CHAPTER VII.--WHEREIN THE READER IS INTRODUCED TO MISS LIVINGSTONE, AND

INFORMED WHO IS THE GREATEST MAN OF THE AGE.

“Ah! General,” exclaimed Leicester, as he rose leisurely from the arm-chair in which he had been reclining, “I hope they have not disturbed you on our account. I was criticising one of Annie’s sketches _pour passer le temps_--really she draws very nicely. Let me introduce Mr. Arundel, Mr. Frere’s friend, about whom I wrote to you yesterday.”

A stiff bow, acknowledged on Lewis’s part by an equally haughty inclination of the head, was the result of this introduction, when General Grant observed--

“Mr. Frere is a man of whom I have a very high opinion, both on account of his unusual intellectual attainments, and his manly, upright character. Have you been long acquainted with him, sir, may I ask?”

“He was my guide and protector when I first went to Westminster,” replied Lewis, “and we have been close friends ever since.”

“A most fortunate circumstance,” remarked the General sententiously. “The mind of youth is easily impressible for good or evil, and unless such establishments are greatly altered for the better since my time, Satan has no lack of emissaries at a public school. Will you allow me a few minutes’ private conversation with you, Mr. Arundel? The library is in this direction.” So saying, General Grant opened the door with frigid courtesy, and signing to Lewis to precede him, followed with a stateliness of demeanour admirable to behold.

Scarcely had they left the room, when Annie, clapping her hands joyfully, exclaimed, “What a creature! why, he’s as stiff and dignified as papa himself. Now then, Charley, tell me who he is, and all about him: we shall have Aunt Martha or somebody coming, and then I shall never know, and be obliged to die of curiosity. You are asleep, I believe.”

“There you go--that’s always the way with women,” returned Leicester, speaking very slowly and with an exaggeration of his usual mode of pronunciation, which was something between a lisp and a drawl; “asking half-a-dozen questions in a breath, and resolved to get up a suicidal amount of curiosity if they are not as speedily answered. Why, my dear child, I would not speak as quickly as you do for any amount of money--at least any amount of money I should be at all likely to get for doing so.”

“Now, Charley, don’t be tiresome. Who is the man?” rejoined Annie, half pettishly. Then, seeing that her imperious manner only induced her cousin still further to tease her, she added, in an imploring tone, which no heart of any material softer than granite could resist, “You will tell me--won’t you? I want to know so much, and I have had nothing to amuse me all day.”

“There, do you hear that?” soliloquised Leicester, appealing to society in general. “Trust a woman to get her own way. If she can’t scold you into giving it to her, she’ll coax you. Well, you little torment, I suppose you must know all about it. The man, as you please to call him, is seeking the honourable post of bear-leader to the cub your father has the felicity of being guardian unto.”

“What, a tutor for poor Walter!” rejoined Annie meditatively. “But surely he’s a gentleman, is he not?”

“Very particularly and decidedly so, as far as I am a judge,” returned Leicester, hooking a footstool towards him with his cane, and depositing his feet thereupon. “At least I dined and spent last evening in his company, and never wish to meet a better fellow.”

“But,” continued Annie, pursuing her train of reasoning, “if he is a gentleman, why does he want to go out as a tutor?”

“Because, unfortunately, there is a vulgar prejudice extant in this feeble-minded country that the necessaries of life, such as bread and cheese, cigars, kid gloves, and the like, must be paid for--this requires money, whereof Arundel has little or none. Moreover, Richard Frere hinted at a mother and sister in the case, who likewise have to be supported.”

As he spoke a shade of deeper thought flitted across Annie’s expressive features, and after a moment’s pause she resumed.

“Now I understand his strange manner: he was mentally contrasting himself (he is evidently a proud man) and his position; it must indeed have been a struggle--and he does this for the sake of his mother and sister. Charley, do you know, I rather admire him.”

“Yes, I dare say you do; he’s a decidedly good-looking fellow for the style of man; there’s a thoroughbred air about him, and he carries himself well.”

“Psha! I am not talking of his appearance: except that he is tall and dark, I scarcely know what he is like,” returned Annie quickly. “No! I mean that there is something fine in the idea of a proud mind submitting to degradations and indignities for the sake of those it loves; bearing with a martyr-spirit the thousand hourly annoyances-----” Checking herself suddenly, as she perceived upon her cousin’s face something nearly akin to a contemptuous smile, Annie continued, “Charles, how stupid you are! I hate you!”

