 12 Miss Middleton and Mr. Vernon Whitford Looking upward, not quite awakened out of a transient dose, at a fair head circled in dazzling blossom, one may temperize a while with common sense, and take it for a vision after the eyes of regained direction of the mind. Vernon did so, until the plastic vision interwound with reality, alarmingly. This is the embrace of a melusine, who will soon have the brain if she is encouraged. Slight dalliance with her makes the very diminutive seem as big as life. He jumped to his feet, rattled his throat, planted firmness on his brows and mouth, and attacked the dream-giving earth with tremendous long strides, that his blood might be lively at the throne of understanding. Miss Middleton and young Cross J. were within hail. It was her face he had seen, and still the idea of a vision chased from his reasonable wits, knocked hard and again for readmission. There was little for a man of humble mind towards the sex to think of in the fact of a young lady's bending rather low to peep at him asleep, except that the poise of her slender figure between an air of spying and of listening vividly recalled his likening of her to the mountain echo. Man or maid sleeping in the open air provokes your tiptoe curiosity. Again it is known, having that state cruelly been kissed, and no rites are bestowed on them. They are teased by a vaporish rapture. What has happened to them, the poor fellows, barely divine. They have a crazy step from that day. But a vision is not so distracting. It is our own. We can put it aside and return to it, play it rich and poor with it, and are not to be summoned before your laws and rules for secreting it in our treasury. Besides, it is the golden key of all the possible. New worlds expand beneath the dawn it brings us. Just outside reality it illumines, enriches and softens real things, and to desire it in preference to the simple fact is a damning proof of enervation. Such was Vernon's winding up of his brief drama of fantasy. He was aware of the fantastical element in him, and soon had it under. Each of us who is of any worth is without it. He had not much vanity to trouble him, and passion was quiet, so his task was not gigantic. Especially be it remarked that he was a man of quick pace, the sovereign remedy for the dispersing of the mental fen mist. He had tried it and knew that nonsense is to be walked off. To the end of the park young Cross Jay overtook him, and after acting the pumped one a trifle more than needful cried, I say, Mr. Whitford, there's Miss Middleton with her handkerchief out. What for, my lad? said Vernon. I'm sure I don't know. All of a sudden she bumped down, and look what fellow's girls are. Here she comes as if nothing had happened. And I saw her feel at her side. Clara was shaking her head to express her denial. I am not at all unwell, she said, when she came near. I guessed Cross Jay's business in running up to you. He is a good-for-nothing, officious boy. I was tired and rested for a moment. Cross Jay peered at her eyelids. Vernon looked away and said, Are you too tired for a stroll? Not now. Shall it be brisk? You have the lead. He led at a swing of the legs that accelerated young Cross Jay's to the double. But she, with her short, swift, equal steps, glided along easily on a fine by his shoulder. And he groaned to think that of all the girls of earth, this one should have been chosen for the position of fine lady. You won't tire me, said she in answer to his look. You remind me of the little piedmontese Bersaliere on the march. I have seen them trotting into Como from Milan. They cover a quantity of ground in a day, if the ground's flat. You want another sort of step for the mountains. I should not attempt to dance up. They soon tame romantic notions of them. The mountains tame luxurious dreams, you mean. I see how they are conquered. I can plod anything to be high up. Well, there you have the secret of good work, to plod on and still keep the passion fresh. Yes, when we have an aim in view. We always have one. Captives have more than the rest of us. Ignorant man, what of wives miserably wedded? What aim in view have these most woeful captives? Horror shrouds it, and shame reddens through the folds to tell of innermost horror. Take me back to the mountains, if you please, Mr. Whitford. This Middleton said, fallen out of sympathy with him. Captives have death in view, but that is not an aim. Why may not captives expect a release? Hardly from a tyrant. If you are thinking of tyrants, it may be so. Say that tyrant dies. The prison gates are unlocked, and out comes a skeleton. But why will you talk of skeletons? The very name of mountain seems life in comparison with any other subject. I assure you," said Vernon, with the fervour of a man lighting on an actual truth in his conversation with a young lady. It's not the first time I have thought you would be at home in the Alps. You would walk and climb, as well as you dance. She liked to hear Clara Middleton talked of, and of her having been thought of, and giving him friendly eyes, barely noticing that he was in a glow. She said, if you speak so encouragingly, I shall fancy we are near an ascent. I wish we were, said he. We can realise it by dwelling on it, don't you think? We can begin climbing. Oh! She squeezed herself shadowily. Which mountain shall it be, said Vernon, in the right real earnest tone? Miss Middleton suggested a lady's mountain first, for a trial. And then, if you think well enough of me, if I have not stumbled more than twice, or asked more than ten times how far it is from the top, I should like to be promoted to scale a giant. They went up to some of the lesser heights of Switzerland and Styria, and settled in South Tyrol, the young lady preferring this district for the strenuous exercise of her climbing powers, because she loved Italian colour, and it seemed an exceedingly good reason to the genial imagination she had awakened in Mr. Whitford. Oh! said he abruptly. You are not so much Italian as French. She hoped she was English, she remarked. Of course you are English. Yes. He moderated as ascent with the halting affirmative. She inquired wonderingly why he spoke in apparent hesitation. Well, you have French feet, for example, French wits, French impatience. He lowered his voice and charm. And love of compliments. Possibly I was not conscious of paying them, and a disposition to rebel, to challenge authority at least. That is a dreadful character. Out all events it is a character, fit for an alpine comrade, for the best of comrades anywhere. It is not a piece of drawing-room sculpture. That is the most one can say for it. She dropped a dramatic sigh. Had he been willing, she would have continued the theme, for the pleasure of poor creature long gnawing her sensations finds in seeing herself from the outside. It fell away. After a silence she could not renew it, and he was evidently indifferent, having to his own satisfaction dissected and stamped her a foreigner. With it passed her holiday. She had forgotten Sir Willoughby. She remembered him, and said, You knew Miss Durham, Mr. Whitford? He answered briefly, I did. Was she some hot-faced inquiry peered forth and withdrew? Very handsome, said Vernon. English. Yes, the dashing style of English. Very courageous. By dare say, she had a kind of courage. She did very wrong. I won't say no. She discovered a man more of a match with herself. Luckily not too late. We're at the mercy. Was she not unpardonable? I should be sorry to think that of any one. But you agree that she did wrong. I suppose I do. She made a mistake, and she corrected it. If she had not, she would have made a greater mistake. The manor! That was bad, as far as we know. The world has not much right to judge. A false start must now and then be made. It's better not to take notice of it, I think. What is it we are at the mercy of? Currents of feeling, our natures. I am the last man to preach on the subject. Young ladies are enigmas to me. I fancy they must have a natural perception of the husband suitable to them, and the reverse. And if they have a certain degree of courage, it follows that they please themselves. They are not to reflect on the harm they do, said Miss Middleton. By all means, let them reflect. They hurt nobody by doing that. But a breach of faith. If the faith can be kept through life, all's well. And then there is the cruelty, the injury. I really think that if a young lady came to me to inform me she must break our engagement, I have never been put to the proof, but to suppose it, I should not think her cruel. Then she would not be much of a loss. And I should not think so for this reason, that it is impossible for a girl to come to such a resolution without previously showing signs of it to her, the man she is engaged to. I think it unfair to engage a girl for longer than a week or two, just time enough for her preparations and publications. If he is always intent on himself, signs are likely to be unheeded by him, said Miss Middleton. He did not answer, and she said quickly, it must always be a cruelty. The world will think so. It is an act of inconstancy. If they knew one another well before they were engaged. Are you not singularly tolerant? said she, to which Vernon replied with airy cordiality. In some cases it is right to judge by results. We'll leave severity to the historian, who