THE WALK BACK TO HENDON.
"I was here a little early," said Hampstead when his friend came in,
"and I found your mother just going to church,--with a friend."
"Marion Fay."
"Yes, Miss Fay."
"She is the daughter of a Quaker who lives a few doors off. But
though she is a Quaker she goes to church as well. I envy the tone of
mind of those who are able to find a comfort in pouring themselves
out in gratitude to the great Unknown God."
"I pour myself out in gratitude," said Hampstead; "but with me it is
an affair of solitude."
"I doubt whether you ever hold yourself for two hours in commune with
heavenly power and heavenly influence. Something more than gratitude
is necessary. You must conceive that there is a duty,--by the
non-performance of which you would encounter peril. Then comes the
feeling of safety which always follows the performance of a duty.
That I never can achieve. What did you think of Marion Fay?"
"She is a most lovely creature."
"Very pretty, is she not; particularly when speaking?
"I never care for female beauty that does not display itself
in action,--either speaking, moving, laughing, or perhaps only
frowning," said Hampstead enthusiastically. "I was talking the other
day to a sort of cousin of mine who has a reputation of being a
remarkably handsome young woman. She had ever so much to say to me,
and when I was in company with her a page in buttons kept coming into
the room. He was a round-faced, high-cheeked, ugly boy; but I thought
him so much better-looking than my cousin, because he opened his
mouth when he spoke, and showed his eagerness by his eyes."
"Your cousin is complimented."
"She has made her market, so it does not signify. The Greeks seem to
me to have regarded form without expression. I doubt whether Phidias
would have done much with your Miss Fay. To my eyes she is the
perfection of loveliness."
"She is not my Miss Fay. She is my mother's friend."
"Your mother is lucky. A woman without vanity, without jealousy,
without envy--"
"Where will you find one?"
"Your mother. Such a woman as that can, I think, enjoy feminine
loveliness almost as much as a man."
"I have often heard my mother speak of Marion's good qualities, but
not much of her loveliness. To me her great charm is her voice. She
speaks musically."
"As one can fancy Melpomene did. Does she come here often?"
"Every day, I fancy;--but not generally when I am here. Not but what
she and I are great friends. She will sometimes go with me into town
on a Thursday morning, on her way to the meeting house."
"Lucky fellow!" Roden shrugged his shoulders as though conscious that
any luck of that kind must come to him from another quarter, if it
came at all.
"What does she talk about?"
"Religion generally."
"And you?"
"Anything else, if she will allow me. She would wish to convert me.
I am not at all anxious to convert her, really believing that she is
very well as she is."
"Yes," said Hampstead; "that is the worst of what we are apt to call
advanced opinions. With all my self-assurance I never dare to tamper
with the religious opinions of those who are younger or weaker than
myself. I feel that they at any rate are safe if they are in earnest.
No one, I think, has ever been put in danger by believing Christ to
be a God."
"They none of them know what they believe," said Roden; "nor do you
or I. Men talk of belief as though it were a settled thing. It is so
but with few; and that only with those who lack imagination. What
sort of a time did you have down at Castle Hautboy?"
"Oh,--I don't know,--pretty well. Everybody was very kind, and my
sister likes it. The scenery is lovely. You can look up a long reach
of Ulleswater from the Castle terrace, and there is Helvellyn in the
distance. The house was full of people,--who despised me more than I
did them."
"Which is saying a great deal, perhaps."
"There were some uncommon apes. One young lady, not very young, asked
me what I meant to do with all the land in the world when I took it
away from everybody. I told her that when it was all divided equally
there would be a nice little estate even for all the daughters, and
that in such circumstances all the sons would certainly get married.
She acknowledged that such a result would be excellent, but she did
not believe in it. A world in which the men should want to marry was
beyond her comprehension. I went out hunting one day."
"The hunting I should suppose was not very good."
"But for one drawback it would have been very good indeed."
"The mountains, I should have thought, would be one drawback, and the
lakes another."
"Not at all. I liked the mountains because of their echoes, and the
lakes did not come in our way."
"Where was the fault?"
"There came a man."
"Whom you disliked?"
"Who was a bore."
"Could you not shut him up?"
"No; nor shake him off. I did at last do that, but it was by turning
round and riding backwards when we were coming home. I had just
invited him to ride on while I stood still,--but he wouldn't."
