Evan Harrington, Complete

G >> George Meredith >> Evan Harrington, Complete

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'Why, goodness gracious! where's your moustache?' cried the Countess.

'Gone the way of hair!' said Evan, coldly stooping to her forehead.

'Such a distinction!' the Countess continued, reproachfully. 'Why, mon
Dieu! one could hardly tell you; as you look now, from the very commonest
tradesman--if you were not rather handsome and something of a figure.
It's a disguise, Evan--do you know that?'

'And I 've parted with it--that 's all,' said Evan. 'No more disguises
for me!'

The Countess immediately took his arm, and walked with him to a window.
His face was certainly changed. Murmuring that the air of Lymport was bad
for him, and that he must leave it instantly, she bade him sit and attend
to what she was about to say.

While you have been here, degenerating, Evan, day by day--as you always
do out of my sight--degenerating! no less a word!--I have been slaving in
your interests. Yes; I have forced the Jocelyns socially to acknowledge
us. I have not slept; I have eaten bare morsels. Do abstinence and vigils
clear the wits? I know not! but indeed they have enabled me to do more in
a week than would suffice for a lifetime. Hark to me. I have discovered
Rose's secret. Si! It is so! Rose loves you. You blush; you blush like a
girl. She loves you, and you have let yourself be seen in a shop!
Contrast me the two things. Oh! in verity, dreadful as it is, one could
almost laugh. But the moment I lose sight of you, my instructions vanish
as quickly as that hair on your superior lip, which took such time to
perfect. Alas! you must grow it again immediately. Use any perfumer's
contrivance. Rowland! I have great faith in Rowland. Without him, I
believe, there would have been many bald women committing suicide! You
remember the bottle I gave to the Count de Villa Flor? "Countess," he
said to me, "you have saved this egg-shell from a crack by helping to
cover it"--for so he called his head--the top, you know, was beginning to
shine like an egg. And I do fear me he would have done it. Ah! you do not
conceive what the dread of baldness is! To a woman death--death is
preferable to baldness! Baldness is death! And a wig--a wig! Oh, horror!
total extinction is better than to rise again in a wig! But you are
young, and play with hair. But I was saying, I went to see the Jocelyns.
I was introduced to Sir Franks and his lady and the wealthy grandmother.
And I have an invitation for you, Evan--you unmannered boy, that you do
not bow! A gentle incline forward of the shoulders, and the eyes fixed
softly, your upper lids drooping triflingly, as if you thanked with
gentle sincerity, but were indifferent. Well, well, if you will not! An
invitation for you to spend part of the autumn at Beckley Court, the
ancestral domain, where there will be company the nobles of the land!
Consider that. You say it was bold in me to face them after that horrible
man committed us on board the vessel? A Harrington is anything but a
coward. I did go and because I am devoted to your interests. That very
morning, I saw announced in the paper, just beneath poor Andrew's hand,
as he held it up at the breakfast-table, reading it, I saw among the
deaths, Sir Abraham Harrington, of Torquay, Baronet, of quinsy! Twice
that good man has come to my rescue! Oh! I welcomed him as a piece of
Providence! I turned and said to Harriet, "I see they have put poor Papa
in the paper." Harriet was staggered. I took the paper from Andrew, and
pointed it to her. She has no readiness. She has had no foreign training.
She could not comprehend, and Andrew stood on tiptoe, and peeped. He has
a bad cough, and coughed himself black in the face. I attribute it to
excessive bad manners and his cold feelings. He left the room. I
reproached Harriet. But, oh! the singularity of the excellent fortune of
such an event at such a time! It showed that our Harrington-luck had not
forsaken us. I hurried to the Jocelyns instantly. Of course, it cleared
away any suspicions aroused in them by that horrible man on board the
vessel. And the tears I wept for Sir Abraham, Evan, in verity they were
tears of deep and sincere gratitude! What is your mouth knitting the
corners at? Are you laughing?'

Evan hastily composed his visage to the melancholy that was no
counterfeit in him just then.

'Yes,' continued the Countess, easily reassured, 'I shall ever feel a
debt to Sir Abraham Harrington, of Torquay. I dare say we are related to
him. At least he has done us more service than many a rich and titled
relative. No one supposes he would acknowledge poor Papa. I can forgive
him that, Evan!' The Countess pointed out her finger with mournful and
impressive majesty, 'As we look down on that monkey, people of rank and
consideration in society look on what poor dear Papa was.'

This was partly true, for Jacko sat on a chair, in his favourite
attitude, copied accurately from the workmen of the establishment at
their labour with needle and thread. Growing cognizant of the infamy of
his posture, the Countess begged Evan to drive him out of her sight, and
took a sniff at her smelling-bottle.

