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Daniel Defoe - "An Essay Upon Projects"

Nathaniel Hawthorne - "A Virtuoso's Collection (From Mosses From An Old Manse)"

George Meredith - "The Tragic Comedians, v3"

William Dean Howells - "Literary Friends And Acquaintances"

The Adventures of Harry Richmond, Complete

G >> George Meredith >> The Adventures of Harry Richmond, Complete




'Harry, the squire is a very old man, and you may not have many more
chances of pleasing him. To-day do, do! To-morrow, ride to your father,
if you must: of course you must if you think it right; but don't go this
day.'

'Not upset my fortune, Janet?'

'Don't hurt the kind old man's heart to-day.'

'Oh! you're the girl of his heart, I know.'

'Well, Harry, you have first place, and I want you to keep it.'

'But here's an oath I've sworn to my father.'

'He should not have exacted it, I think.'

'I promised him when I was a youngster.'

'Then be wiser now, Harry.'

'You have brilliant ideas of the sacredness of engagements.'

'I think I have common sense, that's all.'

'This is a matter of feeling.'

'It seems that you forgot it, though!'

Kiomi's tents on Durstan heath rose into view. I controlled my verbal
retort upon Janet to lead her up to the gipsy girl, for whom she had an
odd aversion, dating from childhood. Kiomi undertook to ride to Dipwell,
a distance of thirty miles, and carry the message that I would be there
by nightfall. Tears were on Janet's resolute face as we cantered home.

After breakfast the squire introduced me to his lawyer, Mr. Burgin, who,
closeted alone with me, said formally,

'Mr. Harry Richmond, you are Squire Beltham's grandson, his sole male
descendant, and you are established at present, and as far as we can
apprehend for the future, as the direct heir to the whole of his
property, which is enormous now, and likely to increase so long as he
lives. You may not be aware that your grandfather has a most sagacious
eye for business. Had he not been born a rich man he would still have
been one of our very greatest millionaires. He has rarely invested but to
double his capital; never speculated but to succeed. He may not
understand men quite so well, but then he trusts none entirely; so if
there is a chasm in his intelligence, there is a bridge thrown across it.
The metaphor is obscure perhaps: you will doubtless see my meaning. He
knows how to go on his road without being cheated. For himself, your
grandfather, Mr. Harry, is the soul of honour. Now, I have to explain
certain family matters. The squire's wife, your maternal grandmother, was
a rich heiress. Part of her money was settled on her to descend to her
children by reversion upon her death. What she herself possessed she
bequeathed to them in reversion likewise to their children. Thus at your
maternal grandmother's death, your mother and your aunt inherited money
to use as their own, and the interest of money tied fast in reversion to
their children (in case of marriage) after their death. Your grandfather,
as your natural guardian, has left the annual interest of your money to
accumulate, and now you are of age he hands it to you, as you see,
without much delay. Thus you become this day the possessor of seventy
thousand pounds, respecting the disposal of which I am here to take your
orders. Ahem!--as to the remaining property of your mother's--the sum
held by her for her own use, I mean, it devolved to her husband, your
father, who, it is probable, will furnish you an account of it--ah!--at
his leisure--ah! um! And now, in addition, Mr. Harry, I have the squire's
commands to speak to you as a man of business, on what may be deemed a
delicate subject, though from the business point of view no peculiar
delicacy should pertain to it. Your grandfather will settle on you
estates and money to the value of twenty thousand pounds per annum on the
day of your union with a young lady in this district, Miss Janet
Ilchester. He undertakes likewise to provide her pin-money. Also, let me
observe, that it is his request--but he makes no stipulation of it that
you will ultimately assume the name of Beltham, subscribing yourself
Harry Lepel Richmond Beltham; or, if it pleases you, Richmond-Beltham,
with the junction hyphen. Needless to say, he leaves it to your decision.
And now, Mr. Harry, I have done, and may most cordially congratulate you
on the blessings it has pleased a kind and discerning Providence to
shower on your head.'

