Читать книгу One Of Them - Lever Charles James - Страница 9

Our reader has been told how Mrs. Penthony Morris stormed the Villa Caprini, established herself, child, maid, and Skye terrier within its walls, and became, ere many days went over, a sort of influence in the place. It is not in chemistry alone that a single ingredient, minute and scarce perceptible, can change the property and alter all the quality of the mass with which it is mingled. Human nature exhibits phenomena precisely alike, and certain individuals possess the marvellous power of tingeing the world they mix in, with their own hue and color, and flavoring society with sweet or bitter, as temper induces them. The first and most essential quality of such persons is a rapid – an actually instinctive – appreciation of the characters they meet, even passingly, in the world’s intercourse. They have not to spell out temperaments slowly and laboriously. To them men’s natures are not written in phonetic signs or dark symbols, but in letters large and legible. They see, salute, speak with you, and they understand you. Not, perhaps, as old friends know you, with reference to this or that minute trick of mind or temper, but, with a far wider range of your character than even old friends have taken, they know your likes and dislikes, the things you fear and hope, the weak points you would fortify, and sometimes the strong ones you would mask, – in a word, for all the purposes of intercourse, they are able to estimate your strength and weakness, and all this ere, perhaps, you have noted the accents of their voice or the color of their eyes.

The lady of whom it is now our business to speak was one of this gifted class. Whence she came, and how she became such, we are not about to enter upon. She had had her share of trials, and yet was both young and good-looking; her good looks in no wise evidencing the vestiges of any sorrow. Whether a widowed or deserted wife, she bore bereavement admirably; indeed, so far as one could see, she professed a very rare ethical philosophy. Her theory was, the world was a very nice world, the people in it very nice people; life itself a very nice thing; and that people, generally speaking, only needed their own consent to be very happy and contented. She had, it is true, some very able adjuncts to carry out her system. There was scarcely an acquirement that she did not possess reasonably well; she spoke several languages, sang, rode, drew, played billiards most gracefully, and could manufacture the most charming cigarettes that ever were smoked. Some of these are envied qualities, and suggest envy; but against this she was careful to guard, and this by a very simple method indeed. In whatever she did, tried, or attempted, she always asked your advice. She had carefully studied the effect of the imputed superiority of those who counsel their neighbors, and she saw in its working one of the most tangible of all human weaknesses. The tendency to guide and direct others is a very popular one. Generous people practise it out of their generosity; gentle natures indulge in the practice in very sympathy. To stern moralists it is an occasion for the hard lessons they love to inculcate. The young are pleased with its importance; the old are gratified to exercise their just prerogative. “Tell me how do you do this;” or, “Teach me how to correct that;” “What would you advise in my place?” or, “What reply would you give to that?” are appeals that involve a very subtle flattery. Every man, and more decisively too, every woman, likes to be deemed shrewd and worldly-wise. Now, Mrs. Morris had reflected deeply over this trait, and saw to what good account care and watchfulness might turn it. He who seeks to be guided by another makes his appeal in a guise of humility, besides, which is always a flattery, and when this is done artfully, with every aid from good looks and a graceful manner, success is rarely wanting; and lastly, it is the only form of selfishness the world neither resents nor repudiates.

He who comes to you with a perfectly finished tale of his misfortunes, with “Finis” written on the last volume of his woes, is simply a bore; whereas he who approaches you while the catastrophe yet hangs impending, has always an interest attached to him. He may marry the heiress yet, he may be arrested on that charge of forgery, obtain that Cross of the Bath, or be shot in that duel; you are at least talking to a man Fortune has not done with, and this much is something.

Mrs. Morris had been little more than a fortnight domesticated at the Villa Caprini, where her weakness still detained her, and yet she had contrived to consult Sir William about her fortune, invested, almost entirely, in “Peruvians,” which her agent, Mr. Halker, had told her were “excellent;” but whether the people of that name, or the country, or the celebrated Bark, was the subject of the investment, she really professed not to know.

To May Leslie she had confided the great secret of her heart, – an unpublished novel; a story mainly comprised of the sad events of her own life, and the propriety of giving which to the world was the disputed question of her existence.

