Name and Fame: A Novel

by Adeline Sergeant

It is no simple question for her biographer to answer off-hand. Lettice, as we know, had admitted into her heart a feeling of sympathetic tenderness for Alan, which, under other circumstances, she would have accepted as worthy to dominate her life and dictate its moods and duties. But the man for whom this sympathy had been aroused was so situated that he could not ask her for her love, whilst she could not in any case have given it if she had been asked. Instinctively she had shut her eyes to that which she might have read in her own soul, or in his, if she had cared or dared to look. She had the book before her, but it was closed and sealed. Where another woman might, have said, "I must forget him—there is a barrier between us which neither can cross," she said nothing; but all her training, her instinct, her delicate feeling, even her timidity and self-distrust, led her insensibly to shun the paths of memory which would have brought her back to the prospect that had allured and alarmed her.

Be it remembered that she knew nothing of his later troubles. She had heard nothing about him since she left England; and Mrs. Hartley, who honestly believed that Alan had practically effaced himself from their lives by his own rash act, was sufficiently unscrupulous to keep her friend in ignorance of what had happened.

So Lettice did not mention Alan, did not keep him in her mind or try to recall him by any active exercise of her memory; and in this sense she had forgotten him. Time would show if the impression, so deep and vivid in its origin, was gradually wearing away, or merely hidden out of sight. No wonder if Mrs. Hartley thought that she was cured.

Lettice heard of the arrival of the Daltons without any other feeling than half-selfish misgiving that her work was to be interrupted at a critical moment, when her mind was full of the ideas on which her story depended for its success. She had created by her imagination a little world of human beings, instinct with life and endowed with vivid character; she had dwelt among her creatures, guided their steps and inspired their souls, loved them and walked with them from day to day, until they were no mere puppets dancing to the pull of a string, but real and veritable men and women. She could not have deserted them by any spontaneous act of her own, and if she was to be torn away from the world, which hung upon her fiat, she could not submit to the banishment without at least an inward lamentation. Art spoils her votaries for the service of society, and society, as a rule, takes its revenge by despising or patronizing the artist whilst competing for the possession of his works.

Brooke Dalton and his sister were lodged in an old palace not far from Mrs. Hartley's smaller and newer residence; and frequent visits between the two couples soon put them all on terms of friendly intimacy. Lettice had always thought well of Mr. Dalton. He reminded her of Angleford, and the happy days of her early youth. In London he had been genial with her, and attentive, and considerate in every sense, so that she had been quite at her ease with him. They met again without constraint, and under circumstances which enabled Dalton to put forth his best efforts to please her, without exciting any alarm in her mind, to begin with.

Edith Dalton captivated Lettice at once. She was a handsome woman of aristocratic type and breeding, tall, slender, and endowed with the graceful manners of one who has received all the polish of refined society without losing the simplicity of nature. A year or two younger than her brother, she had reached an age when most women have given up the thought of marriage; and in her case there was a sad and sufficient reason for turning her back upon such joys and consolations as a woman may reasonably expect to find in wedded life. She had been won in her girlhood by a man thoroughly fitted to make her happy—a man of wealth and talent, and honorable service in the State; who, within a week of their marriage day, had been thrown from his horse and killed. Edith had not in so many words devoted herself to perpetual maidenhood; but that was the outcome of the great sorrow of her youth. She had remained single without growing morose, and her sweet and gentle moods endeared her to all who came to know her.

With such a companion Lettice was sure to become intimate; or at any rate, she was sure to respond with warmth to the kindly feeling displayed for her. Yet there were many points of unlikeness between her and Edith Dalton. She too was refined, but it was the refinement of mental culture rather than the moulding of social influences. She too retained the simplicity of nature, but it was combined with an outspoken candor which Edith had been taught to shun. Where Lettice would be ready to assert herself, and claim the rights of independence, Edith would shrink back with fastidious alarm; where the one was fitted to wage the warfare of life, and, if need be, to stand out as a champion or pioneer of her sex, the other would have suffered acutely if she had been forced into any kind of aggressive combat.

When Brooke told his sister that he had met a woman whom he could love, she was unfeignedly glad, and never thought of inquiring whether the woman in question was rich, or well-connected, or moving in good society. Perhaps she took the last two points for granted, and no doubt she would have been greatly disappointed if she had found that Brooke's choice had been otherwise than gentle and refined. But when she saw Lettice she was satisfied, and set herself by every means in her power to please and charm her new friend.

As Mrs. Hartley knew and backed the designs of the Daltons, Lettice was not very fairly matched against the wiles and blandishments of the three. Brooke Dalton, indeed, felt himself in a rather ridiculous position, as though he were proceeding to the siege of Lettice's heart relying upon the active co-operation of his sister and cousin, to say nothing of her brother's letter which he carried in his pocket. But, after all, this combination was quite fortuitous. He had not asked for assistance, and he knew very well that if such assistance were too openly given it would do his cause more harm than good.

Dalton was one of those good-tempered men who are apt to get too much help in spite of themselves from the womenfolk of their family and household, who are supposed to need help when they do not, and who have only themselves to thank for their occasional embarrassment of wealth in this particular form. Nature intends such men to be wife-ridden and happy. If is not alien to their disposition that they should spend their earlier manhood, as Dalton had done, amongst men who take life too easily and lightly; but they generally settle down before the whole of their manhood is wasted, and then a woman can lead them with a thread of silk.