The Adventures of Harry Richmond, v7
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George Meredith >> The Adventures of Harry Richmond, v7
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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.
'What I am I must be,' she said, meekly; 'and I cannot quit his service
till he's abroad again, or I drop. He has promised me a monument. I
don't want it; but it shows his kindness.'
A letter from Heriot informed me that the affair between Edbury and me
was settled: he could not comprehend how.
'What is this new Jury of Honour? Who are the jurymen?' he asked, and
affected wit.
I thanked him for a thrashing in a curt reply.
My father had left the house early in the morning. Mrs. Waddy believed
that he meant to dine that evening at the season's farewell dinner of the
Trump-Trick Club: 'Leastways, Tollingby has orders to lay out his
gentlemen's-dinners' evening-suit. Yesterday afternoon he flew down to
Chippenden, and was home late. To-day he's in the City, or one of the
squares. Lady Edbury's--ah! detained in town with the jaundice or
toothache. He said he was sending to France for a dentist: or was it
Germany, for some lady's eyes? I am sure I don't know. Well or ill, so
long as you're anything to him, he will abound. Pocket and purse! You
know him by this time, Mr. Harry. Oh, my heart!'
A loud knock at the door had brought on the poor creature's palpitations.
This visitor was no other than Prince Ernest. The name on his card was
Graf von Delzenburg, and it set my heart leaping to as swift a measure as
Mrs. Waddy's.
Hearing that I was in the house, he desired to see me.
We met, with a formal bow.
'I congratulate you right heartily upon being out of the list of the
nekron,' he said, civilly. 'I am on my way to one of your watering-
places, whither my family should have preceded me. Do you publish the
names and addresses of visitors daily, as it is the custom with us?'
I relieved his apprehensions on that head: 'Here and there, rarely; and
only at the hotels, I believe.' The excuse was furnished for offering
the princess's address.
'Possibly, in a year or two, we may have the pleasure of welcoming you at
Sarkeld,' said the prince, extending his hand. 'Then, you have seen the
Countess of Delzenburg?'
'On the day of her arrival, your Highness. Ladies of my family are
staying on the island.'
'Ah?'
He paused, and invited me to bow to him. We bowed thus in the room, in
the hall, and at the street-door.
For what purpose could he have called on my father? To hear the worst at
once? That seemed likely, supposing him to have lost his peculiar
confidence in the princess, of which the courtly paces he had put me
through precluded me from judging.
But I guessed acutely that it was not his intention to permit of my
meeting Ottilia a second time. The blow was hard: I felt it as if it had
been struck already, and thought I had gained resignation, until, like a
man reprieved on his road to execution, the narrowed circle of my heart
opened out to the breadth of the world in a minute. Returning from the
city, I hurried to my father's house, late in the afternoon, and heard
that he had started to overtake the prince, leaving word that the prince
was to be found at his address in the island. No doubt could exist
regarding the course I was bound to take. I drove to my grandfather,
stated my case to him, and by sheer vehemence took the wind out of his
sails; so that when I said, 'I am the only one alive who can control my
father,' he answered mildly, 'Seems t' other way,' and chose a small
snort for the indulgence of his private opinion.
'What! this princess came over alone, and is down driving out with my
girl under an alias?' he said, showing sour aversion at the prospect of a
collision with the foreign species, as expressive as the ridge of a cat's
back.
Temple came to dine with us, so I did not leave him quite to himself, and
Temple promised to accompany him down to the island.
'Oh, go, if you like,' the fretted old man dismissed me:
'I've got enough to think over. Hold him fast to stand up to me within
forty-eight hours, present time; you know who I mean; I've got a question
or two for him. How he treats his foreign princes and princesses don't
concern me. I'd say, like the Prevention-Cruelty-Animal's man to the
keeper of the menagerie, "Lecture 'em, wound their dignity, hurt their
feelings, only don't wop 'em." I don't wish any harm to them, but what
the deuce they do here nosing after my grandson! . . . There, go; we
shall be having it out ha' done with to-morrow or next day. I've run the
badger to earth, else I'm not fit to follow a scent.'
He grumbled at having to consume other than his Riversley bread, butter,
beef, and ale for probably another fortnight. One of the boasts of
Riversley was, that while the rest of the world ate and drank poison,
the Grange lived on its own solid substance, defying malefactory Radical
tricksters.
Temple was left to hear the rest. He had the sweetest of modest wishes
for a re-introduction to Ottilia.
