Book: My Novel, Volume 11.

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




RANDAL.--"Not soon--Heaven forbid! His father is still a young man,--a
fine healthy man," leaning heavily on Levy's arm; "and as to
post-obits--"

BARON.--"Post-obits on sound security cost more to buy up, however
healthy the obstructing relative may be."

RANDAL.--"I should hope that there are not many sons who can calculate,
in cold blood, on the death of their fathers."

BARON.--"Ha, ha! He is young, our friend Randal; eh, sir?"

RANDAL.--"Well, I am not more scrupulous than others, I dare say; and I
have often been pinched hard for money, but I would go barefoot rather
than give security upon a father's grave! I can imagine nothing more
likely to destroy natural feeling, nor to instil ingratitude and
treachery into the whole character, than to press the hand of a parent,
and calculate when that hand may be dust; than to sit down with strangers
and reduce his life to the measure of an insurance-table; than to feel
difficulties gathering round one, and mutter in fashionable slang, 'But
it will be all well if the governor would but die.' And he who has
accustomed himself to the relief of post-obits must gradually harden his
mind to all this."

The squire groaned heavily; and had Randal proceeded another sentence in
the same strain, the squire would have wept outright. "But," continued
Randal, altering the tone of his voice, "I think that our young friend,
of whom we were talking just now, Levy, before this gentleman joined us,
has the same opinions as myself on this head. He may accept bills, but
he would never sign post-obits."

BARON (who, with the apt docility of a managed charger to the touch of a
rider's hand, had comprehended and complied with each quick sign of
Randal's).--"Pooh! the young fellow we are talking of? Nonsense. He
would not be so foolish as to give five times the percentage he otherwise
might. Not sign post-obits! Of course he has signed one."

RANDAL.--"Hist! you mistake, you mistake!"

SQUIRE (leaving Randal's arm and seizing Levy's).--"Were you speaking of
Frank Hazeldean?"

BARON.--"My dear sir, excuse me, I never mention names before strangers."

SQUIRE.--"Strangers again! Man, I am the boy's father Speak out, sir,"
and his hand closed on Levy's arm with the strength of an iron vice.

BARON.--"Gently; you hurt me, sir: but I excuse your feelings. Randal,
you are to blame for leading me into this indiscretion; but I beg to
assure Mr. Hazeldean, that though his son has been a little
extravagant--"

RANDAL.--"Owing chiefly to the arts of an abandoned woman."

BARON.--"Of an abandoned woman;--still he has shown more prudence than
you would suppose; and this very post-obit is a proof of it. A simple
act of that kind has enabled him to pay off bills that were running on
till they would have ruined even the Hazeldean estate; whereas a charge
on the reversion of the Casino--"

SQUIRE.--"He has done it then? He has signed a postobit?"

RANDAL.--"No, no, Levy must be wrong."

BARON.--"My dear Leslie, a man of Mr. Hazeldean's time of life cannot
have your romantic boyish notions. He must allow that Frank has acted in
this like a lad of sense--very good head for business has my young friend
Frank! And the best thing Mr. Hazeldean can do is quietly to buy up the
post-obit, and thus he will place his son henceforth in his power."

SQUIRE.--"Can I see the deed with my own eyes?"

BARON.--"Certainly, or how could you be induced to buy it up? But on one
condition; you must not betray me to your son. And, indeed, take my
advice, and don't say a word to him on the matter."

SQUIRE.--"Let me see it, let me see it with my own eyes! His mother else
will never believe it--nor will I."

BARON.--"I can call on you this evening."

SQUIRE.--"Now, now!"

BARON.--"You can spare me, Randal; and you yourself can open to Mr.
Egerton the other affair respecting Lansmere. No time should be lost,
lest L'Estrange suggest a candidate."

RANDAL (whispering).--"Never mind me. This is more important." (Aloud)
--"Go with Mr. Hazeldean. My dear kind friend" (to the squire), "do not
let this vex you so much. After all, it is what nine young men out of
ten would do in the same circumstances. And it is best you should know
it; you may save Frank from further ruin, and prevent, perhaps, this very
marriage."

"We will see," exclaimed the squire, hastily. "Now, Mr. Levy, come."

Levy and the squire walked on, not arm in arm, but side by side. Randal
proceeded to Egerton's house.

"I am glad to see you, Leslie," said the ex-minister. "What is it I have
heard? My nephew, Frank Hazeldean, proposes to marry Madame di Negra
against his father's consent? How could you suffer him to entertain an
idea so wild? And how never confide it to me?"

