For Edgar and Major Knevett both arrived, the lover as dispassionate as the father was the reverse. Edgar did, however, as he had undertaken, rise to the position. He joked at it a little in private, to the annoyance and perplexity of Cherry, and, even of Felix; but he was perfectly steady in maintaining his perfect right to address Miss Knevett, in avowing his engagement, and in standing by it.
To Major Knevett, the affair appeared outrageous impudence on the part of a beggarly young painter out of a country bookseller's shop, encouraged by the egregious folly of the aunts. What was said of clergyman's sons and good old family went for absolutely nothing; and Edgar's quiet assurance of success in his profession was scoffed at with incredulity not altogether unpardonable. In the encounter that Felix had the misfortune to witness, since it took place in his own office-parlour, he could not help thinking that Edgar, with his perfect temper, unfailing courtesy, calm self-respect, and steady sense of honour towards the young lady, showed himself the true gentleman in contrast with the swaggering little Major, who seemed to expect that he could bluster the young man out of his presumption, and was quite unprepared for Edgar's cool analysis of his threats. But instead of, like Tom Underwood, cooling down into moderation and kindness so soon as his bolt was shot, the finding it fall short only chafed him the more, and rendered him the more inveterate against all conciliation.
There was an appeal all round to Felix, but he was not so practicable as the universal compliments to his good sense showed to be expected. He had expressed his opinion that it was a rash engagement, hitherto improperly carried on; but he could not be brought to advise his brother to break it off on his side while the lady held to it on hers. It might be best to give it up by mutual consent; but as long as one party was bound, so was the other; and he thoroughly sided with Edgar in not being threatened out of it whilst Alice persisted. Still more flatly did he refuse Miss Pearson's entreaty that he would see the wilful girl, and persuade her how hopeless was her resistance, and how little prospect of the attachment being prosperous. Nothing but despair and perplexity could have prompted the good aunts to try such a resource, but they were at their wits' end. They really loved their niece, and they dreaded the tender mercies of her father, who had indeed petted Alice as a young child, but had made her mother suffer greatly from his temper. If she would yield, they hoped to procure for her a home at York, with their brother's widow, and to save her from a residence in Jersey with the step-mother; but Alice, upheld by a secret commerce of notes ingeniously conveyed, felt herself a heroine of constancy, and kept up her spirits by little irritations to whoever tried to deal with her. She could deftly insinuate, on the one hand, that her aunts had always preached up the Underwood perfections; and on the other, hint to her father that if her home had still remained what it was, she should never have looked out of it; and whenever he flew into a rage, or used violent language, she would look up under her eyelids and whisper something about 'real gentlemen.' Those thorns and claws that had figured in the scale of her transmigration were giving a good many little scratches, which did her feelings some good, but her cause none at all, by the vexation they produced. 'If she could only be made to understand,' said poor Miss Pearson, 'how little she gains by irritating her father, and that he is really a very dreadful person when he is thoroughly offended! Poor child! my heart aches for her.'
So Wilmet was turned in upon her, and before she could utter a word was hugged and kissed all over because she was the very image of darling Edgar, and his dear violet eyes were exactly the same colour.
Unsentimental Wilmet extricated herself, saying, 'Eyes can't be violet coloured. Don't let us go into that silly talk, Alice; things are too serious now.'
'You are come to help me and be a dear!' cried Alice, clasping her hands. 'How does he look? the dear boy!'
'The same as usual,' said Wilmet, coolly. 'But, Alice, if you think that I am come to-'
'Does he-really and truly? I saw him out of the little passage window, and I thought he looked quite thin! And Lizzie Bruce said Mrs. Hartley asked who that handsome young man was who looked so delicate.'
'He is particularly strong and healthy. Alice, I want to set it all before you as a reasonable being-'
'Only do tell me; has he got his appetite? For you know he is used to live where everything is recherche, and when one's out of spirits things do make a difference-'
Was that the claw in the velvet paw?
'He eats three times as much as Felix any day,' said Wilmet, with a certain remembrance of the startling nudity of the bone of yesterday's leg of mutton. 'He is doing very well. You need not be afraid for him; but it seems to me that you should consider whether it can be right-'
'Come, Wilmet, you were my first friend; you can't help being kind to me.'
'I want to show you true kindness.'
'True kindness means something horridly cross! Now don't, Wilmet. I get ever so much kindness as it is! I know what you are going to say. It is very naughty of people to like each other when neither of them has got a sixpence; but if they can't help it, what then? Must they leave off liking, eh?'
'They ought to try to prevent their liking from leading to disobedience and concealment.'
'Ah! but if they can't?'
'People always can.'
'Were you ever tried?' asked Alice, slyly, for all the simplicity.
'I hope never to be, if deceiving my friends and making others deceive is to be the consequence.'
'Well, luckily there isn't much chance,' crept out of the demure lips. It was intended as the thorn beneath the mayflower, but it was no such thing. Wilmet was quite ready to accept the improbability as very fortunate.
