WHEN Calvert rejoined his friend, he was full of the adventure of the morning—such a glorious discovery as he had made. What a wonderful old woman, and what charming girls! Milly, however, he owned, rather inclined to the contemptuous. “She was what you Cockneys call ‘sarcy,’ Loyd; but the sick girl was positively enchanting; so pretty, so gentle, and so confiding withal. By-the-way, you must make me three or four sketches of Nile scenery—a dull flat, with a palm-tree, group of camels in the fore, and a pyramid in the background; and I’ll get up the journal part, while you are doing the illustrations. I know nothing of Egypt beyond the overland route, though I have persuaded them I kept a house in Cairo, and advised them by all means to take Florence there for the winter.”
“But how could you practise such a deception in such a case, Calvert?” said Loyd, reproachfully.
“Just as naturally as you have ‘got up’ that grand tone of moral remonstrance. What an arrant humbug you are, Loyd. Why not keep all this fine indignation for Westminster, where it will pay?”
“Quiz away, if you like; but you will not prevent me saying that the case of a poor sick girl is not one for a foolish jest, or a—”
He stopped and grew very red, but the other continued:—
“Out with it, man. You were going to say, a falsehood. I’m not going to be vexed with you because you happen to have a rather crape-coloured temperament, and like turning things round till you find the dark side of them.” He paused for a few seconds and then went on: “If you had been in my place this morning, I know well enough what you’d have done. You’d have rung the changes over the uncertainty of life, and all its miseries and disappointments. You’d have frightened that poor delicate creature out of her wits, and driven her sister half distracted, to satisfy what you imagine to be your conscience, but which, I know far better, is nothing but a morbid love of excitement—an unhealthy passion for witnessing pain. Now, I left her actually looking better for my visit—she was cheered and gay, and asked when I’d come again, in a voice that betrayed a wish for my return.”
Loyd never liked being drawn into a discussion with his friend, seeing how profitless such encounters are in general, and how likely to embitter intercourse; so he merely took his hat and moved towards the door.
“Where are you going? Not to that odious task of photography, I hope?” cried Calvert.
“Yes,” said the other, smiling; “I am making a complete series of views of the lake, and some fine day or other I’ll make water-colour drawings from them.”
“How I hate all these fine intentions that only point to more work. Tell me of a plan for a holiday, some grand scheme for idleness, and I am with you; but to sit quietly down and say, ‘I’ll roll that stone up a hill next summer, or next autumn,’ that drives me mad.”
“Well, I’ll not drive you mad. I’ll say nothing about it,” said Loyd, with a good-natured smile.
“But won’t you make me these drawings, these jottings of my tour amongst the Pyramids?”
“Not for such an object as you want them to serve.”
“I suppose, when you come to practise at the bar, you’ll only defend innocence and protect virtue, eh? You’ll, of course, never take the brief of a knave, or try to get a villain off. With your principles, to do so would be the basest of all crimes.”
“I hope I’ll never do that deliberately which my conscience tells me I ought not to do.”
“All right. Conscience is always in one’s own keeping—a guest in the house, who is far too well bred to be disagreeable to the family. Oh, you arch hypocrite! how much worse you are than a reprobate like myself!”
“I’ll not dispute that.”
“More hypocrisy!”
“I mean that, without conceding the point, it’s a thesis I’ll not argue.”
“You ought to have been a Jesuit, Loyd. You’d have been a grand fellow in a long black soutane, with little buttons down to the feet, and a skull-cap on your head. I think I see some poor devil coming to you about a ‘cas de conscience,’ and going away sorely puzzled with your reply to him.”
“Don’t come to me with one of yours, Calvert, that’s all,” said Loyd, laughing, as he hurried off.
Like many men who have a strong spirit of banter in them, Calvert was vexed and mortified when his sarcasm did not wound. “If the stag will not run, there can be no pursuit,” and so was it that he now felt angry with Loyd, angry with himself. “I suppose these are the sort of fellows who get on in life. The world likes their quiet subserviency, and their sleek submissiveness. As for me, and the like of me, we are ‘not placed.’ Now for a line to my Cousin Sophy, to know who is the ‘Grainger’ who says she is so well acquainted with us all. Poor Sophy, it was a love affair once between us, and then it came to a quarrel, and out of that we fell into the deeper bitterness of what is called ‘a friendship.’ We never really hated each other till we came to that!”
“Dearest, best of friends,” he began, “in my broken health,fortunes, and spirits, I came to this place a few weeks ago,and made, by chance, the acquaintance of an atrocious oldwoman called Grainger—Miss or Mrs., I forget which—who isshe, and why does she knowus, and call us the ‘dearCalverts,’ and your house ‘sweet old Rocksley?’ I fancy shemust be a begging-letter impostor, and has a design—it willbe a very abortive one—upon my spare five-pound notes. Tellme all you know of her, and if you can add a word about hernieces twain—one pretty, the other prettier—do so.“Any use in approaching my uncle with a statement of mydistresses—mind, body, and estate? I owe him so muchgratitude that, if he doesn’t want me to be insolvent, hemust help me a little further.“Is it true you are going to be married? The thought of itsends a pang through me, of such anguish as I dare not speakof. Oh dear! oh dear! what a flood of bygones are rushingupon me, after all my pledges, all my promises! One ofthese girls reminded me of your smile; how like, but howdifferent, Sophy. Do say there’s no truth in the story ofthe marriage, and believe me—what your heart will tell youI have never ceased to be—your devoted“Harry Calvert.”
