Chapter 13

I am almost ashamed to confess how deeply the scene she had witnessed affected Cecil Tresilyan. The exhibition of Keene's fierce temper ought certainly to have warned, if it did not disgust her. She could only think--"It was for my sake that he was so angry, and he yielded to my first word."

There is rather a heavy run just now against the "physical force" doctrine. It seems to me that some of its opponents are somewhat hypercritical. For many, many years romancists persisted in attributing to their principal heroes every point of bodily perfection and accomplishment; no one thought then of caviling at such a well-understood and established type. That most fertile and meritorious of writers, for instance, Mr. G. P. R. James, invariably makes his _jeun premier_ at least moderately athletic; so much so, that when he has the villain of the tale at his sword's point we feel a comfortable confidence that virtue will triumph as it deserves. As such a contingency is certain to occur twice or thrice in the course of the narrative, a nervous reader is spared much anxiety and trouble of mind by this satisfactory arrangement. _Nous avons changé tout cela._ Modern refinement requires that the chief character shall be made interesting in spite of his being dwarfish, plain-featured, and a victim to pulmonary or some more prosaic disease. Clearly we are right. What is the use of advancing civilization if it does not correct our taste? What have we to do with the "manners and customs of the English" in the eighteenth century, or with the fictions that beguiled our boyhood? Let our motto still be "Forward;" we have pleasures of which our grandsires never dreamed, and inventions that they were inexcusable in ignoring. We are so great that we can afford to be generous. Let them sleep well, those honest but benighted ancients, who went down to their graves unconscious of "Aunt Sally," and perhaps never properly appreciated _caviare_!

It is true that there are some writers--not the weakest--who still cling to the old-fashioned mould. Putting Lancelot and Amyas out of the question, I think I would sooner have "stood up" to most heroes of romance than to sturdy Adam Bede. It can't be a question of religion or morality, for "muscular _Christianity_" is the stock-sarcasm of the opposite party: it must be a question of good taste. Well, ancient Greece is supposed to have had some floating ideas on _that_ subject, and she deified Strength. It is perfectly true, that to thrash a prize-fighter unnecessarily is not a virtuous or glorious action, but I contend that the _capability_ of doing so is an admirable and enviable attribute. There are grades of physical as well as of moral perfection; and, after all, the same Hand created both.

Have I been replying against the critics? _Absit omen!_ They are more often right, I fear, than authors are willing to allow; for it _is_ aggravating to have one's pet bits of pathos put between inverted commas for the world in general to make a mock at (we could hardly write them down without tears in our eyes), and to have our story condensed into a few clever, pithy sentences (all in the present tense), till its weakness becomes painfully apparent. More than this, our candid friends are impalpable. Real life can furnish us with enough substantial opponents for us not to trouble ourselves about Junius. Neither in war nor love is it expedient to grasp at shadows. Ah! Mr. Reade, why were you not warned by Ixion?

One thing is certain: however sound your arguments in depreciation of personal prowess may be, you will never gain a unanimous feminine verdict. It must be an extraordinary exhibition of mental excellence that will really interest the generality of our sisters for the moment as deeply as a very ordinary feat of strength or skill. It is not that they can not thoroughly appreciate rectitude of feeling, brilliancy of conversation, and distinguished talent; but remember the hackneyed quotation:

Segnius irritant animum demissa per aures, Quam quæ sunt oculis subjecta fidelibus.

If you want a proof of the correctness of Horace's opinion, go up to "Lord's" this month, and watch the flutter among the fair spectators, just after a "forward drive" over the Pavilion; or, better still, the next time the "Grand Military" comes off at Warwick, mark the reception that the man who rides a winner will meet with in the stand. Conventionality has done a good deal, but it has not refined away all the frank, impulsive woman-nature yet. The knights are dust, and their good swords rust; but dame and demoiselle are very much the same as they were in the old days, when the Queen of Scots could sing

How they reveled through the summer night, And by day made lanceshafts flee, For Mary Beatoun, and Mary Seatoun, And Mary Fleming, and me.

Will this long and rather rash _tirade_ in the least excuse Cecil Tresilyan? Of course not. My poor heroine! It was very unnecessary--that advertisement that she was not superior to the weaknesses of her sex; for it seems to me, with every chapter, she has been growing more fallible and frail. She was utterly incapable of being at all demonstrative or "gushing;" but her preference for Royston Keene was now quite undisguised.

Mrs. Danvers was bitterly exasperated. It would be unjust to deny that she was greatly actuated by a sincere interest in her _ci-devant_ pupil's welfare; but other feelings were at work.

It is very remarkable how a perfectly well-principled woman will connive at what she can not approve so long as she is taken unreservedly into confidence; but when once one secret is kept back the danger of her antagonism begins; the magic draught that has lulled the vigilant Gryphon to sleep loses its potency; the guardian of the treasure awakes--more savage because conscious of a dereliction in duty--and woe to the Arimaspian! The cold, pale, chaste moon comes forth from behind the cloud, determined to reveal every iota of transgression: no farther chance of concealment here--_Reparat sua cornua Phoebe_.