She went on: 'Now, dear Van, you would hear of your sweet Rose?'

'Not a word!' Evan hastily answered.

'Why, what does this indicate? Whims! Then you do love?'

'I tell you, Louisa, I don't want to hear a word of any of them,' said
Evan, with an angry gleam in his eyes. 'They are nothing to me, nor I to
them. I--my walk in life is not theirs.'

'Faint heart! faint heart!' the Countess lifted a proverbial forefinger.

'Thank heaven, I shall have the consolation of not going about, and
bowing and smirking like an impostor!' Evan exclaimed.

There was a wider intelligence in the Countess's arrested gaze than she
chose to fashion into speech.

'I knew,' she said, 'I knew how the air of this horrible Lymport would
act on you. But while I live, Evan, you shall not sink in the sludge.
You, with all the pains I have lavished on you! and with your
presence!--for you have a presence, so rare among young men in this
England! You, who have been to a Court, and interchanged bows with
duchesses, and I know not what besides--nay, I do not accuse you; but if
you had not been a mere boy, and an English boy-poor Eugenia herself
confessed to me that you had a look--a tender cleaving of the
underlids--that made her catch her hand to her heart sometimes: it
reminded her so acutely of false Belmarafa. Could you have had a greater
compliment than that? You shall not stop here another day!'

'True,' said Evan, 'for I'm going to London to-night.'

'Not to London,' the Countess returned, with a conquering glance, 'but to
Beckley Court-and with me.'

'To London, Louisa, with Mr. Goren.'

Again the Countess eyed him largely; but took, as it were, a side-path
from her broad thought, saying: 'Yes, fortunes are made in London, if you
would they should be rapid.'

She meditated. At that moment Dandy knocked at the door, and called
outside: 'Please, master, Mr. Goren says there's a gentleman in the
shop-wants to see you.'

'Very well,' replied Evan, moving. He was swung violently round.

The Countess had clutched him by the arm. A fearful expression was on her
face.

'Whither do you go?' she said.

'To the shop, Louisa.'

Too late to arrest the villanous word, she pulled at him. 'Are you quite
insane? Consent to be seen by a gentleman there? What has come to you?
You must be lunatic! Are we all to be utterly ruined--disgraced?'

'Is my mother to starve?' said Evan.

'Absurd rejoinder! No! You should have sold everything here before this.
She can live with Harriet--she--once out of this horrible element--she
would not show it. But, Evan, you are getting away from me: you are not
going?--speak!'

'I am going,' said Evan.

The Countess clung to him, exclaiming: 'Never, while I have the power to
detain you!' but as he was firm and strong, she had recourse to her
woman's aids, and burst into a storm of sobs on his shoulder--a scene of
which Mrs. Mel was, for some seconds, a composed spectator.

'What 's the matter now?' said Mrs. Mel.

Evan impatiently explained the case. Mrs. Mel desired her daughter to
avoid being ridiculous, and making two fools in her family; and at the
same time that she told Evan there was no occasion for him to go,
contrived, with a look, to make the advice a command. He, in that state
of mind when one takes bitter delight in doing an abhorred duty, was
hardly willing to be submissive; but the despair of the Countess reduced
him, and for her sake he consented to forego the sacrifice of his pride
which was now his sad, sole pleasure. Feeling him linger, the Countess
relaxed her grasp. Hers were tears that dried as soon as they had served
their end; and, to give him the full benefit of his conduct, she said: 'I
knew Evan would be persuaded by me.'

Evan pitifully pressed her hand, and sighed.

'Tea is on the table down-stairs,' said Mrs. Mel. 'I have cooked
something for you, Louisa. Do you sleep here to-night?'

'Can I tell you, Mama?' murmured the Countess. 'I am dependent on our
Evan.'

'Oh! well, we will eat first,' said Mrs. Mel, and they went to the table
below, the Countess begging her mother to drop titles in designating her
to the servants, which caused Mrs. Mel to say:

'There is but one. I do the cooking'; and the Countess, ever disposed to
flatter and be suave, even when stung by a fact or a phrase, added:

'And a beautiful cook you used to be, dear Mama!'

