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T. S. Arthur - "Friends and Neighbors, or Two Ways of Living in the World"

George Meredith - "The Amazing Marriage, Complete"

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Edward Bulwer Lytton - "Alice, or The Mysteries, Book VIII"

Evan Harrington, Complete

G >> George Meredith >> Evan Harrington, Complete




'Contemptible!' cried Jack. 'This is not the tone I like. Contemptible!
why it's my eccentricity among my equals. If I dread the profane vulgar,
that only proves that I'm above them. Odi, etc. Besides, Achilles had his
weak point, and egad, it was when he faced about! By Jingo! I wish I'd
had that idea yesterday. I should have behaved better.'

Evan could see that the creature was beginning to rely desperately on his
humour.

'Come,' he said, 'be a man to-day. Throw off your motley. When I met you
that night so oddly, you had been acting like a worthy fellow, trying to
earn your bread in the best way you could--'

'And precisely because I met you, of all men, I've been going round and
round ever since,' said Jack. 'A clown or pantaloon would have given me
balance. Say no more. You couldn't help it. We met because we were the
two extremes.'

Sighing, 'What a jolly old inn!' Raikes rolled himself over in the
sheets, and gave two or three snug jolts indicative of his determination
to be comfortable while he could.

'Do you intend to carry on this folly, Jack?'

'Say, sacrifice,' was the answer. 'I feel it as much as you possibly
could, Mr. Harrington. Hear the facts,' Jack turned round again. 'Why did
I consent to this absurdity? Because of my ambition. That old fellow,
whom I took to be a clerk of Messrs. Grist, said: "You want to cut a
figure in the world--you're armed now." A sort of Fortunatus's joke. It
was his way of launching me. But did he think I intended this for more
than a lift? I his puppet? He, sir, was my tool! Well, I came. All my
efforts were strained to shorten the period of penance. I had the best
linen, and put on captivating manners. I should undoubtedly have won some
girl of station, and cast off my engagement like an old suit, but just
mark!--now mark how Fortune tricks us! After the pic-nic yesterday, the
domestics of the house came to clear away, and the band being there, I
stopped them and bade them tune up, and at the same time seizing the maid
Wheedle, away we flew. We danced, we whirled, we twirled. Ale upon this!
My head was lost. "Why don't it last for ever?" says I. "I wish it did,"
says she. The naivete enraptured me. "Oooo!" I cried, hugging her, and
then, you know, there was no course open to a man of honour but to offer
marriage and make a lady of her. I proposed: she accepted me, and here I
am, eternally tied to this accurst insignia, if I'm to keep my promise!
Isn't that a sacrifice, friend H.? There's no course open to me. The poor
girl is madly in love. She called me a "rattle!" As a gentleman, I cannot
recede.'

Evan got up and burst into damnable laughter at this burlesque of
himself. Telling the fellow the service he required, and receiving a
groaning assurance that the letter should, without loss of time, be
delivered in proper style, the egoist, as Jack heartily thought him, fell
behind his; knitted brows, and, after musing abstractedly, went forth to
light upon his fate.

But a dread of meeting had seized both Rose and Evan. She had exhausted
her first sincerity of unbelief in her interview with Juliana: and he had
begun to consider what he could say to her. More than the three words 'I
did it,' would not be possible; and if she made him repeat them, facing
her truthful eyes, would he be man enough to strike her bared heart
twice? And, ah! the sullen brute he must seem, standing before her dumb,
hearing her sigh, seeing her wretched effort not to show how unwillingly
her kind spirit despised him. The reason for the act--she would ask for
that! Rose would not be so philosophic as her mother. She would grasp at
every chance to excuse the deed. He cried out against his scheming sister
in an agony, and while he did so, encountered Miss Carrington and Miss.
Bonner in deep converse. Juliana pinched her arm, whereupon Miss
Carrington said: 'You look merry this morning, Mr. Harrington': for he
was unawares smiling at the image of himself in the mirror of John
Raikes. That smile, transformed to a chuckling grimace, travelled to Rose
before they met.

