CHAPTER XVII

LADY CHARLOTTE'S TRIUMPH

One of the days of sovereign splendour in England was riding down the

heavens, and drawing the royal mantle of the gold-fringed shadows over

plain and wavy turf, blue water and woods of the country round Steignton.

A white mansion shone to a length of oblong lake that held the sun-ball

suffused in mild yellow.

'There's the place,' Lady Charlotte said to Weyburn, as they had view of

it at a turn of the park. She said to herself--where I was born and bred!

and her sight gloated momentarily on the house and side avenues, a great

plane standing to the right of the house, the sparkle of a little river

running near; all the scenes she knew, all young and lively. She sprang

on her seat for a horse beneath her, and said, 'But this is healthy

excitement,' as in reply to her London physician's remonstrances. 'And

there's my brother Rowsley, talking to one of the keepers,' she cried.

'You see Lord Ormont? I can see a mile. Sight doesn't fail with me. He 's

insisting. 'Ware poachers when Rowsley's on his ground! You smell the air

here? Nobody dies round about Steignton. Their legs wear out and they lie

down to rest them. It 's the finest air in the world. Now look, the third

window left of the porch, first floor. That was my room before I married.

Strangers have been here and called the place home. It can never be home

to any but me and Rowsley. He sees the carriage. He little thinks! He's

dressed in his white corduroy and knee-breeches. Age! he won't know age

till he's ninety. Here he comes marching. He can't bear surprises. I'll

wave my hand and call.'

She called his name.

In a few strides he was at the carriage window. 'You, Charlotte?'

'Home again, Rowsley! Bring down your eyebrows, and let me hear you're

glad I 've come.'

'What made you expect you would find me here?'

'Anything-cats on the tiles at night. You can't keep a secret from me.

Here's Mr. Weyburn, good enough to be my escort. I 'll get out.'

She alighted, scorning help; Weyburn at her heels. The earl nodded to him

politely and not cordially. He was hardly cordial to Lady Charlotte.

That had no effect on her. 'A glorious day for Steignton,' she said. 'Ah,

there's the Buridon group of beeches; grander trees than grow at Buridon.

Old timber now. I knew them slim as demoiselles. Where 's the ash? We had

a splendid ash on the west side.'

'Dead and cut down long since,' replied the earl.

'So we go!'

She bent her steps to the spot: a grass-covered heave of the soil.

'Dear old tree!' she said, in a music of elegy: and to Weyburn: 'Looks

like a stump of an arm lopped off a shoulder in bandages. Nature does it

so. All the tenants doing well, Rowsley?'

'About the same amount of trouble with them.'

'Ours at Olmer get worse.'

'It's a process for the extirpation of the landlords.'

'Then down goes the country.'

'They 've got their case, their papers tell us.'

'I know they have; but we've got the soil, and we'll make a, fight of

it.'

'They can fight too, they say.'

'I should be sorry to think they couldn't if they're Englishmen.'

She spoke so like his old Charlotte of the younger days that her brother

partly laughed.

'Parliamentary fighting 's not much to your taste or mine. They 've lost

their stomach for any other. The battle they enjoy is the battle that

goes for the majority. Gauge their valour by that.'

'To be sure,' said his responsive sister. She changed her note. 'But what

I say is, let the nobles keep together and stick to their class. There's

nothing to fear then. They must marry among themselves, think of the

blood: it's their first duty. Or better a peasant girl! Middle courses

dilute it to the stuff in a publican's tankard. It 's an adulterous beast

who thinks of mixing old wine with anything.'

'Hulloa!' said the earl; and she drew up.

'You'll have me here till over to-morrow, Rowsley, so that I may have one

clear day at Steignton?'

He bowed. 'You will choose your room. Mr. Weyburn is welcome.'

Weyburn stated the purport of his visit, and was allowed to name an early

day for the end of his term of service.

