The Caxtons, Complete - Edward Bulwer Lytton
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My uncle looked round, I say, and called hastily for his cane and his
hat, and then began buttoning his coat across his broad breast, though
the day was hot enough to have unbuttoned every breast in the metropolis.
"You are not going out, uncle?"
"Yes, Yes."
"But are you strong enough yet? Let me go with you."
"No, sir; no. Blanche, come here." He took the child in his arms,
surveyed her wistfully, and kissed her. "You have never given me pain,
Blanche: say,'God bless and prosper you, father!'"
"God bless and prosper my dear, dear papa!" said Blanche, putting her
little hands together, as if in prayer.
"There--that should bring me luck, Blanche," said the Captain, gayly, and
setting her down. Then seizing his cane from the servant, and putting on
his hat with a determined air, he walked stoutly forth; and I saw him,
from the window, march along the streets as cheerfully as if he had been
besieging Badajoz.
"God prosper thee too!" said I, involuntarily.
And Blanche took hold of my hand, and said in her prettiest way (and her
pretty ways were many), "I wish you would come with us, cousin Sisty, and
help me to love papa. Poor papa! he wants us both,--he wants all the love
we can give him."
"That he does, my dear Blanche; and I think it a great mistake that we
don't all live together. Your papa ought not to go to that tower of his
at the world's end, but come to our snug, pretty house, with a garden
full of flowers, for you to be Queen of the May,--from May to November;
to say nothing of a duck that is more sagacious than any creature in the
Fables I gave you the other day."
Blanche laughed and clapped her hands. "Oh, that would be so nice!
But"--and she stopped gravely, and added, "but then, you see, there would
not be the tower to love papa; and I am sure that the tower must love him
very much, for he loves it dearly."
It was my turn to laugh now. "I see how it is, you little witch," said I;
"you would coax us to come and live with you and the owls! With all my
heart, so far as I am concerned."
"Sisty," said Blanche, with an appalling solemnity on her face, "do you
know what I've been thinking?"
"Not I, miss--what? Something very deep, I can see,--very horrible,
indeed, I fear; you look so serious."
"Why, I've been thinking," continued Blanche, not relaxing a muscle, and
without the least bit of a blush--"I've been thinking that I'll be your
little wife; and then, of course, we shall all live together."
Blanche did not blush, but I did. "Ask me that ten years hence, if you
dare, you impudent little thing; and now, run away to Mrs. Primmins and
tell her to keep you out of mischief, for I must say 'Good morning.'"
But Blanche did not run away, and her dignity seemed exceedingly hurt at
my mode of taking her alarming proposition, for she retired into a corner
pouting, and sat down with great majesty. So there I left her, and went
my way to Vivian. He was out; but seeing books on his table, and having
nothing to do, I resolved to wait for his return. I had enough of my
father in me to turn at once to the books for company; and by the side of
some graver works which I had recommended, I found certain novels in
French that Vivian had got from a circulating library. I had a curiosity
to read these; for except the old classic novels of France, this mighty
branch of its popular literature was then new to me. I soon got
interested; but what an interest!--the interest that a nightmare might
excite if one caught it out of one's sleep and set to work to examine it.
By the side of what dazzling shrewdness, what deep knowledge of those
holes and corners in the human system of which Goethe must have spoken
when he said somewhere,--if I recollect right, and don't misquote him,
which I'll not answer for "There is something in every man's heart which,
if we could know, would make us hate him,"--by the side of all this, and
of much more that showed prodigious boldness and energy of intellect,
what strange exaggeration; what mock nobility of sentiment; what
inconceivable perversion of reasoning; what damnable demoralization! The
true artist, whether in Romance or the Drama, will often necessarily
interest us in a vicious or criminal character; but he does not the less
leave clear to our reprobation the vice or the crime. But here I found
myself called upon, not only to feel interest in the villain (which would
be perfectly allowable,--I am very much interested in Macbeth and
Lovelace), but to admire and sympathize with the villany itself. Nor was
it the confusion of all wrong and right in individual character that
shocked me the most, but rather the view of society altogether, painted
in colors so hideous that, if true, instead of a revolution, it would
draw down a deluge. It was the hatred, carefully instilled, of the poor
against the rich; it was the war breathed between class and class; it was
that envy of all superiorities which loves to show itself by allowing
virtue only to a blouse, and asserting; that a man must be a rogue if he
belong to that rank of society in which, from the very gifts of
education, from the necessary associations of circumstance, roguery is
the last thing probable or natural. It was all this, and things a
thousand times worse, that set my head in a whirl, as hour after hour
slipped on, and I still gazed, spell-bound, on these Chimeras and
Typhons,--these symbols of the Destroying Principle. "Poor Vivian!" said
I, as I rose at last; "if thou readest these books with pleasure or from
habit, no wonder that thou seemest to me so obtuse about right and wrong,
and to have a great cavity where thy brain should have the bump of
'conscientiousness' in full salience!"
