CHAPTER XXXIII

A PAIR OF WOOERS

That ashen look of the rise out of death from one of our mortal wounds,

was caused by deeper convulsions in Nesta's bosom than Dartrey could

imagine.

She had gone for the walk with Mr. Barmby, reading the omen of his tones

in the request. Dorothea and Virginia would have her go. The clerical

gentleman, a friend of the Rev. Abram Posterley; and one who deplored

poor Mr. Posterley's infatuation; and one besides who belonged to Nesta's

musical choir in London: seemed a safe companion for the child. The grand

organ of Mr. Barmby's voice, too, assured them of a devout seriousness in

him, that arrested any scrupulous little questions. They could not

conceive his uttering the nonsensical empty stuff, compliments to their

beauty and what not, which girls hear sometimes from inconsiderate

gentlemen, to the having of their heads turned. Moreover, Nesta had

rashly promised her father's faithful servant Skepsey to walk, out with

him in the afternoon; and the ladies hoped she would find the morning's

walk to have been enough; good little man though Skepsey was, they were

sure. But there is the incongruous for young women of station on a

promenade.

Mr. Barmby headed to the pier. After pacing up and down between the briny

gulls and a polka-band, he made his way forethoughtfully to the

glass-sheltered seats fronting East: where, as his enthusiasm for the

solemnity of the occasion excited him to say, 'We have a view of the

terraces and the cliffs'; and where not more than two enwrapped invalid

figures were ensconsed. Then it was, that Nesta recalled her anticipation

of his possible design; forgotten by her during their talk of her dear

people: Priscilla Graves and Mr. Pempton, and the Yatts, and Simeon

Fenellan, Peridon and Catkin, and Skepsey likewise; and the very latest

news of her mother. She wished she could have run before him, to spare

him. He would not notice a sign. Girls must wait and hear.

It was an oratorio. She watched the long wave roll on to the sinking into

its fellow; and onward again for the swell and the weariful lapse; and up

at last bursting to the sheet of white. The far-heard roar and the near

commingled, giving Mr. Barmby a semblance to the powers of ocean.

At the first direct note, the burden of which necessitated a pause, she

petitioned him to be her friend, to think of himself as her friend.

But a vessel laden with merchandize, that has crossed wild seas for this

particular port, is hardly to be debarred from discharging its goods on

the quay by simple intimations of their not being wanted. We are

precipitated both by the aim and the tedium of the lengthened voyage to

insist that they be seen. We believe perforce in their temptingness; and

should allurement fail, we fall back to the belief in our eloquence. An

eloquence to expose the qualities they possess, is the testification in

the promise of their excellence. She is to be induced by feeling to see

it. We are asking a young lady for the precious gift of her hand. We

respect her; and because of our continued respect, despite an

obstruction, we have come to think we have a claim upon her gratitude;

could she but be led to understand how different we are from some other

man!--from one hitherto favoured among them, unworthy of this prize,

however personally exalted and meritorious.

The wave of wide extension rolled and sank and rose, heaving lifeless

variations of the sickly streaks on its dull green back.

Dudley Sowerby's defection was hinted at and accounted for, by the

worldly test of worldly considerations.

What were they?--Nesta glanced.

An indistinct comparison was modestly presented, of one unmoved by

worldly considerations.

But what were they? She was wakened by a lamp, and her darkness was all

inflammable to it.

'Oh! Mr. Barmby, you have done me the honour to speak before; you know my

answer,' she said.

'You were then subject to an influence. A false, I may say wicked,

sentiment upholding celibacy.'

'My poor Louise? She never thought of influencing me. She has her views,

I mine. Our friendship does not depend on a "treaty of reciprocity." We

are one at heart, each free to judge and act, as it should be in

friendship. I heard from her this morning. Her brother will be able to

resume his military duties next month. Then she will return to me.'

'We propose!' rejoined Mr. Barmby.

Beholding the involuntary mercurial rogue-dimple he had started from a

twitch at the corner, of her lips, the good gentleman pursued: 'Can we

dare write our designs for the month to come? Ah!--I will say--Nesta!

give me the hope I beg to have. See the seriousness. You are at liberty.

