CHAPTER III.
Once more Guy Darrell.
Guy Darrell was alone: a lofty room in a large house on the first floor,
--his own house in Carlton Gardens, which he had occupied during his
brief and brilliant parliamentary career; since then, left contemptuously
to the care of a house agent, to be let by year or by season, it had
known various tenants of an opulence and station suitable to its space
and site. Dinners and concerts, routs and balls, had assembled the
friends and jaded the spirits of many a gracious host and smiling
hostess. The tenure of one of these temporary occupants had recently
expired; and, ere the agent had found another, the long absent owner
dropped down into its silenced halls as from the clouds, without other
establishment than his old servant Mills and the woman in charge of the
house. There, as in a caravansery, the traveller took his rest, stately
and desolate. Nothing so comfortless as one of those large London houses
all to one's self. In long rows against the walls stood the empty
fauteuils. Spectral from the gilded ceiling hung lightless chandeliers.
--The furniture, pompous, but worn by use and faded by time, seemed
mementos of departed revels. When you return to your house in the
country--no matter how long the absence, no matter how decayed by neglect
the friendly chambers may be, if it has only been deserted in the
meanwhile (not let to new races, who, by their own shifting dynasties,
have supplanted the rightful lord, and half-effaced his memorials)--the
walls may still greet you forgivingly, the character of Home be still
there. You take up again the thread of associations which had, been
suspended, not snapped. But it is otherwise with a house in cities,
especially in our fast-living London, where few houses descend from
father to son,--where the title-deeds are rarely more than those of a
purchased lease for a term of years, after which your property quits you.
A house in London, which your father never entered, in which no elbow-
chair, no old-fashioned work-table, recall to you the kind smile of a
mother; a house that you have left as you leave an inn, let to people
whose names you scarce know, with as little respect for your family
records as you have for theirs,--when you return after a long interval
of years to a house like that, you stand, as stood Darrell, a forlorn
stranger under your own roof-tree. What cared he for those who had last
gathered round those hearths with their chill steely grates, whose forms
had reclined on those formal couches, whose feet had worn away the gloss
from those costly carpets? Histories in the lives of many might be
recorded within those walls. "Lovers there had breathed their first
vows; bridal feasts had been held; babes had crowed in the arms of proud
young mothers; politicians there had been raised into ministers;
ministers there had fallen back into independent members;" through those
doors corpses had been borne forth to relentless vaults. For these races
and their records what cared the owner? Their writing was not on the
walls. Sponged out, as from a slate, their reckonings with Time; leaving
dim, here and there, some chance scratch of his own, blurred and bygone.
Leaning against the mantelpiece, Darrell gazed round the room with a
vague wistful look, as if seeking to conjure up associations that might
link the present hour to that past life which had slipped away elsewhere;
and his profile, reflected on the mirror behind, pale and mournful,
seemed like that ghost of himself which his memory silently evoked.
The man is but little altered externally since we saw him last, however
inly changed since he last stood on those unwelcoming floors; the form
still retained the same vigour and symmetry,--the same unspeakable
dignity of mien and bearing; the same thoughtful bend of the proud neck,
--so distinct, in its elastic rebound, from the stoop of debility or age.
'thick as ever the rich mass of dark-brown hair, though, when in the
impatience of some painful thought his hand swept the loose curls from
his forehead, the silver threads might now be seen shooting here and
there,--vanishing almost as soon as seen. No, whatever the baptismal
register may say to the contrary, that man is not old,--not even elderly;
in the deep of that clear gray eye light may be calm, but in calm it is
vivid; not a ray, sent from brain or from heart, is yet flickering down.
On the whole, however, there is less composure than of old in his mien
and bearing; less of that resignation which seemed to say, "I have done
with the substances of life." Still there was gloom, but it was more
broken and restless. Evidently that human breast was again admitting,
or forcing itself to court, human hopes, human objects. Returning to the
substances of life, their movement was seen in the shadows which, when
they wrap us round at remoter distance, seem to lose their trouble as
they gain their width. He broke from his musing attitude with an abrupt
angry movement, as if shaking off thoughts which displeased him, and
gathering his arms tightly to his breast, in a gesture peculiar to
himself, walked to and fro the room, murmuring inaudibly. The door
opened; he turned quickly, and with an evident sense of relief, for his
face brightened. "Alban, my dear Alban!"
