Sabine Baring-Gould

“ I must speak openly with you,’ said the Marquess.
‘My dear Saltcombe,’ said Mr. Rigsby, ‘I am a blunt man, and I ask questions in a blunt way. You must excuse me.’
The Marquess bowed.
‘You must understand that what I live for is the happiness of my daughter. I have toiled for her. My fortune is hers, and I am desirous that it should be secured to her, to be inalienably hers. Again, I would not have her marry anyone, however high his position in the social scale, unless I were sure that he would love her.’
‘Do not distress yourself,’ said the Marquess, quietly. ”

“ Lady Grace, with a little sadness on her brow, but a smile on her lips, said, observing her, ‘It is a pleasure to give them what they cannot get themselves. There, it is a greater pleasure to me to watch you enjoying that bunch of Muscatel than if I were eating it myself.’
Joanna shook her head. ‘We belong to different worlds,’ she said. ‘If these greenhouses were mine I would keep everyone out but myself, and I would spend my life in them, looking at the flowers and eating the grapes.’
‘You would not spare me a bunch?’
‘I would give you everything,’ said Joanna, vehemently. ”

“ There are different denominations and different consciences belonging to them. What is right to one is wrong to another. All that I know of right and wrong Lazarus has taught me, or it has grown up unsown, like the grass and weeds in my back yard, that shoot between the stones. It stands written in fire on my heart that I cannot go without the duplicate, and that if Lazarus chooses to make me his wife I cannot help myself. If I go against that writing, all light will go black before my eyes, and I shall be blind.’
‘Oh, Joe! Joe! it must not be!’ Charles spoke in pain. ”

“ Shall I drop your mother a line? It would comfort her. Or, if you prefer it, get your fellow-servant, Emily, to write. I will let you have paper and envelope and stamp from the office shortly.’
‘Thank you, sir,’ said Joanna, looking up. She had recovered herself. ‘My mother—I do not know where she is. She is not dead, but lost!’
‘Good God!—poor child!—Lord bless me!—what tragedies are played in the depths below the surface on which we swim serene! But, for the matter of that,’ he added with a sigh, ‘there are sad enough stories, cares, and breakdowns about and above us. ”

“ Why, Joanna, that is the clearing of two pounds twelve and three-pence per annum. At that rate you may burn coals and I will not grumble.’
‘There is nothing like thrift, is there, master?’
‘Ah,’ said the Jew, ‘talk of the beauties of nature! What I look to is the moral lessons it preaches. How many of your holiday-takers, who run over the sea cliffs, look at the thrift that covers them, and lay the flower to heart? I’m not one who approves of hoarding. Hoarding is a low and savage virtue, but Turning over is the cultured virtue. Turn your eggs and they don’t addle, but they won’t set. ”

“ There were things he could not tell her, however suppliantly and sweetly she might plead.
‘I cannot understand my brother’s engagement. Does he love her? Does he admire her? I have tried my best. I have done all I can to find out what there is admirable in her, and I cannot like her; I can only endure her, and that only for a little while. I thought that I knew Herbert so well; what he likes I like, and what I fancy he fancies; in that we are almost as tied as twins, but in this one matter I have no sympathy with him. You do not know, Mr. Beavis, how I have striven to regard her as a sister. ”

“ Joanna considered again. Presently she said, ‘Here I see nothing but raggedness, wretchedness, and care. I know nothing of a richly clothed, happy, and careless world. Here I am surrounded by poverty, and the air is charged with the dust of old clothes and the reek of Laira mud; the light that comes through these windows is never clean; the air is always stale. Why should not I sometimes spring up into the region of light and liveliness? Lazarus often tells me I am a maggot, but a maggot becomes a moth with wings of silver. Am I to be always a grub—never to rise? ”

“ Joanna entered; she did not raise her eyes to the face of Lord Saltcombe. She signed to him to go; he stood a moment longer looking at the poor woman, now unconscious, and stole away.
Then Joanna seated herself by the bed, and watched the sufferer. Her face, generally brimming with intelligence and full of self-assurance, was now kindled with an expression of tenderness and pity such as it had not borne before. She knew the whole story of this dying woman. She had been brought to look upon a heart—a man’s heart—enduring unutterable agony. ”

“ Mrs. Rosevere was bewildered. She understood nothing of what went on about her, the lighted room, with the gentlemen in evening dresses, the ladies glittering with jewelry, the crimson canopy, the seven-flamed lamp, her daughter’s strange demeanour. She was a timid woman with a mazed mind at the best of times; and this sudden episode completely distracted her.
Joanna brought her mother back into the room below, and fastened the door, but Lazarus had followed and was kicking and hammering at it with his fists, and swearing that he would have her out. ”

“ He will have Beavis.’
‘Beavis, you may be sure, will cling to him to the last.’
‘Yes,’ said Lady Grace, and she patted her friend’s hand, which she held between her own, and looked thoughtfully before her, ‘and your father will always be with mine! Oh, what a blessing it is to have dear, faithful friends. Let everything else go. These precious, golden hearts are above all that the world can give.’ After a silence she said reverently, ‘And they are God’s gift, to comfort us.’ Both were affected, and said nothing for several minutes, but Lucy stooped and kissed Lady Grace’s hand. ”

“ Charles was at ease in this society. Charles could talk, and make the great people listen to him. After dinner Charles played and sang a solo, talked to Lucy Worthivale, and sent her into a fit of laughter, stood in the window in familiar discussion with the Marquess, then went to the Duke, conversed with him, then at his request sang a duet with Lady Grace. After that Charles was on an ottoman with the lady, talking to her in an animated way, expressing himself with his hands like a Frenchman, whilst her colour came and she smiled. ”