Why did she not come to him?

A soft voice at his elbow made his blood stop. It was Caroline. She
kissed him, answering his greeting: 'Is it good morning?'

'Certainly,' said he. 'By the way, don't forget that the coach leaves
early.'

'My darling Evan! you make me so happy. For it was really a mistaken
sense of honour. For what can at all excuse a falsehood, you know, Evan!'

Caroline took his arm, and led him into the sun, watching his face at
times. Presently she said: 'I want just to be assured that you thought
more wisely than when you left us last night.'

'More wisely?' Evan turned to her with a playful smile.

'My dear brother! you did not do what you said you would do?'

'Have you ever known me not to do what I said I would do?'

'Evan! Good heaven! you did it? Then how can you remain here an instant?
Oh, no, no!--say no, darling!'

'Where is Louisa?' he inquired.

'She is in her room. She will never appear at breakfast, if she knows
this.'

'Perhaps more solitude would do her good,' said Evan.

'Remember, if this should prove true, think how you punish her!'

On that point Evan had his own opinion.

'Well, I shall never have to punish you in this way, my love, he said
fondly, and Caroline dropped her eyelids.

'Don't think that I am blaming her,' he added, trying to feel as honestly
as he spoke. 'I was mad to come here. I see it all now. Let us keep to
our place. We are all the same before God till we disgrace ourselves.'
Possibly with that sense of shame which some young people have who are
not professors of sounding sentences, or affected by missionary zeal,
when they venture to breathe the holy name, Evan blushed, and walked on
humbly silent. Caroline murmured: 'Yes, yes! oh, brother!' and her figure
drew to him as if for protection. Pale, she looked up.

'Shall you always love me, Evan?'

'Whom else have I to love?'

'But always--always? Under any circumstances?'

'More and more, dear. I always have, and shall. I look to you now. I have
no home but in your heart now.'

She was agitated, and he spoke warmly to calm her.

The throb of deep emotion rang in her rich voice. 'I will live any life
to be worthy of your love, Evan,' and she wept.

To him they were words and tears without a history.

Nothing further passed between them. Caroline went to the Countess: Evan
waited for Rose. The sun was getting high. The face of the stream glowed
like metal. Why did she not come? She believed him guilty from the mouth
of another? If so, there was something less for him to lose. And now the
sacrifice he had made did whisper a tale of mortal magnificence in his
ears: feelings that were not his noblest stood up exalted. He waited till
the warm meadow-breath floating past told that the day had settled into
heat, and then he waited no more, but quietly walked into the house with
the strength of one who has conquered more than human scorn.




CHAPTER XXXVII

THE RETREAT FROM BECKLEY

Never would the Countess believe that brother of hers, idiot as by nature
he might be, and heir to unnumbered epithets, would so far forget what
she had done for him, as to drag her through the mud for nothing: and so
she told Caroline again and again, vehemently.

It was about ten minutes before the time for descending to the
breakfast-table. She was dressed, and sat before the glass, smoothing her
hair, and applying the contents of a pot of cold cream to her forehead
between-whiles. With perfect sincerity she repeated that she could not
believe it. She had only trusted Evan once since their visit to Beckley;
and that this once he should, when treated as a man, turn traitor to
their common interests, and prove himself an utter baby, was a piece of
nonsense her great intelligence indignantly rejected.

'Then, if true,' she answered Caroline's assurances finally, 'if true, he
is not his father's son!'

By which it may be seen that she had indeed taken refuge in the Castle of
Negation against the whole army of facts.

'He is acting, Carry. He is acting the ideas of his ridiculous empty
noddle!'

'No,' said Caroline, mournfully, 'he is not. I have never known Evan to
lie.'

