PROLOGUE TO PART THE SECOND.
The century has advanced. The rush of the deluge has ebbed back; the oldlandmarks have reappeared; the dynasties Napoleon willed into life havecrumbled to the dust; the plough has passed over Waterloo; autumn afterautumn the harvests have glittered on that grave of an empire. Throughthe immense ocean of universal change we look back on the singletrack which our frail boat has cut through the waste. As a star shinesimpartially over the measureless expanse, though it seems to gild butone broken line into each eye, so, as our memory gazes on the past, thelight spreads not over all the breadth of the waste where nations havebattled and argosies gone down,--it falls narrow and confined along thesingle course we have taken; we lean over the small raft on whichwe float, and see the sparkles but reflected from the waves that itdivides.
On the terrace at Laughton but one step paces slowly. The bride clingsnot now to the bridegroom's arm. Though pale and worn, it is stillthe same gentle face; but the blush of woman's love has gone from itevermore.
Charles Vernon (to call him still by the name in which he is best knownto us) sleeps in the vault of the St. Johns. He had lived longer than hehimself had expected, than his physician had hoped,--lived, cheerful andhappy, amidst quiet pursuits and innocent excitements. Three sons hadblessed his hearth, to mourn over his grave. But the two elder weredelicate and sickly. They did not long survive him, and died within afew months of each other. The third seemed formed of a differentmould and constitution from his brethren. To him descended the ancientheritage of Laughton, and he promised to enjoy it long.
It is Vernon's widow who walks alone in the stately terrace; sad still,for she loved well the choice of her youth, and she misses yet thechildren in the grave. From the date of Vernon's death, she woremourning without and within; and the sorrows that came later broke morethe bruised reed,--sad still, but resigned. One son survives, and earthyet has the troubled hopes and the holy fears of affection. Though thatson be afar, in sport or in earnest, in pleasure or in toil, working outhis destiny as man, still that step is less solitary than it seems. Whendoes the son's image not walk beside the mother? Though she lives inseclusion, though the gay world tempts no more, the gay world is yetlinked to her thoughts. From the distance she hears its murmurs inmusic. Her fancy still mingles with the crowd, and follows on, to hereye, outshining all the rest. Never vain in herself, she is vain now ofanother; and the small triumphs of the young and well-born seem trophiesof renown to the eyes so tenderly deceived.
In the old-fashioned market-town still the business goes on, still thedoors of the bank open and close every moment on the great day of theweek; but the names over the threshold are partially changed. The juniorpartner is busy no more at the desk; not wholly forgotten, if his namestill is spoken, it is not with thankfulness and praise. A somethingrests on the name,--that something which dims and attaints; not proven,not certain, but suspected and dubious. The head shakes, the voicewhispers; and the attorney now lives in the solid red house at the vergeof the town.
In the vicarage, Time, the old scythe-bearer, has not paused from hiswork. Still employed on Greek texts, little changed, save that his hairis gray and that some lines in his kindly face tell of sorrows asof years, the vicar sits in his parlour; but the children no longer,blithe-voiced and rose-cheeked, dart through the rustling espaliers.Those children, grave men or staid matrons (save one whom Death chose,and therefore now of all best beloved!) are at their posts in the world.The young ones are flown from the nest, and, with anxious wings, hereand there, search food in their turn for their young. But the blithevoice and rose-cheek of the child make not that loss which the hearthmisses the most. From childhood to manhood, and from manhood todeparture, the natural changes are gradual and prepared. The absencemost missed is that household life which presided, which kept things inorder, and must be coaxed if a chair were displaced. That providencein trifles, that clasp of small links, that dear, bustling agency,--nowpleased, now complaining,--dear alike in each change of its humour;that active life which has no self of its own; like the mind of a poet,though its prose be the humblest, transferring self into others, withits right to be cross, and its charter to scold; for the motive isclear,--it takes what it loves too anxiously to heart. The door of theparlour is open, the garden-path still passes before the threshold; butno step now has full right to halt at the door and interrupt the gravethought on Greek texts; no small talk on details and wise sayingschimes in with the wrath of "Medea." The Prudent Genius is gone from thehousehold; and perhaps as the good scholar now wearily pauses, and looksout on the silent garden, he would have given with joy all that Athensproduced, from Aeschylus to Plato, to hear again from the old familiarlips the lament on torn jackets, or the statistical economy of eggs.
