CHAPTER LVII

By the park-gates that evening, Wilfrid received a letter from the hands

of Tracy Runningbrook. It said: "I am not able to see you now. When I

tell you that I will see you before I leave England, I insist upon your

believing me. I have no head for seeing anybody now. Emilia"--was the

simple signature, perused over and over again by this maddened lover,

under the flitting gate-lamp, after Tracy had left him. The coldness of

Emilia's name so briefly given, concentrated every fire in his heart.

What was it but miserable cowardice, he thought, that prevented him from

getting the peace poor Barrett had found? Intolerable anguish weakened

his limbs. He flung himself on a wayside bank, grovelling, to rise again

calm and quite ready for society, upon the proper application of the

clothes-brush. Indeed; he patted his shoulder and elbow to remove the

soil of his short contact with earth, and tried a cigar: but the first

taste of the smoke sickened his lips. Then he stood for a moment as a man

in a new world. This strange sensation of disgust with familiar

comforting habits, fixed him in perplexity, till a rushing of wild

thoughts and hopes from brain to heart, heart to brain, gave him insight,

and he perceived his state, and that for all he held to in our life he

was dependent upon another; which is virtually the curse of love.

"And he passed along the road," adds the Philosopher, "a weaker man, a

stronger lover. Not that love should diminish manliness or gains by so

doing; but travelling to love by the ways of Sentiment, attaining to the

passion bit by bit, does full surely take from us the strength of our

nature, as if (which is probable) at every step we paid fee to move

forward. Wilfrid had just enough of the coin to pay his footing. He was

verily fining himself down. You are tempted to ask what the value of him

will be by the time that he turns out pure metal? I reply, something

considerable, if by great sacrifice he gets to truth--gets to that

oneness of feeling which is the truthful impulse. At last, he will stand

high above them that have not suffered. The rejection of his cigar."

This wages too absurd. At the risk of breaking our partnership for ever,

I intervene. My Philosopher's meaning is plain, and, as usual, good; but

not even I, who have less reason to laugh at him than anybody, can

gravely accept the juxtaposition of suffering and cigars. And, moreover,

there is a little piece of action in store.

Wilfrid had walked half way to Brookfield, when the longing to look upon

the Richford chamber-windows stirred so hotly within him that he returned

to the gates. He saw Captain Gambier issuing on horseback from under the

lamp. The captain remarked that it was a fine night, and prepared to ride

off, but Wilfrid requested him to dismount, and his voice had the

unmistakeable ring in it by which a man knows that there must be no

trifling. The captain leaned forward to look at him before he obeyed the

summons, All self-control had abandoned Wilfrid in the rage he felt at

Gambier's having seen Emilia, and the jealous suspicion that she had

failed to keep her appointment for the like reason.

"Why do you come here?" he said, hoarsely.

"By Jove! that's an odd question," said the captain, at once taking his

ground.

"Am I to understand that you've been playing with my sister, as you do

with every other woman?"

Captain Gambier murmured quietly, "Every other woman?" and smoothed his

horse's neck. "They're not so easily played with, my dear fellow. You

speak like a youngster."

"I am the only protector of my sister's reputation," said Wilfrid, "and,

by heaven! if you have cast her over to be the common talk, you shall

meet me."

The captain turned to his horse, saying, "Oh! Well!" Being mounted, he

observed: "My dear Pole, you might have sung out all you had to say. Go

to your sister, and if she complains of my behaviour, I'll meet you. Oh,

yes! I'll meet you; I have no objection to excitement. You're in the

hands of an infernally clever woman, who does me the honour to wish to

see my blood on the carpet, I believe; but if this is her scheme, it's

not worthy of her ability. She began pretty well. She arranged the

preliminaries capitally. Why, look here," he relinquished his ordinary

drawl; "I'll tell you something, which you may put down in my favour or

not--just as you like. That woman did her best to compromise your sister

with me on board the yacht. I can't tell you how, and won't. Of course, I

wouldn't if I could; but I have sense enough to admire a very charming

person, and I did the only honourable thing in my power. It's your

sister, my good fellow, who gave me my dismissal. We had a little common

sense conversation--in which she shines. I envy the man that marries her,

but she denies me such luck. There! if you want to shoot me for my share

in that transaction, I'll give you your chance: and if you do, my dear

Pole, either you must be a tremendous fool, or that woman's ten times

cleverer than I thought. You know where to find me. Good night."

The captain gave heel to his horse, hearing no more.

Adela confirmed to Wilfrid what Gambier had spoken; and that it was she

who had given him his dismissal. She called him by his name, "Augustus,"

in a kindly tone, remarking, that Lady Charlotte had persecuted him

dreadfully. "Poor Augustus! his entire reputation for evil is owing to

her black paint-brush. There is no man so easily 'hooked,' as Mrs.

Bayruffle would say, as he, though he has but eight hundred a year:

barely enough to live on. It would have been cruel of me to keep him, for

if he is in love, it's with Emilia."

Wilfrid here took upon himself to reproach her for a certain negligence

of worldly interests. She laughed and blushed with humorous satisfaction;

and, on second thoughts, he changed his opinion, telling her that he

wished he could win his freedom as she had done.

"Wilfrid," she said suddenly, "will you persuade Cornelia not to wear

black?"

"Yes, if you wish it," he replied.

"You will, positively? Then listen, dear. I don't like the prospect of

your alliance with Lady Charlotte."

Wilfrid could not repress a despondent shrug.

"But you can get released," she cried; and ultimately counselled him:

"Mention the name of Lord Eltham before her once, when you are alone.

Watch the result. Only, don't be clumsy. But I need not tell you that."

For hours he cudgelled his brains to know why she desired Cornelia not to

wear black, and when the light broke in on him he laughed like a jolly

youth for an instant. The reason why was in a web so complicated, that,

to have divined what hung on Cornelia's wearing of black, showed a rare

sagacity and perception of character on the little lady's part. As

thus:--Sir Twickenham Pryme is the most sensitive of men to ridicule and

vulgar tattle: he has continued to visit the house, learning by degrees

to prefer me, but still too chivalrous to withdraw his claim to Cornelia,

notwithstanding that he has seen indications of her not too absolute

devotion towards him:--I have let him become aware that I have broken

with Captain Gambier (whose income is eight hundred a year merely), for

the sake of a higher attachment: now, since the catastrophe, he can with

ease make it appear to the world that I was his choice from the first,

seeing that Cornelia will assuredly make no manner of objection:--but, if

she, with foolish sentimental persistence, assumes the garb of sorrow,

then Sir Twickenham's ears will tingle; he will retire altogether; he

will not dare to place himself in a position which will lend a colour to

the gossip, that jilted by one sister, he flew for consolation to the

other; jilted, too, for the mere memory of a dead man! an additional

insult!

Exquisite intricacy! Wilfrid worked through all the intervolutions, and

nearly forgot his wretchedness in admiration of his sister's mental

endowments. He was the more willing to magnify them, inasmuch as he

thereby strengthened his hope that liberty would follow the speaking of

the talismanic name of Eltham to Lady Charlotte, alone. He had come to

look upon her as the real barrier between himself and Emilia.

"I think we have brains," he said softly, on his pillow, upon a review of

the beggared aspect of his family; and he went to sleep with a smile on

his face.