Once a Week (magazine)/Series 1/Volume 3/Evan Harrington - Part 36
EVAN HARRINGTON; or, HE WOULD BE A GENTLEMAN.
BY GEORGE MEREDITH.
CHAPTER XLVI.A LOVERS’ PARTING.
Now to suppose oneself the fashioner of such a chain of events as this which brought the whole of the Harrington family in tender unity together once more, would have elated an ordinary mind. But to the Countess de Saldar, it was simply an occasion for reflecting that she had misunderstood—and could most sincerely forgive—Providence. She admitted to herself that it was not entirely her work: for she never would have had their place of meeting to be the Shop. Seeing, however, that her end was gained, she was entitled to the credit of it, and could pardon the means adopted. Her brother lord of Beckley Court, and all of them assembled in the old 193, Main Street, Lymport! What matter for proud humility! Providence had answered her numerous petitions, but in its own way. Stipulatiug that she must swallow this pill, Providence consented to serve her. She swallowed it with her wonted courage. In half an hour subsequent to her arrival at Lymport, she had laid siege to the heart of old Tom Cogglesby, whom she found installed in the parlour, comfortably sipping at a tumbler of rum-and-water. Old Tom was astonished to meet such an agreeable unpretentious woman, who talked of tailors and lords with equal ease, appeared to comprehend a man’s habits instinctively, and could amuse him while she ministered to them.
“Can ye cook, ma’am?” asked Old Tom.
“All but that,” said the Countess, with a smile of sweet meaning.
“Ha! then you won’t suit me so well as your mother.”
“Take care you do not excite my emulation,” she returned, graciously, albeit disgusted at his tone.
To Harriet, Old Tom had merely nodded. There he sat in the arm-chair, sucking the liquor, with the glimpse of a sour chuckle on his cheeks. Now and then, during the evening, he rubbed his hands sharply, but spoke little. The unbending Harriet did not conceal her disdain of him. When he ventured to allude to the bankruptcy, she cut him short.
“Pray excuse me—I am unacquainted with affairs of business—I cannot even understand my husband.”
“Lord bless my soul!” Old Tom exclaimed, rolling his eyes.
Caroline had informed her sisters up-stairs that their mother was ignorant of Evan’s change of fortune, and that Evan desired her to continue so for the present. Caroline appeared to be pained by the subject, and was glad when Louisa sounded his mysterious behaviour by saying: “Evan has a native love of concealment—he must be humoured.”
At the supper, Mr. John Raikes made his bow. He was modest and reserved. It was known that this young gentleman acted as shopman there. With a tenderness for his position worthy of all respect, the Countess spared his feelings by totally ignoring his presence: whereat he, unaccustomed to such great-minded treatment, retired to bed, a hater of his kind. Harriet and Caroline went next. The Countess said she should wait up for Evan, but hearing that his hours of return were about the chime of matins, she cried exultingly: “Darling papa all over!” and departed likewise. Mrs. Mel, when she had mixed Old Tom’s third glass, wished the brothers good night, and they were left to exchange what sentiments they thought proper for the occasion. The Countess had certainly disappointed Old Tom’s farce in a measure; and he expressed himself puzzled by her. “You ain’t the only one,” said his brother. Andrew, with some effort, held his tongue concerning the news of Evan—his fortune and his folly, till he could talk to the youth in person.
All took their seats at the early breakfast next morning.
“Has Evan not come home yet?” was the Countess’s first question.
Mrs. Mel replied: “No.”
“Do you know where he has gone, dear mama?”
“He chooses his own way.”
“And you fear that it leads somewhere?” added the Countess.
“I fear that it leads to knocking up the horse he rides.”
“The horse, mama! He is out on a horse all night! But don’t you see, dear old pet! his morals, at least, are safe on horseback.”
“The horse has to be paid for, Louisa,” said her mother, sternly; and then, for she had a lesson to read to the guests of her son, “Ready money doesn’t come by joking. What will the creditors think? If he intends to be honest in earnest, he must give up four-feet mouths.”
“Fourteen-feet, ma’am, you mean,” said Old Tom, counting the heads at table.
