CHAPTER LXXVII. And how everybody got out again
You, Captain Miles Warrington, have the honour of winning the goodgraces of a lady--of ever so many ladies--of the Duchess of Devonshire,let us say, of Mrs. Crew, of Mrs. Fitzherbert, of the Queen of Prussia,of the Goddess Venus, of Mademoiselle Hillisberg of the Opera--nevermind of whom, in fine. If you win a lady's good graces, do you always goto the mess and tell what happened?"
"Not such a fool, Squire!" says the Captain, surveying his side curl inthe glass.
"Have you, Miss Theo, told your mother every word you said to Mr. JoeBlake, junior, in the shrubbery this morning?"
"Joe Blake, indeed!" cries Theo junior.
"And you, mademoiselle? That scented billet which came to you under SirThomas's frank, have you told us all the letter contains? Look how sheblushes! As red as the curtain, on my word! No, mademoiselle, we allhave our secrets" (says the Squire, here making his best French bow)."No, Theo, there was nothing in the shrubbery--only nuts, my child!No, Miles, my son, we don't tell all, even to the most indulgent offathers--and if I tell what happened in a landau on the Hampstead Road,on the 25th of May, 1760, may the Chevalier Ruspini pull out every toothin my head!"
"Pray tell, papa!" cries mamma: "or, as Jobson, who drove us, is in yourservice now, perhaps you will have him in from the stables! I insistupon your telling!"
"What is, then, this mystery?" asks mademoiselle, in her pretty Frenchaccent, of my wife.
"Eh, ma fille!" whispers the lady. "Thou wouldst ask me what I said? Isaid 'Yes!'--behold all I said." And so 'tis my wife has peached, andnot I; and this was the sum of our conversation, as the carriage, alltoo swiftly as I thought, galloped towards Hampstead, and flewback again. Theo had not agreed to fly in the face of her honouredparents--no such thing. But we would marry no other person; no, not ifwe lived to be as old as Methuselah; no, not the Prince of Waleshimself would she take. Her heart she had given away with her papa'sconsent--nay, order--it was not hers to resume. So kind a father mustrelent one of these days; and, if George would keep his promise--were itnow, or were it in twenty years, or were it in another world, she knewshe should never break hers.
Hetty's face beamed with delight when, my little interview over, shesaw Theo's countenance wearing a sweet tranquillity. All the doctor'smedicine has not done her so much good, the fond sister said. The girlswent home after their act of disobedience. I gave up the place which Ihad held during a brief period of happiness by my dear invalid's side.Hetty skipped back into her seat, and Charley on to his box. He told mein after days, that it was a very dull, stupid sermon he had heard. Thelittle chap was too orthodox to love dissenting preachers' sermons.
Hetty was not the only one of the family who remarked her sister'saltered countenance and improved spirits. I am told that on the girls'return home their mother embraced both of them, especially the invalid,with more than common ardour of affection. "There was nothing like acountry ride," Aunt Lambert said, "for doing her dear Theo good. Shehad been on the road to Hampstead, had she? She must have another rideto-morrow. Heaven be blessed, my Lord Wrotham's horses were at theirorders three or four times a week, and the sweet child might have theadvantage of them!" As for the idea that Mr. Warrington might havehappened to meet the children on their drive, Aunt Lambert never onceentertained it,--at least spoke of it. I leave anybody who is interestedin the matter to guess whether Mrs. Lambert could by any possibilityhave supposed that her daughter and her sweetheart could ever have cometogether again. Do women help each other in love perplexities? Do womenscheme, intrigue, make little plans, tell little fibs, provide littleamorous opportunities, hang up the rope-ladder, coax, wheedle, mystifythe guardian or Abigail, and turn their attention away while Strephonand Chloe are billing and cooing in the twilight, or whisking off in thepostchaise to Gretna Green? My dear young folks, some people there areof this nature; and some kind souls who have loved tenderly and truly intheir own time, continue ever after to be kindly and tenderly disposedtowards their young successors, when they begin to play the same prettygame.
