Chapter 369

It has been known to the patriotic mountaineer of a hoary pile of winters, with little life remaining in him, but that little on fire for his country, that by the brink of the precipice he has flung himself on a young and lusty invader, dedicating himself exultingly to death if only he may score a point for his country by extinguishing in his country's enemy the stronger man. So likewise did Willoughby, in the blow that deprived him of hope, exult in the toppling over of Horace De Craye. They perished together, but which one sublimely relished the headlong descent? And Vernon taken by Clara would be Vernon simply tolerated. And Clara taken by Vernon would be Clara previously touched, smirched. Altogether he could enjoy his fall.

It was at least upon a comfortable bed, where his pride would be dressed daily and would never be disagreeably treated.

He was henceforth Laetitia's own. The bell telling of Dr. Corney's return was a welcome sound to Willoughby, and he said good-humouredly: "Wait, Clara, you will see your hero Crossjay."

Crossjay and Dr. Corney tumbled into the hall. Willoughby caught Crossjay under the arms to give him a lift in the old fashion pleasing to Clara to see. The boy was heavy as lead.

"I had work to hook him and worse to net him," said Dr. Corney. "I had to make him believe he was to nurse every soul in the house, you among them, Miss Middleton."

Willoughby pulled the boy aside.

Crossjay came back to Clara heavier in looks than his limbs had been. She dropped her letter in the hall-box, and took his hand to have a private hug of him. When they were alone, she said: "Crossjay, my dear, my dear! you look unhappy."

"Yes, and who wouldn't be, and you're not to marry Sir Willoughby!" his voice threatened a cry. "I know you're not, for Dr. Corney says you are going to leave."

"Did you so very much wish it, Crossjay?"

"I should have seen a lot of you, and I sha'n't see you at all, and I'm sure if I'd known I wouldn't have--And he has been and tipped me this."

Crossjay opened his fist in which lay three gold pieces.

"That was very kind of him," said Clara.

"Yes, but how can I keep it?"

"By handing it to Mr. Whitford to keep for you."

"Yes, but, Miss Middleton, oughtn't I to tell him? I mean Sir Willoughby."

"What?"

"Why, that I"--Crossjay got close to her--"why, that I, that I--you know what you used to say. I wouldn't tell a lie, but oughtn't I, without his asking . . . and this money! I don't mind being turned out again."

"Consult Mr. Whitford," said Clara.

"I know what you think, though."

"Perhaps you had better not say anything at present, dear boy."

"But what am I to do with this money?"

Crossjay held the gold pieces out as things that had not yet mingled with his ideas of possession.

"I listened, and I told of him," he said. "I couldn't help listening, but I went and told; and I don't like being here, and his money, and he not knowing what I did. Haven't you heard? I'm certain I know what you think, and so do I, and I must take my luck. I'm always in mischief, getting into a mess or getting out of it. I don't mind, I really don't, Miss Middleton, I can sleep in a tree quite comfortably. If you're not going to be here, I'd just as soon be anywhere. I must try to earn my living some day. And why not a cabin-boy? Sir Cloudesley Shovel was no better. And I don't mind his being wrecked at last, if you're drowned an admiral. So I shall go and ask him to take his money back, and if he asks me I shall tell him, and there. You know what it is: I guessed that from what Dr. Corney said. I'm sure I know you're thinking what's manly. Fancy me keeping his money, and you not marrying him! I wouldn't mind driving a plough. I shouldn't make a bad gamekeeper. Of course I love boats best, but you can't have everything."

"Speak to Mr. Whitford first," said Clara, too proud of the boy for growing as she had trained him, to advise a course of conduct opposed to his notions of manliness, though now that her battle was over she would gladly have acquiesced in little casuistic compromises for the sake of the general peace.

Some time later Vernon and Dr. Corney were arguing upon the question. Corney was dead against the sentimental view of the morality of the case propounded by Vernon as coming from Miss Middleton and partly shared by him. "If it's on the boy's mind," Vernon said, "I can't prohibit his going to Willoughby and making a clean breast of it, especially as it involves me, and sooner or later I should have to tell him myself."

Dr. Corney said no at all points. "Now hear me," he said, finally. "This is between ourselves, and no breach of confidence, which I'd not be guilty of for forty friends, though I'd give my hand from the wrist-joint for one--my left, that's to say. Sir Willoughby puts me one or two searching interrogations on a point of interest to him, his house and name. Very well, and good night to that, and I wish Miss Dale had been ten years younger, or had passed the ten with no heartrisings and sinkings wearing to the tissues of the frame and the moral fibre to boot. She'll have a fairish health, with a little occasional doctoring; taking her rank and wealth in right earnest, and shying her pen back to Mother Goose. She'll do. And, by the way, I think it's to the credit of my sagacity that I fetched Mr. Dale here fully primed, and roused the neighbourhood, which I did, and so fixed our gentleman, neat as a prodded eel on a pair of prongs--namely, the positive fact and the general knowledge of it. But, mark me, my friend. We understand one another at a nod. This boy, young Squire Crossjay, is a good stiff hearty kind of a Saxon boy, out of whom you may cut as gallant a fellow as ever wore epaulettes. I like him, you like him, Miss Dale and Miss Middleton like him; and Sir Willoughby Patterne, of Patterne Hall and other places, won't be indisposed to like him mightily in the event of the sun being seen to shine upon him with a particular determination to make him appear a prominent object, because a solitary, and a Patterne." Dr. Corney lifted his chest and his finger: "Now mark me, and verbum sap: Crossjay must not offend Sir Willoughby. I say no more. Look ahead. Miracles happen, but it's best to reckon that they won't. Well, now, and Miss Dale. She'll not be cruel."

"It appears as if she would," said Vernon, meditating on the cloudy sketch Dr. Corney had drawn.

"She can't, my friend. Her position's precarious; her father has little besides a pension. And her writing damages her health. She can't. And she likes the baronet. Oh, it's only a little fit of proud blood. She's the woman for him. She'll manage him--give him an idea he's got a lot of ideas. It'd kill her father if she were obstinate. He talked to me, when I told him of the business, about his dream fulfilled, and if the dream turns to vapour, he'll be another example that we hang more upon dreams than realities for nourishment, and medicine too. Last week I couldn't have got him out of his house with all my art and science. Oh, she'll come round. Her father prophesied this, and I'll prophesy that. She's fond of him."

"She was."

"She sees through him?"

"Without quite doing justice to him now," said Vernon. "He can be generous--in his way."

"How?" Corney inquired, and was informed that he should hear in time to come.

Meanwhile Colonel De Craye, after hovering over the park and about the cottage for the opportunity of pouncing on Miss Middleton alone, had returned crest-fallen for once, and plumped into Willoughby's hands.

"My dear Horace," Willoughby said, "I've been looking for you all the afternoon. The fact is--I fancy you'll think yourself lured down here on false pretences: but the truth is, I am not so much to blame as the world will suppose. In point of fact, to be brief, Miss Dale and I . . . I never consult other men how they would have acted. The fact of the matter is, Miss Middleton . . . I fancy you have partly guessed it."

"Partly," said De Craye.

"Well, she has a liking that way, and if it should turn out strong enough, it's the best arrangement I can think of," The lively play of the colonel's features fixed in a blank inquiry.

"One can back a good friend for making a good husband," said Willoughby. "I could not break with her in the present stage of affairs without seeing to that. And I can speak of her highly, though she and I have seen in time that we do not suit one another. My wife must have brains."

"I have always thought it," said Colonel De Craye, glistening, and looking hungry as a wolf through his wonderment.

"There will not be a word against her, you understand. You know my dislike of tattle and gossip. However, let it fall on me; my shoulders are broad. I have done my utmost to persuade her, and there seems a likelihood of her consenting. She tells me her wish is to please me, and this will please me."

"Certainly. Who's the gentleman?"

"My best friend, I tell you. I could hardly have proposed another. Allow this business to go on smoothly just now." There was an uproar within the colonel to blind his wits, and Willoughby looked so friendly that it was possible to suppose the man of projects had mentioned his best friend to Miss Middleton.

And who was the best friend?

Not having accused himself of treachery, the quick-eyed colonel was duped.

"Have you his name handy, Willoughby?"

"That would be unfair to him at present, Horace--ask yourself--and to her. Things are in a ticklish posture at present. Don't be hasty."

"Certainly. I don't ask. Initials'll do."

