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Title: The Three Brothers; vol. 1/3
Author: Oliphant, Mrs. (Margaret)
Language: English
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THE THREE BROTHERS.
VOLUME I.
THE THREE BROTHERS.
BY
MRS. OLIPHANT,
AUTHOR OF
‘CHRONICLES OF CARLINGFORD,’
‘SALEM CHAPEL,’ ‘THE MINISTER’S WIFE,’
ETC. ETC.
IN THREE VOLUMES.
VOL. I.
LONDON:
HURST AND BLACKETT, PUBLISHERS,
13 GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET.
1870.
_The Right of Translation is Reserved._
LONDON:
STRANGEWAYS AND WALDEN, PRINTERS,
28 Castle St. Leicester Sq.
CONTENTS
OF
THE FIRST VOLUME.
PAGE
I. THEIR FATHER 1
II. THE WILL 17
III. THE NEW CAREER 32
IV. THE ELDEST SON 49
V. THE MAGICIAN’S CAVE 66
VI. THE WORKING OF THE SPELL 86
VII. PUT TO THE TOUCH 103
VIII. MRS. TRACY’S I. O. U. 120
IX. BEN’S REWARD 134
X. THE LAST INTERVIEW 152
XI. MRS. BARTON’S LITTLE BILL 161
XII. MILLICENT’S NEW START 179
XIII. REACTION 188
XIV. MARY’S OPINION 197
XV. KENSINGTON GORE 218
XVI. WELBY, R.A. 232
XVII. THE PADRONA 248
XVIII. THE TEA-TABLE 264
XIX. CHARLOTTE STREET, FITZROY SQUARE 279
XX. LAURIE’S WORK 297
XXI. WHAT THEY THOUGHT OF IT IN THE SQUARE 316
THE THREE BROTHERS.
CHAPTER I.
THEIR FATHER.
The reason why Mr. Renton’s sons were sent out into the world in the
humble manner, and with the results we are about to record, must be
first told, in order that their history may be comprehensible to the
reader. Had they been a poor man’s sons no explanation would have been
necessary; but their father was anything but a poor man. The family was
one of those exceptional families which add active exertion to
hereditary endowments. Though the Rentons had been well-known people in
Berks for two or three centuries, it had almost been a family tradition
that each successive heir, instead of resting content with the good
things Providence had given him, should add by his own efforts to the
family store. There had been pirates among them in Elizabeth’s time.
They had made money when everybody else lost money in the time of the
‘South Sea.’ Mr. Renton’s father had gone to India young, and had
returned, what was then called, a ‘Nabob.’ Mr. Renton himself was sent
off in his turn to Calcutta, as remorselessly as though he had not been
the heir to heaven knows how many thousands a-year; and he too had
increased the thousands. There was not a prettier estate nor a more
commodious house in the whole county than Renton Manor. The town-house
was in Berkeley Square. The family had everything handsome about them,
and veiled their bonnet to none. Mr. Renton was a man who esteemed
wealth as a great power; but he esteemed energy still more, and placed
it high above all other qualities. As he is just about to die, and
cannot have time to speak for himself in these pages, we may be
permitted to describe a personage so important to this history. He was a
spare, middle-sized man, with a singular watchfulness and animation in
his looks; his foot springy and light; his sight, and hearing, and all
his senses, unusually keen;--a man always on the alert, body and mind,
yet not incapable of repose. Restless was not an epithet you could apply
to him. A kind of vigilant, quiet readiness and promptitude breathed out
from him. He would have sooner died than have taken an unfair advantage
over any one; but he was ready to seize upon any and every advantage
which was fair and lawful, spying it out with the eyes of an eagle, and
coming down upon it with the spring of a giant. Twice, or rather let us
say four times in his life he had departed from the traditions of the
Rentons. Instead of the notable, capable woman whom they had been wont
to choose, and who had helped to make the family what it was, he had
married a pretty, useless wife, for no better reason than that he loved
her. And partly under her influence, partly by reason of a certain
languor and inclination towards personal ease which had crept over him,
he had been--as he sometimes felt--basely neglectful of the best
interests of his sons. The eldest, Ben, had not been sent to India at
sixteen, as his father was; nor had Laurie, the second, gone off to the
Colonies, as would have been natural; and as for Frank, his father’s
weakness had gone so far as to permit of the purchase of a commission
for him when the boy had fallen in love with a red coat. Frank was a
Guardsman, and he a Renton! Such a thing had never been heard of in the
family before.
The eldest surviving aunt, Mrs. Westbury, who was full of Renton
traditions, almost went mad of this event, so afflicted was she by such
a departure from use and wont. She had two boys of her own, whom she had
steadfastly kept in the family groove, and, accordingly, had the very
best grounds for her indignation. ‘But what was to be expected,’ she
said, ‘from such a wife?’ Mrs. Renton was as harmless a soul as ever lay
on a sofa, and had little more than a passive influence in the affairs
of her family; but her husband’s sister, endowed with that contempt for
the masculine understanding which most women entertain, put all the
blame upon her soft shoulders. Two men-about-town, and a boy in the
Guards! ‘Is Laurence mad?’ said Mrs. Westbury. It was her own son who
had gone to the house in Calcutta, which might have mollified her; but
it did not. ‘My boy has to banish himself, and wear out the best of his
life in that wilderness,’ she said, vehemently, ‘while Ben Renton makes
a fool of himself at home.’ When they brought their fine friends to the
Manor for shooting or fishing, she had always something to say of her
boy who was banished from all these pleasures; though, indeed, there had
been a great rejoicing in the Westbury household when Richard got the
appointment. It was but a very short time before her brother’s death
that Aunt Lydia’s feelings became too many for her, and she felt that
for once she must speak and deliver her soul.
‘Ben is to succeed you, I suppose?’ she said, perhaps in rather an
unsympathetic way, as she took Mr. Renton to the river-side for a walk,
under pretence of speaking to him ‘about the boys.’ He thought, poor
man, that it was her own boys she meant, and was very good-natured about
it. And then it was his favourite walk. The river ran through the Renton
woods, at the foot of a steep bank, and was visible from some of the
windows of the Manor. The road to it was a charming woodland walk,
embowered in great beeches, the special growth of Berks. Through their
vast branches, and round about their giant trunks, playing with the
spectator’s charmed vision like a child, came glimpses of the broad,
soft water, over which willows hung fondly, and the swans and
water-lilies shone. Mr. Renton was not sentimental, but he had known the
river all his life, and was fond of it;--perhaps all the more so as he
found out what mistakes he had made, and that life had not been expended
to so much purpose as it ought to have been; so that he walked down very
willingly with his sister, and inclined his ear with much patience and
good-nature to hear what she had to say about her boys.
‘Ben will succeed you, I suppose?’ she said, looking at him in a
disapproving way, as they came to the very margin of the stream where
Laurie’s boat, with its brightly painted sides and red cushions
reflected in the water, lay moored by the bank. It was a fantastic
little toy, meant for speed, and not for safety; and Mrs. Westbury would
have walked ten miles round by Oakley Bridge rather than have trusted
herself to that arrowy bark. She sighed as her eyes fell upon it. ‘Poor
Laurie! poor boy!’ she said, shaking her head. The sight seemed to fill
her with a compassion beyond words.
‘Why poor Laurie?’ said Mr. Renton; but he knew what she meant, and it
made him angry. ‘Of course Ben will succeed me. I succeeded my father.
It is his right.’
‘Ah, Laurence, but how did you succeed your father?’ said Mrs. Westbury.
‘You had the satisfaction of being the greatest comfort to dear papa.
He felt the property would be safe in your hands, and be improved, as it
has always been. People say we are such a lucky family, but you and I
know better. We know it is work that has always done it,--alas! until
now!’ she said, suddenly lifting up her eyes to heaven. Truth compels us
to add that Mr. Renton was very much disconcerted. He could not bear to
hear his own family attacked; but he felt the justice of all she said.
‘Well, Lydia, manners change,’ he said. ‘It seemed natural enough in our
time; but, when you come to consider it, I don’t see what reason I have
for sending the boys away. I can leave them very well off. We were never
so well off as we are now. You know I managed to buy that last farm my
father had set his mind upon. I don’t see why I should have broken their
mother’s heart.’
‘Ah, I knew it would come out,’ said Mrs. Westbury, with a little
bitterness. ‘Why should Mary’s heart be more tender than other people’s?
I have to send my boys away, though I love them as well as she does
hers; and people congratulate me on having such a good appointment for
Richard. It never occurs to anybody that I shall break my heart.’
‘You are a Renton,’ said her brother, with some dexterity. ‘I often
think you are the best Renton of us all. But if poor Westbury had lived,
you know, he might have contrived to spare you the parting, as I have
spared Mary; and---- The short and the long of it is the boys are doing
very well. I have no fault to find with them, and I mean to take my own
way with my own family, Lydia; no offence to you.’
‘Oh, no; no offence,’ said Mrs. Westbury, with a little toss of her
head. ‘It is all for my advantage, I am sure. When my Richard comes home
at a proper time with the fortune your Ben ought to have made, I shall
have no reason to complain for one.’
‘Ben will be very well off,’ said Mr. Renton, but with an uncomfortable
smile.
‘Oh, very well off, no doubt,’ said his sister, with a touch of
contempt; ‘a vapid squire, like the rest of them. People used to say the
Rentons were like a fresh breeze blowing in the county. Always motion
and stir where they were! And, poor Laurie!’ she added once more, with
offensive compassion, as they turned and came again face to face with
Laurie’s boat.
‘I should like to know why Laurie so particularly excites your pity,’
said Mr. Renton, much irritated. Laurie was his own namesake and
favourite, and this was the animadversion which he could least bear.
‘Poor boy! I don’t know who would not pity him,’ said Aunt Lydia; ‘it
would melt a heart of stone to see a boy with such abilities all going
to wrack and ruin. It is all very well as long as he is at home; but
when he comes to have his own money what will he do with it? Spend it
on pictures and nonsense, and encourage a set of idle people about him
to eat him up. Laurence, you mark my words--that is just the kind of boy
to be eaten up by everybody, and to come to poverty in the end. Whereas,
if he had been taught from the first that work was the natural destiny
of man----’
‘There, Lydia,--there,--I wish you would make an end of this croaking,’
cried Mr. Renton. ‘I am not quite well to-day, and can’t bear it. That’s
enough for one time.’
‘As for Frank, I give him up,’ said Mrs. Westbury,--‘a soldier, that can
never make a penny,--and, of all soldiers, a Guardsman! I am very sorry
for you, Laurence, I am sure. How a man of your sense could give in so
to Mary’s whims I can’t understand.’
‘Mary had nothing to do with it,’ said Mr. Renton angrily; and he led
the way up the bank, and changed the subject abruptly. Mrs. Westbury,
though she was not susceptible, felt that she must say no more; and they
returned in comparative silence to the house. This walk had been taken
late in a summer evening after dinner, and in the solemnity of evening
dress, over which, Aunt Lydia, who was stout and felt the heat, had
thrown a little shawl. As they reached the lawn in front of the Manor
they came upon a pretty scene. Mrs. Renton, who was feebly pretty still,
lay on a sofa, which had been brought out and placed in the shadow of
the trees. Mary Westbury, her godchild, who bore a curious softened
resemblance to her mother, sat upright on a footstool by her aunt’s
side, working and talking to her. The third figure was Laurie, lying at
full length on the soft grass. Probably since dinner he had been having
a cigar; for instead of the regular evening coat he wore a fantastic
velvet vestment, which half veiled the splendour of his white linen and
white tie. He was lying stretched out on his back,--handsome, lazy, and
contented,--a practical commentary on his aunt’s speech. There were
books lying about, which his energetic cousin had been coaxing and
boring him to read aloud; but Laurie had only shaken his head at her,
ruffling his chestnut locks against the grass: and a little sketch-book
lay by his side, where it had fallen from his indolent hand. Mrs.
Westbury looked at him and then at her brother. What words could say as
much? There lay lazy Laurence, with an unspeakable sentiment of _far
niente_, in every line of him; and he a Renton, whose very ease had
always been energetic! Mr. Renton saw it, too, and, for once in his
life, was heartily ashamed of his favourite son.
‘There you lie,’ said Aunt Lydia, ‘resting after your hard day’s work.
What a laborious young man you must be, Laurie! I never saw any one who
wanted so much rest.’
‘Thanks,’ said Laurence, with a little nod of his chin from the grass.
‘My constitution requires a great deal of rest, as you say. If you
don’t mind moving a little, Aunt Lydia, you are sitting on my note-book.
Thanks. There are some swans there I should not like to lose.’
‘And of what use are swans?’ said Mrs. Westbury. ‘I wish you would tell
me, Laurie; I am such an ignorant creature, and I should like to know.’
‘Use?’ said Laurie, opening his eyes. ‘They don’t get made into patties,
as far as I know;--but they are of about as much use as the most of us,
I suppose.’
‘The most of us have a great deal to do in the world,’ said Aunt Lydia,
growing very red, for she was fond of _pâtés_; ‘if you knew how many
things have to pass through my hands from morning to night----’
‘Yes, I know,’ said lazy Laurence, raising his hand in soft deprecation.
‘Mary has been telling us;--but what is the use of that, Aunt Lydia? Why
should you worry yourself? Things would go on just as well if you let
them alone,--that’s what I always tell Ben. What’s the good of
fidgeting? If you’ll believe,’ continued Laurie, raising himself a
little on one elbow, ‘all the people who have ever made any mark in the
world have been people who knew how to keep quiet and let things work
themselves out. There’s your Queen Elizabeth,’ he said, warming to his
subject, and giving a slight kick with his polished boot to a big volume
on the grass; ‘the only quality she had was a masterly inaction. She
kept quiet, and things settled themselves.’
‘Oh, Laurie! not when she killed that poor, dear, Queen Mary!’ cried his
mother from the sofa. ‘I hate that woman’s very name.’
‘No,’ said Laurie, gracefully sinking down again among the grass,
‘that’s an instance of energy, mother,--a brutal quality, that always
comes to harm.’
‘Laurence, you are a fool!’ said Mr. Renton sharply, to his son’s
surprise; and he turned his back upon them all abruptly, and went in
across the soft grass, through the magical, evening atmosphere that
tempted all the world to rest. His sister had taken all restfulness out
of him. Though he was a sensible man, he was a Renton; and the family
traditions when thus recalled to his mind had a great power over him. He
went into the library, which looked out upon a dark corner of the
grounds full of mournful evergreens; the blank wall of the
kitchen-garden showed a little behind them, and the room at this time of
day was a very doleful room. It was a kind of penance to put upon
himself to come in from that air, all full of lingering hues of sunset
and soft suggestions of falling dew, to the grim-luxurious room, in
which he already wanted artificial light. Here he sat and pondered over
his own life, and that of his boys. Up to this moment they had been a
great deal happier than he had been. Like a gust of air from the old
plains of his youth, a remembrance came over him of loneliness and
wistfulness, and a certain impossible longing for a little pleasure now
and then, and some love to brighten the boyish days. He had not been
aware of wanting those vanities then; but he saw now that he had done
so, and that his youth had been very bare and unlovely. He had scattered
roses before his sons, while only thorns had been in his own path; but
what if he had kept from them the harder training which should make them
men? He sat till the darkness grew almost into night thinking over these
things. They were men now,--the lads. Ben was five-and-twenty; Laurie
but a year younger; and Frank, the happy boy, was only twenty, glorious
in his red coat. Mr. Renton pondered long, and when the lamp came he
made a great many notes and calculations, which he locked up carefully
in his desk. He had a headache, which was very unusual. It was his
wife’s _rôle_ in the family to have the headaches; and it did not occur
to Mr. Renton that there could be anything the matter with him. It was
the heat, no doubt, or a little worry. The ladies had come into the
drawing-room when his ponderings were over. It was a large room, full of
windows, with one large bow projecting out upon the cliff, from which
you could see the river through the cloud of intervening beeches. On the
other side the room was open to the soft darkness of the lawn. There
were two lamps in it, but both were shadowed; for Mrs. Renton’s eyes,
like her head, were weak; and the cool air of night breathed in, odorous
and soft, making a scarcely perceptible draught from window to window.
Mrs. Renton lay quite out of this current of air, which naturally she
was afraid of, on another sofa. Mary made tea in a corner, with the
light of one of the lamps falling concentrated upon her pretty hands in
twinkling motion about the brilliant little spots of china and silver.
She had a ring or two upon her pink transparent fingers, and a bracelet,
which sparkled in the light. Mrs. Westbury sat apart in a great chair,
and fanned herself. Now and then, with a dash against the delicate
_abat-jour_ of the lamp, came a mad moth, bent on self-destruction. Mr.
Renton dropped into the first chair he could find, not knowing why he
was so uncomfortable, and Mary brought him some tea. The weather had
been very warm, and everybody was languid with the heat. They all sat a
great way apart from each other, and were not energetic enough for
conversation. ‘Where is Laurie?’ Mr. Renton asked; and they told him
that Laurie, with his usual wilfulness, had gone down to the river.
‘There will be a moon to-night,’ Mrs. Renton said, with some
fretfulness; for she liked to have one of her boys by her, if only lying
on the grass, or on the deep mossy carpet, which was almost as soft as
the grass.
‘He has gone off to his moonlight, and his swans, and his water-lilies,’
said Mrs. Westbury, with disdain; but even she felt the heat too much to
proceed.
‘The water-lilies are closed at night,’ said Mary apologetically;
venturing to this extent to take her cousin’s part; lazy Laurence was a
favourite with most people, though he had no energy. Then, all at once,
a larger swoop than usual went circling through the dim upper atmosphere
of the room, and Mrs. Renton gave a scream.
‘It is a bat!’ she cried. ‘Ring, Mary, ring,--I am so superstitious
about bats; and Laurie out all by himself on that river. Mr. Renton, I
wish you would put a stop to it. I never can think it is safe. Oh, tell
them to drive out that creature, Mary! I always know something must
happen when a bat comes into one’s room.’
‘No, godmamma, never mind,’ said Mary. ‘It is only the light. How should
a bat know anything that was going to happen? They come into the Cottage
every evening, and we never mind.’
‘Then you will be found some morning dead in your beds,’ said Mrs.
Renton; ‘I know you will. Oh, it makes me so unhappy, Mary! and Laurie
all by himself in that horrid little boat!’
‘Laurie is all right,’ said Mr. Renton; ‘he knows how to manage a boat,
if he knows nothing else.’ This was muttered half to himself and half
aloud; and then he went to the bow-window and looked out upon the river.
The moon had just risen, and was shining straight down upon one gleam of
water which blazed intensely white amid all the darkling shadows. As
Mr. Renton stood looking out, a boat shot into this gleaming spot, with
long oars glistening, balancing, touching the water like wings of a
bird. ‘Laurie is all right,’ he said to himself, in a mechanical way. He
did not himself care for a thousand bats. But his wife’s alarm struck
into his own uneasiness like a key-note,--the key-note to something he
could not tell what. It was all so lovely and peaceful as he looked,
soft glooms, soft light, rustling rhythm of foliage, wistful breathing
of the night air over that pleasant landscape he knew so well. After
all, was it not better to have the boy there in his boat, than scorching
out in India or toiling like a slave in some Canadian or Australian
forest? What is the good of the father’s work but to better the
condition of the sons? But, on the other hand, if life when it came
should find the sons incapable? Mr. Renton had been a prosperous man;
but he knew that life was no holiday. When it came like an armed man
with temptations, and cares, and responsibilities upon that silken boy,
how would he meet it? These were the father’s thoughts as the bat was
hunted out with much commotion, and his wife lay sighing on her sofa. If
he had been well, probably, Mrs. Westbury’s talk would have had no such
effect upon him; but he was not well; and it had made him very ill at
ease.
Next day his lawyer came, and was closeted for a long time with him, and
there were witnesses called in,--the Rector who happened to be calling,
and the lawyer’s clerk--to witness Mr. Renton’s signature. And within a
week, though he was still in what is called the prime of life, the
father of the house was dead; and his will alone remained behind him to
govern the fate of his three sons.
CHAPTER II.
THE WILL.
There was great consternation in the family when this sudden misfortune
came upon it. All the bustling household from the Cottage overflowed
into the Manor in the excitement of the unlooked-for event; and the
eldest and the youngest son came as fast as the telegraph could summon
them to their father’s bedside. During the two or three days of his
illness the three young men wandered about the place, as young men do
when there is fatal illness in a house--useless,--not liking to go about
their usual employments, and not knowing what else to do. They took
silent walks up and down to the river, and cast wistful looks at the
boats, and dropped now and then into ordinary conversation, only to
break off and pull themselves up with contrition when they remembered.
They were very good sons, and felt their father’s danger, and would have
done anything for him; but there are no special arts or occupations made
for men in such circumstances. The only alternative the poor boys had
was to resort to their ordinary pleasures, or to do nothing; and they
did nothing, as that was the most respectful thing to do,--and were as
dispirited and miserable as heart could desire.
On the last day of all they were called up together to their father’s
death-bed. He had known from the first that he was going to die; and
Mrs. Westbury, who was his principal nurse, and a very kind and patient
one, had felt that her brother had something on his mind. More than once
she had exhorted him to speak out and relieve himself; but he had always
turned his face to the wall when she made this proposition. It was a
close, warm, silent afternoon when the boys were called up-stairs; a
brooding calm, like that which comes before a thunder-storm; a yellow
light was all over the sky, and the birds were fluttering about with a
frightened, stealthy look. Even the leaves about the open windows shook
with a terrified rustling,--clinging, as it were, to the human walls to
give them support in this crisis of nature. The light was yellow in the
sick-room, for the patient would not have the day excluded, as it is
proper to do. He looked like an old man on his bed, though he was not
old. The reflection of lurid colour tinged the ashen face with yellow.
He called them to him, and looked at them all with keen anxiety in his
eyes.
‘Well,’ he said, ‘I’m going, boys;--it’s unexpected, but one has to give
in. I hope you’ll all do well. If you don’t do well, I’ll get no rest in
my grave.’
‘Don’t you trust us, father?’ cried Ben, who was the eldest, with a
thickness in his voice. ‘We’ll do as you have done. That will be our
guide. But don’t think of us,--think of yourself now.’
‘You can’t do as I have done,’ said the father; ‘I started different.
Perhaps it is too late now. Laurie, you will not blame me? And, Frank,
my boy, it won’t make so much difference to you. Frank’s but a boy, and
Laurie’s very soft-hearted--’ he said, as if to himself.
‘Then it is me you are afraid of, father?’ said Ben, whose face darkened
in spite of himself. ‘If I have done anything to make you distrust me,
God knows I did not mean it. Believe me now.’
‘The boy does not know,’ said Mr. Renton to himself, in a confused way;
and then he added more loudly, ‘I don’t distrust you. You’ve always been
a good lad; but it’s hard on you,--ay, it’s hard on Ben,--very hard;--I
wonder if I should have done it!’ said the dying man. They could get
very little more out of him as they stood round his bed, grave,
sorrowful, and bewildered, looking for other words, for another kind of
leave-taking. He bade them no farewell, but mused and murmured on about
something he had done; and that it would be hard on Ben. It was not the
kind of scene,--of conscious farewell and tender adieu,--the last words
of the dying father, which we are so often told of; but perhaps it was a
more usual state of mind at such a moment. His intelligence was lost in
mists, from the coming end. Energy enough to be coherent had forsaken
him. He could do nothing but go over in his enfeebled mind the last
great idea that had taken possession of him. ‘Your mother had nothing to
do with it,’ he said; ‘she knows no more than you do. And don’t think
badly of me. It has all been so sudden. How was I to know that a week
after,--is it a week?--without any time to think, I should have to die?
It’s very strange,--very strange,’ he added, in a tone of musing, as if
he were himself a spectator; ‘to go right away, you know, from one’s
business, that one understands,--to----’
Then he paused, and they all paused with him, gazing, wondering,
penetrated to the heart by that suggestion. Frank, who was the youngest,
wept aloud. Mary Westbury, behind the curtain at one side of the bed,
busied herself, noiselessly, in smoothing the bed-clothes, and arranging
the drapery, so as to shade the patient’s eyes, with trembling hands,
and trembling lips, and tears that dropped silently down her white
cheeks. These two being the youngest were the most overcome. But there
was no harshness or coldness about the bedside of the prosperous man.
They had all perfect faith in him, and no fear that he was going out of
the world leaving any thorns in their path. His words seemed to them as
dreams. Why should they think badly of him? What could they ever have to
forgive him? There had never been any mystery in the house, and it was
easier to think their father’s mind was affected by the approach of
death than to believe in any mystery now.
Mr. Renton died that night; and it was on a very sad and silent house
that the moon rose--the same moon which he had watched shining on
Laurie’s boat. Mrs. Renton, poor soul, shut herself up in her room,
taking refuge in illness, as had been her habit all her life, with Mary
nursing and weeping over her. Aunt Lydia, worn out with watching, went
to bed as soon as ‘all was over.’ The lads were left alone. They huddled
together in the library where all the shutters had been closed, and one
lamp alone burned dimly on the table. Only last night there had still
been floods of light and great windows open to the sky. They gathered
about the table together, not knowing what to do. Nothing could be done
that night. It was too soon to talk of plans, and of their altered life.
They could not read anything that would have amused their minds; that
would have been a sin against the proprieties of grief; so the poor
fellows gathered round the dim lamp, and tried to talk, with now and
then something that choked them climbing into their throats.
‘Have you any idea what he could mean by that,--about me,--about it
being hard?’ said Ben, resting his head on both his hands, and gazing
steadfastly with two dilated eyes into the light of the lamp.
‘I don’t think he could mean anything,’ said Laurie, ‘unless it was the
responsibility. What else could it be?’
‘There must always have been the responsibility,’ said Ben. ‘He spoke as
if it were something more.’
‘His mind was wandering,’ said Laurie; and then there was a long pause.
It was broken by Frank with a sudden outburst.
‘Ben, you’ll be awfully good to poor mamma,’ cried the boy; ‘she can’t
bear things as we can.’ The two elder ones held their breath tightly
when Frank’s sob disturbed the quiet;--they were too much men to sob
with him,--and yet there came that convulsive contraction of the throat.
The only thing to be done was to grasp each other’s hands silently, not
daring to look into each other’s faces, and to go to bed,--to take
refuge in darkness and solitude, and that soft oblivion of sleep,
universal asylum of humanity, to which one gains access so easily when
one is young! Stealthily, on tiptoe, each one of Mr. Renton’s sons paid
a secret visit to the dimly-lighted room, all shrouded and covered, with
faint puffs of night air stealing in like spirits through the shuttered
windows, where their father lay all quiet and at rest. True
tears,--genuine sorrow was in all their hearts; and yet----
As each went away with a heart strained and exhausted by the outburst of
grief, something of the new life beyond, something that breathed vaguely
across them in the dark, like the air from the window, filled the
impatient human souls within them. The one idea could not retain
undisturbed possession even so long as that. The world itself could no
more stand still, poising itself in its vast orbit, than the spirits of
its inhabitants. It was not that Ben thought of his new wealth, nor
Laurie of his future freedom; but only that a thrill of the future
passed through them, as they stood for this melancholy moment by the
death-bed of their past.
Five days passed thus, each of them as long as a year. Duty and
propriety kept the young men in-doors, in the languid stillness; or if
they went out at all, it was only for a disconsolate stroll through the
grounds, on which, sometimes singly, sometimes in pairs, they would set
out, saying little. The funeral relieved them from the painful
artificiality of this seclusion. When they met together after it, it was
with faces in which there was neither fear nor hope, that the sons of
the dead man appeared. Their father had always been just to them and
kind, and they had no reason to expect that he could have been otherwise
in the last act of his life. The persons present were Mrs. Renton, Mrs.
Westbury, her children Mary and Laurence, and the three Renton boys;
with the lawyer, Mr. Pounceby, and his clerk, and a few old friends of
the family, who had just accompanied them from the grave. They all took
their places without excitement. He might have left a few legacies, more
or less, but nobody could doubt what would be the disposal of his
principal property. The ladies sat together, a heap of mournful crape,
at one end of the room. The whole company was quiet, and languid, and
trustful. There was no anxiety in any one’s mind,--unless, indeed, it
was in that of Mr. Pounceby, who did not look to be at his ease. For the
first quarter of an hour he did nothing but clear his throat; then he
had a blind pulled up, that he might have a light to read by; then he
pulled it down, because of a gleam of the sun that stole in and worried
him. His task was such that he did not like to begin it, or to go
through it when begun. But with the obtuseness of people who have not
their attention directed to a subject, nobody noticed his confusion; he
had a cold, no doubt, which made him clear his throat;--he was always
fidgety;--they were not suspicious, and found nothing out.
‘I ought to explain first,’ said Mr. Pounceby, ‘I promised my excellent
friend and client,--my late excellent client,--to make a little
explanation before I read what must be a painful document, in some
points of view. Mr. Ben Renton, I believe your father was particularly
anxious that it should be explained to you. He sent for me suddenly last
week. It was, alas! only on Friday morning that I came here by his
desire. He wanted certain arrangements made. Boys,’ said Mr. Pounceby,
who was an old friend, turning round upon them, ‘I give you my solemn
word, had I known how little time he would have lived to think it over,
or change again, if necessary, I should never have had any hand in
it,--nor would he,--nor would he. Had he thought his time was running so
short, he would have made no change.’
Then there ensued a little movement among the boys, which showed how
correct their father’s opinion of all the three had been. Frank bent
forward with a little wonder in his face, poising in his fingers a
paper-knife he had picked up, and looked calmly on as a spectator;
Laurie only woke up as it were from another train of thought, and turned
his eyes with a certain mild regret towards the lawyer; Ben alone, moved
out of his composure, rose up and faced the man, who held, as it seemed,
their fate in his hands. ‘Whatever my father planned will no doubt be
satisfactory to us,’ he said firmly. ‘You forget that we are ignorant
what change was made.’
He began to read now, but to an audience much more interested than at
first. There was, of course, a long technical preamble, to which Ben
listened breathlessly, his lips slightly moving with impatience, and a
hot colour on his cheeks, and then the real matter in question came.
Mr. Pounceby shook his grizzled head, ‘It was a great change that was
made,’ he said; ‘but I will not waste your time with further
explanation. As you say, what your excellent father arranged, will, I
hope, be satisfactory to you all.
‘“Having been led much to think in recent days of the difference between
my sons’ education and my own, and having in addition a strong sense
that without energy no man ever made any mark in this world, I have made
up my mind, after much reflection, to postpone the distribution of my
property among my children until seven years from the date of my death.
In the meantime I appoint my executors to receive all my income and
revenue from whatsoever sources,--rents, interest on stock, mortgages,
and all other investments, as afterwards described,--and to hold them in
trust, accumulating at interest, until the seventh anniversary of my
death, when my first will and testament, which I have deposited in the
hands of Mr. Pounceby, shall be read, and my property distributed
according to the stipulations therein contained.
‘“It is also my desire, which I hereby request my said executors to
carry out, that my sons should receive respectively a yearly allowance
of two hundred pounds. I do this with the object of affording to my boys
the opportunity of working their own way, and developing their own
characters in a struggle with the world, such as every one of their
kindred from the earliest time has had to do, and has done, with a
success of which their own present position is a proof. If they shrink
from the trial I put upon them, they will be the first of their name who
have ever done so. As to the final distribution of the property, in
order that no untimely revelation may be made, I request my executors
to retain my will in their possession unopened until the day I have
mentioned,--the seventh anniversary of my decease.”’
Up to this moment all the audience had listened breathless, with a
mixture of wonder, dismay, and alarm, to this extraordinary document. It
is a mild statement of the case to say that it took them by surprise.
The boys themselves rose up one after the other to bear the shock which
came upon them so unexpectedly, and bore it like men, holding their
breath, and clenching their hands to give no outward expression. Ben was
the foremost of the three, and it was with him that the struggle was
hardest. His pride was wounded to the quick, and it was strong within
him. He was wounded, too, in his love and respect for his father, of
whose justice and goodness he had never for a moment till now
entertained a doubt. And then he was ruined,--so he thought. For the
first moment he was stunned by the blow. Seven years! Half a man’s
life,--half of the brightest part of his life,--the flower and cream of
his existence. By this time dreams had begun to steal into his heart
unawares,--dreams half inarticulate of the life which his father’s heir,
the reigning Renton of Renton, would naturally lead, tinged with all
tender regrets, and loyal to all memories, but still his own life,
master of himself and his lands and of the position his forefathers had
made for him. It was not possible that he should be unaware that few
young men in England would be better endowed, or have a better start in
the world than he. Everything was open to him,--a political career, if
he chose, the power of wealth, the thrill of independence, and all the
hopes of happiness which move a young man. Even while these visions
formed in his mind, they were struck by this sharp stroke of reality,
and faded away. He grew pale; the muscles tightened round his mouth; a
heavy damp came on his forehead. At one time the room reeled round with
him,--a mist of pale eager faces, through which that monotonous voice
rose. He was the foremost, and he did not see his brothers. He did not
even think of them, it must be confessed. The blow was hardest to him,
and he thought of himself.
When, however, the reading reached the point at which we have stopped,
Mrs. Westbury, forgetting herself, rose up, and rushed to the boys, with
a sudden burst of sobs. ‘Forgive me!’ she cried wildly. ‘Oh, boys,
forgive me! I will never, never forgive myself!’
At this interruption Mr. Pounceby stopped, and all the spectators turned
round surprised. Then nature appeared in the three young men. Ben made a
little imperative gesture with his hand, ‘Aunt Lydia, you can have
nothing to do with it,’ he said; ‘don’t interrupt us. We must not detain
our friends.’ Laurie, for his part, took her hand, and drew it through
his arm. ‘We can have nothing to forgive you,’ he said, compassionately
supporting her, having more insight than the rest. Frank, glad for his
boyish part to be relieved from this tension of interest by any
incident, went and fetched her a chair. ‘Hush!’ he said, as the sound of
her sobbing died into a half-terrified stillness. And thus they heard it
out to the end.
The interruption did them all good. It dispersed the haze of
bewilderment that had gathered round the young men. The dust of the
ruins falling round them might have blinded them but for this sudden
call back to themselves. When all was over, Ben had so far recovered
himself as to speak, though his tongue clove to the roof of his mouth.
‘We are much obliged to you all for joining us to-day,’ he said; ‘I am
sure you will excuse my mother, and indeed all of us. She is never very
strong. Mr. Pounceby, I know you are anxious to get back to town.’
‘But, Ben, my dear fellow,’ said one of the party, stepping forward and
grasping his hand, ‘stop a little. It is not any want of respect to your
excellent father,--but it must have been disease, you know. Such things
happen every day. You will not accept this extraordinary rigmarole. He
must have been out of his mind!’
‘We are quite satisfied with my father’s will; thanks,’ said Ben
proudly, though with a quiver of his lip, and he looked round for the
first time at his brothers. ‘Quite satisfied,’ said Laurie once more,
with that look of compassion which seemed uncalled for at the moment,
when he himself was one of the chief persons to be compassionated.
‘Quite satisfied,’ echoed Frank steadily, with wonder in his eyes. Then
Mr. Pounceby interposed.
‘Mr. Renton was of perfectly sound mind when he executed this document,’
he said. ‘I was with him nearly all day, and went through a great deal
of business. I never saw him more clear and business-like. On that point
nothing can be said.’
‘Nothing must be said on any point,’ said Ben quickly. ‘My brothers and
myself are satisfied. My father had a perfect right---- I would rather
not enter into the subject. We are much obliged to our friends all the
same.’
And thus all remark was peremptorily cut short. The neighbours
dispersed, carrying all over the country the news of poor Renton’s
extraordinary will; of how much he must have lost his head; and that Ben
and the other boys were Quixotic enough not to dispute it. It was
monomania, people said; and everybody knew that monomaniacs were sound
on all points but one. Before nightfall there had arisen a body of
evidence to prove that Mr. Renton had long been mad on this subject. One
man remembered something he had said on one occasion, and another man on
a second. He had been mad about his family; and the boys must be mad,
too, to bear it. These reports, however, did not break the stillness
which had fallen on the Manor,--a stillness almost more blank than that
of death. The sobs of two women, one weeping faintly over her boys’
disappointment, the other wildly in self-reproach, were the only sounds
that disturbed the calm of the house. The boys themselves were stunned,
and for that day, at least, had not the heart to say a word.
CHAPTER III.
THE NEW CAREER.
It was twenty-four hours before the brothers met to consult over their
darkened prospects. Their mother could kiss and weep over them, but she
was not the kind of woman to direct or guide her boys. Such faint idea
as she had in her mind was of a kind which would have entirely defeated
their father’s purpose. ‘Never mind, my darling boy,’ she had said
soothingly to her eldest son, though he was already a bearded man, with
the stern Renton lines of resolution about his mouth. The poor little
woman knew no better than to console him as if he had lost a toy. ‘We
can go on living at Renton all the same. I shall only have you so much
the longer. We shall only want a little more economy, my dear,’ she
said. ‘Perhaps that was what your dear papa meant. He knew how lonely I
would be. Why can’t we all live together as we have done? I have enough
for you all by my settlement, and I am to keep Renton; and when the
seven years are past, it will be quite time enough to think of marrying.
I should not be against you travelling----or anything, Ben, my dear
boy,’ the poor mother added faltering, seeing the sternness on his face.
‘No, mother dear,’ said her son. ‘No. What you have is for yourself. We
shall all come to see you; but we are not such mean creatures as to live
on you. Besides, that was not what he meant.’
‘Then what did he mean?’ said Mrs. Renton. ‘Oh, boys, that I should be
driven to blame your dear papa! What could he mean if it was not to keep
you a little longer with me?’
‘He meant to put us on our mettle,’ said Laurie; ‘and he was right. We
would be a set of sad lazy fellows if we stayed on here. We’ll come and
see you, mamma, as Ben says. Don’t cry. We none of us want to marry,
thank heaven!--at least,’ said Laurie, thoughtfully, ‘I hope so; that
complication is spared at least.’
‘Dear boys, it is so much better you should not marry too soon,’ said
Mrs. Renton, drying her soft eyes. ‘He must have been thinking of that.
Oh, believe me, Ben, my own boy, it will turn out all for the best.’
‘Yes, mother,’ said Ben, with the sigh of submission perforce, and he
went away with his own thoughts; Laurie followed him after a little
interval; and Frank, upon whom the shock had fallen more lightly, stayed
with his mother to amuse and cheer her. But they all met in the library
in the afternoon to have a consultation over their fate. They were
brothers in misfortune,--a bond almost as strong as that of nature. It
hurt their pride to go over the ground with any other creature, even
their mother, who could not refrain from a hundred suggestions as to
their father’s meaning. But among themselves they were safe, and could
speak freely, with the consciousness of having the same meaning, the
same impulse, the same pride. They never discussed the will, but
accepted it proudly, owing it to themselves, as their father’s sons, to
make no question. Already their hearts had risen a little from the blank
depression of the previous night. It was Frank who was the first to
speak.
‘I tell you what I shall do,’ he said with the rapid decision of youth.
Frank had never been thought clever, though he was reasonable and
high-spirited; and, consequently, the decision to him was a less
complicated business. ‘I shall exchange into the line, and go to India
if I can. More fun,’ said the young soldier, trying hard for his old
gaiety, though there was still the gleam of a tear in his eye, ‘and
better pay.’
‘Well, that is easily settled,’ said Laurie; ‘and I think very sensible
too. Only one thing we ought to think of. Whatever the others may decide
upon, let one of us always be at hand for the sake of my poor mother. He
always took such care of her. She wants to have one of us to refer to.
We might take it in turns, you know--’
‘All right,’ said Frank, to whom, if he carried out his own plan, such a
turn would be simply impossible; but the boy did not think of that. As
for Ben, he was very hard at work considering his own problem, and
knitting his brows.
‘We are like the three princes in the fairy tales,’ said Laurie, ‘sent
out to find,--what?--a shawl that will pass through a ring, or a little
dog in a nutshell. That was to decide which should reign, though. I hope
our probation does not include so much.’
‘I have made up my mind it does,’ said Ben, with a darker contraction of
his brows; ‘it would be unmeaning else. When the seven years are over we
shall be judged according to our works. It’s rather a startling
realisation, you know.’
‘Old fellow,’ said Laurie hastily, ‘of course I stand up for my father’s
will through thick and thin; but, will or no will, you know Frank and me
too well to think either of us would ever take your place.’
‘I should hope so,’ said young Frank, leaning half over the table in his
eagerness. ‘Ben can’t think us such cads as that.’
‘I don’t think you cads,’ said Ben; ‘but I shall stand by the will,
whatever it is. I’ll fight for my birthright, of course; but since we
are placed in this position, Laurie, it’s of no use talking. He that
wins must have. I shall stand by that.’
‘Well,’ said Laurence, ‘it is easy to tell which is most like to win; so
we need not dispute about it beforehand. The thing in the meantime
is,--what to do? I wonder how the fellow set to work who had the ten
talents. As for me, I am the unlucky soul with one. You need not say
psha! so impatiently. We have got into the midst of the parables, and
may as well take example----’
‘The question is,’ said Ben, ‘not what we have got into the midst of,
but what you mean to do?’
Laurie shrugged his shoulders. ‘It is a great deal easier to talk than
to do anything else,’ he said, ‘for me at least. I suppose I must take
to art. You need not tell me I have no genius,’ he added, with a slight
flush. ‘I know that well enough. But what else can I take to? Moralising
is not a trade; or at least if it is, it’s overstocked; and I can’t
moralise on paper. I must go in for illustrations and that sort of
thing. Undignified, perhaps, but how can I help it? There is nothing
else I can do.’
‘A fellow with a university education, and as good blood in his veins as
any in England,’ said Ben, with a little impatience, ‘might surely do
better than that.’
‘What good will my blood do me?’ said Laurie. ‘Get me a few invitations,
perhaps. And as for a university education,--I might take pupils, if I
had not forgotten most of what I’ve learned; or I might take orders; or
I might go and eat my terms at the Temple. And what would any of these
three things do for me? Fellows that have meant it all their lives
would, of course, do better than a fellow who never meant it till now.
No; I have a little taste for art, if I have not much talent. I might
turn picture-dealer, perhaps. Don’t look so black, Ben. A man must make
use of what faculty he has.’
After that there was a pause, for Laurie did not care to put the same
inquiry which he had just answered, to his elder brother. And Ben did
not volunteer any information about the part he meant to take. Ben could
not evaporate in talk, as Laurie could. He could not make up his mind to
his fate, and adapt himself to circumstances. Though his pride had
forbidden him any struggle against his father’s will, yet in his heart
he was embittered against his father. There was injustice in it. Of
course, he repeated to himself, fellows who had meant it all their lives
must do better than fellows who only began to mean it in necessity.
Laurie was right so far. And under this frightful disadvantage their
father, of his own will, had placed them. Frank had a profession, and
might be not much the worse. But Ben himself had been brought up to be
heir of Renton. His heart grew hard within him as he thought it all
over. It seemed to him that if he had known it from the beginning he
would not have cared. He would have gone in for anything,--what did it
matter?--professional work, or trade, or anything, so long as he started
fair, and had the same advantages as his neighbours. Now he must thrust
himself into something which was already full of legitimate competitors.
He sat and looked into the flame of the lamp, and took no notice of his
brothers. But their fate added an aggravation to his own. Frank was not
so bad; it made less difference to Frank than to any of them. An officer
in a marching regiment was as good a gentleman as a Guardsman. But
Laurie a poor artist, and himself he could not tell what! The thought
galled him to the heart.
‘And, Ben, what shall you do?’ said Frank. ‘We have told you, and you
ought to tell us. I don’t suppose you mean to stay on with mamma. What
shall you do?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Ben, with a sudden descent into the depths of
despondency. He had almost wept as he spoke. One had his profession, the
other at least a taste, if nothing more. Poor Ben, the first-born, had
no speciality. He might have been a political man, with a hand in the
government of his country, or he might have been a farmer, or he might
have gone to Calcutta, as Dick Westbury had done; whereas, now, at
five-and-twenty, he could not tell what to do.
‘Never mind, you’ll do the best of us all;--you were always the
cleverest of us all,’ said Frank, shocked at his brother’s dejected
looks; and then it flashed across them what their father had said, that
it would be most hard upon Ben.
‘It is you who have the ten talents,’ said Laurie, ‘and Frank has the
five; and you will go away one to your farm, and the other to your
merchandise,--isn’t that how the story runs?--while I am left with one
in my napkin. Or, if that is too serious for you, let’s take it on the
other side. But whatever you do, beware of the old woman whom we are all
sure to meet as we set out, who will ask us to help her, and give us
three gifts. I shall keep a very sharp look out for that old woman,’
said Laurie, breaking the spell of stillness, and getting up, ‘Laugh at
it? Yes, I am trying to laugh a little. Would you rather I should cry?’
he said, turning upon his brother, with tears glistening in his eyes. It
was a question which it would be. They were all at this point, standing
upon the alternative, between such poor laughter as might be possible
and bitter tears.
All this sad and wonderful overthrow had come from Mrs. Westbury’s
indiscreet taunts to her brother upon the up-bringing of his sons. If
that could have been any comfort to them, their Aunt Lydia was very
miserable. They had never allowed her to finish her confession, and her
heart was very sore over the injustice that had been done them. That
same night she stole to Ben’s door, and would have wept over him had
that been possible. She was not an unkind or hard-hearted woman. It had
been a kind of pleasure to her to contrast her nephews’ idleness with
the Renton traditions; but she was a true Renton, strong in her sense of
justice, and there was nothing she would not have done for them now.
‘Ben, let me speak to you,’ she said. ‘I did not mean it,--far from
that, heaven knows! I wish my tongue had been cut out first. I know it
would go against you to admit such a thing if any one else said it; but,
Ben, your father could not have been in his right senses. He never could
have done it, if he had known.’
‘It is a question I can’t discuss with you, Aunt Lydia,’ said Ben,
standing at the open door and barring her entrance. ‘I think you are
mistaken. I don’t think it could be anything you said.’
‘Ben, I know it!’ said Mrs. Westbury. ‘I could not be mistaken. Let me
come in, and I will tell you. It was done on Friday, and that
unfortunate conversation was on Thursday night. He was very snappish to
poor Laurie when we went back to the lawn;--but, oh, if I could have
known what was to follow it! Ben, I must come in and speak to you; I
have a great deal to say. You know, there is our Dick----’
‘Yes,’ said Ben. He had to let her in, though he did it with an ill
grace. He placed his easy-chair for her, and stood leaning against the
table, to hear what she had to say. He would not countenance or
encourage her to remain by sitting down, but stood with his candle in
his hand, a most unwilling host.
‘You are angry with me,’ said Aunt Lydia, ‘and you have reason. But what
I want to say is about Dick. If your father had made this move at the
right time, it is you who should have gone to Calcutta, Ben. You have
the best right. My boy only went, as it were, to fill your place; and he
ought to give it up to you now. Of course it was to my brother he owed
the appointment. I don’t say Dick should come home; but he has made some
money and some friends; and, I think he might do something for himself
still, in another way, instead of taking your place.’
‘It is nonsense to call it my place,’ said Ben.
‘I don’t think it is nonsense; for my part, I think of justice,’ said
Mrs. Westbury. ‘It would have been yours had you been sent off six or
seven years ago, as you ought to have been. Yes, I say as you ought to
have been, Ben, like all the Rentons. None of us were ever fine
gentlemen. The men always worked before they took their ease, and the
women always managed and saved in our house; but you should not be
turned out now, when you were not brought up to it. Ben, my brother was
very cross to me that Thursday night. It was not him, poor fellow, it
was illness that was working on him. He was not in his right mind; and
the will ought to be broken.’
‘I can’t have you say this,’ said Ben. ‘I can’t let anybody say it. Aunt
Lydia, we had better not discuss the question. We have all made up our
minds to my father’s will, such as it is.’
