Evan Harrington, v3
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George Meredith >> Evan Harrington, v3
What 's that the leaves of the proud old trees of Beckley Court hiss as
he sweeps beneath them? What has suddenly cut him short? Is he
diminished in stature? Are the lackeys sneering? The storm that has
passed has marvellously chilled the air.
His sister, the Countess, once explained to him what Demogorgon was, in
the sensation it entailed. 'You are skinned alive!' said the Countess.
Evan was skinned alive. Fly, wretched young man! Summon your pride, and
fly! Fly, noble youth, for whom storms specially travel to tell you that
your mistress makes faces in the looking-glass! Fly where human lips and
noses are not scornfully distorted, and get thee a new skin, and grow and
attain to thy natural height in a more genial sphere! You, ladies and
gentlemen, who may have had a matter to conceal, and find that it is
oozing out: you, whose skeleton is seen stalking beside you, you know
what it is to be breathed upon: you, too, are skinned alive: but this
miserable youth is not only flayed, he is doomed calmly to contemplate
the hideous image of himself burning on the face of her he loves; making
beauty ghastly. In vain--for he is two hours behind the dinner-bell--
Mr. Burley, the butler, bows and offers him viands and wine. How can he
eat, with the phantom of Rose there, covering her head, shuddering,
loathing him? But he must appear in company: he has a coat, if he has
not a skin. Let him button it, and march boldly. Our comedies are
frequently youth's tragedies. We will smile reservedly as we mark Mr.
Evan Harrington step into the midst of the fair society of the drawing-
room. Rose is at the piano. Near her reclines the Countess de Saldar,
fanning the languors from her cheeks, with a word for the diplomatist on
one side, a whisper for Sir John Loring on the other, and a very quiet
pair of eyes for everybody. Providence, she is sure, is keeping watch to
shield her sensitive cuticle; and she is besides exquisitely happy,
albeit outwardly composed: for, in the room sits his Grace the Duke of
Belfield, newly arrived. He is talking to her sister, Mrs. Strike,
masked by Miss Current. The wife of the Major has come this afternoon,
and Andrew Cogglesby, who brought her, chats with Lady Jocelyn like an
old acquaintance.
Evan shakes the hands of his relatives. Who shall turn over the leaves
of the fair singer's music-book? The young men are in the billiard-room:
Drummond is engaged in converse with a lovely person with Giorgione hair,
which the Countess intensely admires, and asks the diplomatist whether he
can see a soupcon of red in it. The diplomatist's taste is for dark
beauties: the Countess is dark.
Evan must do duty by Rose. And now occurred a phenomenon in him.
Instead of shunning her, as he had rejoiced in doing after the Jocasta
scene, ere she had wounded him, he had a curious desire to compare her
with the phantom that had dispossessed her in his fancy. Unconsciously
when he saw her, he transferred the shame that devoured him, from him to
her, and gazed coldly at the face that could twist to that despicable
contortion.
He was in love, and subtle love will not be shamed and smothered. Love
sits, we must remember, mostly in two hearts at the same time, and the
one that is first stirred by any of the passions to wakefulness, may know
more of the other than its owner. Why had Rose covered her head and
shuddered? Would the girl feel that for a friend? If his pride
suffered, love was not so downcast; but to avenge him for the cold she
had cast on him, it could be critical, and Evan made his bearing to her a
blank.
This somehow favoured him with Rose. Sheep's eyes are a dainty dish for
little maids, and we know how largely they indulge in it; but when they
are just a bit doubtful of the quality of the sheep, let the good animal
shut his lids forthwith, for a time. Had she not been a little unkind to
him in the morning? She had since tried to help him, and that had
appeased her conscience, for in truth he was a good young man. Those
very words she mentally pronounced, while he was thinking, 'Would she
feel it for a friend?' We dare but guess at the puzzle young women
present now and then, but I should say that Evan was nearer the mark, and
that the 'good young man' was a sop she threw to that within her which
wanted quieting, and was thereby passably quieted. Perhaps the good
young man is offended? Let us assure him of our disinterested
graciousness.
'Is your friend coming?' she asked, and to his reply said, 'I'm glad';
and pitched upon a new song-one that, by hazard, did not demand his
attentions, and he surveyed the company to find a vacant seat with a
neighbour. Juley Bonner was curled up on the sofa, looking like a damsel
who has lost the third volume of an exciting novel, and is divining the
climax. He chose to avoid Miss Bonner. Drummond was leaving the side of
the Giorgione lady. Evan passed leisurely, and Drummond said
'You know Mrs. Evremonde? Let me introduce you.'
He was soon in conversation with the glorious-haired dame.
'Excellently done, my brother!' thinks the Countess de Saldar.
