Laurence

“ Therefore it seemed to Laurence it would be a duty, perhaps also a little salve to his conscience, to do something pleasing—however remotely—to Virginia. He had an order for the stables. He would ride over to luncheon with her friend and admirer, Mrs. Bellingham, at Bishop's Pudbury.
Once on his feet, Laurence was somewhat surprised at his own sensations. He found himself singularly tired, as a man may be by some prolonged concentration of brain or of will. ”

“ But, quick as this was done, the watchful eye of Father M’Callagh saw it. He rose from his seat, went up to Laurence, laid his hand upon his shoulder, and, with a solemn voice and manner, said:—
“Laurence! Laurence! I pity you. I fear you have done a very wicked thing. I would lead you back to honour by the gentle means of mercy. Repent now, while there is time to do it, without public shame, or by-and-bye Justice may seize you with a rough hand. Give me, instantly, the letter that you have just concealed.” Laurence, pale and trembling, produced the letter. It was addressed to Jill M’Carthy. ”

“ He, when he was in the body, was humble, unknown, and held in low estimation; but after he had been bruised, torn, and burnt he diffused the odour of his nobleness in the churches in all the world. Rightly, therefore, is the comparison applied to him. For Laurence, when he suffers, is inflamed. The fervour of its attrition moves the one; Laurence breathes forth fire in his manifold tribulations. Mustard, I say, is cooked in a small vessel; Laurence is roasted on the gridiron by the fiery flame. ”

“ Laurence it was safe to be carried over the Lachine Rapids, or rendered unrecognizable by mere lapse of time. Danger, he told himself, there was none, and yet the gloom upon his spirits would not lift. Not all the brandy and soda he could swallow availed to cheer him.
There is a social atmosphere in which we live, a subtile sense of the general sentiment of our fellows, which no obtuseness of the nerves, no clearness of the understanding, can be wholly proof against. We breathe it, and live in it, and are of it, exceptional endowment counting for but little in opposition. ”

“ Laurence listened in silence; and while he did so, he ceased to be nettled, he ceased even to be inclined to treat these singular proposals humorously. For there appeared to him a certain pathos in the earnest desire of this recluse and student now, at the eleventh hour, to acquaint himself with just that which he had so arrogantly despised, namely the Commonplace. It was slightly wounding to personal vanity to be thus selected, from among the millions of mankind, as a fine, thorough-paced example and exponent of the Commonplace. But Laurence was kind-hearted. ”

“ Laurence stood tall, upright, in the full pride of his young manhood, of his virile energy and strength, before this slender fairy-lady, with her softly gleaming jewels, her dainty frills and laces, her clinging rose-red, old-world, silken gown, and held out his hands to her.
"Come," he said, "the night is fair and windless and full of stars. Shall we go out into it and read the great poem of the sky and the woodland while all men sleep, you and I—good comrades, old friends, though as most mortals count meeting, we have met each other, it would seem, but twice?—You have known sad things. ”

“ Laurence lived only, after the catastrophes at Troyes, for the triumph of the royal cause. After soberly judging Monsieur and Madame d’Hauteserre (who lived with her at the chateau de Cinq-Cygne) , and recognizing their honest, but stolid natures, she put them outside the lines of her own life. She had, moreover, too good a mind and too sound a judgment to complain of their natures; always kind, amiable, and affectionate towards them, she nevertheless told them none of her secrets. Nothing forms a character so much as the practice of constant concealment in the bosom of a family. ”

“ Then I shook out my muslin frock and put it on, and, when I fastened the black velvet round my throat, with the beautiful flashing pendant on it, and pinned on one side of the lace edging, a little lower down, the red rose Laurence had flung away and I had meekly picked up again, I looked so much nicer than I had thought it possible for me to look that I could not help feeling that life was not quite a blank, and wishing that Laurence could see me. ”

“ As Laurence—himself conspicuously well-groomed, in evening dress, no mark of his long journey upon him, save in a complexion tanned by sun and sea-wind, and by the directness of glance and vigour of movement that remains, for a while, by every true sea-lover after he comes ashore—crossed the space between the door and fireplace, the old man raised himself a little in his chair. ”