But see, though the wife is no more, though the children have departed,the vicar's home is not utterly desolate. See, along the same walk onwhich William soothed Susan's fears and won her consent,--see, whatfairy advances? Is it Susan returned to youth? How like! Yet look again,and how unlike! The same, the pure, candid regard; the same, the clear,limpid blue of the eye; the same, that fair hue of the hair,--light,but not auburn; more subdued, more harmonious than that equivocal colourwhich too nearly approaches to red. But how much more blooming andjoyous than Susan's is that exquisite face in which all Hebe smilesforth; how much airier the tread, light with health; how much rounder,if slighter still, the wave of that undulating form! She smiles, herlips move, she is conversing with herself; she cannot be all silent,even when alone, for the sunny gladness of her nature must have ventlike a bird's. But do not fancy that that gladness speaks the levitywhich comes from the absence of thought; it is rather from the depthof thought that it springs, as from the depth of a sea comes its music.See, while she pauses and listens, with her finger half-raised to herlip, as amidst that careless jubilee of birds she hears a note moregrave and sustained,--the nightingale singing by day (as sometimes,though rarely, he is heard,--perhaps because he misses his mate; perhapsbecause he sees from his bower the creeping form of some foe to hisrace),--see, as she listens now to that plaintive, low-chanted warble,how quickly the smile is sobered, how the shade, soft and pensive,steals over the brow. It is but the mystic sympathy with Nature thatbestows the smile or the shade. In that heart lightly moved beats thefine sense of the poet. It is the exquisite sensibility of the nervesthat sends its blithe play to those spirits, and from the clearness ofthe atmosphere comes, warm and ethereal, the ray of that light.
And does the roof of the pastor give shelter to Helen Mainwaring'syouth? Has Death taken from her the natural protectors? Those formswhich we saw so full of youth and youth's heart in that very spot, hasthe grave closed on them yet? Yet! How few attain to the age of thePsalmist! Twenty-seven years have passed since that date: how often, inthose years, have the dark doors opened for the young as for the old!William Mainwaring died first, careworn and shamebowed; the blot on hisname had cankered into his heart. Susan's life, always precarious, hadstruggled on, while he lived, by the strong power of affection and will;she would not die, for who then could console him? But at his death thepower gave way. She lingered, but lingered dyingly, for three years; andthen, for the first time since William's death, she smiled: that smileremained on the lips of the corpse. They had had many trials, that youngcouple whom we left so prosperous and happy. Not till many years aftertheir marriage had one sweet consoler been born to them. In the seasonof poverty and shame and grief it came; and there was no pride onMainwaring's brow when they placed his first-born in his arms. By herwill, the widow consigned Helen to the joint guardianship of Mr. Fieldenand her sister; but the latter was abroad, her address unknown, sothe vicar for two years had had sole charge of the orphan. She was notunprovided for. The sum that Susan brought to her husband had been longsince gone, it is true,--lost in the calamity which had wrecked WilliamMainwaring's name and blighted his prospects; but Helen's grandfather,the landagent, had died some time subsequent to that event, and, indeed,just before William'
s death. He had never forgiven his son the stain onhis name,--never assisted, never even seen him since that fatal day;but he left to Helen a sum of about 8,000 pounds; for she, at least, wasinnocent. In Mr. Fielden's eyes, Helen was therefore an heiress. And whoamongst his small range of acquaintance was good enough for her?--notonly so richly portioned, but so lovely,--accomplished, too; for herparents had of late years lived chiefly in France, and languages thereare easily learned, and masters cheap. Mr. Fielden knew but one, whomProvidence had also consigned to his charge,--the supposed son of hisold pupil Ardworth; but though a tender affection existed between thetwo young persons, it seemed too like that of brother and sister toafford much ground for Mr. Fielden's anxiety or hope.