None so grimly ironical as the obsequious! I thought of Burgin's
'discerning' providence (he spoke with all professional sincerity) in
after days.

On the occasion I thought of nothing but the squire's
straight-forwardness, and grieved to have to wound him. Janet helped me.
She hinted with a bashfulness, quite new to her, that I must go through
some ceremony. Guessing what it was, I saluted her on the cheek. The
squire observed that a kiss of that sort might as well have been planted
on her back hair. 'But,' said he, and wisely, 'I'd rather have the girl
worth ten of you, than you be more than her match. Girls like my girl
here are precious.' Owing to her intercession, he winked at my departure
after I had done duty among the tenants; he barely betrayed his vexation,
and it must have been excessive.

Heriot and I rode over to Dipwell. Next night we rode back by moonlight
with matter for a year of laughter, singing like two Arabian poets
praises of dark and fair, challengeing one to rival the other. Kiomi!
Mabel! we shouted separately. We had just seen the dregs of the last of
the birthday Burgundy.

'Kiomi! what a splendid panther she is!' cries Heriot; and I: 'Teeth and
claws, and a skin like a burnt patch on a common! Mabel's like a
wonderful sunflower.'

'Butter and eggs! old Richie, and about as much fire as a rushlight. If
the race were Fat she 'd beat the world.'

'Heriot, I give you my word of honour, the very look of her 's eternal
Summer. Kiomi rings thin--she tinkles; it 's the difference between metal
and flesh.'

'Did she tinkle, as you call it, when that fellow Destrier, confound him!
touched her?'

'The little cat! Did you notice Mabel's blush?'

'How could I help it? We've all had a dozen apiece. You saw little Kiomi
curled up under the hop and briony?'

'I took her for a dead jackdaw.'

'I took her for what she is, and she may slap, scream, tear, and bite, I
'll take her yet-and all her tribe crying thief, by way of a diversion.
She and I are footed a pair.'

His impetuosity surpassed mine so much that I fell to brooding on the
superior image of my charmer. The result was, I could not keep away from
her. I managed to get home with leaden limbs. Next day I was back at
Dipwell.

Such guilt as I have to answer for I may avow. I made violent love to
this silly country beauty, and held every advantage over her other
flatterers. She had met me on the evening of the great twenty-first, she
and a line of damsels dressed in white and wearing wreaths, and I had
claimed the privilege of saluting her. The chief superintendent of the
festivities, my father's old cook, Monsieur Alphonse, turned twilight
into noonday with a sheaf of rockets at the moment my lips brushed her
cheek. It was a kiss marred; I claimed to amend it. Besides, we had been
bosom friends in childhood. My wonder at the growth of the rose I had
left but an insignificant thorny shoot was exquisite natural flattery,
sweet reason, to which she could not say nonsense. At each step we trod
on souvenirs, innocent in themselves, had they recurred to childish
minds. The whisper, 'Hark! it's sunset, Mabel, Martha Thresher calls,'
clouded her face with stormy sunset colours. I respected Martha even then
for boldly speaking to me on the girl's behalf. Mrs. Waddy's courage
failed. John Thresher and Mark Sweetwinter were overcome by my father's
princely prodigality; their heads were turned, they appeared to have
assumed that I could do no wrong. To cut short the episode, some one
wrote to the squire in uncouth English, telling him I was courting a
country lass, and he at once started me for the Continent. We had some
conversation on money before parting. The squire allowed me a thousand a
year, independent of my own income. He counselled prudence, warned me
that I was on my trial, and giving me his word of honour that he should
not spy into my Bank accounts, desired me to be worthy of the trust
reposed in me. Speculation he forbade. I left him satisfied with the
assurance that I meant to make my grand tour neither as a merchant, a
gambler, nor a rake, but simply as a plain English gentleman.

'There's nothing better in the world than that,' said he.

