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George Meredith - "The Shaving of Shagpat, v3"

Unknown - "The Bible, Douay Rheims, Book 23: Ecclesiastes"

David Cory - "Billy Bunny and Uncle Bull Frog"

George Meredith - "Evan Harrington, v1"

The Adventures of Harry Richmond, Complete

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




If she had but been such an one, what sprightly colours, delicious
sadness, magical transformations, tenderest intermixture of earth and
heaven; what tears and sunbeams, divinest pathos: what descents from
radiance to consolatory twilight, would have surrounded me for poetry and
pride to dwell on! What captivating melody in the minor key would have
been mine, though I lost her--the legacy of it all for ever! Say a
petulant princess, a star of beauty, mad for me, and the whisper of our
passion and sorrows traversing the flushed world! Was she coming? Not
she, but a touchstone, a relentless mirror, a piercing eye, a mind severe
as the Goddess of the God's head: a princess indeed, but essentially a
princess above women: a remorseless intellect, an actual soul visible in
the flesh. She was truth. Was I true? Not so very false, yet how far from
truth! The stains on me (a modern man writing his history is fugitive and
crepuscular in alluding to them, as a woman kneeling at the ear-guichet)
burnt like the blood-spots on the criminal compelled to touch his victim
by savage ordinance, which knew the savage and how to search him. And
these were faults of weakness rather than the sins of strength. I might
as fairly hope for absolution of them from Ottilia as from offended laws
of my natural being, gentle though she was, and charitable.

Was I not guilty of letting her come on to me hoodwinked at this moment?
I had a faint memory of Miss Goodwin's saying that she had been deceived,
and I suggested a plan of holding aloof until she had warned the princess
of my perfect recovery, to leave it at her option to see me.

'Yes,' Miss Goodwin assented: 'if you like, Harry.'

Her compassion for me only tentatively encouraged the idea. 'It would,
perhaps, be right. You are the judge. If you can do it. You are acting
bravely.' She must have laughed at me in her heart.

The hours wore on. My curse of introspection left me, and descending
through the town to the pier, amid the breezy blue skirts and
bonnet-strings, we watched the packet-boat approaching. There was in
advance one of the famous swift island wherries. Something went wrong
with it, for it was overtaken, and the steamer came in first. I jumped on
board, much bawled at. Out of a crowd of unknown visages, Janet appeared:
my aunt Dorothy was near her. The pair began chattering of my paleness,
and wickedness in keeping my illness unknown to them. They had seen
Temple on an excursion to London; he had betrayed me, as he would have
betrayed an archangel to Janet.

'Will you not look at us, Harry?' they both said.

The passengers were quitting the boat, strangers every one.

'Harry, have we really offended you in coming?' said Janet.

My aunt Dorothy took the blame on herself.

I scarcely noticed them, beyond leading them on to the pier-steps and
leaving them under charge of Miss Goodwin, who had, in matters of luggage
and porterage, the practical mind and aplomb of an Englishwoman that has
passed much of her time on the Continent. I fancied myself vilely duped
by this lady. The boat was empty of its passengers; a grumbling pier-man,
wounded in his dignity, notified to me that there were fines for
disregard of the Company's rules and regulations. His tone altered; he
touched his hat: 'Didn't know who you was, my lord.' Janet overheard him,
and her face was humorous.

'We may break the rules, you see,' I said to her.

'We saw him landing on the other side of the water,' she replied; so
spontaneously did the circumstance turn her thoughts on my father.

'Did you speak to him?'

'No.'

'You avoided him?'

'Aunty and I thought it best. He landed . . . there was a crowd.'

Miss Goodwin interposed: 'You go to Harry's hotel?'

'Grandada is coming down to-morrow or next day,' Janet prompted my aunt
Dorothy.

'If we could seek for a furnished house; Uberly would watch the luggage,'
Dorothy murmured in distress.

'Furnished houses, even rooms at hotels, are doubtful in the height of
the season,' Miss Goodwin remarked. 'Last night I engaged the only decent
set of rooms I could get, for friends of Harry's who are coming.'

'No wonder he was disappointed at seeing us--he was expecting them!' said
Janet, smiling a little.

'They are sure to come,' said Miss Goodwin.

Near us a couple of yachtsmen were conversing.

'Oh, he'll be back in a day or two,' one said. 'When you 've once tasted
that old boy, you can't do without him. I remember when I was a
youngster--it was in Lady Betty Bolton's day; she married old Edbury, you
know, first wife--the Magnificent was then in his prime. He spent his
money in a week: so he hired an eighty-ton schooner; he laid violent
hands on a Jew, bagged him, lugged him on board, and sailed away.'

