CHAPTER XXVIII. THE WELFARE OF THE FAMILY.
A great double blow fell upon me now, far worse than the fall of the rocks upon my back—for then I had the sweetest of comfort in my arms—to wit the departure of Professor Megalow, and the arrival of the Earl of Counterpagne. If the learned Professor had been labouring for the union of the two most interesting creatures yet extinct, with the prospect of neozoic forms, big enough to exhaust even his teratology, he could scarcely have exhibited higher powers of match-making, than he now had exerted for my benefit. He looked upon me as an acolyte of science—because of my manual services—and took any failure of mine as a defeat, henceforth, of that great power. Moreover, his heart was as soft as a child's, and as versatile, and as abundant; and the dry humour (which knowledge of the world had spread over the depth of feeling) was no more than the lid of the well of tears.
What a different nature filled, or tried to fill, his chair, at the plenteous table of the Towers, next day! Lord Counterpagne had a great many good points; he believed so himself; and who am I to contradict him? But he went a great deal further than that—he believed that he had no bad ones; and upon that matter, a very feeble arguer need not have feared to tackle him. He was soft, without being soft-hearted, stubborn without any real firmness, and slow-witted, without solidity. Far be it from me, to make the worst of him, because of his presumption about Laura; his own face was enough to give a clear account of him; and how can he object to that?
I was heartily glad, not for my own sake, but because it showed the good taste of sweet Laura, that she strove her very utmost—without transgressing the venial limits of truth—to keep liberally out of the way of this noble lord. My firm belief is, that she disliked him, with a loftier disgust than I could cherish. For I did believe that he had some good points; and I made it my business to put these before her, with the noblest candour possible.
"Ah well!" she said, "I am surprised, that you should recommend him so. I thought you had more—more insight, I think the fashionable word seems now to be; as well as more, I will not say regard, but consideration for me."
It was as much as I could do,—when she spoke thus, and looked at me, as if her last friend was gone,—to forbear from a good burst of anger, and sorrow, and (the hardest of all things to keep under) great love. But I did not presume, for a moment, to hope that I should find the proper answer yet; supposing I were bold enough to show that last, in any plainer style than that of sighs, and looks, and forbearance to look, or to speak sometimes, and little unaccountable changes of colour, and very soft tones, and an evident contempt of all low considerations, and cold subjects. With all these, and a thousand more, I had been keeping my distance from others, and from her before them; yet striving imperceptibly to steal nearer, as a child sidles towards a shy bird, with salt.
"You ought to feel very much obliged to me," I answered, "considering how you are situated, for trying to make the best of everything."
At this her eyes flashed, as I meant them to do; and she put up her lips in a resolute way.
"I am not situated at all," she replied; "what a word to use about me! All the world seems to have made up their minds, that I have no will of my own whatever. And you, who might at least have been hoped to know me better, seem to be contented with the general mistake."
"Ah, I wish that we were young again," I couldn't help sighing, and taking her hand as I said it; "and could talk as we used to do, at the seaside. We never had any misunderstandings then."
"And we won't have any now," she answered kindly, with a dear little sigh (as my heart told my ears); "after all you have done for me, how could I endure it? Only, I don't understand why you should take such a violent fancy to Lord Counterpagne. We had better drop the subject altogether. It is scarcely one for us to talk about."
"If anybody knows, you ought to know that it is not a pleasant theme for me," I said, with a look at which she blushed, and turned away; "if I hate anybody on earth, it is his lordship!"
"Well!" she exclaimed, gazing at me with astonishment, but certainly no anger in her clear brown eyes; "I thought you had agreed to drop the subject. And after all your praises, to say such a thing as that! Why, you must dislike pure virtue! But I have been forgetting that I keep my cousin waiting. I ought to have met him, by the fountain long ago. And his dignity is hurt, if I am not there first. Now, you must keep quiet; and not walk about so much. Since the good Professor went, you never lie down at all. And he made you lie down, all day long! Good-bye now, till dinner-time."
"I am not going to stick in here," I cried, as she hurried lightly across the lawn, and my words seemed too late to overtake her, "while that muff of a lord has you, all to himself. The idea of his showing his nasty huffs to you! As soon as I am well, I'll have it out with him, as sure as my name's Tommy. Let me see him dare to pull his long face out at you; and if I don't double up his counterpane, if I don't make a Milord Blanket of him——"
However, it was useless to go on like that, for she never looked back, to encourage me. My nature, moreover, is not pugnacious, until the very last straw is piled upon my back, or peace is more certain to bring thumps, than war. My lord had been a little supercilious to me, when I tried to save Roly from this lonesome plague; still, there had been nothing that I could show offence at, although I might take it inwardly; and when I spoke of Bill Chumps, as my earliest friend, he had shown some fine feeling, and real good-will. And now, when I tried to turn things over, calmly and fairly in my mind, and put aside hopeless wishes, I found it very hard to make right with myself—as a gentleman is bound to do—my own line of behaviour. When I speak of myself as a gentleman, of course I do not pretend to be one "of the gentry"—as some people call those who are born of good position in the country, and so forth—but only to convey that, by education, association, and avoidance of low things, I now might claim to be measured by that high standard; though a long way from coming up to it.
