Flying from port to port to effect an exchange of stewards (the
endless occupation of a yacht proprietor), Wilfrid had no tidings from
Brookfield. The night before the gathering on Besworth Lawn he went to
London and dined at his Club--a place where youths may drink largely of
the milk of this world's wisdom. Wilfrid's romantic sentiment was always
corrected by an hour at his Club. After dinner he strolled to a not
perfectly regulated theatre, in company with a brother officer; and when
they had done duty before the scenes for a space of time, they lounged
behind to disenchant themselves, in obedience to that precocious
cynicism which is the young man's extra-Luxury. The first figure that
caught Wilfrid's attention there was Mr. Pericles, in a white overcoat,
stretched along a sofa--his eyelids being down, though his eyes were
evidently vigilant beneath. A titter of ladies present told of some
recent interesting commotion.
“Only a row between that rich Greek fellow who gave the supper, and
Marion,” a vivacious dame explained to Wilfrid. “She's in one of her
jealous fits; she'd be jealous if her poodle-dog went on its hind-legs
to anybody else.”
“Poodle, by Jove!” said Wilfrid. “Pericles himself looks like an
elongated poodle shaved up to his moustache. Look at him. And he plays
the tyrant, does he?”
“Oh! she stands that. Some of those absurd women like it, I think. She's
fussing about another girl.”
“You wouldn't?”
“What man's worth it?”
“But, would you?”
“It depends upon the 'him,' monsieur.
“Depends upon his being very handsome!”
“And good.”
“And rich?”
“No!” the lady fired up. “There you don't know us.”
The colloquy became almost tender, until she said, “Isn't this gassy,
and stifling? I confess I do like a carriage, and Richmond on a Sunday.
And then, with two daughters, you know! But what I complain of is her
folly in being in love, or something like it, with a rich fellow.”
“Love the poor devil--manage the rich, you mean.”
“Yes, of course; that makes them both happy.”
“It's a method of being charitable to two.”
A rather fleshy fairy now entered, and walked straight up to the
looking-glass to examine her paint--pronouncedly turning her back to the
sofa, where Mr. Pericles still lay at provoking full length. Her panting
was ominous of a further explosion.
“Innocent child!” in the mockery of a foreign accent, commenced it;
while Wilfrid thought how unjustly and coldly critically he had accused
his little Emilia of vulgarity, now that he had this feminine display of
it swarming about him.
“Innocent child, indeed! Be as deaf as you like, you shall hear. And
sofas are not made for men's dirty boots, in this country. I believe
they're all pigs abroad--the men; and the women--cats! Oh! don't open
your eyes--don't speak, pray. You're certain I must go when the bell
rings. You're waiting for that, you unmanly dog!”
“A pig,” Mr. Pericles here ventured to remind her, murmuring as one in a
dream.
“A peeg!” she retorted mildly, somewhat mollified by her apparent
success. But Mr. Pericles had relapsed into his exasperating composure.
The breath of a deliberate and undeserved peacefulness continued to be
drawn in by his nostrils.
At the accustomed warning there was an ostentatious rustle of retiring
dresses; whereat Mr. Pericles chose to proclaim himself awake. The
astute fairy-fury immediately stepped before him.
“Now you can't go on pretending sleep. You shall hear, and everybody
shall hear. You know you're a villain! You're a wolf seeking...”
Mr. Pericles waved his hand, and she was caught by the wrist and told
that the scene awaited her.
“Let them wait!” she shouted, and, sharpening her cry as she was dragged
off, “Dare to take that girl to Italy! I know what that means, with you.
An Englishman might mean right--but you! You think you've been dealing
with a fool! Why, I can stop this in a minute, and I will. It's you're
the fool! Why, I know her father: he plays in the orchestra. I know her
name--Belloni!”
Up sprang the Greek like a galvanized corpse; while two violent jerks
from the man hauling her out rattled the laugh of triumph which burst
from her. At the same time Wilfrid strove forward, with the frown of
one still bent listening, and he and Pericles were face to face. The
eyebrows of the latter shot up in a lively arch. He made a motion
toward the ceremony of 'shake-hands;' but, perceiving no correspondent
overture, grinned, “It is warm--ha?”