Miss Prim doesn't. If she hears of two young persons attached to eachother, it is to snarl at them for fools, or to imagine of them allconceivable evil. Because she has a hump-back herself, she is for bitingeverybody else's. I believe if she saw a pair of turtles cooing in awood, she would turn her eyes down, or fling a stone to frighten them;but I am speaking, you see, young ladies, of your grandmother, AuntLambert, who was one great syllabub of human kindness; and, besides,about the affair at present under discussion, how am I ever to tellwhether she knew anything regarding it or not?
So, all she says to Theo on her return home is, "My child, the countryair has done you all the good in the world, and I hope you will takeanother drive to-morrow, and another, and another, and so on."
"Don't you think, papa, the ride has done the child most wonderful good,and must not she be made to go out in the air?" Aunt Lambert asks of theGeneral, when he comes in for supper.
"Yes, sure, if a coach-and-six will do his little Theo good, she shallhave it," Lambert says, "or he will drag the landau up Hampstead Hillhimself, if there are no horses;" and so the good man would have spent,freely, his guineas, or his breath, or his blood, to give his childpleasure. He was charmed at his girl's altered countenance; she pickeda bit of chicken with appetite: she drank a little negus, which he madefor her: indeed it did seem to be better than the kind doctor's bestmedicine, which hitherto, God wot, had been of little benefit. Mamma wasgracious and happy. Hetty was radiant and rident. It was quite like anevening at home at Oakhurst. Never for months past, never since thatfatal, cruel day, that no one spoke of, had they spent an evening sodelightful.
But, if the other women chose to coax and cajole the good, simplefather, Theo herself was too honest to continue for long even that sweetand fond delusion. When, for the third or fourth time, he comes back tothe delightful theme of his daughter's improved health, and asks, "Whathas done it? Is it the country air? is it the Jesuit's bark? is it thenew medicine?"
"Can't you think, dear, what it is?" she says, laying a hand upon herfather's, with a tremor in her voice, perhaps, but eyes that are quiteopen and bright.
"And what is it, my child?" asks the General.
"It is because I have seen him again, papa!" she says.
The other two women turned pale, and Theo's heart too begins topalpitate, and her cheek to whiten, as she continues to look in herfather's scared face.
"It was not wrong to see him," she continues, more quickly; "it wouldhave been wrong not to tell you."
"Great God!" groans the father, drawing his hand back, and with sucha dreadful grief in his countenance, that Hetty runs to her almostswooning sister, clasps her to her heart, and cries out, rapidly, "Theoknew nothing of it, sir! It was my doing--it was all my doing!"
Theo lies on her sister's neck, and kisses it twenty, fifty times.
"Women, women! are you playing with my honour?" cries the father,bursting out with a fierce exclamation.
Aunt Lambert sobs, wildly, "Martin! Martin! Don't say a word to her!"again calls out Hetty, and falls back herself staggering towards thewall, for Theo has fainted on her shoulder.
I was taking my breakfast next morning, with what appetite I might, whenmy door opens, and my faithful black announces, "General Lambert." Atonce I saw, by the General's face, that the yesterday's transaction wasknown to him. "Your accomplices did not confess," the General said,as soon as my servant had left us, "but sided with you against theirfather--a proof how desirable clandestine meetings are. It was from Theoherself I heard that she had seen you."
"Accomplices, sir!" I said (perhaps not unwilling to turn theconversation from the real point at issue). "You know how fondly anddutifully your young people regard their father. If they side againstyou in this instance, it must be because justice is against you. A manlike you is not going to set up sic volo sic jubeo as the sole law inhis family!"
"Psha, George!" cries the General. "For though
we are parted, God forbidI should desire that we should cease to love each other. I had yourpromise that you would not seek to see her."
"Nor did I go to her, sir," I said, turning red, no doubt; for thoughthis was truth, I own it was untrue.
"You mean she was brought to you?" says Theo's father, in greatagitation. "Is it behind Hester's petticoat that you will shelteryourself? What a fine defence for a gentleman!"
