“My Dear Daughter: This will come to you when I am no more. It contains the explanation of the Past: why I left you; what manner of man I, your father, was. This information is comprised in letters written by myself and others twenty years ago. I have kept them by me ever since as a measure of defense against possible injury. After I am dead they will no longer serve this use, and I do not require you to peruse them. You may, if you see fit, burn them unread; but, if you feel a curiosity as to your father’s real fate and character, I do not forbid you to read them. Act herein according to your own inclination and judgment, and I shall be content. But I request you in no case to act against any other person on the authority of what is contained here. What is past in our lives may be used to increase wisdom and charity, but should never be made the instrument of revenge.“My dear daughter, I have loved you heartily all my life. I pray that God may bless you and make you noble and pure. Your father,“Charles John Grantley.”
“My Dear Daughter: This will come to you when I am no more. It contains the explanation of the Past: why I left you; what manner of man I, your father, was. This information is comprised in letters written by myself and others twenty years ago. I have kept them by me ever since as a measure of defense against possible injury. After I am dead they will no longer serve this use, and I do not require you to peruse them. You may, if you see fit, burn them unread; but, if you feel a curiosity as to your father’s real fate and character, I do not forbid you to read them. Act herein according to your own inclination and judgment, and I shall be content. But I request you in no case to act against any other person on the authority of what is contained here. What is past in our lives may be used to increase wisdom and charity, but should never be made the instrument of revenge.
“My dear daughter, I have loved you heartily all my life. I pray that God may bless you and make you noble and pure. Your father,
“Charles John Grantley.”
After reading and re-reading this letter, Perdita sat for some time lost in thought. Should she open the other packet? Might it not be wiser to burn it?
Her hand had been lying in Tom’s meanwhile, though she had almost forgotten it. On a sudden she felt a slight pressure; very slight, but it made her turn quickly and look at him. It was easy to read the tidings of thatface; pinched, pallid, lacking in beauty and dignity; but the face of a man who loved her and who was at the point of death. She put her mouth to his and kissed him. His lips just responded and no more.
A carriage drove rapidly up to the gate and Sir Francis Bendibow’s footman rapped loudly on the door.
MRS. LOCKHARTmet Sir Francis at the door; he greeted her in a voice louder than ordinary, but harsh, as if the conventional instinct in him had overstrained itself in the effort to hold its own. An analogous conflict between the shuddering emotion within and the social artifices to disguise it, was manifest in his face, which rigidly, and, as it were, violently performed the usual motions of smiling and elegantly composing itself when all the while these polite antics were betrayed and falsified by the grim reality of ghastly pallor and suspense. And there was no necessity for the baronet to maintain the customary elaboration of his fine manners. No one would have expected it of him under the present circumstances: on the contrary, it would have had a repugnant effect, even had he been actor enough to make the pretense seem genuine. But men like Sir Francis, who have trained their minor natural impulses to wear stays and turn out their toes (so to say), are liable to be thus embarrassed by the fearful summons of some real passion of the heart: they pitifully strive to clothe the giant in the pigmy’s bag-wig and small-clothes, and are too much bewildered to perceive the measureless incongruity.
“Good morning, madam; charmed to see you looking so well,” were the baronet’s first words to poor Mrs. Lockhart, who immediately burst into tears, partly because she thought Sir Francis had gone mad, and partly because the contrast between her feelings and his observation was so grotesque. “Is—er—are all well, I hope?”he proceeded, while the questioning agony in his bloodless lips and staring eyes seemed to belong to another being than he who uttered the meaningless phrases.
“I only hope you may not have come too late, dear Sir Francis,” she said, instinctively replying to his look instead of to his words. “Poor Mr. Grant—he was murdered outright, but your son ...” she faltered, and resumed her tears....
The baronet stood at the foot of the stairs, with his hat under his arm and one knee bent—a most unexceptionable attitude. He was dressed at least as fastidiously as usual, only that, in shaving, he had accidentally cut his cheek, and the blood had trickled down and stained his else immaculate white stock. This little mishap might fancifully be regarded as symbolical of his moral state at the moment. He awaited something further from Mrs. Lockhart; but at length, as she did not speak, he said carefully, “Grant murdered! I cannot believe it! He parted from me, not twelve hours ago, in such capital health and spirits.” Then, after another pause, he bent forward and added in a grating whisper, as if confidentially, “The message that summoned me here mentioned the name of my son—Thomas. Pardon a father’s anxiety—alluding to him at such a moment. But ... nothing wrong ... eh?”
“Oh, Sir Francis! the surgeon says he cannot live; but he was very brave: it was while he was trying to protect Mr. Grant that he was struck. Oh, how can any one be so wicked!”
A peculiar sound escaped from the baronet’s throat, and his upper lip drew slowly back so as to reveal the teeth. It seemed to Mrs. Lockhart as if he were laughing; but only a madman could laugh at such a juncture, and she trembled with horror. It was immediately evident, however, that Sir Francis was simply in the grip of a horror vastly greater than hers, and that it hadmomentarily mastered him. Presently his eyes rolled, his head swayed forward, and, had he not grasped the balusters, he would have fallen. But calling up all his energies, he commanded himself a little, and, without attempting to speak, began the ascent of the stairs. Just then a door opened above, and Perdita’s voice said in a hushed tone:
“Sir Francis, are you there?”
He stopped, and looked upward; then, still in silence, he mounted the remaining stairs with a labored movement, and arrived, tremulous and panting on the landing. Perdita was standing at the door of Philip’s room. Her brows were drawn down, and her eyes, quick, dark and bright, scrutinized the baronet with a troubled expression.
“Is he there?” the latter inquired.
“Who?” said Perdita, reluctantly.
Sir Francis stared; then half lifted his hands and said: “I know about Grant; dead; can hardly believe it; left me last night in such health and spirits: but Tom ... as Tom’s my son ... is he...?”
“You are too late,” said Perdita, glancing away from him as she spoke. “Poor Tom; he deserved something better.”
“Let me go to him,” said Sir Francis, moving forward with a groping gesture, like one walking in the dark. He pushed past Perdita and entered the room. She remained for a moment on the threshold, following him with her eyes, and seeming inclined to retire and leave him; but she ended by stepping within and closing the door after her.
Sir Francis, however, was now unconscious of everything except that which lay on the bed before him. Tom’s hands rested beside him on the coverlet; his father lifted one of them, and let it fall again. He then sat down on the side of the bed, raised the upper partof the body and supported it on his arm, bending his face close to that of the dead boy, and giving vent at intervals, below his breath, to a kind of groaning sound, the most piteous that had ever fallen on Perdita’s ears. She remained leaning against the door, with an air of painful contemplation.
After what seemed a long time, and was undoubtedly long if measured by its spiritual effects, the baronet’s moanings gradually subsided into silence; the veins in his forehead, which had become swollen and dark with the accumulation of blood to the brain, returned to their normal state, and the man sat erect, gazing into vacancy, with a demeanor of pallid and stony immobility. Thought seemed to be at a standstill within him, and even the susceptibility to suffering had become torpid. He sat thus so long that at length Perdita’s restless temperament could endure the pause no more, and she spoke.
“Leave him now, Sir Francis. I wish to tell you something.”
He betrayed no sign of having heard her. By-and-by she advanced to the bed, and stood directly in front of him.
“What do you wish me to do with this?” she demanded, holding up the sealed enclosure which had accompanied Grant’s letter.
“These are not business hours,” said Sir Francis, sluggishly. “Tom and I are taking a holiday. Our work is done.”