CHAPTER L
WE ARE ALL IN MY FATHER'S NET
Journeying down by the mail-train in the face of a great sunken sunset
broken with cloud, I chanced to ask myself what it was that I seriously
desired to have. My purpose to curb my father was sincere and good; but
concerning my heart's desires, whitherward did they point? I thought of
Janet--she made me gasp for air; of Ottilia, and she made me long for
earth. Sharp, as I write it, the distinction smote me. I might have
been divided by an electrical shot into two halves, with such an equal
force was I drawn this way and that, pointing nowhither. To strangle the
thought of either one of them was like the pang of death; yet it did not
strike me that I loved the two: they were apart in my mind, actually as
if I had been divided. I passed the Riversley station under sombre
sunset fires, saddened by the fancy that my old home and vivacious Janet
were ashes, past hope. I came on the smell of salt air, and had that
other spirit of woman around me, of whom the controlled seadeeps were an
image, who spoke to my soul like starlight. Much wise counsel, and
impatience of the wisdom, went on within me. I walked like a man with a
yawning wound, and had to whip the sense of passion for a drug. Toward
which one it strove I know not; it was blind and stormy as the night.
Not a boatman would take me across. The lights of the island lay like a
crown on the water. I paced the ramparts, eyeing them, breathing the
keen salt of thundering waves, until they were robbed of their magic by
the coloured Fast.
It is, I have learnt, out of the conflict of sensations such as I then
underwent that a young man's brain and morality, supposing him not to
lean overmuch to sickly sentiment, becomes gradually enriched and
strengthened, and himself shaped for capable manhood. I was partly
conscious of a better condition in the morning; and a sober morning it
was to me after my long sentinel's step to and fro. I found myself
possessed of one key--whether the right one or not--wherewith to read the
princess, which was never possible to me when I was under stress of
passion, or of hope or despair; my perplexities over what she said, how
she looked, ceased to trouble me. I read her by this strange light: that
she was a woman who could only love intelligently--love, that is, in the
sense of giving herself. She had the power of passion, and it could be
stirred; but he who kindled it wrecked his chance if he could not stand
clear in her intellect's unsparing gaze. Twice already she must have
felt herself disillusioned by me. This third time, possibly, she blamed
her own fatally credulous tenderness, not me; but it was her third
awakening, and could affection and warmth of heart combat it? Her
child's enthusiasm for my country had prepared her for the impression
which the waxen mind of the dreamy invalid received deeply; and so, aided
by the emotional blood of youth, she gave me place in her imagination,
probing me still curiously, as I remembered, at a season when her sedate
mind was attaining to joint deliberations with the impulsive overgenerous
heart.
Then ensued for her the successive shocks of discernment. She knew the
to have some of the vices, many follies, all the intemperateness of men
who carve a way for themselves in the common roads, if barely they do
that. And resembling common men (men, in a judgement elective as hers,
common, however able), I was not assuredly to be separated by her from my
associations; from the thought of my father, for example. Her look at
him in the lake-palace library, and her manner in unfolding and folding
his recent letter to her, and in one or two necessitated allusions,
embraced a kind of grave, pitiful humour, beyond smiles or any outward
expression, as if the acknowledgement that it was so quite obliterated
the wonder that it should be so--that one such as he could exercise
influence upon her destiny. Or she may have made her reckoning
generally, not personally, upon our human destinies: it is the more
likely, if, as I divine, the calm oval of her lifted eyelids contemplated
him in the fulness of the recognition that this world, of which we hope
unuttered things, can be shifted and swayed by an ignis-fatuus. The
father of one now seen through, could hardly fail of being transfixed
himself. It was horrible to think of. I would rather have added a vice
to my faults than that she should have penetrated him.
Nearing the island, I was reminded of the early morning when I landed on
the Flemish flats. I did not expect a similar surprise, but before my
rowers had pulled in, the tall beaconhead of old Schwartz notified that
his mistress might be abroad. Janet walked with her. I ran up the steps
to salute them, and had Ottilia's hand in mine.
'Prince Ernest has arrived?'
'My father came yesterday evening.'
'Do you leave to-day?'
'I cannot tell; he will decide.'
It seemed a good omen, until I scanned Janet's sombre face.
'You will not see us out for the rest of the day, Harry,' said she.
'That is your arrangement?'
'It is.'
'Your own?'
'Mine, if you like.'
There was something hard in her way of speaking, as though she blamed me,
and the princess were under her protection against me. She vouchsafed no
friendly significance of look and tone.
In spite of my readiness to criticize her (which in our language means
condemn) for always assuming leadership with whomsoever she might be, I
was impressed by the air of high-bred friendliness existing between her
and the princess. Their interchange was pleasant to hear. Ottilia had
caught the spirit of her frank manner of speech; and she, though in a
less degree, the princess's fine ease and sweetness. They conversed,
apparently, like equal minds. On material points, Janet unhesitatingly
led. It was she who brought the walk to a close.
'Now, Harry, you had better go and have a little sleep. I should like to
speak to you early.'
Ottilia immediately put her hand out to me.
I begged permission to see her to her door.
Janet replied for her, indicating old Schwartz: 'We have a protector, you
see, six feet and a half.'
