Evan Harrington, Complete

G >> George Meredith >> Evan Harrington, Complete

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Evan replied quietly: 'She is a stranger to me; and if you could see her,
sir, and know her situation, I think she would move your pity.'

'I don't doubt it, sir--I don't doubt it,' returned the chairman. 'They
all move our pity. That's how they get over us. She has diddled you, and
she would diddle me, and diddle us all-diddle the devil, I dare say, when
her time comes. I don't doubt it, sir.'

To confront a vehement old gentleman, sitting as president in an assembly
of satellites, requires command of countenance, and Evan was not
browbeaten: he held him, and the whole room, from where he stood, under a
serene and serious eye, for his feelings were too deeply stirred on
behalf of the girl to let him think of himself. That question of hers,
'What are you going to do with me?' implying such helplessness and trust,
was still sharp on his nerves.

'Gentlemen,' he said, 'I humbly beg your pardon for disturbing you as I
do.'

But with a sudden idea that a general address on behalf of a particular
demand must necessarily fail, he let his eyes rest on one there, whose
face was neither stupid nor repellent, and who, though he did not look
up, had an attentive, thoughtful cast about the mouth.

'May I entreat a word apart with you, sir?'

Evan was not mistaken in the index he had perused. The gentleman seemed
to feel that he was selected from the company, and slightly raising his
head, carelessly replied: 'My bed is entirely at your disposal,' resuming
his contemplative pose.

On the point of thanking him, Evan advanced a step, when up started the
irascible chairman.

'I don't permit it! I won't allow it!' And before Evan could ask his
reasons, he had rung the bell, muttering: 'They follow us to our inns,
now, the baggages! They must harry us at our inns! We can't have peace
and quiet at our inns!--'

In a state of combustion, he cried out to the waiter:

'Here, Mark, this gentleman has brought in a dirty wench: pack her up to
my bed-room, and lock her in lock her in, and bring down the key.'

Agreeably deceived in the old gentleman's intentions, Evan could not
refrain from joining the murmured hilarity created by the conclusion of
his order. The latter glared at him, and added: 'Now, sir, you've done
your worst. Sit down, and be merry.'

Replying that he had a friend outside, and would not fail to accept the
invitation, Evan retired. He was met by the hostess with the reproachful
declaration on her lips, that she was a widow woman, wise in appearances,
and that he had brought into her house that night work she did not
expect, or bargain for. Rather (since I must speak truth of my gentleman)
to silence her on the subject, and save his ears, than to propitiate her
favour towards the girl, Evan drew out his constitutionally lean purse,
and dropped it in her hand, praying her to put every expense incurred to
his charge. She exclaimed:

'If Dr. Pillie has his full sleep this night, I shall be astonished'; and
Evan hastily led Jack into the passage to impart to him, that the extent
of his resources was reduced to the smallest of sums in shillings.

'I can beat my friend at that reckoning,' said Mr. Raikes; and they
entered the room.

Eyes were on him. This had ever the effect of causing him to swell to
monstrous proportions in the histrionic line. Asking the waiter
carelessly for some light supper dish, he suggested the various French,
with 'not that?' and the affable naming of another. 'Nor that? Dear me,
we shall have to sup on chops, I believe!'

Evan saw the chairman scrutinizing Raikes, much as he himself might have
done, and he said: 'Bread and cheese for me.'

Raikes exclaimed: 'Really? Well, my lord, you lead, and your taste is
mine!'

A second waiter scudded past, and stopped before the chairman to say: 'If
you please, sir, the gentlemen upstairs send their compliments, and will
be happy to accept.'

'Ha!' was the answer. 'Thought better of it, have they! Lay for three
more, then. Five more, I guess.' He glanced at the pair of intruders.

Among a portion of the guests there had been a return to common talk, and
one had observed that he could not get that 'Good Evening,' and 'Good
Night,' out of his head which had caused a friend to explain the meaning
of these terms of salutation to him: while another, of a philosophic
turn, pursued the theme: 'You see, when we meets, we makes a night of it.
So, when we parts, it's Good Night--natural! ain't it?' A proposition
assented to, and considerably dilated on; but whether he was laughing at
that, or what had aroused the fit, the chairman did not say.

Gentle chuckles had succeeded his laughter by the time the bread and
cheese appeared.

In the rear of the provision came three young gentlemen, of whom the
foremost lumped in, singing to one behind him, 'And you shall have little
Rosey!'

They were clad in cricketing costume, and exhibited the health and
manners of youthful Englishmen of station. Frolicsome young bulls
bursting on an assemblage of sheep, they might be compared to. The
chairman welcomed them a trifle snubbingly. The colour mounted to the
cheeks of Mr. Raikes as he made incision in the cheese, under their eyes,
knitting his brows fearfully, as if at hard work.

