Book: My Novel, Volume 11.

E >> Edward Bulwer Lytton >> My Novel, Volume 11.



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BOOK ELEVENTH.


INITIAL CHAPTER.

ON THE IMPORTANCE OF HATE AS AN AGENT IN CIVILIZED LIFE.

It is not an uncommon crotchet amongst benevolent men to maintain that
wickedness is necessarily a sort of insanity, and that nobody would make
a violent start out of the straight path unless stung to such disorder by
a bee in his bonnet. Certainly when some very clever, well-educated
person like our friend, Randal Leslie, acts upon the fallacious principle
that "roguery is the best policy," it is curious to see how many points
he has in common with the insane: what over-cunning, what irritable
restlessness, what suspicious belief that the rest of the world are in a
conspiracy against him, which it requires all his wit to baffle and turn
to his own proper aggrandizement and profit. Perhaps some of my readers
may have thought that I have represented Randal as unnaturally far-
fetched in his schemes, too wire-drawn and subtle in his speculations;
yet that is commonly the case with very refining intellects, when they
choose to play the knave; it helps to disguise from themselves the
ugliness of their ambition, just as a philosopher delights in the
ingenuity of some metaphysical process, which ends in what plain men call
"atheism," who would be infinitely shocked and offended if he were called
an atheist.

Having premised thus much on behalf of the "Natural" in Randal Leslie's
character, I must here fly off to say a word or two on the agency in
human life exercised by a passion rarely seen without a mask in our
debonair and civilized age,--I mean Hate.

In the good old days of our forefathers, when plain speaking and hard
blows were in fashion, when a man had his heart at the tip of his tongue,
and four feet of sharp iron dangling at his side, Hate played an honest,
open part in the theatre of the world. In fact, when we read History,
Hate seems to have "starred it" on the stage. But now, where is Hate?
Who ever sees its face? Is it that smiling, good-tempered creature, that
presses you by the hand so cordially, or that dignified figure of state
that calls you its "Right Honourable friend"? Is it that bowing,
grateful dependent; is it that soft-eyed Amaryllis? Ask not, guess not:
you will only know it to be hate when the poison is in your cup, or the
poniard in your breast. In the Gothic age, grim Humour painted "the
Dance of Death;" in our polished century, some sardonic wit should give
us "the Masquerade of Hate."

Certainly, the counter-passion betrays itself with ease to our gaze.
Love is rarely a hypocrite. But Hate--how detect, and how guard against
it? It lurks where you least suspect it; it is created by causes that
you can the least foresee; and Civilization multiplies its varieties,
whilst it favours its disguise: for Civilization increases the number of
contending interests, and Refinement renders more susceptible to the
least irritation the cuticle of Self-Love. But Hate comes covertly forth
from some self-interest we have crossed, or some self-love we have
wounded; and, dullards that we are, how seldom we are aware of our
offence! You may be hated by a man you have never seen in your life: you
may be hated as often by one you have loaded with benefits; you may so
walk as not to tread on a worm; but you must sit fast on your easy-chair
till you are carried out to your bier, if you would be sure not to tread
on some snake of a foe. But, then, what harm does the hate do us? Very
often the harm is as unseen by the world as the hate is unrecognized by
us. It may come on us, unawares, in some solitary byway of our life;
strike us in our unsuspecting privacy; thwart as in some blessed hope we
have never told to another; for the moment the world sees that it is Hate
that strikes us, its worst power of mischief is gone.

We have a great many names for the same passion,--Envy, Jealousy, Spite,
Prejudice, Rivalry; but they are so many synonyms for the one old heathen
demon. When the death-giving shaft of Apollo sent the plague to some
unhappy Achaean, it did not much matter to the victim whether the god
were called Helios or Smintheus.

No man you ever met in the world seemed more raised above the malice of
Hate than Audley Egerton: even in the hot war of politics he had scarcely
a personal foe; and in private life he kept himself so aloof and apart
from others that he was little known, save by the benefits the waste of
his wealth conferred. That the hate of any one could reach the austere
statesman on his high pinnacle of esteem,--you would have smiled at the
idea! But Hate is now, as it ever has been, an actual Power amidst "the
Varieties of Life;" and, in spite of bars to the door, and policemen in
the street, no one can be said to sleep in safety while there wakes the
eye of a single foe.




CHAPTER II.

