CHAPTER II
THE YOUNG SIR WILLOUGHBY
These little scoundrel imps, who have attained to some respectabilityas the dogs and pets of the Comic Spirit, had been curiously attentivethree years earlier, long before the public announcement of hisengagement to the beautiful Miss Durham, on the day of Sir Willoughby'smajority, when Mrs. Mountstuart Jenkinson said her word of him. Mrs.Mountstuart was a lady certain to say the remembered, if not the right,thing. Again and again was it confirmed on days of high celebration,days of birth or bridal, how sure she was to hit the mark that rang thebell; and away her word went over the county: and had she been anuncharitable woman she could have ruled the county with an iron rod ofcaricature, so sharp was her touch. A grain of malice would have sentcounty faces and characters awry into the currency. She was wealthy andkindly, and resembled our mother Nature in her reasonable antipathiesto one or two things which none can defend, and her decided preferenceof persons that shone in the sun. Her word sprang out of her. Shelooked at you, and forth it came: and it stuck to you, as nothinglaboured or literary could have adhered. Her saying of Laetitia Dale:"Here she comes with a romantic tale on her eyelashes," was a portraitof Laetitia. And that of Vernon Whitford: "He is a Phoebus Apolloturned fasting friar," painted the sunken brilliancy of the leanlong-walker and scholar at a stroke.
Of the young Sir Willoughby, her word was brief; and there was themerit of it on a day when he was hearing from sunrise to the setting ofthe moon salutes in his honour, songs of praise and Ciceronian eulogy.Rich, handsome, courteous, generous, lord of the Hall, the feast andthe dance, he excited his guests of both sexes to a holiday offlattery. And, says Mrs. Mountstuart, while grand phrases were mouthinground about him, "You see he has a leg."
That you saw, of course. But after she had spoken you saw much more.Mrs. Mountstuart said it just as others utter empty nothings, withnever a hint of a stress. Her word was taken up, and very soon, fromthe extreme end of the long drawing-room, the circulation of somethingof Mrs. Mountstuart's was distinctly perceptible. Lady Patterne sent alittle Hebe down, skirting the dancers, for an accurate report of it;and even the inappreciative lips of a very young lady transmitting theword could not damp the impression of its weighty truthfulness. It wasperfect! Adulation of the young Sir Willoughby's beauty and wit, andaristocratic bearing and mien, and of his moral virtues, was common;welcome if you like, as a form of homage; but common, almost vulgar,beside Mrs. Mountstuart's quiet little touch of nature. In seeming tosay infinitely less than others, as Miss Isabel Patterne pointed out toLady Busshe, Mrs. Mountstuart comprised all that the others had said,by showing the needlessness of allusions to the saliently evident. Shewas the aristocrat reproving the provincial. "He is everything you havehad the goodness to remark, ladies and dear sirs, he talks charmingly,dances divinely, rides with the air of a commander-in-chief, has themost natural grand pose possible without ceasing for a moment to be theyoung English gentleman he is. Alcibiades, fresh from a Louis IVperruquier, could not surpass him: whatever you please; I could outdoyou in sublime comparisons, were I minded to pelt him. Have you noticedthat he has a leg?"
So might it be amplified. A simple-seeming word of this import is thetriumph of the spiritual, and where it passes for coin of value, thesociety has reached a high refinement: Arcadian by the aesthetic route.Observation of Willoughby was not, as Miss Eleanor Patterne pointed outto Lady Culmer, drawn down to the leg, but directed to estimate himfrom the leg upward. That, however, is prosaic. Dwell a short space onMrs. Mountstuart's word; and whither, into what fair region, and withhow decorously voluptuous a sensation, do not we fly, who have, throughmournful veneration of the Martyr Charles, a coy attachment to theCourt of his Merrie Son, where the leg was ribanded with love-knots andreigned. Oh! it was a naughty Court. Yet have we dreamed of it as theperiod when an English cavalier was grace incarnate; far from the boornow hustling us in another sphere; beautifully mannered, every gesturedulcet. And if the ladies were . . . we will hope they have beentraduced. But if they were, if they were too tender, ah! gentlemenwere gentlemen then--worth perishing for! There is this dream in theEnglish country; and it must be an aspiration after some form ofmelodious gentlemanliness which is imagined to have inhabited theisland at one time; as among our poets the dream of the period of acircle of chivalry here is encouraged for the pleasure of theimagination.
Mrs. Mountstuart touched a thrilling chord. "In spite of men's hatefulmodern costume, you see he has a leg."
That is, the leg of the born cavalier is before you: and obscure it asyou will, dress degenerately, there it is for ladies who have eyes. Yousee it: or, you see he has it. Miss Isabel and Miss Eleanor disputedthe incidence of the emphasis, but surely, though a slight differenceof meaning may be heard, either will do: many, with a good show ofreason, throw the accent upon leg. And the ladies knew for a fact thatWilloughby's leg was exquisite; he had a cavalier court-suit in hiswardrobe. Mrs. Mountstuart signified that the leg was to be seenbecause it was a burning leg. There it is, and it will shine through!He has the leg of Rochester, Buckingham, Dorset, Suckling; the leg thatsmiles, that winks, is obsequious to you, yet perforce of beautyself-satisfied; that twinkles to a tender midway between imperiousnessand seductiveness, audacity and discretion; between "You shall worshipme", and "I am devoted to you;" is your lord, your slave, alternatelyand in one. It is a leg of ebb and flow and high-tide ripples. Such aleg, when it has done with pretending to retire, will walk straightinto the hearts of women. Nothing so fatal to them.