Nevertheless, to do those demoniacs justice, I had got through time
imperceptibly by their pestilent help; and I was startled to see, by my
watch, how late it was. I had just resolved to leave a line fixing an
appointment for the morrow, and so depart, when I heard Vivian's
knock,--a knock that had great character in it, haughty, impatient,
irregular; not a neat, symmetrical, harmonious, unpretending knock, but a
knock that seemed to set the whole house and street at defiance: it was a
knock bullying--a knock ostentatious--a knock irritating and
offensive--impiger and iracundus.
But the step that came up the stairs did not suit the knock; it was a
step light, yet firm--slow, yet elastic.
The maid-servant who had opened the door had, no doubt, informed Vivian
of my visit, for he did not seem surprised to see me; but he cast that
hurried, suspicious look round the room which a man is apt to cast when
he has left his papers about and finds some idler, on whose
trustworthiness he by no means depends, seated in the midst of the
unguarded secrets. The look was not flattering; but my conscience was so
unreproachful that I laid all the blame upon the general suspiciousness
of Vivian's character.
"Three hours, at least, have I been here!" said I, maliciously.
"Three hours!"--again the look.
"And this is the worst secret I have discovered,"--and I pointed to those
literary Manicheans.
"Oh!" said he, carelessly, "French novels! I don't wonder you stayed so
long. I can't read your English novels,--flat and insipid; there are
truth and life here."
"Truth and life!" cried I, every hair on my head erect with astonishment.
"Then hurrah for falsehood and death!"
"They don't please you,--no accounting for tastes."
"I beg your pardon,--I account for yours, if you really take for truth
and life monsters so nefast and flagitious. For Heaven's sake, my dear
fellow, don't suppose that any man could get on in England,--get anywhere
but to the Old Bailey or Norfolk Island,--if he squared his conduct to
such topsy-turvy notions of the world as I find here."
"How many years are you my senior," asked Vivian, sneeringly, "that you
should play the mentor and correct my ignorance of the world?"
"Vivian, it is not age and experience that speak here, it is something
far wiser than they,--the instinct of a man's heart and a gentleman's
honor."
"Well, well," said Vivian, rather discomposed, "let the poor books alone;
you know my creed--that books influence us little one way or the other."
"By the great Egyptian library and the soul of Diodorus! I wish you could
hear my father upon that point. Come," added I, with sublime compassion,
"come, it is not too late, do let me introduce you to my father. I will
consent to read French novels all my life if a single chat with Austin
Caxton does not send you home with a happier face and lighter heart.
Come, let me take you back to dine with us to-day."
"I cannot," said Vivian, with some confusion; "I cannot, for this day I
leave London. Some other time perhaps,--for," he added, but not heartily,
"we may meet again."
"I hope so," said I, wringing his hand, "and that is likely, since, in
spite of yourself, I have guessed your secret,--your birth and
parentage."
"How!" cried Vivian, turning pale and gnawing his lip. "What do you mean?
Speak."
"Well, then, are you not the lost, runaway son of Colonel Vivian? Come,
say the truth; let us be confidants."
Vivian threw off a succession of his abrupt sighs; and, then, seating
himself, leaned his face on the table, confused, no doubt, to find
himself discovered.
"You are near the mark," said he, at last, "but do not ask me further
yet. Some day," he cried impetuously, and springing suddenly to his feet,
"some day you shall know all,--yes, some day, if I live, when that name
shall be high in the world; yes, when the world is at my feet!" He
stretched his right hand as if to grasp the space, and his whole face was
lighted with a fierce enthusiasm. The glow died away, and with a slight
return of his scornful smile he said: "Dreams yet; dreams! And now, look
at this paper." And he drew out a memorandum, scrawled over with figures.
"This, I think, is my pecuniary debt to you; in a few days I shall
discharge it. Give me your address."
"Oh!" said I, pained, "can you speak to me of money, Vivian?"
"It is one of those instincts of honor you cite so often," answered he,
coloring. "Pardon me."
"That is my address," said I, stooping to write, in order to conceal my
wounded feelings. "You will avail yourself of it, I hope, often, and tell
me that you are well and happy."
"When I am happy you shall know."
"You do not require any introduction to Trevanion?"
Vivian hesitated. "No, I think not. If ever I do, I will write for it."
