CHAPTER VI

Boyne's bank was of the order of those old and firmly fixed

establishments which have taken root with the fortunes of the

country--are honourable as England's name, solid as her prosperity, and

even as the flourishing green tree to shareholders: a granite house.

Boyne himself had been disembodied for more than a century: Burt and

Hamble were still of the flesh; but a greater than Burt or Hamble was

Blancove--the Sir William Blancove, Baronet, of city feasts and

charities, who, besides being a wealthy merchant, possessed of a very

acute head for banking, was a scholarly gentleman, worthy of riches. His

brother was Squire Blancove, of Wrexby; but between these two close

relatives there existed no stronger feeling than what was expressed by

open contempt of a mind dedicated to business on the one side, and quiet

contempt of a life devoted to indolence on the other. Nevertheless,

Squire Blancove, though everybody knew how deeply he despised his junior

for his city-gained title and commercial occupation, sent him his son

Algernon, to get the youth into sound discipline, if possible. This was

after the elastic Algernon had, on the paternal intimation of his

colonel, relinquished his cornetcy and military service. Sir William

received the hopeful young fellow much in the spirit with which he

listened to the tales of his brother's comments on his own line of

conduct; that is to say, as homage to his intellectual superiority. Mr.

Algernon was installed in the Bank, and sat down for a long career of

groaning at the desk, with more complacency than was expected from him.

Sir William forwarded excellent accounts to his brother of the behaviour

of the heir to his estates. It was his way of rebuking the squire, and in

return for it the squire, though somewhat comforted, despised his clerkly

son, and lived to learn how very unjustly he did so. Adolescents, who

have the taste for running into excesses, enjoy the breath of change as

another form of excitement: change is a sort of debauch to them. They

will delight infinitely in a simple country round of existence, in

propriety and church-going, in the sensation of feeling innocent. There

is little that does not enrapture them, if you tie them down to nothing,

and let them try all. Sir William was deceived by his nephew. He would

have taken him into his town-house; but his own son, Edward, who was

studying for the Law, had chambers in the Temple, and Algernon, receiving

an invitation from Edward, declared a gentle preference for the abode of

his cousin. His allowance from his father was properly contracted to keep

him from excesses, as the genius of his senior devised, and Sir William

saw no objection to the scheme, and made none. The two dined with him

about twice in the month.

Edward Blancove was three-and-twenty years old, a student by fits, and a

young man given to be moody. He had powers of gaiety far eclipsing

Algernon's, but he was not the same easy tripping sinner and flippant

soul. He was in that yeasty condition of his years when action and

reflection alternately usurp the mind; remorse succeeded dissipation, and

indulgences offered the soporific to remorse. The friends of the two

imagined that Algernon was, or would become, his evil genius. In reality,

Edward was the perilous companion. He was composed of better stuff.

Algernon was but an airy animal nature, the soul within him being an

effervescence lightly let loose. Edward had a fatally serious spirit, and

one of some strength. What he gave himself up to, he could believe to be

correct, in the teeth of an opposing world, until he tired of it, when he

sided as heartily with the world against his quondam self. Algernon might

mislead, or point his cousin's passions for a time; yet if they continued

their courses together, there was danger that Algernon would degenerate

into a reckless subordinate--a minister, a valet, and be tempted

unknowingly to do things in earnest, which is nothing less than perdition

to this sort of creature.

But the key to young men is the ambition, or, in the place of it, the

romantic sentiment nourished by them. Edward aspired to become

Attorney-General of these realms, not a judge, you observe; for a judge

is to the imagination of youthful minds a stationary being, venerable,

but not active; whereas, your Attorney-General is always in the fray, and

fights commonly on the winning side,--a point that renders his position

attractive to sagacious youth. Algernon had other views. Civilization had

tried him, and found him wanting; so he condemned it. Moreover, sitting

now all day at a desk, he was civilization's drudge. No wonder, then,

that his dream was of prairies, and primeval forests, and Australian

wilds. He believed in his heart that he would be a man new made over

there, and always looked forward to savage life as to a bath that would

cleanse him, so that it did not much matter his being unclean for the

present.

