“I thought it was only in my profession,” said Calvert sneeringly, “where corrupt patronage was practised. It is almost a comfort to think how much the good people resemble the wicked ones.”
Miss Grainger, who usually smiled at his levities, looked grave at this one, and no more was said, as they moved on towards the cottage.
CHAPTER VIII. GROWING DARKER
IT was late at night when Calvert left the villa, but, instead of rowing directly back to the little inn, he left his boat to drift slowly in the scarce perceptible current of the lake, and wrapping himself in his cloak, lay down to muse or to sleep.
It was just as day broke that he awoke, and saw that he had drifted within a few yards of his quarters, and in a moment after he was on shore.
As he gained his room, he found a letter for him in Loyd’s hand. It ran thus:
“I waited up all night to see you before I started, for I
have been suddenly summoned home by family circumstances. I
was loth to part in an angry spirit, or even in coldness,
with one in whose companionship I have passed so many happy
hours, and for whom I feel, notwithstanding what has passed
between us, a sincere interest. I wanted to speak to you of
much which I cannot write—that is to say, I would have
endeavoured to gain a hearing for what I dare not venture to
set down in the deliberate calm of a letter. When I own that
it was of yourself, your temper, your habits, your nature,
in short, that I wished to have spoken, you will, perhaps,
say that it was as well time was not given me for such
temerity. But bear in mind, Calvert, that though I am free
to admit all your superiority over myself, and never would
presume to compare my faculties or my abilities with yours—
though I know well there is not a single gift or grace in
which you are not my master, there is one point in which I
have an advantage over you—I had a mother! You, you have
often told me, never remember to have seen yours. To that
mother’s trainings I owe anything of good, however humble it
be, in my nature, and, though the soil in which the seed has
fallen be poor and barren, so much of fruit has it borne
that I at least respect the good which I do not practise,
and I reverence that virtue to which I am a rebel. The
lesson, above all others, that she instilled into we, was to
avoid the tone of a scoffer, to rescue myself from the cheap
distinction which is open to everyone who sets himself to
see only ridicule in what others respect, and to mock the
themes that others regard with reverence. I stop, for I am
afraid to weary you—I dread that, in your impatience, you
will throw this down and read no more—I will only say, and
I say it in all the sincerity of truth, that if you would
endeavour to be morally as great as what your faculties can
make you intellectually, there is no eminence you might not
attain, nor any you would not adorn.
“If our intimacy had not cooled down of late, from what
causes I am unable to tell, to a point in which the first
disagreement must be a breach between us, I would have told
you that I had formed an attachment to Florence Walter, and
obtained her aunt’s consent to our marriage; I mean, of
course, at some future which I cannot define, for I have my
way to make in the world, and, up to the present, have only
been a burden on others. We are engaged, however, and we
live on hope. Perhaps I presume too far on any interest you
could feel for me when I make you this communication. It
may be that you will say, ‘What is all this to me?’ At all
events, I have told you what, had I kept back, would have
seemed to myself an uncandid reservation. Deal with it how
you may.
“There is, however, another reason why I should tell you
this. If you were unaware of the relations which exist
between our friends and myself, you might unconsciously
speak of me in terms which this knowledge would, perhaps,
modify—at least, you would speak without the consciousness
that you were addressing unwilling hearers. You now know the
ties that bind us, and your words will have that
significance which you intend they should bear.
“Remember, and remember distinctly, I disclaim all
pretension, as I do all wish, to conciliate your favour as
regards this matter; first, because I believe I do not need
it; and secondly, that if I asked for, I should be unworthy
of it. I scarcely know how, after our last meeting, I stand
in your estimation, but I am ready to own that if you would
only suffer yourself to be half as good as your nature had
intended you and your faculties might make you, you would be
conferring a great honour on being the friend of yours
truly,
“Joseph Loyd.”
“What a cant these fellows acquire!” said Calvert as he read the letter and threw it from him. “What mock humility! what downright and palpable pretension to superiority through every line of it! The sum of it all being, I can’t deny that you are cleverer, stronger, more active, and more manly than me; but, somehow, I don’t exactly see why or, how, but I’m your better! Well, I’ll write an answer to this one of these days, and such an answer as I flatter myself he’ll not read aloud to the company who sit round the fire at the vicarage. And so, Mademoiselle Florence, this was your anxiety, and this the reason for all that interest about our quarrel which I was silly enough to ascribe to a feeling for myself. How invariably it is so! How certain it is that a woman, the weakest, the least experienced, the most commonplace, is more than a match in astuteness for a man, in a question where her affections are concerned. The feminine nature has strange contradictions. They can summon the courage of a tigress to defend their young, and the spirit of a Machiavelli to protect a lover. She must have had some misgiving, however, that, to prefer a fellow like this to me would be felt by me as an outrage. And then the cunning stroke of implying that her sister was not indisposed to listen to me. The perfidy of that!”
Several days after Loyd’s departure, Calvert was lounging near the lake, when he jumped up, exclaiming, “Here comes the postman! I see he makes a sign to me. What can this be about? Surely, my attached friend has not written to me again. No, this is a hand that I do not recognise. Let us see what it contains.” He opened and read as follows: