CHAPTER XIV
SIR WILLOUGHBY AND LAETITIA
"I prepare Miss Dale."
Sir Willoughby thought of his promise to Clara. He trifled awhile withyoung Crossjay, and then sent the boy flying, and wrapped himself inmeditation. So shall you see standing many a statue of statesmen whohave died in harness for their country.
In the hundred and fourth chapter of the thirteenth volume of the Bookof Egoism it is written: Possession without obligation to the objectpossessed approaches felicity.
It is the rarest condition of ownership. For example: the possession ofland is not without obligation both to the soil and the tax-collector;the possession of fine clothing is oppressed by obligation; gold,jewelry, works of art, enviable household furniture, are positivefetters; the possession of a wife we find surcharged with obligation.In all these cases possession is a gentle term for enslavement,bestowing the sort of felicity attained to by the helot drunk. You canhave the joy, the pride, the intoxication of possession; you can haveno free soul.
But there is one instance of possession, and that the most perfect,which leaves us free, under not a shadow of obligation, receiving ever,never giving, or if giving, giving only of our waste; as it were (saufvotre respect), by form of perspiration, radiation, if you like;unconscious poral bountifulness; and it is a beneficent process for thesystem. Our possession of an adoring female's worship is this instance.
The soft cherishable Parsee is hardly at any season other thanprostrate. She craves nothing save that you continue in being--hersun: which is your firm constitutional endeavour: and thus you have amost exact alliance; she supplying spirit to your matter, while at thesame time presenting matter to your spirit, verily a comfortableapposition. The Gods do bless it.
That they do so indeed is evident in the men they select for such afelicitous crown and aureole. Weak men would be rendered nervous by theflattery of a woman's worship; or they would be for returning it, atleast partially, as though it could be bandied to and fro withoutemulgence of the poetry; or they would be pitiful, and quite spoil thething. Some would be for transforming the beautiful solitary vestalflame by the first effort of the multiplication-table into yourhearth-fire of slippered affection. So these men are not they whom theGods have ever selected, but rather men of a pattern with themselves,very high and very solid men, who maintain the crown by holdingdivinely independent of the great emotion they have sown.
Even for them a pass of danger is ahead, as we shall see in our sampleof one among the highest of them.
A clear approach to felicity had long been the portion of SirWilloughby Patterne in his relations with Laetitia Dale. She belongedto him; he was quite unshackled by her. She was everything that is goodin a parasite, nothing that is bad. His dedicated critic she was,reviewing him with a favour equal to perfect efficiency in her office;and whatever the world might say of him, to her the happy gentlemancould constantly turn for his refreshing balsamic bath. She flew to thesoul in him, pleasingly arousing sensations of that inhabitant; and heallowed her the right to fly, in the manner of kings, as we have heard,consenting to the privileges acted on by cats. These may not addresstheir Majesties, but they may stare; nor will it be contested that theattentive circular eyes of the humble domestic creatures are anembellishment to Royal pomp and grandeur, such truly as should one daygain for them an inweaving and figurement--in the place of bees, erminetufts, and their various present decorations--upon the august greatrobes back-flowing and foaming over the gaspy page-boys.
Further to quote from the same volume of The Book: There is pain in thesurrendering of that we are fain to relinquish.
The idea is too exquisitely attenuate, as are those of the wholebody-guard of the heart of Egoism, and will slip through you unless youshall have made a study of the gross of volumes of the first and secondsections of The Book, and that will take you up to senility; or youmust make a personal entry into the pages, perchance; or an escape outof them. There was once a venerable gentleman for whom a white hairgrew on the cop of his nose, laughing at removals. He resigned himselfto it in the end, and lastingly contemplated the apparition. It doesnot concern us what effect was produced on his countenance and hismind; enough that he saw a fine thing, but not so fine as the ideacited above; which has been between the two eyes of humanity ever sincewomen were sought in marriage. With yonder old gentleman it may havebeen a ghostly hair or a disease of the optic nerves; but for us it isa real growth, and humanity might profitably imitate him in his patientspeculation upon it.
