Ernest Maltravers, Book 7
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Edward Bulwer Lytton >> Ernest Maltravers, Book 7
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BOOK VII.
Every man should strive to be as good as possible, but not
suppose himself to be the only thing that is good.
--PLOTIN. EN. 11. lib. ix. c. 9.
CHAPTER I.
"Deceit is the strong but subtle chain which runs through
all the members of a society, and links them together;
trick or be tricked is the alternative; 'tis the way of
the world, and without it intercourse would drop."
/Anonymous writer/ of 1722.
"A lovely child she was, of looks serene,
And motions which o'er things indifferent shed
The grace and gentleness from whence they came."
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.
"His years but young, but his experience old."--SHAKESPEARE.
"He after honour hunts, I after love."--/Ibid./
LUMLEY FERRERS was one of the few men in the world who act upon a
profound, deliberate, and organized system--he had done so even from a
boy. When he was twenty-one, he had said to himself, "Youth is the
season for enjoyment: the triumphs of manhood, the wealth of age, do not
compensate for a youth spent in unpleasurable toils." Agreeably to this
maxim, he had resolved not to adopt any profession; and being fond of
travel, and of a restless temper, he had indulged abroad in all the
gratifications that his moderate income could afford him: that income
went farther on the Continent than at home, which was another reason for
the prolongation of his travels. Now, when the whims and passions of
youth were sated; and, ripened by a consummate and various knowledge of
mankind, his harder capacities of mind became developed and centred into
such ambition as it was his nature to conceive, he acted no less upon a
regular and methodical plan of conduct, which he carried into details.
He had little or nothing within himself to cross his cold theories by
contradictory practice; for he was curbed by no principles and regulated
but by few tastes: and our tastes are often checks as powerful as our
principles. Looking round the English world, Ferrers saw, that at his
age and with an equivocal position, and no chances to throw away, it was
necessary that he should cast off all attributes of the character of the
wanderer and the /garcon/.
"There is nothing respectable in lodgings and a cab," said Ferrers to
himself--that "/self/" was his grand confidant!--"nothing stationary.
Such are the appliances of a here-to-day-gone-to-morrow kind of life.
One never looks substantial till one pays rates and taxes, and has a
bill with one's butcher!"
Accordingly, without saying a word to anybody, Ferrers took a long lease
of a large house, in one of those quiet streets that proclaim the owners
do not wish to be made by fashionable situations--streets in which, if
you have a large house, it is supposed to be because you can afford one.
He was very particular in its being a respectable street--Great George
Street, Westminster, was the one he selected.
No frippery or baubles, common to the mansions of young bachelors--no
buhl, and marquetrie, and Sevres china, and cabinet pictures,
distinguished the large dingy drawing-rooms of Lumley Ferrers. He
bought all the old furniture a bargain of the late tenant--tea-coloured
chintz curtains, and chairs and sofas that were venerable and solemn
with the accumulated dust of twenty-five years. The only things about
which he was particular were a very long dining-table that would hold
four-and-twenty, and a new mahogany sideboard. Somebody asked him why
he cared about such articles. "I don't know," said he "but I observe
all respectable family-men do--there must be something in it--I shall
discover the secret by and by."
In this house did Mr. Ferrers ensconce himself with two middle-aged
maidservants, and a man out of livery, whom he chose from a multitude of
candidates, because the man looked especially well fed. Having thus
settled himself, and told every one that the lease of his house was for
sixty-three years, Lumley Ferrers made a little calculation of his
probable expenditure, which he found, with good management, might amount
to about one-fourth more than his income.
"I shall take the surplus out of my capital," said he, "and try the
experiment for five years; if it don't do, and pay me profitably, why,
then either men are not to be lived upon, or Lumley Ferrers is a much
duller clog than he thinks himself!"