The young men had a fair cousin by marriage, a Mrs. Margaret Lovell, a

widow. At seventeen she had gone with her husband to India, where Harry

Lovell encountered the sword of a Sikh Sirdar, and tried the last of his

much-vaunted swordsmanship, which, with his skill at the pistols, had

served him better in two antecedent duels, for the vindication of his

lovely and terrible young wife. He perished on the field, critically

admiring the stroke to which he owed his death. A week after Harry's

burial his widow was asked in marriage by his colonel. Captains, and a

giddy subaltern likewise, disputed claims to possess her. She, however,

decided to arrest further bloodshed by quitting the regiment. She always

said that she left India to save her complexion; "and people don't know

how very candid I am," she added, for the colonel above-mentioned was

wealthy,--a man expectant of a title, and a good match, and she was

laughed at when she thus assigned trivial reasons for momentous

resolutions. It is a luxury to be candid; and perfect candour can do more

for us than a dark disguise.

Mrs. Lovell's complexion was worth saving from the ravages of an Indian

climate, and the persecution of claimants to her hand. She was golden and

white, like an autumnal birch-tree--yellow hair, with warm-toned streaks

in it, shading a fabulously fair skin. Then, too, she was tall, of a

nervous build, supple and proud in motion, a brilliant horsewoman, and a

most distinguished sitter in an easy drawing-room chair, which is, let me

impress upon you, no mean quality. After riding out for hours with a

sweet comrade, who has thrown the mantle of dignity half-way off her

shoulders, it is perplexing, and mixed strangely of humiliation and

ecstasy, to come upon her clouded majesty where she reclines as upon

rose-hued clouds, in a mystic circle of restriction (she who laughed at

your jokes, and capped them, two hours ago) a queen.

Between Margaret Lovell and Edward there was a misunderstanding, of which

no one knew the nature, for they spoke in public very respectfully one of

the other. It had been supposed that they were lovers once; but when

lovers quarrel, they snarl, they bite, they worry; their eyes are indeed

unveiled, and their mouths unmuzzled. Now Margaret said of Edward: "He is

sure to rise; he has such good principles." Edward said of Margaret: "She

only wants a husband who will keep her well in hand." These sentences

scarcely carried actual compliments when you knew the speakers; but

outraged lovers cannot talk in that style after they have broken apart.

It is possible that Margaret and Edward conveyed to one another as sharp

a sting as envenomed lovers attempt. Gossip had once betrothed them, but

was now at fault. The lady had a small jointure, and lived partly with

her uncle, Lord Elling, partly with Squire Blancove, her aunt's husband,

and a little by herself, which was when she counted money in her purse,

and chose to assert her independence. She had a name in the world. There

is a fate attached to some women, from Helen of Troy downward, that blood

is to be shed for them. One duel on behalf of a woman is a reputation to

her for life; two are notoriety. If she is very young, can they be

attributable to her? We charge them naturally to her overpowering beauty.

It happened that Mrs. Lovell was beautiful. Under the light of the two

duels her beauty shone as from an illumination of black flame. Boys

adored Mrs. Lovell. These are moths. But more, the birds of air, nay,

grave owls (who stand in this metaphor for whiskered experience)

thronged, dashing at the apparition of terrible splendour. Was it her

fault that she had a name in the world?

Mrs. Margaret Lovell's portrait hung in Edward's room. It was a

photograph exquisitely coloured, and was on the left of a dark Judith,

dark with a serenity of sternness. On the right hung another coloured

photograph of a young lady, also fair; and it was a point of taste to

choose between them. Do you like the hollowed lily's cheeks, or the plump

rose's? Do you like a thinnish fall of golden hair, or an abundant

cluster of nut-brown? Do you like your blonde with limpid blue eyes, or

prefer an endowment of sunny hazel? Finally, are you taken by an air of

artistic innocence winding serpentine about your heart's fibres; or is

blushing simplicity sweeter to you? Mrs. Lovell's eyebrows were the

faintly-marked trace of a perfect arch. The other young person's were

thickish, more level; a full brown colour. She looked as if she had not

yet attained to any sense of her being a professed beauty: but the fair

widow was clearly bent upon winning you, and had a shy, playful

intentness of aspect. Her pure white skin was flat on the bone; the lips

came forward in a soft curve, and, if they were not artistically stained,

were triumphantly fresh. Here, in any case, she beat her rival, whose

mouth had the plebeian beauty's fault of being too straight in a line,

and was not trained, apparently, to tricks of dainty pouting.

