Sword and Gown Part 9

It is true that there are some writers--not the weakest--who still cling to the old-fashioned mould. Putting Lancelot and Amyas out of the question, I think I would sooner have "stood up" to most heroes of romance than to st.u.r.dy Adam Bede. It can't be a question of religion or morality, for "muscular _Christianity_" is the stock-sarcasm of the opposite party: it must be a question of good taste. Well, ancient Greece is supposed to have had some floating ideas on _that_ subject, and she deified Strength. It is perfectly true, that to thrash a prize-fighter unnecessarily is not a virtuous or glorious action, but I contend that the _capability_ of doing so is an admirable and enviable attribute. There are grades of physical as well as of moral perfection; and, after all, the same Hand created both.

Have I been replying against the critics? _Absit omen!_ They are more often right, I fear, than authors are willing to allow; for it _is_ aggravating to have one's pet bits of pathos put between inverted commas for the world in general to make a mock at (we could hardly write them down without tears in our eyes), and to have our story condensed into a few clever, pithy sentences (all in the present tense), till its weakness becomes painfully apparent. More than this, our candid friends are impalpable. Real life can furnish us with enough substantial opponents for us not to trouble ourselves about Junius. Neither in war nor love is it expedient to grasp at shadows. Ah! Mr. Reade, why were you not warned by Ixion?

One thing is certain: however sound your arguments in depreciation of personal prowess may be, you will never gain a unanimous feminine verdict. It must be an extraordinary exhibition of mental excellence that will really interest the generality of our sisters for the moment as deeply as a very ordinary feat of strength or skill. It is not that they can not thoroughly appreciate rect.i.tude of feeling, brilliancy of conversation, and distinguished talent; but remember the hackneyed quotation:

Segnius irritant animum demissa per aures, Quam quae sunt oculis subjecta fidelibus.

If you want a proof of the correctness of Horace's opinion, go up to "Lord's" this month, and watch the flutter among the fair spectators, just after a "forward drive" over the Pavilion; or, better still, the next time the "Grand Military" comes off at Warwick, mark the reception that the man who rides a winner will meet with in the stand.

Conventionality has done a good deal, but it has not refined away all the frank, impulsive woman-nature yet. The knights are dust, and their good swords rust; but dame and demoiselle are very much the same as they were in the old days, when the Queen of Scots could sing

How they reveled through the summer night, And by day made lanceshafts flee, For Mary Beatoun, and Mary Seatoun, And Mary Fleming, and me.

Will this long and rather rash _tirade_ in the least excuse Cecil Tresilyan? Of course not. My poor heroine! It was very unnecessary--that advertis.e.m.e.nt that she was not superior to the weaknesses of her s.e.x; for it seems to me, with every chapter, she has been growing more fallible and frail. She was utterly incapable of being at all demonstrative or "gushing;" but her preference for Royston Keene was now quite undisguised.

Mrs. Danvers was bitterly exasperated. It would be unjust to deny that she was greatly actuated by a sincere interest in her _ci-devant_ pupil's welfare; but other feelings were at work.

It is very remarkable how a perfectly well-principled woman will connive at what she can not approve so long as she is taken unreservedly into confidence; but when once one secret is kept back the danger of her antagonism begins; the magic draught that has lulled the vigilant Gryphon to sleep loses its potency; the guardian of the treasure awakes--more savage because conscious of a dereliction in duty--and woe to the Arimaspian! The cold, pale, chaste moon comes forth from behind the cloud, determined to reveal every iota of transgression: no farther chance of concealment here--_Reparat sua cornua Phoebe_.

So, to the utmost of her small powers, Bessie did endeavor to thwart and counteract the adversary. Her line was consistently plaintive. In season and out of season she whined and wept profusely. This was the last resource of her simple strategy: when the enemy was getting too strong to be met in open field, she adopted the Dutch plan of opening the sluices and trying to drown him. It is painful to be obliged to state that the inundation did not greatly avail. As she had done from the first, Cecil declined to make any confidences, or indeed to discuss the question at all.

Mr. Fullarton, too, felt keenly the defection of a promising proselyte.