I took up my hat, and was about to go,--for I was still chilled and
mortified,--when, as if by an irresistible impulse, Vivian came to me
hastily, flung his arms round my neck, and kissed me as a boy kisses his
brother.
"Bear with me!" he cried in a faltering voice; "I did not think to love
any one as you have made me love you, though sadly against the grain. If
you are not my good angel, it is that nature and habit are too strong for
you. Certainly some day we shall meet again. I shall have time, in the
mean while, to see if the world can be indeed 'mine oyster, which I with
sword can open.' I would be aut Caesar aut nullus! Very little other
Latin know I to quote from! If Caesar, men will forgive me all the means
to the end; if nullus, London has a river, and in every street one may
buy a cord!"
"Vivian! Vivian!"
"Now go, my dear friend, while my heart is softened,--go before I shock
you with some return of the native Adam. Go, go!"
And taking me gently by the arm, Francis Vivian drew me from the room,
and re-entering, locked his door.
Ah! if I could have left him Robert Hall, instead of those execrable
Typhons! But would that medicine have suited his case, or must grim
Experience write sterner prescriptions with iron hand?
CHAPTER II.
When I got back, just in time for dinner, Roland had not returned, nor
did he return till late in the evening. All our eyes were directed
towards him, as we rose with one accord to give him welcome; but his face
was like a mask,--it was locked and rigid and unreadable.
Shutting the door carefully after him, he came to the hearth, stood on
it, upright and calm, for a few moments, and then asked,--
"Has Blanche gone to bed?"
"Yes," said my mother, "but not to sleep, I am sure; she made me promise
to tell her when you came back."
Roland's brow relaxed.
"To-morrow, sister," said he, slowly, "will you see that she has the
proper mourning made for her? My son is dead."
"Dead!" we cried with one voice, and surrounded him with one impulse.
"Dead! impossible,--you could not say it so calmly. Dead,--how do you
know? You may be deceived. Who told you? why do you think so?"
"I have seen his remains," said my uncle, with the same gloomy calm. "We
will all mourn for him. Pisistratus, you are heir to my name now, as to
your father's. Good-night; excuse me, all--all you dear and kind ones; I
am worn out." Roland lighted his candle and went away, leaving us
thunderstruck; but he came back again, looked round, took up his book,
open in the favorite passage, nodded again, and again vanished. We looked
at each other as if we had seen a ghost. Then my father rose and went out
of the room, and remained in Roland's till the night was well-nigh gone!
We sat up, my mother and I, till he returned. His benign face looked
profoundly sad.
"How is it, sir? Can you tell us more?" My father shook his head.
"Roland prays that you may preserve the same forbearance you have shown
hitherto, and never mention his son's name to him. Peace be to the
living, as to the dead! Kitty, this changes our plans; we must all go to
Cumberland,--we cannot leave Roland thus!"
"Poor, poor Roland!" said my mother, through her tears. "And to think
that father and son were not reconciled! But Roland forgives him
now,--oh, yes, now!"
"It is not Roland we can censure," said my father, almost fiercely; "it
is--But enough; we must hurry out of town as soon as we can: Roland will
recover in the native air of his old ruins."
We went up to bed mournfully. "And so," thought I, "ends one grand object
of my life! I had hoped to have brought those two together. But, alas,
what peacemaker like the grave!"
CHAPTER III.
My uncle did not leave his room for three days; but he was much closeted
with a lawyer, and my father dropped some words which seemed to imply
that the deceased had incurred debts, and that the poor Captain was
making some charge on his small property. As Roland had said that he had
seen the remains of his son, I took it at first for granted that we
should attend a funeral; but no word of this was said. On the fourth day
Roland, in deep mourning, entered a hackney-coach with the lawyer, and
was absent about two hours. I did not doubt that he had thus quietly
fulfilled the last mournful offices. On his return, he shut himself up
again for the rest of the day, and would not see even my father. But the
next morning he made his appearance as usual, and I even thought that he
seemed more cheerful than I had yet known him,--whether he played a part,
or whether the worst was now over, and the grave was less cruel than
uncertainty. On the following day we all set out for Cumberland.
In the interval, Uncle Jack had been almost constantly at the house, and,
to do him justice, he had seemed unaffectedly shocked at the calamity
that had befallen Roland. There was, indeed, no want of heart in Uncle
Jack, whenever you went straight at it; but it was hard to find if you
took a circuitous route towards it through the pockets. The worthy
speculator had indeed much business to transact with my father before he
left town. The Anti-Publisher Society had been set up, and it was through
the obstetric aid of that fraternity that the Great Book was to be
ushered into the world. The new journal, the "Literary Times," was also
far advanced,--not yet out, but my father was fairly in for it. There
were preparations for its debut on a vast scale, and two or three
gentlemen in black--one of whom looked like a lawyer, and another like a
printer, and a third uncommonly like a Jew--called twice, with papers of
a very formidable aspect. All these preliminaries settled, the last thing
I heard Uncle Jack say, with a slap on my father's back, was, "Fame and
fortune both made now! You may go to sleep in safety, for you leave me
wide awake. Jack Tibbets never sleeps!"