is bound to be a professional moralist, and put pleas of human nature out of the scales. The lady in question may have been to blame, but no hearts were broken, and here we have four happy instead of two miserable. His persecuting genealogy of countenance appealed to her to confirm this judgment by results, and she nodded and said, four, as the awe-stricken speak. From that moment until young Cross Jay fell into the green-rutted lane from a tree, and was got on his legs half stunned, with a hanging lip, and a face like the inside of a flayed eelskin, she might have been walking in the desert, and alone for the pleasure she had in society. They led the fated lad home between them, singularly drawn together by their joint ministrations to him, in which her delicacy had to stand fire, and sweet good nature made nought of any trial. They were hand in hand with the little fellow, as physician and professional nurse. CHAPTER XIII. Cross Jay's accident was only another proof, as Vernon told Miss Dale, that the boy was but half-monkey. Something fresh, she exclaimed, unseeing him broad into the hall, where she had just arrived. ''Simply a continuation,'' said Vernon. ''He's not so prehensile as he should be. He probably, in extremity, relies on the tale that has been docked. Are you a man, Cross Jay?'' ''I should think I was,'' Cross Jay replied, with an old man's voice, and a ghastly twitch for a smile, overwhelmed the compassionate ladies. Miss Dale took possession of him. ''You are in the other direction,'' she remarked to Vernon. ''But a little bracing roughness is better than spoiling him,'' said Miss Middleton. She did not receive an answer, and she thought whatever Willoughby does is right to this lady. Claire's impression was renewed when Sir Willoughby sat beside Miss Dale in the evening, and certainly she had never seen him shine so picturesquely as in his bearing with Miss Dale. The sprightly sallies of the two, their rallyings, their laughter, and her fine eyes, and his handsome gestures. One attention like a fencing match of a couple keen with the foils to display the mutual skill. And it was his design that she should admire the display. He was anything but obtuse, enjoying the match as he did, and necessarily did, to act so excellent a part in it. He met the observer to see the man he was, with a lady not of raw understanding. So it went on from day to day, four or three days. She fancied once that she detected the agreeable stirring of the brood of jealousy, and found it neither in her heart nor in her mind, but in the Book of Wishes, while known to the young, where they write matter which may sometimes be independent of both those volcanic albums. Jealousy would have been a relief to her, a dear devil's aid. She studied the complexion of jealousy in order to delude herself with the sense of the spirit being in her. And all the while she laughed, as at a vile theater where the imperfection of the stage machinery rather than the performance is the wretched source of amusement. Vernon had deeply depressed her. She was hunted by the figure four, four happy instead of two miserable. He had said it, involving her among the four, and so it must be she considered, and she must be as happy as she could. For not only was he incapable of perceiving her state, he wasn't able to imagine other circumstances to surround her. How, to be just to him, were they imaginable by him or anyone? Her horrible isolation of secrecy in a world amiable in unsuspectingness frightened her. To fling away her secret, to conform, to be unrebellious, uncritical, submissive, became an impatient desire, and the task did not appear so difficult since Miss Dale's arrival. Once had been rare, more formal, living bodily and troubled and unashamed, and as she phrased it, having no one to care for her, she turned insensibly in the direction where she was due. She slightly imitated Miss Dale's colloquial responsiveness to tell truth. She felt vivacious in a moderate way with Willoughby after seeing him with Miss Dale. She wore the aspect of a towering prison wall. The desperate undertaking of climbing one side and dropping to the other was more than she unaided could resolve on. Consequently as no one cared for her, a worthless creature might as well see-streaming and stipulating for the fulfillment of her dreams. She might as well yield to her fate, nay make the best of it. After Willoughby was flattered and satisfied, Clara's adoptive vivacity proved his thorough knowledge of feminine nature, nor did her feebleness in sustaining it displease him. A steady look of hers had of late perplexed the man, and he was comforted by signs of her inefficiency where he excelled. The effort and the failure were both of good omen, but she could not continue the effort. He had over-weighted her too much for the mimicry of a sentiment to harden and have an apparently natural place among her impulses. And now an idea came to her that he might, it might be hoped, possibly see in Miss Dale by present contrast the mate he sought. By contrast with an unanswering creature like herself, he might perhaps realize in Miss Dale's greater accomplishments and her devotion to him the merit of suitability. He might be induced to do her justice. Dim as the loophole was, Clara fixed her mind on it till it gathered light, and as apprailed to action, she plunged herself into a state of such profound humility that too accused of being simulated would be venturesome, though it was not positive. The tempers of the young are liquid fires in aisles of quicksand, the precious metals not yet cool to a solid earth. Her compassion for Letitia was less forced, but really she was almost as earnest in her self-abasement, for she had not latterly been brilliant, not even adequate to the ordinary requirements of conversation. She had no courage, no wit, no diligence, nothing that she could distinguish save discontentment like a corroding acid. And she went so far in sincerity as with a curious shift, a feeling to pity, the man plied to her. If it suited her purpose to pity Sir Willoughby, she was not moved by policy, she assured. Her needs were her nature, her moods her mind. She had the capacity to make anything serve her by passing into it with a glance which discerned its usefulness. And this is how it is that the young, when they are in trouble, without approaching the elevation of scientific hypocrites, can teach that able class lessens in hypocrisy. I should not, Willoughby, be happy, she said. And the exclamation was pushed forth by the second thought, then I shall be free. Still that thought came second. The desire for the happiness of Willoughby was fervent on his behalf and wafted her far from friends and letters to a narrow Tyrolian valley, where shallow river ran. With the indentations of a remotely seen army of winding ranks and column, topaz over the pebbles, to hollows of ravishing emerald. There sat Liberty, after her fearful leap over the prison wall, at peace to watch the water and the falls of sunshine on the mountain above, between descending pine-stem shadows, Claire's wish for his happiness. As soon as she had housed herself in the imagination of her freedom, was of a purity that made it seem exceedingly easy for her to speak to him. The opportunity was offered by Sir Willoughby. Every morning after breakfast, Miss Dale walked across the park to see her father, and on this occasion Sir Willoughby and Miss Middleton went with her as far as the lake. All three, discoursing of the beauty of various trees, birches, aspen, poplars, beaches, then in their new green. Miss Dale loved the aspen, Miss Middleton, the beach, Sir Willoughby, the birch, and pretty things were said by each in praise of the favourite object, particularly by Miss Dale. So much so, that when she had gone on, he recalled one of her remarks and said, I believe, if the whole place were swept away tomorrow, Leticia Dale could reconstruct it and put those aspins on the north of the lake in number and situation correctly where you have them now. I would guarantee her description of it in absence, correct. Why should she be absent? said Clara, palpitating. Well, why? returned Sir Willoughby. As you say, there is no reason why. The art of life and mine will be principally a country life. Town is not life but a tornado whirling atoms. The art is to associate a group of sympathetic friends in our neighbourhood, and it is a fact worth noting, that if ever I feel tired of the place, a short talk with Leticia Dale refreshes it more than a month or two on the continent. She has the well of enthusiasm, and there is a great advantage in having a cultivated person, at command, with whom one can chat of any topic under the sun. I repeat, you have no need to town, if you have friends like Leticia Dale within call. My mother esteemed her highly. Willoughby, she is not obliged to go. I hope not, and my love I rejoice that you have taken to her. Her father's health is poor. She would be a young spinster to live alone in a country cottage. What of your scheme? Old Vernon is a very foolish fellow. He has declined. Not a word on the subject. I have only to propose it to be snubbed, I know. You may not be aware how you throw him into the shade with her. Nothing seems to teach him the art of dialogue with ladies. Are not gentlemen shy when they see themselves outshone? He hasn't, my