Evan Harrington. Complete

‘Don’t be down, Van; don’t be down, my boy,’ said Andrew, rubbing his hands gloomily.

‘I? do I look it?’ Evan answered, laughing.

‘Capital acting!’ exclaimed Raikes. ‘Try and keep it up.’

‘Well, I hope you’re acting too,’ said Evan.

Raikes let his chest fall like a collapsing bellows.

At the end of five minutes, he remarked: ‘I’ve been sitting on it the whole morning! There’s violent inflammation, I’m persuaded. Another hour, and I jump slap from the summit of the coach!’

Evan turned to Andrew.

‘Do you think he’ll be let off?’

‘Mr. Raikes? Can’t say. You see, Van, it depends upon how Old Tom has taken his bad luck. Ahem! Perhaps he’ll be all the stricter; and as a man of honour, Mr. Raikes, you see, can’t very well—’

‘By Jove! I wish I wasn’t a man of honour!’ Raikes interposed, heavily.

‘You see, Van, Old Tom’s circumstances’—Andrew ducked, to smother a sort of laughter—‘are now such that he’d be glad of the money to let him off, no doubt; but Mr. Raikes has spent it, I can’t lend it, and you haven’t got it, and there we all are. At the end of the year he’s free, and he—ha! ha! I’m not a bit the merrier for laughing, I can tell you.’

Catching another glimpse of Evan’s serious face, Andrew fell into louder laughter; checking it with doleful solemnity.

Up hill and down hill, and past little homesteads shining with yellow crocuses; across wide brown heaths, whose outlines raised in Evan’s mind the night of his funeral walk, and tossed up old feelings dead as the whirling dust. At last Raikes called out:

‘The towers of Fallow field; heigho!’

And Andrew said:

‘Now then, Van: if Old Tom’s anywhere, he’s here. You get down at the Dragon, and don’t you talk to me, but let me go in. It’ll be just the hour he dines in the country. Isn’t it a shame of him to make me face every man of the creditors—eh?’

Evan gave Andrew’s hand an affectionate squeeze, at which Andrew had to gulp down something—reciprocal emotion, doubtless.

‘Hark,’ said Raikes, as the horn of the guard was heard. ‘Once that sound used to set me caracoling before an abject multitude. I did wonders. All London looked on me! It had more effect on me than champagne. Now I hear it—the whole charm has vanished! I can’t see a single old castle. Would you have thought it possible that a small circular bit of tin on a man’s person could produce such changes in him?’

‘You are a donkey to wear it,’ said Evan.

‘I pledged my word as a gentleman, and thought it small, for the money!’ said Raikes. ‘This is the first coach I ever travelled on, without making the old whip burst with laughing. I’m not myself. I’m haunted. I’m somebody else.’

The three passengers having descended, a controversy commenced between Evan and Andrew as to which should pay. Evan had his money out; Andrew dashed it behind him; Evan remonstrated.

‘Well, you mustn’t pay for us two, Andrew. I would have let you do it once, but—’

‘Stuff!’ cried Andrew. ‘I ain’t paying—it ‘s the creditors of the estate, my boy!’

Evan looked so ingenuously surprised and hurt at his lack of principle, that Andrew chucked a sixpence at a small boy, saying,

‘If you don’t let me have my own way, Van, I ‘ll shy my purse after it. What do you mean, sir, by treating me like a beggar?’

‘Our friend Harrington can’t humour us,’ quoth Raikes. ‘For myself, I candidly confess I prefer being paid for’; and he leaned contentedly against one of the posts of the inn till the filthy dispute was arranged to the satisfaction of the ignobler mind. There Andrew left them, and went to Mrs. Sockley, who, recovered from her illness, smiled her usual placid welcome to a guest.

‘You know me, ma’am?’

‘Oh, yes! The London Mr. Cogglesby!’

‘Now, ma’am, look here. I’ve come for my brother. Don’t be alarmed. No danger as yet. But, mind! if you attempt to conceal him from his lawful brother, I’ll summon here the myrmidons of the law.’

Mrs. Sockley showed a serious face.

‘You know his habits, Mr. Cogglesby; and one doesn’t go against any one of his whimsies, or there’s consequences: but the house is open to you, sir. I don’t wish to hide him.’

Andrew accepted this intelligent evasion of Tom Cogglesby’s orders as sufficient, and immediately proceeded upstairs. A door shut on the first landing. Andrew went to this door and knocked. No answer. He tried to open it, but found that he had been forestalled. After threatening to talk business through the key-hole, the door was unlocked, and Old Tom appeared.

‘So! now you’re dogging me into the country. Be off; make an appointment. Saturday’s my holiday. You know that.’

