Evan Harrington. Complete
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Mrs. Shorne spoke for her neighbour: ‘Mr. Farnley’s cousin was the steward of Sir Abraham Harrington’s estates.’
The Countess held up her head boldly. There is a courageous exaltation of the nerves known to heroes and great generals in action when they feel sure that resources within themselves will spring up to the emergency, and that over simple mortals success is positive.
‘I had a great respect for Sir Abraham,’ Mr. Farnley explained, ‘very great. I heard that this lady’ (bowing to the Countess) ‘was his daughter.’
Lady Jocelyn’s face wore an angry look, and Mrs. Shorne gave her the shade of a shrug and an expression implying, ‘I didn’t!’
Evan was talking to Miss Jenny Graine at the moment rather earnestly. With a rapid glance at him, to see that his ears were closed, the Countess breathed:
‘Not the elder branch!—Cadet!’
The sort of noisy silence produced by half-a-dozen people respirating deeply and moving in their seats was heard. The Countess watched Mr. Farnley’s mystified look, and whispered to Sir John: ‘Est-ce qu’il comprenne le Francais, lui?’
It was the final feather-like touch to her triumph. She saw safety and a clear escape, and much joyful gain, and the pleasure of relating her sufferings in days to come. This vista was before her when, harsh as an execution bell, telling her that she had vanquished man, but that Providence opposed her, ‘Mrs. Melchisedec Harrington!’ was announced to Lady Jocelyn.
Perfect stillness reigned immediately, as if the pic-nic had heard its doom.
‘Oh! I will go to her,’ said her ladyship, whose first thought was to spare the family. ‘Andrew, come and give me your arm.’
But when she rose Mrs. Mel was no more than the length of an arm from her elbow.
In the midst of the horrible anguish she was enduring, the Countess could not help criticizing her mother’s curtsey to Lady Jocelyn. Fine, but a shade too humble. Still it was fine; all might not yet be lost.
‘Mama!’ she softly exclaimed, and thanked heaven that she had not denied her parent.
Mrs. Mel did not notice her or any of her children. There was in her bosom a terrible determination to cast a devil out of the one she best loved. For this purpose, heedless of all pain to be given, or of impropriety, she had come to speak publicly, and disgrace and humiliate, that she might save him from the devils that had ruined his father.
‘My lady,’ said the terrible woman, thanking her in reply to an invitation that she should be seated, ‘I have come for my son. I hear he has been playing the lord in your house, my lady. I humbly thank your ladyship for your kindness to him, but he is nothing more than a tailor’s son, and is bound a tailor himself that his father may be called an honest man. I am come to take him away.’
Mrs. Mel seemed to speak without much effort, though the pale flush of her cheeks showed that she felt what she was doing. Juliana was pale as death, watching Rose. Intensely bright with the gem-like light of her gallant spirit, Rose’s eyes fixed on Evan. He met them. The words of Ruth passed through his heart. But the Countess, who had given Rose to Evan, and the Duke to Caroline, where was her supporter? The Duke was entertaining Caroline with no less dexterity, and Rose’s eyes said to Evan: ‘Feel no shame that I do not feel!’ but the Countess stood alone. It is ever thus with genius! to quote the numerous illustrious authors who have written of it.
What mattered it now that in the dead hush Lady Jocelyn should assure her mother that she had been misinformed, and that Mrs. Mel was presently quieted, and made to sit with others before the fruits and wines? All eyes were hateful—the very thought of Providence confused her brain. Almost reduced to imbecility, the Countess imagined, as a reality, that Sir Abraham had borne with her till her public announcement of relationship, and that then the outraged ghost would no longer be restrained, and had struck this blow.
The crushed pic-nic tried to get a little air, and made attempts at conversation. Mrs. Mel sat upon the company with the weight of all tailordom.
And now a messenger came for Harry. Everybody was so zealously employed in the struggle to appear comfortable under Mrs. Mel, that his departure was hardly observed. The general feeling for Evan and his sisters, by their superiors in rank, was one of kindly pity. Laxley, however, did not behave well. He put up his glass and scrutinized Mrs. Mel, and then examined Evan, and Rose thought that in his interchange of glances with any one there was a lurking revival of the scene gone by. She signalled with her eyebrows for Drummond to correct him, but Drummond had another occupation. Andrew made the diversion. He whispered to his neighbour, and the whisper went round, and the laugh; and Mr. Raikes grew extremely uneasy in his seat, and betrayed an extraordinary alarm. But he also was soon relieved. A messenger had come from Harry to Mrs. Evremonde, bearing a slip of paper. This the lady glanced at, and handed it to Drummond. A straggling pencil had traced these words:
‘Just running by S.W. gates—saw the Captain coming in—couldn’t stop to stop him—tremendous hurry—important. Harry J.’
