CHAPTER XVIII
A LOVEBIRD
Thus again, without any effort of his own, was the clever stockbroker quit of rivalry; for although the Earl did not leave the village for some weeks, he was not in a condition to do much poetic wooing, even if he could have found a partner. And this was not the only good result from that serious double accident; for the necessity of daily enquiry at our cottage became so pressing, and Stoneman so gallantly rose to this occasion, that the stiffness and coldness which had hitherto marked my mother's reception of him could no longer be maintained, but glided very quietly into goodwill and gratitude. All of us began to forgive him, more and more, for the crime of not belonging to an ancient county family, while the merits of his affluence almost drove us to maintain them against his own indifference.
"You go along," I said, for I had come to know him now, and could talk of his cash without tapping at it; "you know as well as I do, that the first consideration with nine out of ten of us is – Money."
"I am afraid it is," he answered, as he stopped to make a bow, across a thousand cobblestones, to my sister, who was descending from the sky no doubt to attend to her milk-pans, and to know of nothing else; "I am afraid it is, with those who have not got it; and there is a great deal to be said for them. But I should be ashamed if it were so, with those who have obtained it. Moreover, it would be contrary to human nature, for does any man value a thing that is his own? As long as it seems beyond his reach, it is all that is lovely and charming; but the moment he has reduced the chose in action, as the lawyers express it, into possession, all its glory is gone, till he loses it again."
"Very well. There is your chose in action over there." I pointed to the dairy window. "I shall take care to tell her how you mean to estimate her, if ever she becomes your property."
"For Heaven's sake," he cried, while he caught me by the sleeve, as if I were going straightway to denounce him, "don't suppose that such impious doctrines apply to – to the one exception of all human laws."
"I am afraid that they do, and ever so much quicker than they apply to money. But once more, when are you going to try your luck?"
For he had pestered me perpetually about his feelings now, and I had advised him not to be in too much of a hurry. I felt that he was further on than I was, in acquaintance with the lovely object; for he must have had about thirty opportunities, to my three, counting dog-dialogues and everything. But he had not done half so much as I had; and women are wise enough to take one deed deeper to the dear heart, than a hundred thousand words. In fact, it is difficult to get that out again, if done by a man of the right age and manner, and if they were sensitive just then with fright. The thought of this bore me up against friend Jackson's flowing opportunities, and made me an impartial critic of his work.
He looked at me uneasily, when I brought him to this point; and all his experience in "carrying over," and contingoes, and settling days, and whatever else they call it, was of very little use to him with such a ticklish stock.
"Come in here, George," he said; "how am I to talk, as if it were a question of exchange and discount, when I see her bright hair dancing in the sun like that? But let me look. Don't say a word, until she goes away."
"Here are two cart-saddles and a pair of blinkers, and a truss of clover hay. If her young spring-carrots can dance through all that, they must beat Berenice's and Helen's of Troy. Don't be quite a fool, Jack. You ought to know that girls can't abide being stared at with their slops on. They have got a finer word for it – peg something, in the novels. But Grace never gets herself up for a rustic surprise, like those fashionable dairymaids."
"I should hope not indeed! She is nature itself. And all nature is sweetest in the morning. But there is not a spark of poetry about you, George. All that has gone into the female line. What would I give, to see you frightfully in love!"
The piercing glance he gave me completely turned the tables; but I pulled him back so briskly that he came home to himself; for he was got up very bucklish in some Volunteer apparel, on his way to a swell rifle-meeting; and it may be imagined that he longed for Grace to look at him, almost as much as he longed to look at Grace. However, that was no concern of mine. He returned very modestly to his own affairs, and sat down where he could not see the window.
"Has she said anything about me lately? Does she seem to have the least idea? You know how I have tried to keep myself in the background according to your advice, which was most kindly meant. But meanwhile other fellows have been making play. Thank God, we have settled Melladew; I was most afraid of him. Coronet, and sonnets, and a head of curly hair. Foremost of her sex although she is – but, no, what am I talking of? Her mind is far too lofty. When I behold her in her graceful simplicity, like an Angel ministering what they get out of the cows – but allow me to hang that cart-saddle on the other peg, George."
To my vexation there was Grace again, standing in the doorway, with a great spoon in her hand – for a type of the greater one not so very far away – giving a taste of some white stuff to old Sally, who was stooping a hunchified back to save spilling. To see the light poise of the youthful figure, and the merry smile while the white froth was tilted carefully into that ancient mouth, little would you think that within so short a period, all this bright life had missed the grave by half an inch.