“I think that ought to do,” said he, as he read over the letter; “and there’s no peril in it since her marriage is fixed for the end of the month. It is, after all, a cheap luxury to bid for the lot that will certainly be knocked down to another. She’s a nice girl, too, is Sophy, but, like all of us, with a temper of her own.
“I’d like to see her married to Loyd, they’d make each other perfectly miserable.”
With this charitable reflection to turn over in various ways, tracing all the consequences he could imagine might spring from it, he sauntered out for a walk beside the lake.
“This box has just come by the mail from Chiasso,” said his host, pointing to a small parcel, corded and sealed. “It is the box the signora yonder has been searching for these three weeks; it was broken when the diligence upset, and they tied it together as well as they could.”
The writing-desk was indeed that which Miss Grainger had lost on her Rhine journey, and was now about to reach her in a lamentable condition—one hinge torn off the lock strained, and the bottom split from one end to the other.
“I’ll take charge of it I shall go over to see her in a day or two, perhaps to-morrow;” and with this Calvert carried away the box to his own room.
As he was laying the desk on his table, the bottom gave way, and the contents fell about the room. They were a mass of papers and letters, and some parchments; and he proceeded to gather them up as best he might, cursing the misadventure, and very angry with himself for being involved in it. The letters were in little bundles, neatly tied, and docketed with the writers’ names. These he replaced in the box, having inverted it, and placing all, as nearly as he could, in due order, till he came to a thick papered document tied with red tape at the corner, and entitled Draft of Jacob Walter’s Will, with Remarks of Counsel “This we must look at,” said Calvert “What one can see at Doctors’ Commons for a shilling is no breach of confidence, even if seen for nothing;” and with this he opened the paper.
It was very brief, and set forth how the testator had never made, nor would make, any other will, that he was sound of mind, and hoped to die so. As to his fortune, it was something under thirty thousand pounds in Bank Stock, and he desired it should be divided equally between his daughters, the survivor of them to have the whole, or, in the event of each life lapsing before marriage, that the money should be divided amongst a number of charities that he specified.
“I particularly desire and beg,” wrote he, “that my girls be brought up by Adelaide Grainger, my late wife’s half-sister, who long has known the hardships of poverty, and the cares of a narrow subsistence, that they may learn in early life the necessity of thrift, and not habituate themselves to luxuries, which a reverse of fortune might take away from them. I wish, besides, that it should be generally believed their fortune was one thousand pounds each, so that they should not become a prey to fortune-hunters, nor the victims of adventurers, insomuch that my last request to each of my dear girls would be not to marry the man who would make inquiry into the amount of their means till twelve calendar months after such inquiry, that time being full short enough to study the character of one thus palpably worldly-minded and selfish.”
A few cautions as to the snares and pitfalls of the world followed, and the document finished with the testator’s name, and that of three witnesses in pencil, the words “if they consent,” being added in ink, after them.
“Twice fifteen make thirty—thirty thousand pounds—a very neat sum for a great many things, and yielding, even in its dormant state, about fifteen hundred a year. What can one do for that? Live, certainly—live pleasantly, jovially, if a man were a bachelor. At Paris, for instance, with one’s pleasant little entresol in the Rue Neuve, or the Rue Faubourg St Honoré, and his club, and his saddle-horses, with even ordinary luck at billiards, he could make the two ends meet very satisfactorily. Then, Baden always pays its way, and the sea-side places also do, for the world is an excellent world to the fellow who travels with his courier, and only begs to be plucked a little by the fingers that wear large diamonds.
“But all these enchantments vanish when it becomes a question of a wife. A wife means regular habits and respectability. The two most costly things I know of. Your scampish single-handed valet, who is out all day on his own affairs, and only turns up at all at some noted time in your habits, is not one tenth as dear as that old creature with the powdered head and the poultice of cravat round his neck, who only bows when the dinner is served, and grows apoplectic if he draws a cork.
“It’s the same in everything! Your house must be taken, not because it is convenient or that you like it, but because your wife can put a pretentious address on her card. It must be something to which you can tag Berkeley Square, or Belgravia. In a word, a wife is a mistake, and, what is worse, a mistake out of which there is no issue.”
Thus reasoning and reflecting—now, speculating on what he should feel—now, imagining what “the world” would say—he again sat down, and once more read Over Mr. Walter’s last will and testament.
IN something over a week the post brought two letters for the fellow-travellers. Loyd’s was from his mother—a very homely affair, full of affection and love, and overflowing with those little details of domestic matters so dear to those who live in the small world of home and its attachments.
Calvert’s was from his Cousin Sophy, much briefer, and very different in style. It ran thus:
“Dear Henry—”
“I used to be Harry,” muttered he.
