Guy Livingstone; or, 'Thorough'

We sat by the firelight in the old library of Kerton Manor. The dreary January evening was closing in, with a sharp sleet lashing the windows and rattling on their diamond panes, but the gleams from the great burning logs lighted up the dark crimson cushions of Utrecht and the polished walnut panels so changefully and enticingly that no one had the heart to think of candles.

All the younger members of the party were assembled there, with Mrs. Bellasys to play propriety. It was her mission to be chaperon in ordinary to her daughter and her daughter's friends, and she went through with it, admirable in her patient self-denial. May they be reckoned to her credit hereafter—those long hours, when she sat sleepy, weary, uncomplaining, with an aching head but a stereotyped smile.

Let us speak gently of these maternal martyrs, manœuvring though they be. If they have erred, they have suffered. I knew once a lady with a lot of six, nubile, but not attractive, all with a decided bias toward Terpsichore and Hymen. Fancy what she must have endured, with those plain young women round her, always clamoring for partners, temporary or permanent, like fledglings in a nest for food. Clever and unscrupulous as she was—they called her the "judicious Hooker"—she must have been conscious of her utter inability to satisfy them. She knew, too, that if, by any dispensation, one were removed, five daughters of the horse-leech would still remain, with ravenous appetites unappeased. Yet the poor old bird was cheerful, and sometimes, after supper, would chirp quite merrily. Honneur au courage malheureux. Let us stand aside in the cloak-room, and salute her as she passes out with all the honors of war.

Mrs. Bellasys was a little woman, who always reminded me of a certain tropical monkey—name unknown. She wore her hair bushily on each side of her small face, just like the said intelligent animal, and had the same eager, rather frightened way of glancing out of her beady black eyes, accompanied by a quick turning of the head when addressed. She had her full share of troubles in her time, but she took them all contentedly—not to say complacently—as part of the day's work. Her husband was not a model of fidelity, nor, indeed, of any of the conjugal or cardinal virtues. He was a sort of Maëlstrom, into which fair fortunes and names were sucked down, only emerging in unrecognizable fragments. His own would have gone too, doubtless; but he had been lucky at play for a long time—too constantly so, some said—and a pistol bullet cut him short before he had half spent his wife's money, so that she was left comfortably off, and her daughter was a fair average heiress. She had long ago abdicated the government in favor of Flora, who treated her well on the whole, en bonne princesse.

It is an invariable rule that, if there is a delicate subject which we determine beforehand to avoid, this particular one is sure imperceptibly to creep into the conversation.

Mr. Bruce was to arrive before dinner, an event which we guessed would not add materially to the comfort of two of our party (how silent those two were in their remote corner where the firelight never came), so of course we found ourselves talking of ill-assorted marriages.

"You count mésalliances among such?" Guy asked, at length. "Yes, you are right; but I know a case where 'a man's being balked in his intention to degrade himself' ruined him for life. Ralph Mohun told me of it. It was a nine-days' wonder in Vienna soon after he joined the Imperial Cuirassiers. A Bohemian count flourished there then—a great favorite with every one, for he was frank and generous, like most boys well-born and of great possessions, who have only seen things in general on the sunny side. While down at his castle for the shooting, he fell in love with the daughter of one of his foresters. The man was a dull, brutal cur, and, when drunk, especially savage. His daughter was rarely beautiful; at all events, the count, a good judge, thought her peerless.

"He meant fairly by the girl from the first, and promised her marriage, actually intending to keep his word. Still there were arrangements to be made before he could introduce such a novel element into blood that for centuries had been pure as the sangue azzura. He went up to Vienna for that purpose, leaving his design a profound secret to all his dependents. If these thought about it at all, they probably believed their master's intentions to be—like Dick Harcourt's toward the Irish lady—'strictly dishonorable.'

"One night during his absence shrieks came from the cottage where the forester lived alone with his daughter. Those who heard them made haste; but it was a desolate spot, far from any other dwelling, and they came too late.

