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Henry Morley - "A Bundle of Ballads"

Georg Ebers - "The Elixir"

George Meredith - "The Shaving of Shagpat, v4"

Unknown - "The Bible, King James version, Book 9: 1 Samuel"

The Ordeal of Richard Feverel, Complete

G >> George Meredith >> The Ordeal of Richard Feverel, Complete




And Richard rejoined: "Talk on, dear old Rip! She's my darling love,
whatever she is! And she is gloriously lovely. No eyes are like hers.
I'll go down to-morrow morning the first thing."

Ripton only wondered the husband of such a treasure could remain apart
from it. So thought Richard for a space.

"But if I go, Rip," he said despondently, "if I go for a day even I shall
have undone all my work with my father. She says it herself--you saw it
in her last letter."

"Yes," Ripton assented, and the words "Please remember me to dear Mr.
Thompson," fluttered about the Old Dog's heart.

It came to pass that Mrs. Berry, having certain business that led her
through Kensington Gardens, spied a figure that she had once dandled in
long clothes, and helped make a man of, if ever woman did. He was walking
under the trees beside a lady, talking to her, not indifferently. The
gentleman was her bridegroom and her babe. "I know his back," said Mrs.
Berry, as if she had branded a mark on it in infancy. But the lady was
not her bride. Mrs. Berry diverged from the path, and got before them on
the left flank; she stared, retreated, and came round upon the right.
There was that in the lady's face which Mrs. Berry did not like. Her
innermost question was, why he was not walking with his own wife? She
stopped in front of them. They broke, and passed about her. The lady made
a laughing remark to him, whereat he turned to look, and Mrs. Berry
bobbed. She had to bob a second time, and then he remembered the worthy
creature, and hailed her Penelope, shaking her hand so that he put her in
countenance again. Mrs. Berry was extremely agitated. He dismissed her,
promising to call upon her in the evening. She heard the lady slip out
something from a side of her lip, and they both laughed as she toddled
off to a sheltering tree to wipe a corner of each eye. "I don't like the
looks of that woman," she said, and repeated it resolutely.

"Why doesn't he walk arm-in-arm with her?" was her neat inquiry. "Where's
his wife?" succeeded it. After many interrogations of the sort, she
arrived at naming the lady a bold-faced thing; adding subsequently,
brazen. The lady had apparently shown Mrs. Berry that she wished to get
rid of her, and had checked the outpouring of her emotions on the breast
of her babe. "I know a lady when I see one," said Mrs. Berry. "I haven't
lived with 'em for nothing; and if she's a lady bred and born, I wasn't
married in the church alive."

Then, if not a lady, what was she? Mrs. Berry desired to know: "She's
imitation lady, I'm sure she is!" Berry vowed. "I say she don't look
proper."

Establishing the lady to be a spurious article, however, what was one to
think of a married man in company with such? "Oh no! it ain't that!" Mrs.
Berry returned immediately on the charitable tack. "Belike it's some one
of his acquaintance 've married her for her looks, and he've just met
her.... Why it'd be as bad as my Berry!" the relinquished spouse of Berry
ejaculated, in horror at the idea of a second man being so monstrous in
wickedness. "Just coupled, too!" Mrs. Berry groaned on the suspicious
side of the debate. "And such a sweet young thing for his wife! But no,
I'll never believe it. Not if he tell me so himself! And men don't do
that," she whimpered.

Women are swift at coming to conclusions in these matters; soft women
exceedingly swift: and soft women who have been betrayed are rapid beyond
measure. Mrs. Berry had not cogitated long ere she pronounced distinctly
and without a shadow of dubiosity: "My opinion is--married or not
married, and wheresomever he pick her up--she's nothin' more nor less
than a Bella Donna!" as which poisonous plant she forthwith registered
the lady in the botanical note-book of her brain. It would have
astonished Mrs. Mount to have heard her person so accurately hit off at a
glance.

