HOW GEORGE HOWARD WAS CURED.
To give up the battle of life at any age is bad, so long as a flicker of life is left. It is like deserting the doomed ship whilst the groaning planks hold together; like refusing to make one in the forlorn hope, but choosing rather to sit down with closed eyes, and let death come as it may. But to give up the battle of life at five-and-twenty, when the battle can scarcely be said to have begun, whilst the future lies hidden behind an uncertain mist, when the sinews are braced, the eyes clear, the heart hopeful, the hair unsilvered—to give it up then is like deserting the ship whilst all is fair sailing, like sneaking from the ranks at first scent of the enemy. It is as cowardly as for the sentinel to abandon his post or the ensign to surrender without a blow the colors which he swore to defend to death; nay, as for the husband to desert the wife he chose out of all the world before God to be his until death. Yet this was what George Howard had done.
Of course a woman was in it, as she is in most difficulties here below. And is it not her province? If she sometimes happen to be "in it" a little too much, rather in the light of an obstacle than a helper—well, the best and not the worst must be made of her under the awkward circumstances. The first man, if Mr. Darwin will excuse the heresy, set us a good example in this way. It was a pity that Eve did not turn her ear away from the voice of the charmer; but as she did the other thing, and so wrought upon her husband that he followed her example, after all he made the very best of a very bad bargain, and, like a true man, stuck to his wife. But to return from Adam to his XIXth century descendant, Mr. George Howard: Why had that promising young gentleman metaphorically "thrown up the sponge," and drawn aside like a coward from the broad road of life, to linger on uselessly in this little out-of-the-way French town where nobody knew him, where nobody heard of him from the great city at the other side of the ocean, which he left one fine morning a year or more ago without a word of warning or a single good-by to the many friends whose kindly eyes had looked hopefully upon him, and whose friendly lips had prophesied success? Why had he gone out from this busy heart of the New World, palpitating with promise and half-defined yearnings, to bury himself away in this silent nook in an obscure corner of the south of France, doing nothing, caring nothing, planning nothing, wearily waiting for life to end?
As is generally the case with despairing five-and-twenty in the masculine, and despondent seventeen or eighteen in the feminine, sex, it was one of those peculiar difficulties known as "affairs of the heart." Nobody ever knew the exact ins and outs of it; how far the lady was to blame, and how far George had himself to accuse. Like many a passionate, high-souled young man, where he bestowed his heart he expected that heart to absorb and fill up the life and soul of the woman he loved. That effect does follow generally, but by degrees more or less slow. George was apt to love too fiercely and too fast. But young, high-spirited girls like to be wooed before they are won. Though their hearts may have been virtually taken by storm long before the besieging party so much as suspect that a breach has been made in the stubborn fortress, still they like to make a show of surrendering at discretion, and marching out with all the honors of war, rather than be instantly and absolutely overwhelmed by love. There is such a thing as a surfeit of happiness. George Howard had probably made this mistake. Such lovers as he are apt to start at shadows, imagining them realities. The end of it was that George's fortress surrendered to somebody else, married the conqueror, and was disgracefully happy. Whether or not she ever cast a thought back on the bright young fellow that once loved her so fiercely, who can tell? Probably not. She made a good match—and contented wives soon drop romance; sooner than husbands often. It is astonishing how easily the goddess we adore before marriage descends from the clouds, walks the earth like a sturdy woman, and becomes a practical, sensible wife. It may be a little unromantic at first sight, but it is undoubtedly by far the best thing she could do under the circumstances. But when poor George saw his goddess riding about smiling and happy by the side of her husband, and that husband not himself, he could not endure the sight. After lingering a little in misery, he threw up his connections, and left the city for what destination nobody knew.
George Howard was alone in the world. His mother had died early; his father went off when George was twenty, leaving him fortune enough to help him to make life as pleasant as he chose to make it for himself. He was advancing rapidly in his profession—law—and had made a host of friends when the collapse came. As is so often the case, his pride, instead of sustaining him, sank under the blow. Most probably, if the truth were told, the wound inflicted on his self-esteem rankled deeper than that which had killed his love. The thought that another man could succeed where George Howard had failed would have been gall and wormwood to him in any case; but when the object of rivalry was a woman's heart, and George Howard's were the rejected addresses, death would be a small word to express the consummation of that gentleman's misery; it was the annihilation of all that made life worth the living. "Howard the jilted," he seemed to read in everybody's eye, when perhaps not half a dozen persons knew anything about the affair. Jilted by a girl! How could a man recover such a blow? What was there in the wide world to fill up the void left in one when his mighty self shrank to such insignificant proportions?
Common sense might have suggested that there was more than one woman in the world, and that there lay a deeper fund of love in the heart of a man than could be exhausted on the first girl he chanced to meet and admire. It might have suggested also that failure in love did not necessarily mean failure in matters which, after all, as far as the world outside of our little selves is concerned, are of far more importance than love. Man is not sent into this world for the one purpose of being "married and done for," as the phrase goes. But when did common sense find the ear of a lover, particularly of a lover rejected?
