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Kenelm Chillingly, Book 8.

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BOOK VIII.



CHAPTER I.

NEVER in his whole life had the mind of Sir Peter been so agitated as
it was during and after the perusal of Kenelm's flighty composition.
He had received it at the breakfast-table, and, opening it eagerly,
ran his eye hastily over the contents, till he very soon arrived at
sentences which appalled him. Lady Chillingly, who was fortunately
busied at the tea-urn, did not observe the dismay on his countenance.
It was visible only to Cecilia and to Gordon. Neither guessed who
that letter was from.

"No bad news, I hope," said Cecilia, softly.

"Bad news," echoed Sir Peter. "No, my dear, no; a letter on business.
It seems terribly long," and he thrust the packet into his pocket,
muttering, "see to it by and by."

"That slovenly farmer of yours, Mr. Nostock, has failed, I suppose,"
said Mr. Travers, looking up and observing a quiver on his host's lip.
"I told you he would,--a fine farm too. Let me choose you another
tenant."

Sir Peter shook his head with a wan smile.

"Nostock will not fail. There have been six generations of Nostocks
on the farm."

"So I should guess," said Travers, dryly.

"And--and," faltered Sir Peter, "if the last of the race fails, he
must lean upon me, and--if one of the two break down--it shall not
be--"

"Shall not be that cross-cropping blockhead, my dear Sir Peter. This
is carrying benevolence too far."

Here the tact and /savoir vivre/ of Chillingly Gordon came to the
rescue of the host. Possessing himself of the "Times" newspaper, he
uttered an exclamation of surprise, genuine or simulated, and read
aloud an extract from the leading article, announcing an impending
change in the Cabinet.

As soon as he could quit the breakfast-table, Sir Peter hurried into
his library and there gave himself up to the study of Kenelm's
unwelcome communication. The task took him long, for he stopped at
intervals, overcome by the struggle of his heart, now melted into
sympathy with the passionate eloquence of a son hitherto so free from
amorous romance, and now sorrowing for the ruin of his own cherished
hopes. This uneducated country girl would never be such a helpmate to
a man like Kenelm as would have been Cecilia Travers. At length,
having finished the letter, he buried his head between his clasped
hands, and tried hard to realize the situation that placed the father
and son into such direct antagonism.

"But," he murmured, "after all it is the boy's happiness that must be
consulted. If he will not be happy in my way, what right have I to
say that he shall not be happy in his?"

Just then Cecilia came softly into the room. She had acquired the
privilege of entering his library at will; sometimes to choose a book
of his recommendation, sometimes to direct and seal his letters,--Sir
Peter was grateful to any one who saved him an extra trouble,--and
sometimes, especially at this hour, to decoy him forth into his wonted
constitutional walk.

He lifted his face at the sound of her approaching tread and her
winning voice, and the face was so sad that the tears rushed to her
eyes on seeing it. She laid her hand on his shoulder, and said
pleadingly, "Dear Sir Peter, what is it,--what is it?"

"Ah--ah, my dear," said Sir Peter, gathering up the scattered sheets
of Kenelm's effusion with hurried, trembling hands. "Don't
ask,--don't talk of it; 'tis but one of the disappointments that all
of us must undergo, when we invest our hopes in the uncertain will of
others."

Then, observing that the tears were trickling down the girl's fair,
pale cheeks, he took her hand in both his, kissed her forehead, and
said, whisperingly, "Pretty one, how good you have been to me! Heaven
bless you. What a wife you will be to some man!"

Thus saying, he shambled out of the room through the open casement.
She followed him impulsively, wonderingly; but before she reached his
side he turned round, waved his hand with a gently repelling gesture,
and went his way alone through dense fir-groves which had been planted
in honour of Kenelm's birth.



CHAPTER II.

KENELM arrived at Exmundham just in time to dress for dinner. His
arrival was not unexpected, for the morning after his father had
received his communication, Sir Peter had said to Lady
Chillingly--"that he had heard from Kenelm to the effect that he might
be down any day."

"Quite time he should come," said Lady Chillingly. "Have you his
letter about you?"

"No, my dear Caroline. Of course he sends you his kindest love, poor
fellow."

"Why poor fellow? Has he been ill?"

"No; but there seems to be something on his mind. If so we must do
what we can to relieve it. He is the best of sons, Caroline."

"I am sure I have nothing to say against him, except," added her
Ladyship, reflectively, "that I do wish he were a little more like
other young men."