“ Lord Saltcombe did not interrupt him. Beavis went on: ‘My father and I devote our lives to your affairs, which are desperate; but we are met at every turn by your inactivity. We cannot save you because you will not put out a finger by which you can be caught. For the sake of your father, your uncles, your sister, throw aside this paralysing indifference and bestir yourself. You must marry, and marry an heiress, such as your uncle has found for you because you would not put your head outside your walled garden to find one for yourself. You—you must save the family. You alone can do it. ”

“ Nothing.’
‘I am not ungrateful,’ said Lazarus, seriously, ‘Wait a bit longer, my girl, and I will show you that I am not, I cannot tell you now what I will do for you, but I will in time. I promise you this—you shall have a reward such as you have not dreamed to possess. Have I ever failed to keep my word, Joanna? No, never; it don’t pay in business to be shifty about promises. Now you have alluded to Mr. Charles Cheek, I wish to speak to you about him, and to give you a word of advice.’
‘Which again will cost you nothing,’ threw in the girl. ”

“ There was something almost sad and appealing to pity in her eye and mouth; yet Lady Grace had known no sorrow, had met with no contradiction. Her life had been unclouded and unvexed. Her mouth was flexible, fine, and tremulous; her voice soft, low, and sweet.
Mr. Crudge was a man utterly without idealism. He could read no poetry except Crabbe. Yet he could hardly withdraw his eyes from her face. She fascinated even the commonplace man of business. She puzzled him. He thought within his mind how he should get on with her if he had business transactions with her. ”

“ He did it to enable the old man to overcome or disguise his emotion.
‘I never was sanguine,’ said Lord Saltcombe. ‘I have felt that a storm was gathering over our heads, and that no conductors would divert the flashes into innocuous channels. You and the Archdeacon were more hopeful, so was Worthivale, who, of all others, had best reason to know how matters stood. But when Beavis spoke out so plainly, and Uncle Edward and you refused to accept his opinion, then I knew that the end was near at hand. For myself, I care nothing. Life has little of interest, and is void of ambitions for me. ”

“ Something had occurred, more than the proposal of old Cheek, to unnerve him.
After breakfast Mr. Cheek drew the steward aside. ‘Well, now,’ he said, ‘with morning come cool counsels. Shall we deal?’
‘How can you speak in such terms?’ asked the steward. ‘Do you not perceive that it is impossible for the daughter of such an illustrious house to accept—— Stuff! as well propose an alliance between an eagle and a crocodile! Preposterous! simply preposterous!’
Mr. Cheek stretched his arms, then drew his finger over his lips. ‘There is nothing preposterous in it,’ he said. ”

“ There are two sides to every question, and he who only sees and becomes hot and vehement on one side is a bigot, narrow-minded and purblind. I am sure that in politics, and in religion, and in ethics—in everything, in fact, much is to be said on each side, quite as much on one side as on the other; so I make up my mind to have no fixed opinions on anything, I shrug my shoulders, and let the world go on and muddle its way from one blunder into another. There now, Beavis, you have my creed. ”

“ You have not been ill in body. You have been ill in mind. Lucy will not be candid with me, and she knows more than I. Beavis only bids me trust him. My uncle Roland is unapproachable. I must come to you. I cannot bear it. I cannot. Dear Herbert! as you love me, tell me everything.’
‘Sit down, Grace.’
‘No, I cannot; I must not stay. I can rest neither here nor anywhere, not on my bed, till the key is put in my hands. I lie awake thinking and puzzling till I fear I shall go mad. Anything is better than this uncertainty. Why are you unhappy? Why have you all made such a point of this marriage? ”

“ Lord Saltcombe laughed. ‘Of course you are right, Beavis. It is not pleasant, however, to hear the truth put so plainly. Nevertheless, I maintain that my position is a right one. No man can be a partisan in any cause unless he is ignorant of what is to be said on the opposite side. To be an enthusiast you must be narrow. The man of culture is an all-round man; he sees good everywhere, is tolerant of every form of faith, religious and political, because he believes that no party holds a monopoly of the right. ”

“ What is to be done for these blind people? To rob them of their illusion is impossible. It circulates in their blood. To save them in spite of themselves—how is that to be done?’
The solicitor listened attentively. He said, with a smile, ‘Before the Flood they married, and that did not arrest the tide. Before this flood it may do wonders. The Marquess may make a marriage which will save the property.’
‘He may do so,’ answered Beavis, ‘but then he must go about the country heiress-hunting, and this he will not do. He is too proud. ”

“ I go to the club in Kingsbridge, and try to find some fellows with whom to play billiards, but sometimes no one is there: the day is fine, and they want to boat; or the day is wet, and they want to read novels at home over the fire. Then they all talk shop—local shop. They seem to me like a cage of animals bred in confinement, who can only think and feel interest and talk of the world within the bars of their cage. ”

“ Lord Ronald took Beavis by the arm, and paced the room with him, before he replied. The old General’s face was pale, and his lips quivered.
‘My dear boy, you imagine matters worse than they really are. You have allowed your mind to prey on your fears, and they have assumed the appearance and weight of a nightmare. It is impossible for such a catastrophe to overtake us. Think what we are, what our family is, and has been! Think what magnificent estates we have owned—and, indeed, we are not denuded yet.’
Beavis looked up, and saw that the old man was trying to silence his own convictions. ”