CHAPTER XXXVI
GONE, GONE, GONE
A small and well-measured breakfast-party, with the tea and the bacon and eggs provided, to expectation and experience, should not be disturbed by the sudden irruption of a rough, unshaven, crumple-shirted, and worst of all, unfed young fellow, who cannot remember when his last meal happened. Therefore I only sent word of my arrival, and went for a swim in Stoneman's lake, as my custom was throughout the year, while Sally was preparing me some bread and milk. But while I was getting through this, and thinking of putting myself into church-going gear, my sister Grace ran in, and embraced me, as warmly as if I were on the Stock Exchange.
"Oh, George, I think you are so noble," she declared, as if she had found me at last too large for her understanding, "to stay away so many weeks" – I had not been away for a week and a half, but let her have a girl's arithmetic – "simply for the sake of other people's affairs, without even appointing anybody to look after your own, all that long while. I thought that I was almost as unselfish as anybody ought to be. But I am not sure that I could quite have done all that."
"You don't understand things, my dear girl," I replied, with that superior tone which used to have a fine effect of closure upon the large feminine parlance. "I knew that hay was going up, and that Mr. Joplin would have to put five shillings on to every pound he offered me in October."
"Hay indeed!" she exclaimed with scorn. "George, it is sweet hay – sweet hay – sour hay! And you have not made it, while the sun shone."
"Speak no more in parables. Speak plain English. What in common-sense are you driving at? There is no hay in the county to beat ours. And I defy any rain to have got into the ricks."
"But suppose the ricks are all clean gone. Oh, George, how stupid you are at metaphors! But if they are gone, without letting you know – oh, I never could believe that, of foreigners even! And after all the great things you have felt for such great people!"
"Out with it!" I said, while my spoon went dribbling. "You mean to tell me, I suppose, if plain English can ever be got from a girl, that Sûr Imar, and his people, have left the neighbourhood."
"His people indeed! Well, if you can take it in that lofty spirit, you may as well know everything. I was quite afraid of telling you. But men are all alike, at least old Sally says so – though what she can know about it, the poor old soul – "
"When did it happen?" I asked quite calmly, for I wanted no pity about it; least of all from a girl who had never entered into any proper view of the question, because I never chose to run and gush to her.
"That is more than we can tell. They must have packed up very quickly, unless they left all their dogs and diamonds behind them. But we only heard of it yesterday, through Slemmick, who had it from Farmer Ticknor. That seems a little rude, considering that you were to have taken me down so soon, to fall at the feet of the Lesghian Bandit. But of course we must not judge them by our own ideas. Perhaps, as we had never called upon them – "
"They would not have troubled their heads about that. They look at things from a higher level. But perhaps they might have sent a boy to tell me, if they had found any time to spare. My dear child, in a quarter of an hour I shall be ready; and then we will go to church together."
Let any man tell me what else he would have done, and I shall be much obliged to him. Not that it could help me very much, for such a thing can scarcely happen twice to any fellow; but that I should like to compare his view of it with what went on in my own mind. Nothing is easier than to talk, when you see the thing a long way off, or (which is even better) only read about it, or give a bold verdict without a glance; which is the wisest course of all.
All that I can say about my part, is that reason did not count for a halfpenny in the business. Pride (which is often a matter of temper, or self-esteem set up to crow, but when it arises in a modest nature is the proper power to keep it sweet) – pride said to me: "I am well aware that you never stuck up for being humble. You hate any fellow that goes in for that, because you believe him a hypocrite. And so he is, ninety-nine times per cent; the one per cent being a true Christian, a quantity altogether negligible. You are not up to that mark. But you are a self-respecting Englishman. Show it, my fine fellow, by whistling at people, who have not known you better than to snub you."
I listened to this, and it all seemed true, as beyond all doubt it ought to be. And I went through everything so well that Grace (who was watching me with tender interest, to learn perhaps how the Stockbroker would take it if she vanished out of his investments) did her best to be pleased for my dear sake; and yet for joint-stock sake afforded me as cold a kiss, when she said good-night, as any man insisting on the abstract woman can hope to receive from the concrete.
