WAVERING.
It has been seen that Frank Renton was not, in any sense of the words, a
model young man. He was not offensive nor disagreeable, but as a pure
matter of fact, the centre of his own world, as, indeed, we all are more
or less. When it had been placed so very clearly before him that it was
to his advantage to marry money, he had acquiesced, with a little
struggle, feeling that the advantage was so great as to create a duty;
but now, after this bewildering day, another prospect altogether opened
before his eyes. He had forgotten Nelly. For the moment she passed from
his mind, as if she had never been, and Alice had risen upon him like
the sun. He could perceive now that from the first moment his heart had
claimed her. Happiness, companionship, the very light of life, seemed to
be concentrated for him in that simple youthful creature, ignorant of
the world, innocent as a child, sweet with the earliest freshness of
existence. He had no need to reason about it, to say to himself that it
was she whom he wanted, she whom he had unconsciously been groping for;
he knew it; it was clear as daylight; he seemed to himself to have been
aware of it all along, from the earliest moment. A voice from heaven had
spoken to him, as to Adam, crying, ‘This is she.’ Such was the thought
that filled his mind as he went down to Royalborough in the dark and
damp loneliness of the railway carriage. He had so much thinking to do
that he had warned the guard that he must have a compartment to himself;
and there he lay back in his corner with a very black shadow thrown on
him from the dim lamp, and floated forth upon this Elysian sea of
thought. But it was only for the first two minutes that it was Elysian.
All at once he sat bolt upright, and remembered that he had forgotten
something. Nelly! This recollection rushed at him like another railway
train in the darkness, so that there was a sharp and violent collision.
After the first shock Frank began to consider anxiously how far he had
gone on that other side, what words he might have spoken, what
inferences had been made. Only yesterday, it must be allowed, he was
making very decided way towards Nelly. He had been softened, and brought
nearer to her personally, and the house and the hunters had held a very
high place in his thoughts. He had persuaded his mother to call, and
written a note which was not at all unlike the first beginning of
love-making. And yet, to-day, he had forgotten Nelly’s existence. When
he recollected all this, he grew suddenly very hot, and very
uncomfortable. Love, even when it is unfortunate, has something sweet in
it; but the thought of Nelly’s little indignant face was not sweet. He
had never loved her; he had never, even to himself, pretended to be fond
of her. He had represented to himself that if they were married, no
doubt the time would come when he should be fond of his wife. But while
he was thus deciding in cold blood, the other had but to give a glance,
and all was over with Nelly. When this terrible complication became
apparent, Frank no longer found that there was anything Elysian in his
circumstances; for this discovery suddenly revealed to him the entire
circumstances of the case. Nelly was marriageable, for she was very
rich; but Alice was poor. If the wealth of the one out-balanced the
objections against her in respect to birth and breeding, there was no
such saving clause in respect to the other. Even Mr. Rich patronised
Mrs. Severn. The artist’s family was of no rank, and had no such social
standing whatever, not even that conferred by money. As for the
distinction of art,--Frank was too much a man of the world not to know
for how little that counted. Penniless, without connexions or prospects,
or blood, or anything,--a creature who was only herself, and possessed
only the qualities of her own mind and heart! To make such a marriage,
Frank was aware, would be sheer madness. Nelly was different. Nelly
meant Cookesley Lodge, with all its accompaniments and a certain sum
a-year. Alice meant nothing but her simple self. No wonder the moisture
stood heavy on his forehead. He had been a fool, in suffering himself to
be thus moved out of all sense and prudence. And yet when he tried to
turn to other thoughts his heart grew sick. He--almost--made a vow never
to think of anybody, never to look at any one more. Why was fate always
so spiteful? Why was it that Alice had not Nelly’s fortune, or Nelly
Alice’s charms? It was not that he was mercenary. Money, except for what
it brought, was not important to Frank; but there is a difference
between being mercenary and being an idiot. And he knew so well what the
world would say if, instead of marrying money, he married a girl who had
nothing,--neither money nor any other substantial recommendation. He
would be laughed at, and she would be snubbed,--and who could wonder at
it? Thus Frank reasoned with himself, and groaned in his heart. And then
he thought of India, and the world stood still for a moment that he
might look that possibility in the face.
