“But, you know, you never do that, even with moderation; and you can argue so closely when you please.”
“There, madame, you do me too much honour. I am the worst logician in the world. I wrote a part of an essay on Christian chivalry, and did pretty well, till I began to reason; the essay ended, and I was swallowed up in this argument — pray listen to it. To sacrifice your life for the lady you adore is a high degree of heroism; but to sacrifice your soul for her is the highest degree of heroism. But the highest degree of heroism is but another name for Christianity; and, therefore, to act thus can’t sacrifice your soul, and if it doesn’t you don’t practise a heroism, and therefore no Christianity, and, therefore, you do sacrifice your soul. But if you do sacrifice your soul, it is the highest heroism — therefore Christianity; and, therefore, you don’t sacrifice your soul, and so, da capo, it goes on for ever — and I can’t extricate myself. When I mean to make a boat, I make a net; and this argument that I invented to carry me some little way on my voyage to truth, not only won’t hold water, but has caught me by the foot, entangles, and drowns me. I never went on with my essay.”
In this cynical trifling there was a contemptuous jocularity quite apparent to me, although mamma took it all in good faith, and said:
“It is very puzzling, but it can’t be true; and I should think it almost a duty to find out where it is wrong.”
Papa laughed, and said:
“My dear, don’t you see that Doctor Droqville is mystifying us?”
I was rather glad, for I did not like it. I was vexed for mamma. Doctor Droqville’s talk seemed to me an insolence.
“It is quite true, I am no logician; I had better continue as I am. I make a tolerable physician; if I became a preacher, with my defective ratiocination, I should inevitably lose myself and my audience in a labyrinth. You make but a very short stay in town, I suppose?” he broke off suddenly. “It isn’t tempting, so many houses sealed — a city of the dead. One does not like, madame, as your Doctor Johnson said to Mrs. Thrale, to come down to vacuity.”
“Well, it is only a visit of two or three days. My daughter Ethel is coming out next spring, and she came up to meet us here. I wish her to have a few weeks with masters, and there are more things to be thought of than you would suppose. Do you think there is anything a country miss would do well to read up that we might have forgotten?”
“Read? read? Oh! yes, two things.”
“What are they?”
“If she has a sound knowledge of the heathen mythology, and a smattering of the Bible, she’ll do very well.”
“But she won’t talk about the Bible,” laughed papa; “people who like it, read it to themselves.”
“Very true,” said Doctor Droqville, “you never mention it; but, quite unconsciously, you are perpetually alluding to it. Nothing strikes a stranger more, if he understands your language as I do. You had a note from Lady Lorrimer?”
“No,” said mamma.
The word “note,” I think, struck papa as implying that she was nearer than letter-writing distance, and he glanced quickly at Doctor Droqville.
“And where is Lady Lorrimer now?” asked papa.
“That is what I came to tell you. She is at Mivart’s. I told her you were in town, and I fancied you would have had a note from her; but I thought I might as well look in and tell you.”
“She’s quite well, I hope?” said mamma.
“Now did you ever, Mrs. Ware, in all your life, see her quite well? I never did. She would lose all pleasure in life, if she thought she wasn’t leaving it. She arrived last night, and summoned me to her at ten this morning. I felt her pulse. It was horribly regular. She had slept well, and breakfasted well, but that was all. In short, I found her suffering under her usual chronic attack of good health, and, as the case was not to be trifled with, I ordered her instantly some medicine which could not possibly produce any effect whatever; and in that critical state I left her, with a promise to look in again in the afternoon to ascertain that the more robust symptoms were not gaining ground, and in the interval I came to see you and tell you all about it.”
“I suppose, then, I should find her in her bed?” said mamma.
“No; I rather think she has postponed dying till after dinner — she ordered a very good one — and means to expire in her sitting-room, where you’ll find her. And you have not been very well?”
“Remember the story he has just told you of your aunt Lorrimer, and take care he doesn’t tell her the same story of you,” said papa, laughing.
