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Wilfrid Cumbermede

G >> George MacDonald >> Wilfrid Cumbermede




'How could you tell it among so many?'

'Just as you could tell that white creature from this brown one. I know
it, hilt and scabbard, as well as a human face.'

'As well as mine, for instance?'

'I am surer of it than I was of you this morning. It hasn't changed
like you.'

Our talk was interrupted by the appearance of a gentleman on horseback
approaching us. I thought at first it was Clara's father, setting out
for home, and coming to bid us good-bye; but I soon saw I was mistaken.
Not, however, until he came quite close, did I recognize Geoffrey
Brotherton. He took off his hat to my companion, and reined in his
horse.

'Are you going to give us in charge for trespassing, Mr Brotherton?'
said Clara.

'I should be happy to _take_ you in charge on any pretence, Miss
Coningham. This is indeed an unexpected pleasure.'

Here he looked in my direction.

'Ah!' he said, lifting his eyebrows, 'I thought I knew the old horse!
What a nice cob _you_'ve got, Miss Coningham.'

He had not chosen to recognize me, of which I was glad, for I hardly
knew how to order my behaviour to him. I had forgotten nothing. But,
ill as I liked him, I was forced to confess that he had greatly
improved in appearance--and manners too, notwithstanding his behaviour
was as supercilious as ever to me.

'Do you call her a cob, then?' said Clara. 'I should never have thought
of calling her a cob.--She belongs to Mr Cumbermede.'

'Ah!' he said again, arching his eyebrows as before, and looking
straight at me as if he had never seen me in his life.

I think I succeeded in looking almost unaware of his presence. At least
so I tried to look, feeling quite thankful to Clara for defending my
mare: to hear her called a cob was hateful to me.

After listening to a few more of his remarks upon her, made without the
slightest reference to her owner, who was not three yards from her
side, Clara asked him, in the easiest manner--

'Shall you be at the county ball?'

'When is that?'

'Next Thursday.'

'Are you going?'

'I hope so.'

'Then will you dance the first waltz with me?'

'No, Mr Brotherton.'

'Then I am sorry to say I shall be in London.'

'When do you rejoin your regiment?'

'Oh! I've got a month's leave.'

'Then why won't you be at the ball?'

'Because you won't promise me the first waltz.'

'Well--rather than the belles of Minstercombe should--ring their sweet
changes in vain, I suppose I must indulge you.'

'A thousand thanks,' he said, lifted his hat, and rode on.

My blood was in a cold boil--if the phrase can convey an idea. Clara
rode on homewards without looking round, and I followed, keeping a few
yards behind her, hardly thinking at all, my very brain seeming cold
inside my skull.

There was small occasion as yet, some of my readers may think. I cannot
help it--so it was. When we had gone in silence a couple of hundred
yards or so, she glanced round at me with a quick sly half-look, and
burst out laughing. I was by her side in an instant: her laugh had
dissolved the spell that bound me. But she spoke first.

'Well, Mr Cumbermede?' she said, with a slow interrogation.

'Well, Miss Coningham?' I rejoined, but bitterly, I suppose.

'What's the matter?' she retorted sharply, looking up at me, full in
the face, whether in real or feigned anger I could not tell.

'How could you talk _of_ that fellow as you did, and then talk so _to_
him?'

'What right have you to put such questions to me? I am not aware of any
intimacy to justify it.'

'Then I beg your pardon. But my surprise remains the same.'

'Why, you silly boy!' she returned, laughing aloud, 'don't you know he
is, or will be, my feudal lord. I am bound to be polite to him. What
would become of poor grandpapa if I were to give him offence? Besides,
I have been in the house with him for a week. He's not a Crichton; but
he dances well. Are _you_ going to the ball?'

'I never heard of it. I have not for weeks thought of anything
but--but--my writing, till this morning. Now I fear I shall find it
difficult to return to it. It looks ages since I saddled the mare!'

'But if you're ever to be an author, it won't do to shut yourself up.
You ought to see as much of the world as you can. I should strongly
advise you to go to the ball.'

'I would willingly obey you--but--but--I don't know how to get a
ticket.'

'Oh! if you would like to go, papa will have much pleasure in managing
that. I will ask him.'

'I'm much obliged to you,' I returned. 'I should enjoy seeing Mr
Brotherton dance.'

She laughed again, but it was an oddly constrained laugh.

