What is a dull life? In what does the enjoyment of existence consist? It is a comparative matter, after all, I fancy. A Londoner, cantering homeward down the Row, will lift his hat as he passes three horsemen abreast, the middle one of whom, comely, stout, and pleasant-looking, bows in return; or, looking after an olive-coloured brougham with a white horse, out of the window of which looms a lined leery-looking face, will say, "How well Pam holds out!" and will go home to dinner without bestowing another thought on the subject; whereas the mere fact of having seen the Prince of Wales or Lord Palmerston would give a countryman matter for reflection and conversation for a couple of days. There are even Londoners who look upon a performance of chamber-music, or a visit to the Polytechnic Institute as an excitement; while in a provincial town to attend a lecture on "Mnemonics," or the dinner of the farmers' club, is the acme of dissipation. Some lives are passed in such a whirl that even the occasional advent among their kindred of the great date-marker, Death, is scarcely noticed; others dwindle away with such unvarying pulsations that the purchase of a new bonnet, the lameness of an old horse, the doctor's visit, the curate's cough, are all duly set down as notabilia worthy to be recorded. Who does not recollect the awe and reverence with which one regarded the Bishop of Bosphorus, when, a benevolent seraph in a wig (they wore wigs in those days) and lawn sleeves, he arrived at the parish church for the confirmation-service? It was exciting to see him; it was almost too much to hear his voice; but now, if you are a member of the Athenaeum Club, you may see him, and two or three other prelates, reading the evening papers, or drinking their pint of sherry with the joint, and speaking to the waiters in voices akin to those of ordinary mortals; may even see him sitting next to Belmont the poet, whoseTwilight Musingsso delighted your youth, but whom you now find to be a fat man with a red face and a tendency to growl if there be not enough schalot sent up with his steak.
If there were ever a man who should have felt the influence of a dull life, it was Lord Caterham, who never repined. And yet it would be difficult to imagine any thing more terribly lonely than was that man's existence. Dressed by his servant, his breakfast over, and he wheeled up to his library-table, there was the long day before him; how was he to get through it? Who would come to see him? His father, perhaps, for five minutes, with a talk about the leading topic treated of in theTimes, a remark about the change in the weather, a hope that his son would "get out into the sunshine," and as speedy a departure as could be decently managed. His mother, very rarely, and then only for a frosty peck at his cheek, and a tittered hope that he was better. His brother Lionel, when in town, when not else engaged, when not too seedy after "a night of it,"--his brother Lionel, who would throw himself into an easy-chair, and, kicking out his slippered feet, tell Caterham what a "rum fellow" he, Lionel, thought him; what a "close file;" what a "reserved, oyster-like kind of a cove!" Other visitors occasionally. Algy Barford, genial, jolly, and quaint; always welcome for his bright sunshiny face, his equable temper, his odd salted remarks on men and things. A bustling apothecary, with telescopic shoulders and twinkling eyelids, who peered down Lord Caterham's throat like a magpie looking into a bone, and who listened to the wheezings of Lord Caterham's chest with as much intentness as a foreigner in the Opera-pit to the prayer inDer Freischütz. Two or three lounging youths, fresh from school or college, who were pleased to go away afterwards and talk of their having been with him, partly because he was a lord, partly because he was a man whose name was known in town, and one with whom it was ratherkudosto be thought intimate. There are people who, under such circumstances, would have taken their servants into their confidence; but Lord Caterham was not one of these. Kindly and courteous to all, he yet kept his servant at the greatest distance; and the man knew that to take the slightest liberty was more than his place was worth. There were no women to talk with this exile from his species; there were none on sufficiently intimate footing to call on him and sit with him, to talk frankly and unreservedly that pleasant chatter which gives us the keynote to their characters; and for this at least Lord and Lady Beauport were unfeignedly thankful. Lord Beauport's knowledge of the world told him that there were women against whom his son's deformity and isolated state would be no defence, to whom his rank and position would be indefinable attractions, by whom he would probably be assailed, and with whom he had no chance of coping. Not bad women, notintrigantes,--such would have set forth their charms and wasted their dalliances in vain,--but clever heartless girls, brought up by matchmaking mothers, graduates in the great school of life, skilled in the deft and dexterous use of all aggressive weapons, unscrupulous as to the mode of warfare so long as victory was to be the result. In preventing Lord Caterham from making the acquaintance of any such persons, Lord Beauport took greater pains than he had ever bestowed on anything in connection with his eldest son; and, aided by the astute generalship of his wife, he had succeeded wonderfully.
Only once did there seem a chance of an enemy's scaling the walls and entering the citadel, and then the case was really serious. It was at an Eton and Harrow match at Lord's that Lord Caterham first saw Carry Chesterton. She came up hanging on the arm of her brother, Con Chesterton, the gentleman farmer, who had the ground outside Homershams, Lady Beauport's family place, and who begged to present his sister to Lord Caterham, of whom she had heard so much. A sallow-faced girl, with deep black eyes, arched brows, and raven hair in broad bands, with a high forehead and a chiselled nose and tight thin lips, was Carry Chesterton; and as she bent over Lord Caterham's chair and expressed her delight at the introduction, she shot a glance that went through Caterham's eyes, and into his very soul.
