Читать книгу: «What Will He Do with It? — Volume 06», страница 2

CHAPTER II

Mr. Vance explains how he came to grind colours and save half-pence.

—A sudden announcement.

The meal was over; the table had been spread by a window that looked upon the river. The moon was up: the young men asked for no other lights; conversation between them—often shifting, often pausing—had gradually become grave, as it usually does with two companions in youth; while yet long vistas in the Future stretch before them deep in shadow, and they fall into confiding talk on what they wish,—what they fear; making visionary maps in that limitless Obscure.

"There is so much power in faith," said Lionel, "even when faith is applied but to things human and earthly, that let a man be but firmly persuaded that he is born to do, some day, what at the moment seems impossible, and it is fifty to one but what he does it before he dies. Surely, when you were a child at school, you felt convinced that there was something in your fate distinct from that of the other boys, whom the master might call quite as clever,—felt that faith in yourself which made you sure that you would be one day what you are."

"Well, I suppose so; but vague aspirations and self-conceits must be bound together by some practical necessity—perhaps a very homely and a very vulgar one—or they scatter and evaporate. One would think that rich people in high life ought to do more than poor folks in humble life. More pains are taken with their education; they have more leisure for following the bent of their genius: yet it is the poor folks, often half self-educated, and with pinched bellies, that do three-fourths of the world's grand labour. Poverty is the keenest stimulant; and poverty made me say, not 'I will do,' but 'I must.'"

"You knew real poverty in childhood, Frank?"

"Real poverty, covered over with sham affluence. My father was Genteel Poverty, and my mother was Poor Gentility. The sham affluence went when my father died. The real poverty then came out in all its ugliness. I was taken from a genteel school, at which, long afterwards, I genteelly paid the bills; and I had to support my mother somehow or other,—somehow or other I succeeded. Alas, I fear not genteelly! But before I lost her, which I did in a few years, she had some comforts which were not appearances; and she kindly allowed, dear soul, that gentility and shams do not go well together. Oh, beware of debt, Lionello mio; and never call that economy meanness which is but the safeguard from mean degradation."

"I understand you at last, Vance; shake hands: I know why you are saving."

"Habit now," answered Vance, repressing praise of himself, as usual. "But I remember so well when twopence was a sum to be respected that to this day I would rather put it by than spend it. All our ideas—like orange-plants—spread out in proportion to the size of the box which imprisons the roots. Then I had a sister." Vance paused a moment, as if in pain, but went on with seeming carelessness, leaning over the window- sill, and turning his face from his friend. "I had a sister older than myself, handsome, gentle."

"I was so proud of her! Foolish girl! my love was not enough for her. Foolish girl! she could not wait to see what I might live to do for her. She married—oh! so genteelly!—a young man, very well born, who had wooed her before my father died. He had the villany to remain constant when she had not a farthing, and he was dependent on distant relations, and his own domains in Parnassus. The wretch was a poet! So they married. They spent their honeymoon genteelly, I dare say. His relations cut him. Parnassus paid no rents. He went abroad. Such heart-rending letters from her. They were destitute. How I worked! how I raged! But how could I maintain her and her husband too, mere child that I was? No matter. They are dead now, both; all dead for whose sake I first ground colours and saved halfpence. And Frank Vance is a stingy, selfish bachelor. Never revive this dull subject again, or I shall borrow a crown from you and cut you dead. Waiter, ho!—the bill. I'll just go round to the stables, and see the horse put to."

As the friends re-entered London, Vance said, "Set me down anywhere in Piccadilly; I will walk home. You, I suppose, of course, are staying with your mother in Gloucester Place?"

"No," said Lionel, rather embarrassed; "Colonel Morley, who acts for me as if he were my guardian, took a lodging for me in Chesterfield Street, Mayfair. My hours, I fear, would ill suit my dear mother. Only in town two days; and, thanks to Morley, my table is already covered with invitations."

"Yet you gave me one day, generous friend!"

"You the second day, my mother the first. But there are three balls before me to-night. Come home with me, and smoke your cigar while I dress."