Arrived in London, I left my travelling companion, the Rev. Ambrose
Peterborough, sipping his Port at the hotel, and rushed down to Dipwell,
shot a pebble at Mabel's window by morning twilight, and soon had her
face at the casement. But it was a cloudy and rainbeaten face. She
pointed toward the farm, saying that my father was there.

'Has he grieved you, Mabel?' I asked softly.

'Oh, no, not he! he wouldn't, he couldn't; he talked right. Oh, go, go:
for I haven't a foot to move. And don't speak so soft; I can't bear
kindness.'

My father in admonishing her had done it tenderly, I was sure. Tenderness
was the weapon which had wounded her, and so she shrank from it; and if I
had reproached and abused her she might, perhaps, have obeyed me by
coming out, not to return. She was deaf. I kissed my hand to her
regretfully; a condition of spirit gradually dissolved by the haunting
phantom of her forehead and mouth crumpling up for fresh floods of tears.
Had she concealed that vision with her handkerchief, I might have waited
to see her before I saw my father. He soon changed the set of the
current.

'Our little Mabel here,' he said, 'is an inflammable puss, I fear. By the
way, talking of girls, I have a surprise for you. Remind me of it when we
touch Ostend. We may want a yacht there to entertain high company. I have
set inquiries afloat for the hire of a schooner. This child Mabel can
read and write, I suppose? Best write no letters, boy. Do not make old
Dipwell a thorny bed. I have a portrait to show you, Richie. A portrait!
I think you will say the original was worthy of more than to be taken up
and thrown away like a weed. You see, Richie, girls have only one chance
in the world, and good God! to ruin that--no, no. You shall see this
portrait. A pretty little cow-like Mabel, I grant you. But to have her on
the conscience! What a coronet to wear! My young Lord Destrier--you will
remember him as one of our guests here; I brought him to make your
acquaintance; well, he would not be scrupulous, it is possible. Ay, but
compare yourself with him, Richie! and you and I, let us love one another
and have no nettles.'

He flourished me away to London, into new spheres of fancy. He was
irresistible.

In a London Club I was led up to the miniature of a youthful woman,
singular for her endearing beauty Her cheeks were merry red, her lips
lively with the spark of laughter, her eyes in good union with them,
showing you the laughter was gentle; eyes of overflowing blue light.

'Who is she?' I asked.

The old-fashioned building of the powdered hair counselled me to add,
'Who was she?'

Captain DeWitt, though a member of the Club, seemed unable to inform me.
His glance consulted my father. He hummed and drawled, and said:
'Mistress Anastasia Dewsbury; that was her name.'

'She does not look a grandmother,' said my father.

'She would be one by this time, I dare say,' said I.

We gazed in silence.

'Yes!' he sighed. 'She was a charming actress, and one of the best of
women. A noble-minded young woman! A woman of cultivation and genius! Do
you see a broken heart in that face? No? Very well. A walk will take us
to her grave. She died early.'

I was breathing 'Who?' when he said, 'She was my mother, my dear.'

It was piteous.

We walked to an old worn flat stone in a London street, where under I had
to imagine those features of beautiful humanity lying shut from us.

She had suffered in life miserably.




CHAPTER XXIV

I MEET THE PRINCESS

Hearing that I had not slept at the hotel, the Rev. Ambrose rushed down
to Riversley with melancholy ejaculations, and was made to rebound by the
squire's contemptuous recommendation to him to learn to know something of
the spirit of young bloods, seeing that he had the nominal charge of one,
and to preach his sermon in secret, if he would be sermonizing out of
church. The good gentleman had not exactly understood his duties, or how
to conduct them. Far from objecting to find me in company with my father,
as he would otherwise have done by transmitting information of that fact
to Riversley, he now congratulated himself on it, and after the two had
conversed apart, cordially agreed to our scheme of travelling together.
The squire had sickened him. I believe that by comparison he saw in my
father a better friend of youth.

'We shall not be the worse for a ghostly adviser at hand,' my father said
to me with his quaintest air of gravity and humour mixed, which was not
insincerely grave, for the humour was unconscious. 'An accredited casuist
may frequently be a treasure. And I avow it, I like to travel with my
private chaplain.'

