The Egoist: A Comedy in Narrative

  CHAPTER IV

  LAETITIA DALE

  That was another surprise to the county.

  Let us not inquire into the feelings of patiently starving women; theymust obtain some sustenance of their own, since, as you perceive, theylive; evidently they are not in need of a great amount of nourishment;and we may set them down for creatures with a rush-light of animal fireto warm them. They cannot have much vitality who are so littleexclamatory. A corresponding sentiment of patient compassion, akin toscorn, is provoked by persons having the opportunity for pathos, anddeclining to use it. The public bosom was open to Laetitia for severalweeks, and had she run to it to bewail herself she would have beencherished in thankfulness for a country drama. There would have been aparty against her, cold people, critical of her pretensions to risefrom an unrecognized sphere to be mistress of Patterne Hall, but therewould also have been a party against Sir Willoughby, composed of thetwo or three revolutionists, tired of the yoke, which are to be foundin England when there is a stir; a larger number of born sympathetics,ever ready to yield the tear for the tear; and here and there aSamaritan soul prompt to succour poor humanity in distress. Theopportunity passed undramatized. Laetitia presented herself at churchwith a face mildly devout, according to her custom, and she acceptedinvitations to the Hall, she assisted at the reading of Willoughby'sletters to his family, and fed on dry husks of him wherein her name wasnot mentioned; never one note of the summoning call for pathos did thisyoung lady blow.

  So, very soon the public bosom closed. She had, under the freshinterpretation of affairs, too small a spirit to be Lady Willoughby ofPatterne; she could not have entertained becomingly; he must have seenthat the girl was not the match for him in station, and off he went toconquer the remainder of a troublesome first attachment, no longerextremely disturbing, to judge from the tenour of his letters; reallyincomparable letters! Lady Busshe and Mrs. Mountstuart Jenkinsonenjoyed a perusal of them. Sir Willoughby appeared as a splendid youngrepresentative island lord in these letters to his family, despatchedfrom the principal cities of the United States of America. He wouldgive them a sketch of "our democratic cousins", he said. Such cousins!They might all have been in the Marines. He carried his Englishstandard over that continent, and by simply jotting down facts, he leftan idea of the results of the measurement to his family and friends athome. He was an adept in the irony of incongruously grouping. Thenature of the Equality under the stars and stripes was presented inthis manner. Equality! Reflections came occasionally: "These cousins ofours are highly amusing. I am among the descendants of the Roundheads.Now and then an allusion to old domestic differences, in perfect goodtemper. We go on in our way; they theirs, in the apparent belief thatRepublicanism operates remarkable changes in human nature. Vernon trieshard to think it does. The upper ten of our cousins are the Infernal ofParis. The rest of them is Radical England, as far as I am acquaintedwith that section of my country."--Where we compared, they were absurd;where we contrasted, they were monstrous. The contrast of Vernon'sletters with Willoughby's was just as extreme. You could hardly havetaken them for relatives travelling together, or Vernon Whitford for aborn and bred Englishman. The same scenes furnished by these two pensmight have been sketched in different hemispheres. Vernon had no irony.He had nothing of Willoughby's epistolary creative power, which,causing his family and friends to exclaim: "How like him that is!"conjured them across the broad Atlantic to behold and clap hands at hislordliness.

  They saw him distinctly, as with the naked eye; a word, a turn of thepen, or a word unsaid, offered the picture of him in America, Japan,China, Australia, nay, the continent of Europe, holding an Englishreview of his Maker's grotesques. Vernon seemed a sheepish fellow,without stature abroad, glad of a compliment, grateful for a dinner,endeavouring sadly to digest all he saw and heard. But one was aPatterne; the other a Whitford. One had genius; the other potteredafter him with the title of student. One was the English gentlemanwherever he went; the other was a new kind of thing, nondescript,produced in England of late, and not likely to come to much goodhimself, or do much good to the country.