"Did it come to that?"
"Quite to that. I actually turned tail and ran away from him;--not
as we ordinarily do in society when we sneak off under some pretence,
leaving the pretender to think that he has made himself very
pleasant; but with a full declaration of my opinion and intention."
"Who was he?"
That was the question. Hampstead had come there on purpose to say who
the man was,--and to talk about the man with great freedom. And he
was determined to do so. But he preferred not to begin that which he
intended to be a severe accusation against his friend till they were
walking together, and he did not wish to leave the house without
saying a word further about Marion Fay. It was his intention to dine
all alone at Hendon Hall. How much nicer it would be if he could dine
in Paradise Row with Marion Fay! He knew it was Mrs. Roden's custom
to dine early, after church, on Sundays, so that the two maidens who
made up her establishment might go out,--either to church or to their
lovers, or perhaps to both, as might best suit them. He had dined
there once or twice already, eating the humble, but social, leg
of mutton of Holloway, in preference to the varied, but solitary,
banquet of Hendon. He was of opinion that really intimate
acquaintance demanded the practice of social feeling. To know a man
very well, and never to sit at table with him, was, according to his
views of life, altogether unsatisfactory. Though the leg of mutton
might be cold, and have no other accompaniment but the common
ill-boiled potato, yet it would be better than any banquet prepared
simply for the purpose of eating. He was gregarious, and now felt a
longing, of which he was almost ashamed, to be admitted to the same
pastures with Marion Fay. There was not, however, the slightest
reason for supposing that Marion Fay would dine at No. 11, even were
he asked to do so himself. Nothing, in fact, could be less probable,
as Marion Fay never deserted her father. Nor did he like to give any
hint to his friend that he was desirous of further immediate intimacy
with Marion. There would be an absurdity in doing so which he did
not dare to perpetrate. Only if he could have passed the morning
in Paradise Row, and then have walked home with Roden in the dark
evening, he could, he thought, have said what he had to say very
conveniently.
But it was impossible. He sat silent for some minute or two after
Roden had asked the name of the bore of the hunting field, and then
answered him by proposing that they should start together on their
walk towards Hendon. "I am all ready; but you must tell me the name
of this dreadful man."
"As soon as we have started I will. I have come here on purpose to
tell you."
"To tell me the name of the man you ran away from in Cumberland?"
"Exactly that;--come along." And so they started, more than an hour
before the time at which Marion Fay would return from church. "The
man who annoyed me so out hunting was an intimate friend of yours."
"I have not an intimate friend in the world except yourself."
"Not Marion Fay?"
"I meant among men. I do not suppose that Marion Fay was out hunting
in Cumberland."
"I should not have ran away from her, I think, if she had. It was Mr.
Crocker, of the General Post Office."
"Crocker in Cumberland?"
"Certainly he was in Cumberland,--unless some one personated him.
I met him dining at Castle Hautboy, when he was kind enough to make
himself known to me, and again out hunting,--when he did more than
make himself known to me."
"I am surprised."
"Is he not away on leave?"
"Oh, yes;--he is away on leave. I do not doubt that it was he."
"Why should he not be in Cumberland,--when, as it happens, his father
is land-steward or something of that sort to my uncle Persiflage?"
"Because I did not know that he had any connection with Cumberland.
Why not Cumberland, or Westmoreland, or Northumberland, you may say?
Why not?--or Yorkshire, or Lincolnshire, or Norfolk? I certainly did
not suppose that a Post Office clerk out on his holidays would be
found hunting in any county."
"You have never heard of his flea-bitten horse?"
"Not a word. I didn't know that he had ever sat upon a horse. And now
will you let me know why you have called him my friend?"
"Is he not so?"
"By no means."
"Does he not sit at the same desk with you?"
"Certainly he does."
"I think I should be friends with a man if I sat at the same desk
with him."
"With Crocker even?" asked Roden.
"Well; he might be an exception."
"But if an exception to you, why not also an exception to me? As it
happens, Crocker has made himself disagreeable to me. Instead of
being my friend, he is,--I will not say my enemy, because I should
be making too much of him; but nearer to being so than any one I
know. Now, what is the meaning of all this? Why did he trouble you
especially down in Cumberland? Why do you call him my friend? And why
do you wish to speak to me about him?"
"He introduced himself to me, and told me that he was your special
friend."