“His work is done, but not yours: you cannot have the privileges of death until you die,” Perdita answered.
“I know more about death than you imagine,” responded the baronet, in the same halting tone. “You needn’t grudge me the privileges: I have the rest.”
“I am sorry for you—sorrier than I should have thought I could be,” said Perdita; “but there are somethings which must be said between us: for my father is dead as well as your son; and since I can no longer learn from him, you must hear and answer me. Come, Sir Francis; I have always had my way with you in the end.”
“No one has any weapons against me now; they’re all here!” said the baronet, laying his finger on Tom’s shoulder with the word.
“I mean to know the truth, however,” returned Perdita, with a resolution that sat strangely on her subtle and changeful beauty. “It was Tom himself who told me the man who called himself Grant was my father: the rest is contained in this enclosure; shall I read it, or will you speak?”
“How came you by that?” inquired the baronet, for the first time fixing his eyes upon the packet in her hand.
“It was found, addressed to me, in the pocket of Charles Grantley’s coat. But first, listen to this letter, which accompanied it.”
“Not here!” said the other, lifting his hand. “Would you dishonor me in my boy’s presence?”
“He knew enough to make him suspect you before he died.”
Sir Francis shrank as if he had been stung. “Don’t tell me that!” he exclaimed. “You may call me a robber and a murderer, if you like, and tell the world of it; I may have failed in everything else, but I kept my boy’s confidence—he never doubted me a moment ... did he?” At the last words his voice fell from passionate assertion to quavering entreaty.
“You are not much of a man,” said Perdita coldly. “You should not be a villain if you fear to face the consequences and to stand alone. Tom was more manly than you; he despised you because you were afraid of Grantley, instead of crushing him, or, at least, defying him.And has no one suffered besides you?” she continued, with rising fire. “See what you have made of me! If my father had been with me, to love me, and for me to love and honor, I should not have been what I am. You parted us—as I now believe by a cowardly and slanderous falsehood. You brought me up to think the thoughts of a woman of the world and a libertine while I was still a child. You gave me nothing to care for but my own success—for money and power; and at last you married me to a worn-out formalist, whose very virtues made sin seem delightful. I have never had help or sympathy from a human soul, and that dead boy is the only creature who ever honestly loved me—and he would not have done it if he had known me! But, thanks to you, I can’t even be sorry for my failings now; I know more than I feel! I know when I’ve been injured, though I can’t feel the injury, and I mean to have what is due me. I have believed all my life that my father was an embezzler and a scoundrel, a man whose name and connection were a disgrace: a millstone round my neck; some one whom I was to remember only to forget and deny—and now, when it is too late to be of any good to me, because I am too old to change, and when he is dead, I am to find out that you and not he have been the villain! I have heard you whimpering over your boy, and I pitied you; but why should I pity you? Whom did you ever pity? If you had a glimmer of nobility left in you, you would be glad that he died before you were exposed and shamed. And you shall be exposed and shamed: I will do it! Here are your good name and prosperity, in this packet. Are you ready to see it published?” She held the packet at arm’s length before his face; there was something almost appalling in the sparkle of her eyes and the bitter movement of her lips.
Sir Francis had listened to this harangue at first with atremor of the nerves, as one who awaits the fall of a thunderbolt; then even the strength to fear seemed to lapse away, and he sat gazing at Perdita with a dull, unresponsive countenance, while she kindled more and more with the story of her wrongs and resolve to retaliate. When she ended with her fierce question he said heavily, “Do what you like, my dear. You don’t know all. The letters are interesting—I’d have risked hanging to get ’em last night; but I don’t care to raise my hand for ’em now. You don’t know all. I’ve struck myself a deadlier blow than you can strike me, with all the world at your back. Do what you like, and then ... leave me alone with my boy. He and I may laugh over this some day—who knows!”
Perdita looked at him curiously. “Sir Francis,” she said, “do you admit all these accusations? Remember, I haven’t read these letters; they are sealed still; I have no sure grounds yet for my suspicions. For all I could prove, you may be innocent—unless these letters are the proof. Are they or not?”
“I suppose they are,” was his reply, in the same tone as before. “I don’t know what else they can be. Do what you like, my dear.”
“Well, we shall see,” said Perdita, after a pause. She turned and walked to the door and opened it. The door of Mr. Grant’s room, on the other side of the landing, was ajar, and Marion was visible within. Perdita beckoned to her. Marion probably supposed that the Marquise was going to inform her of Tom’s death, for she came forward at once with a face full of tender compassion and sympathy. The influences of the past night and morning had wrought an effect in Marion’s nature and aspect like the blossoming-out of a flower, whose delicate freshness had heretofore been veiled within a rough calyx. Such changes are scarcely to be described in set terms, belonging, as they do, rather to the spiritthan to the body; the outward signs seemed limited to a certain ennobling of the forms and movements of the face, a soft shining of the eyes, and an eloquent modulation of the voice. The imperious flush and angry preoccupation of Perdita’s countenance, while they emphasized her beauty, put her on a level of attractiveness inferior to Marion’s at this moment, despite the latter’s comparative plainness.
“Can anything be done to help?” Marion asked as she came in. But as soon as she caught sight of Sir Francis she paused and murmured, “Ah, poor soul! I wish I could comfort him.”
“He seems resigned,” said Perdita, ungently. “Death alters us all, Marion, whether we die or survive. I am resigned, too; though my lover is dead in this room, and my father in that!”
“Mr. Grant....”
“Yes, Mr. Grant—Charles Grantley, my father; who was accused of high crimes and misdemeanors, and driven into exile, and who came back to England to see his daughter and be murdered by a footpad. You were fond of him, were you not?”
“Whoever he was, he committed no crime,” said Marion loftily.
“Why, so I think. But up to this time it has been made to appear otherwise. If he was not guilty, he has been greatly wronged, has he not?”
Marion seemed about to answer impetuously; but her eyes fell upon Sir Francis, and she compressed her lips and was silent.
“He has been a by-word of contempt and dishonor for twenty years,” Perdita continued, “and now he has died with the stain still upon him. If he was innocent, that seems a pity, doesn’t it? I am his daughter, and my honor is involved in his. You had a father: what would you have done in my place?”
“I would have found the proof of his innocence, if it was in the world.”
“Well, and what then?”
“I should be content ... I hope.”
“I am not content!” exclaimed Perdita. “What use is the proof, unless to give him back his honorable name, and to punish the man who betrayed him? I have some letters sealed up here that will do all that, I think; and Sir Francis Bendibow must be content to hear them read, and....”
“Do not do it, Perdita,” interposed Marion, in a low but urgent voice. “His heart is broken already.”
“What is that to me?” the other returned. “His broken heart will not mend my father’s good name.”
“Your father is dead,” said Marion, “and you would kill him again if you do not let his spirit live in you. Why should you reveal the secret that he kept all his life? If he chose to suffer unjustly, it was because he was too noble to vindicate himself. He bequeathes his nobility to you; and you should spare his enemies, since he spared them.”
“This is a practical world,” Perdita remarked, with an odd smile; “I’m afraid it would misinterpret such refined generosity. However, your idea is interesting and original; I’ve a mind to adopt it. It would be amusing, for once, to mount a moral pedestal above one’s friends. But I can’t make an angel of myself in a moment: I shall give this packet to you to keep for me: if I were to read the contents I should never be able to hold my tongue. Here—take it quickly, before my pedestal crumbles! Well, Sir Francis, I wish you joy; you are an honest man again!”