"Well, I won't screen myself behind the poor child," I replied."To speak as I did was to make an attempt at evasion, and I amill-accustomed to dissemble. I did not infringe the letter of myagreement, but I acted against the spirit of it. From this moment Iannul it altogether."
"You break your word given to me!" cries Mr. Lambert.
"I recall a hasty promise made on a sudden at a moment of extremeexcitement and perturbation. No man can be for ever bound by wordsuttered at such a time; and, what is more, no man of honour or humanity,Mr. Lambert, would try to bind him."
"Dishonour to me! sir," exclaims the General.
"Yes, if the phrase is to be shuttlecocked between us!" I answered,hotly. "There can be no question about love, or mutual regard,or difference of age, when that word is used: and were you my ownfather--and I love you better than a father, Uncle Lambert,--I would notbear it! What have I done? I have seen the woman whom I consider my wifebefore God and man, and if she calls me I will see her again. If shecomes to me, here is my home for her, and the half of the little I have.'Tis you, who have no right, having made me the gift, to resume it.Because my mother taunts you unjustly, are you to visit Mrs. Esmond'swrong upon this tender, innocent creature? You profess to love yourdaughter, and you can't bear a little wounded pride for her sake. Bettershe should perish away in misery, than an old woman in Virginia shouldsay that Mr. Lambert had schemed to marry one of his daughters. Saythat to satisfy what you call honour and I call selfishness, we part,we break our hearts well nigh, we rally, we try to forget each other, wemarry elsewhere? Can any man be to my dear as I have been? God forbid!Can any woman be to me what she is? You shall marry her to the Prince ofWales to-morrow, and it is a cowardice and treason. How can we, how canyou, undo the promises we have made to each other before Heaven? You maypart us: and she will die as surely as if she were Jephthah's daughter.Have you made any vow to Heaven to compass her murder? Kill her if youconceive your promise so binds you: but this I swear, that I am gladyou have come, so that I may here formally recall a hasty pledge which Igave, and that, call me when she will, I will come to her!"
No doubt this speech was made with the flurry and agitation belongingto Mr. Warrington's youth, and with the firm conviction that death wouldinfallibly carry off one or both of the parties, in case their worldlyseparation was inevitably decreed. Who does not believe his firstpassion eternal? Having watched the world since, and seen the rise,progress, and--alas, that I must say it!--decay of other amours, I maysmile now as I think of my own youthful errors and ardours; but, if itbe a superstition, I had rather hold it; I had rather think thatneither of us could have lived with any other mate, and that, of all itsinnumerable creatures, Heaven decreed these special two should be joinedtogether.
"We must come, then, to what I had fain have spared myself," says theGeneral, in reply to my outbreak; "to an unfriendly separation. WhenI meet you, Mr. Warrington, I must know you no more. I must order--andthey will not do other than obey me--my family and children not torecognise you when they see you, since you will not recognise inyour intercourse with me the respect due to my age, the courtesy ofgentlemen. I had hoped so far from your sense of honour, and the ideaI had formed of you, that, in my present great grief and perplexity,I should have found you willing to soothe and help me as far as youmight--for, God knows, I have need of everybody's sympathy. But, insteadof help, you fling obstacles in my way. Instead of a friend--a graciousHeaven pardon me!--I find in you an enemy! An enemy to the peace of myhome and the honour of my children, sir! And as such I shall treat you,and know how to deal with you, when you molest me!"
And, waving his hand to me, and putting on his hat, Mr. Lambert hastilyquitted my apartment.
I was confounded, and believed, indeed, there was war between us. Thebrief happiness of yesterday was clouded over and gone, and I thoughtthat never since the day of the first separation had I felt soexquisitely unhappy as now, when the bitterness of quarrel was added tothe pangs of parting, and I stood not only alone but friendless. In thecourse of one year's constant intimacy I had come to regard Lambert witha reverence and affection which I had never before felt for any mortalman except my dearest Harry. That his face should be turned from mein anger was as if the sun had gone out of my sphere, and all was darkaround me. And yet I felt sure that in withdrawing the hasty promise Ihad made not to see Theo, I was acting rightly--that my fidelity to her,as hers now to me, was paramount to all other ties of duty or obedience,and that, ceremony or none, I was hers, first and before all. Promiseswere passed between us, from which no parent could absolve either; andall the priests in Christendom could no more than attest and confirm thesacred contract which had tacitly been ratified between us.
