Evan Harrington, Complete

G >> George Meredith >> Evan Harrington, Complete

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39

'Will you ride over with me, Rose?' he said, though scarcely anxious that
she should see Mr. Raikes immediately.

The singular sharpness of her refusal astonished him none the less.

'Thank you, no; I would rather not.'

A lover is ever ready to suspect that water has been thrown on the fire
that burns for him in the bosom of his darling. Sudden as the change was,
it was very decided. His sensitive ears were pained by the absence of his
Christian name, which her lips had lavishly made sweet to him. He stopped
in his walk.

'You spoke of riding to Fallow field. Is it possible you don't want me to
bring my friend here? There's time to prevent it.'

Judged by the Countess de Saldar, the behaviour of this well-born English
maid was anything but well-bred. She absolutely shrugged her shoulders
and marched a-head of him into the conservatory, where she began smelling
at flowers and plucking off sere leaves.

In such cases a young man always follows; as her womanly instinct must
have told her, for she expressed no surprise when she heard his voice two
minutes after.

'Rose! what have I done?'

'Nothing at all,' she said, sweeping her eyes over his a moment, and
resting them on the plants.

'I must have uttered something that has displeased you.'

'No.'

Brief negatives are not re-assuring to a lover's uneasy mind.

'I beg you--Be frank with me, Rose!'

A flame of the vanished fire shone in her face, but subsided, and she
shook her head darkly.

'Have you any objection to my friend?'

Her fingers grew petulant with an orange leaf. Eyeing a spot on it, she
said, hesitatingly:

'Any friend of yours I am sure I should like to help. But--but I wish you
wouldn't associate with that--that kind of friend. It gives people all
sorts of suspicions.'

Evan drew a sharp breath.

The voices of Master Alec and Miss Dorothy were heard shouting on the
lawn. Alec gave Dorothy the slip and approached the conservatory on
tip-toe, holding his hand out behind him to enjoin silence and secrecy.
The pair could witness the scene through the glass before Evan spoke.

'What suspicions?' he asked.

Rose looked up, as if the harshness of his tone pleased her.

'Do you like red roses best, or white?' was her answer, moving to a
couple of trees in pots.

'Can't make up your mind?' she continued, and plucked both a white and
red rose, saying: 'There! choose your colour by-and-by,' and ask Juley to
sew the one you choose in your button-hole.'

She laid the roses in his hand, and walked away. She must have known that
there was a burden of speech on his tongue. She saw him move to follow
her, but this time she did not linger, and it may be inferred that she
wished to hear no more.

CHAPTER XVII

IN WHICH EVAN WRITES HIMSELF TAILOR

The only philosophic method of discovering what a young woman means, and
what is in her mind, is that zigzag process of inquiry conducted by
following her actions, for she can tell you nothing, and if she does not
want to know a particular matter, it must be a strong beam from the
central system of facts that shall penetrate her. Clearly there was a
disturbance in the bosom of Rose Jocelyn, and one might fancy that
amiable mirror as being wilfully ruffled to confuse a thing it was asked
by the heavens to reflect: a good fight fought by all young people at a
certain period, and now and then by an old fool or two. The young it
seasons and strengthens; the old it happily kills off; and thus, what is,
is made to work harmoniously with what we would have be.

After quitting Evan, Rose hied to her friend Jenny Graine, and in the
midst of sweet millinery talk, darted the odd question, whether baronets
or knights ever were tradesmen: to which Scottish Jenny, entirely putting
aside the shades of beatified aldermen and the illustrious list of mayors
that have welcomed royalty, replied that it was a thing quite impossible.
Rose then wished to know if tailors were thought worse of than other
tradesmen. Jenny, premising that she was no authority, stated she
imagined she had heard that they were.

'Why?' said Rose, no doubt because she was desirous of seeing justice
dealt to that class. But Jenny's bosom was a smooth reflector of facts
alone.

