Fitzjocelyn

“ Society had very little chance with Fitzjocelyn now, unless he was fairly hunted out by the Earl, who was always haunted by ungrounded alarms for his health and spirits, and never allowed him to fail in the morning rides, which were in fact his great refreshment, as much from the quiet and the change of scene, as from the mere air and exercise.
'Father,' said he, coming in one day a little after Easter, 'you are a very wise man!'
'Eh!' said the Earl, looking up in wonder and expectation excited by this prelude, hoping for the fulfilment of some political prediction. ”

“ Alas! that all things hidden, and yet to be proclaimed on the house-tops, would bear the light as well as Fitzjocelyn's secret! The revelation of this unobtrusive act of patience and forbearance excited a perfect tumult of enthusiasm among persons already worked up to great ardour for one so beloved; and shouts, and even tears, on every side strove in vain to express the response to Madison's words.
'Too bad, Tom!' was Louis's muttered comment.
'You are paid in your own coin,' retorted Mary, raising her glistening eyes, full of archness. ”

“ If I have been blest beyond my deserts—if I have been prosperous beyond reasonable expectation—if, among numerous failures, I have withstood some evils—all, under the greatest and highest Benefactor, is owing to the kindness, and, above all, to the generous forbearance of Lord Fitzjocelyn. I wish I could testify my gratitude in any better manner than by speaking of him to his face ”

“ She saw that he watched each word and gesture, and studied her looks to judge of the opinion they might create in her. Now the process was much like weighing and balancing the down of Fitzjocelyn's own favourite thistle; the profusion, the unsubstantiality, and the volatility being far too similar; and there was something positively sad in the solicitous heed taken of such utter heedlessness.
The reigning idea was the expedition to Illershall, and the excellent condition of the work-people under his new friend the superintendent. ”

“ She paused at the summit of them, and was much inclined to descend and examine what was wanting, when she started at hearing a rustling beneath, then a low moan and an attempt at a call. The bushes and a projecting rock cut off her view; but, in some trepidation, she called out, 'Is any one there?' Little did she expect the answer—
'It is I—Fitzjocelyn. ”

“ Fitzjocelyn was glad to be freed from the boy on any terms, and to see him go off to write his letter.
Walter was at least sincere and warm-hearted in his selfishness, and so more agreeable than his mother, whom Louis found much distressed, under the secret conviction that something might be expected of her. 'Poor Isabel! I wish she could come to me; but so many of them—and we without a settled home. If there were no children—but London houses are so small; and, indeed, it would be no true kindness to let them live in our style for a little while. ”

“ Madison, the right to claim Lord Fitzjocelyn as a personal friend,—and an irrepressible hum of fervent assent proved how truly the farmer spoke. 'Yes,—each had in turn experienced so much of his friendly kindness, and, what was more, of his sympathy, that he could confidently affirm that there was scarcely one in the neighbourhood who had not learnt the news of his happiness as if some good thing had happened to himself individually. ”

“ If I gave my voice against it, I should fear to bring on us a curse, and not a blessing.'
'Fitzjocelyn, I always knew how it would be if you took to being one of those very good people. Nothing is so weak, and yet so unmanageable. Any rational being would look on it as a duty to rescue her from such a man as that; but that is too ordinary a virtue for you. You must go higher.'
Louis made no answer. Never had his father pained him so much, and he could ill brook additional suffering.
'However,' said the Earl, recovering, 'I shall see her. ”

“ Mrs. Hannaford was gone out, and eatables were scarce; but a tea-dinner was prepared merrily between Priscilla, the Captain, and Louis, who gloried in displaying his school-fagging accomplishments with toast, eggs, and rashers—hobbled between parlour and kitchen, helping Priscilla, joking with the Captain, and waiting on his father so eagerly and joyously as to awaken a sense of adventure and enjoyment in the Earl himself. No meal, with Frampton behind his chair, had ever equalled Fitzjocelyn's cookery or attendance ”

