Weyburns eyelids fluttered. Her kite-like ascent into the general, with the sudden drop on her choice morsel, switched his humour at the moment when he was respectfully considering that her dartings and gyrations had motive as mach as the flight of the swallow for food. They had meaning; and here was one of the great ladies of the land who thought for herself, and was thoughtful for the country. If she came down like a bird winged, it was her love of her brother that did it. His look at Lady Charlotte glistened.
She raised her defences against the basilisk fascinating Philippa; and with a vow to keep them apart and deprive him of his chance, she relapsed upon the stiff frigidity which was not natural to her. It lasted long enough to put him on his guard under the seductions of a noble dames condescension to a familiar tone. But, as he was too well bred to show the change in his mind for her change of manner, and as she was the sister of his boyhoods hero, and could be full of flavour, his eyes retained something of their sparkle. They were ready to lighten again, in the way peculiar to him, when she, quite forgetting her defence of Philippa, disburdened herself of her antagonisms and enthusiasms, her hates and her loves all round the neighbourhood and over the world, won to confidential communication by this young mans face. She confessed as much, had he been guided to perceive it. She said, Arthur Abners a reader of men: I can trust his word about them.
Presently, it is true, she added: No mans to be relied upon where theres a woman. She refused her implicit trust to saintsif ever a man really was a saint before he was canonized!
Her penetrative instinct of sex kindled the scepticism. Sex she saw at play everywhere, dogging the conduct of affairs, directing them at times; she saw it as the animation of nature, senselessly stigmatized, hypocritically concealed, active in our thoughts where not in our deeds; and the declining of the decorous to see it, or admit the sight, got them abhorred bad names from her, after a touch at the deadly poison coming of that blindness, or blindfoldedness, and a grimly melancholy shrug over the cruelties resultingcruelties chiefly affecting women.
Youre too young to have thought upon such matters, she said, for a finish to them.
That was hardly true.
I have thought, said Weyburn, and his head fell to reckoning of the small sum of his thoughts upon them.
He was pulled up instantly for close inspection by the judge. What is your age?
I am in my twenty-sixth year.
You have been among men: have you studied women?
Not largely, Lady Charlotte. Opportunity has been wanting at French and German colleges.
Its only a large and a close and a pretty long study of them that can teach you anything; and you must get rid of the poetry about them, and be sure you havent lost it altogether. Thats what is called the golden mean. Im not for the golden mean in every instance; its a way of exhorting to brutal selfishness. I grant its the right way in those questions. Youll learn in time. Her scanning gaze at the young mans face drove him along an avenue of his very possible chances of learning. Certain to. But dont tell me that at your age you have thought about women. You may say you have felt. A young mans feelings about women are better reading for him six or a dozen chapters farther on. Then he can sift and strain. It wont be perfectly clear, but it will do.
Mr. Eglett hereupon threw the door open, and ushered in Master Leo.
Lady Charlotte noticed that the tutor shook the boys hand offhandedly, with not a whit of the usual obtrusive geniality, and merely dropped him a word. Soon after, he was talking to Mr. Eglett of games at home and games abroad. Poor fun over there! We head the world in field games, at all events. He drew a picture of a foreigner of his acquaintance looking on at football. On the other hand, French boys and German, having passed a year or two at an English school, get the liking for our games, and do a lot of good when they go home. The things we learn from them are to dance, to sing, and to study:they are more in earnest than we about study. They teach us at fencing too. The tutor praised fencing as an exercise and an accomplishment. He had large reserves of eulogy for boxing. He knew the qualities of the famous bruisers of the time, cited fisty names, whose owners were then to be seen all over an admiring land in prints; in the glorious defensive-offensive attitude, Englands ownTouch me, if you dare! with bullish, or bull-dog, or oak-bole fronts for the blow, handsome to pugilistic eyes.
The young tutor had lighted on a pet theme of Mr. Eglettsthe excelling virtues of the practice of pugilism in Old England, and the school of honour that it is to our lower population. Fifty times better for them than cock-fighting, he exclaimed, admitting that he could be an interested spectator at a ring or the pit cock-fighting or ratting.
Ratting seems to have more excuse, the tutor said, and made no sign of a liking for either of those popular pastimes. As he disapproved without squeamishness, the impulsive but sharply critical woman close by nodded; and she gave him his dues for being no courtier.
