CHAPTER XXXI

SIR WILLOUGHBY ATTEMPTS AND ACHIEVES PATHOS

Both were seated. Apparently he would have preferred to watch her dark

downcast eyelashes in silence under sanction of his air of abstract

meditation and the melancholy superinducing it. Blood-colour was in

her cheeks; the party had inspirited her features. Might it be that

lively company, an absence of economical solicitudes, and a flourishing

home were all she required to make her bloom again? The supposition was

not hazardous in presence of her heightened complexion.

She raised her eyes. He could not meet her look without speaking.

"Can you forgive deceit?"

"It would be to boast of more charity than I know myself to possess,

were I to say that I can, Sir Willoughby. I hope I am able to forgive.

I cannot tell. I should like to say yes."

"Could you live with the deceiver?"

"No."

"No. I could have given that answer for you. No semblance of union

should be maintained between the deceiver and ourselves. Laetitia!"

"Sir Willoughby?"

"Have I no right to your name?"

"If it pleases you to . . ."

"I speak as my thoughts run, and they did not know a Miss Dale so well

as a dear Laetitia: my truest friend! You have talked with Clara

Middleton?"

"We had a conversation."

Her brevity affrighted him. He flew off in a cloud.

"Reverting to that question of deceivers: is it not your opinion that

to pardon, to condone, is to corrupt society by passing off as pure

what is false? Do we not," he wore the smile of haggard playfulness of

a convalescent child the first day back to its toys, "Laetitia, do we

not impose a counterfeit on the currency?"

"Supposing it to be really deception."

"Apart from my loathing of deception, of falseness in any shape, upon

any grounds, I hold it an imperious duty to expose, punish, off with

it. I take it to be one of the forms of noxiousness which a good

citizen is bound to extirpate. I am not myself good citizen enough, I

confess, for much more than passive abhorrence. I do not forgive: I am

at heart serious and I cannot forgive:--there is no possible

reconciliation, there can be only an ostensible truce, between the two

hostile powers dividing this world."

She glanced at him quickly.

"Good and evil!" he said.

Her face expressed a surprise relapsing on the heart.

He spelt the puckers of her forehead to mean that she feared he might

be speaking unchristianly.

"You will find it so in all religions, my dear Laetitia: the Hindoo,

the Persian, ours. It is universal; an experience of our humanity.

Deceit and sincerity cannot live together. Truth must kill the lie, or

the lie will kill truth. I do not forgive. All I say to the person is,

go!"

"But that is right! that is generous!" exclaimed Laetitia, glad to

approve him for the sake of escaping her critical soul, and relieved by

the idea of Clara's difficulty solved.

"Capable of generosity, perhaps," he mused, aloud.

She wounded him by not supplying the expected enthusiastic asseveration

of her belief in his general tendency to magnanimity.

He said, after a pause: "But the world is not likely to be impressed by

anything not immediately gratifying it. People change, I find: as we

increase in years we cease to be the heroes we were. I myself am

insensible to change: I do not admit the charge. Except in this we will

say: personal ambition. I have it no more. And what is it when we have

it? Decidedly a confession of inferiority! That is, the desire to be

distinguished is an acknowledgement of insufficiency. But I have still

the craving for my dearest friends to think well of me. A weakness?

Call it so. Not a dishonourable weakness!"

Laetitia racked her brain for the connection of his present speech with

the preceding dialogue. She was baffled, from not knowing "the heat of

the centre in him", as Vernon opaquely phrased it in charity to the

object of her worship.

"Well," said he, unappeased, "and besides the passion to excel, I have

changed somewhat in the heartiness of my thirst for the amusements

incident to my station. I do not care to keep a stud--I was once

tempted: nor hounds. And I can remember the day when I determined to

have the best kennels and the best breed of horses in the kingdom.