As to Charles, she had consulted him how best to disembarrass herself of the attentions of Mr. Mosely, who was really become a persecutor. She owned that in asking his counsel she could not impart to him all the circumstances which he had a right to be possessed of, – she appealed to his delicacy not to question her. So that whether wife or widow, he knew not what she might be, and, in fact, she even made of the obscurity another subject of his interest, and so involved him in her story that he could think of nothing else. She managed each of these confidences with such consummate skill that each believed himself her one sole trusted friend, depositary of her cares, refuge of her sorrows; and while thus insinuating herself into a share of their sympathy, she displayed, as though by mere accident, many of her attractions, and gave herself an opportunity of showing how interesting she was in her sorrow and how fascinating in her joy!

The Heathcotes – father, son, and niece – were possessed of a very ample share of the goods of fortune. They had health, wealth, freedom to live where and how they liked.

They were well disposed towards each other and towards the world; inclined to enjoy life, and suited to its enjoyment. But somehow, pretty much like some mass of complicated machinery, which by default of some small piece of mechanism – a spring, a screw, or a pinion the more – stands idle and inert, – all its force useless, all its power unused, they had no pursuit, – did nothing. Mrs. Morris was exactly the motive power wanting; and by her agency interests sprang up, occupations were created, pleasures invented. Without bustle, without even excitement, the dull routine of the day grew animate; the hours sped glibly along. Little Clara, too, was no small aid to this change. In the quiet monotony of a grave household a child’s influence is magical. As the sight of a butterfly out at sea brings up thoughts of shady alleys and woodbine-covered windows, of “the grass and the flowers among the grass,” so will a child’s light step and merry voice throw a whole flood of sunny associations over the sad-colored quietude of some old house. Clara was every one’s companion and everywhere, – with Charles as he fished, with May Leslie in the flower-garden, with old Sir William in the orangery, or looking over pictures beside him in the long-galleried library.

Mrs. Morris herself was yet too great an invalid for an active life. Her chair would be wheeled out into the lawn, under the shade of an immense weeping-ash, and there, during the day, as to some “general staff,” came all the “reports” of what was doing each morning. Newspapers and books would be littered about her, and even letters brought her to read, from dear friends, with whose names conversation had made her familiar. A portion of time was, however, reserved for Clara’s lessons, which no plan or project was ever suffered to invade.

It may seem a somewhat dreary invitation if we ask our readers to assist at one of these mornings. Pinnock and Mrs. Barbauld and Mangnall are, perhaps, not the company to their taste, nor will they care to cast up multiplications, or stumble through the blotted French exercise. Well, we can only pledge ourselves not to exaggerate the infliction of these evils. And now to our task. It is about eleven o’clock of a fine summer’s day, in Italy; Mrs. Morris sits at her embroidery-frame, under the long-branched willow; Clara, at a table near, is drawing, her long silky curls falling over the paper, and even interfering with her work, as is shown by an impatient toss of her head, or even a hastier gesture, as with her hands she flings them back upon her neck.

“It was to Charley I said it, mamma,” said she, without lifting her head, and went on with her work.

“Have I not told you, already, to call him Mr. Charles Heathcote, or Mr. Heathcote, Clara?”

“But he says he won’t have it.”

“What an expression, – ‘won’t have it’!”

“Well, I know,” cried she, with impatience; and then laughingly said, “I ‘ve forgot, in a hurry, old dear Lindley Murray.”

“I beg of you to give up that vile trash of doggerel rhyme. And now what was it you said to Mr. Heathcote?”

“I told him that I was an only child, – ‘a violet on a grassy bank, in sweetness all alone,’ as the little book says.”

“And then he asked about your papa; if you remembered him?”

“No, mamma.”

“He made some mention, some allusion, to papa?”

“Only a little sly remark of how fond he must be of me, or I of him.”

“And what did you answer?”

“I only wiped my eyes, mamma; and then he seemed so sorry to have given me pain that he spoke of something else. Like Sir Guyon, —

“And then you left him, and came away?” said her mother.

“Yes, mamma. I said it was my lesson time, and that you were so exact and so punctual that I did not dare to be late.”

“Was it then he asked if mamma had always been your governess, Clara?”

