Ernest Maltravers Part 10

NINE times out of ten it is over the Bridge of Sighs that we pa.s.s the narrow gulf from Youth to Manhood. That interval is usually occupied by an ill-placed or disappointed affection. We recover, and we find ourselves a new being. The intellect has been hardened by the fire through which it has pa.s.sed. The mind profits by the wrecks of every pa.s.sion, and we may measure our road to wisdom by the sorrows we have undergone.

But Maltravers was yet on the bridge, and, for a time, both mind and body were prostrate and enfeebled. Cleveland had the sagacity to discover that the affections had their share in the change that he grieved to witness, but he had also the delicacy not to force himself into the young man's confidence. But by little and little his kindness so completely penetrated the heart of his ward, that Ernest one evening told his whole tale. As a man of the world, Cleveland perhaps rejoiced that it was no worse, for he had feared some existing entanglement perhaps with a married woman. But as a man who was better than the world in general, he sympathised with the unfortunate girl whom Ernest pictured to him in faithful and unflattered colours, and he long forbore consolations which he foresaw would be unavailing. He felt, indeed, that Ernest was not a man "to betray the noon of manhood to a myrtle-shade:"--that with so sanguine, buoyant, and hardy a temperament, he would at length recover from a depression which, if it could bequeath a warning, might as well not be wholly divested of remorse. And he also knew that few become either great authors or great men (and he fancied Ernest was born to be one or the other) without the fierce emotions and pa.s.sionate struggles, through which the Wilhelm Meister of real life must work out his apprenticeship, and attain the Master Rank. But at last he had serious misgivings about the health of his ward. A constant and spectral gloom seemed bearing the young man to the grave. It was in vain that Cleveland, who secretly desired him to thirst for a public career, endeavoured to arouse his ambition--the boy's spirit seemed quite broken--and the visit of a political character, the mention of a political work, drove him at once into his solitary chamber. At length his mental disease took a new turn. He became, of a sudden, most morbidly and fanatically--I was about to say religious: but that is not the word; let me call it pseudo-religious. His strong sense and cultivated taste did not allow him to delight in the raving tracts of illiterate fanatics--and yet out of the benign and simple elements of the Scripture he conjured up for himself a fanaticism quite as gloomy and intense. He lost sight of G.o.d the Father, and night and day dreamed only of G.o.d the Avenger. His vivid imagination was perverted to raise out of its own abyss phantoms of colossal terror. He shuddered aghast at his own creations, and earth and heaven alike seemed black with the everlasting wrath. These symptoms completely baffled and perplexed Cleveland. He knew not what remedy to administer--and to his unspeakable grief and surprise he found that Ernest, in the true spirit of his strange bigotry, began to regard Cleveland--the amiable, the benevolent Cleveland--as one no less out of the pale of grace than himself. His elegant pursuits, his cheerful studies, were considered by the young but stern enthusiast as the miserable recreations of Mammon and the world.

There seemed every probability that Ernest Maltravers would die in a madhouse or, at best, succeed to the delusions without the cheerful intervals of Cowper.

CHAPTER XV.

"Sagacious, bold, and turbulent of wit, Restless--unfixed in principles and place."--DRYDEN.

"Whoever acquires a very great number of ideas interesting to the society in which he lives, will be regarded in that society as a man of abilities."--HELVETIUS.

IT was just when Ernest Maltravers was so bad that he could not be worse that a young man visited Temple Grove. The name of this young man was Lumley Ferrers, his age was about twenty-six, his fortune about eight hundred a year--he followed no profession. Lumley Ferrers had not what is usually called genius; that is, he had no enthusiasm; and if the word talent be properly interpreted as meaning the talent of doing something better than others, Ferrers had not much to boast of on that score. He had no talent for writing, nor for music, nor painting, nor the ordinary round of accomplishments; neither at present had he displayed much of the hard and useful talent for action and business. But Ferrers had what is often better than either genius or talent; he had a powerful and most acute mind.

