Sandra Belloni by George Meredith, v6
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George Meredith >> Sandra Belloni by George Meredith, v6
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"'Large eyes lit up by some imperial sin,'" etc.
(Ten lines from Tracy's book are here copied neatly.)
[Tracy Runningbrook to Wilfrid:]
"Why the deuce do you write me such infernal trash about the opinions of
a villanous dog who can't even en a decent sentence? I've been damning
you for a white-livered Austrian up and down the house. Let the fellow
bark till he froths at the mouth, and scatters the virus of the beast
among his filthy friends. I am mad-dog proof. The lines you quote were
written in an awful hurry, coming up in the train from Richford one
morning. You have hit upon my worst with commendable sagacity. If it
will put money in Barren's pocket, let him write. I should prefer to
have nothing said. The chances are all in favour of his writing like a
fool. If you're going to be an Austrian, we may have a chance of
shooting one another some day, so here's my hand before you go and sell
your soul; and anything I can do in the meantime--command me."
[Georgiana Ford to Wilfrid:]
"I do not dare to charge you with a breach of your pledged word. Let me
tell you simply that Emilia has become aware of your project to enter the
Austrian service, and it has had the effect on her which I foresaw. She
could bear to hear of your marriage, but this is too much for her, and it
breaks my heart to see her. It is too cruel. She does not betray any
emotion, but I can see that every principle she had gained is gone, and
that her bosom holds the shadows of a real despair. I foresaw it, and
sought to guard her against it. That you, whom she had once called (to
me) her lover, should enlist himself as an enemy, of her country!--it
comes to her as a fact striking her brain dumb while she questions it,
and the poor body has nothing to do but to ache. Surely you could have
no object in doing this? I will not suspect it. Mr. Runningbrook is
acquainted with your plans, I believe; but he has no remembrance of
having mentioned this one to Emilia. He distinctly assures me that he
has not done so, and I trust him to speak truth. How can it have
happened? But here is the evil done. I see no remedy. I am not skilled
in sketching the portraits you desire of her, and yet, if you have ever
wished her to know this miserable thing, it would be as well that you
should see the different face that has come among us within twenty hours."
[Wilfrid to Georgiana Ford:]
"I will confine my reply to a simple denial of having caused this fatal
intelligence to reach her ears; for the truth of which, I pledge my
honour as a gentleman. A second's thought would have told me--indeed I
at once acquiesced in your view--that she should not know it. How it has
happened it is vain to attempt to guess. Can you suppose that I desired
her to hate me? Yet this is what the knowledge of the step I am taking
will make her do! If I could see--if I might see her for five minutes, I
should be able to explain everything, and, I sincerely think (painful as
it would be to me), give her something like peace. It is too late even
to wish to justify myself; but her I can persuade that she--
Do you not see that her mind is still unconvinced of my--I will call it
baseness! Is this the self-accusing you despise? A little of it must be
heard. If I may see her I will not fail to make her understand my
position. She shall see that it is I who am worthless--not she! You
know the circumstances under which I last beheld her--when I saw pang
upon pang smiting her breast from my silence! But now I may speak. Do
not be prepossessed against my proposal! It shall be only for five
minutes--no more. Not that it is my desire to come. In truth, it could
not be. I have felt that I alone can cure her--I who did the harm. Mark
me: she will fret secretly--, but dear and kindest lady, do not smile too
critically at the tone I adopt. I cannot tell how I am writing or what
saying. Believe me that I am deeply and constantly sensible of your
generosity. In case you hesitate, I beg you to consult Mr. Powys."
[Georgiana Ford to Wilfrid:]
"I had no occasion to consult my brother to be certain that an interview
between yourself and Emilia should not take place. There can be no
object, even if the five minutes of the meeting gave her happiness, why
the wound of the long parting should be again opened. She is wretched
enough now, though her tenderness for us conceals it as far as possible.
When some heavenly light shall have penetrated her, she will have a
chance of peace. The evil is not of a nature to be driven out by your
hands. If you are not going into the Austrian service, she shall know as
much immediately. Otherwise, be as dead to her as you may, and your
noblest feelings cannot be shown under any form but that."
[Wilfrid to Tracy Runningbrook:]
"Some fellows whom I know want you to write a prologue to a play they are
going to get up. It's about Shakespeare--at least, the proceeds go to
something of that sort. Do, like a good fellow, toss us off twenty
lines. Why don't you write? By the way, I hope there's no truth in a
report that has somehow reached me, that they have the news down in
Monmouth of my deserting to the black-yellow squadrons? Of course, such
a thing as that should have been kept from them. I hear, too, that your-
-I suppose I must call her now your--pupil is falling into bad health.