“Not possible,” was the cool reply. “Moreover, you have really no cause to do so. I assure you I was not exactly laughing at your sudden plunge into the sentimental; it was merely a notion which crossed my mind, that out of the thousand hourly annoyances by which poor Arundel is to be martyrised, some nine hundred and fifty would originate in the caprices of a certain young lady who shall be nameless. In the monotony of life amid the leafy shades of Broadhurst, even teasing a tutor may be deemed a new and interesting variety, as the botanists have it. Seriously, though, you can coax the General to let him teach you German.”

“And embellish my water-colour sketches by the insertion of occasional cows, with impossible tails made to order--eh, cousin Charley?” returned Annie with an arch smile. “Give me my drawing, sir, and let me look at the creature. How well he has done it! I know a cow at Broadhurst with just such a face!”

“There’s a world of speculation in the eye,” rejoined Leicester carelessly, though he was slightly surprised at the extent of her information respecting the “tail” debate; “the animal appears to be ruminating on the advisability of petitioning Parliament against the veal trade, or some other question of equal interest to the ‘milky mothers of the herd.’”

While Annie and her cousin thus gaily conversed, a very different scene was enacting in the library. During a short delay, occasioned by General Grant’s being obliged to answer a note, Lewis had time to recollect himself, and to school the rebellious feelings which his conversation with Leicester and the other events of the morning had called into action. He thought of Rose and his mother, and of his determination that they at least should be spared all knowledge of the real evils of poverty; and this reflection was for the time sufficient to efface every selfish consideration. Bringing his strength of will into play, he regained the most complete self-control, and even experienced a sort of morbid pleasure in the idea of voluntarily humiliating himself before the proud old man, whose clear, cold eye was occasionally raised from the note he was employed in writing to fix its scrutinising glance on Lewis’s features.

Having sealed the missive and given it to a servant, he slowly approached the spot where Lewis was standing, and after a word or two of apology for having kept him waiting, began--

“I presume my nephew, Mr. Leicester, has made you in some degree acquainted with the nature of the circumstances in which I am at present placed, and of the necessity which renders me anxious to secure the services of some gentleman as tutor to my ward, Sir Walter Desborough?”

“Mr. Leicester informed me that the young gentleman’s education had been neglected, and that his mind was singularly undeveloped,” replied Lewis, choosing the least offensive terms in which he might express his conviction that the youth in question was rather a fool than otherwise.

“Yes, sir, though it is even worse than you describe,” returned the General. “In fact it depends upon the degree of success which may attend the efforts which must now be made whether Sir Walter Desborough can ever be considered capable of managing his own affairs, or able to take that place in society to which his rank and fortune would naturally entitle him. You perceive, therefore, that the post of tutor will be one of much trust and importance, and the duties attending it most onerous. Mr. Frere has written so high a character of your various attainments that I cannot but feel perfectly satisfied of your competency; but you are very young, and as I should, in the event of your undertaking the charge, expect a strict performance of your duties, it is only fair to inform you that I conceive they may be irksome in the extreme. What is your feeling on the subject?”

Lewis paused for a moment in thought, and then replied--

“I will be frank with you, sir. Were I free to act as I chose, such an office as you describe would be one of the last I should select; but the welfare of others depends upon my exertions, and I have determined to refuse no occupation not unworthy a gentleman which will enable me to render the necessary assistance to my family. If, therefore, you consider me fitted to undertake the charge of your ward, I am willing to do so, and to fulfil the duties of such a situation to the best of my ability, on one condition.”

“What is that?” inquired General Grant quickly.

“That I may be allowed to pursue whatever system I may deem best fitted to attain the desired end, without the interference of any one, and may be accountable for my conduct to you alone.”

“Rather a singular request, young gentleman,” returned the General, knitting his brows.

“My reason for making it is easily explained, sir,” replied Lewis, firmly but respectfully. “Unless such permission is accorded me, I feel certain all my efforts would prove unavailing: I must have full power to do what I think right, or I could not act at all, and should have undertaken a duty which I should be incompetent to perform.”

“Well, sir, there is truth in what you say,” replied General Grant, after a moment’s consideration. “I like you none the worse for speaking in a manly, straightforward manner. It is my intention to go down to Broadhurst in a day or two: you shall accompany me; and if, after seeing my ward, you are still willing to undertake the task of conducting his education, I shall be happy to entrust him to your care, upon the conditions you have proposed. Your salary will be £300 a year. This, you are aware, is unusually high, but the case is a peculiar one, and money, fortunately, a very secondary consideration. An entire suite of rooms will be devoted to the use of yourself and your pupil, and a horse kept for you, that you may accompany him in his rides. Do these arrangements meet your wishes?”

