Round under the cliffs by the sea, facing South, are warm seats in
winter. The sun that shines there on a day of frost wraps you as in a
mantle. Here it was that Mr. Herbert Fellingham found Annette, a chalk-
block for her chair, and a mound of chalk-rubble defending her from the
keen-tipped breath of the east, now and then shadowing the smooth blue
water, faintly, like reflections of a flight of gulls.
Infants are said to have their ideas, and why not young ladies? Those
who write of their perplexities in descriptions comical in their length
are unkind to them, by making them appear the simplest of the creatures
of fiction; and most of us, I am sure, would incline to believe in them
if they were only some bit more lightly touched. Those troubled
sentiments of our young lady of the comfortable classes are quite worthy
of mention. Her poor little eye poring as little fishlike as possible
upon the intricate, which she takes for the infinite, has its place in
our history, nor should we any of us miss the pathos of it were it not
that so large a space is claimed for the exposure. As it is, one has
almost to fight a battle to persuade the world that she has downright
thoughts and feelings, and really a superhuman delicacy is required in
presenting her that she may be credible. Even then--so much being
accomplished the thousands accustomed to chapters of her when she is in
the situation of Annette will be disappointed by short sentences, just as
of old the Continental eater of oysters would have been offended at the
offer of an exchange of two live for two dozen dead ones. Annette was in
the grand crucial position of English imaginative prose. I recognize it,
and that to this the streamlets flow, thence pours the flood. But what
was the plain truth? She had brought herself to think she ought to
sacrifice herself to Tinman, and her evasions with Herbert, manifested in
tricks of coldness alternating with tones of regret, ended, as they had
commenced, in a mysterious half-sullenness. She had hardly a word to
say. Let me step in again to observe that she had at the moment no
pointed intention of marrying Tinman. To her mind the circumstances
compelled her to embark on the idea of doing so, and she saw the
extremity in an extreme distance, as those who are taking voyages may see
death by drowning. Still she had embarked.
"At all events, I have your word for it that you don't dislike me?" said
Herbert.
"Oh! no," she sighed. She liked him as emigrants the land they are
leaving.
"And you have not promised your hand?"
"No," she said, but sighed in thinking that if she could be induced to
promise it, there would not be a word of leaving England.
"Then, as you are not engaged, and don't hate me, I have a chance?" he
said, in the semi-wailful interrogative of an organ making a mere windy
conclusion.
Ocean sent up a tiny wave at their feet.
"A day like this in winter is rarer than a summer day," Herbert resumed
encouragingly.
Annette was replying, "People abuse our climate--"
But the thought of having to go out away from this climate in the
darkness of exile, with her father to suffer under it worse than herself,
overwhelmed her, and fetched the reality of her sorrow in the form of
Tinman swimming before her soul with the velocity of a telegraph-pole to
the window of the flying train. It was past as soon as seen, but it gave
her a desperate sensation of speed.
She began to feel that this was life in earnest.
And Herbert should have been more resolute, fierier. She needed a strong
will.
But he was not on the rapids of the masterful passion. For though going
at a certain pace, it was by his own impulsion; and I am afraid I must,
with many apologies, compare him to the skater--to the skater on easy,
slippery ice, be it understood; but he could perform gyrations as he
went, and he rather sailed along than dashed; he was careful of his
figuring. Some lovers, right honest lovers, never get beyond this quaint
skating-stage; and some ladies, a right goodly number in a foggy climate,
deceived by their occasional runs ahead, take them for vessels on the
very torrent of love. Let them take them, and let the race continue.
Only we perceive that they are skating; they are careering over a smooth
icy floor, and they can stop at a signal, with just half-a-yard of
grating on the heel at the outside. Ice, and not fire nor falling water,
has been their medium of progression.
Whether a man should unveil his own sex is quite another question.
If we are detected, not solely are we done for, but our love-tales too.
However, there is not much ground for anxiety on that head. Each member
of the other party is blind on her own account.
To Annette the figuring of Herbert was graceful, but it did not catch her
up and carry her; it hardly touched her: He spoke well enough to make her
sorry for him, and not warmly enough to make her forget her sorrow for
herself.
Herbert could obtain no explanation of the singularity of her conduct
from Annette, and he went straight to her father, who was nearly as
inexplicable for a time. At last he said:
"If you are ready to quit the country with us, you may have my consent."
"Why quit the country?" Herbert asked, in natural amazement.
Van Diemen declined to tell him.
But seeing the young man look stupefied and wretched he took a turn about
the room, and said: "I have n't robbed," and after more turns, "I have
n't murdered." He growled in his menagerie trot within the four walls.
"But I'm, in a man's power. Will that satisfy you? You'll tell me,
because I'm rich, to snap my fingers. I can't. I've got feelings. I'm
in his power to hurt me and disgrace me. It's the disgrace--to my
disgrace I say it--I dread most. You'd be up to my reason if you had
ever served in a regiment. I mean, discipline--if ever you'd known
discipline--in the police if you like--anything--anywhere where there's
what we used to call spiny de cor. I mean, at school. And I'm," said
Van Diemen, "a rank idiot double D. dolt, and flat as a pancake, and
transparent as a pane of glass. You see through me. Anybody could.
I can't talk of my botheration without betraying myself. What good am
I among you sharp fellows in England?"
Language of this kind, by virtue of its unintelligibility, set Mr.
Herbert Fellingham's acute speculations at work. He was obliged to lean
on Van Diemen's assertion, that he had not robbed and had not murdered,
to be comforted by the belief that he was not once a notorious
bushranger, or a defaulting manager of mines, or any other thing
that is naughtily Australian and kangarooly.
He sat at the dinner-table at Elba, eating like the rest of mankind, and
looking like a starved beggarman all the while.
Annette, in pity of his bewilderment, would have had her father take him
into their confidence. She suggested it covertly, and next she spoke of
it to him as a prudent measure, seeing that Mr. Fellingham might find out
his exact degree of liability. Van Diemen shouted; he betrayed himself
in his weakness as she could not have imagined him. He was ready to go,
he said--go on the spot, give up Elba, fly from Old England: what he
could not do was to let his countrymen know what he was, and live among
them afterwards. He declared that the fact had eternally been present to
his mind, devouring him; and Annette remembered his kindness to the
artillerymen posted along the shore westward of Crikswich, though she
could recall no sign of remorse. Van Diemen said: "We have to do with
Martin Tinman; that's one who has a hold on me, and one's enough. Leak
out my secret to a second fellow, you double my risks." He would not be
taught to see how the second might counteract the first. The singularity
of the action of his character on her position was, that though she knew
not a soul to whom she could unburden her wretchedness, and stood far
more isolated than in her Australian home, fever and chill struck her
blood in contemplation of the necessity of quitting England.
Deep, then, was her gratitude to dear good Mrs. Cavely for stepping in to
mediate between her father and Mr. Tinman. And well might she be amazed
to hear the origin of their recent dispute.
"It was," Mrs. Cavely said, "that Gippsland."
Annette cried: "What?"
"That Gippsland of yours, my dear. Your father will praise Gippsland
whenever my Martin asks him to admire the beauties of our neighbourhood.
Many a time has Martin come home to me complaining of it. We have no
doubt on earth that Gippsland is a very fine place; but my brother has
his idea's of dignity, you must know, and I only wish he had been more
used to contradiction, you may believe me. He is a lamb by nature. And,
as he says, 'Why underrate one's own country?' He cannot bear to hear
boasting. Well! I put it to you, dear Annette, is he so unimportant a
person? He asks to be respected, and especially by his dearest friend.
From that to blows! It's the way with men. They begin about trifles,
they drink, they quarrel, and one does what he is sorry for, and one says
more than he means. All my Martin desires is to shake your dear father's
hand, forgive and forget. To win your esteem, darling Annette, he would
humble himself in the dust. Will you not help me to bring these two dear
old friends together once more? It is unreasonable of your dear papa to
go on boasting of Gippsland if he is so fond of England, now is it not?