Since that unfortunate afternoon Miss Tresilyan had been perfectly civil, but always very cold; and he could not but be aware that he had lost ground then that he never could hope to regain. The divine must have been very desperate when he ventured to attack that impracticable brother. It was not a judicious move; nor would any one have tried it who knew d.i.c.k Tresilyan. It was not only that he liked and admired Royston Keene, but he had a blind confidence in his sister that nothing on earth could disturb: the evidence of his own senses would not have affected it in the least. "Whatever _she_ does is right," he thought; and he clung to that idea, as many other true believers will do to a creed that they can not understand. So when the question was broached he was not very angry (for he did _more_ than justice to the chaplain's sense of duty), but he stubbornly declined to enter upon it at all. Mr.

Fullarton was so provoked that he was goaded into a taunt that he ought to have been ashamed of.

"Perhaps you are right," he said; "Major Keene is so formidable an adversary, that it is hardly safe to interfere with him." (These "men of peace"--_quand ils s'y prennent_! I believe the most exasperating man in England, at this moment, to be an influential Quaker.)

d.i.c.k Tresilyan took a long time (as was his wont) in finding out what was meant; when he did, even his limited intellect appreciated its bad taste and absurdity. A hundred sarcasms would not have disconcerted the pastor so completely as his honest, hearty laugh.

"Ah! you think I'm afraid of him? No--they don't breed cowards where I come from. I never heard that idea but once before; that was at the Truro fair. I wasn't in very good company, and they 'planted' a big miner on me at last. He wanted me to wrestle, and when I wouldn't, he said--just what you did. But I remember all the others laughed at him.

They know _us_ in those parts, you see. He'd better have kept quiet; for though he puzzled me at first with a 'back trick' he had, I knew more than he did, and he got an awkward fall; I don't think he'll ever do a good day's work again." He paused, and his brow darkened strangely, and all his face changed, till it resembled more closely than it had often done the portraits of come of the "bitter, bad Tresilyans." "I suppose you mean well, Mr. Fullarton, but I'm not going to thank you. We can manage our affairs without your meddling; and if you're wise you'll leave us alone." It will be seen that the chaplain did not take much by his motion.

Neither was f.a.n.n.y Molyneux well satisfied with the turn affairs had taken lately. That poor little "white witch" was really alarmed by the unruly character of the spirit that she had been anxious to raise; she did not know the proper formula for sending it back to its own place; and, if she had, the stubborn demon would only have mocked at her simple incantations. Though she loved Cecil dearly, she was too much in awe of her to venture upon remonstrance or warning; indeed, the few mild hints that she _did_ throw out had not met with such success as to tempt her to follow them up. So she was, perforce, reduced to an unarmed neutrality.

Her husband was perhaps the most thoroughly uncomfortable of the party.

He knew the circ.u.mstances and bearings of the question better than any one else, and would have sacrificed a good deal ("his right hand," I believe, is the proper phrase) to have averted the probable result. But he had not sufficient strength of mind to take the decided measures that might have been of some avail; in fact, he had a vague idea that to act on the offensive against his old comrade would be unpardonable treachery. Arguing with the latter was simply absurd; for this reason, if for no other, that from the moment his feelings became really interested, no amount of diplomacy would have induced him to enter upon the subject. Harry went about with a miserable, helpless sense of complicity weighing him down, which was much aggravated by a few words which dropped one morning from d.i.c.k Tresilyan.

d.i.c.k had been dining _tete-a-tete_ with Keene on the previous evening after a hard day's snipe shooting, and bore evident traces about him of a heavy night--a fact which he lost no time in alluding to, not without a certain pride, like the man in Congreve's play, who exults in having "been drunk in excellent company." "We had a very big drink," he said, confidentially, "and the major got more than his allowance. He didn't know what he was talking about at last, and he told me more of his affairs than most people know, I think; of course, I'm as safe as a church;" and d.i.c.k made a gallant but abortive attempt to wink with one of his swollen eyelids.

Molyneux shrank away from the speaker with something very like a suppressed groan--he had heard _that_ said before, and remembered what came of it. Credulity was as dangerous when men thought Royston Keene had lost his head as when women flattered themselves he had lost his heart.

CHAPTER XIV.

If you will be good enough to look back on the one romance in which, like the rest of the world, you probably indulged yourself, you will remember, perhaps more distinctly than any other feature, the _presentiment_ which haunted you from the very beginning. We were absurdly sanguine and hopeful in those days--full of chivalrous resolves and unlimited aspirations; but still the feeling would come back--if, indeed, it ever left us--that in the dim background there was difficulty and danger. We were not surprised when the small white speck rose out of the sea, and it needed no prophet to tell us then that the heavens would soon be black with clouds, and that there would be a great rain (which, indeed, was the case, for there ensued a long continuance of wet weather; it was a very tearful season). Oddly enough, that same presentiment did not make us particularly melancholy or uncomfortable, but seemed rather to give a zest to our simple pleasures, relieving them from any tinge of sameness or insipidity. When the _denouement_ came we did not exactly see things in the same light certainly, and it took some time to settle thoroughly down into our present theory, that "it was all for the best."

