Baldwin

“ So perhaps Miss Baldwin was happy after all, if not in the circumstances of her daily life, which she went through conscientiously and efficiently, in that paradise the gates of which were always open to her, where men were as gods, and women were worshipped by them, and none of them ever behaved in the way that Miss Baldwin was always impressing upon her pupils was the only possible way to behave. ”

“ Baldwin’s cottage was all that she had pictured it. By the end of the week he had even grown rather attached to Mr. Haseltine, and he enjoyed playing chess with him every evening; and sometimes they had a game in the afternoon when tea was over. The undercurrent of irritation still flowed, but he had learned to put up with the old gentleman and to circumvent his communicativeness, and in the case of Mrs. Baldwin he more and more felt that she was the sort of person to whom one would, probably, forgive anything. It had become evident to him that what might be dulness might also be unawareness. ”

“ Sir Baldwin’s courage rose at these words—it had already been considerably elevated by the quantity of wine which he had drunk; he did not hesitate as to how he should begin his speech, but commenced the attack straight-forward: “Father Thimo,” said he, “what hinders you from making me your son?—Give me your daughter, the beautiful Bertha, to wife, and let us dwell in one of your castles, or, if it please you better, here at Aarburg: you shall have children and grandchildren to your heart’s content.” ”

“ Baldwin himself was above the ordinary stature, wonderfully active, skilful in horsemanship, and of great strength and bravery. His hair, we are told, was thin and fair, and already streaked with grey. He was married to an Armenian princess, by whom he had several daughters, but no sons. He wore a long Oriental beard, but though he conformed in many respects to Eastern habits, he had not forgotten his early piety, and scrupulously obeyed the rules of the church, insomuch that we are told that his knees were covered with callosities, the result of many prayers and penances. ”

“ Baldwin said, a little worried.
“Oh, wait till you see him. He’s just the same old sixpence of a Larry. You’ll see, Mamma. But he is handsome in his dress suit. Doesn’t look at all like an undertaker.”
Mrs. Baldwin, shaking her head, rejoined:
“For you to go to work at any domestic service is out of the question. And your father would never hear to your working in the factory.”
“What shall I do then, Mamma? Peddle? Be an agent? Go from house to house and try to make people buy what they don’t want and don’t need and really would be better off without?” and Beth laughed gaily. ”

“ It is certainly now more Baldwin than—well, whatever it was before they rented it. They are not the kind of people to be defeated by atmosphere. Their chief duty in this world, I gather, is to make things Baldwin, and very good for the world too ”

“ The tall, thin old priest raised his finger warningly and shook his head at old Baldwin and then smiled.
“Ah, M. Baldwin, I am very much afraid that I will never make you to understand that too much of the whisky is very bad for the head.”
With a parting glass of wine they bade the good Father good-bye, and then hoisting the sail, they stood across for Rikitea. The sun had dipped, and the land-breeze stole softly down from the mountains and sped the boat along. Baldwin was noisy and jocular; Brice silent and ill at ease. ”

“ What they meant for his mind was the unbridged chasm between nature and the sufferings of man. Only when one ceased to be a man, ceased to remember and to think, could such a day, such sights, bring the unreasoning joy.
Walking back, he saw, as he approached the house, that Mrs. Baldwin was standing at the garden-gate, and, bare-headed, in the linen dress of pale lavender, she made him at once think of the crocuses, or they of her. Their gentleness was like her, their simplicity, and something, too,—for he felt this in her,—of unearthliness. ”

“ He writes of him as one might have written of Charles I., had he died five years after he came to the throne, or of Louis XIV., had he finished his reign thirty years earlier.
Baldwin was only thirteen when with his mother, Milicent, as Queen and Regent, he was crowned king. Like his great ancestors, the young king grew up taller 270and stronger than the generality of mankind; his features were firm and undaunted, and a light beard covered his lips and chin; he was not “too fat like his brother, nor too thin like his mother.” In short, Baldwin, when he grew up, was a tall and handsome man. ”