‘Then you are very foolish boys,’ said Mrs. Westbury; ‘when I, who would
stand up for him in reason or out of reason, tell you so! Your father’s
good name is of as much consequence to me as it is to you. There never
was a Renton like that before; but still if it was to stand in the way
of justice----! And about Dick. You ought to write to him at once, to
tell him he is to look out for something else for himself, and that you
mean to take your own place.’
‘I shall never go to Calcutta,’ said Ben shortly.
‘Then what will you do?’ said his aunt. ‘You can’t live on two hundred
a-year,--at least you were never meant to live on it,--you know that.
And you can’t live on your mother. Unless you are going out to India
what are you to do?’
‘I shall find something to do,’ said Ben briefly; and then he softened a
little. ‘I know you mean to be kind,’ he said. ‘I am sure you always
meant to be kind; but I can’t do any of the things you propose. I can
neither question my father’s will, nor live on my mother, nor turn out
Dick. Let him make the best of it. I should think he had got the worst
over now. And don’t blame yourself. I don’t think you were to blame.
There must have been some foundation to work on in my father’s
thoughts; and it is done; and I will never try to undo it. We must all
make the best of it now. Will you do one thing to please me, Aunt Lydia?
Let Mary be with my mother as much as you can spare her. She will feel
it when we are all gone.’
‘I will do anything you please,’ said Mrs. Westbury, melted to tears.
‘Oh, to think I should have done you so much harm, and be so powerless
to do you any good! But, Ben, you have not told me what you are going to
do?’
‘Because I don’t know,’ said Ben abruptly. He could not come to any
decision. His aunt left him reluctantly when they had reached this
point, thinking, notwithstanding her compunction, or perhaps in
consequence of it, that if his petition about Mary meant any special
regard for her, she would not hesitate to give him her child. ‘He will
make his way,’ she said to herself; ‘he will make his way.’ It was
because he was a little hard and stern in his downfall that she thought
so well of him; and her feelings were very different as she went
prowling through the passages in her dressing-gown to knock at Laurie’s
door. Poor Laurie! nobody entertained any such confidence about him.
When Mrs. Westbury paused at Laurie’s door he was seated with his head
buried in his hands before his table, on which lay the ruins, so to
speak, of various youthful hopes. Though he had said so confidently
that none of them wanted to marry, yet there were one or two notes on
the table before him, in a woman’s hand, which he had been looking over,
poor boy, with a certain tightening of his heart. And there were hopes
too of another kind; plans for travel, plans for such study as suited
his mind, which it had been his delight to form for some time past, and
which he had so little doubt of persuading his father to let him carry
out. His little maps and calculations lay before him, all huddled
together. That chapter of his life was over. He could smile at the
change when they were all together, to help the others to bear it; but
grief, and disappointment, and downfall, all fell upon him with
additional force when he was alone. His eyes were wet when he sprang up
at Aunt Lydia’s summons, and shouted a ‘Come in,’ which was as cheerful
as he could make it, sweeping his papers away as he did so into the open
drawer of his table. He thought it was one of his brothers, perhaps Ben,
come to get some comfort from his lighter heart. When Mrs. Westbury came
in he was taken aback, poor fellow; but Laurie was too tender-hearted to
be anything but kind to his aunt. He cast down a heap of books, which
were occupying the most comfortable seat in the room, and made a place
for her, glad to turn away his face for the moment and conceal the tears
in his eyes; but those tears would not be concealed. They kept springing
up again, though he kept them from falling; and though he smiled, and
began cheerfully, ‘Well, Aunt Lydia?’ there was a sufficiently
melancholy tone in both voice and face.
‘We shall be going away to-morrow, Laurie,’ said Mrs. Westbury, ‘and I
could not go without speaking to you. Oh, what a week this has been!
When I think that it was only last Thursday night----’
‘Don’t speak of it, please,’ said Laurie; ‘one has need of all one’s
strength. It is bad enough, but we must make the best of it. I wish you
were not going away. I thought Mary would stay with my mother. How is
she to get on when we are all gone?’
‘I might leave Mary for a little,’ said Mrs. Westbury, doubtfully; ‘and
then we shall be close by at the Cottage, where your mother can send for
us when she pleases. Ah, Laurie, if you had only had a sister of your
own!’
‘If we had only had a great many things!’ said Laurie, with an attempt
at a smile; ‘but, as for that, Mary is as good as a sister. I never knew
the difference. I think she is the best creature in the world.’
‘Yes,’ said Aunt Lydia, looking at him keenly, with an inspection very
different from her manner to Ben; ‘she is a good girl; but you always
used to quarrel, Laurie. I did not think she was so much to you.’
‘She always thought me a good-for-nothing fellow,’ said Laurie, with a
little laugh, ‘like most other people. I must show you now, if I can,
that I’ve got some mettle in me. But, Aunt Lydia, you have not come to
say good-bye?’
‘No,’ said Mrs. Westbury; and then she made a pause. ‘I can’t rest,
Laurie; I can’t keep quiet and see you all in trouble,--when it is my
fault!’
‘That is nonsense,’ said Laurence decidedly. ‘You may be quite sure it
had been turning over in his mind for some time; and quite right, too,’
the young man added bravely. ‘How could we ever have known what stuff we
were made of else? If there is any good in being a Renton, as you have
so often told us, now is the time for it to show.’
‘Oh, Laurie,’ said his aunt, weeping, ‘that is what breaks my heart.
‘You have not a chance now, with the up-bringing you have had, and your
poor mother’s soft ways,--not a chance! If my brother had only thought
in time. This will could never stand if it was brought into a court of
justice. He could not be in his right mind. Ben would not listen to me
when I said so; but I must speak to you.’
‘You shall speak to me as much as you like,’ said Laurie, with his
mother’s soft ways, ‘but not on that subject. It is sacred for us,
whatever other people may think. And, after all, you know,’ he said,
with a smile, ‘it is but for seven years. I shall only be about thirty
at the end of the trial;--quite a boy!’
‘Quite a boy!’ said Aunt Lydia, very seriously; ‘but still I can’t bear
it. And, Laurie, though you are the least like a Renton of any of them,
I have always been the fondest of you!’
‘Thanks, dear aunt,’ said the young man, and he kissed her, and led her
half resisting to her own room. ‘All this excitement and want of rest
will upset you,’ he said to her tenderly; ‘and, Aunt Lydia, don’t say
anything to Frank.’
Laurie went back to his musings and his papers when she had made him
this promise;--and Mrs. Westbury had a good cry over the whole miserable
business. ‘Upset me!’ she said to herself, ‘as if I was a woman like his
mother to be upset! Oh, if I could but do anything for these poor boys!’
But at the same time she was glad in her heart that Laurie thought of
Mary only as his sister. A mother has to consider everything; and that
could never have been,--though it was a different thing with Ben.
These preliminaries, being told, and the singular and unexpected nature
of this family crisis fully explained, the historian of the Renton
family feels justified in proceeding with this narrative of the fortunes
of the three boys, and their adventures in the big changed world, upon
which they were launched so abruptly. They all left the Manor together
on a sultry September day, just the day on which, under other
circumstances, they would have been off to shoot grouse or to climb Mont
Blanc. Their mourning prevented such invitations as even in their
changed fortune they would certainly have received, and the shock was
so fresh on all of them that pleasure-making of any kind would have been
impossible. They went out as if they had been put to sea, each man in
his own bark, with no very sure compass or chart to rely on, and with
minds braced high by resolution, but altogether unprepared for the
trial, and unaccustomed to the labour. Perhaps it was as well for them
that their ideas were so utterly vague and undefined touching the rocks
and shoals and dangerous passages that lay in their way.
CHAPTER IV.
THE ELDEST SON.
The young men separated when they left the Manor,--one to his farm, and
another to his merchandise, as Laurie said. It is our business at the
present moment to follow only the eldest. Ben went back to his chambers
in the Albany, his personal head-quarters, though he did not occupy them
for more than three months in the year. Though he was called Ben, his
name was the solemn family name of Benedict. It suited him better than
the contraction. He was one of those men who are in the way of taking
things very much in earnest,--too much in earnest, some people thought.
The fashion of the period had accustomed him to the light outward
appearance and pretence of general indifference common to his kind; but
in his heart he was not indifferent to anything. He had felt his
advantages keenly, taking all the more anxious care that no one should
suspect him of doing so; and he felt his downfall now, to the bottom of
his heart. He went back to London, which seemed the only place to go to
in the emergency. He had been on a pleasant visit at a pleasant house
when the call came to his father’s death-bed. Now, in September, when he
had not a friend remaining in town, he took his solitary way there, and
went to the handsome, forlorn rooms, the very rent of which would now
have swallowed up so great a part of his income. He went in listlessly,
amid all the tokens of his former life, almost hating the signs of a
luxury so far beyond his means. Ben had taste as well as Laurie, though
in a different way. His chambers were furnished daintily, as became a
man accustomed to spend as he pleased and spare nothing. It had always
been a comfort to Mr. Renton’s practical eye, that his son’s
knick-knacks were all knick-knacks of a thoroughly saleable
kind,--things which had a real value; and the same thought, as he
entered, brought a smile upon Ben’s face. ‘I shall make some money out
of the d----d trash,’ he said to himself bitterly, thrusting away with
his foot a little graceful guéridon, on which stood a Sèvres déjeûner
service. The toy tottered, and would have fallen, but that he put out
his hand by instinct to save it. Then,--if the reader will not despise
him for it,--it must be allowed that Ben sank down into a chair, and did
something equivalent to what a woman would have done had she cried. He
muttered ill things of himself under his breath,--he called himself a
confounded fool to risk by his ill-temper anything that might bring him
the money he stood so much in need of,--and then he covered his eyes
with his hands, and felt a sudden contraction in his throat. He had
nobody to appeal to, nobody to consult. He had the problem of life to
resolve for himself as he best could, and he had lost a father whom he
loved, not a week before. All these thoughts came over him as he went
into his old rooms, where all his favourite possessions were. Of course,
neither the rooms nor their ornaments could be retained. All that Ben
could pretend to now was of a much humbler description; but he would not
hand over to another even the pain of putting things in order, and
making ready for the final sacrifice. His servant would have to be given
up too. He had not the means of hiring help to do anything that he could
do for himself. Henceforward he would have to learn to do things for
himself, and here was the first thing to do.
It is true that he would have given up these same rooms without a pang
for various other reasons;--had he been going to take possession of the
house in Berkeley Square, which now, he supposed, would either be let or
shut up;--had he been going abroad, or, indeed, for almost any other
reasonable cause;--just as the people would do who break their hearts
over the hall, or rectory, or deceased father’s house, which they would
have abandoned joyfully a dozen times in as many years, had a pleasant
chance come in their way. It was the wreck of circumstance surrounding
this change which wounded Ben; the breaking up of all his habits, and
failure of everything he had been used to. When he had recovered himself
a little, he took a disconsolate stroll through the rooms, and reckoned
up what his things had cost him;--his pictures,--some of which were
copies picked up abroad, and some chef-d’œuvres of young artists at
home, which Laurie had persuaded him to give good prices for;--the
cabinets he had attained after unexampled efforts at Lady Bertram’s
sale,--his choice little collection of old Dresden,--even his pipes and
his whips, and a hundred other trifles, which, when he counted them up,
had cost heaps of money. Some of them, alas! were not even paid for,
which was the worst sting of all. Ben had been in debt before now, and
cared little enough, perhaps too little for it. He had felt the weight
of wealth behind him, and that he could pay his arrears without much
difficulty when he chose to make the effort. But now everything was
changed. It is only when debt becomes a necessity that it is a burden.
He felt it now, dragging him down, as it were staring into his face,
hemming him in. Debt for bits of china, and pretty follies of furniture!
And now, for aught he could tell, he might not have enough for daily
bread. To be sure, a man could not starve upon two hundred a-year; but
there are such different ways of starving. And his whole first year’s
income would not be nearly enough to pay off his rent, and his man, and
the expenses of the break-up, not to speak of tradesmen. Such
reflections were so novel to him that he sat down again in despair, with
his brain going round and round. He did not even know how to set about
being ruined. There was nobody in town likely to buy his pretty things
at this time of the year, or to take his rooms off his hands. He had
come up fully resolved to be sufficient to himself, to manage everything
himself, and to give no one the opportunity of pity or remark. But it
was less easy than he supposed. As for his servant, he had been with him
at the Manor, and had heard, or found out, or divined, as servants do,
something of what had happened, and was not unprepared for dismissal.
‘Yes, sir,’ he said, without hesitation, when his master spoke to him.
‘I hope it’s not that I don’t give satisfaction, sir: I’ve always done
my best.’
‘No, no,’ said Ben, with a young man’s unnecessary explanatoriness. ‘I
can’t afford now to keep anybody but myself. I am very sorry. It is not
that I have any objection to you.’
‘Yes, sir,’ said the man once more. ‘Of course it’s understood that
there’s board-wages, sir, if I’m sent away in a hurry before the end of
the month?’
‘Have what you like,’ said Ben, with a little indignation; ‘if that’s
all; give me a note exactly of what’s owing to you, and you can take
yourself off as soon as you like.’
‘Yes, sir; but it looks pecooliar being sent away so sudden,’ said the
fellow standing his ground. ‘Perhaps you would not mind just giving a
bit of an explanation to any gentleman as may come about my character. I
hope you consider I deserve a good character, sir. Gentlemen, and
‘specially ladies, is very apt to ask, “How was it as you was turned
away?”’
‘You may go now,’ said Ben, coldly. ‘I have nothing more to say to you.
I’ll give you your money as soon as you’re ready to go.’
‘But my character, sir?’ insisted the man. Ben, in his wrath, seized his
hat and went off, leaving Morris holding the door open with these words
on his lips. He was unreasonably angry in spite of his better judgment.
The very first man he had spoken to after his downfall was so entirely
indifferent to his concerns, so wrapped up in his own! What were
Morris’s board-wages or miserable character in comparison to Ben’s
overthrow and changed existence? He went out angry--in a passion, as
Morris said not without reason. Naturally the man had his own theory of
the whole matter, and held it for certain that his master had been going
to the bad, or why should his father disinherit him?--to which question,
indeed, it was difficult to make any answer. Ben’s next errand was to a
fashionable auctioneer and house-agent, who was very civil, and yet very
different from what he had been when the young man of fashion took his
rooms. ‘Going abroad, sir?’ Mr. Robins said, with a certain scrutiny
which made the young fellow, for the first time in his life, feel
himself a doubtful character, required to give an account of himself.
‘Perhaps. I can’t say,’ he answered; ‘but these rooms have become too
expensive for me, anyhow, and I want to sell my things.’
‘The worst possible time to do it,’ said the auctioneer, shaking his
head. ‘There is not a soul in town, sir, as you know as well as I do.
Even in our humble way, we are going to the country ourselves. They
would not fetch a third of their proper price now.’
‘But I want the money,’ said Ben; ‘and I can’t keep up the place. I must
get rid of them now.’
‘I can take your orders, of course, sir,’ said Mr. Robins,
deprecatingly; ‘but it will be at a frightful sacrifice. Nobody but
dealers will look at them now,--and we all know what dealers are. Buy in
the cheapest market and sell in the dearest,--a fine maxim, sir, for
trade; but ruinous for fancy articles, when you have to push them to a
sale, and there’s nobody to buy.’
‘I can’t help myself,’ said Ben, abruptly. He had almost said, ‘What
would you advise me to do?’ But his mind was in such a restless state,
that the pendulum had veered back again to its first throb of obstinacy
ere he could say the other words. And the orders were taken accordingly.
Then he went to his club with the listlessness of a man who does not
know what to do. What was he to do? Supposing he could make his club his
home, with a bedroom somewhere to sleep in, and the Manor and his
friends to fall back upon--would that do? Probably he could manage it,
even on his small income, by dint of economy,--that unknown quality to
which ignorance gave a certain appearance of facility. With no servant,
no expensive habits, no entertainment of friends, he might be able to
manage. This was what some one of his spiritual enemies whispered in
Ben’s ear. The next moment he jumped up and began to walk about the long
vacant room,--of which at the moment he was the sole occupant,--with
sudden agitation. His idle, pleasant life had come natural to him in the
past; but already, though so little time had elapsed, it was no longer
natural. To spend seven years of his existence planning how to save
shillings and keep up appearances,--to live, he a young man at the
height of his strength and powers, the life of a genteel old maid! That
was impossible. A day-labourer would be better, he said to himself. But
it is so easy to say that. He knew well enough that he could not be a
day-labourer; and what could he be?
He had come thus far in his uncomfortable thoughts when somebody struck
him familiarly on the shoulder, with an exclamation of surprise. ‘You
here!’ said the new-comer. ‘You in London when there is nobody in it,
Ben Renton! You are the last fellow I expected to see.’
‘What, Hillyard!’ said Ben, though his cordiality was languid in
comparison. ‘Back so soon? Have you made your fortune already?’ And as
he spoke it occurred to him that going to Australia must be the thing to
do.
‘Not much of that,’ said his friend, who was very brown and very hairy,
and in clothes that would not bear examination. ‘That is easier said
than done. I have spent all I had, which comes to about the same thing;
and now I’ve come back to try my luck at home,--my ill-luck, I should
say.’
‘Then it is no good going to Australia,’ was the thought that passed,
rapid as the light, through Ben’s mind. ‘But I thought all sorts of
people made fortunes at the diggings, or in the bush, or whatever you
call it,’ was what he said.
‘Yes, that’s how one deceives one’s self,’ said the adventurer. ‘One
throws everything together in a lump, and one thinks it’s all right;
whereas it’s all wrong, you know. If I had been brought up to be a
shepherd, I might have got on in the bush; and if I had been brought up
a bricklayer’s labourer, I might have succeeded at the diggings; but I
was not, you see. And even in these elevated branches of industry the
requirements are quite different. Let us have some dinner, Renton. It’s
great luck to find any one to hob-and-nob with, especially such a fellow
as you.’
‘Dinner!’ said Ben amazed, looking at his watch. ‘Why, it’s only three
o’clock.’
Upon which Mr. Hillyard burst into a great laugh. ‘I forgot I was back
in civilisation,’ he said; ‘but I must have something to eat, whatever
you call it. Yes, here I am, no better than when I went away. I believe
it’s all luck, after all. Some fellows get on like a house on fire. Some
are thankful for bread and cheese all their lives. Some, if they work
themselves sick, don’t get that. What’s the good of making one’s self
miserable?--it’s all fate.’
‘I suppose one must live, however, in spite of fate,’ said Ben, not
caring much what were the first words that came to his lips, nor with
any positive meaning in what he said.
‘Oh, I never was one of your tragical heroes,’ said Hillyard; ‘better
luck next time is always my motto; though, mind you, I’m not so sure
that one is bound to live in spite of everything. I don’t see the
necessity. If there’s anything better to go to, why shouldn’t one have a
try for it? And if there isn’t, what does it matter? It’s a man’s own
responsibility. If he likes to face it, let him, and don’t abuse the
poor devil as if he were a pickpocket. Why, there was a fellow the other
day,--and, by the way, I am taking his things home to his mother, which
is a nice commission,--who squared off his fate with a bullet, by my
side. I must say, I can’t blame him for one. Things could not well be
worse up there,’ said this savage philosopher, waving his hand vaguely
towards the roof, ‘than they were down below. But this is a queer sort
of talk when one has just come home, and to a favourite of fortune like
you.’
‘I am not much of a favourite of fortune just now,’ said Ben, with a
certain longing for human sympathy. ‘But I’ll tell you about that
afterwards. Now you have come home, are you going to stay in town, or
what do you mean to do?’
The question was asked not quite in good faith, for it glided vaguely
across Ben’s mind that the plans of a man who had long lived on his wits
might suggest something for his own aid; and the answer was not more
ingenuous, for it naturally occurred to Hillyard that his friend, who
had the liberal hospitality of a great country-house to fall back on,
and the probability of a shooting-box somewhere of his own, might intend
to offer him an invitation, and so bridge over some portion of those
autumn months, which were of so little use to a man who is looking for
something to do.
‘I shall get along, I suppose, in the old way,’ he said, shrugging his
shoulders. ‘I’ll serve up my Australian experiences for the papers,
perhaps; or do them philosophically, with all their chances and dangers
for intending emigrants, for the “Monthly,” if I can get hold of
Rathbone; or go in as a coach. I flatter myself I could give the
Colonial Secretary a hint or two if I could get at him. A little tall
talk hurts no one. The fact is, I don’t know what I am going to be
about,’ he added with a sigh. ‘Living on one’s wits is hard work
enough. I have kept up nothing of old days except the club, which is
always a kind of haven; though, I daresay, that sounds strange to you.’
‘Not now,’ said Ben, with a contraction in his throat. ‘I am as poor as
you, and more helpless. I rather think I am good for nothing. I suppose
I shall get used to it in time, but it’s not a pleasant feeling as yet.’
And then he told his companion all with a curious effusion, which did
not surprise Hillyard more than it did himself. He had resolved to say
nothing to anyone,--to lock up his troubles in his own breast, and seek
no advice even from his oldest friends; and here he was unbosoming
himself to the first-comer,--a man whom he had not seen for two years,
and who was by no means one of his close friends. He was not aware, poor
fellow, what necessity of nature it was that moved him. He justified
himself afterwards by the reflection that Hillyard was, so to speak, a
stranger and safe confidant,--that there was nobody in town to whom he
could repeat it,--that he was a brother in misfortune, shifty and full
of expedients, and might help him. But all these were after-thoughts.
His real impulse was the mere instinct of nature to relieve himself from
the secret pressure of a burden which was more than his unaccustomed
shoulders could bear.
Hillyard was much amazed and mystified by the strange tale, and could
with difficulty be brought to believe it. But he was very sympathetic
and consolatory when his first incredulity was got over. ‘After all,
it’s only for seven years,’ he said; ‘that is not so very much in a
life. If I knew I should come into a good estate at forty,--ay, or at
fifty,--I shouldn’t mind the struggle now; and you will be only a little
over thirty. It’s nothing,--it’s absolutely nothing. You’re down just
now, and taken by surprise, and out of spirits with what’s happened, and
all that. But things will look better presently. You think it’s hard to
struggle and work, and never know where you’re to get to-morrow’s
dinner,’ said the adventurer, with a certain light kindling in his eyes;
‘but sometimes it gives a wonderful relish to life. You enjoy the dinner
all the better. It’s more exciting than fox-hunting, or even
elephant-hunting; and what does a fellow want in life but lots of
excitement and movement and stir? As long,’ he added, after a pause, ‘as
your strength lasts, and your mind, and your spirit, it is all very
well. I don’t care for tame well-being, with no risks in it. It will be
nothing but fun for you.’
‘I don’t see the fun,’ said Ben; but certainly the dark clouds over him
were moved by the suggestion. ‘And I have not your knowledge or
resources. Absolutely, if you’ll believe me, I have not an idea what to
do.’
‘So I should think,’ said Hillyard. ‘It would be odd if you had, plunged
into it like this, without a moment’s notice. Lie on your oars, my dear
fellow, for a day or two, and come about with me. We may hit on
something, you know; and, at all events, a few days’ waiting can do you
no harm.’
By this time his meal had been served to him, and its arrival
interrupted the talk. Ben rose and walked away to a distant window,
already feeling some qualms of self-disgust at what he had done. As he
stood looking out upon the flood of human beings, each absorbed in his
own interests, he felt, perhaps for the first time in his life, how
utterly unimportant to the world was his individual comfort, or that of
any one mortal creature. He was no more to the crowd, not so much, as
one drop of perfume or of bitterness would be to the pleasant Thames as
it floated past his father’s house,--not near so much. The sea would be
a juster emblem,--that sea which swallowed up rivers and showed no
increase, which threw forth its lavish atoms to the air and knew no
diminution. He had been an important personage up to this moment, even
in his own opinion, though he had always known theoretically the
insignificance of the individual. But he knew it now with a certainty
beyond theory. When Hillyard and he were driven against the rocks, who
would know the difference or be any the wiser? He who a month ago would
have compassionately taken Hillyard home with him, to give him a little
time to consider, was now, under the adventurer’s guidance, a more
hopeless adventurer than Hillyard. Ben’s thoughts were not pleasant as
he stood and looked out, watching the stream,--deep, no doubt, with
human passion, sorrow, and perplexity, but so inexpressive on the
surface,--which kept flowing on like water, as perennial and unbroken.
His own life flitted before him like a dream as he stood looking
out,--so useless, and luxurious, and free; so care-laden and overwhelmed
by storms; so vague and doubtful in the future. Had he even known what
would await him in the end his fate would have been less hard. Perhaps
his very efforts to work out the time of his probation might secure the
loss of his birthright. He might find that he worked the wrong way, that
he had missed the end, even after his best exertions. A funeral
procession was making its way at the moment up the busy street, to which
it gave so strange a moral. And Ben turned away his head and sat down,
sickened by the sight of the slow hearse with its waving plumes. To
think he should have been defrauded even of his natural grief, even of
the softening of his heart, which should have come over his father’s
grave! Was the inmate of that other coffin leaving a wrong behind him,
casting a stone with his dead hands to crush his children? This, no
doubt, was a harsh way of taking his trouble; but there are men to whom
all crosses come harshly, and Ben Renton was one of them. Hillyard,
satisfied and comfortable, with a slight flush of bodily well-being on
his face, came up to him as he mused, with a glass of sherry in his
hand.
‘Not bad wine,’ he said, with a sigh of comfort, ‘and not a bad dinner,
I can tell you, to a man fresh from the backwoods. Ben, I’ve got a
wretched thing to do, and I want you to go with me. You’re out of
spirits, at any rate, and it will do you no harm.’
‘What is it?’ said Ben.
‘I am going to see the mother of the poor fellow I told you of. She’s a
widow living somewhere about Manchester Square. I rather think he was
the only son. He made a mull of it at some of those confounded
examinations, and rushed out to Australia in despair; and all went wrong
with him there, and he squared it off, as I told you. I have to take her
some of his things. You look more like the kind of thing, with your
black clothes and your grave face, than I do. Stand by me, Ben, and I’ll
stand by you.’
‘As you please,’ said Ben, languidly. Already the familiarity of his
new-old friend jarred on him a little. But he did not care what he did
at that moment; he did not much care even what became of him. He had
nothing to do and nobody to see. It was as easy to go to Manchester
Square as anywhere else, though the locality was not delectable. He
suffered Hillyard to take his arm and draw him along, without much
interest one way or another, not seeing how his compliance with such a
trifling request could particularly affect even the hour of time which
it occupied, much less his character or his life.
CHAPTER V.
THE MAGICIAN’S CAVE.
The address was Guildford Street, Manchester Square, a narrow, dingy,
very respectable street, with a good many public-houses in it, and
livery stables under three or four different archways, where the genteel
population round about got their ‘flys.’ The houses were tall and rather
decayed, with smoky remains of the flowers which had been kept fresh and
bright in the season lingering in their narrow little balconies, and no
small amount of cards hung up in the windows announcing lodgings to let.
It occurred to Ben as he walked listlessly through it that here was a
place which would be more suitable to his fallen fortunes than the
Albany; but the thought was inarticulate, and took no form. There was
even a similar ticket in the ground-floor window of No. 10, where Mrs.
Tracy lived, and where they were immediately admitted and conducted to
the drawing-room. Ben followed his friend mechanically into the dingy
room, with three long windows glimmering down to the faded carpet,
commanding a view of the opposite livery stable, from which one
inevitable fly was creeping slowly out under the archway. This
particular vehicle was drawn by an old white horse, and it was that spot
of white upon the dim foreground, and the white cotton gloves of the
driver, that caught Ben’s eye as he went in. He was so little interested
that he scarcely noticed anything in the room. It was a disagreeable
business. He had come listlessly because he had been asked. But though
he had heard the story of the widow’s son it had not touched him.
Perhaps he was not very tender-hearted by nature; perhaps it was because
he was absorbed in his own affairs. But certainly when he saw a tall
figure in black rise from the small room behind and make a step forward
to meet his friend, Ben woke up with a little start to realise the fact
that he was thrusting himself in, without any call, to be a spectator of
what might be a tragical scene. He stopped short and grew red with the
embarrassment of a well-bred man suddenly placed in a position where he
is one too many; and, notwithstanding Hillyard’s almost nervous glance
back at him and appeal for support, might have made his way out again
had not his course been suddenly arrested by another figure in intense
mourning, which rose from a low seat by the vacant window. It was
getting late in the afternoon, and twilight begins soon in a narrow
London street; besides which the blinds were half down, the curtains
hanging over the long narrow windows, and such light as there was
falling on the floor. For this reason the lady at the window had been
seated on a very low chair against the wall, to secure all the light she
could for the work in her hand. She rose up facing Ben as the other
faced his friend, rising slowly from the long sweep of black drapery
which had lain coiled round her on the carpet, and suddenly flashing
upon the young man, out of the shadows, with such a face as he had never
in all his life seen before. She gave him a hurried glance from head to
foot, taking in every detail of his appearance, and settling in a second
what manner of man he was; and then she pointed to a chair, with a soft
murmur of invitation to him to seat himself. He obeyed her, not knowing
why. His brain began to whirl. The long window bound with its high,
narrow, smoky rail of balcony; the faded curtains hanging over and
darkening the room; the pale light below upon the carpet, and the figure
which sank slowly down once more with its black dress in waves on the
floor; the white hands joined with some white work between them; the
face against that dusky background,--was it true that he had never seen
them all till that moment, or had they been there waiting for him,
attending this moment all his life?
Ben Renton had been a great deal in society, and had seen beautiful
women in his day; and he knew quantities of pretty girls, and had
fancied himself a little in love with some of them also in his time.
But something, perhaps, in the surrounding made this woman different
from anything he had ever seen. She was very tall, almost as tall as
himself. She was pale, with none of that adventitious charm of colour
which often stands in the place of beauty. Her hair was dark, without
any gleams in it. The only colour about her was in her eyes, which were
blue, like a winter sky,--blue of the sweetest and purest tone, shining
out under her dark hair from her pale, beautiful face, from the shadow
and the darkness, like a bit of heaven itself. Ben sat down and looked
at her, struck dumb, in a kind of stupor. What had he to do with this
wonderfully beautiful, silent creature? Who was she? How came she here?
How did it come about that he sat by her, having no right to such an
acquaintance, struck dumb, like a man in a dream? He looked on stupidly,
and saw the other lady sink down and cover her face with her hands as
Hillyard delivered his melancholy commission. Of course it was
Hillyard’s duty to do so, and even to remain with them while the
daughter rose noiselessly and went to her mother, bending over her,
turning her beautiful pale face appealingly to the strangers, with the
blue eyes full of tears. With all this strange scene his companion had a
certain connexion by right of his errand; but why was Ben Renton there,
or what could it ever be to him?
And yet she came back to the seat by the window, and Ben, looking on,
saw the tears fall upon her white hands and white work, and met in his
turn the same wistful look. ‘Were you there too?’ she said with a little
sob. He was ashamed of himself to say no; but perhaps because her heart
was full of her dead brother she gave no sign that she thought his
presence was intrusive. She put her handkerchief to her eyes, and then
she looked into his face again. ‘It is very, very hard for poor mamma,’
she said, in the softest, lowly-whispering voice. ‘Her only son! She was
so proud of him. She always hoped he would do so well; and papa died so
long ago, and we had no one else to look to. It is so hard upon mamma!’
‘She has you,’ said Ben, wildly, feeling that some reply was looked for,
and not knowing what he said.
‘Ah! yes; but I am only a girl. I can love her, but what more can I do?’
said this celestial creature with piteous looks. Ben’s brain went round
and round. He was in some enchanted place, some magician’s castle. What
had he to do there, listening to these soft plaints, receiving those
looks which would have melted a heart of stone? In his amaze he turned
half round to his friend, who alone gave him any title to be present,
and his appeal was not in vain.
‘I came home only this morning,’ said Hillyard, ‘and, of course, the
first thing I thought of was to discharge my sad commission. My friend,
Mr. Renton, came with me, as he knows better how things go on here than
I do. If we could be of any use----’
Ben had got up and bowed in his embarrassment. He was overcome, he
thought, with pity, certainly with another and stronger sentiment. ‘If
there is anything I can do--?’ he said eagerly. As he spoke the mother
raised her head and shot him through and through with a sudden glance of
her eyes,--eyes which must once have been soft like her daughter’s, but
which had grown keen, clear, and cold, instead of soft--with a hungry
look in them. But how can you criticise a woman in such circumstances?
They might be puckered up with grief; it might be the anguish of
Rachel’s weeping that looked through them. She said, ‘It is very kind,’
looking at them both, contrasting as it were the two together; and then
with a certain abruptness, ‘What was it you were saying to me about some
Rentons, Millicent?’ she asked.
‘You know, mamma,’ said the daughter, ‘Thornycroft, where I was at
school, was close to the Manor, and Mary Westbury was always talking of
her cousins. But perhaps this gentleman----’
‘Yes; I am one of Mary Westbury’s cousins,’ said Ben, with a throb of
delight; and then he paused, thinking what else he could say to
ingratiate himself. ‘I am the eldest;--Ben,’ he added, with heightened
colour;--and mother and daughter both looked at him with an interest
which they did not attempt to disguise.
‘I have heard so often of Ben,’ said Miss Tracy, with a soft, little
laugh. The sound of his own name so softly uttered completed the young
man’s bewilderment. He forgot how soon that laugh had followed on the
tears, and how entirely the mother and daughter had both thrown
themselves into the new subject. As for Hillyard, he sat between the two
with a puzzled expression on his face. Nobody took any notice of him
after the telling of his story. His friend who had the cachet of the
latest civilisation on him, who was a Renton of Renton, the eldest son,
was a very different person from an adventurer out of the bush. Mrs.
Tracy herself came forward from the little back drawing-room where she
had been sitting, and took a chair near the new object of interest. She
was a handsome woman still for her age, and showed traces of having been
like her daughter. She had the same clear, fine features; the same dark
hair, still unchanged in colour; the same height and drooping grace of
form. But her eyes, instead of being soft and dewy, were hard and keen;
her lips were thin, and the muscles all tightened about them. Her hands
were thin and long, and looked as if they could grasp and hold fast.
‘The daughter will grow like the mother, and I’d trust neither of them,’
Hillyard said to himself; but there might be a certain spite in it, for
they showed no interest in him.
‘It is very kind of you to come,’ said the widow, leaving it undecided
whom she was addressing, but looking at Ben. ‘Though it is three months
since I first heard of my dear boy’s death, this visit brings it all
back. He was my only son; and oh! what hopes are buried with him, Mr.
Renton! I thought that it was he that would have restored us to our
natural place in the world. My Millicent was not born to live in a back
street opposite livery stables. I expected everything from her brother.
Man proposes, but God disposes. I cannot tell you what heaps of money I
spent on him getting him ready for that examination; and yet it all came
to nothing:--and now he is gone!’
‘Dear mamma, we must not strive against Providence,’ said Millicent,
putting her handkerchief lightly to her eyes.
‘No, my dear,’ said her mother; ‘but if it was to be, I might have been
spared all that waste of money,--when we are so ill able to afford it.
Providence knows best, to be sure; but still, when it was to be, it
might have been so arranged that I should have saved that. You will
think it strange of me to say so; but my thought by night and by day is,
what will my child do when I die?’
‘Dear mamma, don’t say any more,’ said Millicent again. ‘I never grudged
anything that was for poor Fitzgerald’s advantage; and I am sure,
neither did you.’
‘Not if it had been for his advantage,’ said Mrs. Tracy, gloomily; ‘but
you know how he broke down in his examination, poor fellow. I don’t
want to blame Providence,--but still I might have been spared that.’
‘Perhaps, Ben, we had better go,’ said Hillyard. ‘We are only intruding
upon painful recollections. He was heartbroken, poor fellow. He never
could forget what you had spent upon him, and that he made so little
return. Ben, I think we should go.’
‘No; he never made any return,’ said Mrs. Tracy. ‘When one spends so
much on one child without a return, one feels that one has been unjust
to the rest. We are not very lively people; but I hope you will not
hurry away. It was so very good of you to come. Millicent, ring for some
tea. I shall be very glad to see both of you if you like to come to us
sometimes of an evening. It is a very dull time of year to be in town.
My poor boy has made it impossible for me to take Millicent to the sea
this year; and if you are going to be in town, Mr. Renton, as you and
she are almost old friends, I shall be very glad to see you; and you
too, Mr. Hillyard,’ she added, turning half round to him. Hillyard
muttered ‘By Jove!’ to himself, under his breath. But as for Ben, so
suddenly and enthusiastically received into the bosom of the family, his
eyes brightened, and his face crimsoned over with pleasure.
‘I shall be in town all the rest of the year,’ he said; ‘indeed, I am
looking for rooms in this neighbourhood. I have something to do,--that
is,--I shall want to be near Manchester Square. I shall be too glad, if
you will let me, to come now and then. I must write to Mary and tell her
what her relationship has gained me,’ said Ben, with a glow of
satisfaction; while Hillyard looked on sardonic, probably because he had
been asked, ‘too,’ as Ben’s appendage, which was a curious reversal of
affairs.
‘How is dear Mary?’ said Miss Tracy; ‘and where is she just now? I dare
say going on a round of nice visits,’ she added, with a soft sigh; ‘her
circumstances are so different from ours.’
‘She was with my mother when I left home,’ said Ben, his face clouding
over. ‘She will not have many visits this year, poor girl. My mother is
very fond of her, which is a great comfort to us all just now.’
Millicent Tracy looked at him with her blue eyes, which seemed ready to
overflow with soft tears; and Ben, who had the calm consciousness,
common to great people, that everybody must ‘know what had happened,’
felt her sympathy go to his heart. But as it chanced she had not the
least idea what had happened. The ladies had not had their ‘Times’ the
day on which Mr. Renton’s death was announced, or else they had been
interrupted by visitors, or some accident had happened to the
supplement; but, anyhow, they were in ignorance of that event. It was
sufficiently clear, however, that something had come upon the Renton
family to call for sympathy, and sympathy accordingly shone sweetly out
of Millicent’s eyes. As for Mrs. Tracy, her attention was turned to more
practical matters.
‘The ground-floor here is to let,’ she said. ‘I can’t suppose it would
be good enough for you, Mr. Renton; but still, if you had any particular
reason for being in this neighbourhood,--the people of the house are
honest sort of people. There is a parlour and a bedroom, quite quiet and
respectable. And if we could be of any use----’
‘A thousand thanks,’ said Ben. He was very reluctant to leave the
paradise on which he had thus suddenly stumbled, but Hillyard, the
neglected one, had got up and stood waiting for him. ‘I shall look at
them as I go down-stairs.’
And then Millicent gave him her soft hand. ‘I have known Mary’s cousin
for years,’ she said, smiling at him, with a little blush and half
apology. It was as if an angel had apologised for entering a mortal
household unawares. Ben went down the narrow staircase dazed and giddy,
treading, not on the poor worn carpets, but on some celestial path of
flowers. He looked at the low, melancholy room below clothed in black
haircloth, and veiled with curtains of darkling red, and thought it a
bower of bliss. Something, however, restrained him from securing this
paradise while Hillyard was still with him. He whispered to the eager
landlady that he would return and settle with her, and went out into
the street a different being. It looked a different street, transfigured
somehow. The old white horse and the rusty carriage, and the man in
white cotton gloves, with his pretence at livery, stood before a house,
a little farther down; and it seemed to Ben an equipage for the gods.
Everything was changed. The only thing that troubled him was that
Hillyard took his arm once more, as if supposing he meant to be dragged
back to that wretched club.
‘It is easy to see I am not a swell like you,’ said Hillyard. ‘I never
pretended I was; but I had no idea it was written on my face so plainly
till I read it in that old woman’s eyes.’
‘She is not exactly an old woman,’ said Ben, making an effort to get
free of his companion’s arm.
‘Oh dear, no; not at all!’ said Hillyard. ‘But if the daughter is,--say
five-and-twenty----’
‘I should say eighteen,’ said Ben.
‘Oh, by Jove! that’s going too fast,’ cried his companion; ‘though I
can’t wonder, considering the dead set they made at you. That girl is
stunning, Ben; but she thinks you’re the heir of all your father’s
property, and have the Manor at your command. Mind what you’re after if
you go there again. The old woman is as crafty as an old fox, and as for
the young one----’
‘Look here, Hillyard,’ said Ben, hotly. ‘I am introduced to this family
not by you, but by my cousin Mary. If it had been you, of course you
might say what you like of your own friends; but I consider they are
Mary Westbury’s friends, and I can’t have you speak of them in such a
tone,--for my cousin’s sake.’
‘Ah! I see,’ said Hillyard, ironically. ‘But poor Tracy was my friend,
not Miss Westbury’s, and I suppose I may talk of him if I like. It was
the mother that drove him to it, Ben. Don’t you think it’s my line to
speak ill of women. I’ve a dear little mother myself, thank God; and a
little sister as sweet as a daisy,--and about as poor,’ the adventurer
added, with a sigh; ‘but I hate that kind of woman. You may growl if you
please. I do. After he broke down in his examination she never gave him
a moment’s peace. She kept writing to him for money, and upbraiding him
for having none to send her, when the poor wretch could not earn bread
for himself. That much I know;--and you heard how she spoke of him. If
you have anything to do with these two women you will come to grief.’
‘If every woman who has a good-for-nothing son or brother was to be
judged as harshly----’ said Ben, making an effort to keep his temper.
Hillyard turned round upon him with a hoarse exclamation of anger.
‘He was not a good-for-nothing, by----!’ he cried. ‘You know nothing
about him. You call a man names in his grave, poor fellow, because a
girl has got a pair of pretty blue eyes.’
‘It appears to me that our road is no longer the same,’ said Ben, with
the superiority of temper and good manners. ‘I am going to my rooms, and
you, I suppose, are going back to the club. I daresay we shall meet
there shortly, as we are the only men in town. Good morning, just now.’
And thus they parted almost as suddenly as they met. Ben went into the
Park, and composed himself with a long walk, at first with a pretence of
making his way to his rooms, as he had said. He went across almost to
the gate, and then he turned and made a circuit back again. He wanted
cheap lodgings, that was evident,--and then!--The truth was that his
mind was swept and garnished, emptied of all the traditions, and
occupations, and hopes of his previous life. All had ended for him as by
a sudden deluge, and the chambers stood open for the first inhabitant
that had force enough to enter. Was it love that had burst in like an
armed man? A certain sweet agitation took possession of his whole being.
His agitation had been bitter enough in the morning, when he took the
account of all those dead household gods of his, from which no comfort
came; or rather it had been a kind of bitter calm,--death after a
fashion. Now life had rushed back and tingled in all his veins. The
world was no more a desert, but full of unknown beauty and wonder. Since
his first step out of the familiar ways had taught him so much, what
might not his further progress reveal? Might it not be, after all, that
his deliverance from the conventional round was the opening of a new,
and fresh, and glorious existence? Would not he be as free in Guildford
Street, Manchester Square, as in the backwoods,--as undisturbed by
impertinent observation? What were the buhl cabinets and the old Dresden
in comparison with horsehair, and mahogany, and Millicent Tracy’s blue
eyes up-stairs? He tried to consider the matter calmly without reference
to those eyes, and he thought he succeeded in doing so. He reminded
himself with elaborate, almost judicial, calm that he had but two
hundred pounds a-year; that he could not afford to live at the Albany
any longer; that cheap lodgings were necessary to him, not altogether
out of reach of the world, but beyond the inspection of curious
acquaintances. Under these circumstances the adaptation to all his wants
of the ground-floor at No. 10 was almost miraculous. It was
Providential. Ben had not been in the habit of using that word as some
people do; but yet he felt that in the present remarkable circumstances
the use of it was justifiable. Something beyond ordinary chance must
have guided him in his ignorance to exactly the place he wanted. And the
machinery employed to bring about this single result had been so
elaborate and complicated. First, a suicide far off in Australia;
second, the return of an adventurer who had been sent there expressly
to make Fitzgerald Tracy’s acquaintance, and convey his dying
message;--a friendship which had been brought about by such means surely
must count for something in a man’s life.
And so by degrees Ben found himself once more approaching the street. He
knocked at the door with a curious thrill and tremor. What if he should
see her again! What if she might be passing up and down after some of
her celestial concerns! He was admitted by a dismal maid-of-all-work,
and shown in this time to the rooms which were the object of his
ambition. They were very dingy little rooms. In their original and
normal state they made a double room with folding-doors; but as arranged
for a lodger, the folding-doors had been closed and barricaded, the
front half made into a sitting-room, and the back into a bed-room. The
windows were closed, and in the sultry September evening the four mean
walls seemed to close round the inmate and stifle him. Such a thought
had half stolen across his mind when a sudden movement above thrilled
him through and through. It seemed to vibrate through the house and
through him. No need to ask any further question--undoubtedly it must
have been her step; and immediately the musty air grew sweet as summer
to foolish Ben.
The result was that he took the wretched little rooms for thirty
shillings a-week, conveying to his future landlady as he did so the
meanest possible opinion of his intellectual powers. ‘Some fool,’ she
replied to her husband, ‘as never asked no questions.’ He thought them
very cheap, poor fellow; he thought them highly economical, retired,
respectable, and exactly what he wanted. And he was rewarded, and more
than rewarded, for his promptitude. Just as he had settled with the
landlady a little creak on the stairs and rustling of ladies’ dresses
set all his pulses beating. And when he turned sharply round there were
the mother and daughter in their crape bonnets equipped for their
evening walk. They were immensely surprised at the sight of Ben; more,
perhaps, than could have been fully accounted for in conjunction with
the fact that Miss Tracy had been seated, all this time, at the window,
seeing who came and went.
‘Is it possible that Mr. Renton has come to look at the rooms?’ the
innocent Millicent said to her mother, stopping short in the narrow
little lobby.
‘I have not only come to look at them, but I have taken them,’ Ben said,
coming forward. ‘They suit me exactly.’ And there was a charming little
flutter of pleasure and surprise.
‘I never thought you could be in earnest,’ Mrs. Tracy said; ‘the rooms
are well enough, but after what you have been accustomed to,--I was just
saying to Millicent that of course it was impossible. But now I shall be
quite comfortable in my mind, knowing you are there. Living in lodgings
is very trying for ladies,’ continued the widow, lowering her voice
confidentially as she went in with Ben to give a critical look round the
sitting-room. ‘You cannot think how anxious I have been to have some one
I know here,--on Millicent’s account, Mr. Renton. The last lodger used
positively to lie in wait for my innocent child at the door.’
‘Confounded impudence!’ said Ben. ‘I hope the fellow was kicked out.’
‘Ah, we had no such champions as you,’ said Mrs. Tracy, with a dubious
smile. ‘It was after my poor boy went away on that ill-fated voyage, so
much against my will, Mr. Renton.--Yes, he has actually taken them,
Millicent,’ she went on, speaking louder as she turned round. ‘We were
just going out for our little walk. It is cool now, and there are not so
many people about. We neither of us feel equal to fashionable
promenades, Mr. Renton. We take our little walk for health’s sake in the
cool of the evening. It is all the amusement my poor child has.’
‘Don’t say so, mamma dear,’ said Millicent. ‘I am quite happy. And oh,
Mr. Renton, couldn’t you have dear Mary up for a day or two to see you?
Cousins may visit, may not they, mamma? It would be such a pleasure to
see her again.’
‘Hush, child, you don’t think what you are saying. Young ladies can’t
visit young men, you silly girl,’ said Mrs. Tracy. And Millicent
blushed and glided round to the other side of her mother, as they all
emerged into the street. Why should that mass of crape be put between
them? Ben thought. But yet he had the happiness of walking to the Park
with them, and catching, across Mrs. Tracy’s shadow now and then, a
glance of the blue eyes. They talked and amused him the whole way,
leading him to the grateful shadows of Kensington Gardens, away from all
chance of recognition by his fashionable friends, even had there been
any fashionable friends to recognise him. They would not permit him,
however, to return with them, but dismissed him under the trees. ‘I am
sure we are keeping you from dinner,’ Mrs. Tracy said, ‘and we could
only ask you to tea. But I trust you will come to us often to tea, Mr.
Renton, when you are our fellow-lodger at No. 10.’
