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What Will He Do With It, Book 7.

E >> Edward Bulwer Lytton >> What Will He Do With It, Book 7.




"Never Mr. Darrell--Colonel Morley often. And in the world I have heard
her cited as perhaps the handsomest, and certainly the haughtiest, woman
in England."

"Never heard Mr. Darrell mention her! that is strange indeed," said
George Morley, catching at Lionel's first words, and unnoticing his after
comment. "She was much in his house as a child, shared in his daughter's
education."

"Perhaps for that very reason he shuns her name. Never but once did I
hear him allude to his daughter; nor can I wonder at that, if it be true,
as I have been told by people who seem to know very little of the
particulars, that, while yet scarcely out of the nursery, she fled from
his house with some low adventurer--a Mr. Hammond--died abroad the first
year of that unhappy marriage."

"Yes, that is the correct outline of the story; and, as you guess, it
explains why Mr. Darrell avoids mention of one, whom he associates with
his daughter's name; though, if you desire a theme dear to Lady Montfort,
you can select none that more interests her grateful heart than praise of
the man who saved her mother from penury, and secured to herself the
accomplishments and instruction which have been her chief solace."

"Chief solace! Was she not happy with Lord Montfort? What sort of man
was he?"

"I owe to Lord Montfort the living I hold, and I can remember the good
qualities alone of a benefactor. If Lady Montfort was not happy with
him, it is just to both to say that she never complained. But there is
much in Lady Montfort's character which the Marquess apparently failed to
appreciate; at all events, they had little in common, and what was called
Lady Montfort's haughtiness was perhaps but the dignity with which a
woman of grand nature checks the pity that would debase her--the
admiration that would sully--guards her own beauty, and protects her
husband's name. Here we are. Will you stay for a few minutes in the
boat, while I go to prepare Lady Montfort for your visit?"

George leapt ashore, and Lionel remained under the covert of mighty
willows that dipped their leaves into the wave. Looking through the
green interstices of the foliage, he saw at the far end of the lawn, on a
curving bank by which the glittering tide shot oblique, a simple arbour-
an arbour like that from which he had looked upon summer stars five.
years ago--not so densely covered with the honeysuckle; still the
honeysuckle, recently trained there, was fast creeping up the sides; and
through the trellis of the woodwork and the leaves of the flowering
shrub, he just caught a glimpse of some form within--the white robe of a
female form in a slow gentle movement-tending perhaps the flowers that
wreathed the arbour. Now it was still, now it stirred again; now it was
suddenly lost to view. Had the inmate left the arbour? Was the inmate
Lady Montfort? George Morley's step had not passed in that direction.




CHAPTER XXII.

A QUIET SCENE-AN UNQUIET HEART.

Meanwhile, not far from the willow-bank which sheltered Lionel, but far
enough to be out of her sight and beyond her hearing, George Morley found
Lady Montfort seated alone. It was a spot on which Milton might have
placed the lady in "Comus"--a circle of the smoothest sward, ringed
everywhere (except at one opening which left the glassy river in full
view) with thick bosks of dark evergreens and shrubs of livelier verdure;
oak and chest nut backing and overhanging all. Flowers, too, raised on
rustic tiers and stages; a tiny fountain, shooting up from a basin
starred with the water-lily; a rustic table, on which lay hooks and the
implements of woman's graceful work; so that the place had the home-look
of a chamber, and spoke that intense love of the out-door life which
abounds in our old poets from Chaucer down to the day when minstrels,
polished into wits, took to Will's Coffee-house, and the lark came no
more to bid bards

"Good morrow
From his watch-tower in the skies."

But long since, thank Heaven we have again got back the English poetry
which chimes to the babble of the waters, and the riot of the birds; and
just as that poetry is the freshest which the out-door life has the most
nourished, so I believe that there is no surer sign of the rich vitality
which finds its raciest joys in sources the most innocent, than the
childlike taste for that same out-door life. Whether you take from
fortune the palace or the cottage, add to your chambers a hall in the
courts of Nature. Let the earth but give you room to stand on; well,
look up--Is it nothing to have for your roof-tree--Heaven?