Think me as cold and 'British' as you like; but the thought of this does
really affect me painfully. Upon my honour, it does! 'And now he
yawns!' you're saying. You're wrong. We Army men feel just as you poets
do, and for a longer time, I think, though perhaps not so acutely. I
send you the 'Venus' cameo which you admired. Pray accept it from an old
friend. I mayn't see you again."
[Tracy Runningbrook to Wilfrid:]
(enclosing lines)
"Here they are. It will require a man who knows something about metre to
speak them. Had Shakespeare's grandmother three Christian names? and did
she anticipate feminine posterity in her rank of life by saying
habitually, 'Drat it?' There is as yet no Society to pursue this
investigation, but it should be started. Enormous thanks for the Venus.
I wore it this morning at breakfast. Just as we were rising, I leaned
forward to her, and she jumped up with her eyes under my chin. 'Isn't
she a beauty?' I said. 'It was his,' she answered, changing eyes of
eagle for eyes of dove, and then put out the lights. I had half a mind
to offer it, on the spot. May I? That is to say, if the impulse seizes
me I take nobody's advice, and fair Venus certainly is not under my chin
at this moment. As to ill health, great mother Nature has given a house
of iron to this soul of fire. The windows may blaze, or the windows may
be extinguished, but the house stands firm. When you are lightning or
earthquake, you may have something to reproach yourself for; as it is, be
under no alarm. Do not put words in my mouth that I have not uttered.
'And now he yawns,' is what I shall say of you only when I am sure you
have just heard a good thing. You really are the best fellow of your set
that I have come across, and the only one pretending to brains. Your
modesty in estimating your value as a leader of Pandours will be pleasing
to them who like that modesty. Good-bye. This little Emilia is a marvel
of flying moods. Yesterday she went about as if she said, 'I've promised
Apollo not to speak till to-morrow.' To-day, she's in a feverish gabble
--or began the day with a burst of it; and now she's soft and sensible.
If you fancy a girl at her age being able to see, that it's a woman's
duty to herself and the world to be artistic--to perfect the thing of
beauty she is meant to be by nature!--and, seeing, too, that Love is an
instrument like any other thing, and that we must play on it with
considerate gentleness, and that tearing at it or dashing it to earth,
making it howl and quiver, is madness, and not love!--I assure you she
begins to see it! She does see it. She is going to wear a wreath of
black briony (preserved and set by Miss Ford, a person cunning in these
matters). She's going to the ball at Penarvon Castle, and will look--
supply your favourite slang word. A little more experience, and she will
have malice. She wants nothing but that to make her consummate. Malice
is the barb of beauty. She's just at present a trifle blunt. She will
knock over, but not transfix. I am anxious to watch the effect she
produces at Penarvon. Poor little woman! I paid a compliment to her
eyes. 'I've got nothing else,' said she. Dine as well as you can while
you are in England. German cookery is an education for the sentiment of
hogs. The play of sour and sweet, and crowning of the whole with fat,
shows a people determined to go down in civilization, and try the
business backwards. Adieu, curst Croat! On the Wallachian border mayst
thou gather philosophy from meditation."
CHAPTER XLIV
Dexterously as Wilfrid has turned Tracy to his uses by means of the
foregoing correspondence, in doing so he had exposed himself to the
retributive poison administered by that cunning youth. And now the
Hippogriff seized him, and mounted with him into mid-air; not as when the
idle boy Ganymede was caught up to act as cup-bearer in celestial Courts,
but to plunge about on yielding vapours, with nothing near him save the
voice of his desire.
The Philosopher here peremptorily demands the pulpit. We are subject, he
says, to fantastic moods, and shall dry ready-minted phrases picture them
forth? As, for example, can the words 'delirium,' or 'frenzy,' convey
an image of Wilfrid's state, when his heart began to covet Emilia again,
and his sentiment not only interposed no obstacle, but trumpeted her
charms and fawned for her, and he thought her lost, remembered that she
had been his own, and was ready to do any madness to obtain her?
