The Ordeal of Richard Feverel Part 62

Sir Austin had really gone down to Wales to be out of the way. A Shaddock-Dogmatist does not meet misfortune without hearing of it, and the author of THE PILGRIM'S SCRIP in trouble found London too hot for him. He quitted London to take refuge among the mountains; living there in solitary commune with a virgin Note-book.

Some indefinite scheme was in his head in this treatment of his son.

Had he construed it, it would have looked ugly; and it settled to a vague principle that the young man should be tried and tested.

"Let him learn to deny himself something. Let him live with his equals for a term. If he loves me he will read my wishes." Thus he explained his principle to Lady Blandish.

The lady wrote: "You speak of a term. Till when? May I name one to him? It is the dreadful _uncertainty_ that reduces him to despair.

That, and nothing else. Pray be explicit."

In return, he distantly indicated Richard's majority.

How could Lady Blandish go and ask the young man to wait a year away from his wife? Her instinct began to open a wide eye on the idol she wors.h.i.+pped.

When people do not themselves know what they mean, they succeed in deceiving and imposing upon others. Not only was Lady Blandish mystified; Mrs. Doria, who pierced into the recesses of everybody's mind, and had always been in the habit of reading off her brother from infancy, and had never known herself to be once wrong about him, she confessed she was quite at a loss to comprehend Austin's principle. "For principle he has," said Mrs. Doria; "he never acts without one. But what it is, I cannot at present perceive. If he would write, and command the boy to await his return, all would be clear. He allows us to go and fetch him, and then leaves us all in a quandary. It must be some woman's influence. That is the only way to account for it."

"Singular!" interjected Adrian, "what pride women have in their s.e.x!

Well, I have to tell you, my dear aunt, that the day after to-morrow I hand my charge over to your keeping. I can't hold him in an hour longer. I've had to leash him with lies till my invention's exhausted. I pet.i.tion to have them put down to the chief's account, but when the stream runs dry I can do no more. The last was, that I had heard from him desiring me to have the South-west bedroom ready for him on Tuesday proximate. 'So!' says my son, 'I'll wait till then,' and from the gigantic effort he exhibited in coming to it, I doubt any human power's getting him to wait longer."

"We must, we must detain him," said Mrs. Doria. "If we do not, I am convinced Austin will do something rash that he will for ever repent. He will marry that woman, Adrian. Mark my words. Now with any other young man!... But Richard's education! that ridiculous System!... Has he no distraction? nothing to amuse him?"

"Poor boy! I suppose he wants his own particular playfellow."

The wise youth had to bow to a reproof.

"I tell you, Adrian, he will marry that woman."

"My dear aunt! Can a chaste man do aught more commendable?"

"Has the boy no object we can induce him to follow?--If he had but a profession!"

"What say you to the regeneration of the streets of London, and the profession of moral-scavenger, aunt? I a.s.sure you I have served a month's apprentices.h.i.+p with him. We sally forth on the tenth hour of the night. A female pa.s.ses. I hear him groan. 'Is _she_ one of them, Adrian?' I am compelled to admit she is not the saint he deems it the portion of every creature wearing petticoats to be. Another groan; an evident internal, 'It cannot be--and yet!' ... that we hear on the stage. Rollings of eyes: impious questionings of the Creator of the universe; savage mutterings against brutal males; and then we meet a second young person, and repeat the performance--of which I am rather tired. It would be all very well, but he turns upon me, and lectures me because I don't hire a house, and furnish it for all the women one meets to live in in purity. Now that's too much to ask of a quiet man. Master Thompson has latterly relieved me, I'm happy to say."

Mrs. Doria thought her thoughts.

"Has Austin written to you since you were in town?"

"Not an Aphorism!" returned Adrian.

"I must see Richard to-morrow morning," Mrs. Doria ended the colloquy by saying.

The result of her interview with her nephew was, that Richard made no allusion to a departure on the Tuesday; and for many days afterward he appeared to have an absorbing business on his hands: but what it was Adrian did not then learn, and his admiration of Mrs. Doria's genius for management rose to a very high pitch.

On a morning in October they had an early visitor in the person of the Hon. Peter, whom they had not seen for a week or more.

"Gentlemen," he said, flouris.h.i.+ng his cane in his most affable manner, "I've come to propose to you to join us in a little dinner-party at Richmond. n.o.body's in town, you know. London's as dead as a stock-fish. Nothing but the sc.r.a.pings to offer you. But the weather's fine: I flatter myself you'll find the company agreeable. What says my friend Feverel?"

Richard begged to be excused.