"She was a poetess, was Carry, and all that sort of thing," said honest Con; "and had come up to town to try and get some of her writings printed, you know, and that sort of thing; and your lordship's reputation as a man of taste, you know, and that sort of thing,--if you'd only look at the stuff and give your opinion, and that sort of thing."
"That sort of thing,"i.e. the compulsory conversion into a Mecaenas, Lord Caterham had had tried-on before; but only in the case of moon-struck men, never from such a pair of eyes. Never had he had the request indorsed in such a deep-toned thrilling voice; and so he acquiesced, and a meeting was arranged for the morrow, when Con was to bring Carry to St. Barnabas Square; and that night Lord Caterham lay in a pleasant state of fevered excitement, thinking of his expected visitor. Carry came next day, but not Con. Con had some arrangements to make about that dreadful yeomanry which took up so much of his time, to see Major Latchford or Lord Spurrier, the colonel, and arrange about their horrid evolutions; but Carry came, and brought her manuscript book of poems. Would she read them? she could, and did, in a deep lowtraînantevoice, with wonderful art and pathos, illustrating them with elevations of her thick brows and with fervid glances from her black eyes. They were above the average of women's verse, had nothing namby-pamby in them, and were not merely flowing and musical, but strong and fervid; they were full of passion, which was not merely a Byronicrefrain, but had a warmth and novelty of its own. Lord Caterham was charmed with the verses, was charmed with the writer; he might suggest certain improvements in them, none in her. He pointed out certain lines which might be altered; and as he pointed them out, their hands met, touched but for an instant, and on looking up, his eyes lost themselves in hers.
Ah, those hand-touches and eye-glances! The oldest worldling has some pleasure in them yet, and can recall the wild ecstatic thrill which ran through him when he first experienced them in his salad-days. But we can conceive nothing of their effect on a man who, under peculiar circumstances, had lived a reserved self-contained life until five-and-twenty years of age,--a man with keen imagination and warm passions, who had "never felt the kiss of love, nor maiden's hand in his," until his whole being glowed and tingled under the fluttering touch of Carry Chesterton's lithe fingers, and in the fiery gaze of her black eyes. She came again and again; and after every visit Lord Caterham's passion increased. She was a clever woman with a purpose, to the fulfilment of which her every word, her every action, tended. Softly, delicately, and with the greatestfinesse, she held up to him the blank dreariness of his life, and showed him how it might be cheered and consoled. In a pitying rather than an accusing spirit, she pointed out the shortcomings of his own relatives, and indicated how, to a person in his position, there could be but one who should be all in all. This was all done with the utmost tact and refinement; a sharp word, an appearance of eagerness, the slightest showing of the cards, and the game would have been spoilt; but Carry Chesterton knew her work, and did it well. She had been duly presented by Lord Caterham to his father and mother, and had duly evoked first their suspicion, then their rage. At first it was thought that by short resolute measures the evil might be got rid of. So Lord Beauport spoke seriously to his son, and Lady Beauport spoke warningly; but all in vain. For the first time in his life Lord Caterham rebelled, and in his rebellion spoke his mind; and in speaking his mind he poured forth all that bitterness of spirit which had been collecting and fermenting so long. To the crippled man's heartwrung wail of contempt and neglect, to his passionate appeal for some one to love and to be loved by, the parents had no reply. They knew that he had bitter cause for complaint; but they also knew that he was now in pursuit of a shadow; that he was about to assuage his thirst for love with Dead-Sea apples; that the "set gray life and apathetic end" were better than the wild fierce conflict and the warming of a viper in the fires of one's heart. Lady Beauport read Carry Chesterton like a book, saw her ends and aims, and told Lord Caterham plainly what they were. "This girl is attracted by your title and position, Caterham,--nothing else," she said, in her hard dry voice; "and the natural result has ensued." But that voice had never been softened by any infusion of maternal love. Her opinions had no weight with her son. He made no answer, and the subject dropped.
Lionel Brakespere, duly apprised by his mother of what was going on, and urged to put a stop to it, took his turn at his brother, and spoke with his usual mess-room frankness, and in his usual engaging language. "Every body knew Carry Chesterton," he said, "all the fellows at the Rag knew her; at least all who'd been quartered in the neighbourhood of Flockborough, where she was a regular garrison hack, and had been engaged to Spoonbill of the 18th Hussars, and jilted by Slummer of the 160th Rifles, and was as well known as the town-clock, by Jove; and Caterham was a fiat and a spoon, and he'd be dashed if he'd see the fam'ly degraded; and I say, why the doose didn't Caterham listen to reason!" So far Captain the Honourable Lionel Brakespere; who, utterly failing in his purpose and intent, and having any further access to Lord Caterham's rooms strictly denied him by Lord Caterham's orders, sought out Algy Barford and confided to him the whole story, and "put him on" to save the fam'ly credit, and stop Caterham's rediklous 'fatuation.
Now if the infatuation in question had been legitimate, and likely to lead to good results, Algy Barford would have been the very last man on earth to attempt to put a stop to it, or to interfere in any way save for its advancement. But this airy, laughing philosopher, with all his apparent carelessness, was a man of the world and a shrewd reader of human character; and he had made certain inquiries, the result of which proved that Carry Chesterton was, if not all that Lionel Brakespere had made her out, at all events a heartless coquette and fortune-huntress, always rising at the largest fly. Quite recently jilted by that charming creature Captain Slummer of the Rifles, she had been heard to declare she would not merely retrieve the position hereby lost, but achieve a much greater one; and she had been weak enough to boast of her influence over Lord Caterham, and her determination to marry him in spite of all his family's opposition. Then Algy Barford joined the ranks of the conspirators, and brought his thoroughly practical worldly knowledge to their camp. It was at a council held in Lady Beauport's boudoir that he first spoke on the subject, his face radiant with good humour, his teeth gleaming in the light, and his attention impartially divided between the matter under discussion and the vagaries of a big rough terrier which accompanied him every where.
