All this agitation I might have spared myself. I saw her first at church upon Christmas day, and for some seconds could scarcely recognise her. The beauty I had so much feared was completely gone. She was pregnant, though nobody knew of it then and her shape was not altered; her complexion had suffered, – she looked pinched and sallow. She wore an ugly snuff-coloured bonnet and pelisse. My imagination must have been greatly disordered, for I had expected to see her, at Christmas, in the airy muslins of high summer. I realised, with mingled anguish and relief, that Edmée was gone for ever and that Mrs. Ned could be nothing to me.
Nothing did I say?
What she was to be, as Mrs. Ned, was then unknown to us. We did not think well of her but we little guessed how much worse we were destined to think. For it is she who has put an end to all the happy, easy affection which used to subsist between the Parsonage and the Park, and which once made Bramfield such a pleasant place. She has done it slowly but very thoroughly. With my mother’s death vanished the chief of our happiness, but something of the past might have remained had Ned married a more amiable woman. Sukey’s life would have been far more tolerable. There would have been company, small parties, picnics and dancing, in which poor Sukey would have had her share. My father would have continued to receive all those little attentions to which he had become accustomed.
That woman understands nothing of the duties of a country gentleman. Her foreign education may in part account for this, but the chief cause is in a grasping cupidity, a determination to get, in every transaction, two pennyworth for a penny. This had begun to appear before she married Ned; her ‘good nature’ in offering to teach my sisters the harp had turned out to be expensive for them, since they found themselves paying for their lessons with ribbons, feathers and shoe roses, demanded with such assurance that they knew not how to refuse.
She began to make mischief at once, but her full power was not felt until the death of Ned’s father, a couple of years later. I shall not here enter into the details of her contemptible conduct towards his family. His mother and sisters removed, as soon as possible, to Clifton, to be out of her way. Tom is in the Army and Sam in the East India Company; neither of them ever comes near Bramfield. Mrs. Ned has got the Park all to herself. They entertain but little, for it is agony to her to put a dinner before a guest unless she is immediately to get something by it. Ned still hunts occasionally. To be sure they have heavy expenses, for they have now at least ten children, or it may be twelve. I forget. They have been about it for fifteen years without any noticeable intermission.
But their neglect of their neighbours is as nothing in comparison with their inhumanity to those whose comfort must depend on them, – I mean their people and their tenants. Ned is such a bad landlord that he is losing the better class of tenant. Many farms have changed hands; when a farmer dies his son prefers to move and start afresh elsewhere, if he has any enterprise. Only poor, thriftless farmers will put up with it and the land is being ruined among them.
As for the cottagers it is abominable. People of that sort get such a small wage that they must receive some kind of assistance if they are not to starve. They cannot provide for themselves in old age, or lay by in case of sickness. It is the squire’s duty to see to that; it is a matter of plain justice, for he owes it to them over and above the money that he pays them. Ned’s father, though something of an autocrat, understood that principle perfectly. He never turned old people out because they were past work. If a family were in want through sickness he relieved them. He repaired their cottages and their wells. He exerted, on their behalf, his own advantages of position and education. If a widow’s son were taken for the militia he set the matter right. Our people never felt that they had no friend to protect them. He believed, in fact, that the rich have a duty to the poor. It is a principle which is, I think, generally recognised in this country, though it may not be universally practised. I know men of property who neglect their people; I have never met one who would have maintained that he was right to do so. I never met a rake so abandoned that he did not know how a good squire ought to behave.
But for Mrs. Ned this principle does not exist. If there is an ought for her, it is that she ought to drive the hardest bargain that she can. To give anything is impossible to her. She feels no duty whatever towards the poor people here, will not allow that they have any rights, and the result is that they starve. We see no rosy children nor tidy old women in our village; hungry sullen faces scowl at us, and curses are muttered behind our backs. They drink, thieve and poach, and I don’t blame them. I often wonder if all the Cavignacs were as bad as she; if they were, then the man in the cloak was a blockhead. But I don’t believe that anybody pushed her under it. I am certain that she secured that advantageous position for herself before the rest knew what she was about.
It is curious to reflect that much misery might have been spared had she married me. I should have been very wretched, no doubt, and perhaps a child or two might have had the misfortune to call her mother. (But not ten or twelve.) Her marriage with Ned has wasted a prosperous countryside. He is clay in her hands and grown so sottish that he is, now, hardly up to managing any business for himself. I think that he drinks in order to escape from his thoughts, for he must know how low he is sunk, – despised by all his neighbours and hated by his people. Poor good-natured old Ned! He meets one now with a surly, suspicious stare, as if he expected some insult. Yet he fought me once, for laughing at Bob Howes, and Harry Ridding once called him a ‘proper gentleman.’
I am the least pitiable of Edmée’s victims. I daresay that I might have taken no lasting harm from her betrayal had I confided in my mother. Then the wound would not have healed with poison in it. She would have told me not to despise myself for loving, even though my first choice had been unlucky. She might have given me courage to love again. But that, hardening my heart in bitter silence, I was determined never to do. This decision was greatly to Pronto’s advantage. So far as the Sex is concerned, he henceforth took charge of our affairs, and he is very much the ladies’ man.