"They found the girl lying in her blood, not a feature of her pretty face recognizable. Near her were the butt of a gun shivered, and her father senselessly drunk. He had evidently finished the bottle after beating her to death.

"Whether it was merely an outbreak of his stupid ferocity, or if she had exasperated him by her threats and taunts, for she was of a haughty spirit, poor child! and perhaps rather elevated by the thought of the coming coronet, will never be known. The murderer was in no state to make a confession, and he remained obstinately silent in prison till his lord's return."

"How very horrible!" Mrs. Bellasys cried out, shuddering; "was not the count very angry?"

"Well, he was rather vexed," replied Guy, coolly. "They are high justiciaries on their own lands, those great Bohemian barons, and so he gave the forester a fair trial. It was soon over; the man denied nothing, only whining out, in excuse, that he thought his daughter was dishonored. The shadow of death was closing round him, and he was nearly mad with fear.

"The old steward saw a strange sort of smile twist his master's white, quivering lips when he heard this, but he never said a word. I imagine he thought to reveal his purpose now that it was crushed too great a sacrifice even to clear the dead girl's fair fame; perhaps, though, he could not trust his voice, for he did not announce the sentence in words, but wrote it down: his hand shook very much, and it never carried a full glass unspilled to his mouth again.

"The court broke up at midday, and the man went straight, unconfessed, to the place of his punishment. They tied him to the tree nearest his own door, and the count sat by while he howled his life out under the lash. He was hardly dead by sundown."

"It was revenge, not justice," Mrs. Bellasys said, more firmly than was her wont. I saw the quick, impatient movement of her daughter's little foot; she did not appreciate her mother's moralities.

The answer came in the deepest of Livingstone's deep, stern tones.

"He was no saint, but a man, and a very miserable one; he acted according to his light, and in his despair caught at the weapon that was nearest to his hand. After all, the blood of a base, brutal hound, take it in what fashion you will, is a poor compensation for one life cut short in agony, and another blasted utterly.

"Mohun knew the count's family. Some of them, maiden aunts I suppose, were devotees of the first order: these came in person, or sent their pet priests, to argue with him on his unchristian habits of sullen solitude. The men of his old set came too, to laugh him out of the horrors. Saint and sinner got the same answer—a shake of the head, a curse, a threat if he were not left alone, growled out between deep draughts of strong Moldavian wine. They went, and were wise; for his pistols lay always beside him—in case his servants offended him, or if he should take a sudden fancy to suicide—and the shaking finger could have pulled a trigger still.

"After a little he left Vienna, shut himself up in his castle, and would see no one.

"In England they would have tried at the 'de lunatico' statute; but his next of kin left him in peace, biding their time as patiently as they could. They had not to wait long; in four years a good constitution broke up, suddenly at last, and the count exchanged stupor for a sleep with his fathers, without benefit of clergy. Perhaps they would not have given him absolution, for he died certainly not in charity with all men."

"I don't know," Mrs. Bellasys objected, with a timid obstinacy; "I can not argue with you; but I am sure it was very wrong."

I struck in to the meek little woman's rescue.

"That's right, Mrs. Bellasys, don't let him put you down with the high hand; it's always his way when truth is against him; but I never knew him break down a stubborn fact yet."

Guy turned upon me directly.

"Frank, I have often remarked in you, with pain, quite a feminine propensity to theorize. Women will do it. My dear Mrs. Bellasys, don't look so dreadfully like an accusing angel about to bring me to book; you know I am a hopeless heretic. They get up a sort of Memoria Technica in early youth, and it clings to them all their life through. If they go astray, they never cease proclaiming aloud that 'they know it's very wrong;' though eminently unpractical, they think it due to themselves to pet certain abstract truths (circumstances don't affect them in the least), like that priestess of Cotytto, who said to the magistrate, through her tears, 'I may have been unfortunate, but I've always been respectable!' Sometimes principle gets the pull over passion, but, in such a case, regrets come as often afterward as remorse does in the reverse. I was reading a French story the other day—" He checked himself with a laugh. "Bah! I am in the prosaic vein, it seems, anecdoting like the old knave of clubs."

