The Egoist: A Comedy in Narrative

  CHAPTER XVIII

  COLONEL DE CRAYE

  Clara came along chatting and laughing with Colonel De Craye, youngCrossjay's hand under one of her arms, and her parasol flashing; adazzling offender; as if she wished to compel the spectator torecognize the dainty rogue in porcelain; really insufferably fair:perfect in height and grace of movement; exquisitely tressed;red-lipped, the colour striking out to a distance from her ivory skin;a sight to set the woodland dancing, and turn the heads of the town;though beautiful, a jury of art critics might pronounce her not to be.Irregular features are condemned in beauty. Beautiful figure, theycould say. A description of her figure and her walking would have wonher any praises: and she wore a dress cunning to embrace the shape andflutter loose about it, in the spirit of a Summer's day. Calypso-clad,Dr. Middleton would have called her. See the silver birch in a breeze:here it swells, there it scatters, and it is puffed to a round and itstreams like a pennon, and now gives the glimpse and shine of the whitestem's line within, now hurries over it, denying that it was visible,with a chatter along the sweeping folds, while still the white peepsthrough. She had the wonderful art of dressing to suit the season andthe sky. To-day the art was ravishingly companionable with hersweet-lighted face: too sweet, too vividly meaningful for pretty, ifnot of the strict severity for beautiful. Millinery would tell us thatshe wore a fichu of thin white muslin crossed in front on a dress ofthe same light stuff, trimmed with deep rose. She carried a grey-silkparasol, traced at the borders with green creepers, and across the armdevoted to Crossjay a length of trailing ivy, and in that hand a bunchof the first long grasses. These hues of red rose and pale greenruffled and pouted in the billowy white of the dress ballooning andvalleying softly, like a yacht before the sail bends low; but shewalked not like one blown against; resembling rather the day of theSouth-west driving the clouds, gallantly firm in commotion; interfusingcolour and varying in her features from laugh to smile and look ofsettled pleasure, like the heavens above the breeze.

  Sir Willoughby, as he frequently had occasion to protest to Clara, wasno poet: he was a more than commonly candid English gentleman in hisavowed dislike of the poet's nonsense, verbiage, verse; not one ofthose latterly terrorized by the noise made about the fellow intosilent contempt; a sentiment that may sleep, and has not to bedefended. He loathed the fellow, fought the fellow. But he was one withthe poet upon that prevailing theme of verse, the charms of women. Hewas, to his ill-luck, intensely susceptible, and where he led men afterhim to admire, his admiration became a fury. He could see at a glancethat Horace De Craye admired Miss Middleton. Horace was a man of taste,could hardly, could not, do other than admire; but how curious that inthe setting forth of Clara and Miss Dale, to his own contemplation andcomparison of them, Sir Willoughby had given but a nodding approbationof his bride's appearance! He had not attached weight to it recently.

  Her conduct, and foremost, if not chiefly, her having been discovered,positively met by his friend Horace, walking on the high-road withoutcompanion or attendant, increased a sense of pain so very unusual withhim that he had cause to be indignant. Coming on this condition, hisadmiration of the girl who wounded him was as bitter a thing as a mancould feel. Resentment, fed from the main springs of his nature, turnedit to wormwood, and not a whit the less was it admiration when heresolved to chastise her with a formal indication of his disdain. Herpresent gaiety sounded to him like laughter heard in the shadow of thepulpit.

  "You have escaped!" he said to her, while shaking the hand of hisfriend Horace and cordially welcoming him. "My dear fellow! and, by theway, you had a squeak for it, I hear from Flitch."

  "I, Willoughby? not a bit," said the colonel; "we get into a fly toget, out of it; and Flitch helped me out as well as in, good fellow;just dusting my coat as he did it. The only bit of bad management wasthat Miss Middleton had to step aside a trifle hurriedly."

  "You knew Miss Middleton at once?"

  "Flitch did me the favour to introduce me. He first precipitated me atMiss Middleton's feet, and then he introduced me, in old orientalfashion, to my sovereign."

  Sir Willoughby's countenance was enough for his friend Horace.Quarter-wheeling to Clara, he said: "'Tis the place I'm to occupy forlife, Miss Middleton, though one is not always fortunate to have abright excuse for taking it at the commencement."

  Clara said: "Happily you were not hurt, Colonel De Craye."

  "I was in the hands of the Loves. Not the Graces, I'm afraid; I've animage of myself. Dear, no! My dear Willoughby, you never made such aheadlong declaration as that. It would have looked like a magnificentimpulse, if the posture had only been choicer. And Miss Middletondidn't laugh. At least I saw nothing but pity."

  "You did not write," said Willoughby.

  "Because it was a toss-up of a run to Ireland or here, and I came herenot to go there; and, by the way, fetched a jug with me to offer up tothe gods of ill-luck; and they accepted the propitiation."

  "Wasn't it packed in a box?"