"No; but I will at least light my cigar in your hall, prodigal!"

Lionel now stopped at his lodging. The groom, who served him also as valet, was in waiting at the door. "A note for you, sir, from Colonel Morley,—just come." Lionel hastily opened it, and read,

MY DEAR HAUGHTON,—Mr. Darrell has suddenly arrived in London. Keep yourself free all to-morrow, when, no doubt, he will see you. I am hurrying off to him.

Yours in haste, A. V. M.

CHAPTER III

Once more Guy Darrell.

Guy Darrell was alone: a lofty room in a large house on the first floor, —his own house in Carlton Gardens, which he had occupied during his brief and brilliant parliamentary career; since then, left contemptuously to the care of a house agent, to be let by year or by season, it had known various tenants of an opulence and station suitable to its space and site. Dinners and concerts, routs and balls, had assembled the friends and jaded the spirits of many a gracious host and smiling hostess. The tenure of one of these temporary occupants had recently expired; and, ere the agent had found another, the long absent owner dropped down into its silenced halls as from the clouds, without other establishment than his old servant Mills and the woman in charge of the house. There, as in a caravansery, the traveller took his rest, stately and desolate. Nothing so comfortless as one of those large London houses all to one's self. In long rows against the walls stood the empty fauteuils. Spectral from the gilded ceiling hung lightless chandeliers. —The furniture, pompous, but worn by use and faded by time, seemed mementos of departed revels. When you return to your house in the country—no matter how long the absence, no matter how decayed by neglect the friendly chambers may be, if it has only been deserted in the meanwhile (not let to new races, who, by their own shifting dynasties, have supplanted the rightful lord, and half-effaced his memorials)—the walls may still greet you forgivingly, the character of Home be still there. You take up again the thread of associations which had, been suspended, not snapped. But it is otherwise with a house in cities, especially in our fast-living London, where few houses descend from father to son,—where the title-deeds are rarely more than those of a purchased lease for a term of years, after which your property quits you. A house in London, which your father never entered, in which no elbow- chair, no old-fashioned work-table, recall to you the kind smile of a mother; a house that you have left as you leave an inn, let to people whose names you scarce know, with as little respect for your family records as you have for theirs,—when you return after a long interval of years to a house like that, you stand, as stood Darrell, a forlorn stranger under your own roof-tree. What cared he for those who had last gathered round those hearths with their chill steely grates, whose forms had reclined on those formal couches, whose feet had worn away the gloss from those costly carpets? Histories in the lives of many might be recorded within those walls. "Lovers there had breathed their first vows; bridal feasts had been held; babes had crowed in the arms of proud young mothers; politicians there had been raised into ministers; ministers there had fallen back into independent members;" through those doors corpses had been borne forth to relentless vaults. For these races and their records what cared the owner? Their writing was not on the walls. Sponged out, as from a slate, their reckonings with Time; leaving dim, here and there, some chance scratch of his own, blurred and bygone. Leaning against the mantelpiece, Darrell gazed round the room with a vague wistful look, as if seeking to conjure up associations that might link the present hour to that past life which had slipped away elsewhere; and his profile, reflected on the mirror behind, pale and mournful, seemed like that ghost of himself which his memory silently evoked.

The man is but little altered externally since we saw him last, however inly changed since he last stood on those unwelcoming floors; the form still retained the same vigour and symmetry,—the same unspeakable dignity of mien and bearing; the same thoughtful bend of the proud neck, —so distinct, in its elastic rebound, from the stoop of debility or age. 'thick as ever the rich mass of dark-brown hair, though, when in the impatience of some painful thought his hand swept the loose curls from his forehead, the silver threads might now be seen shooting here and there,—vanishing almost as soon as seen. No, whatever the baptismal register may say to the contrary, that man is not old,—not even elderly; in the deep of that clear gray eye light may be calm, but in calm it is vivid; not a ray, sent from brain or from heart, is yet flickering down. On the whole, however, there is less composure than of old in his mien and bearing; less of that resignation which seemed to say, "I have done with the substances of life." Still there was gloom, but it was more broken and restless. Evidently that human breast was again admitting, or forcing itself to court, human hopes, human objects. Returning to the substances of life, their movement was seen in the shadows which, when they wrap us round at remoter distance, seem to lose their trouble as they gain their width. He broke from his musing attitude with an abrupt angry movement, as if shaking off thoughts which displeased him, and gathering his arms tightly to his breast, in a gesture peculiar to himself, walked to and fro the room, murmuring inaudibly. The door opened; he turned quickly, and with an evident sense of relief, for his face brightened. "Alban, my dear Alban!"

