CHAPTER VII.
CONTRAHE vela,
Et te littoribus cymba propinqua vehat.*--SENECA.
* "Furl your sails, and let the next boat carry you to the shore."
"HAS not Miss Cameron a beautiful countenance?" said Mr. Merton to
Maltravers, as Evelyn, unconscious of the compliment, sat at a little
distance, bending down her eyes to Sophy, who was weaving daisy-chains on
a stool at her knee, and whom she was telling not to talk loud,--for
Merton had been giving Maltravers some useful information respecting the
management of his estate; and Evelyn was already interested in all that
could interest her friend. She had one excellent thing in woman, had
Evelyn Cameron: despite her sunny cheerfulness of temper she was _quiet_;
and she had insensibly acquired, under the roof of her musing and silent
mother, the habit of never disturbing others. What a blessed secret is
that in the intercourse of domestic life!
"Has not Miss Cameron a beautiful countenance?"
Maltravers started at the question,--it was a literal translation of his
own thought at that moment. He checked the enthusiasm that rose to his
lip, and calmly re-echoed the word,--
"Beautiful indeed!"
"And so sweet-tempered and unaffected; she has been admirably brought up.
I believe Lady Vargrave is a most exemplary woman. Miss Cameron will,
indeed, be a treasure to her betrothed husband. He is to be envied."
"Her betrothed husband!" said Maltravers, turning very pale.
"Yes; Lord Vargrave. Did you not know that she was engaged to him from
her childhood? It was the wish, nay, command, of the late lord, who
bequeathed her his vast fortune, if not on that condition, at least on
that understanding. Did you never hear of this before?"
While Mr. Merton spoke, a sudden recollection returned to Maltravers. He
_had_ heard Lumley himself refer to the engagement, but it had been in
the sick chamber of Florence,--little heeded at the time, and swept from
his mind by a thousand after-thoughts and scenes. Mr. Merton
continued,--
"We expect Lord Vargrave down soon. He is an ardent lover, I conclude;
but public life chains him so much to London. He made an admirable
speech in the Lords last night; at least, our party appear to think so.
They are to be married when Miss Cameron attains the age of eighteen."
Accustomed to endurance, and skilled in the proud art of concealing
emotion, Maltravers betrayed to the eye of Mr. Merton no symptom of
surprise or dismay at this intelligence. If the rector had conceived any
previous suspicion that Maltravers was touched beyond mere admiration for
beauty, the suspicion would have vanished as he heard his guest coldly
reply,--
"I trust Lord Vargrave may deserve his happiness. But, to return to Mr.
Justis; you corroborate my own opinion of that smooth-spoken gentleman."
The conversation flowed back to business. At last, Maltravers rose to
depart.
"Will you not dine with us to-day?" said the hospitable rector.
"Many thanks,--no; I have much business to attend to at home for some
days to come."
"Kiss Sophy, Mr. Ernest,--Sophy very good girl to-day. Let the pretty
butterfly go, because Evy said it was cruel to put it in a card-box; kiss
Sophy."
Maltravers took the child (whose heart he had completely won) in his
arms, and kissed her tenderly; then advancing to Evelyn, he held out his
hand, while his eyes were fixed upon her with an expression of deep and
mournful interest, which she could not understand.
"God bless you, Miss Cameron," he said, and his lip quivered.
Days passed, and they saw no more of Maltravers. He excused himself on
pretence, now of business, now of other engagements, from all the
invitations of the rector. Mr. Merton unsuspectingly accepted the
excuse; for he knew that Maltravers was necessarily much occupied.
His arrival had now spread throughout the country; and such of his equals
as were still in B-----shire hastened to offer congratulations, and press
hospitality. Perhaps it was the desire to make his excuses to Merton
valid which prompted the master of Burleigh to yield to the other
invitations that crowded on him. But this was not all,--Maltravers
acquired in the neighbourhood the reputation of a man of business. Mr.
Justis was abruptly dismissed; with the help of the bailiff Maltravers
became his own steward. His parting address to this personage was
characteristic of the mingled harshness and justice of Maltravers.
"Sir," said he, as they closed their accounts, "I discharge you because
you are a rascal,--there can be no dispute about that; you have plundered
your owner, yet you have ground his tenants, and neglected the poor. My
villages are filled with paupers, my rent-roll is reduced a fourth; and
yet, while some of my tenants appear to pay nominal rents (why, you best
know),--others are screwed up higher than any man's in the country. You
are a rogue, Mr. Justis,--your own account-books show it; and if I send
them to a lawyer, you would have to refund a sum that I could apply very
advantageously to the rectification of your blunders."
"I hope, sir," said the steward, conscience-stricken and appalled,--"I
hope you will not ruin me; indeed, indeed, if I was called upon to
refund, I should go to jail."