My brother is the offended party in the eye of the law. That is quite
certain. Do you suppose he dreams of taking advantage of it? He is
waiting at home to be told he may call on your father. Rank, dignity,
wounded feelings, is nothing to him in comparison with friendship."
Annette thought of the blow which had felled him, and spoke the truth of
her heart in saying, "He is very generous."
"You understand him." Mrs. Cavely pressed her hand. "We will both go to
your dear father. He may," she added, not without a gleam of feminine
archness, "praise Gippsland above the Himalayas to me. What my Martin so
much objected to was, the speaking of Gippsland at all when there was
mention of our Lake scenery. As for me, I know how men love to boast of
things nobody else has seen."
The two ladies went in company to Van Diemen, who allowed himself to be
melted. He was reserved nevertheless. His reception of Mr. Tinman
displeased his daughter. Annette attached the blackest importance to a
blow of the fist. In her mind it blazed fiendlike, and the man who
forgave it rose a step or two on the sublime. Especially did he do so
considering that he had it in his power to dismiss her father and herself
from bright beaming England before she had looked on all the cathedrals
and churches, the sea-shores and spots named in printed poetry, to say
nothing of the nobility.
"Papa, you were not so kind to Mr. Tinman as I could have hoped," said
Annette.
"Mart Tinman has me at his mercy, and he'll make me know it," her father
returned gloomily. "He may let me off with the Commander-in-chief.
He'll blast my reputation some day, though. I shall be hanging my head
in society, through him."
Van Diemen imitated the disconsolate appearance of a gallows body, in one
of those rapid flashes of spontaneous veri-similitude which spring of an
inborn horror painting itself on the outside.
"A Deserter!" he moaned.
He succeeded in impressing the terrible nature of the stigma upon
Annette's imagination.
The guest at Elba was busy in adding up the sum of his own impressions,
and dividing it by this and that new circumstance; for he was totally in
the dark. He was attracted by the mysterious interview of Mrs. Cavely
and Annette. Tinman's calling and departing set him upon new
calculations. Annette grew cold and visibly distressed by her
consciousness of it.
She endeavoured to account for this variation of mood. "We have been
invited to dine at the house on the beach to-morrow. I would not have
accepted, but papa . . . we seemed to think it a duty. Of course the
invitation extends to you. We fancy you do not greatly enjoy dining
there. The table will be laid for you here, if you prefer."
Herbert preferred to try the skill of Mrs. Crickledon.
Now, for positive penetration the head prepossessed by a suspicion is
unmatched; for where there is no daylight; this one at least goes about
with a lantern. Herbert begged Mrs. Crickledon to cook a dinner for him,
and then to give the right colour to his absence from the table of Mr.
Tinman, he started for a winter day's walk over the downs as sharpening a
business as any young fellow, blunt or keen, may undertake; excellent for
men of the pen, whether they be creative, and produce, or slaughtering,
and review; good, then, for the silly sheep of letters and the butchers.
He sat down to Mrs. Crickledon's table at half-past six. She was, as she
had previously informed him, a forty-pound-a-year cook at the period of
her courting by Crickledon. That zealous and devoted husband had made
his first excursion inland to drop over the downs to the great house, and
fetch her away as his bride, on the death of her master, Sir Alfred
Pooney, who never would have parted with her in life; and every day of
that man's life he dirtied thirteen plates at dinner, nor more, nor less,
but exactly that number, as if he believed there was luck in it. And as
Crickledon said, it was odd. But it was always a pleasure to cook for
him. Mrs. Crickledon could not abide cooking for a mean eater. And when
Crickledon said he had never seen an acorn, he might have seen one had he
looked about him in the great park, under the oaks, on the day when he
came to be married.
"Then it's a standing compliment to you, Mrs. Crickledon, that he did
not," said Herbert.
He remarked with the sententiousness of enforced philosophy, that no wine
was better than bad wine.
Mrs. Crickledon spoke of a bottle left by her summer lodgers, who had
indeed left two, calling the wine invalid's wine; and she and her husband
had opened one on the anniversary of their marriage day in October. It
had the taste of doctor's shop, they both agreed; and as no friend of
theirs could be tempted beyond a sip, they were advised, because it was
called a tonic, to mix it with the pig-wash, so that it should not be
entirely lost, but benefit the constitution of the pig. Herbert sipped
at the remaining bottle, and finding himself in the superior society of
an old Manzanilla, refilled his glass.