RANDAL.--"My dear Mr. Egerton, it is only to-day that I was informed of
Frank's engagement. I have already seen him, and expostulated in vain;
till then, though I knew your nephew admired Madame di Negra, I could
never suppose he harboured a serious intention."

EGERTON.--"I must believe you, Randal. I will myself see Madame di
Negra, though I have no power, and no right, to dictate to her. I have
but little time for all such private business. The dissolution of
parliament is so close at hand."

RANDAL (looking down).--"It is on that subject that I wished to speak to
you, sir. You think of standing for Lansmere. Well, Baron Levy has
suggested to me an idea that I could not, of course, even countenance,
till I had spoken to you. It seems that he has some acquaintance with
the state of parties in that borough. He is informed that it is not only
as easy to bring in two of our side as to carry one, but that it would
make your election still more safe not to fight single-handed against two
opponents; that if canvassing for yourself alone, you could not carry a
sufficient number of plumper votes; that split votes would go from you to
one or other of the two adversaries; that, in a word, it is necessary to
pair you with a colleague. If it really be so, you of course will learn
best from your own Committee; but should they concur in the opinion Baron
Levy has formed, do I presume too much on your kindness to deem it
possible that you might allow me to be the second candidate on your side?
I should not say this, but that Levy told me you had some wish to see me
in parliament, amongst the supporters of your policy. And what other
opportunity can occur? Here the cost of carrying two would be scarcely
more than that of carrying one. And Levy says the party would subscribe
for my election; you, of course, would refuse all such aid for your own;
and indeed, with your great name, and Lord Lansmere's interest, there can
be little beyond the strict legal expenses."

As Randal spoke thus at length, he watched anxiously his patron's
reserved, unrevealing countenance.

EGERTON (dryly).--"I will consider. You may safely leave in my hands any
matter connected with your ambition and advancement. I have before told
you I hold it a duty to do all in my power for the kinsman of my late
wife, for one whose career I undertook to forward, for one whom honour
has compelled to share in my own political reverses."

Here Egerton rang the bell for his hat and gloves, and walking into the
hall, paused at the street door. There beckoning to Randal, he said,
slowly, "You seem intimate with Baron Levy; I caution you against him,
--a dangerous acquaintance, first to the purse, next to the honour."

RANDAL.--"I know it, sir; and am surprised myself at the acquaintance
that has grown up between us. Perhaps its cause is in his respect for
yourself."

EGERTON.--"Tut."

RANDAL.---"Whatever it be, he contrives to obtain a singular hold over
one's mind, even where, as in my case, he has no evident interest to
serve. How is this? It puzzles me!"

EGERTON.--"For his interest, it is most secured where he suffers it to be
least evident; for his hold over the mind, it is easily accounted for.
He ever appeals to two temptations, strong with all men,--Avarice and
Ambition. Good-day."

RANDAL.--"Are you going to Madame di Negra's? Shall I not accompany you?
Perhaps I may be able to back your own remonstrances."

EGERTON.--"No, I shall not require you."

RANDAL.--"I trust I shall hear the result of your interview? I feel so
much interested in it. Poor Frank!"

Audley nodded. "Of course, of course."




CHAPTER XIV.

On entering the drawing-room of Madame di Negra, the peculiar charm which
the severe Audley Egerton had been ever reputed to possess with women
would have sensibly struck one who had hitherto seen him chiefly in his
relations with men in the business-like affairs of life. It was a charm
in strong contrast to the ordinary manners of those who are emphatically
called "Ladies' men." No artificial smile, no conventional, hollow
blandness, no frivolous gossip, no varnish either of ungenial gayety or
affected grace. The charm was in a simplicity that unbent more into
kindness than it did with men. Audley's nature, whatever its faults and
defects, was essentially masculine; and it was the sense of masculine
power that gave to his voice a music when addressing the gentler sex, and
to his manner a sort of indulgent tenderness that appeared equally void
of insincerity and presumption.

Frank had been gone about half-an-hour, and Madame di Negra was scarcely
recovered from the agitation into which she had been thrown by the
affront from the father and the pleading of the son.

Egerton took her passive hand cordially, and seated himself by her side.

"My dear marchesa,'I said he, "are we then likely to be near connections?
And can you seriously contemplate marriage with my young nephew, Frank
Hazeldean? You turn away. Ah, my fair friend, there are but two
inducements to a free woman to sign away her liberty at the altar. I say
a free woman, for widows are free, and girls are not. These inducements
are, first, worldly position; secondly, love. Which of these motives can
urge Madame di Negra to marry Mr. Frank Hazeldeani?"