He had, moreover, great animation of manner, high physical spirits, a witty, odd, racy vein of conversation, determined a.s.surance, and profound confidence in his own resources. He was fond of schemes, stratagems, and plots--they amused and excited him--his power of sarcasm, and of argument, too, was great, and he usually obtained an astonishing influence over those with whom he was brought in contact.

His high spirits and a most happy frankness of bearing carried off and disguised his leading vices of character, which were callousness to whatever was affectionate and insensibility to whatever was moral.

Though less learned than Maltravers, he was on the whole a very instructed man. He mastered the surfaces of many sciences, became satisfied of their general principles, and threw the study aside never to be forgotten (for his memory was like a vice), but never to be prosecuted any further. To this he added a general acquaintance with whatever is most generally acknowledged as standard in ancient or modern literature. What is admired only by a few, Lumley never took the trouble to read. Living amongst trifles, he made them interesting and novel by his mode of viewing and treating them. And here indeed was _a_ talent--it was the talent of social life--the talent of enjoyment to the utmost with the least degree of trouble to himself. Lumley Ferrers was thus exactly one of those men whom everybody calls exceedingly clever, and yet it would puzzle one to say in what he was so clever. It was, indeed, that nameless power which belongs to ability, and which makes one man superior, on the whole, to another, though in many details by no means remarkable. I think it is Goethe who says somewhere that, in reading the life of the greatest genius, we always find that he was acquainted with some men superior to himself, who yet never attained to general distinction. To the cla.s.s of these mystical superior men Lumley Ferrers might have belonged; for though an ordinary journalist would have beaten him in the arts of composition, few men of genius, however eminent, could have felt themselves above Ferrers in the ready grasp and plastic vigour of natural intellect. It only remains to be said of this singular young man, whose character as yet was but half developed, that he had seen a great deal of the world, and could live at ease and in content with all tempers and ranks; fox-hunters or scholars, lawyers or poets, patricians or _parvenus_, it was all one to Lumley Ferrers.

Ernest was, as usual, in his own room, when he heard, along the corridor without, all that indefinable bustling noise which announces an arrival.

Next came a most ringing laugh, and then a sharp, clear, vigorous voice, that ran through his ears like a dagger. Ernest was immediately aroused to all the majesty of indignant sullenness. He walked out on the terrace of the portico, to avoid the repet.i.tion of the disturbance: and once more settled back into his broken and hypochondriacal reveries. Pacing to and fro that part of the peristyle which occupied the more retired wing of the house, with his arms folded, his eyes downcast, his brows knit, and all the angel darkened on that countenance which formerly looked as if, like truth, it could shame the devil and defy the world, Ernest followed the evil thought that mastered him, through the Valley of the Shadow. Suddenly he was aware of something--some obstacle which he had not previously encountered. He started, and saw before him a young man, of plain dress, gentlemanlike appearance, and striking countenance.

"Mr. Maltravers, I think," said the stranger, and Ernest recognised the voice that had so disturbed him: "this is lucky; we can now introduce ourselves, for I find Cleveland means us to be intimate. Mr. Lumley Ferrers, Mr. Ernest Maltravers. There now, I am the elder, so I first offer my hand, and grin properly. People always grin when they make a new acquaintance! Well, that's settled. Which way are you walking?"

Maltravers could, when he chose it, be as stately as if he had never been out of England. He now drew himself up in displeased astonishment; extricated his hand from the gripe of Ferrers, and saying, very coldly, "Excuse me, sir, I am busy," stalked back to his chamber. He threw himself into his chair, and was presently forgetful of his late annoyance, when, to his inexpressible amazement and wrath, he heard again the sharp, clear voice close at his elbow.

Ferrers had followed him through the French cas.e.m.e.nt into the room.

