Читать книгу The Gipsy: A Tale (Vols I & II) - G. P. R. James - Страница 12

Table of Contents

The mind of man is a curious thing, in some respects not at all unlike an old Gothic castle, full of turnings and windings, long dark passages, spiral staircases, and secret corners. Among all these architectural involutions, too, the ideas go wandering about, generally very much at random, often get astray, often go into a wrong room and fancy it their own; and often, too, it happens that, when one of them is tripping along quite quietly, thinking that all is right, open flies a door; out comes another, and turns the first back again--sometimes rudely, blowing her candle out, and leaving her in the dark,--and sometimes taking her delicately by the tips of the fingers, and leading her to the very spot whence she set out at first.

Colonel Manners, retiring to his bedchamber, though he seldom, if ever, indulged in reveries of happiness which were never to be realized, could not help sitting down to think over the events of the evening, and the circle to which he had been introduced. In the first place, he took great care to turn the idea of Lord Dewry and his rudeness out of the castle, being a great economizer of pleasant thoughts; and then, with somewhat of a sigh (the sort of semi-singultus which people give to something irremediable in their own fate, while contemplating the state of another), he thought, "De Vaux is a very happy man! and yet," he continued, "though she is very beautiful, too, and evidently has deeper feelings beneath that calm exterior, yet, had I had to choose between the two cousins, I would have fixed upon the other." As he thus went on thinking, Colonel Manners began to remember that his thoughts might be treading upon dangerous ground: he did not know even that they might not be drawn into an ambuscade of dreams and wishes which he had long, as he fancied, defeated for ever; and, therefore, he hastily beat the general, and marched the whole detachment off to join his own regiment. What we mean is, that he turned his mind to military affairs, and would very fain have thought no more either of Mrs. Falkland's domestic circle, or of the future happiness of his friend; or, at least, he would have schooled himself, if he did think of such things at all, not to extract any personal feelings therefrom, but to let them be to him as matters in which he had no further share than as in a passing pageant of a pretty device, through which he was to move as he would have done through a minuet, forgetting it all as soon as the music ceased. Still, however, as he went on thinking, open flew some of the doors of association, and ever and anon out started some fresh idea, which brought him back to the happiness of his friend, and the delight of seeing a family circle of one's own, and looks of affection, and a joyful welcome after toil, and exertion, and danger were over.

As sleep, however, is a strong fortress against the attack of dangerous thoughts, he resolved to take refuge there from a force that was too powerful for him; and, going to bed, he was soon within the gates of slumber. But fancy turned traitor within his fortress, and, ere long, whole troops of dreams poured in, laying his heart prostrate before imaginations which he had repelled with veteran courage for more than fourteen years. There was, of course, no resisting under such circumstances: the garrison threw down their arms, and he went on dreaming of love and domestic happiness all night. It did him no harm, however, for one of the most curious phenomena which take place in regard to those wild visitants, dreams, occurred in this case. The visions that had come to him had all been as vivid as reality: he had felt more and more acutely than he had, perhaps, ever felt in life; there had been pleasures and pains, intense and varying; events and feelings which, had they occurred in waking existence, he would have remembered till the last hour of his life; and yet, when he awoke, he had forgotten the whole. It was as if some after-sleep, with a sponge dipped in Lethe, had passed by, and wiped out from the tablet of memory all but a few rough scratches, sufficient to show the dreams had been there.

The day was yet young when he awoke; but Manners was habitually an early riser--a habit that generally springs from two causes--vigorous health, a frame without languor, and easily refreshed; or from a refined heart, at ease within itself. When he had prayed--for all noble-minded beings pray; and the only truly great pride is the pride with which one owns one's self the servant of God: it is the soldier pointing to the colours under which he serves--when he had prayed, he dressed himself, somewhat slowly, gazing from time to time out of the window over the rich landscape sparkling with dew and morning; and then, opening his door, went out with the purpose of breathing the fresh air of the early day. The windows at either end of the corridor were still closed, for it had scarcely struck six, but the skylight over the staircase gave light enough; and Colonel Manners, descending, found a housemaid, with unbought roses on her cheeks, and blue arms, busily washing the marble hall and the steps that went out into the garden, which, stretching away to the south-west, was separated from the park in which the house stood, by a haw-haw and a light fence.