So here was George Howard, clever enough, good-looking enough, and by no means a bad fellow, self-stranded on the barren sand-banks of life, with a short five-and-twenty years behind him, a future full of fair promise still before him, hugging a useless sorrow in silent sadness, and making that his bride.
He lived on listlessly from day to day. He mixed with no circle; he knew nobody. He took his meals at his hotel, addressed a few commonplaces to those he happened to meet, and passed most of his time in the open air, taking long strolls into the country, walking up and down the beach by the sea, watching the solitary sails that came and went and faded out of sight—sadly, it seemed to him sometimes, as though beckoning him back to a living world. There were few visitors at the little town, save just during the hottest of the summer months. Such as did come hurried away again as fast as they could. The train rushed through it day after day, a crowd of peering faces would show themselves a few moments at the windows of the cars, strange eyes would stare curiously at the strange place, and pass on a moment after as indifferent as before. Something of the instinct which prompts a wounded animal to seek out a silent covert where it may lie down with its wound and die alone, must have conducted George Howard to this spot.
Yet to a man who had only gone there for a short holiday, weary awhile of the rush, and the struggle, and the incessant strain and roar of a busier life, the little French town, with its quaint look and quaint ways, might have offered a refreshing relief from the dust, and the turmoil, and the worry of the world of politics and money, railroads and trade. Many a one doubtless has at some time or other had the wish to wake up some morning a century or two ago in a world that had gone away. To such the placid evenings by the sea, the homely looks of the inhabitants, the clean blouses of the men, the white caps of the women, the busy tongues of the children, the long silver hair of M. le Curé, the dances by the sea as the sun went down, the slow wains drawn by drowsy oxen, the fuss and bustle of the weekly market-day, the big gendarme with his clanking sword, the white houses and their antique gables, with the beat of the surf on the beach for ever, and the fresh odor of the ocean pervading all places, would have seemed the delicious realization of many a picture looked on and lingered over in a gilded frame.
But on the deadened senses of George Howard these simple scenes, and sights, and sounds fell as you might fancy the roll of the muffled drums to fall on the one stretched out in the coffin who is being borne speedily on by the living to his grave. They wake no life in him; he makes no stir; he is let down into the earth—a farewell roll, and the grave is closed over him for ever, whilst the bright world above seems to smile the merrier that another dead man is hidden away.
Of course, this kind of life and mode of thought were rapidly telling on him and bringing nearer and nearer the consummation he seemed to desire. The step grew slower, the eyes began to lose their quick lustre, the cheek its flush, the body its swing and half-defiant bearing. The simple people round about looked at him silently, shook their heads, and sighed as he moved by without noticing them. He grew more and more attached to the beach, where he would stroll up and down and sit for hours on the yellow sand, staring out blankly at the broad water, casting a pebble into it from time to time, and watching the circles that it made. There was something congenial to his nature in the changeable face and mood, the smile, the frown, the hoarse breathing, the sob, the sigh, the roar, the rage of the ocean. To all these changes something within him gave a voice, until the very spirit of the mysterious deep seemed to creep into his being, and make it an abode there.
So he lived on, never writing to a friend, never yearning to go back to the world he had quitted, and which still held out its arms to him. All ambition, all desire of achievement, all common feeling with the world into which he had been born, seemed to have gradually oozed out of him. He had staked his happiness and lost, and now he only wished for the end to come soon. It never occurred to him that he had possibly staked his happiness at too low a figure. He only saw before him an empty life with a dreary existence. At such stages, some men commit suicide. He was not yet coward enough for that, though not Christian enough to perceive that this world was not made for one man and one woman only, but for all the children of Adam.
But happily, however man may reject Providence, and close his eyes to a Power that shapeth all things for good, Providence mercifully refuses to reject him without at least giving him plenty of opportunities, humanly called chances, to come back to the possession of his senses, and the fulfilment of the mission which is appointed unto every man. And one of George Howard's chances came about this wise.
A favorite walk of his was along a winding road leading some distance out of the little town up a lofty hill, from the summit of which the eye could scan the sweeping circle of the waters, stretching out in its glittering wonder to the verge of dimness, or, inland, where miles and miles of fair pasture-land and vineyards spread away in gentle undulations, with smoke rising from hollows in which hamlets slept, and church spires clove the clear air, and airy villas crowned the pleasant hills. Alternate gleams of sea and land shot through the tall poplars that lined the road as it circled round the hill. At the top, buried amid trees, and fronted by a garden filled almost the year through with delicious flowers, was the Maison Plaquet, a sort of café, where visitors could procure a cup of coffee, a glass of eau sucrée, or the good wines du pays. This establishment was presided over by Mme. Plaquet, a buxom dame with a merry eye and kindly voice, whose pleasant face had become quite a part of the landscape. There was understood to be a M. Plaquet somewhere, but he did not often show himself to visitors. He left the whole business to madame, having a strong suspicion that there was no woman like her in the world, and spent most of his time trimming the flower-beds, pruning the trees, or tending to the vineyard.
