waverings and weakness, and did not rush to the adoration of decision of mind, we should not behold them turning contemptuously from philosophers in their agony, to find refuge in the arms of smirking orthodoxy. I do not say that Mr. Barrett ventured to play the intelligent Cornelia like a fish; but such a fish was best secured by the method he adopted: that of giving her signal victory in trifles, while on vital matters he held his own.
Very pleasant evenings now passed at Brookfield, which were not at all disturbed by the wonder expressed from time to time by Mr. Pole, that he had not heard from Martha, meaning Mrs. Chump. “You have Emilia,” the ladies said; this being equivalent to “She is one of that sort;” and Mr. Pole understood it so, and fastened Emilia in one arm, with “Now, a kiss, my dear, and then a toon.” Emilia readily gave both. As often as he heard instances of her want of ladylike training, he would say, “Keep her here; we’ll better her.” Mr. Barrett assisted the ladies to see that there was more in Emilia than even Mr. Pericles had perceived. Her story had become partially known to them; and with two friendly dependents of the household, one a gentleman and the other a genius, they felt that they had really attained a certain eminence, which is a thing to be felt only when we have something under our feet. Flying about with a desperate grip on the extreme skirts of aristocracy, the ladies knew to be the elevation of dependency, not true eminence; and though they admired the kite, they by no means wished to form a part of its tail. They had brains. A circle was what they wanted, and they had not to learn that this is to be found or made only in the liberally-educated class, into the atmosphere of which they pressed like dungeoned plants. The parasite completes the animal, and a dependent assures us of our position. The ladies of Brookfield, therefore, let Emilia cling to them, remarking, that it seemed to be their papa’s settled wish that she should reside among them for a time. Consequently, if the indulgence had ever to be regretted, they would not be to blame. In their hearts they were aware that it was Emilia who had obtained for them their first invitation to Lady Gosstre’s. Gratitude was not a part of their policy, but when it assisted a recognition of material facts they did not repress it. “And if,” they said, “we can succeed in polishing her and toning her, she may have something to thank us for, in the event of her ultimately making a name.” That event being of course necessary for the development of so proper a sentiment. Thus the rides with Wilfrid continued, and the sweet quiet evenings when she sang.
CHAPTER VIII
The windows of Brookfield were thrown open to the air of May, and bees wandered into the rooms, gold spots of sunshine danced along the floors. The garden-walks were dazzling, and the ladies went from flower-bed to flower-bed in broad garden hats that were, as an occasional light glance flung at a window-pane assured Adela, becoming. Sunshine had burst on them suddenly, and there was no hat to be found for Emilia, so Wilfrid placed his gold-laced foraging-cap on her head, and the ladies, after a moment’s misgiving, allowed her to wear it, and turned to observe her now and then. There was never pertness in Emilia’s look, which on the contrary was singularly large and calm when it reposed: perhaps her dramatic instinct prompted her half-jaunty manner of leaning against the sunny corner of the house where the Chinese honeysuckle climbed. She was talking to Wilfrid. Her laughter seemed careless and easy, and in keeping with the Southern litheness of her attitude.
“To suit the cap; it’s all to suit the cap,” said Adela, the keen of eye. Yet, critical as was this lady, she acknowledged that it was no mere acting effort to suit the cap.
The philosopher (I would keep him back if I could) bids us mark that the crown and flower of the nervous system, the head, is necessarily sensitive, and to that degree that whatsoever we place on it, does, for a certain period, change and shape us. Of course the instant we call up the forces of the brain, much of the impression departs but what remains is powerful, and fine-nerved. Woman is especially subject to it. A girl may put on her brother’s boots, and they will not affect her spirit strongly; but as soon as she puts on her brother’s hat, she gives him a manly nod. The same philosopher who fathers his dulness on me, asserts that the modern vice or fastness (‘Trotting on the Epicene Border,’ he has it) is bred by apparently harmless practices of this description. He offers to turn the current of a Republican’s brain, by resting a coronet on his forehead for just five seconds.
Howsoever these things be, it was true that Emilia’s feet presently crossed, and she was soon to be seen with her right elbow doubled against her head as she leaned to the wall, and the little left fist stuck at her belt. And I maintain that she had no sense at all of acting Spanish prince disguised as page. Nor had she an idea that she was making her friend Wilfrid’s heart perform to her lightest words and actions, like any trained milk-white steed in a circus. Sunlight, as well as Wilfrid’s braided cap, had some magical influence on her. He assured her that she looked a charming boy, and she said, “Do I?” just lifting her chin.
A gardener was shaving the lawn.
“Please, spare those daisies,” cried Emilia. “Why do you cut away daisies?”
The gardener objected that he really must make the lawn smooth. Emilia called to Adela, who came, and hearing the case, said: “Now this is nice of you. I like you to love daisies and wish to protect them. They disfigure a lawn, you know.” And Adela stooped, and picked one, and called it a pet name, and dropped it.
She returned to her sisters in the conservatory, and meeting Mr. Barren at the door, made the incident a topic. “You know how greatly our Emilia rejoices us when she shows sentiment, and our thirst is to direct her to appreciate Nature in its humility as well as its grandeur.”
“One expects her to have all poetical feelings,” said Mr. Barrett, while they walked forth to the lawn sloping to the tufted park grass.
Cornelia said: “You have read Mr. Runningbrook’s story?”