Mr. Peterborough's temporary absence had allowed me time for getting
ample funds placed at our disposal through the agency of my father's
solicitors, Messrs. Dettermain and Newson, whom I already knew from
certain transactions with them on his behalf. They were profoundly
courteous to me, and showed me his box, and alluded to his Case--a long
one, and a lamentable, I was taught to apprehend, by their lugubriously
professional tone about it. The question was naturally prompted in me,
'Why do you not go on with it?'

'Want of funds.'

'There's no necessity to name that now,' I insisted. But my father
desired them to postpone any further exposition of the case, saying,
'Pleasure first, business by-and-by. That, I take it, is in the order of
our great mother Nature, gentlemen. I will not have him help shoulder his
father's pack until he has had his, fill of entertainment.'

A smooth voyage brought us in view of the towers of Ostend at sunrise.
Standing with my father on deck, and gazing on this fringe of the grand
romantic Continent, I remembered our old travels, and felt myself bound
to him indissolubly, ashamed of my recent critical probings of his
character. My boy's love for him returned in full force. I was
sufficiently cognizant of his history to know that he kept his head
erect, lighted by the fire of his robust heart in the thick of
overhanging natal clouds. As the way is with men when they are too happy
to be sentimental, I chattered of anything but my feelings.

'What a capital idea that was of yours to bring down old Alphonse to
Dipwell! You should have heard old John Thresher and Mark Sweetwinter and
the others grumbling at the interference of "French frogs;" with their
beef, though Alphonse vowed he only ordered the ox to be turned faster,
and he dressed their potatoes in six different ways. I doubt if Dipwell
has composed itself yet. You know I sat for president in their tent while
the beef went its first round; and Alphonse was in an awful hurry to drag
me into what he called the royal tent. By the way, you should have hauled
the standard down at sunset.'

'Not when the son had not come down among us,' said my father, smiling.

'Well, I forgot to tell you about Alphonse. By the way, we'll have him in
our service. There was he plucking at me: "Monsieur Henri-Richie,
Monsieur Henri-Richie! mille complimens . . . et les potages,
Monsieur!--a la Camerani, a la tortue, aux petits pois . . . c'est en
vrai artiste que j'ai su tout retarder jusqu'au dernier moment . . . .
Monsieur! cher Monsieur Henri-Richie, je vous en supplie, laissez-la, ces
planteurs de choux." And John Thresher, as spokesman for the rest:
"Master Harry, we beg to say, in my name, we can't masticate comfortably
while we've got a notion Mr. Frenchman he 's present here to play his
Frenchified tricks with our plain wholesome dishes. Our opinion is, he
don't know beef from hedgehog; and let him trim 'em, and egg 'em,' and
bread-crumb 'em, and pound the mess all his might, and then tak' and roll
'em into balls, we say we wun't, for we can't make English muscle out o'
that."--And Alphonse, quite indifferent to the vulgar: "He! mais pensez
donc au Papa, Monsieur Henri-Richie, sans doute il a une sante de fer:
mais encore faut-il lui menager le suc gastrique, pancreatique . . . ."'

'Ay, ay!' laughed my father; 'what sets you thinking of Alphonse?'

'I suppose because I shall have to be speaking French in an hour.'

'German, Richie, German.'

'But these Belgians speak French.'

'Such French as it is. You will, however, be engaged in a German
conversation first, I suspect.'

'Very well, I'll stumble on. I don't much like it.'

'In six hours from this second of time, Richie, boy, I undertake to
warrant you fonder of the German tongue than of any other spoken
language.'

I looked at him. He gave me a broad pleasant smile, without sign of a
jest lurking in one corner.

The scene attracted me. Laughing fishwife faces radiant with sea-bloom in
among the weedy pier-piles, and sombre blue-cheeked officers of the
douane, with their double row of buttons extending the breadth of their
shoulders. My father won Mr. Peterborough's approval by declaring cigars
which he might easily have passed.