“If I had not been sure your father was innocent, I should know it now,” said Marion. “Wicked men do not have such daughters.”
“Thank you, my dear; you must let me kiss you forthat; though my virtue is not my own, but yours. Now take me into the other room; I wish to see my father before I go.”
Marion accompanied her to the chamber where Charles Grantley lay, and would have left her at the threshold, but Perdita kept fast hold of her hand, and drew her in. They stood beside the bed and looked down at the quiet face.
“What are hardships?” said Perdita after awhile. “Are they what happen to us, or what we create in ourselves? He seems at peace. Hardships are hard hearts. Good-by, father. After all ... you might have kept your daughter with you!”
After giving some directions about the body, she departed. But Sir Francis still remained in Lancaster’s chamber, with his son in his arms. Their holiday was not over.
WHENa man is dying, or just dead, it often seems, to those interested in the matter, that he is taken off prematurely; that he leaves his life incomplete; that his usefulness was not at an end; that he and those who were bound to him would have been the better had he survived. Death seems like a violence, a robbery, a wrong; and all the more wrongful a robbery, because we are powerless to resist it or to punish it. The mother who mourns her infant, the lover who looks on the dead face of his mistress, the child who feels a dim horror at the unresponsive coldness of the hand whose every touch was love, the friend who sees the horizon of his own life darken and his pathway narrow at the grave of his friend—to these it seems that an injury has been inflicted upon them, the traces of which no compensation can remove.
And yet, as the mind moves forward through the succession of moods and events that is called time, how speedily this wound of loss is healed! Not those who nurse their grief the longest are always the ones who loved most generously and whole-heartedly. Often there is more love of self than love of the departed in those who refuse to be comforted. By-and-by, as we journey on along the road of mortal existence, meeting at every step fresh scenery and new thoughts and demands for action, and knowing that for us there is no retreating, no pausing even; only, at most, a profitless glance backward at scenes and occurrences whose sole reality now is in the growth or decay which they have wrought inour own souls; by-and-by we begin to discover that the dead have not been left behind; that, in such measure as we truly loved them, in that measure are they with us still, walking hand in hand with us, or shining as guides of our forecasting thoughts, and strengthening our hearts in dreams and secret musings. Death, which seemed so arbitrary and reckless, is vindicated by our wiser and calmer judgment. The mortal life that seemed cut short, is seen to have lasted out its fitting span; more years would have been more evil and less good, more weariness and less use. Suddenness is predicable only of material things; in the processes and passions of the spirit there is at all times just proportion and equable movement. It is outside the domain of accidents and violence.
As regards Charles Grantley’s death, there was not, it may be surmised, any wide necessity to preach resignation. His acquaintances were not many; his friends few indeed. To the majority even of those who knew him, his true name and antecedents were unknown. The mystery and ambiguity which had attached to him were scarcely likely to increase his popularity; and probably the only thing that could have drawn anything like general attention to his end was the fact of its being a murder. But murders and robberies were not so rare in the London environs then as they are now; at all events they excited less remark; a highwayman was still a difficulty to be reckoned with by belated travelers; and, moreover, men’s minds had become more or less callous to the idea of bloodshed and violence, after so many years of wars and outrage. Accordingly, Mr. Grantley’s funeral was but thinly attended, comprising few or none beyond the indispensable churchyard officials and the immediate personages of the present history. From the number of the latter, indeed, Sir Francis Bendibow must be subtracted. Anotherfuneral took place on the same day, in which he may be supposed to have felt an even greater interest; and yet he was absent even from that. The fact is, the unfortunate baronet’s mind had received a shock which prevented him from clearly apprehending the full extent of the calamity which had caused it. The notion that he and his son were enjoying a holiday together, and were not to be disturbed, seemed the most inveterate of his delusions, as it had been his first. Possibly it was not so much positive mania in him as the uncontrollable shrinking of his soul from the horror of the truth; analogous to the instinct which makes us turn away our eyes from a too-revolting spectacle. Feeling that to confront and realize the facts would overturn his reason, he abandoned reason in the effort to preserve it. But all the while, in some remote recess of his mind, veiled even from himself, must have lurked the fatal knowledge which he strove to escape. It was there, like a relentless and patient enemy, lying in wait for him, and sure to spring forth and throttle him at last. Else wherefore was there that furtive gleam of terror in the baronet’s sunken and heavy-lidded eyes? Why did he sigh so deeply and so piteously? What was the reason of those long fits of musings, during which his face worked so strangely, and his lips grew so white and dry? Why did he so anxiously shun the sound of whatever might imply the truth? No; if this were madness, it was the madness of concealment, not of ignorance. Only a gleam of sanity could render him truly insane.
Be that as it may, it became known that the late events had compelled Sir Francis to retire temporarily from society, and from the conduct of his business; and much sympathy was expressed, on all sides, for the unhappy gentleman; and grave speculations were indulged in as to the probable future of the Bank, in case his retirement should be prolonged. Not readily were to befound business aptitudes and experience comparable to his. Moreover, the times were hard, just at present; and although the Bank’s credit was now, as at all times, unexceptionable, yet even the Bank was but a human institution, and all human institutions partake of human perishableness. It was impossible to be too prudent, when, as now, empires might change hands or vanish at any moment. Finance is not a matter of sentiment; and though it is always agreeable to have business relations with a man who is at once aristocratic and charming, yet when the personage in question is represented only through his clerks, such considerations are in abeyance. Thus it happened that a good many clients of the famous Bank of Bendibow Brothers withdrew their deposits and placed them elsewhere; and the world went on.
Meanwhile the murderer of the old East Indian remained at large, the police being unable to form any trustworthy idea as to who or where he was. At the inquest, everybody who could be conceived to have any connection with the case (including the baker who lent Miss Lockhart his wagon, and the ostler of the “Plough and Harrow” who entertained Mr. Thomas Bendibow on the last evening of his life) were strictly examined; and though several of them proffered a vast deal of information, little or none of it had much to do with the matter to be elucidated. The last highwayman who had been known to infest the vicinity in which the murder took place, had been captured and safely hanged some time before; and this new aspirant for the slip-knot evidently meant to prolong his career for a while longer. His present venture must have been a disappointment to him; for it was shown that the deceased had not been robbed (doubtless on account of the unexpected arrival of succor); and, even had the succor not arrived, no robbery worthy of the name could have taken place, inasmuch as the deceased had littleor no money in his pockets; nothing, in fact, but a packet of old letters, which were of no interest to anybody, and to a highwayman least of all. The jury returned a verdict of “met his death at the hands of some person or persons unknown;” and the world went on.
But the seed of that flower of love that had been planted in the soil of Charles Grantley’s grave took root, and grew, and blossomed; and it bade fair to be as sweet and wholesome a flower as ever such seed produced. Marion and Philip, looking into their future, could see nothing but brightness there, all the brighter by contrast with the tender shadow of sadness out of which they looked. Nothing but good, they believed, could come from a union begun at such a time, and with such a consecration. The influence of Grantley was with them, with almost the vividness, at times, of a spiritual presence; and they insensibly spoke and acted on a higher and purer plane than they would have done had he not lived and died. If his mourners were few, few men have been more tenderly mourned; and to Marion especially was his memory dear and reverend, by reason of the cloud that had overhung so large a portion of his life. That cloud, to her apprehension, had now become all illuminated with heavenly gold; and she felt as little need to confirm her faith by an examination of the packet left in her care, as to ask Philip for proof of her love for him. Marion was enthusiastic and imperious in her faiths even more than in her scepticisms. But, indeed, her whole nature was, for the time, sweetened, subdued, and yet ardently developed. The strangeness and harshness which had occasionally characterized her in the past, was now no longer noticeable; her moods were equal, her heart happy and active. It seemed as if nothing could obscure her serenity; and yet a woman in her condition is peculiarly liable to tragic or chilling accidents. The delicate andsensitive petals of the soul, expanding thus freely to the unaccustomed air, are never so susceptible as now to blight and injury, albeit it is from one source only that the harm can come. Let the lover walk heedfully at this period of his career, nor even grasp his treasure too firmly, lest unawares it vanish from his hand, or be transformed into something hostile.
