George Meredith
Sandra Belloni (originally Emilia in England). Complete
CHAPTER LVII
By the park-gates that evening, Wilfrid received a letter from the hands of Tracy Runningbrook. It said: “I am not able to see you now. When I tell you that I will see you before I leave England, I insist upon your believing me. I have no head for seeing anybody now. Emilia”—was the simple signature, perused over and over again by this maddened lover, under the flitting gate-lamp, after Tracy had left him. The coldness of Emilia’s name so briefly given, concentrated every fire in his heart. What was it but miserable cowardice, he thought, that prevented him from getting the peace poor Barrett had found? Intolerable anguish weakened his limbs. He flung himself on a wayside bank, grovelling, to rise again calm and quite ready for society, upon the proper application of the clothes-brush. Indeed; he patted his shoulder and elbow to remove the soil of his short contact with earth, and tried a cigar: but the first taste of the smoke sickened his lips. Then he stood for a moment as a man in a new world. This strange sensation of disgust with familiar comforting habits, fixed him in perplexity, till a rushing of wild thoughts and hopes from brain to heart, heart to brain, gave him insight, and he perceived his state, and that for all he held to in our life he was dependent upon another; which is virtually the curse of love.
“And he passed along the road,” adds the Philosopher, “a weaker man, a stronger lover. Not that love should diminish manliness or gains by so doing; but travelling to love by the ways of Sentiment, attaining to the passion bit by bit, does full surely take from us the strength of our nature, as if (which is probable) at every step we paid fee to move forward. Wilfrid had just enough of the coin to pay his footing. He was verily fining himself down. You are tempted to ask what the value of him will be by the time that he turns out pure metal? I reply, something considerable, if by great sacrifice he gets to truth—gets to that oneness of feeling which is the truthful impulse. At last, he will stand high above them that have not suffered. The rejection of his cigar.”
This wages too absurd. At the risk of breaking our partnership for ever, I intervene. My Philosopher’s meaning is plain, and, as usual, good; but not even I, who have less reason to laugh at him than anybody, can gravely accept the juxtaposition of suffering and cigars. And, moreover, there is a little piece of action in store.
Wilfrid had walked half way to Brookfield, when the longing to look upon the Richford chamber-windows stirred so hotly within him that he returned to the gates. He saw Captain Gambier issuing on horseback from under the lamp. The captain remarked that it was a fine night, and prepared to ride off, but Wilfrid requested him to dismount, and his voice had the unmistakeable ring in it by which a man knows that there must be no trifling. The captain leaned forward to look at him before he obeyed the summons, All self-control had abandoned Wilfrid in the rage he felt at Gambier’s having seen Emilia, and the jealous suspicion that she had failed to keep her appointment for the like reason.
“Why do you come here?” he said, hoarsely.
“By Jove! that’s an odd question,” said the captain, at once taking his ground.
“Am I to understand that you’ve been playing with my sister, as you do with every other woman?”
Captain Gambier murmured quietly, “Every other woman?” and smoothed his horse’s neck. “They’re not so easily played with, my dear fellow. You speak like a youngster.”
“I am the only protector of my sister’s reputation,” said Wilfrid, “and, by heaven! if you have cast her over to be the common talk, you shall meet me.”
The captain turned to his horse, saying, “Oh! Well!” Being mounted, he observed: “My dear Pole, you might have sung out all you had to say. Go to your sister, and if she complains of my behaviour, I’ll meet you. Oh, yes! I’ll meet you; I have no objection to excitement. You’re in the hands of an infernally clever woman, who does me the honour to wish to see my blood on the carpet, I believe; but if this is her scheme, it’s not worthy of her ability. She began pretty well. She arranged the preliminaries capitally. Why, look here,” he relinquished his ordinary drawl; “I’ll tell you something, which you may put down in my favour or not—just as you like. That woman did her best to compromise your sister with me on board the yacht. I can’t tell you how, and won’t. Of course, I wouldn’t if I could; but I have sense enough to admire a very charming person, and I did the only honourable thing in my power. It’s your sister, my good fellow, who gave me my dismissal. We had a little common sense conversation—in which she shines. I envy the man that marries her, but she denies me such luck. There! if you want to shoot me for my share in that transaction, I’ll give you your chance: and if you do, my dear Pole, either you must be a tremendous fool, or that woman’s ten times cleverer than I thought. You know where to find me. Good night.”