“No; it was May that asked that question. May Leslie has a very pretty way of pumping, mamma, though you ‘d not suspect it She begins with the usual ‘Are you very fond of Italy?’ or ‘Don’t you prefer England?’ and then ‘What part of England?’”

Mrs. Morris bit her lip, and colored slightly; and then, laying her work on her lap, stared steadfastly at the girl, still deeply intent on her drawing.

“I like them to begin that way,” continued Clara. “It costs no trouble to answer such bungling questions; and whenever they push me closer, I ‘ve an infallible method, mamma, – it never fails.”

“What’s that?” asked her mother, dryly.

“I just say, as innocently as possible, ‘I ‘ll run and ask mamma; I ‘m certain she ‘ll be delighted to tell you.’ And then, if you only saw the shame and confusion they get into, saying, ‘On no account, Clara dearest. I had no object in asking. It was mere idle talking,’ and so on. Oh dear! what humiliation all their curiosity costs them!”

“You try to be too shrewd, too cunning, Miss Clara,” said her mother, rebukingly. “It is a knife that often cuts with the handle. Be satisfied with discovering people’s intentions, and don’t plume yourself about the cleverness of finding them out, or else, Clara,” – and here she spoke more slowly, – “or else, Clara, they will find you out too.”

“Oh, surely not, while I continue the thoughtless, guileless little child mamma has made me,” said she. And the tears rose to her eyes, with an expression of mingled anger and sorrow it was sad to see in one so young.

“Clara!” cried her mother, in a voice of angry meaning; and then, suddenly checking herself, she said, in a lower tone, “let there be none of this.”

“Sir William asked me how old I was, mamma.”

“And you said – ”

“I believed twelve. Is it twelve? I ought to know, mamma, something for certain, for I was eleven two years ago, and then I have been ten since that; and when I was your sister, at Brighton, I was thirteen.”

“Do you dare – ” But ere she said more, the child had buried her head between her hands, and, by the convulsive motion of her shoulders, showed that she was sobbing bitterly. The mother continued her work, unmoved by this emotion. She took occasion, it is true, when lifting up the ball of worsted which had fallen, to glance furtively towards the child; but, except by this, bestowed no other notice on her.

“Well,” cried the little girl, with a half-wild laugh, as she flung back her yellow hair, “Anderson says, —

And I believe one is just as pleasant as the other, – eh, mamma? You ought to know.”

“This is one of your naughty days, Clara, and I had hoped we had seen the last of them,” said her mother, in a grave but not severe tone.

“The naughty days are much more like to see the last of me,” said the child, half aloud, and with a heavy sigh.

“Clara,” said her mother, in the same calm, quiet voice, “I have made you my friend and my confidante at an age when any other had treated you with strict discipline and reserve. You have been taught to see life – as my sad experience revealed it to me, too – too late.”

“And for me, too – too soon!” burst in the child, passionately.

“Here ‘s poor Clara breaking her heart over her exercise,” burst in Sir William, as he came forward, and, stooping over the child, kissed her twice on the forehead. “Do let me have a favor to-day, and let this be a holiday.”

“Oh, yes, by all means,” cried she, eagerly, clapping her hands.

“Oh, what a rhyme” laughed in Mrs. Morris.

“Oh, let her go on,” cried Sir William. “Go on, Clara.”

There, mamma, no more, – not another the whole day long, I promise you,” cried she, as she threw her arms around her neck and kissed her affectionately.

I declare I’m forgetting already; so I’ll go and look for Charley, and help him to tie greendrakes, and the rest of them.”

“What a strange child!” said Sir William, as he looked fondly after her as she fled across the lawn.

“I have never seen her so thoroughly happy before,” said Mrs. Morris, with a faint sigh. “This lovely place, these delicious gardens, these charming old woods, the villa itself, so full of objects of interest, have made up a sort of fairy-tale existence for her which is positive enchantment. It is, indeed, high time we should tear ourselves away from fascinations which will leave all life afterwards a very dull affair.”

“Oh, that day is very distant, I should hope,” said he, with sincere cordiality; “indeed, my ward and myself were, this very morning, plotting by what pretext, by what skilful devices, we could induce you to spend your autumn with us.”