'That has nothing to do with it,' she said. 'The question is, what it is right to do now. It seems hard for me to say so, being your friend and his sister-'
'Oh, never mind that. People's sisters never do like the girls they are fond of.'
Decidedly Wilmet could not get on. Her mouth was stopped either by a little rapture about Edgar, or a little velvet-pawed scratch to herself, whenever she tried in earnest to set the matter before Alice; and when, being a determined person, she at last talked on through all that Alice tried to thrust in, and delivered her mind of the remonstrance she had carefully thought over, and balanced between kindness, prudence, and duty, and all the time with the conviction that not one word was heeded! If it was not English malice it was French malice that pointed the replies and sent Wilmet away as much provoked as pitying, and not at all inclined to be examined by Edgar on her interview, and let him gather that she had not had the best of it. Poor Alice! what were these little triumphs of a sharp tongue in comparison with the harm she did herself by exacerbating whoever tried to argue with her? There was one person she did profess to wish to see, namely, Geraldine; but the flying rheumatic pains, excited by the black east wind with sleet upon its blast, could not be trifled with; and Major Knevett's wrath put an effectual stop to Alice's entering the house during the Saturday and Sunday of his stay at Bexley. Perhaps Cherry was not sorry. She could not have pleaded against Edgar, in spite of her disapprobation of both; and moreover, the thought at the bottom of her heart was, 'How could any one who had been the object of such tones of the one brother's voice be won by the showy graces of the other? Edgar could easily have thrown off a disappointment; but Felix came first-and oh! can he shake it off in the same light way?'
She had not the comfort of talking it over. Felix made no sign, and Edgar's line was to treat the whole complication as a matter of pleasantry, pretending that he had only gone into it to please Felix! and yet, as came to their knowledge, privately exchanging billets and catch-words with Alice, while he openly declared his engagement and resolution to work his way up and lay his laurels at her feet.
He went away the very same morning as Major Knevett carried off his daughter to Jersey, audaciously following them to the station, where he exchanged a grasp of the hand with her in the very sight of the 'grey tyrant father,' who actu
ally gnashed his teeth, in his inability either to knock him down or give him in charge.
There was no time to breathe between the departure of this pair of lovers and the arrival of Alda's splendid Life Guardsman, who, horses and all, took up his abode at the Fortinbras Arms, and spent his days in felicity with Alda. A very demonstrative pair they were. To Geraldine, often unwillingly en tiers, they seemed to spend their time chiefly in sitting hand in hand, playing with one another's rings and dangles, of which each seemed to possess an inexhaustible variety. Ferdinand's dressing-case and its contents were exquisite in their way, and were something between an amusement and a horror to Wilmet, who could not understand Felix's regard for so extravagant and wasteful a person, who gave away sovereigns where half-crowns would have been more wholesome, half-crowns instead of shillings, shillings instead of pence, and who moreover was devoted to horse- flesh. His own favourite steed, Brown Murad, had been secured at a fabulous price; and the possession of him seemed to be the crowning triumph over a certain millionaire baronet in the same corps, evidently his rival. What was even more alarming was that every detail about races and horses in training was at his fingers' ends, so that he put Felix up to a good deal of knowledge useful to the racing articles in the Pursuivant; but he declared that he never betted. His was a perilous position, homeless and friendless as he stood; and this rendered him doubly grateful for the brotherly welcome he received. Yet the days would have been long to any but lovers, in spite of the rides and walks, one even to Minsterham to see Lance. Ferdinand liked to recur to the old remembrances of his convalescence; but in these Alda had no part, and they seemed to jar on her. She might sometimes seem half fretted by his impetuous southern love, but she could not bear a particle of his attention to be bestowed on aught save herself; and when Geraldine would have utilised his fine straight profile as an artistic study, the monopoly was so unpleasing that the portrait had to be dropped. The odd thing was that Alda should have a lover whose most congenial spirit was Clement. He was a great frequenter of St. Matthew's, and had no interest save in kindred subjects. Felix always found them alike difficult to converse with, from a want of any breadth of sympathy with subjects past or present, such as would have occupied him even without the exigencies of his profession. They seemed to talk, not church, but shop, as if they did not look beyond proximate ecclesiastical details, which they discussed in technical terms startling to the uninitiated; and yet Felix trusted that Clement's soul was a good deal deeper and wider than his tongue, and that Ferdinand's, if narrow, was thoroughly resolute, finding in his enthusiasm for these details a counterpoise for the temptations of his position.
His seemed to be a nature that would alternate between apathetic indolence and strong craving for excitement. He could go on for days with a patient, almost silent, round of mechanical occupations performed well, nigh in his sleep, and then, when once stirred up became possessed with a vehement restlessness, as if there were still a little about him of the panther of the wilderness.
At first he awaited his letter from his uncle much more philosophically than did Alda, but when it tarried still, he became so eager that he made two journeys to London to meet the mail, and pestered every one with calculations as to time and space.
