_ BOOK IV CHAPTER X
OBSCURIS vera involvens.*--VIRGIL.
* "Wrapping truth in obscurity."
A DAY or two after the date of the last chapter, Evelyn and Caroline were riding out with Lord Vargrave and Mr. Merton, and on returning home they passed through the village of Burleigh.
"Maltravers, I suppose, has an eye to the county one of these days," said Lord Vargrave, who honestly fancied that a man's eyes were always directed towards something for his own interest or advancement; "otherwise he could not surely take all this trouble about workhouses and paupers. Who could ever have imagined my romantic friend would sink into a country squire?"
"It is astonishing what talent and energy he throws into everything he attempts," said the parson. "One could not, indeed, have supposed that a man of genius could make a man of business."
"Flattering to your humble servant--whom all the world allow to be the last, and deny to be the first. But your remark shows what a sad possession genius is: like the rest of the world, you fancy that it cannot be of the least possible use. If a man is called a genius, it means that he is to be thrust out of all the good things in this life. He is not fit for anything but a garret! Put a _genius_ into office! make a _genius_ a bishop! or a lord chancellor!--the world would be turned topsy-turvy! You see that you are quite astonished that a genius can be even a county magistrate, and know the difference between a spade and a poker! In fact, a genius is supposed to be the most ignorant, impracticable, good-for-nothing, do-nothing sort of thing that ever walked upon two legs. Well, when I began life I took excellent care that nobody should take _me_ for a genius; and it is only within the last year or two that I ventured to emerge a little out of my shell. I have not been the better for it; I was getting on faster while I was merely a plodder. The world is so fond of that droll fable, the hare and the tortoise,--it really believes because (I suppose the fable to be true!) a tortoise _once_ beat a hare that all tortoises are much better runners than hares possibly can be. Mediocre men have the monopoly of the loaves and fishes; and even when talent does rise in life, it is a talent which only differs from mediocrity by being more energetic and bustling."
"You are bitter, Lord Vargrave," said Caroline, laughing; "yet surely you have had no reason to complain of the non-appreciation of talent?"
"Humph! if I had had a grain more talent I should have been crushed by it. There is a subtle allegory in the story of the lean poet, who put _lead_ in his pocket to prevent being blown away! 'Mais a nos moutons,'--to return to Maltravers. Let us suppose that he was merely clever, had not had a particle of what is called genius, been merely a hardworking able gentleman, of good character and fortune, he might be half-way up the hill by this time; whereas now, what is he? Less before the public than he was at twenty-eight,--a discontented anchorite, a meditative idler."
"No, not that," said Evelyn, warmly, and then checked herself.
Lord Vargrave looked at her sharply; but his knowledge of life told him that Legard was a much more dangerous rival than Maltravers. Now and then, it is true, a suspicion to the contrary crossed him; but it did not take root and become a serious apprehension. Still, he did not quite like the tone of voice in which Evelyn had put her abrupt negative, and said, with a slight sneer,--
"If not that, what is he?"
"One who purchased by the noblest exertions the right to be idle," said Evelyn with spirit; "and whom genius itself will not suffer to be idle long."
"Besides," said Mr. Merton, "he has won a high reputation, which he cannot lose merely by not seeking to increase it."
"Reputation! Oh, yes! we give men like that--men of genius--a large property in the clouds, in order to justify ourselves in pushing them out of our way below. But if they are contented with fame, why, they deserve their fate. Hang fame,--give me power."
"And is there no power in genius?" said Evelyn, with deepening fervour; "no power over the mind, and the heart, and the thought; no power over its own time, over posterity, over nations yet uncivilized, races yet unborn?"
This burst from one so simple and young as Evelyn seemed to Vargrave so surprising that he stared on her without saying a word.
"You will laugh at my championship," she added, with a blush and a smile; "but you provoked the encounter."
"And you have won the battle," said Vargrave, with prompt gallantry. "My charming ward, every day develops in you some new gift of nature!"
Caroline, with a movement of impatience, put her horse into a canter.
Just at this time, from a cross-road, emerged a horseman,--it was Maltravers. The party halted, salutations were exchanged.
"I suppose you have been enjoying the sweet business of squiredom," said Vargrave, gayly: "Atticus and his farm,--classical associations! Charming weather for the agriculturists, eh! What news about corn and barley? I suppose our English habit of talking on the weather arose when we were all a squirearchal farming, George-the-Third kind of people! Weather is really a serious matter to gentlemen who are interested in beans and vetches, wheat and hay. You hang your happiness upon the changes of the moon!"
"As you upon the smiles of a minister. The weather of a court is more capricious than that of the skies,--at least we are better husbandmen than you who sow the wind and reap the whirlwind."