Mr. Ferrers had deeply studied the character of his uncle, as a prudent
speculator studies the qualities of a mine in which he means to invest
his capital, and much of his present proceedings was intended to act
upon the uncle as well as upon the world. He saw that the more he could
obtain for himself, not a noisy, social, fashionable reputation, but a
good, sober, substantial one, the more highly Mr. Templeton would
consider him, and the more likely he was to be made his uncle's
heir,--that is, provided Mrs. Templeton did not supersede the nepotal
parasite by indigenous olive-branches. This last apprehension died away
as time passed, and no signs of fertility appeared. And, accordingly,
Ferrers thought he might prudently hazard more upon the game on which he
now ventured to rely. There was one thing, however, that greatly
disturbed his peace; Mr. Templeton, though harsh and austere in his
manner to his wife, was evidently attached to her; and, above all, he
cherished the fondest affection for his stepdaughter. He was as anxious
for her health, her education, her little childish enjoyments, as if he
had been not only her parent, but a very doting one. He could not bear
her to be crossed or thwarted. Mr. Templeton, who had never spoiled
anything before, not even an old pen (so careful, and calculating, and
methodical was he), did his best to spoil this beautiful child whom he
could not even have the vain luxury of thinking he had produced to the
admiring world. Softly, exquisitely lovely was that little girl; and
every day she increased in the charm of her person, and in the caressing
fascination of her childish ways. Her temper was so sweet and docile,
that fondness and petting, however injudiciously exhibited, only seemed
yet more to bring out the colours of a grateful and tender nature.
Perhaps the measured kindness of more reserved affection might have been
the true way of spoiling one whose instincts were all for exacting and
returning love. She was a plant that suns less warm might have nipped
and chilled. But beneath an uncapricious and unclouded sunshine she
sprang up in a luxurious bloom of heart and sweetness of disposition.
Every one, even those who did not generally like children, delighted in
this charming creature, excepting only Mr. Lumley Ferrers. But that
gentleman, less mild than Pope's Narcissa,--
"To make a wash, had gladly stewed the child!"
He had seen how very common it is for a rich man, married late in life,
to leave everything to a young widow and her children by her former
marriage, when once attached to the latter; and he sensibly felt that he
himself had but a slight hold over Templeton by the chain of the
affections. He resolved, therefore, as much as possible, to alienate
his uncle from his young wife; trusting that, as the influence of the
wife was weakened, that of the child would be lessened also; and to
raise in Templeton's vanity and ambition an ally that might supply to
himself the want of love. He pursued his twofold scheme with masterly
art and address. He first sought to secure the confidence and regard of
the melancholy and gentle mother; and in this--for she was peculiarly
unsuspicious and inexperienced, he obtained signal and complete success.
His frankness of manner, his deferential attention, the art with which
he warded off from her the spleen or ill-humour of Mr. Templeton, the
cheerfulness that his easy gaiety threw over a very gloomy house, made
the poor lady hail his visits and trust in his friendship. Perhaps she
was glad of any interruption to /tetes-a-tetes/ with a severe and
ungenial husband, who had no sympathy for the sorrows, of whatever
nature they might be, which preyed upon her, and who made it a point of
morality to find fault wherever he could.
The next step in Lumley's policy was to arm Templeton's vanity against
his wife, by constantly refreshing his consciousness of the sacrifices
he had made by marriage, and the certainty that he would have attained
all his wishes had he chosen more prudently. By perpetually, but most
judiciously, rubbing this sore point, he, as it were, fixed the
irritability into Templeton's constitution, and it reacted on all his
thoughts, aspiring or domestic. Still, however, to Lumley's great
surprise and resentment, while Templeton cooled to his wife, he only
warmed to her child. Lumley had not calculated enough upon the thirst
and craving for affection in most human hearts; and Templeton, though
not exactly an amiable man, had some excellent qualities; if he had less
sensitively regarded the opinion of the world, he would neither have
contracted the vocabulary of cant, nor sickened for a peerage--both his
affectation of saintship, and his gnawing desire of rank, arose from an
extraordinary and morbid deference to opinion, and a wish for worldly
honours and respect, which he felt that his mere talents could not
secure to him. But he was, at bottom, a kindly man--charitable to the
poor, considerate to his servants, and had within him the want to love
and be loved, which is one of the desires wherewith the atoms of the
universe are cemented and harmonised. Had Mrs. Templeton evinced love to
him, he might have defied all Lumley's diplomacy, been consoled for
worldly disadvantages, and been a good and even uxorious husband. But
she evidently did not love him, though an admirable, patient, provident
wife; and her daughter /did/ love him--love him as well even as she
loved her mother; and the hard worldling would not have accepted a
kingdom as the price of that little fountain of pure and ever-refreshing
tenderness. Wise and penetrating as Lumley was, he never could
thoroughly understand this weakness, as he called it; for we never know
men entirely, unless we have complete sympathies with men in all their
natural emotions; and Nature had left the workmanship of Lumley Ferrers
unfinished and incomplete, by denying him the possibility of caring for
anything but himself.