"Darrell! old friend! old school-friend! dear, dear Guy Darrell!" The two
Englishmen stood, hands tightly clasped in each other, in true English
greeting, their eyes moistening with remembrances that carried them back
to boyhood.
Alban was the first to recover self-possession; and, when the friends had
seated themselves, he surveyed Darrell's countenance deliberately, and
said, "So little change!--wonderful! What is your secret?"
"Suspense from life,--hibernating. But you beat me; you have been
spending life, yet seem as rich in it as when we parted."
"No; I begin to decry the present and laud the past; to read with
glasses, to decide from prejudice, to recoil from change, to find sense
in twaddle, to know the value of health from the fear to lose it; to feel
an interest in rheumatism, an awe of bronchitis; to tell anecdotes, and
to wear flannel. To you in strict confidence I disclose the truth: I am
no longer twenty-five. You laugh; this is civilized talk: does it not
refresh you after the gibberish you must have chattered in Asia Minor?"
Darrell might have answered in the affirmative with truth. What man,
after long years of solitude, is not refreshed by talk, however trivial,
that recalls to him the gay time of the world he remembered in his young
day,--and recalls it to him on the lips of a friend in youth! But
Darrell said nothing; only he settled himself in his chair with a more
cheerful ease, and inclined his relaxing brows with a nod of
encouragement or assent.
Colonel Morley continued. "But when did you arrive? whence? How long do
you stay here? What are your plans?"
DARRELL.--"Caesar could not be more laconic. When arrived? this evening.
Whence? Ouzelford. How long do I stay? uncertain. What are my plans?
let us discuss them."
COLONEL MORLEY.--"With all my heart. You have plans, then?--a good sign.
Animals in hibernation form none."
DARRELL (putting aside the lights on the table, so as to leave, his face
in shade, and looking towards the floor as he speaks).--"For the last
five years I have struggled hard to renew interest in mankind, reconnect
myself with common life and its healthful objects. Between Fawley and
London I desired to form a magnetic medium. I took rather a vast one,
--nearly all the rest of the known world. I have visited both Americas,
either end. All Asia have I ransacked, and pierced as far into Africa as
traveller ever went in search of Timbuctoo. But I have sojourned also,
at long intervals, at least they seemed long to me,--in the gay capitals
of Europe (Paris excepted); mixed, too, with the gayest; hired palaces,
filled them with guests; feasted and heard music. 'Guy Darrell,' said I,
'shake off the rust of years: thou hadst no youth while young,--be young
now. A holiday may restore thee to wholesome work, as a holiday restores
the wearied school-boy.'"
COLONEL MORLEY.--"I comprehend; the experiment succeeded?"
DARRELL.--"I don't know: not yet; but it may. I am here, and I intend to
stay. I would not go to a hotel for a single day, lest my resolution
should fail me. I have thrown myself into this castle of care without
even a garrison. I hope to hold it. Help me to man it. In a word, and
without metaphor, I am here with the design of re-entering London life."
COLONEL MORLEY.--"I am so glad. Hearty congratulations! How rejoiced
all the Viponts will be! Another 'CRISIS' is at hand. You have seen the
newspapers regularly, of course: the state of the country interests you.
You say that you come from Ouzelford, the town you once represented. I
guess you will re-enter Parliament; you have but to say the word."