Give me a flower-garden, in the early morning, with its dry gravel-walks shining in the fresh sunbeams, and all the thousands of flowers which man's care and God's bounty have raised to beautify our dwellings, expanding their refreshed petals to the young light. The garden into which Colonel Manners now went forth was an old-fashioned one, with manifold beds, arranged in as many mathematical figures. Each bed, fringed with its close-cut green border of box, was full of as many flowers as it would hold, and as the season afforded; and though of late many a foreign land has been ransacked to procure new exotics for our grounds, yet even then the garden was not without its rich assortment of flowering shrubs; some still bearing the blossom, some fallen into the fruit. Between the beds--and, as the gardens were of very great extent, the beds were not very close together--were spaces of soft green turf, sometimes flanked with holly, or hedged with yew, so as to make a sort of little bowling-green; sometimes wide open to the gay sunshine, and full of innumerable thrushes and blackbirds, hopping along, with their fine shanks sunk amid the blades of grass. Here and there, too, was an arbour covered with clematis; and hothouses and green-houses now and then peeped out from behind the shrubberies, on the sunny side of the garden.

Colonel Manners took his way along a walk that flanked the enclosure to the east, and which, running by the side of the haw-haw, a little elevated above the park and surrounding country, gave, on the one side, an extensive prospect over a rich and smiling landscape, with the deer bounding over the grass, and the cattle lowing along the distant upland; and, on the other, showed the garden--somewhat formal, perhaps, but neat, and beautiful, and sparkling. He was a soldier, and a man of the world, and he loved books, and he did not dislike society; but, perhaps, there never was a man upon earth who more thoroughly enjoyed a solitary morning walk amid flowers and beautiful scenery--scenery in which one can pause and fill one's eye with fair sights, while the ideas springing from each particular blossom, or from the whole general view, can ramble out into a world of indistinct loveliness, wherein one can scarcely be said to think, but rather to live in a sensation of happiness which approaches near to heaven.

Although, as we have observed, one can scarcely be said to think, yet there is no situation on the earth--or very few--in which a man so little likes to have his thoughts interrupted, and his fine imaginations forcibly called back to the dull ground. Colonel Manners, therefore, was not very well pleased, when, after following the walk which he had chosen to the end, he heard footsteps beyond the bushes, round which the path now swept.

Had these footsteps, indeed, possessed that light peculiar sound which is produced by a small and pretty foot, Colonel Manners, who never objected to see the beautiful things of nature enhanced by the presence of the most beautiful, might not have thought his reveries unworthily disturbed. In the present instance, however, the sound was very different: it was the dull, heavy, determined step of a foot that takes a firm hold of the ground; and, as he went on, he was not surprised to meet with Lord Dewry at the turning of the walk.

Colonel Manners, if he had not forgot all about their discussion of the preceding evening, had remembered it as little as possible; and, being one of those happy men who never suffer any annoyance of such a nature to rankle at the heart, he had settled the matter in his own mind by thinking that the old gentleman had the toothache, or some of those corporal pangs and infirmities which cause and excuse ill-temper, and sometimes even rudeness, at that period of life when the passing away of those mighty blessings, vigour and health, is in itself matter enough for irritation. As, however, he never liked to subject himself to occasions for commanding his temper, he proposed, in the present instance, merely to give the peer "Good-morning," and pass on upon his walk.

This purpose he was not permitted to execute; as no sooner did Lord Dewry come opposite to him, than he stopped abruptly, and answered Colonel Manners's salutation by a cold and haughty bow. "Colonel Manners," he said, "I saw you come into the garden from the windows of my room, and I have done myself the honour of seeking you."

The peer spoke slowly and calmly; but Manners, who doubted not that his intention was to apologize, was both somewhat surprised that so proud a man should do so at all, and likewise somewhat puzzled by a sneering curl of the nostril and a slight twinkling of the eyelid, which seemed to betray a spirit not quite so tranquil as his tone would have indicated. "Your lordship does me honour," he replied; "what are your commands?"

"Simply as follows, Colonel Manners," replied Lord Dewry: "I think you last night made use of the term calumny, as applied to part of my discourse; and as I am not in the habit of being insulted without taking measures to redress myself, I have followed you hither for the purpose of arranging the necessary result."

Colonel Manners felt inclined to smile, but he refrained, and replied, seriously, "My lord, I wish to heaven you would forget this business. You thought fit to apply the strongest terms of injury to a gentleman for whom I had expressed my friendship and gratitude; and I pronounced such terms to be calumnious in regard to my friend, but expressed, at the same time, my belief that we were speaking of different persons. For Heaven's sake, let the matter rest where it does: I meant no personal insult to you; I trust you meant none to me. I came down here the friend of your son, on a joyful occasion, and it would pain me not a little to go away the enemy of his father."

The lip of Lord Dewry curled with a bitter and galling sneer. "Colonel Manners," he said, "I believe that you wear a sword."

"I do, sir," replied Manners, reddening; "but I should be unworthy to wear one, did I draw it against a man old enough to be my father."

Lord Dewry, too, reddened. "If, as I perceive, sir," he said, "you intend to make my age your protection, I trust you have calculated the consequences to your reputation, and will understand the light in which I view you. When I am willing, sir, to waive all respect of age, I do not see what you have to do with it."