George was a frequent visitor at the Maison Plaquet. He would spend hours in the garden dreaming. Madame was won by his handsome face and the fixed sadness in his eyes, which always lighted up, however, in response to her genial greeting. She half suspected that it was something more than a love of nature which sent the pauvre garçon, as she called him, away from friends, and home, and family, to sit there day after day dreaming in her arbor, beautiful as it was. With the chatty good-nature which in a Frenchwoman never seems offensive, she would sometimes try to draw him out of himself, to learn something about him that might help her to lift the settled cloud off his handsome face. To Mme. Plaquet it seemed almost a sin against the good God to wear a cloudy face always. But George was so jealously reserved that she gave him up, with the secret conviction that it was love alone that could inflict so deep a wound on so young a heart, and that love alone could heal it.
One afternoon, whilst George was reclining in the arbor, a riding party of gay cavaliers and dames showed themselves suddenly in front of the Maison Plaquet. Exclamations of delight at the beauty of the scene burst from one and another. One fair young girl stood her horse just at the entrance to the arbor, and, to those within, completely filled in the picture. Thus she met the dreamy eyes of Mr. George Howard. The steed was a little restive, but with a firm though gentle hand she curbed him until he stood still as death and she upon him. The light hat she wore was thrown back, showing a shapely head with glossy curls, around which the sun made a glory under the clustering blossoms. For a moment horse and rider seemed to stand out startlingly clear from the sky, and for that moment George allowed his eyes to linger there as upon a striking picture. A moment after, the party had dismounted, entered the arbor, and seated themselves at a table opposite to our friend. As the centre figure of the picture which had attracted his gaze passed, she glanced at him, and he had a momentary view of a blooming cheek and a pair of those large, soft, but courageous eyes, filled with that courage which makes a man reverence a woman—eyes round, and full, and clear as a child's, that fear no evil without, because they are conscious of none within. The party was a gay one, and their gaiety grated on George's ear. He rose and sauntered down the hill, a little sadder, if possible, than when he had ascended it.
After his departure, one of the gentlemen, an old acquaintance of Mme. Plaquet's apparently, inquired of her who her strange visitor might be whom he had met there more than once, and always alone.
Madame, with a sigh and many a shrug, and much amiable volubility, told the company that she knew nothing at all about him, save that he lived in the little town en bas, that he came there very often, that he was evidently suffering from some great trouble, that he was a good gentleman and always gave something to the poor when they asked him, and that it was a great pity so handsome a young gentleman should offend the good God by not being happy.
The ladies were quite interested in madame's narrative. Ladies will be interested about good-looking young men who are suffering from that romantic complaint, an incurable melancholy. But as madame's narrative, eloquent and pathetic though it was, left them in much the same state of enlightenment as before with regard to the interesting stranger, all they could do was sigh a little, remount, and resume their gay tone. Just as they were commencing the descent, a hare started and frightened the horse of the young lady who had attracted George's attention. A plunge, a rear, and an instant after it was out of sight, thundering down the steep road at a speed that mocked pursuit.
George was strolling along in his listless way, stopping now at this turn, now at that, to admire the scenery, pluck a flower or a leaf, and muse a little. He had almost arrived at the foot of the hill, when a cry from above and a clatter of hoofs broke on his ear. He stood at a narrow turn between two high banks opening into the last bend of the road, to listen and observe. A moment after, a horse with a lady on his back came tearing down at a mad speed right on him. A glance showed that the rider stood in imminent danger of her life, and that the only means of saving her was to stop the animal in the midst of its wild career. The thought and determination to do something had scarcely time to flash through his brain, when the horse was on him; and how he never knew, but he found himself dragging at the reins—a stumble of the steed against the bank as it swerved, a fainting lady in his arms, and a moment after a crowd of persons around them. He surrendered her to the care of her friends, and, seeing her revive whilst they were engaged in tending her, took occasion to slink away unobserved, as though he had been guilty of some mean action. And the Maison Plaquet saw him no more.
About a week after this occurrence, he was taking one of his usual moody walks along the beach, his hands clasped behind him, and his eyes following the golden path that led away over the waters down to the sinking sun. He walked along listlessly, insensible to everything save the subtle solemnity of the hour, when the brooding calm of the evening began to settle over the crimson wave and the flushed earth. He did not observe a figure leaning against a huge boulder that lay rosy-red right in his path. The leaning figure was that of a young man, who, like George, was surveying the scene, but with an air of genuine admiration curiously tempered by the eye of a connoisseur examining a painting as to the merits or defects of which his oracular opinion might be called for at any moment by a listening world. Let us look at him as he leans back there, so contented, to all seeming, with the world in general, and possibly with himself in particular; for notwithstanding an occasional touch of what in others would be called impertinence, but in him was really rather assumed than natural, and, as he was wont to say, often got him out of difficulties, Ned Fitzgerald was a fellow you would like.
