What Will He Do with It? Part 12

"Still you seem to have something on your mind," said Vance, who had now finished reading his letters, lighted his cigar, and was leaning against the window as the boy continued to walk to and fro.

"That is true: I have. I should like your advice. Read that letter.

Ought I to go? Would it look mercenary, grasping? You know what I mean."

Vance approached the candles and took the letter. He glanced first at the signature. "Darrell," he exclaimed. "Oh, it is so, then!" He read with great attention, put down the letter, and shook Lionel by the hand.

"I congratulate you: all is settled as it should be. Go? of course: you would be an ill-mannered lout if you did not. Is it far from hence must you return to town first?"

LIONEL.--"No, I find I can get across the country,--two hours by the railway. There is a station at the town which bears the post-mark of the letter. I shall make for that, if you advise it."

"You knew I should advise it, or you would not have tortured your intellect by those researches into Bradshaw."

"Shrewdly said," answered Lionel, laughing; "but I wished for your sanction of my crude impressions."

"You never told me your cousin's name was Darrell: not that I should have been much wiser if you had; but, thunder and lightning, Lionel! do you know that your cousin Darrell is a famous man?"

LIONEL.--"Famous!--Nonsense. I suppose he was a good lawyer, for I have heard my mother say, with a sort of contempt, that he had made a great fortune at the bar."

VANCE.--"But he was in Parliament."

LIONEL.--"Was he? I did not know."

VANCE.--"And this is senatorial fame! You never heard your schoolfellows talk of Mr. Darrell?--they would not have known his name if you had boasted of it?"

LIONEL.--"Certainly not."

VANCE.--"Would your schoolfellows have known the names of Wilkie, of Landseer, of Turner, Maclise? I speak of painters."

LIONEL.--"I should think so, indeed."

VANCE (soliloquizing).--"And yet Her Serene Sublimity-s.h.i.+p, Lady Selina Vipont, says to me with divine compa.s.sion, 'Not in the way of your delightful art to know such men as Mr. Darrell!' Oh, as if I did not see through it, too, when she said, _a propos_ of my jean cap and velveteen jacket, 'What matters how you dress? Every one knows who you are!'

Would she have said that to the earl of Dunder, or even to Sir Gregory Stollhead? No. I am the painter Frank Vance,--nothing more nor less; and if I stood on my head in a check s.h.i.+rt and a sky-coloured ap.r.o.n, Lady Selina Vipont would kindly murmur, 'Only Frank Vance the painter: what does it signify?' Aha!--and they think to put me to use, puppets and lay figures! it is I who put them to use! Hark ye, Lionel, you are nearer akin to these fine folks than I knew of. Promise me one thing: you may become of their set, by right of your famous Mr. Darrell; if ever you hear an artist, musician, scribbler, no matter what, ridiculed as a tuft-hunter,--seeking the great, and so forth,--before you join in the laugh, ask some great man's son, with a pedigree that dates from the Ark, 'Are you not a toad-eater too? Do you want political influence; do you stand contested elections; do you curry and fawn upon greasy Sam the butcher and grimy Tom the blacksmith for a vote? Why? useful to your career, necessary to your ambition? Aha! is it meaner to curry and fawn upon white-handed women and elegant c.o.xcombs? Tut, tut! useful to a career, necessary to ambition!'" Vance paused, out of breath. The spoiled darling of the circles,--he, to talk such republican rubbis.h.!.+

Certainly he must have taken his two guineas' worth out of those light wines. Nothing so treacherous! they inflame the brain like fire, while melting on the palate like ice. All inhabitants of lightwine countries are quarrelsome and democratic.

LIONEL (astounded).--"No one, I am sure, could have meant to call you a tuft-hunter; of course, every one knows that a great painter--"

VANCE.--"Dates from Michael Angelo, if not from Zeuxis! Common individuals trace their pedigree from their own fathers! the children of Art from Art's founders!"

Oh, Vance, Vance, you are certainly drunk! If that comes from dining with fine people at the Star and Garter, you would be a happier man and as good a painter if your toddy were never sipped save in honeysuckle arbours.

"But," said Lionel, bewildered, and striving to turn his friend's thoughts, "what has all this to do with Mr. Darrell?"

VANCE.--"Mr. Darrell might have been one of the first men in the kingdom. Lady Selina Vipout says so, and she is related, I believe, to every member in the Cabinet. Mr. Darrell can push you in life, and make your fortune, without any great trouble on your own part. Bless your stars, and rejoice that you are not a painter!"

Lionel flung his arm round the artist's broad breast. "Vance, you are cruel!" It was his turn to console the painter, as the painter had three nights before _a propos_ of the same Mr. Darrell consoled him. Vance gradually sobered down, and the young men walked forth in the moonlight.

And the eternal stars had the same kind looks for Vance as they had vouchsafed to Lionel.

"When do you start?" asked the painter, as they mounted the stairs to bed.

"To-morrow evening. I miss the early train, for I must call first and take leave of Sophy. I hope I may see her again in after life."

"And I hope, for your sake, that if so, she may not be in the same coloured print, with Lady Selina Vipont's eyegla.s.s upon her!"

"What!" said Lionel, laughing; "is Lady Selina Vipont so formidably rude?"

"Rude! n.o.body is rude in that delightful set. Lady Selina Vipont is excruciatingly--civil."

CHAPTER XVIII.

Being devoted exclusively to a reflection, not inapposite to the events in this history nor to those in any other which chronicles the life of men.

There is one warning lesson in life which few of us have not received, and no book that I can call to memory has noted down with an adequate emphasis. It is this: "Beware of parting!" The true sadness is not in the pain of the parting, it is in the When and the How you are to meet again with the face about to vanish from your view! From the pa.s.sionate farewell to the woman who has your heart in her keeping, to the cordial good-by exchanged with pleasant companions at a watering-place, a country-house, or the close of a festive day's blithe and careless excursion,--a cord, stronger or weaker, is snapped asunder in every parting, and Time's busy fingers are not practised in re-splicing broken ties. Meet again you may; will it be in the same way?--with the same sympathies?--with the same sentiments? Will the souls, hurrying on in diverse paths, unite once more, as if the interval had been a dream?

Rarely, rarely! Have you not, after even a year, even a month's absence, returned to the same place, found the same groups rea.s.sembled, and yet sighed to yourself, "But where is the charm that once breathed from the spot, and once smiled from the faces?" A poet has said, "Eternity itself cannot restore the loss struck from the minute." Are you happy in the spot on which you tarry with the persons whose voices are now melodious to your ear? beware of parting; or, if part you must, say not in insolent defiance to Time and Destiny, "What matters!--we shall soon meet again."

Alas, and alas! when we think of the lips which murmured, "Soon meet again," and remember how in heart, soul, and thought, we stood forever divided the one from the other, when, once more face to face, we each inly exclaimed, "Met again!"

The air that we breathe makes the medium through which sound is conveyed; be the instrument unchanged, be the force which is applied to it the same, still the air that thou seest not, the air to thy ear gives the music.

Ring a bell underneath an exhausted receiver, thou wilt scarce hear the sound; give the bell due vibration by free air in warm daylight, or sink it down to the heart of the ocean, where the air, all compressed, fills the vessel around it,' and the chime, heard afar, starts thy soul, checks thy footstep, unto deep calls the deep,--a voice from the ocean is borne to thy soul.

Where then the change, when thou sayest, "Lo, the same metal,--why so faint-heard the ringing?" Ask the air that thou seest not, or above thee in sky, or below thee in ocean. Art thou sure that the bell, so faint-heard, is not struck underneath an exhausted receiver?

CHAPTER XIX.

The wandering inclinations of nomad tribes not to be accounted for on the principles of action peculiar to civilized men, who are accustomed to live in good houses and able to pay the income tax.-- When the money that once belonged to a man civilized vanishes into the pockets of a nomad, neither lawful art nor occult science can, with certainty, discover what he will do with it.--Mr. Vance narrowly escapes well-merited punishment from the nails of the British Fair--Lionel Haughton, in the temerity of youth, braves the dangers of a British Railway.

The morning was dull and overcast, rain gathering in the air, when Vance and Lionel walked to Waife's lodging. As Lionel placed his hand on the knocker of the private door, the Cobbler, at his place by the window in the stall beside, glanced towards him, and shook his head.

"No use knocking, gentlemen. Will you kindly step in?--this way."

"Do you mean that your lodgers are out?" asked Vance.

"Gone!" said the Cobbler, thrusting his awl with great vehemence through the leather destined to the repair of a ploughman's boot.

"Gone--for good!" cried Lionel; "you cannot mean it. I call by appointment."

"Sorry, sir, for your trouble. Stop a bit; I have a letter here for you." The Cobbler dived into a drawer, and from a medley of nails and thongs drew forth a letter addressed to L. Haughton, Esq.

"Is this from Waife? How on earth did he know my surname? you never mentioned it, Vance?"

"Not that I remember. But you said you found him at the inn, and they knew it there. It is on the bra.s.s-plate of your knapsack. No matter,--what does he say?" and Vance looked over his friend's shoulder and read.

SIR,--I most respectfully thank you for your condescending kindness to me and my grandchild; and your friend, for his timely and generous aid. You will pardon me that the necessity which knows no law obliges me to leave this place some hours before the time of your proposed visit. My grandchild says you intended to ask her sometimes to write to you. Excuse me, sir--on reflection, you will perceive how different your ways of life are from those which she must tread with me. You see before you a man who--but I forget; you see him no more, and probably never will.