Leo had to be off to bed. The tutor spared him any struggle over the shaking of hands, and saying, Goodnight, Leo, continued the conversation. The boy went away, visibly relieved of the cramp that seizes on a youngster at the formalities pertaining to these chilly and fateful introductions.
What do you think of the look of him? Mr. Eglett asked.
The tutor had not appeared to inspect the boy. Big head, he remarked. Yes, Leo wont want pushing at books when hes once in harness. He will have six weeks of me. Its more than the yeomanry get for drill per annum, and theyre expected to know something of a soldiers duties. Theres a chance of putting him on the right road in certain matters. Well walk, or ride, or skate, if the frost holds to-morrow: no lessons the first day.
Do as you think fit, said lady Charlotte.
The one defect she saw in the tutor did not concern his pupil. And a girl, if hit, would be unable to see that this tutor, judged as a man, was to some extent despicable for accepting tutorships, and, one might say, dishonouring the family of a soldier of rank and distinction, by coming into houses at the back way, with footing enough to air his graces when once established there. He ought to have knocked at every door in the kingdom for help, rather than accept tutorships, and disturb households (or providently-minded mistresses of them) with all sorts of probably groundless apprehensions, founded naturally enough on the good looks he intrudes.
This tutor committed the offence next day of showing he had a firm and easy seat in the saddle, which increased Lady Charlottes liking for him and irritated her watchful forecasts. She rode with the young man after lunch, to show him the country, and gave him a taste of what he took for her variable moods. He misjudged her. Like a swimmer going through warm and cold springs of certain lake waters, he thought her a capricious ladyship, dangerous for intimacy, alluring to the deeps and gripping with cramps.
She pushed him to defend his choice of the tutors profession.
Think you understand boys? she caught up his words; you cant. You can humour them, as you humour women. Theyre just as hard to read. And dont tell me a young man can read women. Boys and women go on their instincts. Egyptologists can spell you hieroglyphs; theyd be stumped, as Leo would say, to read a spider out of an ink-pot over a sheet of paper.
The tutor had not appeared to inspect the boy. Big head, he remarked. Yes, Leo wont want pushing at books when hes once in harness. He will have six weeks of me. Its more than the yeomanry get for drill per annum, and theyre expected to know something of a soldiers duties. Theres a chance of putting him on the right road in certain matters. Well walk, or ride, or skate, if the frost holds to-morrow: no lessons the first day.
Do as you think fit, said lady Charlotte.
The one defect she saw in the tutor did not concern his pupil. And a girl, if hit, would be unable to see that this tutor, judged as a man, was to some extent despicable for accepting tutorships, and, one might say, dishonouring the family of a soldier of rank and distinction, by coming into houses at the back way, with footing enough to air his graces when once established there. He ought to have knocked at every door in the kingdom for help, rather than accept tutorships, and disturb households (or providently-minded mistresses of them) with all sorts of probably groundless apprehensions, founded naturally enough on the good looks he intrudes.
This tutor committed the offence next day of showing he had a firm and easy seat in the saddle, which increased Lady Charlottes liking for him and irritated her watchful forecasts. She rode with the young man after lunch, to show him the country, and gave him a taste of what he took for her variable moods. He misjudged her. Like a swimmer going through warm and cold springs of certain lake waters, he thought her a capricious ladyship, dangerous for intimacy, alluring to the deeps and gripping with cramps.
She pushed him to defend his choice of the tutors profession.
Think you understand boys? she caught up his words; you cant. You can humour them, as you humour women. Theyre just as hard to read. And dont tell me a young man can read women. Boys and women go on their instincts. Egyptologists can spell you hieroglyphs; theyd be stumped, as Leo would say, to read a spider out of an ink-pot over a sheet of paper.
One gets to interpret by degrees, by observing their habits, the tutor said, and vexed her with a towering complacency under provocation that went some way further to melt the woman she was, while her knowledge of the softness warned her still more of the duty of playing dragon round such a young man in her house. The despot is alert at every issue, to every chance; and she was one, the wakefuller for being benevolent; her mind had no sleep by day.