"Will you go on?" Flora said, leaning over toward him, her eyes glittering in the firelight.

The thrill in her voice—strangely contagious it was—told how much she was interested. I do not wonder at it. There was only one man on earth for whom she had ever really cared—he sat beside her then—and, I believe, what attracted her most in him was the daring disregard of opinions, conventionalities, and more sacred things yet, which carried him on straight to the accomplishment of his thought or purpose. In those days, if either were an obstacle, he flinched no more before a great moral law than at a big fence.

"Well," Guy went on, "it is the simple history of Fernande, an ange déchue of the Quartier Brèda. She had formed a connection with a man who suited her perfectly in every way, and they went on in happy immorality, till she found out that Maurice had a wife somewhere, a very charming person, who loved him dearly; perhaps she thought that the possession of two such affections by one man was de luxe; at all events, she cut him at once, refusing consistently to see him again. Maurice, after trying all other means to move her in vain, resorted to the expedient of a brain fever. When his wife and mother saw him very near his end, they sent for Fernande as a last resource. They ought to have preferred death to dishonor, of course; but, my dear Mrs. Bellasys, they were not strong-minded. What would you have? There are women and women.

"She came and nursed him faithfully; when he got better, though still very weak, she took advantage of his unprotected position to inflict on him the longest lectures, replete with good sense and good feeling, as to his conjugal duties, proprieties, and so forth. He gave in at last, on the principle of 'any thing for a quiet life,' and promised to behave himself like a decent head of a family. When the balance of power was thoroughly re-established, she left him, first entreating him, when he found himself really in love with his wife, and happy, to write and tell her so. This was to be her reward, you know. The others went to Italy, Fernande to a place she had in Brittany, where she put herself on a strict régime of penitence, attending matins regularly, and doing as much good in her neighborhood as Lady Bountiful, or—my mother. In about a twelvemonth the letter came; Maurice was devoted to his wife, and great on the point of domestic felicity. Then Fernande went into her oratory and prayed. What do you think was the substance of her prayer?"

"That she might go mad or die," was the quick answer: it came from Flora Bellasys.

"How good of you," Guy said, "to let me finish that long story, when you knew it by heart."

I think no ear but his and mine caught the whisper—"I never read or heard of it till now."

He bent his head in assent, as if the intelligence did not surprise him much, and then spoke suddenly,

"Charley, will you make an observation? You have been displaying that incontestable talent of yours for silence long enough."

Very seldom was Forrester taken by surprise, but this time his reply was not ready. There was an embarrassing pause, broken by a Deus ex machinâ,—the butler announcing that Mr. Bruce had arrived, and was in the drawing-room.

From that dark distant corner I heard a sigh, ending in a nervous catching of the breath, and then a muttered word unpleasantly like an oath, as Forrester sprang to his feet.

Livingstone rose slowly.

"I'll go and receive him. Let Mr. Raymond know, Wise. I suppose he will not care to see any one else before dressing-time; it must be near that now."

As he passed his cousin, he whispered something inaudible to us; and I saw his heavy hand fall on Charley's shoulder, crushing him down again like a child.

Then Flora went to Miss Raymond, and asked her, with more kindness in her manner than usual, to come to her rooms for some tea; they always seriously inclined to the consumption of that cheerful herb about this hour. Isabel clung to her companion as they went out with a meek helplessness which was sad to see.

Charley had vanished before them. After that first involuntary movement he had become nonchalant as ever, so I remained alone to ruminate. I confess, after some thought, I was still in the dark as to where things would end.

The meeting had been got over somehow, for, when I came down before dinner, Bruce was sitting on a sofa by Miss Raymond's side.