“I wish I could,” said Doctor Droqville; “few things would please me better. That pain in the nerves of the head is a very real torment.”
So he and mamma talked over her headaches in an undertone for some minutes; and while this was going on there came in a note for mamma. The servant was was waiting for an answer in the hall.
“Shall I read it?” said papa, holding it up by the corner. “It is Lady Lorrimer’s, I’m sure.”
“Do, dear,” said mamma, and she continued her confidences in Doctor Droqville’s ear.
Papa smiled a little satirically as he read it. He threw it across the table, saying:
“You can read it, Ethel; it concerns you rather.”
I was very curious. The hand was youthful and pretty, considering Lady Lorrimer’s years. It was a whimpering, apathetic, selfish little note. She was miserable, she said, and had quite made up her mind that she could not exist in London smoke. She had sent for the doctor.
She continued: “I shall make an effort to see you, if you can look in about three, for a few minutes. Have you any of your children with you? If they are very quiet I should like to see them. It would amuse me. It is an age since I saw your little people, and I really forget their ages, and even their names. Say if I am to expect you at three. I have told the servant to wait.”
People who live in the country fancy themselves of more importance than they really are. I was mortified, and almost shocked at the cool sentences about “the little people,” etc.
“Well, you promise to be very quiet, won’t you? You won’t pull the cat’s tail, or light paper in the fire, or roar for plumcake?” said papa.
“I don’t think she wants to see us. I don’t think she cares the least about us. Perhaps mamma won’t go,” I said, resentfully, hoping that she would not pay that homage to the insolent old woman.
Doctor Droqville stood up, having written a prescription.
“Well, I’m off; and I think this will do you a world of good. Can I do any commission for you about town; I shall be in every possible direction in the next three hours?”
No, there was nothing; and this man, whom I somehow liked less than ever, although he rather amused me, vanished, and we saw his cab drive by the window.
“Well, here’s her note. You’ll go to see her, I suppose?” said papa.
“Certainly; I have a great affection for my aunt. She was very kind to me when there was no one else to care about me.”
Mamma spoke with more animation than I believed her capable of — I thought I even saw tears in her eyes. It struck me that she did not like papa’s tone in speaking about her. The same thing probably struck him.
“You are quite right, darling, as you always are in a matter of feeling, and you’ll take Ethel, won’t you?”
“Yes, I should like her to come.”
“And you know, if she should ask you, don’t tell her I’m a bit better off than I really am. I have had some awful losses lately. I don’t like bothering you about business, and it was no fault or negligence of mine; but I really — it is of very great importance she should not do anything less that she intended for you, or anything whimsical or unjust. I give you my honour there isn’t a guinea to spare now, it would be a positive cruelty.”
Mamma looked at him, but she was by this time so accustomed to alarms of that kind that they did not make a very deep impression upon her.
“I don’t think she’s likely to talk about suc
h matters, dear,” said mamma; “but if she should make any inquiries, I shall certainly tell her the truth.”
I remembered Lady Lorrimer long ago at Malory. It was a figure seen in the haze of infancy, and remembered through the distance of many years. I recollect coming down the stairs, the nursery-maid holding me by the hand, and seeing a carriage and servants in the court before the door. I remember, as part of the same dream, sitting in the lap of a strange lady in the drawingroom, who left a vague impression of having been richly dressed, who talked to me in a sweet, gentle voice, and gave me toys, and whom I always knew to have been Lady Lorrimer. How much of this I actually saw, and how much was picked up with the vivid power of reproducing pictures from description that belongs to children, I cannot say; but I always heard of Aunt Lorrimer afterwards with interest, and now at length I was about to see her. Her note had disappointed me, still I was curious.
CHAPTER XXVI.
LADY LORRIMER.