Rose pondered, and said with compressed eagerness, 'Jenny, do you think
you could ever bring yourself to consent to care at all for anybody ever
talked of as belonging to them? Tell me.'

Now Jenny had come to Beckley Court to meet William Harvey: she was
therefore sufficiently soft to think she could care for him whatever his
origin were, and composed in the knowledge that no natal stigma was upon
him to try the strength of her affection. Designing to generalize, as
women do (and seem tempted to do most when they are secretly speaking
from their own emotions), she said, shyly moving her shoulders, with a
forefinger laying down the principle:

'You know, my dear, if one esteemed such a person very very much, and
were quite sure, without any doubt, that he liked you in return--that is,
completely liked you, and was quite devoted, and made no concealment--I
mean, if he was very superior, and like other men--you know what I
mean--and had none of the cringing ways some of them have--I mean;
supposing him gay and handsome, taking--'

'Just like William,' Rose cut her short; and we may guess her to have had
some one in her head for her to conceive that Jenny must be speaking of
any one in particular.

A young lady who can have male friends, as well as friends of her own
sex, is not usually pressing and secret in her confidences, possibly
because such a young lady is not always nursing baby-passions, and does
not require her sex's coddling and posseting to keep them alive. With
Rose love will be full grown when it is once avowed, and will know where
to go to be nourished.

'Merely an idea I had,' she said to Jenny, who betrayed her mental
pre-occupation by putting the question for the questions last.

Her Uncle Melville next received a visit from the restless young woman.
To him she spoke not a word of the inferior classes, but as a special
favourite of the diplomatist's, begged a gift of him for her proximate
birthday. Pushed to explain what it was, she said, 'It's something I want
you to do for a friend of mine, Uncle Mel.'

The diplomatist instanced a few of the modest requests little maids
prefer to people they presume to have power to grant.

'No, it's nothing nonsensical,' said Rose; 'I want you to get my friend
Evan an appointment. You can if you like, you know, Uncle Mel, and it's a
shame to make him lose his time when he's young and does his work so
well--that you can't deny! Now, please, be positive, Uncle Mel. You know
I hate--I have no faith in your 'nous verrons'. Say you will, and at
once.'

The diplomatist pretended to have his weather-eye awakened.

'You seem very anxious about feathering the young fellow's nest, Rosey?'

'There,' cried Rose, with the maiden's mature experience of us, 'isn't
that just like men? They never can believe you can be entirely
disinterested!'

'Hulloa!' the diplomatist sung out, 'I didn't say anything, Rosey.'

She reddened at her hastiness, but retrieved it by saying:

'No, but you listen to your wife; you know you do, Uncle Mel; and now
there's Aunt Shorne and the other women, who make you think just what
they like about me, because they hate Mama.'

'Don't use strong words, my dear.'

'But it's abominable!' cried Rose. 'They asked Mama yesterday what Evan's
being here meant? Why, of course, he's your secretary, and my friend, and
Mama very properly stopped them, and so will I! As for me, I intend to
stay at Beckley, I can tell you, dear old boy.' Uncle Mel had a soft arm
round his neck, and was being fondled. 'And I 'm not going to be bred up
to go into a harem, you may be sure.'

The diplomatist whistled, 'You talk your mother with a vengeance, Rosey.'

'And she's the only sensible woman I know,' said Rose. 'Now promise
me--in earnest. Don't let them mislead you, for you know you're quite a
child, out of your politics, and I shall take you in hand myself. Why,
now, think, Uncle Mel! wouldn't any girl, as silly as they make me out,
hold her tongue--not talk of him, as I do; and because I really do feel
for him as a friend. See the difference between me and Juley!'

It was a sad sign if Rose was growing a bit of a hypocrite, but this
instance of Juliana's different manner of showing her feelings toward
Evan would have quieted suspicion in shrewder men, for Juliana watched
Evan's shadow, and it was thought by two or three at Beckley Court, that
Evan would be conferring a benefit on all by carrying off the
romantically-inclined but little presentable young lady.