"You must pardon me, dear Lady Beauport," said he; "but you've all been harking forward on the wrong scent.--Down, Tinker! Don't let him jump on your mother, Lionel; his fleas, give you my honour, big as lobsters!--on the wrong scent! Dear old Caterham, best fellow in the world; but frets at the curb, don't you know? Put him a couple of links higher up than usual, and he rides rusty and jibs--jibs, by Jove! And that's what you've been doing now. Dear old Caterham! not much to amuse him in life, don't you know? goes on like a blessed old martyr; but at last finds something which he likes, and you don't. Quite right, dear Lady Beauport;Isee it fast enough, because I'm an old lad, and have seen men and cities; but dear Caterham, who is all milk and rusks and green peas, and every thing that is innocent, don't you know, don't see it at all. And then you try to shake him by the shoulder and rouse him out of his dream, and tell him that he's not in fairyland, not in Aladdin's palace, not in a two-pair back in Craven Street, Strand. Great mistake that, Lionel, dear boy. Dear Lady Beauport, surely your experience teaches you that it is a great mistake to cross a person when they're in that state?"
"But, Mr. Barford, what is to be done?"
"Put the helm about, Lady Beauport, and--Tinker! you atrocious desperado, you shameless caitiff! will you get down?--put the helm about, and try the other tack. Weve failed with dear old Caterham: now let's try the lady. Caterham is the biggest fish she's seen yet; but my notion is that if a perch came in her way, and seemed likely to bite, she'd forget she'd ever seen a gudgeon. Now my brother Windermere came to town last week, and he's an earl, you know, and just the sort of fellow who likes nothing so much as a flirtation, and is all the time thunderingly well able to take care of himself. I think if Miss Chesterton were introduced to Windermere, she'd soon drop poor dear Caterham."
Both Lionel and his mother agreed in this notion, and an early opportunity was taken for the presentation of Lord Windermere to Miss Chesterton. An acknowledgedparti; a man of thews and sinews; frank, generous, and affable: apparently candid and unsuspecting in the highest degree, he seemed the very prize for which that accomplished fortune-huntress had long been waiting; and forgetting the old fable of the shadow and the substance she at once turned a decided cold shoulder upon poor Lord Caterham, ceased visiting him, showed him no more poetry, and within a week of her making Lord Windermere's acquaintance, cut her old friend dead in Kensington Gardens, whither he had been wheeled in the hope of seeing her. Ah, in how few weeks, having discovered the sandy foundation on which she had been building, did she come back, crouching and fawning and trying all the old devices, to find the fire faded out of Caterham's eyes and the hope out of his breast, and the prospect of any love or companionship as distant from him as ever!
Yes, that was Lord Caterham's one experience of love; and after its lame and impotent conclusion he determined he would never have another. We have all of us determined that in our time; but few of us have kept to our resolution so rigidly as did Lord Caterham, possibly because opportunities have not been so wanting to us as to him. It is all that horrible opportunity which saps our strongest resolutions; it is the close proximity of the magnum of "something special" in claret which leads to the big drink; it is the shaded walk, and the setting sun behind the deep bank of purple clouds, and the solemn stillness, and the upturned eyes and the provoking mouth, which lead to all sorts of horrible mistakes. Opportunity after the Chestertonescapadewas denied to Lord Caterham both by himself and his parents. He shut himself up in solitude: he would see no one save the apothecary and Algy Barford, who indeed came constantly, feeling all the while horribly treacherous and shamefaced. And then by degrees--by that blessed process of Time against which we rail so much, but which is so beneficial, of Time the anodyne and comforter, he fell back into his old ways of life; and all that little storm and commotion was as though it had never been. It left no marks of its fury on Caterham; he kept no relics of its bright burning days: all letters had been destroyed. There was not a glove nor a flower in his drawers--nothing for him to muse and shake his head over. So soon as his passion had spent itself--so soon as he could look calmly upon the doings of the few previous months, he saw how unworthy they had been, and blotted them from his memory for ever.
So until Annie Maurice had come to take up her position as his mother's companion, Lord Caterham had been entirely without female society, and since her advent he had first learned the advantages of associating with a pure, genuine healthy woman. Like Carry Chesterton, she seemed to take to the crippled man from her first introduction to him; but ah, how unlike that siren did sweet Annie Maurice show her regard! There was no more romance in her composition, so she would have told you herself, than in the statue at Charing Cross; no eyebrow elevations, no glances, no palpable demonstrations of interest. In quite a household and domestic manner did this good fairy discharge her duties. She was not the Elf, the Wili, the Giselle; in book-muslin and star-sprent hair; she was the ordinary "Brownie," the honest Troll, which shows its presence in help rather than ornament. Ever since Miss Maurice had been an inmate of the house in Barnabas Square, Caterham's books had been dusted, his books and papers arranged, his diurnal calendar set, his desk freshened with a glass of newly-gathered flowers. Never before had his personal wants been so readily understood, so deftly attended to. No one smoothed his pillows so softly, wheeled his chair so easily, his every look so quickly comprehended. To all that dreary household Annie Maurice was a sunbeam; but on no one did she shine so brightly as on that darkened spirit. The Earl felt the beaming influence of her bright nature; the Countess could not deny her meed of respect to one who was always "in her place;" the servants, horribly tenacious of interference, could find no fault with Miss Maurice; but to none appeared she in so bright a light as to Lord Caterham.