love. Vernon is deficient in the lady's tongue. I respect him for that. Outshone, you say. I do not know of any shining, save to one. Who lights me, path and person? The identity of the one was conveyed to her in a bow and a soft pressure. Not only has he not the lady's tongue, which I hold to be a man's proper accomplishment, continued Sir Willoughby, he cannot turn his advantages to account. Here has Miss Dale been with him now, four days in the house. They are exactly on the same footing as when she entered it. You ask. I will tell you. It is this. It is want of warmth. Old Vernon is a scholar and a fish. Well, perhaps he has caused to be shy of matrimony, but he is a fish. You are reconciled to his leaving you. False alarm. The resolution to do anything unaccustomed is quite beyond Old Vernon. But if Mr. Oxford, Whitford, your swans coming sailing up the lake, how beautiful they look when they are indignant, I was going to ask you, surely men witnessing a marked admiration for someone else will naturally be discouraged. Sir Willoughby stiffened with sudden enlightenment. Though the word jealousy had not been spoken, the drift of her observations was clear. Smiling inwardly, he said, and the sentences were not enigmas to her. Surely, too, young ladies, a little too far, but an old friendship. About the same as the fitting of an old glove to a hand. Hand and glove have only to meet. Where there is natural harmony you would not have discord. I, but you have it, if you check the harmony. My dear girl, you child. He had actually, in this parabolic and commendable obscureness, for which she thanked him in her soul, struck at the very point she had not named and did not wish to hear named, but wished him to strike. He was anything but obtuse. His exaltation of the compressed sort was extreme on hearing her cry out. Young ladies may be, oh, not I, not I, I can convince you, not that. Believe me, Willoughby, I do not know what it is to feel that, or anything like it. I cannot conceive a claim on anyone's life as a claim, or the continuation of an engagement not founded on perfect, perfect sympathy. How should I feel it, then? It is, as you say, of Mr. Ox, Whitford, beyond me. Sir Willoughby caught up the Ox, Whitford. Bursting with laughter in his joyful pride, he called it a portrait of old Vernon in society, for she thought a trifle too highly of Vernon, as here and there a wrong young lady does think of the friends of her plighted man. Which is ways to substance properly belonging to him, as it were, in the loftier sense, an expenditure in genuflections to wayside idols of the reverence she should bring intact to the temple. Derision instructs her. Of the other subject, her jealousy, he had no desire to hear more. She had winced. The woman had been touched to smarting in the girl. Enough. She attempted the subject once, but faintly, and, in his careless parrying, threw her out. Claire could have bitten her tongue for that reiterated, stupid slip on the name of Whitford. And because she was innocent, at heart, she persisted in asking herself how she could be guilty of it. You both know the botanic titles of these wildflowers, she said. Who, he inquired. You and Miss Dale. Sir Willoughby shrugged. He was amused. No woman on earth will grace Almarouche so exquisitely as my Clara. Where, said she, during our annual Two Months in London, I drive a barouche there and venture to prophecy that my equipage will create the greatest excitement of any in London. I see old Horace de Cray gazing. She sighed. She could not drag him to the word, or a hint of it, necessary to her subject. But there it was. She saw it. She had nearly let it go, and blushed at being obliged to name it. Jealousy, do you mean? Willoughby? The people in London would be jealous. Colonel de Cray. How strange. That is a sentiment I cannot understand. Sir Willoughby gesticulated the, of course not, of an established assurance to the contrary. Indeed, Willoughby, I do not. Certainly not. He was now in her trap, and he was imagining himself to be anonymizing her feminine nature. Can I give you a proof, Willoughby? I am so utterly incapable of it that, listen to me, were you to come to me to tell me, as you might, how much better suited to you Miss Dale has appeared than I am. And I fear I am not. It should be spoken plainly, unsuited altogether. Perhaps I would, I beseech you to believe, you must believe me, give you, give you your freedom instantly, most truly, and engage to speak of you as I should think of you. Willoughby, you would have no one to praise you in public and in private as I should, for you would be to me the most honest, truthful, chivalrous gentleman alive. And in that case I would undertake to declare that she would not admire you more than I. Miss Dale would not. She would not admire you more than I, not even Miss Dale. This, her first direct leap for liberty, set Claire a panting, and so much had she to say that the nervous and the intellectual halves of her dashed like symbols, daising and stunning her with the oppositeness of things to be said, and dividing her in indecision as to the cunningness to move him of the many pressing. The condition of feminine jealousy stood revealed. He had driven her farther than he intended. Come, let me allay these. He soothed her with hand and voice, while seeking for his phrase, these magnified pinpoints. Now, my Clara, on my honour, and when I put it forward in attestation, my honour has the most serious meaning speech can have. Ordinarily my word has to suffice for bonds, promises, or assimilations. On my honour, not merely as there, my poor child, no ground to suspicion, I assure you, I declare to you, the fact of the case is the very reverse. Now mark me. Of her sentiments I cannot pretend to speak. I did not, to my knowledge, originate. I am not responsible for them, and I am, before the law, as we will say, ignorant of them. That is, I have never heard a declaration of them, and I am therefore under pain in the stigma of excessive fatuity, bound to be non-cognizant. But as to myself, I can speak for myself and, on my honour, Clara, to be as direct as possible, even to baldness, and you know I loathe it, I could not, I repeat, I could not marry Letitia Dale. Let me impress it on you. No flatteries. We are all susceptible, more or less. No conceivable condition could bring it about. No amount of admiration. She and I are excellent friends. We cannot be more. When you see us together, the natural concord of our minds is of course misleading. She's a woman of genius. I do not conceal. I profess my admiration of her. There are times when I confess I require a Letitia Dale to bring me out. Give and take. I am indebted to her, for the enjoyment of the duet few know, few can accord with, few are still are allowed the privilege of playing with a human being. I am indebted I own, and I feel deep gratitude. I own to a lively friendship for Miss Dale. But if she's displeasing in the side of my bride by the breath of an eyelash, then Sir Willoughby's arm waved Miss Dale off away into outer darkness in the wilderness. Clara shut her eyes and rolled her eyeballs in a frenzy of unuttered revolt from the egoist. But she was not engaged in the colloquy to be an advocate of Miss Dale or of common humanity. Ah, she said, simply determining that the subject should not drop. And ah, he mocked her tenderly. True, though, and who knows better than my Clara that I require youth, health, beauty, and the other undefinable attributes, fitting with mine, and the seeming the station of the lady called to preside over my household and represent me. What says my other self? My fairer, but you are my love, you are. Understand my nature rightly, and you, I do, I do, interpose Clara. If I did not by this time, I should be idiotic. Let me assure you, I understand it. Oh, listen to me, one moment. Miss Dale regards me as the happiest woman on earth. Willoughby, if I possessed her good qualities, her heart and mind, no doubt I should be. It is my wish, you must hear me. Hear me out. My wish, my earnest wish, my burning prayer, my wish to make way for her. She appreciates you, I do not. To my shame I do not. She worships you, I do not. I cannot. You are the rising sun to her. It has been so for years. No one can account for love. I dare say not for the impossibility of loving. Loving where we should. All love bewilders me. I was not created to understand it, but she loves you. She has pined. I believe it is destroyed the health you demand as one item in your list. But you, Willoughby, can restore that. Traveling and, and your society, the pleasure of your society would certainly restore it. You look so handsome together. She has unbounded devotion. As for me, I cannot idolize. I see faults. I see them daily. They astonish and womb me. Your pride would not bear to hear them spoken of, least of all by your wife. You warned me to beware that, as you said, you said something. Her busy brain missed the subterfuge to cover her slip of the tongue. So Willoughby struck in. And when I say that the entire concatenation is based on an erroneous observation of facts, and an erroneous deduction from that erroneous observation. No, no. Have confidence in me. I propose it to you, in this instance, purely to save you from deception. You are cold, my love. You shivered. I'm not cold, said Clara. Someone, I