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Kenelm Chillingly, Book 6.

E >> Edward Bulwer Lytton >> Kenelm Chillingly, Book 6.




The stillness and solitude of the place had their charms for his
meditative temperament; and he remained there long, forgetful of time,
and scarcely hearing the boom of the clock that warned him of its
lapse.

When suddenly, a shadow--the shadow of a human form--fell on the grass
on which his eyes dreamily rested. He looked up with a start, and
beheld Lily standing before him mute and still. Her image was so
present in his thoughts at the moment that he felt a thrill of awe, as
if the thoughts had conjured up her apparition. She was the first to
speak.

"You here, too?" she said very softly, almost whisperingly. "Too!"
echoed Kenelm, rising; "too! 'Tis no wonder that I, a stranger to the
place, should find my steps attracted towards its most venerable
building. Even the most careless traveller, halting at some remote
abodes of the living, turns aside to gaze on the burial-ground of the
dead. But my surprise is that you, Miss Mordaunt, should be attracted
towards the same spot."

"It is my favourite spot," said Lily, "and always has been. I have
sat many an hour on that tombstone. It is strange to think that no
one knows who sleeps beneath it. The 'Guide Book to Moleswich,'
though it gives the history of the church from the reign in which it
was first built, can only venture a guess that this tomb, the grandest
and oldest in the burial-ground, is tenanted by some member of a
family named Montfichet, that was once very powerful in the county,
and has become extinct since the reign of Henry VI. But," added Lily,
"there is not a letter of the name Montfichet left. I found out more
than any one else has done; I learned black-letter on purpose; look
here," and she pointed to a small spot in which the moss had been
removed. "Do you see those figures? are they not XVIII? and look
again, in what was once the line above the figures, ELE. It must have
been an Eleanor, who died at the age of eighteen--"

"I rather think it more probable that the figures refer to the date of
the death, 1318 perhaps; and so far as I can decipher black-letter,
which is more in my father's line than mine, I think it is AL, not EL,
and that it seems as if there had been a letter between L and the
second E, which is now effaced. The tomb itself is not likely to
belong to any powerful family then resident at the place. Their
monuments, according to usage, would have been within the
church,--probably in their own mortuary chapel."

"Don't try to destroy my fancy," said Lily, shaking her head; "you
cannot succeed, I know her history too well. She was young, and some
one loved her, and built over her the finest tomb he could afford; and
see how long the epitaph must have been! how much it must have spoken
in her praise and of his grief. And then he went his way, and the
tomb was neglected, and her fate forgotten."

"My dear Miss Mordaunt, this is indeed a wild romance to spin out of
so slender a thread. But even if true, there is no reason to think
that a life is forgotten, though a tomb be neglected."

"Perhaps not," said Lily, thoughtfully. "But when I am dead, if I can
look down, I think it would please me to see my grave not neglected by
those who had loved me once."

She moved from him as she said this, and went to a little mound that
seemed not long since raised; there was a simple cross at the head and
a narrow border of flowers round it. Lily knelt beside the flowers
and pulled out a stray weed. Then she rose, and said to Kenelm, who
had followed, and now stood beside her,--

"She was the little grandchild of poor old Mrs. Hales. I could not
cure her, though I tried hard: she was so fond of me, and died in my
arms. No, let me not say 'died,'--surely there is no such thing as
dying. 'Tis but a change of life,--


'Less than the void between two waves of air,
The space between existence and a soul.'"


"Whose lines are those?" asked Kenelm.

"I don't know; I learnt them from Lion. Don't you believe them to be
true?"

"Yes. But the truth does not render the thought of quitting this
scene of life for another more pleasing to most of us. See how soft
and gentle and bright is all that living summer land beyond; let us
find subject for talk from that, not from the graveyard on which we
stand."

"But is there not a summer land fairer than that we see now; and which
we do see, as in a dream, best when we take subjects of talk from the
graveyard?" Without waiting for a reply, Lily went on. "I planted
these flowers: Mr. Emlyn was angry with me; he said it was 'Popish.'
But he had not the heart to have them taken up; I come here very often
to see to them. Do you think it wrong? Poor little Nell! she was so
fond of flowers. And the Eleanor in the great tomb, she too perhaps
knew some one who called her Nell; but there are no flowers round her
tomb. Poor Eleanor!"

She took the nosegay she wore on her bosom, and as she repassed the
tomb laid it on the mouldering stone.



CHAPTER XI.

THEY quitted the burial-ground, taking their way to Grasmere. Kenelm
walked by Lily's side; not a word passed between them till they came
in sight of the cottage.