“ This flashed across her the moment Laurence had quitted her, and her heart gave a great leap. That was the man! He was a prince; he was three times as rich as Alsager, and was known in the best society of every capital in Europe. Life with him as his wife would not be spent buried two-thirds of the year in a great gaunt country-place, where interest in the Sunday-schools and the old women and the clergyman's charities were the excitements; life with him would be one round of gaiety, in which she would not be a follower, but a leader. ”

“ Among the portraits was one of King George the Third. Little Alice clapped her hands, and seemed pleased with the bluff good nature of his physiognomy. But Laurence thought it strange, that a man with such a face, indicating hardly a common share of intellect, should have had influence enough on human affairs, to convulse the world with war. Grandfather observed, that this poor king had always appeared to him one of the most unfortunate persons that ever lived. He was so honest and conscientious, that, if he had been only a private man, his life would probably have been blameless and happy. ”

“ The sick man spoke with a fierceness of conviction, his voice usually low and even swelling into full sonorous tones; his attenuated frame vibrant with energy; his face illuminated, as though a lamp burned behind that thin investiture of flesh and bone. Laurence saw in him, for the moment, a great orator, more probably a great preacher, wasted. And the thought of that waste of force, waste of power, stung him out of indolence, out of mere easy good nature. He, at least, would shilly-shally no more with life, but play the game—whatever the game presenting itself—whole-heartedly. ”

“ To be precious in the sight of those who serve you lends a singular graciousness to the conduct of daily life. Laurence felt at harmony with himself and his surroundings, and with that sense of harmony arose certain stirrings of hope. During the days and nights of the past week, while the great ship ploughed her way eastward across the mighty ridge and furrow of the Atlantic, he had not been wholly unconscious of that hope—the hope that even now all might not be over, and that he might once again be blessed by the vision, for however brief a space, of his dear fairy-lady. ”

“ As he pulled the edge of the heavy, leather-lined curtain towards him, Laurence laughed a little, in part at his own eagerness, in part defiant of scruples. Waking in the small hours, as a baby-child, he had often imagined that, could he climb the high rails of his cot and steal back unperceived to the day-nursery, he would find all his toys alive and stirring, at play on their own account. And this conception of the reversal of the natural order of things, while it frightened him, yet enchanted his fancy. ”

“ Laurence that first made me feel how little people in general know, and how much there is to be known, if only we would take the trouble to learn.
For the world around us is full of beautiful and extraordinary things, and the more we examine into them the more we see how beautiful and extraordinary they are; and yet ninety-nine men in a hundred walk through life blind and deaf to all they might see and hear.
One day, Mr. Laurence bade me look at the clouds,—white fleecy clouds,—scurrying over the sky, driven by a sharp breeze ”

“ Viewing that harsh and meagre resting-place which for the better part of a century had held all that remained of her dear body, Laurence felt himself strangely reconciled to actual happenings. For it was better, ten thousand times better, that all now subsisting of her mortal investiture should rest in Mother Earth's lap—blessed and set apart by the faith and piety of ages as was that pleasant plot of sun-visited grass, where the little shadows danced and beckoned, in the age-old quiet of Stoke Rivers's churchyard. ”

“ She could not deny that the husband chosen for her by her father was both attractive and agreeable, that he was even lovable in some ways--perhaps in his very weakness. Laurence was pre-eminently a man of strength; a man imperious and self-sustaining; a man who would love a woman and master a woman, and fulfil the fundamental law of Nature that the male is the lord of creation from an oyster to a wife; in short, a man stable as the universe, fixed as the stars. ”

“ I have learned my lesson, Sir Laurence, and chosen my part."
"And what is to be mine?" he said with angry impatience,--"what is to be mine? You moralize charmingly, Lady Mitford; and your system is perfect, with one little exception--and what is that? A mere nothing, a trifle--only a man's heart, only a love that is true! You are all alike, I believe, bad or good, in this,--you will pine after, you will endure anything for, a man who is false to you, and you will tread upon the heart of one who is true. What do you care? ”