And taking this view, I was forced to acknowledge, that I must not go on as I should like to do, and might be said—without any power of denial—to have already begun to do. I found myself treated with extraordinary kindness, by people of a far higher rank than myself, for a number of reasons, which need not be recounted, but had all worked up to this fine result; and by means of this confidence on their part, my behaviour was become of great importance to them. I do not refer now to national questions, matters of science, or politics, or even the use of my special faculties; but to the nearer and dearer home-interests, involving the welfare of the family. And being still very young, and of no experience, I puzzled my head, in trying vainly to discover, what was the right thing for me to do. My conscience seemed to tell me, that I ought to run away, and let everything take its course without me; and this I was very near doing, once or twice. But before I could pack up my trunk (which was a big one) my heart stood firmly in the way; and whether it persuaded my mind, or not, is more than I can tell; but certainly my mind, with a good show of reason, supported it. Why should the loveliest, and sweetest, and best, of all maidens in the world be sacrificed, for an object so low—from a high point of view—as a bag of dirty money, or a strip of land, still dirtier? Much happier would it have been for her—with her warm loving nature, and sensitive heart—once for all, to have been crushed in the cave, than slowly, and coldly, and consciously, to be overwhelmed, and thus buried alive, by the burden of the one, who should truly be her light, and life, and liberty. To prevent that, most clearly was my first duty.
And while I was proving to my conscience this—which pure inexperience alone could excuse it, for not having understood long ago—it came to my knowledge, that Lord Counterpagne was not, (in other ways than those already mentioned as unsuitable) fit to be trusted with the sacred love, and pure heart of any good maiden. Into this I shall not enter, any more than I can help; for the discussion of such matters (which even ladies sometimes taunt us with avoiding) can cure nobody, and may taint many. Enough that it quenched all further doubt (which became at once unmanly squeamishness) as to my duty, towards him and her; and would have made me loathe the sight of him near Laura, even if she had been nothing to me.
"Tommy, you are not in your usual spirits," Sir Roland said to me, as he sat in the chair of hospitality, after the ladies had retired, with the Earl on his right hand, and me on his left; "I fear that you are walking too much, my dear boy, before you have got your strength up again. If you do that, the Radical candidate for Larkmount will get all the fellows pledged to him, before I can even show you."
"He is thinking too much about his election;" Lord Counterpagne remarked, with that long slow chuckle, which proved his enjoyment of his own poor wit; "and from what I have seen in the papers to-day, he will have a lot of questions to answer."
"About the cession of Gibraltar, and the total abandonment of India," Sir Roland answered, with a wink at me. "I saw that you were deep in that subject, my cousin; and I hope that you found it suit your taste."
"Justice is justice," the Earl replied; "and narrow considerations should not be allowed to blind us, as against the larger view. For instance, how should we like the Spaniards to be in permanent occupation of Dover castle, and the mouth of the Thames? And, to a Spanish mind, Gibraltar combines the advantages of both those positions. I confess that I reflected seriously over the forcible manner in which that was put. And supposing that I had been by birth a Spaniard, which is very easily conceivable——"
"Not at all. You are not a bit like a Spaniard, and you had better not reflect as one, until you are re-conceived. We have got those places, and we mean to keep them; as the Spaniards would keep Dover castle, if their ancestors had taken it, and they could stick to it. The electors of Larkmount are Englishmen; and they would never have Tommy, if he talked such stuff. To-morrow, you'll get hold of a Tory paper first, and read all about our glorious heritage, and the paramount duty of keeping it intact. Here, my dear fellow, take another glass of port. You require it for your constitution."
His lordship looked angry, but did as he was bidden, for he was heartily afraid of his strong-minded cousin; and to turn the conversation, I broke in, saying to Sir Roland,
"To-morrow, if it suits you, I shall be most happy, to go over, and see those highly interesting people. Your Twentibury business comes on next Friday, and you go up to take your seat next Monday. But if I am to have the honour of being returned, it cannot be for some three months yet. And when you go to London, I think of going too. I am rather uneasy about my mother. I have not heard from her, for a long time; and I don't even know, where she is at present."
"Very well; you shall come up with me, and be back again to practise at the rabbits, for the first. Counter, I mean to educate this Tommy and I'll back him to wipe your eye, when the long-tails come in."
"He will have to beat his tutor, before he can do that," Lord Counterpagne answered, with his drawling smile, which never followed any but his own ideas.
And then they began to talk about sporting matters; such as I had heard of continually, at Oxford, but knew very little of, in any other way.
It grieved me very deeply, as I watched this man (who scarcely ever deigned to consider me at all), to think that I must leave him here with Laura, for I knew not how long, to go sauntering about, and sitting upon benches out of doors, and poking into flowers, or gold and silver fish, and droning all his paragraphs from the papers into her poor weary ears. Sometimes she would rouse her bright spirit, as I knew, and give him such an answer, as of right should do him good; but the worst of him was, that his wits were not quick enough to enter into anything that went against himself. And Laura, on the whole, was so gentle, and long-suffering, and desirous to keep any visitor happy, and herself of so lively a disposition, that she seemed too likely to try to make the best of him,—far more than he deserved, and nearly as much as he required. All this made it more, and more, miserable for me, as the Monday for my farewell drew nigh, and there came no letter from my mother, to relieve me of that sad necessity.