The Caxtons, Part 14

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PART XIV.

CHAPTER I.

There is a beautiful and singular passage in Dante (which has not
perhaps attracted the attention it deserves), wherein the stern
Florentine defends Fortune from the popular accusations against her.
According to him she is an angelic power appointed by the Supreme Being
to direct and order the course of human splendors; she obeys the will of
God; she is blessed; and hearing not those who blaspheme her, calm and
aloft amongst the other angelic powers, revolves her spheral course and
rejoices in her beatitude. (1)

This is a conception very different from the popular notion which
Aristophanes, in his true instinct of things popular, expresses by the
sullen lips of his Plutus. That deity accounts for his blindness by
saying that "when a boy he had indiscreetly promised to visit only the
good;" and Jupiter was so envious of the good that be blinded the poor
money-god. Whereon Chremylus asks him whether, "if he recovered his
sight, he would frequent the company of the good." "Certainly," quoth
Plutus; "for I have not seen them ever so long." "Nor I either,"
rejoins Chremylus, pithily, "for all I can see out of both eyes."

But that misanthropical answer of Chremylus is neither here nor there,
and only diverts us from the real question, and that is, "Whether
Fortune be a heavenly, Christian angel, or a blind, blundering, old
heathen deity?" For my part, I hold with Dante; for which, if I were so
pleased, or if at this period of my memoirs I had half a dozen pages to
spare, I could give many good reasons. One thing, however, is quite
clear, that whether Fortune be more like Plutus or an angel, it is no
use abusing her,--one may as well throw stones at a star. And I think,
if one looked narrowly at her operations, one might perceive that she
gives every man a chance at least once in his life if he take and make
the best of it, she will renew her visits; if not, itur ad astra! And
therewith I am reminded of an incident quaintly narrated by Mariana in
his "History of Spain," how the army of the Spanish kings got out of a
sad hobble among the mountains at the Pass of Losa by the help of a
shepherd who showed them the way. "But," saith Mariana,
parenthetically, "some do say the shepherd was an angel; for after he
had shown the way, he was never seen more." That is, the angelic nature
of the guide was proved by being only once seen, and after having got
the army out of the hobble, leaving it to fight or run away, as it had
most mind to. Now, I look upon that shepherd, or angel, as a very good
type of my fortune at least. The apparition showed me my way in the
rocks to the great "Battle of Life;" after that--hold fast and strike
hard!

Behold me in London with Uncle Roland. My poor parents naturally wished
to accompany me, and take the last glimpse of the adventurer on board
ship; but I, knowing that the parting would seem less dreadful to them
by the hearthstone, and while they could say, "He is with Roland; he is
not yet gone from the land," insisted on their staying behind; and thus
the farewell was spoken. But Roland, the old soldier, had so many
practical instructions to give, could so help me in the choice of the
outfit and the preparations for the voyage, that I could not refuse his
companionship to the last. Guy Bolding, who had gone to take leave of
his father, was to join me in town, as well as my humbler Cumberland
colleagues.

As my uncle and I were both of one mind upon the question of economy, we
took up our quarters at a lodging-house in the City; and there it was that
I first made acquaintance with a part of London of which few of my politer
readers even pretend to be cognizant. I do not mean any sneer at the City
itself, my dear alderman,--that jest is worn out. I am not alluding to
streets, courts, and lanes; what I mean may be seen at the West-end--not
so well as at the East, but still seen very fairly,--I mean The House-Tops!

(1) Dante here evidently associates Fortune with the planetary
influences of judicial astrology. It is doubtful whether Schiller ever
read Dante; but in one of his most thoughtful poems he undertakes the
same defence of Fortune, making the Fortunate a part of the Beautiful.

CHAPTER II.