This alone was enough to show me that I was on the wrong tack altogether. Women are delightful in their talk, if nobody contradicts them, about their finer nature, and purer standard, and higher mission to ennoble us. All this we acknowledge, and should feel it more if they said less concerning it. But the worst of it is, that if any man regards them as they demand to be regarded, he may stand with his back to the wall while they go by.
Now a man, however dull-witted he may be, has sense enough to know that in any nice point touching his behaviour to the better half of life, a member of that half can show him what to do far better than he can discover it. Nothing could be clearer than that Grace despised the haughtiness and the hardness which she herself would have shown in her own case. "How her eyes would have flashed!" thought I – and then came a vision of other eyes, gentle, true, deep-hearted eyes, sad with some dark mystery perhaps, compelled to keep their tears unseen; but wavering, jiltish, deceitful – never. And then I began to recall her kindly, and found it very comforting.
For when the sweet face came before me, with the soft radiance of those eyes, and the play of those lips that trembled lest they should open themselves unduly, and the movement of a heart that wondered whether it wanted itself to be understood, and a multitude of other little waverings which a man is too dull to interpret, – when all this came home to me with unknown power (because I wanted it and nothing else) —
"Away with this stupid pride!" said Love, clinging to my breast, and whispering; "the Power that made mankind made me, and ordered me never to be far off in the worst of your tribulations. But I must have faith, as even He requires in all His dealings with you. I have offered you as fair a chance as ever was given to a clumsy mortal, – the loveliest creature, a child of my own, as much too good for you as I am. Because the Wicked One has raised a mist, in his loathing of human happiness, are you fool enough to be untrue to me, and shut your blear eyes, and never open them, until nothing is left worth looking at? Go your own way. I have plenty of finer fellows to stand by me."
Though he may not have said it so distinctly – and he is not the fellow anyhow that should talk about a mist – it produced the same effect upon me. I felt myself, after a little thinking, very many cuts above Jackson Stoneman and his slippery stuff among the pats of butter. His love was as sound as a roach, and as merry as a grig; and he was welcome to it: a thing like a bleak that flits under a film of the water, and jumps at a midget, and so becomes fit to make pearl of Paris.
When the striking-weight of a clock is too heavy, it slurs the hours with such a tug that you cannot even count the strokes; and to me, with that heavy weight upon my heart, time went by untimely: slowly, heavily, and sluggishly, if ever I began to count the ticks; but out of all proper chronology, at periods when I kept no eye upon it. Moreover, I had a number of little things to see to, which had been neglected in my absence, so that it was Tuesday afternoon when I stood at the door of St. Winifred, and wondered whether she had fallen back into rust and ruin once again. The old wall fringed with ivy looked like a billow with a ruffled crest before the white comb breaks from it, and the slumber of the valley was not shaken by groan or shudder of the water-wheel. No smoke was rising from the buttressed chimneys which had been repaired and pointed, neither was there any sign of life, or sound of the harsh Caucasian gabble in which many idle souls delighted.
In short, the settlement (which had been so long the puzzle of the neighbourhood, and the blessing of the rate-collectors, for Sûr Imar paid always every penny put upon him) was gone, vanished, a vision of the distance; a pleasant resource for the memory, when not too conceptive at dinner-time; a fact that would fade into a legend soon, and find matter-of-fact disproving it.
If I had not been reduced by this time to a meritorious humility – which I meant to keep up, let it suffer as it might – it would have gone hard with our language to forego one of its strongest and briefest words, which the weaker tongues try to pronounce against us, but condemn themselves by the effort. Being of the purest English birth, and therefore (as even our enemies admit) an embodiment of justice, I stood still, and made allowance for all of lesser privilege. They have quite as much right to their own ideas as the largest of us have to ours. And it is our power of perceiving that which has made us beloved throughout the world, or at least by as many as can understand us. Or if they be few, whose fault is that?
While I was full of these quick thoughts, and exceedingly sorrowful over them, lo, two streaks of yellow on the dark-green grass, and the self-possession of Albion was wellnigh rolled over in its own tricks. Kuban and Orla, as mad as March hares, threw all their wild welcome upon me: kisses, and licks, and the hairiest embraces, and the most lunatic yells of delight; if ever there has been true love, here was the prime of it to knock me off my legs.
