“We have ample time for everything, Hankes; don't fatigue yourself, and be here at twelve to-morrow.”
CHAPTER XXIII. ANNESLEY BEECHER IN A NEW PART.
About five weeks have elapsed since we last sojourned with Grog Davis and his party at the little village of Holbach. Five weeks are a short period in human life, but often enough has it sufficed to include great events, and to make marvellous changes in a man's fortunes! Now, the life they all led here might seem well suited to exclude such calculations. Nothing seemed less likely to elicit vicissitudes. It was a calm, tame monotony; each day so precisely like its predecessor that it was often hard to remember how the week stole on. The same landscape, with almost the same effects of sun and shadow, stretched daily before their eyes; the same gushing water foamed and fretted; the same weeds bent their heads to the flood; the self-same throbbing sounds of busy mills mingled with the rushing streams; the very clouds, as they dragged themselves lazily up the mountain side, and then broke into fragments on the summit, seemed the same; and yet in that little world of three people there was the endless conflict of hope and fear, and all the warring interests which distract great masses of men filled their hearts and engaged their minds.
At first Beecher chafed and fretted at the delay; Lizzy appeared but rarely; and when she did it was with a strange reserve, almost amounting to constraint, that he could not comprehend. She did not seem angry or offended with him, simply more distant. Her high spirits, too, were gone; no more the light-hearted, gay, and playful creature he remembered, she was calm even to seriousness. A look of thoughtful preoccupation marked her as she sat silently gazing on the landscape, or watching the eddies of the circling river. There was nothing—save a slight increase of paleness—to denote sorrow in her appearance; her features were placid, and her expression tranquil. If her voice had lost its ringing music, it had acquired a tone of deep and melting softness that seemed to leave an echo in the heart that heard it. To this change, which at first chilled and repelled Beecher, he grew day by day to accustom himself. If her mood was one less calculated to enliven and to cheer him, it was yet better adapted to make his confidence. He could talk to her more freely of himself than heretofore. No longer did he stand in dread of the sharp and witty epigrams with which she used to quiz his opinions and ridicule his notions of life. She would listen to him now with patience, if not with interest, and she would hear him with attention as he talked for hours on the one sole theme he loved,—himself. And, oh, young ladies,—not that you need any counsels of mine in such matters; but if, perchance, my words of advice should have any weight with you,—let me impress this lesson on your hearts: that for the man who is not actually in love with you, but only “spooney,” there is no such birdlime as the indulgence of his selfishness. Let him talk away about his dogs and his horses, his exploits in China or the Crimea, his fishings in Norway, his yachtings in the Levant; let him discourse about his own affairs, of business as well as pleasure; how briefs are pouring in or patients multiply; hear him as he tells you of his sermon before the bishop, or his examination at Burlington House,—trust me, no theme will make him so eloquent nor you so interesting. Of all “serials,”—as the phrase is,—there is none can be carried out to so many “numbers” as Egotism; and though the snowball grows daily bigger, it rolls along even more easily.
I am not going to say that Lizzy Davis did this of “prepense;” I am even candid enough to acknowledge to you that I am not quite sure I can understand her. She had ways of acting and thinking peculiarly her own. She was not always what the French call conséquente, but she was marvellously quick to discover she was astray, and “try back.” She was one of those people who have more difficulty in dealing with themselves than with others. She had an instinctive appreciation of those whose natures she came in contact with, joined to a strong desire to please; and, lastly, there was scarcely a human temperament with which she could not sympathize somewhere. She let Beecher talk on, because it pleased him, and pleasing him became, at last, a pleasure to herself. When he recalled little traits of generosity, the kind things he had done here, the good-natured acts he had done there, she led him on to feel a more manly pride in himself than when recounting tales of his sharp practices on the turf and his keen exploits in the ring.
Beecher saw this leaning on her part, and ascribed it all to her “ignorance of the world,” and firmly believed that when she saw more of life she would think more highly of his intellect than even of his heart. Poor fellow! they were beautifully balanced, and phrenology for once would have its triumph in showing the mental and the moral qualities in equilibrium. After the first week they were always together, for Davis was continually on the road,—now to Neuwied, now to Höchst. The letters and telegrams that he despatched and received were incredible in number; and when jested with on the amount of his correspondence by Beecher, his only answer was, “It's all your business, my boy,—the whole concerns you.” Now, Annesley Beecher was far too much of a philosopher to trouble his head about anything which could be avoided, and to find somebody who devoted himself to his interests, opened and read the dunning appeals of creditors, answered their demands by “renewals,” or cajoled them by promises, was one of the highest luxuries he could imagine. Indeed, if Grog would only fight for him and go to jail for him, he 'd have deemed his happiness complete. “And who knows,” thought he, “but it may come to that yet? I seem to have thrown a sort of fascination over the old fellow that may lead him any lengths.”
Meanwhile there was extending over himself another web of fascination not the less complete that he never perceived it His first waking thought was of Lizzy. As he came down to breakfast, his dress showed how studiously he cultivated appearance. The breakfast over, he sat down to his German lesson beside her with a patient perseverance that amazed him. There he was, with addled head and delighted heart, conjugating “Ich liebe,” and longing for the day when he should reach the imperative mood; and then they walked long country walks into the dark beech woods, along grassy alleys where no footfall sounded, or they strayed beside some river's bank, half fancying that none had ever strolled over the same sward before. And how odd it was to see the Honorable Annesley Beecher, the great lion of the Guards' Club, the once celebrity of the Coventry, carrying a little basket on his arm, like a stage peasant in a comic opera, with the luncheon, or, mayhap, bearing a massive stone in his arms to bridge a stream for Lizzy to cross. Poor fellow! he did these things with a good will, and even in his awkwardness there was that air of “gentleman” which never left him; and then he would laugh so heartily at his own inaptitude, and join in' Lizzy's mirth at the mischances that befell him. And was it not delightful, through all these charming scenes, on the high mountain-aide, in the deep heather, or deep in some tangled glen, with dog-roses and honeysuckle around them, he could still talk of himself, and she could listen?
For the life of him he could not explain how it was that the time slipped over so pleasantly. As he himself said, “there was not much to see, and nothing to do,” and yet, somehow, the day was always too short for either. He wanted to write to his brother, to his sister-in-law, to Dunn, to his man of business,—meaning the Jew who raised money for him,—but never could find time. He was so puzzled by the problem that he actually asked Lizzy to explain it; but she only laughed.
Now and then, when he chanced to be all alone, a sudden thought would strike him that he was leading a life of inglorious idleness. He would count up how many weeks it was since he had seen a “Bell's Life,” and try to calculate what races were coming off that very same day; then he would draw a mind-picture of Tattersall's on a settling day, and wonder who were the defaulters, and who were getting passports for the Continent; and he would wind up his astonishment by thinking that Grog was exactly leading the game indolent existence, “although we have that 'grand book with the martingale,' and might be smashing the bank at Baden every night.”