From his window the vicar observed the still attitude of the youngorphan for a few moments; then he pushed aside his books, rose, andapproached her. At the sound of his tread she woke from her revery andbounded lightly towards him.
"Ah, you would not see me before!" she said, in a voice in which therewas the slightest possible foreign accent, which betrayed the country inwhich her childhood had been passed; "I peeped in twice at the window.I wanted you so much to walk to the village. But you will come now, willyou not?" added the girl, coaxingly, as she looked up at him under theshade of her straw hat.
"And what do you want in the village, my pretty Helen?"
"Why, you know it is fair day, and you promised Bessie that you wouldbuy her a fairing,--to say nothing of me."
"Very true, and I ought to look in; it will help to keep the poor peoplefrom drinking. A clergyman should mix with his parishioners in theirholidays. We must not associate our office only with grief and sicknessand preaching. We will go. And what fairing are you to have?"
"Oh, something very brilliant, I promise you! I have formed grandnotions of a fair. I am sure it must be like the bazaars we read of lastnight in that charming 'Tour in the East.'"
The vicar smiled, half benignly, half anxiously. "My dear child, it isso like you to suppose a village fair must be an Eastern bazaar. If youalways thus judge of things by your fancy, how this sober world willdeceive you, poor Helen!"
"It is not my fault; ne me grondez pas, mechant," answered Helen,hanging her head. "But come, sir, allow, at least, that if I let myromance, as you call it, run away with me now and then, I can stillcontent myself with the reality. What, you shake your head still? Don'tyou remember the sparrow?"
"Ha! ha! yes,--the sparrow that the pedlar sold you for a goldfinch; andyou were so proud of your purchase, and wondered so much why you couldnot coax the goldfinch to sing, till at last the paint wore away, and itwas only a poor little sparrow!"
"Go on! Confess: did I fret then? Was I not as pleased with my dearsparrow as I should have been with the prettiest goldfinch that eversang? Does not the sparrow follow me about and nestle on my shoulder,dear little thing? And I was right after all; for if I had not fanciedit a goldfinch, I should not have bought it, perhaps. But now I wouldnot change it for a goldfinch,--no, not even for that nightingale Iheard just now. So let me still fancy the poor fair a bazaar; it is adouble pleasure, first to fancy the bazaar, and then to be surprised atthe fair."
"You argue well," said the vicar, as they now entered the village; "Ireally think, in spite of all your turn for poetry and Goldsmith andCowper, that you would take as kindly to mathematics as your cousin JohnArdworth, poor lad!
"Not if mathematics have made him so grave, and so churlish, I wasgoing to say; but that word does him wrong, dear cousin, so kind and sorough!"
"It is not mathematics that are to blame if he is grave andabsorbed," said the vicar, with a sigh; "it is the two cares that gnawmost,--poverty and ambition."
"Nay, do not sigh; it must be such a pleasure to feel, as he does, thatone must triumph at last!"
"Umph! John must have nearly reached London by this time," said Mr.Fielden, "for he is a stout walker, and this is the third day since heleft us. Well, now that he is about fairly to be called to the Bar, Ihope that his fever will cool, and he will settle calmly to work. I havefelt great pain for him during this last visit."
"Pain! But why?"
"My dear, do you remember what I read to you both from Sir WilliamTemple the night before John left us?"
Helen put her hand to her brow, and with a readiness which showed amemory equally quick and retentive, replied, "Yes; was it not to thiseffect? I am not sure of the exact words: 'To have something we havenot, and be something we are not, is the root of all evil.'"
"Well remembered, my darling!"
"Ah, but," said Helen, archly, "I remember too what my cousin replied:'If Sir William Temple had practised his theory, he would not have beenambassador at the Hague, or--"
"Pshaw! the boy's always ready enough with his answers," interrupted Mr.Fielden, rather petulantly. "There's the fair, my dear,--more in yourway, I see, than Sir William Temple's philosophy."