It is the old story of Thomas the Rhymer over and over again (we were all rhymers once). The lover knows that there is peril in the path, but not the less joyously he strides on by the side of the beautiful queen.

How sweetly they ring, the silver bells on the neck of the milk-white palfrey; not so sweetly, though, as her low, musical tones. So on they fare, till the world of realities is left far behind, and they find themselves at their journey's end. It is very happy, that year spent in her kingdom; but so like a dream that he does not appreciate its pleasures so well at the moment as he will in the weary after-years. Yet the waking came too soon. The sojourner had not half grown tired of his resting-place; the bloom has not faded on the wondrous fruits and flowers: the strangely sweet wine has not lost its savor, when it is time for him to be gone, for a dreadful whisper runs through the company that to-morrow the teind to h.e.l.l must be paid. Well, the black tax-gatherer is balked by a day, and the wanderer is back at Ercildoune again. Very dreary looks the gray, bare moorland. Do they call that foliage on the stunted fir-trees? It is only the ghost of a forest. The trim parterres have no beauty or fragrance for one that has lingered in more glorious gardens and plucked redder roses. Tabret and viol jangle harshly in the ears that have rioted in melodies made by fairy harpers.

The village maidens may be comely, but they are somewhat clumsy withal; the earthen floor trembles under their feet when they lead their simple dances; very different from the steps that kept time to a wild, weird music, stirring but scarcely bending the gra.s.s-blades. There is no color in their flaxen locks, and little light in their pale-blue eyes; these will not bear comparison with the smooth, braided tresses that glistened like blue-black serpents, or the glances that rained down liquid fire through the twilight of the forests of Elf-land. Slowly the discontented dreamer realizes the fact that the spell is still upon him--riveted when he stole that first fatal kiss in despite of his mistress's warning. Nothing is left for him now but to expiate his folly in the loneliness of the gray old tower, and to look forth, hoping to see the gra.s.s-green robe gleam again against the setting sun, and to hear the silver bells chime once more in the still evening air.

Vain--worse than vain. With stiffened limbs and grizzled hair, we are not worth beguiling.

This is essentially a masculine ill.u.s.tration, and only applies to Cecil Tresilyan thus far. She was sensible of the influence that strengthened its hold upon her every day, and did not now wish or try to resist it, but she grew proportionately doubtful and uneasy about the event. A feeling, very strange and new to one of a temperament like hers, began to creep over her now and then. At such times she owned that her eyes were the more eagerly and steadfastly fixed on the Present, because they did not dare to look into the Future. Yet, as far as she knew, there was no ground for much apprehension.

It is always so. Only when we are carrying something rare and precious do we appreciate the possible perils of the road. How much steeper the hills are now, how much deeper and darker the ravines, how much more frequent the crags that might so easily conceal a marauder, than when we pa.s.sed them some months ago chanting the reckless roundel of the _vacuus viator_.

We said, you remember, before, that Miss Tresilyan had one subject of self-reproach, for which she had never gained her own absolution. The whispers that had never been quite silenced began to make themselves heard unpleasantly often, and now they just hinted at Retribution. As our poor Cecil must come to confession some time or another, it seems to me this is a convenient season.

At the country-house where she was spending Christmas, three years before the date of our story, she met Mark Waring. She knew his antecedents: how, when sudden troubles came upon his family, he gave up diplomacy, which he had entered upon, and took up the law--hating it cordially--simply because a fair opening was given him there of securing to his mother and sisters something better than bread. He never pretended to feel the slightest interest in his profession, but went on slaving at it resolutely and successfully. He made no merit of it either, but always spoke, and I believe thought of it, as the merest matter of course--the right thing to do under the circ.u.mstance. There was a hardihood of principle about all this which Cecil rather admired; and his frank, bold bearing, and simple, straightforward way of putting thoughts that were worth listening to into terse, strong language, aided the first favorable impression. She determined to make Mark like her; and when she had a fancy of this kind, she was apt to carry it out without much consideration for the comfort or convenience of the person destined to the experiment. She had no deliberate intention of doing any body any harm; but those innocent little whims and projects of amus.e.m.e.nt do more mischief sometimes than the most systematic machinations of devil-craft. Why, when you begin even to _write_ a chapter, it is very difficult to say where it will end; when you begin to talk it or act it, it is harder still to prophesy aright. A character, or a sentence, or an idea, which looked quite insignificant at first, a.s.sumes perfectly portentous dimensions and importance before we have done with it; so that the alternate effect is nearly as startling when realized as that produced by Alice's conjuration:

She crossed him thrice, that lady bold; He rose beneath her hand, The fairest knight on Scottish mould, Her brother, Ethert Brand.