DARRELL.--"Parliament! No. I received, while abroad, so earnest a
request from my old constituents to lay the foundation-stone of a new
Town-Hall, in which they are much interested; and my obligations to them
have been so great that I could not refuse. I wrote to fix the day as
soon as I had resolved to return to England, making a condition that I
should be spared the infliction of a public dinner, and landed just in
time to keep my appointment; reached Ouzelford early this morning, went
through the ceremony, made a short speech, came on at once to London, not
venturing to diverge to Fawley (which is not very far from Ouzelford),
lest, once there again, I should not have strength to leave it; and here
I am." Darrell paused, then repeated, in brisk emphatic tone,
"Parliament? No. Labour? No. Fellow-man, I am about to confess to
you: I would snatch back some days of youth,--a wintry likeness of youth,
better than none. Old friend, let us amuse ourselves! When I was
working hard, hard, hard! it was you who would say: 'Come forth, be
amused,'--you! happy butterfly that you were! Now, I say to you, 'Show
me this flaunting town that you know so well; initiate me into the joys
of polite pleasures, social commune,
"'Dulce mihi furere est amico."
You have amusements,--let me share them.'"
"Faith," quoth the Colonel, crossing his legs, "you come late in the day!
Amusements cease to amuse at last. I have tried all, and begin to be
tired. I have had my holiday, exhausted its sports; and you, coming from
books and desk fresh into the playground, say, 'Football and leapfrog.'
Alas! my poor friend, why did not you come sooner?"
DARRELL.--"One word, one question. You have made EASE a philosophy and a
system; no man ever did so with more felicitous grace: nor, in following
pleasure, have you parted company with conscience and shame. A fine
gentleman ever, in honour as in elegance. Well, are you satisfied with
your choice of life? Are you happy?"
"Happy! who is? Satisfied, perhaps."
"Is there any one you envy,--whose choice, other than your own, you would
prefer?"
"Certainly."
"Who?"
"You."
"I!" said Darrell, opening his eyes with unaffected amaze. "I! envy me!
prefer my choice!"
COLONEL MORLEY (peevishly).--"Without doubt. You have had gratified
ambition, a great career. Envy you! who would not? Your own objects in
life fulfilled: you coveted distinction,--you won it; fortune,--your
wealth is immense; the restoration of your name and lineage from
obscurity and humiliation,--are not name and lineage again written in the
/Libro d'oro/? What king would not hail you as his counsellor?
What senate not open its ranks to admit you as a chief? What house,
though the haughtiest in the land, would not accept your alliance? And
withal, you stand before me stalwart and unbowed, young blood still in
your veins. Ungrateful man, who would not change lots with Guy Darrell?
Fame, fortune, health, and, not to flatter you, a form and presence that
would be remarked, though you stood in that black frock by the side of a
monarch in his coronation robes."
DARRELL.--"You have turned my question against myself with a kindliness
of intention that makes me forgive your belief in my vanity. Pass on,
--or rather pass back; you say you have tried all in life that distracts
or sweetens. Not so, lone bachelor; you have not tried wedlock. Has not
that been your mistake?"
COLONEL MORLEY.--"Answer for yourself. You have tried it." The words
were scarce out of his mouth ere he repented the retort; for Darrell
started as if stung to the quick; and his brow, before serene, his lip,
before playful, grew, the one darkly troubled, the other tightly
compressed. "Pardon me," faltered out the friend.
DARRELL.--"Oh, yes! I brought it on myself. What stuff we have been
talking! Tell me the news, not political, any other. But first, your
report of young Haughton. Cordial thanks for all your kindness to him.
You write me word that he is much improved,--most likeable; you add, that
at Paris he became the rage, that in London you are sure he will be
extremely popular. Be it so, if for his own sake. Are you quite sure
that it is not for the expectations which I come here to disperse?"
COLONEL MORLEY.--"Much for himself, I am certain; a little, perhaps,
because--whatever he thinks, and I say to the contrary--people seeing
no other heir to your property--"
"I understand," interrupted Darrell, quickly. "But he does not nurse
those expectations? he will not be disappointed?"
COLONEL MORLEY.--"Verily I believe that, apart from his love for you and
a delicacy of sentiment that would recoil from planting hopes of wealth
in the graves of benefactors, Lionel Haughton would prefer carving his
own fortunes to all the ingots hewed out of California by another's hand
and bequeathed by another's will."
DARRELL.--"I am heartily glad to hear and to trust you."
COLONEL MORLEY.--"I gather from what you say that you are here with the
intention to--to--"
"Marry again," said Darrell, firmly. "Right. I am."
