By the time luncheon was over, the horses had been standing some minutes at the lawn-gate, my mare with a side-saddle. We hastened to mount, Clara’s eyes full of expectant frolic. I managed, as I thought, to get before her father, and had the pleasure of lifting her to the saddle. She was up ere I could feel her weight on my arm. When I gathered her again with my eyes, she was seated as calmly as if at her lace-needlework, only her eyes were sparkling. With the slightest help, she had her foot in the stirrup, and with a single movement had her skirt comfortable. I left her, to mount the horse they had brought me, and when I looked from his back, the white mare was already flashing across the boles of the trees, and Clara’s dark skirt flying out behind like the drapery of a descending goddess in an allegorical picture. With a pang of terror I fancied the mare had run away with her, and sat for a moment afraid to follow, lest the sound of my horse’s feet on the turf should make her gallop the faster. But the next moment she turned in her saddle, and I saw a face alive with pleasure and confidence. As she recovered her seat, she waved her hand to me, and I put my horse to his speed. I had not gone far, however, before I perceived a fresh cause of anxiety. She was making straight for a wire fence. I had heard that horses could not see such a fence, and if Clara did not see it, or should be careless, the result would be frightful. I shouted after her, but she took no heed. Fortunately, however, there was right in front of them a gate, which I had not at first observed, into the bars of which had been wattled some brushwood. ‘The mare will see that,’ I said to myself. But the words were hardly through my mind, before I saw them fly over it like a bird.
On the other side, she pulled up, and waited for me.
Now I had never jumped a fence in my life. I did not know that my mare could do such a thing, for I had never given her the chance. I was not, and never have become, what would be considered an accomplished horseman. I scarcely know a word of stable-slang. I have never followed the hounds more than twice or three times in the course of my life. Not the less am I a true lover of horses—but I have been their companion more in work than in play. I have slept for miles on horseback, but even now I have not a sure seat over a fence.
I knew nothing of the animal I rode, but I was bound, at least, to make the attempt to follow my leader. I was too inexperienced not to put him to his speed instead of going gently up to the gate; and I had a bad habit of leaning forward in my saddle, besides knowing nothing of how to incline myself backwards as the horse alighted. Hence when I found myself on the other side, it was not on my horse’s back, but on my own face. I rose uninjured, except in my self-esteem. I fear I was for the moment as much disconcerted as if I had been guilty of some moral fault. Nor did it help me much towards regaining my composure that Clara was shaking with suppressed laughter. Utterly stupid from mortification, I laid hold of my horse, which stood waiting for me beside the mare, and scrambled upon his back. But Clara, who, with all her fun, was far from being ill-natured, fancied from my silence that I was hurt. Her merriment vanished. With quite an anxious expression on her face, she drew to my side, saying—
‘I hope you are not hurt?’
‘Only my pride,’ I answered.
‘Never mind that,’ she returned gaily. ‘That will soon be itself again.’
‘I’m not so sure,’ I rejoined. ‘To make such a fool of myself beforeyou!’
‘Am I such a formidable person?’ she said.
‘Yes,’ I answered. ‘But I never jumped a fence in my life before.’
‘If you had been afraid,’ she said, ‘and had pulled up, I might have despised you. As it was, I only laughed at you. Where was the harm? You shirked nothing. You followed your leader. Come along, I will give you a lesson or two before we get back.’
‘Thank you,’ I said, beginning to recover my spirits a little; ‘I shall be a most obedient pupil. But how did you get so clever, Clara?’
I ventured the unprotected name, and she took no notice of the liberty.
‘I told you I had had a riding-master. If you are not afraid, and mind what you are told, you will always come right somehow.’
‘I suspect that is good advice for more than horsemanship.’
‘I had not the slightest intention of moralizing. I am incapable of it,’ she answered, in a tone of serious self-defence.
‘I had as little intention of making the accusation,’ I rejoined. ‘But will you really teach me a little?’
‘Most willingly. To begin, you must sit erect. You lean forward.’
‘Thank you. Is this better?’
‘Yes, better. A little more yet. You ought to have your stirrups shorter. It is a poor affectation to ride like a trooper. Their own officers don’t. You can tell any novice by his long leathers, his heels down and his toes in his stirrups. Ride home, if you want to ride comfortably.’
The phrase was new to me, but I guessed what she meant; and without dismounting, pulled my stirrup-leathers a couple of holes shorter, and thrust my feet through to the instep. She watched the whole proceeding.
‘There! you look more like riding now,’ she said. ‘Let us have another canter. I will promise not to lead you over any more fences without due warning.’
‘And due admonition as well, I trust, Clara.’
She nodded, and away we went. I had never been so proud of my mare. She showed to much advantage, with the graceful figure on her back, which she carried like a feather.
‘Now there’s a little fence,’ she said, pointing where a rail or two protected a clump of plantation. ‘You must mind the young wood though, or we shall get into trouble. Mind you throw yourself back a little—as you see me do.’
I watched her, and following her directions, did better this time, for I got over somehow and recovered my seat.
‘There! You improve,’ said Clara. ‘Now we’re pounded, unless you can jump again, and it is not quite so easy from this side.’
When we alighted, I found my saddle in the proper place.
‘Bravo!’ she cried. ‘I entirely forgive your first misadventure. You do splendidly.’
‘I would rather you forgot it, Clara,’ I cried, ungallantly.
‘Well, I will be generous,’ she returned. ‘Besides, I owe you something for such a charming ride. Iwillforget it.’
‘Thank you,’ I said, and drawing closer would have laid my left hand on her right.
Whether she foresaw my intention, I do not know; but in a moment she was yards away, scampering over the grass. My horse could never have overtaken hers.
By the time she drew rein and allowed me to get alongside of her once more, we were in sight: of Moldwarp Hall. It stood with one corner towards us, giving the perspective of two sides at once. She stopped her mare, and said,
‘There, Wilfrid! What would you give to call a place like that your own? What a thing to have a house like that to live in!’
