CHAPTER XIII
THE FIRST EFFORT AFTER FREEDOM
Crossjay's accident was only another proof, as Vernon told Miss Dale,that the boy was but half monkey.
"Something fresh?" she exclaimed on seeing him brought into the Hall,where she had just arrived.
"Simply a continuation," said Vernon. "He is not so prehensile as heshould be. He probably in extremity relies on the tail that has beendocked. Are you a man, Crossjay?"
"I should think I was!" Crossjay replied, with an old man's voice, anda ghastly twitch for a smile overwhelmed the compassionate ladies.
Miss Dale took possession of him. "You err in the other direction," sheremarked to Vernon.
"But a little bracing roughness is better than spoiling him." said MissMiddleton.
She did not receive an answer, and she thought: "Whatever Willoughbydoes is right, to this lady!"
Clara's impression was renewed when Sir Willoughby sat beside Miss Dalein the evening; and certainly she had never seen him shine sopicturesquely as in his bearing with Miss Dale. The sprightly salliesof the two, their rallyings, their laughter, and her fine eyes, and hishandsome gestures, won attention like a fencing match of a couple keenwith the foils to display the mutual skill. And it was his design thatshe should admire the display; he was anything but obtuse; enjoying thematch as he did and necessarily did to act so excellent a part in it,he meant the observer to see the man he was with a lady not of rawunderstanding. So it went on from day to day for three days.
She fancied once that she detected the agreeable stirring of the broodof jealousy, and found it neither in her heart nor in her mind, but inthe book of wishes, well known to the young where they write matterwhich may sometimes be independent of both those volcanic albums.Jealousy would have been a relief to her, a dear devil's aid. Shestudied the complexion of jealousy to delude herself with the sense ofthe spirit being in her, and all the while she laughed, as at a viletheatre whereof the imperfection of the stage machinery rather than theperformance is the wretched source of amusement.
Vernon had deeply depressed her. She was hunted by the figure 4. Fourhappy instead of two miserable. He had said it, involving her among thefour; and so it must be, she considered, and she must be as happy asshe could; for not only was he incapable of perceiving her state, hewas unable to imagine other circumstances to surround her. How, to bejust to him, were they imaginable by him or any one?
Her horrible isolation of secrecy in a world amiable inunsuspectingness frightened her. To fling away her secret, to conform,to be unrebellious, uncritical, submissive, became an impatient desire;and the task did not appear so difficult since Miss Dale's arrival.Endearments had been rare, more formal; living bodily untroubled andunashamed, and, as she phrased it, having no one to care for her, sheturned insensibly in the direction where she was due; she slightlyimitated Miss Dale's colloquial responsiveness. To tell truth, she feltvivacious in a moderate way with Willoughby after seeing him with MissDale. Liberty wore the aspect of a towering prison-wall; the desperateundertaking of climbing one side and dropping to the other was morethan she, unaided, could resolve on; consequently, as no one cared forher, a worthless creature might as well cease dreaming and stipulatingfor the fulfilment of her dreams; she might as well yield to her fate;nay, make the best of it.
Sir Willoughby was flattered and satisfied. Clara's adopted vivacityproved his thorough knowledge of feminine nature; nor did herfeebleness in sustaining it displease him. A steady look of hers had oflate perplexed the man, and he was comforted by signs of herinefficiency where he excelled. The effort and the failure were both ofgood omen.
But she could not continue the effort. He had overweighted her too muchfor the mimicry of a sentiment to harden and have an apparently naturalplace among her impulses; and now an idea came to her that he might, itmight be hoped, possibly see in Miss Dale, by present contrast, themate he sought; by contrast with an unanswering creature like herself,he might perhaps realize in Miss Dale's greater accomplishments and herdevotion to him the merit of suitability; he might be induced to do herjustice. Dim as the loop-hole was, Clara fixed her mind on it till itgathered light. And as a prelude to action, she plunged herself into astate of such profound humility, that to accuse it of being simulatedwould be venturesome, though it was not positive. The tempers of theyoung are liquid fires in isles of quicksand; the precious metals notyet cooled in a solid earth. Her compassion for Laetitia was lessforced, but really she was almost as earnest in her self-abasement, forshe had not latterly been brilliant, not even adequate to the ordinaryrequirements of conversation. She had no courage, no wit, no diligence,nothing that she could distinguish save discontentment like a corrodingacid, and she went so far in sincerity as with a curious shift offeeling to pity the man plighted to her. If it suited her purpose topity Sir Willoughby, she was not moved by policy, be assured; her needswere her nature, her moods her mind; she had the capacity to makeanything serve her by passing into it with the glance which discernedits usefulness; and this is how it is that the young, when they are introuble, without approaching the elevation of scientific hypocrites,can teach that able class lessons in hypocrisy.
