George Meredith
The Ordeal of Richard Feverel. Complete
CHAPTER IX
In build of body, gait and stature, Giles Jinkson, the Bantam, was a tolerably fair representative of the Punic elephant, whose part, with diverse anticipations, the generals of the Blaize and Feverel forces, from opposing ranks, expected him to play. Giles, surnamed the Bantam, on account of some forgotten sally of his youth or infancy, moved and looked elephantine. It sufficed that Giles was well fed to assure that Giles was faithful—if uncorrupted. The farm which supplied to him ungrudging provender had all his vast capacity for work in willing exercise: the farmer who held the farm his instinct reverenced as the fountain source of beef and bacon, to say nothing of beer, which was plentiful at Belthorpe, and good. This Farmer Blaize well knew, and he reckoned consequently that here was an animal always to be relied on—a sort of human composition out of dog, horse, and bull, a cut above each of these quadrupeds in usefulness, and costing proportionately more, but on the whole worth the money, and therefore invaluable, as everything worth its money must be to a wise man. When the stealing of grain had been made known at Belthorpe, the Bantam, a fellow-thresher with Tom Bakewell, had shared with him the shadow of the guilt. Farmer Blaize, if he hesitated which to suspect, did not debate a second as to which he would discard; and, when the Bantam said he had seen Tom secreting pilkins in a sack, Farmer Blaize chose to believe him, and off went poor Tom, told to rejoice in the clemency that spared his appearance at Sessions.
The Bantam’s small sleepy orbits saw many things, and just at the right moment, it seemed. He was certainly the first to give the clue at Belthorpe on the night of the conflagration, and he may, therefore, have seen poor Tom retreating stealthily from the scene, as he averred he did. Lobourne had its say on the subject. Rustic Lobourne hinted broadly at a young woman in the case, and, moreover, told a tale of how these fellow-threshers had, in noble rivalry, one day turned upon each other to see which of the two threshed the best; whereof the Bantam still bore marks, and malice, it was said. However, there he stood, and tugged his forelocks to the company, and if Truth really had concealed herself in him she must have been hard set to find her unlikeliest hiding-place.
“Now,” said the farmer, marshalling forth his elephant with the confidence of one who delivers his ace of trumps, “tell this young gentleman what ye saw on the night of the fire, Bantam!”
The Bantam jerked a bit of a bow to his patron, and then swung round, fully obscuring him from Richard.
Richard fixed his eyes on the floor, while the Bantam in rudest Doric commenced his narrative. Knowing what was to come, and thoroughly nerved to confute the main incident, Richard barely listened to his barbarous locution: but when the recital arrived at the point where the Bantam affirmed he had seen “T’m Baak’ll wi’s owen hoies,” Richard faced him, and was amazed to find himself being mutely addressed by a series of intensely significant grimaces, signs, and winks.
“What do you mean? Why are you making those faces at me?” cried the boy indignantly.
Farmer Blaize leaned round the Bantam to have a look at him, and beheld the stolidest mask ever given to man.
“Bain’t makin’ no faces at nobody,” growled the sulky elephant.
The farmer commanded him to face about and finish.
“A see T’m Baak’ll,” the Bantam recommenced, and again the contortions of a horrible wink were directed at Richard. The boy might well believe this churl was lying, and he did, and was emboldened to exclaim—
“You never saw Tom Bakewell set fire to that rick!”
The Bantam swore to it, grimacing an accompaniment.
“I tell you,” said Richard, “I put the lucifers there myself!”
The suborned elephant was staggered. He meant to telegraph to the young gentleman that he was loyal and true to certain gold pieces that had been given him, and that in the right place and at the right time he should prove so. Why was he thus suspected? Why was he not understood?
“A thowt I see ‘un, then,” muttered the Bantam, trying a middle course.
This brought down on him the farmer, who roared, “Thought! Ye thought! What d’ye mean? Speak out, and don’t be thinkin’. Thought? What the devil’s that?”
“How could he see who it was on a pitch-dark night?” Richard put in.
“Thought!” the farmer bellowed louder. “Thought—Devil take ye, when ye took ye oath on’t. Hulloa! What are ye screwin’ yer eye at Mr. Feverel for?—I say, young gentleman, have you spoke to this chap before now?”
“I?” replied Richard. “I have not seen him before.”
Farmer Blaize grasped the two arms of the chair he sat on, and glared his doubts.