Entering the house, Lady Charlotte glanced at the armour and stag

branches decorating corners of the hall, and straightway laid her head

forward, pushing after it in the direction of the drawing room. She went

in, stood for a minute, and came out. Her mouth was hard shut.

At dinner she had tales of uxorious men, of men who married mistresses,

of the fearful incubus the vulgar family of a woman of the inferior

classes ever must be; and her animadversions were strong in the matter of

gew-gaw modern furniture. The earl submitted to hear.

She was, however, keenly attentive whenever he proffered any item of

information touching Steignton. After dinner Weyburn strolled to the

points of view she cited as excellent for different aspects of her old

home.

He found her waiting to hear his laudation when he came back; and in the

early morning she was on the terrace, impatient to lead him down to the

lake. There, at the boat-house, she commanded him to loosen a skiff and

give her a paddle. Between exclamations, designed to waken louder from

him, and not so successful as her cormorant hunger for praise of

Steignton required, she plied him to confirm with his opinion an opinion

that her reasoning mind had almost formed in the close neighbourhood of

the beloved and honoured person providing it; for abstract ideas were

unknown to her. She put it, however, as in the abstract:--

'How is it we meet people brave as lions before an enemy, and rank

cowards where there's a botheration among their friends at home? And tell

me, too, if you've thought the thing over, what's the meaning of this? I

've met men in high places, and they've risen to distinction by their own

efforts, and they head the nation. Right enough, you'd say. Well, I talk

with them, and I find they've left their brains on the ladder that led

them up; they've only the ideas of their grandfather on general subjects.

I come across a common peasant or craftsman, and he down there has a mind

more open--he's wiser in his intelligence than his rulers and lawgivers

up above him. He understands what I say, and I learn from him. I don't

learn much from our senators, or great lawyers, great doctors,

professors, members of governing bodies--that lot. Policy seems to

petrify their minds when they 've got on an eminence. Now explain it, if

you can.'

'Responsibility has a certain effect on them, no doubt,' said Weyburn.

'Eminent station among men doesn't give a larger outlook. Most of them

confine their observation to their supports. It happens to be one of the

questions I have thought over. Here in England, and particularly on a

fortnight's run in the lowlands of Scotland once, I have, like you, my

lady, come now and then across the people we call common, men and women,

old wayside men especially; slow-minded, but hard in their grasp of

facts, and ready to learn, and logical, large in their ideas, though

going a roundabout way to express them. They were at the bottom of

wisdom, for they had in their heads the delicate sense of justice, upon

which wisdom is founded. That is what their rulers lack. Unless we have

the sense of justice abroad like a common air, there 's no peace, and no

steady advance. But these humble people had it. They reasoned from it,

and came to sound conclusions. I felt them to be my superiors. On the

other hand, I have not felt the same with "our senators, rulers, and

lawgivers." They are for the most part deficient in the liberal mind.'

'Ha! good, so far. How do you account for it?' said Lady Charlotte.

'I read it in this way: that the world being such as it is at present,

demanding and rewarding with honours and pay special services, the men

called great, who have risen to distinction, are not men of brains, but

the men of aptitudes. These men of aptitudes have a poor conception of

the facts of life to meet the necessities of modern expansion. They are

serviceable in departments. They go as they are driven, or they resist.

In either case, they explain how it is that we have a world moving so

sluggishly. They are not the men of brains, the men of insight and

outlook. Often enough they are foes of the men of brains.'

'Aptitudes; yes, that flashes a light into me,' said Lady Charlotte. 'I

see it better. It helps to some comprehension of their muddle. A man may

be a first-rate soldier, doctor, banker--as we call the usurer

now-a-days--or brewer, orator, anything that leads up to a figure-head,

and prove a foolish fellow if you sound him. I 've thought something like

it, but wanted the word. They say themselves, "Get to know, and you see

with what little wisdom the world is governed!" You explain how it is. I

shall carry "aptitudes" away.'

She looked straight at Weyburn. 'If I were a younger woman I could kiss

you for it.'

He bowed to her very gratefully.

