CHAPTER V.
"She was a phantom of delight,
When first she gleamed upon my sight:
A lovely apparition sent
To be a moment's ornament."--WORDSWORTH.
MALTRAVERS did not see Lady Florence again for some weeks; meanwhile,
Lumley Ferrers made his /debut/ in parliament. Rigidly adhering to his
plan of acting on a deliberate system, and not prone to overrate
himself, Mr. Ferrers did not, like most promising new members, try the
hazardous ordeal of a great first speech. Though bold, fluent, and
ready, he was not eloquent; and he knew that on great occasions, when
great speeches are wanted, great guns like to have the fire to
themselves. Neither did he split upon the opposite rock of "promising
young men," who stick to "the business of the house" like leeches, and
quibble on details; in return for which labour they are generally voted
bores, who can never do anything remarkable. But he spoke frequently,
shortly, courageously, and with a strong dash of good-humoured
personality. He was the man whom a minister could get to say something
which other people did not like to say: and he did so with a frank
fearlessness that carried off any seeming violation of good taste. He
soon became a very popular speaker in the parliamentary clique;
especially with the gentlemen who crowd the bar, and never want to hear
the argument of the debate. Between him and Maltravers a visible
coldness now existed; for the latter looked upon his old friend (whose
principles of logic led him even to republicanism, and who had been
accustomed to accuse Ernest of temporising with plain truths, if he
demurred to their application to artificial states of society) as a
cold-blooded and hypocritical adventurer; while Ferrers, seeing that
Ernest could now be of no further use to him, was willing enough to drop
a profitless intimacy. Nay, he thought it would be wise to pick a
quarrel with him, if possible, as the best means of banishing a supposed
rival from the house of his noble relation, Lord Saxingham. But no
opportunity for that step presented itself; so Lumley kept a fit of
convenient rudeness, or an impromptu sarcasm, in reserve, if ever it
should be wanted.
The season and the session were alike drawing to a close, when
Maltravers received a pressing invitation from Cleveland to spend a week
at his villa, which he assured Ernest would be full of agreeable people;
and as all business productive of debate or division was over,
Maltravers was glad to obtain fresh air, and a change of scene.
Accordingly, he sent down his luggage and favourite books, and one
afternoon in early August rode alone towards Temple Grove. He was much
dissatisfied, perhaps disappointed, with his experience of public life;
and with his high-wrought and over-refining views of the deficiencies of
others more prominent, he was in a humour to mingle also censure of
himself, for having yielded too much to the doubts and scruples that
often, in the early part of their career, beset the honest and sincere,
in the turbulent whirl of politics, and ever tend to make the robust
hues that should belong to action
"Sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought."
His mind was working its way slowly towards those conclusions, which
sometimes ripen the best practical men out of the most exalted
theorists, and perhaps he saw before him the pleasing prospect
flatteringly exhibited to another, when he complained of being too
honest for party, viz., "of becoming a very pretty rascal in time!"
For several weeks he had not heard from his unknown correspondent, and
the time was come when he missed those letters, now continued for more
than two years; and which, in their eloquent mixture of complaint,
exhortation, despondent gloom and declamatory enthusiasm, had often
soothed him in dejection, and made him more sensible of triumph. While
revolving in his mind thoughts connected with these subjects--and,
somehow or other, with his more ambitious reveries were always mingled
musings of curiosity respecting his correspondent--he was struck by the
beauty of a little girl, of about eleven years old, who was walking with
a female attendant on the footpath that skirted the road. I said that
he was struck by her beauty, but that is a wrong expression; it was
rather the charm of her countenance than the perfection of her features
which arrested the gaze of Maltravers--a charm that might not have
existed for others, but was inexpressibly attractive to him, and was so
much apart from the vulgar fascination of mere beauty, that it would
have equally touched a chord at his heart, if coupled with homely
features or a bloomless cheek. This charm was in a wonderful innocent
and dove-like softness of expression. We all form to ourselves some
/beau-ideal/ of the "fair spirit" we desire as our earthly "minister,"
and somewhat capriciously gauge and proportion our admiration of living
shapes according as the /beau-ideal/ is more or less embodied or
approached. Beauty, of a stamp that is not familiar to the dreams of
our fancy, may win the cold homage of our judgment, while a look, a
feature, a something that realises and calls up a boyish vision, and
assimilates even distantly to the picture we wear within us, has a
loveliness peculiar to our eyes, and kindles an emotion that almost
seems to belong to memory. It is this which the Platonists felt when
they wildly supposed that souls attracted to each other on earth had
been united in an earlier being and a diviner sphere; and there was in
the young face on which Ernest gazed precisely this ineffable harmony
with his preconceived notions of the beautiful. Many a nightly and
noonday reverie was realised in those mild yet smiling eyes of the
darkest blue; in that ingenuous breadth of brow, with its
slightly-pencilled arches, and the nose, not cut in that sharp and clear
symmetry which looks so lovely in marble, but usually gives to flesh and
blood a decided and hard character, that better becomes the sterner than
the gentler sex--no; not moulded in the pure Grecian, nor in the pure
Roman, cast; but small, delicate, with the least possible inclination to
turn upward, that was only to be detected in one position of the head,
and served to give a prettier archness to the sweet flexile lips, which,
from the gentleness of their repose, seemed to smile unconsciously, but
rather from a happy constitutional serenity than from the giddiness of
mirth. Such was the character of this fair child's countenance, on
which Maltravers turned and gazed involuntarily and reverently, with
something of the admiring delight with which we look upon the Virgin of
a Rafaele, or the sunset landscape of a Claude. The girl did not appear
to feel any premature coquetry at the evident, though respectful
admiration she excited. She met the eyes bent upon her, brilliant and
eloquent as they were, with a fearless and unsuspecting gaze, and
pointed out to her companion, with all a child's quick and unrestrained
impulse, the shining and raven gloss, the arched and haughty neck, of
Ernest's beautiful Arabian.
