My Novel Part 78

P. S.--For Heaven's sake, caution and recaution your friend the minister not to drop a word to this woman that may betray my hiding-place.

"Is he really happy?" murmured Harley, as he closed the letter; and he sank for a few moments into a revery.

"This life in a village, this wife in a lady who puts down her work to talk about villagers--what a contrast to Audley's full existence! And I cannot envy nor comprehend either! yet my own existence--what is it?"

He rose, and moved towards the window, from which a rustic stair descended to a green lawn, studded with larger trees than are often found in the grounds of a suburban residence. There were calm and coolness in the sight, and one could scarcely have supposed that London lay so near.

The door opened softly, and a lady past middle age entered, and approaching Harley, as he still stood musing by the window, laid her hand on his shoulder. What character there is in a hand! Hers was a hand that t.i.tian would have painted with elaborate care! Thin, white, and delicate, with the blue veins raised from the surface. Yet there was something more than mere patrician elegance in the form and texture.

A true physiologist would have said at once, "There are intellect and pride in that hand, which seems to fix a hold where it rests; and lying so lightly, yet will not be as lightly shaken off."

"Harley," said the lady--and Harley turned--"you do not deceive me by that smile," she continued sadly; "you were not smiling when I entered."

"It is rarely that we smile to ourselves, my dear mother; and I have done nothing lately so foolish as to cause me to smile at myself."

"My son," said Lady Lansmere, somewhat abruptly, but with great earnestness, "you come from a line of ill.u.s.trious ancestors; and methinks they ask from their tombs why the last of their race has no aim and no object, no interest, no home, in the land which they served, and which rewarded them with its honours."

"Mother," said the soldier, simply, "when the land was in danger I served it as my forefathers served,--and my answer would be the scars on my breast."

"Is it only in danger that a country is served, only in war that duty is fulfilled? Do you think that your father, in his plain, manly life of country gentleman, does not fulfil, though perhaps too obscurely, the objects for which aristocracy is created, and wealth is bestowed?"

"Doubtless he does, ma'am,--and better than his vagrant son ever can."

"Yet his vagrant son has received such gifts from nature, his youth was so rich in promise, his boyhood so glowed at the dream of glory!"

"Ay," said Harley, very softly, "it is possible,--and all to be buried in a single grave!"

The countess started, and withdrew her hand from Harley's shoulder.

Lady Lansmere's countenance was not one that much varied in expression.

She had in this, as in her cast of feature, little resemblance to her son.

Her features were slightly aquiline,--the eyebrows of that arch which gives a certain majesty to the aspect; the lines round the mouth were habitually rigid and compressed. Her face was that of one who had gone through great emotion and subdued it. There was something formal, and even ascetic, in the character of her beauty, which was still considerable, in her air and in her dress. She might have suggested to you the idea of some Gothic baroness of old, half chatelaine, half-abbess; you would see at a glance that she did not live in the light world around her, and disdained its fashion and its mode of thought; yet with all this rigidity it was still the face of the woman who has known human ties and human affections. And now, as she gazed long on Harley's quiet, saddened brow, it was the face of a mother.

"A single grave," she said, after a long pause. "And you were then but a boy, Harley! Can such a memory influence you even to this day? It is scarcely possible: it does not seem to me within the realities of man's life,--though it might be of woman's."

"I believe," said Harley, half soliloquizing, "that I have a great deal of the woman in me. Perhaps men who live much alone, and care not for men's objects, do grow tenacious of impressions, as your s.e.x does. But oh," he cried, aloud, and with a sudden change of countenance, "oh, the hardest and the coldest man would have felt as I do, had he known HER, had he loved HER. She was like no other woman I have ever met. Bright and glorious creature of another sphere! She descended on this earth and darkened it when she pa.s.sed away. It is no use striving. Mother, I have as much courage as our steel-clad fathers ever had. I have dared in battle and in deserts, against man and the wild beast, against the storm and the ocean, against the rude powers of Nature,--dangers as dread as ever pilgrim or Crusader rejoiced to brave. But courage against that one memory! no, I have none!"

"Harley, Harley, you break my heart!" cried the countess, clasping her hands.

"It is astonishing," continued her son, so rapt in his own thoughts that he did not, perhaps, hear her outcry. "Yea, verily, it is astonishing, that considering the thousands of women I have seen and spoken with, I never see a face like hers,--never hear a voice so sweet. And all this universe of life cannot afford me one look and one tone that can restore me to man's privilege,--love. Well, well, well, life has other things yet; Poetry and Art live still; still smiles the heaven and still wave the trees. Leave me to happiness in my own way."

The countess was about to reply, when the door was thrown hastily open, and Lord Lansmere walked in.

The earl was some years older than the countess, but his placid face showed less wear and tear,--a benevolent, kindly face, without any evidence of commanding intellect, but with no lack of sense in its pleasant lines; his form not tall, but upright and with an air of consequence,--a little pompous, but good-humouredly so,--the pomposity of the Grand Seigneur who has lived much in provinces, whose will has been rarely disputed, and whose importance has been so felt and acknowledged as to react insensibly on himself;--an excellent man; but when you glanced towards the high brow and dark eye of the countess, you marvelled a little how the two had come together, and, according to common report, lived so happily in the union.