Then Lily stopped abruptly, and lifting towards him her charming face,
said,--

"I told you I would think over what you said to me last night. I have
done so, and feel I can thank you honestly. You were very kind: I
never before thought that I had a bad temper; no one ever told me so.
But I see now what you mean; sometimes I feel very quickly, and then I
show it. But how did I show it to you, Mr. Chillingly?"

"Did you not turn your back to me when I seated myself next you in
Mrs. Braefield's garden, vouchsafing me no reply when I asked if I had
offended?"

Lily's face became bathed in blushes, and her voice faltered, as she
answered,--

"I was not offended; I was not in a bad temper then: it was worse than
that."

"Worse? what could it possibly be?"

"I am afraid it was envy."

"Envy of what? of whom?"

"I don't know how to explain; after all, I fear aunty is right, and
the fairy tales put very silly, very naughty thoughts into one's head.
When Cinderella's sisters went to the king's ball, and Cinderella was
left alone, did not she long to go too? Did not she envy her
sisters?"

"Ah! I understand now: Sir Charles spoke of the Court Ball."

"And you were there talking with handsome ladies--and--oh! I was so
foolish and felt sore."

"You, who when we first met wondered how people who could live in the
country preferred to live in towns, do then sometimes contradict
yourself, and sigh for the great world that lies beyond these quiet
water banks. You feel that you have youth and beauty, and wish to be
admired!"

"It is not that exactly," said Lily, with a perplexed look in her
ingenuous countenance, "and in my better moments, when the 'bettermost
self' comes forth, I know that I am not made for the great world you
speak of. But you see--" Here she paused again, and as they had now
entered the garden, dropped wearily on a bench beside the path.
Kenelm seated himself there too, waiting for her to finish her broken
sentence.

"You see," she continued, looking down embarrassed, and describing
vague circles on the gravel with her fairy-like foot, "that at home,
ever since I can remember, they have treated me as if--well, as if I
were--what shall I say? the child of one of your great ladies. Even
Lion, who is so noble, so grand, seemed to think when I was a mere
infant that I was a little queen: once when I told a fib he did not
scold me; but I never saw him look so sad and so angry as when he
said, 'Never again forget that you are a lady.' And, but I tire you--"

"Tire me, indeed! go on."

"No, I have said enough to explain why I have at times proud thoughts,
and vain thoughts; and why, for instance, I said to myself, 'Perhaps
my place of right is among those fine ladies whom he--' but it is all
over now." She rose hastily with a pretty laugh, and bounded towards
Mrs. Cameron, who was walking slowly along the lawn with a book in her
hand.



CHAPTER XII.

IT was a very merry party at the vicarage that evening. Lily had not
been prepared to meet Kenelm there, and her face brightened
wonderfully as at her entrance he turned from the book-shelves to
which Mr. Emlyn was directing his attention. But instead of meeting
his advance, she darted off to the lawn, where Clemmy and several
other children greeted her with a joyous shout.

"Not acquainted with Macleane's Juvenal?" said the reverend scholar;
"you will be greatly pleased with it; here it is,--a posthumous work,
edited by George Long. I can lend you Munro's Lucretius, '69. Aha!
we have some scholars yet to pit against the Germans."

"I am heartily glad to hear it," said Kenelm. "It will be a long time
before they will ever wish to rival us in that game which Miss Clemmy
is now forming on the lawn, and in which England has recently acquired
a European reputation."

"I don't take you. What game?"

"Puss in the Corner. With your leave I will look out and see whether
it be a winning game for puss--in the long-run." Kenelm joined the
children, amidst whom Lily seemed not the least childlike. Resisting
all overtures from Clemmy to join their play, he seated himself on a
sloping bank at a little distance,--an idle looker-on. His eye
followed Lily's nimble movements, his ear drank in the music of her
joyous laugh. Could that be the same girl whom he had seen tending
the flower-bed amid the gravestones? Mrs. Emlyn came across the lawn
and joined him, seating herself also on the bank. Mrs. Emlyn was an
exceedingly clever woman: nevertheless she was not formidable,--on the
contrary, pleasing; and though the ladies in the neighbourhood said
'she talked like a book,' the easy gentleness of her voice carried off
that offence.

"I suppose, Mr. Chillingly," said she, "I ought to apologize for my
husband's invitation to what must seem to you so frivolous an
entertainment as a child's party. But when Mr. Emlyn asked you to
come to us this evening, he was not aware that Clemmy had also invited
her young friends. He had looked forward to rational conversation
with you on his own favourite studies."

"It is not so long since I left school, but that I prefer a half
holiday to lessons, even from a tutor so pleasant as Mr. Emlyn,--


"'Ah, happy years,--once more who would not be a boy!'"


