrs. Vanstone, smiling compassionately. “We have
known him since he was in jackets, and Magdalen in short frocks. Don’t
let us give him up yet. He may do better this second time.”
Miss Garth looked up in astonishment.
“And suppose he does better?” she asked. “What then?”
Mrs. Vanstone cut off a loose thread in her work, and laughed outright.
“My good friend,” she said, “there is an old farmyard proverb which
warns us not to count our chickens before they are hatched. Let us wait
a little before we count ours.”
It was not easy to silence Miss Garth, when she was speaking under the
influence of a strong conviction; but this reply closed her lips. She
resumed her work, and looked, and thought, unutterable things.
Mrs. Vanstone’s behavior was certainly remarkable under the
circumstances. Here, on one side, was a girl—with great personal
attractions, with rare pecuniary prospects, with a social position
which might have justified the best gentleman in the neighborhood in
making her an offer of marriage—perversely casting herself away on a
penniless idle young fellow, who had failed at his first start in life,
and who even if he succeeded in his second attempt, must be for years
to come in no position to marry a young lady of fortune on equal terms.
And there, on the other side, was that girl’s mother, by no means
dismayed at the prospect of a connection which was, to say the least of
it, far from desirable; by no means certain, judging her by her own
words and looks, that a marriage between Mr. Vanstone’s daughter and
Mr. Clare’s son might not prove to be as satisfactory a result of the
intimacy between the two young people as the parents on both sides
could possibly wish for! It was perplexing in the extreme. It was
almost as unintelligible as that past mystery—that forgotten mystery
now—of the journey to London.
In the evening, Frank made his appearance, and announced that his
father had mercilessly sentenced him to leave Combe-Raven by the
parliamentary train the next morning. He mentioned this circumstance
with an air of sentimental resignation; and listened to Mr. Vanstone’s
boisterous rejoicings over his new prospects with a mild and mute
surprise. His gentle melancholy of look and manner greatly assisted his
personal advantages. In his own effeminate way he was more handsome
than ever that evening. His soft brown eyes wandered about the room
with a melting tenderness; his hair was beautifully brushed; his
delicate hands hung over the arms of his chair with a languid grace. He
looked like a convalescent Apollo. Never, on any previous occasion, had
he practiced more successfully the social art which he habitually
cultivated—the art of casting himself on society in the character of a
well-bred Incubus, and conferring an obligation on his fellow-creatures
by allowing them to sit under him. It was undeniably a dull evening.
All the talking fell to the share of Mr. Vanstone and Miss Garth. Mrs.
Vanstone was habitually silent; Norah kept herself obstinately in the
background; Magdalen was quiet and undemonstrative beyond all former
precedent. From first to last, she kept rigidly on her guard. The few
meaning looks that she cast on Frank flashed at him like lightning, and
were gone before any one else could see them. Even when she brought him
his tea; and when, in doing so, her self-control gave way under the
temptation which no woman can resist—the temptation of touching the man
she loves—even then, she held the saucer so dexterously that it
screened her hand. Frank’s self-possession was far less steadily
disciplined: it only lasted as long as he remained passive. When he
rose to go; when he felt the warm, clinging pressure of Magdalen’s
fingers round his hand, and the lock of her hair which she slipped into
it at the same moment, he became awkward and confused. He might have
betrayed Magdalen and betrayed himself, but for Mr. Vanstone, who
innocently covered his retreat by following him out, and patting him on
the shoulder all the way. “God bless you, Frank!” cried the friendly
voice that never had a harsh note in it for anybody. “Your fortune’s
waiting for you. Go in, my boy—go in and win.”
“Yes,” said Frank. “Thank you. It will be rather difficult to go in and
win, at first. Of course, as you have always told me, a man’s business
is to conquer his difficulties, and not to talk about them. At the same
time, I wish I didn’t feel quite so loose as I do in my figures. It’s
discouraging to feel loose in one’s figures.—Oh, yes; I’ll write and
tell you how I get on. I’m very much obliged by your kindness, and very
sorry I couldn’t succeed with the engineering. I think I should have
liked engineering better than trade. It can’t be helped now, can it?
Thank you, again. Good-by.”
So he drifted away into the misty commercial future—as aimless, as
helpless, as gentleman-like as ever.