Self-satisfied it must be. Humbleness does not win multitudes or thesex. It must be vain to have a sheen. Captivating melodies (to prove toyou the unavoidableness of self-satisfaction when you know that youhave hit perfection), listen to them closely, have an inner pipe ofthat conceit almost ludicrous when you detect the chirp.
And you need not be reminded that he has the leg without thenaughtiness. You see eminent in him what we would fain have broughtabout in a nation that has lost its leg in gaining a possibly cleanermorality. And that is often contested; but there is no doubt of theloss of the leg.
Well, footmen and courtiers and Scottish Highlanders, and the corps deballet, draymen too, have legs, and staring legs, shapely enough. Butwhat are they? not the modulated instrument we mean--simply legs forleg-work, dumb as the brutes. Our cavalier's is the poetic leg, aportent, a valiance. He has it as Cicero had a tongue. It is a lute toscatter songs to his mistress; a rapier, is she obdurate. In sooth aleg with brains in it, soul.
And its shadows are an ambush, its lights a surprise. It blushes, itpales, can whisper, exclaim. It is a peep, a part revelation, justsufferable, of the Olympian god--Jove playing carpet-knight.
For the young Sir Willoughby's family and his thoughtful admirers, itis not too much to say that Mrs. Mountstuart's little word fetched anepoch of our history to colour the evening of his arrival at man'sestate. He was all that Merrie Charles's court should have been,subtracting not a sparkle from what it was. Under this light hedanced, and you may consider the effect of it on his company.
He had received the domestic education of a prince. Little princesabound in a land of heaped riches. Where they have not to yieldmilitary service to an Imperial master, they are necessarily here andthere dainty during youth, sometimes unmanageable, and as they arebound in no personal duty to the State, each is for himself, with fullpresent, and what is more, luxurious, prospective leisure for thepractice of that allegiance. They are sometimes enervated by it: thatmust be in continental countries. Happily our climate and our braveblood precipitate the greater number upon the hunting-field, to do thepublic service of heading the chase of the fox, with benefit to theirconstitutions. Hence a manly as well as useful race of little princes,and Willoughby was as manly as any. He cultivated himself, he would notbe outdone in popular accomplishments. Had the standard of the publictaste been set in philosophy, and the national enthusiasm centred inphilosophers, he would at least have worked at books. He did work atscience, and had a laborator
y. His admirable passion to excel, however,was chiefly directed in his youth upon sport; and so great was thepassion in him, that it was commonly the presence of rivals which ledhim to the declaration of love.
He knew himself, nevertheless, to be the most constant of men in hisattachment to the sex. He had never discouraged Laetitia Dale'sdevotion to him, and even when he followed in the sweeping tide of thebeautiful Constantia Durham (whom Mrs. Mountstuart called "The RacingCutter"), he thought of Laetitia, and looked at her. She was a shyviolet.
Willoughby's comportment while the showers of adulation drenched himmight be likened to the composure of Indian Gods undergoing worship,but unlike them he reposed upon no seat of amplitude to preserve himfrom a betrayal of intoxication; he had to continue tripping, dancing,exactly balancing himself, head to right, head to left, addressing hisidolaters in phrases of perfect choiceness. This is only to say that itis easier to be a wooden idol than one in the flesh; yet Willoughby wasequal to his task. The little prince's education teaches him that heis other than you, and by virtue of the instruction he receives, andalso something, we know not what, within, he is enabled to maintain hisposture where you would be tottering.
Urchins upon whose curly pates grave seniors lay their hands withconventional encomium and speculation, look older than they areimmediately, and Willoughby looked older than his years, not for wantof freshness, but because he felt that he had to stand eminently andcorrectly poised.
Hearing of Mrs. Mountstuart's word on him, he smiled and said, "It isat her service."
The speech was communicated to her, and she proposed to attach adedicatory strip of silk. And then they came together, and there waswit and repartee suitable to the electrical atmosphere of thedancing-room, on the march to a magical hall of supper. Willoughbyconducted Mrs. Mountstuart to the supper-table.
"Were I," said she, "twenty years younger, I think I would marry you,to cure my infatuation."
"Then let me tell you in advance, madam," said he, "that I will doeverything to obtain a new lease of it, except divorce you."
They were infinitely wittier, but so much was heard and may bereported.
"It makes the business of choosing a wife for him superhumanlydifficult!" Mrs. Mountstuart observed, after listening to the praisesshe had set going again when the ladies were weeded of us, in LadyPatterne's Indian room, and could converse unhampered upon their ownethereal themes.
"Willoughby will choose a wife for himself," said his mother.