One November evening, about a month after the dinner party, the conversation happened to light upon the county magnates who had adorned that banquet.
‘Did anybody ever see such a funny little figure as Lady Barker, surmounted by that wig cried Celia. ‘I really think her dressmaker must be very clever to make any kind of gown that will hold together upon her, I don’t complain of her being fat. A woman may weigh sixteen stone and carry herself like a duchess. But Lady Barker is such an undecided figure. There’s no consistency in her. When she sinks on a sofa one expects to see her collapse, like a mould of jelly that hasn’t cooled properly. Oh, Edward, you should see Mr. Treverton’s portrait of her — the most delicious caricature.’
‘Caricature!’ echoed Edward. ‘Why, that is another new talent. If Treverton goes on in this way we shall have to call him the admirable Crichton. It was only last week that I found out he could paint; and now you say he is a caricaturist. What next?’
‘I believe you have come to the end of my small stock of accomplishments,’ said John Treverton, laughing. ‘I used once to amuse myself by an attempt to illustrate the absurdities of human nature in pen and ink. It pleased my brother officers, and helped to keep us alive sometimes in the dulness of country quarters.’
‘Talking of caricature, by the way,’ said Edward, lazily, as he slowly stirred his cup of tea, did you ever see “Folly as it Flies?”’
‘The comic newspaper? Yes, often.’
‘Ah, then you must have noticed the things done by that fellow Chicot — the man who murdered his wife. They were extraordinarily clever — out and away the best things I have ever seen since the days of Gavarni; rather too French, perhaps, but remarkably good.’
‘It was natural the style should be French, since the man was French.’
‘I beg your pardon,’ said Edward, ‘he was as English as you or I’
Celia had risen from the floor and lighted a pair of candles on Laura’s open Davenport, near which Edward was sitting. She selected a sheet of paper from a heap of loose sheets lying there, and showed it to her brother, candle in hand.
‘Isn’t that too lovely?’ she asked.
Edward examined the sketch with a critical air.
‘I don’t want you to suppose I’m trying to flatter you,’ he said at last, ‘but, upon my word, this little sketch is as good as anything of Chicot’s, and very much in his style.’
‘It is the only accomplishment of my husband’s that I cannot praise,’ said Laura, with gentlest reproof, ‘for it cannot be exercised without unkindness to the subject of the caricature.’
‘“He that is robbed not wanting what is stolen, let him not know it, and he is not robbed,”’ quoted Celia, who had resumed her lowly place at Laura’s feet. ‘Shakespeare’s ineffable wisdom found that out; and may not the same thin; be said of caricature? If Lady Barker never knows what a lifelike portrait you have drawn of her, with half-a-dozen scratches of a Hindoo pen, the faithfulness of the picture can’t hurt her.’
‘But isn’t it the usual course to show that kind of thing to all the lady’s particular friends, till the knowledge of it percolates to the lady herself enquired Edward, with his lazy sneer.
‘I had rather cut off my right hand than make a harmless, good-natured old lady unhappy,’ said Laura, warmly.
‘Turn up your cuff, Mr. Treverton, and prepare your wrist for the chopper,’ cried Celia. “But really now, if Lady Barker’s figure is like a dilapidated mould of jelly, she ought to know it. Did not one of those seven old plagues of Greece whose names nobody ever could remember, resolve all the wisdom of his life into that one precept, “Know thyself?”’
Celia rattled on gaily; Laura and Edward both joined in her careless talk; but John Treverton sat grave and silent, looking at the fire.
CHAPTER IX. ‘IN THE MEANWHILE THE SKIES ‘GAN RUMBLE SORE.’
