Evan Harrington, complete
by
George Meredith
Part 1 out of 11
This etext was produced by David Widger
EVAN HARRINGTON
By George Meredith
CONTENTS:
BOOK 1.
I. ABOVE BUTTONS
II. THE HERITAGE OR THE SOY
III. THE DAUGHTERS OR THE SHEARS
IV. ON BOARD THE JOCASTA
V. THE FAMILY AND THE FUNERAL
VI. MY GENTLEMAN ON THE ROAD
VII. MOTHER AND SON
BOOK 2.
VIII. INTRODUCES AN ECCENTRIC
IX. THE COUNTESS IN LOW SOCIETY
X. MY GENTLEMAN ON THE ROAD AGAIN
XI. DOINGS AT AN INN
XII. IN WHICH ALE IS SHOWN TO HAVE ONE QUALITY OF WINE
XIII. THE MATCH OF FALLOWFIELD AGAINST BECKLEY
BOOK 3.
XIV. THE COUNTESS DESCRIBES THE FIELD OF ACTION
XV. A CAPTURE
XVI. LEADS TO A SMALL SKIRMISH BETWEEN ROSE AND EVAN
XVII. IN WHICH EVAN WRITES HIMSELF TAILOR
XVIII. IN WHICH EVAN CALLS HIMSELF GENTLEMAN
BOOK 4.
XIX. SECOND DESPATCH OF THE COUNTESS
XX. BREAK-NECK LEAP
XXI. TRIBULATIONS AND TACTICS OF THE COUNTESS
XXII. IN WHICH THE DAUGHTERS OF THE GREAT MEL HAVE TO
DIGEST HIM AT DINNER
XXIII. TREATS OF A HANDKERCHIEF
XXIV. THE COUNTESS MAKES HERSELF FELT
XXV. IN WHICH THE STREAM FLOWS MUDDY AND CLEAR
BOOK 5.
XXVI. MRS. MEL MAKES A BED FOR HERSELF AND FAMILY
XXVII. EXHIBITS ROSE'S GENERALSHIP; EVAN'S PERFORMANCE ON THE SECOND
FIDDLE; AND THE WRETCHEDNESS OF THE COUNTESS
XXVIII. TOM COGGLESBY'S PROPOSITION
XXIX. PRELUDE TO AN ENGAGEMENT
XXX. THE BATTLE OF THE BULL-DOGS. PART I.
XXXI. THE BATTLE OF THE BULL-DOGS. PART II.
BOOK 6.
XXXII. IN WHICH EVAN'S LIGHT BEGINS TO TWINKLE AGAIN
XXXIII. THE HERO TAKES HIS RANK IN THE ORCHESTRA
XXXIV. A PAGAN SACRIFICE
XXXV. ROSE WOUNDED
XXXVI. BEFORE BREAKFAST
XXXVII. THE RETREAT FROM BECKLEY
XXXVIII. IN WHICH WE HAVE TO SEE IN THE DARK
BOOK 7.
XXXIX. IN THE DOMAIN OF TAILORDOM
XL. IN WHICH THE COUNTESS STILL SCENTS GAME
XLI. REVEALS AN ABOMINABLE PLOT OF THE BROTHERS COGGLESBY
XLII. JULIANA
XLIII. ROSE
XLIV. CONTAINS A WARNING TO ALL CONSPIRATORS
XLV. IN WHICH THE SHOP BECOMES THE CENTRE OF ATTRACTION
XLVI. A LOVER'S PARTING
XLVII. A YEAR LATER THE COUNTESS DE SALDAR DE SANCORVO TO HER
SISTER CAROLINE
BOOK 1.
I. ABOVE BUTTONS
II. THE HERITAGE OR THE SOY
III. THE DAUGHTERS OR THE SHEARS
IV. ON BOARD THE JOCASTA
V. THE FAMILY AND THE FUNERAL
VI. MY GENTLEMAN ON THE ROAD
VII. MOTHER AND SON
CHAPTER I
ABOVE BUTTONS
Long after the hours when tradesmen are in the habit of commencing
business, the shutters of a certain shop in the town of Lymport-on-the-
Sea remained significantly closed, and it became known that death had
taken Mr. Melchisedec Harrington, and struck one off the list of living
tailors. The demise of a respectable member of this class does not
ordinarily create a profound sensation. He dies, and his equals debate
who is to be his successor: while the rest of them who have come in
contact with him, very probably hear nothing of his great launch and
final adieu till the winding up of cash-accounts; on which occasions we
may augur that he is not often blessed by one or other of the two great
parties who subdivide this universe. In the case of Mr. Melchisedec it
was otherwise. This had been a grand man, despite his calling, and in
the teeth of opprobrious epithets against his craft. To be both
generally blamed, and generally liked, evinces a peculiar construction of
mortal. Mr. Melchisedec, whom people in private called the great Mel,
had been at once the sad dog of Lymport, and the pride of the town. He
was a tailor, and he kept horses; he was a tailor, and he had gallant
adventures; he was a tailor, and he shook hands with his customers.
Finally, he was a tradesman, and he never was known to have sent in a
bill. Such a personage comes but once in a generation, and, when he
goes, men miss the man as well as their money.
That he was dead, there could be no doubt. Kilne, the publican opposite,
had seen Sally, one of the domestic servants, come out of the house in
the early morning and rush up the street to the doctor's, tossing her
hands; and she, not disinclined to dilute her grief, had, on her return,
related that her master was then at his last gasp, and had refused, in so
many words, to swallow the doctor.
'"I won't swallow the doctor!" he says, "I won't swallow the doctor!"'
Sally moaned. '"I never touched him," he says, "and I never will."'
Kilne angrily declared, that in his opinion, a man who rejected medicine
in extremity, ought to have it forced down his throat: and considering
that the invalid was pretty deeply in Kilne's debt, it naturally assumed
the form of a dishonest act on his part; but Sally scornfully dared any
one to lay hand on her master, even for his own good. 'For,' said she,
'he's got his eyes awake, though he do lie so helpless. He marks ye!'
'Ah! ah!' Kilne sniffed the air. Sally then rushed back to her duties.
'Now, there 's a man!' Kilne stuck his hands in his pockets and began
his meditation: which, however, was cut short by the approach of his
neighbour Barnes, the butcher, to whom he confided what he had heard,
and who ejaculated professionally, 'Obstinate as a pig!' As they stood
together they beheld Sally, a figure of telegraph, at one of the windows,
implying that all was just over.
'Amen!' said Barnes, as to a matter-of-fact affair.
Some minutes after, the two were joined by Grossby, the confectioner, who
listened to the news, and observed:
'Just like him! I'd have sworn he'd never take doctor's stuff'; and,
nodding at Kilne, 'liked his medicine best, eh?'
'Had a-hem!--good lot of it,' muttered Kilne, with a suddenly serious
brow.
'How does he stand on your books?' asked Barnes.
Kilne shouldered round, crying: 'Who the deuce is to know?'
'I don't,' Grossby sighed. 'In he comes with his "Good morning, Grossby,
fine day for the hunt, Grossby," and a ten-pound note. "Have the
kindness to put that down in my favour, Grossby." And just as I am going
to say, "Look here,--this won't do," he has me by the collar, and there's
one of the regiments going to give a supper party, which he's to order;
or the Admiral's wife wants the receipt for that pie; or in comes my
wife, and there's no talking of business then, though she may have been
bothering about his account all the night beforehand. Something or
other! and so we run on.'
'What I want to know,' said Barnes, the butcher, 'is where he got his
tenners from?'
Kilne shook a sagacious head: 'No knowing!'
'I suppose we shall get something out of the fire?' Barnes suggested.
'That depends!' answered the emphatic Kilne.
'But, you know, if the widow carries on the business,' said Grossby,
'there's no reason why we shouldn't get it all, eh?'
'There ain't two that can make clothes for nothing, and make a profit out
of it,' said Kilne.
'That young chap in Portugal,' added Barnes, 'he won't take to tailoring
when he comes home. D' ye think he will?'
Kilne muttered: 'Can't say !' and Grossby, a kindly creature in his way,
albeit a creditor, reverting to the first subject of their discourse,
ejaculated, 'But what a one he was!--eh?'
'Fine!--to look on,' Kilne assented.
'Well, he was like a Marquis,' said Barnes.
Here the three regarded each other, and laughed, though not loudly. They
instantly checked that unseemliness, and Kilne, as one who rises from the
depths of a calculation with the sum in his head, spoke quite in a
different voice:
'Well, what do you say, gentlemen? shall we adjourn? No use standing
here.'
By the invitation to adjourn, it was well understood by the committee
Kilne addressed, that they were invited to pass his threshold, and
partake of a morning draught. Barnes, the butcher, had no objection
whatever, and if Grossby, a man of milder make, entertained any, the
occasion and common interests to be discussed, advised him to waive them.
In single file these mourners entered the publican's house, where Kilne,
after summoning them from behind the bar, on the important question, what
it should be? and receiving, first, perfect acquiescence in his views as
to what it should be, and then feeble suggestions of the drink best
befitting that early hour and the speaker's particular constitution,
poured out a toothful to each, and one to himself.
'Here's to him, poor fellow!' said Kilne; and was deliberately echoed
twice.
'Now, it wasn't that,' Kilne pursued, pointing to the bottle in the midst
of a smacking of lips, 'that wasn't what got him into difficulties. It
was expensive luckshries. It was being above his condition. Horses!
What's a tradesman got to do with horses? Unless he's retired! Then
he's a gentleman, and can do as he likes. It's no use trying to be a
gentleman if you can't pay for it. It always ends bad. Why, there was
he, consorting with gentlefolks--gay as a lark! Who has to pay for it?'
Kilne's fellow-victims maintained a rather doleful tributary silence.
'I'm not saying anything against him now,' the publican further observed.
'It 's too late. And there! I'm sorry he's gone, for one. He was as
kind a hearted a man as ever breathed. And there! perhaps it was just
as much my fault; I couldn't say "No" to him,--dash me, if I could!'
Lymport was a prosperous town, and in prosperity the much-despised
British tradesman is not a harsh, he is really a well-disposed, easy
soul, and requires but management, manner, occasional instalments--just
to freshen the account--and a surety that he who debits is on the spot,
to be a right royal king of credit. Only the account must never drivel.
'Stare aut crescere' appears to be his feeling on that point, and the
departed Mr. Melchisedec undoubtedly understood him there; for the
running on of the account looked deplorable and extraordinary now that
Mr. Melchisedec was no longer in a position to run on with it, and it was
precisely his doing so which had prevented it from being brought to a
summary close long before. Both Barnes, the butcher; and Grossby, the
confectioner, confessed that they, too, found it hard ever to say 'No'
to him, and, speaking broadly, never could.
'Except once,'said Barnes, 'when he wanted me to let him have a ox to
roast whole out on the common, for the Battle of Waterloo. I stood out
against him on that. "No, no," says I, "I'll joint him for ye, Mr.
Harrington. You shall have him in joints, and eat him at home";-ha! ha!'
