Gervase

“ Gervase's face burned like fire; it was as if she had struck him. He could not remember such a thing ever happening in the gardens before. He could not believe any woman would do such a cruel thing on such a day, least of all to him Gervase.
. It was not gracious, it was not kind; it was essentially English. His mother was right: the English were a race of barbarians like the Germans, whom they pretended to dislike. ”

“ For while Gervase and Anne stood looking wistfully at this draggle-tail, a well-dressed man riding a good horse tossed the fellow a coin as he passed.
Adversity is a great thing for the mind. Gervase at once took the idea that he himself could perform quite as villainously if only he could come by an instrument. If only he might barter the silver-hilted dagger for a flageolet, [Pg 68] even of the most lamentable kind, it might be possible in the present condition of the public taste to keep body and soul together. ”

“ Gervase knitted his brave companion to his heart. The flood-tide of youth was surging in his veins. The sudden sense of possession, of high comradeship gave him one of those rare moments to which the mind goes back when it comes to ask whether life has been worth all that has been paid for it in blood and tears. ”

“ If Gerald was a colonel and a C.B., Gervase should bear the aspect of a young man about town—a man of fashion, going everywhere; a man who had no occasion to go to India to distinguish himself, having a good estate and a baronetcy behind him at home. To keep up this fiction would be easy if Gervase were but absent. It would be impossible, alas! to do it in his presence. Lady Piercey exerted herself during that day, in a way she had not been known to do before for years. ”

“ Gervase." 108
"We shall be dull as ditch-water," answered relentless Mrs. Gervase, turning around to survey the struggle of a fat-breasted robin to extract from the turf a worm that continued to emerge in apparently unending length. "And if you will have a girl out of season, why, put her on bread and milk and beauty-sleep, give her plenty of trashy novels and a horse to ride, and she'll do well enough."
"But—perhaps I am wrong—surely Mr. Gervase told Mr. Prettyman, when they were smoking on our veranda last Sunday, that you are expecting your nephew, Mr. Alan Grove." ”

“ He wondered if only the kingdom of heaven was happy in that way, and if he could not find homeliness and adventure together on earth. He did not want one without the other, he did not want peace with dullness, nor excitement with unrest. He had learned that the soul could know adventure with profoundest quiet—might not the body know it too? Walking home in the sunset from Fourhouses, Gervase longed for the resurrection of the body—for his body to know what his soul knew; and his heart told him that only Stella could give him this, and that if she would not, he must go without it. ”

“ Overlord Kipp stood beside his desk, dressed in his finest uniform—which was, however, virtually invisible, it was so bedecked with glittering and sparkling medals and decorations. Gervase waited patiently while the soon-to-be-disposed-of Ruler made a speech pointing out the numerous benefits and improvements his reign had brought to the people. It was rather a long speech and Gervase's nose began to itch. He would have liked to scratch it, but the cameras were pointing directly at him. Life as Ruler, he saw, was going to be a long series of similar repressions. He sighed. ”

“ You cannot be Armand Gervase and simple and unobtrusive at the same time!”
“Why not?” demanded Gervase, lightly. “Fame is capricious, and her trumpet is not loud enough to be heard all over the world at once. The venerable proprietor of the dirty bazaar where I managed to purchase these charming articles of Bedouin costume had never heard of me in his life. Miserable man! He does not know what he has missed!” ”

“ Oh, that it should be that old man, that useless, ailing old man, that should live and Gervase die! There seemed no justice in it, no equity, no sense of right. Sir Giles had lived his life and had all its good things, and there was no advantage to him or to any one in his continuance; whereas Gervase, Gervase! He, poor fellow, had it in his power to make his wife Lady Piercey, to secure her position so that nobody could touch it. And it was he that had gone, and not his father! Patty wept very real tears as she drove slowly{142} home alone—real! ”

