James Chettam

“ Is it so very extraordinary that a man with a head like a turnip and a soul like a spider's web should not find his strength equal to a confounding change of fortunes? Is it, in short, so very extraordinary that James Chadd should lose his wits from excitement?"
"It would not be extraordinary in the least" answered Basil, with placidity. "It would not be extraordinary in the least," he repeated, "if the professor had gone mad. ”

“ For a few moments they stood looking at one another, not yet able to realize the full weight of the happiness that had come so suddenly. And as they looked, each could read in the face of the other all the soul of each, which was made manifest, and the full, unrestrained expression of the longing which each had felt.
Lord Chetwynde folded her in his arms.
"What is all this?" he said, in a low voice. "What can it mean? I can not yet believe it; can you? What, my darling, are we not to have our stolen interviews any more? Have we no longer our great secret to keep? Are you really mine? ”

“ His only answer was to shoot the leg straight at right angles to the other, as if pointing to the other with his toe to the wall. He was still looking quite gravely at the fireplace.
“'James, what is the matter?' I cried, for I was thoroughly frightened. James gave three kicks in the air with the right leg, flung up the other, gave three kicks in the air with it also and spun round like a teetotum the other way. 'Are you mad?' I cried. 'Why don't you answer me?' He had come to a standstill facing me, and was looking at me as he always does, with his lifted eyebrows and great spectacled eyes. ”

“ His services were publicly recognised in 1881 by the presentation to the Athenæum of his marble medallion bust, along with those of his co-founders, Richard Cobden and James Heywood, F.R.S. When the Chetham Society was founded in 1843 he became one of its earliest members, and was elected its treasurer, subsequently exchanging that office for the honorary secretaryship. ”

“ He is but a young man yet; but seldom has it happened that one so young has exhibited such mature intellectual powers, and such firm decision in the management of the most delicate cases. A gallant soldier, a wise ruler, and a genial friend, Lord Chetwynde will be missed in all those departments of public and private life of which he has been so conspicuous an ornament. ”

“ Lord Chetwynde, himself intellectual, recognized and respected the brilliant intellect of his companion. He saw that the woman who had saved his life at the risk of her own, who had dropped down senseless at his bedside, overworn with duties self-imposed through love for him--the woman who had overwhelmed him with obligations of gratitude--could also dazzle him with her intellectual brilliancy, and surpass him in familiarity with the greatest geniuses of modern times. ”

“ He loves another!
At length, one day, Lord Chetwynde began to speak to her more directly about his plans. He had made up his mind to make them known to her, and so he availed himself of the first opportunity.
"I must soon take my departure, Lady Chetwynde," said he, as he plunged at once into the midst of affairs. "I have made up my mind to go to Italy next week. As I intend to return to India I shall not go back to England again. All my business affairs are in the hands of my solicitors, and they will arrange all that I wish to be done." ”

“ And so I came back to Chetwynde, where I have lived ever since, in the utmost seclusion, devoting myself entirely to the education and training of my boy.
"Ah, my old friend, that boy has proved the one solace of my life. Well has he repaid me for my care. Never was there a nobler or a more devoted nature than his. Forgive a father's emotion, my friend. If you but knew my noble, my brave, my chivalrous boy, you would excuse me. That boy would lay down his life for me. In all his life his one thought has been to spare me all trouble and to brighten my dark life. Poor Guy! ”

“ The elopement also has come to a miserable termination. Lady Chetwynde seems to have been deserted by her lover, who left her perhaps in New York. She fell ill, very ill, and suffered so that on her recovery she had grown in appearance twenty years older. Broken-hearted, she did not dare to go back to her friends, but joined the Sisters of Charity. She is no doubt dead long ago. As to this Chute, he seems to me perhaps to have been a kind of tool of the lover, who employed him probably to settle his forgery business, and also to take care of the unhappy woman whom he had ruined and deserted. ”