Puerile! What is distinction of that sort, or of any acquisition and

accomplishment? We ask! one's self is not the greater. To seek it, owns

to our smallness, in real fact; and when it is attained, what then? My

horses are good, they are admired, I challenge the county to surpass

them: well? These are but my horses; the praise is of the animals, not

of me. I decline to share in it. Yet I know men content to swallow the

praise of their beasts and be semi-equine. The littleness of one's

fellows in the mob of life is a very strange experience! One may regret

to have lost the simplicity of one's forefathers, which could accept

those and other distinctions with a cordial pleasure, not to say pride.

As, for instance, I am, as it is called, a dead shot. 'Give your

acclamations, gentlemen, to my ancestors, from whom I inherited a

steady hand and quick sight.' They do not touch me. Where I do not find

myself--that I am essentially I--no applause can move me. To speak to

you as I would speak to none, admiration--you know that in my early

youth I swam in flattery--I had to swim to avoid drowning!--admiration

of my personal gifts has grown tasteless. Changed, therefore, inasmuch

as there has been a growth of spirituality. We are all in submission to

mortal laws, and so far I have indeed changed. I may add that it is

unusual for country gentlemen to apply themselves to scientific

researches. These are, however, in the spirit of the time. I

apprehended that instinctively when at College. I forsook the classics

for science. And thereby escaped the vice of domineering

self-sufficiency peculiar to classical men, of which you had an amusing

example in the carriage, on the way to Mrs. Mountstuart's this evening.

Science is modest; slow, if you like; it deals with facts, and having

mastered them, it masters men; of necessity, not with a stupid,

loud-mouthed arrogance: words big and oddly garbed as the Pope's

body-guard. Of course, one bows to the Infallible; we must, when his

giant-mercenaries level bayonets."

Sir Willoughby offered Miss Dale half a minute that she might in gentle

feminine fashion acquiesce in the implied reproof of Dr. Middleton's

behaviour to him during the drive to Mrs. Mountstuart's. She did not.

Her heart was accusing Clara of having done it a wrong and a hurt. For

while he talked he seemed to her to justify Clara's feelings and her

conduct: and her own reawakened sensations of injury came to the

surface a moment to look at him, affirming that they pardoned him, and

pitied, but hardly wondered.

The heat of the centre in him had administered the comfort he wanted,

though the conclusive accordant notes he loved on woman's lips, that

subservient harmony of another instrument desired of musicians when

they have done their solo-playing, came not to wind up the performance:

not a single bar. She did not speak. Probably his Laetitia was

overcome, as he had long known her to be when they conversed;

nerve-subdued, unable to deploy her mental resources or her musical.

Yet ordinarily she had command of the latter.--Was she too condoling?

Did a reason exist for it? Had the impulsive and desperate girl spoken

out to Laetitia to the fullest?--shameless daughter of a domineering

sire that she was! Ghastlier inquiry (it struck the centre of him with

a sounding ring), was Laetitia pitying him overmuch for worse than the

pain of a little difference between lovers--for treason on the part of

his bride? Did she know of a rival? know more than he?

When the centre of him was violently struck he was a genius in

penetration. He guessed that she did know: and by this was he presently

helped to achieve pathos.

"So my election was for Science," he continued; "and if it makes me, as

I fear, a rara avis among country gentlemen, it unites me, puts me in

the main, I may say, in the only current of progress--a word

sufficiently despicable in their political jargon.--You enjoyed your

evening at Mrs. Mountstuart's?"

"Very greatly."

"She brings her Professor to dine here the day after tomorrow. Does it

astonish you? You started."

"I did not hear the invitation."

"It was arranged at the table: you and I were separated--cruelly, I

told her: she declared that we see enough of one another, and that it

was good for me that we should be separated; neither of which is true.

I may not have known what is the best for me: I do know what is good.

If in my younger days I egregiously erred, that, taken of itself alone,

is, assuming me to have sense and feeling, the surer proof of present

wisdom. I can testify in person that wisdom is pain. If pain is to add

to wisdom, let me suffer! Do you approve of that, Laetitia?"

"It is well said."

"It is felt. Those who themselves have suffered should know the benefit

of the resolution."

"One may have suffered so much as to wish only for peace."

"True: but you! have you?"

"It would be for peace, if I prayed for any earthly gift."