The House-Tops! What a soberizing effect that prospect produces on the
mind. But a great many requisites go towards the selection of the right
point of survey. It is not enough to secure a lodging in the attic; you
must not be fobbed off with a front attic that faces the street. First,
your attic must be unequivocally a back attic; secondly, the house in
which it is located must be slightly elevated above its neighbors;
thirdly, the window must not lie slant on the roof, as is common with
attics,--in which case you can only catch a peep of that leaden canopy
which infatuated Londoners call the sky,--but must be a window
perpendicular, and not half blocked up by the parapets of that fosse
called the gutter; and, lastly, the sight must be so humored that you
cannot catch a glimpse of the pavements: if you once see the world
beneath, the whole charm of that world above is destroyed. Taking it
for granted that you have secured these requisites, open your window,
lean your chin on both hands, the elbows propped commodiously on the
sill, and contemplate the extraordinary scene which spreads before you.
You find it difficult to believe life can be so tranquil on high, while
it is so noisy and turbulent below. What astonishing stillness! Eliot
Warburton (seductive enchanter!) recommends you to sail down the Nile if
you want to lull the vexed spirit. It is easier and cheaper to hire an
attic in Holborn! You don't have the crocodiles, but you have animals
no less hallowed in Egypt,--the cats! And how harmoniously the tranquil
creatures blend with the prospect; how noiselessly they glide along at
the distance, pause, peer about, and disappear! It is only from the
attic that you can appreciate the picturesque which belongs to our
domesticated tiger-kin! The goat should be seen on the Alps, and the
cat on the house-top.

By degrees the curious eye takes the scenery in detail; and first, what
fantastic variety in the heights and shapes of the chimney-pots! Some
all level in a row, uniform and respectable, but quite uninteresting;
others, again, rising out of all proportion, and imperatively tasking
the reason to conjecture why they are so aspiring. Reason answers that
it is but a homely expedient to give freer vent to the smoke; wherewith
Imagination steps in, and represents to you all the fretting and fuming
and worry and care which the owners of that chimney, now the tallest of
all, endured before, by building it higher, they got rid of the vapors.
You see the distress of the cook when the sooty invader rushed down,
"like a wolf on the fold," full spring on the Sunday joint. You hear
the exclamations of the mistress (perhaps a bride,--house newly
furnished) when, with white apron and cap, she ventured into the
drawing-room, and was straightway saluted by a joyous dance of those
monads called vulgarly "smuts." You feel manly indignation at the brute
of a bridegroom who rushes out from the door, with the smuts dancing
after him, and swears, "Smoked out again! By the Arch-smoker himself,
I'll go and dine at the club!" All this might well have been, till the
chimney-pot was raised a few feet nearer heaven; and now perhaps that
long-suffering family owns the happiest home in the Row. Such
contrivances to get rid of the smoke! It is not every one who merely
heightens his chimney; others clap on the hollow tormentor all sorts of
odd head-gear and cowls. Here, patent contrivances act the purpose of
weather-cocks, swaying to and fro with the wind; there, others stand as
fixed as if, by a sic jubeo, they had settled the business.

But of all those houses that in the street one passes by, unsuspicious
of what's the matter within, there is not one in a hundred but what
there has been the devil to do to cure the chimneys of smoking! At that
reflection Philosophy dismisses the subject, and decides that, whether
one lives in a but or a palace, the first thing to do is to look to the
hearth and get rid of the vapors.