'Madness' is the word that hits the mark, but it does not fully embrace
the meaning. To be in this state, says the Philosopher, is to be 'On The
Hippogriff;' and to this, as he explains, the persons who travel to Love
by the road of sentiment will come, if they have any stuff in them, and
if the one who kindles them is mighty. He distinguishes being on the
Hippogriff from being possessed by passion. Passion, he says, is noble
strength on fire, and points to Emilia as a representation of passion.
She asks for what she thinks she may have; she claims what she imagines
to be her own. She has no shame, and thus, believing in, she never
violates, nature, and offends no law, wild as she may seem. Passion does
not turn on her and rend her when it is thwarted. She was never carried
out of the limit of her own intelligent force, seeing that it directed
her always, with the simple mandate to seek that which belonged to her.
She was perfectly sane, and constantly just to herself, until the failure
of her voice, telling her that she was a beggar in the world, came as a
second blow, and partly scared her reason. Constantly just to herself,
mind! This is the quality of true passion. Those who make a noise, and
are not thus distinguishable, are on Hippogriff.
--By which it is clear to me that my fantastic Philosopher means to
indicate the lover mounted in this wise, as a creature bestriding an
extraneous power. "The sentimentalist," he says, "goes on accumulating
images and hiving sensations, till such time as (if the stuff be in him)
they assume a form of vitality, and hurry him headlong. This is not
passion, though it amazes men, and does the madder thing."
In fine, it is Hippogriff. And right loath am I to continue my
partnership with a fellow who will not see things on the surface, and is,
as a necessary consequence, blind to the fact that the public detest him.
I mean, this garrulous, super-subtle, so-called Philosopher, who first
set me upon the building of 'The Three Volumes,' it is true, but whose
stipulation that he should occupy so large a portion of them has made
them rock top-heavy, to the forfeit of their stability. He maintains
that a story should not always flow, or, at least, not to a given
measure. When we are knapsack on back, he says, we come to eminences
where a survey of our journey past and in advance is desireable, as is a
distinct pause in any business, here and there. He points proudly to the
fact that our people in this comedy move themselves,--are moved from
their own impulsion,--and that no arbitrary hand has posted them to bring
about any event and heap the catastrophe. In vain I tell him that he is
meantime making tatters of the puppets' golden robe illusion: that he is
sucking the blood of their warm humanity out of them. He promises that
when Emilia is in Italy he will retire altogether; for there is a field
of action, of battles and conspiracies, nerve and muscle, where life
fights for plain issues, and he can but sum results. Let us, he
entreats, be true to time and place. In our fat England, the gardener
Time is playing all sorts of delicate freaks in the lines and traceries
of the flower of life, and shall we not note them? If we are to
understand our species, and mark the progress of civilization at all, we
must. Thus the Philosopher. Our partner is our master, and I submit,
hopefully looking for release with my Emilia, in the day when Italy
reddens the sky with the banners of a land revived.
I hear Wilfrid singing out that he is aloft, burning to rush ahead, while
his beast capers in one spot, abominably ludicrous. This trick of
Hippogriff is peculiar, viz., that when he loses all faith in himself, he
sinks--in other words, goes to excesses of absurd humility to regain it.
Passion has likewise its panting intervals, but does nothing so
preposterous. The wreath of black briony, spoken of by Tracy as the
crown of Emilia's forehead, had begun to glow with a furnace-colour in
Wilfrid's fancy. It worked a Satanic distraction in him. The girl sat
before him swathed in a darkness, with the edges of the briony leaves
shining deadly--radiant above--young Hecate! The next instant he was
bleeding with pity for her, aching with remorse, and again stung to
intense jealousy of all who might behold her (amid a reserve of angry
sensations at her present happiness).
Why had she not made allowance for his miserable situation that night in
Devon? Why did she not comprehend his difficulties in relation to his
father's affairs? Why did she not know that he could not fail to love
her for ever?
Interrogations such as these were so many switches of the whip in the
flanks of Hippogriff.
Another peculiarity of the animal gifted with wings is, that around the
height he soars to he can see no barriers nor any of the fences raised by
men. And here again he differs from Passion, which may tug against
common sense but is never, in a great nature, divorced from it: In air on
Hippogriff, desires wax boundless, obstacles are hidden. It seemed
nothing to Wilfrid (after several tremendous descents of humility) that
he should hurry for Monmouth away, to gaze on Emilia under her fair,
infernal, bewitching wreath; nothing that he should put an arm round her;
nothing that he should forthwith carry her off, though he died for it.