'Remember, my lady, there's a good deal of the Reformer in that

definition.'

'I stick to my class. But they shall hear a true word when there's one

abroad, I can tell them. That reminds me--you ought to have asked; let me

tell you I'm friendly with the Rev. Mr. Hampton-Evey. We had a wrestle

for half an hour, and I threw him and helped him up, and he apologized

for tumbling, and I subscribed to one of his charities, and gave up about

the pew, but had an excuse for not sitting under the sermon. A poor good

creature. He 's got the aptitudes for his office. He won't do much to

save his Church. I knew another who had his aptitude for the classics,

and he has mounted. He was my tutor when I was a girl. He was fond of

declaiming passages from Lucian and Longus and Ovid. One day he was at it

with a piece out of Daphnis and Chloe, and I said, "Now translate." He

fetched a gurgle to say he couldn't, and I slapped his check. Will you

believe it? the man was indignant. I told him, if he would like to know

why I behaved in "that unmaidenly way," he had better apply at home. I

had no further intimations of his classical aptitudes; but he took me for

a cleverer pupil than I was. I hadn't a notion of the stuff he recited. I

read by his face. That was my aptitude--always has been. But think of the

donkeys parents are when they let a man have a chance of pouring his

barley-sugar and sulphur into the ears of a girl. Lots of girls have no

latent heckles and prickles to match his villany.--There's my brother

come back to breakfast from a round. You and I 'll have a drive before

lunch, and a ride or a stroll in the afternoon. There's a lot to see. I

mean you to get the whole place into your head. I 've ordered the

phaeton, and you shall take the whip, with me beside you. That's how my

husband and I spent three-quarters of our honeymoon.'

Each of the three breakfasted alone.

They met on the terrace. It was easily perceived that Lord Ormont stood

expecting an assault at any instant; prepared also to encounter and do

battle with his redoubtable sister. Only he wished to defer the

engagement. And he was magnanimous: he was in the right, she in the

wrong; he had no desire to grapple with her, fling and humiliate. The

Sphinx of Mrs. Pagnell had been communing with himself unwontedly during

the recent weeks.

What was the riddle of him? That, he did not read. But, expecting an

assault, and relieved by his sister Charlotte's departure with Weyburn,

he went to the drawing-room, where he had seen her sniff her strong

suspicions of a lady coming to throne it. Charlotte could believe that he

flouted the world with a beautiful young woman on his arm; she would not

believe him capable of doing that in his family home and native county;

so, then, her shrewd wits had nothing or little to learn. But her

vehement fighting against facts; her obstinate aristocratic prejudices,

which he shared; her stinger of a tongue: these in ebullition formed a

discomforting prospect. The battle might as well be conducted through the

post. Come it must!

Even her writing of the pointed truths she would deliver was an

unpleasant anticipation. His ears heated. Undoubtedly he could crush her.

Yet, supposing her to speak to his ears, she would say: 'You married a

young woman, and have been foiling and fooling her ever since, giving her

half a title to the name of wife, and allowing her in consequence to be

wholly disfigured before the world--your family naturally her chief

enemies, who would otherwise (Charlotte would proclaim it) have been her

friends. What! your intention was (one could hear Charlotte's voice) to

smack the world in the face, and you smacked your young wife's instead!'

His intention had been nothing of the sort. He had married, in a foreign

city, a young woman who adored him, whose features, manners, and carriage

of her person satisfied his exacting taste in the sex; and he had

intended to cast gossipy England over the rail and be a traveller for the

remainder of his days. And at the first she had acquiesced, tacitly

accepted it as part of the contract. He bore with the burden of an

intolerable aunt of hers for her sake. The two fell to work to conspire.

Aminta 'tired of travelling,' Aminta must have a London house. She

continually expressed a hope that 'she might set her eyes on Steignton

some early day.' In fact, she as good as confessed her scheme to plot for

the acknowledged position of Countess of Ormont in the English social

world. That was a distinct breach of the contract.