"You have a remarkable aptitude for guessing, Horace, and this case offers you no tough problem--if ever you acknowledged toughness. I have a regard for her and for him--for both pretty equally; you know I have, and I should be thoroughly thankful to bring the matter about."

"Lordly!" said De Craye.

"I don't see it. I call it sensible."

"Oh, undoubtedly. The style, I mean. Tolerably antique?"

"Novel, I should say, and not the worse for that. We want plain practical dealings between men and women. Usually we go the wrong way to work. And I loathe sentimental rubbish."

De Craye hummed an air. "But the lady?" said he.

"I told you, there seems a likelihood of her consenting."

Willoughby's fish gave a perceptible little leap now that he had been taught to exercise his aptitude for guessing.

"Without any of the customary preliminaries on the side of the gentleman?" he said.

"We must put him through his paces, friend Horace. He's a notorious blunderer with women; hasn't a word for them, never marked a conquest."

De Craye crested his plumes under the agreeable banter. He presented a face humourously sceptical.

"The lady is positively not indisposed to give the poor fellow a hearing?"

"I have cause to think she is not," said Willoughby, glad of acting the indifference to her which could talk of her inclinations.

"Cause?"

"Good cause."

"Bless us!"

"As good as one can have with a woman."

"Ah?"

"I assure you."

"Ah! Does it seem like her, though?"

"Well, she wouldn't engage herself to accept him."

"Well, that seems more like her."

"But she said she could engage to marry no one else."

The colonel sprang up, crying: "Clara Middleton said it?" He curbed himself "That's a bit of wonderful compliancy."

"She wishes to please me. We separate on those terms. And I wish her happiness. I've developed a heart lately and taken to think of others."

"Nothing better. You appear to make cock sure of the other party--our friend?"

"You know him too well, Horace, to doubt his readiness."

"Do you, Willoughby?"

"She has money and good looks. Yes, I can say I do."

"It wouldn't be much of a man who'd want hard pulling to that lighted altar!"

"And if he requires persuasion, you and I, Horace, might bring him to his senses."

"Kicking, 't would be!"

"I like to see everybody happy about me," said Willoughby, naming the hour as time to dress for dinner.

The sentiment he had delivered was De Craye's excuse for grasping his hand and complimenting him; but the colonel betrayed himself by doing it with an extreme fervour almost tremulous.

"When shall we hear more?" he said.

"Oh, probably to-morrow," said Willoughby. "Don't be in such a hurry."

"I'm an infant asleep!" the colonel replied, departing.

He resembled one, to Willoughby's mind: or a traitor drugged.

"There is a fellow I thought had some brains!"

Who are not fools to beset spinning if we choose to whip them with their vanity! it is the consolation of the great to watch them spin. But the pleasure is loftier, and may comfort our unmerited misfortune for a while, in making a false friend drunk.

Willoughby, among his many preoccupations, had the satisfaction of seeing the effect of drunkenness on Horace De Craye when the latter was in Clara's presence. He could have laughed. Cut in keen epigram were the marginal notes added by him to that chapter of The Book which treats of friends and a woman; and had he not been profoundly preoccupied, troubled by recent intelligence communicated by the ladies, his aunts, he would have played the two together for the royal amusement afforded him by his friend Horace.

CHAPTER XLVIII

THE LOVERS

The hour was close upon eleven at night. Laetitia sat in the room adjoining her father's bedchamber. Her elbow was on the table beside her chair, and two fingers pressed her temples. The state between thinking and feeling, when both are molten and flow by us, is one of our natures coming after thought has quieted the fiery nerves, and can do no more. She seemed to be meditating. She was conscious only of a struggle past.

She answered a tap at the door, and raised her eyes on Clara. Clara stepped softly. "Mr. Dale is asleep?"

"I hope so."

"Ah! dear friend."

Laetitia let her hand be pressed.

"Have you had a pleasant evening?"

"Mr. Whitford and papa have gone to the library."

"Colonel De Craye has been singing?"

"Yes--with a voice! I thought of you upstairs, but could not ask him to sing piano."

"He is probably exhilarated."

"One would suppose it: he sang well."

"You are not aware of any reason?"

"It cannot concern me."

Clara was in rosy colour, but could meet a steady gaze.

"And Crossjay has gone to bed?"

"Long since. He was at dessert. He would not touch anything."

"He is a strange boy."

"Not very strange, Laetitia."