'Just like him!' said Grossby, with true enjoyment of the princely
disposition that had dictated the patriotic order.
'Oh!--there!' Kilne emphasized, pushing out his arm across the bar, as
much as to say, that in anything of such a kind, the great Mel never had
a rival.
'That "Marquis" affair changed him a bit,' said Barnes.
'Perhaps it did, for a time,' said Kilne. 'What's in the grain, you
know. He couldn't change. He would be a gentleman, and nothing 'd stop
him.'
'And I shouldn't wonder but what that young chap out in Portugal 'll want
to be one, too; though he didn't bid fair to be so fine a man as his
father.'
'More of a scholar,' remarked Kilne. 'That I call his worst fault--
shilly-shallying about that young chap. I mean his.' Kilne stretched a
finger toward the dead man's house. 'First, the young chap's to be sent
into the Navy; then it's the Army; then he's to be a judge, and sit on
criminals; then he goes out to his sister in Portugal; and now there's
nothing but a tailor open to him, as I see, if we're to get our money.'
'Ah! and he hasn't got too much spirit to work to pay his father's
debts,' added Barnes. 'There's a business there to make any man's
fortune-properly directed, I say. But, I suppose, like father like son,
he'll becoming the Marquis, too. He went to a gentleman's school, and
he's had foreign training. I don't know what to think about it. His
sisters over there--they were fine women.'
'Oh! a fine family, every one of 'em! and married well!' exclaimed the
publican.
'I never had the exact rights of that "Marquis" affair,' said Grossby;
and, remembering that he had previously laughed knowingly when it was
alluded to, pursued: 'Of course I heard of it at the time, but how did he
behave when he was blown upon?'
Barnes undertook to explain; but Kilne, who relished the narrative quite
as well, and was readier, said: 'Look here! I 'll tell you. I had it
from his own mouth one night when he wasn't--not quite himself. He was
coming down King William Street, where he stabled his horse, you know,
and I met him. He'd been dining out-somewhere out over Fallow field, I
think it was; and he sings out to me, "Ah! Kilne, my good fellow!" and
I, wishing to be equal with him, says, "A fine night, my lord!" and he
draws himself up--he smelt of good company--says he, "Kilne! I'm not a
lord, as you know, and you have no excuse for mistaking me for one, sir!"
So I pretended I had mistaken him, and then he tucked his arm under mine,
and said, "You're no worse than your betters, Kilne. They took me for
one at Squire Uplift's to-night, but a man who wishes to pass off for
more than he is, Kilne, and impose upon people," he says, "he's
contemptible, Kilne! contemptible!" So that, you know, set me thinking
about "Bath" and the "Marquis," and I couldn't help smiling to myself,
and just let slip a question whether he had enlightened them a bit.
"Kilne," said he, "you're an honest man, and a neighbour, and I'll tell
you what happened. The Squire," he says, "likes my company, and I like
his table. Now the Squire 'd never do a dirty action, but the Squire's
nephew, Mr. George Uplift, he can't forget that I earn my money, and once
or twice I have had to correct him." And I'll wager Mel did it, too!
Well, he goes on: "There was Admiral Sir Jackson Racial and his lady, at
dinner, Squire Falco of Bursted, Lady Barrington, Admiral Combleman"--our
admiral, that was; 'Mr. This and That', I forget their names--and other
ladies and gentlemen whose acquaintance I was not honoured with." You
know his way of talking. "And there was a goose on the table," he says;
and, looking stern at me, "Don't laugh yet!" says he, like thunder.
Well, he goes on: "Mr. George caught my eye across the table, and said,
so as not to be heard by his uncle, 'If that bird was rampant, you would
see your own arms, Marquis.'" And Mel replied, quietly for him to hear,
"And as that bird is couchant, Mr. George, you had better look to your
sauce." Couchant means squatting, you know. That's heraldry! Well,
that wasn't bad sparring of Mel's. But, bless you! he was never taken
aback, and the gentlefolks was glad enough to get him to sit down amongst
'em. So, says Mr. George, "I know you're a fire-eater, Marquis," and his
dander was up, for he began marquising Mel, and doing the mock polite at
such a rate, that, by-and-by, one of the ladies who didn't know Mel
called him "my lord" and "his lordship." "And," says Mel, "I merely
bowed to her, and took no notice." So that passed off: and there sits
Mel telling his anecdotes, as grand as a king. And, by and-by, young Mr.
George, who hadn't forgiven Mel, and had been pulling at the bottle
pretty well, he sings out, "It 's Michaelmas! the death of the goose!
and I should like to drink the Marquis's health!" and he drank it
solemn. But, as far as I can make out, the women part of the company was
a little in the dark. So Mel waited till there was a sort of a pause,
and then speaks rather loud to the Admiral, "By the way, Sir Jackson, may
I ask you, has the title of Marquis anything to do with tailoring?" Now
Mel was a great favourite with the Admiral, and with his lady, too, they
say--and the Admiral played into his hands, you see, and, says he, "I 'm
not aware that it has, Mr. Harrington." And he begged for to know why he
asked the question--called him, "Mister," you understand. So Mel said,
and I can see him now, right out from his chest he spoke, with his head
up "When I was a younger man, I had the good taste to be fond of good
society, and the bad taste to wish to appear different from what I was in
it": that's Mel speaking; everybody was listening; so he goes on: "I was
in the habit of going to Bath in the season, and consorting with the
gentlemen I met there on terms of equality; and for some reason that I am
quite guiltless of," says Mel, "the hotel people gave out that I was a
Marquis in disguise; and, upon my honour, ladies and gentlemen--I was
young then, and a fool--I could not help imagining I looked the thing.
At all events, I took upon myself to act the part, and with some success,
and considerable gratification; for, in my opinion," says Mel, "no real
Marquis ever enjoyed his title so much as I did. One day I was in my
shop--No. 193, Main Street, Lymport--and a gentleman came in to order his
outfit. I received his directions, when suddenly he started back, stared
at me, and exclaimed:
'My dear Marquis! I trust you will pardon me for having addressed you
with so much familiarity.' I recognized in him one of my Bath
acquaintances. That circumstance, ladies and gentlemen, has been a
lesson to me. Since that time I have never allowed a false impression
with regard to my position to exist. "I desire," says Mel, smiling, "to
have my exact measure taken everywhere; and if the Michaelmas bird is to
be associated with me, I am sure I have no objection; all I can say is,
that I cannot justify it by letters patent of nobility." That's how Mel
put it. Do you think they thought worse of him? I warrant you he came
out of it in flying colours. Gentlefolks like straight-forwardness in
their inferiors--that's what they do. Ah!' said Kilne, meditatively,
'I see him now, walking across the street in the moonlight, after he 'd
told me that. A fine figure of a man! and there ain't many Marquises to
match him.'
To this Barnes and Grossby, not insensible to the merits of the recital
they had just given ear to, agreed. And with a common voice of praise in
the mouths of his creditors, the dead man's requiem was sounded.
CHAPTER II
THE HERITAGE OF THE SON
Toward evening, a carriage drove up to the door of the muted house, and
the card of Lady Racial, bearing a hurried line in pencil, was handed to
the widow.
It was when you looked upon her that you began to comprehend how great
was the personal splendour of the husband who could eclipse such a woman.
Mrs. Harrington was a tall and a stately dame. Dressed in the high
waists of the matrons of that period, with a light shawl drawn close over
her shoulders and bosom, she carried her head well; and her pale firm
features, with the cast of immediate affliction on them, had much
dignity: dignity of an unrelenting physical order, which need not express
any remarkable pride of spirit. The family gossips who, on both sides,
were vain of this rare couple, and would always descant on their beauty,
even when they had occasion to slander their characters, said, to
distinguish them, that Henrietta Maria had a Port, and Melchisedec a
Presence: and that the union of a Port and a Presence, and such a Port
and such a Presence, was so uncommon, that you might search England
through and you would not find another, not even in the highest ranks of
society. There lies some subtle distinction here; due to the minute
perceptions which compel the gossips of a family to coin phrases that
shall express the nicest shades of a domestic difference. By a Port, one
may understand them to indicate something unsympathetically impressive;
whereas a Presence would seem to be a thing that directs the most affable
appeal to our poor human weaknesses. His Majesty King George IV., for
instance, possessed a Port: Beau Brummel wielded a Presence. Many, it is
true, take a Presence to mean no more than a shirt-frill, and interpret a
Port as the art of walking erect. But this is to look upon language too
narrowly.
On a more intimate acquaintance with the couple, you acknowledge the,
aptness of the fine distinction. By birth Mrs. Harrington had claims to
rank as a gentlewoman. That is, her father was a lawyer of Lymport. The
lawyer, however, since we must descend the genealogical tree, was known
to have married his cook, who was the lady's mother. Now Mr. Melchisedec
was mysterious concerning his origin; and, in his cups, talked largely
and wisely of a great Welsh family, issuing from a line of princes; and
it is certain that he knew enough of their history to have instructed
them on particular points of it. He never could think that his wife had
done him any honour in espousing him; nor was she the woman to tell him
so. She had married him for love, rejecting various suitors, Squire
Uplift among them, in his favour. Subsequently she had committed the
profound connubial error of transferring her affections, or her thoughts,
from him to his business, which, indeed, was much in want of a mate; and
while he squandered the guineas, she patiently picked up the pence. They
had not lived unhappily. He was constantly courteous to her. But to see
the Port at that sordid work considerably ruffled the Presence--put, as
it were, the peculiar division between them; and to behave toward her as
the same woman who had attracted his youthful ardours was a task for his
magnificent mind, and may have ranked with him as an indemnity for his
general conduct, if his reflections ever stretched so far. The
townspeople of Lymport were correct in saying that his wife, and his wife
alone, had, as they termed it, kept him together. Nevertheless, now that
he was dead, and could no longer be kept together, they entirely forgot
their respect for her, in the outburst of their secret admiration for the
popular man. Such is the constitution of the inhabitants of this dear
Island of Britain, so falsely accused by the Great Napoleon of being a
nation of shopkeepers. Here let any one proclaim himself Above Buttons,
and act on the assumption, his fellows with one accord hoist him on their
heads, and bear him aloft, sweating, and groaning, and cursing, but proud
of him! And if he can contrive, or has any good wife at home to help
him, to die without going to the dogs, they are, one may say, unanimous
in crying out the same eulogistic funeral oration as that commenced by
Kilne, the publican, when he was interrupted by Barnes, the butcher,
'Now, there's a man!--'
Mrs. Harrington was sitting in her parlour with one of her married
nieces, Mrs. Fiske, and on reading Lady Racial's card she gave word for
her to be shown up into the drawing-room. It was customary among Mrs.
Harrington's female relatives, who one and all abused and adored the
great Mel, to attribute his shortcomings pointedly to the ladies; which
was as much as if their jealous generous hearts had said that he was
sinful, but that it was not his fault. Mrs. Fiske caught the card from
her aunt, read the superscription, and exclaimed: 'The idea! At least she
might have had the decency! She never set her foot in the house before--
and right enough too! What can she want now? I decidedly would refuse
to see her, aunt!'