It was morning, and the cousins having sponged in pleasant cold water,

arranged themselves for exercise, and came out simultaneously into the

sitting-room, slippered, and in flannels. They nodded and went through

certain curt greetings, and then Algernon stepped to a cupboard and

tossed out the leather gloves. The room was large and they had a

tolerable space for the work, when the breakfast-table had been drawn a

little on one side. You saw at a glance which was the likelier man of the

two, when they stood opposed. Algernon's rounded features, full lips and

falling chin, were not a match, though he was quick on his feet, for the

wary, prompt eyes, set mouth, and hardness of Edward. Both had stout

muscle, but in Edward there was vigour of brain as well, which seemed to

knit and inform his shape without which, in fact, a man is as a ship

under no command. Both looked their best; as, when sparring, men always

do look.

"Now, then," said Algernon, squaring up to his cousin in good style,

"now's the time for that unwholesome old boy underneath to commence

groaning."

"Step as light as you can," replied Edward, meeting him with the pretty

motion of the gloves.

"I'll step as light as a French dancing-master. Let's go to Paris and

learn the savate, Ned. It must be a new sensation to stand on one leg and

knock a fellow's hat off with the other."

"Stick to your fists."

"Hang it! I wish your fists wouldn't stick to me so."

"You talk too much."

"Gad, I don't get puffy half so soon as you."

"I want country air."

"You said you were going out, old Ned."

"I changed my mind."

Saying which, Edward shut his teeth, and talked for two or three hot

minutes wholly with his fists. The room shook under Algernon's boundings

to right and left till a blow sent him back on the breakfast-table,

shattered a cup on the floor, and bespattered his close flannel shirt

with a funereal coffee-tinge.

"What the deuce I said to bring that on myself, I don't know," Algernon

remarked as he rose. "Anything connected with the country disagreeable to

you, Ned? Come! a bout of quiet scientific boxing, and none of these

beastly rushes, as if you were singling me out of a crowd of magsmen. Did

you go to church yesterday, Ned? Confound it, you're on me again, are

you?"

And Algernon went on spouting unintelligible talk under a torrent of

blows. He lost his temper and fought out at them; but as it speedily

became evident to him that the loss laid him open to punishment, he

prudently recovered it, sparred, danced about, and contrived to shake the

room in a manner that caused Edward to drop his arms, in consideration

for the distracted occupant of the chambers below. Algernon accepted the

truce, and made it peace by casting off one glove.

"There! that's a pleasant morning breather," he said, and sauntered to

the window to look at the river. "I always feel the want of it when I

don't get it. I could take a thrashing rather than not on with the gloves

to begin the day. Look at those boats! Fancy my having to go down to the

city. It makes me feel like my blood circulating the wrong way. My

father'll suffer some day, for keeping me at this low ebb of cash, by

jingo!"

He uttered this with a prophetic fierceness.

"I cannot even scrape together enough for entrance money to a Club. It's

sickening! I wonder whether I shall ever get used to banking work?

There's an old clerk in our office who says he should feel ill if he

missed a day. And the old porter beats him--bangs him to fits. I believe

he'd die off if he didn't see the house open to the minute. They say that

old boy's got a pretty niece; but he don't bring her to the office now.

Reward of merit!--Mr. Anthony Hackbut is going to receive ten pounds a

year extra. That's for his honesty. I wonder whether I could earn a

reputation for the sake of a prospect of ten extra pounds to my salary.

I've got a salary! hurrah! But if they keep me to my hundred and fifty

per annum, don't let them trust me every day with the bags, as they do

that old fellow. Some of the men say he's good to lend fifty pounds at a

pinch.--Are the chops coming, Ned?"

"The chops are coming," said Edward, who had thrown on a boating-coat and

plunged into a book, and spoke echoing.

"Here's little Peggy Lovell." Algernon faced this portrait. "It don't do

her justice. She's got more life, more change in her, more fire. She's

starting for town, I hear."

"She is starting for town," said Edward.

"How do you know that?" Algernon swung about to ask.

Edward looked round to him. "By the fact of your not having fished for a

holiday this week. How did you leave her yesterday, Algy? Quite well, I

hope."

The ingenuous face of the young gentleman crimsoned.

"Oh, she was well," he said. "Ha! I see there can be some attraction in

your dark women."

"You mean that Judith? Yes, she's a good diversion." Edward gave a

two-edged response. "What train did you come up by last night?"