Lewis bowed his head in token of acknowledgment, and said, “I have one other request to make. I brought a Livonian wolf-hound with me from Germany; he is much attached to me, and I should be unwilling to part from him.”

“Bring him with you, sir,” returned the General, his lip slightly curling with a sarcastic smile; “a dog more or less will make little difference in such an establishment as that at Broadhurst. And now, if you will give me the pleasure of your company at luncheon, I shall be happy to introduce you to my relative, Miss Livingstone, who does me the honour to preside over my household. My daughter, I believe, you have already seen;” and as he spoke he led the way to the dining-room, where the rest of the party were already assembled.

Miss Livingstone, who scrutinised Lewis as if she suspected him of belonging to that ingenious fraternity yclept the swell mob, was, in appearance, a very awful old lady indeed. The nearest approach we can make to a description of her features is to say that they bore a marked (with the small-pox) resemblance to those of Minerva _and_ her owl; the sternness of that utilitarian goddess--the Miss Martineau of Olympus--and the sapient stupidity of the so-called bird of wisdom, finding their exact counterpart in Miss Livingstone’s time-honoured physiognomy. This lady was appareled after a strange and imposing mode, as behoved a spinster of such orthodox station and ferociously virtuous propriety as the General’s female commander-in-chief. Minerva’s helmet was modernised into a stupendous fabric, wherein starch, muslin, and ribbon of an unnatural harshness struggled upwards in a pyramid, whence pointing with stiffened ends innumerable, suggestive of any amount of porcupines, they appeared ready and anxious to repel or impale society at large. A triangle of spotless lawn supplied the place of the breastplate beneath which Jove’s daughter was accustomed to conceal her want of heart; and a silk gown of an uncomfortable shade of grey, made so scanty as to render at first sight the hypothesis of a mermaid_ic_ termination conceivable, completed the costume of this immaculate old lady.

Having apparently satisfied herself that Lewis had no immediate design upon the spoons and forks, she condescended to afford him the meteorological information that although the sunshine might delude the unwary into believing it to be a fine day, she had received private information that the weather was not to be relied upon: after promulgating which opinion she placed herself at the head, and assumed the direction of, the luncheon-table.

Charley Leicester appeared to be the only individual of the party insensible to a certain freezing influence, which might be specified as one of Miss Livingstone’s most characteristic attributes. Having exerted himself to supply that lady with every possible adjunct she could require, and seduced her into an amount of Cayenne pepper which afterwards subjected her to considerable physical suffering, he began--

“I was present, a day or two ago, Miss Livingstone, when a question was started as to what man of modern times had been the greatest benefactor to his race. It opened a mine of very curious speculation, I can assure you.”

“I do not doubt it, Charles,” returned Miss Livingstone; “and I am glad to learn that the young men of the present day employ their time in such profitable discussions. What decision did you arrive at?”

“Well, ma’am,” resumed Leicester gravely, “there was of course much difference of opinion. James Watt had rather a strong party in his favour, but an ex-railway director was present who had lost £10,000 on the Do-em-and-Foot-in-it Line, and he blackballed him. Lord John was proposed; but some of the men who took in _Punch_ laughed so immoderately when his name was mentioned that it was immediately withdrawn. One youth, who is known to be a little bit flighty, not quite accountable, poor fellow! declared for Lord Brougham, but we soothed him, and he had sense enough left to see his error almost immediately. At length it came to my turn----”

“And whom did you mention?” inquired Miss Livingstone, with a degree of interest most unusual in her.

“I had been pondering the matter deeply,” continued Leicester, “to try and hit on some worthy against whom no valid objection could be raised. At one moment I thought of Moses----”

“I fancied it was restricted to men of modern times,” interposed Miss Livingstone.

“He to whom I referred, ma’am,” returned Leicester, “was not the Israelitish lawgiver, but the man of the City Mart, that benevolent individual who clothes poverty in ‘a light paletot at ten-and-six,’ and enables the honest hearts of free-born Britons to palpitate beneath a ‘gent’s superior vest’ for the trifling remuneration of five shillings.” This speech was algebra, or thereabouts, to the lady to whom it was addressed, but she had a sort of instinctive apprehension that Leicester was talking nonsense, and accordingly drew herself up stiffly, completing her resemblance to Minerva by composing her features into a very satisfactory likeness of the Gorgon. No way affected by this transformation, Leicester continued--

“On mature reflection, however, I discarded Moses & Son, and was going to give it up as hopeless, when, all of a sudden, a bright thought flashed across me, and springing to my feet, I exclaimed in a voice of thunder, ‘Gentlemen, I have it; the difficulty is one no longer: the greatest modern benefactor to the human race is--_Bass!_’”

“_Who?_” exclaimed Miss Livingstone, entirely mystified and a good deal flurried by the narrator’s unusual energy.

