Ralph the Heir Part 73

There's nothing dowdy about her. A dowdy woman would have killed me.

She attracted me from the first moment; and, by Jove, old fellow, I can a.s.sure you it was mutual. I am the happiest fellow alive, and I don't think there is anything I envy anybody." In all this Ralph believed that he was speaking the simple truth.

"I hope you'll be happy, with all my heart," said Gregory.

"I am sure I shall;--and so will you if you will ask that little puss once again. I believe in my heart she loves you." Gregory, though he had been informed of his brother's pa.s.sion for Mary, had never been told of that other pa.s.sion for Clarissa; and Ralph could therefore speak of ground for hope in that direction without uncomfortable twinges.

There did occur during this fortnight one or two little matters, just sufficiently laden with care to ruffle the rose-leaves of our hero's couch. Lady Eardham thought that both the dining-room and drawing-room should be re-furnished, that a bow-window should be thrown out to the breakfast-parlour, and that a raised conservatory should be constructed into which Augusta's own morning sitting-room up-stairs might be made to open. Ralph gave way about the furniture with a good grace, but he thought that the bow-window would disfigure the house, and suggested that the raised conservatory would cost money. Augusta thought the bow-window was the very thing for the house, and Lady Eardham knew as a fact that a similar conservatory,--the sweetest thing in the world,--which she had seen at Lord Rosebud's had cost almost absolutely nothing. And if anything was well-known in gardening it was this, that the erection of such conservatories was a positive saving in garden expenses. The men worked under cover during the rainy days, and the hot-water served for domestic as well as horticultural purposes. There was some debate and a little heat, and the matter was at last referred to Sir George.

He voted against Ralph on both points, and the orders were given.

Then there was the more important question of the settlements. Of course there were to be settlements, in the arrangement of which Ralph was to give everything and to get nothing. With high-handed magnanimity he had declared that he wanted no money, and therefore the trifle which would have been adjudged to be due to Gus was retained to help her as yet less fortunate sisters. In truth Marmaduke at this time was so expensive that Sir George was obliged to be a little hard. Why, however, he should have demanded out of such a property as that of Newton a jointure of 4,000 a year, with a house to be found either in town or country as the widow might desire, on behalf of a penniless girl, no one acting in the Newton interest could understand, unless Sir George might have thought that the sum to be ultimately obtained might depend in some degree on that demanded. Had he known Mr. Carey he would probably not have subjected himself to the rebuke which he received.

Ralph, when the sum was first named to him by Sir George's lawyer, who came down purposely to Newton, looked very blank, and said that he had not antic.i.p.ated any arrangement so destructive to the property. The lawyer pointed out that there was unfortunately no dowager's house provided; that the property would not be destroyed as the dower would only be an annuity; that ladies now were more liberally treated in this matter than formerly;--and that the suggestion was quite the usual thing. "You don't suppose I mean my daughter to be starved?" said Sir George, upon whom gout was then coming. Ralph plucked up spirit and answered him. "Nor do I intend that your daughter, sir, should be starved." "Dear Ralph, do be liberal to the dear girl," said Lady Eardham afterwards, caressing our hero in the solitude of her bed-room. Mr. Carey, however, arranged the whole matter very quickly. The dower must be 2,000, out of which the widow must find her own house. Sir George must be well aware, said Mr. Carey, that the demand made was preposterous. Sir George said one or two very nasty things; but the dower as fixed by Mr. Carey was accepted, and then everything smiled again.

When the Eardhams were leaving Newton the parting between Augusta and her lover was quite pretty. "Dear Gus," he said, "when next I am here, you will be my own, own wife," and he kissed her. "Dear Ralph,"

she said, "when next I am here, you will be my own, own husband," and kissed him; "but we have Como, and Florence, and Rome, and Naples to do before that;--and won't that be nice?"

"It will be very nice to be anywhere with you," said the lover.

"And mind you have your coat made just as I told you," said Augusta.

So they parted.

