M. E. Braddon

“ A row of old medlar and hazel trees sheltered this border from the north wind, and hid the boundary fence.
"Dear old garden!" cried Allan. "How much nicer an old garden is than a new one!"
"I hope you don't mean to disparage your garden at Beechhurst. Our gardener is always complaining of the old age of all things here. Everything is worn out. The trees, the shrubs, the frames, the greenhouse. One ought to begin again from the very beginning, he says. He would be charmed with Beechhurst, where all things are so neat and trim." ”

“ Mrs. Wornock sighed faintly in the midst of her bliss. She had a womanly horror of hunting and all its perils, and in her heart of hearts was always on the side of the fox; but she knew that without hunting and shooting Discombe Manor would very soon pall upon her son, dilettante and Jack-of-all-trades though he was. Music alone—passionately as he loved it—would not keep him contented.
Allan and Suzette strolled home under the bright blue sky. ”

“ For Allan, life was a perpetual ecstasy. To be with Suzette in her own home, at the Grove, on the links, anywhere—to be with her was all he needed for bliss. For his sake, his mother had prolonged her stay at Beechhurst, in order that the two young people might be together in the house where they were to live as man and wife. It was Allan's delight to make Suzette familiar with her future home. ”

“ Bernard sunned his hairy bulk upon the grass in front of the steps; and on the broad terrace to the right of the house a peacock spread the rainbow splendour of his tail, and strutted in stately slowness towards the sun.
"House and garden belong to fairyland," thought Allan. "The enchantress has but to wave her wand and fix the picture for a century. We may have extended the limit of human life a hundred years hence, and Mrs. Wornock's age may count as girlhood, when some gay young prince of fifty-five shall ride through the tangled woodland to awaken the sleeper. ”

“ Wornock was not gifted as a conversationalist. She sat looking straight before her at the long perspective of lawn and cypress, broad gravel walk, and narrow grass plots, all verging to a point at which the old house rose square and grey, crowned with cupola and bell. The peacocks strutted slowly along the narrow lawn. The waters of a fountain flashed in the warm sunlight. It was a garden that recalled Tivoli, or that old grave garden of the Vatican, with its long level walks and prim flower-beds, in which the Holy Father takes his restricted airing. ”

“ They so beautiful and so far off, he so near and dear—the precious living thing!"
"Ah, that is the crown of things, Miss Vincent—life! Dead loveliness is nothing in comparison!"
"No," said Suzette. "And what a blessing that life is beautiful in itself. One can love ugly people; one may adore an ugly dog; but who ever cared for an ugly chair, or could become attached to an ugly house?" ”

“ Mr. Wornock is a devoted son. He'd be the last to turn his mother out-of-doors. And he's almost as keen on music as his mother, I've heard say; plays the fiddle just like a professional—and the organ."
"Well," sighed Carew, having heard all he wanted to hear, "I bear no grudge against Mr. Geoffrey Wornock because he happens to resemble me; but I wish with all my heart that he could have made it convenient to live in any other neighbourhood than that in which my lot is cast. That will do, waiter; I don't want any more wine. You may clear the table, and bring me some tea at nine o'clock." ”

“ I don't know my father, if he is capable of such unkindness."
"Suzette, that little mind of yours is full to the brim of high-flown notions," retorted her aunt, impatiently.
"Dear auntie, surely you are not angry?"
"Yes, Suzie, I am angry, because I have a very high opinion of Allan Carew. I consider him a pearl among young men."
"Really, aunt! And if he were a poor curate, or a barrister without—what do you call them—briefs? Yes, briefs! Would he be a pearl then?"
"He would be just as good a young man, but not a husband for you. Don't expect romantic ideas from me, Suzette. ”

“ If the gardens were perfect, the house, farm, and cottages were even more attractive in their arcadian grace, the grace of a day that is dead. Quaint roofs and massive chimney-stacks, lattices, porches, sun-dials, gardens brimming over with flowers, trim pathways, shining panes, everywhere a spotless cleanliness, a wealth of foliage, an air of prosperous fatness, bee-hives, poultry, cattle, all the signs and tokens of dependents for whom much is done, and whose dwellings flourish at somebody else's expense. ”

“ Wornock the most delightful of women, and to be angry with himself for ever having suspected evil in her past history. Whatever was strange in her conduct in relation to himself and to his father must be accounted for in some way that would be consonant with guilelessness and goodness.
That luncheon at Discombe Manor was the beginning of a new phase in Allan Carew's existence. All things must begin some day; and love—serious and earnest love—is one of the things which have their beginning, and whose beginning is sweeter than all the other first-fruits of life. ”

“ The gardens surrounding that grave-looking Carolian house had attained the ideal of horticultural beauty under many generations of garden-lovers, the ideal of old-fashioned beauty, be it understood; the beauty of clipped hedges and sunk lawns, walls of ilex and of yew, solemn avenues of obelisk-shaped conifers, labyrinths, arches, temples and arcades of roses, tennis-lawns and bowling-greens, broad borders of old-fashioned perennials, clumps and masses of vivid colour, placed with art that seemed accidental wherever vivid colour was wanted to relieve the verdant monotony. ”

“ Lady Emily rose and went over to the table in the furthermost window.
"No, I see it is another face; but there is a wonderful look of you. Pray who is this nice-looking young man, Mrs. Wornock? I may call him nice-looking with a good grace, since he is not my son. His features are more refined than Allan's. The modelling of the face is more delicate."
"That is my son's portrait," answered Mrs. Wornock, "and it is thought a good likeness. He is like Mr. Carew, is he not? Almost startlingly like; but the resemblance is less striking in the picture than in the living face. ”

