The squire stared; and Brandon, not giving him time to answer, resumed. – It is needless to detail the conversation; suffice it to say, that the artful barrister did not leave his brother till he had gained his point – till Joseph Brandon had promised to remain at Bath in possession of the house and establishment of his brother; to throw no impediment on the suit of Mauleverer; to cultivate society as before; and, above all, not to alarm Lucy, who evidently did not yet favour Mauleverer exclusively, by hinting to her the hopes and expectations of her uncle and father. Brandon, now taking leave of his brother, mounted to the drawing-room in search of Lucy. He found her leaning over the gilt cage of one of her feathered favourites, and speaking to the little inmate in that pretty and playful language in which all thoughts, innocent, yet fond, should be clothed. So beautiful did Lucy seem, as she was thus engaged in her girlish and caressing employment, and so utterly unlike one meet to be the instrument of ambitious designs, and the sacrifice of worldly calculations, that Brandon paused, suddenly smitten at heart, as he beheld her: he was not, however, slow in recovering himself; he approached. ‘Happy he,’ said the man of the world, ‘for whom caresses and words like these are reserved!’
Lucy turned. ‘It is ill!’ she said, pointing to the bird, which sat with its feathers stiff and erect, mute and heedless even of that voice which was as musical as its own.
‘Poor prisoner!’ said Brandon. ‘Even gilt cages and sweet tones cannot compensate to thee for the loss of the air and the wild woods!’
‘But,’ said Lucy, anxiously, ‘it is not confinement which makes it ill! If you think so, I will release it instantly.’
‘How long have you had it?’ asked Brandon.
‘For three years!’ said Lucy.
‘And is it your chief favourite?’
‘Yes; it does not sing so prettily as the other – but it is far more sensible, and so affectionate.’
‘Can you release it then?’ asked Brandon, smiling. ‘Would it not be better to see it die in your custody, than to let it live and to see it no more?’
‘Oh, no, no!’ said Lucy, eagerly. ‘When I love anyone – anything – I wish that to be happy, not me!’
As she said this, she took the bird from the cage; and bearing it to the open window, kissed it, and held it on her hand in the air. The poor bird turned a languid and sickly eye around it, as if the sight of the crowded houses and busy streets presented nothing familiar or inviting; and it was not till Lucy, with a tender courage, shook it gently from her, that it availed itself of the proffered liberty. It flew first to an opposite balcony; and then recovering from a short, and, as it were, surprised pause, took a brief circuit above the houses; and after disappearing for a few minutes, flew back, circled the window, and re-entering, settled once more on the fair form of its mistress and nestled into her bosom.
Lucy covered it with kisses. ‘You see it will not leave me!’ said she.
‘Who can?’ said the uncle, warmly, charmed for the moment from every thought, but that of kindness for the young and soft creature before him. – ‘Who can,’ he repeated with a sigh, ‘but an old and withered ascetic like myself? I must leave you indeed; see, my carriage is at the door! Will my beautiful niece, among the gaieties that surround her, condescend now and then to remember the crabbed lawyer, and assure him by a line of her happiness and health? Though I rarely write any notes but those upon cases, you, at least, may be sure of an answer. And tell me, Lucy, if there be in all this city one so foolish as to think that these idle gems, useful only as a vent for my pride in you, can add a single charm to a beauty above all ornament?’
So saying, Brandon produced a leathern case; and touching a spring, the imperial flash of diamonds, which would have made glad many a patrician heart, broke dazzlingly on Lucy’s eyes.
‘No thanks, Lucy,’ said Brandon, in answer to his niece’s disclaiming and shrinking gratitude; ‘I do honour to myself, not you; and now bless you, my dear girl. Farewell! Should any occasion present itself in which you require an immediate adviser, at once kind and wise, I beseech you, my dearest Lucy, as a parting request, to have no scruples in consulting Lord Mauleverer. Besides his friendship for me, he is much interested in you, and you may consult him with the more safety and assurance; because’ – and the lawyer smiled – ‘he is perhaps the only man in the world whom my Lucy could not make in love with her. His gallantry may appear adulation, but it is never akin to love. Promise me, that you will not hesitate in this?’
