The Caxtons, Complete - Edward Bulwer Lytton
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"Pity he did not like the ladies a little better!"
"No man is perfect!" said my uncle, sententiously. "But, seriously, you
are now the male hope of the family; you are now-" My uncle stopped, and
his face darkened. I saw that he thought of his son,--that mysterious
son! And looking at him tenderly, I observed that his deep lines had
grown deeper, his iron-gray hair more gray. There was the trace of recent
suffering on his face; and though he had not spoken to us a word of the
business on which he had left us, it required no penetration to perceive
that it had come to no successful issue.
My uncle resumed: "Time out of mind, every generation of our house has
given one soldier to his country. I look round now: only one branch is
budding yet on the old tree; and--"
"Ah! uncle. But what would they say? Do you think I should not like to be
a soldier? Don't tempt me!"
My uncle had recourse to his snuff-box; and at that
moment--unfortunately, perhaps, for the laurels that might otherwise have
wreathed the brows of Pisistratus of England--private conversation was
stopped by the sudden and noisy entrance of Uncle Jack. No apparition
could have been more unexpected.
"Here I am, my dear friends. How d'ye do; how are you all? Captain de
Caxton, yours heartily. Yes, I am released, thank Heaven! I have given up
the drudgery of that pitiful provincial paper. I was not made for it. An
ocean in a tea cup! I was indeed! Little, sordid, narrow interests; and
I, whose heart embraces all humanity,--you might as well turn a circle
into an isolated triangle."
"Isosceles!" said my father, sighing as he pushed aside his notes, and
very slowly becoming aware of the eloquence that destroyed all chance of
further progress that night in the Great Book. "'Isosceles' triangle,
Jack Tibbets, not 'isolated."'
"'Isosceles' or 'isolated,' it is all one," said Uncle Jack, as he
rapidly performed three evolutions, by no means consistent with his
favorite theory of "the greatest happiness of the greatest
number,"--first, he emptied into the cup which he took from my mother's
hands half the thrifty contents of a London cream-jug; secondly, he
reduced the circle of a muffin, by the abstraction of three triangles, to
as nearly an isosceles as possible; and thirdly, striding towards the
fire, lighted in consideration of Captain de Caxton, and hooking his
coat-tails under his arms while he sipped his tea, he permitted another
circle peculiar to humanity wholly to eclipse the luminary it approached.
"'Isolated' or 'isosceles,' it is all the same thing. Alan is made for
his fellow-creatures. I had long been disgusted with the interference of
those selfish Squirearchs. Your departure decided me. I have concluded
negotiations with a London firm of spirit and capital and extended views
of philanthropy. On Saturday last I retired from the service of the
oligarchy.
"I am now in my true capacity of protector of the million. My prospectus
is printed,--here it is in my pocket. Another cup of tea, sister; a
little more cream, and another muffin. Shall I ring?" Having
disembarrassed himself of his cup and saucer, Uncle Jack then drew forth
from his pocket a damp sheet of printed paper. In large capitals stood
out "The Anti-Monopoly Gazette; or Popular Champion." He waved it
triumphantly before my father's eyes.
"Pisistratus," said my father, "look here. This is the way your Uncle
Jack now prints his pats of butter,--a cap of liberty growing out of an
open book! Good, Jack! good! good!"
"It is Jacobinical!" exclaimed the Captain.
"Very likely," said my father; "but knowledge and freedom are the best
devices in the world to print upon pats of butter intended for the
market."
"Pats of butter! I don't understand," said Uncle Jack. "The less you
understand, the better will the butter sell, Jack," said my father,
settling back to his notes.
CHAPTER III.
Uncle Jack had made up his mind to lodge with us, and my mother found
some difficulty in inducing him to comprehend that there was no bed to
spare.
"That's unlucky," said he. "I had no sooner arrived in town than I was
pestered with invitations; but I refused them all, and kept myself for
you."
"So kind in you, so like you!" said my mother; "but you see--"
"Well, then, I must be off and find a room. Don't fret; you know I can
breakfast and dine with you all the same,--that is, when my other friends
will let me. I shall be dreadfully persecuted." So saying, Uncle Jack
repocketed his prospectus and wished us good-night.
