A sad and sorry task it is to follow the lapse of a fine young fellow, from the straight line of truth and honour, into the crooked ways of shame. Hilary loved Mabel still, with all his better heart and soul; her pure and kind and playful glance, and the music of her true voice, never wholly departed from him. In the hot infatuation to which (like many wiser and older men) he could not help but yield himself, from time to time a sudden pang of remorse and of good love seized him. Keenly alive to manly honour, and to the goodness of womankind, he found himself playing false to both, and he hated himself when he thought of it. But the worst of him was that he did not think habitually and steadfastly; he talked to himself, and he thought of himself, but he very seldom examined himself. He felt that he was a very good fellow, in the main, and meant no harm; and if he set up for a solid character, who would ever believe him? The world had always insisted upon it that he was only a trifler; and the world’s opinion is very apt to create what it anticipates. He offered excuses enough to himself, as soon as he saw what a wrong he was doing. But the only excuse a good man can accept is the bitterness of his punishment.
The British army, having exhausted havock to the lees and dregs, marched upon its glorious way, in quest of other towns of our allies no less combustible. But many wounded champions were left behind in Badajos, quartered on the grateful townsmen, to recover (if they could) and rejoin as soon as possible. Lieutenant Lorraine was one of these, from the necessity of his case; and Major Clumps managed to be another, from his own necessities. But heavily wounded as he was (by one of Don Miguel’s daughters), the fighting Major would never have got himself certified on the sick-list, unless he had known, from the course of the war, that no battle now was imminent.
Regardless of his Horace, and too regardful of cruel Glycera, more than too much pined Major Clumps, and would have chanted mournful ditties in a minor key, if nature had only gifted him with any other note but D. Because his junior shone beyond him, with breach of loyal discipline. He might console himself, however, with the solace offered by the sprightly bard—the endless chain of love revolving with links on the wrong cog for ever. Major Clumps was in love with Camilla; the saintly Camilla declined from him with a tender slope towards Hilary; Hilary went downhill too fast with violent pangs towards Claudia; and Claudia rose at the back of the wheel, with her eyes on the distant mountains.
Of all Lorraine’s pure bodily wounds, the worst (though not the most painful, as yet) was a gash in his left side, made by pike, or sword, or bayonet, or something of a nasty poignancy. Hilary could give no account of it, when he took it, or where, or how: he regretted deeply to have it there; but beyond that he knew nothing. It seemed to have been suggested cleverly, instead of coarsely slashing down; so far as a woman who had not spent her youth in dissecting-rooms could judge. But Major Clumps (too old a warrior to lose his head to anything less perturbing than a cannon-ball) strenuously refused to believe in Hilary’s ignorance about it. He had a bad opinion of young men, and believed that Hilary had fallen into some scrape of which he was now ashamed. At the same time, he took care to spread it abroad (for the honour of the regiment) that their young lieutenant had been the first to leap on the sword-blades of the breach, even as afterwards he was first to totter through the gap he made. But now it seemed likely that either claim would drop into abeyance, until raked up as a question of history.
For the wound in Hilary’s side began to show very ugly tokens. It had seemed to be going on very nicely for about a fortnight; and Teresina praised and thanked the saints, and promised them ten days’ wages, in the form of candles. But before her vow was due, or her money getting ready, the saints (whether making too sure of their candles, or having no faith in her promises) suddenly struck work, and left this good woman, rags, bottles, and bones, in a miserable way. For violent inflammation began to kindle beneath the bandages, and smiles were succeeded by sighs and moaning, and happy sleep by weary tossings and light-headed wakefulness.
By way of encouraging the patient, Major Clumps came in one day with a pair of convalescent Britons, and a sheet of paper, and pressed upon him the urgent necessity for making his will; to leave the world with comfort and composure. Hilary smiled, through all his pain, at the thought of his having in the world anything but itself to leave; and then he contrived to say, pretty clearly—
“Major, I don’t mean to leave the world. And if I must, I have nothing but my blessing to leave behind me.”
“Then you do more harm than good by going; and none need wish to hurry you. Sergeant Williams, you may go, and so may Private Bodkin. You will get no beer in this house, I know; and you have both had wine enough already. Be off! what are you spying for?”
The two poor soldiers, who had looked forward to getting a trifle for their marks, glanced at one another sadly, and knowing what the Major was, made off. For ever since the tricks played with him by drunken fellows who knew him not, Major Clumps had been dreadful towards every sober man of his own regiment. The course of justice never does run smooth.
This was a thing such as Hilary would have rejoiced to behold, and enter into, if he had been free from pain. But gnawing, wearing, worrying pain sadly dulls the sense of humour and power of observation. Yet even pain, and the fear of the grave, with nothing to leave behind him, could not rob him of all perception of a sudden brightness shed softly over all around. Two lovely maidens were come to pray for him, and to scatter his enemies.
Claudia de Montalvan led her gentle and beautiful sister Camilla, to thank, once for all, and perhaps to say farewell to, their preserver. Camilla, with her sad heart beating tremulously, yet controlled by maiden dignity and shame, followed shyly, fearing deeply that her eyes would tell their tale. And thus, even through the more brilliant beauty of her braver sister, the depth of love and pity made her, for the time, more beautiful. Between the two sisters there was but little, even for the most careful modeller to perceive, of difference. Each had the purely moulded forehead, and the perfect arch of eyebrow, and the large expressive eyes, well set and clearly cut and shaded; also the other features shaped to the best of all nature’s experience. This made it very nice to notice how distinct their faces were by inner difference of mind and will.
“Senhor,” said Claudia to Major Clumps, who could manage to make out Spanish; “we have heard that he is very ill. We are come to do the best for him. Camilla will pray—it is so good—and I will do anything that may need. But it is not right to detain you longer. The gentlemen cannot pray at all, till they are in the holy orders.”
The Major bowed, and grimly smiled at this polite dismissal; and then with a lingering glance at Camilla, stumped away in silence to a proper swearing distance.