The chairman entreated Evan to desist from the cheese; and, pulling out
his watch, thundered: 'Time!'

The company generally jumped on their legs; and, in the midst of a hum of
talk and laughter, he informed Evan and Jack, that he invited them
cordially to a supper up-stairs, and would be pleased if they would
partake of it, and in a great rage if they would not.

Raikes was for condescending to accept.

Evan sprang up and cried: 'Gladly, sir,' and gladly would he have cast
his cockney schoolmate to the winds, in the presence of these young
cricketers; for he had a prognostication.

The door was open, and the company of jolly yeomen, tradesmen, farmers,
and the like, had become intent on observing all the ceremonies of
precedence: not one would broaden his back on the other; and there was
bowing, and scraping, and grimacing, till Farmer Broadmead was hailed
aloud, and the old boy stepped forth, and was summarily pushed through:
the chairman calling from the rear, 'Hulloa! no names to-night!' to which
was answered lustily: 'All right, Mr. Tom!' and the speaker was reproved
with, 'There you go! at it again!' and out and up they hustled.

The chairman said quietly to Evan, as they were ascending the stairs: 'We
don't have names to-night; may as well drop titles.' Which presented no
peculiar meaning to Evan's mind, and he smiled the usual smile.

To Raikes, at the door of the supper-room, the chairman repeated the
same; and with extreme affability and alacrity of abnegation, the other
rejoined, 'Oh, certainly!'

No wonder that he rubbed his hands with more delight than aristocrats and
people with gentlemanly connections are in the habit of betraying at the
prospect of refection, for the release from bread and cheese was rendered
overpoweringly glorious, in his eyes, by the bountiful contrast exhibited
on the board before him.

CHAPTER XII

IN WHICH ALE IS SHOWN TO HAVE ONE QUALITY OF WINE

To proclaim that yon ribs of beef and yonder ruddy Britons have met, is
to furnish matter for an hour's comfortable meditation.

Digest the fact. Here the Fates have put their seal to something Nature
clearly devised. It was intended; and it has come to pass. A thing has
come to pass which we feel to be right! The machinery of the world, then,
is not entirely dislocated: there is harmony, on one point, among the
mysterious powers who have to do with us.

Apart from its eloquent and consoling philosophy, the picture is
pleasant. You see two rows of shoulders resolutely set for action: heads
in divers degrees of proximity to their plates: eyes variously twinkling,
or hypocritically composed: chaps in vigorous exercise. Now leans a
fellow right back with his whole face to the firmament: Ale is his
adoration. He sighs not till he sees the end of the mug. Now from one a
laugh is sprung; but, as if too early tapped, he turns off the cock, and
primes himself anew. Occupied by their own requirements, these Britons
allow that their neighbours have rights: no cursing at waste of time is
heard when plates have to be passed: disagreeable, it is still duty.
Field-Marshal Duty, the Briton's chief star, shines here. If one usurps
more than his allowance of elbow-room, bring your charge against them
that fashioned him: work away to arrive at some compass yourself.

Now the mustard ceases to travel, and the salt: the guests have leisure
to contemplate their achievements. Laughs are more prolonged, and come
from the depths.

Now Ale, which is to Beef what Eve was to Adam, threatens to take
possession of the field. Happy they who, following Nature's direction,
admitted not bright ale into their Paradise till their manhood was
strengthened with beef. Some, impatient, had thirsted; had satisfied
their thirst; and the ale, the light though lovely spirit, with nothing
to hold it down, had mounted to their heads; just as Eve will do when
Adam is not mature: just as she did--Alas!

Now, the ruins of the feast being removed, and a clear course left for
the flow of ale, Farmer Broadmead, facing the chairman, rises. He stands
in an attitude of midway. He speaks:

'Gentlemen! 'Taint fust time you and I be met here, to salbrate this here
occasion. I say, not fust time, not by many a time, 'taint. Well,
gentlemen, I ain't much of a speaker, gentlemen, as you know. Howsever,
here I be. No denyin' that. I'm on my legs. This here's a strange enough
world, and a man 's a gentleman, I say, we ought for to be glad when we
got 'm. You know: I'm coming to it shortly. I ain't much of a speaker,
and if you wants somethin' new, you must ax elsewhere: but what I say
is--Bang it! here's good health and long life to Mr. Tom, up there!'

'No names!' shouts the chairman, in the midst of a tremendous clatter.

Farmer Broadmead moderately disengages his breadth from the seat. He
humbly axes pardon, which is accorded him with a blunt nod.

