James Usher

“ You, and your indefatigable companion. Captain Raitt, of the Scout [20] , have done infinite service by the annoyance you have given to the enemy’s privateers, &c. I return you the letters, and am, Sir, with great esteem, your faithful humble servant,
(Signed) ⁠“Collingwood.” On his return from the Balearic islands, Captain Ussher resumed his station in the Gut of Gibraltar, where we find him continually engaged in pursuit of the enemy’s gun-boats and privateers for a period of nine months, during which he also was often under the fire of some of their numerous batteries. ”

“ I dare say Urquhart has [Pg 68] fifteen thousand a year, and even you will know that I haven't half as much."
She quenched her eyes, and looked meek. "No, dear, I know. All right, he's quite rich. Now what does he do with it?"
"Do with it?" James tilted his head and scratched his neck vigorously, but not elegantly. "Very often nothing at all. There will be years when he won't spend a hundred above his running expenses. Then he'll get a kind of maggot in the brain, and squander every sixpence he can lay hands on. Or he may see reason good, and drop ten thousand in a lap like Lingen's. ”

“ The height of her esteem for Urquhart was the measure of her growing disrelish for James. It was hard to visit upon a man the sense that he was not what he had never dreamed of being; but that is what happened to him. By how much he had risen in her eyes when she made an Eros of him, by so much did he fall when she found out her mistake. Because he was obviously no Eros, was he so obviously but part of a man? ”

“ Urquhart is very impulsive," she dared to say.
"I've known that for a long time," said James. "Longer than you have, I fancy. But it takes more than impulse to break another man's neck. Besides, I really have no reason to suppose that he wants to break my neck. Why should he?" [Pg 257]
Here they were up against the wall again. If there were reasons, he could not know them. There was no getting over it yet. They were to start betimes in the morning, and sleep that night at Brattebö, which is the hithermost spur of the chain. Dinner and beds had been ordered at Odde, beyond the snow-field. ”

“ Captain Ussher was next employed as senior officer of the squadron left by Sir Edward Pellew to watch the enemy’s fleet at Toulon, during the severe winter of 1813; and it is scarcely necessary to add, that that important trust could not have been confided to a more zealous and vigilant oflicer [39] .
During the night of April 21st, 1814, being then a few leagues to the southward of Marseilles, with the Euryalus frigate in company, Captain Ussher perceived an extraordinary light in the direction of and over that town. ”

“ Jimmy Urquhart is rather a queer fish. He is apt to shy off if one is not careful. It don't suit me to bring them together explicitly, do you see? I want them to happen on each other. They can do that better here than anywhere. Do you see?"
Lucy saw, or saw enough. She never enquired into James's law affairs. "Shall I like Mr. Urquhart, do you think?" she asked him.
The eyeglass focussed upon the cornice, and glared at a fly which found itself belated there. "Oh, I think so. Why not?" ”

“ He turned his disk upon her for a moment. "You like Urquhart?"
"Yes," Lucy said, "I do. I like him—because he likes Lancelot."
"Ah," said James, who thought her weak where the boy was concerned. He added, "Urquhart gets on with children. He's a child himself."
"Why do you call him that?" she asked, with a tinge of offence in her voice. James could raise the fine hairs at the back of her neck by a mere inflection.
He accepted battle. "Because he only thinks of one thing at a time. Because to get what he wants he'll sacrifice every mortal thing—very often the thing itself which he's after." ”

“ He questioned.
"Who is extraordinary? Do you mean the card-sharpers? Not at all. It's meat and drink to them. It's we who are out of the common: daintier feeders."
"No," she said, "it's not quite that. James's strong point is that he can keep his feelings in separate pigeonholes. I'm simply quaking with fear, because my imagination has flooded me. But he won't think about the risks he's running—until he is running them." [Pg 261]
Urquhart had been looking at her until he discovered that James had his eye upon her too. ”