{Illustration: “NOW THERE’S A LITTLE FENCE,” SHE SAID.}
‘I know something I should like better,’ I said.
I assure my reader I was not so silly as to be on the point of making her an offer already. Neither did she so misunderstand me. She was very near the mark of my meaning when she rejoined—
‘Do you? I don’t. I suppose you would prefer being called a fine poet, or something of the sort.’
I was glad she did not give me time to reply, for I had not intended to expose myself to her ridicule. She was off again at a gallop towards the Hall, straight for the less accessible of the two gates, and had scrambled the mare up to the very bell-pull and rung it before I could get near her. When the porter appeared in the wicket—
‘Open the gate, Jansen,’ she said. ‘I want to see Mrs Wilson, and I don’t want to get down.’
‘But horses never come in here, Miss,’ said the man.
‘I mean to make an exception in favour of this mare,’ she answered.
The man hesitated a moment, then retreated—but only to obey, as we understood at once by the creaking of the dry hinges, which were seldom required to move.
‘You won’t mind holding her for me, will you?’ she said, turning to me.
I had been sitting mute with surprise both at the way in which she ordered the man, and at his obedience. But now I found my tongue.
‘Don’t you think, Miss Coningham,’ I said—for the man was within hearing, ‘we had better leave them both with the porter, and then we could go in together? I’m not sure that those flags, not to mention the steps, are good footing for that mare.’
‘Oh! you’re afraid of your animal, are you?’ she rejoined. ‘Very well.’
‘Shall I hold your stirrup for you?’
Before I could dismount, she had slipped off, and begun gathering up her skirt. The man came and took the horses. We entered by the open gate together.
‘How can you be so cruel, Clara?’ I said. ‘Youwillalways misinterpret me! I was quite right about the flags. Don’t you see how hard they are, and how slippery therefore for iron shoes?’
‘You might have seen by this time that I know quite as much about horses as you do,’ she returned, a little cross, I thought.
‘You can ride ever so much better,’ I answered; ‘but it does not follow you know more about horses than I do. I once saw a horse have a frightful fall on just such a pavement. Besides, does one thinkonlyof the horse when there’s an angel on his back?’
It was a silly speech, and deserved rebuke.
‘I’m not in the least fond ofsuchcompliments,’ she answered.
By this time we had reached the door of Mrs Wilson’s apartment. She received us rather stiffly, even for her. After some commonplace talk, in which, without departing from facts, Clara made it appear that she had set out for the express purpose of paying Mrs Wilson a visit, I asked if the family was at home, and finding they were not, begged leave to walk into the library.
‘We’ll go together,’ she said, apparently not caring about a tête-à-tête with Clara. Evidently the old lady liked her as little as ever.
We left the house, and entering again by a side door, passed on our way through the little gallery, into which I had dropped from the roof.
‘Look, Clara, that is where I came down,’ I said.
She merely nodded. But Mrs Wilson looked very sharply, first at the one, then at the other of us. When we reached the library, I found it in the same miserable condition as before, and could not help exclaiming with some indignation,
‘Itisa shame to see such treasures mouldering there! I am confident there are many valuable books among them, getting ruined from pure neglect. I wish I knew Sir Giles. I would ask him to let me come and set them right.’
‘You would be choked with dust and cobwebs in an hour’s time,’ said Clara. ‘Besides, I don’t think Mrs Wilson would like the proceeding.’
‘What do you ground that remark upon, Miss Clara?’ said the housekeeper in a dry tone.
‘I thought you used them for firewood occasionally,’ answered Clara, with an innocent expression both of manner and voice.
The most prudent answer to such an absurd charge would have been a laugh; but Mrs Wilson vouchsafed no reply at all, and I pretended to be too much occupied with its subject to have heard it.
After lingering a little while, during which I paid attention chiefly to Mrs Wilson, drawing her notice to the state of several of the books, I proposed we should have a peep at the armoury. We went in, and, glancing over the walls I knew so well, I scarcely repressed an exclamation: I could not be mistaken in my own sword! There it hung, in the centre of the principal space—in the same old sheath, split half-way up from the point! To the hilt hung an ivory label with a number upon it. I suppose I made some inarticulate sound, for Clara fixed her eyes upon me. I busied myself at once with a gorgeously hiked scimitar, which hung near, for I did not wish to talk about it then, and so escaped further remark. From the armoury we went to the picture-gallery, where I found a good many pictures had been added to the collection. They were all new and mostly brilliant in colour. I was no judge, but I could not help feeling how crude and harsh they looked beside the mellowed tints of the paintings, chiefly portraits, among which they had been introduced.
‘Horrid!—aren’t they?’ said Clara, as if she divined my thoughts; but I made no direct reply, unwilling to offend Mrs Wilson.
When we were once more on horseback, and walking across the grass, my companion was the first to speak.
‘Did you ever see such daubs!’ she said, making a wry face as at something sour enough to untune her nerves. ‘Those new pictures are simply frightful. Any one of them would give me the jaundice in a week, if it were hung in our drawing-room.’
‘I can’t say I admire them,’ I returned. ‘And at all events they ought not to be on the same walls with those stately old ladies and gentlemen.’
‘Parvenus,’ said Clara. ‘Quite in their place. Pure Manchester taste—educated on calico-prints.’
‘If that is your opinion of the family, how do you account for their keeping everything so much in the old style? They don’t seem to change anything.’
‘All for their own honour and glory! The place is a testimony to the antiquity of the family of which they are a shoot run to seed—and very ugly seed too! It’s enough to break one’s heart to think of such a glorious old place in such hands. Did you ever see young Brotherton?’
‘I knew him a little at college. He’s a good-looking fellow!’
‘Would be if it weren’t for the bad blood in him. That comes out unmistakeably. He’s vulgar.’
‘Have you seen much of him, then?’