"Why should not Willoughby be happy?" she said; and the exclamation waspushed forth by the second thought: "Then I shall be free!" Still thatthought came second.
The desire for the happiness of Willoughby was fervent on his behalfand wafted her far from friends and letters to a narrow Tyroleanvalley, where a shallow river ran, with the indentations of a remotelyseen army of winding ranks in column, topaz over the pebbles to hollowsof ravishing emerald. There sat Liberty, after her fearful leap overthe prison-wall, at peace to watch the water and the falls of sunshineon the mountain above, between descending pine-stem shadows. Clara'swish for his happiness, as soon as she had housed herself in theimagination of her freedom, was of a purity that made it seemexceedingly easy for her to speak to him.
The opportunity was offered by Sir Willoughby. Every morning afterbreakfast Miss Dale walked across the park to see her father, and onthis occasion Sir Willoughby and Miss Middleton went with her as far asthe lake, all three discoursing of the beauty of various trees,birches, aspens, poplars, beeches, then in their new green. Miss Daleloved the aspen, Miss Middleton the beech, Sir Willoughby the birch,and pretty things were said by each in praise of the favoured object,particularly by Miss Dale. So much so that when she had gone on herecalled one of her remarks, and said: "I believe, if the whole placewere swept away to-morrow, Laetitia Dale could reconstruct it and putthose aspens on the north of the lake in number and situation correctlywhere you have them now. I would guarantee her description of it inabsence correct."
"Why should she be absent?" said Clara, palpitating.
"Well, why!" returned Sir Willoughby. "As you say, there is no reasonwhy. The art of life, and mine will be principally a country life--townis not life, but a tornado whirling atoms--the art is to associate agroup of sympathetic friends in our neighbourhood; and it is a factworth noting that if ever I feel tired of the place, a short talk withLaetitia Dale refreshes it more than a month or two on the Continent.She has the well of enthusiasm. And there is a great advantage inhaving a cultivated person at command, with whom one can chat of anytopic under the sun. I repeat, you have no need of town if you havefriends like Laetitia Dale within call. My mother esteemed her highly."
"Willoughby, she is not obliged to go."
"I hope not. And, my love, I rejoice that you have taken to her. Herfather's health is poor. She would be a young spinster to live alone ina country cottage."
"What of your scheme?"
"Old Vernon is a very foolish fellow."
"He has declined?"
"Not a word on the subject! I have only to propose it to be snubbed, Iknow."
"You may not be aware how you throw him into the shade with her."
"Nothing seems to teach him the art of dialogue with ladies."
"Are not gentlemen shy when they see themselves outshone?
"
"He hasn't it, my love: Vernon is deficient in the lady's tongue."
"I respect him for that."
"Outshone, you say? I do not know of any shining--save to one, wholights me, path and person!"
The identity of the one was conveyed to her in a bow and a softpressure.
"Not only has he not the lady's tongue, which I hold to be a man'sproper accomplishment," continued Sir Willoughby, "he cannot turn hisadvantages to account. Here has Miss Dale been with him now four daysin the house. They are exactly on the same footing as when she enteredit. You ask? I will tell you. It is this: it is want of warmth. OldVernon is a scholar--and a fish. Well, perhaps he has cause to be shyof matrimony; but he is a fish."
"You are reconciled to his leaving you?"
"False alarm! The resolution to do anything unaccustomed is quitebeyond old Vernon."
"But if Mr. Oxford--Whitford . . . your swans coming sailing up thelake, how beautiful they look when they are indignant! I was going toask you, surely men witnessing a marked admiration for some one elsewill naturally be discouraged?"
