Pomfret

“ Meyer, “you do an injustice to a great people if you close all the doors against her.”
“We shall not agree about their greatness,” said Pomfret. “They are a race of barbarians, with a dangerous streak of madness.”
“That’s one side of the Teuton, I admit. But on the other he’s an idealist, a lover of the arts, an exemplary citizen. And the task of the future is to get him back to where he was. He’s got to return to the old ways. By the bye, that play has set me thinking.” Pomfret and Brandon exchanged glances, but Urban Meyer went on with a curious spontaneity, as if he were thinking aloud. ”

“ Hugh reflected for a few moments. His thoughts had travelled back to those days at Blankfield, which now seemed so very far off. What folly will not a certain type of man commit for the sake of a pretty woman? Jack Pomfret, in a moment of frenzy, had taken his life when he found he was tied up to a girl the accomplice and the decoy of a criminal.
And Guy Spencer, a man of a very different type from the easy-going, pleasure-loving Pomfret, had made a hash of his opportunities, flouted his family obligations, to pursue the desire of the moment, to marry out of his own class. ”

“ Before Pomfret could make suitable reply they walked into the arms of George Speke, who was augustly descending the steps of the stronghold of the Whigs.
“What!” he cried. “You!” His eyes raked Brandon from top to toe. “I can’t believe it. And one hears people say that miracles don’t happen.”
“I plead guilty to being among them,” said Pomfret; in the presence of Speke’s amazement he had a sense of intellectual relief.
“Science won’t acknowledge it as a miracle,” said Brandon. “It has a theory which fully covers the case. ”

“ Mr. Pomfret looked very wise. "There's a wonderful fascination about the girl. She radiates it, even when you pass her in the street. By Gad, there's not a young woman in Blankfield who can hold a candle to her. Well, Hughie, what are you going to do about the invitation?"
"I'm in two minds, old man, to go or stay away. There's the brother, you see."
"There's the brother," repeated Mr. Pomfret, "and a dashed disappointing sort of a brother, too. If it had only been a mother, or a maiden aunt! what a priceless opportunity! And yet it seems a bit too good to be lost." ”

“ She is brought up on family history, given family memoirs to read, and because the Pomfrets hold that no Pomfret should marry outside the family if it can be helped, she is all but married to one of them, her weak-willed cousin Antony. But fortunately a big man from Ireland appears in time to take her away, out of the house of Pomfret, to a new life, which altho it does not offer safety and security, yet promises something of freedom and joy. ”

“ Johnson remarks that ‘perhaps no poem in our language has been so often perused’ as ‘The Choice.’ It is an admirable exposition in neatly turned verse of the everyday epicureanism of a cultivated man. Pomfret is said to have drawn some hints from a study of the character of Sir William Temple (cf. Gent. Mag. 1757, p. 489) . The poet's frankly expressed aspiration to ‘have no wife’ displeased the bishop of London (Compton) , to whom he had been recommended for preferment. Despite the fact that Pomfret was married, the bishop's suspicions were not dispelled before the poet's death. ”

“ A letter of thanks, enclosed in a silver box, was presented to her by the university, 25 Feb. 1755 (London Mag. xxiv. 131, 137) , and a poem in her honour was published at Oxford in the following year. Lady Pomfret died on the road to Bath 15 Dec. 1761, leaving a family of four sons and six daughters. She was buried at Easton Neston, but a neat cenotaph was afterwards erected to her memory in St. Mary's Church, Oxford. An excellent wife and mother, Lady Pomfret exposed herself to constant ridicule by wishing to pass for a learned woman. ”

“ I replied for the little chap:
"It's not my rug; I am but the bail—"
"That's all right. Is your master nice to you?"
"But yes, lady. Don't you like him?"
"He seems to mean well."
"Isn't that rather unkind?" said Pomfret.
"I'm not in the witness-box now."
"Then there's no reason why you shouldn't tell the truth."
"Really, Pomfret!"
"Forgive me, Alice. I'm only a young car, and sometimes, when the petrol gets into my tank—"
"I hope you don't take more than you should."
"I'm sober enough to see you've got a fine pair of headlights." ”