Of Pronto’s career I don’t mean to write more than I need. I will, however, mention one circumstance which will not, I trust, appear in any of his biographies, since he is a monument of discretion. Nobody supposes him an anchorite and he is as much at his ease among the poplollies, when taken into their company, as he is everywhere else; but nobody knows what provision he has made for himself in that way. Has he got a poplolly of his own, and where does he keep her? None of his particular friends are able to answer that question.
Since I know that he will one day destroy this manuscript I will here record that he did, at one time, pay the rent of a small villa in St. John’s Wood, but, finding it confoundedly expensive, gave it up. Pronto is ever careful of his money. He had been so discreet that his charmer got no chance of reverting to any of his friends and was obliged to marry a haberdasher at Edgware. But Pronto gave her all the furniture which, when sold, fetched five hundred pounds. He is not a bad fellow in his way.
Aut Discede
THE LOSS OF Edmée turned me against all thoughts of the Church as a profession. I had only half liked it before; to make a home for her had been my principal object. I now determined upon the Bar as the gate to a political career. Politics had no great attraction for me, – no course, during those despondent months, had much allurement. But I felt some satisfaction in the prospect of becoming, some day, a greater man than Ned. If I had any positive ambition, it was to come rattling in my carriage through Bramfield, a member of the Government, to dazzle everybody with my wealth and consequence, to receive obsequious invitations to dine at the Park, to patronise Ned, and to catch a sparkle of regret in Edmée’s eyes.
My father was frankly disappointed at my decision, but I knew that my mother was relieved. She did not, I daresay, think me fit to be a clergyman. Her power with me, during the years that followed, declined considerably, though I loved her as much as ever. She could give me no advice in the life
that I had chosen, and I suppose that I might, though I did not then know it, have harboured a little resentment against her for her preoccupation with her grandson at a time when her son was so much in need of consolation. Her place, as guide and mentor, was largely taken by Lady Amersham of whom I think I should here give a short account, since she might almost be called Pronto’s mother.
She was a remarkable woman. I was always a little afraid of her, – why, I cannot tell, for she was uniformly kind to me. She was kind to everybody, yet I think all were afraid of her. She had no foibles, no human frailties, no tender spots. Nothing appeared to hurt or discompose her, which was as well, for her life, between such a husband and such a son, cannot have been very agreeable. I sometimes wondered whether she had not, in her youth, suffered extremely. If she had, no trace of it was visible. But she may not. She may have been born without the power to feel. Recent experience has taught me to wonder if there is much difference between a broken heart and no heart at all. In any case, she could make one feel that emotion is a trifle vulgar.
She can never have been a beauty, but had the knack of making beauty look cheap. She had a fresh healthy complexion which survived the loss of youth; in spite of corpulence and lameness she always moved with great dignity. Her nose was prominent and her mouth small. She had sharp grey eyes which observed everything, but I am not quite sure how much they saw. Everything, to her, was quite definite; she had no doubts, no hesitations, no confused ideas. That which she could not understand did not exist, so far as she was concerned, – in certain matters she was oblivious rather than ignorant.
A faint, ironic smile was her most striking trait, the smile of one who is amused rather than pleased. (It is strange that the same word must serve for her and for my mother, – they were both smiling women. But with what a difference!) She was proficient in German, French and Italian, had been everywhere, met everybody, and could talk as though she had read everything. I cannot exactly say that she had taste, or particularly praise her manners. They were adequate, – they could not be criticised, but she had a kind of grand carelessness, as though taste and polish were all very well for lesser people.
Her influence in politics was enormous. Amersham was but a cypher in her hands. She knew everything that went on and, what is more, foresaw much of what would shortly be going on. I have seldom known her to be out in her judgments unless some totally unexpected circumstance capsized the board. She could predict exactly what everybody would do for the next half-dozen moves. She was the best player at human chess that ever I saw.
This chess-board was the entire world to her. I doubt if anything else had any significance at all. With that faint smile she would watch and applaud Siddons at the play, ask what one thought of Marmion, report that Buonaparte had returned from Elba, repeat the General Confession, or deplore the frost which had ruined her tulips. She was like a person who lives at the summit of an unscaleable mountain, who sees the world with a clarity impossible to the dwellers below, – sees how all rivers must run and whither all roads go, – but sees it in a lack of detail which destroys proportion and reduces all to equal insignificance.
Of greatness I suspect that she knew nothing. Her few mistakes sprang from her complete ignorance of those qualities which inspire greatness in a man. She knew to a hair’s breadth what lesser men will do, and for this reason her acumen was at its height in the years immediately succeeding the deaths of Pitt and Fox. Two powerful and, to her, slightly incalculable pieces had been removed from the board. The survivors were well within the scope of her comprehension. She knew how both parties would flounder and scramble, when thus deprived of their leaders. Castlereagh was the only man left concerning whom she hesitated to prophesy, and even there she was generally right in anything that she ventured to say.
