Lord Ormont and his Aminta, Complete

G >> George Meredith >> Lord Ormont and his Aminta, Complete

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A letter once written by him, in his early days at Cuper's, addressed to
J. Masner, containing a provocation to fight with any weapons, and
signed, 'Your Antagonist,' had been read out to the whole school, under
strong denunciation of the immorality, the unchristian-like conduct of
the writer, by Mr. Cuper; creating a sensation that had travelled to Miss
Vincent's establishment, where some of the naughtiest of the girls had
taken part with the audacious challenger, dreadful though the
contemplation of a possible duel so close to them was. And then the girls
heard that the anonymous 'Your Antagonist,' on being cited to proclaim
himself in public assembly of school-mates and masters, had jumped on his
legs and into the name of--one who was previously thought by Miss
Vincent's good girls incapable of the 'appalling wickedness,' as Mr.
Cuper called it, of signing 'Your Antagonist' to a Christian
school-fellow, having the design to provoke a breach of the law of the
land and shed Christian blood. Mr. Cuper delivered an impressive sermon
from his desk to the standing up boarders and day-scholars alike,
vilifying the infidel Greek word 'antagonist.'

'Do you remember the offender's name?' the Countess of Ormont said; and
Weyburn said--

'Oh yes, I 've not forgotten the incident.'

Her eyes, wherein the dead time hung just above the underlids, lingered,
as with the wish for him to name the name.

She said: 'I am curious to hear how you would treat a case of that sort.
Would you preach to the boys?

'Ten words at most. The right assumption is that both fellows were to
blame. I fancy the proper way would be to appeal to the naughty girls for
their opinion as to how the dispute should be decided.'

'You impose too much on them. And you are not speaking seriously.'

'Pardon me, I am. I should throw myself into the mind of a naughty
girl--supposing none of these at hand--and I should let it be known that
my eyes were shut to proceedings, always provided the weapons were not
such as would cause a shock of alarm in female bosoms.'

'You would at your school allow it to be fought out?'

'Judging by the characters of the boys. If they had heads to understand,
I would try them at their heads. Otherwise they are the better, they come
round quicker to good blood, at their age--I speak of English boys--for a
little hostile exercise of their fists. Well, for one thing, it teaches
them the value of sparring.'

'I must imagine I am not one of the naughty sisterhood,--for I cannot
think I should ever give consent to fighting of any description, unless
for the very best of reasons,' said the countess.

His eyes were at the trick of the quarter-minute's poising. Her lids
fluttered. 'Oh, I don't mean to say I was one of the good,' she added.

At the same time her enlivened memory made her conscious of a warning,
that she might, as any woman might, so talk on of past days as to take,
rather more than was required of the antidote she had come for.

The antidote was excellent; cooling, fortifying; 'quite a chalybeate,'
her aunt would say, and she was thankful. Her heart rose on a quiet wave
of the thanks, and pitched down to a depth of uncounted fathoms. Aminta
was unable to tell herself why.

Mrs. Lawrence Finchley had been announced. On her way to the drawing room
Aminta's brain fell upon a series of dots, that wound along a track to
the point where she accused herself of a repented coquettry--cause of the
burning letters she was doomed to receive and could not stop without
rousing her lion. She dotted backwards; there was no sign that she had
been guilty of any weakness other than the almost--at least, in
design--innocent first move, which had failed to touch Lord Ormont in the
smallest degree. Never failure more absolute!

She was about to inquire of her bosom's oracle whether she greatly cared
now. For an answer, her brain went dotting along from Mr. Cuper's school,
and a boy named Abner there, and a boy named Matey Weyburn, who protected
the little Jew-boy, up to Mr. Abner in London, who recommended him in due
season to various acquaintances; among them to Lady Charlotte Eglett.
Hence the introduction to Lord Ormont. How little extraordinary
circumstances are, if only we trace them to the source!

But if only it had appeared marvellous, the throbbing woman might have
seized on it, as a thing fateful, an intervention distinctly designed to
waken the best in her, which was, after all, the strongest. Yea, she
could hope and pray and believe it was the strongest.

She was listening to Isabella Lawrence Finchley, wishing she might have
followed to some end the above line of her meditations.

Mrs. Lawrence was changed, much warmer, pressing to be more than merely
friendly. Aminta twice gave her cheek for kisses. The secretary had
spoken of Mrs. Lawrence as having the look of a handsome boy; and
Aminta's view of her now underwent a change likewise. Compunction,
together with a sisterly taste for the boyish fair one flying her sail
independently, and gallantly braving the winds, induced her to kiss in
return.