"Hum--like Chillingly Gordon, for instance?"

"Well, yes; Mr. Gordon is a remarkably well-bred, sensible young man.
How different from that disagreeable, bearish father of his, who went
to law with you!"

"Very different indeed, but with just as much of the Chillingly blood
in him. How the Chillinglys ever gave birth to a Kenelm is a question
much more puzzling."

"Oh, my dear Sir Peter, don't be metaphysical. You know how I hate
puzzles."

"And yet, Caroline, I have to thank you for a puzzle which I can never
interpret by my brain. There are a great many puzzles in human nature
which can only be interpreted by the heart."

"Very true," said Lady Chillingly. "I suppose Kenelm is to have his
old room, just opposite to Mr. Gordon's."

"Ay--ay, just opposite. Opposite they will be all their lives. Only
think, Caroline, I have made a discovery!"

"Dear me! I hope not. Your discoveries are generally very expensive,
and bring us in contact with such very odd people."

"This discovery shall not cost us a penny, and I don't know any people
so odd as not to comprehend it. Briefly it is this: To genius the
first requisite is heart; it is no requisite at all to talent. My
dear Caroline, Gordon has as much talent as any young man I know, but
he wants the first requisite of genius. I am not by any means sure
that Kenelm has genius, but there is no doubt that he has the first
requisite of genius,--heart. Heart is a very perplexing, wayward,
irrational thing; and that perhaps accounts for the general incapacity
to comprehend genius, while any fool can comprehend talent. My dear
Caroline, you know that it is very seldom, not more than once in three
years, that I presume to have a will of my own against a will of
yours; but should there come a question in which our son's heart is
concerned, then (speaking between ourselves) my will must govern
yours."

"Sir Peter is growing more odd every day," said Lady Chillingly to
herself when left alone. "But he does not mean ill, and there are
worse husbands in the world."

Therewith she rang for her maid, gave requisite orders for the
preparing of Kenelm's room, which had not been slept in for many
months, and then consulted that functionary as to the adaptation of
some dress of hers, too costly to be laid aside, to the style of some
dress less costly which Lady Glenalvon had imported from Paris as /la
derniere mode/.

On the very day on which Kenelm arrived at Exmundham, Chillingly
Gordon had received this letter from Mr. Gerald Danvers.


DEAR GORDON,--In the ministerial changes announced as rumour in the
public papers, and which you may accept as certain, that sweet little
cherub--is to be sent to sit up aloft and pray there for the life of
poor Jack; namely, of the government he leaves below. In accepting
the peerage, which I persuaded him to do,--creates a vacancy for the
borough of -----, just the place for you, far better in every way than
Saxborough. ----- promises to recommend you to his committee. Come to
town at once. Yours, etc.

G. DANVERS.


Gordon showed this letter to Mr. Travers, and, on receiving the hearty
good-wishes of that gentleman, said, with emotion partly genuine,
partly assumed, "You cannot guess all that the realization of your
good-wishes would be. Once in the House of Commons, and my motives
for action are so strong that--do not think me very conceited if I
count upon Parliamentary success."

"My clear Gordon, I am as certain of your success as I am of my own
existence."

"Should I succeed,--should the great prizes of public life be within
my reach,--should I lift myself into a position that would warrant my
presumption, do you think I could come to you and say, 'There is an
object of ambition dearer to me than power and office,--the hope of
attaining which was the strongest of all my motives of action? And in
that hope shall I also have the good-wishes of the father of Cecilia
Travers?"

"My dear fellow, give me your hand; you speak manfully and candidly as
a gentleman should speak. I answer in the same spirit. I don't
pretend to say that I have not entertained views for Cecilia which
included hereditary rank and established fortune in a suitor to her
hand, though I never should have made them imperative conditions. I
am neither potentate nor /parvenu/ enough for that; and I can never
forget" (here every muscle in the man's face twitched) "that I myself
married for love, and was so happy. How happy Heaven only knows!
Still, if you had thus spoken a few weeks ago, I should not have
replied very favourably to your question. But now that I have seen so
much of you, my answer is this: If you lose your election,--if you
don't come into Parliament at all, you have my good-wishes all the
same. If you win my daughter's heart, there is no man on whom I would
more willingly bestow her hand. There she is, by herself too, in the
garden. Go and talk to her."