The letter came, and was all that every one else had expected. Alfred Travis had always detested the family into which his nephew had been thrown by his accident, and the tidings that the heiress had been rejected for the sake of one of these designing girls could not be welcome. So he gave notice that nothing more could be expected from him if his nephew stooped thus low. This, however, did not much concern Ferdinand. He curled his black moustache, and quietly said his uncle would not find that game answer. The affairs of the brothers had always been mixed together, and Ferdinand had been content to leave the whole in his uncle's hands, only drawing for his own handsome allowance; but the foundation had been his mother's fortune, and he had only to claim his own share of the capital, and disentangle it from the rest, either to bring his uncle to terms at once, or to be able to dispense with his consent. The delay was vexatious, but it could be but brief; and in the meantime Bexley was felicity. Yes, in spite of the warning he received at the Rectory, which my Lady followed up by a remonstrance to Felix-over the counter, for in vain he tried to get her into the office. He could only tell her that he much regretted Edgar's conduct, but as to Alda, there was no disobedience, and the young man's character was high. He was just as impracticably courteous as his father and Lady Price shrugged her shoulders and hoped. 'For, Felix Underwood,' she said, 'I am convinced that after all you are a very well-meaning young man.'
This was her farewell, for Mr. Bevan had been more ailing than usual, and had obtained permission to leave his parish for a year, to be spent partly in the south of France, partly at the German baths.
Well was it for those who could get away! Never had the spring been sourer; Easter came so early as itself to seem untimely, and the Wednesday of its week was bleakness itself, as Lance and Robina stood on the top of the viaduct over the railway, looking over the parapet at the long perspective of rails and electric wires their faces screwed up, and reddened in unnatural places by the bitter blast. Felix had asked at breakfast if any one would be the bearer of a note to Marshlands; Lance had not very willingly volunteered, because no one else would; then Robina joined him, and they had proceeded through the town without a syllable from either of the usually lively tongues, till as they stood from force of habit watching for a train, the following colloquy took place, Robina being the first speaker.
'What is it?'
'What is what?'
'What is the matter?'
'What is the matter with what?'
'With it all?'
There came a laugh, but Robina returned to the charge. 'Well, but what is it? Is it east wind?'
'Something detestable-whatever it is,' grunted Lance.
'You've found it so too,' said Robina; for Lance had only come home after evening cathedral the day before.
'Haven't I, though!'
He said no more, being a boy of much reserve as to his private troubles; and Robina presently said,-
'I say, Lance, did Alda use to be nice, or is it love?'
'Never nice, like Wilmet or Cherry.'
'I am sure,' proceeded the girl, 'I thought love was the most beautiful and romantic thing-too nice to be talked about, for fear it should turn one's head, but here it seems to be really nothing but plague and bother and crossness.'
'Poor Bob!' said Lance, 'you got the worst of it up at Brompton.'
'I got it every way,' said Robina. 'There was Edgar treating me like a little contemptible baby, and Alice sometimes coaxing me and sometimes spiting me, and Angel poisoned against me; and when I thought I must be acting for the best in telling Felix, somehow that turned out altogether horrid.'
'I suppose a girl must be telling some one,' said Lance; 'and if it was to be done, Felix was the right one.'
'So I made sure,' said poor Robin; 'but Miss Fulmort and Miss Fennimore seemed to think it no better than if I had told you. They say I am forgiven, but I hate their forgiveness. I've done nothing wrong, and yet they don't like or trust me; and they seem to grudge me all my marks and prizes. "For proficiency, not for conduct," they say, in that hard cold voice. And then the girls nod and whisper. Angel and all, think me a nasty spiteful marplot. Alice set half of them against me before she went!'
'Poor Bob. And you can't have a good set to, and punch their heads all round! That's the way to have it out, and get comfortable and friendly.'
'For choir boys? O Lance!'
'Choir boys ain't girls, I thank my stars.'
'Well,' continued Robina, glad to pour out her troubles, even for such counsel as this, 'when I came home last week, I did think it would be made up.'
'Well,' said Lance, as Robin grew rather choky, and drew the back of a woolly glove across her eyes, not much to their benefit.
'Clem looks black, because he says h
is sisters were meant to raise the tone of the school.'
'Confound the tone of the school! I know what that is! But who cares for Tina?'
'Then Wilmet says I ought to have asked leave to write to her, and she could have managed it quietly, and kept everybody out of a scrape.'
'Whew-w-w-' whistled Lance; but at the melancholy tone, he absolutely took his red hand out of its comfortable nest in his pocket, to draw his sister's arm into his. It was well, for her voice was far more trembling now. 'I could bear it all if it were not for Felix himself. I know he is angry with me, but he won't talk, nor tell me how; he only said, "We both meant to act for the best; but it is a painful affair, and we had better not discuss it," and then he began to whistle to Theodore. If any one did know how I hate being told I meant to act for the best!'
The Pillars of the House, V1 Page 40
