Comin' Thro' the Rye (Mathers)/Summer/Chapter 8
CHAPTER VIII.
Isabella. Ay, as the glasses where they view themselves,
Which are as easy broke as they make forms."
It is high noon, and we are "six precious souls, and all agog," dashing along the dusty, hot, turnpike-road towards Beecham Wood. The sun, knowing that his time is short, and that he will ere long sink from the proud overbearing tyrant into a mild, benevolent, dull old luminary, is beating down upon us with broad, level strokes, cleaving our parasols and tickling our faces, making us, in short, very uncomfortable, cross, and miserable. It is the sort of day when one longs instinctively for an open unoccupied space, no living being near to touch one, and nothing to do save imbibe cooling drinks, therefore pity me, oh reader! in that I am shut up with three other females in Milly's landau. Behind us follows a carriage similarly filled, and we are en route for the vernal shades of Beecham and the society of the sportsmen, with whom we are going for the first time to take luncheon. They have several times asked humbly enough for our society, but with the first lust of slaughter upon them Milly judged wisely that they were best left to their own and the birds' company. They are somewhat sated by now, though, for to-day is the 16th of the month.
How fast the days have slipped away! How utterly pleasant and sweet they have been! Let me not begin to rejoice over them though, lest evil ones follow. Far away I see a little soft cloud of grey under the trees, with dogs lying about. As we approach nearer it resolves itself into the gentlemen, who are lounging about, cigar in mouth, looking as cool, and fresh, and comfortable, as we are precisely the reverse. We all tumble out of the carriages anyhow, and make a dash through the gate, only longing to get into the shady woodland beyond. In the general scrimmage, Lord St. John tossed up nearest to me.
"Have we much farther to go?" I ask, looking with affection at a big tree we are hurrying past.
"Not much!" he says; "two or three minutes' walk, perhaps."
I don't think he has done much shooting this morning: he looks as if he had come out of a bandbox, and his wicked little eyes are fixed with doting fondness on Alice's vanishing tail, for with all my haste I am somehow the very last of all.
Everybody seems to have got badly matched to-day: Alice is with Captain Brabazon, Milly with Mr. Silvestre; Fane's back expresses intense disgust as he walks by the side of Mrs. Lister, and her daughter's head has a sulky air as seen in the company of Charles Lovelace, while—oh, wonder of wonders—Silvia Fleming has fallen to the lot of Paul Vasher, and Sir George Vestris gloomily stalks with that young woman's mother.
I am casting my eyes about the wood, and thinking how pretty it is now, and how infinitely prettier it must be in spring-time thickly powdered over with dainty forest flowers, when I put my foot into a rabbit hole, and take a breathless header into space. Lord St. John picks me up without a smile, likewise my hat, which has ambitiously flown far beyond my head, like a rider who clears a fence while his horse remains behind. Goëthe says men show their character in nothing more clearly than in what they think laughable. Now Lord St. John does not even smile, whereas if I had seen him meet with the same accident I should have laughed immoderately for five minutes. There is no one behind to mark my confusion, so, as one's misfortunes are always bearable when there is no one by to observe them, I put on my hat with unruffled serenity and proceed on my way.
What a dull little lord this is! It is lucky that he does not, like other mortals, depend on "the quantity of sense, wit, or good manners he brings into society for the reception he meets with in it." He is neither handsome, nor wise, nor witty, yet he will never know the lack of good looks, wisdom, or sense; he will pass over the heads of men better in every way than himself, only they are born with wooden ladles in their mouths and he with a silver one.
Here we are at last. The white cloth on the grass commends itself favourably to my eyes, and the twinkling silken calves of the footmen, as they go hither and thither, look festive and cool. I sit down with a sigh of relief, and Paul Vasher comes to my side and sits down too. Sir George flies to Silvia, Milly to Fane; the sisters, alas! to the Captains—it is a general post. I wonder what Paul and Silvia have been talking about: there is no expression on her face; on his there is a great deal, as he looks at me. I have hardly dared to seek to learn its meaning yet—hardly ventured to put out a trembling hand to touch the skirt of a mantle of great joy. . . .