That other has withdrawn his pretensions. We will not blame him. He is in

expectation of exalted rank. Where there is any shadow . . . !' Mr.

Barmby paused on his outroll of the word; but immediately, not intending

to weigh down his gentle hearer with the significance in it, resumed at a

yet more sonorous depth: 'He is under the obligation to his family; an

old, a venerable family. In the full blaze of public opinion! His conduct

can be palliated by us, too. There is a right and wrong in minor things,

independent of the higher rectitude. We pardon, we can partly support,

the worldly view.'

'There is a shadow?' said Nesta; and her voice was lurefully encouraging.

He was on the footing where men are precipitated by what is within them

to blunder. 'On you--no. On you personally, not at all. No. It could not

be deemed so. Not by those knowing, esteeming--not by him who loves you,

and would, with his name, would, with his whole strength, envelop, shield

. . . certainly, certainly not.'

'It is on my parents?' she said.

'But to me nothing, nothing, quite nought! To confound the innocent with

the guilty! . . . and excuses may exist. We know but how little we know!'

'It is on both my parents?' she said; with a simplicity that induced him

to reply: 'Before the world. But not, I repeat . . .'

The band-instruments behind the sheltering glass flourished on their

termination of a waltz.

She had not heeded their playing. Now she said:

'The music is over; we must not be late at lunch'; and she stood up and

moved.

He sprang to his legs and obediently stepped out:

'I shall have your answer to-day, this evening? Nesta!'

'Mr. Barmby, it will be the same. You will be kind to me in not asking me

again.'

He spoke further. She was dumb.

Had he done ill or well for himself and for her when he named the shadow

on her parents? He dwelt more on her than on himself: he would not have

wounded her to win the blest affirmative. Could she have been entirely

ignorant?--and after Dudley Sowerby's defection? For such it was: the

Rev. Stuart Rem had declared the union between the almost designated head

of the Cantor family and a young person of no name, of worse than no

birth, impossible: 'absolutely and totally impossible,' he, had said, in

his impressive fashion, speaking from his knowledge of the family, and an

acquaintance with Dudley. She must necessarily have learnt why Dudley

Sowerby withdrew. No parents of an attractive daughter should allow her

to remain unaware of her actual position in the world. It is criminal, a

reduplication of the criminality! Yet she had not spoken as one

astonished. She was mysterious. Women are so: young women most of all. It

is undecided still whether they do of themselves conceive principles, or

should submit to an imposition of the same upon them in terrorem.

Mysterious truly, but most attractive! As Lady Bountiful of a district,

she would have in her maturity the majestic stature to suit a

dispensation of earthly good things. And, strangely, here she was, at

this moment, rivalling to excelling all others of her sex (he verified it

in the crowd of female faces passing), when they, if they but knew the

facts, would visit her very appearance beside them on a common footing as

an intrusion and a scandal. To us who know, such matters are indeed

wonderful!

Moved by reflective compassion, Mr. Barmby resumed the wooer's note, some

few steps after he had responded to the salutation of Dartrey Fenellan

and Colonel Sudley. She did not speak. She turned her forehead to him;

and the absence of the world from her eyes chilled his tongue.

He declined the pleasure of the lunch with the Duvidney ladies. He

desired to be alone, to question himself fasting, to sound the deed he

had done; for he had struck on a suspicion of selfishness in it: and

though Love must needs be an egoism, Love is no warrant for the doing of

a hurt to the creature beloved. Thoughts upon Skepsey and the tale of his

Matilda Pridden's labours in poor neighbourhoods, to which he had been

inattentive during the journey down to the sea, invaded him; they were

persistent. He was a worthy man, having within him the spiritual impulse

curiously ready to take the place where a material disappointment left

vacancy. The vulgar sort embrace the devil at that stage. Before the day

had sunk, Mr. Barmby's lowest wish was, to be a light, as the instrument

of his Church in her ministrations amid the haunts of sin and slime, to

such plain souls as Daniel Skepsey and Matilda Pridden. And he could

still be that, if Nesta, in the chapters of the future, changed her mind.