New beauties demand us. What endless undulations in the various
declivities and ascents,--here a slant, there a zigzag! With what
majestic disdain yon roof rises up to the left! Doubtless a palace of
Genii, or Gin (which last is the proper Arabic word for those builders
of halls out of nothing, employed by Aladdin). Seeing only the roof of
that palace boldly breaking the sky-line, how serene your
contemplations! Perhaps a star twinkles over it, and you muse on soft
eyes far away; while below at the threshold--No, phantoms! we see you
not from our attic. Note, yonder, that precipitous fall,--how ragged
and jagged the roof-scene descends in a gorge! He who would travel on
foot through the pass of that defile, of which we see but the
picturesque summits, stops his nose, averts his eyes, guards his
pockets, and hurries along through the squalor of the grim London
lazzaroni. But seen above, what a noble break in the sky-line! It
would be sacrilege to exchange that fine gorge for a dead flat of dull
rooftops. Look here, how delightful! that desolate house with no roof
at all,--gutted and skinned by the last London fire! You can see the
poor green-and-white paper still clinging to the walls, and the chasm
that once was a cupboard, and the shadows gathering black on the
aperture that once was a hearth! Seen below, how quickly you would
cross over the way! That great crack forebodes an avalanche; you hold
your breath, not to bring it down on your head. But seen above, what a
compassionate, inquisitive charm in the skeleton ruin! How your fancy
runs riot,--re-peopling the chambers, hearing the last cheerful good-
night of that destined Pompeii, creeping on tiptoe with the mother when
she gives her farewell look to the baby. Now all is midnight and
silence; then the red, crawling serpent comes out. Lo! his breath;
hark! his hiss. Now, spire after spire he winds and he coils; now he
soars up erect,--crest superb, and forked tongue,--the beautiful horror!
Then the start from the sleep, and the doubtful awaking, and the run
here and there, and the mother's rush to the cradle; the cry from the
window, and the knock at the door, and the spring of those on high
towards the stair that leads to safety below, and the smoke rushing up
like the surge of a hell! And they run back stifled and blinded, and
the floor heaves beneath them like a bark on the sea. Hark! the grating
wheels thundering low; near and nearer comes the engine. Fix the
ladders,--there! there! at the window, where the mother stands with the
babe! Splash and hiss comes the water; pales, then flares out, the
fire! Foe defies foe; element, element. How sublime is the war! But
the ladder, the ladder,--there, at the window! All else are saved,--the
clerk and his books; the lawyer with that tin box of title-deeds; the
landlord, with his policy of insurance; the miser, with his bank-notes
and gold: all are saved,--all but the babe and the mother. What a crowd
in the streets; how the light crimsons over the gazers, hundreds on
hundreds! All those faces seem as one face, with fear. Not a than
mounts the ladder. Yes, there,--gallant fellow! God inspires, God
shall speed thee! How plainly I see him! his eyes are closed, his teeth
set. The serpent leaps up, the forked tongue darts upon him, and the
reek of the breath wraps him round. The crowd has ebbed back like a
sea, and the smoke rushes over them all. Ha! what dim forms are those
on the ladder? Near and nearer,--crash come the roof-tiles! Alas and
alas! no! a cry of joy,--a "Thank Heaven!" and the women force their way
through the men to come round the child and the mother. All is gone
save that skeleton ruin. But the ruin is seen from above. O Art! study
life from the roof-tops!

CHAPTER III.

I was again foiled in seeing Trevanion. It was the Easter recess, and
he was at the house of one of his brother ministers somewhere in the
North of England. But Lady Ellinor was in London, and I was ushered
into her presence. Nothing could be more cordial than her manner,
though she was evidently much depressed in spirits, and looked wan and
careworn.

After the kindest inquiries relative to my parents and the Captain, she
entered with much sympathy into my schemes and plans, which she said
Trevanion had confided to her. The sterling kindness that belonged to
my old patron (despite his affected anger at my not accepting his
proffered loan) had not only saved me and my fellow-adventurer all
trouble as to allotment orders, but procured advice as to choice of site
and soil, from the best practical experience, which we found after wards
exceedingly useful. And as Lady Ellinor gave me the little packet of
papers, with Trevanion's shrewd notes on the margin, she said, with a
half sigh, "Albert bids me say that he wishes he were as sanguine of his
success in the Cabinet as of yours in the Bush." She then turned to her
husband's rise and prospects, and her face began to change; her eyes
sparkled, the color came to her cheeks. "But you are one of the few who
know him," she said, interrupting herself suddenly; "you know how he
sacrifices all things,--joy, leisure, health,--to his country. There is
not one selfish thought in his nature. And yet such envy,--such
obstacles still! And [her eyes dropped on her dress, and I perceived
that she was in mourning, though the mourning was not deep], and," she
added, "it has pleased Heaven to withdraw from his side one who would
have been worthy his alliance."