"Well retorted: and really, when I look round, I am half inclined to envy you. Were I not Vargrave, I would be Maltravers."
It was, indeed, a scene that seemed quiet and serene, with the English union of the feudal and the pastoral life,--the village-green, with its trim scattered cottages; the fields and pastures that spread beyond; the turf of the park behind, broken by the shadows of the unequal grounds, with its mounds and hollows and venerable groves, from which rose the turrets of the old Hall, its mullion windows gleaming in the western sun; a scene that preached tranquillity and content, and might have been equally grateful to humble philosophy and hereditary pride.
"I never saw any place so peculiar in its character as Burleigh," said the rector; "the old seats left to us in England are chiefly those of our great nobles. It is so rare to see one that does not aspire beyond the residence of a private gentleman preserve all the relics of the Tudor age."
"I think," said Vargrave, turning to Evelyn, "that as by my uncle's will your fortune is to be laid out in the purchase of land, we could not find a better investment than Burleigh. So, whenever you are inclined to sell, Maltravers, I think we must outbid Doltimore. What say you, my fair ward?"
"Leave Burleigh in peace, I beseech you!" said Maltravers, angrily.
"That is said like a Digby," returned Vargrave. "_Allons_!--will you not come home with us?"
"I thank you,--not to-day."
"We meet at Lord Raby's next Thursday. It is a ball given almost wholly in honour of your return to Burleigh; we are all going,--it is my young cousin's _debut_ at Knaresdean. We have all an interest in her conquests."
Now, as Maltravers looked up to answer, he caught Evelyn's glance, and his voice faltered.
"Yes," he said, "we shall meet--once again. Adieu!" He wheeled round his horse, and they separated.
"I can bear this no more," said Maltravers to himself; "I overrated my strength. To see her thus, day after day, and to know her another's, to writhe beneath his calm, unconscious assertion of his rights! Happy Vargrave!--and yet, ah! will _she_ be happy? Oh, could I think so!"
Thus soliloquizing, he suffered the rein to fall on the neck of his horse, which paced slowly home through the village, till it stopped--as if in the mechanism of custom--at the door of a cottage a stone's throw from the lodge. At this door, indeed, for several successive days, had Maltravers stopped regularly; it was now tenanted by the poor woman his introduction to whom has been before narrated. She had recovered from the immediate effects of the injury she had sustained; but her constitution, greatly broken by previous suffering and exhaustion, had received a mortal shock. She was hurt inwardly; and the surgeon informed Maltravers that she had not many months to live. He had placed her under the roof of one of his favourite cottagers, where she received all the assistance and alleviation that careful nursing and medical advice could give her.
This poor woman, whose name was Sarah Elton, interested Maltravers much. She had known better days: there was a certain propriety in her expressions which denoted an education superior to her circumstances; and what touched Maltravers most, she seemed far more to feel her husband's death than her own sufferings,--which, somehow or other, is not common with widows the other side of forty! We say that youth easily consoles itself for the robberies of the grave,--middle age is a still better self-comforter. When Mrs. Elton found herself installed in the cottage, she looked round, and burst into tears.
"And William is not here!" she said. "Friends--friends! if we had had but one such friend before he died!"
Maltravers was pleased that her first thought was rather that of sorrow for the dead than of gratitude for the living. Yet Mrs. Elton was grateful,--simply, honestly, deeply grateful; her manner, her voice, betokened it. And she seemed so glad when her benefactor called to speak kindly and inquire cordially, that Maltravers did so constantly; at first from a compassionate and at last from a selfish motive--for who is not pleased to give pleasure? And Maltravers had so few in the world to care for him, that perhaps he was flattered by the grateful respect of this humble stranger.
When his horse stopped, the cottager's daughter opened the door and courtesied,--it was an invitation to enter; and he threw his rein over the paling and walked into the cottage.
Mrs. Elton, who had been seated by the open casement, rose to receive him. But Maltravers made her sit down, and soon put her at her ease. The woman and her daughter who occupied the cottage retired into the garden, and Mrs. Elton, watching them withdraw, then exclaimed abruptly,--
"Oh, sir, I have so longed to see you this morning! I so long to make bold to ask you whether, indeed, I dreamed it--or did I, when you first took me to your house--did I see--" She stopped abruptly; and though she strove to suppress her emotion, it was too strong for her efforts,--she sank back on her chair, pale as death, and almost gasped for breath.
Maltravers waited in surprise for her recovery.
"I beg pardon, sir,--I was thinking of days long past; and--but I wished to ask whether, when I lay in your hall, almost insensible, any one besides yourself and your servants were present?---or was it"--added the woman, with a shudder--"was it the dead?"
"I remember," said Maltravers, much struck and interested in her question and manner, "that a lady was present."
