A Red Wallflower Part 82

'Show you London, mamma! Show you a bit of it, you mean. It would take something like a lifetime to show you London. What bit will you begin with?'

'What first, Betty?' said Mrs. Dallas.

Betty turned and slowly came back to the others.

'Take her to see the lions in the Tower,' suggested Mr. Dallas; 'and the wax-work.'

'Do you think I have never seen a lion, Mr. Dallas?' said the young lady.

'Well,--small ones,' said the gentleman, stroking his chin. 'But the Tower is a big lion itself. I believe _I_ should like to go to the Tower. I have never been there yet, old as I am.'

'I do not want to go to the Tower,' said Mrs. Dallas. 'I do not care for that kind of thing. I should like to see the Temple, and Pitt's chambers.'

'So should I,' said the younger lady.

'You might do worse,' said Pitt. 'Then to-morrow we will go to the Temple, and to St. Paul's.'

'St. Paul's? _that_ will not hold us long, will it?' said Betty. 'Is it so much to see?'

'A good deal, if you go through and study the monuments!'

'Well,' said Betty, 'I suppose it will be all delightful.'

But when she had retired to her room at night, her mood was not just so. She sat down before her gla.s.s and ruminated. That case of coins, and Pitt's old scholar, and the Gainsboroughs, who had not come home.

He would find them yet; yes, and Esther would one day be standing before those coins; and Pitt would be showing them to her; and she--she would enter into his talk about them, and would understand and have sympathy, and there would be sympathy on other points too. If Esther ever stood there, in that beautiful old library, it would be as mistress and at home. Betty had a premonition of it; she put her hands before her eyes to shut out the picture. Suppose she earned well of the two and gained their lasting friends.h.i.+p by saying the words that would bring them to each other? That was one way out of her difficulty. But then, why should she? What right had Esther Gainsborough to be happy more than Betty Frere? The other way out of her difficulty, namely, to win Pitt's liking, would be much better; and then, they both of them might be Esther's friends. For of one thing Betty was certain; _if_ she could win Pitt, he would be won. No half way-work was possible with him. He would never woo a woman he did not entirely love; and any woman so loved by him would not need to fear any other woman; it would be once for all. Betty had never, as it happened, met thoroughgoing truth before; she recognised it and trusted it perfectly in Pitt; and it was one of the things, she confessed to herself, that drew her most mightily to him. A person whom she could absolutely believe, and always be sure of. Whom else in the world could she trust so? Not her own brothers; not her own father; mother she had none. How did she know so securely that Pitt was an exception to the universal rule?--the question might be asked, and she asked it. She had not seen him tested in any great thing. But she had seen him tried in little bits of everyday things, in which most people think it is no harm to dodge the truth a little; and Betty recognised the soundness of the axiom,--'He that is faithful in that which is least, is faithful also in much.'

CHAPTER XLII.

_THE TOWER_.

The next morning they went to inspect the Temple; Pitt and the two ladies. Mr. Dallas preferred some other occupation. But the interest brought to the inspection was not altogether legitimate. Mrs. Dallas cared princ.i.p.ally to see how comfortable her son's chambers were, and to refresh herself with the tokens of antiquity and importance which attached to the place and the inst.i.tution to which he belonged. Betty was no antiquarian in the best of times, and at present had all her faculties concentrated on one subject and one question which was not of the past. Nevertheless, it is of the nature of things that a high strain of the mind renders it intensely receptive and sensitive for outward impressions, even though they be not welcomed; like a taut string, which answers to a breath breathed upon it. Betty did not care for the Temple; had no interest in the old Templars' arms on the sides of the gateways; and thought its medley of dull courts and lanes a very undesirable place. What was it to her where Dr. Johnson had lived? she did not care for Dr. Johnson at all, and as little for Oliver Goldsmith. Pitt, she saw, cared; how odd it was! It was some comfort that Mrs. Dallas shared her indifference.

'My dear,' she said, 'I do not care about anybody's lodgings but yours.

Dr. Johnson is not there now, I suppose. Where are _your_ rooms?'

But Pitt laughed, and took them first to the Temple church.

