Barren Honour: A Novel

by George A. Lawrence

Though they arrived then at a tolerably accurate idea of the state of Alan's finances, it took months to complete the final arrangements. When everything in town and country that could well be sold had been disposed of, Wyverne was left with a life-income of just as many hundreds a-year as he had started with thousands. But all his personal debts, and liabilities incurred for others, were paid in full. The only absolute luxuries that he retained (with the exception of all the presents that he had ever received) were the two best hunters in his stud, and his gray Arab, "Maimouna." That residue might have been nearly doubled, if Alan would have consented to dismantle the Abbey. But he could not help looking upon its antique furniture and fittings in the light of heirlooms. He had added little to them when he came into his inheritance: he took nothing away when he lost it. So the great, grave mansion still retained its old-fashioned and somewhat faded magnificence; and few changes, so far, were to be seen there, except that the grass grew long on the lawns, and the flowers wandered over the parterres at their own sweet will, and instead of thick reeks of unctuous smoke, only a thin blue line stole out modestly from two or three chimneys now and then in the shooting season. The game was still kept up, and the farmers watched it as jealously and zealously as if they had been keepers in their landlord's pay.

The sternest Stoic alive could scarcely have fallen into his new position more naturally, or adapted himself to its requirements more gracefully, than did that gay, careless Epicurean. If he had any regrets for the irrevocable Past, he kept them to himself, and never wearied his friends for their sympathy or compassion; he accused no one with reference to his ruin; I doubt if he even blamed himself very severely. There was no more of recklessness in his conduct, than there was of despondency in his demeanour; but he comported himself exactly as you would expect to see a man do, of good birth and breeding, and average steadiness, born to a modest competency. His experience, brief as it was, might have taught him to be somewhat sceptical as to the virtues of our human nature, more especially having regard to such trifles as truth and honesty; but no amount of punishment will beat wisdom or knowledge into a confirmed dunce or idler. His constitutional indolence may have had something to say to it; but to the last hour of his life Alan Wyverne never learnt to be suspicious, or sullen, or cynical.

To be sure, the world in this case broke through an established rule, and behaved better to him when he was at the bottom of the wheel than it had ever done at the culminating point of his fortunes. There seemed to be a general impression that he had been very badly treated by some "person or persons unknown," and it became the fashion to compassionate Wyverne (in his absence) exceedingly. People who in former days met and parted from him quite indifferently, found out suddenly that they had always been very fond of him, and contended as to who should attract him to their house in the hunting or shooting season. The Marquis of Montserrat, for instance, roused himself from where he lay, surrounded by every delight of a Mussulman's paradise, in his summer palace by the Bosphorus, to send a sort of firmun, giving Alan powers of life and death over the keepers and coverts of all his territory marching with the lands of Wyverne Abbey; an instance of good-nature which was the more remarkable, inasmuch as the great Absentee not only carries laziness and selfishness to a pitch of sublimity, but has of late registered a vow against befriending any one under any circumstances whatever. This last and rather superfluous hardening process was brought about in this wise.

Some years ago there appeared suddenly in the firmament of fashion a little star; no one knew whence it came—though it was supposed to have risen in the East; and when, after twinkling brightly for a brief space, it shot down into utter darkness, no one cared to ask whither it went. Mr. Richardson had advanced just so far in intimacy with the magnates of the land that they began to call him "Tom" (his Christian name was Walter), when the crash came, and he subsided into nothingness. He lived upon that recollection, and little else, for the remainder of his days. Yet one chance was given him. Wandering about the Continent, he met the Marquis of Montserrat. The mighty golden Crater and the poor shattered Amphora had once floated side by side, for a league or two, down the same stream. After a tête-à-tête dinner (the cótelettes à la Pompadour were a success), old recollections, or his own Clos Vougeot, made the peer's heart warm, and he bethought himself how he might serve the unlucky pauper. At last he said,

"Tom, there is a regular establishment at Grandmanoir, and there always will be in my time, though I never mean to see it again. Go and live there; you'll be more comfortable than in lodgings, and save rent and firing besides. Make yourself quite at home; slay the venison; eat the fruit of the vine, and drink the juice thereof (the cellar ought to be well filled); and grow as fat as Jeshurun, if you like. I only insist on one thing. Whether matters are going on well or ill in the house or out of it—don't bother me about them. I don't want to hear a word on the subject. Is it settled so?"