“Come,” said he to the Bantam, “speak out, and ha’ done wi’t. Say what ye saw, and none o’ yer thoughts. Damn yer thoughts! Ye saw Tom Bakewell fire that there rick!” The farmer pointed at some musk-pots in the window. “What business ha’ you to be a-thinkin’? You’re a witness? Thinkin’ an’t ev’dence. What’ll ye say to morrow before magistrate! Mind! what you says today, you’ll stick by to-morrow.”
Thus adjured, the Bantam hitched his breech. What on earth the young gentleman meant he was at a loss to speculate. He could not believe that the young gentleman wanted to be transported, but if he had been paid to help that, why, he would. And considering that this day’s evidence rather bound him down to the morrow’s, he determined, after much ploughing and harrowing through obstinate shocks of hair, to be not altogether positive as to the person. It is possible that he became thereby more a mansion of truth than he previously had been; for the night, as he said, was so dark that you could not see your hand before your face; and though, as he expressed it, you might be mortal sure of a man, you could not identify him upon oath, and the party he had taken for Tom Bakewell, and could have sworn to, might have been the young gentleman present, especially as he was ready to swear it upon oath.
So ended the Bantam.
No sooner had he ceased, than Farmer Blaize jumped up from his chair, and made a fine effort to lift him out of the room from the point of his toe. He failed, and sank back groaning with the pain of the exertion and disappointment.
“They’re liars, every one!” he cried. “Liars, perj’rers, bribers, and c’rrupters!—Stop!” to the Bantam, who was slinking away. “You’ve done for yerself already! You swore to it!”
“A din’t!” said the Bantam, doggedly.
“You swore to’t!” the farmer vociferated afresh.
The Bantam played a tune upon the handle of the door, and still affirmed that he did not; a double contradiction at which the farmer absolutely raged in his chair, and was hoarse, as he called out a third time that the Bantam had sworn to it.
“Noa!” said the Bantam, ducking his poll. “Noa!” he repeated in a lower note; and then, while a sombre grin betokening idiotic enjoyment of his profound casuistical quibble worked at his jaw:
“Not up’n o-ath!” he added, with a twitch of the shoulder and an angular jerk of the elbow.
Farmer Blaize looked vacantly at Richard, as if to ask him what he thought of England’s peasantry after the sample they had there. Richard would have preferred not to laugh, but his dignity gave way to his sense of the ludicrous, and he let fly a shout. The farmer was in no laughing mood. He turned a wide eye back to the door, “Lucky for’m,” he exclaimed, seeing the Bantam had vanished, for his fingers itched to break that stubborn head. He grew very puffy, and addressed Richard solemnly:
“Now, look ye here, Mr. Feverel! You’ve been a-tampering with my witness. It’s no use denyin’! I say y’ ‘ave, sir! You, or some of ye. I don’t care about no Feverel! My witness there has been bribed. The Bantam’s been bribed,” and he shivered his pipe with an energetic thump on the table—“bribed! I knows it! I could swear to’t!”—
“Upon oath?” Richard inquired, with a grave face.
“Ay, upon oath!” said the farmer, not observing the impertinence.
“I’d take my Bible oath on’t! He’s been corrupted, my principal witness! Oh! it’s dam cunnin’, but it won’t do the trick. I’ll transport Tom Bakewell, sure as a gun. He shall travel, that man shall. Sorry for you, Mr. Feverel—sorry you haven’t seen how to treat me proper—you, or yours. Money won’t do everything—no! it won’t. It’ll c’rrupt a witness, but it won’t clear a felon. I’d ha’ ‘soused you, sir! You’re a boy and’ll learn better. I asked no more than payment and apology; and that I’d ha’ taken content—always provided my witnesses weren’t tampered with. Now you must stand yer luck, all o’ ye.”
Richard stood up and replied, “Very well, Mr. Blaize.”
“And if,” continued the farmer, “Tom Bakewell don’t drag you into’t after ‘m, why, you’re safe, as I hope ye’ll be, sincere!”
“It was not in consideration of my own safety that I sought this interview with you,” said Richard, head erect.
“Grant ye that,” the farmer responded. “Grant ye that! Yer bold enough, young gentleman—comes of the blood that should be! If y’ had only ha’ spoke trewth!—I believe yer father—believe every word he said. I do wish I could ha’ said as much for Sir Austin’s son and heir.”
“What!” cried Richard, with an astonishment hardly to be feigned, “you have seen my father?”
But Farmer Blaize had now such a scent for lies that he could detect them where they did not exist, and mumbled gruffly,
“Ay, we knows all about that!”