At the table, awaiting them, sat Mrs. Wishaw, Mrs. Fiske, and Mr. Goren,
who soon found themselves enveloped in the Countess's graciousness. Mr.
Goren would talk of trade, and compare Lymport business with London, and
the Countess, loftily interested in his remarks, drew him out to disgust
her brother. Mrs. Wishaw, in whom the Countess at once discovered a
frivolous pretentious woman of the moneyed trading class, she treated as
one who was alive to society, and surveyed matters from a station in the
world, leading her to think that she tolerated Mr. Goren, as a
lady-Christian of the highest rank should tolerate the insects that toil
for us. Mrs. Fiske was not so tractable, for Mrs. Fiske was hostile and
armed. Mrs. Fiske adored the great Mel, and she had never loved Louisa.
Hence, she scorned Louisa on account of her late behaviour toward her
dead parent. The Countess saw through her, and laboured to be friendly
with her, while she rendered her disagreeable in the eyes of Mrs. Wishaw,
and let Mrs. Wishaw perceive that sympathy was possible between them;
manoeuvring a trifle too delicate, perhaps, for the people present, but
sufficient to blind its keen-witted author to the something that was
being concealed from herself, of which something, nevertheless, her
senses apprehensively warned her: and they might have spoken to her wits,
but that mortals cannot, unaided, guess, or will not, unless struck in
the face by the fact, credit, what is to their minds the last horror.

'I came down in the coach, quite accidental, with this gentleman,' said
Mrs. Wishaw, fanning a cheek and nodding at Mr. Goren. 'I'm an old flame
of dear Mel's. I knew him when he was an apprentice in London. Now,
wasn't it odd? Your mother--I suppose I must call you "my lady"?'

The Countess breathed a tender 'Spare me,' with a smile that added,
'among friends!'

Mrs. Wishaw resumed: 'Your mother was an old flame of this gentleman's, I
found out. So there were two old flames, and I couldn't help thinking!
But I was so glad to have seen dear Mel once more:

'Ah!' sighed the Countess.

'He was always a martial-looking man, and laid out, he was quite
imposing. I declare, I cried so, as it reminded me of when I couldn't
have him, for he had nothing but his legs and arms--and I married Wishaw.
But it's a comfort to think I have been of some service to dear, dear
Mel! for Wishaw 's a man of accounts and payments; and I knew Mel had
cloth from him, and, the lady suggested bills delayed, with two or three
nods, 'you know! and I'll do my best for his son.'

'You are kind,' said the Countess, smiling internally at the vulgar
creature's misconception of Evan's requirements.

'Did he ever talk much about Mary Fence?' asked Mrs. Wishaw. '"Polly
Fence," he used to say, "sweet Polly Fence!"'

'Oh! I think so. Frequently,' observed the Countess.

Mrs. Fiske primmed her mouth. She had never heard the great Mel allude to
the name of Fence.

The Goren-croak was heard

'Painters have painted out "Melchisedec" this afternoon. Yes,--ah! In and
out-as the saying goes.'

Here was an opportunity to mortify the Countess.

Mrs. Fiske placidly remarked: 'Have we the other put up in its stead? It
's shorter.'

A twinge of weakness had made Evan request that the name of Evan
Harrington should not decorate the shopfront till he had turned his back
on it, for a time. Mrs. Mel crushed her venomous niece.

'What have you to do with such things? Shine in your own affairs first,
Ann, before you meddle with others.'

Relieved at hearing that 'Melchisedec' was painted out, and unsuspicious
of the announcement that should replace it, the Countess asked Mrs.
Wishaw if she thought Evan like her dear Papa.

'So like,' returned the lady, 'that I would not be alone with him yet,
for worlds. I should expect him to be making love to me: for, you know,
my dear--I must be familiar--Mel never could be alone with you, without!
It was his nature. I speak of him before marriage. But, if I can trust
myself with him, I shall take charge of Mr. Evan, and show him some
London society.'

'That is indeed kind,' said the Countess, glad of a thick veil for the
utterance of her contempt. 'Evan, though--I fear--will be rather engaged.
His friends, the Jocelyns of Beckley Court, will--I fear--hardly dispense
with him and Lady Splenders--you know her? the Marchioness of Splenders?
No?--by repute, at least: a most beautiful and most fascinating woman;
report of him alone has induced her to say that Evan must and shall form
a part of her autumnal gathering at Splenders Castle. And how he is to
get out of it, I cannot tell. But I am sure his multitudinous engagements
will not prevent his paying due court to Mistress Wishaw.'

As the Countess intended, Mistress Wishaw's vanity was reproved, and her
ambition excited: a pretty doublestroke, only possible to dexterous
players.

The lady rejoined that she hoped so, she was sure; and forthwith (because
she suddenly seemed to possess him more than his son), launched upon
Mel's incomparable personal attractions. This caused the Countess to
enlarge upon Evan's vast personal prospects. They talked across each
other a little, till the Countess remembered her breeding, allowed Mrs.
Wishaw to run to an end in hollow exclamations, and put a finish to the
undeclared controversy, by a traverse of speech, as if she were taking up
the most important subject of their late colloquy. 'But Evan is not in
his own hands--he is in the hands of a lovely young woman, I must tell
you. He belongs to her, and not to us. You have heard of Rose Jocelyn,
the celebrated heiress?'