Forming no design beyond that of setting his eyes on her, he turned the
head of Hippogriff due Westward.
CHAPTER XLV
Penarvon castle lay over the borders of Monmouthshire. Thither, on a
night of frosty moonlight, troops of carriages were hurrying with the
usual freightage for a country ball:--the squire who will not make
himself happy by seeing that his duty to the softer side of his family
must be performed during the comfortable hours when bachelors snooze in
arm-chairs, and his nobler dame who, not caring for Port or tobacco,
cheerfully accepts the order of things as bequeathed to her: the
everlastingly half-satisfied young man, who looks forward to the hour
when his cigar-light will shine; and the damsel thrice demure as a cover
for her eagerness. Within a certain distance of one of the carriages, a
man rode on horseback. The court of the castle was reached, and he
turned aside, lingering to see whether he could get a view of the lighted
steps. To effect his object, he dismounted and led his horse through the
gates, turning from gravel to sward, to keep in the dusk. A very agile
middle-aged gentleman was the first to appear under the portico-lamps,
and he gave his hand to a girl of fifteen, and then to a most portly lady
in a scarlet mantle. The carriage-door slammed and drove off, while a
groan issued from the silent spectator. "Good heavens! have I followed
these horrible people for five-and-twenty miles!" Carriage after
carriage rattled up to the steps, was disburdened of still more 'horrible
people' to him, and went the way of the others. "I shan't see her, after
all," he cried hoarsely, and mounting, said to the beast that bore him,
"Now go sharp."
Whether you recognize the rider of Hippogriff or not, this is he; and the
poor livery-stable screw stretched madly till wind failed, when he was
allowed to choose his pace. Wilfrid had come from London to have sight
of Emilia in the black-briony wreath: to see her, himself unseen, and go.
But he had not seen her; so he had the full excuse to continue the
adventure. He rode into a Welsh town, and engaged a fresh horse for the
night.
"She won't sing, at all events," thought Wilfrid, to comfort himself,
before the memory that she could not, in any case, touched springs of
weakness and pitying tenderness. From an eminence to which he walked
outside the town, Penarvon was plainly visible with all its lighted
windows.
"But I will pluck her from you!" he muttered, in a spasm of jealousy; the
image of himself as an outcast against the world that held her, striking
him with great force at that moment.
"I must give up the Austrian commission, if she takes me."
And be what? For he had sold out of the English service, and was to
receive the money in a couple of days. How long would the money support
him? It would not pay half his debts! What, then, did this pursuit of
Emilia mean? To blink this question, he had to give the spur to
Hippogriff. It meant (upon Hippogriff at a brisk gallop), that he
intended to live for her, die for her, if need be, and carve out of the
world all that she would require. Everything appears possible, on
Hippogriff, when he is going; but it is a bad business to put the spur on
so willing a beast. When he does not go of his own will;--when he sees
that there are obstructions, it is best to jump off his back. And we
should abandon him then, save that having once tasted what he can do for
us, we become enamoured of the habit of going keenly, and defying
obstacles. Thus do we begin to corrupt the uses of the gallant beast
(for he is a gallant beast, though not of the first order); we spoil his
instincts and train him to hurry us to perdition.
"If my sisters could see me now!" thought Wilfrid, half-smitten with a
distant notion of a singularity in his position there, the mark for a
frosty breeze, while his eyes kept undeviating watch over Penarvon.
After a time he went back to the inn, and got among coachmen and footmen,
all battling lustily against the frost with weapons scientifically
selected at the bar. They thronged the passages, and lunged hearty
punches at one another, drank and talked, and only noticed that a
gentleman was in their midst when he moved to get a light. One
complained that he had to drive into Monmouth that night, by a road that
sent him five miles out of his way, owing to a block--a great stone that
had fallen from the hill. "You can't ask 'em to get out and walk ten
steps," he said; "or there! I'd lead the horses and just tip up the off
wheels, and round the place in a twinkle, pop 'm in again, and nobody
hurt; but you can't ask ladies to risk catchin' colds for the sake of the
poor horses."
Several coachmen spoke upon this, and the shame and marvel it was that
the stone had not been moved; and between them the name of Mr. Powys was
mentioned, with the remark that he would spare his beasts if he could.
"What's that block you're speaking of, just out of Monmouth?" enquired
Wilfrid; and it being described to him, together with the exact bearings
of the road and situation of the mass of stone, he at once repeated a
part of what he had heard in the form of the emphatic interrogation,
"What! there?" and flatly told the coachman that the stone had been
moved.
