‘If I lived here,’ I said, ‘I think I should hardly need to go away, even to the Lake of Como.’
‘You might perhaps get tired of it. And then the Lake of Como! If I could only go abroad again!’
‘You have been but once?’
‘Only once. Three years ago my brother took me to Switzerland. We thought it extremely beautiful. Except for this journey, I have always lived here. Here I was born. It’s a dear old place, indeed, and I know it well. Sometimes I fancy I’m a little tired.’ And on my asking her how she spent her time and what society she saw, ‘It’s extremely quiet,’ she went on, proceeding by short steps and simple statements, in the manner of a person summoned for the first time to define her situation and enumerate the elements of her life. ‘We see very few people. I don’t think there are many nice people hereabouts. At least we don’t know them. Our own family is very small. My brother cares for little else but riding and books. He had a great sorrow ten years ago. He lost his wife and his only son, a dear little boy, who would have succeeded him in the estates. Do you know that I’m likely to have them now? Poor me! Since his loss my brother has preferred to be quite alone. I’m sorry he’s away. But you must wait till he comes back. I expect him in a day or two.’ She talked more and more, with a rambling, earnest vapidity, about her circumstances, her solitude, her bad eyes, so that she couldn’t read, her flowers, her ferns, her dogs, and the curate, recently inducted by her brother and warranted sound orthodox, who had lately begun to light his altar candles; pausing every now and then to blush in self-surprise, and yet moving steadily from point to point in the deepening excitement of temptation and occasion. Of all the old things I had seen in England, this mind of Miss Searle’s seemed to me the oldest, the quaintest, the most ripely verdant; so fenced and protected by convention and precedent and usage; so passive and mild and docile. I felt as if I were talking with a potential heroine of Miss Burney. As she talked, she rested her dull, kind eyes upon her kinsman with a sort of fascinated stare. At last, ‘Did you mean to go away,’ she demanded, ‘without asking for us?’
‘I had thought it over, Miss Searle, and had determined not to trouble you. You have shown me how unfriendly I should have been.’
‘But you knew of the place being ours and of our relationship?’
‘Just so. It was because of these things that I came down here – because of them, almost, that I came to England. I have always liked to think of them.’
‘You merely wished to look, then? We don’t pretend to be much to look at.’
‘You don’t know what you are, Miss Searle,’ said my friend, gravely.
‘You like the old place, then?’
Searle looked at her in silence. ‘If I could only tell you,’ he said at last.
‘Do tell me! You must come and stay with us.’
Searle began to laugh. ‘Take care, take care,’ he cried. ‘I should surprise you. At least I should bore you. I should never leave you.’
‘O, you’d get homesick for America!’
At this Searle laughed the more. ‘By the way,’ he cried to me, ‘tell Miss Searle about America!’ And he stepped through the window out upon the terrace, followed by two beautiful dogs, a pointer and a young stag-hound, who from the moment we came in had established the fondest relation with him. Miss Searle looked at him as he went, with a certain tender wonder in her eye. I read in her glance, me-thought, that she was interested. I suddenly recalled the last words I had heard spoken by my friend’s adviser in London: ‘Instead of dying you’d better marry.’ If Miss Searle could be gently manipulated. O for a certain divine tact! Something assured me that her heart was virgin soil; that sentiment had never bloomed there. If I could but sow the seed! There lurked within her the perfect image of one of the patient wives of old.
‘He has lost his heart to England,’ I said. ‘He ought to have been born here.’
‘And yet,’ said Miss Searle, ‘he’s not in the least an Englishman.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘I hardly know how. I never talked with a foreigner before; but he looks and talks as I have fancied foreigners.’
‘Yes, he’s foreign enough!’
‘Is he married?’
‘He’s a widower, – without children.’
‘Has he property?’
‘Very little.’
‘But enough to travel?’
I meditated. ‘He has not expected to travel far,’ I said at last. ‘You know he’s in poor health.’
‘Poor gentleman! So I fancied.’
‘He’s better, though, than he thinks. He came here because he wanted to see your place before he dies.’
‘Poor fellow!’ And I fancied I perceived in her eye the lustre of a rising tear. ‘And he was going off without my seeing him?’
‘He’s a modest man, you see.’
‘He’s very much of a gentleman.’
