Sword and Gown Part 1

Sword and Gown.

by George A. Lawrence.

CHAPTER I.

"There _is_ something in this climate, after all. I suppose there are not many places where one could lie on the sh.o.r.e in December, and enjoy the air as much as I have done for the last two hours."

Harry Molyneux turned his face seaward again as he spoke, and drank in the soft breeze eagerly; he could scarcely help thanking it aloud, as it stole freshly over his frame, and played gently with his hair, and left a delicate caress on his cheek--the cheek that was now always so pale, save in the one round scarlet spot where, months ago, Consumption had hung out her flag of "No surrender."

There is enough in the scene to justify an average amount of enthusiasm.

Those steep broken hills in the background form the frontier fortress of the maritime Alps, the last outwork of which is the rocky spur on which Molyneux and his companion are lying. Fir woods feather the sky-line; and from among these, here and there, the tall stone pines stand up alone, like sentinels--steady, upright, and unwearied, though their guard has not been relieved for centuries. All around, wild myrtle, and heath, and eglantine curl and creep up the stems of the olives, trying, from the contact of their fresh youth, to infuse new life and sap into the gray, gnarled old trees, even as a fair Jewish maiden once strove to cherish her war-worn, decrepit king. There are other flowers too left, though December has begun, enough to give a faint fragrance to the air and gay colors to the ground. Just below their feet is a narrow strip of dark ribbed sand, and then the tangle of weed, scarcely stirred by the water, that all along this coast fringes like a beard the languid lip of the Mediterranean Sea.

Molyneux appreciated and admired all this, after his simple fashion, and said so; his companion did not answer immediately; he only shrugged his shoulders and lifted his eyebrows, as if he could have disputed the point if it had not been too much trouble. An optimist in nothing, least of all was Royston Keene grateful or indulgent to the beauties and bounties of inanimate creation.

"Ah well!" Harry went on, resignedly, "I know it's useless trying to get a compliment to Nature out of you. I ought to have given you up that night when we showed you the Alps from the terrace at Berne. You had never seen the Jungfrau before, and she had got her prettiest pink evening dress on, poor thing! and all you would say was, 'There's not much the matter with the view.'"

"It was a concession to your wife's enthusiasm," Keene replied; "a sudden check might have been dangerous just then, or I should have spoken more bitterly, after being brought out to look at mountains, when I was dusty and travel-stained, wanting baths, and dinners, and other necessaries of life."

The voice was deep-toned and melodious enough that spoke these words, but too slow and deliberate to be quite a pleasant one, though there was nothing like a drawl in it. One could easily fancy such a voice ironical or sarcastic, but hardly raised much in anger; in the imperative mood it might be very successful, but it seemed as if it could never have pleaded or prayed. It matched the speaker's exterior singularly well.

Had you seen him for the first time--couchant, as he was then--you would have had only an impression of great length and laziness; but as you gazed on, the vast deep chest expanded under your eye; the knotted muscles, without an ounce of superfluous flesh to dull their outline, developed themselves one by one; so that gradually you began to realize the extent of his surpa.s.sing bodily powers, and wondered that you could have been deceived even for a moment. The face guarded its secret far more successfully. The features were bold and sharply cut, bronzed up to the roots of the crisp light-brown beard and hair, except where the upper brow retained its original fairness--presenting a startling contrast, like a wreath of snow lying late in spring-time high up on the side of a black fell. You would hardly say that they were devoid of expression, any more than that a perfectly drilled soldier is incapable of activity; but you got puzzled in making out what their natural expression was: it was not sternness, far less ferocity--the face was much too impa.s.sible for either; and yet its listlessness could never be mistaken for languor. The thin short lips might be very pitiless when compressed, very contemptuous and provocative when curling; but the enormous mustache, sweeping over them like a wave, and ending in a clean stiff upward curve, made even this a matter of mere conjecture. The cold, steady, dark eyes seldom flashed or glittered; but, when their pupils contracted, there came into them a sort of sullen, suppressed, inward light, like that of jet or cannel coal. One curious thing about them was, that they never seemed to care about following you, and yet you felt you could not escape from them. The first hand-gripe, however, settled the question with most people: few, after experiencing the involuntary pressure, when he did not in the least mean to be cordial, doubted that there were pa.s.sions in Royston Keene--difficult perhaps to rouse, but yet more difficult to appease or subdue.