The widow's reply was simply, 'Don't be a fool, Ann!'
Rising, she said: 'Here, take poor Jacko, and comfort him till I come
back.'
Jacko was a middle-sized South American monkey, and had been a pet of her
husband's. He was supposed to be mourning now with the rest of the
family. Mrs. Fiske received him on a shrinking lap, and had found time
to correct one of his indiscretions before she could sigh and say, in the
rear of her aunt's retreating figure, 'I certainly never would let
myself, down so'; but Mrs. Harrington took her own counsel, and Jacko was
of her persuasion, for he quickly released himself from Mrs. Fiske's
dispassionate embrace, and was slinging his body up the balusters after
his mistress.
'Mrs. Harrington,' said Lady Racial, very sweetly swimming to meet her as
she entered the room, 'I have intruded upon you, I fear, in venturing to
call upon you at such a time?'
The widow bowed to her, and begged her to be seated.
Lady Racial was an exquisitely silken dame, in whose face a winning smile
was cut, and she was still sufficiently youthful not to be accused of
wearing a flower too artificial.
'It was so sudden! so sad!' she continued. 'We esteemed him so much.
I thought you might be in need of sympathy, and hoped I might--Dear Mrs.
Harrington! can you bear to speak of it?'
'I can tell you anything you wish to hear, my lady,' the widow replied.
Lady Racial had expected to meet a woman much more like what she
conceived a tradesman's wife would be: and the grave reception of her
proffer of sympathy slightly confused her. She said:
'I should not have come, at least not so early, but Sir Jackson, my
husband, thought, and indeed I imagined--You have a son, Mrs. Harrington?
I think his name is--'
'Evan, my lady.'
'Evan. It was of him we have been speaking. I imagined that is, we
thought, Sir Jackson might--you will be writing to him, and will let him
know we will use our best efforts to assist him in obtaining some
position worthy of his--superior to--something that will secure him from
the harassing embarrassments of an uncongenial employment.'
The widow listened to this tender allusion to the shears without a smile
of gratitude. She replied: 'I hope my son will return in time to bury
his father, and he will thank you himself, my lady.'
'He has no taste for--a--for anything in the shape of trade, has he, Mrs.
Harrington?'
'I am afraid not, my lady.'
'Any position--a situation--that of a clerk even--would be so much better
for him!'
The widow remained impassive.
'And many young gentlemen I know, who are clerks, and are enabled to live
comfortably, and make a modest appearance in society; and your son, Mrs.
Harrington, he would find it surely an improvement upon--many would think
it a step for him.'
'I am bound to thank you for the interest you take in my son, my lady.'
'Does it not quite suit your views, Mrs. Harrington?' Lady Racial was
surprised at the widow's manner.
'If my son had only to think of himself, my lady.'
'Oh! but of course,'--the lady understood her now--'of course! You
cannot suppose, Mrs. Harrington, but that I should anticipate he would
have you to live with him, and behave to you in every way as a dutiful
son, surely?
'A clerk's income is not very large, my lady.'
'No; but enough, as I have said, and with the management you would bring,
Mrs. Harrington, to produce a modest, respectable maintenance. My
respect for your husband, Mrs. Harrington, makes me anxious to press my
services upon you.' Lady Racial could not avoid feeling hurt at the
widow's want of common gratitude.
'A clerk's income would not be more than L100 a year, my lady.'
'To begin with--no; certainly not more.' The lady was growing brief.
'If my son puts by the half of that yearly, he can hardly support himself
and his mother, my lady.'
'Half of that yearly, Mrs. Harrington?'
'He would have to do so, and be saddled till he dies, my lady.'
'I really cannot see why.'
Lady Racial had a notion of some excessive niggardly thrift in the widow,
which was arousing symptoms of disgust.
Mrs. Harrington quietly said: 'There are his father's debts to pay, my
lady.'
'His father's debts!'
'Under L5000, but above L4000, my lady.'
'Five thousand pounds! Mrs. Harrington!' The lady's delicately gloved
hand gently rose and fell. 'And this poor young man--'she pursued.
'My son will have to pay it, my lady.'
For a moment the lady had not a word to instance. Presently she
remarked: 'But, Mrs. Harrington, he is surely under no legal obligation?'
'He is only under the obligation not to cast disrespect on his father's
memory, my lady; and to be honest, while he can.'
'But, Mrs. Harrington! surely! what can the poor young man do?'
'He will pay it, my lady.'
'But how, Mrs. Harrington?'
'There is his father's business, my lady.'
His father's business! Then must the young man become a tradesman in
order to show respect for his father? Preposterous! That was the lady's
natural inward exclamation. She said, rather shrewdly, for one who knew
nothing of such things: 'But a business which produces debts so enormous,
Mrs. Harrington!'
The widow replied: 'My son will have to conduct it in a different way.
It would be a very good business, conducted properly, my lady.'
'But if he has no taste for it, Mrs. Harrington? If he is altogether
superior to it?'
For the first time during the interview, the widow's inflexible
countenance was mildly moved, though not to any mild expression.
'My son will have not to consult his tastes,' she observed: and seeing
the lady, after a short silence, quit her seat, she rose likewise, and
touched the fingers of the hand held forth to her, bowing.
'You will pardon the interest I take in your son,' said Lady Racial.
'I hope, indeed, that his relatives and friends will procure him the
means of satisfying the demands made upon him.'
'He would still have to pay them, my lady,' was the widow's answer.
'Poor young man! indeed I pity him!' sighed her visitor. 'You have
hitherto used no efforts to persuade him to take such a step,--Mrs.
Harrington?'
'I have written to Mr. Goren, who was my husband's fellow-apprentice in
London, my lady; and he is willing to instruct him in cutting, and
measuring, and keeping accounts.'
Certain words in this speech were obnoxious to the fine ear of Lady
Racial, and she relinquished the subject.
'Your husband, Mrs. Harrington--I should so much have wished!--he did not
pass away in--in pain!'
'He died very calmly, my lady.'
'It is so terrible, so disfiguring, sometimes. One dreads to see!--one
can hardly distinguish! I have known cases where death was dreadful!
But a peaceful death is very beautiful! There is nothing shocking to
the mind. It suggests heaven! It seems a fulfilment of our prayers!'
'Would your ladyship like to look upon him?' said the widow.
Lady Racial betrayed a sudden gleam at having her desire thus intuitively
fathomed.
'For one moment, Mrs. Harrington! We esteemed him so much! May I?'
The widow responded by opening the door, and leading her into the chamber
where the dead man lay.
At that period, when threats of invasion had formerly stirred up the
military fire of us Islanders, the great Mel, as if to show the great
Napoleon what character of being a British shopkeeper really was, had,
by remarkable favour, obtained a lieutenancy of militia dragoons: in the
uniform of which he had revelled, and perhaps, for the only time in his
life, felt that circumstances had suited him with a perfect fit. However
that may be, his solemn final commands to his wife, Henrietta Maria, on
whom he could count for absolute obedience in such matters, had been,
that as soon as the breath had left his body, he should be taken from his
bed, washed, perfumed, powdered, and in that uniform dressed and laid
out; with directions that he should be so buried at the expiration of
three days, that havoc in his features might be hidden from men. In this
array Lady Racial beheld him. The curtains of the bed were drawn aside.
The beams of evening fell soft through the blinds of the room, and cast a
subdued light on the figure of the vanquished warrior. The Presence,
dumb now for evermore, was sadly illumined for its last exhibition. But
one who looked closely might have seen that Time had somewhat spoiled
that perfect fit which had aforetime been his pride; and now that the
lofty spirit had departed, there had been extreme difficulty in
persuading the sullen excess of clay to conform to the dimensions of
those garments. The upper part of the chest alone would bear its
buttons, and across one portion of the lower limbs an ancient seam had
started; recalling an incident to them who had known him in his brief
hour of glory. For one night, as he was riding home from Fallow field,
and just entering the gates of the town, a mounted trooper spurred
furiously past, and slashing out at him, gashed his thigh. Mrs.
Melchisedec found him lying at his door in a not unwonted way; carried
him up-stairs in her arms, as she had done many a time before, and did
not perceive his condition till she saw the blood on her gown. The
cowardly assailant was never discovered; but Mel was both gallant and
had, in his military career, the reputation of being a martinet. Hence,
divers causes were suspected. The wound failed not to mend, the trousers
were repaired: Peace about the same time was made, and the affair passed
over.
Looking on the fine head and face, Lady Racial saw nothing of this. She
had not looked long before she found covert employment for her
handkerchief. The widow standing beside her did not weep, or reply to
her whispered excuses at emotion; gazing down on his mortal length with a
sort of benignant friendliness; aloof, as one whose duties to that form
of flesh were well-nigh done. At the feet of his master, Jacko, the
monkey, had jumped up, and was there squatted, with his legs crossed,
very like a tailor! The imitative wretch had got a towel, and as often
as Lady Racial's handkerchief travelled to her eyes, Jacko's peery face
was hidden, and you saw his lithe skinny body doing grief's convulsions
till, tired of this amusement, he obtained possession of the warrior's
helmet, from a small round table on one side of the bed; a calque of the
barbarous military-Georgian form, with a huge knob of horse-hair
projecting over the peak; and under this, trying to adapt it to his
rogue's head, the tricksy image of Death extinguished himself.
All was very silent in the room. Then the widow quietly disengaged
Jacko, and taking him up, went to the door, and deposited him outside.
During her momentary absence, Lady Racial had time to touch the dead
man's forehead with her lips, unseen.
CHAPTER III
THE DAUGHTERS OF THE SHEARS
Three daughters and a son were left to the world by Mr. Melchisedec.
Love, well endowed, had already claimed to provide for the daughters:
first in the shape of a lean Marine subaltern, whose days of obscuration
had now passed, and who had come to be a major of that corps: secondly,
presenting his addresses as a brewer of distinction: thirdly, and for a
climax, as a Portuguese Count: no other than the Senor Silva Diaz, Conde
de Saldar: and this match did seem a far more resplendent one than that
of the two elder sisters with Major Strike and Mr. Andrew Cogglesby. But
the rays of neither fell visibly on Lymport. These escaped Eurydices
never reappeared, after being once fairly caught away from the gloomy
realms of Dis, otherwise Trade. All three persons of singular beauty, a
certain refinement, some Port, and some Presence, hereditarily combined,
they feared the clutch of that fell king, and performed the widest
possible circles around him. Not one of them ever approached the house
of her parents. They were dutiful and loving children, and wrote
frequently; but of course they had to consider their new position, and
their husbands, and their husbands' families, and the world, and what it
would say, if to it the dreaded rumour should penetrate! Lymport
gossips, as numerous as in other parts, declared that the foreign
nobleman would rave in an extraordinary manner, and do things after the
outlandish fashion of his country: for from him, there was no doubt, the
shop had been most successfully veiled, and he knew not of Pluto's close
relationship to his lovely spouse.
