Youth weighed her eyelids to sleep, though she was quivering, and quivering she awoke to the sound of her name beneath her window. ‘I can love still, for I love him,’ she said, as she luxuriated in young Crossjay’s boy’s voice, again envying him his bath in the lake waters, which seemed to her to have the power to wash away grief and chains. Then it was that she resolved to let Crossjay see the last of her in this place. He should be made gleeful by doing her a piece of service; he should escort her on her walk to the railway station next morning, thence be sent flying for a long day’s truancy, with a little note of apology on his behalf that she would write for him to deliver to Vernon at night.
Crossjay came running to her after his breakfast with Mrs Montague, the housekeeper, to tell her he had called her up.
‘You won’t to-morrow: I shall be up far ahead of you,’ said she; and musing on her father, while Crossjay vowed to be up the first, she thought it her duty to plunge into another expostulation.
Willoughby had need of Vernon on private affairs. Dr Middleton betook himself as usual to the library, after answering ‘I will ruin you yet,’ to Willoughby’s liberal offer to despatch an order to London for any books he might want.
His fine unruffled air, as of a mountain in still morning beams, made Clara not indisposed to a preliminary scene with Willoughby that might save her from distressing him, but she could not stop Willoughby; as little could she look an invitation. He stood in the Hall, holding Vernon by the arm. She passed him; he did not speak, and she entered the library.
‘What now, my dear? what is it?’ said Dr Middleton, seeing that the door was shut on them.
‘Nothing, papa,’ she replied, calmly.
‘You’ve not locked the door, my child? You turned something there: try the handle.’
‘I assure you, papa, the door is not locked.’
‘Mr Whitford will be here instantly. We are engaged on tough matter. Women have not, and opinion is universal that they never will have, a conception of the value of time.’
‘We are vain and shallow, my dear papa.’
‘No, no, not you, Clara. But I suspect you to require to learn by having work in progress how important is… is a quiet commencement of the day’s task. There is not a scholar who will not tell you so. We must have a retreat. These invasions! – So you intend to have another ride to-day? They do you good. To-morrow we dine with Mrs Mountstuart Jenkinson, an estimable person indeed, though I do not perfectly understand our accepting. – You have not to accuse me of sitting over wine last night, my Clara! I never do it, unless I am appealed to for my judgement upon a wine.’
‘I have come to entreat you to take me away, papa.’
In the midst of the storm aroused by this renewal of perplexity, Dr Middleton replaced a book his elbow had knocked over in his haste to dash the hair off his forehead, crying: ‘Whither? To what spot? That reading of guide-books, and idle people’s notes of Travel, and picturesque correspondence in the newspapers, unsettles man and maid. My objection to the living in hotels is known. I do not hesitate to say that I do cordially abhor it. I have had penitentially to submit to it in your dear mother’s time, και τρισκακοδαíμων25 up to the full ten thousand times. But will you not comprehend that to the older man his miseries are multiplied by his years? But is it utterly useless to solicit your sympathy with an old man, Clara?’
‘General Darleton will take us in, papa.’
‘His table is detestable. I say nothing of that; but his wine is poison. Let that pass – I should rather say, let it not pass! – but our political views are not in accord. True, we are not under the obligation to propound them in presence, but we are destitute of an opinion in common. We have no discourse. Military men have produced, or diverged in, noteworthy epicures; they are often devout; they have blossomed in lettered men: they are gentlemen; the country rightly holds them in honour; but, in fine, I reject the proposal to go to General Darleton – Tears?’
‘No, papa.’
‘I do hope not. Here we have everything man can desire; without contest, an excellent host. You have your transitory tea-cup tempests, which you magnify to hurricanes, in the approved historic manner of the book of Cupid. And all the better; I repeat, it is the better that you should have them over in the infancy of the alliance. Come in!’ Dr Middleton shouted cheerily in response to a knock at the door.
He feared the door was locked: he had a fear that his daughter intended to keep it locked.
‘Clara!’ he cried.
She reluctantly turned the handle, and the ladies Eleanor and Isabel came in, apologizing with as much coherence as Dr Middleton ever expected from their sex. They wished to speak to Clara, but they declined to take her away. In vain the Rev. Doctor assured them she was at their service; they protested that they had very few words to say, and would not intrude one moment further than to speak them.
Like a shy deputation of young scholars before the master, these very words to come were preceded by none at all; a dismal and trying cause; refreshing however to Dr Middleton, who joyfully anticipated that the ladies could be induced to take away Clara when they had finished.
‘We may appear to you a little formal,’ Miss Isabel began, and turned to her sister.
‘We have no intention to lay undue weight on our mission, if mission it can be called,’ said Miss Eleanor.
‘Is it intrusted to you by Willoughby?’ said Clara.
‘Dear child, that you may know it all the more earnest with us, and our personal desire to contribute to your happiness: therefore does Willoughby intrust the speaking of it to us.’
Hereupon the sisters alternated in addressing Clara, and she gazed from one to the other, piecing fragments of empty signification to get the full meaning when she might.
‘– And in saying, your happiness, dear Clara, we have our Willoughby’s in view, which is dependent on yours.’
