Sandra Belloni (originally Emilia in England). Complete - George Meredith 9 стр.

Several of the Hillford men acknowledged that it would be rather sharp work.

Their case was stated: whereupon Mr. Pole told them that he had just been milked, and regretted it, but requested them to see that he could not possibly be equal to any second proceeding of the sort. On their turning to consult together, he advised them to bear it with fortitude. All right, sir! they said: and a voice from the ranks informed him that their word was Jolly. Then a signal was given, and these indomitable fellows cheered the lord of Brookfield as lustily as if they had accomplished the feat of milking him twice in an hour. Their lively hurrahs set him blinking in extreme discomposure of spirit, and he was fumbling at his pocket, when the drum a little precipitately thumped: the ranks fell into order, and the departure was led by the tune of the King of the Cannibal islands: a tune that is certain to create a chorus on the march. On this occasion, the line:

became general at the winding up of the tune. Boys with their elders frisked as they chimed it, casting an emphasis of infinite relish on the declaration done; as if they delighted in applying it to Mr. Pole, though at their own expense.

Soon a verse grew up:

I need not point out to the sagacious that Hillford and not Mr. Pole had been done; but this was the genius of the men who transferred the opprobrium to him. Nevertheless, though their manner of welcoming misfortune was such, I, knowing that there was not a deadlier animal than a done Briton, have shudders for Ipley.

We relinquished the stream of an epic in turning away from these mighty drums.

Mr. Pole stood questioning all who surrounded him: What could I do? I couldnt subscribe to both. They dont expect that of a lord, and Im a commoner. If these fellows quarrel and split, are we to suffer for it? They cant agree, and want us to pay double fines. This is how they serve us.

Mr. Barrett, rather at a loss to account for his excitement, said, that it must be admitted they had borne the trick played upon them, with remarkable good humour.

Yes, but, Mr. Pole fumed, I dont. They put me in the wrong, between them. They make me uncomfortable. Ive a good mind to withdraw my subscription to those rascals who came first, and have nothing to do with any of them. Then, you see, down I go for a niggardly fellow. Thats the reputation I get. Nothing of this in London! you make your money, pay your rates, and nobody bothers a man.

You should have done as our darling here did, papa, said Adela. You should have hinted something that might be construed a promise or not, as we please to read it.

If I promise I perform, returned Mr. Pole.

Our Hillford people have cause for complaint, Mr. Barrett observed. And to Emilia: You will hardly favour one party more than another, will you?

I am for that poor man Jim, said Emilia, He carried my harp evening after evening, and would not even take sixpence for the trouble.

Are you really going to sing there?

Didnt you hear? I promised.

To-night?

Yes; certainly.

Do you know what it is you have promised?

To sing.

Adela glided to her sisters near at hand, and these ladies presently hemmed Emilia in. They had a method of treating matters they did not countenance, as if nature had never conceived them, and such were the monstrous issue of diseased imaginations. It was hard for Emilia to hear that what she designed to do was utterly out of the question and not to be for one moment thought of. She reiterated, with the same interpreting stress, that she had given her promise.

Do you know, I praised you for putting them off so cleverly, said Adela in tones of gentle reproach that bewildered Emilia.

Must we remind you, then, that you are bound by a previous promise? Cornelia made a counter-demonstration with the word. Have you not promised to dine with us at Lady Gosstres to-night?

Oh, of course I shall keep that, replied Emilia. I intend to. I will sing there, and then I will go and sing to those poor people, who never hear anything but dreadful musicnot music at all, but something that seems to tear your flesh!

Never mind our flesh, said Adela pettishly: melodiously remonstrating the next instant: I really thought you could not be in earnest.

But, said Arabella, can you find pleasure in wasting your voice and really great capabilities on such people?

Emilia caught her upThis poor man? But he loves music: he really knows the good from the bad. He never looks proud but when I sing to him.

The situation was one that Cornelia particularly enjoyed. Here was a low form of intellect to be instructed as to the precise meaning of a word, the nature of a pledge. There can be no harm that I see, in your singing to this man, she commenced. You can bid him come to one of the out-houses here, if you desire, and sing to him. In the evening, after his labour, will be the fit time. But, as your friends, we cannot permit you to demean yourself by going from our house to a public booth, where vulgar men are smoking and drinking beer. I wonder you have the courage to contemplate such an act! You have pledged your word. But if you had pledged your word, child, to swing upon that tree, suspended by your arms, for an hour, could you keep it? I think not; and to recognize an impossibility economizes time and is one of the virtues of a clear understanding. It is incompatible that you should dine with Lady Gosstre, and then run away to a drinking booth. Society will never tolerate one who is familiar with boors. If you are to succeed in life, as we, your friends, can conscientiously say that we most earnestly hope and trust you will do, you must be on good terms with Society. You must! You pledge your word to a piece of folly. Emancipate yourself from it as quickly as possible. Do you see? This is foolish: it, therefore, cannot be. Decide, as a sensible creature.

