It was the month of July. The Solent ran up green waves before a full-blowing South-wester. Gay little yachts bounded out like foam, and flashed their sails, light as sea-nymphs. A crown of deep Summer blue topped the flying mountains of cloud.
By an open window that looked on the brine through nodding roses, our young bridal pair were at breakfast, regaling worthily, both of them. Had the Scientific Humanist observed them, he could not have contested the fact, that as a couple who had set up to be father and mother of Britons, they were doing their duty. Files of egg-cups with disintegrated shells bore witness to it, and they were still at work, hardly talking from rapidity of exercise. Both were dressed for an expedition. She had her bonnet on, and he his yachting-hat. His sleeves were turned over at the wrists, and her gown showed its lining on her lap. At times a chance word might spring a laugh, but eating was the business of the hour, as I would have you to know it always will be where Cupid is in earnest. Tribute flowed in to them from the subject land. Neglected lies Love’s penny-whistle on which they played so prettily and charmed the spheres to hear them. What do they care for the spheres, who have one another? Come, eggs! come, bread and butter! come, tea with sugar in it and milk! and welcome, the jolly hours. That is a fair interpretation of the music in them just now. Yonder instrument was good only for the overture. After all, what finer aspiration can lovers have, than to be free man and woman in the heart of plenty? And is it not a glorious level to have attained? Ah, wretched Scientific Humanist! not to be by and mark the admirable sight of these young creatures feeding. It would have been a spell to exorcise the Manichee, methinks.
The mighty performance came to an end, and then, with a flourish of his table-napkin, husband stood over wife, who met him on the confident budding of her mouth. The poetry of mortals is their daily prose. Is it not a glorious level to have attained? A short, quick-blooded kiss, radiant, fresh, and honest as Aurora, and then Richard says without lack of cheer, “No letter today, my Lucy!” whereat her sweet eyes dwell on him a little seriously, but he cries, “Never mind! he’ll be coming down himself some morning. He has only to know her, and all’s well! eh?” and so saying he puts a hand beneath her chin, and seems to frame her fair face in fancy, she smiling up to be looked at.
“But one thing I do want to ask my darling,” says Lucy, and dropped into his bosom with hands of petition. “Take me on board his yacht with him today — not leave me with those people! Will he? I’m a good sailor, he knows!”
“The best afloat!” laughs Richard, hugging her, “but, you know, you darling bit of a sailor, they don’t allow more than a certain number on board for the race, and if they hear you’ve been with me, there’ll be cries of foul play! Besides, there’s Lady Judith to talk to you about Austin, and Lord Mountfalcon’s compliments for you to listen to, and Mr. Morton to take care of you.”
Lucy’s eyes fixed sideways an instant.
“I hope I don’t frown and blush as I did?” she said, screwing her pliable brows up to him winningly, and he bent his cheek against hers, and murmured something delicious.
“And we shall be separated for — how many hours? one, two, three hours!” she pouted to his flatteries.
“And then I shall come on board to receive my bride’s congratulations.”
“And then my husband will talk all the time to Lady Judith.”
“And then I shall see my wife frowning and blushing at Lord Mountfalcon.”
“Am I so foolish, Richard?” she forgot her trifling to ask in an earnest way, and had another Aurorean kiss, just brushing the dew on her lips, for answer.
After hiding a month in shyest shade, the pair of happy sinners had wandered forth one day to look on men and marvel at them, and had chanced to meet Mr. Morton of Poer Hall, Austin Wentworth’s friend, and Ralph’s uncle. Mr. Morton had once been intimate with the baronet, but had given him up for many years as impracticable and hopeless, for which reason he was the more inclined to regard Richard’s misdemeanour charitably, and to lay the faults of the son on the father; and thinking society to be the one thing requisite to the young man, he had introduced him to the people he knew in the island; among others to the Lady Judith Felle, a fair young dame, who introduced him to Lord Mountfalcon, a puissant nobleman; who introduced him to the yachtsmen beginning to congregate; so that in a few weeks he found himself in the centre of a brilliant company, and for the first time in his life tasted what it was to have free intercourse with his fellow-creatures of both sexes. The son of a System was, therefore, launched; not only through the surf, but in deep waters.
Now the baronet had so far compromised between the recurrence of his softer feelings and the suggestions of his new familiar, that he had determined to act toward Richard with justness. The world called it magnanimity, and even Lady Blandish had some thoughts of the same kind when she heard that he had decreed to Richard a handsome allowance, and had scouted Mrs. Doria’s proposal for him to contest the legality of the marriage; but Sir Austin knew well he was simply just in not withholding money from a youth so situated. And here again the world deceived him by embellishing his conduct. For what is it to be just to whom we love! He knew it was not magnanimous, but the cry of the world somehow fortified him in the conceit that in dealing perfect justice to his son he was doing all that was possible, because so much more than common fathers would have done. He had shut his heart.