The marriages had happened in this way. Balls are given in country
towns, where the graces of tradesmen's daughters may be witnessed and
admired at leisure by other than tradesmen: by occasional country
gentlemen of the neighbourhood, with light minds: and also by small
officers: subalterns wishing to do tender execution upon man's fair
enemy, and to find a distraction for their legs. The classes of our
social fabric have, here and there, slight connecting links, and
provincial public balls are one of these. They are dangerous, for Cupid
is no respecter of class-prejudice; and if you are the son of a retired
tea-merchant, or of a village doctor, or of a half-pay captain, or of
anything superior, and visit one of them, you are as likely to receive
his shot as any shopboy. Even masquerading lords at such places, have
been known to be slain outright; and although Society allows to its
highest and dearest to save the honour of their families, and heal their
anguish, by indecorous compromise, you, if you are a trifle below that
mark, must not expect it. You must absolutely give yourself for what you
hope to get. Dreadful as it sounds to philosophic ears, you must marry.
This, having danced with Caroline Harrington, the gallant Lieutenant
Strike determined to do. Nor, when he became aware of her father's
occupation, did he shrink from his resolve. After a month's hard
courtship, he married her straight out of her father's house. That he
may have all the credit due to him, it must be admitted that he did not
once compare, or possibly permit himself to reflect on, the dissimilarity
in their respective ranks, and the step he had taken downward, till they
were man and wife: and then not in any great degree, before Fortune had
given him his majority; an advance the good soldier frankly told his wife
he did not owe to her. If we may be permitted to suppose the colonel of
a regiment on friendly terms with one of his corporals, we have an
estimate of the domestic life of Major and Mrs. Strike. Among the
garrison males, his comrades, he passed for a disgustingly jealous brute.
The ladies, in their pretty language, signalized him as a 'finick.'
Now, having achieved so capital a marriage, Caroline, worthy creature,
was anxious that her sisters should not be less happy, and would have
them to visit her, in spite of her husband's protests.
'There can be no danger,' she said, for she was in fresh quarters, far
from the nest of contagion. The lieutenant himself ungrudgingly declared
that, looking on the ladies, no one for an instant could suspect; and he
saw many young fellows ready to be as great fools as he had been another
voluntary confession he made to his wife; for the candour of which she
thanked him, and pointed out that it seemed to run in the family;
inasmuch as Mr. Andrew Cogglesby, his rich relative, had seen and had
proposed for Harriet. The lieutenant flatly said he would never allow
it. In fact he had hitherto concealed the non-presentable portion of his
folly very satisfactorily from all save the mess-room, and Mr. Andrew's
passion was a severe dilemma to him. It need scarcely be told that his
wife, fortified by the fervid brewer, defeated him utterly. What was
more, she induced him to be an accomplice in deception. For though the
lieutenant protested that he washed his hands of it, and that it was a
fraud and a snare, he certainly did not avow the condition of his wife's
parents to Mr. Andrew, but alluded to them in passing as 'the country
people.' He supposed 'the country people' must be asked, he said. The
brewer offered to go down to them. But the lieutenant drew an unpleasant
picture of the country people, and his wife became so grave at the
proposal, that Mr. Andrew said he wanted to marry the lady and not the
'country people,' and if she would have him, there he was. There he was,
behaving with a particular and sagacious kindness to the raw lieutenant
since Harriet's arrival. If the lieutenant sent her away, Mr. Andrew
would infallibly pursue her, and light on a discovery. Twice cursed by
Love, twice the victim of tailordom, our excellent Marine gave away
Harriet Harrington in marriage to Mr. Andrew Cogglesby.
Thus Joy clapped hands a second time, and Horror deepened its shadows.
From higher ground it was natural that the remaining sister should take a
bolder flight. Of the loves of the fair Louisa Harrington and the
foreign Count, and how she first encountered him in the brewer's saloons,
and how she, being a humorous person, laughed at his 'loaf' for her, and
wore the colours that pleased him, and kindled and soothed his jealousy,
little is known beyond the fact that she espoused the Count, under the
auspices of the affluent brewer, and engaged that her children should be
brought up in the faith of the Catholic Church: which Lymport gossips
called, paying the Devil for her pride.
The three sisters, gloriously rescued by their own charms, had now to
think of their one young brother. How to make him a gentleman! That was
their problem.
Preserve him from tailordom--from all contact with trade--they must;
otherwise they would be perpetually linked to the horrid thing they hoped
to outlive and bury. A cousin of Mr. Melchisedec's had risen to be an
Admiral and a knight for valiant action in the old war, when men could
rise. Him they besought to take charge of the youth, and make a
distinguished seaman of him. He courteously declined. They then
attacked the married Marine--Navy or Army being quite indifferent to them
as long as they could win for their brother the badge of one Service,
'When he is a gentleman at once!' they said, like those who see the end
of their labours. Strike basely pretended to second them. It would have
been delightful to him, of course, to have the tailor's son messing at
the same table, and claiming him when he pleased with a familiar 'Ah,
brother!' and prating of their relationship everywhere. Strike had been
a fool: in revenge for it he laid out for himself a masterly career of
consequent wisdom. The brewer--uxorious Andrew Cogglesby--might and
would have bought the commission. Strike laughed at the idea of giving
money for what could be got for nothing. He told them to wait.
In the meantime Evan, a lad of seventeen, spent the hours not devoted to
his positive profession--that of gentleman--in the offices of the
brewery, toying with big books and balances, which he despised with the
combined zeal of the sucking soldier and emancipated tailor.
Two years passed in attendance on the astute brother-in-law, to whom
Fortune now beckoned to come to her and gather his laurels from the pig-
tails. About the same time the Countess sailed over from Lisbon on a
visit to her sister Harriet (in reality, it was whispered in the
Cogglesby saloons, on a diplomatic mission from the Court of Lisbon; but
that could not be made ostensible). The Countess narrowly examined Evan,
whose steady advance in his profession both her sisters praised.
'Yes,' said the Countess, in a languid alien accent. 'He has something
of his father's carriage--something. Something of his delivery--his
readiness.'
It was a remarkable thing that these ladies thought no man on earth like
their father, and always cited him as the example of a perfect gentleman,
and yet they buried him with one mind, and each mounted guard over his
sepulchre, to secure his ghost from an airing.
'He can walk, my dears, certainly, and talk--a little. Tete-a-tete, I do
not say. I should think there he would be--a stick! All you English
are. But what sort of a bow has he got, I ask you? How does he enter a
room? And, then his smile! his laugh! He laughs like a horse--
absolutely! There's no music in his smile. Oh! you should see a
Portuguese nobleman smile. O mio Deus! honeyed, my dears! But Evan has
it not. None of you English have. You go so.'
The Countess pressed a thumb and finger to the sides of her mouth, and
set her sisters laughing.
'I assure you, no better! not a bit! I faint in your society. I ask
myself--Where am I? Among what boors have I fallen? But Evan is no
worse than the rest of you; I acknowledge that. If he knew how to dress
his shoulders properly, and to direct his eyes--Oh! the eyes! you
should see how a Portuguese nobleman can use his eyes! Soul! my dears,
soul! Can any of you look the unutterable without being absurd! You
look so.'
And the Countess hung her jaw under heavily vacuous orbits, something as
a sheep might yawn.
'But I acknowledge that Evan is no worse than the rest of you,' she
repeated. 'If he understood at all the management of his eyes and mouth!
But that's what he cannot possibly learn in England--not possibly! As
for your poor husband, Harriet! one really has to remember his excellent
qualities to forgive him, poor man! And that stiff bandbox of a man of
yours, Caroline!' addressing the wife of the Marine, 'he looks as if he
were all angles and sections, and were taken to pieces every night and
put together in the morning. He may be a good soldier--good anything you
will--but, Diacho! to be married to that! He is not civilized. None of
you English are. You have no place in the drawing-room. You are like so
many intrusive oxen--absolutely! One of your men trod on my toe the
other night, and what do you think the creature did? Jerks back, then
the half of him forward--I thought he was going to break in two--then
grins, and grunts, "Oh! 'm sure, beg pardon, 'm sure!" I don't know
whether he didn't say, MARM!'
The Countess lifted her hands, and fell away in laughing horror. When
her humour, or her feelings generally, were a little excited, she spoke
her vernacular as her sisters did, but immediately subsided into the
deliberate delicately-syllabled drawl.
'Now that happened to me once at one of our great Balls,' she pursued.
'I had on one side of me the Duchesse Eugenia de Formosa de Fontandigua;
on the other sat the Countess de Pel, a widow. And we were talking of
the ices that evening. Eugenia, you must know, my dears, was in love
with the Count Belmarana. I was her sole confidante. The Countess de
Pel--a horrible creature! Oh! she was the Duchess's determined enemy-
would have stabbed her for Belmarana, one of the most beautiful men!
Adored by every woman! So we talked ices, Eugenic and myself, quite
comfortably, and that horrible De Pel had no idea in life! Eugenia had
just said, "This ice sickens me! I do not taste the flavour of the
vanille." I answered, "It is here! It must--it cannot but be here!
You love the flavour of the vanille?" With her exquisite smile, I see
her now saying, "Too well! it is necessary to me! I live on it!"--when
up he came. In his eagerness, his foot just effleured my robe. Oh!
I never shall forget! In an instant he was down on one knee it was so
momentary that none saw it but we three, and done with ineffable grace.
"Pardon!" he said, in his sweet Portuguese; "Pardon!" looking up--the
handsomest man I ever beheld; and when I think of that odious wretch the
other night, with his "Oh! 'm sure, beg pardon, 'm sure! 'pon my honour!"
I could have kicked him--I could, indeed!'
Here the Countess laughed out, but relapsed into:
'Alas! that Belmarana should have betrayed that beautiful trusting
creature to De Pel. Such scandal! a duel!--the Duke was wounded. For a
whole year Eugenia did not dare to appear at Court, but had to remain
immured in her country-house, where she heard that Belmarana had married
De Pel! It was for her money, of course. Rich as Croesus, and as wicked
as the black man below! as dear papa used to say. By the way, weren't
we talking of Evan? Ah,--yes!'
And so forth. The Countess was immensely admired, and though her sisters
said that she was 'foreignized' overmuch, they clung to her desperately.
She seemed so entirely to have eclipsed tailordom, or 'Demogorgon,' as
the Countess was pleased to call it. Who could suppose this grand-
mannered lady, with her coroneted anecdotes and delicious breeding, the
daughter of that thing? It was not possible to suppose it. It seemed to
defy the fact itself.
They congratulated her on her complete escape from Demogorgon. The
Countess smiled on them with a lovely sorrow.
'Safe from the whisper, my dears; the ceaseless dread? If you knew what
I have to endure! I sometimes envy you. 'Pon my honour, I sometimes
wish I had married a fishmonger! Silva, indeed, is a most excellent
husband. Polished! such polish as you know not of in England. He has a
way--a wriggle with his shoulders in company--I cannot describe it to
you; so slight! so elegant! and he is all that a woman could desire.
But who could be safe in any part of the earth, my dears, while papa
will go about so, and behave so extraordinarily? I was at dinner at your
English embassy a month ago, and there was Admiral Combleman, then on the
station off Lisbon, Sir Jackson Racial's friend, who was the Admiral at
Lymport formerly. I knew him at once, and thought, oh! what shall I do!