'What the deuce did he want with a Jew?' cried the other.

'Oh, the Jew supplied cheques for a three months' cruise in the
Mediterranean, and came home, I heard, very good friends with his pirate.
That's only one of dozens.'

The unconscious slaughterers laughed.

'On another occasion'--I heard it said by the first speaker, as they
swung round to parade the pier, and passed on narrating.

'Not an hotel, if it is possible to avoid it,' my aunt Dorothy, with
heightened colour, urged Miss Goodwin. They talked together.

'Grandada is coming to you, Harry,' Janet said. 'He has business in
London, or he would have been here now. Our horses and carriages follow
us: everything you would like. He does love you! he is very anxious. I'm
afraid his health is worse than he thinks. Temple did not say your father
was here, but grandada must have suspected it when he consented to our
coming, and said he would follow us. So that looks well perhaps. He has
been much quieter since your money was paid back to you. If they should
meet . . . no, I hope they will not: grandada hates noise. And, Harry,
let me tell you: it may be nothing: if he questions you, do not take
fire; just answer plainly: I'm sure you understand. One in a temper at a
time I'm sure 's enough: you have only to be patient with him. He has
been going to London, to the City, seeing lawyers, bankers, brokers, and
coming back muttering. Ah! dear old man. And when he ought to have peace!
Harry, the poor will regret him in a thousand places. I write a great
deal for him now, and I know how they will. What are you looking at?'

I was looking at a man of huge stature, of the stiffest build, whose
shoulders showed me their full breadth while he stood displaying
frontwards the open of his hand in a salute.

'Schwartz!' I called. Janet started, imagining some fierce interjection.
The giant did not stir.

But others had heard. A lady stepped forward. 'Dear Mr. Harry Richmond!
Then you are better? We had most alarming news of you.'

I bowed to the Frau von Dittmarsch, anciently Miss Sibley.

'The princess?'

'She is here.'

Frau von Dittmarsch clasped Miss Goodwin's hand. I was touching
Ottilia's. A veil partly swathed her face. She trembled: the breeze
robbed me of her voice.

Our walk down the pier was almost in silence. Miss Goodwin assumed the
guardianship of the foreign ladies. I had to break from them and provide
for my aunt Dorothy and Janet.

'They went over in a little boat, they were so impatient. Who is she?'
Dorothy Beltham asked.

'The Princess Ottilia,' said Janet.

'Are you certain? Is it really, Harry?'

I confirmed it, and my aunt said, 'I should have guessed it could be no
other; she has a foreign grace.'

'General Goodwin was with them when the boat came in from the island,'
said Janet. 'He walked up to Harry's father, and you noticed, aunty, that
the ladies stood away, as if they wished to be unobserved, as we did, and
pulled down their veils. They would not wait for our boat. We passed them
crossing. People joked about the big servant over-weighing the wherry.'

Dorothy Beltham thought the water too rough for little boats.

'She knows what a sea is,' I said.

Janet gazed steadily after the retreating figures, and then commended me
to the search for rooms. The end of it was that I abandoned my father's
suite to them. An accommodating linen-draper possessed of a sea-view, and
rooms which hurled the tenant to the windows in desire for it, gave me
harbourage.

Till dusk I scoured the town to find Miss Goodwin, without whom there was
no clue to the habitation I was seeking, and I must have passed her
blindly again and again. My aunt Dorothy and Janet thanked me for my
consideration in sitting down to dine with them; they excused my haste to
retire. I heard no reproaches except on account of my not sending them
word of my illness. Janet was not warm. She changed in colour and voice
when I related what I had heard from Miss Goodwin, namely, that 'some
one' had informed the princess I was in a dying state. I was obliged to
offer up my father as a shield for Ottilia, lest false ideas should
tarnish the image of her in their minds. Janet did not speak of him. The
thought stood in her eyes; and there lies the evil of a sore subject
among persons of one household: they have not to speak to exhibit their
minds.

After a night of suspense I fell upon old Schwartz and Aennchen out in
the earliest dawn, according to their German habits, to have a gaze at
sea, and strange country and people. Aennchen was all wonder at the
solitary place, Schwartz at the big ships. But when they tried to direct
me to the habitation of their mistress, it was discovered by them that
they had lost their bearings. Aennchen told me the margravine had been
summoned to Rippau just before they left Sarkeld. Her mistress had
informed Baroness Turckems of her intention to visit England. Prince
Ernest was travelling in France.