Any one may laugh at me and all my pride; for the whole of it went to the dogs in a jiffy. I am blest if I could help a gleam of moisture that made it difficult for me to see the loyal love in eyes that never told a lie. "You dears!" I cried, "you faithful dears!" and they would scarcely let me say it before they were smothering me again, and then they rolled on the ground as if they had got no legs, and then they jumped up and looked at one another to be certain of their facts; and then with one accord they made the valley ring with glorious shouts of joy, and the dead leaves tremble on the lonely trees. And behold, they had roused a great figure of a man, who came from a door where I had trembled like a leaf, and put his hand over his eyes, and gazed at me, as if he had never seen a man before. And then a little figure ran almost between his legs, and I halloed to Stepan and Allai.
Stepan showed a warm desire to embrace me, which proved that to him I was guiltless as yet, while Allai put both hands on his head, and bowed almost to my gaiters. Now if I could only make these fellows understand, and then get them to do the like to me, I should learn all about this sudden flitting, for the smallest of the Lesghians had always seemed to be in partnership with the greatest.
But alas! what a conflict of languages we had! I think it is St. James who dwells with great eloquence upon the many miseries we suffer from the tongue; he has not, however, described for us one of its most diabolical conditions, when it cannot hit upon the word it wants, and flies into a fury of perplexity with itself, and indignation at the stupid ear that keeps it so in limbo. Stepan tried English, and that was very bad; then I tried Lesghian, but that was much worse. He could see that I wanted to know why his master had broken up their English home so suddenly, and without so much as a word of farewell; but all that he could do towards telling me was to shake his head, and make a great noise in his throat, and box the boy's ears for laughing at him. Then something not altogether devoid of true insight occurred to him, for he shouted in a mighty voice, "Stepan dam fool!" and gave Allai some order, which sent him to the buildings like an arrow.
Something had occurred to me also, so often are ideas simultaneous, and while the messenger was gone, I took that leaf of which I have spoken, from my pocket-book, and handed it to Stepan. He looked at it with great surprise, and then put it to his lips and on his forehead, and then tore off a fibre and tasted it. "Adul! Adul!" or some word that sounded like that, he repeated frequently, and did his utmost to show me that he felt great curiosity about it. Upon this I pulled out a pencil and drew a rough sketch of myself being shot at, taking poetic licence to show the bullet in the air and the leaf dropping from it. Also I tried to represent a man crouching in a bush and popping at me, and although not a glimpse had been vouchsafed me of the villain on that occasion, I allowed imagination to indue him with the plumed hat of Prince Hafer. This I had no right to do; but surely a little liberty is pardonable with a gentleman who has taken a shot at one in the dark. At any rate Stepan fell in most briskly with the inference of this costumiery, and seemed rather pleased at the confirmation of his own moral estimate and foresight.
Until I began to think, I was surprised that he should be so calm about that black attempt to annihilate me; but remembering what he had been through, I let him take it according to his nature. He liked me, he approved of me, he thought me a good Englishman; and yet it would have been no more than the finish of a bear-hunt to him to have carried me home on the hurdle I jumped, when I went to the rescue of Allai. And I looked at him, with some disappointment.
"Enemy!" he said; it was the word that had long been hanging in his windcrop; and now he was so delighted with it that he said it three times over. "Good Englisk; dam enemy. Stepan see all – all right, dam enemy!"
His wondrous baldric (better smocked with cartridge-loops than a parish-clerk could show of plaiting on his Sunday front, in the days when his wife was proud of him) bulged on his mighty chest with the elation of this grand discovery. And then he said, "Bad man, bad man!" in a manner which appeared to me too abstract and philosophical. "No doubt you consider it very fine fun," I replied with some warmth of feeling, but the knowledge that he was no wiser.
Then up ran Allai, at a speed which made him resemble a hunted grasshopper, and I took from his claws a sealed letter, and looked at them both, in disdain of any hurry. "This will keep," I said very quietly; for though they knew not the meaning of my words, they might be asked afterwards how I received it, and they should have no flurry to report. So I put it in my pocket, like a Briton.