For a month she subjected Mr. Matthew Weyburn to the microscope of her observation and the probe of her instinct. He proved that he could manage without cajoling a boy. The practical fact established, by agreement between herself and the unobservant gentleman who was her husband, Lady Charlotte allowed her meditations to drop an indifferent glance at the speculative views upon education entertained by this young tutor. To her mind they were flighty; but she liked him, and as her feelings dictated to her mind when she had not to think for others, she spoke of his views toleratingly, almost with an implied approval, after passing them through the form of burlesque to which she customarily treated things failing to waft her enthusiasm. In regard to Philippa, he behaved well: he bestowed more of his attention on Beatrice, nearer Leos age, in talk about games and story-books and battles; nothing that he did when the girls were present betrayed the strutting plumed cock, bent to attract, or the sickly reptile, thirsty for a prize above him and meaning to have it, like Satan in Eden. Still, of course, he could not help his being a handsome fellow, having a vivid face and eyes transparent, whether blue or green, to flame of the brain exciting them; and that becomes a picture in the dream of girlsa picture creating the dream often. And Philippa had asked her grandmother, very ingenuously indeed, with a most natural candour, why they saw so little of Leos hero. Simple female child!
However, there was no harm done, and Lady Charlotte liked him. She liked few. Forthwith, in the manner of her particular head, a restless head, she fell to work at combinations.
Thus:he is a nice young fellow, well bred, no cringing courtier, accomplished, good at classics, fairish at mathematics, a scholar in French, German, Italian, with a shrewd knowledge of the different races, and with sound English sentiment too, and the capacity for writing good English, although in those views of his the ideas are unusual, therefore un-English, profoundly so. But his intentions are patriotic; they would not displease Lord Ormont. He has a worship of Lord Ormont. All we can say on behalf of an untried inferior is in that,only the valiant admire devotedly. Well, he can write grammatical, readable English. What if Lord Ormont were to take him as a secretary while the Memoirs are in hand? He might help to chasten the sentences laughed at by those newspapers. Or he might, being a terrible critic of writing, and funny about styles, put it in an absurd light, that would cause the Memoirs to be tossed into the fire. He was made for the post of secretary! The young mans good looks would be out of harms way then. If any sprig of womankind come across him there, it will, at any rate, not be a girl. Women must take care of themselves. Only the fools among them run to mischief in the case of a handsome young fellow.
Supposing a certain woman to be one of the fools? Lady Charlotte merely suggested it in the dashing current of her meditationsdid not strike it out interrogatively. The woman would be a fine specimen among her class; that was all. For the favourite of Lord Ormont to stoop from her place beside himay, but women do; heroes have had the woeful experience of that fact. First we see them aiming themselves at their hero; next they are shooting an eye at the handsome man. The thirst of nature comes after that of their fancy, in conventional women. Sick of the hero tried, tired of their place in the market, no longer ashamed to acknowledge it, they begin to consult their own taste for beautythey have it quite as much as the men have it; and when their worshipped figure of manliness, in a romantic sombrero, is a threadbare giant, showing bruises, they sink on their inherent desire for a dance with the handsome man. And the really handsome man is the most extraordinary of the rarities. No wonder that when he appears he slays them, walks over them like a pestilence!
This young Weyburn would touch the fancy of a woman of a romantic turn. Supposing her enthusiastic in her worship of the hero, after a number of yearsfor anything may be imagined where a woman is concernedwhy, another enthusiasm for the same object, and on the part of a stranger, a stranger with effective eyes, rapidly leads to sympathy. Suppose the reversethe enthusiasm gone to dust, or become a wheezy old bellows, as it does where theres disparity of age, or it frequently doesthen the sympathy with a good-looking stranger comes more rapidly still.
These were Lady Charlottes glances right and leftidle flights of the eye of a mounted Amazon across hedges at the canter along the main road of her scheme; which was to do a service to the young man she liked and to the brother she loved, for the marked advantage of both equally; perhaps for the chance of a little gossip to follow about that tenacious woman by whom her brother was held hard and fast, kept away from friends and relatives, isolated, insomuch as to have given up living on his estatethe old home!because he would not disgrace it or incur odium by taking her there.
In consequence of Lord Ormonts resistance to pressure from her on two or three occasions, she chose to nurse and be governed by the maxim for herself: Never propose a plan to him, if you want it adopted. That was her way of harmlessly solacing loves vindictiveness for an injury.