“Dear Henry,—It was not without surprise I saw yourhandwriting again. A letter from you is indeed an event atRocksley.“The Miss Grainger, if her name be Adelaide (for there weretwo sisters) was our nursery governess long ago. Cary liked,I hated her. She left us to take charge of some one’schildren—relatives of her own, I suspect—and though shemade some move about coming to see us, and presenting ‘hercharge,’ as she called it, there was no response to thesuggestion, and it dropped. I never heard more of her.“As to any hopes of assistance from papa, I can scarcelyspeak encouragingly. Indeed, he made no inquiry as to thecontents of your letter, and only remarked afterwards toCary that he trusted the correspondence was not to continue.“Lastly, as to myself, I really am at a loss to see how mymarriage can be a subject of joy or grief, of pleasure orpain, to you. We are as much separated from each other inall the relations of life, as we shall soon be by long milesof distance. Mr. Wentworth Graham is fully aware of therelations which once subsisted between us,—he has evenread your letters—and it is at his instance I request thatthe tone of our former intimacy shall cease from this day,and that there may not again be any reference to the pastbetween us. I am sure in this I am merely anticipating whatyour own sense of honourable propriety would dictate, andthat I only express a sentiment your own judgment hasalready ratified.“Believe me to be, very sincerely yours,“Sophia Calvert.”
“Oh dear! When we were Sophy and Harry, the world went very differently from now, when it has come to Henry and Sophia. Not but she is right—right in everything but one. She ought not to have shown the letters. There was no need of it, and it was unfair! There is a roguery in it too, which, if I were Mr. Wentworth Graham, I’d not like. It is only your most accomplished sharper that ever plays ‘cartes sur table.’ I’d sorely suspect the woman who would conciliate the new love by a treachery to the old one. However, happily, this is his affair, not mine. Though I could make it mine, too, if I were so disposed, by simply reminding her that Mr. W. G. has only seen one half, and, by long odds, the least interesting half, of our correspondence, and that for the other he must address himself to me. Husbands have occasionally to learn that a small sealed packet of old letters would be a more acceptable present to the bride on her wedding morning than the prettiest trinket from the Rue de la Paix. Should like to throw this shell into the midst of the orange-flowers and the wedding favours, and I’d do it too, only that I could never accurately hear of the tumult and dismay it caused. I should be left to mere imagination for the mischief and imagination no longer satisfies me.”
While he thus mused, he saw Loyd preparing for one of his daily excursions with the photographic apparatus, and could not help a contemptuous pity for a fellow so easily amused and interested, and so easily diverted from the great business of life—which he deemed “getting on”—to a pastime which cost labour and returned no profit.
“Come and see ‘I Grangeri’ (the name by which the Italians designated the English family at the villa), it’s far better fun than hunting out rocky bits, or ruined fragments of masonry. Come, and I’ll promise you something prettier to look at than all your feathery ferns or drooping foxgloves.”
Loyd tried to excuse himself. He was always shy and timid with strangers. His bashfulness repelled intimacy and so he frankly owned that he would only be a bar to his friend’s happiness, and throw a cloud over this pleasant intercourse.
“How do you know but I’d like that?” said Calvert with a mocking laugh. “How do you know but I want the very force of a contrast to bring my own merits more conspicuously forward?”
“And make them declare when we went away, that it is inconceivable why Mr. Calvert should have made a companion of that tiresome Mr. Loyd—so low-spirited and so dreary, and so uninteresting in every way?”
“Just so! And that the whole thing has but one explanation—in Calvert’s kindness and generosity; who, seeing the helplessness of this poor depressed creature, has actually sacrificed himself to vivify and cheer him. As we hear of the healthy people suffering themselves to be bled that they might impart their vigorous heart’s blood to a poor wretch in the cholera.”
“But I’m not blue yet,” said Loyd laughing. “I almost think I could get on with my own resources.”
“Of course you might, in the fashion you do at present; butthatis not life—or at least it is only the life of a vegetable. Mere existence and growth are not enough for a man who has hopes to fulfil, and passions to exercise, and desires to expand into accomplishments, not to speak of the influence that everyone likes to wield over his fellows. But, come along, jump into the boat, and see these girls! I want you; for there is one of them I scarcely understand as yet, and as I am always taken up with her sick sister, I’ve had no time to learn more about her.”
“Well,” said Loyd, “not to offer opposition to the notion of the tie that binds us, I consent.” And sending back to the cottage all the details of his pursuit, he accompanied Calvert to the lake.
“The invalid girl I shall leave to your attention, Loyd,” said the other, as he pulled across the water. “I like her the best; but I am in no fear of rivalry in that quarter, and I want to see what sort of stuff the other is made of. So, you understand, you are to devote yourself especially to Florence, taking care, when opportunity serves, to say all imaginable fine things about me—my talents, my energy, my good spirits, and so forth. I’m serious, old fellow, for I will own to you I mean to marry one of them, though which, I have not yet decided on.”
Loyd laughed heartily—far more heartily than in his quiet habit was his wont—and said, “Since when has this bright idea occurred to you?”