"He did not come to me to wish me good-night."

"That is not strange."

"It is his habit at the cottage and here; and he professes to like me."

"Oh, he does. I may have wakened his enthusiasm, but you he loves."

"Why do you say it is not strange, Clara?"

"He fears you a little."

"And why should Crossjay fear me?"

"Dear, I will tell you. Last night--You will forgive him, for it was by accident: his own bed-room door was locked and he ran down to the drawing-room and curled himself up on the ottoman, and fell asleep, under that padded silken coverlet of the ladies--boots and all, I am afraid!"

Laetitia profited by this absurd allusion, thanking Clara in her heart for the refuge.

"He should have taken off his boots," she said.

"He slept there, and woke up. Dear, he meant no harm. Next day he repeated what he had heard. You will blame him. He meant well in his poor boy's head. And now it is over the county. Ah! do not frown."

"That explains Lady Busshe!" exclaimed Laetitia.

"Dear, dear friend," said Clara. "Why--I presume on your tenderness for me; but let me: to-morrow I go--why will you reject your happiness? Those kind good ladies are deeply troubled. They say your resolution is inflexible; you resist their entreaties and your father's. Can it be that you have any doubt of the strength of this attachment? I have none. I have never had a doubt that it was the strongest of his feelings. If before I go I could see you . . . both happy, I should be relieved, I should rejoice."

Laetitia said, quietly: "Do you remember a walk we had one day together to the cottage?"

Clara put up her hands with the motion of intending to stop her ears.

"Before I go!" said she. "If I might know this was to be, which all desire, before I leave, I should not feel as I do now. I long to see you happy . . . him, yes, him too. Is it like asking you to pay my debt? Then, please! But, no; I am not more than partly selfish on this occasion. He has won my gratitude. He can be really generous."

"An Egoist?"

"Who is?"

"You have forgotten our conversation on the day of our walk to the cottage?"

"Help me to forget it--that day, and those days, and all those days! I should be glad to think I passed a time beneath the earth, and have risen again. I was the Egoist. I am sure, if I had been buried, I should not have stood up seeing myself more vilely stained, soiled, disfigured--oh! Help me to forget my conduct, Laetitia. He and I were unsuited--and I remember I blamed myself then. You and he are not: and now I can perceive the pride that can be felt in him. The worst that can be said is that he schemes too much."

"Is there any fresh scheme?" said Laetitia.

The rose came over Clara's face.

"You have not heard? It was impossible, but it was kindly intended. Judging by my own feeling at this moment, I can understand his. We love to see our friends established."

Laetitia bowed. "My curiosity is piqued, of course."

"Dear friend, to-morrow we shall be parted. I trust to be thought of by you as a little better in grain than I have appeared, and my reason for trusting it is that I know I have been always honest--a boorish young woman in my stupid mad impatience: but not insincere. It is no lofty ambition to desire to be remembered in that character, but such is your Clara, she discovers. I will tell you. It is his wish . . . his wish that I should promise to give my hand to Mr. Whitford. You see the kindness."

Laetitia's eyes widened and fixed:

"You think it kindness?"

"The intention. He sent Mr. Whitford to me, and I was taught to expect him."

"Was that quite kind to Mr. Whitford?"

"What an impression I must have made on you during that walk to the cottage, Laetitia! I do not wonder; I was in a fever."

"You consented to listen?"

"I really did. It astonishes me now, but I thought I could not refuse."

"My poor friend Vernon Whitford tried a love speech?"

"He? no: Oh! no."

"You discouraged him?"

"I? No."

"Gently, I mean."

"No."

"Surely you did not dream of trifling? He has a deep heart."

"Has he?"

"You ask that: and you know something of him."

"He did not expose it to me, dear; not even the surface of the mighty deep."

Laetitia knitted her brows.

"No," said Clara, "not a coquette: she is not a coquette, I assure you."

With a laugh, Laetitia replied: "You have still the 'dreadful power' you made me feel that day."

"I wish I could use it to good purpose!"

"He did not speak?"

"Of Switzerland, Tyrol, the Iliad, Antigone."

"That was all?"

"No, Political Economy. Our situation, you will own, was unexampled: or mine was. Are you interested in me?"

"I should be if I knew your sentiments."

"I was grateful to Sir Willoughby: grieved for Mr. Whitford."