The boy’s perplexity saved him from being irritated. Who could have told his father? An old fear of his father came upon him, and a touch of an old inclination to revolt.
“My father knows of this?” said he, very loudly, and staring, as he spoke, right through the farmer. “Who has played me false? Who would betray me to him? It was Austin! No one knew it but Austin. Yes, and it was Austin who persuaded me to come here and submit to these indignities. Why couldn’t he be open with me? I shall never trust him again!”
“And why not you with me, young gentleman?” said the farmer. “I sh’d trust you if ye had.”
Richard did not see the analogy. He bowed stiffly and bade him good afternoon.
Farmer Blaize pulled the bell. “Company the young gentleman out, Lucy,” he waved to the little damsel in the doorway. “Do the honours. And, Mr. Richard, ye might ha’ made a friend o’ me, sir, and it’s not too late so to do. I’m not cruel, but I hate lies. I whipped my boy Tom, bigger than you, for not bein’ above board, only yesterday,—ay! made ‘un stand within swing o’ this chair, and take’s measure. Now, if ye’ll come down to me, and speak trewth before the trial—if it’s only five minutes before’t; or if Sir Austin, who’s a gentleman, ‘ll say there’s been no tamperin’ with any o’ my witnesses, his word for’t—well and good! I’ll do my best to help off Tom Bakewell. And I’m glad, young gentleman, you’ve got a conscience about a poor man, though he’s a villain. Good afternoon, sir.”
Richard marched hastily out of the room, and through the garden, never so much as deigning a glance at his wistful little guide, who hung at the garden gate to watch him up the lane, wondering a world of fancies about the handsome proud boy.
CHAPTER X
To have determined upon an act something akin to heroism in its way, and to have fulfilled it by lying heartily, and so subverting the whole structure built by good resolution, seems a sad downfall if we forget what human nature, in its green weedy spring, is composed of. Young Richard had quitted his cousin Austin fully resolved to do his penance and drink the bitter cup; and he had drunk it; drained many cups to the dregs; and it was to no purpose. Still they floated before him, brimmed, trebly bitter. Away from Austin’s influence, he was almost the same boy who had slipped the guinea into Tom Bakewell’s hand, and the lucifers into Farmer Blaize’s rick. For good seed is long ripening; a good boy is not made in a minute. Enough that the seed was in him. He chafed on his road to Raynham at the scene he had just endured, and the figure of Belthorpe’s fat tenant burnt like hot copper on the tablet of his brain, insufferably condescending, and, what was worse, in the right. Richard, obscured as his mind’s eye was by wounded pride, saw that clearly, and hated his enemy for it the more.
Heavy Benson’s tongue was knelling dinner as Richard arrived at the Abbey. He hurried up to his room to dress. Accident, or design, had laid the book of Sir Austin’s aphorisms open on the dressing-table. Hastily combing his hair, Richard glanced down and read—
“The Dog returneth to his vomit: the Liar must eat his Lie.”
Underneath was interjected in pencil: “The Devil’s mouthful!”
Young Richard ran downstairs feeling that his father had struck him in the face.
Sir Austin marked the scarlet stain on his son’s cheekbones. He sought the youth’s eye, but Richard would not look, and sat conning his plate, an abject copy of Adrian’s succulent air at that employment. How could he pretend to the relish of an epicure when he was painfully endeavouring to masticate The Devil’s mouthful?
Heavy Benson sat upon the wretched dinner. Hippias usually the silent member, as if awakened by the unnatural stillness, became sprightly, like the goatsucker owl at night and spoke much of his book, his digestion, and his dreams, and was spared both by Algernon and Adrian. One inconsequent dream he related, about fancying himself quite young and rich, and finding himself suddenly in a field cropping razors around him, when, just as he had, by steps dainty as those of a French dancing-master, reached the middle, he to his dismay beheld a path clear of the blood, thirsty steel-crop, which he might have taken at first had he looked narrowly; and there he was.
Hippias’s brethren regarded him with eyes that plainly said they wished he had remained there. Sir Austin, however, drew forth his note-book, and jotted down a reflection. A composer of aphorisms can pluck blossoms even from a razor-prop. Was not Hippias’s dream the very counterpart of Richard’s position? He, had he looked narrowly, might have taken the clear path: he, too, had been making dainty steps till he was surrounded by the grinning blades. And from that text Sir Austin preached to his son when they were alone. Little Clare was still too unwell to be permitted to attend the dessert, and father and son were soon closeted together.