"There are other motives than those you speak of,--the need of
protection, the sense of solitude, the curse of dependence, gratitude
for honourable affection. But you men never know women!"

"I grant that you are right there,--we never do; neither do women ever
know men. And yet each sex contrives to dupe and to fool the other!
Listen to me. I have little acquaintance with my nephew, but I allow he
is a handsome young gentleman, with whom a handsome young lady in her
teens might fall in love in a ball-room. But you, who have known the
higher order of our species, you who have received the homage of men,
whose thoughts and mind leave the small talk of drawing-room triflers so
poor and bald, you cannot look me in the face and say that it is any
passion resembling love which you feel for my nephew. And as to
position, it is right that I should inform you that if he marry you
he will have none. He may risk his inheritance. You will receive
no countenance from his parents. You will be poor, but not free. You
will not gain the independence you seek for. The sight of a vacant,
discontented face in that opposite chair will be worse than solitude.
And as to grateful affection," added the man of the world, "it is a
polite synonym for tranquil indifference."

"Mr. Egerton," said Beatrice, "people say you are made of bronze. Did
you ever feel the want of a home?"

"I answer you frankly," replied the statesman, "if I had not felt it, do
you think I should have been, and that I should be to the last, the
joyless drudge of public life? Bronze though you call my nature, it
would have melted away long since like wax in the fire, if I had sat idly
down and dreamed of a home!"

"But we women," answered Beatrice, with pathos, "have no public life, and
we do idly sit down and dream. Oh," she continued, after a short pause,
and clasping her hands firmly together, "you think me worldly, grasping,
ambitious; how different my fate had been had I known a home!--known one
whom I could love and venerate; known one whose smiles would have
developed the good that was once within me, and the fear of whose
rebuking or sorrowful eye would have corrected what is evil."

"Yet," answered Audley, "nearly all women in the great world have had
that choice once in their lives, and nearly all have thrown it away. How
few of your rank really think of home when they marry! how few ask to
venerate as well as to love! and how many, of every rank, when the home
has been really gained, have wilfully lost its shelter,--some in
neglectful weariness, some from a momentary doubt, distrust, caprice,
a wild fancy, a passionate fit, a trifle, a straw, a dream! True, you
women are ever dreamers. Commonsense, common earth, is above or below
your comprehension."

Both now are silent. Audley first roused himself with a quick, writhing
movement. "We two," said he, smiling half sadly, half cynically,--"we
two must not longer waste time in talking sentiment. We know both too
well what life, as it has been made for us by our faults or our
misfortunes, truly is. And once again, I entreat you to pause before
you yield to the foolish suit of my foolish nephew. Rely on it, you will
either command a higher offer for your prudence to accept; or, if you
needs must sacrifice rank and fortune, you, with your beauty and your
romantic heart, will see one who, at least for a fair holiday season (if
human love allows no more), can repay you for the sacrifice. Frank
Hazeldean never can."

Beatrice turned away to conceal the tears that rushed to her eyes.

"Think over this well," said Audley, in the softest tones of his mellow
voice. "Do you remember that when you first came to England, I told you
that neither wedlock nor love had any lures for me? We grew friends upon
that rude avowal, and therefore I now speak to you like some sage of old,
wise because standing apart and aloof from all the affections and ties
that mislead our wisdom. Nothing but real love--how rare it is; has one
human heart in a million ever known it?--nothing but real love can repay
us for the loss of freedom, the cares and fears of poverty, the cold pity
of the world that we both despise and respect. And all these, and much
more, follow the step you would inconsiderately take, an imprudent
marriage."

"Audley Egerton," said Beatrice, lifting her dark, moistened eyes, "you
grant that real love does compensate for an imprudent marriage. You
speak as if you had known such love--you! Can it be possible?"

"Real love--I thought that I knew it once. Looking back with remorse, I
should doubt it now but for one curse that only real love, when lost, has
the power to leave evermore behind it."

"What is that?"

"A void here," answered Egerton, striking his heart. "Desolation!--
Adieu!"

He rose and left the room.

"Is it," murmured Egerton, as he pursued his way through the streets--"is
it that, as we approach death, all the first fair feelings of young life
come back to us mysteriously? Thus I have heard, or read, that in some
country of old, children scattering flowers preceded a funeral bier."