“Yes.”
But the man had not brought it back, and her name was in it, written with her own hand.
“Are you of my opinion in the matter?”
“In the matter of the style? I am and I am not. Your condemnation may be correct in itself; but you say, ‘He coins words’; and he certainly forces the phrase here and there, I must admit. The point to be considered is, whether friction demands a perfectly smooth surface. Undoubtedly a scientific work does, and a philosophical treatise should. When we ask for facts simply, we feel the intrusion of a style. Of fiction it is part. In the one case the classical robe, in the other any mediaeval phantasy of clothing.”
“Yes; true;” said Cornelia, hesitating over her argument. “Well, I must conclude that I am not imaginative.”
“On the contrary, permit me to say that you are. But your imagination is unpractised, and asks to be fed with a spoon. We English are more imaginative than most nations.”
“Then, why is it not manifested?”
“We are still fighting against the Puritan element, in literature as elsewhere.”
“Your old bugbear, Mr. Barrett!”
“And more than this: our language is not rich in subtleties for prose. A writer who is not servile and has insight, must coin from his own mint. In poetry we are rich enough; but in prose also we owe everything to the licence our poets have taken in the teeth of critics. Shall I give you examples? It is not necessary. Our simplest prose style is nearer to poetry with us, for this reason, that the poets have made it. Read French poetry. With the first couplet the sails are full, and you have left the shores of prose far behind. Mr. Runningbrook coins words and risks expressions because an imaginative Englishman, pen in hand, is the cadet and vagabond of the family–an exploring adventurer; whereas to a Frenchman it all comes inherited like a well filled purse. The audacity of the French mind, and the French habit of quick social intercourse, have made them nationally far richer in language. Let me add, individually as much poorer. Read their stereotyped descriptions. They all say the same things. They have one big Gallic trumpet. Wonderfully eloquent: we feel that: but the person does not speak. And now, you will be surprised to learn that, notwithstanding what I have said, I should still side with Mr. Runningbrook’s fair critic, rather than with him. The reason is, that the necessity to write as he does is so great that a strong barrier–a chevaux-de-frise of pen points–must be raised against every newly minted word and hazardous coiner, or we shall be inundated. If he can leap the barrier he and his goods must be admitted. So it has been with our greatest, so it must be with the rest of them, or we shall have a Transatlantic literature. By no means desirable, I think. Yet, see: when a piece of Transatlantic slang happens to be tellingly true– something coined from an absolute experience; from a fight with the elements–we cannot resist it: it invades us. In the same way poetic rashness of the right quality enriches the language. I would make it prove its quality.”
Cornelia walked on gravely. His excuse for dilating on the theme, prompted her to say: “You give me new views”: while all her reflections sounded from the depths: “And yet, the man who talks thus is a hired organ-player!”
This recurring thought, more than the cogency of the new views, kept her from combating certain fallacies in them which had struck her.
“Why do you not write yourself, Mr. Barrett?”
“I have not the habit.”
“The habit!”
“I have not heard the call.”
“Should it not come from within?”
“And how are we to know it?”
“If it calls to you loudly!”
“Then I know it to be vanity.”
“But the wish to make a name is not vanity.”
“The wish to conceal a name may exist.”
Cornelia took one of those little sly glances at his features which print them on the brain. The melancholy of his words threw a somber hue about him, and she began to think with mournfulness of those firm thin lips fronting misfortune: those sunken blue eyes under its shadow.
They walked up to Mr. Pole, who was standing with Wilfrid and Emilia on the lawn; giving ear to a noise in the distance.
A big drum sounded on the confines of the Brookfield estate. Soon it was seen entering the precincts at one of the principal gates, followed by trombone, and horn, and fife. In the rear trooped a regiment of Sunday- garmented villagers, with a rambling tail of loose-minded boys and girls. Blue and yellow ribands dangled from broad beaver hats, and there were rosettes of the true-blue mingled with yellow at buttonholes; and there was fun on the line of march. Jokes plumped deep into the ribs, and were answered with intelligent vivacity in the shape of hearty thwacks, delivered wherever a surface was favourable: a mode of repartee worthy of general adoption, inasmuch as it can be passed on, and so with certainty made to strike your neighbour as forcibly as yourself: of which felicity of propagation verbal wit cannot always boast. In the line of procession, the hat of a member of the corps shot sheer into the sky from the compressed energy of his brain; for he and all his comrades vociferously denied having cast it up, and no other solution was possible. This mysterious incident may tell you that beer was thus early in the morning abroad. In fact, it was the procession day of a provincial Club-feast or celebration of the nuptials of Beef and Beer; whereof later you shall behold the illustrious offspring.
All the Brookfield household were now upon the lawn, awaiting the attack. Mr. Pole would have liked to impound the impouring host, drum and all, for the audacity of the trespass, and then to have fed them liberally, as a return for the compliment. Aware that he was being treated to the honours of a great man of the neighbourhood, he determined to take it cheerfully.
“Come; no laughing!” he said, directing a glance at the maids who were ranged behind their mistresses. “‘Hem! we must look pleased: we mustn’t mind their music, if they mean well.”
Emilia, whose face was dismally screwed up at the nerve-searching discord, said: “Why do they try to play anything but a drum?”
“In the country, in the country;” Mr. Pole emphasized. “We put up with this kind of thing in the country. Different in town; but we–a–say nothing in the country. We must encourage respect for the gentry, in the country. One of the penalties of a country life. Not much harm in it. New duties in the country.”