The glory of Bond Street is no more. The title of Bond Street Lounger
has faded from our lips. In vain the crowd of equipages and the blaze of
shops: the renown of Bond Street was in its pavement, its pedestrians.
Art thou old enough, O reader! to remember the Bond Street Lounger and
his incomparable generation? For my part, I can just recall the decline
of the grand era. It was on its wane when, in the ambition of boyhood,
I first began to muse upon high neck cloths and Wellington boots. But
the ancient /habitues/--the /magni nominis umbrae/, contemporaries of
Brummell in his zenith, boon companions of George IV. in his regency--
still haunted the spot. From four to six in the hot month of June, they
sauntered stately to and fro, looking somewhat mournful even then,
foreboding the extinction of their race. The Bond Street Lounger was
rarely seen alone: he was a social animal, and walked arm in arm with his
fellow-man. He did not seem born for the cares of these ruder times; not
made was he for an age in which Finsbury returns members to parliament.
He loved his small talk; and never since then has talk been so pleasingly
small. Your true Bond Street Lounger had a very dissipated look. His
youth had been spent with heroes who loved their bottle. He himself had
perhaps supped with Sheridan. He was by nature a spendthrift: you saw it
in the roll of his walk. Men who make money rarely saunter; men who save
money rarely swagger. But saunter and swagger both united to stamp
PRODIGAL on the Bond Street Lounger. And so familiar as he was with his
own set, and so amusingly supercilious with the vulgar residue of mortals
whose faces were strange to Bond Street! But he is gone. The world,
though sadder for his loss, still strives to do its best without him; and
our young men, nowadays, attend to model cottages, and incline to
Tractarianism. Still the place, to an unreflecting eye, has its
brilliancy and bustle; but it is a thoroughfare, not a lounge. And adown
the thoroughfare, somewhat before the hour when the throng is thickest,
passed two gentlemen of an appearance exceedingly out of keeping with the
place.--Yet both had the air of men pretending to aristocracy,--an old-
world air of respectability and stake in the country, and Church-and-
Stateism. The burlier of the two was even rather a beau in his way. He
had first learned to dress, indeed, when Bond Street was at its acme, and
Brummell in his pride. He still retained in his garb the fashion of his
youth; only what then had spoken of the town, now betrayed the life of
the country. His neckcloth ample and high, and of snowy whiteness, set
off to comely advantage a face smooth-shaven, and of clear florid hues;
his coat of royal blue, with buttons in which you might have seen
yourself "veluti in speculum", was rather jauntily buttoned across a
waist that spoke of lusty middle age, free from the ambition, the
avarice, and the anxieties that fret Londoners into thread-papers; his
small-clothes, of grayish drab, loose at the thigh and tight at the knee,
were made by Brummell's own breeches-maker, and the gaiters to match
(thrust half-way down the calf), had a manly dandyism that would have
done honour to the beau-ideal of a county member. The profession of this
gentleman's companion was unmistakable,--the shovel-hat, the clerical cut
of the coat, the neckcloth without collar, that seemed made for its
accessory the band, and something very decorous, yet very mild, in the
whole mien of this personage, all spoke of one who was every inch the
gentleman and the parson.

"No," said the portlier of these two persons,--"no, I can't say I like
Frank's looks at all. There's certainly something on his mind. However,
I suppose it will be all out this evening."

"He dines with you at your hotel, Squire? Well, you must be kind to him.
We can't put old heads upon young shoulders."

"I don't object to his bead being young," returned the squire; "but I
wish he had a little of Randal Leslie's good sense in it. I see how it
will end; I must take him back to the country; and if he wants
occupation, why, he shall keep the hounds, and I'll put him into Brooksby
farm."

"As for the hounds," replied the parson, "hounds necessitate horses; and
I think more mischief comes to a young man of spirit from the stables
than from any other place in the world. They ought to be exposed from
the pulpit, those stables!" added Mr. Dale, thoughtfully; "see what they
entailed upon Nimrod! But Agriculture is a healthful and noble pursuit,
honoured by sacred nations, and cherished by the greatest men in
classical times. For instance, the Athenians were--"

"Bother the Athenians!" cried the squire, irreverently; "you need not go
so far back for an example. It is enough for a Hazeldean that his father
and his grandfather and his great-grandfather all farmed before him; and
a devilish deal better, I take it, than any of those musty old Athenians,
no offence to them. But I'll tell you one thing, Parson, a man to farm
well, and live in the country, should have a wife; it is half the
battle."