CHAPTER XV.

And so Leonard stood beside his friend's mortal clay, and watched, in the
ineffable smile of death, the last gleam which the soul had left there;
and so, after a time, he crept back to the adjoining room with a step as
noiseless as if he had feared to disturb the dead. Wearied as he was
with watching, he had no thought of sleep. He sat himself down by the
little table, and leaned his face on his hand, musing sorrowfully. Thus
time passed. He heard the clock from below strike the hours. In the
house of death the sound of a clock becomes so solemn. The soul that we
miss has gone so far beyond the reach of time! A cold, superstitious awe
gradually stole over the young man. He shivered, and lifted his eyes
with a start, half scornful, half defying. The moon was gone; the gray,
comfortless dawn gleamed through the casement, and carried its raw,
chilling light through the open doorway into the death-room. And there,
near the extinguished fire, Leonard saw the solitary woman, weeping low;
and watching still. He returned to say a word of comfort; she pressed
his hand, but waved him away. He understood. She did not wish for other
comfort than her quiet relief of tears. Again, he returned to his own
chamber, and his eye this time fell upon the papers which he had hitherto
disregarded. What made his heart stand still, and the blood then rush so
quickly through his veins? Why did he seize upon those papers with so
tremulous a hand, then lay them down, pause, as if to nerve himself, and
look so eagerly again? He recognized the handwriting,--those fair, clear
characters, so peculiar in their woman-like delicacy and grace, the same
as in the wild, pathetic poems, the sight of which had made an era in his
boyhood. From these pages the image of the mysterious Nora rose once
more before him. He felt that he was with a mother. He went back, and
closed the door gently, as if with a jealous piety, to exclude each ruder
shadow from the world of spirits, and be alone with that mournful ghost.
For a thought written in warm, sunny life, and then suddenly rising up to
us, when the hand that traced and the heart that cherished it are dust,
is verily as a ghost. It is a likeness struck off of the fond human
being, and surviving it. Far more truthful than bust or portrait, it
bids us see the tear flow, and the pulse beat. What ghost can the
churchyard yield to us like the writing of the dead?

The bulk of the papers had been once lightly sewn to each other; they had
come undone, perhaps in Burley's rude hands, but their order was easily
apparent. Leonard soon saw that they formed a kind of journal,--not,
indeed, a regular diary, nor always relating to the things of the day.
There were gaps in time--no attempt at successive narrative; sometimes,
instead of prose, a hasty burst of verse, gushing evidently from the
heart; sometimes all narrative was left untold, and yet, as it were,
epitomized by a single burning line--a single exclamation--of woe or joy!
Everywhere you saw records of a nature exquisitely susceptible; and,
where genius appeared, it was so artless, that you did not call it
genius, but emotion. At the onset the writer did not speak of herself
in the first person. The manuscript opened with descriptions and short
dialogues, carried on by persons to whose names only initial letters were
assigned, all written in a style of simple innocent freshness, and
breathing of purity and happiness, like a dawn of spring. Two young
persons, humbly born, a youth and a girl, the last still in childhood,
each chiefly self-taught, are wandering on Sabbath evenings among green
dewy fields, near the busy town, in which labour awhile is still. Few
words pass between them. You see at once, though the writer does not
mean to convey it, how far beyond the scope of her male companion flies
the heavenward imagination of the girl. It is he who questions, it is
she who answers; and soon there steals upon you, as you read, the
conviction that the youth loves the girl, and loves in vain. All in this
writing, though terse, is so truthful! Leonard, in the youth, already
recognizes the rude imperfect scholar, the village bard, Mark Fairfield.
Then there is a gap in description; but there are short weighty
sentences, which show deep ening thought, increasing years, in the
writer. And though the innocence remains, the happiness begins to be
less vivid on the page.

Now, insensibly, Leonard finds that there is a new phase in the writer's
existence. Scenes no longer of humble, workday rural life surround her,
and a fairer and more dazzling image succeeds to the companion of the
Sabbath eves. This image Nora evidently loves to paint,--it is akin to
her own genius; it captivates her fancy; it is an image that she (inborn
artist, and conscious of her art) feels to belong to a brighter and
higher school of the Beautiful. And yet the virgin's heart is not
awakened,--no trace of the heart yet there! The new image thus
introduced is one of her own years, perhaps; nay, it may be younger
still, for it is a boy that is described, with his profuse fair curls,
and eyes new to grief, and confronting the sun as a young eagle's; with
veins so full of the wine of life, that they overflow into every joyous
whim; with nerves quiveringly alive to the desire of glory; with the
frank generous nature, rash in its laughing scorn of the world, which it
has not tried. Who was this boy? it perplexed Leonard. He feared to
guess. Soon, less told than implied, you saw that this companionship,
however it chanced, brings fear and pain on the writer. Again (as
before, with Mark Fairfield), there is love on the one side and not on
the other; with her there is affectionate, almost sisterly, interest,
admiration, gratitude, but a something of pride or of terror that keeps
back love.