"Darrell! old friend! old school-friend! dear, dear Guy Darrell!" The two Englishmen stood, hands tightly clasped in each other, in true English greeting, their eyes moistening with remembrances that carried them back to boyhood.

Alban was the first to recover self-possession; and, when the friends had seated themselves, he surveyed Darrell's countenance deliberately, and said, "So little change!—wonderful! What is your secret?"

"Suspense from life,—hibernating. But you beat me; you have been spending life, yet seem as rich in it as when we parted."

"No; I begin to decry the present and laud the past; to read with glasses, to decide from prejudice, to recoil from change, to find sense in twaddle, to know the value of health from the fear to lose it; to feel an interest in rheumatism, an awe of bronchitis; to tell anecdotes, and to wear flannel. To you in strict confidence I disclose the truth: I am no longer twenty-five. You laugh; this is civilized talk: does it not refresh you after the gibberish you must have chattered in Asia Minor?"

Darrell might have answered in the affirmative with truth. What man, after long years of solitude, is not refreshed by talk, however trivial, that recalls to him the gay time of the world he remembered in his young day,—and recalls it to him on the lips of a friend in youth! But Darrell said nothing; only he settled himself in his chair with a more cheerful ease, and inclined his relaxing brows with a nod of encouragement or assent.

Colonel Morley continued. "But when did you arrive? whence? How long do you stay here? What are your plans?"

DARRELL.—"Caesar could not be more laconic. When arrived? this evening. Whence? Ouzelford. How long do I stay? uncertain. What are my plans? let us discuss them."

COLONEL MORLEY.—"With all my heart. You have plans, then?—a good sign.

Animals in hibernation form none."

DARRELL (putting aside the lights on the table, so as to leave, his face in shade, and looking towards the floor as he speaks).—"For the last five years I have struggled hard to renew interest in mankind, reconnect myself with common life and its healthful objects. Between Fawley and London I desired to form a magnetic medium. I took rather a vast one, —nearly all the rest of the known world. I have visited both Americas, either end. All Asia have I ransacked, and pierced as far into Africa as traveller ever went in search of Timbuctoo. But I have sojourned also, at long intervals, at least they seemed long to me,—in the gay capitals of Europe (Paris excepted); mixed, too, with the gayest; hired palaces, filled them with guests; feasted and heard music. 'Guy Darrell,' said I, 'shake off the rust of years: thou hadst no youth while young,—be young now. A holiday may restore thee to wholesome work, as a holiday restores the wearied school-boy.'"

COLONEL MORLEY.—"I comprehend; the experiment succeeded?"

DARRELL.—"I don't know: not yet; but it may. I am here, and I intend to stay. I would not go to a hotel for a single day, lest my resolution should fail me. I have thrown myself into this castle of care without even a garrison. I hope to hold it. Help me to man it. In a word, and without metaphor, I am here with the design of re-entering London life."

COLONEL MORLEY.—"I am so glad. Hearty congratulations! How rejoiced all the Viponts will be! Another 'CRISIS' is at hand. You have seen the newspapers regularly, of course: the state of the country interests you. You say that you come from Ouzelford, the town you once represented. I guess you will re-enter Parliament; you have but to say the word."