I had thought it strange that, since my abrupt exodus from Trevanion's
house, no notice had been taken of any of us by himself or Lady Ellinor.
But on the very eve of our departure came a kind note from Trevanion to
me, dated from his favorite country seat (accompanied by a present of
some rare books to my father), in which he said, briefly, that there had
been illness in his family which had obliged him to leave town for a
change of air, but that Lady Ellinor expected to call on my mother the
next week. He had found amongst his books some curious works of the
Middle Ages, amongst others a complete set of Cardan, which he knew my
father would like to have, and so sent them. There was no allusion to
what had passed between us. In reply to this note, after due thanks on my
father's part, who seized upon the Cardan (Lyons edition, 1663, ten
volumes folio) as a silk-worm does upon a mulberry-leaf, I expressed our
joint regrets that there was no hope of our seeing Lady Ellinor, as we
were just leaving town. I should have added something on the loss my
uncle had sustained, but my father thought that since Roland shrank from
any mention of his son, even by his nearest kindred, it would be his
obvious wish not to parade his affliction beyond that circle.
And there had been illness in Trevanion's family! On whom had it fallen?
I could not rest satisfied with that general expression, and I took my
answer myself to Trevanion's house, instead of sending it by the post. In
reply to my inquiries, the porter said that all the family were expected
at the end of the week; that he had heard both Lady Ellinor and Miss
Trevanion had been rather poorly, but that they were now better. I left
my note with orders to forward it; and my wounds bled afresh as I came
away.
We had the whole coach to ourselves in our journey, and a silent journey
it was, till we arrived at a little town about eight miles from my
uncle's residence, to which we could only get through a cross-road. My
uncle insisted on preceding us that night; and though he had written
before we started, to announce our coming, he was fidgety lest the poor
tower should not make the best figure it could, so he went alone, and we
took our ease at our inn.
Betimes the next day we hired a fly-coach--for a chaise could never have
held us and my father's books--and jogged through a labyrinth of
villanous lanes which no Marshal Wade had ever reformed from their primal
chaos. But poor Mrs. Primmins and the canary-bird alone seemed sensible
of the jolts; the former, who sat opposite to us wedged amidst a medley
of packages, all marked "Care, to be kept top uppermost" (why I know not,
for they were but books, and whether they lay top or bottom it could not
materially affect their value),--the former, I say, contrived to extend
her arms over those disjecta membra, and griping a window-sill with the
right hand, and a window-sill with the left, kept her seat rampant, like
the split eagle of the Austrian Empire: in fact, it would be well
nowadays if the split eagle were as firm as Mrs. Primmins! As for the
canary, it never failed to respond, by an astonished chirp, to every
"Gracious me!" and "Lord save us!" which the delve into a rut, or the
bump out of it, sent forth from Mrs. Primmins's lips, with all the
emphatic dolor of the "Ai, ai!" in a Greek chorus.
But my father, with his broad hat over his brows, was in deep thought.
The scenes of his youth were rising before him, and his memory went,
smooth as a spirit's wing, over delve and bump. And my mother, who sat
next him, had her arm on his shoulder, and was watching his face
jealously. Did she think that in that thoughtful face there was regret
for the old love? Blanche, who had been very sad, and had wept much and
quietly since they put on her the mourning, and told her that she had no
brother (though she had no remembrance of the lost), began now to evince
infantine curiosity and eagerness to catch the first peep of her father's
beloved tower. And Blanche sat on my knee, and I shared her impatience.
At last there came in view a church-spire, a church, a plain square
building near it, the parsonage (my father's old home), a long,
straggling street of cottages and rude shops, with a better kind of house
here and there, and in the hinder ground a gray, deformed mass of wall
and ruin, placed on one of those eminences on which the Danes loved to
pitch camp or build fort, with one high, rude, Anglo-Norman tower rising
from the midst. Few trees were round it, and those either poplars or
firs, save, as we approached, one mighty oak,--integral and unscathed.
The road now wound behind the parsonage and up a steep ascent. Such a
road,--the whole parish ought to have been flogged for it! If I had sent
up a road like that, even on a map, to Dr. Herman, I should not have sat
down in comfort for a week to come!
The fly-coach came to a full stop.