Andrew pushed through the doorway, and, by way of an emphatic reply and a silencing one, delivered a punch slap into Old Tom’s belt.

‘Confound you, Nan!’ said Old Tom, grimacing, but friendly, as if his sympathies had been irresistibly assailed.

‘It ‘s done, Tom! I’ve done it. Won my bet, now,’ Andrew exclaimed. ‘The women-poor creatures! What a state they’re in. I pity ‘em.’

Old Tom pursed his lips, and eyed his brother incredulously, but with curious eagerness.

‘Oh, Lord! what a face I’ve had to wear!’ Andrew continued, and while he sank into a chair and rubbed his handkerchief over his crisp hair, Old Tom let loose a convinced and exulting, ‘ha! ha!’

‘Yes, you may laugh. I’ve had all the bother,’ said Andrew.

‘Serve ye right—marrying such cattle,’ Old Tom snapped at him.

‘They believe we’re bankrupt—owe fifty thousand clear, Tom!’

‘Ha! ha!’

‘Brewery stock and household furniture to be sold by general auction, Friday week.’

‘Ha! ha!’

‘Not a place for any of us to poke our heads into. I talked about “pitiless storms” to my poor Harry—no shelter to be had unless we go down to Lymport, and stop with their brother in shop!’

Old Tom did enjoy this. He took a great gulp of air for a tremendous burst of laughter, and when this was expended and reflection came, his features screwed, as if the acidest of flavours had ravished his palate.

‘Bravo, Nan! Didn’t think you were man enough. Ha! ha! Nan—I say—eh? how did ye get on behind the curtains?’

The tale, to guess by Andrew’s face, appeared to be too strongly infused with pathos for revelation.

‘Will they go, Nan, eh? d’ ye think they ‘ll go?’

‘Where else can they go, Tom? They must go there, or on the parish, you know.’

‘They’ll all troop down to the young tailor—eh?’

‘They can’t sleep in the parks, Tom.’

‘No. They can’t get into Buckingham Palace, neither—‘cept as housemaids. ‘Gad, they’re howling like cats, I’d swear—nuisance to the neighbourhood—ha! ha!’

Old Tom’s cruel laughter made Andrew feel for the unhappy ladies. He stuck his forehead, and leaned forward, saying: ‘I don’t know—‘pon my honour, I don’t know—can’t think we’ve—quite done right to punish ‘em so.’

This acted like cold water on Old Tom’s delight. He pitched it back in the shape of a doubt of what Andrew had told him. Whereupon Andrew defied him to face three miserable women on the verge of hysterics; and Old Tom, beginning to chuckle again, rejoined that it would bring them to their senses, and emancipate him.

‘You may laugh, Mr. Tom,’ said Andrew; ‘but if poor Harry should find me out, deuce a bit more home for me.’

Old Tom looked at him keenly, and rapped the table. ‘Swear you did it, Nan.’

‘You promise you’ll keep the secret,’ said Andrew.

‘Never make promises.’

‘Then there’s a pretty life for me! I did it for that poor dear boy. You were only up to one of your jokes—I see that. Confound you, Old Tom, you’ve been making a fool of me.’

The flattering charge was not rejected by Old Tom, who now had his brother to laugh at as well. Andrew affected to be indignant and desperate.

‘If you’d had a heart, Tom, you’d have saved the poor fellow without any bother at all. What do you think? When I told him of our smash—ha! ha! it isn’t such a bad joke-well, I went to him, hanging my head, and he offered to arrange our affairs—that is—’

‘Damned meddlesome young dog!’ cried Old Tom, quite in a rage.

‘There—you’re up in a twinkling,’ said Andrew. ‘Don’t you see he believed it, you stupid Old Tom? Lord! to hear him say how sorry he was, and to see how glad he looked at the chance of serving us!’

‘Serving us!’ Tom sneered.

‘Ha!’ went Andrew. ‘Yes. There. You’re a deuced deal prouder than fifty peers. You’re an upside-down old despot!’

No sharper retort rising to Old Tom’s lips, he permitted his brother’s abuse of him to pass, declaring that bandying words was not his business, he not being a Parliament man.

‘How about the Major, Nan? He coming down, too?’

‘Major!’ cried Andrew. ‘Lucky if he keeps his commission. Coming down? No. He’s off to the Continent.’

‘Find plenty of scamps there to keep him company,’ added Tom. ‘So he’s broke—eh? ha! ha!’

‘Tom,’ said Andrew, seriously, ‘I’ll tell you all about it, if you ‘ll swear not to split on me, because it would really upset poor Harry so. She ‘d think me such a beastly hypocrite, I couldn’t face her afterwards.’