It was the morning after the receipt of the letter which Algy Barford had left with him, and which had seemingly so much upset him, that Caterham was sitting in his room, his hands clasped idly before him, his looks bent, not on the book lying open on the desk, but on the vacant space beyond it. So delicately constituted was his frame, that any mental jar was immediately succeeded by acute bodily suffering; he was hurt, not merely in spirit but in body; the machinery of his being was shaken and put out of gear, and it took comparatively some length of time for all to get into working order again. The strain on this occasion had evidently been great, his head throbbed, his eyes were surrounded with bistre rings, and the nervous tension of his clasped fingers showed the unrest of his mind. Then came a gentle tap on the door, a sound apparently instantly recognisable, for Lord Caterham raised his head, and bade the visitor "Come in." It was Annie Maurice. No one else opened the door so quickly and closed it so quietly behind her, no one came with so light and yet so firm a step, no one else would have seen that the sun was pouring in through the window on to the desk, and would have crossed the room and arranged the blind before coming up to the chair. Caterham knew her without raising his eyes, and had said, "Ah, Annie dear!" before she reached him.
"I feared you were ill, my lord," she commenced; but a deep growl from Caterham stopped her. "I feared you were ill, Arthur," she then said; "you did not show at dinner last night, nor in the evening; but I thought you might be disinclined for society--the Gervises were here, you know, and the Scrimgeours, and I know you don't care for our classical music, which is invariable on such occasions; but I met Stephens on the staircase, and he gave me such a desponding account, that I really feared you were ill."
"Only a passing dull fit, Annie; only a passing dull fit of extra heaviness, and consequently extra duration! Stephens is a croaker, you know; and having, I believe, an odd sort of Newfoundland-dog attachment to me, is frightened if I have a finger-ache. But I'm very glad you've come in, Annie, for I'm not really very bright even now, and you always help to set me straight. Well, and how goes it with you, young lady?"
"Oh, very well, Arthur, very well."
"You feel happier than you did on your first coming among us? You feel as though you were settling down into your home?"
"I should be worse than foolish if I did not, for every one tries to be kind to me."
"I did not ask you for moral sentiments, Annie, I asked you for facts. Do you feel settling down into your home?" And as Caterham said this, he shot a keen scrutinising glance at the girl.
She paused for a moment ere she answered, and when she spoke she looked at him straight out of her big brown eyes.
"Do I feel as if I were settling down into my home, Arthur? No; in all honesty, no. I have no home, as you know well enough; but I feel that--"
"Why no home?" he interrupted; "isn't--No, I understand."
"No, you do not understand; and it is for that reason I speak. You do not understand me, Lord--Arthur. You have notions which I want to combat, and set right at once, please. I know you have, for Ive heard hints of them in something you've said before. It all rises out of your gentlemanly and chivalrous feeling, I know; but, believe me, you're wrong. I fill the position of your mother's companion here, and you have fallen into the conventional notion that I'm not well treated, put upon, and all that kind of thing. On my honour, that is utterly wrong. No two people could be kinder, after their lights, than Lord and Lady Beauport are to me. Of your own conduct I need say no word. From the servants I have perfect respect; and yet--"
"And yet?"
"Well, simply you choose the wrong word; there's no homey feeling about it, and I should be false were I to pretend there were."
"But pardon me for thus pursuing the subject into detail,--my interest in you must be my excuse,--what 'homey feeling,' as you call it, had you at Ricksborough Vicarage, whence you came to us? The people there are no closer blood-relations than we are; nor did they, as far as I know--"
"Nor did they try more to make me happy. No, indeed, they could not have tried more in that way than you do. But I was much younger when I first went there, Arthur--quite a little child--and had all sorts of childish reminiscences of cow-milking, and haymaking, and harvest-homes, and all kinds of ruralities, with that great balloon-shaped shadow of St. Paul's ever present on the horizon keeping watch over the City, where dear old uncle Frank told me I should have to get my living after he was gone. Its home-influence gained on me even from the sorrow which I saw and partook of in it; from the sight of my aunt's deathbed and my uncle's meek resignation overcoming his desperate grief; from the holy comfort inspired in him by the discharge of his holy calling; by the respect and esteem in which he was held by all around, and which was never so much shown as when he wanted it most acutely. These things, among many others, made that place home to me."
"Yes," said Lord Caterham, in a harsh dry voice; "I understand easily enough. After such innocence and goodness I can fully comprehend what it must be to you to read blue-books to my father, to listen to my mother'sfadenonsense about balls, operas, and dresses, or to attend to the hypochondriacal fancies of a valetudinarian like myself--"
"Lord Caterham! I don't think that even you have a right to insult me in this way!"