Drummond sent the paper to Lady Jocelyn. After her perusal of it a scout was despatched to the summit of Olympus, and his report proclaimed the advance in the direction of the Bull-dogs of a smart little figure of a man in white hat and white trousers, who kept flicking his legs with a cane.
Mrs. Evremonde rose and conferred with her ladyship an instant, and then Drummond took her arm quietly, and passed round Olympus to the East, and Lady Jocelyn broke up the sitting.
Juliana saw Rose go up to Evan, and make him introduce her to his mother. She turned lividly white, and went to a corner of the park by herself, and cried bitterly.
Lady Jocelyn, Sir Franks, and Sir John, remained by the tables, but before the guests were out of ear-shot, the individual signalled from Olympus presented himself.
‘There are times when one can’t see what else to do but to lie,’ said her ladyship to Sir Franks, ‘and when we do lie the only way is to lie intrepidly.’
Turning from her perplexed husband, she exclaimed:
‘Ah! Lawson?’
Captain Evremonde lifted his hat, declining an intimacy.
‘Where is my wife, madam?’
‘Have you just come from the Arctic Regions?’
‘I have come for my wife, madam!’
His unsettled grey eyes wandered restlessly on Lady Jocelyn’s face. The Countess standing near the Duke, felt some pity for the wife of that cropped-headed, tight-skinned lunatic at large, but deeper was the Countess’s pity for Lady Jocelyn, in thinking of the account she would have to render on the Day of Judgement, when she heard her ladyship reply—
‘Evelyn is not here.’
Captain Evremonde bowed profoundly, trailing his broad white hat along the sward.
‘Do me the favour to read this, madam,’ he said, and handed a letter to her.
Lady Jocelyn raised her brows as she gathered the contents of the letter.
‘Ferdinand’s handwriting!’ she exclaimed.
‘I accuse no one, madam,—I make no accusation. I have every respect for you, madam,—you have my esteem. I am sorry to intrude, madam, an intrusion is regretted. My wife runs away from her bed, madam, and I have the law, madam, the law is with the husband. No force!’ He lashed his cane sharply against his white legs. ‘The law, madam. No brute force!’ His cane made a furious whirl, cracking again on his legs, as he reiterated, ‘The law!’
‘Does the law advise you to strike at a tangent all over the country in search for her?’ inquired Lady Jocelyn.
Captain Evremonde became ten times more voluble and excited.
Mrs. Mel was heard by the Countess to say: ‘Her ladyship does not know how to treat madmen.’
Nor did Sir Franks and Sir John. They began expostulating with him.
‘A madman gets madder when you talk reason to him,’ said Mrs. Mel.
And now the Countess stepped forward to Lady Jocelyn, and hoped she would not be thought impertinent in offering her opinion as to how this frantic person should be treated. The case indeed looked urgent. Many gentlemen considered themselves bound to approach and be ready in case of need. Presently the Countess passed between Sir Franks and Sir John, and with her hand put up, as if she feared the furious cane, said:
‘You will not strike me?’
‘Strike a lady, madam?’ The cane and hat were simultaneously lowered.
‘Lady Jocelyn permits me to fetch for you a gentleman of the law. Or will you accompany me to him?’
In a moment, Captain Evremonde’s manners were subdued and civilized, and in perfectly sane speech he thanked the Countess and offered her his arm. The Countess smilingly waved back Sir John, who motioned to attend on her, and away she went with the Captain, with all the glow of a woman who feels that she is heaping coals of fire on the heads of her enemies.
Was she not admired now?
‘Upon my honour,’ said Lady Jocelyn, ‘they are a remarkable family,’ meaning the Harringtons.
What farther she thought she did not say, but she was a woman who looked to natural gifts more than the gifts of accidents; and Evan’s chance stood high with her then. So the battle of the Bull-dogs was fought, and cruelly as the Countess had been assailed and wounded, she gained a victory; yea, though Demogorgon, aided by the vindictive ghost of Sir Abraham, took tangible shape in the ranks opposed to her. True, Lady Jocelyn, forgetting her own recent intrepidity, condemned her as a liar; but the fruits of the Countess’s victory were plentiful. Drummond Forth, fearful perhaps of exciting unjust suspicions in the mind of Captain Evremonde, disappeared altogether. Harry was in a mess which threw him almost upon Evan’s mercy, as will be related. And, lastly, Ferdinand Laxley, that insufferable young aristocrat, was thus spoken to by Lady Jocelyn.
