The Egoist: A Comedy in Narrative

  CHAPTER XLIX

  LAETITIA AND SIR WILLOUGHBY

  We cannot be abettors of the tribes of imps whose revelry is in thefrailties of our poor human constitution. They have their place andtheir service, and so long as we continue to be what we are now, theywill hang on to us, restlessly plucking at the garments which cover ournakedness, nor ever ceasing to twitch them and strain at them untilthey have stripped us for one of their horrible Walpurgis nights: whenthe laughter heard is of a character to render laughter frightful tothe ears of men throughout the remainder of their days. But if in thesefestival hours under the beam of Hecate they are uncontrollable by theComic Muse, she will not flatter them with her presence during thecourse of their insane and impious hilarities, whereof a descriptionwould out-Brocken Brockens and make Graymalkin and Paddock toointimately our familiars.

  It shall suffice to say that from hour to hour of the midnight to thegrey-eyed morn, assisted at intervals by the ladies Eleanor and Isabel,and by Mr. Dale awakened and re-awakened--hearing the vehemence of hispetitioning outcry to soften her obduracy--Sir Willoughby pursuedLaetitia with solicitations to espouse him, until the inveteracy of hiswooing wore the aspect of the life-long love he raved of aroused to astate of mania. He appeared, he departed, he returned; and all thewhile his imps were about him and upon him, riding him, prompting,driving, inspiring him with outrageous pathos, an eloquence to move anyone but the dead, which its object seemed to be in her torpidattention. He heard them, he talked to them, caressed them; he flungthem off, and ran from them, and stood vanquished for them to mount himagain and swarm on him. There are men thus imp-haunted. Men who,setting their minds upon an object, must have it, breed imps. They arenoted for their singularities, as their converse with the invisible andamazing distractions are called. Willoughby became aware of them thatnight. He said to himself, upon one of his dashes into solitude: Ibelieve I am possessed! And if he did not actually believe it, but onlysuspected it, or framed speech to account for the transformation he hadundergone into a desperately beseeching creature, having lostacquaintance with his habitual personality, the operations of an impishhost had undoubtedly smitten his consciousness.

  He had them in his brain: for while burning with an ardour forLaetitia, that incited him to frantic excesses of language andcomportment, he was aware of shouts of the names of Lady Busshe andMrs. Mountstuart Jenkinson, the which, freezing him as they did, weredirectly the cause of his hurrying to a wilder extravagance and moreheadlong determination to subdue before break of day the woman healmost dreaded to behold by daylight, though he had now passionatelypersuaded himself of his love of her. He could not, he felt, stand inthe daylight without her. She was his morning. She was, he raved, hispredestinated wife. He cried, "Darling!" both to her and to solitude.Every prescription of his ideal of demeanour as an example to his classand country, was abandoned by the enamoured gentleman. He had lostcommand of his countenance. He stooped so far as to kneel, and notgracefully. Nay, it is in the chronicles of the invisible host aroundhim, that in a fit of supplication, upon a cry of "Laetitia!" twicerepeated, he whimpered.

  Let so much suffice. And indeed not without reason do the multitudes ofthe servants of the Muse in this land of social policy avoid scenes ofan inordinate wantonness, which detract from the dignity of our leadersand menace human nature with confusion. Sagacious are they who conductthe individual on broad lines, over familiar tracks, under well-knowncharacteristics. What men will do, and amorously minded men will do,is less the question than what it is politic they should be shown todo.

  The night wore through. Laetitia was bent, but had not yielded. Shehad been obliged to say--and how many times she could not bear torecollect: "I do not love you; I have no love to give"; and issuingfrom such a night to look again upon the face of day, she scarcely feltthat she was alive.

  The contest was renewed by her father with the singing of the birds.Mr. Dale then produced the first serious impression she had received.He spoke of their circumstances, of his being taken from her andleaving her to poverty, in weak health; of the injury done to herhealth by writing for bread; and of the oppressive weight he would berelieved of by her consenting.

  He no longer implored her; he put the case on common ground.

  And he wound up: "Pray do not be ruthless, my girl."

  The practical statement, and this adjuration incongruously to concludeit, harmonized with her disordered understanding, her loss of allsentiment and her desire to be kind. She sighed to herself. "Happily,it is over!"

  Her father was too weak to rise. He fell asleep. She was bound down tothe house for hours; and she walked through her suite, here at thedoors, there at the windows, thinking of Clara's remark "of a centurypassing". She had not wished it, but a light had come on her to showher what she would have supposed a century could not have effected: shesaw the impossible of overnight a possible thing: not desireable, yetpossible, wearing the features of the possible. Happily, she hadresisted too firmly to be again besought.