I felt for the proud woman, though her emotion seemed more that of pride
than sorrow. And perhaps Lord Castleton's highest merit in her eyes had
been that of ministering to her husband's power and her own ambition. I
bowed my head in silence, and thought of Fanny. Did she, too, pine for
the lost rank, or rather mourn the lost lover?

After a time I said, hesitatingly, "I scarcely presume to condole with
you, Lady Ellinor, yet, believe me, few things ever shocked me like the
death you allude to. I trust Miss Trevanion's health has not much
suffered. Shall I not see her before I leave England?"

Lady Ellinor fixed her keen bright eyes searchingly on my countenance,
and perhaps the gaze satisfied her; for she held out her hand to me with
a frankness almost tender, and said "Had I had a son, the dearest wish
of my heart had been to see you wedded to my daughter."

I started up; the blood rushed to my cheeks, and then left me pale as
death. I looked reproachfully at Lady Ellinor, and the word "cruel!"
faltered on my lips.

"Yes," continued Lady Ellinor, mournfully, "that was my real thought, my
impulse of regret, when I first saw you. But as it is, do not think me
too hard and worldly if I quote the lofty old French proverb, Noblesse
oblige. Listen to me, my young friend: we may never meet again, and I
would not have your father's son think unkindly of me, with all my
faults. From my first childhood I was ambitious,--not, as women usually
are, of mere wealth and rank, but ambitious as noble men are, of power
and fame. A woman can only indulge such ambition by investing it in
another. It was not wealth, it was not rank, that attracted me to
Albert Trevanion: it was the nature that dispenses with the wealth and
commands the rank. Nay," continued Lady Ellinor, in a voice that
slightly trembled, "I may have seen in my youth, before I knew
Trevanion, one [she paused a moment, and went on hurriedly]--one who
wanted but ambition to have realized my ideal. Perhaps even when I
married--and it was said for love--I loved less with my whole heart than
with my whole mind. I may say this now, for now every beat of this
pulse is wholly and only true to him with whom I have schemed and toiled
and aspired; with whom I have grown as one; with whom I have shared the
struggle, and now partake the triumph, realizing the visions of my
youth."

Again the light broke from the dark eyes of this grand daughter of the
world, who was so superb a type of that moral contradiction,--an
ambitious woman.

"I cannot tell you," resumed Lady Ellinor, softening, "how pleased I was
when you came to live with us. Your father has perhaps spoken to you of
me and of our first acquaintance!"

Lady Ellinor paused abruptly, and surveyed me as she paused. I was
silent.

"Perhaps, too, he has blamed me?" she resumed, with a heightened color.

"He never blamed you, Lady Ellinor!"

"He had a right to do so,--though I doubt if he would have blamed me on
the true ground. Yet no; he never could have done me the wrong that
your uncle did when, long years ago, Mr. de Caxton in a letter--the very
bitterness of which disarmed all anger--accused me of having trifled
with Austin,--nay, with himself! And he, at least, had no right to
reproach me," continued Lady Ellinor warmly, and with a curve of her
haughty lip; "for if I felt interest in his wild thirst for some
romantic glory, it was but in the hope that what made the one brother so
restless might at least wake the other to the ambition that would have
become his intellect and aroused his energies. But these are old tales
of follies and delusions now no more: only this will I say, that I have
ever felt, in thinking of your father, and even of your sterner uncle,
as if my conscience reminded me of a debt which I longed to discharge,--
if not to them, to their children. So when we knew you, believe me that
your interests, your career, instantly became to me an object. But
mistaking you, when I saw your ardent industry bent on serious objects,
and accompanied by a mind so fresh and buoyant, and absorbed as I was in
schemes or projects far beyond a woman's ordinary province of hearth and
home, I never dreamed, while you were our guest,--never dreamed of
danger to you or Fanny. I wound you,--pardon me; but I must vindicate
myself. I repeat that if we had a son to inherit our name, to bear the
burden which the world lays upon those who are born to influence the
world's destinies, there is no one to whom Trevanion and myself would
sooner have intrusted the happiness of a daughter. But my daughter is
the sole representative of the mother's line, of the father's name: it
is not her happiness alone that I have to consult, it is her duty,--duty
to her birthright, to the career of the noblest of England's patriots;
duty, I may say, without exaggeration, to the country for the sake of
which that career is run!"