Early in September they were married with great eclat at Brayboro', and Lady Eardham spared nothing on the occasion. It was her first maternal triumph, and all the country round was made to know of her success. The Newtons had been at Newton for--she did not know how many hundred years. In her zeal she declared that the estate had been in the same hands from long before the Conquest. "There's no t.i.tle,"

she said to her intimate friend, Lady Wiggham, "but there's that which is better than a t.i.tle. We're mushrooms to the Newtons, you know. We only came into Berkshire in the reign of Henry VIII." As the Wigghams had only come into Buckinghamshire in the reign of George IV., Lady Wiggham, had she known the facts, would probably have reminded her dear friend that the Eardhams had in truth first been heard of in those parts in the time of Queen Anne,--the original Eardham having made his money in following Marlborough's army. But Lady Wiggham had not studied the history of the county gentry. The wedding went off very well, and the bride and bridegroom were bowled away to the nearest station with four grey post-horses from Reading in a manner that was truly delightful to Lady Eardham's motherly feelings.

And with the same grey horses shall the happy bride and bridegroom be bowled out of our sight also. The writer of this story feels that some apology is due to his readers for having endeavoured to entertain them so long with the adventures of one of whom it certainly cannot be said that he was fit to be delineated as a hero.

It is thought by many critics that in the pictures of imaginary life which novelists produce for the amus.e.m.e.nt, and possibly for the instruction of their readers, none should be put upon the canvas but the very good, who by their n.o.ble thoughts and deeds may lead others to n.o.bility, or the very bad, who by their declared wickedness will make iniquity hideous. How can it be worth one's while, such critics will say,--the writer here speaks of all critical readers, and not of professional critics,--how can it be worth our while to waste our imaginations, our sympathies, and our time upon such a one as Ralph, the heir of the Newton property? The writer, acknowledging the force of these objections, and confessing that his young heroes of romance are but seldom heroic, makes his apology as follows.

The reader of a novel,--who has doubtless taken the volume up simply for amus.e.m.e.nt, and who would probably lay it down did he suspect that instruction, like a snake in the gra.s.s, like physic beneath the sugar, was to be imposed upon him,--requires from his author chiefly this, that he shall be amused by a narrative in which elevated sentiment prevails, and gratified by being made to feel that the elevated sentiments described are exactly his own. When the heroine is n.o.bly true to her lover, to her friend, or to her duty, through all persecution, the girl who reads declares to herself that she also would have been a Jeannie Deans had Fate and Fortune given her an Effie as a sister. The bald-headed old lawyer,--for bald-headed old lawyers do read novels,--who interests himself in the high-minded, self-devoting chivalry of a Colonel Newcombe, believes he would have acted as did the Colonel had he been so tried. What youth in his imagination cannot be as brave, and as loving, though as hopeless in his love, as Harry Esmond? Alas, no one will wish to be as was Ralph Newton! But for one Harry Esmond, there are fifty Ralph Newtons,--five hundred and fifty of them; and the very youth whose bosom glows with admiration as he reads of Harry,--who exults in the idea that as Harry did, so would he have done,--lives as Ralph lived, is less n.o.ble, less persistent, less of a man even than was Ralph Newton.

It is the test of a novel writer's art that he conceals his snake-in-the-gra.s.s; but the reader may be sure that it is always there. No man or woman with a conscience,--no man or woman with intellect sufficient to produce amus.e.m.e.nt, can go on from year to year spinning stories without the desire of teaching; with no ambition of influencing readers for their good. Gentle readers, the physic is always beneath the sugar, hidden or unhidden. In writing novels we novelists preach to you from our pulpits, and are keenly anxious that our sermons shall not be inefficacious. Inefficacious they are not, unless they be too badly preached to obtain attention.

Injurious they will be unless the lessons taught be good lessons.

What a world this would be if every man were a Harry Esmond, or every woman a Jeannie Deans! But then again, what a world if every woman were a Beckie Sharp and every man a Varney or a Barry Lyndon! Of Varneys and Harry Esmonds there are very few. Human nature, such as it is, does not often produce them. The portraits of such virtues and such vices serve no doubt to emulate and to deter. But are no other portraits necessary? Should we not be taught to see the men and women among whom we really live,--men and women such as we are ourselves,--in order that we should know what are the exact failings which oppress ourselves, and thus learn to hate, and if possible to avoid in life the faults of character which in life are hardly visible, but which in portraiture of life can be made to be so transparent.