His slim, well-knit figure, clad in a light summer suit, his pleasant, animated face surmounted by a straw hat that became him, his bright eyes glancing around and taking all in in a sweep—the sinking sun, the mingling colors on the waters, the flush on the hills, the blood-red glow on the sands, the quiet circles of a solitary sea-bird that turned and dipped its snow-white wings in the rosy light—to one looking at him, he made nature seem all the more lovely and enjoyable for having one who could feel its loveliness so thoroughly and so evidently.
The quick eye did not take long to pick out the slightly stooped figure that seemed so wrapt in silent thought, and, as it neared him, never turned its gaze from the dying sun. Mr. Ned Fitzgerald watched its approach, and, with his usual tendency to be sociable, evidently contemplated addressing it; when, as it came close enough to distinguish the features, he started from his recumbent position, took off his hat and tossed it wildly in the air, never waiting to catch it again, but, rushing towards George, seized that astounded and miserable mortal in his arms, and hugged him almost to suffocation before he could see who it was, whilst the exclamation burst from him:
"Why, George Howard, by all that's impossible!"
Another hug and a longer one, and a hearty laugh, and a shake of both hands up and down, and a look of genuine pleasure in the bright eyes that seemed to throw a light over the kindly face—Ned's pleasantry was contagious, and the first flush of surprise on George's face was succeeded by a faint smile as soon as he recognized his old friend and school-fellow, whilst a sort of moisture forced itself into his own eyes. It was as though he had come back from the grave a moment to find that after all the hand shaken so vigorously by an old friend—the best-liked old friend of them all, who had studied with him, and fought with him, and played with him, and got into all sorts of scrapes and out of them with him, and built with him those bubble castles that boys will build at school, destitute of nothing save foundation—was still real flesh and blood, and that the heart throbbing within him was still human.
"Why, Ned, old fellow, what in the name of wonder brought you here?"
"Destiny, my boy, destiny, fate—anything you please that may give a sufficiently solemn turn to a landslip close by which interfered considerably with locomotion, and forced me bag and baggage out of my snug coupé, to set me down in this unknown corner of the earth, absolutely without a soul to speak to, for one night. But I do believe I could have endured a broken head as well as a broken journey for the sake of dropping on you again, old boy."
Why young gentlemen, supposed to know the meaning of words, should find such a secret fund of special endearment in the terms which they so lavishly apply to one another of "old boy," "old fellow," or "old man," is a mystery whose solution is still to appear. Young persons of the opposite sex, as it is called—goodness knows why—are not in the habit of addressing each other as "old woman," "old duck," or "old maid." Such terms would be esteemed in them as anything but endearing, although married ladies have been known to speak of their lord and master as "a dear, good old thing." However, to return from this digression, which is becoming dangerous, to the "old" men in question:
"Well, Ned, I am really glad to see you," said George, and then added slowly, as the old chill came back to him, "and that's more than I'd say to many an old acquaintance—now."
He looked away moodily to where the sun had gone down, as the gray began to settle over the water. Ned took a quick glance at his friend, and saw that, as he expressed it to himself, "all was not right somewhere." He had seen very little of Howard since they left college, and knew nothing of what had driven him from New York. However, he determined to take no notice of his last remark for the present, but said gaily:
"This sea of yours gives one a tremendous appetite. I move dinner. There's nothing like dinner to liven up a man's wits. Come along, George. We have had our fill of gorgeous sunsets and scenery for one day. There's a poetry as well as a glare in the gaslight when it shines on a well-spread table. What! you have no gas here? Happy people! One tax the less. But it is to be hoped you find something to eat in this backbone of the world. Now, come along, and we'll have all the adventures by flood and field with the cigars."
Ned was at his best during dinner, though, for that matter, he seemed always at his best. His presence gave a pleasant flavor to dishes which time after time George had turned away from with disgust. He had an original remark for everything. And the polite French waiter was rather astonished as the dinner progressed to see M. O—art, as the domestics called George, give vent to an occasional laugh, which grew and grew, until the two old friends became almost as uproarious as a couple of school-boys out for a holiday.
That delicious after-dinner moment having arrived when the cigars are lighted and the legs stretched out in lazy contentment, without the slightest regard for "the proprieties"—nobody but themselves being present—they began their questionings and cross-questionings. George was the first to start.
"Well, Ned, what in the name of good fortune brought you down here? What are you doing? Still writing?"
"Yes. At present I am despatched on a secret diplomatic mission, which of course it is impossible for me to divulge, by the editor of the greatest daily in the world. You know what that means."
"Well, I can guess. The particular 'greatest daily' does not matter much. There are so many."