In the evening Richard made good his promise, accompanied by Ripton. Mrs.
Berry opened the door to them. She could not wait to get him into the
parlour. "You're my own blessed babe; and I'm as good as your mother,
though I didn't suck ye, bein' a maid!" she cried, falling into his arms,
while Richard did his best to support the unexpected burden. Then
reproaching him tenderly for his guile--at mention of which Ripton
chuckled, deeming it his own most honourable portion of the plot--Mrs.
Berry led them into the parlour, and revealed to Richard who she was, and
how she had tossed him, and hugged him, and kissed him all over, when he
was only that big--showing him her stumpy fat arm. "I kissed ye from head
to tail, I did," said Mrs. Berry, "and you needn't be ashamed of it. It's
be hoped you'll never have nothin' worse come t'ye, my dear!"

Richard assured her he was not a bit ashamed, but warned her that she
must not do it now, Mrs. Berry admitting it was out of the question now,
and now that he had a wife, moreover. The young men laughed, and Ripton
laughing over-loudly drew on himself Mrs. Berry's attention: "But that
Mr. Thompson there--however he can look me in the face after his
inn'cence! helping blindfold an old woman! though I ain't sorry for what
I did--that I'm free for to say, and its' over, and blessed be all! Amen!
So now where is she and how is she, Mr. Richard, my dear--it's only
cuttin' off the 's' and you are as you was.--Why didn't ye bring her with
ye to see her old Berry?"

Richard hurriedly explained that Lucy was still in the Isle of Wight.

"Oh! and you've left her for a day or two?" said Mrs. Berry.

"Good God! I wish it had been a day or two," cried Richard.

"Ah! and how long have it been?" asked Mrs. Berry, her heart beginning to
beat at his manner of speaking.

"Don't talk about it," said Richard.

"Oh! you never been dudgeonin' already? Oh! you haven't been peckin' at
one another yet?" Mrs. Berry exclaimed.

Ripton interposed to tell her such fears were unfounded.

"Then how long ha' you been divided?"

In a guilty voice Ripton stammered "since September."

"September!" breathed Mrs. Berry, counting on her fingers, "September,
October, Nov--two months and more! nigh three! A young married husband
away from the wife of his bosom nigh three months! Oh my! Oh my! what do
that mean?"

"My father sent for me--I'm waiting to see him," said Richard. A few more
words helped Mrs. Berry to comprehend the condition of affairs. Then Mrs.
Berry spread her lap, flattened out her hands, fixed her eyes, and spoke.

"My dear young gentleman!--I'd like to call ye my darlin' babe! I'm going
to speak as a mother to ye, whether ye likes it or no; and what old Berry
says, you won't mind, for she's had ye when there was no conventionals
about ye, and she has the feelin's of a mother to you, though humble her
state. If there's one that know matrimony it's me, my dear, though Berry
did give me no more but nine months of it and I've known the worst of
matrimony, which, if you wants to be woeful wise, there it is for ye. For
what have been my gain? That man gave me nothin' but his name; and Bessy
Andrews was as good as Bessy Berry, though both is 'Bs,' and says he, you
was 'A,' and now you's 'B,' so you're my A B, he says, write yourself
down that, he says, the bad man, with his jokes!--Berry went to service."
Mrs. Berry's softness came upon her. "So I tell ye, Berry went to
service. He left the wife of his bosom forlorn and he went to service;
because he were allays an ambitious man, and wasn't, so to speak, happy
out of his uniform--which was his livery--not even in my arms: and he let
me know it. He got among them kitchen sluts, which was my mournin' ready
made, and worse than a widow's cap to me, which is no shame to wear, and
some say becoming. There's no man as ever lived known better than my
Berry how to show his legs to advantage, and gals look at 'em. I don't
wonder now that Berry was prostrated. His temptations was strong, and his
flesh was weak. Then what I say is, that for a young married man--be he
whomsoever he may be--to be separated from the wife of his bosom--a young
sweet thing, and he an innocent young gentleman!--so to sunder, in their
state, and be kep' from each other, I say it's as bad as bad can be! For
what is matrimony, my dears? We're told it's a holy Ordnance. And why are
ye so comfortable in matrimony? For that ye are not a sinnin'! And they
that severs ye they tempts ye to stray: and you learn too late the
meanin' o' them blessin's of the priest--as it was ordained.
Separate--what comes? Fust it's like the circulation of your blood
a-stoppin'--all goes wrong. Then there's misunderstandings--ye've both
lost the key. Then, behold ye, there's birds o' prey hoverin' over each
on ye, and it's which'll be snapped up fust. Then--Oh, dear! Oh, dear! it
be like the devil come into the world again." Mrs. Berry struck her hands
and moaned. "A day I'll give ye: I'll go so far as a week: but there's
the outside. Three months dwellin' apart! That's not matrimony, it's
divorcin'! what can it be to her but widowhood? widowhood with no cap to
show for it! And what can it be to you, my dear? Think! you been a
bachelor three months! and a bachelor man," Mrs. Berry shook her head
most dolefully, "he ain't widow woman. I don't go to compare you to
Berry, my dear young gentleman. Some men's hearts is vagabonds born--they
must go astray--it's their natur' to. But all men are men, and I know the
foundation of 'em, by reason of my woe."