'It's quite time I were at home,' she said, and gave the mare the rein,
increasing her speed as we approached the house. Before I reached the
little gate she had given her up to the gardener, who had been on the
look-out for us.

'Put on her own saddle, and bring the mare round at once, please,' I
called to the man, as he led her and the horse away together.

'Won't you come in, Wilfrid?' said Clara, kindly and seriously.

'No, thank you,' I returned; for I was full of rage and jealousy. To do
myself justice, however, mingled with these was pity that such a girl
should be so easy with such a man. But I could not tell her what I knew
of him. Even if I _could_ have done so, I dared not; for the man who
shows himself jealous must be readily believed capable of lying, or at
least misrepresenting.

'Then I must bid you good-evening,' she said, as quietly as if we had
been together only five minutes. 'I am _so_ much obliged to you for
letting me ride your mare!'

She gave me a half-friendly, half-stately little bow, and walked into
the house. In a few moments the gardener returned with the mare, and I
mounted and rode home in anything but a pleasant mood. Having stabled
her, I roamed about the fields till it was dark, thinking for the first
time in my life I preferred woods to open grass. When I went in at
length I did my best to behave as if nothing had happened. My uncle
must, however, have seen that something was amiss, but he took no
notice, for he never forced or even led up to confidences. I retired
early to bed, and passed an hour or two of wretchedness, thinking over
everything that had happened---the one moment calling her a coquette,
and the next ransacking a fresh corner of my brain to find fresh excuse
for her. At length I was able to arrive at the conclusion that I did
not understand her, and having given in so far, I soon fell asleep.




CHAPTER XXVII.


A DISAPPOINTMENT.

I trust it will not be regarded as a sign of shallowness of nature that
I rose in the morning comparatively calm. Clara was to me as yet only
the type of general womanhood, around which the amorphous loves of my
manhood had begun to gather, not the one woman whom the individual man
in me had chosen and loved. How could I _love_ that which I did not yet
know: she was but the heroine of my objective life, as projected from
me by my imagination--not the love of my being. Therefore, when the
wings of sleep had fanned the motes from my brain, I was cool enough,
notwithstanding an occasional tongue of indignant flame from the ashes
of last night's fire, to sit down to my books, and read with tolerable
attention my morning portion of Plato. But when I turned to my novel, I
found I was not master of the situation. My hero too was in love and in
trouble; and after I had written a sentence and a half, I found myself
experiencing the fate of Heine when he roused the Sphinx of past love
by reading his own old verses:--

Lebendig ward das Marmorbild,
Der Stein begann zu ächzen.

In a few moments I was pacing up and down the room, eager to burn my
moth-wings yet again in the old fire. And by the way, I cannot help
thinking that the moths enjoy their fate, and die in ecstasies. I was,
however, too shy to venture on a call that very morning: I should both
feel and look foolish. But there was no more work to be done then. I
hurried to the stable, saddled my mare, and set out for a gallop across
the farm, but towards the high road leading to Minstercombe, in the
opposite direction, that is, from the Hall, which I flattered myself
was to act in a strong-minded manner. There were several fences and
hedges between, but I cleared them all without discomfiture. The last
jump was into a lane. We, that is my mare and I, had scarcely alighted,
when my ears were invaded by a shout. The voice was the least welcome I
could have heard, that of Brotherton. I turned and saw him riding up
the hill, with a lady by his side.

'Hillo!' he cried, almost angrily, 'you don't deserve to have such a
cob.' (He _would_ call her a cob.) 'You don't know-how to use her. To
jump her on to the hard like that!'

It was Clara with him!--on the steady stiff old brown horse! My first
impulse was to jump my mare over the opposite fence, and take no heed,
of them, but clearly it was not to be attempted, for the ground fell
considerably on the other side. My next thought was to ride away and
leave them. My third was one which some of my readers will judge
Quixotic, but I have a profound reverence for the Don--and that not
merely because I have so often acted as foolishly as he. This last I
proceeded to carry out, and lifting-my hat, rode to meet them. Taking
no notice whatever of Brotherton, I addressed Clara--in what I fancied
a distant and dignified manner, which she might, if she pleased,
attribute to the presence of her companion.

'Miss Coningham,' I said, 'will you allow me the honour of offering you
my mare? She will carry you better.'

'You are very kind, Mr Cumbermede,' she returned in a similar tone, but
with a sparkle in her eyes. 'I am greatly obliged to you. I cannot
pretend to prefer old crossbones to the beautiful creature which gave
me so much pleasure yesterday.'