‘This ‘letter addressed to Lawson, telling him that his wife is here, is in your handwriting, Ferdinand. I don’t say you wrote it—I don’t think you could have written it. But, to tell you the truth, I have an unpleasant impression about it, and I think we had better shake hands and not see each other for some time.’
Laxley, after one denial of his guilt, disdained to repeat it. He met her ladyship’s hand haughtily, and, bowing to Sir Franks, turned on his heel.
So, then, in glorious complete victory, the battle of the Bull-dogs ended!
Of the close of the pic-nic more remains to be told.
For the present I pause, in observance of those rules which demand that after an exhibition of consummate deeds, time be given to the spectator to digest what has passed before him.
CHAPTER XXXII. IN WHICH EVANS LIGHT BEGINS TO TWINKLE AGAIN
The dowagers were now firmly planted on Olympus. Along the grass lay the warm strong colours of the evening sun, reddening the pine-stems and yellowing the idle aspen-leaves. For a moment it had hung in doubt whether the pic-nic could survive the two rude shocks it had received. Happily the youthful element was large, and when the band, refreshed by chicken and sherry, threw off half-a-dozen bars of one of those irresistible waltzes that first catch the ear, and then curl round the heart, till on a sudden they invade and will have the legs, a rush up Parnassus was seen, and there were shouts and laughter and commotion, as over other great fields of battle the corn will wave gaily and mark the reestablishment of nature’s reign.
How fair the sight! Approach the twirling couples. They talk as they whirl. ‘Fancy the run-away tailor!’ is the male’s remark, and he expects to be admired for it, and is.
‘That make-up Countess—his sister, you know—didn’t you see her? she turned green,’ says Creation’s second effort, almost occupying the place of a rib.
‘Isn’t there a run-away wife, too?’
‘Now, you mustn’t be naughty!’
They laugh and flatter one another. The power to give and take flattery to any amount is the rare treasure of youth.
Undoubtedly they are a poetical picture; but some poetical pictures talk dreary prose; so we will retire.
Now, while the dancers carried on their business, and distance lent them enchantment, Rose stood by Juliana, near an alder which hid them from the rest.
‘I don’t accuse you,’ she was saying; ‘but who could have done this but you? Ah, Juley! you will never get what you want if you plot for it. I thought once you cared for Evan. If he had loved you, would I not have done all that I could for you both? I pardon you with all my heart.’
‘Keep your pardon!’ was the angry answer. ‘I have done more for you, Rose. He is an adventurer, and I have tried to open your eyes and make you respect your family. You may accuse me of what you like, I have my conscience.’
‘And the friendship of the Countess,’ added Rose.
Juliana’s figure shook as if she had been stung.
‘Go and be happy—don’t stay here and taunt me,’ she said, with a ghastly look. ‘I suppose he can lie like his sister, and has told you all sorts of tales.’
‘Not a word—not a word!’ cried Rose. ‘Do you think my lover could tell a lie?’
The superb assumption of the girl, and the true portrait of Evan’s character which it flashed upon Juliana, were to the latter such intense pain, that she turned like one on the rack, exclaiming:
‘You think so much of him? You are so proud of him? Then, yes! I love him too, ugly, beastly as I am to look at! Oh, I know what you think! I loved him from the first, and I knew all about him, and spared him pain. I did not wait for him to fall from a horse. I watched every chance of his being exposed. I let them imagine he cared for me. Drummond would have told what he knew long before—only he knew there would not be much harm in a tradesman’s son marrying me. And I have played into your hands, and now you taunt me!’
Rose remembered her fretful unkindness to Evan on the subject of his birth, when her feelings toward him were less warm. Dwelling on that alone, she put her arms round Juliana’s stiffening figure, and said: ‘I dare say I am much more selfish than you. Forgive me, dear.’
Staring at her, Juliana replied, ‘Now you are acting.’
‘No,’ said Rose, with a little effort to fondle her; ‘I only feel that I love you better for loving him.’
Generous as her words sounded, and were, Juliana intuitively struck to the root of them, which was comfortless. For how calm in its fortune, how strong in its love, must Rose’s heart be, when she could speak in this unwonted way!
‘Go, and leave me, pray,’ she said.
Rose kissed her burning cheek. ‘I will do as you wish, dear. Try and know me better, and be sister Juley as you used to be. I know I am thoughtless, and horribly vain and disagreeable sometimes. Do forgive me. I will love you truly.’