Sir Willoughby stiffened with sudden enlightenment.
Though the word jealousy had not been spoken, the drift of herobservations was clear. Smiling inwardly, he said, and the sentenceswere not enigmas to her: "Surely, too, young ladies . . . alittle?--Too far? But an old friendship! About the same as the fittingof an old glove to a hand. Hand and glove have only to meet. Wherethere is natural harmony you would not have discord. Ay, but you haveit if you check the harmony. My dear girl! You child!"
He had actually, in this parabolic, and commendable, obscureness, forwhich she thanked him in her soul, struck the very point she had notnamed and did not wish to hear named, but wished him to strike; he wasanything but obtuse. His exultation, of the compressed sort, wasextreme, on hearing her cry out:
"Young ladies may be. Oh! not I, not I. I can convince you. Not that.Believe me, Willoughby. I do not know what it is to feel that, oranything like it. I cannot conceive a claim on any one's life--as aclaim: or the continuation of an engagement not founded on perfect,perfect sympathy. How should I feel it, then? It is, as you say of Mr.Ox--Whitford, beyond me."
Sir Willoughby caught up the Ox--Whitford.
Bursting with laughter in his joyful pride, he called it a portrait ofold Vernon in society. For she thought a trifle too highly of Vernon,as here and there a raw young lady does think of the friends of herplighted man, which is waste of substance properly belonging to him, asit were, in the loftier sense, an expenditure in genuflexions towayside idols of the reverence she should bring intact to the temple.Derision instructs her.
Of the other subject--her jealousy--he had no desire to hear more. Shehad winced: the woman had been touched to smarting in the girl: enough.She attempted the subject once, but faintly, and his careless parryingthrew her out. Clara could have bitten her tongue for that reiteratedstupid slip on the name of Whitford; and because she was innocent atheart she persisted in asking herself how she could be guilty of it.
"You both know the botanic titles of these wild flowers," she said.
"Who?" he inquired.
"You and Miss Dale."
Sir Willoughby shrugged. He was amused.
"No woman on earth will grace a barouche so exquisitely as my Clara."
"Where?" said she.
"During our annual two months in London. I drive a barouche there, andventure to prophesy that my equipage will create the greatestexcitement of any in London. I see old Horace De Craye gazing!"
She sighed. She could not drag him to the word, or a hint of itnecessary to her subject.
But there it was; she saw it. She had nearly let it go, and blushed atbeing obliged to name it.
"Jealousy, do you mean. Willoughby? the people in London would bejealous?--Colonel De Craye? How strange! That is a sentiment I cannotunderstand."
Sir Willoughby gesticulated the "Of course not" of an establishedassurance to the contrary.
"Indeed, Willoughby, I do not."
"Certainly not."
He was now in her trap. And he was imagining himself to be anatomizingher feminine nature.
"Can I give you a proof, Willoughby? I am so utterly incapable of itthat--listen to me--were you to come to me to tell me, as you might,how much better suited to you Miss Dale has appeared than I am--and Ifear I am not; it should be spoken plainly; unsuited altogether,perhaps--I would, I beseech you to believe--you must believe me--giveyou . . . give you your freedom instantly; most truly; and engage tospeak of you as I should think of you. Willoughby, you would have noone to praise you in public and in private as I should, for you wouldbe to me the most honest, truthful, chivalrous gentleman alive. And inthat case I would undertake to declare that she would not admire youmore than I; Miss Dale would not; she would not admire you more than I;not even Miss Dale."
This, her first direct leap for liberty, set Clara panting, and so muchhad she to say that the nervous and the intellectual halves of herdashed like cymbals, dazing and stunning her with the appositeness ofthings to be said, and dividing her in indecision as to the cunningestto move him of the many pressing.
The condition of feminine jealousy stood revealed.
He had driven her farther than he intended.