The hour which brought me to Ottilia was noon. The arrangements of the
ladies could only grant me thirty minutes, for Janet was to drive the
princess out into the country to view the island. She and my aunt Dorothy
had been already introduced. Miss Goodwin, after presenting them,
insisted upon ceremoniously accompanying me to the house. Quite taking
the vulgar view of a proceeding such as the princess had been guilty of,
and perhaps fearing summary audacity and interestedness in the son of a
father like mine, she ventured on lecturing me, as though it lay with me
to restrain the fair romantic head, forbear from calling up my special
advantages, advise, and stand to the wisdom of this world, and be the man
of honour. The princess had said: 'Not see him when I have come to him?'
I reassured my undiscerning friend partly, not wholly.

'Would it be commonly sensible or civil, to refuse to see me, having
come?'

Miss Goodwin doubted.

I could indicate forcibly, because I felt, the clear-judging brain and
tempered self-command whereby Ottilia had gained her decision.

Miss Goodwin nodded and gave me the still-born affirmative of politeness.
Her English mind expressed itself willing to have exonerated the rash
great lady for visiting a dying lover, but he was not the same person now
that he was on his feet, consequently her expedition wore a different
aspect:--my not dying condemned her. She entreated me to keep the fact of
the princess's arrival unknown to my father, on which point we were one.
Intensely enthusiastic for the men of her race, she would have me, above
all things, by a form of adjuration designed to be a masterpiece of
persuasive rhetoric, 'prove myself an Englishman.' I was to show that
'the honour, interests, reputation and position of any lady (demented or
not,' she added) 'were as precious to me as to the owner': that 'no woman
was ever in peril of a shadow of loss in the hands of an English
gentleman,' and so forth, rather surprisingly to me, remembering her
off-hand manner of the foregoing day. But the sense of responsibility
thrown upon her ideas of our superior national dignity had awakened her
fervider naturalness--made her a different person, as we say when
accounting, in our fashion, for what a little added heat may do.

The half hour allotted to me fled. I went from the room and the house,
feeling that I had seen and heard her who was barely of the world of
humankind for me, so strongly did imagination fly with her. I kissed her
fingers, I gazed in her eyes, I heard the beloved voice. All passed too
swift for happiness. Recollections set me throbbing, but recollection
brought longing. She said, 'Now I have come I must see you, Harry.' Did
it signify that to see me was a piece of kindness at war with her
judgement? She rejoiced at my perfect recovery, though it robbed her of
the plea in extenuation of this step she had taken. She praised me for
abstaining to write to her, when I was stammering a set of
hastily-impressed reasons to excuse myself for the omission. She praised
my step into Parliament. It did not seem to involve a nearer approach to
her. She said, 'You have not wasted your time in England.' It was for my
solitary interests that she cared, then.

I brooded desperately. I could conceive an overlooking height that made
her utterance simple and consecutive: I could not reach it. Topics which
to me were palpitating, had no terror for her. She said, 'I have offended
my father; I have written to him; he will take me away.' In speaking of
the letter which had caused her to offend, she did not blame the writer.
I was suffered to run my eyes over it, and was ashamed. It read to me too
palpably as an outcry to delude and draw her hither:--pathos and pathos:
the father holding his dying son in his arms, his sole son, Harry
Richmond; the son set upon by enemies in the night: the lover never
daring to beg for a sight of his beloved ere he passed away:--not an
ill-worded letter; read uncritically, it may have been touching: it must
have been, though it was the reverse for me. I frowned, broke down in
regrets, under sharp humiliation.

She said, 'You knew nothing of it. A little transgression is the real
offender. When we are once out of the way traced for us, we are in danger
of offending at every step; we are as lawless as the outcasts.' That
meant, 'My turning aside to you originally was the blameable thing.' It
might mean, 'My love of you sets my ideas of duty at variance with my
father's.'