I saw Jack Lambert by chance that day, as I went mechanically to my notunusual haunt, the library of the new Museum; and with the impetuousnessof youth, and eager to impart my sorrow to some one, I took him out ofthe room and led him about the gardens, and poured out my grief to him.I did not much care for Jack (who in truth was somewhat of a prig, andnot a little pompous and wearisome with his Latin quotations) except inthe time of my own sorrow, when I would fasten upon him or any one; andhaving suffered himself in his affair with the little American,being haud ignarus mali (as I knew he would say), I found the collegegentleman ready to compassionate another's misery. I told him, what hashere been represented at greater length, of my yesterday's meetingwith his sister; of my interview with his father in the morning; of mydetermination at all hazards never to part with Theo. When I found fromthe various quotations from the Greek and Latin authors which he utteredthat he leaned to my side in the dispute, I thought him a man of greatsense, clung eagerly to his elbow, and bestowed upon him much moreaffection than he was accustomed at other times to have from me. Iwalked with him up to his father's lodgings in Dean Street; saw himenter at the dear door; surveyed the house from without with a sickeningdesire to know from its exterior appearance how my beloved fared within;and called for a bottle at the coffee-house where I waited Jack'sreturn. I called him Brother when I sent him away. I fondled him as thecondemned wretch at Newgate hangs about the jailor or the parson, or anyone who is kind to him in his misery. I drank a whole bottle of wine atthe coffee-house--by the way, Jack's Coffee-House was its name--calledanother. I thought Jack would never come back.
He appeared at length with rather a scared face; and, coming to my box,poured out for himself two or three bumpers from my second bottle,and then fell to his story, which, to me at least, was not a littleinteresting. My poor Theo was keeping her room, it appeared, being muchagitated by the occurrences of yesterday; and Jack had come home in timeto find dinner on table; after which his good father held forth upon theoccurrences of the morning, being anxious and able to speak more freely,he said, because his eldest son was present and Theodosia was not in theroom. The General stated what had happened at my lodgings between me andhim. He bade Hester be silent, who indeed was as dumb as a mouse, poorthing! he told Aunt Lambert (who was indulging in that madefaction ofpocket-handkerchiefs which I have before described), and with somethinglike an imprecation, that the women were all against him, and pimps (hecalled them) for one another; and frantically turning round to Jack,asked what was his view in the matter?
To his father's surprise and his mother's and sister's delight,Jack made a speech on my side. He ruled with me (citing what ancientauthorities I don't know), that the matter had gone out of the hands ofthe parents on either side; that having given their consent, some monthspreviously, the elders had put themselves out of court. Though he didnot hold with a great, a respectable, he
might say a host of divines,those sacramental views of the marriage-ceremony--for which there was agreat deal to be said--yet he held it, if possible, even more sacredlythan they; conceiving that though marriages were made before the civilmagistrate, and without the priest, yet they were, before Heaven,binding and indissoluble.
"It is not merely, sir," says Jack, turning to his father, "those whomI, John Lambert, Priest, have joined, let no man put asunder; it isthose whom God has joined let no man separate." (Here he took off hishat, as he told the story to me.) "My views are clear upon the point,and surely these young people were joined, or permitted to plightthemselves to each other by the consent of you, the priest of your ownfamily. My views, I say, are clear, and I will lay them down at lengthin a series of two or three discourses which, no doubt, will satisfyyou. Upon which," says Jack, "my father said, 'I am satisfied already,my dear boy,' and my lively little Het (who has much archness) whispersto me, 'Jack, mother and I will make you a dozen shirts, as sure as eggsis eggs.'"