My heart was like a lump of lead. I would have given worlds that we
might one of us have smothered the other! I had to sit beside him--
it always happens! Thank heaven! he did not identify me. And then
he told an anecdote of Papa. It was the dreadful old "Bath" story.
I thought I should have died. I could not but fancy the Admiral
suspected. Was it not natural? And what do you think I had the audacity
to do? I asked him coolly, whether the Mr. Harrington he mentioned was
not the son of Sir Abraham Harrington, of Torquay,--the gentleman who
lost his yacht in the Lisbon waters last year? I brought it on myself.
"Gentleman, ma'am,--MA'AM!" says the horrid old creature, laughing,"
gentleman! he's a--" I cannot speak it: I choke! And then he began
praising Papa. Diacho! what I suffered. But, you know, I can keep my
countenance, if I perish. I am a Harrington as much as any of us!'
And the Countess looked superb in the pride with which she said she was
what she would have given her hand not to be. But few feelings are
single on this globe, and junction of sentiments need not imply unity in
our yeasty compositions.
'After it was over--my supplice,' continued the Countess, 'I was
questioned by all the ladies--I mean our ladies--not your English. They
wanted to know how I could be so civil to that intolerable man. I gained
a deal of credit, my dears. I laid it all on--Diplomacy.' The Countess
laughed bitterly. 'Diplomacy bears the burden of it all. I pretended
that Combleman could be useful to Silva! Oh! what hypocrites we all are,
mio Deus!'
The ladies listening could not gainsay this favourite claim of universal
brotherhood among the select who wear masks instead of faces.
With regard to Evan, the Countess had far outstripped her sisters in her
views. A gentleman she had discovered must have one of two things--
a title or money. He might have all the breeding in the world; he might
be as good as an angel; but without a title or money he was under eclipse
almost total. On a gentleman the sun must shine. Now, Evan had no
title, no money. The clouds were thick above the youth. To gain a title
he would have to scale aged mountains. There was one break in his
firmament through which the radiant luminary might be assisted to cast
its beams on him still young. That divine portal was matrimony. If he
could but make a rich marriage he would blaze transfigured; all would be
well! And why should not Evan marry an heiress, as well as another?
'I know a young creature who would exactly suit him,' said the Countess.
'She is related to the embassy, and is in Lisbon now. A charming child--
just sixteen! Dios! how the men rave about her! and she isn't a
beauty,--there's the wonder; and she is a little too gauche too English
in her habits and ways of thinking; likes to be admired, of course, but
doesn't know yet how to set about getting it. She rather scandalizes our
ladies, but when you know her!--She will have, they say, a hundred
'thousand pounds in her own right! Rose Jocelyn, the daughter of Sir
Franks, and that eccentric Lady Jocelyn. She is with her uncle,
Melville, the celebrated diplomate though, to tell you the truth,
we turn him round our fingers, and spin him as the boys used to do the
cockchafers. I cannot forget our old Fallow field school-life, you see,
my dears. Well, Rose Jocelyn would just suit Evan. She is just of an
age to receive an impression. And I would take care she did. Instance
me a case where I have failed?
'Or there is the Portuguese widow, the Rostral. She's thirty, certainly;
but she possesses millions! Estates all over the kingdom, and the
sweetest creature. But, no. Evan would be out of the way there,
certainly. But--our women are very nice: they have the dearest,
sweetest ways: but I would rather Evan did not marry one of them.
And then there 's the religion!'
This was a sore of the Countess's own, and she dropped a tear in coming
across it.
'No, my dears, it shall be Rose Jocelyn!' she concluded: 'I will take
Evan over with me, and see that he has opportunities. It shall be Rose,
and then I can call her mine; for in verity I love the child.'
It is not my part to dispute the Countess's love for Miss Jocelyn;
and I have only to add that Evan, unaware of the soft training he was
to undergo, and the brilliant chance in store for him, offered no
impediment to the proposition that he should journey to Portugal with his
sister (whose subtlest flattery was to tell him that she should not be
ashamed to own him there); and ultimately, furnished with cash for the
trip by the remonstrating brewer, went.
So these Parcae, daughters of the shears, arranged and settled the young
man's fate. His task was to learn the management of his mouth, how to
dress his shoulders properly, and to direct his eyes--rare qualities in
man or woman, I assure you; the management of the mouth being especially
admirable, and correspondingly difficult. These achieved, he was to
place his battery in position, and win the heart and hand of an heiress.
Our comedy opens with his return from Portugal, in company with Miss
Rose, the heiress; the Honourable Melville Jocelyn, the diplomate; and
the Count and Countess de Saldar, refugees out of that explosive little
kingdom.
CHAPTER IV
ON BOARD THE JOCASTA
From the Tagus to the Thames the Government sloop-of-war, Jocasta,
had made a prosperous voyage, bearing that precious freight, a removed
diplomatist and his family; for whose uses let a sufficient vindication
be found in the exercise he affords our crews in the science of
seamanship. She entered our noble river somewhat early on a fine July
morning. Early as it was, two young people, who had nothing to do with
the trimming or guiding of the vessel, stood on deck, and watched the
double-shore, beginning to embrace them more and more closely as they
sailed onward. One, a young lady, very young in manner, wore a black
felt hat with a floating scarlet feather, and was clad about the
shoulders in a mantle of foreign style and pattern. The other you might
have taken for a wandering Don, were such an object ever known; so simply
he assumed the dusky sombrero and dangling cloak, of which one fold was
flung across his breast and drooped behind him. The line of an
adolescent dark moustache ran along his lip, and only at intervals could
you see that his eyes were blue and of the land he was nearing. For the
youth was meditative, and held his head much down. The young lady, on
the contrary, permitted an open inspection of her countenance, and
seemed, for the moment at least, to be neither caring nor thinking of
what kind of judgement would be passed on her. Her pretty nose was up,
sniffing the still salt breeze with vivacious delight.
'Oh!' she cried, clapping her hands, 'there goes a dear old English gull!
How I have wished to see him! I haven't seen one for two years and seven
months. When I 'm at home, I 'll leave my window open all night, just to
hear the rooks, when they wake in the morning. There goes another!'
She tossed up her nose again, exclaiming:
'I 'm sure I smell England nearer and nearer! I smell the fields, and
the cows in them. I'd have given anything to be a dairy-maid for half an
hour! I used to lie and pant in that stifling air among those stupid
people, and wonder why anybody ever left England. Aren't you glad to
come back?'
This time the fair speaker lent her eyes to the question, and shut her
lips; sweet, cold, chaste lips she had: a mouth that had not yet dreamed
of kisses, and most honest eyes.
The young man felt that they were not to be satisfied by his own, and
after seeking to fill them with a doleful look, which was immediately
succeeded by one of superhuman indifference, he answered:
'Yes! We shall soon have to part!' and commenced tapping with his foot
the cheerful martyr's march.
Speech that has to be hauled from the depths usually betrays the effort.
Listening an instant to catch the import of this cavernous gasp upon the
brink of sound, the girl said:
'Part? what do you mean?'
Apparently it required a yet vaster effort to pronounce an explanation.
The doleful look, the superhuman indifference, were repeated in due
order: sound, a little more distinct, uttered the words:
'We cannot be as we have been, in England!' and then the cheerful martyr
took a few steps farther.
'Why, you don't mean to say you're going to give me up, and not be
friends with me, because we've come back to England?' cried the girl
in a rapid breath, eyeing him seriously.
Most conscientiously he did not mean it! but he replied with the quietest
negative.
'No?' she mimicked him. 'Why do you say "No" like that? Why are you so
mysterious, Evan? Won't you promise me to come and stop with us for
weeks? Haven't you said we would ride, and hunt, and fish together,
and read books, and do all sorts of things?'
He replied with the quietest affirmative.
'Yes? What does "Yes!" mean?' She lifted her chest to shake out the
dead-alive monosyllable, as he had done. 'Why are you so singular this
morning, Evan? Have I offended you? You are so touchy!'
The slur on his reputation for sensitiveness induced the young man to
attempt being more explicit.
'I mean,' he said, hesitating; 'why, we must part. We shall not see each
other every day. Nothing more than that.' And away went the cheerful
martyr in sublimest mood.
'Oh! and that makes you, sorry?' A shade of archness was in her voice.
The girl waited as if to collect something in her mind, and was now a
patronizing woman.
'Why, you dear sentimental boy! You don't suppose we could see each
other every day for ever?'
It was perhaps the cruelest question that could have been addressed to
the sentimental boy from her mouth. But he was a cheerful martyr!
'You dear Don Doloroso!' she resumed. 'I declare if you are not just
like those young Portugals this morning; and over there you were such a
dear English fellow; and that's why I liked you so much! Do change!
Do, please, be lively, and yourself again. Or mind; I'll call you Don
Doloroso, and that shall be your name in England. See there!--that's--
that's? what's the name of that place? Hoy! Mr. Skerne!' She hailed the
boatswain, passing, 'Do tell me the name of that place.'
Mr. Skerne righted about to satisfy her minutely, and then coming up to
Evan, he touched his hat, and said:
'I mayn't have another opportunity--we shall be busy up there--of
thankin' you again, sir, for what you did for my poor drunken brother
Bill, and you may take my word I won't forget it, sir, if he does; and
I suppose he'll be drowning his memory just as he was near drowning
himself.'
Evan muttered something, grimaced civilly, and turned away. The girl's
observant brows were moved to a faintly critical frown, and nodding
intelligently to the boatswain's remark, that the young gentleman did not
seem quite himself, now that he was nearing home, she went up to Evan,
and said:
'I'm going to give you a lesson in manners, to be quits with you.
Listen, sir. Why did you turn away so ungraciously from Mr. Skerne,
while he was thanking you for having saved his brother's life? Now
there's where you're too English. Can't you bear to be thanked?'
'I don't want to be thanked because I can swim,' said Evan.
'But it is not that. Oh, how you trifle!' she cried. 'There's nothing
vexes me so much as that way you have. Wouldn't my eyes have sparkled if
anybody had come up to me to thank me for such a thing? I would let them
know how glad I was to have done such a thing! Doesn't it make them
happier, dear Evan?'
'My dear Miss Jocelyn!'
'What?'
The honest grey eyes fixed on him, narrowed their enlarged lids. She
gazed before her on the deck, saying:
'I'm sure I can't understand you. I suppose it's because I'm a girl, and
I never shall till I'm a woman. Heigho!'
A youth who is engaged in the occupation of eating his heart, cannot
shine to advantage, and is as much a burden to himself as he is an enigma
to others. Evan felt this; but he could do nothing and say nothing; so
he retired deeper into the folds of the Don, and remained picturesque and
scarcely pleasant.
They were relieved by a summons to breakfast from below.
She brightened and laughed. 'Now, what will you wager me, Evan, that the
Countess doesn't begin:
"Sweet child! how does she this morning? blooming?" when she kisses
me?'