“Bravo, mama!” cried the Countess, and as she was sitting near her mother, she must show how prettily she kissed, by pouting out her playful lips to her parent. “Do be economical always! And mind! for the sake of the wretched animals, I will intercede for you to be his inspector of stables.”
This, with a glance of intelligence at her sisters.
“Well, Mr. Raikes,” said Andrew, “you keep good hours, at all events—eh?”
“Up with the lark,” said Old Tom. “Ha! ’fraid he won’t be so early when he gets rid of his present habits—eh?”
“Nec dierum numerum, ut nos, sed noctium computantur,” said Mr. Raikes, and both the brothers sniffed like dogs that have put their noses to a hot coal, and the Countess, who was less insensible to the aristocracy of the dead languages than are women generally, gave him the recognition that is occasionally afforded the family tutor.
About the hour of ten Evan arrived. He was subjected to the hottest embrace he had ever yet received from the sister of Louisa.
“Darling!” she called him, before them all. “Oh! how I suffer for this ignominy I see you compelled for a moment to endure. But it is but for a moment. They must vacate; and you will soon be out of this horrid hole.”
“Where he just said he was glad to give us a welcome,” muttered Old Tom.
Evan heard him, and laughed. The Countess laughed too.
“No, we will not be impatient. We are poor insignificant people!” she said; and, turning to her mother, added: “And yet I doubt not you think the smallest of our landed gentry equal to great continental seigneurs. I do not say the contrary.”
“You fill Evan’s head with nonsense till you make him knock up a horse a week, and never go to his natural bed,” said Mrs. Mel, angrily. “Look at him! Is a face like that fit for business?”
“Certainly, certainly not!” said the Countess.
“Well, mother, the horse is dismissed,—you won’t have to complain any more,” said Evan, touching her hand. “Another history commences from to-day.”
The Countess watched him admiringly. Such powers of acting she could not have ascribed to him.
“Another history, indeed!” she said. “By the way, Van, love! was it out of Glamorganshire—were we Tudors, according to papa? or only Powys chieftains? It’s of no moment, but it helps one in conversation.”
“Not half so much as good ale, though!” was Old Tom’s comment.
The Countess did not perceive its fitness, till Evan burst into a laugh, and then she said:
“Oh! we shall never be ashamed of the Brewery. Do not fear that, Mr. Cogglesby.”
Old Tom saw his farce reviving, and encouraged the Countess to patronise him. She did so to an extent that called on her Mrs. Mel’s reprobation, which was so cutting and pertinent, that Harriet was compelled to defend her sister, remarking that perhaps her mother would soon learn that Louisa was justified in not permitting herself and family to be classed too low. At this, Andrew, coming from a private interview with Evan, threw up his hands and eyes as one who foretold astonishment but counselled humility. What with the effort of those who knew a little to imply a great deal; of those who knew all to betray nothing; and of those who were kept in ignorance to strain a fact out of the conflicting inuendoes, the general mystification waxed apace, and was at its height, when a name struck on Evan’s ear that went through his blood like a touch of the torpedo.
He had been called into the parlour to assist at a consultation over the brewery affairs. Mr. John Raikes opened the door, and announced “Sir Franks and Lady Jocelyn.”
Them he could meet, though it was hard for his pride to pardon their visit to him there. But when his eyes discerned Rose behind them, the passions of his lower nature stood up armed. What could she have come for but to humiliate, or play with him?
A very few words enabled the Countess to guess the cause for this visit. Of course, it was to beg time! But they thanked Evan. For something generous, no doubt. Sir Franks took him aside, and returning remarked to his wife that she perhaps would have greater influence with him. All this while Rose sat talking to Mrs. Andrew Cogglesby, Mrs. Strike, and Evan’s mother. She saw by his face the offence she had committed, and acted on by one of her impulses, said: “Mama, I think if I were to speak to Mr. Harrington—”
Ere her mother could make light of the suggestion, Old Tom had jumped up, and bowed out his arm.
“Allow me to conduct ye to the drawing-room, up-stairs, young lady. He’ll follow, safe enough!”