At the close of this harangue, Cornelia, who had stooped slightly to deliver it, regained her stately posture, beautified in Mr. Barretts sight by the flush which an unwonted exercise in speech had thrown upon her cheeks.

Emilia stood blinking like one sensible of having been chidden in a strange tongue.

Does it offend youmy going? she faltered.

Offend!our concern is entirely for you, observed Cornelia.

The explanation drew out a happy sparkle from Emilias eyes. She seized her hand, kissed it, and cried: I do thank you. I know I promised, but indeed I am quite pleased to go!

Mr. Barrett swung hurriedly round and walked some paces away with his head downward. The ladies remained in a tolerant attitude for a minute or so, silent. They then wheeled with one accord, and Emilia was left to herself.

CHAPTER X

Richford was an easy drive from Brookfield, through lanes of elm and white hawthorn.

The ladies never acted so well as when they were in the presence of a fact which they acknowledged, but did not recognize. Albeit constrained to admit that this was the first occasion of their ever being on their way to the dinner-table of a person of quality, they could refuse to look the admission in the face. A peculiar lightness of heart beset them; for brooding ambition is richer in that first realizing step it takes, insignificant though it seem, than in any subsequent achievement. I fear to say that the hearts of the ladies boiled, because visages so sedate, and voices so monotonously indifferent, would witness decidedly against me. The common avoidance of any allusion to Richford testified to the direction of their thoughts; and the absence of a sign of exultation may be accepted as a proof of the magnitude of that happiness of which they might not exhibit a feature. The effort to repress it must have cost them horrible pain. Adela, the youngest of the three, transferred her inward joy to the cottage children, whose staring faces from garden porch and gate flashed by the carriage windows. How delighted they look! she exclaimed more than once, and informed her sisters that a country life was surely the next thing to Paradise. Those children do look so happy! Thus did the weak one cunningly relieve herself. Arabella occupied her mind by giving Emilia leading hints for conduct in the great house. On the whole, though there is no harm in your praising particular dishes, as you do at home, it is better in society to say nothing on those subjects until your opinion is asked: and when you speak, it should be as one who passes the subject by. Appreciate flavours, but no dwelling on them! The degrees of an expression of approbation, naturally enough, vary with age. Did my instinct prompt me to the discussion of these themes, I should be allowed greater licence than you. And here Arabella was unable to resist a little bit of the indulgence Adela had taken: You are sure to pass a most agreeable evening, and one that you will remember.

North Pole sat high above such petty consolation; seldom speaking, save just to show that her ideas ranged at liberty, and could be spontaneously sympathetic on selected topics.

Their ceremonious entrance to the state-room of Richford accomplished, the ladies received the greeting of the affable hostess; quietly perturbed, but not enough so to disorder their artistic contemplation of her open actions, choice of phrase, and by-play. Without communication or pre-arrangement, each knew that the other would not let slip the opportunity, and, after the first five minutes of languid general converse; they were mentally at work comparing notes with one anothers imaginary conversations, while they said Yes, and Indeed, and I think so, and appeared to belong to the world about them.

Merthyr, I do you the honour to hand this young lady to your charge, said Lady Gosstre, putting on equal terms with Emilia a gentleman of perhaps five-and-thirty years; who reminded her of Mr. Barrett, but was unclouded by that look of firm sadness which characterized the poor organist. Mr. Powys was a travelled Welsh squire, Lady Gosstres best talker, on whom, as Brookfield learnt to see, she could perfectly rely to preserve the child from any little drawing-room sins or dinner-table misadventures. This gentleman had made sacrifices for the cause of Italy, in money, and, it was said, in blood. He knew the country and loved the people. Brookfield remarked that there was just a foreign tinge in his manner; and that his smile, though social to a degree unknown to the run of English faces, did not give him all to you, and at a second glance seemed plainly to say that he reserved much.

Adela fell to the lot of a hussar-captain: a celebrated beauty, not too foolish. She thought it proper to punish him for his good looks till propitiated by his good temper.