She might; for her good she would; he reserved the hope. His light was

one to burn beneath an extinguisher.

At the luncheon table of the Duvidney ladies, it was a pain to Dorothea

and Virginia to witness how poor the appetite their Nesta brought in from

the briny blowy walk. They prophesied against her chances of a good sleep

at night, if she did not eat heartily. Virginia timidly remarked on her

paleness. Both of them put their simple arts in motion to let her know,

that she was dear to them: so dear as to make them dread the hour of

parting. They named their dread of it. They had consulted in private and

owned to one another, that they did really love the child, and dared not

look forward to what they would do without her. The dear child's paleness

and want of appetite (they remembered they were observing a weak innocent

girl) suggested to them mutually the idea of a young female heart

sickening, for the old unhappy maiden reason. But, if only she might

return with them to the Wells, the Rev. Stuart Rem would assure her to

convince her of her not being quite, quite forsaken. He, or some one

having sanction from Victor, might ultimately (the ladies waiting

anxiously in the next room, to fold her on the warmth of their bosoms

when she had heard) impart to her the knowledge of circumstances, which

would, under their further tuition concerning the particular sentiments

of great families and the strict duties of the scions of the race, help

to account for and excuse the Hon. Dudley Sowerby's behaviour.

They went up to the drawing-room, talking of Skepsey and his tale of Miss

Pridden, for Nesta's amusement. Any talk of her Skepsey usually quickened

her lips to reminiscent smiles and speech. Now she held on to gazeing;

and sadly, it seemed; as if some object were not present.

For a vague encouragement, Dorothea said: 'One week, and we are back home

at Moorsedge!'--not so far from Cronidge, was implied, for the

administering of some foolish temporary comfort. And it was as when a

fish on land springs its hollow sides in alien air for the sustaining

element; the girl panted; she clasped Dorothea's hand and looked at

Virginia: 'My mother--I must see her!' she said. They were slightly

stupefied by the unwonted mention of her mother. They made no reply. They

never had done so when there was allusion to her mother. Their silence

now struck a gong at the girl's bosom.

Dorothea had it in mind to say, that if she thirsted for any special

comfort, the friends about her would offer consolation for confidence.

Before she could speak, Perrin the footman entered, bearing the card of

the Hon. Dudley Sowerby.

Mr. Dudley Sowerby begged for an immediate interview with Miss Radnor.

The ladies were somewhat agitated, but no longer perplexed as to their

duties. They had quitted Moorsedge to avoid the visit of his family. If

he followed, it signified that which they could not withstand:--The

'Tivoli falls!' as they named the fateful tremendous human passion, from

the reminiscences of an impressive day on their travels in youth; when

the leaping torrent had struck upon a tale of love they were reading.

They hurriedly entreated Nesta to command her nerves; peremptorily

requested her to stay where she was; showed her spontaneously, by way of

histrionic adjuration, the face to be worn by young ladies at greetings

on these occasions; kissed her and left her; Virginia whispering: 'He is

true!'

Dudley entered the drawing-room, charged with his happy burden of a love

that had passed through the furnace. She stood near a window, well in the

light; she hardly gave him welcome. His address to her was hurried,

rather uncertain, coherent enough between the drop and the catch of

articulate syllables. He found himself holding his hat. He placed it on

the table, and it rolled foolishly; but soon he was by her side, having

two free hands to claim her one.

'You are thinking, you have not heard from me! I have been much

occupied,' he said. 'My brother is ill, very ill. I have your pardon?'

'Indeed you have--if it has to be asked.'

'I have it?'

'Have I to grant it?'

'I own to remissness!

'I did not blame you.'

'Nesta . . . !'

Her coldness was unshaken.

He repeated the call of her name. 'I should have written--I ought to have

written!--I could not have expressed . . . You do forgive? So many

things!'

'You come from Cronidge to-day?'

'From my family--to you.'

She seemed resentful. His omissions as a correspondent were explicable in

a sentence. It had to be deferred.