He continued to speak to himself. In proportion as he grew aware of the unnecessary nervous agitation into which the drum was throwing him, he assumed an air of repose, and said to Wilfrid: “Read the paper to-day?” and to Arabella, “Quiet family dinner, I suppose?”
“Yes, sir,” he remarked to Mr. Barrett, as if resuming an old conversation: “I dare say, you’ve seen better marching in foreign parts. Right–left; right–left. Ha! ha! And not so bad, not so bad, I call it! with their right–left; right–left. Ha! ha! You’ve seen better. No need to tell me that. But, in England, we look to the meaning of things. We’re a practical people. What’s more, we’re volunteers. Volunteers in everything. We can’t make a regiment of ploughmen march like clock-work in a minute; and we don’t want to. But, give me the choice; I’ll back a body of volunteers any day.”
“I would rather be backed by them, sir,” said Mr. Barrett.
“Very good. I mean that. Honest intelligent industry backing rank and wealth! That makes a nation strong. Look at England!”
Mr. Barrett observed him stand out largely, as if filled by the spirit of the big drum.
That instrument now gave a final flourish and bang whereat Sound, as if knocked on the head, died languishingly.
And behold, a spokesman was seen in relief upon a background of grins, that were oddly intermixed with countenances of extraordinary solemnity.
The same commenced his propitiatory remarks by assuring the proprietor of Brookfield that he, the spokesman, and every man present, knew they had taken a liberty in coming upon Squire Pole’s grounds without leave or warning. They knew likewise that Squire Pole excused them.
Chorus of shouts from the divining brethren.
Right glad they were to have such a gentleman as Squire Pole among them: and if nobody gave him a welcome last year, that was not the fault of the Yellow-and-Blues. Eh, my boys?
Groans and cheers.
Right sure was spokesman that Squire Pole was the friend of the poor man, and liked nothing better than to see him enjoy his holiday. As why shouldn’t he enjoy his holiday now and then, and have a bit of relaxation as well as other men?
Acquiescent token on the part of the new dignitary, Squire Pole.
Spokesman was hereby encouraged to put it boldly, whether a man was not a man all the world over.
“For a’ that!” was sung out by some rare bookworm to rearward: but no Scot being present, no frenzy followed the quotation.
It was announced that the Club had come to do homage to Squire Pole and ladies: the Junction Club of Ipley and Hillford. What did Junction mean? Junction meant Harmony. Harmonious they were, to be sure: so they joined to good purpose.
Mr. Barrett sought Emilia’s eyes smilingly, but she was intent on the proceedings.
A cry of “Bundle o’ sticks, Tom Breeks. Don’t let slip ’bout bundle o’ sticks,” pulled spokesman up short. He turned hurriedly to say, “All right,” and inflated his chest to do justice to the illustration of the faggots of Aesop: but Mr. Tom Breeks had either taken in too much air, or the ale that had hitherto successfully prompted him was antipathetic to the nice delicacy of an apologue; for now his arm began to work and his forehead had to be mopped, and he lashed the words “Union and Harmony” right and left, until, coming on a sentence that sounded in his ears like the close of his speech, he stared ahead, with a dim idea that he had missed a point. “Bundle o’ sticks,” lustily shouted, revived his apprehension; but the sole effect was to make him look on the ground and lift his hat on the point of a perplexed finger. He could not conceive how the bundle of sticks was to be brought in now; or what to say concerning them. Union and Harmony:–what more could be said? Mr. Tom Breeks tried a remonstrance with his backers. He declared to them that he had finished, and had brought in the Bundle. They replied that they had not heard it; that the Bundle was the foundation–sentiment of the Club; the first toast, after the Crown; and that he must go on until the Bundle had been brought in. Hereat, the unhappy man faced Squire Pole again. It was too abject a position for an Englishman to endure. Tom Breeks cast his hat to earth. “I’m dashed if I can bring in the bundle!”
There was no telling how conduct like this might have been received by the Yellow-and-Blues if Mr. Barrett had not spoken. “You mean everything when you say “Union,” and you’re quite right not to be tautological. You can’t give such a blow with your fingers as you can with your fists, can you?”
Up went a score of fists. “We’ve the fists: we’ve the fists,” was shouted.
Cornelia, smiling on Mr. Barrett, asked him why he had confused the poor people with the long word “tautological.”
“I threw it as a bone,” said he. “I think you will observe that they are already quieter. They are reflecting on what it signifies, and will by- and-by quarrel as to the spelling of it. At any rate it occupies them.”
Cornelia laughed inwardly, and marked with pain that his own humour gave him no merriment.
At the subsiding of the echoes that coupled Squire Pole and the Junction Club together, Squire Pole replied. He wished them well. He was glad to see them, and sorry he had not ale enough on the premises to regale every man of them. Clubs were great institutions. One fist was stronger than a thousand fingers–“as my friend here said just now.” Hereat the eyelids of Cornelia shed another queenly smile on the happy originator of the remark.
Squire Pole then descended to business. He named the amount of his donation. At this practical sign of his support, heaven heard the gratitude of the good fellows. The drum awoke from its torpor, and summoned its brethren of the band to give their various versions of the National Anthem.
“Can’t they be stopped?” Emilia murmured, clenching her little hands.