Consequently Richard did not want money. What he wanted more, and did not get, was a word from his father, and though he said nothing to sadden his young bride, she felt how much it preyed upon him to be at variance with the man whom, now that he had offended him and gone against him, he would have fallen on his knees to; the man who was as no other man to him. She heard him of nights when she lay by his side, and the darkness, and the broken mutterings, of those nights clothed the figure of the strange stern man in her mind. Not that it affected the appetites of the pretty pair. We must not expect that of Cupid enthroned and in condition; under the influence of sea-air, too. The files of egg-cups laugh at such an idea. Still the worm did gnaw them. Judge, then, of their delight when, on this pleasant morning, as they were issuing from the garden of their cottage to go down to the sea, they caught sight of Tom Bakewell rushing up the road with a portmanteau on his shoulders, and, some distance behind him, discerned Adrian.
“It’s all right!” shouted Richard, and ran off to meet him, and never left his hand till he had hauled him up, firing questions at him all the way, to where Lucy stood.
“Lucy! this is Adrian, my cousin.”—“Isn’t he an angel?” his eyes seemed to add; while Lucy’s clearly answered, “That he is!”
The full-bodied angel ceremoniously bowed to her, and acted with reserved unction the benefactor he saw in their greetings. “I think we are not strangers,” he was good enough to remark, and very quickly let them know he had not breakfasted; on hearing which they hurried him into the house, and Lucy put herself in motion to have him served.
“Dear old Rady,” said Richard, tugging at his hand again, “how glad I am you’ve come! I don’t mind telling you we’ve been horridly wretched.”
“Six, seven, eight, nine eggs,” was Adrian’s comment on a survey of the breakfast-table.
“Why wouldn’t he write? Why didn’t he answer one of my letters? But here you are, so I don’t mind now. He wants to see us, does he? We’ll go up to-night. I’ve a match on at eleven; my little yacht — I’ve called her the ‘Blandish’— against Fred Currie’s ‘Begum.’ I shall beat, but whether I do or not, we’ll go up to-night. What’s the news? What are they all doing?”
“My dear boy!” Adrian returned, sitting comfortably down, “let me put myself a little more on an equal footing with you before I undertake to reply. Half that number of eggs will be sufficient for an unmarried man, and then we’ll talk. They’re all very well, as well as I can recollect after the shaking my total vacuity has had this morning. I came over by the first boat, and the sea, the sea has made me love mother earth, and desire of her fruits.”
Richard fretted restlessly opposite his cool relative.
“Adrian! what did he say when he heard of it? I want to know exactly what words he said.”
“Well says the sage, my son! ‘Speech is the small change of Silence.’ He said less than I do.”
“That’s how he took it!” cried Richard, and plunged in meditation.
Soon the table was cleared, and laid out afresh, and Lucy preceded the maid bearing eggs on the tray, and sat down unbonneted, and like a thorough-bred housewife, to pour out the tea for him.
“Now, we’ll commence,” said Adrian, tapping his egg with meditative cheerfulness; but his expression soon changed to one of pain, all the more alarming for his benevolent efforts to conceal it. Could it be possible the egg was bad? oh, horror! Lucy watched him, and waited in trepidation.
“This egg has boiled three minutes and three-quarters,” he observed, ceasing to contemplate it.
“Dear, dear!” said Lucy, “I boiled them myself exactly that time. Richard likes them so. And you like them hard, Mr. Harley?”
“On the contrary, I like them soft. Two minutes and a half, or three-quarters at the outside. An egg should never rashly verge upon hardness — never. Three minutes is the excess of temerity.”
“If Richard had told me! If I had only known!” the lovely little hostess interjected ruefully, biting her lip.
“We mustn’t expect him to pay attention to such matters,” said Adrian, trying to smile.
“Hang it! there are more eggs in the house,” cried Richard, and pulled savagely at the bell.
Lucy jumped up, saying, “Oh, yes! I will go and boil some exactly the time you like. Pray let me go, Mr. Harley.”
Adrian restrained her departure with a motion of his hand. “No,” he said, “I will be ruled by Richard’s tastes, and heaven grant me his digestion!”
Lucy threw a sad look at Richard, who stretched on a sofa, and left the burden of the entertainment entirely to her. The eggs were a melancholy beginning, but her ardour to please Adrian would not be damped, and she deeply admired his resignation. If she failed in pleasing this glorious herald of peace, no matter by what small misadventure, she apprehended calamity; so there sat this fair dove with brows at work above her serious smiling blue eyes, covertly studying every aspect of the plump-faced epicure, that she might learn to propitiate him. “He shall not think me timid and stupid,” thought this brave girl, and indeed Adrian was astonished to find that she could both chat and be useful, as well as look ornamental. When he had finished one egg, behold, two fresh ones came in, boiled according to his prescription. She had quietly given her orders to the maid, and he had them without fuss. Possibly his look of dismay at the offending eggs had not been altogether involuntary, and her woman’s instinct, inexperienced as she was, may have told her that he had come prepared to be not very well satisfied with anything in Love’s cottage. There was mental faculty in those pliable brows to see through, and combat, an unwitting wise youth.