suppose, was walking over my grave. The gulf of the caress. Hove in view. Like an enormous billow, hollowing under the curled ridge. She stooped to a buttercup. The monster swept by. Your grave, he exclaimed over her head, my own girl. Is not the orchid, naturally a stranger in ground, so far away from the chalk, Willoughby? I am incompetent to pronounce an opinion on such important matters. My mother had a passion for every description of flower. I fancy I have some recollection of her scattering the flower you mentioned over the park. If she were living now, we should be happy in the blessing of the most esteemable of women, my Clara. She would have listened to me. She would have realized what I mean. Indeed, Clara, poor soul, he murmured to himself, aloud, Indeed, you are absolutely in error. If I have seemed, but I repeat, you are deceived. The idea of fitness is a total hallucination. Supposing you, I do it even in play painfully, entirely out of the way, unthought of. Extinct, Clara said low. Non-existent for me. He selected a preferable term. Suppose it. I should still, in spite of an admiration I have never thought it incumbent on me to conceal, still be, I speak emphatically, utterly incapable of the offer of my hand to Miss Stale. It may be that she is embedded in my mind as a friend, and nothing but a friend. I received a stamp in early youth. People have noticed it. We do, it seems, bring one another out, reflecting, counter-reflecting. She glanced up at him with his shrewd satisfaction to see that her wicked shaft had stuck. You do, it is, a common remark, she said. The instantaneous difference when she comes near anyone might notice. My love, he opened the iron gate into the garden. You encourage the naughty little suspicion. But it is a beautiful sight, will it be? I like to see you together. I like it as I like to see colours match. Very well. There is no harm, then. We shall often be together. I like my fair friend. But the instant you have only to express a sentiment of disapprobation. And you dismiss her. I dismiss her. That is, as to the word, I constitute myself your echo, to clear any vestige of suspicion. She goes. That is the case of a person doomed to extinction without offending. Not without. For whoever offends my bride, my wife, my sovereign lady, offends me, very deeply offends me. Then the caprices of your wife, Clara stamped her foot, imperceptibly, on the lawnsward, which was irresponsibly soft to her fretfulness. She broke from the inconsequent, meaningless, mild tone of irony and said, Willoughby, women have their honour to swear by equally with men. Girls have. They have to swear an oath at the altar. May I, to you now. Take it for uttered, when I tell you that nothing would make me happier than your union with Miss Dale. I have spoken as much as I can. Tell me you release me. With the well-known, screw-smile-of-duty, upholding weariness, worn to, in ignition, he rejoined. Allow me once more to reiterate that it is repulsive, inconceivable, that I should ever, under any mortal conditions, bring myself to the point of taking Miss Dale for my wife. You reduce me to this perfectly childish protestation. Pitiably childish. But, my love, have I to remind you that you and I are plighted, and that I am an honourable man? I know it. I feel it. Release me, cried Clara. Sir Willoughby severely reprehended his short-sightedness for seeing but the one proximate object in the particular attention he had bestowed on Miss Dale. He could not disavow that they had been marked, and with an object, and he was distressed by the unwanted want of wisdom through which he had been drawn to overshoot his object. His desire to excite a touch of the insane emotion in Clara's bosom was too successful, and, I was not thinking of her, he said to himself, in his candor, contrite. She cried again. Will you not, Willoughby, release me? He begged her to take his arm. To consent to touch him, while petitioning for a detachment, appeared discordant to Clara, but if she expected him to accede, it was right that she should do as much as she could, and she surrendered her hand at arm's length, distaining the imprisoned fingers. He pressed them and said, Dr. Middleton is in the library. I see Vernon is at work with Cross J in the West Room. The boy has had sufficient for the day. Now, is it not like old Vernon to drive his books at a crack-tent before it's half-mended? He signaled to young Cross J, who was up and out through the folding windows in a twinkling. And you will go in and talk to Vernon of the lady in question, Sir Willoughby whispered to Clara. Use your best persuasions in our joint names. You have my warrant for saying that money is no consideration. House and income are assured. You can hardly have taken me seriously when I requested you to undertake Vernon before. I was quite an earnest, then as now. I prepare Miss Dale. I will not have a wedding on our wedding day, but either before or after it. I gladly speed their alliance. I think now I give you the best proof possible. And though I know that with women a delusion may be seen to be groundless and still be cherished, I rely on your good sense. Vernon was at the window and stood aside for her to enter. Sir Willoughby used a gentle insistence with her. She bent her head as if she were stepping into a cave. So frigid was she, that a ridiculous dread of calling Mr. Whitford, Mr. Oxford, was her only present anxiety, when Sir Willoughby had closed the window on them. Or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Egoist by George Meredith Chapter 14 Sir Willoughby and Leticia I prepare Miss Dale. Sir Willoughby thought of his promise to Clara. He trifled a while with young Cross Jay, and then sent the boy flying, and wrapped himself in meditation. So shall you see standing many a statue of statesmen who have died in harness for their country. In the 104th chapter of the 13th volume of the book of Egoism, it is written, Possession without obligation to the object possessed approaches felicity. It is the rarest condition of ownership. For example, the possession of land is not without obligation both to the soil and the tax collector. The possession of fine clothing is oppressed by obligation. Gold, jewelry, works of art, enviable household furniture are positive fetters. The possession of a wife we find surcharged with obligation. In all these cases possession is a gentle term for enslavement bestowing the sort of felicity attained to by the hellot drink. You can have the joy, the pride, the intoxication of possession. You can have no free soul. But there is one instance of possession, and that the most perfect which leaves us free under not a shadow of obligation, receiving ever, never giving, or if giving, giving only our waste. As it were, so of what respect, by form of perspiration, radiation, if you like. Unconscious, poor, bountifulness, and it is a beneficent process for the system. Our possession of an adoring female's worship is this instance. The soft, cherishable parsi is hardly at any season other than frustrate. She craves nothing save that you continue in being. Her son, which is your firm constitutional endeavor, and thus you have a most exact alliance. She's applying spirit to your matter while at the same time presenting matter to your spirit, verily a comfortable opposition. The gods do bless it. That they do so indeed is evident in the men they select for such a felicitous crown and oriole. Weak men would be rendered nervous by the flattery of a woman's worship, or they would be for returning it, at least partially, as though it could be bandied to and fro without emergence of the poetry, or they would be pitiful and quite spoiled thing. Some would be for transforming the beautiful, solitary, vestal flame by the first effort of the multiplication table into a hearthfire of slippered affection. So these men are not they whom the gods have ever selected, but rather men of a pattern with themselves, very high and very solid men, who maintain the crown by holding divinely independent of the great emotion they have sown. Even for them a pause of danger is ahead, as we shall see in our sample of one among the highest of them. A clear approach to felicity had long been the potion of Sir Willoughby pattern in his relations with Leticia Dale. She belonged to him. He was quite unshackled by her. She was everything that is good in a parasite. Nothing that is bad. His dedicated critic she was, reviewing him with a favour equal to perfect efficiency in her office, and whatever the world might say of him, to her the happy gentleman could constantly turn for his refreshing balsamic bath. She flew to the soul in him, pleasingly arousing sensations of that inhabitant, and he allowed her the right to fly in the manner of kings, as we have heard, consenting to the privileges acted on by the cats. These may not address their majesties, but they may stare. Nor will it be contested that the attentive circular eyes of the humble domestic creatures are an embellishment to royal pomp and grandeur, such truly as should one day gain for them an inweaving and figourment in the place of bees, ermine tufts, and their various present decorations upon the august great robes backflowing and foaming over the gaspy page boys. Further to quote from the same volume of the book, there is pain in the surrendering of