“I’ll tell you,” said the other gravely. “I have for years had a sort of hankering kind of half attachment to a cousin of mine. We used to quarrel, and make up, and quarrel again; but somehow, just as careless spendthrifts forget to destroy the old bill when they give a renewal, and at last find a swingeing sum hanging over them they had never dreamed of, Sophy and I never entirely cancelled our old scores, but kept them back to be demanded at some future time. And the end has been, a regular rupture between us, and she is going to be married at the end of this month, and, not to be outdone on the score of indifference, I should like to announce my own happiness, since that’s the word for it, first.”
“But have you means to marry?”
“Not a shilling.”
“Nor prospects?”
“None.”
“Then I don’t understand——”
“Of course you don’t understand. Nor could I make you understand how fellows like myself play the game of life. But let me try by an illustration to enlighten you. When there’s no wind on a boat, and her sails flap lazily against the mast, she can have no guidance, for there is no steerage-way on her. She may drift with a current, or rot in a calm, or wait to be crushed by some heavier craft surging against her. Any wind—a squall, a hurricane—would be better than that. Such is my case. Marriage without means is a hurricane; but I’d rather face a hurricane than be water-logged between two winds.”
“But the girl you marry—”
“The girl I marry—or rather the girl who marriesme—will soon learn that she’s on board a privateer, and that on the wide ocean called life there’s plenty of booty to be had, for a little dash and a little danger to grasp it.”
“And is it to a condition like this you’d bring the girl you love, Calvert?”
“Not if I had five thousand a year. If I owned that, or even four, I’d be as decorous as yourself; and I’d send my sons to Rugby, and act as poor-law guardian, and give my twenty pounds to the county hospital, and be a model Englishman, to your heart’s content. But I haven’t five thousand a year, no, nor five hundred a year; and as for the poor-house and the hospital, I’m far more likely to claim the benefit than aid the funds. Don’t you see, my wise-headed friend, that the whole is a question of money? Morality is just now one of the very dearest things going, and even the rich cannot always afford it. As for me, a poor sub in an Indian regiment, I no more affect it than I presume to keep a yacht, or stand for a county.”
“But what right have you to reduce another to such straits as these? Why bring a young girl into such a conflict?”
“If ever you read Louis Blanc, my good fellow, you’d have seen that the right of all rights is that of ‘associated labour.’ But come, let us not grow too deep in the theme, or we shall have very serious faces to meet out friends with, and yonder, where you see the drooping ash trees, is the villa. Brush yourself up, therefore, for the coming interview; think of your bits of Shelley and Tennyson, and who knows but you’ll acquit yourself with honour to your introducer.”
“Let my introducer not be too confident,” said Loyd, smiling; “but here come the ladies.”
As he spoke, two girls drew nigh the landing-place, one leaning on the arm of the other, and in her attitude showing how dependent she was for support.
“My bashful friend, ladies!” said Calvert, presenting Loyd. And with this they landed.
THE knowledge Calvert now possessed of the humble relations which had subsisted between Miss Grainger and his uncle’s family, had rendered him more confident in his manner, and given him even a sort of air of protection towards them. Certain it is, each day made him less and less a favourite at the villa, while Loyd, on the other hand, grew in esteem and liking with everyone of them. A preference which, with whatever tact shrouded, showed itself in various shapes.
“I perceive,” said Calvert one morning, as they sat at breakfast together, “my application for an extension of leave is rejected. I am ordered to hold myself in readiness to sail with drafts for some regiments in Upper India!” he paused for a few seconds, and then continued. “I’d like anyone to tell me what great difference there is in real condition between an Indian officer and a transported felon. In point of daily drudgery there is little, and as for climate the felon has the best of it.”
“I think you take too dreary a view of your fortune. It is not the sort of career I would choose, nor would it suit me, but if my lot had fallen that way, I suspect I’d not have found it so unendurable.”
“No. It would not suit you. There’s no scope in a soldier’s life for those little sly practices, those small artifices of tact and ingenuity, by which subtlety does its work in this world. In such a career, all this adroitness would be clean thrown away.”
“I hope,” said Loyd, with a faint smile, “that you do not imagine that these are the gifts to achieve success in any calling.”
“I don’t know—I am not sure, but I rather suspect they find their place at the Bar.”
“Take my word for it, then, you are totally mistaken. It is an error just as unworthy of your good sense as it is of your good feeling!” And he spoke with warmth and energy.
“Hurrah! hurrah!” cried Calvert “For three months I have been exploring to find one spot in your whole nature that would respond fiercely to attack, and at last I have it.”
“You put the matter somewhat offensively to me, or I’d not have replied in this fashion—but let us change the topic, it is an unpleasant one.”
“I don’t think so. When a man nurtures what his friend believes to be a delusion, and a dangerous delusion, what better theme can there be than its discussion?”
“I’ll not discuss it,” said Loyd, with determination.
“You’ll not discuss it?”
“No!”
“What if I force you? What if I place the question on grounds so direct and so personal that you can’t help it?”
“I don’t understand you.”