"Yes; and the fun of it is, I write for them all. The six or seven special correspondents who keep New York and London on the qui vive with regard to European affairs, and who lay bare to their wondering vision from time to time the real undercurrent of those affairs, social, political, and religious, are often one and the same with your Mephistophelian friend."
"Bohemianizing, eh? Why, I took you to be respectable, Ned. Ah! a newspaper office is a sadly demoralizing place."
"Pshaw! What will you have? The public wants news, and somebody must furnish it. People nowadays are much the same as people ever were. Humanity must have something to talk about, or it could not exist. Humanity is a woman."
"I agree with you there; that is why I have abandoned it."
"Oh! I see what you would say. There are two sides to that. But what I mean is, we must talk, or the world will come to a stand-still. The newspaper man nowadays furnishes the staple commodity on which the world exercises its tongue."
"Nowadays, yes. Well, it's a poor commodity. Somebody has well called it the 'cheap and nasty.'"
"Always the same, George; always the same. What was the cry of the Athenians when S. Paul went amongst them? 'What news? Quid novi?'—and the Athenians were the intellect of their time. To-day we live too fast for the tongue; hence electricity, hence the daily."
"Hence the Bohemian?"
"Well, Bohemian is a much-misapplied word. It requires a sort of genius to be a true Bohemian; erratic genius, if you like, but still genius. Bohemianism is not all boots down at heel, crushed hat, and broken elbows, five-cent cigars and lager-beer that a friend pays for, with an occasional bottle of champagne when the pocket happens to be flush. Look at me, for instance, supplying the six or seven leading dailies with news. If I tell a lie one day, I contradict it the next. If I send a false account to the government organ, I send an extra true one to the opposition, and a trimmer to the free and independent. If the government is malicious, the opposition is ultra pious; and if the free and independent is scandalous, both unite in coming down on and crushing it. To be sure, things get mixed up a little sometimes; but, on the whole, matters are pretty evenly balanced, and in the end the truth comes uppermost. Then all along you are supported by the secret conviction that nobody ever believes a word you say."
"Whose fault is that?" asked George.
"The weakness of humanity, my dear fellow. You must not go too deeply into things, nor expect a daily newspaper, with its villanous printers, to be true as gospel. A newspaper correspondent is despatched to find news; and if he can't find it...."
"He invents."
"Well, what is the use of imagination, unless you exercise it a bit? But it is the greatest fun in the world to see yourself quoted by opposite parties for opposite purposes."
"Yes, it must be amusing. Some people—old-fashioned people, to be sure—might consider it a trifle dishonest, perhaps; but then, they are behind the age."
Ned rose, laughed, and took a turn round the room. Standing opposite his friend, he said:
"So, George, I find I have succeeded in giving you an exalted idea of my character and ability already. Have you forgotten that famous gift I had of extemporizing yarns at school? Well, to relieve your mind, the devil—that is to say, Mr. Edward Fitzgerald—is not quite so black as he has painted himself. Nor, indeed, am I quite so powerful and fluent a writer as I have imagined. I am on a mission here, though; partly business, and partly to take my sister back with me to New York. She has been staying with some of her school friends, convent companions. I was on my way to join them when this lucky accident tumbled me into your hermitage. And now, what has brought you here? You seem quite domiciled. Why, I expected to have heard great things of you by this time."
"I? Oh! I am doing nothing," said George, with a sigh, coming back to himself.
"Nothing! Well, that is not such a bad occupation when you only know how to do it, and can find no other employment."
"Why, what else can a fellow do?"
Ned was fairly taken aback at this question. To ask him what a fellow could do in this world was like asking him why he had teeth, or hands, or a head, or life altogether. After an amazed stare at his friend, he answered:
"Well, I suppose that what a man can do is generally best known to himself, when, like you, he has life in his veins, brains in his head, and money in his pocket. At all events, it is scarcely likely that you were made for the precise purpose of burying yourself alive here."
"Oh! I don't know. It is not such a bad sort of life," said George wearily. "Here I have no cares, and fuss, and bother, no visitors to bore, and no bores to visit. Nobody comes to borrow or beg. There is no necessity for playing at compliments with people for whom you do not care a straw, and who care for you less. Here is, instead, the sea, and the shore, and the woods, and the hills, a fair table, a good enough washerwoman, and people around you who never speak till they are spoken to. What more can a fellow want?"
Ned made no reply. He was puffing his cigar in silence, and following the curling smoke with his eye as he blew it against the light—a favorite fashion of his when thinking to himself. He was thinking now, rapidly, how changed was his friend in so short a time. He was wondering where all the ardent spirit and high hopes that fired him a few years back had gone. Contact with the world, instead of crushing, had raised his own hopes the more. Why had it not done the same for Howard? He could find no solution to the difficulty; for life to him was a glorious battle, and inaction worse than death. His friend must have encountered some great shock, some bitter disappointment, at the outset. He was seeking the clew in the smoke apparently. After a painful pause, he at length asked:
"How long have you been here now, George?"