And Helen was right; the fair was no Eastern bazaar, but how delightedthat young, impressionable mind was, notwithstanding,--delighted withthe swings and the roundabouts, the shows, the booths, even down tothe gilt gingerbread kings and queens! All minds genuinely poeticalare peculiarly susceptible to movement,--that is, to the excitementof numbers. If the movement is sincerely joyous, as in the mirth of avillage holiday, such a nature shares insensibly in the joy; but if themovement is a false and spurious gayety, as in a state ball, where theimpassive face and languid step are out of harmony with the evidentobject of the scene, then the nature we speak of feels chilled anddejected. Hence it really is that the more delicate and ideal orderof minds soon grow inexpressibly weary of the hack routine of what arecalled fashionable pleasures. Hence the same person most alive to adance on the green, would be without enjoyment at Almack's. It wasnot because one scene is a village green, and the other a room in KingStreet, nor is it because the actors in the one are of the humble, inthe others of the noble class; but simply because the enjoyment in thefirst is visible and hearty, because in the other it is a listless andmelancholy pretence. Helen fancied it was the swings and the boothsthat gave her that innocent exhilaration,--it was not so; it was theunconscious sympathy with the crowd around her. When the poetical naturequits its own dreams for the actual world, it enters and transfusesitself into the hearts and humours of others. The two wings of thatspirit which we call Genius are revery and sympathy. But poor littleHelen had no idea that she had genius. Whether chasing the butterfly ortalking fond fancies to her birds, or whether with earnest, musingeyes watching the stars come forth, and the dark pine-trees gleam intosilver; whether with airy daydreams and credulous wonder poring over themagic tales of Mirglip or Aladdin, or whether spellbound to awe by thesolemn woes of Lear, or following the blind great bard into "the heavenof heavens, an earthly guest, to draw empyreal air,"--she obeyed but thehonest and varying impulse in each change of her pliant mood, and wouldhave ascribed with genuine humility to the vagaries of childhood thatprompt gathering of pleasure, that quick-shifting sport of the fancy bywhich Nature binds to itself, in chains undulating as melody, the livelysenses of genius.
While Helen, leaning on the vicar's arm, thus surrendered herself to theinnocent excitement of the moment, the vicar himself smiled and noddedto his parishioners, or paused to exchange a friendly word or two withthe youngest or the eldest loiterers (those two extremes of mortalitywhich the Church so tenderly unites) whom the scene drew to its temptingvortex, when a rough-haired lad, with a leather bag strapped across hiswaist, turned from one of the gingerbread booths, and touching his hat,said, "Please you, sir, I was a coming to your house with a letter."
The vicar's correspondence was confined and rare, despite his distantchildren, for letters but a few years ago were costly luxuries topersons of narrow income, and therefore the juvenile letter-carrierwho plied between the post-town and the village failed to excite in hisbreast that indignation for being an hour or more behind his time whichwould have animated one to whom the post brings the usual event of theday. He took the letter
from the boy's hand, and paid for it with athrifty sigh as he glanced at a handwriting unfamiliar to him,--perhapsfrom some clergyman poorer than himself. However, that was not the placeto read letters, so he put the epistle into his pocket, until Helen, whowatched his countenance to see when he grew tired of the scene, kindlyproposed to return home. As they gained a stile half-way, Mr. Fieldenremembered his letter, took it forth, and put on his spectacles. Helenstooped over the bank to gather violets; the vicar seated himself onthe stile. As he again looked at the address, the handwriting, beforeunfamiliar, seemed to grow indistinctly on his recollection. That bold,firm hand--thin and fine as woman's, but large and regular as man's--wastoo peculiar to be forgotten. He uttered a brief exclamation of surpriseand recognition, and hastily broke the seal. The contents ran thus:--
DEAR SIR,--So many years have passed since any communication has takenplace between us that the name of Lucretia Dalibard will seem morestrange to you than that of Lucretia Clavering. I have recently returnedto England after long residence abroad. I perceive by my deceasedsister's will that she has confided her only daughter to myguardianship, conjointly with yourself. I am anxious to participatein that tender charge. I am alone in the world,--an habitual sufferer;afflicted with a partial paralysis that deprives me of the use of mylimbs. In such circumstances, it is the more natural that I should turnto the only relative left me. My journey to England has so exhaustedmy strength, and all movement is so painful, that I must request youto excuse me for not coming in person for my niece. Your benevolence,however, will, I am sure, prompt you to afford me the comfort of hersociety, and as soon as you can, contrive some suitable arrangement forher journey. Begging you to express to Helen, in my name, the assuranceof such a welcome as is due from me to my sister's child, and waitingwith great anxiety your reply, I am, dear Sir, Your very faithfulservant, LUCRETIA DALIBARD.