'Then you must forget the whipping he once had from his mother--little
dolt! little selfish pig! He obtains his reputation entirely from his
abominable selfishness, and then stands tall, and asks us to admire him.
He bursts with vanity. But if you lend your credence to it, Carry, how,
in the name of goodness, are you to appear at the breakfast?

'I was going to ask you whether you would come,' said Caroline, coldly.

'If I can get my hair to lie flat by any means at all, of course!'
returned the Countess. 'This dreadful horrid country pomade! Why did we
not bring a larger stock of the Andalugian Regenerator? Upon my honour,
my dear, you use a most enormous quantity; I must really tell you that.'

Conning here entered to say that Mr. Evan had given orders for the boxes
to be packed and everything got ready to depart by half-past eleven
o'clock, when the fly would call for them and convey them to Fallow field
in time to meet the coach for London.

The Countess turned her head round to Caroline like an astonished
automaton.

'Given orders!' she interjected.

'I have very little to get ready,' remarked Caroline.

'Be so good as to wait outside the door one instant,' said the Countess
to Conning, with particular urbanity.

Conning heard a great deal of vigorous whispering within, and when
summoned to re-appear, a note was handed to her to convey to Mr.
Harrington immediately. He was on the lawn; read it, and wrote back three
hasty lines in pencil.

'Louisa. You have my commands to quit this house, at the hour named, this
day. You will go with me. E. H.'

Conning was again requested to wait outside the Countess's door. She was
the bearer of another note. Evan read it likewise; tore it up, and said
that there was no answer.

The Castle of Negation held out no longer. Ruthless battalions poured
over the walls, blew up the Countess's propriety, made frightful ravages
in her complexion. Down fell her hair.

'You cannot possibly go to breakfast,' said Caroline.

'I must! I must!' cried the Countess. 'Why, my dear, if he has done
it-wretched creature! don't you perceive that, by withholding our
presences, we become implicated with him?' And the Countess, from a burst
of frenzy, put this practical question so shrewdly, that Caroline's wits
succumbed to her.

'But he has not done it; he is acting!' she pursued, restraining her
precious tears for higher purposes, as only true heroines can. 'Thinks to
frighten me into submission!'

'Do you not think Evan is right in wishing us to leave, after--after--'
Caroline humbly suggested.

'Say, before my venerable friend has departed this life,' the Countess
took her up. 'No, I do not. If he is a fool, I am not. No, Carry: I do
not jump into ditches for nothing. I will have something tangible for all
that I have endured. We are now tailors in this place, remember. If that
stigma is affixed to us, let us at least be remunerated for it. Come.'

Caroline's own hard struggle demanded all her strength yet she appeared
to hesitate. 'You will surely not disobey Evan, Louisa?'

'Disobey?' The Countess amazedly dislocated the syllables. 'Why, the boy
will be telling you next that he will not permit the Duke to visit you!
Just your English order of mind, that cannot--brutes!--conceive of
friendship between high-born men and beautiful women. Beautiful as you
truly are, Carry, five years more will tell on you. But perhaps my
dearest is in a hurry to return to her Maxwell? At least he thwacks
well!'

Caroline's arm was taken. The Countess loved an occasional rhyme when a
point was to be made, and went off nodding and tripping till the time for
stateliness arrived, near the breakfast-room door. She indeed was acting.
At the bottom of her heart there was a dismal rage of passions: hatred of
those who would or might look tailor in her face: terrors concerning the
possible re-visitation of the vengeful Sir Abraham: dread of Evan and the
efforts to despise him: the shocks of many conflicting elements. Above it
all her countenance was calmly, sadly sweet: even as you may behold some
majestic lighthouse glimmering over the tumult of a midnight sea.

An unusual assemblage honoured the breakfast that morning. The news of
Mrs. Bonner's health was more favourable. How delighted was the Countess
to hear that! Mrs. Bonner was the only firm ground she stood on there,
and after receiving and giving gentle salutes, she talked of Mrs. Bonner,
and her night-watch by the sick bed, in a spirit of doleful hope. This
passed off the moments till she could settle herself to study faces.
Decidedly, every lady present looked glum, with the single exception of
Miss Current. Evan was by Lady Jocelyn's side. Her ladyship spoke to him;
but the Countess observed that no one else did. To herself, however, the
gentlemen were as attentive as ever. Evan sat three chairs distant from
her.