‘– And we never could sanction that our own inclinations should stand in the way.’
‘– No. We love the old place; and if it were only our punishment for loving it too idolatrously, we should deem it ground enough for our departure.’
‘– Without, really, an idea of unkindness; none, not any.’
‘– Young wives naturally prefer to be undisputed queens of their own establishment.’
‘– Youth and age!’
‘But I,’ said Clara, ‘have never mentioned, never had a thought…’
‘– You have, dear child, a lover who in his solicitude for your happiness both sees what you desire and what is due to you.’
‘– And for us, Clara, to recognize what is due to you is to act on it.’
‘– Besides, dear, a sea-side cottage has always been one of our dreams.’
‘– We have not to learn that we are a couple of old maids, incongruous associates for a young wife in the government of a great house.’
‘– With our antiquated notions, questions of domestic management might arise, and with the best will in the world to be harmonious!’
‘– So, dear Clara, consider it settled.’
‘– From time to time gladly shall we be your guests.’
‘– Your guests, dear, not censorious critics.’
‘And you think me such an Egoist! – dear ladies! The suggestion of so cruel a piece of selfishness wounds me. I would not have had you leave the Hall. I like your society; I respect you. My complaint, if I had one, would be, that you do not sufficiently assert yourselves. I could have wished you to be here for an example to me. I would not have allowed you to go. What can he think of me! Did Willoughby speak of it this morning?’
It was hard to distinguish which was the completer dupe of these two echoes of one another in worship of a family idol.
‘Willoughby,’ Miss Eleanor presented herself to be stamped with the title hanging ready for the first that should open her lips, ‘our Willoughby is observant – he is ever generous – and he is not less forethoughtful. His arrangement is
for our good on all sides.’
‘An index is enough,’ said Miss Isabel, appearing in her turn the monster dupe.
‘You will not have to leave, dear ladies. Were I mistress here I should oppose it.’
‘Willoughby blames himself for not reassuring you before.’
‘Indeed we blame ourselves for not undertaking to go.’
‘Did he speak of it first this morning?’ said Clara; but she could draw no reply to that from them. They resumed the duet, and she resigned herself to have her ears boxed with nonsense.
‘So, it is understood?’ said Miss Eleanor.
‘I see your kindness, ladies.’
‘And I am to be Aunt Eleanor again?’
‘And I Aunt Isabel?’
Clara could have wrung her hands at the impediment which prohibited her delicacy from telling them why she could not name them so as she had done in the earlier days of Willoughby’s courtship. She kissed them warmly, ashamed of kissing, though the warmth was real.
They retired with a flow of excuses to Dr Middleton for disturbing him. He stood at the door to bow them out, and holding the door for Clara to wind up the procession, discovered her at a far corner of the room.
He was debating upon the advisability of leaving her there, when Vernon Whitford crossed the hall from the laboratory door, a mirror of himself in his companion air of discomposure.
That was not important, so long as Vernon was a check on Clara, but the moment Clara, thus baffled, moved to quit the library, Dr Middleton felt the horror of having an uncomfortable face opposite.
‘No botheration, I hope? It’s the worst thing possible to work on. Where have you been? I suspect your weak point is not to arm yourself in triple brass against bother and worry, and no good work can you do unless you do. You have come out of that laboratory.’
‘I have, sir. – Can I get you any book?’ Vernon said to Clara.
She thanked him, promising to depart immediately.
‘Now you are at the section of Italian literature, my love,’ said Dr Middleton. ‘Well, Mr Whitford, the laboratory – ah! – where the amount of labour done within the space of a year would not stretch an electric current between this Hall and the railway station: say, four miles, which I presume the distance to be. Well, sir, and a dilettantism costly in time and machinery is as ornamental as foxes’ tails and deer’s horns to an independent gentleman whose fellows are contented with the latter decorations for their civic wreath. Willoughby, let me remark, has recently shown himself most considerate for my girl. As far as I could gather – I have been listening to a dialogue of ladies – he is as generous as he is discreet. There arc certain combats in which to be the one to succumb is to claim the honours; – and that is what women will not learn. I doubt their seeing the glory of it.’
‘I have heard of it; I have been with Willoughby,’ Vernon said, hastily, to shield Clara from her father’s allusive attacks. He wished to convey to her that his interview with Willoughby had not been profitable in her interests, and that she had better at once, having him present to support her, pour out her whole heart to her father. But how was it to be conveyed? She would not meet his eyes, and he was too poor an intriguer to be ready on the instant to deal out the verbal obscurities which are transparencies to one.
‘I shall regret it, if Willoughby has annoyed you, for he stands high in my favour,’ said Dr Middleton.
Clara dropped a book. Her father started higher than the nervous impulse warranted in his chair. Vernon tried to win a glance, and she was conscious of his effort, but her angry and guilty feelings, prompting her resolution to follow her own counsel, kept her eyelids on the defensive.
‘I don’t say he annoys me, sir. I am here to give him my advice, and if he does not accept it I have no right to be annoyed. Willoughby seems annoyed that Colonel De Craye should talk of going to-morrow or next day.’