And he went back to the Albany, not miserable and misanthropical as he
left it, but full of loving-kindness and charity to all mankind. He went
and dressed himself in honour of ‘the ladies’ whom he had just left, and
who had already taken that name in his thoughts; and was most Christian
in his treatment of Morris, promising him the best of characters and
fullest explanations of why he was leaving; and he dined at his club,
feeling that there was still light and comfort in the world. Hillyard
was there, too, in the evening, reading all the newspapers, and yawning
horribly over them. To him ‘the ladies’ had opened no paradise. With a
temper that was half angelical, notwithstanding the adventurer’s
rudeness in the morning, Ben was pitiful and compassionate to him in his
heart.
CHAPTER VI.
THE WORKING OF THE SPELL.
For the next six months Ben Renton lived a strange life,--strange at
least for him, who up to this time had been a young man of
fashion,--répandu in the world,--with an interest in all the events, and
all the gossip almost as important as events, that circulated in that
curious, insincere, most limited sphere. He put his rooms into the hands
of Messrs. Robins to be let, and he put his buhl and his pictures into
those of the Messrs. Christie to sell,--and naturally, as it was
September, no good came of either attempt for some months; and he took
the ground-floor at No. 10, Guildford Street, Manchester Square. It
would be difficult to describe the change which thus fell upon him. He
who had gone about the Parks, about the highways and thoroughfares of
the world, as in a hamlet, knowing everybody,--dining, dancing,
chattering with every third person he met; now walked about the humdrum
streets like a creature dropped out of the sky,--a stranger to all,
seeing only strange faces around him. He whose life had been minutely
regulated and mapped out, not indeed by duty, but by that routine of
society which serves the same purpose, wandered aimlessly about all day,
or sat in his dingy parlour over a novel, with the strangest sense of
idleness and uselessness. He had not been much more industrious in the
old days, when he went from the Row to his club, from his club to the
Drive, with the weighty duties before him of dressing and dining,
strolling down, perhaps to the Lobby of the ‘House,’ or going from box
to box at an opera. These occupations were not of very profound note
among the industries of the day; but they filled up the vacant hours
with a certain system and necessity. Now he had nothing of that kind to
do. He might go and stroll about the deserted Parks; he might sit at
home and work his way through one bundle of three volumes after another,
and nobody would interfere with him. He had nothing to do. He had never
done anything all his life, and yet he had never found it out before.
One event there was still to break the monotonous existence of each dull
day. Sometimes it was that he encountered Mrs. Tracy and her daughter as
they went out, and was permitted to accompany them; sometimes that he
was admitted to the drawing-room up-stairs in the evening. They were
very cautious in those first openings of friendship; more cautious than
they had been in its earliest beginning. Sometimes it so happened that
for an entire day, or even two days, all that Ben heard of his
neighbours was the sound of their steps as they crossed the floor
overhead, sending vibrations through the house and through his foolish
heart. But yet the meeting with them was the event of the day to
him,--the only one that gave life or colour to it. It was the sole gleam
of light within his range of vision, and naturally his eye fixed on that
gleam. Sometimes it seemed to him that, instead of being the fallen man
he was, he had come there in a voluntary abandonment of luxury and
pleasantness for Millicent Tracy’s sake. Though the young men of the
nineteenth century are not given to romance, such a proceeding is still
possible among them. And there were moments in which Ben forgot that he
had any other motive for his seclusion. It was a sudden infatuation, and
yet there was nothing extraordinary in it. Everything was so new to him
in this changed and strange life, that any powerful influence suddenly
brought into being was sure to take entire possession of the vacant
space. As he sat in the gloom and quiet, with all that had hitherto
occupied him gone from his grasp, and this one subtle fascination
filling the air, it was scarcely wonderful that he should feel himself a
pilgrim of love, giving up everything for the sake of his
divinity,--keeping watch at her door, as it were, laying himself down at
her feet, separating himself from the world for her service. A certain
indescribable sense of her presence filled the house. The ceiling over
his head thrilled under her step,--the rustle of her dress on the
stair, the distant sound of her voice or her name, seemed to echo down
to him in the silence. Though he saw her at the most once a-day, and not
always so often, he felt her perpetually, and his mind was intoxicated
by this magical new sense. He lived upon it like a fool,--like a man in
love, which he was, though he knew nothing of Millicent except that her
eyes were heavenly eyes, and her voice as sweet as poetry. He had not
cared much even for poetry hitherto, nor had much time for dreaming, and
Nature now took her revenge. His youth, his extraordinary circumstances,
his unoccupied life, all conspired with this most potent of influences
against him. At first there was not even any intention in his mind
except that of seeing her, looking at her, filling his vacancy with the
new lovely creature so suddenly placed before him; the place was empty
and she had come in unawares, startling him by her smile. That was all
that Ben knew about it for the moment. To win her, and marry her, and
enter into another and fuller phase of life, had not yet dawned on his
thoughts. She had stolen in upon him like a new atmosphere,--a delicious
air in which he lived and breathed. That was all. He meant nothing by it
in the first place. He was not a free agent, voluntarily and consciously
approaching a woman whom he wanted to make his wife. On the contrary, he
was a man suddenly, without any will or purpose of his own, launched
into a new world. He might not have known that such worlds existed, so
strange and new was everything to him; but the unthought-of, unknown
influence possessed itself in a moment of the very fountains of his
life.
It is not, however, to be supposed that Ben was petted or made much of
by the ladies whose retirement he had thus hastened to share. At first
they even appeared to keep him at arm’s length with a reserve which
chilled him much after their frank reception of dear Mary Westbury’s
cousin. They retired within the enclosure of their grief when he became
their fellow-lodger, passing him with slight salutations, with crape
veils over their faces and all the adjuncts of woe, and receiving his
visits, when he screwed up his courage to the point of going up-stairs,
with the dignity of sorrow not yet able ‘to see people,’--a mode of
treatment which gave Ben a pang, not only of disappointment, but of
shame, at his own vain hopes, and the false interpretations he had put
on their first little overtures of cordiality. ‘That I should have
dreamed they would care to see me,--and their grief still so fresh,’ he
muttered to himself with self-disgust. But the ladies up-stairs, in
their retirement, were by no means without thoughts of their new
acquaintance. They discussed him fully, though he was so little aware of
it, and considered him and his ways in more detail, and with much more
understanding, than characterised his brooding over theirs. It was not
Mrs. Tracy’s fault that he was so coldly received. It was Millicent who
had barred the way against him,--Millicent herself, whose paleness and
sorrowful looks had given the last touch of tender pity and interest to
his admiration. They were mutually mistaken in each other, as it
happened; for the mother and daughter knew no more of Ben than that he
was the heir of Renton, and were so foolish in their dreams as to
believe that he had, indeed, given up all the delights of his former
life to live in dingy lodgings in order to be near Millicent. He had
been struck with ‘love at first sight,’ they thought, and despised him a
little, and were amused at the fact, though fully determined to take
advantage of it. And so strange is human nature, that the mother and
daughter would have been as much disgusted and disappointed had they
known the complication of motives which sent the young man into their
snare, as Ben would have been had he been able to conceive the aspect in
which they regarded him. He was a man of the world; and they were of the
still sharper class of adventurers living on their wits; and yet they
mutually believed in the single-mindedness, each of the other, with the
simplicity of the peasant of romance. He thought the beautiful creature
who had smiled so softly on him, and her kind mother, were interested
really about himself; and they believed that he had thrown away all the
daily brightness of existence for Millicent’s sweet sake;--so much
faith had remained at the bottom of natures so sophisticated. It was a
curious conjunction of cunning and innocence.
‘I am not going to make any pounce upon him,’ said Millicent to her
mother. ‘I won’t. You need not look so surprised. You may say what you
like, but I know it is fatal to go too fast. Men don’t like that sort of
thing. They see through it, though you don’t think they do. They are not
quite such fools. You must go softly this time, or I shall not go into
it at all.’
‘Millicent!’ said her mother severely, ‘when you talk in this wild way,
how can you expect me to know what you mean?’
‘Oh, bother!’ said Millicent. The profile turned half away as she spoke
was so perfect, and the lips that uttered the words so soft and
rose-like, that any listener less accustomed would have distrusted her
ears. Mrs. Tracy only made a little gesture of disapproval. Even to
herself the mother kept up her pretensions; but Millicent was a girl of
her century, and made believe only when the eye of the world was upon
her. ‘I mean to take this into my own hands,’ she said. ‘You are not so
clever as you were, mamma. You are getting rather old. Let me alone to
treat a man like Ben Renton. I must not throw myself at his head; he
must suppose, at least, that he has had hard work to secure me.’
‘And I trust it will be so, Millicent,’ said Mrs. Tracy. ‘Heaven forbid
that a child of mine should throw herself at any gentleman’s head! It
would break my heart, you know.’
‘Oh, yes; I know,’ said the daughter, with a laugh; ‘though I never can
understand what pleasure you have in pretending and keeping up your
character to me. We ought to understand each other,--if any two people
do understand each other in the world,’ the young woman added, not with
much perception of the melancholy mystery she was thus skimming over,
but yet vaguely conscious that even the mother beside her had secrets,
and would take her own way if occasion served. Each of them shocked the
other by turns, though both stood low enough in point of moral
appreciation. ‘You would sell me, as soon as look at me, if you could,’
Millicent went on. ‘Don’t deny it, for I know it; but Ben Renton is not
in your line. It is I who must manage him.’
‘You will have your own way, I suppose, Millicent,’ said her mother;
‘though what you mean by these coarse expressions I don’t understand.
What I feel is that the poor young fellow is very solitary. And I am a
mother,’ Mrs. Tracy said, with a little grandeur. ‘I feel it might be of
use to him to ask him up here. It keeps a young man respectable when
ladies notice him. It keeps him out of bad hands.’
Millicent looked at her mother, with a gleam of laughter in her eyes.
‘It is beautiful to see you, mamma,’ she said; ‘it is as good as a
sermon. But I am not so anxious about his morals. You had much better
leave it in my hands.’
This was how it came about that Ben was so much thrown back on himself,
and dismissed from the paradise of a drawing-room where his lady was, to
the close, little, dingy, black-hair-clothed purgatory on the lower
floor, to wait his promotion. A word, a look, half-an-hour’s talk now
and then, raised him into the seventh heaven; but he was always cast
back again; while, at the same time, her presence so near, the constant
possibility of a meeting, the excitement of the situation, and the utter
havoc of his own life, kept him suspended, he could not tell how, and
banished all wholesome thoughts out of his head. The mutual pursuit and
defence, the plans to see and to avoid being seen, the art of bestowing
and with-holding, the perpetual expectation and possibility, engrossed
the two completely after a time. It engrossed the witch as much as it
did the victim. When men and women have passed the age,--if the age is
ever passed,--of such contests, it is difficult to realise the way in
which the lives of those engaged in them become absorbed in one
interest. Each meeting between the two, were it only of a minute’s
duration, occupied their minds as if it had been an event. To watch him
out and in, to calculate what she should say to him next time, how soon
she might venture the next tightening of her line, filled Millicent’s
thoughts as she sat over her work by the window up-stairs; while the
sound of her foot, the faintest movement over-head, the coming or going
on the stairs, the rustle of the dress passing his door, occupied Ben
like the most exciting drama. It was madness, yet it was nature. The
mother, who was looking on with an eve merely to the result, grew
impatient, and felt disposed to throw up the matter and turn her
attention to other things. Mrs. Tracy was poor, and now that her son had
altogether failed her, even in possibility, it was essential that her
daughter should take his place. But Millicent gave no encouragement to
the vague plans that fluttered through her mother’s mind. She, too, was
engrossed, as people are engrossed only by such a strange duel and
struggle of two lives. And the six months passed with her, as with Ben,
like one long, exciting, feverish day.
‘You don’t get a step farther on,’ said Mrs. Tracy; ‘you are just where
you were, shilly-shallying,--no better than your brother. My poor
Fitzgerald! if he had been spared, he might have been a help to me.
Providence is very strange! He lived long enough to be a burden and take
every penny we had; and then, when he might have made me some return----
And it is just the same thing, over again, with you.’
‘Don’t speak of Fitzgerald, mamma,’ said Millicent. ‘I was fond of him,
although you may not think it. You worried him till he could not bear
it any longer; but you cannot get rid of me like that. I will never
shoot myself. I mean to live in spite of everything,--and I mean to take
my own time.’
‘You are an unnatural girl!’ cried Mrs. Tracy, with excitement. ‘Did not
I do everything for that boy? Tutors and books, and I don’t know what;
and then to break down. A young man has no business to fail when his
people have done so much for him. And now there is you,--I have spared
no expense about you, either. You have had the best masters I could give
you, and the prettiest dresses; and now you stand doing nothing. I
should like to know what this young Renton means.’
‘It would be very easy to ask him,--and drive him away for ever,’ said
Millicent, with a heightened colour. ‘Mamma, I tell you, you are not so
clever as you were.’
‘I believe you are in love with him,’ said the mother, with an accent of
scorn;--‘nothing else could account for it. That is all that is wanting
to make up the story. But I tell you this will not do,’ she added, with
an instant change of tone. ‘We shall have to run away if some
determination is not come to. I have no money to carry on with, and
there is a month’s rent owing to this horrid woman; and the tradespeople
and all---- Millicent, there must be something done. If you are going to
marry young Renton, it will be all very well; but if it is to come to
nothing, as so many other things have done----’
‘What would you have me do?’ said Millicent, in a low tone of restrained
passion. Perhaps she was angry with herself for playing so poor a
_rôle_; but, at all events, she was disgusted with the mother who had
trained her to do it, and thus kept her to the humiliating work. Mrs.
Tracy was getting, as her daughter said, rather old. Her ear was not
fine enough for the inflections of tone and shades of meaning which once
she could have caught in a moment.
‘If you will listen to me,’ she answered, in perfect good faith, ‘I will
soon tell you what to do. Tell him that we are going abroad. You know
how often I have spoken of going abroad. If we could only get a hundred
pounds, we might go to Baden, or Homburg, or somewhere. We don’t want so
many dresses, being in mourning; and, with your complexion, you look
very nice in mourning. I should like to start to-morrow, for my part.
You might tell him it was for my health,--that I was ordered to take the
baths. And I am sure it would be quite true. After all the wear and tear
I have gone through I must want baths when you come to think of it. That
ought to bring matters to a decision; and the fact is, that unless
something happens, we shall have to make a change. It will be impossible
to stay here.’
‘If it is an explanation you want,’ said Millicent, ‘it will not be
difficult to bring that about,--now;’ and the blood rushed to her face,
and her heart began to beat. Not because she loved Ben. It was a
different feeling that moved her. The object for which she had been
trained, the aim of her life, had come so near to her,--in a day, in an
hour, in a few minutes more, if it came to that, she might be a changed
creature, with all that was wretched banished from her, and all that was
good made possible. She might be, instead of a poor girl, immersed in
all the shameful shifts of dishonest poverty, a rich man’s bride,
fearing no demand, above all tricks, with honourable plenty in her hands
and about her. What a change it would be! The chance of leaping at one
step from misery to wealth, from destitution to luxury, has always a
more or less demoralising effect when held steadily before human eyes,
and this chance had always been put foremost in those of Millicent
Tracy. Nobody had ever dreamed of work for her, or honest earning. She
was to win wildly the prize of wealth out of the very depths of abject
poverty. Hers was not the extraordinary nobility of character which
could resist the influences of such training. She was demoralised by it.
Ben Renton was to her a prize in the lottery which she might win and be
rich and splendid and exalted for ever,--or which she might lose in
mortification and deepest downfall. It was this which flushed her cheek
and made her heart beat. Not because he was a man who loved her. And yet
something not mercenary, something like nature, had been in the vague
intercourse between the two,--the man’s advances, the woman’s retreat
from them and interest in them. Alas! Millicent had been wooed, and had
done her best to attract and fascinate before. It was a trade to her.
She lighted up into a gambler’s flush of excitement now when the crisis
was so near.
‘Then let it come,’ said Mrs. Tracy; ‘it is time after six months of
nonsense. I never knew a young man before who would be kept off and on
so long, living in such a hole, out of those lovely rooms. And,
by-the-bye, I wonder why he wants to sell those sweet cabinets. Getting
rid of his chambers one can understand. Perhaps it is for some racing
debt or something; but he must not be allowed to do it. If the family
should make themselves disagreeable, Millicent, I hope I can trust to
your good sense. Of course they must come round in the end.’
‘You may trust me, mamma,’ said Millicent, with a smile; and her mother
came round to her and kissed her, as she might have kissed her had she
been on her way to draw the fateful ticket at a lottery.
‘Now, mind you have your wits about you,’ Mrs. Tracy said.
It was the afternoon of a spring day, rather cold but bright, and a
remnant of dusty fire, half choked with ashes, was in the grate.
Millicent trembled as she sat in her favourite place by the window,
chiefly with cold,--for she was very susceptible to discomfort,--and a
little with excitement. When her mother left her, she let her work fall
on her lap, and felt, as many a woman of truer heart has felt, the very
air rustling and whispering in her ears with excess of stillness, as if
a hundred unseen spectators were pressing round to look on. He would
come, and she would listen to him and lead him on, and the step would be
taken;--the immense, unspeakable change would be made. A curious medley
of thoughts was in the young woman’s mind,--not all of them bad or
unnatural thoughts. She would be grateful to the man who changed her
life for her so completely. She would be kind to the poor,--those poor,
struggling, shifting, miserable creatures upon whom already she felt
herself entitled to look with pity. She would be very fine and grand,
and deck her beauty with every adornment, and win admiration on every
side; and yet she would be good at the same time. She would be
good,--that she determined upon. And poor Fitz, if he had but been less
impatient! if he had but lived to see this day! Thus she sat awaiting
her lover. Poor, polluted, and yet unawakened virgin soul, knowing
nothing about love!
The mother for her part put on her bonnet,--not without a keen momentary
observation that the crape was beginning to be rusty,--and drew her
shawl slowly round her shoulders. She had been a handsome woman in her
day, and with her rusty crape still looked more imposing than many a
silken fine lady. With a thrill of excitement, too, she took her way
down-stairs, with more sordid thoughts than those of her child. She was
thinking, also, which would be best for herself,--to live with them and
share their grandeur, or to secure a certainty for herself from the
bridegroom’s liberality. There are women ignoble enough to act as Mrs.
Tracy was doing, and still with so much divinity in them as to be
willing to disappear, or die, or obliterate themselves when the daughter
for whom they laboured has won her prize. But Millicent’s mother had not
even this virtue. She was drawing her ticket by her child’s hand;--which
would be most comfortable, she was thinking; and it was in the very
midst of this thought that she contrived to brush past Ben, who was
lingering at the door of his room, hoping to see something of his
neighbours.
‘I beg your pardon, Mr. Renton,’ she said. ‘I did not see you were
there. Not out this lovely afternoon? It is the old people who are
active now; you young ones are all alike, dreaming and building castles,
I suppose. Millicent stays up-stairs all by herself, instead of coming
out with me. But indeed she is dull, poor child. An old woman, even when
it is her mother, is poor company for a young girl.’
‘I am sure she does not think so,’ said Ben, to whom Millicent was half
divine.
‘No, I am sure she does not think so,’ said Mrs. Tracy; ‘she is such a
good child. But you may run up and talk to her for half-an-hour, and
cheer her up while I am gone. There are not many gentlemen I would say
as much to,’ she added playfully. Her playful speeches were not very
successful generally, but Ben was no critic at that moment. His eyes
blazed up with sudden fire. He took her hand, and would have kissed it,
so much was he touched by this mark of confidence, but Mrs. Tracy knew
there were holes in her glove, and drew it back.
‘May I?’ he said. ‘How good you are to me!’ and had rushed up-stairs
before she had time to draw breath. She turned round, looking after him,
with a certain grim satisfaction on her handsome worn face.
‘That is all safe,’ she said to herself with a little sigh of relief;
and went out philosophically to let the crisis enact itself, and buy a
little lobster for Millicent’s supper, by way of reward to her fortunate
child.
CHAPTER VII.
PUT TO THE TOUCH.
Ben rushed up the narrow stairs three steps at a time, while Millicent
sat listening with her heart beating against her breast. If he had known
the flutter it was making, how glad, how hopeful, how proud the poor
young fool would have been! And it was all for him. A sudden hush fell
upon him as he went in at the sacred door. Such a privilege had never
been accorded him before. He had sat with Millicent by her mother’s
side; he had spoken to her even while Mrs. Tracy went about from one
occupation to another, leaving them virtually alone; but to have her all
to himself for,--how long?--a year,--half an hour,--a splendid moment
detached from ordinary calculations of time! His eagerness died into the
stillness of passion as he went in. She did not get up from her seat,
but greeted him with a little touch of her lovely hand, with a subdued
gracious smile. If it could be possible that she was a little moved by
it,--a little breathless, too! He came and sat down opposite the window,
as near her as he dared;--his eyes now shining, poor fellow! and great
waves of colour passing over his face.
‘Your mother said I might come,’ he faltered, with the very imbecility
of blessedness. And Millicent nodded her beautiful head kindly at him
again.
‘Mamma thought I would be lonely,’ she said. ‘Poor dear mamma! she
thinks too much of me.’
‘That is not possible,’ said Ben. ‘And,--how could she think of anything
else? Ah, if you would but let me try to amuse you a little! You are so
young,--so----; I envy your brother,’ said the lover, growing red, ‘when
I see how you give him all your thoughts.’
‘Not all,’ said Millicent, ‘oh, indeed, not all! Poor Fitzgerald! But we
have so many things to think of. There is no more amusement for poor
mamma and me.’
‘Amusement is a poor sort of thing,’ said Ben. ‘You don’t think I meant
balls and operas? I am not such a wretched fellow as that. What I meant
was, if--if you would but try to look round you, and see that there are
others in the world----’ here he made a pause, half out of awe of the
words that were on his lips, half with a lover’s device to fix her
attention upon them, half because of the grasp of passion upon himself
which impeded his breathing and his voice,--‘who love you,’ said Ben at
last, abruptly, ‘as well,--ten thousand times better than any brother in
the world.’
He was not thinking of Hamlet,--but passion is something like genius,
and finds a similar expression now and then in very absence of all
thought.
‘Ah, Mr. Renton,’ said Millicent, ‘you must not say those sort of things
to me. Poor, dear Fitzgerald was not so very fond of me. Some women get
loved like that, but I don’t think I am one of them. Hush now! If you
are going to speak nonsense I must send you away.’
‘It is no nonsense,’ said Ben. ‘If you could but have seen my heart all
the time I have been here! It has had no thought but one. I know I am a
fool to say so,--if I were a prince instead of a disinherited knight----
’
‘Disinherited?’ said Millicent, losing in a moment the soft droop of her
hand, the soft fall of her eyelids,--all those tender indications of a
modest emotion,--sitting bolt upright and looking him straight in the
face. ‘Mr. Renton, what do you mean?’
The suddenness of the change gave him a certain thrill. He did not
understand it, nor had he time at such a moment to pause and ask himself
what it meant. He felt the jar all over him, but went on all the same.
‘Yes, I am disinherited,’ he said, leaning over her, meeting her
startled glance with eyes full of such a real and fiery glow of passion
as struck her dumb. ‘If it had not been so, could I have borne to keep
silent all this time and never say a word to you? I am a wretch to say
anything now. I have been a fool to come here. Now I think of it, I
have no right to any answer. I have nothing--nothing to offer. But,
Millicent, let me tell you,--don’t deny me that,--this once!’
‘Mr. Renton,’ said Millicent, ‘I do not know what you have to tell me.
It is so strange, all this. And I have been thinking all the time you
were---- Never mind speaking to me about myself; that does not interest
me. Tell me about this.’
‘I will tell you everything,’ said Ben, ‘and then you will give me my
sentence,--death or life,--that is what it will be. Don’t take up your
work. Oh, how can you be so calm, you women? Cannot you see what it is
to me;--death or life?’
Millicent looked up at him, dropping her work hesitatingly on her knee.
When he met that glance, the blue eyes looked so wondering, so wistful,
so innocent, that poor Ben in his madness got down on his knees and
kissed the hand that lay in her lap and the muslin that surrounded it,
and cried out, with a kind of sweet heart-break;--‘Yes, it is right you
should be calm; I love you best so. For me, the earth and the passions;
for you, heaven. I agree,--that is what God must have meant.’
With a deeper wonder still,--a real wonder,--that made her face angelic,
Millicent listened, and felt the hot lips touch her hand. What did the
madman mean? What was he agreeing to and approving? Had he found her
out? Was he mocking her? She was so bewildered that she said nothing;
and she was touched, too, at her heart. She had an impulse to lay her
other hand on his head, and smooth down the curls upon it with a touch
of natural kindness and pity. Poor boy! whose head was all running on
wild nonsense, and who could not understand the nature of her thoughts.
‘Mr. Renton,’ she said, with a little tremble in her voice, which was
not affected,--‘I am alone. Whatever you have to say to me it must not
be said in this way.’
He rose up abashed and penitent, poor fellow! feeling the serene, fair
creature worlds above him; and yet taking courage because of that little
shake in her voice. ‘Forgive me,’ he said, with broken words,--‘I did
not know any better. I thought on my knees was the most natural way. But
I see. A man goes on his knees to the woman that loves him; but I----
only love you.’
And then he stood away from her and gazed at her, looking down from his
height on her low seat, her drooping head, with such humility and
splendour of devotion, that poor Millicent was dazzled. Men had told her
this same thing before, but never in this way. Somehow it made her
shrink a little, and feel a certain shame. Not good enough to go on his
knees to her, he thought;--and yet, oh, so much more innocent, so much
purer and better than she! Such an extraordinary scene had never
occurred to her before; and in face of the unknown being standing
before her, all her experience failed, and she could not tell what to
do. ‘Don’t speak like that,’ she said, half peevishly, in her
discomfiture. ‘I am not a queen, nor Una, nor anything of the kind; and
you are not King Arthur, that I know of. Come and sit down by me as you
were before, and tell me about yourself. That is much more interesting.
I do not believe you are disinherited. Come and tell me what you mean.’
After a moment Ben obeyed. He was nearer to her so; and she sat and
gazed up at him, with heartfelt interest, which made him flush all over
with a warm thrill of happiness. She gave all her attention to his
story. He told her everything, watching the fluctuations, the shades of
surprise, of sympathy, of something else which he could not divine, on
her face. Once she put out her hand to him with a momentary
compassionate impulse. She was deeply interested; there was no fiction
in that. She was still more deeply disappointed,--sorry for herself,
sorry for him. And Ben thought it was all for him. When she took her
hand back again, away from him, and sighed, and suffered the cloud to
fall over her face, his heart began to ache for her; for her, not for
himself. He had roused her sympathy too far;--he had given her pain.
‘Don’t be so sorry for me,’ he said, with his lip quivering, ‘or you
will make me too happy. What do I mind if you care? I am young enough
to make a way for myself,--and, Millicent, for you too,--if----’ cried
the young man, drawing closer to her. What could she do with such a
passionate suitor? Perhaps she was not so sensitive to avoid the touch,
the close approach, the almost embrace of the man she could not accept,
as a more innocent girl would have been; though, indeed, there was not a
touch of the wanton in her, poor girl! She was an adventuress and
mercenary;--that was all.
‘Oh, Mr. Renton, don’t speak so!’ she said, ‘you don’t know what you are
saying. Though I am a woman I know the world better than you do. It is
very, very hard to make your way. Look at poor Fitzgerald. And when you
have tied a burden round your neck to begin with! Ah, no; you must not
talk of this any more.’
‘Burden!’ cried Ben, all glowing and brightening. ‘I like that! Divine
cordial, you mean;--elixir of life, to make a man twice as strong, twice
as able. Ah, look here, Millicent--you said round my neck!’
‘I said nonsense,’ she said, withdrawing from him; ‘and so do you.
Double nonsense,--folly! What could we two do together? I did not know
about this, or that your father was dead, or anything. Don’t look so
wondering at me. What had I to do with it? Mr. Renton, I have not been
brought up rich like you. I know what the world is, and bitter, bitter
poverty. Oh, how bitter it is! You are playing at being poor; but if you
should ever be put to such shifts as some people are;--if you should
have to fly and hide yourself for the want of a little money;--if you
had to live hard, and be shabby, and not very honest---- Oh, don’t speak
to me!’ cried Millicent, turning away from him, and bursting into
uncontrollable tears. She was angry, and her heart was sore; she had
seemed so near comfort, and prosperity, and happiness. ‘Even I could
have been fond of him!’ she said to herself, bitterly. And now he could
tell her calmly that he was disinherited! Such a disappointment after
such a delicious sense of security was more than Millicent could bear.
She could govern herself, as a man guides a horse, when she chose; but
when she did not choose, her self-abandonment was absolute. Since he was
to be good for nothing to her, she cared no longer for what Ben Renton
might think. She thrust her pretty shoulders up, and turned from him and
cried. She was sick with disappointment. And it was her way not to care
for appearances except when they were of use, which they could no longer
be here.
As for Ben, he sat looking on with a consternation and amazement not to
be described. He grew sick, too, and faint, and giddy with the great
downfall. But he was no more able to understand her now than she had
been to understand him a little while before. For some minutes he only
gazed at her, his own eyes brimming over with remorse,--for was it not
he who had driven her to tears? And he felt for her the tenderest
longing and pity. He wanted to take her into his arms to comfort her;
and would not, being too reverent to take such advantage of her
distress. But he could not sit still and look on. He got up and went
away to the other end of the room, shaking the whole house with his
agitated steps. Then he came and knelt down before her, and touched
softly the hands that covered her face.
‘Oh, Millicent,’ he cried, ‘don’t break my heart! I would rather have
died than deceived you. Tell me what is the matter. Tell me what I can
do. I will do anything in the world you please. It cannot be you who are
poor. You ought to have everything. Oh, Millicent, say one word to me if
you do not mean to break my heart!’
‘It would do no good if I were to speak,’ sobbed Millicent. ‘I have
nothing to say. Go away, and never mind,--that is the best.’
‘But I will mind; and I cannot go away,’ said Ben; and he drew one of
her hands from her flushed cheek, and held it fast. He ‘made her do it.’
That was what she said to herself years after when the remembrance would
rankle in her mind. He made her do it. He held her hand close in his,
and drew from her the story of all her woes: their debts, their
destitution; her mother’s health, which was failing, the baths in
Germany which she was ordered, but could not get to,--all the miserable
story. She poured it out to Ben as she never would have done had he been
her accepted lover,--mingling the narrative with tears, with broken
sobs, with entreaties to him not to make her say more. And all the time
her hand was in his,--soft, and warm, and trembling;--her eyes now
raised to him with pitiful looks, now sinking in shame and distress. And
there was nobody near to interfere in this humiliating scene. Even the
mother, who was lingering intentionally along the streets to give full
time for the explanation, would have shrunk with a pang of pride and
horror from such a revelation as this. But the two were alone, and had
it all their own way. Ben himself sat by Millicent’s side in a very
ecstasy of tenderness and pity. If he could but have taken her in his
arms, and carried her away,--away from the suffering, the trouble, the
shame! Yes, he felt there was shame in it,--confusedly, painfully, with
a burning red on his cheek,--and yet was intoxicated and overwhelmed by
her touch, by her look, by the love he had for her. They sat together as
in a trance,--passion, tenderness, trickery, mean hopes and great, shame
and pride and dear love, all mingling together. Such a story to be
linked on to a love-tale! such a love, veiling its face with its wings,
loving the deeper to hide the shame!
When Mrs. Tracy returned, with a very audible knock at the door, Ben
rose and tore himself away, his heart, and even his bodily frame, all
thrilling and tingling with the excitement through which he had passed.
She had no sooner ascended the stairs than he seized his hat and tore
out, jumping into the first hansom he encountered, with the instinct of
old times, and dashing down to the far-off City,--blocked up as ever in
all its thoroughfares where men in haste would pass. It was not too late
to find his father’s agent in one of the mean alleys about Cheapside,
who would pay him his allowance. It was just the time for it, by good
luck. And then he rushed off to Christie’s, and had an earnest
conversation about the buhl and the china which were not yet sold. He
took no time to consider anything;--such a state of affairs could not,
must not last a day. This was what he was saying to himself over and
over. It must not last. He had no room for more than that thought.
When Mrs. Tracy entered the drawing-room she found her daughter lying
back in her chair, with her handkerchief pressed to her eyes. Millicent
let her approach without uncovering her face, or taking any notice, and
the anxiety of the mother grew into alarm as she drew near. She had said
‘Well?’ with expectation and interest as she came in, feeling very sure
of the tale there must be to tell. But as she came nearer and saw that
Millicent did not move, Mrs. Tracy got very much frightened. ‘Good
heavens, Millicent! do you mean to say it has come to nothing?’ she
cried sharply, with keen anxiety. But Millicent was by no means prepared
to answer. She had been shaken by this totally unexpected, unlikely sort
of interview. It had gone to her heart, though she had not been very
sure whether she had a heart; and she did not know now how to explain,
or what to say.
‘Has it come to nothing?’ Mrs. Tracy repeated, coming up and shaking her
daughter by the shoulder. ‘Millicent! are not you ashamed of yourself?
What have you been doing? I know he has only just left you, for I heard
him rush down-stairs.’
‘It has come to a great deal,’ said Millicent, uncovering her flushed
and tear-stained cheeks. ‘Don’t worry me, mamma. I will tell you
everything if you will but let me alone.’
‘Everything!’ said Mrs. Tracy in an excited tone.
‘Yes, everything; but it is nothing,’ said Millicent, doggedly. ‘You
must not give yourself any hopes. It is all over. It will never come to
more; but you shall not say a word,’ she added, with indignation. ‘I
tell you I am fond of him. I will not have anything said. He is too good
for you or me.’
‘It will never come to more!’ echoed Mrs. Tracy, holding up her hands in
amaze and appeal to heaven. ‘And she dares to look me in the face and
say so! Six months lost,--and rent, and firing, and the bills!’ cried
the injured mother. Then she threw herself down in a chair, and moaned,
and rocked herself. ‘If it is to come to nothing!’ she said. ‘Oh, you
ungrateful, unkind girl! oh, my poor Fitzgerald!--perhaps you’ll tell me
what we are to do.’
A little pause ensued. The disappointment was too sharp and bitter to be
kept within the bounds of politeness, and Millicent was not prepared to
enter into full explanations. While Mrs. Tracy vented her disappointment
in reproaches, her daughter sat flushed, tearful, motionless, dreaming
over the scene that had passed, wondering within herself whether
anything could, anything would come of it after all,--neither hearing
nor listening to her mother,--half ashamed of herself, and yet not come
to an end of expectation still. ‘He will do something, whatever it is,’
she said to herself. ‘It has not ended here.’
‘I never would have stayed on in these dear lodgings,’ Mrs. Tracy went
on: ‘never, but for this; you know I wouldn’t. It was only to have been
for a week or two when we came. Oh, the money you have cost me,--you and
your nonsense! And now nothing is to come of it! Am I never to be the
better of my children,--I that have done so much for them? To waste all
my life and my means, and everything; and nothing to come of it!’ she
cried. ‘Oh, you are a beautiful manager! And six months lost for this!’
‘Mamma, you need not be so violent,’ said Millicent. ‘It is not my
fault. Do you think I am not as disappointed as you can be? And some
good may come of it, though not what we thought. He will make it up to
you somehow. For my part I have no doubt of that.’
‘What is it you have no doubt of?’ said Mrs. Tracy. ‘You are more and
more a mystery to me. Good gracious, Millicent! you make me think you
have fallen in love with him,--or--some folly! But you must leave that
sort of thing to people who can afford it. We must have some prospect
for the future,--or--we must leave this.’
‘Yes, mamma; only just leave me alone,--I can’t talk,’ she said,
fretfully; but then added, with an effort, ‘It is not his fault, poor
fellow! He is disinherited. Could he help that? It was we who were the
fools to think he would come to this poky place all for me.’
Mrs. Tracy swelled to such heights of moral indignation as would have
annihilated Ben had he been present, when she heard this.
‘Disinherited!’ she cried. ‘Millicent, you may say what you like, but it
is nothing less than swindling. Good heavens, to think of such a thing!
Disinherited! Do you mean to tell me it is a man without a penny that
one has been paying such attention to? Oh, what a world this is! He
might just as well have robbed me of fifty pounds,--not that fifty
pounds would pay the expense I have been at. And I don’t believe a word
of it!’ she cried, getting up with sudden passion. If there had been
any one below to hear how her foot thrilled across the echoing floor,
she might even now have restrained herself. But she knew that nobody was
below.
‘I believe it,’ said Millicent, rousing up. ‘He was too much in earnest,
poor boy! He wanted to work for me, and all kinds of nonsense. And it
would be better to have him to work for me,’ she added, half-tenderly,
half-defiant, ‘though he has not a penny, than be worried and bullied
like this every day of one’s life.’
‘Are you mad?’ cried her mother, stopping suddenly, appalled by the
words. ‘You are in love with him, you wicked girl! You are in a plot
with this beggar against me.’
‘He shall not be called a beggar!’ cried Millicent, ‘so long as I am
here to speak for him. It is we who are beggars, not Ben Renton.’
‘You are in love with him!’ cried Mrs. Tracy, almost with a scream of
scorn. The accusation was such that Millicent shrank before it for the
moment, but she did not give way.
‘I wonder if I shall be in love with anybody again?’ she said; and then
a sigh burst from her unawares. ‘Poor fellow! poor boy! He is so good,
and he will never forget me!’
‘If he had really cared a straw for you he would never have come here!’
cried Mrs. Tracy. ‘Love!--call that love! for a man without a penny! I
call it pure selfishness. But he shall never come near you
again,--never. Oh, what am I to do?--where am I to take you? We cannot
stay here.’
‘We are going to Wiesbaden, for your health,’ said Millicent. It came
upon her all at once that she had told him so, making use,
involuntarily, of her mother’s suggestion. ‘Wait, and see what comes of
it,’ she added, with oracular meaning, which she did not herself
understand. And after a while Mrs. Tracy’s passion sank into quiet too.
When people live from day to day without any power of arranging matters
beforehand, and specially when they live upon their wits, trusting to
the scheme of the minute for such comforts as it can secure, they have
to believe in chances good and evil. Something might come of it.
Somehow, at the last moment, matters might mend. She sat down with that
power of abstracting herself from her anxiety which is given to the mind
of the adventurer, and recovered her breath, and took her cup of tea.
She had scarcely finished that refreshment when the maid knocked at the
drawing-room door with Ben’s letter. Mrs. Tracy flew at her daughter as
though she would have torn the meaning out of the paper, which Millicent
opened with the slowness of agitation; but she had to wait all the same
while it was gone over twice, every word; the very enclosures in
it,--and it was very evident that there were enclosures,--were hidden
in Millicent’s clenched hand from her mother’s eyes. She was wilfully
cruel in her self-humiliation. And yet it was Mrs. Tracy, and not
Millicent, who answered the letter which poor Ben had written, as it
were, with his heart’s blood.
CHAPTER VIII.
MRS. TRACY’S I. O. U.
Mrs. Tracy’s answer to Ben’s letter was as follows:--
‘MY DEAR MR. RENTON,--Millicent has placed your most kind and
generous letter in my hands. It is everything I have said, but it
is a very extraordinary letter as well; and it is impossible for a
young creature without any knowledge of the world to answer it. It
takes all my judgment,--and I have passed through a good deal,--to
decide how to do it. I would not for the world hurt your feelings,
dear Mr. Renton, and I am convinced that to act according to the
dictates of pride, and decline your most kind little loan, would be
to hurt your feelings. Therefore I make the sacrifice of my own. I
don’t replace your notes in this, as pride tempts me to do. I keep
them for your sake.
‘And, besides,--why should I hesitate to confess it?--we are poor.
I cannot do for Millicent,--I cannot do for myself, though that
matters less,--what I would. I don’t know how far my poor child
went in her confidences to you to-day. She was agitated,--and she
is still agitated,--though I have done all I could to soothe her.
She is much affected by your sympathy and generosity; and yet, with
the shrinking delicacy which characterises her, she cannot forgive
herself for telling you. “I could not help it, mamma,--he was so
feeling,” my poor darling says to me, with tears in her eyes. God
bless you, dear Mr. Renton! With this timely aid, which I accept as
a loan, my Millicent’s poor mother may still be spared to watch
over her child. It would have been impossible for me to go, and I
tried to hide from my pet the urging of my physicians. Now it is
all clear before us. I enclose a memorandum for the amount at five
per cent interest; but what interest can ever repay the kind
consideration, the ready thoughtfulness? I can never forget it, and
neither can Millicent. When I say that we shall leave almost
immediately, I but say that we are carrying out your intention. We
shall miss you in that strange land. How sweet if we could hope to
meet our benefactor among its gay groups! Millicent tells me
something about your circumstances, which it seems impossible to
believe. But if it should be true, dear Mr. Renton, how sweet it
will be to your mind to feel that your little savings, if diverted
from their original intention, will yet go to carry out one of the
most sacred offices of Christianity,--to save a mother, the sole
guide and protector of her innocence, to her only child!
‘Believe me, my dear Mr. Renton, with the sincerest kind regards
and good wishes,
‘Yours obliged and most truly,
‘MARIA TRACY.’
‘Will that do?’ she said, thrusting the paper across the table to
Millicent, who sat looking on. Her mother’s style of letter-writing was
very well known to her; but her heart was beating a little quicker than
usual, and it was not without excitement that she took it up.
Altogether, the day had been a strange one for her. It had brought her
in contact with genuine, real passion; and at the same time with a rare,
almost unknown thing to her,--a man, with all the instincts of power,
unconscious of those restraints which make I dare not wait upon I would.
There is something in wealth which now and then confers a certain moral
power and unthought-of force and energy. Millicent’s friends and lovers
had been hitherto of a class quite different from Ben. They had been men
to whom appearance was more than reality,--who were accustomed to look
richer than they were, and to own the restrictions of small means,--men
who could not, had they wished it, have cut a way for her through a
difficulty, as Ben did with sudden flash of purpose. In fact, he was
poorer than any of the half-bred men to whom Mrs. Tracy had all but
offered her daughter; but the habit of hesitation or considering
possibilities had not yet come upon him. Simply, he had not been able to
bear the thought of want or difficulty or pain for her, and had rushed
at the matter without a moment’s pause, or any consideration but that of
doing her service. It was quite new to Millicent. It dazzled her
imagination more a long way than it touched her heart. She was not
grateful to speak of, but she was profoundly impressed by the man to
whom a hundred pounds,--that mighty object of thought to herself and
everybody she had ever known,--was no more than a bouquet or a pair of
gloves. She was not, even at that moment, ashamed of having all but
asked, or of receiving, his help. She was only dazzled by the
magnificence, the sudden lavish zeal and service of her lover. She read
her mother’s letter slowly and critically. ‘As if he wanted to be paid
back, or have interest at five per cent!’ she said. The mother’s were
very different thoughts.
‘It looks better,’ she said. ‘And if we ever are able to pay him back,
Millicent,--besides, it is putting it in a business way. Every man likes
to see things put in a business way; though this is such a young
fool----’ said Mrs. Tracy. ‘I never met with such a fool in my life.’
‘He is not a fool,’ said Millicent, angrily. ‘It is the way he has been
brought up. He has not been taught to consider money as we have. Oh,
me! should we all be like that if we were all rich?’ she asked herself
with a thrill of wonder. Mrs. Tracy smiled grimly as she put poor Ben’s
bank-notes,--everything the foolish youth had possessed in the
world,--into an old pocket-book, which she took out of her desk.
‘No, indeed,’ she said, ‘not such fools as to give solid good for
nonsense. Why, only fancy what he might have had for his hundred pounds!
He might have gone to Homburg himself, and got a great deal of amusement
out of it. He might have gone to Switzerland. With all his friends and
good introductions, he might have got through the season with it,’--this
was all Mrs. Tracy knew,--‘with his club and dining out, and so forth.
And because you cry a little he gives it to you! No, if I were made of
money, I never could be so foolish as that.’
‘Nobody ever minded my crying much before,’ said Millicent, with a touch
of sullenness; and then she threw the letter on the table. ‘Certainly,’
she said, ‘a hundred pounds is a high price for that.’
‘I accept it as a loan,’ said Mrs. Tracy, wrapping herself once more in
the appearances she loved. Of course I should never think of taking
money from Mr. Renton in any other way. And I wish you would see to your
packing at once. We never had such a chance before. Oh, Millicent, if
you don’t make something of it this time, how can I ever have any heart
again? There are all sorts of people at Homburg; and you look very nice
in your mourning. One does when one has a nice complexion. What will
become of us if I have to bring you back here again?’
‘I have no desire to be brought back,’ said Millicent, sharply. ‘I am
ready to do whatever I can;--you may see that. But fate seems against me
somehow,’ she added, putting up her hand to her eyes. ‘One had every
reason to think it was settled and done with without any more trouble;
and here is the treadmill just beginning again. You are pleased because
you have got your money; but it is hard upon me all the same.’
‘I believe you are in love with him, after all,’ said the mother with
profound scorn. Millicent did not make any direct answer; but she turned
away indignantly, with a frown on her face. In love with him!--no, not
so foolish as that; but still it was hard when you come to think of
it,--never to be any nearer the end,--just to have to begin again. And
when everything seemed so clear and easy! A hundred pounds was very
nice, but it was not equal to Renton Manor and a house in Berkeley
Square, and everything that heart could desire. Poor Millicent
sighed,--she could not help it. And he was so fond of her too, poor
fellow! It seemed breaking faith with him to take his money and go off
to Germany to marry somebody else on the strength of it. And it was
nice to have him always there,--ready, on the shortest notice, to come
and worship. ‘All because I am rather pretty,’ Millicent said to
herself, with that half scorn with which a woman recognises that it is
the least part of her that is loved. Her beauty was everything she had
in the world, and yet it was a little strange that that was all Ben
Renton could see in her. Her transparent scheming,--her hungry
poverty,--her readiness to marry him or any man who had money enough,
and asked her,--that all this should be glozed over and hidden by a pair
of pretty eyes! This is a weakness of which a great many women take
advantage, but which always fills them with a certain contempt.
Millicent, who might have had something better in her, and who could
have been fond of Ben had he not have been disinherited, saw his folly
with a half-disdain. No woman would have been such a fool as that! And
yet she could not bear to hear her mother call him a fool.
She got up immediately, however, to begin her packing; and then she took
into very serious consideration the question whether a new dress was not
absolutely necessary for the new campaign,--a thin dress which she could
wear over her old black silk, and which would looked ‘dressed’ at a
table-d’hôte or other public place. ‘Don’t you think grenadine would be
best?’ she asked her mother, anxiously,--‘or perhaps my white with black
ribbons?’ Whatever might be her feelings towards Ben Renton, it was
evident there was no time to be lost.
‘It must be black,’ said Mrs. Tracy, decisively, ‘when you can have so
few dresses. White is always the next step to colours, and we can’t
afford that,--not to speak of washing. Black grenadine wears very well,
and looks very nice,--on you, at least,’ Mrs. Tracy added, with a
stifled sigh. She was too old for grenadine herself. To play her part
aright, she wanted a rich black silk becoming her years. But it would
make such a hole in the hundred pounds! She was compelled to give that
up. They spent the evening with the room littered all over with
‘things,’ examining into their deficiencies,--two warriors setting out
for the battle, and looking to all the crevices of their armour. And Ben
down-stairs heard their soft, womanly footsteps thrill the floor over
his head, and strained his ears to catch every moment they made. They
seemed to have accepted his offering;--what were they going to do with
himself? He sat, sick at heart, and listened while they went to and fro
up-stairs to their sleeping-rooms, down again to the drawing-room. He
had put his door ajar, and heard everything. Sometimes her mother called
‘Millicent!’ from below; sometimes it was the sweeter voice of the
daughter that replied; and every word rang through his heart, poor
fellow! as he sat and listened. That there was a commotion of some sort
going on up-stairs was certain; and it was he who was the cause of it;
and yet they did not call him to share the excitement. Or were they,
perhaps, preparing to go away, to punish him for his presumption,--to
return him his impudent gift of money, and reject his friendship? Poor
Ben sat trembling, absorbed in a cruel fever of suspense all the
evening. Perhaps they had meant him to be so,--perhaps it was only
carelessness, their own suspense being over; but certain it is that Mrs.