Ralph Newton did nothing, gentle reader, which would have caused thee greatly to grieve for him, nothing certainly which would have caused thee to repudiate him, had he been thy brother. And gentlest, sweetest reader, had he come to thee as thy lover, with sufficient protest of love, and with all his history written in his hand, would that have caused thee to reject his suit? Had he been thy neighbour, thou well-to-do reader, with a house in the country, would he not have been welcome to thy table? Wouldst thou have avoided him at his club, thou reader from the West-end? Has he not settled himself respectably, thou grey-haired, novel-reading paterfamilias, thou materfamilias, with daughters of thine own to be married? In life would he have been held to have disgraced himself,--except in the very moment in which he seemed to be in danger? Nevertheless, the faults of a Ralph Newton, and not the vices of a Varney or a Barry Lyndon are the evils against which men should in these days be taught to guard themselves;--which women also should be made to hate. Such is the writer's apology for his very indifferent hero, Ralph the Heir.

CHAPTER LVII.

CLARISSA'S FATE.

In the following October, while Newton of Newton and his bride were making themselves happy amidst the glories of Florence, she with her finery from Paris, and he with a newly-acquired taste for Michael Angelo and the fine arts generally, Gregory the parson again went up to London. He had, of course, "a.s.sisted" at his brother's marriage,--in which the heavy burden of the ceremony was imposed on the shoulders of a venerable dean, who was related to Lady Eardham,--and had since that time been all alone at his parsonage.

Occasionally he had heard of the Underwoods from Ralph Newton of Beamingham, whose wedding had been postponed till Beamingham Hall had been made fit for its mistress; and from what he had heard Gregory was induced,--hardly to hope,--but to dream it to be possible that even yet he might prevail in love. An idea had grown upon him, springing from various sources, that Clarissa had not been indifferent to his brother, and that this feeling on her part had marred, and must continue to mar, his own happiness. He never believed that there had been fault on his brother's part; but still, if Clarissa had been so wounded,--he could hardly hope,--and perhaps should not even wish,--that she would consent to share with him his parsonage in the close neighbourhood of his brother's house. During all that September he told himself that the thing should be over, and he began to teach himself,--to try to teach himself,--that celibacy was the state in which a clergyman might best live and do his duty.

But the lesson had not gone far with him before he shook himself, and determined that he would try yet once again. If there had been such a wound, why should not the wound be cured? Clarissa was at any rate true. She would not falsely promise him a heart, when it was beyond her power to give it. In October, therefore, he went again up to London.

The cases for packing the books had not even yet been made, and Sir Thomas was found in Southampton Buildings. The first words had, of course, reference to the absent Squire. The squire of one's parish, the head of one's family, and one's elder brother, when the three are united in the same personage, will become important to one, even though the personage himself be not heroic. Ralph had written home twice, and everything was prospering with him. Sir Thomas, who had become tired of his late ward, and who had thought worse of the Eardham marriage than the thing deserved, was indifferent to the joys of the Italian honeymoon. "They'll do very well, no doubt," said Sir Thomas. "I was delighted to learn that Augusta bore her journey so well," said Gregory. "Augustas always do bear their journeys well,"

said Sir Thomas; "though sometimes, I fancy, they find the days a little too long."

But his tone was very different when Gregory asked his leave to make one more attempt at Popham Villa. "I only hope you may succeed,--for her sake, as well as for your own," said Sir Thomas. But when he was asked as to the parson's chance of success, he declared that he could say nothing. "She is changed, I think, from what she used to be,--is more thoughtful, perhaps, and less giddy. It may be that such change will turn her towards you." "I would not have her changed in anything," said Gregory,--"except in her feelings towards myself."

He had been there twice or thrice before he found what he thought to be an opportunity fit for the work that he had on hand. And yet both Patience and Mary did for him and for her all that they knew how to do. But in such a matter it is so hard to act without seeming to act! She who can manoeuvre on such a field without displaying her manoeuvres is indeed a general! No man need ever attempt the execution of a task so delicate. Mary and Patience put their heads together, and resolved that they would say nothing. Nor did they manifestly take steps to leave the two alone together. It was a question with them, especially with Patience, whether the lover had not come too soon.