'You do like me a morsel?' said Mrs. Lawrence. 'I fell in love with you
the last time I was here. I came to see Mr. Secretary--it's avowed; and I
have been thinking of you ever since, of no one else. Oh yes, for a man;
but you caught me. I've been hearing of him from Captain May. They fence
at those rooms. And it 's funny, Mr. Morsfield practises there, you know;
and there was a time when the lovely innocent Amy, Queen of Blondes, held
the seat of the Queen of Brunes. Ah, my dear, the infidelity of men
doesn't count. They are affected by the changeing moons. As long as the
captain is civil to him, we may be sure beautiful Amy has not complained.
Her husband is the pistol she carries in her pocket, and she has fired
him twice, with effect. Through love of you I have learnt the different
opinion the world of the good has of her and of me; I thought we ran
under a common brand. There are gradations. I went to throw myself at the
feet of my great-aunt; good old great-aunt Lady de Culme, who is a power
in the land. I let her suppose I came for myself, and she reproached me
with Lord Adder. I confessed to him and ten others. She is a dear, she's
ticklish, and at eighty-four she laughed! She looked into my eyes and saw
a field with never a man in it--just the shadow of a man. She admitted
the ten cancelled the one, and exactly named to me, by comparison with
the erring Amy, the sinner I am and must be, if I 'm to live. So, dear,
the end of it is,' and Mrs. Lawrence put her fingers to a silken amber
bow at Aminta's throat, and squared it and flattened it with dainty
precision, speaking on under dropped eyelids, intent upon her work, 'Lady
de Culme will be happy to welcome you whenever it shall suit the Countess
of Ormont to accompany her disreputable friend. But what can I do, dear?'
She raised her lids and looked beseechingly. 'I was born with this taste
for the ways and games and style of men. I hope I don't get on badly with
women; but if I 'm not allowed to indulge my natural taste, I kick the
stable-boards and bite the manger.'

Aminta threw her arms round her, and they laughed their mutual peal.

Caressing her still, Aminta said: 'I don't know whether I embrace a boy.'

'That idea comes from a man!' said Mrs. Lawrence. It was admitted. The
secretary was discussed.

Mrs. Lawrence remarked: 'Yes, I like talking with him; he's bright. You
drove him out of me the day I saw him. Doesn't he give you the idea of a
man who insists on capturing you and lets it be seen he doesn't care two
snaps of a finger?'

Aminta petitioned on his behalf indifferently: 'He 's well bred.'

She was inattentive to Mrs. Lawrence's answer. The allusion of the Queen
of Blondes had stung her in the unacknowledged regions where women
discard themselves and are most sensitive.

'Decide on coming soon to Lady de Culme,' said Mrs. Lawrence. 'Now that
her arms are open to you, she would like to have you in them. She is
old--. You won't be rigorous? no standing on small punctilios?

She would call, but she does not--h'm, it is M. le Comte that she does
not choose to--h'm. But her arms are open to the countess. It ought to be
a grand step. You may be assured that Lady Charlotte Eglett would not be
taken into them. My great-aunt has a great-aunt's memory. The Ormonts are
the only explanation--if it 's an apology--she can offer for the
behaviour of the husband of the Countess of Ormont. You know I like him.
I can't help liking a man who likes me. Is that the way with a boy, Mr.
Secretary? I must have another talk with the gentleman, my dear. You are
Aminta to me.'

'Always Aminta to you,' was the reply, tenderly given.

'But as for comprehending him, I'm as far off that as Lady de Culme, who
hasn't the liking for him I have.'

'The earl?' said Aminta, showing by her look that she was in the same
position.

Mrs. Lawrence shrugged: 'I believe men and women marry in order that they
should never be able to understand one another. The riddle's best read at
a moderate distance. It 's what they call the golden mean; too close, too
far, we're strangers. I begin to understand that husband of mine, now
we're on bowing terms. Now, I must meet the earl to-morrow. You will
arrange? His hand wants forcing. Upon my word, I don't believe it 's
more.'

Mrs. Lawrence contrasted him in her mind with the husband she knew, and
was invigorated by the thought that a placable impenetrable giant may
often be more pliable in a woman's hands than an irascible dwarf--until,
perchance, the latter has been soundly cuffed, and then he is docile to
trot like a squire, as near your heels as he can get. She rejoiced to be
working for the woman she had fallen in love with.

Aminta promised herself to show the friend a livelier affection at their
next meeting.