The patriotic melody, delivered in sturdy democratic fashion, had to be endured. It died hard, but did come to an end, piecemeal. Tom Breeks then retired from the front, and became a unit once more. There were flourishes that indicated a termination of the proceedings, when another fellow was propelled in advance, and he, shuffling and ducking his head, to the cries of “Out wi’ it, Jim!” and, “Where’s your stomach?” came still further forward, and showed a most obsequious grin.
“Why, it’s Jim!” exclaimed Emilia, on whom Jim’s eyes were fastened. Stepping nearer, she said, “Do you want to speak to me?”
Jim had this to say: which, divested of his petition for pardon on the strength of his perfect knowledge that he took a liberty, was, that the young lady had promised, while staying at Wilson’s farm, that she would sing to the Club-fellows on the night of their feast.
“I towl’d ’em they’d have a rare treat, miss,” mumbled Jim, “and they’re all right mad for ‘t, that they be–bain’t ye, boys?”
That they were! with not a few of the gesticulations of madness too.
Emilia said: “I promised I would sing to them. I remember it quite well. Of course I will keep my promise.”
A tumult of acclamation welcomed her words, and Jim looked immensely delighted.
She was informed by several voices that they were the Yellow-and-Blues, and not the Blues: that she must not go to the wrong set: and that their booth was on Ipley Common: and that they, the Junction Club, only would honour her rightly for the honour she was going to do them: all of which Emilia said she would bear in mind.
Jim then retired hastily, having done something that stout morning ale would alone have qualified him to perform. The drum, in the noble belief that it was leading, announced the return march, and with three cheers for Squire Pole, and a crowning one for the ladies, away trooped the procession.
CHAPTER IX
Hardly had the last sound of the drum passed out of hearing, when the elastic thunder of a fresh one claimed attention. The truth being, that the Junction Club of Ipley and Hillford, whose colours were yellow and blue, was a seceder from the old-established Hillford Club, on which it had this day shamefully stolen a march by parading everywhere in the place of it, and disputing not only its pasture-grounds but its identity.
There is no instrument the sound of which proclaims such a vast internal satisfaction as the drum. I know not whether it be that the sense we have of the corpulency of this instrument predisposes us to imagine it supremely content: as when an alderman is heard snoring the world is assured that it listens to the voice of its own exceeding gratulation. A light heart in a fat body ravishes not only the world but the philosopher. If monotonous, the one note of the drum is very correct. Like the speaking of great Nature, what it means is implied by the measure. When the drum beats to the measure of a common human pulsation it has a conquering power: inspiring us neither to dance nor to trail the members, but to march as life does, regularly, and in hearty good order, and with a not exhaustive jollity. It is a sacred instrument.
Now the drum which is heard to play in this cheerful fashion, while at the same time we know that discomfiture is cruelly harrying it: that its inmost feelings are wounded, and that worse is in store for it, affects the contemplative mind with an inexpressibly grotesque commiseration. Do but listen to this one, which is the joint corporate voice of the men of Hillford. Outgeneraled, plundered, turned to ridicule, it thumps with unabated briskness. Here indeed might Sentimentalism shed a fertile tear!
Anticipating that it will eventually be hung up among our national symbols, I proceed. The drum of Hillford entered the Brookfield grounds as Ipley had done, and with a similar body of decorated Clubmen; sounding along until it faced the astonished proprietor, who held up his hand and requested to know the purpose of the visit. One sentence of explanation sufficed.
“What!” cried Mr. Pole, “do you think you can milk a cow twice in ten minutes?”
Several of the Hillford men acknowledged that it would be rather sharp work.
Their case was stated: whereupon Mr. Pole told them that he had just been ‘milked,’ and regretted it, but requested them to see that he could not possibly be equal to any second proceeding of the sort. On their turning to consult together, he advised them to bear it with fortitude. “All right, sir!” they said: and a voice from the ranks informed him that their word was ‘Jolly.’ Then a signal was given, and these indomitable fellows cheered the lord of Brookfield as lustily as if they had accomplished the feat of milking him twice in an hour. Their lively hurrahs set him blinking in extreme discomposure of spirit, and he was fumbling at his pocket, when the drum a little precipitately thumped: the ranks fell into order, and the departure was led by the tune of the ‘King of the Cannibal islands:’ a tune that is certain to create a chorus on the march. On this occasion, the line:–
“Oh! didn’t you know you were done, sir?”
became general at the winding up of the tune. Boys with their elders frisked as they chimed it, casting an emphasis of infinite relish on the declaration ‘done’; as if they delighted in applying it to Mr. Pole, though at their own expense.
Soon a verse grew up:–
“We march’d and call’d on Mister Pole, Who hadn’t a penny, upon his soul,
For Ipley came and took the whole, And didn’t you know you were done, sir!”
I need not point out to the sagacious that Hillford and not Mr. Pole had been ‘done;’ but this was the genius of the men who transferred the opprobrium to him. Nevertheless, though their manner of welcoming misfortune was such, I, knowing that there was not a deadlier animal than a ‘done’ Briton, have shudders for Ipley.
We relinquished the stream of an epic in turning away from these mighty drums.
Mr. Pole stood questioning all who surrounded him: “What could I do? I couldn’t subscribe to both. They don’t expect that of a lord, and I’m a commoner. If these fellows quarrel and split, are we to suffer for it? They can’t agree, and want us to pay double fines. This is how they serve us.”