Her capital imitation of his sister's manner constrained him to join in
her laugh, and he said:
'I'll back against that, I get three fingers from your uncle, and
"Morrow, young sir!"'
Down they ran together, laughing; and, sure enough, the identical words
of the respective greetings were employed, which they had to enjoy with
all the discretion they could muster.
Rose went round the table to her little cousin Alec, aged seven, kissed
his reluctant cheek, and sat beside him, announcing a sea appetite and
great capabilities, while Evan silently broke bread. The Count de
Saldar, a diminutive tawny man, just a head and neck above the
tablecloth, sat sipping chocolate and fingering dry toast, which he would
now and then dip in jelly, and suck with placidity, in the intervals of a
curt exchange of French with the wife of the Hon. Melville, a ringleted
English lady, or of Portuguese with the Countess; who likewise sipped
chocolate and fingered dry toast, and was mournfully melodious. The Hon.
Melville, as became a tall islander, carved beef, and ate of it, like a
ruler of men. Beautiful to see was the compassionate sympathy of the
Countess's face when Rose offered her plate for a portion of the world-
subjugating viand, as who should say: 'Sweet child! thou knowest not yet
of sorrows, thou canst ballast thy stomach with beef!' In any other than
an heiress, she would probably have thought: 'This is indeed a disgusting
little animal, and most unfeminine conduct!'
Rose, unconscious of praise or blame, rivalled her uncle in enjoyment of
the fare, and talked of her delight in seeing England again, and anything
that belonged to her native land. Mrs. Melville perceived that it pained
the refugee Countess, and gave her the glance intelligible; but the
Countess never missed glances, or failed to interpret them. She said:
'Let her. I love to hear the sweet child's prattle.'
'It was fortunate' (she addressed the diplomatist) 'that we touched at
Southampton and procured fresh provision!'
'Very lucky for US!' said he, glaring shrewdly between a mouthful.
The Count heard the word 'Southampton,' and wished to know how it was
comprised. A passage of Portuguese ensued, and then the Countess said:
'Silva, you know, desired to relinquish the vessel at Southampton. He
does not comprehend the word "expense," but' (she shook a dumb Alas!)
'I must think of that for him now!'
'Oh! always avoid expense,' said the Hon. Melville, accustomed to be
paid for by his country.
'At what time shall we arrive, may I ask, do you think?' the Countess
gently inquired.
The watch of a man who had his eye on Time was pulled out, and she was
told it might be two hours before dark. Another reckoning, keenly
balanced, informed the company that the day's papers could be expected on
board somewhere about three o'clock in the afternoon.
'And then,' said the Hon. Melville, nodding general gratulation, 'we
shall know how the world wags.'
How it had been wagging the Countess's straining eyes under closed
eyelids were eloquent of.
'Too late, I fear me, to wait upon Lord Livelyston to-night?' she
suggested.
'To-night?' The Hon. Melville gazed blank astonishment at the notion.
'Oh! certainly, too late tonight. A-hum! I think, madam, you had better
not be in too great a hurry to see him. Repose a little. Recover your
fatigue.'
'Oh !' exclaimed the Countess, with a beam of utter confidence in him,
'I shall be too happy to place myself in your hands--believe me.'
This was scarcely more to the taste of the diplomatist. He put up his
mouth, and said, blandly:
'I fear--you know, madam, I must warn you beforehand--I, personally,
am but an insignificant unit over here, you know; I, personally,
can't guarantee much assistance to you--not positive. What I can do--
of course, very happy!' And he fell to again upon the beef.
'Not so very insignificant!' said the Countess, smiling, as at a softly
radiant conception of him.
'Have to bob and bow like the rest of them over here,' he added, proof
against the flattery.
'But that you will not forsake Silva, I am convinced,' said the Countess;
and, paying little heed to his brief 'Oh! what I can do,' continued:
'For over here, in England, we are almost friendless. My relations--such
as are left of them--are not in high place.' She turned to Mrs.
Melville, and renewed the confession with a proud humility. 'Truly, I
have not a distant cousin in the Cabinet!'
Mrs. Melville met her sad smile, and returned it, as one who understood
its entire import.
'My brother-in-law-my sister, I think, you know--married a--a brewer!
He is rich; but, well! such was her taste! My brother-in-law is indeed
in Parliament, and he--'
'Very little use, seeing he votes with the opposite party,' the
diplomatist interrupted her.
'Ah! but he will not,' said the Countess, serenely. 'I can trust with
confidence that, if it is for Silva's interest, he will assuredly so
dispose of his influence as to suit the desiderations of his family, and
not in any way oppose his opinions to the powers that would willingly
stoop to serve us!'
It was impossible for the Hon. Melville to withhold a slight grimace at
his beef, when he heard this extremely alienized idea of the nature of a
member of the Parliament of Great Britain. He allowed her to enjoy her
delusion, as she pursued:
'No. So much we could offer in repayment. It is little! But this, in
verity, is a case. Silva's wrongs have only to be known in England, and
I am most assured that the English people will not permit it. In the
days of his prosperity, Silva was a friend to England, and England should
not--should not--forget it now. Had we money! But of that arm our
enemies have deprived us: and, I fear, without it we cannot hope to have
the justice of our cause pleaded in the English papers. Mr. Redner, you
know, the correspondent in Lisbon, is a sworn foe to Silva. And why but
because I would not procure him an invitation to Court! The man was so
horridly vulgar; his gloves were never clean; I had to hold a bouquet to
my nose when I talked to him. That, you say, was my fault! Truly so.
But what woman can be civil to a low-bred, pretentious, offensive man?'
Mrs. Melville, again appealed to, smiled perfect sympathy, and said, to
account for his character:
'Yes. He is the son of a small shopkeeper of some kind, in Southampton,
I hear.'
'A very good fellow in his way,' said her husband.
'Oh! I can't bear that class of people,' Rose exclaimed. 'I always keep
out of their way. You can always tell them.'
The Countess smiled considerate approbation of her exclusiveness and
discernment. So sweet a smile!
'You were on deck early, my dear?' she asked Evan, rather abruptly.
Master Alec answered for him: 'Yes, he was, and so was Rose. They made
an appointment, just as they used to do under the oranges.'
'Children!' the Countess smiled to Mrs. Melville.
'They always whisper when I'm by,' Alec appended.
'Children!' the Countess's sweetened visage entreated Mrs. Melville to
re-echo; but that lady thought it best for the moment to direct Rose to
look to her packing, now that she had done breakfast.
'And I will take a walk with my brother on deck,' said the Countess.
'Silva is too harassed for converse.'
The parties were thus divided. The silent Count was left to meditate on
his wrongs in the saloon; and the diplomatist, alone with his lady,
thought fit to say to her, shortly: 'Perhaps it would be as well to draw
away from these people a little. We 've done as much as we could for
them, in bringing them over here. They may be trying to compromise us.
That woman's absurd. She 's ashamed of the brewer, and yet she wants to
sell him--or wants us to buy him. Ha! I think she wants us to send a
couple of frigates, and threaten bombardment of the capital, if they
don't take her husband back, and receive him with honours.'
'Perhaps it would be as well,' said Mrs. Melville. 'Rose's invitation to
him goes for nothing.'
'Rose? inviting the Count? down to Hampshire?' The diplomatist's brows
were lifted.
'No, I mean the other,' said the diplomatist's wife.
'Oh! the young fellow! very good young fellow. Gentlemanly. No harm in
him.'
'Perhaps not,' said the diplomatist's wife.
'You don't suppose he expects us to keep him on, or provide for him over
here--eh?'
The diplomatist's wife informed him that such was not her thought, that
he did not understand, and that it did not matter; and as soon as the
Hon. Melville saw that she was brooding something essentially feminine,
and which had no relationship to the great game of public life, curiosity
was extinguished in him.
On deck the Countess paced with Evan, and was for a time pleasantly
diverted by the admiration she could, without looking, perceive that her
sorrow-subdued graces had aroused in the breast of a susceptible naval
lieutenant. At last she spoke:
'My dear! remember this. Your last word to Mr. Jocelyn will be: "I will
do myself the honour to call upon my benefactor early." To Rose you will
say: "Be assured, Miss Jocelyn "Miss Jocelyn--"I shall not fail in
hastening to pay my respects to your family in Hampshire." You will
remember to do it, in the exact form I speak it.'
Evan laughed: 'What! call him benefactor to his face? I couldn't do it.'
'Ah! my child!'
'Besides, he isn't a benefactor at all. His private secretary died, and
I stepped in to fill the post, because nobody else was handy.'
'And tell me of her who pushed you forward, Evan?'
'My dear sister, I'm sure I'm not ungrateful.'
'No; but headstrong: opinionated. Now these people will endeavour--Oh!
I have seen it in a thousand little things--they wish to shake us off.
Now, if you will but do as I indicate! Put your faith in an older head,
Evan. It is your only chance of society in England. For your brother-
in-law--I ask you, what sort of people will you meet at the Cogglesbys?
Now and then a nobleman, very much out of his element. In short, you
have fed upon a diet which will make you to distinguish, and painfully to
know the difference! Indeed! Yes, you are looking about for Rose. It
depends upon your behaviour now, whether you are to see her at all in
England. Do you forget? You wished once to inform her of your origin.
Think of her words at the breakfast this morning!'
The Countess imagined she had produced an impression. Evan said: 'Yes,
and I should have liked to have told her this morning that I'm myself
nothing more than the son of a--'
'Stop! cried his sister, glancing about in horror. The admiring
lieutenant met her eye. Blandishingly she smiled on him: 'Most beautiful
weather for a welcome to dear England?' and passed with majesty.
'Boy!' she resumed, 'are you mad?'
'I hate being such a hypocrite, madam.'
'Then you do not love her, Evan?'
This may have been dubious logic, but it resulted from a clear sequence
of ideas in the lady's head. Evan did not contest it.
'And assuredly you will lose her, Evan. Think of my troubles! I have to
intrigue for Silva; I look to your future; I smile, Oh heaven! how do I
not smile when things are spoken that pierce my heart! This morning at
the breakfast!'
Evan took her hand, and patted it.
'What is your pity?' she sighed.
'If it had not been for you, my dear sister, I should never have held my
tongue.'
'You are not a Harrington! You are a Dawley!' she exclaimed,
indignantly.
Evan received the accusation of possessing more of his mother's spirit
than his father's in silence.
'You would not have held your tongue,' she said, with fervid severity:
'and you would have betrayed yourself! and you would have said you were
that! and you in that costume! Why, goodness gracious! could you bear to
appear so ridiculous?'
The poor young man involuntarily surveyed his person. The pains of an
impostor seized him. The deplorable image of the Don making confession
became present to his mind. It was a clever stroke of this female
intriguer. She saw him redden grievously, and blink his eyes; and not
wishing to probe him so that he would feel intolerable disgust at his
imprisonment in the Don, she continued:
'But you have the sense to see your duties, Evan. You have an excellent
sense, in the main. No one would dream--to see you. You did not, I must
say, you did not make enough of your gallantry. A Portuguese who had
saved a man's life, Evan, would he have been so boorish? You behaved as
if it was a matter of course that you should go overboard after anybody,
in your clothes, on a dark night. So, then, the Jocelyns took it. I
barely heard one compliment to you. And Rose--what an effect it should
have had on her! But, owing to your manner, I do believe the girl thinks
it nothing but your ordinary business to go overboard after anybody, in
your clothes, on a dark night. 'Pon my honour, I believe she expects to
see you always dripping!' The Countess uttered a burst of hysterical
humour. 'So you miss your credit. That inebriated sailor should really
have been gold to you. Be not so young and thoughtless.'