If the traitor expected his sister to share in his disgrace, by noticing
him, he was in error. On the contrary, the Countess joined the conspiracy
to exclude him, and would stop a mild laugh if perchance he looked up.
Presently Rose entered. She said 'Good morning' to one or two, and glided
into a seat.

That Evan was under Lady Jocelyn's protection soon became generally
apparent, and also that her ladyship was angry: an exhibition so rare
with her that it was the more remarked. Rose could see that she was a
culprit in her mother's eyes. She glanced from Evan to her. Lady
Jocelyn's mouth shut hard. The girl's senses then perceived the something
that was afloat at the table; she thought with a pang of horror: 'Has
Juliana told?' Juliana smiled on her; but the aspect of Mrs. Shorne, and
of Miss Carrington, spoke for their knowledge of that which must
henceforth be the perpetual reproof to her headstrong youth.

'At what hour do you leave us?' said Lady Jocelyn to Evan.

'When I leave the table, my lady. The fly will call for my sisters at
half-past eleven.'

'There is no necessity for you to start in advance?'

'I am going over to see my mother.'

Rose burned to speak to him now. Oh! why had she delayed! Why had she
swerved from her good rule of open, instant explanations? But Evan's
heart was stern to his love. Not only had she, by not coming, shown her
doubt of him,--she had betrayed him!

Between the Countess, Melville, Sir John, and the Duke, an animated
dialogue was going on, over which Miss Current played like a lively iris.
They could not part with the Countess. Melville said he should be left
stranded, and numerous pretty things were uttered by other gentlemen: by
the women not a word. Glancing from certain of them lingeringly to her
admirers, the Countess smiled her thanks, and then Andrew, pressed to
remain, said he was willing and happy, and so forth; and it seemed that
her admirers had prevailed over her reluctance, for the Countess ended
her little protests with a vanquished bow. Then there was a gradual
rising from table. Evan pressed Lady Jocelyn's hand, and turning from her
bent his head to Sir Franks, who, without offering an exchange of
cordialities, said, at arm's length: 'Good-bye, sir.' Melville also gave
him that greeting stiffly. Harry was perceived to rush to the other end
of the room, in quest of a fly apparently. Poor Caroline's heart ached
for her brother, to see him standing there in the shadow of many faces.
But he was not left to stand alone. Andrew quitted the circle of Sir
John, Seymour Jocelyn, Mr. George Uplift, and others, and linked his arm
to Evan's. Rose had gone. While Evan looked for her despairingly to say
his last word and hear her voice once more, Sir Franks said to his wife:

'See that Rose keeps up-stairs.'

'I want to speak to her,' was her ladyship's answer, and she moved to the
door.

Evan made way for her, bowing.

'You will be ready at half-past eleven, Louisa,' he said, with calm
distinctness, and passed from that purgatory.

Now honest Andrew attributed the treatment Evan met with to the exposure
of yesterday. He was frantic with democratic disgust.

'Why the devil don't they serve me like that; eh? 'Cause I got a few
coppers! There, Van! I'm a man of peace; but if you'll call any man of
'em out I'll stand your second--'pon my soul, I will. They must be
cowards, so there isn't much to fear. Confound the fellows, I tell 'em
every day I'm the son of a cobbler, and egad, they grow civiller. What do
they mean? Are cobblers ranked over tailors?'

'Perhaps that's it,' said Evan.

'Hang your gentlemen!' Andrew cried.

'Let us have breakfast first,' uttered a melancholy voice near them in
the passage.

'Jack!' said Evan. 'Where have you been?'

