CHAPTER XXXV. AN AWKWARD DINNER-PARTY
When the reader is informed that Lady Eleanor had not found a fitting moment to communicate to the Knight respecting Forester, nor had Helen summoned courage to reveal the circumstances of their late interview, it may be imagined that the dinner itself was as awkward a thing as need be. It was, throughout, a game of cross purposes, in which Darcy alone was not a player, and therefore more puzzled than the rest, at the constraint and reserve of his companions, whose efforts at conversation were either mere unmeaning commonplaces, or half-concealed retorts to inferred allusions.
However quick to perceive, Darcy was too well versed in the tactics of society to seem conscious of this, and merely redoubled his efforts to interest and amuse. Never had his entertaining qualities less of success. He could scarcely obtain any acknowledgment from his hearers; and stores of pleasantry, poured out in rich profusion, were listened to with a coldness bordering upon apathy.
He tried to interest them by talking over the necessity of their speedy removal to the capital, where, for the advantage of daily consultation, Bicknell desired the Knight's presence. He spoke of the approaching journey to the West, for the trial itself; he talked of Lionel, of Daly, of their late campaigns; in fact, he touched on everything, hoping by some passing gleam of interest to detect a clew to their secret thoughts. To no avail. They listened with decorous attention, but no signs of eagerness or pleasure marked their features; and when Forester rose to take his leave, it was full an hour and a half before his usual time of going.
“Now for it, Eleanor,” said the Knight, as Helen soon after quitted the room; “what's your secret, for all this mystery must mean something? Nay, don't look so in-penetrable, my dear; you'll never persuade any man who displayed all his agreeability to so little purpose, that his hearers had not a hidden source of preoccupation to account for their indifference. What is it, then?”
“I am really myself in the dark, without my conjectures have reason, and that Lord Wallincourt may have renewed to Helen the proposal he once made her, and with the same fortune.”
“Renewed—proposal!”
“Yes, my dear Darcy, it was a secret I had intended to have told you this very day, and went for the very purpose of doing so, when I found you engaged with Bicknell's letters and advices, and scrupled to break in upon your occupied thoughts. Captain Forester did seek Helen's affections, and was refused; and I now suspect Lord Wallincourt may have had a similar reverse.”
“This last is, however, mere guess,” said Darcy.
“No more. Of the former Helen herself told me; she frankly acknowledged that her affections were disengaged, but that he had not touched them. It would seem that he was deeper in love than she gave him credit for. His whole adventure as a Volunteer sprang out of this rejected suit, and higher fortunes have not changed his purpose.”
“Then Helen did not care for him?”
“That she did not once, I am quite certain; that she does not now, is not so sure. But I know that even if she were to do so, the disparity of condition would be an insurmountable barrier to her assent.”
Darcy walked up and down with a troubled and anxious air, and at length said,—
“Thus is it that the pride we teach our children, as the defence against low motives and mean actions, displays its false and treacherous principles; and all our flimsy philosophy is based less on the affections of the human heart than on certain conventional usages we have invented for our own enslavement. There is but one code of right and wrong, Eleanor, and that one neither recognizes the artificial distinctions of grade, nor makes a virtue of the self-denial; that is a mere offering to worldly pride.”
“You would scarcely have our daughter accept an alliance with a house that disdains our connection?” said Lady Eleanor, proudly.
“Not, certainly, when the consideration had been once brought before her mind. It would then be but a compromise with principle. But why should she have ever learned the lesson? Why need she have been taught to mingle notions of worldly position and aggrandizement with the emotions of her heart? It was enough—it should have been enough—that his rank and position were nearly her own, not to trifle with feelings immeasurably higher and holier than these distinctions suggest.”
“But the world, my dear Darcy; the world would say—”
“The world would say, Eleanor, that her refusal was perfectly right; and if the world's judgments were purer, they might be a source of consolation against the year-long bitterness of a sinking heart. Well, well!” said he, with a sigh, “I would hope that her heart is free: go to her, Eleanor,—learn the truth, and if there be the least germ of affection there, I will speak to Wallincourt to-morrow, and tell him to leave us. These half-kindled embers are the slow poison of many a noble nature, and need but daily intercourse to make them deadly.”
While Lady Eleanor retired to communicate with her daughter, the Knight paced the little chamber in moody reverie. As he passed and repassed before the window, he suddenly perceived the shadow of a man's figure as he stood beside a rock near the beach. Such an apparition was strange enough to excite curiosity in a quiet, remote spot, where the few inhabitants retired to rest at sunset. Darcy therefore opened the window, and moved towards him; but ere he had gone many paces, he was addressed by Forester's voice,—“I was about to pay you a visit, Knight, and only waited till I saw you alone.”