‘Lose what pluck you have—eh?’ Tom jerked out his hand, and bade his brother continue.

Compelled to trust in him without a promise, Andrew said: ‘Well, then, after we’d arranged it, I went back to Harry, and begged her to have poor Van at the house told her what I hoped you’d do for him about getting him into the Brewery. She’s very kind, Tom, ‘pon my honour she is. She was willing, only—’

‘Only—eh?’

‘Well, she was so afraid it’d hurt her sisters to see him there.’

Old Tom saw he was in for excellent fun, and wouldn’t spoil it for the world.

‘Yes, Nan?’

‘So I went to Caroline. She was easy enough; and she went to the Countess.’

‘Well, and she—?’

‘She was willing, too, till Lady Jocelyn came and took Miss Bonner home to Beckley, and because Evan had written to my lady to fetch her, the Countess—she was angry. That was all. Because of that, you know. But yet she agreed. But when Miss Bonner had gone, it turned out that the Major was the obstacle. They were all willing enough to have Evan there, but the Major refused. I didn’t hear him. I wasn’t going to ask him. I mayn’t be a match for three women, but man to man, eh, Tom? You’d back me there? So Harry said the Major ‘d make Caroline miserable, if his wishes were disrespected. By George, I wish I’d know, then. Don’t you think it odd, Tom, now? There’s a Duke of Belfield the fellow had hooked into his Company; and—through Evan I heard—the Duke had his name struck off. After that, the Major swore at the Duke once or twice, and said Caroline wasn’t to go out with him. Suddenly, he insists that she shall go. Days the poor thing kept crying! One day, he makes her go. She hasn’t the spirit of my Harry or the Countess. By good luck, Van, who was hunting ferns for some friends of his, met them on Sunday in Richmond Park, and Van took her away from the Duke. But, Tom, think of Van seeing a fellow watching her wherever she went, and hearing the Duke’s coachman tell that fellow he had orders to drive his master and a lady hard on to the sea that night. I don’t believe it—it wasn’t Caroline! But what do you think of our finding out that beast of a spy to be in the Major’s pay? We did. Van put a constable on his track; we found him out, and he confessed it. A fact, Tom! That decided me. If it was only to get rid of a brute, I determined I ‘d do it, and I did. Strike came to me to get my name for a bill that night. ‘Gad, he looked blanker than his bill when he heard of us two bankrupt. I showed him one or two documents I’d got ready. Says he: “Never mind; it’ll only be a couple of hundred more in the schedule.” Stop, Tom! he’s got some of our blood. I don’t think he meant it. He is hard pushed. Well, I gave him a twentier, and he was off the next night. You ‘ll soon see all about the Company in the papers.’

At the conclusion of Andrew’s recital, Old Tom thrummed and looked on the floor under a heavy frown. His mouth worked dubiously, and, from moment to moment, he plucked at his waistcoat and pulled it down, throwing back his head and glaring.

‘I ‘ve knocked that fellow over once,’ he said. ‘Wish he hadn’t got up again.’

Andrew nodded.

‘One good thing, Nan. He never boasted of our connection. Much obliged to him.’

‘Yes,’ said Andrew, who was gladly watching Old Tom’s change of mood with a quiescent aspect.

‘Um!—must keep it quiet from his poor old mother.’

Andrew again affirmatived his senior’s remarks. That his treatment of Old Tom was sound, he presently had proof of. The latter stood up, and after sniffing in an injured way for about a minute, launched out his right leg, and vociferated that he would like to have it in his power to kick all the villains out of the world: a modest demand Andrew at once chimed in with; adding that, were such a faculty extended to him, he would not object to lose the leg that could benefit mankind so infinitely, and consented to its following them. Then, Old Tom, who was of a practical turn, meditated, swung his foot, and gave one grim kick at the imaginary bundle of villains, discharged them headlong straight into space. Andrew, naturally imitative, and seeing that he had now to kick them flying, attempted to excel Old Tom in the vigour of his delivery. No wonder that the efforts of both were heating: they were engaged in the task of ridding the globe of the larger half of its inhabitants. Tom perceived Andrew’s useless emulation, and with a sound translated by ‘yack,’ sent his leg out a long way. Not to be outdone, Andrew immediately, with a still louder ‘yack,’ committed himself to an effort so violent that the alternative between his leg coming off, or his being taken off his leg, was propounded by nature, and decided by the laws of gravity in a trice. Joyful grunts were emitted by Old Tom at the sight of Andrew prostrate, rubbing his pate. But Mrs. Sockley, to whom the noise of Andrew’s fall had suggested awful fears of a fratricidal conflict upstairs, hurried forthwith to announce to them that the sovereign remedy for human ills, the promoter of concord, the healer of feuds, the central point of man’s destiny in the flesh—Dinner, was awaiting them.