P. S. I can scarcely venture to ask you to bring Helen yourself to town,but I should be glad if other inducements to take the journey affordedme the pleasure of seeing you once again. I am anxious, in additionto such details of my late sister as you may be enabled to give me, tolearn something of the history of her connection with Mr. Ardworth, inwhom I felt much interested years ago, and who, I am recently informed,left an infant, his supposed son, under your care. So long absent fromEngland, how much have I to learn, and how little the mere gravestonestell us of the dead!
While the vicar is absorbed in this letter, equally unwelcome andunexpected; while, unconscious as the daughter of Ceres, gatheringflowers when the Hell King drew near, of the change that awaited her andthe grim presence that approached on her fate, Helen bends stillover the bank odorous with shrinking violets,--we turn where the newgeneration equally invites our gaze, and make our first acquaintancewith two persons connected with the progress of our tale.
The britzska stopped. The servant, who had been gradually accumulatingpresent dust and future rheumatisms on the "bad eminence" of arumble-tumble, exposed to the nipping airs of an English sky, leaped tothe ground and opened the carriage-door.
"This is the best place for the view, sir,--a little to the right."
Percival St. John threw aside his book (a volume of Voyages), whistledto a spaniel dozing by his side, and descended lightly. Light was thestep of the young man, and merry was the bark of the dog, as itchased from the road the startled sparrow, rising high into the clearair,--favourites of Nature both, man and dog. You had but to glance atPercival St. John to know at once that he was of the race that toilsnot; the assured step spoke confidence in the world's fair smile. Nocare for the morrow dimmed the bold eye and the radiant bloom.
About the middle height,--his slight figure, yet undeveloped, seemednot to have attained to its full growth,--the darkening down only justshaded a cheek somewhat sunburned, though naturally fair, round whichlocks black as jet played sportively in the fresh air; about himaltogether there was the inexpressible charm of happy youth. He scarcelylooked sixteen, though above four years older; but for his firm thoughcareless step, and the open fearlessness of his frank eye, you mighthave almost taken him for a girl in men's clothes,--not from effeminacyof feature, but from the sparkling bloom of his youth, and from hisunmistakable newness to the cares and sins of man. A more delightfulvision of ingenuous boyhood opening into life under happy auspices neverinspired with pleased yet melancholy interest the eye of half-envious,half-pitying age.
"And that," mused Percival St. John,--"that is London! Oh for the DiableBoiteux to unroof me those distant houses, and show me the pleasuresthat lurk within! Ah, what long letters I shall have to write home! Howthe dear old captain will laugh over them, and how my dear good motherwill put down her work and sigh! Home!--um, I miss it already. Howstrange and grim, after all, the huge city seems!"
His glove fell to the ground, and his spaniel mumbled it into shreds.The young man laughed, and throwing himself on the grass, played gaylywith the dog.
"Fie, Beau, sir, fie! gloves are indigestible. Restrain your appetite,and we'll lunch together at the Clarendon."