"No, no: positively you must come," said the Hon. Peter. "I've had some trouble to get them together to relieve the dulness of your incarceration. Richmond's within the rules of your prison. You can be back by night. Moonlight on the water--lovely woman. We've engaged a city-barge to pull us back. Eight oars--I'm not sure it isn't sixteen. Come--the word!"

Adrian was for going. Richard said he had an appointment with Ripton.

"You're in for another rick, you two," said Adrian. "Arrange that we go. You haven't seen the c.o.c.kney's Paradise. Abjure Blazes, and taste of peace, my son."

After some persuasion, Richard yawned wearily, and got up, and threw aside the care that was on him, saying, "Very well. Just as you like. We'll take old Rip with us."

Adrian consulted Brayder's eye at this. The Hon. Peter briskly declared he should be delighted to have Feverel's friend, and offered to take them all down in his drag.

"If you don't get a match on to swim there with the tide--eh, Feverel, my boy?"

Richard replied that he had given up that sort of thing, at which Brayder communicated a queer glance to Adrian, and applauded the youth.

Richmond was under a still October sun. The pleasant landscape, bathed in Autumn, stretched from the foot of the hill to a red horizon haze. The day was like none that Richard vividly remembered.

It touched no link in the chain of his recollection. It was quiet, and belonged to the spirit of the season.

Adrian had divined the character of the sc.r.a.pings they were to meet.

Brayder introduced them to one or two of the men, hastily and in rather an undervoice, as a thing to get over. They made their bow to the first knot of ladies they encountered. Propriety was observed strictly, even to severity. The general talk was of the weather.

Here and there a lady would seize a b.u.t.ton-hole or any little bit of the habiliments, of the man she was addressing; and if it came to her to chide him, she did it with more than a forefinger. This, however, was only here and there, and a privilege of intimacy.

Where ladies are gathered together, the Queen of the a.s.semblage may be known by her Court of males. The Queen of the present gathering leaned against a corner of the open window, surrounded by a stalwart Court, in whom a practised eye would have discerned guardsmen, and Ripton, with a sinking of the heart, apprehended lords. They were fine men, offering inanimate homage. The trim of their whiskerage, the cut of their coats, the high-bred indolence in their aspect, eclipsed Ripton's sense of self-esteem. But they kindly looked over him. Occasionally one committed a momentary outrage on him with an eye-gla.s.s, seeming to cry out in a voice of scathing scorn, "Who's this?" and Ripton got closer to his hero to justify his humble pretensions to existence and an ident.i.ty in the shadow of him.

Richard gazed about. Heroes do not always know what to say or do; and the cold bath before dinner in strange company is one of the instances. He had recognized his superb Bellona in the lady by the garden window. For Brayder the men had nods and jokes, the ladies a pretty playfulness. He was very busy, pa.s.sing between the groups, chatting, laughing, taking the feminine taps he received, and sometimes returning them in sly whispers. Adrian sat down and crossed his legs, looking amused and benignant.

"Whose dinner is it?" Ripton heard a mignonne beauty ask of a cavalier.

"Mount's, I suppose," was the answer.

"Where is he? Why don't he come?"

"An affaire, I fancy."

"There he is again! How shamefully he treats Mrs. Mount!"

"She don't seem to cry over it."

Mrs. Mount was flas.h.i.+ng her teeth and eyes with laughter at one of her Court, who appeared to be Fool.

Dinner was announced. The ladies proclaimed extravagant appet.i.tes.

Brayder posted his three friends. Ripton found himself under the lee of a dame with a bosom. On the other side of him was the mignonne.

Adrian was at the lower end of the table. Ladies were in profusion, and he had his share. Brayder drew Richard from seat to seat. A happy man had established himself next to Mrs. Mount. Him Brayder hailed to take the head of the table. The happy man objected, Brayder continued urgent, the lady tenderly insisted, the happy man grimaced, dropped into the post of honour, strove to look placable.

Richard usurped his chair, and was not badly welcomed by his neighbour.

Then the dinner commenced, and had all the attention of the company, till the flying of the first champagne-cork gave the signal, and a hum began to spread. Sparkling wine, that looseneth the tongue, and displayeth the verity, hath also the quality of colouring it. The ladies laughed high; Richard only thought them gay and natural. They flung back in their chairs and laughed to tears; Ripton thought only of the pleasure he had in their society. The champagne-corks continued a regular file-firing.

"Where have you been lately? I haven't seen you in the park," said Mrs. Mount to Richard.

"No," he replied, "I've not been there." The question seemed odd: she spoke so simply that it did not impress him. He emptied his gla.s.s, and had it filled again.