The diplomatist, with a placid 'Well, well!' ultimately promised to do
his best for Rose's friend, and then Rose said, 'Now I leave you to the
Countess,' and went and sat with her mother and Drummond Forth. The
latter was strange in his conduct to Evan. While blaming Laxley's
unmannered behaviour, he seemed to think Laxley had grounds for it, and
treated Evan with a sort of cynical deference that had, for the last
couple of days, exasperated Rose.

'Mama, you must speak to Ferdinand,' she burst upon the conversation,
'Drummond is afraid to--he can stand by and see my friend insulted.
Ferdinand is insufferable with his pride--he's jealous of everybody who
has manners, and Drummond approves him, and I will not bear it.'

Lady Jocelyn hated household worries, and quietly remarked that the young
men must fight it out together.

'No, but it's your duty to interfere, Mama,' said Rose; 'and I know you
will when I tell you that Ferdinand declares my friend Evan is a
tradesman--beneath his notice. Why, it insults me!'

Lady Jocelyn looked out from a lofty window on such veritable squabbles
of boys and girls as Rose revealed.

'Can't you help them to run on smoothly while they're here?' she said to
Drummond, and he related the scene at the Green Dragon.

'I think I heard he was the son of Sir Something Harrington, Devonshire
people,' said Lady Jocelyn.

'Yes, he is,' cried Rose, 'or closely related. I'm sure I understood the
Countess that it was so. She brought the paper with the death in it to us
in London, and shed tears over it.'

'She showed it in the paper, and shed tears over it?' said Drummond,
repressing an inclination to laugh. 'Was her father's title given in
full?'

'Sir Abraham Harrington, replied Rose. 'I think she said father, if the
word wasn't too common-place for her.'

'You can ask old Tom when he comes, if you are anxious to know,' said
Drummond to her ladyship. 'His brother married one of the sisters. By the
way, he's coming, too. He ought to clear up the mystery.'

'Now you're sneering, Drummond,' said Rose: 'for you know there 's no
mystery to clear up.'

Drummond and Lady Jocelyn began talking of old Tom Cogglesby, whom, it
appeared, the former knew intimately, and the latter had known.

'The Cogglesbys are sons of a cobbler, Rose,' said Lady Jocelyn. 'You
must try and be civil to them.'

'Of course I shall, Mama,' Rose answered seriously.

'And help the poor Countess to bear their presence as well as possible,'
said Drummond. 'The Harringtons have had to mourn a dreadful mesalliance.
Pity the Countess!'

'Oh! the Countess! the Countess!' exclaimed Rose to Drummond's pathetic
shake of the head. She and Drummond were fully agreed about the Countess;
Drummond mimicking the lady: 'In verity, she is most mellifluous!' while
Rose sugared her lips and leaned gracefully forward with 'De Saldar, let
me petition you--since we must endure our title--since it is not to be
your Louisa?' and her eyes sought the ceiling, and her hand slowly melted
into her drapery, as the Countess was wont to effect it.

Lady Jocelyn laughed, but said: 'You're too hard upon the Countess. The
female euphuist is not to be met with every day. It's a different kind
from the Precieuse. She is not a Precieuse. She has made a capital
selection of her vocabulary from Johnson, and does not work it badly, if
we may judge by Harry and Melville. Euphuism--[affectation D.W.]--in
"woman" is the popular ideal of a Duchess. She has it by nature, or she
has studied it: and if so, you must respect her abilities.'

'Yes--Harry!' said Rose, who was angry at a loss of influence over her
rough brother, 'any one could manage Harry! and Uncle Mel 's a goose. You
should see what a "female euphuist" Dorry is getting. She says in the
Countess's hearing: "Rose! I should in verity wish to play, if it were
pleasing to my sweet cousin?" I'm ready to die with laughing. I don't do
it, Mama.'

