She sent Arthur Abner a letter, thanking him for his recommendation of young Mr. Weyburn, stating her benevolent wishes as regarded the young man and those hateful Memoirs, requesting that her name should not be mentioned in the affair, because she was anxious on all grounds to have the proposal accepted by her brother. She could have vowed to herself that she wrote sincerely.
He must want a secretary. He would be shy at an offer of one from me. Do you hint it, if you get a chance. You gave us Mr. Weyburn, and Mr. Eglett and I like him. Ormont would too, I am certain. You have obliged him before; this will be better than anything you have done for us. It will stop the Memoirs, or else give them a polish. Your young friend has made me laugh over stuff taken for literature until we put on our spectacles. Leo jogs along in harness now, and may do some work at school yet.
Having posted her letter, she left the issue to chance, as we may when conscience is easy. An answer came the day before Weyburns departure. Arthur Abner had met Lord Ormont in the street, had spoken of the rumour of Memoirs promised to the world, hinted at the possible need for a secretary; Lord Ormont would appoint a day to see Mr. Weyburn.
Lady Charlotte considered that to be as good as the engagement.
So we keep you in the family, she said. And now look here: you ought to know my brothers ways, if youre going to serve him. Youll have to guess at half of everything he tells you; hell expect you to know the whole. Theres no man so secret. Why? He fears nothing; I cant tell why. And what his mouth shuts on, he exposes as if in his hand. Of course hes proud, and good reason. Youll see when you mustnt offend. A ladys in the houseI hear of it. She takes his name, they say. She may be a respectable womanIve heard no scandal. We have to hear of a Lady Ormont out of Society! We have to suppose it means theres not to be a real one. He cant marry if he has allowed her to go about bearing his name. She has a fool of an aunt, Im told; as often in the house as not. Good proof of his fondness for the woman, if he swallows half a year of the aunt! Well, you wont, unless youve mere mans eyes, be able to help seeing him trying to hide what he suffers from that aunt. He bears it, like the man he is; but woe to another betraying it! She has a tongue that goes like the reel of a rod, with a pike bolting out of the shallows to the snag he knowsto wind round it and defy you to pull. Often my brother Rowsley and I have fished the day long, and in hard weather, and brought home a basket; and he boasted of it more than of anything he has ever done since. That woman holds him away from me now. I say no harm of her. She may be right enough from her point of view; or it maynt be owing to her. I wouldnt blame a woman. Well, but my point with you is, you swallow the womans auntthe ladys auntwithout betraying you suffer at all. Lord Ormont has eyes of an eagle for a speck above the surface. All the more because the aunt is a gabbling idiot does heI say it seeing itfire up to defend her from the sneer of the lip or half a sign of it! No, you would be an your guard; I can trust you. Of course youd behave like the gentleman you are where any kind of womans concerned; but you mustnt let a shadow be seen, think what you may. The womanladycalling herself Lady Ormont,poor woman, I should do the same in her place,she has a hard game to play; I have to be for my family: she has manners, Im told; holds herself properly. She fancies she brings him up to the altar, in the end, by decent behaviour. Thats a delusion. Its creditable to her, only she cant understand the claims of the family upon a man like my brother. When you have spare timekick-ups, he need to call it, writing to me from schoolcome here; youre welcome, after three days notice. I shall be glad to see you again. Youve gone some way to make a man of Leo.
He liked her well: he promised to come. She was a sinewy bite of the gentle sex, but she had much flavour, and she gave nourishment.
Let me have three days notice, she repeated.
Not less, Lady Charlotte, said he.
Weyburn received intimation from Arthur Abner of the likely day Lord Ormont would appoint, and he left Olmer for London to hold himself in readiness. Lady Charlotte and Leo drove him to meet the coach. Philippa, so strangely baffled in her natural curiosity, begged for a seat; she begged to be allowed to ride. Petitions were rejected. She stood at the window seeing Grandmamas tutor, as she named him, carried off by grandmama. Her nature was avenged on her tyrant grandmama: it brought up almost to her tongue thoughts which would have remained subterranean, under control of her habit of mind, or the nurserys modesty, if she had been less tyrannically treated. They were subterranean thoughts, Natures original, such as the sense of injustice will rouse in young women; and they are better unstirred, for they ripen girls over-rapidly when they are made to revolve near the surface. It flashed on the girl why she had been treated tyrannically.
Grandmama has good taste in tutors, was all that she said while the thoughts rolled over.
CHAPTER IV. RECOGNITION
Our applicant for the post of secretary entered the street of Lord Ormonts London house, to present himself to his boyhoods hero by appointment.