"Nothing I knows of proves the difference between gentlefolks and poor
persons as tastes in wine," said Mrs. Crickledon, admiring him as she
brought in a dish of cutlets,--with Sir Alfred Pooney's favourite sauce
Soubise, wherein rightly onion should be delicate as the idea of love in
maidens' thoughts, albeit constituting the element of flavour. Something
of such a dictum Sir Alfred Pooney had imparted to his cook, and she
repeated it with the fresh elegance of, such sweet sayings when
transfused through the native mind:
"He said, I like as it was what you would call a young gal's blush at a
kiss round a corner."
The epicurean baronet had the habit of talking in that way.
Herbert drank to his memory. He was well-filled; he had no work to do,
and he was exuberant in spirits, as Mrs. Crickledon knew her countrymen
should and would be under those conditions. And suddenly he drew his
hand across a forehead so wrinkled and dark, that Mrs. Crickledon
exclaimed, "Heart or stomach?"
"Oh, no," said he. "I'm sound enough in both, I hope."
That old Tinman's up to one of his games," she observed.
"Do you think so?"
"He's circumventing Miss Annette Smith."
"Pooh! Crickledon. A man of his age can't be seriously thinking of
proposing for a young lady."
He's a well-kept man. He's never racketed. He had n't the rackets in
him. And she may n't care for him. But we hear things drop."
"What things have you heard drop, Crickledon? In a profound silence you
may hear pins; in a hubbub you may hear cannon-balls. But I never
believe in eavesdropping gossip."
"He was heard to say to Mr. Smith," Crickledon pursued, and she lowered
her voice, "he was heard to say, it was when they were quarreling over
that chiwal, and they went at one another pretty hard before Mr. Smith
beat him and he sold Mr. Smith that meadow; he was heard to say, there
was worse than transportation for Mr. Smith if he but lifted his finger.
They Tinmans have awful tempers. His old mother died malignant, though
she was a saving woman, and never owed a penny to a Christian a hour
longer than it took to pay the money. And old Tinman's just such
another."
"Transportation!" Herbert ejaculated, "that's sheer nonsense, Crickledon.
I'm sure your husband would tell you so."
"It was my husband brought me the words," Mrs. Crickledon rejoined with
some triumph. "He did tell me, I own, to keep it shut: but my speaking
to you, a friend of Mr. Smith's, won't do no harm. He heard them under
the battery, over that chiwal glass: 'And you shall pay,' says Mr. Smith,
and 'I sha'n't,' says old Tinman. Mr. Smith said he would have it if he
had to squeeze a deathbed confession from a sinner. Then old Tinman
fires out, 'You!' he says, 'you' and he stammered. 'Mr. Smith,' my
husband said and you never saw a man so shocked as my husband at being
obliged to hear them at one another Mr. Smith used the word damn. 'You
may laugh, sir.'"
"You say it so capitally, Crickledon."
"And then old Tinman said, 'And a D. to you; and if I lift my finger,
it's Big D. on your back."
"And what did Mr. Smith say, then?"
"He said, like a man shot, my husband says he said, 'My God!'"
Herbert Fellingham jumped away from the table.
"You tell me, Crickledon, your husband actually heard that--just those
words?--the tones?"
"My husband says he heard him say, 'My God!' just like a poor man shot or
stabbed. You may speak to Crickledon, if you speaks to him alone, sir.
I say you ought to know. For I've noticed Mr. Smith since that day has
never looked to me the same easy-minded happy gentleman he was when we
first knew him. He would have had me go to cook for him at Elba, but
Crickledon thought I'd better be independent, and Mr. Smith said to me,
'Perhaps you're right, Crickledon, for who knows how long I may be among
you?'"
Herbert took the solace of tobacco in Crickledon's shop. Thence, with
the story confirmed to him, he sauntered toward the house on the beach.