that we are feigned to relinquish. The idea is to exquisitely attenuate, as are those of the whole bodyguard of the heart of egoism, and will slip through and as usual have made a study of the grows of volumes of the first and second sections of the book, and that will take you up to senility, or you must make a personal entry into the pages per chance, or an escape out of them. There was once a venerable gentleman for whom a white hair grew on the top of his nose, laughing at removals. He resigned himself to it in the end, and lastingly contemplated the apparition. It does not concern us what effect was produced on his countenance and his mind, enough that he saw a fine thing, but not so fine as the idea cited above. Which has been between the two eyes of humanity ever since women were sought in marriage. With yonder, old gentleman, it may have been a ghostly hair or a disease of the optic nerves, but for us it is a real growth, and humanity might profitably imitate him in his patient speculation upon it. Sir Willoughby pattern, though ready in the pursuit of duty and policy, an oft-united couple, to cast Miss Dale away, had to consider that he was not simply, so to speak, casting her over a hedge. He was casting her for a man to catch her, and this was a much greater trial than it had been on the previous occasion, when she went over bump to the ground. In the arms of a husband there was no knowing how soon she might forget her soul's fidelity. It had not hurt him to sketch the project of the conjunction. Benevolence assisted him, but he winced and smarted at seeing it take shape. It sullied his idea of Leticia. Still, if, in spite of so great a change in her fortune, her spirit could be guaranteed changeless, he, for the sake of pacifying his bride, and to keep two serviceable persons near him at command, might resolve to join them. The vision of his resolution brought with it a certain pilot contempt of the physically faithless woman. No wonder he betook himself to the book, and opened it on the scorching chapters treating of the sex and the exerable wiles of that foremost creature of the chase who runs for life. She is not spared in the biggest of books, but close it. The writing in it having been done chiefly by men, men naturally received their fortification from its wisdom, and half a dozen of the popular sentences for the confusion of women, cut and brass worn to a polish like sombre gold, refreshed Sir Willoughby for his undertaking. The examination of Leticia's faded complexion braced him very cordially. His clara jealous of this poor leaf. He could have desired the transfusion of a quality or two from Leticia to his bride. But you cannot, as in cookery, obtain a mixture of the essences of these creatures. And if, as it is possible to do, and as he has been doing recently with a pair of them at the hall, use two of them in one pot, they are far likelier to intensify the little birthmarks of individuality. Had they a tendency to excellence, it might be otherwise. They might then make the exchanges we wish for. Or scientifically concocted in a harem for a sufficient length of time by a sultan, anything but obtuse, they might. It is, however, frugated dwell on what was only a glimpse of a wild regret like the crossing of two express trains along the rails of Sir Willoughby's head. The ladies Eleanor and Isabel were sitting with Miss Dale, all three at work on embroideries. He had merely to look at Miss Eleanor. She rose. She looked at Miss Isabel and rattled her chattelain to account for her departure. After a decent interval, Miss Isabel glided out. Such was the perfect discipline of the household. Sir Willoughby played an air on the knee of his crossed leg. Leticia grew conscious of a meaning in the silence. She said, You have not been vexed by affairs today? Affairs, he replied, must be peculiarly vexations to trouble me. Concerning the country or my personal affairs, I fancy I was alluding to the country. I trust I am as good a patriot as any man living, said he. But I am used to the follies of my countrymen, and we are on board a stout ship. At the worst it's no worse than a rise in rates and taxes. Soup at the hall gates, perhaps, licensed to fell timber in one of the outer corpses, or some dozen loads of coal. You hit my feudalism. The knight in armour has gone, said Leticia, and the castle with the drawbridge. Immunity for our island has gone too, since we took to commerce. We bartered independence for commerce. You hit our old controversy. A. But we do not want this overgrown population. However, we will put politics and sociology and the pack of their modern barbarous words aside. You read me intuitively. I have been, I will not say annoyed, but truffled. I have much to do, and going into parliament would make me almost helpless if I lose Vernon. He know of some absurd notion he has. Literary fame and bachelor's chambers and a chop house and the rest of it. She knew, and thinking differently in the matter of literary fame, she flushed. And ashamed of the flush, frowned. He bent over to her with the perusing earnestness of a gentleman about to trifle. You cannot intend that frown. Did I frown? You do. Now. Fiercely. Oh. Will you smile to reassure me? Willingly, as well as I can. A gloom overcame him. With no woman on earth did he shine so as to recall to himself, Signor, and dame of the old French court as he did with Leticia Dale. He did not wish the period revived, but reserved it as a garden to stray into when he was in the mood of displaying elegance and brightness in the society of a lady. And in speech, Leticia helped him to the nice delusion. She was not devoid of grace of bearing, either. Would she preserve her beautiful responsiveness to his ascendancy? Hitherto she had, and for years, and quite fresh. But how of her as a married woman? Our souls are hideously subject to the conditions of our animal nature. A wife, possibly mother, it was within sober calculation that there would be great changes in her. And the hint of any change appeared a total change to one of the lofty order when they are called on to relinquish possession instead of aspiring to it, say, all or nothing. Well, but if there was danger of the marriage tie affecting the slightest alteration of her character or habit of mind, wherefore press it upon a tolerably hardened spinster. Besides, though he did once put her hand in Vernon's for the dance, he remembered acutely that the injury then done by his generosity to his tender sensitiveness had sickened and tarnished the effulgence of two or three successive anniversaries of his coming of age. Nor had he altogether yet caught over the passion of greed for the whole group of the well-favoured of the fair sex which in his early youth had made it bitter for him to submit to the fickleness, not to say the modest fickleness of any handsome one of them in yielding her hands to a man and suffering herself to be led away. Ladies whom he had only heard of as ladies of some beauty incurred his wrath for having lovers or taking husbands. He was of a vast embrace and do not exclaim in covetousness, for well he knew that even under Muslim law he could not have them all but as the enamoured custodian of the sex's purity that blushes at such big spots as lovers and husbands, and it was unbearable to see it sacrificed for others. Without their purity what are they? What are fritterer's plums? Unsailable, all for the bloom on them. As I said, I lose my right hand in Vernon, he resumed, and I am, it seems, inevitably to lose him, unless we contrive to fasten him down here. I think, my dear Miss Dale, you have my character. At least I should recommend my future biographer to you. With a caution, of course. You would have to write selfishness with a dash under it. I cannot end your to lose a member of my household, not under any circumstances, and a change of feeling toward me on the part of any or my friends because of marriage, I think hard. I would ask you, how can it be for Vernon's good to quit an easy pleasant home for the wretched profession of literature? Wretchedly paying, I mean. He bowed to the authoress. Let him leave the house, if he imagines he will not harmonise with its young mistress. He is queer, though a good fellow. But he ought, in that event, to have an establishment. And my scheme for Vernon, men, Miss Dale, do not change to their old friends when they marry. My scheme, which would cost the alteration in a system of life to be barely perceptible, is to build him a poetical little cottage large enough for a couple on the borders of my park. I have the spot in my eye. The point is, can he live alone there? Men, I say, do not change. How is it that we cannot say the same of women? Leticia remarked. The generic woman appears to have an extraordinary faculty for swallowing the individual. As to the individual, as to a particular person, I may be wrong. Precisely because it is her case I think of, my strong friendship inspires the fear. Unworthy of both, no doubt, but trace it to the source. Even pure friendship, which is the taint in us, knows a kind of jealousy. Though I would gladly see her established and near me, happy and contributing to my happiness with her incomparable social charm. Her I do not estimate generically, be sure. If you do me the honour to allude to me, Sir Willoughby, said Leticia, I am my father's