  Vernon's dancing in America was capitally described by Willoughby."Adieu to our cousins!" the latter wrote on his voyage to Japan. "Imay possibly have had some vogue in their ball-rooms, and in showingthem an English seat on horseback: I must resign myself if I have notbeen popular among them. I could not sing their national song--if acongery of states be a nation--and I must confess I listened withfrigid politeness to their singing of it. A great people, no doubt.Adieu to them. I have had to tear old Vernon away. He had seriousthoughts of settling, means to correspond with some of them." On thewhole, forgetting two or more "traits of insolence" on the part of hishosts, which he cited, Willoughby escaped pretty comfortably. ThePresident had been, consciously or not, uncivil, but one knew hisorigin! Upon these interjections, placable flicks of the lionly tailaddressed to Britannia the Ruler, who expected him in some mildish wayto lash terga cauda in retiring, Sir Willoughby Patterne passed from aland of alien manners; and ever after he spoke of America respectfullyand pensively, with a tail tucked in, as it were. His travels wereprofitable to himself. The fact is, that there are cousins who come togreatness and must be pacified, or they will prove annoying. Heavenforefend a collision between cousins!

  Willoughby returned to his England after an absence of three years. Ona fair April morning, the last of the month, he drove along his parkpalings, and, by the luck of things, Laetitia was the first of hisfriends whom he met. She was crossing from field to field with a bandof school-children, gathering wild flowers for the morrow May-day. Hesprang to the ground and seized her hand. "Laetitia Dale!" he said. Hepanted. "Your name is sweet English music! And you are well?" Theanxious question permitted him to read deeply in her eyes. He found theman he sought there, squeezed him passionately, and let her go, saying:"I could not have prayed for a lovelier home-scene to welcome me thanyou and these children flower-gathering. I don't believe in chance. Itwas decreed that we should meet. Do not you think so?"

  Laetitia breathed faintly of her gladness.

  He begged her to distribute a gold coin among the little ones; askedfor the names of some of them, and repeated: "Mary, Susan,Charlotte--only the Christian names, pray! Well, my dears, you willbring your garlands to the Hall to-morrow morning; and mind, early! noslugabeds tomorrow; I suppose I am browned, Laetitia?" He smiled inapology for the foreign sun, and murmured with rapture: "The green ofthis English country is unsurpassed. It is wonderful. Leave Englandand be baked, if you would appreciate it. You can't, unless you tasteexile as I have done--for how many years? How many?"

  "Three," said Laetitia.

  "Thirty!" said he. "It seems to me that length. At least, I amimmensely older. But looking at you, I could think it less than three.You have not changed. You are absolutely unchanged. I am bound to hopeso. I shall see you soon. I have much to talk of, much to tell you. Ishall hasten to call on your father. I have specially to speak withhim. I--what happiness this is, Laetitia! But I must not forget I havea mother. Adieu; for some hours--not for many!"

  He pressed her hand again. He was gone.

  She dismissed the children to their homes. Plucking primroses was hardlabour now--a dusty business. She could have wished that her planet hadnot descended to earth, his presence agitated her so; but hisenthusiastic patriotism was like a shower that, in the Spring season ofthe year, sweeps against the hard-binding East and melts the air andbrings out new colours, makes life flow; and her thoughts recurred inwonderment to the behaviour of Constantia Durham. That was Laetitia'smanner of taking up her weakness once more. She could almost havereviled the woman who had given this beneficent magician, this patheticexile, of the aristocratic sunburned visage and deeply scrutinizingeyes, cause for grief. How deeply his eyes could read! The starvelingof patience awoke to the idea of a feast. The sense of hunger came withit, and hope came, and patience fled. She would have rejected hope tokeep patience nigh her; but surely it can not always be Winter! sa
idher reasoning blood, and we must excuse her as best we can if she wasassured, by her restored warmth that Willoughby came in the order ofthe revolving seasons, marking a long Winter past. He had specially tospeak with her father, he had said. What could that mean? What,but--She dared not phrase it or view it.

  At their next meeting she was "Miss Dale".

  A week later he was closeted with her father.

  Mr. Dale, in the evening of that pregnant day, eulogized Sir Willoughbyas a landlord. A new lease of the cottage was to be granted him on theold terms, he said. Except that Sir Willoughby had congratulated him inthe possession of an excellent daughter, their interview was one oflandlord and tenant, it appeared; and Laetitia said, "So we shall nothave to leave the cottage?" in a tone of satisfaction, while shequietly gave a wrench to the neck of the young hope in her breast. Atnight her diary received the line: "This day I was a fool. To-morrow?"