"Much, my lord," answered Colonel Manners; "much have my own conscience and my own honour to do with it."

"Do not let an officer who is refusing to fight talk of honour, sir," replied Lord Dewry.

"You cannot provoke me to forget myself, Lord Dewry," answered the other; "I hold all duelling in abhorrence, and as any thing but a proof of courage but when the encounter is to be between a young and active man, and one of your lordship's age and probable habits, it is murder outright. Your lordship will excuse me for saying that I think the business a very foolish one, and that I must insist upon its being dropped."

"I shall drop it as far as regards the endeavour to make a man fight who is not disposed to do so," replied Lord Dewry, with an angry and disappointed, rather than a contemptuous, smile, for which he intended it to be; "but, as a matter of course, I shall make generally known the fact that you have refused to draw your sword when called upon."

Colonel Manners laughed. "My lord," he answered, "I have drawn it in eleven different battles in his majesty's service; I have been wounded nine times, and I am quite satisfied with a certain degree of reputation obtained in these affairs, without seeking to increase it by the encounter to which your lordship would provoke me."

Lord Dewry stood and gazed at him for a moment or two with a heavy lowering brow, as if contemplating how he might lash his adversary to the course he sought to bring him to pursue; but the calm and confident courage and cool determination of Colonel Manners foiled him even in his own thoughts; and, after glaring at him thus while one might count twenty, he exclaimed, "You shall repent it, sir! you shall repent it!"

"I do not think it, my lord," replied Manners: "I wish you good-morning;" and he turned calmly on his heel, retreading, with slow steps, the path he had followed from the house.

In the mean time, the pace of Lord Dewry was much more rapid; but for a moment we must pause ourselves, and seize this opportunity of looking into his bosom, and seeing some of the motives which, like Cyclops in the cave of Vulcan, were busy forging all those hot thunderbolts that he was dealing about so liberally--some, we only say some; for were we to look at all, we should have a catalogue too long for recapitulation here. The fact, then, was, that Lord Dewry had been greatly irritated on the previous day, by a conversation of not the most pleasant kind, concerning the very Sir William Ryder of whom he was destined to hear such high praises the moment he set his foot within his sister's doors. Now, for various reasons, unto himself best known, the noble lord hated this Sir William Ryder with a most reverent and solicitous hatred, and would willingly have given a thousand pounds to any one who would have brought him proof positive that he was dead and safely deposited in that earthy chancery, the archives of which, though they contain many a treasured secret, can never meet the searching eye of this inquisitive world. What, then, were his feelings, when he heard that this very man, in regard to whom his darkest passions had been stirred up that very day, and towards whom he had nourished an evergreen animosity for many years--when he heard that, through the instrumentality of Colonel Manners, this man had been made intimate with his only son!

This, then, was Manners's offence; but had it been likely to end there, Lord Dewry might even have forgiven it. Such, however, was not the case: Lord Dewry had some reason to believe that the object of his hatred might visit England; and imagination instantly set up before him the picture of his son, Colonel Manners, and Sir William Ryder meeting, and discussing many things that would be better let alone. Now he trusted and believed that, as far as his ancient enemy was concerned, he could manage his son, and cause him to break off a connection which had not been of long duration; but at the same time he judged it necessary to place a barrier between him and Colonel Manners himself, so as to cut off every link of communication between Edward de Vaux and Sir William Ryder; and for this purpose he at once determined to quarrel with his son's friend; which, in his own irritable and irritated state of mind, he found it not at all difficult to accomplish. On the preceding night he had begun, therefore, with real good-will; and as he was a man totally devoid of any thing like personal fear, and remembered that he had once been a remarkably good swordsman, while he forgot that he was sixty, he was really pleased when Manners made use of a term which promised to give him an opportunity of bringing their dispute to such an issue as must absolutely put an end to the intimacy between his son and Colonel Manners forever. "Even should I receive a wound," he thought, "so much the better;" and, strange as it is to say, had Lord Dewry even contemplated being killed in the encounter he sought, he would have looked upon it with less apprehension than might be supposed, when thereunto was attached the certainty of his son being separated for ever from Charles Manners and from Sir William Ryder; so much less terrible does it often appear to our contradictory nature to meet the eye of God than to encounter the scrutiny of beings like ourselves.

Frustrated by the coolness and firmness of his opponent in the grand object of his morning's walk, he now turned towards the house, animated with a strong desire of accomplishing his purpose by other means. The peer now determined, as it was impossible to make Colonel Manners the aggressor, to induce his own family to take the initiative, and break with the object of his dislike or of his apprehension--for perhaps there might be a little of both at the bottom of his heart; and, with a resolution which was the more imperious and domineering from having seldom suffered contradiction, he sought the apartment of his son.