Here Betty could not refuse to look and be interested a little. How little, she did not show. The beauty of the old church, its venerable age, and the strange relics of the past in its monuments, did command some attention. Yet Betty grudged it; and went over the Halls and the Courts afterward with a half reluctant foot, hearing as if against her will all that Pitt was telling her and his mother about them. Oh, what did it matter, that one of Shakspeare's plays had been performed in the Middle Temple Hall during its author's lifetime? and what did it signify whether a given piece of architecture were Early English or Perpendicular Gothic? What did interest her, was to see how lively and warm was Pitt's knowledge and liking of all these things. Evidently he delighted in them and was full of information concerning them; and his interest did move Betty a little. It moved her to speculation also.

Could this man be so earnest in his enjoyment of Norman arches and polished shafts and the effigies of old knights, and still hold to the views and principles he had avowed and advocated last year? Could he, who took such pleasure in the doings and records of the past, really mean to attach himself to another sort of life, with which the honours and dignities and delights of this common world have nothing to do?

The question recurred again afresh on their return home. As Betty entered the house, she was struck by the beauty of the carved oak staircase, and exclaimed upon it.

'Yes,' said Pitt; 'that is the prettiest part of the house. It is said to be by Inigo Jones; but perhaps that cannot be proved.'

'Does it matter?' said Betty, laughing.

'Not to any real lover of it; but to the rest, you know, the name is the thing.'

'"Lover of it"!' said Betty. 'Can you love a staircase?'

Pitt laughed out; then he answered seriously.

'Don't you know that all that is good and true is in a way bound up together? it is one whole; and I take it to be certain that in proportion to anyone's love for spiritual and moral beauty will be, _coeteris paribus_, his appreciation of all expression of it, in nature or art.'

'_But_', said Betty, '"spiritual and moral beauty"! You do not mean that this oak staircase is an expression of either?'

'Of both, perhaps. At any rate, the things are very closely connected.'

'You are an enigma!' said Betty.

'I hope not always to remain so,' he answered.

Betty went up the beautiful staircase, noting as she went its beauties, from storey to storey. She had not noticed it before, although it really took up more room than was proportionate to the size of the house. What did Pitt mean by those last words? she was querying. And could it be possible that the owner of a house like this, with a property corresponding, would not be of the world and live in the world like other men? He must, Betty thought. It is all very well for people who have not the means to make a figure in society, to talk of isolating themselves from society. A man may give up a little; but when he has much, he holds on to it. But how was it with Pitt? She must try and find out.

She accordingly made an attempt that same evening, beginning with the staircase again.

'I admired Inigo Jones all the way up-stairs,' she said, when she had an opportunity to talk to Pitt alone. Mr. Dallas had gone to sleep after dinner, and his wife was knitting at a sufficient distance. 'The quaint fancies and delicate work are really such as I never imagined before in wood-carving. But your words about it remain a puzzle to me.'

'My words? About art being an expression of truth? Surely that is not new?'

'It may be very old; but I do not understand it.'

'You understand, that so far as art is genuine, it is a setter forth of truth?'

'Well, I suppose so; of some truth. Roses must be roses, and trees must be trees; and of course must look as like the reality as possible.'

'That is the very lowest thing art can do, and in some cases is not true art at all. Her business is to tell truth--never to deceive.'

'What sort of truth then?'

'What I said; spiritual and moral.'

'Ah, there it is! Now you have got back to it. Now you are talking mystery, or--forgive me--transcendentalism.'

'No; nothing but simple and very plain fact. It is this first,--that all truth is one; and this next,--that in the world of creation things material are the expression of things spiritual. So all real beauty in form or colour has back of it a greater beauty of higher degree.'

'You are talking pure mystery.'

'No, surely,' said Pitt eagerly. 'You certainly recognise the truth of what I am saying, in some things. For instance, you cannot look up steadily into the blue infinity of one of our American skies on a clear day--at least _I_ cannot--without presently getting the impression of truth, pure, unfailing, incorruptible truth, in its Creator. The rose, everywhere in the world, so far as I know, is the accepted emblem of love. And for another very familiar instance,--Christ is called in the Bible the Sun of righteousness--the Light that is the life of man. Do you know how close to fact that is? What this earth would be if deprived of the sun for a few days, is but a true image of the condition of any soul finally forsaken by the Sun of righteousness. In one word, death; and that is what the Bible means by death, of which the death we commonly speak of is again but a faint image.'

Betty fidgeted a little; this was not what she wished to speak of; it was getting away from her point.

'Your staircase set me wondering about _you_,' she said boldly, not answering his speech at all.

'In yet another connection?' said Pitt, smiling.