Gordon hesitated. He knew too well that he had not won her heart,
though he had no suspicion that it was given to another. And he was
much too clever not to know also how much he hazards who, in affairs
of courtship, is premature.

"Ah!" he said, "I cannot express my gratitude for words so generous,
encouragement so cheering. But I have never yet dared to utter to
Miss Travers a word that would prepare her even to harbour a thought
of me as a suitor. And I scarcely think I should have the courage to
go through this election with the grief of her rejection on my heart."

"Well, go in and win the election first; meanwhile, at all events,
take leave of Cecilia."

Gordon left his friend, and joined Miss Travers, resolved not indeed
to risk a formal declaration, but to sound his way to his chances of
acceptance.

The interview was very brief. He did sound his way skilfully, and
felt it very unsafe for his footsteps. The advantage of having gained
the approval of the father was too great to be lost altogether, by one
of those decided answers on the part of the daughter which allow of no
appeal, especially to a poor gentleman who wooes an heiress.

He returned to Travers, and said simply, "I bear with me her
good-wishes as well as yours. That is all. I leave myself in your
kind hands."

Then he hurried away to take leave of his host and hostess, say a few
significant words to the ally he had already gained in Mrs. Campion,
and within an hour was on his road to London, passing on his way the
train that bore Kenelm to Exmundham. Gordon was in high spirits. At
least he felt as certain of winning Cecilia as he did of winning his
election.

"I have never yet failed in what I desired," said he to himself,
"because I have ever taken pains not to fail."

The cause of Gordon's sudden departure created a great excitement in
that quiet circle, shared by all except Cecilia and Sir Peter.



CHAPTER III.

KENELM did not see either father or mother till he appeared at dinner.
Then he was seated next to Cecilia. There was but little conversation
between the two; in fact, the prevalent subject of talk was general
and engrossing, the interest in Chillingly Gordon's election;
predictions of his success, of what he would do in Parliament.
"Where," said Lady Glenalvon, "there is such a dearth of rising young
men, that if he were only half as clever as he is he would be a gain."

"A gain to what?" asked Sir Peter, testily. "To his country? about
which I don't believe he cares a brass button."

To this assertion Leopold Travers replied warmly, and was not less
warmly backed by Mrs. Campion.

"For my part," said Lady Glenalvon, in conciliatory accents, "I think
every able man in Parliament is a gain to the country; and he may not
serve his country less effectively because he does not boast of his
love for it. The politicians I dread most are those so rampant in
France nowadays, the bawling patriots. When Sir Robert Walpole said,
'All those men have their price,' he pointed to the men who called
themselves 'patriots.'"

"Bravo!" cried Travers.

"Sir Robert Walpole showed his love for his country by corrupting it.
There are many ways besides bribing for corrupting a country," said
Kenelm, mildly, and that was Kenelm's sole contribution to the general
conversation.

It was not till the rest of the party had retired to rest that the
conference, longed for by Kenelm, dreaded by Sir Peter, took place in
the library. It lasted deep into the night; both parted with
lightened hearts and a fonder affection for each other. Kenelm had
drawn so charming a picture of the Fairy, and so thoroughly convinced
Sir Peter that his own feelings towards her were those of no passing
youthful fancy, but of that love which has its roots in the innermost
heart, that though it was still with a sigh, a deep sigh, that he
dismissed the thought of Cecilia, Sir Peter did dismiss it; and,
taking comfort at last from the positive assurance that Lily was of
gentle birth, and the fact that her name of Mordaunt was that of
ancient and illustrious houses, said, with half a smile, "It might
have been worse, my dear boy. I began to be afraid that, in spite of
the teachings of Mivers and Welby, it was 'The Miller's Daughter,'
after all. But we still have a difficult task to persuade your poor
mother. In covering your first flight from our roof I unluckily put
into her head the notion of Lady Jane, a duke's daughter, and the
notion has never got out of it. That comes of fibbing."

"I count on Lady Glenalvon's influence on my mother in support of your
own," said Kenelm. "If so accepted an oracle in the great world
pronounce in my favour, and promise to present my wife at Court and
bring her into fashion, I think that my mother will consent to allow
us to reset the old family diamonds for her next reappearance in
London. And then, too, you can tell her that I will stand for the
county. I will go into Parliament, and if I meet there our clever
cousin, and find that he does not care a brass button for the country,
take my word for it, I will lick him more easily than I licked Tom
Bowles."