Edward de Vaux was just up, and was in the act of putting on, one after another, the different parts of his apparel. As this act of clothing one's person, however much pleasure people may take in it habitually, is in itself a laborious and troublesome operation, De Vaux's servant was helping him therein; but the appearance of Lord Dewry, and a hint not to be mistaken, sent the man out of the room, while the noble lord betook him to a chair; and his son, seeing that there was not a little thunder in the dark cloud upon his father's brow, sat, expectant and half-dressed, wondering what was to come next.

"Edward," said his father, in a tone which was intended at once to express parental affection, some slight touch of sadness, and firm relying confidence upon his son's good feelings, but which, in truth, did not succeed in expressing much except a great deal of irritation and heat--"Edward, I have come to speak with you upon last night's unfortunate business, and to give you, in a few words, my opinion upon the subject, in order that you may choose your part at once."

Edward de Vaux, who knew his father well--though he knew not all his motives in the present instance--prepared himself to resist; for he divined, almost immediately from the beginning of Lord Dewry's discourse, what would be the end; being well aware, though he did not choose to put it exactly in such terms to his own heart, that a certain combination of vanity, pride, selfishness, and remorselessness in the bosom of his worthy parent, made him the exact person to resent highly even a slight offence, and to treasure long hatred for a casual word. But Edward de Vaux knew also that he himself stood in a position towards his father different from that in which any other person stood: he knew that the ties of nature, long habit, and irreproachable conduct rendered him the only real object of Lord Dewry's love--the only being who possessed any influence over a mind which never through life, in any other case than his own, had yielded to either persuasion or opposition. He himself, however, had found from experience, that he could resist with success when the ground of resistance was such as satisfied his own heart; and he now, therefore, prepared to practise, upon an occasion of more importance, a behaviour he had sometimes displayed in regard to trifles. He was aware, at the same time, from his soldierly habits, that it was advantageous sometimes to be the attacking party; and when his father paused, a little out of breath with climbing the stairs faster than necessary, and with speaking more vehemently than was becoming, he instantly replied, "Oh, my lord, if you mean the business with Manners, do not think of it any more! Manners is extremely good-humoured, and will forget it at once, I am sure. No further apology is necessary."

"Apology, sir!" exclaimed Lord Dewry; "what do you mean? I have made no apology!"

"No, my lord," replied De Vaux; "but, considering that Manners was my friend, that he saved my life at the risk of his own, that he came down here at my invitation, and that he was a guest in my aunt's house, I thought it necessary to apologize for the manner in which my father had treated him, saying that I was sure you were irritated by some other cause;" and adding--"I felt sure you would--that you would be sorry for having expressed yourself so bitterly, when you reflected upon the circumstances."

"You did, sir!" said Lord Dewry, "you did!--then I have only to tell you that you said what was not the case;" De Vaux reddened; "that you took a great and unwarrantable liberty with my name," continued Lord Dewry, whose passion had quite overcome every restraint; "and that, had you considered your father as much as this new friend, you would have seen that I was the insulted person--that I had a right to demand apology, and you would have broken off all connection with a person who would show so little respect to your parent; and this, sir,--this is what I command you now to do, or to take the consequences of your disobedience."

"My lord," answered De Vaux, cooling himself down as far as possible,--"my lord, as you must already have seen, we view the matter in a very different light. It grieves me bitterly that we should disagree so severely on the very day after my return; but if you wish me to break off my acquaintance with Colonel Manners, because you have thought fit to treat him with some rudeness, I must tell you, at once, such an idea could never be entertained by me for a moment. As to the consequences which your lordship speaks of, I am at a loss to conceive what you mean. A disagreement with your lordship is--"

"The consequences, Captain De Vaux," interrupted his father, with a small red spot glowing in the middle of his sallow cheek--"the consequences may be more bitter than you think. You believe that the estates of the barony, being entailed, must descend to you; but let me tell you, young man--let me tell you," he repeated, approaching nearer to his son, and lowering his voice in tone, but not in emphasis,--"let me tell you, you could be deprived of them by a word. But no more of that," he added, raising his head, and resuming his usual air of dignity, which had been a good deal lost during that morning, "no more of that; the consequences to which I alluded, and to which I now allude, are the displeasure of your father, and the knowledge that you remain the friend of a man who has insulted him."

"Could I see, my dear sir," replied De Vaux, "that Manners had insulted you--"

"It is sufficient, sir, that I see it," interrupted his father, hastily, "it is sufficient that I see it; and I hold myself aggrieved that my son should see it otherwise. But do as you will, Edward de Vaux--do as you will. If you are lost to a sense of filial duty, and refuse to obey my positive injunction to break with this man, you may act as you think fit."