The captain gave heel to his horse, hearing no more.
Adela confirmed to Wilfrid what Gambier had spoken; and that it was she who had given him his dismissal. She called him by his name, “Augustus,” in a kindly tone, remarking, that Lady Charlotte had persecuted him dreadfully. “Poor Augustus! his entire reputation for evil is owing to her black paint-brush. There is no man so easily ‘hooked,’ as Mrs. Bayruffle would say, as he, though he has but eight hundred a year: barely enough to live on. It would have been cruel of me to keep him, for if he is in love, it’s with Emilia.”
Wilfrid here took upon himself to reproach her for a certain negligence of worldly interests. She laughed and blushed with humorous satisfaction; and, on second thoughts, he changed his opinion, telling her that he wished he could win his freedom as she had done.
“Wilfrid,” she said suddenly, “will you persuade Cornelia not to wear black?”
“Yes, if you wish it,” he replied.
“You will, positively? Then listen, dear. I don’t like the prospect of your alliance with Lady Charlotte.”
Wilfrid could not repress a despondent shrug.
“But you can get released,” she cried; and ultimately counselled him: “Mention the name of Lord Eltham before her once, when you are alone. Watch the result. Only, don’t be clumsy. But I need not tell you that.”
For hours he cudgelled his brains to know why she desired Cornelia not to wear black, and when the light broke in on him he laughed like a jolly youth for an instant. The reason why was in a web so complicated, that, to have divined what hung on Cornelia’s wearing of black, showed a rare sagacity and perception of character on the little lady’s part. As thus:—Sir Twickenham Pryme is the most sensitive of men to ridicule and vulgar tattle: he has continued to visit the house, learning by degrees to prefer me, but still too chivalrous to withdraw his claim to Cornelia, notwithstanding that he has seen indications of her not too absolute devotion towards him:—I have let him become aware that I have broken with Captain Gambier (whose income is eight hundred a year merely), for the sake of a higher attachment: now, since the catastrophe, he can with ease make it appear to the world that I was his choice from the first, seeing that Cornelia will assuredly make no manner of objection:—but, if she, with foolish sentimental persistence, assumes the garb of sorrow, then Sir Twickenham’s ears will tingle; he will retire altogether; he will not dare to place himself in a position which will lend a colour to the gossip, that jilted by one sister, he flew for consolation to the other; jilted, too, for the mere memory of a dead man! an additional insult!
Exquisite intricacy! Wilfrid worked through all the intervolutions, and nearly forgot his wretchedness in admiration of his sister’s mental endowments. He was the more willing to magnify them, inasmuch as he thereby strengthened his hope that liberty would follow the speaking of the talismanic name of Eltham to Lady Charlotte, alone. He had come to look upon her as the real barrier between himself and Emilia.
“I think we have brains,” he said softly, on his pillow, upon a review of the beggared aspect of his family; and he went to sleep with a smile on his face.
CHAPTER LVIII
A sharp breath of air had passed along the dews, and all the young green of the fresh season shone in white jewels. The sky, set with very dim distant stars, was in grey light round a small brilliant moon. Every space of earth lifted clear to her; the woodland listened; and in the bright silence the nightingales sang loud.
Emilia and Tracy Runningbrook were threading their way toward a lane over which great oak branches intervolved; thence under larches all with glittering sleeves, and among spiky brambles, with the purple leaf and the crimson frosted. The frost on the edges of the brown-leaved bracken gave a faint colour. Here and there, intense silver dazzled their eyes. As they advanced amid the icy hush, so hard and instant was the ring of the earth under them, their steps sounded as if expected.