“ You seem to show an emotion which I once would have taken as real. Pardon me if I now say that I consider it nothing more than consummate acting. You speak of consideration. You hint at mercy. Listen, Lady Chetwynde"--and here Lord Chetwynde raised his right hand with solemn emphasis. "You turned away from the death-bed of my father, the man who loved you like a daughter, to write to me that hideous letter which you wrote--that letter, every word of which is still in my memory, and rises up between us to sunder us for evermore. You went beyond yourself. To have spared the living was not needed ”

“ The grim face of the spinster betrayed a great deal of pleasure and a great deal of pathos also. “I believe it's true,” she said. “If it is, it will not only be great glory which women, I assure you, feel a great deal, but great relief, which they feel more; relief from worry from a lot of things. James' health has never been good, and while we are as poor as we are he had to do journalism and coaching, in addition to his own dreadful grinding notions and discoveries, which he loves more than man, woman, or child. ”

“ She wrote Lord Chetwynde to that effect. When Lord Chetwynde arrived I saw him in the library, and he requested me to stay here for some months until he had arranged his plans for the future. It was very considerate in Zillah, but at the same time it is very embarrassing to me, and I am looking eagerly forward to the time when this deceit can be over, and I can rejoin my friend once more. I am so glad, my dear Mrs. Hart, that you came in. It is such a relief to have some one to whom I can unburden myself. I am very miserable, and I imagine all the time that the servants suspect me. ”

“ She has a melancholy way, I think. I feel sorry for the poor creature, and do what I can for her. As I said, she is invaluable to me, and I owe her positive gratitude."
"Is she fond of Guy?" asked the General, thinking of her face as he saw it upturned toward the portrait.
"Exceedingly," said Lord Chetwynde. "Guy was about eight years old when she came. From the very first she showed the greatest fondness for him, and attached herself to him with a devotion which surprised me. ”

“ He was interred in the Deansgate burial ground; a stone marks his corporeal resting-place, and the Society's register of deaths records that "he was a minister, and travelled in Ireland and Scotland."
John Abraham had, in addition to his son, Daniel, a daughter, Mary, who became the wife of Edward Chetham, of Cheetham, Nuthurst, and, ultimately, of Turton Tower, the representative of Manchester's great benefactor, Humphrey Chetham, the founder of the hospital and library which bears his name, and from the [Pg 49] marriage descends the present Right Hon. ”

“ In a moment a dozen servants were summoned, and Zillah was plied with restoratives till she revived again. She came back to sense and to life, but hope was dead within her; and even the sight of Lord Chetwynde's face of agony, and his half-frantic words, could not lessen her despair. She implored to be carried to her room, and there she was at once taken. Lord Chetwynde's anguish was now not less than hers. With bitter self-reproach, and in terrible bewilderment, he wandered off into the west gallery, whither Obed Chute followed him, but, seeing his agitation, refrained from saying any thing. ”

“ It was Lord Chetwynde. He looked troubled and excited.
"Miss Lorton," said he, "she wants _you_. I don't understand what she says. It is very strange. She must be out of her senses. Come in, Mr. Chute. See if you can help me out of my bewilderment."
He offered his arm to Zillah, but she did not take it. It seemed as if she did not see it. Filled with vague fears and apprehensions, she walked into the room where Mrs. Hart was, and Lord Chetwynde and Obed Chute came after her.
Mrs. Hart was lying upon the sofa. As Zillah entered she fixed her eyes upon her. ”

“ What it expressed at midnight in the gas-glaring bedroom at Chester was that the subject of it had, at the end of years, barely escaped, by flight in time, a general nervous collapse. But this very proof of the full life, as the full life was understood at Milrose, would have made to Strether’s imagination an element in which Waymarsh could have floated easily had he only consented to float. Alas nothing so little resembled floating as the rigour with which, on the edge of his bed, he hugged his posture of prolonged impermanence. ”

“ I now can understand very easily why he was so strangely and frantically eager to betroth his child to the son of Lord Chetwynde--why he trampled on all decency, and bound his own daughter, little more than a baby, to a stranger--why he purchased Guy Molyneux, body and soul, for money. All is plain from this. But, after all, it is a puzzle. He makes so high a profession of honor that if his profession were real he would have thought of a betrothal any where except _there_. Oh, if Lord Chetwynde only had the faintest conception of this! ”

