P HUTCHINSON’S ADVENTURE-STORY LIBRARY Handsomely bound, full gilt, with attractive picture wrapper, 2s. net. THE TREASURE OF ALI MUBARAK RAYMUND M. CLARK THE ENCHANTED ISLAND RANN DALY DRAGONS NEVILLE LANGTON THE GOLD CAT ARTHUR MILLS OCEAN TRAMPS H. DE VERE STACPOOLE STAR DUST E. CHARLES VIVIAN HUTCHINSON’S HISTORICAL-ROMANCE LIBRARY Handsomely bound, full gilt, with attractive picture wrapper, 2s. net. THE VIRTUOUS FOOL JOAN A. COWDROY FOR LOVE OF A SINNER R. GORDON ANDERSON THE SPANISH DANCER VICTOR HUGO THE ACE OF BLADES CHARLES B. STILSON LADY JEM NETTA SYRETT THE TRAVELLER IN THE FUR CLOAK STANLEY J. WEYMAN fel Kt>-S-h THE ST OSCAR A Novel :: By John Ayscough Author of “ Marotz,” “ Brogmersfield,” ''etc. •: :: Now we know not of them; but one saith The Gods are gracious — praising God: and one, When hast thou seen? Or hast thou felt his breath Touch, nor consume thine eyelids as the sun, Nor fill thee to the lips with fiery death? None hath beheld him. 2nd Edition LONDON HUTCHINSON & CO. (PUBLISHERS), LTD. PATERNOSTER ROW, E.C. CONTENTS BOOK PAGE I AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF OSCAR ----- 7 ii veronica’s interlude - - - - - 129 III the author’s epilogue - - - - - 231 A DIEU - - 317 BOOK THE FIRST AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF OSCAR o> Zeu, rt irtrcpa who was leaning on the marble slab over the central stones, without altering his lazy position, asked in a clear, unsub- dued voice : “ Is it usual in this Society for the Committee to send letters threatening expulsion, unless a speedy payment for ! an uncontracted debt be made, to gentlemen neither ; belonging or seeking to belong to this Society ? ” The Treasurer, who had sat down again, now jumped excitedly and rushed forward to the table, saying angrily : t€ I can answer for it, gentlemen, that no honourable member who doesn’t belong to this Society has ever received any such notice . . .” But his voice was drowned in loud laughter, cries of “ Query ! How’s that? ” and general disturbance. And, frowning ferociously with his heavy black brows, Gough, of Feeble, sat down in dudgeon, and the motion for debate was read out. “ That in the opinion of this House the influence of Trade Unions is invariably deleterious and deplorable.” Proposed : Mr, D. Welsh, of Jesus. The eyes of all present were immediately turned on the short, creamy gentleman who now advanced to the table with one hand in his pocket and the other occupied in dusting his face with a red pocket-handkerchief, as though it were an ornament, which it certainly was not. With a ludicrously exaggerated bow to his audience, and an cmdible wink at one or two admirers who were leading the applause his appearance had called forth, the orator began his speech. “ Sir,” he said with captivating candour, “ I am a Tory. Yes, sir, I am indeed. There is no denying, and if there was I am not the man to do it, that I am a Tory; some men, sir, would rise up in this brilliant assembly and try to impose upon the house. Sir, I despise, I may say I scorn, I will even go the length of observing that I look down upon, such mean equivocators.” At the utterance of these noble and elevating sentiments the entire house was instant with loud voices, and equally audible laughter, entreating him to proceed. When the tumult had ceased, during which Mr. Welsh, of Jesus, had blandly bowed and smiled, and stealthily consulted notes 70 THE STORY OF OSCAR concealed in his red handkerchief, he went on with kindly eye and rising voice : 66 No, sir. Some gentlemen there are,” (with biting emphasis) “ who would thus stoop, but not, not I. I dis- approve of Trade Unions. I am not a Radical; I am none of your bawling, screaming, howling, pamphleting, tree-chopping-do wn-ing, Ritualistic Radicals; nor, sir, am I a Russian.” (Loud cries of 66 You don’t mean it, sir. Surely you’re speaking unguardedly, sir,” etc.) “ No, sir; some gentlemen in the back part of the house appear to consider I am a Russian. Now they are wrong : I will content myself with saying they are wrong. If I were a Russian I should be proud to own — I mean I should be too much of an Englishman to conceal the fact.” Here again the enthusiasm of the house burst all limits, and even the President suffered an embryo smile to play upon his shrewd mouth. “ Nor am I a Ritualist. You behold before you, gentle- men, none of your fasting ” — (cries of “ Certainly not, sir.” “ Very true, sir.”) — “ bowing, scraping, confession- mongering, incense-burning, vestment-wearing mounte- banks.” Once more Mr. Welsh’s eloquence was interrupted, this time by indignant cries of “ Order ” and expostulations on the part of the Treasurer, who failed signally to impress on the speaker that he was really out of order. Taking the law into his own hands, the orator proceeded loudly, drowning the cries and laughter with his own vehemence. “ I have said I am no Radical; I have remarked more- over that I am not a Russian; and finally, sir, I have ventured to hint that I am not a Ritualist. If I were, very possibly I might approve of Trade Unions, but I am not, and I abhor them ! Yes, sir, as a Tory, as a Briton, and as an old-fashioned Protestant, I execrate the whole boil . . . the whole, the whole thing. If I were a Radical I should probably be a tradesman, all the tradesmen are, and are not Trade Unions unions of tradesmen? If I were a Russian I should have the destruction of England at heart and should therefore join a Trade Union, or if I were a Ritualist I should belong to the E.C.U. or English Cads’ Union or whatever it may be.” At this point loud accusations of unparliamentary language were brought against the orator, who therefore remarked apologetically : “ It seems that that word is not parliamentary, so I AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF OSCAR 71 must change it for something meaning the same thing, or let’s say the initials stand for Every Child’s Union,” Mr. Welsh proceeded undisturbed till the end of his speech and was succeeded by one Hardy, of Belial, a young man with curled hair like a blenched retriever, and an infuriating trick of swinging incessantly from leg to leg and back again. His strong point was contemporary events in the East, which, to the surprise of everyone, he contrived to wrest to his purpose and made several effective allusions to “ Yakhoob Kahan ” and “ Bawrochakhan,” whose names he had invented a patent system of pronounc- ing, all his own, and as yet uniiif ringed by anyone. When his eloquence was suspended there arose a famed orator called Macmillan, of Auriole, a shortish man and slight, with a flippant, clever face and an excellent set of teeth, which he kept permanently on view. “ Sir,” he began, with a withering smile at both the former speakers, “ I am not a Tory.” At this point he stopped to drink some water which he poured out with punctilious ceremony and to give the audience time to applaud. This they did obediently, and he resumed with one hand thrust into his waistcoat and the other grasping the v table, as he leaned forward and half- closed his eyes, the better to acknowledge the plaudits of the crowd. “ I cannot say I am a Russian. Nor yet, sir ” (with a quenching sneer in the direction of the mover), “ nor yet, sir, have I the honour to be a Welshman! I am in fact merely an Englishman. But I am, sir, a Radical; I am, sir, a favourer of Trade Unions. Emphatically I repeat that Trade Unions have my sanction. When, sir, I came down to this house to-night it was with no intention of taking up the valuable time of the house with any speech of mine.” At this juncture it became necessary for him to take another sip of water and deftly allude to his notes which he had been hatching all the week. “ But it has struck me that since no one else seems- inclined to draw sword in this sacred warfare ” (nineteen swords at least had been pining to leap from their scab- bards, but he had been too quick for them), “ I must not consult my own feelings, but the interests of truth.” A voice from the rear murmured faintly, “ Yes, it’s high time you did that,” and the speaker, unheeding the vulgar comment went on : “ Unity, sir, is a blessing — may I be excused if I employ 72 THE STORY OF OSCAR so strong a term as to say ( the blessing 5 ? — of nations : and how best can unity be attained? Surely, by union. If by union, then pray, sir, why not by Unions? And since one union is best for one rank, and another for a different rank, surely the Trade Unions are best for the artizan ranks for whom they are designed ! 55 “ Yes, yes, no, no, hear, hear, query, query, 55 resounded in comment on this masterly argument. But heedless of the taunts and blandly cognizant of the approval, Mr. Macmillan continued : “ Now, sir, that being the case, it undoubtedly behoves the mover of such a motion, if motion it can be called, to advance some argument why Trade Unions are deleterious, forsooth, and deplorable ! ! ! Have any such arguments been produced ? No ! Have Trade Unions been decided to be deleterious ? No ! ! Have Trade Unions been shown to be deplorable ? No ! ! ! What has been done ? The honourable proposer of this — we will, for convenience sake, call it a motion — of this motion has assured us he is no Liberal; now, sir, who could listen to his speech and not know the fact by intuition? He has disclaimed being a subject of the Tzar, when to my knowledge no one credited him with any particular nationality at all. And lastly he has in language less parliamentary than vigorous rebutted all charges of Ritualism. What then ? Does that prove anything? No, sir; I have ceased to be moved by the intelligence that the proposer of this motion is no Ritualist. It once struck me as deeply impressive — years ago. But since then, sir, I have heard him disprove the duality of the brain by the same assertion, I have heard him belaud Lord Beaconsfield by the same means, and I have heard him thus demonstrate the wisdom of Her Gracious Majesty’s adoption of the title of Empress of India. 55 At this point the applause again burst forth, and Mr. Macmillan sat down in the thrill of it : my attention was attracted by Byron to a Freshman in the gallery who had introduced two obsolete females, with whom he was unworthily affecting to have no connection, and whose enthusiasm at the eloquence of the last speaker well-nigh cast him headlong onto the head of a benevolent coloured gentleman beneath. Then uprose a youth who opened his speech and sealed his reputation by saying : “ I, sir, am neiver a Wadical, nor an extweme Torwy; but wather an independent Libewal, and vo I don’t alto- AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF OSCAR 73 gever admire all vat Mr, Gladstone may do, I am fwee to confess vat neiver do I fink much of Mr. Diswaieli, now cweated Lord Beaconsfield,” His successor, though able fortunately to pronounce his th’s and r’s, had a death-struggle with his l*s and re- marked introductorily : “ Sir, awthough there *ies between me and the genter- man who has just delighted us with his *ong and c’ever speech, a great gu’f, I am ob’iged to acknowledge that on the hoe I fee* compel to confess that there is a great dea* in vhat he says.” I Byron began to grow impatient by the time he had finished his speech, and as I had also had enough we made the best of our way out, before the next speaker rose to address the house. CHAPTER XIV For the next few days I saw little or nothing of Byron, for be you ever so friendly, it is impossible to see really much of an out-college acquaintance; at all events so I invariably found it. On the afternoon following the debate at the Union, I determined to walk across to Auriole on my way to the , Parks, where a football match was to come oft between : Maudlin and Uxeter, and drop a paste-board on Goring, who, as well as his mentor Father Christmas, had been so good as to call upon me, though what claims I had upon ; their notice I have since been unable to discover. It was about three o’clock and therefore there was every | reason to suppose that my search for Goring would be fruit- less, but such was not the case. In answer to my knock ij at his door, there came indeed no response, so taking it for granted that he was out, I entered with the intention of leaving a card on his table, but to my surprise and horror not only was he in but Smiley, of Wanbrool^e, and Milli- cent, of Kirk Christ, bore him company. I pulled up short with the handle of the door in my hand, for at my entrance they looked horribly confused and scuffled to a perpendicular posture, having previously been all three genuflecting violently to a registered letter upon the table. “ Oh, come in, do,” said Goring with a scarlet face, cramming the object of their adoration into his breast- pocket and advancing to meet me. “ Do you know Milli- cent, or Smiley? May I introduce you? ” And he pro- ceeded to do so, though certainly if I had not already been apprised of their names, I should not have gleaned much information from his breathless introduction. “ I am afraid you did not hear me knock. I fear that I have disturbed you,” said I mildly, sitting down in a Gothic armchair with a hideously narrow seat and prickly arms and back. While my host was mumbling incoherent pardons of my 74 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF OSCAR 75 intrusion I took stock of the room. It was rampantly ecclesiastical in furniture and decoration, and every thing that could inconveniently be made Gothic was so made. The door of the scout’s hole was painted black, and on the cross-shaped boards between the four panels was fastened a gigantic plaster figure of the Saviour, and in the panels themselves were the emblems of the Four Evangelists. Above the door opening into the passage was a smaller crucifix, while on one side of it was a small benitier or Holy Water stoup with “ Thou shalt preserve my going out and my coming in ” subscript in illegible mediaeval character. The greater part of the light was obscured by a sort of blind of stained glass representing the Assumption of the i Virgin, and over the mantelpiece instead of a mirror was a picture illustrative of the martyrdom of S. Thomas of Canterbury, the patron saint of the Ritualist Club in Oxford. “ You know Father Christmas, of S. Barsabas, I believe,” observed my host introductorily. 66 He asked me to look you up.” “ Yes, at least he was kind enough to call upon me; but unfortunately I missed him.” The three friends looked as if I had indeed missed more than they could well say. “ Is there any Christmas Eve , so to spe^k ; is Father Christmas married ? ” I asked with an unworthy attempt at humour. They looked shocked, and Goring replied gravely : “ No. The Vicar of S. Barsabas conceives the Church to be unfavourable to the marriage of her priests.” “ Oh,” I observed originally, with difficulty strangling a desire to ask if Mr. Christmas abstained from matrimony lest those who succeeded him should be called the Holy Innocents. “ Do you know Winter, of Feeble ? ” asked Millicent presently. ! “ Yes, I met him at Canon Spring’s, who was so kind as to ask me to luncheon last Sunday. They seem great friends.” “ Yes, they are always together. Some people call them the seasons ,” responded Millicent with an outraged sneer, evidently intended to remind me of my own blas- phemous jest. I congratulated myself that I had not given birth to the Holy Innocents. 76 THE STORY OF OSCAR “ You doubtless wondered why we were kneeling when you came in ? ” blurted out Smiley with a nervous tremble of his pink eyelids and a corresponding twitch of his ample ear. I admitted that their posture had struck me as erring on the side of devotion, and Goring explained confusedly : “ I have an oratory, you see,” with a glance at the scout’s hole, “ and dear Canon Boosey was so thoughtful as to offer me a Sacred Host for Reservation on the Altar in it; It had just arrived.” u Oh! I had no notion that those things could be managed so easily,” I observed with a benignant attempt at throwing myself into the spirit of the conversation. “ Would telephonic absolution be valid, now? ” My companions mistook my meaning and gazed blankly before them with an expression of utter stupefaction and horror without answering at all. I therefore kept silence also, determined to hazard no more dangerous observa- tions; to tell the truth, their ostentatious shockdom rather set my back up, for it struck me that if I had believed that golden wafer was really the very God of my life I should have hesitated before sending it through the penny-post, for three silly boys to play with in their toy-shop-chapel. The idea of every undergraduate who chose having a tame god in his rooms seemed to me a trifle degrading. To my delight the conversation appeared about to veer round from ritualism and be taking a convivial and hospit- able turn. “ Would you care to drop in to compline some even- ing ? ” asked my host. “ We have it here every evening.” “ Oh, thanks,” I responded graciously. “ I should be delighted. Some men brag of never eating anything after Hall; now I enjoy something in the way of supper immensely, and think it a very pleasant meal.” A withering smile crept stealthily across the three faces before me and my host made answer with politely veiled scorn : “ We don’t generally eat anything at compline. But afterwards we usually have supper, and should be most happy if you would stop.” Accordingly I agreed to grace their compline on the following Thursday week, having by this time discovered it to be a function not a meal. “ Yes, certainly, I think Thursday will be the best AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF OSCAR 77 iday,” observed Goring deliberately. “ You see, Thurs- days are Common of the Blessed Sacrament, and so there iwill be solemn compline with incense.” “ Ah, then it would of course be best, I forgot that,” asserted I with a sage affectation of awakened recollection, and having thus accepted the invitation, rose to take my leave. “ I was intending to have called on you to-morrow,” said Millicent, shaking hands effusively, and Smiley capped it by asseverating : “ And I was just about to come and see you to-day." Both of which assurances I received with the enthusiasm I they deserved, though for the life of me I could not con- ceive why I should be such an object of interest to these devout young lay-priests. It felt rather a relief to be out again in the open air after the incense-staled atmosphere of that church-like closet, and I could not help contrasting what seemed to me the frivolity of their vagaries up there with the solemn unobtrusive stateliness of the old black buildings round me, and wondering what the long departed founders of Auriole and the great names who* had been proud to call it mother would think of nowadays Ritualism. Religion had always been to me the synonym for almost everything unpleasant, almost everything unnatural and i unlovely, but till now it had never struck me as being the prime mover and cause of the ludicrous and inane. I : had already seen enough of Oxford to know that such feeble children as those I had left with their registered Host and solemn compline with incense, were not the ordinary type of its sons, but then I remembered that those with whom my lines had hitherto been cast had not been religious, far from it. As I passed Feeble, glaring in all its red rawness, the long-drawn strains of a Gregorian tone were wafted to my ears through an open but well-barred window, within which howled in lugubrious concert a harmonium, a ritualistic undergraduate and an outraged terrier. Just in front of me was another member of that respectable foundation clad in an irrelevant ulster, for the day was mild, and hastening along with guilty glance to either side. It did not then strike me, as it would now, that he had a loaf of bread and other hospitable fare concealed in the hood of his overcoat, which dainties he would fain bring undetected to his lodging within those roseate walls. 78 THE STORY OF OSCAR When I arrived at the Parks of course I found the best places for seeing the game already occupied by patriotic Maudlin and Uxeter men, noticeably Freshmen, who hounded on their respective sides with stentorian ardour, j Among these I was not long in spying out my acquaint- ance of the summer, Gosling, who lost no time either in becoming cognizant of my presence. “ Hello ! ” he said, mentioning my name with a dis- tinctness that made me shudder at it, inasmuch as several people instantly turned from him to me to identify his friend. 44 Why are you so late ? You ought to have been here half-an-hour ago. You’ve lost the best of it.” “ How is it going ? 99 . 1 “ Oh, first-rate. We’ve got a goal and two touch- downs to nothing : but everyone knew we should leather them, with Kershaw and the two Brudenells we could do almost anything. But what induced Hastings to put | Parott half-back I can’t conceive.” My friend seemed determined to hold on to me like a tactless limpet to a rock, and so with the worst visible grace I submitted. With a little alteration Gosling would have made a really nice fellow enough, but then he had not yet been altered. His sovereign defect was a chronic state of allu- 3 sion to a fabulous uncle, with whom in fancy he had much ] resided, Sir Somebody Something, of Castle Somewhere, all whose geese (and even Goslings) were swans and all whose horses thoroughbreds, and lastly, as my friend did not scruple to say, all whose plate was silver. Unlike Averill in “ Aylmer’s Field ” : “ He lean’d not on his fathers nor himself/’ but on his uncle. Ever since my coming up to Oxford I had felt a grim foreboding that Gosling would seize some favourable opportunity for a loud and public allusion to this relative. “ Good ground,” I observed presently, seeing that some remark was expected of me. A depreciatory elevation of the eyebrows and hitch of the side pockets on his part seemed to give the lie to my indifferent opinion. “ Very fair, yes; very fair; but if you want to see a really good ground now, plenty of room, and in Al order, you should come to my uncle’s.” “ * O my prophetic soul. Your uncle! ’ ” AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF OSCAR 79 I murmured softly, with a natural feeling of triumph at the accuracy of my forecast. At least twenty eyes were turned upon us at this modest speech, and the brows thereto pertaining were in most instances raised in mild scorn. “ You haven’t been to look me up yet, I say. Why don’t you come ? The old girl was up last week and she said she’d never seen neater rooms anywhere, you should come and see them.” My friend rattled on in his easy I manner, evidently only too happy to have so good an |i opportunity of hearing his own voice. “ You know the old girl, my mother, don’t you? Well, on my honour, j she’s rather neat, devilish neat, and deucedly well !i groomed too. A trifle shaky on her knees perhaps and a bit touched in the wind, but by Jove, for a woman of her years, in an honest county or in the open, she’d disgrace no one’s stable.” These remarks were luckily conducted in a somewhat less penetrating key than his former conversation had been. “ Do you keep her in your stable ? ” I asked with interest. He laughed and explained that it was his mare and not his mere that he was speaking of, and shortly after this, tiring very naturally of my society, hastened to leave it. CHAPTER XV Nothing particularly deserving of notice occurred till the day of the Ritualistic function at Auriole, at which I had promised to assist; on that day Herod and Byron dropped in about five o’clock just after coming back from the boats and stayed for tea. I was dressing again when they arrived, having put on my boating flannels before starting for the river in preference to changing at our barge, but it did not take me long to put myself in a position to enter- tain my guests, and by the time my scout had brought my kettle and tea-things I was again on the scene. “ If you’ve nothing better to do, come to Hall at Belial,” suggested Byron as I calculated the company with one eye and regulated my measure of tea with the other. “ This man promised to come and has played me false, so I shall be left on the bleak shore alone. Be good- natured and pocket your pride. We can go to the debate afterwards if you like.” “ There’s nothing I should like better, but unluckily I have been so weak as to promise Goring, of Auriole, to go to compline in his rooms to-night, and the affair begins at half-past eight, so the Union would rather clash with it. But I’ll dine with you if you like. You don’t chance to be invited, I suppose.” Byron laughed. “ I? Well, I don’t suppose I do. You surely forget I’m a Papist.” “ No? Well, to tell the truth, there seems to me to be six to one and half-a-dozen to the other,” was my response, fully intended to be rather soothing and com- plimentary. “ H’m. Well, we don’t. And to do them justice the Ritualists don’t. We feel about the same degree of enmity to one another as the genuine turtle must nourish for a calf.” These subtleties of religion rather perplexed me, so I AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF OSCAR 81 changed the subject and agreed to go to Hall at Belial on condition that Byron walked back with me to the gates of Auriole. “ I’ll come if you like,” suggested Herod, “ They have given me carte-blanche to come to solemn compline (with incense) whenever I like. It’s a long while since I liked, and so I’ll come to-night if you’d care to have some secular person to help you through. The food will prob- ably be ampler and better in your honour, since you’re expected, and so it won’t be so bad. You will have to bear the brunt of the laity if I tackle Christmas and Shuttlecock.” I accepted Herod’s offer as at a last straw catches the proverbial drowning man. “ But I’ve got to go to that rotten Hall at Feeble before I can come,” he continued. ** Old Napier asked me and I’ve refused so shamefully; after that I really hadn’t the face to say I could not go; so I’ve thrown over Byron and shall take my fill of duty and then, after a look at the evening papers, I’ll bear down on you at Auriole.” Presently we all went off together, for of course our ways lay in the same direction till we got to Belial. Just as we were crossing Tom Quad into St. Aldate’s, laughing rather jovially and generally seeming very sociable, we nearly ran into Canon Spring and Smiley, who both glowered at Byron darkly and sent compassionate glances at me. “ Well, Byron, I trust you feel withered,” laughed Herod, when they had got past. “ It’s evident the Barsa- bites think you’ve your eye on our noble friend here and are determined to rout you if possible.” Byron laughed but looked annoyed. I did not then know how shamelessly the Barsabites, as Herod called them, affected to fear the Catholics in Oxford, or how pitiful were their efforts to remove any man, whether he were known to them or no, from the baneful influence of Rome which they invariably deemed sufficiently shown by the most ordinary civility. At the comer of the Broad by S. Mary Magdalen’s Church, Herod left us and walked on down St. Giles to Feeble, and we turned Belial just in time for Hall. Nothing very noteworthy occurred there beyond the fact that the famous Master was pointed out to me for the first time, and impressed me very much. 82 THE STORY OF OSCAR “ There, look, there’s Beelzebub,” said Byron, in allu- sion to the nick-name his scholastic chief commonly bore, from his headship over Belial. At half-past eight we left the writing-room of the Union, where we had been working off a few arrears of cor- respondence, and picking up Herod in the magazine-room, started for Auriole. At the gates of Auriole, Byron left us and Herod and I went on and up into Goring’s rooms, where we arrived just ten minutes after time. Both Goring and his peers looked visibly discomposed at the entrance of Herod, but they had to put the best face on the matter they could and affected to be transported with delight at his coming. “ You have done him good,” they said to me blandly. 4 4 He has not been to any functions here or at Barsy ” (their playful mode of alluding to their favourite church) 44 for months.” I mildly disclaimed all influence over my friend’s religious convictions and began to look around. There was a sort of amphibious meal arranged already on the central table, which however did not now occupy the centre of the room, but was wheeled away into the comer furthest from the door. The repast appeared to be of the sort I particularly detest. A sort of evening luncheon without the convenience, at which all the plates designed by God to be hot were all cold, while those intended for jellies and the like prove to be loathsomely tepid. But the mere food was, as I knew, a very secondary thing : the doors of the scout’s hole were still closed, but everyone kept glancing at them impatiently as though expecting them every moment to open. Presently we all knelt down (there were some ten of us) and the doors of the closet alluded to were opened by Goring, disclosing a small altar smothered with candles and flowers, and sur- mounted by an enormous painted image of their patron saint St. Thomas a Becket, dreadfully out of drawing in that tiny temple. In front of the altar knelt a youth whom I could not recognize by his back, and on either side another person of tender years holding out his cope at some distance from his body. 44 That’s the top-sawyer,” whispered Herod, who knelt on my left. AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF OSCAR 83 44 That is the celebrant , 55 murmured Smiley on my right. Presently the celebrant stood erect, genuflected, grovelled with his face on the floor and again resumed the perpen- dicular. He now turned to us and I recognized a man called Gates, of St. James 5 , whom I had often met hovering about with Smiley or Goring. He was vested in a long- drawn Roman cassock reaching well to the ground in front and trailing with feminine grace behind, and a short Roman cotta, itself of about the depth of an Eton collar but lengthily valanced with sham point-lace. Over this was an enormous cope of flaming yellow Italian cloth, with deep, deep orphreys representing St. Peter and other Popes sitting with beaming grins in impossible niches. On his head the celebrant wore a red biretta, which he might well have dispensed with so very frequently did he find it necessary to remove it at some point where the rest grovelled or bowed. Turning towards us the celebrant bowed courteously, not ritually, and we bowed in return to him. Then the two acolytes took hold of the hem of his cope and spread it out wide on either side of him, one saying : 44 Jube, Domine, benedicere . 55 Raising his heavily freighted hand, the celebrant invoked a blessing and pronounced the 44 short lesson , 55 as I saw from my book it was called. Then followed the 44 Con- fiteor 55 and invocation of absolution, after which they all three sat down on stools in front of the altar with their faces to us, and sang the Psalm 44 Cum invocarem . 55 After the Psalms and versicles the celebrant again stood up and said the 44 Benedicet nos , 55 the acolytes holding his cope out as before, presenting exactly the shape of a coat-of-arms. 44 If I were to blazon that , 55 said Herod in my ear, 44 I should say, 4 A bom fool proper, attired gules, mantlings on : supported by two idiots of the first, bowant and scrapant, argent . 5 55 I sniggered audibly, and smothered my face in my hands for a moment, till my gravity should have been restored. On looking up again, to my horror I saw one acolyte armed with a thurible and the other with an incense-boat while the celebrant was preparing to fume the altar. Now I had often been present at high ceremonies in huge cathedrals abroad when incense had been offered and had been rather pleased with it. The aesthetic aspect of the thing had been excellent and the symbolism was apparent 84 THE STORY OF OSCAR and impressive, nor had the fragrance been so strong as to be oppressive. But here, in this small room, some twenty feet square, I shuddered at the prospect, when brought face to face with it. And with reason. Gates showered three enormous spoons- ful of incense on to the charcoal and instantly dense and suffocating clouds of smoke arose to the low ceiling, thence curling down again, in heavy stifling folds that pene- trated eyes and nose and lungs alike and set half of us coughing violently. If there was anything symbolized it certainly typified the rising of our prayers to the height of some eight feet from the ground and being indignantly hurled down again. When the clouds of smoke rolled away a little I could see Gates gesticulating violently and grinning broadly, try- ing his best to attract the notice of one of us that we might sign to the acolyte who was now fuming us, to stop and go back to his place. But no one seemed to take any notice of his excitement and presently he burst out into a ringing peal of ill-smothered laughter and turning his back on us quivered and shook visibly. Great consternation now prevailed. Some one or two laughed and sneezed and choked openly and the others looked shocked, but every- one was whispering, and at last Goring rushed forward, seized the thurible, and began blowing out the candles. “ Oh, it’s all wrong , 55 I heard him say to Smiley. “ We all forgot that to-morrow is All Saints 5 Day, and to-day the Vigil. Of course, to-day is violet not red , and there should have been only the two vesper-lights and no incense . 55 A good deal of giggling succeeded this disclosure, and Herod was looking blankly before him, with an expression of disgust upon his handsome face, such as I had never previously seen there. So ended Goring’s function of Solemn Compline (with Incense). CHAPTER XVI A few days after this my first experience of modem Ritualism, Smiley, of Wanbrooke, dropped in on me just as I was starting out to execute a commission I had undertaken for the wife of our parson at Beaumonde. She had two sons, little ruffians they were too, at a very Ritualistic school near Oxford, called the Catholic College of S. Edgar the Martyr, and for these sons she had knitted with fond motherly affection several pairs of woollen stockings with which she had entrusted me. I blush to say the woollen stockings had faded entirely from my recollection till this day, and I hastened there- fore to get them off my conscience as soon as possible. It was rather a nuisance to have to give up the river for the whole afternoon, but I felt that it was only the punish- ment due to my previous negligence. Smiley came in just as I had shouldered my large buff- paper package of stockings and was about to set off for S. Edgar’s, which is about two or three miles from Carfax. ‘ 8 Oh, if you’re going out, don’t let me keep you,” he observed, seeing perhaps that I evinced no overwhelming joy at his advent. “ I have to go to S. Edgar’s with these; if you would not mind, perhaps you would walk part of the way with me. If not, there is no hurry.” Smiley declared himself just spoiling for a walk towards S. Edgar the Martyr, and we therefore sallied forth in company, he eyeing my parcel with unconcealed abhorrence, and I jovially holding it well to the fore, so that there might be no mistake about it. “ You’re the first man I ever saw carrying a parcel in his hands,” he observed as a forlorn hope when we had left Tom Quad and were well up St. Aldate’s towards Car- fax. " Really ? ” I responded, as though he had divulged a psychological fact of rare and profound interest, the result 85 86 THE STORY OF OSCAR of long and intelligent observation. “ If you prefer it, I will gladly carry this parcel on my head.” But oddly enough, he appeared never even to have seen a man so transport his baggage either and greeted the proposal coldly, so I continued the existing arrangement. But Smiley perceptibly hastened his steps and literally shot across the High and tried hard to hustle me quickly down, the Corn till we should have passed the entrance to the Union. This, however, bored me, and I had no idea of succumbing, so I strolled with infuriating deliberation, in spite of the pathetic glances he cast on my loathed parcel. At last he gave in, and when we had passed New In Hall Street, and danger of meeting men going in or coming out of the Union was over, calmed down gradually. Just by the Randolph we passed Father Christmas and Father Shuttlecock, his curate, who smiled priestly appro- bation at their promising pupil, and bland encouragement at me. Smiley raised his hat reverentially in answer to their bow and crossed himself vigorously. They seemed inclined to stop and talk, but I ignored this inclination, and we crossed over to the Taylorian side of the way and they continued their slower walk alone. “ Do you know that lady? ” I asked, raising my hat to an elderly female of forbidding aspect to whom my friend bowed deeply, just as we were passing one of the numerous cide streets leading out of S. Giles 5 down towards the station ; I observed that Smiley’s greeting astounded the old person considerably. “ No, my dear fellow ! You don’t suppose I bowed to her . But that lane leads down to St. Barsabas and you can see it at the end. You know all Catholics do reverence to it because the Holy Presence is so .often there.” I held my tongue. I had been surprised when I supposed the mediaeval dressmaker to be the object of his obeisance; I was dumb- foundered now. We walked on in silence for some way, when the big Archangel on the top of the Catholic Presbytery came in sight. A cold sweat came over me. If my companion bowed deeply towards a distant church where the Sacra- ment had been last Sunday, surely he would grovel in the mud outside the Catholic Church, where, as I knew, the Host was reserved perpetually. Three or four undergraduates from Feeble were just AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF OSCAR 87 crossing over through St. Giles* Churchyard as we came up with the front of S. Aloysius* Church, but to my immense relief Smiley by no means hurled himself head- long or began to rub his nose in the gutter, as I had feared. On the contrary, he spat determinedly and amply three times and kept his head well erect. I suppose I must have looked mildly astonished, for he hastened to explain gratuitously : “ Catholics always testify their horror of schism when they pass a Roman meeting-house.** The cool assumption and self-assertion of the idea tickled me too much to leave room for any other feeling, other- wise I fear I might have been tempted to do him some grievous bodily hurt, so outrageously conceited and inane did my friend appear as he gave vent to this remark. We continued our walk for the most part in silence, and what remarks were made were not mine. Mr. Smiley was beginning to bore me. After a good many attempts at leading the conversa- tion round to the point, all of which now failed signally, he said abruptly : “ I wonder you do not object to being beset so by Byron and the Roman lot.** “ Byron is my great and very dear friend,** I replied with some anger, “ and if you and I are to discuss him at all it must be favourably. He is the only Catholic who has called on me since I have been up, and what you mean by his besetting me, I am at a loss to divine.** “ Oh, I beg your pardon,** said Smiley with hasty apology. “ I didn’t mean to seem interfering.** “No?** “ But you know the Romans are horribly crafty and always scheme flagrantly to get hold of any new man who comes up who is, is, well, who is such as you are.** I took no notice of this lucid explanation beyond a scorn- ful sniff. “ You know,** continued Smiley, recovering his wonted brazen assurance, “ that their great field man, Monsignor Catle, has been lecturing at their meeting-house about Rome, so to counteract the effect of the poison, Father Christmas is giving a course of instructions at ** He paused irresolute whether to say “ Barsy or S. Barsabas.** “ At your meeting-house ? ** I suggested considerately. “ Father Christmas would seem to approve of a homoeo- pathic treatment.** 88 THE STORY OF OSCAR My companion glowered and said nothing for a minute or two, then at last overcome by the delights of retrospec- tion, burst forth again : “ What do you think he said last Sunday? At High Celebration he began his sermon by saying, ( If any of you, my dear brethren, want to belong to a New Church, you’d better go over to Rome : for that is not ten years old.’ It was grand, wasn’t it ? What do you think Byron would have thought of that? ” “ I should say,” answered I with acrimony, “ that had he been present he would have thought he had come by mistake to* the Children’s Service.” For a time Smiley held his tongue, and we arrived at S. Edgar’s, where we were ushered through many passages and across a playground to a chapel where the two boys I was visiting were to join us. “ You see everything is quite Catholic here ! ” exclaimed Smiley rhapsodically, genuflecting at anything in the least provocative of that gesture. “ That altar-cross, you know, is moveable , and the colours on the altar are changed with the season; to-day being a ferial, it is green.” I wondered involuntarily if my companion could be described as ferial, and was inclined to think he would. (i The Bishop came here, you know, last month to con- firm the boys; he had stipulated that every thing should be quite Prof., but the Provost here had a procession (with incense), and the dear old boy didn’t smell a rat, till he smelt the incense. Ha, ha ! And before he knew where he was, he was processing in a red cope with gold orphreys.” The boys appeared at this juncture and seemed to be glad to see me, but evinced their joy too manually, leaving me a dishevelled bundle of filthy rags. I obtained leave for them to come for a stroll towards Oxford, which they did, regaling us the while with spicy anecdotes illustrative of the serpentine wisdom of their chiefs, as shown in their having nailed down the moveable altar-cross, and placed the altar-candles on a ledge concealed several inches above the altar, by that means eluding the law. Smiley hardly knew whether to encourage or frown down their endless prattle, but finally, gauging my sentiments, I suppose, by my face, decided on the latter course with such good effect that our walk bade fair to be totally mute. At last we had to send them back as it was nearly their AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF OSCAR 89 lesson-time, so with a not wholly unexpected tip I sent them rejoicing back. Just as we passed St. Philip’s Church (usually termed, with brotherly fondness, by its devotees “ Phil and Jem ”) two nuns or Sisters of Mercy, in black habits with colossal crucifixes carried straight before them, met us, whom Smiley greeted with reverential ardour, receiving in return an encouraging wag of their crucifixes and chaste smile. Not very far on we met, by strange coincidence, two more nuns, dressed in clothes not unlike the others but less spruce and smart a good deal, and without the crucifixes. On the approach of these, Smiley’s starry-pointing nose literally shot up, so as almost to peer over the top of his head behind him, and a sour expression sat upon his youth- ful brow. The nuns, however, passed on undismayed, apparently unconscious of his disdain, and of his muttered remark : “ More of those horrid Roman women. Cool, I do think, their skulking round here.” As the Roman women had not done me personally any more serious harm than had the Catholic women, as Smiley would call them, I did not feel called upon to offer any remark. There seemed to me little difference between them except that the Roman women looked a trifle less clean and a good deal harder worked than the Anglican Sisters. At the crossing by St. Giles’ we parted, as Smiley had to go and call on a man at Feeble and I did not care to accompany him. As we said good-bye he asked sus- piciously : “ So it wasn’t true, then, after all ? Old Bagshaw didn’t have supper with you last night, after all.” “ Father Bagshaw ? The Catholic priest ? Certainly not, who said he did? He has never even called on me; there was no reason why he should , and from all accounts he’s not the man to call right and left on everyone,” I replied with hardly veiled fury. The interference of Messrs. Smiley and Co. struck me as verging hard on the insulting. CHAPTER XVII i 4 f f f It will not be supposed by the intelligent reader that my Oxford life was nothing but a “ succession of evils to evils ” in the form of religious sufferings; but it being that part of my experiences that I have specially set myself to narrate,* I leave the rest to the imagination of those who are so sensible as to read my history. I had plenty of boating and plenty of football and a variety of other things to amuse my leisure withal; luncheons, breakfasts and dinners in various Halls being ; relieved by occasional suppers and the like nondescript festivity. One morning the Union note-boy brought me a heavily- sealed missive addressed to myself and ornamented with a cabalistic monogram in the right comer. !, On opening it I found it contained an invitation to breakfast at Maudlin, next day, from one Garstang, who had called on me some time before and whose visit I had promptly returned. On his first calling on me I had been rather puzzled by him and could not make him out. He spoke in a sneering manner of the greater part of the buildings I had ventured to admire, and gratuitously alluded with scorn to Shakespeare, Milton and Tennyson. It appeared that he could not away with any of the poets of any nation since the Greeks, except Mr. Swillbeem, whom he glorified above the gods. On my venturing to admire the exquisite beauties of his own college he smiled indulgently but with sadness and enquired whether I had wept over the Parthenon. Understanding my visitor to be asking whether I had seen that building or no, I replied in the negative and sank palpably five or six grades in his estimation in consequence. “ You have read our matchless Swillbeem’s Poems, of course? 99 was his next question. 90 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF OSCAR 91 “ Well, no. At least I have only read Gaiavanter in 3arydon; that certainly is wonderful; some of the choruses ire really, as you say, matchless.” This mollified Garstang immensely, he smiled quite fieerfully and was good enough to remark that my rooms vere very pretty. “ You must come and see my rooms soon,” he said hos- >itably. “ I don’t mean just to call, but to feed so that ?ou may have time to look round and take things in; will wi? ” Of course I should be most happy, and hence this note >f invitation. It appeared, as I learned from my mentor Byron, that larstang had invented a real brand-new religion or Philosophy, as he preferred to call it, founded on a single ixiom : “ To be good, is to be happy.” 3ut whereas this is generally understood to imply that /irtue is the highest bliss, Garstang or the other contended fiat it means the converse, and that happiness is the only eal virtue. Therefore, since happiness was real virtue, unhappiness nust necessarily be sinful, and Garstang’s Philosophy for- iade its votaries on pain of impiety to allow themselves jver to suffer unhappiness, or its cause unpleasantness. That which is pleasant, said this religion, must be right; md therefore what is unpleasant or ever so slightly dis- igreeable, must be wrong. If it be pleasant, as so many fiink, to swear or commit adultery, Garstang affirmed that o abstain from the indulgence of those tastes is impious md horrible. It will be seen that the general adoption of this soothing •eligion would finally and triumphantly silence those who omplain that the religions are so small a minority that they nust be in the wrong. Ormskirk Child, it appeared, had been an early convert o the Natural Creed, as it called itself, but had been ibliged to secede from the church in consequence of his laving been unable to mate a conviction that it would be Peasant to knock down a co-religionist, who had expressed lis doubts as to the unmixed enjoy ability of that talented foung poet. 92 THE STORY OF OSCAR So many of his followers had from somewhat similar causes left his communion, that it was rumoured Garstang was beginning to find the Natural Creed rather heavy on his hands and therefore, of course, to be abolished as un- holy; but before retiring from his High Priesthood of the Philosophy it was supposed that he would move heaven and earth, to say nothing of compassing sea and land, to make one or two new proselytes who should bring new life into the business. Hence perhaps his brief courtesy to me. “ Should you go to this breakfast if you were in my place? 99 I asked of Byron in the afternoon when he dropped in to guide me up on his way to the river. “ By all means, yes. I can trust you not to become a convert and the men are rather good form, especially Garstang; Ormskirk Child will very likely be there too, for though an Apostate he is too deeply imbued with the spirit of the Natural Creed to have ever really left it, and he con- tinues to act on its teaching. Besides, Garstang was out when you called, and you really ought to see his rooms. 5 5 Next morning accordingly found me on my way to Maudlin, where I arrived at about half-past nine, just as my host had risen from his slumbers and made his appear- ance. The rooms were, as Byron had said, well worth seeing. They were in the New Buildings, and the two huge windows opened out upon the lovely grove where gentle fallow-deer were sniffing the clear keen air and nibbling the rime- frosted grass. The wooden walls of the room were painted saffron colour and the panels, reaching from floor to ceiling, represented the loves of the gods painted in distemper. Around each panel on the saffron ground ran a big border of Grjeek keys of dark brown. The ceiling itself was entirely taken up by a huge picture of Zeus surrounded with the emblems of his amours, human and divine. On the floor was no carpet, but it was stained dark green with occasional streaks of a darker shade. In one comer stood an alabaster statue of a nude youth representing Garstang himself and surrounded except in front by a rose-coloured silk curtain; in another was a different statue of glistening white marble, gleaming out of a forest of growing exotics and enormous vases of exquisite flowers. Suspended over its head from the ceiling was a AUTOBIOGRAPHY OP OSCAR 93 l rich lamp that shed down a rosy radiance on the brow of J the statue and filled the room with an aromatic fragrance. , On the pedestal of the image were small gilt vases of flowers e and candles in glittering sconces. Around the base was engraved in large golden letters ! A0ANATOS. I had no difficulty in recognising this figure as a portrait of the poet Swillbeem. e All the furniture was of a Greek pattern and there were no books; though on one of the tables were several parch- ment rolls of manuscript. Except the panel-painting of the gods, there were no pictures, and the curtains of the windows were of papyrus (as Garstang euphemiously told me), whereon were painted allegoric pictures alluding to some of Mr. Swillbeem’s more famous works. Garstang had just welcomed me with effusion when Ormskirk Child entered and, bowing towards me with a sweet smile when he heard my name pronounced, paused a moment opposite a small statue that stood on a bracket near the door and devoutly kissed its foot. That done he advanced to the window where we were standing and observed that the grass was a horribly vulgar colour this morning. Garstang agreed warmly and said it wanted a considerable toning down with raw umber. “ I don’t think that would answer,” responded the Poet. “ I should try bumt-sienna, that would bring the green into harmony with the deer, you know.” Garstang appeared wavering but unconvinced; he evidently hankered after the raw umber still. Just at this point the door again opened and Ruysdel entered with his arm wound into that of another man whom I did not know but who was introduced to me as Bruno, of All Fools, one of the four Bible Clerks of that College, and a pronounced Atheist. He was short and pretty and had wavy golden hair with appealing blue eyes and a pathetic mouth. I returned his melancholy greeting and he appeared about to burst into tears, but that I soon found was only his way. The table was only laid for five, so we now sat down and began to eat. The food was good though peculiar, and I made an excel- L 94 THE STORY OF OSCAR lent meal. There was no tea or coffee, only a heavy sweet wine which we drank out of large glass goblets which we previously filled three-quarter full before adding the wine. It had an odd burnt taste but was decidedly good and had a most refined flavour. Neither was there any meat, but only fruit, bread, honey and cream : the table was laden with these and they were all delicious of their kind. Presently Ormskirk Child looked up languidly from a peach he was about to eat, and said : “ I’m in for the Schools next week, Garstang, you know, so it struck me yesterday that I might as well find out what they examine you in; it seems there is a great deal of what they called the iEneid, by a man of the name of Virgil; do you know who he was ? ” For a moment the others were nearly betrayed into look- ing surprised, then, remembering themselves, they assumed an admirable affectation of ignorance, while Ruysdel replied : “ Wasn’t he some modem fellow who wrote a Parody of the Iliad ? I believe he came from Birmingham or Rome or some such place.” “ Ah, yes; very likely,” responded Ormskirk Child with a yawn of disgust. “ I also have to be put through my paces in that odd book the Bible,” he continued after a pause. “ Can any of you advise me what’s best to read for the purpose? I’ve not an idea.” Ruysdel sniggered and suggested the History of Susanna and of Potiphar’s Wife, which he declared to be favourites with the dons. “ This morning in chapel I thought I’d listen to what they were reading,” said Bmno, of All Fools, sadly, “ and I really was rather amused. It was all about some sailor who had to change his name from Saul to Paul, he came in for some property I suppose, and he seems to have been wonderfully on the spot for his time of day. I should read about him if I were you, Ormskirk.” As all this time I had said nothing and silence was becom- ing a nuisance, I thought I would put in my little oar, so remarked politely on the beauty of my host’s breakfast service. “ Ah, yes ! ” said Ormskirk Child. “ How happy should we be if we could but live up to our blue china.” And he sighed regretfully as he spoke. AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF OSCAR 95 “ And so we doubtless should if we would but cast off ;he trammels of custom and prejudice and allow Nature x> rule us , 55 responded Garstang, who deemed this an excel- ent opportunity for inculcating in me the first principles of his Creed. 44 If we would let Pleasure be our test of Profit, and let our inward protests against the revolting be leard, we should then attain some measure of bliss.” He spoke eagerly with all the fire of an Apostolic teacher; ns earnestness made him ten times more ludicrous. 44 Yes,” said the Poet deliberately, 44 that is of course ill true, but the Gospel you preach is very difficult ” (I Parted and stared involuntarily). 46 We cannot be natural n a generation. We have centuries of prejudice, of con- ventionality, and of falsehood to purge ourselves from. It s almost impossible to know, with any living conviction, vhat is really pleasant now. Old precedent, inherited wastes, and hereditary misconceptions thwart us at every ;um and dull our perceptions. The Religion of Pleasure s sublime; but it is very, very hard to practise.” And he placed the last mouthful of his peach between lis teeth as he spoke, with many a conscientious scruple, no loubt, as to the pleasantness of the act. 44 Yes, Truth is always coy and difficult of wooing,” isserted Garstang, 4 6 but in the end she is always won. If iven our degenerate race were really to set its mind to Pleasure it would, I firmly believe, vouchsafe to reveal [tself to them.” 44 Some people,” said Bruno with heart-broken voice, )f 4 have refused Her when She offered Herself to them freely. ' Look at Joseph, for instance; he flouted the Divine Impulse , o Her face, and impiously refused the Pleasure held out i x> him. It is sad, but let us hope he sinned through ; gnorance.” { A windy sigh at Joseph’s depravity brought Mr. Bruno’s 'emarks to a close, and he rose to take his leave, saying i( j :hat he had to go to a lecture. 44 My dear Bruno,” exclaimed Garstang, much shocked. fli 4 How it pains me to see signs of falling away even in you . sc [ wonder you can reconcile it with your conscience to go to s j|hese early lectures; it must be distinctly a bore. Do 5 ionsider your principles a little .” U 44 Well, you see,” said Bruno apologetically, 44 I , c ' wouldn’t dream of doing such a thing, but for this; I very nuch want to see Banker, of Feeble, and it is my only 96 THE STORY OF OSCAR chance as he is going down to-morrow and he’s sure to be at this lecture.” , “Ah, that makes a difference, of course,” answered Garstang indulgently, much mollified. Bruno accordingly took his leave, and as I had also lecture I seized the opportunity of saying good-bye myself. CHAPTER XVIII It was some days before I saw Byron to tell him all about my experiences of the Swillbeernian Philosophers : and here let me remark that I had already begun to be annoyed by Byron’s palpable avoidance of me. He somehow never was in when I strolled up to Belial to see him and he seldom or never came to my rooms uninvited. At last, however, after half-a-dozen unsuccessful attempts I found him in one evening after Hall when I went up to Belial to see him. He was reading hard when I came in but instantly put away his books when he saw me and wheeled round a comfortable arm-chair to the undraughty side of the fire-place for me to sit in. “ Well,” he said laughing, “ what do you think of the Professors of the Natural Creed ? ” I told him briefly what I had heard and seen, and he ’emarked : 66 Oh, that’s nothing to what Ormskirk Child las said. He went to a Prayer Meeting" at Mr. Barechrist’s he other day and when he came back he found Garstang in lis room. ‘ Well, what did you do at your Prayer Meet- ng ? ’ he asked, and Ormskirk replied in his lazy drawl with lis eyes half shut, ‘ Why, we prayed a good deal for several ather dull objects, which I for my part would forgive the Umighty if He refused to vouchsafe ; and also they read a ot of stories out of a Book of Fables, rather pretty, you mow; quite a child’s book, but very well done for that sort if thing. Some of the Fables were equal to Swillbeern’s arly things, I really think.’ ” “ Go on,” I said, seeing Byron paused to see if I was aoking bored. “ What did Garstang say ? ” “ He asked Ormskirk what the Fables were called and he Poet replied : i Well, my dear fellow, that’s just what I ouldn’t find out. It struck me that one might ask them to et the book at the Union, but I couldn’t make out whether he Book was called “ the Bible ” or whether it was called 98 THE STORY OF OSCAR “ the Scriptures ”; they seemed rather hazy about the title themselves. 