"On and off, a year or more. I go and come. I make short excursions round about for a week or so sometimes, but I always return here."
"You entered a firm on the other side, did you not?"
"No; I was about to do so."
"And why didn't you? Were they cheats?"
"No."
"Did they fail?"
"No."
"Did you fail? Did you lose any money in any way?"
"No, what makes you ask?"
"Because I want to find out what the trouble is with you. You are not in love?"
"Good God! No!" exclaimed George almost fiercely, as he rose, strode to the window, and stood there looking out at the moon.
The bitterness of his tone, the abruptness of his action, told the observant Ned that unwittingly he had touched the right chord. He indulged in a silent whistle to himself, and shook his head as a good-hearted physician might over a hopeless case. Ned confessed himself a bad hand at ministering to the love complaint. That was the only ill for which he would advocate the calling in of a female physician. For heart disease of this nature, Ned would, on his own authority, grant a diploma to any suitable lady doctor; for he was convinced of the utter inability of man to handle such a delicate affair. So he shook his head despondently.
Whilst these thoughts were passing through the brain of the now very wide-awake Mr. Fitzgerald, George seemed to have recovered his usual dead calm, and, leaving the window as he proceeded to light a fresh cigar, inquired, with a smile that seemed to anticipate a characteristic answer:
"Ned, have you ever been in love?"
It was now Ned's turn to rise. He tore about the room frantically a moment, dashed his hand through his hair, and finally, coming to a stand-still before his amused friend, burst out:
"In love! Have I ever been in love? What a question to ask a man! Don't you know my name? Did you ever hear of a Fitzgerald or any other of his race who had not been in love? Why, man, I fall in love every day of my life. How can I help it when every woman I see for five minutes falls in love with me. I might say I have lost my heart so often that I don't think there's a bit of it left to lose now; and still I go on falling in love by sheer force of habit." And Ned "hove to" with a comic burst of despair.
"You are a happy man, Ned," said George, laughing.
"Happy?" questioned Ned, half to himself, and as though the idea had struck him for the first time in his life. "Well, I suppose I am. I don't see much advantage to be gained by being otherwise."
"Nor I; but, for all that, people differently constructed from your fortunate self cannot always help being otherwise."
"Bah! Of course they can; particularly in love matters. Love was not meant to make a man mope, but to stir him up. Those old fogies in the middle ages had a much truer idea of love, as of many other things, than we have nowadays, with all our boasting. Ah! love then was the genuine article. Not all sighs, and tears, and millinery, and newspaper paragraphs, and mothers-in-law, and the lovers playing cat's-cradle to each other. No; but the man went about his business, bearing his love in his heart for a year and a day. He wore his lady's gage on his helm, and, if his business happened to be the giving and taking of hard knocks, why, he gave and took, his love and himself against the world. He rode in the lists under his lady's eye, and proved himself a brave man for her sake. Love nerved his arm, whilst it purified his heart and softened his soul. Why did the wife gird the buckler on her lord? Love was akin to religion then, marriage a sacrament, and not, as it now is...."
"A social exchange, a trade carried on by the great Mother-in-law Company, Unlimited—a thing of barter and loss, where dollars are wedded to dollars by the magistrate, where youth and beauty sells herself to old age for so much a year and her own carriage. O Ned, Ned! what a pity we were not born in the middle ages!"
"Hallo!" said Ned, "I did not mean to go quite so far as that, George. After all, they were men and women then, just as we are; and, though one cannot help breaking out now and again on modern notions, one thing is certain—for every true knight there is somewhere a true lady."
"Have you found yours yet, Ned?"
"Perhaps not, perhaps yes," said Ned, dropping a moment his light tone. "Perhaps because I am not a true knight; perhaps because, though I found a true lady, she was meant for somebody else. Because I may have made one mistake, that is no reason why my true lady should not be waiting for me somewhere, nor why I should fail to rejoice at seeing two others happy, though my own toes may have been trodden on a little bit. After all, the world is very wide and full of happy possibilities."
Something unusual in Ned's tone seemed to spring from real feeling that lay concealed under his usual airy manner; perhaps suffering, with which his good-nature cared not to trouble the sufficiently trouble-laden world. For the first time in his life, George Howard felt a little ashamed of himself, and conscious of something akin to selfishness in his nature which he had never suspected there before. It takes a very long time to see ourselves. Self-knowledge comes piecemeal, and the pieces that go to make the human mosaic are sometimes very ugly when seen alone, though they may pass muster in the whole, and merge and be lost in its common symmetry.
When he awoke the following morning, and the thought came to him that the usually dreary day was to be enlivened for once by the presence of Ned Fitzgerald, the thought was not an unpleasant one; and when that gentleman burst into his room with a bundle of sea-weed in his hand, speckled all over with curious little shells, which he said he would keep for Mary, the look of young, active, earnest life in his bright eyes and diffused over his whole person seemed in some indescribable manner to make the sun brighter and the air clearer. George began to feel young again, and examined the shells and the slimy weed, over which Ned gloated and expatiated, with an interest that would have been a marvel to him yesterday.