Tracy’s answer to his letter was not put into Ben’s hands till the
movement up-stairs was quieted, and the ladies preparing to go to bed.
Then Mrs. Tracy rang the bell. ‘That poor boy has not got his answer
yet,--how careless, Millicent!’ she said; and Millicent half smiled as
she went and sought it on the writing-table, underneath a heap of
muslin. ‘It can’t matter much,’ she said, with a slight shrug of her
graceful shoulders, and yet gave it with her own hands to the maid.
‘Tell Mr. Renton you forgot it,’ said Mrs. Tracy; ‘it should have gone
to him some time ago.’ And this was how the evening ended for the
adventurers on the eve of their campaign.
It had been a trying day for Millicent. Thinking it over when she
finally retired to the little dressing-room she occupied, this was the
conclusion she came to,--a very trying day. Neither her education nor
her experience, such as it was, had at all prepared her for such trials.
She knew how to deal with the ordinary young man who was to be met with
in Guildford Street; and as she sat with her hair hanging about her
shoulders, in the thoughtfulness of the moment a whole array rose up
before her of men who had admired her, followed her about, and satisfied
her vanity to the fullest extent, but who were not to be compared to Ben
Renton in any particular. Millicent, knowing no better, would have
married young Mr. Cholmley, of the firm of Cholmley and Territ, if he
could have settled anything on her; or young Hurlstone, the solicitor,
if he had been in better practice; or the engineer, who everybody said
was likely to make so much money, had he not been so impudent about
mothers-in-law, and so determined that Mrs. Tracy should have nothing to
do in his house. She would have taken any of them, and thought it her
duty. She had been even--must it be confessed?--a quarter part engaged
to all of them before their shortcomings were apparent. And each in
succession was eager to have purchased her and her beauty, though they
all haggled about the price. But to have betrayed her poverty to them,
or her mother’s difficulties, was the last thing in the world that
Millicent would have dreamed of doing. Had she done so her lovers would
have regarded her,--she knew it,--with a certain contempt. Her beauty
was much, and that she was an officer’s daughter, and supposed to have
high connexions, was much too,--enough to cover the want of fortune
which she never attempted to conceal; but penniless, struggling with
poverty, in debt--oh, words of fear!--Millicent would have starved
rather than have breathed such damning syllables in the ears of Cholmley
or Hurlstone. But she had told Ben all, ‘as if he were a friend,’ she
said to herself in amazement. And Ben, still as if he were a friend, had
rushed forth and found what she wanted, letting no grass grow under his
feet. What a curious, bewildering, unaccountable business it was! Poor
fellow! Could he be a fool, as Mrs. Tracy thought? or was he more
infatuated, more wild about her than any of them had been? or was it a
new species she had to deal with,--a being of a different kind? She was
so puzzled that she let her hair stray all over her shoulders and get
into hopeless tangles. Poor Ben! And after all it was out of the
question that she should marry him. This hundred pounds which he had
thrust upon her,--and surely, surely, if he were not a fool he must be a
very indiscreet, prodigal sort of young man, throwing his money about in
such a wild way,--must be the end, as it was the beginning, of anything
between them. It was very hard, Millicent thought; but for that horrid
old Mr. Renton and his ridiculous will, instead of setting out on her
adventures to Homburg, in the hope of finding somebody to marry her, she
might have had Ben and the Manor and excellent settlements, and no more
trouble. Old men should not be allowed to be so wicked, she said to
herself. She would have made Ben a very good wife; she would even have
grown fond of him. A sigh trembled out of Millicent’s rose lips as these
thoughts filled her soul. What a hair’s breadth it was that divided this
shifty, tricky, sordid life, with its most miserable aim, from an
existence so different! Berkeley Square,--that was, alas! the foremost
thing in her thoughts. Her mind strayed off to caress the idea for a
moment. She saw herself in the great old-fashioned, splendid
rooms,--splendid to Mrs. Tracy’s daughter, and not old-fashioned, you
may be sure of that, from the moment Mrs. Benedict Renton had got
possession of them. She saw herself getting into her carriage at the
door, with such horses, such footmen, such a glimmer and sheen of
luxury, and sighed again very heavily. Last night it seemed so near, so
certain; and now, the old treadmill to begin again, the old game to be
played, the old risks to be run! It had not occurred to Millicent even
now how humiliating was that game. It was natural to her;--she had been
brought up to it. But she doubled the beautiful, soft, white hand which
Ben had kissed, and shook it figuratively at his horrid old father.
‘Wretched old miser!’ said Millicent, setting her pearly teeth together.
And she could have made a good wife, and even grown fond of Ben.
Mrs. Tracy, on the other side of the partition, was not half so much
disturbed. She had a hundred pounds in her pocket, as good as a gift,
she said to herself; for, of course, he would never ask either interest
or principal. What a fool the young man must be! or did he, could he,
think that she was such a fool as to throw away her beautiful daughter
upon him because of his hundred pounds? Not quite so silly as that, Mrs.
Tracy said to herself. It was the first real bit of good fortune her
beautiful daughter had brought her. For husband-hunting, adopted as a
profession in the very serious way in which Mrs. Tracy had entered into
it, is a dangerous and difficult trade. Perhaps it would be safe to say
there is no work in the world more hazardous, dreary, and
unremunerative. Millicent’s dresses had cost a great deal, and it had
been very expensive taking her ‘out,’ before poor Fitzgerald’s downfall
and death made that impossible, and on the whole she had lost a great
deal more than she had gained up to this moment. Now, here was the first
earnest of coming fortune. With her looks Millicent might marry
anybody;--a Russian prince rolling in money, most likely; or a
millionnaire with more than he could count. The world was at her feet.
Notwithstanding the small results her beauty had produced in the past,
Mrs. Tracy jumped to the highest heights of hope. And as for Ben Renton
and his hundred pounds! instead of regretting, like her daughter, she
was rather glad that the game was still all to play. The excitement had
its charm for her. She was a gambler going about the world with one
piece to stake; and, like most gamblers, could not divest herself of the
idea that if she could but wait and hold on, she must win.
CHAPTER IX.
BEN’S REWARD.
When Ben received Mrs. Tracy’s letter his mind was in a condition which
it would be very difficult to describe. He had taken, as he thought, a
step which would decide his whole life. And even in the moment of taking
it he had been put to the severest test which a man can meet;--his love
had been suddenly arrested in its high tide, and the woman he loved
placed, as it were, at the bar before his better judgment, his finer
taste. The shock had been so great that Ben’s mind for the moment had
reeled under it. He had felt equal to nothing but wild and sudden
action, it did not matter much of what kind. He had rushed out and had
done what we have already recorded, and now for two or three hours he
had been sitting with no pretence at doing anything, waiting to see what
was to come of it. Wild visions of being called to her,--of being made
to forget in the charm and intoxication of her presence all the
tinglings of shame and disquietude which against his will had come upon
him,--possessed him at first. He sat for long, expecting that every
movement he heard was towards him,--expecting to hear her voice, or her
mother’s voice, calling him. He could not go out to his club for dinner
as he generally did; he could not have eaten anything; he did not even
recollect that it was his duty to go and dine. Such a madness to have
taken possession of Ben Renton, a practised man of the world! But so it
was. He sat and listened, thinking he heard her on the stair, thinking
he heard soft taps at the door, saying sometimes, ‘Come in!’ in his
foolishness, to the ghost of his own fancy. But nobody came near him.
One would have thought that this want of any response after the great
sacrifice he had made for her, would have acted upon him like a shrill
gust of reality blowing away the mists. But, in fact, it was not so.
Instead of opening his eyes it but dimmed them more with a feverish haze
of suspense. How could he judge her when he was watching with breathless
anxiety for her call, for her answer, for some message from her? The
footsteps above him were treading lightly, cruelly on his heart; but the
very continuance of their sound rapt him so that he could think of
nothing else. What were they doing? What meaning had they towards
himself, these women who seemed to hold his life in their hands? Every
lingering moment in which the true state of affairs should have become
visible to him, in which he should have come to see, however unwilling,
something of the real character of the creature that had bewitched him,
encircled Ben with but another coil of her magic. Not now!--not now!
After he knew what she was going to do he might then be able to judge.
At present he could but listen, breathless,--watch, wait, wonder, and
catch with a quickened ear the meaning of every movement. Any rational
observer would have concluded that Ben Renton was out of his wits
before, but the climax of his madness was reached that night. He had
stripped himself of everything he had in the world,--at the moment,--for
Millicent; he would have spent his life for her if she had but made him
a sign; not in the way of self-murder, which nobody could have required
of him, but of that more total suicide which consists in the sacrifice
of all the prospects, and hopes, and possibilities of life. His love was
not a selfish, complacent impulse, but a passion which mastered him.
Thus the moments which passed so lightly overhead in that argument about
the black grenadine were ages of sickening uncertainty to Ben.
This was brought to an end by Mrs. Tracy’s letter. Such a plunge into
dead fact after the wild heat of his excitement was enough to have
brought any man to his wits. He read it over and over in his
consternation. At first there shot across him a pang of disappointment,
a sinking of heart, such as comes inevitably to those who are thrown
back upon themselves out of a roused state of expectation. And then he
re-read it till the words lost their meaning. But there was something
else which could not fail of expressiveness, and that was the silence
which had succeeded so much movement and commotion up-stairs. For
half-an-hour he refused to believe, even with the sudden stillness above
and the letter in his hand to prove it, that all possibility of further
intercourse was over for the night. He could not believe it. They were
only stiller than usual. The note should have come to him earlier. There
was still time to call him to them. He took out his watch and placed it
on the table before him. Eleven o’clock, and every thing so quiet. Then
he went out and listened in the dingy little hall, where a faint lamp
was burning; then, half mad, opened the outer door, and rushed into the
street to make sure. There, indeed, he was convinced of the fact which
had been evident to all his faculties before. The dining-room was quite
dark, evidently vacant, and above, in the higher storey, was the glimmer
of Mrs. Tracy’s candles. She was going to bed, respectable, virtuous
woman that she was, with the hundred pounds accepted as a loan under her
pillow, too virtuous to think of rewarding the giver even by a smile
from Millicent’s lips, which would have cost nothing. The poor young
fellow came in with his heart bleeding and palpitating, one knows how,
and then seized his hat and went out again for a long, agitated walk in
the dark, not caring nor knowing where he went. Yes; this was how it
was to be. They had accepted his offering, but they had not a word to
give him, nor a look, nor a smile; nothing but the formal acknowledgment
of his ‘kindness,’ and Mrs. Tracy’s I. O. U.,--which was worth so much!
Ben walked on and on through the dreary, half-lighted streets, thinking,
he supposed; but he was not in the least thinking. He was but going over
and over the fact that there was nothing for him that night, that all
hope was over, that the exquisite moment he had been expecting,--and it
was only now that he knew how he had been expecting it,--was not to be.
When some long-desired and promised meeting has failed to take place,
and the watcher, obstinately believing to the last, has to confess that
the day is over, the possibility gone, that the hour is never to be won
out of the hands of time,--then he or she knows how Ben felt. And most
of us have had some experience of such feelings. Thrills came over him,
as he walked, of wild suggestion,--how she might, after all, have stolen
down-stairs to say the fault was not hers; how she might have tapped at
his door after he was gone. Ah! no, never that! Millicent would never
have done that. And it was over for to-night, absolutely over! A hot dew
of mortification and disappointment forced itself into his eyes as he
marched along, nobody seeing him. Those dark London streets, wet
pavements, gleams of dreary lamplight, miserable creatures here and
there huddled up at corners, here and there loud in miserable gaiety,
danced before his eyes, a kind of grey phantasmagoria. What had he done?
what was he doing? What would life be with all its inconceivable chances
missed, and the golden moments gone away into darkness like this? For
the moment Ben was ready to have recognised the claim of fellowship with
the most pitiable wreck upon that stony strand. Like every real pang of
the heart, his sudden ache went beyond its momentary cause. It struck
out from that small misery,--as anybody in their senses would have
thought it,--into the wide ocean of suffering beyond. The thrill that
shook his being cast off echoes into the awful depths around him, of
which he was but vaguely conscious. Such fooling,--because a young man
had been disappointed of an hour’s talk with his love! But these
fantastic pangs are not the least sharp that humanity has to bear,
though even the sufferer may get to smile at them afterwards; and any
pain, if it is keen enough, brings the sufferer into the comprehension
of pain; just as nature, it is said, makes the whole world kin. He
walked for hours, forgetful of the poor maid-of-all-work in No. 10,
Guildford Street, who was nodding with her head against the wall, and
her arms wrapped up in her apron, waiting up for his return; and yet
during all this time not one rational thought about the real position of
Millicent Tracy and her mother, not one sensible reflection about his
lost money, presented themselves to the young man’s mind. He had not
seen her, could not see her now till the morning of another day,--most
probably was going to lose her altogether. Such were the vain things
that occupied his thoughts.
Next morning, however, Ben was desperate. The day went on till past its
height and no further notice was taken of him,--perhaps intentionally,
perhaps only because the ladies were packing, and had no time for
visitors. When he could stand it no longer he went boldly up-stairs, and
knocked at their door. To tell the truth, they had forgotten him,--even
Millicent had forgotten him, having given him but too much of her
thoughts the night before, and exhausted the subject. They were in full
discussion of the black grenadine when he went to the door, and bade him
‘Come in,’ calmly, expecting the maid, or the landlady, or some other
unimportant visitor. ‘I must have something decent for evenings,’
Millicent was saying, with quiet decision, absorbed in her subject, and
not thinking it worth while to raise her eyes; and then, suddenly
feeling a presence of some sort in the room, she started and looked up,
and gave a little scream. ‘Oh! it is Mr. Renton, mamma!’ she said, with
sudden bewilderment. She had thought he could be kept off,--kept at
arm’s-length,--and she had forgotten the important part he played in all
this preparation, and the new start which was coming. She dropped her
work, and her hands trembled a little. ‘Mr. Renton!’ There was
dissatisfaction, annoyance, surprise, in every inflection of her tone.
‘How glad I am to see you so early!’ said Mrs. Tracy, with the ‘tact’
which distinguished her, rising and coming up to him with outstretched
hands. She gave her daughter a reproving glance, which was not lost upon
poor Ben. ‘Do come in. We had hoped to see you this evening; but this is
quite an unlooked-for pleasure. You gentlemen are generally so much
engaged in the day.’
‘I have not much to engage me,’ said Ben; and then he stopped short,
with his heart aching, and gave a piteous look at Millicent, who was not
paying the least attention to him. ‘If I have come too soon,’ he said,
‘let me return in the evening. I did not mean to disturb you.’
‘You could not disturb us,’ said Mrs. Tracy, with her most gracious
smile. ‘If Millicent is too busy to talk, she shall go away and look
after her chiffons, and come back to us when her mind is at rest. As we
are going so soon, I shall be very glad of a little talk with our
kindest friend.’
‘Oh, very well, mamma,’ said Millicent; and she got up, with no
softening of her looks. She was vexed that he had come; yet vexed to go
away and leave him with her mother,--vexed to see him, with a feeling of
doing him wrong, with which Mrs. Tracy’s obtuse faculties were not
troubled. She swept out of the room without so much as looking at him,
and then stood outside with a thousand minds to go back. She was not
callous, nor cruel, nor without heart, though she had been brought up to
one debasing trade. If she had never seen him after, it would have made
the whole matter practicable; but to know all he had done, and why he
had done it; to see the love,--such love!--in his eyes; and to be
obliged to be polite and grateful, and no more! Nature rebelled to such
an extent in the young woman’s mind that it woke her to sudden alarm!
Could she be falling in love with Ben? as her mother said. When that
absurd idea entered her thoughts she turned quickly away, and ran
up-stairs to her room, and went to her packing, leaving her mother to
deal with him. No, not quite;--not so ridiculous as that!
‘Have I offended her?’ said Ben. ‘Is she angry with me for
my--presumption? What have I done to make her go away?’
‘Nothing, my dear friend,’ said Mrs. Tracy, taking his hand, and
pressing it; ‘nothing but the kindest, the noblest action. Oh, Mr.
Renton, you must not be hard upon my poor child! She feels your
generosity so much, and she feels our miserable position so much,--and,
in short, it is a conflict of pride and gratitude----’
‘Gratitude!’ said Ben, sadly. ‘Ah, how ill you judge me;--as if I wanted
gratitude! I wish I had wealth to pour at her feet. I wish I could give
her---- But that is folly. Has she not a word to say to me, after all?’
What he meant by ‘after all,’ was, after the opening of his
heart,--after the pouring forth of his love. But to Mrs. Tracy it meant
after the hundred pounds; and here was a way of making an end of him
very ready to her hands.
‘Mr. Renton,’ she said, with an assumption of dignity which sat very
well, and looked natural enough, ‘it was my doing, accepting it,--it was
not Millicent’s doing. I thought it was offered out of kindness and
friendship. Any one, almost, would pity two women left alone as we were;
and I accepted it, as I thought, in the spirit it was offered; but if I
had thought it was a price for my child’s affections----’
Ben turned away, sickening at her, as she spoke to him. ‘Bah!’ he said,
half aloud in his disgust. He would not condescend to explain. He turned
half round to the door, and gazed at it in an uncertain pause. Millicent
might come back. When he thought of it, mothers were,--or books were
liars,--all miserable, bargaining creatures like this. He would not take
the trouble to discuss it with her. If he had not been so weary and
worn-out and sick at heart he would not have been thus incivil. But he
said to himself that he could not help it, and turned impatiently away.
‘Ah, I thought it was not so,--I felt sure it was not so!’ cried Mrs.
Tracy, recovering herself as her mistake became apparent. ‘Dear Mr.
Renton, sit down, and let us talk it over. Forgive a mother’s jealous
care. But let me thank you first----’
‘I don’t want any thanks,’ said Ben, with a certain sullenness, as he
sat down at her bidding on the nearest chair.
‘For my life,’ said Mrs. Tracy, looking him calmly in the face. ‘Yes, it
was as serious as that. Not that I care much for my life, except for
Millicent’s sake. It has no more charms nor hopes for me, Mr. Renton!
But I could not die until I see her in better hands than mine. Don’t be
angry with me. You asked her,--you offered her---- What was it, in
reality, that passed between you yesterday? My darling child was too
much agitated to know.’
‘I had nothing to offer,’ said Ben, with sullen disgust. To pour out his
heart to Millicent, and to make his confession thus to her mother, were
two very different things. ‘I am penniless, and disinherited. I had to
tell her so. Nothing but what I might be able to make as a day-labourer,
perhaps,’ he went on, with angry vehemence. ‘Whatever folly said, she
has apparently no answer to give.’
‘In such a case, Mr. Renton,’ said Mrs. Tracy, facing him, ‘it is not my
daughter who has to be consulted, but me.’ He had given her an advantage
by his ill-breeding, and now he had to rouse himself, and turn round to
her and mutter some prayer for pardon. He was in the wrong. As this
flashed upon him his colour rose. Had he spoken as he now said he had it
would have been an insult. It was an insult, the way in which he was
addressing her mother now. ‘Mr. Renton,’ she said, ‘I have put myself
into a false position by taking your money; and what is life itself in
comparison with one’s true character? I cannot let you despise
Millicent’s mother. Here it is; you shall have it back.’
‘Mrs. Tracy, forgive me, for heaven’s sake! I did not know what I was
saying,’ cried Ben.
‘There it is,’ said his opponent, laying the pocket-book on the table
between them. ‘Now I can speak. Millicent is an innocent girl, Mr.
Renton. She is not one of the kind who fall in love without being asked.
Probably, now that she knows you love her, she might learn to love you
if you were thrown together. But after the honourable way in which you
have told me what your position is, I cannot permit that. I will speak
to you frankly. If things had been different I should have been on your
side; but I cannot let my child marry a man with nothing. She is too
sensitive, too finely organised, too---- I cannot suffer it, Mr. Renton.
That is the honest truth. We are going away, and you may not meet again,
perhaps.’
‘That is impossible,’ said Ben, with a firmness of resolution which made
her pause in her speech. He spoke so low that it might have been to
himself, but she heard it, and it startled her much.
‘I will not let her marry a poor man,’ cried Mrs. Tracy with the
violence of alarm, ‘whatever comes of it. She is not a girl who may
marry anybody! She must make a good marriage. She must have comfort. She
must have what she has been used to,’ the woman cried in agitation, with
a certain gloomy irony. She was afraid of him, not knowing that he might
not put his hand across the table, and clutch his money back.
‘Good; I will work for that,’ said Ben. ‘She shall have it. It is only a
question of time. What more? What do you want more?’
‘What do I want?’ cried Mrs. Tracy. ‘Is that how you speak to a lady,
Mr. Renton? I want a good deal more. I want position and respect for my
Millicent, and civility, at least, for myself.’
Ben got up and went and made a gloomy survey of the room, round and
round, after the fashion of men, and then he came back to the point he
had started from. ‘I did not mean to be rude,’ he said; ‘I beg your
pardon. I have spoken to you like an ass. I feel I have; but it is you
who have the better of me. Put away that rubbish, for heaven’s sake, if
you would not drive me mad! I don’t suppose she cares for me,--how
should she? I’ll go to work and take myself out of the way to-morrow.
Only promise me to wait,--wait till you see how I get on. You can’t
tell what progress I may make. If I do well you have nothing against me.
You said so this minute. Wait and see.’
‘And let my child sacrifice her youth,--for what?’ cried Mrs. Tracy.
‘Oh, my dear Mr. Renton, things are harder than you think! You don’t
know what you say.’
‘Perhaps I don’t,’ said Ben; ‘perhaps I do. Neither of us know. Give me
your word to this, at least,--that nothing shall be done without telling
me; nothing shall happen before I know.’
‘Oh, what am I to do?’ said Mrs. Tracy. ‘How can I make such an
engagement? As if I should be sure to know even before--anything
happened! I will do what I can. You know I wish you well.’
‘You will promise to let me know before--you bind her to any other,’ Ben
repeated, bending over the little table which stood between them, to
look into her face. She thought it was to take up the famous pocket-book
upon which everything depended, and uttered a little scream.
‘I will do whatever I can,’ she said. ‘I will plead your cause all I
can. I will promise,--oh, yes! Mr. Renton, I promise,’ she cried,
eagerly. He had even, as he stooped towards her, touched the price,--as
she thought,--of the promise with his sleeve.
And then, utterly to Mrs. Tracy’s bewilderment, Ben dropped into his
chair, and covered his face with his hands, and sighed. The sigh was so
deep, and heavy, and full of care that it startled her. Had he not just
got what he had been struggling for? She had given him her promise,--a
reluctant, and perhaps not very certain bond,--and yet he gave but a
sigh over it,--the sigh of a man ruined and broken. She looked at his
bowed head, at the curious strain of the hands into which his face was
bent. What a strange, unsatisfactory, ungracious way of receiving a
favour! What a highflown, exaggerated sort of a young man! She was
thinking so, gazing across the table at him, sometimes letting her eye
stray a little anxiously to the pocket-book, with a pucker on her
forehead and a cold dread in her heart, when the unaccountable fellow as
suddenly unveiled his cloudy countenance and looked straight up into her
face. Probably he caught her glance retreating from the pocket-book, for
he laughed, and all at once, to her amaze and consternation, took that
up.
‘You must take care of your health,’ he said,--and whether he was
speaking in mockery or in kindness Mrs. Tracy could not make out,--‘and
when this is done let me know,’ he added, dropping it softly without any
warning into her lap. ‘I may be rich by that time; and when I am rich,
you know, you are to be on my side.’
‘Oh my dear, I am on your side now!’ she cried with a half-sob, and
stretched out to take his hand, and would have kissed it, in the relief
of getting what she wanted. She did not understand the glow of shame
that came over Ben’s face, the stern clasp he gave to her hand, almost
hurting her, resisting her soft attempt to draw it to her. And he held
her thus, as in a vice, and looked down upon her stormily, keenly, as if
asking himself whether he could believe her or not. ‘And I will see her,
too, before you go,’ he said, with an abruptness she had never seen in
him before; and then suddenly left her, without another word, closing
the door behind him, and audibly, with heavy, rude footsteps, descending
the stairs.
Mrs. Tracy sat motionless, with her fingers all white and crumpled
together, and the pocket-book lying in her lap, and heard the
street-door shut behind him, and his steps echo along the street. Then
only did she draw breath. It had been a tough moment, but she could
flatter herself she had won the victory. And yet she had a cry to
herself, as she sat alone awaking out of her stupefaction. What a brute
he was! Her fingers were crushed, her nerves quite shaken. But then she
had the hundred pounds in her lap, and had given only the vaguest
general promise by way of paying for it,--a promise which might be
forgotten or not as it should happen when there were a thousand miles of
land and water between the two.
‘Of course I shall see him,’ Millicent said, when she came down-stairs
and heard a kind of report of the interview,--a very partial report
given to suit the exigencies of the moment. ‘I would not be so
ungrateful,’ she said; and there was a little flutter of colour and
light about her, which looked like excitement, the anxious mother
thought. Could she be such a fool as to have fallen in love with him?
was the painful idea which flashed again across Mrs. Tracy’s mind.
Surely, surely, not anything so ridiculous as that. And the best thing
in the circumstances was to fall back upon the black grenadine, which
indeed was a matter of the first importance. It was not quite so pretty
as tulle, nor so light: but then it would be cheaper and wear better,
and at those summer dinners in daylight, which are always so trying,
would probably look even better than tulle. ‘It must be put in hand at
once,’ Mrs. Tracy said, ‘for we have no time to lose.’ And it was a
great relief to her when Millicent settled down quietly to try a new
trimming, which she thought would be pretty for the sleeve. After all,
she was a very good girl, with no nonsense about her; and her mother’s
blessing, could it have secured her the best reward a good girl can
have,--the conventional reward for all exemplary young women,--fell upon
Millicent on the spot. A good husband, a rich husband,--a very rich,
very grand, very noble mate; if that were but attained what more could
the round world give? Mrs. Tracy went and locked up her pocket-book, and
got through an endless amount of arrangements that very afternoon. She
had been in haste before, but now she was in a hurry. It occurred to
her even that it would be better to get the black grenadine in Paris,
though it might be a little dearer. Anything rather than another such
interview! On that point her mind was made up.
CHAPTER X.
THE LAST INTERVIEW.
Mothers were like that,--calculating, merchandising creatures, not
worthy to unloose the shoes of the fair and innocent angels who, by some
strange chance, were in their hands,--sordid beings whom it was just,
and even virtuous, to balk and deceive. If this were not the case, then
most books were false, and most sketches of contemporary life founded on
a mistake. Ben Renton was not more given to novels than most men, but if
there is one fact to be learned from the best studies of the best
humorists, is it not this? And there was much comfort in the thought. It
stopped him short in the course of disenchantment, which otherwise would
have wrung his heart cruelly, and perhaps convinced him. She was not to
blame. She had opened her heart to him, poor darling!--she could not
help it. And now she was separated from him by an agony of embarrassment
and shame, his money standing like a ghost between him,--who had thought
of nothing but of serving her on his knees, like a slave,--and her
delicacy, her pride, the revulsion of all her fine and tender instincts
against the burden of such a vulgar obligation! This was how he managed
to free himself from all doubts of Millicent. Her mother, it was clear,
was a mercenary, poverty-stricken, scheming, sordid ‘campaigner,’--but
then most mothers are so;--and she herself was as spotless as she was
lovely,--the soul of tender honour, the ideal and purest type of woman.
God bless her! he said in his heart. Even the cloud he had seen on her
face endeared her more to him. And if it should be his to deliver this
noble creature from her mean surroundings, to take her from the society
of the poor mercenary mother, to enrich her with everything that was
fair and honest, and of good report! Ben’s foot spurned the ground as
this anticipation came upon him. He felt himself able to conquer
everything, thrilling with the strength of a hundred men. Who said it
was hard? If it were not hard it would be too sweet, too delicious, the
day’s work of Paradise amid the yielding roses and golden apples, not
bitter sweat of the brow and mortal toil.
Two or three days passed, however, before the interview he had
determined upon, and to which Millicent assented as a matter of course,
could come to pass. Mrs. Tracy staved it off with an alarm which was
partly selfish and partly affectionate. Her own conversation with Ben
had been of a character quite unprecedented in her experience, and had
taken, as she admitted, a great deal out of her; and she was reluctant
to expose her daughter to a similar experience. And then Millicent was
still young, and there had been curious signs about her for some time
back,--signs of something unknown, which her mother was afraid of. Such
things had been heard of as that a girl, even in circumstances as
important as Millicent’s, with everything, so to speak, hanging upon her
decision, and a good marriage the one thing indispensable in the world,
should cheat all her friends and ruin her own hopes by falling in love
with an objectionable suitor. Mrs. Tracy almost blushed at the thought;
but still, as an experienced woman, she could not shut her eyes to the
possibility. And Millicent certainly was not quite like herself.
Sometimes she could not bear to hear Ben Renton’s name; but again, if he
were spoken slightly of, would flash up. And she was cross and uneasy
and restless, exacting about the grenadine and the little things she
wanted,--not easy to manage in any way. It might be dangerous to leave
them alone together. For these very different reasons Mrs. Tracy
exercised all her diplomatic skill to delay, and, if possible, put off
altogether, this unlucky interview. And in the meantime all the boxes
were packed, and such of the tradespeople as she could not help paying
were paid. A hundred pounds is not a very large sum of money after all.
She took care to point out to the landlady that she was only going for
the baths, and might be expected back again, so that people were not so
very sharp about their accounts as perhaps they might have been. And she
went so far as to leave her superfluous luggage in Guildford Street,--an
unmistakable sign of probity. If the end of all their schemes were
attained in Homburg, why then there would,--no doubt,--be money for
everything; and, if not, why it was no use burning their ships until
they saw how things would go. It was on the last evening that Ben found
his way to the drawing-room with a smouldering fire of excitement in his
heart. Not all Mrs. Tracy’s skill could balk him of that last
gratification; but she had succeeded in postponing it to the last night.
Millicent was seated where she had been the first time he saw
her,--where she had been on that memorable day when she told him their
need,--on a low, straight-backed chair in the corner, against the wall,
with the light coming in on her from under the half-lowered blind. She
was innocent of any consciousness of that perfection of effect. The
blind was down only because Mrs. Tracy felt that it looked well from the
outside, neither of them being sufficiently skilled to know how cleverly
this device concentrated the light upon the beautiful head. She had some
work in her hands, as usual, by way of relief and refuge in what was
likely to be an agitating interview. And yet Millicent did not look much
as if she should herself be agitated. Her lips were drawn in the least
in the world; her forehead had the ghost of a line on it; her foot
patted in soft impatience upon the carpet. She was anxious, very anxious
to have it over. What was the use of talk? She was ready to see him,
ready to please him so far as she could, and yet she could not but be
irritated with the man who had disappointed her,--could not but feel
that his hundred pounds was a very paltry substitute for what she had
expected of him. Millicent was not beginning her new campaign with any
very brilliant hopes. She was ready, even now, to cry with vexation and
disappointment. She never had brought a man to the point and felt that
she could put up with him, and might have a comfortable life before her,
but he went and got himself disinherited! It was all very well for the
others, who had no particular trouble in the matter; and nobody
sympathised sufficiently with Millicent to see that the very sight of
him was tantalising to her, now that he was no good! At the same time,
she was used to commanding herself, and did not betray these emotions.
Ben went into the room with the noiseless rapidity of passion. She did
not know he was coming until he was there, leaning against the window,
gazing down upon her. Mrs. Tracy was out of the room, though she had not
meant to be so. He had seized upon the moment, determined, at least for
this once, to have everything his own way.
‘Oh, Mr. Renton, how you startled me!’ said Millicent. ‘I never heard
you come up-stairs.’
‘I did not mean you should,’ said Ben. He had come up very wild in his
passion, with a hundred violent, tender words on his lips to say; but
when he came before her, and gazed down on her passionless face, somehow
the fire went out of him. A kind of wonder stole over his mind,--a
wonder not unusual to men before such a woman. Was it anything to her at
all,--anything out of the ordinary way? The meeting, the parting,--which
shook his very being,--was it merely an every-day incident with her,
saying, ‘Good-bye to poor Mr. Renton?’ He stood and gazed, with his
heart in his eyes, at the calm creature. The very marble warms a little
on its surface, at least, under the shining of the sun. When she raised
her lovely eyes to him,--undimmed, unbrightened, no haze of feeling nor
sparkle of excitement in them,--shining calmly, as they always did, a
sense of half adoration, half scorn, awoke in Ben’s mind. Was she
chillier than the marble, then? Or was not this passionless sweetness of
the woman, before the fiery love which blazed about her, a something
half divine? ‘You do not care much,’ he said. ‘I was a fool to think you
would care; and yet I have been counting the moments till this moment
should come.’
‘It is very kind of you to think so much of me,’ said Millicent; ‘and I
did want to see you, Mr. Renton. I wanted to tell you that I never for
one moment thought,--never imagined you would do anything, like what you
have done. I should not have told you, had I thought so; I should have
died sooner.’
‘Oh, Millicent! is this all you have to say to me?’ cried her lover. ‘I
wish it was at the bottom of the sea;--I wish---- Never mind. Think for
one moment, if you can, that I have never done anything--except--love
you. That does not sound much,’ the young man went on, stooping down,
almost kneeling before her, that his eyes might help his words. A smile
of half disdain at himself broke over his face as he caught her eye. ‘It
does not sound much,’ he cried. ‘You will say to yourself, small thanks
to him,--everybody does that; but it is everything in the world to me.
Have you nothing to say to me for that, Millicent?--not one word?’
‘It is very kind of you. You are very good,--you always were very good
to me,’ said Millicent, hurriedly under her breath, with a glance at the
door. Undoubtedly, Mrs. Tracy’s presence would have been a relief now.
‘Kind!’ he cried, with a sort of groan,--‘good to you! Then that is all
I am to have by way of farewell?’
‘Mr. Renton,’ said Millicent, rousing herself up, ‘I don’t know what you
think I can say. You know what you told me last time we spoke of this.
You said you were disinherited. You said you had nothing to offer me.
Well, then, what can I answer? It is very good of you to--care for me. I
shall always feel you have done me an honour. But there is nothing to
give an answer to that I know of; and, indeed, I can’t tell what else to
say.’
‘Ah, if it is only that there is nothing to answer!’ cried Ben.
‘Millicent, tell me I am to work for you,--tell me that when I have
changed all this,--when I have made my way in the world,--when I have
something to offer,--that I am to come back to you. Tell me so,--only
that I am to come!’
With a little laugh, half of natural embarrassment, half of art,
Millicent glanced at, and turned away from her lover, who was now fairly
on his knees before her, looking up with eager, pleading, impassioned
eyes into her face. ‘That would be very like making you an offer,’ she
said, shaking her head. ‘You cannot expect me to do that.’
‘But I may come?’ said Ben. He took her calm, soft hands into his, which
burned and trembled. He kissed them with his quivering, passionate lips.
Oh, what a fool he was! That was the uppermost thought in the mind of
the beautiful creature at whose feet he thus threw himself. A man of the
world, too, who ought to have seen through her,--who ought to have known
that she was not the sort of woman to wait years and years on such a
vague, nay, hopeless prospect. Yes, he might come if he liked. What did
it matter? If he was to make his own way in the world, no doubt it would
be years and years first, and by that time his feelings would have
changed, of course. It was easier to pretend to yield to him, and
satisfy him for the moment, than to set the truth plainly before him and
make a scene. Thus Millicent reasoned, not without compassion, not
without kindness, for the foolish fellow who held her hands in such a
tremulous, passionate embrace. There lay the special hardness of her
fate. She could have liked him had everything been as it ought to be.
She was sorry for him even now; but, after all, what did it matter? It
must be years and years before he could have anything to offer, and of
course his feelings would have changed a dozen times before that. It was
best to smooth over matters, and make him happy now. Thus Ben came off
victorious from both mother and daughter,--victorious,--conqueror of all
real obstacles that could stand between him and his love. So he thought.
When he went down stairs again he found the vulgarest little envelope on
his table,--dirty, crumpled, with his name scrawled on it in a style he
was quite familiar with,--his weekly bill,--and he had not anything to
pay it with,--not a shilling in the world!
CHAPTER XI.
MRS. BARTON’S LITTLE BILL.
There are different ways of being penniless, as we have said. The man
who does his work from day to day may have nothing, and yet be easy
enough; and the man who has wealth or expectations behind him may treat
a momentary impecuniosity as a good joke. And most people, too, find it
easy enough to be largely in debt. A big balance against him in some big
tradesman’s books seldom, unless he comes to the point of desperation,
is very deeply afflictive to a young man; but your little, greasy,
weekly bill,--handed in by your poor, greasy, termagant landlady, with
hungry, or wistful, or furious eyes,--and not a penny in your pocket to
pay it,--this is, indeed, to look poverty in the face.
And this is what happened to Ben Renton the day he took leave of
Millicent. If it had been a snake in his path he could not have looked
at the poor little crumpled envelope on his table with greater horror.
He had been nearly penniless, it is true, for the six months which he
had spent in Guildford Street, as has been related, but he had never
been troubled about his weekly bill; and he had nothing, nor any
prospect of anything, for three months. And he could not dig, and to beg
was ashamed. All the horrors of his position flashed upon him as he
stood and gazed at it. His occupation was gone,--his enchantress was
leaving him,--everything was over and ended. And he had no money, and
nothing to do now that the delirium was over. With his pulses all
tingling from the last meeting, and the strange intoxication of mingled
content and despair in his brain, to plunge into this cold sea of
reality, was something terrible. He caught his breath and shivered like
a man near drowning. Then he sat down and took out his purse, and
counted over the money in it. There were a few shillings left, and one
sovereign,--the last of its race; and that was all he should have for
three months,--he, Benedict Renton, the representative of an old wealthy
house,--he who imagined himself Millicent Tracy’s betrothed. He was
going to make wealth and a fortune for her, and this was the foundation
he had to start upon. And how to dig he knew not, nor to what to apply
himself.
Then Ben seized his hat and went out, leaving the thunderbolt which had
thus shaken him,--Mrs. Barton’s little bill,--lying on the table. He had
no need to look at it. Its crooked column of shillings was quite as
appalling to him as if it had been hundreds of pounds, for he had not a
penny, so to speak. He had some five-and-twenty shillings in the world;
and when a man has come to that, the mere amount of what he owes does
not much matter to him. Small or great, it involved the same
impossibility,--he had nothing wherewith to pay it. The evening had come
on,--a May evening,--with a little fresh wind blowing, and a scent of
growing grass and fresh foliage even in the dingiest of squares. London
had revolved upon its axis since he had gone to Guildford Street. Even
in that sombre neighbourhood the thrill of the new season was in
everybody’s veins; the tall dark houses round the corner, which had
slumbered all winter, had now lights gleaming all over them. The old fly
with the white horse, and the driver in white cotton gloves, which Ben
had caught a vision of through the window the first time he entered that
house and met his fate, drove past him now as he went out, with a
semblance of dash and spirit, conveying ladies in full dress to some
dinner-party. Six months,--and had he been slumbering, too, and had
dreams?--or taking the most important step of his life, laying a sweet
foundation for after happiness?--or throwing away so much time, and his
peace into the bargain? Heaven knows! He went out and made his way
through the twilight streets into the Park, where the dew was falling
and the stars shining. Even yet he had not come to ask himself seriously
the question, What was he to do? His mind was in a haze of excitement,
and uncertainty, and passion. It was like the evening landscape amidst
which he went abroad,--lights gleaming about all its edges,--vague
noises,--a haze about that blurred the distant outlines,--calm with the
compulsory quiet which comes with an ending, whatever that ending may
be,--yet agitated with fears and hopes and uncertain resolutions. There
was the faint fragrance of the spring, and the soft sadness of the
night, and the mystery of that indistinct hum and roar of the great
city, so near yet so unseen! All this was round about Ben as he walked,
and it was but a shadow of the commotion, the silence, the despair and
excitement, that were in his heart.
He walked up and down so long, having the whole soft world of space and
darkness to himself, as it seemed, that positive fatigue stole over him
at last; and then he turned instinctively, almost without knowing; it,
to the familiar ways from which he had long been a comparative exile.
When he found himself in the lighted street, pursuing the way to his
club, Ben had become languid and listless, and was scarcely conscious of
any stronger feeling than weariness. It was past eight o’clock, and in
his exhaustion he remembered that he had not dined. For some time past,
since the stream of life had begun to pour back to town, he had avoided
the club, not wishing to meet former friends; but he was weary and
stupefied, and did not seem to care for anything that night. He went in
and ordered himself a spare dinner, and sat down under cover of a
newspaper, entrenching himself behind the vast sheet of the ‘Times’ to
wait for it. Ben Renton, once amongst the most distinguished, the
wealthiest, hope-fullest, best-known of all the community,--and that
only six months ago,--now with five-and-twenty shillings in his pocket,
his life as uncertain as that of any adventurer, poorer than any
day-labourer who knew where to get work for the morrow, waiting for his
cutlet, concealed behind a newspaper! Could any imagination conceive so
vast a change?
As he rose to go to his meal, however, Ben discovered that he had not
been hid. Friends came up to greet him whom it was not easy to shake
off; and when at last he got to the door of the room in which he had
been sitting, a danger which he had not apprehended befell him. His name
was called out with a positive shout that roused everybody’s attention,
and, before he could get out of the way, he was caught, and all but
hugged, by his mother’s brother,--a hobbling, gouty old sea-captain, who
was the last man in the world he wished to see. ‘What, Ben Renton! God
bless us, come to the surface at last!’ Captain Ormerod cried loudly, as
he posted down to meet his nephew, making such a clatter with his stick
and his lame foot as roused everybody. Such an encounter at such a
moment was terrible to Ben; but he had to swallow his impatience, and
to brave it as he best could.
‘Going to get some dinner? I’ll go with ye, my boy,’ said his uncle.
‘Why, I’ve been to the Manor, and seen them all except yourself, Ben;
and there is as much lamentation over ye as if ye had gone down at sea.
Why don’t ye go and see your mother, boy? My poor fellow!’ the sailor
continued, as they sat down together at the table where poor Ben’s
dinner was served to him, ‘I don’t much wonder. If the old boy had
played me such a trick when I was your age----’
‘Remember it is my father you are speaking of,’ said Ben, hastily, his
pride and his affection all in arms. Home and its associations had been
as things before the deluge to him ten minutes ago. How they rushed back
upon him now at the very sound of this old man’s voice! His father,--ah,
yes, his father, had been very hard upon him; but, still, was not to be
breathed against by any living man save himself.
‘Well said, Ben,’ said his uncle; ‘well said, my boy! I like that. To be
sure he was your father, and my poor sister’s husband. But I may say I
wish he had made a will like other people. Why, you might have been
enjoying your own, a fine young Squire, among the best of them, if some
one had not put such devilish nonsense in his head.’
As the sailor spoke, the phantasmagoria of those six months rolled away,
as it were, from Ben’s eyes. A vision of what he might have been rose
before him. A man, important to so many people, with power and influence
in his hands, with a voice perhaps in the ruling of his country, with
all kinds of private interests at least to take charge of, dependants to
protect, friends to support and assist; and instead he had spent his
time in the little parlour at Guildford Street, madly possessed with one
woman’s image, dead and useless to every creature in the world. Was this
his father’s fault?
‘I’d rather not think on the subject,’ he said. ‘My father, no doubt,
meant well by us. He meant to teach us to depend on ourselves, to rouse
our energies----’
‘Well, my dear fellow, well,’ said Captain Ormerod, with an impatient
sigh, ‘I hope he has done so, that’s all. I should have said you looked
more as if you had been asleep and dreaming than anything else. And it
was not your poor mother’s fault, you may be sure, whoever was to blame.
You might have written home.’
‘I should,’ said Ben, with compunction. ‘I will write at once. I am very
sorry. How is my mother?’ his voice faltered in spite of himself as he
named her. He had not so much as remembered he had a mother in the
absorption of his passion. He almost thought he could see her now on her
sofa smiling at him. Poor weakly woman! Not of sufficient mark in the
world to be remembered even by her son; but yet giving the lie very
distinctly, now he came to think of it, to his bitter identification of
Mrs. Tracy as the type of mothers. It seemed strange to him to be able
to recollect so clearly, all in a moment, that he had a mother of his
own.
‘That’s right, my boy,’ said the Captain; ‘and now tell me what you have
been doing with yourself all this time.’
‘Nothing!’ said Ben. He had been hungry, and weary, and faint, and
wanted his dinner, poor fellow! but the question took away his appetite.
He pushed his plate away from him as he answered it. Nothing, and yet
how much! But he could not betray what his occupation had been to this
old man, who had outlived such folly, and, at the best, would have
laughed at the young fellow’s idiocy. He felt his colour rise, however,
in spite of himself, and in his heart called himself a fool.
‘Nothing! Well, I am not surprised,’ said his uncle. ‘They all feel, my
dear fellow, that it has been most hard upon you. Laurie has been
working, they tell me, in his way; and Frank is taking to his profession
with all his heart. Frank, you know, is my boy, Ben. But, my dear
fellow, notwithstanding your respect for your father, and all that,
which is very creditable to you, I’d rather question the will, and get
it set aside, if possible, than let myself fall into this sort of way,
you know.’
‘What sort of way?’ said Ben; and then an odd, painful curiosity came
over him. He seemed to have fallen out of acquaintance with himself in
his old character, and was not quite sure what kind of a being he was
now. ‘You don’t think that I have improved after six months’ sulking?’
he said, with a forced smile.
‘If you ask me honestly I must say, no,’ said the Captain. ‘I don’t
think you have. I don’t make you out, Ben. You haven’t taken to----
drink, or anything of that kind? That’s poor consolation. My dear
fellow, I beg your pardon. One does not know what to suppose.’
‘No; I have not taken to drink,’ said Ben, trying to laugh; but his lip
quivered in spite of himself. When he tried a second time he succeeded,
but the laugh was harsh. ‘I have been living on my income,’ he said.
Captain Ormerod shook his head. ‘I am very sorry for you, my boy,’ he
said; ‘but I hoped you would have taken it better than this. Your mother
was very much upset about your silence; but I persuaded her you were not
the fellow to sulk, as you say; and Laurie and Frank have really borne
it so well.’
‘Don’t speak to me of Laurie and Frank!’ cried Ben, stung beyond
bearing. ‘What difference does it make to them? Frank is a boy, and a
soldier, with his profession to fall back on; and Laurie is a fellow
that would always have mooned his life away; whereas I----’
‘Well, if you talk of mooning,’ said the Captain, sadly; and then he
paused. ‘Couldn’t we do something among us, Ben? We ought to have some
influence at least. If you had only been a seaman now, one might have
managed somehow; but of course there’s heaps of things. Why, there’s all
those public offices,’ said the sailor, getting up from his chair, with
a little excitement, and waving his hand in the direction of Whitehall
and Downing Street; ‘and very good berths, I believe, in some of them.
‘Why can’t we get you something there?’
‘It’s too late, uncle,’ said Ben, gradually waking into rationality as
the old life came back and grew familiar to him. He was able even to
give a softened momentary laugh at the futility of the proposition.
‘Don’t you know there’s nothing but merit and examinations now-a-days
for every office under the sun?’
‘Well,’ said Captain Ormerod, pleased to feel that he had brought the
wanderer back to a more natural tone, ‘I don’t see why that should
frighten you. I have always heard you had a fine education, Ben.’
Ben laughed again, more softened still, and with moisture creeping into
the corners of his eyes. ‘I am too old to go to school again,’ he said.
‘A man has to be shut up and crammed like a turkey before he can go in
for that sort of thing. One has to be brought up to it. I am afraid that
would not do.’