Why does a man in such a position invariably look as if he were on the stool of repentance, expiating some misdeed of unutterable shame? He has sat by the same woman before, when it was only a strong flirtation; more eyes, curious and spiteful, were upon him then, and he met them with perfect self-possession. Now that he is in his right, why does he look blushingly uneasy, as if he would call on the curtains to hide him, and the cushions to cover him? Have any mortals existed so good, or great, or wise, as to be exempt from that dreadful poll-tax levied on all males unprivileged to woo by proxy—the necessity of looking ridiculous from the moment their engagement is announced to that when they leave the church as Benedicts? I should like to have watched Burke, or Herschel, or the Iron Duke, or any Archbishop of Canterbury, through the ordeal of a recognized courtship. Would the dignity of the statesman, the sage, the soldier, or the saint have been sustained? I trow not.

In truth, it is a sight full of sad warning, that ever-recurring spectacle of an engaged man (the lady is always provokingly at her ease) in general society. His friends turn away in compassion and charity; the girls, whom he ought to have married and—didn't, look on, exchanging smiles with their mothers; it is their hour of savage triumph. The French manage things more comfortably, I think. The promessi sposi meet so seldom before the contract is signed—between sentence and execution the time is so brief that there is little space for intermediate terrors.

Nature had not been bountiful to Mr. Bruce in externals. He was very tall, with round shoulders, long, lean limbs, large feet and hands, and immense joints. There was a good deal of strength about him, but it wanted concentration and arrangement. His features were rather exaggerated and coarse in outline, with the high cheek-bones common on the north side of the Tweed; his hair of an unhappy vacillating color that could not make its mind up to be red; and his eyes, that rarely met you fairly, of a light cold gray. About the mouth, in particular, there was a very unpleasant expression, alternately vicious and cunning.

I do not believe that his intimates, if he had any, in their wildest moments of conviviality, ever called him "Jack;" nor his mother, in his earliest childhood, "Johnnie." Plain "John Bruce" was written uncompromisingly in every line of his face; just the converse of Forrester, whom old maids of rigid virtue, after seeing him twice, were irresistibly impelled to speak of as "Charley."

I wish some profound psychologist would give us his theory on the question of "The influence of nomenclature on disposition and destiny." It is all very well to ask, "What's in a name?" I think there is a great deal; and that our sponsors have much to answer for in indulging their baptismal fancies. Not to go into the subject (which some have already done without exhausting it), have you not remarked that Georgiana is always pretty and slightly sarcastic; that Isabella has large, soft, lustrous eyes—generally they are dark; that Fanny invariably flirts; and that Kate is decided in character, if not haughty?

Tragedy and comedy both are forced to observe these nominal proprieties. Who was it that illuminated his house, and had the church bells rung, on finding a name for his hero? We should never have believed in Iago's treacheries if he had appeared before us as simple "James."

The new arrival seemed to have chilled us all into stupidity. Dinner languished; and afterward, Guy, after trying at first to be laboriously civil—the sense of duty was painfully evident—lapsed into silence, passing the claret rather faster than usual, so that Mr. Raymond, to his intense disgust, had to make an effort and force the conversation.

When we entered, Isabel was nestling under Miss Bellasys' wing, from which shelter she had to emerge at Bruce's request for some music. She went directly, and played several pieces that he asked for straight through, while he stood gravely behind her with a complacent air of proprietorship which was inexpressibly aggravating.

When her task was done she went back to her sofa again; there she was safe, for all Bruce's devotion to his ladye-love and stubbornness of character could not give him courage enough to affront, at close quarters, the mingled dislike and scornful humor that played round Flora's lips, and gleamed in her eyes like summer lightning. He had to retreat upon Lady Catharine, who, thinking him hardly used, in her inextinguishable charity exerted herself to entertain him.

We were all glad when that first evening was over, and we got into the smoking-room, whither Mr. Bruce was not entreated to follow. It was always an augury of foul weather in Livingstone's temper when, instead of the decent evening cigar, he smoked the short black brule-gueule, loaded to the muzzle with cavendish. He sat thus for some minutes, rolling out stormy puffs from under his mustache, and then broke out,

"I haven't an idea what to do with him" (there was no need to name the object of his thoughts); "I made up my mind to risk a horse or two, for, of course, he would have broken their knees; but when I offered him a mount, he thanked me and said, 'He didn't hunt.' It would have got him away from home, at all events. Poor Bella! how heavy on hand she will find him."

