He informed me that I should have to marry his sister Janet; for that they could not allow the money to go out of the family. Janet Ilchester was a quaint girl, a favourite of my aunt Dorothy, and the squires especial pet; red-cheeked, with a good upright figure in walking and riding, and willing to be friendly, but we always quarrelled: she detested hearing of Kiomi.
Dont talk of creatures you met when you were a beggar, Harry Richmond, she said.
I never was a beggar, I replied.
Then she was a beggar, said Janet; and I could not deny it; though the only difference I saw between Janet and Kiomi was, that Janet continually begged favours and gifts of people she knew, and Kiomi of people who were strangers.
My allowance of pocket-money from the squire was fifty pounds a year. I might have spent it all in satisfying Janets wishes for riding-whips, knives, pencil-cases, cairngorm buttons, and dogs. A large part of the money went that way. She was always getting notice of fine dogs for sale. I bought a mastiff for her, a brown retriever, and a little terrier. She was permitted to keep the terrier at home, but I had to take care of the mastiff and retriever. When Janet came to look at them she called them by their names; of course they followed me in preference to her; she cried with jealousy. We had a downright quarrel. Lady Ilchester invited me to spend a day at her house, Charley being home for his Midsummer holidays. Charley, Janet, and I fished the river for trout, and Janet, to flatter me (of which I was quite aware), while I dressed her rod as if she was likely to catch something, talked of Heriot, and then said:
Oh! dear, we are good friends, arent we? Charley says we shall marry one another some day, but mamas such a proud woman she wont much like your having such a father as you ve got unless he s dead by that time and I neednt go up to him to be kissed.
I stared at the girl in wonderment, but not too angrily, for I guessed that she was merely repeating her brothers candid speculations upon the future. I said: Now mind what I tell you, Janet: I forgive you this once, for you are an ignorant little girl and know no better. Speak respectfully of my father or you never see me again.
Here Charley sang out: Hulloa! you dont mean to say youre talking of your father.
Janet whimpered that I had called her an ignorant little girl. If she had been silent I should have pardoned her. The meanness of the girl in turning on me when the glaring offence was hers, struck me as contemptible beyond words. Charley and I met half way. He advised me not to talk to his sister of my father. They all knew, he said, that it was no fault of mine, and for his part, had he a rascal for a father, he should pension him and cut him; to tell the truth, no objection against me existed in his family except on the score of the sort of father I owned to, and I had better make up my mind to shake him off before I grew a man; he spoke as a friend. I might frown at him and clench my fists, but he did speak as a friend.
Janet all the while was nibbling a biscuit, glancing over it at me with mouse-eyes. Her short frock and her greediness, contrasting with the talk of my marrying her, filled me with renewed scorn, though my heart was sick at the mention of my father. I asked her what she knew of him. She nibbled her biscuit, mumbling, He went to Riversley, pretending he was a singing-master. I know thats true, and more.
Oh, and a drawing-master, and a professor of legerdemain, added her brother. Expunge him, old fellow; hes no good.
No, Im sure hes no good, said Janet.
I took her hand, and told her, You dont know how you hurt me; but youre a child: you dont know anything about the world. I love my father, remember that, and what you want me to do is mean and disgraceful; but you dont know better. I would forfeit everything in the world for him. And when youre of age to marry, marry anybody you likeyou wont marry me. And good-bye, Janet. Think of learning your lessons, and not of marrying. I cant help laughing. So I said, but without the laughter. Her brother tried hard to get me to notice him.
Janet betook herself to the squire. Her prattle of our marriage in days to come was excuseable. It was the squires notion. He used to remark generally that he liked to see things look safe and fast, and he had, as my aunt confided to me, arranged with Lady Ilchester, in the girls hearing, that we should make a match. My grandfather pledged his word to Janet that he would restore us to an amicable footing. He thought it a light task. Invitations were sent out to a large party at Riversley, and Janet came with all my gifts on her dress or in her pockets. The squire led the company to the gates of his stables; the gates opened, and a beautiful pony, with a side-saddle on, was trotted forth, amid cries of admiration. Then the squire put the bridle-reins in my hands, bidding me present it myself. I asked the name of the person. He pointed at Janet. I presented the pony to Janet, and said, Its from the squire.
She forgot, in her delight, our being at variance.
No, no, you stupid Harry, Im to thank you. Hes a darling pony. I want to kiss you.
I retired promptly, but the squire had heard her.
Back, sir! he shouted, swearing by this and that. You slink from a kiss, and youre Beltham blood?
Back to her, lad. Take it. Up with her in your arms or down on your knees. Take it manfully, somehow. See there, she s got it ready for you.