The reading of Mr. Grantley’s will was, for various reasons, postponed until about a week after his funeral. Merton Fillmore, who had charge of it, had sent a communication to the Marquise Desmoines to be present on the occasion; but she, after some delay, finally let it be known that she declined the invitation, observing that she had but the slightest acquaintance with the gentleman who called himself Grant, or Grantley, and that it was impossible to suppose that she could have any interest in the disposition of his property; from which it may be inferred that she had made up her mind to ignore, ostensively if not also from conviction, his pretensions to relationship with her. Upon receiving her letter, Fillmore stroked his chin with a slight, ambiguous smile, and forthwith took measures to convene the meeting at Mrs. Lockhart’s house on the following morning, at twelve o’clock.
Now, it so happened that Philip had, the evening previous, received a note from his publisher in the city, requesting his presence at the office betimes the next day. For Philip’s labors during the last few months had resulted in the production of a poem, more ambitious in design and larger in scope than anything he had heretofore attempted. His earlier writings, indeed, had been chiefly lyrical in character, and had been rather indicative of poetical moods and temperament in the author than of those unmistakable gifts of seeing, feeling, and creating that belong to poets by divine right. He had made good his claims to be ranked among the aristocracyof genius—possibly among those whose place is near the throne; but he had as yet put forward no serious pretensions to wear the royal crown on his own brows. The present work, which bore the title of Iduna, seems to have been a semi-mystical composition, cast in a more or less dramatic form, and aiming to portray the conflict which is to some extent going on in every human heart, between the love that consults and indulges selfish interests or impulses, and that nobler and purer love which strikes through the mortal and temporary symbol to the divine and eternal reality. To illustrate this theme, Philip had imagined a wild, sea-beaten kingdom, situated somewhere in the unexplored ocean of time; a rocky vision of a royal castle, and living there a warrior-king, grim, whose beard drifts like the snow blown from a mountain-top across the sky. To him was born Iduna, glorious in beauty, untamable in spirit, dowered from her infancy with mysterious and half-supernatural gifts. For once, when little more than a baby, she had wandered alone from the castle, and down to the misty reaches of the wave-beaten shore. What happened to her there was never known; but round her neck was hung a broad necklace, wrought with more than human skill of workmanship, of unknown shells and precious stones and links of virgin gold. The necklace was endowed with talismanic attributes, conferring on the grim king’s daughter miraculous powers and the lustre of a goddess; and it was whispered among the people that it was the gift of some mighty spirit of the sea, some ocean demi-god, who had met the little princess on the shore, and who, if she remained true to the sublimity of her fate, would one day claim her for his bride. But woe to her should the magic necklace be lost or yielded up! At these foolish fancies the grim king laughed and tossed his beard; but, as Iduna grew in stature and in the splendor of her beauty,men said that for such as she no merely human destiny was meet; and when, at certain seasons, the sea thundered more resoundingly along the coast, and the wreaths of foam were swept by the fierce breeze past the castle battlements, Iduna would mount her horse and ride forth, as if she heard the voice of her god-like lover calling to her in the gale, and saw his form moving towards her over the tumultuous crests of the ocean billows; though to other eyes than hers he would appear but as a pillar of gleaming mist, a stately phantom of the storm, half seen, half imagined. At these superstitions the grim king frowned, and swore by his beard that the girl should learn—and that ere long—the sufficient worth of a mortal bridegroom.
Of this earthly love; of the loss of the magic necklace, and with it the protection of the sea-god; of Iduna’s imprisonment in the castle; of her final recovery of her talisman by the self-sacrificing agency of the mortal lover whose happiness depended upon withholding it from her; and of her escape from the castle: no more than a hint can be given. Seaward she rode, and the storm came up to meet her. But the tidings of her flight came to the king, and he mounted his war-horse and thundered with all his knights in pursuit. Wilder grew the storm; the heavens were darkened, and seemed to stoop to the earth; strange sounds, as of the fierce mutterings and laughter of viewless spirits, filled the air. Yet still the grim king rode on, and, filled with grisly forebodings, his knights pressed after him in silence. Then the blast shrieked madly in their ears; the earth rocked and shuddered; ghastly lights flickered along the blackness of the sky; and the sea, gathering itself together in a thunder-smitten battlement of toppling surges, swept forward on the land. Yet, ere it engulfed them forever, they saw by the glimmer of phantom fires, the form of Iduna flying far beforethem, her black hair floating backward on the hurricane, and the magic necklace flashing round her neck. And even as the waters smote them, a god-like apparition seemed to emerge resplendent and serene from the midmost heart of the tempest; toward him Iduna stretched her arms, and was folded to his breast.
When the sun rose again, castle and kingdom, knights and king had vanished, and the gray sea rolled its murmuring billows fathoms overhead. But tradition tells that in the night, after the princess had gone forth, the lover who had liberated her to his own dear cost mounted to the topmost turret and gazed seaward, and as the destroying wave came towering toward him through the roar and terror of the darkness, he saw, riding with it on its awful crest, two beings of superhuman beauty and grandeur. As they drew near him, he bowed his head, trembling; but his heart seemed to hear a voice that was like Iduna’s murmuring his name, and her soft fingers touched his cheek. He seemed to be gathered up out of himself, and to move beside her; the tempest was still; they were together and alone, and the morning broke.
Such, in bare prose, is the outline of the poem to the making of which Philip had brought his best talents and energies, and on the merits of which he had been fain to stake his fame. Being done, however, and in the printers’ hands, he had lost heart about it; felt that it was cold and inadequate, and regretted that he had not been wise enough to have kept it for ten years, and then destroyed it. Accordingly his publisher’s summons, coming as it did within a fortnight of the time the book appeared, failed to kindle in him any pleasurable anticipations; and on his way to the city he pretty well made up his mind to abandon poetry as a profession, and take to something else. It was all very well toamuse one’s self with such vanities while one is a boy, but now that he was about to take to himself a wife, Philip felt that he ought to adopt some more remunerative calling. He presented himself at the office, with a very grave face, about ten o’clock.
The publisher bowed, and begged Mr. Lancaster to be seated. “I should have had the honor to wait upon you at your own residence, sir,” he said, “but as it was desirable to have your signature to some receipts, and for other business reasons, I took the liberty—er—well! Now, Mr. Lancaster, I don’t know what your expectations were; it was only natural that they should have been great; so were mine; but, to tell you the truth ... however, judge for yourself.” And he handed him a paper, on which was a brief statement of accounts. “We have been on the market only ten days last Wednesday,” added the publisher, “and I call the results thus far fair—fair! Sir, they deserved to be; but I doubt not we shall do better yet.”
“What is this about?” inquired Philip, who had been staring at the paper. “What does this entry of eleven hundred and fifty pounds mean?”