“You shall presently. For some time back I have been thinking of asking an explanation from you—an explanation of your conduct at the villa. Before you had established an intimacy there,Istood well with everyone. The old woman, with all her respect for my family and connexions, was profuse in her attentions. Of the girls, as I somewhat rashly confided to you, I had only to make my choice. I presented you to them, never anticipating that I was doing anything very dangerous to them or to myself, but I find I was wrong. I don’t want to descend to details, nor inquire how and by what arts you gained your influence; my case is simply with the fact that, sinceyouhave been in favour,Ihave been out of it My whole position with them is changed. I can only suggest now what I used to order, and I have the pleasure, besides, of seeing that even my suggestion must be submitted to you and await your approval.”
“Have you finished?” said Loyd, calmly.
“No, far from it! I could make my charge extend over hours long. In fact, I have only to review our lives here for the last six or seven weeks, to establish all I have been saying, and show you that you owe me an explanation, and something more than an explanation.”
“Have you done now?”
“If you mean, have I said all that I could say on this subject, no, far from it. You have not heard a fiftieth part of what I might say about it.”
“Well, I have heard quite enough. My answer is this, you are totally mistaken; I never, directly or indirectly, prejudiced your position. I seldom spoke of you, never slightingly. I have thought, it is true, that you assumed towards these ladies a tone of superiority, which could not fail to be felt by them, and that the habit grew on you, to an extent you perhaps were not aware of; as, however, they neither complained of, nor resented it, and as, besides, you were far more a man of the world than myself, and consequently knew better what the usages of society permitted, I refrained from any remark, nor, but for your present charge, would I say one word now on the subject.”
“So, then, you have been suffering in secret all this time over my domineering and insolent temper, pitying the damsels in distress, but not able to get up enough of Quixotism to avenge them?”
“Do you want to quarrel with me, Calvert?” said the other calmly.
“If I knew what issue it would take, perhaps I could answer you.”
“I’ll tell you, then, at least so far as I am concerned, I have never injured, never wronged you. I have therefore nothing to recall, nothing to redress, upon any part of my conduct. In what you conceive you are personally interested, I am ready to give a full explanation, and this done, all is done between us.”
“I thought so, I suspected as much,” said Calvert, contemptuously. “I was a fool to suppose you’d have taken the matter differently, and now nothing remains for me but to treat my aunt’s nursery governess with greater deference, and be more respectful in the presence—the august presence—of a lawyer’s clerk.”
“Good-bye, Sir,” said Loyd, as he left the room.
Calvert sat down and took up a book, but though he read three full pages, he knew nothing of what they contained. He opened his desk, and began a letter to Loyd, a farewell letter, a justification of himself, but done more temperately than he had spoken; but he tore it up, and so with a second and a third. As his passion mounted, he bethought him of his cousin and her approaching marriage. “I can spoil some fun there,” cried he, and wrote as follows:
“Lago d’Orta, August 12.“Dear Sir,—In the prospect of the nearer relations which afew days more will establish between us, I venture toaddress you thus familiarly. My cousin, Miss Sophia Calvert,has informed me by a letter I have just received that shedeemed it her duty to place before you a number of letterswritten by me to her, at a time when there subsisted betweenus a very close attachment. With my knowledge of my cousin’sfrankness, her candour, and her courage—for it would alsorequire some courage—I am fully persuaded that she hasinformed you thoroughly on all that has passed. We were bothvery young, very thoughtless, and, worse than either, lefttotally to our own guidance, none to watch, none to lookafter us. There is no indiscretion in my saying that we wereboth very much in love, and with that sort of confidence ineach other that renders distrust a crime to one’s ownconscience. Although, therefore, she may have told you much,her womanly dignity would not let her dwell on thesecircumstances, explanatory of much, and palliative of allthat passed between us. To you, a man of the world, I owethis part declaration, less, however, for your sake or formine, than for her, for whom either of us ought to make anysacrifice in our power.“The letters she wrote me are still in my possession. I ownthey are very dear to me; they are all that remain of apast, to which nothing in my future life can recall theequal. I feel, however, that your right to them is greaterthan my own, but I do not know how to part with them. I prayyou advise me in this. Say how you would act in a likecircumstance, knowing all that has occurred, and be assuredthat your voice will be a command to your very devotedservant,“H.C.“P.S.—When I began this letter, I was minded to say mycousin should see it: on second thoughts, I incline to saynot, decidedly not.”
When this base writer had finished writing he flung down the pen, and said to himself, half aloud, “I’d give something to see him read this!”
With a restless impatience to do something—anything, he left the house, walking with hurried steps to the little jetty where the boats lay. “Where’s my boat, Onofrio?” said he, asking for the skiff he generally selected.
“The other signor has taken her across the lake.”
“This is too much,” muttered he. “The fellow fancies that because he skulks a satisfaction, he is free to practise an impertinence. He knew I preferred this boat, and therefore he took her.”
“Jump in, and row me across to La Rocca,” said he to the boatman. As they skimmed across the lake, his mind dwelt only on vengeance, and fifty different ways of exacting it passed and repassed before him. All, however, concentrating on the one idea—that to pass some insult upon Loyd in presence of the ladies would be the most fatal injury he could inflict, but how to do this without a compromise of himself was the difficulty.
