After her death, Lord Royallieu found Alans miniature among her papers, and recalled those winter months by the Mediterranean till he cherished, with the fierce, eager, self-torture of a jealous nature, doubts and suspicions that, during her life, one glance from her eyes would have disarmed and abashed. Her second and favorite child bore her family nameher late lovers name; and, in resembling her race, resembled the dead soldier. It was sufficient to make him hate Bertie with a cruel and savage detestation, which he strove indeed to temper, for he was by nature a just man, and, in his better moments, knew that his doubts wronged both the living and the dead; but which colored, too strongly to be dissembled, all his feelings and his actions toward his son, and might both have soured and wounded any temperament less nonchalantly gentle and supremely careless than Cecils.
As it was, Bertie was sometimes surprised at his fathers dislike to him, but never thought much about it, and attributed it, when he did think of it, to the caprices of a tyrannous old man. To be jealous of the favor shown to his boyish brother could never for a moment have come into his imagination. Lady Royallieu with her last words had left the little fellow, a child of three years old, in the affection and the care of Bertiehimself then a boy of twelve or fourteenand little as he thought of such things now, the trust of his dying mother had never been wholly forgotten.
A heavy gloom came now over the Viscounts still handsome aquiline, saturnine face, as his second son approached up the terrace; Bertie was too like the cavalry soldier whose form he had last seen standing against the rose light of a Mediterranean sunset. The soldier had been dead eight-and-twenty years; but the jealous hate was not dead yet.
Cecile took off his hunting-cap with a courtesy that sat very well on his habitual languid nonchalance; he never called his father anything but Royal; rarely saw, still less rarely consulted him, and cared not a straw for his censure or opinion; but he was too thoroughbred by nature to be able to follow the underbred indecorum of the day which makes disrespect to old age the fashion. You sent for me? he asked, taking the cigarette out of his mouth.
No, sir, answered the old lord curtly; I sent for your brother. The fools cant take even a message right now, it seems.
Shouldnt have named us so near alike; its often a bore! said Bertie.
I didnt name you, sir; your mother named you, answered his father sharply; the subject irritated him.
Its of no consequence which! murmured Cecil, with an expostulatory wave of his cigar. Were not even asked whether we like to come into the world; we cant expect to be asked what we like to be called in it. Good-day to you, sir.
He turned to move away to the house, but his father stopped him; he knew that he had been discourteousa far worse crime in Lord Royallieus eyes than to be heartless.
So you won the Vase yesterday? he asked pausing in his walk with his back bowed, but his stern, silver-haired head erect.
I didntthe King did.
Thats absurd, sir, said the Viscount, in his resonant and yet melodious voice. The finest horse in the world may have his back broke by bad riding, and a screw has won before now when its been finely handled. The finish was tight, wasnt it?
Wellrather. I have ridden closer spins, though. The fallows were light.
Lord Royallieu smiled grimly.
I know what the Shire plow is like, he said, with a flash of his falcon eyes over the landscape, where, in the days of his youth, he had led the first flight so often; George Rex, and Waterford, and the Berkeleys, and the rest following the rally of his hunting-horn. You won much in bets?
Very fair, thanks.
And wont be a shilling richer for it this day next week! retorted the Viscount, with a rasping, grating irony; he could not help darting savage thrusts at this man who looked at him with eyes so cruelly like Alan Berties. You play 5 pound points, and lay 500 pounds on the odd trick, Ive heard, at your whist in the Clubspretty prices for a younger son!
Never bet on the odd trick; spoils the game; makes you sacrifice play to the trick. We always bet on the game, said Cecil, with gentle weariness; the sweetness of his temper was proof against his fathers attacks upon his patience.
No matter what you bet, sir; you live as if you were a Rothschild while you are a beggar!
Wish I were a beggar: fellows always have no end in stock, they say; and your tailor cant worry you very much when all you have to think about is an artistic arrangement of tatters! murmured Bertie, whose impenetrable serenity was never to be ruffled by his fathers bitterness.
You will soon have your wish, then, retorted the Viscount, with the unprovoked and reasonless passion which he vented on everyone, but on none so much as the son he hated. You are on a royal road to it. I live out of the world, but I hear from it sir. I hear that there is not a man in the Guardsnot even Lord Rockinghamwho lives at the rate of imprudence you do; that there is not a man who drives such costly horses, keeps such costly mistresses, games to such desperation, fools gold away with such idiocy as you do. You conduct yourself as if you were a millionaire, sir; and what are you? A pauper on my bounty, and on your brother Montagus after mea pauper with a tinsel fashion, a gilded beggary, a Queens commission to cover a sold-out poverty, a dandys reputation to stave off a defaulters future! A pauper, sirand a Guardsman!