"You are busy, you say, my dear fellow. I want to write some letters: we sha'n't interrupt each other--don't disturb yourself:" and Ferrers seated himself at the writing-table, dipped a pen into the ink, arranged blotting-book and paper before him in due order, and was soon employed in covering page after page with the most rapid and hieroglyphical scrawl that ever engrossed a mistress or perplexed a dun.

"The presuming puppy!" growled Maltravers, half audibly, but effectually roused from himself; and examining with some curiosity so cool an intruder, he was forced to own that the countenance of Ferrers was not that of a puppy.

A forehead compact and solid as a block of granite, overhung small, bright, intelligent eyes of a light hazel; the features were handsome, yet rather too sharp and fox-like; the complexion, though not highly coloured, was of that hardy, healthy hue which generally betokens a robust const.i.tution, and high animal spirits; the jaw was ma.s.sive, and, to a physiognomist, betokened firmness and strength of character; but the lips, full and large, were those of a sensualist, and their restless play, an habitual half smile, spoke of gaiety and humour, though when in repose there was in them something furtive and sinister.

Maltravers looked at him in grave silence; but when Ferrers, concluding his fourth letter before another man would have got through his first page, threw down the pen, and looked full at Maltravers, with a good-humoured but penetrating stare, there was something so whimsical in the intruder's expression of face, and indeed in the whole scene, that Maltravers bit his lip to restrain a smile, the first he had known for weeks.

"I see you read, Maltravers," said Ferrers, carelessly turning over the volumes on the table. "All very right: we should begin life with books; they multiply the sources of employment; so does capital;--but capital is of no use, unless we live on the interest,--books are waste paper, unless we spend in action the wisdom we get from thought. Action, Maltravers, action; that is the life for us. At our age we have pa.s.sion, fancy, sentiment; we can't read them away, or scribble them away;--we must live upon them generously, but economically."

Maltravers was struck; the intruder was not the empty bore he had chosen to fancy him. He roused himself languidly to reply. "Life, _Mr._ Ferrers--"

"Stop, _mon cher_, stop; don't call me Mister; we are to be friends; I hate delaying that which _must be_, even by a superfluous dissyllable; you are Maltravers, I am Ferrers. But you were going to talk about life.

Suppose we _live_ a little while, instead of talking about it? It wants an hour to dinner; let us stroll into the grounds; I want to get an appet.i.te;--besides, I like nature when there are no Swiss mountains to climb before one can arrive at a prospect. _Allons_!"

"Excuse--" again began Maltravers, half interested, half annoyed.

"I'll be shot if I do. Come."

Ferrers gave Maltravers his hat, wound his arm into that of his new acquaintance, and they were on the broad terrace by the lake before Ernest was aware of it.

How animated, how eccentric, how easy was Ferrers' talk (for talk it was, rather than conversation, since he had the ball to himself); books, and men, and things; he tossed them about and played with them like shuttlec.o.c.ks; and then his egotistical narrative of half a hundred adventures, in which he had been the hero, told so, that you laughed at him and laughed with him.

CHAPTER XVI.

"Now the bright morning star, day's harbinger, Comes dancing from the east."--MILTON.

HITHERTO Ernest had never met with any mind that had exercised a strong influence over his own. At home, at school, at Gottingen, everywhere, he had been the brilliant and wayward leader of others, persuading or commanding wiser and older heads than his own: even Cleveland always yielded to him, though not aware of it. In fact, it seldom happens that we are very strongly influenced by those much older than ourselves. It is the senior, of from two to ten years, that most seduces and enthrals us. He has the same pursuits--views, objects, pleasures, but more art and experience in them all. He goes with us in the path we are ordained to tread, but from which the elder generation desires to warn us off.

