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

'Your feeling on the point is so exaggerated, my dear Louisa', said Evan,
'one can't bring reason to your ears. The tattle we shall hear we shall
outlive. I care extremely for the good opinion of men, but I prefer my
own; and I do not lose it because my father was in trade.'

'And your own name, Evan Harrington, is on a shop,' the Countess struck
in, and watched him severely from under her brow, glad to mark that he
could still blush.

'Oh, heaven!' she wailed to increase the effect, 'on a shop! a brother of
mine!'

'Yes, Louisa. It may not last . . . I did it--is it not better that a son
should blush, than cast dishonour on his father's memory?'

'Ridiculous boy-notion!'

'Rose has pardoned it, Louisa--cannot you? I find that the naturally
vulgar and narrow-headed people, and cowards who never forego mean
advantages, are those only who would condemn me and my conduct in that.'

'And you have joy in your fraction of the world left to you!' exclaimed
his female-elder.

Changeing her manner to a winning softness, she said:

'Let me also belong to the very small party! You have been really
romantic, and most generous and noble; only the shop smells! But, never
mind, promise me you will not enter it.'

'I hope not,' said Evan.

'You do hope that you will not officiate? Oh, Evan the eternal
contemplation of gentlemen's legs! think of that! Think of yourself
sculptured in that attitude!' Innumerable little prickles and stings shot
over Evan's skin.

'There--there, Louisa!' he said, impatiently; 'spare your ridicule. We go
to London to-morrow, and when there I expect to hear that I have an
appointment, and that this engagement is over.' He rose and walked up and
down the room.

'I shall not be prepared to go to-morrow,' remarked the Countess, drawing
her figure up stiffly.

'Oh! well, if you can stay, Andrew will take charge of you, I dare say.'

'No, my dear, Andrew will not--a nonentity cannot--you must.'

'Impossible, Louisa,' said Evan, as one who imagines he is uttering a
thing of little consequence. 'I promised Rose.'

'You promised Rose that you would abdicate and retire? Sweet, loving
girl!'

Evan made no answer.

'You will stay with me, Evan.'

'I really can't,' he said in his previous careless tone.

'Come and sit down,' cried the Countess, imperiously.

'The first trifle is refused. It does not astonish me. I will honour you
now by talking seriously to you. I have treated you hitherto as a child.
Or, no--' she stopped her mouth; 'it is enough if I tell you, dear, that
poor Mrs. Bonner is dying, and that she desires my attendance on her to
refresh her spirit with readings on the Prophecies, and Scriptural
converse. No other soul in the house can so soothe her.'

'Then, stay,' said Evan.

'Unprotected in the midst of enemies! Truly!'

'I think, Louisa, if you can call Lady Jocelyn an enemy, you must read
the Scriptures by a false light.'

'The woman is an utter heathen!' interjected the Countess. 'An infidel
can be no friend. She is therefore the reverse. Her opinions embitter her
mother's last days. But now you will consent to remain with me, dear
Van!'

An implacable negative responded to the urgent appeal of her eyes.

'By the way,' he said, for a diversion, 'did you know of a girl stopping
at an inn in Fallow field?'

'Know a barmaid?' the Countess's eyes and mouth were wide at the
question.

'Did you send Raikes for her to-day?'

'Did Mr. Raikes--ah, Evan! that creature reminds me, you have no sense of
contrast. For a Brazilian ape--he resembles, if he is not truly one--what
contrast is he to an English gentleman! His proximity and
acquaintance--rich as he may be--disfigure you. Study contrast!'

Evan had to remind her that she had not answered him: whereat she
exclaimed: 'One would really think you had never been abroad. Have you
not evaded me, rather?'

The Countess commenced fanning her languid brows, and then pursued: 'Now,
my dear brother, I may conclude that you will acquiesce in my moderate
wishes. You remain. My venerable friend cannot last three days. She is
on the brink of a better world! I will confide to you that it is of the
utmost importance we should be here, on the spot, until the sad
termination! That is what I summoned you for. You are now at liberty.
Ta-ta, as soon as you please.'