“ In this strange and unearthly radiance, Stoke Rivers seemed to call upon Laurence, to challenge his admiration, to assert its existence and its claim upon his heart, with a singular power. It was part of him, and he of it. It laid hands on his past and his future alike. It refused to be taken lightly. As a woman wears her jewels to startle and enthral a desired lover, so this dwelling-place of his people arrayed itself in marvellous wise to conquer his wavering allegiance and command his thought. ”

“ The scene was so majestic, and moreover he had so perfect a listener, every movement of whose graceful body, every glance of whose profound and gentle eyes expressed comprehension, accord—as when the violin strings answer, in exquisite melody, to the skilfully handled bow.
And so forgetting himself, ceasing to exercise that reticence—half-humorous, half-reverent—with which, as with a cloak, modern, civilised man strives to hide the noblest and purest of his thought, Laurence laid bare his heart and soul to his sweet companion. ”

“ As he thus held her to him, as though he would hold her forever, some dreamy brain-wave seemed to carry Laurence's mind into the dim and somewhat awesome vistas of the future, to bring it face to face with death in varying and appalling forms. What mattered! The recollection of this farewell hour here, in the half-shaded room, with its subtile fragrance of flowers and mysterious light, would be with him then. Such an hour as this would be a crowning triumph to the apex of life. Better that life should end than lengthen out to witness a decline from this apex. ”

“ The hours which followed were among the most poignant that Laurence had ever experienced. He had made so certain that he needed but to open that door to regain the unreal world, yet world—as he believed—of profoundest reality, which enchanted, while it baffled and perplexed him. He found himself compelled to admit, moreover, not without a sense of humiliation, that his attitude was not exclusively pathological or scientific. A good deal of the natural man, and the natural man's affections and vanities, entered into it. ”

“ Cousin Laurence was a boy of twelve, a bright scholar, in whom an early thoughtfulness and sensibility began to show themselves. His young fancy kindled at the idea of knowing all the adventures of this venerable chair. He looked eagerly in Grandfather's face; and even Charley, a bold, brisk, restless little fellow of nine, sat himself down on the carpet, and resolved to be quiet for at least ten minutes, should the story last so long. ”

“ John Laurence leaned his head thoughtfully on his hand, and made no further communication for some seconds.
“I know a Black Friar, Agnes,” he said, speaking slowly, as if weighing each word, “who seeth no cause, neither in God’s Word, neither in common reason, wherefore priests should not be wedded men, as thou wist that many, these ten years past, have been. But he is yet loth to break his mind unto the maid, seeing that many perils do now seem to lie in the way of wedded priests, and he cannot tell if it were well done or no, that he should speak unto her. ”

“ Laurence flushed and his eyes dimmed with emotion. The softness and helplessness of the baby took his male self. He wanted to do something for it. He could not even buy it a sweet.
"Poor little thing! Poor little thing!" he murmured to himself. However, the definiteness of his responsibility toward it was a relief to him in the unsettled state of his life.
It was five months after Winnie's death before Laurence began frankly to consider his freedom and what he should do with it. ”

“ So that it came to Laurence, very surely, that not here would he find his sweet fairy-lady, were he indeed destined, in this life, ever to find her again. Her gentle spirit could never be subjected to the indignity of dwelling amid this scene of destruction. Some incongruities are inadmissible to the imagination. They are too violent, too gross. ”

“ Now my mother adores Laurence. She patterns upon this model every young man she meets, and if they are not Laurence-sized she does not include them in her good graces. But she seldom lifts her voice in praise of her favorite. She is far, far too wise.
"Laurence generally looks in upon us during the evening, if he is not too busy," she said, non-committally. "You see, people are beginning to find out what a really fine lawyer Laurence is, so cases are coming to him steadily."
The trunks had arrived, and Mary Virginia changed into white, in which she glowed and sparkled like a fire opal. ”