My curiosity was soon gratified. After luncheon we drove to Mivart’s, and there in her sitting-room I saw Lady Lorrimer. I was agreeably surprised. Her figure was still beautiful. She was, I believe, past sixty then; but, like all our family whom I have ever seen, she looked a great deal younger than her years. I thought her very handsome, very like my idea of Mary Queen of Scots in her later years; and her good looks palpably owed nothing to “making up.” Her smile was very winning, and her eyes still soft and brilliant. Through so many years, her voice as she greeted us returned with a strange and very sweet recognition upon my ear.
She put her arms about mamma’s neck, and kissed her tenderly. In like manner she kissed me. She made me sit beside her on a sofa, and held my hands in hers. Mamma sat opposite in a chair.
Lady Lorrimer might be very selfish — lonely people often are; but she certainly was very affectionate. There were tears in her fine eyes as she looked at me. It was not such a stare as a dealer might bestow on a picture, to which, as a child, I had sometimes been subjected by old friends in search of a likeness. By-and-by she talked of me.
“The flight of my years is so silent,” she said, with a sad smile to mamma, “that I forgot, as I wrote to you, how few are left me, and that Ethel is no longer a child. I think her quite lovely; she is like what I remember you, but it is only a likeness — not the same; she does not sacrifice her originality. I’m not afraid, dear, to say all that before you,” she said, turning on me for a moment her engaging smile. “I think, Ethel, in this world, where people without a particle of merit are always pushing themselves to the front, young people who have beauty should know it. But, my dear,” she said, looking on me again, “good looks don’t last very long. Your mamma, there, keeps hers wonderfully; but look at me. I was once a pretty girl, as you are now; and see what I am!
‘Le même cours des planètes Régle nos jours et nos nuits; On me vit ce que vous êtes, Vous serez ce que je suis.’
“So I qualify my agreeable truths with a little uncomfortable morality. She’ll be coming out immediately?”
Mamma told her, hereupon, all her plans about me.
“And so sure as you take her out, her papa will be giving her away; and, remember, I’m to give her her diamonds whenever she marries. You are to write to me whenever anything is settled, or likely to come about. They always know at my house here, when I am on my travels, where a letter will find me. No, you’re not to thank me,” she interrupted us. “I saw Lady Rimington’s, and I intend that your daughter’s shall be a great deal better than hers.”
Our old Malory housekeeper, Rebecca Torkill, had a saying, “Nothing so grateful as pride.” I think I really liked my aunt Lorrimer better for her praises of my good looks than for her munificent intentions about my bridal brilliants. But for either I could only show my pleasure by my looks. I started up to thank her for her promised diamonds. But, as I told you, she would not hear a word, and drew me down gently with a smile again beside her.
Then she talked, and mamma talked. For such a recluse, Lady Lorrimer was a wonderful gossip, and devoured all mamma’s news, and told her old stories of all the old people who figured in such oral history. I must do her justice. There seemed to me to be no malice whatever in her stories. The comic was what she enjoyed most. Her lively pictures amused even me, who knew nothing of the originals; and the longer I sat with her, the more confidence did I feel in her goodnature.
A good deal of this conversation was all but whispered, and she had despatched me with her maid to look at some china she had brought home for her cabinets in London, at the other end of the room. When I returned their heads were still very near, and they were talking low with the same animation. I sat down again beside Lady Lorrimer. I had spun out my inspection of the china as long as I could. Lady Lorrimer patted my head gently, as I sat down again, without, I fancy, remembering at the moment that I had been away. She was answering, I think, a remark of mamma’s, and upon a subject which had lain rather heavily at my heart since Monsieur Droqville’s visit to our breakfast-table that morning.
“I don’t know,” she said; “Monsieur Droqville is a clever physician, but it seems to me he has always made too much of Mr. Carmel’s illness, or delicacy, or whatever it is. I do not think Mr. Carmel is in any real danger — I don’t think there is anything seriously wrong with him — more, in fact, than with any other thin young man, and now and then he has a cough. Three years ago, when I first made his acquaintance — and what a charming creature he is! — Monsieur Droqville told me he could not live more than two years; and this morning, when I asked how Mr. Carmel was, he allowed him three years still to live; so if he goes on killing him at that easy rate, he may live as long as Old Parr. And now that I think of it, did you hear a rumour about Sir Harry?”