Caroline Montfort (be her titles dropped) is changed since we last saw
her. The beauty is not less in degree, but it has gained in one
attribute, lost in another; it commands less, it touches more. Still in
deep mourning, the sombre dress throws a paler shade over the cheek. The
eyes, more sunken beneath the brow, appear larger, softer. There is that
expression of fatigue which either accompanies impaired health or
succeeds to mental struggle and disquietude. But the coldness or pride
of mien which was peculiar to Caroline as a wife is gone--as if in
widowhood it was no longer needed. A something like humility prevailed
over the look and the bearing which had been so tranquilly majestic. As
at the approach of her cousin she started from her seat, there was a
nervous tremor in her eagerness; a rush of colour to the cheeks; an
anxious quivering of the lip; a flutter in the tones of the sweet low
voice: "Well, George."

"Mr. Darrell is not in London; he went to Fawley three days ago; at least
he is there now. I have this from my uncle, to whom he wrote; and whom
his departure has vexed and saddened."

"Three days ago! It must have been he, then! I was not deceived,"
murmured Caroline, and her eyes wandered mound.

"There is no truth in the report you heard that he was to marry Honoria
Vipont. My uncle thinks he will never marry again, and implies that he
has resumed his solitary life at Fawley with a resolve to quit it no
more."

Lady Montfort listened silently, bending her face over the fountain, and
dropping amidst its playful spray the leaves of a rose which she had
abstractedly plucked as George was speaking.

"I have, therefore, fulfilled your commission so far," renewed George
Morley. "I have ascertained that Mr. Darrell is alive, and doubtless
well; so that it could not have been his ghost that startled you amidst
yonder thicket. But I have done more: I have forestalled the wish you
expressed to become acquainted with young Haughton; and your object in
postponing the accomplishment of that wish while Mr. Darrell himself was
in town having ceased with Mr. Darrell's departure, I have ventured to
bring the young man with me. He is in the boat yonder. Will you receive
him? Or--but, my dear cousin, are you not too unwell today? What is the
matter? Oh, I can easily make an excuse for you to Haughton. I will run
and do so."

"No, George, no. I am as well as usual. I will see Mr. Haughton. All
that you have heard of him, and have told me, interests me so much in his
favour; and besides--" She did not finish the sentence; but led away by
some other thought, asked, "Have you no news of our missing friend?"

"None as yet; but in a few days I shall renew my search. Now, then, I
will go for Haughton."

"Do so; and George, when you have presented him to me, will you kindly
join that dear anxious child yonder!

"She is in the new arbour, or near it-her favourite spot. You must
sustain her spirits, and give her hope. You cannot guess how eagerly she
looks forward to your visits, and how gratefully she relies on your
exertions."

George shook his head half despondingly, and saying briefly, "My
exertions have established no claim to her gratitude as yet," went
quickly back for Lionel.




CHAPTER XXIII.

SOMETHING ON AN OLD SUBJECT, WHICH HAS NEVER BEEN SAID BEFORE

Although Lionel was prepared to see a very handsome woman in Lady
Montfort, the beauty of her countenance took him by surprise. No
preparation by the eulogies of description can lessen the effect that
the first sight of a beautiful object produces upon a mind to which
refinement of idea gives an accurate and quick comprehension of beauty.
Be it a work of art, a scene in nature, or, rarest of all, a human face
divine, a beauty never before beheld strikes us with hidden pleasure,
like a burst of light. And it is a pleasure that elevates; the
imagination feels itself richer by a new idea of excellence; for not only
is real beauty wholly original, having no prototype, but its immediate
influence is spiritual. It may seem strange--I appeal to every observant
artist if the assertion be not true--but the first sight of the most
perfect order of female beauty, rather than courting, rebukes and strikes
back, every grosser instinct that would alloy admiration. There must be
some meanness and blemish in the beauty which the sensualist no sooner
beholds than he covets. In the higher incarnation of the abstract idea
which runs through all our notions of moral good and celestial purity--
even if the moment the eye sees the heart loves the image--the love has
in it something of the reverence which it was said the charms of Virtue
would produce could her form be made visible; nor could mere human love
obtrude itself till the sweet awe of the first effect had been
familiarised away. And I appreheud that it is this exalting or
etherealising attribute of beauty to which all poets, all writers who
would poetise the realities of life, have unconsciously rendered homage,
in the rank to which they elevate what, stripped of such attribute, would
be but a gaudy idol of painted clay. If, from the loftiest epic to the
tritest novel, a heroine is often little more than a name to which we are
called upon to bow, as to a symbol representing beauty, and if we
ourselves (be we ever so indifferent in our common life to fair faces)
feel that, in art at least, imagination needs an image of the Beautiful--
if, in a word, both poet and reader here would not be left excuseless, it
is because in our inmost hearts there is a sentiment which links the
ideal of beauty with the Supersensual. Wouldst thou, for instance, form
some vague conception of the shape worn by a pure soul released? wouldst
thou give to it the likeness of an ugly hag? or wouldst thou not ransack
all thy remembrances and conceptions of forms most beauteous to clothe
the holy image? Do so: now bring it thus robed with the richest graces
before thy mind's eye. Well, seest thou now the excuse for poets in the
rank they give to BEAUTY? Seest thou now how high from the realm of the
senses soars the mysterious Archetype? Without the idea of beauty,
couldst thou conceive a form in which to clothe a soul that has entered
heaven?