The clock had struck eleven, my mother had retired, when my father looked
up from his books and returned his spectacles to their case. I had
finished my work, and was seated over the fire, thinking now of Fanny
Trevanion's hazel eyes, now, with a heart that beat as high at the
thought, of campaigns, battle-fields, laurels, and glory; while, with his
arms folded on his breast and his head drooping, Uncle Roland gazed into
the low clear embers. My father cast his eyes round the room, and after
surveying his brother for some moments he said, almost in a whisper,--
"My son has seen the Trevanions. They remember us, Roland."
The Captain sprang to his feet and began whistling,--a habit with him
when he was much disturbed.
"And Trevanion wishes to see us. Pisistratus promised to give him our
address: shall he do so, Roland?"
"If you like it," answered the Captain, in a military attitude, and
drawing himself up till he looked seven feet high.
"I should like it," said my father, mildly. "Twenty years since we met."
"More than twenty," said my uncle, with a stern smile; "and the season
was--the fall of the leaf!"
"Man renews the fibre and material of his body every seven years," said
my father; "in three times seven years he has time to renew the inner
man. Can two passengers in yonder street be more unlike each other than
the soul is to the soul after an interval of twenty years? Brother, the
plough does not pass over the soil in vain, nor care over the human
heart. New crops change the character of the land; and the plough must go
deep indeed before it stirs up the mother stone."
"Let us see Trevanion," cried my uncle; then, turning to me, he said
abruptly, "What family has he?"
"One daughter."
"No son?"
"No."
"That must vex the poor, foolish, ambitious man. Oho! you admire this Mr.
Trevanion much, eh? Yes, that fire of manner, his fine words, and bold
thoughts, were made to dazzle youth."
"Fine words, my dear uncle,--fire! I should have said, in hearing Mr.
Trevanion, that his style of conversation was so homely you would wonder
how he could have won such fame as a public speaker."
"Indeed!"
"The plough has passed there," said my father.
"But not the plough of care: rich, famous, Ellinor his wife, and no son!"
"It is because his heart is sometimes sad that he would see us."
Roland stared first at my father, next at me. "Then," quoth my uncle,
heartily, "in God's name, let him come. I can shake him by the hand, as I
would a brother soldier. Poor Trevanion! Write to him at once, Sisty."
I sat down and obeyed. When I had sealed my letter, I looked up, and saw
that Roland was lighting his bed-candle at my father's table; and my
father, taking his hand, said something to him in a low voice. I guessed
it related to his son, for he shook his head, and answered in a stern,
hollow voice, "Renew grief if you please; not shame. On that
subject--silence!"
CHAPTER IV.
Left to myself in the earlier part of the day, I wandered, wistful and
lonely, through the vast wilderness of London. By degrees I familiarized
myself with that populous solitude; I ceased to pine for the green
fields. That active energy all around, at first saddening, became soon
exhilarating, and at last contagious. To an industrious mind, nothing is
so catching as industry. I began to grow weary of my golden holiday of
unlaborious childhood, to sigh for toil, to look around me for a career.
The University, which I had before anticipated with pleasure, seemed now
to fade into a dull monastic prospect; after having trod the streets of
London, to wander through cloisters was to go back in life. Day by day,
my mind grew sensibly within me; it came out from the rosy twilight of
boyhood,--it felt the doom of Cain under the broad sun of man.
Uncle Jack soon became absorbed in his new speculation for the good of
the human race, and, except at meals (whereat, to do him justice, he was
punctual enough, though he did not keep us in ignorance of the sacrifices
he made, and the invitations he refused, for our sake), we seldom saw
him. The Captain, too, generally vanished after breakfast, seldom dined
with us, and it was often late before he returned. He had the latch-key
of the house, and let himself in when he pleased. Sometimes (for his
chamber was next to mine) his step on the stairs awoke me; and sometimes
I heard him pace his room with perturbed strides, or fancied that I
caught a low groan. He became every day more care-worn in appearance, and
every day the hair seemed more gray. Yet he talked to us all easily and
cheerfully; and I thought that I was the only one in the house who
perceived the gnawing pangs over which the stout old Spartan drew the
decorous cloak.
Pity, blended with admiration, made me curious to learn how these absent
days, that brought night so disturbed, were consumed. I felt that, if I
could master the Captain's secret, I might win the right both to comfort
and to aid.
I resolved at length, after many conscientious scruples, to endeavor to
satisfy a curiosity excused by its motives.
Accordingly, one morning, after watching him from the house, I stole in
his track, and followed him at a distance.
And this was the outline of his day: he set off at first with a firm
stride, despite his lameness, his gaunt figure erect, the soldierly chest
well thrown out from the threadbare but speckless coat. First he took his
way towards the purlieus of Leicester Square; several times, to and fro,
did he pace the isthmus that leads from Piccadilly into that reservoir of
foreigners, and the lanes and courts that start thence towards St.
Martin's. After an hour or two so passed, the step became more slow; and
often the sleek, napless hat was lifted up, and the brow wiped. At length
he bent his way towards the two great theatres, paused before the
play-bills, as if deliberating seriously on the chances of entertainment
they severally proffered, wandered slowly through the small streets that
surround those temples of the Muse, and finally emerged into the Strand.
There he rested himself for an hour at a small cook-shop; and as I passed
the window and glanced within, I could see him seated before the simple
dinner, which he scarcely touched, and poring over the advertisement
columns of the "Times." The "Times" finished, and a few morsels
distastefully swallowed, the Captain put down his shilling in silence,
receiving his pence in exchange, and I had just time to slip aside as he
reappeared at the threshold. He looked round as he lingered,--but I took
care he should not detect me,--and then struck off towards the more
fashionable quarters of the town. It was now the afternoon, and, though
not yet the season, the streets swarmed with life. As he came into
Waterloo Place, a slight but muscular figure buttoned up across the
breast like his own cantered by on a handsome bay horse; every eye was on
that figure. Uncle Roland stopped short, and lifted his hand to his hat;
the rider touched his own with his forefinger, and cantered on; Uncle
Roland turned round and gazed.
"Who," I asked of a shop-boy just before me, also staring with all his
eyes, "who is that gentleman on horseback?"
"Why, the Duke to be sure," said the boy, contemptuously.
"The Duke?"
"Wellington, stu-pid!"
"Thank you," said I, meekly. Uncle Roland had moved on into Regent
Street, but with a brisker step: the sight of the old chief had done the
old soldier good. Here again he paced to and fro; till I, watching him
from the other side of the way, was ready to drop with fatigue, stout
walker though I was. But the Captain's day was not half done. He took out
his watch, put it to his ear, and then, replacing it, passed into Bond
Street, and thence into Hyde Park. There, evidently wearied out, he
leaned against the rails, near the bronze statue, in an attitude that
spoke despondency. I seated myself on the grass near the statue, and
gazed at him: the park was empty compared with the streets, but still
there were some equestrian idlers, and many foot-loungers. My uncle's eye
turned wistfully on each: once or twice, some gentleman of a military
aspect (which I had already learned to detect) stopped, looked at him,
approached, and spoke; but the Captain seemed as if ashamed of such
greetings. He answered shortly, and turned again.
The day waned,--evening came on; the Captain again looked at his watch,
shook his head, and made his way to a bench, where he sat perfectly
motionless, his hat over his brows, his arms folded, till up rose the
moon. I had tasted nothing since breakfast, I was famished; but I still
kept my post like an old Roman sentinel.
At length the Captain rose, and re-entered Piccadilly; but how different
his mien and bearing!--languid, stooping; his chest sunk, his head
inclined; his limbs dragging one after the other; his lameness painfully
perceptible. What a contrast in the broken invalid at night from the
stalwart veteran of the morning!
How I longed to spring forward to offer my arm! but I did not dare.
The Captain stopped near a cab-stand. He put his hand in his pocket, he
drew out his purse, he passed his fingers over the net-work; the purse
slipped again into the pocket, and as if with a heroic effort, my uncle
drew up his head and walked on sturdily.
"Where next?" thought I. "Surely home! No, he is pitiless!"
The Captain stopped not till he arrived at one of the small theatres in
the Strand; then he read the bill, and asked if half price was begun.
"Just begun," was the answer, and the Captain entered. I also took a
ticket and followed. Passing by the open doors of a refreshment-room, I
fortified myself with some biscuits and soda-water; and in another
minute, for the first time in my life, I beheld a play. But the play did
not fascinate me. It was the middle of some jocular after piece; roars of
laughter resounded round me. I could detect nothing to laugh at, and
sending my keen eyes into every corner, I perceived at last, in the
uppermost tier, one face as saturnine as my own.--Eureka! It was the
Captain's! "Why should he go to a play if he enjoys it so little?"
thought I; "better have spent a shilling on a cab, poor old fellow!"
But soon came smart-looking men, and still smarter-looking ladies, around
the solitary corner of the poor Captain. He grew fidgety--he rose--he
vanished. I left my place, and stood without the box to watch for him.