“Your profits on the percentage as agreed upon,” answered the publisher. “We published at ten and sixpence, you know.”
“Oh ... I see!” said Philip, quietly. His heart heaved, and he knew not whether he were more likely to burst into a storm of tears or a shout of laughter. “That seems to me very good indeed,” he compelled himself to add. “Didn’t expect the half of it.”
“Genius like yours, sir, may expect anything—and get it!” said the publisher sententiously. “There is no poet before you, Mr. Lancaster, to-day—not one! Do you care to take the check with you now, or....”
“I suppose I may as well,” said Philip.
Some transactions were gone through with; Philipnever remembered what they were. At last he found himself, as if by magic, at the door of the house in Hammersmith, with eleven hundred and fifty pounds in his pocket. He threw open the door of the sitting-room and strode in.
He had forgotten all about the reading of the will. There was Mr. Fillmore, with the document in his hand, just reading out the words—“I give and bequeath to Marion Lockhart”—and there was Marion, with a startled and troubled look in her eyes.
THEwords which Philip had heard, and the shock of surprise which they gave him, combined with the unexpectedness of the whole scene in Mrs. Lockhart’s little sitting-room, rendered obscure his perception of what immediately followed. By-and-by, however, two or three of the persons present took their departure, and then Philip found himself alone with Fillmore, Mrs. Lockhart and Marion. The latter had already received the congratulations of the company, to which she had replied little or nothing.
“My dear daughter,” now exclaimed Mrs. Lockhart, with gentle fervor, “what a splendid surprise! To think I should have lived to see you a great heiress! Twenty thousand pounds did you say, Mr. Fillmore? To think of Mr. Grant’s—Mr. Grantley’s having been so rich! He was so quiet and simple. What a noble thing to do! But he was the son of Tom Grantley, you know, and Lady Edith Seabridge was his mother. And oh! Philip, how happy you and Marion will be now!”
“I think we should have been that at any rate,” said Philip, smiling at Marion, and conscious of eleven hundred pounds of his own in his pocket.
“Yes; at least as happy,” said Marion, in a low voice.
“I had not been aware,” observed Fillmore, with a slight bow, “that Mr. Lancaster was to be congratulated as well as Miss Lockhart.”
“You can bear witness that I was not a fortune-hunter,” said Philip, laughing. “When was this will made, Mr. Fillmore?”
“Very recently,” he replied, mentioning the date.
“Strange!” said Philip, musing. “He was as sound and healthy a man of his age as ever I saw. Had he any premonition of death?”
“Apparently he had not,” the lawyer answered. “But, as you would have learned, had you been present throughout the reading of the document, the will provided for the probable contingency of his continuing to live. In that case, Miss Lockhart would have come into possession of ten thousand pounds on her next birthday and the remainder of the legacy hereafter. Mr. Grantley evidently intended her to reap the benefits of his wealth without having to wait for his decease.”
“I wish he had told me!” murmured Marion, folding her hands on her lap and looking out of the window.
“Madame Desmoines was not here?” asked Philip.
“I have had some correspondence with her on the subject,” said Fillmore. “As it happens, she was not named as a legatee in the will. But, had it been otherwise, I gathered that it was not her purpose to accept anything.”
“Why so?” Philip asked.
“I was not informed; but it may be presumed that the will would have designated her as the testator’s daughter, and she was perhaps not prepared to acknowledge the relationship.”
“Oh, Mr. Fillmore, do you think Madame Desmoines could have any doubts of Mr. Grantley’s honor?” exclaimed Mrs. Lockhart. “I’m sure she has too fine a character herself to think evil of others.”
“I should not explain her action on that ground—were I to attempt to explain it,” Fillmore answered. “The Marquise Desmoines is not an ordinary woman: she is very far from it. No direct proof, beyond the testator’s confidential statement to certain persons, has ever been advanced as to his identity with the CharlesGrantley who disappeared a score of years ago. Had the Marquise adopted that statement, it might have involved inconvenient or painful explanations with persons still living, which, under the circumstances, the Marquise would have been anxious to avoid. I mention no names, and need not do so. On the other hand, she is the owner of a property from her late husband which is in excess of her ordinary requirements. She desires no addition to it, and may have been unwilling to seem to interfere with the advantage of others.”
“How could that be?” demanded Philip. “If Mr. Grantley had bequeathed money to her, it would have made no difference whether she acknowledged him or not.”
“We cannot be certain of that,” the lawyer replied. “It constantly happens that legacies are, for some reason or other, refused, or become in some manner inoperative; and in such cases there is generally an alternative—sometimes more than one—provided in codicils. There is no reason to suppose that Mr. Grantley would have failed to foresee such a contingency, and to provide against it; especially in view of the somewhat exceptional position that he was conscious of occupying.”
“That is to say, if he had left his money to Madame Desmoines, and she had refused it, you think he would have provided beforehand that it should go to somebody else?” said Philip.
“I think we have no reason to suppose otherwise,” returned the other, with the lawyer’s prudence of phrase. “And it may have been in order to facilitate her refusal, had the alternative presented itself, that she acted in anticipation.”
“I was sure she would do what she considered right,” said Mrs. Lockhart, who had not in the least comprehended Fillmore’s analysis, but had inferred from his tone and manner that he was in some way defending Perdita from an aspersion.
“She possesses many qualities not commonly found in women,” remarked Fillmore, looking down at his hands meditatively. After a little he rose, as for departure. Philip was just then saying something to Mrs. Lockhart; and as Marion also rose, she and the lawyer were for a moment by themselves.
“Mr. Fillmore,” she said, coloring as she spoke, and lowering her voice as if she intended her words for him only, “didn’t you say that legatees often refused their legacies?”
“All sorts of strange things occur, in law as well as elsewhere, Miss Lockhart.”
“Why should any one refuse a legacy?”
“For no very wise reason, perhaps,” said he, smiling slightly. “From what are called conscientious motives, sometimes; or quite as often from enmity, or whim, or.... But I dare say you can imagine as many reasons as I.”
“Yes,” said Marion absently; and then she added, “so that is why codicils are put in wills?”
“Such provisions are sometimes inserted in codicils,” said Fillmore, after one of his characteristic pauses, and a fixed glance at Marion.
“Are there any codicils in Mr. Grantley’s will?” was her next question.
“A codicil, inserted to provide against the miscarriage of something in the body of the will, remains, of course, inoperative and therefore practically non-existent, if the miscarriage in question does not occur,” replied he carelessly. Before she could answer he added, “I have over-stayed my time. Farewell, for the present, Miss Lockhart; I trust you may long enjoy the means of happiness and variety afforded you. Mrs. Lockhart, I wish you good-day; Mr. Lancaster, your obedient servant.”
“I suppose this business won’t be settled for sometime to come,” observed Marion, following him to the door. “I suppose I should have an opportunity of communicating with you beforehand, if I would wish it?”
“I shall always be at your disposal,” returned Fillmore, bowing, and declining Mrs. Lockhart’s invitation to remain to dinner, he left the house without further parley.
“Oh, my dear daughter,” cried Mrs. Lockhart, in her overflowing way, when the three were again alone, “what do you think? Philip has his news, too; he is an heir, if you are an heiress; all our good fortune comes at once!”
“You, too? How?” said Marion, appearing to be much moved, and turning upon Philip with a face full of a sort of serious excitement.
“Not much in comparison with yours; we shall never be equals in that respect, I’m afraid,” returned Philip, smiling. “But that poem of mine, which I wouldn’t let you read, because I didn’t think it good enough for you, seems to have been good enough for other people. My publisher has sold enough of it, at last accounts, to bring me in more than a thousand pounds of profit. If it would only go on at that rate, I should do very well.”
