John Beresford

“ It seemed to her as if it was something she had felt rather than seen; and as tea progressed she found herself half furtively studying the raddled ugliness of her aunt's face in the search for possible relics of a beautiful youth. ”

“ Rachel jumped to her feet. She knew everything then—before the door opened, and she saw first of all the shocked, scared face of the elderly parlour-maid who supported the crumpled, palsied figure of the old, old woman who, three hours before, had been so miraculously young, magically upheld and supported then by the omnipotent strength of an idea.
She only stayed in the drawing-room for five minutes; a querulous, resentful old lady, malignantly jealous, so it seemed, of their vigour and impatient of their sympathy. ”

“ Rachel stared in horror. It seemed to her just then as if the reflection of her aunt in the mirror was indeed that of herself grown instantly and mysteriously old. For now, whether because the reversal of the image by the mirror or because of that perfect duplication of her own characteristic pose and gesture, the likeness had flashed out clear and unmistakable. She saw that her father had been right. Once, incalculable ages ago, this repulsive old woman might have been very like herself. ”

“ The old lady by the fire-place looked up and smiled. A simple, childlike pleasure shone in her bright, unseeing eyes; the furrows about her almost invisible mouth were twisted into a simper of infantile satisfaction. She held up a tottering wrinkled finger.
"Hush!" she said in her thin, delicate voice. "Hush! Someone singing."
The face of the infant curiously changed. The smile was smoothed from his puckered mouth; as sudden attention dawned in his eyes. He struggled to sit up in his mother's arms. He raised a tiny hand and pointed upwards.
"He's imitating her," whispered his grandmother. ”

“ Rachel decided to plunge. "But you do look extraordinarily young for your age still," she lied desperately.
Miss Deane straightened her back, and toyed with a teaspoon. "I have always taken great care of myself," she said.
Unquestionably she believed it, Rachel decided. This was no pose, but a horrible piece of self-deception. This raddled, repulsive creature had actually persuaded herself into the delusion that she still had the appearance of a young girl. Heaven help her if that delusion were ever shattered! ”

“ She wondered sometimes whether her father was not approaching his dotage; whether in another year or two he would not reach the condition of that old, old woman on the other side of the fire-place; deaf, almost blind, altogether senile and foolish.
"One at each end, father?" she repeated, with a slightly condescending smile.
"Aye, aye!" nodded the old man, with a touch of irritability; "there's only your grandmother left at one end, and only this infant come at the other." ”

“ And yet, Arthur Beresford was a man of sterling qualities, and one whom everybody respected and liked, though not as they liked Phil Rossiter—good-natured, easy-going, indolent Phil, who, though always ready to help whenever his services were needed, had never been known to apply himself for any length of time to a single useful thing.
Business he had none; employment none; but for this useless life his mother was, perhaps, more in fault than he, for she was virtually the moving power of the family, or, as the villagers termed it, “the man of the house.” ”

“ Elmer blew out his cheeks and looked at Challis, but met the gaze of Mr. Steven, who adjusted his glasses and said, "I am satisfied under this head."
"It's all beyond me," remarked Squire Standing frankly.
"I think, Mr. Chairman, that we've had enough theoretical arithmetic," said Purvis. "There's a few practical questions I'd like to put."
"No more arithmetic, then," assented Elmer, and Crashaw exchanged a glance of understanding with the grocer. [211]
"Now, how old was our Lord when He began His ministry?" asked the grocer.
"Uncertain," replied the Wonder.
Mr. Purvis smiled. ”

“ Beresford’s riding-house this infernal system was carried on to a greater extent than in any other place of execution then tolerated in the metropolis:—to such an extent, indeed, that some Irish wags (who never fail even upon the most melancholy occasions to exercise their native humour) had one night the words, “Mangling done here by J. Beresford and Co.” ”

“ He owed more to his financial and marital disasters than to anything else in his life except the influence of Betty; by inclination he was tempted to deny God through his foolish tendency to immolate himself. Only when he got clear of cant, from a morality that depended on repression to one that depended upon the liberation of impulse, did he achieve freedom and success. Mr Beresford, it will be seen at once, by presenting us with a slice of life (unconsciously perhaps) teaches us how to live. ”