Mr. Barrett, rather at a loss to account for his excitement, said, that it must be admitted they had borne the trick played upon them, with remarkable good humour.
“Yes, but,” Mr. Pole fumed, “I don’t. They put me in the wrong, between them. They make me uncomfortable. I’ve a good mind to withdraw my subscription to those rascals who came first, and have nothing to do with any of them. Then, you see, down I go for a niggardly fellow. That’s the reputation I get. Nothing of this in London! you make your money, pay your rates, and nobody bothers a man.”
“You should have done as our darling here did, papa,” said Adela. “You should have hinted something that might be construed a promise or not, as we please to read it.”
“If I promise I perform,” returned Mr. Pole.
“Our Hillford people have cause for complaint,” Mr. Barrett observed. And to Emilia: “You will hardly favour one party more than another, will you?”
“I am for that poor man Jim,” said Emilia, “He carried my harp evening after evening, and would not even take sixpence for the trouble.”
“Are you really going to sing there?”
“Didn’t you hear? I promised.”
“To-night?”
“Yes; certainly.”
“Do you know what it is you have promised?”
“To sing.”
Adela glided to her sisters near at hand, and these ladies presently hemmed Emilia in. They had a method of treating matters they did not countenance, as if nature had never conceived them, and such were the monstrous issue of diseased imaginations. It was hard for Emilia to hear that what she designed to do was “utterly out of the question and not to be for one moment thought of.” She reiterated, with the same interpreting stress, that she had given her promise.
“Do you know, I praised you for putting them off so cleverly,” said Adela in tones of gentle reproach that bewildered Emilia.
“Must we remind you, then, that you are bound by a previous promise?” Cornelia made a counter-demonstration with the word. “Have you not promised to dine with us at Lady Gosstre’s to-night?”
“Oh, of course I shall keep that,” replied Emilia. “I intend to. I will sing there, and then I will go and sing to those poor people, who never hear anything but dreadful music–not music at all, but something that seems to tear your flesh!”
“Never mind our flesh,” said Adela pettishly: melodiously remonstrating the next instant: “I really thought you could not be in earnest.”
“But,” said Arabella, “can you find pleasure in wasting your voice and really great capabilities on such people?”
Emilia caught her up–“This poor man? But he loves music: he really knows the good from the bad. He never looks proud but when I sing to him.”
The situation was one that Cornelia particularly enjoyed. Here was a low form of intellect to be instructed as to the precise meaning of a word, the nature of a pledge. “There can be no harm that I see, in your singing to this man,” she commenced. “You can bid him come to one of the out-houses here, if you desire, and sing to him. In the evening, after his labour, will be the fit time. But, as your friends, we cannot permit you to demean yourself by going from our house to a public booth, where vulgar men are smoking and drinking beer. I wonder you have the courage to contemplate such an act! You have pledged your word. But if you had pledged your word, child, to swing upon that tree, suspended by your arms, for an hour, could you keep it? I think not; and to recognize an impossibility economizes time and is one of the virtues of a clear understanding. It is incompatible that you should dine with Lady Gosstre, and then run away to a drinking booth. Society will never tolerate one who is familiar with boors. If you are to succeed in life, as we, your friends, can conscientiously say that we most earnestly hope and trust you will do, you must be on good terms with Society. You must! You pledge your word to a piece of folly. Emancipate yourself from it as quickly as possible. Do you see? This is foolish: it, therefore, cannot be. Decide, as a sensible creature.”
At the close of this harangue, Cornelia, who had stooped slightly to deliver it, regained her stately posture, beautified in Mr. Barrett’s sight by the flush which an unwonted exercise in speech had thrown upon her cheeks.
Emilia stood blinking like one sensible of having been chidden in a strange tongue.
“Does it offend you–my going?” she faltered.
“Offend!–our concern is entirely for you,” observed Cornelia.
The explanation drew out a happy sparkle from Emilia’s eyes. She seized her hand, kissed it, and cried: “I do thank you. I know I promised, but indeed I am quite pleased to go!”
Mr. Barrett swung hurriedly round and walked some paces away with his head downward. The ladies remained in a tolerant attitude for a minute or so, silent. They then wheeled with one accord, and Emilia was left to herself.
CHAPTER X
Richford was an easy drive from Brookfield, through lanes of elm and white hawthorn.
The ladies never acted so well as when they were in the presence of a fact which they acknowledged, but did not recognize. Albeit constrained to admit that this was the first occasion of their ever being on their way to the dinner-table of a person of quality, they could refuse to look the admission in the face. A peculiar lightness of heart beset them; for brooding ambition is richer in that first realizing step it takes, insignificant though it seem, than in any subsequent achievement. I fear to say that the hearts of the ladies boiled, because visages so sedate, and voices so monotonously indifferent, would witness decidedly against me. The common avoidance of any allusion to Richford testified to the direction of their thoughts; and the absence of a sign of exultation may be accepted as a proof of the magnitude of that happiness of which they might not exhibit a feature. The effort to repress it must have cost them horrible pain. Adela, the youngest of the three, transferred her inward joy to the cottage children, whose staring faces from garden porch and gate flashed by the carriage windows. “How delighted they look!” she exclaimed more than once, and informed her sisters that a country life was surely the next thing to Paradise. “Those children do look so happy!” Thus did the weak one cunningly relieve herself. Arabella occupied her mind by giving Emilia leading hints for conduct in the great house. “On the whole, though there is no harm in your praising particular dishes, as you do at home, it is better in society to say nothing on those subjects until your opinion is asked: and when you speak, it should be as one who passes the subject by. Appreciate flavours, but no dwelling on them! The degrees of an expression of approbation, naturally enough, vary with age. Did my instinct prompt me to the discussion of these themes, I should be allowed greater licence than you.” And here Arabella was unable to resist a little bit of the indulgence Adela had taken: “You are sure to pass a most agreeable evening, and one that you will remember.”