"I always felt sure you would marry again. Is the lady here too?"
"What lady?"
"The lady you have chosen."
"Tush! I have chosen none. I come here to choose; and in this I ask
advice from your experience. I would marry again! I! at my age!
Ridiculous! But so it is. You know all the mothers and marriageable
daughters that London--/arida nutrix/--rears for nuptial altars: where,
amongst them, shall I, Guy Darrell, the man whom you think so enviable,
find the safe helpmate, whose love he may reward with munificent
jointure, to whose child he may bequeath the name that has now no
successor, and the wealth he has no heart to spend?"
Colonel Morley--who, as we know, is by habit a matchmaker, and likes the
vocation--assumes a placid but cogitative mien, rubs his brow gently, and
says in his softest, best-bred accents, "You would not marry a mere girl?
some one of suitable age. I know several most superior young women on
the other side of thirty, Wilhelmina Prymme, for instance, or Janet--"
DARRELL.--"Old maids. No! decidedly no!"
COLONEL MORLEY (suspiciously).--"But you would not risk the peace of your
old age with a girl of eighteen, or else I do know a very accomplished,
well-brought-up girl; just eighteen, who--"
DARRELL.--"Re-enter life by the side of Eighteen! am I a madman?"
COLONEL MORLEY.--"Neither old maids nor young maids; the choice becomes
narrowed. You would prefer a widow. Ha! I have thought of one;
a prize, indeed, could you but win her, the widow of--"
DARRELL.--"Ephesus!--Bah! suggest no widow to me. A widow, with her
affections buried in the grave!"
MORLEY.--"Not necessarily. And in this case--"
DARRELL (interrupting, and with warmth).--"In every case I tell you: no
widow shall doff her weeds for me. Did she love the first man? Fickle
is the woman who can love twice. Did she not love him? Why did she
marry him? Perhaps she sold herself to a rent-roll? Shall she sell
herself again to me for a jointure? Heaven forbid! Talk not of widows.
No dainty so flavourless as a heart warmed up again."
COLONEL MORLEY.--"Neither maids, be they old or young, nor widows.
Possibly you want an angel. London is not the place for angels."
DARRELL.--"I grant that the choice seems involved in perplexity. How can
it be otherwise if one's self is perplexed? And yet, Alban, I am
serious; and I do not presume to be so exacting as my words have implied.
I ask not fortune, nor rank beyond gentle blood, nor youth nor beauty nor
accomplishments nor fashion, but I do ask one thing, and one thing only."
COLONEL MORLEY.--"What is that? you have left nothing worth the having to
ask for."
DARRELL.--"Nothing! I have left all! I ask some one whom I can love;
love better than all the world,--not the /mariage de convenance/, not the
/mariage de raison/, but the /mariage d'amour/. All other marriage, with
vows of love so solemn, with intimacy of commune so close,--all other
marriage, in my eyes, is an acted falsehood, a varnished sin. Ah, if I
had thought so always! But away regret and repentance! The future alone
is now before me! Alban Morley! I would sign away all I have in the
world (save the old house at Fawley), ay, and after signing, cut off to
boot this right hand, could I but once fall in love; love, and be loved
again, as any two of Heaven's simplest human creatures may love each
other while life is fresh! Strange! strange! look out into the world;
mark the man of our years who shall be most courted, most adulated, or
admired. Give him all the attributes of power, wealth, royalty, genius,
fame. See all the younger generation bow before him with hope or awe:
his word can make their fortune; at his smile a reputation dawns. Well;
now let that man say to the young, 'Room amongst yourselves: all that
wins me this homage I would lay at the feet of Beauty. I enter the lists
of love,' and straightway his power vanishes, the poorest booby of
twenty-four can jostle him aside; before, the object of reverence, he is
now the butt of ridicule. The instant he asks right to win the heart of
a woman, a boy whom in all else he could rule as a lackey cries, 'Off,
Graybeard, that realm at least is mine!'"