‘Then why don’t you go to India?’ cried his uncle;--‘or somewhere. You
don’t mean to tell me there are no fortunes to be made in the world,
when a young fellow has the spirit to try?’
Ben made no answer. What could he say? A sudden sickness of heart came
over him. She was going away to-morrow morning. Mrs. Barton’s bill was
lying on his table. He had five-and-twenty shillings in his pocket, and
despair in his heart. And to be called upon to answer all in a moment,
as if it was a thing that could be settled out of hand, how he would
choose to go and make his fortune! In his impatience he leaned his head
on his two hands, almost hiding his face between them, and turned half
away.
‘Or else dispute the will,’ said the trenchant old sailor. ‘Obeying your
parents is one thing, and sacrificing yourself to a piece of nonsense is
another. Your poor father’s mind must have been touched--it must have
been----’
‘My father had a right to dispose of what was his own,’ said Ben,
haughtily; and then he broke down a little. ‘Forgive me, uncle. I am
dreadfully tired to-night, and down on my luck. We could not touch my
father’s will if even I would consent to try. I’ll talk it all over with
you another day.’
The old captain gave the young man a compassionate look as he sat thus
huddled up, hiding his face in his hands, and made that curious little
sound with his tongue against the roof of his mouth which is one of the
primitive signs of distress and perplexity. Then he hobbled off into a
corner and pulled out a pocket-book from his pocket and examined its
contents. ‘A little money can’t do him any harm,’ he said to himself.
And as it happened, by a lucky chance for Ben, there were two notes, a
ten-pound and a five, among the papers in that receptacle. The Captain
made a bundle of them, folding them up with his gouty, lumpy fingers,
which trembled a little, and came back and thrust it into his nephew’s
hand. ‘You’re not too old yet for a tip, though you’re wiser than your
elders,’ he said. ‘God bless you, my dear boy! Come and see me as soon
as you can.’
And thus deliverance, utterly unlocked for, came to Ben Renton in his
downfall. Such a tiny, little deliverance out of such a paltry ruin as
Mrs. Barton’s bill might have brought him to! But if the bill had been
thousands, and this treasure a million, it could not have been more
emphatically a deliverance. He would have avoided the club altogether
could he have supposed his uncle to be there; indeed, nothing but sheer
weariness could have carried him into it at such a moment. And yet the
chance had saved him. Saved him! Only a ten and a five-pound note; but
at this moment to Ben it was salvation, neither less nor more. How
curiously words differ in their meaning from one day to another in a
man’s life!
He sat there a long time after in one of those lulls which follow great
excitement, sipping his sherry, which, though he had eaten no dinner,
gave a certain soothing to his outward man, and looking as if he were in
very deep thought. But naturally, poor fellow! he was not thinking, nor
capable of thinking. Heaps of things were flitting before him in a kind
of fantastic procession. The home, which seemed so far away; the mother
whom he had almost forgotten; the life,--had it ever been, or had he but
dreamed it?--which he had lived a year ago. Was it he, Ben Renton, whom
Captain Ormerod’s fifteen pounds had just saved from bankruptcy, who
lived in the Albany once, and was the heir of Renton Manor, and one of
the most popular men in society? or was it but a tale he had read
somewhere in a book? His weariness lent another shade of confusion to
the picture. And now and then these dim thoughts were traversed by one
so sharp, so clear, so acute, that it chased all the mists away. She was
going to-morrow. He had said his farewell to her. Her hand had been in
those hands of his, on which he looked down with a sudden thrill. Her
lips had consented, or at least assented, with that passive softness of
the unimpassioned woman, which drove him wild, yet held him fast, to
wait for him. Was it to wait for him? or was it only to let him come
when his fortune was made to try his chance again? What did it matter
which? One form of folly or the other would have been much the same to
Millicent, in her strange, compassionate, worldly-minded conviction that
he would never make his fortune, or, if he did, would change his
mind;--and in the confidence of his love and passion would have been the
same to Ben.
Thus when the witch had routed once more all the softening charm of old
association, he sat till there was nobody but himself in the
dining-room. He had so much the air of a man who had no mind to be
interrupted, that several of his old friends had felt themselves
suppressed by a nod, and had gone without speaking to him. And even that
unpleasant suggestion which had occurred to the Captain about the habits
of the impoverished man came into the heads of two or three who saw him
sitting with that absorbed look over his sherry. Could he have taken in
his downfall to the meanest of all consolations? The thought troubled
some friendly souls; but perhaps it helped to keep him quite undisturbed
in the solitude he wished. It was getting quite late when some one
rushed in with his hands full of papers, disturbing the quiet of the
place--some one who demanded coffee--and threw himself down in a chair
at the other end of the room; and then got up and began to walk about,
filling the languid air with a certain commotion, a sound of rustling
papers, and vibration of busy thought. This intruder caught sight of
Ben after he had been about ten minutes in the room, and catching up his
documents, whatever they were, made a rush at his table. ‘The very man I
wanted!’ he cried. ‘Ben Renton! I thought you were dead, or mad, or at
the other end of the world.’
‘And I am neither, as you perceive,’ said Ben, not well pleased with the
encounter. There was no man in the world he less cared to see at this
particular time.
‘I have not seen you for ages,’ said Hillyard. ‘Mind, I don’t want to
intrude myself if I’m a bore. You have only to say so. But unless you’ve
had more luck than most men, I have something that may be of use to you
here.’ And he put down his rustling burden on the table, and swallowed
his coffee with a kind of impatient eagerness. ‘I’d rather have had
something more cheering,’ he said, with a laugh; ‘but a man must have
his wits clear when he has business in hand. You don’t answer my
question, Ben.’
‘If I am in luck!’ said Ben. Already he had suppressed the inclination
to impatience with which he had been disposed to answer his old
acquaintance. Surely this was not a moment to repel any offer of aid. ‘I
am just as you saw me six months ago, which does not come to much.’
‘Doing nothing?’ said Hillyard, eagerly.
‘Doing nothing,’ said Ben.
‘Then, by Jove, I’ll make your fortune, my boy!’ cried the adventurer,
striking the table with his hand in his excitement. ‘I’m going out to
America next week to make a railway. Didn’t you know I was an engineer?
That before everything;--in a secondary way, traveller, sheep-farmer,
colonial agent, litterateur,--anything you please, but engineer first of
all. And I’ve got a railway in America to make, and I want a man to help
me. Ben, don’t say another word. If you like you shall be the man.’
Then there was a pause, and Hillyard plunged into the midst of his
papers, from which he drew an unintelligible drawing, diversified with
dabs of colour and dotted lines. Ben said not a word while the search
was going on. A strange sensation, half fear, half hope, seemed to go
through his veins. It was the first offer of work that had ever been
made to him,--from Hillyard, of all men, who had taken him to Guildford
Street and actually made Millicent known to him,--whom he had kept clear
of since as a vulgar adventurer, not able to estimate such a heavenly
creature but in his own coarse way. And now it was he who offered him
the first round, perhaps, of the ladder by which he should reach her!
With this there mingled a doubt of the reality of Hillyard’s good
fortune. An adventurer himself, what solid help could he have to offer
to others? All these mingled thoughts rushed through Ben’s mind while
his companion was finding the plan. When he had spread it out on the
table, Ben gave an unsteady, nervous laugh, glancing at it without an
idea what it could mean.
‘I know nothing of railways,’ he said, ‘except travelling on them. I
don’t know even the meaning of the words on the margin there. How could
I be of any use to you,--unless as a navvy?’ he added, holding out his
arm; ‘and it would be easy to find a finer development of muscle than
mine.’
‘Pshaw!’ said Hillyard, ‘it is no joke. I mean what I say. You may trust
to me to find you what you can do. The only question is, Will you do it?
Do you want work? or is it only a makebelief about Renton and all that?
How can I tell? You bury yourself out of the world, and never throw
yourself in the way of anything, so far as one can see. You may be
contenting yourself with what you have. You may be above taking a share
of one’s good fortune. I say again, how can I tell?’
‘I am ready to work at anything. It is the height of my wishes,’ said
Ben, with a huskiness in his voice. Further explanation he could make
none; but his heart smote him all the same. What right had he to a share
of any one’s good fortune,--and of this man’s above all, for whom he had
never done anything? He had not even the gratification of thinking that
he had been kind to him in his wealthier days.
‘Then look here,’ said Hillyard, plunging into his work.
The two sat with their heads together over the inarticulate drawing till
long past midnight. By degrees it became intelligible to the novice.
Shortly it opened up before him into a possibility,--a thing
practicable, a new hope. When he went back to Guildford Street in the
early morning,--the morning which was still night,--his head was full of
the new idea. He was no longer an aimless, half-desperate man, detached
from everything but the one absorbing madness which had taken possession
of his empty life; he had linked himself on again to fact and nature,
recovered his identity, his independence, himself. The change that lay
before him,--palpable, visible, unmistakable change from one hemisphere
to another, from doing nothing to hard, open-air, undisguisable
work,--had dispersed already the mists which made a mystery and vision
of all former changes. He stretched out his hands to the past, even as
he lifted them to the future. It was but this unwholesome, unreal
interval which had made life itself look as a dream and a thing untrue.
CHAPTER XII.
MILLICENT’S NEW START.
While Ben was thus, unconsciously to himself, being drawn back across
the threshold of wholesome life, the morning was passing in a very
different way at No. 10, Guildford Street. The packing was not yet
finished, which of itself was a troublesome matter, and, to tell the
truth, Mrs. Tracy’s feeling was that she would be glad to get Millicent
safely away, and that she did not know what had come over the girl.
Notwithstanding her displeasure with her, and fears as to her state of
mind, Mrs. Tracy took care to provide a nice little supper for
Millicent, on that last night,--such as her soul loved. The two ladies
were rather fond of nice little suppers. They dined very hurriedly and
quietly in the middle of the day, eschewing hot and dainty dishes and
everything that had a good odour, lest anybody should call; and
accordingly, in the evening, when they were free, and could indulge
themselves without any scruples about gentility, they made up for their
self-denial by having something they liked, which was generally of a
savoury kind. They supped comfortably after the labour of packing, and
refreshed themselves ere they went to bed. It was at a late hour, and
they had the prospect of but a short night’s rest, for they were to
start very early in the morning; and naturally this, their last night
upon English soil, had a certain pensiveness about it, notwithstanding
the savoury fragrance and comfort of their favourite meal.
‘It seems strange to think that it is the last night,’ said Mrs. Tracy,
with not inappropriate reflectiveness. ‘How many things have happened to
us within these walls, Millicent! And perhaps we may never enter them
again.’
‘I hope not, I am sure,’ said her daughter; ‘a more dreary set of rooms
I never was in. If we cannot make out something better than this, I
should never wish to come back at all.’
‘Of course we must both wish never to come back at all,’ said Mrs.
Tracy. ‘I trust your next home, my dear, may be of a totally different
kind. If I could but live to see my child settled, and enjoy the change
a little,’ the mother added, putting her hands softly together, ‘I
should have all I want in this world.’
‘I don’t see that, mamma,’ said Millicent. ‘You are old, it is true; but
I think you want quite as much as I do in the world. You are very fond
of being comfortable;--most people are, I suppose. And then you can get
the good of things without the trouble;--I should have more pleasure,
perhaps,--if I ever come to anything,--but then I shall have all the
trouble as well.’
‘The trouble of looking nice and making yourself agreeable! I don’t
think there is much in that,’ said Mrs. Tracy, with a little contempt.
‘The serious business,--managing matters, and getting introductions, and
all that,--always falls to my share.’
‘I am sure I wish we were done with it all;--I hate it. I wish I had
been brought up to be a governess,’ said Millicent, ‘or a dressmaker, or
something. I should not have liked the work; but then one would not have
had to be thinking always what would please some man.’
‘You don’t find it so difficult to please them,’ said Mrs. Tracy, with a
little gentle maternal flattery, such as was necessary now and then to
keep the sullen shade,--which spoiled it,--off Millicent’s beautiful
face.
‘I wonder I don’t hate them,’ cried the young woman, ‘after all I have
gone through! I am sure it would not be half so hard to go in for
examinations and things like poor Fitzgerald. I don’t see how a girl can
be good if she were to try,--always brought up to think she may get to
be rich in a moment, like a gambler! I declare, mamma, I will go to the
gaming-place in Homburg and try.’
‘I hope, Millicent, you will not be such a fool!’ cried her mother,
‘after all the pains I have taken to keep respectable,--paying bills
many a time when it was like taking my heart’s blood; and you know,
among the English, it’s only disreputable people who play.’
‘It comes to just the same thing,’ said Millicent; ‘and I tell you,
mamma, a girl has no chance to be good, brought up like that to play for
a man for his money. I hate the men! Let us go and play for the money;
it will be far better; and then nobody like Ben Renton can come and look
in one’s face, and make one feel like,--like----’
‘Like what?’ cried Mrs. Tracy. ‘Millicent, I have told you again and
again that you are falling in love with that boy.’
‘Not such a fool as that,’ said Millicent, with a faint colour on her
averted face. ‘Like a swindler; that is what I meant. Why should he care
for me? It was not him I was thinking of;--and then to think it should
all come to nothing, after one felt so sure!’
‘My dear, I know it was a great disappointment,’ said the mother, with
soft sympathy. ‘I don’t wonder you felt it; but there are better than
him in the world, after all. I would not vex myself about what’s past.
You will enjoy the change, and your spirits will come back, and you’ll
find something better before long.’ Millicent did not answer; she made a
little impatient movement with her head when her mother spoke of change,
and that sullen cloud, which awoke an incipient line in her forehead
and frightened Mrs. Tracy, came over her brow. ‘You don’t know what
work is,’ resumed the mother. ‘Fancy what it would be to sit still at
your needle for hours at a time! But to be sure it is all nonsense, and
you don’t mean it. I don’t say it is not of more importance to us than
to most people: but of course it’s every young woman’s aim to be
married. It’s all nonsense what people talk of women’s work. You may
depend upon it, Millicent, it’s only ugly women and old women that talk
that stuff. No man can bear to hear it. They like you a great deal best
as you are.’
‘As if I cared!’ cried Millicent, with scorn. ‘They are such fools! Just
think of Ben Renton,--doing nothing, and losing his time, and never
seeing through us all these months, and going on with his nonsense to
me, as if I was one to understand it! And all because I’m rather
pretty!’ she said with disgust. ‘It is enough to make one sick. I wonder
I don’t hate them or despise them,--they are such fools!’
‘Millicent, you are out of temper,’ said Mrs. Tracy. ‘I wish you would
not talk in that way. If anybody were to hear you----’
‘I wish they could all hear me!’ said Millicent, growing fiercer. ‘Let’s
go and gamble at Homburg, mamma. I think I should like it I think I
should be lucky. Do I care for a stupid man to come and mumble over my
hands? Bah!’ cried Millicent, looking at her own white, rose-tipped
fingers, which Ben Renton, in his passion, had kissed. She looked at
them with a certain disgust; but it was not Ben who disgusted her.
Perhaps in that sudden fit of sullenness and temper she was nearer the
purer world than ever she had been before in her life. Other men would
kiss those hands,--other voices would tell that same tale in her
ear,--while she sat and smiled and considered whether the suitor was
rich enough; and, oh, heaven! why was it all? Because she was rather
pretty, and had no heart nor womanly soul in her,--and because they were
such fools!
Something like this Millicent thought as she sat with her elbows on the
table, leaning her head in her hands. It was not that any impulse in
favour of her ‘sex’ moved her altogether unintellectual, unspeculative
being. She did not care a straw for the sex. Women were not perhaps
‘such fools’ as men in this particular way. Beyond that she had never
thought on the subject. ‘How nice it would be to have money of one’s
own!’ she said; ‘how nice it would be to win it over a table with no
trouble,--and have all the excitement in the bargain! And if one lost,
one could always begin again; whereas with men,--I don’t believe I shall
ever marry well,’ she said, suddenly. ‘If I marry at all it will be some
adventurer who will take us in. Now, mamma, you’ll remember what I say;
I feel sure of it in my heart.’
‘I never saw you in such a dreadful temper,’ said her mother. ‘Is it my
fault that you go on at me? But I know what is the reason. You are in
love with this fellow that has not a penny. I knew how it would be.’
‘In love with him!’ said Millicent. ‘I wonder if I am in love with him!
If I were I could not think him such a fool. Poor fellow! he’s gone and
robbed himself to send you to the baths, and you don’t want the baths
any more than he does. He ought to marry Mary Westbury and settle down,
and get back his money. Most likely he would get back his money if he
married Mary. And yet I think I should hate her too; but that would be
for the sake of the Manor, and not for Ben. I had set my heart on the
Manor, and that lovely house in Berkeley Square. Oh, don’t speak to me!
It’s too bad! I can’t bear it!’ cried Millicent, suddenly hiding her
face in her hands.
Thus confused, not knowing what was in her own mind, Millicent Tracy ran
on, driving her mother wild. She did not know what she meant any more
than Mrs. Tracy did. Acute disappointment, a kind of reverence and
admiration of Ben, mixed strangely with a worldling’s unfeigned
astonishment and contempt at his simplicity, were in her mind. And there
were other things besides. Regrets, not only for the house in Berkeley
Square, but for the lost opportunity of perhaps catching at a different
kind of life,--longings quite undefined and inarticulate for something
better,--self-disgust, self-pity,--all of which took form somehow in
this bitter outburst of ‘temper,’ and supreme, unspeakable discontent.
Was she, after all, ‘in love’ with Ben? But how could Millicent answer
that question, not knowing what love was? Sometimes she was seized with
a sort of passionate kindness for him, gratitude for his devotion,
always mingled with half contempt, half pity. In short, she did not know
what was in her, vaguely struggling for the mastery. Principles which,
perhaps, if good influence had been possible,--if!--poor hypothesis,
that hangs about the road to ruin! And yet who knows what tears the
angels may weep over those blind strugglings of the human soul towards
something better, or of what account they may be in the eyes of One
kinder than all angels? Who knows what such agitation means, what hopes
rise with it, and in what blank sickening of soul and darkening of the
world it comes to an end?
Mrs. Tracy frankly had no idea what her daughter could mean. She
concluded she was tired, and had got worried over her packing, and
perhaps was sorry to lose her lover,--for her mother was less stoical
than the daughter, and prized a lover _quand même_. So the natural thing
to do was to get the poor child to bed, and give her some more wine and
water, and finish the work herself. ‘I will do that box for you,’ she
said; ‘and remember, Millicent, you must be up early. You want more
sleep than I do.’ She was up half the night herself, but did not mind
it. It was a new campaign, and great thoughts were in the mother’s mind.
Thus the two prepared themselves to set out to spend poor Ben Renton’s
hundred pounds. He, too, slept little that night. When they got to the
railway in the morning he was there, pale and feverish from want of
sleep, and from excess of love and misery and hope. ‘I am going to work
for you,’ he whispered, as he put Millicent into the carriage, with that
look of anguish and passion and appropriation which made her somehow
despise herself. His Millicent he called her once more, kissing her hand
in open day, in sight of all the world. Oh, how could he be such a fool!
And yet----
Thus Millicent Tracy passed away for the moment out of Ben’s life; and
he turned and walked from London Bridge all through the City in the
cordial air of the May morning,--walked all the way to be alone and
think of her in that crowd of London, before he should begin to work and
win her,--with a hundred sweet pangs and stings of hope and suffering in
his foolish heart.
CHAPTER XIII.
REACTION.
Everybody who has ever passed by that passage of life’s poignant yet
ordinary way, knows what a reaction there is when the one is gone who
has thus occupied the first place in the thoughts of a man,--or woman
either, for that matter. The moment she,--or he,--is gone, what a sudden
quickening of energy, what a rush of all the faculties at the suspended
work,--suspended for the sake of that engrossing presence. It had been
natural to delay and muse the day before, recalling what sweet moments
there might be in the past, imagining what might be in the future; but
now, when all is over, with what an impulse the man works at his
occupation, to fill the void, to hasten, if he could, the very movement
of the earth, till the time of meeting again. Ben had a double motive at
this crisis of his history. For the first time in his life he had actual
work in hand, and the positive prick of necessity to drive him to it;
and at the same time the hope of making,--of winning,--what?--his
fortune,--Millicent,--a position in the world,--all out of the chance
that had fallen into his hands, of becoming assistant to an engineer on
some little bit of American railway,--a profession of which he knew
nothing. Knowledge, or skill, did not seem to him at this moment to
count for much. It was a beginning a man wanted. Given that beginning,
and what had he to do but follow it to the ultimate success which must
come? It was in itself a foolish idea, common to the novice in every
department; but perhaps in Ben’s case it was less foolish than in that
of most men, for it was his nature to hold by anything he took up
desperately, until success of one kind or another rewarded him. He was
intense in everything, taking what happened to him not lightly, but very
seriously,--and such men are not apt to fail.
It was still early, when fresh from his long walk, and with his
faculties all cleared up and awakened by the withdrawal of the presence
which had absorbed him, he went to Hillyard’s rooms to breakfast, as his
friend had invited him to do. It was in one of those dingy parlours in
Jermyn Street, which to so many young men are radiant with that freedom
from domestic restraints, and privilege of having things their own way,
which makes the long, unlovely street into a succession of palaces.
Hillyard was sitting in his dressing-gown, over the same papers which he
had carried to the club the night before. He was not less eager, not
less excited than Ben,--or, indeed, it would be safe to say he was more
excited. It was the end only Ben was looking at; but the means, with
which he was so much better acquainted than his assistant was,--the work
itself, with its difficulties and obstacles,--had inflamed the
mind of the adventurer. Of course there would be a great many
difficulties,--there would be schemes to lead the line, one way or
another, through this man’s grounds or that man’s, by this village or
away from that; and Hillyard felt, with a little thrill of delight, that
he was the man who could solve all these difficulties. It was not a work
of the first importance, and yet he had never had such an opening
before. He was to be chief engineer, and have everything in his hands.
It was to an American, who had travelled home part of the way with him
from Australia, that he owed this preferment; and the new chance was as
precious to Hillyard as to Ben, though not perhaps of so much supposed
importance in his life.
‘I will run down and see my mother before I go,’ he said; ‘and I
suppose, so will you: but we must meet at Liverpool on the 1st, and go
out in the _Africa_. If I do not keep the ball in my hands now I have
got the thread, never trust me! Ben, you will think it strange when I
say it, but it is this I have been trying for all my life.’
‘I don’t think it the least strange,’ said Ben; ‘though, if I were to
say it was the same thing with myself----’
‘Oh, you!’ said Hillyard, ‘you have not been so many weeks on the world
as I have been years; and, besides, you don’t know what awaits you at
the end of your probation. The money must come to some one,--and, even
if it were divided among the three of you, your share would be more than
enough to make a man happy;--whereas, for me this is the only chance in
life.’
‘I wonder what made you think of me,’ said Ben, simply. ‘It was very
good of you. I was at the end of my resources and my hopes when I came
out last night.’ Hillyard looked at him keenly, and in spite of himself
a little colour rose to Ben’s face. ‘It was kind of you to think of me,’
he added hastily. ‘I do not know,--had it been me----’
‘That you would have been so forgiving?’ said his friend; ‘but I had
done you no injury, Ben,--unless in taking you there. I suppose I must
not ask what you have been doing with yourself all this time, nor what
they are to you now, these--ladies?’
‘The railway is a safer subject,’ said Ben, clearing up his countenance
with an effort; and then he added, after a little pause, ‘Mrs. Tracy and
her daughter have just gone off to one of the German baths.’
Hillyard eyed his companion with a curious look, restraining with
difficulty the whistle of wonder which rose to his lips. He,
much-experienced man, had seen through the mother and daughter at a
glance; though, to be sure, he had been pre-instructed by his
acquaintance with Fitzgerald Tracy. He could not understand how it was
that they had allowed Ben to slip through their finders. ‘If he had but
a third of the property he would still be a prize,’ he said to himself,
casting a rapid engineering glance, as it were, along the line of his
friend’s life, and jumping over the intervening seven years. ‘It was
strange they should have let him go.’ But the news of their departure
explained how it was that he found Ben so disengaged, so ready to enter
into his plans; and curious as he was, he could go no farther. A certain
preoccupation that came into the young man’s eyes, a wavering breath of
colour on his face, and, at the same time, a strain of the lines about
his mouth, his lips shutting, as it were, upon his secret, warned
Hillyard off the unprofitable inquiry. He went back to the paper on the
table, and began to describe the new life they would lead,--the
voyage,--all the novel circumstances before them. He was himself so much
of an adventurer that the sudden change of scene from St. James’s to
Ohio excited him, and gave a zest to his good fortune. But, curiously
enough, this did not tell on Ben. His interest was in the work, and
nothing else,--the work as a means to his end. The small excitement of
the journey, or the new world which he was about to enter, Ben at this
moment of exaltation contemplated almost with contempt. After all,
crossing the Atlantic, except in the mere point of duration, was little
more than crossing the Channel; and that naturally he would do without
even thinking of it. And what was America to him? There was not even
the difficulty of a new language to contend with. He was not moved by
that; at least, not now. What did excite him was the new profession he
was going to enter; the necessity of knowing it and mastering the tool
which was to carve out his fortune;--a necessity which Hillyard, to tell
the truth, had not realised.
‘I know all that is necessary for both of us,’ he said, with a laugh.
‘As for you, of course I consider it only a momentary occupation that
will fill up your time while you are waiting. I should never have
thought of offering it as more than that.’
‘I am not waiting,’ said Ben,--‘I am beginning. Do you think I am going
to build my expectations now upon my father’s will, whatever it may be?
How can I tell what it may be? Perhaps I am going about the very best
way to disinherit myself completely. That is not my concern. I mean to
work my own way. And if you can teach me enough to make me of real
use----’
‘I’ll see to that,’ said Hillyard, with a cordial grasp of his hand.
But, nevertheless, the chief engineer was not quite so sure that he
liked it as well on this ground. What he wanted had been a
gentleman-assistant, whom to guide as he pleased, and of whom to boast a
little, ‘A fellow with I don’t know how many thousands a-year to fall
back upon.’ He had rather intended to dazzle his American acquaintances
with Ben; but a man who meant to learn his trade, and practise it,
might turn out rather a stumbling-block, and come in his master’s way.
However, all was settled ere they parted, and Ben supplied with lists of
books and instruments, and various unthought-of necessities which must
be provided for somehow. His face lengthened perceptibly, as Hillyard
perceived, when he heard of them, and he was for some minutes lost in
thought. ‘Considering how to raise the money,’ his friend thought, but
did not offer any help, wisely considering that Ben had friends much
more able to help him than he--Hillyard--was. Perhaps he was rather
pleased, on the whole, that the new-born professional zeal of his
companion should receive a check in the bud. Ben went away very
thoughtful with those lists in his pocket, and not very much more than
his uncle’s fifteen pounds to rely upon, but very resolute not to be
damped in his ardour. It gave him plenty to think of for the rest of
that day,--a day which was of feverish, interminable length, begun, as
it was, hours too early. And Guildford Street had a gloom upon it as of
the very grave when in the evening he went back to it.
They were to sail in the _Africa_ on the 1st of June, so that he had but
ten days for all his preparations. So close an approach to ruin had
quickened Ben’s powers, and his return to the realities of practical
life, and to reasonable hopes and prospects, made the business of
providing for his new wants less appalling than had been that first
tragical symptom of destitution, Mrs. Barton’s little bill. There was no
despair in the business now, but hope, and all the possibilities of
active life. He had never been addicted to ornament, but yet had a
little store of bijouterie which was of some value; and being no longer
ashamed of his needs, he had the heart to go back to Messrs. Christie’s,
to inquire after his buhl and china, and drive a final bargain. The
result of all these proceedings was, that Ben found enough in his pocket
to stock himself with instruments and books for the profession he had
taken up so hastily, substituting them for the pretty toys which had
been the luxuries of his youth. To be sure, his Sèvres and his cabinets
went for half, or less than half, their value; but of what value were
such dainty articles to him at this point of his career? And as the
natural spring of feeling came back, no doubt his new theodolite
awakened a little pleasure in Ben’s mind, which was still young, and
could not but respond to the pleasant thrill of novelty in the long run.
The very possession of the implements of a trade brought him nearer to
practical work. He began to think such work was worth doing, after all,
for its own sake; primitive work--making roads, building bridges--the
first necessities of man. Had it not been the hackneyed iron way--the
railroad, on which we have all heard so many big words wasted that its
wonders have become a vulgar brag--Ben might actually have been seized
with a young man’s passion for his work, and thought it superior to
every other occupation under the sun. As it was, it loosed his lips, and
restored him to the common intercourse of men. ‘I am going to make a
railway in America,’ he said to the friends whom he no longer avoided at
his club, and it was regarded as a very good joke among them. Some of
them delivered a decided opinion--by Jove, that it was a capital idea.
And the announcement of Ben Renton thus taking to work, after having
been under a cloud, was like a brisk breeze blowing through the languid,
gossiping community for one evening at least. He was able himself to see
the humour of it, and discuss the subject freely in the course of a few
days. He had touched the earth, like the giant in the story, and got new
vigour. He was even able to go home--to that house which, in his first
disgust, he had felt as if he never could enter again. He had found an
independent standing apart from the past, in which he belonged to his
family, and was now no more the embittered, disappointed, ruined heir of
Renton, but a man erect in the world by himself, and with a work and
life of his own.
CHAPTER XIV.
MARY’S OPINION.
It was on a beautiful afternoon, in one of the last days of May, that
Ben Renton went back to his father’s house. When he left it, he had not
the slightest intention of separating himself so completely from his
family; and yet, when he thought of it, he did not see what else he
could have done. To go back now, when a definite beginning had been made
in his career, and there was something decided upon--something to tell
them of--was natural; but to have gone when his whole heart was full of
Millicent Tracy, and no object beyond seeing her occupied his thoughts,
would have been simply impossible. He felt that now, though he had not
seen it at the time, and, feeling it, asked himself, with a flush of
shame, how he could have ever hoped that she could love him--a man whose
sole proof of his love was that he made himself useless for her sake! He
was but on the threshold of Armida’s garden, and already he blushed to
think that he could have lingered there so long. But it was Armida’s
garden without the Armida. It was not by her will that he had lingered.
The moment he had opened his heart to her, had she not urged him forth
to the brighter daylight and more wholesome life? Yes, or at least Ben
thought she had done so--he forgot exactly how. That it was to supply
her wants that he had been roused out of his dream, and that afterwards
downright destitution had threatened him, did not occur to him now. It
was all so recent that it was obscure to him, except that he had woke up
and found his feet standing on firm earth again, after he had told his
story into her ear; for which poor Ben’s heart poured forth litanies of
thanksgiving to his Lady of Succour. He was awakened, but he was not
undeceived.
In a county so richly wooded as Berks, it is difficult to say which is
more lovely, September or May. It was on a day of the St. Martin’s
summer that he had left Renton, when the great rich, lavish trees were
but beginning to carry here and there a faint fiery mark of Autumn’s
‘burning finger.’ Now they were all in their spring green, so new, so
fresh, so silken in this year’s garments, that it seemed impossible any
autumn could ever change the soft, glossy texture of the young leaves.
It was the last day’s leisure he might have, except on the sea, for ever
so long; and everything tempted him to enjoy it. He went as far as
Cookesley by the railway, and then got a boat and went up the stream for
the short remaining distance. The Renton woods were renowned--indeed,
uncomfortably so--parties going from far and near to visit them, and
litter the leafy corners with signs of picnics. ‘I can’t say as they’ll
let you land, sir,’ said the man from whom Ben hired his boat. ‘The old
lady’s there for ever, and shuts herself up and spoils our trade.’
Before he could take any notice of this speech, or do more than feel a
natural amazement to find himself so soon a stranger in his own country,
another boatman thrust aside the new-comer, who had not recognised the
young master. ‘I ask your pardon, sir; it’s a new man I’ve got,’ said
the owner of the boat. ‘He don’t know no better, sir; and it’s long
since we seen any o’ you gentlemen on the river. It do look a change.’
‘What! not even my brother?’ said Ben; and somehow it was a kind of
comfort to his mind that Laurie had not been there.
‘Mr. Frank do come by times,’ said the boatman; ‘but things is changed
since last summer, when you gentlemen was allays about--you and your
friends.’
‘Yes, Tom, things are changed,’ said Ben, as he pushed off from the
bank. But somehow he did not feel so cast down about that change as he
had been. Even the sight of the silvery, quiet river, which had not
altered, and the trees drooping over it, every branch of which he seemed
to know; and the bank that swelled into soft cliffs and wooded heights,
as a sudden turn brought him within sight of Renton, did not bring up,
as he had feared it would, any bitter sense of injury and misfortune to
his mind. Instead of being the heir and proprietor of all this, he was
but Ben Renton, assistant to a railway man, going engineering without
knowing how, away to the other end of the world. He said so to himself,
and still, somehow, he did not feel bitter, which was curious. On the
contrary, a soft sense of well-being stole over him. The river was as
beautiful as ever, though he had no territorial rights over it--the
woods rustled as softly in the sweet air of the spring; the sky was so
bright above him, and hope, and energy, and resolution so strong in his
breast! And Millicent! He had not known there was such a creature when
he had last been there--reason enough to take away all the bitterness
from his sensations now. Yet it was strange to see the house exactly as
it used to be--the outer blinds dropped over Mrs. Renton’s windows, her
flowers arranged in their old order, her very sofa placed beneath the
trees, as if she had been there a moment before. The only change Ben
could see was in his mother’s crape-covered dress and the dead white of
the cap which surrounded her pretty, faded face. That was an
improvement, though she did not think so; but it was the only visible
sign of all the great events that had occurred at the Manor within this
eventful year.
‘Oh, Ben, I thought I had lost you!’ cried his mother. ‘I thought you
were gone, too, like your father;’ and she clasped her arms round her
boy, and wept on his shoulder. That was all the reproach she made to
him. And Ben, as was natural, fell immediately into self-accusation. But
in his heart he felt that it would have been impossible. He could not
have kept coming and going to this familiar place while his mind was
full of Millicent Tracy, and of nothing else in the world. It could not
have been. He would have been driven to some violent step--he knew not
what--had he come home in the midst of that time of enchantment. The
contrast would have killed him, or made him desperate. It would have
dispersed the rosy mists, and brought him back to sober day. Now that
the spell was broken, he recognised, so far, its nature. And yet it was
the magic of this spell which brought him home with a clear brow and
unembittered heart, and defended him against all the suggestions of
discontent. There was nothing of the injured man in his look, no
consciousness of misfortune or downfall. Perhaps Mrs. Renton would not
have been quick enough to see this; but there were another pair of eyes
looking on--fairly bright ones, though not like Millicent’s--which took
it in at a glance, and wondered, and thought of Ben more highly than he
deserved. Mary Westbury had been with her godmother all the winter
through, giving many a thought to her cousins, to whom she had been as a
sister, and saying many a prayer in her heart for poor Ben, the most
hardly treated of all, whose wound was so deep that he had not the
fortitude to come home. Mary had been seized with a pang of fear when
she saw her cousin, without any warning of his approach, come in, as of
old times, by the window which opened on the garden. She expected to see
him with a gloomy face, ‘feeling it’ so deeply as to make everybody else
miserable. But, on the contrary, Ben’s countenance was unclouded, and
his demeanour that of a man satisfied with his own position. Mary’s
heart gave a little jump, and then settled into a pleasant glow of
friendly warmth and soft agitation. After all, what a noble fellow he
was! How fine it was of him to take to the change so kindly, and bear no
malice! She left the mother and son by themselves at first, as soon as
she could do it without ostentation, and went out, being excited, and
walked about by herself in a very pleasant flutter of spirits. She was
fond of Laurie, as everybody was, poor fellow; but Ben--Ben was
different; and how noble of him to come home with that easy look, that
unconstrained smile! Poor Mary made out a whole little romance as she
came and went--an innocent, ingenuous creature, with summer in her face
and in her heart--under the silken greenness of the lime-trees. No doubt
he must have had a hard fight to subdue himself at first--not an easy,
facile temper like Laurie--not a boy like Frank--but a man with settled
plans of his own, and strong feelings, and an almost stern character. He
had kept away until he had overcome himself. He had fought it out all
alone, struggling with his dragon, until at last he had been able to set
his foot upon him; and then the victor had come with a smile on his face
to see his mother. Such was Mary’s fancy, knowing no better; and if she
had vaguely admired, vaguely dreamed of her splendid cousin--the special
hero of this drama--before, think with what a sudden thrill of
enthusiasm, of dangerous approbation and applause, she regarded him now!
‘They must have had their first talk out, and perhaps he will want
something,’ Mary said to herself after a while, and was turning to go
in, when Ben met her,--coming to look for her, he said. It was Mrs.
Renton’s time for her sleep, and he had settled her pillows for her, and
Mary was to have a holiday for once.
‘We are to leave her alone for an hour or two,’ said Ben; ‘and, Mary,
you must tell me all about her. You have been doing our duty while we
have been,--pleasing ourselves. I have behaved like a brute to my poor
mother.’
‘Oh, no,’ said Mary; ‘we have never thought so. You are not like,--the
rest of us. I always understood how it was. You were waiting till you
could come as you ought,--as you are. I would not write to you, Ben. I
thought, perhaps, it was better you should not hear from any of us; but
I felt how it was.’
This little speech, which came out of Mary’s very heart, and was
founded upon utter conviction, struck Ben with the wildest perplexity.
Could she know how he had in reality spent his time? Could she be
mocking him? But a glance at her face made that idea impossible. Mary
believed in him somehow, though he did not even guess why. It gave him a
little uncomfortable thrill of self-consciousness; and, what was still
more strange, it gave him just a momentary amusement; but, on the whole,
perhaps its effect was encouraging, and set him at his ease with his new
companion.
‘I have behaved like a brute,’ he said again; ‘though you, with your
kind heart, make excuses for me; but, after all, it has been a little
hard. A man cannot be twisted out of his socket and set into another
without feeling it, Mary; though I do not dwell upon that now.’
‘Oh, I know,’ cried Mary, with all her heart; ‘and there has never been
a day that I have not thought of you, Ben; but you have overcome it
nobly,’ the girl cried in her enthusiasm, with tears in her eyes. Dear,
little, soft, foolish creature!--what did she mean?
‘Put on your hat and come down with me to the river,’ said Ben. ‘My
mother says you have no variety, nor even air. And she is to be left by
herself till dinner. Come, and I will row you up to the Swan’s Nest. Do
you remember?’
‘Do I remember!’ cried Mary, rushing into the house for her hat. Her
heart beat as it had never beat before in its life. Ben to recollect the
old story of the Swan’s Nest! It was natural that Laurie, her own
playfellow, should think of all those childish follies,--but Ben! She
came rushing out again, putting on her hat as she came, not to keep the
prince waiting. If poor Mary had but known the use that had been made of
her name six months before in Guildford Street, or why it was that her
lordly cousin was so gracious to her now!
But, meanwhile, they went very pleasantly together down the winding road
under the trees to the river. Both of them, in their different ways, had
that enthusiasm for the beauty of their home which is common to
well-educated young English people, not fine enough to be _blasés_.
Mary,--to whom it was a delight at any time to approach the beautiful
river near which she had been born, by this winding woodland road,
shaded by those great trees under which her mother and her mother’s
mother had watched it gliding past,--was this day wrapt in a tender
content which gave additional beauty to everything around. There was
splendour in the grass and glory in the flower wherever she set her foot
on that day of days; and when the humblest things were thus enhanced,
what was it to float forth on the blessed river, all encompassed by
summer light, and the sweetest sounds and sights of nature! Even to Ben,
pre-occupied as he was, there was a pleasure in her gentle company, in
the familiar home-look of everything, that penetrated his heart in spite
of himself. The sense of life had risen strongly in him after his
voluntary banishment. The unusual exercise, the soft gliding of the
water round the boat, the glimmer and murmur of the stream, and Mary’s
pleasant face,--not beautiful, like the other face he was thinking
of,--her soft talk and tremulous, gentle laughter, her happiness and
ingenuous confidence, all soothed and consoled him. It would have been
rapture with that other; now, it was not rapture, but a certain soft
content. She was a good girl, so kind to his mother, like a sister to
them all,--a dear, little, sweet-voiced, bright-faced creature. Ben
would have defended her against all the world; he would have pitched
into the river, without a moment’s hesitation, any man who harmed her so
much as by a thought;--he looked at her with a certain affectionate
observation and loving-kindness,--poor Mary! and yet with his heart full
of that other,--possessed by the enchantress all the time.
‘You are looking a little pale,’ he said, with that frank, affectionate
interest in her; ‘but you must not let my mother keep you too much with
her. She does not mean to be selfish, poor dear. You must run out and
see your friends, Mary, and get your roses back.’
‘He cares for my roses then,’ said mistaken Mary to herself, with a
flush of shy pleasure which restored them to her cheeks. But,--‘Indeed,
I am quite well, Ben; and I like to be with godmamma. How strange you
should tell me she is not selfish,--I who know her so well!’--was what
she said.
‘Perhaps better than I do,’ said Ben. ‘I think women know each other
best;’ and he stopped short with sudden gravity, and perhaps just a
lingering doubt of what Mary’s opinion might be of another. He meant to
ask her, but somehow he was embarrassed about it. It could wait for
another time, at least till they had finished their row. And they began
to talk of family matters, the familiar talk which is so pleasant in its
mild interest;--how old Sargent was having it all his own way with the
garden; how Willis the butler was tyrannical to the ladies; the little
_mots_ of the house, and its opinions upon things in general. And then
they reached the Swan’s Nest, which Mary had made a child’s romance
about once like little Ella in Mrs. Browning’s poem. The two knew every
water-lily and every flag, and the separate droop of every willow-branch
at that fairy nook.
‘I did not think you would have remembered,’ Mary said in her shy
delight. And they turned and floated down again with the oars laid
silent in the boat, and the sweet water plashing softly with a quiver
and ripple of sound and sunshine, so twined together that they seemed
but one, about its tiny bows. Even Ben was hushed, and charmed, and
softened by the exquisite tender stillness and brightness. Fancy what
poor Mary must have been, shut up so long in Mrs. Renton’s shaded room,
with one day of delight thus dropped unawares into her life!
They had reached the bank again, and were wandering slowly up the ascent
towards the house before the charm was broken. It was just as they
turned and stood still by mutual consent,--as everybody did who knew
that view,--to look down upon the river from between the two great
beeches, which framed it in, and made an ideal picture of the lovely
reality. There was an opening below among the trees, and a silvery nook,
with an island just appearing, a goodly bank opposite with groups of
sleek cattle, and in the distance Cookesley Church with its ivied tower.
The view was always perfect just there; a little ‘bit’ of nature’s own
composition, in which the trees, and cows, and the very swans, posed
themselves by instinct, as the most exquisite art would have posed them.
Many a time afterwards Mary Westbury looked at that scene, and felt
again the sudden twang of the bowstring and the quiver of the arrow in
her heart. That was the metaphor under which she represented it to
herself.
‘You have never been out of Berks, have you, Mary,’ said her cousin,
‘you home-keeping girl?--you were educated close by here, were you
not?’
‘What people call educated,’ said Mary, with her soft, happy laugh. ‘I
never learned anything. It was at Thornycroft, not more than ten miles
off. But it is so odd that you should remember, Ben.’
‘Do you recollect a Miss Tracy there?’ said Ben, with a slight
breathlessness,--the road was so steep; was that the cause?
‘Miss Tracy? Oh, you mean Millicent. What! do you know her?’ cried Mary,
turning round upon him. He was taken by surprise, and perhaps his face
betrayed him. At all events, she grew pale in a moment, poor child, and
leaned her arm against one of the beech-trees. That was the moment at
which she often thought the string of the bow twanged and the arrow came
home.
‘I have met her,’ said Ben;--‘that is, I have seen a good deal of her;
and she seemed to be fond of you.’
‘Millicent Tracy!’ repeated Mary, with a little tremulous movement. ‘Oh,
I don’t think she was fond of me.’
‘You do not seem, at least, to have been fond of her,’ said Ben, with a
little pique in his tone.
‘She was not in my set,’ said Mary, plucking up a little spirit. ‘We
were younger. She was so pretty,--oh, so pretty! We all thought there
never was any one like her. Is she as pretty now?’ Mary asked, with an
attempt at interest; but her tone was not so eager and hearty as her
words.
‘She is not pretty at all;--she is beautiful,’ said Ben, his passion
betraying itself in spite of him. And then they stood silent, looking
down on the river, and for some minutes not another word was said. It
was Ben who was the first to speak. The man was angry, after the fashion
of men, with the girl who up to this moment had been so sweetly ready to
adopt what tone he pleased to give the conversation. ‘I seem to have
been unfortunate in my subject,’ he said, turning abruptly to go in.
‘Miss Tracy, I see, cannot have been a favourite among the girls at
Thornycroft. She was too beautiful, I suppose.’
‘Indeed, no,’ said Mary, with a little indignation, following him. ‘We
were all very proud of her beauty. Though I don’t think we thought of
beauty. We thought she was very pretty,--oh, so pretty! No girl at
Thornycroft was ever so nice-looking; and nice too,’ she continued with
a hesitating attempt to please him. ‘I always did think that she was
nice, too.’
‘That was very good of you,’ Ben said, with a little scornful laugh; but
Mary was silent again, and grew frightened, and felt as if her heart
would break. What was Millicent Tracy to him? his cousin thought. If
this was all he had come home for, only to ask about such a girl as
that!--not for his mother at all, nor for Mary, nor for the sake of
home. The idea so disturbed her temper and patience that she had some
difficulty in keeping the ready tears from falling; and this, of course,
was going a great deal too far, for it was not for the sole purpose of
asking about Millicent that Ben had gone home.
From that moment a cloud fell over the shining day,--not in reality, for
the sun shone as bright as ever,--but upon the cousins, as they climbed
the winding path. All its exquisite greenness and intervals of sunshine
and shade,--all the play of light and colour about, the silvery gleam of
the river, the soft, full verdure behind,--were lost upon them. A jar
had struck into the magical harmony of the summer air. Mary, after the
first moment, recovering herself from that pang of mortification and
disappointment, began to struggle with herself for something to say.
What could she say? Millicent had not been popular at Thornycroft. She
had turned the heads of the young masters, and being new to the delights
of conquest, had encouraged them to make fools of themselves, and had
scandalised the entire community. She had tempted the curate, who was
the brother of Miss Thorny, the head of the establishment at
Thornycroft, into a flirtation, and broken his heart; and in consequence
of this feat had left the school abruptly. ‘Perhaps she was not so very
much to blame,’ Mary said to herself as she went painfully along by
Ben’s side, watching his averted face. ‘Men are such
fools;’--unconsciously she repeated in her innocence that sentiment
which was the fruit of Millicent’s experience;--‘they will do anything
for beauty.’ Probably it was their own doing. Could it be Millicent’s
fault if they went crazy about her lovely face? Thus the good girl
reasoned herself into tolerance. She made a great many little feints to
call Ben’s attention,--cleared her throat, dropped her gloves, tried
what she could, by every innocent artifice which occurred to her, to get
him to resume the interrupted conversation;--but Ben, with something of
the brutality of a big brother mingling, as was inevitable, with his
brotherly kindness, marched on and took no notice. She had to make a
faltering beginning herself without any aid from him.
‘Ben,’ she said, ‘you are not to think I did not like Millicent, or that
she was not very nice. I daresay it was not her fault. Everybody made a
fuss about her wherever she went;--she was so very pretty. I don’t think
it could have been her fault.’
‘Being pretty?’ said Ben, with the sneer that women hate.
‘You know I did not mean that,’ said Mary, injured. ‘I think it must
have been the gentlemen’s own doing. Mr. Thorny was very silly to think
she would ever have had him. I am sure that must have been his
foolishness. She so pretty and so clever, and he only a common curate,
you know;--just like other curates, nothing particular about him. It
must have been his own fault.’