“You feel the heat? Step outside a minute,” said Wilfrid.
“Oh, no!” Mr. Pericles looked pleasantly sagacious. “Ze draught--a
cold.”
“Will you come?” pursued Wilfrid.
“Many sanks!”
Wilfrid's hand was rising. At this juncture his brother officer slipped
out some languid words in his ear, indicative of his astonishment that
he should be championing a termagant, and horror at the idea of such
a thing being publicly imagined, tamed Wilfrid quickly. He recovered
himself with his usual cleverness. Seeing the signs of hostility vanish,
Mr. Pericles said, “You are on a search for your father? You have
found him? Hom! I should say a maladie of nerfs will come to him. A pin
fall--he start! A storm at night--he is out dancing among his ships of
venture! Not a bid of corage!--which is bad. If you shall find Mr. Pole
for to-morrow on ze lawn, vary glad.”
With a smile compounded of sniffing dog and Parisian obsequiousness,
Mr. Pericles passed, thinking “He has not got her:” for such was his
deduction if he saw that a man could flush for a woman's name.
Wilfrid stood like a machine with a thousand wheels in revolt.
Sensations pricked at ideas, and immediately left them to account for
their existence as they best could. The ideas committed suicide without
a second's consideration. He felt the great gurgling sea in which they
were drowned heave and throb. Then came a fresh set, that poised better
on the slack-rope of his understanding. By degrees, a buried dread in
his brain threw off its shroud. The thought that there was something
wrong with his father stood clearly over him, to be swallowed at once in
the less tangible belief that a harm had come to Emilia--not was coming,
but had come. Passion thinks wilfully when it thinks at all. That night
he lay in a deep anguish, revolving the means by which he might help and
protect her. There seemed no way open, save by making her his own; and
did he belong to himself? What bound him to Lady Charlotte? She was not
lovely or loving. He had not even kissed her hand; yet she held him in a
chain.
The two men composing most of us at the outset of actual life began
their deadly wrestle within him, both having become awakened. If they
wait for circumstance, that steady fire will fuse them into one, who is
commonly a person of some strength; but throttling is the custom between
them, and we are used to see men of murdered halves. These men have
what they fought for: they are unaware of any guilt that may be charged
against them, though they know that they do not embrace Life; and so it
is that we have vague discontent too universal. Change, O Lawgiver!
the length of our minority, and let it not end till this battle is
thoroughly fought out in approving daylight. The period of our duality
should be one as irresponsible in your eyes as that of our infancy.
Is he we call a young man an individual--who is a pair of alternately
kicking scales? Is he educated, when he dreams not that he is divided?
He has drunk Latin like a vital air, and can quote what he remembers
of Homer; but how has he been fortified for this tremendous conflict of
opening manhood, which is to our life here what is the landing of a soul
to the life to come?
Meantime, it is a bad business when the double-man goes about kneeling
at the feet of more than one lady. Society (to give that institution its
due) permits him to seek partial invulnerability by dipping himself in a
dirty Styx, which corrects, as we hear said, the adolescent tendency to
folly. Wilfrid's sentiment had served him (well or ill as it may be),
by keeping him from a headlong plunge in the protecting river; and his
folly was unchastened. He did not even contemplate an escape from the
net at Emilia's expense. The idea came. The idea will come to a young
man in such a difficulty. “My mistress! My glorious stolen fruit! My
dark angel of love!” He deserves a little credit for seeing that Emilia
never could be his mistress, in the debased sense of the term. Union
with her meant life-long union, he knew. Ultimate mental subjection
he may also have seen in it, unconsciously. For, hazy thoughts of that
nature may mix with the belief that an alliance with her degrades us, in
this curious hotch-potch of emotions known to the world as youthful man.
A wife superior to her husband makes him ridiculous wilfully, if the
wretch is to be laughed at; but a mistress thus ill-matched cannot fail
to cast the absurdest light on her monstrous dwarf-custodian. Wilfrid
had the sagacity to perceive, and the keen apprehension of ridicule to
shrink from, the picture. Besides, he was beginning to love Emilia.
His struggle now was to pluck his passion from his heart; and such was
already his plight that he saw no other way of attempting it than by
taking horse and riding furiously in the direction of Besworth.