She smiled; nothing was uttered in a tone of despondency. Her high
courage and breeding gave her even in this pitfall the smoothness which
most women keep for society. Why she had not sent me any message or
tidings of herself to Riversley was not a matter that she could imagine
to perplex me: she could not imagine my losing faith in her. The least we
could do, I construed it, the religious bond between us was a faith in
one another that should sanctify to our souls the external injuries it
caused us to commit. But she talked in no such strain. Her delight in
treading English ground was her happy theme. She said, 'It is as young as
when we met in the forest'; namely, the feeling revived for England. How
far off we were from the green Devonshire coast, was one of her
questions, suggestive of our old yacht-voyage lying among her dreams.
Excepting an extreme and terrorizing paleness, there was little to fever
me with the thought that she suffered mortally. Of reproach, not a word;
nor of regret. At the first touch of hands, when we stood together,
alone, she said, 'Would hearing of your recovery have given me peace?' My
privileges were the touch of hands, the touch of her fingers to my lips,
a painless hearing and seeing, and passionate recollection. She said,
'Impatience is not for us, Harry': I was not to see her again before the
evening. These were the last words she said, and seemed the lightest
until my hot brain made a harvest of them transcending thrice-told vows
of love. Did they not mean, 'We two wait': therefore, 'The years are
bondmen to our stedfastness.' Could sweeter have been said? They might
mean nothing!

She was veiled when Janet drove her out; Janet sitting upright in her
masterly way, smoothing her pet ponies with the curl of her whip,
chatting and smiling; the princess slightly leaning back. I strode up to
the country roads, proud of our land's beauty under a complacent sky. By
happy chance, which in a generous mood I ascribed to Janet's good nature,
I came across them at a seven miles' distance. They were talking
spiritedly: what was wonderful, they gave not much heed to me: they
seemed on edge for one another's conversation: each face was turned to
the other's, and after nodding an adieu, they resumed the animated
discourse. I had been rather in alarm lest Ottilia should think little of
Janet. They passed out of sight without recurring to a thought of me
behind them.

In the evening I was one among a group of ladies. I had the opportunity
of hearing the running interchange between Ottilia and Janet, which
appeared to be upon equal terms; indeed, Janet led. The subjects were not
very deep. Plain wits, candour, and an unpretending tongue, it seemed,
could make common subjects attractive, as fair weather does our English
woods and fields. The princess was attracted by something in Janet. I
myself felt the sway of something, while observing Ottilia's rapt
pleasure in her talk and her laughter, with those funny familiar frowns
and current dimples twisting and melting away like a play of shadows on
the eddies of the brook.

'I 'm glad to be with her,' Janet said of Ottilia.

It was just in that manner she spoke in Ottilia's presence. Why it should
sound elsewhere unsatisfactorily blunt, and there possess a finished
charm, I could not understand.

I mentioned to Janet that I feared my father would be returning.

She contained herself with a bridled 'Oh!'

We were of one mind as to the necessity for keeping him absent, if
possible.

'Harry, you'll pardon me; I can't talk of him,' said she.

I proposed half-earnestly to foil his return by going to London at once.

'That's manly; that's nice of you,' Janet said.

This was on our walk from the house at night. My aunt Dorothy listened,
pressing my arm. The next morning Janet urged me to go at once. 'Keep him
away, bring down grandada, Harry. She cannot quit the island, because she
has given Prince Ernest immediate rendezvous here. You must not delay to
go. Yes, the Countess of Delzenburg shall have your excuses. And no, I
promise you I will run nobody down. Besides, if I do, aunty will be at
hand to plead for the defence, and she can! She has a way that binds one
to accept everything she says, and Temple ought to study with her for a
year or two before he wears his gown. Bring him back with you and
grandada. He is esteemed here at his true worth. I love him for making
her in love with English boys. I leave the men for those who know them,
but English boys are unrivalled, I declare. Honesty, bravery, modesty,
and nice looks! They are so nice in their style and their way of talking.
I tell her, our men may be shy and sneering,--awkward, I daresay; but our
boys beat the world. Do bring down Temple. I should so like her to see a
cricket-match between two good elevens of our boys, Harry, while she is
in England! We could have arranged for one at Riversley.'

I went, and I repressed the idea, on my way, that Janet had manoeuvred by
sending me off to get rid of me, but I felt myself a living testimony to
her heartlessness: for no girl of any heart, acting the part of friend,
would have allowed me to go without a leave-taking of her I loved few
would have been so cruel as to declare it a duty to go at all, especially
when the chances were that I might return to find the princess wafted
away. Ottilia's condescension had done her no good. 'Turn to the right,
that's your path; on.' She seemed to speak in this style, much as she
made her touch of the reins understood by her ponies. 'I 'll take every
care of the princess,' she said. Her conceit was unbounded. I revelled in
contemptuous laughter at her assumption of the post of leader with
Ottilia. However, it was as well that I should go: there was no trusting
my father.




CHAPTER XLIX

WHICH FORESHADOWS A GENERAL GATHERING

At our Riversley station I observed the squire, in company with Captain
Bulsted, jump into a neighbouring carriage. I joined them, and was called
upon to answer various inquiries. The squire gave me one of his short
tight grasps of the hand, in which there was warmth and shyness, our
English mixture. The captain whispered in my ear: 'He oughtn't to be
alone.'