“This night seems made for me!” said Emilia.
Tracy had no knowledge of the object of the expedition. He was her squire simply; had pitched on a sudden into an enamoured condition, and walked beside her, caring little whither he was led, so that she left him not.
They came upon a clearing in the wood where a tournament of knights might have been held. Ranged on two sides were rows of larches, and forward, fit to plume a dais, a clump of tall firs stood with a flowing silver fir to right and left, and the white stems of the birch-tree shining from among them. This fair woodland court had three broad oaks, as for gateways; and the moon was above it. Moss and the frosted brown fern were its flooring.
Emilia said eagerly, “This way,” and ran under one of the oaks. She turned to Tracy following: “There is no doubt of it.” Her hand was lying softly on her throat.
“Your voice?” Tracy divined her.
She nodded, but frowned lovingly at the shout he raised, and he understood that there was haply some plot to be worked out. The open space was quite luminous in the middle of those three deep walls of shadow. Emilia enjoined him to rest where he was, and wait for her on that spot like a faithful sentinel, whatsoever ensued. Coaxing his promise, she entered the square of white light alone. Presently she stood upon a low mound, so that her whole figure was distinct, while the moon made her features visible.
Expectancy sharpened the stillness to Tracy’s ears. A nightingale began the charm. He was answered by another. Many were soon in song, till even the pauses were sweet with them. Tracy had the thought that they were calling for Emilia to commence; that it was nature preluding the divine human voice, weaving her spell for it. He was seized by a thirst to hear the adorable girl, who stood there patiently, with her face lifted soft in moonlight. And then the blood thrilled along his veins, as if one more than mortal had touched him. It seemed to him long before he knew that Emilia’s voice was in the air.
In such a place, at such a time, there is no wizardry like a woman’s voice. Emilia had gained in force and fulness. She sang with a stately fervour, letting the notes flow from her breast, while both her arms hung loose, and not a gesture escaped her. Tracy’s fiery imagination set him throbbing, as to the voice of the verified spirit of the place. He heard nothing but Emilia, and scarce felt that it was she, or that tears were on his eyelids, till her voice sank richly, deep into the bosom of the woods. Then the stillness, like one folding up a precious jewel, seemed to pant audibly.
“She’s not alone!” This was human speech at his elbow, uttered in some stupefied amazement. In an extremity of wrath, Tracy turned about to curse the intruder, and discerned Wilfrid, eagerly bent forward on the other side of the oak by which he leaned. Advancing toward Emilia, two figures were seen. Mr. Pericles in his bearskin was easily to be distinguished. His companion was Laura Tinley. The Greek moved at rapid strides, and coming near upon Emilia, raised his hands as in exclamation. At once he disencumbered his shoulders of the enormous wrapper, held it aloft imperiously, and by main force extinguished Emilia. Laura’s shrill laugh resounded.
“Oh! beastly bathos!” Tracy groaned in his heart. “Here we are down in Avernus in a twinkling!”
There was evidently quick talk going on among the three, after which Emilia, heavily weighted, walked a little apart with Mr. Pericles, who looked lean and lank beside her, and gesticulated in his wildest manner. Tracy glanced about for Wilfrid. The latter was not visible, but, stepping up the bank of sand and moss, appeared a lady in shawl and hat, in whom he recognized Lady Charlotte. He went up to her and saluted.
“Ah! Tracy,” she said. “I saw you leave the drawing room, and expected to find you here. So, the little woman has got her voice again; but why on earth couldn’t she make the display at Richford? It’s very pretty, and I dare say you highly approve of this kind of romantic interlude, Signor Poet, but it strikes me as being rather senseless.”
“But, are you alone? What on earth brings you here?” asked Tracy.
