Mortimer

“ Thus did she deem a union requisite to rouse him to exertion; to restore his peace, and in all probability to save his life. She joined in her brother’s arguments and entreaties, with tears she joined in them, and besought Mortimer to accede to their wishes. She called him the last hope of their house. He had long, she said, been the pride, the delight of their days; their comfort, their existence were interwoven in his; if he sunk, they sunk with him.
The yielding soul of Mortimer could not resist such tenderness, and he gave a promise of acting as they wished. ”

“ He had the wiry frame and strong jaw without which no explorer is complete, and Mortimer, beside him, seemed but a poor, soft product of our hot-house civilization. Mortimer, I forgot to say, wore glasses; and, if there is one time more than another when a man should not wear glasses, it is while a strong-faced, keen-eyed wanderer in the wilds is telling a beautiful girl the story of his adventures. ”

“ Bright, tranquil, and unruffled was the world around him—but the world within was dark and turbulent—tossed, agitated, and overwhelmed by the deep untold anguish of the spirit.
The tyrant sway of the passions, like some desolating invader, can make a paradise into a desert, and the fruitful places into a wilderness. How different to Mortimer would have been the scene viewed through another medium! His soul was ardent, devoted, full of high and glorious imaginings; but a blight was on them all, and they became chill and decayed—an uninformed mass, without aim or vitality. ”

“ Now as he raised his tankard to thirsty lips, suddenly from the square below, shattering all the languid stillness of the tropic dawn, brayed a trumpet, arose a noise of hurrying steps and hasty voices. Baldry, at the window, wheeled, color in his cheeks, light in his deep eyes.
"War is my mistress! Down the hillside come those to whom I can speak--can speak as well as thou, Sir Mortimer Ferne!" ”

“ We cannot blame Lord Mortimer for them. Situated as you were with him, your conduct has naturally excited the most injurious suspicions. Surely, my child, though not allowed to solve the mystery which has separated you from him, you may be allowed to vindicate your conduct. The sacrifice of fame and happiness is too much. Consider and weigh well what I say, and, if possible, authorize me to inform Lord Mortimer that I know of your retreat, and that you have retired neither to a lover nor a friend ”

“ Mor. Kind keepers of my weak decaying age,
Let dying Mortimer here rest himself.
Even like a man new haled from the rack,
So fare my limbs with long imprisonment; ⁠4
And these gray locks, the pursuivants of death,
Nestor-like aged, in an age of care,
Argue the end of Edmund Mortimer. ”

“ From the Admiral to the last ne'er-do-weel of a noble house all sprang to their feet. "God!" said one, under his breath, and another's tankard fell clattering from his shaking hand. Nevil, the calm accustomed state, the iron quiet of his nature quite broken, advanced with agitation. "Mortimer, Mortimer!" he cried, and would have put his arms about his friend, but Ferne stayed him with a gesture and a look that none might understand. Behind him came Robin-a-dale, slipped beneath his outstretched arm, then with head thrown back and wild defiant eyes faced the little throng of adventurers. ”

“ I've had hard thoughts of you, Morty.' His faded eyes were suffused.
'Don't let's think of that, dad,' said Mortimer. 'What horses do you think I'd better take?'
'In the morning, in the morning,' said Stevenson. 'I only want to sit still to-night, and thank God I've got one son that's a man.'
Mortimer looked at the creased, illumined face, the wet eyes, the old, working mouth. His heart swelled towards him.
'Dad, old fellow,' he said, 'I'm hard hit. I love a girl, and she won't have me.'
His father gripped his hand. ”

“ If my gracious Lord of Gloucester ever again set eyes on me within those his walls, I grant him free leave to dub Roger Mortimer a fool! 'Very dear Cousin,' forsooth! 'Most sweet Cousin!' Methinks, the further I drew away from him, the dearer and sweeter I became. We will see, most sweet and very dear Uncle, if the young cannot outrun the old!—Lawrence! ”

“ An atmosphere, impervious, and almost impalpable, seems to oppress the spirit. Surely we are on the trail of some demon, and his subtle influence is about us."
"Ah!" said Mortimer, starting aside with a shudder, as though a serpent stung him.
"Heardest thou aught, Mortimer?"
"I thought there was a rushing past my ear."
"I heard it too," replied Pilkington, in a low and agitated tone; "but I heard more, Mortimer. A voice, methought, distinct as thine own, swept by: 'Go not,' was faintly uttered. I am sure I heard the words." ”