"EvenI! thank you for the compliment, which implies--Bah! what a brute I am! You'll forgive me, Annie, won't you? I'm horribly hipped and low. Ive not been out for two days; and the mere fact of being a prisoner to the house always fills my veins with bile instead of blood. Ah, you won't keep that knit brow and those tightened lips any longer, will you? No one sees more plainly than I do that your life here wants certain--"
"Pray say no more, I--"
"Ah, Annie, for Heaven's sake don't pursue this miserable growl of mine. Have some pity for my ill-health. But I want to see you with as many surroundings natural to your age and taste as we can find in this--hospital. There's music: you play and sing very sweetly; but you can't--I know you can't--sit down with any ease or comfort to that great furniture-van of a grand-piano in that gaunt drawing-room; that's only fit for those long-haired foreigners who let off their fireworks on Lady Beauport's reception-nights. You must have a good piano of your own, in your own room or here, or somewhere where you can practise quietly. I'll see about that. And drawing--for you have a great natural talent for that; but you should have some lessons: you must keep it up; you must have a master. There's a man goes to Lady Lilford's, a capital fellow, whom I know; you must have him. What's his name? Ludlow--"
"What, Geoffrey Ludlow! dear old Geoff! He used to be papa's greatest friend when we were at Willesden, you know,--and before that dreadful bankruptcy, you know, Mr. Ludlow was always there. Ive sat on his knee a thousand times; and he used to sketch me, and call me his little elf. Oh yes, dear Arthur, I should like that,--I should like to have lessons from Mr. Ludlow! I should so like to see him again!"
"Well, Annie, you shall. I'll get his address from the Lilfords and write to him, and settle about his coming. And now, Annie, leave me, dear; I'm a little tired, and want rest."
He was tired, and wanted rest; but he did not get it just then. Long after Annie left the room he sat pondering, pondering, with a strange feeling for which he himself could not account, but which had its keynote in this: How strongly she spoke of the man Ludlow; how he disliked her earnestness on the subject; and what would he not have given, could he have thought she would have spoken so strongly of him.
When you feel yourself gradually becoming enthralled, falling a victim to a fascination all-potent, but scarcely all-satisfactory, be it melancholy, or gambling, or drink, or love, there is nothing so counteracting to the horrible influence as to brace your nerves together, and go in for a grand spell of work. That remedy is always efficacious, of course. It never fails, as Geoffrey Ludlow knew very well; and that was the reason why, on the morning after his last-described interview with Margaret Dacre, he dragged out from behind a screen, where it had been turned with its face to the wall, his half-finished picture intended for the Academy, and commenced working on it with wonderful earnestness. It was a large canvas with three principal figures: a young man, a "swell" of modern days, turning away from the bold and eager glances of a somewhat brazen coquette, and suddenly struck by the modest bashful beauty of a girl of the governess-order seated at a piano. "Scylla and Charybdis" Geoff had intended calling it, with the usualIncidit in &c. motto; and when the idea first struck him he had taken pains with his composition, had sketched his figures carefully, and had painted-in the flirt and the man very successfully. The governess had as yet been a failure; he had had no ideal to work from; the model who had sat to him was a little coarse and clumsy, and irritated at not being able to carry out his notion, he had put the picture by. But he now felt that work was required of him, not merely as a distraction from thought, but as an absolute duty which he owed to himself; and as this was a subject likely to be appreciated by Mr. Stompff, he determined to work at it again, and to have it ready for submission to the Hanging Committee of the Academy. He boggled over it a little at first; he smoked two pipes, staring at the canvas, occasionally shading his eyes with one hand, and waving the other in a dreamy possessed manner in front of him. Then he took up a brush and began to lay on a bit of colour, stepping back from time to time to note the effect; and then the spirit came upon him, and he went to work with all his soul.
What a gift is that of the painter, whose whole story can be read at one glance, who puts what we require three thick volumes to narrate into a few feet of canvas, who with one touch of his brush gives an expression which we pen-and-ink workers should take pages to convey, and even then could never hope to do it half so happily!--who sees his work grow beneath his hand, and can himself judge of its effect on others;--who can sit with his pipe in his mouth, and chirp away merrily to his friend, the while his right hand is gaining him wealth and honour and fame!
The spirit was on Geoffrey Ludlow, and the result came out splendidly. He hoped to gain a good place on the Academy walls, he hoped to do justice to the commissions which Mr. Stompff had given him; but there was something beyond these two incentives which spurred his industry and nerved his touch. After all his previous failures, it seemed as though Scylla the governess would have the best of it at last. Charybdis was a splendid creature, a bold, black-eyed, raven-haired charmer, with her hair falling in thick masses over her shoulders, and with a gorgeous passion-flower hanging voluptuously among her tresses; a goddess amongst big Guardsmen, who would sit and suck their yellow moustaches and express their admiration in fragmentary ejaculations, or amongst youths from the Universities, with fluff instead of hair, and blushes in place ofaplomb. But in his later work the artist's heart seemed to have gone with Scylla, who was to her rival as is a proof after Sir Joshua to a French print, as a glass of Amontillado to apetit verreof Chartreuse,--a slight delicate creature, with violet eyes and pallid complexion, and deep-red hair brought down in thick braids, and tucked away behind such dainty little ears; her modest gray dress contrasting, in its quaker-like simplicity, with the brilliant-hued robe and rich laces of her rival. His morning's work must have been successful, for--rare thing with him--Geoff himself was pleased with it; no doubt of the inspiration now, he tried to deny it to himself, but could not--the likeness came out so wonderfully. So he gave way to the charm, and as he sat before the canvas, thoughtfully gazing at it, he let his imagination run riot, and gave his pleasant memories full play.