Ale (to Beef what Eve was to Adam) circulates beneath a dazzling foam,
fair as the first woman.

Mr. Tom (for the breach of the rules in mentioning whose name on a night
when identities are merged, we offer sincere apologies every other
minute), Mr. Tom is toasted. His parents, who selected that day sixty
years ago, for his bow to be made to the world, are alluded to with
encomiums, and float down to posterity on floods of liquid amber.

But to see all the subtle merits that now begin to bud out from Mr. Tom,
the chairman and giver of the feast; and also rightly to appreciate the
speeches, we require to be enormously charged with Ale. Mr. Raikes did
his best to keep his head above the surface of the rapid flood. He
conceived the chairman in brilliant colours, and probably owing to the
energy called for by his brain, the legs of the young man failed him
twice, as he tried them. Attention was demanded. Mr. Raikes addressed the
meeting.

The three young gentlemen-cricketers had hitherto behaved with a certain
propriety. It did not offend Mr. Raikes to see them conduct themselves as
if they were at a play, and the rest of the company paid actors. He had
likewise taken a position, and had been the first to laugh aloud at a
particular slip of grammar; while his shrugs at the aspirates transposed
and the pronunciation prevalent, had almost established a free-masonry
between him and one of the three young gentlemen-cricketers-a fair-haired
youth, with a handsome, reckless face, who leaned on the table,
humorously eyeing the several speakers, and exchanging by-words and
laughs with his friends on each side of him.

But Mr. Raikes had the disadvantage of having come to the table empty in
stomach--thirsty exceedingly; and, I repeat, that as, without experience,
you are the victim of divinely given Eve, so, with no foundation to
receive it upon, are you the victim of good sound Ale. He very soon lost
his head. He would otherwise have seen that he must produce a
wonderfully-telling speech if he was to keep the position he had taken,
and had better not attempt one. The three young cricketers were hostile
from the beginning. All of them leant forward, calling attention loudly
laughing for the fun to come.

'Gentlemen!' he said: and said it twice. The gap was wide, and he said,
'Gentlemen!' again.

This commencement of a speech proves that you have made the plunge, but
not that you can swim. At a repetition of 'Gentlemen!' expectancy
resolved into cynicism.

'Gie'n a help,' sang out a son of the plough to a neighbour of the
orator.

'Hang it!' murmured another, 'we ain't such gentlemen as that comes to.'

Mr. Raikes was politely requested to 'tune his pipe.'

With a gloomy curiosity as to the results of Jack's adventurous
undertaking, and a touch of anger at the three whose bearing throughout
had displeased him, Evan regarded his friend. He, too, had drunk, and
upon emptiness. Bright ale had mounted to his brain. A hero should be
held as sacred as the Grand Llama: so let no more be said than that he
drank still, nor marked the replenishing of his glass.

Raikes cleared his throat for a final assault: he had got an image, and
was dashing off; but, unhappily, as if to make the start seem fair, he
was guilty of his reiteration, 'Gentlemen.'

Everybody knew that it was a real start this time, and indeed he had made
an advance, and had run straight through half a sentence. It was
therefore manifestly unfair, inimical, contemptuous, overbearing, and
base, for one of the three young cricketers at this period to fling back
weariedly and exclaim: 'By the Lord; too many gentlemen here!'

Evan heard him across the table. Lacking the key of the speaker's
previous conduct, the words might have passed. As it was, they, to the
ale-invaded head of a young hero, feeling himself the world's equal, and
condemned nevertheless to bear through life the insignia of Tailordom,
not unnaturally struck with peculiar offence. There was arrogance, too,
in the young man who had interposed. He was long in the body, and, when
he was not refreshing his sight by a careless contemplation of his
finger-nails, looked down on his company at table, as one may do who
comes from loftier studies. He had what is popularly known as the nose of
our aristocracy: a nose that much culture of the external graces, and
affectation of suavity, are required to soften. Thereto were joined thin
lips and arched brows. Birth it was possible he could boast, hardly
brains. He sat to the right of the fair-haired youth, who, with his
remaining comrade, a quiet smiling fellow, appeared to be better liked by
the guests, and had been hailed once or twice, under correction of the
chairman, as Mr. Harry. The three had distinguished one there by a few
friendly passages; and this was he who had offered his bed to Evan for
the service of the girl. The recognition they extended to him did not
affect him deeply. He was called Drummond, and had his place near the
chairmen, whose humours he seemed to relish.