‘Quite enough. I never heard him say anything vulgar, or saw him do anything vulgar, but vulgar he is, and vulgar is every one of the family. A man who is always aware of how rich he will be, and how good-looking he is, and what a fine match he would make, would look vulgar lying in his coffin.’
‘You are positively caustic, Miss Coningham.’
‘If you saw their house in Cheshire! But blessings be on the place!—it’s the safety-valve for Moldwarp Hall. The natural Manchester passion for novelty and luxury finds a vent there, otherwise they could not keep their hands off it; and what was best would be sure to go first. Corchester House ought to be secured to the family by Act of Parliament.’
‘Have you been to Corchester, then?’
‘I was there for a week once.’
‘And how did you like it?’
‘Not at all. I was not comfortable. I was always feeling too well-bred. You never saw such colours in your life. Their drawing-rooms are quite a happy family of the most quarrelsome tints.’
‘How ever did they come into this property?’
‘They’re of the breed somehow—a long way off though. Shouldn’t I like to see a new claimant come up and oust them after all! They haven’t had it above five-and-twenty years or so. Wouldn’t you?’
‘The old man was kind to me once.’
‘How was that? I thought it was only through Mrs Wilson you knew anything of them.’
I told her the story of the apple.
‘Well, I do rather like old Sir Giles,’ she said, when I had done. ‘There’s a good deal of the rough country gentleman about him. He’s a better man than his son anyhow. Sons will succeed their fathers, though, unfortunately.’
‘I don’t care who may succeed him, if only I could get back my sword. It’s too bad, with an armoury like that, to take my one little ewe-lamb from me.’
Here I had another story to tell. After many interruptions in the way of questions from my listener, I ended it with these words—
‘And—will you believe me?—I saw the sword hanging in that armoury this afternoon—close by that splendid hilt I pointed out to you.’
‘How could you tell it among so many?’
‘Just as you could tell that white creature from this brown one. I know it, hilt and scabbard, as well as a human face.’
‘As well as mine, for instance?’
‘I am surer of it than I was of you this morning. It hasn’t changed like you.’
Our talk was interrupted by the appearance of a gentleman on horseback approaching us. I thought at first it was Clara’s father, setting out for home, and coming to bid us good-bye; but I soon saw I was mistaken. Not, however, until he came quite close, did I recognize Geoffrey Brotherton. He took off his hat to my companion, and reined in his horse.
‘Are you going to give us in charge for trespassing, Mr Brotherton?’ said Clara.
‘I should be happy totakeyou in charge on any pretence, Miss Coningham. This is indeed an unexpected pleasure.’
Here he looked in my direction.
‘Ah!’ he said, lifting his eyebrows, ‘I thought I knew the old horse! What a nice cobyou’ve got, Miss Coningham.’
He had not chosen to recognize me, of which I was glad, for I hardly knew how to order my behaviour to him. I had forgotten nothing. But, ill as I liked him, I was forced to confess that he had greatly improved in appearance—and manners too, notwithstanding his behaviour was as supercilious as ever to me.
‘Do you call her a cob, then?’ said Clara. ‘I should never have thought of calling her a cob.—She belongs to Mr Cumbermede.’
‘Ah!’ he said again, arching his eyebrows as before, and looking straight at me as if he had never seen me in his life.
I think I succeeded in looking almost unaware of his presence. At least so I tried to look, feeling quite thankful to Clara for defending my mare: to hear her called a cob was hateful to me.
After listening to a few more of his remarks upon her, made without the slightest reference to her owner, who was not three yards from her side, Clara asked him, in the easiest manner—
‘Shall you be at the county ball?’
‘When is that?’
‘Next Thursday.’
‘Are you going?’
‘I hope so.’
‘Then will you dance the first waltz with me?’
‘No, Mr Brotherton.’
‘Then I am sorry to say I shall be in London.’
‘When do you rejoin your regiment?’
‘Oh! I’ve got a month’s leave.’
‘Then why won’t you be at the ball?’
‘Because you won’t promise me the first waltz.’
‘Well—rather than the belles of Minstercombe should—ring their sweet changes in vain, I suppose I must indulge you.’
‘A thousand thanks,’ he said, lifted his hat, and rode on.
My blood was in a cold boil—if the phrase can convey an idea. Clara rode on homewards without looking round, and I followed, keeping a few yards behind her, hardly thinking at all, my very brain seeming cold inside my skull.
There was small occasion as yet, some of my readers may think. I cannot help it—so it was. When we had gone in silence a couple of hundred yards or so, she glanced round at me with a quick sly half-look, and burst out laughing. I was by her side in an instant: her laugh had dissolved the spell that bound me. But she spoke first.
‘Well, Mr Cumbermede?’ she said, with a slow interrogation.
‘Well, Miss Coningham?’ I rejoined, but bitterly, I suppose.
‘What’s the matter?’ she retorted sharply, looking up at me, full in the face, whether in real or feigned anger I could not tell.
‘How could you talkofthat fellow as you did, and then talk sotohim?’
‘What right have you to put such questions to me? I am not aware of any intimacy to justify it.’
‘Then I beg your pardon. But my surprise remains the same.’
‘Why, you silly boy!’ she returned, laughing aloud, ‘don’t you know he is, or will be, my feudal lord. I am bound to be polite to him. What would become of poor grandpapa if I were to give him offence? Besides, I have been in the house with him for a week. He’s not a Crichton; but he dances well. Areyougoing to the ball?’
‘I never heard of it. I have not for weeks thought of anything but—but—my writing, till this morning. Now I fear I shall find it difficult to return to it. It looks ages since I saddled the mare!’
‘But if you’re ever to be an author, it won’t do to shut yourself up. You ought to see as much of the world as you can. I should strongly advise you to go to the ball.’
‘I would willingly obey you—but—but—I don’t know how to get a ticket.’
‘Oh! if you would like to go, papa will have much pleasure in managing that. I will ask him.’
‘I’m much obliged to you,’ I returned. ‘I should enjoy seeing Mr Brotherton dance.’