Mrs. Morris covered her face, as if to conceal her emotion, but a faint sob was still audible from beneath her handkerchief. “Oh!” cried she, in a faint and broken voice, “if you but knew in what a wounded heart you have poured this balm! – if I could tell – what I cannot tell you – at least, not yet – No, no, Sir William, we must leave this. I have already written to my agent about letters for Alexandria and Cairo. You know,” she added, with a sad smile, “the doctors have sentenced me to Egypt for the winter.”

“These fellows are mere alarmists. Italy is the best climate in the world, or, rather, it has all the climates in the world; besides, I have some wonderful counsel to give you about your bonds. I intend that Miss Clara shall be the great heiress of her day. At all events, you shall settle it with May.” And so, with that dread of a scene, a sort of terror about everything emotional, – not very unnatural in gentlemen of a certain time of life, and with strong sanguineous temperaments, – Sir William hurried away and left her to her own reflections.

Thus alone, Mrs. Morris took a letter from her pocket, and began to read it. Apparently the document had been perused by her before, for she passed hastily over the first page, scarcely skimming the lines with her eye. It was as if to give increased opportunity for judgment on the contents that she muttered the words as she read them. They ran thus: —

“A month or six weeks back our proposal might have been accepted, so at least Collier thinks; but he is now in funds, has money in abundance, and you know what he is at such moments. When Collier went to him at his lodgings in King Street, he found him in high spirits, boasting that he occupied the old quarters of the French Emperor, – that he had even succeeded to his arm-chair and his writing-table. ‘A splendid augury, Tom,’ said he, laughing. ‘Who knows but I, too, shall be “restored” one of these days?’ After some bantering he stopped suddenly, and said, ‘ By the way, what the devil brings you here? Is n’t it something about Loo? They say you want to marry her yourself, Collier, – is that true?’ Not heeding C.‘s denial, given in all solemnity, he went on to show that you could be no possible use to Collier, – that he himself could utilize your abilities, and give your talents a fitting sphere; whereas in Collier’s set you would be utterly lost. C. said it was as good as a play to hear his talk of all the fine things you might have done, and might yet do, in concert. ‘Then there’s Clara, too,’ cried he, again; ‘she ‘ll make the greatest hit of our day. She can come out for a season at the Haymarket, and she can marry whoever she likes.’ Once in this vein, it was very hard to bring him back to anything like a bargain. Indeed, Collier says he would n’t hear of any but immense terms, – ridiculed the notion of your wanting to be free, for mere freedom’s sake, and jocularly said, ‘Tell me frankly, whom does she want to marry? or who wants to marry her! I ‘m not an unreasonable fellow if I ‘m treated on “the square.”’ Collier assured him that you only desired liberty, that you might take your own road in life. ‘Then let her take it, by all means,’ cried he. ‘I am not molesting her, – never have molested her, even when she went so far as to call herself by another name; she need n’t cry out before she’s hurt;’ and so on. C. at last brought him to distinct terms, and he said, ‘She shall cut the painter for five thousand; she’s worth to me every guinea of it, and I’ll not take less.’ Of course, Collier said these were impossible conditions; and then they talked away about other matters. You know his boastful way, and how little reliance can be laid on any statement he makes; but certain it is, Collier came away fully impressed with the flourishing condition of his present fortune, his intimacy with great people, and his actual influence with men in power. That this is not entirely fabulous I have just received a most disagreeable proof. When Collier rose to go away, he said, ‘By the way, you occasionally see Nick Holmes; well, just give him a hint to set his house in order, for they are going to stop payment of that Irish pension of his. It appears, from some correspondence of Lord Cornwallis that has just turned up, Nick’s pension was to be continued for a stated term of years, and that he has been in receipt of it for the last six years without any right whatever. It is very hard on Nick,’ said he, ‘seeing that he sold himself to the devil, not at least to be his own master in this world. I ‘m sorry for the old dog on family grounds, for he is at least one of my father-in-laws.’ I quote his words as Collier gave them, and to-day I have received a Treasury order to forward to the Lords a copy of the letter or warrant under which I received my pension. I mean simply to refer them to my evidence on Shehan’s trial, where my testimony hanged both father and son. If this incident shows nothing else, it demonstrates the amount of information he has of what is doing or to be done in Downing Street. As to the pension, I ‘m not much afraid; my revelations of 1808 would be worse than the cost of me in the budget.