The ears of Mr. Raikes were less keen at the moment than Evan's, but his
openness to ridicule was that of a man on his legs solus, amid a company
sitting, and his sense of the same--when he saw himself the victim of
it--acute. His face was rather comic, and, under the shadow of
embarrassment, twitching and working for ideas--might excuse a want of
steadiness and absolute gravity in the countenances of others.

The chairman's neighbour, Drummond, whispered him 'Laxley will get up a
row with that fellow.'

'It 's young Jocelyn egging him on,' said the chairman.

'Um!' added Drummond: 'it's the friend of that talkative rascal that 's
dangerous, if it comes to anything.'

Mr. Raikes perceived that his host desired him to conclude. So, lifting
his voice and swinging his arm, he ended: 'Allow me to propose to you the
Fly in Amber. In other words, our excellent host embalmed in brilliant
ale! Drink him! and so let him live in our memories for ever!'

He sat down very well contented with himself, very little comprehended,
and applauded loudly.

'The Flyin' Number!' echoed Farmer Broadmead, confidently and with
clamour; adding to a friend, when both had drunk the toast to the dregs,
'But what number that be, or how many 'tis of 'em, dishes me! But that 's
ne'ther here nor there.'

The chairman and host of the evening stood up to reply, welcomed by
thunders--'There ye be, Mr. Tom! glad I lives to see ye!' and 'No
names!' and 'Long life to him!'

This having subsided, the chairman spoke, first nodding. 'You don't want
many words, and if you do, you won't get 'em from me.'

Cries of 'Got something better!' took up the blunt address.

'You've been true to it, most of you. I like men not to forget a custom.'

'Good reason so to be,' and 'A jolly good custom,' replied to both
sentences.

'As to the beef, I hope you didn't find it tough: as to the ale--I know
all about THAT!'

'Aha! good!' rang the verdict.

'All I can say is, that this day next year it will be on the table, and I
hope that every one of you will meet Tom--will meet me here punctually.
I'm not a Parliament man, so that 'll do.'

The chairman's breach of his own rules drowned the termination of his
speech in an uproar.

Re-seating himself, he lifted his glass, and proposed: 'The
Antediluvians!'

Farmer Broadmead echoed: 'The Antediloovians!' appending, as a private
sentiment, 'And dam rum chaps they were!'

The Antediluvians, undoubtedly the toast of the evening, were
enthusiastically drunk, and in an ale of treble brew.

When they had quite gone down, Mr. Raikes ventured to ask for the reason
of their receiving such honour from a posterity they had so little to do
with. He put the question mildly, but was impetuously snapped at by the
chairman.

'You respect men for their luck, sir, don't you? Don't be a hypocrite,
and say you don't--you do. Very well: so do I. That's why I drink "The
Antediluvians"!'

'Our worthy host here' (Drummond, gravely smiling, undertook to elucidate
the case) 'has a theory that the constitutions of the Postdiluvians have
been deranged, and their lives shortened, by the miasmas of the Deluge. I
believe he carries it so far as to say that Noah, in the light of a
progenitor, is inferior to Adam, owing to the shaking he had to endure in
the ark, and which he conceives to have damaged the patriarch and the
nervous systems of his sons. It's a theory, you know.'

'They lived close on a thousand years, hale, hearty--and no water!' said
the chairman.

'Well!' exclaimed one, some way down the table, a young farmer, red as a
cock's comb: 'no fools they, eh, master? Where there's ale, would you
drink water, my hearty?' and back he leaned to enjoy the tribute to his
wit; a wit not remarkable, but nevertheless sufficient in the noise it
created to excite the envy of Mr. Raikes, who, inveterately silly when
not engaged in a contest, now began to play on the names of the sons of
Noah.

The chairman lanced a keen light at him from beneath his bushy eyebrows.

Before long he had again to call two parties to order. To Raikes, Laxley
was a puppy: to Laxley, Mr. Raikes was a snob. The antagonism was
natural: ale did but put the match to the magazine. But previous to an
explosion, Laxley, who had observed Evan's disgust at Jack's exhibition
of himself, and had been led to think, by his conduct and clothes in
conjunction, that Evan was his own equal; a gentleman condescending to
the society of a low-born acquaintance;--had sought with sundry
propitiations, intelligent glances, light shrugs, and such like, to
divide Evan from Jack. He did this, doubtless, because he partly
sympathized with Evan, and to assure him that he took a separate view of
him. Probably Evan was already offended, or he held to Jack, as a comrade
should, or else it was that Tailordom and the pride of his accepted
humiliation bellowed in his ears, every fresh minute: 'Nothing assume!' I
incline to think that the more ale he drank the fiercer rebel he grew
against conventional ideas of rank, and those class-barriers which we
scorn so vehemently when we find ourselves kicking at them. Whatsoever
the reason that prompted him, he did not respond to Laxley's advances;
and Laxley, disregarding him, dealt with Raikes alone.