She laughed again, but it was an oddly constrained laugh.
‘It’s quite time I were at home,’ she said, and gave the mare the rein, increasing her speed as we approached the house. Before I reached the little gate she had given her up to the gardener, who had been on the look-out for us.
‘Put on her own saddle, and bring the mare round at once, please,’ I called to the man, as he led her and the horse away together.
‘Won’t you come in, Wilfrid?’ said Clara, kindly and seriously.
‘No, thank you,’ I returned; for I was full of rage and jealousy. To do myself justice, however, mingled with these was pity that such a girl should be so easy with such a man. But I could not tell her what I knew of him. Even if Icouldhave done so, I dared not; for the man who shows himself jealous must be readily believed capable of lying, or at least misrepresenting.
‘Then I must bid you good-evening,’ she said, as quietly as if we had been together only five minutes. ‘I amsomuch obliged to you for letting me ride your mare!’
She gave me a half-friendly, half-stately little bow, and walked into the house. In a few moments the gardener returned with the mare, and I mounted and rode home in anything but a pleasant mood. Having stabled her, I roamed about the fields till it was dark, thinking for the first time in my life I preferred woods to open grass. When I went in at length I did my best to behave as if nothing had happened. My uncle must, however, have seen that something was amiss, but he took no notice, for he never forced or even led up to confidences. I retired early to bed, and passed an hour or two of wretchedness, thinking over everything that had happened—-the one moment calling her a coquette, and the next ransacking a fresh corner of my brain to find fresh excuse for her. At length I was able to arrive at the conclusion that I did not understand her, and having given in so far, I soon fell asleep.
I trust it will not be regarded as a sign of shallowness of nature that I rose in the morning comparatively calm. Clara was to me as yet only the type of general womanhood, around which the amorphous loves of my manhood had begun to gather, not the one woman whom the individual man in me had chosen and loved. How could Ilovethat which I did not yet know: she was but the heroine of my objective life, as projected from me by my imagination—not the love of my being. Therefore, when the wings of sleep had fanned the motes from my brain, I was cool enough, notwithstanding an occasional tongue of indignant flame from the ashes of last night’s fire, to sit down to my books, and read with tolerable attention my morning portion of Plato. But when I turned to my novel, I found I was not master of the situation. My hero too was in love and in trouble; and after I had written a sentence and a half, I found myself experiencing the fate of Heine when he roused the Sphinx of past love by reading his own old verses:—
Lebendig ward das Marmorbild,Der Stein begann zu ächzen.
In a few moments I was pacing up and down the room, eager to burn my moth-wings yet again in the old fire. And by the way, I cannot help thinking that the moths enjoy their fate, and die in ecstasies. I was, however, too shy to venture on a call that very morning: I should both feel and look foolish. But there was no more work to be done then. I hurried to the stable, saddled my mare, and set out for a gallop across the farm, but towards the high road leading to Minstercombe, in the opposite direction, that is, from the Hall, which I flattered myself was to act in a strong-minded manner. There were several fences and hedges between, but I cleared them all without discomfiture. The last jump was into a lane. We, that is my mare and I, had scarcely alighted, when my ears were invaded by a shout. The voice was the least welcome I could have heard, that of Brotherton. I turned and saw him riding up the hill, with a lady by his side.
‘Hillo!’ he cried, almost angrily, ‘you don’t deserve to have such a cob.’ (Hewouldcall her a cob.) ‘You don’t know-how to use her. To jump her on to the hard like that!’
It was Clara with him!—on the steady stiff old brown horse! My first impulse was to jump my mare over the opposite fence, and take no heed, of them, but clearly it was not to be attempted, for the ground fell considerably on the other side. My next thought was to ride away and leave them. My third was one which some of my readers will judge Quixotic, but I have a profound reverence for the Don—and that not merely because I have so often acted as foolishly as he. This last I proceeded to carry out, and lifting-my hat, rode to meet them. Taking no notice whatever of Brotherton, I addressed Clara—in what I fancied a distant and dignified manner, which she might, if she pleased, attribute to the presence of her companion.
‘Miss Coningham,’ I said, ‘will you allow me the honour of offering you my mare? She will carry you better.’
‘You are very kind, Mr Cumbermede,’ she returned in a similar tone, but with a sparkle in her eyes. ‘I am greatly obliged to you. I cannot pretend to prefer old crossbones to the beautiful creature which gave me so much pleasure yesterday.’
I was off and by her side in a moment, helping her to dismount. I did not even look at Brotherton, though I felt he was staring like an equestrian statue. While I shifted the saddles Clara broke the silence, which I was in too great an inward commotion to heed, by asking—
‘What is the name of your beauty, Mr Cumbermede?’
‘Lilith,’ I answered.
‘What a pretty name! I never heard it before. Is it after any one—any public character, I mean?’
‘Quite a public character,’ I returned—‘Adam’s first wife.’
‘I never heard he had two,’ she rejoined, laughing.
‘The Jews say he had. She is a demon now, and the pest of married women and their babies.’
‘What a horrible name to give your mare!’
‘The name is pretty enough. And what does it matter what the woman was, so long as she was beautiful.’
‘I don’t quite agree with you there,’ she returned, with what I chose to consider a forced laugh.
By this time her saddle was firm on Lilith, and in an instant she was mounted. Brotherton moved to ride on, and the mare followed him. Clara looked back.
‘You will catch us up in a moment,’ she said, possibly a little puzzled between us.
I was busy tightening my girths, and fumbled over the job more than was necessary. Brotherton was several yards ahead, and she was walking the mare slowly after him. I made her no answer, but mounted, and rode in the opposite direction; It was rude of course, but I did it. I could not have gone with them, and was afraid, if I told her so, she would dismount and refuse the mare.