“ Gervase is retiring from the Army, and intends to do nothing for the rest of his days."
"Well?"
"It seems to me a much nobler thing to do something. You told me once that I should inspire somebody to great deeds. But that would be rather hard on Gervase after he has roughed it for so many years."
"If you inspire him, it will not be hardship," he answered.
"I am not sure that I could," she said, turning her head, and looking out of the window. "He is very brave and fearless, and all that. But the great things that work for human good—well, you see, he is not an inventor like you." ”

“ Gervase said.
“Oh, papa; yes, dear, and I kept on playing to amuse him, dear old gentleman, and to keep it from him that you had gone out. If he had known where you were, it would have vexed him sadly, you know it would.”
“It vexed them both,” said Gervase, “when I went there after you; but I didn’t mind—nor you either, Patty.”
“A young single man has to have his liberty,” said Patty, “but when he’s married—— You wouldn’t have gone off and left me—your Patty, whom you said you were so fond of—in those days?” ”

“ And then poor Gervase poured out his heart: how he had been threatened with the Lord Chancellor and even with the Queen; how they could take not only every penny but his very name from him, and so make him bring shame upon the girl he loved instead of honour and glory as he had hoped. And how, in these circumstances, he would have to give her up. Better, though it might kill him, that she should marry a man who could keep her up in every thing than one who would be thrown upon her to make his living drawing beer. ”

“ A curious tremor seemed to come over his solid well-set-up figure, that of a vigorous man of sixty or so. Men do not blush easily at that age; but there came a wave of hot colour over his face. He seemed to hesitate a moment, then—“Why, Gervase, how have you managed to find me out at the end of the world?” he said, with a nervous attempt at a laugh. Gervase saw, agitated as he himself was, the hurried glance at the children, which{206} made his father look like a prodigal discovered. ”

“ Another pause, during which Gervase threw a lump of wood on the grate. Madeline went on reading, apparently oblivious of his presence.
"I can't understand how people can become so lost in a book," Gervase said, a little petulantly.
"No?"
"No, I can't. It's beyond me."
"Do you never read?"
"Sometimes, but not often. I've too much else to do. Besides, doesn't the Bible say that much reading is a weariness to the flesh?" ”

“ Simon Heriot, ignoble as he was at heart, was a person of some place, and not without consideration at Court; and he had always been able to mask his cunning well enough to pass for a high-minded and honorable man.
It chanced, however, that as thus Anne and Gervase lay together in this golden afternoon, whiling away the sweet hours that were likely to be so few, this intense desire for life suddenly found expression in a desperate resolve. Gervase remembered that the house of Simon Heriot was but a matter of ten miles or so from the city of Oxford. ”

“ The air of a man entirely at his ease, under his own vine and his own fig-tree, was in every movement. Gervase’s step, in his agitation, was very quick and light. Apparently it was not till he was quite near that it was heard by the comfortable paterfamilias with his newspaper.{205} Then one of the children, a little girl of four or five, startled by the sight of the stranger, ran and stood by her father’s knee. “What is it?” Gervase heard him say. And then he looked up from behind the newspaper, and the father and son met. Mr Burton was evidently much startled. ”

“ She was a tall woman, older than Gervase, a few years over thirty, at the age which should be the very glory and flush of prime, but which in a woman is usually scoffed at as if it were old age. Gervase frankly thought his cousin an elderly woman who did not count any longer in life. ”

“ It was even said, and the chroniclers record it with a touch of pride, that they took their share in the conflict, and fought with stones with as bold a heart as the stoutest among the men. Certain it is that they put new life into the weary fellows who were tired of hacking at the steel breastplates and head-pieces, and who for the most part had not tasted food since the evening before. It seemed to Gervase that the slaughter of horses and brave men would never cease. No sooner was one down than another had taken his place, hewing for his life at those pikes that would not bear back an inch. ”