A seventh letter, signed 'Adolphus,' came by post, was read and locked up
in her jewel-box. They were all nigh destruction for a wavering minute or
so. They were placed where they lay because the first of them had been
laid there, the box being a strong one, under a patent key, and discovery
would mean the terrible. They had not been destroyed because they had, or
seemed to her to have, the language of passion. She could read them
unmoved, and appease a wicked craving she owned to having, and reproached
herself with having, for that language.

Was she not colour in the sight of men? Here was one, a mouthpiece of
numbers, who vowed that homage was her due, and devotion, the pouring
forth of the soul to her. What was the reproach if she read the stuff
unmoved?

But peruse and reperuse it, and ask impressions to tell our deepest
instinct of truthfulness whether language of this character can have been
written to two women by one hand! Men are cunning. Can they catch a tone?
Not that tone!

She, too, Mrs. Amy May, was colour in the sight of men. Yet it seemed
that he could not have written so to the Queen of Blondes. And she, by
repute, was as dangerous to slight as he to attract. Her indifference
exonerated him. Besides, a Queen of Blondes would not draw the hearts out
of men in England, as in Italy and in Spain. Aminta had got thus far when
she found 'Queen of Brunes' expunged by a mist: she imagined hearing the
secretary's laugh. She thought he was right to laugh at her. She retorted
simply: 'These are feelings that are poetry.'

A man may know nothing about them, and be an excellent schoolmaster.

Suggestions touching the prudence of taking Mrs. Lawrence into her
confidence, as regarded these troublesome letters of the man with the
dart in his breast, were shuffled aside for various reasons: her modesty
shrank; and a sense of honour toward the man forbade it. She would have
found it easier to do if she had conspired against her heart in doing it.
And yet, cold-bloodedly to expose him and pluck the clothing from a
passion--dear to think of only when it is profoundly secret--struck her
as an extreme baseness, of which not even the woman who perused and
reperused his letters could be guilty.

Her head rang with some of the lines, and she accused her head of the
crime of childishness, seeing that her heart was not an accomplice. At
the same time, her heart cried out violently against the business of a
visit to Lady de Culme, and all the steps it involved. Justly she accused
her heart of treason. Heart and head were severed. This, as she partly
apprehended, is the state of the woman who is already on the slope of her
nature's mine-shaft, dreading the rush downwards, powerless to break away
from the light.

Letters perused and reperused, coming from a man never fervently noticed
in person, conjure features one would wish to put beside the actual, to
make sure that the fiery lines he writes are not practising a
beguilement. Aminta had lost grasp of the semblance of the impassioned
man. She just remembered enough of his eyes to think there might be
healing in a sight of him.

Latterly she had refused to be exhibited to a tattling world as the great
nobleman's conquest:--The 'Beautiful Lady Doubtful' of a report that had
scorched her cars. Theatres, rides, pleasure-drives, even such houses as
she saw standing open to her had been shunned. Now she asked the earl to
ride in the park.

He complied, and sent to the stables immediately, just noted another of
her veerings. The whimsy creatures we are matched to contrast with, shift
as the very winds or feather-grasses in the wind. Possibly a fine day did
it. Possibly, too, her not being requested to do it.

He was proud of her bearing on horseback. She rode well and looked well.
A finer weapon wherewith to strike at a churlish world was never given
into the hands of man. These English may see in her, if they like, that
they and their laws and customs are defied. It does her no hurt, and it
hits them a ringing buffet.

Among the cavaliers they passed was Mr. Morsfield. He rode by slowly. The
earl stiffened his back in returning the salute. Both that and the
gentleman were observed by Aminta.

'He sees to having good blood under him,' said the earl. 'I admired his
mount,' she replied.

Interpreted by the fire of his writing, his features expressed character:
insomuch that a woman could say of another woman, that she admired him
and might reasonably do so. His gaze at her in the presence of her lord
was audacious.

He had the defect of his virtue of courage. Yet a man indisputably
possessing courage cannot but have an interesting face--though one may
continue saying, Pity that the eyes are not a little wider apart! He
dresses tastefully; the best English style. A portrait by a master hand
might hand him down to generations as an ancestor to be proud of. But
with passion and with courage, and a bent for snatching at the lion's
own, does he not look foredoomed to an early close? Her imagination
called up a portrait of Elizabeth's Earl of Essex to set beside him; and
without thinking that the two were fraternally alike, she sent him riding
away with the face of the Earl of Essex and the shadow of the unhappy
nobleman's grievous fortunes over his head.