"It wasn't moved this morning, then, sir," said the latter.
"No; but a great deal can be done in a couple of hours," said Wilfrid.
"Did you see 'em at work, sir?"
"No; but I came that way, and the road was clear."
"The deuce it was!" ejaculated the coachman, willingly convinced.
"And that's the way I shall return," added Wilfrid.
He tossed some money on the bar to aid in warming the assemblage, and
received numerous salutes as he passed out. His heart was beating fast.
"I shall see her, in the teeth of my curst luck," he thought, picturing
to himself the blessed spot where the mass of stone would lie; and to
that point he galloped, concentrating all the light in his mind on this
maddest of chances, till it looked sound, and finally certain.
"It's certain, if that's not a hired coachman," he calculated. "If he
is, he won't risk his fee. If he isn't, he'll feel on the safe side
anyhow. At any rate, it's my only chance." And away he flew between
glimmering slopes of frost to where a white curtain of mist hung across
the wooded hills of the Wye.
CHAPTER XLVI
Emilia was in skilful hands, and against anything less powerful than a
lover mounted upon Hippogriff, might have been shielded. What is poison
to most girls, Merthyr prescribed for her as medicine. He nourished her
fainting spirit upon vanity. In silent astonishment Georgiana heard him
address speeches to her such as dowagers who have seen their day can
alone of womankind complacently swallow. He encouraged Tracy
Runningbrook to praise the face of which she had hitherto thought shyly.
Jewels were placed at her disposal, and dresses laid out cunningly suited
to her complexion. She had a maid to wait on her, who gabbled at the
momentous hours of robing and unrobing: "Oh, miss! of all the dark young
ladies I ever see!"--Emilia was the most bewitching. By-and-by, Emilia
was led to think of herself; but with a struggle and under protest. How
could it be possible that she was so very nice to the eye, and Wilfrid
had abandoned her? The healthy spin of young new blood turned the wheels
of her brain, and then she thought: "Perhaps I am really growing
handsome?" The maid said artfully of her hair: "If gentlemen could only
see it down, miss! It's the longest, and thickest, and blackest, I ever
touched!" And so saying, slid her fingers softly through it after the
comb, and thrilled the owner of that hair till soft thoughts made her
bosom heave, and then self-love began to be sensibly awakened, followed
by self-pity, and some further form of what we understand as
consciousness. If partially a degradation of her nature, this saved her
mind from true despair when it began to stir after the vital shock that
had brought her to earth. "To what purpose should I be fair?" was a
question that did not yet come to her; but it was sweet to see Merthyr's
eyes gather pleasure from the light of her own. Sweet, though nothing
more than coldly sweet. She compared herself to her father's old broken
violin, that might be mended to please the sight; but would never give
the tones again. Sometimes, if hope tormented her, she would strangle it
by trying her voice: and such a little piece of self-inflicted anguish
speedily undid all Merthyr's work. He was patient as one who tends a
flower in the Spring. Georgiana marvelled that the most sensitive and
proud of men should be striving to uproot an image from the heart of a
simple girl, that he might place his own there. His methods almost led
her to think that his estimate of human nature was falling low.
Nevertheless, she was constrained to admit that there was no diminution
of his love for her, and it chastened her to think so. "Would it be the
same with me, if I--?" she half framed the sentence, blushing
remorsefully while she denied that anything could change her great love
for her brother. She had caught a glimpse of Wilfrid's suppleness and
selfishness. Contrasting him with Merthyr, she was singularly smitten
with shame, she knew not why.
The anticipation of the ball at Penarvon Castle had kindled very little
curiosity in Emilia's bosom. She seemed to herself a machine; "one of
the rest;" and looked more to see that she was still coveted by Merthyr's
eyes than at the glitter of the humming saloons. A touch of her old
gladness made her smile when Captain Gambier unexpectedly appeared and
walked across the dancers to sit beside her. She asked him why he had
come from London: to which he replied, with a most expressive gaze under
her eyelids, that he had come for one object. "To see me?" thought
Emilia, wondering, and reddening as she ceased to wonder. She had
thought as a child, and the neat instant felt as a woman. He finished
Merthyr's work for him. Emilia now thought: "Then I must be worth
something." And with "I am," she ended her meditation, glowing. He
might have said that she had all beauty ever showered upon woman: she
would have been led to believe him at that moment of her revival.
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