So while Cecil was drawing on Mark Waring to talk about his daily life--sympathizing with him about his hard, distasteful work, and pitying his loneliness, she never guessed how her words were being branded, one by one, on the earnest, steadfast heart, that her own lofty nature was not worthy to understand. In a week after their first meeting she had drawn from him all the love he had to give; and men of Mark Waring's mould can only find room for one love in a lifetime. Such characters are exceptional, fortunately; for they are very impracticable and difficult to get on with, and their antiquated notions are perpetually contrasting and conflicting with the established prejudices of polite and well-organized society--sometimes even checking the same for an instant in its easy, conventional flow. They _won't_ see that of all ways of spending time and thought, the most absurdly unprofitable is to waste them on a memory. Yet--O mine excellent friend and cynical preceptor! to whom, for sage instruction, I owe a debt of grat.i.tude that I never mean to repay--I beseech you, consort not too much with these misguided men. They are not likely to infect you with their pestilent doctrines and principles; but they may, in an unguarded moment, make you do violence to your favorite maxim--_Nil admirari_.

With all his strong common sense, Mark was lamentably deficient in worldly wisdom. He never saw the obstacles that would have daunted others. Could any thing be more improbable than that the most triumphant beauty of the season should seriously incline to share the long up-hill struggle of a rising barrister? Those dull Temple-chambers are lucky enough if the sun condescends to visit them at rare intervals in his journey westward. But Waring's own singleness of purpose beguiled him more effectually than the most inordinate vanity could have done.

Putting character out of the question, he thought a woman could only derogate by allying herself to one of inferior birth; and he knew his own blood to be nearly equal to Miss Tresilyan's. He was right so far--if she had only loved him she would have subscribed readily to every article of his simple, knightly creed. The last idea that entered his mind was, that she could have stooped so low as to trifle with him.

It was the old mistake. We measure other people's feelings by the intensity of our own, and think it hard when we meet with disappointment. Yet a certain misgiving, that he did not like to a.n.a.lyze, kept him from bringing the question to an issue till the day before his departure. Then he told her frankly what his prospects were, and asked her to share them.

Now "the Refuser" was so used to seeing men commit themselves in this way on the very shortest notice, and without the faintest encouragement, that the situation had ceased to afford her much excitement: a proposal no more made her nervous than file-firing does a thoroughly-broken charger. For once, however, she felt uncomfortable and vexed with herself, though she did not guess the extent of the harm she had done.

Nothing could be kinder or gentler than her answer, but nothing could be more decisive. On the cold, smooth rock there was not a cleft or a trailing weed for despair to cling to in its drowning agony. So the hope of Mark Waring's life went down there without a cry or a struggle--as it is fitting the hope of a strong heart should die--into the depths of the great sea that never will give up its dead.

The lover of the present day is rather a curious study immediately after he has encountered a defeat or disappointment. Sometimes the phase is a mild melancholy. I remember a case of this sort not very long ago. The reflections on things in general that flowed constantly from that man's lips for the s.p.a.ce of about a fortnight were incredible to those who knew him well. They were so calmly philosophic--so pleasantly ironical, without a tinge of bitterness--so frequently relieved by the flashes of keen humor--that to listen to them (the weather being intensely hot) was soothing and refreshing in the extreme. Every body was sorry when he was consoled; for, since that time he has never made an observation worth recording. She was a very clever woman who reduced our friend to this abnormal state, though she grossly maltreated him; and, from close a.s.sociation, some of her conversational talent, perhaps insensibly, had got into his const.i.tution; but it could not thrive in such an uncongenial soil, where there was nothing to nourish it. Some men, again, take the reckless and boisterous line, plunging for a while into all sorts of demoralization, with an evident contentment in having a fair excuse for the same in their disappointment. Certainly it is rather a luxurious state of things--to satisfy one's vengeance while gratifying one's appet.i.tes--and to know that people are saying all the time, "Poor Charlie! He's very much to be pitied. It's entirely f.a.n.n.y Grey's fault.