"Ah! and he might have come to a timely end over timber; Providence does interfere so benevolently sometimes." This was Forrester's pious reflection.

"Well, that's over," Guy went on. "He must shoot, though; every one shoots, or thinks he does. We have all the pheasants to kill yet (by-the-by, Fallowfield comes over on Thursday for the Home Wood); that will keep him employed for some time; but it's only putting off the evil day. My match-making aunt, of blessed memory, how much she has to answer for! I hate to think of Bella's mignonne face alongside of that flinty-cheeked Scotchman's."

"Don't be angry, Guy," suggested Charley, with some diffidence; "but, if it's not an impertinent question, do you think he ever tries to kiss your cousin?"

"I never thought of that," replied Livingstone, not without an oath; "there's another pleasant reflection. No, I should think not. He is ceremonious, to give the devil his due. I'll find out to-morrow, though, without making Bella blush. Miss Bellasys is sure to know. I saw them exchanging confidences all this evening, and I am certain there were instigations to rebellion. Flora would delight in an émeute; she's a perfect Red Republican, that girl."

"The opposition seems organizing," I remarked; "ministers will find themselves soon, I fear, without a working majority."

"Not unlikely," said Guy, filling another pipe; "but they won't resign. Some men never know when they are beaten. Well, he who lives will see. If this wind lasts, we shall have a cracker from Lilbourne to-morrow. You ride the young one, don't you, Charley?"

It is a bright, crisp morning, and there is a gathering round the hall door of Kerton Manor.

To the right is Sir Henry Fallowfield, already established on the broad tack of his shooting pony, an invaluable animal, that can leap or creep wherever a man can go, and steady under fire as old Copenhagen. The baronet is very gouty. The whip made out of his favorite vices cuts him up sharply at times, and he does not like it alluded to. I never saw him look so savage at Guy as when the latter quoted, "Raro antecedentem scelestum Deseruit pede pœna claudo." Of course, he can not walk much; but, placed in a ride, or at the corner of a cover, he rolls over the hares and pulls down the pheasants unerringly as ever; when you come up, you will find him surrounded by a semicircle of slain, and not a runner among them.

The battle of life has left its tokens on the face of the strong, skillful Protagonist. The features, once so finely cut, are somewhat full and bloated now; but it is a magnificent ruin, and there are traces yet of "the handsomest man of his day." Very expressive are his glances still; a little too much so, some people think, when he is criticising a figure or a face; but, to do him justice, gourmandise is his pet weakness now, a comparatively harmless one; and a delicate entremet will bring the light into his eyes that only war or love could do in the old days.

By Sir Henry's side, encouraging him with great prophecies of sport, stands Mallett, the head-keeper. What a contrast his fresh, honest face makes with the veteran roué's! He is the elder of the two by a good ten years, and there is scarcely a wrinkle on his ruddy cheeks and smooth forehead. Wind and weather have used him with a rough kindness, and his foot is almost as light, his hand quite as heavy, as when he entered the service of Guy's grandfather half a century ago. For generations his family have been devoted to the preservation of game; his six stalwart sons are all eminent in that line; and the "Kerton breed" of keepers is renowned throughout the Midland shires. He is a prime favorite with the village children and their mothers, for, in all respects save one, his heart is as soft as a woman's; to poachers it is as the nether millstone. There is the stain of a "justifiable homicide" on the old man's hands—the blood of an antagonist slain in fair fight, in those rough times when the forest was, and marauders came out by scores to strike its deer. I do not think the deed has weighed heavily on his conscience (though he never has spoken of it since), or troubled his healthy, honest slumbers.