The Countess, thus being discussed, was closeted with old Mrs. Bonner:
not idle. Like Hannibal in Italy, she had crossed her Alps in attaining
Beckley Court, and here in the enemy's country the wary general found
herself under the necessity of throwing up entrenchments to fly to in
case of defeat. Sir Abraham Harrington of Torquay, who had helped her to
cross the Alps, became a formidable barrier against her return.

Meantime Evan was riding over to Fallow field, and as he rode under black
visions between the hedgeways crowned with their hop-garlands, a
fragrance of roses saluted his nostril, and he called to mind the red and
the white the peerless representative of the two had given him, and which
he had thrust sullenly in his breast-pocket and he drew them out to look
at them reproachfully and sigh farewell to all the roses of life, when in
company with them he found in his hand the forgotten letter delivered to
him on the cricket-field the day of the memorable match. He smelt at the
roses, and turned the letter this way and that. His name was correctly
worded on the outside. With an odd reluctance to open it, he kept
trifling over the flowers, and then broke the broad seal, and these are
the words that met his eyes:

'Mr. EVAN HARRINGTON.

'You have made up your mind to be a tailor, instead of a Tomnoddy. You're
right. Not too many men in the world--plenty of nincompoops.

'Don't be made a weathercock of by a parcel of women. I want to find a
man worth something. If you go on with it, you shall end by riding in
your carriage, and cutting it as fine as any of them. I 'll take care
your belly is not punished while you're about it.

'From the time your name is over your shop, I give you L300 per annum.

'Or stop. There's nine of you. They shall have L40. per annum apiece, 9
times 40, eh? That's better than L300., if you know how to reckon. Don't
you wish it was ninety-nine tailors to a man! I could do that too, and it
would not break me; so don't be a proud young ass, or I 'll throw my
money to the geese. Lots of them in the world. How many geese to a
tailor?

'Go on for five years, and I double it.

'Give it up, and I give you up.

'No question about me. The first tailor can be paid his L40 in advance,
by applying at the offices of Messrs. Grist, Gray's Inn Square, Gray's
Inn. Let him say he is tailor No. 1, and show this letter, signed Agreed,
with your name in full at bottom. This will do--money will be paid--no
questions one side or other. So on--the whole nine. The end of the year
they can give a dinner to their acquaintance. Send in bill to Messrs.
Grist.

'The advice to you to take the cash according to terms mentioned is
advice of

'A FRIEND.

'P.S. You shall have your wine. Consult among yourselves, and carry it by
majority what wine it's to be. Five carries it. Dozen and half per
tailor, per annum--that's the limit.'

It was certainly a very hot day. The pores of his skin were prickling,
and his face was fiery; and yet he increased his pace, and broke into a
wild gallop for a mile or so; then suddenly turned his horse's head back
for Beckley. The secret of which evolution was, that he had caught the
idea of a plotted insult of Laxley's in the letter, for when the blood is
up we are drawn the way the tide sets strongest, and Evan was prepared to
swear that Laxley had written the letter, because he was burning to
chastise the man who had injured him with Rose.

Sure that he was about to confirm his suspicion, he read it again, gazed
upon Beckley Court in the sultry light, and turned for Fallow field once
more, devising to consult Mr. John Raikes on the subject.

The letter had a smack of crabbed age hardly counterfeit. The savour of
an old eccentric's sour generosity was there. Evan fell into bitter
laughter at the idea of Rose glancing over his shoulder and asking him
what nine of him to a man meant. He heard her clear voice pursuing him.
He could not get away from the mocking sound of Rose beseeching him to
instruct her on that point. How if the letter were genuine? He began to
abhor the sight and touch of the paper, for it struck division cold as
death between him and his darling. He saw now the immeasurable hopes his
residence at Beckley had lured him to. Rose had slightly awakened him:
this letter was blank day to his soul. He saw the squalid shop, the good,
stern, barren-spirited mother, the changeless drudgery, the existence
which seemed indeed no better than what the ninth of a man was fit for.
The influence of his mother came on him once more. Dared he reject the
gift if true? No spark of gratitude could he feel, but chained, dragged
at the heels of his fate, he submitted to think it true; resolving the
next moment that it was a fabrication and a trap: but he flung away the
roses.