Marion looked deeply delighted, and at the same time agitated. “Huzza! Philip, I knew you must be a genius!” she exclaimed. “Of course it will go on—how can you help writing better and better. That is much better than inheriting other people’s money, which you don’t deserve, and which doesn’t really belong to you—not even so much as to other people. A thousand pounds in such a short time! We shall not need Mr. Grantley’s money at all.”
“Oh, you may find it useful to buy your bonnets and shawls with,” said Philip, laughing.
But Marion seemed not to hear him. She paced about the room, stopping now and then and humming someair to herself; and, finally, she seated herself at the piano and began to improvise, striking melodious and changing chords, sometimes soft and tender, sometimes resonant and tumultuous. Philip, who was more stirred and influenced by music than by almost anything else, especially by the kind of irregular and mysterious music that Marion was given to producing, sat near her, with his head on his hands, letting the harmonies sway and kindle his thoughts. When, at length, the music ceased, and Philip raised his head, he perceived that he and she were alone; Mrs. Lockhart had gone out.
“I shall always be a poet, as long as I have you to play to me,” said he. “Only, I shall never write such poetry as I think of while you play.”
“It does not take much to make two people happy, does it?” she said.
“Very little. Only love, the rarest thing in the world; and music, the next rarest; and a few other trifling matters of that sort,” returned he, with superb irony.
“Ah, my dear love, you know what I mean. All we need to be happy is each other, and what we can do for each other. Nothing else, except something to eat and drink, and a room to live in. I’m sure I’ve been happier in this house, with you, and with only money enough to keep alive on, than I ever was before, or expected to be.”
“Well, I have a theory about that,” said Philip, “though I’ve never worked it out. Love in a cottage is a good thing; and so is love in a palace. But love is not always of one quality; in fact, it never is the same in any two human beings. Sometimes it is simple and quiet and primitive; and then a cottage is the place for it; because, if we are to be at ease and content, what is outside of us ought to correspond to what is within, as the body to the spirit. But sometimes love is splendid, royal, full of every kind of spiritual richness and variety, continually rising to new heights of vision, plunginginto new depths of insight, creating, increasing, living in wider and wider spheres of thought and feeling. And, for such love as that, a cottage is not the right environment. You must have a palace, a fortune, splendor and power; indeed, nothing can be too splendid, or splendid enough.”
“And could not such a love be happy without all that splendor?”
“Well, no—according to the theory! But, as I said, I haven’t completely worked it out yet. There is a certain kind of happiness, no doubt, in doing without what you know you ought to have; and, as a matter of fact, few or no people ever get just the surroundings they want, or ever are or expect to be entirely happy; and, perhaps, to be paradoxical, they wouldn’t be happy if they were. Imagination is a great factor in the account, and hope. The material world is too rigid and heavy ever to obey the behests of those two magicians; and so their best work has always been done in cloudland and dreamland. Perhaps, in the next world, nature—this phantasmagory of earth, sea and sky—will not be fixed and unchangeable as here, but pliant and adaptable to one thought and will: so that the statue which I see in my mind shall at once clothe itself in spiritual marble before my eyes; and the rocky island, which I imagine in yonder azure sea, shall straightway rise from the waves in all its tropic beauty; and yet, all this be not a dream or a fancy, but a reality as real and immortal as my own mind—which, after all, is the only reality. Reality has nothing to do with fixedness. Your lips of flesh and blood, my beloved Marion, are not so real as the kisses I give them, or as the love that goes into the kisses. Well—what were we talking about?”
“About whether twenty thousand pounds were necessary to make us happy.”
“Oh, was that it? Then we can take our time; for,as we have got the money—at least, since you’ve got it—we can settle the problem in the most satisfactory of all ways—by practical experiment! And that will take us a lifetime, at least.”
“Then what if we found we had tried the wrong experiment, after all?”
“Well, I suppose all discoverers run that risk. Meanwhile, seems to me, ‘tis better to have the money to lose than to win.”
“I’m not sure about that,” said Marion. “Money gives us power in the world, but ’tis only the money we earn that gives us a right to the power. Inheriting money is a sort of robbery. The power we have is not our own—we have usurped it. It brings a host of things crowding about us—things to be done, business to be attended to, claims to be considered: things that we do not care about, and that do us no good; that prevent us from feeling and thinking what we really care about. If one is born rich, it may be different; but to become suddenly rich without any help of one’s own cannot be good, Philip. It must take away more than it gives; and what it takes away must be better than what it gives.”
“But some people must be rich,” said Philip. “Providence has so decreed. And why should it not be just as much the will of Providence that you should inherit riches as that you should be born to them or earn them? At all events, you have got it, and must make the best of it. Besides, there have been bigger fortunes in the world than twenty thousand pounds, as well as people who needed it more.”
“Do you love me any better than you did before you knew of this?”
“Knowing it has not made me love you more—if that’s what you mean; but the longer I know you the more I love you, so I love you now more than I did an hour ago.”
“Should you love me any less if this money turned out to belong to some one else?”
“No, foolish Marion; by this kiss, it wouldn’t make an atom of difference.”
“Oh, Philip, I hope it is so,” said Marion, her bosom beginning to heave and her voice to falter. “I hate this money, and have been miserable ever since I had it! It does not belong to me, and I have made up my mind that I won’t keep it.”
“Not belong to you, Marion?”
“It belongs to Perdita; she was his daughter. Why should he have come back to England, unless because he hoped to find her, and to make her rich and happy? What have I to do with his fortune? I loved him almost like a father; and he used to say I was a daughter to him; but I am not his daughter as Perdita is, and the thought of having what she would have had is hateful! And it spoils my memory of him: I must think of him now as a man who left me a fortune—not as a dear friend who gave me all the treasure of his wisdom and gentleness. He should not have done it; he doubted himself whether to do it, for he said something to me once which I did not understand then, but now I know he was trying to find out whether I would consent to such a thing. It is all wrong; and the only thing to be done now is to give it back.”
“To whom?” asked Philip, who was trying not to feel too much amazed.
“To Perdita; for I know that, when I refuse it, it will go to her. There is a codicil in the will that gives it to her. I am sure of it, Philip, for I spoke to Mr. Fillmore, and I could see in his face and in the way he spoke that there is a codicil; and the reason he didn’t read it was that I had not yet refused the legacy.”
“But even if there be a codicil, how do you know it is in favor of Perdita?”
“It will turn out to be so,” said Marion, shutting her lips and paling. She was watching Philip’s face with an anxiety that seemed to penetrate to his very soul; it was evidently of supreme importance to her which side his judgment turned. He felt it, and strove to be calm, but the silent strength of her desire flowed against him in a current more nearly irresistible than her words.
“Are you quite sure, Marion,” he said, at length, “that you have told me all the reasons for your wishing to do this thing?”
Her cheeks slowly reddened as she replied in a whisper, “I have said all I can.”
Their eyes met. “If you don’t quite trust me now,” said he, with a smile, half grave, half humorous, “perhaps you’ll come to it when you’ve had your way. My darling, you may throw the money into the Thames, as far as I’m concerned. If you wish to be rid of it, ’tis right you should be. If it were left to me, I should probably resign myself to keeping it; as it is, ’tis better out of the way. I’ll see if I can’t write you a greater fortune than that. Meanwhile, you must kiss me!”