“ There was one of them—Maudie—with whom he had flirted in his holidays; he wondered at that, especially when a relentless memory told him that Mrs. Mortimer must have been at the parties where the thing went on. He felt very much older, so much older that Mrs. Mortimer became at once a contemporary; why then should she begin, as she now did, to talk to him, in quasi-maternal fashion, about his prospects? Men don’t have prospects, or, anyhow, are spared questionings thereon. ”

“ The girl was chatting merrily to the young man, and he listened to her and laughed every now and then, but his bright eyes were not fixed to her, but were here, there, and everywhere, where metal attractive to such eyes might be found. The discursive mood of the eyes somehow pleased Mrs. Mortimer. Just as the young man came opposite her, he glanced in her direction. Mrs. Mortimer wore the curious, half-indifferent, half-expectant air of one ready for recognition but not claiming it as a right. At the first glance, a puzzled look came into the young man’s eyes. ”

“ And Beverly Plank, red as a beet, comfortably suffused with reassurance under the reaction from his scare, attempted to refute the other's conclusions: “It doesn't mean anything, Mortimer. She's just the handsomest girl I ever saw. I know she's engaged. I only admired her a lot.”
“You're not the only man,” said Mortimer blandly, still striving to reconcile his preconceived theories with the awkward half-confession of this great, red-fisted, hulking horseman riding at his stirrup. ”

“ The earl beheld his emotions, and blessed it as a happy omen. His pride, as well as sensibility, he continued, were deeply wounded at the idea of having Lord Mortimer still considered the slave of a passion which had met so base a return. “Oh! I let not the world,” added he, with increasing energy, “triumph in your weakness; try to shake it off, ere the finger of scorn and ridicule is pointed at you as the dupe of a deceitful woman’s art.”
Lord Mortimer was inexpressibly shocked. His pride had frequently represented as weakness the regret he felt for Amanda ”

“ I married Mortimer like a blind puppy, not knowing, not seeing. I am nothing wonderful, but I do think I am too good for him! Why did I not see it then? Why is a girl such a fool? Why does nobody tell her? It is very hard. They say, as one has made one’s bed, so one must lie on it.... But suppose I decline to lie on it?”
She almost leaped in her bed with the shock of this crude presentment of a new idea. Then she rose, lit a candle and walked out of her room, and across a landing, and straight into Mortimer’s room. ”

“ A thousand times was he on the point of retracting his regretted and reluctant promise, had not honor interposed, and showed the inability of doing so, without an infringement on its principles. Thus entangled, Mortimer endeavored to collect his scattered thoughts, and in order to try and gain some composure, he altered his former plan of acting, and mingled as much as possible in society. He strove to fly from himself, that by so doing he might fly from the corrosive remembrances which embittered his life. But who shall paint his agonies at the unexpected sight of Amanda at the Macqueens? ”

“ Yet think not in resigning Lord Mortimer, if, indeed, such a resignation should take place, you sacrifice your own interest. No; it shall be my grateful care to secure to you independence; and I am confident, among the many men you must meet, sensible of your worth, and enraptured with your charms, you may yet select one as calculated to render you happy as Mortimer; while he, disappointed of the object of his affections, will, I have no doubt, without longer hesitation, accept the one I shall again propose to him. ”

“ Yes, I am glad you came in time. Do you know, Eros, I did not think Mortimer would come at all? That passage in the letter that I did not read you spoke of a strange pestilence, and immediately it came into my mind that Mortimer was dead. And even now,” she continued, turning to the guest, and half-timidly meeting his strong, unfathomable eyes with her own, “even now, though I see you here between us, I cannot feel as if our Mortimer were in this world. Are you really he? or a messenger come to tell us that he is gone?”
“I am alive—am I not?” ”