“Oh!” the lady shrugged. “I’ve a guard to the rear. I told her I would come. She said I should hear something to-night, if I did. I fancied naturally the appointment had to do with her voice, and wished to please her. It’s only five minutes from the west-postern of the park. Is she going to sing any more? There’s company apparently. Shall we go and declare ourselves?”
“I’m on duty, and can’t,” replied Tracy, and twisting his body in an ecstasy, added: “Did you hear her?”
Lady Charlotte laughed softly. “You speak as if you had taken a hurt, my dear boy. This sort of scene is dangerous to poets. But, I thought you slighted music.”
“I don’t know whether I’m breathing yet,” Tracy rejoined. “She’s a Goddess to me from this moment. Not like music? Am I a dolt? She would raise me from the dead, if she sang over me. Put me in a boat, and let her sing on, and all may end! I could die into colour, hearing her! That’s the voice they hear in heaven.”
“When they are good, I suppose,” the irreverent lady appended. “What’s that?” And she held her head to listen.
Emilia’s mortal tones were calling Wilfrid’s name. The lady became grave, as with keen eyes she watched the open space, and to a second call Wilfrid presented himself in a leisurely way from under cover of the trees; stepping into the square towards the three, as one equal to all occasions, and specially prepared for this. He was observed to bow to Mr. Pericles, and the two men extended hands, Laura Tinley standing decently away from them.
Lady Charlotte could not contain her mystification. “What does it mean?” she said. “Wilfrid was to be in town at the Ambassador’s to-night! He wrote to me at five o’clock from his Club! Is he insane? Has he lost every sense of self-interest? He can’t have made up his mind to miss his opportunity, when all the introductions are there! Run, like a good creature, Tracy, and see if that is Wilfrid, and come back and tell me; but don’t sag I am here.”
“Desert my post?” Tracy hugged his arms tight together. “Not if I freeze here!”
The doubt in Lady Charlotte’s eyes was transient. She dropped her glass. Visible adieux were being waved between Mr. Pericles and Laura Tinley on the one hand, and Wilfrid and Emilia, on the other. After which, and at a quick pace, manifestly shivering, Mr. Pericles drew Laura into the shadows, and Emilia, clad in the immense bearskin, as with a trailing black barbaric robe, walked toward the oaks. Wilfrid’s head was stooped to a level with Emilia’s, into whose face he was looking obliviously, while the hot words sprang from his lips. They neared the oak, and Emilia slanted her direction, so as to avoid the neighbourhood of the tree. Tracy felt a sudden grasp of his arm. It was momentary, coming simultaneously with a burst of Wilfrid’s voice.
“Do I know what I love, you ask? I love your footprints! Everything you have touched is like fire to me. Emilia! Emilia!”
“Then,” came the clear reply, “you do not love Lady Charlotte?”
“Love her!” he shouted scornfully, and subdued his voice to add: “she has a good heart, and whatever scandal is talked of her and Lord Eltham, she is a well-meaning friend. But, love her! You, you I love!”
“Theatrical business,” Lady Charlotte murmured, and imagined she had expected it when she promised Emilia she would step out into the night air, as possibly she had.
The lady walked straight up to them.
“Well, little one!” she addressed Emilia; “I am glad you have recovered your voice. You play the game of tit-for-tat remarkably well. We will now sheath our battledores. There is my hand.”
The unconquerable aplomb in Lady Charlotte, which Wilfrid always artistically admired, and which always mastered him; the sight of her pale face and courageous eyes; and her choice of the moment to come forward and declare her presence;—all fell upon the furnace of Wilfrid’s heart like a quenching flood. In a stupefaction, he confessed to himself that he could say actually nothing. He could hardly look up.
Emilia turned her eyes from the outstretched hand, to the lady’s face.
“What will it mean?” she said.
“That we are quits, I presume; and that we bear no malice. At any rate, that I relinquish the field. I like a hand that can deal a good stroke. I conceived you to be a mere little romantic person, and correct my mistake. You win the prize, you see.”