I was off and by her side in a moment, helping her to dismount. I did
not even look at Brotherton, though I felt he was staring like an
equestrian statue. While I shifted the saddles Clara broke the silence,
which I was in too great an inward commotion to heed, by asking--

'What is the name of your beauty, Mr Cumbermede?'

'Lilith,' I answered.

'What a pretty name! I never heard it before. Is it after any one--any
public character, I mean?'

'Quite a public character,' I returned--'Adam's first wife.'

'I never heard he had two,' she rejoined, laughing.

'The Jews say he had. She is a demon now, and the pest of married women
and their babies,'

'What a horrible name to give your mare!'

'The name is pretty enough. And what does it matter what the woman was,
so long as she was beautiful.'

'I don't quite agree with you there,' she returned, with what I chose
to consider a forced laugh.

By this time her saddle was firm on Lilith, and in an instant she was
mounted. Brotherton moved to ride on, and the mare followed him. Clara
looked back.

'You will catch us up in a moment,' she said, possibly a little puzzled
between us.

I was busy tightening my girths, and fumbled over the job more than was
necessary. Brotherton was several yards ahead, and she was walking the
mare slowly after him. I made her no answer, but mounted, and rode in
the opposite direction; It was rude of course, but I did it. I could
not have gone with them, and was afraid, if I told her so, she would
dismount and refuse the mare.

In a tumult of feeling I rode on without looking behind me, careless
whither--how long I cannot tell, before I woke up to find I did not
know where I was. I must ride on till I came to some place I knew, or
met some one who could tell me. Lane led into lane, buried betwixt deep
banks and lofty hedges, or passing through small woods, until I
ascended a rising ground, whence I got a view of the country. At once
its features began to dawn upon me: I was close to the village of
Aldwick, where I had been at school, and in a few minutes I rode into
its wide straggling street. Not a mark of change had passed upon it.
There were the same dogs about the doors, and the same cats in the
windows. The very ferns in the chinks of the old draw-well appeared the
same; and the children had not grown an inch since first I drove into
the place marvelling at its wondrous activity.

The sun was hot, and my horse seemed rather tired. I was in no mood to
see any one, and besides had no pleasant recollections of my last visit
to Mr Elder, so I drew up at the door of the little inn, and having
sent my horse to the stable for an hour's rest and a feed of oats, went
into the sanded parlour, ordered a glass of ale, and sat staring at the
china shepherdesses on the chimney-piece. I see them now, the ugly
things, as plainly as if that had been an hour of the happiest
reflections. I thought I was miserable, but I know now that, although I
was much disappointed, and everything looked dreary and uninteresting
about me, I was a long way off misery. Indeed, the passing vision of a
neat unbonneted village girl on her way to the well was attractive
enough still to make me rise and go to the window. While watching, as
she wound up the long chain, for the appearance of the familiar mossy
bucket, dripping diamonds, as it gleamed out of the dark well into the
sudden sunlight, I heard the sound of horse's hoofs, and turned to see
what kind of apparition would come. Presently it appeared, and made
straight for the inn. The rider was Mr Coningham! I drew back to escape
his notice, but his quick eye had caught sight of me, for he came into
the room with outstretched hand.

'We are fated to meet, Mr Cumbermede,' he said. 'I only stopped to give
my horse some meal and water, and had no intention of dismounting. Ale?
I'll have a glass of ale too,' he added, ringing the bell. 'I think
I'll let him have a feed, and have a mouthful of bread and cheese
myself.'

He went out, and had I suppose gone to see that his horse had his
proper allowance of oats, for when he returned he said merrily:

'What have you done with my daughter, Mr Cumbermede?'

'Why should you think me responsible for her, Mr Conningham?' I asked,
attempting a smile.

No doubt he detected the attempt in the smile, for he looked at me with
a sharpened expression of the eyes, as he answered--still in a merry
tone--

'When I saw her last, she was mounted on your horse, and you were on
my father's. I find you still on my father's horse, and your own--with
the lady--nowhere. Have I made out a case of suspicion?'

'It is I who have cause of complaint,' I returned--'who have neither
lady nor mare--unless indeed you imagine I have in the case of the
latter made a good exchange.'

'Hardly that, I imagine, if yours is half so good as she looks. But,
seriously, have you seen Clara to-day?'

I told him the facts as lightly as I could. When I had finished, he
stared at me with an expression which for the moment I avoided
attempting to interpret.