His glance might have lingered till dark night fell, before that young Donna returned it. All her power of thought or feeling, fearing, hoping, or despairing, was gathered into one sad gaze at her guest, her saviour, and her love. Carefully as she had watched him through the time when there was no danger, she had not been allowed by the ancient nurse to come near him for the last three days. And even now she had been content to obey Teresina’s orders, and to trust in the saints, with her calm sweet faith—the saints who had sent this youth to save her—but for her stronger sister’s will.
“Disturb him not, sister, but let him rest,” said Claudia, whose fair bosom never was a prey to gratitude; “see you not how well he lies? If we should happen to cause disturbance, he might roll over, and break into bleeding; and then you could pray for his soul alone.”
“Sister mine, you do not speak well,” Camilla answered, gently; “he has shed so much blood for us, that he is not likely to bleed more. It is now the want of the blood, and the fever, that will make us mourn for ever. Cavalier, brave cavalier, can you not look up, and muse?”
Hilary, being thus invoked, though he had no idea what was meant—the language being pure Castilian—certainly did look up, and try with very bad success to muse. His eyes met kind Camilla’s first (because she was leaning over him), but in spite of close resemblance, found not what they wanted in them, and wandered on, and met the eyes of Claudia, and rested there.
Camilla, with the speed of love outwinging all the wings of thought, felt, like a stab, this absence from her and this presence elsewhere. And having plenty of inborn pride, as behoved her and became her well, she turned away to go, and leave her sister (who could not pray at all) to pray for what seemed to be more her own. And her heart was bitter, as she turned away.
Claudia (who cared not one half-real for Hilary, or what became of him; and who never prayed for herself, or told her beads, or did any religious thing) was also ready to go, with a mind relieved of a noxious duty; when her softer, and therefore nobler, sister came back, with her small pride conquered.
“It is not a time to dispute,” she said, “nor even to give one’s self to pray, when violent pain is tearing one. My sister, I have prayed for days, and twice as much by night: and yet everything grows much worse, alas! Last night I dreamed a dream of great strangeness. It may have come from my birthday saint. The good Teresina is having her dinner; and she always occupies one large hour in that consummation. Do a thing of courage, sister; you always are so rich in courage.”
“What do you mean?” asked Claudia, smiling; “you seem to have all the courage now.”
“Alas! I have no courage, Claudia. You are laughing at me. But if you would only raise the bandage—I dare not touch the poor cavalier—where the sad inflammation is, that makes him look at you so—it is possible that I could, or perhaps that you could—”
“Could what?” asked Claudia, who was not of a long-enduring temper; “I have no fear to touch him; and he seems to be all bandages. There now, is that what you require?” Camilla shuddered as her sister firmly (as if she were unswathing a mummy of four thousand years) untied Teresina’s knots, and laid bare the angry wound, which was eating Hilary’s life away. Then a livid virulent gash appeared, banked with proud flesh upon either side, and Claudia could not look at it.
But Camilla gathered the courage often latent in true gentleness, and heeded only in her heart how the poor young fellow fell away and fainted from the bold exposure, and falling back, thus made his wound open and gape wider.
“I see it! I see it! I shall save him yet,” she cried, in feminine ecstasy; and while Claudia thought her mad, she snatched from the chain at her zone a little steel implement, often carried by Spanish girls for beauty’s sake. With dainty skimmings, and the lightest touch, she contrived to get this well inside all the mere outward mischief, and drew out a splinter of rusty iron, and held it up to the light in triumph; and then she went down on her knees and sobbed, but still held fast her trophy.
“What is it? Let me see!” cried Claudia, being accustomed to take the lead: “Saint plague, what is a mere shred like that, to cause so much emotion? It may be something the old nurse put there, and so you have done more harm than good.”
“Do nurses put pieces of jagged iron into a wound to heal it? It is part of a cruel Frenchman’s sword. Behold the fangs of it, and the venomous rust! What agony to the poor cavalier! Now sponge his forehead with the vinegar; for you are the best and most welcome nurse. And when he revives show him this, and his courage will soon be renewed to him. I can stay here no longer, I feel so faint. I will go to my saint, and thank her.”
When old Teresina returned, and found her patient looking up at Claudia, with his wound laid bare, she began to scold and wring her hands, and order her visitor out of the room; but the proud young lady would have none of that.
“A pretty nurse you are,” she cried, “to leave this in your patient’s wound! Is this your healing instrument, pray? What will the Count of Zamora say, when I show him this specimen of your skill? How long will he keep you in this house? Oh blind, demented, gorging, wallowing, and most despicable nurse!”
That last word she pronounced with such a bitterness of irony, that poor Teresina’s portly form and well-fed cheeks shook violently. “For the love of all the saints, sweet Donna, do not let my lord know this. The marvellous power of your bright eyes has cast their light on everything. That poor old I, with these poor members, might have gazed and gazed for ever; when lo! the most beautiful and high-born lady under heaven appears, and saves the life of the handsome lord that loves her.”
“We will speak no more upon this matter,” Claudia answered, magnanimously. And the nurse thenceforth was ready to vow, and Hilary only too glad to believe, that the sorely wounded soldier owed his life to a beautiful maiden. And so he did; but not to Claudia.
Along the northern brow and bend of the Sussex hills, the winter lingers, and the spring wakes slowly. The children of the southern slope, towards Worthing and West Tarring, have made their cowslip balls, and pranked their hats and hair with blue-bells, before their little northern cousins have begun to nurse and talk to, and then pull to pieces, their cuckoo-pint, and potentilla, dead-nettle, and meadow crowfoot.
The daffodil that comes and “takes the winds of March with beauty,” here reserves that charming capture for the early breeze of May; for still the “black-thorn winter” buffets the folds of chilly April’s cloak, and the hail-fringed mantle of wan sunlight. This is the time when a man may say, “Hurrah! Here is summer come at last, I verily do believe. For goodness’ sake, wife, give us air, and take those hot things from the children’s necks. If you want me, I shall be in the bower, having a jolly pipe at last.” And then by the time all the windows are open, and the little ones are proud to show their necks and the scratches of their pins, in rushes papa, with his coat buttoned over, and his pipe put out by hail.