'I didn't know the breakfast-room,' Jack returned, 'and the fact is, my
spirits are so down, I couldn't muster up courage to ask one of the
footmen. I delivered your letter. Nothing hostile took place. I bowed
fiercely to let him know what he might expect. That generally stops it.
You see, I talk prose. I shall never talk anything else!'

Andrew recommenced his jests of yesterday with Jack. The latter bore them
patiently, as one who had endured worse.

'She has rejected me!' he whispered to Evan. 'Talk of the ingratitude of
women! Ten minutes ago I met her. She perked her eyebrows at me!--tried
to run away. "Miss Wheedle": I said. "If you please, I 'd rather not,"
says she. To cut it short, the sacrifice I made to her was the cause.
It's all over the house. She gave the most excruciating hint. Those
low-born females are so horribly indelicate. I stood confounded.
Commending his new humour, Evan persuaded him to breakfast immediately,
and hunger being one of Jack's solitary incitements to a sensible course
of conduct, the disconsolate gentleman followed its dictates. 'Go with
him, Andrew,' said Evan. 'He is here as my friend, and may be made
uncomfortable.'

'Yes, yes,--ha! ha! I'll follow the poor chap,' said Andrew. 'But what is
it all about? Louisa won't go, you know. Has the girl given you up
because she saw your mother, Van? I thought it was all right. Why the
deuce are you running away?'

'Because I've just seen that I ought never to have come, I suppose,' Evan
replied, controlling the wretched heaving of his chest.

'But Louisa won't go, Van.'

'Understand, my dear Andrew, that I know it to be quite imperative. Be
ready yourself with Caroline. Louisa will then make her choice. Pray help
me in this. We must not stay a minute more than is necessary in this
house.'

'It's an awful duty,' breathed Andrew, after a pause. 'I see nothing but
hot water at home. Why--but it's no use asking questions. My love to your
mother. I say, Van,--now isn't Lady Jocelyn a trump?'

'God bless her!' said Evan. And the moisture in Andrew's eyes affected
his own.

'She's the staunchest piece of woman-goods I ever--I know a hundred cases
of her!'

'I know one, and that 's enough,' said Evan.

Not a sign of Rose! Can Love die without its dear farewell on which it
feeds, away from the light, dying by bits? In Evan's heart Love seemed to
die, and all the pangs of a death were there as he trod along the gravel
and stepped beneath the gates of Beckley Court.

Meantime the gallant Countess was not in any way disposed to retreat on
account of Evan's defection. The behaviour toward him at the
breakfast-table proved to her that he had absolutely committed his
egregious folly, and as no General can have concert with a fool, she cut
him off from her affections resolutely. Her manifest disdain at his last
speech, said as much to everybody present. Besides, the lady was in her
element here, and compulsion is required to make us relinquish our
element. Lady Jocelyn certainly had not expressly begged of her to
remain: the Countess told Melville so, who said that if she required such
an invitation she should have it, but that a guest to whom they were so
much indebted, was bound to spare them these formalities.

'What am I to do?'

The Countess turned piteously to the diplomatist's wife.

She answered, retiringly: 'Indeed I cannot say.'

Upon this, the Countess accepted Melville's arm, and had some thoughts of
punishing the woman.

They were seen parading the lawn. Mr. George Uplift chuckled singularly.

'Just the old style,' he remarked, but corrected the inadvertence with a
'hem!' committing himself more shamefully the instant after. 'I'll wager
she has the old Dip. down on his knee before she cuts.'

'Bet can't be taken,' observed Sir John Loring. 'It requires a spy.'

Harry, however, had heard the remark, and because he wished to speak to
her, let us hope, and reproach her for certain things when she chose to
be disengaged, he likewise sallied out, being forlorn as a youth whose
sweet vanity is much hurt.