As to the babble of the London world about a 'very young wife,' he

scorned it completely, but it belonged to the calculation. 'A very

handsome young wife,' would lay commands on a sexagenarian vigilance

while adding to his physical glory. The latter he could forego among a

people he despised. It would, however, be an annoyance to stand

constantly hand upon sword-hilt. There was, besides, the conflict with

his redoubtable sister. He had no dread of it, in contemplation of the

necessity; he could crush his Charlotte. The objection was, that his

Aminta should be pressing him to do it. Examine the situation at present.

Aminta has all she needs--every luxury. Her title as Countess of Ormont

is not denied. Her husband justly refuses to put foot into English

society. She, choosing to go where she may be received, dissociates

herself from him, and he does not complain. She does complain. There is a

difference between the two.

He had always shunned the closer yoke with a woman because of these

vexatious dissensions. For not only are women incapable of practising,

they cannot comprehend magnanimity.

Lord Ormont's argumentative reverie to the above effect had been pursued

over and over. He knew that the country which broke his military career

and ridiculed his newspaper controversy was unforgiven by him. He did not

reflect on the consequences of such an unpardoning spirit in its

operation on his mind.

If he could but have passed the injury, he would ultimately--for his

claims of service were admitted--have had employment of some kind.

Inoccupation was poison to him; travel juggled with his malady of

restlessness; really, a compression of the warrior's natural forces. His

Aminta, pushed to it by the woman Pagnell, declined to help him in

softening the virulence of the disease. She would not travel; she would

fix in this London of theirs, and scheme to be hailed the accepted

Countess of Ormont. She manoeuvred; she threw him on the veteran

soldier's instinct, and it resulted spontaneously that he manoeuvred.

Hence their game of Pull, which occupied him a little, tickled him and

amused. The watching of her pretty infantile tactics amused him too much

to permit of a sidethought on the cruelty of the part he played. She had

every luxury, more than her station by right of birth would have

supplied.

But he was astonished to find that his Aminta proved herself clever,

though she had now and then said something pointed. She was in awe of

him: notwithstanding which, clearly she meant to win and pull him over.

He did not dislike her for it; she might use her weapons to play her

game; and that she should bewitch men--a, man like Morsfield--was not

wonderful. On the other hand, her conquest of Mrs. Lawrence Finchley

scored tellingly: that was unaccountably queer. What did Mrs. Lawrence

expect to gain? the sage lord asked. He had not known women devoid of a

positive practical object of their own when they bestirred themselves to

do a friendly deed.

Thanks to her conquest of Mrs. Lawrence, his Aminta was gaining

ground--daily she made an advance; insomuch that he had heard of himself

as harshly blamed in London for not having countenanced her recent and

rather imprudent move. In other words, whenever she gave a violent tug at

their game of Pull, he was expected to second it. But the world of these

English is too monstrously stupid in what it expects, for any of its

extravagances to be followed by interjections.

All the while he was trimming and rolling a field of armistice at

Steignton, where they could discuss the terms he had a right to dictate,

having yielded so far. Would she be satisfied with the rule of his

ancestral hall, and the dispensing of hospitalities to the county? No,

one may guess: no woman is ever satisfied. But she would have to

relinquish her game, counting her good round half of the honours.

Somewhat more, on the whole. Without beating, she certainly had

accomplished the miracle of bending him. To time and a wife it is no

disgrace for a man to bend. It is the form of submission of the bulrush

to the wind, of courtesy in the cavalier to a lady.

'Oh, here you are, Rowsley,' Lady Charlotte exclaimed at the drawing room

door. 'Well, and I don't like those Louis Quinze cabinets; and that

modern French mantelpiece clock is hideous. You seem to furnish in

downright contempt of the women you invite to sit in the room. Lord help

the wretched woman playing hostess in such a pinchbeck bric-a-brac shop,

if there were one! She 's spared, at all events.'

