Sandra Belloni by George Meredith, v5

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SANDRA BELLONI

By George Meredith

BOOK 5

XXXIV. INDICATES THE DEGRADATION OF BROOKFIELD, TOGETHER
WITH CERTAIN PROCEEDINGS OF THE YACHT
XXXV. MRS. CHUMP'S EPISTLE
XXXVI. ANOTHER PITFALL OF SENTIMENT
XXXVII. EMILIA'S FLIGHT.
XXXVIII. SHE CLINGS TO HER VOICE
XXXIX. HER VOICE FAILS

CHAPTER XXXIV

Lady Charlotte was too late for Emilia, when she went forth to her to
speak for Wilfrid. She found the youth Braintop resting heavily against
a tree, muttering to himself that he had no notion where he was, as an
excuse for his stationary posture, while the person he presumed he should
have detained was being borne away. Near him a scrap of paper lay on the
ground, struck out of darkness by long slips of light from the upper
windows. Thinking this might be something purposely dropped, she took
possession of it; but a glance subsequently showed her that the writing
was too fervid for a female hand. "Or does the girl write in that way?"
she thought. She soon decided that it was Wilfrid who had undone her
work in the line of thirsty love-speech. "How can a little fool read
them and not believe any lie that he may tell!" she cried to herself.
She chose to say contemptuously: "It's like a child proclaiming he is
hungry." That it was couched in bad taste she positively conceived--
taking the paper up again and again to correct her memory. The
termination, "Your lover," appeared to her, if not laughable, revolting.
She was uncertain in her sentiments at this point.

Was it amusing? or simply execrable? Some charity for the unhappy
document Lady Charlotte found when she could say: "I suppose this is the
general run of the kind of again." "Was it?" she reflected; and drank at
the words again. "No," she came to think; "men don't commonly write as
he does, whoever wrote this." She had no doubt that it was Wilfrid. By
fits her wrath was directed against him. "It's villany," she said. But
more and more frequently a crouching abject longing to call the words her
own--to have them poured into her heart and brain--desire for the
intoxication of the naked speech of love usurped her spirit of pride,
until she read with envious tears, half loathing herself, but fascinated
and subdued: "Mine! my angel! You will see me to-morrow.--Your Lover."

Of jealousy she felt very little--her chief thought coming like a wave
over her: "Here is a man that can love!"

She was a woman of chaste blood, which spoke to her as shyly as a girl's,
now that it was in tumult: so indeed that, pressing her heart, she
thought youth to have come back, and feasted on the exultation we have
when, at an odd hour, we fancy we have cheated time. The sensation of
youth and strength seemed to set a seal of lawfulness and naturalness,
hitherto wanting, on her feeling for Wilfrid. "I can help him," she
thought. "I know where he fails, and what he can do. I can give him
position, and be worth as much as any woman can be to a man." Thus she
justified the direction taken by the new force in her.

Two days later Wilfrid received a letter from Lady Charlotte, saying that
she, with a chaperon, had started to join her brother at the yacht-
station, according to appointment. Amazed and utterly discomfited, he
looked about for an escape; but his father, whose plea of sickness had
kept him from pursuing Emilia, petulantly insisted that he should go down
to Lady Charlotte. Adela was ready to go. There were numbers either
going or now on the spot, and the net was around him. Cornelia held
back, declaring that her place was by her father's side. Fine Shades
were still too dominant at Brookfield for anyone to tell her why she
stayed.

With anguish so deep that he could not act indifference, Wilfrid went on
his miserable expedition--first setting a watch over Mr. Pericles, the
which, in connection with the electric telegraph, was to enable him to
join that gentleman speedily, whithersoever he might journey. He was not
one to be deceived by the Greek's mask in running down daily to
Brookfield. A manoeuvre like that was poor; and besides, he had seen the
sallow eyes give a twinkle more than once.

Now, on the Besworth night, Georgiana Ford had studied her brother
Merthyr's face when Emilia's voice called for Wilfrid. Her heart was
touched; and, in the midst of some little invidious wonder at the power
of a girl to throw her attraction upon such a man, she thought, as she
hoped, that probably it was due to the girl's Italian blood. Merthyr was
not unwilling to speak of her, and say what he feared and desired for
Emilia's sake; and Georgiana read, by this mark of confidence, how
sincerely she was loved and trusted by him. "One never can have more
than half of a man's heart," she thought--adding, "It's our duty to
deserve that, nevertheless."