He had worked well and manfully, and had tolerably satisfied himself, and was sitting resting, looking at what he had done, and thinking over what had prompted his work, when there came a tap at the door, and his sister Til crept noiselessly in. She entered softly, as was her wont when her brother was engaged, and took up her position behind him. But Miss Til was demonstrative by nature, and after a minute's glance could not contain herself.
"Oh, you dear old Geoff; that is charming! oh, Geoff, how you have got on! But I say, Geoff; the governess--what do you call her? I never can recollect those Latin names, or Greek is it?--you know, and it does not matter; but she is--you know, Geoff, I know you don't like me to say so, but I can't find any other word--she is stunning! Not that I think--I don't know, you know, of course, because we don't mix in that sort of society--not that--that I think that people who--well, I declare, I don't know any other word for them I--I mean swells--would allow their governess to have her hair done in that style; but she is de-licious! you've got a new model, Geoff; at least you've never attempted any thing in that style before and I declare you've made a regular hit. You don't speak, Geoff; don't you like what I'm saying?"
"My dear child, you don't give me the chance of saying any thing. You rattle on with 'I know' and 'you know' and 'don't you know,' till I can scarcely tell where I am. One thing I do manage to glean, however, and that is that you are pleased with the picture, which is the very best news that I could have. For though you're a most horrible little rattletrap, and talk nineteen to the dozen, there is some sense in what you say and always a great deal of truth."
"Specially when what I say is complimentary, eh, Geoff? Not that I think I have ever said much in any other strain to you. But you haven't told me about your new model, Geoff. Where did she come from?"
"My new model?"
"Yes, yes, for the governess, you know. That's new--I mean that hair and eyes, and all that. You've never painted any thing like that before. Where did she come from?"
There were few things that Geoffrey Ludlow would have kept from his sister, but this was one of them; so he merely said:
"O, a model, Til dear--one of the usual shilling-an-hour victims."
"Sent you by Mr. Charles Potts, I suppose," said Miss Til, with unusual asperity; "sent you for--" But here a knock at the door cut short the young lady's remarks. "O, but if that is Mr. Potts," she resumed, "don't say a word about what I said just now; don't, Geoff, there's a dear."
It was not Mr. Potts who responded to Geoffrey Ludlow's "Come in." It was Mr. Bowkees head which was thrust through the small space made by the opening of the door; and it was Mr. Bowker's deep voice which exclaimed:
"Engaged, eh? Your William will look in again."
But Til, with whom Mr. Bowker was a special favourite, from his strange unconventional manners and roughbonhomie, called out at once: "Mr. Bowker, it's only I--Geoff's sister Til;" and Geoff himself roaring out that "Bowker was growing modest in his old age," that gentleman was persuaded to come in; and closing the door lightly behind him, he went up to the young lady, and bending over her hand, made her a bow such as anypreux chevaliermight have envied. A meeting with a lady was a rare oasis in the desert of William Bowkees wasted life; but whenever he had the chance he showed that he had been something more than the mere pot-walloping boon-companion which most men thought him.
"Geoff's sister Til!" he repeated, looking at the tall handsome girl before him,--"Geoff's sister Til! Ah, then it's perfectly right that I should have lost all my hair, and that my beard should be grizzled, and that I have a general notion of the omnipresence of old age. I was inclined to grumble; but if 'Geoff's sister Til,' who I thought was still a little child, is to come up and greet me in this guise, I recant: Time is right; and your William is the only old fool in the matter."
"It is your own fault, Mr. Bowker, that you don't know the changes that take place in us. You know we are always glad to see you, and that mamma is always sending you messages by Geoff."
"You are all very good, and--well, I suppose it is my fault; let's say it is, at all events. What! going? There, you see the effect my presence has when I come up on a chance visit."
"Not at all," said Til; "I should have gone five minutes ago if you had not come in. I'll make a confidant of you, Mr. Bowker, and let you into a secret. Those perpetual irritable pulls at the bell are the tradespeople waiting for orders; and I must go and settle about dinner and all sorts of things. Now goodbye." She shook hands with him, nodded brightly at her brother, and was gone.
"That's a nice girl," said William Bowker, as the door closed after her; "a regular nice girl--modest, ladylike, and true; none of your infernal fal-lal affectations--honest as the day; you can see that in her eyes and in every word she says. Where do you keep your tobacco? All right. Your pipes want looking after, Geoff. Ive tried three, and each is as foul as a chimney. Ah, this will do at last; now I'm all right, and can look at your work. H--m! that seems good stuff. You must tone-down that background a little, and put a touch of light here and there on the dress, which is infernally heavy and Hamlet-like. Hallo, Geoff, are you going in for the P.-R.-B. business?"
"Not I. What do you mean?"
"What doyoumean by this red-haired party, my boy? This is a new style for you, Geoff, and one which no one would have thought of your taking up. You weren't brought up to consider this the right style of thing in old Sassoon's academy, Geoff. If the old boy could rise from his grave, and see his favourite pupil painting a frizzy, red-haired, sallow-faced woman as the realisation of beauty, I think he'd be glad he'd been called away before such awful times."