Everybody is sitting down now, and finding by painful experience that though eating one's luncheon on the grass is a picturesque thing to look at, it is by no means a comfortable thing to do: one's back has an awkward trick of curving outwards, and one's knees of encroaching on one's chin. Then the eating—whether is it better to bend two-double over the plate on the damask, or permit it to reverse itself and its contents on our slippery laps? In spite of these drawbacks, however, the grateful shadow, gay voices, welcome champagne cup, and the right companion, make the hour a pleasant one. If only these pleasant hours that come so rarely to us mortals would abide with us, not hurry so fleetly away!
"I think you must have snubbed St. John pretty well," says Paul; "he left you so precipitately just now."
"He is so stupid," I say, looking across at him; "and as I am not clever myself, I like to be with amusing people; do not you?"
"Indeed I do; but I don't think the cleverest people are the most amusing. They go too deep. It is the nonsense talkers who are most companionable; just as you will laugh heartily at a book that you keep on saying to yourself over and over again is the silliest stuff imaginable."
"Then there is some hope for me, is there not?"
The servants come and go, merry jests are born and die, the sunbeams flicker jubilantly down on our uncovered heads, the butterflies flutter idly by, the gnats swarm above us, there is a sleepiness in the air, a sense of comfort in our bodies.
"What have you been thinking about all this time?" asks Paul.
"You will laugh if I tell you," I say, "but just then I was ruminating about bread sauce. Partridges grew and so did bread, but the man who wedded the two must have been a clever fellow, must he not?"
"And you were really thinking that?"
"Really! I suppose it was the sight of the birds yonder put it into my head."
He looks at me amusedly.
"I wonder if you could keep a secret if you had one?" he says. "I think you would bring it straight out. I always know when you are glad or sorry, vexed or pleased, in an instant; do you think you could be deceitful, if you tried?"
"You don't know what stories I can tell at a pinch," I say, laughing; "and if that is not being deceitful, what is?"
"You do not mean that you tell lies?"
"What a downright word! How ugly it makes the smallest deviation from truth look! No, my fibs are only harmless ones, extemporized to save the boys from getting into rows with papa, and so forth. I don't ever remember telling a real lie."
"And you have never deceived anybody?" he asks, with a strange persistence.
"Never!" I say, truly—for have I not told George the plain unvarnished truth hundreds and hundreds of times?
Luncheon is over, and most of the men are not sitting, but lounging at their ease, with a comfort very irritating to feminine eyes. Alice and Milly are making use of their respective lords by leaning against them dos-à-dos; the attitude is comfortable, but not particularly elegant. A score of yards away a stalwart oak presents to our view a stout brown body that offers friendly support to an aching back, and towards it I turn my eyes.
"You are tired," says Paul; "shall we go and sit over there?"
He holds out his hand, pulls me up, and in another minute we are sitting against the old monarch.
"How tired that lord must have got who went on a tour round England without once leaning back in his carriage!" I say laughing. "Don't you think he must have taken it out in a long course of easy chairs afterwards?"
"I don't fancy they had any worth mentioning in those days. What hardy old people they were, and to what an age they lived! Now-a-days it is the old who bury the young. I think it was their leisurely way of taking things, their conversations, their journeys, their love-makings, that kept their bodies and souls so fresh. They were content to take life gradually: one emotion at a time was enough for them; they knew how to wait. Our generation is not satisfied with looking forward; it must desire, long for, possess, all in a breath. There is very little patience anywhere in this nineteenth century."
"I should have liked to live in those days," I say, thinking; "they lived much grander, sweeter, honester lives than we do; they must have had so much more of eternity, so much less of the present, in their thoughts than we have!"