“ What were you crying for?”
“I don’t want you to go away,” said Lion, in a trembling voice. “Why must you go, daddy, and leave me alone with——”
The loyal little fellow caught himself up without finishing the sentence, but Mr. Beresford knew only too well what the concluding word would have been, and he sighed heavily.
A wealthy man, with congenial work to occupy him, with a lovely wife and a sweet little son, there were plenty of people who envied him with all their hearts; but Paul Beresford, like many of those who seem the most prosperous, had a secret sorrow that embittered his whole life. ”

“ He walked up with me to the farm at ten o'clock and came into my room.
"We need not keep you out of bed, Mrs. Berridge," he said to my flustered landlady. "I daresay we shall be up till all hours. We promise to see that [265] the house is locked up." Mr. Berridge stood a figure of subservience in the background.
My books were still heaped on the floor. Challis sat down on the window-sill and looked over some of them. "Many of these Master Stott probably read in my library," he remarked, "in German. Language is no bar to him. He learns a language as you or I would learn a page of history." ”

“ Practice was what he wanted: book-work would be no good without that. And in five years he would be soft and over-fed; his nerve would be gone.
He looked down and began to trace the pattern of the carpet with his toe. "Yes, I'm not worth hating," he muttered.
She turned away with a gesture of impatience. "Well, shall you be ready in ten minutes?" she threw at him over her shoulder.
"But if you would so much sooner I didn't come..." he conceded humbly.
"I'll meet you in the hall," she said, as she went out. ”

“ Some day he would fall heir to a great estate in England, an old baronetcy which carried with it manors and deer parks and shaven lawns that had taken a hundred years to grow. Meanwhile he lived on pemmican and sour bannocks. Sometimes he grumbled, but his grumbling was a fraud. He was here of choice, because he was a wild ass of the desert and his ears heard only the call of adventure. Of such was the North-West Mounted.
Presently, when the stream of his curiosity as to the outside began to dry, Beresford put a few questions of his own. Manders could give him no information. ”

“ And he stepped aside for an instant, helped himself to a pinch of snuff from a box on a neighbouring table, and returned to his companions, gazing up at them with a solemn steady stare that made him look more like an owl than ever.
"His health!" exclaimed Beresford, "why there's surely nothing the matter with that! He has the chest of a horse and the digestion of an ostrich. I don't know a man of his age to whom, to look at, you'd give a longer life."
"Right, my dear sir," replied the doctor, "right enough from a non-professional view. ”

“ I said to Mrs. Berridge, when the boy was out of sight, "that child is what in America they call 'the limit,' Mrs. Berridge."
My landlady put her lips together, shook her head, and shivered slightly. "He gives me the shudders," she said.
[258]
V
I neither read nor wrote that evening. I forgot to go out for a walk at sunset. I sat and pondered until it was time for bed, and then I pondered myself to sleep. No vision came to me, and I had no relevant dreams.
The next morning at seven o'clock I saw Mrs. Stott come over the Common to fetch her milk from the farm. ”

“ Arthur smiled. "I've got the best time any man could have ahead of me," he said, "but I shall enjoy it as a man, not as a boy. I didn't say that I regretted the passing of my youth, uncle."
"No, no, of course not," Joe Kenyon agreed. "And look here, old boy, we've been talking about you since yesterday morning, about you and Eleanor, that is; and Turner and I—and Hubert, of course—are quite agreed that if the old man has, after all, overlooked you in his will, that we shall take it for granted that it was just an oversight—though probably Eleanor will be left pretty well off. ”

“ He and his wife are both dead, and so is their elder daughter Margery." She looked at her son as she added, "Charles and Katherine have a son too, but he does not live with us. He is acting as a clerk to a stock-broker. Quite a good position, I believe. Have you finished your tea? I am sure Hubert is waiting to talk to you."
"All but, aunt," Arthur said. "Sorry to bother you with all these questions, but I want to know who's who to begin with. And Mr Kenyon? He isn't down here of course."
"He never takes tea," Mrs Kenyon said; "and we don't see a great deal of him at any time. ”