His profession was evident. Indeed, it must be confessed that the dragoon is not easily dissembled. I know a very meritorious parish-priest, of fair repute too as a preacher, who has striven for years, hard but unavailingly, to divest himself of the martial air he brought with him out of the K.D.G. He strides down the village street with a certain swagger and roll, as if the steel scabbard were still trailing at his heel, acknowledging rustic bows with a slight quick motion of the finger, like troopers' salutes; on the smooth shaven face is shadowed forth the outline of a beard, nurtured and trimmed in old days with more than horticultural science; in the pulpit and reading-desk gown and surplice hang uneasily, like a disguise, on the erect soldierly figure, and the effect of his ministrations is thereby sadly marred; for apposite text, earnest exhortation, and grave rebuke flow with a curious inconsistency from the lips of that well-meaning but unmitigated Plunger.

Royston Keene was no exception to this rule, though he did not like to be told so, and rather ignored the profession than otherwise. Perhaps he had begun it early enough to have got tired of it; for he had now been for some time on half-pay, and a brevet-major, after doing good service in the Indian wars, and was not yet thirty-four. Molyneux had served in the same light cavalry regiment as his subaltern, and there the foundation was laid of their close alliance. It was not a very fair or well-balanced one, being made up of implicit obedience, reliance, and reverence on the one side, and a sort of protecting condescension on the other--much like the old Roman relation between Client and Patron; nevertheless it had outlasted many more sympathetic and better-looking friendships.

They used to say of "The Cool Captain" (so he was always called off parade), that "he could bring a boy to his bearings sooner than any man in the army." Yet he was a favorite with them all. There was a regular ovation among those "G.o.dless hors.e.m.e.n" whenever he came into the Club, or into their mess-rooms; they hung upon his simplest words with a touchingly devout attention, and thought it was their own stupidity when they could see nothing in them to laugh at or admire; they wrote off all that they could remember of his sarcasms and repartees--generally strangely travestied and spoiled by carriage--to unlucky comrades, martyrized on far-off detachments, or vegetating with friends in the country; the more ambitious, after much private practice, strove to imitate his way of twisting his mustache as he stood before the fire, though with some, to whom nature had been n.i.g.g.ard of hirsute honors, it was grasping a shadow and fighting with the air.

Certainly Molyneux never was so happy as in that society. Fond as he was of his pretty wife, her influence was as nothing in the scale. She complained of this, half in earnest, soon after they were married. The fever of post-nuptial felicity was strong upon Harry just then, but he did not attempt to deny the imputation. He only said, "My pet, I have known him so much the longest!" I wonder, now, how many brides would have admitted that somewhat unsatisfactory and illogical excuse? f.a.n.n.y Molyneux did; she was the best-natured little woman alive, and wise, too, in her generation, for she never brought matters to a crisis, or measured her strength against the "heavy-weight."

Indeed, they got on together extremely well. Whenever Keene happened to be with them--which was not often--she gave up the management of Harry's Foreign Affairs to him, reserving to herself the control of the Home Department, and, between the two, they ruled their va.s.sal right royally.

After some months' acquaintance they became the greatest friends; on Royston's side it was one of the few quite pure and unselfish feelings he had ever cherished toward one of her s.e.x not nearly akin to him in blood. He always seemed to look on her as a very nice, but rather spoiled child, to be humored and petted to any amount, but very seldom to be reasoned with or gravely consulted. Considering her numerous fascinations, and the little practice he had had in the paternal or fraternal line, he really did it remarkably well: be it understood, it was only _en pet.i.te comite_ that all this went on; in general society his manner was strictly formal and deferential. It provoked her though, sometimes, and one day she ventured to say, "I wish you would learn to treat me like a grown-up woman!" Royston's eyes darkened strangely; and one glance flashed out of the gloom that made her shrink away from him then, and blush painfully when she thought of it afterward alone. He was frowning, too, as he answered, in a voice unusually harsh and constrained, "It seems to me we go on very well as it is. But women never _will_ leave well alone." She did not like to a.n.a.lyze his answer or her own feelings too closely, so she tried to persuade herself it was a very rude speech, and that she ought to be offended at it. There was a coolness between those two for some days, amounting to distant courtesy.