It was a strange meeting. They seemed to have been separated so long. The father took his son’s hand; they sat without a word passing between them. Silence said most. The boy did not understand his father: his father frequently thwarted him: at times he thought his father foolish: but that paternal pressure of his hand was eloquent to him of how warmly he was beloved. He tried once or twice to steal his hand away, conscious it was melting him. The spirit of his pride, and old rebellion, whispered him to be hard, unbending, resolute. Hard he had entered his father’s study: hard he had met his father’s eyes. He could not meet them now. His father sat beside him gently; with a manner that was almost meekness, so he loved this boy. The poor gentleman’s lips moved. He was praying internally to God for him.
By degrees an emotion awoke in the boy’s bosom. Love is that blessed wand which wins the waters from the hardness of the heart. Richard fought against it, for the dignity of old rebellion. The tears would come; hot and struggling over the dams of pride. Shamefully fast they began to fall. He could no longer conceal them, or check the sobs. Sir Austin drew him nearer and nearer, till the beloved head was on his breast.
An hour afterwards, Adrian Harley, Austin Wentworth, and Algernon Feverel were summoned to the baronet’s study.
Adrian came last. There was a style of affable omnipotence about the wise youth as he slung himself into a chair, and made an arch of the points of his fingers, through which to gaze on his blundering kinsmen. Careless as one may be whose sagacity has foreseen, and whose benevolent efforts have forestalled, the point of danger at the threshold, Adrian crossed his legs, and only intruded on their introductory remarks so far as to hum half audibly at intervals,
“Ripton and Richard were two pretty men,”
in parody of the old ballad. Young Richard’s red eyes, and the baronet’s ruffled demeanour, told him that an explanation had taken place, and a reconciliation. That was well. The baronet would now pay cheerfully. Adrian summed and considered these matters, and barely listened when the baronet called attention to what he had to say: which was elaborately to inform all present, what all present very well knew, that a rick had been fired, that his son was implicated as an accessory to the fact, that the perpetrator was now imprisoned, and that Richard’s family were, as it seemed to him, bound in honour to do their utmost to effect the man’s release.
Then the baronet stated that he had himself been down to Belthorpe, his son likewise: and that he had found every disposition in Blaize to meet his wishes.
The lamp which ultimately was sure to be lifted up to illumine the acts of this secretive race began slowly to dispread its rays; and, as statement followed statement, they saw that all had known of the business: that all had been down to Belthorpe: all save the wise youth Adrian, who, with due deference and a sarcastic shrug, objected to the proceeding, as putting them in the hands of the man Blaize. His wisdom shone forth in an oration so persuasive and aphoristic that had it not been based on a plea against honour, it would have made Sir Austin waver. But its basis was expediency, and the baronet had a better aphorism of his own to confute him with.
“Expediency is man’s wisdom, Adrian Harley. Doing right is God’s.”
Adrian curbed his desire to ask Sir Austin whether an attempt to counteract the just working of the law was doing right. The direct application of an aphorism was unpopular at Raynham.
“I am to understand then,” said he, “that Blaize consents not to press the prosecution.”
“Of course he won’t,” Algernon remarked. “Confound him! he’ll have his money, and what does he want besides?”
“These agricultural gentlemen are delicate customers to deal with. However, if he really consents”—
“I have his promise,” said the baronet, fondling his son.
Young Richard looked up to his father, as if he wished to speak. He said nothing, and Sir Austin took it as a mute reply to his caresses; and caressed him the more. Adrian perceived a reserve in the boy’s manner, and as he was not quite satisfied that his chief should suppose him to have been the only idle, and not the most acute and vigilant member of the family, he commenced a cross-examination of him by asking who had last spoken with the tenant of Belthorpe?
“I think I saw him last,” murmured Richard, and relinquished his father’s hand.
Adrian fastened on his prey. “And left him with a distinct and satisfactory assurance of his amicable intentions?”
“No,” said Richard.
“Not?” the Feverels joined in astounded chorus.
Richard sidled away from his father, and repeated a shamefaced “No.”
“Was he hostile?” inquired Adrian, smoothing his palms, and smiling.
“Yes,” the boy confessed.
Here was quite another view of their position. Adrian, generally patient of results, triumphed strongly at having evoked it, and turned upon Austin Wentworth, reproving him for inducing the boy to go down to Belthorpe. Austin looked grieved. He feared that Richard had faded in his good resolve.
“I thought it his duty to go,” he observed.
“It was!” said the baronet, emphatically.