"As to a battle, a man who is married is pretty sure of half, though not
always the better half, of it," answered the parson, who seemed
peculiarly facetious that day. "Ah, Squire, I wish I could think Mrs.
Hazeldean right in her conjecture!--you would have the prettiest
daughter-in-law in the three kingdoms. And I do believe that, if I could
have a good talk with the young lady apart from her father, we could
remove the only objection I know to the marriage. Those Popish errors--"

"Ah, very true!" cried the squire; "that Pope sticks hard in my gizzard.
I could excuse her being a foreigner, and not having, I suppose, a
shilling in her pocket--bless her handsome face!--but to be worshipping
images in her room instead of going to the parish church, that will never
do. But you think you could talk her out of the Pope, and into the
family pew?"

"Why, I could have talked her father out of the Pope, only, when he had
not a word to say for himself, he bolted out of the window. Youth is
more ingenuous in confessing its errors."

"I own," said the squire, "that both Harry and I had a favourite notion
of ours till this Italian girl got into our heads. Do you know we both
took a great fancy to Randal's little sister,--pretty, blushing, English-
faced girl as ever you saw. And it went to Harry's good heart to see her
so neglected by that silly, fidgety mother of hers, her hair hanging
about her ears; and I thought it would be a fine way to bring Randal and
Frank more together, and enable me to do something for Randal himself,--a
good boy with Hazeldean blood in his veins. But Violante is so handsome,
that I don't wonder at the boy's choice; and then it is our fault,--we
let them see so much of each other as children. However, I should be
very angry if Rickeybockey had been playing sly, and running away from
the Casino in order to give Frank an opportunity to carry on a
clandestine intercourse with his daughter."

"I don't think that would be like Riccabocca; more like him to run away
in order to deprive Frank of the best of all occasions to court Violante,
if he so desired; for where could he see more of her than at the Casino?"

SQUIRE.--"That's well put. Considering he was only a foreign doctor,
and, for aught we know, once went about in a caravan, he is a gentleman-
like fellow, that Rickeybockey. I speak of people as I find them. But
what is your notion about Frank? I see you don't think he is in love
with Violante, after all. Out with it, man; speak plain."

PARSON.--"Since you so urge me, I own I do not think him in love with
her; neither does my Carry, who is uncommonly shrewd in such matters."

SQUIRE.--"Your Carry, indeed!--as if she were half as shrewd as my Harry.
Carry--nonsense!"

PARSON (reddening).---"I don't want to make invidious remarks; but, Mr.
Hazeldean, when you sneer at my Carry, I should not be a man if I did not
say that--"

SQUIRE (interrupting).--"She is a good little woman enough; but to
compare her to my Harry!"

PARSON.--"I don't compare her to your Harry; I don't compare her to any
woman in England, Sir. But you are losing your temper, Mr. Hazeldean!"

SQUIRE.--"I!"

PARSON.--"And people are staring at you, Mr. Hazeldean. For decency's
sake, compose yourself, and change the subject. We are just at the
Albany. I hope that we shall not find poor Captain Higginbotham as ill
as he represents himself in his letter. Ah, is it possible? No, it
cannot be. Look--look!"

SQUIRE.--"Where--what--where? Don't pinch so hard. Bless me, do you see
a ghost?"

PARSON.--"There! the gentleman in black!"

SQUIRE.--"Gentleman in black! What! in broad daylight! Nonsense!"

Here the parson made a spring forward, and, catching the arm of the
person in question, who himself had stopped, and was gazing intently on
the pair, exclaimed,

"Sir, pardon me; but is not your name Fairfield? Ah, it is Leonard,--it
is--my dear, dear boy! What joy! So altered, so improved, but still the
same honest face. Squire, come here--your old friend, Leonard
Fairfield."

"And he wanted to persuade me," said the squire, shaking Leonard heartily
by the hand, "that you were the Gentleman in Black; but, indeed, he has
been in strange humours. and tantrums all the morning. Well, Master
Lenny; why, you are grown quite a gentleman! The world thrives with you,
eh? I suppose you are head-gardener to some grandee."

"Not that, sir," said Leonard, smiling; "but the world has thriven with
me at last, though not without some rough usage at starting. Ah, Mr.
Dale, you can little guess how often I have thought of you and your
discourse on Knowledge; and, what is more, how I have lived to feel the
truth of your words, and to bless the lesson."

PARSON (much touched and flattered).--"I expected nothing less from you,
Leonard; you were always a lad of great sense, and sound judgment. So
you have thought of my little discourse on Knowledge, have you?"

SQUIRE.--"Hang knowledge! I have reason to hate the word. It burned
down three ricks of mine; the finest ricks you ever set eyes on, Mr.
Fairfield."

PARSON.--"That was not knowledge, Squire; that was ignorance."

SQUIRE.--"Ignorance! The deuce it was. I'll just appeal to you, Mr.
Fairfield. We have been having sad riots in the shire, and the
ringleader was just such another lad as you were!"