How much she had achieved already she partly divined when Adrian said: “I think now I’m in case to answer your questions, my dear boy — thanks to Mrs. Richard,” and he bowed to her his first direct acknowledgment of her position. Lucy thrilled with pleasure.
“Ah!” cried Richard, and settled easily on his back.
“To begin, the Pilgrim has lost his Note-book, and has been persuaded to offer a reward which shall maintain the happy finder thereof in an asylum for life. Benson — superlative Benson — has turned his shoulders upon Raynham. None know whither he has departed. It is believed that the sole surviving member of the sect of the Shaddock–Dogmatists is under a total eclipse of Woman.”
“Benson gone?” Richard exclaimed. “What a tremendous time it seems since I left Raynham!”
“So it is, my dear boy. The honeymoon is Mahomet’s minute; or say, the Persian King’s water-pail that you read of in the story: You dip your head in it, and when you draw it out, you discover that you have lived a life. To resume: your uncle Algernon still roams in pursuit of the lost one — I should say, hops. Your uncle Hippias has a new and most perplexing symptom: a determination of bride-cake to the nose. Ever since your generous present to him, though he declares he never consumed a morsel of it, he has been under the distressing illusion that his nose is enormous, and I assure you he exhibits quite a maidenly timidity in following it — through a doorway, for instance. He complains of its terrible weight. I have conceived that Benson invisible might be sitting on it. His hand, and the doctor’s, are in hourly consultation with it, but I fear it will not grow smaller. The Pilgrim has begotten upon it a new Aphorism: that Size is a matter of opinion.”
“Poor uncle Hippy!” said Richard, “I wonder he doesn’t believe in magic. There’s nothing supernatural to rival the wonderful sensations he does believe in. Good God! fancy coming to that!”
“I’m sure I’m very sorry,” Lucy protested, “but I can’t help laughing.”
Charming to the wise youth her pretty laughter sounded.
“The Pilgrim has your notion, Richard. Whom does he not forestall? ‘Confirmed dyspepsia is the apparatus of illusions,’ and he accuses the Ages that put faith in sorcery, of universal indigestion, which may have been the case, owing to their infamous cookery. He says again, if you remember, that our own Age is travelling back to darkness and ignorance through dyspepsia. He lays the seat of wisdom in the centre of our system, Mrs. Richard: for which reason you will understand how sensible I am of the vast obligation I am under to you at the present moment, for your especial care of mine.”
Richard looked on at Lucy’s little triumph, attributing Adrian’s subjugation to her beauty and sweetness. She had latterly received a great many compliments on that score, which she did not care to hear, and Adrian’s homage to a practical quality was far pleasanter to the young wife, who shrewdly guessed that her beauty would not help her much in the struggle she had now to maintain. Adrian continuing to lecture on the excelling virtues of wise cookery, a thought struck her: Where, where had she tossed Mrs. Berry’s book?
“So that’s all about the home-people?” said Richard.
“All!” replied Adrian. “Or stay: you know Clare’s going to be married? Not? Your Aunt Helen”——
“Oh, bother my Aunt Helen! What do you think she had the impertinence to write — but never mind! Is it to Ralph?”
“Your Aunt Helen, I was going to say, my dear boy, is an extraordinary woman. It was from her originally that the Pilgrim first learnt to call the female the practical animal. He studies us all, you know. THE PILGRIM’S SCRIP is the abstract portraiture of his surrounding relatives. Well, your Aunt Helen”——
“Mrs. Doria Battledoria!” laughed Richard.
“—— being foiled in a little pet scheme of her own — call it a System if you like — of some ten or fifteen years’ standing, with regard to Miss Clare!”——
“The fair Shuttlecockiana!”
“—— instead of fretting like a man, and questioning Providence, and turning herself and everybody else inside out, and seeing the world upside down, what does the practical animal do? She wanted to marry her to somebody she couldn’t marry her to, so she resolved instantly to marry her to somebody she could marry her to: and as old gentlemen enter into these transactions with the practical animal the most readily, she fixed upon an old gentleman; an unmarried old gentleman, a rich old gentleman, and now a captive old gentleman. The ceremony takes place in about a week from the present time. No doubt you will receive your invitation in a day or two.”
“And that cold, icy, wretched Clare has consented to marry an old man!” groaned Richard. “I’ll put a stop to that when I go to town.”