5 55 I laughed and then we began to talk of other things : I told him all about my walk to S. Edgar’s with Smiley, except that that gentleman had warned me against the Papists, and made him laugh heartily, and without sus- picion of rancour, at the small vagaries and foibles of that flourishing young Ritualist. “ You should have turned into the Ram and Stag on your way through S. Giles 5 and followed the example of the man famed in story who, being bored to extinction by two drivelling fools who chose to walk with him, marched into an hotel and in reply to the waiter’s question if he would have anything replied : 4 Yes; pistols for one, or brains for two. 5 55 “ Well,” I retorted, “ I can’t deny that antidotes are available. I received a note by to-night’s post from Mr. Barechrist, the Vicar of St. Old Date’s, inviting me to tea with a service of prayer and sacred song. Shall I go? ” “ By all means,” answered Byron, “ you will find it rather edifying; there’s plenty of Prayer and lots of muffins and a little weak negus before coming away. I’ve been several times for all sorts are admitted and I think old Barechrist rather good sort, though a trifle too religious certainly.” Our conversation was interrupted at this point by the entrance of a friend of Byron’s called Vessel, also of Belial, who had lately joined his communion. Partly from this circumstance and partly from certain inborn provocative characteristics, he had legions of nicknames. Since his de- parture from them the Ritualists termed him a Vessel of Wrath, and a Vessel of Dishonour, by the Sion Church he had been always deemed a leaky Vessel and his own co- religionists laughingly called him a Vessel of Singular Devotion owing to his known enthusiasm and pious zeal. At the Union, owing to the warmth of his oratory he was known as the Steam Vessel, and some friends in allusion tf his genealogical tastes frequently called him a Blood Vessel. On this occasion he came accompanied by a tall slight man in quasi-Italian costume, whom I had often seen at the Union and occasionally met in the High. His name, as I now learnt, was Gazelle and he was one of the Pope’s Chamberlains of Honour. I longed to ask him if his Christian name was “ Dear ” in which case I should have offered to nurse him. f AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF OSCAR 99 As Vessel began to gabble very fast and thick to Byron, who seemed rather amused at his eagerness, the Chamberlain and I were left to amuse one another, which we did ad- mirably. I soon discovered that my new friend’s convic- tions were very hearty and that a most living and, in Oxford at all events, very pardonable belief in the Devil formed a salient article of his creed. He spoke of that worthy’s action and motives with the intimacy of an acquaintance and the accuracy of tried experience. Vessel’s business with Byron did not last long and then he and Mr. Gazelle departed, and left us again alone. When they were gone I ventured to ask Byron what his friend had been so excited about, if it were not a secret, as indeed it had no appearance of being. He laughed and answered : “ Vas Insigne Devotionis, you know, is a great Pedigreeist and is endlessly making researches in the Bodleian about his musty old progenitors. Well, it seems that a certain Lady Alun Bohm, who lived in the beginning of the thir- teenth century, and from whom he is descended, was no better than she should have been and there is reason to hope that the real father of her only son was not old Alim Bohm at all but King John, and, as Vessel says, this makes the fifth king he can trace to.” I laughed at this odd form of family pride and Byron pro- ceeded to tell me the grounds on which Vessel nourished this fond hope, which seemed indeed pretty stable it must be confessed. Old Alun Bohm died childless, it appeared from the Bodleian, in the year 1211 and young Alun Bohm was born five years subsequently to the demise of his father and some five months to a protracted visit of his monarch at the paternal halls of Bohm. “ Do many men go in for heraldry and that sort of thing ? ” I asked. “ No, but when they do, they generally get it badly,” Byron replied. “ There was once a man at Porpoise called Struth who had rabidly genealogical and heraldic tastes. He used to poke his fire with a bend sinister and kept his coal in a large helmet; after changing his own name to St. Rutt he espoused a damsel called Ashmole for the sake of her name and thirteen additional quarterings, as she was the only child of her mother who wasn’t a widow. Mrs. Ashmole St. Rutt gave birth to twins christened respectively Charlemagne and Plantagenet Caesar Augustus, and could have gone on till now had not her husband died of a broken 100 THE STORY OF OSCAR heart on discovering that her real name had been Blobbs and her coat of arms had cost two and ninepence at an Heraldic Stationer’s . 55 Much moved by this sad story I ventured to enquire if it were intended to be apocryphal or canonical. “ Most people here believe in the Ashmole St. Rutts firmly , 55 answered he, “ but personally I am inclined to question the inspiration of the history. But Porpoise always had been a genealogical college. One man was sent down from there last year, they say, because he always would sign all his proses and things for his tutors with his family motto which chanced to be ‘ Asinus imprimis fuisti; Asinus lo : Sempergul Asinus Fueris . 5 55 CHAPTER XIX The afternoon of the day on which I was to go to Mr. Barechrist’s prayerful tea-party was wet and Oxford was doing its best to look ugly. A few disconsolate and draggled undergraduates paced the High with quick and determined tread as though they were really going somewhere, and a good many more hung listlessly out of Foster’s windows and dropped orange-peel on the heads of unconscious passers by. But I did neither. I did not attempt the river but gave up the afternoon to a tardy return of long paid civilities. At five however I returned to Kirk Christ and partook fully of that cup which cheers but not inebriates, and settled down to Sartor Resartus and a comfortable armchair. This lasted me well till Hall time immediately after which I sallied forth through the pelting rain for the abode of Mr. Barechrist, Rector of the Church of Saint Evangelicus. In answer to my ring a damsel (whether she was called Rhoda or no I didn’t then enquire) ran to the wicket and admitted me without any of that demur that S. Peter met with. This maiden who was staid and short and somewhat severe con- ducted me to a large room on the first floor where a great many people were already assembled round a big table, on which I was horrified to see a regular meal laid out. Having just swallowed my cheese and celery the sight of strawberry jam and muffins made me feel a marine sensation rather curious than agreeable : there were also buns of various breeds and various hybrid biscuits built up into little Towers of Babel on green dessert-plates. Improving on the custom of the Ancient Jews, the Evangelicals, I have since discovered, eat oft and except they eat they pray not. There was not a soul in the room I knew except my usual prop Herod, who is all things to all men that by all means IOI 102 THE STORY OF OSCAR he may outrage everybody; he now advanced and presented me to Mr. Barechrist whom, except perhaps by his costume, I did not know from Adam. “ It gives me a true and deep pleasure to see you grace this humble board and, and, and, we, and that” observed my host blandly, indicating with a princely wave of his disengaged arm the buttery muffins and strawberry jam, while with his right hand he squeezed my palm in adhesive greeting. “ I think that now the tale of our company is com- plete,” he continued in a Biblical phraseology that led me to believe myself classed as the make-shift man at the fag end of the company, 66 we may fall to.” We sat down obediently and Mr. Barechrist wiped his forehead preparatorily with his handkerchief and then put to sea in a leaky grace that threatened to sink him finally. At length, however, he reached the land breathless but safe, and began to drop small lumps of calcine sugar into the cups with an enlivening clink and rattle. At the same moment the removal of a dish cover at the other end of the table revealed a square yard or so of pale cold boiled bacon, garnished with wizened sprigs of toughened parsley. Allowing discretion in this instance the only available part of valour I declined single combat with the bacon ar*d everyone else did the same, choosing rather the milder joy of muffins and jam than the pleasures of swine’s flesh for a season. Tea lasted a good while and everybody talked a good deal, chiefly about Babylon and a roseate female of the half- world supposed to have taken up her permanent residence in that city. This part of the conversation surprised me considerably coming from the Barechristians, as their ad- versaries termed them, and I began to feel myself rather more on an equal footing with them than before. Herod, like a faithful friend as he was, had seated himself near me and therefore I felt quite comfortable and at home, in spite of the young man on my other side who appeared to be devoured with eagerness to ascertain the exact date and circumstances of my “ call.” “ I was converted in my bath,” he was so good as to tell me, “ it- was when I was about nineteen “ What, three years to come ! ” I was about to remark en parenthese with a glance at his mealy mouth and apple- smooth cheeks, but luckily remembered myself and mur- mured ; AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF OSCAR 103 “ Ah ! so long ago." He looked pleased and continued : “ Yes, I had just turned nineteen on the Tuesday and that was on the Friday night following. I turned on the water pipe before getting out, and it struck me like a thunder-clap. . . .” “ I trust you were not hurt ? ” I asked with solicitude and my wonted unworthy struggles after humour. He looked reproachful and held on his way through a muffin and his anecdote was checked by my levity. “ And it struck me like a thunder-clap that my life was running away like the water down the waste-pipe; so I knelt down on the spot and answered the call.” I could not help somehow being amused at the picture his story presented and could find nothing to say except that I should think he must have found it chilly; a remark which he did not deign to notice beyond looking as though he rather thought I should ultimately have no cause of complaint on that score. For some time my neighbour preserved a huffed silence but being evidently choke-full of eagerness to regenerate me he really could not keep off the subject, and, having opened up matters by a polite request for the sardines, Le began again. u ThaPs nothing to a house-maid we once had who was born again while she was dusting the drawing-room. She dropped her feather-brush and cried out to my brother who was the only person present : * Lawks, Mr. George, the Lord has need of me ! ’ And he, who at that time was still un- called, answered : * Well, Mary Anne, you’d better take your duster with you, it may come in useful.’ Did you ever hear anything so sudden as that before ? ” I thought I might fairly yield him the palm in possession of anecdote conversions. Not long after he had finished this touching story the Vicar rose and advised the Almighty that he had had enough and that the quality of his sustenance had been on the whole satisfactory, then we adjourned to another room where was another big table laid with Bibles for twelve and candles for two. Each man posted himself behind a Bible and Mr. Bare- christ sat down by the candles and said, “ Let us pray ”; thereupon everyone plunged down on his knees and began to smell the table-cloth, the perfume of which I for one did not particularly approve. 104 THE STORY OF OSCAR “ O Lord God,” began Mr. Barechrist complacently, “ all we are Thy children and Thou indeed art our Father. Thou dost reward and Thou dost correct. The eyes of all turn to Thee in trouble as the rivers to the south and the sparks that fly upward. Thou art over all and Thine enemies shall be scattered; break their jawbones in their mouths, we beseech Thee, and consume their marrow like water that runneth apace, or even as a tale that is told too often. Our enemies live and are mighty, slay them in their sins, we pray, and bring us all to Thy glory. We are like sheep ” (I smiled secretly as the old stage simile came to the fore as I had laid with myself a heavy wager that it would) “ and some of us are white but some are very black. Take our black sheep therefore, and wash them that even as, as, as, the ticks drop off from the sheep that is bathed so our ticks may also be cured.” Some consternation was caused by this closing analogy and I could not help thinking that in the excitement of the moment the orator had slightly confused the ovine parasite with the human dolorous disease. But he had not nearly finished yet, and went on for at least ten minutes, concluding thus : “ Visit, we pray, in Thy mercy the city of Babylon and the great whore that rules her, and drive them both in Thy clemency to the nethermost hell, so that she may cease to deceive the nations, for thereout sucks she no small ad- vantage. Look also upon Thy people of Israel and bring them back in triumph to the Holy City of Jerusalem, whence let them banish all Jews, Turks, Infidels, and Hereticks.” He ceased, sublimely unconscious that his peroration though sublime and eminently savouring of the collects of the Church was hardly logical as delivered. “ Any young man may pray,” he observed permissively with an encouraging smile all round. My neighbour vehe- mently plunged into a long and pumping petition for all conditions of men, and finally pulled up with a charitable but slightly perplexing request that those predestined to be damned should be saved. Several other young men then prayed, and one who was very popular and made one or two local and political hits was warmly applauded with groans, Amens, and Alleluias, as the case might be. At last the praying was all over and we read some rather denunciatory chapters out of Jeremiah which Mr. Barechrist conclusively proved to refer to the congregation of u S. AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF OSCAR 105 Bar sabas ” and the Ritualists generally. Then the books were closed and a young man opposite proposed “ Self- accusation.” I rather shuddered at this. Auricular confession had always struck me as sufficiently awful, but to have to con- fess to eleven people at once and in public passed under- standing. I need not have been very nervous however, for they had no notion of letting me accuse myself, even had I felt so inclined, and the class of offence acknowledged was not very embarrassing to own. For instance, the young man opposite who had proposed the game confessed sadly that he had that day given half- a-crown to a poor woman with six children, on the Banbury road, and that he very much feared now that they had probably all got drunk on the money. On this a long dis- cussion ensued, but as it was finally deemed unlikely that any precautions could have precluded the possibility of such a disaster, and as it was found on cross examination that the coin had been a two-shilling bit and not a half-crown (the self-inculpating zeal of the penitent having carried him away, no doubt), it was generally decided that there had been no guilt in the gift, and as Herod whispered to me very little silver , for it was held improbable that seven persons could have arrived at a state of inebriety on 8 3-7d. a head. Another culprit pleaded guilty to having waxed angry in a discussion, but as it transpired that the discussion had been with Smiley of Wanbrooke, it was unanimously ruled to have been quite in order to have lost his temper in the same : and Mr. Barechrist was heard to murmur something about righteous anger and the zeal of somebody’s residence having turned round and devoured him, which as far as we could see there was no trace of its having done. A third penitent had scruples about a small boy whom he had kicked outside St. Old Date’s Church on the pre- ceding Sunday evening, but inasmuch as the small boy had been using blasphemous and indelicate language it was generally decided that the zeal of the same home had been making a meal of him also. One of the company now rose from the table and took his seat by a small harmonium that stood in one corner of the room, and began to play the accompaniment to a hymn, while Mr. Barechrist announced explanatorily : 106 THE STORY OF OSCAR “ Hymn No. 185, the one hundred and eighty-fifth hymn,” and then when we had found our places, This little hymn though not very valuable as an accurate his- torical record is eminently profitable from a devotional point of view.” When he had finished speaking the following hymn was sung to a doleful melody, by the greater part of the com- pany, while the rest moaned it metrically without attempting song : “ In Judah’s land once dwelt a man Whose familiar friends did call him Dan, A fearless Christian soul had he, In J’ovah’s law walked steadily. About that time a war arose, And Judah fell before her foes, Who carried her off to Babylon, Where she did well all sad alone. Now Darius was king of that country, And an idol he made that all might see, And sure enough he made a decree That to it the folks should bow the knee. Now Daniel (whose friends did call him Dan) Was not at all that sort of a man, And down to the image he would not bow And sent to the king and told him so. Oh Lord of heaven and earth and sea. To Thee we sing that we may be Like Daniel, full of a hatred of sin, And loathing idolatry deep within.” At this point the music changed, with a view to em- phasizing the change of character in the hymn, but I could not help regretting that the instrumentalist should select a tune adapted to a different metre, leaving us under the necessity of leaving out the last word of each line, which spoilt the effect of the rhyme if it did not materially affect the reason. “ Now when Darius did hear that he Refused to bow his righteous knee, He sent and had him thrown in a cave Where lions did spit and hyaenas rave. AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF OSCAR 107 But, lo ! and behold, when Daniel stept, Into the eave the lions leapt Out of his way, and the hyaenas laughed, Doubtlessly thinking Darius was daft. Now Daniel passed an excellent night, But the king and his queen were filled with affright, And when the morning broke o’er the town, Off to the cavern they hurried down. 4 Daniel, Daniel,’ screamed out the king, And Daniel a prayer then began to sing, And the lions looked hungry but touched not him Whom God did watch over, in head and limb. All glory and honour, dominion and praise Let us sing to the Lord till the end of our days, For we are not bound like the Papist to say That we worship as holy a poor image of clay.” This simple ditty was succeeded by several others of a more or less denunciatory character and then, after a few more prayers and a psalm or two, it appeared to be under- stood that the entertainment was at an end for that night, and we all trailed off to the next room, where Mr. Barechrist requested us to wait a minute “ while he wrestled alone.” His athletics lasted about five or ten minutes after which he returned with wonderfully cool and clean hands for one who had been engaged in single combat, and asked us what we would have. The general voice appeared to be for whisky punch with a lemon in it and this accordingly was provided by the staid henchman above alluded to, whose name it appeared was Kerenhappuch, generally abbreviated by the elect into Packie. Under the influence of this comforting beverage I ob- served a marked amelioration to settle down upon the com- pany, one of whom ventured to propose a song, and finding no response greeted his suggestion, amended his former motion by the explanatory one of a song, a spiritual song of course. But, as everyone thought his adjective was just la trifle mistaken in its ultimate, this motion also was gently but unanimously thrown out. My neighbour at tea, however, was suffered to retail his thrilling anecdote of the housemaid who was born again while dusting the drawing-room and this time I observed her conversion was flavoured with considerable additions tn 108 THE STORY OF OSCAR the unregenerated brother’s speech. Another gentleman volunteered a peculiarly involved narrative of the call of his deceased much loved parent while out walking with a blood-hound, but whether it was she who bit the blood-hound or the blood-hound that stroked her, and which of the two was converted we all failed to gather. There was at least no doubt that it was the speaker who had gone mad. CHAPTER XX My first term was drawing to its close and so too was the year. The leaves lay deep and sere upon the grass beneath the ! grove of Maudlin, the red Virginia creeper flamed no longer on the door of St. Mary’s, but its naked nerves writhed brown and dun at the keen gust’s touch. The usual football matches have been played, the wonted concerts given. The ’Varsity has beaten the Old Foresters, and the Clapham Rovers have bowed their diminished heads before Savoy and Waddington, Dunell and Twist, Alington, Bain, Parry, Heygate and the rest; in turn Oxford has beaten Cambridge with Rugby Union rules, and Cambridge beaten Oxford with Association. Rugby has been vanquished but Eton has vanquished us, Wanderers and Blackheathens, R.M.C., and R.I.E., have all struggled with various success. Charles Halle has played and Sims Reeves has not sung, and both musical societies have pro- vided entertainment for the melodiously inclined. One mild attempt has been made at a Town and Gown affray, but nobody bled much and no bones were broken; they say Oxford is degenerating and soon these dis- turbances will cease, and Judah will no more vex Ephraim or Benjamin throw paving-stones at Manasseh; like enough; since one young and hopeful gentleman, full of life and strong, just laying his hand upon the clasps of the Book of Fate to read full joyously therein, was brutally killed upon the stone steps of his College this sort of warfare has lost favour. Oh, ye Townsmen, be not astonished that we prefer a nobler martyrdom if martyred we must be. To be pelted to death like a cur by rank and unclean navvies or lily- livered shop-boys is not a gentleman’s great idea of a glorious end, and we list not that when we fall our heads 110 THE STORY OF OSCAR should be crunched like wall-nuts beneath your brutal feet. There have been many debates at the Union and some sittings of the Palmerston. Michelhomme’s patience has been wearied out and the Treasurer has returned to his duties, while the Sub Treasurer has consequently retired into comparatively private life. Many foolish suggestions have been entered in the Union book by carping or humorous Reformers, a good many letters have been posted up in the glass frame for undergraduates who are no longer undergraduates and have gone away to their own place. Some new caricatures have appeared in Shrimpton’s windows and some new patterns for ulsters in Foster’s; in the former the recently elected President of Trinidad figures scholastically in various undignified positions, with thought- fully explanatory notes beneath. The ’Varsity Church has been depicted there adorned with a new weather-cock in cap and gown, grasping in its beak a volume labelled “ The Greed of Oxford-dom.” There too have the Catholic clergy from St. Giles’ been portrayed, on sport intent, with land- ing-net and rod and line, fishing for coroneted souls in a well-preserved pool. Parker has published many new works, some few by under- graduates of a sarum-ritual character, appropriately bound in calf with securing ribbon changeable of course with the season. Two of the Dons have died, and a third has re- luctantly arisen and left his pleasant rooms under the cool and grateful shadow of the Fellows’ Garden trees, and joined another Church, beginning the struggle all over again in weary hope. They have repaved the street outside of Maudlin and the chapel of New College has been progressing in a staid Oxonian manner towards restoration, but still the services are held in S. Peter’s in the East and still this causes a terrible increase in the late-list of her undergraduates. Father Christmas has been presented with an address, nobody seems to know particularly why or on what excuse, and with two new chasubles, and an altar-frontal, on which the faithful of St. Old Date’s instantly determined not to be outdone and adorned their pulpit with a sounding-board and placed two plump cushions on the communion-table for the officiating clergy to muzzle their heads into during Divine Service. Father Renson, of Howley, has grown dirtier than ever and his iron-church smells stuffier and more incense-staled -■ - - — AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF OSCAR 111 even than of old. Canon Boosey has tried hard to fire off two University sermons but Dr. Falkland has forbidden him, and so poor Canon Fiddle has had to read them instead, with terrible difficulty, for Canon Boosey’s writing is not clear, and his discourses are somewhat long. Mr. Rols has invented two new philosophies and Mr. Bates has promulgated a fresh system of art-criticism hitherto utterly unknown. Blowitt, the Master of Belial, has delighted his disciples more deliciously and shocked his opponents more hopelessly; he has had Georgina Ffolliott to breakfast and Miss Rode h Naughton to dinner; the latter lady with her canine escort has walked abroad in divers faultless gowns, and the tail of her embroidered evening-dress has been the envy of the donnas who can not get one smarter than it though they try with tears. Half-a-dozen logical youths have passed on from S. Bars abas’ to S. Aloys ms’, and some score of pamphlets have been raved in consequence, and some dozen in- sulting letters been written to the “ Oxford Times ” thereon. In fact a term has gone : and it is early in December. One afternoon just at the end of this term, I found myself absolutely without employment and as I wanted to see Byron, who was going down with me, I strolled up to Belial to see him. Byron, however, is not one of the sort one is apt to find indoors all afternoon on a glorious day in late autumn, and he was out to-day; so, as it seemed little use waiting for him, I scribbled a request on the back of an envelope that he would come down to my rooms to tea at five, and turned out again to pass away the couple of hours intervening as best I might. Just as I came out of the gate of Belial into the Broad I saw two men I knew and whose society was not then indispensable to me turning towards me from the Corn, so I quietly chose the opposite direction and passing the gate of Trinidad held on my way towards Old Clarendon and the Sheldonian. Oxford was at its prettiest almost, at all events the streets were. There was a clear blue sky overhead and a wealth of bright cold sunlight was mocking at the old black columns of the portico leading through the Clarendon into the Schools Quadrangle and out again into Radcliffe Square. The huge but comparatively low dome of the Theatre with 112 THE STORY OF OSCAR its quaint lantern top stood out dark and solemn, while behind it the loftier and still more enormous mountain of the Radcliffe frowned in its inky immensity against the blue vault of heaven. Heathen architecture they may be, those three old piles of dusky crumbling stone, but commend me to them for a staid and goodly grandeur that bids defiance to our puny criticism and tells us that they are monuments of the immortal. It may be my depravity, but to my mind they are of more value than many Kebles. Keble in its raw red quasi- Gothicness, like a vast mediaeval veal-pie, as someone said whose name deserves to be remembered : Keble in all its streaky, layery ecclesiasticism, Keble in all its big astound- ing presumptuous newness. Crossing the road leading down to Wadham, and the garden gates of the College herein called “ Trinidad,” I turned down Holywell, intending to go through it and Long Wall out again into the High near Maudlin. As I approached her house I could not help wishing that Miss Rode a Naughton would be by chance just starting for her afternoon walk with the pugs and attendant nephews; for I always took pleasure in taking a good long look at her clever, sad face, with its good human expres- sion, and a shorter glance of approval at her justly-lauded costume. To-day, however, I was doomed to disappointment; either she had already gone out or she was still luxuriating behind her little forest of growing flowers and buff and red blinds. With an only half-approving glance at the restored New College, I passed on, round the Long Wall that so con- scientiously redeems its name and over whose top rise the elms of Maudlin grove, a hundred feet well-nigh, serene and brown now in their winter nakedness, yet voiceful with the busy chatter of their myriad jackdaws. Passing the abode of the dear Gazelle, whom I had never yet had a chance of nursing and who indeed had not since gladdened me with his meek brown eye, I turned quickly to the left and so into the small outer-quad of Maudlin. How utterly lonely it is, that old time-mellowed abode of ancient peace and scholarly repose ! If I too were old, ho w pleasantly could I lay down the struggle here and give '\V'v - V 1 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF OSCAR 113 myself up to the smooth and placid life-current for the rest of my earthly days; what an intense humanity is there not bound up in all these grey stones that have weathered so many gales and been chilled by so many frosts, warmed by so many summer-suns. I expect we are unfair after all; and it is not that Keble is red and raw, and very like a pie, that it is so eminently, so obtrusively unsatisfactory. No; it is because there has been no generation of its children laid to their endless rest, because it is only present and has no past, because it speaks nothing to our inner thought fuller beings, and that not from wilful dumbness but because it has absolutely naught to say. We all remember when it was not, we all remember when its first red brick was laid blusteringly on the classic ground, nay, some of us remember him in whose honour it is built; remember how he talked and prayed and worked in all the wondrous beauty of his holiness. If one would remember how young it is one has but to think of one’s own age and compare it with that of the College ! But I am wandering from my way : I was not at Keble but out in the water-walks of lovely Maudlin, pacing the long narrow avenues of ancient trees beneath whose grateful gloom had Addison walked in reverie long, long ago. The leaves were gone now, and no shadows lay beneath their spreading arms that tossed themselves naked in the night dark and waved beseechingly now towards the azure steep ; the request that “ persons walking in these grounds would not pluck the flowers 99 seemed needlessly cautious for the most rampant kleptomaniac could have found nothing to pluck, and the wind whispered chilly to the rustling ivy- leaves. The deer in the groves over the narrow brook, river, canal, call it what you will, raised their graceful heads as they heard my footsteps clink upon the hard ground and turned towards me mild eyes void of all that untamed mad- ness so visible in the wild red deer, or even the fallow darlings of some vast park wilderness. I fell to musing as I walked and my thoughts flew back over the rolling summers to the time when the studious poet had trod these lovely walks and Oxford had been picturesque with the costumes and the customs of a by-gone age; it seemed so very long ago, I sighed to think how very 114 THE STORY OP OSCAR j soon I too would be departed and my place in turn know me no more, nor would I have even the spurious half-life of fame, no man would point to this or that tree and say with sighing recollection, “That was Oscar’s favourite; here he would sit.” In such a place as Oxford, if one thinks at all one’s thoughts must always be very full of a chastened sadness, hardly painful yet very deep and passionful, bom of the dead spirit voices whispering from every stone and every tree and fountain. It was my misfortune to see Cambridge before I saw Oxford. I say misfortune because one’s first impressions on seeing such places can never, never be recalled and I would fain they had been aroused by my own dear Mother. How well I remember it ! I was taken over to see Cam- bridge while staying with some friends in the neighbour- hood. We saw spick and span S. John’s which moved me not a whit — I mean its chapel — for the exquisite gardens and delicious courts none can regret admiring — we won- dered at the immense quadrangle of Trinity and at the four gates of Gonville and Caius, but last of all we entered King’s ! It was about the time of afternoon service on a gorgeous spring day when all the world was being bom again, when that Godful building first entered into my soul and struck me dumb. I was only a boy, only a great, rough, cricket-loving, book-hating boy, with very little History and no senti- ment, and yet in an instant of time that felt like Eternity, the whole history of that fair fabric branded itself into me intuitively, without verger, handbook or cicerone and I was sore with worship. I could not look about me, I could not sing, I could not speak. Only I sat still in my great oaken stall and listened dazed to the lovely child-voices of the white-robed choristers, listened to the thunder-rolls of the mighty organ, listened most of all to the mighty voices of the dead crying aloud out of the fragrant past their long-forgotten history. I think it was then I became a man. Then first the exquisite bliss-agony of thought’s luxuries first came to me. My heart enjoyed fully, really and tangibly not a com- munion of saints but the amplest most living communion of souls, and I was tom away from the present into the past. What moved me most, I well remember, was not the thought of all who here had been great , but of those thou- sands now chilled and silenced for ever who here had been AUTOBIOGRAPHY OP OSCAR 115 young; who here had felt their first wild yearnings for a vague grandeur, who here had felt the fascination of the siren-voiced Fame, and who here had loved and worked and played, just like I might do now in these latter days. All that, I say, was at Cambridge and could never be really recalled, though to-day something of the old glamour was over me. I felt ashamed of being so sentimental and tried to change the current of my thoughts, but all in vain : I spoke to Byron about it afterwards — confessed it as it were — and he said that it was quite natural and often happened to himself. The end of anything, he remarked, is always suggestive of such half -melancholy musings, even though it be but the end of one Freshman term or of a school half- year. Indeed he very much questioned if to indulge in such-like reveries at times, provided they were the right times and at rather rare intervals, was not rather profitable than the reverse. “ I have often noticed how sentimental one is apt to become at the conclusion of anything, no matter how trivial, 55 he said. “ Often I have had a sensible feeling of regretful retrospection at the end of a pleasant day with pleasant people, or even on the departure of a visitor whose presence was indifferent to me, provided he had remained some days. I think it is the innate conservative principle within us — for we have an inborn conservatism just as we have also an inborn liberalism and yearning for reform, — entering its voiceless protest against change. 55 “ Personally, 55 I replied, “ I have the utmost abhorrence of change in mere surroundings ; the advent of a guest whom I know will increase my enjoyment is to an extent a nuisance to me, and when he has arrived his departure is still more unpleasant. Just so I like summer, but in winter I hate to think of losing the long cosy evenings for a while even though long days are to be given in exchange. 55 “ Like Tennyson’s Lotus Eaters, you would like “ * A land where all things always seemed the same/ ” he laughed; and I agreed, saying that I would especially like one “ In which it seemed always afternoon.” 116 THE STORY OF OSCAR But this conversation was some days after the walk through the water-walks of Maudlin and Kirk Christ meadows that I am telling you about. CHAPTER XXI I do not know why particularly I am telling you all about this. There is not much worth relating in my walk or in the sentimentalities connected with it. But there are several reasons why I am loath to hold my tongue. First, I have very nearly reached the end of my tether and shall soon have to give place to another narrator, and I have been talking so long with you about myself that I am fain to hold on as long as ever you will let me. Again it seems a pity that you should suppose me always doing some- thing, rowing, talking, laughing, playing football, reading, eating breakfasts, luncheons and dinners, but never think- ing, no matter how worthless and weak my musings may be. Yes, I shall soon have to say good-bye to you, and it will be a good while before you are brought back to Oxford again, so I would just tell you all about this last day of my" Freshman term, and all about the dear old city, how it looked and how its looks made me feel, for perhaps, who knows, it may have looked just so to you once and you too may have pondered noi more sagely than I? Well, when I had made the circuit of those sweet water- walks and passed out again into the High, I first crossed over into the gardens opposite, and through the iron wicket gate, down the few battered steps, and again under Inigo Jones’ so-called rustic gateway. The botanical Professor was sunning himself placidly with his wife — I suppose it was his wife, he may not have one, for all I know — in the sheltered parterres beyond where tall pampas grasses and rare foreign shrubs shot upward in incongruous proximity with homely British trees and sturdy British ivy. I wondered vaguely if I should ever have a wife, and if so, whether she would look at me like that, and finally con- cluded that in the event of her ultimate existence she would not. The fountains were casting up their chilly shower of 117 118 THE STORY OF OSCAR glistening crystal drops not exactly to heaven, but modestly towards it, and an old gardener was splicing up a magnolia bough that the wind last night had injured. I knew him pretty well by sight and he evidently knew me, for he jerked a grimy finger quasi-respectfully towards . the brim of his battered old hat and volunteered the in- formation that it was chilly but main bright and that he mun confess he’d knowed wuss weather in fust wick ’f December ’fore now. I stopped and began to talk to him about the gardens and wondered why so few of the undergraduates ever walked through them even, on their way to Kirk Christ or Porpoise, considering how pleasant a variety it gave. “ Eh, sir,” he replied, for he was ignorant of my exalted rank. “ Eh, sir, they’re main fullish, a’ they young smarties; ’doubt at all now they do it for brag like. Jest to say, mind you, that they’ve never bin here, ye see ? I know’d o’ one young gent, as was up four years and when he went away’d never seen inside o’ the Radcliffe. Loike enough he did na know a were a clock on Carfax.” The old man laughed at his humorous peroration and I laughed too. “ Drat this moithering boo ,” he continued in allusion to the branch that he found unruly and hard to tie up. “ Wish the blessed wind ’ud moind’s own business and not come fullin 9 here.” “ Here, let me hold it while you splice it round,” I said, suiting the action to the word. “ Oi, that’s it. Thear, it’s done now, and thank ye kindly : ye’ll be droi after that, I warrant,” he concluded with a graceful avoidance of making his remark personal to himself. I laughed and gave him some money; I think the magni- tude of the gift, small as it really was, surprised him. But if it did he was gentleman enough to be no whit more obsequious after it than before. Having talked a bit about one or two matters connected with his work, he hobbled off to work in another part of the gardens, and I continued my walk. The leaves were lying in profligate golden billows beneath the trees, where last night’s wind had scattered them un- tidily, and some of them were sticking where they had fallen in the prim privet hedge near the iron turn-style opening out of the gardens at the Kirk Christ end. Crossing Merton field by the road leading to the Long Walk, I held AUTOBIOGRAPHY OP OSCAR 119 on round Christ Church meadows, keeping close to the stone- coped banks of the quiet Cherwell, that oozed and gurgled sadly under its willows, moaning at the recollection of some long-forgotten life that had ended, years gone by, in its deep green heart. The floods were out over the meadows, or at least all the part of them nearest the river and from the still uncovered marsh-land rose ghostly veils of bluish mist, that coiled and writhed cruelly in the slanting powerless sun-rays of the late afternoon. A little peevish breeze crept round the river- banks, kissing its cold face, and then wandering off discon- tentedly down the Long Walk to whistle through the long cloisters and round the dark old quadrangles of Kirk Christ. Presently I heard the scores of clocks chime half-past four and this somehow made me think of the churches them- selves, each so different, each representing a little religion of its own, last and living protest against the notion of a religion at once Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic. Until I had come up to Oxford I had had no notion how many gods there were. Ayah’s god who liked English blood and the Anglo-Saxon God who did not, had puzzled me sufficiently, but here was a perfect Pantheon of Deities. Gods there were, as I found, who could not bear with incense, and other gods there were .who could not do without it; gods who said that all pleasure was of the nature of sin and others who said that nothing but pleasure was unsinful. And all these divine deities were quarrelsome, all of them taught their followers to be ill-natured as it seemed to me, hard and unsympathetic, not seldom ungentlemanly and backbiters. Not a god of them but expected something either cruel or ludicrous from his adorers, and would have obedience at the expense of injury to their fellow-men. I had thought a good deal about it, and I had given all a fair trial in their turn, and it seemed to me all were alike worthless, all mean or childish, often both; all degrading to manhood, and tending to the smallest, lowest self-glorifi- cation. I had no native will to disbelieve, but for the life of me I could not believe; and what’s more I did not think they believed either; if they had believed all that they professed, their own lives, their own actions, witnessed loudly against them. With their own mouths they daily condemned them- selves, if indeed they thought mankind should be judged by the principles they propounded. Side by side, and day 120 THE STORY OF OSCAR by day, I had seen the paltriest, meanest actions as the invariable fruit of high-flown pretensions and lofty creeds and systems. Blame, no doubt, attached to me for my godless un- belief : but does no responsibility lie at the door of those who thus unblushingly degrade what they profess to exalt until they render it all a mockery and revolting to many and many a mind, constituted perhaps no less excellently than their own ? CHAPTER XXII 44 Byron / 5 I said, coming into my rooms where I found him patiently waiting for my return, 44 what a pity it is that there are any religions in the world to make men horrible, isn’t it? ” 44 To make men horrible, yes. But religion never does,” he answered, throwing aside Milton’s 44 Lycidas ” that he had been reading to pass the time. 44 It is because hardly any of us know in the least what religion means that we are so often horrible, as you say.” 44 Well, but it is just the religious people who are most unpleasant.” 44 Yes, I know; very often. But the true and only real religion makes no one unpleasant. Only we won’t talk about that.” 44 Why not? ” I asked laughingly. 44 Why do you never try and make a convert of me like the rest do? ” 44 Because it would be no good. You are not ripe for it, or anything like ripe. It is useless to sow good seed where not so much as a plough has broken up the hard ground.” 44 What do you think would have the desired effect? ” 44 I don’t know,” he replied gravely; 44 perhaps some great blessing, perhaps some great misfortune.” There we changed the subject and began our tea, which we drank with all the luxuriousness of perfect leisure, per- fect comfort and entire content. 44 Do you really think of spending the vac. abroad ? ” he asked presently. 44 Yes; I can’t stand that great empty house, and so I have made plans with Herod and we are to wile away the time as best we may at Rome and Amalfi, and the rest. The summer at Beaumonde is well enough, very nice in fact, but I don’t feel equal to bearing the brunt of a baronial Christmas in my ancestral halls at present.” Byron looked really disappointed and said simply : 44 I had hoped to have introduced you to all our people 12 I 122 THE STORY OF OSCAR this Christmas, it will be ages now before you meet and I do want you to know the girls, they are not half a bad lot.” “ You damn with faint praise,” I answered; “ pray don’t describe me to them as not half a bad poor fool for his age.” “ I have often wondered,” I continued after a short pause, “ that you have never brought your arts to bear on me : all the other religious enthusiasts have had their fling, and your Church is not generally accredited with any over-powering reluctance to propagandize? ” “ Perhaps it is because I am not a religious enthusiast that I have left you alone. But if you ask me seriously I answer that it is because I am both too worldly-wise and too void of that faith which can transplant mountains. To my carnal sense there is no object in wasting my energies and boring one of my few friends in an attempt which will in all probability result in failure. Besides,” he concluded gravely, “ if God wishes you to join the Church, He can do it without me and in spite of you.” “ But if your Church says that all outsiders must be damned, surely it is rather selfish of you to do nothing to save me from such a consummation ? ” “ The Church teaches nothing of the kind.” Then, as if he dreaded being dragged into a controversial disserta- tion, he added laughingly : “ As the Catholic Bishop of Tuam said to the Protestant Bishop of the same place, 4 Sure, ye’ll be saved by yer lordship’s inconcaivable ignorance.” I saw he disliked the subject and so pursued it no farther and our conversation turned to our journey to London on the next day whither he was to accompany me and spend a day or two before going back to the Moat House for the vac. “ When you come up again next term, Oscar, I shall introduce you to my ^Esthetic Club, all religions are tolerated there and you will not find the absence of any a galling disqualification,” he said as I was putting on my gown to go up to Hall, whither he was to accompany me. “ What is your .Esthetic Club ? ” “ Like most clubs, a company of people who have at least one common meeting-ground. You must understand that the .Esthetic Club is our nick-name from without; we have no name at all for ourselves.” *■* What are your rules ? ” AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF OSCAR 123 “ We have none except that there shall never be any.” “ What constitutes membership ? ” “ Presence at a meeting. We are all members when assembled and there are no members at all when dis- persed.” “ What is your object ? What do you do ? ” “ We amuse each other and help each other; some of us are painters and their paintings we criticize and also do our best to benefit according to our power. Some of us write novels, and for them too we perform the same friendly office; a few of us are poets, and many of us are humorists.” “ It sounds nice. Why do they call you ^Esthetics ? ” “ Because,” he replied, “ there is no religious bond between us but one and that is the Religion of Beauty. Some of us are Atheists, or Deists, many violent Pro- testants, some few are High Churchmen of the old school who are ill-reputed by the Barsabites, and one is a Roman Catholic.” ‘ 6 How do you acquire membership ? ” I asked with growing interest. “ Merely by introduction. Our meetings are always meals, for we all know the agonizing dullness of a meeting that is a meeting pure and simple; and these meals we give in erratic turns. Any guests the host of the day invites are for the time members.” “And what is your government? Who are your officers ? ” “ We have none,” he answered laughing. “ You see, without law is no transgression of the law and hence no necessity for officers of justice to administer the law. We have no rules and hence no need for a ruler. But we all defer voluntarily to the oldest of our brotherhood, you know him well enough by name — Professor Slade, the Buskin Professor of Art.” “ He is one of you ! 99 exclaimed I with wide-opened eyes, for the world-known Professor’s presence must cast a glamour over any company. Byron laughed at my enthusiasm, and we opened the door and went out for the clocks had all struck and we had delayed long already. CHAPTER XXIII We had been to the Abbey; had spent the whole afternoon in wandering lazily around it, inside and out, taking away little mental photographs of it all for future use. We had seen the Poets’ Comer, had read the eloquentest, saddest epitaph that was ever written, “ O Praie Ben Jonson had politely but firmly refused the vergeral services for the inspection of Henry the Seventh’s and the other chapels; had thought how easily fame for loveliness was acquired in Mary Stuart’s time unless the effigy belies her; had looked upon the little dusty faded wreaths, with royal and noble cards attached thereto, that testify the universal respect for the memory of Lady Augusta Stanley; had listened to the solemn evening service; had been all sore inside with long admiration; and now were standing outside looking up at the mighty building towering above us. It was dusk, almost dark, and the lingering light was still further obscured by heavy snow-clouds lowering above us; already a few big soft flakes had fluttered reluctantly to earth, to be swallowed up instantly in the mire and filth of London streets. There was a cold east wind blowing and moaning doubtless, if one could but hear it for the city’s roar, round the flinty buttresses and grim gargoyles of the very ancient minster. We were close to one of the many lamp-posts that stand like very desert islands round the outside of the Abbey and were struggling feebly with our umbrellas trying to get them to open without instantly assuming the appear- ance of big, wobbly, black wine-glasses. “ Let’s see, we have to go down Victoria Street, haven’t we, Byron? ” I said, wondering which of the several was Victoria Street; for my visits to London at that time had been so few and far between that metropolitan geography was hardly a strong point with me. “ I always settle all such uncertainties by getting into a hansom, it is much the shortest thing to do.” 124 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OP OSCAR 125 I laughed, and expressed my belief that that course would be our best now, all things considered. “ Where is a hansom ? ” I said meditatively looking round in hopes of catching some interested person’s eye, and saving myself the, to me, agonizingly embarrassing operation of shouting to anybody. “ I’m handsome! did you say you wanted me? ” cried a I pert voice at my elbo w. I turned and saw a young girl, quite a young girl, not more than eighteen I should say and dressed in poor but rather picturesque clothes and smiling benignantly with a sickening expression at us both. As she said, she was handsome and there was no denying it, but for my part the most hideous face would have been j preferable to her beauty with that leer upon it. Of course I knew what manner of woman she was, but ifor all that heaven only knows why I crimsoned to the very roots of my hair and far down my neck beneath my collar. I cannot tell you how it was, but I felt so deadly, deadly ashamed for her : it seemed such a loathsome thing that here, in this our England, where we are all so good and pure and holy, so virtuous that even to hint that evils exist somewhere is held Sin, that here, I say, on the very portals of our national temple to our national God, she should stand laughing and holding herself up for sale. I would have turned quickly away in my immeasure- able disgust and trusted to time to cool down my throbbing cheeks, but Byron, whom I had ever held so faultless, so all but impeccable, stayed to dally with her. Not till he spoke did I look at him, and he said only : “ God in heaven help you, my dear sister.” The sneering hellish laugh was strangled in its birth, the red died out of her cheeks — out of her very lips, and she staggered. “ Don’t,” she muttered chokingly and stretched out a delicate but not very clean hand as if to ward oft a cruel death-blow. If he had called her by some foul and brutal name, and cursed her by heaven, nay, perhaps if even he had prayed sanctimoniously that that heaven would for- give her, as if he well knew that it would not, she would have been little moved. She was past blushing at being reminded of her condition, past care for the good thought of those who had dragged her down, down to the lowest, filthiest slough of despond. 126 THE STORY OF OSCAR But he had done none of these things. Only with his sad great eyes fastened on her with an infinite brotherly yearning, he had said : “ God in heaven help you, my dear sister.” I stood speechless and wonder-struck : leaving the winds to work their wicked will upon my luckless umbrella, and with eyes alone for that which was was being acted out beside me. A large white snow-flake came floating obliquely down- wards, blown hither and thither by the boisterous wind, and fell at last at our feet, instantly melting into the filthy slush and mire. Byron said nothing, but pointed at it gravely and she looking on it shuddered terribly and covered her face with her hands. She murmured something huskily, but we could catch nothing but the one word “ Mother ! ” Before I knew what I was about I had brought a hansom and Byron and she were sitting in it and being driven quickly towards my house in South Audley Street, and I was left behind to follow alone. It had all happened in a moment, and my actions had been hardly my own but rather automatic motions in obedience to Byron’s strange ruling power. There had been no time for a crowd to assemble, and hardly anyone had seen the girl fall or Byron catch her in his arms. Just, however, as I reached the Westminster Palace Hotel side of the way, I noticed for the first time someone walking in front of me. It struck me at once that it was Smiley, of Wanbrooke, and in a moment I heard him speak to his companion, a stranger, whom I did not recognize but who looked like a ritualistic priest. “ That’s the sort of men they are, you see. The Holy Romans up at Oxford think a good deal of Byron, I can tell you.” I recognized the voice instantly and my blood boiled to think of the construction Smiley was putting on my friend’s brave goodness, which doubtless would promptly be disseminated fully in Oxford. When I reached home I found Byron pacing up and down the drawing-room slowly and with grave downcast glance. “ Where is she ? ” I asked. “ What have you done with her? ” “ Handed her over to Mrs. Johnson. I half expected that that terribly respectable retainer would have nothing . AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF OSCAR 127 to say to her : but as soon as she knew you did not dis- approve, she took kindly to the girl and is like a mother to her. She has quite recovered and is longing to go away, they say.*’ Presently the butler came to request Mr. Byron’s attend- ance in the housekeeper’s room, where the wretched girl was. He went and left me alone for a few minutes, return- ing presently with a travelling coat and a rug on his arm. “ She has told me all about herself,” he said hurriedly. “ Good God ! How noble some people are ! That miser- able girl was a year ago as pure as one of my own sisters;’ her father died and left her and her mother penniless and in debt. Heaven knows how such a notion occurred to her, but she determined to leave her home and leave all she loved, even a dear though moneyless lover, to do the only thing she believed open to her to gain some money for her starving mother. And she ran away from her home and came here : that was a year ago and ever since she has weekly sent a sufficient sum to the poor old woman in the country; the price of her own utter degradation.” “ But, the wretched old woman 1 She believes her daughter to be honest? ” “ Yes. That’s the gravest part of it. You can imagine how every grateful proud letter of thanks from the old mother must torture the miserable girl. However, God has sent us to help her and I have persuaded her to go home and am going to take her back, now, to-night, at once. It will be a terrible, terrible thing for them both, but better, oh, far better, than this loathsome, shameful life.” “ But what is the girl to do; how is she to earn bread for them both? ” “ I have hardly thought of that. I daresay they might start a small shop or something of that kind : I can just afford them a hundred pounds or so to start it with. But all that can be decided afterwards.” “ Let me do something : let me help you a little, do y Byron; at least let my wretched money be turned to some account.” “ Thanks,” he answered gratefully; “ it shall. Now good-bye. You’ll soon see me back.” So he was gone and left me alone half stupefied with wonderment : truly Byron was a man of action, and I was* not even a man of words. “ How he believes in his God ! ” I said wonderingly*. 128 THE STORY OF OSCAR “ And his is such a good God, too; so different from Smiley’s and Cousin Hubert’s and all the others I have been told about. Would, would that I too could believe in Him.” Next morning I got a short note dated from a small Berkshire village, telling me that the girl had been restored to her mother’s arms, and that Byron had been to see the clergyman, a kind, good, fearless man, who promised to stand by the miserable girl and her heartbroken mother through all things and had already shown a wonderful tender compassion towards them both. In such hands Byron said he could well leave them, for he knew his own presence was rather an injury than a benefit to the girl and therefore he should return to London that day. BOOK II VERONICA’S INTERLUDE “ ‘ I have loved/ she said, Words bowing her head As the wind bows the wet acacia trees. ‘ I saw God sitting above me, And I, I sat among men, And I have loved these/ ” CHAPTER I “ An ill-tempered little devil! She’ll be in a passion all her life, will she? Sheridan. “ For what we are going to receive, ” say I, with a strong and invidious emphasis on the auxiliary, “ may the Lord make us truly thankful.” And as I, Veronica, speak, my eagle glance is fixed disfavourably upon the menu. “ There is indeed a present need of the Divine assist- ance, assents my sister May, as she too scans the list of dainties at our call with hold-cheap eye; as she speaks she bends her head in devout benison on the meal she is criticizing, and performs upon her breast that crucial laceration that we all suppose to have some cabalistic religious import. “ That idiot Lisette ! ” puts in Leonard. “ And does it escape you, father, that when, as now, your eldest daughter, and (I blush to say) our eldest sister has provided some- thing unusually noisome for our sustenance, she carefully absents herself — coward as she is ? 