LEONARD.--"I am very much obliged to you, Mr. Hazeldean. In what
respect?"

SQUIRE.--"Why, he was a village genius, and always reading some cursed
little tract or other; and got mighty discontented with King, Lords, and
Commons, I suppose, and went about talking of the wrongs of the poor, and
the crimes of the rich, till, by Jove, sir, the whole mob rose one day
with pitchforks and sickles, and smash went Farmer Smart's thrashing-
machines; and on the same night my ricks were on fire. We caught the
rogues, and they were all tried; but the poor deluded labourers were let
off with a short imprisonment. The village genius, thank Heaven, is sent
packing to Botany Bay."

LEONARD.--"But did his books teach him to burn ricks and smash machines?"

PARSON.--"No; he said quite the contrary, and declared that he had no
hand in those misdoings."

SQUIRE.--"But he was proved to have excited, with his wild talk, the
boobies who had! 'Gad, sir, there was a hypocritical Quaker once, who
said to his enemy, 'I can't shed thy blood, friend, but I will hold thy
head under water till thou art drowned.' And so there is a set of
demagogical fellows, who keep calling out, 'Farmer, this is an oppressor,
and Squire, that is a vampire! But no violence! Don't smash their
machines, don't burn their ricks! Moral force, and a curse on all
tyrants!' Well, and if poor Hodge thinks moral force is all my eye, and
that the recommendation is to be read backwards, in the devil's way of
reading the Lord's prayer, I should like to know which of the two ought
to go to Botany Bay,--Hodge, who comes out like a man, if he thinks he is
wronged, or t' other sneaking chap, who makes use of his knowledge to
keep himself out of the scrape?"

PARSON.--"It may be very true; but when I saw that poor fellow at the
bar, with his intelligent face, and heard his bold clear defence, and
thought of all his hard struggles for knowledge, and how they had ended,
because he forgot that knowledge is like fire, and must not be thrown
amongst flax,--why, I could have given my right hand to save him. And,
oh, Squire, do you remember his poor mother's shriek of despair when he
was sentenced to transportation for life--I hear it now! And what,
Leonard--what do you think had misled him? At the bottom of all the
mischief was a tinker's bag. You cannot forget Sprott?"

LEONARD.--"Tinker's bag! Sprott!"

SQUIRE.---"That rascal, sir, was the hardest follow to nab you could
possibly conceive; as full of quips and quirks as an Old Bailey lawyer.
But we managed to bring it home to him. Lord! his bag was choke-full of
tracts against every man who had a good coat on his back; and as if that
was not enough, cheek by jowl with the tracts were lucifers, contrived on
a new principle, for teaching my ricks the theory of spontaneous
combustion. The labourers bought the lucifers--"

PARSON.--"And the poor village genius bought the tracts."

SQUIRE.--"All headed with a motto, 'To teach the working classes that
knowledge is power.' So that I was right in saying that knowledge had
burnt my ricks; knowledge inflamed the village genius, the village genius
inflamed fellows more ignorant than himself, and they inflamed my
stackyard. However, lucifers, tracts, village genius, and Sprott are all
off to Botany Bay; and the shire has gone on much the better for it. So
no more of your knowledge for me, begging your pardon, Mr. Fairfield.
Such uncommonly fine ricks as mine were too! I declare, Parson, you are
looking as if you felt pity for Sprott; and I saw you, indeed, whispering
to him as he was taken out of court."

PARSON (looking sheepish).--"Indeed, Squire, I was only asking him what
had become of his donkey, an unoffending creature."

SQUIRE.--"Unoffending! Upset me amidst a thistle-bed in my own village
green! I remember it. Well, what did he say had become of the donkey?"

PARSON.--"He said but one word; but that showed all the vindictiveness of
his disposition. He said it with a horrid wink, that made my blood run
cold. 'What's become of your poor donkey?' said I, and he answered--"

SQUIRE.--"Go on. He answered--"

PARSON.--"'Sausages.'"

SQUIRE.--"Sausages! Like enough; and sold to the poor; and that's what
the poor will come to if they listen to such revolutionizing villains.
Sausages! Donkey sausages! "(spitting)--"'T is bad as eating one
another; perfect cannibalism."

Leonard, who had been thrown into grave thought by the history of Sprott
and the village genius, now pressing the parson's hand, asked permission
to wait on him before Mr. Dale quitted London; and was about to withdraw,
when the parson, gently detaining him, said, "No; don't leave me yet,
Leonard,--I have so much to ask you, and to talk about. I shall be at
leisure shortly. We are just now going to call on a relation of the
squire's, whom you must recollect, I am sure,--Captain Higginbotham--
Barnabas Higginbotham. He is very poorly."