Reviewing for a moment the enormous internal conflict undergone by him

during the period of the silence between them, he wondered at the

vastness of the love which had conquered objections, to him so poignant.

There was at least no seeing of the public blot on her birth when looking

on her face. Nor when thinking of the beauty of her character, in absence

or in presence, was there any. He had mastered distaste to such a degree,

that he forgot the assistance he had received from the heiress for

enabling him to appreciate the fair young girl. Money is the imperious

requirement of superior station; and more money and more: in these our

modern days of the merchant's wealth, and the miner's, and the gigantic

American and Australian millionaires, high rank is of necessity vowed, in

peril of utter eclipse; to the possession of money. Still it is, when

assured, a consideration far to the rear with a gentleman in whose bosom

love and the buzzing world have fought their battle out. He could believe

it thoroughly fought out, by the prolonged endurance of a contest lasting

many days and nights; in the midst of which, at one time, the task of

writing to tell her of his withdrawal from the engagement, was the cause

of his omission to write.

As to her character, he dwelt on the charm of her recovered features, to

repress an indicative dread of some intrepid force behind it, that might

be unfeminine, however gentle the external lineaments. Her features, her

present aristocratic deficiency of colour, greatly pleased him; her

character would submit to moulding. Of all young ladies in the world, she

should be the one to shrink from a mental independence and hold to the

guidance of the man ennobling her. Did she? Her eyes were reading him.

She had her father's limpid eyes, and when they concentrated rays, they

shot.

'Have you seen my parents, Mr. Sowerby?'

He answered smilingly, for reassuringly: 'I have seen them.'

'My mother?'

'From your mother first. But am I not to be Dudley?'

'She spoke to you? She told you?'

'And yesterday your father--a second time.'

Some remainder of suspicion in the dealing with members of this family,

urged Dudley to say: 'I understood from them, you were not? . . . that

you were quite . . .?'

'I have heard: I have guessed: it was recently--this morning, as it

happened. I wish to go to my mother to-day. I shall go to her to-morrow.'

'I might offer to conduct you-now!'

'You are kind; I have Skepsey.' She relieved the situation of its

cold-toned strain in adding: 'He is a host.'

'But I may come?--now! Have I not the right? You do not deny it me?'

'You are very generous.'

'I claim the right, then. Always. And subsequently, soon after, my mother

hopes to welcome you at Cronidge. She will be glad to hear of your naming

of a day. My father bids me . . . he and all our family.'

'They are very generous.'

'I may send them word this evening of a day you name?'

'No, Mr. Sowerby.

'Dudley?'

'I cannot say it. I have to see my parents.'

'Between us, surely?'

'My whole heart thanks you for your goodness to me. I am unable to say

more.'

He had again observed and he slightly crisped under the speculative look

she directed on him: a simple unstrained look, that had an air of reading

right in, and was worse to bear with than when the spark leaped upon some

thought from her eyes: though he had no imagination of anything he

concealed--or exposed, and he would have set it down to her temporary

incredulousness of his perfect generosity or power to overcome the

world's opinion of certain circumstances. That had been a struggle! The

peculiar look was not renewed. She spoke warmly of her gratitude. She

stated, that she must of necessity see her parents at once. She submitted

to his entreaty to conduct her to them on the morrow. It was in the

manner of one who yielded step by step, from inability to contend.

Her attitude continuing unchanged, he became sensible of a monotony in

the speech with which he assailed it, and he rose to leave, not

dissatisfied. She, at his urgent request, named her train for London in

the early morning. He said it was not too early. He would have desired to

be warmed; yet he liked her the better for the moral sentiment

controlling the physical. He had appointments with relatives or

connections in the town, and on that pretext he departed, hoping for the

speedy dawn of the morrow as soon as he had turned his back on the house.