Philip had no cause, on that day at least, to regret his surrender. “You see, sir,” said Marion mischievously, after some such fathomless spell of happiness as only lovers can feel, “if I had kept the twenty thousand pounds, you could not have had this!”
“I may be glad you had them to refuse, at any rate,” responded Philip.
THEmost natural sequel to a mutual understanding, such as this between the two lovers, would be that they should get married with the least possible delay; and, as a matter of fact, that is what happened. The legacy having been handed back at Marion’s instance and with Philip’s consent, Marion would hardly be justified in opposing any unreasonable delay to the personal claims of so obedient a lover. It is not every man, however much in love he may be, who will surrender twenty thousand pounds without a murmur. But Philip, in the first place, was not of a specially avaricious disposition; and the unexpected success of his poem had impressed him with a belief in the pecuniary possibilities of a literary career, such as rendered him comparatively indifferent to extraneous resources. Beyond this, however, he had the insight to discern that the fundamental motive of Marion’s action had not transpired in her arguments. What really moved her was some lurking tinge of jealousy with regard to the past relations between himself and Perdita. What basis there may have been for such jealousy, if there were any basis for it, Philip may have known; but he had always avoided any reference to it, and he probably did not care to risk the opening of the subject which would be likely to follow Marion’s enforced acceptance of the legacy. Marion would never be happy under the persuasion that she was in possession of money which, in the natural course of things, should have gone to Perdita. Philip, therefore,capitulated with less parley than he might otherwise have attempted.
They were married in the course of three or four weeks, and went to spend their honeymoon on the Continent; the chief goal of their pilgrimage being the field of Waterloo, where Marion saw her father’s grave. There was no drawback to the enjoyment of the journey; it was a period of serene and profound happiness on which it would be pleasant to dwell at more length. But happiness has few events, nor any apparent movement; it is like a chapter from eternity, which is the infinite development of the present moment. Time loses its semblance of reality, and the discovery that it does, nevertheless, continue to pass, comes as a surprise. The time arrived when Mr. and Mrs. Lancaster were constrained to set their faces homeward: but they did so with unshadowed hearts. Life had begun for them with the sweetest auspices, and there seemed no reason to anticipate that it would not proceed to still brighter issues.
The home of the newly-wedded couple was to be, for the present, in the old house in Hammersmith, which, with some alterations in the way of furniture, would be commodious enough, and which was endeared by association to Marion and her mother, and to Philip also, as being the place where he had first met his bride. It was now the “little season” in London; Parliament was to sit early, and the town was rapidly filling up. The excitement of war being over, every one was set upon getting the largest possible amount of excitement out of society, and the next few months promised to be brilliant ones. Among the literary celebrities of the day, no man’s reputation stood higher at this moment than that of Philip Lancaster. He was mentioned in the same breath with Byron and Shelley, and there were not wanting persons who professed to find in him qualities quite equal to those of the latter poets. It was rumored,also, that his personal advantages were on a par with his mental ones; that he had married a great heiress; that he was the younger son of an earl; that his past career had been distinguished by many romantic and mysterious episodes, involving the reputation of more than a few personages of rank both in England and on the Continent; together with a score of other reports, true, half true and untrue, such as invariably herald the appearance in a prominent position of any one whom nobody ever heard of before.
It was the custom at this period for men and women who happened to have achieved distinction either by their brains or by some equally uncommon means, to be invited to social entertainments at the house of Lady Flanders. To be seen there conferred the insignia of a kind of nobility which had nothing to do with the peerage, but which was, perhaps, scarcely the less valued by the recipients of it. Accordingly it was not without satisfaction that Philip, a few days after his return to Hammersmith, received a communication from her ladyship, conveying her compliments, and an urgent desire to have the honor of welcoming the author of “Iduna” at her abode on the following Wednesday evening, at seven o’clock. Mrs. Lancaster was included in the invitation (not an invariable corollary in similar cases); and, indeed, her ladyship’s carriage had left cards the day before Philip’s return from abroad, as Mrs. Lockhart testified.
Of course, they could have no hesitation in availing themselves of this first social recognition, in the capital of the world, of Philip’s genius; and Marion prepared herself for the occasion with a sentiment of wifely pride, at the thought that the world should so soon confirm that opinion of her husband, which she herself had more or less avowedly entertained ever since the first moment she beheld him. The young people attiredthemselves in a manner which would excite less remark in the present day than it might have done ten or twenty years ago, but which, at all events, at the period we write of, was altogether in the mode. Shortly before the carriage was announced, Marion, being ready, went down stairs, and saw lying on the hall table a letter addressed to Philip Lancaster, Esquire, in Mr. Fillmore’s handwriting. Now Marion had a day or two before written to Fillmore, inquiring whether there were any formalities to be observed in relation to her rejection of the legacy; and she took it for granted that this letter, although addressed to her husband, was the answer to her question. She and Philip had not as yet had occasion to come to any understanding as to their liberty to open each other’s letters; and, though Marion would probably, in an ordinary case, have let the letter alone, in this instance she had no hesitation in appropriating it. But at this juncture Mrs. Lockhart came into the hall and detected something about Marion’s dress that needed readjustment. Marion put the letter in her pocket and forgot all about it.
They arrived safely at their destination, and were ushered into the presence of their hostess, an immensely tall old lady, with a turban, overhanging eyebrows and a prominent chin. She was of noble descent, and was now recognized as among the most eminent encouragers of literature and the liberal arts; but there were terrible stories told about her youth, when she was said to have traveled in Europe in male attire, to have fought a duel and killed her man, and to have lived several years in some part of Asia under circumstances known only to herself. At this stage of her career, however, she was a great card-player, sternly religious in the way of forms and etiquette, and reputed to have one of the wittiest and sharpest tongues in London. To Philip she contented herself with saying: “Young gentleman, Iused to know your grand-uncle. He was not so handsome a man as you. ’Tis a dangerous thing, sir, to be handsome and to write poetry. People who see you will expect your poetry to be as well as you are, and, if they find it is not, they’ll call you both humbugs. I haven’t read your poem, Mr. Lancaster, but now that I have seen you I mean to, and then I shall tell you just what I think of it! Mrs. Lancaster, I like you better than your husband; he’s not good enough for you, though he’ll try and make you believe the contrary. Never let him print anything that you don’t like—else he’ll make a failure. There—run along now and enjoy yourselves, and you may come here again as often as you like.”
The rooms were full of people, many of whom one would be glad enough to see now-a-days, after seventy years’ vicarious acquaintance with them, through books and tradition. There is no need of naming them here, nor were their appearance and casual conversation (temporary costumes and customs aside) any more remarkable than would be the case in a similar gathering in the London of our times. Philip, indeed, was quite as well worth noticing as any other person there; and he certainly was noticed to the full extent of his deserts. There were murmurs on every side of “That’s he!”—“Which?”—“There—tall, short curling hair and white forehead.”—“What splendid eyes!”—“Oh, did he write ‘Iduna’?”—“Yes, madam: looks like his own hero, doesn’t he?”—“Is he married?”—“No.”—“Yes, I assure you: two hundred thousand pounds and a beauty.”—“Is she like ‘Iduna’?”—“She’s sixty and a fright!”—“Have you read the poem?”—“Yes—very pretty: vastly entertaining, indeed.”—“Here he comes!”—“Oh, pray introduce me!” Amidst such comments and exclamations the poet of the hour found himself adrift, with a tolerably calm and impassive exterior,and within, a voice, half sad, half comical, repeating, “This is fame!”