COLONEL MORLEY.--"This were but eloquent extravagance, even if your beard
were gray. Men older than you, and with half your pretensions, even of
outward form, have carried away hearts from boys like Adonis. Only
choose well: that's the difficulty; if it was not difficult, who would be
a bachelor?"
DARRELL.--"Guide my choice. Pilot me to the haven."
COLONEL MORLEY.--"Accepted! But you must remount a suitable
establishment; reopen your way to the great world, and penetrate those
sacred recesses where awaiting spinsters weave the fatal web. Leave all
to me. Let Mills (I see you have him still) call on me to-morrow about
your menage. You will give dinners, of course?"
DARRELL.--"Oh, of course; must I dine at them myself?"
Morley laughed softly, and took up his hat.
"So soon!" cried Darrell. "If I fatigue you already, what chance shall I
have with new friends?"
"So soon! it is past eleven. And it is you who must be fatigued."
"No such good luck; were I fatigued, I might hope to sleep. I will walk
back with you. Leave me not alone in this room,--alone in the jaws of a
fish; swallowed up by a creature whose blood is cold."
"You have something still to say to me," said Alban, when they were in
the open air: "I detect it in your manner; what is it?"
"I know not. But you have told me no news; these streets are grown
strange to me. Who live now in yonder houses? once the dwellers were
my friends."
"In that house,--oh, new people! I forget their names,--but rich; in a
year or two, with luck, they may be exclusives, and forget my name. In
the other house, Carr Vipont still."
"Vipont; those dear Viponts! what of them all? Crawl they, sting they,
bask they in the sun, or are they in anxious process of a change of
skin?"
"Hush! my dear friend: no satire on your own connections; nothing so
injudicious. I am a Vipont, too, and all for the family maxim, 'Vipont
with Vipont, and come what may!'"
"I stand rebuked. But I am no Vipont. I married, it is true, into their
house, and they married, ages ago, into mine; but no drop in the blood of
time-servers flows through the veins of the last childless Darrell.
Pardon. I allow the merit of the Vipont race; no family more excites my
respectful interest. What of their births, deaths, and marriages?"
COLONEL MORLEY.--"As to the births, Carr has just welcomed the birth of a
grandson; the first-born of his eldest son (who married last year a
daughter of the Duke of Halifax),--a promising young man, a Lord in the
Admiralty. Carr has a second son in the Hussars; has just purchased his
step: the other boys are still at school. He has three daughters too,
fine girls, admirably brought up; indeed, now I think of it, the eldest,
Honoria, might suit you, highly accomplished; well read; interests
herself in politics; a great admirer of intellect; of a very serious turn
of mind too."
DARRELL.--"A female politician with a serious turn of mind,--a farthing
rushlight in a London fog! Hasten on to subjects less gloomy. Whose
funeral achievement is that yonder?"
COLONEL MORLEY.--"The late Lord Niton's, father to Lady Montfort."
DARRELL.--"Lady Montfort! Her father was a Lyndsay, and died before the
Flood. A deluge, at least, has gone over me and my world since I looked
on the face of his widow."
COLONEL MORLEY.--"I speak of the present Lord Montfort's wife,--the
Earl's. You of the poor Marquess's, the last Marquess; the marquisate is
extinct. Surely, whatever your wanderings, you must have heard of the
death of the last Marquess of Montfort?"
"Yes, I heard of that," answered Darrell, in a somewhat husky and
muttered voice. "So he is dead, the young man! What killed him?"
COLONEL MORLEY.--"A violent attack of croup,--quite sudden. He was
staying at Carr's at the time. I suspect that Carr made him talk!
a thing he was not accustomed to do. Deranged his system altogether.
But don't let us revive painful subjects."
DARRELL.--"Was she with him at the time?"
COLONEL MORLEY.--"Lady Montfort? No; they were very seldom together."
DARRELL.--"She is not married again yet?"
COLONEL MORLEY.--"No, but still young and so beautiful she will have many
offers. I know those who are waiting to propose. Montfort has been only
dead eighteen months; died just before young Carr's marriage. His widow
lives, in complete seclusion, at her jointure-house near Twickenham. She
has only seen even me once since her loss."