To the left is Guy, repressing the attentions of four couple of strong red and white spaniels, but not those of Miss Bellasys, who, standing at the oriel window of the library, is good-natured enough to fasten the band of his wide-awake for him, which has come undone. As he stands with his towering head a little bent, murmuring the "more last words," Sir Henry, contemplating the picture with much satisfaction, smacks his lips, and suggests "Omphale."

Last of all, Mr. Raymond comes slowly down the staircase, followed by his son-in-law that is to be. Forrester and I have been ready long ago, so we start.

Bruce did shoot, certainly, if discharging his gun on the slightest provocation constituted the fact; but he shot curiously ill. Indeed, he might have formed a pendant to that humane sportsman who, having taken to rural sports sero sed serio, said, in extreme old age, "that it was a satisfaction to him to reflect that he could not charge himself with having been, wittingly, the death of more than a dozen of his fellow-creatures."

It was a problem whereon Mallett ruminated gravely long afterward—"Wherever Mr. Bruce's shot do go to?" He could not conceive so much lead being dispersed in the atmosphere without a more adequate result. This want of dexterity, too, was thrown into strong relief that day; for all the other men, putting myself out of the question, were rare masters of the art.

Livingstone headed the list, though Fallowfield ran him hard. He got the most shots, indeed; for his knowledge of the woods and great strength enabled him always to keep close to the spaniels. He was a sight to marvel at, as he went crashing through bramble and blackthorn with a long even stride, just as if he had been walking through light springs.

At the end of the day we were all assembled outside the cover, where the game was being counted, except Bruce, who was still in the wood. A stray shot every now and then gave notice of his approach.

Guy quoted, laughing.

"Random! you may say that," remarked Fallowfield. "That man ought to be in a glass case, and ticketed; he's a natural curiosity. His bag to-day consists of one hare, one hen, and one—sex unknown, for no one saw it rise or tried to pick it up; it was blown into a cloud of feathers within six feet of his muzzle. Here he comes; don't ask him what he's done—it's cruelty."

Bruce came up to us, looking rather more discontented than usual, but not nearly so savage as the keeper who had attended him all day, who immediately retreated among his fellows to relieve himself, by many oaths, of his suppressed disgust and scorn. They offered him beer, but it was no use. I heard him growl out, "That there muff's enough to spile one's taste for a fortnit."

It was the hour of the wood-pigeons coming in to roost, and several were wheeling over our heads at a considerable height.

"There's something for you to empty your gun at, Bruce," Sir. Raymond said, pointing to one that came rather nearer than the rest.

He was leveling, when Forrester cried out, "Five-and-twenty to five on the bird!"

"Done!" answered Bruce, as he pulled the trigger. It was a long and not very easy shot, but the pigeon came whirling down through the tranches with a broken pinion.

"You are unlucky in your selection, Captain Forrester," the successful shot remarked, coolly. "You might have won a heavy stake by laying the same odds all day."

"It serves you right," interposed Guy, "for speaking to a man on his shot. Don't you remember quarreling with me the other day for doing so, Charley?"

Charley's face of perplexity and disgust was irresistible. We all laughed. "What a guignon I have," he said. "Mr. Raymond, I believe you were in the robbery."

"Not I," was the answer. "I was as much surprised as any one. I think," he went on, lowering his tone, "Guy is right; he changed his aim, as you spoke, involuntarily, or he must have missed."

Then we turned homeward through the twilight.

I do not know if the reminiscence of his lost "pony" was rankling in Forrester's mind, or if he was only affected by the presence of Sir Henry Fallowfield—an immoral Upas, under whose shadow the most flourishing of good resolutions were apt to wither and die; but certainly, after dinner, he broke through the cautious reserve which he had always in public maintained toward Miss Raymond since Bruce's arrival. He not only talked to her incessantly, but tempted her to sing with him, during which performance they seemed rapidly lapsing into the old confidential style.

Bruce sat apart, the shades on his rugged face gradually deepening from sullenness into ferocity. He looked quite wolfish at last, for it was a habit he had to show his white teeth more when he was savage than when he smiled. But the music went on its way rejoicing,