She was mystified. Say that Merthyr loved a girl, whom he certainly
distinguished with some visible affection, what sort of man must he be
that was preferred to Merthyr? And this set Georgiana at work thinking
of Wilfrid. "He has at times the air of a student. He is one who trusts
his own light too exclusively. Is he godless?" She concluded: "He is a
soldier, and an officer with brains--a good class:" Rare also.
Altogether, though Emilia did not elevate herself in this lady's mind by
choosing Wilfrid when she might have had Merthyr, the rivalry of the two
men helped to dignify the one of whom she thought least. Might she have
had Merthyr? Georgiana would not believe it--that is to say, she shut
the doors and shot the bolts, the knocking outside went on.

Her brother had told her the whole circumstances of Emilia's life and
position. When he said, "Do what you can for her," she knew that it was
not the common empty phrase. Young as she was, simple in habits, clear
in mind, open in all practices of daily life, she was no sooner brought
into an active course than astuteness and impetuosity combined
wonderfully in her. She did not tell Merthyr that she had done anything
to discover Emilia, and only betrayed that she was moving at all in a
little conversation they had about a meeting at the house of his friend
Marini, an Italian exile.

"Possibly Belloni goes there," said Merthyr. "I wonder whether Marini
knows anything of him. They have a meeting every other night."

Georgiana replied: "He went there and took his daughter the night after
we were at Besworth. He took her to be sworn in."

"Still that old folly of Marini's!" cried Merthyr, almost wrathfully. He
had some of the English objection to the mixing-up of women in political
matters.

Georgiana instantly addressed herself to it: "He thinks that the country
must be saved by its women as well as its men; and if they have not
brains and steadfast devotion, he concludes that the country will not be
saved. But he gives them their share of the work; and, dearest, has he
had reason to repent it?"

"No," Merthyr was forced to admit--taking shelter in his antipathy to the
administration of an oath to women. And consider that this is a girl!"

"The oaths of girls are sometimes more binding on them than the oaths of
women."

"True, it affects their imaginations vividly; but it seems childish.
Does she have to kiss a sword and a book?"

Merthyr made a gesture like a shrug, with a desponding grimace.

"You know," answered Georgiana, smiling, "that I was excused any formula,
by special exemption. I have no idea of what is done. Water, salt,
white thorns, and other Carbonaro mysteries may be in use or not: I think
no worse of the cause, whatever is done."

"I love the cause," said Merthyr. "I dislike this sort of conspiratorial
masque Marini and his Chief indulge in. I believe it sustains them, and
there's its only use."

"I," said Georgiana, "love the cause only from association with it; but
in my opinion Marini is right. He deals with young and fervent minds,
that require a ceremony to keep them fast--yes, dear, and women more than
others do. After that, they cease to have to rely upon themselves--a
reliance their good instinct teaches them is frail. There, now; have I
put my sex low enough?"

She slid her head against her brother's shoulder. If he had ever met a
man worthy of her, Merthyr would have sighed to feel that all her
precious love was his own.

"Is there any likelihood that Belloni will be there tonight?" he asked.

She shook her head. "He has not been there since. He went for that
purpose."

"Perhaps Marini is right, after all," said Merthyr, smiling.

Georgiana knew what he meant, and looked at him fondly.

"But I have never bound you to an oath," he resumed, in the same tone.

"I dare say you consider me a little different from most," said
Georgiana. She had as small reserve with her brother as vanity, and
could even tell him what she thought of her own worth without
depreciating it after the fashion of chartered hypocrites.

Mr. Powys wrote to Marini to procure him an interview with Belloni as
early as possible, and then he and Georgiana went down to Lady Charlotte.

Letters from Adela kept the Brookfield public informed of the doings on
board the yacht. Before leaving home, Wilfrid with Arabella's
concurrence certainly--at her instigation, as he thought--had led his
father to imagine, on tolerably good grounds, that Mrs. Chump had quitted
Brookfield to make purchases for her excursion on lively waters, and was
then awaiting him at the appointed station. One of the old man's
intermittent nervous fits had frightened them into the quasi-fabrication
of this little innocent tale. The doctor's words were that Mr. Pole was
to be crossed in nothing--"Not even if it should appear to be of imminent
necessity that I should see him, and he refuses." The man of science
stated that the malady originated in some long continued pressure of
secret apprehension. Both Wilfrid and Arabella conceived that persuasion
alone was wanted to send Mrs. Chump flying to the yacht; so they had less
compunction in saying, "She is there."