Ive got a letter ready for you, Harry, to sayoh! so sorry for offending you, Janet whispered, when I reached the ponys head; and if youd rather not be kissed before people, then by-and-by, but do shake hands.
Pull the ponys mane, said I; that will do as well. ObserveI pull, and now you pull.
Janet mechanically followed my actions. She grimaced, and whimpered, I could pull the ponys mane right out.
Dont treat animals like your dolls, said I.
She ran to the squire, and refused the pony. The squires face changed from merry to black.
Young man, he addressed me, dont show that worse half of yours in genteel society, or, by the Lord! you wont carry Beltham buttons for long. This young lady, mind you, is a lady by birth both sides.
She thinks she is marriageable, said I; and walked away, leaving loud laughter behind me.
But laughter did not console me for the public aspersion of him I loved. I walked off the grounds, and thought to myself it was quite time I should be moving. Wherever I stayed for any length of time I was certain to hear abuse of my father. Why not wander over the country with Kiomi, go to sea, mount the Andes, enlist in a Prussian regiment, and hear the soldiers tell tales of Frederick the Great? I walked over Kiomis heath till dark, when one of our grooms on horseback overtook me, saying that the squire begged me to jump on the horse and ride home as quick as possible. Two other lads and the coachman were out scouring the country to find me, and the squire was anxious, it appeared. I rode home like a wounded man made to feel proud by victory, but with no one to stop the bleeding of his wounds: and the more my pride rose, the more I suffered pain. There at home sat my grandfather, dejected, telling me that the loss of me a second time would kill him, begging me to overlook his roughness, calling me his little Harry and his heir, his brave-spirited boy; yet I was too sure that a word of my father to him would have brought him very near another ejaculation concerning Beltham buttons.
Youre a fiery young fellow, I suspect, he said, when he had recovered his natural temper. I like you for it; plucks Beltham. Have a will of your own. Sweat out the bad blood. Here, drink my health, Harry. Youre three parts Beltham, at least, and itll go hard if youre not all Beltham before I die. Old blood always wins that race, I swear. We re the oldest in the county.
Youre a fiery young fellow, I suspect, he said, when he had recovered his natural temper. I like you for it; plucks Beltham. Have a will of your own. Sweat out the bad blood. Here, drink my health, Harry. Youre three parts Beltham, at least, and itll go hard if youre not all Beltham before I die. Old blood always wins that race, I swear. We re the oldest in the county.
Damn the mixing. My father never let any of his daughters marry, if he could help it, norll I, bar rascals.
Heres to you, young Squire Beltham. Harry Lepel Belthamdoes that suit ye? Anon, anon, as they say in the play. Take my name, and drop the Richmond no, drop the subject: well talk of it by-and-by.
So he wrestled to express his hatred of my father without offending me; and I studied him coldly, thinking that the sight of my father in beggars clothes, raising a hand for me to follow his steps, would draw me forth, though Riversley should beseech me to remain clad in wealth.
CHAPTER IX. AN EVENING WITH CAPTAIN BULSTED
A dream that my father lay like a wax figure in a bed gave me thoughts of dying. I was ill and did not know it, and imagined that my despair at the foot of the stairs of ever reaching my room to lie down peacefully was the sign of death. My aunt Dorothy nursed me for a week: none but she and my dogs entered the room. I had only two faint wishes left in me: one that the squire should be kept out of my sight, the other that she would speak to me of my mothers love for my father. She happened to say, musing, Harry, you have your mothers heart.
I said, No, my fathers.
From that we opened a conversation, the sweetest I had ever had away from him, though she spoke shyly and told me very little. It was enough for me in the narrow world of my dogs faces, and the red-leaved creeper at the window, the fir-trees on the distant heath, and her hand clasping mine. My father had many faults, she said, but he had been cruelly used, or deceived, and he bore a grievous burden; and then she said, Yes, and Yes, and Yes, in the voice one supposes of a ghost retiring, to my questions of his merits. I was refreshed and satisfied, like the parched earth with dews when it gets no rain, and I was soon well.
When I walked among the household again, I found that my week of seclusion had endowed me with a singular gift; I found that I could see through everybody. Looking at the squire, I thought to myself, My father has faults, but he has been cruelly used, and immediately I forgave the old man; his antipathy to my father seemed a craze, and to account for it I lay in wait for his numerous illogical acts and words, and smiled visibly in contemplation of his rough unreasonable nature, and of my magnanimity. He caught the smile, and interpreted it.
Grinning at me, Harry; have I made a slip in my grammar, eh?