"It is so! it is so!" cried the woman, half rising and clasping her hands. "And she passed by this cottage a little time ago; her veil was thrown aside as she turned that fair young face towards the cottage. Her name, sir,--oh, what is her name? It was the same--the same face that shone across me in that hour of pain! I did not dream! I was not mad!"
"Compose yourself; you could never, I think, have seen that lady before. Her name is Cameron."
"Cameron--Cameron!" The woman shook her head mournfully. "No; that name is strange to me. And her mother, sir,--she is dead?"
"No; her mother lives."
A shade came over the face of the sufferer; and she said, after a pause,--
"My eyes deceive me then, sir; and, indeed, I feel that my head is touched, and I wander sometimes. But the likeness was so great; yet that young lady is even lovelier!"
"Likenesses are very deceitful and very capricious, and depend more on fancy than reality. One person discovers a likeness between faces most dissimilar,--a likeness invisible to others. But who does Miss Cameron resemble?"
"One now dead, sir; dead many years ago. But it is a long story, and one that lies heavy on my conscience. Some day or other, if you will give me leave, sir, I will unburden myself to you."
"If I can assist you in anyway, command me. Meanwhile, have you no friends, no relations, no children, whom you would wish to see?"
"Children!--no, sir; I never had but one child of _my own_ (she laid an emphasis on the last words), and that died in a foreign land."
"And no other relatives?"
"None, sir. My history is very short and simple. I was well brought up,--an only child. My father was a small farmer; he died when I was sixteen, and I went into service with a kind old lady and her daughter, who treated me more as a companion than a servant. I was a vain, giddy girl, then, sir. A young man, the son of a neighbouring farmer, courted me, and I was much attached to him; but neither of us had money, and his parents would not give their consent to our marrying. I was silly enough to think that, if William loved me, he should have braved all; and his prudence mortified me, so I married another whom I did not love. I was rightly punished, for he ill-used me and took to drinking; I returned to my old service to escape from him--for I was with child, and my life was in danger from his violence. He died suddenly, and in debt. And then, afterwards, a gentleman--a rich gentleman--to whom I rendered a service (do not misunderstand me, sir, if I say the service was one of which I repent), gave me money, and made me rich enough to marry my first lover; and William and I went to America. We lived many years in New York upon our little fortune comfortably; and I was a long while happy, for I had always loved William dearly. My first affliction was the death of my child by my first husband; but I was soon roused from my grief. William schemed and speculated, as everybody does in America, and so we lost all; and William was weakly and could not work. At length he got the place of steward on board a vessel from New York to Liverpool, and I was taken to assist in the cabin. We wanted to come to London; I thought my old benefactor might do something for us, though he had never answered the letters I sent to him. But poor William fell ill on board, and died in sight of land."
Mrs. Elton wept bitterly, but with the subdued grief of one to whom tears have been familiar; and when she recovered, she soon brought her humble tale to an end. She herself, incapacitated from all work by sorrow and a breaking constitution, was left in the streets of Liverpool without other means of subsistence than the charitable contributions of the passengers and sailors on board the vessel. With this sum she had gone to London, where she found her old patron had been long since dead, and she had no claims on his family. She had, on quitting England, left one relation settled in a town in the North; thither she now repaired, to find her last hope wrecked; the relation also was dead and gone. Her money was now spent, and she had begged her way along the road, or through the lanes, she scarce knew whither, till the accident which, in shortening her life, had raised up a friend for its close.
"And such, sir," said she in conclusion, "such has been the story of my life, except one part of it, which, if I get stronger, I can tell better; but you will excuse that now."
"And are you comfortable and contented, my poor friend? These people are kind to you?"
"Oh, so kind! And every night we all pray for you, sir; you ought to be happy, if the blessings of the poor can avail the rich."
Maltravers remounted his horse, and sought his home; and his heart was lighter than before he entered that cottage. But at evening Cleveland talked of Vargrave and Evelyn, and the good fortune of the one, and the charms of the other; and the wound, so well concealed, bled afresh.
"I heard from De Montaigne the other day," said Ernest, just as they were retiring for the night, "and his letter decides my movements. If you will accept me, then, as a travelling companion, I will go with you to Paris. Have you made up your mind to leave Burleigh on Saturday?"
"Yes; that gives us a day to recover from Lord Raby's ball. I am so delighted at your offer! We need only stay a day or so in town. The excursion will do you good,---your spirits, my dear Ernest, seem more dejected than when you first returned to England: you live too much alone here; you will enjoy Burleigh more on your return. And perhaps then you will open the old house a little more to the neighbourhood, and to your friends. They expect it: you are looked to for the county."
"I have done with politics, and sicken but for peace."
"Pick up a wife in Paris, and you will then know that peace is an impossible possession," said the old bachelor, laughing. _