Half melting, Juliana pressed her hand.
‘We are friends?’ said Rose. ‘Good-bye’; and her countenance lighted, and she moved away, so changed by her happiness! Juliana was jealous of a love strong as she deemed her own to overcome obstacles. She called to her: ‘Rose! Rose, you will not take advantage of what I have told you, and repeat it to any one?’
Instantly Rose turned with a glance of full contempt over her shoulder.
‘To whom?’ she asked.
‘To any one.’
‘To him? He would not love me long if I did!’
Juliana burst into fresh tears, but Rose walked into the sunbeams and the circle of the music.
Mounting Olympus, she inquired whether Ferdinand was within hail, as they were pledged to dance the first dance together. A few hints were given, and then Rose learnt that Ferdinand had been dismissed.
‘And where is he?’ she cried with her accustomed impetuosity. ‘Mama!—of course you did not accuse him—but, Mama! could you possibly let him go with the suspicion that you thought him guilty of writing an anonymous letter?’
‘Not at all,’ Lady Jocelyn replied. ‘Only the handwriting was so extremely like, and he was the only person who knew the address and the circumstances, and who could have a motive—though I don’t quite see what it is—I thought it as well to part for a time.’
‘But that’s sophistry!’ said Rose. ‘You accuse or you exonerate. Nobody can be half guilty. If you do not hold him innocent you are unjust!’ Lady Jocelyn rejoined: ‘Yes? It’s singular what a stock of axioms young people have handy for their occasions.’
Rose loudly announced that she would right this matter.
‘I can’t think where Rose gets her passion for hot water,’ said her mother, as Rose ran down the ledge.
Two or three young gentlemen tried to engage her for a dance. She gave them plenty of promises, and hurried on till she met Evan, and, almost out of breath, told him the shameful injustice that had been done to her friend.
‘Mama is such an Epicurean! I really think she is worse than Papa. This disgraceful letter looks like Ferdinand’s writing, and she tells him so; and, Evan! will you believe that instead of being certain it’s impossible any gentleman could do such a thing, she tells Ferdinand she shall feel more comfortable if she doesn’t see him for some time? Poor Ferdinand! He has had so much to bear!’
Too sure of his darling to be envious now of any man she pitied, Evan said, ‘I would forfeit my hand on his innocence!’
‘And so would I,’ echoed Rose. ‘Come to him with me, dear. Or no,’ she added, with a little womanly discretion, ‘perhaps it would not be so well—you’re not very much cast down by what happened at dinner?’
‘My darling! I think of you.’
‘Of me, dear? Concealment is never of any service. What there is to be known people may as well know at once. They’ll gossip for a month, and then forget it. Your mother is dreadfully outspoken, certainly; but she has better manners than many ladies—I mean people in a position: you understand me? But suppose, dear, this had happened, and I had said nothing to Mama, and then we had to confess? Ah, you’ll find I’m wiser than you imagine, Mr. Evan.’
‘Haven’t I submitted to somebody’s lead?’
‘Yes, but with a sort of “under protest.” I saw it by the mouth. Not quite natural. You have been moody ever since—just a little. I suppose it’s our manly pride. But I’m losing time. Will you promise me not to brood over that occurrence? Think of me. Think everything of me. I am yours; and, dearest, if I love you, need you care what anybody else thinks? We will soon change their opinion.’
‘I care so little,’ said Evan, somewhat untruthfully, ‘that till you return I shall go and sit with my mother.’
‘Oh, she has gone. She made her dear old antiquated curtsey to Mama and the company. “If my son has not been guilty of deception, I will leave him to your good pleasure, my lady.” That’s what she said. Mama likes her, I know. But I wish she didn’t mouth her words so precisely: it reminds me of—’ the Countess, Rose checked herself from saying. ‘Good-bye. Thank heaven! the worst has happened. Do you know what I should do if I were you, and felt at all distressed? I should keep repeating,’ Rose looked archly and deeply up under his eyelids, “‘I am the son of a tradesman, and Rose loves me,” over and over, and then, if you feel ashamed, what is it of?’
She nodded adieu, laughing at her own idea of her great worth; an idea very firmly fixed in her fair bosom, notwithstanding. Mrs. Melville said of her, ‘I used to think she had pride.’ Lady Jocelyn answered, ‘So she has. The misfortune is that it has taken the wrong turning.’