None the less for all that, the people who like to see things moving—though it be but slowly—have opportunity now of watching small delights that do them good. How trees, and shrubs, and plants, and even earth and stone, begin to feel the difference coming over them. How little points, all black one day, and as hard as the tip of a rook’s bill the next time of looking at them, show a little veiny shining. And then as the people come home from church, and are in their most observant humour, after long confinement, a little child finds a real leaf (most likely of an elder-tree), and many young faces crowd around it; while the old men, having seen too many springs, plod on and doubt this for a bad one.
Much of this had been done, with slow advance from Sunday to Sunday, and the hedges began to be feathered with green, and the meadows to tuft where the good stuff lay, and the corn in the gloss of the sun to glisten; when everybody came out of church one Sunday before Pentecost. The church was that which belonged to the Rev. Struan Hales (in his own opinion), and so did the congregation, and so did everything, except the sermon. And now the Rector remained in the vestry, with his favourite daughter Cecil, to help him off with his “academicals,” and to put away his comb.
“I hope your mother will be quick, my dear,” said the Parson, stooping his broad shoulders, as his daughter tugged at him; “she cannot walk as she used, you know; and for the last half-hour I have been shuddering and trembling about our first fore-quarter.”
“I saw that you were uncomfortable, papa, just as you were giving out your text. You seemed to smell something burning, didn’t you?”
“Exactly!” said the Rector, gazing with surprise at his clever and queer Cecil. “Now how could you tell? I am sure I hope none of the congregation were up to it. But 9d. a pound is no joke for the father of three hungry daughters.”
“And with a good appetite of his own, papa. Well, I’ll tell you how I knew it. You have a peculiar way of lifting your nose when the meat is too near the fire, as it always is with our new cook; and then you looked out of that round-arched window, as if you expected to see some smoke.”
“Lift my nose, indeed!” answered the Rector; “I shall lift something else; I shall lift your lips, if you laugh at your poor old father so. And I never shaved this morning, because of Sir Remnant’s dinner-party to-morrow. There, what do you think of that, Miss Impudence?”
“Oh papa, what a shameful beard! You preached about the stubble being all burned up; perhaps because you were thinking of our lamb. But I do declare you have got as much left as Farmer Gate’s very largest field. But talking about Sir Remnant, did you see who skulked into church in the middle of the anthem, and sate behind the gallery pillar, in one of the labourers’ free seats?”
“No, I did not. You ought to be ashamed of looking about in church so, Cecil. Nothing escapes you, except the practical application of my doctrine.”
“Well, papa, now, you must have been stupid, or had your whole mind upon our new cook, if you didn’t see Captain Chapman!”
“Captain Chapman!” cried the Rector, with something which in any other place would have been profane; “why, what in the world could he want here? He never came to hear me; that’s certain.”
“No, papa; nor to hear anything at all. He came to stare at poor Alice all the time; and to plague her with his escort home, I fear.”
“The poor child, with that ungodly scamp! Who were in the servants’ pew? I know pretty well; but you are sure to know better.”
“Oh, not even one of the trusty people. Neither the old butler, nor Mrs. Pipkins, nor even Mrs. Merryjack. Only that conceited ‘Mister Trotman,’ as he calls himself, and his ‘under-footman,’ as he calls the lad; and three or four flirty housemaids.”
“A guinea will send them all round the other way; and then he will pester Alice all the way back. Run home, that’s a dear, you are very quick of foot; and put the lamb back yourself nine inches; and tell Jem to saddle Maggie quick as lightning, and put my hunting-crop at the green gate, and have Maggie there; and let your mother know that sudden business calls me away to Coombe Lorraine.”
“Why, papa, you quite frighten me! As if Alice could not take care of herself!”
“I have seen more of the world than you have, child. Do as I order you, and don’t argue. Stop, take the meadow way, to save making any stir in the village. I shall walk slowly, and be at the gate by the time you have the pony there.”
Cecil Hales, without another word, went out of the vestry door to a stile leading from the churchyard into a meadow, and thence by an easy gap in a hedge she got into the rectory shrubbery.
“Just my luck,” said the Rector to himself, as he took to the rambling village-street, to show himself as usual. “The two things I hate most are a row, and the ruin of a good dinner. Hashes and cold meat ever since Wednesday; and now when a real good joint is browning—oh, confound it all!—I quite forgot the asparagus—the first I have cut, and as thick as my thumb! Now if I only had Mabel Lovejoy here! I do hope they’ll have the sense not to put it on; but I can’t very well tell Jem about it; it will look so mollyish. Can I send a note in? Yes, I can. The fellow can’t read; that is one great comfort.”
No sooner said than done; he tore out the fly-leaf of his sermon, and under his text, inculcating the duty of Christian vigilance, wrote in pencil, “Whatever you do, don’t put on the asparagus.”
This he committed to the care of Jem; and then grasping his hunting-whip steadfastly, he rode up the lane, with Maggie neighing at this unaccustomed excursion. For horses know Sunday as well as men do, and a great deal better.
Struan Hales was a somewhat headlong man; as most men of kind heart, and quick but not very large understanding, are apt to be. Like most people of strong prejudices, he was also of strong impulses; for the lowest form of prejudice is not common—the abstract one, and the negative. His common sense and his knowledge of the world might have assured him that Captain Chapman would do nothing to hurt or even to offend young Alice. And yet, because he regarded Stephen with inveterate dislike, he really did for the moment believe it his duty thus to ride after him.
Meanwhile the gallant and elegant captain had done at least one thing according to the Rector’s anticipation. By laying a guinea in Trotman’s palm, he had sent all the servants home over the hill, and thus secured for himself a private walk with his charmer along the lane that winds so prettily under the high land. Now his dress was enough to win the heart of any rustic damsel, and as he passed the cottage-doors, all the children said, “Oh my!” This pleased him greatly, and could not have added less than an inch to his stature and less than a pound to the weight of his heel at each strut. This proves that he was not a thorough villain; for thorough villains attach no importance to the opinion of children.