"The last from Wrexby. That reminds me: I saw a young Judith just as I

got out. She wanted a cab. I called it for her. She belongs to old

Hackbut of the Bank--the old porter, you know. If it wasn't that there's

always something about dark women which makes me think they're going to

have a moustache, I should take to that girl's face."

Edward launched forth an invective against fair women.

"What have they done to you-what have they done?" said Algernon.

"My good fellow, they're nothing but colour. They've no conscience. If

they swear a thing to you one moment, they break it the next. They can't

help doing it. You don't ask a gilt weathercock to keep faith with

anything but the wind, do you? It's an ass that trusts a fair woman at

all, or has anything to do with the confounded set. Cleopatra was fair;

so was Delilah; so is the Devil's wife. Reach me that book of Reports."

"By jingo!" cried Algernon, "my stomach reports that if provision doesn't

soon approach----why don't you keep a French cook here, Ned? Let's give

up the women, and take to a French cook."

Edward yawned horribly. "All in good time. It's what we come to. It's

philosophy--your French cook! I wish I had it, or him. I'm afraid a

fellow can't anticipate his years--not so lucky!"

"By Jove! we shall have to be philosophers before we breakfast!" Algernon

exclaimed. "It's nine. I've to be tied to the stake at ten, chained and

muzzled--a leetle-a dawg! I wish I hadn't had to leave the service. It

was a vile conspiracy against me there, Ned. Hang all tradesmen! I sit on

a stool, and add up figures. I work harder than a nigger in the office.

That's my life: but I must feed. It's no use going to the office in a

rage."

"Will you try on the gloves again?" was Edward's mild suggestion.

Algernon thanked him, and replied that he knew him. Edward hit hard when

he was empty.

They now affected patience, as far as silence went to make up an element

of that sublime quality. The chops arriving, they disdained the mask.

Algernon fired his glove just over the waiter's head, and Edward put the

ease to the man's conscience; after which they sat and ate, talking

little. The difference between them was, that Edward knew the state of

Algernon's mind and what was working within it, while the latter stared

at a blank wall as regarded Edward's.

"Going out after breakfast, Ned?" said Algernon. "We'll walk to the city

together, if you like."

Edward fixed one of his intent looks upon his cousin. "You're not going

to the city to-day?"

"The deuce, I'm not!"

"You're going to dance attendance on Mrs. Lovell, whom it's your pleasure

to call Peggy, when you're some leagues out of her hearing."

Algernon failed to command his countenance. He glanced at one of the

portraits, and said, "Who is that girl up there? Tell us her name.

Talking of Mrs. Lovell, has she ever seen it?"

"If you'll put on your coat, my dear Algy, I will talk to you about Mrs.

Lovell." Edward kept his penetrative eyes on Algernon. "Listen to me:

you'll get into a mess there."

"If I must listen, Ned, I'll listen in my shirt-sleeves, with all respect

to the lady."

"Very well. The shirt-sleeves help the air of bravado. Now, you know that

I've what they call 'knelt at her feet.' She's handsome. Don't cry out.

She's dashing, and as near being a devil as any woman I ever met. Do you

know why we broke? I'll tell you. Plainly, because I refused to believe

that one of her men had insulted her. You understand what that means. I

declined to be a chief party in a scandal."

"Declined to fight the fellow?" interposed Algernon. "More shame to you!"

"I think you're a year younger than I am, Algy. You have the privilege of

speaking with that year's simplicity. Mrs. Lovell will play you as she

played me. I acknowledge her power, and I keep out of her way. I don't

bet; I don't care to waltz; I can't keep horses; so I don't lose much by

the privation to which I subject myself."

"I bet, I waltz, and I ride. So," said Algernon, "I should lose

tremendously."

"You will lose, mark my words."

"Is the lecture of my year's senior concluded?" said Algernon.

"Yes; I've done," Edward answered.

"Then I'll put on my coat, Ned, and I'll smoke in it. That'll give you

assurance I'm not going near Mrs. Lovell, if anything will."

"That gives me assurance that Mrs. Lovell tolerates in you what she

detests," said Edward, relentless in his insight; "and, consequently,

gives me assurance that she finds you of particular service to her at

present."

Algernon had a lighted match in his hand. He flung it into the fire. "I'm

hanged if I don't think you have the confounded vanity to suppose she

sets me as a spy upon you!"

A smile ran along Edward's lips. "I don't think you'd know it, if she

did."