Stepan, and Allai, and one other man not equally well known to me, had evidently been left to finish the packing of some of the heavier goods, and the bales of books which had been printed, and to take them, as well as the beloved dogs, perhaps by some slower route, and rejoin their master by arrangement. I knew that Sûr Imar had long been preparing to move, when his period of banishment expired, but I was sure that he had no intention of departing so suddenly, when I had seen him last. Stepan contrived to let me know that the luggage was going by a smoker in a day or two from London pond, as he called it; and having no further business there, I took leave of him and Allai. The Lesghian giant was dignified and impressive in his long farewell, and gave me his blessing – as I supposed – and his invitation to the Caucasus. Also this comfort – "Enemy gone. No more shoot good Englisk," which was some relief to a heavy mind. But little Allai, and the two dogs – I could scarcely get away from them, so loving and so sad were they. The short November day was darkening, as I left the valley, where I had found so much wild happiness, and so much deep sorrow to humble me.
CHAPTER XXXVII
LOVERS MAKE MOAN
Now when I had read Sûr Imar's letter, which I hastened to do by the light from the west at the very spot where he had told his tale, there was nothing (at least to a clay-headed fellow) affording definite answer to the questions which concerned me most. The first of these was – why on earth had my friends broken up and departed so hastily? And the second – no less of a puzzle to me – what had I done to give fatal offence? All Sûr Imar wrote was this, wherein I found that although he spoke our language so well and fluently and with better command of it than I have, he was not quite so familiar with the mysteries of our spelling. But let that pass unheeded.
My dear young Friend, – So I desire to call you still, because I am old, and an old man has learned that he must not listen to everything, neither yield without proof to assertions which contradict his own experience. My belief is that you are as full of honour as I was at your time of life; and it is always most hot in the young, until they are taught that justice is the first thing to be aimed at. And I have a firm belief from my observation of you, that any mistake you may have made was caused by the influence of the moment, and without any intention to do wrong.
I am grieved that I shall have no opportunity of meeting you again in England. We are obliged to depart at once, having heard of an adverse incident, which threatens all my prospects of success. Probably we shall never meet again; and perhaps you will not desire it. But Englishmen go everywhere, even to the inhospitable Caucasus; and I would try to prove to you that the epithet is undeserved, if you would afford me the chance, and show that you still think kindly of your old friend,
Imar, the Lesghian.
Vexed as I was with painful wonder as to the charge against me, I could not help admiring the large and peaceful nature of this man. He thought that I had wronged his child, the hope of his days, and the heart of his life; and yet not a bitter word did he employ, nor even show a sign of scorn. Not in vain had he passed through the mill of tribulation. By loss of faith in woman's goodness, he had lost all the delights of love, of family bliss, and home, and comfort for the residue of his time on earth. And the lesson it had taught him was to doubt of evil in mankind, or at least in those whom his friendly nature led him to approve and like. Oh! why was not his daughter of an equal trust and largeness? Not a word had she sent me, not even one reproach, which might have told me that her heart was sore. If after all her knowledge of me, all the proof which her eyes alone must have rendered to her mind, one lying tale, whatever it was, had been enough to scatter to the wind all her faith and all her love, then none of it was worth having. So I reasoned, and yet in vain. The stronger my conviction grew, the less was I convinced of it. My heart was all with Dariel still; and let the mind argue as it would, had logic ever looked at her? Any cold dribble may be crystal clear; but the current in the veins of man should be warm and red and glowing.
Under that sudden cloud could I rest without looking up to inquire what it was? All I could do was to guess and guess; but I had no guilty conscience, which is the quickest of all conjecturers. If for one moment of charm, or caprice, any lure of the eye, or bewitchment of a smile, I had gone astray from my one true love, the memory would have come up at once, and suggested to my shame that I was served aright. But there had been nothing of the kind. I had only done what seemed at first the simple duty of friendship, and after that sunk my own delights in the stress of deep affliction. If for this, and no more than this, I was to be treated as a scoundrel, I had a right to know who had put that twist upon it.
Therefore, on the following day, I took an early train to London, and a cab from the terminus to Hatton Garden, and found Signor Nicolo finishing at leisure a delicate and skilful breakfast. He received me very kindly, and unpinned the napkin from his Italian velvet coat, and offered me a glass of something fine, which proved a great deal too fine for me. My impatience seemed to please him, and he was in no hurry to allay it. And his first words seemed to me to contain some rather impertinent assumption.