Unaware of the enemy in advance, Alice walked through the little village, with her aunt and two cousins, as usual; and she said “Good-bye” to them at the rectory gate; knowing that they wanted to please her uncle with his early Sunday dinner. Country parsons, unless they are of a highly distinguished order, like to dine at half-past one very punctually on a Sunday. Throughout the week (when they shoot or fish, or ride to hounds, etc.) they manage to retard their hunger to five, or even six o’clock. On Sunday it is healthily otherwise. A sinking feeling begins to set in, about halfway through the sermon. And why? In an eloquent period, the parson looks round, to infect his congregation. He forgets for the moment that he is but a unit, while his hearers are an hundredfold. What happens? All humanity is, at eloquent moments, contagious, sensitive, impressible. A hundred people in the church have got their dinner coming on at one o’clock; they are thinking of it, they are dwelling on the subject; and the hundred and first, the parson himself (without knowing it, very likely, and even while seven heavens above it) receives the recoil of his own emotions, in epidemic appetite.
That may be all wrong of course, even unsacerdotal, or unscientific (until the subject is tabulated); but facts have large bones: and the fact stands thus. Alice Lorraine was aware of it, though without scent of the reason; so she kissed her aunt and cousins two—Cecil being (as hath been seen) in clerical attendance—and lightly went her homeward way. She stopped for a minute at Nanny Stilgoe’s, to receive the usual grumbling sauced with the inevitable ingratitude. And then, supposing the servants to be no very great distance before her, she took to the lonely Ashwood lane with a quick light step, as usual.
Presently she came to a place where the lane dipped suddenly into the hollow of a dry old watercourse—the course of the Woeburn, according to tradition, if anybody could believe it. There was now not a thread of open water: but a little dampness, and a crust of mud, as if some underground duct were anxious to maintain use of its right of way. By the side of the lane, an old oak-trunk (stretched high above the dip, and furnished with a broken handrail) showed that there must have been something to cross; though nobody now could remember it. In this hollow lurked the captain, placid and self-contented, and regarding with much apparent zest a little tuft of forget-me-not.
Alice, though startled for a moment by this unexpected encounter, could not help smiling at the ill-matched brilliance of her suitor’s apparel. He looked like a smaller but far more costly edition of Mr. Bottler, except that his waistcoat was of crimson taffety, with a rolling collar of lace; and instead of white stockings, he displayed gold-buttoned vamplets of orange velvet. Being loth to afford him the encouragement of a smile, the young lady turned away her face as she bowed, and with no other salutation continued her homeward course, at a pace which certainly was not slower. But Stephen Chapman came forth, and met her with that peculiar gaze which would have been insolent from a more powerful man, but as proceeding from a little dandy bore rather the impress of impudence.
“Miss Lorraine, you will not refuse me the honour of escorting you to your home. This road is lonely. There still are highway men. One was on the Brighton road last week. I took the liberty of thinking, or rather, perhaps, I should say of hoping, that you might not altogether object to a military escort.”
“Thank you,” said Alice; “you are very kind; but I have not the least fear; and our servants are not very far away, I know. They have orders to keep near me.”
“They must have mistaken your route, I think. I am rather famous for long sight; and I saw the Lorraine livery just now going up the footpath that crosses the hill.”
Alice was much perplexed at this. She by no means enjoyed the prospect of a long and secluded walk in the company of this gallant officer. And yet her courage would not allow her to retrace her steps, and cross the hill; neither could she well affront him so; for much as she disliked this man, she must treat him as any other lady would.
“I am much obliged to you, Captain Chapman,” she answered as graciously as she could; “but really no kind of escort is wanted, either military or civilian, in a quiet country road like this, where everybody knows me. And perhaps it will be more convenient for you to call on my father in the afternoon. He is always glad when you can stay to dinner.”
“No, thank you; I must dine at home to-day. I wish to see Sir Roland this morning, if I may. And surely I may accompany you on your way home; now, may I not?”
“Oh yes,” she answered with a little sigh, as there seemed to be no help for it; but she determined to make the Captain walk at a speed which should be quite a novelty to him.
“Dear me, Miss Lorraine! I had no idea that you were such a walker. Why, this must be what we call in the army ‘double-quick march’ almost. Too fast almost to keep the ranks unbroken, when we charge the enemy.”
“How very dreadful!” cried Alice, with a little grimace, which greatly charmed the Captain. “May I ask you one particular favour?”
“You can ask none,” he replied, with his hand laid on his crimson waistcoat; “or to put it more clearly, to ask a favour, is to confer a greater one.”
“How very kind you are! You know that my dear brother Hilary is in the thick of very, very sad fighting. And I thought that perhaps you would not mind (as a military escort), describing exactly how you felt when first you charged the enemy.”
“The deuce must be in the girl,” thought the Captain; “and yet she looks so innocent. It can be only an accident. But she is too sharp to be romanced with.”
“Miss Lorraine,” he answered, “I belonged to the Guards; whose duty lies principally at home. I have never been in action.”
“Oh, I understand; then you do not know what a sad thing real fighting is. Poor Hilary! We are most anxious about him. We have seen his name in the despatches; and we know that he was wounded. But neither he, nor Major Clumps (a brave officer in his regiment) has sent us a line since it happened.”
“He was first through the breach at Badajos. He has covered himself with glory.”
“We know it,” said Alice, with tears in her eyes; and for a moment she liked the Captain. “But if he has covered himself with wounds, what is the good of the glory?”
“A most sensible question,” Chapman answered, and fell once more to zero in the opinion of his charmer. With all the contempt that can be expressed by silence, when speech is expected, she kept on so briskly towards Bonny’s castle, that her suitor (who, in spite of all martial bearing, walked in the manner of a pigeon) became hard set to keep up with her.