As idle as a painted cavalier upon a painted drop-scene, the figure of
Mr. John Raikes was to be observed leaning with crossed legs against a
shady pillar of the Green Dragon; eyeing alternately, with an
indifference he did not care to conceal, the assiduous pecking in the
dust of some cocks and hens that had strayed from the yard of the inn,
and the sleepy blinking in the sun of an old dog at his feet: nor did
Evan's appearance discompose the sad sedateness of his demeanour.

'Yes; I am here still,' he answered Evan's greeting, with a flaccid
gesture. 'Don't excite me too much. A little at a time. I can't bear it!'

'How now? What is it now, Jack?' said Evan.

Mr. Raikes pointed at the dog. 'I've made a bet with myself he won't wag
his tail within the next ten minutes. I beg of you, Harrington, to remain
silent for both our sakes.'

Evan was induced to look at the dog, and the dog looked at him, and
gently moved his tail.

'I 've lost!' cried Raikes, in languid anguish. 'He 's getting excited.
He'll go mad. We're not accustomed to this in Fallow field.'

Evan dismounted, and was going to tell him the news he had for him, when
his attention was distracted by the sight of Rose's maid, Polly Wheedle,
splendidly bonneted, who slipped past them into the inn, after repulsing
Jack's careless attempt to caress her chin; which caused him to tell Evan
that he could not get on without the society of intellectual women.

Evan called a boy to hold the horse.

'Have you seen her before, Jack?'

Jack replied: 'Once. Your pensioner up-stairs she comes to visit. I do
suspect there kinship is betwixt them. Ay! one might swear them sisters.
She's a relief to the monotony of the petrified street--the old man with
the brown-gaitered legs and the doubled-up old woman with the crutch. I
heard the London horn this morning.'

Evan thrust the letter in his hands, telling him to read and form an
opinion on it, and went in the track of Miss Wheedle.

Mr. Raikes resumed his station against the pillar, and held the letter
out on a level with his thigh. Acting (as it was his nature to do off the
stage), he had not exaggerated his profound melancholy. Of a light soil
and with a tropical temperament, he had exhausted all lively recollection
of his brilliant career, and, in the short time since Evan had parted
with him, sunk abjectly down into the belief that he was fixed in Fallow
field for life. His spirit pitied for agitation and events. The horn of
the London coach had sounded distant metropolitan glories in the ears of
the exile in rustic parts.

Sighing heavily, Raikes opened the letter, in simple obedience to the
wishes of his friend; for he would have preferred to stand contemplating
his own state of hopeless stagnation. The sceptical expression he put on
when he had read the letter through must not deceive us. John Raikes had
dreamed of a beneficent eccentric old gentleman for many years: one
against whom, haply, he had bumped in a crowded thoroughfare, and had
with cordial politeness begged pardon of; had then picked up his
walking-stick; restored it, venturing a witty remark; retired,
accidentally dropping his card-case; subsequently, to his astonishment
and gratification, receiving a pregnant missive from that old gentleman's
lawyer. Or it so happened that Mr. Raikes met the old gentleman at a
tavern, and, by the exercise of a signal dexterity, relieved him from a
bone in his throat, and reluctantly imparted his address on issuing from
the said tavern. Or perhaps it was a lonely highway where the old
gentleman walked, and John Raikes had his name in the papers for a deed
of heroism, nor was man ungrateful. Since he had eaten up his uncle, this
old gentleman of his dreams walked in town and country-only, and alas!
Mr. Raikes could never encounter him in the flesh. The muscles of his
face, therefore, are no index to the real feelings of the youth when he
had thoroughly mastered the contents of the letter, and reflected that
the dream of his luck--his angelic old gentleman--had gone and wantonly
bestowed himself upon Evan Harrington, instead of the expectant and far
worthier John Raikes. Worthier inasmuch as he gave him credence for
existing long ere he knew of him and beheld him manifest.