It was by her advice that I chose the Chancery Bar where the Amersham interest could procure me such connections as might help me forward as a conveyancer. Since I must resign my fellowship she got Arisaig to secure me the post of Warden of Slane Forest, a small sinecure upon which I was to live until I had found my feet. But her plan turned out to be much more costly than I had expected. She knew nothing of poverty, and never thought of money save in large quantities. I dined out a good deal, in the best circles, but there were days when I had nothing for breakfast. As ‘poor delightful Miles Lufton,’ a guest in some great house, I had not been put to any great expense. It was not expected or desired that I should appear as a man of fashion, bring a servant with me, or pay much attention to the cut of my coats. As Pronto I must make a greater show; I must not seem to be too poor, – I must not seem to consider money at all.
Frank poverty is hard enough, but it is not near so disgusting as covert poverty. Pronto is as little inclined as I am to remember all the shifts to which we were put, especially in the matter of clean linen and paying the laundress.
Our most painful memory is of Richmond Hill. Arisaig, Crockett, Dysart and I drove four smart girls down to the Star and Garter. I had not wished to be of the party, I had never cared for that sort of scheme, but Arisaig was insistent and I could not very well disoblige him, after what he had done for me. By some mischance I was left to pay for the whole frolic, including boats upon the river, supper and wine. That was bad enough, but, to my great mortification, I had not the necessary sum upon me to meet the bill when it was brought. Had I been a rich man I should doubtless have bellowed this news from the top of Richmond Hill. Being what I was, my first object must be to conceal my predicament. I sat in silent consternation, racking my brains for some way out of the scrape, and strongly averse from applying to my companions. Any reputation for meanness would have sat ill upon Pronto.
At this point my fair neighbour dropped her handkerchief. As we both dived to retrieve it I found a banknote pressed into my hand and heard a whisper:
‘Don’t mind them! I know you will pay me back.’
I settled the bill with the greatest unconcern and called upon her next day, to pay my debt, with a dozen pairs of gloves by way of interest. She was Dysart’s mistress at that time, and a world too good for him, – a most beautiful girl with great sweetness of disposition. Her action in saving me from humiliation was just like her. It was a trick put upon me by Dysart and Crockett. I doubt if Arisaig was party to it; he is so rich that he never pays for his supper. But Crockett is a very malicious fellow. Poor Fanny had known how it would be and had brought this bank-note with her and seated herself beside me, meaning to help me out of the scrape if she could. She scolded me a little, very kindly, for keeping such company.
Sweet Fanny Osborne! Shall I ever forget you? Mine was not the only sad heart when you died. I remember Harrington coming into White’s, – it was just before we had the Corunna despatches, and we asked him if there was any news.
‘Nothing from the Peninsula,’ he said, ‘but I hear that Fanny Osborne is dead.’
I remembered Richmond Hill and walked off, unwilling to hear any discussion of her. I had not gone far when little Bowman caught me up; he was almost in tears and told me that he had been to see poor Fanny a few days before. He had heard that she was very ill and wished to know if he could do anything for her. She told him that she was dying and wanted for nothing.
‘We know that God is an indulgent parent,’ she whispered, ‘and I am sure that He will receive me kindly.’
The worst of the Richmond frolic was that I could not give the handsome wedding present of plate which I had intended for Newsome and Kitty. Repayment to Fanny took up most of the little hoard that I had laid by for it. I was forced to give Kitty a paltry locket of which I was ashamed, and the more ashamed when I reflected how the money had been spent, upon what company, with what total lack of satisfaction. Pronto, so soon as he was assured that nobody would know he had borrowed from a poplolly, was perfectly comfortable. Yet it was Miles who got the money for him, – that frank, ingenuous creature behind whom Pronto masquerades. Fanny had been distressed, as she said herself, to see an honest, ple
asant young man in such difficulties.
Upon the whole we kept out of scrapes pretty well. We avoided play, abhorred the Jews, and drank very little. Though taking pains to be liked by the men, we knew that our future must depend upon the good graces of the women, with whom we preserved our reputation for interesting sensibility. We read to them, sang with them, danced, flirted and sauntered, ran errands for them, took notice of their bracelets, listened to their advice and escorted them to church. If our manner was less candid, our sentiment less unaffected, our flattery a little grosser, than it had been a year or so ago, these well-bred women did not observe the fact. Only one woman in ten million has genuine taste.
In due time we reaped our reward. We began to make money at conveyancing. We got a seat in Parliament; Amersham gave us West Malling as soon as it was available. We grew easy, were sure of clean linen, and breakfasted as often as we dined.
Nor did we fall out. Though accomplices, we were never friends enough to quarrel. Each meant, at some time, to be rid of the other. Miles was content to let Pronto take the lead to a certain point: he did not mean to put up with fellows like Crockett for ever, but he was anxious to secure an income of £3000 a year. Having got that, Pronto was to be dismissed; a pretty little property in the country was to be rented where Miles could retire and listen, in elegant surroundings, to the nightingale.
Pronto is an active, Miles a passive creature. Pronto never expects, never prepares for, those sudden bursts of feeling on the part of Miles which threaten, from time to time, a revolution. They always take him by surprise, and he is powerless before them. He takes cover when the gale blows up and only ventures forth when it is over. So far they have done him little damage. Since they invariably blow themselves out he very properly ignores them.
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