“The view from this spot is so lovely,” he said, “I must really beg you to sit down a little. Surely we need not be in such a hurry.”
“The air is chilly, and I must not loiter. My father has a bad headache to-day. That was the reason he was not at church.”
“Then surely he can be in no hurry for his luncheon. I have so many things to say to you. And you really give me quite a pain in my side.”
“Oh, I am so sorry! I beg your pardon. I never could have thought that I was doing that. Rest a little, and you will be better.”
The complaint would have been as a joke passed over, if it had come from anybody else. But she knew that the Captain was not strong in his lungs, or his heart, or anything; therefore she allowed him to sit down, while she stood and gazed back through the Ashwood lane, fringed, and arched, and dappled by the fluttering approach of spring.
“The beautiful gazing at the beautiful!” said Chapman, with his eyes so fixed as to receive his view of the landscape (if at all) by deputy. And truly his judgment was correct. For Alice, now in perfect health, with all the grace of young vigour and the charm of natural quickness, and a lovely face, and calm eyes beaming, not with the bright uncertain blue (that flashing charm of poor Hilary), but the grand ash-coloured grey—the tint that deepens with the depth of life, and holds more love than any other—Alice, in a word, was something for a man to look at. The greatest man that ever was born of a woman, and knew what women are, as well as what a man is; the only one who ever combined the knowledge of both sexes; the one true poet of all ages (compared with whom all other poets are but shallow surfacers), Nature’s most loving and best-loved child,—even he would have looked at Alice, with those large sad loving eyes, and found her good to dwell upon.
The Captain (though he bore the name of a great and grossly-neglected poet) had not in him so much as half a pennyweight of poetry. He looked upon Alice as a handsome girl, of good birth and good abilities, who might redeem him from his evil ways, and foster him, and make much of him. He knew that she was far above him, “in mind, and views, and all that sort of thing;” and he liked her all the more for that, because it would save him trouble.
“Do let me say a few words to you,” he began, with his most seductive and insinuating glance (for he really had fine eyes, as many weak and wanton people have); “you are apt to be hard on me, Miss Lorraine, while all the time my first desire is to please, and serve, and gratify you.”
“You are very kind, I am sure, Captain Chapman. I don’t know what I have done to deserve it.”
“Alas!” he answered with a sigh, which relieved him, because he was much pinched in, as well as a good deal out of breath, for his stays were tighter than the maiden’s. “Alas! Is it possible that you have not seen the misery you have caused me?”
“Yes, I know that I have been very rude. I have walked too fast for you. I beg your pardon, Captain Chapman. I will not do so any more.”
“I did not mean that; I assure you, I didn’t. I would climb the Andes or the Himalayas, only to win one smile from you.”
“I fear that I should smile many times,” said Alice, now smiling, wickedly; “if I could only have a telescope—still, I should be so sorry for you. They are much worse than the Southdown hills.”
“There, you are laughing at me again! You are so clever, Miss Lorraine; you give me no chance to say anything.”
“I am not clever; I am very stupid. And you always say more than I do.”
“Well, of course—of course I do; until you come to know me. After that, I always listen; because the ladies have more to say. And they say it so much better.”
“Is that so?” said Alice, thinking, while the Captain showed his waist, as he arose and shook himself, “it may be so: he may be right; he seems to have some very good ideas.” He saw that she thought more kindly of him; and that his proper course with her was to play humility. He had never known what pure love was; he had lessened his small capacity for it, by his loose and wicked life; but in spite of all that, for the first time Alice began to inspire him with it. This is a grand revolution in the mind, or the heart, of a “man of pleasure;” the result may save him even yet (if a purer nature master him) from that deadliest foe, himself. And the best (or the worst of it) is, that if a kind, and fresh, and warm, and lofty-minded girl believes herself to have gained any power of doing good in the body of some low reprobate, sweet interest, Christian hankerings, and the feminine love of paradoxes, succeed the legitimate disgust. Alice, however, was not of a weak, impulsive, and slavish nature. And she wholly disdained this Stephen Chapman.
“Now, I hope that you will not hurry yourself,” she said to the pensive captain; “the real hill begins as soon as we are round the corner. I must walk fast, because my father will be looking out for me. Perhaps, if you kindly are coming to our house, you would like to come more at your leisure, sir.”
Stephen Chapman looked at her—not as he used to look, as if she were only a pretty girl to him—but with some new feeling, quite as if he were afraid to answer her. His dull, besotted, and dissolute manner of regarding women lay for the moment under a shock; and he wondered what he was about. And none of his stock speeches came to help him—or to hurt him—until Alice was round the corner.
“Holloa, Chapman! what are you about? Why, you look like one of Bottler’s pigs, when they run about with their throats cut! Where is my niece? What have you been doing?” The Rector drew up his pony sharply; and was ready to seize poor Stephen by the throat.
“You need not be in such a hurry, parson,” said Captain Chapman, recovering himself. “Miss Lorraine is going up the hill a great deal faster than I can go.”
“I know what a dissolute dog you are,” cried the Parson, smoking with indignation at having spoiled his Sunday dinner, and made a scene, for nothing. “You forced me to ride after you, sir. What do you mean by this sort of thing?”
“Mr. Hales, I have no idea what you mean. You seem to be much excited. Pray oblige me with the reason.”
“The reason, indeed! when I know what you are! Two nice good girls, as ever lived, you have stolen out of my gallery, sir; and covered my parish with shame, sir. And are you fit to come near my niece? I have not told Sir Roland of it, only for your father’s sake; but now I will tell him, and quiet as he is, how long do you suppose he will be in kicking you down the Coombe, sir?”
“Come, now,” said Stephen, having long been proof against righteous indignation; “you must be well aware, Rector, that the whole of that ancient scandal was scattered to the winds, and I emerged quite blameless.”