Rose had not stipulated for that. Nevertheless, seeing no cloud on her mother’s face, or her father’s, she gave Old Tom her hand, and awaited a movement from Evan. It was too late to object to it on either side. Old Tom had caught the tide at the right instant. Much as if a grim old genie had planted them together, the lovers found themselves alone.
“Evan, you forgive me?” she began, looking up at him timidly.
“With all my heart, Rose,” he answered, with great cheerfulness.
“No. I know your heart better. Oh, Evan! you must be sure that we respect you too much to wound you. We came to thank you for your generosity. Do you refuse to accept anything for us? How can we take this that you thrust on us, unless in some way—”
“Say no more,” he interposed. “You see me here. You know me as I am now.”
“Yes, yes!” the tears stood in her eyes. “Why did I come, you would ask? That is what you cannot forgive! I see now how useless it was. Evan! why did you betray me?”
“Betray you, Rose?”
“You said that you loved me once.”
She was weeping, and all his spirit melted, and his love cried out: “I said ‘till death,’ and till death it will be, Rose.”
“Then why, why did you betray me, Evan? I know it all. But if you blackened yourself to me, was it not because you loved something better than me? And now you think me false! Which of us two has been false? It’s silly to talk of these things now—too late! But be just. I wish that we may be friends. Can we, unless you bend a little?”
The tears streamed down her cheeks, and in her lovely humility he saw the baseness of that pride of his which had hitherto held him up.
“Now that you are in this house where I was born and am to live, can you regret what has come between us, Rose?”
Her lips quivered in pain.
“Can I do anything else but regret it all my life, Evan?”
How was it possible for him to keep his strength?
“Rose!” he spoke with a passion that made her shrink, “are you bound to this man?” and to the drooping of her eyes, “No. Impossible, for you do not love him. Break it. Break the engagement you cannot fulfil. Break it, and belong to me. It sounds ill for me to say that in such a place. But, Rose, I will leave it. I will accept any assistance that your father—that any man will give me. Beloved—noble girl! I see my falseness to you, though I little thought it at the time—fool that I was! Be my help, my guide—as the soul of my body! Be mine!”
“Oh, Evan!” she clasped her hands in terror at the change in him, that was hurrying her she knew not where, and trembling held them supplicatingly.
“Yes, Rose: you have taught me what love can be. You cannot marry that man.”
“But my honour, Evan! No. I do not love him; for I can love but one. He has my pledge. Can I break it?”
The stress on the question choked him, just as his heart sprang to her.
“Can you face the world with me, Rose?”
“Oh, Evan! is there an escape for me? Think! Decide! No—no! there is not. My mother, I know, looks on it. Why did she trust me to be with you here, but that she thinks me engaged to him, and has such faith in me? Oh, help me!—be my guide. Think whether you would trust me hereafter! I should despise myself.”
“Not if you marry him!” said Evan, bitterly. And then thinking as men will think when they look on the figure of a fair girl marching serenely to a sacrifice, the horrors of which they insist that she ought to know:—half-hating her for her calmness—adoring her for her innocence: he said: “It rests with you, Rose. The world will approve you, and if your conscience does, why—farewell, and may Heaven be your help.”
She murmured, “Farewell.”
Did she expect more to be said by him? What did she want or hope for now? And yet a light of hunger grew in her eyes, brighter and brighter, as it were on a wave of yearning.
“Take my hand once,” she faltered.
Her hand and her whole shape he took, and she with closed eyes let him strain her to his breast.
Their swoon was broken by the opening of the door, where Old Tom Cogglesby and Lady Jocelyn appeared.
“’Gad! he seems to have got his recompense—eh, my lady?” cried Old Tom.
However satisfactorily they might have explained the case, it certainly did seem so.
Lady Jocelyn looked not absolutely displeased. Old Tom was chuckling at her elbow. The two principal actors remained dumb.
“I suppose, if we leave young people to settle a thing, this is how they do it,” her ladyship remarked.
“’Gad, and they do it well!” cried Old Tom.
Rose, with a deep blush on her cheeks, stepped from Evan to her mother. Not in effrontery, but earnestly, and as the only way of escaping from the position, she said: “I have succeeded, mama. He will take what I offer.”
“And what’s that, now?” Old Tom inquired.