The coarse and cruel irony flushed out with wicked, scorching malignity; lashing and upbraiding the man who was the victim of his own unwisdom and extravagance.
A slight tinge of color came on his sons face as he heard; but he gave no sign that he was moved, no sign of impatience or anger. He lifted his cap again, not in irony, but with a grave respect in his action that was totally contrary to his whole temperament.
This sort of talk is very exhausting, very bad style, he said, with his accustomed gentle murmur. I will bid you good-morning, my lord.
And he went without another word. Crossing the length of the old-fashioned Elizabethan terrace, little Berk passed him: he motioned the lad toward the Viscount. Royal wants to see you, young one.
The boy nodded and went onward; and, as Bertie turned to enter the low door that led out to the stables, he saw his father meet the ladmeet him with a smile that changed the whole character of his face, and pleasant, kindly words of affectionate welcome; drawing his arm about Berkeleys shoulder, and looking with pride upon his bright and gracious youth.
More than an old mans preference would be thus won by the young one; a considerable portion of their mothers fortune, so left that it could not be dissipated, yet could be willed to which son the Viscount chose, would go to his brother by this passionate partiality; but there was not a tinge of jealousy in Cecil; whatever else his faults he had no mean ones, and the boy was dear to him, by a quite unconscious, yet unvarying, obedience to his dead mothers wish.
Royal hates me as game-birds hate a red dog. Why the deuce, I wonder? he thought, with a certain slight touch of pain, despite his idle philosophies and devil-may-care indifference. WellI am good for nothing, I suppose. Certainly I am not good for much, unless its riding and making love.
With which summary of his merits, Beauty, who felt himself to be a master in those two arts, but thought himself a bad fellow out of them, sauntered away to join the Seraph and the rest of his guests; his fathers words pursuing him a little, despite his carelessness, for they had borne an unwelcome measure of truth.
This sort of talk is very exhausting, very bad style, he said, with his accustomed gentle murmur. I will bid you good-morning, my lord.
And he went without another word. Crossing the length of the old-fashioned Elizabethan terrace, little Berk passed him: he motioned the lad toward the Viscount. Royal wants to see you, young one.
The boy nodded and went onward; and, as Bertie turned to enter the low door that led out to the stables, he saw his father meet the ladmeet him with a smile that changed the whole character of his face, and pleasant, kindly words of affectionate welcome; drawing his arm about Berkeleys shoulder, and looking with pride upon his bright and gracious youth.
More than an old mans preference would be thus won by the young one; a considerable portion of their mothers fortune, so left that it could not be dissipated, yet could be willed to which son the Viscount chose, would go to his brother by this passionate partiality; but there was not a tinge of jealousy in Cecil; whatever else his faults he had no mean ones, and the boy was dear to him, by a quite unconscious, yet unvarying, obedience to his dead mothers wish.
Royal hates me as game-birds hate a red dog. Why the deuce, I wonder? he thought, with a certain slight touch of pain, despite his idle philosophies and devil-may-care indifference. WellI am good for nothing, I suppose. Certainly I am not good for much, unless its riding and making love.
With which summary of his merits, Beauty, who felt himself to be a master in those two arts, but thought himself a bad fellow out of them, sauntered away to join the Seraph and the rest of his guests; his fathers words pursuing him a little, despite his carelessness, for they had borne an unwelcome measure of truth.
Royal can hit hard, his thoughts continued. A pauper and a Guardsman! By Jove! Its true enough; but he made me so. They brought me up as if I had a million coming to me, and turned me out among the cracks to take my running with the best of themand they give me just about what pays my grooms book! Then they wonder that a fellow goes to the Jews. Where the deuce else can he go?
And Bertie, whom his gains the day before had not much benefited, since his play-debts, his young brothers needs, and the Zu-Zus insatiate little hands were all stretched ready to devour them without leaving a sovereign for more serious liabilities, went, for it was quite early morning, to act the M. F. H. in his fathers stead at the meet on the great lawns before the house, for the Royallieu lady-pack were very famous in the Shires, and hunted over the same country alternate days with the Quorn. They moved off ere long to draw the Holt Wood, in as open a morning and as strong a scenting wind as ever favored Melton Pink.