India! In the first place, it was out of the world, and the ridicule
attending his fiasco would not, in India, be so overwhelming; but at the
same time, the world is a very small place, and news would travel
faster than by telegraph to everybody who was anybody. In India the pay
was double, which was a very great matter; but then, on the other hand,
would not the expenses be greater too? Not, of course, in proportion to
Cookesley Lodge and the hunters, which, alas! it was no use thinking any
more about, but in proportion to the tiny _ménage_ which a young soldier
with two hundred a-year, besides his pay, might venture on at home. And
here, once more, Frank drew himself up, with a sensation of misery. Two
hundred a-year and his pay barely sufficed for himself. To marry upon it
would be simple madness, neither more nor less. And to wait seven
years---- No! India was the only chance. It was the most usual thing in
the world for a young fellow going out there to marry before he
went;--therefore it must be practicable. There would be no society nor
expensive habits,--as he supposed, in his ignorance,--and there was the
chance of appointments, which was always worth taking into account.
Frank contemplated the question all round, but it was a very dreary
horizon which encircled him on every side. Poverty, the renunciation of
most things which had made life agreeable--a struggle with care and the
burdens of serious life,--instead of Cookesley and the hunters and
terriers, and the country gentleman’s existence, for which he had
evidently been created! There was so much good in the young man
however, that though he could not but contrast the two existences which
thus seemed to be set before him, he could not and did not contrast the
two through whose hands their different threads must run. He made no
comparison there. Nelly had been swept out of his sky the moment Alice
appeared.
One thing was quite clear to him at this crisis of excitement and
emotion, while the image of Alice still danced before his eyes with all
her soft looks and words;--Cookesley and its delights,--meaning Nelly
and her fortune,--were impossible,--quite impossible; altogether out of
the question. He had been capable in the abstract of doing a duty to
himself and the world, and securing,--in default of Laurie, for whom he
always acknowledged the position would have been so much more
suitable,--all those advantages which seemed to be held out to him in
Nelly Rich’s hand. He liked her very well, and no doubt would have grown
fond of her in time. That he could have done. His own interests, and the
unanimous voice of his friends, and the appeal of the world in general,
had all but decided the question. But Frank, notwithstanding the prudent
and practical character of his understanding, was true and honest at
bottom. And as soon as he discovered beyond question that he was in love
with one woman, it became impossible for him to marry another, whatever
the advantages might be which she brought with her. He was not capable
of that. It was indispensable to him to be true, if not to Alice, who
knew nothing about his sentiments, at least to Nelly. She had a right to
it. He could have married her yesterday, but he could not deceive her
to-day. What could he do? The clouds closed in upon him, swallowed him
up, the more he thought it over. Do! Nothing but trudge forth to India,
leaving his hopes of every description behind him,--a saddened and a
solitary man. Neither one thing nor another, neither love nor wealth
were practicable.
‘I must never see her again,’ Frank said to himself, as he got out of
the train; ‘I must never see her again!’ Perhaps it was because of the
very practicality and matter-of-fact character of his mind that he felt
it dangerous to permit himself such an indulgence. He could not go and
gaze and moon about her, as other men might, without anything coming of
it. The only safeguard would be to keep away altogether. But it was not
a cheerful thought; and, consequently, when he emerged from the station
with his hat down over his brows, a certain air of tragedy and misery
was about the poor fellow. And if the reader of this sober history
should at any time encounter on the railway between London and
Royalborough an unfortunate and melancholy Guardsman, well thrown back
into the shadow of the lamp, gnawing his moustache as he chews the cud
of fancy, let him remember the miserable perplexities of poor Frank
Renton, and pity the man. The impulse of the mature spectator’s mind is
so invariably to vituperate the military butterfly, that it is the duty
of the benevolent moralist to turn the tide of sympathy towards that
beautiful, frivolous, yet sometimes suffering creature, when he has the
opportunity. After all, Guardsmen are men.