“ Steps were heard, firm, heavy steps, coming back along the corridor. It seemed to Mortimer that he had listened to this sound of steps all night, and would listen to them till he died. He crossed to the lamp and lit a cigarette, carefully this time, turning the wick down afterwards. Mrs. Burley also rose, moving over towards the door, away from him. They listened a moment to these firm and heavy steps, the tread of a man, John Burley. A man ... and a philanderer, flashed across Mortimer’s brain like fire, contrasting the two with fierce contempt for himself. ”

“ Amid solemn pomp and glittering funeral gloom, the coffin of the heir of England was borne over St. George's Channel to his ancestral home at Wigmore. There they laid him with the elder Mortimers, and not, like his father, with his Montacute ancestors, at Bisham. There, by the side of the valiant and wise Edmund Mortimer and his royally descended Margaret, who may be termed the founders of the house, by the first Earl of darkened memory, by the young and royal mother whom he could barely remember, sleeps Roger Mortimer, heir presumptive of England, first and last Lollard of the House of March. ”

“ I shall consider Lord Mortimer as one of the most fortunate of men in calling you his, and to think I have been able to promote his happiness gives me a satisfaction which never was, nor ever will be, equalled by any circumstance in my life.
Though I cannot give my adopted daughter a fortune by any means equal to that which Lady Euphrasia Sutherland will possess, Lord Cherbury is fully sensible that her perfections will abundantly make up for any deficiency in this respect. ”

“ His voice was so hoarse, so strange, that they all turned and looked.
"On the Nile," repeated Mortimer. "All over Egypt. Why?"
Ainsley made no answer. Unclasping his hold, he suddenly slid down the face of the rock, and with a bump lit on his hands and knees. With one bound he had cleared a flower-bed. In two more he had mounted the steps to the terrace, and in another instant had disappeared into the house.
"What happened to him?" demanded Elsie Mortimer.
"He's gone to get a gun!" exclaimed Mortimer. "But he mustn't! How can he think of shooting them?" he cried indignantly. ”

“ And so, in the fullness of time, they came home to Mortimer's cosy little house adjoining the links.
Mortimer was so busy polishing his ninety-four clubs on the evening of their arrival that he failed to notice that his wife was preoccupied. A less busy man would have perceived at a glance that she was distinctly nervous. She started at sudden noises, and once, when he tried the newest of his mashie-niblicks and broke one of the drawing-room windows, she screamed sharply. ”

“ Mortimer let this continue for a moment or so before he recalled the boy from his trance. To my surprise, young Bennet was, upon awakening, quite his usual self without any trace of Hun feature. He spoke, however, with a feeling of weariness.
"Now," I said when Mortimer and I were alone, "would you mind telling me what it is all about?"
He smiled. "Time," he began, "is of two kinds; mental and physical. Of these, mental is the real; physical the unreal; or, we might say, the instrument used to measure the real. ”

“ Accordingly, upon a certain dark night, at midnight, they made their way through this dismal place: startling the rats, and frightening the owls and bats; and came safely to the bottom of the main tower of the Castle, where the King met them, and took them up a profoundly dark staircase in a deep silence. They soon heard the voice of Mortimer in council with some friends; and bursting into the room with a sudden noise, took him prisoner. The Queen cried out from her bed-chamber: "Oh, my sweet son, my dear son, spare my gentle Mortimer!" ”

“ But while Mortimer provided for his friends at the expense of the state, he disbursed a trifling proportion of his vast estates in small pious foundations. He had on 15 Dec. 1328 license to alienate land in mortmain worth one hundred marks a year to support nine chaplains to say mass daily in Lemtwardine Church for the souls of the king, the queen, Queen Isabella, with whom were rather oddly assorted Joan, Mortimer's wife, and their ancestors and successors (ib. p. 343 ; cf. Eyton, xi. 324) . ”

“ Yet perhaps,” she continued, “the evils that I dread on Lord Mortimer’s account may be averted. Oh, that they may!” said she, with fervor, and raising her hands and eyes. “Soften, gracious Heaven! soften the flinty nature of Lady Euphrasia. Oh, render her sensible of [Pg 419] the blessing you bestow in giving her Lord Mortimer! and render her not only capable of inspiring, but of feeling tenderness. May she prove to him the tender friend, the faithful, the affectionate companion the unfortunate Amanda would have been! Oh, may she build her happiness on his! ”