Lucy gave the promise readily, and Brandon continued in a careless tone – ‘I hear that you danced last night with a young gentleman whom no one knew, and whose companions bore a very strange appearance. In a place like Bath, society is too mixed not to render the greatest caution in forming acquaintances absolutely necessary. You must pardon me, my dearest niece, if I remark that a young lady owes it not only to herself, but to her relations, to observe the most rigid circumspection of conduct. This is a wicked world, and the peach-like bloom of character is easily rubbed away. In these points Mauleverer can be of great use to you. His knowledge of character – his penetration into men – and his tact in manners – are unerring. Pray, be guided by him: whomsoever he warns you against, you may be sure is unworthy of your acquaintance. God bless you! You will write to me often and frankly, dear Lucy; tell me all that happens to you – all that interests, nay, all that displeases.’
Brandon then, who had seemingly disregarded the blushes with which, during his speech, Lucy’s cheeks had been spread, folded his niece in his arms, and hurried, as if to hide his feeling, into his carriage. When the horses had turned the street, he directed the postilions to stop at Lord Mauleverer’s. ‘Now,’ said he to himself, ‘if I can get this clever coxcomb to second my schemes, and play according to my game, and not according to his own vanity, I shall have a knight of the garter for my nephew-in-law!’
Meanwhile Lucy, all in tears, for she loved her uncle greatly, ran down to the squire to show him Brandon’s magnificent present.
‘Ah!’ said the squire, with a sigh, ‘few men were born with more good, generous, and great qualities – pity only that his chief desire was to get on in the world; for my part, I think no motive makes greater and more cold-hearted rogues – than my brother William!’
Chapter XVIII
Why did she love him? – Curious fool be still!
Is human love the growth of human will?
To her he might be gentleness!
Lord Byron
In three weeks from the time of his arrival, Captain Clifford was the most admired man in Bath. It is true, the gentlemen, who have a quicker tact as to the respectability of their own sex than women, might have looked a little shy upon him, had he not himself especially shunned appearing intrusive, and indeed rather avoided the society of men than courted it; so that after he had fought a duel with a baronet (the son of a shoe-maker), who called him one Clifford; and had exhibited a flea-bitten horse, allowed to be the finest in Bath, he rose insensibly into a certain degree of respect with the one sex as well as popularity with the other. But what always attracted and kept alive suspicion, was his intimacy with so peculiar and dashing a gentleman as Mr Edward Pepper. People could get over a certain frankness in Clifford’s address, but the most lenient were astounded by the swagger of Long Ned. Clifford, however, not insensible to the ridicule attached to his acquaintances, soon managed to pursue his occupations alone; nay, he took a lodging to himself, and left Long Ned and Augustus Tomlinson (the latter to operate as a check on the former) to the quiet enjoyment of the hair-dresser’s apartments. He himself attended all public gaieties; and his mien, and the appearance of wealth which he maintained, procured him access into several private circles, which pretended to be exclusive: as if people who had daughters ever could be exclusive! Many were the kind looks, nor few the inviting letters, which he received; and if his sole object had been to marry an heiress, he would have found no difficulty in attaining it. But he devoted himself entirely to
Lucy Brandon; and to win one glance from her, he would have renounced all the heiresses in the kingdom. Most fortunately for him, Mauleverer, whose health was easily deranged, had fallen ill the very day William Brandon left Bath; and his lordship was thus rendered unable to watch the movements of Lucy, and undermine, or totally prevent, the success of her lover. Miss Brandon, indeed, had at first, melted by the kindness of her uncle, and struck with the sense of his admonition (for she was no self-willed young lady, who was determined to be in love), received Captain Clifford’s advances with a coldness which, from her manner the first evening they had met at Bath, occasioned him no less surprise than mortification. He retreated, and recoiled on the squire, who, patient and bold, as usual, was sequestered in his favourite corner. By accident, Clifford trod on the squire’s gouty digital; and in apologizing for the offence, was so struck by the old gentleman’s good nature and peculiarity of expressing himself, that without knowing who he was, he entered into conversation with him. There was an off-hand sort of liveliness and candour, not to say wit, about Clifford, which always had a charm for the elderly, who generally like frankness above all the cardinal virtues; the squire was exceedingly pleased with him. The acquaintance, once begun, was naturally continued without difficulty when Clifford ascertained who was his new friend; and next morning, meeting in the pump-room, the squire asked Clifford to dinner. The entrée to the house thus gained, the rest was easy. Long before Mauleverer recovered his health, the mischief effected by his rival was almost beyond redress; and the heart of the pure, the simple, the affectionate Lucy Brandon, was more than half lost to the lawless and vagrant cavalier who officiates as the hero of this tale.