Rose sees the matter coolly. What is it to her? But she had finished
with song. Jenny takes her place at the piano; and, as Rose does not
care for instrumental music, she naturally talks and laughs with
Drummond, and Jenny does not altogether like it, even though she is not
playing to the ear of William Harvey, for whom billiards have such
attractions; but, at the close of the performance, Rose is quiet enough,
and the Countess observes her sitting, alone, pulling the petals of a
flower in her lap, on which her eyes are fixed. Is the doe wounded? The
damsel of the disinterested graciousness is assuredly restless. She
starts up and goes out upon the balcony to breathe the night-air, mayhap
regard the moon, and no one follows her.
Had Rose been guiltless of offence, Evan might have left Beckley Court
the next day, to cherish his outraged self-love. Love of woman is
strongly distinguished from pure egoism when it has got a wound: for it
will not go into a corner complaining, it will fight its duel on the
field or die. Did the young lady know his origin, and scorn him? He
resolved to stay and teach her that the presumption she had imputed to
him was her own mistake. And from this Evan graduated naturally enough
the finer stages of self-deception downward.
A lover must have his delusions, just as a man must have a skin. But
here was another singular change in Evan. After his ale-prompted speech
in Fallow field, he was nerved to face the truth in the eyes of all save
Rose. Now that the truth had enmeshed his beloved, he turned to battle
with it; he was prepared to deny it at any moment; his burnt flesh was as
sensitive as the Countess's.
Let Rose accuse him, and he would say, 'This is true, Miss Jocelyn--what
then?' and behold Rose confused and dumb! Let not another dare suspect
it. For the fire that had scorched him was in some sort healing, though
horribly painful; but contact with the general air was not to be endured
--was death! This, I believe, is common in cases of injury by fire.
So it befell that Evan, meeting Rose the next morning was playfully asked
by her what choice he had made between the white and the red; and he,
dropping on her the shallow eyes of a conventional smile, replied, that
unable to decide and form a choice, he had thrown both away; at which
Miss Jocelyn gave him a look in the centre of his brows, let her head
slightly droop, and walked off.
'She can look serious as well as grimace,' was all that Evan allowed
himself to think, and he strolled out on the lawn with the careless
serenity of lovers when they fancy themselves heart-free.
Rose, whipping the piano in the drawing-room, could see him go to sit by
Mrs. Evremonde, till they were joined by Drummond, when he left her and
walked with Harry, and apparently shadowed the young gentleman's
unreflective face; after which Harry was drawn away by the appearance of
that dark star, the Countess de Saldar, whom Rose was beginning to
detest. Jenny glided by William Harvey's side, far off. Rose, the young
Queen of Friendship, was left deserted on her music-stool for a throne,
and when she ceased to hammer the notes she was insulted by a voice that
cried from below:
'Go on, Rose, it's nice in the sun to hear you,' causing her to close her
performances and the instrument vigorously.
Rose was much behind her age: she could not tell what was the matter with
her. In these little torments young people have to pass through they
gain a rapid maturity. Let a girl talk with her own heart an hour, and
she is almost a woman. Rose came down-stairs dressed for riding. Laxley
was doing her the service of smoking one of her rose-trees. Evan stood
disengaged, prepared for her summons. She did not notice him, but
beckoned to Laxley drooping over a bud, while the curled smoke floated
from his lips.
'The very gracefullest of chimney-pots-is he not?' says the Countess to
Harry, whose immense guffaw fails not to apprise Laxley that something
has been said of him, for in his dim state of consciousness absence of
the power of retort is the prominent feature, and when he has the
suspicion of malicious tongues at their work, all he can do is silently
to resent it. Probably this explains his conduct to Evan. Some youths
have an acute memory for things that have shut their mouths.
The Countess observed to Harry that his dear friend Mr. Laxley appeared,
by the cast of his face, to be biting a sour apple.
'Grapes, you mean?' laughed Harry. 'Never mind! she'll bite at him when
he comes in for the title.'
'Anything crude will do,' rejoined the Countess. 'Why are you not
courting Mrs. Evremonde, naughty Don?'
'Oh! she's occupied--castle's in possession. Besides--!' and Harry
tried hard to look sly.
'Come and tell me about her,' said the Countess.
Rose, Laxley, and Evan were standing close together.
'You really are going alone, Rose?' said Laxley.
'Didn't I say so?--unless you wish to join us?' She turned upon Evan.
'I am at your disposal,' said Evan.
Rose nodded briefly.
'I think I'll smoke the trees,' said Laxley, perceptibly huffing.
'You won't come, Ferdinand?'
'I only offered to fill up the gap. One does as well as another.'
Rose flicked her whip, and then declared she would not ride at all, and,
gathering up her skirts, hurried back to the house.
As Laxley turned away, Evan stood before him.
The unhappy fellow was precipitated by the devil of his false position.