“Though no woman will ever forgive a coward,” thought he, “I must take care that the provocation I offer be such as will not exclude myself from sympathy.” And, with all his craft and all his cunning, he could not hit upon a way to this. He fancied, too, that Loyd had gone over to prejudice the ladies against him by his own version of what had occurred in the morning. He knew well how, of late, he himself had not occupied the highest place in their esteem—it was not alone the insolent and overbearing toneheassumed, but a levity in talking of things which others treated with deference, alike offensive to morals and manners—these had greatly lowered him in their esteem, especially of the girls, for old Miss Grainger, with a traditional respect for his name and family, held to him far more than the others.
“What a fool I was ever to have brought the fellow here! What downright folly it was in me to have let them ever know him. Is it too late, however, to remedy this? Can I not yet undo some of this mischief?” This was a new thought, and it filled his mind till he landed. As he drew quite close to the shore he saw that the little awning-covered boat, in which the ladies occasionally made excursions on the lake, was now anchored under a large drooping ash, and that Loyd and the girls were on board of her. Loyd was reading to them; at least so the continuous and equable tone of his voice indicated, as it rose in the thin and silent air. Miss Grainger was not there—and this was a fortunate thing—for now he should have his opportunity to talk with her alone, and probably ascertain to what extent Loyd’s representations had damaged him.
He walked up to the villa, and entered the drawing-room, as he was wont, by one of the windows that opened on the green sward without. There was no one in the room, but a half-written letter, on which the ink was still fresh, showed that the writer had only left it at the instant. His eye caught the words, “Dear and Reverend Sir,” and in the line beneath the name Loyd. The temptation was too strong, and he read on:
“Dear and Reverend Sir,—I hasten to express my entiresatisfaction with the contents of your letter. Your son, Mr.Loyd, has most faithfully represented his position and hisprospects, and, although my niece might possibly have placedher chances of happiness in the hands of a wealthier suitor,I am fully assured she never could have met with one whosetastes, pursuits, and general disposition—”
A sound of coming feet startled him, and he had but time to throw himself on a sofa, when Miss Grainger entered. Her manner was cordial—fully as cordial as usual—perhaps a little more so, since, in the absence of her nieces, she was free to express the instinctive regard she felt towards all that bore his name.
“How was it that you did not come with Loyd?” asked she.
“I was busy, writing letters I believe—congratulations on Sophy’s approaching marriage; but what did Loyd say—was that the reason he gave?”
“He gave none. He said he took a whim into his head to row himself across the lake; and indeed I half suspect the exertion was too much for him. He has been coughing again, and the pain in his side has returned.”
“He’s a wretched creature—I mean as regards health and strength. Of course he always must have been so: but the lives these fellows lead in London would breach the constitution of a really strong man.”
“Not Loyd, however; he never kept late hours, nor had habits of dissipation.”
“I don’t suppose he ever told you that he had,” said he, laughing. “I conclude that he has never shown you his diary of town life.”
“But do you tell me, seriously, that he is a man of dissipated habits?”
“Not more so than eight out of every ten, perhaps, in his class of life. The student is everywhere more given to the excitements of vice than the sportsman. It is the compensation for the wearisome monotony of brain labour, and they give themselves up to excesses from which the healthier nature of a man with country tastes would revolt at once. But what have I to do with his habits? I am not his guardian nor his confessor.”
“But they have a very serious interest forme.”
“Then you must look for another counsellor. I am not so immaculate that I can arraign others; and, if I were, I fancy I might find some pleasanter occupation.”
“But if I tell you a secret, a great secret—”
“I’d not listen to a secret I detest secrets, just as I’d hate to have the charge of another man’s money. So, I warn you, tell me nothing that you don’t want to hear talked of at dinner, and before the servants.”
“Yes; but this is a case in which I really need your advice.”
“You can’t have it at the price you propose. Not to add, that I have a stronger sentiment to sway me in this case, which you will understand at once, when I you tell that he is a man of whom I would like to speak with great reserve, for the simple reason that I don’t like him.”
“Don’t like him! You don’t like him!”
“It does seem very incredible to you; but I must repeat it, I don’t like him.”
“But will you tell me why? What are the grounds of your dislike?”
“Is it not this very moment I have explained to you that my personal feeling towards him inspires a degree of deference which forbids me to discuss his character? He may be the best fellow in Europe, the bravest, the boldest, the frankest, the fairest All I have to say is, that if I had a sister, and he proposed to marry her I’d rather see her a corpse than his wife; and now you have led me into a confession that I told you I’d not enter upon. Say another word about it and I’ll go and ask Loyd to come up here and listen to the discussion, for I detest secrets and secrecy, and I’ll have nothing to say to either.”
“You’d not do anything so rash and inconsiderate?”
“Don’t provoke me, that’s all. You are always telling me you know the Calverts, their hot-headedness, their passionate warmth, and so on. I leave it to yourself, is it wise to push me further?”