"Real grief?"

"Because the task unposed on him of showing me politely that he did not enter into his cousin's ideas was evidently very great, extremely burdensome."

"You, so quick-eyed in some things, Clara!"

"He felt for me. I saw that in his avoidance of. . . And he was, as he always is, pleasant. We rambled over the park for I know not how long, though it did not seem long."

"Never touching that subject?"

"Not ever neighbouring it, dear. A gentleman should esteem the girl he would ask . . . certain questions. I fancy he has a liking for me as a volatile friend."

"If he had offered himself?"

"Despising me?"

"You can be childish, Clara. Probably you delight to tease. He had his time of it, and it is now my turn."

"But he must despise me a little."

"Are you blind?"

"Perhaps, dear, we both are, a little."

The ladies looked deeper into one another.

"Will you answer me?" said Laetitia.

"Your if? If he had, it would have been an act of condescension."

"You are too slippery."

"Stay, dear Laetitia. He was considerate in forbearing to pain me."

"That is an answer. You allowed him to perceive that it would have pained you."

"Dearest, if I may convey to you what I was, in a simile for comparison: I think I was like a fisherman's float on the water, perfectly still, and ready to go down at any instant, or up. So much for my behaviour."

"Similes have the merit of satisfying the finder of them, and cheating the hearer," said Laetitia. "You admit that your feelings would have been painful."

"I was a fisherman's float: please admire my simile; any way you like, this way or that, or so quiet as to tempt the eyes to go to sleep. And suddenly I might have disappeared in the depths, or flown in the air. But no fish bit."

"Well, then, to follow you, supposing the fish or the fisherman, for I don't know which is which . . . Oh! no, no: this is too serious for imagery. I am to understand that you thanked him at least for his reserve."

"Yes."

"Without the slightest encouragement to him to break it?"

"A fisherman's float, Laetitia!"

Baffled and sighing, Laetitia kept silence for a space. The simile chafed her wits with a suspicion of a meaning hidden in it.

"If he had spoken?" she said.

"He is too truthful a man."

"And the railings of men at pussy women who wind about and will not be brought to a mark, become intelligible to me."

"Then Laetitia, if he had spoken, if, and one could have imagined him sincere . . ."

"So truthful a man?"

"I am looking at myself If!--why, then, I should have burnt to death with shame. Where have I read?--some story--of an inextinguishable spark. That would have been shot into my heart."

"Shame, Clara? You are free."

"As much as remains of me."

"I could imagine a certain shame, in such a position, where there was no feeling but pride."

"I could not imagine it where there was no feeling but pride."

Laetitia mused. "And you dwell on the kindness of a proposition so extraordinary!" Gaining some light, impatiently she cried: "Vernon loves you."

"Do not say it!"

"I have seen it."

"I have never had a sign of it."

"There is the proof."

"When it might have been shown again and again!"

"The greater proof!"

"Why did he not speak when he was privileged?--strangely, but privileged."

"He feared."

"Me?"

"Feared to wound you--and himself as well, possibly. Men may be pardoned for thinking of themselves in these cases."

"But why should he fear?"

"That another was dearer to you?"

"What cause had I given . . . Ah I see! He could fear that; suspect it! See his opinion of me! Can he care for such a girl? Abuse me, Laetitia. I should like a good round of abuse. I need purification by fire. What have I been in this house? I have a sense of whirling through it like a madwoman. And to be loved, after it all!--No! we must be hearing a tale of an antiquary prizing a battered relic of the battle-field that no one else would look at. To be loved, I see, is to feel our littleness, hollowness--feel shame. We come out in all our spots. Never to have given me one sign, when a lover would have been so tempted! Let me be incredulous, my own dear Laetitia. Because he is a man of honour, you would say! But are you unconscious of the torture you inflict? For if I am--you say it--loved by this gentleman, what an object it is he loves--that has gone clamouring about more immodestly than women will bear to hear of, and she herself to think of! Oh, I have seen my own heart. It is a frightful spectre. I have seen a weakness in me that would have carried me anywhere. And truly I shall be charitable to women--I have gained that. But loved! by Vernon Whitford! The miserable little me to be taken up and loved after tearing myself to pieces! Have you been simply speculating? You have no positive knowledge of it! Why do you kiss me?"

"Why do you tremble and blush so?"