"Nay," said Mrs. Emlyn, with a grave smile. "Who that had started so
fairly as Mr. Chillingly in the career of man would wish to go back
and resume a place among boys?"

"But, my dear Mrs. Emlyn, the line I quoted was wrung from the heart
of a man who had already outstripped all rivals in the race-ground he
had chosen, and who at that moment was in the very Maytime of youth
and of fame. And if such a man at such an epoch in his career could
sigh to 'be once more a boy,' it must have been when he was thinking
of the boy's half holiday, and recoiling from the task work he was
condemned to learn as man."

"The line you quote is, I think, from 'Childe Harold,' and surely you
would not apply to mankind in general the sentiment of a poet so
peculiarly self-reflecting (if I may use that expression), and in whom
sentiment is often so morbid."

"You are right, Mrs. Emlyn," said Kenelm, ingenuously. "Still a boy's
half holiday is a very happy thing; and among mankind in general there
must be many who would be glad to have it back again,--Mr. Emlyn
himself, I should think."

"Mr. Emlyn has his half holiday now. Do you not see him standing just
outside the window? Do you not hear him laughing? He is a child
again in the mirth of his children. I hope you will stay some time in
the neighbourhood; I am sure you and he will like each other. And it
is such a rare delight to him to get a scholar like yourself to talk
to."

"Pardon me, I am not a scholar; a very noble title that, and not to be
given to a lazy trifler on the surface of book-lore like myself."

"You are too modest. My husband has a copy of your Cambridge prize
verses, and says 'the Latinity of them is quite beautiful.' I quote
his very words."

"Latin verse-making is a mere knack, little more than a proof that one
had an elegant scholar for one's tutor, as I certainly had. But it is
by special grace that a real scholar can send forth another real
scholar, and a Kennedy produce a Munro. But to return to the more
interesting question of half holidays; I declare that Clemmy is
leading off your husband in triumph. He is actually going to be Puss
in the Corner."

"When you know more of Charles,--I mean my husband,--you will discover
that his whole life is more or less of a holiday. Perhaps because he
is not what you accuse yourself of being: he is not lazy; he never
wishes to be a boy once more; and taskwork itself is holiday to him.
He enjoys shutting himself up in his study and reading; he enjoys a
walk with the children; he enjoys visiting the poor; he enjoys his
duties as a clergyman. And though I am not always contented for him,
though I think he should have had those honours in his profession
which have been lavished on men with less ability and less learning,
yet he is never discontented himself. Shall I tell you his secret?"

"Do."

"He is a /Thanks-giving Man/. You, too, must have much to thank God
for, Mr. Chillingly; and in thanksgiving to God does there not blend
usefulness to man, and such sense of pastime in the usefulness as
makes each day a holiday?"

Kenelm looked up into the quiet face of this obscure pastor's wife
with a startled expression in his own.

"I see, ma'am," said he, "that you have devoted much thought to the
study of the aesthetical philosophy as expounded by German thinkers,
whom it is rather difficult to understand."

"I, Mr. Chillingly! good gracious! No! What do you mean by your
aesthetical philosophy?"

"According to aesthetics, I believe man arrives at his highest state
of moral excellence when labour and duty lose all the harshness of
effort,--when they become the impulse and habit of life; when as the
essential attributes of the beautiful, they are, like beauty, enjoyed
as pleasure; and thus, as you expressed, each day becomes a holiday: a
lovely doctrine, not perhaps so lofty as that of the Stoics, but more
bewitching. Only, very few of us can practically merge our cares and
our worries into so serene an atmosphere."

"Some do so without knowing anything of aesthetics and with no
pretence to be Stoics; but, then, they are Christians."

"There are some such Christians, no doubt; but they are rarely to be
met with. Take Christendom altogether, and it appears to comprise the
most agitated population in the world; the population in which there
is the greatest grumbling as to the quantity of labour to be done, the
loudest complaints that duty instead of a pleasure is a very hard and
disagreeable struggle, and in which holidays are fewest and the moral
atmosphere least serene. Perhaps," added Kenelm, with a deeper shade
of thought on his brow, "it is this perpetual consciousness of
struggle; this difficulty in merging toil into ease, or stern duty
into placid enjoyment; this refusal to ascend for one's self into the
calm of an air aloof from the cloud which darkens, and the hail-storm
which beats upon, the fellow-men we leave below,--that makes the
troubled life of Christendom dearer to Heaven, and more conducive to
Heaven's design in rendering earth the wrestling-ground and not the
resting-place of man, than is that of the Brahmin, ever seeking to
abstract himself from the Christian's conflicts of action and desire,
and to carry into its extremest practice the aesthetic theory, of
basking undisturbed in the contemplation of the most absolute beauty
human thought can reflect from its idea of divine good!"