Evan watched the figure that was to him as that of an angel—no less! She spoke so frankly to them as she passed: or here and there went on with a light laugh. It seemed an act of graciousness that she should open her mouth to one! And, indeed, by virtue of a pride which raised her to the level of what she thought it well to do, Rose was veritably on higher ground than any present. She no longer envied her friend Jenny, who, emerging from the shades, allured by the waltz, dislinked herself from William’s arm, and whispered exclamations of sorrow at the scene created by Mr. Harrington’s mother. Rose patted her hand, and said: ‘Thank you, Jenny dear but don’t be sorry. I’m glad. It prevents a number of private explanations.’
‘Still, dear!’ Jenny suggested.
‘Oh! of course, I should like to lay my whip across the shoulders of the person who arranged the conspiracy,’ said Rose. ‘And afterwards I don’t mind returning thanks to him, or her, or them.’
William cried out, ‘I ‘m always on your side, Rose.’
‘And I’ll be Jenny’s bridesmaid,’ rejoined Rose, stepping blithely away from them.
Evan debated whither to turn when Rose was lost to his eyes. He had no heart for dancing. Presently a servant approached, and said that Mr. Harry particularly desired to see him. From Harry’s looks at table, Evan judged that the interview was not likely to be amicable. He asked the direction he was to take, and setting out with long strides, came in sight of Raikes, who walked in gloom, and was evidently labouring under one of his mountains of melancholy. He affected to be quite out of the world; but finding that Evan took the hint in his usual prosy manner, was reduced to call after him, and finally to run and catch him.
‘Haven’t you one single spark of curiosity?’ he began.
‘What about?’ said Evan.
‘Why, about my amazing luck! You haven’t asked a question. A matter of course.’
Evan complimented him by asking a question: saying that Jack’s luck certainly was wonderful.
‘Wonderful, you call it,’ said Jack, witheringly. ‘And what’s more wonderful is, that I’d give up all for quiet quarters in the Green Dragon. I knew I was prophetic. I knew I should regret that peaceful hostelry. Diocletian, if you like. I beg you to listen. I can’t walk so fast without danger.’
‘Well, speak out, man. What’s the matter with you?’ cried Evan, impatiently.
Jack shook his head: ‘I see a total absence of sympathy,’ he remarked. ‘I can’t.’
‘Then stand out of the way.’
Jack let him pass, exclaiming, with cold irony, ‘I will pay homage to a loftier Nine!’
Mr. Raikes could not in his soul imagine that Evan was really so little inquisitive concerning a business of such importance as the trouble that possessed him. He watched his friend striding off, incredulously, and then commenced running in pursuit.
‘Harrington, I give in; I surrender; you reduce me to prose. Thy nine have conquered my nine!—pardon me, old fellow. I’m immensely upset. This is the first day in my life that I ever felt what indigestion is. Egad, I’ve got something to derange the best digestion going!
‘Look here, Harrington. What happened to you today, I declare I think nothing of. You owe me your assistance, you do, indeed; for if it hadn’t been for the fearful fascinations of your sister—that divine Countess—I should have been engaged to somebody by this time, and profited by the opportunity held out to me, and which is now gone. I ‘m disgraced. I ‘m known. And the worst of it is, I must face people. I daren’t turn tail. Did you ever hear of such a dilemma?’
‘Ay,’ quoth Evan, ‘what is it?’
Raikes turned pale. ‘Then you haven’t heard of it?’ ‘Not a word.’
‘Then it’s all for me to tell. I called on Messrs. Grist. I dined at the Aurora afterwards. Depend upon it, Harrington, we’re led by a star. I mean, fellows with anything in them are. I recognized our Fallow field host, and thinking to draw him out, I told our mutual histories. Next day I went to these Messrs. Grist. They proposed the membership for Fallow field, five hundred a year, and the loan of a curricle, on condition. It ‘s singular, Harrington; before anybody knew of the condition I didn’t care about it a bit. It seemed to me childish. Who would think of minding wearing a tin plate? But now!—the sufferings of Orestes—what are they to mine? He wasn’t tied to his Furies. They did hover a little above him; but as for me, I’m scorched; and I mustn’t say where: my mouth is locked; the social laws which forbid the employment of obsolete words arrest my exclamations of despair. What do you advise?’
Evan stared a moment at the wretched object, whose dream of meeting a beneficent old gentleman had brought him to be the sport of a cynical farceur. He had shivers on his own account, seeing something of himself magnified, and he loathed the fellow, only to feel more acutely what a stigma may be.
‘It ‘s a case I can’t advise in,’ he said, as gently as he could. ‘I should be off the grounds in a hurry.’
‘And then I’m where I was before I met the horrid old brute!’ Raikes moaned.