And here began a terrible trial for the children of Nine Shades. To save
a father they had to lie grievously--to continue the lie from day to day-
-to turn it from a lie extensive and inappreciable to the lie minute and
absolute. Then, to get a particle of truth out of this monstrous lie,
they had to petition in utter humiliation the woman they had scorned,
that she would return among them and consider their house her own. No
answer came from Mrs. Chump; and as each day passed, the querulous
invalid, still painfully acting the man in health, had to be fed with
fresh lies; until at last, writing of one of the scenes in Brookfield,
Arabella put down the word in all its unblessed aboriginal bluntness, and
did not ask herself whether she shrank from it. "Lies!" she wrote.
"What has happened to Bella?" thought Adela, in pure wonder. Salt-air
and dazzling society kept all idea of penance from this vivacious young
person. It was queer that Sit Twickenham should be at the seaside,
instead of at Brookfield, wooing; but a man's physical condition should
be an excuse for any intermission of attentions. "Now that I know him
better," wrote Adela, "I think him the pink of chivalry; and of this I am
sure I can convince you, Bella, C. will be blessed indeed; for a delicate
nature in a man of the world is a treasure. He has a beautiful little
vessel of his own sailing beside us."

Arabella was critic enough to smile at this last. On the whole she was
passably content for the moment, in a severe fashion, save to feel
herself the dreadful lying engine and fruitlessly abject person that she
had become.

We imagine that when souls have had a fall, they immediately look up and
contrast their present with their preceding position. This does not
occur. The lower their fall, the less, generally, their despair, for
despair is a business of the Will, and when they come heavily upon their
humanity, they get something of the practical seriousness of nature. If
they fall very low, the shock and the sense that they are still on their
feet make them singularly earnest to set about the plain plan of
existence--getting air for their lungs and elbow-room. Contrast, that
mother of melancholy, comes when they are some way advanced upon the
upward scale. The Poles did not look up to their lost height, but merely
exerted their faculties to go forward; and great as their ambition had
been in them, now that it was suddenly blown to pieces, they did not sit
and weep, but strove in a stunned way to work ahead. The truth is, that
we rarely indulge in melancholy until we can take it as a luxury: little
people never do, and they, when we have not put them on their
guard, are humankind naked.

The yachting excursions were depicted vividly by Adela, and were
addressed as a sort of reproach to the lugubrious letters of her sister.
She said pointedly once: "Really, if we are to be miserable, I turn
Catholic and go into a convent." The strange thing was that Arabella
imagined her letters to be rather of a cheerful character. She related
the daily events at Brookfield:--the change in her father's soups, and
his remarks on them, and which he preferred; his fight with his medicine,
and declaration that he was as sound as any man on shore; the health of
the servants; Mr. Marter the curate's call with a Gregorian chant; doubts
of his orthodoxy; Cornelia's lonely walks and singular appetite; the
bills, and so forth--ending, "What is to be said further of her?"