"Thank God!" whispered Stoneman. "How little heed we take of their goodness, George! All men in comparison ought to be killed."
"Not a bit of it," I answered. "Perhaps Melladew ought. He couldn't have made more row if he had been kilt, as an Irishman is being always. But perhaps he could not help it; for it is his nature to."
"In any other case I should not have blamed him much, though it is not altogether perhaps the style of Englishmen. But one thing we always forget – how intensely some people feel what to others is a flea-bite. And the ankle is a very nasty place after all, though the shot only just broke the skin, Hopmann says. You heard him claim the shot? Well, now he puts it upon me! However, he is quite welcome, for the tale might go against him with his 'bagients.' Ta, ta! I'm off to enquire for my lord, and I always let him know where I come from. Won't Hopmann make a fine thing out of this! I have lent him a trap and a man, to make the most of it. The man drives like a fury and calls out to everybody, 'Can't stop – very sorry – let them all know – the poor Hearl, he is in such hagony!' Hopmann's new letter-box is full already, and his hat is a hoarding of turnpike tickets."
"What a friend you are! What a friend to have!" I exclaimed, as he jumped upon his highly polished horse, for Grace had tripped away with a little turn of neck, which meant, "Wouldn't you like to come with me?" And Stoneman was hoping to get another glimpse from the saddle over the palings. Ay, and he did so too, as the light in his eyes made clear to me.
A firm friend is likely to be a faithful lover, and a true husband when the gloss is off the love; but whether Grace had any sense of this, or even thought at all about him, was more than I could say at present. Quick of perception as she was, it seemed almost impossible that she could have failed to observe his attention, or it might be called his entire devotion to her. Yet when I tried her with a lot of little dodges, such as a brother must have at command, if he wants to keep time with his sisters, she never turned a hair – as the sporting people say – and she looked me out of countenance sometimes, as if I were inferior to the female race. Knowing what she was, I was unable to suppose that there could be any depth in her beyond my understanding, so I said to myself, "Let her mind the milk. What can a sweet girl desire beyond that?"
To do good, to be kind, to be always cheerful, and to find their happiness in making ours – that was the proper thing, when I was young, for the rising generation of the better sex. Of our faults they must have no knowledge, but be as hard as possible upon their own; and in that particular they had every help from their own sex, whose time was ripening into criticism. Somehow or other they have changed all that, and flung themselves far into the opposite extreme.
Nothing could have made me dwell upon such little things, unless there had been one of them that was all the world to me. And while I was endeavouring to explain my sister to the clearest of my understanding, and blaming her for my failure, there must have been some other purpose behind, which was even more than brotherly. I was able to give very good advice to Jackson Stoneman, and he was quite right in adopting it; but that masterful inaction did not seem to suit my case. What might be going on even now – that was the great point for me to ascertain – in a matter beyond all discretion or cold comfort? Saturday was come; and I had been attending, with a grandeur of benevolence beyond all praise, to a love-affair deeply interesting, but in which you might call me a spectator only. Surely my own state of puzzle was enough, without trying to make dovetails of another pair.
Therefore, as soon as I had paid the men, at three o'clock that afternoon, which was the proper time, I saddled Old Joe, and without a word to Grace, who might think what she liked – let her mind her own affairs – off I set for St. Winifred's valley, where I knew an old shed that would entertain the horse. Let this old fellow get enough to eat, which he might pull from the hayrick, and all time, all friends, any fatherland would be just alike to him.
The days were drawing in very fast, and although the sun was on the shoulder of the hill, the sense of autumn and of night impending had taken the cheer and the warmth away, and saddened the dignity of the trees. My heart was beating fast, yet low, as I hurried down the slope from the lonely shed: fast with some foolish jerks of hope that any corner might show Dariel; yet low, as every corner went its way, without any sign of my darling. When I came to the ruined chapel, and peeped in, discovering only solitude, so flurried and tremulous was my condition – a most unusual state for me – that the Lesghian chief, if he saw me thus, might fairly think that some mischief from the old wound was at work inside. To recover myself and appear before him in a decent manner, I crossed the brook by a fallen tree, and wandered into the gloomy wood, where the old approach had lost its way; and here I lingered so long that dusk was deepening into darkness when I crossed the lonely stream again.