‘Assuredly!’
At this moment we heard on the terrace a loud, harsh cry. ‘It’s the great peacock!’ said Miss Searle, stepping to the window and passing out. I followed her. Below us on the terrace, leaning on the parapet, stood our friend, with his arm round the neck of the pointer. Before him, on the grand walk, strutted a splendid peacock, with ruffled neck and expanded tail. The other dog had apparently indulged in a momentary attempt to abash the gorgeous fowl; but at Searle’s voice he had bounded back to the terrace and leaped upon the parapet, where he now stood licking his new friend’s face. The scene had a beautiful old-time air; the peacock flaunting in the foreground, like the very genius of antique gardenry; the broad terrace, which flattered an innate taste of mine for all deserted promenades to which people may have adjourned from formal dinners, to drink coffee in old Sèvres, and where the stiff brocade of women’s dresses may have rustled autumnal leaves; and far around us, with one leafy circle melting into another, the timbered acres of the park. ‘The very beasts have made him welcome,’ I said, as we rejoined our companion.
‘The peacock has done for you, Mr Searle,’ said his cousin, ‘what he does only for very great people. A year ago there came here a duchess to see my brother. I don’t think that since then he has spread his tail as wide for any one else by a dozen feathers.’
‘It’s not alone the peacock,’ said Searle. ‘Just now there came slipping across my path a little green lizard, the first I ever saw, the lizard of literature! And if you have a ghost, broad daylight though it be, I expect to see him here. Do you know the annals of your house, Miss Searle?’
‘O dear, no! You must ask my brother for all those things.’
‘You ought to have a book full of legends and traditions. You ought to have loves and murders and mysteries by the roomful. I count upon it.’
‘O Mr Searle! We have always been a very well-behaved family. Nothing out of the way has ever happened, I think.’
‘Nothing out of the way? O horrors! We have done better than that in America. Why, I myself!’ – and he gazed at her a moment with a gleam of malice, and then broke into a laugh. ‘Suppose I should turn out a better Searle than you? Better than you, nursed here in romance and picturesqueness. Come, don’t disappoint me. You have some history among you all, you have some poetry. I have been famished all my days for these things. Do you understand? Ah, you can’t understand! Tell me something! When I think of what must have happened here! when I think of the lovers who must have strolled on this terrace and wandered through those glades! of all the figures and passions and purposes that must have haunted these walls! of the births and deaths, the joys and sufferings, the young hopes and the old regrets, the intense experience –’ And here he faltered a moment, with the increase of his vehemence. The gleam in his eye, which I have called a gleam of malice, had settled into a deep unnatural light. I began to fear he had become over-excited. But he went on with redoubled passion. ‘To see it all evoked before me,’ he cried, ‘if the Devil alone could do it, I’d make a bargain with the Devil! O Miss Searle, I’m a mos
t unhappy man!’
‘O dear, O dear!’ said Miss Searle.
‘Look at that window, that blessed oriel!’ And he pointed to a small, protruding casement above us, relieved against the purple brick-work, framed in chiselled stone, and curtained with ivy.
‘It’s my room,’ said Miss Searle.
‘Of course it’s a woman’s room. Think of the forgotten loveliness which has peeped from that window; think of the old-time women’s lives which have known chiefly that outlook on this bosky world. O gentle cousins! And you, Miss Searle, you’re one of them yet.’ And he marched towards her and took her great white hand. She surrendered it, blushing to her eyes, and pressing her other hand to her breast. ‘You’re a woman of the past. You’re nobly simple. It has been a romance to see you. It doesn’t matter what I say to you. You didn’t know me yesterday, you’ll not know me to-morrow. Let me to-day do a mad, sweet thing. Let me fancy you the soul of all the dead women who have trod these terrace-flags, which lie here like sepulchral tablets in the pavement of a church. Let me say I worship you!’ And he raised her hand to his lips. She gently withdrew it, and for a moment averted her face. Meeting her eyes the next moment, I saw that they were filled with tears. The Belle au Bois Dormant was awake.
There followed an embarrassed pause. An issue was suddenly presented by the appearance of the butler bearing a letter. ‘A telegram, Miss,’ he said.
‘Dear me!’ cried Miss Searle, ‘I can’t open a telegram. Cousin, help me.’