She had baffled his little cross-examination with regard to Raikes, but
on the other point he was firm. She would listen to nothing: she affected
that her mandate had gone forth, and must be obeyed; tapped with her
foot, fanned deliberately, and was a consummate queen, till he turned the
handle of the door, when her complexion deadened, she started up,
trembling, and tripping towards him, caught him by the arm, and said:
'Stop! After all that I have sacrificed for you! As well try to raise the
dead as a Dawley from the dust he grovels in! Why did I consent to visit
this place? It was for you. I came, I heard that you had disgraced
yourself in drunkenness at Fallow field, and I toiled to eclipse that,
and I did. Young Jocelyn thought you were what you are I could spit the
word at you! and I dazzled him to give you time to win this minx, who
will spin you like a top if you get her. That Mr. Forth knew it as well,
and that vile young Laxley. They are gone! Why are they gone? Because
they thwarted me--they crossed your interests--I said they should go.
George Uplift is going to-day. The house is left to us; and I believe
firmly that Mrs. Bonner's will contains a memento of the effect of our
frequent religious conversations. So you would leave now? I suspect
nobody, but we are all human, and Wills would not have been tampered with
for the first time. Besides, and the Countess's imagination warmed till
she addressed her brother as a confederate, 'we shall then see to whom
Beckley Court is bequeathed. Either way it may be yours. Yours! and you
suffer their plots to drive you forth. Do you not perceive that Mama was
brought here to-day on purpose to shame us and cast us out? We are
surrounded by conspiracies, but if our faith is pure who can hurt us? If
I had not that consolation--would that you had it, too!--would it be
endurable to me to see those menials whispering and showing their forced
respect? As it is, I am fortified to forgive them. I breathe another
atmosphere. Oh, Evan! you did not attend to Mr. Parsley's beautiful last
sermon. The Church should have been your vocation.'

From vehemence the Countess had subsided to a mournful gentleness. She
had been too excited to notice any changes in her brother's face during
her speech, and when he turned from the door, and still eyeing her
fixedly, led her to a chair, she fancied from his silence that she had
subdued and convinced him. A delicious sense of her power, succeeded by a
weary reflection that she had constantly to employ it, occupied her mind,
and when presently she looked up from the shade of her hand, it was to
agitate her head pitifully at her brother.

'All this you have done for me, Louisa,' he said.

'Yes, Evan,--all!' she fell into his tone.

'And you are the cause of Laxley's going? Did you know anything of that
anonymous letter?'

He was squeezing her hand-with grateful affection, as she was deluded to
imagine.

'Perhaps, dear,--a little,' her conceit prompted her to admit.

'Did you write it?'

He gazed intently into her eyes, and as the question shot like a javelin,
she tried ineffectually to disengage her fingers; her delusion waned; she
took fright, but it was too late; he had struck the truth out of her
before she could speak. Her spirit writhed like a snake in his hold.
Innumerable things she was ready to say, and strove to; the words would
not form on her lips.

'I will be answered, Louisa.'

The stern manner he had assumed gave her no hope of eluding him. With an
inward gasp, and a sensation of nakedness altogether new to her, dismal,
and alarming, she felt that she could not lie. Like a creature forsaken
of her staunchest friend, she could have flung herself to the floor. The
next instant her natural courage restored her. She jumped up and stood at
bay.

'Yes. I did.'

And now he was weak, and she was strong, and used her strength.

'I wrote it to save you. Yes. Call on your Creator, and be my judge, if
you dare. Never, never will you meet a soul more utterly devoted to you,
Evan. This Mr. Forth, this Laxley, I said, should go, because they were
resolved to ruin you, and make you base. They are gone. The
responsibility I take on myself. Nightly--during the remainder of my
days--I will pray for pardon.'

He raised his head to ask sombrely: 'Is your handwriting like Laxley's?'

'It seems so,' she answered, with a pitiful sneer for one who could
arrest her exaltation to inquire about minutiae. 'Right or wrong, it is
done, and if you choose to be my judge, think whether your own conscience
is clear. Why did you come here? Why did you stay? You have your free
will,--do you deny that? Oh, I will take the entire blame, but you must
not be a hypocrite, Van. You know you were aware. We had no confidences.
I was obliged to treat you like a child; but for you to pretend to
suppose that roses grow in your path--oh, that is paltry! You are a
hypocrite or an imbecile, if that is your course.'

Was he not something of the former? The luxurious mist in which he had
been living, dispersed before his sister's bitter words, and, as she
designed he should, he felt himself her accomplice. But, again, reason
struggled to enlighten him; for surely he would never have done a thing
so disproportionate to the end to be gamed! It was the unconnected action
of his brain that thus advised him. No thoroughly-fashioned,
clear-spirited man conceives wickedness impossible to him: but wickedness
so largely mixed with folly, the best of us may reject as not among our
temptations. Evan, since his love had dawned, had begun to talk with his
own nature, and though he knew not yet how much it would stretch or
contract, he knew that he was weak and could not perform moral wonders
without severe struggles. The cynic may add, if he likes--or without
potent liquors.