Sir Willoughby dropped a smile on her. "I mentioned the Pope's

parti-coloured body-guard just now. In my youth their singular attire

impressed me. People tell me they have been re-uniformed: I am sorry.

They remain one of my liveliest recollections of the Eternal City. They

affected my sense of humour, always alert in me, as you are aware. We

English have humour. It is the first thing struck in us when we land on

the Continent: our risible faculties are generally active all through

the tour. Humour, or the clash of sense with novel examples of the

absurd, is our characteristic. I do not condescend to boisterous

displays of it. I observe, and note the people's comicalities for my

correspondence. But you have read my letters--most of them, if not

all?"

"Many of them."

"I was with you then!--I was about to say--that Swiss-guard reminded

me--you have not been in Italy. I have constantly regretted it. You are

the very woman, you have the soul for Italy. I know no other of whom I

could say it, with whom I should not feel that she was out of place,

discordant with me. Italy and Laetitia! often have I joined you

together. We shall see. I begin to have hopes. Here you have literally

stagnated. Why, a dinner-party refreshes you! What would not travel do,

and that heavenly climate! You are a reader of history and poetry.

Well, poetry! I never yet saw the poetry that expressed the tenth part

of what I feel in the presence of beauty and magnificence, and when I

really meditate--profoundly. Call me a positive mind. I feel: only I

feel too intensely for poetry. By the nature of it, poetry cannot be

sincere. I will have sincerity. Whatever touches our emotions should be

spontaneous, not a craft. I know you are in favour of poetry. You would

win me, if any one could. But history! there I am with you. Walking

over ruins: at night: the arches of the solemn black amphitheatre

pouring moonlight on us--the moonlight of Italy!"

"You would not laugh there, Sir Willoughby?" said Laetitia, rousing

herself from a stupor of apprehensive amazement, to utter something and

realize actual circumstances.

"Besides, you, I think, or I am mistaken in you"--he deviated from his

projected speech--"you are not a victim of the sense of association and

the ludicrous."

"I can understand the influence of it: I have at least a conception of

the humourous, but ridicule would not strike me in the Coliseum of

Rome. I could not bear it, no, Sir Willoughby!"

She appeared to be taking him in very strong earnest, by thus

petitioning him not to laugh in the Coliseum, and now he said:

"Besides, you are one who could accommodate yourself to the society of

the ladies, my aunts. Good women, Laetitia! I cannot imagine them de

trop in Italy, or in a household. I have of course reason to be partial

in my judgement."

"They are excellent and most amiable ladies; I love them," said

Laetitia, fervently; the more strongly excited to fervour by her

enlightenment as to his drift.

She read it that he designed to take her to Italy with the ladies:

--after giving Miss Middleton her liberty; that was necessarily

implied. And that was truly generous. In his boyhood he had been famous

for his bountifulness in scattering silver and gold. Might he not have

caused himself to be misperused in later life?

Clara had spoken to her of the visit and mission of the ladies to the

library: and Laetitia daringly conceived herself to be on the certain

track of his meaning, she being able to enjoy their society as she

supposed him to consider that Miss Middleton did not, and would not

either abroad or at home.

Sir Willoughby asked her: "You could travel with them?"

"Indeed I could!"

"Honestly?"

"As affirmatively as one may protest. Delightedly."

"Agreed. It is an undertaking." He put his hand out.

"Whether I be of the party or not! To Italy, Laetitia! It would give me

pleasure to be with you, and it will, if I must be excluded, to think

of you in Italy."

His hand was out. She had to feign inattention or yield her own. She

had not the effrontery to pretend not to see, and she yielded it. He

pressed it, and whenever it shrunk a quarter inch to withdraw, he shook

it up and down, as an instrument that had been lent him for due

emphasis to his remarks. And very emphatic an amorous orator can make

it upon a captive lady.

"I am unable to speak decisively on that or any subject. I am, I think

you once quoted, 'tossed like a weed on the ocean.' Of myself I can

speak: I cannot speak for a second person. I am infinitely harassed. If

I could cry, 'To Italy tomorrow!' Ah! . . . Do not set me down for

complaining. I know the lot of man. But, Laetitia, deceit! deceit! It

is a bad taste in the mouth. It sickens us of humanity. I compare it to

an earthquake: we lose all our reliance on the solidity of the world.