“May I show you a letter I received yesterday morning, in reply to one of mine?”
“Not if it refers to Loyd.”
“It does refer to him.”
“Then I’ll not read it. I tell you for the last time, I’ll not be cheated into this discussion. I don’t desire to have it said of me some fine morning, You talked of the man that you lived with on terms of intimacy. You chummed with him, and yet you told stories of him.”
“If you but knew the difficulty of the position in which you have placed me—”
“I know at least the difficulty in which you have placedme, and I am resolved not to incur it. Have I given to you Sophy’s letter to read?” said he with a changed voice. “I must fetch it out to you and let you see all that she says of her future happiness.” And thus, by a sudden turn, he artfully engaged her in recollections of Rocksley, and all the persons and incidents of a remote long ago!
When Loyd returned with the girls to the house, Calvert soon saw that he had not spoken to them on the altercation of the morning—a reserve which he ungenerously attributed to the part Loyd himself filled in the controversy. The two met with a certain reserve; but which, however felt and understood by each, was not easily marked by a spectator. Florence, however, saw it, with the traditional clearness of an invalid. She read what healthier eyes never detect She saw that the men had either quarrelled, or were on the brink of a quarrel, and she watched them closely and narrowly. This was the easier for her, as at meal times she never came to table, but lay on a sofa, and joined in the conversation at intervals.
Oppressed by the consciousness of what had occurred in the morning, and far less able to conceal his emotions or master them than his companion, Loyd was disconcerted and ill at ease: now answering at cross-purposes, now totally absorbed in his own reflections. As Calvert saw this, it encouraged him to greater efforts to be agreeable. He could, when he pleased, be a most pleasing guest. He had that sort of knowledge of people and life which seasons talk so well, and suits so many listeners. He was curious to find out to which of the sisters Loyd was engaged, but all his shrewdness could not fix the point decisively. He talked on incessantly, referring occasionally to Loyd to confirm what he knew well the other’s experience could never have embraced, and asking frankly, as it were, for his opinion on people he was fully aware the other had never met with.
Emily (or Milly, as she was familiarly called) Walter showed impatience more than once at these sallies, which always made Loyd confused and uncomfortable, so that Calvert leaned to the impression that it was she herself was the chosen one. As for Florence, she rather enjoyed, he thought, the awkward figure Loyd presented, and she even laughed outright at his bashful embarrassment.
“Yes,” said Calvert to himself, “Florence is with me. She is my ally. I’m sure of her.”
“What spirits he has,” said Miss Grainger, as she brought the sick girl her coffee. “I never saw him in a gayer mood. He’s bent on tormenting Loyd though, for he has just proposed a row on the lake, and that he should take one boat and Loyd the other, and have a race. He well knows who’ll win.”
“That would be delightful, aunt Let us have it by all means. Mr. Calvert, I engageyou. You are to takeme. Emily will go with Mr. Loyd.”
“And I’ll stand at the point and be the judge,” said Miss Grainger.
Calvert never waited for more, but springing up, hastened down to the shore to prepare the boat He was soon followed by Miss Grainger, with Florence leaning on her arm and looking brighter and fairer than he thought he had ever seen her.
“Let us be off at once,” whispered Calvert, “for I’d like a few hundred yards’ practice—a sort of trial gallop—before I begin;” and, placing the sick girl tenderly in the stern, he pulled vigorously out into the lake. “What a glorious evening!” said he. “Is there anything in the world can equal one of these sunsets on an Italian lake, with all the tints of the high Alps blending softly on the calm water?”
She made no answer; and he went on enthusiastically about the scene, the hour, the stillness, and the noble sublimity of the gigantic mountains which arose around them.
Scarcely, however, had Calvert placed her in the boat, and pulled out vigorously from the shore, than he saw a marked change come over the girl’s face. All the laughing gaiety of a moment back was gone, and an expression of anxiety had taken its place.
“You are not ill?” asked he, eagerly.
“No. Why do you ask me?”
“I was afraid—I fancied you looked paler. You seem changed.”
“So I am,” said she, seriously. “Answer me what I shall ask, but tell me frankly.”
“That I will; what is it?”
“You and Loyd have quarrelled—what was it about?”
“What a notion! Do you imagine that the silly quizzing that passes, between young men implies a quarrel?”
“No matter what I fancy; tell me as candidly as you said you would. What was the subject of your disagreement?”
“How peremptory you are,” said he laughing. “Are you aware that to give your orders in this fashion implies one of two things—a strong interest in me, or in my adversary?”
“Well, I accept the charge; now for the confession.”
“Am I right, then, dearest Florence?” said he, ceasing to row, and leaning down to look the nearer at her. “Am I right, then, that your claim to this knowledge is the best and most indisputable?”
“Tell me what it is!” said she, and her pale face suddenly glowed with a deep flush.
“You guessed aright, Florence, we did quarrel; that is, we exchanged very angry words, though it is not very easy to say how the difference began, nor how far it went I was dissatisfied with him. I attributed to his influence, in some shape or other, that I stood less well here—inyouresteem, I mean—than formerly; and he somewhat cavalierly told me if there were a change I owed it to myself, that I took airs upon me, that I was haughty, presuming, and fifty other things of the same sort; and so, with an interchange of such courtesies, we grew at last to feel very warm, and finally reached that point where men—of the world, at least—understand discussion ceases, and something else succeeds.”