CHAPTER XXIV.

AGREEABLE SURPRISES ARE THE PERQUISITES OF YOUTH.

If the beauty of Lady Montfort's countenance took Lionel by surprise,
still more might he wonder at the winning kindness of her address--a
kindness of look, manner, voice, which seemed to welcome him not as a
chance acquaintance but as a new-found relation. The first few
sentences, in giving them a subject of common interest, introduced into
their converse a sort of confiding household familiarity. For Lionel,
ascribing Lady Montfort's gracious reception to her early recollections
of his kinsman, began at once to speak of Guy Darrell; and in a little
time they were walking over the turf, or through the winding alleys of
the garden, linking talk to the same theme, she by question, he by
answer--he, charmed to expatiate--she, pleased to listen--and liking each
other more and more, as she recognised in all he said a bright young
heart, overflowing with grateful and proud affection, and as he felt
instinctively that he was with one who sympathised in his enthusiasm--one
who had known the great man in his busy day, ere the rush of his career
had paused, whose childhood had lent a smile to the great man's home
before childhood and smile had left it.

As they thus conversed, Lionel now and then, in the turns of their walk,
caught a glimpse of George Morley in the distance, walking also side by
side with some young companion, and ever as he caught that glimpse a
strange restless curiosity shot across his mind, and distracted it even
from praise of Guy Darrell. Who could that be with George? Was it a
relation of Lady Montfort's? The figure was not in mourning; its shape
seemed slight and youthful--now it passes by that acacia tree,--standing
for a moment apart and distinct from George's shadow, but its own outline
dim in the deepening twilight--now it has passed on, lost amongst the
laurels.

A turn in the walk brought Lionel and Lady Montfort before the windows of
the house, which was not large for the rank of the owner, but commodious,
with no pretence to architectural beauty--dark-red brick, a century and a
half old--irregular; jutting forth here, receding there, so as to produce
that depth of light and shadow which lends a certain picturesque charm
even to the least ornate buildings--a charm to which the Gothic
architecture owes half its beauty. Jessamine, roses, wooodbine, ivy,
trained up the angles and between the windows. Altogether the house had
that air of HOME which had been wanting to the regal formality of
Moutfort Court. One of the windows, raised above the ground by a short
winding stair, stood open. Lights had just been brought into the room
within, and Lionel's eye was caught by the gleam. Lady Montfort turned
up the stair, and Lionel followed her into the apartment. A harp stood
at one corner--not far from it a piano and music-stand. On one of the
tables there were the implements of drawing--a sketch in water-colours
half finished.

"Our work-room," said Lady Montfort, with a warm cheerful smile, and yet
Lionel could see that tears were in her eyes--" mine and my dear pupil's.
Yes, that harp is hers. Is he still fond of music--I mean Mr. Darrell?"

"Yes, though he does not care for it in crowds; but he can listen for
hours to Fairthorn's flute. You remember Mr. Fairthorn?"

"Ay, I remember him," answered Lady Montfort softly. "Mr. Darrell then
likes his music, still?"

Lionel here uttered an exclamation of more than surprise. He had turned
to examine the water-colour sketch--a rustic inn, a honeysuckle arbour,
a river in front; a boat yonder--just begun.

"I know the spot!" he cried. "Did you make the sketch of it?"

"I? no; it is hers--my pupil's--my adopted child's." Lionel's dark eyes
turned to Lady Montfort's wistfully, inquiringly; they asked what his
lips could not presume to ask. "Your adopted child--what is she?--who?"