“Bass,” resumed Leicester; “that remarkable man whose gigantic intellect first conceived the project of regenerating society through the medium of _pale ale!_ The idea was hailed with enthusiasm; we immediately sent for a dozen; and ere the liquor was disposed of, there was not a man present but would have staked hundreds on the soundness of my opinion.”

Utterly disgusted and confused by this unexpected termination to the anecdote, Miss Livingstone rose from her chair, sailed out of the room, and thus the visit concluded.

Lewis, after a solitary walk, during which he was revolving in his mind the step he had just taken, and striving to discern in the dull lead-coloured horizon of his future one ray of light which might yield promise of brighter times to come, was ascending Frere’s staircase, when the door of the room above opened suddenly, and a voice, which he thought he recognised, exclaimed--

“Then I may depend upon you; you’ll be with me by eight at the latest, and bring your friend, if possible. Ah! here he is! Mr. Arundel, delighted to see you--none the worse for last night, I hope--wasn’t it glorious? Grandeville has got such a face on him, he won’t be able to show for a week to come; and Meeking of the pallid features is so seedy this morning that I was forced to burthen my conscience by inventing a fictitious fall from his horse, on the strength of which I sent his mamma to nurse him. We must book that to the pious fraud account, and let the charity absolve the lie. Rather shaky divinity, eh, Frere? Well, _au revoir_; I’m off.”

So saying, Mr. Tom Bracy--for he it was, and none other--dashed down the stairs, and having deeply scandalised Frere’s ancient domestic by an anxious inquiry how it was she did not get a husband, took his departure.

“Frere!” exclaimed Lewis, throwing himself into a chair and coldly repulsing Faust, who never could imagine himself otherwise than welcome, “I’ve done it!”

“So have I, man,” was the reply; “and pretty considerably brown, too, as that nice youth who has just left me would call it. But what have you done to make you so doleful?”

“Sold myself,” returned Lewis bitterly.

“Not to the old gentleman, I hope,” rejoined Frere, “though your black looks would almost lead one to imagine so.”

“What weak, inconsistent fools we are!” pursued Lewis.

“Speak for yourself, young man,” observed Frere parenthetically.

“How vacillating and impotent,” continued Lewis, not heeding the interruption, “is even the strongest will! I have done this morning the thing I believed I most anxiously desired to do--the thing I came here hoping to accomplish--I have secured a competence for my mother and sister. I have done so on better terms than I had deemed possible. I have met with consideration, if not kindness, from--from my employer.” He pronounced the word firmly, though his temples throbbed and his lip quivered with suppressed emotion as he did so. “All this should make me contented, if not happy. Happy!” he repeated mockingly. “Frere,” he continued, with a sudden burst of impetuosity, “it has not done so--I am miserable!”

He rose from his seat and began pacing the room with impatient strides. Faust followed him for one or two turns, wagging his tail and gazing up into his face with loving eyes; but finding his efforts to attract attention unavailing, he uttered a piteous whine, and, retreating to a corner, crouched down, as perfectly aware that his master was unhappy as if he had been a human creature and could have “told his love” in words. Frere would have spoken, but Lewis checked him by a gesture, and continued his rapid walk for some minutes in silence. At length he spoke--

“You think me selfish and ungrateful, and you are right; I am so. I have schooled myself to bear all this, and I _will_ bear it; but bitter thoughts arise and at times overpower me. I am very young” (“True for you,” muttered Frere, _sotto voce_), “and I am so unfit for such a life as lies before me, a life of tame and ceaseless drudgery, in which to indulge the high aspirations and noble daring that win men honour becomes misplaced folly; to live with people whose equal, if not superior, I feel myself, in a semi-menial capacity; to obey when I would command; to forfeit all that is bright and fair in existence--intercourse with the higher order of minds, the society of pure and refined spirits; and, above all, to lose the only thing I really prize on earth--my independence.

“Well,” he continued, after a pause, “the die is cast, and repining is worse than useless. I will give this experiment a fair trial; it may be the harness will set more easily on me than I imagine; and should it become unbearable, I can but cast it off and start afresh: there is such a thing as to compel one’s destiny!”