An hour later, Schwartz was following her to the steps of her hotel. She
saw me, and waited. For a wonder, she displayed reluctance in
disburdening herself of what she had to say. 'Harry, you know that he
has come? He and Prince Ernest came together. Get him to leave the
island at once: he can return to-morrow. Grandada writes of wishing to
see him. Get him away to-day.'
'Is the prince going to stay here?' I asked.
'No. I daresay I am only guessing; I hope so. He has threatened the
prince.'
'What with?'
'Oh! Harry, can't you understand? I'm no reader of etiquette, but even
I can see that the story of a young princess travelling over to England
alone to visit . . . and you . . ., and her father fetching her
away! The prince is almost at his mercy, unless you make the man behave
like a gentleman. This is exactly the thing Miss Goodwin feared!'
'But who's to hear of the story?' said I.
Janet gave an impatient sigh.
'Do you mean that my father has threatened to publish it, Janet?'
'I won't say he has. He has made the prince afraid to move: that I think
is true.'
'Did the princess herself mention it to you?'
'She understands her situation, I am sure.'
'Did she speak of "the man," as you call him?'
'Yes: not as I do. You must try by-and-by to forgive me. Whether he set
a trap or not, he has decoyed her--don't frown at words--and it remains
for you to act as I don't doubt you will; but lose no time. Determine.
Oh! if I were a man!'
'You would muzzle us?'
'Muzzle, or anything you please; I would make any one related to me
behave honourably. I would give him the alternative . . .'
'You foolish girl! suppose he took it?'
'I would make him feel my will. He should not take it. Keep to the
circumstances, Harry. If you have no control over him--I should think I
was not fit to live, in such a position! No control over him at a moment
like this? and the princess in danger of having her reputation hurt!
Surely, Harry! But why should I speak to you as if you were undecided!'
'Where is he?'
'At the house where you sleep. He surrendered his rooms here very
kindly.'
'Aunty has seen him?'
Janet blushed: I thought I knew why. It was for subtler reasons than I
should have credited her with conceiving.
'She sent for him, at my request, late last night. She believed her
influence would be decisive. So do I. She could not even make the man
perceive that he was acting--to use her poor dear old-fashioned word--
reprehensibly in frightening the prince to further your interests. From
what I gathered he went off in a song about them. She said he talked so
well! And aunty Dorothy, too! I should nearly as soon have expected
grandada to come in for his turn of the delusion. How I wish he was
here! Uberly goes by the first boat to bring him down. I feel with Miss
Goodwin that it will be a disgrace for all of us--the country's disgrace.
As for our family! . . . Harry, and your name! Good-bye. Do your
best.'
I was in the mood to ask, 'On behalf of the country?' She had, however,
a glow and a ringing articulation in her excitement that forbade
trifling; a minute's reflection set me weighing my power of will against
my father's. I nodded to her.
'Come to us when you are at liberty,' she called.
I have said that I weighed my power of will against my father's.
Contemplation of the state of the scales did not send me striding to meet
him. Let it be remembered--I had it strongly in memory that he
habitually deluded himself under the supposition that the turn of all
events having an aspect of good fortune had been planned by him of old,
and were offered to him as the legitimately-won fruits of a politic life.
While others deemed him mad, or merely reckless, wild, a creature living
for the day, he enjoyed the conceit of being a profound schemer, in which
he was fortified by a really extraordinary adroitness to take advantage
of occurrences: and because he was prompt in an emergency, and quick to
profit of a crisis, he was deluded to imagine that he had created it.
Such a man would be with difficulty brought to surrender his prize.
Again, there was his love for me. 'Pater est, Pamphile;--difficile est.'
How was this vast conceit of a not unreal paternal love to be
encountered? The sense of honour and of decency might appeal to him
personally; would either of them get a hearing if he fancied them to be
standing in opposition to my dearest interests? I, unhappily, as the
case would be sure to present itself to him, appeared the living example
of his eminently politic career. After establishing me the heir of one
of the wealthiest of English commoners, would he be likely to forego any
desperate chance of ennobling me by the brilliant marriage? His dreadful
devotion to me extinguished the hope that he would, unless I should
happen to be particularly masterful in dealing with him. I heard his
nimble and overwhelming volubility like a flood advancing. That could be
withstood, and his arguments and persuasions. But by what steps could I
restrain the man himself? I said 'the man,' as Janet did. He figured in
my apprehensive imagination as an engine more than as an individual.
Lassitude oppressed me. I felt that I required every access of strength
possible, physical besides moral, in anticipation of our encounter, and
took a swim in sea-water, which displaced my drowsy fit, and some
alarming intimations of cowardice menacing a paralysis of the will: I had
not altogether recovered from my gipsy drubbing. And now I wanted to
have the contest over instantly. It seemed presumable that my father had
slept at my lodgings. There, however, the report of him was, that he had
inspected the rooms, highly complimented the owner of them, and vanished.
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