His plan for winning Templeton's esteem and deference was, however,
completely triumphant. He took care that nothing in his /menage/ should
appear "/extravagant/;" all was sober, quiet, and well-regulated. He
declared that he had so managed as to live within his income: and
Templeton receiving no hint for money, nor aware that Ferrers had on the
Continent consumed a considerable portion of his means, believed him.
Ferrers gave a great many dinners, but he did not go on that foolish
plan which has been laid down by persons who pretend to know life, as a
means of popularity--he did not profess to give dinners better than
other people. He knew that, unless you are a very rich or a very great
man, no folly is equal to that of thinking that you soften the hearts of
your friends by soups /a la bisque/, and Johannisberg at a guinea a
bottle. They all go away saying, "What right has that d----d fellow to
give a better dinner than we do? What horrid taste! What ridiculous
presumption."
No; though Ferrers himself was a most scientific epicure, and held the
luxury of the palate at the highest possible price, he dieted his
friends on what he termed "respectable fare." His cook put plenty of
flour into the oyster sauce; cod's head and shoulders made his
invariable fish; and four /entrees/, without flavour or pretence, were
duly supplied by the pastry-cook, and carefully eschewed by the host.
Neither did Mr. Ferrers affect to bring about him gay wits and brilliant
talkers. He confined himself to men of substantial consideration, and
generally took care to be himself the cleverest person present; while he
turned the conversation on serious matters crammed for the
occasion--politics, stocks, commerce, and the criminal code. Pruning
his gaiety, though he retained his frankness, he sought to be known as a
highly-informed, painstaking man, who would be sure to rise. His
connections, and a certain nameless charm about him, consisting chiefly
in a pleasant countenance, a bold yet winning candour, and the absence
of all /hauteur/ or pretence, enabled him to assemble round this plain
table, which, if it gratified no taste, wounded no self-love, a
sufficient number of public men of rank, and eminent men of business, to
answer his purpose. The situation he had chosen, so near the Houses of
Parliament, was convenient to politicians, and, by degrees, the large
dingy drawing-rooms became a frequent resort for public men to talk over
those thousand underplots by which a party is served or attached. Thus,
though not in parliament himself, Ferrers became insensibly associated
with parliamentary men and things, and the ministerial party, whose
politics he espoused, praised him highly, made use of him, and meant,
some day or other, to do something for him.
While the career of this able and unprincipled man thus opened--and of
course the opening was not made in a day--Ernest Maltravers was
ascending by a rough, thorny, and encumbered path, to that eminence on
which the monuments of men are built. His success in public life was
not brilliant nor sudden. For, though he had eloquence and knowledge,
he disdained all oratorical devices; and though he had passion and
energy, he could scarcely be called a warm partisan. He met with much
envy, and many obstacles; and the gracious and buoyant sociality of
temper and manners that had, in early youth, made him the idol of his
contemporaries at school or college, had long since faded away into a
cold, settled, and lofty, though gentle reserve, which did not attract
towards him the animal spirits of the herd. But though he spoke seldom,
and heard many, with half his powers, more enthusiastically cheered, he
did not fail of commanding attention and respect; and though no darling
of cliques and parties, yet in that great body of the people who were
ever the audience and tribunal to which, in letters or in politics,
Maltravers appealed, there was silently growing up, and spreading wide,
a belief in his upright intentions, his unpurchasable honour, and his
correct and well-considered views. He felt that his name was safely
invested, though the return for the capital was slow and moderate. He
was contented to abide his time.