Now there happened between Maltravers and the young object of his
admiration a little adventure, which served, perhaps, to fix in her
recollection this short encounter with a stranger; for certain it is
that, years after, she did remember both the circumstances of the
adventure and the features of Maltravers. She wore one of those large
straw-hats which look so pretty upon children, and the warmth of the day
made her untie the strings which confined it. A gentle breeze arose, as
by a turn in the road the country became more open, and suddenly wafted
the hat from its proper post, almost to the hoofs of Ernest's horse.
The child naturally made a spring forward to arrest the deserter, and
her foot slipped down the bank, which was rather steeply raised above
the road. She uttered a low cry of pain. To dismount--to regain the
prize--and to restore it to its owner, was, with Ernest, the work of a
moment; the poor girl had twisted her ankle and was leaning upon her
servant for support. But when she saw the anxiety, and almost the
alarm, upon the stranger's face (and her exclamation of pain had
literally thrilled his heart--so much and so unaccountably had she
excited his interest), she made an effort at self-control, not common at
her years, and, with a forced smile, assured him she was not much
hurt--that it was nothing--that she was just at home.
"Oh, miss!" said the servant, "I am sure you are very bad. Dear heart,
how angry master will be! It was not my fault; was it, sir?"
"Oh, no, it was not your fault, Margaret; don't be frightened--papa
sha'n't blame you. But I'm much better now." So saying, she tried to
walk; but the effort was in vain--she turned yet more pale, and though
she struggled to prevent a shriek, the tears rolled down her cheeks.
It was very odd, but Maltravers had never felt more touched--the tears
stood in his own eyes; he longed to carry her in his arms, but, child as
she was, a strange kind of nervous timidity forbade him. Margaret,
perhaps, expected it of him, for she looked hard in his face, before she
attempted a burthen to which, being a small, slight person, she was by
no means equal. However, after a pause, she took up her charge, who,
ashamed of her tears, and almost overcome with pain, nestled her head in
the woman's bosom, and Maltravers walked by her side, while his docile
and well-trained horse followed at a distance, every now and then
putting its fore-legs on the bank and cropping away a mouthful of leaves
from the hedge-row.
"Oh, Margaret!" said the little sufferer, "I cannot bear it--indeed I
cannot."
And Maltravers observed that Margaret had permitted the lame foot to
hang down unsupported, so that the pain must indeed have been scarcely
bearable. He could restrain himself no longer.
"You are not strong enough to carry her," said he, sharply, to the
servant; and the next moment the child was in his arms. Oh, with what
anxious tenderness he bore her! and he was so happy when she turned her
face to him and smiled, and told him she now scarcely felt the pain. If
it were possible to be in love with a child of eleven years old,
Maltravers was almost in love. His pulses trembled as he felt her pure
breath on his cheek, and her rich beautiful hair was waved by the breeze
across his lips. He hushed his voice to a whisper as he poured forth
all the soothing and comforting expressions which give a natural
eloquence to persons fond of children--and Ernest Maltravers was the
idol of children;--he understood and sympathised with them; he had a
great deal of the child himself, beneath the rough and cold husk of his
proud reserve. At length they came to a lodge, and Margaret eagerly
inquiring "whether master and missus were at home," seemed delighted to
hear they were not. Ernest, however, insisted on bearing his charge
across the lawn to the house, which, like most suburban villas, was but
a stone's throw from the lodge; and, receiving the most positive promise
that surgical advice should be immediately sent for, he was forced to
content himself with laying the sufferer on a sofa in the drawing-room;
and she thanked him so prettily, and assured him she was so much easier,
that he would have given the world to kiss her. The child had completed
her conquest over him by being above the child's ordinary littleness of
making the worst of things, in order to obtain the consequence and
dignity of being pitied;--she was evidently unselfish and considerate
for others. He did kiss her, but it was the hand that he kissed, and no
cavalier ever kissed his lady's hand with more respect; and then, for
the first time, the child blushed--then, for the first time, she felt as
if the day would come when she should be a child no longer! Why was
this?--perhaps because it is an era in life--the first sign of a
tenderness that inspires respect, not familiarity!
"If ever again I could be in love," said Maltravers, as he spurred on
his road, "I really think it would be with that exquisite child. My
feeling is more like that of love at first sight than any emotion which
beauty ever caused in me. Alice--Valerie--no; the /first/ sight of them
did not:--but what folly is this--a child of eleven--and I verging upon
thirty!"
Still, however, folly as it might be, the image of that young girl
haunted Maltravers for many days; till change of scene, the distractions
of society, the grave thoughts of manhood, and, above all, a series of
exciting circumstances about to be narrated, gradually obliterated a
strange and most delightful impression. He had learned, however, that
Mr. Templeton was the proprietor of the villa, which was the child's
home. He wrote to Ferrers to narrate the incident, and to inquire after
the sufferer. In due time he heard from that gentleman that the child
was recovered, and gone with Mr. and Mrs. Templeton to Brighton, for
change of air and sea-bathing.