North Pole sat high above such petty consolation; seldom speaking, save just to show that her ideas ranged at liberty, and could be spontaneously sympathetic on selected topics.
Their ceremonious entrance to the state-room of Richford accomplished, the ladies received the greeting of the affable hostess; quietly perturbed, but not enough so to disorder their artistic contemplation of her open actions, choice of phrase, and by-play. Without communication or pre-arrangement, each knew that the other would not let slip the opportunity, and, after the first five minutes of languid general converse; they were mentally at work comparing notes with one another’s imaginary conversations, while they said “Yes,” and “Indeed,” and “I think so,” and appeared to belong to the world about them.
“Merthyr, I do you the honour to hand this young lady to your charge,” said Lady Gosstre, putting on equal terms with Emilia a gentleman of perhaps five-and-thirty years; who reminded her of Mr. Barrett, but was unclouded by that look of firm sadness which characterized the poor organist. Mr. Powys was a travelled Welsh squire, Lady Gosstre’s best talker, on whom, as Brookfield learnt to see, she could perfectly rely to preserve the child from any little drawing-room sins or dinner-table misadventures. This gentleman had made sacrifices for the cause of Italy, in money, and, it was said, in blood. He knew the country and loved the people. Brookfield remarked that there was just a foreign tinge in his manner; and that his smile, though social to a degree unknown to the run of English faces, did not give him all to you, and at a second glance seemed plainly to say that he reserved much.
Adela fell to the lot of a hussar-captain: a celebrated beauty, not too foolish. She thought it proper to punish him for his good looks till propitiated by his good temper.
Nobody at Brookfield could remember afterwards who took Arabella down to dinner; she declaring that she had forgotten. Her sisters, not unwilling to see insignificance banished to annihilation, said that it must have been nobody in person, and that he was a very useful guest when ladies were engaged. Cornelia had a different lot. She leaned on the right arm of the Member for Hillford, the statistical debate, Sir Twickenham Pryme, who had twice before, as he ventured to remind her, enjoyed the honour of conversing, if not of dining, with her. Nay, more, he revived their topics. “And I have come round to your way of thinking as regards hustings addresses,” he said. “In nine cases out of ten–at least, nineteen-twentieths of the House will furnish instances–one can only, as you justly observed, appeal to the comprehension of the mob by pledging oneself either to their appetites or passions, and it is better plainly to state the case and put it to them in figures.” Whether the Baronet knew what he was saying is one matter: he knew what he meant.
Wilfrid was cavalier to Lady Charlotte Chillingworth, of Stornley, about ten miles distant from Hillford; ninth daughter of a nobleman who passed current as the Poor Marquis; he having been ruined when almost a boy in Paris, by the late illustrious Lord Dartford. Her sisters had married captains in the army and navy, lawyers, and parsons, impartially. Lady Charlotte was nine-and-twenty years of age; with clear and telling stone- blue eyes, firm but not unsweet lips, slightly hollowed cheeks, and a jaw that certainly tended to be square. Her colour was healthy. Walking or standing her figure was firmly poised. Her chief attraction was a bell- toned laugh, fresh as a meadow spring. She had met Wilfrid once in the hunting-field, so they soon had common ground to run on.
Mr. Powys made Emilia happy by talking to her of Italy, in the intervals of table anecdotes.
“Why did you leave it?” she said.
“I found I had more shadows than the one allotted me by nature; and as I was accustomed to a black one, and not half a dozen white, I was fairly frightened out of the country.”
“You mean, Austrians.”
“I do.”
“Do you hate them?”
“Not at all.”
“Then, how can you love the Italians?”
“They themselves have taught me to do both; to love them and not to hate their enemies. Your Italians are the least vindictive of all races of men.”
“Merthyr, Merthyr!” went Lady Gosstre; Lady Charlotte murmuring aloud: “And in the third chapter of the Book of Paradox you will find these words.”
“We afford a practical example and forgive them, do we not?” Mr. Powys smiled at Emilia.
She looked round her, and reddened a little.
“So long as you do not write that Christian word with the point of a stiletto!” said Lady Charlotte.
“You are not mad about the Italians?” Wilfrid addressed her.
“Not mad about anything, I hope. If I am to choose, I prefer the Austrians. A very gentlemanly set of men! At least, so I find them always. Capital horsemen!”
“I will explain to you how it must be,” said Mr. Powys to Emilia. “An artistic people cannot hate long. Hotly for the time, but the oppression gone, and even in the dream of its going, they are too human to be revengeful.”
“Do we understand such very deep things?” said Lady Gosstre, who was near enough to hear clearly.
“Yes: for if I ask her whether she can hate when her mind is given to music, she knows that she cannot. She can love.”
“Yet I think I have heard some Italian operatic spitfires, and of some!” said Lady Charlotte.