  To-morrow and many days afterwards there were dashes instead of words.

  Patience travelled back to her sullenly. As we must have some kind offood, and she had nothing else, she took to that and found it dryerthan of yore. It is a composing but a lean dietary. The dead arepatient, and we get a certain likeness to them in feeding on itunintermittingly overlong. Her hollowed cheeks with the fallen leaf inthem pleaded against herself to justify her idol for not looking downon one like her. She saw him when he was at the Hall. He did notnotice any change. He was exceedingly gentle and courteous. More thanonce she discovered his eyes dwelling on her, and then he lookedhurriedly at his mother, and Laetitia had to shut her mind fromthinking, lest thinking should be a sin and hope a guilty spectre. Buthad his mother objected to her? She could not avoid asking herself. Histour of the globe had been undertaken at his mother's desire; she wasan ambitious lady, in failing health; and she wished to have him livingwith her at Patterne, yet seemed to agree that he did wisely to residein London.

  One day Sir Willoughby, in the quiet manner which was his humour,informed her that he had become a country gentleman; he had abandonedLondon, he loathed it as the burial-place of the individual man. Heintended to sit down on his estates and have his cousin Vernon Whitfordto assist him in managing them, he said; and very amusing was hisdescription of his cousin's shifts to live by literature, and addenough to a beggarly income to get his usual two months of the year inthe Alps. Previous to his great tour, Willoughby had spoken of Vernon'sjudgement with derision; nor was it entirely unknown that Vernon hadoffended his family pride by some extravagant act. But after theirreturn he acknowledged Vernon's talents, and seemed unable to dowithout him.

  The new arrangement gave Laetitia a companion for her walks.Pedestrianism was a sour business to Willoughby, whose exclamation ofthe word indicated a willingness for any amount of exercise onhorseback; but she had no horse, and so, while he hunted, Laetitia andVernon walked, and the neighbourhood speculated on the circumstances,until the ladies Eleanor and Isabel Patterne engaged her morefrequently for carriage exercise, and Sir Willoughby was observedriding beside them.

  A real and sunny pleasure befell Laetitia in the establishment of youngCrossjay Patterne under her roof; the son of the lieutenant, nowcaptain, of Marines; a boy of twelve with the sprights of twelve boysin him, for whose board and lodgement Vernon provided by arrangementwith her father. Vernon was one of your men that have no occupation fortheir money, no bills to pay for repair of their property, and areinsane to spend. He had heard of Captain Patterne's large family, andproposed to have his eldest boy at the Hall, to teach him; butWilloughby declined to house the son of such a father, predicting thatthe boy's hair would be red, his skin eruptive, and his practicesdetestable. So Vernon, having obtained Mr. Dale's consent toaccommodate this youth, stalked off to Devonport, and brought back arosy-cheeked, round-bodied rogue of a boy, who fell upon meats andpuddings, and defeated them, with a captivating simplicity in hisconfession that he had never had enough to eat in his life. He had gonethrough a training for a plentiful table. At first, after a number ofhelps, young Crossjay would sit and sigh heavily, in contemplation ofthe unfinished dish. Subsequently, he told his host and hostess that hehad two sisters above his own age, and three brothers and two sistersyounger than he: "All hungry!" said die boy.

  His pathos was most comical. It was a good month before he could seepudding taken away from table without a sigh of regret that he couldnot finish it as deputy for the Devonport household. The pranks of thelittle fellow, and his revel in a country life, and muddy wildness init, amused Laetitia from morning to night. She, when she had caughthim, taught him in the morning; Vernon, favoured by the chase, in theafternoon. Young Crossjay would have enlivened any household. He wasnot only indolent, he was opposed to the acquisition of knowledgethrough the medium of books, and would say: "But I don't want to!" in atone to make a logician thoughtful. Nature was very strong in him. Hehad, on each return of the hour for instruction, to be plucked out ofthe earth, rank of the soil, like a root, for the exercise of his biground headpiece on those tyrannous puzzles. But the habits of birds,and the place for their eggs, and the management of rabbits, and thetickling of fish, and poaching joys with combative boys of thedistrict, and how to wheedle a cook for a luncheon for a whole day inthe rain, he soon knew of his great nature. His passion for our navalservice was a means of screwing his attention to lessons after he hadbegun to understand that the desert had to be traversed to attainmidshipman's rank. He boasted ardently of his fighting father, and,chancing to be near the Hall as he was talking to Vernon and Laetitiaof his father, he propounded a question close to his heart, and he putit in these words, following: "My father's the one to lead an army!"when he paused. "I say, Mr. Whitford, Sir Willoughby's kind to me, andgives me crown-pieces, why wouldn't he see my father, and my fathercame here ten miles in the rain to see him, and had to walk ten milesback, and sleep at an inn?"