The Countess then proceeded to tell him how foolishly he had let slip his
great opportunity. A Portuguese would have fixed the young lady long
before. By tender moonlight, in captivating language, beneath the
umbrageous orange-groves, a Portuguese would have accurately calculated
the effect of the perfume of the blossom on her sensitive nostrils, and
know the exact moment when to kneel, and declare his passion sonorously.
'Yes,' said Evan, 'one of them did. She told me.'
'She told you? And you--what did you do?'
'Laughed at him with her, to be sure.'
'Laughed at him! She told you, and you helped her to laugh at love!
Have you no perceptions? Why did she tell you?'
'Because she thought him such a fool, I suppose.'
'You never will know a woman,' said the Countess, with contempt.
Much of his worldly sister at a time was more than Evan could bear.
Accustomed to the symptoms of restiveness, she finished her discourse,
enjoyed a quiet parade up and down under the gaze of the lieutenant, and
could find leisure to note whether she at all struck the inferior seamen,
even while her mind was absorbed by the multiform troubles and anxieties
for which she took such innocent indemnification.
The appearance of the Hon. Melville Jocelyn on deck, and without his
wife, recalled her to business. It is a peculiarity of female
diplomatists that they fear none save their own sex. Men they regard as
their natural prey: in women they see rival hunters using their own
weapons. The Countess smiled a slowly-kindling smile up to him, set her
brother adrift, and delicately linked herself to Evan's benefactor.
'I have been thinking,' she said, 'knowing your kind and most considerate
attentions, that we may compromise you in England.'
He at once assured her he hoped not, he thought not at all.
'The idea is due to my brother,' she went on; 'for I--women know so
little!--and most guiltlessly should we have done so. My brother perhaps
does not think of us foremost; but his argument I can distinguish. I can
see, that were you openly to plead Silva's cause, you might bring
yourself into odium, Mr. Jocelyn; and heaven knows I would not that!
May I then ask, that in England we may be simply upon the same footing
of private friendship?'
The diplomatist looked into her uplifted visage, that had all the sugary
sparkles of a crystallized preserved fruit of the Portugal clime, and
observed, confidentially, that, with every willingness in the world to
serve her, he did think it would possibly be better, for a time, to be
upon that footing, apart from political considerations.
'I was very sure my brother would apprehend your views,' said the
Countess. 'He, poor boy! his career is closed. He must sink into a
different sphere. He will greatly miss the intercourse with you and your
sweet family.'
Further relieved, the diplomatist delivered a high opinion of the young
gentleman, his abilities, and his conduct, and trusted he should see him
frequently.
By an apparent sacrifice, the lady thus obtained what she wanted.
Near the hour speculated on by the diplomatist, the papers came on board,
and he, unaware how he had been manoeuvred for lack of a wife at his
elbow, was quickly engaged in appeasing the great British hunger for
news; second only to that for beef, it seems, and equally acceptable
salted when it cannot be had fresh.
Leaving the devotee of statecraft with his legs crossed, and his face
wearing the cognizant air of one whose head is above the waters of
events, to enjoy the mighty meal of fresh and salted at discretion,
the Countess dived below.
Meantime the Jocasta, as smoothly as before she was ignorant of how the
world wagged, slipped up the river with the tide; and the sun hung red
behind the forest of masts, burnishing a broad length of the serpentine
haven of the nations of the earth. A young Englishman returning home can
hardly look on this scene without some pride of kinship. Evan stood at
the fore part of the vessel. Rose, in quiet English attire, had escaped
from her aunt to join him, singing in his ears, to spur his senses:
'Isn't it beautiful? Isn't it beautiful? Dear old England!'
'What do you find so beautiful?' he asked.
'Oh, you dull fellow! Why the ships, and the houses, and the smoke, to
be sure.'
'The ships? Why, I thought you despised trade, mademoiselle?'
'And so I do. That is, not trade, but tradesmen. Of course, I mean
shopkeepers.'
'It's they who send the ships to and fro, and make the picture that
pleases you, nevertheless.'
'Do they?' said she, indifferently, and then with a sort of fervour, 'Why
do you always grow so cold to me whenever we get on this subject?'
'I cold?' Evan responded. The incessant fears of his diplomatic sister
had succeeded in making him painfully jealous of this subject. He turned
it off. 'Why, our feelings are just the same. Do you know what I was
thinking when you came up? I was thinking that I hoped I might never
disgrace the name of an Englishman.'
'Now, that's noble!' cried the girl. 'And I'm sure you never will. Of
an English gentleman, Evan. I like that better.'
'Would your rather be called a true English lady than a true English
woman, Rose?'
'Don't think I would, my dear,' she answered, pertly; 'but "gentleman"
always means more than "man" to me.'
'And what's a gentleman, mademoiselle?'
'Can't tell you, Don Doloroso. Something you are, sir,' she added,
surveying him.
Evan sucked the bitter and the sweet of her explanation. His sister in
her anxiety to put him on his guard, had not beguiled him to forget his
real state.
His sister, the diplomatist and his lady, the refugee Count, with ladies'
maids, servants, and luggage, were now on the main-deck, and Master Alec,
who was as good as a newspaper correspondent for private conversations,
put an end to the colloquy of the young people. They were all assembled
in a circle when the vessel came to her moorings. The diplomatist
glutted with news, and thirsting for confirmations; the Count dumb,
courteous, and quick-eyed; the honourable lady complacent in the
consciousness of boxes well packed; the Countess breathing mellifluous
long-drawn adieux that should provoke invitations. Evan and Rose
regarded each other.
The boat to convey them on shore was being lowered, and they were
preparing to move forward. Just then the vessel was boarded by a
stranger.
'Is that one of the creatures of your Customs? I did imagine we were
safe from them,' exclaimed the Countess.
The diplomatist laughingly requested her to save herself anxiety on that
score, while under his wing. But she had drawn attention to the
intruder, who was seen addressing one of the midshipmen. He was a man in
a long brown coat and loose white neckcloth, spectacles on nose, which he
wore considerably below the bridge and peered over, as if their main use
were to sight his eye; a beaver hat, with broadish brim, on his head.
A man of no station, it was evident to the ladies at once, and they would
have taken no further notice of him had he not been seen stepping toward
them in the rear of the young midshipman.
The latter came to Evan, and said: 'A fellow of the name of Goren wants
you. Says there's something the matter at home.'
Evan advanced, and bowed stiffly.
Mr. Goren held out his hand. 'You don't remember me, young man? I cut
out your first suit for you when you were breeched, though! Yes-ah!
Your poor father wouldn't put his hand to it. Goren!'
Embarrassed, and not quite alive to the chapter of facts this name should
have opened to him, Evan bowed again.
'Goren!' continued the possessor of the name. He had a cracked voice,
that when he spoke a word of two syllables, commenced with a lugubrious
crow, and ended in what one might have taken for a curious question.
'It is a bad business brings me, young man. I 'm not the best messenger
for such tidings. It's a black suit, young man! It's your father!'
The diplomatist and his lady gradually edged back but Rose remained
beside the Countess, who breathed quick, and seemed to have lost her
self-command.
Thinking he was apprehended, Mr. Goren said: 'I 'm going down to-night to
take care of the shop. He 's to be buried in his old uniform. You had
better come with me by the night-coach, if you would see the last of him,
young man.'
Breaking an odd pause that had fallen, the Countess cried aloud, suddenly:
'In his uniform!'
Mr. Goren felt his arm seized and his legs hurrying him some paces into
isolation. 'Thanks! thanks!' was murmured in his ear. 'Not a word
more. Evan cannot bear it. Oh! you are good to have come, and we are
grateful. My father! my father!'
She had to tighten her hand and wrist against her bosom to keep herself
up. She had to reckon in a glance how much Rose had heard, or divined.
She had to mark whether the Count had understood a syllable. She had to
whisper to Evan to hasten away with the horrible man.
She had to enliven his stunned senses, and calm her own. And with
mournful images of her father in her brain, the female Spartan had to
turn to Rose, and speculate on the girl's reflective brows, while she
said, as over a distant relative, sadly, but without distraction:
'A death in the family!' and preserved herself from weeping her heart
out, that none might guess the thing who did not positively know it.
Evan touched the hand of Rose without meeting her eyes. He was soon cast
off in Mr. Goren's boat. Then the Countess murmured final adieux;
twilight under her lids, but yet a smile, stately, affectionate, almost
genial. Rose, her sweet Rose, she must kiss. She could have slapped
Rose for appearing so reserved and cold. She hugged Rose, as to hug
oblivion of the last few minutes into her. The girl leant her cheek, and
bore the embrace, looking on her with a kind of wonder.
Only when alone with the Count, in the brewer's carriage awaiting her on
shore, did the lady give a natural course to her grief; well knowing that
her Silva would attribute it to the darkness of their common exile. She
wept: but in the excess of her misery, two words of strangely opposite
signification, pronounced by Mr. Goren; two words that were at once
poison and antidote, sang in her brain; two words that painted her dead
father from head to foot, his nature and his fortune: these were the
Shop, and the Uniform.
Oh! what would she not have given to have-seen and bestowed on her
beloved father one last kiss! Oh! how she hoped that her inspired echo
of Uniform, on board the Jocasta, had drowned the memory, eclipsed the
meaning, of that fatal utterance of Shop!
CHAPTER V
THE FAMILY AND THE FUNERAL
It was the evening of the second day since the arrival of the black
letter in London from Lymport, and the wife of the brewer and the wife of
the Major sat dropping tears into one another's laps, in expectation of
their sister the Countess. Mr. Andrew Cogglesby had not yet returned
from his office. The gallant Major had gone forth to dine with General
Sir George Frebuter, the head of the Marines of his time. It would have
been difficult for the Major, he informed his wife, to send in an excuse
to the General for non-attendance, without entering into particulars;
and that he should tell the General he could not dine with him, because
of the sudden decease of a tailor, was, as he let his wife understand,
and requested her to perceive, quite out of the question. So he dressed
himself carefully, and though peremptory with his wife concerning his
linen, and requiring natural services from her in the button department,
and a casual expression of contentment as to his ultimate make-up, he
left her that day without any final injunctions to occupy her mind, and
she was at liberty to weep if she pleased, a privilege she did not enjoy
undisturbed when he was present; for the warrior hated that weakness, and
did not care to hide his contempt for it.