  Those features of the possible once beheld allured the mind toreconsider them. Wealth gives us the power to do good on earth. Wealthenables us to see the world, the beautiful scenes of the earth.Laetitia had long thirsted both for a dowering money-bag at her girdle,and the wings to fly abroad over lands which had begun to seem fabulousin her starved imagination. Then, moreover, if her sentiment for thisgentleman was gone, it was only a delusion gone; accurate sight andknowledge of him would not make a woman the less helpful mate. That wasthe mate he required: and he could be led. A sentimental attachmentwould have been serviceless to him. Not so the woman allied by a purelyrational bond: and he wanted guiding. Happily, she had told him toomuch of her feeble health and her lovelessness to be reduced to submitto another attack.

  She busied herself in her room, arranging for her departure, so that nominutes might be lost after her father had breakfasted and dressed.

  Clara was her earliest visitor, and each asked the other whether shehad slept, and took the answer from the face presented to her. Therings of Laetitia's eyes were very dark. Clara was her mirror, and shesaid: "A singular object to be persecuted through a night for her hand!I know these two damp dead leaves I wear on my cheeks to remind me ofmidnight vigils. But you have slept well, Clara."

  "I have slept well, and yet I could say I have not slept at all,Laetitia. I was with you, dear, part in dream and part in thought:hoping to find you sensible before I go."

  "Sensible. That is the word for me."

  Laetitia briefly sketched the history of the night; and Clara said,with a manifest sincerity that testified of her gratitude to SirWilloughby: "Could you resist him, so earnest as he is?" Laetitia sawthe human nature, without sourness: and replied, "I hope, Clara, youwill not begin with a large stock of sentiment, for there is nothinglike it for making you hard, matter-of-fact, worldly, calculating."

  The next visitor was Vernon, exceedingly anxious for news of Mr. Dale.Laetitia went into her father's room to obtain it for him. Returning,she found them both with sad visages, and she ventured, in alarm forthem, to ask the cause.

  "It's this," Vernon said: "Willoughby will everlastingly tease that boyto be loved by him. Perhaps, poor fellow, he had an excuse last night.Anyhow, he went into Crossjay's room this morning, woke him up andtalked to him, and set the lad crying, and what with one thing andanother Crossjay got a berry in his throat, as he calls it, and pouredout everything he knew and all he had done. I needn't tell you theconsequence. He has ruined himself here for good, so I must take him."

  Vernon glanced at Clara. "You must indeed," said she. "He is my boy aswell as yours. No chance of pardon?"

  "It's not likely."

  "Laetitia!"

  "What can I do?"

  "Oh! what can you not do?"

  "I do not know."

  "Teach him to forgive!"

  Laetitia's brows were heavy and Clara forbore to torment her.

  She would not descend to the family breakfast-table. Clara would fainhave sta
yed to drink tea with her in her own room, but a last act ofconformity was demanded of the liberated young lady. She promised torun up the moment breakfast was over. Not unnaturally, therefore,Laetitia supposed it to be she to whom she gave admission, half an hourlater, with a glad cry of, "Come in, dear."

  The knock had sounded like Clara's.

  Sir Willoughby entered.

  He stepped forward. He seized her hands. "Dear!" he said.

  "You cannot withdraw that. You call me dear. I am, I must be dear toyou. The word is out, by accident or not, but, by heaven, I have it andI give it up to no one. And love me or not--marry me, and my love willbring it back to you. You have taught me I am not so strong. I musthave you by my side. You have powers I did not credit you with."

  "You are mistaken in me, Sir Willoughby." Laetitia said feebly, outwornas she was.

  "A woman who can resist me by declining to be my wife, through a wholenight of entreaty, has the quality I need for my house, and I willbatter at her ears for months, with as little rest as I had last night,before I surrender my chance of her. But I told you last night I wantyou within the twelve hours. I have staked my pride on it. By noon youare mine: you are introduced to Mrs. Mountstuart as mine, as the ladyof my life and house. And to the world! I shall not let you go."

  "You will not detain me here, Sir Willoughby?"

  "I will detain you. I will use force and guile. I will spare nothing."

  He raved for a term, as he had done overnight.

  On his growing rather breathless, Laetitia said: "You do not ask me forlove?"

  "I do not. I pay you the higher compliment of asking for you, love orno love. My love shall be enough. Reward me or not. I am not used to bedenied."

  "But do you know what you ask for? Do you remember what I told you ofmyself? I am hard, materialistic; I have lost faith in romance, theskeleton is present with me all over life. And my health is not good.I crave for money. I should marry to be rich. I should not worship you.I should be a burden, barely a living one, irresponsive and cold.Conceive such a wife, Sir Willoughby!"

  "It will be you!"

  She tried to recall how this would have sung in her cars long back. Herbosom rose and fell in absolute dejection. Her ammunition of argumentsagainst him had been expended overnight.

  "You are so unforgiving," she said.

  "Is it I who am?"

  "You do not know me."

  "But you are the woman of all the world who knows me, Laetitia."

  "Can you think it better for you to be known?"

  He was about to say other words: he checked them. "I believe I do notknow myself. Anything you will, only give me your hand; give it; trustto me; you shall direct me. If I have faults, help me to obliteratethem."