Could he be his sister's judge? It is dangerous for young men to be too
good. They are so sweeping in their condemnations, so sublime in their
conceptions of excellence, and the most finished Puritan cannot out-do
their demands upon frail humanity. Evan's momentary self-examination
saved him from this, and he told the Countess, with a sort of cold
compassion, that he himself dared not blame her.

His tone was distinctly wanting in admiration of her, but she was
somewhat over-wrought, and leaned her shoulder against him, and became
immediately his affectionate, only too-zealous, sister; dearly to be
loved, to be forgiven, to be prized: and on condition of inserting a
special petition for pardon in her orisons, to live with a calm
conscience, and to be allowed to have her own way with him during the
rest of her days.

It was a happy union--a picture that the Countess was lured to admire in
the glass.

Sad that so small a murmur should destroy it for ever!

'What?' cried the Countess, bursting from his arm.

'Go?' she emphasized with the hardness of determined unbelief, as if
plucking the words, one by one, out of her reluctant ears. 'Go to Lady
Jocelyn, and tell her I wrote the letter?'

'You can do no less, I fear,' said Evan, eyeing the floor and breathing a
deep breath.

'Then I did hear you correctly? Oh, you must be mad-idiotic! There, pray
go away, Evan. Come in the morning. You are too much for my nerves.'

Evan rose, putting out his hand as if to take hers and plead with her.
She rejected the first motion, and repeated her desire for him to leave
her; saying, cheerfully--

'Good night, dear; I dare say we shan't meet till the morning.'

'You can't let this injustice continue a single night, Louisa?' said he.

She was deep in the business of arrangeing a portion of her attire.

'Go-go; please,' she responded.

Lingering, he said: 'If I go, it will be straight to Lady Jocelyn.'

She stamped angrily.

'Only go!' and then she found him gone, and she stooped lower to the
glass, to mark if the recent agitation were observable under her eyes.
There, looking at herself, her heart dropped heavily in her bosom. She
ran to the door and hurried swiftly after Evan, pulling him back
speechlessly.

'Where are you going, Evan?'

'To Lady Jocelyn.'

The unhappy victim of her devotion stood panting.

'If you go, I--I take poison!' It was for him now to be struck; but he
was suffering too strong an anguish to be susceptible to mock tragedy.
The Countess paused to study him. She began to fear her brother. 'I
will!' she reiterated wildly, without moving him at all. And the quiet
inflexibility of his face forbade the ultimate hope which lies in giving
men a dose of hysterics when they are obstinate. She tried by taunts and
angry vituperations to make him look fierce, if but an instant, to
precipitate her into an exhibition she was so well prepared for.

'Evan! what! after all my love, my confidence in you--I need not have
told you--to expose us! Brother? would you? Oh!'

'I will not let this last another hour,' said Evan, firmly, at the same
time seeking to caress her. She spurned his fruitless affection, feeling,
nevertheless, how cruel was her fate; for, with any other save a brother,
she had arts at her disposal to melt the manliest resolutions. The glass
showed her that her face was pathetically pale; the tones of her voice
were rich and harrowing. What did they avail with a brother? 'Promise
me,' she cried eagerly, 'promise me to stop here--on this spot-till I
return.'

The promise was extracted. The Countess went to fetch Caroline. Evan did
not count the minutes. One thought was mounting in his brain-the scorn of
Rose. He felt that he had lost her. Lost her when he had just won her! He
felt it, without realizing it. The first blows of an immense grief are
dull, and strike the heart through wool, as it were. The belief of the
young in their sorrow has to be flogged into them, on the good old
educational principle. Could he do less than this he was about to do?
Rose had wedded her noble nature to him, and it was as much her spirit as
his own that urged him thus to forfeit her, to be worthy of her by
assuming unworthiness.

There he sat neither conning over his determination nor the cause for it,
revolving Rose's words about Laxley, and nothing else. The words were so
sweet and so bitter; every now and then the heavy smiting on his heart
set it quivering and leaping, as the whip starts a jaded horse.

Meantime the Countess was participating in a witty conversation in the
drawing-room with Sir John and the Duke, Miss Current, and others; and it
was not till after she had displayed many graces, and, as one or two
ladies presumed to consider, marked effrontery, that she rose and drew
Caroline away with her. Returning to her dressing-room, she found that
Evan had faithfully kept his engagement; he was on the exact spot where
she had left him.

Caroline came to him swiftly, and put her hand to his forehead that she
might the better peruse his features, saying, in her mellow caressing
voice: 'What is this, dear Van, that you will do? Why do you look so
wretched?'