99 “ The inefficient jackal is afraid, in fact, to face the in- censed lions,” observes our parent with a benignant attempt at treating the matter as a joke. “ Don’t flatter yourselves that she is,” retorts Lisette herself, gliding stealthily into her place at the head of the table, where she would fain have father think she has been all along. Arrived there she too supplicates protractedly a blessing and arranges simultaneously her next repartee. When at last she does raise her eyes, glowing with benevolence, they say as plain as words could do it : “ You, I observe, are in time, I on the other hand am late; but I bear no ill will therefore; no, I have suffered, dears, and can suffer if need be again.” With her voice, however, she says only : “ Darling father, I am so sorry the gong rang too soon 132 THE STORY OF OSCAR and v that Veronica and I didn’t hear it : I do hope you didn’t wait? ” A somewhat sardonic smile hovers on our dear old father’s i kind paternal lip as he expresses some wonder as to his daughter’s means of knowing that the gong had sounded punctually if she had not heard it at all. “ I’ll trouble you for Lisette’s gown,” remarks Leonard in the vulgar tongue : the very vulgar tongue of Oxford. All eyes are instantly directed towards our eldest sister’s costume, which consists of a pink cashmere dressing-gown, edged with honestly counterfeit point-lace and restrained at the waist by a sturdy brazen belt. Thus attired it is a favourite delusion of hers that we deem her dressed, but it would take a more omnipotent and omnicredent charity than ours to ignore the stout boots that are distinctly dis- cernible when she walks. “ I call Lisette insultingly untruthful,” says my brother, eyeing her with dispassionate criticism. “ Yes,” he con- tinues, heedless of my father’s appealing glances, “ I do think so, and it amuses me to say so : her falsehoods, which are more in number, oh dear yes, considerably more, than the hairs of her head, are all obviously bom of a belief that her entire audience was bom insane late last night.” We all cackle at this, Lisette among the rest; somehow we always do reward Leonard’s humour with a laughter not its due. He is a dear boy and deserving of encouragement : he is distinctly our favourite brother, in fact our eldest is hardly ever at home, as he spends his time chiefly in un- successful contests of all sorts of unheard of boroughs in every conceivable interest. “ How particularly nice the soup is to-night,” Lisette has the temerity to observe, briskly lapping the chill mess with the air of a beatified gourmand. “ Isn’t it, dear children ? ” “ H’m. People’s notions of soup seem to differ; second appearance of soaked tapioca this week, and a pudding, too, of the same revolting grain later on to keep it in coun- tenance,” is the laconic and irresponsive comment of the loved babes addressed, the eldest of whom, by-the-bye, is some two years her own senior. By a well-understood though tacit agreement we all studiously refrain from proceeding with our own dinner and preserve a dead and waiting silence. This we do less from in-bred delicacy than a belief that it will heighten our darling’s wholesome embarrassment. She has not dared to refuse soup altogether from a well-grounded belief that VERONICA’S INTERLUDE 133 were she to do so we would declare instantly that she con- sidered the mixture too* nauseous for home consumption, “ Now we can again resume our luxurious repast,” remarks Leonard with a sigh of ostentatious resignation when my sister’s plate is at length swooped off by the impatiently hovering footman. “ Father,” I observe, looking from the menu to him, “it grieves me to think of the terrible mortality that appears to be decimating your flocks. If I mistake not, this is the third leg of mutton we have wrestled with this week. How many legs are there to each mutton ? ” Lisette adjusts her bracelet with her fan and retorts with scathing sarcasm : “ Sheep, little Veronica, are not as you suppose bipeds.” “ But muttons are,” I assert unmoved; “ the fore legs of a living sheep become the shoulders of a departed mutton. Don’t they, anyone ? ” Everyone seems impressed by my s erudition, even Lisette is staggered and is heard to murmur that it was doubtless a misprint for “ shoulder.” “ But you must remember, we see the same leg of mutton more than once, luncheon frequently casts in our teeth the remnants of a former feast. And, as the cook feelingly observed to me when I was ordering dinner to-day, you are eating your own legs now and they’re a sight bigger than the butcher’s. For a large family, too, like this, where a whole sheep is slain at once ” Poor Lisette is instantly pulled up by various humorous enquiries as to the more usual quantity of each animal slaughtered contemporaneously, but she is mistress of the situation and her own voice rises high above the tumult saying that in such a case as she has put it is necessary to consume the legs and “ Arms,” suggest I with my wonted high-toned pleasantry. “ I think certainly it quite our turn to ravin on the arms] of a sheep. The back we have doubtless devoured ignorantly as chops ? ” This time it is my turn to be scoffed at for my absence of knowledge. “ Chops indeed ! The blushing Veronica doubtless con- siders that the homely chop owes its rise to the ovine back! Beloved child, learn that the real seat of a chop’s origin is the throat, the throat of mutton.” A counter-snort of derision greets this anatomical apoca- lypse, and May suggests “ the neck; the neck of mutton,” 134 THE STORY OF OSCAR whereon Lisette has the wicked assurance to affirm that she had said the neck. Father is evincing every outward sign of an intention of bursting into tears and is rasping his head irritatedly with the long desolate sites of his finger nails. “ Non pas d’avant les domes tiques,” admonishes Lisette with a meaning frown and laying her finger on her lips; it is not her custom to suffer her sublime mind to brook the sordid trammels of mere grammar, nor can she be bound down by any consideration of the number and gender of our actual attendance. We all splutter mildly and even the faithful John him- self allows a covert smile to grace his ample mouth as he deposits a leg of mutton, boiled, before my father, having already confronted Lisette with two boiled skeletons of a winged tribe. “ Both white dishes again at each end,” sighs our father, reconnoitring the unholy joint before him. “ I thought, dear, I had mentioned once that there was a general pre- judice in favour of a mixture of colours ? ” He speaks with his wonted calmness, more in sorrow than in anger, but not without a certain fine touch of irony. This protest of his has occurred at least once a week since Lisette has ruled the roast. “ Very often, dear father, foolishly often, have you made that singularly childish remark,” she answers, “ and the remedy is simple. If the mere appearance of your food has so much power to annoy you, why not relinquish your barbarian custom of dissecting it yourself and dine like other people? ” “ If you do remove our diet to the side-tables,” says Leonard gravely, “ I, for one, shall insist on your keeping tasters.” May has been for some time rapt in an awed silence and is pensively regarding the writhen^ forms of the defunct chickens : they have a terrible, appealing air as with lank legs they point in ghastly derision towards several points of the compass at once, and there is something odd, too, about their heads, for, owing to some other fault in trussing, they peer warily under their own shoulders and seem to preserve a watchful attitude towards Lisette, whom they regard with a well-earned distrust. “ This is too bad,” murmurs my second sister when speech returns to her. VERONICA’S INTERLUDE 135 “ This is scandalous,” adds Leonard who can hardly trust himself to speak. “ Lisette, this is like you,” culminate I with damning dispassionateness. A murmur of applause greets my eloquently brief re- proach : our father, however, has been looking rampantly and aggressively grieved while these amenities have been in progress, and is carving the mutton in moody and un- smiling silence. He will take our little family storms and showers in all seriousness, good man, though one would have thought that by now he might be acclimatized to them. “ Can it be that you don’t notice, dear father,” I ask explanatorily, “ that this makes the fourth time since last week that we have been called upon to rend limb from limb of yon fleshless fowls ? Fowls of a preadamite and, we had hoped, extinct species.” “ Potatoes, please,” he says with bitterness, ignoring my overtures. “ If,” requests May, “ you insist on feeding your brethren on these anonymous birds, Lisette, would it be too much to ask that you would give the preference to such of them as have not died a natural death? ” Lisette is about to retort but is interrupted by Leonard who, hoarse with passion and warm with wrestling with the tough flesh of the animals under discussion, says : “ I will say, May, you do her an injustice there. No natural death closed the long and dreary life of these strange fowls but the extremest horrors of famine.” “ Children, children, don't quarrel,” moans father wearily depositing a potato on his plate and eloquently pleading with pathetic glance for concord. “ Never mind me, darling father; never mind me ! ” cries Lisette with sprightly self-sacrifice; 66 it doesn’t annoy me, I’m above it.” Notwithstanding her elevation of character, a smart sound of knocking is plainly audible beneath our festive board, and Leonard is seen to recoil abruptly and move his chair as far as may be from hers; before so doing, how- ever, he does not omit to return her sisterly caress. “ Do you wish, father dear, I ask, do you wish your eldest daughter to be kicked at the head of her own table ? If you do, of course, it is all right, only I should like to know.” As father intimates that in the event of so terrible a 136 THE STORY OF OSCAR trial being laid upon him he shall struggle, with the Divine Assistance, to bear it, Lisette, with a glance intended to be at the same time finally annihilating and loftily uncon- scious, retires behind her fan. On all occasions soever it is our sister’s custom to wield a huge black silk punkah , not as I gather from any desire to create therewith a freshening breeze, but merely from a considerate dread lest the eyes of unwary beholders might be dazzled by the blinding brilliance of her charms. With a similar object in view she suspends a small green shade round the lamp wherever she goes, causing her own face to assume a chronic appearance of aggravated jaundice and nausea. These two customs, together with her pro- clivity towards two white dishes, constitute the root and ground of our father’s objection to her. “ Who wrote the menus to-night? ” asks Leonard after a short armistice. “ They look like your writing, Lisette.” “ Yes, I wrote them,” replies she with a transparent affectation of ease, well foreseeing that it were well could she repudiate them. “ Thanks : I only asked because I felt some degree of certainty that no one but you would give us credit for a desire to consume meat-breads. It’s all right, they were exceedingly good, — considerably better than either of these wearying viands.” We all giggle derisively, Lisette of course the loudest of all, and she remarks complacently that ethnology never was her strong point. “ And had it been, what then ? ” enquire we all with interest. “ You doubtless are trying to say etymology, and you wouldn’t be right then.” “ Nobody can accuse you of being a * progeny of learn- ing,’ ” adds Leonard, “ nor can you boast that above all you are i a mistress of orthodoxy,’ or that you very clearly ‘ reprehend the true meaning of what you are saying.’ ” “ I thought we were talking of the menus,” observes Lisette with dignity harking back to the subject with the intention of being delivered of a humorous remark there- upon. “ You should do as Jeremy Naylors says in Good Living , give up menus, and eat by faith and not by sight.” A yell of delight welcomes this triple instance of our sister’s sovereign failing — a hopeless, hopeless inaccuracy of quotation as of everything else. “ There never was such a man,” retorts Hugh with lofty scorn, “ and had there been he would certainly not have VERONICA’S INTERLUDE 137 written the book you invented. Finally,” continues my brother, getting slightly involved as his interest in his own conceit advances, “ had he existed and had he stooped to the depth you suggest, it would still have been another man in another book who did not make the remark you misquote.” “ Perspicuous and ironical,” observes Lisette with calm disdain, “ * Be rude , sweet child, and let who will be clever/ would be your reading of Kingsley’s sentiment, Leonard.” CHAPTER II And Leah said : A troop oometh : and she called his name Gad. Why May and I were not both called Gad has never ceased to be a mystery to me; the intelligent reader will have gathered that we are five in all at present and two more, if not exactly lost, are at least gone before. I would not have you suppose that we are always eating or that we remain in the dining-room all night, but so it is that we are again discovered there, though, as Mr. Pecksniff observed, it’s to-morrow morning, and luncheon is the meal just now under discussion. Some persons, they tell me, consider that form of expression illogical and far-fetched, but no one having the honour of our acquaintance has ever cavilled with it in my hearing. As regards our family, Hugh, our eldest brother, is, as has been already said, seldom at home; Leonard our next is at Oxford whence he is at this moment absent by reason of its being the Long Vacation. Leonard is a truly excellent person and really good withal, though by no means mawkishly or obtrusively so; moreover he is, in an illicit and unaccountable manner rather evil-looking — as indeed we all are, and we all deem him passing measure clever and amusing. Close on Leonard’s heels hurried Lisette, and, as we consider, “ Oh, what a falling off was there! ” Not that Lisette is any way deficient or unpleasant, but she is eminently aggressive and we are never really quite at peace with her, though sometimes, when for instance one is not on speaking terms with any other member of the family, it becomes temporarily convenient to observe a brief truce with her. After Lisette came one Ethel who is not, nor do I ever remember much that she was, and after her followed Robert whom I recollect having felled to earth with a hearth-broom, 138 VERONICA’S INTERLUDE 139 but whether his demise was attributable to that blow or not I have never since enquired. Robert was succeeded by May, still, as you know, extant and I, Veronica, am Benjamina. I consider that as regards our outward man we are a family that “ varies, chiefly for the worse ” : both our brothers, particularly Hugh, are good-looking, but Lisette must have discouraged our parents a good deal. Her virulently black hair and eyes and strange pallid com- plexion, though rather handsome now, must have been gruesome in her early youth. With May came a delusive but momentarily cheering promise of better things, and with me came despair. At all events, the first glance at my charms was more than sufficient for my mother, in whose eyes existence shared with me lost its attraction and was relinquished. Allow me, if indeed to do so be necessary, to disabuse you of any lingering belief that any resemblance between me and the bashful flower whose name I bear is or ever was discernible : blue, I may well originally have been, but there the likeness stops and even that similarity now, at least, does not exist. Albeit no Venus de Medici, either in costume or appear- ance, I am still far from plain, and being but burdened with the weight of seventeen summers and about the same number of winters, may be considered still in my prime. Some persons have said that my charm is my expression, but they expre#s their meaning clumsily, one of my charms is indeed my expression. My eyes, I have decided after long and weary study, are not blue, but distinctly grey; and my nose has but one fault and that an amicable one, it points ever prophetically to my heavenly home beyond the skies. My mouth, though not the mouth of a dwarf, is not aggressively ample, and as for my teeth they’re no more like pearls than yours are, or anyone else’s; white coral — if there is such a thing — they may have a shadowy resemblance to, but on that point I would rather not insist. Besides my expression I build a good deal on my com- plexion, it is, in fact, the one irreproachable thing about me, and it is, moreover, a staple commodity for it has no dirty habits of becoming gorgeously crimson on occasion or otherwhiles luridly purple, as May’s often does. Our mother it has already been hinted died when I was born, and my grief therefore for her demise has always been 140 THE STORY OF OSCAR of a chastened character, in consequence, however, of her decease it has fallen upon Lisette, as Leonard well says, to drive our father’s household gratuitously to perdition, with- out the necessity of any alien being paid for the office. As Lisette, nobody ever quite knew why, saw fit to be born in Paris instead of London, she to this day affects a Gallican habit and conversation, supporting the fable by an infuriating trick of thrusting into an ill-fitting French garb the most ordinary and essentially Saxon expressions and words. Elizabeth was the name she acquired in baptism, but from a belief that Lisette sounds less British she has long adopted that title and when on fairly good terms with her we mostly humour her whim by so addressing her. With all her faults, and they are like the dust on the back of your Bible for multitude, Lisette is a very good girl, and does a world of kindly labour among our poor, neither getting or seeking credit or thanks for it. You must not, by any means, suppose that because she hurls nervous epithets at our heads, and can not quite catch our taste in cookery she is a person of no self-control and fast habits. On the principle, one would think, that those whom the gods love die young, it has always been told us by our nurses and natural guardians that in all probability our eldest sister would not live to grow up; as for me, no doubts have ever disturbed my brethren of my attaining a green old age. May is good also, decidedly good yes, but in addition she is religious , and her religiosity assumes a not always bearable form. My second sister prays a good lot, especially for her enemies and for all of us, — that we may be pardoned our numerous offences against herself, and generally be endowed with that class of heavenly but unsubstantial gifts. May has rather a high standard which she expects every- one she knows to live up to : I may say indeed she has a couple. She collects vast sums for all the most indigent charities and sings frequently at Penny Readings for like devout objects, and I never remember a Wednesday after- noon yet that she has not plunged in gloom by the recol- lection that she should have held a Mothers’ Meeting on the previous Monday morning. May is decidedly the best read of us all, and generally speaking the most well informed and accomplished, but Lisette is accredited by us as being the cleverest by the light of nature. VERONICA’S INTERLUDE 141 But I have wandered from our luncheon. “ Lisette,” remarks Leonard, when we have scanned the fare with more or less decided disapproval, “ I do hope you will play us no nasty tricks with our food to-night. Re- member, there is to be a stranger and Oscar is not yet able to enter into the joke of the thing.” “ My dear Leonard,” retorts she trenchantly, “ I can hardly congratulate you on any likelihood of attaining vast wealth in the same manner as Sidney Smith’s bankers are said to have done — solely through transacting their own business.” “ But it is our business,” I interpose. “ It is all our business; the honour of the family is at stake.” Even father is roused to protest. “ Yes, my dear Lisette, do remember that he is our nearest neighbour and Leonard’s great friend. Experimentum in . . .” 66 Corpore vili, id est, paterno ; yes, I know,” interrupts she frowning impatiently. “ Really, father, I do think these instructions rather de trop at this time of day. I, who have entertained representatives of every branch of the Church and of the State, might, one would think, be trusted to provide for this school-fellow of Leonard’s.” “ One would think so,” responds our father with mild irony. It is one of our eldest sister’s most favourite, and as she deems, most effectual means of snubbing Leonard to allude to his Oxford friends as his *' 6 school-fellows.” “ What time does the boy arrive ? ” she asks presently, seeing that her promising struggle seed has fallen on stony ground. “ Not till dinner-time. I daresay he will ride over and send his luggage with his valet earlier in the afternoon.” “ Are there any towels in his rooms, Lisette ? Or will he have to roll on the hearthrug ? ” I ask significantly in al- lusion to the fate of a former sojourner beneath our humble roof who stayed a week and was believed on departure to have been reduced to the extremities described. “ I chance to know, dear,” supplements Leonard in whose heart, though hidden, her insult still rankles, “ that Oscar washes at times. You have not thought scorn, have you, to pander to so squeamish a custom? ” Lisette deigns no response but withers us in our places with a glance, and helps herself to gooseberry-tart in a manner that leads one to suppose her momentarily oblivious 142 THE STOBY OF OSCAB of the fact that she is neither a navvy nor a coal-heaver. “ Perhaps/’ continues Leonard, “ if we are short of baths, Lisette might temporarily spare Oscar her own.” We all reward this vulgar sally with appreciative merri- ment, it being a daily theory of ours that our eldest sister is apt to stand upon the marge and “ Look on heaven, but fear to enter in. ,, Once indeed, long ago, we wrote a parody of “ Maiden- hood ” about her, in which we humorously described her as Standing with reluctant feet Where the bath and blanket meet. “ May I suggest that you would supply the poor boy with some scraps of stationery and blotting-paper,” says May, in grim reference to another visitor. All whose handker- chiefs were observed by the laundress to bear neat replicas of his correspondence. A diversion occurs just now owing to Lisette’s hand slipping unaccountably, as she pours cream onto her tart, causing about half the contents of the jug to become her nefarious prey. || “ Hand slipped again,” observes Leonard morosely. “ Father, dear, I do wish you’d have Lisette’s muscles seen to. They must have something terrible the matter with them.” For some time after this episode our meal proceeds in peace, not in silence, do not think it; no two members of our family have ever been known to be simultaneously dumb,— except at dead of night — since first we learned to put into words our heart-felt disapprobation of each other. We are quick eaters and our meal is soon over, when we stroll off informally to the windows, where we consume big branches of red currants and hang our legs gracefully out in the breeze. May usually employs this period in tempting Providence to strike down her two retrievers with grievous murrains by gorging them with piles of meat and rich fat gravy. Our dining room, like the rest of the Moat House, is very pleasant, ’umble but ’omelike, as I once overheard the butler tell his sweetheart whom he was conducting over the house. It is not big, but it is comfortable, and at one end is a big bow window through which comes all day long the sound of the ring-doves philandering in the shrubbery and VERONICA’S INTERLUDE 143 of the lapping of the lake upon its pebbly strand. It is, too, a very pretty view we get through that same bow window, of the dear old-world garden, and of the big mere with all its islands that has so nearly drowned us, one and all, in our time, but thought worse of it. There are not many pictures in our dining room but they are nice ones. The family portraits, you see, are all off at our other, grander, uncomfortable place in Berkshire, and these therefore are necessarily paintings of a more general interest. Over the fire-place is a large Holy Family that is sup- posed to be a perfect marvel of art, though who painted it or hpw we came by it nobody knows and nobody cares. I once asked an artist who was staying in the house and affected a vast knowledge of the subject whom he supposed it was by, but he only replied with delightful vagueness that it was 66 a not inferior antique.’’ All the figures in it are in excellent order, except perhaps St. Joseph, who has a slightly game eye attributable to an erring and extravagant missile hurled at me in byegone years by Leonard in some wild prandial affray. There are several delicious old Dutch village pictures, of peasant weddings and rural festivals, and some more dark mysterious ones, also Dutch, of boors drinking and playing cards on the top of beer-barrels and the like. Besides these there is a portrait of Leonard’s pony, Tobias, who hurried headlong into eternity on the top of a spiky iron railing, and a large picture of our dining-room in London accredit- ing that chamber with about the dimensions of Trafalgar Square. Finally there is a very famous Interior of Rotterdam Groote Kerk, the chief glory of which is some marvellous arrangement of the lights and shades, but wherein lies the wonder I never yet could tell. “ Who’s going to do what ? ” asks Leonard when he has nibbled all the currants off his bunch and thrown the stalk at me, as usual sublimely regardless of grammar. “ I’m going to lie on the grass and read Rasselas,” is my decision. “ I am going to take that consumptive little Jones the flannel night-gown I’ve been making for her,” answers May, who, like all of us, so far from doing good by stealth and blushing to find it fame, does nothing of any conse- quence and proclaims it on the house-tops. “ Your right hand, dear May, would indeed be dense if 144 THE STOEY OF OSCAE it failed to detect the occupation of your left,” observed Lisette parenthetically. “ I for my part must go and call on Lady Chamner.” This lady, I should explain, is a neighbour of ours who calls on us some five times a month, nobody knows why, and leaves invariably four cards, nobody in the least knows on whom. She and William the Conqueror got into their teens together, and in her own estimation Lady Chamner has remained there ever since. “ But, Lisette, my beloved, it is not Lent," expostulates Leonard in delicate reference to our theory that the society of some of our acquaintance should be set apart for that season which the Church has specially provided for such fell purpose. “ No. But it’s Friday; and you see I always staved off my conscience last Lent with the unworthy sophistry that the dear old woman was too pleasant. Sooner or later, I knew my sin would have to find me out.” Father, of course, warmly approves the project; he spends most of his life in vain entreaties that we will take more pains to assuage the passion our neighbours are supposed to nourish for our society. “ Well, I for one don’t intend to take the cross in Ihis absurdly quixotic crusade. It can’t be three months since we called,” says May with decision. “ Nor I,” agrees Leonard. “ Nor I.” So as usual Lisette does her duty and we prefer the pleasures of sin for a season, betaking ourselves to our divers amusements with sluggish care; she for her part rolls off pompously and uncomfortably in our biggest most dowagery barouche just as the day becomes most delicious. Father looks forward to a really pleasant afternoon at the Board of Guardians, which briefly comprehends in one saying all his idea of Elysium or Valhalla, he infinitely preferring one relieving officer to a legion of Houris or the like. CHAPTER III For, lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone : The flowers appear on the earth, the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land. The fig-tree putteth forth her green figs, and the vines with the tender grape give a good smell. It is such a June afternoon. Oh, royal-shining summer sun, how I love you; how I pour forth glad homage at your golden feet and thank you for your goodly gifts. The smell of the vines with their tender grapes is no way obtrusive, nor are fig-trees our speciality at the Moat, but all the rest is even as that Divinest Canticle of Canticles so divinely tells it, in the words I have quoted heretically above. Most sweet melody, now your rhythmic cadence moves me in spite of Maudlin curates and their amorous sermons preached from you in the time of their wooing, curates who ere long preach nuptial homilies from Lamentations. Did ever poet, since that love-lorn monarch of Eld, sing half so blissfully, half so glad and gay ? I trow not. Yes, even here, in our little chilly draughty island, in this our northern county, it is summer-time, and the world is singing out for joy. The trees are still a very tender green, for it is only early June, and the season is late, and some of them hardly green at all. The oaks still shew their gnarled boughs through their maiden veil of ochre haze, the elms are robed in clearest freshest tints of verdant youth, while through the delicate leaves of the most stately beeches pours down a filtered flood of golden glory, flecking all the grass with fitful gleams of yellow light. High up, so high, so high, is the cloudless blue, millions of miles away it looks, and not any tiniest cloud dares wander across its fathomless sapphire depths. Beneath it smiles the lake lying sweetly patient, all unenvious, on earth content to mirror heaven in its own calm breast and crosses itself in loveliest devotion with the solemn-waving willows on its bank. The water 146 THE STORY OF OSCAR lilies not yet have budded, only now in fact have they been told that the winter’s dead and they hasten to don their wedding garments for the summer’s bridal. Their huge flat leaves lie, still coiled up, upon the placid surface rocking gently with every tiny ripple, and giving yet no shade to the little basking perch that lie affectedly upon their sides in indolent enjoyment. All the birds, what thousands there seem to be, are crying shame on summer for having lagged so long, and the most sweet cushat is plaining soft and low to his gentle mistress of their endless, endless love. Even the little sparrows in the ivy, and the old jackdaws in the old church tower, are trying to pretend that they too are singing birds, and per- suade themselves at least that they are very tuneful. Dear sparrows, dear unmusically chattering jackdaws, how I sympathize with you, how I too long for the power of song ! But I, alas, am as you are voiceless — or worse. By some inexplicable oversight an inscrutable Providence omitted it, and bitterly I bewail its want. Had I been born into the world eye-browless I might have invoked Mrs. Allen in my riper years; had I been obstinately toothless, twenty pounds would have made me even with my brethren; to put a stronger case, had I been cursed with a hare-lip I might have grown a luxuriant moustache and gone in for being eccentric. But voiceless I came into the world and voiceless I shall go out of it, unless a latter-day miracle is worked in my larynx. May can sing, Leonard can sing, even Hugh can sing and Lisette has some grounds for her own theory that she too is melodious. But, were I to lift up my voice in har- monious close, the people would flee before me on the wings of the wind, and I am fain therefore all reluctantly to hold my tongue. It is rather hard, for I am not void of “ a musical tem- perament,” anything but. Sometimes, when I listen even to my sisters or brethren wailing tunefully of winds blowing in from the sea, or of (to my mind) that decidedly im- possible she, I feel quite sore with emotion, and heaven knows they are not marvels. But goosey-goosey gander, where shall I wander — next. At this moment I can afford to pity Lisette at least, for is not she by this time in the fell clutches of old Lady Chamner and am not I lying blissfully upon the short ^oft sward, with the sweet sunlight all around and the little forward breezes kissing my face daintily, and then rustling VERONICA’S INTERLUDE 147 off quickly to tell the lake and the bulrushes how improper they have been? Poor Lisette, how we do make her do all the dirty work ! She is not such a bad person after all, when one comes to think of it; she has a good deal to put up with, and she never turns hasty as May or I would. To-day, for instance, how abominable it would be to get up off the velvety grass and lay aside dear wise Rasselas, and cease dreaming about the glories of his Happy Valley, and be dragged along the King’s Highway, dusty and unrestful, to still more dusty, still more unrestful old Lady Chamner with her false eye- brows, and false teeth and false bust. What if she does feed her family on the flesh of swine who have died by their own hand, what if she has a tendency towards two white dishes; these are but her foibles and we all must have some drawbacks, it would be well if we none of us had worse ones. As she herself says with the poetry of truth, she might have been born with no nose or with her head looking warily round the corner. As I think upon these things my heart becomes dissolved in a mawkish tenderness for my sister, which I hasten to counteract by strenuously remembering our habitual and consoling theory that Lisette’s trials are judgments for crimes and misdemeanours detected or unknown. And I fell to reading and wondering how I should have liked the happy valley and whether Imlac would have been much bored by me, though there is little room for two opinions on that head. Then I look up and think what a pleasant place our old garden is, big and old and reverend. Ages ago it was planted and now all the trees are bowed a little and their boles are gnarled and twisted like weird impossible animals in fairy books. It is full too of quaint borders set with flowers that were fashionable enough, and deemed perhaps rather new-fangled and the correct thing, when Mrs. Free- man and Mrs. Morley exchanged their affected letters; flowers that have had many scores of years longer in which to gather odours than those we affect nowadays. Down to the shrubbery from the house winds a broad gravel walk on one side of which is a row of bushy rose- trees just bursting into bloom, and on the other rises a sloping hill clothed with apple-trees, now one vast drift of “ rosy-tinted snow,” in autumn a golden treasury of delights. On the other side of our garden lies the lake with its little 148 THE STORY OF OSCAR beach of gravelly sand, and fringed around with big bul- rushes that are waving their brown velvet heads loftily in the gentle breeze. Most of the way round the mere stretch dark woods of odorous firs and delicatest birch trees, but here and there comes a break where billowy meadow-lands slope up to the near horizon, meadows where the scented hind are browzing placidly and over which sweep now and then fresh young summer gales silvering the long bush grass that bends beneath their breath. “ ‘ In the Spring a livelier iris changes and the burnished dove; In the Spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love/ ” quote I, as the monotonously delicious wail of the cushats creeps up to my ears from the dusky shrubbery. “ Ought a young woman 9 s fancy to turn lightly into philandering channels too ? I wonder. I don’t see why not. Shall I ever be in love, for instance ? ” A broad smile distends my visage at the notion, and the smile becomes a laugh as I roll over dexterously Onto the other elbow, this one having given prophetic warning of pins and needles and having dug a neat little pitfall in the soft sward. “ He, he,” I laugh foolishly. “ What if after all some Jacob might come by and put up with Leah, hard-favoured as she is (tender — yes, thank God, I am not), and Rachel have to wait.” Then I fall to wondering how I shall bear myself in such an event, indulging in ideal introductions of my love to my disconcerted brethren and sisters. “Leonard,” I say aloud, blandly indicating with a smile and wave of my disengaged arm, a couple of rose bushes adjacent. “ Leonard, let me introduce you. My husband — Mr. Leonard Byron.” It sounds delicious, and quite plausible. I am delighted for it does not immediately strike me that Mr. Veronica will probably have got over the first presentation to my family prior to the consummation of our nuptials. “ But you will excuse, you surely don’t intend seriously to espouse a rose-tree at your early age,” says Leonard’s mocking voice behind me. I turn round furiously to find him standing over me, politely raising his hat to the supposititious arboreal brother-in-law. “ You mean eaves-dropper,” I say. “ Why didn’t you VERONICA’ S INTERLUDE 149 cough to let me know you were near ? Why didn’t you c.o anything ? Why didn’t you laugh ? ” “ I did . I am, roaring ,” he replies with the greatest truth, sitting down by my side on the grass. “ What are you doing? Since when have you taken to bewailing your virginity like Jephthah’s daughter ? ” I laugh too, less amusedly, a good deal, but still heartily enough and then tell him the whole truth, whereat we giggle both together in friendly concert and he swears to inviolable secrecy. That done he gets up again, and reminding me that it is nearly tea-time, strolls on his way to the shrubbery where he presently disappears among the silvery leaves of the shuddering aspens. With sisterly pride my eyes linger lovingly on his goodly form; for he is such a dear boy, is Leonard, and we do have such fun together, all we senseless girls and boys : and to that fun no one contributes half so much as he. When he is out of sight, I begin to read again, not very attentively for there are so many other things to think of, the cool ripples of the lake and the pleasant plash of someone’s oars under the willow boughs. Presently, however, my attention is diverted altogether by the sound of laughter from the shrubbery, causing me to sit up and drop poor Rasselas onto his head on the ground. Eagerly I listen to catch the voices and full well I guess the cause of their merriment. May has abandoned the consumptive Jones to its fate and Leonard has found her, reading probably in the swing, and is relating to her my dress rehearsal of the marriage state. Outraged honour bids me rise and haste to pile objurga- tions on his perjured head. “ But wisest fate says ‘ No/ It must not yet be so.” And comfort quite agrees with her, so I decide to husband my vengeance for a more convenient season, and turn me, turn me on my pillows and get me to my rest again, like Cousin Amy in Locksley Hall. For some time longer I read on undisturbedly in blissful ease, half thinking of the Prince of Abyssinia and half of Helen Burns in Jane Eyre who is always, to my mind at least, associated with Rasselas. 150 THE STORY OF OSCAR But after some time the old church clock begins to strike five, saying solemnly : “ Do you hear ? Do you hear ? Do you hear ? Do you hear ? One; two; three; four; five.” “ Yes, I hear,” I answer flippantly, getting up from the ground where the mould for an interesting basso-relievo of my person is impressed, “ and it is tea-time and my inside cries i Cup-board ! 9 99 CHAPTER IV “ No one is so accursed by fate, No one so utterly desolate. But some heart, though unknown, Responds unto his own.” “ Your being Sir Anthony’s son, Captain, would itself be a sufficient accommodation; — but from the ingenuity of your appearance, I am convinced you deserve the character here given of you.” I should explain that the village church rises up close behind the Moat House, as we have not found it convenient to pick up our habitation on our backs and remove it else- where, though the house has kept to the Old Faith and the church has not. In some Henry or Edward’s long bye- gone days the Moat House was the biggest and most impressive mansion in the countryside, but the most high and mighty Prince James, after the setting of that bright occidental star Queen Elizabeth of most happy memory, saw fit to hang the Byron then extant and attaint his family and alienate his titles. Whether or no it was sup- posed that our ancestor wished not well unto that monarch’s scion has never been decided. Anyhow, the Moat House was dismantled and great part of it razed to the ground. For two or three generations the Byrons thought well to render themselves conspicuous by their absence, but James II did one good deed at least, for he recalled them from exile and restored their lands, though he durst not revive their titles. We had doubtless learned wisdom by experi- ence and never have we attempted to claim our ancestral dignities but have been well content to abide peacefully in the land of our origin. The Moat House has never been rebuilt, only the part that was not so much damaged was restored and rendered habitable, and is, we think, on the whole a more desirable 151 152 THE STORY OF OSCAR abode than our grander mansion in Berkshire already alluded to. Thus it will be seen that, with our house in London, we have three residences, and it is a favourite fallacy of Lisette’s that the plan is economical. “ Because,” she contends, “ we can always let two for a short term while we live in the other.” But, as we have never yet found any tenant of sufficient agility to keep pace with our own rapid flights from home to home, they remain in fact unlet. Our plate and house- hold goods we drag at vast expense backwards and for- wards, as the old French kings used to carry their windows from Paris to Laon, so that the only people who realize much profit from the system are the railway authorities. This year, strange to say, is an exception, the London home is already safely let, and a candidate for the Grange has been dimly discerned fitfully hovering on the horizon. Hence our presence in this season at the Moat House remote from the haunts of man. “ I will go to tea,” I mentally resolve, rising from the ground as the last stroke of the clock booms out from the grey church tower, and swinging my big coarse straw hat onto my small head with the careless indifference bom of conscious loveliness — or the reverse. Then very leisurely I stroll up to the house reading as I go, and stopping now and then the better to take in one of Imlac’s sage utter- ances. I am first in the schoolroom, though, thank heaven, not before the tea, for of all infuriating experiences to wait for any meal strikes me as being worst. Before sitting down I take a lingering inventory of my charms in the mirror over the mantelpiece and arrive at the foregone con- clusion that plainer girls have been than I, and further that a broad-brimmed hat of rough straw trimmed with big bunches of primroses and forget-me-nots, suits fairly well a complexion like Devonshire cream. Momentarily I assume what I deem my sweetly pensive expression and remove the while a big smut from my nose, both irrelevant to that phase of my character. Then, with a sigh half of regret and half of contentment, I take my place among the cups and saucers and pour myself out the one cup of tea in the pot; having improvised a bookstand out of the big quartern loaf, I give myself up to the mingled pleasures of dry-toast and Rasselas. Our schoolroom tea, I would have you know, is rather VERONICA’S INTERLUDE 153 a feature of our home. In the first place, it is unlike most other people’s five o’clock tea, distinctly a meal and mostly rather an ample meal. We think not scorn to devour thereat large hunches of new bread and many relays of dry-toast, to say nothing of jam and fruit and honey. Again, it is a festive meeting-place for all the neighbour- hood that likes us and that we like, for everyone who really wants to find us in comes then if he can; this, of course, gives it a Catholic interest that dinner or breakfast lack. Finally it is nice to sit in the schoolroom for, purged now of all lingering suspicions of lessons, it is the prettiest and cosiest room in all the house. After I have been reading and eating some ten minutes or so I hear my brother’s step approaching in the hall out- side : full well I know the difference between his firm manly tread and May’s fairily tripping mode of progression; as for Lisette, a reprehensive custom of walking perfectly noiselessly is one of her first to be reformed blemishes, a blemish, by the way, that has often put her into unsought possession of strangers’ opinions of some other of her foibles. Remembering the perfidy with which Leonard has treated me, I decide on treating him with silent scorn, for in a war of words he not infrequently routs me off the field. Accordingly when he opens the door uncertainly and enters, evidently rather doubtful of the reception he is to expect, my eyes remain firmly glued to my book and I continue reading with a sublime affectation of unconscious- ness of his very presence. At the best of times we are not people who think it necessary to greet each other’s entry with tender smiles and surcease from present employ- ment. In this instance there is little difficulty in maintaining my position, for the loaf and book before me are both large and my chair is low, besides all which between him and me is a great exotic fixed, so that they who would laugh from hence to there cannot without craning their necks round the side thereof. Leonard sits down in silence directly opposite me and helps himself to toast which he begins to consume vocifer- ously, I pour him out a very half cup of tea for I know he likes a full one and forget also that he does not take sugar. All this I do without looking up and then hold out the cup in his direction and feel him take it from me. I determine he shall speak first, and with that end in 154 THE STORY OF OSCAR view omit the addition of cream to his tea, deeming that he will not be too proud for that. He is though, and helps himself to something, butter probably, in silence : I cannot contain myself any longer. “ Cream yourself, ” I say with asperity, “ and don’t take it all.” He takes the jug from my hand as he took the cup before but still says nothing, though I can hear or feel that he is giggling slightly and am not materially mollified by the knowledge. “ You’re an honourable person; you doubtless consider yourself a gentleman,” I observe with trenchant force. “ Already you’ve told May and will probably tell Lisette and that schoolboy as soon as he arrives.” Then I look up to see how he bears himself under my obloquy and twist my head round the big Planta Genista in the middle of the table. But my voice is again upraised : “ Good heavens, it’s not you at all,’* I cry with vulgar force and absence of perspicacity, for my seared and miry eyeballs were not on Leonard but his friend, the schoolboy, in fact himself. ii Really. I suppose you know then,” he answers laugh- ing broadly and looking provokingly amused. “ I thought it was Leonard and it’s ” “ Oscar,” he supplies promptly, still laughing, wherein I hasten to join him in spite of my confusion. He is not quite a boy after all, this school fellow of Leonard’s; he looks indeed about thirty though I know that he is not so old as that. He has a clear but very dark colour and a wealth of soft black hair, his moustache hides his mouth almost entirely but his eyes are large and expressive. On the whole the face is a goodly one and comely, high- bred too and refined, but it does not give one the idea of a man by any means passionless, or of one with whom anyone would find it easy to get on. When he stops smiling I notice that the cast of his countenance when at rest is grave, almost sad, though not in any wise morose. “ I do beg your pardon for being so rude,” I say pre- sently with a hang dog effort at ease of manner; “ but really I didn’t think it could be anyone but Leonard. You see, we did not expect you for two hours at least, and ” But I pull myself up short, overpowered by the sudden consciousness that my mode of apology is not the most y ERONIC A’ S INTERLUDE 155 felicitous conceivable. He, all honour to him for a true man, does not notice my confusion in the least and explains cheerily : “ You may well be surprised to have such an unexpected pleasure as my company two hours before its time, but you see I had to ride over to a farm near here, and, as it was past four then, I did not think it would be worth while to get back to Beaumonde, so I just came on here; I left my horse at the stables and walked in for Leonard told me I should find you in the schoolroom. ” After this we talk friendlily over our tea like two old male and female dowagers, and I oust Rasselas and the loaf the better to view him afar off. We get very intimate soon, for our talk turns chiefly on Leonard, for whom I quickly find that he nourishes a heart-felt admiration. By the time my brother himself arrives we have made such rapid strides towards friendship that he raises his eye- brows disapprobatively behind the stranger’s back, and I feel a shame-faced conviction that Leonard thinks me passing measure forward. “ If it is not too late,” he says gravely but with a wave of the arm that vividly recalls the scene he so meanly witnessed in the garden, “ allow me to introduce you — Miss Veronica Byron, my — friend.” I think of my affianced rose-tree lord and dart a speedy glance of concentrated fury at my brother as nearly cotem- poraneously as possible with a benignant smile that I level at his companion in arms as I determine to call him with scathing irony. * CHAPTER V “ Well, Lisette, how did you fare ? ” We are still at tea but the others have all come in and Lisette has got back from her visit. “ Pretty badly, thanks. Lady Chamner was at home and insisted on my staying to tea and she has a niece with her, seven times more awful than herself. She evidently did not quite catch my name, for she kept enquiring tenderly after my husband and after my children, and begged me to bring them all over to see her before she leaves her aunt. This brought about an explanation and it transpired that she took me for the Rector’s wife, whose young have been stricken by a just heaven with some'"* grievous malady of late.” We all laugh at the notion of Lisette being ever wed, and various expressions of commiseration are indulged in in reference to her ideal progeny. “ You will be glad to hear, dear children,” she con- tinues with a vicious smile, 44 that Lady Chamner is so good as to invite you all to Hautrey and that I have accepted unconditionally . ” We groan. 66 Specify the charge, make out the indictment,” com- mands Leonard. “ Well, you are arraigned for Thursday next, and lawn- tennis will be brought to bear upon you.” “ Thursday? 99 I cry indignantly as Lisette’s full base- ness breaks in upon me. “ Yes dear, Thursday; the day father and I go up to London to arrange about letting the Grange,” she answers significantly, adding, as she placidly spreads a cubic foot of honey on a square inch of bread; “ perhaps you will not all refuse to accompany me next time it becomes neces- sary for me to call upon our friends.” An astounded silence falls upon us, and we sit as men from whom all hope has fled, then our guest remarks that 156 VERONICA’S INTERLUDE 157 he too is engaged for lawn-tennis on Thursday at Lady Chamner’s. This news is greeted with universal and loud applause. “ That is an extenuating circumstance,” Leonard says warmly, 66 but, pardon my curiosity, how on earth have you got to know Lady Chamner so soon ? ” 6 4 She called on me last week and stayed an hour, telling me all about my own ancestors and a good deal about hers. Also she informed me what a bad thing it was for the county having a non-resident proprietor at Beaumonde.” We all laugh grimly, so well do we recognize our neigh- bour’s familiar traits. She once told Lisette that all motherless girls are unladylike and most are wicked too. “ Yes,” replies Lisette, casting an amorous eye on the last bit of toast, “ Lady Chamner told me that she had been over to Beaumonde, assuring me that had she been a few years older she would not of course have dreamed of such a thing; in this view I supported her, feeling pretty sure that were she ever so few years older her morning calls would be confined to the aristocracy of Gehenna.” “ We always call her 6 Sweet Seventy-one,’ do you know,” says May to our guest, waving her knife explana- torily as she speaks and squeezing up her eyes into a laugh that is dreadfully (from my point of view) pretty and bewitching. “ Last time we dined there we sang * Ask me no more ? ’ all the way home, didn’t we, Leonard ? ” We all cackle at the remembrance of our own jocularity and Oscar turns his grave eyes admiringly on May; already I see the glamour that she weaves half-consciously on every man she meets is upon him, and the knowledge displeases me. After our decidedly original introduction and long talk I feel a sort of proprietary interest in Leonard’s friend that it annoys me to see nullified. After all, May is not so very much better looking than Lisette or myself; yet how different is the result. For all she is only pretty and not the least lovely, she can inces- santly reiterate Caesar’s boast an if she will, and that too in the present tense — Venio, Video, Vinco. By the way, it must not be supposed that, because we are all unwed, our virginity is perfunctory. Anything but; in fact, as the family of seven old maids renowned in 158 THE STORY OF OSCAR story, used to vaunt : “ We might have been married for Poll had an offer.” Our Poll, May of course, has had “ offers ” enough to supply us all with crowded harems of fitting lords, had we had the reversion of them. For me, I have as yet experienced no inconvenience from nuptial importunities, and Lisette even has only once to my know- ledge been asked to wed. Her suitor was a manufacturing gentleman of vast wealth, who described himself as sprung from a ’ouse of known honesty though not yet very hancient, and who pressed upon her attention the poetic aphorism that “ Kind ’earts are more than cowronets And simple faith than Norm and blood.” M In spite of the superiority of her charms, however, I object to the flaunting of May’s social triumphs before my eyes, and on the present occasion, having finished my tea, I seize Rasselas and retire to the window seat, where, behind the curtains, I enjoy a sort of spurious and eaves- dropping privacy. Apparently the others are engaged in mortal combat for the tea-pot, for the noise of their affray is very loud, but I am too much blunted by habit to care much and do not even take the trouble of looking to see. Instead I keep to my book and invoke curses on Lisette’s head for having let us in for the funereal festival of Thursday. “ May I come and sit in the window too ? 99 asks our guest, who has left the table to get out of harm’s way and is standing over me smiling down, with his good friendly eyes and mouth, at my small insignificance. “ Do you really want to ? ” I ask smiling back with an unworthy attempt at coquetry. “ Of course I do,” he answers heartily; “ it is horridly selfish of you to keep that big seat all to yourself and I have something to say.” $i He sits down and his eyes I see are resting amusedly on the group he has left. “ You seem to be impressed by our family jars,” I observe. “ I was just thinking,” he replies, turning the dark eyes back on me, with what looks like approval, “ what an interest they must add to life.” “ And risk too,” I retort with sprightly badinage, j “ When we were children they say I once knocked Leonard VERONICA’S INTERLUDE 159 down into a huge pan of bread that was in process of manufacture : he arose and thrust a big lump of dough down my throat in revenge.” “ Tell me some more droll legends of your infancy,” he says instead of looking shocked as I had intended. May says we should try and put on a good front outwardly at all events, but for my part it seems to me a forlorn hope, and not worth the trouble, so I generally adopt the policy of letting strangers see the worst of us at once. “ Have you any brothers and sisters of your own ? ” I ask instead of complying with his request. “ Not one,” he makes answer regretfully. “ Not even a relation that cares for me or that I care for. Perhaps if I were to die my next heir would be glad, otherwise I don’t know of a soul who would be in any way moved by my decease.” I observe tritely that that would be very sad and then for a moment or two we say nothing. Presently however he looks full into the eyes that have been taking unblushing stock of him during the past five minutes arid says, diffidently, but withal earnestly : “ I hope you will let me benefit now by having all of you so near me ? We ought to be good friends and see a great deal of each other, ought not we? ” I am just going to reply with my usual homely force when I notice his glance has again wandered to where May’s fair fresh face is gleaming beauteously up at Leonard who leans over her in punishment of some recent offence. | “ You are very kind,” I respond with chill politeness, | conscious of being rather frigid in my reception of his over- tures. He looks rather disappointed and crestfallen, as if he had expected or at least hoped that I would have been more encouraging. We relapse into an awkward silence and the sound of the other three wrangling unsubduedly is the only sound that relieves it. Give the devil — or rather pandemonium — his due, you must confess that we are openly and candidly vicious at any rate. “ Why do you hate going to Lady Chamner’s so very much ? ” he asks after a bit. “ Are they so very dull ? ” “ Deadly,” I reply with laconic force. u We always go in deep mourning. Of a child my wildest fits of up- roarious merriment have been always effectually quelled by the most remote allusion to any Hautrey hospitalities. 160 THE STORY OF OSCAR The sound of her name affects me as the mention of the Bunyip does an aboriginal Australian ! ” He laughs. 44 And how’s that? ” 44 Oh, don’t you know? ” I exclaim in righteous horror at his blank ignorance, having myself acquired the know- ledge in the course of the day. 44 It is really a bird, a sort of lovely enormous cassowary, but they think it is a spirit and say no man has ever seen it and lived.” 44 In that case,” he says jocularly, 44 they describe it with laudable accuracy, don’t they ? ” Whereat we both laughed, he because he conceives him- self to have been humorous, I because he is our guest. 44 How do you get from here to Hautrey ? ” Oscar asks when our merriment has abated. 44 Is it far? ” 44 A good way — about nine miles,” I reply ruefully. 44 We shall go five in a brougham as usual most likely.” And the thought fills me with melancholy, for our brougham though neat to view was not designed by Providence to accommodate more than two, any traveller in excess of that number having to prop themselves painfully against a back seat that affords precarious foothold to a fly. 44 Oh, but Lisette and father will be in London,” I con- tinue, the recollection raising my spirits a good deal. 44 So it won’t be so bad.” 44 Your former picture reminds me of the Primrose family going in state to church,” Oscar remarks. 44 I am so glad you like the Vicar of Wakefield,” I say enthusiastically. 44 I always like anyone who has read il and the Inheritance.” 44 Then you ought to like me passionately, for I have read them both three times," he answers readily, seemingij oblivious of the reward prepared for persons making thal class of statement. 44 That’s too often,” I say censoriously, shaking my smal head in rebuke of his audacious duplicity. 44 No one ough< to have time to read any book more than twice.” Again it seems that my trenchant speech has knocket him on the head and he does not venture to say anything for some little time. 44 You said when you came and sat here that you hat something to say; what was it? ” I enquire permissiveh when it becomes irksome to me to hold my tongue am longer. 44 Haven’t I said several things ? Well, the real on VERONICA’S INTERLUDE 161 thing I wanted to propose is — mind you, it is rather cool and you probably will snub it on the spot — but it is this, that you and your brother and sister should all come first to luncheon at Beaumonde on Thursday and then drive on to Hautrey with me later on the drag.” “ Bliss 1 ” I cry with indecent and open delight, clasping my small unringed hands in rapture. “ Do- you really mean it ! ” “ Most undoubtedly,” he answers with very great and unmistakable emphasis. “ I was only afraid 99 It is clear that his sole fear was of my maidenly feelings being outraged by the proposal, but I hasten to disabuse him of a delusion so derogatory to my independence. “ You were afraid I should think it hors de regie , so it is, immoral to a degree; but we are an immoral home and there’s no veiling it; so why should not we get all the fun we can out of it? We have been given our bad name years ago, let us then proceed to hang ourselves as jovially as may be.” All the while I am advancing these bold and unwomanly sentiments I keep my weather eye firmly fixed on his face to see how shocked he is. To my surprise, however, and indeed rather to my disappointment, he is no whit moved. “ Tell the others ! ” is my next imperious mandate. “ Silence, children.” Thus appealed to he looks rather shy and nervous for a moment, as the others instantly cease their brawl and listen with polite attention, while he repeats his plan to them, I looking on with the proud smile of previous knowledge and part proprietorship in the suggestion. j “ Of course it would be charming,” says May. “ Lisette j beloved, what do you think of the result of your evil machinations now? ” “ I think,” replies Lisette, addressing herself to our guest, ‘ i that ‘ You have turned into joy a foul relic/ as Mrs. Browning does not say.” “ Are you sure, Oscar,” asks Leonard, “ that Veronica has not been hinting you into making the offer. It would not surprise me at all to learn that she has been remarking meditatively that there are, she has heard, such things as drags, but what they may be like, or for what they are used she is as yet at a loss to divine.” 