One morning, Clifford and Augustus strolled out together. ‘Let us,’ said the latter, who was in a melancholy mood, ‘leave the busy streets, and indulge in a philosophical conversation on the nature of man, while we are enjoying a little fresh air in the country.’ Clifford assented to the proposal, and the pair slowly sauntered up one of the hills that surround the city of Bladud.
‘There are certain moments,’ said Tomlinson, looking pensively down at his kerseymere gaiters, ‘when we are like the fox in the nursery rhyme: – “The fox had a wound, he could not tell where” – we feel extremely unhappy, and we cannot tell why! – A dark and sad melancholy grows over us – we shun the face of man – we wrap ourselves in our thoughts like silkworms – we mutter fag-ends of dismal songs – tears come into our eyes – we recall all the misfortunes that have ever happened to us – we stoop in our gait, and bury our hands in our breeches-pockets – we say “What is life? – A stone to be shied into a horsepond!” We pine for some congenial heart – and have an itching desire to talk prodigiously about ourselves: all other subjects seem weary, stale, and unprofitable – we feel as if a fly could knock us down, and are in a humour to fall in love, and make a very sad piece of business of it. Yet with all this weakness we have, at these moments, a finer opinion of ourselves than we ever had before. We call our migraines the melancholy of a sublime soul – the yearnings of an indigestion we denominate yearnings after immortality – nay, sometimes “a proof of the nature of the soul!” May I find some biographer who understands such sensations well, and may he style those melting emotions the offspring of the poetical character, which, in reality, are the offspring of – a mutton-chop!’
‘You jest pleasantly enough on your low spirits,’ said Clifford, ‘but I have a cause for mine.’
‘What then?’ cried Tomlinson. ‘So much the easier is it to cure them. The mind can cure the evils that spring from the mind; it is only a fool, and a quack, and a driveller, when it professes to heal the evils that spring from the body: – my blue devils spring from the body – consequently, my mind, which, as you know, is a particularly wise mind, wrestles not against them. Tell me frankly,’ renewed Augustus, after a pause, ‘do you ever repent? Do you ever think, if you had been a shop-boy with a white apron about your middle, that you would have been a happier and a better member of society than you now are?’
‘Repent!’ said Clifford, fiercely; and his answer opened more of his secret heart, its motives, its reasonings, and its peculiarities, than were often discernible. ‘Repent – that is the idlest word in our language. No, – the moment I repent, that moment I reform! Never can it seem to me an atonement for crime merely to regret it – my mind would lead me not to regret, but to repair! – Repent! – No, not yet. The older I grow, the more I see of men and of the callings of social life – the more I, an open knave, sicken at the glossed and covert dishonesties around. I acknowledge no allegiance to society. From my birth to this hour, I have received no single favour from its customs or its laws; – openly I war against it, and patiently will I meet its revenge. This may be crime; but it looks light in my eyes when I gaze around, and survey on all sides the masked traitors who acknowledge large debts to society, – who profess to obey its laws – adore its institutions – and, above all – oh, how righteously – attack all those who attack it, and who yet lie, and cheat, and defraud, and peculate – publicly reaping all the comforts, privately filching all the profits. Repent! – Of what? I come into the world friendless and poor – I find a body of laws hostile to the friendless and the poor! To those laws hostile to me, then, I acknowledge hostility in my turn. Between us are the conditions of war. Let them expose a weakness – I insist on my right to seize the advantage: let them defeat me, and I allow their right to destroy.’