'On horseback with Mr Brotherton?' he said, uttering the words as if
every syllable had been separately italicized.

'You will find it as I say,' I replied, feeling offended.

'My dear boy--excuse my freedom,' he returned--'I am nearly three times
your age--you do not imagine I doubt a hair's breadth of your
statement! But--the giddy goose!--how could you be so silly? Pardon me
again. Your unselfishness is positively amusing! To hand over your
horse to her, and then ride away all by yourself on that--respectable
stager!'

'Don't abuse the old horse,' I returned. 'He _is_ respectable, and has
been more in his day.'

'Yes, yes. But for the life of me I cannot understand it. Mr
Cumbermede, I am sorry for you. I should not advise you to choose the
law for a profession. The man who does not regard his own rights will
hardly do for an adviser in the affairs of others.

'You were not going to consult me, Mr Coningham, were you?' I said, now
able at length to laugh without effort.

'Not quite that,' he returned, also laughing. 'But a right, you know,
is one of the most serious things in the world.'

It seemed irrelevant to the trifling character of the case. I could not
understand why he should regard the affair as of such importance.

'I have been in the way of thinking,' I said, 'that one of the
advantages of having rights was that you could part with them when you
pleased. You're not bound to insist on your rights, are you?'

'Certainly you would not subject yourself to a criminal action by
foregoing them, but you might suggest to your friends a commission of
lunacy. I see how it is. That is your uncle all over! _He_ was never a
man of the world.'

'You are right there, Mr Coningham. It is the last epithet any one
would give my uncle.'

'And the first any one would give _me_, you imply, Mr Cumbermede.'

'I had no such intention,' I answered. 'That would have been rude.'

'Not in the least. _I_ should have taken it as a compliment. The man
who does not care about his rights, depend upon it, will be made a tool
of by those that do. If he is not a spoon already, he will become one.
I shouldn't have _iffed_ it at all if I hadn't known you.'

'And you don't want to be rude to me.'

'I don't. A little experience will set _you_ all right; and that you
are in a fair chance of getting if you push your fortune as a literary
man. But I must be off. I hope we may have another chat before long.'

He finished his ale, rose, bade me good-bye, and went to the stable. As
soon as he was out of sight, I also mounted and rode homewards.

By the time I reached the gate of the park, my depression had nearly
vanished. The comforting power of sun and shadow, of sky and field, of
wind and motion, had restored me to myself. With a side glance at the
windows of the cottage as I passed, and the glimpse of a bright figure
seated in the drawing-room window, I made for the stable, and found my
Lilith waiting me. Once more I shifted my saddle, and rode home,
without even another glance at the window as I passed.

A day or two after, I received from Mr Coningham a ticket for the
county ball, accompanied by a kind note. I returned it at once with the
excuse that I feared incapacitating myself for work by dissipation.

Henceforward I avoided the park, and did not again see Clara before
leaving for London. I had a note from her, thanking me for Lilith, and
reproaching me for having left her to the company of Mr Brotherton,
which I thought cool enough, seeing they had set out together without
the slightest expectation of meeting me. I returned a civil answer, and
there was an end of it.

I must again say for myself that it was not mere jealousy of Brotherton
that led me to act as I did. I could not and would not get over the
contradiction between the way in which she had spoken _of_ him, and the
way in which she spoke _to_ him, followed by her accompanying him in
the long ride to which the state of my mare bore witness. I concluded
that, although she might mean no harm, she was not truthful. To talk of
a man with such contempt, and then behave to him with such frankness,
appeared to me altogether unjustifiable. At the same time their mutual
familiarity pointed to some foregone intimacy, in which, had I been so
inclined, I might have found some excuse for her, seeing she might have
altered her opinion of him, and might yet find it very difficult to
alter the tone of their intercourse.




CHAPTER XXVIII.


IN LONDON.

My real object being my personal history in relation to certain facts
and events, I must, in order to restrain myself from that
discursiveness the impulse to which is an urging of the historical as
well as the artistic Satan, even run the risk of appearing to have been
blind to many things going on around me which must have claimed a large
place had I been writing an autobiography instead of a distinct portion
of one.

I set out with my manuscript in my portmanteau, and a few pounds in my
pocket, determined to cost my uncle as little as I could.