Downstairs he stumped,--I recoiled into the shade; and after standing a
moment or two, as in doubt, he entered boldly the refreshment-room or
saloon.
Now, since I had left that saloon it had become crowded, and I slipped in
unobserved. Strange was it, grotesque yet pathetic, to mark the old
soldier in the midst of that gay swarm. He towered above all like a
Homeric hero, a head taller than the tallest; and his appearance was so
remarkable that it invited the instant attention of the fair. I, in my
simplicity, thought it was the natural tenderness of that amiable and
penetrating sex, ever quick to detect trouble and anxious to relieve it,
which induced three ladies in silk attire--one having a hat and plume,
the other two with a profusion of ringlets--to leave a little knot of
gentlemen--with whom they were conversing, and to plant themselves before
my uncle. I advanced through the press to hear what passed.
"You are looking for some one, I'm sure," quoth one familiarly, tapping
his arm with her fan.
The Captain started. "Ma'am, you are not wrong," said he.
"Can I do as well?" said one of those compassionate angels, with heavenly
sweetness.
"You are very kind, I thank you; no, no, ma'am," said the Captain with
his best bow.
"Do take a glass of negus," said another, as her friend gave way to her.
"You seem tired, and so am I. Here, this way;" and she took hold of his
arm to lead him to the table. The Captain shook his head mournfully; and
then, as if suddenly aware of the nature of the attentions so lavished on
him, he looked down upon these fair Armidas with a look of such mild
reproach, such sweet compassion,--not shaking off the hand, in his
chivalrous devotion to the sex, which extended even to all its
outcasts,--that each bold eye felt abashed. The hand was timidly and
involuntarily withdrawn from the arm, and my uncle passed his way.
He threaded the crowd, passed out at the farther door, and I, guessing
his intention, was in waiting for his steps in the street.
"Now home at last, thank Heaven!" thought I. Mistaken still! My uncle
went first towards that popular haunt which I have since discovered is
called "the Shades;" but he soon re-emerged, and finally he knocked at
the door of a private house in one of the streets out of St. James's. It
was opened jealously, and closed as he entered, leaving me without. What
could this house be? As I stood and watched, some other men approached:
again the low single knock, again the jealous opening and the stealthy
entrance.
A policeman passed and re-passed me. "Don't be tempted, young man," said
he, looking hard at me: "take my advice, and go home."
"What is that house, then?" said I, with a sort of shudder at this
ominous warning.
"Oh! you know."
"Not I. I am new to London."
"It is a hell," said the policeman, satisfied, by my frank manner, that I
spoke the truth.
"God bless me,--a what? I could not have heard you rightly!"
"A hell,--a gambling-house!"
"Oh!" and I moved on. Could Captain Roland, the rigid, the thrifty, the
penurious, be a gambler? The light broke on me at once: the unhappy
father sought his son! I leaned against the post, and tried hard not to
sob.
By and by, I heard the door open; the Captain came out and took the way
homeward. I ran on before, and got in first, to the inexpressible relief
both of father and mother, who had not seen me since breakfast, and who
were in equal consternation at my absence. I submitted to be scolded with
a good grace. "I had been sight-seeing, and lost my way;" begged for some
supper, and slunk to bed; and five minutes afterwards the Captain's jaded
step came wearily up the stairs.
PART VI.
CHAPTER I.
"I don't know that," said my father.
What is it my father does not know? My father does not know that
"happiness is our being's end and aim."
And pertinent to what does my father reply, by words so sceptical, to an
assertion so seldom disputed?
Reader, Mr. Trevanion has been half an hour seated in our little
drawing-room. He has received two cups of tea from my mother's fair hand;
he has made himself at home. With Mr. Trevanion has come another friend
of my father's, whom he has not seen since he left college,--Sir Sedley
Beaudesert.
Now, you must understand that it is a warm night, a little after nine
o'clock,--a night between departing summer and approaching autumn. The
windows are open; we have a balcony, which my mother has taken care to
fill with flowers; the air, though we are in London, is sweet and fresh;
the street quiet, except that an occasional carriage or hackney cabriolet
rolls rapidly by; a few stealthy passengers pass to and fro noiselessly
on their way homeward. We are on classic ground,--near that old and
venerable Museum, the dark monastic pile which the taste of the age had
spared then,--and the quiet of the temple seems to hallow the precincts.