It is a betrayal not simply of the person; it is a betrayal of

humankind. My friend! Constant friend! No, I will not despair. Yes, I

have faults; I will remember them. Only, forgiveness is another

question. Yes, the injury I can forgive; the falseness never. In the

interests of humanity, no. So young, and such deceit!"

Laetitia's bosom rose: her hand was detained: a lady who has yielded it

cannot wrestle to have it back; those outworks which protect her

treacherously shelter the enemy aiming at the citadel when he has taken

them. In return for the silken armour bestowed on her by our

civilization, it is exacted that she be soft and civil nigh up to

perishing-point. She breathed tremulously high, saying on her

top-breath: "If it--it may not be so; it can scarcely. . ." A deep sigh

intervened. It saddened her that she knew so much.

"For when I love I love," said Sir Willoughby; "my friends and my

servants know that. There can be no medium: not with me. I give all, I

claim all. As I am absorbed, so must I absorb. We both cancel and

create, we extinguish and we illumine one another. The error may be in

the choice of an object: it is not in the passion. Perfect confidence,

perfect abandonment. I repeat, I claim it because I give it. The

selfishness of love may be denounced: it is a part of us. My answer

would be, it is an element only of the noblest of us! Love, Laetitia! I

speak of love. But one who breaks faith to drag us through the mire,

who betrays, betrays and hands us over to the world, whose prey we

become identically because of virtues we were educated to think it a

blessing to possess: tell me the name for that!--Again, it has ever

been a principle with me to respect the sex. But if we see women false,

treacherous . . . Why indulge in these abstract views, you would ask!

The world presses them on us, full as it is of the vilest specimens.

They seek to pluck up every rooted principle: they sneer at our

worship: they rob us of our religion. This bitter experience of the

world drives us back to the antidote of what we knew before we plunged

into it: of one . . . of something we esteemed and still esteem. Is

that antidote strong enough to expel the poison? I hope so! I believe

so! To lose faith in womankind is terrible."

He studied her. She looked distressed: she was not moved.

She was thinking that, with the exception of a strain of haughtiness,

he talked excellently to men, at least in the tone of the things he

meant to say; but that his manner of talking to women went to an excess

in the artificial tongue--the tutored tongue of sentimental deference

of the towering male: he fluted exceedingly; and she wondered whether

it was this which had wrecked him with Miss Middleton.

His intuitive sagacity counselled him to strive for pathos to move her.

It was a task; for while he perceived her to be not ignorant of his

plight, he doubted her knowing the extent of it, and as his desire was

merely to move her without an exposure of himself, he had to compass

being pathetic as it were under the impediments of a mailed and

gauntletted knight, who cannot easily heave the bosom, or show it

heaving.

Moreover, pathos is a tide: often it carries the awakener of it off his

feet, and whirls him over and over armour and all in ignominious

attitudes of helpless prostration, whereof he may well be ashamed in

the retrospect. We cannot quite preserve our dignity when we stoop to

the work of calling forth tears. Moses had probably to take a nimble

jump away from the rock after that venerable Law-giver had knocked the

water out of it.

However, it was imperative in his mind that he should be sure he had

the power to move her.

He began; clumsily at first, as yonder gauntletted knight attempting

the briny handkerchief.

"What are we! We last but a very short time. Why not live to gratify

our appetites? I might really ask myself why. All the means of

satiating them are at my disposal. But no: I must aim at the

highest:--at that which in my blindness I took for the highest. You

know the sportsman's instinct, Laetitia; he is not tempted by the

stationary object. Such are we in youth, toying with happiness, leaving

it, to aim at the dazzling and attractive."

"We gain knowledge," said Laetitia.

"At what a cost!"

The exclamation summoned self-pity to his aid, and pathos was handy.