'And now, sir,'--he used the commanding unction of a lady's doctor,--'you
to bed, and a short repose. We will, if it pleases you, breakfast at
eight. I have a surprise for Mr. Richie. We are about to beat the drum in
the market-place, and sing out for echoes.'

'Indeed, sir?' said the simple man.

'I promise you we shall not disturb you, Mr. Peterborough. You have
reached that middle age, have you not, when sleep is, so to put it, your
capital? And your activity is the interest you draw from it to live on.
You have three good hours. So, then, till we meet at the
breakfast-table.'

My father's first proceeding at the hotel was to examine the list of
visitors. He questioned one of the waiters aside, took information from
him, and seized my arm rather tremulously, saying,

'They are here. 'Tis as I expected. And she is taking the morning breath
of sea-air on the dunes. Come, Richie, come.'

'Who's the "she"?' I asked incuriously.

'Well, she is young, she is of high birth, she is charming. We have a
crowned head or two here. I observe in you, Richie, an extraordinary
deficiency of memory. She has had an illness; Neptune speed her recovery!
Now for a turn at our German. Die Strassen ruhen; die Stadt schlaft; aber
dort, siehst Du, dort liegt das blaue Meer, das nimmer-schlafende! She is
gazing on it, and breathing it, Richie. Ach! ihr jauchzende Seejungfern.
On my soul, I expect to see the very loveliest of her sex!

You must not be dismayed at pale cheeks-blasse Wangen. Her illness has
been alarming. Why, this air is the top of life; it will, and it shall,
revive her. How will she address him?--"Freund," in my presence,
perchance: she has her invalid's privilege. "Theure Prinzessin" you might
venture on. No ice! Ay, there she is!'

Solitary, on the long level of the sand-bank, I perceived a group that
became discernible as three persons attached to an invalid's chair,
moving leisurely toward us. I was in the state of mind between divination
and doubt when the riddle is not impossible to read, would but the heart
cease its hurry an instant; a tumbled sky where the break is coming. It
came. The dear old days of my wanderings with Temple framed her face. I
knew her without need of pause or retrospect. The crocus raising its cup
pointed as when it pierced the earth, and the crocus stretched out on
earth, wounded by frost, is the same flower. The face was the same,
though the features were changed. Unaltered in expression, but wan, and
the kind blue eyes large upon lean brows, her aspect was that of one who
had been half caught away and still shook faintly in the relaxing
invisible grasp.

We stopped at a distance of half-a-dozen paces to allow her time for
recollection. She eyed us softly in a fixed manner, while the sea-wind
blew her thick redbrown hair to threads on her cheek. Colour on the fair
skin told us we were recognized.

'Princess Ottilia!' said my father.

'It is I, my friend,' she answered. 'And you?'

'With more health than I am in need of, dearest princess.'

'And he?'

'Harry Richmond! my son, now of age, commencing his tour; and he has not
forgotten the farewell bunch of violets.'

Her eyelids gently lifted, asking me.

'Nor the mount you did me the honour to give me on the little Hungarian,'
said I.

'How nice this sea-air is!' she spoke in English. 'England and sea go
together in my thoughts. And you are here! I have been down very low,
near the lowest. But your good old sea makes me breathe again. I want to
toss on it. Have you yet seen the Markgrafin?'

My father explained that we had just landed from the boat.

'Is our meeting, then, an accident?'

'Dear princess, I heard of your being out by the shore.'

'Ah! kind: and you walked to meet me? I love that as well, though I love
chance. And it is chance that brings you here! I looked out on the boat
from England while they were dressing me: I cannot have too much of the
morning, for then I have all to myself: sea and sky and I. The night
people are all asleep, and you come like an old Marchen.'

Her eyelids dropped without closing.

'Speak no more to her just at present,' said an English voice, Miss
Silbey's. Schwartz, the huge dragoon, whose big black horse hung near him
in my memory like a phantom, pulled the chair at a quiet pace, head
downward. A young girl clad in plain black walked beside Miss Sibley,
following the wheels.