To the dinner they marched.

Of this great festival be it simply told that the supply was copious and of good quality—much too good and copious for a bankrupt host: that Evan and Mr. John Raikes were formally introduced to Old Tom before the repast commenced, and welcomed some three minutes after he had decided the flavour of his first glass; that Mr. Raikes in due time preferred his petition for release from a dreadful engagement, and furnished vast amusement to the company under Old Tom’s hand, until, by chance, he quoted a scrap of Latin, at which the brothers Cogglesby, who would have faced peers and princes without being disconcerted, or performing mental genuflexions, shut their mouths and looked injured, unhappy, and in the presence of a superior: Mr. Raikes not being the man to spare them. Moreover, a surprise was afforded to Evan. Andrew stated to Old Tom that the hospitality of Main Street, Lymport,—was open to him. Strange to say, Old Tom accepted it on the spot, observing, ‘You’re master of the house—can do what you like, if you ‘re man enough,’ and adding that he thanked him, and would come in a day or two. The case of Mr. Raikes was still left uncertain, for as the bottle circulated, he exhibited such a faculty for apt, but to the brothers, totally incomprehensible quotation, that they fled from him without leaving him time to remember what special calamity was on his mind, or whether this earth was other than an abode conceived in great jollity for his life-long entertainment.

CHAPTER XLII. JULIANA

The sick night-light burned steadily in Juliana’s chamber. On a couch, beside her bed, Caroline lay sleeping, tired with a long watch. Two sentences had been passed on Juliana: one on her heart: one on her body: ‘Thou art not loved’; and, ‘Thou must die.’ The frail passion of her struggle against her destiny was over with her. Quiet as that quiet which Nature was taking her to, her body reposed. Calm as the solitary night-light before her open eyes, her spirit was wasting away. ‘If I am not loved, then let me die!’ In such a sense she bowed to her fate.

At an hour like this, watching the round of light on the ceiling, with its narrowing inner rings, a sufferer from whom pain has fled looks back to the shores she is leaving, and would be well with them who walk there. It is false to imagine that schemers and workers in the dark are destitute of the saving gift of conscience. They have it, and it is perhaps made livelier in them than with easy people; and therefore, they are imperatively spurred to hoodwink it. Hence, their self-delusion is deep and endures. They march to their object, and gaining or losing it, the voice that calls to them is the voice of a blind creature, whom any answer, provided that the answer is ready, will silence. And at an hour like this, when finally they snatch their minute of sight on the threshold of black night, their souls may compare with yonder shining circle on the ceiling, which, as the light below gasps for air, contracts, and extends but to mingle with the darkness. They would be nobler, better, boundlessly good to all;—to those who have injured them to those whom they have injured. Alas! for any definite deed the limit of their circle is immoveable, and they must act within it. The trick they have played themselves imprisons them. Beyond it, they cease to be.

Lying in this utter stillness, Juliana thought of Rose; of her beloved by Evan. The fever that had left her blood, had left it stagnant, and her thoughts were quite emotionless. She looked faintly on a far picture. She saw Rose blooming with pleasures in Elburne House, sliding as a boat borne by the river’s tide to sea, away from her living joy. The breast of Rose was lucid to her, and in that hour of insight she had clear knowledge of her cousin’s heart; how it scoffed at its base love, and unwittingly betrayed the power on her still, by clinging to the world and what it would give her to fill the void; how externally the lake was untroubled, and a mirror to the passing day; and how within there pressed a flood against an iron dam. Evan, too, she saw. The Countess was right in her judgement of Juliana’s love. Juliana looked very little to his qualities. She loved him when she thought him guilty, which made her conceive that her love was of a diviner cast than Rose was capable of. Guilt did not spoil his beauty to her; his gentleness and glowing manhood were unchanged; and when she knew him as he was, the revelation of his high nature simply confirmed her impression of his physical perfections. She had done him a wrong; at her death news would come to him, and it might be that he would bless her name. Because she sighed no longer for those dear lips and strong arms to close about her tremulous frame, it seemed to her that she had quite surrendered him. Generous to Evan, she would be just to Rose. Beneath her pillow she found pencil and paper, and with difficulty, scarce seeing her letters in the brown light, she began to trace lines of farewell to Rose. Her conscience dictated to her thus, ‘Tell Rose that she was too ready to accept his guilt; and that in this as in all things, she acted with the precipitation of her character. Tell her that you always trusted, and that now you know him innocent. Give her the proofs you have. Show that he did it to shield his intriguing sister. Tell her that you write this only to make her just to him. End with a prayer that Rose may be happy.’