6 162 THE STORY OF OSCAR / “ At all events,” I retort with a giggle of complacent recollection, “ I was not so bad as you, dear boy, when you tried to goad Aunt Philippa into giving you a breech- loader four years ago, by telling her that the possession of such a weapon was your one life-ambition, and then dexterously leading the conversation to birthdays, your own falling, as it proved, in the following week.” Everyone affirms that this episode bears the stamp of truth and our visitor asks with interest : “ I trust your Aunt did not so far forget herself as to give Leonard the gun ? ” “ Trust her for that,” my brother answers. “ She ceased from that day forward to notice my natal day at all.” CHAPTER VI Thursday has dawned on Beaumonde and so have we. Our late guest has now become our host and we are sitting round a luxurious table on most luxurious chairs, mentally canonizing our entertainer. May is and looks supremely content. Full well I knew from the first how it would be, and it is with a grim half angry feeling of prophesy fulfilled that I look at her seated there on our host’s right hand and smiling up softly into his grave, true eyes. She is making half audible remarks of a gratulatory character and twice when I look up sud- denly I detect him in the very act of making mental com- parisons between my sister’s charms and mine — need I say to whose advantage ? I sigh resignedly; it is rather hard you know always to have to play second fiddle, always to be the subject of unfavourable comparisons, but facts are stubborn and May is comelier than I, as he who runs may read. My sigh howbeit is not obtrusive, not at all windy , and I help myself the while to peaches (in June, mind you). Leonard and I are keeping up or rather letting drop a desultory conversation of no general or particular interest, our attention being chiefly confined to the selection and con- veyance to the mouth of what may seem best to us; the fact that we are both rather on our good behaviour tends to fetter our tongues a good deal, and as for our eyes, there is little fun in gazing drearily into the soul’s windows of one’s own brother or sister. “ Won’t you have some fruit now ? ” our host asks May presently. “ There are some strawberries and here are some peaches.” May is still looking with grave deliberation from one to :he other wondering which she will have and probably forming a design of compassing both, when he adds : “ Perhaps you don’t care for either. You like apricots setter ? let me send for some.” * i6 3 164 THE STORY OF OSCAR No indignant refusal bursts from May’s ripe red lips; oh dear no, that is not at all the sort of person she is. “ How strange that you should guess so well,” she answers softly, with a pretty childish air of wonderment, that even I think wonderfully sweet and charming, sister as I am. “ Yes, I do like apricots better than either.” A footman is therefore at once sent off and in an in- credibly short time the rich golden fruit, nestling among their glossy dark green leaves, are brought in from the hot- houses with the fresh bloom still on their cheeks. “ Oh thanks, how brutally greedy you must think us,” cries May with a generous wish that we too shall share in the odium at least of her gluttony. She is absurdly, ludicrously grateful and her whole face beams with the pleasure, partly of pure enjoyment of the fruit, partly of having had her outrageous whim gratified. Leonard and I both refuse resolutely to touch the apricots in the vain hope of marking our sense of disapproval and of rendering our sister’s greed the more apparent. Our virtue is its own sole reward, for May seems utterly in- different to our opinion and she with the efficient aid of our host makes short work of the fruit. After luncheon we return to the great cool drawing-room, dusky and fragrant, fragrant with the delicious breath of ever so many different flowers both cut and growing. And also with the sad sweet odour of dead rose leaves, embalmed with luscious spices and shut in great vases of antique china. |j All uninvited May opens the piano and begins to play some gentle dreamy air that harmonizes well enough with the subdued gravity of the grand old chamber, and Leonard and I, exchanging expressive glances, settle our- selves into a big, deliciously comfortable ottoman at one of the open oriel windows, where, like those officious sons of the prophets, we stand to view afar off. As soon as May’s hands touch the keys, Oscar goes quickly over to her and asks her, I suppose for we are toe far off to hear their low speech, to sing something for us, Both Lisette and May sing fairly, sometimes by a freak of nature absolutely well; in May’s singing especially there is something eminently pleasant; her voice indeed is neithei peculiarly high or very low, not even very moving oo thrilling or anything of that sort, but I always find peophj like to listen to it. Perhaps it is because she is, to de VhiKUJNIUAS 1JN T JiiilJU U UHi lt>0 her justice, utterly unselfconscious — or if she is not, her selfconsciousness must be miraculous. On this occasion, however, my sister’s vocal acquirements afford neither of her kinsfolk present much delight. “ ‘ We were two daughters of one race, She was the Fairest in the face; O the Earl was fair to see,’ ” quote I, extending an oratorical arm towards the couple at the piano and speaking in a prudently modulated tone. “ I wish she would let him alone,” my brother responds, looking vexed and cross. “ If she only knew it, he is not that sort of man at all. I did think we might have had some fun together, and so we should have had if it were not for May’s idiotic philandering and nonsense. I almost wish that I had never introduced him to you at all, and I quite wish that we had not come here to-day.” “ I don’t,” is my outspoken rejoinder. “ Do you regret those brown head ices and that champagne ? ” “ Well no,” he answers candidly, “ but I do regret those apricots; and everything would have been far, far nicer if May had stopped at home.” “ Very likely, but in that case he might have taken to me, and if we had amorously conversed apart, where would you have been then? ” I ask with brazen audacity. “ Taken to you ! ” retorts Leonard with unutterable scorn. “ I would be less surprised to see him ring the bell and dally with his own scullery-maid.” This insult to my charms I magnanimously ignore and propose going out into the garden. “ It will force them to stop their absurd tete-a-tete,” I say ignobly. So we get up and stroll out into the quaint old sombre garden with its ugly avenues of clipped box and holly and wonderful velvet lawns adorned with very decollete gods and nymphs and ponderous magnificent fountains and ponds of gold fish. At first our efforts -at the dislodgement of our sister threaten to be crowned with no success, and when she does appear she is alone. “ What have you done with Oscar? ” asks Leonard curtly as she walks delicately towards us, the warm sun lighting up the rich beauty of her thick hair, and a small laugh rippling her dimpled cheek and tiny tempting mouth. “ He has gone to fetch me an umbrella,” she answers calmly, as she picks a dark red rose and matches it against her gown, “ he would' go.” A sort of indignant snort is our well-bred comment on this information, but May is in a good humour and refuses to pick up the gauntlet that we throw down. We are standing on an old box-edged bowling-green with statues of the Four Somebodys — I do not well know what exactly, they seem too naked for Evangelists — at the four corners, when Oscar reappears with the umbrella. I am transported with delight to perceive that the weapon he has brought is green, not red as May had hoped, and casts a cadaverous corpse shadow on her face, but gratitude pre- vents and consistency alike forbid her to repudiate it and pale green for the present she must remain. “ We have just been saying,” she remarks, after her warm thanks are finished, “ that you ought to turn this into a tennis ground now.” “ If I do, will you all come over and play on it? ” he asks with conventional politeness but unconventional eager- ness. “ I will for one,” she asserts readily. “ And I will for two,” agrees Leonard, whose love for lawn-tennis is the one thing about him to my mind sug- gestive of incipient lunacy. “ But will you? ” our host asks of me with more interest than the matter necessitates. “ You don’t say whether or no you will.” 46 Thanks,” I make answer with grim incisiveness, “ I hate the game.” He looks rather snubbed and not a little surprised in spite of himself, and no wonder : my tongue, says my family, was seldom equalled and never surpassed. Beaumonde is a much grander place than the Moat, as its master is much grander than we are, but besides being grand it is a beautiful old place. The old castle fell almost to ruin in Queen Elizabeth’s time, and the proprietor then living, being a wise man in his generation, determined not to build up either castle or palace, but a convenient liveable house in the style of his period — which they say is no style at all. However that may be, the result of his decision remains to-day a monument of his good sense, for there is no more comfortable house in the county than Beaumonde and it is both picturesque and imposing. It is a huge pile of rich red brick, toned down by the storms and snows of three hundred years but, for all that* VERONICA’S INTERLUDE 167 warm-tinted and ruddy enough : many creeping plants have grown over it and they, with the massive copings and mouldings of carved grey stone, preserve it from any suspicion of monotony. The gardens are of a later date and though much more baronial than ours, please me far less, for they are heavy and stiff and there is a much greater amount of clipped trees and stone balustrades and steps and fountains than there is of God’s sweet flowers. It is pleasant enough certainly this glorious summer afternoon as we sit beneath its ancient lime trees through whose tender leaves the yellow sunlight filters down upon our crisp fresh gowns and happy youthful faces; the time passes quickly as we idle away the minutes with our vain and childish babble, but no one of us old enough to dread his flight and we have such a wealth of life before us, all we, that we care little how one short hour is lost. Just before we start for Hautrey a small table laden with fruit and cool delicious cider-cup is brought out to us on the lawn and we batten among its luxuries with the wholesome appetites of our time of life. “ I should advise you to fortify yourself well against the cravings of nature,” observes May to our host, absently piling her plate with the largest, ripest strawberries upon the dish. “ Lady Chamner is renowned for deeming eating middle-class.” “ She does not interdict eating at other people’s cost,” remarks Leonard coarsely, acting thoroughly up to May’s suggestion. “ Do you remember, Veronica, the immortal occasion of her dining with us, when, after gorging to re- pletion on whatever came round, she turned to Hugh who had just come of age and said with her old eye kindling amorously, 6 Give me love and a crumb of bread in a cottage, Mr. Byron : and never mind the rest.’ ” “ Don’t pretend,” say I sternly, “ that you were present on that occasion : it was years ago, for haven’t you heard how after dinner she insisted on being taken up to the nursery to see me in bed, and I sat up and asked her eagerly whether Oliver Cromwell’s hair had been red or black, because my governess had differed from me on the ques- tion, and I begged Lady Chamner to resolve the doubt. She never forgave me.” They all laugh at this pleasing legend illustrative of my guileless youth. “ On the whole,” laughs May, clinking the ice in her 168 THE STORY OF OSCAR glass against the sides thereof, “ it is not strange that she does not appreciate us. Even I, who never was the least an enfant terrible , am said to have once gazed long and earnestly at her, and then asked with interest whether she cleaned her teeth in her head or gave them her maid to polish up with a nail brush. 99 CHAPTER VII “ Fair Rosalind, in woeful wise, Six hearts has hound in thrall; As yet she undetermined lies, Which she her spouse shall call.’ , “ She talked, she smiled, my heart she wyPd, She charm’d my soul I wist na how; And aye the wound, the deadly wound, Cam frae her een sae bonnie blue.” We are standing at the foot of the broad flight of stone steps leading up to the hall door, waiting to start. The ladder looks dreadfully weak and the drag looks terribly high, as May stands irresolute, longing that her host would waive his gallantry and mount before her : but no such qualms disturb me. “ For me, I thank the Saints, I am not great.” And I might walk up to the top of the drag on my head and Oscar be none the wiser, as I angrily acknowledge to myself, while, as for Leonard, an ample apocalypse of fairy ankle would to him be nothing new. Accordingly, putting a bold face upon it, I clamber up doughtily reposing my trust in Providence, who rewards me with signal ingratitude, for I have barely achieved the ascent and am floundering with ungainly precipitance into my seat when I hear my brother’s voice saying from below : “ What smart clocks you have on your stockings, Veronica.” This coarse and brutal allusion, though delivered in an undertone, seems to me painfully audible and I turn furiously expecting to find myself the cynosure of all eyes. But only Leonard is there; the other two have gone back into the hall, where I see May is being enfolded in a large red Connemara cloak that would be heavy in January and must be unnecessary to-day; May however has always thought, rightly or wrongly, that it sets her off to better advantage than any of her other multitudinous garments. 169 JL I V XJLLJU As the sun is warm and there is not much wind stirring, even up in the rarified atmosphere of this dizzy height, I have the satisfaction of feeling that by the time we arrive at Hautrey, May will either have to divest herself of her gay plumage or abide by the consequences. Now my sister has a greater tendency to an appearance of dishevelment than almost any pretty person I ever met, and moreover when in the least heated her delicate pink complexion becomes distinctly mottled . There is therefore Balm in Gilead. As Leonard seats himself by me it naturally follows that our host should be May’s neighbour. Poor fool ! the meshes seem to be settling round him quicker even than usual; it is to be hoped he is not tender-hearted. For it is May’s theory, rather ladylike than moral as it seems to me, that there is no harm in soft passages pour passer le temps so long as they are not indulged in for nasty ulterior purposes. “ That was a nasty turn you did me then,” I remark more in sorrowful reproach than in anger to Leonard, in allusion to his late observation. Prudence tells me I should let the subject drop, but I never was prudent. “ No offence intended, I assure you,” he answers lightly. “ I don’t remember to have seen anything so reassuring for a long time. No fear of your snapping off short at the feet like the beautiful lady in the story.” This antique pleasantry is founded on a time-worn asser- tion of Lisette’s that Hook and Knowles once expressed that dread concerning herself, but the fable has never been proved or credited. “ It is one thing,” I observe scathingly, heaving my nose more skyer-ward than ever, “ to speak with pleasant brotherly freedom, but quite another and different thing to forget that — one’s parents at least were gentlemen.” “ As it happens,” he retorts with a degrading affectation of misapprehending my drift, “ both my parents were not gentlemen; oddly enough.” I relapse into a huffed silence and register an inward vow that, on rejoining the bosom of my family, I will hold no communication with either of my relatives now present : the only drawback to this course being the necessity it will entail of proclaiming a brief armistice with Lisette from whom I parted this morning under circumstances of un- alterable hostility. It is a perfect afternoon and the pleasure of this mode VERONICA’S INTERLUDE 171 of progression is to me most rich and rare. Drags are among the things in heaven and earth not hitherto much dreamt of in my philosophy. Failing conversation, I divert myself by pondering mis- anthropically not to say profanely on the unequal distribu- tion of heaven’s gifts. How well, now, I could spare him a sister or brother or two if he would spare me a thousand or so of these his broad acres that we are rolling along between so luxuriously. But after three-quarters of an hour or an hour we have passed the boundaries of Beaumonde, and a few minutes later, turning into the domains of Hautrey Tower and up a short approach that by dishonest windings tries to seem long, pull up before the South Front, as its mistress calls it, though no mortal has ever seen any other front and lived to tell the tale. Hautrey Tower is a vivid yellow house that looks as though it had all been cast in one piece and scored with lines outside afterwards to create a phantasy of separate stones; it lies in a deep hollow, tree- less and damp, bleak and chill in winter, shadeless and baking in summer. It owes its feudal-sounding title to a lank cylindrical erection rising to the height of some sixty feet over the hall door, pierced at the top with a big window and seemingly designed as a handle wherewith to throw the tenement away. Hautrey Tower never saw its mistress, a middle-aged woman, and not a creeper has yet had strength of mind to try and clothe its raw stucco nakedness. Long narrow windows of plate-glass in inconvenient places afford the passing-by stranger with an indecently full view of almost every part of the interior, and low broad windows bump the top of your unwary head as you pass from the garden into any of the rooms. The proportions of all the rooms are those of square towers, indeed this is perhaps the real reason of the name the mansion boasts; you cannot see the ceiling without dis- locating your neck and you can hardly come in at the door without falling out of the window. Personally I have always had a craving longing to knock the whole thing over on its side and make a good house of it; only then visitors would have to effect their entrance by the chimneys. Everything here is insultingly new. The trees in the garden look as though they had been picked last night off bigger trees and planted in the ground without any roots and nourished by means of the homely watering 172 THE STORY OF OSCAR pot. The pond gives one the idea of having been supplied to order of a cheap contract and oozed away promptly, in very excusable disgust; while the mansion itself, from the tower that springeth over the entrance even with the hyssop that refuses to grow upon the wall, would seem to be carefuly dusted every morning and every evening to be enveloped in a brown holland skin like an old maid’s trunk* Around the pond, or lake as Lady Chamner prefers it to be called, runs a narrow gravel walk, and round the walk some of the tree slips stand like stunted young sentries dying on duty. This walk, nigh the Lime Avenue, crosses several rampantly rustic bridges which in their turn span creeks devised especially to provide them with occupation; and a perfect triumph of bridges, resting on very young rocks, dropped into the water at intervals, leads the entranced wanderer on from island unto island to the gate- ways of a smart Chinese pagoda. This larger island on which the pagoda rests was brought in wheelbarrows last year from the mainland and will probably end its short and sad career next autumn in muddy oblivion. Nobody knows quite why, but so it is that Lady Chamner will call the pagoda the Pantheon, which name we have humorously altered into Panemeticon. As you have been told so much about that lady’s abode you may as well hear something of her genealogy and for- bears. The former begins with her deceased spouse and ends with herself. The Queen having visited our good town of Toughborough to lay the foundation stone of an orphan asylum, was pleased to confer the honour of knight- hood on Lady Chamner’s husband, who was Lord Mayor that same year, and Sir Joseph instantly purchased Hau- trey and added the tower to celebrate, as he observed, his being raised to the peerage. The “ first peer ” however did not enjoy his dignity long, for after taking to wife the great aunt of a broken down baronet of no particular county, he was gathered where they are gathered who have no fathers to be gathered to. His death Leonard has always attributed to an access of blood to the head caused by too protracting standing thereon with a view to evince his delight at the reception of such honours. However that may be, he died and was buried, but where the angels carried him, or whether they carried him at all, I cannot say; opinions differ, they to whom he sold the leather through which he got his wealth and whereof some asserted that his name was a corruption, say not. CHAPTER VIII “ Nothing but idiot gabble! ” “ Youth will needs have dalliance, Of goods or ill some parlance; Company me thinketh best All thoughts and fantasies to digest/ ’ By this time we have effected our descent from the clay and are walking over the hot brown grass, slippery as ice, to- wards our compeers who are already afield and disporting themselves in the baking sun. Lady Chamner has espied us from afar and is ambling towards us with the airy gait and springing step of sweet seventy-one, smiling blandly as she comes at Leonard whom she mistakes at first for his friend and ignoring the great man altogether. Over her head trembles a large King Koffee umbrella designed to protect her mobile complexion from the sun’s assault. “ Lady Chamner seems to belong pre-eminently to that class of persons whose hearts refuse to age in obedience to the dial of the rolling decades,” observes Oscar to me speaking in a needlessly subdued key. “ Yes,” I reply much louder, “ until her mother died last year the wretched old woman was propped up at the head of the table and Lady Chamner sat at the side, and used to ask when she had done if she might get down and play about.” Oscar has just time to laugh at my anecdote before our hostess discovers her mistake and ceases to smile on Leonard, wheeling sharply round to accost his friend. She had just begun to address Leonard with terms of warm regard and a captivating ogle of her weak old eyes ere she became aware of her error and on the real object of her blandishment was about to bestow a foreshortened bow and disapprobative stare. My brother’s confusion was so i73 174 THE STORY OF OSCAR intense for the moment that I accept it as plenary indulgence for his offences against myself. “ I see you have been so good as to bring over the Byrons, my dear friend,” Lady Chamner is saying to Oscar shaking his hand gingerly, as if she were afraid her own would drop off. “ Most kind I’m sure, is it not, my dear Lisette ? 99 she concludes addressing me, not in the least mistaking my small insignificance for my sister’s stately dignity, but from an insane belief that to do so is an insult to my youth. I mumble some grateful platitude and Lady Chamner continues : “ Very good certainly to give you a lift as it were — you don’t mind my joke, I’m sure, do you, dear Lisette ? 99 I stammer something about there being very little to object to in her joke and am reminded forcibly of Mrs. Primrose’s fatuous remark of an equally jocular satire with her husband’s comment on the same. Three sets are already hard at work and I firmly refuse to be one of a fourth, nor, to do Lady Chamner justice, can I pretend that her importunities have been excessive. May on the other hand at once accedes and hastes to discard the red cloak to which she has clung with a dis- astrous consistency born of well founded dread of Leonard’s tongue and mine. Anything not of the fairer sex is so rare at Hautrey that it is needless to say Oscar and my brother are both instantly secured. For my part I sit down upon the grass, under one of the inexperienced trees that have not yet learned how to cast a shadow bigger than an egg-cup, and attempt a conversa- tional soliloquy with a girl we call Coffin Swallower, from the intent evidence her figure is supposed to afford. This damsel is what Lady Chamner would describe as a “ nice unsophisticated gurl , quite different from those Byrons 99 ; as regards the last clause of her indictment I can only say with modest pride that our hostess is right. When Nature first at heaven’s command stretched Miss Thackeray’s expansive frame outside a full grown coffin, she was endowed with several ounces of red hair, and a perennial scowl. At the same time she was supplied with two remarks and two endings, like gregorian tones in their maddening mock variety. I Remark, I Ending : “ Ah, you don’t say so : how really sad! ” II Remark, II Ending : “ Not really and truly ? How too utterly killing, n’est ce pas ! ! ! ” y ERONIC A’ S INTERLUDE 175 Remarks and endings may be varied to taste, and are varied to my utter distaste. “ We shall probably be able to let the Grange,” I observe confidentially to this virgin alter our greetings are over, “ and so shall be here all the summer.” She can not decide apparently on the spur of the moment which remark and which ending would be most felicitous at this juncture, so she holds her tongue and scowls for- biddingly. I am discouraged and relapse into silence for a space, then, with a compassionate glance at the players, I say : “ What a bore lawn tennis would be to-day, wouldn’t it ? No power on earth shall induce me to play. I always have had a horror of the game since Hugh knocked one of my teeth out three years ago with his bat — by mistake of course.” “ Ah, you don’t say? How really sad,” she drawls, thoroughly proud of the temporary appropriateness of her formula. “ Oh, I nearly forgot to tell you that those roses that you gave us the buds of last year are doing beautifully. They are covered with bloom. You must come and see them.” I have nonplussed her again, she has no remark for such a contingency as this, and after a few grunts of a quasi- consenting nature, Miss Thackeray becomes rigidly dumb; and takes to digging her initials in the grass with the end of her parasol. While the others are playing several games we remain thus and then I can bear it no longer. If I stay with her much longer I know I shall do her a fearful injury, and wisdom bids me flee temptation. In vain I look around for Leonard; one Ethel Crowther, a niece of Lady Chamner’s, has him in her toils and her family arms are a set of grappling irons and her motto, “ Adhaere Firmiter.” Oscar however has just been released and has begun to make excuse : I see his eyes run round the lawn quickly and finally rest on me, and he comes at once towards me and, reading doubtless in my face not permission but entreaty. “ How bad for you to be sitting on the grass,” he remarks parentally when he has reached my side. “ They say it is always damp really on the hottest day ever.” If I were May I should instantly recollect that my lungs 176 THE STORY OF OSCAR are delicate or that Sir Gilian Wenner has peremptorily forbidden me ever to sit on the grass, and consequently Oscar would have to toil off after a waterproof or rug, but, being myself and knowing how patent it is to the meanest comprehension that I enjoy the rudest health, I merely reply vernacularly : 44 It’s as dry as a bone, thanks. A fly could not catch a cold in his head by sitting here if he tried.” He smiles down friendly on my small upturned face and looks pleased and a bit surprised, half as though he had expected to find me as snappish as when we parted. I hope to heaven he does not misunderstand the vagaries of my temper. It is a very comely face that I look up at and I take a senseless pleasure in regarding it : there is such an honest open manliness about it and withal so dignified a self respect that one can not help admiring it. Though the lines and curves are clean cut and well defined and there is a certain pride on the broad white forehead and in the fearless eyes, there is nothing harsh about his face and no one could for an instant suppose Oscar to be conceited. “ Do get up. You will, won’t you ? ” he repeats per- suasively, and I obey with that absurd impulse of obedience that has through life made me Leonard’s slave. We stroll lazily a short distance to where a very big garden seat overshadows two very small and dusty lilac trees, and are about to sit down. “ It was not pure solicitude for your health that prompted me to be so pressing in my entreaties that you would get up,” says he laughing. “ I had another reason. I don’t know how it is but Miss Thackeray’s presence always pos- sesses me with a devil and it is dumb. You can’t think how relieved it makes me feel to have got out of range of her scowl.” These being exactly our own views on the subject, I ap- plaud them unreservedly with the pure and holy delight that I always feel on discovering that a friend whose opinions I at all value regards someone with a dislike not inferior to my own and grounded on the same objections. “ Don’t you think we had better seek some shadier seat ? ” he asks nonchalantly. “ The Pagoda, for instance; you must have watched the game long enough.” “ Yes, I think I would rather get out of earshot of that girl in blue gingham who has done nothing but cry i Lets ’ VERONICA’S INTERLUDE 177 all the afternoon. If I were Leonard I should brain her with my watch.” So we leave the lawn and, resisting the temptations of putting one hand on the top of the Pagoda and using it as a leaping poll to jump from the land withal, approach the island by the orthodox route. Where, arrived, we sit down in comparative coolness and try to believe that if someone were to carry oft the bridges for a joke we could not reach the shore dry-shod. The open arch of the Pagoda faces the house and lawn that we have left and our privacy therefore is of the most conventional type. “ This place always reminds me,” I observe, looking out over the exiguous pool to where the approach twirls sharply round three sides of the house, “ of that castle in Ireland that was surrounded by a carriage drive so tortuous as to bring on giddiness and the falling sickness in all horses bringing visitors to call. Doesn’t it you ? ” “ I have never before heard of the Castle in Ireland,” he replies with a benevolent desire at accommodation, “ but if I had I am sure this place would remind me of it.” He laughs moreover and I am encouraged to regale him yet further with my innocent babble. It is such a relief not to have to bawl one’s repartee as we have to do at home if we would secure the slightest attention. It will have been observed that we are, or try to be, a jocular family and we usually have so many cotem- poraneous sallies that the weakest speaker has to reserve his best for future use. “ I wonder if Lisette and father will strike the right tenant on the head ? ” I continue presently with a certain confusion of metaphor and no particular relevance. “ If they don’t father will be certain to hustle us off to the Grange for five weeks at least.” “ I shall not cease to intercede on your behalf,” he answers flippantly for him. Somehow his being so annoys me; he looks unlike a man who consumed any appreciable portion of his time in prayer so I say severely : “ I object to your being profane. /, strange to say, believe in prayer. I at least have always found it suc- cessful.” 44 Really ? ” he responds with a polite rather than reverent gravity. “ I have not often adopted that mode of attaining my ends.” Ik 178 THE STORY OF OSCAR “ Perhaps your ends have not been always exactly such as one would expect to be materially advanced by devo- tion ? ” I say censoriously, and as far as his face is concerned I gather that my hypothesis is founded on fact. He has distinctly exasperated me. There is something infinitely angering to me in anyone’s expressing views in the least sceptical in my presence : this may well seem incon- sistent but it is no less true. My own beliefs are strong though not perhaps the result of much deep and profound enquiry, and the fact that my eloquence is not sufficient to impress them on others does not tend to make me less annoyed at their rejection of them. My nose, I suppose, curls heavenward even more decidedly than is its evil wont, and my general appearance is ex- pressive of displeasure, for he instantly becomes quite serious, nay eager, and says humbly : “ I do hope you are not really angry? You must think me a brute if I gave you the impression of wanting to scoff at what you believe, and what I like you so well for being able to believe.” He speaks so utterly shamefacedly and looks so honestly grieved that my conscience pricks me for my pharisaical behaviour. This however it will readily be understood does not materially improve my temper. “ Why do you lay such absurd stress on my believing what everyone else believes; I don’t suppose I believe any more than you do after all,” I say, irritated at being accredited with virtue beyond my desert. He does not reply but looks rather as though he thought my creed in that case must be brief enough. ^ “ Of course,” I continue with generous candour, now as anxious to make allowances, as before I was determined to censure, “ there are many things to do with prayer, indeed with religion altogether, that I can’t understand .” I pause for comment at least if not reply, but obtain neither. He does not seem much impressed by the magni- tude of my admission. “ For instance, the way we pray for some things is very illogical, one can see that. But still we get them all the same and so of course it is all right.” My mode of religious instruction though magnanimous and simple is, it will be seen, not eminently theological. A faint threatening of a smile sneaks round the corner of his mouth, but it is so faint that I think it wisest to ignore it and continue my dissertation. ■■■ VERONICA'S INTERLUDE 179 i{ i What I mean particularly is when we pray back- handedly, don't you know ? That such and such may not have happened, and often, oh very often, when I see a letter come in on a salver with a broad black racecourse round the edge of it, I offer up a horrid supplication that it may not be an invitation from Lady Chamner. Now that's illogical, you see." “ Clearly," he agrees heartily, but with caution as if not quite sure of his ground. “ But," I continue frowning down his too ready con- currence, “ you must not therefore suppose that it is use- less. Far from it. Very often indeed I have had such requests granted. Very often." “ Indeed," he responds with the polite interest of one listening to some strange but not wholly to be disallowed statistics. “ I have no doubt your prayer was granted already before ever you began to make it." I am so dense as not at once to see his drift and am delighted at his conversion accordingly. “ Exactly," I say readily, and then it strikes me that he is looking rather amused. 66 Another thing," I add hurriedly, changing the subject and not feeling certain as to the best way of snubbing him. “ Another thing that has puzzled me is this. Why do good people, especially in sermons and books, paint the final reward of the just in such prohibitory colours ? " “ Why, indeed ! Personally I can't conceive greater torture for a man (I do not allude to females in trousers) than being sentenced to sing through Eternity that endless refrain, to my own accompaniment on a small hand-harp." “ I suppose you would prefer pianos like the girl in Gates Ajar," I make answer evasively. This is my first attempt at the reformation of my friend and I am not all self satisfied as to its orthodoxy. CHAPTER IX We are standing in divers attitudes of despair to every Captain a damsel or two waiting in the vain hope of sustenance. In Lady Chamner’s conservatory, a chamber bristling with terra-cotta images, adhesive with recent paint, and almost entirely innocent of flowers, a very small feast spreads itself out over two rather large tables, and we from the adjoining drawing room turn hungry eyes thither in the hope that somebody will catch them and read their eloquent appeal. It was once humorously said that when Lady Chamner makes merry with her friends it is her wont to count the men and women and find their greatest common measure and supply insufficient sustenance for the result. To-day at least this is no libel, for nothing short of a miracle could give each of us half an ounce of the amorphous dainties provided. For lack of better employment and as a means of divert- ing my attention from a fruity squash that I have been long lusting after and is even now tottering to its fall, I listen to the conversation of my neighbours. They are two brothers, revelling in the patronymic of the inventor of policemen and called by us severally Orange and Lemon Peel on account of the respective sallowness and warmth of their complexions. “ What meal is this in heaven’s name ? ” asks the elder and paler brother. “ God knows,” retorts Orange Peel with the impiety of gloomy misfortune, gnawing his moustache irritably and looking as if he would like to insult some body. “ I doubt it,” is his brother’s infidel response, following with his eyes the brisk form of our hostess, who, with palsied hand is at this moment raising coyly to her lips a very small strawberry in a manner that would seem to say that nothing larger could be made to enter there. At the same moment 180 VERONICA’ S INTERLUDE 181 she ogles with a delightfully childish air at the youngest man in the room and hands him the dish. “ I believe, Mr. Peel, that Lady Chamner herself brands this 6 meal 9 as a collation — a cold collation,” I say, glad to be able to remove even that small source of aggravation to his justly incensed feelings. As it very soon becomes patent to the meanest intelligence that all the food is eaten up and no more is likely to appear, I make a virtue of necessity and affect indifference to the clamorous demands of nature : so I saunter out carelessly through one of the many windows not without a sneaking hope that someone may recall me and minister to my necessities. Such, however, is not the case. I am suffered to depart entirely unchallenged and probably unnoticed. My vagrant fancy leads me to the little walk around the pond where indeed alone is any shade or privacy and where I soon discover that others are before me. Standing with their backs towards me are Oscar and my sister talking and laughing cheerfully, but almost before I make up my mind to go on and join them, May puts up one pretty hand quickly to one pathetic eye and drops the red umbrella that has been casting its becoming tint upon her face. Instantly he stoops over her and begins solicitously to remove the erring fly that has blundered into her eye, but he does it with a celerity that surprises me. It, mostly, takes two men and a boy to disembarrass my sister of the insects that are always straying into her optics. Personally it is my rooted belief that fewer flies would be suffered thus to trespass if May could have one extracted before a looking-glass. Pathetic she may look on these occasions, plaintive she may look, but dignified she does not. There is something inexpressibly absurd in the posi- tion, and for my part I have no ambition to have my eye- balls raked with rough masculine pocket handkerchiefs or cooled with tepid watch cases. To see May and Oscar thus engaged does not pleasure me. They look ludicrously betrothed and I have no interest in their betrothal. I had hoped to have Oscar as a friend of us all, a pleasant amusing companion like Leonard, but if he marries May there will be an end to everything. In the first place all young men married are most cer- tainly young men marred, and the nicest youths I have ever 4 182 THE STORY OF OSCAR ■ known have become unbearable after six months of nuptial bliss. “ I think you hardly know the tender rhyme of “ 4 Will you walk into my parlour,’ said the spider to the fly,” I say to myself mentally apostrophizing Oscar in feeble paraphrase of Vivien’s song. But I do not continue my walk as it seems I am not wanted, turning back instead and recrossing the lawn to the house where I observe our carriage or rather Oscar’s carriage is already drawn up together with several others. Arrived there I make haste to clamber up to my aereal seat while yet there are few spectators and Leonard soon joins me. “ Where’s May?” he asks suspiciously, pulling out his cigar-case. “ It is time we got back. I know Oscar dines at eight.” “ She has got a fly into her poor eye,” I reply compas- sionately, “ and he is pouring in oil and wine, of course.” “ H’m. Well, we’ll hope the insect is poisonous,” he retorts, viciously biting off the pointed end of his cigar. We have not long to wait, however, for May and her esquire arrive in a few minutes and having said goodbye to Lady Chamner join us at once. At first Leonard and I are inclined to treat May with the coldness she deserves, but a community of feeling regarding our late entertainer soon breaks down all barriers and we lift up one loud united protest. “ I propose that we lynch Lisette,” says May. “ And I propose that, pending the execution of that just sentence, we draw lots and abide by the result. If the lot falls on you Leonard, do you consent to be slain and con- sumed raw for the common good ? ” This is Oscar’s suggestion. I am beyond jesting on this subject and can only say with gloom that refuses to be dispersed : “ If ever you see me so far forget myself as to darken her doors again, I don’t mind undertaking to salute my hostess.” Lady Chamner is bearded like the pard and the others thoroughly appreciate the terrible nature of my vow. CHAPTER X 4 4 Let’s now take our time, While we’re in our prime, And old, old age is afar off. For the evil, evil days Will come on apace Before we can be aware of.” “ Like the swell of some sweet tune, Morning rises into noon, May glides onward into June.” When first Oscar came over to the Moat House to dine and sleep it was June, very early tender summer, coy and diffident, but now it is well on in July and the summer time has grown to man’s estate. The trees have cast off their slight veils of shy buds and are decked in all their massive greenery, the lambs have become much more sophisticated and their gambols have an old maidish self-conscious air that is infinitely human. This year we are having, for once, a real summer. Summer with heat, mind you, and sun and light : so that it is bliss to exist and anguish to try and do more. All earth and air and sea and sky cry out loud that the winter is gone away and dare not for the life of him come back : the flowers are blazing in rich and glorious splendour in all the parterres and God’s own garden too is gemmed with myriad blossoms not of man’s planting. In the still afternoon you can see the air; it is shimmering and quivering with the heat, and is resonant with the slumbrous hum of bees and myriads of strange summer insects. Here, as I lie in the hay doing absolutely nothing, for I have suffered my book to drop from my hands by reason of its weight and the exertion it entails, I can hear the sea, away over the downs and beyond the rocky shore, booming solemnly, solemnly upon the sands in endless, endless pro- test against man’s brief frivolity. What a glorious song it is, that the majestic billows 183 184 THE STORY OF OSCAR murmur all day long, never changing, never ceasing from the beginning to the end. My friends, I fear the sea. It is too grand for me and too terrible, too cruel and too beautiful. It suffers none to sport with it, even in its play- ful moods, but it plays fierce sport with lives of men when its fell demon prompts it. We humans have never, never subjugated it nor ever will. We may flit gingerly over it in our frail barques but we pass of grace and not of right, as very often the great ocean remorselessly reminds us. I often go over the downs and clamber down the rocks to the shingly strand and listen to the moaning of the water out beyond the long plain of oozy sand, where the billows leap in boisterous play, lying basking in the sun and feign- ing to be fleeing from the land, but coming back again with sure relentless foot, oh so soon, so soon. But though I stand awed by the majesty of the great ocean, it is awe not love, or if it is not the love of one weak mortal for another, as is our friendship for the trees and birds, but the fearful reverence of the changing and weak to that which is all powerful and strong and from eternity. I know that now the tide is out, out far away towards the western chambers of the sun, for only very faint and sweet is the song of the sea surge, and its long sad swirl dies mysteriously low. It is never too hot here, for the cool breath of the Severn sea never wholly fails, and even to-day the topmost branches of the beeches have some soft secrets to tell each other. The hay has almost all been carried home, but this is the latest field and has only reached the stage of being cocked; I accordingly am nestled in most delightful ease among the scented heaps of martyred grasses that have lost their strong earth-life and full rich colour to gain instead the more delicious fragrance of death. Above me an enormous elm tree stretches out its rugged arms and spreads its cool green shadow, and down in the valley below — for I have chosen the sloping hillside as being cheerfuller and more airy — the haymakers are laughing profanely, disturb- ing the wonderful serenity of the luscious afternoon, and flirting noisily over their draughts of strong brown ale. How good it must be. I wish I had some. If I were a nice girl doubtless a glass of milk would be my maidenly desire, but I am not, and beer would, it seems to me, be VERONICA’S INTERLUDE 185 much, much better. Milk is so tepid and ale so deliciously cool and clear. “ How glad I am that hay fever never has taken a fancy to me," I soliloquize in mental allusion to the circum- stance of May’s being confined to the house by that unlovely malady. Every year about this time my second sister is stricken by it and remains its prey during several weeks, throughout which time to stir out into the light is torture to her, and her appearance is less attractive than mine at the worst of times. Provided the ailment be becoming and of a nature moving tender but unscomful compassion in the beholders, May has not the slightest objection to being ill; the pomp and circumstance of glorious invalidhood are as balm to her; but the present disorder is not of that sort and poor May’s temper has been steadily deteriorating during the past week or so. Besides the intrinsic nuisance of the thing, there is ground for particular complaint, for my sister is going away in a day or two to stay with some friends where she usually has a charming time of it and where, alas, we are unknown. “ Miss Byron, I believe you were asleep ! ” At the sound of the voice I start upright into a sitting posture and am confronted by Oscar who has approached unheard and unseen and is standing close before me. It annoys me being caught in undignified positions : my native majesty is not sufficiently apparent to warrant liberties being taken with it : so I say rather severely : “ It’s not right to come on one like that. You should have coughed or something.” “ I did.” “ Then I must have mistaken it for the sound of the men whetting their scythes,” I observe felicitously. He laughs and then the dubious nature of my remark strike me and I too laugh though less easily. “ Will you sit down on the other hay-cock ? ” He accepts my invitation readily and I begin to wonder how I look. My hair is less neat than my high standard requires, of that there can be no doubt, and my gown is rumpled and old — a garment of most indistinctive date and fashion. He is surveying me from head to foot with a critical eye and to my honest surprise seems not displeased with my simple adornments. “ Were you asleep? ” he asks by way of introduction. 186 THE STORY OF OSCAR “ No. Anything but. Are all the others out? ” Again he laughs and this time quite loud, and back his head among the hay to do so more at ease. “ You are the rudest person I ever met,” he observes candidly. “ I never come to the Moat House without receiving at least one annihilating snub from you; what have I done, why do you wage such cruel war against me?” “ I don’t intend to,” is my dispassionate reply. “ You have done no harm that I know of. I merely say what comes into my head.” “ That’s just it,” he expostulates; “ it is because what you say is so evidently unpremeditated and genuine that I so heartily object to it. If one might apply Lowell’s verse to you, I suppose, one might say : “ * You’re a straight-spoken kind of creetur, That blurts right out what’s in her head, And if you’ve one pecooliar feetur, It is a nose that won’t be led.’ ” 1 .i “ I had rather you did not allude to my nose,” I say meekly. “ We’ve talked enough about me; let’s talk about you for a change.” “ Heaven forbid. I shall go to sleep if you do.” “ Very well. Let us change the subject altogether. Are the others out? ” “ No.” My inward feeling of surprise at his presence at all, such being the case is I fear reflected rather too legibly on my face, for he laughs consciously and looks rather uncomfort- able as he says : “ You seem to resent my desertion of them in your favour very much.” “ Not at all,” I reply hastily, trying to atone for my facial rudeness, “ not at all. It does not matter at all to me. In fact, of course, I’d much rather . I hate being alone.” “ You told me on Monday you liked it better than any- thing.” “ Oh yes. So I did; I’ve forgotten. I’ll trouble you not to remember my old remarks, it’s worse than binding up the * Times ’ to read aloud of an evening to one’s friends.” “ Suppose you read aloud to me — now,” he says, chang- throws VERONICA’S INTERLUDE 187 ing the subject. “■ You have a book I see. It looks like poetry.” “ Yes it is. — I will read if you like, it would improve you more than my conversation. It’s rather religious poetry though; I hope you won’t mind ? ” He laughs and inflicts capital punishment on a blue- bottle that has caught itself in his hair. “ I hope you will not laugh while I’m reading,” I say severely, “ it is rude and most unpleasant; besides this poetry is sad, and I always do long to laugh when I’m reading aloud anything at all pathetic.” The book is a small collection of Faber’s poems, and lies open where I was reading before the sea sound distracted my attention. Here then, I begin to read aloud, in the low sing song cadence that we mostly employ for sacred song. I am astounded at my own effrontery in reading aloud to him, but somehow I fancy the sweet words of the sweet and child-like priest will be good for him, and at least I know their own merits will redeem them from my ill usage. When I have read the verse : 44 4 How pleasant are thy paths, O death ! E'en children after play Lie down without the least alarm, And sleep in thy maternal arm Their little life away.' ” I look up to see how he is taking it : his eyes are fastened on my face full of a strange wonderment and a certain wist- fulness. “ Go on, please,” he says very simply, instantly remov- ing his gaze. 44 4 How pleasant are thy paths, O death ! E’en grown up men secure Better manhood, by a brave leap Through the chill mist of thy thin sleep— Manhood that shall endure.’ ” I And so I read on to the end slowly and lingeringly as we do ever dwell on familiar words that we love well. When it is finished he is silent for a while and his eyes are fastened thoughtfully upon the far-off downs, palest | green, backed by the summer blue of God’s huge domed floor. I too hold my tongue for the nonce, well content to lapse 188 THE STORY OF OSCAR into dreamful reverie, with all the summer sounds abroad and the rich odours of a thousand flowers battling for the mastery. But unfortunately in this our age and this our country no man may sit silent any space with any maid of riper years, lest both be deemed flirtsome and sentimental : “ It is very beautiful, is not it? ” he asks at length. I nod my head demurely, and offer no remark : to tell the truth I am rather overcome by my own reading, it is so very sad, don’t you know, when everything is shouting 66 Life ! ” on every hand to try in spite of appearances to raise a counter cry of “ Death ! ” “ Is the man, who wrote that, dead ? 99 “ Yes.” Oscar turns his head away again and once more we sink into easeful silence. I wonder what he is thinking of, but to little avail; his face is not like a dolls’ house, all whose front conveniently opens disclosing at one view all that is within. I rather think of trying another religious instruc- tion but think better of it, remembering my former attempt. “ I have been wondering very much why you should read that sort of poetry ? ” he says presently, turning big marvelling eyes full upon my small person. “ You seem to me so very unmelancholy, and so very little to trouble yourself about anything — least of all death.” I do not at once reply; it is not easy to explain oneself, is it ? to tell a young man, who is gazing somewhat amorously at one, that one is perhaps not quite the scatter- brain he has taken one for; that one is indeed a person of deep feelings and high longings but do not care to advertize the parish of those facts. “ As I said before,” is my lame remark, “ we had better talk of something less dull than ourselves, — the Bulgarian Atrocities, the State of Affairs in the East, anything, but not me.” “ You are kind,” replies my companion with a mutinous look in his eyes and on his rather stern mouth, 66 but I prefer talking about you. You interest me, dull as you are, more than the Atrocities.” I take the surest way to gaining my end : instantly I assume an air of resigned but infinitely bored compliance and ostentatiously try to look as if I did not think my swain a dreadful nuisance. “ There, I won’t bother you, if you really object,” he VERONICA’S INTERLUDE 189 says hurriedly. “ I’ll tell you instead why I came to-day in the first instance. Shall I? ” “ Do.” Again it does not occur to me till too late that my simple monosyllabic rejoinder may have an uncourteous ring : this time, however, Oscar does not or affects that he does not notice it. “ My good people at Beaumonde,” he continues, “ are bitten with a wild desire to send those very Atrocities you were speaking of some assistance, and in addition to a sub- scription list, they are bent on giving some Theatricals or Penny Readings, or some such thing, with a view to raising funds for the same end. I am to tout for them, and have begun with you. Will you all come over to Beaumonde on Tuesday to dine and then go with me to this weird festival? 99 I hailed the plan with delight, my appetite for festivities of all kinds is gross and all devouring; Beaumonde school theatricals are not beneath it. “ Certainly I will if the others are going to,” I say warmly. “ What do they say ? 99 “ I have not asked them yet.” I fall to wondering why of all the family he should have begun with me, and decided that it must be because the others were out of the way and I came most convenient. He looks absurdly pleased at my ready compliance, and thereby makes me feel ludicrous; my assent or dissent has hitherto been of such a uniformly low pitch of importance that the novelty of the position seems greater than the pleasure. 