But it is inexcuseable to let the mind be occupied recurrently by a man
who has not moved the feelings, wicked though it be to have the feelings
moved by him. Aminta rebuked her silly wits, and proceeded to speculate
from an altitude, seeing the man's projects in a singularly definite
minuteness, as if the crisis he invoked, the perils he braved, the mute
participation he implored of her for the short space until their fate
should be decided, were a story sharply cut on metal. Several times she
surprised herself in an interesting pursuit of the story; abominably
cold, abominably interested. She fell upon a review of small duties of
the day, to get relief; and among them a device for spiriting away her
aunt from the table where Mrs. Lawrence wished to meet Lord Ormont. It
sprang up to her call like an imp of the burning pit. She saw it
ingenious and of natural aspect. I must be a born intriguer! she said in
her breast. That was hateful; but it seemed worse when she thought of a
woman commanding the faculty and consenting to be duped and foiled. That
might be termed despicable; but what if she had not any longer the wish
to gain her way with her lord?

Those letters are acting like a kind of poison in me! her heart cried:
and it was only her head that dwelt on the antidote.

CHAPTER XII

MORE OF CUPER'S BOYS

Entering the dining-room at the appointed minute in a punctual household,
Mrs. Lawrence informed the company that she had seen a Horse Guards
orderly at the trot up the street. Weyburn said he was directing a boy to
ring the bell of the house for him. Lord Ormont went to the window.

'Amends and honours?' Mrs. Lawrence hummed and added an operatic flourish
of an arm. Something like it might really be imagined. A large square
missive was handed to the footman. Thereupon the orderly trotted off.

My lord took seat at table, telling the footman to lay 'that parcel'
beside the clock on the mantelpiece. Aminta and Mrs. Lawrence gave out a
little cry of bird or mouse, pitiable to hear: they could not wait, they
must know, they pished at sight of plates. His look deferred to their
good pleasure, like the dead hand of a clock under key; and Weyburn
placed the missive before him, seeing by the superscription that it was
not official.

It was addressed, in the Roman hand of a boy's copybook writing, to

General the Earl of Ormont, I.C.B., etc.,
Horse Guards,
London.'

The earl's eyebrows creased up over the address; they came down low on
the contents.

He resumed his daily countenance. 'Nothing of importance,' he said to the
ladies.

Mrs. Lawrence knocked the table with her knuckles. Aminta put out a hand,
in sign of her wish.

'Pray let me see it.'

'After lunch will do.'

'No, no, no! We are women--we are women,' cried Mrs. Lawrence.

'How can it concern women?'

'As well ask how a battle-field concerns them!'

'Yes, the shots hit us behind you,' said Aminta; and she, too, struck the
table.

He did not prolong their torture. Weyburn received the folio sheet and
passed it on. Aminta read. Mrs. Lawrence jumped from her chair and ran to
the countess's shoulder; her red lips formed the petitioning word to the
earl for the liberty she was bent to take.

'Peep? if you like,' my lord said, jesting at the blank she would find,
and soft to the pretty play of her mouth.

When the ladies had run to the end of it, he asked them: 'Well; now
then?'

'But it's capital--the dear laddies!' Mrs. Lawrence exclaimed.

Aminta's eyes met Weyburn's.

She handed him the sheet of paper; upon the transmission of which empty
thing from the Horse Guards my lord commented: 'An orderly!'

Weyburn scanned it rapidly, for the table had been served.

The contents were these:

'HIGH BRENT NEAR ARTSWELL.
'April 7th.

'To GENERAL THE EARL OF ORMONT
'Cavalry.

'May it please your Lordship, we, the boys of Mr. Cuper's school,
are desirous to bring to the notice of the bravest officer England
possesses now living, a Deed of Heroism by a little boy and girl,
children of our school laundress, aged respectively eight and six,
who, seeing a little fellow in the water out of depth, and sinking
twice, before the third time jumped in to save him, though unable to
swim themselves; the girl aged six first, we are sorry to say; but
the brother, Robert Coop, followed her example, and together they
made a line, and she caught hold of the drowning boy, and he held
her petycoats, and so they pulled. We have seen the place: it is
not a nice one. They got him ashore at last. The park-keeper here
going along found them dripping, rubbing his hands, and blowing into
his nostrils. Name, T. Shellen, son of a small cobbler here, and
recovered.