DARRELL.—"Parliament! No. I received, while abroad, so earnest a request from my old constituents to lay the foundation-stone of a new Town-Hall, in which they are much interested; and my obligations to them have been so great that I could not refuse. I wrote to fix the day as soon as I had resolved to return to England, making a condition that I should be spared the infliction of a public dinner, and landed just in time to keep my appointment; reached Ouzelford early this morning, went through the ceremony, made a short speech, came on at once to London, not venturing to diverge to Fawley (which is not very far from Ouzelford), lest, once there again, I should not have strength to leave it; and here I am." Darrell paused, then repeated, in brisk emphatic tone, "Parliament? No. Labour? No. Fellow-man, I am about to confess to you: I would snatch back some days of youth,—a wintry likeness of youth, better than none. Old friend, let us amuse ourselves! When I was working hard, hard, hard! it was you who would say: 'Come forth, be amused,'—you! happy butterfly that you were! Now, I say to you, 'Show me this flaunting town that you know so well; initiate me into the joys of polite pleasures, social commune,

"'Dulce mihi furere est amico."

You have amusements,—let me share them.'"

"Faith," quoth the Colonel, crossing his legs, "you come late in the day! Amusements cease to amuse at last. I have tried all, and begin to be tired. I have had my holiday, exhausted its sports; and you, coming from books and desk fresh into the playground, say, 'Football and leapfrog.' Alas! my poor friend, why did not you come sooner?"

DARRELL.—"One word, one question. You have made EASE a philosophy and a system; no man ever did so with more felicitous grace: nor, in following pleasure, have you parted company with conscience and shame. A fine gentleman ever, in honour as in elegance. Well, are you satisfied with your choice of life? Are you happy?"

"Happy! who is? Satisfied, perhaps."

"Is there any one you envy,—whose choice, other than your own, you would prefer?"

"Certainly."

"Who?"

"You."

"I!" said Darrell, opening his eyes with unaffected amaze. "I! envy me! prefer my choice!"

COLONEL MORLEY (peevishly).—"Without doubt. You have had gratified ambition, a great career. Envy you! who would not? Your own objects in life fulfilled: you coveted distinction,—you won it; fortune,—your wealth is immense; the restoration of your name and lineage from obscurity and humiliation,—are not name and lineage again written in the /Libro d'oro/? What king would not hail you as his counsellor? What senate not open its ranks to admit you as a chief? What house, though the haughtiest in the land, would not accept your alliance? And withal, you stand before me stalwart and unbowed, young blood still in your veins. Ungrateful man, who would not change lots with Guy Darrell? Fame, fortune, health, and, not to flatter you, a form and presence that would be remarked, though you stood in that black frock by the side of a monarch in his coronation robes."

DARRELL.—"You have turned my question against myself with a kindliness of intention that makes me forgive your belief in my vanity. Pass on, —or rather pass back; you say you have tried all in life that distracts or sweetens. Not so, lone bachelor; you have not tried wedlock. Has not that been your mistake?"

COLONEL MORLEY.—"Answer for yourself. You have tried it." The words were scarce out of his mouth ere he repented the retort; for Darrell started as if stung to the quick; and his brow, before serene, his lip, before playful, grew, the one darkly troubled, the other tightly compressed. "Pardon me," faltered out the friend.

DARRELL.—"Oh, yes! I brought it on myself. What stuff we have been talking! Tell me the news, not political, any other. But first, your report of young Haughton. Cordial thanks for all your kindness to him. You write me word that he is much improved,—most likeable; you add, that at Paris he became the rage, that in London you are sure he will be extremely popular. Be it so, if for his own sake. Are you quite sure that it is not for the expectations which I come here to disperse?"

COLONEL MORLEY.—"Much for himself, I am certain; a little, perhaps, because—whatever he thinks, and I say to the contrary—people seeing no other heir to your property—"

"I understand," interrupted Darrell, quickly. "But he does not nurse those expectations? he will not be disappointed?"

COLONEL MORLEY.—"Verily I believe that, apart from his love for you and a delicacy of sentiment that would recoil from planting hopes of wealth in the graves of benefactors, Lionel Haughton would prefer carving his own fortunes to all the ingots hewed out of California by another's hand and bequeathed by another's will."