In return, Adela's delight was to date each day from a different port, to
which, catching the wind, the party had sailed, and there slept. The
ladies were under the protecting wing of the Hon. Mrs. Bayruffle, a
smooth woman of the world. "You think she must have sinned in her time,
but are certain it will never be known," wrote Adela. "I do confess,
kind as she is, she does me much harm; for when she is near me I begin to
think that Society is everything. Her tact is prodigious; it is never
seen--only felt. I cannot describe her influence; yet it leads to
nothing. I cannot absolutely respect her; but I know I shall miss her
acutely when we part. What charm does she possess? I call her the Hon.
Mrs. Heathen--Captain G., the Hon. Mrs. Balm. I know you hate nicknames.
Be merciful to people yachting. What are we to do? I would look through
a telescope all day and calculate the number of gulls and gannets we see;
but I am not so old as Sir T., and that occupation could not absorb me.
I begin to understand Lady Charlotte and her liking for Mr. Powys better.
He is ready to play or be serious, as you please; but in either
case 'Merthyr is never a buffoon nor a parson'--Lady C. remarked this
morning; and that describes him, if it were not for the detestable fling
at the clergy, which she never misses. It seems in her blood to think
that all priests are hypocrites. What a little boat to be in on a stormy
sea, Bella! She appears to have no concern about it. Whether she adores
Wilfrid or not I do not pretend to guess. She snubs him--a thing he
would bear from nobody but her. I do believe he feels flattered by it.
He is chiefly attentive to Miss Ford, whom I like and do not like, and
like and do not like--but do like. She is utterly cold, and has not an
affection on earth. Sir T.--I have not a dictionary--calls her a fair
clictic, I think. (Let even Cornelia read hard, or woe to her in their
hours of privacy!--his vocabulary grows distressingly rich the more you
know him. I am not uneducated, but he introduces me to words that seem
monsters; I must pretend to know them intimately.) Well, whether a
clictic or not--and pray, burn this letter, lest I should not have the
word correct--she has the air of a pale young princess above any creature
I have seen in the world. I know it has struck Wilfred also; my darling
and I are ever twins in sentiment. He converses with Miss Ford a great
deal. Lady C. is peculiarly civil to Captain G. We scud along, and are
becalmed. 'Having no will of our own, we have no knowledge of contrary
winds,' as Mr. Powys says.--The word is 'eclictic,' I find. I ventured
on it, and it was repeated; and I heard that I had missed a syllable.
Ask C. to look it out--I mean, to tell me they mining on a little slip of
paper in your next. I would buy a pocket-dictionary at one of the ports,
but you are never alone. "Aesthetic," we know. Mr. Barrett used to be
of service for this sort of thing. I admit I am inferior to Mrs.
Bayruffle, who, if men talk difficult words in her presence, holds her
chin above the conversation, and seems to shame them. I love to learn--I
love the humility of learning. And there is something divine in the idea
of a teacher. I listen to Sir T. on Parliament and parties, and chide
myself if my interest flags. His algebra-puzzles, or Euclid-puzzles in
figures--sometimes about sheep-boys and sheep, and hurdles or geese, oxen
or anything--are delicious: he quite masters the conversation with them.
I disagree with Mrs. Bayruffle when she complains that they are posts in
the way of speech. There is a use in all men; and though she is an
acknowledged tactician materially, she cannot see she has in Sir T. a
quality necessary to intellectual conversation, if she knew how to employ
it."

Remarks of this nature read very oddly to Arabella, insomuch that she
would question herself at times, in forced seriousness, whether she had
dreamed that an evil had befallen Brookfield, or whether Adela were
forgetting that it had, in a dream. One day she enclosed a letter from
her father to Mrs. Chump. Adela did not forge a reply; but she had the
audacity to give the words of a message from the woman (in which Mrs.
Chump was supposed to say that she could not write while she was being
tossed about.) "We must carry it on," Adela told her sister, with
horrible bluntness. The message savoured strongly of Mrs. Chump. It was
wickedly clever. Arabella resolved to put it by; but morning after
morning she saw her father's anxiety for the reply mounting to a pitch of
fever. She consulted with Cornelia, who said, "No; never do such a
thing!" and subsequently, with a fainter firmness, repeated the negative
monosyllable. Arabella, in her wretchedness, became endued with
remorseless discernment. "It means that Cornelia would never do it
herself," she thought; and, comforted haply by reflecting that for their
common good she could do it, she did it. She repeated an Irish message.
Her father calmed immediately, making her speak it over twice. He
smiled, and blinked his bird's-eyes pleasurably: "Ah! that's Martha," he
said, and fell into a state of comparative repose. For some hours a
sensation of bubbling hot-water remained about the sera of Arabella.
Happily Mrs. Chump in person did not write.

A correspondence now commenced between the fictitious Mrs. Chump on sea
and Mr. Pole, dyspeptic, in his armchair. Arabella took the doctor aside
to ask him, if in a hypothetical instance, it would really be dangerous
to thwart or irritate her father. She asked the curate if he deemed it
wicked to speak falsely to an invalid for the invalid's benefit. The
spiritual and bodily doctors agreed that occasion altered and necessity
justified certain acts. So far there was comfort. But the task of
assisting in this correspondence, and yet more, the contemplation of
Adela's growing delight in it (she would now use Irish words, vulgar
words, words expressive of physical facts; airing her natural wit in
Irish as if she had found a new weapon), became a bitter strain on
Arabella's mind, and she was compelled to make Cornelia take her share of
the burden. "But I cannot conceal--I cannot feign," said Cornelia.
Arabella looked at her, whom she knew to be feigning, thinking, "Must I
lose my high esteem of both my sisters?" Action alone saved her from
denuding herself of this garment."

"That night!" was now the allusion to the scene at Besworth. It stood
for all the misery they suffered; nor could they see that they had since
made any of their own.

A letter with the Dover postmark brought exciting news.