I well remember the dreariness of London, as I entered it on the top of
a coach, in the closing darkness of a late Autumn afternoon. The shops
were not yet all lighted, and a drizzly rain was falling. But these
outer influences hardly got beyond my mental skin, for I had written to
Charley, and hoped to find him waiting for me at the coach-office. Nor
was I disappointed, and in a moment all discomfort was forgotten. He
took me to his chambers in the New Inn.

I found him looking better, and apparently, for him, in good spirits.
It was soon arranged, at his entreaty, that for the present I should
share his sitting-room, and have a bed put up for me in a closet he did
not want. The next day I called upon certain publishers and left with
them my manuscript. Its fate is of no consequence here, and I did not
then wait to know it, but at once began to fly my feather at lower
game, writing short papers and tales for the magazines. I had a little
success from the first; and although the surroundings of my new abode
were dreary enough, although, now and then, especially when the Winter
sun shone bright into the court, I longed for one peep into space
across the field that now itself lay far in the distance, I soon
settled to my work, and found the life an enjoyable one. To work beside
Charley the most of the day, and go with him in the evening to some
place of amusement, or to visit some of the men in chambers about us,
was for the time a satisfactory mode of existence.

I soon told him the story of my little passage with Clara. During the
narrative he looked uncomfortable, and indeed troubled, but as soon as
he found I had given up the affair, his countenance brightened.

'I'm very glad you've got over it so well,' he said.

'I think I've had a good deliverance,' I returned.

He made no reply. Neither did his face reveal his thoughts, for I could
not read the confused expression it bore.

That he should not fall in with my judgment would never have surprised
me, for he always hung back from condemnation, partly, I presume, from
being even morbidly conscious of his own imperfections, and partly that
his prolific suggestion supplied endless possibilities to explain or
else perplex everything. I had been often even annoyed by his use of
the most refined invention to excuse, as I thought, behaviour the most
palpably wrong. I believe now it was rather to account for it than to
excuse it.

'Well, Charley,' I would say in such a case, 'I am sure _you_ would
never have done such a thing.'

'I cannot guarantee my own conduct for a moment,' he would answer; or,
taking the other tack, would reply: 'Just for that reason I cannot
believe the man would have done it.'

But the oddity in the present case was that he said nothing. I should,
however, have forgotten all about it, but that after some time I began
to observe that as often as I alluded to Clara--which was not often--he
contrived to turn the remark aside, and always without saying a
syllable about her. The conclusion I came to was that, while he shrunk
from condemnation, he was at the same time unwilling to disturb the
present serenity of my mind by defending her conduct.

Early in the Spring, an unpleasant event occurred, of which I might
have foreseen the possibility. One morning I was alone, working busily,
when the door opened.

'Why, Charley--back already!' I exclaimed, going on to finish my
sentence.

Receiving no answer, I looked up from my paper, and started to my feet.
Mr Osborne stood before me, scrutinizing me with severe grey eyes. I
think he knew me from the first, but I was sufficiently altered to make
it doubtful.

'I beg your pardon,' he said coldly--'I thought these were Charles
Osborne's chambers.' And he turned to leave the room.

'They _are_ his chambers, Mr Osborne,' I replied, recovering myself
with an effort, and looking him in the face.

'My son had not informed me that he shared them with another.'

'We are very old friends, Mr Osborne.'

He made no answer, but stood regarding me fixedly.

'You do not remember me, sir,' I said. 'I am Wilfrid Cumbermede.'

'I have cause to remember you.'

'Will you not sit down, sir? Charley will be home in less than an
hour--I quite expect.'

Again he turned his back as if about to leave me.

'If my presence is disagreeable to you,' I said, annoyed at his
rudeness, 'I will go.'

'As you please,' he answered.

I left my papers, caught up my hat, and went out of the room and the
house. I said _good morning_, but he made no return.

Not until nearly eight o'clock did I re-enter. I had of course made up
my mind that Charley and I must part. When I opened the door, I thought
at first there was no one there. There were no lights, and the fire had
burned low.

'Is that you, Wilfrid?' said Charley.

He was lying on the sofa.

'Yes, Charley,' I returned.

'Come in, old fellow. The avenger of blood is not behind me,' he said,
in a mocking tone, as he rose and came to meet me. 'I've been having
such a dose of damnation--all for your sake!'

'I'm very sorry, Charley. But I think we are both to blame. Your father
ought to have been told. You see day after day went by, and--somehow--'

'Tut, tut! never mind. What _does_ it matter--except that it's a
disgrace to be dependent on such a man? I wish I had the courage to
starve.'

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