Sir Willoughby Patterne, though ready in the pursuit of duty and policy(an oft-united couple) to cast Miss Dale away, had to consider that hewas not simply, so to speak, casting her over a hedge, he was castingher for a man to catch her; and this was a much greater trial than ithad been on the previous occasion, when she went over bump to theground. In the arms of a husband, there was no knowing how soon shemight forget her soul's fidelity. It had not hurt him to sketch theproject of the conjunction; benevolence assisted him; but he winced andsmarted on seeing it take shape. It sullied his idea of Laetitia.
Still, if, in spite of so great a change in her fortune, her spiritcould be guaranteed changeless, he, for the sake of pacifying hisbride, and to keep two serviceable persons near him, at command, mightresolve to join them. The vision of his resolution brought with it acertain pallid contempt of the physically faithless woman; no wonder hebetook himself to The Book, and opened it on the scorching chapterstreating of the sex, and the execrable wiles of that foremost creatureof the chase, who runs for life. She is not spared in the Biggest ofBooks. But close it.
The writing in it having been done chiefly by men, men naturallyreceive their fortification from its wisdom, and half a dozen of thepopular sentences for the confusion of women (cut in brass worn to apolish like sombre gold), refreshed Sir Willoughby for his undertaking.
An examination of Laetitia's faded complexion braced him verycordially.
His Clara, jealous of this poor leaf!
He could have desired the transfusion of a quality or two from Laetitiato his bride; but you cannot, as in cookery, obtain a mixture of theessences of these creatures; and if, as it is possible to do, and as hehad been doing recently with the pair of them at the Hall, you stewthem in one pot, you are far likelier to intensify their littlebirthmarks of individuality. Had they a tendency to excellence it mightbe otherwise; they might then make the exchanges we wish for; orscientifically concocted in a harem for a sufficient length of time bya sultan anything but obtuse, they might. It is, however, fruitless todwell on what was only a glimpse of a wild regret, like the crossing oftwo express trains along the rails in Sir Willoughby's head.
The ladies Eleanor and Isabel were sitting with Miss Dale, all three atwork on embroideries. He had merely to look at Miss Eleanor. She rose.She looked at Miss Isabel, and rattled her chatelaine to account forher departure. After a decent interval Miss Isabel glided out. Such wasthe perfect discipline of the household.
Sir Willoughby played an air on the knee of his crossed leg.
Laetitia grew conscious of a meaning in the silence. She said, "Youhave not been vexed by affairs to-day?"
"Affairs," he replied, "must be peculiarly vexatious to trouble me.Concerning the country or my personal affairs?"
"I fancy I was alluding to the country."
"I trust I am as good a patriot as any man living," said he; "but I amused to the follies of my countrymen, and we are on board a stout ship.At the worst it's no worse than a rise in rates and taxes; soup at theHall gates, perhaps; license to fell timber in one of the outer copses,or some dozen loads of coal. You hit my feudalism."
"The knight in armour has gone," said Laetitia, "and the castle withthe draw-bridge. Immunity for our island has gone too since we took tocommerce."
"We bartered independence for commerce. You hit our old controversy.Ay, but we do not want this overgrown population! However, we will putpolitics and sociology and the pack of their modern barbarous wordsaside. You r
ead me intuitively. I have been, I will not say annoyed,but ruffled. I have much to do, and going into Parliament would make mealmost helpless if I lose Vernon. You know of some absurd notion hehas?--literary fame, and bachelor's chambers, and a chop-house, and therest of it."
She knew, and thinking differently in the matter of literary fame, sheflushed, and, ashamed of the flush, frowned.
He bent over to her with the perusing earnestness of a gentleman aboutto trifle.
"You cannot intend that frown?"
"Did I frown?"
"You do."
"Now?"
"Fiercely."
"Oh!"
"Will you smile to reassure me?"
"Willingly, as well as I can."
A gloom overcame him. With no woman on earth did he shine so as torecall to himself seigneur and dame of the old French Court as he didwith Laetitia Dale. He did not wish the period revived, but reserved itas a garden to stray into when he was in the mood for displayingelegance and brightness in the society of a lady; and in speechLaetitia helped him to the nice delusion. She was not devoid of graceof bearing either.