‘He likes his friends about him. Upon my word, a man of a more genial heart you might march a day without finding. But you have it on the forehead, Mr Whitford.’
‘Oh, no, sir.’
‘There,’ Dr Middleton drew his finger along his brows.
Vernon felt along his own, and coined an excuse for their blackness; not aware that the direction of his mind toward Clara pushed him to a kind of clumsy double meaning, while he satisfied an inward and craving wrath, as he said: ‘By the way, I have been racking my head; I must apply to you, sir. I have a line, and I am uncertain of the run of the line. Will this pass, do you think?
‘ “In Asination’s tongue he asinates”;
signifying that he excels any man of us at donkey-dialect.’
After a decent interval for the genius of criticism to seem to have been sitting under his frown, Dr Middleton rejoined with sober jocularity: ‘No, sir, it will not pass; and your uncertainty in regard to the run of the line would only be extended were the line centipedal. Our recommendation is, that you erase it before the arrival of the ferule. This might do:
‘ “In Assignation’s name he assignats”;
signifying that he pre-eminently flourishes hypothetical promises to pay by appointment. That might pass. But you will forbear to cite me for your authority.’
‘The line would be acceptable if I could get it to apply,’ said Vernon.
‘Or this…’ Dr Middleton was offering a second suggestion, but Clara fled, astonished at men as she never yet had been. Why, in a burning world they would be exercising their minds in absurdities! And those two were scholars, learned men! And both knew they were in the presence of a soul in a tragic fever!
A minute after she had closed the door they were deep in their work. Dr Middleton forgot his alternative line.
‘Nothing serious?’ he said in reproof of the want of honourable clearness on Vernon’s brows.
‘I trust not, sir; it’s a case for common sense.’
‘And you call that not serious?’
‘I take Hermann’s praise of the versus dochmiachus to be not only serious but unexaggerated,’ said Vernon.
Dr Middleton assented and entered on the voiceful ground of Greek metres, shoving your dry dusty world from his elbows.
CHAPTER 25
The Flight in Wild Weather
THE morning of Lucy Darleton’s letter of reply to her friend Clara was fair before sunrise, with luminous colours that are an omen to the husbandman. Clara had no weather-eye for the rich Eastern crimson, nor a quiet space within her for the beauty. She looked on it as her gate of promise, and it set her throbbing with a revived belief in radiant things which she had once dreamed of to surround her life, but her accelerated pulses narrowed her thoughts upon the machinery of her project. She herself was metal, pointing all to her one aim when in motion. Nothing came amiss to it, everything was fuel; fibs, evasions, the serene battalions of white lies parallel on the march with dainty rogue falsehoods. She had delivered herself of many yesterday in her engagements for to-day. Pressure was put on her to engage herself, and she did so liberally, throwing the burden of deceitfulness on the extraordinary pressure. ‘I want the early part of the morning; the rest of the day I shall be at liberty.’ She said it to Willoughby, Miss Dale, Colonel De Craye, and only the third time was she aware of the delicious double meaning. Hence she associated it with the colonel.
Your loudest outcry against the wretch who breaks your rules is in asking how a tolerably conscientious person could have done this and the other besides the main offence, which you vow you could overlook but for the minor objections pertaining to conscience, the incomprehensible and abominable lies, for example, or the brazen coolness of the lying. Yet you know that we live in an undisciplined world, where in our seasons of activity we are servants of our design, and that this comes of our passions, and those of our position. Our design shapes us for the work in hand, the passions man the ship, the position is their apology: and now should conscience be a passenger on board, a merely seeming swiftness of our vessel will keep him dumb as the unwilling guest of a
pirate captain scudding from the cruiser half in cloven brine through rocks and shoals to save his black flag. Beware the false position.
That is easy to say: sometimes the tangle descends on us like a net of blight on a rose-bush. There is then an instant choice for us between courage to cut loose, and desperation if we do not. But not many men are trained to courage; young women are trained to cowardice. For them to front an evil with plain speech is to be guilty of effrontery and forfeit the waxen polish of purity, and therewith their commanding place in the market. They are trained to please man’s taste, for which purpose they soon learn to live out of themselves, and look on themselves as he looks, almost as little disturbed as he by the undiscovered. Without courage, conscience is a sorry guest; and if all goes well with the pirate captain, conscience will be made to walk the plank for being of no service to either party.
Clara’s fibs and evasions disturbed her not in the least that morning. She had chosen desperation, and she thought herself very brave because she was just brave enough to fly from her abhorrence. She was light-hearted, or, more truly, drunken-hearted. Her quick nature realized the out of prison as vividly and suddenly as it had sunk suddenly and leadenly under the sense of imprisonment. Vernon crossed her mind: that was a friend! Yes, and there was a guide; but he would disapprove, and even he, thwarting her way to sacred liberty, must be thrust aside.
What would he think? They might never meet, for her to know. Or one day in the Alps they might meet, a middle-aged couple, he famous, she regretful only to have fallen below his lofty standard. ‘For, Mr Whitford,’ says she, very earnestly, ‘I did wish at that time, believe me or not, to merit your approbation.’ The brows of the phantom Vernon whom she conjured up were stern, as she had seen them yesterday in the library.
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