"Come, let me allay these . . ." he soothed her with hand and voice,while seeking for his phrase; "these magnified pinpoints. Now, myClara! on my honour! and when I put it forward in attestation, myhonour has the most serious meaning speech can have; ordinarily my wordhas to suffice for bonds, promises, or asseverations; on my honour! notmerely is there, my poor child! no ground of suspicion, I assure you,I declare to you, the fact of the case is the very reverse. Now, markme; of her sentiments I cannot pretend to speak; I did not, to myknowledge, originate, I am not responsible for them, and I am, beforethe law, as we will say, ignorant of them; that is, I have never hearda declaration of them, and I, am, therefore, under pain of the stigmaof excessive fatuity, bound to be non-cognizant. But as to myself I canspeak for myself and, on my honour! Clara--to be as direct aspossible, even to baldness, and you know I loathe it--I could not, Irepeat, I could not marry Laetitia Dale! Let me impress it on you. Noflatteries--we are all susceptible more or less--no conceivablecondition could bring it about; no amount of admiration. She and I areexcellent friends; we cannot be more. When you see us together, thenatural concord of our minds is of course misleading. She is a woman ofgenius. I do not conceal, I profess my admiration of her. There aretimes when, I confess, I require a Laetitia Dale to bring me out, giveand take. I am indebted to her for the enjoyment of the duet few know,few can accord with, fewer still are allowed the privilege of playingwith a human being. I am indebted, I own, and I feel deep gratitude; Iown to a lively friendship for Miss Dale, but if she is displeasing inthe sight of my bride by . . . by the breadth of an eyelash, then. . ."
Sir Willoughby's arm waved Miss Dale off away into outer darkness inthe wilderness.
Clara shut her eyes and rolled her eyeballs in a frenzy of unutteredrevolt from the Egoist.
But she was not engaged in the colloquy to be an advocate of Miss Daleor of common humanity.
"Ah!" she said, simply determining that the subject should not drop.
"And, ah!" he mocked her tenderly. "True, though! And who knows betterthan my Clara that I require youth, health, beauty, and the otherundefinable attributes fitting with mine and beseeming the station ofthe lady called to preside over my household and represent me? Whatsays my other self? my fairer? But you are! my love, you are!Understand my nature rightly, and you . . . "
"I do! I do!" interposed Clara; "if I did not by this time I should beidiotic. Let me assure you, I understand it. Oh! listen to me: onemoment. Miss Dale regards me as the happiest woman on earth.Willoughby, if I possessed her good qualities, her heart and mind, nodoubt I should be. It is my wish--you must hear me, hear me out--mywish, my earnest wish, my burning prayer, my wish to make way for her.She appreciates you: I do not--to my
shame, I do not. She worships you:I do not, I cannot. You are the rising sun to her. It has been so foryears. No one can account for love; I daresay not for the impossibilityof loving . . . loving where we should; all love bewilders me. I wasnot created to understand it. But she loves you, she has pined. Ibelieve it has destroyed the health you demand as one item in yourlist. But you, Willoughby, can restore that. Travelling, and . . . andyour society, the pleasure of your society would certainly restore it.You look so handsome together! She has unbounded devotion! as for me, Icannot idolize. I see faults: I see them daily. They astonish and woundme. Your pride would not bear to hear them spoken of, least of all byyour wife. You warned me to beware--that is, you said, you saidsomething."
Her busy brain missed the subterfuge to cover her slip of the tongue.
Sir Willoughby struck in: "And when I say that the entire concatenationis based on an erroneous observation of facts, and an erroneousdeduction from that erroneous observation!--? No, no. Have confidencein me. I propose it to you in this instance, purely to save you fromdeception. You are cold, my love? you shivered."
"I am not cold," said Clara. "Some one, I suppose, was walking over mygrave."
The gulf of a caress hove in view like an enormous billow hollowingunder the curled ridge.
She stooped to a buttercup; the monster swept by.
"Your grave!" he exclaimed over her head; "my own girl!"
"Is not the orchid naturally a stranger in ground so far away from thechalk, Willoughby?"
"I am incompetent to pronounce an opinion on such important matters. Mymother had a passion for every description of flower. I fancy I havesome recollection of her scattering the flower you mention over thepark."
"If she were living now!"
"We should be happy in the blessing of the most estimable of women, myClara."
"She would have listened to me. She would have realized what I mean."