“You would have made him an Austrian, and he is now safe from that. I win nothing more,” said Emilia.
When Tracy and Emilia stood alone, he cried out in a rapture of praise, “Now I know what a power you have. You may bid me live or die.”
The recent scene concerned chiefly the actors who had moved onward: it had touched Emilia but lightly, and him not at all. But, while he magnified the glory of her singing, the imperishable note she had sounded this night, and the power and the triumph that would be hers, Emilia’s bosom began to heave, and she checked him with a storm of tears. “Triumph! yes! what is this I have done? Oh, Merthyr, my true hero! He praises me and knows nothing of how false I have been to you. I am a slave! I have sold myself—sold myself!” She dropped her face in her hands, broken with grief. “He fights,” she pursued; “he fights for my country. I feel his blood—it seems to run from my body as it runs from his. Not if he is dying—I dare not go to him if he is dying! I am in chains. I have sworn it for money. See what a different man Merthyr is from any on earth! Would he shoot himself for a woman? Would he grow meaner the more he loved her? My hero! my hero! and Tracy, my friend! what is my grief now? Merthyr is my hero, but I hear him—I hear him speaking it into my ears with his own lips, that I do not love him. And it is true. I never should have sold myself for three weary years away from him, if I had loved him. I know it now it is done. I thought more of my poor friends and Wilfrid, than of Merthyr, who bleeds for my country! And he will not spurn me when we meet. Yes, if he lives, he will come to me gentle as a ghost that has seen God!”
She abandoned herself to weeping. Tracy, in a tender reverence for one who could speak such solemn matter spontaneously, supported her, and felt her tears as a rain of flame on his heart.
The nightingales were mute. Not a sound was heard from bough or brake.
CHAPTER LIX
A wreck from the last Lombard revolt landed upon our shores in June. His right arm was in a sling, and his Italian servant following him, kept close by his side, with a ready hand, as if fearing that at any moment the wounded gentleman’s steps might fail. There was no public war going on just then: for which reason he was eyed suspiciously by the rest of the passengers making their way up the beach; who seemed to entertain an impression that he had no business at such a moment to be crippled, and might be put down as one of those foreign fools who stand out for a trifle as targets to fools a little luckier than themselves. Here, within our salt girdle, flourishes common sense. We cherish life; we abhor bloodshed; we have no sympathy with your juvenile points of honour: we are, in short, a civilized people; and seeing that Success has made us what we are, we advise other nations to succeed, or be quiet. Of all of which the gravely-smiling gentleman appeared well aware; for, with an eye that courted none, and a perfectly calm face, he passed through the crowd, only once availing himself of his brown-faced Beppo’s spontaneously depressed shoulder when a twinge of pain shooting from his torn foot took his strength away. While he remained in sight, some speculation as to his nationality continued: he had been heard to speak nothing but Italian, and yet the flower of English cultivation was signally manifest in his style and bearing. The purchase of that day’s journal, giving information that the Lombard revolt was fully, it was thought finally, crushed out, and the insurgents scattered, hanged, or shot, suggested to a young lady in a group melancholy with luggage, that the wounded gentleman was one who had escaped from the Austrians.
“Only, he is English.”
“If he is, he deserves what he’s got.”
A stout Briton delivered this sentence, and gave in addition a sermon on meddling, short, emphatic, and not uncheerful apparently, if estimated by the hearty laugh that closed it; though a lady remarked, “Oh, dear me! You are very sweeping.”