“ The hours dragged very heavily while Beresford was absent at his work. Forrester had nothing to do. He roamed about the cavern, talked a little to Wing Wu, looked in at Beresford occasionally; but during the greater part of the day he had only his thoughts to occupy him. But it happened one day, as he passed the spot where the spare bamboo poles were laid, that an idea flashed into his mind. It seemed fantastic, probably impracticable; but it might at least be attempted: anything was better than this stagnant life in death. ”

“ Mr Beresford has exploited himself with some eloquence; he has the sense of selection, he is not crabbed, and he informs with fine passion those early years through which fleets a fine woman figure. In these books, as also in Housemates, Mr Beresford shows that he knows love, and isolation, and pain: those other young men with whom we are concerned feel these things, too, but hardly one so passionately. Mr Beresford's merit is that he is more ordinary, thus that he is less unreal than the passionate persons his rivals are or would be. ”

“ Even the peasant women who knew nothing about racing but something about men, bet on their fancy, some for the one with the curly hair, others for the brave blue eyes, and so on.
Each of the brothers had to ride 12 stone and be on his own horse. The Beresford Blue was worn by them all. Lord Charles, being the eldest, donned the black cap, which sounds rather as if he were condemning someone to death; the others wore white and blue caps respectively to distinguish between them.
THE FAMOUS BERESFORD BROTHERS’ RACE
(1) LORD WILLIAM; (2) LORD MARCUS ”

“ As a matter of fact I'm too keen on adventure." (He had told his mother in precisely the same way, he remembered, that he had been too keen on his work to want to go to music-halls.) "Perhaps that's why this offer attracts me so much. It'll be a sort of adventure to stay here for a month or two—a sort of experience anyway. So, honestly, Miss Kenyon, if that's all you've got against it, I don't see why I shouldn't accept. I think, in any event, I shall tell your grandfather that I couldn't pledge myself in any way ”

“ For Hubert's sake. It would be a—a tremendous compensation for him if he were married, and—well, we don't know yet that the old man will oppose the idea. At the same time I suppose you realise what it may mean for you?"
"Mean? Yes. Well, I suppose. ..." Arthur began, uncertain of his uncle's precise intention.
"Mean that you may be turned out of the place at an hour's notice," Joe Kenyon interrupted him. "If you get on the old man's wrong side he'll have no scruples. That's what happened with my brother James, Eleanor's father, you know. ”

“ Also, Miss Kenyon had now gone from the table and left the room, and he felt more free to talk. Aunt Hannah might be rather dull but she was at least reasonably polite.
"That's Charles Turner," she told him. "He married Mr Kenyon's second daughter, Katherine—she's over there in the window by Elizabeth. Charles is the uncle of the present Lord Greening, you know."
Arthur did not know, but he nodded as he replied, "Are they staying here for the week-end?"
"Oh! no," Mrs Kenyon said. "We all live here. There is no one from outside here this week-end—except yourself." ”

“ You were doing some good in the world."
They had reached the terrace now, and from where they stood they overlooked a croquet lawn—flush and smooth as a green carpet—bounded on its further side by the row of wych elms and the stream. Beyond, they could see the falling slope of the garden down to the shrubberies that hid the wall; but from this point there was no vista of the rich Sussex landscape without.
Arthur sighed. "I had had six years of it," he said, "and I had a sort of feeling that I wanted to—to recover my youth for a bit. I wanted to try something of this sort for a change." ”

“ Your will might carry you on for four miles; but you'd finish the journey on a gate."
"You're as gloomy as a panel-doctor during an epidemic," laughed Beresford. "That's the worst of you medicos, you do everything by rule of thumb. You say certain things have happened and consequently certain other things must grow out of them as a natural sequence. You make no allowance for the personal equation."
"I've made a great deal of allowance for your personal equation, my son," replied Tallis grimly, "otherwise I should long ago have certified you insane." ”