"Tom Bowles! who is he?--ah! I remember some letter of yours in which
you spoke of a Bowles, whose favourite study was mankind, a moral
philosopher."

"Moral philosophers," answered Kenelm, "have so muddled their brains
with the alcohol of new ideas that their moral legs have become shaky,
and the humane would rather help them to bed than give them a licking.
My Tom Bowles is a muscular Christian, who became no less muscular,
but much more Christian, after he was licked."

And in this pleasant manner these two oddities settled their
conference, and went up to bed with arms wrapped round each other's
shoulder.



CHAPTER IV.

KENELM found it a much harder matter to win Lady Glenalvon to his side
than he had anticipated. With the strong interest she had taken in
Kenelm's future, she could not but revolt from the idea of his union
with an obscure portionless girl whom he had only known a few weeks,
and of whose very parentage he seemed to know nothing, save an
assurance that she was his equal in birth. And, with the desire,
which she had cherished almost as fondly as Sir Peter, that Kenelm
might win a bride in every way so worthy of his choice as Cecilia
Travers, she felt not less indignant than regretful at the overthrow
of her plans.

At first, indeed, she was so provoked that she would not listen to his
pleadings. She broke away from him with a rudeness she had never
exhibited to any one before, refused to grant him another interview in
order to re-discuss the matter, and said that, so far from using her
influence in favour of his romantic folly, she would remonstrate well
with Lady Chillingly and Sir Peter against yielding their assent to
his "thus throwing himself away."

It was not till the third day after his arrival that, touched by the
grave but haughty mournfulness of his countenance, she yielded to the
arguments of Sir Peter in the course of a private conversation with
that worthy baronet. Still it was reluctantly (she did not fulfil her
threat of remonstrance with Lady Chillingly) that she conceded the
point, that a son who, succeeding to the absolute fee-simple of an
estate, had volunteered the resettlement of it on terms singularly
generous to both his parents, was entitled to some sacrifice of their
inclinations on a question in which he deemed his happiness vitally
concerned; and that he was of age to choose for himself independently
of their consent, but for a previous promise extracted from him by his
father, a promise which, rigidly construed, was not extended to Lady
Chillingly, but confined to Sir Peter as the head of the family and
master of the household. The father's consent was already given, and,
if in his reverence for both parents Kenelm could not dispense with
his mother's approval, surely it was the part of a true friend to
remove every scruple from his conscience, and smooth away every
obstacle to a love not to be condemned because it was disinterested.

After this conversation, Lady Glenalvon sought Kenelm, found him
gloomily musing on the banks of the trout-stream, took his arm, led
him into the sombre glades of the fir-grove, and listened patiently to
all he had to say. Even then her woman's heart was not won to his
reasonings, until he said pathetically, "You thanked me once for
saving your son's life: you said then that you could never repay me;
you can repay me tenfold. Could your son, who is now, we trust, in
heaven, look down and judge between us, do you think he would approve
you if you refuse?"

Then Lady Glenalvon wept, and took his hand, kissed his forehead as a
mother might kiss it, and said, "You triumph; I will go to Lady
Chillingly at once. Marry her whom you so love, on one condition:
marry her from my house."

Lady Glenalvon was not one of those women who serve a friend by
halves. She knew well how to propitiate and reason down the apathetic
temperament of Lady Chillingly; she did not cease till that lady
herself came into Kenelm's room, and said very quietly,--

"So you are going to propose to Miss Mordaunt, the Warwickshire
Mordaunts I suppose? Lady Glenalvon says she is a very lovely girl,
and will stay with her before the wedding. And as the young lady is
an orphan Lady Glenalvon's uncle the Duke, who is connected with the
eldest branch of the Mordaunts, will give her away. It will be a very
brilliant affair. I am sure I wish you happy; it is time you should
have sown your wild oats."

Two days after the consent thus formally given, Kenelm quitted
Exmundham. Sir Peter would have accompanied him to pay his respects
to the intended, but the agitation he had gone through brought on a
sharp twinge of the gout, which consigned his feet to flannels.

After Kenelm had gone, Lady Glenalvon went into Cecilia's room.
Cecilia was seated very desolately by the open window. She had
detected that something of an anxious and painful nature had been
weighing upon the minds of father and son, and had connected it with
the letter which had so disturbed the even mind of Sir Peter; but she
did not divine what the something was, and if mortified by a certain
reserve, more distant than heretofore, which had characterized
Kenelm's manner towards herself, the mortification was less sensibly
felt than a tender sympathy for the sadness she had observed on his
face and yearned to soothe. His reserve had, however, made her own
manner more reserved than of old, for which she was now rather chiding
herself than reproaching him.