Of the three sisters, the wife of the Major was, oddly enough, the one
who was least inveterately solicitous of concealing the fact of her
parentage. Reticence, of course, she had to study with the rest; the
Major was a walking book of reticence and the observances; he professed,
also, in company with herself alone, to have had much trouble in drilling
her to mark and properly preserve them. She had no desire to speak of
her birthplace. But, for some reason or other, she did not share her
hero's rather petulant anxiety to keep the curtain nailed down on that
part of her life which preceded her entry into the ranks of the Royal
Marines. Some might have thought that those fair large blue eyes of hers
wandered now and then in pleasant unambitious walks behind the curtain,
and toyed with little flowers of palest memory. Utterly tasteless,
totally wanting in discernment, not to say gratitude, the Major could not
presume her to be; and yet his wits perceived that her answers and the
conduct she shaped in accordance with his repeated protests and long-
reaching apprehensions of what he called danger, betrayed acquiescent
obedience more than the connubial sympathy due to him. Danger on the
field the Major knew not of; he did not scruple to name the word in
relation to his wife. For, as he told her, should he, some day, as in
the chapter of accidents might occur, sally into the street a Knight
Companion of the Bath and become known to men as Sir Maxwell Strike, it
would be decidedly disagreeable for him to be blown upon by a wind from
Lymport. Moreover she was the mother of a son. The Major pointed out to
her the duty she owed her offspring. Certainly the protecting aegis of
his rank and title would be over the lad, but she might depend upon it
any indiscretion of hers would damage him in his future career, the Major
assured her. Young Maxwell must be considered.
For all this, the mother and wife, when the black letter found them in
the morning at breakfast, had burst into a fit of grief, and faltered
that she wept for a father. Mrs. Andrew, to whom the letter was
addressed, had simply held the letter to her in a trembling hand. The
Major compared their behaviour, with marked encomiums of Mrs. Andrew.
Now this lady and her husband were in obverse relative positions. The
brewer had no will but his Harriet's. His esteem for her combined the
constitutional feelings of an insignificantly-built little man for a
majestic woman, and those of a worthy soul for the wife of his bosom.
Possessing, or possessed by her, the good brewer was perfectly happy.
She, it might be thought, under these circumstances, would not have
minded much his hearing what he might hear. It happened, however,
that she was as jealous of the winds of Lymport as the Major himself;
as vigilant in debarring them from access to the brewery as now the
Countess could have been. We are not dissecting human nature suffice it,
therefore, from a mere glance at the surface, to say, that just as
moneyed men are careful of their coin, women who have all the advantages
in a conjunction, are miserly in keeping them, and shudder to think that
one thing remains hidden, which the world they move in might put down
pityingly in favour of their spouse, even though to the little man 'twere
naught. She assumed that a revelation would diminish her moral stature;
and certainly it would not increase that of her husband. So no good
could come of it. Besides, Andrew knew, his whole conduct was a tacit
admission, that she had condescended in giving him her hand. The
features of their union might not be changed altogether by a revelation,
but it would be a shock to her.
Consequently, Harriet tenderly rebuked Caroline, for her outcry at the
breakfast-table; and Caroline, the elder sister, who had not since
marriage grown in so free an air, excused herself humbly, and the two
were weeping when the Countess joined them and related what she had just
undergone.
Hearing of Caroline's misdemeanour, however, Louisa's eyes rolled aloft
in a paroxysm of tribulation. It was nothing to Caroline; it was
comparatively nothing to Harriet; but the Count knew not Louisa had a
father: believed that her parents had long ago been wiped out. And the
Count was by nature inquisitive: and if he once cherished a suspicion he
was restless; he was pointed in his inquiries: he was pertinacious in
following out a clue: there never would be peace with him! And then,
as they were secure in their privacy, Louisa cried aloud for her father,
her beloved father! Harriet wept silently. Caroline alone expressed
regret that she had not set eyes on him from the day she became a wife.
'How could we, dear?' the Countess pathetically asked, under drowning
lids.
'Papa did not wish it,' sobbed Mrs. Andrew.
'I never shall forgive myself!' said the wife of the Major, drying her
cheeks. Perhaps it was not herself whom she felt she never could
forgive.
Ah! the man their father was! Incomparable Melchisedec! he might well
be called. So generous! so lordly! When the rain of tears would
subside for a moment, one would relate an anecdote or childish
reminiscence of him, and provoke a more violent outburst.
'Never, among the nobles of any land, never have I seen one like him!'
exclaimed the Countess, and immediately requested Harriet to tell her
how it would be possible to stop Andrew's tongue in Silva's presence.
'At present, you know, my dear, they may talk as much as they like--they
can't understand one another one bit.'
Mrs. Cogglesby comforted her by the assurance that Andrew had received an
intimation of her wish for silence everywhere and toward everybody; and
that he might be reckoned upon to respect it, without demanding a reason
for the restriction. In other days Caroline and Louisa had a little
looked down on Harriet's alliance with a dumpy man--a brewer--and had
always kind Christian compassion for him if his name were mentioned.
They seemed now, by their silence, to have a happier estimate of Andrew's
qualities.
While the three sisters sat mingling their sorrows and alarms, their
young brother was making his way to the house. As he knocked at the door
he heard his name pronounced behind him, and had no difficulty in
recognizing the worthy brewer.
'What, Van, my boy! how are you? Quite a foreigner! By George, what a
hat!'
Mr. Andrew bounced back two or three steps to regard the dusky sombrero.
'How do you do, sir?' said Evan.
'Sir to you!' Mr. Andrew briskly replied. 'Don't they teach you to give
your fist in Portugal, eh? I'll "sir" you. Wait till I'm Sir Andrew,
and then "sir" away. You do speak English still, Van, eh? Quite jolly,
my boy?'
Mr. Andrew rubbed his hands to express that state in himself. Suddenly
he stopped, blinked queerly at Evan, grew pensive, and said, 'Bless my
soul! I forgot.'
The door opened, Mr. Andrew took Evan's arm, murmured a 'hush!' and trod
gently along the passage to his library.
'We're safe here,' he said. 'There--there's something the matter up-
stairs. The women are upset about something. Harriet--' Mr. Andrew
hesitated, and branched off: 'You 've heard we 've got a new baby?'
Evan congratulated him; but another inquiry was in Mr. Andrew's aspect,
and Evan's calm, sad manner answered it.
'Yes,'--Mr. Andrew shook his head dolefully--'a splendid little chap!
a rare little chap! a we can't help these things, Van! They will
happen. Sit down, my boy.'
Mr. Andrew again interrogated Evan with his eyes.
'My father is dead,' said Evan.
'Yes!' Mr. Andrew nodded, and glanced quickly at the ceiling, as if to
make sure that none listened overhead. 'My parliamentary duties will
soon be over for the season,' he added, aloud; pursuing, in an under-
breath:
'Going down to-night, Van?'
'He is to be buried to-morrow,' said Evan.
'Then, of course, you go. Yes: quite right. Love your father and
mother! always love your father and mother! Old Tom and I never knew
ours. Tom's quite well-same as ever. I'll,' he rang the bell, 'have my
chop in here with you. You must try and eat a bit, Van. Here we are,
and there we go. Old Tom's wandering for one of his weeks. You'll see
him some day. He ain't like me. No dinner to-day, I suppose, Charles?'
This was addressed to the footman. He announced:
'Dinner to-day at half-past six, as usual, sir,' bowed, and retired.
Mr. Andrew pored on the floor, and rubbed his hair back on his head.
'An odd world!' was his remark.
Evan lifted up his face to sigh: 'I 'm almost sick of it!'
'Damn appearances!' cried Mr. Andrew, jumping on his legs.
The action cooled him.
'I 'm sorry I swore,' he said. 'Bad habit! The Major's here--you know
that?' and he assumed the Major's voice, and strutted in imitation of the
stalwart marine. 'Major--a--Strike! of the Royal Marines! returned from
China! covered with glory!--a hero, Van! We can't expect him to be much
of a mourner. And we shan't have him to dine with us to-day--that's
something.' He sank his voice: 'I hope the widow 'll bear it.'
'I hope to God my mother is well!' Evan groaned.
'That'll do,' said Mr. Andrew. 'Don't say any more.'
As he spoke, he clapped Evan kindly on the back.
A message was brought from the ladies, requiring Evan to wait on them.
He returned after some minutes.
'How do you think Harriet's looking?' asked Mr. Andrew. And, not waiting
for an answer, whispered,
'Are they going down to the funeral, my boy?'
Evan's brow was dark, as he replied: 'They are not decided.'
'Won't Harriet go?'
'She is not going--she thinks not.'
'And the Countess--Louisa's upstairs, eh?--will she go?'
'She cannot leave the Count--she thinks not.'
'Won't Caroline go? Caroline can go. She--he--I mean--Caroline can go?'
'The Major objects. She wishes to.'
Mr. Andrew struck out his arm, and uttered, 'the Major!'--a compromise
for a loud anathema. But the compromise was vain, for he sinned again in
an explosion against appearances.
'I'm a brewer, Van. Do you think I'm ashamed of it? Not while I brew
good beer, my boy!--not while I brew good beer! They don't think worse
of me in the House for it. It isn't ungentlemanly to brew good beer,
Van. But what's the use of talking?'
Mr. Andrew sat down, and murmured, 'Poor girl! poor girl!'
The allusion was to his wife; for presently he said: 'I can't see why
Harriet can't go. What's to prevent her?'
Evan gazed at him steadily. Death's levelling influence was in Evan's
mind. He was ready to say why, and fully.
Mr. Andrew arrested him with a sharp 'Never mind! Harriet does as she
likes. I'm accustomed to--hem! what she does is best, after all. She
doesn't interfere with my business, nor I with hers. Man and wife.'
Pausing a moment or so, Mr. Andrew intimated that they had better be
dressing for dinner. With his hand on the door, which he kept closed, he
said, in a businesslike way, 'You know, Van, as for me, I should be very
willing--only too happy--to go down and pay all the respect I could.'
He became confused, and shot his head from side to side, looking anywhere
but at Evan. 'Happy now and to-morrow, to do anything in my power, if
Harriet--follow the funeral--one of the family--anything I could do:
but--a--we 'd better be dressing for dinner.' And out the enigmatic
little man went.
Evan partly divined him then. But at dinner his behaviour was
perplexing. He was too cheerful. He pledged the Count. He would have
the Portuguese for this and that, and make Anglican efforts to repeat it,
and laugh at his failures. He would not see that there was a father
dead. At a table of actors, Mr. Andrew overdid his part, and was the
worst. His wife could not help thinking him a heartless little man.
The poor show had its term. The ladies fled to the boudoir sacred to
grief. Evan was whispered that he was to join them when he might,
without seeming mysterious to the Count. Before he reached them, they
had talked tearfully over the clothes he should wear at Lymport, agreeing
that his present foreign apparel, being black, would be suitable, and
would serve almost as disguise, to the inhabitants at large; and as Evan
had no English wear, and there was no time to procure any for him, that
was well. They arranged exactly how long he should stay at Lymport, whom
he should visit, the manner he should adopt toward the different
inhabitants. By all means he was to avoid the approach of the gentry.
For hours Evan, in a trance, half stupefied, had to listen to the
Countess's directions how he was to comport himself in Lymport.
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