"And who is Mary?" he asked, as that name passed Ned's lips more than once.
"Why, the sister I was telling you about."
"Oh!" said George, and was silent.
That evening, it was arranged that Ned should go the next day, and bring Mary back with him. As he found the little town so quaint and quiet, he determined to stay a week or so with his old friend, instead of going on directly to Paris, as he had intended; and George, to pass the interval, made his first visit since the accident to his friend, Mme. Plaquet.
That good dame was as angry as she could be with him. Why had he not come to see her for so long? What had he been doing? Was he sick from the dragging that méchant, the horse, had given him? How did she know about it? Why, had not M. de Lorme and the ladies been there almost every day since, and all on purpose to meet him and thank him for his brave service? And now, was not mademoiselle going away, and her heart breaking because she could not see her preserver, and thank him for saving her life? And there was the card and the letter of M. de Lorme waiting for him all these days. She would not have it sent, because she expected monsieur to come every day. Ah! it was cruel!
George opened the letter, and found that it was an eulogium of M. de Lorme on his gallantry and devotion, to which he was indebted for the life, probably, of his charming young friend; that her brave but unknown preserver would confer an honor on her and on M. de Lorme by favoring them with his distinguished friendship; that it was cruel of him to escape from them whilst they were all engaged with his charming young friend; that he hoped he would excuse this mode of addressing him, as, owing to the peculiarity of the circumstances, he knew of no other; and that, as his charming young friend was about to leave them, he would no longer deny them the opportunity, so much desired, of paying the deep debt of gratitude they owed him, by allowing them to testify in person their admiration of his admirable courage and chivalrous devotion.
"Well, and what do you say?" asked Mme. Plaquet, as, with arms folded and a general air of mistress of the situation, she surveyed her mysterious young friend, whilst, with a half-amused countenance, he read M. de Lorme's missive.
"Oh!" said George, "I don't know. What a fuss you French people make about stopping a horse! There—don't say any more about it. I have a friend staying with me who knows how to arrange all these matters, and I will consult him. To-morrow or the day after he shall come to see you. You will like him. Is the lady quite recovered?"
"Entirely. But she looked so sad when she came, and came, and never found you. Ah! if I were a handsome young man, how many horses would I not stop, only to get one such glance from such lovely eyes!"
The next morning, Ned was to return with his sister, and George went down to the railway station to meet them. If he showed himself a trifle more careful than he had been lately in his selection of a tie and in his dress generally, and if anybody had entered at the time and told him so, George would probably have been angry at the idea of his returning to such weaknesses. There was Ned's pleasant face at the window; there he is waving his hat; and here he is now introducing Miss Mary Fitzgerald to his old friend, Mr. George Howard, to the mutual astonishment and evident confusion of that lady and gentleman, who blushed and turned pale by turns like guilty things. Even Ned was dumfoundered a moment, and argued to himself, from these silent but unmistakable signs of recognition between the parties, that his ceremony of introduction was quite a superfluous piece of etiquette.
He broke the awkward silence in his characteristic fashion:
"Well, if you people know each other already, you had better say so at once, and not let me make an ass of myself by going through a formal introduction—a thing I always hate. Mary, do you know George, or don't you?"
There were tears in Mary's large eyes, as, clinging a moment to her brother, she sobbed rather than said:
"O Ned! this is the gentleman I told you of, ... to whom I owe my life, ... of whom we were all speaking...." And then, turning the luminous and still tearful eyes full on George, who could scarcely stand up against the rush of mingled feelings that oppressed him, said, with a genuine simplicity and native grace which were most moving, as she took his hand in her own with an action at once gentle and natural: "Sir, it was a bitter thought to me that I should be compelled to leave France without knowing and thanking the brave gentleman who risked his life to save mine. I had hoped to see you at M. de Lorme's, and had so much to say to you. But now that I meet you," glancing at Ned, "in this ... in this way, my heart is so full I can say nothing...." And the gathering tears began to fall.