Ere Juliana had finished one sentence, she resigned the pencil. Was it not much, even at the gates of death, to be the instrument to send Rose into his arms? The picture swayed before her, helping her weakness. She found herself dreaming that he had kissed her once. Dorothy, she remembered, had danced up to her one day, to relate what the maids of the house said of the gentleman—(at whom, it is known, they look with the licence of cats toward kings); and Dorothy’s fresh careless mouth had told how one observant maid, amorously minded, proclaimed of Evan, to a companion of her sex, that, ‘he was the only gentleman who gave you an idea of how he would look when he was kissing you.’ Juliana cherished that vision likewise. Young ladies are not supposed to do so, if menial maids are; but Juliana did cherish it, and it possessed her fancy. Bear in your recollection that she was not a healthy person. Diseased little heroines may be made attractive, and are now popular; but strip off the cleverly woven robe which is fashioned to cover them, and you will find them in certain matters bearing a resemblance to menial maids.

While the thoughts of his kiss lasted, she could do nothing; but lay with her two hands out on the bed, and her eyelids closed. Then waking, she took the pencil again. It would not move: her bloodless fingers fell from it.

‘If they do not meet, and he never marries, I may claim him in the next world,’ she mused.

But conscience continued uneasy. She turned her wrist and trailed a letter from beneath the pillow. It was from Mrs. Shorne. Juliana knew the contents. She raised it unopened as high as her faltering hands permitted, and read like one whose shut eyes read syllables of fire on the darkness.

‘Rose has at last definitely engaged herself to Ferdinand, you will be glad to hear, and we may now treat her as a woman.’

Having absorbed these words, Juliana’s hand found strength to write, with little difficulty, what she had to say to Rose. She conceived it to be neither sublime nor generous: not even good; merely her peculiar duty. When it was done, she gave a long, low sigh of relief.

Caroline whispered, ‘Dearest child, are you awake?’

‘Yes,’ she answered.

‘Sorrowful, dear?’

‘Very quiet.’

Caroline reached her hand over to her, and felt the paper. ‘What is this?’

‘My good-bye to Rose. I want it folded now.’

Caroline slipped from the couch to fulfil her wish. She enclosed the pencilled scrap of paper, sealed it, and asked, ‘Is that right?’

‘Now unlock my desk,’ Juliana uttered, feebly. ‘Put it beside a letter addressed to a law-gentleman. Post both the morning I am gone.’

Caroline promised to obey, and coming to Juliana to mark her looks, observed a faint pleased smile dying away, and had her hand gently squeezed. Juliana’s conscience had preceded her contentedly to its last sleep; and she, beneath that round of light on the ceiling, drew on her counted breaths in peace till dawn.

CHAPTER XLIII. ROSE

Have you seen a young audacious spirit smitten to the earth? It is a singular study; and, in the case of young women, a trap for inexperienced men. Rose, who had commanded and managed every one surrounding her since infancy, how humble had she now become!—how much more womanly in appearance, and more child-like at heart! She was as wax in Lady Elburne’s hands. A hint of that veiled episode, the Beckley campaign, made Rose pliant, as if she had woven for herself a rod of scorpions. The high ground she had taken; the perfect trust in one; the scorn of any judgement, save her own; these had vanished from her. Rose, the tameless heroine who had once put her mother’s philosophy in action, was the easiest filly that turbaned matron ever yet drove into the straight road of the world. It even surprised Lady Jocelyn to see how wonderfully she had been broken in by her grandmother. Her ladyship wrote to Drummond to tell him of it, and Drummond congratulated her, saying, however: ‘Changes of this sort don’t come of conviction. Wait till you see her at home. I think they have been sticking pins into the sore part.’

Drummond knew Rose well. In reality there was no change in her. She was only a suppliant to be spared from ridicule: spared from the application of the scourge she had woven for herself.

And, ah! to one who deigned to think warmly still of such a disgraced silly creature, with what gratitude she turned! He might well suppose love alone could pour that profusion of jewels at his feet.

Ferdinand, now Lord Laxley, understood the merits of his finger-nails better than the nature of young women; but he is not to be blamed for presuming that Rose had learnt to adore him. Else why did she like his company so much? He was not mistaken in thinking she looked up to him. She seemed to beg to be taken into his noble serenity. In truth she sighed to feel as he did, above everybody!—she that had fallen so low! Above everybody!—born above them, and therefore superior by grace divine! To this Rose Jocelyn had come—she envied the mind of Ferdinand.