Mrs. Berry paused. Richard was humorously respectful to the sermon. The
truth in the good creature's address was not to be disputed, or despised,
notwithstanding the inclination to laugh provoked by her quaint way of
putting it. Ripton nodded encouragingly at every sentence, for he saw her
drift, and wished to second it.

Seeking for an illustration of her meaning, Mrs. Berry solemnly
continued: "We all know what checked prespiration is." But neither of the
young gentlemen could resist this. Out they burst in a roar of laughter.

"Laugh away," said Mrs. Berry. "I don't mind ye. I say again, we all do
know what checked prespiration is. It fly to the lungs, it gives ye
mortal inflammation, and it carries ye off. Then I say checked matrimony
is as bad. It fly to the heart, and it carries off the virtue that's in
ye, and you might as well be dead! Them that is joined it's their
salvation not to separate! It don't so much matter before it. That Mr.
Thompson there--if he go astray, it ain't from the blessed fold. He hurt
himself alone--not double, and belike treble, for who can say now what
may be? There's time for it. I'm for holding back young people so that
they knows their minds, howsomever they rattles about their hearts. I
ain't a speeder of matrimony, and good's my reason! but where it's been
done--where they're lawfully joined, and their bodies made one, I do say
this, that to put division between 'em then, it's to make wanderin'
comets of 'em--creatures without a objeck, and no soul can say what
they's good for but to rush about!"

Mrs. Berry here took a heavy breath, as one who has said her utmost for
the time being.

"My dear old girl," Richard went up to her and, applauding her on the
shoulder, "you're a very wise old woman. But you mustn't speak to me as
if I wanted to stop here. I'm compelled to. I do it for her good
chiefly."

"It's your father that's doin' it, my dear?"

"Well, I'm waiting his pleasure."

"A pretty pleasure! puttin' a snake in the nest of young turtle-doves!
And why don't she come up to you?"

"Well, that you must ask her. The fact is, she's a little timid girl--she
wants me to see him first, and when I've made all right, then she'll
come."

"A little timid girl!" cried Mrs. Berry. "Oh, lor', how she must ha'
deceived ye to make ye think that! Look at that ring," she held out her
finger, "he's a stranger: he's not my lawful! You know what ye did to me,
my dear. Could I get my own wedding-ring back from her? 'No!' says she,
firm as a rock, 'he said, with this ring I thee wed'--I think I see her
now, with her pretty eyes and lovesome locks--a darlin'!--And that ring
she'd keep to, come life, came death. And she must ha' been a rock for me
to give in to her in that. For what's the consequence? Here am I," Mrs.
Berry smoothed down the back of her hand mournfully, "here am I in a
strange ring, that's like a strange man holdin' of me, and me a-wearin'
of it just to seem decent, and feelin' all over no better than a b--a
big--that nasty came I can't abide!--I tell you, my dear, she ain't soft,
no!--except to the man of her heart; and the best of women's too soft
there--mores our sorrow!"