“ The injunction given me by his wife, in such a mysterious manner, had raised a doubt in my mind as to whether he was perfectly sane, and the apprehension I was under lest I should unwittingly say something that would “set him off,” or “send him wild,” was a constant restraint upon the freedom of my conversation.
“I am not to say anything about the lakes of New England, and I am to take no notice of that queer picture,” said I to myself. “Well, there are plenty of other subjects open to me, for Mr. Baldwin is a sensible, intelligent man.” ”

“ A wise man would have handed over the empire to any who dared defend it. Baldwin was not a wise man. He proceeded to sell the remaining lands of Courtenay and the marquisate of Namur, and by this and other expedients managed to return with an army of thirty thousand men. What would not Baldwin I, or Henry his uncle, or John de Brienne his father-in-law have been able to effect with an army of thirty thousand soldiers of the West? But Baldwin the Incapable did next to nothing.
By this time the strip of country remaining to the Emperor was only that immediately surrounding the city. ”

“ Baldwin endeavoured to console them by his discourses: “My dear companions,” said he to them, “you who have suffered so many evils and braved so many perils, why do you allow yourselves to be overcome by grief? Remember that you are still in the territories of the Saracens, and that you stand in need of all your customary courage. Consider that you only lose in me a single man, and that you have among you several warriors who surpass me in skill. Think of nothing but of returning victorious to Jerusalem, and of defending the heritage of Christ. ”

“ Harrington concluded that there was a mystery in these things outside the limits of masculine understanding. To his eye the white satin and tulle his betrothed had worn had seemed faultless; but it may be that the glamour of first love acts like limelight upon a soiled white garment: and no doubt Miss Baldwin’s gown had seen service.
He walked back to the house with her, and left her at the door just as it was growing dusk, and the servants were coming home from church. He left her with a fictitious appearance of cheerfulness, promising to go to tea on the following afternoon. ”

“ Baldwin?” laughed Nicky, who was busily whittling at a short bamboo stick he had brought aboard.
“That opens up a big subject, boys,” answered the curator, seriously. “If either of you want a big position in such a company, just say the word and it’s yours. You’ll be rich and prosperous beyond your dreams.”
“And you, Mr. Baldwin?” inquired Dwight, curiously. ”

“ She patted her nose with a little rolledup handkerchief. “Georgy I’m goin to hate ye.... Goodby.” The door snapped sharply to behind her.
Baldwin sat at his desk and chewed the end of a pencil. A faint pungence of her hair lingered in his nostrils. His throat was stiff and lumpy. He coughed. The pencil fell out of his mouth. He wiped the saliva off with his handkerchief and settled himself in his chair. From bleary the crowded paragraphs of the lawbook became clear. He tore the written sheet off the scratchpad and clipped it to the top of a pile of documents. ”

“ Baldwin had used to him about Ronnie.
“Yes, it’s very sad,” said Mr. Haseltine. “Life is certainly very difficult for some of us, and Effie has had her share. Somehow one doesn’t remember it when one is with her. I only recalled the day by chance.”
Guy was walking in the meadows when Mrs. Baldwin returned. He saw her in the garden, reading the letters that the evening post had brought, and his first impulse was to remove himself as speedily as might be from her sight, to cross the bridge and the farther meadow, and turn into the lane that led away from it. ”

“ You’ve to look after yourself in this world, and leave other folks to look after theirselves.”
Hannah leaned back in her chair and regarded her brother with a scornful look.
“That’s Baldwin’s motto,” she said. “You’d better go partners with him, Jagger Drake. ‘All for my-sen!’ I thought that was what him and you had quarrelled over. You want to know your own mind, my lad, and find out whose side you’re on before you start in business for yourself.”
“I’m not such a mean devil as Baldwin is,” he returned, flushing a little ”