“There are so many Sir Harrys,” said mamma. “Do you mean Sir Harry Rokestone?”
“Of course I mean Sir Harry Rokestone,” she answered; “have you heard anything of him?”
“Nothing, but the old story,” said mamma.
“And what is that?” asked Lady Lorrimer.
“Only that he hates us with all his heart and soul, and never loses an opportunity of doing us all the mischief he can. He has twice prevented my husband getting into the House — and cost him a great deal more money than he could afford; and he has had opportunities, from those old money dealings that you know of between the two families, of embarrassing my poor husband most cruelly. If you knew what enormous law expenses we have been put to, and all the injuries he has done us, you would say that you never heard of anything so implacable, so malignant, and — — “
“So natural,” said Lady Lorrimer. “I don’t mean to fight Sir Harry Rokestone’s battle for him. I dare say he has been stern and vindictive; he was a proud, fierce man; and, my dear Mabel, you treated him very ill; so did Francis Ware. If he treats you as you have treated him, nothing can be much worse. I always liked him better than your husband; he was better, and is better. I use the privilege of an old kinswoman; and I say nothing could have been more foolish than your treatment of him, except your choice of a husband. I think Francis Ware is one of those men who never ought to have married. He is a clever man; but in some respects, and these of very great importance, he has always acted like a fool. Harry Rokestone was worth twenty of him, and would have made a much better husband than ever he did. I always thought he was the handsomer man; he had twice the real ability of Francis Ware; he had all the masculine attributes of mind. I say nothing about his immensely superior wealth; that you chose to regard as a point quite unworthy of consideration. The only thing not in his favour was that he was some years older.”
“Twenty years nearly,” said mamma.
“Well, my dear, a man with his peculiar kind of good looks, and his commanding character, wears better than a younger man. You recollect the answer of the old French mareschal to the young petit-maître who asked him his age. ‘Je ne vous le dirai pas precisement; mais soyez sur qu’un âne est plus âgé à vingt ans qu’un homme ne l’est �
� soixante.’ I don’t say that the term would have fairly described Francis Ware. I know very well he was brilliant; but those talents, if there are no more solid gifts to support them, grow less and less suitable as men get into years, until they become frivolous. However, I am sure that Harry Rokestone does hate you both; and he’s just the man to make his hatred felt. The time has passed for forgiveness. When the fire of romance has expired, the metal that might have taken another shape cools down and hardens in the mould. He will never forgive or change, I am afraid; and you must both lay your account with his persevering animosity. But, you say, you haven’t heard any story about him lately?”
“No, nothing.”
“Well, old Mrs. Jennings, of Golden Friars, sometimes writes to me, and she says he is going to marry that rich spinster, Miss Goulding of Wrybiggins. She only says she hears so; and I thought you might know.”
“I should not wonder — it is not at all an unlikely thing. I don’t see that they could do better; there’s nothing to prevent it, so far as I can see.”
But although mamma thus applauded the arrangement, I could see that in her inmost heart she did not like it. There is something of desertion in these late marriages of long-cast-off lovers, who have worshipped our shadows in secret, through lonely years; and I could see dimly a sad little mortification in mamma’s pretty face.
As we drove home I mused over Lady Lorrimer. The only disagreeable recollection that disturbed my pleasant retrospect was that part of her conversation that referred to papa. She said she “used the privilege of an old kinswoman.” I should have said abused it rather. But mamma did not seem to resent it — I suppose they were on terms to discuss him; and they either forgot me, or thought I had no business to be in the way. In every other respect, I was very much pleased with my visit, as I well might be. She was much more clever than I expected, more animated, more fascinating. I was haunted with the thought how lovely she must have been when she was young!
Delphi Complete Works of Sheridan Le Fanu Page 630