But Clarissa at last attacked her sister. "Patience," she said, "why do you not speak to me?"

"Not speak to you, Clary?"

"Not a word,--about that which is always on my mind. You have not mentioned Ralph Newton's name once since his marriage."

"I have thought it better not to mention it. Why should I mention it?"

"If you think that it would pain me, you are mistaken. It pains me more that you should think that I could not bear it. He was welcome to his wife."

"I know you wish him well, Clary."

"Well! Oh, yes, I wish him well. No doubt he will be happy with her.

She is fit for him, and I was not. He did quite right."

"He is not half so good as his brother," said Patience.

"Certainly he is not so good as his brother. Men, of course, will be different. But it is not always the best man that one likes the best.

It ought to be so, perhaps."

"I know which I like the best," said Patience. "Oh, Clary, if you could but bring yourself to love him."

"How is one to change like that? And I do not know that he cares for me now."

"Ah;--I think he cares for you."

"Why should he? Is a man to be sacrificed for always because a girl will not take him? His heart is changed. He takes care to show me so when he comes here. I am glad that it should be changed. Dear Patty, if papa would but come and live at home, I should want nothing else."

"I want something else," said Patience.

"I want nothing but that you should love me;--and that papa should be with us. But, Patty, do not make me feel that you are afraid to speak to me."

On the day following Gregory was again at Fulham, and he had come thither fully determined that he would now for the last time ask that question, on the answer to which, as it now seemed to him, all his future happiness must depend. He had told himself that he would shake off this too human longing for a sweet face to be ever present with him at his board, for a sweet heart to cherish him with its love, for a dear head to lie upon his bosom. But he had owned to himself that it could not be shaken off, and having so owned, was more sick than ever with desire. Mary and Clarissa were both out when he arrived, and he was closeted for a while with Patience. "How tired you must be of seeing me," he said.

"Tired of seeing you? Oh no!"

"I feel myself to be going about like a phantom, and I am ashamed of myself. My brother is successful and happy, and has all that he desires."

"He is easily satisfied," said Patience, with something of sarcasm in her voice.

"And my cousin Ralph is happy and triumphant. I ought not to pine, but in truth I am so weak that I am always pining. Tell me at once,--is there a chance for me?"

Did it occur to him to think that she to whom he was speaking, ever asked herself why it was not given to her to have even a hope of that joy for which he was craving? Did she ever pine because, when others were mating round her, flying off in pairs to their warm mutual nests, there came to her no such question of mating and flying off to love and happiness? If there was such pining, it was all inward, hidden from her friends so that their mirth should not be lessened by her want of mirth, not expressed either by her eye or mouth because she knew that on the expression of her face depended somewhat of the comfort of those who loved her. A homely brow, and plain features, and locks of hair that have not been combed by Love's attendant nymphs into soft and winning tresses, seems to tell us that Love is not wanted by the bosom that owns them. We teach ourselves to regard such a one, let her be ever so good, with ever so sweet temper, ever so generous in heart, ever so affectionate among her friends, as separated alike from the perils and the privileges of that pa.s.sion without which they who are blessed or banned with beauty would regard life but as a charred and mutilated existence. It is as though we should believe that pa.s.sion springs from the rind, which is fair or foul to the eye, and not in the heart, which is often fairest, freshest, and most free, when the skin is dark and the cheeks are rough. This young parson expected Patience to sympathise with him, to greet for him, to aid him if there might be aid, and to understand that for him the world would be blank and wretched unless he could get for himself a soft sweet mate to sing when he sang, and to wail when he wailed. The only mate that Patience had was this very girl that was to be thus taken from her. But she did sympathise with him, did greet for him, did give him all her aid. Knowing what she was herself and how G.o.d had formed her, she had learned to bury self absolutely and to take all her earthly joy from the joys of others.

Shall it not come to pa.s.s that, hereafter, she too shall have a lover among the cherubim? "What can I say to you?" replied Patience to the young man's earnest entreaty. "If she were mine to give, I would give her to you instantly."