housemate. What were can take that for a refusal? You would beg to be a third in the house and share her of your affectionate burden. Honestly, why not? And I may be arguing against my own happiness. It may be the end of me. The end? Old friends are capricious, exacting. No, not the end. Yet if my friend is not the same to me, it is the end to that form of friendship, not to the degree possibly, but when one is used to the form. And do you, in its application of friendship, scorn the word use? We are creatures of custom. I am, I confess, a pauldron in my affections. I dread changes. The shadow of the tenth of an inch in the customary elevation of an eyelid to give you an idea of my susceptibility. And, my dear Miss Dale, I throw myself on your charity with all my weakness bare, let me add, as I could do to none but you. Consider, then, if I lose you, the fear is due to my personal animity entirely. High-salt women may be wives, mothers, and still reserve that home for their friend. They can and will conquer the vile conditions of human life. Our estates, I have always contended, our various phases have to be passed through. And there is no disgrace in it, so long as they do not levy toll on the quintessential, the spiritual element. You understand me? I am no adapt in these abstract elucidations. You explain yourself clearly, said Letitia. I have never pretended that psychology was my fault, said he, feeling overshadowed by her cold commendation. He was not less acutely sensitive to the fractional divisions of tones than of eyelids being, as it were, a melody with which everything was out of tune that did not modestly or mutely accord. And to bear without a melody in your person is incomparably more searching than the best of touchstones and talismans ever invented. Your father's health has improved laterally. He did not complain of his health when I saw him this morning. My cousin Amelia is with him, and she is an excellent nurse. He has a liking for Vernon. He has a great respect for Mr. Wettford. You have? Oh yes, I have it equally. For a foundation, that is the surest. I would have the friends dearest to me begin on that. The headlong match is, how can we describe it? By its finale, I am afraid, Vernon's abilities are really to be respected. His shyness is his malady. I suppose he reflected that he was not a capitalist. He might, one would think, have addressed himself to me. My purse is not locked. No, Sir Willoughby, Laetitia said, warmly, for his donations and charity were famous. Her eyes gave him the food he enjoyed, and basking in them he continued. Vernon's income would at once have been regulated commensurately, with a new position requiring an increase. This money, money, money, but the world will have it so. Happily, I have inherited habits of business and personal economy. Vernon is a man who would do 50 times more with a companion appreciating his abilities and making light of his little deficiencies. They are palpable, small enough. He has always been aware of my wishes. Then perhaps the fulfilment might have sent me off on another tour of the world, home bird though I am. When was it that our friendship commenced? In my boyhood, I know. Very many years back, I am in my 30th year, said Laetitia. Surprised and pained by a bulkness resembling the deeds of ladies, they have been known either through absence of mind or mania to display the wig. In the deadly intimacy which slaughtered his poetic admiration, Sir Willoughby punished her by deliberately reckoning that she did not look less. Genius, he observed, is unacquainted with wrinkles. Hardly one of his prettiest speeches, but he had been wounded, and he never could recover immediately. Coming on him in a mood of sentiment, the wound was sharp. He could very well have calculated the lady's age. It was a jarring clash of her brazen declaration of it upon his low rich flute notes that shocked him. He glanced at the gold catheter clock on the mantelpiece, and proposed to stroll on the lawn before dinner. Laetitia gathered up her embroidery work. As a rule, he said, authorises are not needle women. I shall resign the needle or the pen if it stamps me an exception. She replied. He attempted a compliment on her truly exceptional character. As when the player's finger rests in destruction on the organ, it was without measure and disgusted his own hearing. Nevertheless, she had been so good as to diminish his apprehension that the marriage of a lady in her thirtieth year with his cousin Vernon would be so much of a loss to him. Hence, while parading the lawn, now and then casting an eye on the window of the room where his Clara and Vernon were in council, the schemes he indulged for his prospective comfort and his feelings of the moment were in such striving harmony as that to which we hear orchestral musicians bringing their instruments under the process called tuning. It is not perfect, but it promises to be so soon. We are not angels which have their dulcimers ever on the choral pitch. We are mortals attaining the celestial accord with effort through a stage of pain. Some degree of pain was necessary to Sir Willoughby. Otherwise, he would not have seen his generosity confronting him. He grew, therefore, tenderly inclined to Laetitia once more, so far as to say within himself. For conversation, she would be a valuable wife, and this valuable wife he was presenting to his cousin. Apparently, considering the duration of the conference of his Clara and Vernon, his cousin required strong persuasion to accept the present. End of chapter 14. Chapter 15 of The Egoist This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Martin Giesen. The Egoist by George Meredith Chapter 15 The Petition for a Release Neither Clara nor Vernon appeared at the midday table. Dr. Middleton talked with Miss Dale on classical matters, like a good-natured giant giving a child the jump from stone to stone across a brawling mountain forward, so that an unedified audience might really suppose upon seeing her over the difficulty she had done something for herself. So Willoughby was proud of her, and therefore anxious to settle her business while he was in the humour to lose her. He hoped to finish it by shooting a word or two at Vernon before dinner. Clara's petition to be set free, released from him, had vaguely frightened even more than it offended his pride. Miss Isabel quitted the room. She came back, saying, They decline to lunch. Then we may rise, remarked Sir Willoughby. She was weeping, Miss Isabel murmured to him. Girlish enough, he said. The two elderly ladies went away together. Miss Dale, pursuing her theme with the Reverend Doctor, was invited by him to a course in the library. So Willoughby walked up and down the lawn, taking a glance at the west room as he swung round on the turn of his leg. Growing impatient he looked in at the window and found the room vacant. Nothing was to be seen of Clara and Vernon during the afternoon. Near the dinner-hour the ladies were informed by Miss Middleton's maid that her mistress was lying down on her bed, too unwell with headache to be present. Young Cross Jay brought a message from Vernon, delayed by Bird's eggs in the delivery, to say that he was off over the hills and thought of dining with Dr. Corny. So Willoughby dispatched condolences to his bride. He was not well able to employ his mind on its customary topic, being like the dome of a bell, a man of soap pervading a ring within himself, concerning himself, that the recollection of a doubtful speech or unpleasant circumstance touching him closely deranged his inward peace. And as dubious and unpleasant things will often occur, he had great need of a worshipper, and was often compelled to appeal to her for signs of anti-dotal idolatry. In this instance, when the need of a worshipper was sharply felt, he obtained no signs at all. The reverent doctor had fascinated Miss Dale, so that both within and without, Sir Willoughby was uncomforted. His themes in public were those of an English gentleman, horses, docks, game, sport, intrigue, scandal, politics, wines, the manly themes, with a condescension to ladies' tattle and approbation of a racy anecdote. What interest could he possibly take in the Athenian theatre, and the girl whose flute playing behind the scenes imitating the nightingale, enraptured a Greek audience? He would have suspected a motive in Miss Dale's eager attentiveness, if the motive could have been conceived. Besides, the ancients were not decorous. They did not, as we make our moderns do, write for ladies. He ventured at the dinner table to interrupt Dr Middleton once. Miss Dale will do wisely, I think, Sir, by confining herself to your present edition of the classics. That, replied Dr Middleton, is the observation of a student of the dictionary of classical mythology in the English tongue. The theatre is a matter of climate, Sir. You will grant me that. If quick wits come of climate, it is, as you say, Sir. With us it seems a matter of painful fostering, or the need of it, said Miss Dale, with a question to Dr Middleton, excluding Sir Willoughby, as though he had been a temporary disturbance of the flow of their dialogue. The ladies' Eleanor and Isabelle, previously excellent listeners to the learned talk, saw the necessity of coming to his rescue, but you cannot converse with your aunts, inmates of your house, on general