Would she preserve her beautiful responsiveness to his ascendency?Hitherto she had, and for years, and quite fresh. But how of her as amarried woman? Our souls are hideously subject to the conditions of ouranimal nature! A wife, possibly mother, it was within sober calculationthat there would be great changes in her. And the hint of any changeappeared a total change to one of the lofty order who, when they arecalled on to relinquish possession instead of aspiring to it, say, Allor nothing!
Well, but if there was danger of the marriage-tie effecting theslightest alteration of her character or habit of mind, wherefore pressit upon a tolerably hardened spinster!
Besides, though he did once put her hand in Vernon's for the dance, heremembered acutely that the injury then done by his generosity to histender sensitiveness had sickened and tarnished the effulgence of twoor three successive anniversaries of his coming of age. Nor had healtogether yet got over the passion of greed for the whole group of thewell-favoured of the fair sex, which in his early youth had made itbitter for him to submit to the fickleness, not to say the modestfickleness, of any handsome one of them in yielding her hand to a manand suffering herself to be led away. Ladies whom he had only heard ofas ladies of some beauty incurred his wrath for having lovers or takinghusbands. He was of a vast embrace; and do not exclaim, incovetousness;--for well he knew that even under Moslem law he could nothave them all--but as the enamoured custodian of the sex's purity,that blushes at such big spots as lovers and husbands; and it wasunbearable to see it sacrificed for others. Without their purity whatare they!--what are fruiterer's plums?--unsaleable. O for the bloomon them!
"As I said, I lose my right hand in Vernon," he resumed, "and I am, itseems, inevitably to lose him, unless we contrive to fasten him downhere. I think, my dear Miss Dale, you have my character. At least, Ishould recommend my future biographer to you--with a caution, ofcourse. You would have to write selfishness with a dash under it. Icannot endure to lose a member of my household--not under anycircumstances; and a change of feeling toward me on the part of any ofmy friends because of marriage, I think hard. I would ask you, how canit be for Vernon's good to quit an easy pleasant home for the wretchedprofession of Literature?--wretchedly paying, I mean," he bowed to theauthoress. "Let him leave the house, if he imagines he will notharmonize with its young mistress. He is queer, though a good fellow.But he ought, in that event, to have an establishment. And my schemefor Vernon--men, Miss Dale, do not change to their old friends whenthey marry--my scheme, which would cause the alteration in his systemof life to be barely perceptible, is to build him a poetical littlecottage, large enough for a couple, on the borders of my park. I havethe spot in my eye. The point is, can he live alone there? Men, I say,do not change. How is it that we cannot say the same of women?"
Laetitia remarked: "The generic woman appears to have an extraordinaryfaculty for swallowing the individual."
"As to the individual, as to a particular person, I may be wrong.Precisely because it is her case I think of, my strong friendshipinspires the fear: unworthy of both, no doubt, but trace it to thesource. Even pure friendship, such is the taint in us, knows a kind ofjealousy; though I would gladly see her established, and near me, happyand contributing to my happiness with her incomparable social charm.Her I do not estimate generically, be sure."
"If you do me the honour to allude to me, Sir Willoughby," saidLaetitia, "I am my father's housemate."
"What wooer would take that for a refusal? He would beg to be a thirdin the house and sharer of your affectionate burden. Honestly, whynot? And I may be arguing against my own happiness; it may be the endof me!"
"The end?"
"Old friends are captious, exacting. No, not the end. Yet if my friendis not the same to me, it is the end to that form of friendship: not tothe degree possibly. But when one is used to the form! And do you, inits application to friendship, scorn the word 'use'? We are creaturesof custom. I am, I confess, a poltroon in my affections; I dreadchanges. The shadow of the tenth of an inch in the customary elevationof an eyelid!--to give you an idea of my susceptibility. And, my dearMiss Dale, I throw myself on your charity, with all my weakness bare,let me add, as I could do to none but you. Consider, then, if I loseyou! The fear is due to my pusillanimity entirely. High-souled womenmay be wives, mothers, and still reserve that home for their friend.They can and will conquer the viler conditions of human life. Ourstates, I have always contended, our various phases have to be passedthrough, and there is no disgrace in it so long as they do not levytoll on the quintessential, the spiritual element. You understand me? Iam no adept in these abstract elucidations."