There was a hesitation in Geoff's voice, and a hollowness in his smile, as he answered:
"P.-R.-B. nonsense! Old Sassoon couldn't teach everything; and as for his ideas of beauty, look how often he made us paint Mrs. S. and the Miss S.'s, who, Heaven knows, were anything but reproductions of the Venus Calipyge. The simple question, as I take it, is this--is the thing a good thing or a bad one? Tell me that."
"As a work of art?"
"Of course; as you see it. What else could I mean?"
"As a work of art, it's good--undeniably good, in tone, and treatment, and conception; as a work of prudence, it's infernally bad."
Geoff looked at him sharply for a minute, and William Bowker, calmly puffing at his pipe, did not shrink from his friend's glance. Then, with a flush, Geoff said:
"It strikes me that it is as a work of art you have to regard it. As to what you say about a work of prudence, you have the advantage of me. I don't understand you."
"Don't you?" said William. "I'm sorry for you. What model did you paint that head from?"
"From no model."
"From life?"
"N-no; from memory--from--Upon my soul, Bowker, I don't see what right you have to cross-question me in this way."
"Don't you?" said Bowker. "Give your William something to drink, please; he can't talk when he's dry. What is that? B. and soda. Yes, that'll do. Look here, Geoffrey Ludlow, when you were little more than a boy, grinding away in the Life-School, and only too pleased if the Visitor gave you an encouraging word, your William, who is ten years your senior, had done work which made him be looked upon as the coming man. He had the ball at his foot, and he had merely to kick it to send it where he chose. He does not say this out of brag--you know it?"
Geoffrey Ludlow inclined his head in acquiescence.
"Your William didn't kick the bail; something interfered just as his foot was lifted to send it flying to the goal--a woman."
Again Geoffrey Ludlow nodded in acquiescence.
"You have heard the story. Every body in town knew it, and each had his peculiar version; but I will tell you the whole truth myself. You don't know how I struggled on against that infatuation;--no, you may think you do, but I am a much stronger man than you--am, or was--and I saw what I was losing by giving way. I gave way. I knocked down the whole fabric which, from the time I had had a man's thoughts, a man's mind, a man's energy and power, I had striven to raise. I kicked it all down, as Alnaschar did his basket of eggs, and almost as soon found how vain had been my castle-building. I need scarcely go into detail with you about that story: it was published in the Sunday newspapers of the time; it echoed in every club-room; it has remained lingering about art-circles, and in them is doubtless told with great gusto at the present day, should ever my name be mentioned. I fell in love with a woman who was married to a man of more than double her age,--a woman of education, taste, and refinement; of singular beauty too--and that to a young artist was not her least charm--tied for life to an old heartless scoundrel. My passion for her sprung from the day of my first seeing her; but I choked it down. I saw as plainly as I see this glass before me now what would be the consequence of any absurd escapade on my part; how it would crush me, how, infinitely more, it would dragherdown. I knew what was working in each of us; and, so help me Heaven! I tried to spare us both. I tried--and failed, dismally enough. It was for no want of arguing with myself--from no want of forethought of all the consequences that might ensue. I looked at all point-blank; for though I was young and mad with passion, I loved that woman so that I could even have crushed my own selfishness lest it should be harm to her. I could have done this: I did it until--until one night I saw a blue livid mark on her shoulder. God knows how many years that is ago, but I have the whole scene before me at this moment. It was at some fine ball (I went into what is called 'society' then), and we were standing in a conservatory, when I noticed this mark. I asked her about it, and she hesitated; I taxed her with the truth, which she first feebly denied, then admitted. He had struck her, the hound! in a fit of jealous rage,--had struck her with his clenched fist! Even as she told me this, I could see him within a few yards of us, pretending to be rapt in conversation, but obviously noting our conduct. I suppose he guessed that she had told me of what had occurred. I suppose he guessed it from my manner and the expression of my face, for a deadly pallor came over his grinning cheeks; and as we passed out of the conservatory, he whispered to her--not so low but that I caught the words--'You shall pay for this, madam--you shall pay for this!' That determined me, and that night we fled.--Give me some more brandy and soda, Geoff. Merely to tell this story drags the heart out of my breast."