In a tone plainly directed at him, he said: 'Well, Harry, tired of this?
The agriculturals are good fun, but I can't stand much of the small
cockney. A blackguard who tries to make jokes out of the Scriptures ought
to be kicked!'

Harry rejoined, with wet lips: 'Wopping stuff, this ale! Who's that you
want to kick?'

'Somebody who objects to his bray, I suppose,' Mr. Raikes struck in,
across the table, negligently thrusting out his elbow to support his
head.

'Did you allude to me, sir?' Laxley inquired.

'I alluded to a donkey, sir.' Raikes lifted his eyelids to the same level
as Laxley's: 'a passing remark on that interesting animal.'

His friend Harry now came into the ring to try a fall.

'Are you an usher in a school?' he asked, meaning by his looks what men
of science in fisticuffs call business.

Mr. Raikes started in amazement. He recovered as quickly.

'No, sir, not quite; but I have no doubt I should be able to instruct you
upon a point or two.'

'Good manners, for instance?' remarked the third young cricketer, without
disturbing his habitual smile.

'Or what comes from not observing them,' said Evan, unwilling to have
Jack over-matched.

'Perhaps you'll give me a lesson now?' Harry indicated a readiness to
rise for either of them.

At this juncture the chairman interposed.

'Harmony, my lads!--harmony to-night.'

Farmer Broadmead, imagining it to be the signal for a song, returned:

'All right, Mr.--- Mr. Chair! but we an't got pipes in yet. Pipes before
harmony, you know, to-night.'

The pipes were summoned forthwith. System appeared to regulate the
proceedings of this particular night at the Green Dragon. The pipes
charged, and those of the guests who smoked, well fixed behind them,
celestial Harmony was invoked through the slowly curling clouds. In
Britain the Goddess is coy. She demands pressure to appear, and great
gulps of ale. Vastly does she swell the chests of her island children,
but with the modesty of a maid at the commencement. Precedence again
disturbed the minds of the company. At last the red-faced young farmer
led off with 'The Rose and the Thorn.' In that day Chloe still lived; nor
were the amorous transports of Strephon quenched. Mountainous
inflation--mouse-like issue characterized the young farmer's first verse.
Encouraged by manifest approbation he now told Chloe that he 'by Heaven!
never would plant in that bosom a thorn,' with such a volume of sound as
did indeed show how a lover's oath should be uttered in the ear of a
British damsel to subdue her.

'Good!' cried Mr. Raikes, anxious to be convivial.

Subsiding into impertinence, he asked Laxley, 'Could you tip us a
Strephonade, sir? Rejoiced to listen to you, I'm sure! Promise you my
applause beforehand.'

Harry replied hotly: 'Will you step out of the room with me a minute?'

'Have you a confession to make?' quoth Jack, unmoved. 'Have you planted a
thorn in the feminine flower-garden? Make a clean breast of it at the
table. Confess openly and be absolved.'

While Evan spoke a word of angry reproof to Raikes, Harry had to be
restrained by his two friends. The rest of the company looked on with
curiosity; the mouth of the chairman was bunched. Drummond had his eyes
on Evan, who was gazing steadily at the three. Suddenly 'The fellow isn't
a gentleman!' struck the attention of Mr. Raikes with alarming force.

Raikes--and it may be because he knew he could do more than Evan in this
respect--vociferated: 'I'm the son of a gentleman!'

Drummond, from the head of the table, saw that a diversion was
imperative. He leaned forward, and with a look of great interest said:

'Are you? Pray, never disgrace your origin, then.'

'If the choice were offered me, I think I would rather have known his
father,' said the smiling fellow, yawning, and rocking on his chair.

'You would, possibly, have been exceedingly intimate--with his right
foot,' said Raikes.

The other merely remarked: 'Oh! that is the language of the son of a
gentleman.'

The tumult of irony, abuse, and retort, went on despite the efforts of
Drummond and the chairman. It was odd; for at Farmer Broadmead's end of
the table, friendship had grown maudlin: two were seen in a drowsy
embrace, with crossed pipes; and others were vowing deep amity, and
offering to fight the man that might desire it.

'Are ye a friend? or are ye a foe?' was heard repeatedly, and
consequences to the career of the respondent, on his choice of
affirmatives to either of these two interrogations, emphatically
detailed.

It was likewise asked, in reference to the row at the gentlemen's end:
'Why doan' they stand up and have 't out?'

'They talks, they speechifies--why doan' they fight for 't, and then be
friendly?'

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