You may fancy Tom Richardson's profuse thanks and his great joy and gladness at finding himself chatelain of Grandmanoir. The valetaille treated him at first with no small kindness (he was a meek little man, averse to giving unnecessary trouble), and for some months all went merrily. But before a year had passed there began to dawn on the stranger's mind suspicions, which soon changed into certainties. There existed at Grandmanoir the most comprehensive and consistent system of robbery that could well be conceived. It would have been harder to find one honest menial there than ten saints in a City of the Plain. Everybody was in it, from the agent and house-steward, who plundered en prince, down to the scullion (fat, but not foolish), who peculated en paysanne. There was commercial blood in Tom Richardson's veins, and the sight of these enormous misdeeds vexed his righteous soul exceedingly. One day he could withhold himself no longer, but sat down in a fury and wrote,

"My dear lord,—In spite of your prohibition, I feel it my duty," &c.

And so went through all the disagreeable details regularly. The reply came by return of post, though not exactly in the shape that he expected. The steward came in with scant ceremony, an evil smile on his face (he probably guessed at the truth), charged with his lord's commands that the visitor should quit Grandmanoir before sunset and never return there. Thus rudely was broken the last of poor Tom's golden dreams. The Great Marquis, when the circumstances were alluded to, never could be brought to see any harshness in his own conduct, but spoke of his protégé's rather plaintively as "an instance of human ingratitude that he was really not prepared for." He did not give the species many chances of surprising him in that way again.

If the chiefs of his tribe were ready to comfort and cherish the disabled "brave," now that he could no longer put on paint and plume, and go forth with them on the "war-trail," be sure that the matrons and maidens were yet more active and demonstrative in sympathy. There must be extraordinarily bad features in the case of distress that fails to secure feminine compassion; except in a matrimonial point of view, our sisters rarely consider a man deteriorated because he is ruined. Though he was a general favourite in his set, Wyverne possessed many more real friends of the other sex than of his own. If there is anything in reciprocity, it was only fair that it should be so. Alan's reverence and affection for Womanhood in the abstract were so intense and sincere, as to be almost independent of individual attributes. His companion for the moment might be the homeliest, humblest, least attractive female you can conceive; but with the first word his tone and manner would change and soften in a way that she could not but perceive, even if she did not appreciate it. Most of them did appreciate it, though, and this was the secret of his invariable and proverbial success. Wyverne could like a woman honestly, and let her know it, without a thought of love, and could always render courtesy where admiration, or even respect, unfortunately, were out of the question. However good the sport might be in other ways, he considered the day comparatively lost in which the feminine element was wanting. While his comrades were resting for an hour before dinner—dead beat with seven hours' hard stalking in the corries of Benmac-Dhui—Alan would be found loitering about the door of the chief keeper's bothy, carrying on, under extreme difficulties of dialect, a flirtation on first principles with his orange-haired daughter. He seemed to derive some refreshment from the process, though the absence of a beard, and the (occasional) presence of a petticoat, were about the only distinctive characteristics of her sex that the robust Oread could boast of. When the season was at the flood, he would spend hours of an afternoon in the quiet twilight of a boudoir in Mayfair, by the side of an invalid's sofa. Sooth to say, that room held no ordinary attractions. Lady Rutherglen had been a famous beauty in the Waterloo year; and though long illness had somewhat sharpened her delicate features, she still retained the low sweet voice and winning manner which had made wild work with the heart of the Great Czar (the imperial wooing was utterly wasted, for the witty, wayward Countess could guard her honour as well as the stupidest of Pamelas); there was hardly a wrinkle on the little white hand, and the lovely silver hair looked softer and silkier now than it had ever done in its golden prime.

Sad and strange shapes of sin and sorrow cross our path sometimes, as we walk home from club or ball through the early morning. Saddest, perhaps, and strangest of all, is the spectacle of one of God's creatures, unsexed and deformed by passion and fiery liquor, struggling in blind undiscriminating rage, and shrieking out defiance alike of friends and foes. The Menad ceased to be romantic when the Great Pan died. Erigone may be magnificent on canvas, but even Béranger failed in making her attractive on paper: in flesh and blood she is simply repellent. Public sympathy would side rather with Pentheus nowadays than with his cruelly convivial mother; and we hold the disguise of drink to be the least becoming of all Myrrha's masquerades. Such a sight affected Wyverne with a disgust and pain that few men could have fully appreciated; but he rarely would pass by without an attempt at mediation. They say that his kind, gentle voice was almost magical in its soothing power. The exasperated guardian of the night would relax the roughness of his grasp; and the "strayed reveller" would subside from shrill fury into murmurs placable and plaintive, yielding, in spite of the devil that possessed her, to the charm of his cordial compassion and invincible courtesy.