DARRELL.—"I am heartily glad to hear and to trust you."

COLONEL MORLEY.—"I gather from what you say that you are here with the intention to—to—"

"Marry again," said Darrell, firmly. "Right. I am."

"I always felt sure you would marry again. Is the lady here too?"

"What lady?"

"The lady you have chosen."

"Tush! I have chosen none. I come here to choose; and in this I ask advice from your experience. I would marry again! I! at my age! Ridiculous! But so it is. You know all the mothers and marriageable daughters that London—/arida nutrix/—rears for nuptial altars: where, amongst them, shall I, Guy Darrell, the man whom you think so enviable, find the safe helpmate, whose love he may reward with munificent jointure, to whose child he may bequeath the name that has now no successor, and the wealth he has no heart to spend?"

Colonel Morley—who, as we know, is by habit a matchmaker, and likes the vocation—assumes a placid but cogitative mien, rubs his brow gently, and says in his softest, best-bred accents, "You would not marry a mere girl? some one of suitable age. I know several most superior young women on the other side of thirty, Wilhelmina Prymme, for instance, or Janet—"

DARRELL.—"Old maids. No! decidedly no!"

COLONEL MORLEY (suspiciously).—"But you would not risk the peace of your old age with a girl of eighteen, or else I do know a very accomplished, well-brought-up girl; just eighteen, who—"

DARRELL.—"Re-enter life by the side of Eighteen! am I a madman?"

COLONEL MORLEY.—"Neither old maids nor young maids; the choice becomes narrowed. You would prefer a widow. Ha! I have thought of one; a prize, indeed, could you but win her, the widow of—"

DARRELL.—"Ephesus!—Bah! suggest no widow to me. A widow, with her affections buried in the grave!"

MORLEY.—"Not necessarily. And in this case—"

DARRELL (interrupting, and with warmth).—"In every case I tell you: no widow shall doff her weeds for me. Did she love the first man? Fickle is the woman who can love twice. Did she not love him? Why did she marry him? Perhaps she sold herself to a rent-roll? Shall she sell herself again to me for a jointure? Heaven forbid! Talk not of widows. No dainty so flavourless as a heart warmed up again."

COLONEL MORLEY.—"Neither maids, be they old or young, nor widows.

Possibly you want an angel. London is not the place for angels."

DARRELL.—"I grant that the choice seems involved in perplexity. How can it be otherwise if one's self is perplexed? And yet, Alban, I am serious; and I do not presume to be so exacting as my words have implied. I ask not fortune, nor rank beyond gentle blood, nor youth nor beauty nor accomplishments nor fashion, but I do ask one thing, and one thing only."

COLONEL MORLEY.—"What is that? you have left nothing worth the having to ask for."

DARRELL.—"Nothing! I have left all! I ask some one whom I can love; love better than all the world,—not the /mariage de convenance/, not the /mariage de raison/, but the /mariage d'amour/. All other marriage, with vows of love so solemn, with intimacy of commune so close,—all other marriage, in my eyes, is an acted falsehood, a varnished sin. Ah, if I had thought so always! But away regret and repentance! The future alone is now before me! Alban Morley! I would sign away all I have in the world (save the old house at Fawley), ay, and after signing, cut off to boot this right hand, could I but once fall in love; love, and be loved again, as any two of Heaven's simplest human creatures may love each other while life is fresh! Strange! strange! look out into the world; mark the man of our years who shall be most courted, most adulated, or admired. Give him all the attributes of power, wealth, royalty, genius, fame. See all the younger generation bow before him with hope or awe: his word can make their fortune; at his smile a reputation dawns. Well; now let that man say to the young, 'Room amongst yourselves: all that wins me this homage I would lay at the feet of Beauty. I enter the lists of love,' and straightway his power vanishes, the poorest booby of twenty-four can jostle him aside; before, the object of reverence, he is now the butt of ridicule. The instant he asks right to win the heart of a woman, a boy whom in all else he could rule as a lackey cries, 'Off, Graybeard, that realm at least is mine!'"