  The only answer to be given was, that Sir Willoughby could not havebeen at home. "Oh! my father saw him, and Sir Willoughby said he wasnot at home," the boy replied, producing an odd ring in the ear by hisrepetition of "not at home" in the same voice as the apology, plainlyinnocent of malice. Vernon told Laetitia, however, that the boy neverasked an explanation of Sir Willoughby.

  Unlike the horse of the adage, it was easier to compel young Crossjayto drink of the waters of instruction than to get him to the brink. Hisheart was not so antagonistic as his nature, and by degrees, owing to aproper mixture of discipline and cajolery, he imbibed. He was whistlingat the cook's windows after a day of wicked truancy, on an April night,and reported adventures over the supper supplied to him. Laetitiaentered the kitchen with a reproving forefinger. He jumped to kiss her,and went on chattering of a place fifteen miles distant, where he hadseen Sir Willoughby riding with a young lady. The impossibility thatthe boy should have got so far on foot made Laetitia doubtful of hisveracity, until she heard that a gentleman had taken him up on the roadin a gig, and had driven him to a farm to show him strings of birds'eggs and stuffed birds of every English kind, kingfishers, yaffles,black woodpeckers, goat-sucker owls, more mouth than head, with dusty,dark-spotted wings, like moths; all very circumstantial. Still, inspite of his tea at the farm, and ride back by rail at the gentleman'sexpense, the tale seemed fictitious to Laetitia until Crossjay relatedhow that he had stood to salute on the road to the railway, and takenoff his cap to Sir Willoughby, and Sir Willoughby had passed him, notnoticing him, though the young lady did, and looked back and nodded.The hue of truth was in that picture.

  Strange eclipse, when the hue of truth comes shadowing over our brightideal planet. It will not seem the planet's fault, but truth's. Realityis the offender; delusion our treasure that we are robbed of. Thenbegins with us the term of wilful delusion, and its necessaryaccompaniment of the disgust of reality; exhausting the heart much morethan patient endurance of starvation.

  Hints were dropping about the neighbourhood; the hedgeways twittered,the tree-tops cawed. Mrs. Mountstuart Jenkinson was loud on thesubject: "Patterne is to have a mi
stress at last, you say? But therenever was a doubt of his marrying--he must marry; and, so long as hedoes not marry a foreign woman, we have no cause to complain. He mether at Cherriton. Both were struck at the same moment. Her father is, Ihear, some sort of learned man; money; no land. No house either, Ibelieve. People who spend half their time on the Continent. They arenow for a year at Upton Park. The very girl to settle down andentertain when she does think of settling. Eighteen, perfect manners;you need not ask if a beauty. Sir Willoughby will have his dues. Wemust teach her to make amends to him--but don't listen to Lady Busshe!He was too young at twenty-three or twenty-four. No young man is everjilted; he is allowed to escape. A young man married is a fire-eaterbound over to keep the peace; if he keeps it he worries it. Atthirty-one or thirty-two he is ripe for his command, because he knowshow to bend. And Sir Willoughby is a splendid creature, only wanting awife to complete him. For a man like that to go on running about wouldnever do. Soberly--no! It would soon be getting ridiculous. He has beenno worse than other men, probably better--infinitely more excusable;but now we have him, and it was time we should. I shall see her andstudy her, sharply, you may be sure; though I fancy I can rely on hisjudgement."

  In confirmation of the swelling buzz, the Rev. Dr. Middleton and hisdaughter paid a flying visit to the Hall, where they were seen only bythe members of the Patterne family. Young Crossjay had a shortconversation with Miss Middleton, and ran to the cottage full ofher--she loved the navy and had a merry face. She had a smile of verypleasant humour according to Vernon. The young lady was outlined toLaetitia as tall, elegant, lively; and painted as carrying youth like aflag. With her smile of "very pleasant humour", she could not but bewinning.