It was time for Ned to intervene:
"Oho! So you are the unknown knight whom M. de Lorme and the ladies have been raving about; who goes around in sable sadness, rescuing charming young ladies from perilous situations, and disappearing as mysteriously as you come. Faith, my friend, there is a nice romance concocted over you. But, George, my boy, I could say a great deal more than my eloquent sister has done on this subject, only I know it would be distasteful to you. However, we shall have it out together on the quiet some day. But what a shame!" Ned rattled on as they made their way to the hotel. "Here is all my nice little plot spoiled. Mary, I gave him such a description of you. Let me see, George, what was she like? Red-haired, freckled, middle-aged, and stout; short of breath and tall of body; weighing one hundred and seventy pounds after dinner, and a trifle less before." George looked disgusted, and Mary was laughing. "You took snuff, Mary, and wore your carroty curls in little whisks of brown paper half through the day. You had a vixenish temper, a liking for toddy, and would insist on speaking French to the servants with a beautiful Galway accent, and swore at them like a trooper for not understanding you. It was only out of pure regard for your handsome brother and for the sake of 'auld lang syne' that my friend George would tolerate your presence at all. And here you are the whole time old and valued friends, under mutual obligations to each other—you for saving my middle-aged relative from being run away with and dashed to pieces by a vicious brute, and my middle-aged relative for being gracious enough to allow you to do anything of the kind. I declare it is shameful, and almost makes one take the rash oath of never telling a good-natured lie again."
This harangue of Ned's set them both at their ease as though they had known each other all their lives.
"And may I ask, Miss Fitzgerald, if this conscientious brother of yours gave an equally accurate description of his old school-fellow?" said George, laughing.
"Mary, don't tell.... He'll murder me...."
"I was instructed all the way along to be particularly kind and attentive to a dapper...."
"No, not dapper ..." interjected Ned.
"Yes, dapper, Mr. Howard; I remember the word distinctly. A dapper little old gentleman with a bald head and only one eye, who was as deaf as a post, but would not allow any one to consider him so. I was led to understand that he made excellent company at table, only that he simply followed out his own train of thought, and his remarks consequently were generally rather mal-à-propos; and in fact quite a lot of other things that I cannot remember, save that I was to take him his drops every morning at half-past eleven precisely, and always put six lumps of sugar in his coffee, and none in his tea."
There was a merry dinner-party that evening at the hotel, and a long ramble by the beach afterwards under the moon.
Mary had a great deal of Ned's happy nature in her, and between the two, what with sailing, and riding, and long strolls, George could not well help throwing off his despondency. The light soon came back to the eye, the color to the cheek, the spring to the step, the gaiety to the young heart, the belief that, after all, life was not such a bad thing, and that there were pleasant places even in this miserable world for those who sought them in the right spirit.
"Your friend George is getting quite gay," remarked Mary one evening, as brother and sister sat alone, during the temporary absence of the subject of that young lady's remark.
"Yes, poor fellow. He was in a sad way when I dropped on him. Going to the dev—I mean the grave, fast."
"Why, what was the matter with him?"
"Oh! I don't know. Put his foot in it somehow."
"Put his foot in what?"
"In the wrong box, of course. How stupid you women are!"
"But what wrong box, Ned?"
That gentleman looked ineffable disgust at his beautiful sister, whose eyes were fixed a little anxiously on his. Then taking the peachy cheeks between both hands, he drew her face up to his own and kissed her, saying, "There, Mary.... There are only two women in the world to whom I would do that.... You are one—"
"And the other?" asked Mary, a little bewildered.
"Is to come," answered Ned enigmatically. "It will take some time perhaps to find her. One makes a mistake sometimes among so many. When he does, he puts his foot in the wrong box."
"And you think he—that is, Mr. Howard has quite recovered now?" asked Mary, after a pause.
"Well, it looks as though he were very near it; but here he is to speak for himself," said Ned, as George half bounded into the room, flushed with exercise, and looking as handsome as any young lady could wish.
But why give the stages of what all know so well and have heard thousands of times told and retold? One morning, some months after, the little French town looked very gay. There were green rushes strewn at the door of the hotel, and all the towns-people turned out in gala attire. There was the carriage of M. de Lorme, and an enormous bouquet in the coachman's button-hole. There were more carriages, and more coachmen, and more bouquets. Soon the church was filled with a buzzing and excited crowd that hushed into silence as a bridal party moved up the nave and stood at the steps of the altar, whilst the venerable curé in the name of God joined the hands together which no power on earth may sunder. The sunlight fell softly on them through windows of pictured saints. Mme. Plaquet was there, wiping her eyes, and weeping silently, as she praised the good God, who had saved the pauvre garçon and brought it all about so wonderfully. M. Plaquet was there, more convinced than ever that his wife was a wonderful woman; for had not she made the match? Old women, and tender girls wept as the sweet bride passed out a wife, amid showers of blossoms strewn in her path by little white-robed children. They blessed her for an angel, and her handsome husband, whom they all knew so sad, and who now looked so happy. There was another happy face, with bright eyes and a sunny smile, that attracted many an eye—the face, the eyes, and the smile of Mr. Edward Fitzgerald. If the reader would know more of George's history, it is being made. He has found his true lady-love, and is proving himself a true knight. Ned, gay Ned, is as merry as ever. He is called uncle now by a chubby-cheeked youngster with sturdy legs and the large eyes of his mother, into whose innocent face his father often gazes half anxiously, wondering will he ever come to imitate him in his short-lived folly. Ned has not put his foot in the right box yet; so he says, but rumor tells another tale. He may meet us again some day.