"The great point is to be calm, Mr. Cranleigh. To be quite calm, and look at things quietly – ah, yes!"
"I scarcely know what you refer to, Mr. Nickols. What is there to prevent my being calm? I am simply come to ask about some friends, as a – as a matter of business. You were kind enough when I was here before – "
"Come, come now. This won't do. We are not having a deal for a diamond. I know all about it, as well almost as if I had been in the thick of it. Ah, yes! But you find yourself bothered, don't you?"
"Certainly, I don't like it much," I answered, as his black eyes flashed at me, and a merry smile lifted his long moustache. "I did not expect to be treated thus. And I was strongly attached to Sûr Imar."
"And to Kuban and Orla. Ah, yes, I see! And to Stepan and Allai, and all the rest. What a pity there were no ladies there! You might have become attached to them as well."
"I call it very kind of you to spare me so much time," I answered rather stiffly, for I would have no vulgar chaff about Dariel; "I was almost afraid of encroaching upon business."
"Duke of K – at eleven o'clock, Serene Highness of L – at twelve, King of the Malachites at half-past; and a bigger swell than all of them put together to a devilled bone at 1.30. Therefore we must touch the point. You want to know why our interesting friends have bolted so suddenly; and still more, why they did it without ta-ta to you. That last point I am not clear about, though I have some shrewd suspicions. But I think I can tell you why they made a brief adieu to the neighbours who never came near them. You will acknowledge that they could not be expected to stand on ceremony there."
"You have got the stick by the wrong end altogether," I broke in, for the sake of justice; "we let them alone, for the excellent reason that we knew they wished to be let alone. No Englishman ever endeavours to push through a gate that is always bolted. Our neighbourhood took no notice of them, because it was known from the very first that they came there for that purpose. And living in a wilderness of ivied ruins – "
"You appear to have turned against them, even more than their behaviour warrants. But for all that, Sûr Imar is a really great man. He looks at things differently from you and me; and it is not for us to judge him. For, like all men who go in for what we don't care about, he is set down as a crank, a dreamer, a man with a tile off, a fellow you would like to toss for sovereigns with, and everything else that a cad of the gutter pities and sucks up to. But I can tell you that the Lesghian old man, as the idiots would call him at forty-five, may defy a Polish Jew to cheat him. For I don't call it cheating a man, when he knows it, and lets you do it, because he scorns you and the cash alike. When you cheat him you are like a man who steals his house-water from a horse-trough, and you deserve to get glanders for it. But what I call fine cheating is to get twice the value of a thing out of a wiry old screw, whose money is his life, and his life all money. Oh, yes! There is some joy in that."
Signor Nicolo rubbed his hands, and then put them into the feeling of his pockets, with a warmth of some rich memory – not very old, I daresay.
"But you would never do such a thing as that?" I asked, with a little doubt quivering in the question. "You would be far above all such ideas?"
"Would I? Of course I would, when I couldn't get the chance. And I would never get the better of a real friend, beyond twenty-five per cent at maximum. And he would make seventy-five on that at the West End. But when a man I hate with a fine religious strength, comes here to get the best of me, screwing up his mouth, and looking righteous, and as cordial as a stewed Spanish onion – 'oh, dear, how lovely! A little flat in the culet – would be perfect but for that milky spot below the zone,' and so on; for what did the Almighty make a man except to chisel such a curmudgeon? Ah, yes, I have done it a hundred times, and hope I may be spared to do it a thousand more. It is not for the money, it is the intellectual triumph. Everybody knows what I am. Come to me fairly, and I treat you fairly. Must have my living wage, of course. But no more, unless you try to rob me. Then you have got the wrong pig by the ear. And it's the very same thing in love, Mr. Cranleigh. Have you tried to take a rise out of Dariel?"
This would have made me very angry with at least nine people out of ten. But I knew that I had a queer character to deal with, and that he meant no harm, but only to get to the bottom of the matter. So I told him that if there was anything of that sort, I thought it was rather the other way. And then I was quite in a fury with myself, for putting it as if she could have done a shabby thing. And I praised her ninefold, and could have gone on for an hour.