‘Passion,’ said Augustus coolly, ‘is the usual enemy of reason – in your case it is the friend!’
The pair had now gained the summit of a hill which commanded a view of the city below. Here Augustus, who was a little short-winded, paused to recover breath. As soon as he had done so, he pointed with his fore-finger to the scene beneath, and said enthusiastically, – ‘What a subject for contemplation!’
Clifford was about to reply, when suddenly the sound of laughter and voices was heard behind – ‘Let us fly!’ cried Augustus. ‘On this day of spleen man delights me not – nor woman either.’
‘Stay!’ said Clifford, in a trembling accent; for among those voices he recognized one which had already acquired over him an irresistible and bewitching power. Augustus sighed, and reluctantly remained motionless. Presently a winding in the road brought into view a party of pleasure, some on foot, some on horseback, others in the little vehicles which even at that day haunted watering places, and called themselves ‘Flies’ or ‘Swallows.’
But among the gay procession Clifford had only eyes for one! Walking with that elastic step which so rarely survives the first epoch of youth, by the side of the heavy chair in which her father was drawn, the fair beauty of Lucy Brandon threw, at least in the eyes of her lover, a magic and a lustre over the whole group. He stood for a moment, stilling the heart that leaped at her bright looks and the gladness of her innocent laugh; and then recovering himself, he walked slowly, and with a certain consciousness of the effect of his own singularly handsome person, towards the party. The good squire received him with his usual kindness, and informed him, according to that lucidus ordo which he so especially favoured, of the whole particulars of their excursion. There was something worthy of an artist’s sketch in the scene at that moment – the old squire in his chair, with his benevolent face turned towards Clifford, and his hands resting on his cane – Clifford himself bowing down his stately head to hear the details of the father; – the beautiful daughter on the other side of the chair, her laugh suddenly stilled, her gait insensibly more composed, and blush chasing blush over the smooth and peach-like loveliness of her cheek; – the party, of all sizes, ages, and attire, affording ample scope for the caricaturist; and the pensive figure of Augustus Tomlinson (who, by-the-by, was exceedingly like Liston) standing apart from the rest, on the brow of the hill where Clifford had left him, and moralizing on the motley procession, with one hand hid in his waistcoat, and the other caressing his chin, which slowly and pendulously with the rest of his head moved up and down.
As the party approached the brow of the hill, the view of the city below was so striking, that there was a general pause for the purpose of survey. One young lady, in particular, drew forth her pencil, and began sketching, while her mamma looked complacently on, and abstractedly devoured a sandwich. It was at this time, in the general pause, that Clifford and Lucy found themselves – Heaven knows how! – next to each other, and at a sufficient distance from the squire and the rest of the party to feel, in some measure, alone. There was a silence in both which neither dared to break; when Lucy, after looking at and toying with a flower that she had brought from the place which the party had been to see, accidentally dropped it; and Clifford and herself stooping at the same moment to recover it, their hands met. Involuntarily, Clifford detained the soft fingers in his own; his eyes, that encountered hers, so spell-bound and arrested them that for once they did not sink beneath his gaze; his lips moved, but many and vehement emotions so suffocated his voice that no sound escaped them. But all the heart was in the eyes of each; that moment fixed their destinies. Henceforth there was an era from which they dated a new existence; a nucleus around which their thoughts, their remembrances, and their passions, clung. The great gulf was passed; they stood on the same shore; and felt, that though still apart and disunited, on that shore was no living creature but themselves! Meanwhile, Augustus Tomlinson, on finding himself surrounded by persons eager to gaze and to listen, broke from his moodiness and reserve. Looking full at his next neighbour, and flourishing his right hand in the air, till he suffered it to rest in the direction of the houses and chimneys below, he repeated that moral exclamation which had been wasted on Clifford, with a more solemn and a less passionate gravity than before: – ‘What a subject, ma’am, for contemplation!’
Paul Clifford Page 24