"Make yourself easy, sir. It is just that I should suffer as well as
you. My neglect of my own duties tempted you to roguery. You were
honest under the vigilant eye of Mr. Cleveland. Retire with your gains:
if you are quite hardened, no punishment can touch you; if you are not,
it is punishment enough to stand there gray-headed, with one foot in the
grave, and hear yourself called a rogue, and know that you cannot defend
yourself,--go!"
Maltravers next occupied himself in all the affairs that a mismanaged
estate brought upon him. He got rid of some tenants, he made new
arrangements with others; he called labour into requisition by a variety
of improvements; he paid minute attention to the poor, not in the
weakness of careless and indiscriminate charity, by which popularity is
so cheaply purchased, and independence so easily degraded,--no, his main
care was to stimulate industry and raise hope. The ambition and
emulation that he so vainly denied in himself, he found his most useful
levers in the humble labourers whose characters he had studied, whose
condition he sought to make themselves desire to elevate. Unconsciously
his whole practice began to refute his theories. The abuses of the old
Poor Laws were rife in his neighbourhood; his quick penetration, and
perhaps his imperious habits of decision, suggested to him many of the
best provisions of the law now called into operation; but he was too wise
to be the Philosopher Square of a system. He did not attempt too much;
and he recognized one principle, which, as yet, the administrators of the
new Poor-Laws have not sufficiently discovered. One main object of the
new code was, by curbing public charity, to task the activity of
individual benevolence. If the proprietor or the clergyman find under
his own eye isolated instances of severity, oppression, or hardship in a
general and salutary law, instead of railing against the law, he ought to
attend to the individual instances; and private benevolence ought to keep
the balance of the scales even, and be the makeweight wherever there is a
just deficiency of national charity.* It was this which, in the modified
and discreet regulations that he sought to establish on his estates,
Maltravers especially and pointedly attended to. Age, infirmity,
temporary distress, unmerited destitution, found him a steady, watchful,
indefatigable friend. In these labours, commenced with extraordinary
promptitude, and the energy of a single purpose and stern mind,
Maltravers was necessarily brought into contact with the neighbouring
magistrates and gentry. He was combating evils and advancing objects in
which all were interested; and his vigorous sense, and his past
parliamentary reputation, joined with the respect which in provinces
always attaches to ancient birth, won unexpected and general favour to
his views. At the rectory they heard of him constantly, not only through
occasional visitors, but through Mr. Merton, who was ever thrown in his
way; but he continued to keep himself aloof from the house. Every one
(Mr. Merton excepted) missed him,--even Caroline, whose able though
worldly mind could appreciate his conversation; the children mourned for
their playmate, who was so much more affable than their own
stiff-neckclothed brothers; and Evelyn was at least more serious and
thoughtful than she had ever been before, and the talk of others seemed
to her wearisome, trite, and dull.
* The object of parochial reform is not that of economy alone;
not merely to reduce poor-rates. The ratepayer ought to remember
that the more he wrests from the grip of the sturdy mendicant,
the more he ought to bestow on undeserved distress. Without the
mitigations of private virtue, every law that benevolists could
make would be harsh.
Was Maltravers happy in his new pursuits? His state of mind at that time
it is not easy to read. His masculine spirit and haughty temper were
wrestling hard against a feeling that had been fast ripening into
passion; but at night, in his solitary and cheerless home, a vision, too
exquisite to indulge, would force itself upon him, till he started from
the revery, and said to his rebellious heart: "A few more years, and thou
wilt be still. What in this brief life is a pang more or less? Better
to have nothing to care for, so wilt thou defraud Fate, thy deceitful
foe! Be contented that thou art alone!" Fortunate was it, then, for
Maltravers, that he was in his native land, not in climes where
excitement is in the pursuit of pleasure rather than in the exercise of
duties. In the hardy air of the liberal England, he was already, though
unknown to himself, bracing and ennobling his dispositions and desires.
It is the boast of this island that the slave whose foot touches the soil
is free. The boast may be enlarged. Where so much is left to the
people, where the life of civilization, not locked up in the tyranny of
Central Despotism, spreads, vivifying, restless, ardent, through every
vein of the healthful body, the most distant province, the obscurest
village, has claims on our exertions, our duties, and forces us into
energy and citizenship. The spirit of liberty, that strikes the chain
from the slave, binds the freeman to his brother. This is the Religion
of Freedom. And hence it is that the stormy struggles of free States
have been blessed with results of Virtue, of Wisdom, and of Genius by Him
who bade us love one another,--not only that love in itself is excellent,
but that from love, which in its widest sense is but the spiritual term
for liberty, whatever is worthiest of our solemn nature has its birth.