  "No, it was wrapped in paper, to show its elegant form. I caught sightof it in the shop yesterday and carried it off this morning, andpresented it to Miss Middleton at noon, without any form at all."

  Willoughby knew his friend Horace's mood when the Irish tongue in himthreatened to wag.

  "You see what may happen," he said to Clara.

  "As far as I am in fault I regret it," she answered.

  "Flitch says the accident occurred through his driving up the bank tosave you from the wheels."

  "Flitch may go and whisper that down the neck of his emptywhisky-flask," said Horace De Craye. "And then let him cork it."

  "The consequence is that we have a porcelain vase broken. You shouldnot walk on the road alone, Clara. You ought to have a companion,always. It is the rule here."

  "I had left Miss Dale at the cottage."

  "You ought to have had the dogs."

  "Would they have been any protection to the vase?"

  Horace De Craye crowed cordially.

  "I'm afraid not, Miss Middleton. One must go to the witches forprotection to vases; and they're all in the air now, having their ownway with us, which accounts for the confusion in politics and society,and the rise in the price of broomsticks, to prove it true, as theytell us, that every nook and corner wants a mighty sweeping. Miss Dalelooks beaming," said De Craye, wishing to divert Willoughby from hisanger with sense as well as nonsense.

  "You have not been visiting Ireland recently?" said Sir Willoughby.

  "No, nor making acquaintance with an actor in an Irish part in a dramacast in the Green Island. 'Tis Flitch, my dear Willoughby, has beenand stirred the native in me, and we'll present him to you for the likegood office when we hear after a number of years that you've notwrinkled your forehead once at your liege lady. Take the poor old dogback home, will you? He's crazed to be at the Hall. I say, Willoughby,it would be a good bit of work to take him back. Think of it; you'll dothe popular thing, I'm sure. I've a superstition that Flitch ought todrive you from the church-door. If I were in luck, I'd have him driveme."

  "The man's a drunkard, Horace."

  "He fuddles his poor nose. 'Tis merely unction to the exile. Soberstruggles below. He drinks to rock his heart, because he has one. Nowlet me intercede for poor Flitch."

  "Not a word of him. He threw up his place."

  "To try his fortune in the world, as the best of us do, though liveryruns after us to tell us there's no being an independent gentleman, andcomes a cold day we haul on the metal-button coat again, with a goodha! of satisfaction. You'll do the popular thing. Miss Middleton joinsin the pleading."

  "No pleading!"

  "When I've vowed upon my eloquence, Willoughby, I'd bring you to pardonthe poor dog?"

  "Not a word of him!"

  "Just one!"

  Sir Willoughby battled with himself to repress a state of temper thatput him to marked disadvantage beside his friend Horace in highspirits. Ordinarily he enjoyed these fits of Irish of him, which wereHorace's fun and play, at
times involuntary, and then they indicated arecklessness that might embrace mischief. De Craye, as Willoughby hadoften reminded him, was properly Norman. The blood of two or threeIrish mothers in his line, however, was enough to dance him, and if hisfine profile spoke of the stiffer race, his eyes and the quick run ofthe lip in the cheek, and a number of his qualities, were evidence ofthe maternal legacy.

  "My word has been said about the man," Willoughby replied.

  "But I've wagered on your heart against your word, and cant afford tolose; and there's a double reason for revoking for you!"

  "I don't see either of them. Here are the ladies."

  "You'll think of the poor beast, Willoughby."

  "I hope for better occupation."

  "If he drives a wheelbarrow at the Hall he'll be happier than on boarda chariot at large. He's broken-hearted."

  "He's too much in the way of breakages, my dear Horace."

  "Oh, the vase! the bit of porcelain!" sung De Craye. "Well, we'll talkhim over by and by."

  "If it pleases you; but my rules are never amended."

  "Inalterable, are they?--like those of an ancient people, who might aswell have worn a jacket of lead for the comfort they had of theirboast. The beauty of laws for human creatures is their adaptability tonew stitchings."

  Colonel De Craye walked at the heels of his leader to make his bow tothe ladies Eleanor and Isabel.

  Sir Willoughby had guessed the person who inspired his friend Horace toplead so pertinaciously and inopportunely for the man Flitch: and ithad not improved his temper or the pose of his rejoinders; he hadwinced under the contrast of his friend Horace's easy, laughing,sparkling, musical air and manner with his own stiffness; and he hadseen Clara's face, too, scanning the contrast--he was fatally driven toexaggerate his discontentment, which did not restore him to serenity.He would have learned more from what his abrupt swing round of theshoulder precluded his beholding. There was an interchange betweenColonel De Craye and Miss Middleton; spontaneous on both sides. His wasa look that said: "You were right"; hers: "I knew it". Her look wascalmer, and after the first instant clouded as by wearifulness ofsameness; his was brilliant, astonished, speculative, and admiring,pitiful: a look that poised over a revelation, called up the hosts ofwonder to question strange fact.

