The History of Sir Richard Calmady: A Romance
ambition was fired by the desire of intellectual triumph. He would have
the success of the schools, since the success of the river and the
cricket-field were denied him. Not that Richard set any exaggerated
value upon academic honours. Only two things are necessary--this at
least was his code at that period--never to lapse from the instincts of
high-breeding and honour, and to see just as much of life, of men and
of affairs, as obedience to those instincts permits. Already the sense
of proportion was strong in Richard, fed perhaps by the galling sense
of personal deformity. Learning is but a part of the whole of man's
equipment, and a paltry enough part unless wisdom go along with it. But
the thirst of battle remained in Richard; and in this matter of
learning, at least, he could meet men of his own age and standing on
equal terms and overcome them in fair fight.
And so, during the last two years of his university course, he did meet
them and overcame, honours falling liberally to his share. Julius March
looked on in pleased surprise at the exploits of his former pupil.
While Ludovic Quayle, with raised eyebrows and half-tender,
half-ironical amusement relaxing the corners of his remarkably
beautiful mouth, would say:--
"Calmady, you really are a shameless glutton! How many more immortal
glories, any one of which would satisfy an ordinary man, do you propose
to swallow?"
"I suppose it's a bad year," Richard would answer. "The others can't
amount to very much, or, needless to say, I shouldn't walk over the
course."
"A charming little touch of modesty, as far as you yourself are
concerned," Ludovic answered. "But not strikingly flattering to the
others. I would rather suppose you abnormally clever, than all the rest
abnormally stupid--for, after all, you know, am I, my great self, not
among the rest?"
At which Dickie would laugh rather shamefacedly, and say:--"Oh
you!--why you know well enough you could do anything you liked if you
weren't so confoundedly lazy!"
And, meanwhile, at Brockhurst, as news arrived of these successes, Lady
Calmady's soul received comfort. Her step was light, her eyes full of
clear shining as she moved to and fro ordering the great house and
great estate. She felt repaid for the bitter pain of parting with her
darling, and sending him forth to face the curious, possibly scornful,
world of the university city. He had proved himself and won his spurs.
And this solaced her in the solitude and loneliness of her present
life. For her dear friend and companion Marie de Mirancourt had found
the final repose, before seeking that of the convent. Early one
February morning, in the second year of Richard's sojourn at Oxford,
fortified by the rites of the Church, she had passed the gates of death
peacefully, blessing and blessed. Katherine mourned for her, and would
continue to mourn with still and faithful sorrow, even while welcoming
home her young scholar, hearing the details of his past achievements
and hopes for the future, or entertaining--with all gracious
hospitality--such of his Oxford friends as he elected to invite to
Brockhurst.
It was on one of these last occasions, the young men having gone down
to the Gun-Room to smoke and discuss the day's pheasant shooting, that
Katherine had kept Julius March standing before the Chapel-Room fire,
and had looked at him, a certain wistfulness in her face.
"He is happy--don't you think, Julius?" she said. "He seems to me
really happier, more contented, than I have ever seen him since his
childhood."
"Yes, I also think that," Julius answered. "He has reason to be
contented. He has measured himself against other men and is satisfied
of his own powers."
"Every one admires him at Oxford?"
"Yes, they admire and envy him. He has been brilliantly successful."
Katherine drew herself up, clasping her hands behind her, and smiling
proudly as she mused, gazing into the crimson heart of the burning
logs. Then, after a silence, she turned suddenly to her companion.
"It is very sweet to have you here at home again, Julius," she said
gently. "I have missed you sorely since dearest Marie de Mirancourt
died. Live a little longer than I do, please. Ah! I am afraid it is no
small thing that I ask you to do for my sake, for I foresee that I
shall survive to a lamentably old age. But sacrifice yourself, Julius,
in the matter of living. Less than ever, when the shadows fall, shall I
be able to spare you."
For which words of his dear lady's, though spoken lightly, half in
jest, Julius March gave God great thanks that night.
It was about this period that two pieces of news, each proving
eventually to have much personal significance, reached Lady Calmady
from the outside world. The first took the form of a letter--a rather
pensive and tired letter--from her brother, William Ormiston, telling
her that his daughter Helen was about to marry the Comte de Vallorbes,
a young gentleman very well known both to Parisian and Neapolitan
society. The second took the form of an announcement in the _Morning
Post_, to the effect that Lady Tobemory, whose lamented death that
paper had already chronicled, had left the bulk of her not
inconsiderable fortune to her god-daughter Honoria, eldest child of
that distinguished officer General St. Quentin. In both cases Lady
Calmady wrote letters of congratulation, in the latter with very
sincere and lively pleasure. She held her cousin, General St. Quentin,
in affection for old sake's sake. Honoria she remembered as a
singularly graceful, high-bred, little maiden, fleet of foot as a
hind--too fleet of foot indeed for little Dickie's comfort of mind, and
therefore banished from the Brockhurst nursery. In the former case, her
congratulations being somewhat conventional, she added--in her own name
and that of Richard--a necklace of pearls, with a diamond clasp and
bars to it, of no mean value.