He is dreadfully altered since she behaved to him so shamefully."

Others--probably the majority--go for complete indifference, and succeed creditably on the whole. A few, _very_ few, know that their happiness has got its death-wound, and are able to take it bravely and silently.

It is of one of these last we are speaking.

Mark Waring was too honest to affect insensibility; he was not of the stuff out of which accomplished actors are made. He walked quickly to the window, that his face might not betray him, and did not turn round till he thought he had disciplined it thoroughly. It was but a half victory after all; for when Cecil met his eyes her cheek became the paler of the two. She read there enough to make her wish that she could give up all her former triumphs, and undo this last success. She tried to tell him that she was deeply grieved and repentant; but the words would not come. Mark forgot his own sorrow when he saw large drops hanging ready to fall on the dark, long eyelashes.

"Pray do not distress yourself," he said, quite steadily; "such presumption as mine deserves harsher treatment than it has met with from you. You are not answerable for my extravagant self-delusions. I would ask you to forgive me for having been so precipitate--only I know, now, that if I had waited seven years your answer would have been the same.

Let us part in kindness; it will be very long before we meet again; but I do not think I shall forget you; and I hope you will remember me if you ever want a hand or head to carry out any one of your wishes or whims. It would make me very happy if I could so serve you. Now, good-by. It is only going this afternoon instead of to-morrow. I must try and make up for lost time, too, by working a little harder."

The smile that accompanied those last words haunted Cecil for many, many days. She knew already enough of Waring to be certain that he would never sink into maudlin sentimentality; it saddened her inexpressibly to fancy him alone in his gloomy chambers, when the night was waning, chained to those crabbed law-papers from a dreary sense of duty, but without a hope or an interest to cheer him on; he had given up ambition long ago. (There are many clocks that keep time to a second, when their striking part is ruined utterly.) She felt angry, then and afterward, that she could find no words to say the least appropriate or expressive; she held out her hand timidly, pleading for forgiveness with her eyes.

He just touched it with his lips before he let it go. That kiss of peace was a more precious tribute than any of her hundred va.s.sals had offered to the proud Tresilyan. So they parted.

Cecil's conscience was disagreeably uncompromising, and for a long time, declined to admit any valid excuse for the mischief she had done; but time and change are efficient anodynes; and her penance was nearly completed when she came to Dorade. Of late, however, the reproachful vision had presented itself oftener than ever. She realized more completely the pain that Mark Waring must have endured, as she guessed what would be the bitterness of her own feelings, if it should prove that she had mistaken Royston Keene. That sorrowful memory seemed to rise before her like a warning spectre, waving her back from the path she had begun to tread. Truly, Cecil Tresilyan _was_ different from the generality of her s.e.x; or, when her own heart was sorely imperiled, she would never have found time to think so often, and so regretfully, of one that she had broken. But, when a woman has once determined to set her whole fortunes on the turn of a die, where is the monitor that will teach her prudence or self-restraint? She will hardly be persuaded "though one rose from the dead."

CHAPTER XV.

Royston Keene had indeed good reason to augur ill of the ending of his love-dream; but it was in his nature always to walk straight on to the accomplishment of his purpose, overlooking the obstacles that lay between and the dangers that lay beyond. This partly accounted for his utter insensibility to ordinary inconveniences and annoyances. His own words to Molyneux one day, when the latter remarked on this peculiarity, though somewhat allegorical, expressed his theory and practice fairly: "Hal, when we are traveling, we always remember where we change our large notes; but life is not long enough to recollect how the thalers and piastres go." His companion thought this rather a brilliant ill.u.s.tration, especially as it squared with his own ideas of existence.

But in reality, between the two men there was a marked distinction. A genial kindliness in the one, and a hard unscrupulous determination in the other, worked out nearly the same results.

Royston liked Cecil Tresilyan better than any woman he had ever seen, and he made up his mind to win her. It is more than doubtful if he took the probable consequences to either into consideration at all. Foot by foot he was gaining ground till he felt almost sure of success; but this confidence never made him for an instant less vigilant in watching the chances, less careful in scoring every point of the game. He had played it long enough to know these right well.

Yet to him, too, the Past brought its warning. He was rarely troubled or favored with dreams; but one night was an exception to the rule. To understand it you must look back once more, and bear with me while we moralize yet again. _Excusez du peu._