Sir Adrian

“ Now it had struck me before this that Sir Adrian, with all his kindness of heart, takes but a dismal view of human nature and human destiny; that to him what spoils the face of this world is that strife of life—which to me is as the breath of my nostrils, the absence of which made my convent days so grey and hateful to look back upon.
I did not like to feel out of harmony with him, and so almost angrily I reproached him.
"Would you have every one live like a limpet on a [173] rock?" cried I. "Great heavens! I would rather be dead than not be up and doing." ”

“ If Countess Adrian came to the theatre and looked at me like that when I was acting, I should break down—as I did to-night. And I think that would kill me. My art is all the world to me. I live for it; I live in it. Mr. Lendon—no, don't speak, listen—I have a feeling that you could stand between one and—and Countess Adrian. ”

“ Adrian, the matchless brother of my soul, the sensitive and excellent Adrian, loving all, and beloved by all, yet seemed destined not to find the half of himself, which was to complete his happiness. He often left us, and wandered by himself in the woods, or sailed in his little skiff, his books his only companions. He was often the gayest of our party, at the same time that he was the only one visited by fits of despondency; his slender frame seemed overcharged with the weight of life, and his soul appeared rather to inhabit his body than unite with it. ”

“ I will give you of my strength and of my life. I will give you of my spirit and of my sense, till my soul itself shall live in you, and in loving you he shall love me whom he has scorned. This shall be my bridal gift to you, and with my kiss I seal it."
The red ripe lips of Countess Adrian bent down to Beatrice's lips and clung to them in a vampire kiss which seemed to drain the very life-breath from the girl's body. She uttered no sound, but as Countess Adrian moved from her she sank white and limp into Lendon's arms. Countess Adrian stood for a moment, rigid, and with staring glassy eyes. ”

“ Sir Adrian stood for a moment, contemplating, with glances of approval such as he seldom bestowed on his fellow-man, the symmetrical, slender, yet vigorous figure of his friend, and responding with an unwonted cheerfulness to the smile that lit up the steel-blue eyes, and parted the shapely, [194] strong, and good-humoured mouth of the privateersman.
"Dear me, and what a buck we have become!" continued the baronet, "what splendid plumage! It is good to see you so prosperous. ”

“ This unexpected turn in the debate was quickly communicated to Adrian. He hurried in, and witnessed the termination of my impassioned harangue. I did not see him: my soul was in my words,—my eyes could not perceive that which was; while a vision of Adrian's form, tainted by pestilence, and sinking in death, floated before them. He seized my hand, as I concluded—"Unkind!" he cried, "you have betrayed me!" then, springing forwards, with the air of one who had a right to command, he claimed the place of deputy as his own. He had bought it, he said, with danger, and paid for it with toil. ”

“ Countess Adrian bent forward quite eagerly. "That is a curious idea."
"It is an idea which has taken possession of her. She dreads you with a superstitious and unreasoning dread. She believes that you have the evil eye. She thinks that if you chose to exert your power you could make her fail in a great part."
"Oh, I am not so wicked as that," Countess Adrian laughed softly. "She has all my good wishes for success in the Duchess of Malfi. She will succeed, I am sure of it!"
"Yes, I am sure of it also," answered Lendon. ”

“ That much of his early success had been due to this heroic upbringing, Adrian was too honest not to admit, but then—by God, it had been hard! All the colour of youth! No time to dream—except sorely! Some warping, some perversion! A gasping, heart-breaking knowledge that you could not possibly keep up with the people with whom, paradoxically enough, you were supposed to spend your leisure hours. Here was the making of a radical. And yet, despite all this, Adrian dined with his uncle once a month. ”

“ Adrian the superstitious but unspiritual dreamer, the vain Sybarite, the dull poet, the chopper of false logic, the weak and passionate self-seeker, whose best and deepest cravings, such as his love for his mother and another love that shall be told of, were really little more than a reflection of his own pride and lusts, or at least could be subordinated to their fulfilment. ”