“Indeed, I know nothing of the sort. You did what money could do—however, it is some time back; and perhaps I had better have let an old story—Camerina—eh, what is it? On the other hand, if only——”
“Rector, you always mean aright, though you may be sometimes ungenerous. In your magnificent sermon to-day what did you say? Why, you said distinctly, in a voice that came all round the pillars—there is mercy for him that repenteth.”
“To be sure I did, and I meant it too; but I meant mercy up above, not in my own parish, Stephen. I can’t have any mercy in my own parish.”
“Let us say no more about it, sir; I am not a very young man now, and my great desire is to settle down. I now have the honour of loving your niece, as I never loved any one before. And I put it to you in a manly way, and as one of my father’s most valued friends, whether you have anything to say against it?”
“You mean to say that you really want to settle down with Alice! A girl of half your age and ten times your power of life! Come, Stephen!”
“Well, sir, I know that I am not in as vigorous health as you are. You will walk me down, no doubt, when we come to shoot together on my father’s land; but still, all I want is a little repose, and country life, and hunting; a little less of the clubs, and high play, and the company of the P.R., who makes us pay so hard for his friendship. I wish to leave all these bad things—once for all to shake them off—and to get a good wife to keep me straight, until my dear father drops off at last. And the moment I marry I shall start a new hunt, and cut out poor Lord Unicorn, who does not know a foxhound from a beagle. This country is most shamefully hunted now.”
“It is, my dear Stephen; it is, indeed. It puts me to the blush every time I go out. Really there is good sense in what you say. There is plenty of room for another pack; and I think I could give you some sound advice.”
“I should act entirely, sir, by your opinion. Horses I understand pretty well: but as to hounds, I should never pretend to hold a candle to my Uncle Hales.”
“Ah, my dear boy, I could soon show you the proper way to go to work. The stamp of dog we want is something of this kind——”
The Rector leaned over Maggie’s neck, and took the Captain by the button-hole, and fondly inditing of so good a matter, he delivered a discourse which was too learned and confidential to be reported rashly. And Stephen hearkened so well and wisely, that Mr. Hales formed a better opinion than he ever before had held of him, and began to doubt whether it might not be a sensible plan in such times as these, to close the ranks of the sober thinkers and knit together all well-affected, stanch, and loyal interests, by an alliance between the two chief houses of the neighbourhood—the one of long lineage, and the other of broad lands; and this would be all the more needful now, if Hilary was to make a mere love-match.
But in spite of all wisdom, Mr. Hales was full of strong warm feelings: and loving his niece as he did, and despising in his true heart Stephen Chapman, and having small faith in converted rakes, he resolved to be neutral for the present; and so rode home to his dinner.
If any man has any people who ought to care about him, and is not sure how far they exert their minds in his direction, to bring the matter to the mark, let him keep deep silence when he is known to be in danger. The test, as human nature goes, is perhaps a trifle hazardous, at any rate when tried against that existence of the wiry order which is called the masculine; but against the softer and better portion of the human race—the kinder half—whose beauty is the absence of stern reason, this bitter test (if strongly urged) is sure to fetch out something; at least, of course, if no suspicion arises of a touchstone. Wherefore now there were three persons, all of the better sex, in much discomfort about Hilary.
Of these, the first was his excellent grandmother, Lady Valeria Lorraine, whose mind (though fortified with Plowden, and even the strong Fortescue) was much amiss about his being dead, and perhaps “incremated,” leaving for evidence not even circumstantial ashes. Proof of this, however invalid, would have caused her great distress—for she really loved and was proud of the youth; but the absence of proof, and the probability of its perpetual absence (for to prove a man dead is to prove a negative, according to recent philosophers), as well as the prospect of complications after the simplest solution, kept this admirable lady’s ever active mind in more activity than was good for it.
The second of the three who fretted with anxiety and fear, was Hilary’s young sister Alice. Proud as she was of birth, and position, and spotless honour, and all good things, her brother’s life was more precious to her than any of those worldly matters. She knew that he was rash and headlong, too good-natured, and even childish when compared with men of the world. But she loved him all the more for that; and being herself of a stronger will, had grown (without any sense thereof) into a needful championship and vigilance for his good repute. And this, of course, endeared him more, and made her regard him as a martyr, sinned against, but sinless.
But of all these three the third was the saddest, and most hard to deal with. Faith in Providence supports the sister, or even the mother of a man—whenever there is fair play for it—but it seems to have no locus standi in the heart of his sweetheart. That delicate young apparatus (always moving up and down, and as variable as the dewpoint) is ever ready to do its best, and tells itself so, and consoles itself, and then from reason quoted wholesale, breaks into petty unassorted samples of absurdity.
In this condition, without a dream of jealousy or disloyalty, Mabel Lovejoy waited long, and wondered, hoped, despaired, and fretted; and then worked hard, and hoped again. She had no one to trust her troubles to, no cheerful and consoling voice to argue and grow angry with, and prove against it how absurd it was to speak of comfort; and yet to be imbibing comfort, even while resenting it. Her mother would not say a word, although she often longed to speak, because she thought it wise and kind to let the matter die away. While Hilary was present, or at any rate in England, Mrs. Lovejoy had yielded to the romance of these young doings; but now that he was far away, and likely in every weekly journal to be returned as killed and buried, the Kentish dame, as a sensible woman, preferred the charm of a bird in hand.
Of these there were at least half-a-dozen ensnared and ready to be caged for life, if Mabel would only have them; and two of them could not be persuaded that her nay meant anything; for one possessed the mother’s yea, and the other that of the father.