'Engaged?' Mrs. Wishaw whispered aloud.

The Countess, an adept in the lie implied--practised by her, that she
might not subject herself to future punishment (in which she was so
devout a believer, that she condemned whole hosts to it)--deeply smiled.

'Really!' said Mrs. Wishaw, and was about to inquire why Evan, with
these brilliant expectations, could think of trade and tailoring, when
the young man, whose forehead had been growing black, jumped up, and
quitted them; thus breaking the harmony of the table; and as the Countess
had said enough, she turned the conversation to the always welcome theme
of low society. She broached death and corpses; and became extremely
interesting, and very sympathetic: the only difference between the
ghostly anecdotes she related, and those of the other ladies, being that
her ghosts were all of them titled, and walked mostly under the burden of
a coronet. For instance, there was the Portuguese Marquis de Col. He had
married a Spanish wife, whose end was mysterious. Undressing, on the
night of the anniversary of her death, and on the point of getting into
bed, he beheld the dead woman lying on her back before him. All night
long he had to sleep with this freezing phantom! Regularly, every fresh
anniversary, he had to endure the same penance, no matter where he might
be, or in what strange bed. On one occasion, when he took the live for
the dead, a curious thing occurred, which the Countess scrupled less to
relate than would men to hint at. Ghosts were the one childish enjoyment
Mrs. Mel allowed herself, and she listened to her daughter intently,
ready to cap any narrative; but Mrs. Fiske stopped the flood.

'You have improved on Peter Smithers, Louisa,' she said.

The Countess turned to her mildly.

'You are certainly thinking of Peter Smithers,' Mrs. Fiske continued,
bracing her shoulders. 'Surely, you remember poor Peter, Louisa? An old
flame of your own! He was going to kill himself, but married a Devonshire
woman, and they had disagreeables, and SHE died, and he was undressing,
and saw her there in the bed, and wouldn't get into it, and had the
mattress, and the curtains, and the counterpanes, and everything burnt.
He told us it himself. You must remember it, Louisa?'

The Countess remembered nothing of the sort. No doubt could exist of its
having been the Portuguese Marquis de Col, because he had confided to her
the whole affair, and indeed come to her, as his habit was, to ask her
what he could possibly do, under the circumstances. If Mrs. Fiske's
friend, who married the Devonshire person, had seen the same thing, the
coincidence was yet more extraordinary than the case. Mrs. Fiske said it
assuredly was, and glanced at her aunt, who, as the Countess now rose,
declaring she must speak to Evan, chid Mrs. Fiske, and wished her and
Peter Smithers at the bottom of the sea.

'No, no, Mama,' said the Countess, laughing, 'that would hardly be
proper,' and before Mrs. Fiske could reply, escaped to complain to Evan
of the vulgarity of those women.

She was not prepared for the burst of wrath with which Evan met her.
'Louisa,' said he, taking her wrist sternly, 'you have done a thing I
can't forgive. I find it hard to bear disgrace myself: I will not consent
to bring it upon others. Why did you dare to couple Miss Jocelyn's name
with mine?'

The Countess gave him out her arm's length. 'Speak on, Van,' she said,
admiring him with a bright gaze.

'Answer me, Louisa; and don't take me for a fool any more,' he pursued.
'You have coupled Miss Jocelyn's name with mine, in company, and I insist
now upon your giving me your promise to abstain from doing it anywhere,
before anybody.'

'If she saw you at this instant, Van,' returned the incorrigible
Countess, 'would she desire it, think you? Oh! I must make you angry
before her, I see that! You have your father's frown. You surpass him,
for your delivery is more correct, and equally fluent. And if a woman is
momentarily melted by softness in a man, she is for ever subdued by
boldness and bravery of mien.'

Evan dropped her hand. 'Miss Jocelyn has done me the honour to call me
her friend. That was in other days.' His lip quivered. 'I shall not see
Miss Jocelyn again. Yes; I would lay down my life for her; but that's
idle talk. No such chance will ever come to me. But I can save her from
being spoken of in alliance with me, and what I am, and I tell you,
Louisa, I will not have it.' Saying which, and while he looked harshly at
her, wounded pride bled through his eyes.