Who could feel any further sensitiveness at his fits of irritation, reading him as I did? I saw through my aunt: she was always in dread of a renewal of our conversation. I could see her ideas flutter like birds to escape me. And I penetrated the others who came in my way just as unerringly. Farmer Eckerthy would acknowledge, astonished, his mind was running on cricket when I taxed him with it.
Crops was the cart-load of my thoughts, Master Harry, but there was a bit o cricket in it, too, neer a doubt.
My aunts maid, Davis, was shocked by my discernment of the fact that she was in love, and it was useless for her to pretend the contrary, for I had seen her granting tender liberties to Lady Ilchesters footman.
Old Sewis said gravely, Youve been to the witches, Master Harry; and others were sure I had got it from the gipsies off the common.
The maids were partly incredulous, but I perceived that they disbelieved as readily as they believed. With my latest tutor, the Rev. Simon Hart, I was not sufficiently familiar to offer him proofs of my extraordinary power; so I begged favours of him, and laid hot-house flowers on his table in the name of my aunt, and had the gratification of seeing him blush. His approval of my Latin exercise was verbal, and weak praise in comparison; besides I cared nothing for praises not referring to my grand natural accomplishment. And my father now is thinking of me! That was easy to imagine, but the certainty of it confirmed me in my conceit.
How can you tell?how is it possible for you to know peoples thoughts? said Janet Ilchester, whose head was as open to me as a hat. She pretended to be rather more frightened of me than she was.
And now you think you are flattering me! I said.
She looked nervous.
And now youre asking yourself what you can do better than I can!
She said, Go on.
I stopped.
She charged me with being pulled up short.
I denied it.
Guess, guess! said she. You cant.
My reply petrified her. You were thinking that you are a lady by birth on both sides.
At first she refused to admit it. No, it wasnt that, Harry, it wasnt really. I was thinking how clever you are.
Yes, after, not before.
No, Harry, but you are clever. I wish I was half as clever. Fancy reading peoples ideas! I can read my ponys, but thats different; I know by his ears. And as for my being a lady, of course I am, and so are youI mean, a gentleman. I was thinkingnow this is really what I was thinkingI wished your father lived near, that we might all be friends. I cant bear the squire when he talks.... And you quite as good as me, and better. Dont shake me off, Harry.
I shook her in the gentlest manner, not suspecting that she had read my feelings fully as well as I her thoughts. Janet and I fell to talking of my father incessantly, and were constantly together. The squire caught one of my smiles rising, when he applauded himself lustily for the original idea of matching us; but the idea was no longer distasteful to me. It appeared to me that if I must some day be married, a wife who would enjoy my narratives, and travel over the four quarters of the globe, as Janet promised to do, in search of him I loved, would be the preferable person. I swore her to secresy; she was not to tell her brother Charley the subject we conversed on.
Oh dear, no! said she, and told him straightway.
Charley, home for his winter holidays, blurted out at the squires table: So, Harry Richmond, youre the cleverest fellow in the world, are you? Theres Janet telling everybody your fathers the cleverest next to you, and shes never seen him!
How? hulloa, what s that? sang out the squire.
Charley was speaking of my father, sir, I said, preparing for thunder.
We all rose. The squire looked as though an apoplectic seizure were coming on.
Dont sit at my table again, he said, after a terrible struggle to be articulate.
His hand was stretched at me. I swung round to depart. No, no, not you; that fellow, he called, getting his arm level toward Charley.
I tried to intercedethe last who should have done it.
You like to hear him, eh? said the squire.
I was ready to say that I did, but my aunt, whose courage was up when occasion summoned it, hushed the scene by passing the decanter to the squire, and speaking to him in a low voice.
Biters bit. Ive dished myself, thats clear, said Charley; and he spoke the truth, and such was his frankness that I forgave him.
He and Janet were staying at Riversley. They left next morning, for the squire would not speak to him, nor I to Janet.
I ll tell you what; there s no doubt about one thing, said Charley; Janets rightsome of those girls are tremendously deep: youre about the cleverest fellow Ive ever met in my life. I thought of working into the squire in a sort of collateral manner, you know. A cornetcy in the Dragoon Guards in a year or two. I thought the squire might do that for me without much damaging you;perhaps a couple of hundred a year, just to reconcile me to a nose out of joint. For, upon my honour, the squire spoke of making me his heiror words to that effect neatly conjugatedbefore you came back; and rather than be a curate like that Reverend Hart of yours, who hands raisins and almonds, and orange-flower biscuits to your aunt the way of all the Reverends who drop down on RiversleyI d betray my bosom friend. Im regularly hoist on my own petard, as they say in the newspapers. Im a curate and no mistake. You did it with a turn of the wrist, without striking out: and I like neat boxing. I bear no malice when Im floored neatly.