"Let me tell you, Nell," says Paul, "that there are girls in the world every bit as nice and honest and sweet as their grand-mothers were. Do you remember," he asks, drawing nearer to me, "that once, years ago, I assured you it was much better to be good than pretty? And you disappointed me a good deal, by seeming to prefer the prettiness to the goodness!"
"It was not for beauty's sake I wished it," I say, looking ashamed; "but because I had always thought it a great power, and because I saw handsome people treated far more kindly than plain ones!"
"Do you not know, Nell, that far more deeply rooted in a man's breast than the mere admiration of physical beauty is his veneration of what is pure, and not to be corrupted, something better than himself, in a word—good? Many women believe that they can hold an undivided empire over a lover's heart by being simply lovely to the eye, and charming; they trust to the comeliness of the body effectually preventing any search after the soul or mind, and their experience of a certain class of men justifies them in so believing. Of the far larger class, who put aside all the dazzle and beauty of the outside appearance to look beyond, they have no conception, little knowing that every sensible man, if he do admire the sparkling casket, always looks within to see if it contain a gem of value and purity, or a tawdry bit of coloured glass."
"You are very hard upon us," I say, surprised. "Are all men so difficult to please as you?"
"Shall I tell you why we see the faults of women so clearly?" he says. "Because we know how infinitely above us most of you are in purity, unselfishness, and goodness; it is because we hate to see you step off your pedestals and come down to our level, that we are so severe upon every failing and shadow of evil doing. Do we not honour you more in setting you a high standard than a low one?"
"But do you not help to lower it?" I ask. "I have never been out into the world; I have only read and heard people talk: but, I think, if girls are frivolous and vain, it is you who help to make them so. If you talked nobly and sensibly to them and tried to bring out, not the amusing weaknesses of their characters, but the hidden worth that lies in every nature, you would make less of toys, more of companions of them."
"You are right," he says; "men do incalculable harm in fostering the vanity and conceit of girls; but it is a fact that you may tell a woman she is virtuous, discreet, admirable in every way, and she will not say thank you; but tell her she is pretty—and smiles will break out all over her face. Fellows know this, and of course take advantage of the weakness, and so society becomes leavened with a general idea that beauty is the greatest good and blessing on earth, and that all the other virtues and graces are set down second to it. There never was a greater fallacy. Now if I had a wife, her good looks would be the last thing I should care to hear commented on. It would give me no pleasure to hear people exclaiming, 'How pretty she is!' 'How beautifully she dances!' but if they said, 'She is a thorough little lady,' 'She is sensible and charming,' 'She is good,' I should be proud of her, and in nothing so much as this, that no one would dare offer her the smallest liberty, in look or word."
"Are you reading me this homily on the beauty of goodness versus the goodness of beauty, to comfort my forlornness?" I ask, laughing. "Indeed, you need not: I have quite grown used to not being pretty like the rest."
"Pretty," he says, staring at my face, "can you be so———?" He checks himself, and breaks off. "I see your brothers are smoking," he says presently, "may I?”
"Yes."
I look around me. Mrs. Lister is fast asleep, propped up against a neighbouring tree. Her mouth is wide open, and the flies are walking in out of the same as seemeth good to them. Her daughters are pursuing their up-hill, one-sided flirtations; and the head of the elder is wobbling plaintively towards Captain Brabazon's shrinking shoulder, in a manner that seems to say, "let me lay it down, and leave it." Mrs. Fleming is reading a letter, and her squire—Mr. Silvestre—lies on his back by her side, deeply, soundly, noisily asleep. Silvia is telling her fortune on a spike of grass, and looking with lovely, lazy eyes at Sir George, whose face aflame with love, pleading, and God alone knows what. Fane's cheek rests contentedly on Milly's elaborate chignon; and Alice, leaning against Charles's broad back, listens to Lord St. John's mild conversation and flatteries with half-shut eyes. The content on Paul's face is good to behold, when he has his cigar fairly between his lips. Was ever woman, I wonder, as true and faithful and soothing a friend to man as tobacco?