“Let us stroll along the sands, then,” said Darcy; “the night is delicious.” And so saying, he drew his arm within Forester's, and walked along at his side.
“I have been thinking,” said Forester, in a low, sad accent,—“I have been thinking over the advice you lately gave me; and although I own at the time it scarcely chimed in with my own notions, now the more I reflect upon it the more plausible does it seem. I have lived long enough out of fashionable life to make the return to it anything but a pleasure; for politics I have neither talent nor temper; and soldiering, if it does not satisfy every condition of my ambition, offers more to my capacity and my hopes than any other career.”
“I would that you were more enthusiastic in the cause,” said Darcy, who was struck by the deep depression of his manner; “I would that I saw you embrace the career more from a profound seuse of duty and devotion, than as a 'pis aller.'”
“Such it is,” sighed Forester; and his arm trembled within Darcy's as he spoke. “I own it frankly, save in actual conflict itself, I have no military ardor in my nature. I accept the road in life, because one must take some path.”
“Then, if this be so,” said Darcy, “I recall my counsels. I love the service, and you also, too well to wish for such a mésalliance; no, campaigning will never do with a spirit that is merely not averse. Return to London, consult your relative, Lord Castlereagh,—I see you smile at my recommendation of him, but I have learned to read his character very differently from what I once did. I can see now, that however the tortuous course of a difficult policy may have condemned him to stratagems wherein he was an agent,—often an unwilling one,—that his nature is eminently chivalrous and noble. His education and his prejudices have made him less rash than we, in our nationality, like to pardon, but the honor of the empire lies next his heart Political profligacy, like any other, may be leniently dealt with while it is fashionable; but there are minds that never permit themselves to be enslaved by fashion, when once they have gained a consciousness of their own power: such is his. He is already beyond it; and ere many years roll over, he will be equally beyond his competitors too. And now to yourself. Let him be your guide. Once launched in public life, its interests will soon make themselves felt, and you are young enough to be plastic. I know that every man's early years, particularly those who are the most favored by fortune, have their clouds and dark shadows. You must not seek an exemption from the common lot; remember how much you have to be grateful for; think of the advantages for which others strive a life long, and never reach,-all yours, at the very outset; and then, if there be some sore spots, some secret sorrows under all, take my advice and keep them for your own heart. Confessions are admirable things for old ladies, who like the petty martyrdom of small sufferings, but men should be made of sterner stuff. There is a high pride in bearing one's load alone; don't forget that.”
Forester felt that if the Knight had read his inmost feelings, his counsel could not have been more directly addressed to his condition; he had, indeed, a secret sorrow, and one which threw its gloom over all his prosperity. He listened attentively to Darcy's reasonings, and followed him, as in the full sincerity of his nature he opened up the history of his own life, now commenting on the circumstances of good fortune, now adverting to the mischances which had befallen him. Never had the genial kindness of the old man appeared more amiable. The just judgments, the high and honorable sentiments, not shaken by what he had seen of ingratitude and wrong, but hopefully maintained and upheld, the singular modesty of his character, were all charms that won more and more upon Forester; and when, after a tête-à-tête prolonged till late in the night, they parted, Forester's muttered ejaculation was, “Would that I were his son!”
“It is as I guessed,” said Lady Eleanor, when the Knight re-entered the chamber; “Helen has refused him. I could not press her on the reasons, nor ask whether her heart approved all that her head determined. But she seemed calm and tranquil; and if I were to pronounce from appearance, I should say that the rejection has not cost her deeply.”
“How happy you have made me, Eleanor!” exclaimed Darcy, joyfully; “for while, perhaps, there is nothing in this world I should like better than to see such a man my son-in-law, there is no misery I would not prefer to witnessing my child's affections engaged where any sense of duty or pride rendered the engagement hopeless. Now, the case is this: Helen can afford to be frank and sisterly towards the poor fellow, who really did love her, and after a few days he leaves us.”
“I thought he would go to-morrow,” said Lady Eleanor, somewhat anxiously.
“No; I half hinted to him something of the kind, but he seemed bent on accompanying me to the West, and really I did not know how to say nay.”
Lady Eleanor appeared not quite satisfied with an arrangement that promised a continuation of restraint, if not of positive difficulty, but made no remark about it, and turned the conversation on their approaching removal to Dublin.