Frank kept his resolution for a week. He gave himself a fair trial. To
describe the cogitations which passed through his mind during that time,
would only weary the reader without bringing him any nearer to the issue
of the conflict; for, to be sure, it does not matter so very much what
conclusion a young man may arrive at in such a contest, after even weeks
of thought. Five minutes may destroy the entire fabric at any time;--a
sudden meeting,--three words,--all unpremeditated on either side,--a
chance look,--even a few notes of music played unawares by strange
hands,--will suffice to undo the finest piece of reasoning ever put
together. Nor is it at all unusual in Frank’s circumstances for a young
man to make an absolute determination against marriage one day, and go
and lay himself at the feet of the lady of his affections on the next.
Many times, it must be allowed, Cookesley Lodge would burst like a
sudden revelation upon the young man’s soul. He could hear the hunters
rattling up the avenue, and the dogs yelping a chorus of welcome; and
then this charming home-scene would give place to a misty conception of
an Indian bungalow,--whatever that might be,--and the fierce delights of
a jungle-hunt. The question was not Alice or Nelly,--that would have
horrified him;--but Cookesley with all possible comforts and
indulgences, and India with none;--question enough to make a man ponder.
Four or five days after his visit to London, though it seemed four or
five years from the multiplicity of his thoughts, he rode over to
Richmont, on an unacknowledged mission to prove to himself whether that
image of Alice, which he had been trying hard to banish, would disappear
before the close realisation of all the good things on the other side.
He had tried to forget her, or rather he had tried to shut her out from
his thoughts; to divert his mind to anything else in the world rather
than allow it to dwell upon her. And he was now going to test what
success he had had. Nelly Rich was sketching under the trees, as we have
before seen her, when he rode up to the door; and instead of going in to
pay his respects to her mother, Frank,--with a strong sense of
duty,--crossed the lawn to where the white figure, with sketching-block
on her lap, and bright ribbons fluttering about her, sat in the shadow
of the soft limes. A prettier picture could not have been desired. The
dead white of the dress blazed out in the sunshine, lying in crisp folds
upon the soft grass. The silken lime-leaves made a flutter and chequer
of light and shade upon the pretty drooping head. Nelly was older, more
piquant, more expressive, indeed, to any unprejudiced eye more
beautiful, than Alice Severn; not, as Frank said to himself hotly, that
he ever had made such a profane comparison. But yet it was impossible
thus to approach the one without thinking of the other. There was a
technicality and a pretension, he thought, about all this paraphernalia
of the artist. When Alice went softly to her piano, you never could have
told, until you heard her, that she was anything but a school-girl. And
no one seemed to give her any particular glory for her music. She was a
little girl to all of them. Whereas Nelly was the mistress of
everything, more mistress in the house than was her mother, and getting
credit for all sorts of talent and cleverness. In his heart Frank took
up a position of defence for the absent, whom, indeed, no one dreamt of
attacking. No doubt he would have to talk of the sketch, and admire it
as if it had been something very fine. At Fitzroy Square the mother had
smiled and had just admitted that Alice played well;--and that she was
as clever at her needle as at her music. How strange was the difference!
‘Is it you, Mr. Renton?’ said Nelly; and she put down her
sketching-block hastily as he approached. ‘I could not make you out till
you came quite close. Did you not find mamma?’
‘I confess I did not ask,’ said Frank; and the consciousness that he was
paying a compliment which he did not mean embarrassed him in his
peculiar circumstances; ‘I saw you here----’ and then he stopped, the
unfortunate youth giving double meaning to his words.
Nelly blushed. It was very natural she should after such an address; and
her change of colour told upon Frank as the most terrible reproach. ‘I
thought Mrs. Rich would be with you,’ he added, hurriedly; ‘it is so
pleasant out-of-doors on such a day. You were sketching, I am sure, and
I have stopped your work.’
‘Oh, it does not matter,’ said Nelly. ‘I want to draw the house, and I
cannot get it just as I want it. I must have in the window of the
music-room. You know I live there. I don’t care for all the rest of the
house in comparison with that one room.’