In the spring of 1865 Richard left Oxford for good, and took up his
residence once more at Brockhurst. But it was not until the autumn of
the following year, when he had reached the age of three-and-twenty,
and had already for some six months served his Queen and country in the
capacity of Justice of the Peace for the county of Southampton, that
any event occurred greatly affecting his fortunes, and therefore worthy
to set forth at large in this history.
CHAPTER II
TELLING HOW DICKIE'S SOUL WAS SOMEWHAT SICK, AND HOW HE MET FAIR WOMEN
ON THE CONFINES OF A WOOD
RICHARD CALMADY rode homeward through the autumn woods, and the aspect
of them was very lovely. But their loveliness was hectic, a loveliness
as it seemed, at all events at first sight, of death and burial, rather
than of life and hope. The sky was overcast, and a chill clung to the
stream side and haunted the hollows. The young man's humour,
unfortunately, was only too much in harmony with the more melancholy
suggestions of the scene. For Richard was by nature something of a
poet, though he but rarely wrote verses, and usually burned them as
soon as written, being scholar enough to know and feel impatient of the
"second best." And this inherent strain of poetry in him tempered the
active and practical side of his character, making wealth and position,
and all those things which the worldly-minded seek, seem of slight
value to him at times. It induced in him many and very varying moods.
It carried him back often, even now in the strength of his young
manhood, to the fine fancies and exquisite unreason of the fairy world
in which those so sadly ill-balanced footsteps of his had first been
set. To-day had proved, so far, an unlucky one, prolific of warfare
between his clear brain and all too sensitive heart. For it was the
burden of Richard's temperament--the almost inevitable result of that
ever-present thorn in the flesh--that he shrunk as a poet, even as a
woman, while as a man, and a strong one, he reasoned and fought.
It fell out on this wise. He had attended the Quarter Sessions at
Westchurch; and a certain restlessness, born of the changing seasons,
being upon him, he had ridden. His habit, when passing outside the
limits of his own property, was to drive. He became aware--and angrily
conscious his groom was aware also--that his appearance afforded a
spectacle of the liveliest interest to the passers-by; that persons of
very various age and class had stopped and turned to gaze at him; and
that, while crossing the bridge spanning the dark, oily waters of the
canal, in the industrial quarter of the pushing, wide-awake, county
town, he had been the subject of brutal comment, followed by a hoarse
laugh from the collarless throats of some dozen operatives and bargees
loitering thereupon.
The consequence was that the young man arrived in court, his eyes
rather hard and his jaw set. Rich, well-born, not undistinguished too
for his attainments, and only three and twenty, Dickie had a fine fund
of arrogance to draw upon yet. He drew upon it this morning, rather to
the confusion of his colleagues upon the bench. Mr. Cathcart, the
chairman, was already present, and stood talking with Mr. Seymour, the
rector of Farley, a shrewd, able parson of the old sporting type.
Captain Fawkes of Water End was there too; and so was Lemuel Image,
eldest son of the Mr. Image, sometime mayor of Westchurch, who has been
mentioned in the early pages of this chronicle.
In the last twenty years, supported by ever-increasing piles of
barrels, the Image family had mounted triumphantly upward in the social
scale. Lemuel, the man in question, married a poor and distant relation
of Lord Aldborough, the late lord lieutenant of the county; and had by
this, and by a rather truculent profession of high Tory politics,
secured himself a seat on the bench. He had given a fancy price, too,
for that pretty, little place, Frodsmill, the grounds of which form
such an exasperating Naboth's vineyard in the heart of the Newland's
property. Neither his person, nor his politics, nor his absence of
culture, found favour in Richard Calmady's sight. And to-day, being
somewhat on edge, the brewer's large, blustering presence and
manner--at once patronising and servile--struck him as peculiarly
odious. Image betrayed an evil tendency to emphasise his remarks by
slapping his acquaintances upon the back. He was also guilty of
supposing a defect of hearing in all persons older than, or in any
measure denied the absolute plethora of physical vigour so conspicuous
in, himself. He invariably raised his voice in addressing Richard. In
return for which graceful attention Dickie most cordially detested him.
"Image is a bit of a cad, and certainly Calmady makes no bones about
letting him know it," Captain Fawkes remarked to Mr. Seymour, as they
drove back to Farley in the latter's dog-cart. "Fortunately he has a
hide like a rhinoceros, or we should have had a regular row between
them more than once this morning. Calmady's generally charming; but I
must say, when he likes, he can be about the most insolent fellow I've
ever met, in a gentleman-like way."
"A great deal of that is simply self-protective," the clergyman
answered. "It is not difficult to see how it comes about, when you take
his circumstances into account. If I was him, God forgive me, I know I
shouldn't be half so sweet tempered. He bears it wonderfully well, all
things considered."
Nor did the disturbing incidents of the day end with the familiarities
of the loud-voiced brewer. The principal case to be tried was a
melancholy one enough--a miserable history or wayward desire, shame and
suffering, followed by a despairing course of lies and petty thieving
to help support the poor baby whose advent seemed so wholly a curse.
The young mother--a pretty, desperate creature--made no attempt at