“ From these delightful confidences Murchison was shut out. It would not be wise to ignore him altogether, for such a course of action would have intensified his suspicions. But the invitations to Rosemount from either host or hostess were few and far between.
He was not, however, so easily gulled as the three conspirators thought. Pomfret’s preoccupied mood, the air of a man who had much on his mind, his frequent and unexplained absences, gave to his friend much food for thought. He felt certain that the easy-going, irresponsible young man was entangling himself. ”

“ Now, how comes it that such a refined and ladylike girl as that should have such a bounder of a brother? There is a mystery there."
Jack Pomfret prepared to argue. "I don't quite agree that he is a bounder, he is not quite boisterous enough for that. Let us agree on a common definition—namely, that he is bad form. That fits him, I think."
"And the sister is very good form. You can't deny that there is a mystery."
But the young subaltern developed a quite surprising ingenuity in argument. ”

“ After the mechanical issue and acknowledgment of a few ghastly pleasantries, Lord Pomfret muttered something about "hearing his mother calling" and fled with precipitate irrelevance in the direction of the back stairs, leaving Mrs. Wrangle speechless with indignation and bitterly repenting her recent indecision. She swept past Anthony as if she were leaving a charnel-house. Her daughters, who took after their father, walked as though they were being expelled.... ”

“ In almost the only case where quick movement is here demanded one becomes conscious of the intrusion of words. When he knows that the relief of Pomfret depends upon his instant action, Lisle still finds time for conversations with his servant, with Miriam and with the doctor, and for a couple of well-sustained soliloquies. ”

“ Hugh looked at her grimly. He had no compassion for this shameless adventuress who had driven the poor foolish Pomfret to his grave, who had ensnared Guy Spencer, a man of stronger fibre, but equally powerless in the hands of an unscrupulous woman.
"Mrs. Spencer—to call you by one of the many names by which you are known—we were not friends the last time I was at this house. To-day we are bitter enemies."
"What do you mean?" she faltered. "You are speaking in riddles. Why should you, the old friend of my husband, be the bitter enemy of his innocent wife?" ”

“ It comes to this, Lionel, when a fellow is making sacrifices, when he is paring down expenses right and left, when he is doing his damndest to ‘carry on,’ it is exasperating to be pestered for the extra inch when you have cheerfully given the ell.”
He blew his nose with violence and left the dining-room.
“Dear fellow!” murmured Lady Pomfret. “He has been horribly worried during the last four years.”
Lionel looked and felt dazed. He supposed that Lady Pomfret invariably sided with her husband. ”

“ I will go further, and say there is not a girl in Blankfield, or for the matter of that in the ‘county’ itself, who gives the impression of a thorough gentlewoman more convincingly than she does.” Pomfret’s face brightened at these words. ”

“ Was born November 9, 1835, in Pomfret, Connecticut. Some of her ancestors on her mother's side came over from England in the May-flower, and those of a later generation founded the city of Pomfret. In 1861 she married Calvin R. Corbin, and they removed to Chicago, Illinois. She is the author of quite a number of books, among which are "Our Bible Class and the Good that Came from It," "Rebecca, or a Woman's Secret," "His Marriage Vow," "A Woman's Philosophy of Love," etc. ”

“ But a divinity shapes our ends. His old fagmaster at school was the one man of practical experience to whom Brandon could turn in the difficult and unknown country he had now to traverse. Robert Pomfret had really been summoned to Hart’s Ghyll, not as he innocently and magnanimously [Pg 275] believed, on the score of old friendship, but in his capacity of prosperous lessee of three West End theaters. ”

“ He turned to Pomfrette. "I pray God that you have no peace in mind or body till your evil life is changed, and your black heart is broken by sorrow and repentance."
Then to the people he said again: "I have commanded you for your souls' sake; see that you obey. Go to your homes. Let us leave the leper— alone." He waved the awed crowd back.
"Shall we take off the little bell?" asked Lajeunesse of the Cure.
Pomfrette heard, and he drew himself together, his jaws shutting with ferocity, and his hand flying to the belt where his voyageur's case-knife hung. The Cure did not see this. ”