AFTER that portrait of Lady Barker, John Treverton drew no more caricatures. It seemed as if he had laid aside the pen of the caricaturist in deference to his wife’s dislike of that somewhat ill-natured art. But he had not abandoned the higher walks of art, for he had made himself a studio out of one of the spare bedrooms that looked northward, and was engaged on a portrait of’ his wife, an altogether fanciful and ideal picture, which he worked at for an hour or two daily with infinite delight. He had many pleasant labours and occupations at this period of his life. The farm, the hunting field, the business details of a large property, which he wished to conduct in an orderly manner, not hiding his talents in a napkin, but improving the estate, which Jasper Treverton had considerably increased during his long life, but upon which the old man had been somewhat loth to spend money. It was altogether a full and happy life which John Treverton led with his wife in this first year of their union, and it seemed to both that nothing was wanting to perfect their happiness. And yet, by-and-bye, when there came the prospect of a child being born in the grave old house which had so long been undisturbed by the patter of childish feet, the fulfilment of this sweet hope seemed the one thing needed to fill their cup of joy.
While at the Manor House all was bliss, life dawdled on comfortably enough at the Vicarage, where the good, easy-tempered, hard-working vicar had begun to be reconciled to the idea that his only son was to be an idler all his life; until perchance this seemingly barren plant should some day put forth the glorious flower of genius. And then the father’s patience, the mother’s love, would be rewarded all at once for weary days of waiting and despondency.
Edward had contrived to make himself particularly agreeable since his return to the family roof tree. He was less cynical than of old; less apt to rail against fate for not having set his lines in pleasanter places.
Even Celia was beguiled into the belief that her brother was completely cured of his attachment to Laura.
‘I suppose his passion was like that poor sentimental old Petrarch’s,’ mused Celia, who had read about half a dozen sonnets of the illustrious Italian’s in the whole course of her life, ‘and he will go on spinning verses about the lady of his love for the next twenty years, without feeling any the worse for his platonic affection. He seems to enjoy being at the Manor House; and he and John Treverton get on very well together, considering how different they are in character.’
Edward made himself very comfortable in his rural home. He had tried London life, and had grown heartily sick of it; and he was now less disposed than of old to grumble at the dulness of a Devonshire village. What though he saw the same stolid bovine faces every day? Were they not better and fairer to look at than the herd of strange faces — keen and sharpened as if the desire for gain was an absolute physical hunger — that had passed him by in the smoke-tainted streets of London? These faces knew him. Here hats were touched as he passed by. People noticed whether he looked well or ill. Here, at least, he was somebody, an important figure in the sum of village life. His death would cause a sensation, his absence would make a blank. Edward did not care a straw about these simple villagers; but it pleased him that they should care for him. He settled himself down in his old home — the good substantial old Vicarage, a roomy house with stone walls, high gables, and heavy chimney stacks, shut in from the road by a holly hedge of a century’s growth, sheltered at the back by the steep slope of the moor, while its front windows faced undulating pastures and distant woods.
Here Edward made himself a study, or den, where he could work at hismagnum opus, and where his solitude was undisturbed by intrusion. It was understood that his labours in this sanctuary of genius were of the hardest. Here he gave up his soul to convulsive throes and struggles, as of Pythoness on her tripod. The chamber was at the end of a long passage, and had a lattice overlooking the moor. Here tobacco was not forbidden, although the Vicar was no smoker, and had an old-fashioned detestation of cigars. Edward found a good deal of smoke necessary to relax the tension of his nerves, during the manufacture of his poem. If the door was suddenly opened by Celia or Mrs. Clare, the poet was apt to be
discovered reclining in his rocking chair, with a cigar between his lips, and his eyes fixed dreamily upon the topmost ridge of moorland. At such times he told his mother and sister he was doing his thinking. The scored and blotted manuscript on his writing-table testified to the severity of his labours; but the sharp-eyed Celia perceived that the work progressed but slowly. There was a good deal of meditation and cigar smoke necessary to its elaboration. Once or twice Edward had been discovered reading a French novel.
‘One so soon forgets a language if one doesn’t read a thoroughly idiomatic work now and then,’ he said, explaining this seeming frivolity.
He kept up his connection with the popular magazines, sending them as many trifles in the drawing-roam style as they could expect from him; and by this means he contrived to be well dressed and provided with pocket-money, without sponging on his father.