'How's the great-grandmother of the tribe?' said I.

Captain Bulsted nodded, as if he understood, but was at sea until I
mentioned the bottle of rum and the remarkable length of that old lady's
measurement.

'Ay, to be sure! a grand old soul,' he said. 'You know that scum of old,
Harry.'

I laughed, and so did he, at which I laughed the louder.

'He laughs, I suppose, because his party's got a majority in the House,'
said the squire.

'We gave you a handsome surplus this year, sir.'

'Sweated out of the country's skin and bone, ay!'

'You were complimented by the Chancellor of the Exchequer!'

'Yes, that fellow's compliments are like a cabman's, and cry fool:--he
never thanks you but when he's overpaid.'

Captain Bulsted applauded the sarcasm.

'Why did you keep out of knowledge all this time, Hal?' my grandfather
asked.

I referred him to the captain.

'Hang it,' cried Captain Bulsted, 'do you think I'd have been doing duty
for you if I'd known where to lay hold of you.'

'Well, if you didn't shake hands with me, you touched my toes,' said I,
and thanked him with all my heart for his kindness to an old woman on the
point of the grave. I had some fun to flavour melancholy with.

My grandfather resumed his complaint: 'You might have gone clean off, and
we none the wiser.'

'Are we quite sure that his head's clean on?' said the mystified captain.

'Of course we should run to him, wherever he was, if he was down on his
back,' the squire muttered.

'Ay, ay, sir; of course,' quoth Captain William, frowning to me to
reciprocate this relenting mood. 'But, Harry, where did you turn off that
night? We sat up expecting you. My poor Julia was in a terrible fright,
my lad. Eh? speak up.'

I raised the little finger.

'Oh, oh,' went he, happily reassured; but, reflecting, added: 'A bout of
it?'

I dropped him a penitent nod.

'That's bad, though,' said he.

'Then why did you tip me a bottle of rum, Captain William?'

'By George, Harry, you've had a crack o' the sconce,' he exclaimed, more
sagaciously than he was aware of.

My grandfather wanted to keep me by his side in London until we two
should start for the island next day; but his business was in the city,
mine toward the West. We appointed to meet two hours after reaching the
terminus.

He turned to me while giving directions to his man.

'You 've got him down there, I suppose?'

'My father's in town, sir. He shall keep away,' I said.

'Humph! I mayn't object to see him.'

This set me thinking.

Captain Bulsted--previously asking me in a very earnest manner whether I
was really all right and sound--favoured me with a hint:

'The squire has plunged into speculations of his own, or else he is
peeping at somebody else's. No danger of the dad being mixed up with
Companies? Let's hope not. Julia pledged her word to Janet that I would
look after the old squire. I suppose I can go home this evening? My girl
hates to be alone.'

'By all means,' said I; and the captain proposed to leave the squire at
his hotel, in the event of my failing to join him in the city.

'But don't fail, if you can help it,' he urged me; 'for things somehow,
my dear Harry, appear to me to look like the compass when the needle
gives signs of atmospheric disturbance. My only reason for saying so is
common observation. You can judge for yourself that he is glad to have
you with him.'

I told the captain I was equally glad; for, in fact, my grandfather's
quietness and apparently friendly disposition tempted me to petition for
a dower for the princess at once, so that I might be in the position to
offer Prince Ernest on his arrival a distinct alternative; supposing--it
was still but a supposition--Ottilia should empower me. Incessant
dialogues of perpetually shifting tendencies passed between Ottilia and
me in my brain--now dark, now mildly fair, now very wild, on one side at
least. Never, except by downright force of will, could I draw from the
phantom of her one purely irrational outcry, so deeply-rooted was the
knowledge of her nature and mind; and when I did force it, I was no
gainer: a puppet stood in her place--the vision of Ottilia melted out in
threads of vapour.

'And yet she has come to me; she has braved everything to come.' I might
say that, to liken her to the women who break rules and read duties by
their own light, but I could not cheat my knowledge of her. Mrs. Waddy
met me in the hall of my father's house, as usual, pressing, I regretted
to see, one hand to her side. 'Her heart,' she said, 'was easily set
pitty-pat now.' She had been, by her master's orders, examined by two of
the chief physicians of the kingdom, 'baronets both.' They advised total
rest. As far as I could apprehend, their baronetcies and doings in high
regions had been of more comfort than their prescriptions.