Alice, or the Mysteries — Complete
submission, for the present at least; and more than ever he felt the
necessity of Evelyn's fortune to fall back upon, if the chance of
the cards should rob him of his salary. He was glad to escape for a
breathing-while from the vexations and harassments that beset him,
and looked forward with the eager interest of a sanguine and elastic
mind--always escaping from one scheme to another--to his excursion into
B-----shire.
At the villa of Mr. Douce, Lord Vargrave met a young nobleman who had
just succeeded to a property not only large and unencumbered, but of a
nature to give him importance in the eyes of politicians. Situated in
a very small county, the estates of Lord Doltimore secured to his
nomination at least one of the representatives, while a little village
at the back of his pleasure-grounds constituted a borough, and returned
two members to parliament. Lord Doltimore, just returned from the
Continent, had not even taken his seat in the Lords; and though his
family connections, such as they were--and they were not very high, and
by no means in the fashion--were ministerial, his own opinions were as
yet unrevealed.
To this young nobleman Lord Vargrave was singularly attentive. He
was well formed to attract men younger than himself, and he eminently
succeeded in his designs upon Lord Doltimore's affection.
His lordship was a small, pale man, with a very limited share of
understanding, supercilious in manner, elaborate in dress, not
ill-natured _au fond_, and with much of the English gentleman in his
disposition,--that is, he was honourable in his ideas and actions,
whenever his natural dulness and neglected education enabled him clearly
to perceive (through the midst of prejudices, the delusions of others,
and the false lights of the dissipated society in which he had lived)
what was right and what wrong. But his leading characteristics were
vanity and conceit. He had lived much with younger sons, cleverer than
himself, who borrowed his money, sold him their horses, and won from
him at cards. In return they gave him all that species of flattery which
young men _can_ give with so hearty an appearance of cordial admiration.
"You certainly have the best horses in Paris. You are really a devilish
good fellow, Doltimore. Oh, do you know, Doltimore, what little Desire
says of you? You have certainly turned the girl's head."
This sort of adulation from one sex was not corrected by any great
acerbity from the other. Lord Doltimore at the age of twenty-two was a
very good _parti_; and, whatever his other deficiencies, he had sense
enough to perceive that he received much greater attention--whether from
opera-dancers in search of a friend, or virtuous young ladies in search
of a husband--than any of the companions, good-looking though many of
them were, with whom he had habitually lived.
"You will not long remain in town now the season is over?" said
Vargrave, as after dinner he found himself, by the departure of the
ladies, next to Lord Doltimore.
"No, indeed; even in the season I don't much like London. Paris has
rather spoiled me for any other place."
"Paris is certainly very charming; the ease of French life has a
fascination that our formal ostentation wants. Nevertheless, to a man
like you, London must have many attractions."
"Why, I have a good many friends here; but still, after Ascot, it rather
bores me."
"Have you any horses on the turf?"
"Not yet; but Legard (you know Legard, perhaps,--a very good fellow) is
anxious that I should try my luck. I was very fortunate in the races at
Paris--you know we have established racing there. The French take to it
quite naturally."
"Ah, indeed! It is so long since I have been in Paris--most exciting
amusement! _A propos_ of races, I am going down to Lord Raby's
to-morrow; I think I saw in one of the morning papers that you had very
largely backed a horse entered at Knaresdean."
"Yes, Thunderer--I think of buying Thunderer. Legard--Colonel Legard (he
was in the Guards, but he sold out)--is a good judge, and recommends the
purchase. How very odd that you too should be going to Knaresdean!"
"Odd, indeed, but most lucky! We can go together, if you are not better
engaged."
Lord Doltimore coloured and hesitated. On the one hand he was a little
afraid of being alone with so clever a man; on the other hand, it was
an honour,--it was something for him to talk of to Legard. Nevertheless,
the shyness got the better of the vanity. He excused himself; he feared
he was engaged to take down Legard.
Lumley smiled, and changed the conversation; and so agreeable did he
make himself, that when the party broke up, and Lumley had just shaken
hands with his host, Doltimore came to him, and said in a little
confusion,--
"I think I can put off Legard--if--if you--"
"That's delightful! What time shall we start?--need not get down much
before dinner--one o'clock?"
"Oh, yes! not too long before dinner; one o'clock will be a little too
early."
"Two then. Where are you staying?"
"At Fenton's."
"I will call for you. Good-night! I long to see Thunderer!"
CHAPTER VI.
LA sante de l'ame n'est pas plus assuree que celle du corps;
et quoique l'on paraisse eloigne des passions, on n'est pas
moins en danger de s'y laisser emporter que de tomber malade
quand on se porte bien.*--LA ROCHEFOUCAULD.
* "The health of the soul is not more sure than that of the
body; and although we may appear free from passions, there
is not the less danger of their attack than of falling sick
at the moment we are well."
IN spite of the efforts of Maltravers to shun all occasions of meeting
Evelyn, they were necessarily sometimes thrown together in the round
of provincial hospitalities; and certainly, if either Mr. Merton
or Caroline (the shrewder observer of the two) had ever formed any
suspicion that Evelyn had made a conquest of Maltravers, his manner at
such times effectually removed it.