But the dignified style did not suit _ma mignonne_ (as Harry delighted to call her) at all, and was, indeed, a lamentable failure; it made her look as if she had been trying on one of her great-grandmother's short-waisted dresses; so they soon fell back into their old ways, and, like the model prince and princess, "lived very happily ever afterward."

CHAPTER II.

Keene had spent some time with the Molyneuxs during the autumn and winter, and had conducted himself so far with perfect propriety, certainly keeping Harry straighter than he would have gone alone; for he was, unluckily, of a convivial turn of mind wholly incompatible with delicate health and a frail const.i.tution. Being a favorite with the world in general, he felt bound, I suppose, to reciprocate, so, albeit strictly enjoined to keep the earliest hours, he would sit up till dawn if any one encouraged him, and then come home, perfectly sober perhaps, but staggering from mere weakness. He did not care for deep drinking in the least, but the number of magnums he had a.s.sisted in flooring, when on a regimen of "three gla.s.ses of sherry," would have made a double row of nails round the coffin of a larger man. Nature, however, being a Dame, won't stand being slighted, or having her admonitions disregarded, and the way she a.s.serted herself on the morrow was retributive in the extreme. Harry was always so _very_ ill after one of those nights "upon the war-path." On such occasions, his feelings, without being quite remorseful, were beautifully and curiously penitent; they manifested themselves chiefly by an extraordinary ebullition of the domestic affections. "Bring me my children" (he had two tiny ones), he would cry on waking, just as another man would call for brandy and soda; and, strange to say, the presence of those innocents seemed to have a similarly invigorating and refreshing effect: during all that day he would make pilgrimages to their cribs, and gaze upon them sleeping with the reverence of an old _devote_ kneeling before the shrine of her most efficacious saint. Then he would go forth, and return with a present for his wife, bearing an exact proportion in value to the extent and duration of the past misdemeanor; so that her jewel-case and writing-table soon became as prettily suggestive as the votive chapel of Notre Dame des Dunes. Very unnecessary were these peace-offerings; for that dear little woman never dreamt of "hitting him when he was down,"

or taking any other low advantage of his weakness. She would make his breakfast beamingly, at all untimely hours, and otherwise pet and caress him, so that he might have been a knight returning wounded from some Holy War, instead of a discomfited scalp-hunter, bearing still evident traces of the "war-paint." A stern old lady told her once that such condonation of offenses was unprincipled and immoral. It may be so, but I can not think the example is likely to be dangerously contagious.

Whatever happens, there will always remain a sufficiency of matronly Dicaearchs, over whose judgment-seats the legend is very plainly inscribed, _Nescia flecti_.

These Ember days formed the only exceptions to the remarkably easy way in which Molyneux took every thing; there seemed to be no rough places about his disposition for trouble or care to take hold of. Hunting four days a week through the winter; six weeks in town during the season, with incidentals of Epsom, Goodwood, _saumon a la Trafalgar_, bouquets, and opera-stalls; living all the rest of the year at a mess curious as to the quality of its dry Champagne--these simple pleasures involve a certain expenditure hardly "fairly warranted by our regimental rate of pay." To accomplish all this on about 500 a year, and yet to steer clear of ruin, is an ingenious process doubtless, but a sum not to be wrought out (most soldiers will tell you) without some anxiety and travail of mind. Now, in the very tightest state of the money-market, Harry was never known to disquiet himself in vain. He would not borrow from any of his comrades, refusing all such proffers of a.s.sistance gratefully but consistently. No Mussulman ever equaled his contented reliance on the resources of futurity, and his implicit belief in the same. He would anchor his hopes on some such improbability as "a long shot coming off," or "his Aunt Agnes coming down" (a proverbially awful widow, who had forgiven him seven times already; and, after each fresh offense, had sworn unrelenting enmity to him and his heirs forever).

Strong in this faith, he met condoling friends with a pleasant, rea.s.suring smile: with the same demeanor he confronted threatening creditors. He used no arts, and condescended to no subterfuge in dealing with these last; but, as one of them observed, retreating from the barracks moneyless but gratified, "Mr. Molyneux seems to _feel_ for one, at all events." So he did. He sympathized with his tailor, not in the least because he owed him money, but because he was a fellow-creature in difficulties, regretting heartily it was not in his own power to relieve them; just as a very charitable but improvident person might feel on reading a case of real distress in the _Times_. Strange to say, hitherto he had always pulled through. Either the outsider _did_ win, or the aunt, touched in the soft place of her heart through her ruffled feathers, was brought down by a "wild shot," when considered quite out of distance, and "parted" freely.