'Danger is over,' Miss Sibley answered my gaze. 'She is convalescent. You
see how weak she is.'

I praised the lady for what I deemed her great merit in not having
quitted the service of the princess.

'Oh!' said she, 'my adieux to Sarkeld were uttered years ago. But when I
heard of her fall from the horse I went and nursed her. We were once in
dread of her leaving us. She sank as if she had taken some internal
injury. It may have been only the shock to her system and the cessation
of her accustomed exercise. She has a little over-studied.'

'The margravine?'

'The margravine is really very good and affectionate, and has won my
esteem. So you and your father are united at last? We have often talked
of you. Oh! that day up by the tower. But, do you know, the statue is
positively there now, and no one--no one who had the privilege of
beholding the first bronze Albrecht Wohlgemuth, Furst von
Eppenwelzen-Sarkeld, no one will admit that the second is half worthy of
him. I can feel to this day the leap of the heart in my mouth when the
statue dismounted. The prince sulked for a month: the margravine still
longer at your father's evasion. She could not make allowance for the
impulsive man: such a father; such a son!'

'Thank you, thank you most humbly,' said I, bowing to her shadow of a
mock curtsey.

The princess's hand appeared at a side of the chair. We hastened to her.

'Let me laugh, too,' she prayed.

Miss Sibley was about to reply, but stared, and delight sprang to her
lips in a quick cry.

'What medicine is this? Why, the light of morning has come to you, my
darling!'

'I am better, dearest, better.'

'You sigh, my own.'

'No; I breathe lots, lots of salt air now, and lift like a boat. Ask
him--he had a little friend, much shorter than himself, who came the
whole way with him out of true friendship--ask him where is the friend?'

Miss Sibley turned her head to me.

'Temple,' said I; 'Temple is a midshipman; he is at sea.'

'That is something to think of,' the princess murmured, and dropped her
eyelids a moment. She resumed 'The Grand Seigneur was at Vienna last
year, and would not come to Sarkeld, though he knew I was ill.'

My father stooped low.

'The Grand Seigneur, your servant, dear princess, was an Ottoman Turk,
and his Grand Vizier advised him to send flowers in his place weekly.'

'I had them, and when we could get those flowers nowhere else,' she
replied. 'So it was you! So my friends have been about me.'

During the remainder of the walk I was on one side of the chair, and her
little maid on the other, while my father to rearward conversed with Miss
Sibley. The princess took a pleasure in telling me that this Aennchen of
hers knew me well, and had known me before ever her mistress had seen me.
Aennchen was the eldest of the two children Temple and I had eaten
breakfast with in the forester's hut. I felt myself as if in the forest
again, merely wondering at the growth of the trees, and the narrowness of
my vision in those days.

At parting, the princess said,

'Is my English improved? You smiled at it once. I will ask you when I
meet you next.'

'It is my question,' I whispered to my own ears.

She caught the words.

'Why do you say--"It is my question"?'

I was constrained to remind her of her old forms of English speech.

'You remember that? Adieu,' she said.

My father considerately left me to carry on my promenade alone. I crossed
the ground she had traversed, noting every feature surrounding it, the
curving wheel-track, the thin prickly sand-herbage, the wave-mounds, the
sparse wet shells and pebbles, the gleaming flatness of the water, and
the vast horizon-boundary of pale flat land level with shore, looking
like a dead sister of the sea. By a careful examination of my watch and
the sun's altitude, I was able to calculate what would, in all
likelihood, have been his height above yonder waves when her chair was
turned toward the city, at a point I reached in the track. But of the
matter then simultaneously occupying my mind, to recover which was the
second supreme task I proposed to myself-of what. I also was thinking
upon the stroke of five o'clock, I could recollect nothing. I could not
even recollect whether I happened to be looking on sun and waves when she
must have had them full and glorious in her face.