Geoff pushed the bottle over to his friend, and after a gulp Bowker proceeded:
"We went to Spain, and remained there many months; and there it was all very well. That slumbering country is even now but little haunted by your infernal British tourist; but then scarcely any Englishman came there. Such as we came across were all bachelors, your fine lad can't stand the mule-travelling and the roughing it in the posadas; and they either had not heard the story, or didn't see the propriety of standing on any squeamishness, more especially when the acquaintance was all to their advantage, and we got on capitally. Nelly had seen nothing, poor child, having left school to be married; and all the travel, and the picturesque old towns, and the peasantry, and the Alhambra, and all the rest of it, made a sort of romantic dream for her. But then old Van den Bosch got his divorce; and so soon as I had heard of that, like a madman as I was, I determined to come back to England. The money was running short, to be sure; but I had made no end of sketches, and I might have sent them over and sold them; but I wanted to get back. A man can't live on love alone; and I wanted to be amongst my old set again, for the old gossip and the oldcamaraderie; and so back we came. I took a little place out at Ealing, and then I went into the old haunts, and saw the old fellows, and--for the first time--so help me Heaven! for the first time I saw what I had done. They cut me, sir, right and left! There were some of them--blackguards who would have hobnobbed with Greenacre, if he'd stood the drink--who accepted my invitations, and came Sunday after Sunday, and would have eaten and drunk me out of house and home, if I'd have stood it; but the best--the fellows I really cared about--pretty generally gave me the cold shoulder. Some of them had married during my absence, and of course they couldn't come; others were making their way in their art, working under the patronage of big swells in the Academy, and hoping for election there, and they daren't be mixed up with such a notoriously black sheep as your William. I felt this, Geoff, old boy. By George, it cut me to the heart; it took all the change out of me; it made me low and hipped, and, I fear, sometimes savage. And I suppose I showed it at home; for poor Nell seemed to change and wither from the day of our return. She had her own troubles, poor darling, though she thought she kept them to herself. In a case like that, Geoff, the women get it much hotter than we do. There were no friends for her, no one to whom she could tell her troubles. And then the story got known, and people used to stare and nudge each other, and whisper as she passed. The parson called when we first came, and was a good pleasant fellow; but a fortnight afterwards he'd heard all about it, and grew purple in the face as he looked straight over our heads when we met him. And once a butcher, who had to be spoken to for cheating, cheeked her and alluded to her story; but I think what I did to him prevented any repetition of that kind of conduct. But I couldn't silence the whole world by thrashing it, old fellow; and Nell drooped and withered under all the misery--drooped and--died! And I--well, I became the graceless, purposeless, spiritless brute you see me now!"
Mr. Bowker stopped and rubbed the back of his hand across his eyes, and gave a great cough before finishing his drink; and then Geoffrey patted him on the shoulder and said, "But you know how we all love you, old friend; how that Charley Potts, and I, and Markham, and Wallis, and all the fellows, would do anything for you."
Mr. Bowker gave his friend's hand a tight grip as he said, "I know, Geoff; I know you boys are fond of your William but it wasn't to parade my grief, or to cadge for sympathy from them, that I told you that story. I had another motive."
"And that was--"
"To set myself up as an example and a warning to--any one who might be going to take a similar step. You named yourself just now, Geoff, amongst those who cared for me. Your William is a bit of a fogy, he knows; but some of you do care for him, and you amongst them."
"Of course. You know that well enough."
"Then why not show your regard for your William, dear boy?
"Show my regard--how shall I show it?"
"By confiding in him, Geoff; by talking to him about yourself; telling him your hopes and plans; asking him for some of that advice which seeing a great many men and cities, and being a remarkably downy old skittle, qualifies him to give. Why not confide in him, Geoff?"
"Confide in you? About what? Why on earth not speak out plainly at once?"
"Well, well, I won't beat about the bush any longer. I daresay there's nothing in it; but people talk and cackle so confoundedly, and, by George, men--some men, at least--are quite as bad as women in that line; and they say you're in love, Geoff; regularly hard hit--no chance of recovery!"
"Do they?" said Geoff, flushing very red--"do they? Who are 'they,' by the way?--not that it matters, a pack of gabbling fools! But suppose I am, what then?"
"What then! Why, nothing then--only it's rather odd that you've never told your William, whom you've known so long and so intimately, any thing about it. Is that" (pointing to the picture) "a portrait of the lady?"
"There--there is a reminiscence of her--her head and general style."
"Then your William would think that her head and general style must be doosid good. Any sisters?"
"I--I think not."
"Are her people pleasant--do you get on with them?"
"I don't know them."
"Ah, Geoff, Geoff, why make me go on in this way? Don't you know me well enough to be certain that I'm not asking all these questions for impertinence and idle curiosity? Don't you see that I'm dragging bit by bit out of you because I'm coming to the only point any of your friends can care about? Is this girl a good girl; is she respectable; is she in your own sphere of life; can you bring her home and tell the old lady to throw her arms round her neck, and welcome her as a daughter? Can you introduce her to that sweet sister of yours who was here when I came in?"
There came over Geoffrey Ludlow's face a dark shadow such as William Bowker had never seen there before. He did not speak nor turn his eyes, but sat fixed and rigid as a statue.
"For God's sake think of all this, Geoff! Ive told you a thousand times that you ought to be married; that there was no man more calculated to make a woman happy, or to have his own happiness increased by a woman's love. But then she must be of your own degree in life, and one of whom you could be every where proud. I would not have you married to an ugly woman or a drabby woman, or any thing that wasn't very nice; how much less, then, to any one whom you would feel ashamed of, or who could not be received by your dear ones at home! Geoff, dear old Geoff, for heaven's sake think of all this before it is too late! Take warning by my fatal error, and see what misery you would prepare for both of you."
Geoffrey Ludlow still sat in the same attitude. He made no reply for some minutes; then he said, dreamily, "Yes--yes, you're quite right, of course,--quite right. But I don't think we'll continue the conversation now. Another time, Bowker, please--another time." Then he ceased, and Mr. Bowker rose and pressed his hand, and took his departure. As he closed the door behind him, that worthy said to himself: "Well, I've done my duty, and I know I've done right; but it's very little of Geoff's mutton that your William will cut, and very little of Geoff's wine that your William will drink, if that marriage comes off. For of course he'll tell her all I've said, andwon'tshe love your William!"
And for hours Geoffrey Ludlow sat before his easel, gazing at the Scylla head, and revolving all the detail of Mr. Bowker's story in his mind.