He stepped at slow march to one of the five windows. Lady Charlotte went

to another near by. She called to Weyburn--

'We had a regatta on that water when Lord Ormont came of age. I took an

oar in one of the boats, and we won a prize; and when I was landing I

didn't stride enough to the spring-plank, and plumped in.'

Some labourers of the estate passed in front.

Lord Ormont gave out a broken laugh. 'See those fellows walk! That 's the

raw material of the famous English infantry. They bend their knees

five-and-forty degrees for every stride; and when you drill them out of

that, they 're stiff as ramrods. I gymnasticized them in my regiment. I'd

have challenged any French regiment to out-walk or out-jump us, or any

crack Tyrolese Jagers to out-climb, though we were cavalry.'

'Yes, my lord, and exercised crack corps are wanted with us,' Weyburn

replied. 'The English authorities are adverse to it, but it 's against

nature--on the supposition that all Englishmen might enrol untrained in

Caesar's pet legion. Virgil shows knowledge of men when he says of the

row-boat straining in emulation, 'Possunt quia posse videntur.''

He talked on rapidly; he wondered that he did not hear Lady Charlotte

exclaim at what she must be seeing. From the nearest avenue a lady had

issued. She stood gazing at the house, erect--a gallant figure of a

woman--one hand holding her parasol, the other at her hip. He knew her.

She was a few paces ahead of Mrs. Pagnell, beside whom a gentleman

walked.

The cry came: 'It's that man Morsfield! Who brings that man Morsfield

here? He hunted me on the road; he seemed to be on the wrong scent. Who

are those women? Rowsley, are your grounds open every day of the week?

She threatens to come in!'

Lady Charlotte had noted that the foremost and younger of 'those women'

understood how to walk and how to dress to her shape and colour. She

inclined to think she was having to do with an intrepid foreign-bred

minx.

Aminta had been addressed by one of her companions, and had hastened

forward. It looked like the beginning of a run to enter the house.

Mrs. Pagnell ran after her. She ran cow-like.

The earl's gorge rose at the spectacle Charlotte was observing.

With Morsfield he could have settled accounts at any moment, despatching

Aminta to her chamber for an hour. He had, though he was offended, an

honourable guess that she had not of her free will travelled with the man

and brought him into the grounds. It was the presence of the intolerable

Pagnell under Charlotte's eyes which irritated him beyond the common

anger he felt at Aminta's pursuit of him right into Steignton. His mouth

locked. Lady Charlotte needed no speech from him for sign of the boiling;

she was too wary to speak while that went on.

He said to Weyburn, loud enough for his Charlotte to heir. 'Do me the

favour to go to the Countess of Ormont. Conduct her back to London. You

will say it is my command. Inform Mr. Morsfield, with my compliments, I

regret I have no weapons here. I understand him to complain of having to

wait. I shall be in town three days from this date.'

'My lord,' said Mr. Weyburn; and actually he did mean to supplicate. He

could imagine seeing Lord Ormont's eyebrows rising to alpine heights.

Lady Charlotte seized his arm.

'Go at once. Do as you are told. I'll have your portmanteau packed and

sent after you--the phaeton's out in the yard--to Rowsley, or Ashead, or

Dornton, wherever they put up. Now go, or we shall have hot work. Keep

your head on, and go.'

He went, without bowing.

Lady Charlotte rang for the footman.

The earl and she watched the scene on the sward below the terrace.

Aminta listened to Weyburn. Evidently there was no expostulation.

But it was otherwise with Mrs. Pagnell. She flung wild arms of a

semaphore signalling national events. She sprang before Aminta to stop

her retreat, and stamped and gibbed, for sign that she would not be

driven. She fell away to Mr. Morsfield, for simple hearing of her plaint.

He appeared emphatic. There was a passage between him and Weyburn.

'I suspect you've more than your match in young Weyburn, Mr. Morsfield,'

Lady Charlotte said, measuring them as they stood together. They turned

at last.

'You shall drive back to town with me, Rowsley,' said the fighting dame.

She breathed no hint of her triumph.