“Well, go on,” cried she, eagerly.
“All is told; there is no more to say. The lawyer did not see the thing, perhaps, in the same vulgar light that I did; he took his hat, and came over here. I followed him, and there’s the whole of it.”
“I think he was wrong to comment upon your manner, if not done from a sense of friendship, and led on to it by some admission on your part.”
“Of course he was; and I am charmed to hear you say so.”
She was silent for some time, leaning her head on her hand, and appearing deep in thought.
“Now that I have mademyconfession, will you let me have one ofyours?” said he, in a low, soft voice.
“I’m not sure; what’s it to be about?”
“It’s about myself I want to question you.”
“About yourself! Surely you could not have hit upon a sorrier adviser, or a less experienced counsellor than I am.”
“I don’t want advice, Florence, I only want a fact; and from all I have seen of you, I believe you will deal fairly with me.”
She nodded assent, and he went on:
“In a few weeks more I shall be obliged to return to India; to a land I dislike, and a service I detest: to live amongst companions distasteful to me, and amidst habits and associations that, however endurable when I knew no better, are now become positively odious in my eyes. This is my road to rank, station, and honour. There is, however, another path; and if I relinquish this career, and give up all thought of ambition, I might remain in Europe—here, perhaps, on this very lake side—and lead a life of humble but unbroken happiness—one of those peaceful existences which poets dream of, but never realise, because it is no use in disparaging the cup of life till one has tasted and known its bitterness; and these men have not reached such experience—Ihave.”
He waited for her to speak—he looked eagerly at her for a word—but she was silent.
“The confession I want from you, Florence, is this: could you agree to share this life with me?”
She shook her head and muttered, but what he could not catch.
“It would be too dreary, too sad-coloured, you think?”
“No,” said she, “not that.”
“You fear, perhaps, that these schemes of isolation have never succeeded: that weariness will come when there are no longer new objects to suggest interest or employment?”
“Not that,” said she, more faintly.
“Then the objection must be myself. Florence, is it that you would, not, that you could not, trust me with your happiness?”
“You ask for frankness, and you shall have it. I cannot except your offer. My heart is no longer mine to give.”
“And this—this engagement, has been for some time back?” asked he, almost sternly.
“Yes, for some time,” said she, faintly.
“Am I acquainted with the object of it? Perhaps I have no right to ask this. But there is a question I have full and perfect right to ask. How, consistently with such an engagement, have you encouraged the attentions I have paid you?”
“Attentions! and to me! Why, your attentions have been directed rather to my sister—at least, she always thought so—and even these we deemed the mere passing flirtations of one who made no secret of saying that he regarded marriage as an intolerable slavery, or rather, the heavy price that one paid for the pleasure of courtship.”
“Are the mere levities with which I amused an hour to be recorded against me as principles?”
“Only when such levities fitted into each other so accurately as to show plan and contrivance.”
“It was Loyd said that. That speech was his. I’d lay my life on it.”
“I think not. At least, if the thought were his, he’d have expressed it far better.”
“You admire him, then?” asked he, peering closely at her..
“I wonder why they are not here,” said she, turning her head away. “This same race ought to come off by this time.”
“Why don’t you answer my question?”
“There he goes! Rowing away all alone, too, and my aunt is waving her handkerchief in farewell. See how fast he sends the boat through the water. I wonder why he gave up the race?”
“Shall I tell you? He dislikes whatever he is challenged to do. He is one of those fellows who will never dare to measure himself against another.”
“My aunt is beckoning to us to come back, Mr. Calvert.”
“And my taste is for going forward,” muttered he, while at the same time he sent the boat’s head suddenly round, and pulled vigorously towards the shore.
“May I trust that what has passed between us is a secret, and not to be divulged to another—not even to your sister?”
“If you desire—if you exact.”
“I do, most decidedly. It is shame enough to be rejected. I don’t see why my disgrace is to be paraded either for pity or ridicule.”
“Oh, Mr. Calvert—”
“Or triumphed over,” said he sternly, as he sent the boat up to the side of the little jetty, where Miss Grainger and her niece awaited them.
“Poor Loyd has just got bad news from home,” said Miss Grainger, “and he has hastened back to ask, by telegraph, if they wish him to return.”
“Anyone ill, or dying?” asked Calvert carelessly.
“No, it’s some question of law about his father’s vicarage. There would seem to be a doubt as to his presentation—whether the appointment lay with the patron of the bishop.”
Calvert turned to mark how the girls received these tidings, but they had walked on, and with heads bent down, and close together, were deep in conversation.
“I thought it was only in my profession,” said Calvert sneeringly, “where corrupt patronage was practised. It is almost a comfort to think how much the good people resemble the wicked ones.”
Miss Grainger, who usually smiled at his levities, looked grave at this one, and no more was said, as they moved on towards the cottage.