In a tumult of feeling I rode on without looking behind me, careless whither—how long I cannot tell, before I woke up to find I did not know where I was. I must ride on till I came to some place I knew, or met some one who could tell me. Lane led into lane, buried betwixt deep banks and lofty hedges, or passing through small woods, until I ascended a rising ground, whence I got a view of the country. At once its features began to dawn upon me: I was close to the village of Aldwick, where I had been at school, and in a few minutes I rode into its wide straggling street. Not a mark of change had passed upon it. There were the same dogs about the doors, and the same cats in the windows. The very ferns in the chinks of the old draw-well appeared the same; and the children had not grown an inch since first I drove into the place marvelling at its wondrous activity.
The sun was hot, and my horse seemed rather tired. I was in no mood to see any one, and besides had no pleasant recollections of my last visit to Mr Elder, so I drew up at the door of the little inn, and having sent my horse to the stable for an hour’s rest and a feed of oats, went into the sanded parlour, ordered a glass of ale, and sat staring at the china shepherdesses on the chimney-piece. I see them now, the ugly things, as plainly as if that had been an hour of the happiest reflections. I thought I was miserable, but I know now that, although I was much disappointed, and everything looked dreary and uninteresting about me, I was a long way off misery. Indeed, the passing vision of a neat unbonneted village girl on her way to the well was attractive enough still to make me rise and go to the window. While watching, as she wound up the long chain, for the appearance of the familiar mossy bucket, dripping diamonds, as it gleamed out of the dark well into the sudden sunlight, I heard the sound of horse’s hoofs, and turned to see what kind of apparition would come. Presently it appeared, and made straight for the inn. The rider was Mr Coningham! I drew back to escape his notice, but his quick eye had caught sight of me, for he came into the room with outstretched hand.
‘We are fated to meet, Mr Cumbermede,’ he said. ‘I only stopped to give my horse some meal and water, and had no intention of dismounting. Ale? I’ll have a glass of ale too,’ he added, ringing the bell. ‘I think I’ll let him have a feed, and have a mouthful of bread and cheese myself.’
He went out, and had I suppose gone to see that his horse had his proper allowance of oats, for when he returned he said merrily:
‘What have you done with my daughter, Mr Cumbermede?’
‘Why should you think me responsible for her, Mr Conningham?’ I asked, attempting a smile.
No doubt he detected the attempt in the smile, for he looked at me with a sharpened expression of the eyes, as he answered—still in a merry tone—
‘When I saw her last, she was mounted on your horse, and you were on my father’s. I find you still on my father’s horse, and your own—with the lady—nowhere. Have I made out a case of suspicion?’
‘It is I who have cause of complaint,’ I returned—‘who have neither lady nor mare—unless indeed you imagine I have in the case of the latter made a good exchange.’
‘Hardly that, I imagine, if yours is half so good as she looks. But, seriously, have you seen Clara to-day?’
I told him the facts as lightly as I could. When I had finished, he stared at me with an expression which for the moment I avoided attempting to interpret.
‘On horseback with Mr Brotherton?’ he said, uttering the words as if every syllable had been separately italicized.
‘You will find it as I say,’ I replied, feeling offended.
‘My dear boy—excuse my freedom,’ he returned—‘I am nearly three times your age—you do not imagine I doubt a hair’s breadth of your statement! But—the giddy goose!—how could you be so silly? Pardon me again. Your unselfishness is positively amusing! To hand over your horse to her, and then ride away all by yourself on that—respectable stager!’
‘Don’t abuse the old horse,’ I returned. ‘Heisrespectable, and has been more in his day.’
‘Yes, yes. But for the life of me I cannot understand it. Mr Cumbermede, I am sorry for you. I should not advise you to choose the law for a profession. The man who does not regard his own rights will hardly do for an adviser in the affairs of others.
‘You were not going to consult me, Mr Coningham, were you?’ I said, now able at length to laugh without effort.
‘Not quite that,’ he returned, also laughing. ‘But a right, you know, is one of the most serious things in the world.’
It seemed irrelevant to the trifling character of the case. I could not understand why he should regard the affair as of such importance.
‘I have been in the way of thinking,’ I said, ‘that one of the advantages of having rights was that you could part with them when you pleased. You’re not bound to insist on your rights, are you?’
‘Certainly you would not subject yourself to a criminal action by foregoing them, but you might suggest to your friends a commission of lunacy. I see how it is. That is your uncle all over!Hewas never a man of the world.’
‘You are right there, Mr Coningham. It is the last epithet any one would give my uncle.’
‘And the first any one would giveme, you imply, Mr Cumbermede.’
‘I had no such intention,’ I answered. ‘That would have been rude.’
‘Not in the least.Ishould have taken it as a compliment. The man who does not care about his rights, depend upon it, will be made a tool of by those that do. If he is not a spoon already, he will become one. I shouldn’t haveiffedit at all if I hadn’t known you.’
‘And you don’t want to be rude to me.’
‘I don’t. A little experience will setyouall right; and that you are in a fair chance of getting if you push your fortune as a literary man. But I must be off. I hope we may have another chat before long.’
He finished his ale, rose, bade me good-bye, and went to the stable. As soon as he was out of sight, I also mounted and rode homewards.
By the time I reached the gate of the park, my depression had nearly vanished. The comforting power of sun and shadow, of sky and field, of wind and motion, had restored me to myself. With a side glance at the windows of the cottage as I passed, and the glimpse of a bright figure seated in the drawing-room window, I made for the stable, and found my Lilith waiting me. Once more I shifted my saddle, and rode home, without even another glance at the window as I passed.
A day or two after, I received from Mr Coningham a ticket for the county ball, accompanied by a kind note. I returned it at once with the excuse that I feared incapacitating myself for work by dissipation.
Henceforward I avoided the park, and did not again see Clara before leaving for London. I had a note from her, thanking me for Lilith, and reproaching me for having left her to the company of Mr Brotherton, which I thought cool enough, seeing they had set out together without the slightest expectation of meeting me. I returned a civil answer, and there was an end of it.