“ Ten years later a second imitation of Pomfret followed in The Choice by Dr. Benjamin Church of Boston, who longs for a home in the country, the right kind of wife, congenial friends, and leisure to read his favourite poets—Milton, Dryden, Gay, “awful Pope, unequalled bard,” and “nature-limning Thomson.” Though dwelling in a small American town, he sighs for solitude as longingly as he might have done in the midst of a world capital. Livingston and Church are half a century late in their sporadic imitations ”

“ There was no cab or taxi to be got in this outlying district. They had to walk back to the barracks.
Hugh planted him in an easy-chair in his own quarters, and mixed him a stiff peg. Even Dutch courage was better than nothing. Pomfret drank it in two big gulps. Then he pulled himself together.
“I have been an infernal fool, old man,” he gasped, “an infernal fool.”
Hugh spoke soothingly. “Of course you have. But the folly is over. You now know Norah Burton and her rascally brother for what they are, a pair of criminals and adventurers.”
“But you don’t know all,” groaned the unfortunate Jack. ”

“ When you went away to the woods you never left a penny for candles, nor for Masses to be said for your father's soul; yet you sold his horse and his little house, and spent the money in drink. Not a cent for a candle, but—"
"It's a lie," cried Pomfrette, shaking with rage from head to foot.
A long horror-stricken "Ah!" broke from the crowd. The Cure's face became graver and colder.
"You have a bad heart," he answered, "and you give Pontiac an evil name. I command you to come to Mass next Sunday, to repent and to hear your penance given from the altar. ”

“ Parpon saw her, frowned, and waved her back; but she came on. At the chancel steps she raised her veil, and a murmur of recognition and wonder ran through the church. Pomfrette’s face was pitiful to see—drawn, staring.
“Junie!” he said hoarsely.
Her eyes were red with weeping, her face was very pale. “M’sieu’ le Cure” she said, “you must listen to me”—the Cure’s face had become forbidding—“sinner though I am. You want to be just, don’t you? Ah, listen! I was to be married to Luc Pomfrette, but I did not love him—then. ”

“ He would soon have stiffened for ever had not Parpon the dwarf, passing along the road, seen the open door and the sprawling body, and come and drawn Pomfrette inside the house. He rubbed the face and hands and ears of the unconscious man with snow till the whiteness disappeared, and, taking off the boots, did the same with the toes ”

“ Take advantage of it!”
“If Master Lionel married Lady Margot, he would try to make her happy. He would live most of the year in London. He would share her life, and that life is one of constant excitement and change. She has been happy here for three weeks, because this is a change. Would she ever take my lady’s place? Never!”
He spoke with fire. The Squire lay back in his chair, gently twiddling his thumbs. In his opinion no woman could take his wife’s place, but what of that? None the less, mention of Lady Pomfret smoothed out some wrinkles. ”

“ Look at me. I am the worst man in the world, eh? Judas is nothing—no! Ack, what are you, to turn your back on me? Listen to me! You, there, Muroc, with your charcoal face, who was it walk thirty miles in the dead of winter to bring a doctor to your wife, eh? She die, but that is no matter—who was it? It was Luc Pomfrette. You, Alphonse Durien, who was it drag you out of the bog at the Cote Chaudiere? It was Luc Pomfrette. You, Jacques Baby, who was it that lied for you to the Protestant girl at Faribeau? Just Luc Pomfrette. ”

“ It was this—that after much pressing, and more than one refusal, Miss Burton had agreed to meet him to-morrow afternoon at a very sequestered spot about a mile and a half from Blankfield, with the view of pursuing their acquaintance.
CHAPTER V From the night of that dinner-party Murchison noted a subtle difference in his young friend's demeanour. Pomfret had always been a harum-scarum sort of young fellow, accustomed to follow erratic and injudicious impulses, not absolutely devoid of brains of a certain order, but of imperfect and ill-balanced mentality. ”

“ His Pindaric odes, &c., are feeble spasms, and need not detain us. His 'Reason' shews considerable capacity and common sense. His 'Choice' opens up a pleasing vista, down which our quiet ancestors delighted to look, but by which few now can be attracted. We quote a portion of what a biographer calls a 'modest' preface, which Pomfret prefixed to his poems:—'To please every one would be a new thing, and to write so as to please nobody would be as new; for even Quarles and Withers have their admirers. ”