“ Many and dark are the glances cast upon the new-comer, who receives them all with his usual imperturbable smile. Rising, Arthur approaches one of the astonished group who is known to him, and says something upon the subject with a slight shrug of his shoulders. As he is Sir Adrian's cousin, every one feels that it will be impossible to offer any objection to his taking the much-coveted part. ”

“ No, it was unthinkable, beginning life over again without Adrian. A hundred little things plucked at random from the sweet monotony of their days together came drifting through his mind. The peculiar look Adrian had when he first woke in [371] the morning—the savage greediness with which he would devour honey and brown bread—the pleading, broken, childlike tones in his voice when, after some quarrel between them he begged his friend to forgive him—all these things and many others, came pouring in upon him in a great wave of miserable self-pity. No—she should not win. She should not triumph. ”

“ I have been brought up with Adrian, and I know what he is; he is vain and pompous, and every time he looks at you and me he thanks God that he was not made like that. Also he has failings and vices, and he is lazy, being too fine a gentleman to work like a common Flemish burgher, and all the rest of it. But, father, he has a good heart, and if any man outside this house were to tell me that Adrian is capable of playing the traitor and bringing his own family to the scaffold, well, I would make him swallow his words, or try to, that is all. ”

“ But what matter of that, when they were so full of power and passion? And who cared that the rich red lips, parted so as to show a double row of small glistening teeth, were so red and so ripe as to suggest sense rather than soul? Soul somehow was the last attribute one would associate with Countess Adrian. A glorious creature certainly—an intellectual creature—a creature with will, emotion, force of diameter, noble instinct it might be; but always of the flesh, and not of the spirit. Countess Adrian a disembodied thing! ”

“ A long breath of pent emotion heaved through the audience. Lendon became conscious of a movement behind him. A woman's voice whispered in an audible sibilant whisper, "She shall feel me." He turned involuntarily. Countess Adrian was standing with her head bent a little forward, and her eyes fixed in a gaze of the most extraordinary intensity on the young actress's face. ”

“ The Countess took her hand and stood tall and erect before the shrinking girl. Her bosom dilated as if she were drawing in strength. For a moment she did not speak. It was a strange scene. Lendon felt his heart throb with fear and suspense. He looked from Beatrice to Countess Adrian. Never had he seen so sudden and curious a change in the face of any human being. It was like the contrast between dead grey ashes and living fire. The impression she gave him was one of demoniac power. Her eyes glowed with an unearthly lustre from her white face. ”

“ I was an untaught shepherd-boy, when Adrian deigned to confer on me his friendship. The best years of my life had been passed with him. All I had possessed of this world’s goods, of happiness, knowledge, or virtue—I owed to him. He had, in his person, his intellect, and rare qualities, given a glory to my life, which without him it had never known. Beyond all other beings he had taught me, that goodness, pure and single, can be an attribute of man. It was a sight for angels to congregate to behold, to view him lead, govern, and solace, the last days of the human race. ”

“ It is the legend of St. Adrian, and, like all such legends, possesses some features which may be considered historical. It is thus told in the Aberdeen Breviary at 4th March, the day of St. Adrian:—Adrian, a distinguished soldier of Christ, derived his origin from the province of Pannonia, a part of the region of Hungary. He was, as usual, of royal descent, and, from his transcendent merits, was early raised to the episcopate; and a large number of clerics and laymen can testify to his labours among them. ”

“ That the English sway turned out so unjust and disastrous to Ireland, reflects no blame on Adrian, than whom no one would have more deplored the evil, and striven against its true causes, than he. Rather ought he, from the spirit of his brief,—the only fair test to apply to him,—to be regarded as the head of that small, unfortunately so very small, band of Englishmen, who have ever meant well to the sister isle ”