"Then he lied."
"I should not have cared about that;--but he did more."
"What more did he do?"
"I would have been courteous to him,--if only because he sat at the
same desk with you;--but--"
"But what?"
"There are things which are difficult to be told."
"If they have to be told, they had better be told," said Roden,
almost angrily.
"Whether friend or not, he knew of--your engagement with my sister."
"Impossible!"
"He told me of it," said Lord Hampstead impetuously, his tongue now
at length loosed. "Told me of it! He spoke of it again and again
to my extreme disgust. Though the thing had been fixed as Fate, he
should not have mentioned it."
"Certainly not."
"But he did nothing but tell me of your happiness, and good luck, and
the rest of it. It was impossible to stop him, so that I had to ride
away from him. I bade him be silent,--as plainly as I could without
mentioning Fanny's name. But it was of no use."
"How did he know it?"
"You told him!"
"I!"
"So he said." This was not strictly the case. Crocker had so
introduced the subject as to have avoided the palpable lie of
declaring that the tidings had been absolutely given by Roden to
himself. But he had not the less falsely intended to convey that
impression to Hampstead, and had conveyed it. "He gave me to
understand that you were speaking about it continually at your
office." Roden turned round and looked at the other man, white with
rage--as though he could not allow himself to utter a word. "It was
as I tell you. He began it at the Castle, and afterwards continued it
whenever he could get near me when hunting."
"And you believed him?"
"When he repeated his story so often what was I to do?"
"Knock him off his horse."
"And so be forced to speak of my sister to every one in the hunt and
in the county? You do not feel how much is due to a girl's name."
"I think I do. I think that of all men I am the most likely to feel
what is due to the name of Lady Frances Trafford. Of course I never
mentioned it to any one at the Post Office."
"From whom had he heard it?"
"How can I answer that? Probably through some of your own family. It
has made its way through Lady Kingsbury to Castle Hautboy, and has
then been talked about. I am not responsible for that."
"Not for that certainly,--if it be so."
"Nor because such a one as he has lied. You should not have believed
it of me."
"I was bound to ask you."
"You were bound to tell me, but should not have asked me. There are
things which do not require asking. What must I do with him?"
"Nothing. Nothing can be done. You could not touch the subject
without alluding to my sister. She is coming back to Hendon in
another week."
"She was there before, but I did not see her."
"Of course you did not see her. How should you?"
"Simply by going there."
"She would not have seen you." There came a black frown over Roden's
brow as he heard this. "It has been understood between my father and
Fanny and myself that you should not come to Hendon while she is
living with me."
"Should not I have been a party to that agreement?"
"Hardly, I think. This agreement must have been made whether you
assented or not. On no other terms would my father have permitted her
to come. It was most desirable that she should be separated from Lady
Kingsbury."
"Oh, yes."
"And therefore the agreement was advisable. I would not have had her
on any other terms."
"Why not?"
"Because I think that such visitings would have been unwise. It is
no use my blinking it to you. I do not believe that the marriage is
practicable."
"I do."
"As I don't, of course I cannot be a party to throwing you together.
Were you to persist in coming you would only force me to find a home
for her elsewhere."
"I have not disturbed you."
"You have not. Now I want you to promise me that you will not. I have
assured my father that it shall be so. Will you say that you will
neither come to her at Hendon Hall, or write to her, while she is
staying with me?" He paused on the road for an answer, but Roden
walked on without making one, and Hampstead was forced to accompany
him. "Will you promise me?"
"I will not promise. I will do nothing which may possibly subject me
to be called a liar. I have no wish to knock at any door at which I
do not think myself to be welcome."
"You know how welcome you would be at mine, but for her."
"It might be that I should find myself forced to endeavour to see
her, and I will therefore make no promise. A man should fetter
himself by no assurances of that kind as to his conduct. If a man
be a drunkard, it may be well that he should bind himself by a vow
against drinking. But he who can rule his own conduct should promise
nothing. Good-day now. I must be back to dinner with my mother."
Then he took his leave somewhat abruptly, and returned. Hampstead
went on to Hendon with his thoughts sometimes fixed on his sister,
sometimes on Roden, whom he regarded as impracticable, sometimes
on that horrid Crocker;--but more generally on Marion Fay, whom he
resolved that he must see again, whatever might be the difficulties
in his way.