‘All I want is the run of my teeth for the next year or so, till I have made a name,’ he told his mother; ‘that is not much for an only son to ask of his father.’
The Vicar agreed that the demand was modest. He would have preferred a son of a more active and eager temperament — a son who would have taken to the church, or law, or medicine, or even soldiering. But it was not for him to complain if Heaven had given him a genius, instead of a commonplace plodder. It was the old story of the ugly duck, no doubt. By-and-by, the snow-white wings would unfold themselves for a noble flight, and the admiring world would acknowledge the beauty of the swan. Mrs. Clare, who adored her only son, after the manner of weak-minded mothers, was delighted to have him at home, for good, as she said, delightedly. She made his den as luxurious as her small means would allow; put up bookshelves wherever he wanted them, covered his mantelboard with velvet, and draped it with point lace of her own working, bought him cigar stands and ash trays, tobacco jars, and fusee boxes, blotting books, slippers, down pillows for his hours of lassitude, soft fluffy rugs to cover his feet when he sank on his snug little couch, prostrate after lengthened wrestling with an unpropitious muse. All that a doting mother can do to spoil a young man, Mrs. Clare did for her son; and it happened unfortunately that he was not made of that strong stuff which the sweet flatteries of love cannot corrupt.
There were certain hours when the poet way approachable. At five o’clock on those evenings when the brother and sister were not at the Manor House, Celia used to bring him a cup of coffee, and the small stock of gossip which she had been able to collect in the course of her frivolous day. She would seat herself on a hassock beside the fire, or even on the edge of the fender, and chatter gaily, while Edward lay back in his easy chair, sipping his coffee, and listening with an air of condescending indulgence.
A good deal of Celia’s talk was naturally about her friends at the Manor House. She had got over her prejudice against John Treverton, and was even enthusiastic in her praise of him. He was ‘quite too lovely.’ As a husband she declared him ‘perfect.’ She wished that Heaven had made her such a man.
‘I really think Laura is the luckiest girl in creation!’ she exclaimed. ‘Such a husband, such a house, such a stable, such gardens, such a rent-roll! It is almost provoking to see her take everything so quietly. I believe she is grateful to Providence, because she is dreadfully religious, you know. But her placidity almost enrages me. If I had half such good fortune I should want to jump over the moon!’
‘Laura is thoroughly good style, my dear. Well-bred people never want to jump over the moon,’ Edward remarked, languidly.
‘Strictly fraternal,’ ejaculated Celia, with a shrug.
‘I am very glad to hear she is so happy,’ pursued Edward, with an air of ineffable good nature. ‘Thank heaven, I have quite got over my old weakness about her, and can contemplate her happiness without a twinge of jealousy. But at the same time I do rather wonder that she can be thoroughly happy with a man of whose antecedents she knows nothing.’
‘How can you say that, Ted? She knows who he is, and what he is. She knows that he was a lieutenant in a crack regiment, and sold out because he had run through his money — —’
‘Sold out just seven years ago,’ interrupted Edward. ‘What has he been doing with himself in the meantime?’
‘Knocking about London.’
‘That is a very vague phrase. Seven years He must have earned his living somehow during the greater part of that time. The money he got for his commission would not last him long. He must have had his own particular circle of acquaintances during that interval. Why are none of them forthcoming? Why is he so silent about the experiences of those seven years? Man is an egotistical animal, my dear Celia. Be sure that there is always something to be ashamed of when a man keeps silence about himself.’
‘There is something rather odd about that, certainly,’ assented Celia, in a musing tone. ‘John Treverton never talks of his past life, or, at any rate, of the time that has gone by since he left the army. I suppose he has been in London all the time, for he talks as if he were awfully disgusted with London life. If I were Laura I should insist upon knowing all about it.’
‘There can be no happiness between man and wife without perfect confidence,’ said Edward. ‘No enduring happiness, at least.’
‘Poor, dear Laura,’ sighed Celia. ‘I always said it was an ill-omened marriage; but lately I have thought that I was going to turn out a false prophet.’