Whatever Mrs. Emlyn might have said in reply was interrupted by the
rush of the children towards her; they were tired of play, and eager
for tea and the magic lantern.



CHAPTER XIII.

THE room is duly obscured and the white sheet attached to the wall;
the children are seated, hushed, and awe-stricken. And Kenelm is
placed next to Lily.

The tritest things in our mortal experience are among the most
mysterious. There is more mystery in the growth of a blade of grass
than there is in the wizard's mirror or the feats of a spirit medium.
Most of us have known the attraction that draws one human being to
another, and makes it so exquisite a happiness to sit quiet and mute
by another's side; which stills for the moment the busiest thoughts in
our brain, the most turbulent desires in our heart, and renders us but
conscious of a present ineffable bliss. Most of us have known that.
But who has ever been satisfied with any metaphysical account of its
why or wherefore? We can but say it is love, and love at that earlier
section of its history which has not yet escaped from romance; but by
what process that other person has become singled out of the whole
universe to attain such special power over one is a problem that,
though many have attempted to solve it, has never attained to
solution. In the dim light of the room Kenelm could only distinguish
the outlines of Lily's delicate face, but at each new surprise in the
show, the face intuitively turned to his, and once, when the terrible
image of a sheeted ghost, pursuing a guilty man, passed along the
wall, she drew closer to him in her childish fright, and by an
involuntary innocent movement laid her hand on his. He detained it
tenderly, but, alas! it was withdrawn the next moment; the ghost was
succeeded by a couple of dancing dogs. And Lily's ready laugh--partly
at the dogs, partly at her own previous alarm--vexed Kenelm's ear. He
wished there had been a succession of ghosts, each more appalling than
the last.

The entertainment was over, and after a slight refreshment of cakes
and wine-and-water the party broke up; the children visitors went away
attended by servant-maids who had come for them. Mrs. Cameron and
Lily were to walk home on foot.

"It is a lovely night, Mrs. Cameron," said Mr. Emlyn, "and I will
attend you to your gate."

"Permit me also," said Kenelm.

"Ay," said the vicar, "it is your own way to Cromwell Lodge."

The path led them through the churchyard as the nearest approach to
the brook-side. The moonbeams shimmered through the yew-trees and
rested on the old tomb; playing, as it were, round the flowers which
Lily's hand had that day dropped upon its stone. She was walking
beside Kenelm, the elder two a few paces in front.

"How silly I was," said she, "to be so frightened at the false ghost!
I don't think a real one would frighten me, at least if seen here, in
this loving moonlight, and on God's ground!"

"Ghosts, were they permitted to appear except in a magic lantern,
could not harm the innocent. And I wonder why the idea of their
apparition should always have been associated with such phantasies of
horror, especially by sinless children, who have the least reason to
dread them."

"Oh, that is true," cried Lily; "but even when we are grown up there
must be times in which we should so long to see a ghost, and feel what
a comfort, what a joy it would be."

"I understand you. If some one very dear to us had vanished from our
life; if we felt the anguish of the separation so intensely as to
efface the thought that life, as you said so well, 'never dies;' well,
yes, then I can conceive that the mourner would yearn to have a
glimpse of the vanished one, were it but to ask the sole and only
question he could desire to put, 'Art thou happy? May I hope that we
shall meet again, never to part,--never?'"

Kenelm's voice trembled as he spoke, tears stood in his eyes. A
melancholy--vague, unaccountable, overpowering--passed across his
heart, as the shadow of some dark-winged bird passes over a quiet
stream.

"You have never yet felt this?" asked Lily doubtingly, in a soft
voice, full of tender pity, stopping short and looking into his face.

"I? No. I have never yet lost one whom I so loved and so yearned to
see again. I was but thinking that such losses may befall us all ere
we too vanish out of sight."

"Lily!" called forth Mrs. Cameron, halting at the gate of the
burial-ground.

"Yes, auntie?"

"Mr. Emlyn wants to know how far you have got in 'Numa Pompilius.'
Come and answer for yourself."

"Oh, those tiresome grown-up people!" whispered Lily, petulantly, to
Kenelm. "I do like Mr. Emlyn; he is one of the very best of men. But
still he is grown up, and his 'Numa Pompilius' is so stupid."

"My first French lesson-book. No, it is not stupid. Read on. It has
hints of the prettiest fairy tale I know, and of the fairy in especial
who bewitched my fancies as a boy."

By this time they had gained the gate of the burial-ground.