44 Ah, here comes your sister May,” he says looking over my shoulder and speaking with less apparent joy than one could have expected. I am inclined to think most men prefer a moderate tete-a-tete to a more superior conver- sazione. I turn my head abruptly, not to say guiltily, and look at May with a needlessly apologetic air, rather as though I had been reading her letters or overheard her talking in her sleep. My sister has a somewhat hang-dog appearance owing to her malady, and her usually fine and clear articulation is to-day indistinct and snuffy. Dishevelled as I doubtless am by mishap and homely as I am by nature, for once my position is not wholly that of foil. CHAPTER XI Again we are at Beaumonde, this time in still greater force : for father and Lisette are also of the party, and May has not yet gone away to her friends in Berkshire. Her hay fever has abated and now that the tyranny is over past the remembrance of it is as of a tale that is told, and my sister has no meek subduedness bom of remem- bered boiled-gooseberry eyes and swollen nose. Dinner is over and we are all standing waiting for the announcement of the carriages that are to take us down to the village. Leonard and I are parleying apart, as is our frequent wont, and Lisette is bandying soft nothings with an elderly relative of Oscar’s who is staying in the house. May and our host are not apparent, having, as we opine, retired to the portico outside. Presently our view is corroborated by their return together, my sister having a nosegay of scarlet geraniums and white Mary lilies plucked for her from the big stone vases outside. She is dressed beautifully to-night and in a new gown to boot, one that she has got for this visit to Berkshire; her throat and shapely wrists are decked with large daring beads of some dark blue stone, and her hair is borne out by an alien profusion of soft silky locks, whose owner lieth For me, my charms are inexpensively set off by a gown of my favourite white, plain and unrelieved by any speck of colour. Being seventeen has at least one advantage — one may wear white to the top of one’s bent and none gibe thereat in scorn; and white suits me. My arms and throat have no jewel, but are girt with un- grudging pearls at seven-and-six the string; pearls not geometrically round, mind you, or of a size to shame the Regalia, as some girls wear them, but of an unambitious and possible dimension, if perhaps of an unlikely quantity. Of real jewellery I have none, what trinkets I have being of a pathetically cornelian and, as it were, jet-ward 190 VERONICA’S INTERLUDE 191 tendency. My sole ring, for instance, is of red agate and was purchased for me years ago by a fond uncle at the gate of Chillon Castle, of which unholy fortress it was a meet memento. This jewel, whose intrinsic value I assess at one and a penny halfpenny, all duty paid, is by heaven’s especial grace large enough to accommodate within its ample round the ten fingers of Goliath of Gath, a circum- stance that rids me of the necessity I should otherwise be under of wearing it. My parure bracelets and earrings are of cunning work in jet, with my own initials deftly carven thereon, and studded with the diamonds of Erin. “ The carriages are all ready — come along,” says Leonard, and I follow meekly trying not to tread on May’s prodigally lengthy train that sweeps the dust of the cor- ridor in costly negligence, as its owner glides leisurely along on our host’s arm. He puts her into the first carriage and all my brethren and family follow; apparently he has for- gotten me, for I am left to the last with the elderly relative and himself. He has not though, and turns, as soon as the second carriage is quite full, with rather a triumphant smile, saying : “ Now, Aunt Mary, come along;” and having safely deposited that dowager, he places me by her side, taking his own place opposite. Aunt Mary seems deaf and as her nephew does not sit opposite her his remarks are not generally of much moment to her, and our conversation gradually becomes a tete-a- tete of the most literal description. Arrived at the school house, we are welcomed by the stage manager, who conducts us to the only three places still vacant in the front rows; they are not however very close to our party and we become, as it were, an island, our desolation doubtless occasioning deep sympathy for us in the breast of my sister May. I dart a furtive glance at my companion to see if he looks indecently annoyed, but to do him justice he at least conceals his chagrin admirably. Apparently the beginning of the performance was only awaiting our arrival, for the curtain almost immediately rises, disclosing a sumptuous chamber about four feet square and furnished to represent a fashionable drawing- room. That is to say, it boasts a fireplace (not practic- able), a gilded bird cage that is apparently to be let, two armchairs, a blue sofa and a music-canterbury, which last article is the more extravagant a luxury that no sort of 192 THE STORY OF OSCAR musical instrument is to be seen. An impracticable bow window to the right affords a diversified prospect of the c Alps, St. Peter’s, the Pyramid of Cheops and the Falls of s Niagara. At the back of the stage are folding doors 1 which presently open themselves and discover three gentle- \ men in black frock coats, white waistcoats and lemon kid j gloves, drinking nothing out of empty glasses with apparent t; relish and conversing in a manner at once easy and dignified. o 6 4 Aye say, Horgustus,” remarks the tallest of the three, 0 bending forward and examining with critical eye the body n of the air in his glass. “ Demm this ’ole.” \ It must not be supposed that Sir Benjamin (as he proves to be) implies any disrespect to the coal hole in which g ( apparently he is carousing, but his after remarks explain that his disgust is with the world. L 46 Come, come, there’s not much amiss; ’ere you are, p, breakfasting ” — (thanks, thanks to thee, my worthy friend, for the lesson thou hast taught; how else could we have $c gathered what meal was going on ?) — “ like a lord and pi owner of fifteen thousand a year and three estates of fivejoi hundred thousand hacres. What more ” The breakfast scene is succeeded by the arrival of a lady ar in red satin, but very low, and a riding whip, yellow I tan gloves and a lace pocket handkerchief, which she uses m with a needless and catarrhal frequency. She is come tc beg a subscription for a lunatic asylum of which she in i go presumably an inmate, her name, as she herself very after!! tells us, being Lady Clutterbucks, the Honourable Lady‘ ! Clutterbucks. Her niece is the housemaid, a sweet youn^Jn person, dressed in white tarlatan and a green sash, with low bodice berthe and necklace of Great Mogul diamonds. ® “ Do look at her rouge; it has come off on the man’j ti collar,” murmurs Oscar stealthily. I look and see thal ] it is too true some of her roseate hues have indeec j imparted themselves to the cravat of the pardner who hai Jj just now embraced her in a promiscuous sort of way j apropos de rien. * Lady Clutterbucks now departs with a threatening $ gesture and appears in the next act as Mrs. Corset, a vendo [ of the articles from whence she takes her name. j Hi The scene is now changed, for a street of two houses i; | s represented backed by the dome of the Albert Hall and th< % Tower of London, in millenial juxtaposition, like the lioi i\ lying down with the lamb. ] VERONICA’S INTERLUDE 193 Over the door to the left is inscribed the name and calling of Mrs. Corset and over the other on the right is a signboard notifying that good refreshment for man and beast is provided within. The latter statement at once verifies itself by the arrival of a reeling gentleman in black who thumps at Mrs. Corset’s door, with muttered impreca- tions and a godless leer. He batters a trifle too hard however, for the entire front of the house, which consists of pasteboard, falls down in obedience to his summons, disclosing within its amiable mistress lacing the article of clothing by which she gets her wealth. The house is soon restored to the perpendicular and the gentleman with it, who now unaccountably recovers and marries Mrs. Corset, who disclaims being the Honourable Lady Clutterbucks, the real peeress turning up in the person of the simply-dressed housemaid. Awful pauses ensue after every scene, during which fresh scenery is being arranged behind the curtain and the com- oany of the theatre are changing characters as quickly as >nly one rouge pot will allow of. During these my host and I have exceedingly pleasant md confidential little talks, overheard by none; for Aunt tfary is nodding in her place, only awakening at longer md longer intervals to exclaim benignly : “ Ah, yes ! quite so, very amusing indeed ! ” And the *ood people behind sit simply chatting in a rustic row, like Hilton’s shepherds in his famous ode; like them all also 6 perhaps their love or else their sheep, was all that did heir silly thoughts so busy keep.” At all events nobody bothers himself about us, and our ►wn house party is amusing itself admirably with one wo others who are sitting near them, it I am consciously enjoying myself very much, for Oscar i s at his best to-night and seems for the time being to be is blivious of May’s existence, but I find it hard to rid myself f a rather guilty feeling of trespassing , and feel somehow £ if it was not my legitimate right to be thus privily onversing with my sister’s swain, oi Presently the curtain rises again to disclose the late Mrs. Dorset and pseudo Lady Clutterbucks reclining in an arm- is hair with her head pensively thrown back, so that, as lie omebody once said somewhere, her nostrils reminded one ion f the entrance to the Britannic Tubula Bridge. To her enters a “ lordling ” (as we subsequently glean 194 THE STORY OF OSCAR from unguarded expressions dropped by himself) superbly attired in green velvet and trying not to break his neck over the sword that dangles between his legs. He and the Duchess, as she quickly proves to be, make an assignation at the top of their voices, and are finally interrupted by the arrival of the Duke, who has as much as he can do to keep his moustache from dropping off without looking after his wife. The next scene completes the elopement and the third and last is closed by a terrible duel, in which the com batants would not have hurt each other in the least had not the Duchess hurled herself between them, causing hei husband to fall down backwards and her lover to reel head long over his sword. This is the end of the entertainment, and “ God Save the Queen ” now gives us the blessed signal for release amid thunders of frantic applause from the back benches who fatuously bawl “ Encore 99 or stamp on the grounc and clap themselves after their manner. We are, of course, not going back to Beaumonde, bu to drive home now, and accordingly we linger rather behinc the rest of the audience to perform our adieux. Still Oscar cleaves to me like a limpet and May hold offendedly — as I think, aloof. “ I am coming over to the Moat to-morrow, you know to get water lilies for my dinner party; will you — an< Leonard help me ? 99 “ Oh yes; and we’ll make it a sort of picnic; it will b much better from there. We can land on the island an< take strawberries and cream and ginger-beer.” He looks slightly awe-stricken at the proposal of thi godless mixture, but consents with doughty courage. “ Mind, I shall come early and go away late,” he add laughing. “ If I were Lisette,” say I, “ I should invite you t spend the day, that is, to come after breakfast, bring yov own luncheon with you and go away when the dinner be rings.” “ What’s that about me ! ” asks my eldest sister, wh has been hovering near us for some time, thinking doub less that I had monopolised the nicest person in the roo] ♦quite long enough. And so ended our tete-a-tete. k fa lev loi her '•I • nns *oi CHAPTER XII “ There was no motion in the dumb dead air Not any song of bird or sound of rill; Gross darkness of the inner sepulchre Is not so deadly still ” We say nothing and wish to say nothing. There are times when even I have no wish to violate with profane voice the stillness of God’s majestic temple; when I would far gladlier absorb in silence some of the hallowed calm that very often settles down upon our busy world to rest the weary and remind the gay. There is no ripple on the lake, in whose clear depths the willows see themselves, and the blue sky lives again, nor do we disturb with our oars its restful stillness but lie lazy and at ease in a broad old boat with our damp treasure of water lilies lying round our feet, unheeded. To say truth we are very comfortable and in no slight danger of sinking into total and delicious oblivion. There are very few sounds, and those are very slumbrous and serene. Along the shore is still the mysterious sucking sound that the mere never quite forgets to make, and Leonard’s dog snores gently by his side, while from the regions of the house we can hear one of the servants singing dilatory snatches of some quaint old county song as she goes about her work in the cool delicious dairy. Over on the other side of the lake a score of cattle are standing more than knee deep in the clear water, lazily swishing the obtrusive flies from their patient faces with their long untidy tails : very seldom a fish leaps, or rather flops , a short way out of the water, falling back again with an abandoned splash, probably to certain destruction. I close my eyes and fall, oh so nearly, asleep, lulled into slumber by the soft sweet warmth of the summer after- noon and the universal restfulness around. I open my eyes, lazily enough, at last and surprise Oscar, whom I had last seen apparently lapt in unconsciousness, *95 196 THE STORY OF OSCAR with his own gaze fixed wakefully upon me : in his face is an expression that I am little used to and that sends the blood coursing hotly over my cheeks and throat, and makes me turn abruptly and look down shamefacedly into the cool depths below. If it had been on any man’s coun- tenance who regarded May, I should have unhesitatingly called it admiration, on Oscar’s as he looked at me, what could I call it ? Mingled therewith, too, was yet a stranger light, such as I had not even seen on face of swain languishing for my sister’s sake. It was not a glance of proxy fondness, such as men are wont to lavish on the nearly related to their mistress in the time of wooing, so that Oscar’s attachment to May i could have little to say to it : and moreover it embarrassed me very, very much. “ I see you have a book again, Miss Byron,” he says presently, taking it from my lap as he speaks and examin- ing it with an air of interest. “ Oh, don’t look there ! ” I cry foolishly, trying to take , it away, as he turns to the fly-leaf to read what may there be inscribed; my unwillingness being due to the knowledge that in bye-gone years I had myself entered my titles and additions there with doubtful orthography. “ Of course,” he says tiresomely, “ I shall now make a point of looking there : you have thoroughly whetted my curiosity.” I give in and fall to tearing out the yellow hearts of the poor gasping water lilies that are pining so for their cool home in the gentle mere. I “ 6 Verronica Byron from Ernest Langor,’ ” he reads 1 solemnly and with a ludicrous pathos; “ 6 in memoriam of f 1868 .’ ” Leonard laughs and I snort; Oscar looks amused, and ‘ begins again. “ i Verronica Byron ’ with two r’s, mind you; when ( Ernest Langor goes about giving a present he makes nc 1 stint of his alphabet. 6 In memoriam, of ’; ah, how ] f wonder — what soft romance lies buried in that significant numeral.” I too laugh now. “ I was ten then,” I say giggling, 66 and the chief im- * portance of the year is derived from the fact that the donoi of that book was here for two months and that we both had t the chicken-pox.” VERONICA’S INTERLUDE 197 “ Is that your only reminiscence of your early love that now remains? ” “ Quite . 99 Leonard looks up sharply; he had detected, as I had not, the possibility of a double meaning in his friend’s seeming innocent but rather eager query. Oscar looks rather glad to hear of the close of my love’s young dream and suggests that I should read them some- thing out of the book that is the only monument of it. This I flatly refuse to do, the book being a collection of old-fashioned poems originally given to Ernest by his grandmother, all of a more or less wan and amatory description, chiefly turning on the beauty of Araminta and the coyness of Julia to her hopeless love. “ Well, if you won’t, I will then,” Oscar says laughing and opening the book at random. “ Here, this will do, I daresay.” I can see by his face at once that as soon as he has caught sight of the words he would rather not have read that particular poem. However, he reads obstinately : “ Since first I saw your face, I resolved To honour and renounce you. If now I be disdained, I wish my heart had never known you. What ! I that loved and you that liked, Shall toe begin to wrangle? No, no, my heart is fast And cannot disentangle.” “ It doesn’t seem very interesting,” he says, when he has finished the first verse; “ I expect one stanza is quite enough ? ” “ More than enough,” Leonard observes dispassionately. “ If there is one tiring thing in the world it is love poetry.” For a time we sink into silence and I do not again catch our guest casting inexplicable glances on my captivating visage, then we see Lisette coming down to the water’s edge, evidently with the intention of being taken on board. “ Why, if it is not a rude question,” asks Oscar, looking at her meditatively as she draws near, u was your eldest sister given a French name, and you all English ones? , Have you any foreign relations ? ” ]t “ Oh dear no,” I reply; “ her name is English enough too, really; she’s no more ‘ Lisette ’ by right than you or me, but plain, honest Elizabeth.” He laughs and Leonard amends my assertion. ■ 198 THE STOEY OF OSCAE 44 Plain, dear Veronica, she undoubtedly is, and Eliza- beth she became in baptism, but honest she will never be. 55 My sister stands upon the bank and smiles with con- scious superiority to any feeble jests of ours. 44 If I were in the boat,” she observes loftily, 4 4 you and I, dearest Leonard, would soon change places,” meaning dispassionately to imply that our brother would promptly be out of it. 44 In that case,” rejoins he lazily, 44 it is well for you — and the place — that you are not.” However the boat is put in to the shore and Lisette steps delicately aboard while I flounder noisily out, nearly up- setting the entire crew in my passage and entangling myself in a loose stretcher. I stand to watch them row off and join in any conversa- tion that may ensue. 44 I know where you have been having a pleasant after- noon,” observes Leonard, glancing at a small and noisome packet of tracts with which Lisette is burdened, 44 reading to that wretched old Mrs. Jones again. What new disease has she got, may I ask ? ” j Lisette laughs. | 0 j 44 I think it seems to be a kind of leprosy she has this ^ time.” 44 Would God,” says Leonard in profane quotation, 44 my te lord were with the Prophet that is in Samaria, that he ^ might heal her of her leprosy.” I 44 Would God,” asserts Lisette, 44 she were with any prophet at that distance; I would impose no further con- , e ditions.” aD Clearly the conversation is unworthy of me, and I turn j n away to stroll leisurely back to the house where I have a f 0 few letters to write and a blissful book to read. CHAPTER XIII Go not, happy day, From the shining fields, Go not, happy day, Till the maiden yields. When the happy 4 Yes,’ Falters from the lips, Pass and blush the news Over glowing ships; Over blowing seas, Over seas at rest Pass the happy news, Blush it to the West. My letters are all written, and armed with “ A Princess of Thule ” I take my way to the garden to spend a happy hour in the absence of my kindred. As I pass the schoolroom I just look in to make sure that tea is not ready but find nothing but a neatly-cleared table and a white tablecloth, so shut the door again and pursue the even tenour of my way. Just outside the house is a trim parterre where as now geraniums and mignonette give colour and sweet smell, and in winter groves of young pine trees nod and shiver in the blast, beyond which is the smooth lawn sloping away to the shrubberies and the lake. Fifty paces from the parterre, just out of earshot of the house, unless you chose to raise your voice to an unlovely pitch, there is a grand cedar tree, that spreads out great “ black layers of shade,” cool and fragrant, over the soft sward, and rears his proud crown high above the other trees against the blue dome above. Beneath it is a rustic seat, wormy and old, but still a goodly resting place and pleasant, where not a gleam can penetrate of the sun’s golden glare, but where the cool lap of the lake upon its pebbly strand is never wholly silent, and the smell of gillie-flowers and Mary lilies creeps ever sweet and strong from the old-fashioned borders close at hand. 199 200 THE STORY OF OSCAR Above the seat to one side swings a net hammock that Leonard has consecrated as his own Temple of Ease, and wherein we seldom get a chance of lying : it was the know- ledge that this desirable comer would now at least be vacant that chiefly induced me to leave the boat just now. I step upon the arm of the seat and thence with more agility than grace clamber into the hammock that rocks ; and sways in a manner that threatens to hurl me abruptly over on the other side. However I achieve the ascent and am soon lying most at ease with my thoughts far away in that Northern Fairy Land that* William Black loves to tell us of and we love even more to hear of. My face is towards the house so that no one can come near without my knowledge, which considering the fre- quency with which I have lately been surprised in un- dignified positions, is perhaps as well. In this way an hour very quickly and very pleasantly passes by and I begin to think it is time to be going in, and with that intent close my book reluctantly and brace myself up for my descent — a feat considerably more , difficult and dangerous than the mounting. A step on the gravel makes me look up and I see Oscar , coming towards me alone and bareheaded, and I deter- mine, all things considered, to remain where I am for the , present. J ; “ They are all at tea,” he says when he has reached j my side and is standing looking down amusedly on my helpless, outstretched form. 66 I have come to fetch you.” j “ I don’t want any tea, thanks,” I reply mendaciously, earnestly wishing anyone else had come to summon me, r anyone before whom unabashed I might flounder out onto the grass from my present elevation. “ I’m going to e] stop here for the present.” “ I don’t want any either,” he says readily, “ and more- gl over I also intend to linger out here a little longer. May « I? ” “ How can I prevent you ? ” I ask prosaically. rc “ By telling me to go.” I am conscious how ill coquetry becomes my years r and position and simply say : “ I’d as soon you stopped.” He does not seen altogether satisfied with my mode of permission and is silent for a few moments. I see father come into the study and sit down to his VEKONICA’S INTEBLUDE 201 table by the window to write letters, he catches my eye and smiles and I smile back at him. “ Who are you so fondly greeting over my shoulder? ” asks Oscar, turning sharply round. “ I wish you would smile at me like that,” he adds hurriedly with a hang dog air and a deep red blush, as he sees who was the object of my enchanting grin. I think it is not too> much to say that you might knock me down (supposing me to be at present in an upright posture) with a feather, nay, with a bit of swan’s down. I snigger slightly and am on the point of saying humorously : “ Oh, certainly, if you wish ! ” and accom- pany the sally with a broad smile, when something in his face warns me not to. After a short and embarrassed silence I say meekly : “ I’m afraid I must be going, do you know, to give father his tea.” “ He must wait a bit,” Oscar remarks lightly with a funny little smile; “ his tea will be cold before he gets it to-day.” I don’t approve of this at all. I cannot in fact make out what he is about at all; it seems to me that my friend is losing his wits, and it is quite certain that I am losing mine. “ You don’t say anything ? ” he continues rather re- proachfully. “ Why are you so cold ? ” “ But I’m not, not at all,” I reply promptly, most honestly failing to grasp his meaning. He looks, as indeed he has every right to look, a trifle impatient, and then says gravely : “ Veronica, you must hear me out and not think of going away to anybody till I allow you. Will you ? ” “Yes,” I murmur, raising astonished eyes to his hot embarrassed face. He pauses a minute or two and his eyes wander off and away, and a strangely diffident expression comes over his fine goodly face. “ You must have guessed,” he says at last, turning full round upon me, “ what I am going to say. . . .” “ Indeed I have not,” I stammer fatuously, labouring against an uncomfortable choking and throbbing of my heart against my poor little ribs. He does not laugh at my foolish remark but continues, in a low grave voice : “ I have only known you a short time, Veronica, but J 202 THE STORY OF OSCAR have known you long enough, quite long enough, to feel sure that if you only will you can make me very, very happy — happy as no one else in all the world can do. All I have to ask is — will you? ” For a moment I am too giddy, too utterly confused to reply, not one word, good or evil, can I utter. Then at length I manage to ask chokily : “ What da you mean? 99 “ I mean,” he replies quietly and yet very eagerly, “ I mean that no one but you can make me happy; — that I want you to be my wife.” How I remember what I felt then ! What I heard, what I smelt, what I saw; in those few, few moments of time wherein he waited for my answer. The old house rose up in front, backed by the older church, from whose grey tower now rang out slow and solemn the hour of six, and around whose rugged crumbling pinnacles the jackdaws screeched and squabbled. A housemaid is feigning to be busily engaged in looping up my eldest sister’s curtain to one of the front windows, father is sealing a letter at a little candlestick in the study window, then the parterre, then nearest of all a goodly earnest face went down over me and full of a strong manly purpose. The full meaning of it all breaks in upon me, and shines like a very strong sunlight down into the depths of my own little heart. Then I know, then I acknowledge how utterly I love him, how it is bliss to me to hear him speak of his love for me, how gladly I would spend hours, days, centuries, in this mere dream of glory, this mere ecstasy of knowing I I am in no hurry to reply; I must gloat a little first, must take it in, and think it over, round and round, and listen in fancy to the oft repetition of his question. I am going in fact to taste of love with a full sense of its exquisiteness, and lose nothing of its beauty and delight. “ Veronica,” calls my father, coming to the window with the letter in his hand that he has just sealed, “ come here, dear, I want to ask you something.” In a moment Oscar has lifted me in his strong, caressing arms and set me on the ground, but not before he has, very softly, very tenderly, very reverently, laid one gentle kiss upon my lips. Madly I rush across the grass, hardly deigning to notice his eager : i $ d I Cl tl k ti oi DO' k VERONICA’S INTERLUDE 203 (i Come back.’ 5 And dash wildly into the study, gasping, “ What is it, father? What do you want? Your tea, eh, darling? ” “ No, no,” he replies. “ I want Hugh’s address : you heard from him last, what is it? 99 “ I will go and fetch it,” I cry and make off instantly to the schoolroom for my blotting book where the address ought to be. Into their midst like an underbred thunderbolt I rush and seize my case, searching for the thing I want : “ Father wants Hugh’s address,” I pant, “ and I can’t find it anywhere. Have any of you taken it? ” “ Yes,” May answers coolly. “ I have; you will find it on my writing-table in my room. You look rather mad, what’s the matter? ” “ The matter? ” I retort scornfully. “ Nothing’s the matter , but I have a piece of most glorious news to tell you all — presently.” They try to hold me back, but I am off like a shot and no one thinks it worth his while to pursue me : in a moment I am in May’s room, rummaging on her table for the missing address. I open the blotting-book, it is a new one, and the blotting paper is very little used, the address is easily found, and I am preparing to make off again when some- thing catches my eye and holds me back. On one of the pages is a monogram — my sister’s initials surmounted by an earVs coronet , all the exact replica doubtless of something scribbled on paper. I stoop down and pull out her rubbish basket into which I dive and search diligently, in less than a minute dis- covering the scrap of paper whereon the original sketch of the monogram was drawn; it is crumpled up tight but not tom and is easily smoothed out by my trembling, eager hand. A small thing, forsooth, and yet it has clouded my life over in less time than it took May to draw ! Ah, how glad and gay all the world was five minutes back and now how dark and grey ! Then the sun shone as I had never felt him shine before, and the little birds sang twice as sweet, the very grass and flowers smiled blithlier up at the clear heaven than is their wont. But now, but now, oh my friend, you who have perhaps laughed with me a little so far, and been glad with me a 204 THE STORY OF OSCAR little, and rejoiced with me because of my great gain, oh now it is truly changed. I can tell you nothing of all my sorrow but this, that my heart dies within me: It is no metaphor, no fine figure of speech, but the very truth, my poor heart sickens and fails, and I know that it is stricken to death. With blinded, dazed eyes and slow reluctant step I go downstairs mechanically and give father that accursed bit of paper that has been the cause of all my grief : he takes it with a kind smile but a busy preoccupied air, for which I thank God, and then, remembering himself, in his dear courteous way, calls me back to him to thank me. I lift my face to him and he, stooping, kisses it tenderly, and I turn away and go. Oscar has seen me and comes half way to meet me, thinking I am going to rejoin him, but he has to turn back disappointed, for my way lies in the opposite direction to his, not now only, but forever. With lagging foot I climb the stairs again and enter my own room; no one is there, thank God, and I sit down to my table undisturbed to write the few short words that are to be my own death warrant. It is soon done, and the slip of paper crammed mechanically into an envelope, addressed and closed up : then I go out into the corridor where the housemaid is still ostensibly busy, and give her the note, briefly asking her to deliver it at once. “ You will find him on the lawn under the cedar tree,” I say icily, feeling like one long dead, as she takes the note into her hand with the comer of her apron. Little need to tell her, indeed; has she not been eagerly watching us two out there under the cedar tree this half- hour? and pondering many things thereabout? I turn back then into my own room and lock the door, taking up my post by the window which looks out over the garden and lake, commanding an excellent prospect of my late lover’s figure as he paces somewhat impatiently up and down, casting frequent glances on the house, wonder- ing doubtless why his mistress lags so long. In a very few minutes I see the faithful Mary trip daintily across the lawn with my note upon a salver and deliver it to him : he takes it curiously and tears it open rather hurriedly, then all is over. He takes up his hat which is lying in the hammock and strides into the house out of my sight. V ERONIC A’ S INTERLUDE 205 It is not so much yet, this blow, for truly I but half comprehend it : slowly, however, and surely it comes in upon me what I have done and what I have lost. The days of my wooing have been short, but how short the time of my bliss ! Yet I am conscious it serves me right in a manner : what business had I to blind my eyes and dull my memory even for that brief space ? It has been May, the pretty one of our family, and not me, that he has really wooed all along, and by some strange terrible mistake I have brought this on myself. For three months he has never ceased to shew, plainly enough as it seemed to me, his marked preference for her, and how dare I now think in a moment to cut her out. We are not a family that kiss each other over much, or waste too many fond blandishments on one another, but God forbid that one of us should wantonly rob the other of her love. May is a good girl with all her many faults and we have had good days together, both in the old child- days and of late in our fuller maidenhood, and I will not, God helping me, deal her in the dark this most cruel blow. I at least will not have it to say in the times to come that I owe my husband to a sister’s saddened life and my own shameless flirting. So, though my heart is indeed hurt and I cry aloud in my soul through the extremity of the sorrow, I am fixed in my purpose and no compunctious visitings trouble me for the thing that I have done. It strikes me indeed that perhaps, after all, Oscar may prefer me by some wild chance to my fairer sister, but what of that? I know she loves him , and I at least will not come between her and her happiness. For all my life I have known her, we have played together during all these years, and quarrelled a little, good wholesome quarrels, and have been good friends on the whole, but him I have known only these three months, and the old friends are still better than the new. Half-an-hour passes by and I feel sure that he has gone, so I just kneel down* a little space by my bed and pray a short foolish prayer to the one Grand Consoler, and rise up to leave my quiet retreat. Very hard indeed I try to look as gay and lively as I did on my former entry into the schoolroom, but with very poor success. Also I arm myself with a book to lend 206 THE STORY OF OSCAR some appearance of plausibility to the romance I intend it necessary to weave. “ Where have you been? ” asks Lisette immediately. “ Upstairs in my room reading,” I reply. “ It must have been an enthralling volume indeed which so long divorced you from your wonted provender,” observes Leonard. I take no notice of this sarcasm and sit down with my back to the window. “ Now tell us what’s the extraordinary piece of news,” demands May. “ Yes, out with it.” For a moment I am dumb : there is no news now, alas, to tell and I can weave no wily fiction in its place. “ There is no news,” I say with a loud and not over- musical laugh; “ it was all a hoax. There never was any news.” “ I understand,” remarks May with scant approbation of my humour, particularly clever and original. If, dear Veronica, a hoax is a synonym for a peculiarly un- necessary and uncalled for lie , allow me to compliment you on the excellence of yours.” I look up, with my eyes swimming and a great lump rising in my throat, to find Leonard’s keen eyes fixed on me. “ I always said it was a hoax,” he laughs lightly. “ 1 know the quality of Veronica’s humour too well to be taken aback by it.” Ah, dear, dear old Leonard, how I bless you for that; I need not speak and my luckless promise of “ news ” is well-nigh forgotten in the well-merited obloquy that is being piled on my supposed attempt at pleasantry. “ Oscar has made off in your absence,” Lisette remarks; “ doubtless he felt unequal to the prospect of a third tete- a-tete with you, dearest Veronica; and he will not turn up again just at present as he is going away he says for a week or two.” CHAPTER XIV “ Then round the meadow did she walk Catching each flower by the stalk, Such flowers as in the meadow grew, The Dead Man’s Thumb, an herb all blue, And, as she pulled them, still cried she, Alas, alas, none ever loved like me.” May’s visit has been paid, for ten days I have been freed from the sight of her face, grown maddening to me of late, and now she is back among us again. Her home returning was on this wise. We all sat awaiting her coming, in the drawing-room after dinner, father asleep, ostensibly reading Anthony Trollope’s “ South Africa,” Lisette knitting and talking to Leonard, Veronica reading the “ Times,” — the Agony Column, and thinking how short and simple for recovering a lost lover. Would that I too could call back my heart’s love for the modest sum of five and sixpence ! Nothing in Lisette’s conversation interests me much, she expresses indeed her surprise that Oscar should not have told us that he was to be one of the party at the home where our sister has been visiting, but that she has done before, so I am little moved thereby. I am gazing moodily into the fire when the sound of wheels awakes father and rouses me, and we go out to the hall to welcome our sister home. For five minutes she is standing by the fire, with her hat thrown off and her soft brown hair hanging loosely on her shoulders telling us of her journey and her visit, and I have sunk down again into my chair to listen more at ease. “ But of all that anon,” she says suddenly with a light laugh, “ I have some news to tell : news so important that I could not tell it in a letter though I have known it ages — since yesterday morning. News,” she added with her tender smile, and turning towards me, “ that won’t prove to be a hoax like our dear humorous Veronica’s.” They have all pressed forward to hear it so I too have to rise and assume a smile of curiosity ! full well though I 207 208 THE STORY OF OSCAR guess what is to be her tidings, and I feel my senses leaving me. “ Father, 55 I hear her say at last, “ should you be surprised to hear that you see before you an embryo Countess ? ” Then I heard their many comments, their exclamations, and their kisses, but like Gallio, I care for none of these things : my own face in the mirror over the mantel-piece meets me and terrifies me, it is so white, so wan and ghastly. Side by side with it is that of my sister, radiant and beautiful as I never saw it before, full of the light and loveliness of her new found happiness. She turns to me at last, saying : “ Why don’t you congratulate me ? You have said nothing; have you nothing to say ? 99 “ Oh, yes,” I mumble, “ lots; I’m, I’m so glad, dear.” “ You look glad,” she retorts angrily and surprised, “ you look singularly jovial it must be allowed. . . .” Then I feel myself lifted off my feet, and through the singing surging sound in my ears I hear Leonard’s voice miles away, saying : “ Hold your tongue, May, don’t you see she’s ill ? ” I am laid gently on my own bed and then he stoops down over me and whispers very softly : ‘ Poor, poor little Veronica, I know all about it, darling; you poor brave child . . .” And I feel his cool lips pressed fondly against my throbbing forehead, as the dear old brother kneels by my side in the dark comforting the wretched little girl in her bitter sorrow. Leonard always did understand me, and has always been my tenderest con- soler in the few griefs of my happy childhood. But all that was yesterday and to-day I have been invalided, that is I have only just got up though it is afternoon and the others have left me in peace and un- disturbed. I wander out into the garden murmuring foolishly to myself the words of Allan Ramsay’s old song of sad love : To all onr haunts I will repair, By greenwood shade and fountain, Or where the summer day I’d share With thee upon yon mountain. There will I tell the trees and flowers, Your thoughts unfeigned and tender. By voice you’re mine, — by love is yours A heart that cannot wander. VERONICA’S INTERLUDE 209 With swimming eyes I pause a moment beneath the cedi~ ’s broad shadow, and think of my brief wooing, then on into the shrubbery and out up the hill to the hay field where three weeks ago we sat together and I read to him of the joys of Death, little thinking how soon I was to Lse so many of the joys of life. I nourish against him none of the outraged anger that would so well become me, for did I not of my own free will send him from me, and can I murmur if he takes me at my word and so soon, yes ever so soon, chooses a fairer than I? I wander listlessly round the field and pick for myself as dreary mementoes of this my sad day of grieving, a little trumpery bouquet of butter-cups and marguerites, and think the while on all my woes, like the equally foolish maiden in the song wherewith I have headed this chapter. So I pass a profitless afternoon, and at length, becoming ashamed of my graceless idleness, turn back and wander listlessly indoors, to write a letter and finish a gown I am idly making for a needy infant of the village. * * * * * * “ May I come in ? ” asks Leonard knocking at my door an hour or more later, and entering in obedience to my permission. “ I have come,” he says rather shamefacedly and looking altogether unaccountably embarrassed, “ to tell you tea is ready. Will you come down or shall I bring some up for you ? ” “ Oh, I’ll come down, of course, I have been out all the afternoon.” “ Very well,” he adds, going over to the window and looking out, so that I can’t see his face; “ you’ll con- gratulate May, won’t you ? ” " Of course,” I make answer, bravely suppressing a choking sensation in my throat. “ You know the name of her fianc6, of course ? ” he says nonchalantly. “ Yes,” I murmur, bending down my head over my work, “ it would be odd if I did not.” "Why?” he says briskly. “I didn’t till an hour or two ago : like you I was above asking and it is only lately I have found out quite by chance that he is Lord Slanach, an awfully rich fellow I believe, whom May has known these 210 THE STORY OF OSCAR two years and kept very dark. I rather fancy she is not so surprised as we are.” So much for the monogramic dream, and my fine sacrifice on the altar of sisterly love 1 CHAPTER XV “ Ah, what shall I be at fifty, Should Nature keep me alive, If I find the world is bitter When I am but twenty-five? ” After all what am I advantaged by this discovery? It is little consolation to me for the loss of my lover to find that he is not my sister’s : it does not materially lighten the burden of my sacrifice to discover that the sacrifice was unnecessary and to no purpose. I can hardly go to my beloved and say to him, “ Dear heart, I am truly wholly thine,” or explain how willingly I would have wed with him had I not deemed his attentions to my sister so marked that if he did not want to marry her he ought to. He may be even now looking back with thankfulness on the moment of my refusal as the most blessed instant in his life, and would perhaps be rather overpowered than pleased at a sudden withdrawal of that rash decision. If I may not tell him plainly still less will I let him know the truth by any half words or hints, or eloquent de- meanour. No. I have made my bed in my folly and now I must lie on it whether it be easy or discomfortable. We get used to most things in time, and I shall get used to the contemplation of my own folly and the happiness that I might so well have had : after all, I have known him so short a time, and the moments of my conscious love were so few, that surely my wound ought not to be incurable. May’s lover is coming on approval it seems, and his advent is the subject of much discussion. None of us know him and only May and father have ever seen him, so our sister is beset with enquiries concerning him. She parries them all coolly, and replies only, that the wight she has chosen is well enough. Our knowledge of him, derived entirely by a catechetical 212 THE STORY OF OSCAR system is purely negative : he is not old, he is not an idiot, he has not false teeth, he does not take snuff or chew opium, neither has he a hare lip or a strawberry mark on his nose, he is not in debt or divorced from anybody in particular and he does not wear rings on his first finger. These are all doubtless points in his favour, but they are meagre and we pine for a fuller knowledge. “ As far as I can make out,” Leonard observes with deep dissatisfaction, “ he is not anything : we have asked if he is almost everything under the sun, haven’t we?” “ Oh, dear, no,” May retorts warmly, “ for all I have said in denial of the charge, he might be pitted with small pox, or he might be deformed, or he might be his own grandson’s stepdaughter.” We all express our incredulity as to his accomplishing the last named feat, and oblige our sister to confess its im- probability; but beyond this we fail to get, and our curiosity concerning our future kinsman is rather whetted than allayed. “ The great question is how to amuse him when he is here,” Lisette remarks at luncheon, on the day preceding that of his arrival, “ we had better not risk his tiring of dear May before the time, and it is not easy to provide innocent employment for a man here in August.” “ In the first place we had better chasten Oscar for the entire period of his stay,” suggests May who perfectly concurs in the opinion that her charms alone will not suffice to his diversion. “ Yes, certainly he must be invited; will you write at once, Lisette ? ” father agrees. “ Or perhaps it would be better if Leonard were to ride over to Beaumonde first thing to-morrow. Eh ? ” Everyone thinks this plan the better one, and I have no opinion to offer. It is therefore carried out and next even- ing finds us seated round our festive board, our numbers augmented by my sisters present, and my own late, enamoured swain. Had not Leonard gone for him I am sure Oscar would have refused my father’s invitation but as it was he had little choice and his coming has not in the least surprised or taken me aback. I purposely came down to the drawing-room late and knew that there was no likelihood of my being paired off with him, youngest sister as I am, nor was I. By my side is Leonard, opposite me, May and her be- VERONICA’ S INTERLUDE 213 trothed, of whom anon, and facing father are Lisette and Oscar who are getting on excellently without my assistance. Leonard converses amicably between dishes, but his in- tervals are not quite so frequent or so long as mine and he naturally concentrates his attention on his food rather more than if I were some stranger dame; hence, I have the fuller leisure to look around and view the manners of my neigh- bours. Lord Slanach arrived only at dressing time so these are my first impressions of him and are decidedly favourable. He is about as old as Oscar and certainly good looking, and he laughs a good deal too which is benevolent in him considering the calibre of our jests : I noticed in the drawing- room that he and my own madly discarded love greeted as familiar friends, which is of course easily explainable, for have not both been staying ten days in the same house. Lord Slanach is not so much taken up with his prize as to be deaf to my little observations fired shrilly across the table through the desert and exotics : he seems indeed to appreciate my talents fully and I catch him pretty frequently observing me with an air of decided interest. After dinner he comes to where I sit in the drawing-room and enters into a pleasant little confidential talk, chiefly about Oscar whom he praises with an extraordinary warmth, and turns out to have known for some time. May ruthlessly disturbs our privacy and joins in our conversation remarking a good deal on Oscar’s late de- pression especially during his Berkshire visit. Finding the burden of their discussion becoming too heavy for me to bear I change my situation at the earliest oppor- tunity and leave my relatives to indulge in their painful wonderment alone. We have been sitting in a deep oriel window screened by the heavy folds of ample curtains and I now turn to join the general party in the room itself. The room however is empty, for they have all gone out through another window, which now stands open, and are sitting on the stone steps leading down into the garden talking and laughing cheerily. In the window sits Leonard with his back to me apparently asleep for his head is bowed down on his breast and he does not move a muscle. I walk cautiously towards him, taking care not to stumble over the chairs in the dark, for there is no light save the dim grey dusk that comes in from without, no candles being lighted, and presently stand beside him. 214 THE STORY OF OSCAR Before I have reached him however I discover my mis- take, for it is not Leonard but Oscar and abstain from my graceful prank such as I had meditated : as it is it is quite awkward enough, for he sits directly across the way I should have to go if I affected to be going out, and I can hardly now turn back. He is not asleep either, for at the sound of my step he raises his head and looks at me long and earnestly, trying to see me in the gloaming with but very poor success I should say. “ Do you want to pass ? ” he asks in a hurried excited voice, very unlike his usual steady decided accents. “ Please,” I murmur, thinking it best to go out to the others. “ Indeed I could not help coming here to-night,” he whispers as I pass him, bending low down to me and speak- ing still more eagerly, “ Leonard insisted, but I would only accept for to-night — I will go away to-morrow, early, if you like.” “ Oh, thanks,” I stammer, with my usual felicitous good sense, without one further word of explanation; and so leave him impressed with the belief that his absence is in my opinion the only desirable thing about him. CHAPTER XVI “ I cannot sleep, my fervid brain Wells up tbe vanished past again.’ ’ “But lived there ever any Writhed not at passed joy? To know the pain and feel it, When there is none to heal it, Nor numbed sense to steel it, W"as never said in rhyme.” We have taken leave of each other for the night, for one moment has my small hand rested tremblingly in Oscar’s, for one moment have my eyes met his and read in them the signs of a great deep sorrow, and now, alone in my own room, I have leisure to ponder on the past, the present and the future. My door is locked and I am free from interruption, so I am in no hurry to undress, but throw up the sash and look with dim eyes onto the calm sweet world lying tenderly asleep without, giving the reins to my own cheerless medita- tions the while. It is very still and peaceful outside for there is no sound but the lapping of the water on the strand of pebbles, and the chirping of crickets in the grass, besides far, far off the dull boom of the sea, breaking on the shore. A soft low breeze too is telling the tree tops something very important and mysterious, and they are whispering back their small rustling comments. The clean pure smell of night rises fresh and dewy to my grateful nostrils, and I lean my burning temples against the stone mullions of my window to rest after the wearing struggle of these last hours. My thoughts are calming themselves a little and I am just beginning to think of shutting the window and going to bed, when a rattling and knock at my door, scatters all my peace and with a sigh I cross the room to admit Lisette **5 I ■ ' ' ' •: - • ’ J 216 THE STOEY OF OSCAE who has come no doubt to discuss first impressions of our new kinsman. “ Well, what do you think of him ? ” she asks, as soon as the door is fairly closed and she has taken up her own position on my bed, a place that I particularly grudge her. “ He’ll be a credit to us, I think; what do you say? ” I express full approval of him and she continues : “ It’s odd he should be such an old friend of Oscar’s, isn’t it? Oscar says he knew of the whole affair months ago, but was solemnly sworn to secrecy by Slanach.” I feel called upon to offer no particular comment on this information, but request instead that my sister will evacuate my couch, which she distinctly declines to do. *' ‘ By the way,” she asks presently, “ why haven’t you begun to undress ? ” Then, seeing the open window : “ Ah, I perceive our sweet Veronica has been star-gazing : doubt- less the sight of May’s bliss has roused sad recollections of her ancient passion for the cow-boy. Is it not so ? ” I snort out an indignant denial and back my words by a dark allusion to my eldest sister’s own sole wooer, a mode of vengeance to which she has long become perfectly hardened. “ To cease our fooling, however,” she continues when I imagine that I have sufficiently rebutted her insinuations against myself, “ poor Oscar seems dreadfully cut up about it, does not he; I had no idea he would take it to heart so much, had you? ” It is absolutely necessary I should say something and I say brusquely : “ Take what to heart? ” “ May’s engagement, of course. I never thought he admired her really , did you? ” “ Nor does he,” I retort roughly, “ if he knew all about it all along, why should he be surprised now ? Probably he expected to get some decent food, though heaven knows he ought to know better by this time, and was cross because there were no peas with the ducks, or no capers with the boiled mutton.” You will see, my friends, that I prefer aspersing my lover unfairly to betraying myself. Lisette is rather inclined to my first argument, if private feeling blinds her to my second. After another ten minutes’ dilatory conversation I express a strong desire to go to bed and be freed of my sister’s VERONICA’S INTERLUDE 217 society : she accordingly departs and leaves me to privacy if not to peace. For half-an-hour more I stand by the open lattice peering out sadly over the moonlit mere across whose broad expanse of ink a quivering lane of dancing silver shoots : then tired of gazing, tired of my own joyless thoughts and tired of the long unhappy day, I turn to undress and court at least oblivion. But I, who usually am so sound, as Leonard calls it, so brutal a sleeper, can not to-night find one moment’s peace in forgetfulness. To begin with, Lisette has made my bed horribly un- comfortable and that is sufficient to fidget me very much, then too the night-silence is voiceful with a dozen sounds, small and faint and usually unheeded but now magnified by my nervous ear to a pitch of aggravation past all bearing. The chirp of the crickets outside, and the ticking of my own clock both nearly madden me; the one is soon silenced but to drown the other is past my power. So I toss from side to side, incessantly turning my pillow to the cool side which in a minute becomes hot necessitating another change equally infinal : and then the wretched mistakes and blunders of the past weeks throng in upon me, and assume an importance undreamt of by day. I have more leisure now to recall forgotten instances of his affection for me, to live over again the brief moments of my betrothal and those torturing minutes to which I discovered the fatal monogram and wrote my love the only letter he has ever had from me; and so recalling all sleep flies from me and I lie in keenest painfullest wakefulness alive to all that I would fain be most oblivious of. Now too comes over me the thought that my present sufferings are to be perpetual and that time will bring no blessed salve for them as for other wounds; for I shall see him day after day, and so seeing what likelihood is there of my forgetting my love and living down the thought that once I might have been his, that happiness lay in my grasp, only I turned away in my blind idiocy and left it untasted ? Meeting him in common intercourse like this, will I not have a daily martyrdom to suffer, a daily wolf to hold close close to my breast, lest anyone should spy it out, as it gnaws my veiy vitals all unseen, and I be powerless to cast it from me or utter any cry ? I am many bad things, no doubt, but I am not jealous I think, and yet the sight of May’s quiet happiness drives 218 THE STORY OF OSCAR me half mad as I look upon it; he whom I might have had for my own true love is so far above out of the sight of her good honest lover, and I, worthless unimportant as I am, have cast him from me for ever. All through the night my busy thoughts work on the same dull theme, and give me not any rest; not long after I lay down I heard the church clock strike out one, and now hour after hour has dragged heavily by and still my eyes gaze wearily out into the dim obscurity and my excited brain throbs madly and painfully against my burning temples, whose pulses beat hot and quick, with the passionate heat of fever. It is nearly an hour since three o’clock struck, affording me a blest relief in the slight variety that chimes, instead of plain tolling, gave, for our church bells play every three hours, the “ Blue Bells of Scotland,” with but scant atten- tion, it is true, to flats, yet well enough for us. 4 4 Oh where, and oh where, is your Highland laddie gone? ” they ask in unseemly gibe at me who wear the willow, and proceed forthwith to give their own account of his de- parture. Would, would it were true, for then, peradventure, he might, nay certainly he would, return if that were all; but now, he is “ so near and yet so far,” so near that I cannot bear his presence, and so far that I cannot, for all my passionate longing, bring him back again. The dawn is shewing in the east, and the day is breaking cold and dreary; a strong north wind has arisen in the night and moans now in the old chimney stacks and rustles ghastlily among the aspens in the shrubbery; I think, in- voluntarily, of their horrible story and shudder too in superstitious sympathy. « 1 That thought reminds me though of Him, Who is said to be so very loving to all His little children, so tender with £ the weak and helpless, and so piteous to them who are in j any manner of grief or pain. Above my washing-stand hangs a little book-case and over that a good big illumination, an early triumph of [J Lisette’s pictorial genius; it represents a stubby cross hewn apparently out of a milestone, and planted on a hill; 0 prostrate before it lies a dishevelled person of no particular sex, or age, or country, lapt seemingly in a deep sleep, ri really engaged in prayer. VERONICA’S INTERLUDE 219 Above his head, sustained by atmospheric pressure alone, hover the words : “ Commit thy way unto the Lord and He will bring it to pass.” On this work of art and religion my eyes now fall in- voluntarily, and homely as it is in every way, it holds my attention for a moment. Why should I not commit my way unto the Lord, as well as yon seeming inebriate ? I have done my poor, poor best to abstain from offending against His most dread sovereignty, and more than that I have not known to do. At least my conscience is clear, even though I be not supported by the memory of good service done, and why should not I too be heard, when He is, as they say, so eager to be entreated. I rise from my easeless couch and after brushing back the hair from my burning brow, and plunging my face into icy water, cast myself passionately upon my knees and pour forth my whole sore heart, in wild unthinking entreaty to the great All Father, so high up, so immeasurably out of all our reach, and yet, as they ever tell us, so near and accessible to all the lowest. A long while passes thus and I rise at last wearied with the fierceness of my passion, and the energy of my own persistence; here at least is one answer to my prayer at once, for the deep unrest and vividness of feeling are both numbed and I feel already calmer and more strong. The window is still open and I go to it now to watch the day break and listen to the gloomy voices of the dying night, the hoarse murmur of the chilly blast and the dull boom of the far off sea. After I have stood thus a good while there comes ever me a strong desire to visit the place of my most transient bliss, the sad scene of my moment’s betrothal, and to sit again beneath the gloom of that ancient cedar tree, now when there is none to see and no ear at all to hear, what I may have to say to the ghost of my murdered happiness. I dress therefore, and, as it will soon be growing light, make all haste, only too happy to say goodbye to the night that has been so long and hideous, though it be but to enter on another day as unbearable perhaps as yesterday. Then I open my door stealthily and slow, dreading to rouse any one of those whose prying eyes are not so safely sealed, and fancy in doing so that I hear a slight rustle as of footsteps, retreating round the corner of the corridor. 220 THE STORY OF OSCAR Instantly I forget all my sentimental woes, all my broken heart and willow wreath, in vivid overmastering terror. I start back into my room securely bolting the door while hideous visions of burglars flit across my fertile brain; for a few moments the ludicrousness of it does not strike me, then in spite of myself I am diverted at the prospect of a young woman but now considering existence her chief est woe and now in unreasoning fright at a fancied danger to that despised life. Cautiously I open the door again and remembering that Oscar is in the house, begin with mock assurance to call his dog Lenath in a husky whisper : to my intense surprise the animal really comes and rubs his huge head lovingly against me, following me in my stealthy passage down the stairs and out into the garden. Then I stoop down and kiss his sleek soft coat, murmur- ing inarticulate messages to his master the while. CHAPTER XVII “ Morning arises stormy and pale, No sun, but a wannish glare In fold upon fold of hue less cloud, And the budded peaks of the wood are bow’d, Caught and cuff’d by the gale : I had fancied it would be fair.” “ Oh that ’twere possible After long grief and pain, To find the arms of my true love Round me once again ! ” The air is damp and cold, and the grass is dripping wet with dew, a thin bluish fog too broods over the lake and writhes and twists its pale arms upward as one in extremest anguish; I shudder as the deathly chill of the grey unhappy morning creeps over me, and draw closer the warm fur cloak that hangs loosely round my shoulders. I am soon beneath the cedars and find there shelter at least from the sharp breeze, though the fogs from the lake rise thicker there and grow denser every moment. At first I can see nearly across the mere to where the woods loom dark against a leaden sky, but soon they are I blurred over by the creeping clouds of grey, and finally are shut out from sight. Nearer and nearer crawls the stealthy mist, writhing and twisting upward as it comes, until at length the very shore is wrapped in its mysterious mantle, and I turn to find the house and garden gradually becoming swathed also in its deathlike folds. I do not regret it much since it ensures to me still more perfect privacy, for were all the household to be gazing out of the window now, they would fai} to distinguish me, and I am therefore freer even than before to indulge my vagrant I fancies. I For a long time I am content to gaze out over the mys- t terious waste of waters and fog bank, but then at last I i weary of their monotonous gloom and turn away with a 222 THE STORY OF OSCAR dreary sigh, born partly of my own joyless imaginings and partly of the melancholy grey dawn. Then I seat myself beneath the old tree, whose branches cast forth their weird fingers into the mist above my head, and with my chin upon my hands stare moodily upon the ground, reddened by the fallen needles’ of half a hundred years. With all my seeming sadness I am not so miserable as I was last night, my heart feels lighter, albeit it is still sore and sorrowful, and my grief is not denied the solace of sweet tears. No, they come thick and fast, and roll gently down my cold cheek unheeded and undried, bringing in their un- checked flow most sweet relief. I have sat thus half-an-hour at least, and am well-nigh penetrated with the damp and chill, so that a strong shivering seizes me and my feet are numbed, when the dull thud of a heavy foot upon the grass strikes upon my ear and I lift my head instinctively to peer in vain through the dense mist in the direction whence it comes. It does not cease or lessen but grows louder and comes nearer, and very soon I recognise it and know that it is Oscar who is at hand. Then his tall figure looms largely through the fog and he comes upon me, startled and sur- prised to find that I too am mourning on the scene of our late wooing. “ You here ! ” he exclaims with a world of unrestrained astonishment in look and voice. “ Why should I not be here? ” I ask with a dreary sprightliness. “ If I were inclined to be rude I might ask what may be your business here ? 99 He does not seem much diverted by my pleasantry, nor, to say truth, does my own voice sound over jocund in my ears. I dare not look him in the face with these tear-blurred eyes, but keep them well cast down upon the dank earth, that is not more wet than they : nor can I trust my voice yet in any lengthy speech, for it is tremulous and quaver- ing, and I dread his detecting its lugubrious accents. I feel a hysterical longing to weep come over me, for I who am wont to be so void of tears, so hardly moved to grief, am weak and spiritless with my long and cheerless vigil, and feel no power of resistance, no strength of will at all, only a weary, broken-hearted wretchedness. “ I think I will go in,” I murmur; “ it is getting so VERONICA’S INTERLUDE 223 cold.” And a strong shudder running through me con- firms my statement. But he is careless of my feelings to-day and does not heed my discomfort. 