  It had passed unseen by Sir Willoughby. The observer was the one whocould also supply the key of the secret. Miss Dale had found Colonel DeCraye in company with Miss Middleton at her gateway. They werelaughing and talking together like friends of old standing, De Craye asIrish as he could be: and the Irish tongue and gentlemanly manner arean irresistible challenge to the opening steps of familiarity whenaccident has broken the ice. Flitch was their theme; and: "Oh, but ifwe go tip to Willoughby hand in hand; and bob a courtesy to 'm andbeg his pardon for Mister Flitch, won't he melt to such a pair ofsuppliants? of course he will!" Miss Middleton said he would not.Colonel De Craye wagered he would; he knew Willoughby best. MissMiddleton looked simply grave; a way of asserting the contrary opinionthat tells of rueful experience. "We'll see," said the colonel. Theychatted like a couple unexpectedly discovering in one another a commondialect among strangers. Can there be an end to it when those two meet?They prattle, they fill the minutes, as though they were violently tobe torn asunder at a coming signal, and must have it out while theycan; it is a meeting of mountain brooks; not a colloquy, but a chasing,impossible to say which flies, which follows, or what the topic, sointerlinguistic are they and rapidly counterchanging. After theirconversation of an hour before, Laetitia watched Miss Middleton insurprise at her lightness of mind. Clara bathed in mirth. A boy in asummer stream shows not heartier refreshment of his whole being.Laetitia could now understand Vernon's idea of her wit. And it seemedthat she also had Irish blood. Speaking of Ireland, Miss Middleton saidshe had cousins there, her only relatives.

  "The laugh told me that," said Colonel De Craye.

  Laetitia and Vernon paced up and down the lawn. Colonel De Craye wastalking with English sedateness to the ladies Eleanor and Isabel. Claraand young Crossjay strayed.

  "If I might advise, I would say, do not leave the Hall immediately, notyet," Laetitia said to Vernon.

  "You know, then?"

  "I cannot understand why it was that I was taken into her confidence."

  "I counselled it."

  "But it was done without an object that I can see."

  "The speaking did her good."

  "But how capricious! how changeful!"

  "Better now than later."

  "Surely she has only to ask to be released?--to ask earnestly: if itis her wish."

  "You are mistaken."

  "Why does she not make a confidant of her father?"

  "That she will have to do. She wished to spare him."

  "He cannot be spared if she is to break the engagement."

  She thought of sparing him the annoyance. "Now there's to be a tussle,he must share in it."

  "Or she thought he might not side with her?"

  "She has not a single instinct of cunning. You judge her harshly."

  "She moved me on the walk out. Coming home I felt differently."

  Vernon glanced at Colonel De Craye.

  "She wants good guidance," continued Laetitia.

  "She has not an idea of treachery."

  "You think so? It may be true. But she seems one born devoid ofpatience, easily made reckless. There is a wildness . . . I judge byher way of speaking; that at least appeared sincere. She does notpractise concealment. He will naturally find it almost incredible. Thechange in her, so sudden, so wayward, is unintelligible to me. To me itis the conduct of a creature untamed. He may hold her to her word andbe justified."

  "Let him look out if he does!"

  "Is not that harsher than anything I have said of her?"

  "I'm not appointed to praise her. I fancy I read the case; and it's acase of opposition of temperaments. We never can tell the person quitesuited to us; it strikes us in a flash."

  "That they are not suited to us? Oh, no; that comes by degrees."

  "Yes, but the accumulation of evidence, or sentience, if you like, iscombustible; we don't command the spark; it may be late in falling. Andyou argue in her favour. Consider her as a generous and impulsive girl,outwearied at last."

  "By what?"

  "By anything; by his loftiness, if you like. He flies too high for her,we will say."

  "Sir Willoughby an eagle?"

  "She may be tired of his eyrie."

  The sound of the word in Vernon's mouth smote on a consciousness shehad of his full grasp of Sir Willoughby and her own timid knowledge,though he was not a man who played on words.

  If he had eased his heart in stressing the first syllable, it was onlytemporary relief. He was heavy-browed enough.

  "But I cannot conceive what she expects me to do by confiding her senseof her position to me," said Laetitia.

  "We none of us know what will be done. We hang on Willoughby, who hangson whatever it is that supports him: and there we are in a swarm."

  "You see the wisdom of staying, Mr. Whitford."

  "It must be over in a day or two. Yes, I stay."

  "She inclines to obey you."

  "I should be sorry to stake my authority on her obedience. We mustdecide something about Crossjay, and get the money for his crammer, ifit is to be got. If not, I may get a man to trust me. I mean to dragthe boy away. Willoughby has been at him with the tune of gentleman,and has laid hold of him by one ear. When I say 'her obedience,' she isnot in a situation, nor in a condition to be led blindly by anybody.She must rely on herself, do everything herself. It's a knot that won'tbear touching by any hand save hers."

  "I fear . . ." said Laetitia.

  "Have no such fear."

  "If it should come to his positively refusing."

  "He faces the consequences."

  "You do not think of her."

  Vernon looked at his companion.