"What fairy tale? what fairy?" asked Lily, speaking quickly.

"She was a fairy, though in heathen language she is called a
nymph,--Egeria. She was the link between men and gods to him she
loved; she belongs to the race of gods. True, she, too, may vanish,
but she can never die."

"Well, Miss Lily," said the vicar, "and how far in the book I lent
you,--'Numa Pompilius.'"

"Ask me this day next week."

"I will; but mind you are to translate as you go on. I must see the
translation."

"Very well. I will do my best," answered Lily meekly. Lily now
walked by the vicar's side, and Kenelm by Mrs. Cameron's, till they
reached Grasmere.

"I will go on with you to the bridge, Mr. Chillingly," said the vicar,
when the ladies had disappeared within their garden. "We had little
time to look over my books, and, by the by, I hope you at least took
the Juvenal."

"No, Mr. Emlyn; who can quit your house with an inclination for
satire? I must come some morning and select a volume from those works
which give pleasant views of life and bequeath favourable impressions
of mankind. Your wife, with whom I have had an interesting
conversation, upon the principles of aesthetical philosophy--"

"My wife! Charlotte! She knows nothing about aesthetical
philosophy."

"She calls it by another name, but she understands it well enough to
illustrate the principles by example. She tells me that labour and
duty are so taken up by you--


'In den heitern Regionen
Wo die reinen Formen wohnen,'


that they become joy and beauty,--is it so?"

"I am sure that Charlotte never said anything half so poetical. But,
in plain words, the days pass with me very happily. I should be
ungrateful if I were not happy. Heaven has bestowed on me so many
sources of love,--wife, children, books, and the calling which, when
one quits one's own threshold, carries love along with it into the
world beyond; a small world in itself,--only a parish,--but then my
calling links it with infinity."

"I see; it is from the sources of love that you draw the supplies for
happiness."

"Surely; without love one may be good, but one could scarcely be
happy. No one can dream of a heaven except as the abode of love.
What writer is it who says, 'How well the human heart was understood
by him who first called God by the name of Father'?"

"I do not remember, but it is beautifully said. You evidently do not
subscribe to the arguments in Decimus Roach's 'Approach to the
Angels.'"

"Ah, Mr. Chillingly! your words teach me how lacerated a man's
happiness may be if he does not keep the claws of vanity closely
pared. I actually feel a keen pang when you speak to me of that
eloquent panegyric on celibacy, ignorant that the only thing I ever
published which I fancied was not without esteem by intellectual
readers is a Reply to 'The Approach to the Angels,'--a youthful book,
written in the first year of my marriage. But it obtained success: I
have just revised the tenth edition of it."

"That is the book I will select from your library. You will be
pleased to hear that Mr. Roach, whom I saw at Oxford a few days ago,
recants his opinions, and, at the age of fifty, is about to be
married; he begs me to add, 'not for his own personal satisfaction.'"

"Going to be married!--Decimus Roach! I thought my Reply would
convince him at last."

"I shall look to your Reply to remove some lingering doubts in my own
mind."

"Doubts in favour of celibacy?"

"Well, if not for laymen, perhaps for a priesthood."

"The most forcible part of my Reply is on that head: read it
attentively. I think that, of all sections of mankind, the clergy are
those to whom, not only for their own sakes, but for the sake of the
community, marriage should be most commended. Why, sir," continued
the vicar, warming up into oratorical enthusiasm, "are you not aware
that there are no homes in England from which men who have served and
adorned their country have issued forth in such prodigal numbers as
those of the clergy of our Church? What other class can produce a
list so crowded with eminent names as we can boast in the sons we have
reared and sent forth into the world? How many statesmen, soldiers,
sailors, lawyers, physicians, authors, men of science, have been the
sons of us village pastors? Naturally: for with us they receive
careful education; they acquire of necessity the simple tastes and
disciplined habits which lead to industry and perseverance; and, for
the most part, they carry with them throughout life a purer moral
code, a more systematic reverence for things and thoughts religious,
associated with their earliest images of affection and respect, than
can be expected from the sons of laymen whose parents are wholly
temporal and worldly. Sir, I maintain that this is a cogent argument,
to be considered well by the nation, not only in favour of a married
clergy,--for, on that score, a million of Roaches could not convert
public opinion in this country,--but in favour of the Church, the
Established Church, which has been so fertile a nursery of illustrious
laymen; and I have often thought that one main and undetected cause of
the lower tone of morality, public and private, of the greater
corruption of manners, of the more prevalent scorn of religion which
we see, for instance, in a country so civilized as France, is, that
its clergy can train no sons to carry into the contests of earth the
steadfast belief in accountability to Heaven."

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