The suitor favoured by Mrs. Lovejoy was a young physician at Maidstone, Dr. Daniel Calvert, a man of good birth and connections, and having prospects of good fortune. The Grower, on the other hand, had now found out the very son-in-law he wanted—Elias Jenkins, a steady young fellow, the son of a maltster at Sevenoaks, who had bought all the barley of Old Applewood farm for forty years and upwards. Elias was terribly smitten with Mabel, and suddenly found quite a vigorous joy in the planting and pruning of fruit-trees, and rode over almost every day, throughout both March and April, to take lessons, as he said, in grafting and training pears, and planting cherries, and various other branches of the gentle craft of gardening. Of course the Grower could do no less than offer him dinner, at every visit, in spite of Mrs. Lovejoy’s frowns; and Elias, with a smiling face and blushing cheeks, would bring his chair as close as he could to Mabel’s, and do his best in a hearty way to make himself agreeable. And in this he succeeded so far, that his angel did not in the least dislike him; but to think of him twice, after Hilary, was such an insult to all intelligence! The maiden would have liked the maltster a great deal better than she did, if only he would have dropped his practice of “popping the question” before he left every Saturday afternoon. But he knew that Sunday is a dangerous day; and as he could not well come grafting then, he thought it safer to keep a place in her thoughts until the Monday.
“Try her again, lad,” the Grower used to say. “Odds, bobs, my boy, don’t run away from her. Young gals must be watched for, and caught on the hop. If they won’t say ‘yes’ before dinner, have at them again in the afternoon, and get them into the meadows, and then go on again after supper-time. Some take the courting kindest of a morning, and some at meal-time, and some by the moonlight.”
“Well, sir, I have tried her in all sorts of ways, and she won’t say ‘yes’ to one of them. I begin to be tired of Saturdays now. I have a great mind to try of a Friday.”
“Ay!” cried the Grower, looking at him, as the author of a great discovery. “Sure enough now, try on Fridays—market-day, as I am a man!”
“Well now, to think of that!” said Elias; “what a fool I must have been, to keep on so with Saturday! The mistress goes against me, I know; and that always tells up with the maidens, but I must have something settled, squire, before next malting season.”
“You shall, you shall indeed, my lad; you may take my word for it. That only stands to reason. Shilly-shally is a game I hate; and no daughter of mine shall play at it. But I blame you more than her, my boy. You don’t know how to manage them. Take them by the horns. There is nothing like taking them by the horns, you know.”
“Yes, to be sure; if one only knew the proper way to do it, sir. But missie slips away so quick like; I never can get hold of her. And then the mistress has that fellow Calvert over here, almost every Sunday.”
“Aha!” cried the Grower, with a knowing wink, “that is her little game, is it now? That is why she has aches and pains, and such a very sad want of tone, and failure of power in her leaders! Leave it to me, lad—that you may—I’ll soon put a stop to that. A pill-grinder at Applewood farm indeed! But I did not know you was jealous!”
“Jealous! No, no, sir; I scorn the action. But when there are two, you know, why, it makes it not half so nice for one, you know.”
Squire Lovejoy, however, soon discovered that he had been a little too confident in pledging himself to keep the maltster’s rival off the premises. For Mrs. Lovejoy, being a very resolute woman in a little way, at once began to ache all over, and so effectually to groan, that instead of having the doctor once a-week, she was obliged to have him at least three times. And it was not very long before the young physician’s advice was sought for a still more interesting patient.
For the daughter and prime delight of the house, the bright sweet-tempered Mabel, instead of freshening with the spring, and budding with new roses, began to get pale, and thin, and listless, and to want continually to go to church, and not to care about her dinner. Her eagerness for divine service, however, could only be gratified on Sundays: for the practice of reading the prayers to the pillars twelve times a-week was not yet in vogue. The novelty, therefore, of Mabel’s desire made the symptom all the more alarming; and her father perceived that so strange a case called peremptorily for medical advice. But she, for a long time, did nothing but quote against himself his own opinion of the professors of the healing art; while she stoutly denied the existence on her part of any kind of malady. And so, for a while, she escaped the doctor.
Meanwhile she was fighting very bravely with deep anxiety and long suspense. And the struggle was the more forlorn, and wearisome, and low-hearted, because she must battle it out in silence, with none to sympathize and (worse than that) with everybody condemning her mutely for the conflict. Her father had a true and hearty liking for young Lorraine, preferring him greatly—so far as mere feeling went—to the maltster. But his views for his daughter were different, and he thought it high time that her folly should pass. Her mother, on the other hand, would have rejoiced to see her the wife of Hilary; but had long made up her mind that he would never return alive from Spain, and that Mabel might lose the best years of her life in waiting for a doomed soldier. Gregory Lovejoy alone was likely to side with his sister, for the sake of Lorraine, the friend whom he admired so much; and Gregory had transmitted to her sweet little messages and loving words, till the date of the capture of Badajos. But this one consoler and loyal friend was far away from her all this time, having steadfastly eaten his way to the Bar, and received his lofty vocation. Thereupon Lovejoy paid five guineas for his wig, and a guinea for the box thereof, gave a frugal but pleasant “call party,” and being no way ashamed of his native county, or his father’s place therein, sturdily shouldered the ungrateful duties of “junior,” on the home-circuit. Of course he did not expect a brief, until his round was trodden well; but he never failed to be in court; and his pleasant temper and obliging ways soon began to win him friends. His mother was delighted with all this; but the franklin grumbled heavily at the bags he had to fill with money, to be scattered, as he verily believed, among the senior lawyers.
Now the summer assizes were held at Maidstone about the beginning of July; and Gregory had sent word from London, by John Shorne, that he must be there, and would spend one night at home, if his father would send a horse for him, by the time when his duties were over. His duties of the day consisted mainly in catering for the bar-mess, and attending diligently thereto; and now he saw the wisdom of the rule which makes a due course of feeding essential to the legal aspirant. A hundred examinations would never have qualified him for the bar-mess: whereas a long series of Temple dinners had taught him most thoroughly what to avoid.
The Grower was filled with vast delight at the idea of marching into court, and saying to all the best people of the town, “Pray allow me to pass, sir. My son is here somewhere, I believe. A fresh-coloured barrister, if you please, ma’am, with curly hair below his wig. Ah yes, there he is! But his lordship is whispering to him, I see; I must not interrupt them.” And therefore, although his time might be worth a crown an hour, ere his son’s fetched a penny, he strove in vain against the temptation to go over and look at Gregory. Before breakfast he fidgeted over his fields and was up for being down upon every one—just to let them know that this sort of talent is hereditary. His workmen winked at one another and said (as soon as he was gone by) that he must have got out the wrong side of the bed, or else the old lady had been rating of him.