"And I am sure he would take it kind in you to call too," said the
squire, with great good-nature.

LEONARD.--"Nay, sir, would not that be a great liberty?"

SQUIRE.--"Liberty! To ask a poor sick gentleman how he is? Nonsense.
And I say, Sir, perhaps, as no doubt you have been living in town, and
know more of newfangled notions than I do,--perhaps you can tell us
whether or not it is all humbug,--that new way of doctoring people."

LEONARD.--"What new way, sir. There are so many."

SQUIRE.--"Are there? Folks in London do look uncommonly sickly. But my
poor cousin (he was never a Solomon) has got hold, he says, of a homely--
homely---What's the word, Parson?"

PARSON. "Homoeopathist."

SQUIRE.--"That's it. You see the captain went to live with one Sharpe
Currie, a relation who had a great deal of money, and very little liver;
--made the one, and left much of the other in Ingee, you understand. The
captain had expectations of the money. Very natural, I dare say; but
Lord, sir, what do you think has happened? Sharpe Currie has done him.
Would not die, Sir; got back his liver, and the captain has lost his own.
Strangest thing you ever heard. And then the ungrateful old Nabob has
dismissed the captain, saying, 'He can't bear to have invalids about
him;' and is going to marry, and I have no doubt will have children by
the dozen!"

PARSON.--" It was in Germany, at one of the Spas, that Mr. Currie
recovered; and as he had the selfish inhumanity to make the captain go
through a course of waters simultaneously with himself, it has so chanced
that the same waters that cured Mr. Currie's liver have destroyed Captain
Higginbotham's. An English homoeopathic physician, then staying at the
Spa, has attended the captain hither, and declares that he will restore
him by infinitesimal doses of the same chemical properties that were
found in the waters which diseased him. Can there be anything in such a
theory?"

LEONARD.--"I once knew a very able, though eccentric homoeopathist, and I
am inclined to believe there may be something in the system. My friend
went to Germany; it may possibly be the same person who attends the
captain. May I ask his name?"

SQUIRE.---"Cousin Barnabas does not mention it. You may ask it of
himself, for here we are at his chambers. I say, Parson" (whispering
slyly), "if a small dose of what hurt the captain is to cure him, don't
you think the proper thing would be a--legacy? Ha! ha!"

PARSON (trying not to laugh).--"Hush, Squire. Poor human nature! We
must be merciful to its infirmities. Come in, Leonard."

Leonard, interested in his doubt whether he might thus chance again upon
Dr. Morgan, obeyed the invitation, and with his two companions followed
the woman, who "did for the captain and his rooms," across the small
lobby, into the presence of the sufferer.




CHAPTER III.

Whatever the disposition towards merriment at his cousin's expense
entertained by the squire, it vanished instantly at the sight of the
captain's doleful visage and emaciated figure.

"Very good in you to come to town to see me,--very good in you, cousin,
and in you, too, Mr. Dale. How very well you are both looking! I'm a
sad wreck. You might count every bone in my body."

"Hazeldean air and roast beef will soon set you up, my boy," said the
squire, kindly. "You were a great goose to leave them, and these
comfortable rooms of yours in the Albany."

"They are comfortable, though not showy," said the captain, with tears in
his eyes. "I had done my best to make them so. New carpets, this very
chair--(morocco!), that Japan cat (holds toast and muffins)--just when--
just when"--(the tears here broke forth, and the captain fairly
whimpered)--"just when that ungrateful, bad-hearted man wrote me word
'he was--was dying and lone in the world;' and--and--to think what I've
gone through for him;--and to treat me so! Cousin William, he has grown
as hale as yourself, and--and--"

"Cheer up, cheer up!" cried the compassionate squire. "It is a very hard
case, I allow. But you see, as the old proverb says, "T is ill waiting
for a dead man's shoes;' and in future--I don't mean offence--but I think
if you would calculate less on the livers of your relations, it would be
all the better for your own. Excuse me!"

"Cousin William," replied the poor captain, "I am sure I never
calculated; but still, if you had seen that deceitful man's good-for-
nothing face--as yellow as a guinea--and have gone through all I've gone
through, you would have felt cut to the heart, as I do. I can't bear
ingratitude. I never could. But let it pass. Will that gentleman take
a chair?"

PARSON.--"Mr. Fairfield has kindly called with us, because he knows
something of this system of homeeopathy which you have adopted, and may,
perhaps, know the practitioner. What is the name of your doctor?"

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