I must again say for myself that it was not mere jealousy of Brotherton that led me to act as I did. I could not and would not get over the contradiction between the way in which she had spokenofhim, and the way in which she spoketohim, followed by her accompanying him in the long ride to which the state of my mare bore witness. I concluded that, although she might mean no harm, she was not truthful. To talk of a man with such contempt, and then behave to him with such frankness, appeared to me altogether unjustifiable. At the same time their mutual familiarity pointed to some foregone intimacy, in which, had I been so inclined, I might have found some excuse for her, seeing she might have altered her opinion of him, and might yet find it very difficult to alter the tone of their intercourse.
My real object being my personal history in relation to certain facts and events, I must, in order to restrain myself from that discursiveness the impulse to which is an urging of the historical as well as the artistic Satan, even run the risk of appearing to have been blind to many things going on around me which must have claimed a large place had I been writing an autobiography instead of a distinct portion of one.
I set out with my manuscript in my portmanteau, and a few pounds in my pocket, determined to cost my uncle as little as I could.
I well remember the dreariness of London, as I entered it on the top of a coach, in the closing darkness of a late Autumn afternoon. The shops were not yet all lighted, and a drizzly rain was falling. But these outer influences hardly got beyond my mental skin, for I had written to Charley, and hoped to find him waiting for me at the coach-office. Nor was I disappointed, and in a moment all discomfort was forgotten. He took me to his chambers in the New Inn.
I found him looking better, and apparently, for him, in good spirits. It was soon arranged, at his entreaty, that for the present I should share his sitting-room, and have a bed put up for me in a closet he did not want. The next day I called upon certain publishers and left with them my manuscript. Its fate is of no consequence here, and I did not then wait to know it, but at once began to fly my feather at lower game, writing short papers and tales for the magazines. I had a little success from the first; and although the surroundings of my new abode were dreary enough, although, now and then, especially when the Winter sun shone bright into the court, I longed for one peep into space across the field that now itself lay far in the distance, I soon settled to my work, and found the life an enjoyable one. To work beside Charley the most of the day, and go with him in the evening to some place of amusement, or to visit some of the men in chambers about us, was for the time a satisfactory mode of existence.
I soon told him the story of my little passage with Clara. During the narrative he looked uncomfortable, and indeed troubled, but as soon as he found I had given up the affair, his countenance brightened.
‘I’m very glad you’ve got over it so well,’ he said.
‘I think I’ve had a good deliverance,’ I returned.
He made no reply. Neither did his face reveal his thoughts, for I could not read the confused expression it bore.
That he should not fall in with my judgment would never have surprised me, for he always hung back from condemnation, partly, I presume, from being even morbidly conscious of his own imperfections, and partly that his prolific suggestion supplied endless possibilities to explain or else perplex everything. I had been often even annoyed by his use of the most refined invention to excuse, as I thought, behaviour the most palpably wrong. I believe now it was rather to account for it than to excuse it.
‘Well, Charley,’ I would say in such a case, ‘I am sureyouwould never have done such a thing.’
‘I cannot guarantee my own conduct for a moment,’ he would answer; or, taking the other tack, would reply: ‘Just for that reason I cannot believe the man would have done it.’
But the oddity in the present case was that he said nothing. I should, however, have forgotten all about it, but that after some time I began to observe that as often as I alluded to Clara—which was not often—he contrived to turn the remark aside, and always without saying a syllable about her. The conclusion I came to was that, while he shrunk from condemnation, he was at the same time unwilling to disturb the present serenity of my mind by defending her conduct.
Early in the Spring, an unpleasant event occurred, of which I might have foreseen the possibility. One morning I was alone, working busily, when the door opened.
‘Why, Charley—back already!’ I exclaimed, going on to finish my sentence.
Receiving no answer, I looked up from my paper, and started to my feet. Mr Osborne stood before me, scrutinizing me with severe grey eyes. I think he knew me from the first, but I was sufficiently altered to make it doubtful.
‘I beg your pardon,’ he said coldly—‘I thought these were Charles Osborne’s chambers.’ And he turned to leave the room.
‘Theyarehis chambers, Mr Osborne,’ I replied, recovering myself with an effort, and looking him in the face.
‘My son had not informed me that he shared them with another.’
‘We are very old friends, Mr Osborne.’
He made no answer, but stood regarding me fixedly.
‘You do not remember me, sir,’ I said. ‘I am Wilfrid Cumbermede.’
‘I have cause to remember you.’
‘Will you not sit down, sir? Charley will be home in less than an hour—I quite expect.’
Again he turned his back as if about to leave me.
‘If my presence is disagreeable to you,’ I said, annoyed at his rudeness, ‘I will go.’
‘As you please,’ he answered.
I left my papers, caught up my hat, and went out of the room and the house. I saidgood morning, but he made no return.
Not until nearly eight o’clock did I re-enter. I had of course made up my mind that Charley and I must part. When I opened the door, I thought at first there was no one there. There were no lights, and the fire had burned low.
‘Is that you, Wilfrid?’ said Charley.
He was lying on the sofa.
‘Yes, Charley,’ I returned.
‘Come in, old fellow. The avenger of blood is not behind me,’ he said, in a mocking tone, as he rose and came to meet me. ‘I’ve been having such a dose of damnation—all for your sake!’
‘I’m very sorry, Charley. But I think we are both to blame. Your father ought to have been told. You see day after day went by, and—somehow—’
‘Tut, tut! never mind. Whatdoesit matter—except that it’s a disgrace to be dependent on such a man? I wish I had the courage to starve.’
‘He’s your father, Charley. Nothing can alter that.’
‘That’s the misery of it. And then to tell people God is their father! If he’s like mine, he’s done us a mighty favour in creating us! I can’t say I feel grateful for it. I must turn out to-morrow.’
‘No, Charley. The place has no attraction for me without you, and it was yours first. Besides, I can’t afford to pay so much. I will find another to-morrow. But we shall see each other often, and perhaps get through more work apart. I hope he didn’t insist on your never seeing me.’