  Vernon spoke more of her father, a scholar of high repute; happily, ascholar of an independent fortune. His maturer recollection of MissMiddleton grew poetic, or he described her in an image to suit a poeticend: "She gives you an idea of the Mountain Echo. Doctor Middleton hasone of the grandest heads in England."

  "What is her Christian name?" said Laetitia.

  He thought her Christian name was Clara.

  Laetitia went to bed and walked through the day conceiving the MountainEcho the swift, wild spirit, Clara by name, sent fleeting on a far halfcircle by the voice it is roused to subserve; sweeter than beautiful,high above drawing-room beauties as the colours of the sky; and if, atthe same time, elegant and of loveable smiling, could a man resist her?To inspire the title of Mountain Echo in any mind, a young lady must besingularly spiritualized. Her father doated on her, Vernon said. Whowould not? It seemed an additional cruelty that the grace of a poeticalattractiveness should be round her, for this was robbing Laetitia ofsome of her own little fortune, mystical though that might be. But aman like Sir Willoughby had claims on poetry, possessing as he didevery manly grace; and to think that Miss Middleton had won him byvirtue of something native to her likewise, though mystically, touchedLaetitia with a faint sense of relationship to the chosen girl. "Whatis in me, he sees on her." It decked her pride to think so, as a wreathon the gravestone. She encouraged her imagination to brood over Clara,and invested her designedly with romantic charms, in spite of pain; theascetic zealot hugs his share of Heaven--most bitter, most blessed--inhis hair-shirt and scourge, and Laetitia's happiness was to glorifyClara. Through that chosen rival, through her comprehension of thespirit of Sir Willoughby's choice of one such as Clara, she was linkedto him yet.

  Her mood of ecstatic fidelity was a dangerous exaltation; one that in adesert will distort the brain, and in the world where the idol dwellswill put him, should he come nigh, to its own furnace-test, and get aclear brain out of a burnt heart. She was frequently at the Hall,helping to nurse Lady Patterne. Sir Willoughby had hitherto treated heras a dear insignificant friend, to whom it was unnecessary that heshould mention the object of his rides to Upton Park.

  He had, however, in the contemplation of what he was gaining, falleninto anxiety about what he might be losing. She belonged to hisbrilliant youth; her devotion was the bride of his youth; he was a manwho lived backward almost as intensely as in the present; and,notwithstanding Laetitia's praiseworthy zeal in attending on hismother, he suspected some unfaithfulness: hardly without cause: she hadnot looked paler of late; her eyes had not reproached him; the secretof the old days between them had been as little concealed as it wasexposed. She might have buried it, after the way of woman, whose bosomscan be tombs, if we and the world allow them to be; absolutelysepulchres, where you lie dead, ghastly. Even if not dead and horribleto think of, you may be lying cold, somewhere in a corner. Even ifembalmed, you may not be much visited. And how is the world to know youare embalmed? You are no better than a rotting wretch to the worldthat does not have peeps of you in the woman's breast, and see lightsburning and an occasional exhibition of the services of worship. Thereare women--tell us not of her of Ephesus!--that have embalmed you, andhave quitted the world to keep the tapers alight, and a stranger comes,and they, who have your image before them, will suddenly blow out thevestal flames and treat you as dust to fatten the garden of theirbosoms for a fresh flower of love. Sir Willoughby knew it; he hadexperience of it in the form of the stranger; and he knew thestranger's feelings toward his predecessor and the lady.

  He waylaid Laetitia, to talk of himself and his plans: the project of arun to Italy. Enviable? Yes, but in England you live the higher morallife. Italy boasts of sensual beauty; the spiritual is yours. "I knowItaly well; I have often wished to act as a cicerone to you there. Asit is, I suppose I shall be with those who know the land as well as Ido, and will not be particularly enthusiastic:--if you are what youwere?" He was guilty of this perplexing twist from one person toanother in a sentence more than once. While he talked exclusively ofhimself it seemed to her a condescension. In time he talked principallyof her, beginning with her admirable care of his mother; and he wishedto introduce "a Miss Middleton" to her; he wanted her opinion of MissMiddleton; he relied on her intuition of character, had never known iterr.