'I think one of us two must quit the field; if I go I will wait for you,'
he said.
'Oh; I understand,' said Laxley. 'But if it 's what I suppose you to
mean, I must decline.'
'I beg to know your grounds.'
'You have tied my hands.'
'You would escape under cover of superior station?'
'Escape! You have only to unsay--tell me you have a right to demand it.'
The battle of the sophist victorious within him was done in a flash, as
Evan measured his qualities beside this young man's, and without a sense
of lying, said: 'I have.'
He spoke firmly. He looked the thing he called himself now. The
Countess, too, was a dazzling shield to her brother. The beautiful Mrs.
Strike was a completer vindicator of him; though he had queer associates,
and talked oddly of his family that night in Fallow field.
'Very well, sir: I admit you manage to annoy me,' said Laxley. 'I can
give you a lesson as well as another, if you want it.'
Presently the two youths were seen bowing in the stiff curt style of
those cavaliers who defer a passage of temper for an appointed
settlement. Harry rushed off to them with a shout, and they separated;
Laxley speaking a word to Drummond, Evan--most judiciously, the Countess
thought--joining his fair sister Caroline, whom the Duke held in
converse.
Drummond returned laughing to the side of Mrs. Evremonde, nearing whom,
the Countess, while one ear was being filled by Harry's eulogy of her
brother's recent handling of Laxley, and while her intense gratification
at the success of her patient management of her most difficult subject
made her smiles no mask, heard, 'Is it not impossible to suppose such a
thing?' A hush ensued--the Countess passed.
In the afternoon, the Jocelyns, William Harvey, and Drummond met together
to consult about arranging the dispute; and deputations went to Laxley
and to Evan. The former demanded an apology for certain expressions that
day; and an equivalent to an admission that Mr. Harrington had said, in
Fallow field, that he was not a gentleman, in order to escape the
consequences. All the Jocelyns laughed at his tenacity, and 'gentleman'
began to be bandied about in ridicule of the arrogant lean-headed
adolescent. Evan was placable enough, but dogged; he declined to make
any admission, though within himself he admitted that his antagonist was
not in the position of an impostor; which he for one honest word among
them would be exposed as being, and which a simple exercise of resolution
to fly the place would save him from being further.
Lady Jocelyn enjoyed the fun, and still more the serious way in which her
relatives regarded it.
'This comes of Rose having friends, Emily,' said Mrs. Shorne.
There would have been a dispute to arrange between Lady Jocelyn and Mrs.
Shorne, had not her ladyship been so firmly established in her phlegmatic
philosophy. She said: 'Quelle enfantillage! I dare say Rose was at the
bottom of it: she can settle it best. Defer the encounter between the
boys until they see they are in the form of donkeys. They will; and then
they'll run on together, as long as their goddess permits.'
'Indeed, Emily,' said Mrs. Shorne, 'I desire you, by all possible means,
to keep the occurrence secret from Rose. She ought not to hear of it.'
'No; I dare say she ought not,' returned Lady Jocelyn; 'but I wager you
she does. You can teach her to pretend not to, if you like. Ecce
signum.'
Her ladyship pointed through the library window at Rose, who was walking
with Laxley, and showing him her pearly teeth in return for one of his
jokes: an exchange so manifestly unfair, that Lady Jocelyn's womanhood,
indifferent as she was, could not but feel that Rose had an object in
view; which was true, for she was flattering Laxley into a consent to
meet Evan half way.
The ladies murmured and hummed of these proceedings, and of Rose's
familiarity with Mr. Harrington; and the Countess in trepidation took
Evan to herself, and spoke to him seriously; a thing she had not done
since her residence in Beckley. She let him see that he must be on a
friendly footing with everybody in the house, or go which latter
alternative Evan told her he had decided on. 'Yes,' said the Countess,
'and then you give people full warrant to say it was jealousy drove you
hence; and you do but extinguish yourself to implicate dear Rose. In
love, Evan, when you run away, you don't live to fight another day.'
She was commanded not to speak of love.
'Whatever it may be, my dear,' said the Countess, 'Mr. Laxley has used
you ill. It may be that you put yourself at his feet'; and his sister
looked at him, sighing a great sigh. She had, with violence, stayed her
mouth concerning what she knew of the Fallow field business, dreading to
alarm his sensitiveness; but she could not avoid giving him a little
slap. It was only to make him remember by the smart that he must always
suffer when he would not be guided by her.
Evan professed to the Jocelyns that he was willing to apologize to Laxley
for certain expressions; determining to leave the house when he had done
it. The Countess heard and nodded. The young men, sounded on both
sides, were accordingly lured to the billiard-room, and pushed together:
and when he had succeeded in thrusting the idea of Rose from the dispute,
it did seem such folly to Evan's common sense, that he spoke with
pleasant bonhommie about it. That done, he entered into his acted part,
and towered in his conceit considerably above these aristocratic boors,
who were speechless and graceless, but tigers for their privileges and
advantages.