‘I have not the advantage of knowing what you refer to,’ said Ben, with
the haughtiest assumption of indifference, though his temper had taken
fire and his pride was all in arms. A curate,--a common curate,--to have
been associated anyhow, by any means whatever, with Millicent! In his
heart he was furious, though he managed to keep some outward calm.
‘Oh, it was nothing,’ said Mary, faltering, and feeling that her attempt
at making up had not been successful,--‘only they said it was that that
threw him into a consumption. But it was not her fault,--it might have
happened to any of us,’ said Mary, with a sudden blush; for had it not
fallen to her lot, though she was no flirt and not even a beauty like
Millicent, to inflict a passing wound without knowing it on a curate of
her own?
Then Ben laughed, but it was a very unpleasant laugh. ‘When a lady
frowns a man can but die,’ he said. ‘How could he do less? I suppose
that is what you mean?’
‘Oh, Ben!’ cried Mary, with a hopeless appeal to his sense of justice.
But he only shrugged his shoulders and began to whistle, and walked the
rest of the way at such a pace that it was all she could do to keep up
with him. Not another word did he say to her on the subject, nor did he
pay any attention to her little faltering speeches. He whistled, which
was very rude of him; and, after a while, Mary, who had a spirit of her
own, grew indignant, and, if she did not whistle, did what was
equivalent,--she took up the air he was whistling, and sang it softly
with a pretty little voice. ‘I did not know you had been fond of music,
Ben,’ she said with a laugh; but it cost her a good cry when she got
into her own room. Ben, who was so superior, who had borne his trial so
nobly, who was going to work like a hero,--Ben, who had always been,
more than she knew, her own ideal of man,--to think that Millicent Tracy
with her pretty face----! ‘Why, even Laurie would have seen through
her!’ Mary said to herself, and wept with the poignant prick of
self-knowledge, which gives the chief bitterness to such a
discovery,--not self-esteem, but that indignant, sorrowful, honest
insight which, on such a provocation, reveals one’s worth to oneself in
pain and not in vanity. ‘Having known me, to decline on a range of lower
feelings and a narrower heart than mine!’ Mary did not say this, any
more than Ben had said of whose image his heart was full; but she felt
it with a sharp mingling of pride and humiliation. ‘Not that it can be
anything to me,’ she added aloud, to save her own credit, as it were,
with herself; and put on her prettiest dress, and was very cheerful and
amusing at dinner, when the mother was rather melancholy and had need of
enlivenment. Ben’s spirits had flagged, partly with the shock his pride
had received, and partly with the associations which began to creep over
him. The dinner-room, in which it was so strange to take his father’s
place; the old servants, who were connected so completely with the old
time; all the routine of the house, in which nothing was changed but one
thing,--affected the young man in spite of himself. He had been
defrauded, as it were, out of his natural grief for his father; and now
the mute eloquence of the vacant place seized upon him. So good a father
up to the last moment; so kind,--even at the last moment filled with
special compunction for Ben! Mr. Renton’s son felt, almost for the first
time, how much wisdom, and support, and guidance, how much tender
affection and watchful care, were lost to him. When his mother,
faltering, spoke, as to the boy she still felt him to be, of ‘your dear
papa,’ Ben fell back into the boy she thought him, and soft tears came
into his eyes. Perhaps the sadness did him more good than his former
mood of satisfaction; but it somewhat defeated his cousin Mary, who
meant to be gay, and prove to him that his enthusiasm for Millicent
Tracy was nothing to her. On the contrary, the soft-hearted, sympathetic
creature turned her pleasant eyes upon him, all shining with tears when
his change of mood became visible, and forgave him his Millicent, and
comforted herself that it was but a fancy; and they were all very
affectionate together, and somewhat pathetic, with that common grief
behind them and the common pang of parting before them, for the rest of
the night.
Yet when Ben went to his room, he paused on his way at the great window
on the staircase, from which all the noble gardens of the manor, and
the west wing, and the line of trees which overhung the river, were
visible, all ghostly and mysterious in the moonlight, and stood looking
out with a sudden flutter at his heart. His thoughts were not at home,
nor of the past. The question which suddenly flashed across his mind
was, Should he ever bring her here to be the mistress of it all? It was
the first time he had ever allowed himself to speculate upon the distant
future at the end of his seven years’ probation. Mrs. Renton had gone to
bed weeping, yet consoled by her son’s presence and sympathy; and Mary
was taking herself to task, in her maiden retirement, for having been
hard upon poor Ben; while Ben stood at the window looking out on the
moonlight, forgetting the very existence of these two, and asking
himself, with a thrill that ran through all his veins, Should he ever
bring her here? Mary’s hesitating story, her faint praise, her
deprecation of all intention to blame, even the curate,--contemptible
shadow!--angry as they had made him at the moment, had faded from his
thoughts. He seemed to see her in her stately beauty coming across the
lordly lawn. How lovely she was! Even the silly school-girls,
unimpassioned, feminine creatures, impervious to that influence, were
compelled to acknowledge it. What if she might stand with him here by
this very window, and look out on the moonlight some other night?
This was how Ben Renton went out upon the world,--in charity with his
own people, even with his father who had been so hard upon him; and
feeling, after all, that at five-and-twenty a man, even when
disinherited, with work in his hands to occupy him, fresh air to
breathe, and novel scenes to see, and energies to exercise in a big
spacious world where there was room to do something, had no particular
occasion to quarrel with life or fate. The thread of actual work, as
soon as he got it into his hands, had enabled him to trace his way out
of all the morbid labyrinths of solitary musing. Armida’s garden was
left behind for ever; but the witch, who had enchanted him and possessed
herself of his life, was so far from suffering by the change, that she
had developed in his imagination into a white angelic woman, worthy
reward of all labour. Poor, foolish Ben! And yet it could not have been
anything but a high nature which emerged from that six months’ mist of
self-inspection, bitterness, idleness, and insane passion, with at least
a true sense of the realities of his position, and a true love in his
heart.
And thus equipped he disappears from us for seven years into the vast
and troubled world.
CHAPTER XV.
KENSINGTON GORE.
Laurence Renton’s state of mind when he left the Manor immediately after
his father’s death was very different from that of his brother Ben. He
was a different man altogether, as will be seen. He had that unconscious
natural generosity of temper and unselfishness of disposition which is
more a woman’s quality than a man’s. By instinct, he put himself, as it
were, on the secondary level, and considered matters in general rather
as they affected other people. It was no virtue in him, and he did not
even know it. Such a disposition could scarcely have existed with a
passionate or energetic mind; and Laurie was not energetic. He could no
more have absorbed himself in a foolish passion as Ben had done, than he
could have set to work with the practical sense of his younger brother.
He was lazy Laurence under all circumstances; fond of philosophising
over his mischances, taking most things very quietly; and he had a
faculty of contenting himself with what was pleasant in whatsoever
aspect it might come, which is the very death of ambition in every
shape and form. He had occupied some rooms at Kensington, with a pretty
studio attached to them, in his father’s lifetime, when money was
plentiful. No wonder Mrs. Westbury had mourned over him, and denounced
so luxurious a mode of bringing up. He was of course a younger son, and
had no pretensions to lead an idle life. Providence seemed indeed to
have indicated a public office, or some such moderate occupation, which
would have left him time for his favourite dilettantism and required no
particular activity or exercise of intellect. But Laurence had been a
perplexing subject to deal with all his life. He had been one of those
trying boys who have no particular bent one way or another. He was a
bright, intelligent, indolent, inaccurate lad, utterly incapable of
dates or facts in general, but full of social qualities,--good-natured,
tender-hearted, ready to do anything for anybody. And then he had
travelled a little, and drifted among an artist set, and from that day
hoped and imagined himself capable of art. He had always had a certain
facility in drawing, and everybody knows how easy it is to glide into
the busy dawdling, the thousand pleasant trifles of occupation which
fill the time of an amateur. It seemed to Laurie, as it has seemed to
many another, that a life made beautiful by that faculty of discovering
beauty which the humblest artist prides himself on possessing,--and the
privilege of claiming a kind of membership with a noble craft,--was
superior to the loftiest stool and the most dignified desk even in a
Foreign Office. He was proud to call himself, as he often did, ‘a poor
painter;’ and, alas! a poor painter in the literal sense of the words
Laurie was. He had no genius, poor fellow! only a tender, amiable,
pleasant, little talent, which would have led him into verses had his
turn been literary. His friends and relations would have been more
deeply shocked still had they known what a toss-up it was whether
Laurie’s amateurship had taken the literary or artistic turn,--but
fortunately it was the latter; and as he made pretty little sketches,
and had given them away with charming liberality, and harmed nobody, it
was only the high moralists, such as his Aunt Lydia, who found any fault
with what he was fond of calling his ‘trade.’ And there was this to be
said in his favour, that he had no expensive tastes, and that, given
this mode of idleness, which he called work, Laurie’s was about as
harmless a life as a young man could lead;--‘especially as he will never
need to maintain himself,’ people had been used to say.
All this, however, had changed for him as for his brother. Even Laurie’s
modest establishment could not be kept on two hundred a-year; and he had
been used to be liberal, and manage his money matters with an easy hand,
always ready to help a comrade in distress. So that it was absolutely
necessary for him now to work. He went into his Kensington rooms with
feelings not unlike those which moved Ben when he made his melancholy
inventory of his things at the Albany. There were accumulations of all
kinds in the place. Bits of old carpet, bits of ‘drapery,’ bits of still
life, a little china, a little of everything; and a north light, perfect
of its kind, in the studio. He had fitted it all up to suit himself,
with a hundred handy devices,--stands for his portfolios, velvet-covered
shelves, all sorts of nooks for the artistic trumpery which is supposed
to be necessary in a studio; and the tiny little sitting-room into which
the studio opened had a queer, little, round bow-window, looking into
the Park, which was something like a box at the opera without the music.
All the world streamed under Laurie’s bow-window coming and going, and
many a nod and pleasant smile reached the artist.--save the mark!--in
his velvet coat, as he came now and then from behind his fresh flowers
to look out upon the fashion and beauty, sometimes with a palette in his
hand or maul-stick, on which he leaned as he looked out. It gave him a
certain pleasure to pose in this professional way. Perhaps it was as
well for the consistency of Laurie’s philosophy that it was September
when he came back to Kensington Gore. He went and sat down in his
bow-window, and nobody passed,--nobody except the unknown people who
stream about London streets all day long, and of whom no one takes any
notice. No doubt there were human figures enough; but the trees were
very shabby in the Park, and the grass, as far as he could see, was
burnt to a pale yellow, and two nursemaids and one Guardsman had all the
expanse to themselves. In these circumstances, perhaps, it was easier to
take leave of his pleasant little hermitage. He sat in his window and
looked carelessly out, and mused on the change. A pot of China asters,
showy enough, yet betokening the winter which approached, replaced all
the roses and bright geraniums which generally filled the stand. The
season was over, and this kind of thing was over, and the first part of
life.
Well! he said to himself,--and no particular harm either. Life was not
Kensington Gore. Many admirable artists had lived and died in Fitzroy
Square; and there was Turner in Queen Anne Street,--not that one would
choose to be like Turner. After all, it was but for half the year that
Kensington Gore was desirable. When people were out of town, what did it
matter? And then a smile crossed his face as it occurred to him that
henceforward he was not likely to be one of those who go out of town.
Looking down, his vacant eye caught the succession of figures passing
along the pavement; many very well-dressed, well-looking people, not
having the least appearance of being outcasts of society. And yet such
they must be, or else they would scarcely be there in such numbers in
September. Then he went on to reflect what heaps of people he himself
knew who lived in London all the year round, with the exception of a
month or two, or a week or two, somewhere for health’s sake. Most
painters were of this class. It was but identifying himself more
entirely with the art he had chosen; and in that point of view it would
be good for him. An amateur is never good for anything, thought Laurie;
but a man who has to devote himself to his work without any vain
interruptions has a chance to make something of it. Then a gleam of
pleasant and conscious vanity, for which he smiled at himself, flitted
over his meditations. He could almost see the people pausing before a
picture in the Academy,--or two or three pictures for that matter,--why
not?--when he had nothing else to do,--and telling each other how the
painter had been maltreated by fortune, and how this was the result of
it,--hard work and success, and substantial pudding and sweetest
praise;--ay, and a reputation very different from that of the dilettante
who strolled from his studio to the bow-window, and looked out in his
professional costume to receive the salutations of the ladies. ‘There is
poor Laurie Renton, who has been so foolish as to take to art and
nonsense; but, fortunately, he will never need to be dependent on it.’
That was what the ladies used to say as they passed. How different it
would be when they stood before the great picture in the Academy, and
read the name in the catalogue. He saw the expression on certain faces
as they read that name. ‘What, Laurie Renton! who would have thought he
could ever have been good for anything?’ This was what Laurie called
thinking over his changed affairs.
There was one drop of bitterness, however, in his cup which had not been
in Ben’s. We have said that when Mrs. Westbury visited Laurie in his
room on the night of his father’s funeral, there were some little notes
lying on his table, over which he was making himself miserable, with his
face hidden in his hands. It is not necessary to mention her name, as
she has, unfortunately, nothing to do with this story; but the fact was
that there had been somebody whose little notes made Laurie’s heart
beat. They had been the simplest kind of letters:--‘Dear Mr.
Renton,--Mamma bids me say that she will be very glad if you will come
to dinner on Thursday;’--nothing more: and yet he had tied them up very
carefully together and preserved them,--the foolish fellow,--as if they
were pearls and diamonds.
It was one of those might-have-beens, which are in every life. She had
very good blood, and very sweet looks, and that perfect homely training
of an English girl which people try to persuade us has vanished from the
world,--had we not eyes of our own to see otherwise. She knew no Latin
nor Greek, but she was more brightly intelligent than her brother, for
instance, who was a fellow of All Souls. And she had not a penny; and
if Laurie Renton had come in, as seemed likely, to as much money as
would have produced him 1500_l._ or even 1000_l._ a-year----!
Alas! that is how things happen in this life. Laurie was not the kind of
man, like Ben, to dare the impossible and keep his love at all hazards.
He knew well enough it would not do. Years must pass before he painted
that picture at which his friends should stare in the Academy; and in
the interval no doubt some one would come in who could give her
everything she ought to have, and for whom her sweet face would
brighten, and not for him. This had been the first thought that had
occurred to Laurie when his father’s will was read. He had seen her
standing in her bridal veil beside some one else, five minutes after the
sound of the lawyer’s voice had died on his ear. It had wrung his heart,
but he had said, ‘God bless her!’ all the same. Never word of love had
passed between them. When the returning season brought her back to the
little house in Mayfair, she would wonder, perhaps sigh, perhaps ask
what had become of Mr. Renton? But by that time Laurie knew his little
boat would have been so long gone down under the sea that there would
not be even a circle left on the smooth, treacherous water. It might
cost her a little gentle expectation or disappointment,--a wistful look
here and there for the face that was not to be seen again. Unselfish as
he was, Laurie hoped it would cost her as much as that; but it would not
cost her more. And long before the seven years were out or his great
picture exhibited in the Academy--to which, perhaps, her friends would
object as much as to his poverty--she would be some one else’s wife. And
it would be better for her. She had always been too good for Laurie.
Some one who could give her rank, wealth, whatever heart could
desire----! Poor Laurie’s heart contracted with a sudden pang, and
forced the moisture to his eyes. He was only four-and-twenty, poor
fellow! But it was to be so. Not his the force or the passion to resist
fate. It was one of the might-have-beens which gave so strange, so
shadowy a character to this existence. Strange to stand amid the
unalterable laws of nature and see what caprice moves the fate of the
chief of nature’s works. If Aunt Lydia had held her peace! If Mr. Renton
had not changed his mind! We are such stuff as dreams are made of!
Laurie said to himself as he turned from the scentless China asters in
his window and the empty Park, and this concluded phase of life.
But still things might have been worse. This overthrow might have
happened a year ago, at the moment when Laurie had pledged all his
credit, and given all his money to Geoffrey Sutton,--poor old
fellow!--after the brigands sacked his little villa up on Lake Nemi,
and took everything he had in the world. When old Geoff was going about,
wild and penniless, girt round with pistols, to revenge his loss,
without thinking that his life might go instead of Masaccio’s, and that
nobody would be left to pay his friends at home! What a business it
would have been had this happened then! But in the meantime Geoff’s old
uncle had been so obliging as to die, and all was right again. Or had it
occurred that time when Laurie took his last twenty pounds out of the
bank to send Harry Wood to Rome to nurse his lungs and pursue his
studies! Fortunately at this moment there was nothing in hand to make
matters worse than they were by nature, which Laurie reflected was the
greatest good luck,--a chance which he scarcely deserved, imprudent as
he was. So that on the whole, except for the necessity of leaving
Kensington Gore, it would not make much difference. That he should feel
a little, of course;--everything was so handy, so nice, so bright, and
Mrs. Brown understood his ways. But after all, what did it matter where
a man lived? A good light to paint by, any sort of a clean room to sleep
in, and a friendly face now and then to look in upon his work. Of that
last particular he was always certain. Indeed, Laurie was fully aware
that among his artist friends he was likely to be rather more than less
popular when he ceased to be a ‘swell’ and amateur.
Such were the young man’s thoughts when he began to feel the ground
under his feet again after his overthrow. Poor Ben! how hard it would be
upon him! but after all for himself it was no such terrible business.
Art is long; and so, for that matter, is life too, at four-and-twenty,
or at least appears so, which comes to much the same thing. Laurie for
his part would have been very glad to have stood by his brother and
given him all the succour that brotherly sympathy can give, had the
elder been so inclined; but, to tell the truth, Ben had been morose when
they parted, and had requested to be left alone, and that no attempt
should be made to condole with or help him until he himself took the
initiative. Laurie went and made a sketch of the three fairy princes
setting out on their travels, to solace himself when he had ‘thought
over’ as above for a sufficiently long period. Such little sketches were
the best things he ever did, his friends said. There was young Frank
marching in advance on a noble steed, with the sun shining on his helmet
and all his gorgeous apparel; and Laurie himself following after with
his easel on his shoulder, his portfolios, half-finished canvases,
palettes, colour-boxes, and accompanying trumpery hung about his person.
Ben came last, with his coat buttoned, and his face set against the
wind. Poor Ben! it was more difficult to make out how he would take it
than how it would affect the others. Thus Laurie, even in the first
shock, made light of his own share. There were three beautifully
distinct paths on which the three were setting out. In Frank’s case the
road was continuous, and led through sundry stormy indications of
battle, and fantastic,--supposed,--Indian towers, to where a coronet
hung in mid air,--the infallible reward, as everybody knows, of
energetic young soldiers who leave the Guards for the line. In Laurie’s
own path, the glorious cupolas of the National Gallery, with laughing
little imps fondly embracing each pepper-pot, closed the vista. These
were easy of execution; but what was to be the end of Ben’s painful way?
It lay up hill in his brother’s sketch, a perfect alp of ascent. But on
the height, though so austere, stood Renton Manor in full sunshine, at
one side; while on the other appeared a stately Tudor interior, full of
gentlemen in their hats, where some one with the features of the
pedestrian below was addressing the interested audience. ‘For of course
that is how it will end,’ Laurie said to himself; and yet his heart
melted, poor foolish fellow, over the rocks and glaciers in his
brother’s way.
‘And I wonder which of them will meet the White Cat,’ Laurie said to
himself, hanging over his drawing-block with his pencil in hand, giving
here and there a touch; ‘Frank, perhaps, as becomes a soldier; but I
wish it might be Ben.’ And then he bent over his own part of the sketch,
and did something to the imps on the National Gallery and sighed. With
that soft ache in his heart, poor fellow! enchanted primrose-paths were
not for him. So the next thing he did was to plant a lovely little ideal
figure on the rocks through which his elder brother was to make his way,
beckoning to Ben and cheering him on. That was how it should be. He
spent a great deal of time over his drawing, and took pleasure in the
comic burdens which were suspended from his own person,--brushes
dangling at his heels, a lay figure suspended over his shoulder, and a
little dog barking in amaze at the wonderful apparition. He laughed over
it just as he had sighed. Fate was good to Laurie, who could find some
way of extracting a little pleasure, a little amusement, out of
everything. It was quite late in the afternoon when he put his
drawing-block aside, placing it on the mantel-piece, where the drawing
might catch his eye whenever he returned, and took his hat and went out.
He was going to ask advice of old Welby, an old R.A. of his
acquaintance, as to what course of study he should adopt, and what would
be best for him in general, in the way of art. ‘And there’s the padrona
as well, who understands a fellow better than Welby,’ he added to
himself as he went out; and perhaps that was why he put one of Mrs.
Brown’s monthly roses,--for lack of a better,--in his button-hole as he
passed. For he was a young fellow who was fond of the society of women,
and liked to appear well in their eyes, notwithstanding that ache in his
heart.
CHAPTER XVI.
WELBY, R.A.
Old Welby, R.A., lived in No. 375 Fitzroy Square. He had lived there or
thereabouts all his life; but his immediate dwelling-place was one which
he had not occupied for above a year or two, and to which he had come
out of charitable, friendly motives which he would have denied
reluctantly had he been accused of them. It was poor Severn’s house, and
Severn’s widow never would have been able to keep it but for old Welby,
who had suddenly become dissatisfied with his rooms, and discovered that
the ground-floor of 375 was the very thing he wanted. The old gentleman
was very well off and very famous; but he was a bachelor, and had never
aspired to the honour and worry of a house of his own. He was a thorough
painter, steeped to the lips in that theory of life which is more
destructive of social follies and more wedded to liberty than any other.
Of all things in this world there was nothing he cared so much for as
art. He loved the artist and the artist hand wherever he met with them,
though he did not always display his feeling. Mere intelligence, even,
when it was bright and genuine, the uncultivated eye that perceived an
effect, though in utter ignorance of its why or wherefore, pleased him;
but he was very little interested in fine people, or about enthusiasts
who would come and rave to him of his lovely pictures. ‘And had never
found out the meaning of one of them, sir,’ he would say with a little
snort of indignation. He had had his day of society, and had been much
petted as an original as well as a great painter, but had borne his
distinction very soberly, with a head it proved impossible to turn; and
now having surmounted that ordeal, he lived as he liked living, seeing
such people as he liked, going out when he pleased, dining when he
pleased, dressing according to his own taste, with an utter disregard of
anybody’s opinions. He had taken to Laurie as he seldom took to young
men, and it was of him that our amateur went to seek counsel,--one of
the most foolish things, had Laurie but known it, that he ever did in
his life.
The ground-floor of the mansion in Fitzroy Square consisted of the
dining-room in the front, an immense dark room with sober-toned walls
and great pictures in heavy old frames, which was Welby’s sitting-room.
The room beyond, which opened into it by folding doors, was a bare,
scantily-furnished ante-chamber, where strangers, and models, and
Philistines in general, were sent to wait his pleasure: beyond that
again, with a separate passage of its own, was the studio, which was not
a part of the original building, but had been added to it by one of the
many artists who had inhabited the house. Still farther on, following
the plan of the original dwelling-place, was Mr. Welby’s bedroom, which
was not very large, and looked into the dingy, smoky London garden, with
a few trees in it which made your fingers black when you touched them,
but which, nevertheless, flourished and threw out their fresh leaves
every spring as if they had been in the depths of the country. It was
Forrester, Mr. Welby’s man, who was almost as great an authority on art
as himself, who opened the door to Laurie with frank salutation, and
showed him into the studio, where his master was. ‘Mr. Renton, sir, come
to see you,’ he said with the pleasant confidence that he was making an
agreeable announcement, and lingered a moment in the room to shake down
the contents of a portfolio which bulged inharmoniously and wounded his
sensitive eye. ‘I told you, sir, as them Albert Doorers you went and
bought was too big for any of the books,’ he said with a gentle
reproach. ‘Then go and order some bigger,’ retorted his master; and with
this little episode Laurie’s salutations were broken. Mr. Welby was not
at work. He was looking over some tiny little scraps of drawings which
were worth a great deal more than their weight in gold, carefully
examining a frayed edge here and there, mounting them with his own
hands, caressing them as if they had been his children. The studio was
a great, solemn, stately place, not like Laurie’s little shed. There was
a rich old mossy Turkish carpet on the floor, and wonderful pieces of
old art-furniture worth a fortune in themselves. Two or three easels
stood about, one bearing a picture, set there clearly for purposes of
exhibition; and another honoured by a pure white square of canvas
without a line upon it. The picture was not Welby’s own. He worked but
little now-a-days, and that little only when the inspiration was upon
him. It was by an old Italian master little known, who was the R.A.’s
special pet and protégé. He had been pointing out its beauties to some
bewildered visitors only that morning, who would much rather have seen a
Welby, even in the most fragmentary condition, than the curious, quaint
Angelichino which required a very profound artistic taste to understand.
Nobody knew whether old Welby’s admiration for his pet master was
genuine, or was his way of jeering at a partially educated amateur
public. That and his pure white canvas were his favourite show-pieces,
and these accordingly were the most prominent objects in the studio when
Laurie went in. The painter himself was a little man with refined
features, but many wrinkles; his eyes were very keen and bright under
the shaggy mobile eyebrows with which he almost talked, and the colour
on his cheek was as fresh as a winter apple. His hair was almost white,
and so was his beard, but yet he was not old. He had a black velvet
bonnet on his white locks,--not a skull-cap, but a round bonnet such as
the Dutch painters wear in their pictures,--and a velvet coat; and was
not above adding,--it was apparent,--a skilful touch to the
picturesqueness of his appearance by means of dress. Such was the man
who held out both his hands to Laurie, with a half foreign warmth
mingled with his English calm. ‘Ah, Renton, I am glad to see you,’ he
said; ‘a young fellow like you in September is a rarity: and I wanted
some one to look at my little Titians. I picked them up in Venice for an
old song. There is where you boys should go. Such lights, such
reflexions! Look here, my dear fellow,--what do you say to that?’
Laurie gazed and applauded as was expected of him; but somehow, though
he had been moderately cheerful before, the sight of this life which was
no life filled him suddenly with an uncalled-for depression. To go wild
about a scrap of paper with some pencilled lines made how many hundred
years ago, and never to think of the lives getting wrecked, the hearts
getting broken round you! This was what Laurie suddenly thought,--with
great injustice, as was natural,--and felt disposed to walk away again
on the spot without betraying the troubles of which the other was
unconscious. ‘The padrona would have known before I had said a word,’ he
said to himself in his heart.
Whether Mr. Welby, whose eye was keen enough, whatever his sympathy
might be, read his young friend’s thoughts at once it would be
impossible to tell. If he did he showed no feeling for them. He went on
calmly to the end of his new acquisitions, pointing out their beauties;
and then when Laurie was sick and faint, and felt that he hated Titian,
put them all together in a most leisurely way and locked them up in a
drawer of a beautiful ebony cabinet all inlaid with silver. Then he
returned to his visitor and drew a chair to a table and pointed to one
near him. ‘Come and tell me all about it,’ he said with the most sudden
change in his tone.
‘Ah, you have heard!’ cried Laurie, half indignant, half mollified.
‘I have heard nothing,’ said the painter; ‘but I see you have brought a
heap of troubles to cast down at your neighbour’s door. Come, let us
have them out.’ Whereupon poor Laurie told his story, brightening as he
told it. Curiously enough, when he brought himself face to face with his
misfortunes, the burden of them always was lightened for him,--a case so
much unlike what it is with ordinary men. When he stood at a distance
from them, so to speak, they swelled into great mystic, devouring
giants; but they were only manageable human difficulties, and no more,
when he faced them near. ‘I must take to work in earnest,’ said Laurie,
‘that’s all, so far as I am concerned. It is worse for Ben; but
fortunately, as I have a profession----’
‘Have you a profession?’ Mr. Welby broke in abruptly, looking Laurie,
without a shadow of a smile, in the face, as if moved by genuine
curiosity; and the young man gave a little nervous smile.
‘You thought I was amateur all over,’ he said, ‘and I daresay I deserved
it. But don’t tear me to pieces altogether; that stage of existence is
past.’
‘I asked for simple information,’ said the R.A. ‘If you have a
profession now is the time to stick to it. I thought you were only a
virtuoso; but if you have really been brought up to anything----’
‘You make me feel very small,’ said poor Laurie, blushing like a girl up
to his hair. ‘I have not been brought up to it, I know. I have been a
virtuoso merely, but I am not too old to begin to work in earnest. And
there is nothing I love like art.’
‘Art!’ said Mr. Welby, with great strain and commotion of his eyebrows.
He gave his shoulders a little shrug, and he talked volumes with those
shaggy brows. Laurie felt himself scolded, pushed aside as a puny
pretender.
‘I did not mean to say anything so very presumptuous,’ he said with
momentary youthful petulance, in answer to this silent lecture; and then
added, with equally sudden youthful compunction, ‘I beg your pardon. I
do want your advice.’
‘Art!’ repeated the R.A. with a little snort. ‘You had much better take
to a crossing at once. I went at it, sir, when I was twelve years old. I
never had a thought in my noddle but pictures. I’ve gone here and there
and everywhere to study my trade; and after fifty years of it, sir,’
cried the Academician, springing suddenly to his feet, seizing a canvas
which stood against the wall and thrusting it upon one of the vacant
easels up to Laurie,--‘look at that!’
It was the beginning of a sketch half smeared over. One exquisite pair
of eyes, looking out as from a mist of vague colour, seemed to look
reproachfully upon their creator; but there certainly was an arm and leg
also visible, of which Laurie felt like poor Andrea in Mr. Browning’s
wonderful poem, that if he had a piece of chalk----. Welby, R.A. was
growing old. He knew it perfectly, and perhaps in his soul was not
sorry; but when he saw the signs of it on his canvas it went to his
heart.
‘Look at that!’ he said, with a sort of savage triumph; ‘drawing any lad
in the Academy would be ashamed of!--after fifty years as hard work as
ever man had. I might have been Lord Chancellor in those fifty years. I
might have sat on the wool-sack or been Governor of India; and here I
stand, a British painter, not able to draw the tibia! By Jove, sir, a
man would need to be trained to bear mortification before he could stand
that!’
‘I should think you might laugh at it if any man could,’ said Laurie,
feeling half disposed to laugh himself; but he had too true an eye to
attempt to contradict his master.
‘I can’t laugh at failure,’ said Mr. Welby, snatching the sketch he had
just exhibited off the easel and thrusting it back into its place
against the wall. ‘I had some people here to-day who would have given me
a heap of money for that piece of idiocy. What do they care? It would
have been a Welby, no matter what else it was. Welby in his drivelling
stage, the critics would have called it, and just as good for a specimen
of the master as any other. And that is what a man comes to, my dear
fellow, after fifty years--of art!’
‘Yes,’ said Laurie, with the confidence which he had as a young man of
the world, and not as an art student; ‘I don’t say anything about the
tibia, for you know best; but to put a soul into a smeared bit of canvas
is what no Lord Chancellor in the world could do; and you know quite
well it would have made any young fellow’s fortune to have painted that
pair of eyes.’
‘Eyes! Stuff!’ said the R.A., but he took back the canvas again and
looked at it with a softened expression. ‘The short and long of it is,
my dear boy,’ he said, ‘that Art is a hard mistress even to those who
serve her all their lives; and you have done no more than flirt with her
yet. Is there anything else open to you? You were quite right to come to
me for advice. Nobody knows better the shipwrecks that have been made by
art. Why, you cannot come into this house, sir, without feeling what an
uncertain syren she is. There was poor Severn, as good a fellow as ever
breathed. I don’t say he could ever have been Lord Chancellor; but he
might have made a very respectable attorney, perhaps, or merchant, or
shoemaker, or something; and here he’s gone and died, the fool, at
forty, leaving all those children, and not a penny, all along of art.’
‘But what do you say of the padrona?’ said Laurie, kindling into a
little subdued enthusiasm. ‘What else could she have done? What would
have become of the children?’
‘They would have gone to the workhouse, sir, and there would have been
an end,’ said the Academician, sternly. ‘The padrona, as you call
her--and, by Jove! had I been Severn, I’d have shut her up sooner than
let a parcel of young fellows talk of her like that. Well, then, Mrs.
Severn--as we’ll call her, if you please--the young woman has a pretty
talent, and her husband taught her after a fashion how to use it. And
her pictures sell--at present. But how long do you think it will be
before everybody is stocked with those pretty groups of children?
They’re very pretty, I don’t deny; and sometimes there’s just a touch
that shows, if she had time, if she had not to work for daily bread, if
she wasn’t a woman, and could be properly educated, why that she might
do something with it which----. But everything is against her, poor
soul! and she’s not wise enough to make hay while the sun shines; and
when the sun has done shining, I wish you would tell me what the poor
thing is to do?’
‘I hope the sun will shine as long as she needs it,’ said Laurie,
warmly.
‘Ah! hope, I dare say; so do I. But that’s as much as wishing she may
die early, like him,’ said Mr. Welby, rubbing his eyelid. ‘It can’t
last, my dear fellow; and that’s why I say the workhouse at once, and
have done with it. But anyhow. Mrs. Severn is no example for you. She
was made for work, that woman. As long as she has her baby to carry
about at nights, and her boys to make a row, and that child Alice, with
her curls--why the woman is a tiger for work, I tell you. But you are
made of different matter. And besides,’ said the R.A., with the faintest
twist of a smile about his lip, ‘a woman may content herself with the
homely sort of work she can do; but a young fellow aims at high art--or
he’s a muff if he don’t.’ The old man concluded with a little
half-affectionate fierceness, softening towards Laurie, who was
everybody’s favourite, and who was thus affronted, stimulated, and
solaced in a breath.
‘Perhaps I am a muff,’ said Laurie, laughing. ‘I am inclined to think
so, sometimes. I am not sure that I want to go in for high art. I want
to master my profession as a profession, as I might go and eat in the
Temple. I am not too old for that,’ he said, wistfully, giving his
adviser one of those half-feminine, appealing glances which never come
amiss from young eyes.
Once more the R.A. became pantomimically eloquent. He shrugged his
shoulders, he shook his head, he delivered whole volumes of remonstrance
from his eyebrows. Then, after a few minutes of this mute animadversion,
suddenly put his head between his hands, and stared right into Laurie’s
eyes across the table. ‘Let us hear what chances you have otherwise,’ he
said. ‘I beg your pardon for insinuating such a thing, but hasn’t your
family some sort of connexion with--trade?’
‘Oh, yes,’ said Laurie. ‘You need not beg my pardon. It is too big a
connexion to be ashamed of--Renton, Westbury, and Co., at Calcutta, and
there’s a house in Liverpool, I believe. Ben ought to have been sent
out, had we stuck to the traditions of the family. It has been in
existence for a hundred and fifty years.’
‘Well, then, suppose you go out in place of Ben,’ said Mr. Welby,
musingly, as he might have asked him to take physic; upon which Laurie
laughed, and grew rather red.
‘My cousin, Dick Westbury, went in Ben’s place,’ he said;--‘the very
sort of fellow to make a merchant of. You might as well tell me to go
and stand on my head.’
‘If I could make all the money by it that those fellows do, I should not
mind standing on my head,’ said Laurie’s counsellor, reprovingly. ‘Why
shouldn’t you be “the very sort” as well? I don’t see that any
particular talent is required. A good head, sir, and close attention,
and a knowledge of the multiplication-table. But perhaps they did not
teach you that at Eton?’ Mr. Welby added, with a gentle sneer, such as
he loved.
‘If they did, I have forgotten it years ago,’ said Laurie. ‘Indeed it
would not do. You know it would not do. A fellow has to be brought up to
it; and besides, I shouldn’t go if I were asked,’ he added, with a
sudden cloud on his face.
‘That settles the question,’ said his adviser. ‘You are a fool, my dear
fellow; but I thought as much. Well, then, there are all the Government
offices;--couldn’t your friends get you into one of them? The very thing
for you, sir. Not too much to do, and plenty of time to do it in. You
could keep up your studio still.’
‘But you forget the competitive examination,’ cried Laurie, just as his
brother Ben had replied to a similar suggestion. ‘I don’t know Julius
Cæsar from Adam,’ he said, laughing. ‘I have not an idea which Göthe it
was that discovered printing. I can’t tell whereabouts are the Indian
Isles. They’d pluck me as fast as look at me. You forget that we’re
high-minded, and that influence is no good now.’
‘Confound it!’ said Mr. Welby, with energy, pausing to find something
else more feasible. Then he bent confidentially across the table,
coaxing, almost appealing, to his intractable neophyte. ‘My dear fellow,
what do you say to literature?’ said the R.A. in his softest tone. Upon
which Laurie burst into uncontrollable laughter.
‘I see no occasion for laughter,’ the Academician continued, half
offended. ‘Why shouldn’t you write as well as another? I assure you,
sir, I know half-a-dozen men who write, and they have not an ounce of
brains among them. All you require is the knack of it. They tell me they
make heaps of money; and it does not matter what lies you tell, or how
much idiocy you give vent to,--especially about art,’ he said, with
sudden fierceness. ‘And, to be sure, in this beautiful age of ours
everybody reads. I don’t see why you should not go in for the newspapers
or the magazines, or something. There is no study wanted for that;
there’s the beauty of it. The more nonsense you talk the more people
like it. And so far as I can see, it’s as easy to talk nonsense on paper
as in company; easier, indeed, for there’s nobody to contradict you. All
you want is the knack. I know the editor of the “Sword,” my dear fellow.
I’ll get you an engagement on that.’
‘But I never wrote two sentences in my life,’ said Laurie; ‘and, as for
literature, it cannot be less uncertain than art.’
‘Quite a different thing, my dear fellow,’ said the R.A., eagerly; ‘not
one in fifty, let us say, knows a picture when he sees it. I might say
one in a hundred. Whereas everybody, I suppose, understands the rubbish
in the papers; everyone reads it, at least, which comes to the same
thing. I know men who are making their thousands a-year. It is only
getting the knack of it.’
Laurie gave a faint laugh; but the fun had by this palled upon him. For
a moment he covered his face with his hands. It was part of his
temperament to have these moments of impatience and disgust with
everything. Then Mr. Welby got up and began to walk about the room in
some excitement. ‘Confound the fellow, he will do nothing one tells
him!’ he said. But after a while the old painter came back to his seat,
and was very kind. He entered into the question, more gravely, even with
a certain melancholy. He pointed out to him, again, how many wrecks
there were on all the coasts, of men who had mistaken their profession,
and gave him an impressive sketch of all the toils he ought to go
through ere he could worthily bear the name of painter. ‘And, after all,
find yourself like me, baffled by the tibia!’ he cried, with a kind of
passion. But in this talk Laurie recovered his spirits. His friend, in
his compunction, gave him practical advice which would have been of the
highest importance to any beginner. ‘I warn you against it all the
same,’ he said, working his eyebrows like the old-fashioned telegraph.
But Laurie took the information and the advice without the warning, and
went away, once more seeing in a vision that picture on the line in the
Academy with Laurence Renton’s name to it, and a crowd of his fine
friends wondering around.
CHAPTER XVII.
THE PADRONA.
When Laurie left Mr. Welby’s studio he had not, however, satisfied
himself either with No. 375, Fitzroy Square, or with the advice on art
subjects which he had come to seek. Old Forrester replied to his inquiry
if Mrs. Severn was at home with a benevolent smile:--‘It ain’t often as
she’s anywhere else, sir,’ said that authority. ‘I never see such a lady
to work,--and a-singing at it, as if it was pleasure. Them’s the sort,
Mr. Renton, for my money,’ the old man added with enthusiasm. ‘Master,
he’s ready to swear at it sometimes, which ain’t consistent with art.’
‘Don’t you think so?’ said Laurie. ‘But when art becomes a passion, you
know----’
‘I don’t hold with passion,’ said Forrester. ‘It stands to reason, Mr.
Renton, that a thing as is to hang for ages and ages on a wall, didn’t
ought to have no violence about it. I hate to see them poor things
a-hurting of themselves for centuries. You look at ’em, sir,’ he added,
pointing to an old picture, in which the action was somewhat violent,
which hung in the hall; ‘they couldn’t do that nohow, not if they were
paid millions for it. Me and Shaw was talking it over the last time he
was here. I don’t hold with that sort of passion, not in a picture. And
I don’t always hold with master himself, Mr. Renton, between you and me.
He’s been swearing hawful, sir, over that poor tibbie there. And what
business has any man, sir, to have his tibbie in such a hattitude? It’s
hoisted right round, nigh out of its socket. I wouldn’t do it, not for
no money, if it was me.’
‘But you have no such fault to find with Mrs. Severn,’ said Laurie, who,
in the impatience of youthful criticism, had made a similar observation
to himself.
‘Bless you, sir, there’s never nothing out of harmony in them groups,’
said Forrester; ‘and easy, too, to tell why. Not as I’m a-making light
of her heye; she’s got a fine heye for a lady, sir,--in
composition;--but, seeing it’s her own little things as is the models,
would she put ’em in hattitudes to hurt ’em, Mr. Renton? You may take
your oath as a lady wouldn’t. Master, he pays his models, and he don’t
care. Will you walk up, or will I go and say you’re here?’
‘I think I may go without being announced,’ said Laurie, who was a
little proud of the _petites entrées_, though it was only to a humble
house. As he went up the great, dingy staircase he put his fingers
lightly through his hair, and looked with some dismay at the limp
pinkness of the rose in his button-hole. It was hanging its head, as
roses will when they feel the approach of frost in the air. There is a
curious dinginess, which is not displeasing, in those old-fashioned
houses. The walls were painted in a faint grey-green; the big stairs had
a narrow Turkey carpet, very much worn, upon them, and went winding up
the whole height of the house to a pale skylight in the roof. A certain
size, and subdued sense, of airiness, and quiet, and space was in the
house, though London raged all around, like a great battle. The
arrangement of the first floor was much like that of Mr. Welby’s
apartments. There was a great shadowy, dingy drawing-room, with three
vast windows, always filled with a kind of pale twilight,--for it was
the shady side of the Square,--and opening from that, by folding-doors,
a second room, which did duty as Mrs. Severn’s dining-room; and behind
that, again, the studio. The door of the dining-room was open, and
Laurie paused, and went half in as he passed. The children were there
with their daily governess, who was, poor soul! almost at the end of her
labours. She was struggling hard to keep their attention to the last
half of the last hour when the intruder’s head thrust in at the door
made further control impossible. There were two small boys, under ten,
and one little creature with golden locks, seated at the feet of the
eldest of the family, who was working at the window. ‘Alice, with her
curls,’ was almost too big for Miss Hadley’s teaching. She was seated in
that demure, soft dignity of the child-woman, with all the importance of
an elder sister, working at little Edith’s frock; a girl who rarely said
anything, but thought the more; not beautiful, for her features were not
regular, but with lovely, thoughtful brown eyes, and a complexion so
sweet in its varying colour that it felt like a quality of the heart,
and one loved her for it. Her curls were what most people of the outside
world knew her by. In these days of _crée_ locks and elaborate
hair-dressing, Alice’s soft, silken, perfect curls, nestling about her
pretty neck, softly shed behind her ears, were distinction enough for
any girl. They were chestnut,--that chestnut, with the gold in it, which
comes next to everybody’s favourite colour in everybody’s
estimation;--and there was a silken gloss upon them which was
old-fashioned, but very sweet to see, once in a way. She sat,--in the
perfectly unobtrusive dress of modern girlhood; simple frock up to the
throat, little white frill, tiny gold locket, without even a ribbon on
her hair,--against the afternoon light in the window, just raising her
eyes with a smile in them to Laurie, and lifting up one slender finger
by way of warning. ‘Mamma is in the studio,’ said Alice, under her
breath. He thought he had never seen a prettier picture than that little
interior he had peeped into. Miss Hadley was not bad-looking, Laurie
decided. She had keen black eyes under those deep brows, and not a bad
little figure. And little Frank, with such a despairing languor over his
soft, round, baby face; and Edith, all crumpled up like a dropped rose
by Alice’s feet; and the light slanting in through the big window,
trying and failing to penetrate the dimness of the grey-green walls, all
covered with pictures. Everything was in the shade, even little Edith,
all overshadowed by her sister’s dress and figure;--an afternoon
picture, with every tone subdued, and a touch of that weariness upon all
things which comes with the waning light;--a weariness which would
vanish as soon as it was dark enough to have lights, and when the hour
came for the family tea.
When Laurie knocked at the studio door, he could hear, even before he
was told to come in, the painter singing softly over her work, as
Forrester had said. She was no musician, which, we suppose, may be
understood from the fact of this singing at her work. Her voice was not
good enough to be saved up for the pleasure of others, and accordingly
was left free to hum a little accompaniment to her own not unmelodious
life. Mrs. Severn was not a partisan of work for women, carrying out her
theory, but a widow, with little children, working with the tools that
came handiest to her for daily bread; and she had been accordingly
adopted respectfully into a kind of comradeship by all the artists
about, who had known her husband, and were ready to stand by her as
much as men of the same profession might. Nobody ever dreamt of thinking
she was going out of her proper place, or taking illegitimate work upon
her, when she took up poor Severn’s palette. There are ways of doing a
thing which people do not always consider when they are actuated by
strong theoretical principles. The padrona took to her work quite
quietly, as if she had been born to it; did not think it any hardship;
worked her regular hours like any man, and asked little advice from any
one. In short, if she had a fault, it was generally believed that it was
her indifference to advice. She rarely asked it, and still more rarely
took it. Since the time when poor Severn died, and when she passionately
explained to her friends that it was less pain to manage her own affairs
than to talk them over with others, she had gone on doing everything for
herself. Whether that was a wise way of proceeding it would be hard to
tell; but at least it was her way. Poor Severn had not been a great
painter, poor fellow; he had done very well up to a certain point, but
there he had stopped; and then he had travelled about a great deal with
his family, and studied all the great pictures in the world, and made
sketches of a great many novel customs and practices, with the view of
making a new start,--‘as Phillip did.’ John Phillip, as every one knows,
being an ordinary painter, went to Spain, and came home a great one; but
poor Severn found no inspiration awaiting him at any wayside. One of
the children had been born in Florence, and one in Dresden; they were
almost the only evidences that remained of those piteous wanderings and
labours.
But wherever the poor fellow went, a pair of bright, observant eyes were
always by his side, taking note of things which he only tried to make
use of, and by degrees his wife had got possession of the pencil as it
dropped out of his failing hands. Of course, her drawing would not bear
examination as his would have done. He did the best he could to give her
a more masculine touch, but failed. She was feeble in her anatomy, very
irregular in respect to everything that was classical; but, somehow,
bits of life stole upon the forlorn canvases in Fitzroy Square under her
hand. ‘You may trust her for the sentiment,’ he said, poor fellow!
almost with his last breath, ‘and her eye for colour; but, Welby, I’d
like to see her drawing a little firmer before I leave her.’ This he was
never fated to see; and Mrs. Severn’s drawing was not likely to get
firmer when her teacher was gone. It was never very firm, we are bound
to admit; and we are also obliged to confess, against our will, that the
padrona catered a great deal for the British public in the way of pretty
babies, and tender little nursery scenes. Her pictures were domestic, in
the fullest sense of the word. In her best there would be the little
child saying its prayers at its mother’s knee, which never fails to
touch the Cockney soul; and in her worse there would be baby at table
breaking his mug and thrusting his spoon everywhere but where he ought.
They were very pretty, and sometimes, as if by chance, they stumbled
into higher ground, and caught a look, a gleam of heaven; an unconscious
essay, as it were, at the English Mary and her Blessed Child, which has
never yet been produced by an insular painter--only an essay--and it
never had time or hope to come to more. But the British public, bless
it! liked the pictures, and bought them--not for their gleams of loftier
meaning, but for the exquisite painting of baby’s mug, and because the
carpet under the mother’s feet was so real that you could count the
threads. The painter did not ask herself particularly why her pictures
became popular; she was very thankful, very glad, and took the money as
a personal favour for some time, feeling that it was too good a joke.