Fearing that Sûr Imar might suppose me to be careless, and having recovered my self-command in right of much moralising, I entered by the lower door, and walked across the grass towards the quarters where the people lived. All was quiet, dull, and foggy, darker than the land outside, and damp enough to give love itself a touch of rheumatic fever. Most of the men were gone, as their happy fashion was on Saturday, to fetch good things of victualling – for no cart came down the valley – and other delights, which we are so glad to deny to one another.
As I passed by a low ruined wall in the fog, I heard a click as of some iron latch falling to, or flung to carelessly. This drew my attention that way, and then a swish like the swing of a heavy cloak followed, and then I saw a tall man coming from an angle in the wall that had a roof to it. At the moment I was walking rather fast, and if I had continued at that pace, my elbow and the stranger's might have struck one another; for he was also walking fast, and his course – to use one of Slemmick's words – was "slantindicular" to mine. He had not yet descried me, by reason of the wall, and feeling that he had no right on these premises, I drew back, and let him get in front of me. For I was never at all comfortable about things here, since my interview with Nicolo.
Keeping my distance carefully, I followed that man towards the buildings, while I tried to make out enough of him to learn his rank and age, and anything else that could be known. If he were to turn and resent my vigilance, gladly would I have it out with him; for a little fight, even if I got the worst of it, would have been a comfort to my bruised spirit then. But the fellow never turned, and seemed to be quite indifferent whether there was any one to heed him. As for his appearance, I could make out very little, except that he was not an Englishman. Dark as it was, I could have sworn to that; whether by his walk, or dress, or figure, or what else, I cannot say; but at any rate he was a foreigner; and I could almost answer for it that on his hip was swung a sword, which would have made short work of me, had he been so desirous.
Instead of entering the passage of grey flint which led to the households of the colony, the man I was following turned to the right, where the wall curved in towards the upper door. Kuban and Orla, who dwelled for the best of their time in this part of the premises, came forth and looked at him without a single sniff; and then lowered their tails, and crawled away. "What a villain he must be!" thought I; "they know him, but would rather not even speak to him."
But the impression he had made upon them was far beyond this. To my surprise, they condemned the entire human race for the moment, reasoning (as we must have taught them to do) from the particular to the universal. For when I passed and held out my hand, not a word would they have to say to me, which perhaps was the better for my safety. Then as I followed with my temper rising, and resolved to bring the man to book as he unbarred the door, what did he do but with one great vault gain that coign of reconnaissance where the watch-dog loved to sit, and plunge from it into the world beyond, with some strange headgear shown between the battlements, and then a clank of hard metal, and a heavy flap of ivy.
I have often been surprised, as every man must be, who lives to full growth upon this wondrous earth; but this time my astonishment went quite beyond its powers. Every one had always taken me for a great jumper, but, to save my life, I could never have done that. I stood, and looked up into the darkness of the sky, as if for some witness to confirm my doubtful eyes; and then a deep conviction of the existence of the Devil – which philosophers in mutinous ingratitude deny – came to my aid, and calmed me with the sense of duty which his name inspires. And now the two dogs, breathing calmly again, and with their tails high-masted, came to apologise for that trimming which even they had learned towards their dearest friend. Here was something genial; and I forgave them, because I might have done the same, if touched with equal insight.
"I will get to the bottom of this," thought I, "though the scoundrel has put the wall between us." For I knew not at all how to open that door, even if it seemed desirable. With a quick step, therefore, I retraced my course, while Kuban and Orla came after me, sniffing my track with happy puffs, to be sure of something wholesome. Keeping clear of the dwellings, I went back along the wall, to investigate the corner from which that demon of mystery had emerged. What superstition can there be in a Winchester and New College man, who has eaten for the Bar, and knows something of Stockbrokers, and as much as is good of Solicitors? But it is better to avoid such subjects now.
Both dogs lay down at a certain spot, where a narrow track just visible across the grass began; perhaps they were forbidden to come further down that way. But I went on, treading gingerly, until I was stopped by a pair of wire-doors. It was rather dark still, but not so murky as it had been, for the moon began to lift herself a little through the mist. As her faint light came glimmering over the black wall, I began to see what the little structure was, and how it was sheltered and protected overhead. Dariel had told me that she was very fond of birds, and had some beauties of her own; and no doubt this was where she kept them. Now if that hateful fellow with the strange headgear came out of this enclosure, as appeared too manifest, it was equally plain that he must have been inside it; and what could he be doing in this aviary so late, unless the fair owner herself were there?