Here Leonard's interest grew intense. Were there touches by which
conjecture grew certainty; and he recognized, through the lapse of years,
the boy-lover in his own generous benefactor?

Fragments of dialogue now began to reveal the suit of an ardent,
impassioned nature, and the simple wonder and strange alarm of a listener
who pitied but could not sympathize. Some great worldly distinction of
rank between the two became visible,--that distinction seemed to arm the
virtue and steel the affections of the lowlier born. Then a few
sentences, half blotted out with tears, told of wounded and humbled
feelings,--some one invested with authority, as if the suitor's parent,
had interfered, questioned, reproached, counselled. And it was evident
that the suit was not one that dishonoured; it wooed to flight, but still
to marriage.

And now these sentences grew briefer still, as with the decision of a
strong resolve. And to these there followed a passage so exquisite, that
Leonard wept unconsciously as he read. It was the description of a visit
spent at home previous to some sorrowful departure. He caught the
glimpse of a proud and vain, but a tender wistful mother, of a father's
fonder but less thoughtful love. And then came a quiet soothing scene
between the girl and her first village lover, ending thus: "So she put
M.'s hand into her sister's, and said, 'You loved me through the fancy,
love her with the heart,' and left them comprehending each other, and
betrothed."

Leonard sighed. He understood now how Mark Fairfield saw, in the homely
features of his unlettered wife, the reflection of the sister's soul and
face.

A few words told the final parting,--words that were a picture. The long
friendless highway, stretching on--on--towards the remorseless city, and
the doors of home opening on the desolate thoroughfare, and the old
pollard-tree beside the threshold, with the ravens wheeling round it and
calling to their young. He too had watched that threshold from the same
desolate thoroughfare. He too had heard the cry of the ravens. Then
came some pages covered with snatches of melancholy verse, or some
reflections of dreamy gloom.

The writer was in London, in the house of some high-born patroness,--
that friendless shadow of a friend which the jargon of society calls
"companion." And she was looking on the bright storm of the world as
through prison bars. Poor bird, afar from the greenwood, she had need of
song,--it was her last link with freedom and nature. The patroness seems
to share in her apprehensions of the boy suitor, whose wild rash prayers
the fugitive had resisted; but to fear lest the suitor should be
degraded, not the one whom he pursues,--fear an alliance ill-suited to a
high-born heir. And this kind of fear stings the writer's pride, and she
grows harsh in her judgment of him who thus causes but pain where he
proffers love. Then there is a reference to some applicant for her hand,
who is pressed upon her choice; and she is told that it is her duty so to
choose, and thus deliver a noble family from a dread that endures so long
as her hand is free. And of this fear, and of this applicant, there
breaks out a petulant yet pathetic scorn. After this the narrative, to
judge by the dates, pauses for days and weeks, as if the writer had grown
weary and listless,--suddenly to reopen in a new strain, eloquent with
hopes and with fears never known before. The first person was abruptly
assumed,--it was the living "I" that now breathed and moved along the
lines. How was this? The woman was no more a shadow and a secret
unknown to herself. She had assumed the intense and vivid sense of
individual being; and love spoke loud in the awakened human heart.

A personage not seen till then appeared on the page. And ever
afterwards this personage was only named as "He," as if the one and sole
representative of all the myriads that walk the earth. The first notice
of this prominent character on the scene showed the restless, agitated
effect produced on the writer's imagination. He was invested with a
romance probably not his own. He was described in contrast to the
brilliant boy whose suit she had feared, pitied, and now sought to shun,
--described with a grave and serious, but gentle mien, a voice that
imposed respect, an eye and lip that showed collected dignity of will.
Alas? the writer betrayed herself, and the charm was in the contrast,
not to the character of the earlier lover, but her own. And now, leaving
Leonard to explore and guess his way through the gaps and chasms of the
narrative, it is time to place before the reader what the narrative alone
will not reveal to Leonard.

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