Rose turned to Evan. He bent and kissed her hand.
“Call it ‘recompense’ for the nonce,” said Lady Jocelyn. “Do you still hold to your original proposition, Tom?”
“Every penny, my lady. I like the young fellow, and she’s a jolly little lass—if she means it—she’s a woman.”
“True,” said Lady Jocelyn. “Considering that fact, you will oblige me by keeping the matter quiet.”
“Does she want to try whether the tailor’s a gentleman still, my lady—eh?”
“No. I fancy she will have to see whether a certain nobleman may be one.”
The Countess now joined them. Sir Franks had informed her of her brother’s last fine performance. After a short, uneasy pause, she said, glancing at Evan:
“You know his romantic nature. I can assure you he was sincere; and even if you could not accept, at least—”
“But we have accepted, Countess,” said Rose.
“The estate!”
“The estate, Countess. And what is more, to increase the effect of his generosity, he has consented to take a recompense.”
“Indeed!” exclaimed the Countess, directing a stony look at her brother. “May I presume to ask what recompense?”
Rose shook her head. “Such a very poor one, Countess! He has no idea of relative value.”
The Countess’s great mind was just then running hot on estates, and thousands, or she would not have played goose to them, you may be sure. She believed that Evan had been wheedled by Rose into the acceptance of a small sum of money, in return for his egregious gift! With an internal groan, the outward aspect of which she had vast difficulty in masking, she said: “You are right—he has no head. Easily cajoled!”
Old Tom sat down in a chair, and laughed outright. Lady Jocelyn in pity for the poor lady, who always amused her, thought it time to put an end to the scene.
“I hope your brother will come to us in about a week,” she said. “May I expect the favour of your company as well?”
The Countess felt her dignity to be far superior, as she responded. “Lady Jocelyn, when next enjoy the gratification of a visit to your hospitable mansion, I must know that I am not at a disadvantage. I cannot consent to be twice pulled down to my brother’s level.”
Evan’s heart was too full of its dim young happiness to speak, or care for words. The cold elegance of the Countess’s curtsey to Lady Jocelyn: her ladyship’s kindly pressure of his hand: Rose’s stedfast look into his eyes: Old Tom’s smothered exclamation that he was not such a fool as he seemed: all passed dream-like, and when he was left to the fury of the Countess, he did not ask her to spare him, nor did he defend himself. She bade adieu to him and their mutual relationship that very day. But her star had not forsaken her yet. Chancing to peep into the shop, to intrust a commission to Mr. John Raikes, who was there doing penance for his career as a gentleman, she heard Old Tom and Andrew laughing, utterly unlike bankrupts.
“Who’d have thought the women such fools! and the Countess, too!”
This was Andrew’s voice. He chuckled as one emancipated. The Countess had a short interview with him (before she took her departure to join her husband, under the roof of the Honourable Herbert Duffian), and Andrew chuckled no more.
CHAPTER XLVII. A YEAR LATER, THE COUNTESS DE SALDAR DE SANCORVO TO HER SISTER CAROLINE.
Rome.
“Let the post-mark be my reply to your letter received through the Consulate, and most courteously delivered with the consul’s compliments. We shall yet have an ambassador at Rome—mark your Louisa’s words. Yes, dearest! I am here, body and spirit! I have at last found a haven, a refuge, and let those who condemn me compare the peace of their spirits with mine. You think that you have quite conquered the dreadfulness of our origin. My love, I smile at you! I know it to be impossible for the Protestant heresy to offer a shade of consolation. Earthly-born, it rather encourages earthly distinctions. It is the sweet sovereign Pontiff alone who gathers all in his arms, not excepting tailors. Here, if they could know it, is their blessed comfort!
“Thank Harriet for her message. She need say nothing. By refusing me her hospitality, when she must have known that the house was as free of creditors as any foreigner under the rank of Count is of soap, she drove me to Mr. Duffian. Oh! how I rejoice at her exceeding unkindness! How warmly I forgive her the unsisterly—to say the least—vindictiveness of her unaccountable conduct! Her sufferings will one day be terrible. Good little Andrew supplies her place to me. Why do you refuse his easily afforded bounty? No one need know of it. I tell you candidly, I take double, and the small, good punch of a body is only too delighted. But then, I can be discreet.