"Well, well!" said Richard, who thought he knew.

"I agree with you, Mrs. Berry," Ripton struck in, "Mrs. Richard would do
anything in the world her husband asked her, I'm quite sure."

"Bless you for your good opinion, Mr. Thompson! Why, see her! she ain't
frail on her feet; she looks ye straight in the eyes; she ain't one of
your hang-down misses. Look how she behaved at the ceremony!"

"Ah!" sighed Ripton.

"And if you'd ha' seen her when she spoke to me about my ring! Depend
upon it, my dear Mr. Richard, if she blinded you about the nerve she've
got, it was somethin' she thought she ought to do for your sake, and I
wish I'd been by to counsel her, poor blessed babe!--And how much longer,
now, can ye stay divided from that darlin'?"

Richard paced up and down.

"A father's will," urged Mrs. Berry, "that's a son's law; but he mustn't
go again' the laws of his nature to do it."

"Just be quiet at present--talk of other things, there's a good woman,"
said Richard.

Mrs. Berry meekly folded her arms.

"How strange, now, our meetin' like this! meetin' at all, too!" she
remarked contemplatively. "It's them advertisements! They brings people
together from the ends of the earth, for good or for bad. I often say,
there's more lucky accidents, or unlucky ones, since advertisements was
the rule, than ever there was before. They make a number of romances,
depend upon it! Do you walk much in the Gardens, my dear?"

"Now and then," said Richard.

"Very pleasant it is there with the fine folks and flowers and titled
people," continued Mrs. Berry. "That was a handsome woman you was
a-walkin' beside, this mornin'."

"Very," said Richard.

"She was a handsome woman! or I should say, is, for her day ain't past,
and she know it. I thought at first--by her back--it might ha' been your
aunt, Mrs. Forey; for she do step out well and hold up her shoulders:
straight as a dart she be! But when I come to see her face--Oh, dear me!
says I, this ain't one of the family. They none of 'em got such bold
faces--nor no lady as I know have. But she's a fine woman--that nobody
can gainsay."

Mrs. Berry talked further of the fine woman. It was a liberty she took to
speak in this disrespectful tone of her, and Mrs. Berry was quite aware
that she was laying herself open to rebuke. She had her end in view. No
rebuke was uttered, and during her talk she observed intercourse passing
between the eyes of the young men.

"Look here, Penelope," Richard stopped her at last. "Will it make you
comfortable if I tell you I'll obey the laws of my nature and go down at
the end of the week?"

"I'll thank the Lord of heaven if you do!" she exclaimed.

"Very well, then--be happy--I will. Now listen. I want you to keep your
rooms for me--those she had. I expect, in a day or two, to bring a lady
here"--

"A lady?" faltered Mrs. Berry.

"Yes. A lady."

"May I make so bold as to ask what lady?"

"You may not. Not now. Of course you will know."

Mrs. Berry's short neck made the best imitation it could of an offended
swan's action. She was very angry. She said she did not like so many
ladies, which natural objection Richard met by saying that there was only
one lady.

"And Mrs. Berry," he added, dropping his voice. "You will treat her as
you did my dear girl, for she will require not only shelter but kindness.
I would rather leave her with you than with any one. She has been very
unfortunate."

His serious air and habitual tone of command fascinated the softness of
Berry, and it was not until he had gone that she spoke out. "Unfort'nate!
He's going to bring me an unfort'nate female! Oh! not from my babe can I
bear that! Never will I have her here! I see it. It's that bold-faced
woman he's got mixed up in, and she've been and made the young man think
he'll go for to reform her. It's one o' their arts--that is; and he's too
innocent a young man to mean anythin' else. But I ain't a house of
Magdalens no! and sooner than have her here I'd have the roof fall over
me, I would."