"Say no more, Lady Ellinor, say no more; I understand you. I have no
hope, I never had hope--it was a madness--it is over. It is but as a
friend that I ask again if I may see Miss Trevanion in your presence
before--before I go alone into this long exile, to leave, perhaps, my
dust in a stranger's soil! Ay, look in my face,--you cannot fear my
resolution, my honor, my truth! But once, Lady Ellinor,--but once more.
Do I ask in vain?"

Lady Ellinor was evidently much moved. I bent down almost in the
attitude of kneeling; and brushing away her tears with one hand, she
laid the other on my head tenderly, and said in a very low voice,--

"I entreat you not to ask me; I entreat you not to see my daughter. You
have shown that you are not selfish,--conquer yourself still. What if
such an interview, however guarded you might be, were but to agitate,
unnerve my child, unsettle her peace, prey upon--"

"Oh! do not speak thus,--she did not share my feelings!"

"Could her mother own it if she did? Come, come; remember how young you
both are. When you return, all these dreams will be forgotten; then we
can meet as before; then I will be your second mother, and again your
career shall be my care: for do not think that we shall leave you so
long in this exile as you seem to forbode. No, no; it is but an
absence, an excursion,--not a search after fortune. Your fortune,--
leave that to us when you return!"

"And I am to see her no more!" I murmured, as I rose, and went silently
towards the window to conceal my face. The great struggles in life are
limited to moments. In the drooping of the head upon the bosom, in the
pressure of the hand upon the brow, we may scarcely consume a second in
our threescore years and ten; but what revolutions of our whole being
may pass within us while that single sand drops noiseless down to the
bottom of the hour-glass!

I came back with firm step to Lady Ellinor, and said calmly: "My reason
tells me that you are right, and I submit; forgive me! And do not think
me ungrateful and overproud if I add that you must leave me still the
object in life that consoles and encourages me through all."

"What object is that?" asked Lady Ellinor, hesitatingly.

"Independence for myself, and ease to those for whom life is still
sweet. This is my twofold object; and the means to effect it must be my
own heart and my own hands. And now, convey all my thanks to your noble
husband, and accept my warm prayers for yourself and her--whom I will
not name. Farewell, Lady Ellinor!"

"No, do not leave me so hastily; I have many things to discuss with
you,--at least to ask of you. Tell me how your father bears his
reverse,--tell me at least if there be aught he will suffer us to do for
him? There are many appointments in Trevanion's range of influence that
would suit even the wilful indolence of a man of letters. Come, be
frank with me!"

I could not resist so much kindness; so I sat down, and as collectedly
as I could, replied to Lady Ellinor's questions, and sought to convince
her that my father only felt his losses so far as they affected me, and
that nothing in Trevanion's power was likely to tempt him from his
retreat, or calculated to compensate for a change in his habits.
Turning at last from my parents, Lady Ellinor inquired for Roland, and
on learning that he was with me in town, expressed a strong desire to
see him. I told her I would communicate her wish, and she then said
thoughtfully,--

"He has a son, I think; and I have heard that there is some unhappy
dissension between them."