subjects at table. The attempt increased his discomposure. He considered that he had ill-chosen his father-in-law, that scholars are an impolite race, that young or youngish women are devotees of power in any form, and will be absorbed by a scholar for a variation of a man, concluding that he must have a round of dinner parties to friends, especially ladies, appreciating him, during the doctor's visit. Clara's headache above, and Dr Middleton's unmanliness below, affected his instincts in a way to make him apprehend that a stroke of misfortune was impending. Thunder was in the air. Still, he learned something by which he was to profit subsequently. The topic of wine withdrew the doctor from his classics. It was magical on him. A strong fraternity of taste was discovered in the sentiments of host and guest upon particular wines and vintages. They kindled one another by naming great years of the grape, and if Sir Willoughby had to sacrifice the ladies to the topic, he much regretted the condition of things that compelled him to sin against his habit, for the sake of being in the conversation, and probing an elderly gentleman's foible. Late at night he heard the housebell, and meeting Vernon in the hall, invited him to enter the laboratory, and tell him Dr Corni's last. Vernon was brief. Corni had not let fly a single anecdote, he said, and lighted his candle. By the way, Vernon, you had a talk with Miss Middleton. She will speak to you to-morrow at twelve. To-morrow at twelve. It gives her four and twenty hours. Sir Willoughby determined that his perplexity should be seen. But Vernon said good-night to him, and was shooting up the stairs before the dramatic exhibition of surprise had yielded to speech. Thunder was in the air, and a blow coming. Sir Willoughby's instincts were awake to the many signs, nor those silenced, where they hushed by his harping on the frantic excesses to which women are driven by the passion of jealousy. He believed in Clara's jealousy, because he really had intended to rouse it, under the form of emulation, feebly. He could not suppose she had spoken of it to Vernon, and as for the seriousness of her desire to be released from her engagement, that was little credible. Still the fixing of an hour for her to speak to him, after an interval of four and twenty hours, left an opening for the incredible to add its weight to the suspicious mass, and who would have fancied Clara Middleton so wild a victim of the intemperate passion. He muttered to himself several assuaging observations to excuse a young lady half-demented, and rejected them in a lump for their nonsensical inapplicability to Clara. In order to obtain some sleep, he consented to blame himself slightly, in the style of the enamoured historian of earring beauties alluding to their peccadillos. He had done it to edify her. Sleep, however, failed him. That an inordinate jealousy argued an overpowering love solved his problem, until he tried to fit the proposition to Clara's character. He had discerned nothing southern in her. Laterally, with the blushing day in prospect, she had contracted and frozen. There was no reading either of her or of the mystery. In the morning at the breakfast table, a confession of sleeplessness was general. Accepting Miss Dale and Dr. Middleton, none had slept a wink. I, sir, the doctor replied to Sir Willoughby, slept like a lexicon in your library when Mr. Whitford and I are out of it. Vernon incidentally mentioned that he had been writing through the night. You fellows kill yourselves, Sir Willoughby reproved him. For my part, I make it a principle to get through my work without self-slaughter. Clara watched her father for a symptom of ridicule. He gazed mildly on the systematic worker. She was unable to guess whether she would have in him an ally or a judge. The latter, she feared. Now that she had embraced the strife, she saw the division of the line where she stood, from that one where the world places girls who are affianced wives. Her father could hardly be with her. It had gone too far. He loved her, but he would certainly take her to be moved by a maddish whim. He would not try to understand her case. The scholar's detestation of a disarrangement of human affairs that had been by miracle contrived to run smoothly, would of itself rank him against her. And with the world to back his view of her, he might behave like a despotic father. How could she defend herself before him? At one thought of Sir Willoughby, her tongue made ready, and feminine craft was alert to prompt it. But to her father she could imagine herself opposing only dumbness and obstinacy. It is not exactly the same kind of work, she said. Dr. Middleton rewarded her with a bushy eyebrow's beam of his revolting humour at the baronet's notion of work. So little was needed to quicken her that she sunned herself in the beam, coaxing her father's eyes to stay with hers as long as she could, and beginning to hope he might be one to her side, if she confessed she had been more in the wrong than she felt, owned to him that is her error in not earlier disturbing his peace. I do not say it is the same, observed Sir Willoughby, bowing to their alliance of opinion. My poor work is for the day, and Vernon's no doubt for the day to come. I contend nevertheless for the preservation of health as the chief implement of work. Of continued work, there I agree with you, said Dr. Middleton cordially. Clara's heart sunk. So little was needed to deaden her. Accuser of an overweening antagonism to her betrothed. Yet remember that though the words had not been uttered to give her good reason for it, nature reads nature. Captives may be stripped of everything save that power to read their tyrant. Remember also that she was not, as she well knew, blameless. Her rage at him was partly against herself. The rising from table left her to Sir Willoughby. She swam away after Miss Dale, exclaiming, The laboratory! Will you have me for a companion on your walk to see your father? One breathes earth and heaven to-day out of doors. Isn't it summer with a spring breeze? I will wonder about your garden and not hurry your visit, I promise. I shall be very happy indeed. But I am going immediately," said Letitia, seeing Sir Willoughby hovering to snap up his bride. Yes, and a garden hat, and I am on the march. I will wait for you on the terrace. You will not have to wait. Five minutes at the most, so Willoughby said to Letitia, and she passed out, leaving them alone together. Well, and my love! he addressed his bride almost huggingly. And what is the story? And how did you succeed with Old Vernon yesterday? He will, and he won't. He's a very woman in these affairs. I can't forgive him for giving you a headache. You were found weeping. Yes, I cried," said Clara. And now tell me about it. You know, my dear girl, whether he does or doesn't, I'll keep him somewhere in the neighborhood. Perhaps not in the house. That is the material point. It can hardly be necessary in these days to urge marriages on. I'm sure the country is over. Most marriages ought to be celebrated with the funeral now. I think so, said Clara. It will come to this, that marriages of consequence and none but those will be hailed with joyful peals. Do not say such things in public, Willoughby. Only to you, to you. Don't think me likely to expose myself to the world. Well, and I sounded Miss Dale, and there will be no violent obstacle. And now about Vernon. I will speak to you, Willoughby, when I return from my walk with Miss Dale, soon after twelve. Twelve, said he. I name an hour. It seems childish. I can explain it. But it is named, I cannot deny, because I am a rather childish person, perhaps, and have it prescribed to me to delay my speaking for a certain length of time. I may tell you at once that Mr. Whitford is not to be persuaded by me, and the breaking of our engagement would not induce him to remain. Vernon used those words. It was I. The breaking of our engagement. Come into the laboratory, my love. I shall not have time. Time shall stop rather than interfere with our conversation. The breaking! But it is a sort of sacrilege to speak of it. That, I feel, yet it has to be spoken of. Sometimes, why? I can't conceive the occasion. You know to me, Clara, plighted faith, the affiancing of two lovers, is a piece of religion. I rank it as holy as marriage. Nay, to me it is holier. I really cannot tell you how. I can only appeal to you in your bosom to understand me. We read of divorces with comparative indifference. They occur between couples who have rubbed off all romance. She could have asked him in her fit of ironic iciness, on hearing him thus blindly challenge her to speak out whether the romance might be his piece of religion. He propitiated the more un-warlike sentiments in her by ejaculating poor souls. Let them go their several ways. Married people no longer lovers are in the category of the unnameable, but the hint of the breaking of an engagement, our engagement, between us. Oh! Clara came out with a swan's note, swelling over mechanical imitation of him to dollarousness illimitable. Oh! she breathed short. Let it be now. Do not speak till you have heard me. My head may not be clear by and by, and two scenes twice will be beyond my endurance. I am penitent for the wrong I have done you. I grieve for you. All the blame is mine. Willoughby, you must release