“ Fitzgerald of Hap House to look up to his sister. Between himself and Owen the earl's coronet never weighed a feather; he could not have abandoned his boy's heart to the man's fellowship more thoroughly had that man been an earl as well as himself. But he could not get over the feeling that Fitzgerald's worldly position was beneath that of his sister;—that such a marriage on his sister's part would be a mesalliance. ”

“ Richard Caramel's face, Anthony saw, was now quite normal. The brow and cheeks were of a flesh color, the nose politely inconspicuous. He had fixed his aunt with the bright-yellow eye, giving her that acute and exaggerated attention that young males are accustomed to render to all females who are of no further value.
"Are you a writer too, Mr. Pats? ... Well, perhaps we can all bask in Richard's fame."—Gentle laughter led by Mrs. Gilbert.
"Gloria's out," she said, with an air of laying down an axiom from which she would proceed to derive results. "She's dancing somewhere. ”

“ The lady brought her to and drove her home in her car. It had occurred to the estimable Gloria that she was probably with child.
She lay upon the long lounge down-stairs. Day was slipping warmly out the window, touching the late roses on the porch pillars.
"All I think of ever is that I love you," she wailed. "I value my body because you think it's beautiful. And this body of mine—of yours—to have it grow ugly and shapeless? It's simply intolerable. Oh, Anthony, I'm not afraid of the pain." ”

“ FITZGERALD, JAMES Fitzmaurice (d. 1579) , 'arch traitor,' was the second son of Maurice Fitzjohn à totane, i. e. of the burnings, and Julia, second daughter of Dermot O'Mulryan of Sulloghade, co. Tipperary, nephew of James, fourteenth, and cousin of Gerald, fifteenth earl of Desmond Earl James had shown his appreciation of the 'accident' that had removed his competitor, James Fitzmaurice, the so-called thirteenth earl [q. v.] , from his path, by rewarding his brother, Maurice à totane, with the barony of Kerrykurrihy. ”

“ Fitzgerald!" said Flora. "I have heard her allude to her lost children, but I had no idea she had suffered so much."
"She did suffer," replied Mrs. Bright, "though not so deeply as some natures would have suffered in the same circumstances. Her present situation is far from being enviable. Her father is a hard, grasping man, and he was greatly vexed that her splendid marriage turned out to be such a failure. It must be very mortifying to her to depend upon him mainly for the support of herself and son. I pitied her, and I pitied Mr. Fitzgerald too. ”

“ If now she wished for a child, even a child of the Anthony who sought her bed blind drunk, she neither said so nor gave any show or sign of interest in children. It is doubtful if she could have made it clear to any one what it was she wanted, or indeed what there was to want—a lonely, lovely woman, thirty now, retrenched behind some impregnable inhibition born and coexistent with her beauty.
One afternoon when the snow was dirty again along Riverside Drive, Gloria, who had been to the grocer's, entered the apartment to find Anthony pacing the floor in a state of aggravated nervousness. ”

“ In a taciturn way she was happy to see Muriel. She greeted Anthony with a casual "Hi!"
"I've been talking philosophy with your husband," cried the irrepressible Miss Kane.
"We took up some fundamental concepts," said Anthony, a faint smile disturbing his pale cheeks, paler still under two days' growth of beard.
Oblivious to his irony Muriel rehashed her contention. When she had done, Gloria said quietly:
"Anthony's right. It's no fun to go around when you have the sense that people are looking at you in a certain way." ”

“ They may be accustomed to exact a homage from their world which in ours is reserved more or less for the "dear Evelyns" and their compeers. But the gaze of this haughty queen of the sawdust, when she condescended to exert it, was the most direct and arresting thing that ever exacted tribute from the English male or fluttered the devecotes of the scandalised English female. Her "what-pray-are-you-doing-on-the-earth?" air was so vital that it sent a thrill through the veins. Small wonder was it that the hapless Fitz had struggled so gamely to pull himself together. ”

“ He sat down on the side of the bed and slowly shook his head.
"You're no good," he said decisively, talking unconsciously as Gloria might have talked to him. "This sort of thing isn't fair to me, you know."
"Come closer." Whatever he might say Dot was happy now. He cared for her. She had brought him to her side.
"Oh, God," said Anthony hopelessly. As weariness rolled along its inevitable wave his anger subsided, receded, vanished. He collapsed suddenly, fell sobbing beside her on the bed. ”