"Let us get out," cried I, opening the door, and springing to the ground
to set the example.
Blanche followed, and my respected parents came next. But when Mrs.
Primmins was about to heave herself into movement--
"Papce!" said my father. "I think, Mrs. Primmins, you must remain in, to
keep the books steady."
"Lord love you!" cried Mrs. Primmins, aghast.
"The subtraction of such a mass, or moles,--supple and elastic as all
flesh is, and fitting into the hard corners of the inert matter,--such a
subtraction, Mrs. Primmins, would leave a vacuum which no natural system,
certainly no artificial organization, could sustain. There would be a
regular dance of atoms, Mrs. Primmins; my books would fly here, there, on
the floor, out of the window!
"'Corporis officium est quoniam omnia deorsum.'
"The business of a body like yours, Mrs. Primmins, is to press all things
down, to keep them tight, as you will know one of these days,--that is,
if you will do me the favor to read Lucretius, and master that material
philosophy of which I may say, without flattery, my dear Mrs. Primmins,
that you are a living illustration."
These, the first words my father had spoken since we set out from the
inn, seemed to assure my mother that she need have no apprehension as to
the character of his thoughts, for her brow cleared, and she said,
laughing,--
"Only look at poor Primmins, and then at that hill!"
"You may subtract Primmins, if you will be answerable for the remnant,
Kitty. Only I warn you that it is against all the laws of physics."
So saying, he sprang lightly forward, and, taking hold of my arm, paused
and looked round, and drew the loud free breath with which we draw native
air.
"And yet," said my father, after that grateful and affectionate
inspiration,--"and yet, it must be owned that a more ugly country one
cannot see out of Cambridgeshire." (1)
"Nay," said I, "it is bold and large, it has a beauty of its own. Those
immense, undulating, uncultivated, treeless tracts have surely their
charm of wildness and solitude. And how they suit the character of the
ruin! All is feudal there! I understand Roland better now."
"I hope to Heaven Cardan will come to no harm!" cried my father; "he is
very handsomely bound, and he fitted beautifully just into the fleshiest
part of that fidgety Primmins."
Blanche, meanwhile, had run far before us, and I followed fast. There
were still the remains of that deep trench (surrounding the ruins on
three sides, leaving a ragged hill-top at the fourth) which made the
favorite fortification of all the Teutonic tribes. A causeway, raised on
brick arches, now, however, supplied the place of the drawbridge, and the
outer gate was but a mass of picturesque ruin. Entering into the
courtyard or bailey, the old castle mound, from which justice had been
dispensed, was in full view, rising higher than the broken walls around
it, and partially over grown with brambles. And there stood,
comparatively whole, the Tower or Keep, and from its portals emerged the
veteran owner.
His ancestors might have received us in more state, but certainly they
could not have given us a warmer greeting. In fact, in his own domain
Roland appeared another man. His stiffness, which was a little repulsive
to those who did not understand it, was all gone. He seemed less proud,
precisely because he and his pride, on that ground, were on good terms
with each other. How gallantly he extended,--not his arm, in our modern
Jack-and-Jill sort of fashion, but his right hand to my mother; how
carefully he led her over "brake, bush, and scaur," through the low
vaulted door, where a tall servant, who, it was easy to see, had been a
soldier,--in the precise livery, no doubt, warranted by the heraldic
colors (his stockings were red!),--stood upright as a sentry. And coming
into the hall, it looked absolutely cheerful,--it took us by surprise.
There was a great fireplace, and, though it was still summer, a great
fire! It did not seem a bit too much, for the walls were stone, the lofty
roof open to the rafters, while the windows were small and narrow, and so
high and so deep sunk that one seemed in a vault. Nevertheless, I say the
room looked sociable and cheerful,--thanks principally to the fire, and
partly to a very ingenious medley of old tapestry at one end, and matting
at the other, fastened to the lower part of the walls, seconded by an
arrangement of furniture which did credit to my uncle's taste for the
picturesque. After we had looked about and admired to our heart's
content, Roland took us, not up one of those noble staircases you see in
the later manorial residences, but a little winding stone stair, into the
rooms he had appropriated to his guests. There was first a small chamber,
which he called my father's study,--in truth, it would have done for any
philosopher or saint who wished to shut out the world, and might have
passed for the interior of such a column as the Stylites inhabited; for
you must have climbed a ladder to have looked out of the window, and then
the vision of no short-sighted man could have got over the interval in
the wall made by the narrow casement, which, after all, gave no other
prospect than a Cumberland sky, with an occasional rook in it. But my
father, I think I have said before, did not much care for scenery, and he
looked round with great satisfaction upon the retreat assigned him.