The Duke had paired off with Mrs. Strike. The lawn was fair in sunlight
where they walked. The air was rich with harvest smells, and the scent of
autumnal roses. Caroline was by nature luxurious and soft. The thought of
that drilled figure to which she was returning in bondage, may have
thrown into bright relief the polished and gracious nobleman who walked
by her side, shadowing forth the chances of a splendid freedom. Two
lovely tears fell from her eyes. The Duke watched them quietly.

'Do you know, they make me jealous?' he said.

Caroline answered him with a faint smile.

'Reassure me, my dear lady; you are not going with your brother this
morning?'

'Your Grace, I have no choice!'

'May I speak to you as your warmest friend? From what I hear, it appears
to be right that your brother should not stay. To the best of my ability
I will provide for him: but I sincerely desire to disconnect you from
those who are unworthy of you. Have you not promised to trust in me?
Pray, let me be your guide.'

Caroline replied to the heart of his words: 'I dare not.'

'What has changed you?'

'I am not changed, but awakened,' said Caroline.

The Duke paced on in silence.

'Pardon me if I comprehend nothing of such a change,' he resumed. 'I
asked you to sacrifice much; all that I could give in return I offered.
Is it the world you fear?'

'What is the world to such as I am?'

'Can you consider it a duty to deliver yourself bound to that man again?'

'Heaven pardon me, my lord, I think of that too little!'

The Duke's next question: 'Then what can it be?' stood in his eyes.

'Oh!' Caroline's touch quivered on his arm, 'Do not suppose me frivolous,
ungrateful, or--or cowardly. For myself you have offered more happiness
than I could have hoped for. To be allied to one so generous, I could
bear anything. Yesterday you had my word: give it me back to-day!'

Very curiously the Duke gazed on her, for there was evidence of internal
torture across her forehead.

'I may at least beg to know the cause for this request?'

She quelled some throbbing in her bosom. 'Yes.'

He waited, and she said: 'There is one--if I offended him, I could not
live. If now I followed my wishes, he would lose his faith in the last
creature that loves him. He is unhappy. I could bear what is called
disgrace, my lord--I shudder to say it--I could sin against heaven; but I
dare not do what would make him despise me.'

She was trembling violently; yet the nobleman, in his surprise, could not
forbear from asking who this person might be, whose influence on her
righteous actions was so strong.

'It is my brother, my lord,' she said.

Still more astonished, 'Your brother!' the Duke exclaimed. 'My dearest
lady, I would not wound you; but is not this a delusion? We are so placed
that we must speak plainly. Your brother I have reason to feel sure is
quite unworthy of you.'

'Unworthy? My brother Evan? Oh! he is noble, he is the best of men!'

'And how, between yesterday and to-day, has he changed you?'

'It is that yesterday I did not know him, and to-day I do.'

Her brother, a common tradesman, a man guilty of forgery and the utmost
baseness--all but kicked out of the house! The Duke was too delicate to
press her further. Moreover, Caroline had emphasized the 'yesterday' and
'to-day,' showing that the interval which had darkened Evan to everybody
else, had illumined him to her. He employed some courtly eloquence,
better unrecorded; but if her firm resolution perplexed him, it threw a
strange halo round the youth from whom it sprang.

The hour was now eleven, and the Countess thought it full time to retire
to her entrenchment in Mrs. Bonner's chamber. She had great things still
to do: vast designs were in her hand awaiting the sanction of Providence.
Alas! that little idle promenade was soon to be repented. She had joined
her sister, thinking it safer to have her upstairs till they were quit of
Evan. The Duke and the diplomatist loitering in the rear, these two fair
women sailed across the lawn, conscious, doubtless, over all their
sorrows and schemes, of the freight of beauty they carried.

What meant that gathering on the steps? It was fortuitous, like
everything destined to confound us. There stood Lady Jocelyn with Andrew,
fretting his pate. Harry leant against a pillar, Miss Carrington, Mrs.
Shorne, and Mrs. Melville, supported by Mr. George Uplift, held
watchfully by. Juliana, with Master Alec and Miss Dorothy, were in the
background.

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