6 6 You have borne with the cold a good while it should seem,” he says brusquely, with a glance at my draggled plumes and dew-diamonded locks. “ Suppose you try and bear with it a little longer? It would be rude to go away the moment I come and — and I want you to stop.” I feel too spiritless for argument, much too weak and tired to assert my own wish, and so just sit still gazing gloomily out into the mist. For a time we sit silent, side by side on the reeking wood- lousy old bench, and Oscar digs deep pits in the sods at our feet with the end of his stick, casting as I can plainly feel occasional glances at my half-averted face. It occurs to me, in a hazy sort of manner, that I ought to offer some account of my presence here at this uncanny hour on such a wretched morning too, and I turn towards him mechanically and say feebly : “ I had a headache, you know, and my room felt so stuffy, I thought it would be nice and cool out here.” He does not deem this monstrous absurdity worthy of either refutation or remark, but maintains for the nonce a stolid silence. I do not care particularly; it seems to me that I have tried to fulfil my duty in explaining at all, and am in- different to the reception my explanation may meet with. “ What do you think of Slanach ? ” he asks presently, more by way of making a beginning, it appears, than from any deep interest in my opinion of his friend. “ I think he seems very nice; don’t you ? ” I answer languidly. “ Well, I know he is very nice, you see, for we have been friends a good while.” “ You knew then that he was in love with May, and she with him? ” “ Of course, yes; I often thought of telling you, then it struck me it would not be fair.” “ No, it would have been rather low, would not it? ” I make reply, and again we drop into utter silence. Would to heaven he had been but guilty of that most pardonable breach of confidence, then how different, oh how different, would my own life be. “ It is an odd morning for sitting out-of-doors, an hour 224 THE STORY OF OSCAR after sunrise, isn’t it? ” he asks after another pause, with an uneasy mirthless laugh. “ You must wonder why I came here ? 99 “ No — I don’t think I thought at all about it,” I reply, s indifferently. “ I came,” he continues, ignoring my remark, but frowning slightly, “ because I wanted to sit once more where I sat on that day; as people go, you know, to visit their friends grave; this is my own grave, and it is also the grave of one I used to know — long ago — who has died and only left a ghost behind.” I may well look astonished, and I do so look, turning on my companion wide eyes of big surprise, but vouch- safing no further comment on his mad ravings. “What do you mean?” I say at length, in stupid astonishment. “ Is it possible 99 he asks fiercely, “ that you can pre- tend not to remember, not to remember this , for instance ? ” ■ And he tears open his coat, thrusting his hand into his breast, whence he brings forth a small and crumpled bit of paper, which he holds out for me to take. I recognize it well enough, yet half mechanically I take it and run my eye slowly through its contents, which run thus : j 44 I cannot do as you ask me; and I am thunderstruck at your , asking me. You must know why.” Then I give it him back, saying gently : ij * “ Yes, I remember that well enough.” My heart is in my throat and chokes me with its wild J beatings. Oh God, give me strength to bear this, to 1 betray nothing through my weakness now 1 He takes the letter and tears it passionately in pieces and trampling it down into the dank earth with his heel; thank heaven he is not watching me, does not notice the 1 death pallor that I feel creeping over my whole body, from , my wan face downwards. Presently his mood changes, for he looks up and in a 1 voice eager indeed, but calm and sad, asks : “ May we not at least be friends; may we not still be together? ” “ Yes, we may be friends,” I answer with a mighty ^ effort, holding my chilled hands tight clenched beneath , I VERONICA’S INTERLUDE 225 my cloak, so that the nails dig sharp and deep into the numbed flesh. “ Yes, we may be friends.” “ Why did you write like that ,” he now asks with a scornful gesture to indicate the tom up note. “ Why did you not come and tell me, to my face, that you did not love me, could not love me ? 99 “ Because,” I reply despairingly, feeling that the battle is becoming too hard for me, “ because — it did not seem to me necessary; I thought that enough.” His angry eyes are fastened on me now, and I shrink from him in real terror, trembling horribly with anguish and the horrid dread of breaking down, but he seems too excited to notice all these things. “ But it was not enough,” he says fiercely. “ Not nearly enough : to blast a man’s whole happiness, whole happiness, I tell you, with that ! 99 And his sentence dies unfinished in the energy of his anger and disdain. I rise to my feet, tottering feebly; I can bear it all no longer, my head swims round and a loud singing, singing noise is in my ears : he springs up also, and I say, piteously : 66 Oh, let me be, do, do, let me alone : why can’t you let things rest; I have done you no injury . . .” “ No injury? ” he cries hotly, breaking in upon my un- finished speech, “ God knows you have ! ” “ I am sorry,” I murmur through my fast-falling tears, grasping the bole of the old tree for support. “ I never, never did you any harm willingly. I had no reason, I had no grudge against you.” “ If you would not try to love me, why did you not say so ? ” he asks passionately. “ Say it now, I command you; tell me why you will have none of me, and I will leave you, as you ask.” “ There was no need,” I stammer, weeping; “ all the trying in the world could not make me love you any more . . .” I am falling, my feet have slid from under me and my head is dizzy, I stretch out uiy arms to save myself, but he catches them and holds me up. I don’t understand,” he whispers huskily into my ear. “ You do not hate me then, I am not unbearable to you ? ” “ Oscar, Oscar, do not be so cruel, I love you, oh I love you, darling only . . .” All consciousness flies, and held in the arms of my own true love, I lie as one dead, pale and chill, but I have 8 226 THE STORY OF OSCAR found my rest, and in that dear haven, I may safely hide until the light of life stirs me once again and my soul’s windows open to let in the full blazing sun of love, that has veiled his glory hitherto for me and him I have chosen as my awn. CHAPTER XVIII “ I have led her home, my love, my only friend, There is none like her, none. And never yet so warmly ran my blood And sweetly, on and on, Calming itself to the long-wished-for end, Full to the banks, close on the promised good.” “ If I were loved, as I desire to be, What is there in the great sphere of the earth And range of evil between death and birth, That I should fear — If I were loved by thee? ” ” ’Twere joy not fear, claspt hand in hand with thee, To wait for death — mute — careless of all ills.” And so our troth is plighted and most demurely we walk indoors from the place of our meeting to tell the others. He has led me home and is leaving me, his face all radiant with a mighty joy, and I fear with the reflex of my own. “ You will tell them now — at once ? ” he asks eagerly. “ May I tell Leonard? 99 “ No, no,” I answer jealously. No one shall tell any of my dear old brothers and sisters, with whom I have been so happy all these years, but I who am most con- cerned. “ No, I will tell them all.” It is shamefully early, the housemaids are just opening the drawing-room shutters and the stairs are still in gloom. But I dash wildly up them and put my head in at Lisette’s door, saying peremptorily : “ Put on your dressing-gown and come to father’s room at once, I’ve something to say to you.” “ What is it? ” she asks guiltily. “ Has he found out that the calf died last night? ” “ No, no, no ! You stupid person, be quick, do.” And I hurry off fearful of being questioned and knock up May likewise, then Leonard and finally I dash into father’s room and kiss his eyelids till he wakes. 227 228 THE STORY OF OSCAR ‘ i What do you want, my dear child? ” he grunts drowsily. “ Is anything the matter? Do you want the key of the post-bag? It is on the dressing table.” “ Wake up, wake up, you horrible old man, ,, I cry administering an arousing thump or two; “ I don’t in the least want anything. But da keep awake, please.” To ensure his so doing I go and pull up the blinds and let in the daylight which I am not careful to do over noise- lessly. At last he seems nearly safe and lies looking at me with an infinite boredom as I bustle about and chatter volubly. Presently a shuffling sound along the corridor warns me of Lisette’s approach, and Leonard shortly follows, May bringing up the rear in a much more picturesque garb. May has an idea that a scene of some sort is about to be enacted and determines to be fitly accoutred. “ Are you all here ? ” I ask with needless suspicion. “ Well then, listen, and try not to yawn so loudly, Lisette, it interrupts me.” I speak with such an unwonted authority that my eldest sister forgets herself and obeys. All their eyes are fastened on me and Leonard is beginning to whisper something to May : whatever it is, I ; determine it shall be nipped in the bud. “ Hold your tongue, Leonard, and listen, will you ? ” I command, sitting down discomfortably on the pre- cipitous edge of my parent’s bed, and wondering if I look at all like May did when she announced her engagement to us. Father’s looking-glass is just opposite, so I have the means of resolving my doubt ready to hand. “ My dear child,” says father, “ what is all this mystery about ? Have you broken something of value and come to confess it in the face of the people? If so, ] whatever it is I forgive it on condition you instantly all go away : break whatever you like only don’t confess it i and don’t mend it.” j 1 “ Father,” I begin, feeling very small and young and 1) foolish, and laying my head down by his on the pillow so that my face is turned away from the others, “ I am no j longer a child of seventeen but a person engaged to be married.” ; s He answers nothing but kisses my forehead fondly and | 'j puts the big arm round my little absurd body. “ Look up,” demands Leonard. “ We can’t hear what r you say.” . I VERONICA’S INTERLUDE 229 “ It’s not much consequence, ” I say shamefacedly with a transparent attempt at depreciating the value of my own intelligence, and looking up as adjured. “ Only that I am engaged to be married. 5 ’ “ Nonsense ! You’re not,” they cry in a breath, starting up from their places with widely opened eyes. “ I am though : and it’s not nonsense,” I retort with some pique. “ I don’t see anything so extraordinary in it.” “ You were always sanguine. Your judgment is biassed,” observes Leonard; “ And who’s Mr. Veronica, if we may ask ? ” (dear eyes) “ Yes, dear, who is it? ” asks father with a kind, proud light in his. 6 6 Father,” I make answer vaguely, “ you will be two dowager countesses. It is Oscar.” It is rather hard : they all burst out into uncontrollable laughter. Even father, and finally I join in myself and cackle with the best of them. “ My goodness,” chokes Leonard when the first storm has assuaged, “ the heads of the family will be perfectly bristling with coronets, won’t they.” “ I shall advertize in to-morrow’s ‘ Times ’ for an eligible Duke,” adds Lisette, lavishing convulsed embraces on my yielding form. “ And as for me,” declares Leonard, “ I shall not stoop to wed unless the heiress apparent of all the Russias, if such an one there be, herself solicits me in marriage.” Again we all giggle in friendly concert, so utter and over- whelming is our honest surprise at finding ourselves such a matrimonial success. “ But you are indecently young, both of you,” objects , , Lisette, eyeing my scant proportions with impartial criti- l cism. “ At all events I am not so bad as the girl in Miss Yonge’s book who espoused on her eleventh birthday a I! lord of two additional summers.” “ Who’s to be married first ? You or I ? ” asks May ) brazenly. “ Oh, you of course. We are in no hurry. Besides I shall insist on Oscar’s going through with Oxford, and it besides, oh besides, I don’t at all want to be married .” “ Defective morals ! ” laughs Leonard. “ But you are i | right. I should continue engaged as long as possible, h It is far better.” 230 THE STORY OF OSCAR Father is stroking my hands tenderly and looking half glad half grave; he is such a good dear father and our going will be no unmixed joy for him. “ I shall drive over and tell Lady Chamner, I think,” he says presently, seeing that we are becoming rather maudlin and affectionate; “ you know she always used to tell me I had better get a tutor for Leonard, who might elope with May and then insist on Lisette’s apostatizing and marrying a curate.” BOOK III THE AUTHOR’S EPILOGUE Sagt wo ist das M&dchen hin, Das, weil ich’s erblikte, Sich mit demuthsvollen Sinn Zu den Yeilchen biickte? J tingling, alle Schftnkeit flieht Auch das Madchen ist verbliikt. O quam cito transit gloria Mundi ! De Im : Ch CHAPTER I “ Well I agree, ye’re sure of me, Next to my father gae; Make him content to give consent — He’ll hardly say ye Nay : For you have what he would be at And will commend ye weel.” “ My dear Veronica,” Leonard observed to his sister the day after her engagement was sealed, 66 you will be an indecently young couple : if I were you I should feel like one of Miss Yonge’s heroines, who, you will remember, are wont to espouse upon their thirteenth birthday lords of even tenderer years.” “ Don’t jump to conclusions,” Veronica calmly replied. “ We shall be by no means such chickens when 6 all is over,’ as Oscar put it; for he is going to take his degree and I therefore shall be bidding a long farewell to my teens by the time my wedding day arrives.” “ I will keep an eye on him, fair child, when he is out of your sight, and beset by the allurements of alien charms,” her brother was so good as to promise. “ We are determined,” she continued, loftily ignoring the insulting proposition, “ we are determined to get as much fun as possible out of being engaged, before turning to marriage as a last resort.” This loose decision was universally approved by the com- pany, May declaring that she would give anything not to be married oft, or “ killed off ” as she put it, so soon, but that her swain was inexorable. “ Of course,” she added, “ there is not quite the same reason for us to wait, for we have left school you see.” “ That you certainly have,” Lisette assented, “ not yesterday either.” “ For my part,” Veronica remarked coolly, “ I don’t 233 234 THE STORY OF OSCAR think the casual observer would ever discover that you had been there.” It is needless to say that Colonel Byron received Oscar, j who went at once to ask for his formal permission and congratulations, with warm cordiality, for the young man had been a great favourite of his from the beginning of their acquaintance, and was in every respect a most welcome suitor. “ I wish you all joy,” the father had said, grasping Oscar’s honest hand in his, “ and you are lucky too : for our little Veronica is a good child and will be a true wife to you, I know, as she has been a most loving, loving daughter to me. Good daughters make good wives, they say, you know, and most certainly not one of my poor motherless children have ever given me an hour’s anxiety : so, my dear boy, I welcome you heartily among us, and trust you will find us as true friends as we have already found you.” Oscar hardly knew how to show his great appreciation of his kindly friend’s reception of his suit, and could only return the hearty pressure of the older man’s hand and murmur a few words of gratitude. “ You have given me,” he said, “ the great treasure that I was so bold as to demand, stranger as I have been until so lately, and more than that no one could do for me. I will try to deserve your kindness.” On the afternoon of that same day, as soon as luncheon was over, the whole party removed to the cedar tree, where, stretched out at ease on rugs and soft luxurious chairs, they prepared to spend a delicious but lazy time out of the blinding sun and heat with the soft breeze from the lake breathing cool and fresh upon their faces, while 1 Veronica read aloud the ever-delightful “ Vicar of Wake- field.” c Now and then, when she looked up from the book, she met her lover’s eyes and smiled back upon a happy smile of most supreme content; but Oscar by no means con- fined his entire attention to her, for he was just the same amusing companion to them all as he had been before the days of wooing, and did not in the least think that the fact of his being betrothed to one of the family was any excuse for neglect of the rest. J This was just what Veronica wished and intended; their J engagement was to last so long that lover manners would THE AUTHOR’S EPILOGUE 235 have soon rendered them intolerable to their peers, and our little heroine was far too fond of her own people to be inclined to give up all their pleasant converse for that of her new lord alone. 4 6 I believe,” Leonard said in a cautiously modulated tone, interrupting his sister for about the fiftieth time, 44 that someone has come to call. Didn’t you hear wheels just now, and, look, someone is sitting far back from the light in the drawing-room.” 44 Here comes the trusty John; he will doubtless end our suspense.” 44 I believe it is Lady Chamner; she has not called for over a week,” Veronica gloomily prophesied. By this time John was close at hand and lifting up his voice as though to announce someone really present, and addressing no one in particular, he said : 44 Lady Chamner, mum,” and wheeled round to go his way. 44 I told you so,” Veronica observed. 44 You ought to have prayed, dear, that it might not have been her,” Oscar suggested with a smile of recol- lection that much displeased his love, who had never felt quite certain as to what had been his real feelings on that day. 44 Of course I shall have to go and bear the brunt of her counterfeit charms,” Lisette remarked resignedly getting up and brushing the cedar needles from her gown, 44 but I have no idea of doing it alone. Peradven- ture I shall find one righteous man in all this assembly who will keep the bridge with me.” 44 I seldom heard a metaphor so mixed,” Veronica laughed, 44 but for all that I will go with you.” 44 You shall represent me then,” Oscar said with decision. 44 And me.” 44 And me.” So Lisette and Veronica went together and found their aged friend, attired in garb of virgin white, sourly await- ing their advent with all the outward semblance of having overheard the late discussion. It was very clear from her pre-occupied manner that Lady Chamner had come with a purpose, and this soon declared itself. 44 What is all this nonsense that I hear about one of you being engaged ? ” she asked as soon as the first lull 236 THE STORY OF OSCAR gave her an opportunity of proposing her question. “ I suppose there’s no truth in it. Eh, my dear.” “ There’s no truth in saying that only one of us is engaged to be married,” Veronica very coolly replied, no whit moved by the old woman’s vinegar aspect and in- quisitatorial demeanour, “ for two of us are.” “ Two of you ! ” cried Lady Chamner incredulously, “ and which two ? I declare you delight me.” “ I am afraid, Lady Chamner, you will not have to congratulate me,” laughed Lisette good humouredly. “ Veronica and May are the brides-elect.” The old woman’s assertion that she was delighted at the intelligence singularly belied her expression, which was the reverse of benignant. “ I suppose,” she said, however, “ that the names of the gentlemen are to be kept a secret for the present? ” “ No, I don’t think they are,” Lisette answered. “ May is engaged to Lord Slanach, whom you don’t yet know, I think.” “ No,” Lady Chamner admitted reluctantly, and then added : “ An Irish peer, no doubt? ” “ No, English.” “ H’m. You surprise me! this is news indeed.” “ And my ‘ gentleman ’ is there, you see,” put in Veronica brazenly, nodding her head with her native grace in the direction of Oscar, who, armed with a tennis bat, was standing out in the full blaze of the light, evidently engaged in a dramatic representation of Lady Chamner herself : unfortunately he was ignorant that though he for his part could see nothing through the Venetian shutters, he was entirely visible from behind them. “ Ah, for this I was quite prepared,” said Lady Chamner with a sweet smile. “ We all saw how you had set your heart on it. Didn’t we, my dear Lisette? I must really go and congratulate him in person, on the spot; come, let us go, my dears.” And the shutters were thrown open, causing Oscar to retreat precipitately and desist from his pantomimic exer- cises, and they all three strolled leisurely across the grass to the cedar tree. “ You know I am a privileged person,” Lady Chamner observed to Oscar, after the introduction to Lord Slanach had been got through, and speaking in an ostentatious aside. “ So you must allow me to cond-gratulate you THE AUTHOR’S EPILOGUE 237 at once on this event. We have been old friends this twenty years, haven’t we, my dear Veronica? ” “ Oh dear, yes,” replied that maiden flippantly; “ we played together in our youth and bit the same coral, always dressed our dolls in the same colours and so on ! Didn’t we? ” CHAPTER II “ Passion-pale they met And greeted : hands in hands, and eye to eye, . . it was their last hour A madness of farewells And then they pass’d to the divided way, There kiss’d, and parted weeping : for he past.” It was the ninth of October, and Oscar was to go back to Oxford on the tenth. They had, of course, wanted him to spend those last days at the Moat and go with Leonard, but he had a visitor at Beaumonde who was also an Oxonian and, like some- thing left undone, “ Waits and will not go away,” and so that was impossible. Oscar therefore had promised to ride over to the Moat that night to take his leave, and for this it was that Veronica waited. Veronica, who was usually so demure and unexcitable, was restless and ill at ease all that day; she dreaded most unutterably the parting from her lover, and yet she wished for it to have taken place and all be over. Twice she had been deluded, long before he could pos- sibly have arrived, into thinking he was come, and had been disappointed to find the riders were only her brothers, Leonard and Hugh. At last, after tea was over, she felt as though she could stay indoors no longer and, putting on an old rough straw hat that she knew Oscar liked, strolled out, leaving a message that she should walk down to the sea. It took her nearly half-an-hour at her slow rate of walk- ing to get down to the sandy beach that stretched so far along the rock-bound coast on either hand. All day long there had been a warm October sun, and hardly a cloud had varied the sky’s deep grey-blue, and * 3 * THE AUTHOR’S EPILOGUE 239 not a breath of wind had stirred the deep stillness of that first beginning of the leaves 5 death-hour. Very far out towards the glowing west surged the great sea, changing ever, never changing, a liquid waste of molten gold, barred by long lines of frothy silver. Idly it took its ease, rolling slow and majestic beneath the sun’s low-slanting rays; hardly a sound came from it, save the soft mysterious swirl of the foam upon the sand, that seemed now to be most infinitely distant. The low tide was past and now the never resting waters were beginning once more to creep in with stealthy tread upon the land, just as they did of old before any living thing swam in their fearful depths, just as they will here- after when you and I, and our children to a hundred generations, have gone with weeping to our own place for- ever. Veronica walked along the solitary beach where no human footprint had marked the sand since last high tide had washed it clean, where now was not a living thing but such half living creatures as the weird sea flowers, clinging to rocks and pining for the back coming of the tide, and a few gulls shrieking aloud their hoarse welcome also to the yet distant waters. But Veronica cared for none of these things, her only thought was of him, for whom she waited, from whom so soon she was to part, and whom also she would see no more for so many a long week : she was not herself that night and as she pondered of the coming loneli- ness, her heart grew very sore, and her throat was choked by a horrid lump that had arisen most unbidden and refused to go away. Veronica was very much more in love that night than she had been two months before when she deemed her love lost for ever. She had walked a good way with downcast head when she heard the dull thud of a horse’s hoofs in the damp sand and looking up saw her lover drawing near. He looked very little more jovial than herself, and neither he nor she could summon a very successful smile at greeting. “ Veronica,” he said, stooping down to kiss her upturned face, “ I believe you have been crying; can you deny it? ” “ I shan’t try,” she answered gloomily. By that time he had got down and was standing by her side. “ This time to-morrow,” he said, “ you may be riding i 240 THE STORY OF OSCAR the bay yourself; he is to be sent over to the Moat first thing to-morrow. 55 “ I know, 55 she whimpered; “ don’t remind me of it, it 5 s not at all necessary. 55 ' “ Is that your idea of a suitable gratitude for my kind- ness ? 55 “ I don’t j feel grateful, not the least grateful : why can’t you send that wretched horse to Oxford and stop here your- self ? ” “ It would be rather hard on him to have to take his degree at his time of life, wouldn’t it? ” Oscar asked with a pseudo-merriment that was eminently undeceptive. “ No, it wouldn’t,” Veronica replied with gloomy com- bativeness. “ Not the least hard, so there.” “ So where ? ” “ For heaven’s sake don’t try to be humorous,” she exclaimed scornfully. “ You have no idea how poor a figure you make.” This time Oscar’s laugh was real enough and presently Veronica’s own face relaxed into a reluctant smile. They were walking on towards the next break in the rocks that led up to the higher country inland, a road which would be Oscar’s best way of getting back to Beaumonde, and from which a footpath over the fields went direct to the Moat House. “ After all,” he said, “ it is a very short time, isn’t it, only about six weeks, you know? ” “ I don’t know what you call a short time,” Veronica grumbled. “ I call it years : six weeks is forty-two days.” “ Really ! Your arithmetic seems to be looking up.” “ Don’t interrupt; especially if you have nothing of importance to say. It is six days, I tell you, I mean six weeks, and fifty-two days, that is a thousand and eight hours, and . . .” “ And how many minutes ? ” Oscar asked with interest. “ I don’t quite know,” she was obliged to admit. “ I can’t do it in my head; if you have a pencil about you, I’ll work it out on my cuff.” But he had not a pencil about him and consequently this grave question remained forever unresolved. “ However, that doesn’t matter so much,” Veronica remarked, “ for in any case one couldn’t be accurate two minutes together, you see.” “ Do you really pretend you’ll miss me? ” he asked THE AUTHOR’S EPILOGUE 241 most inexcusably considering how he had affected to make light of the subject. “ No, I don’t pretend,” she retorted angrily; “ it’s only you that pretends “ And you’ll write to me ? ” he continued, laughing. “ You can write I believe.” “ I’ve already written to you once,” she replied spite- fully. “ I wonder you don’t remember.” Then they walked on in utter silence for a space, Oscar leading his noble horse by the rein with one hand, while with the other arm he held close to his side the little maiden from whom it grieved him so to part. Her eyes were mostly turned on the far-off sea and his were bent upon the ground, but now and then they met as by a common instinct and each gazed deep into the other’s heart, reading there only fondest most regretful love. “ Suppose,” suggested Oscar half gloomily and half mis- s chievously, “ suppose we were never to see each other again, eh? ” “ I won’t suppose any such thing,” she cried passion- ately. “ I wonder how you can dare be so wicked; I shouldn’t be at all surprised if it were to come true now and something were to happen; it would be a judgment on you.” “ The Deity would seem,” he answered with a certain scorn, “ to amuse His leisure a good deal in that way, by all accounts : I remember hearing once of a man who, otherwise well conducted enough, remarked casually at tea that he did not see any possibility of an accident occurring at such a time, on which he was overtaken by the judgment of heaven and fell forward into the slop- basin and was drowned; or no, that was another story, I i think this man swallowed the sugar tongs and was choked.” I “ I believe,” Veronica scathingly made reply, “ that you put your original absurd and wicked hypothesis purely with a view to the narration of that gross and puerile fable.” 1 Oscar merely laughed lightly and they continued their | walk in silence till they had left the beach far below and had come to the place of final parting where they stood to say farewell. Down very far beneath them the broad expanse of sand glowed redder in the dying sun, and the sea, much nearer now, was flushed with his gorgeous beams of rosy gold : 242 THE STORY OF OSCAR behind, the little rugged path by which they had climbed up, wound out of sight round a jutting block of granite, and in front a little grove of sombre firs shut in the view. Not any beast or bird was there in sight, still less any man or child, and there was an infinite loneliness : to the left Veronica’s footpath leading to the Moat turned sharp aside over the breezy headland, and straight ahead Oscar’s bridle road struck straight through the gloom of the pine wood. Veronica’s tears fell fast and thick and Oscar’s own voice grew unsteady as he looked upon her grief, which he did I not even try to calm, save only by murmuring very tenderly, as he pressed his lips to her forehead : “ Poor little Veronica, my poor child-mistress.” “ I know it’s horrid of me to go on like this,” she sobbed, smiling through her tears, “ but indeed, indeed I can’t help it.” I “ Of course you can’t, poor little thing, don’t mind, dear; it is better you should cry now, when I am here to dry up your tears with kisses, than when I am gone and you are all alone.” “ Just as if I shall not cry then too,” she whimpered. “ I shall never stop till you are safe back again. Never. , How can I live without you all those weeks ? I have j always been most wretched when you have not stayed so s long as usual, how shall I manage now? ” “ We can write, you know, darling — every day.” “ Oh, yes, we can write,” she retorted disdainfully, ^ “ but what compensation is that — I didn’t fall in love with j a copy-book." j The precise meaning involved in this reply may not seem ^ at once apparent, but Oscar understood and indeed agreed with it. “ And now, I really will go,” he said at last, seeing that her grief was by no means lessening and fearing she would j ( wear herself out with weeping. “ So good-bye, good-bye, good-bye.” J For a few passionate moments he clasped her close to ^ his heart and whispered eloquentest vows of love and then ,,, he mounted and was gone. « And so they parted and Veronica was left alone. If you are inclined to laugh at her grief, I ask you to ^ call to mind some parting of your own from one you loved : j if you have ever gone through such an one you will know the hopeless anguish of it, you will recall the literal sore- fl THE AUTHOR’S EPILOGUE 243 ness of heart that came from the one word “ farewell ”; you will bring to mind how all things seemed about to lose their charm and joy for ever, and how it seemed as though you could never be really glad again until the one you lost should be restored unto you whole. After ten minutes of regretful gazing on the way by which he had gone, Veronica arose from the ground on which she had been sitting with hands claspt upon her lap and passed rapidly along the road through the little wood until she came out again upon the open moorland across which he must have gone. He had ridden fast and his horse looked very small far away across the heather as it cantered jovially along un- heeding of its master’s heavy heart. “ Good-bye, good-bye ! ” she cried, stretching out her hands as though to call him back and following him with eager eyes. Of course he could not hear her calling at that distance, but by some unaccountable impulse he turned in his saddle at that very moment and saw her small figure, in its light summer raiment, in keen relief against the sable shadow of the dense pine grove behind. Lifting high his stalwart arm he waved a crimson handkerchief that fluttered merrily in the brisk evening breeze and continued so to signal to his love till a dip in the road carried him out of her sight. Then with slow reluctant foot she turned and began to trace her own homeward way first through the wood and then out across the uplands, now yellowed by the strange light of the departed sun, reflected from the flaming heavens. For me I hate your gorgeous sunsets, out upon their garish gloom. Of all things that God made they alone seem to me not very good. No sooner have they flaunted forth their flaming banners, all of gold and red and royal purple, than, quick as thought, quicker than we can say enraptured, “ Ah life, how glad thou art and sweet ! ” the standards of the sun are captured and victor Night waves high her dark insignia, moaning in the storm-blast, “ Oh thou that speakest foolishly, thy life is short and sad; and very swift is Death.” So we make answer through our bitter tears, “ Yea, God, we too shall die, and it is very drear the lonely grave.” How different is the dawn. There may be less of grandeur then, in the beginning, but how much more ' of 244 THE STORY OF OSCAR joyful hope in the ending. Far oft in the dim east comes but a faint chaste moonray beam that painfully up climbs the grey heaven, pursued by another and another, but soon the vanquished night falls sobbing down the western slope with all its handmaid blasts of woe; and then, oh then is bom the King of Day in golden glory, and yet not all too brilliantly, like that other King who rose to bring us first the never dying day in that far land so long ago. Oh then the splendours of the young sun’s greeting ! With one wild thrill of heart-dividing melody the throstle wafts her Matin song to God; the love-lorn cushat in the odorous pine grove wails his endless advocation to hifi mate; and every meanest flower and weed is diamonded with a million dew-drops, the glad earth casting thus hei jewelled coronals beneath her Master’s feet. Then is each cobweb starred with myriad crystals, each flower brims over with its freshest fragrance, the Royal water lily rocking on the ripples of the mere opens hei dazzling eye of heavenly purity and smiles aloft to God ; the pale mists flee away and leave the unveiled river tc mirror back once more the azure dome on high. No soul-grieving sadness wrenches our hearts at the sue rising : only at times a godly soberness subdues the passior of our gladness, and makes us turn believing eyes to Him and murmur meekly : “ We too are living! Lo, we thank Thee, oh Thou gracious God/ But now it was the day death not the breaking of thf day and scarce had the sun kindled his splendid fires ir I the sky ere they died down luridly in the late so glorious west, leaving only the wild wind clouds tossing their weird arms palely to the darkening height. CHAPTER III 44 Alas! our memories may retrace Each circumstance of time and place, Season and scene come back again And outward things unchanged remain; The rest we cannot reinstate, Ourselves we cannot re-create, Nor set our souls to the same key Of the remembered harmony.” His return to Oxford naturally brought back very vividly to Oscar’s mind his first arrival there the year before at exactly the same time of the year, when too everything had worn precisely the same appearance as now. He recalled many trifling circumstances long forgotten, which the autumn aspect of the solemn old town, and his retro- spective reverie, brought again to life and which had for him the greatest charm now. How differently was he situated now, from then. A year ago* he had had hardly a friend for whose companion- ship he really cared and none who were dear to him with the kindly affection of brothers and sisters : but now, many friends had grown fond of him and were in turn held dear by him, and over and above the pleasure that the Byrons’ familiar friendship was to him, he had found also one who loved him better than all the world beside and whom he loved as well. Then he had come up a stranger in a strange place and had rather shunned the society of fellows who might be unfriendly and might be of very different tastes and sym- pathies with himself; but now he met many during his first stroll to the Union whose companionship he had tried and whom he had found pleasant and genial friends during many months of frequent intercourse. For some days he saw little of Leonard, but, after he bad been up a week or so and was ashamed of telling Veronica in his almost daily letters how seldom they had i 245 246 THE STORY OF OSCAR met, he wrote him a short note begging him to come to luncheon next day on his way down to the river. “ I say, Leonard,” he said in the course of that meal, “ who’s that man who came with you to the door and went up to Hagard’s rooms ? I’ve seen him with you over and over again and have always been intending to ask.” “ Oh, he is one of our society, and a first-rate fellow too. He is not gregarious in his tendencies and has only about a dozen acquaintances and two friends in the ’Varsity, but he is very clever and makes excellent com- pany in many ways.” “ And the name of this interesting recluse is ? ” “ Strangways. He’s a Trinity man and he came up same term as I did : I originally made his acquaintance at one of the meetings of our society.” “ By the way,” Oscar remarked, “ you once offered — ages ago in my first term, I rather think — to introduce me to that same society; suppose you redeem your pledge? ” “ Very well; to-morrow if you like, there is to be a meeting in my rooms, so I can bring you in. It will be a good one too, being first one of term.” “ What do you do? ” “ Wait and see.” “ What are your objects ? ” “ We have none directly : as a matter of fact we interest j ourselves and amuse ourselves at little cost and little j trouble.” “ What rules have you? ” “ None, except that we meet once a week at every member’s rooms in turn, and that no one introduces strangers or new members but the host of the day.” “ Who is your head ? ” “ We have none : our oldest member, Dr. Slade, is Primus inter Pares : we are a republic.” “ What are your conditions of membership ?” “ Inclination to belong on the part of the candidate and absence of disinclination to receive him on the side of the members. These rules are not stated but are understood, not having been promulgated for form’s sake, but having grown for convenience’ sake : we have no election but mere invitation : if after to-morrow you wish to belong and tell me so, you will be invited to our next meeting and as a sign of membership will hold the next meeting in your own rooms.” 247 THE AUTHOR’S EPILOGUE “ How many members are there? ” ‘ * Last term there were twenty : this term there will be fewer, for Burns and Featherstone have gone down.” “ Were they among your numbers?” asked Oscar in some surprise, for the two men in question had been re- ported the two cleverest in the University and had just ended their career amid a profusion of laurels. “ Yes : and so is Graves, of Univ.; we are illustrious, you see.” “ You are indeed, and Slade too ! ” “ Bums will be a great loss; but we are not without poets for Strangway s is a tyro in the art also; he reads something to-morrow, I fancy.” Here the conversation dropped and not long afterwards Leonard and Oscar went out together and took the way to the river, parting with an agreement that they should not fail to meet again on the morrow as they had proposed. CHAPTER IV I When Oscar entered his friend’s rooms next morning he| was glad to find no other guests had yet arrived. The breakfast table, however, was already set out and [ a high-backed, patriarchal-looking chair placed at the head of it, for Dr. Slade as afterwards transpired. The guests soon appeared, to the number of a dozen or more, and immediately on the arrival of the Professor. ^ took their places round the board : there were four or five men besides his host already known to Oscar and next one (( of them he took his place, having Strangways upon hisj, other side. The conversation was uniformly general and entirely or 0 subjects of general interest: Oscar, however, contented j !( himself with listening on this occasion and preferred hhj own opinion only when appealed to. Oscar was seldom talkative and never so before strangers : he was far from being shy, but he was inclined ai to be reserved and, by a certain manner of observant self- possession, often gave people who did not know him the ft idea of a somewhat conceited and critical temper, very unlike the actual fact. “ Who has brought anything for our judgment to-day? ’ ft asked the Professor, casting his mild eyes round the table or enquiringly and slightly twitching his left eyebrow as he spoke. He was an oldish man with a great deal of iror Pi grey hair and a pale, healthy complexion; his face stmei loi Oscar, who had never before had so good an opportunity an of observing it narrowly, as eminently dignified and pleas- ing, and there was an air of command in the fine though a ugly mouth and pale blue eyes that would have attracted i the notice of the most casual observer. r “ I have brought a small picture of a valley in the | Black Forest, that I painted during the vac.,” answered p a tallish man in dark clothes whom they called Gay, but who was unknown even by sight to Oscar. | 248 THE AUTHOR’S EPILOGUE 249 “ And I,” said a youth of twenty or twenty-one, with a fair, pure complexion and noble sensitive mouth, “ have a very unambitious water-colour that I did at home in Kent.” “ What a charming face he has,” Oscar remarked in an undertone to his neighbour. “ What is his name ? I did not catch what Byron said when he introduced us.” “ His real name is Brudenell. He was with me at Beott.” “ A Catholic of course; he was with you at Beott you say ? ” “ Oh yes : they have been Catholics ever since the world began : they never left the old religion.” Then they ceased their private conversation to listen to the general. “ Strangways has promised to read a poem,” Leonard was saying; “ we must hold him to it.” No but really,” the young man pleaded nervously, “ it is not finished : what I have written came into my head yesterday before breakfast and I wrote it down at once, I can’t finish it; no more will come.” “ Perhaps that will be all the better,” Leonard laughed. “ We shall be able to tell you whether it had better remain as it is or no.” “ Have you nothing new for us, Harcourt,” someone asked, turning to a short rather stout man with a some- what comic face and an inveterate shrug of his broad heavy shoulders. “ How’s the violin? ” “ Oh, if you have time after everyone else has shown off, I’ll do my best,” he replied with a funny pert manner that was infinitely prepossessing. “ I had an inspiration or two in Norway in the vac.” “ Well, I think we will have the oil-painting first,” the Professor said on being appealed to. “ You see we can look at that and make our comments without necessitating anyone’s leaving off his breakfast for our convenience.” Gay therefore left his place for a moment, and went to a sofa whence he returned with the picture which he then placed upon the mantelpiece, where it was both in an excellent light and in the best place for the greater number of the company to see : that done he resumed his seat and quietly began his breakfast again. For some minutes everyone was silent and seemed engaged in observant scrutiny of the picture, especially the 250 THE STORY OF OSCAR Professor, who laid down his knife and fork and, leaning back in his chair, gave it his whole attention. It represented chiefly a downpour of heavy, pelting rain, through which was visible first a stretch of sloping meadow ti land, and then a river winding sharply to the left and lost o to sight behind a screen of thick black pines. Over the n river the meadow lands sloped up to meet the forest which n towered high up the hillside towards the dim heaven. To ti the left also another steep descent, likewise clothed with the gloomy pine, came down to meet the other which over- “ lapped it, as it were, and straight in front but farther away k a third hill top shut in the view, half-way up whose dreary a; side the faint blue clouds hovered lightly among the trees, w The painting was infinitely dreary; no human being a: appeared in it, but a yoke of patient oxen, drenched and k weary, stood in the middle distance with a huge load of b logs in the cradle-cart that they had been drawing, pre- sumably waiting gladly enough for their master who had dropped behind, perhaps for temporary shelter in the dense tl forest: it represented evidently a late evening of the pi summer, for the soaking grass in the foreground sent up sc a dense white mist, as though it came from the moisture ai fallen on a sun-baked earth. cs “ It is good — of its kind,” the Professor said at length : pc rather reluctantly as it seemed to Oscar and without remov- ing his eyes from the picture. tl “ It is very like,” Oscar ventured to say. lo “ You think you know the place? ” asked Leonard. N “ Hazard a guess, and if you are right we will acknow-Ii] ledge the tribute to the painting’s excellence.” or “ It is taken from the window of the little Speise-Saal tl upstand in the Gasthaus Zum Waldhorn at the entrance to the village of Schon Munzach, is not it, and it is Hi looting back into the Murgthal at about half-past sever on a wet July evening.” mi “ Right in every particular,” said Gay, evidently much ale pleased and turning to Oscar with a friendly smile. “ You must have been there on such a night ? ” up “ I was — last year; and I shall always remember that , ev, view, as I sat looking at it then, waiting with such brutal n eagerness for the arrival of my supper.” “ Of course it’s clever; but I don’t like the moral of the thing,” said Leonard. “ It makes one so uncomfortable. se £ I don’t think pictures are meant to create merely a desire 1 after macintoshes.” Ii THE AUTHOR’S EPILOGUE 251 “ Gay ought to have painted the view when the sun was shining and it was high noon.” “ Then it would not have been half so characteristic,” the Professor protested. “ No, I must confess, my first objection was really Byron’s, namely, the uncomfortable- ness of the thing : and now we know that Gay was not really out in all that fearful weather it loses a good deal of that impression.” a In fact,” remarked the artist himself rather ironically, “ you don’t object to the principle of my picture now you know that I was safe housed and at ease in dry socks and the prospect of trout and roast chicken, though you would have damned it at once if I had been so devoted to art as to paint under a pelting rain with nothing over my head but a gingham umbrella and nothing under my feet but the wet grass.” Everyone laughed at this tirade and Strangways said : “ Of course, if I thought you were so very unhappy at the moment of drawing that for us, I should feel an un- pleasant sympathetic sense of discomfort too, besides a sort of backhanded feeling of selfishness in being so warm and cosy myself : but now, one has a clear conscience and can look on that drenching rain with the enjoyment of perfect security from its effects.” “ I confess to thinking,” added the Professor, “ that that class of subject is morbid : thank goodness it does not look gloomy always, why should we not therefore paint Nature’s lovely smiles and not her sullen frowns and tears. In Paradise, I feel sure, there was no rain; and true Art, or, as it has been happily nick-named, High Art, ignores the Fall.” “ I think Gay’s picture reminds one of Wuthering Heights : it has just the same motive,” observes Harcourt. “ Exactly,” assented the Professor. “ It is a compli- ment of a sort too : for Wuthering Heights is certainly alone in its dreary power.” “ On the whole,” laughed Gay, “ I think I may cover up my picture pretty contentedly, bearing in mind how- ever that I am to deal gently in this type of subject lest a worse thing fall upon me ! ” “ Certainly : that is the moral of our criticism.” And then Gay at once removed his picture and took his seat with a good-humoured smile, saying : “ And now for the water-colour and my turn of criticism. I observe Brudenell passed no comment on mv master- 252 THE STORY OF OSCAR piece, doubtless in prudent provision against any rancomft on my part.” po 44 Yes, now for the water-colour,” everyone agreed anc u the youth thus appealed to rose from the table and placec upon the mantelpiece, with a certain bashfulness, th< $ai picture he had promised to show. Ga Before doing so however he quietly went to the soft lor where Gay had put aside his own painting and restored i to its former place so that the two pictures now stood sid< en by side. k Brudenell’s represented nothing but a patch of cornfielc cai through which the eye of the spectator looked; there wa no sky, nothing but the stalks of the oats, and a few head; ga! of the grain itself, some cornflowers and a scarlet poppy, j [| little beetle and beneath the ruddy earth. 44 You must have painted it upon the pit of you ;!0 ] stomach,” was Leonard’s first unworthy and shallow [ 8 remark. I < Everyone laughed and certainly it was true : one almos felt, looking through those yellowing stalks, like som% small creature whose home was among the corn, to whon^ the poppies were as towering fruit trees and for whom th i rutty ground was all it knew of hill or mountain. k 44 Does not it look earwiggy, eh ? ” Harcourt venture< i to ask in an ostentatious whisper. ^ 44 I think it is altogether charming,” the Professor sai< ^ with his kindly smile. 44 The two pictures are Conten j and Discontent; aren’t they ? ” 44 Say rather Ease and Disease,” suggested Gay with deprecating glance of decided disapproval on his own effort j and by no means annoyed at the general consent given t< ( | his amendment. L 44 Brudenell’s little picture is entirely healthy,” pur r sued the Professor affectionately. 44 It deserves encourage ment.” 44 If I’d been in his place though,” remarked a man wh< J 1 had not spoken much yet, 44 I would have made a loveh , village maiden lying in the com.” { 44 Yes,” assented the Professor, 44 it would have dignifie( the theme with a more poetic human interest.” 44 But,” protested the painter deprecatingly, 44 there wa 1[ no lovely maiden there ” 44 No matter,” said the original suggestor of thi; improvement, 44 Art is not bound to reproduce ; he ei mission is, as we have been told a thousand times, t< THE AUTHOR’S EPILOGUE 253 idealize. Nature might be reproduced perhaps if it were possible , but the failure is most pitiable; and after all, the most natural thing in Nature now is very artificial. ” “ Well, anyway, the picture is delicious, we all agree, ” 5aid Leonard, “ and if it is not quite so masterful as Say’s, at all events it does not make one feel murderous Dr suicidal.” At this moment an interruption was caused by the Dntrance of another guest, who seemed exceedingly out of Dreath, and who bore under his arm a square parcel that caused Leonard to exclaim : “ Another picture, I declare ! We have a perfect gallery this morning. What on earth made you so late; [ had quite given you up, Nugent.” “ I’m very sorry : but I wanted to finish this before joining and have been at work ever since six o’clock at it. [s all the tea gone? ” “ No, sit down.” He proceeded to do so, not, however, before removing a wrapper from his canvas and setting it beside the other wo pictures on the chimney-piece. “ Perfect ! ” everyone cried before he had time to reach lis seat. “ How charming, nothing could be better.” He looked pleased and turned an affectionate glance on lis picture, which represented the head of a youth thrown ar back as though in rapt devotion. There was no more han the face visible, for the canvas was not large, but hat was altogether beautiful. The light from the heavens hone down with loving brightness on the waving masses if truly golden hair, and an almost unearthly purity and levation was stamped on the delicate face, with its high- bred lineaments and dazzlingly clear and vivid colouring. The likeness to Brudenell was unmistakable. “ And the name of your picture,” asked the Professor, uming with a bright smile of congratulation towards fugent, “ is ? ” “ Sir Galahad.” “ Good.” Everyone murmured their entire approbation of the picture and its title, except indeed poor Brudenell, who Doked honestly embarrassed and unhappy. “ You must pardon me, my dear boy,” Nugent said, ending eagerly across the table towards his original, “ but : occurred to me in chapel the day after you came up : 254 THE STORY OF OSCAR and I thought it would be the nicest birthday present I could give our Princess : will you accept it? ” As he finished this short speech he turned to the Pro- fessor, who replied with genuine delight that he would be only too proud to do so. Nugent and Brudenell were, as everyone knew, hi* favourites, and the present was one he naturally valued. “ Who told you it was my birthday ? 99 he asked with e gratified smile. j« “ I found out,” the young man answered lightly. “ How mean of you not to let us know,” the others^ unanimously agreed. “ You might have let us do oui j ( little best also.” CHAPTER V u But now / I * * * 5 said the Professor, thinking that the original Sir Galahad must be getting weary of the comparisons between himself and the painted knight, “ it is high time for Strangway s to keep his word and let us hear the Poem.” Oscar was delighted and rather surprised to note that no one at these meetings made any fuss about complying with the requests of the rest; really making in that way much less disturbance than by a tiresome self-conscious denial, and giving besides a little pleasure without magnifying its importance. “ I told you,” replied Strangways simply, “ that it was not finished, but perhaps you will even now think it too long.” “ Your modesty, your modesty, my dear sir, nothing more,” protested Harcourt with an elaborate bow and ludicrous attempt at courtliness of demeanour, waving his hands impressively and smiling benignantly to reassure his friend. “ But, it is not even copied out,” Strangways continued, laughing; “ so you must pardon defects in reading also.” “ Of course, of course : throw off,” answered the irre- pressible violinist, before he could be frowned down into silence by his more decorous friends. Then, in a low clear voice that, though somewhat un- certain and tremulous, was musical and sensible enough, the young verser began these following lines : — I “ ‘ No faintest cloud specked all the dome of blue, Nor any whisper of a languid breeze Did stir among the crowns of ancient elms About our moated and most solemn pile : Full lustily and strong the autumn sun Did kiss those lichen-crusted walls and spires. I laid aside the tome wherein so well Had writ our modern Prince of tuneful song Of that Grand Palace — height ‘ of Art ’ — , and passed Out into day from grateful inner gloom. *55 256 THE STORY OF OSCAR No sound there was to rouse the slumbrous world Lapt in soft idleness all, all day long, Save that from far, along the pleasant vale, Came drowsy lowings of the scented kine, And now and then there stole across the meads A very distant chime of village bells Telling another hour was dead for aye. High, high in air, so that I scarce could hear, Thrilled a wee lark her heaven- awakening lay, Calling on men to glory in the time. And so I passed along the meadow lands Into a forest very old and cool, Where never endingly did murmur low A little brook whose course I followed slow; Idly and slow, nor thought I what I did In wandering thus lapt all in pleasant dreams The wood was left behind me, and before Stretched a wood plain, rolling in endless waves. II Before me rose a Fortress to the sky, Mocking the glitter of the staring sun, Keen cut in snow against the blue on high, It reigned aloof. Nor seem’d there anyone To dwell therein. All silent stood it there Resting with scornful foot on crags up-piled Into a throne. It ruled the middle air Among the winds, and lulled the tempest wild. Not any ladder bridged that steep abyss Whereby from earth to that proud castle gate Mortals might pass : nor any artifice Teaching them how to mount those rocks of fate. But all around the gilded central dome Glistening in letters like the silver rime Was graven large, “ Thou too art bidden, come : For all may enter, only all must climb.” And this was written in all languages, Blazoned in every speech that tongue may tell, Speaking forever through the rolling ages Since from the sun our wheeling planet fell. Even as then, with upward strained eyes, I read the promise glittering so fair, A clang of melody and music most divine Rippled the living air. For from the crown of that high castle hall There swung aloft a golden carillon, Whence flooding down the echoing steeps, did fall An ecstasy of song. 257 THE AUTHOR’S EPILOGUE Prostrate I fell and kissed the chilly base Of that heaven-mounted castle reared so proud, And, raising then my rapture-writhen face To where it spurned the cloud — “ I too will climb,’ * murmured unto my soul, Nor more delayed to try the grim ascent, While ever still the blissful-chiming toll Of those great bells their God-like clangour lent. III But though full oft I struggled, aye with tears, Nought we availed : no pathway was there cleft In those vast heights of iron rock, so I After long effort ceased my bootless care And paused to plan a while. Afar across the plain Huddled a city dull of hue and drear O’er brooded by a sullen inky veil, Unsightly, huge, and gloomier than the grave. While as in art to ease affronted eyes From gazing on that sordid town afar, Within me cried a voice right clear and loud : “ Go to, oh youth, if thou wouldst climb yon hill, Leave it awhile, and turn thy back thereon, Forget it, think not of it; go and work Among the wretched myriads of the town — So shalt thou mount.” I would have heeded not The clamourous voice, but faint my will obeyed. IV I turned me from that Castle fair That kingly cleft the upper air And weeping crossed the champain bare. So came at length across the plain To horrid haunts of woe and pain, There to begin the strife again. The streets were dark, an angry gloom Hung o’er the city, as the tomb Is darkened by the chill of doom. The men were strange, none heeded me, A drop alone in a vast sea, But thronged and jostled busily. A horrid mire defiled the ground, Grim walls that city tightly bound, And starven children wept around. There was an endless, weary strife. Who should cheat most to gild his life, Whose gold should buy the fairest wife. 9 258 THE STOEY OF OSOAE Who should plunge most in villainy So it were gain, who smilingly Defraud the poor their charity? I too would labour! but for fame, My praise should be to make my name A noble sound all void of shame. V Through the tedious, lagging seasons ever Fame did I pursue Striving late and striving early for the end I had in view. Very weary were the conflicts, yet I stronger grew with each Caring only for the glory of the goal I pressed to reach. Still with craving eye uplifted to the Fortress I had seen That at times upon our city cast from far its wondrous sheen So I fainted not or rested, but for ever toiled alone, Vowing verily not to waver till the prize itself was won. And as through all my spirit, throbbed a spirit voice divine, “ Go and take thy rest from labour, for the wreath is fairl; thine.” Then with joy from forth the city, passed I, singing joyously To that Castle on the summit of the rocks set haughtily. There was yet no path to lead me, but a silken ladder traile All adown the abyss of horror, where before my soul had failec VI I passed the portal and upon my gaze There burst great halls filled with the great and grand W T ho in all time have stricken with amaze All after peoples out of every land. Behold where Raphael leads the Artist Choir, Enthroned beneath a flowered canopy, Showing, with snowy brow and eye of fire, His pictured melody. Next kneeling lowly before heaven’s queen, To whom the favoured Angel doth his message say, With down-dropt gaze and all adoring mien The Angelic Father lapt in worship lay. Ix> too, from sounding halls of harmony, . Creeps to our ear the voice of music blest, Where sings, enraptured by their symphony, Cecilia and the rest. With those sweet sounds the lofty chambers rang, While more apart, with Gregory alone, a A graven band dispassionately sang L His chaste unsensuous tone. Not far from him a prouder namesake stands w k Whose haughty brows the Crown of Peter deck, Pointing beneath his heel, with scornful hands, Down at the rebel’s neck.’ ” ti 259 THE AUTHOR’S EPILOGUE Strangways stopped abruptly, saying that was all : “ What a nice long poem ! ” exclaimed the incorrigible Hareourt blandly, causing everyone to laugh in spite of themselves. “ I wish you had finished it,” observed the Professor gravely, “ I think it certainly deserves it : it is long, as Hareourt remarked, but I don’t think we were by any means inclined to be bored by its prolixity. Eh.” The general sense of the company being quite with him, the Professor continued : “ After your acknowledgment of the source of inspira- tion in your verses themselves, I can’t say what I would otherwise have done.” “ Oh, but do, nevertheless,” entreated Strangways earnestly. €€ I would much rather.” “ Well then, I think you should read more Milton and Shakespeare and less Tennyson : as Walter Savage Landor says, there are no schools of poetry , and so by trying to belong to one you succeed generally in being a mere imitator.” Oscar thought this rather severely candid criticism, but as Strangways and the rest seemed to think it quite in order that their Primus inter Pares should speak so openly, he supposed it was all right. “ If I may remark, beloved boy,” said Leonard, with his good-humoured laugh, “ I must say I can’t stand the epithet 6 Artist Choir ’ : it reminds one of photographic artists, and at best of a company of photographic chorister boys.” “ I know; it is horrid. It never struck me how bad it was till I read it through; it shall be obliterated — with the rest of the poem.” “ I absolutely forbid you doing anything of the kind,” the Professor said decisively : “ I consider that poem the property of the society, in whose fate we have at least a voice : you had better give it me for a birthday present.” Strangways very reluctantly agreed at last and the sub- ject dropped, not however before the Professor had leant across the table to whisper a few words of decided encouragement to the versifier. “ It is fairly Harcourt’s turn to be sat in judgment upon now, isn’t it? ” asked Gay; “ he has been trying hard, I observed, during the past ten minutes by the assumption of brazen impudence.” “ Now, then, Hareourt : don’t keep us waiting, but 260 THE STORY OF OSCAR soothe all cfur criticized feelings with your melodious i howls/ ” added Brudenell. So the violinist immediately produced his Amati and the rest of the company sat silent and expectant : directly the young man had the fiddle in his arms an extraordinary change seemed to come over him, his rather aggressive pertness forsook him and his chronic laugh of genial derision was quenched, considerably to the delight of almost everybody concerned. The first touch of his bow drew from the violin a longj half-glad, half-reproachful wail of greeting, as of a dear; friend protesting against a short neglect : then a joyful flutter, tremulous and passionate and a low murmurous ripple. For a moment then there was nothing, and after, a strong fierce burst of stormy complaint and vehement sorrow. Sometimes the notes would sink well-nigh into silence and nothing be audible but a very soft quivering throb, which then, with a sudden gasp, would rouse itself into a long low moan of calm sorrowful abandonment, changing in turn to a strong triumphant thrill of joy or angrier passion. Oscar had never been more surprised by anyone in his life and while the illusion lasted could hardly force himself to realize that the comic bantering youth of half-an-hour ago was the same with this producer of such wondrously melodious but wildly passionate harmonies. “ I can’t conceive how you make that ugly little instru- ment bring forth such a volume of marvellous music,” he said to Harcourt when the sounds had ceased and the! young man again taken his place by his side. “ Oh, it isn’t me a bit,” Harcourt replied with a lordly disregard of grammar. “ Some old beggar a hundred years ago or so put all that music into her and I only let it out. Jolly instrument, isn’t it? ” Oscar was horrified at such language from the man who a minute before had been holding him excitedly enthralled < by his mournful harmonies. CHAPTER VI After that day Oscar saw a good deal of “ the Society.” He was at once received into the fold and never afterwards regretted it. With Gay, Brudenell and Harcourt he soon struck up a warm friendship which lasted during the rest of his under- graduate days. Brudenell especially fascinated him, and the two men, outwardly so unlike, soon discovered many grounds of common sympathy and interest. The fact of the younger man’s being a Catholic did not in the least disturb the friendliness of their intercourse, for even if Oscar had been liable to take offence at heretical senti- ments he would have had no cause, since Brudenell, like all his co-religionists, preserved an unbroken silence on the subject unless when broached by Oscar himself. “ You are not so vehement in proselytizing as common fame declares you,” he remarked one day to Brudenell. “ Aren’t we ? ” replied the other rather coldly, as though he felt no particular interest in the fact. “ Common fame is not uniformly veracious, I’m afraid.” “ No, but I am surprised sometimes,” pursued Oscar, heedless of his friend’s manifest dislike of the subject; “ you seem almost to fight shy of the topic.” “ I do.” “ But why ? ” “ Because we are disagreed : it is no use bothering about matters which only create ill-feeling.” “ But in my case it wouldn’t : I am not a Protestant any more than you are.” “ I’m afraid you’re worse,” replied Brudenell gravely, looking him quietly in the face. Oscar laughed. “ You redly would not shock me, you know,” he said. “ The PopeHs no worse to me than the Archbishop of Canterbury^ ” “ Perhaps you would shock me : it is amusing to see the 262 THE STORY OF OSCAR naivete with which all you outsiders take it for granted that nothing you may say could ever wound us 9 while you expect to blow up or burst if compelled to hear what we have to say in return. Let’s change the subject.” “ But I’d infinitely rather not : I wish you to explain why you have all left me so entirely alone, to my heresy.” “ You are very conceited,” Brudenell replied with a light laugh. “ No I am not,” said Oscar calmly. “ And you know it too. But if I thought someone whom I knew very well and had seen a good deal -of was going along a very dan- gerous way I should certainly do something to stop him, particularly if I had it in my power.” “ Ah, there’s the rub : it is not in our power to help you — yet at all events we may tell a man he is going the wrong way, but if he does not believe it we can hardly, though we know we are right, take him by the neck and kick him into the safer path. You know what we think : there is nulla salus nisi in ecclesiae : the Church is ready to have you, ready to do all she can for you : she can do more.” “ If I believed in hell and thought you were going there I should be inclined to try the kicking cure,” Oscar pursued. “ Possibly; we do try sometimes, you know with what result as regards our character : but, remember, we are not sure you are going to the place you disbelieve in.” “ Why no one but a Catholic can help himself, according to you, every heretic goes there, doesn’t he? ” “ No one but some very silly or very blindly ignorant Protestants dare to pretend we hold any such belief,” ], Brudenell answered with a certain great force of contained anger. “ We have made our belief plain enough if only people would chose to hear. There is safety only in the Church : outside is only possibility of safety : moreover, many who would be horrified at the name of Catholic belong spiritually to the Church. As for your own case : we none of us think any efforts of ours can help you yet : in time perhaps they may; in the meanwhile, heaven forbid thal any officious precipitancy on our part should counteract the inner waking with which we have nothing to do. There is only one way in which we can 6 work together ’ al present.” ~ And that is? ” asked Oscar foolishly 4 ti( jW “ By prayer,” Brudenell answered with the hot blusl THE AUTHOR’S EPILOGUE 263 of a young man hating to seem ever so little sanctimonious to another. “ I hope you are not offended.” “ Offended ! Good heavens, no : forgive my idiotic stupidity.” That was the end of that conversation and Brudenell did not again allow himself to be drawn into another for a long time : it was enough to explain in a measure however what so long puzzled Oscar. It was a difficult thing to understand though, that sublime patience of God and self distrusting confidence in His ability and willingness to bring about His Own ends in His Own good time. And Oscar could not grasp it. At times he was inclined to think that they merely avoided the whole question out of a natural unwillingness to disturb the present friendly intercourse by any religious jar : but this opinion he discarded as unworthy; for though Harcourt might perhaps think little of his responsibility, Oscar felt sure that neither Leonard or Brudenell would hesitate for a moment to perform ever so unpleasant a duty as that, if once they thought it was a duty. One day Oscar was having luncheon with a friend who belonged neither to the Society nor the congregation of S. Aloysius and was quite unknown to Leonard or any of the Catholic undergraduates; he was therefore rather surprised to meet there Father Williams, one of the two Catholic priests, to whom he was of course duly introduced. It turned out eventually that the Franciscan was a con- vert and had known their host at home exceedingly well, and had been invited to meet Oscar chiefly because the latter was the only man of a supposed Roman tendency among his acquaintances. “ I am very glad you did not meet him in my rooms,” Leonard remarked on being told of the introduction. “ I always hoped you would not come upon any of the Catholic clergy there : and yet I wanted you to get to know them, they are both such first-rate men. Which of the two, by the way, was it you met at Fergusson’s the other day ? ” “ Father Williams.” “ Oh, they are both that; though they are no relations o each other : we have to call them from their respective axness and strictness in the Confessional, Permissive Bill ind Reform Bill.” “ Oh, then I’m sure this was Permissive Bill : he was a nost soothing ecclesiastic.” 264 THE STORY OF OSCAR Thus Oscar first made the acquaintance of a Roman priest. Here, by-the-bye, let me guard against an impression I may have unwittingly given that all the members of “ the Society ” were Catholics except Oscar himself. The truth was that out of the eighteen or twenty who comprised it, at least ten were Protestants, Gay being of the number, also Strangways, Nugent and the Professor. The idea originated with Leonard, but from the beginning it had nothing to do with religion. Si Cl CHAPTER VII One night in the middle of February, the term immediately succeeding that during which Oscar was introduced to “ the Society ” and to the Priest, he was somewhat at a loss for an hour’s employment. The reason for a circumstance of such rare occurrence with him is soon explained. He had been invited to dine in hall at Wanbrooke and to a wine at Christ Church at half -past eight, but his host at Wanbrooke wishing to go to the Union, they went up there together and stayed some few minutes. As however Oscar did not care to stop for the mere beginning of the debate, he took leave of his friend and found himself strolling towards Christ Church an hour too soon. After a short debate with himself he decided on taking a walk through that part of Oxford scornfully termed Para- dise, of whose delights he had heard much and experienced nothing. It did not take him long to find himself in the thick of its squalid alleys and pestiferous odours : and he congratulated himself^vith some complacency on the natural aptitude for locality shown in his instinctive discovery of the right way through i^s mazes. As he passed a low archway leading up a dim and fairly noisome entry he heard sounds of rather uproarious laughter proceeding from an open door about midway between the spot where he was standing and a similar outlet into another alley. This door stood open and through it poured a strong blaze of light, the only light in fact of which the entry boasted, except such as could issue through the chinks of a large wooden shutter over the window of the same house. “ What’s going on there ? ” he ventured to ask of a somewhat forbidding-looking person who leant against the corner of the archway in moody silence with a short black 265 266 THE STORY OF OSCAR pipe between his teeth, from which however no smoke issued. “ Goin’ on thear? ” he growled. “ Yes. 55 “ Can’t ye ’ear : they’m larfin.” 66 Yes; so I should think : but what are they laughing about? ” “ ’Ow can I tell 1 ” again growled the surly informant with some show of reason. “ Pm not inside. Go and see for yerself. It’s public. It’s a Readin’ Room.” An idea struck Oscar. “ All right,” he said good-humouredly, pulling a tobacco pouch from his pocket. 66 Do you smoke ? But I see you do : help yourself.” The ne’er-do-well did so with a vengeance : he returned the pouch empty. Oscar, however, saw he was mollified and cared nothing. “ I’ll go and see for myself if you’ll come too,” he said persuasively. “ Ye’re to’ shoi to go alone, I reckon,” returned the other with a fine irony. “ Yer wants me to introduce yer. Eh ? ” “ That’s about it,” laughed Oscar. “ Come along.” And to his intense surprise the man began to comply. He seemed not altogether void of diffidence either, for he hung behind Oscar and was evidently ashamed of his appearance — as indeed he well might be. The door, as I have said, stood wide open and through ii Oscar now saw an odd sight. On chairs and benches, arranged with a great regard tc precision, sat some score and a half of lads and men of th< same type as Oscar’s companion : all were filthy, all were brutalized and all in rags, rags however borne out witl; plentiful jewellery of the heaviest brass; rings gorgeously setting off hands stained with the dirt of years, neckpin* stuck in tattered scarves of green and red and yellow, anc even a few earrings. All their faces were turned towards the end of the roon furthest from the door, and bore an impression of intensest broadest good-humour and relish. The laughter was so general and so continuous that Osca could not at first make out the cause of it; a lull howeve ensuing, his ear caught the following words, read out ii a clear manly voice : “ i he had gone out to dinner but hi THE AUTHOR’S EPILOGUE 267 ’prentice, which is a very clever lad, sent her some medicine offhand in a blacking-bottle.’ ” Here another yell of uproarious merriment drowned the readers’ voice and was only calmed for an instant to break out again with redoubled force after the reading of the next sentence. “ € Ah, there’s promptness,’ said the undertaker.” “ Really,” laughed the reader, “ I shall never finish the chapter if we laugh so much : let’s try and pretend it’s not at all funny.” They took the hint and subdued if they did not quench their cachinnations. “ 6 Promptness indeed,’ replied the beadle. ‘ But what’s the consequence : what’s the ungrateful behaviour of these rebels ? Sir ? Why they sends back word the medicine won’t suit the woman’s complaint and so she shan’t take it . . . good strong, wholesome medicine as was given with great success to two Irish labourers and a coal- heaver ’ ” To hear the shrieks of the audience at this point one would have supposed that they themselves were the most refined persons; their scorn of the coalheavers and Irish was so lofty. “ Oi say,” asked Oscar’s companion with some scorn, “ aren’t ye going in ? Ye funk, arter all, I s’pose.” The truth was Oscar had a certain delicacy about going in, for the voice of the reader proclaimed him to be Leonard : however, he saw it was the only way to get his new friend/m and he rightly felt sure that Leonard would desire the advent of a new reprobate. So they boldly walked in, Oscar first, and took their stand (the seats were all full) in a corner near the door : Oscar removing his hat with his native and involuntary courtesy, much to the amusement of the rest of the company, who did not fail to notice the new arrivals, and their ways. Oscar was too keen not to guess the cause of the whis- pered remarks, but he also was too sensible to affect any notice of it or to alter his original determination. The two friends exchanged one rapid glance and Oscar remained uncovered. The reading continued till the end of the chapter, when Leonard closed his book and proceeded to deliver a sort of lecture on the Norman Conquest, that is to say, told the story to them in a graphic and amusing manner but 268 THE STORY OF OSCAR omitting nothing from it of any importance and preserving a very careful attention to the actual facts. This was necessarily less interesting however than the reading had been and a few of the men shuffled out when Leonard closed the book; they were but a small minority though and their departure did not appear to be even observed by the lecturer. Oscar took a look round the room at this point and soon saw all there was to be seen; four bare and grimy walls, stained with the recent grease of heads leant back against them, a few chairs, some benches, a table on trestles, and a sort of raised desk at which Leonard himself was sitting. Immediately over his head was a large crucifix and on the walls a few engravings of good pictures, uncoloured and plainly framed. Before the History Lesson was over, Oscar remembered his engagement, and finding it was much later than he had thought, smiled farewell to Byron and after shaking hands with his surly friend of the archway, took his departure. To say the truth, he was rather glad to get out again, even into Providence Lane, which by comparison with the foetid odours of that reeking chamber, was a garden of delights. CHAPTER VIII For a few days after this he did not chance to see much of Leonard, but after that length of time the friends met at luncheon in Brudenell’s rooms. “ Well, Oscar, I hope the good people of Providence Lane did not molest you the other night? Eh? 55 “ Not they : why, is that their easy custom concerning strangers ? ” “ Mostly, I think : the first time I went down there to the Reading Room the lady who lodges above it was so unselfish as to sacrifice an entire can of cabbage-water in favour of my head . 55 Oscar laughed. “ I was in luck then; for they confined themselves to searching criticisms on my clothes and gait. I thought that quite bad enough.” It now turned out that the Reading Room was a new idea and had) only been open about a month. “ It is my proprietary affair,” laughed Leonard, “ and is an opposition shop to a coffee-house of Brudenell’s for persons of more exalted rank and refinement that lives in another part of Paradise : I used to be his apprentice there, but finding my talent not appreciated I set up on my own hook.” That was all he would tell about it then, but afterwards, in Oscar’s rooms, in answer to a request that his friend might come again, he said : “ Of course you may : I should be only too grateful : the men liked your coming the other night, I could see, and if you would talk to them about something you’ve seen abroad or in London you would be doing me the greatest kindness. It’s such a drain going on talking or reading for two or three hours on a stretch.” “ Why, how long do you go on? ” “ We open about seven and close a little after ten, then there is a chance of their going straight home to bed, you see.” 269 270 THE STORY OF OSCAR So next night Oscar went with his friend and they reached the archway leading up into Greenfield entry at about a quarter to seven, in time to get the room ready for their audience. At the door, however, there was an obstruction. A dozen or so of Leonard’s men had already arrived and were clustered round the entrance to their meeting-room, which they were defending with fists and feet against the assault of some score of such gentry as themselves but out- siders and aliens. The cause of the disturbance it was now impossible to guess, but the effect had been that the shutter over the window was tom off its hinges and the few remaining panes of discoloured glass therein were smashed to atoms. In addition to the substantial interchange of blows and kicks a brisk fire of highly-toned abuse was kept up by either side. “ ’Ere ’e comes, the damned fool,” cried out the first of the assailants who noticed the arrival of Byron on the scene. “ And another gawky with ’im too; a bigger ass nor ’imself, look yer,” screamed a second, pointing the finger of scorn at Oscar, who winced in spite of himself at their loud laughter and felt his blood itching to be at them. “ For goodness’ sake,” implored Leonard in a low voice, “ don’t take any notice of them.” Then going forward and speaking in a bold authoritative voice he said firmly : “ Are you going to go away and mind your own business or not? ” For reply he received a long loud yell of derisive merri- ment which sent the blood tingling to his cheeks, but was otherwise unnoticed. He was really not sorry to notice their vein, for if they were only good-humoured he might manage them. Neither Oscar nor Leonard could help noticing that the frequenters of the Reading Room fully joined in the laughter of their late boon companions : the fact was that Byron’s masterful, fearless manner naturally struck them as being an excellent joke when displayed in the very midst of their rowdy stronghold and unsupported by any of his s class. By way of more definite reply to his question, a rotten egg was now aimed with precision at Leonard’s head and broke all over his coat. “ Who threw that? ” he asked sharply and decisively. THE AUTHOR’S EPILOGUE 271 For a moment there was no reply and the men looked at one of them who seemed inclined to skulk to the back and nudged each other significantly. “ Dunna funk, Bill, what can he do to yer? ” someone was heard to growl chidingly. “ Well,” said Leonard, with an infinite scorn in his expressive voice, looking boldly at the man who had thrown it, “ you seem to be a fine sort of fellow, you do : you do a shabby trick and are afraid of confessing it, though you are twenty to two ! I’m not surprised.” Oscar was astonished to notice how thoroughly these men grasped the point of his friend’s sarcasm. At once a certain shifting in the tide of popular opinion set in; they hustled their pusillanimous ally roughly and chided him for his chicken-heartedness. “ Joe, yer drunken devil, yer,” observed one gentleman mildly, as though he himself had been a Rechabite from his youth up, “ why dunna yer speak up; get out with yer, there.” Suiting the action to the word, the culprit was shoved rudely to the front and finally pushed out into the open space between the crowd and the two gentlemen. “ Punch his ’ed, gov’ner,” suggested one. “ Let’s see ’ow yer ’ll set about it.” “ It’s a strong temptation,” laughed Leonard to his friend. “ I would give a good deal for the pleasure of laying about the mean scoundrel; but it might do a world of harm.” Then raising his voice he stepped forward towards the man, who was trying to look defiant, with the result of looking only hang-dog, and said : “ Now, sir, I wish you a very good evening : and next time you think of insulting a gentleman it’s to be hoped he will be no worse tempered than I am. Be off.” Rather to his own and infinitely to Oscar’s surprise, he complied at once with this suggestion and skulked off as quick as might be. “ And now then,” continued Leonard to the mob, “ you’re wasting time rather, aren’t you. You’ve not told me yet why you’re standing round my door and making a row. What’s the matter? ” “ Why, that’s a good ’un : what are we stannin’ here for ? What brings you ’ere we should like to know, young shaver.” What depth of obloquy may lie hidden in the name of the barber’s trade, Leonard did not trouble himself to 272 THE STORY OF OSCAR enquire but merely answered firmly, though smiling good- humouredly : “ Well, that’s my place : that’s the reason : I pay rent for that, just as much as you do for your houses, and I expect to come and go to my house without all this bother. I don’t interfere with you, why do you interfere with me.” “ Ay, but yer do interfere.” “ No I don’t : I’ve taken a couple of rooms in this entry and instead of keeping them for myself, I’ve opened a reading-room in them, that’s all. You need not come in if you don’t like,” he concluded with a laugh, “ especially if you’re going to shy eggs at my head.” “ That wasn’t us,” protested one or two of the mob, shamefacedly. “ Let ’im in,” said another, “ and let’s see what he’s up to.” “ Ay, let ’im in, poor kid,” added a third, “ or we’ll ’ave ’im blubbing soon and ’ave to send up t’ College for ’is mammy.” This speaker was evidently the wag of the party, for the rest set up a loud and admiring laugh at this sally and instantly made a lane for the two young men to pass through. Leonard drew the key from his pocket, unlocked the door and turning round to his late adversaries said in an offhand, genial manner that they seemed to like : “ Now then, my good sirs, will you walk in or say good- night? You’ll find there’s plenty of room for all and I should be very glad to have a pipe with you if you’re inclined.” Apparently they were inclined, for they all trooped in to a man, not without sundry scathing remarks on their host, his friend and his Reading Room, but all in excellent temper. As soon as they were safe inside and had sat down on the chairs and benches, Leonard unlocked a comer cup- board near the fireplace reaching from floor to ceiling and drew out of it a few sticks and some lumps of coal with which he replenished the fire, and then from a higher shelf brought down a large tin box and a bunch of that sort of clay pipes commonly called churchwardens. One of these he handed to each of his guests, leaving Oscar the task of supplying them with the tobacco; and when all the pipes were fairly lighted and Oscar and he armed themselves with churchwardens also, he begged THE AUTHOR’S EPILOGUE 273 his friend to amuse them with an account of some of the things he had seen iii London or abroad. Oscar was rather nervous of his abilities but at once com- plied and went into the desk where he took his place and gave a first-rate and most amusing account of Maskelyne and Cook’s conjuring tricks; the men were delighted and rapturously cheered the “ long chap ” as they called him rather for the sake of distinction than anything else. Then followed another reading from “ Oliver Twist ” by Leonard, and after that Oscar gave them a song which sug- gested to both the idea of hymns. “ You can sing, can’t you? ” Oscar enquired persuasively of the company in general. “ Ay, we can sing : I know 6 Sarah Jane.’ ” “ And I know ‘ Bob the Thief his charmin’ gurl.’ ” “ But is there anything you almost all know? ” asked Leonard rather dubious as to the tendency of the two ditties in question. “ Most on us know 6 Safe in the arms of Jesus.’ ” “ Well, let’s have that : I know that too,” replied Leonard at once striking up the revivalists’ hymn; in which the entire company joined heartily with certain blasphemous verbal alterations occasionally interspersed. A few more hymns followed, all of the same type, and when they were finished Leonard said he had a proposal to make. “ Pipe up,” was the lazy response of his audience, so he piped. “ I want to know if next time I shall bring a harmonium or something so that we can have a lot of music ? ” A universal applause greeted this suggestion and Leonard went on to ask if any of the company could read : it turned out that five or six could. “ Well, we must all learn to read or else we can never learn new hymns, do you see? ” “ Ay.” “ Next time all those who know how must help me and this gentleman to teach the rest for half-an-hour at the beginning : and now good-night, and remember to come the day after to-morrow to see the harmonium and help us to sing.” Everyone was in a good humour and they all made off with every sign of satisfaction. “ If only we can keep them interested,” Leonard observed as they walked home, “ it will be all right : and 274 THE STORY OF OSCAR if once we bore them it is no good. The singing is an * excellent thing : it will do more to refine them than weeks of reading and smoking.” “ You say ‘ we/ ” said Oscar humbly, “ but it is you and you alone who does it all : I wish I could do some- thing.” “ I want you to do one thing at once : I can only afford to hire a harmonium; will you buy one? ” “ Of course, Pm so glad you let me.” “ I can’t help myself,” laughed his friend, “ it would cost six or seven pounds and I can’t spend so much on one thing.” “ I wonder the priests don’t come and help you.” “ They will when it’s time; at present they’d frighten away everybody : eventually I want to turn it into a mission and have a popular service there on the alternate nights.” “ I suppose you’re going to be a priest yourself ? ” “ No : I have no turn that way. Why? ” “ Oh, because of all this sort of thing,” replied Oscar, rather awkwardly. “ I’m sure I hope the priests have not a monopoly of that sort of thing, good as they are.” “ Do you hope in time to mate all those ruffians Catholics ? ” “ I intend to try : no one else looks after them, why shouldn’t we ? It seems to me fair game, don’t you agree? ” “ Oh certainly — if you think the game worth the candle.” “ You very often express surprise that I have not done more on behalf of your single soul, why should it seem incredible to you that I should be eager to gain forty or fifty? There is no peerage in heaven.” He spoke rather severely, for anything of that sort always angered him. “ I beg your pardon,” Oscar said earnestly. “ I was a fool. Of course you are right. But do you really think that religion is what they require — not refinement? ” “ Religion is the highest — the only real — refinement.” “ I noticed,” Oscar continued, “ that your pictures were all after great masters in there : would not coloured prints have been more attractive and less expensive.” “ Less expensive certainly : at present perhaps more attractive too, but no use for my purpose : nor could such coarse things ever refine coarse minds; I don’t want to THE AUTHOR’S EPILOGUE 275 coarsen down religion to meet their present taste but to refine up their taste to appreciate religion. What refine- ment is there in a Christ with an infamous expression in a plaid bed-gown talking to copper-coloured men in pink hair and crinolines ? ” Oscar laughed. “ I think you are right after all.” “ I am sure I am : for the system is not mine but that of the Church. It is our boast that the Church Catholic is suited , not that she suits herself to all classes, all coun- tries, and all characters.” After that Oscar went pretty frequently with his friend to the Reading Room, which soon presented a very different face. Perhaps Leonard contrived in his reading to convey the hint, at all events they took to tidying up a little before presenting themselves before him, and finally never came but with cleanly though poor garments and well-washed skins; 1 as their first step towards refinement. The j which those who had not got it already soon acquired of reading for themselves was the next thing which raised them above their former selves, and Leonard’s earnest, never-failing diligence soon overcame all obstacles in his way. It took Oscar a long while to get used to them and make them used to him, for he made at first many of the mistakes by which the best intentioned workers often ruin their chance with that particular class of people. His efforts to be genial and polite were at first laborious and this did not escape their keen eyes, and occasionally he fell into the common error of mistaking ignorant and brutalized men for very simple children. They were less simple than it is possible to imagine any impression of, and in truth their keen penetration was often tiresomely accurate in its conclusions. Leonard seemed, on the other hand, to be bom to the work and thoroughly mastered the points for consideration and avoidance while his friend was floundering through pre- liminary experiences; once Oscar ventured to deplore his own stupidity and compliment the other’s success. “ It is not in the least to my credit,” Leonard replied; “ the reason lies in the simple fact that we work with different aims : you have only the one aim of helping them to be happy for a time and so as you think you secure that end you don’t care what happens, in the meantime your struggles must be laboured for you want immediate results : my object is different, as you know, and I am by no means 276 THE STORY OF OSCAR troubled if I rub up against them and offend them a bit now and then so that I keep the distant goal secure. It makes me more at ease, for I am less solicitous about the present.” The scheme of turning the Reading Room into an occa- sional mission-house worked excellently and by the summer vacation one of the priests came down there twice a week and presided at a sort of popular service and gave them a short talk of a strongly practical and often amusing nature — not in the least a preachment. Finally not a few accompanied Leonard to the bright and fascinating evening service of his Church, first for the sake of the novelty pure and simple and eventually, let us hope, for better reasons. I have dwelt thus at some length both on Oscar’s intro- duction to “ the Society ” and his discovery of and co- operation in his friend’s work among the denizens of Para- dise, because the new acquaintances that the former and the new interests that the latter opened up to him were strongly influential, I think, in the course of his thoughts and ultimate conduct. CHAPTER IX I must at least be exonerated from any charge of need- lessly dwelling on unimportant circumstances now, for I want you to suppose two years to have passed by. You must be contented to hear that May was married in the early spring of the year during which the events narrated above took place, and to hear nothing about her wedding. Other and more important nuptials are to engage your attention just now, for at the end of those two years Oscjar took his degree and came home to be married. At last the long engagement, which yet for love of her had seemed so short, was over and there was no reason why he should not enter into possession of the full measure of his happiness. In her own way, Veronica was very glad, but she was sorry too, for she could not bear to think of parting from the dear old home even for another so close it as Beau- monde, and so much bigger and grander in every way. “ I shall always feel rather like a picnic,” she observed to her betrothed, alluding to the rarity of her visits to his house except in old days as to a show place. For even since their engagement everyone had preferred for Oscar to come over to them rather than they should go off in a body to him. A day must come no matter how long it be a-coming and at length the eleventh of July drew very near. They were to be married on a Thursday and it was already Tues- day. Oscar had said good-bye to Beaumonde till he should come back to it as a bridegroom and was installed at the Moat House. The wedding cake had arrived and so had the gowns, so too had the diamond clasps of V and O inter- twined which Oscar was going to give his wife’s brides- maids instead of lockets. “ How charming they are,” Veronica exclaimed admir- ingly, when he showed them to her. “ I wish I was going to be a bridesmaid so that I might have one too. Suppose you marry Lisette instead? ” “ All right,” he assented with alacrity. “ Do you agree, Lisette? ” 277 278 THE STORY OF OSCAR “ No, IM rather have the clasp. 55 “ Well, it can’t be helped, I suppose, 55 sighed the young bride with her pretty and grave regret, turning her glad face up to her future lord in infinite content. It was her wedding morning. The bells of the time-serving old church that had changed its mind so frequently in the course of the last three cen- turies, were peeling in the style that some fools call merry, in spite of her heresy and mindful only of her rank ! Ah, perhaps we do them wrong : the compliment may have been meant for the bridegroom, who was no Papist : only an atheist. “ Oh dear, Lisette, 55 cried the girl plaintively, on her sister’s entry at about six o’clock to call her, 6 ‘ is it a nice day ? Is it really Thursday ? Are you sure there’s no mistake? 55 “ I don’t see very much room for one, 55 replied Lisette, matter of factly. “ Do you know,” pursued the girl with a shamefaced laugh, “ I am so dreadfully sleepy, I should like to lie in bed all day and put off being married till to-morrow.” “ That comes of sitting up half the night : I really think Leonard might have known better; it was very good natured of Oscar not to be annoyed about it.” “ Go away,” screamed Veronica, hiding her head beneath the clothes, “ I will not be scolded, so you may as well hold your tongue or leave me in peace.” “ Well, are you going to get up? ” “ Yes, are May and Leonard ready ? ” “ May was not when I came down, Leonard has been up an hour nearly : do you still stick to your idiotic plan of going for a row on the lake ? ” “ Of course I do : and you’re all coming with me too. Now I’ll get up, if you’ll help me to dress.” “ Shan’t I call Barker? ” “ No, certainly not : I intend to have no dealings with Barker till I am out of this dear old place.” Now Barker was her new maid. All four were soon up and dressed and half-an-hour later were gliding briskly over the cold waters of the deep lake off whose unwrinkled face the white mists had but just now floated imperceptibly away. “ How lazy of Hugh not to come with us 1 ” Veronica exclaimed resentfully. “ He might have got up this one morning, don’t you think ? ” THE AUTHOR’S EPILOGUE 279 “ Oh,” answered May with a light laugh, “ he will meet you on the shore in a graceful negligee, looking eminently refined : he does that best. Don’t you remember when I was married ” “ Look here,” interrupted Veronica with decision, “ I’m not going to stand all these pathetic reminiscences of your own nuptials : you seem to consider the orange-blossom a perennial flower.” “ Well, I must own it is very rarely an annual,” pro- tested Lady Slanach in self defence. “ I don’t care what class of plant it is,” Veronica con- tinued. “ I am the young woman that is to be wed to-day and I don’t intend to be a sort of pupil of yours.” Everyone laughed and applauded her resolution to keep all the laurels of that day for herself and May herself was brought to see the justice of her sister’s claims. The little domestic chapel was decorated brightly with flowers, and though very simple and unpretending in point of architecture, looked exceedingly pretty on that glorious July morning with its sober-tinted hangings and old oak- carved fittings lighted up by forests of great white Virgin lilies and scarlet geraniums (Veronica’s favourite combina- tion of colours), magnolias, stephanotis and myrtle, and last, but not least, either in rich queenly beauty or luscious fragrance, the much-debated orange blossom. Just as the old church clock outside struck eleven, the bridal train passed along an ancient cloister into the chapel. Everyone turned their eyes upon the girl-bride whose face looked so far more childish than she really was, as she passed the threshold and walked shyly into their midst. Her exquisitely delicate complexion could well stand the test of daylight and a cloudless dress, and her sweet inno- cent face looked lovely in its pure setting of cloudy lace. She was very grave but by no means melancholy and her staid expressive voice was plainly and distinctly audible as she pronounced her short and simple vows. The brief rite was soon over and most of the guests went out before the Mass which followed. After that the whole party met again in the drawing-room to offer their first congratulations, all except poor Colonel Byron, who retired stealthily to weep unobserved and un- obtrusively in his own study. There, however, his little daughter soon found him and beginning by reproaching him for his evil behaviour, ended by joining her plentiful tears with his. CHAPTER X “ Did your ladyship ring ? ” “ Yes. I want the pony-carriage , 99 answered Veronica, “ in about an hour, please / 5 “ Yes, my lady / 5 And the door closed behind the tallest, the gravest, and the most generally unapproachable of her footmen. “ I wonder now if he is at all as frightened of me as I am of him , 55 she thought dubiously. “ But I am sure he is not : none of them are : they must think me very small, and those who wait at dinner must probably think me very silly : I wish one of them would make rather a bad joke, then I should have the whip hand of them . 55 “ They would not be particularly good servants if they did, would they ? 55 laughed Oscar, who had come in un- noticed and overheard her last words which had been spoken aloud. “ An indifferent punster would be rather a bore behind one’s chair, wouldn’t he? 55 “ I suppose he would , 55 Veronica admitted sceptically. “ I think it would be rather unrestrained ? 55 “ Oh certainly.” They had been married a month during which time they had passed a dreamy existence on* the shores of the cool Atlantic in a small Breton village remote from men of their own class and nation. Last night late they reached Beau- monde after a long and rather wearying journey, and now it was a fine sweet summer’s morning and all the world seemed very glad to see them. “ I always promised myself,” Veronica remarked after a short pause, taking her husband’s hand in her two little ones, “ that the first time I could ever use my own carriage should be to take me home again, and now it’s coming true.” “ I can’t allow you though to call the Moat House your home now : this is your home, you know.” ‘ ‘ I know nothing of the kind,” she retorted with decision, 280 THE AUTHOR'S EPILOGUE 281 lifting up her face to be kissed in her usual bold and for- ward manner. “ No one ever could have two \ homes, and I can’t change mine at a month’s notice.” He looked just a trifle grave, not the least huffed or hurt, but she saw the swift shade pass across his face and added hurriedly : “ You dear old thing, I don’t mind having a set of very excellent lodgings here in the meanwhile. Not a bit.” “ Furnished apartments for half a century, eh ? ” he replied, his old glad smile lighting up the goodly face, with its noble curves and sensitive lines of feeling. “ Exactly. I hope you understand that I am to stop for luncheon at home and then stop for tea and not come back here till dinner time, when Leonard is to come with us ? ” “ Oh yes : but in the meantime let us take a little stroll round the place and see how things have fared in our absence. Come along.” So he drew her arm through his and they wandered out through one of the great oriel windows onto the broad stone terrace where huge crumbling vases of geraniums flamed hotly in the cool shade, and thence down the flight of shallow steps onto the soft green lawn of old velvety turf undisturbed through centuries. The parterres were ablaze with scarlet and gold, and huge flame-coloured lilies rocked their stately heads in the gentle gale, the ancient beeches were sonorous with the slumbrous hum of bees and divers flies, and all the air was laden with the fragrance of the lime blossom. “ How lovely everything is,” murmured Veronica com- prehensively casting around her eyes full of an inex- pressible admiration. “ Even Lady Chamner? ” asked her husband with dis- gusting levity. “ Would you include her? ” “ She may be,” the girl replied merrily. “ She is not often two 1 months alike : sometimes her complexion is different when we come back after a long absence, some- times it is her hair that is a stranger to us.” It was a grand old place, as I have told you long ago, and to-day it looked its best : the air of ancient gravity and gloom about it was most refreshing on that gaudy summer morning and seemed to speak plainly, though without any loud assertion, of a race noble and living at ease, with the pleasant world at its high-bred feet for it to enjoy and use to the utmost. 282 THE STORY OF OSCAR “ I wonder if ever I shall get used to being the mistress of this great place,” Veronica whispered diffidently, turn- ing her eyes on the house whose broad shadow lay all across the grass. “ You could not make a better than you do already,” Oscar replied, laying his finger tenderly on the exquisite delicacy of her fair blooming cheek. “ You are the smartest little lady in all the country round and I am the luckiest husband.” A very doubtful little grimace was his wife’s only com- ment on this assertion. Their walk lasted so long that by the time they re-entered the reverent dusk of their drawing-room the clock had struck twelve and the pony carriage was already waiting. Veronica was very fond of driving and she drove exceed- ingly well; on the present occasion moreover she was rather eager and excited for the ponies and carriage had been a wedding present and this was her first trial of them. In every respect they answered to her highest expecta- tion, for besides being really beautiful they were first-rate goers and a most perfect pair. It was pleasant driving that hot forenoon, and the way between Beaumonde and her father’s home was uniformly pretty and interesting. Veronica was naturally in very high spirits at the prospect of seeing Leonard and the rest again, for a month was for her a very long separation from them and she had a world of things to say and a lot of presents to give : pretty foreign things that she had bought abroad rejoicing childishly in her ability to get such things for the dear old brothers and sisters. “ I have been thinking,” she said rather abruptly and without any particular relevancy, speaking in a ludicrously stealthy tone lest the stolid henchman behind should over- hear; “ I have been thinking, what an odd sort of girl the king’s daughter must have been.” “ Who? ” asked her husband in some perplexity. “ Oh, don’t you know ? The king’s daughter in the Psalms, who is all glorious within; you must remember ! ” “ Yes, I do now : What about her, dear? ” “ Well, they say, ‘ She shall forget her own country also and her father’s house, so shall the King have pleasure in her beauty.’ I don’t think she can have been a very nice sort of person, do you? You would not have much THE AUTHOR’S EPILOGUE 283 pleasure in my beauty if I were to go and forget all about the others, would you? ” Oscar laughed. “ Well dear, do you know I’m afraid even that would be powerless to make me believe that you were the dearest little girl that ever breathed.” Veronica shook her head. “ No,” she said, “ I don’t think it would be nice : it seems to me that you would think me horrid .” At the door of the Moat House everyone was waiting to welcome her back, Colonel Byron, Lisette, Leonard and May, all except Slanach, who was not yet arrived, and Hugh, who was canvassing the borough of Tudbury with might and main. “ Oh, you darlingest old father,” Veronica whispered between her kisses while he held her wee form close to his fond father’s heart. “ You’re not a bit changed.” “ When will your ladyship require the carriage again ? ” asked her servant with singular absence of tact, seeing that Oscar had disappeared with Leonard. “ Not till seven o’clock, thanks,” Veronica replied. “ Yes, my lady.” Veronica made a ridiculous face behind his back, her title was so infinitely ludicrous on her as they all thought. May had seemed “ my lady ” bom, but nothing would or could ever make a peeress of this wee maiden. “ After luncheon is over I must really go on the lake. I suppose there’s no time now,” she cried eagerly when they had gone indoors and the presents had all been given. “ It does look too divine. By the way, Lisette, I trust you won’t think those earrings were cheap, they weren’t : they cost a frightful lot, so you are to value them mind.” They all laughed at her nasty little Birmingham senti- ments and determination to get the full credit of her generosity. Then luncheon was announced and the two young men turned up, Leonard being suspected of having sniffed the smell of presents from afar. Luncheon was a particularly pleasant meal at the Moat House and was naturally especially so to-day. A great many home topics had to be discussed and bits of home gossip retailed, which were more fraught with interests to our simple heroine than the vicissitudes of empires. “ Are you sufficiently fortified to bear a great weight of tidings ? ” asked Leonard towards the end of the meal. “ Yes? Well, it is this — sweet seventy-one is betrothed.” 284 THE STOEY OF OSOAE “ Lady Chamner ! Nonsense. But she is seventy-one. And to whom ? ” “ A young parson called Irving; his youth is rather relative than actual, his fortieth summer not being far hence. Lady Chamner’s age, he is said to have remarked, is her only attraction.” 66 She has taken him on lease, so to speak,” explained Lisette, “ for a term of years; if, in defiance of Scripture and good taste, she lives a month longer and the lease falls in, I presume the contract becomes null and void.” “ You may consider yourself as his mother-in-law,” added May, “ for they met at your wedding. Don’t you remember a tall man with a scar on his left temple ? That was the man.” “ But he came with the Grays and was supposed to be engaged to one to the daughters.” “ True; but they had neither of them money : Lady Chamner is an investment : she is to call herself Lady Irving-Chamner, and at present alludes to her future hus- band as 6 the King Consort.’ ” The discussion of this enthralling topic lasted during the remainder of luncheon, after which everyone removed to the cedar tree to eat strawberries and make up their minds what to do next. CHAPTER XI “ For my part, 5 ’ observed Veronica firmly, “ I intend to go for a row, and I don’t intend to go alone.” “ I’ll tell you what, Oscar,” commented Leonard with grave compassion, “ you seem to me to be a very in- efficient husband : if I were Lord Veronica I should teach that young woman the first of female virtues — submis- sion.” “ Example is better than precept,” the young husband replied with a laugh. “ I do it in that way.” It was a pleasant day and they were a very pleasant company, all good friends and good companions; quite fond enough of one another to make their intercourse the free and cheerful converse of brothers and sisters, and merry enough for their needs : so that the joke had not to be over subtle for them to laugh. The lake looked very lovely reflecting back the brilliant blue of a most cloudless sky, only rippled by the funny little squalls that would pass over it at intervals as the breeze freshened for a few moments only to die away calmly on the very surface of the cool clean water. “ I’ll tell you what, Veronica,” suggested May pre- sently, “ if you’re so anxious to start off, you go to the boat-house and row round here for us, we don’t object to that.” “ I should think not indeed, you lazy things,” she answered, going nevertheless, by no means sorry really to display her rowing powers before her husband’s admiring eyes. Their own talk went on uninterrupted and Oscar amused them with several instances of his wife’s sage behaviour during their travels abroad, incidents stamped, as they all agreed, with the unmistakable mark of truth. “ On one occasion,” he said, “ it was in the train between Nantes and Paris. She would discuss a courtly Gaul who was reading the Republique Fran^aise, in a 285 286 THE STORY OF OSCAR perfectly audible tone of strong disapproval, and that in spite of my furious gestures and frowns : certainly the Frenchman never showed a sign of understanding her but read on till he had finished his paper and then with the sweetest smile offered it to her, saying blandly : “ Perhaps Madame would also wish to see this journal of to-day. ” “ By-the-bye,” said Leonard, “ there she goes, and going to pay us out for our laziness no doubt.” They looked and saw the girl sculling leisurely across the lake in the opposite direction, having first come sufficiently close to them to allow of their seeing her manoeuvre. 66 Come back, you little imp,” Oscar shouted. “ Not I. You should not have been so lazy; I shall come and fetch you all when I am tired of being alone; at present thanks . . .” They could not cateh her last words for she had got too far away and her voice was drowned in the busy whisper of the breeze-kissed tree tops. “ She will come back, as she says, when she is tired of being alone,” Lisette remarked, no whit annoyed at a prolongation of their dolce far niente. “ Tell us some more episodes.” “ Can that girl manage the boat all by herself ? ” asked the solicitous husband, heedless of his sister’s request. “ Oh dear, yes : she’s to the manner born like all of us.” “ Still I’d rather keep her in sight : is there another boat? ” “ Yes, a punt : you would never catch her in that, though; she would lead you a dance all over the lake.” “ Veronica would be a proud woman if she only knew the interest her fate excites,” Lisette remarked rather jealously. The Byrons were not an anxious family and there was such a palpable absence of incentive to fear on the present occasion. “ Will you come too? ” he asked Leonard, moving off towards the boathouse. “ Perhaps I should be de trop.” “ Don’t be absurd,” laughed Oscar in reply, taking his friend’s arm; and so they went together. It took a couple of minutes to reach the long low shed of fir-logs that served as a shelter for the two boats and another to get the lumbering old punt out into the lake I THxC AUTHORS JttPlLUUUJb] 287 and free of the weeds, then Oscar looked around for the other and lighter boat which was however not in sight. “ She has gone to the water-lily place, I expect,’ 1 Leonard remarked, seeing Oscar’s searching glance. “ She said she wanted some to take home to Beaumonde to-night, Let’s go there.” After turning round the comer of a small island thal had before obstructed their view, the bay wherein the lilies grew came into sight, about half a mile ahead : the girl and her little craft, however, were even now not visible “ I can’t see her,” said Oscar nervously. “ My dear fellow, don’t be alarmed, there’s another smal islet there, can’t you see, and I declare I believe I can jusl distinguish her light dress gleaming through the willows or it. Can’t you? ” “ Oh yes, I think I can now and then. How long shal we take getting there? ” “ Perhaps ten minutes in this wretched concern. Shal you give Veronica a marital wigging when you catch heri I’m sure she deserves one.” “ Yes, doesn’t she.” It did take them full ten minutes to reach the island o stunted willow trees, and just as they doubled its righ point Leonard, who was sitting idle, said : “ We shall catch her in a fine trap. She can’t get ou round the other side; there are sunk stakes.” “ I can’t see her,” said Oscar in a smothered voice. The boat had come into sight, but no Veronica wai visible. “ Wretched child, she’s lying down in the boat tc frighten us,” replied her brother, standing up to commanc a better view. “ Just like her.” But Oscar had arisen too and his burning eyes swep the little boat from stem to stem but there was nothing in it save a great heap of pure sweet lilies, a tiny glovt upon one of the seats, and in one of the rollucks a bit o white silk fringe. I It was too terrible : within a mile of her own home anc her father’s house, with her husband close at hand sh< was drowned. How it had happened none could say, bu it was not hard to guess : very easily she could have over balanced in her efforts to pick the strong-rooted lilies : anc then in that deep, deep water with those twining stem around her and all her woman’s drapery, was there mud hope ? 288 THE STORY OF OSCAR “ She could not swim? ” asked her husband : they were looking one another, and death, in the face. “ No. She was always stupid at it,” Leonard answered simply. “ Veronica ! 