"You are all right," he said, "that is clear enough; you are as infatuated as a Goddess could require. We have all been so, some time or other. But you should have seen her mother, ah, yes, ah, yes! Signora Nicolo cannot bear to hear her name, though she ought to be grateful, for it kept me good, and plunged me, I do believe, into matrimony. A sweet woman never knows the good she does, any more than an impudent flippant one can measure her own mischief. For the sake of that noble Oria, as well as of Sûr Imar, who saved, my life, I would go anywhere and do anything, to be of service to Dariel. And for her own sake too, I can tell you, for she is a most charming creature, though a little too soft, like her father. Ah, that's where the mischief will come in! How can you save a man from himself? After all the lies he has suffered from, and the wreck of his life – I know all about it now, though I didn't when I saw you – would you believe that he is spoonier than ever about doing good to those cursed fellows? Saving their souls! Why, they've got none; or if they have, what are ours to be called? As different as quartz from opal, which are much the same thing though in different form. And as for their bodies, they are big enough already, and dirty enough, and as hard as nails. Let them all kill one another, is what the Lord intended, and Nature does her best to help him. Why, the country ought to belong to us; we could do some good with it. It should have been ours long ago."
"No doubt of that," I replied, for that seems to be the duty of every land; "I knew that Sûr Imar meant to go, and for years he has been preparing to civilise his people; but what has made him go so suddenly?"
"Well, I think it was through a tall young fellow, who has been prowling about for a long time. 'Prince Hafer' he calls himself, Prince of the Ossets, who are next-door neighbours to these Lesghians, when they have any door at all, I mean. I won't pretend to know much about him, but what I have heard is rather shady. He bore a most wonderful reputation among his own niggers, if I may call them so, for the Ossets are rather a dusky lot – never had there been such an Angel seen; too good, too benevolent, too holy. But Apollyon, the Prince of this village of ours, has been too many for our Mountain-Chief; and he has carried on rarely at the Hotel Celestial, and other sparkling places. If he had not been a Prince, they would have had him up at Bow Street; but he talked about Russia, and they thought he was too big. Moreover, our noble Policemen saw that there was nobody likely to interpret him; so they took it out in coin, according to the custom of the Country. He paid for a mirror and three electro-plated pots; and with mutual esteem they parted. But what a fiend of a temper he must have! For he never gets drunk to make us sponge him with our tears."
"That is most unjust on his part. I have seen him twice, and nearly felt him once. But never mind that. I shall square it up, some day. I beg pardon for interrupting. But how can Sûr Imar ever listen to him?"
"When you are as old as I am, Mr. Cranleigh, one thing alone will surprise you. To wit, that you were ever surprised at the folly of the wisest of mankind. But I have no time for a homily. You want to know how I have learned these things. Have you ever heard of a certain Captain Strogue?"
"Yes, and I have seen him. And I formed a strong opinion, though all my impressions seem worthless now, that Captain Strogue is a man of honour. In his own way, I mean, and according to his views."
"Not a man who would try to pot you in the dark? I believe that you are quite right so far. Strogue is a man of honour, according to his lights. But, alas, an inveterate gambler; and that saps the foundations of honesty. God made honesty, and man makes honour, and shapes it according to the fashion of the day. Strogue has been here, he has sat in that chair, with his head in his hands, and shivering; for he is also a very hard drinker. I am well known all over Europe, as a purchaser of fine diamonds. Strogue had given an I. O. U. the night before for £500, which he could not redeem. He had been fleeced, and he knew it too well, by paltry little all-round dealers, hucksters at the very bottom of the trade, who have only one test for gem from paste. If your brother Harold were a bit of a rogue he might have a fine game with them. But Strogue had the wisdom at last to come to me. Poor fellow! He has a very fine nature. He absolutely burst into tears, when he saw all the value he had thrown away. 'Signor, I am very hard up,' he said – which is just the right way to begin with me, though the very worst with any other in the trade; 'this is the last and the best of my jewels. A good judge has told me it is very fine. Unless I can raise £500 to-day, I shall have to put a pistol to my head. How much will you give me for this affair?'