“And you see what comes of it, sir,” Adrian struck in. “These agricultural gentlemen, I repeat, are delicate customers to deal with. For my part I would prefer being in the hands of a policeman. We are decidedly collared by Blaize. What were his words, Ricky? Give it in his own Doric.”
“He said he would transport Tom Bakewell.”
Adrian smoothed his palms, and smiled again. Then they could afford to defy Mr. Blaize, he informed them significantly, and made once more a mysterious allusion to the Punic elephant, bidding his relatives be at peace. They were attaching, in his opinion, too much importance to Richard’s complicity. The man was a fool, and a very extraordinary arsonite, to have an accomplice at all. It was a thing unknown in the annals of rick-burning. But one would be severer than law itself to say that a boy of fourteen had instigated to crime a full-grown man. At that rate the boy was ‘father of the man’ with a vengeance, and one might hear next that ‘the baby was father of the boy.’ They would find common sense a more benevolent ruler than poetical metaphysics.
When he had done, Austin, with his customary directness, asked him what he meant.
“I confess, Adrian,” said the baronet, hearing him expostulate with Austin’s stupidity, “I for one am at a loss. I have heard that this man, Bakewell, chooses voluntarily not to inculpate my son. Seldom have I heard anything that so gratified me. It is a view of innate nobleness in the rustic’s character which many a gentleman might take example from. We are bound to do our utmost for the man.” And, saying that he should pay a second visit to Belthorpe, to inquire into the reasons for the farmer’s sudden exposition of vindictiveness, Sir Austin rose.
Before he left the room, Algernon asked Richard if the farmer had vouchsafed any reasons, and the boy then spoke of the tampering with the witnesses, and the Bantam’s “Not upon oath!” which caused Adrian to choke with laughter. Even the baronet smiled at so cunning a distinction as that involved in swearing a thing, and not swearing it upon oath.
“How little,” he exclaimed, “does one yeoman know another! To elevate a distinction into a difference is the natural action of their minds. I will point that out to Blaize. He shall see that the idea is native born.”
Richard saw his father go forth. Adrian, too, was ill at ease.
“This trotting down to Belthorpe spoils all,” said he. “The affair would pass over to-morrow—Blaize has no witnesses. The old rascal is only standing out for more money.”
“No, he isn’t,” Richard corrected him. “It’s not that. I’m sure he believes his witnesses have been tampered with, as he calls it.”
“What if they have, boy?” Adrian put it boldly. “The ground is cut from under his feet.”
“Blaize told me that if my father would give his word there had been nothing of the sort, he would take it. My father will give his word.”
“Then,” said Adrian, “you had better stop him from going down.”
Austin looked at Adrian keenly, and questioned him whether he thought the farmer was justified in his suspicions. The wise youth was not to be entrapped. He had only been given to understand that the witnesses were tolerably unstable, and, like the Bantam, ready to swear lustily, but not upon the Book. How given to understand, he chose not to explain, but he reiterated that the chief should not be allowed to go down to Belthorpe.
Sir Austin was in the lane leading to the farm when he heard steps of some one running behind him. It was dark, and he shook off the hand that laid hold of his cloak, roughly, not recognizing his son.
“It’s I, sir,” said Richard panting. “Pardon me. You mustn’t go in there.”
“Why not?” said the baronet, putting his arm about him.
“Not now,” continued the boy. “I will tell you all to-night. I must see the farmer myself. It was my fault, sir. I-I lied to him—the Liar must eat his Lie. Oh, forgive me for disgracing you, sir. I did it—I hope I did it to save Tom Bakewell. Let me go in alone, and speak the truth.”
“Go, and I will wait for you here,” said his father.
The wind that bowed the old elms, and shivered the dead leaves in the air, had a voice and a meaning for the baronet during that half-hour’s lonely pacing up and down under the darkness, awaiting his boy’s return. The solemn gladness of his heart gave nature a tongue. Through the desolation flying overhead—the wailing of the Mother of Plenty across the bare-swept land—he caught intelligible signs of the beneficent order of the universe, from a heart newly confirmed in its grasp of the principle of human goodness, as manifested in the dear child who had just left him; confirmed in its belief in the ultimate victory of good within us, without which nature has neither music nor meaning, and is rock, stone, tree, and nothing more.
In the dark, the dead leaves beating on his face, he had a word for his note-book: “There is for the mind but one grasp of happiness: from that uppermost pinnacle of wisdom, whence we see that this world is well designed.”