A whimper and gone away! soon echoed from Beebyside, and the pack, not letting the fox hang a second, dashed after him, making straight for Scraptoft. One of the fastest things up-wind that hounds ever ran took them straight through the Spinnies, past Hamilton Farm, away beyond Burkby village, and down into the valley of the Wreake without a check, where he broke away, was headed, tried earths, and was pulled down scarce forty minutes from the find. The pack then drew Hungerton foxhole blank, drew Carvers spinnies without a whimper; and lastly, drawing the old familiar Billesden Coplow, had a short, quick burst with a brace of cubs, and returning, settled themselves to a fine dog fox that was raced an hour-and-half, hunted slowly for fifty minutes, raced again another hour-and-quarter, sending all the field to their second horses; and after a clipping chase through the cream of the grass country, nearly saved his brush in the twilight when the scent was lost in a rushing hailstorm, but had the little ladies laid on again like wildfire, and was killed with the who-whoop! ringing far and away over Glenn Gorse, after a glorious runthirty miles in and outwith pace that tired the best of them.
A better days sport even the Quorn had never had in all its brilliant annals, and faster things the Melton men themselves had never wanted: both those who love the quickest thing you ever knewthirty minutes without a checksuch a pace! and care little whether the finale be killed or broke away, and those of the old fashion, who prefer long day, you know, steady as old time; the beauties stuck like wax through fourteen parishes, as I live; six hours, if it were a minute; horses dead-beat; positively walked, you know; no end of a day! but must have the fatal who-whoop as conclusionboth of these, the new style and the old, could not but be content with the doings of the demoiselles from start to finish.
Was it likely that Cecil remembered the caustic lash of his fathers ironies while he was lifting Mother of Pearl over the posts and rails, and sweeping on, with the halloo ringing down the wintry wind as the grasslands flew beneath him? Was it likely that he recollected the difficulties that hung above him while he was dashing down the Gorse happy as a king, with the wild hail driving in his face, and a break of stormy sunshine just welcoming the gallant few who were landed at the death, as twilight fell? Was it likely that he could unlearn all the lessons of his life, and realize in how near a neighborhood he stood to ruin when he was drinking Regency sherry out of his gold flask as he crossed the saddle of his second horse, or, smoking, rode slowly homeward; chatting with the Seraph through the leafless, muddy lanes in the gloaming?
Scarcely; it is very easy to remember our difficulties when we are eating and drinking them, so to speak, in bad soups and worse wines in continental impecuniosity; sleeping on them as rough Australian shake-downs, or wearing them perpetually in Californian rags and tattersit were impossible very well to escape from them then; but it is very hard to remember them when every touch and shape of life is pleasant to uswhen everything about us is symbolical and redolent of wealth and easewhen the art of enjoyment is the only one we are called on to study, and the science of pleasure all we are asked to explore.
It is well-nigh impossible to believe yourself a beggar while you never want sovereigns for whist; and it would be beyond the powers of human nature to conceive your ruin irrevocable while you still eat turbot and terrapin, with a powdered giant behind your chair daily. Up in his garret a poor wretch knows very well what he is, and realizes in stern fact the extremities of the last sou, the last shirt, and the last hope; but in these devil-may-care pleasuresin this pleasant, reckless, velvet-soft rush down-hillin this club-palace, with every luxury that the heart of man can devise and desire, yours to command at your willit is hard work, then, to grasp the truth that the crossing sweeper yonder, in the dust of Pall Mall, is really not more utterly in the toils of poverty than you are!
Beauty was never, in the whole course of his days, virtually or physically, or even metaphorically, reminded that he was not a millionaire; much less still was he ever reminded so painfully.
Life petted him, pampered him, caressed him, gifted him, though of half his gifts he never made use; lodged him like a prince, dined him like a king, and never recalled to him by a single privation or a single sensation that he was not as rich a man as his brother-in-arms, the Seraph, future Duke of Lyonnesse. How could he then bring himself to understand, as nothing less than truth, the grim and cruel insult his father had flung at him in that brutally bitter phraseA Pauper and a Guardsman? If he had ever been near a comprehension of it, which he never was, he must have ceased to realize it whenpressed to dine with Lord Guenevere, near whose house the last fox had been killed, while a groom dashed over to Royallieu for his change of clotheshe caught a glimpse, as they passed through the hall, of the ladies taking their preprandial cups of tea in the library, an enchanting group of lace and silks, of delicate hue and scented hair, of blond cheeks and brunette tresses, of dark velvets and gossamer tissue; and when he had changed the scarlet for dinner-dress, went down among them to be the darling of that charmed circle, to be smiled on and coquetted with by those soft, languid aristocrats, to be challenged by the lustrous eyes of his chatelaine and chere amie, to be spoiled as women will spoil the privileged pet of their drawing rooms whom they had made free of the guild, and endowed with a flirting commission, and acquitted of anything serious.