Captain Roland is seated by the fire-place, and though there is no fire,
he is shading his face with a hand-screen; my father and Mr. Trevanion
have drawn their chairs close to each other in the middle of the room;
Sir Sedley Beaudesert leans against the wall near the window, and behind
my mother, who looks prettier and more pleased than usual since her
Austin has his old friends about him; and I, leaning my elbow on the
table and my chin upon my hand, am gazing with great admiration on Sir
Sedley Beaudesert.
Oh, rare specimen of a race fast decaying,--specimen of the true fine
gentleman, ere the word "dandy" was known, and before "exquisite" became
a noun substantive,--let me here pause to describe thee! Sir Sedley
Beaudesert was the contemporary of Trevanion and my father; but without
affecting to be young, he still seemed so. Dress, tone, look,
manner,--all were young; yet all had a certain dignity which does not
belong to youth. At the age of five and twenty he had won what would have
been fame to a French marquis of the old regime; namely, the reputation
of being "the most charming man of his day,"--the most popular of our
sex, the most favored, my dear lady-reader, by yours. It is a mistake, I
believe, to suppose that it does not require talent to become the
fashion,--at all events, Sir Sedley was the fashion, and he had talent.
He had travelled much, he had read much,--especially in memoirs, history,
and belles-lettres,--he made verses with grace and a certain originality
of easy wit and courtly sentiment, he conversed delightfully, he was
polished and urbane in manner, he was brave and honorable in conduct; in
words he could flatter, in deeds he was sincere.
Sir Sedley Beaudesert had never married. Whatever his years, he was still
young enough in looks to be married for love. He was high-born, he was
rich, he was, as I have said, popular; yet on his fair features there was
an expression of melancholy, and on that forehead--pure from the lines of
ambition, and free from the weight of study--there was the shadow of
unmistakable regret.
"I don't know that," said my father; "I have never yet found in life one
man who made happiness his end and aim. One wants to gain a fortune,
another to spend it; one to get a place, another to build a name: but
they all know very well that it is not happiness they search for. No
Utilitarian was ever actuated by self-interest, poor man, when he sat
down to scribble his unpopular crotchets to prove self-interest
universal. And as to that notable distinction between self-interest
vulgar and self-interest enlightened, the more the self-interest is
enlightened, the less we are influenced by it. If you tell the young man
who has just written a fine book or made a fine speech that he will not
be any happier if he attain to the fame of Milton or the power of Pitt,
and that, for the sake of his own happiness, he had much better cultivate
a farm, live in the country, and postpone to the last the days of
dyspepsia and gout, he will answer you fairly, 'I am quite as sensible of
that as you are. But I am not thinking whether or not I shall be happy. I
have made up my mind to be, if I can, a great author or a prime
minister.' So it is with all the active sons of the world. To push on is
the law of Nature. And you can no more say to men and to nations than to
children: 'Sit still, and don't wear out your shoes!'"
"Then," said Trevanion, "if I tell you I am not happy, your only answer
is that I obey an inevitable law."
"No, I don't say that it is an inevitable law that man should not be
happy; but it is an inevitable law that a man, in spite of himself,
should live for something higher than his own happiness. He cannot live
in himself or for himself, however egotistical he may try to be. Every
desire he has links him with others. Man is not a machine,--he is a part
of one."
"True, brother, he is a soldier, not an army," said Captain Roland.
"Life is a drama, not a monologue," pursued my father. "'Drama' is
derived from a Greek verb signifying 'to do.' Every actor in the drama
has something to do, which helps on the progress of the whole: that is
the object for which the author created him. Do your part, and let the
Great Play get on."
"Ah!" said Trevanion, briskly, "but to do the part is the difficulty.
Every actor helps to the catastrophe, and yet must do his part without
knowing how all is to end. Shall he help the curtain to fall on a tragedy
or a comedy? Come, I will tell you the one secret of my public life, that
which explains all its failure (for, in spite of my position, I have
failed) and its regrets,--I want Conviction!"
"Exactly," said my father; "because to every question there are two
sides, and you look at them both."
"You have said it," answered Trevanion, smiling also. "For public life a
man should be one-sided: he must act with a party; and a party insists
that the shield is silver, when, if it will take the trouble to turn the
corner, it will see that the reverse of the shield is gold. Woe to the
man who makes that discovery alone, while his party are still swearing
the shield is silver, and that not once in his life, but every night!
"You have said quite enough to convince me that you ought not to belong
to a party, but not enough to convince me why you should not be happy,"
said my father.