But all the freshness of the beginning was over long before the day on
which Laurie knocked at the studio door. She painted now with a more
swift and practised hand, but still very unequally; sometimes mere mugs
and carpets, with little human dolls; and sometimes women with children,
more and more like the divine ideal; and out of her sorrow had grown
softly happy again without knowing how--happy in her work, and her
freedom, and her independence, and her children. Alas! yes; in her
independence and freedom. She liked that, though many a reader will
think the worse of her for liking it. But it is not as a perfect
creature she is here introduced, but as a woman with faults like others.
Everybody knew that she had been very fond of poor Severn, and had stood
by him faithful and tender till his last breath; and that she was very
desolate when he was gone, and cried out even against God and His
providence a little in her anguish and solitude--but pondered and was
silent, and pondered and was cheerful--and, at last, things being as
they were, got to be glad that she was free and could work for herself.
And she was comparatively young, and had plenty to do, and there were
her children. A woman cannot go on being heart-broken with such props as
these. And it pleased her, we avow, since she could not help it, to have
her own way.
It was her husband who had called her padrona caressingly to everybody
when they came back from Italy--the ‘missis,’ as he would explain--and
what had been a joke at first had become the tenderest of titles now.
Those only who had been Severn’s friends dared continue to address her
by that name, and Laurie was one of them, young though he was. When she
said ‘Come in,’ he opened the door softly. She was standing by her
easel, hastily finishing something with the little light that remained.
‘Don’t disturb me, please, for five minutes,’ she said, without looking
round, ‘whoever you are. I must not lose this last little bit of light.’
‘Don’t hurry,’ said Laurie, sitting down behind her in a Louis Quinze
fauteuil, which had figured in many pictures.
‘Ah, it is you!’ said the padrona; but she did not turn round for the
moment, or take any further notice of him. This third studio was not
like any of the others. It was much barer, and, indeed, poorer. There
was in it none of the classic wealth of casts and friezes which adorned
Laurie’s sanctuary. There were no pictures in it, as in Mr. Welby’s
stately studio. Had the padrona possessed ebony cabinets inlaid with
silver, or a rare Angelichino, no doubt she would have sold them for
some mean-spirited consideration of Alice’s music-lessons, or a month at
the seaside for the bundle of children whose pleasure was more to her,
alas! though she was a painter, than all the pictures in the world.
There were some prints only on the walls, grey-green here as elsewhere
throughout the house--prints of Raphael’s Madonnas--she of San Sisto
within reach of the painter’s eye as she worked, and she of Fogligno, in
her maturer splendour, on the mantel-piece; but there was a great dearth
of the usual ‘materials’ with which an artist’s studio abounds. The
padrona’s work was of a kind which did not require much consultation of
examples; her draperies were chiefly modern, her subject the
ever-varying child-life, which she had under her eye. A little
lay-figure, which little Edith called her wooden sister, was in a
corner, dressed--alas! for art--in one of Edith’s frocks, considerably
torn and ragged, which was about the highest touch of effect Mrs.
Severn permitted herself. There was something curious altogether in the
commonplace, untechnical air of the room. It is the defect of women in
general when they adopt a profession to be rather too technical; but the
padrona took her own way. She had given in so far, however, to the use
and wont of the craft as to wear a grey garment over her gown, which
fitted very nicely, and looked as well as if it had been the gown
itself. She was a middle-sized woman, fully developed, and not girlish
in any way, though her face had the youthfulness of a gay temperament
and elastic disposition. Her eyes were hazel, with a great deal of light
in them; her mouth full of laughter and merriment, except when she was
thinking, and then it might perhaps be a trifle too firm; her hair
brown, and soft, and abundant. Laurie sat in the fauteuil and watched
her taking the good of the last remnant of the light with a curious
mixture of kindness and admiration, and a kind of envy. ‘If I could but
go at it like that!’ he said to himself, knowing that had he been in her
place he would so gladly have thrown down his brush on the pleasant
excuse of a visitor. There was a certain professional ease in the way he
seated himself to wait her leisure, such as perhaps could have been bred
in none other but this atmosphere, softly touched with the odour of
pigments, and with the lay figure in the corner. Literature has less of
this brotherhood of mutual comprehension--at least, in England--being a
morose art which demands to a certain extent seclusion and silence; but
art is friendly, gregarious, talkative. The padrona began to talk to him
immediately, though she did not turn her head.
‘I am so glad to see you,’ she said; ‘at least I shall be glad to see
you whenever I have finished this arm. It has worried me all day, and if
I don’t do it at once it will slip out of my mind again. I wish one
could paint without drawing; it is hard upon an uneducated person; and I
am sure if it was not for those horrid critics, the British public does
not care if one’s arm is out of drawing or not.’
‘Welby does not think so,’ said Laurie. ‘Have you seen his tibia that he
is raving about?’
‘Ah, but then that wounds his own eye,’ said Mrs. Severn, half turning
round; ‘just as a false note in music wounds my child, though it does
not disturb me much. The dreadful thing is not to know when you’re out
of drawing or out of tune. One feels something is wrong, but one is not
clever enough to see what it is.’
‘I don’t think you are often out of tune, padrona nostra, or out of
drawing either,’ said poor Laurie, with a sigh.
‘Dear, dear!’ said Mrs. Severn, ‘what does this mean I wonder--that our
friend is out of tune himself?’
‘Dreadfully out of tune,’ said Laurie, ‘all ajar and not knowing what
to do with myself, and come to you to set me right.’
Then there was a pause of a minute or two, and the painter turned from
her easel and put down her palette with a sigh of relief. ‘That’s over
for to-day at least,’ she said, and came and held out her hand to her
visitor. ‘I saw it in the papers,’ she said, ‘but I would not say
anything till I could give you my hand and look you in the face. Was it
sudden? We have all to bear it one way or other; but it’s very hard all
the same, and especially the first blow.’
It was the first time since the reading of the will that anybody had
sympathised honestly with one of Mr. Renton’s sons for their father’s
death; and, near as that event was, the voice of natural pity startled
Laurie back to natural feeling. The twilight, too, which hid the tears
that rushed to his eyes, and the soft, kind clasp of the hand which had
come into his, and the voice full of all sympathies, united to move him.
A sudden ache for his loss, for the father who had been so good to him,
struck, with all its first freshness, into the mind where dwelt so many
harder thoughts. When Mrs. Severn sat down, and bade him tell her about
it, the young man went back to the sudden death-bed, and was softened,
touched, and mollified in spite of himself; his voice trembled when he
told her those wanderings of the dying man,--as everybody thought
them,--and of his affectionate confidence that ‘Laurie would not mind.’
‘I see there is something more coming,’ said the padrona, with that
insight in which he had trusted; ‘but whatever it is I am sure he was
right, and Laurie will not be the one to mind.’
‘I don’t mind,’ said Laurie, with a sob that did no discredit to his
manhood; and if there had been a shadow of resentment in his heart for
the injury done him, in these words it passed away; and instead of
asking the padrona’s advice as he had intended, as he had asked old
Welby’s, he told her, on the contrary, about his father, and his
anxieties touching Ben, and all the sinkings of heart, of which he did
not himself seem to have been conscious till sympathy called them forth.
I do not know whether the softness of the domestic quiet, and the
padrona’s face shining upon him across the table, with all the light in
the room concentrated in her hazel eyes, and the soft monosyllables of
sympathy--the ‘poor Laurie’--that dropped from her lips now and
then,--one cannot tell what effect these might have had in making the
character of this interview so different from that he had held with Mr.
Welby. Had it been her daughter to whom he was talking there could of
course have been no doubt about it. But anyhow this was how it happened.
Laurie made it apparent to her and to himself that it was the tender
anguish of bereavement which had brought him here to be comforted, and
was perfectly real and true in thus representing himself; and Mrs.
Severn was very sorry for him, and thought more highly of him than
ever. It had grown almost dark before she rose from her chair and
brought the conversation to an end.
‘You are too young to dwell always on one subject,’ she said, ‘Come in
now and have tea with the children. They are all very fond of you, and
it will do you good. Of course you have not dined: you can go and dine
later at eight or nine: it does not matter to you young men. And, if the
talk is too much, Alice will play to you.’
‘The talk will not be too much,’ said Laurie; but as he followed the
padrona out of the room he plucked the rose out of his button-hole and
crushed it up in his hand and let it drop on the floor. A rose in a
man’s coat is perhaps not quite consistent with the deepest phase of
recent grief. But he was no deceiver in spite of this little bit of
involuntary humbug. Other thoughts had driven his grief away, and
diminished its force perhaps; but those were true and natural tears he
had been shedding, and he felt ashamed of himself for having been able
to think of the rose, and did not want the padrona’s quick eye to light
upon that gentlest inconsistency; but on the whole it did not appear to
him that he was unequal to their talk. So he went and played with the
children while Mrs. Severn withdrew to change her dress for the evening,
seating himself in the inner room where the lamp was burning and the
table arrayed for tea, while Alice in the dim grey drawing-room, with
the folding-doors open, played softest Lieder, such as her soul loved,
in the dusk; and Miss Hadley sat and knitted, casting now and then a
keen look from under her deep brows at Laurie in his mourning; and the
urn bubbled and steamed, and little Edith climbed up into her high seat
by the table, waiting till the padrona in her lace collar should come
down to tea.
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE TEA-TABLE.
Mrs. Severn’s society was of a peculiar kind,--it had something of the
ease of French society, with the homeliness of the true Briton. Very
rarely, indeed, did she make calls. She never gave parties of any
description whatever; and yet there was always a little flow and current
of human minds and faces about her. The class which in London is perhaps
more at liberty to please itself than any other class,--at least in
England,--was that to which she belonged, both in right of her husband
and of herself, and which circulated about her, very independent of
rule, and very full of life. I do not know if I should call it the
artist-class, for that is a wide world, and has many divisions, and fine
people abound in that as in every other division of society. The
padrona’s friends were painters, authors, journalists, people with
crotchets, public reformers, persons of every kind to whom intellect, as
they called it, clearness and brightness, and talk, and the absence of
ceremony, were sweeter than any other conditions of society. They came
to her studio, some of them, with only a knock at the door,--but these
were intimates,--and chatted while she went on with her work. They
dropped in in the evening, and chatted again sometimes till midnight;
they filled the rooms with discussion of everything in earth and
heaven,--art news, political news, society news, a little of everything;
they held hot discussions on social questions with the zeal of people
immediately concerned, not with the languor of good society. The padrona
‘received’ almost every evening in this way after her work was done; and
it was people whose work was done also who came to see her,--with fresh
air in their faces, and all the eagerness and commotion of fresh life in
their minds. I do not mean to say that the intelligence of these
visitors was of the highest class, or that anything like the tone of a
French salon,--the salon which has now become almost as much a tradition
as Mrs. Montague’s drawing-room with its feather hangings,--pervaded the
grey-green drawing-room in Fitzroy Square; but only that the people
there came together to talk, and kept up an unfailing stream of
comments, not merely on the people of their acquaintance, but on
everything that was going on. It was easier work for a stranger to get
on with them than it was in society where conversation is so personal,
and the doings of that small class which calls itself the world, are so
uppermost in everybody’s thoughts. Nobody asked, ‘Did you hear what
Lady Drum said to Lady Fife last night at the Clarionett’s ball?’ or
went into raptures over the dear Duchess, or discussed the causes which
led to that unfortunate separation between Sir Edward and his wife. To
be sure, you might get just as tired, perhaps more so, listening to
discussions about the ‘sweet feeling’ of this or that picture, or its
bad drawing, or the uncertainty of its meaning, or about whether this
exhibition was better than the last, or what Horton had said about it in
the ‘Sword,’ or about spiritualism,--of which there were many
distinguished professors in the padrona’s circle, or about social
science, or women’s work, or the Archæological Society; but still it was
a different sort of thing from the common languor and the common wit.
When Laurie had played with the children, and taken his cup of tea, and
the lamp was carried into the large drawing-room, he did not care to
leave the easy-chair in which he had placed himself and undertake that
long walk to Kensington Gore. A certain sensation of ease had stolen
over him. He had thrown down his pack of troubles at his neighbour’s
door, as old Welby had said, and, with a certain soft exhaustion,
stretched himself at full length in the low chair, with his feet at the
other end of the hearth-rug. There was no fire, and it was dark at that
end of the room; and the lamp had been placed on a table near the
opposite wall, where the ladies sat working. The padrona herself was
making something up with lace and ribbons, and Miss Hadley, not yet gone
home, but with her bonnet on ready to start, had returned to her
knitting. Alice had gone up with the children to see them put to bed. It
would be difficult to tell why Laurie lingered at the other end of the
room in comparative darkness. Perhaps because he meant still to ask
closer counsel from the padrona,--perhaps because his artist eye was
pleased with the effect of that spark of light, with her head fully
revealed in it. They let him alone, that being the fashion of the house.
‘He is tired and sad, poor boy!’ Mrs. Severn said to her friend; and
they went on with their talk, and left him to come to himself when he
pleased. Laurie was in no hurry to come to himself. He lay back lazily
resting from thought, and let the picture, as it were, steal into him
and take possession of him. The room was so large that it was quite dim
everywhere but round that one table, and the furniture looked a little
ghostly in the obscurity, the chairs placing themselves, as chairs have
such a way of doing, in every sort of weird combination, as though
unseen beings sat and chattered around the vacant tables. And in the
distance the white, bright light of the lamp came out with double force.
There was, perhaps, a touch of carelessness in the padrona’s coiffure,
or else it was that she could not help it, her hair being less
manageable than those silken, lovely curls of her child’s; but she was
different in black silk gown and her lace collar from what she was in
her blouse. Laurie sat dreamily with his eyes turned towards the light,
and listened to the hum of the voices, and sometimes caught a word or
two of what they said. No doubt some one would come in presently to
break up this quiet, but in the meantime there was a charm in the
stillness, in the dimness, in the presence of the women, and motion of
their hands as they worked; such soft sounds, scarcely to be called
sounds at all, and yet they gave Laurie a certain languid pleasure as he
sat exhausted in his easy chair.
‘Work does not suit everybody,’ he heard Mrs. Severn say. ‘We think so
just as we think people who are always ill must be enjoying bad
health;--because we are fond of work, and never have headaches. It is
unjust.’
‘I thought we were born to labour in the sweat of our brow!’ said Miss
Hadley, who was a little strong-minded, and had her doubts about
Genesis.
‘Not born,’ said the padrona, with a soft laugh; ‘only after Eden, you
know; and there are some people who have never come out of Eden; for
instance, my child.’
‘Ah, Alice!’ Miss Hadley answered, with a little wave of her head, as if
Alice was understood to be exceptional, and exempted from ordinary rule.
‘Fancy the child having to work as I do!’ said Mrs. Severn. ‘Fancy her
being trained to my profession, as some people tell me I should do. I
think it would be nothing less than profane.’
‘My dear, you know I think all girls should know how to work at
something,’ said the governess, ‘when they have no fortunes; and you
will never save money. You couldn’t, if your pictures were to sell twice
as well; and though you are young and strong, still----’
‘I might die,’ said the padrona. ‘I often think of it. It is a frightful
thought when one looks at these little things; but I have made up my
mind for a long time that it is best never to think. One can’t live more
than a day at a time, were one to try ever so much; and there is always
God at hand to take care or the rest.’
‘But generally, so far as I know,’ said Miss Hadley, ‘God gives the
harvest only when the farmer has sown the seed.’
‘Which means I am to bring up my child to do something,’ said Mrs.
Severn. ‘And so she does,--a hundred things,--now, doesn’t she?--and
makes the whole house go to music. I can’t train Alice to a trade. If
necessity comes upon her, some work or other will drop into her hands. I
was never trained to it myself,’ the padrona added, with a
half-conscious smile about the corners of her mouth, and perhaps just a
touch of innocent complacency in her own success, ‘and yet I get on,--as
well as most.’
‘Better than most, my dear; better than most,’ the governess said, with
a little enthusiasm. ‘But you know how much you have been worried about
your drawing, and how sensitive you are to what those wretched men say
in the “Sword.” Do you think I don’t notice? You take it quite sweetly
when they talk about the colour, or texture, or the rest of their
jargon; but you flush up the moment they mention your drawing. Now, if
you had been trained to it, don’t you see, as a girl----’
The padrona grew very red as her friend spoke. It was clear that the
criticism touched even when thus put, and Laurie, in the background,
felt an overwhelming inclination to wring the neck of the strong-minded
woman. But then she laughed very softly, with a certain sound of emotion
that might have brought tears just as well.
‘When I was a girl,’ she said, ‘how every one would have stared to think
I should ever be a painter, making my living!--how they would have
laughed! “What, our Mary!” they would all have said. It came so natural
to do one’s worsted work, and read one’s books, and go to one’s parties!
And I suppose, as you say, I should have been working from the round,
and studying anatomy,--faugh!--my child to do that! I would rather work
my fingers to the bone!’
‘I think you are wrong, my dear,’ the governess said; and Laurie hated
her, listening to the talk.
As for the padrona, she shook something like a tear from her eyelash.
Laurie thought it was pretty to see her hands moving among the lace and
the ribbon, with that look of power in them, knowing exactly how to
twist it, how to make the lace droop as it ought. Not a very monstrous
piece of work, to be sure. ‘Hush!’ she said, ‘here are some people
coming up-stairs. Most likely Bessie Howard, who will tell us what the
spirits are doing; or the Suffolks from over the way, who are great
friends of hers. They have just come home from Dresden, and I want to
hear what they have been about there.’
‘I hate travel-talk,’ said Miss Hadley, ‘and I detest the spirits, so
I’ll go; and though it is not the first time, nor the second, we have
spoken on this subject, I do hope, my dear, you’ll think of what I’ve
said.’
The padrona shook her head; but the two women kissed each other with
true friendliness just as the other visitors came into the dim room.
Laurie had risen reluctantly from his seat in the darkness to bid the
governess, who was one of the family, good-night. ‘I am sorry to hear of
your trouble, Mr. Renton,’ she said, as she gave him her hand. She was
not bad-looking, though she was strong-minded; and though he had wanted
to wring her neck a moment before, the brightness of her eyes,--though
she was half as old again as Laurie,--and the kindness of her tone
mollified the woman-loving young man in spite of himself.
‘Thanks,’ he said; ‘you must have thought me a brute; but I don’t feel
up to talk,--yet.’
‘It is not to be expected,’ said Miss Hadley; ‘but it is a blessing to
be young and have all your forces unimpaired. You must do as much as you
can, and not think any more than you can help. Good-night!’
‘Good-night!’ Laurie said, opening the door for her; and then he stood
about in the room helplessly, as men stand when they object to join the
other visitors; and finally went back to his chair by the vacant fire.
‘He is waiting for the child,’ Miss Hadley said to herself as she went
down-stairs; and the thought was in her mind all the way home to her
little rooms in one of the streets adjoining Fitzroy Square, where she
lived with her old sister, who was an invalid. They had a parlour and
two bed-rooms, and bought their own ‘things,’ and were attended and
otherwise ‘done for’ by their landlady; and, on the whole, were very
comfortable, though all the noises of the little street, and echoes from
the bigger streets at hand, went on under their windows, and the
geraniums in their little balcony were coated with ‘blacks,’ and the
dinginess of the surroundings, out and in, were unspeakable. People live
so in the environs of Fitzroy Square, and are very lively, pleasant sort
of people; and think very well of themselves all the same.
Laurie was not waiting for the child; he was waiting to catch the
padrona’s eye and say good-night to her; but that inconsistent woman was
now all brightness and eager attention to the travel-talk which Miss
Hadley hated. The people who had just come from Dresden were a young
painter and his wife, and there were so many things and places and
people to be talked of between them. ‘You saw old Hermann,’ the padrona
said, with a smile and a tear. ‘Ah, he used to be so kind to,--us;--and
the big Baron with all his orders, and Madame Kurznacht? Did they ever
speak of us?--and hasn’t old Hermann a lovely old head? Did you paint
him? Ah! it is so strange.--it is like a dream to think of the old
times!’
Could any man, though jealous, and sulky, and neglected, interrupt this
to say a gruff good-night? Not Laurie, at least. He thought to himself
that letting alone sometimes went too far, and that he, too, might have
had a word addressed to him now and then; but still it went to his heart
to hear her recollections and the tone in her voice. She was thinking,
not of these new people and their travels, but of poor Severn, and the
days when he and she had wandered over the world together. She was
better off now. Laurie believed that there was no doubt she was better
off, and less harassed with care and bowed down with anxiety; but
yet,--poor Severn! And two painter-folk straying about the world, free
to go anywhere, the man emancipating the woman by his society,--is not
that better than one alone? And how could her friend, with a heart in
him, stop her in her tender thoughts by thrusting himself into the midst
of them? While Laurie, sulky but Christian, was thus cogitating, Alice
came into the room, and came softly up to him. ‘Are you here all by
yourself, Mr. Renton?’ she said.
‘Yes, Alice, all alone. Sit down and talk to me,’ said Laurie.
‘I wish I could go and play to you,’ said Alice; ‘but that would disturb
the people. It is so strange to see you sad.’
‘I am not so very sad,’ Laurie said, ‘not to trouble my friends with it,
Alice; and I am only waiting now to say good-night. I am going to work
so hard I shall have no time to be sad.’
‘At that pretty window with the flowers in it,’ said Alice, ‘away at
Kensington? It must be nice to be so near the Park.’
‘I don’t care much for the Park now,’ said Laurie. ‘I must go without
disturbing the padrona. You will tell her I said good-night.’
‘Mamma is coming,’ said Alice; ‘she always hears what people say if they
were miles off; and I want to ask about dear old Dresden and old
Hermann, too.’
Then the padrona came up to him still with her lace in one hand, and sat
down by him in the shade. ‘Did you think I had forgotten you were
there?’ she said. ‘I know you want to go now, and I have come to tell
you what you are to do,--that is, what I think you should do;--you don’t
mind my interfering, and giving my advice?’
‘I want it,’ said Laurie. ‘I have been waiting all this time to see what
you would have to say to me before I went away.’
The padrona smiled and nodded her head. ‘You must not stay at Kensington
Gore,’ she said. ‘It is too dear and too fine if you are going to work.
You must come to this district, and content yourself with two rooms.
There are plenty of lodgings to be had with the window made on purpose,
and a good light. I will look out for you, if you please; and then you
must go in for it,--the life-school, and all that sort of thing. It is
odious,’ said the woman-painter, with a little impatient movement of her
head, ‘but you men must go through everything. And you can come here,
you know, as much as you like; and I am sure Mr. Welby will give you
what help he can; and you will do very well,’ said Mrs. Severn, smiling
at him. ‘When I can get on with no training at all, what should not you
do? And we shall all be proud of you,’ she added, patting his arm softly
with her disengaged hand. She was his comrade, and still she was a
woman, which made it different; and he went away with a little
reflection of the kind glow in the padrona’s eyes warming his heart. No
doubt that was the thing to do. He saw her seat herself at the table
again where by this time other people had made their appearance, and
begin to smile and talk to everybody without a moment’s interval: but
she lifted her eyes as he went out at the door with a little sign of
amity. How pleasant it is to have friends! Love is sweet, but upon love
he had turned his back, poor fellow! giving up all the vague delight of
its hopes. Alice, with her curls, had no power to move him. That ground
was occupied. But friendship, too, was sweet. And to have a friend who
understood him at the first word--who saw what he meant almost before it
was spoken; who could give him bright, rapid, decisive advice, the very
sound of which had encouragement in it,--not hesitating, prudential,
disheartening, like old Welby’s;--a friend besides who had bright,
lambent-glowing eyes, which consoled what they looked at, and a soft
voice----. In this, at least, Laurie was in luck. He met two or three
people that night at the club, which was not of such lofty pretensions
as White’s or Boodle’s, and called itself the Hiboux or the
Hydrographic, I am not sure which,--a place where men were to be met
with all the year through, and which was not deserted even in September.
Laurie belonged to a grander club as well, but his dilettante tastes had
made him proud of the Hiboux. And his friends collected round him to
hear the news, and were very sympathetic, and approved of his intention
to face his difficulties. ‘It may be the making of you, my dear fellow,
as it was the making of Frank Pratt,’ said the man who wrote those
papers in the ‘Sword’ which threw half the artists in England into
convulsions. ‘Thanks,’ said Laurie; ‘you think you will have one more
innocent to massacre.’ And he looked so fierce at the representative of
literature that the audience was moved to a shout of laughter. It was
not himself Laurie was thinking of, but the padrona, whose drawing this
ruffian had reviled. He had disturbed a woman whose shoes he was not
worthy to brush, Laurie said to himself, and avoided the reptile, with a
bitterness worthy of his misdeeds. He could not eat his partridge in
comfort under that fellow’s eye; who was not a brute by any means, and
had a certain kindness for a young man in misfortune, even though he did
write for the ‘Sword.’
When Laurie got home to Kensington Gore the first thing he saw was the
drawing on the mantel-piece of the Three Princes, or the Three Paths. He
took it down and examined it, not without a certain complacency. No
doubt it was a clever drawing. Then he took his pencil with a sudden
suggestion in his mind. Somehow since he drew it his own figure seemed
to him scarcely dignified enough for the subject:--it was too comic,
with all those traps festooned about it. He took his pencil, as I have
said, and put lightly in, half-way between himself and the National
Gallery, a shadow of a figure with one arm stretched out towards him.
Not a sylph like that fairy form which he had pictured on the rocks Ben
was climbing. This was a full, mature, matron figure, Friendship,
steadfast and sweet, not beckoning the hero on to the delights of life,
but holding out a helping hand. A hand may be very strong and helpful
and sustaining, though it is soft and fair and delicate. This thought
passed through Laurie’s mind as he indicated by a line or two the
gracious, open, extended palm. Alas! no sylph,--not her of the little
letters who might have been all the world to Laurie,--but Friendship,
the only feminine presence that could ever enter his existence. He
sighed as he put in this new personage in the drama, yet hung over it
all the same, feeling that even this lent an interest to his own path.
Not glory and a coronet which Frank, no doubt, as a soldier had his
chance of winning; not wealth and honour which more naturally and
certainly would come to Ben;--but the National Gallery finally, and
Friendship on the way to give him a hand. Such were to be the special
characteristics of Laurie’s way through the world.
CHAPTER XIX.
CHARLOTTE STREET, FITZROY SQUARE.
Laurie’s removal was not accomplished with the passionate haste which
distinguished that of his brother Ben. There was no particular hurry
about it. The padrona, with the natural impatience of a woman, found a
lodging almost immediately, which he saw and approved; but Laurie took
his time, and consoled poor Mrs. Brown at Kensington Gore, and found her
a lodger in the shape of a ‘real hartis-gentleman,’ as she herself
perspicuously expressed it, having felt in her soul from the beginning
that Laurie was something of a sham. Her new tenant was a young painter
who had made a successful _debút_ at the last Academy, and was for the
moment a man whom the picture-dealers delighted to honour. He was ready
to take Laurie’s pretty fittings, his contrivances, everything he had
done for himself; but Laurie’s good sense deserted him on that point.
The money would have been convenient no doubt; but he could not part
with the rubbish of his own collecting and contriving, which represented
to him not so much money, but so many moments of amusement and pleasant
thoughts. There was not room for half of them in Charlotte Street, where
he was going; so he carried his shelves, and stands, and quaint little
cupboards, to No. 375, Fitzroy Square, and put them up in every corner
he could find, the children hanging on him as he did so in an admiring
crowd. So that he got a great deal more good of his belongings than Ben
did of the marqueterie and buhl; and his successor furnished the rooms
at Kensington Gore with conveniences of a much more expensive kind, and
was altogether more splendid, and lavish, and prodigal than Laurie,
whose tastes were very unobtrusive. His new lodging in Charlotte Street
was on the first floor; the front room,--called the drawing-room,--had
three windows in it, one of which was cut up into the wall a few feet
higher than the others, giving that direct sky-light which is necessary
to a painter; and there was a sleeping-room behind. This was all
Laurie’s domain now-a-days, and the rooms were not large. There was a
table in the corner near the fireplace, as much out of the way as
possible of the great easel and the professional part of the room, where
he ate his breakfast, and anything else he might find it necessary to
regale himself with at home, in a meek kind of humble way,--under
protest, as it were, that he could not help himself. His new landlady’s
ideas on the subject of cooking were of the most limited character. She
gave him weak tea and bacon for breakfast without any apparent
consciousness of the fact that such luxuries pall upon the taste by
constant repetition, and that a diet of _toujours perdrix_ wearies the
meekest soul. Laurie thought it most expedient, on the whole, not to
inquire into her sentiments in respect to dinner, but swallowed his
morning rasher with a grimace, and was, on the whole, ‘a comfortable
sort of gentleman,’ the woman reported;--‘not like some as thinks they
can’t give too much trouble.’ But he missed the mistress of Kensington
Gore. He missed the neat maid, and his boy, who exasperated him in the
studio, and kept all his friends in amusement; and it was a different
thing looking out from the dreary windows in Charlotte Street upon the
dreary houses opposite,--upon the milkman and the potboy wending their
rounds, and the public-house at the corner, and the awful blank of
gentility in the windows on the other side, to what it used to be when
he could glance forth upon the sunny Park from among his flowers, with,
even at this time of the year, the old ladies taking their airing, and
the nurserymaids under the leafless trees. Nurserymaids and old ladies
are not entrancing objects of contemplation except to their respective
life-guards and medical men; but still it was better than in Charlotte
Street. Miss Hadley lived opposite to him, and was by no means of his
opinion; and when she was at home watched with a little amusement for
such glimpses of her neighbour as were to be had. In the morning,--when
there was not a fog,--Laurie, to start with, barricaded his windows,
leaving only the upper part of the middle one unshuttered, and then set
himself to work before his easel with Spartan heroism. Old Miss Hadley,
who knew all his story, had her chair near her window, entering into the
little drama with zest, and kept her eye upon him. For the first day or
two he would remain in this sheltered condition until the afternoon
light began to fail, when all at once he would sally forth with an
alacrity and air of relief which much amused the watcher. But by-and-by
this power of activity began to wane. ‘My dear, he’s getting a little
tired,’ the old lady said, with a chuckle, to her sister, a week after
Laurie’s arrival. ‘I heard the bolts go about one o’clock, and the
window opened; and there he was in his velvet coat, with his palette and
all the rest of it. I am sure Mr. Welby never looked so professional;
and he has a nice brown beard coming, and I like the looks of the lad,’
said Miss Hadley, who was a soft-hearted old soul.
‘He is not such a lad,’ said Miss Jane, ‘and his beard has been come
this twelvemonth at least; but I never thought it would last very long.
I hate amateurs.’ For all that, however, she would look up and nod at
Laurie, when she came home early and the young man appeared at his
window. As the days went on old Miss Hadley found her life quite
brightened up by the new neighbour, whose proceedings she watched with
so good-humoured an interest.
‘He had Shaw the Guardsman to sit to him to-day,’ was her next report;
‘and dreadfully bored the poor boy did look to be sure. I saw the
warrior go away, and then our friend stepped out on his balcony and
yawned as if his head would have come off.’ Next time the report was of
a different character. ‘The boy is getting used to us,’ the old lady
said; ‘he has been buying some plants for his window. He stood a long
time to-day and watched the Jenkinses getting into their dog-cart. He
took off his hat, my dear, when he was going out, when he saw me come to
the window. He knows I am your sister, I suppose.’
‘I do not admire his taste watching the Jenkinses,’ said Miss Jane, with
a momentary frown of jealousy. She would have been very indignant had
any one called her a match-maker, and yet almost without knowing it
there had come into her head a little plan about Laurie and ‘the child.’
‘Bless you, he was only amusing himself,’ said the elder sister. ‘I have
no doubt it looked very funny to him,--and the fuss and the cloaks, and
the bottles sticking out of the basket. They were going to see their
married sister at Battersea, my dear. Her husband is a coal-merchant,
and I believe they are very well to do. But I am very glad, I must say,
that Mr. Renton went opposite to live, and not at the Jenkinses. So
many girls in a house when people let lodgings is not nice; a young man
may be inveigled before he knows; and Mrs. Robinson is a very
respectable sort of a person; I am very glad he has gone there.’
‘I daresay he thinks it miserable enough,’ said the governess. These
little talks occurred every evening; and though Miss Hadley did not
confide all the vicissitudes of Laurie’s life to Mrs. Severn, yet the
main incidents became generally known ‘in the Square.’ They knew that
Shaw had been sitting to him, and that he had been bored, and the
incident afforded no small amusement to a circle of admiring friends.
‘It must be Miss Hadley who has betrayed me,’ said Laurie; ‘the fellow
has such heaps of talk. I declare I know everything about his family,
from the first of his name down to his sister’s little Polly. Little
Polly it was. And if a man may not be permitted to yawn after two hours
of that----’
‘A man might be permitted to yawn in the midst of it,’ said the padrona,
‘which I am sure you didn’t. But it was droll to rush out into your
balcony, and relieve yourself as soon as he was gone.’
‘There is no air in that little hole of a place,’ said Laurie; and then
he bethought himself that the other people about him were all of them
inmates of similar holes. ‘I mean it’s very nice, you know,’ he added,
‘and close to everything,--schools, and British Museum, and everything
a man can desire. But I am very fond of as much air as I can get.’
‘I always thought this was a very airy neighbourhood,’ said little Mrs.
Suffolk, who lived in another of the streets near Fitzroy Square, ‘and
so handy for the children, in five minutes they can be in the Park.’
‘One gets never to listen to those fellows,’ said her husband; ‘if you
take an interest in them they go and make money of you. Their wives are
always ill, and their children dying, and that sort of thing. Glossop’s
got your old rooms over at Kensington, do you know, Renton? And come out
no end of a swell. I don’t know why, I am sure, unless that he has a
friend on the “Sword.”’
‘Not so bad as that,’ said Laurie. ‘Those were two very pretty pictures
of his this year.’
‘Oh, ah, pretty enough,’ said the other; ‘if that is all you want in a
picture. British taste! But I’d like to know what sort of people they
must be who like to hang these eternal simperings on their walls. I
believe there are heaps of men who don’t care twopence for art. But to
choose bad art where good is to be had, out of mere perverseness!--I
don’t believe in that. They pin their faith on the “Sword,” and the
“Sword” lies and cheats right and left, and looks after its own friends;
and the British public pays the piper. When one thinks of Glossop, that
one has known all over the world, in Laurie Renton’s pretty rooms at
Kensington Gore!’
‘And Laurie here!’ said the padrona, ‘which is great luck for us. But,
my friend, you are mistaken. There are heaps of people, as you say, who
prefer bad art to good. It is of no use pretending to deny it;--and,’
Mrs. Severn added with a little sigh, ‘we all trade upon it, I fear, if
the truth were told.’
‘No, indeed, I am sure not that,’ said the painter’s wife. ‘There stands
one who never does, I say to him a hundred times, “Reginald dear, do
think of a popular subject; do paint something for common sort of
folks!”--but he never will. They say it is only the _nouveaux riches_
that buy now-a-days,’ Mrs. Suffolk continued in injured tones, ‘or
dealers; and we know nobody who writes on the “Sword.” You do, of
course, Mr. Renton,--you have been so much in the world.’
‘I met Slasher the other day at the club,’ said Laurie, with a laugh
which he could only half restrain. ‘He is not such a bad fellow. If you
will let Suffolk bring you to my little place some time, I will show him
to you. He does not bite in private life.’
‘Oh, I don’t know that I should like to meet such a man,’ the little
woman said, with an anxious glance at her husband; and then she took
Laurie a step aside, and became confidential. ‘If you would but make
Reginald and him friends, Mr. Renton! I don’t mind speaking to you.
Nobody knows what talent Reginald has; and I am so afraid he will get
soured with never finding an opening; and he can’t afford to keep up a
club like you young men, and we have been so much out of the world. What
does it matter studying nature and studying the great masters, and
staying out of London till everybody forgets you?’ the poor young woman
continued, with tears in her eyes. She was young, and it was hard upon
her to keep from crying when she met Laurie’s sympathetic look. ‘It is
not so much the money I am thinking of,’ she said; ‘but if Reginald were
to get soured----’
‘I’ll get Slasher to meet him directly,’ said Laurie, with eager
promptitude; ‘and you may be sure everything I can do----’
‘Oh, thanks!’ said the painter’s wife. ‘It is not that he wants any
favour, Mr. Renton, but only an opening; and we have been so much out of
the world.’
‘I wonder you don’t get up a Trades-Union, and make a stand,’ said Mrs.
Thurston, who was literary. ‘How anything can keep alive that is so
badly written as the “Sword,” I don’t know. It is because you are all so
eager to see what it says about you, even though you hate it. Just like
the articles in all the papers about women! If women were not so curious
to see “what’s next,” do you think any one would take the trouble to
write all that? Don’t mind it, and you take away its power.’
‘Ah, it is so easy for you,’ cried Mrs. Suffolk;--‘you have nothing to
do but to go to your publisher; but what with the Hanging Committee
putting all their friends on the line, and those wicked papers that
never think of merit, but only of some one the writers know----’
‘That’s enough, Helen,’ said her husband, with an attempt at a smile;
‘you talk as if we minded. But what is the criticism of an ignorant
fellow, who does not know a picture when he sees it, to me,--or any
one?’ he added, with the slightest half-perceptible quiver of his lip.
‘Constable has just come back from Italy, Renton;--one of our old set;’
and so the talk ran on.
This little party was assembled as before in the great drawing-room.
There was a fire now which made it brighter and took away something of
its quaintness, and the padrona and her guests had drawn near it,
carrying the light and the circle of faces into the centre of the room.
Now and then somebody would sing, or play,--but talk was what they all
loved best, and music as an interruption of the latter was not greatly
cultivated. The padrona herself was always working at something with her
swift, dextrous fingers; and the ladies who formed her court had
generally brought her work in their pockets, to add to their comfort
while they talked. Laurie spent the next half-hour standing with Suffolk
before the fire, talking of Italy, where they had met, and of the old
set, with all that curious mingling of laughter and sadness which
accompanies such recollections. Of ‘the old set’ so many had already
dropped by the way, as the passengers dropped through the trapdoors in
Mirza’s Vision, while yet the fun of their jokes and their adventures
lasted vividly in their comrades’ minds. ‘You remember poor old
So-and-so,’ the young men said to each other, looking down with their
brown faces on the soft glow of the fire; ‘what fun he was! what scrapes
he was always getting into! There was not a painter in Rome who did not
turn out the day of his funeral!--and poor Untell, with his bad Italian.
What nights those were in the Condotti! There never was a better fellow.
Did you hear what an end his was?’ This was how the talk went
on,--without any moral in it as of the vanity of human joys; nothing but
pure fact, the laughter and the tragedy interlaced and woven together;
while the ladies round the lamp with the light on their faces, talked
too, but not with such historical calm, of the injustices of the
‘Sword,’ and of the Academy, and of the public; of the advantages of
other professions,--literature, for example,--at which its
representative shook her head; of the children’s education and their
health, and, perhaps, a little of the ills of housekeeping,--subject
sacred to feminine discussion. Women do not meet, I suppose, nor do
women die, as men do. They had no such melancholy, jovial records behind
them to go over,--their talk was of the present and the future,--a
curious distinction,--and the padrona’s society numbered always more
women than men.
Next day, perhaps, it would be at Suffolk’s house that Laurie spent his
evening, which was a house not unlike the one in which he himself
lived,--a thin, tall strip of building in which two rooms were piled
upward upon two rooms to the fourth storey. The two parlours on the
ground-floor were domestic, and there Mrs. Suffolk sat, very glad to see
her husband’s friends when they came in, but not so entirely one of the
party as when the padrona was the hostess. Her little room, though it
was as prettily furnished as humble means would allow, was not
calculated for the reception of a crowd, and after they had paid her
their _devoirs_, the men streamed up-stairs to the corresponding but
larger room above, which was the studio,--a place in which there were no
hangings to be poisoned with their tobacco, nor much furniture to impede
their movements. Perhaps the wife of one would come with him and take
off her bonnet and stay with Mrs. Suffolk, bringing her work with her,
and resuming those endless, unfailing talks about the children, and the
housekeeping, and the injustice of the world. For it must be understood
that the artist-life I am attempting to describe is not that of the
highly-placed, successful painter, against whom the Academy has no
power,--who is perhaps himself on the Hanging Committee, and has the
‘Sword’ at his feet in abject adoration;--but of the younger
brotherhood, in a chronic state of resistance to the powers that be, and
profoundly conscious of all the opposing forces that beset their path.
Little Mrs. Suffolk had care on her brow, as she sat with her sister in
art and war, in the little drawing-room down-stairs, discussing the
inexpediency of those wanderings to and fro over the earth, which
probably both had gone through and enjoyed, but which ofttimes made the
public and the picture-dealers oblivious of a young painter’s name.
Up-stairs, however, there would probably be five or six young fellows,
of a Bohemian race, bearded, and bronzed, and full of talk, who had not
yet taken the responsibilities of life on their shoulders, and laughed
at the wolf when he approached their door. Two or three of them would
collect round Suffolk’s picture, which he had been working at all day,
to give him the benefit of their counsel, in the midst of the wreath of
smoke which filled the room. Most of them were picturesque young fellows
enough,--thanks to the relaxed laws of costume and hair-dressing
prevalent among them. And to see Suffolk with the lamp, raising it in
one hand to show his work, shading it with the other that the light
might fall just where it ought to fall, tenderly gazing at the canvas on
which hung so many hopes, with the eager heads round him studying it
judicially, would have made such a picture as Rembrandt loved to paint.
‘I don’t quite like that perspective,’ said one. ‘Look here, Suffolk,
your light is coming round a corner,--the sun is there, isn’t he?--or
ought to be at that time of the day.’
‘What time of the day do you call it?’ said a second.
‘Why, afternoon, to be sure,’ cried the first critic; ‘don’t you see the
shadows fall to the left hand, and the look in that woman’s eyes? It’s
afternoon, or I’m an ass! Did you ever see a woman look like that except
in the afternoon?--sleepiest time, I tell you, of the whole day.’
‘She’s weary of watching, don’t you see?’ said his neighbour.
‘Matter-of-fact soul! But I’d get that light straight if I were you,
Suffolk. He’s wrong about the sentiment, but he’s right about the
light.’
‘Give us the chalk here,’ said Constable, who had just come back from
Italy; ‘there’s just a touch wanted about the arm, if you don’t mind.’
‘The colour’s good, my dear fellow,’ said Spyer, who was older than any
of them, and a kind of authority in his way, ‘and the sentiment is good.
I like that wistful look in her eye. She’s turned off her lover, but she
can’t help that gaze after him. Poor thing!--just like women. And I like
that saffron robe; but I think you might mend the drawing. I don’t quite
see how she’s got her shoulder. It’s not out of joint, is it? You had
better send for the surgeon before it goes down to Trafalgar Square.’
All these blasts of criticism poor Suffolk received, _tant bien que
mal_, doing his best to seem unmoved. He even suffered the chalk which
‘that beggar, Constable--a tree-painter, by Jove!--a landscape man,’ he
said afterwards, with the fervour of indignation, permitted himself to
mark the dimpled elbow of his Saxon maiden. The mists of smoke and the
laughter that came out of the room from cheery companions who were lost
in these mists, and the system of give and take, which made him
prescient of the moment when Spyer and Constable too would be at his
mercy, as he was now at theirs, made their comments quite bearable, when
one word from the ‘Sword’ would have driven the painter frantic. And to
do them justice, it was only the pictures which were in the course of
painting on which they were critical. Groups now and then would collect
before that picture of the English captive boys in the Forum, which the
Academy had hung at the roof, and which had come home accordingly
unapplauded and unsold, though later;--but I need not anticipate the
course of events. Suffolk’s visitors gathered before it, and looked at
it with their heads on one side, and pointed out its special qualities
to each other, not with the finger, as do the ignorant, but with that
peculiar caressing movement of the hand which is common to the craft.
‘What colour! by Jove, that’s a bit of Italian air brought bodily into
our fogs;--and the cross light is perfect, sir!’ Spyer said, who had
just been so hard on his friend’s drawing. If they found out faults
which the uninstructed eye was slow to see, they discovered beauties
too; and then gathered round the fire, and fell into twos and threes,
and went back to that same talk of the past and the ‘old set,’ in which
Laurie had indulged on the previous night. The ‘old set’ varied
according to the speakers; with some it was only the fellows at
Clipstone Street; but with all the moral was the same; the cheery days
and nights, the wild sallies of youthful freedom, the great hopes
dwindled into nothing, the many, many fallen by the way, not one-half of
the crowd seeming to have come safely through the struggles of the
beginning. ‘Poor So-and-so! If ever there was a man who had a real
feeling for art, it was he; and as good a fellow’--they added, puffing
forth meditative clouds; and there would be a laugh the next moment over
some remembered pranks. Laurie had formed one of many such parties ere
now. He, too, had been of the ‘old set:’ he had his stories to
contribute, his momentary sigh to breathe forth along with the fumes of
his cigar. But, perhaps, he had never in his amateur days felt so
completely belonging to the society in which he found himself.
Sometimes, perhaps, he had laughed a little, and given himself a little
shake of half-conscious superiority when he left them, and set out to
Kensington Gore as to another world; but Charlotte Street was
emphatically the same world, and the _esprit de corps_ was strong in
Laurie’s heart. ‘Anch’io pittore,’ he said to himself as he stood
indignant before Suffolk’s beautiful picture which had been hung up at
the roof. It was a beautiful picture; and one of these days the Hanging
Committee might treat himself in the same way; and if by chance
criticism should really be so effectual as everybody said, why should
not something be done for Suffolk--using the devil’s tools, as it were,
to do a good action--by means of Slasher and the ‘Sword?’
The majority of the young men went away after an hour’s talk and smoke
unlimited; but Laurie was one of those who remained and went down to
supper, along with Spyer and Constable, to the back room down-stairs,
which was the little dining-room. Mrs. Suffolk was very careful to keep
the folding-doors shut, and to make two rooms, though it certainly would
have been larger and might have been more comfortable had they been
thrown into one. It was Mrs. Spyer who was her companion that evening,
who was older than she, and commented a little sharply on this poor
little bit of pretension, as Laurie walked part of the way home with the
pair. ‘I like nice dining and drawing-rooms as well as any one,’ Mrs.
Spyer said, ‘but if I were Helen, I would be comfortable, and never
mind.’ ‘All the same she is a good little woman,’ her husband had said,
irrelevantly;--for, to be sure, nobody doubted that she was a good
little woman. They had cold beef and celery and cheese on the table, and
refreshed themselves with copious draughts of beer. I do not say it was
a very refined conclusion to the evening, but I think Laurie was better
amused and more interested than after many a fine party. He walked home
with Spyer, talking of Suffolk’s picture, and the injustice that had
been done him, _jettant feu et flamme_, as they mentioned the Academy,
yet hoping that band of tyrants could not be so foolish two years
running. ‘The thing is, to have him written up in the papers,’ Spyer
said; ‘a fellow of his talent cannot be long kept in the background; but
if the papers were to take him up, it would shorten his probation.’ ‘I
hate the papers,’ said Mrs. Spyer. ‘Why don’t we have private patrons,
as we used to have, and never mind the public? To think of a wretched
newspaper deciding a man’s fate! I would not give in to it for a day.’
‘But we must give in to it, or else be left behind in the race,’ said
her husband. And Laurie thought more and more, as he listened to all
this talk, of the influence he himself might exercise at the club and
elsewhere upon Slasher and the ‘Sword.’
CHAPTER XX.
LAURIE’S WORK.
The first grand question to be decided, when Laurie settled in Charlotte
Street, was what his first picture was to be. It is true that Mr. Welby,
and even the padrona, who was so much more hopeful, were all for mere
study and life-schools, and the lectures at the Academy, and anatomical
demonstrations, and other disagreeable things, which Laurie, always
amiable, gave in to, to please them, not doubting of the advantage of
the studies in question. But still his anatomy, and his notes, and
studies from the life, however careful, were only means to an end; and
there was no reason why the end itself should not be pursued at the same
time,--or at least so he thought. He had painted pictures before now as
a mere amateur, and in that capacity had even,--once,--obtained a nook
in the Academy’s exhibition; and why he should now suspend his chief
work, and, having become a professional painter, paint no longer, was
what Laurie could not perceive. He was not the man to exhibit his study
of the Norman fisherwoman or Italian peasant who might chance to be
posing at the school, as some of the Clipstone Street fellows did. His
work there, of course, would help him in his real work at home; but to
spend his entire time in preparation for work, and do nothing, seemed to
Laurie plain idiocy. ‘I painted nothing for three years on end when I
was like you,’ old Welby said. ‘You require to be a painter, sir, before
you can paint a picture; and it is hard enough work to make yourself a
painter. If I were in your place I’d never look at a canvas bigger than
that for at least a year.’