‘He did try it on; but there I stuck fast, threatening to vanish and scramble for my living as I best might. I told him you were a far better man than I, and did me nothing but good. But that only made the matter worse, proving your influence over me. Let’s drop it. It’s no use. Let’s go to the Olympic.’
The next day I looked for a lodging in Camden Town, attracted by the probable cheapness, and by the grass in the Regent’s Park; and having found a decent place, took my things away while Charley was out. I had not got them, few as they were, in order in my new quarters before he made his appearance; and as long as I was there few days passed on which we did not meet.
One evening he walked in, accompanied by a fine-looking young fellow, whom I thought I must know, and presently recognized as Home, our old school-fellow, with whom I had fought in Switzerland. We had become good friends before we parted, and Charley and he had met repeatedly since.
‘What are you doing now, Home?’ I asked him.
‘I’ve just taken deacon’s orders,’ he answered. ‘A friend of my father’s has promised me a living. I’ve been hanging-about quite long enough now. A fellow ought to do something for his existence.’
‘I can’t think how a strong fellow like you can take to mumbling prayers and reading sermons,’ said Charley.
‘It ain’t nice,’ said Home, ‘but it’s a very respectable profession. There are viscounts in it, and lots of honourables.’
‘I dare say,’ returned Charley, with drought. ‘But a nerveless creature like me, who can’t even hit straight from the shoulder, would be good enough for that. A giant like you, Home!’
‘Ah! by-the-by, Osborne,’ said Home, not in love with the prospect, and willing to turn the conversation, ‘I thought you were a church-calf yourself.’
‘Honestly, Home, I don’t know whether it isn’t the biggest of all big humbugs.’
‘Oh, but—Osborne!—it ain’t the thing, you know, to talk like that of a profession adopted by so many great men fit to honour any profession,’ returned Home, who was not one of the brightest of mortals, and was jealous for the profession just in as much as it was destined for his own.
‘Either the profession honours the men, or the men dishonour themselves,’ said Charley. ‘I believe it claims to have been founded by a man called Jesus Christ, if such a man ever existed except in the fancy of his priesthood.’
‘Well, really,’ expostulated Home, looking, I must say, considerably shocked, ‘I shouldn’t have expected that from the son of a clergyman!’
‘I couldn’t help my father. I wasn’t consulted,’ said Charley, with an uncomfortable grin. ‘But, at any rate, my father fancies he believes all the story. I fancy I don’t.’
‘Then you’re an infidel, Osborne.’
‘Perhaps. Do you think that so very horrible?’
‘Yes, I do. Tom Paine, and all the rest of them, you know!’
‘Well, Home, I’ll tell you one thing I think worse than being an infidel.’
‘What is that?’
‘Taking to the Church for a living.’
‘I don’t see that.’
‘Either the so-called truths it advocates are things to live and die for, or they are the veriest old wives’ fables going. Do you know who was the first to do what you are about now?’
‘No. I can’t say. I’m not up in Church history yet.’
‘It was Judas.’
I am not sure that Charley was right, but that is what he said. I was taking no part in the conversation, but listening eagerly, with a strong suspicion that Charley had been leading Home to this very point.
‘A man must live,’ said Home.
‘That’s precisely what I take it Judas said: for my part I don’t see it.’
‘Don’t see what?’
‘That a man must live. It would be a far more incontrovertible assertion that a man must die—and a more comfortable one, too.’
‘Upon my word, I don’t understand you, Osborne! You make a fellow feel deuced queer with your remarks.’
‘At all events, you will allow that the first of them—they call them apostles, don’t they?—didn’t take to preaching the gospel for the sake of a living. What a satire on the whole kit of them that wordliving, so constantly in all their mouths, is! It seems to me that Messrs Peter and Paul and Matthew, and all the rest of them, forsook their livings for a good chance of something rather the contrary.’
‘Then itwastrue—what they said about you at Forest’s?’
‘I don’t know what they said,’ returned Charley; ‘but before I would pretend to believe what I didn’t—’
‘But Idobelieve it, Osborne.’
‘May I ask on what grounds?’
‘Why—everybody does.’
‘That would be no reason, even if it were a fact, which it is not. You believe it, or rather, choose to think you believe it, because you’ve been told it. Sooner than pretend to teach what I have never learned, and be looked up to as a pattern of godliness, I would ‘list in the ranks. There, at least, a man might earn an honest living.’
‘By Jove! You do make a fellow feel uncomfortable!’ repeated Home. ‘You’ve got such a—such an uncompromising way of saying things—to use a mild expression.’
‘I think it’s a sneaking thing to do, and unworthy of a gentleman.’
‘I don’t see what right you’ve got to bully me in that way,’ said Home, getting angry.
It was time to interfere.
‘Charley is so afraid of being dishonest, Home,’ I said, ‘that he is rude.—You are rude now, Charley.’
‘I beg your pardon, Home,’ exclaimed Charley at once.
‘Oh, never mind!’ returned Home with gloomy good-nature.
‘You ought to make allowance, Charley,’ I pursued. ‘When a man has been accustomed all his life to hear things spoken of in a certain way, he cannot help having certain notions to start with.’
‘If I thought as Osborne does,’ said Home, ‘Iwouldsooner ‘list than go into the Church.’
‘I confess,’ I rejoined, ‘I do not see how any one can take orders, unless he not only loves God with all his heart, but receives the story of the New Testament as a revelation of him, precious beyond utterance. To the man who accepts it so, the calling is the noblest in the world.’
The others were silent, and the conversation turned away. From whatever cause, Home did not go into the Church, but died fighting in India.
He soon left us—Charley remaining behind.
‘What a hypocrite I am!’ he exclaimed;—‘following a profession in which I must often, if I have any practice at all, defend what I know to be wrong, and seek to turn justice from its natural course.’
‘But you can’t always know that your judgment is right, even if it should be against your client. I heard an eminent barrister say once that he had come out of the court convinced by the arguments of the opposite counsel.’