"Indeed, Clara--poor soul!" he murmured to himself, aloud; "indeed youare absolutely in error. If I have seemed--but I repeat, you aredeceived. The idea of 'fitness' is a total hallucination. Supposingyou--I do it even in play painfully--entirely out of the way,unthought of. . ."
"Extinct," Clara said low.
"Non-existent for me," he selected a preferable term. "Suppose it; Ishould still, in spite of an admiration I have never thought itincumbent on me to conceal, still be--I speak emphatically--utterlyincapable of the offer of my hand to Miss Dale. It may be that she isembedded in my mind as a friend, and nothing but a friend. I receivedthe stamp in early youth. People have noticed it--we do, it seems,bring one another out, reflecting, counter-reflecting."
She glanced up at him with a shrewd satisfaction to see that her wickedshaft had stuck.
"You do; it is a common remark," she said. "The instantaneousdifference when she comes near, any one might notice."
"My love," he opened the iron gate into the garden, "you encourage thenaughty little suspicion."
"But it is a beautiful sight, Willoughby. I like to see you together. Ilike it as I like to see colours match."
"Very well. There is no harm then. We shall often be together. I likemy fair friend. But the instant!--you have only to express a sentimentof disapprobation."
"And you dismiss her."
"I dismiss her. That is, as to the word, I constitute myself your echo,to clear any vestige of suspicion. She goes."
"That is a case of a person doomed to extinction without offending."
"Not without: for whoever offends my bride, my wife, my sovereign lady,offends me: very deeply offends me."
"Then the caprices of your wife . . ." Clara stamped her footimperceptibly on the lawn-sward, which was irresponsively soft to herfretfulness. She broke from the inconsequent meaningless mild tone ofirony, and said: "Willoughby, women have their honour to swear byequally with men:--girls have: they have to swear an oath at the altar;may I to you now? Take it for uttered when I tell you that nothingwould make me happier than your union with Miss Dale. I have spoken asmuch as I can. Tell me you release me."
With the well-known screw-smile of duty upholding weariness worn toinanition, he rejoined: "Allow me once more to reiterate, that it isrepulsive, inconceivable, that I should ever, under any mortalconditions, bring myself to the point of taking Miss Dale for my wife.You reduce me to this perfectly childish protestation--pitiablychildish! But, my love, have I to remind you that you and I areplighted, and that I am an honourable man?"
"I know it, I feel it--release me!" cried Clara.
Sir Willoughby severely reprehended his short-sightedness for seeingbut the one proximate object in the particular attention he hadbestowed on Miss Dale. He could not disavow that they had been marked,and with an object, and he was distressed by the unwonted want ofwisdom through which he had been drawn to overshoot his object. Hisdesign to excite a touch of the insane emotion in Clara's bosom was toosuccessful, and, "I was not thinking of her," he said to himself in hiscandour, contrite.
She cried again: "Will you not, Willoughby--release me?"
He begged her to take his arm.
To consent to touch him while petitioning for a detachment, appeareddiscordant to Clara, but, if she expected him to accede, it was rightthat she should do as much as she could, and she surrendered her handat arm's length, disdaining the imprisoned fingers. He pressed them andsaid: "Dr Middleton is in the library. I see Vernon is at work withCrossjay in the West-room--the boy has had sufficient for the day.Now, is it not like old Vernon to drive his books at a cracked headbefore it's half mended?"
He signalled to young Crossjay, who was up and out through the foldingwindows in a twinkling.
"And you will go in, and talk to Vernon of the lady in question," SirWilloughby whispered to Clara. "Use your best persuasions in our jointnames. You have my warrant for saying that money is no consideration;house and income are assured. You can hardly have taken me seriouslywhen I requested you to undertake Vernon before. I was quite in earnestthen as now. I prepare Miss Dale. I will not have a wedding on ourwedding-day; but either before or after it, I gladly speed theiralliance. I think now I give you the best proof possible, and though Iknow that with women a delusion may be seen to be groundless and stillbe cherished, I rely on your good sense."
Vernon was at the window and stood aside for her to enter. SirWilloughby used a gentle insistence with her. She bent her head as ifshe were stepping into a cave. So frigid was she, that a ridiculousdread of calling Mr. Whitford Mr. Oxford was her only present anxietywhen Sir Willoughby had closed the window on them.