My wrath and indignation knew no bounds. If I were being treated in this perfidious way, what steps could be too strong or too insidious, if they led to the confusion of the traitors? Though the dogs were as silent as if they were carved in stone, I went back to them and threatened them with quick and painful death, if they dared to enquire into my proceedings. Then by a little reconnoitring I found a corner of the netting which formed the outer fence, from which I could see into the inner room, which had been impossible from the gate. I could have opened that gate perhaps, but not without noise enough to attract attention; and now I could see as well as if I were inside, for the wire-mesh made no difference.
At the end of the room which was nearest to me, and only a few yards from the corner I had found, sat Dariel herself, with a purple cloak on, or a mantle, or jacket – I never know the proper words, and it makes no difference, except to women. Of the colour, I could not be sure by that light; except that it was deep, and rich, and grand, and her white neck shone forth it, like a hyacinth from dark tulips. There were two candles burning on a rustic round table, and she, with her forehead gleaming softly, kept her left hand partly closed, while the other hand went round and round as if it were winding something slowly upon some little object which I could not see; for around it fell the shadowy tresses which had so often baffled me in quest of a sweet glance from her eyes. Every now and then, I caught a glimpse of a very delicate and straight nose (the beauty of which has never been surpassed), and once or twice there came into view the perfection of a chin, a soft harmony conducting from the roses of the lips to the lilies of the neck. All this was very lovely, and my heart was wild about it; though my mind was fierce the other way, that none was ever to be mine. For whom had she arrayed herself in that homicidal beauty?
But while I was grinding my teeth and wrinkling my forehead into wire-work, she softly turned her gentle face, and my rage was gone as darkness flies when the quiet moon arises. There were great tears rolling, and wet eyes beaming, and the pity of a world of sadness speaking in the eloquence of a silent mouth. Also with love's vaticination I seemed to discover terror there, and the call for some strong form to shield her from troubles and dangers menacing. "There has been no flirtation here," thought I. "What a jealous fool I am! In this there must be some dark distress. How could I think so of my Dariel!" And when I beheld the next thing she did, my self-reproach grew deeper.
For she opened the curve of her left palm, slowly and softly in fear of rash release, keeping the fingers of the other hand in readiness for repression; and there I saw, with his green fluff panting in a velvet cradle, a small bird of bright plumage, with enquiring eyes regarding her. He seemed to know her for his best friend, and though taken aback by misfortune, to trust this member of the human race to do all that mankind could do for him.
Made of hard stuff as I am, I do not feel ashamed to say, that the pity which is in all of us, drew straws from the candle and made bars along the mist, when I saw what the girl I loved had done. That poor little bird had a broken leg, newly broken by violence, and Dariel had been gently binding the splintered shank together, with cotton wool and a reel of silk, as I could see on the table, and a strip of cane from a chair hard by; and now she was shaking one finger at him, to let him know that fluttering is no remedy for affliction.
But why did she cry so? She ought to be smiling and looking glad, when the little chap's mate flew down so kindly, and perched on the reel of silk to comfort him, and then fluttered round and round him with her wings drooped down, and a tenderness of cooing which almost set him on his legs again; for they were a pair of what are called "lovebirds," of whom, if one hops the final twig, the other pines into the darkness and dies. So at least the story of the bird-men goes, although that excess of fidelity may be beyond the faith of other men.
Tell me not that love is blind. It has the swiftest of all sight. It flies to its conclusion straighter than the truest lovebird. I saw why Dariel could not smile at the success of her own skill: the tears on her cheeks were not of pity only, but of anger at human brutality. That fellow had done it, that miscreant whom even the dogs of his native land abhorred – Prince Hafer had broken the pretty lovebird's leg! A rapid conclusion of mine, but the right one; as became manifest, before many days had passed.
Blessedness and bitterness at once possessed me. Would she ever accept such a wicked beast as that? And when should I have the delight of breaking – not his leg, that would not be half enough, but the haughty head that he was carrying so high? I felt the black fury of the Caucasus itself rising in a breast of the quiet Surrey stock. Cruelty to anything that lives is loathsome; but cruelty to a little trusting pet, lent us by the Father to teach us loving-kindness, and that pet the darling of a sweet and gentle maiden! One more look at her – she has put him to his roost in a soft warm corner where he can make no pretence to hop, but the partner of his pain can feed him.
But I must be off, for I dare not intrude upon her quiet sorrow, and perhaps I had no right to watch her as I did; but I meant no harm, and the pretty sight has been a lesson of goodwill to me. Now for her noble father's room! I ought to have been there long ago. What will he say to me? But whatever it may be, what I say of his beautiful child is this – "She is more than any angel; she is a tenderhearted woman."