Richard got up and strode about the room. Then he bethought him it was time to go on board and make preparations.
“I’m off,” he said. “Adrian, you’ll take her. She goes in the Empress, Mountfalcon’s vessel. He starts us. A little schooner-yacht — such a beauty! I’ll have one like her some day. Good-bye, darling!” he whispered to Lucy, and his hand and eyes lingered on her, and hers on him, seeking to make up for the priceless kiss they were debarred from. But she quickly looked away from him as he held her:— Adrian stood silent: his brows were up, and his mouth dubiously contracted. He spoke at last.
“Go on the water?”
“Yes. It’s only to St. Helen’s. Short and sharp.”
“Do you grudge me the nourishment my poor system has just received, my son?”
“Oh, bother your system! Put on your hat, and come along. I’ll put you on board in my boat.”
“Richard! I have already paid the penalty of them who are condemned to come to an island. I will go with you to the edge of the sea, and I will meet you there when you return, and take up the Tale of the Tritons: but, though I forfeit the pleasure of Mrs. Richard’s company, I refuse to quit the land.”
“Yes, oh, Mr. Harley!” Lucy broke from her husband, “and I will stay with you, if you please. I don’t want to go among those people, and we can see it all from the shore. Dearest! I don’t want to go. You don’t mind? Of course, I will go if you wish, but I would so much rather stay;” and she lengthened her plea in her attitude and look to melt the discontent she saw gathering.
Adrian protested that she had much better go; that he could amuse himself very well till their return, and so forth; but she had schemes in her pretty head, and held to it to be allowed to stay in spite of Lord Mountfalcon’s disappointment, cited by Richard, and at the great risk of vexing her darling, as she saw. Richard pished, and glanced contemptuously at Adrian. He gave way ungraciously.
“There, do as you like. Get your things ready to leave this evening. No, I’m not angry.”— Who could be? he seemed as he looked up from her modest fondling to ask Adrian, and seized the indemnity of a kiss on her forehead, which, however, did not immediately disperse the shade of annoyance he felt.
“Good heavens!” he exclaimed. “Such a day as this, and a fellow refuses to come on the water! Well, come along to the edge of the sea.” Adrian’s angelic quality had quite worn off to him. He never thought of devoting himself to make the most of the material there was: but somebody else did, and that fair somebody succeeded wonderfully in a few short hours. She induced Adrian to reflect that the baronet had only to see her, and the family muddle would be smoothed at once. He came to it by degrees; still the gradations were rapid. Her manner he liked; she was certainly a nice picture: best of all, she was sensible. He forgot the farmer’s niece in her, she was so very sensible. She appeared really to understand that it was a woman’s duty to know how to cook.
But the difficulty was, by what means the baronet could be brought to consent to see her. He had not yet consented to see his son, and Adrian, spurred by Lady Blandish, had ventured something in coming down. He was not inclined to venture more. The small debate in his mind ended by his throwing the burden on time. Time would bring the matter about. Christians as well as Pagans are in the habit of phrasing this excuse for folding their arms; “forgetful,” says THE PILGRIM’S SCRIP, “that the devil’s imps enter into no such armistice.”
As she loitered along the shore with her amusing companion, Lucy had many things to think of. There was her darling’s match. The yachts were started by pistol-shot by Lord Mountfalcon on board the Empress, and her little heart beat after Richard’s straining sails. Then there was the strangeness of walking with a relative of Richard’s, one who had lived by his side so long. And the thought that perhaps this night she would have to appear before the dreaded father of her husband.
“O Mr. Harley!” she said, “is it true — are we to go to-night? And me,” she faltered, “will he see me?”
“Ah! that is what I wanted to talk to you about,” said Adrian. “I made some reply to our dear boy which he has slightly misinterpreted. Our second person plural is liable to misconstruction by an ardent mind. I said ‘see you,’ and he supposed — now, Mrs. Richard, I am sure you will understand me. Just at present perhaps it would be advisable — when the father and son have settled their accounts, the daughter-inlaw can’t be a debtor.” . . .
Lucy threw up her blue eyes. A half-cowardly delight at the chance of a respite from the awful interview made her quickly apprehensive.
“O Mr. Harley! you think he should go alone first?”
“Well, that is my notion. But the fact is, he is such an excellent husband that I fancy it will require more than a man’s power of persuasion to get him to go.”
“But I will persuade him, Mr. Harley.”
“Perhaps, if you would. . . . ”
“There is nothing I would not do for his happiness,” murmured Lucy.
The wise youth pressed her hand with lymphatic approbation. They walked on till the yachts had rounded the point.
“Is it to-night, Mr. Harley?” she asked with some trouble in her voice now that her darling was out of sight.
“I don’t ............