She sat down to eat her supper on the sublime resolve.

In love, Mrs. Berry's charity was all on the side of the law, and this is
the case with many of her sisters. The Pilgrim sneers at them for it, and
would have us credit that it is their admirable instinct which, at the
expense of every virtue save one, preserves the artificial barrier simply
to impose upon us. Men, I presume, are hardly fair judges, and should
stand aside and mark.

Early next day Mrs. Berry bundled off to Richard's hotel to let him know
her determination. She did not find him there. Returning homeward through
the park, she beheld him on horseback riding by the side of the identical
lady.

The sight of this public exposure shocked her more than the secret walk
under the trees... "You don't look near your reform yet," Mrs. Berry
apostrophized her. "You don't look to me one that'd come the Fair
Penitent till you've left off bein' fair--if then you do, which some of
ye don't. Laugh away and show yet airs! Spite o' your hat and feather,
and your ridin' habit, you're a Belle Donna." Setting her down again
absolutely for such, whatever it might signify, Mrs. Berry had a virtuous
glow.

In the evening she heard the noise of wheels stopping at the door.
"Never!" she rose from her chair to exclaim. "He ain't rided her out in
the mornin', and been and made a Magdalen of her afore dark?"

A lady veiled was brought into the house by Richard. Mrs. Berry feebly
tried to bar his progress in the passage. He pushed past her, and
conducted the lady into the parlour without speaking. Mrs. Berry did not
follow. She heard him murmur a few sentences within. Then he came out.
All her crest stood up, as she whispered vigorously, "Mr. Richard! if
that woman stay here, I go forth. My house ain't a penitentiary for
unfort'nate females, sir"--

He frowned at her curiously; but as she was on the point of renewing her
indignant protest, he clapped his hand across her mouth, and spoke words
in her ear that had awful import to her. She trembled, breathing low: "My
God, forgive, me!

"Richard?" And her virtue was humbled. "Lady Feverel is it? Your mother,
Mr. Richard?" And her virtue was humbled.




CHAPTER XXXVIII

One may suppose that a prematurely aged, oily little man; a poet in bad
circumstances; a decrepit butterfly chained to a disappointed inkstand,
will not put out strenuous energies to retain his ancient paramour when a
robust young man comes imperatively to demand his mother of him in her
person. The colloquy was short between Diaper Sandoe and Richard. The
question was referred to the poor spiritless lady, who, seeing that her
son made no question of it, cast herself on his hands. Small loss to her
was Diaper; but he was the loss of habit, and that is something to a
woman who has lived. The blood of her son had been running so long alien
from her that the sense of her motherhood smote he now with strangeness,
and Richard's stern gentleness seemed like dreadful justice come upon
her. Her heart had almost forgotten its maternal functions. She called
him Sir, till he bade her remember he was her son. Her voice sounded to
him like that of a broken-throated lamb, so painful and weak it was, with
the plaintive stop in the utterance. When he kissed her, her skin was
cold. Her thin hand fell out of his when his grasp related. "Can sin hunt
one like this?" he asked, bitterly reproaching himself for the shame she
had caused him to endure, and a deep compassion filled his breast.

Poetic justice had been dealt to Diaper the poet. He thought of all he
had sacrificed for this woman--the comfortable quarters, the friend, the
happy flights. He could not but accuse her of unfaithfulness in leaving
him in his old age. Habit had legalized his union with her. He wrote as
pathetically of the break of habit as men feel at the death of love, and
when we are old and have no fair hope tossing golden locks before us, a
wound to this our second nature is quite as sad. I know not even if it be
not actually sadder.

Day by day Richard visited his mother. Lady Blandish and Ripton alone
were in the secret. Adrian let him do as he pleased. He thought proper to
tell him that the public recognition he accorded to a particular lady
was, in the present state of the world, scarcely prudent.

"'Tis a proof to me of your moral rectitude, my son, but the world will
not think so. No one character is sufficient to cover two--in a
Protestant country especially. The divinity that doth hedge a Bishop
would have no chance, in contact with your Madam Danae. Drop the woman,
my son. Or permit me to speak what you would have her hear."