“ But Adrian, though kind, generous, and indulgent, was so absorbed by his own great affairs, was a man at the same time of so serene a temper and so supreme a will, that the over-refined fantasies of his wife produced not the slightest effect on the course of his life. ”

“ Besides, is it not a shame, that the genius of Adrian should fade from the earth like a flower in an untrod mountain-path, fruitless? Do you think Nature composed his surpassing machine for no purpose? Believe me, he was destined to be the author of infinite good to his native England. Has she not bestowed on him every gift in prodigality?—birth, wealth, talent, goodness? Does not every one love and admire him? and does he not delight singly in such efforts as manifest his love to all? ”

“ London could do without Countess Adrian, but it could not calmly contemplate the loss of its Duchess of Malfi. Placards were posted at the theatre. Hurried rehearsals were called, and Beatrice's understudy stepped into prominence and exulted in secret over the calamity which had given her her great opportunity. The doctors agreed that the long trance was cataleptic, and that nothing could be done but to watch and wait. The two women lay, each cold and motionless, the living, to all outward semblance, as lifeless as the dead. ”

“ You, who walked the earth in the body of a passion-tossed woman, and as Countess Adrian awoke the desire of sin and the lust of the flesh—spirit of all evil and uncleanness, in the might of the White Brotherhood, by the Sign which must be obeyed, by the Word which is Holy, I command you to come forth. ”

“ Adrian, those last words of yours were severe—unjust. I do not deserve such interpretation of my motives. Is it my fault that you are not as other men? Am I to be blamed for judging you by the ordinary standard? But you have convinced me: you were as chivalrous as Cécile was pure, and if needs be, believe me, Adrian, I will maintain it so in the face of the world. ”

“ Countess Adrian looked at him steadily for a moment or two before she replied. "Suppose," she said, "that the man I loved, the man whom I knew would satisfy all the requirements of my being, for whom I had poured forth all that I have to give—what could never be taken back and given to another—suppose that he had no love to give me in return?"
"Impossible, Countess," said Lendon, "unless"——
"Unless?" she repeated.
"Unless he were devoted heart and soul to another woman."
"There is the hazard of the game," she said calmly. ”

“ Adrian the solitary, the pessimist, the I-don't-know-what superior man, in love! Neither more nor less! In love, like an every-day inhabitant of these realms, and with that black-eyed sister of mine that is to be! My word, it's too perfect! Adrian my brother-in-law—for if I gauge that fine creature properly—splendid old lady—she won't let him slide back this time. No, my dear Adrian, you are hooked for matrimony and a return to the living world. That black-eyed jade too, that Molly sister of my Madeleine, will wake up and lead you a life, by George!... ”

“ Adrian wondered. Only once was his uncle very much interested, and that was when Adrian had spoken of the war and the psychology left in its train. Adrian himself had not long before been released from a weary round of training-camps, where, in Texas dust, or the unpleasant resinous summer of the South, he had gone through a repetition that in the end had threatened to render him an imbecile. He was not illusioned. As separate personalities, men had lost much of their glamour for him ”

“ After this Simon said no more, for he had this virtue, so useful in domestic life--he knew when to yield.
On this same morning Adrian rose late. The talk at the supper table on the previous night, especially Foy's coarse, uneducated sarcasm, had ruffled his temper, and when Adrian's temper was ruffled he generally found it necessary to sleep himself into good humour. As the bookkeeper of the establishment, for his stepfather had never been able to induce him to take an active part in its work, which in his heart he considered beneath him, Adrian should have been in the office by nine o'clock. ”

“ It was not his rank—after all that I have said, surely it will not be suspected that it was Adrian's rank, that, from the first, subdued my heart of hearts, and laid my entire spirit prostrate before him. Nor was it I alone who felt thus intimately his perfections . his sensibility and courtesy fascinated every one. His vivacity, intelligence, and active spirit of benevolence, completed the conquest. Even at this early age, he was deep read and imbued with the spirit of high philosophy. ”