"By paying half our lives for it and all our hopes! Yes, we gain

knowledge, we are the wiser; very probably my value surpasses now what

it was when I was happier. But the loss! That youthful bloom of the

soul is like health to the body; once gone, it leaves cripples behind.

Nay, my friend and precious friend, these four fingers I must retain.

They seem to me the residue of a wreck: you shall be released shortly:

absolutely, Laetitia, I have nothing else remaining--We have spoken of

deception; what of being undeceived?--when one whom we adored is laid

bare, and the wretched consolation of a worthy object is denied to us.

No misfortune can be like that. Were it death, we could worship still.

Death would be preferable. But may you be spared to know a situation in

which the comparison with your inferior is forced on you to your

disadvantage and your loss because of your generously giving up your

whole heart to the custody of some shallow, light-minded, self--! . . .

We will not deal in epithets. If I were to find as many bad names for

the serpent as there are spots on his body, it would be serpent still,

neither better nor worse. The loneliness! And the darkness! Our

luminary is extinguished. Self-respect refuses to continue

worshipping, but the affection will not be turned aside. We are

literally in the dust, we grovel, we would fling away self-respect if

we could; we would adopt for a model the creature preferred to us; we

would humiliate, degrade ourselves; we cry for justice as if it were

for pardon . . ."

"For pardon! when we are straining to grant it!" Laetitia murmured, and

it was as much as she could do. She remembered how in her old misery

her efforts after charity had twisted her round to feel herself the

sinner, and beg forgiveness in prayer: a noble sentiment, that filled

her with pity of the bosom in which it had sprung. There was no

similarity between his idea and hers, but her idea had certainly been

roused by his word "pardon", and he had the benefit of it in the

moisture of her eyes. Her lips trembled, tears fell.

He had heard something; he had not caught the words, but they were

manifestly favourable; her sign of emotion assured him of it and of the

success he had sought. There was one woman who bowed to him to all

eternity! He had inspired one woman with the mysterious, man-desired

passion of self-abandonment, self-immolation! The evidence was before

him. At any instant he could, if he pleased, fly to her and command her

enthusiasm.

He had, in fact, perhaps by sympathetic action, succeeded in striking

the same springs of pathos in her which animated his lively endeavour

to produce it in himself.

He kissed her hand; then released it, quitting his chair to bend above

her soothingly.

"Do not weep, Laetitia, you see that I do not; I can smile. Help me to

bear it; you must not unman me."

She tried to stop her crying, but self-pity threatened to rain all her

long years of grief on her head, and she said: "I must go . . . I am

unfit . . . good-night, Sir Willoughby."

Fearing seriously that he had sunk his pride too low in her

consideration, and had been carried farther than he intended on the

tide of pathos, he remarked: "We will speak about Crossjay to-morrow.

His deceitfulness has been gross. As I said, I am grievously offended

by deception. But you are tired. Good-night, my dear friend."

"Good-night, Sir Willoughby."

She was allowed to go forth.

Colonel De Craye coming up from the smoking-room, met her and noticed

the state of her eyelids, as he wished her goodnight. He saw Willoughby

in the room she had quitted, but considerately passed without speaking,

and without reflecting why he was considerate.

Our hero's review of the scene made him, on the whole, satisfied with

his part in it. Of his power upon one woman he was now perfectly

sure:--Clara had agonized him with a doubt of his personal mastery of

any. One was a poor feast, but the pangs of his flesh during the last

few days and the latest hours caused him to snatch at it, hungrily if

contemptuously. A poor feast, she was yet a fortress, a point of

succour, both shield and lance; a cover and an impetus. He could now

encounter Clara boldly. Should she resist and defy him, he would not be

naked and alone; he foresaw that he might win honour in the world's eye

from his position--a matter to be thought of only in most urgent need.

The effect on him of his recent exercise in pathos was to compose him

to slumber. He was for the period well satisfied.

His attendant imps were well satisfied likewise, and danced around

about his bed after the vigilant gentleman had ceased to debate on the

question of his unveiling of himself past forgiveness of her to

Laetitia, and had surrendered to sleep the present direction of his

affairs.