No, not he the man to have pity of women underfoot! That was the thought,

unrevolved, unphrased, all but unconscious, in Nesta: and while her heart

was exalting him for his generosity. Under her present sense of the

chilling shadow, she felt the comfort there was in being grateful to him

for the golden beams which his generosity cast about her. But she had an

intelligence sharp to pierce, virgin though she was; and with the mark in

sight, however distant, she struck it, unerring as an Artemis for blood

of beasts: those shrewd young wits, on the lookout to find a champion,

athirst for help upon a desolate road, were hard as any judicial to

pronounce the sentence upon Dudley in that respect. She raised him high;

she placed herself low; she had a glimpse of the struggle he had gone

through; love of her had helped him, she believed. And she was melted;

and not the less did the girl's implacable intuition read with the

keenness of eye of a man of the world the blunt division in him, where

warm humanity stopped short at the wall of social concrete forming a part

of this rightly esteemed young citizen. She, too, was divided: she was at

his feet; and she rebuked herself for daring to judge--or rather, it was,

for having a reserve in her mind upon a man proving so generous with her.

She was pulled this way and that by sensibilities both inspiring to blind

gratitude and quickening her penetrative view. The certainty of an

unerring perception remained.

Dorothea and Virginia were seated in the room below, waiting for their

carriage, when the hall-door spoke of the Hon. Dudley's departure; soon

after, Nesta entered to them. She swam up to Dorothea's lap, and dropped

her head on it, kneeling.

The ladies feared she might be weeping. Dorothea patted her thick brown

twisted locks of hair. Unhappiness following such an interview, struck

them as an ill sign.

Virginia bent to the girl's ear, and murmured: 'All well?'

She replied: 'He has been very generous.'

Her speaking of the words renewed an oppression, that had darkened her on

the descent of stairs. For sensibilities sharp as Nesta's, are not to be

had without their penalties: and she who had gone nigh to summing in a

flash the nature of Dudley, sank suddenly under that affliction often

besetting the young adventurous mind, crushing to young women:--the

fascination exercised upon them by a positive adverse masculine attitude

and opinion. Young men know well what it is: and if young women have by

chance overcome their timidity, to the taking of any step out of the trim

pathway, they shrink, with a sense of forlornest isolation. It becomes a

subjugation; inciting to revolt, but a heavy weight to cast off. Soon it

assumed its material form for the contention between her and Dudley, in

the figure of Mrs. Marsett. The Nesta who had been instructed to know

herself to be under a shadow, heard, she almost justified Dudley's

reproaches to her, for having made the acquaintance of the unhappy woman,

for having visited her, for having been, though but for a minute, at the

mercy of a coarse gentleman's pursuit. The recollection was a smart

buffet.

Her lighted mind punished her thus through her conjuring of Dudley's

words, should news of her relations with Mrs. Marsett reach him:--and she

would have to tell him. Would he not say: 'I have borne with the things

concerning your family. All the greater reason why I must insist'--he

would assuredly say he insisted (her humour caught at the word, as being

the very word one could foresee and clearly see him uttering in a fit of

vehemence) on her immediate abandonment of 'that woman.'

And with Nesta's present enlightenment by dusky beams, upon her

parentage, she listened abjectly to Dudley, or the opinion of the

majority. Would he not say or think, that her clinging to Mrs. Marsett

put them under a kind of common stamp, or gave the world its option to

class them together?

These were among the ideas chasing in a head destined to be a

battle-field for the enrichment of a harvest-field of them, while the

girl's face was hidden on Dorothea's lap, and her breast heaved and

heaved.

She distressed them when she rose, by saying she must instantly see her

mother.

They saw the pain their hesitation inflicted, and Dorothea said: 'Yes,

dear; any day you like.'

'To-morrow--I must go to her to-morrow!'

A suggestion of her mother's coming down, was faintly spoken by one lady,

echoed in a quaver by the other.

Nesta shook her head. To quiet the kind souls, she entreated them to give

their promise that they would invite her again.

Imagining the Hon. Dudley to have cast her off, both ladies embraced her:

not entirely yielding-up their hearts to her, by reason of the pernicious

new ideas now in the world to sap our foundations of morality; which

warned them of their duty to uphold mentally his quite justifiable

behaviour, even when compassionating the sufferings of the guiltless

creature loved by them.