Searle took the missive, opened it, and read aloud: ‘I shall be home to dinner. Keep the American.’
II
‘KEEP the American!’ Miss Searle, in compliance with the injunction conveyed in her brother’s telegram (with something certainly of telegraphic curtness), lost no time in expressing the pleasure it would give her to have my companion remain. ‘Really you must,’ she said; and forthwith repaired to the housekeeper, to give orders for the preparation of a room.
‘How in the world,’ asked Searle, ‘did he know of my being here?’
‘He learned, probably,’ I expounded, ‘from his solicitor of the visit of your friend Simmons. Simmons and the solicitor must have had another interview since your arrival in England. Simmons, for reasons of his own, has communicated to the solicitor your journey to this neighbourhood, and Mr Searle, learning this, has immediately taken for granted that you have formally presented yourself to his sister. He’s hospitably inclined, and he wishes her to do the proper thing by you. More, perhaps! I have my little theory that he is the very Phœnix of usurpers, that his nobler sense has been captivated by the exposition of the men of law, and that he means gracefully to surrender you your fractional interest in the estate.’
‘I give it up!’ said my friend, musing. ‘Come what come will!’
‘You of course,’ said Miss Searle, reappearing and turning to me, ‘are included in my brother’s invitation. I have bespoken your lodging as well. Your luggage shall immediately be sent for.’
It was arranged that I in person should be driven over to our little inn, and that I should return with our effects in time to meet Mr Searle at dinner. On my arrival, several hours later, I was immediately conducted to my room. The servant pointed out to me that it communicated by a door and a private passage with that of my companion. I made my way along this passage, – a low, narrow corridor, with a long latticed casement, through which there streamed, upon a series of grotesquely sculptured oaken closets and cupboards, the lurid animating glow of the western sun, – knocked at his door, and, getting no answer, opened it. In an arm-chair by the open window sat my friend, sleeping, with arms and legs relaxed and head placidly reverted. It was a great relief to find him resting from his rhapsodies, and I watched him for some moments before waking him. There was a faint glow of colour in his cheek and a light parting of his lips, as in a smile; something nearer to mental soundness than I had yet seen in him. It was almost happiness, it was almost health. I laid my hand on his arm and gently shook it. He opened his eyes, gazed at me a moment, vaguely recognised me, then closed them again. ‘Let me dream, let me dream!’ he said.
‘What are you dreaming about?’
A moment passed before his answer came. ‘About a tall woman in a quaint black dress, with yellow hair, and a sweet, sweet smile, and a soft, low, delicious voice! I’m in love with her.’
‘It’s better to see her,’ I said, ‘than to dream about her. Get up and dress, and we shall go down to dinner and meet her.’
‘Dinner – dinner –’ And he gradually opened his eyes again. ‘Yes, upon my word, I shall dine!’
‘You’re a well man!’ I said, as he rose to his feet. ‘You’ll live to bury Mr Simmons.’ He had spent the hours of my absence, he told me, with Miss Searle. They had strolled together over the park and through the gardens and greenhouses. ‘You must already be intimate!’ I said, smiling.
‘She is intimate with me,’ he answered. ‘Heaven knows what rigmarole I’ve treated her to!’ They had parted an hour ago, since when, he believed, her brother had arrived.
The slow-fading twilight still abode in the great drawing-room as we entered it. The housekeeper had told us that this apartment was rarely used, there being a smaller and more convenient one for the same needs. It seemed now, however, to be occupied in my comrade’s honour. At the farther end of it, rising to the roof, like a ducal tomb in a cathedral, was a great chimney-piece of chiselled white marble, yellowed by time, in which a light fire was crackling. Before the fire stood a small short man with his hands behind him; near him stood Miss Searle, so transformed by her dress that at first I scarcely knew her. There was in our entrance and reception something profoundly chilling and solemn. We moved in silence up the long room. Mr Searle advanced slowly a dozen steps to meet us. His sister stood motionless. I was conscious of her masking her visage with a large white tinselled fan, and of her eyes, grave and expanded, watching us intently over the top of it. The master of Lockley Park grasped in silence the proffered hand of his kinsman, and eyed him from head to foot, suppressing, I think, a start of surprise at his resemblance to Sir Joshua’s portrait. ‘This is a happy day!’ he said. And then turning to me with a bow, ‘My cousin’s friend is my friend.’ Miss Searle lowered her fan.