“ Ah, for that," said Strether, "you can trust Chad."
"To be, you mean, all right to her?"
"To pay her every attention as soon as he has polished off Jim. He wants what Jim can give him—and what Jim really won't—though he has had it all, and more than all, from me. He wants, in short, his own personal impression, and he'll get it—strong. But as soon as he has got it Mamie won't suffer."
"Oh, Mamie mustn't suffer!" Mme. de Vionnet soothingly emphasised.
But Strether could assure her. "Don't fear. As soon as he has done with Jim, Jim will fall to me. And then you'll see." ”

“ After all, one can not wonder at his thoughtlessness and enthusiasm. Around Chetwynde all the associations of his life were twined. Until he had joined the regiment he had known no other home; and beyond this, to this high-spirited youth, in whom pride of birth and name rose very high, there had been from his earliest childhood a bitter humiliation in the thought that the inheritance of his ancestors, which had never known any other than a Chetwynde for its master, must pass from him forever into alien hands. ”

“ Tristram nodded at the Titians and Vandykes—"these, I suppose, are originals?"
"I hope so," said Newman. "I don't want a copy of a copy."
"Ah," his friend sagaciously returned, "you can never tell. They imitate, you know, so deucedly well. It's like the jewellers with their false stones. Go into the Palais Royal there; you see 'Imitation' on half the windows. The law obliges them to stick it on, you know; but you can't tell the things apart. To tell the truth," Mr. Tristram continued—and his grimace seemed a turn of the screw of discrimination—"I don't do so very much in pictures. ”

“ The young man had met Chad, and he got a friend to approach him—as having a decent interest in us. Mr. Newsome looked well before he leaped; he kept beautifully quiet and satisfied himself fully; then only he spoke. It’s what has for some time past occupied us. It seems as if it were what would do; really, really all one could wish. There are only two or three points to be settled—they depend on her father. But this time I think we’re safe.”
Strether, consciously gaping a little, had fairly hung upon her lips. ”

“ She never spared the old man who loved her. For months and for years these letters came. It was something more than pique, something more than self-conceit or spite, which lay at the bottom of such long-continued insults. The worst feature about them was their cold-blooded cruelty. Nothing in my circumstances or condition could prevent this--not even that long agony before Delhi"--added Lord Chetwynde, in tones filled with a deeper indignation--"when I, lost behind the smoke and cloud and darkness of the great struggle, was unable to write for a long time ”

“ He glanced at such a contingency, but it failed to hold him long when once he had reflected that he would have been silly, in this case, with Maria Gostrey and little Bilham, with Madame de Vionnet and little Jeanne, with Lambert Strether, in fine, and above all with Chad Newsome himself. Wouldn’t it be found to have made more for reality to be silly with these persons than sane with Sarah and Jim? ”

“ I think it will be Jim who'll do it."
She wondered. "Get hold of him?"
"No; just the other thing. Counteract Sarah's spell." And he showed now—our friend—how far he had worked it out. "Jim's intensely cynical."
"Oh dear Jim!" Mme. de Vionnet vaguely smiled.
"Yes, literally, dear Jim! He's awful. What he wants,—heaven forgive him—is to help us."
"You mean"—she was eager—"help me?"
"Well, Chad and me in the first place. But he throws you in too, though without, as yet, seeing you much. Only, so far as he does see you—if you don't mind—he sees you as very advanced." ”

“ The town is first mentioned in 1223, when William de Longespée leased the benefit of the markets, fairs and hundred of Cheltenham to the men of the town for three years; the lease was renewed by Henry III. in 1226, and again in 1230 for ten years. A market town in the time of Camden, it was governed by commissioners from the 18th century in 1876, when it was incorporated; it became a parliamentary borough in 1832. Henry III. in 1230 had granted to the men of Cheltenham a market on each Thursday, and a fair on the vigil, feast and morrow of St James. ”