Lady Glenalvon put her arms round Cecilia's neck and kissed her,
whispering, "That man has so disappointed me: he is so unworthy of the
happiness I had once hoped for him!"

"Whom do you speak of?" murmured Cecilia, turning very pale.

"Kenelm Chillingly. It seems that he has conceived a fancy for some
penniless girl whom he has met in his wanderings, has come here to get
the consent of his parents to propose to her, has obtained their
consent, and is gone to propose."

Cecilia remained silent for a moment with her eyes closed, then she
said, "He is worthy of all happiness, and he would never make an
unworthy choice. Heaven bless him--and--and--" She would have added,
"his bride," but her lips refused to utter the word bride.

"Cousin Gordon is worth ten of him," cried Lady Glenalvon,
indignantly.

She had served Kenelm, but she had not forgiven him.



CHAPTER V.

KENELM slept in London that night, and, the next day, being singularly
fine for an English summer, he resolved to go to Moleswich on foot.
He had no need this time to encumber himself with a knapsack; he had
left sufficient change of dress in his lodgings at Cromwell Lodge.

It was towards the evening when he found himself in one of the
prettiest rural villages by which


"Wanders the hoary Thames along
His silver-winding way."


It was not in the direct road from London to Moleswich, but it was a
pleasanter way for a pedestrian. And when, quitting the long street
of the sultry village, he came to the shelving margin of the river, he
was glad to rest a while, enjoy the cool of the rippling waters, and
listen to their placid murmurs amid the rushes in the bordering
shallows. He had ample time before him. His rambles while at
Cromwell Lodge had made him familiar with the district for miles round
Moleswich, and he knew that a footpath through the fields at the right
would lead him, in less than an hour, to the side of the tributary
brook on which Cromwell Lodge was placed, opposite the wooden bridge
which conducted to Grasmere and Moleswich.

To one who loves the romance of history, English history, the whole
course of the Thames is full of charm. Ah! could I go back to the
days in which younger generations than that of Kenelm Chillingly were
unborn, when every wave of the Rhine spoke of history and romance to
me, what fairies should meet on thy banks, O thou our own Father
Thames! Perhaps some day a German pilgrim may repay tenfold to thee
the tribute rendered by the English kinsman to the Father Rhine.

Listening to the whispers of the reeds, Kenelm Chillingly felt the
haunting influence of the legendary stream. Many a poetic incident or
tradition in antique chronicle, many a votive rhyme in song, dear to
forefathers whose very names have become a poetry to us, thronged
dimly and confusedly back to his memory, which had little cared to
retain such graceful trinkets in the treasure-house of love. But
everything that, from childhood upward, connects itself with romance,
revives with yet fresher bloom in the memories of him who loves.

And to this man, through the first perilous season of youth, so
abnormally safe from youth's most wonted peril,--to this would-be
pupil of realism, this learned adept in the schools of a Welby or a
Mivers,--to this man, love came at last as with the fatal powers of
the fabled Cytherea; and with that love all the realisms of life
became ideals, all the stern lines of our commonplace destinies
undulated into curves of beauty, all the trite sounds of our every-day
life attuned into delicacies of song. How full of sanguine yet dreamy
bliss was his heart--and seemed his future--in the gentle breeze and
the softened glow of that summer eve! He should see Lily the next
morn, and his lips were now free to say all that they had as yet
suppressed.

Suddenly he was roused from the half-awake, half-asleep happiness that
belongs to the moments in which we transport ourselves into Elysium,
by the carol of a voice more loudly joyous than that of his own
heart--


"Singing, singing,
Lustily singing,
Down the road, with his dogs before,
Came the Ritter of Nierestein."


Kenelm turned his head so quickly that he frightened Max, who had for
the last minute been standing behind him inquisitively with one paw
raised, and sniffing, in some doubt whether he recognized an old
acquaintance; but at Kenelm's quick movement the animal broke into a
nervous bark, and ran back to his master.

The minstrel, little heeding the figure reclined on the bank, would
have passed on with his light tread and his cheery carol, but Kenelm
rose to his feet, and holding out his hand, said, "I hope you don't
share Max's alarm at meeting me again?"

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