'Has not Louisa told you?'

'She has told me something, dear, but I don't know what it is. That you
are going to expose us? What further exposure do we need? I'm sure, Van,
my pride--what I had--is gone. I have none left!'

Evan kissed her brows warmly. An explanation, full of the Countess's
passionate outcries of justification, necessity, and innocence in higher
than fleshly eyes, was given, and then the three were silent.

'But, Van,' Caroline commenced, deprecatingly, 'my darling! of what
use--now! Whether right or wrong, why should you, why should you, when
the thing is done, dear?--think!'

'And you, too, would let another suffer under an unjust accusation?' said
Evan.

'But, dearest, it is surely your duty to think of your family first. Have
we not been afflicted enough? Why should you lay us under this fresh
burden?'

'Because it 's better to bear all now than a life of remorse,' answered
Evan.

'But this Mr. Laxley--I cannot pity him; he has behaved so insolently to
you throughout! Let him suffer.'

'Lady Jocelyn,' said Evan, 'has been unintentionally unjust to him, and
after her kindness--apart from the right or wrong--I will not--I can't
allow her to continue so.'

'After her kindness!' echoed the Countess, who had been fuming at
Caroline's weak expostulations. 'Kindness! Have I not done ten times for
these Jocelyns what they have done for us? O mio Deus! why, I have
bestowed on them the membership for Fallow field: I have saved her from
being a convicted liar this very day. Worse! for what would have been
talked of the morals of the house, supposing the scandal. Oh! indeed I
was tempted to bring that horrid mad Captain into the house face to face
with his flighty doll of a wife, as I, perhaps, should have done, acting
by the dictates of my conscience. I lied for Lady Jocelyn, and handed the
man to a lawyer, who withdrew him. And this they owe to me! Kindness?
They have given us bed and board, as the people say. I have repaid them
for that.'

'Pray be silent, Louisa,' said Evan, getting up hastily, for the sick
sensation Rose had experienced came over him. His sister's plots, her
untruth, her coarseness, clung to him and seemed part of his blood. He
now had a personal desire to cut himself loose from the wretched
entanglement revealed to him, whatever it cost.

'Are you really, truly going?' Caroline exclaimed, for he was near the
door.

'At a quarter to twelve at night!' sneered the Countess, still imagining
that he, like herself, must be partly acting.

'But, Van, is it--dearest, think! is it manly for a brother to go and
tell of his sister? And how would it look?'

Evan smiled. 'Is it that that makes you unhappy? Louisa's name will not
be mentioned--be sure of that.'

Caroline was stooping forward to him. Her figure straightened: 'Good
Heaven, Evan! you are not going to take it on yourself? Rose!--she will
hate you.'

'God help me!' he cried internally.

'Oh, Evan, darling! consider, reflect!' She fell on her knees, catching
his hand. 'It is worse for us that you should suffer, dearest! Think of
the dreadful meanness and baseness of what you will have to acknowledge.'

'Yes!' sighed the youth, and his eyes, in his extreme pain, turned to the
Countess reproachfully.

'Think, dear,' Caroline hurried on, 'he gains nothing for whom you do
this--you lose all. It is not your deed. You will have to speak an
untruth. Your ideas are wrong--wrong, I know they are. You will have to
lie. But if you are silent, the little, little blame that may attach to
us will pass away, and we shall be happy in seeing our brother happy.'

'You are talking to Evan as if he had religion,' said the Countess, with
steady sedateness. And at that moment, from the sublimity of his pagan
virtue, the young man groaned for some pure certain light to guide him:
the question whether he was about to do right made him weak. He took
Caroline's head between his two hands, and kissed her mouth. The act
brought Rose to his senses insufferably, and she--his Goddess of truth
and his sole guiding light-spurred him afresh.

'My family's dishonour is mine, Caroline. Say nothing more--don't think
of me. I go to Lady Jocelyn tonight. To-morrow we leave, and there's the
end. Louisa, if you have any new schemes for my welfare, I beg you to
renounce them.'

'Gratitude I never expected from a Dawley!' the Countess retorted.

'Oh, Louisa! he is going!' cried Caroline; 'kneel to him with me: stop
him: Rose loves him, and he is going to make her hate him.'

'You can't talk reason to one who's mad,' said the Countess, more like
the Dawley she sprang from than it would have pleased her to know.

'My darling! My own Evan! it will kill me,' Caroline exclaimed, and
passionately imploring him, she looked so hopelessly beautiful, that Evan
was agitated, and caressed her, while he said, softly: 'Where our honour
is not involved I would submit to your smallest wish.'