‘And having gained the case?’
‘That I don’t know.’
‘He went in believing his own side anyhow, and that made it all right for him.’
‘I don’t know that either. His private judgment was altered, but whether it was for or against his client, I do not remember. The fact, however, shows that one might do a great wrong by refusing a client whom he judged in the wrong.’
‘On the contrary, to refuse a brief on such grounds would be best for all concerned. Not believing in it, you could not do your best, and might be preventing one who would believe in it from taking it up.’
‘The man might not get anybody to take it up.’
‘Then there would be little reason to expect that a jury charged under ordinary circumstances would give a verdict in his favour.’
‘But it would be for the barristers to constitute themselves the judges.’
‘Yes—of their own conduct—only that. There I am again! The finest ideas about the right thing—and going on all the same, with open eyes running my head straight into the noose! Wilfrid, I’m one of the weakest animals in creation. What if you found at last that I had been deceivingyou! What would you say?’
‘Nothing, Charley—to any one else.’
‘What would you say to yourself, then?’
‘I don’t know. I know what I should do.’
‘What?’
‘Try to account for it, and find as many reasons as I could to justify you. That is, I would do just as you do for every one but yourself.’
He was silent—plainly from emotion, which I attributed to his pleasure at the assurance of the strength of my friendship.
‘Suppose you could find none?’ he said, recovering himself a little.
‘I should still believe thereweresuch.Tout comprendre c’est tout pardonner, you know.’
He brightened at this.
‘Youarea friend, Wilfrid! What a strange condition mine is!—for ever feeling I could do this and that difficult thing, were it to fall in my way, and yet constantly failing in the simplest duties—even to that of common politeness. I behaved like a brute to Home. He’s a fine fellow, and only wants to see a thing to do it.Isee it well enough, and don’t do it. Wilfrid, I shall come to a bad end. When it comes, mind I told you so, and blame nobody but myself. I mean what I say.
‘Nonsense, Charley! It’s only that you haven’t active work enough, and get morbid with brooding over the germs of things.’
‘Oh, Wilfrid, how beautiful a life might be! Just look at that one in the New Testament! Why shouldn’tIbe like that?Idon’t know why. I feel as if I could. But I’m not, you see—and never shall be. I’m selfish, and ill-tempered, and—’
‘Charley! Charley! There never was a less selfish or better-tempered fellow in the world.’
‘Don’t make me believe that, Wilfrid, or I shall hate the world as well as myself. It’s all my hypocrisy makes you think so. Because I am ashamed of what I am, and manage to hide it pretty well, you think me a saint. That is heaping damnation on me.’
‘Take a pipe, Charley, and shut up. That’s rubbish!’ I said. I doubt much if it was what I ought to have said, but I was alarmed for the consequences of such brooding. ‘I wonder what the world would be like if every one considered himself acting up to his own ideal!’
‘If he was acting so, then it would do the world no harm that he knew it.’
‘But his ideal must then be a low one, and that would do himself and everybody the worst kind of harm. The greatest men have always thought the least of themselves.’
‘Yes, but that was because theywerethe greatest. A man may think little of himself just for the reason that heislittle, and can’t help knowing it.’
‘Then it’s a mercy he does know it! for most small people think much of themselves.’
‘But to know it—and to feel all the time you ought to be and could be something very different, and yet never get a step nearer it! That is to be miserable. Still it is a mercy to know it. There is always a last help.’
I mistook what he meant, and thought it well to say no more. After smoking a pipe or two, he was quieter, and left me with a merry remark. One lovely evening in Spring, I looked from my bed-room window, and saw the red sunset burning in the thin branches of the solitary poplar that graced the few feet of garden behind the house. It drew me out to the park, where the trees were all in young leaf, each with its shadow stretching away from its foot, like its longing to reach its kind across dividing space. The grass was like my own grass at home, and I went wandering over it in all the joy of the new Spring, which comes every year to our hearts as well as to their picture outside. The workmen were at that time busy about the unfinished botanical gardens, and I wandered thitherward, lingering about, and pondering and inventing, until the sun was long withdrawn, and the shades of night had grown very brown.
I was at length sauntering slowly home to put a few finishing touches to a paper I had been at work upon all day, when something about a young couple in front of me attracted my attention. They were walking arm in arm, talking eagerly, but so low that I heard only a murmur. I did not quicken my pace, yet was gradually gaining upon them, when suddenly the conviction started up in my mind that the gentleman was Charley. I could not mistake his back, or the stoop of his shoulders as he bent towards his companion. I was so certain of him that I turned at once from the road, and wandered away across the grass: if he did not choose to tell me about the lady, I had no right to know. But I confess to a strange trouble that he had left me out. I comforted myself, however, with the thought that perhaps when we next met he would explain, or at least break, the silence.
After about an hour, he entered, in an excited mood, merry but uncomfortable. I tried to behave as if I knew nothing, but could not help feeling much disappointed when he left me without a word of his having had a second reason for being in the neighbourhood.
What effect the occurrence might have had, whether the cobweb veil of which I was now aware between us would have thickened to opacity or not, I cannot tell. I dare not imagine that it might. I rather hope that by degrees my love would have got the victory, and melted it away. But now came a cloud which swallowed every other in my firmament. The next morning brought a letter from my aunt, telling me that my uncle had had a stroke, as she called it, and at that moment was lying insensible. I put my affairs in order at once, and Charley saw me away by the afternoon coach.
It was a dreary journey. I loved my uncle with perfect confidence and profound veneration, a result of the faithful and open simplicity with which he had always behaved towards me. If he were taken away, and already he might be gone, I should be lonely indeed, for on whom besides could I depend with anything like the trust which I reposed in him? For, conceitedly or not, I had always felt that Charley rather depended on me—that I had rather to take care of him than to look for counsel from him.
The weary miles rolled away. Early in the morning we reached Minstercombe. There I got a carriage, and at once continued my journey.