He was to see, perhaps to serve, the great soldier. Things had come to this; and he thought it singular. But for the previous introduction to Lady Charlotte, he would have thought it passing wonderful. He ascribed it to the whirligig.
The young man was not yet of an age to gather knowledge of himself and of life from his present experience of the fact, that passionate devotion to an object strikes a vein through circumstances, as a travelling run of flame darts the seeming haphazard zigzags to catch at the dry of dead wood amid the damp; and when passion has become quiescent in the admirer, there is often the unsubsided first impulsion carrying it on. He will almost sorely embrace his idol with one or other of the senses.
Weyburn still read the world as it came to him, by bite, marvelling at this and that, after the fashion of most of us. He had not deserted his adolescents hero, or fallen upon analysis of a past season. But he was now a young man, stoutly and cognizantly on the climb, with a good aim overhead, axed green youths enthusiasms a step below his heels: one of the lovers of life, beautiful to behold, when we spy into them; generally their aspect is an enlivenment, whatever may be the carving of their features. For the sake of holy unity, this lover of life, whose gaze was to the front in hungry animation, held fast to his young dreams, perceiving a soul of meaning in them, though the fire might have gone out; and he confessed to a past pursuit of delusions. Young men of this kind will have, for the like reason, a similar rational sentiment on behalf of our worlds historic forward march, while admitting that history has to be taken from far backward if we would gain assurance of mans advance. It nerves an admonished ambition.
He was ushered into a London houses library, looking over a niggard enclosure of gravel and dull grass, against a wall where ivy dribbled. An armchair was beside the fireplace. To right and left of it a floreate company of books in high cases paraded shoulder to shoulder, without a gap; grenadiers on the line. Weyburn read the titles on their scarlet-and-blue facings. They were approved English classics; honoured veterans, who have emerged from the conflict with contemporary opinion, stamped excellent, or have been pushed by the roar of contemporaneous applauses to wear the leather-and-gilt uniform of our Immortals, until a more qualmish posterity disgorges them. The books had costly bindings. Lord Ormonts treatment of Literature appeared to resemble Lady Charlottes, in being reverential and uninquiring. The books she bought to read were Memoirs of her time by dead men and women once known to her. These did fatigue duty in cloth or undress. It was high drill with all of Lord Ormonts books, and there was not a modern or a minor name among the regiments. They smelt strongly of the booksellers lump lots by order; but if a show soldiery, they were not a sham, like a certain row of venerably-titled backs, that Lady Charlotte, without scruple, left standing to blow an ecclesiastical trumpet of empty contents; any one might have his battle of brains with them, for the twining of an absent key.
The door opened. Weyburn bowed to his old star in human shape: a grey head on square shoulders, filling the doorway. He had seen at Olmer Lady Charlottes treasured miniature portrait of her brother; a perfect likeness, she saidcomplaining the neat instant of injustice done to the fire of his look.
Fire was low down behind the eyes at present. They were quick to scan and take summary of their object, as the young man felt while observing for himself. Height and build of body were such as might be expected in the brother of Lady Charlotte and from the tales of his prowess. Weyburn had a glance back at Cupers boys listening to the tales.
The soldier-lords manner was courteously militarythat of an established superior indifferent to the deferential attitude he must needs enact. His curt nick of the head, for a response to the visitors formal salutation, signified the requisite acknowledgment, like a city creditors busy stroke of the type-stamp receipt upon payment.
The ceremony over, he pitched a bugle voice to fit the contracted area: I hear from Mr. Abner that you have made acquaintance with Olmer. Good hunting country there.
Lady Charlotte kindly gave me a mount, my lord.
I knew your father by nameColonel Sidney Weyburn. You lost him at Toulouse. We were in the Peninsula; I was at Talavera with him. Bad day for our cavalry.
Our officers were young at their work then.
They taught the Emperors troops to respect a charge of English horse. It was teaching their fox to set traps for them.
Lord Ormont indicated a chair. He stood.
The French had good cavalry leaders, Weyburn said, for cover to a continued study of the face,
Montbrun, yes: Murat, Lassalle, Bessieres. Under the Emperor they had.
You think them not at home in the saddle, my lord?
Frenchmen have nerves; horses are nerves. They pile excitement too high. When cool, theyre among the best. None of them had head for command of all the arms.
One might say the same of Seidlitz and Ziethen?
Of Ziethen. Seidlitz had a wider grasp, I suppose. He pursed his month, pondering. No; and in the Austrian service, too; generals of cavalry are left to whistle for an independent command. Theres a jealousy of our branch! The injured warrior frowned and hummed. He spoke his thought mildly: Jealousy of the name of soldier in this country! Out of the service, is the place to recommend. Id have advised a son of mine to train for a jockey rather than enter it. We deal with that to-morrow, in my papers. You come to me? Mr. Abner has arranged the terms? So I see you at ten in the morning. I am glad to meet a young manEnglishmanwho takes an interest in the service.