“ Lady Patricia.
But Arcturus is low in the west.
Michael.
How stupid of me!
(They go out. The stage is empty for a moment. The nightingale sings on. Then Baldwin enters—hurriedly for him—up the central ladder. He goes—softly for him—to the summer-house, after carefully looking over the edge of the platform to see [116] that the coast is quite clear. He listens, nods his head, and grins. Then he taps gently on the door and listens again. Receiving no reply, he taps once more and listens. Finally he speaks in a husky whisper.)
Baldwin.
It’s all right, sir. It’s all right, miss. They’ve gorne. ”

“ Two bishops, who were with Baldwin, then advised him to implore the mercy of Heaven; and, at their desire, the king of Jerusalem alighted from his horse, fell on his knees, confessed, and received absolution. Springing to his feet, he resumed his arms, and rushed upon the enemy at the head of his two remaining battalions. The Christian warriors fought like lions, animated by their war-cry “Victory or Death!” Baldwin had attached a white kerchief to the point of his lance, and thus pointed out the road to carnage. ”

“ Something nickel flashed in Baldwin's hand. Gus McNiel stepped forward and gripped his wrist with a big red hand.
"Gimme that George. . . . For God's sake man pull yourself together." He shoved the revolver into his pocket. Baldwin tottered to the wall in front of him. The trigger finger of his right hand was bleeding.
"Here's a taxi," said Herf looking from one to another of the taut white faces. ”

“ Baldwin is coming to see you to-day at two o'clock," she told him. "No, it is not serious; you are out of danger. Now you have only to be quiet; so when your friend comes you mustn't talk too much."
He lay still and thought, and it all came back to him. "But, good heavens!" was his reflection, "that car must have come in by the 'Out' gate! In that case," he continued, not without pleasure, "I can claim damages—very severe damages too."
At two o'clock Mr. Baldwin, his grey-bearded friend and partner, entered. "Well, Jenkins," said he, "I'm glad to see you've turned the corner. ”

“ Baldwin III. was the first of the kings of Jerusalem who was a native of the soil of Palestine. His three predecessors had all been emigrants from the West. His reign also marks a new departure from another point of view. His predecessors had been men of a type half military, half clerical—at once hard fighters and sound churchmen. Baldwin was a man of a subtler type—a man capable of dealing with the intrigues of a court and with problems of law, and, as such, suited for guiding the middle age of the kingdom, which the different qualities of his predecessors had been equally suited to found. ”

“ At a time when it required no slight courage to espouse the Liberal side in York, Dr. Baldwin was always to be found in the ranks of Reform. He was wealthy, as, in addition to the property which he had personally accumulated, he had succeeded, by bequest, to the bulk of the large possessions of the Honourable Peter Russell—whose method of doing good unto himself has already been glanced at—and of that gentleman's maiden sister Elizabeth. Miss Russell resided in Dr. Baldwin's family during the last few years of her life, and survived until 1822. ”

“ To Sir Baldwin this speech appeared extremely ridiculous, though he took care not to declare this as his particular opinion; on the contrary, he affected to treat the thing in a very different manner. “Sir Thimo,” he began gravely, throwing a most sentimental expression into his face, and placing his right hand pathetically upon his heart, “surely you cannot imagine that I have any wish for these vanities and superfluous treasures; keep them all, I beseech you, for ever: it is Bertha herself alone I covet; is not her beauty a richer jewel than—” “Pshaw!” ”

“ At one time he would leave the bottle untouched until the ineffectiveness of his suggestions led Baldwin to bring down his hand upon the table with a hot recommendation that the condemned stuff should be fetched out and his counsellor should get a move on. At another he would profess physical weariness and depression, and would refuse almost angrily to drink on the ground that a man might go too far in drowning sorrow. On such an occasion Baldwin might storm as he liked and Inman would remain unmoved. ”

“ I answered her. “The only thing is that they don't—I hope you wont think me foolish—somehow quite fit in with the house.”
“Oh, I think it's so good for old places like this,” said Mrs. Baldwin briskly, “to be waked up a little. I'm sure if the old people who used to live here came back, they'd love to hear all the noise and laughter.”
I wasn't so sure myself, but I wouldn't disturb Mrs. Baldwin's contentment for anything.
THAT evening in my room I was so sure of companionship that I spoke. ”