"Whilst we were talking," Mr. Lambert resumed, "my sister Theodosiamade her appearance, I must say very much agitated and pale, kissed ourfather, and sate down at his side, and took a sippet of toast--(my dearGeorge, this port is excellent, and I drink your health)--and took asippet of toast and dipped it in his negus.
"'You should have been here to hear Jack's sermon!' says Hester. 'He hasbeen preaching most beautifully.'
"'Has he?' asks Theodosia, who is too languid and weak, poor thing, muchto care for the exercises of eloquence, or the display of authorities,such as I must own," says Jack, "it was given to me this afternoon tobring forward.
"'He has talked for three quarters of an hour by Shrewsbury clock,' saysmy father, though I certainly had not talked so long or half so longby my own watch. 'And his discourse has been you, my dear,' says papa,playing with Theodosia's hand.
"'Me, papa?'
"'You and--and Mr. Warrington--and--and George, my love,' says papa.Upon which" (says Mr. Jack). "my sister came closer to the General, andlaid her head upon him, and wept upon his shoulder.
"'This is different, sir,' says I, 'to a passage I remember inPausanias.'
"'In Pausanias? Indeed!' said the General. 'And pray who was he?'
"I smiled at my father's simplicity in exposing his ignorance before hischildren. 'When Ulysses was taking away Penelope from her father,the king hastened after his daughter and bridegroom, and besought hisdarling to return. Whereupon, it is related, Ulysses offered her herchoice,--whether she would return, or go on with him? Upon which thedaughter of Icarius covered her face with her veil. For want of a veilmy sister has taken refuge in your waistcoat, sir,' I said, and we alllaughed; though my mother vowed that if such a proposal had been madeto her, or Penelope had been a girl of spirit, she would have gone homewith her father that instant.
"'But I am not a girl of any spirit, dear mother!' says Theodosia, stillin gremio patris. I do not remember that this habit of caressingwas frequent in my own youth," continues Jack. "But after some morediscourse, Brother Warrington! bethought me of you, and left my parentsinsisting upon Theodosia returning to bed. The late transactions have,it appears, weakened and agitated her much. I myself have experienced,in my own case, how full of solliciti timoris is a certain passion; howit racks the spirits; and I make no doubt, if carried far enough, orindulged to the extent to which women who have little philosophy willpermit it to go--I make no doubt, I say, is ultimately injurious to thehealth. My service to you, brother!"
From grief to hope, how rapid the change was! What a flood of happinesspoured into my soul, and glowed in my whole being! Landlord, more port!Would honest Jack have drunk a binful I would have treated him; and,to say truth, Jack's sympathy was large in this case, and it had beengenerous all day. I decline to score the bottles of port: and placeto the fabulous computations of interested waiters, the amount scoredagainst me in the reckoning. Jack was my dearest, best of brothers.My friendship for him I swore should be eternal. If I could do him anyservice, were it a bishopric, by George! he should have it. He says Iwas interrupted by the watchman rhapsodising verses beneath the lovedone's window. I know not. I know I awoke joyfully and rapturously, inspite of a racking headache the next morning.
Nor did I know the extent of my happiness quite, or the entireconversion of my dear noble enemy of the previous morning. It musthave been galling to the pride of an elder man to have to yield torepresentations and objections couched in language so little dutiful asthat I had used towards Mr. Lambert. But the true Christian gentleman,retiring from his talk with me, mortified and wounded by my asperity ofremonstrance, as well as by the pain which he saw his beloved daughtersuffer, went thoughtfully and sadly to his business, as he subsequentlytold me, and in the afternoon (as his custom not unfrequently was) intoa church which was open for prayers. And it was here, on his knees,submitting his case in the quarter whither he frequently, thoughprivately, came for guidance and comfort, that it seemed to him that hischild was right in her persistent fidelity to me, and himself wrong indemanding her utter submission. Hence Jack's cause was won almost beforehe began to plead it; and the brave, gentle heart, which could bear norancour, which bled at inflicting pain on those it loved, which evenshrank from asserting authority or demanding submission, was only tooglad to return to its natural pulses of love and affection.
The Virginians Page 77