There is very little influence where there is not great sympathy. It was now an epoch in the intellectual life of Maltravers. He met for the first time with a mind that controlled his own. Perhaps the physical state of his nerves made him less able to cope with the half-bullying, but thoroughly good-humoured imperiousness of Ferrers. Every day this stranger became more and more potential with Maltravers. Ferrers, who was an utter egotist, never asked his new friend to give him his confidence; he never cared three straws about other people's secrets, unless useful to some purpose of his own. But he talked with so much zest about himself--about women and pleasure, and the gay, stirring life of cities--that the young spirit of Maltravers was roused from its dark lethargy without an effort of its own. The gloomy phantoms vanished gradually--his sense broke from its cloud--he felt once more that G.o.d had given the sun to light the day, and even in the midst of darkness had called up the host of stars.

Perhaps no other person could have succeeded so speedily in curing Maltravers of his diseased enthusiasm: a crude or sarcastic unbeliever he would not have listened to; a moderate and enlightened divine he would have disregarded, as a worldly and cunning adjuster of laws celestial with customs earthly. But Lumley Ferrers, who, when he argued, never admitted a sentiment or a simile in reply, who wielded his plain iron logic like a hammer, which, though its metal seemed dull, kindled the ethereal spark with every stroke--Lumley Ferrers was just the man to resist the imagination, and convince the reason, of Maltravers; and the moment the matter came to argument, the cure was soon completed: for, however we may darken and puzzle ourselves with fancies and visions, and the ingenuities of fanatical mysticism, no man can mathematically or syllogistically contend that the world which a G.o.d made, and a Saviour visited, was designed to be d.a.m.ned.

And Ernest Maltravers one night softly stole to his room and opened the New Testament, and read its heavenly moralities with purged eyes; and when he had done, he fell upon his knees, and prayed the Almighty to pardon the ungrateful heart that, worse than the Atheist's, had confessed His existence, but denied His goodness. His sleep was sweet and his dreams were cheerful. Did he rise to find that the penitence which had shaken his reason would henceforth suffice to save his life from all error? Alas! remorse overstrained has too often reactions as dangerous; and homely Luther says well, that "the mind, like the drunken peasant on horseback, when propped on the one side, nods and falls on the other."--All that can be said is, that there are certain crises in life which leave us long weaker; from which the system recovers with frequent revulsion and weary relapse,--but from which, looking back, after years have pa.s.sed on, we date the foundation of strength or the cure of disease. It is not to mean souls that creation is darkened by a fear of the anger of Heaven.

CHAPTER XVII.

"There are times when we are diverted out of errors, but could not be preached out of them.--There are pract.i.tioners who can cure us of one disorder, though, in ordinary cases, they be but poor physicians--nay, dangerous quacks."-STEPHEN MONTAGUE.

LUMLEY FERRERS had one rule in life; and it was this: to make all things and all persons subservient to himself. And Ferrers now intended to go abroad for some years. He wanted a companion, for he disliked solitude: besides, a companion shared the expenses; and a man of eight hundred a year, who desires all the luxuries of life, does not despise a partner in the taxes to be paid for them. Ferrers, at this period, rather liked Ernest than not: it was convenient to choose friends from those richer than himself, and he resolved, when he first came to Temple Grove, that Ernest should be his travelling companion. This resolution formed, it was very easy to execute it.

Maltravers was now warmly attached to his new friend, and eager for change. Cleveland was sorry to part with him; but he dreaded a relapse, if the young man were again left upon his hands. Accordingly, the guardian's consent was obtained; a travelling carriage was bought, and fitted up with every imaginable imperial and _malle_. A Swiss (half valet and half courier) was engaged, one thousand a year was allowed to Maltravers;--and one soft and lovely morning, towards the close of October, Ferrers and Maltravers found themselves midway on the road to Dover.

"How glad I am to get out of England," said Ferrers: "it is a famous country for the rich; but here, eight hundred a year, without a profession, save that of pleasure, goes upon pepper and salt; it is a luxurious competence abroad."

"I think I have heard Cleveland say that you will be rich some day or other."