“What opinion do you pronounce in this controversy?” Cornelia made appeal to Sir Twickenham.
“There are multitudes of cases,” he began: and took up another end of his statement: “It has been computed that five-and-twenty murders per month to a population…to a population of ninety thousand souls, is a fair reckoning in a Southern latitude.”
“Then we must allow for the latitude?”
“I think so.”
“And also for the space into which the ninety thousand souls are packed,” quoth Tracy Runningbrook.
“Well! well!” went Sir Twickenham.
“The knife is the law to an Italian of the South,” said Mr. Powys. “He distrusts any other, because he never gets it. Where law is established, or tolerably secure, the knife is not used. Duels are rare. There is too much bonhomie for the point of honour.”
“I should like to believe that all men are as just to their mistresses,” Lady Charlotte sighed, mock-earnestly.
Presently Emilia touched the arm of Mr. Powys. She looked agitated. “I want to be told the name of that gentleman.” His eyes were led to rest on the handsome hussar-captain.
“Do you know him?”
“But his name!”
“Do me the favour to look at me. Captain Gambier.”
“It is!”
Captain Gambier’s face was resolutely kept in profile to her.
“I hear a rumour,” said Lady Gosstre to Arabella, “that you think of bidding for the Besworth estate. Are you tired of Brookfield?”
“Not tired; but Brookfield is modern, and I confess that Besworth has won my heart.”
“I shall congratulate myself on having you nearer neighbours. Have you many, or any rivals?”
“There is some talk of the Tinleys wishing to purchase it. I cannot see why.”
“What people are they?” asked Lady Charlotte. “Do they hunt?”
“Oh, dear, no! They are to society what Dissenters are to religion. I can’t describe them otherwise.”
“They pass before me in that description,” said Lady Gosstre.
“Besworth’s an excellent centre for hunting,” Lady Charlotte remarked to Wilfrid. “I’ve always had an affection for that place. The house is on gravel; the river has trout; there’s a splendid sweep of grass for the horses to exercise. I think there must be sixteen spare beds. At all events, I know that number can be made up; so that if you’re too poor to live much in London, you can always have your set about you.”
The eyes of the fair economist sparkled as she dwelt on these particular advantages of Besworth.
Richford boasted a show of flowers that might tempt its guests to parade the grounds on balmy evenings. Wilfrid kept by the side of Lady Charlotte. She did not win his taste a bit. Had she been younger, less decided in tone, and without a title, it is very possible that she would have offended his native, secret, and dominating fastidiousness as much as did Emilia. Then, what made him subject at all to her influence, as he felt himself beginning to be? She supplied a deficiency in the youth. He was growing and uncertain: she was set and decisive. In his soul he adored the extreme refinement of woman; even up to the thin edge of inanity (which neighbours what the philosopher could tell him if he would, and would, if it were permitted to him). Nothing was too white, too saintly, or too misty, for his conception of abstract woman. But the practical wants of our nature guide us best. Conversation with Lady Charlotte seemed to strengthen and ripen him. He blushed with pleasure when she said: “I remember reading your name in the account of that last cavalry charge on the Dewan. You slew a chief, I think. That was creditable, for they are swordmen. Cavalry in Europe can’t win much honour–not individual honour, I mean. I suppose being part of a victorious machine is exhilarating. I confess I should not think much of wearing that sort of feather. It’s right to do one’s duty, comforting to trample down opposition, and agreeable to shed blood, but when you have matched yourself man to man, and beaten–why, then, I dub you knight.”
Wilfrid bowed, half-laughing, in a luxurious abandonment to his sensations. Possibly because of their rule over him then, the change in him was so instant from flattered delight to vexed perplexity. Rounding one of the rhododendron banks, just as he lifted his head from that acknowledgment of the lady’s commendation, he had sight of Emilia with her hand in the hand of Captain Gambier. What could it mean? what right had he to hold her hand? Even if he knew her, what right?
The words between Emilia and Captain Gambier were few.
“Why did I not look at you during dinner?” said he. “Was it not better to wait till we could meet?”
“Then you will walk with me and talk to me all the evening?”
“No: but I will try and come down here next week and meet you again.”
“Are you going to-night?”
“Yes.”
“To-night? To-night before it strikes a quarter to ten, I am going to leave here alone. If you would come with me! I want a companion. I know they will not hurt me, but I don’t like being alone. I have given my promise to sing to some poor people. My friends say I must not go. I must go. I can’t break a promise to poor people. And you have never heard me really sing my best. Come with me, and I will.”
Captain Gambier required certain explanations. He saw that a companion and protection would be needed by his curious little friend, and as she was resolved not to break her word, he engaged to take her in the carriage that was to drive him to the station.
“You make me give up an appointment in town,” he said.
“Ah, but you will hear me sing,” returned Emilia. “We will drive to Brookfield and get my harp, and then to Ipley Common. I am to be sure you will be ready with the carriage at just a quarter to ten?”
The Captain gave her his assurance, and they separated; he to seek out Adela, she to wander about, the calmest of conspirators against the serenity of a household.
Meeting Wilfrid and Lady Charlotte, Emilia was asked by him, who it was she had quitted so abruptly.
“That is the gentleman I told you of. Now I know his name. It is Captain Gambier.”
She was allowed to pass on.
“What is this she says?” Lady Charlotte asked.