"Your sex ought to be better tempered than ours," I say; "for you are able to smoke away all your troubles and disappointments and annoyances, while we can only sit down and think."
"You have one great resource that is denied to us—you can weep."
"That is so cowardly. I always look upon tears as a refuge only to be fled to when everything else fails (I mean, of course, when I am put out), and of the two I would far rather storm."
"And yet," says Paul, "utterly as you can rout us by the sight of your tears, I prefer even them to being reviled by you—a woman's power is pretty well gone when she takes to scolding."
"Cleopatra kept hers well enough," I say, half to myself. "Now if I were you, I would far rather have a woman who was outrageous sometimes and sorry afterwards, than a meek, obstinate, crying creature who never forgot herself—or a grudge."
"Then you prefer Katherine to Bianca?"
"Infinitely; and I am certain I should have slapped Bianca even harder than Katherine did. She only insisted on her own way until she found some one with a stronger will; then she gavenin directly."
"And would you give in to any one?"
"If I were quite sure his ways were better than mine, if not I should take my own."
"You ought to take his whether you are sure or not."
"Indeed! I see the race of tyrants is not quite extinct."
"Or that of rebels!"
"There should be no question of 'giving in' or 'looking up,'" I say demurely. "Alfred de Musset says a woman should above all things be bon camarade; and between comrades there is equality, is there not?"
"The man should always rule," says Paul, in his masterful way; "and you may say what you like, Nell, but you would love to be ruled, you would like to be kept in order."
"No, no," I say gravely; "that Frenchman's idea was a much better one. He went on broader grounds than you do. Yours is an English notion. He recognised the fact that however pretty and amusing it may be to play at love, it cannot be made the business of a life-time; and that after a while a man grows tired of treating his mistress or wife like a goddess or a baby: he wants more solid stuff to live on, and the one everlasting dish palls then. If she will look the knowledge in the face that such is the case, and putting sentiment on one side enter heartily into his ambitions and aims, and hopes and amusements, she becomes not only the beloved woman, but the bright pleasant comrade, who is bound to him by fifty ties of mutual interest and support; they are equals, and he considers her as capable of giving advice as taking it———"
I stop short in my serious disquisition on love and matrimony as I catch Paul's amused smile.
"Wait until you fall in love," he says; "I shall see it some day, and I wonder where all your philosophy will be then?"
"Where it is now," I answer stoutly, through my blushes; "nothing will ever alter my opinion on that point. I think it is nothing but bad management that makes so many married people who begin with so much love end up with so little. Mr. Vasher?"
"Yes."
"Do you think Silvia would ever have been bon camarade?"
"No; she would keep a man to her side by sheer fascination, but she could never———"
"What do you call fascination?" I ask, as he pauses.
"I suppose the real essence of it lies in the power a woman possesses of making herself so delightful, that every hour spent away from her is an age."
"Do witty people fascinate?"
"In a different way. They amuse and astonish more than they inspire respect."
"How I should like to be witty!" I say, laughing. "It is a great power, is it not, to be able to say clever, brilliant, sparkling things?"
"Yes, but one not often to be coveted. A very witty person is no one's enemy so much as his own: he amuses people at the expense of others, and the former have a pleasant conviction that their turn will come presently, and no one feels safe."
"Like Lady Hester Stanhope," I say, "who lost all her friends through her tongue, and was also known to boast that no one could give such a slap on the face as she could!"
"Yes, her wit worked her ruin," says Paul, "as did poor Brummel's, although indeed his was but barefaced effrontery!"
"I always admired that man," I say, laughing: "he was so bold, and his insolence was so splendidly audacious. I wonder what master of ceremonies now-a-days would dare say to a duchess, 'In heaven's name, my dear duchess, what is the meaning of that extraordinary back of yours? I declare I must put you on a back-board. You must positively walk out of the room backwards that I mayn't see it!'" We both laugh heartily.