“By George! ma’am,” cried the Briton, holding out his newspaper, “here’s a leader on the identical subject, with all my views in it! Yes! those Italians are absurd: they never were a people: never agreed. Egad! the only place they’re fit for is the stage. Art! if you like. They know all about colouring canvas, and sculpturing. I don’t deny ‘em their merits, and I don’t mind listening to their squalling, now and then: though, I’ll tell you what: have you ever noticed the calves of those singers?—I mean, the men. Perhaps not—for they’ ve got none. They’re sticks, not legs. Who can think much of fellows with such legs? Now, the next time you go to the Italian Opera, notice ‘em. Ha! ha!—well, that would sound queer, told at secondhand; but, just look at their legs, ma’am, and ask yourself whether there’s much chance for a country that stands on legs like those! Let them paint, and carve blocks, and sing. They’re not fit for much else, as far as I can see.”
Thus, in the pride of his manliness, the male Briton. A shrill cry drew the attention of this group once more to the person who had just kindly furnished a topic. He had been met on his way by a lady unmistakeably foreign in her appearance. “Marini!” was the word of the cry; and the lady stood with her head bent and her hands stiffened rigidly.
“Lost her husband, I dare say!” the Briton murmured. “Perhaps he’s one of the ‘hanged, or shot,’ in the list here Hanged! shot! Ask those Austrians to be merciful, and that’s their reply. Why, good God! it’s like the grunt of a savage beast! Hanged! shot!—count how many for one day’s work! Ten at Verona; fifteen at Mantua; five—there, stop! If we enter into another alliance with those infernal ruffians!—if they’re not branded in the face of Europe as inhuman butchers! if I—by George! if I were an Italian I’d handle a musket myself, and think great guns the finest music going. Mind, if there’s a subscription for the widows of these poor fellows, I put down my name; so shall my wife, so shall my daughters, so we will all, down to the baby!”
Merthyr’s name was shouted first on his return to England by Mrs. Chump. He was waiting on the platform of the London station for the train to take him to Richford, when, “Oh! Mr. Pow’s, Mr. Pow’s!” resounded, and Mrs. Chump fluttered before him. She was on her way to Brookfield, she said; and it was, she added, her firm belief that heaven had sent him to her sad, not deeming “that poor creature, Mr. Braintop, there, sufficient for the purpose. For what I’ve got to go through, among them at Brookfield, Mr. Pow’s, it’s perf’ctly awful. Mr. Braintop,” she turned to the youth, “you may go now. And don’t go takin’ ship and sailin’ for Italy after the little Belloni, for ye haven’t a chance—poor fella! though he combs ‘s hair so careful, Mr. Pow’s, and ye might almost laugh and cry together to see how humble he is, and audacious too—all in a lump. For, when little Belloni was in the ship, ye know, and she thinkin’, ‘not one of my friends near to wave a handkerchief!’ behold, there’s that boy Braintop just as by maguc, and he wavin’ his best, which is a cambric, and a present from myself, and precious wet that night, ye might swear; for the quiet lovers, Mr. Pow’s, they cry, they do, buckutsful!”
“And is Miss Belloni gone?” said Merthyr, looking steadily for answer.
“To be sure, sir, she has; but have ye got a squeak of pain? Oh, dear! it makes my blood creep to see a man who’s been where there’s been firing of shots in a temper. Ye’re vary pale, sir.”
“She went—on what day?” asked Merthyr.
“Oh! I can’t poss’bly tell ye that, Mr. Pow’s, havin’ affairs of my own most urrgent. But, Mr. Paricles has got her at last. That’s certain. Gall’ns of tears has poor Mr. Braintop cried over it, bein’ one of the mew-in-a-corner sort of young men, ye know, what never win the garl, but cry enough to float her and the lucky fella too, and off they go, and he left on the shore.”
Merthyr looked impatiently out of the window. His wounds throbbed and his forehead was moist.
“With Mr. Pericles?” he queried, while Mrs. Chump was giving him the reasons for the immediate visit to Brookfield.
“They’re cap’tal friends again, ye know, Mr. Pow’s, Mr. Paricles and Pole; and Pole’s quite set up, and yesterday mornin’ sends me two thousand pounds—not a penny less! and ye’ll believe me, I was in a stiff gape for five minutes when Mr. Braintop shows the money. What a temptation for the young man! But Pole didn’t know his love for little Belloni.”