'May it please your Lordship, we make bold to apply, because you
have been for a number of years, as far as the oldest can recollect,
the Hero of our school, and we are so bold as to ask the favour of
General Lord Ormont's name to head a subscription we are making to
circulate for the support of their sick mother, who has fallen ill.
We think her a good woman. Gentlemen and ladies of the
neighbourhood are willing to subscribe. If we have a great name to
head the list, we think we shall make a good subscription. Names:--

'Martha Mary Coop, mother.
'Robert Coop.
'Jane Coop, the girl, aged six.

'If we are not taking too great a liberty, a subscription paper will
follow. We are sure General the Earl of Ormont's name will help to
make them comfortable.
'We are obediently and respectfully,
'DAVID GOWEN,
'WALTER BENCH,
'JAMES PANNERS PARSONS,
'And seven others.'

Weyburn spared Aminta an answering look, that would have been a begging
of Browny to remember Matey.

'It 's genuine,' he said to Mrs. Lawrence, as he attacked his plate with
the gusto for the repast previously and benignly observed by her. 'It
ought to be the work of some of the younger fellows.'

'They spell correctly, on the whole.'

'Excepting,' said my lord, 'an article they don't know much about yet.'

Weyburn had noticed the word, and he smiled. 'Said to be the happy state!
The three signing their names are probably what we called bellman and
beemen, collector, and heads of the swarm-enthusiasts. If it is not the
work of some of the younger hands, the school has levelled on minors. In
any case it shows the school is healthy.'

'I subscribe,' said Mrs. Lawrence.

'The little girl aged six shall have something done for her,' said
Aminta, and turned her eyes on the earl.

He was familiar with her thrilled voice at a story of bravery. He said--

'The boys don't say the girl's brother turned tail.'

'Only that the girl's brother aged eight followed the lead of the little
girl aged six,' Mrs. Lawrence remarked. 'Well, I like the schoolboys,
too--"we are sorry to say!" But they 're good lads. Boys who can
appreciate brave deeds are capable of doing them.'

'Speak to me about it on Monday,' the earl said to Weyburn.

He bowed, and replied--

'I shall have the day to-morrow. I 'll walk it and call on Messrs.' (he
glanced at the paper) 'Gowen, Bench, and Parsons. I have a German friend
in London anxious to wear his legs down stumpier.'

'The name of the school?'

'It is called Cuper's.'

Aminta, on hearing the name of Cuper a second time, congratulated herself
on the happy invention of her pretext to keep Mrs. Pagnell from the table
at midday. Her aunt had a memory for names: what might she not have
exclaimed! There would have been little in it, but it was as well that
the 'boy of the name of Weyburn' at Cuper's should be unmentioned. By an
exaggeration peculiar to a disgust in fancy, she could hear her aunt
vociferating 'Weyburn!' and then staring at Mr. Weyburn opposite--perhaps
not satisfied with staring.

He withdrew after his usual hearty meal, during which his talk of boys
and their monkey tricks, and what we can train them to, had been pleasant
generally, especially to Mrs. Lawrence. Aminta was carried back to the
minute early years at High Brent. A line or two of a smile touched her
cheek.

'Yes, my dear countess, that is the face I want for Lady de Culme
to-day,' said Mrs. Lawrence.' She likes a smiling face. Aunty--aunty has
always been good; she has never been prim. I was too much for her, until
I reflected that she was very old, and deserved to know the truth before
she left us; and so I went to her; and then she said she wished to see
the Countess of Ormont, because of her being my dearest friend. I fancy
she entertains an 'arriere' idea of proposing her flawless niece Gracey,
Marchioness of Fencaster, to present you. She 's quite equal to the
fatigue herself. You 'll rejoice in her anecdotes. People were virtuous
in past days: they counted their sinners. In those days, too, as I have
to understand, the men chivalrously bore the blame, though the women were
rightly punished. Now, alas! the initiative is with the women, and men
are not asked for chivalry. Hence it languishes. Lady de Culme won't hear
of the Queen of Blondes; has forbidden her these many years!'

Lord Ormont, to whom the lady's prattle was addressed, kept his visage
moveless, except in slight jerks of the brows.

'What queen?'

'You insist upon renewing my old, old pangs of jealousy, my dear lord!
The Queen of Cyprus, they called her, in the last generation; she fights
our great duellist handsomely.'

'My dear Mrs. Lawrence!'

'He triumphs finally, we know, but she beats him every round.'

'It 's only tattle that says the duel has begun.'

'May is the month of everlasting beauty! There 's a widower marquis now
who claims the right to cast the glove to any who dispute it.'

'Mrs. May is too good-looking to escape from scandal.'

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