"Who could have told you that?" I asked in surprise, knowing how closely
Roland had kept the secret of his family afflictions.

"Oh! I heard so from some one who knew Captain Roland,--I forget when
and where I heard it; but is it not the fact?"

"My uncle Roland has no son."

"How!"

"His son is dead."

"How such a loss must grieve him!"

I did not speak.

"But is he sure that his son is dead? What joy if he were mistaken,--if
the son yet lived!"

"Nay, my uncle has a brave heart, and he is resigned. But, pardon me,
have you heard anything of that son?"

"I!--what should I hear? I would fain learn, however, from your uncle
himself what he might like to tell me of his sorrows--or if, indeed,
there be any chance that--"

"That--what?"

"That--that his son still survives."

"I think not," said I; "and I doubt whether you will learn much from my
uncle. Still, there is something in your words that belies their
apparent meaning, and makes me suspect that you know more than you will
say."

"Diplomatist!" said Lady Ellinor, half smiling; but then, her face
settling into a seriousness almost severe, she added,--"it is terrible
to think that a father should hate his son!"

"Hate!--Roland hate his son! What calumny is this?"

"He does not do so, then! Assure me of that; I shall be so glad to know
that I have been misinformed."

"I can tell you this, and no more (for no more do I know), that if ever
the soul of a father were wrapped up in a son,--fear, hope, gladness,
sorrow, all reflected back on a father's heart from the shadows on a
son's life,--Roland was that father while the son lived still."

"I cannot disbelieve you!" exclaimed Lady Ellinor, though in a tone of
surprise. "Well, do let me see your uncle."

"I will do my best to induce him to visit you, and learn all that you
evidently conceal from me."

Lady Ellinor evasively replied to this insinuation, and shortly
afterwards I left that house in which I had known the happiness that
brings the folly, and the grief that bequeathes the wisdom.

CHAPTER IV.

I had always felt a warm and almost filial affection for Lady Ellinor,
independently of her relationship to Fanny, and of the gratitude with
which her kindness inspired me; for there is an affection very peculiar
in its nature, and very high in its degree, which results from the
blending of two sentiments not often allied,--namely, pity and
admiration. It was impossible not to admire the rare gifts and great
qualities of Lady Ellinor, and not to feel pity for the cares,
anxieties, and sorrows which tormented one who, with all the
sensitiveness of woman, went forth into the rough world of man.

My father's confession had somewhat impaired my esteem for Lady Ellinor,
and had left on my mind the uneasy impression that she had trifled with
his deep and Roland's impetuous heart. The conversation that had just
passed, allowed me to judge her with more justice, allowed me to see
that she had really shared the affection she had inspired in the
student, but that ambition had been stronger than love,--an ambition, it
might be, irregular, and not strictly feminine, but still of no vulgar
nor sordid kind. I gathered, too, from her hints and allusions her true
excuse for Roland's misconception of her apparent interest in himself;
she had but seen, in the wild energies of the elder brother, some agency
by which to arouse the serener faculties of the younger. She had but
sought, in the strange comet that flashed before her, to fix a lever
that might move the star. Nor could I withhold my reverence from the
woman who, not being married precisely from love, had no sooner linked
her nature to one worthy of it, than her whole life became as fondly
devoted to her husband as if he had been the object of her first romance
and her earliest affections. If even her child was so secondary to her
husband; if the fate of that child was but regarded by her as one to be
rendered subservient to the grand destinies of Trevanion,--still it was
impossible to recognize the error of that conjugal devotion without
admiring the wife, though one might condemn the mother. Turning from
these meditations, I felt a lover's thrill of selfish joy, amidst all
the mournful sorrow comprised in the thought that I should see Fanny no
more. Was it true, as Lady Ellinor implied, though delicately, that
Fanny still cherished a remembrance of me which a brief interview, a
last farewell, might reawaken too dangerously for her peace? Well, that
was a thought that it became me not to indulge.

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