The last and hardest trial of all--long debility and frequent illness--had failed to shake this intense serenity. He was never cross or unreasonable, and tried to give as little trouble as possible; but was grateful to a degree for every thing that was done for him: he could even manage to thank people for their advice, whether he took it not. So far as one could make out, he was nearly as much interested in the state of his own health, as one would be about that of any pleasant casual acquaintance.

It must be confessed, that poor Harry and his like are by no means strong-minded, or large-brained, or persevering men; they seldom or never rise to eminence, and rarely have greatness thrust upon them. They do not often volunteer to lead the vanguard of any great movement, shouting out on the slightest provocation the war-cry of "life is earnest;" for they are the natural subalterns of the world's mighty battalia, and could hardly manoeuvre one of its companies, without hopelessly entangling it, and exposing themselves: indeed, if they are useful at all in their generation, it is in a singularly modest and un.o.btrusive way. Yet there is an attraction about them, a power of attachment, that the great and wise ones of the earth have appreciated and envied, ere now. It is curious, too, to see what an apparent contradiction to themselves the extremes of the cla.s.s--those who exaggerate _nonchalance_ into insensibility, and softness into effeminacy--have shown, when brought face to face with imminent peril or certain destruction. France held few more terrible _ferrailleurs_ than the curled painted minions of her third Henry: the sun never looked down on a more desperate duel than that in which Quelus, Schomberg, and Maugiron did their _devoir_ manfully to the last. Nay, though he came delicately to his doom, the King of Amalek met it, I fancy, gallantly and gracefully enough, when once he read his sentence in the eyes of the pitiless Seer, who ordained that he "should be hewn in pieces before the Lord in Gilgal."

R. I. P.

There was silence for some minutes after the few words that opened this story; and then Royston Keene spoke again.

"Hal, do you remember that miserable impostor in Paris being enthusiastic about Dorade and its advantages, describing it as a sort of happy hunting-ground, and so deciding us on choosing it in preference to Nice?"

"Ah! he _did_ drivel a good deal. I think he had been drinking," the other answered.

"No; I understand him now. He had been bored here into a sullen, vicious misanthropy; and he wanted to take it out on the human race by getting others in the same mess. It's just like that jealous old Heathfield, who, when he is up to his girths in a squire-trap, never halloos ''ware bog,' till five or six more are in it. I can fancy the h.o.a.ry-headed villain gloating hideously over us now. I wish I had him here. I could be _so_ unkind to him! He talked about the shooting and the society. Bah! there's about one c.o.c.k to every thousand acres of forest; and as for women fair to look upon, I've not flushed one since we came. I don't think I can stand it much longer."

"I am very sorry," Harry said; "I knew you were being bored to death, and it's all on my account; but I didn't like to ask you about it. I'm so horribly selfish!" The shadow of an imminent penitence began to steal over him, when Royston broke in--

"Don't be childish. I liked to stay--never mind why--or I should not have done so. Only now--you are getting better, and I realize the situation more. I hardly know where to go. Not back to England, certainly, yet. Besides the nuisance and chance work of picking up a stud in the middle of the season, it isn't pleasant to be consoled for a blank day by, 'you should have been here last month. Never was such scent; and heaps of straight-running foxes!' And then they indulge themselves in an imaginative 'cracker,' knowing you can't contradict them. Shall I go to Albania? I should like to kill _something_ before I turn homeward."

Harry seemed musing. Suddenly he half started up, clapping his hands. "I knew I had forgotten!"

"Not such a singular circ.u.mstance as to warrant all that indecent exultation," was the reply. "Well, out with it."

"I never told you that Fan had a letter this morning from Cecil Tresilyan (they're immense friends, you know) to ask her to engage rooms for them. They are in Paris now, and will be here in three days."

Keene raised himself on his arm, regarding his comrade with a sort of admiration. "You're a natural curiosity, _mon cher_. None of us ever quite appreciated you. I don't believe there's another man in existence, situated as we are, who would have kept that intelligence at the back of his head so long. _The_ Tresilyan, of course? I remember hearing about her in India. Annesley came back from sick leave perfectly insane on the subject. She _must_ be something extraordinary, for the recollection of her made even him poetical--when he was sober. I asked about her when I got to England, but her mother was taken very ill, or did something equally unjustifiable, so she left town before I saw her."