“ I prefer her infinitely with what you call her fads."
"'Crabbed age and youth cannot live together,'" said Mrs. Mornington, quoting one of the few poets with whom she had any acquaintance. "You and I would never think alike, I suppose, young woman. And so you refused Mr. Carew, and told him never to talk to you of love or wedlock, and you refused Beechhurst, yonder," pointing with her whip across the heath to where the white walls of Allan Carew's house smiled in the afternoon sunlight. "I know what your uncle Mornington will say when I tell him what a little fool you have been." ”

“ Mornington. "I don't think I'll ever give a summer dance again. I wish it had rained cats and dogs. Look at the dancing-room, half empty. Those young people are all meandering about the garden, picking my finest roses, I dare say, just to tear them to pieces in the game of 'he loves me, loves me not.'"
"What better use could be made of a garden and roses? As long as you have only the true lovers, and no Mephistopheles or Martha, your garden is another Eden. But I must insist upon being introduced to Miss Vincent before the evening is over." ”

“ As a single man, he had always felt himself rich; as a married man he might often have felt himself poor. He had heard Allan at five and twenty declare that he had done with the romance of life, and that he, too, meant to be a bachelor; and it may be that this boyish assertion, carelessly made over a bottle of Lafitte, did in some measure influence the Admiral's choice of an heir.
Allan's father and mother were of a more liberal mind.
"You are in a better position than your father was at your age," said Lady Emily Carew, on her son's accession to fortune. "I hope you will marry well—and soon." ”

“ Here, all buildings and all creatures were of an almost dazzling purity. White horses at the plough, a white fox-terrier running beside it, white birds in the poultry-yard, white cows in the meadow—cows from Lord Cawdor's old white Pembroke breed, cows from Blickling Park and Woodbastwick—white cottages for bailiff and farm-labourers, white palings, white pigs, and white donkeys, a white peacock sunning himself on the top of the clipped yew-hedge in the bailiff's garden, white tulips, white hyacinths in the flower-beds. ”

“ The blue pure sky, the perfume of a bean-field in flower, the hawthorns in undulating masses of snowy blossom, and here and there, in the angles of the meadows, the heaped-up gold of furze-bushes that were more bloom than bush—all these made life to-day a sensuous delight which exacted no questionings of the intellect, suggested no doubt as to the bliss of living. ”

“ And shall I think so meanly of my sweet Suzette as to suppose that my happiness is in danger because some one more attractive than myself appears upon the scene? When we spend our first season in London as man and wife, she will have to run the gauntlet of all the agreeable men in town, soldiers and sailors, actors and painters, ingenuous young adorers and hoary-headed flatterers. The whole army of Satan that maketh war upon innocence and beauty. ”

“ Then, as if becoming suddenly aware of her breach of good manners, the heavy eyelids sank, a faint blush coloured the thin cheeks, and she hurried onward to the gate where her carriage had drawn up in readiness for her.
Her footman, in a sober brown livery, was holding the gate open for her. Her horses were shaking their bridles. She stepped lightly into the victoria, nodded an adieu to the schoolboy who had blown the organ bellows, and vanished into the leafy distance of the lane.
"So that is my double's mother. An interesting face, a graceful figure, and a lady to the tips of her fingers. ”

“ The butler stopped within a few paces of the portrait, opened a low, old-fashioned door, and ushered Mr. Carew into a spacious room, at the further end of which a lady was sitting by an open window, beyond which he saw the long vista of an Italian garden, a cypress avenue, where statues were gleaming here and there in the sunshine. There was a grand piano on one side of the room, an organ on the other; books filled every recess. This spacious apartment was evidently music-room and library rather than drawing-room, and here, amidst books and music, lived the lonely lady of the house. ”

“ If one could be at Homburg without people knowing one was there, the place might be tolerable."
"I have been told the scenery is very fine," hazarded Lady Emily.
"Oh, the scenery is well enough; but one knows it, and one has seen so much finer things in that way. When one has been across the Cordilleras, it is absurd to be asked to worship some poor little hills in Germany."
"I have seldom been out of Suffolk, except to visit some of my people in Scotland. Ben Lomond and Ben Nevis are quite big enough for me." ”

“ If she were a Buddhist, I should be inclined to embrace the faith of Gautama; but since she is only a conformer to a more ancient form of religion of which you and I are followers, I don't see why her creed should be a stumbling-block to my bliss."
Lady Emily shook her head sagely, and breathed a profound sigh.
"Differences of religion are so apt to make unhappiness in married life."
"I am not religious enough to distress myself because my wife believes in some things that are incredible to me. We shall both follow the same Master, both hope for reunion in the same heaven." ”

“ What more need my wife be sure of? Oh, my darling, I have seen wedlock where no love is—only affection and trustfulness and kindly feeling—all the domestic virtues with love left out! Dearest, such a union is like a picture to the colour-blind, like music to the stone-deaf, like a landscape without sunlight. There is nothing in this world like love, and nothing can make up for love when love is wanting."
"And nothing can make up for love when love is wanting," repeated Suzette, suddenly serious. "Oh, Allan! ”

“ Wornock who so often crept away to her beloved organ and left them free to loiter in the gardens, or to sit in one of the deeply recessed windows, talking in whispers, while the music filled the room, or to stray far off in the stately pleasaunce, where their light laughter could not disturb the player. ”

“ Allan Carew had heard of husbands so beneficent as to forgive that sin which to the mind of the average man lies beyond reach of pardon; husbands who have taken back runaway wives, and set the fallen idol once again in the temple of home-life; husbands who, knowing themselves old, ugly, and unlovable, have palliated and pardoned the passionate impulses of undisciplined girlhood, the sin in which there has been more of romantic folly than of profligate inclination ”