  "If I supposed it could err, Miss Dale, I should not be so certain ofmyself. I am bound up in my good opinion of you, you see; and you mustcontinue the same, or where shall I be?" Thus he was led to dwell uponfriendship, and the charm of the friendship of men and women,"Platonism", as it was called. "I have laughed at it in the world, butnot in the depth of my heart. The world's platonic attachments arelaughable enough. You have taught me that the ideal of friendship ispossible--when we find two who are capable of a disinterested esteem.The rest of life is duty; duty to parents, duty to country. Butfriendship is the holiday of those who can be friends. Wives areplentiful, friends are rare. I know how rare!"

  Laetitia swallowed her thoughts as they sprang up. Why was he torturingher?--to give himself a holiday? She could bear to lose him--she wasused to it--and bear his indifference, but not that he should disfigurehimself; it made her poor. It was as if he required an oath of her whenhe said: "Italy! But I shall never see a day in Italy to compare withthe day of my return to England, or know a pleasure so exquisite asyour welcome of me. Will you be true to that? May I look forward tojust another such meeting?"

  He pressed her for an answer. She gave the best she could. He wasdissatisfied, and to her hearing it was hardly in the tone of manlinessthat he entreated her to reassure him; he womanized his language. Shehad to say: "I am afraid I can not undertake to make it an appointment,Sir Willoughby," before he recovered his alertness, which he did, forhe was anything but obtuse, with the reply, "You would keep it if youpromised, and freeze at your post. So, as accidents happen, we mustleave it to fate. The will's the thing. You know my detestation ofchanges. At least I have you for my tenant, and wherever I am, I seeyour light at the end of my park."

  "Neither my father nor I would willingly quit Ivy Cottage," saidLaetitia.

  "So far, then," he murmured. "You will give me a long notice, and itmust be with my consent if you think of quitting?"

  "I could almost engage to do that," she said.

  "You love
the place?"

  "Yes; I am the most contented of cottagers."

  "I believe, Miss Dale, it would be well for my happiness were I acottager."

  "That is the dream of the palace. But to be one, and not to wish to beother, is quiet sleep in comparison."

  "You paint a cottage in colours that tempt one to run from big housesand households."

  "You would run back to them faster, Sir Willoughby."

  "You may know me," said he, bowing and passing on contentedly. Hestopped. "But I am not ambitious."

  "Perhaps you are too proud for ambition, Sir Willoughby."

  "You hit me to the life!"

  He passed on regretfully. Clara Middleton did not study and know himlike Laetitia Dale.

  Laetitia was left to think it pleased him to play at cat and mouse.She had not "hit him to the life", or she would have marvelled inacknowledging how sincere he was.

  At her next sitting by the bedside of Lady Patterne she received acertain measure of insight that might have helped her to fathom him, ifonly she could have kept her feelings down.

  The old lady was affectionately confidential in talking of her onesubject, her son. "And here is another dashing girl, my dear; she hasmoney and health and beauty; and so has he; and it appears a fortunateunion; I hope and pray it may be; but we begin to read the world whenour eyes grow dim, because we read the plain lines, and I ask myselfwhether money and health and beauty on both sides have not been themutual attraction. We tried it before; and that girl Durham was honest,whatever we may call her. I should have desired an appreciativethoughtful partner for him, a woman of mind, with another sort ofwealth and beauty. She was honest, she ran away in time; there was aworse thing possible than that. And now we have the same chapter, andthe same kind of person, who may not be quite as honest; and I shallnot see the end of it. Promise me you will always be good to him; bemy son's friend; his Egeria, he names you. Be what you were to him whenthat girl broke his heart, and no one, not even his mother, was allowedto see that he suffered anything. Comfort him in his sensitiveness.Willoughby has the most entire faith in you. Were that destroyed--Ishudder! You are, he says, and he has often said, his image of theconstant woman."

  Laetitia's hearing took in no more. She repeated to herself for days:"His image of the constant woman!" Now, when he was a second timeforsaking her, his praise of her constancy wore the painfulludicrousness of the look of a whimper on the face.