He (in the greatness of his thoughts) strode on, and from time to time worked his lips and cast sharp glances at every gate-post, in the glow of imaginary speech. He could not feel that his son on the whole was a cleverer fellow than himself had been; and he played the traitor to knife and spade by hankering after gown and wig. “If my father,” he said, “had only given me the chance I am giving Gregory, what might I be now? One of these same barons as terrify us with their javelins and gallows, and sit down with white tippits on. Or if my manners wasn’t good enough for that, who could ever keep me from standing up, and defying all the villains for to put me down so long as I spoke justice? And yet that might happen to be altogether wrong. I’m a great mind not to go over at all. My father was an honest man before me.”
In this state of mind he sat down to breakfast, bright with reflections of Gregory’s glory, yet dashed irregularly with doubts of the honesty of its origin, till, in quite his old manner, he made up his mind to keep his own council about the thing and ride over to the county town, leaving Applewood none the wiser. For John Shorne had orders the night before to keep his message quiet, which an old market-hand could be trusted to do; and as for the ladies, the Grower was sure that they knew much less and cared much less about the assizes than about the washing-day. So he went to his stables about nine o’clock, with enough of his Sunday raiment on to look well but awake no excitement, and taking a good horse, he trotted away with no other token behind him except that he might not be home at dinner-time, but might bring a stranger to supper perhaps; and they ought to have something roasted.
“Pride,” as a general rule, of course, “goeth before a fall;” but the father’s pride in the present instance was so kindly and simple, that Nature waived her favourite law, and stopped fortune from upsetting him. Although when he entered the court he did not find his son in confidential chat with the Lord Chief Justice, nor even in grave deliberation with a grand solicitor, but getting the worst of a conflict with an exorbitant fishmonger; and though the townspeople were not scared as much as they should have been by the wisdom of Gregory’s collected front, neither did the latter look a quarter so wise as his father; yet a turn of luck put all things right, and even did substantial good. For the Grower at sight of his son was not to be stopped by any doorkeeper, but pushed his way into the circle of forensic dignity, and there saluted Gregory with a kiss on the band of his horsehair, and patted him loudly on the back, and challenging with a quick proud glance the opinions of the bar and bench, exclaimed in a good round Kentish tone—
“Well done, my boy! Hurrah for Greg! Gentlemen all, I’ll be dashed if my son doth not look about the wisest of all of ’ee.”
Loud titters ran the horsehair round, and more solid laughter stirred the crowd, while the officers of the court cried “Hush!” and the Lord Chief Justice and his learned brother looked at the audacious Grower; while he, with one hand on each shoulder of his son, gazed around and nodded graciously.
“Who is this person—this gentleman, I mean?” asked the Lord Chief Justice, correcting himself through courtesy to young Lovejoy.
“My father, my lord,” answered Gregory like a man, though blushing like his sister Mabel. “He has not seen me for a long time, my lord, and he is pleased to see me in this position.”
“Ay, that I am, my lord,” said the Grower, making his bow with dignity. “I could not abide it at first; but his mother—ah, what would she say to see him now? Martin Lovejoy, my lord, of Old Applewood farm, very much at your lordship’s service.”
The Judge was well pleased with this little scene, and kindly glanced at Gregory, of whom he had heard as a diligent pupil from his intimate friend Mr. Malahide; and being a man who missed no opportunity—as his present position pretty clearly showed—he said to the gratified franklin, “Mr. Lovejoy, I shall be glad to see you, if you can spare me half an hour, after the court has risen.”
These few words procured two briefs for Gregory at the next assizes, and thus set him forth on his legal course; though the Judge of course wanted—as the bar knew well—rather to receive than to give advice. For his lordship was building a mansion in Kent, and laying out large fruit-gardens, which he meant to stock with best sorts in the autumn; and it struck him that a professional grower, such as he knew Mr. Lovejoy to be, would be far more likely to advise him well, than the nurserymen, who commend most abundantly whatever they have in most abundance.
When the Grower had laid down the law to the Judge upon the subject of fruit-trees, and invited him to come and see them in bearing, as soon as time allowed of it, he set off in high spirits with his son, who had discharged his duties, but did not dine with his brethren of the wig. To do the thing in proper style, a horse was hired for Gregory, and they trotted gently, enjoying the evening, along the fairest road in England. Mr. Lovejoy was not very quick of perception, and yet it struck him once or twice that his son was not very gay, and did not show much pleasure at coming home; and at last he asked him suddenly—
“What are you thinking of, Greg, my boy? All this learning is as lead on the brain, as your poor grandfather used to say. A penny for your thoughts, my Lord Chief Justice.”
“Well, father, I was not thinking of law-books, nor even of—well, I was thinking of nothing, except poor little Mabel.”
“Ay, ay, John has told you, I suppose, how little she eats, and how pale she gets. No wonder either, with all the young fellows plaguing and pothering after her so. Between you and me, Master Gregory, I hope to see her married by the malting-time. Now, mind, she will pay a deal of heed to you now that you are a full-blown counsellor: young Jenkins is the man, remember; no more about that young dashing Lorraine.”
“No, father, no more about him,” said Gregory, sadly and submissively. “I wish I had never brought him here.”
“No harm, my son; no harm whatever. That little fancy must be quite worn out. Elias is not over bright, as we know; but he is a steady and worthy young fellow, and will make her a capital husband.”
“Well, that is the main point after all—a steadfast man who will stick to her. But you must not hurry her, father, now. That would be the very way to spoil it.”
“Hark to him, hark to him!” cried the Grower. “A counsellor with a vengeance! The first thing he does is to counsel his father how to manage his own household!”
Gregory did his best to smile; but the sunset in his eyes showed something more like the sparkle of a tear; and then they rode on in silence.