"Ho, ho! my dear Harley," cried Lord Lansmere, rubbing his hands with an appearance of much satisfaction, "I have just been paying a visit to the d.u.c.h.ess."

"What d.u.c.h.ess, my dear father?"

"Why, your mother's first cousin, to be sure,--the d.u.c.h.ess of Knaresborough, whom, to oblige me, you condescended to call upon; and delighted I am to hear that you admire Lady Mary--"

"She is very high bred, and rather--high-nosed," answered Harley. Then, observing that his mother looked pained, and his father disconcerted, he added seriously, "But handsome certainly."

"Well, Harley," said the earl, recovering himself, "the d.u.c.h.ess, taking advantage of our connection to speak freely, has intimated to me that Lady Mary has been no less struck with yourself; and to come to the point, since you allow that it is time you should think of marrying, I do not know a more desirable alliance. What do you say, Katherine?"

"The duke is of a family that ranks in history before the Wars of the Roses," said Lady Lansmere, with an air of deference to her husband; "and there has never been one scandal in its annals, nor one blot on its scutcheon. But I am sure my dear Lord must think that the d.u.c.h.ess should not have made the first overture,--even to a friend and a kinsman?"

"Why, we are old-fashioned people," said the earl, rather embarra.s.sed, "and the d.u.c.h.ess is a woman of the world."

"Let us hope," said the countess, mildly, "that her daughter is not."

"I would not marry Lady Mary, if all the rest of the female s.e.x were turned into apes," said Lord L'Estrange, with deliberate fervour.

"Good heavens!" cried the earl, "what extraordinary language is this?

And pray why, sir?"

HARLEY.--"I can't say; there is no why in these cases. But, my dear father, you are not keeping faith with me."

LORD LANSMERE.--"HOW?"

HARLEY.--"You and my Lady, here, entreat me to marry; I promise to do my best to obey you, but on one condition, that I choose for myself, and take my time about it. Agreed on both sides. Whereon, off goes your Lordship--actually before noon, at an hour when no lady, without a shudder, could think of cold blonde and damp orange flowers--off goes your Lordship, I say, and commits poor Lady Mary and your unworthy son to a mutual admiration,--which neither of us ever felt. Pardon me, my father, but this is grave. Again let me claim your promise,--full choice for myself, and no reference to the Wars of the Roses. What War of the Roses like that between Modesty and Love upon the cheek of the virgin!"

LADY LANSMERE.--"Full choice for yourself, Harley: so be it. But we, too, named a condition,--did we not, Lansmere?"

THE EARL (puzzled).--"Eh, did we? Certainly we did."

HARLEY.--"What was it?"

LADY LANSMERE.--"The son of Lord Lansmere can only marry the daughter of a gentleman."

THE EARL.--"Of course, of course."

The blood rushed over Harley's fair face, and then as suddenly left it pale.

He walked away to the window; his mother followed him, and again laid her hand on his shoulder.

"You were cruel," said he, gently, and in a whisper, as he winced under the touch of the hand. Then turning to the earl, who was gazing at him in blank surprise,--it never occurred to Lord Lansmere that there could be a doubt of his son's marrying beneath the rank modestly stated by the countess,--Harley stretched forth his hand, and said, in his soft winning tone, "You have ever been most gracious to me, and most forbearing; it is but just that I should sacrifice the habits of an egotist, to gratify a wish which you so warmly entertain. I agree with you, too, that our race should not close in me,--n.o.blesse oblige. But you know I was ever romantic; and I must love where I marry; or, if not love, I must feel that my wife is worthy of all the love I could once have bestowed. Now, as to the vague word 'gentleman' that my mother employs--word that means so differently on different lips--I confess that I have a prejudice against young ladies brought up in the 'excellent foppery of the world,' as the daughters of gentlemen of our rank mostly are. I crave, therefore, the most liberal interpretation of this word 'gentleman.' And so long as there be nothing mean or sordid in the birth, habits, and education of the father of this bride to be, I trust you will both agree to demand nothing more,--neither t.i.tles nor pedigree."

"t.i.tles, no, a.s.suredly," said Lady Lansmere; "they do not make gentlemen."

"Certainly not," said the earl; "many of our best families are unt.i.tled."

"t.i.tles--no," repeated Lady Lansmere; "but ancestors yes."

"Ah, my mother," said Harley, with his most sad and quiet smile, "it is fated that we shall never agree. The first of our race is ever the one we are most proud of; and pray, what ancestors had he? Beauty, virtue, modesty, intellect,--if these are not n.o.bility enough for a man, he is a slave to the dead."

With these words Harley took up his hat and made towards the door.

"You said yourself, 'n.o.blesse oblige,'" said the countess, following him to the threshold; "we have nothing more to add."