Richard listened to him with disgust. "Well, you've had my doctorial
warning," said Adrian; and plunged back into his book.

When Lady Feverel had revived to take part in the consultations Mrs.
Berry perpetually opened on the subject of Richard's matrimonial duty,
another chain was cast about him. "Do not, oh, do not offend your
father!" was her one repeated supplication. Sir Austin had grown to be a
vindictive phantom in her mind. She never wept but when she said this.

So Mrs. Berry, to whom Richard had once made mention of Lady Blandish as
the only friend he had among women, bundled off in her black-satin dress
to obtain an interview with her, and an ally. After coming to an
understanding on the matter of the visit, and reiterating many of her
views concerning young married people, Mrs. Berry said: "My lady, if I
may speak so bold, I'd say the sin that's bein' done is the sin o' the
lookers-on. And when everybody appear frightened by that young
gentleman's father, I'll say--hopin' your pardon--they no cause be
frighted at all. For though it's nigh twenty year since I knew him, and I
knew him then just sixteen months--no more--I'll say his heart's as soft
as a woman's, which I've cause for to know. And that's it. That's where
everybody's deceived by him, and I was. It's because he keeps his face,
and makes ye think you're dealin' with a man of iron, and all the while
there's a woman underneath. And a man that's like a woman he's the puzzle
o' life! We can see through ourselves, my lady, and we can see through
men, but one o' that sort--he's like somethin' out of nature. Then I
say--hopin' be excused--what's to do is for to treat him like a woman,
and not for to let him have his own way--which he don't know himself, and
is why nobody else do. Let that sweet young couple come together, and be
wholesome in spite of him, I say; and then give him time to come round,
just like a woman; and round he'll come, and give 'em his blessin', and
we shall know we've made him comfortable. He's angry because matrimony
have come between him and his son, and he, woman-like, he's wantin' to
treat what is as if it isn't. But matrimony's a holier than him. It began
long long before him, and it's be hoped will endoor longs the time after,
if the world's not coming to rack--wishin' him no harm."

Now Mrs. Berry only put Lady Blandish's thoughts in bad English. The lady
took upon herself seriously to advise Richard to send for his wife. He
wrote, bidding her come. Lucy, however, had wits, and inexperienced wits
are as a little knowledge. In pursuance of her sage plan to make the
family feel her worth, and to conquer the members of it one by one, she
had got up a correspondence with Adrian, whom it tickled. Adrian
constantly assured her all was going well: time would heal the wound if
both the offenders had the fortitude to be patient: he fancied he saw
signs of the baronet's relenting: they must do nothing to arrest those
favourable symptoms. Indeed the wise youth was languidly seeking to
produce them. He wrote, and felt, as Lucy's benefactor. So Lucy replied
to her husband a cheerful rigmarole he could make nothing of, save that
she was happy in hope, and still had fears. Then Mrs. Berry trained her
fist to indite a letter to her bride. Her bride answered it by saying she
trusted to time. "You poor marter" Mrs. Berry wrote back, "I know what
your sufferin's be. They is the only kind a wife should never hide from
her husband. He thinks all sorts of things if she can abide being away.
And you trusting to time, why it's like trusting not to catch cold out of
your natural clothes." There was no shaking Lucy's firmness.

Richard gave it up. He began to think that the life lying behind him was
the life of a fool. What had he done in it? He had burnt a rick and got
married! He associated the two acts of his existence. Where was the hero
he was to have carved out of Tom Bakewell!--a wretch he had taught to lie
and chicane: and for what? Great heavens! how ignoble did a flash from
the light of his aspirations make his marriage appear! The young man
sought amusement. He allowed his aunt to drag him into society, and sick
of that he made late evening calls on Mrs. Mount, oblivious of the
purpose he had in visiting her at all. Her man-like conversation, which
he took for honesty, was a refreshing change on fair lips.