"O yes: I have what are called expectations! You must know that I have a kind of settlement on two stools, the Well-born and the Wealthy; but between two stools--you recollect the proverb! The present Lord Saxingham, once plain Frank Lascelles, and my father, Mr. Ferrers, were first cousins. Two or three relations good-naturedly died, and Frank Lascelles became an earl; the lands did not go with the coronet; he was poor, and married an heiress. The lady died; her estate was settled on her only child, the handsomest little girl you ever saw. Pretty Florence, I often wish I could look up to you! Her fortune will be nearly all at her own disposal, too, when she comes of age; now she is in the nursery, 'eating bread and honey.' My father, less lucky and less wise than his cousin, thought fit to marry a Miss Templeton--a n.o.body.

The Saxingham branch of the family politely dropped the acquaintance.

Now, my mother had a brother, a clever, plodding fellow, in what is called 'business:' he became richer and richer: but my father and mother died, and were never the better for it. And I came of age, and _worth_ (I like that expression) not a farthing more or less than this often-quoted eight hundred pounds a year. My rich uncle is married, but has no children. I am, therefore, heir-presumptive,--but he is a saint, and close, though ostentatious. The quarrel between Uncle Templeton and the Saxinghams still continues. Templeton is angry if I see the Saxinghams and the Saxinghams--my Lord, at least--is by no means so sure that I shall be Templeton's heir as not to feel a doubt lest I should some day or other sponge upon his lordship for a place. Lord Saxingham is in the administration, you know. Somehow or other I have an equivocal amphibious kind of place in London society, which I don't like; on one side I am a patrician connection, whom the _parvenu_ branches always incline lovingly to--and on the other side I am a half-dependent cadet, whom the n.o.ble relations look civilly shy at. Some day, when I grow tired of travel and idleness, I shall come back and wrestle with these little difficulties, conciliate my methodistical uncle, and grapple with my n.o.ble cousin. But now I am fit for something better than getting on in the world. Dry chips, not green wood, are the things for making a blaze! How slow this fellow drives! Hollo, you sir! get on! mind, twelve miles to the hour! You shall have sixpence a mile. Give me your purse, Maltravers; I may as well be cashier, being the elder and the wiser man; we can settle accounts at the end of the journey. By Jove, what a pretty girl!"

BOOK II.

"He, of wide-blooming youth's fair flower possest, Owns the vain thoughts--the heart that cannot rest!"

SIMONIDES, _in t.i.t. Hum_.

CHAPTER I.

"Il y eut certainement quelque chose de singulier dans mes sentimens pour cette charmante femme."*--ROUSSEAU.

* There certainly was something singular in my sentiments for this charming woman.

IT was a brilliant ball at the Palazzo of the Austrian emba.s.sy at Naples: and a crowd of those loungers, whether young or old, who attach themselves to the reigning beauty, was gathered round Madame de Ventadour. Generally speaking, there is more caprice than taste in the election of a beauty to the Italian throne. Nothing disappoints a stranger more than to see for the first time the woman to whom the world has given the golden apple. Yet he usually falls at last into the popular idolatry, and pa.s.ses with inconceivable rapidity from indignant scepticism into superst.i.tious veneration. In fact, a thousand things beside mere symmetry of feature go to make up the Cytherea of the hour.--tact in society--the charm of manner--nameless and piquant brilliancy. Where the world find the Graces they proclaim the Venus.

Few persons attain pre-eminent celebrity for anything, without some advent.i.tious and extraneous circ.u.mstances which have nothing to do with the thing celebrated. Some qualities or some circ.u.mstances throw a mysterious or personal charm about them. "Is Mr. So-and-So really such a genius?" "Is Mrs. Such-a-One really such a beauty?" you ask incredulously. "Oh, yes," is the answer. "Do you know all about him or her? Such a thing is said, or such a thing has happened." The idol is interesting in itself, and therefore its leading and popular attribute is worshipped.