At this moment there arrived at the same patch of greensward apedestrian some years older than Percival St. John,--a tall, muscular,raw-boned, dust-covered, travel-stained pedestrian; one of yourpedestrians in good earnest,--no amateur in neat gambroon manufacturedby Inkson, who leaves his carriage behind him and walks on with hisfishing-rod by choice, but a sturdy wanderer, with thick shoes andstrapless trousers, a threadbare coat and a knapsack at his back. Yet,withal, the young man had the air of a gentleman,--not gentleman as theword is understood in St. James's, the gentleman of the noble and idleclass, but the gentleman as the title is accorded, by courtesy, to allto whom both education and the habit of mixing with educated personsgives a claim to the distinction and imparts an air of refinement. Thenew-comer was strongly built, at once lean and large,--far more stronglybuilt than Percival St. John, but without his look of cheerful andcomely health. His complexion had not the florid hues that should haveaccompanied that strength of body; it was pale, though not sickly; theexpression grave, the lines deep, the face strongly marked. By hisside trotted painfully a wiry, yellowish, footsore Scotch terrier. Beausprang from his master's caress, cocked his handsome head on one side,and suspended in silent halt his right fore-paw. Percival cast over hisleft shoulder a careless glance at the intruder. The last heeded neitherBeau nor Percival. He slipped his knapsack to the ground, and the Scotchterrier sank upon it, and curled himself up into a ball. The wayfarerfolded his arms tightly upon his breast, heaved a short, unquiet sigh,and cast over the giant city, from under deep-pent, lowering brows,a look so earnest, so searching, so full of inexpressible, dogged,determined power, that Percival, roused out of his gay indifference,rose and regarded him with curious interest.
In the mean while Beau had very leisurely approached the bilious-lookingterrier; and after walking three times round him, with a stare and asmall sniff of superb impertinence, halted with great composure, andlifting his hind leg--O Beau, Beau, Beau! your historian blushes foryour breeding, and, like Sterne's recording angel, drops a tear upon thestain which washes it from the register--but not, alas, from the backof the bilious terrier! The space around was wide, Beau; you had all theworld to choose: why select so specially for insult the single spoton which reposed the wornout and unoffending? O dainty Beau! O daintyworld! Own the truth, both of ye. There is something irresistiblyprovocative of insult in the back of a shabby-looking dog! The poorterrier, used to affronts, raised its heavy eyelids, and shot the gleamof just indignation from its dark eyes. But it neither stirred norgrowled, and Beau, extremely pleased with his achievement, wagged histail in triumph and returned to his master,--perhaps, in parliamentaryphrase, to "report proceedings and ask leave to sit again."
"I wonder," soliloquized Percival St. John, "what that poor fellow isthinking of? Perhaps he is poor; indeed, no doubt of it, now I lookagain. And I so rich! I should like to--Hem! let's see what he's madeof."
Herewith Percival approached, and with all a boy
's half-bashful,half-saucy frankness, said: "A fine prospect, sir." The pedestrianstarted, and threw a rapid glance over the brilliant figure thataccosted him. Percival St. John was not to be abashed by stern looks;but that glance might have abashed many a more experienced man. Theglance of a squire upon a corn-law missionary, of a Crockford dandy upona Regent Street tiger, could not have been more disdainful.
"Tush!" said the pedestrian, rudely, and turned upon his heel.
Percival coloured, and--shall we own it?--was boy enough to double hisfist. Little would he have been deterred by the brawn of those greatarms and the girth of that Herculean chest, if he had been quite surethat it was a proper thing to resent pugilistically so discourteous amonosyllable. The "tush!" stuck greatly in his throat. But the man, nowremoved to the farther verge of the hill, looked so tranquil and so lostin thought that the short-lived anger died.
"And after all, if I were as poor as he looks, I dare say I should bejust as proud," muttered Percival. "However, it's his own fault if hegoes to London on foot, when I might at least have given him a lift.Come, Beau, sir."
With his face still a little flushed, and his hat unconsciously cockedfiercely on one side, Percival sauntered back to his britzska.
As in a whirl of dust the light carriage was borne by the four postersdown the hill, the pedestrian turned for an instant from the view beforeto the cloud behind, and muttered: "Ay, a fine prospect for the rich,--anoble field for the poor!" The tone in which those words were said toldvolumes; there spoke the pride, the hope, the energy, the ambition whichmake youth laborious, manhood prosperous, age renowned.
The stranger then threw himself on the sward, and continued his silentand intent contemplation till the clouds grew red in the west. When,then, he rose, his eye was bright, his mien erect, and a smile, playinground his firm, full lips, stole the moody sternness from his hardface. Throwing his knapsack once more on his back, John Ardworth wentresolutely on to the great vortex.