Weyburn fancied the hearing of a step; he heard the whispering dress. It passed him; a lady went to the armchair. She took her seat, as she had moved, with sedateness, the exchange of a toneless word with my lord. She was a brune. He saw that when he rose to do homage.
Lord Ormont resumed: Some are born to it, must be soldiers; and in peace they are snubbed by the heads; in war they are abused by the country. They dont understand in England how to treat an army; how to make one either!
The gentlemanMr. Weyburn: Mr. Arthur Abners recommendation, he added hurriedly, with a light wave of his hand and a murmur, that might be the ladys title; continuing: A young man of military tastes should take service abroad. Theyre in earnest about it over there. Here they play at it; and an armys shipped to land without commissariat, ambulances, medical stores, and march against the odds, as usualif it can march!
Albuera, my lord?
Our men can spurt, for a flick o the whip. Theyre expected to be constantly ready for doing prodigiesto repair the countrys omissions. All the country cares for is to hope Dick Turpin may get to York. Our men are good beasts; they give the best in em, and drop. Mores the scandal to a country that has grand material and overtasks it. A blazing disaster ends the chapter!
This was talk of an injured veteran. It did not deepen the hue of his ruddied skin. He spoke in the tone of matter of fact. Weyburn had been prepared for something of the sort by his friend, Arthur Abner. He noted the speakers heightened likeness under excitement to Lady Charlotte. Excitement came at an early call of their voices to both; and both had handsome, open features, bluntly cut, nothing of aquiline or the supercilious; eyes bluish-grey, in arched recesses, horny between the thick lids, lively to shoot their meaning when the trap-mouth was active; effectively expressing promptitute for combat, pleasure in attack, wrestle, tag, whatever pertained to strife; an absolute sense of their right.
As there was a third person present at this dissuasion of military topics, the silence of the lady drew Weyburn to consult her opinion in her look.
It was on him. Strange are the womans eyes which can unoffendingly assume the privilege to dwell on such a living object as a man without become gateways for his return look, and can seem in pursuit of thoughts while they enfold. They were large dark eyes, eyes of southern night. They sped no shot; they rolled forth an envelopment. A child among toys, caught to think of other toys, may gaze in that way. But these were a womans eyes.
He gave Lord Ormont his whole face, as an auditor should. He was interested besides, as he told a ruffled conscience. He fell upon the study of his old hero determinedly.
The pain of a memory waking under pillows, unable to do more than strain for breath, distracted his attention. There was a memory: that was all he knew. Or else he would have lashed himself for hanging on the beautiful eyes of a woman. To be seeing and hearing his old hero was wonder enough.
Recollections of Lady Charlottes plain hints regarding the lady present resolved to the gross retort, that her eyes were beautiful. And he knew themthere lay the strangeness. They were known beautiful eyes, in a foreign land of night and mist.
Lord Ormont was discoursing with racy eloquence of our hold on India: his views in which respect were those of Cupers boys. Weyburn ventured a dot-running description of the famous ride, and out flew an English soldiers grievance. But was not the unjustly-treated great soldier well rewarded, whatever the snubs and the bitterness, with these large dark eyes in his house, for his own? Eyes like these are the beginning of a young mans world; they nerve, inspire, arm him, colour his life; he would labour, fight, die for them. It seemed to Weyburn a blessedness even to behold them. So it had been with him at the early stage; and his heart went swifter, memory fetched a breath. Memory quivered eyelids, when the thought returnedof his having known eyes as lustrous. First lights of his world, they had more volume, warmth, mysterywere sweeter. Still, these in the room were sisters to them. They quickened throbs; they seemed a throb of the heart made visible.
That was their endowment of light and lustre simply, and the mystical curve of the lids. For so they could look only because the heart was disengaged from them. They were but heavenly orbs.
The ladys elbow was on an arm of her chair, her forefinger at her left temple. Her mind was away, one might guess; she could hardly be interested in talk of soldiering and of foreign army systems, jealous English authorities and officials, games, field-sports. She had personal matters to think of.
Adieu until to-morrow to the homes she inhabited! The street was a banishment and a relief when Weyburns first interview with Lord Ormont was over.
He rejoiced to tell his previous anticipations that he had not been disappointed; and he bade hero-worshippers expect no gilded figure. We gather heroes as we go, if we are among the growing: our constancy is shown in the not discarding of our old ones. He held to his earlier hero, though he had seen him, and though he could fancy he saw round him.