Raikes retreated to the vacant parlour of the Green Dragon, and there
Evan found him staring at the unfolded letter, his head between his
cramped fists, with a contraction of his mouth. Evan was troubled by what
he had seen up-stairs, and did not speak till Jack looked up and said,
'Oh, there you are.'

'Well, what do you think, Jack?'

'Yes--it's all right,' Raikes rejoined in most matter-of-course tone, and
then he stepped to the window, and puffed a very deep breath indeed, and
glanced from the straight line of the street to the heavens, with whom,
injured as he was, he felt more at home now that he knew them capable of
miracles.

'Is it a bad joke played upon me?' said Evan.

Raikes upset a chair. 'It's quite childish. You're made a gentleman for
life, and you ask if it's a joke played upon you! It's maddening!
There--there goes my hat!'

With a vehement kick, Mr. Raikes despatched his ancient head-gear to the
other end of the room, saying that he must have some wine, and would; and
disdainful was his look at Evan, when the latter attempted to reason him
into economy. He ordered the wine; drank a glass, which coloured a new
mood in him; and affecting a practical manner, said:

'I confess I have been a little hurt with you, Harrington. You left me
stranded on the desert isle. I thought myself abandoned. I thought I
should never see anything but the lengthening of an endless bill on my
landlady's face--my sole planet. I was resigned till I heard my friend
"to-lool!" this morning. He kindled recollection. But, this is a tidy
Port, and that was a delectable sort of young lady that you were riding
with when we parted last! She laughs like the true metal. I suppose you
know it 's the identical damsel I met the day before, and owe it to for
my run on the downs--I 've a compliment ready made for her.'

'You think that letter written in good faith?' said Evan.

'Look here.' Mr. Raikes put on a calmness. 'You got up the other night,
and said you were a tailor--a devotee of the cabbage and the goose. Why
the notion didn't strike me is extraordinary--I ought to have known my
man. However, the old gentleman who gave the supper--he's evidently one
of your beastly rich old ruffianly republicans--spent part of his time in
America, I dare say. Put two and two together.'

But as Harrington desired plain, prose, Mr. Raikes tamed his imagination
to deliver it. He pointed distinctly at the old gentleman who gave the
supper as the writer of the letter. Evan, in return, confided to him his
history and present position, and Mr. Raikes, without cooling to his
fortunate friend, became a trifle patronizing.

'You said your father--I think I remember at old Cudford's--was a cavalry
officer, a bold dragoon?'

'I did,' replied Evan. 'I told a lie.'

'We knew it; but we feared your prowess, Harrington.'

Then they talked over the singular letter uninterruptedly, and Evan, weak
among his perplexities of position and sentiment: wanting money for the
girl up-stairs, for this distasteful comrade's bill at the Green Dragon,
and for his own immediate requirements, and with the bee buzzing of Rose
in his ears: 'She despises you,' consented in a desperation ultimately to
sign his name to it, and despatch Jack forthwith to Messrs. Grist.

'You'll find it's an imposition,' he said, beginning less to think it so,
now that his name was put to the hated monstrous thing; which also now
fell to pricking at curiosity. For he was in the early steps of his
career, and if his lady, holding to pride, despised him--as, he was
tortured into the hypocrisy of confessing, she justly might, why, then,
unless he was the sport of a farceur, here seemed a gilding of the path
of duty: he could be serviceable to friends. His claim on fair young
Rose's love had grown in the short while so prodigiously asinine that it
was a minor matter to constitute himself an old eccentric's puppet.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39