“If I find that nothing can be done with Ludlow, I don’t think I shall remain here longer, and the chances are that I shall take a run as far as Baden, and who says not over the Alps after? Don’t be frightened, dear Loo, we shall meet at the same table d’hôte, drink at the same public spring, bet on the same card at rouge-et-noir, and I will never betray either of us. Of your Heathcotes I can learn next to nothing. There was a baronet of the name who ruined himself by searches after a title – an earldom, I believe – and railroad speculations, but he died, or is supposed to have died, abroad. At all events, your present owners of the name keep a good house, and treat you handsomely, so that there can be no great mistake in knowing them. Sufficient for the day is the evil – as the old saying is; and it is a wise one if we understood how to apply it.

“I have been twice with Hadson and Reames, but there is nothing to be done. They say that the town does not care for a wife’s book against her husband; they have the whole story better told, and on oath, in the Divorce Court. A really slashing volume of a husband against his wife might, however, take; he could say a number of things would amuse the public, and have a large sympathy with him. These are Hadson’s or Reames’s words, I don’t know which, for they always talk together. How odd that you should have thought of the ballet for Clara just as I had suggested it! Of course, till free of Ludlow, it is out of the question. I am sorry to seal and send off such a disagreeable letter, dear Louisa, but who knows the sad exigencies of this weary world better than your affectionate father,

“N. Holmes.

“I accidentally heard yesterday that there was actually a Mrs. Penthony Morris travelling somewhere in Switzerland. Washington Irving, I believe, once chanced upon a living Ichabod Crane, when he had flattered himself that the name was his own invention. The complication in the present case might be embarrassing. So bear it in mind.”

“Tant pis pour elle, whoever the other Mrs. Morris may be,” said she, laughing, as she folded up the letter, and half mechanically regarded the seal. “You ought to change your crest, respectable father mine,” muttered she; “the wags might say that your portcullis was a gallows.” And then, with a weary sigh, she closed her eyes, and fell a-thinking.

That quiet, tranquil, even-tempered category of mankind, whose present has few casualties, and whose future is, so far as human foresight can extend, assured to them, can form not the slightest conception of the mingled pleasure and pain that chequer the life of “the adventurer.” The man who consents to gamble existence, has all the violent ecstasies of joy and grief that wait on changeful fortunes.

“Shall I hit upon the right number this time? Will red win once more? Is the run of luck good or ill, or, it may be, exhausted?” These are questions ever rising to his mind; and what contrivance, what preparation, what spirit of exigency do they evoke! Theirs is a hand-to-hand conflict with Fate; they can subsidize no legions, skulk behind no parapets; in open field must the war be carried on; and what a cruel war it becomes when every wound festers into a crime!

This young and pretty woman, on whose fair features not a painful line was traced, and whose beautifully chiselled mouth smiled with a semblance of inward peace, was just then revolving thoughts little flattering to humanity generally. She had, all young as she was, arrived at the ungracious conclusion that what are called the good are mere dupes, and that every step in life’s ladder only lifts us higher and higher out of the realm of kindly sympathies and affections. Reading the great moralist in a version of their own, such people deem all virtue “vanity,” and the struggles and sacrifices it entails, “vexation of spirit.” Let us frankly own that Mrs. Morris did not lose herself in any world of abstractions; she was eminently practical, and would no more have thrown away her time in speculations on humanity generally than would a whist-player, in the crisis of the odd trick, have suffered his mind to wander away to the manufactory where the cards were made, and the lives and habits of those who made them.

And now she had to think over Sir William, of whom she was half afraid; of Charles, whom she but half liked; and of May, whom she half envied. There were none of them very deep or difficult to read, but she had seen enough of life to know that many people, like fairy tales, are simple in perusal, but contain some subtle maxim, some cunning truth, in their moral. Were these of this order? She could not yet determine; how, therefore, should we? And so we leave her.