99 Hopeless, hopeless summons; he might call, might beseech in most heart-wrung accents that she would come to him, but never, never, through all the ages could she reply at all or answer; her gay voice was dumb. “ She cannot come to me — I will go to her.” “ Stay,” said Leonard bravely, laying a firm but most loving hand on the other’s arm, “ not that way, Oscar : do you think that would take you to her.” There was nothing — for him — in the argument but there was all in the tones of that steadfast voice, like hers and yet unlike; the numbed suicide-look died out of the noble face and that danger was over for that time. They had not been thirty seconds on the spot and yet a life had been lived there. In another instant both men were in the water and spend- ing themselves in wild endeavour to get back the lovely form at least, yet for long in vain; it was very difficult, very dangerous, diving down to the roots of the long- stemmed water lilies, and this was their task. Neither would have stopped while life remained, but at length Leonard saw his friend throw up his arms above his head and sink heavily into the water : spent as he was, it was no easy task but it was done at last and he was laid on the bottom of the boat senseless but alive. ****** Leonard hoped there would be none to see his arrival at the boat house, but Lisette chanced to have got there. “ Well,” she called out as he glided slowly in, “ what have you done with the others — (she could not see the bottom of the boat) — left them behind to philander in the punt, I suppose ? ” “ No.” His voice betrayed something of the terrible reality. “ Where are they then? 99 “ Here is Oscar.” By this time the boat was housed and the body of the young man visible. “ Is he ” “ No dear : he will soon be right again : but Veronica’s ” — he took her hands in his and gazed full into her terrified THE AUTHOR’S EPILOGUE 289 face with his broken heart written in his eyes — “ Veronica is drowned.” A low and most dreadful moan as of a sudden deadly wound was all her comment. She did not faint or cry, only her strength forsook her and she fell to the ground through sheer inability to stand upon her feet. In a very few words he told her how it must have been and left her to carry Oscar in and revive him to his spoiled life which yet must be braved out seeing that he was a man. How can I tell you in order of the ending of that sweet summer afternoon. No change had come at all over the glad face of God’s earth, no weeping shower fell for her poor sake, no sorrow- ing winds arose to moan and wail, only the mirthful gales rippled the azure lake heedless of its dreadful treasure; the doves wooed still in the fragrant pine trees and the heaven- aspiring lark poured out her blissful song : the lilies rode majestically upon the water’s top and smiled their saintly smile up at the cloudless sky : the children as gladly out from school when their clock struck four, the tired school- mistress just as thankfully wended her way through the green lanes home, and all the world just as idly lapt in the summer bliss. Oh, it was hard to die on such a day and harder to be left : harder to mourn through the endless hours while the outer joy mocked at their hopeless sorrow and all the bitter anguish, so that while they wailed “ She is dead, ah God, she is dead,” it laughed reply, “ and we all live, we live.” No words that I could tell could add aught to that terrible day or take anything away. • CHAPTER XII But the carriage she had ordered for seven o’clock never came : she needed none to carry her on that long journey whither she had gone, gone all alone in the pleasant after- noon. They had brought her home to her father’s house, whence she should never go again but once, and then should she j be borne upon the shoulders of men : had she forgotten her own people also and her father’s house, think you? I trow not. Another King had now at least pleasure in her beauty, to whose high court she had unwishing gone. The weary, weary hours died slowly one by one and at last the sun was set, at last his fires were all gone out and the blessed gloom of night settled down upon the earth again. All through those endless hours the old church tower, from whence a month ago the joy-bells had cast wide their wild clangour to the breezes, sent forth their one unchang- ing monotone : “ Drowned,” the huge bell boomed slowly and deliberately, 66 Drowned.” Oscar had soon been called back to the bitter life he had to bear and in his secret soul he bore a grudge against the man who had snatched him from death : it would have been so easy to have died, it seemed so impossible to live. For hours after his recovery he paced in numbed hall conscious anguish the room that had been hers. In all the vases were fresh flowers, placed there that morning as a little tribute of welcome to her on her coming back. Or the walls hung her pictures as he and she had arranged them last time the room had been repapered, and over the fireplace hung the mirror wherein so often her sweet face had been framed. Across one end of the room ran a long cupboard witl several doors : one of these was ajar and Oscar mechani- cally shut it as he came up to it in his restless walk : before doing so, however, he noticed that what had kept it partly jaw 290 p te THE AUTHOR’S EPILOGUE 291 open was a gown which had got into the way, one of her gowns that she had worn in the old days before her mar- riage, He opened the door for an instant and stooping down reverently kissed the hern of the simple girlish dress, still subtly breathing the peculiar fragrance of violets that had always hung about her clothes. Then closing the door he continued his weary pacing up and down the long narrow room till at last tired out, tired of his monotonous march and tired of his own despair, he threw himself hopelessly down upon the low window seat and gazed out upon the darkening lake. Presently a sound arrested his attention, a heavy, stumbling sound of walking, as of one carrying a large and unwieldy burden, which drew nearer to the room wherein he sat. For a moment his pulses ceased to beat and a horrid sickness came upon him : in an instant of time a ghastly instinct had told him what was at hand and it was too horrible for him to bear. He was powerless to move and sat motionless in a strange lethargy intense with feeling yet outwardly un- moved : the curtains behind him screened him from sight and he sat still — waiting. The door opened and someone murmured, “ He is not here,” then a slow footfall sounded on the carpet, and Leonard, for it was he, advanced to the small white bed and laid his sad burden down upon it with an infinite reverent tenderness. Oscar turned and looked, making a slight rustle as he did so, which informed his brother of his presence. “ I did not know you were here,” Leonard said in his sad staid voice. “ I will go and leave you. It is getting late. They had laid her in the stateroom and I knew she would rather be here.” Oscar tottered to his feet, a strange weakness over- powered him, so that the other’s voice sounded very far away and unreal and .he could only move slowly and with feeble steps. The tears that had not fallen for his own terrible sorrow rushed now to Leonard’s eyes to see the sturdy power of the vigorous young man turned for ever so short a time into such weakness as that. Very fearful had been the sight of the old man’s wild agony over his lost favourite, too sacred for me to dare intrude on here, and yet there was something even more awful in the silent heart break of the new-wed bridegroom 292 THE STORY OF OSCAR stricken down thus in the first promise of his bright youth. “ Do not look at her face,” the brother besought earnestly as Oscar came towards the bed whereon she lay. “ Won’t you remember her as she looked in life ? ” The only answer was a grave inclination of the noble head as the young man knelt down beside the thing he had loved so well. Over the fair girlish form a light sheet was drawn so ; that nothing was actually visible, only the outline of the whole body was defined through the veil. For a few moments Leonard also knelt near the simple catafalque and then arose in silence and left the other alone to his unapproachable sorrow. Thus left, his eyes fastened themselves with a fierce ! hungry longing on the shrouded form, lying so utterly re- gardless of him or any grief at all, in that terrible never- waking slumber. For him there was no hope. For him, as he knelt on through the cheerless hours of night speechless, wounded and stricken, came no blessed voice of comforting assurance, no friendly certainty of a final meeting in a happier place. All through his life he had had no belief in these things and now, if he was to learn them, they were to be learned as a bitter, bitter lesson which he fain would have left all unread. We cannot believe in a moment; the old habits are too strong upon us, the old prejudices too keen; we must wait for a gradual breaking up of the winter ice which no strength can force. It grew very dark, so dark that he could see nothing, not even the dim outline of the childish form so close at hand, and yet he did not stir. The wind was rising and dreary wailings waited on its birth : the trees without rustled and whispered timorously as who should tell a horrid secret too awful for open speech, and now and then the wonderful j sucking sound of the lake among its sedges smote on his ears, but he heeded not. He was living his life out, that was all. “ I will believe it,” he thought. “ I will realize it, it must be faced, it is no delusion.” And yet it was hard to credit. Twenty times he found himself saying : “ This time last night we were having supper at Crewe,” j or “ This time last night we were just getting in,” or again THE AUTHOR’S EPILOGUE 293 “ It was this morning we came here, not many years ago, and it is not more than eight hours since I kissed her.” And now — the silliest of her family as some thought her, the lightest-hearted certainly and the merriest, whose glad laugh had rung so pleasantly through those old rooms on her home return, who had ever been so instinct with eager life; she was dead, dead, dead. Over and over again he repeated the word till it lost all familiarity of sound and was but an empty echo with no meaning at all; then the church bell tolling close above his head suggested a change and he listened calmly to its long- drawn boom declaring “ Drowned,” “ Drowned.” But all was little use — he could not credit it, could not really feel and know the actualness of this dread thing that had come upon him. He was never a man to have stormed and raved and tom his hair over a thing, but even he was surprised at his present deadness of perception : it was none the less pain- ful, though; it was an inward, silent despair eating his heart out. There was no passion in his sorrow, no wild clutching of the bed whereon she lay, no horrible distortions of face, no writhing of his agonized frame; he did not lie along the ground and bite the dnst, or beat his head against the wall with moanings and bitter tears. It was too great for all that, so that it took hold of him and held him powerless to move or act, leaving him the one unfettered faculty of suffering and of thinking. Once or twice it did occur to him that others might think, though he did not, that this thing was by chance. And then he reviewed with frozen calmness the natural- ness of such a belief from their point of view. All his life long he had been in silence doing scorn to that God of theirs, sometimes even speaking his contempt of their paltry faith; and always defying Him in his heart to be up and do, to prove His majesty and power. If there was any God, if One Almighty did reign aloof from men as they had said, and shew the nations of His strength, why should He not have stretched out now the finger of His hand and stricken her, saying : “ For My honour thou must die, that My name may be glorified ” ? The reasonableness of the thing was patent to him : in the first place such a deed would be a punishment, the un- hasting, deliberate retribution of a long-insulted Divinity : then too it was such an assertion of power as would forever 294 THE STORY OF OSCAR silence the impertinent scoffs of him who had provoked the act by leaving him dumb and confounded before the One he had scorned. Then, too, supposing there was any God, and that to Him the soul of one man was of more value than the bodies of a thousand, might it not well be that in His Almighty power and infinite knowledge the deed He had done was an act of supremest mercy ? So that the young man who had wedded a maiden simple and pure, and void of any breath of fault, yet not especially religious, not able to win to her own gentle faith the husband whom she loved and whose only idol she was might be driven to believe the truth so long condemned and drawn by iron bands into the way of bliss ? He knew well enough that Veronica, good as she was in her innocent childlike way, would never have had the power of persuading him of the reality of religion : partly because she believed, only well enough for herself, not in the fierce passionate wise of an apostle, and partly because that which charmed him in her was not as he understood it, religion, but the mere outcome of her naturally sweet and goodly temper. Supposing then that he was to be persuaded by easy ways or hard of the truth of belief, would she not be a clog in the way rather than a help? All this passed through his mind and was gravely examined, but he turned from it and would have none of its suggestions, for he would not be persuaded. To his proud nature it would have been a worse thing to acknowledge that his wife, his love, his only joy, had been taken from him deliberately by a higher power than his own, because that Power thought it not well for him still to keep her, than it was to look her terrible death in ' the face and say that she was cut off in the midst of her years by an accident, a mere chance that might happen to anyone. It seemed to him less humiliating, less crush- ing. He would not credit that it had been done of set purpose, a purpose long fixed and unchangeable, and for his sake. To do so would have made him feel that he was the cause of her death, the destroyer of her glad joy life. “ It is I and my blasphemous conceits that have cast her away into the darkness of death,” he would have had to say to his own soul : and he would not. So, though over and over again during the endless night it came upon him that after all there must be a God to do 1 THE AUTHOR’S EPILOGUE 295 these wondrous things, to say to the old father whose deeds were done, whose life was lived out, “ Live on,” and to lay His finger silently on the young girl whose feet had only crossed the borders of childhood a while since, for whom life was all future, joy and sorrow alike were things to come, bidding her die, for He had need of her : though all this would surge in upon him in the cold night watches, he thrust it from him with a stem and unyielding persistency, that was not obstinacy, but rather unswerving endurance. CHAPTER XIII It was midnight. There was sorrow in all the house and yet some slept. But not so Oscar, nor so Leonard; one by the dead girl, the other by the living Christ, knelt on through the lagging hours. * i The storm had arisen and was howling without, rattling the tiles and making strange groanings in the old chimney stacks. It was a wild night and the world was terrified at its fierceness, the cedar crossed itself and bowed, the aspens shivered, and the very lake gasped among its reed-beds and where the water lilies had drawn the young girl down to death. There was no rain yet, only a violent tempest and a suffocating brooding darkness of huge thunderclouds, blotting the stars and moon out of the heavens. Still Oscar had not moved, still with his head erect he knelt by his dead wife’s side, thinking, thinking, never for a moment changing his position or recalling any outer thing at all. The bell had ceased to toll and the sexton had gone to bed, wondering as he went how much he would get for his trouble, “ for his lordship is that rich he might give a sight and not miss it.” At least that voice of the grail was silent and there was nothing but its echo in his own heart to remind him of her cutting off in that sad place, which yet to think upon his spirit loathed and feared. Then the clock very slowly struck the hour of twelve and then was silent — the “ Blue Bells of Scotland ” were displaced as on Sundays, being too secular for the bereaved condition of the Moat House. With that odd timidity which so strangely teases us at times such as this, Oscar’s brain refused to forget the sounds that had just died into silence, and kept asking : “ Twelve, what has twelve to do with it? ” Then he fell to searching diligently for some connection between twelve and the matter. 296 THE AUTHOR’S EPILOGUE 297 6 ‘ She’s more than twelve and not so much as twice twelve : I have not known her twelve years, but I have known her more than twelve months; she has not been dead twelve hours, we have been married more than twelve days.” So he went on, not wishing to indulge this foolish tiresome enquiry, yet powerless to control his weary thoughts. At length he arose and groping his way to the head of the bed lifted the sheet from the fair face of her who had been drowned, and stooping kissed it. For a moment their lips lay together as they had first done long ago after her vigil in this very room, the warm lips of the strong-blooded living man and the ice-cold lips of the frail dead girl. It was like the touch of an exquisite statue and its chill was unspeakable. He set back the sheet over her face and turned away with a strong convulsive shudder. A horror had seized him of being there alone with that : it was not she whom he had loved, it was but an empty house from whence all that he knew had fled : as well kiss the chill walls of a long-deserted mansion, and expect an answering caress. He would not stay longer with that pale thing that was so like her and not she; so he stumbled through the thick darkness across the room and passed out into the echoing corridor. He would go out : it was terrible to be indoors and to feel that one roof sheltered his body and hers and yet she was not there. So he found his way to the garden door and passed out into the wild night, and utter blackness. Beneath the wide stretching arms of the cedar tree he paused to kneel and kiss the ground where he and she had stood to plight their troth, so long ago, so long ago : the same old hammock hung there still as that in which she had lain when first he told her of his love, and as he laid his arm upon it now there came to him most vividly all the memory of the anguish he had suffered there when she had sent by her servant those brief words of denial. So he walked on and left that old tree, with all its memories, behind, passing into the hardly denser gloom of the shrubbery where in the summer evenings they had often strolled together, he and she. Thus out by the shore of the lake into the open fields and so to the place where the lilies slept with closed-up faces over the waters that had taken her young life away. 298 THE STORY OF OSCAR It was all long ago surely, all that; it came back to him, but as a very distant recollection of terrible days gone by : how they had turned the comer of that wee islet and seen no one in the boat, and how the truth had come in upon them both, irresistibly, shutting out all gleam of hope, like a wondrous flood tide on the shore. He could rest nowhere : after a few wild words of bitterest reproach he went on his way, out towards the sea, and turned from the murderous lake that had been so strong ; in its insignificant weakness, recalling her oft-repeated dis- ji trust of the great ocean that yet had done her nothing amiss. The young man walked quick and carelessly, ! stumbling in the darkness over many an obstacle, and heeding nothing : the slight pain he caused himself at these : times was not ignored, but enjoyed. Anything, anything to draw away his thoughts from the one weary theme. When he reached the strand it was nearly the high tide, and there was but a narrow belt of rough shingle between the seething waters and the towering wall of iron rocks that girt that dangerous coast. He wished to reach a ledge of rock where they had often sat together and watched the on-coming of the mighty deep that dashed itself up to the very foot of the cliff which it had been below by some strange freak of nature. It was no easy task to get there now, for the ordinary path was covered by the waves and the rugged shingles were loose and slippery from showers of drenching spray, but Oscar would almost rather it was so and pressed on through the darkness unaltered in his determination to gain the Lover’s Leap as it was called from some half-forgotten legend. Ten minutes hard walking brought him to the foot of the little pathway on the face of the rock that led up to it from the shore, and then, though the .darkness made it dangerous and the way was steep, the most arduous part of his journey was over and he might at least go more leisurely. Last time he had climbed this rocky path it was with her, on the day before their marriage, and that was now nearly five weeks back. Then it had been high noon and the placid ocean had lain basking in the royal sunlight far away to the west — two more mighty monarchs smiling , grandly at each other. Then, too, not a voice was there but the soft murmur of the resting deep just stirred by the summer gale. THE AUTHOR’S EPILOGUE 299 But now the waves were rearing their angry crests higher and nearer in as every minute passed and all the air seemed voiceful with spirit murmurs growing ever louder and more wild. When Oscar reached the narrow ledge of rock, whereon a rude bench had been fashioned, the first dull rumble of distant thunder came rolling over the water mingling with the surging of the waves and the howls of the fierce tempest. A minute later a lurid light flickered for an instant over the inky waste, followed by a second and a louder roll of nearing thunder : that light had shown a wild expanse of furious tempest-tortured billows, heaving and leaping up- wards towards the low, brooding clouds; every minute the rattle of the terrific thunder came nearer and the lightning flashes grew more frequent and prolonged. A fierce excitement seized on Oscar as he stood in the fury of the storm; a sort of wild passion of elation that swamped all other feelings and left nothing but the mad interest of the moment. He watched breathlessly for every flash and when it came strained his eager eyes over the boundless waste taking in in that one brief glance all the terrible majesty of the scene : his hat had fallen from his head but he did not heed it and stood on the very brink of the precipice bending his intense gaze upon the storm below. It began to rain in heavy penetrating torrents that drenched him to the skin in a few minutes but he cared for none of these things, wet or dry, he would live for a while in the wild life of the gleeful tempest, that was yet the terrific truth of unfathomable sorrow. The dizzy heights of those rugged cliffs sent back a hundred rolling echoes of every peal of thunder, making yet madder discord over the seething waves; crash after crash seemed to shake the very foundations of the everlasting rocks, that reared their craggy heads high up into the earth- threatening clouds. He had by no means forgotten wherefore he had come there, that Veronica was drowned and he was left hopeless; the recollection of those past hours of night by the dead mingled bitterly with every sound that struck his ear, every emotion that shook him to the core, every thought that the raging storm suggested. His anguish was not soothed, not drugged, not even subdued by the passion of his now excitement : it was roused and stimulated that was all, whetted to a living keenness, no longer a numb all-deaden- 300 THE STORY OF OSCAR ing monopoly of his being, but a sharp, ever-wounding sword ceaselessly piercing his heart afresh with some new recollection, some more agonizing regret. The old temptation came upon him as he stood there bareheaded in the rain and bitter wind, with the thousand voices of those fell spirits of the storm screaming his heart- break in his ears : should he be the late christener of the Lover’s Leap? The lurid lightning flashes showed him the mad yelping waves beneath his feet, twenty yards below they snarled and howled, gnashing their white foam-teeth for their prey, like hell-dogs crying for their meat. One easy leap would end it all, the years of weary, weary waiting, of heart-eating sorrow, and unsatisfied longing : what if he were not to reach her whom he mourned, by such a plunge, at least there would be an end : if he did not gain her he would at least have ceased to hunger after her with such an all-consuming craving ? The grey waters cast high their arms, as who should say, that they would welcome him to their chill depths, embrace him with their cold loves and hold him fast, fast forever s the screechings of those unearthly gulls, whose gleaming wings swished past his pallid face at times, would make a meet marriage song for such wild nuptials. She wanted not any wooing that passionately eager bride, the measureless great ocean, one leap would make her his and he hers forever; how soon it would be over, how bliss- ful would be the calm on her adoring breast, how infinite the woe he would escape ! Call it a coward’s death ! Is it so cowardly to cast one- self headlong from a beetling rock, down, down, down into the boiling sea, to be dashed to a thousand atoms on sharp jutting points of crag, to feel the bitter brine closing high above your head, to go fearlessly, with deliberate step and meet Him Whom all the nations dread with unpardon- able offence as an offering in our hands ? Is it so weak and dastardly to go willingly into that outer darkness where is only an Eternity, Eternity mind you of incon- ceivable horror, the very notion of which sends us reeling and staggering to crave pity of the great All Judge ? Sublimest folly truly, but cowardly, no. Never till we have succeeded in branding out all slightest thought, all distantest belief in any possibility at all of an endless hereafter, not till the last, last nature-planted chord has dared to thrill to the Faith of God’s old Story, THE AUTHOR’S EPILOGUE 301 and left the heart unhesitating, absolutely certain that there is no God, may we dare to call the death of him who dies of will and not necessity, a cowardice. At times the strong spirit of evil spoke very loudly in his ear and urged him on to that terrible relief : at times “ how nearly had that foe prevailed ” : at times the mad impulse was a torture, and to exist was an added anguish. Why should he live? Why should he not die? Whose life could now be made the sweeter for his? Whose life would be made sadder by his death ? No one’s. On the other hand there were those whose lives would be made rich and glad and full of many de^r delights if only he was dead. Why should he not die, if to die was his own pleasure ? It was because he durst not. He was not too- brave to die; he was not brave enough. The wild voices of the storm had shrieked other things to him; they too had spoken together with the deadening blow of the day before, that these things were not so by chance, that Someone greater than we held this wee world in the hollow of His hand and controls us at the limits of the sea : that there must be One at Whose word the strong wind arises, Who truly layeth the beams of His chambers in the waters, Who maketh the clouds for His chariots and walketh on the wings of the wind : and if there was One, why not that One Whom or ere the ships had sailed in trembling on the great deep and men had gone therein into silence, the nations had adored prostrate and abashed ? There are times when many of us of a sudden see a great light shine in upon our darkness and make the obscure things very clear and the rough places smooth. So was it with him to-night : these things cried aloud to him and would be heard, they clamoured furiously and would have no< refusal, he must attend or even they would go away. Like many another man who has had himself no belief in the religion taught by it, Oscar had always thought the Bible an exquisite book, for its matchless pathos and wonderful poetry, and many parts of it were familiar to him as old childhood songs. Now there came back to him, borne upon the train of association, the words of that sublimest song wherein the Poet King sings of the wonders of the God of Hosts. He looked out over the waste of waters and saw its unapproach- able loveliness of description, most truly at His rebuke 302 THE STORY OF OSCAR they were fleeing, at the voice of His thunders the very rocks were trembling and afraid, the waves rose now as high as hills and down, down they sank again despairingly into valleys beneath. He saw now that it was not at least the religion that He had given that had been unlovely and of low repute. He was noble enough Who had done these things and Whose priests so sang His praises : but it was the mean- ness of the children of men who had dishonoured it that had made its truths to stink in our nostrils. If it was a grand delusion it was at least a beautiful one, and not a ludicrous thing for scorn and contemptuous pity : they who followed such a God, infinite in power and love, terrible and almighty, might be mistaken, might be spend- ing their labour in vain, but they were happy and blessed in their high relief. The terribleness of this God seemed evident if nought else about Him was clear. So on the mere vaguest possibility of such an One’s existence, Oscar durst not do Him defiance and rush head- long to His foot for punishment; held back from the wild death he would fain have died. All this would not. so have taken him as it were at unawares if he had been in his wonted well-balanced steadiness of mind and body, but now he had received a deadly blow that had laid him prostrate, weak and help- less, and he could not choose but hear : the marrow had been turned to water in his bones and he was as one who had been dealt a mortal wound. CHAPTER XIV “ No,” he cried, his sad voice borne away on the wild wings of the night blasts, ‘ 6 I will wait for the morning.” And so he waited, doing himself no ill at all. All through the dark hours of the fearful night, long, long after the grey streaks should have climbed the convex slope and the vanquished sea have gone back from the shore, he stood in the unchanging storm. Above him the thunders rattled for long hours as it seemed and beneath the surging waves at first and then the dripping sand lay out of sight in the impenetrable gloom. His fierce madness of excitement died away and calmer thought succeeded it, but still he stood uncovered and drenched to the skin, in the anger of the storm. He was cowed by the advent of a great belief : all through that night he had striven with God, and had not prevailed; the struggle of his life was over, he was beaten, sore wounded and miserably cast down. It seemed as though the All Powerful had triumphed over him and was thus sternly glorifying in his fall, with a mighty hand truly He had shown his resistless power and set a ghastly seal of silence on the lips that had done Him scorn. “ Thou art mighty, stronger than I, and I hate Thee, * oh Thou God ! ” Was the passionate cry that went up with a great and exceeding bitterness from his broken heart. At last the day dawned and the tempest lulled : that little cavern looked towards the east, and there at length appeared the pale hands of morning tearing night’s sable pall down from the sullen sky. Higher and higher the yellow streaks shot up the arch of heaven and as they rose the wild winds fell and ran with wailing lamentation away to their dark prisons in the murmurous caverns of the rocks. The yet unabated fury of the waters was gently felt by the touch of the rising king, and the foamy crests of the leaping waves gleamed snowy white in the morning light. Through the great 303 304 THE STORY OF OSCAR rents in the leaden clouds a bluer heaven appeared and silvery fringes circled round their own dreary borders with an ever broadening phylactery. Slowly the clouds dropped down to the still dim horizon, and the mists after the rain rose up and faded quite away. He had waited for the morning and here the morning was. With the daylight there came, however, a yet more cruel living realization of his bitter loss. Yesterday morning she had been glad and gay in life, ! beautiful as a fair flower just opening to the matin sun, and now Fifty years perhaps of such mornings would dawn and find him still standing alone, with longing hands held out for others that could never clasp them, straining weary eyes out into the vast eternal if haply he might see the goal. And her life might have been, nay, it most certainly would have been, so pleasant too : she was yet a child in her utter enjoyment of the simple pleasures of her life, as indeed she was little more than a child in years. Her lot had just been perfected, her goal had just been j reached, her dangers were all past, her doubts and trials at an end, and her happiness secured. Then with a sudden blow the pleasant cup had been dashed from her lips and she had gone down into silence. To her death was no welcome friend come to relieve her from long pain and weary waiting. Glad, glad youth and love were before and all the fortune of her high lot : a great lady, her future was all brilliant and it had been taken untimely from her. It was not as if there had been the prospect of a hard lot to face, a life of sordid struggles or pinching want and self denial; then death might well have been a long prayed for visitant and she might have answered gladly to his summons, laying down the cross she was too weak to bear. But now, but now it was not so : ’ her little cup of sorrow had been bravely drunk, and had turned to sweetness in the mouth and very fain would she have stayed a while with those she loved. He came down from the ledge of crag whereon he had watched through the night hours and went wearily upon his homeward way, his heart re-echoing still that one despairing protest of pitiful impotence. “ Thou bast conquered, but I hate Thee, dread and cruel One.” CHAPTER XV The simple funeral was over. Veronica had been laid down in her dawning youth to rest with those of her race, who, in riper age, with their years* fardale on their backs, had gone more painfully per- haps yet, as we say, more fitly down into that place where all men, as all things, are forgotten. Mirrors once more reflected back the blue dome of God’s heaving floor, the waving crowns of ancient elms and the rippled face of the smiling lake, and not the horrid dim- ness of drawn blinds, shutting in the poor mourners from all joyaunce in God’s good world without. People still talked indeed with decorous sighs of the poor girl-bride’s fate and compassionate her lord, but it was no news now and the retailer of the tidings gained no sort of prestige from its repetition, nay, rather was despised as a person meanly desirous of creating an excitement concern- ing that which people had already been duly moved about. Lord and Lady Slanach had thought it kinder to go home and Lisette is all day with her father in his own room, so that Oscar and Leonard were thrown almost wholly together. There was something beautiful about the latter’s grief. He had been stricken down by the blow, so that it seemed as if he could never again remember to be happy, but he bore it not alone in silence but with steadfast unflinching calmness. He spent a good deal of those first days in the chapel watching by the girl’s catafalque and holding converse with the God he honoured, that was all. His face bore no violent traces of passionate sorrow, and all his wonted duties were punctiliously performed : nay, many other things fell to him to do now and they were all done quietly and without remark, with a steady thoroughness and per- fectness that he always applied to every task. Except at the funeral Oscar had not seen his- wife’s 30s X JtzLxLi OXUJtiX UX UOVJiXJti father since they had parted with a kindly joke after luncheon on the day that Veronica was drowned. “ How is your father? ” he asked Leonard, the day after she had been buried. “ He is very, very much broken down,” the other answered simply, without any reserve or would-be blunder- ing, delicacy; ‘ 6 he is more prostrated by it than you are, I think. She was his favourite child and he is old, it is hard for a man to see his own child die before himself who should have gone before her. We cannot comfort him, she was the only one of us who ever knew how to soothe him in any distress and now she is gone.” Oscar was silent, having no words to tell his thoughts. “ He would so much like to see you,” continued Leonard, “ if you would not mind very much : he asks for you incessantly, and you see, you were so much more to her than we could be that it seems as though you were the strongest link binding him to her. Would you try ? ” “ Of course. When shall I go ? ” He went soon and it was a piteous sight to see the old man and the young, drawn thus together by the mighty bands of a common ineffable love and unfathomable sorrow. The father had sunk into an aged man, and the youth had been burnt out of the young man’s life : the light of their eyes was gone from them and for all besides they cared them nothing. The day after their meeting Oscar was sitting at break- fast with Leonard when the post-bag was brought in : there was one large envelope from Beaumonde for Oscar, and one or two letters for the other. After merely tearing open his and seeing what it con- tained, Oscar paid it no more attention, and continued his pre-occupied reading of the “ Times,” until his brother looked up and said : “ You remember the girl you saved in London, don’t you? ” “ The girl you saved, you mean,” he answered with a wan smile. “ Yes, I remember her very well. Why? ” “ This is from her; she has been in a situation in London but is ill, and has been taken to a hospital. She wants me to go to see her and try to get the hospital authorities to send her down to her mother in the country : they declare she is not yet fit to be moved and must stay, but it is not a free hospital and her money is running out.’ ? “ Shall you go? ” THE AUTHOR’S EPILOGUE 307 “ Yes. I am no use here, particularly now Hugh is back and I should be of use to her. You don’t mind, do you; I should be back to-morrow or next day ? ” “ No, of course I don’t. But let me come too.” “ Would you like to, really ? Of course I should like that much better.” “ Yes, I should much prefer it : I can’t bear to be here just now and I can’t face Beaumonde either : they have just sent on her letters here, 6 her late ladyship’s,’ look you. I may be of some use perhaps, if you will let me.” So they went together that very morning, reaching London late in the afternoon, and going direct to> the hos- pital where the sick girl lay. It seemed she had been suffering from some slight acci- dent attended with consequent illness, and was still weak and helpless, but quite convalescent and free from pain. Her desire to be taken home was partly on her mother’s account, and partly due to her dread of over-passing her resources. Her gladness at seeing Leonard, whom she had never met since the memorable days in which he had taken her home to her mother’s house, was intense and real : and he in his turn treated her with that reverent chivalry that had always been one of his greatest charms in Oscar’s eyes. She told him all her history since that time, and had nothing but a life of quiet happiness to tell of in those two years or so, which had been passed with the kind mistress Byron had found for her. 66 And I am going back,” she added, “ when I am strong again, which will be soon now I hope : the family are abroad now, or they would have been here to see me often, I’m very sure, and I should not have had to trouble you.” The authorities made no great difficulties about her removal to the country, when they were told that she was to be taken by easy stages and with all possible comfort, her mother having been sent for to take charge of her on the way. The business, however, took several days and by the time the girl had been safely given into her mother’s hands it was Saturday, and too late to reach Barkhamston their station that night. ‘ 6 I’m afraid there are no trains to-morrow,” Leonard said looking up from a time table he had been studying. “ All the better. I would rather be here than at Beau- monde.” 308 THE STORY OF OSCAR They were at Oscar’s own house, where Veronica had never been except as a visitor and that not lately : so there were less painful memories there than at either of their homes. “ If you could stay with me I should like to stop up here for a few weeks. Will you? ” Leonard agreed that he would unless Hugh were to be obliged to leave home again at once, in which case he would be wanted at home : so they did not return to the country nearly as soon as they had originally intended. Next morning Leonard went to church and Oscar stayed at home to wander listlessly through the half-dismantled rooms and make vain attempts at reading a book he had bought in the train coming up. When his friend returned he told him that he had further decided on living in London altogether for a year, or at least making it his headquarters. “ I really am not able to face Beaumonde and shire society just yet, and I can have no duties there just now,” he said in explanation of this determination which his friend was inclined to think was a wise one. While Oscar had been speaking, Leonard absently took up the last evening’s Pall Mall and cast his eyes carelessly down its columns. Suddenly something caught his eye and he gave the paper to his brother, saying : “ Oscar, do you see that : isn’t it dreadful? ” The paragraph he pointed to was headed “ A Sad Acci- dent,” and said how on the eleventh of August (this was the twenty-first) Harcourt Brudenell, the only child of the late Joseph Brudenell, had been thrown out of a cab in London and received serious hurt, which had not however seemed at the time to be hopeless. Serious symptoms had | afterwards set in and on the seventeenth the unfortunate young gentleman had died, at the residence of his grand- father, the Reverend Henry Lascelles Brudenell, a convert Roman Catholic priest. At first Oscar had hardly dared to look at the paper; since that afternoon his eyes had turned with horror from all newspaper accounts of melancholy accidents lest per- chance they should prove to be the narrative of that one supreme accident for him, that he had learnt so terribly by heart. But then he had read with infinite wondering compassion, mingled with fierce anger : here then was another young life spilled like water and another exercise of that fell THE AUTHOR’S EPILOGUE 309 Almighty power. Lately he referred all mishaps to a sinister design of Providence. They did not speak much about this : it was a new and great grief to both of them. That evening Leonard announced his intention of going to church and Oscar volunteered to go with him : “ Anything is better than staying alone here, 55 he said. “ I have only seen two services of your Church, and I did not attend much to them.” He alluded to his wedding and her funeral. CHAPTER XVI The nearest church to Oscar’s house was that of S. Mary Magdalene, Vauxhall Bridge Road. Thither accordingly they went together at about half- past six in the evening, easily finding the place, though neither of them had ever been there before. The church did not stand really in Vauxhall Bridge Road, but in one of the small streets that open out of it. It was a small and plain church with little exterior archi- tectural beauty or interior richness of ornament; the con- gregation, too, as they saw at a glance, was not a fashion- able one. Most of the seats were already full but at last they found two vacant places not far from the pulpit, which they were told to take. The church was draped in parts with black festoons of drapery and before the altar stood a catafalque, covered with a plain Gothic pall of violet cloth, beside which an old man was kneeling. \ Presently the priests, preceded by a small choir of men and boys, entered the sanctuary and the office of compline began. Very beautiful is it in its simplicity and calm faithfulness; Oscar listened attentively throughout the Benediction and following Psalms, being most pleased when they reached the glorious Psalm, Qui Habitat in Adjutorio. Always he had thought it unapproachable in poetry and beauty; but its appropriateness to this last ser- vice of the day was a new phase of its excellence. Those who sang it were thinking more than usual on that night of its fair promises, and their voices had an unconscious pathos as they dwelt on the safety of those who dwell under the defence of the Most High, the shadow of the Almighty. Then when that was concluded and the Gloria sung, they stood up and with a sort of triumphant gladness sang “ Ecce nunc ! Benedicite dominum, omnes servi domini ! 99 The night hymn followed and so until the THE AUTHOR’S EPILOGUE 311 sublime Aspiration “ In manus tuas, domine.” When the short service was over two of the choristers went out and returned with the old man who had knelt beside the catafalque. He was old and his step was slow and uncertain, but his face bore an expression of vigorous activity and his eyes spoke of an unquenched spirit. They went before him to the foot of the pulpit steps and left him : he mounted them and stood for a moment silent to recover himself. Then taking the biretta from his head he turned to the catafalque, and having invoked the God of his life, said in a low voice, quivering with an intense emotion, “ And they asked : is it well with him ? And he said : yea, it is well.” Oscar’s eyes were at once fastened on the old man : his face was that of a man who had borne and suffered much, having possessed his soul in patience. There was a certain ruggedness about its outlines of the face but lines of infinite sensibility crossed it, and on the quivering lips sat an expression of unconquerable yearning. “ You have come,” he began, speaking slowly and with frequent pauses as of fatigue, “ to watch with me by the side of him whom we all lament.” Leonard bent forward a moment and whispered some- thing in the ear of a young man sitting on the next bench to* theirs. Then he turned to his friend and said in a low voice : “ His name, they say, is Brudenell.” “ For this first let me thank you,” continued, the old man. 66 You all knew him; he had worked lovingly among you, and few of us here to-night but have had the dull winter of their busy lives gladdened by the bright summer of his young and goodly presence. There needs no pane- gyric : your own hearts bring back to you better than I could tell it all the sweetness of that blameless youth and budding manhood. He has gone, and his works follow him. And I have found that nothing is better than for a man to rejoice in his work, for that is his portion. But who shall bring a man to know the things that shall be after him. “ He who has thus suddenly risen up left us, is it well with him ? “ There may be among you some who cannot grasp the happiness of such an ending before yet there was well a beginning. To some it may be that God’s love is not 312 THE STORY OF OSCAR clear, that the young man cut off in the midst of his age and sent down into darkness is an altogether awful thing. “ If any such there be, to whom the wondrous gladness does not weigh well against the sadness, let me speak to them. “ Let us ask, is it well with him ? “ My little children, is it well to rest from toil ? Is it well to lay down the dreary cross, and cease from travelling painfully along a weary road ? Is it well to turn aside into green pastures and rest by solemn streams from all the heat, the labour and the strife? “ Whether is it better? To press slowly, in steadfast patience but with tired feet and way-worn frame, along a hard and rugged road with the far goal hardly hovering on our sight through the sullen clouds, or to pass quickly onward over one deep and chilly river to the land we fain would reach, when the evil days come not, and before the years draw nigh in which we must say 6 We have no pleasure in them.* Before the sun and the light and the moon and the stars be darkened, and the clouds return after the rain. “ Whether of the twain is better, O my friends ! “ We cannot choose but mourn for our own sakes. 66 But let not our selfish grief prevent our rejoicing in his ineffable happiness. So long as we live upon earth, death must ever be a dread and awful thing to us. But oh, we need not call it too hopeless. “ Two gates are there to life : the Birth Gate and the Death. Through both of these we pass for the most part not of our own will but of another’s. Through both we often pass with tears, but through neither need we pass with blank despair. “ Do not, oh do not, I do entreat you, ever so slightly, with ever so little intention, asperse high God for that that he hath done to us. “ Surely I am the deepest sufferer by our common loss. I am an old man and stand alone in the wide world and this so great city; one son had been mine and him my Father took. Dying he left me a fair boy to nourish up for Him whose own he was. As a tender plant he grew and was lovely in his life, so that its fragrance spread abroad and gladdened other hearths than mine. Very fearlessly he trod the Royal Road of the Most Holy Cross, leading away by the hand who were weak and weary with the toil- some way. THE AUTHOR’S EPILOGUE 813 u But, as with eager eyes strained ever on the prize he longed to reach, he pressed onward up the steep, never looking back save to speak hope and tender help to them who came behind, there met him One who touched him with a friendly chill and told him he might lay his burden dovta. So the day was over and he had gained the coronet. “ Think, think of that that he has now. “ Not endless riches, endless pleasure, all illimitable possession, but God . “ 1 am your prize and exceeding great reward. No lower thing is the palm of victory : the King of kings is his; the Father of the Son is now his own : and in that ineffable possession he is we cannot picture it — that glory : for it hath not entered into the heart of man what things God hath laid up for those He loves. “ Only we know that it is infinite : and being infinite we can never grasp it for we are very finite. “ Shall I then dare to raise reproachful eyes to God’s high palace gate, where he, my own boy, waits to welcome me? “ We know that it is a sad thing for one like me to stand beside the grave of those who should have closed his own eyes in his timely death. Ever it is a piteous sight to see the old man mourning for the young, who should have carried on his race. “ But shall I, whose eyes are growing dim, whose own feeble feet totter on the brink of the grave where to-morrow we shall lay him down to rest, dare to uplift my voice in lamentation because it has pleased our Father to send one before me who shall call me over the dark flood of death’s deep river, and lead me joyfully before the throne ? “ Rather with the Blessed Polycarp let me say : Eighty and six years have I served Jesus Christ and He hath never done me harm, how then shall I blaspheme my King and Saviour? ” The feeble voice, weak through age yet burning with a fervent fire, trembled and the old man paused. Many were weeping quietly : there was an infinite pathos in his standing there in his sorrow, alone, to plead the cause of the God he served, the Omnipotent Lord of Heaven. Often through sheer weakness had his impassioned words sunk to a fervent whisper, yet steadfast and undismayed had he continued pouring out the earnestness of his life- love. 314 THE STORY OF OSCAR To Oscar there was something almost terrible in such a faith. This man had known God as a man knoweth his friend and had altogether trusted Him : though at least two death blows had been dealt him by that Master, he had raised no doubting voice, but had rather joyed over their match- less gain. “ Daily , 55 continued the aged priest, raising upward his thin hands knotted with veins and tremulous, “ daily at least, we all pray 6 Et ne nos inducas in tentationem , 5 ‘ And lead us not into temptation , 5 ‘ Sed libera nos a malo . 5 Shall we weep then, my little children, and make a grievous lamentation when to one of us God has turned a willing ear and delivered him from the evil ? “ If we would have an ensample in our sorrow, of the way we must needs bear it, there is one that passeth know- ledge : “ ‘ I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills : from whence cometh my help.’ “ So sang the sweet-tongued Psalmist King of old, bend- ing the eagle eye of prophesy adown the rolling centuries. Far more than twenty centuries have passed since then : things the most distant are near compared with that long silent song. Many a noble race and mighty monarch has risen up and towered to the heavens to fall at length in the most majestic ruin. “ But still in our sorrows the same cry goes ever upward from our sore hearts, and we too lift up our eyes to the hilte from whence alone floweth our help. “ To the hill, the hill of Calvary, then, let us look. We dare not mount that awful steep where in lonely and un- approachable majesty the King of all the kings holds his court : that hallowed ground is too terrible for us to tread, but we may go near to the foot of the mount and fully prostrate raise our aching eyes to look upon Him there. “ Stretched on the bitter Cross the Christ lies dead, the blood has ceased to drip from those Five Founts of Ador- able Compassion, the tired Head is drooped upon the pierced side, and the death film glazes those piteous eyes. “ But at His feet there stands alone in speechless anguish the Mother of Jesus. “ We cannot paint, we cannot adequately picture, her sorrow of sorrows : God has but given us a human tongue, to tell of our poor finite sufferings, and there is no language THE AUTHOB’S EPILOGUE 315 that can rise above this and describe the grief that was not finite, the Divine Anguish of the Mother of our God. “ Let us turn to her then for a pattern if we fain would know how sorrows should be borne. “ Through all those awful hours Mary the Mother of Jesus was stood beneath the Cross, gazing on that stupendous heroism that dwarfs all others that the Universe has ever seen, that makes us even forget the patient heroism of His life who ended it so meetly by His death. “ For three and thirty years has her sacred heart been tom and wounded by the foreknowledge of to-day. Yet no loud voiced lamentation disturbs Him in His agony : silent, uncomplaining, infinitely suffering yet making no sign or sound of her inward torture, that perfect mother watches by that perfect Son. Not with self-pitying pathos does she remind her Child that she is near, but in utter self-abandonment she prays with all her soul to His Father and hers that the pain might soon be overpast. ‘ ‘ When the death-dews have gathered on the thorn- pierced brow and those uncomplaining lips have drunk down to the bitter lees that cup of ineffable anguish, still she bears, in silence, and still she waits.” There was other force than that of his mere words in the old man’s fellow feeling with that greater mourner, that other parent, the mother of his King. “ Oh my friends,” he said, “ I know that many of you have in the death of my boy, my more than son, suffered grievous loss : yet* oh yet, I do beseech you, think on his bliss and be content : for indeed, indeed it is well with him.” Then the trembling hand was raised to sign upon his wrinkled brow and sorrowing breast the blessed symbol of that other mightier sorrow which will ever be our joy. With slow wavering step the old man came down from the pulpit and took his way to the flower-decked altar, kissing as he passed the young man’s catafalque. The altar alone was wholly glad : no symbol of mourning was there, but only the bright ornaments that simple faith offers upon its Master’s throne. The Litany of her was sung whose grief surpassed his own and then with awestruck voice the kneeling throng poured forth the adoring cry : “ Tantum ergo sacramentum, veneremur cemui,” and all their heads were bowed down in lowliest worship. It was all new to Oscar, but an instinct told him what 316 THE STORY OF OSCAR would follow next : and when the aged priest took in his hands that which held the Sacred Host, he bent down lowly, before the rest, and from his inner self a mighty cry went up to God, “ Blessed and praised forever be Thou, most good and loving Lord.” An utter silence reigned through the church for three brief minutes, broken only by the pealing of a silver- throated bell and high above the louder boom of the bell whose solemn protest went forth over the great city bidding them return and adore their God and Lord. No eye was raised to break upon the awful privacy of that great Lord and His old priest. A DIEU Yet one more scene and I have done. I will ask you to wander with me “ On from island unto island to the gateways of the days ” to a sunnier land than this, to region where the breeze is laden ever with the fragrance of luscious gums and odorous trees, where flowers of more royal hues deck the joyful ground and birds of stranger, richer plumage glide through groves of palms and most delicious spices. Far, far away to the east, where first the young sun leaps from the placid wave into the dazzling azure, where his fair bride the earth dons more queenly marriage robes to greet him, and decks her face with rarer gems, there is a garden of delights. They call that island Yola, which in their tongue who dwell there signifies Bride of the Sun, because it is the fairest spot in all that most fair region, and over it the heaven king her spouse seems ever to linger with a fonder dalliance than on any other land of earth. Come there with me a while and then my tale is told. Beneath the leafy crown of a majestic palm there kneels a little throng of swarthy worshippers, clustered around the feet of a vested priest who is offering there to his God the ineffable sacrifice. It is a tiny band, not numbering two score in all, but they are the first fruits of the faith : yonder Priest of the Society of Jesus is like his Master not yet thirty years old, and it seems but yesterday that he came amongst them from over the azure sea, to tell them the stupendous story of the first great sacrifice to which that other points and pleads. Yes it is Oscar. Leaving all that he had he has taken his journey into a far country and turned away for ever from the land of his birth and love. Nor, having put his hand to the plough, has he once looked back : he was not as other men who 317 318 THE STOBY OF OSCAK had always loved their Lord, for he had made his mock at the religion of the Cross and it was fit that now he should boldly bear the Cross. Ceaselessly he would labour to work out, with lowliest fear and trembling if it be, his own salvation and not that alone, but he fain would make a peace-offering to the Master he had wronged of other souls who knew Him not. For two years he had laboured here with endless watch- ings and fastings and prayers, pressing on with all the ardour of his intense and steadfast nature to the end he had in view : not courting danger, as one who knew he had another’s work to do* and it behoved him to do it ere he died, and yet not shunning it, as one who knew his life was in the hollow of the hand of the Most High God; weary and hopeless had the task seemed at first, and slow the progress, small the visible result. Yet it was something to be able to gather round him now these few score who adored the God of Hosts alone, and feel they were his children in the faith. It was mid-day, and the royal sun reigned aloft on the summit of the azure steep, the world lay lapt in a glorious calm, and the birds were mute while the memory of that stupendous death was being celebrated in their midst, in the grove of very ancient palm trees. Sweetest incense did those forest-priests breathe forth upon the scented gale, almonds, and myrrh and aloes, all these were there and a thousand rarer blooms blent in one unspeakable union. The tiny islet reared its feathery crown of palm-clothed rock high into the blue attic, cutting the gleaming steep, around its coral reefs stretched wide a ring of verdure, and sandy strands bound it in a golden zone : it was a gem, jewelled with a thousand gems, that emerald island in a sapphire sea. The Mass was said, the young priest turned to bless the kneeling flock around his feet, lifting high his hand to heaven, and they bow down to the very earth in lowliest adoration. Over the clean waters of the deep lagoon a long boat glides, manned with a swarthy crew, they too are coming to the Mass. It passes out of sight under the girdling rocks and not a sound breaks the mid-day calm save the soft, soft murmur of the ocean breaking on the coral reefs, and the voice of the exhorting priest. All their eyes are fixed on his grave and lament face as he points to the crucifix above his head and tells anew some A DXEU 319 portion of the story imaged there, none heed the stealthy approach ol those others who have come stealing up the slope and cower down in the almond bushes behind the listening throng. Of a sudden a horrid yell startles the echoes of the hushed rocks and forest glades, and sends the gay parrots screaming from their nests, the armed crowd dashes from its hiding place and, oh alas, those who so late had listened weeping to the tale of that stupendous heroism arise and flee, leaving him alone who least could help himself. Do not blame them altogether; the story of the Cross was new and its heroism was not yet won, and perhaps they thought the priest could fly as they. Not so : alone he stands beneath the palm, and the flickering sunbeams dance upon his brow, already a spear has pierced him and the blood is ebbing fast. He sinks upon his knees, and the yelling throng press on, half awed and yet maddened by his heedless upward gaze. His arms are raised to the still heaven in supplication for these ignorant ones, his eyes are fixed upon the great dead Christ above his head and a gentle murmuring flows from his agonized lips. Can you not forgive him if his thoughts fly back to another land and tq another time than this, over the rolling seas and smiling lands between to the dear England of his youth to a simple home where beneath spreading trees in the pleasant summer time his love had told him of the way of death ? Can you not forgive him if his thoughts turned not alone to God, but to her also who' had gone to Him, whose death had been his birth, and who wbuld in a moment welcome him to their endless home of bliss ? In a moment of time he thought too of the old man far away who had loved her so and of the dear brother who had borne all, even her loss, for the dear sake of the Christ. He fell prone upon his face with outstretched hands upon the verdant grass, and from his lips there came half con- sciously the words : “ How pleasant are thy paths, oh death! E’en grown up men secure Better manhood by a brave leap Through the chill mist of thy thin sleep Manhood that shall endure/ * 320 THE STORY OF OSCAR So they had done their will upon him and he was past their power : outstretched upon the sward he lay deaf to their yells of mad triumph; deaf to all sounds but the voice of the King he had served to the death. And with him it is well. I THE END — OR THE BEGINNING ? 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