“Has she no one with her?” Merthyr seized the opportunity of her name being pronounced to get clear tidings of her, if possible.
“Oh, dear, yes, Mr. Paricles is with her,” returned Mrs. Chump. “And, as I was sayin’, sir, two thousand pounds! I ran off to my lawyer; for, it’ll seem odd to ye, now, Mr. Pow’s, that know my ‘ffection for the Poles, poor dears, I’d an action against ‘em. ‘Stop ut,’ I cries out to the man: if he’d been one o’ them that wears a wig, I couldn’t ha’ spoken so—‘Stop ut,’ I cries, not a bit afraid of ‘m. I wouldn’t let the man go on, for all I want to know is, that I’m not rrooned. And now I’ve got money, I must have friends; for when I hadn’t, ye know, my friends seemed against me, and now I have, it’s the world that does, where’ll I hide it? Oh, dear! now I’m with you, I don’t mind, though this brown-faced forr’ner servant of yours, he gives me shivers. Can he understand English?—becas I’ve got ut all in my pockut!”
Merthyr sighed wearily for release. At last the train slackened speed, and the well-known fir-country appeared in sight. Mrs. Chump caught him by the arm as he prepared to alight. “Oh! and are ye goin’ to let me face the Poles without anyone to lean on in that awful moment, and no one to bear witness how kind I’ve spoken of ‘em. Mr. Pow’s! will ye prove that you’re a blessed angel, sir, and come, just for five minutes—which is a short time to do a thing for a woman she’ll never forget.”
“Pray spare me, madam,” Merthyr pleaded. “I have much to learn at Richford.”
“I cann’t spare ye, sir,” cried Mrs. Chump. “I cann’t go before that fam’ly quite alone. They’re a tarr’ble fam’ly. Oh! I’ll be goin’ on my knees to ye, Mr. Pow’s. Weren’t ye sent by heaven now? And you to run away! And if you’re woundud, won’t I have a carr’ge from the station, which’ll be grander to go in, and impose on ‘em, ye know. Pray, sir! I entreat ye!”
The tears burst from her eyes, and her hot hand clung to his imploringly.
Merthyr was a witness of the return of Mrs. Chump to Brookfield. In that erewhile abode of Fine Shades, the Nice Feelings had foundered. The circle of a year, beginning so fairly for them, enfolded the ladies and their first great scheme of life. Emilia had been a touchstone to this family. They could not know it in their deep affliction, but in manger they had much improved. Their welcome of Mrs. Chump was an admirable seasoning of stateliness with kindness. Cornelia and Arabella took her hand, listening with an incomparable soft smile to her first protestations, which they quieted, and then led her to Mr. Pole; of whom it may be said, that an accomplished coquette could not in his situation have behaved with a finer skill; so that, albeit received back into the house, Mrs. Chump had yet to discover what her footing there was to be, and trembled like the meanest of culprits. Mr. Pole shook her hand warmly, tenderly, almost tearfully, and said to the melted woman: “You’re right, Martha; it’s much better for us to examine accounts in a friendly way, than to have strangers and lawyers, and what not—people who can’t possibly know the whole history, don’t you see—meddling and making a scandal; and I’m much obliged to you for coming.”
Vainly Mrs. Chump employed alternately innuendo and outcry to make him perceive that her coming involved a softer business, and that to money, she having it now, she gave not a thought. He assured her that in future she must; that such was his express desire; that it was her duty to herself and others. And while saying this, which seemed to indicate that widowhood would be her state as far as he was concerned, he pressed her hand with extreme sweetness, and his bird’s-eyes twinkled obligingly. It is to be feared that Mr. Pole had passed the age of improvement, save in his peculiar art. After a time Nature stops, and says to us ‘thou art now what thou wilt be.’