DARRELL.--"When was that?"
MORLEY.--"About six or seven months ago; she asked after you with much
interest."
DARRELL.--"After me!"
COLONEL MORLEY.--"To be sure. Don't I remember how constantly she and
her mother were at your house? Is it strange that she should ask after
you? You ought to know her better,--the most affectionate, grateful
character."
DARRELL.--"I dare say. But at the time you refer to, I was too occupied
to acquire much accurate knowledge of a young lady's character. I should
have known her mother's character better, yet I mistook even that."
COLONEL MORLEY.--"Mrs. Lyndsay's character you might well mistake,--
charming but artificial: Lady Montfort is natural. Indeed, if you had
not that illiberal prejudice against widows, she was the very person I
was about to suggest to you."
DARRELL.--"A fashionable beauty! and young enough to be my daughter.
Such is human friendship! So the marquisate is extinct, and Sir James
Vipont, whom I remember in the House of Commons--respectable man, great
authority on cattle, timid, and always saying, 'Did you read that article
in to-day's paper?'--has the estates and the earldom?"
COLONEL MORLEY.--"Yes. There was some fear of a disputed succession, but
Sir James made his claim very clear. Between you and me, the change has
been a serious affliction to the Viponts. The late lord was not wise,
but on state occasions he looked his part,--/tres grand seigneur/,--and
Carr managed the family influence with admirable tact. The present lord
has the habits of a yeoman; his wife shares his tastes. He has taken the
management not only of the property, but of its influence, out of Carr's
hands, and will make a sad mess of it, for he is an impracticable,
obsolete politician. He will never keep the family together, impossible,
a sad thing. I remember how our last muster, five years ago next
Christmas, struck terror into Lord's Cabinet; the mere report of it in
the newspapers set all people talking and thinking. The result was that,
two weeks after, proper overtures were made to Carr: he consented to
assist the ministers; and the country was saved! Now, thanks to this
stupid new earl, in eighteen months we have lost ground which it took at
least a century and a half to gain. Our votes are divided; our influence
frittered away; Montfort House is shut up; and Carr, grown quite thin,
says that in the coming 'CRISIS' a Cabinet will not only be formed, but
will also last--last time enough for irreparable mischief--without a
single Vipont in office."
Thus Colonel Morley continued in mournful strain, Darrell silent by his
side, till the Colonel reached his own door. There, while applying his
latch-key to the lock, Alban's mind returned from the perils that
threatened the House of Vipont and the Star of Brunswick to the petty
claims of private friendship. But even these last were now blended with
those grander interests, due care for which every true patriot of the
House of Vipont imbibed with his mother's milk.
"Your appearance in town, my dear Darrell, is most opportune. It will be
an object with the whole family to make the most of you at this coming
'CRISIS;' I say coming, for I believe it must come. Your name is still
freshly remembered; your position greater for having been out of all the
scrapes of the party the last sixteen or seventeen years: your house
should be the nucleus of new combinations. Don't forget to send Mills to
me; I will engage your chef and your house-steward to-morrow. I know
just the men to suit you. Your intention to marry too, just at this
moment, is most seasonable; it will increase the family interest. I may
give out that you intend to marry?"
"Oh, certainly cry it at Charing Cross."
"A club-room will do as well. I beg ten thousand pardons; but people
will talk about money whenever they talk about marriage. I should not
like to exaggerate your fortune: I know it must be very large, and all
at your own disposal, eh?"
"Every shilling."
"You must have saved a great deal since you retired into private life?"
"Take that for granted. Dick Fairthorn receives my rents, and looks to
my various investments; and I accept him as an indisputable authority
when I say that, what with the rental of lands I purchased in my poor
boy's lifetime and the interest on my much more lucrative moneyed
capital, you may safely whisper to all ladies likely to feel interest in
that diffusion of knowledge, 'Thirty-five thousand a year, and an old
fool.'"
"I certainly shall not say an old fool, for I am the same age as
yourself; and if I had thirty-five thousand pounds a year, I would marry
too."
"You would! Old fool!" said Darrell, turning away.