“Oh! the gentlemanliness of these infinitely maligned Jesuits! They remind me immensely of Sir Charles Grandison, and those frontispiece pictures to the novels we read when girls—I mean in manners and the ideas they impose—not in dress or length of leg, of course. The same winning softness! the same irresistible ascendancy over the female mind! They require virtue for two, I assure you, and so I told Silva, who laughed.
“But the charms of confession, my dear! I will talk of Evan first. I have totally forgiven him. Attaché to the Naples embassy, sounds tol-lol. In such a position I can rejoice to see him, for it permits me to acknowledge him. I am not sure that, spiritually, Rose will be his most fitting helpmate. However, it is done, and I did it, and there is no more to be said. The behaviour of Lord Laxley in refusing to surrender a young lady who declared that her heart was with another, exceeds all I could have supposed. One of the noble peers among his ancestors must have been a pig! Oh! the Roman nobility! Grace, refinement, intrigue, perfect comprehension of your ideas, wishes—the meanest trifles! Here you have every worldly charm, and all crowned by Religion! This is my true delight. I feel at last that whatsoever I do, I cannot go far wrong while I am within hail of my gentle priest. I never could feel so before.
“The idea of Mr. Parsley proposing for the beautiful widow Strike! It was indecent to do so so soon—widowed under such circumstances! But I dare say he was as disinterested as a Protestant curate ever can be. Beauty is a good dowry to bring a poor, lean, worldly curate of your Church, and he knows that. Your bishops and arches are quite susceptible to beautiful petitioners, and we know here how your livings and benefices are dispensed. What do you intend to do? Come to me; come to the bosom of the old and the only true Church, and I engage to marry you to a Roman prince the very next morning or two. That is, if you have no ideas about prosecuting a certain enterprise which I should not abandon. In that case, stay. As Duchess of B., Mr. Duffian says you would be cordially welcome to his Holiness, who may see women. That absurd report is all nonsense. We do not kiss his toe, certainly, but we have privileges equally enviable. Herbert is all charm. I confess he is a little wearisome with his old ruins, and his Dante, the poet. He is quite of my opinion that Evan will never wash out the trade stain on him until he comes over to the Church of Rome. I adjure you, Caroline, to lay this clearly before our dear brother. In fact, while he continues a Protestant, to me he is a tailor. But here Rose is the impediment. I know her to be just one of those little dogged minds that are incapable of receiving new impressions. Was it not evident in the way she stuck to Evan after I had once brought them together? I am not at all astonished that Mr. Raikes should have married her maid. It is a case of natural selection. But it is amusing to think of him carrying on the old business in 193, and with credit! I suppose his parents are to be pitied; but what better is the creature fit for? Mama displeases me in consenting to act as housekeeper to old Grumpus. I do not object to the fact, for it is prospective; but she should have insisted on another place of resort than Fallowfield. I do not agree with you in thinking her right in refusing a second marriage. Her age does not shelter her from scandal in your Protestant communities.
“I am every day expecting Harry Jocelyn to turn up. He was rightly sent away, for to think of the folly Evan put into his empty head! No; he shall have another wife, and Protestantism shall be his forsaken mistress!
“See how your Louy has given up the world and its vanities! You expected me to creep up to you contrite and whimpering? On the contrary, I never felt prouder. And I am not going to live a lazy life, I can assure you. The Church hath need of me! If only for the peace it hath given me on one point, I am eternally bound to serve it.
“Postscript: I am persuaded of this; that it is utterly impossible for a man to be a true gentleman who is not of the true Church. What it is I cannot say; but it is as a convert that I appreciate my husband. Love is made to me, dear, for Catholics are human. The other day it was a question whether a lady or a gentleman should be compromised. It required the grossest fib. The gentleman did not hesitate. And why? His priest was handy. Fancy Lord Laxley in such a case. I shudder. This shows that your religion precludes any possibility of the being the real gentleman, and whatever Evan may think of himself, or Rose may think of him, I know the thing.”
THE END.