“ The impudent fellow! to talk so of Gervase—Sir Gervase Piercey that was soon to be! Oh, poor Gervase, poor Gervase! he was not, perhaps, very wise, but he could still be set right again and kept straight if she were but free to give herself up{118} altogether to the care of him. Roger Pearson could never have been anything but a country fellow living in a cottage. It was true that he was handsome, and all that. Patty seemed to see him, too, though she did not wish it, with the light in his eyes, looking at her with his air of mastery, the Adonis of the village. ”

“ And meantime remember Victor de Laprade, who will not forget you.”
“Why,” cried Gervase, “should my happiness be gained in your loss?”
“That is past,” the other said simply. “You will see Miss Carew when I leave you. She will reproach herself, and you will comfort her, for she is only a woman after all, and will find happiness and consolation. You will sometimes think of me when I am gone and perhaps--perhaps she may name one of her boys after her poor kinsman who by that time will have found rest.” ”

“ It is impossible to understand you. What the devil has Gerbvase to do with me? Gervase! Umbra indeed!"
Terrible words, incomprehensible names were wearily remembered, and they tickled my tongue. I had an incessant desire to repeat them, thinking that perhaps by pronouncing them I might discover their meaning. And outside the port-hole the water unweariedly sang and splashed. It would have been pleasant to go to the stern, where the sailors and stokers were gathered together among the chests, where the passengers played cards, sang songs, and told interesting stories. ”

“ Gervase, more naughty still, but in favour, took advantage by behaving himself as badly as possible. He made signs to the butler to pour him out wine with a liberal hand, and gobbled his food in great mouthfuls. “I say, Meg,” he whispered, putting his hand before his mouth, “don’t tell! she can’t see me!” while his wife’s monologue ran on; and then he interrupted it with one of those boisterous laughs by which the Softy was known. ”

“ They never met again, but Gervase felt in after days that there was one man in Ireland who might have saved his cause, had he not been checked by narrow prejudices and the bitter envy of those who did not understand his proud and chivalrous nature. At Limerick that fiery spirit blazed out for a while in all its native strength, but his cause was already doomed.
When Gervase had reached Londonderry in safety, and had seen Dorothy placed under the protection of her aunt, he returned to his old lodgings over a linendraper ́s shop in a small house near the Bishop ́s-gate. ”

“ However reluctant to leave till he had seen the end, Gervase obeyed and made what haste he could down the line of the ramparts towards the strand. All along the earthworks the men were standing steadily to their guns, but down by the river the fight was going hard.
Two hundred horse, gentlemen, for the most 171part, of high spirit and rank, had taken a solemn oath, as the chroniclers say, to top the line or perish in the attempt. Gervase came up as they were about to make the charge and delivered his message to the stout soldier who commanded there. “Not another man do I want,” was the answer ”

“ Whether Gilbert, the man left in charge of the house, knew anything, Gervase never could find out; but if he did, he was proof against all inducements to speak, and never betrayed his old master.
And the young people settled down, far from the excitements and cares of that business life which Gervase had evaded so successfully, in what is perhaps the most enjoyable of all the ordinary paths of modern existence. All paths of existence{193} are tolerable when people are young and happy and not badly off, though it is not always that these favourites of fortune recognise the fact. ”

“ Quite apart from the pass of Sir John Feversham, the playwright was too wise a man to approve the wild scheme that Gervase had formed, which indeed was the cause of his return to Oxford. The risk would be great, the gain slight and uncertain. But indirectly, it was Gervase’s crude plan which now set the subtle brain to work. Many were the questions Shakespeare asked touching the character, the habits, the mode of life of Simon Heriot. ”

“ Gervase had been carried in the melée down toward the river, and was making his way back toward the ramparts among the slaughtered horses and dead and wounded men, when he saw half a dozen pikemen surrounding a dismounted horseman, who was making gallant play with his sword. Anxious to save his life Gervase was about to interfere, when he heard the sound of his voice raised in disdain of his assailants; “Five to one! ventre de Dieu, I care not for you all. A gentleman of France has never learned to yield.”
It was the voice of his friend De Laprade. Gervase was just in time ”