So, to the utmost of her small powers, Bessie did endeavor to thwart and counteract the adversary. Her line was consistently plaintive. In season and out of season she whined and wept profusely. This was the last resource of her simple strategy: when the enemy was getting too strong to be met in open field, she adopted the Dutch plan of opening the sluices and trying to drown him. It is painful to be obliged to state that the inundation did not greatly avail. As she had done from the first, Cecil declined to make any confidences, or indeed to discuss the question at all.

Mr. Fullarton, too, felt keenly the defection of a promising proselyte. Since that unfortunate afternoon Miss Tresilyan had been perfectly civil, but always very cold; and he could not but be aware that he had lost ground then that he never could hope to regain. The divine must have been very desperate when he ventured to attack that impracticable brother. It was not a judicious move; nor would any one have tried it who knew Dick Tresilyan. It was not only that he liked and admired Royston Keene, but he had a blind confidence in his sister that nothing on earth could disturb: the evidence of his own senses would not have affected it in the least. "Whatever _she_ does is right," he thought; and he clung to that idea, as many other true believers will do to a creed that they can not understand. So when the question was broached he was not very angry (for he did _more_ than justice to the chaplain's sense of duty), but he stubbornly declined to enter upon it at all. Mr. Fullarton was so provoked that he was goaded into a taunt that he ought to have been ashamed of.

"Perhaps you are right," he said; "Major Keene is so formidable an adversary, that it is hardly safe to interfere with him." (These "men of peace"--_quand ils s'y prennent_! I believe the most exasperating man in England, at this moment, to be an influential Quaker.)

Dick Tresilyan took a long time (as was his wont) in finding out what was meant; when he did, even his limited intellect appreciated its bad taste and absurdity. A hundred sarcasms would not have disconcerted the pastor so completely as his honest, hearty laugh.

"Ah! you think I'm afraid of him? No--they don't breed cowards where I come from. I never heard that idea but once before; that was at the Truro fair. I wasn't in very good company, and they 'planted' a big miner on me at last. He wanted me to wrestle, and when I wouldn't, he said--just what you did. But I remember all the others laughed at him. They know _us_ in those parts, you see. He'd better have kept quiet; for though he puzzled me at first with a 'back trick' he had, I knew more than he did, and he got an awkward fall; I don't think he'll ever do a good day's work again." He paused, and his brow darkened strangely, and all his face changed, till it resembled more closely than it had often done the portraits of come of the "bitter, bad Tresilyans." "I suppose you mean well, Mr. Fullarton, but I'm not going to thank you. We can manage our affairs without your meddling; and if you're wise you'll leave us alone." It will be seen that the chaplain did not take much by his motion.

Neither was Fanny Molyneux well satisfied with the turn affairs had taken lately. That poor little "white witch" was really alarmed by the unruly character of the spirit that she had been anxious to raise; she did not know the proper formula for sending it back to its own place; and, if she had, the stubborn demon would only have mocked at her simple incantations. Though she loved Cecil dearly, she was too much in awe of her to venture upon remonstrance or warning; indeed, the few mild hints that she _did_ throw out had not met with such success as to tempt her to follow them up. So she was, perforce, reduced to an unarmed neutrality.

Her husband was perhaps the most thoroughly uncomfortable of the party. He knew the circumstances and bearings of the question better than any one else, and would have sacrificed a good deal ("his right hand," I believe, is the proper phrase) to have averted the probable result. But he had not sufficient strength of mind to take the decided measures that might have been of some avail; in fact, he had a vague idea that to act on the offensive against his old comrade would be unpardonable treachery. Arguing with the latter was simply absurd; for this reason, if for no other, that from the moment his feelings became really interested, no amount of diplomacy would have induced him to enter upon the subject. Harry went about with a miserable, helpless sense of complicity weighing him down, which was much aggravated by a few words which dropped one morning from Dick Tresilyan.

Dick had been dining _tête-à-tête_ with Keene on the previous evening after a hard day's snipe shooting, and bore evident traces about him of a heavy night--a fact which he lost no time in alluding to, not without a certain pride, like the man in Congreve's play, who exults in having "been drunk in excellent company." "We had a very big drink," he said, confidentially, "and the major got more than his allowance. He didn't know what he was talking about at last, and he told me more of his affairs than most people know, I think; of course, I'm as safe as a church;" and Dick made a gallant but abortive attempt to wink with one of his swollen eyelids.

Molyneux shrank away from the speaker with something very like a suppressed groan--he had heard _that_ said before, and remembered what came of it. Credulity was as dangerous when men thought Royston Keene had lost his head as when women flattered themselves he had lost his heart.