A debate had been held on board the yacht. Wilfrid and Lady Charlotte
gave their votes for the Devon coast. All were ready to be off, when
Miss Ford received a telegram from shore, and said, "No; it must be
Dover." Now, Mrs. Chump's villa was on the Devon coast. Lady Charlotte
had talked to Wilfrid about her, and in the simplest language had said
that she must be got on board. This was the reason of their deciding for
Devon. But Georgiana stood for Dover; thither Merthyr said that he must
go, whether be sailed or went on land. By a simultaneous reading of
Georgiana's eyes, both Wilfrid and Lady Charlotte saw what was meant by
her decision. Wilfrid at once affected to give way, half-protestingly.
"And this," wrote Adela, "taught me that he was well pleased to abandon
the West for the East. Lady C. favoured him with a look such as I could
not have believed I should ever behold off the stage. There was a
perfect dagger in her eyes. She fought against Dover: do men feel such
compliments as these? They are the only true ones! She called the
captain to witness that the wind was not for Dover she called the mate:
she was really eloquent--yes, and handsome. I think Wilfrid thought so;
or the reason far the opposition to Dover impressed my brother. I like
him to be made to look foolish, for then he retrieves his character so
dashingly--always. His face was red, and he seemed undecided--was--until
one taunt (it must have been a taunt), roused him up. They exchanged
about six sentences--these two. I cannot remember them, unhappily; but
for neatness and irony, never was anything so delicious heard. They came
sharp as fencing-thrusts; and you could really believe, if you liked,
that they were merely stating grounds for diverse opinions. Of course we
sailed East, reaching Dover at ten; and the story is this--I knew Emilia
was in it:--Tracy Runningbrook had been stationed at Dover ten days by
Miss Ford, to intercept Emilia's father, if he should be found taking her
to the Continent by that route. He waited, and met them at last on the
Esplanade. He telegraphed to Miss Ford and a Signor Marini (we were
wrong in not adding illustrious exiles to our list), while he invited
them to dine, and detained them till the steamboat was starting; and
Signor Marini came down by rail in a great hurry, and would not let
Emilia be taken away. There was a quarrel; but, by some mysterious power
that he possesses, this Signor Marini actually prevented the father from
taking his child. Mysterious? But is anything more mysterious than
Emilia's influence? I cannot forget what she was ere we trained her; and
when I think that we seem to be all--all who come near her--connected
with her fortunes! Explain it if you can. I know it is not her singing;
I know it is not her looks. Captivations she does not deal in. Is it
the magic of indifference? No; for then some one whom you know and who
longs to kiss her bella Bella now would be dangerous! She is very little
so, believe me!

"Emilia is (am I chronicling a princess?)--she is in London with Signor
Marini; and Wilfrid has not seen her. Lady Charlotte managed to get the
first boat full, and pushed off as he was about to descend. I pitied his
poor trembling hand I went on shore in the second boat with him. We did
not find the others for an hour, when we heard that Emilia had gone with
Signor M. The next day, whom should we sea but Mr. Pericles. "He (I have
never seen him so civil)--he shook Wilfrid by the hand almost like an
Englishman; and Wilfrid too, though he detests him, was civil to him, and
even laughed when he said: 'Here it is dull; ze Continent for a week. I
follow Philomela--ze nightingales." I was just going to say, 'Well then,
you are running away from one.' Wilfrid pressed my fingers, and taught
me to be still; and I did not know why till I reflected. Poor Mr.
Pericles, seeing him friendly for the first time, rubbed his hands and it
was most painful to me to see him shake hands with Wilfrid again and
again, till he was on board the vessel chuckling. Wilfrid suddenly
laughed with all his might--a cruel laugh; and Mr. Pericles tried to be
as loud, but commenced coughing and tapping his chest, to explain that
his intention was good. Bella! the passion of love must be judged by the
person who inspires it; and I cannot even go so far as to feel pity for
Wilfrid if he has stooped to the humiliation of--there is another way of
regarding it, know. Let him be sincere and noble; but not his own
victim. He scarcely holds up his head. We are now for Devon. Tracy is
with us; and we never did a wiser thing than when we decided to patronize
poets. If kept in order--under--they are the aristocracy of light
conversationalists. Adieu! We speed for beautiful Devon. 'Me love to
Pole, and I'm just,' etc. That will do this time; next, she will speak
herself. That I should wish it! But the world is full of change, as I
begin to learn. What will ensue?"

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