“ When I watched her as she walked on the veranda I was tempted to reveal myself, and disclose your baseness."
Fitzgerald's eyes flashed with sudden anger, as he vociferated, "Rosa, if you ever dare to set up any such claim—"
"If I dare!" she exclaimed, interrupting him in a tone of proud defiance, that thrilled through all his nerves.
Alarmed by the strength of character which he had never dreamed she possessed, he said: "In your present state of mind, there is no telling what you may dare to do. It becomes necessary for you to understand your true position. You are not my wife. ”

“ Gloria shook her fist defiantly at the four walls.
"I'm so glad to go!" she cried, "so glad. Oh, my God, how I hate this house!"
So the brilliant and beautiful lady went up with her husband to New York. On the very train that bore them away they quarrelled--her bitter words had the frequency, the regularity, the inevitability of the stations they passed.
"Don't be cross," begged Anthony piteously. "We've got nothing but each other, after all."
"We haven't even that, most of the time," cried Gloria. ”

“ Her hair, full of a heavenly glamour, was gay against the winter color of the room.
Anthony moved about, magician-like, turning the mushroom lamp into an orange glory. The stirred fire burnished the copper andirons on the hearth——
"I'm a solid block of ice," murmured Gloria casually, glancing around with eyes whose irises were of the most delicate and transparent bluish white. "What a slick fire! We found a place where you could stand on an iron-bar grating, sort of, and it blew warm air up at you—but Dick wouldn't wait there with me. I told him to go on alone and let me be happy." ”

“ Haight when he sent for you about the suit."
Anthony got to his feet and switched on the lights.
"See here!" he cried, blinking, "I'm getting sick of that sharp tongue of yours."
"Well, what are you going to do about it?"
"Do you think I'm particularly happy?" he continued, ignoring her question. "Do you think I don't know we're not living as we ought to?"
In an instant Gloria stood trembling beside him.
"I won't stand it!" she burst out. "I won't be lectured to. You and your suffering! You're just a pitiful weakling and you always have been!" ”

“ Think you've got the best name I've heard," she was saying, still apparently to herself; her glance rested on him a moment and then flitted past him—to the Italian bracket-lamps clinging like luminous yellow turtles at intervals along the walls, to the books row upon row, then to her cousin on the other side. "Anthony Patch. Only you ought to look sort of like a horse, with a long narrow face—and you ought to be in tatters." ”

“ But so was Gloria. They were both willing—anxious; they assured each other of it. The evening ended on a note of tremendous sentiment, the majesty of leisure, the ill health of Adam Patch, love at any cost.
"Anthony!" she called over the banister one afternoon a week later, "there's some one at the door." Anthony, who had been lolling in the hammock on the sun-speckled south porch, strolled around to the front of the house. A foreign car, large and impressive, crouched like an immense and saturnine bug at the foot of the path. A man in a soft pongee suit, with cap to match, hailed him. ”

“ Anthony frowned out the car window. As the track crossed a country road a farmer appeared momentarily in his wagon; he was chewing on a straw and was apparently the same farmer they had passed a dozen times before, sitting in silent and malignant symbolism. As Anthony turned to Gloria his frown intensified.
"You worry me," he objected; "I can imagine wanting another woman under certain transitory circumstances, but I can't imagine taking her."
"But I don't feel that way, Anthony. I can't be bothered resisting things I want. My way is not to want them—to want nobody but you." ”

“ She let men "pick her up"; she let them kiss her, and even allowed certain other liberties to be forced upon her, but she did not add to her trio. After several months the strength of her resolution—or rather the poignant expediency of her fears—was worn away. She grew restless drowsing there out of life and time while the summer months faded. The soldiers she met were either obviously below her or, less obviously, above her—in which case they desired only to use her; they were Yankees, harsh and ungracious; they swarmed in large crowds.... And then she met Anthony. ”