Every day he grew more attached to that true philosophy which makes a
man, as far as the world will permit, a world to himself; and from the
height of a tranquil and serene self-esteem, he felt the sun shine above
him, when malignant clouds spread sullen and ungenial below. He did not
despise or wilfully shock opinion, neither did he fawn upon and flatter
it. Where he thought the world should be humoured, he humoured--where
contemned, he contemned it. There are many cases in which an honest,
well-educated, high-hearted individual is a much better judge than the
multitude of what is right and what is wrong; and in these matters he is
not worth three straws if he suffer the multitude to bully or coax him
out of his judgment. The Public, if you indulge it, is a most damnable
gossip, thrusting its nose into people's concerns, where it has no right
to make or meddle; and in those things, where the Public is impertinent,
Maltravers scorned and resisted its interference as haughtily as he
would the interference of any insolent member of the insolent whole. It
was this mixture of deep love and profound respect for the eternal
PEOPLE, and of calm, passionless disdain for that capricious charlatan,
the momentary PUBLIC, which made Ernest Maltravers an original and
solitary thinker; and an actor, in reality modest and benevolent, in
appearance arrogant and unsocial. "Pauperism, in contradistinction to
poverty," he was wont to say, "is the dependence upon other people for
existence, not on our own exertions; there is a moral pauperism in the
man who is dependent on others for that support of moral
life--self-respect."
Wrapped in this philosophy, he pursued his haughty and lonesome way, and
felt that in the deep heart of mankind, when prejudices and envies
should die off, there would be a sympathy with his motives and his
career. So far as his own health was concerned, the experiment had
answered. No mere drudgery of business--late hours and dull
speeches--can produce the dread exhaustion which follows the efforts of
the soul to mount into the higher air of severe thought or intense
imagination. Those faculties which had been overstrained now lay
fallow--and the frame rapidly regained its tone. Of private comfort and
inspiration Ernest knew but little. He gradually grew estranged from
his old friend Ferrers, as their habits became opposed. Cleveland lived
more and more in the country, and was too well satisfied with his
quondam pupil's course of life and progressive reputation to trouble him
with exhortation or advice. Cesarini had grown a literary lion, whose
genius was vehemently lauded by all the reviews--on the same principle
as that which induces us to praise foreign singers or dead men;--we must
praise something, and we don't like to praise those who jostle
ourselves. Cesarini had therefore grown prodigiously conceited--swore
that England was the only country for true merit; and no longer
concealed his jealous anger at the wider celebrity of Maltravers.
Ernest saw him squandering away his substance, and prostituting his
talents to drawing-room trifles, with a compassionate sigh. He sought
to warn him, but Cesarini listened to him with such impatience that he
resigned the office of monitor. He wrote to De Montaigne, who succeeded
no better. Cesarini was bent on playing his own game. And to one game,
without a metaphor, he had at last come. His craving for excitement
vented itself at Hazard, and his remaining guineas melted daily away.
But De Montaigne's letters to Maltravers consoled him for the loss of
less congenial friends. The Frenchman was now an eminent and celebrated
man; and his appreciation of Maltravers was sweeter to the latter than
would have been the huzzas of crowds. But, all this while, his vanity
was pleased and his curiosity roused by the continued correspondence of
his unseen Egeria. That correspondence (if so it may be called, being
all on one side) had now gone on for a considerable time, and he was
still wholly unable to discover the author: its tone had of late
altered--it had become more sad and subdued--it spoke of the hollowness
as well as the rewards of fame; and, with a touch of true womanly
sentiment, often hinted more at the rapture of soothing dejection, than
of sharing triumph. In all these letters, there was the undeniable
evidence of high intellect and deep feeling; they excited a strong and
keen interest in Maltravers, yet the interest was not that which made
him wish to discover, in order that he might love, the writer. They
were for the most part too full of the irony and bitterness of a man's
spirit, to fascinate one who considered that gentleness was the essence
of a woman's strength. Temper spoke in them, no less than mind and
heart, and it was not the sort of temper which a man who loves women to
be womanly could admire.
"I hear you often spoken of" (ran one of these strange epistles), "and I
am almost equally angry whether fools presume to praise or to blame you.
This miserable world we live in, how I loathe and disdain it!--yet I
desire you to serve and to master it! Weak contradiction, effeminate
paradox! Oh! rather a thousand times that you would fly from its mean
temptations and poor rewards!--if the desert were your dwelling-place
and you wished one minister, I could renounce all--wealth, flattery,
repute, womanhood--to serve you.