“It appears…something about a meeting somewhere accidentally, in the park, in London, I think; I really don’t know. She had forgotten his name.”
Lady Charlotte spurred him with an interrogative “Yes?”
“She wanted to remember his name. That’s all. He was kind to her.”
“But, after all,” remonstrated Lady Charlotte, “that’s only a characteristic of young men, is it not? no special distinction. You are all kind to girls, to women, to anything!”
Captain Gambier and Adela crossed their path. He spoke a passing word, Lady Charlotte returned no answer, and was silent to her companion for some minutes. Then she said, “If you feel any responsibility about this little person, take my advice, and don’t let her have appointments and meetings. They’re bad in any case, and for a girl who has no brother– has she? no:–well then, you should make the best provision you can against the cowardice of men. Most men are cowards.”
Emilia sang in the drawing-room. Brookfield knew perfectly why she looked indifferent to the plaudits, and was not dissatisfied at hearing Lady Gosstre say that she was a little below the mark. The kindly lady brought Emilia between herself and Mr. Powys, saying, “I don’t intend to let you be the star of the evening and outshine us all.” After which, conversation commenced, and Brookfield had reason to admire her ladyship’s practised play upon the social instrument, surely the grandest of all, the chords being men and women. Consider what an accomplishment this is!
Albeit Brookfield knew itself a student at Richford, Adela was of too impatient a wit to refrain from little ventures toward independence, if not rivalry. “What we do,” she uttered distinctively once or twice. Among other things she spoke of “our discovery,” to attest her declaration that, to wakeful eyes, neither Hillford nor any other place on earth was dull. Cornelia flushed at hearing the name of Mr. Barrett pronounced publicly by her sister.
“An organist an accomplished man!” Lady Gosstre repeated Adela’s words. “Well, I suppose it is possible, but it rather upsets one’s notions, does it not?”
“Yes, but agreeably,” said Adela, with boldness; and related how he had been introduced, and hinted that he was going to be patronized.
“The man cannot maintain himself on the income that sort of office brings him,” Lady Gosstre observed.
“Oh, no,” said Adela. “I fancy he does it simply for some sort of occupation. One cannot help imagining a disguise.”
“Personally I confess to an objection to gentlemen in disguise,” said Lady Gosstre. “Barrett!–do you know the man?”
She addressed Mr. Powys.
“There used to be good quartett evenings given by the Barretts of Bursey,” he said. “Sir Justinian Barrett married a Miss Purcell, who subsequently preferred the musical accomplishments of a foreign professor of the Art.”
“Purcell Barrett is his name,” said Adela. “Our Emilia brought him to us. Where is she? But, where can she be?”
Adela rose.
“She pressed my hand just now,” said Lady Gosstre.
“She was here when Captain Gambler quitted the room,” Arabella remarked.
“Good heaven!”
The exclamation came from Adela.
“Oh, Lady Gosstre! I fear to tell you what I think she has done.”
The scene of the rival Clubs was hurriedly related, together with the preposterous pledge given by Emilia, that she would sing at the Ipley Booth: “Among those dreadful men!”
“They will treat her respectfully,” said Mr. Powys.
“Worship her, I should imagine, Merthyr,” said Lady Gosstre. “For all that, she had better be away. Beer is not a respectful spirit.”
“I trust you will pardon her,” Arabella pleaded. “Everything that explanations of the impropriety of such a thing could do, we have done. We thought that at last we had convinced her. She is quite untamed.”
Mr. Powys now asked where this place was that she had hurried to.
The unhappy ladies of Brookfield, quick as they were to read every sign surrounding them, were for the moment too completely thrown off their balance by Emilia’s extraordinary exhibition of will, to see that no reflex of her shameful and hideous proceeding had really fallen upon them. Their exclamations were increasing, until Adela, who had been the noisiest, suddenly adopted Lady Gosstre’s tone. “If she has gone, I suppose she must be simply fetched away.”
“Do you see what has happened?” Lady Charlotte murmured to Wilfrid, between a phrase.
He stumbled over a little piece of gallantry.
“Excellent! But, say those things in French.–Your dark-eyed maid has eloped. She left the room five minutes after Captain Gambier.”
Wilfrid sprang to his feet, looking eagerly to the corners of the room.
“Pardon me,” he said, and moved up to Lady Gosstre. On the way he questioned himself why his heart should be beating at such a pace. Standing at her ladyship’s feet, he could scarcely speak.
“Yes, Wilfrid; go after her,” said Adela, divining his object.
“By all means go,” added Lady Gosstre. “Now she is there, you may as well let her keep her promise; and then hurry her home. They will saddle you a horse down below, if you care to have one.”
Wilfrid thanked her ladyship, and declined the horse. He was soon walking rapidly under a rough sky in the direction of Ipley, with no firm thought that he would find Emilia there.
ETEXT EDITOR’S BOOKMARKS:
Being heard at night, in the nineteenth century Pleasure sat like an inextinguishable light on her face Beyond a plot of flowers, a gold-green meadow dipped to a ridge His alien ideas were not unimpressed by the picture Hushing together, they agreed that it had been a false move I had to make my father and mother live on potatoes I had to cross the park to give a lesson She was perhaps a little the taller of the two The circle which the ladies of Brookfield were designing The gallant cornet adored delicacy and a gilded refinement The philosopher (I would keep him back if I could) They had all noticed, seen, and observed