It will not be thought that the Countess intended to permit her brother's
departure. To have toiled, and yet more, to have lied and fretted her
conscience, for nothing, was as little her principle, as to quit the
field of action till she is forcibly driven from it is that of any woman.
'Going, my dear,' she said coolly. 'To-morrow? Oh! very well. You are
the judge. And this creature--the insolvent to the apple-woman, who is
coming, whom you would push here--will expose us, without a soul to guide
his conduct, for I shall not remain. And Carry will not remain.
Carry---!' The Countess gave a semisob. 'Carry must return to her
brute--' meaning the gallant Marine, her possessor.
And the Countess, knowing that Evan loved his sister Caroline,
incidentally related to him an episode in the domestic life of Major and
Mrs. Strike.
'Greatly redounding to the credit of the noble martinet for the
discipline he upholds,' the Countess said, smiling at the stunned youth.
'I would advise you to give her time to recover from one bruise,' she
added. 'You will do as it pleases you.'
Evan was sent rushing from the Countess to Caroline, with whom the
Countess was content to leave him.
The young man was daintily managed. Caroline asked him to stay, as she
did not see him often, and (she brought it in at the close) her home was
not very happy. She did not entreat him, but looking resigned, her
lovely face conjured up the Major to Evan, and he thought, 'Can I drive
her back to her tyrant?' For so he juggled with himself to have but
another day in the sunshine of Rose.
Andrew, too, threw out genial hints about the Brewery. Old Tom intended
to retire, he said, and then they would see what they would see! He
silenced every word about Lymport; called him a brewer already, and made
absurd jokes, that were serviceable stuff nevertheless to the Countess,
who deplored to this one and to that the chance existing that Evan might,
by the urgent solicitations of his brother-in-law, give up diplomacy and
its honours for a brewery and lucre!
Of course Evan knew that he was managed. The memoirs of a managed man
have yet to be written; but if he be sincere he will tell you that he
knew it all the time. He longed for the sugar-plum; he knew it was
naughty to take it: he dared not for fear of the devil, and he shut his
eyes while somebody else popped it into his mouth, and assumed his
responsibility. Being man-driven or chicaned, is different from being
managed. Being managed implies being led the way this other person
thinks you should go: altogether for your own benefit, mind: you are to
see with her eyes, that you may not disappoint your own appetites: which
does not hurt the flesh, certainly; but does damage the conscience; and
from the moment you have once succumbed, that function ceases to perform
its office of moral strainer so well.
After all, was he not happier when he wrote himself tailor, than when he
declared himself gentleman?
So he now imagined, till Rose, wishing him 'Good night' on the balcony,
and abandoning her hand with a steady sweet voice and gaze, said: 'How
generous of you to forgive my friend, dear Evan!' And the ravishing
little glimpse of womanly softness in her, set his heart beating. If he
thought at all, it was that he would have sacrificed body and soul for
her.
ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
A lover must have his delusions, just as a man must have a skin
A woman rises to her husband. But a man is what he is
Abject sense of the lack of a circumference
Amiable mirror as being wilfully ruffled to confuse
Because men can't abide praise of another man
Brief negatives are not re-assuring to a lover's uneasy mind
But a woman must now and then ingratiate herself
Can you not be told you are perfect without seeking to improve
Command of countenance the Countess possessed
Damsel who has lost the third volume of an exciting novel
English maids are domesticated savage animals
Every woman that's married isn't in love with her husband
Eyes of a lover are not his own; but his hands and lips are
Good nature, and means no more harm than he can help
Graduated naturally enough the finer stages of self-deception
Have her profile very frequently while I am conversing with her
He was in love, and subtle love will not be shamed and smothered
I did, replied Evan. 'I told a lie.'
Is he jealous? 'Only when I make him, he is.'
Make no effort to amuse him. He is always occupied
Married a wealthy manufacturer--bartered her blood for his money
Notoriously been above the honours of grammar
Our comedies are frequently youth's tragedies
Rebukes which give immeasurable rebounds
Recalling her to the subject-matter with all the patience
Remarked that the young men must fight it out together
Rose was much behind her age
Rose! what have I done? 'Nothing at all,' she said
Says you're so clever you ought to be a man
She believed friendship practicable between men and women
The Countess dieted the vanity according to the nationality
The letter had a smack of crabbed age hardly counterfeit
Took care to be late, so that all eyes beheld her
Tried to be honest, and was as much so as his disease permitted
Virtuously zealous in an instant on behalf of the lovely dame
When you run away, you don't live to fight another day
With good wine to wash it down, one can swallow anything
You do want polish
You talk your mother with a vengeance