Meanwhile, Marion had been deployed in another direction, her heart and thoughts remaining with Philip; and in this condition she was able to pay but imperfect attention to the curly-haired and bright-eyed little gentleman who had just been presented to her, and whose name she had not caught. He spoke with a slight Irish brogue, and there was a kind of vivacious sentimentality in the tone of his remarks, which had a tendency, moreover, to become inconveniently high-flown and figurative. At length, to be rid of him, she got him to conduct her to a chair, and then sent him off to fetch her a glass of water. “Who’s that girl Tom was talking to just now?” said one man to another, as she sat alone. “Don’t know: nice fresh young creature; oh, let Tom alone for being first in the field with whatever’s going: and in a week he’ll have put her in the Irish melodies, and then the next man may take what is left!” This dialogue was so little to Marion’s taste that she rose from her seat and established herself under the wing of an elderly dowager with whom she happened to have some acquaintance; and there, putting her hand in her pocket to find her smelling-salts, she felt the letter that she had forgotten: whereupon she drew it forth and opened it, and was actually absorbed in its contents at the very moment when the author of “Lallah Rookh” was searching for her everywhere with a glass of water in his hand.
The letter was not long, but Marion found it unexpectedly interesting, insomuch that she read it over three or four times, with a constantly expanding sense of its importance. It was not the answer to her own letter, nor had it any reference to that; it was addressed to Philip throughout, and treated of business which was as new as it was surprising. After having consideredthe written words from every point of view, Marion sat with the letter in her lap and her eyes gazing at nothing, in a state of mingled bewilderment and distress. She had contended against destiny, and had seemed at first to win; but now her flank was turned, and the day was against her.
Through the midst of her perplexity she presently became aware of a dapper little figure standing before her with a glass of water in its hand: she gazed at him uncomprehendingly. Just then, however, another face, which she immediately recognized, appeared amidst the crowd, and not only restored her self-possession, but set all her faculties on edge. She rose quickly, and eluding the astonished water-carrier, she reached Fillmore’s side and touched him on the arm.
“Mr. Fillmore, will you please give me your arm? I have read your letter. I wish to talk to you. Take me somewhere where we can be uninterrupted for a few minutes.” Fillmore complied without asking any questions, and without showing any particular symptoms of surprise.
Philip, the lion of the evening, was, in the meantime, getting on very agreeably. After running the gauntlet of numerous promiscuous admirers, who besought him to tell them whether Iduna was drowned, whether the sea-god were real or only a fancy of hers, whether she married her mortal lover, and whether the latter managed to get safe off on the wreck of the castle, and much more to the same effect—after he had been parrying such inquiries as these, with what ingenuity and good humor he might, for some time, he happened to raise his eyes, and saw the eyes of Perdita directed upon him from a little distance, with a beckoning expression. In a few minutes he succeeded in placing himself, with a feeling of genuine relief, by her side. And indeed he had no reason to be dissatisfied with hisposition. If there were, in that assembly, any woman more classically handsome than Perdita, there was certainly no one who could compare with her in brilliance and subtle attractiveness; nor any who knew so well how to say what a man would like to hear; nor any who, in the present instance, was better disposed to say it. She touched his shoulder lightly with her hand as he sat down, with an air and smile as if she were conferring upon him a well-earned knighthood.
“This is the hardest part, you know,” she said. “Men who do great things are always beset by little people, with their discordant little adulations. It is like what you see on the stage; when Kean or Kemble has given a great passage, and your ears are ringing with it, there comes a flat racket of hand-clapping. That is the world’s applause!”
“We must take the deed for the will,” said Philip laughing, “and be glad to get it.”
“And so you wish me to believe,” pursued Perdita, “that love is a vision that cannot be realized in this world?”
“I don’t know that I mean that,” he replied; “and I don’t want to undertake the responsibility of my own poetical morals. But love is like life, perhaps, never to be found by any dissection of mortal hearts or brains. It is above what can be seen or touched, though that may embody it. You see I am as great a fool as any of my readers. I don’t know, any more than the young lady I just was talking with, whether Iduna was drowned or married. But neither do I care.”
“There is more than one man in every real poet,” remarked Perdita, looking at him intently for a moment, and then looking down; “and the one who appears in the flesh is not always, I suspect, the one best worth having. And yet he may be worth breaking one’s heart for. What do you think?”
“I don’t remember having made any experiments,” said Philip, rather awkwardly.
“Well, it is hardly worth remembering,” she rejoined with one of her ambiguous smiles. “If we remembered everything we should never do anything, probably; and that may be one reason why women do so little. And so you are married, Philip?”
“Yes,” he said, a little reluctant to follow up this turn of the conversation.
“What a delightful thing a true marriage must be,” she went on, “especially when a poet is the bridegroom. For he must know, better than any other man, what woman to choose. You have seen the world, my friend, and studied the human heart; and I congratulate you on having found the woman best suited to make you happy.”
“I’m not so difficult as you seem to think,” returned Philip; “but if I were ten times more so than I am, I should be more than content.”
“I am sure of that,” said Perdita, smiling again; “if all men were as fortunate as you,mon ami, the world would be the happier. Marion is a poet’s wife. She comprehends you. She reverences your genius even more than you do, and she will do more than your genius to make you illustrious. She has the simplicity and the unsuspiciousness that one finds only in the highest natures; she will never harass you with foolish doubts and questions: she will never do anything whimsical or arbitrary: she will never make you appear absurd. She makes me wish that I were like her.”
Perdita uttered the last sentences in a low and serious tone. She was looking her loveliest; fit to be the consort of a king or the heroine of an epic. She was warm, exquisite, tinted like a flower and sparkling like the gems upon her bosom; she had all the grace of a woman, and more than a woman’s substance and individuality, andshe was telling Philip that she wished she were like his wife! Philip, though not exactly destitute of vanity or of liability to infatuation, was not readily to be deceived. He was quite able to believe that Perdita might be making game of him. And yet, hearing the tones of her voice and looking in her face, he did not believe it. Her words, indeed, could be taken with more than one signification; but there must be genuineness in them somewhere. She wished that she were like Philip’s wife. Did that mean that she really considered Marion’s qualities of mind and person were more desirable than her own? Or did she mean that there was some cause, unavowed but not unimaginable, why she should desire them more? Some cause not unimaginable: what? She had just expressed her conviction, in tones unusually earnest for an assemblage like Lady Flanders’, that Marion’s qualities were such as must command Philip’s love. What then was the significance of her wishing they might be hers? It was plain enough; indeed it was its very plainness that was the strongest obstacle in the way of Philip’s so understanding it. And yet, thorough as was his love for Marion, he recognized too clearly the wonderful charms and fascinations of Perdita to believe that she could compare herself with his wife to her own disadvantage. No: what she had said was, at least, an implicit censure of his blindness in having preferred Marion or any other woman to Perdita herself.
It is to Philip’s credit that he did not allow himself to appear in the least conscious of the unavoidable inference in the matter; but only laughed, and said that he had no doubt any one would like his wife better than his poetry, if they could be afforded the opportunity. And before anything else could be said, who should appear before them but Marion herself, leaning on Merton Fillmore’s arm, looking very pale, and witha peculiar satirical touch to her expression which Philip had not seen there since the early days of his acquaintance with her, and which made him a little uneasy. As for Fillmore, his demeanor was, as usual, admirably composed; but Philip fancied that there was something in the glance he bestowed upon him that seemed to say, “Can a honeymoon be eclipsed?”