"Oh, you're ten years older; you're twenty," bawled Algernon, in an

extremity of disgust. "Don't I know what game you're following up? Isn't

it clear as day you've got another woman in your eye?"

"It's as clear as day, my good Algy, that you see a portrait hanging in

my chambers, and you have heard Mrs. Lovell's opinion of the fact. So

much is perfectly clear. There's my hand. I don't blame you. She's a

clever woman, and like many of the sort, shrewd at guessing the worst.

Come, take my hand. I tell you, I don't blame you. I've been little dog

to her myself, and fetched and carried, and wagged my tail. It's charming

while it lasts. Will you shake it?"

"Your tail, man?" Algernon roared in pretended amazement.

Edward eased him back to friendliness by laughing. "No; my hand."

They shook hands.

"All right," said Algernon. "You mean well. It's very well for you to

preach virtue to a poor devil; you've got loose, or you're regularly in

love."

"Virtue! by heaven!" Edward cried; "I wish I were entitled to preach it

to any man on earth."

His face flushed. "There, good-bye, old fellow," he added.

"Go to the city. I'll dine with you to-night, if you like; come and dine

with me at my Club. I shall be disengaged."

Algernon mumbled a flexible assent to an appointment at Edward's Club,

dressed himself with care, borrowed a sovereign, for which he nodded his

acceptance, and left him.

Edward set his brain upon a book of law.

It may have been two hours after he had sat thus in his Cistercian

stillness, when a letter was delivered to him by one of the Inn porters.

Edward read the superscription, and asked the porter who it was that

brought it. Two young ladies, the porter said.

These were the contents:--

"I am not sure that you will ever forgive me. I cannot forgive myself

when I think of that one word I was obliged to speak to you in the cold

street, and nothing to explain why, and how much I love, you. Oh! how I

love you! I cry while I write. I cannot help it. I was a sop of tears all

night long, and oh! if you had seen my face in the morning. I am thankful

you did not. Mother's Bible brought me home. It must have been guidance,

for in my bed there lay my sister, and I could not leave her, I love her

so. I could not have got down stairs again after seeing her there; and I

had to say that cold word and shut the window on you. May I call you

Edward still? Oh, dear Edward, do make allowance for me. Write kindly to

me. Say you forgive me. I feel like a ghost to-day. My life seems quite

behind me somewhere, and I hardly feel anything I touch. I declare to

you, dearest one, I had no idea my sister was here. I was surprised when

I heard her name mentioned by my landlady, and looked on the bed;

suddenly my strength was gone, and it changed all that I was thinking. I

never knew before that women were so weak, but now I see they are, and I

only know I am at my Edward's mercy, and am stupid! Oh, so wretched and

stupid. I shall not touch food till I hear from you. Oh, if, you are

angry, write so; but do write. My suspense would make you pity me. I know

I deserve your anger. It was not that I do not trust you, Edward. My

mother in heaven sees my heart and that I trust, I trust my heart and

everything I am and have to you. I would almost wish and wait to see you

to-day in the Gardens, but my crying has made me such a streaked thing to

look at. If I had rubbed my face with a scrubbing-brush, I could not look

worse, and I cannot risk your seeing me. It would excuse you for hating

me. Do you? Does he hate her? She loves you. She would die for you, dear

Edward. Oh! I feel that if I was told to-day that I should die for you

to-morrow, it would be happiness. I am dying--yes, I am dying till I hear

from you.

"Believe me,

"Your tender, loving, broken-hearted,

"Dahlia."

There was a postscript:--

"May I still go to lessons?"

Edward finished the letter with a calmly perusing eye. He had winced

triflingly at one or two expressions contained in it; forcible, perhaps,

but not such as Mrs. Lovell smiling from the wall yonder would have used.

"The poor child threatens to eat no dinner, if I don't write to her," he

said; and replied in a kind and magnanimous spirit, concluding--"Go to

lessons, by all means."

Having accomplished this, he stood up, and by hazard fell to comparing

the rival portraits; a melancholy and a comic thing to do, as you will

find if you put two painted heads side by side, and set their merits

contesting, and reflect on the contest, and to what advantages, personal,

or of the artist's, the winner owes the victory. Dahlia had been

admirably dealt with by the artist; the charm of pure ingenuousness

without rusticity was visible in her face and figure. Hanging there on

the wall, she was a match for Mrs. Lovell.