“ They were up and away before the light, taking only one guide with them, a sinewy, dark man with a clubbed beard on his chin. If they had had two it had been better, and Urquhart, who knew that, made a great fuss; but to no purpose. All the men were at the sæters, they were told; haymaking was in full swing out there. There was nothing to be done. Urquhart was put out, and in default of another man of sense made James his partner in griefs. "I know these chaps," he said. "When they are alone they lose their heads. The least little difficulty, they shy off and turn for home. ”

“ Each tries to be the bolder man."
"But is there going to be any difficulty?" James enquired, surveying the waste through his [Pg 269] eyeglass. "I don't see why there should be."
"You never know," Urquhart said curtly; but presently he was more confidential. "Don't tell that ass Lingen; but it might be quite difficult to get off this place."
James stared about him. "You know best. But is it harder to get off than on?"
"Of course it is, my dear chap," said Urquhart, quite in his old vein of good-tempered scorn. "We are going up on the north side, where the snow is as hard as a brick." ”

“ Urquhart left his house at noon, driving himself in a motor. He disappeared in the forest, but didn't go very far.
James heard of his host's defection with impassivity and a glance of his eyeglass. "Wonder what Jimmy has shied off for?" he said to Lucy through the dressing-room door. "Aeroplaning or royalty, do you think? The ——s may have sent for him. I know he knows them. But it's characteristic. He makes a fuss about you, so that you think you're his life or death; and then you find out—not at all! You simply don't exist—that's all. What do you think?" ”

“ But James won't hear of Wycross in June. He loves the world."
Urquhart said, "What are you going to do in August? Wycross?"
"No, we never go there in August. It's too [Pg 174] hot— And there's Lancelot. A boy must have excitement. I expect it will come to my taking him to the sea, unless James consents to Scotland. We used to do that, but now—well, he's bored there."
He was looking at her, she felt, though she couldn't see him. "Did you ever go to Norway?" She shook her head. ”

“ During the time that Captain Ussher commanded the Redwing, he was principally employed protecting our trade from the depredations of the Spanish gun-boats and privateers in the vicinity of Gibraltar, on which station he gave many additional proofs of his skill and intrepidity.
In Mar. 1807, Captain Ussher joined Lord Collingwood off Cadiz, and was ordered by him to convoy a fleet of merchantmen through the Straits. When passing Tariffa, the enemy’s flotilla came out ”

“ But pout as she might, she could not prevail with James, whose vanity had been scratched.
"My dear girl, I'd sooner perish," he said. "Give up a jolly walk because Jimmy Urquhart talks about my heart and his own neck—preposterous! Besides, there's nothing in it."
"But, James," she said, "if I ask you—"
He kissed the back of her neck. She was before the glass, busy with her hair. "You don't ask me. You wouldn't ask me. No woman wants to make a fool of a man. If she does, she's a vampire." ”

“ He was too uncomfortable to see that James's present relish was chiefly for that. The Stilton and biscuits, the glass of port were but salt to the handling of Jimmy Urquhart; for James was a good fighter when he had a good man against him.
His parting words were these: "Now I shouldn't be surprised if she found herself out of conceit with this beano before we start. She's like that, you know. In such a case it's up to you to do something. You and Lancelot between you. [Pg 191] That's an irresistible pair. I defy a gentlewoman, and a mother, to lose heart. Come in when you can. ”

“ And Jimmy Urquhart got in by the window. Of [Pg 271] course he did. He was not an imaginative man by nature; but he was now a lover and had need to enhance his mistress. How better do that than by calling himself a d—d fool (the greatest blame he knew) ? It follows that if he had been a fool, Urquhart had not! Impudent dog, if you like, but not a fool. Now, for the life of him, James could not despise a man who was not a fool. Nor could he hate one whom he had bested. He did not hate Urquhart ”