"You explain yourself clearly," said Laetitia.
"I have never pretended that psychology was my forte," said he, feelingovershadowed by her cold commendation: he was not less acutelysensitive to the fractional divisions of tones than of eyelids, being,as it were, a melody with which everything was out of tune that did notmodestly or mutely accord; and to bear about a melody in your person isincomparably more searching than the best of touchstones and talismansever invented. "Your father's health has improved latterly?"
"He did not complain of his health when I saw him this morning. Mycousin Amelia is with him, and she is an excellent nurse."
"He has a liking for Vernon."
"He has a great respect for Mr. Whitford."
"You have?"
"Oh, yes; I have it equally."
"For a foundation, that is the surest. I would have the friends dearestto me begin on that. The headlong match is--how can we describe it? Byits finale I am afraid. Vernon's abilities are really to be respected.His shyness is his malady. I suppose he reflected that he was not acapitalist. He might, one would think, have addressed himself to me; mypurse is not locked."
"No, Sir Willoughby!" Laetitia said, warmly, for his donations incharity were famous.
Her eyes gave him the food he enjoyed, and basking in them, hecontinued:
"Vernon's income would at once have been regulated commensurately witha new position requiring an increase. This money, money, money! But theworld will have it so. Happily I have inherited habits of business andpersonal economy. Vernon is a man who would do fifty times more with acompanion appreciating his abilities and making light of his littledeficiencies. They are palpable, small enough. He has always been awareof my wishes:--when perhaps the fulfilment might have sent me off onanother tour of the world, homebird though I am. When was it that ourfriendship commenced? In my boyhood, I know. Very many years back."
"I am in my thirtieth year," said Laetitia.
Surprised and pained by a baldness resembling the deeds of ladies (theyhave been known, either through absence of mind, or mania, to displacea wig) in the deadly intimacy which slaughters poetic admiration, SirWilloughby punished her by deliberately reckoning that she did not lookless.
"Genius," he observed, "is unacquainted with
wrinkles"; hardly one ofhis prettiest speeches; but he had been wounded, and he never couldrecover immediately. Coming on him in a mood of sentiment, the woundwas sharp. He could very well have calculated the lady's age. It wasthe jarring clash of her brazen declaration of it upon his low richflute-notes that shocked him.
He glanced at the gold cathedral-clock on the mantel-piece, andproposed a stroll on the lawn before dinner. Laetitia gathered up herembroidery work.
"As a rule," he said, "authoresses are not needle-women."
"I shall resign the needle or the pen if it stamps me an exception,"she replied.
He attempted a compliment on her truly exceptional character. As whenthe player's finger rests in distraction on the organ, it was withoutmeasure and disgusted his own hearing. Nevertheless, she had been sogood as to diminish his apprehension that the marriage of a lady in herthirtieth year with his cousin Vernon would be so much of a loss tohim; hence, while parading the lawn, now and then casting an eye at thewindow of the room where his Clara and Vernon were in council, theschemes he indulged for his prospective comfort and his feelings of themoment were in such striving harmony as that to which we hearorchestral musicians bringing their instruments under the processcalled tuning. It is not perfect, but it promises to be so soon. We arenot angels, which have their dulcimers ever on the choral pitch. We aremortals attaining the celestial accord with effort, through a stage ofpain. Some degree of pain was necessary to Sir Willoughby, otherwise hewould not have seen his generosity confronting him. He grew,therefore, tenderly inclined to Laetitia once more, so far as to saywithin himself. "For conversation she would be a valuable wife". Andthis valuable wife he was presenting to his cousin.
Apparently, considering the duration of the conference of his Clara andVernon, his cousin required strong persuasion to accept the present.