‘That’ was the study of a head which Laurie had taken down with him to
Mr. Welby’s studio. It was one of the padrona’s, and the old painter had
praised the sketch. As for Laurie, he turned it hastily with its face to
the easel, and laughed the uneasy laugh of embarrassment and offence.
‘I rather flattered myself I was a painter,’ he said, and then paused
and recovered his temper. ‘The fact is, I must keep myself up,’ he
exclaimed; ‘I must feel as if I were doing something. So long as I paint
merely scraps I feel myself demoralised. And then you forget I am not a
novice,’ Laurie said, with some pride. He had been all over Italy, and
had studied in Rome, and was very learned in many artistic matters. To
be told that he had first to make himself a painter was rather hard.
‘Of course you are a novice,’ said the R.A., ‘and quite natural too. I
don’t want to be disagreeable, my dear fellow, but an amateur is really
worse,--you may take my word for it,--than an absolute beginner. The
very traditions of amateur art are different. If you were making a fair
start I should know exactly what to tell you; but how can I tell how
much you may have to unlearn?’
This, it will be allowed, was not encouraging. Laurie went up-stairs
afterwards three steps at a time, with his blood boiling in his veins.
He gave the padrona an animated little address about old fogies in
general, and R.A.’s in particular, to her extreme amazement, as she
stood at her work. It was a crisp, sunny, wintry morning, and Mrs.
Severn was very busy. She opened her brown eyes and laughed, as Laurie,
breathless, came to an end.
‘They will be giving advice,’ she said, ‘I know; and advice, unless when
it is just what one wants, is a terrible nuisance. I see exactly what
you mean.’
‘I have no objection to advice,’ said Laurie, half angry, half laughing,
‘when it is kept within due limits; but there is such a thing as going
too far.’ And then he told her the extent of Mr. Welby’s sin, not
without a momentary thought gleaming through his mind as he spoke, that
it was the fresh, new life which the old painter objected to see coming
within the exclusive boundaries of the profession. ‘Art is like any
other trade,’ he said, as he concluded his tale; ‘the workmen are bent
on pursuing their mystery, and would like to stone away any interloper
who inclines to come in.’
Mrs. Severn said nothing for a minute or two, but went on working at her
easel with her back to him; and when one is eager and excited to start
with, there is nothing more exasperating than to have one’s warm and
one-sided statement received thus with chilling silence. It is the
surest way to fill up what is wanting of the cup of indignation. ‘You
say nothing,’ Laurie continued, with impatience, ‘and yet, of course,
you must have suffered from it yourself.’
‘You will think I am helping to bar the door of my trade,’ said the
padrona, ‘and I know I deserve that you should fly through the window or
through the ceiling in wrath; but I can’t help it. He was quite right.
You have all your amateur habits to break yourself of, and to get to
work like,--like,--one of us. Don’t be vexed. I have wanted to say it
before, and, of course, with the generosity of my kind, I say it now
when you are down.’
‘You too!’ Laurie said with a pang. He took two or three turns up and
down the painting-room before he could speak. And but for pride, which
would not permit him to show how deep was his mortification, I fear he
would have blazed and exploded out of the house; but as soon as he had
come to himself, pride, more potent than any better feeling, cleared the
cloud from his brow.
‘I thought you had a better opinion of me,’ he said, reproachfully,
standing behind the easel and casting pathetic glances at her. ‘I came
to you to be,--consoled, I suppose,--like an ass. I thought I was
already something of a painter,--at least to you,--or why should I be
encouraged to attempt anything? Why didn’t you say to me, “Go and be a
shoemaker?”--as, indeed, Welby was honest enough to do.’
‘Now, Laurie, don’t be unjust,’ said the padrona. ‘Don’t you see it is
because I expect you to do something worth while that I want you to
study hard and learn everything? What is a year’s work to you at your
age? When one gets old one would give everything for the chance of such
a preparation. What am I but an amateur myself, not half instructed as I
ought to be? And that is why I am so anxious that it should be different
with you,--at your age.’
‘I cannot see what my age has to do with it,’ said Laurie, ‘nor why you
should always want to set me down as a boy;’ and then he paused and
compunction overtook him. He went up to his adviser, in the coaxing way
which Laurie had been master of all his life. He could not take her
hand, for she had her brush in it and was working all the time; but he
took the wide sleeve of her painting-dress between his fingers and
caressed it, which came to much the same thing. ‘You are so good to me,’
he said,--‘always so kind and so good. I never thought you would be
against me too.’
Thus it will be seen that to be advised, and even ill-used and trodden
upon by a friend who is a woman, and not uncomely to look at, is on the
whole less disagreeable than to be snubbed by an ancient R.A.
The padrona laughed, but her eye melted into loving-kindness as well as
laughter. ‘You are a boy,’ she said, ‘and a very insinuating one into
the bargain. But I am not going to be coaxed out of my opinion. You
ought to go home this very minute and lock up all your canvases and take
to chalk and paper and pencils for a whole year; and then you can come
back to me and I will tell you what I think you should do.’
‘If I am not to come back for a whole year I may as well go and hang
myself at once,’ said Laurie; and so the talk fell into lighter
channels. The truth was that he spent a great deal more time than he had
any call to do in the padrona’s studio, and hindered, or did his best to
hinder, her work; and perhaps liked better to examine her sketches and
criticise them, and make suggestions thereupon, than to labour steadily,
as he ought to have been doing, at sketches of his own. But this had not
yet lasted long enough to attract anybody’s attention,--even hers or his
own; for, of course, after such a shock as his life had sustained, this
was still an unsettled moment. He had not shaken himself down yet, nor
found his standing-ground after the convulsion; and it was natural he
should seek the counsel of his friends.
But the result was, after these conversations,--the one more
discouraging than the other,--that Laurie went direct to his colourman’s
and chose himself a lovely milk-white canvas six feet by ten, and had it
sent home immediately, and went on his knees before it in silent
adoration. His imagination set to work upon it immediately, though he
was self-denying enough not to touch it for days; but undeniably that
very night there were various sketches made of a heroic character before
he went to bed. It was difficult to choose a subject,--much more
difficult than he supposed. Several great historical events which struck
his fancy had to be rejected as demanding an amount of labour which in
the meantime was impracticable. He wandered in a range of contending
fancies all night long in his sleep, with Suffolk’s Saxon maiden in the
doorway of her father’s grange, dismissing the Norman squire who had
become her lover, floating through his brain in conjunction with various
Shakspearian scenes, and some of the padrona’s baby groups, with the
padrona herself in the midst; and when he woke the dream continued.
Sometimes he thought he would abandon history and paint a Mary with that
face,--not a girl Mary in the simplicity of youth, but one with
thoughts matured, and the wider, greater heart of experience and ripe
womanhood. Foolish boy! For, to be sure, he was a boy after all.
It took Laurie a long time to decide this matter in a satisfactory way.
One day his inclinations were scriptural, and another historical; and on
the third he would have made up his mind to a modern _genre_ picture,
but for the size of his canvas, which was clearly intended for something
heroic. He settled at last,--which indeed was almost a matter of
course,--upon a very hackneyed and trite subject, being somehow driven
to it as he felt by the influence of Suffolk’s pictures, which he
admired with all a young man’s indignant warmth. The subject which he
chose was Edith seeking the body of Harold. ‘In the lost battle, borne
down by the flying.’ Nothing could well have been more inconsistent with
his state of mind, or tastes, or general inclinations. He was not given
to melancholy thoughts, neither,--though Laurie was sufficiently
fanciful,--had any analogy struck him between his own first beginning of
the fight and that end, always so linked with the beginning, of utter
loss and overthrow and darkness. It was not any chance gleam of a
forecasting, profound imagination, or passionate sense of the fatal
chances of the battle, that suggested it to him. Such an idea might have
occurred to Suffolk, but it was inconsistent with the very constitution
of Laurie’s mind. He chose his subject in pure caprice, probably
because it was the most unlike of anything he could imagine, to his own
tender, friendly, unimpassioned nature. There are moments of youthful
ease and hope in which tragedy comes most natural to the cheerful,
unforeboding soul; I cannot tell why,--perhaps, as Wordsworth says, out
of the very ‘prodigal excess’ of its personal content. Laurie was so
absorbed in his subject,--in sketching it out, and putting it on the
canvas, and bringing his figures into harmonious composition,--that his
Clipstone Street studies suffered immensely, and he even failed in the
usual frequency of his visits to ‘the Square.’ Had he gone there as
usual, he would, of course, have betrayed himself, and he was determined
that not a word should be said until he could,--with a certain
triumph,--the triumph of individual conviction and profound
consciousness of what was best for himself over all advice,--invite his
counsellors to come and look at what was about to be. So long as this
fit of fervour lasted Miss Hadley had nothing to report, except the
barricading of his windows from morning till afternoon, as long as the
light lasted,--unless, indeed, on foggy days, when the painter would
glance out at the sky from his balcony, palette in hand, a dozen times a
day, with despair in his face. The padrona thought she had gone too far,
and affronted him, and was sorry, and sent him friendly messages,
recalling the truant; but Laurie, notwithstanding the yearning of his
heart, was true to his grand object. As he stood before the big canvas,
putting in those vast, vague outlines of the future picture, it seemed
to him that he already saw it ‘on the line’ in the Academy, with the
little scene he had already imagined going on below. But by this time he
had half forgotten the fine people whose astonishment he had once amused
himself by imagining. Kensington Gore had been swept away by the
current, and looked like some haunt of his boyhood. What he thought now
was chiefly, ‘They will have changed their opinion by that time.’
‘They,’ no doubt, included old Welby, who had been so hard on the young
painter; but I fear that the special spite of this anticipation was
directed against the padrona. What did it matter after all, except,
indeed, in the strictest professional point of view, what old Welby
thought?
Edith had not got beyond the first chalk outline, when Forrester, Mr.
Welby’s man, came one morning to Charlotte Street, with a message from
his master. Forrester was understood to know nearly as much about art as
his master did, and resembled him, as old servants often do,--and I
rather think Laurie was secretly glad, now matters had progressed so
far, of this means of conveying, in an indirect way, the first news of
his rebellion to ‘the Square.’ At all events he sent for him to come
up-stairs, awaiting his appearance with a little trepidation. Forrester,
however, was not arrogant, as some critics are. He came in with the most
bland and patronising looks, ready, it was evident, to be indulgent to
everything. When he had delivered his message, he cast an amiable glance
around him. The room was lighted only by the upper light of the middle
window, all the rest being carefully closed, and even that amount of
daylight was obscured by the shadow of the great canvas which was placed
on the easel, where all the rays that were to be had out of a November
sky might be concentrated upon it. Forrester was too thoroughly
acquainted with the profession of which he was a retainer not to
understand at once the meaning of this big shadow, and Laurie in his
anxiety thought or imagined that the critic’s lips formed themselves
into an involuntary whistle of astonishment, though no sound was
audible. But the old servitor of art felt the claims of politeness.
Instead of displaying at once his curiosity about the work in hand, he
paid his tribute of applause with a grace which his master could
scarcely have emulated. ‘That’s a nice sketch, sir,’ Forrester said,
indicating one of the Clipstone Street studies. ‘I hope you ain’t
working too hard now, we see you so little in the Square. I like that
effect, Mr. Renton; master would be pleased with that effect.’
‘I am very glad you think so, Forrester,’ said artful Laurie, leading
his visitor on.
‘Master’s a little severe, Mr. Renton,’ said Forrester, ‘but you young
gentlemen take him a deal too much at his word. Bless you, he don’t mean
half he says. I know he’d be pleased. I call that a very nice drawin’,
Mr. Renton; better nor many a dealer buys for a picture. I always said,
sir, as you was one as would come on.’
‘I am much obliged to you for your good opinion, Forrester,’ said
Laurie; ‘it is very kind of you to take so much interest in me.’
‘I’ve been among painters all my days,’ said Forrester. ‘I sat to Opie,
sir, though you wouldn’t think it, when I was a lad. I don’t know as
there is a man living as understands ’em better nor I do. I knows their
ways; and if I don’t know a picture when I sees one, who should, Mr.
Renton? I’ve been about ’em since I was a lad o’ fifteen, and awful fond
o’ them, like as they was living creatures,--and a man ain’t worth much
if he don’t form no opinion of his own in five-and-forty years. Me and
master goes on the same principle. It’s the first sketch as he’s always
mad about. “Take the big picture and hang it in your big galleries,” he
says, “and give me the sketch with the first fire into it, and the
invention.” I’ve heard him a saying of that scores of times; and them’s
my sentiments to a tee. But master, he’s all for the hantique, and me, I
go in for the modern school. There’s more natur’ in it, to my way of
thinking. You’ve got something on your easel, sir, as looks important,’
Forrester continued, edging his way with curious looks towards the
central object in the room.
‘I don’t know if I should let you see it.’ said Laurie; ‘I have only
just begun to put it on the canvas; and you are an alarming critic,
Forrester,--as awful as Mr. Welby himself.’
‘No, sir; no, no,’ said Forrester, affably; ‘don’t you be frightened; I
know how to make allowances for a beginner. We must all make a
beginning, bless you, one time or other. Master ’ud grieve if he see a
big canvas like that. He’d say, “It’s just like them boys;” but I ain’t
one to set a young gentleman down. Encourage the young, and tell your
mind to the hold, that’s my motto, sir,’ the old man said, as he placed
himself in front of the easel. As for poor Laurie, the fact is that he
grew cold with fright and expectation as he watched the face of the
critic. Forrester gave vent to a prolonged Ah! accompanied by a slight
expressive shrug when he took his first look of the canvas, and for
several moments he made no further observation. To Laurie, standing
behind him in suspense, the white chalk shadows seemed to twist and
distort themselves, and put all their limbs out of joint, in pure
perversity, under this first awful critical gaze.
‘If I might make so bold, sir,’ said Forrester, mildly, ‘what is the
subject of the picture, Mr. Renton?’ which was not an encouraging
remark.
‘Of course I ought to have told you,’ cried Laurie, very red and hot.
‘It is an incident after the Battle of Hastings,--Edith looking for the
body of Harold. Edith, you know, was----’
‘I’ve seen a many Hediths,’ said Forrester. ‘I ought to know. I’m an old
stupid, sir, not to have seen what it was; but being as it’s in the
chalk, and me not having the time to study it as I could wish----. I
don’t doubt, Mr. Renton, as it’s a fine subject. It did ought to be,
seeing the many times as it’s been took.’
‘I don’t think I have seen it many times,’ said Laurie, profoundly
startled; ‘I only remember one picture, and that very bad,’ the young
man added hastily. Forrester shook his head.
‘Not in the exhibitions, I daresay, sir,’ said the critic, solemnly;
‘but there’s a many pictures, Mr. Renton, as never get as far as the
Academy. Mr. Suffolk, he did it, sir, for one; and young Mr. Warleigh,
as has give up art, and gone off a engineering; and Robinson, as has
fallen into the portrait line,’ Forrester continued, counting on his
fingers; ‘and poor Mr. Tinto, as died in Italy; and there’s the same
subject,’ the old man added, solemnly, after a pause, ‘turned with its
face again the wall in our hattic, as Mr. Severn hisself, sir, did when
he was young.’
Laurie was overwhelmed. He gazed at the ruthless destroyer of his dreams
with a certain terror. ‘Good heavens, I had no idea!’ said the young
man, growing green with sudden despair. Then, however, his pride came
to his aid. ‘It’s a dreadful list,’ he said; ‘but, you perceive, as they
never came under the public eye, and nobody was the wiser----’
‘To be sure, sir--to be sure,’ said Forrester, with pitying complacency.
‘A many failures ain’t what you may call a reason for your failing as is
a new hand. I hope it’ll be just the contrary; but if you hadn’t a begun
of it, Mr. Renton,--and being as it’s but in the chalk, it ain’t to call
begun;----couldn’t Hedith be a looking out for her lover, sir, of an
evening, as young women has a way? I don’t suppose there was no
difference in them old times. And a bit o’ nice sunset, and him a-coming
out of it with his shadow in front of him, like. I don’t say as the
subject’s as grand, but it’s a deal cheerfuller. And when you come to
think of it, Mr. Renton, to hang up all them dead corpses and a skeered
woman, say, in your dining-room, sir, when it’s cheerful as you want to
be----’
‘Thanks,’ said Laurie, with a little offence. ‘I have no doubt you are
very judicious, but I am sorry I can’t see the matter in the same light.
You will give Mr. Welby my compliments, please. I’ll be glad to dine
with him on Saturday, as he asks me. Perhaps you will be so good as to
say nothing--. But no, that’s of no consequence,’ Laurie added, hastily.
Of course he was not going to give in. Of course they must know sooner
or later what he was doing, and better sooner than later. They might
laugh, or sneer, or consider him childish if they pleased; but the
moment his picture was hung on the line in the Academy, all that would
be changed. So Laurie mounted his high horse. But he did it in a
splendid, magnanimous sort of way. He smoothed down Forrester’s wounded
feelings by a ‘tip,’ which, indeed, was more than he could afford, and
which the old man took with reluctance,--and opened the door for him
with his own hands. ‘Offended! because you tell me how popular my
subject has been? Most certainly not! Much obliged to you, on the
contrary, Forrester, and very proud of your good opinion,’ he said, with
a most gracious smile and nod, as his critic went away, which Forrester
did with a certain satisfaction mingling with his regret.
‘It’s for his good,’ the old man said to himself; ‘and there ain’t no
way of doing them young fellows good without hurting of their feelings.’
Laurie for his part went back to his painting-room, and sat down moodily
before his big canvas. It was too ridiculous to care for such a piece of
criticism. Forrester;--Mr. Welby’s servant!--to think of minding
anything that a stupid old fellow in his dotage might venture to say!
Laurie laughed what he meant for a mocking laugh, and then bit his lip
and called himself a fool. Of course the old rascal had been crammed
beforehand and taught what to say; or if not, at least it was no wonder
if the servant repeated what the master thought. It was not this
picture or that, but every picture that Welby had set his face against.
And what a piece of idiocy to show his man, his echo,--the very first
beginning,--the most chaotic indication,--such as none but an eye at
once keen and indulgent could have made out,--of the great work that was
to be! Laurie concluded proudly that nobody was to blame but himself, as
he sat down in his first quiver of mortification, half inclined to tear
his canvas across, and pitch his chalks to the other end of the room.
Then he looked at it, and found his Edith looking down upon him with her
tragic eyes,--eyes which to her creator looked tragic and full of awful
meaning, though they were but put in in chalk. Perhaps, indeed, it was
the chalk that made her divine in her despair, whitely shadowing out of
the white canvas, owing everything to the imagination,--a suggestion of
horror and frantic grief and misery. What if it was a common subject!
The more common a thing is, the more universal and all-influencing must
it be. A tender woman, made sublime by her despair, seeking on a field
of battle the body of the man she loved most,--a thing of primitive
passion such as must move all humanity. What if it were hackneyed! All
the more distinctly would it be apparent which was the touch of the real
power which could embody the scene, and which the mere painter of
costumed figures. Such were Laurie’s thoughts as he sat, discouraged
and cast down, before his picture,--poor fellow!--after Forrester’s
visit. If the man’s criticisms had so much effect upon him, what would
the master’s have had? What could he have said to the padrona had it
been she who had come to look at his picture? Then the long array of
names which Forrester had quoted came back upon him. In short, poor
Laurie had received a downright unexpected blow, and ached and smarted
under it, as was natural to a sensitive being loving applause and
approbation. He turned his back on Edith for the rest of the day,
throwing open his windows, to Miss Hadley’s astonishment, the first time
for a week, and affording her a dim vision of a figure thrown into an
arm-chair by the fire, with a novel. It was the first time since he came
to Charlotte Street that he had in broad daylight and cold blood given
himself over to such an indulgence. He was disgusted with his work and
himself. He had not the heart to go out. He could not go to the Square,
where probably by this time they were all laughing over his folly. He
read his novel doggedly all the afternoon, in sight of Miss Hadley, who
could not tell what to make of it. The light was gone and the day lost
before he roused himself, and pitched his book into the farthest corner.
His kindly spy could not tell what the perverse young fellow would do
next. Probably go and have his dinner, she said to herself; which,
indeed, Laurie did; and came home much better, beginning to be able to
laugh at Forrester, and snap his fingers at his predecessors. ‘The more
reason it should be done now,’ he said to himself, ‘if Suffolk, and
Severn, and all those fellows broke down over it.’ And he suffered a
little gleam of self-complacency to steal over his face, and went to
work all night at his sketch, to improve and perfect the composition. So
that, on the whole, Laurie, though no genius, had that nobler quality of
genius which overcomes all criticism and surmounts every discouragement.
He had been shut up long enough in silence with his conception. That
day, he made up his mind, instead of permitting himself to be
ignominiously snubbed by old Forrester, that he would face the world,
and carry the sketch which he was completing to the padrona herself.
CHAPTER XXI.
WHAT THEY THOUGHT OF IT IN THE SQUARE.
Forrester went back very full of his discovery, and there was a certain
solemnity in his manner which made it evident to his master that he had
something to tell. When he had delivered Laurie’s message about the
dinner on Saturday, he paused with a look of meaning. ‘And glad he’ll be
of a good dinner, too, sir,’ the old man said, solemnly, ‘before all is
done.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that, Forrester,’ said Mr. Welby. ‘He must have been
extravagant: for, after all, though it’s a change to him, a man need not
starve on two hundred a-year.’
‘It’s not now as I’m meaning, sir,’ said Forrester, with a sigh. ‘He’s
been and started in a bad way. For aught I can tell he’s as well off as
you and me now; but I know what it all comes to, Mr. Welby, when a young
man sets hisself agoing, and won’t hear no advice,--in that way.’
‘God bless me! you don’t mean to say the young fellow has got married?’
said Mr. Welby, with agitation; for his interest in Laurie was great.
‘No, sir,’ said Forrester, ‘worse nor that. Marrying’s a lottery, but
sometimes a wife’s a help. You may shake your head, sir; but sometimes
she’s a help. It’s more nor that; but I won’t keep you no longer in
misery. That young gentleman, sir, as you take an interest in, and I
take an interest in, and the good lady up-stairs, though he’s been
well-instructed and had all our advice, and ain’t an idiot, not to speak
of, in other things, he’s been and took up the Saxon line. I see, with
my own eyes, a sketch of that ere blessed Hedith as is always a seeking
somebody’s body. He’s got it stuck up on a big canvas six by ten, sir;
you take my word; and you know what that comes to as well as me.’
‘Bless my soul!’ said Mr. Welby; and though his emotion took a different
form, it was quite as genuine as Forrester’s outspoken despair. He took
a few turns through his studio, repeating this disclosure to himself.
‘The Saxon line!’ he said with horror. ‘Infatuated boy! When a young man
is thus bent on destroying himself, what can any one do?’ ‘You are sure
you are making no mistake?’ said the R.A.; ‘it was not some other
fellow’s canvas that had been left in his place? And what did you say to
him? After all the trouble we’ve taken! I will never interest myself in
any young man again,’ said Mr. Welby, with effusion, ‘not if I should
live a hundred years!’
‘What did I say, sir?’ said Forrester. ‘I told him plain where he was
going to; to destruction. I gave him a piece of my mind, sir. I spoke to
him that clear as he couldn’t make no mistake. I told him the times and
times I’ve seen it done, and what followed. I counted ’em over to
him,--Mr. Suffolk, and young Mr. Warleigh, and----’
‘Then you behaved like an ass,’ cried the R.A., with indignation.
‘Suffolk! the cleverest painter he knows. Why, there’s not a man among
us can hold the candle to Suffolk for some things! Why didn’t you tell
him of Baxter, and Robinson, and Simpson, and half-a-dozen other young
fools like himself? Suffolk! A man of genius! I thought you had more
sense.’
‘He may be a bit of a genius,’ said Forrester, standing his ground; ‘but
he don’t sell his pictures, and Mr. Renton knows it. He was struck all
of a heap, sir, when he’d heard all I’d got to say. I don’t approve of
the subject, nor I don’t approve of the size; but as far as I could
judge of the chalk, it wasn’t badly put on. I wouldn’t say he’s a
genius, but he’s got a way, has Mr. Renton; and always a nice-spoken,
civil gentleman, even when he’s put out a bit, as he might have been
to-day.’
‘Pshaw!’ said the master; ‘that means, I suppose, that he did not kick
you down-stairs. Foolish boy! after all I said to him. I daresay some of
the women have put it into his head to go and distinguish himself. Go up
and give my compliments to Mrs. Severn, and I’d like to speak to her if
she is not busy; and mind you don’t say a word of this. Don’t speak of
it anywhere. I hope what you’ve said to him, and what I shall say to
him, will bring him to his senses. Don’t say a word about it to any
soul.’
‘I’ve been trusted with greater secrets,’ said Forrester, with dignity.
‘He’ll tell her, sir, as fast as look at her; and he’ll build more on
her advice, though she don’t know half nor a quarter. I’m a going, sir.
He thinks a deal more of what she says than of either you or me.’
‘Insufferable old bore!’ Mr. Welby said to himself. ‘Outrageous young
ass! It must be those silly women that have bidden him go and
distinguish himself. And what have I got to do with it, I’d like to
know?’ The truth was the Academician had begun to take a greater
interest in Laurie than was consistent with his principles; and he
wanted to blame somebody for his favourite’s rebellion. He put down his
palette, for he was at work at the moment, and washed his hands, and
prepared for the interview he had asked. Perhaps Mr. Welby was doubly
ceremonious as a kind of protest against the ease with which other
members of the profession penetrated into the padrona’s studio.
‘A lady is a lady, however she may be occupied,’ the old man said. And,
in accordance with this principle, Forrester’s mien and voice were very
solemn when he made his appearance up-stairs. ‘Master’s compliments,
ma’am, and if you’re not busy he’d like to speak to you,’ he said,
standing ceremoniously at the door.
‘Mr. Welby, Forrester?’ said the padrona. ‘Oh, surely; I shall be glad
to see him. I hope there’s nothing the matter. Come in and tell me what
you think of this. I hope there’s nothing wrong.’
‘No, ma’am; not as I knows of,’ said Forrester, with profound gravity.
‘I don’t know what else could be thought of it, but that it’s a sweet
little bit of colour, ma’am. You never done nothing finer nor that
flesh. It’s breathing, that is. Miss Alice called me in to have a look
at it before you came down.’
‘Miss Alice is always an early bird,’ said the padrona, pleased. ‘I’m
glad you like it, Forrester; but I don’t think I’ve got the light quite
right here. Tell Mr. Welby I shall be glad to see him; but you look
horribly grave, all the same, as if something had gone wrong.’
‘No, ma’am, nothing,’ said Forrester, with a glance over his
shoulder;--‘only about Mr. Renton, as we’re afraid is in a bad way.’
‘Good heavens! Laurie! What is the matter with him?’ cried Mrs. Severn.
The old man shook his head in the most tragical and desponding way.
‘Master will tell you himself, ma’am,’ Forrester said, withdrawing
suddenly out of temptation and closing the door behind him. The padrona
did not know what to think. Laurie had not been visible for a week at
least in the Square; but even a young man, with all the proclivities
towards mischief common to that animal, cannot go very far wrong in a
week. She too prepared for the impending interview, as Mr. Welby was
doing. She put away all her working materials, and set the big Louis
Quinze fauteuil near the fire for her visitor. She even went so far as
to put a sketching-block on the table, and sat down before it with a
pencil in her hand, posing half consciously, as an amateur might have
posed. The padrona, though she was not timid in general, was a little
afraid of her tenant. If she left her picture on the easel it was
because there was no time to get it comfortably smuggled away, and some
inarticulate beginning placed in its stead. She turned the Louis Quinze,
however, with its back to the easel by way of security. A word of
approbation from old Welby was worth gold; but yet the risk of obtaining
it was one Mrs. Severn did not care to run.
A few minutes after he tapped at the door, and came in, taking off the
velvet cap which,--as he knew very well,--had such a picturesque effect
on his white hair. The moment he entered the room the padrona saw how
vain had been her precaution in turning the Louis Quinze chair. He
glanced round him with the quick artist-eye which sees everything, and
went up to the easel of course as politeness required, and delivered
his little speech of courteous applause, under which Mrs. Severn
discovered not a word of criticism, such as her usual visitors threw
about so lightly. ‘I don’t think I have got the light quite here,’ she
said, as she had said to Forrester,--but with alarm in her face.
‘Indeed, I don’t see what there is to find fault with,’ Mr. Welby
answered, with his old-fashioned bow. Nothing could be more sweet or
more unsatisfactory. The padrona almost forgot poor Laurie, as with a
flush of vexation on her face she indicated to her visitor the Louis
Quinze chair.
‘I hope you are not over-exerting yourself, my dear madam,’ the old
painter said. ‘I am struck dumb by your energy. Where I produce one
little picture you exhibit half-a-dozen. I admire, but I fear; and, if
you will let an old man say so, you must take care not to overwork your
brain.’
Tears sprang to the padrona’s eyes; but she kept them fixed steadily on
her block, so that the old cynic, who, no doubt, knew all the
commonplaces about women’s tears, should not see them. She said, with
all the composure she was mistress of, ‘You and I are very different,
Mr. Welby. Your one picture, of course, is more than worth my
half-dozen; but one must do what one can.’
‘No one knows better than I what Mrs. Severn can do,’ said the R. A.,
with one of those smiles for which the padrona could have strangled him.
‘I was but taking the privilege of my age to warn you against
overwork,--which is the grand disease of these times, and kills more
people than cholera does. Pardon me. I want to speak to you about young
Renton, in whom I know you take an interest. I advised him,’ Mr. Welby
said, slowly, ‘to give up all idea of producing anything for the moment,
and to devote himself to preparatory work,--hard work.’
‘So he told me,’ said the padrona, with a little spirit; for there was
no mistaking the implied blame in old Welby’s tone. ‘And so I told him,
too.’
‘Then somebody has been undermining us, my dear madam,’ said the R. A.
‘Somebody has been egging up the foolish boy to make a name for himself,
and win fame, and so forth. Forrester brings me word that he has begun a
great picture. High art, life-size, Edith finding the body of Harold.
The young fellow must be mad.’
‘Edith finding the body of Harold!’ repeated Mrs. Severn,
bewildered;--and then, what with her personal agitation, what with the
curious anti-climax of this announcement after her fears about Laurie,
the padrona, we are obliged to confess, burst into a sudden fit of
nervous laughter. She laughed till the tears came into her eyes; and, to
be sure, old Welby had no way of knowing how near to the surface were
those tears before.
‘I confess I do not see the joke,’ he said, slowly. ‘Of course I have
nothing to do with the boy. If he goes and makes a fool of himself, like
so many others, it is nothing to me. Indeed, I don’t know who advised
him to come here, where one can’t help seeing what he’s about. He would
have been a great deal better, and out of one’s way, had he stayed at
Kensington Gore.’
‘He was paying four guineas a-week for his rooms at Kensington Gore,’
said the padrona, meekly. ‘It was I who advised him to come to Charlotte
Street. A man cannot live on nothing. If he had given all his income for
rent----’
‘When I was like him I lived on nothing,’ said the R.A.; ‘but young men
now-a-days must have their clubs and their luxuries. Why, what education
has he had that he should begin to paint pictures? A few lines scratched
on a bit of paper, or dabs of paint on a canvas do well enough for an
amateur; but, good heavens, a painter! You don’t see it, ma’am; you
don’t see it! Women never do. You think it’s all genius, and nonsense.
You will tell me it’s genius that makes a Michael Angelo, I suppose;
but, I tell you, it’s hard work.’
‘I do see it,’ said the padrona. ‘Sit down, please, and don’t be angry
with me. I see it very well; but I can’t help laughing all the same. It
is Laurie’s way. He will never be a Michael Angelo. It is so like him to
go and set up a great picture to surprise us. One of these days, if you
take no notice, he will come like Innocence itself, and invite us to go
and look at it. I was afraid something was wrong with him; but this
quite explains why he stayed away.’
‘And that is all a woman cares for!’ said Mr. Welby. ‘The boy’s quite
well, and his absence accounted for; and what does it matter if he makes
an ass of himself?’ Here the painter rose, and made a little _giro_
round the room, pausing at the easel with a certain vindictiveness. ‘I
wouldn’t give much for that baby’s chances of life,’ he said. ‘The
creature will be a cripple if it grows up. It has no joints to its legs;
and that little girl’s got her shoulder out. There’s where the elbow
should come,’ he went on, making an imaginary line in the air. It was
the same picture he had made a pretty speech about when he came into the
room, from which it may be perceived that Mrs. Severn’s terror of her
lodger’s visit was not without cause.
‘I shall be so glad if you tell me what you see wrong,’ the padrona
said, with, I fear, more submission than she felt.
‘Wrong, ma’am,--it’s all wrong!’ cried the R.A.; ‘there’s not a line
that could not be mended, nor a limb that is quite in its right
place;--but I couldn’t paint such a picture for my life,’ Mr. Welby
continued, with a sudden melting in his voice; ‘nor anybody else but
yourself. The body’s out of drawing, but the soul’s divine.
Light!--nonsense,--the light’s all as it ought to be; the light’s in
that woman’s face. I don’t know how to better it. But this is not what
we were talking of,’ he continued, suddenly turning his back on the
picture. ‘We were talking of Laurie Renton. What is to be done about
this ridiculous boy?’
The padrona was a little disturbed. She was overwhelmed by the praise,
feeling all the sweetness of it; and she was pricked, and stung to
smarting by the blame. It cost her a considerable effort to master
herself, and to bring back her thoughts even to Laurie Renton. ‘You must
not be too hard upon him,’ she said, with her voice a little tremulous.
‘A mind that has any energy in it must work in its own way.’ This was
said half on Laurie’s account, no doubt, but also half on her own, after
the assault she had sustained. ‘I think it would be best not to say too
much about his big picture. He will read your disapproval in your eye.’
Mr. Welby shrugged his shoulders. ‘I doubt if a young fellow would take
much interest in reading my eye. But he may read yours, perhaps,’ said
the cynic, with a questioning glance, which Mrs. Severn was too much
occupied to perceive, much less understand. And this was about the end
of the consultation. They might admire and warn, and hold up beacons
before the unwary youth, but there is no Act of Parliament forbidding a
young painter to purchase for himself canvases six feet by ten, and to
paint, or attempt to paint, heroic pictures thereupon. His advisers
might regret and might do their best to turn him to wiser ways, but that
was all; and the question was not urgent enough to demand the sacrifice
of the very best hours of a November day,--which, heaven knows! are
short enough for a painter’s requirements, in a district so rapidly
reached by the rising fog from the city as Fitzroy Square.
It was the evening of the next day before Laurie carried out his
resolution. With a little impatience he waited till it was dark, or
nearly so, and then, with his sketch under his arm, went round the
corner to the Square. To carry a portfolio or a picture under your arm
is nothing wonderful in these regions; and I think it was something of a
foppery on Laurie’s part to wait till the twilight; but, on the whole,
it was rather Mr. Welby and old Forrester he was afraid of than the
general public. The padrona was,--as he knew she would be,--in her
dining room, sitting in the fire-light, with a heap of little scorched,
shining faces about her, when he went in. One good thing of these short
winter days was, that the woman-painter had a special hour in which it
was impossible to do anything, and a perfectly legitimate indulgence to
play with the little ones to her heart’s content. They were all upon
her,--little Edie seated upon her mother’s lap, with her arms closely
clasped round her neck, and the boys on either side embracing her
shoulders. ‘She is my mamma,’ said little Edie; ‘go away, you boys.’
‘She is my mamma as well,’ said Frank and Harry, with one voice. They
could not see Laurie as he came in softly into the ruddy, warm, homelike
darkness, nor hear the voice of the maid who opened the door for him;
and Laurie, soft-hearted as he was, lingered over this little glimpse of
those most intimate delights with which neither he nor any other
stranger could intermeddle. When he saw the mother with her
children,--who were all hers, and in whom no one else had any
share,--the helpless, hopeful, joyous creatures, encircled by the
woman’s soft, strong arms, which were all the protection, all the
shelter they had in this world,--his heart melted within him, the
foolish fellow! Alice sat at her piano in the drawing-room, playing the
soft dream-music which was natural to the hour; and to her, had he been
like other young men, Laurie’s thoughts and steps would naturally have
turned; instead of which he stood gazing at her mother, who at that
moment no more remembered him than if there had been no such being in
existence. Laurie’s heart melted so that he could have gone and sat down
on the hearth-rug at her feet, as one of the boys did, had he dared, and
asked her to let him help her and stand by her. Help her in what? Laurie
gave no answer to his own question; and, to be sure, he could not stand
in the dark for more than a minute spying upon the fireside hour. He put
down his sketch on a side-table with a little noise, which made the
padrona start.
‘I am not a ghost,’ said Laurie, coming into the warmer circle of the
firelight.
‘Then you should not behave as such,’ Mrs. Severn said, holding out her
hand to him with a smile: and then the mere accident of the moment
brought him beside little Frank on the hearth-rug, as he had thought,
with a little sentimental impulse, of placing himself. He sat down on
the child’s stool, and held out his hands to the fire, and looked up at
the padrona’s face, which shone out in glimpses by the cheerful
firelight. Sometimes little Edith, with her wreath of hair, would come
between him and her mother like a little golden, rose-tinted, cloud;
sometimes the fitful blaze would decline for a moment, and throw the
whole scene into darkness. But Mrs. Severn did not change her attitude,
or put down the child from her lap, or ring for the lamp, on Laurie’s
arrival. He came in without breaking the spell,--without disturbing the
calm of the moment. And after an absence of more than a week, and some
days’ work and seclusion, it is not wonderful if he felt as if he had
suddenly come home.
‘This would not be a bad time to lecture you, as I am going to do,’ said
the padrona. ‘He has been very naughty, children; he ought to be put in
the corner. Let us make up our minds what we will do to him, now we have
him here.’
‘Give him some bad sums to do, mamma,’ said little Harry, whose life was
made a burden to him in that way; ‘or make him write out fifty lines;
and don’t tell him any stories. What have you done, Mr. Renton? I want
to know.’
‘Give him a bad mark in the pantomime book,’ said Frank. Now, the
pantomime-book was a ledger of the severest penalties; the bad marks
disabled a sinner altogether from the enjoyment of the highest of
pleasures, and was as good as a pantomime lost. The savage suggestion
awoke the sympathy of little Edie on her mother’s knee.
‘What has he done?’ said Edie. ‘Poor Laurie! But mamma won’t listen to
these cruel boys. Mamma listens to me. I am the little princess in the
new picture. Mamma, I love Laurie. Make him go down on his knees and beg
pardon, and I know he will never do it any more.’
‘I will never do it any more,’ said Laurie, with one knee upon the
hearth-rug. There was something in the soft, genial warmth, and kindly,
flickering light, the touches of the children, and their sweet, ringing
tones,--the face of their mother now and then shining upon him, and her
voice coming out of the shadow,--which captivated him in some
unintelligible way. There was no romance in the matter, certainly. She
was years older than he was, and thought of him as a grandmother might
have thought. But Laurie Renton was that kind of man. His heart was full
of tenderness and sympathy, and a certain sense of the pathos of the
situation which did not strike the chief actors in it. Mrs. Severn
thought herself a happy woman,--notwithstanding all that had befallen
her,--when she sat down by her fire, and felt the soft pressure of those
soft, baby arms; but to Laurie there was a pathos in it which brought
the tears to his eyes. ‘I will never do it any more,’ he said; ‘I will
do whatever mamma tells me. I will be her servant if she will let me.’
Perhaps it was well for Laurie that the children immediately burst into
a chorus of laughter and jubilation over his proposal. ‘He will be our
Forrester, and do everything we tell him,’ cried the boys; and the
padrona, carried away by their delight, thought nothing of the bended
knee nor the unnecessary fervour of submission. I doubt even if she
heard very clearly what he said, or was the least aware of his attitude;
but probably instinct warned her that there was enough of this. She rang
the bell, which was close to her hand, without saying anything. After
all, the firelight and the hearth-rug was only for the children and
herself. And I think Laurie even was a little ashamed of his temporary
intoxication when the lamp came in, carried by the maid, bringing back
the light of common evening,--the clear outlines of prose and
matter-of-fact.
It was not till after tea that he brought his sketch to exhibit it. The
children had gone up-stairs, and Miss Hadley had returned home, and no
evening visitor had as yet arrived. When Laurie was left alone with the
padrona, she laid down her needlework and lifted up her eyes to him,
beaming with a kindly light. ‘I have something serious to say to you
now,’ she said. ‘I have been hearing dreadful things about you. You have
not taken our advice.’
‘Our advice! I don’t know what that means,’ said Laurie. ‘There is but
one padrona in the world, and her advice I always take.’
‘Do not be hypocritical,’ said Mrs. Severn. ‘You promised to paint no
pictures, but to be busy and study and do your work; and here you have
set up an Edith as big as Reginald Suffolk’s, and you call that taking
my advice.’
‘Here she is,’ said Laurie, producing his sketch. He placed it on the
table, propped up against the open workbox, and took the lamp in his
hand that the light might fall on it as it ought. He did not defend
himself. ‘I kept away as long as I could, meaning not to tell you yet;
but that did not answer,’ said Laurie; ‘and here she is.’
The padrona put away her work out of her hands, and gave all her
attention to the new object thus placed before her; and whatever might
be the qualities of Edith, the group thus formed was pictorial
enough;--the room all brightness and warmth, centering in the pure light
of the lamp which Laurie held up in his hand; the fair, ample, seated
figure gazing earnestly at the little picture, with her own face
partially in the shade,--behind her the open doors of the larger room,
dark, but warm, with a redness in it of the fire, and a pale gleam from
the curtained windows. But the actors in this still interior were
unconscious of its effect. She was looking intently at the sketch, and
he, pausing to hear what she should say of it, holding his breath.
‘Put down the lamp,’ said the padrona after a pause, ‘it is too heavy to
hold, and I can see. And sit down here till I speak to you. You have not
taken our advice.’
‘I understand,’ said Laurie, and his lip quivered a little, poor fellow!
‘That means I may take away the rubbish. You need not say any more, for
it will pain you. I understand.’
‘You don’t understand anything about it,’ said Mrs. Severn, putting out
her hand to retain the sketch where it was. ‘Let me say out my say. I
don’t want to like it. I wish I could say it was very bad. If it had
been atrocious it would have been better for you, you rash boy! But I
must not tell any fibs. I like the sketch; there is something in it. I
can’t tell how you should know about that woman, expecting every moment
to see---- Yes, put her away, Laurie, for a little; her eyes have gone
to my heart.’
Laurie put down his creation upon the table with a face all glowing with
pride and delight. ‘I hoped you would like it,’ he said; ‘but that it
should move you,----’ and in his gratitude he would have kissed the
hand of the friend to whose counsel he owed so much. As for the padrona,
she withdrew her hand quickly, with a momentary look of surprise.
‘But I have more to say,’ she went on. ‘You must wait till you have
heard me out. Don’t be vexed or disappointed. I doubt if you will ever
make any more of her. Now don’t speak. I will say to you what I have
never said to any one. How many sketches like that have I seen in my
life, full of talent, full of meaning! It is not a sketch;--it is all
the picture you will paint of that subject. I know what I am saying. She
who is so real in that, with her awful expectations, will be staring
like a woman on the stage in the big picture. I know it, Laurie. I have
seen such things, over and over again.’
Laurie said nothing. He saw her eyes, which were still fixed on his
sketch, suddenly brim over, quite silently, in two big drops, which fell
at Edith’s feet. Mortification, disappointment, and, at the same time, a
kind of consolatory feeling, took possession of him. The downfall was
great from the first flush of joy in her approbation; but yet----
Clearly it was of poor Severn she was thinking. Poor Severn, of whom it
was certainly the fact that he never did anything good except in
sketches. Laurie’s heart rose magnanimous at this thought. If that was
all, how soon he could prove to her that he was a different man from
poor Severn! ‘It is not worth a tear,’ he said; ‘never mind it. I ought
to have known that it would bring things to your mind----’
‘It is not that,’ said the padrona, recovering herself; ‘it is because I
am anxious you should not waste your strength. Put it up again where it
can be seen, or, rather, bring it into the other room, where there is a
better place. Take the lamp, and I will take the picture. I like it,’
she said, as she followed him into the larger drawing-room. ‘Let it
stand here, where it can be seen. And I will send for Mr. Welby if he is
at home. I like it very much;--but I don’t want you to paint the big
picture all the same.’
‘If you like it, that is reason enough why I should paint the big
picture,’ said Laurie. If the padrona discerned the touch of tender
enthusiasm in his tone, she took no notice whatever of it, but busied
herself placing the sketch in the most favourable light.
‘Mr. Welby came up-stairs, and insulted me, all on your account,’ she
said with a laugh. ‘Oh, don’t look furious. I don’t want any one to
fight my battles. But it is cruel of him, all the same. He congratulated
me on my energy, and on sending six pictures to the Exhibitions where he
sent one. It was very ill-natured of him,--a man who has had a whole
long life to perfect himself, and nothing to hurry him on. Does not he
think, I wonder, that even I would like to take time and spare no
labour, and paint something that would last and live?’ Mrs. Severn said,
with a flush coming over her face.
‘And so you do, and so they will,’ said Laurie, carried away by his
feelings. The padrona shook her head.
‘No,’ she said, ‘I don’t deceive myself. I get money for my pictures,
and that is about what they are worth. But don’t you think, Laurie,--you
who understand things that are not spoken,--don’t you think it sometimes
makes my heart sick, to feel that, if I could but wait, if I could but
take time, I might do work that would be worth doing,--real work,--one
picture, say, that would have a whole soul in it? But I can’t take time:
there are the children, and daily bread; and--he taunts me that I paint
six pictures for his one!’
‘Padrona mia, nothing that could be painted would be half so good as you
are,’ cried Laurie, not knowing in the thrill and pain of sympathy what
he said.
‘I should like to paint something that would be better than me,’ said
the padrona, ‘but I cannot. I have to work for their bread,--and you
feel for me when I tell you this. And don’t you see,--don’t you see why
I bid you work?’ cried the artful woman, suddenly turning upon him,
standing on her own heart, as it were, to reach him. ‘There is nothing
to urge you into execution, to compel you to exhibit and sell and get
money. Why don’t you take the good of your blessed leisure, you foolish
boy? Never think of the Academy, nor of what you will paint, nor of
what people think. Make yourself a painter, Laurie, now that you have
your life in your hands, and heaps of time, and nothing to urge you on.
But, good heavens! here are people coming,’ cried Mrs. Severn,--‘to find
me flushed and half crying over all this, I declare. Talk to them till I
come back, and I will send down the child to help you; and don’t forget
what I’ve been saying,’ she said, as she rushed out of the room.
This assault had been so sudden, so trenchant, so effective;--he had
been led so artfully to the softness of real feeling, in order to have
the thrust made at his most unguarded moment, that Laurie stood confused
when his Mentor left him, not quite sure where he was, or what had
happened. Had it been any stranger who had appeared, Mrs. Severn’s young
friend would have made a poor impression upon her visitor; but, happily,
it was Alice who came in,--Alice with her curls,--harmonious spirit,
setting the house to music, as her mother said. This was all poor Laurie
made by his honesty in carrying his Edith, in her earliest conception,
for the approval of the Square.
THE END OF THE FIRST VOLUME.
LONDON:
STRANGEWAYS AND WALDEN, PRINTERS,
28 Castle St. Leicester Sq.
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