Nobody at Brookfield could remember afterwards who took Arabella down to dinner; she declaring that she had forgotten. Her sisters, not unwilling to see insignificance banished to annihilation, said that it must have been nobody in person, and that he was a very useful guest when ladies were engaged. Cornelia had a different lot. She leaned on the right arm of the Member for Hillford, the statistical debate, Sir Twickenham Pryme, who had twice before, as he ventured to remind her, enjoyed the honour of conversing, if not of dining, with her. Nay, more, he revived their topics. And I have come round to your way of thinking as regards hustings addresses, he said. In nine cases out of tenat least, nineteen-twentieths of the House will furnish instancesone can only, as you justly observed, appeal to the comprehension of the mob by pledging oneself either to their appetites or passions, and it is better plainly to state the case and put it to them in figures. Whether the Baronet knew what he was saying is one matter: he knew what he meant.

Wilfrid was cavalier to Lady Charlotte Chillingworth, of Stornley, about ten miles distant from Hillford; ninth daughter of a nobleman who passed current as the Poor Marquis; he having been ruined when almost a boy in Paris, by the late illustrious Lord Dartford. Her sisters had married captains in the army and navy, lawyers, and parsons, impartially. Lady Charlotte was nine-and-twenty years of age; with clear and telling stone-blue eyes, firm but not unsweet lips, slightly hollowed cheeks, and a jaw that certainly tended to be square. Her colour was healthy. Walking or standing her figure was firmly poised. Her chief attraction was a bell-toned laugh, fresh as a meadow spring. She had met Wilfrid once in the hunting-field, so they soon had common ground to run on.

Mr. Powys made Emilia happy by talking to her of Italy, in the intervals of table anecdotes.

Why did you leave it? she said.

I found I had more shadows than the one allotted me by nature; and as I was accustomed to a black one, and not half a dozen white, I was fairly frightened out of the country.

You mean, Austrians.

I do.

Do you hate them?

Not at all.

Then, how can you love the Italians?

They themselves have taught me to do both; to love them and not to hate their enemies. Your Italians are the least vindictive of all races of men.

Merthyr, Merthyr! went Lady Gosstre; Lady Charlotte murmuring aloud: And in the third chapter of the Book of Paradox you will find these words.

We afford a practical example and forgive them, do we not? Mr. Powys smiled at Emilia.

She looked round her, and reddened a little.

So long as you do not write that Christian word with the point of a stiletto! said Lady Charlotte.

You are not mad about the Italians? Wilfrid addressed her.

Not mad about anything, I hope. If I am to choose, I prefer the Austrians. A very gentlemanly set of men! At least, so I find them always. Capital horsemen!

I will explain to you how it must be, said Mr. Powys to Emilia. An artistic people cannot hate long. Hotly for the time, but the oppression gone, and even in the dream of its going, they are too human to be revengeful.

Do we understand such very deep things? said Lady Gosstre, who was near enough to hear clearly.

Yes: for if I ask her whether she can hate when her mind is given to music, she knows that she cannot. She can love.

Yet I think I have heard some Italian operatic spitfires, and of some! said Lady Charlotte.

What opinion do you pronounce in this controversy? Cornelia made appeal to Sir Twickenham.

There are multitudes of cases, he began: and took up another end of his statement: It has been computed that five-and-twenty murders per month to a populationto a population of ninety thousand souls, is a fair reckoning in a Southern latitude.

Then we must allow for the latitude?

I think so.

And also for the space into which the ninety thousand souls are packed, quoth Tracy Runningbrook.

Well! well! went Sir Twickenham.

The knife is the law to an Italian of the South, said Mr. Powys. He distrusts any other, because he never gets it. Where law is established, or tolerably secure, the knife is not used. Duels are rare. There is too much bonhomie for the point of honour.

I should like to believe that all men are as just to their mistresses, Lady Charlotte sighed, mock-earnestly.

Presently Emilia touched the arm of Mr. Powys. She looked agitated. I want to be told the name of that gentleman. His eyes were led to rest on the handsome hussar-captain.

Do you know him?

But his name!

Do me the favour to look at me. Captain Gambier.

It is!

Captain Gambiers face was resolutely kept in profile to her.

I hear a rumour, said Lady Gosstre to Arabella, that you think of bidding for the Besworth estate. Are you tired of Brookfield?

Not tired; but Brookfield is modern, and I confess that Besworth has won my heart.

I shall congratulate myself on having you nearer neighbours. Have you many, or any rivals?

There is some talk of the Tinleys wishing to purchase it. I cannot see why.

What people are they? asked Lady Charlotte. Do they hunt?

Oh, dear, no! They are to society what Dissenters are to religion. I cant describe them otherwise.

They pass before me in that description, said Lady Gosstre.

Besworths an excellent centre for hunting, Lady Charlotte remarked to Wilfrid. Ive always had an affection for that place. The house is on gravel; the river has trout; theres a splendid sweep of grass for the horses to exercise. I think there must be sixteen spare beds. At all events, I know that number can be made up; so that if youre too poor to live much in London, you can always have your set about you.