"It makes one feel very small, does it not?" says Paul, "that people should feel so much more angry at being made fun of, than being called ugly, or wicked, or disagreeable? Is it not Macaulay who says, 'Alas for human nature, that the wounds of vanity should smart and bleed so much longer than the wounds of affliction?'"
"One can forgive unkindness, ill-usage, neglect even—but ridicule never!" I say, laughing; "and yet it is curious, is it not? to see how people like to make fools of themselves comfortably, but hate to be told of it. That, I suppose, is why you men always like to marry a stupid woman, for she never finds you out!"
"You are wrong," says Paul. "A stupid woman, i.e., a fool, admires everything, and everybody, her husband among the rest; a sensible woman looks all about her, and seeing nothing half as good as the man she has married, admires him."
"A most delicate flattery; but supposing he is not wise?"
"Would a woman of sense marry a man who had none?"
"She often does. Now Mrs. Skipworth, at Silverbridge, she is sensible, and she married a very prosy, foolish man. And yet," I add, looking out at the cool green shadows and gold patches of sunlight that lie athwart the woodland, "I don't know that he is so foolish as irritating. Did you ever know a man who smiles when he tells you the day is fine, smiles when he tells you your soul is lost, and would smile over your new-made grave, and say the funeral had gone off beautifully? That is Mr. Skipworth."
"Well," says Paul, "I shall see him before long, and listen to his sermons, which I suppose will be rather worse than himself. Is your seat in church anywhere near mine?"
"Oh, no! The Towers turns up its nose at the Manor House, and while you rejoice in a curtained pew under the pulpit, we occupy an abased position in the aisle! The pew opposite yours was ours once, but it would not hold us all, and papa exchanged it for a big one; but there is scarcely any one to sit in it now—there are only nine of us, babies and all!"
"Only nine!" he says. Well, I shall come over to the Manor House often, and you will———"
"Nell, Nell! cries Milly's voice in the distance, and I jump up hastily. Everybody has left off sleeping, talking, laughing, and flirting; the men are repossessing themselves of their guns, and the ladies are standing about.
"At any rate," says Paul, "we have stolen two pleasant hours from that old thief, Time, have we not?"
CHAPTER IX.
"Through tattered clothes small vices do appear; robes and furr'd gowne hide all."
Nine o'clock is striking, and I am standing before a looking-glass, admiring myself with a hearty appreciation that it would be folly indeed to expect any one else to feel. For the first time in my life I am en grande tenue. With something of the recklessness of a man who decides that, if he must be hung, it may as well be for a sheep as a lamb, I am arrayed with a sublime disregard for such vulgar considerations as pounds, shillings, and pence, as might well set the governor dancing a fandango if he were but here to see; not but what he will dance it safely enough over the bill. Out of my glistening dress of gauzę poppies burn redly, in great bunches at my side, and on my shoulder, and in my hair; they even twinkle cheerfully on my little white satin shoes, that look vastly pretty, but pinch most horribly.
A tap at the door, and enter Milly's maid with a bouquet, "With Mr. Vasher's compliments." As she retires I take it my hand. It is of blood red and yellow gold roses with a few ferns, and they look out of place with my vagrant wild flowers. I shall carry them though for all that. A supremely happy, well-dressed, blessed young woman I look as I take up my fan and gloves, and run lightly down the stairs.
My first ball! Will it be as disappointing, I wonder, as the fulfilment of most earthly wishes usually is? I make my way to the ball-room, wide and cool and lovely with the beauty of fair proportions, and delicate, brilliant dazzle of flowers.
The musicians are in their places, but nobody is visible, not even that mythical personage, the first arrival. Was ever any one known to confess that he or she arrived first anywhere! And yet some