‘Yes,’ said Frank, with a sudden relapse, ‘with such music as we had
there the other day, the place was like paradise.’
‘You liked little Alice Severn’s playing,’ said Nelly. ‘Ah! yes, I
remember. She plays very well. For myself I am not fanatical about
music. I don’t understand it. I want to know what it says, and it says
nothing. And these musical people are so exclusively musical, they never
seem to have brains for anything else.’
‘But that could not be the case with--Miss Severn, I should think,’ said
Frank, taking a foolish pleasure in speaking of her, and making a little
pause before her name like a worshipper. Nelly gave him a quick glance,
and answered carelessly.
‘Oh, Alice! She is a good little thing enough; but I don’t think she has
much brains,--few girls have,--or men either for that matter. I don’t
expect anything of the kind from people who come to this house.’
‘You are not complimentary to your visitors,’ said Frank, feeling
mortified, and with a secret sense that something at least of this
condemnation was intended for himself.
‘Well, Mr. Renton, few of our visitors are complimentary to us,’ said
Nelly, with a flush on her face, which even Frank perceived was quite
different from the soft blush which had greeted his first appearance.
Probably her quick ear had caught some difference in his tone, though he
was not himself aware of it. ‘We are rich, and you come to us when we
ask you, and are very civil; but I know you laugh at us behind our
backs, and make very free with our names, and do not show us the respect
you would to the most miserable creature who was of good family. And
then you think we are taken in by it, and don’t know----’
‘Miss Rich, you must allow me to say that personally you are doing me a
great injustice,’ said Frank, colouring high. ‘I cannot undertake to be
responsible for everybody who comes here; but so far as myself and my
friends are concerned----’
‘Oh, I beg your pardon!’ cried Nelly, turning her face towards him with
sudden shame and penitence which made it beautiful. Her large brilliant
eyes were full of tears, and the eloquent blood had rushed to her
cheeks. She held out her hands to him in the fervour of her compunction.
‘Oh, forgive me!--do forgive me! I was cross. I did not know what I was
saying. I did not mean you.’
There was nothing that Frank could do but take the pretty, soft,
appealing hands, and hold them in his own for a moment. He did not kiss
them, as no doubt he would have done had he never paid that visit to the
Square. ‘There is nothing for me to forgive,’ he said in softened tones.
And then Nelly recovered herself, and took her hands away.
‘But you must forgive me,’ she said, ‘for being cross to you, who, I am
sure, did not deserve it. Your mother called on Wednesday, and mamma was
so pleased. You know we are new people,--very new people--and it is a
great thing for us to have Mrs. Renton calling. But because we are such
spick-and-span new people we have always something happening to vex us.
One hears bits of gossip about you officers,--how you laugh and discuss
one, and take things in your head,’ said Nelly, breaking off suddenly,
and looking full in Frank’s face. What did she mean? Whatever it was, it
covered him with embarrassment and shame. This conversation at least was
true. He had been taking things in his head, and he did not know how to
meet her look, or give her any reply.
‘I don’t know to what you refer,’ he faltered. ‘I am sure, Miss Rich----’
and then he broke off altogether, so great was his confusion under the
steady light of her keen eyes. ‘There is no doubt,’ he went on, as soon
as he recovered himself, ‘that everything possible and impossible is
talked about. It is the fashion everywhere now-a-days. You know it as
well as I. But had anything that was less than respectful ever been
breathed in my presence----’
‘I was quite sure of that,’ said Nelly, leaning towards him with glowing
eyes and expressive face. The eyes were full of soft gratitude, and
something that looked like a tender pride. ‘I know that,’ she repeated;
‘you have always been so different!’ The voice had fallen quite low, so
that Frank had to lean forward to hear it. And there was encouragement
in her look for anything he might have had to say, for anything he
might have been moved to do, in the excitement of the moment. And
Frank’s heart was softened by compunction and the sense that he was not
so blameless as he had claimed to be. The crisis of his fate had come.
THE END OF THE SECOND VOLUME.
LONDON:
Printed by STRANGEWAYS & WALDEN, Castle St. Leicester Sq.