me. Do not let me hear a word of that word. Jealousy is unknown to me. Happy if I could call you friend, and see you with a worthier than I, who might by and by call me friend. You have my plighted truth, given in ignorance of my feelings. Reprobate a weak and foolish girl's ignorance. I have thought of it, and I cannot see wickedness, though the blame is great, shameful. You have none. You are without any blame. You will not suffer as I do. You will be generous to me. I have no respect for myself when I beg you to be generous and release me. But was this the—? Willoughby preserved his calmness. This, then, the subject of your interview with Vernon. I have spoken to him. I did my commission, and I spoke to him—of me. Of myself. I see how I hurt you. I could not avoid it. Yes, of you, as far as we are related. I said I believed you would release me. I said I could be true to my plighted word, but that you would not insist. Could a gentleman insist? But not a step beyond, not love. I have none. And Willoughby treat me as one perfectly worthless. I am. I should have known it a year back. I was deceived in myself. There should be love. Should be. Willoughby's tone was a pungent comment on her. Love, then, I find I have not. I think I am antagonistic to it. What people say of it, I have not experienced. I find I was mistaken. It is lightly said, but very painful. You understand me that my prayer is for liberty, that I may not be tied. If you can release and pardon me, or promise ultimately to pardon me, or say some kind word, I shall know it is because I am beneath you utterly, that I have been unable to give you the love you should have with a wife. Only say to me, go. It is you who break the match, discovering my want of the heart. What people think of me matters little. My anxiety will be to save you annoyance. She waited for him. He seemed on the verge of speaking. He perceived her expectation. He had nothing but clownish tumult within, and his dignity counselled him to disappoint her. Swaying his head, like the oriental palm whose shade is a blessing to the perfurvid wanderer below, smiling gravely, he was indirectly asking his dignity what he could say to maintain it, and deal this mad young woman a bitterly compassionate rebuke. What to think hung remota. The thing to do struck him first. He squeezed both her hands, through the door wide open, and said with countless blinking. In the laboratory we are uninterrupted. I was at a loss to guess where that most unpleasant effect on the senses came from. They are always guessing through the nose. I mean the remainder of breakfast here. Perhaps I satirised them too smartly, if you know the letters. When they are not calculating. More offensive than debris of a midnight banquet. An American tour is instructive, though not so romantic. Not so romantic as Italy, I mean. Letters escape. She held back from his arm. She had scattered his brains. It was pitiable. But she was in the torrent, and could not suffer a pause, or a change of place. It must be here. One minute more. I cannot go elsewhere to begin again. Speak to me here. Answer my request. Once, one word. If you forgive me, it will be superhuman. But release me. Seriously, he rejoined tea cups and coffee cups, breadcrumbs, eggshells, caviar, butter, beef, bacon. Can we? The room reeks. Then I will go for my walk with Miss Dale, and you will speak to me when I return. At all seasons. You shall go with Miss Dale. But my dear, my love, seriously, where are we? One hears of lovers' quarrels. Now, I never quarrel. It is a characteristic of mine, and you speak of me to my cousin Vernon. Seriously, plighted faith signifies plighted faith, as much as an iron cable is iron to hold by. Some little twist of the mind. To Vernon of all men. Crush, she has been dreaming of a hero, a perfection, and the comparison is unfavorable to her willoughby. But, my Clara, when I say to you that bride is bride, and you are mine, mine. Willoughby, you mentioned them, those separations of two married. You said if they do not love. Oh, say, is it not better? Instead of later. He took advantage of her modesty in speaking to exclaim, Where are we now? Bride is bride, and wife is wife, and defiance is in honour. Wedded. You cannot be released. We are united. Recognize it. United. There is no possibility of releasing a wife. Not if she ran. This was too direct to be histrionically misunderstood. He had driven her to the extremity of more distinctly imagining the circumstance she had cited, and with that cleared view the desperate creature gloried in launching such a bolt at the man's real or assumed insensibility as must by shivering it waken him. But in a moment she stood in burning rows with dimmed eyesight. She saw his horror, and seeing it shared it, shared just then only by seeing it, which led her to rejoice with the deepest of sighs that some shame was left in her. Ran. Ran. Ran. He said as rapidly as he blinked. How? Where? What idea? Close was he upon an explosion that would have sullied his conception of the purity of the younger members of the sex hauntingly, that she, a young lady, maiden of strictest education, sure didn't, without his teaching, know that wives ran, know that by running they compelled their husbands to abandon pursuit, surrender possession, and that she should suggest it of herself as a wife, that she should speak of running. His ideal, the common male egoist ideal of a waxwork sex, would have been shocked to fragments had she spoken further to fill in the outlines of these awful interjections. She was tempted, for during the last few minutes the fire of her situation had enlightened her understanding upon a subject far from her as the ice fields of the North a short while before, and the prospect offered to her courage if she would only outstare shame and seem at home in the doings of wickedness was his loathing and dreading so vile a young woman. She restrained herself, chiefly after the first bridling of maiden litimidity, because she could not bear to lower the idea of her sex even in his esteem. The door was open. She had thoughts of flying out to breathe in an interval of truth. She reflected on her situation hurriedly as scants. If one must go through this to be disentangled from an engagement, what must it be to poor women seeking to be free of a marriage? Had she spoken it, so Willoughby might have learned that she was not so iniquitously wise of the things of this world as her mere sex's instinct, roused to the intemperateness of a creature struggling with fetters, had made her appear in her dash to seize a weapon, indicated moreover by him. Clara took up the old broken vow of women to vow it afresh. Never to any man will I give my hand. She replied to Sir Willoughby. I have said all. I cannot explain what I have said. She had heard a step in the passage. Vernon entered. Perceiving them, he stated his mission in apology. Dr. Middleton left a book in this room. I see it. It's Sir Hynesius. Ha! by the way, a book. Books would not be left here if they were not brought here, with my compliments to Dr. Middleton, who may do as he pleases though. Seriously, order is order, said Sir Willoughby. Come away to the laboratory, Clara. It's a comment on human beings that wherever they have been there's a mess. And you admirers of them, he divided a sickly nod between Vernon and the stale breakfast table, must make what you can of it. Come, Clara. Clara protested that she was engaged to walk with Miss Dale. Miss Dale is waiting in the hall, said Vernon. Miss Dale is waiting, said Clara. Walk with Miss Dale, walk with Miss Dale. Sir Willoughby remarked, pressingly, I will beg her to wait another two minutes. You shall find her in the hall when you come down. He rang the bell and went out. Take Miss Dale into your confidence. She is quite trustworthy, Vernon said to Clara. I have not advanced one step, she replied. Recollect that you are in a position of your own choosing. And if, after thinking over it, you mean to escape, you must make up your mind to pitched battles and not be dejected if you are beaten in all of them. There is your only chance. Not my choosing. Do not say choosing, Mr. Whitford. I did not choose. I was incapable of really choosing. I consented. It's the same, in fact. But be sure of what you wish. Yes, she assented, taking it for her just punishment that she should be supposed not quite to know her wishes. Your advice has helped me to-day. Did I advise? Do you regret advising? I should certainly regret a word that intruded between you and him. But you will not leave the hall yet. You will not leave me without a friend. If Papa and I were to leave to-morrow, I foresee endless correspondence. I have to stay at least some days and wear through it. And then, if I have to speak to my poor father, you can imagine the effect on him. So Willough became striding in to correct the error of his going out. Miss Dale awaits you, my dear. You have bonnet, hat—no. Have you forgotten your appointment to walk with her? I am ready," said Clara, departing. The two gentlemen behind her separated in the passage. They had not spoken. She had read of the reproach upon women, that they divide the friendships of men. She reproached herself, but she was in action, driven by necessity between sea and rock. Dreadful to think of, she was one of the creatures who are written about.