The first thing that struck me in Mr Searle’s appearance was his short and meagre stature, which was less by half a head than that of his sister. The second was the preternatural redness of his hair and beard. They intermingled over his ears and surrounded his head like a huge lurid nimbus. His face was pale and attenuated, like the face of a scholar, a dilettante, a man who lives in a library, bending over books and prints and medals. At a distance it had an oddly innocent and youthful look; but on a nearer view it revealed a number of finely etched and scratched wrinkles, of a singularly aged and cunning effect. It was the complexion of a man of sixty. His nose was arched and delicate, identical almost with the nose of my friend. In harmony with the effect of his hair was that of his eyes, which were large and deep-set, with a sort of vulpine keenness and redness, but full of temper and spirit. Imagine this physiognomy – grave and solemn in aspect, grotesquely solemn, almost, in spite of the bushy brightness in which it was encased – set in motion by a smile which seemed to whisper terribly, ‘I am the smile, the sole and official, the grin to command,’ and you will have an imperfect notion of the remarkable presence of our host; something better worth seeing and knowing, I fancied as I covertly scrutinised him, than anything our excursion had yet introduced us to. Of how thoroughly I had entered into sympathy with my companion and how effectually I had associated my sensibilities with his, I had small suspicion until, within the short five minutes which preceded the announcement of dinner, I distinctly perceived him place himself, morally speaking, on the defensive. To neither of us was Mr Searle, as the Italians would say, sympathetic. I might have fancied from her attitude that Miss Searle apprehended our thoughts. A signal change had been wrought in her since the morning; during the hour,
indeed (as I read in the light of the wondering glance he cast at her), that had elapsed since her parting with her cousin. She had not yet recovered from some great agitation. Her face was pale and her eyes red with weeping. These tragic betrayals gave an unexpected dignity to her aspect, which was further enhanced by the rare picturesqueness of her dress.
Whether it was taste or whether it was accident, I know not; but Miss Searle, as she stood there, half in the cool twilight, half in the arrested glow of the fire as it spent itself in the vastness of its marble cave, was a figure for a cunning painter. She was dressed in the faded splendour of a beautiful tissue of combined and blended silk and crape of a tender sea-green colour, festooned and garnished and puffed into a massive bouillonnement; a piece of millinery which, though it must have witnessed a number of stately dinners, preserved still an air of admirable elegance. Over her white shoulders she wore an ancient web of the most precious and venerable lace, and about her rounded throat a necklace of heavy pearls. I went with her in to dinner, and Mr Searle, following with my friend, took his arm (as the latter afterwards told me) and pretended sportively to conduct him. As dinner proceeded, the feeling grew within me that a drama had begun to be played in which the three persons before me were actors, each of a most exacting part. The part of my friend, however, seemed the most heavily charged, and I was filled with a strong desire that he should acquit himself with honour. I seemed to see him summon his shadowy faculties to obey his shadowy will. The poor fellow sat playing solemnly at self-esteem. With Miss Searle, credulous, passive, and pitying, he had finally flung aside all vanity and propriety, and shown her the bottom of his fantastic heart. But with our host there might be no talking of nonsense nor taking of liberties; there and then, if ever, sat a double-distilled conservative, breathing the fumes of hereditary privilege and security. For an hour, then, I saw my poor friend turn faithfully about to speak graciously of barren things. He was to prove himself a sound American, so that his relish of this elder world might seem purely disinterested. What his kinsman had expected to find him, I know not; but, with all his finely adjusted urbanity, he was unable to repress a shade of annoyance at finding him likely to speak graciously at all. Mr Searle was not the man to show his hand, but I think his best card had been a certain implicit confidence that this exotic parasite would hardly have good manners. Our host, with great decency, led the conversation to America, talking of it rather as if it were some fabled planet, alien to the British orbit, lately proclaimed indeed to have the proportion of atmospheric gases required to support animal life, but not, save under cover of a liberal afterthought, to be admitted into one’s regular conception of things. I, for my part, felt nothing but regret that the spheric smoothness of his universe should be strained to cracking by the intrusion of our square shoulders.