* * * * *
"I once admired you for your genius. My disease has fastened on me, and
I now almost worship you for yourself. I have seen you, Ernest
Maltravers,--seen you often,--and when you never suspected that these
eyes were on you. Now that I have seen, I understand you better. We
can not judge men by their books and deeds. Posterity can know nothing
of the beings of the past. A thousand books never written--a thousand
deeds never done--are in the eyes and lips of the few greater than the
herd. In that cold, abstracted gaze, that pale and haughty brow, I read
the disdain of obstacles, which is worthy of one who is confident of the
goal. But my eyes fill with tears when I survey you!--you are sad, you
are alone! If failures do not mortify you, success does not elevate.
Oh, Maltravers, I, woman as I am, and living in a narrow circle, I, even
I, know at last that to have desires nobler, and ends more august, than
others, is but to surrender waking life to morbid and melancholy dreams.
* * * * *
"Go more into the world, Maltravers--go more into the world, or quit it
altogether. Your enemies must be met; they accumulate, they grow
strong--you are too tranquil, too slow in your steps towards the prize
which should be yours, to satisfy my impatience, to satisfy your
friends. Be less refined in your ambition that you may be more
immediately useful. The feet of clay after all are the swiftest in the
race. Even Lumley Ferrers will outstrip you if you do not take heed.
* * * * *
"Why do I run on thus!--you--you love another, yet you are not less the
ideal that I could love--if ever I loved any one. You love--and
yet--well--no matter."
CHAPTER II.
"Well, but this is being only an official nobleman. No matter,
'tis still being a nobleman, and that's his aim."
/Anonymous writer of 1772/.
"La musique est le seul des talens qui jouissent de lui-meme;
tons les autres veulent des temoins."*--MARMONTEL.
* Music is the sole talent which gives pleasure of itself; all the
others require witnesses.
"Thus the slow ox would gaudy trappings claim."--HORACE.
MR. TEMPLETON had not obtained his peerage, and, though he had met with
no direct refusal, nor made even a direct application to headquarters,
he was growing sullen. He had great parliamentary influence, not close
borough, illegitimate influence, but very proper orthodox influence of
character, wealth, and so forth. He could return one member at least
for a city--he could almost return one member for a county, and in three
boroughs any activity on his part could turn the scale in a close
contest. The ministers were strong, but still they could not afford to
lose supporters hitherto zealous--the example of desertion is
contagious. In the town which Templeton had formerly represented, and
which he now almost commanded, a vacancy suddenly ocurred--a candidate
started on the opposition side and commenced a canvass; to the
astonishment and panic of the Secretary of the Treasury, Templeton put
forward no one, and his interest remained dormant. Lord Saxingham
hurried to Lumley.
"My dear fellow, what is this?--what can your uncle be about? We shall
lose this place--one of our strongholds. Bets run even."
"Why, you see, you have all behaved very ill to my uncle--I am really
sorry for it, but I can do nothing."
"What, this confounded peerage! Will that content him, and nothing
short of it?"
"Nothing."
"He must have it, by Jove!"
"And even that may come too late."
"Ha! do you think so?"
"Will you leave the matter to me?"
"Certainly--you are a monstrous clever fellow, and we all esteem you."
"Sit down and write as I dictate, my dear lord."
"Well," said Lord Saxingham, seating himself at Lumley's enormous
writing-table--"well, go on."
"/My dear Mr. Templeton/--"
"Too familiar," said Lord Saxingham.
"Not a bit; go on."
"/My dear Mr. Templeton:/--
"/We are anxious to secure your parliamentary influence in C------ to
the proper quarter, namely, to your own family, as the best defenders of
the administration, which you honour by your support. We wish signally,
at the same time, to express our confidence in your principles, and our
gratitude for your countenance./"
"D-----d sour countenance!" muttered Lord Saxingham.
"/Accordingly,/" continued Ferrers, "/as one whose connection with you
permits the liberty, allow me to request that you will suffer our joint
relation, Mr. Ferrers, to be put into immediate nomination./"
Lord Saxingham threw down the pen and laughed for two minutes without
ceasing. "Capital, Lumley, capital--Very odd I did not think of it
before."
"Each man for himself, and God for us all," returned Lumley, gravely:
"pray go on, my dear lord."
"/We are sure you could not have a representative that would, more
faithfully reflect your own opinions and our interests. One word more.
A creation of peers will probably take place in the spring, among which
I am sure your name would be to his Majesty a gratifying addition; the
title will of course be secured to your sons--and failing the latter, to
your nephew./