‘Has she ever told you what took her husband away after their marriage?’
‘No, on that point she has been as silent as the grave. She told me once that he had been to Buenos Ayres, called away on business. I have never been able to extort anything more out of her.’
‘It must have been a curious kind of business which called a man away from his newly-wedded wife,’ said Edward.
Clara nodded significantly, and looked at the fire. She loved Laura well, but she loved scandal better.
Edward gave a short impatient sigh, and turned his head fretfully upon the cushion which maternal hands had worked in softest wool. That movement, expressive of disgust with life in general, did not escape the sharp eyes of his sister.
‘Ted, dear, I’m afraid you have not left off being unhappy about Laura,’ she murmured sympathetically.
‘I am only unhappy about her when I think she is married to a scoundrel.’
‘Oh, Ted, how can you say such a thing?’
‘Celia , a man who can give no account of seven years of his life must be a scoundrel,’ Edward Clare said, decisively. ‘Say nothing to alarm Laura, I beg you. I am talking to you to-day as if you were a man, and to be trusted. Wait and watch. Wait and watch, as I shall.’
‘Edward, how you frighten me. You make me feel as if we were living in one of those villages at the foot of Vesuvius, with a fiery mountain getting itself ready to explode and destroy us.’
‘There will be an explosion some day, Celia, depend upon it; an explosion that will blow up the Manor House as surely as Kirk o’ Field was blown up the night Darnley was slain.’
He said no more, though Celia did not willingly let the subject drop. Indeed, he was inclined to be angry with himself for having said so much, though he had not given his sister his confidence without a motive. He wanted to know all that could be known about John Treverton, and Celia was in a position to learn much that he could not discover for himself.
‘I really thought you were beginning to like Mr. Treverton,’ the girl said, presently. ‘You and he seem to get on so well together.’
‘I am civil to him for Laura’s sake. I would be guilty of a worse hypocrisy if I thought it would serve her interests.’
Edward sighed, and gave his head another angry jerk upon the cushion. He wanted to do John Treverton deadly harm; and yet he knew that the worst he could do to his rival would bring about no good result to himself. There was nothing to be gained by it. The injury would be irrevocable, deadly; a blight upon name and fortune — perchance the gallows — a shame so deep that a loving wife would scarcely survive the blow. All this was in Edward
Clare’s mind as a not impossible revenge. And unhappily there was no smaller revenge possible. He felt himself possessed of a deadly power; but of no power to wound without slaying. He was like the cobra, whose poisonous fangs are provided with an ingenious mechanism which keeps them in reserve until the creature wants to use them. Two hinged teeth lie back against the roof of the snake’s mouth. When he attacks his victim the hinge moves, the fangs descend, the poison gland is pressed, and the deadly poison runs down a groove in the tooth, and drops into the puncture prepared to receive it. Lap off the wounded limb ere the shadow on the dial has marked the passage of twenty seconds, or the venom will have done its work. Medicine has yet to discover the antidote that can save the life of the victim.
CHAPTER X. ‘AND PURPLE LIGHT SHONE OVER ALL.’
CHRISTMAS was at hand, the first Christmas in Laura’s married life, and to her happy fancy it seemed the most wonderful season that had ever been marked on the calendar of the ages. How could she and John Treverton be thankful enough for the blessings Providence had given them? How could they do enough to make other people happy? About a fortnight before the sacred festival she carried Celia off to Beechampton in the pony carriage, to buy a tremendous stock of blankets, and flannel petticoats for the old women, and comfortable homespun coats for the rheumatic old men.
‘Have you any idea as to the amount you are spending, Laura?’ asked the practical Celia.
‘No, dear; but I have one fixed idea, and that is that no one near Hazlehurst shall be cold and wretched this Christmas, if I can help it,’
‘I’m afraid you are encouraging pauperism,’ said Celia.
‘No, Celia; I am waging war against rheumatism.’
Delphi Works of M. E. Braddon Page 607