She was touched. 'Sit down, dear; I must explain to you, and make you
happy against your will,' she said, in another voice, and an English
accent. 'The mischief is done, Van. If you do not want Rose Jocelyn to
love you, you must undo it in your own way. I am not easily deceived. On
the morning I went to her house in town, she took me aside, and spoke to
me. Not a confession in words. The blood in her cheeks, when I mentioned
you, did that for her. Everything about you she must know--how you bore
your grief, and all. And not in her usual free manner, but timidly, as if
she feared a surprise, or feared to be wakened to the secret in her bosom
she half suspects--"Tell him!" she said, "I hope he will not forget me."'

The Countess was interrupted by a great sob; for the picture of frank
Rose Jocelyn changed, and soft, and, as it were, shadowed under a veil of
bashful regard for him, so filled the young man with sorrowful
tenderness, that he trembled, and was as a child.

Marking the impression she had produced on him, and having worn off that
which he had produced on her, the Countess resumed the art in her style
of speech, easier to her than nature.

'So the sweetest of Roses may be yours, dear Van; and you have her in a
gold setting, to wear on your heart. Are you not enviable? I will
not--no, I will not tell you she is perfect. I must fashion the sweet
young creature. Though I am very ready to admit that she is much improved
by this--shall I call it, desired consummation?'

Evan could listen no more. Such a struggle was rising in his breast: the
effort to quench what the Countess had so shrewdly kindled; passionate
desire to look on Rose but for one lightning flash: desire to look on
her, and muffled sense of shame twin-born with it: wild love and leaden
misery mixed: dead hopelessness and vivid hope. Up to the neck in
Purgatory, but his soul saturated with visions of Bliss! The fair orb of
Love was all that was wanted to complete his planetary state, and aloft
it sprang, showing many faint, fair tracts to him, and piling huge
darknesses.

As if in search of something, he suddenly went from the room.

'I have intoxicated the poor boy,' said the Countess, and consulted an
attitude by the evening light in a mirror. Approving the result, she rang
for her mother, and sat with her till dark; telling her she could not and
would not leave her dear Mama that night. At the supper-table Evan did
not appear, and Mr. Goren, after taking counsel of Mrs. Mel, dispersed
the news that Evan was off to London. On the road again, with a purse
just as ill-furnished, and in his breast the light that sometimes leads
gentlemen, as well as ladies, astray.

CHAPTER X

MY GENTLEMAN ON THE ROAD AGAIN

Near a milestone, under the moonlight, crouched the figure of a woman,
huddled with her head against her knees, and careless hair falling to the
summer's dust. Evan came upon this sight within a few miles of
Fallowfield. At first he was rather startled, for he had inherited
superstitious emotions from his mother, and the road was lone, the moon
full. He went up to her and spoke a gentle word, which provoked no reply.
He ventured to put his hand on her shoulder, continuing softly to address
her. She was flesh and blood. Evan stooped his head to catch a whisper
from her mouth, but nothing save a heavier fall of the breath she took,
as of one painfully waking, was heard.

A misery beyond our own is a wholesome picture for youth, and though we
may not for the moment compare the deep with the lower deep, we, if we
have a heart for outer sorrows, can forget ourselves in it. Evan had just
been accusing the heavens of conspiracy to disgrace him. Those patient
heavens had listened, as is their wont. They had viewed and had not been
disordered by his mental frenzies. It is certainly hard that they do not
come down to us, and condescend to tell us what they mean, and be
dumb-foundered by the perspicuity of our arguments the argument, for
instance, that they have not fashioned us for the science of the shears,
and do yet impel us to wield them. Nevertheless, they to whom mortal life
has ceased to be a long matter perceive that our appeals for conviction
are answered, now and then very closely upon the call. When we have cast
off the scales of hope and fancy, and surrender our claims on mad chance,
it is given us to see that some plan is working out: that the heavens,
icy as they are to the pangs of our blood, have been throughout speaking
to our souls; and, according to the strength there existing, we learn to
comprehend them. But their language is an element of Time, whom primarily
we have to know.

Evan Harrington was young. He wished not to clothe the generation. What
was to the remainder of the exiled sons of Adam simply the brand of
expulsion from Paradise, was to him hell. In his agony, anything less
than an angel, soft-voiced in his path, would not have satisfied the poor
boy, and here was this wretched outcast, and instead of being relieved,
he was to act the reliever!

Striving to rouse the desolate creature, he shook her slightly. She now
raised her head with a slow, gradual motion, like that of a wax-work,
showing a white young face, tearless,-dreadfully drawn at the lips. After
gazing at him, she turned her head mechanically to her shoulder, as to
ask him why he touched her. He withdrew his hand, saying:

'Why are you here? Pardon me; I want, if possible, to help you.'

A light sprang in her eyes. She jumped from the stone, and ran forward a
step or two, with a gasp:

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