Maltravers was a man to feel deeply, but no longer a boy to yield to
every tempting impulse. I have said that FORTITUDE was his favourite
virtue, but fortitude is the virtue of great and rare occasions; there
was another, equally hard-favoured and unshowy, which he took as the
staple of active and every-day duties, and that virtue was JUSTICE. Now,
in earlier life, he had been enamoured of the conventional Florimel that
we call HONOUR,--a shifting and shadowy phantom, that is but the reflex
of the opinion of the time and clime. But justice has in it something
permanent and solid; and out of justice arises the real not the false
honour.
"Honour!" said Maltravers,--"honour is to justice as the flower to the
plant,--its efflorescence, its bloom, its consummation! But honour
that does not spring from justice is but a piece of painted rag, an
artificial rose, which the men-milliners of society would palm upon us
as more natural than the true."
This principle of justice Maltravers sought to carry out in all
things--not, perhaps, with constant success; for what practice can
always embody theory?--but still, at least his endeavour at success
was constant. This, perhaps, it was which had ever kept him from the
excesses to which exuberant and liberal natures are prone, from the
extravagances of pseudo-genius.
"No man, for instance," he was wont to say, "can be embarrassed in
his own circumstances, and not cause embarrassment to others. Without
economy, who can be just? And what are charity, generosity, but the
poetry and the beauty of justice?"
No man ever asked Maltravers twice for a just debt; and no man ever once
asked him to fulfil a promise. You felt that, come what would, you might
rely upon his word. To him might have been applied the witty eulogium
passed by Johnson upon a certain nobleman: "If he had promised you an
acorn, and the acorn season failed in England, he would have sent to
Norway for one!"
It was not, therefore, the mere Norman and chivalrous spirit of honour,
which he had worshipped in youth as a part of the Beautiful and the
Becoming, but which in youth had yielded to temptation, as a _sentiment_
ever must yield to a passion, but it was the more hard, stubborn, and
reflective _principle_, which was the later growth of deeper and nobler
wisdom, that regulated the conduct of Maltravers in this crisis of
his life. Certain it is, that he had never but once loved as he loved
Evelyn; and yet that he never yielded so little to the passion.
"If engaged to another," thought he, "that engagement it is not for
a third person to attempt to dissolve. I am the last to form a right
judgment of the strength or weakness of the bonds which unite her to
Vargrave, for my emotions would prejudice me despite myself. I may fancy
that her betrothed is not worthy of her,--but that is for her to decide.
While the bond lasts, who can be justified in tempting her to break it?"
Agreeably to these notions, which the world may, perhaps, consider
overstrained, whenever Maltravers met Evelyn, he intrenched himself in
a rigid and almost a chilling formality. How difficult this was with one
so simple and ingenuous! Poor Evelyn! she thought she had offended him;
she longed to ask him her offence,--perhaps, in her desire to rouse
his genius into exertion, she had touched some secret sore, some latent
wound of the memory? She recalled all their conversations again and
again. Ah, why could they not be renewed? Upon her fancy and her
thoughts Maltravers had made an impression not to be obliterated.
She wrote more frequently than ever to Lady Vargrave, and the name of
Maltravers was found in every page of her correspondence.
One evening, at the house of a neighbour, Miss Cameron (with the
Mertons) entered the room almost in the same instant as Maltravers. The
party was small, and so few had yet arrived that it was impossible
for Maltravers, without marked rudeness, to avoid his friends from the
rectory; and Mrs. Merton, placing herself next to Evelyn, graciously
motioned to Maltravers to occupy the third vacant seat on the sofa, of
which she filled the centre.
"We grudge all your improvements, Mr. Maltravers, since they cost us
your society. But we know that our dull circle must seem tame to one who
has seen so much. However, we expect to offer you an inducement soon in
Lord Vargrave. What a lively, agreeable person he is!"
Maltravers raised his eyes to Evelyn, calmly and penetratingly, at the
latter part of this speech. He observed that she turned pale, and sighed
involuntarily.
"He had great spirits when I knew him," said he; "and he had then less
cause to make him happy."
Mrs. Merton smiled, and turned rather pointedly towards Evelyn.
Maltravers continued, "I never met the late lord. He had none of the
vivacity of his nephew, I believe."
"I have heard that he was very severe," said Mrs. Merton, lifting her
glass towards a party that had just entered.
"Severe!" exclaimed Evelyn. "Ah, if you could have known him! the
kindest, the most indulgent--no one ever loved me as he did." She
paused, for she felt her lip quiver.
"I beg your pardon, my dear," said Mrs. Merton, coolly. Mrs. Merton had
no idea of the pain inflicted by _treading upon a feeling_. Maltravers
was touched, and Mrs. Merton went on. "No wonder he was kind to you,
Evelyn,--a brute would be that; but he was generally considered a stern
man."
"I never saw a stern look, I never heard a harsh word; nay, I do not
remember that he ever even used the word 'command,'" said Evelyn, almost
angrily.
Mrs. Merton was about to reply, when suddenly seeing a lady whose little
girl had been ill of the measles, her motherly thoughts flowed into a
new channel, and she fluttered away in that sympathy which unites all
the heads of a growing family. Evelyn and Maltravers were left alone.