“ James said, then added, "I'm going down. Give me out this rope—for what it's worth." To Lingen he said, "Get back as quick as you can, and bring up some men to-morrow." Then, having secured himself, he went down the flawless snow slope, and they paid out the cord as he wanted it. He had no particular sensation of fear; he knew too little about it to have any. It is imaginative men who fear the unknown. True, the rope had been cut once, and might have to be cut again. If Urquhart had had to cut, it was because it had been too short. ”

“ It's men who make a fuss. Well, well—but I babble."
"My dear man," said Urquhart, "not at all. It's a thing you never do."
Thus encouraged, James plugged onwards. He talked more of himself and his affairs than he [Pg 190] had ever done in his life before; expatiated upon his growing business, assumed his guest's contentment in his happiness, invited praise of his Lucy, and was not rebuffed at their denial. Urquhart, at first amused, ended by being annoyed. He felt as if James was a busy dwarf engaged in tying him up in lengths of black cotton. Round and round he went, coil after coil was added ”

“ James was the offspring of a tradition and a looking-glass. But the zest and high spirits of Urquhart were catching, and after a week Francis Lingen ceased to murmur to ladies in remote corners, and James to care whether his clothes were pressed. Everybody behaved well: Urquhart, who believed that he possessed Lucy's heart, James, who knew now what he possessed, Vera Nugent, who was content to sit and look on, and Lucy herself, who simply [Pg 228] and honestly forgot everything except the beauty of the world, and the joy of physical exertion. ”

“ To pity James was a new experience. She felt all the better for it, and was able to afford a lighter hand when they met at dinner. It may even be that James himself had thought the time come for a little relaxation of askêsis, or he may have had something to forestall: he seldom spoke of his affairs without design. At any rate, he told her that Francis Lingen had been with him, and that Urquhart was likely to be of use. "I've written to him, anyhow. He will do as he thinks well. Urquhart is a sharp man of business."
Lucy said, "He struck me so. ”

“ Mrs. Lowder then finally had found—and all unconsciously now—the way to baffle them. It was not, however, that they didn't meet a little, none the less, in the southern quarter, to point, for their common benefit, the moral of their defeat. They crossed the river; they wandered in neighbourhoods sordid and safe; the winter was mild, so that, mounting to the top of trams, they could rumble together to Clapham or to Greenwich. If at the same time their minutes had never been so counted it struck Densher that, by a singular law, their tone—he scarce knew what to call it—had never been so bland. ”

“ Eugenio had of course reflected that a word to Miss Theale, from such a pair of lips, would cost him his place; but he could also bethink himself that, so long as the word never came—and it was, on the basis he had arranged, impossible—he enjoyed the imagination of mounting guard. He had never so mounted guard, Densher could see, as during these minutes in the damp loggia, where the storm-gusts were strong; and there came in fact for our young man, as a result of his presence, a sudden sharp sense that everything had turned to the dismal. ”

“ Disrelish of the Norwegian expedition was now a reasonable thing. Either it must be given up, or the disaster reckoned with. Advienne que pourra. But in either case she must "have it out" with James. What did that mean? Jimmy Urquhart would be thrown over. He would go—and she would not. She lay, picturing rather than reasoning ”

“ James shrugged her out of mind, and wondered vaguely if she was rather attracted by Jimmy Urquhart. It was bound to be somebody—at her age. Thirty-two she must be, when they begin to like a fling. Well, there was nothing in it. Later on it occurred to him that she was looking uncommonly well just now. He saw her, in white, cross the lawn: a springy motion, a quick lift, turn of the head. She looked a girl, and a pretty one at that. His heart warmed to her. How could a man have a better [Pg 167] wife than that? Success without effort again! ”

“ He is only really interested in one thing, and he can see that they are obviously uninterested in it."
"You mean—?" she began, and did not finish.
"I do," said Urquhart. "Most men are like that at bottom—only some of us can impose ourselves upon our neighbours more easily than he can. Half the marriages of the world break on that rock, and the other half on idleness." [Pg 180]
She then confessed. "Do you know what I believe in my heart? I believe that James's eyeglass stands in his way with Lancelot—as it certainly did with me." ”