"The mother really _was_ ill," Molyneux said, apologetically; "at least she died soon after that. Miss Tresilyan has never shown much since. But you've no idea of the sensation she made during her season and a half.

They called her The Refuser, she had such a fabulous number of offers, and wouldn't look at any of them. By-the-by, there's rather a good story about that. You know Margate? He's going to the bad very fast now, but he was the crack puppy of that year's entry; good-looking, long minority, careful guardians, leases falling in, mother one of the best Christians in England, and all that sort of thing. Well, Tom Cary took him in hand, and brought him out in great form before long. They were talking over their preparations for the moors, for they were going to start the next day. 'I believe that's all,' Margate asked, 'or have we forgotten any thing?' 'Wait a minute,' said Tom, and reflected (provident man, Tom; fond of his comforts, and proud of it)--'Ah! I thought there was something. You haven't proposed to The Tresilyan.'

They say Margate's face was a study. He never disputed the orders of his private trainer, so he only said, piteously, 'But I don't want to marry any one,' and looked as if he was going to cry. 'You _are_ "ower young,"' Cary said, encouragingly, 'and it's about the last thing I should press upon you. It wouldn't suit my book at all. But I don't see how that affects the question. I can lay ten ponies to one she won't have you. It's the thing to do, depend upon it. All the other good men have had a turn, and you have no right to be singular; it's bad taste.

Rank has its duties, my lord. _n.o.blesse oblige_, and so forth. You understand?' Margate _didn't_ in the least, but he went and proposed quite properly, and was rejected rather more decidedly than his fellows.

Then he went down into Perthshire, and missed his grouse, and lost his salmon, with a comfortable consciousness of having discharged his obligations to society."

Royston Keene actually groaned, "Why didn't she come sooner?" he said.

"What a luxury, in this G.o.d-forgotten place, to talk to a clever handsome woman, who tramples on strawberry-leaves!"

"Perhaps she would have come if she had known how much we wanted her,"

replied Harry. "They say she is a model of charity, and several other virtues too. She is coming here for the health of some companion, or governess, who lives with her. Yet she flirts outrageously at times, in her own imperial way. Better late than never. I'm certain you'll like her, and perhaps she'll like you."

"_Qui vivra verra_," Keene said, rising slowly. "Let us go home now.

Draw your plaid closer round you, it's getting chilly."

CHAPTER III.

There is a terrace in Dorade, fenced in from every wind that blows, except the south, and even that has to creep cautiously and cunningly round a sharp corner to make its entrance good. Four small stunted palms grow there; they look painfully out of place, and conscious of it; for they are always bowing their heads in a meek humiliation, and shiver in a strange unhealthy way at the slightest breeze, just as you may see Asiatics doing in our "land of mist and snow." But the natives regard those unhappy exotics with a fanatical pride, pointing them out to all comers as living witnesses to the perfection of the climate; they would gladly stone any irreverent stranger who should suggest a comparison between their sacred shrubs and the giants of Indian seas. The only inhabitant of the place who ever attained any eminence any where (he really _was_ a good tailor), bequeathed a certain sum for the beautifying of the renowned _allee_, instead of endowing charitable inst.i.tutions, and his townsmen endorsed the act by erecting a little mural tablet to commemorate his public spirit.

The view is rather pretty, stretching over vineyards, and gardens, and olive-grounds down to the sh.o.r.e, with the islands in the far foreground rearing themselves against the sky, clear and blue, or if the weather is misty to seaward, sleeping in an aureole of golden haze, so that the whole effect would be cheerful if it were not for the melancholy invalids who haunt the spot perpetually. Faces and figures are to be seen sometimes that would send an uncomfortable shiver of revulsion through you if you met them on the Boulevard des Italiens, strengthened by your ante-prandian _absinthe_. Here, the place belonged to them so completely, that a man in rude health felt like an unwarrantable intruder, in which light I am sure the hypochondriacs always regarded him. As such a one pa.s.sed, you might see a glare, half-envious, half-resentful, light up some hollow eyes, and thin parched lips worked nervously, as though they were uttering a very equivocal blessing.