Ralph the Heir

by Anthony Trollope

"They tell me that Beamingham Hall isn't much of a place after all," said Sir Thomas.

"From what Mr. Newton says, it must be a very ugly place," said Mary, with still the same smile and the same hint of a blush;—"only I don't quite credit all he tells us."

"If there is anything settled you ought to tell me," said Sir Thomas.

"There is nothing settled, uncle, or in any way of being settled. It so happened that Mr. Newton did speak to me about his new house. There is nothing more."

"Nevertheless, papa, pray let us ask him to dinner on Thursday." It was for the purpose of making this request that Patience had come to Southampton Buildings, braving her father's displeasure. Sir Thomas scratched his head, and rubbed his face, and yielded. Of course he had no alternative but to yield, and yet he did it with a bad grace. Permission, however, was given, and it was understood that Patience would write to the two young men, Ralph of Beamingham Hall and the parson, asking them to dinner for the day but one following. "As the time is so short, I've written the notes ready," said Patience, producing them from her pocket. Then the bell was rung, and the two notes were confided to Stemm. Patience, as she was going, found a moment in which to be alone with her father, and to speak one more word to him. "Dear papa, it would be so much better for us that you should come and live at home. Think of those two, with nobody, as it were, to say a word for them." Sir Thomas groaned, and again scratched his head; but Patience left him before he had arranged his words for an answer.

When they were gone, Sir Thomas sat for hours in his chair without moving, making the while one or two faint attempts at the book before him, but in truth giving up his mind to contemplation of the past and to conjectures as to the future, burdened by heavy regrets, and with hopes too weak to afford him any solace. The last words which Patience had spoken rang in his ears,—"Think of those two, with nobody, as it were, to say a word for them." He did think of them, and of the speaker also, and knew that he had neglected his duty. He could understand that such a girl as his own Clarissa did require some one "to say a word for her," some stalwart arm to hold her up, some loving strength to support her, some counsel to direct her. Of course those three girls were as other girls, looking forward to matrimony as their future lot in life, and it would not be well that they should be left to choose or to be chosen, or left to reject and be rejected, without any aid from their remaining parent. He knew that he had been wrong, and he almost resolved that the chambers in Southampton Buildings should be altogether abandoned, and his books removed to Popham Villa.

But such men do not quite resolve. Before he could lay his hand upon the table and assure himself that the thing should be done, the volume had been taken up again, used for a few minutes, and then the man's mind had run away again to that vague contemplation which is so much easier than the forming of a steady purpose. It was one of those almost sultry days which do come to us occasionally amidst the ordinary inclemency of a London May, and he was sitting with his window open, though there was a fire in the grate. As he sat, dreaming rather than thinking, there came upon his ear the weak, wailing, puny sound of a distant melancholy flute. He had heard it often before, and had been roused by it to evil wishes, and sometimes even to evil words, against the musician. It was the effort of some youth in the direction of Staple's Inn to soothe with music the savageness of his own bosom. It was borne usually on the evening air, but on this occasion the idle swain had taken up his instrument within an hour or two of his early dinner. His melody was burdened with no peculiar tune, but consisted of a few low, wailing, melancholy notes, such as may be extracted from the reed by a breath and the slow raising and falling of the little finger, much, we believe, to the comfort of the player, but to the ineffable disgust of, too often, a large circle of hearers.

Sir Thomas was affected by the sound long before he was aware that he was listening to it. To-whew, to-whew; to-whew, to-whew; whew-to-to, whew-to-to, whew, to-whew. On the present occasion the variation was hardly carried beyond that; but so much was repeated with a persistency which at last seemed to burden the whole air round Southampton Buildings. The little thing might have been excluded by the closing of the window; but Sir Thomas, though he suffered, did not reflect for a while whence the suffering came. Who does not know how such sounds may serve to enhance the bitterness of remorse, to add a sorrow to the present thoughts, and to rob the future of its hopes?

There come upon us all as we grow up in years, hours in which it is impossible to keep down the conviction that everything is vanity, that the life past has been vain from folly, and that the life to come must be vain from impotence. It is the presence of thoughts such as these that needs the assurance of a heaven to save the thinker from madness or from suicide. It is when the feeling of this pervading vanity is strongest on him, that he who doubts of heaven most regrets his incapacity for belief. If there be nothing better than this on to the grave,—and nothing worse beyond the grave, why should I bear such fardels?

Sir Thomas, as he sat there listening and thinking, unable not to think and not to listen, found that the fardels were very heavy. What good had come to him of his life,—to him or to others? And what further good did he dare to promise to himself? Had it not all been vanity? Was it not all vain to him now at the present? Was not life becoming to him vainer and still vainer every day? He had promised himself once that books should be the solace of his age, and he was beginning to hate his books, because he knew that he did no more than trifle with them. He had found himself driven to attempt to escape from them back into public life; but had failed, and had been inexpressibly dismayed in the failure. While failing, he had promised himself that he would rush at his work on his return to privacy and to quiet; but he was still as the shivering coward, who stands upon the brink, and cannot plunge in among the bathers. And then there was sadness beyond this, and even deeper than this. Why should he have dared to arrange for himself a life different from the life of the ordinary men and women who lived around him? Why had he not contented himself with having his children around him; walking with them to church on Sunday morning, taking them to the theatre on Monday evening, and allowing them to read him to sleep after tea on the Tuesday? He had not done these things, was not doing them now, because he had ventured to think himself capable of something that would justify him in leaving the common circle. He had left it, but was not justified. He had been in Parliament, had been in office, and had tried to write a book. But he was not a legislator, was not a statesman, and was not an author. He was simply a weak, vain, wretched man, who, through false conceit, had been induced to neglect almost every duty of life! To-whew, to-whew, to-whew, to-whew! As the sounds filled his ears, such were the thoughts which lay heavy on his bosom. So idle as he had been in thinking, so inconclusive, so frail, so subject to gusts of wind, so incapable of following his subject to the end, why had he dared to leave that Sunday-keeping, church-going, domestic, decent life, which would have become one of so ordinary a calibre as himself? There are men who may doubt, who may weigh the evidence, who may venture to believe or disbelieve in compliance with their own reasoning faculties,—who may trust themselves to think it out; but he, too clearly, had not been, was not, and never would be one of these. To walk as he saw other men walking around him,—because he was one of the many; to believe that to be good which the teachers appointed for him declared to be good; to do prescribed duties without much personal inquiry into the causes which had made them duties; to listen patiently, and to be content without excitement; that was the mode of living for which he should have known himself to be fit. But he had not known it, and had strayed away, and had ventured to think that he could think,—and had been ambitious. And now he found himself stranded in the mud of personal condemnation,—and that so late in life, that there remained to him no hope of escape. Whew-to-to; whew-to-to; whew,—to-whew. "Stemm, why do you let that brute go on with his cursed flute?" Stemm at that moment had opened the door to suggest that as he usually dined at one, and as it was now past three, he would go out and get a bit of something to eat.