'It involves my life--my destiny!' murmured Caroline.

Could he have known the double meaning in her words, and what a saving
this sacrifice of his was to accomplish, he would not have turned to do
it feeling abandoned of heaven and earth.

The Countess stood rigidly as he went forth. Caroline was on her knees,
sobbing.

CHAPTER XXXIV

A PAGAN SACRIFICE

Three steps from the Countess's chamber door, the knot of Evan's
resolution began to slacken. The clear light of his simple duty grew
cloudy and complex. His pride would not let him think that he was
shrinking, but cried out in him, 'Will you be believed?' and whispered
that few would believe him guilty of such an act. Yet, while something
said that full surely Lady Jocelyn would not, a vague dread that Rose
might, threw him back on the luxury of her love and faith in him. He
found himself hoping that his statement would be laughed at. Then why
make it?

No: that was too blind a hope. Many would take him at his word; all--all
save Lady Jocelyn! Rose the first! Because he stood so high with her now
he feared the fall. Ah, dazzling pinnacle! our darlings shoot us up on a
wondrous juggler's pole, and we talk familiarly to the stars, and are so
much above everybody, and try to walk like creatures with two legs,
forgetting that we have but a pin's point to stand on up there. Probably
the absence of natural motion inspires the prophecy that we must
ultimately come down: our unused legs wax morbidly restless. Evan thought
it good that Rose should lift her head to look at him; nevertheless, he
knew that Rose would turn from him the moment he descended from his
superior station. Nature is wise in her young children, though they wot
not of it, and are always trying to rush away from her. They escape their
wits sooner than their instincts.

But was not Rose involved in him, and part of him? Had he not sworn never
to renounce her? What was this but a betrayal?

Go on, young man: fight your fight. The little imps pluck at you: the big
giant assails you: the seductions of the soft-mouthed siren are not
wanting. Slacken the knot an instant, and they will all have play. And
the worst is, that you may be wrong, and they may be right! For is it,
can it be proper for you to stain the silvery whiteness of your skin by
plunging headlong into yonder pitch-bath? Consider the defilement!
Contemplate your hideous aspect on issuing from that black baptism!

As to the honour of your family, Mr. Evan Harrington, pray, of what sort
of metal consists the honour of a tailor's family?

One little impertinent imp ventured upon that question on his own
account. The clever beast was torn back and strangled instantaneously by
his experienced elders, but not before Evan's pride had answered him.
Exalted by Love, he could dread to abase himself and strip off his
glittering garments; lowered by the world, he fell back upon his innate
worth.

Yes, he was called on to prove it; he was on his way to prove it.
Surrendering his dearest and his best, casting aside his dreams, his
desires, his aspirations, for this stern duty, he at least would know
that he made himself doubly worthy of her who abandoned him, and the
world would scorn him by reason of his absolute merit. Coming to this
point, the knot of his resolve tightened again; he hugged it with the
furious zeal of a martyr.

Religion, the lack of which in him the Countess deplored, would have
guided him and silenced the internal strife. But do not despise a virtue
purely Pagan. The young who can act readily up to the Christian light are
happier, doubtless: but they are led, they are passive: I think they do
not make such capital Christians subsequently. They are never in such
danger, we know; but some in the flock are more than sheep. The heathen
ideal it is not so very easy to attain, and those who mount from it to
the Christian have, in my humble thought, a firmer footing.

So Evan fought his hard fight from the top of the stairs to the bottom. A
Pagan, which means our poor unsupported flesh, is never certain of his
victory. Now you will see him kneeling to his Gods, and anon drubbing
them; or he makes them fight for him, and is complacent at the issue.
Evan had ceased to pick his knot with one hand and pull it with the
other: but not finding Lady Jocelyn below, and hearing that she had
retired for the night, he mounted the stairs, and the strife recommenced
from the bottom to the top. Strange to say, he was almost unaware of any
struggle going on within him. The suggestion of the foolish little imp
alone was loud in the heart of his consciousness; the rest hung more in
his nerves than in his brain. He thought: 'Well, I will speak it out to
her in the morning'; and thought so sincerely, while an ominous sigh of
relief at the reprieve rose from his over-burdened bosom.

Hardly had the weary deep breath taken flight, when the figure of Lady
Jocelyn was seen advancing along the corridor, with a lamp in her hand.
She trod heavily, in a kind of march, as her habit was; her large
fully-open grey eyes looking straight ahead. She would have passed him,
and he would have let her pass, but seeing the unusual pallor on her
face, his love for this lady moved him to step forward and express a hope
that she had no present cause for sorrow.

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