As if answering to the eyes, Lady Montfort said: "Wait here a moment; I
will go for her."

She left him, descended the stairs into the garden, joined George Morley
and his companion; took aside the former, whispered him, then drawing the
arm of the latter within her own, led her back into the room, while
George Morley remained in the garden, throwing himself on a bench, and
gazing on the stars as they now came forth, fast and frequent, though one
by one.




CHAPTER XXV.

"Quem Fors dierum cunque dabit
Lucro appone."--HORAT.

Lionel stood, expectant, in the centre of the room, and as the two female
forms entered, the lights were full upon their faces. That younger face
--it is she--it is she, the unforgotten--the long-lost. Instinctively,
as if no years had rolled between--as if she were still the little child,
he the boy who had coveted such a sister--he sprang forward and opened
his arms, and as suddenly halted, dropped the arms to, his side,
blushing, confused, abashed. She! that vagrant child!--she! that form
so elegant--that great peeress's pupil--adopted daughter, she the poor
wandering Sophy! She!--impossible!

But her eyes, at first downcast, are now fixed on him. She, too, starts
--not forward, but in recoil; she, too, raises her arms, not to open, but
to press them to her breast; and she, too, as suddenly checks an impulse,
and stands, like him, blushing, confused, abashed.

"Yes," said Caroline Montfort, drawing Sophy nearer to her breast, "yes,
you will both forgive me for the surprise. Yes, you do see before you,
grown up to become the pride of those who cherish her, that Sophy who--"

"Sophy!" cried Lionel advancing; "it is so, then! I knew you were no
stroller's grandchild."

Sophy drew up: "I am, I am his grandchild, and as proud to be so as I was
then."

"Pardon me, pardon me; I meant to say that he too was not what be seemed.
You forgive me," extending his hand, and Sophy's soft hand fell into his
forgivingly.

"But he lives? is well? is here? is--" Sophy burst into tears, and Lady
Montfort made a sign to Lionel to go into the garden, and leave them.
Reluctantly and dizzily, as one in a dream, he obeyed, leaving the
vagrant's grandchild to be soothed in the fostering arms of her whom, an
hour or two ago, he knew but by the titles of her rank and the reputation
of her pride.

It was not many minutes before Lady Montfort rejoined him.

"You touched unawares," said she, "upon the poor child's most anxious
cause of sorrow. Her grandfather; for whom her affection is so
sensitively keen, has disappeared. I will speak of that later; and if
you wish, you shall be taken into our consultations. But--" she paused,
looked into his face-open, loyal face, face of gentleman--with heart of
man in its eyes, soul of man on its brow; face formed to look up to the
stars which now lighted it--and laying her hand lightly on his shoulder,
resumed with hesitating voice: "but I feel like a culprit in asking you
what, nevertheless, I must ask, as an imperative condition, if your
visits here are to be renewed--if your intimacy here is to be
established. And unless you comply with that condition, come no more;
we cannot confide in each other."

"Oh, Lady Montfort, impose any condition. I promise beforehand."

"Not beforehand. The condition is this: inviolable secrecy. You will
not mention to any one your visits here; your introduction to me; your
discovery of the stroller's grandchild in my adopted daughter."

"Not to Mr. Darrell?"

"To him least of all; but this I add, it is for Mr. Darrell's sake that I
insist on such concealment; and I trust the concealment will not be long
protracted."

"For Mr. Darrell's sake?"

"For the sake of his happiness," cried Lady Montfort, clasping her hands.
"My debt to him is larger far than yours; and in thus appealing to you,
I scheme to pay back a part of it. Do you trust me?"

"I do, I do."

And from that evening Lionel Haughton became the constant visitor in that
house.

Two or three days afterwards Colonel Morley, quitting England for a
German Spa at which he annually recruited himself for a few weeks,
relieved Lionel from the embarrassment of any questions which that shrewd
observer might otherwise have addressed to him. London itself was now
empty. Lionel found a quiet lodging in the vicinity of Twickenham. And
when his foot passed along the shady lane through yon wicket gate into
that region of turf and flowers, he felt as might have felt that famous
Minstrel of Ercildoun, when, blessed with the privilege to enter
Fairyland at will, the Rhymer stole to the grassy hillside, and murmured
the spell that unlocks the gates of Oberon,

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