  "Will you not expect me to regard them as the virtues of meaner men?"

  "You will be my wife!"

  Laetitia broke from him, crying: "Your wife, your critic! Oh, I cannotthink it possible. Send for the ladies. Let them hear me."

  "They are at hand," said Willoughby, opening the door.

  They were in one of the upper rooms anxiously on the watch.

  "Dear ladies," Laetitia said to them, as they entered. "I am going towound you, and I grieve to do it: but rather now than later, if I am tobe your housemate. He asks me for a hand that cannot carry a heart,because mine is dead. I repeat it. I used to think the heart a woman'smarriage portion for her husband. I see now that she may consent, andhe accept her, without one. But it is right that you should know what Iam when I consent. I was once a foolish, romantic girl; now I am asickly woman, all illusions vanished. Privation has made me what anabounding fortune usually makes of others--I am an Egoist. I am notdeceiving you. That is my real character. My girl's view of him hasentirely changed; and I am almost indifferent to the change. I canendeavour to respect him, I cannot venerate."

  "Dear child!" the ladies gently remonstrated.

  Willoughby motioned to them.

  "If we are to live together, and I could very happily live with you,"Laetitia continued to address them, "you must not be ignorant of me.And if you, as I imagine, worship him blindly, I do not know how we areto live together. And never shall you quit this house to make way forme. I have a hard detective eye. I see many faults."

  "Have we not all of us faults, dear child?"

  "Not such as he has; though the excuses of a gentleman nurtured inidolatry may be pleaded. But he should know that they are seen, andseen by her he asks to be his wife, that no misunderstanding may exist,and while it is yet time he may consult his feelings. He worshipshimself."

  "Willoughby?"

  "He is vindictive!"

  "Our Willoughby?"

  "That is not your opinion, ladies. It is firmly mine. Time has taughtit me. So, if you and I are at such variance, how can we live together?It is an impossibility."

  They looked at Willoughby. He nodded imperiously.

  "We have never affirmed that our dear nephew is devoid of faults, ifhe is offended . . . And supposing he claims to be foremost, is it nothis rightful claim, made good by much generosity? Reflect, dearLaetitia. We are your friends too."

  She could not chastise the kind ladies any further.

  "You have always been my good friends."

  "And you have no other charge against him?"

  Laetitia was milder in saying, "He is unpardoning."

  "Name one instance, Laetitia."

  "He has turned Crossjay out of his house, interdicting the poor boyever to enter it again."

  "Crossjay," said Willoughby, "was guilty of a piece of infamoustreachery."

  "Which is the cause of your persecuting me to become your wife!"

  There was a cry of "Persecuting!"

  "No young fellow behaving so basely can come to good," said Willoughby,stained about the face with flecks of redness at the lashings hereceived.

  "Honestly," she retorted. "He told of himself: and he must haveanticipated the punishment he would meet. He should have been studyingwith a master for his profession. He has been kept here in comparativeidleness to be alternately petted and discarded: no one but VernonWhitford, a poor gentleman doomed to struggle for a livelihood byliterature--I know something of that struggle--too much for me!--no onebut Mr. Whitford for his friend."

  "Crossjay is forgiven," said Willoughby.

  "You promise me that?"

  "He shall be packed off to a crammer at once."

  "But my home must be Crossjay's home."

  "You are mistress of my house, Laetitia."

  She hesitated. Her eyelashes grew moist. "You can be generous."

  "He is, dear child!" the ladies cried. "He is. Forget his errors, inhis generosity, as we do."

  "There is that wretched man Flitch."

  "That sot has gone about the county for years to get me a badcharacter," said Willoughby.

  "It would have been generous in you to have offered him another chance.He has children."

  "Nine. And I am responsible for them?"

  "I speak of being generous."

  "Dictate." Willoughby spread out his arms.

  "Surely now you should be satisfied, Laetitia?" said the ladies.

  "Is he?"

  Willoughby perceived Mrs. Mountstuart's carriage coming down theavenue.

  "To the full." He presented his hand.

  She raised hers with the fingers catching back before she ceased tospeak and dropped it:--

  "Ladies. You are witnesses that there is no concealment, there has beenno reserve, on my part. May Heaven grant me kinder eyes than I havenow. I would not have you change your opinion of him; only that youshould see how I read him. For the rest, I vow to do my duty by him.Whatever is of worth in me is at his service. I am very tired. I feel Imust yield or break. This is his wish, and I submit."

  "And I salute my wife," said Willoughby, making her hand his own, andwarming to his possession as he performed the act.

  Mrs. Mountstuart's indecent hurry to be at the Hall before thedeparture of Dr. Mi
ddleton and his daughter, afflicted him with visionsof the physical contrast which would be sharply perceptible to her thismorning of his Laetitia beside Clara.

  But he had the lady with brains! He had: and he was to learn the natureof that possession in the woman who is our wife.