Indeed, they got on together extremely well. Whenever Keene happened to be with them—which was not often—she gave up the management of Harry’s Foreign Affairs to him, reserving to herself the control of the Home Department, and, between the two, they ruled their vassal right royally. After some months’ acquaintance they became the greatest friends; on Royston’s side it was one of the few quite pure and unselfish feelings he had ever cherished toward one of her sex not nearly akin to him in blood. He always seemed to look on her as a very nice, but rather spoiled child, to be humored and petted to any amount, but very seldom to be reasoned with or gravely consulted. Considering her numerous fascinations, and the little practice he had had in the paternal or fraternal line, he really did it remarkably well: be it understood, it was only en petite comité that all this went on; in general society his manner was strictly formal and deferential. It provoked her though, sometimes, and one day she ventured to say, “I wish you would learn to treat me like a grown-up woman!” Royston’s eyes darkened strangely; and one glance flashed out of the gloom that made her shrink away from him then, and blush painfully when she thought of it afterward alone. He was frowning, too, as he answered, in a voice unusually harsh and constrained, “It seems to me we go on very well as it is. But women never will leave well alone.” She did not like to analyze his answer or her own feelings too closely, so she tried to persuade herself it was a very rude speech, and that she ought to be offended at it. There was a coolness between those two for some days, amounting to distant courtesy. But the dignified style did not suit ma mignonne (as Harry delighted to call her) at all, and was, indeed, a lamentable failure; it made her look as if she had been trying on one of her great-grandmother’s short-waisted dresses; so they soon fell back into their old ways, and, like the model prince and princess, “lived very happily ever afterward.”
CHAPTER II.
Keene had spent some time with the Molyneuxs during the autumn and winter, and had conducted himself so far with perfect propriety, certainly keeping Harry straighter than he would have gone alone; for he was, unluckily, of a convivial turn of mind wholly incompatible with delicate health and a frail constitution. Being a favorite with the world in general, he felt bound, I suppose, to reciprocate, so, albeit strictly enjoined to keep the earliest hours, he would sit up till dawn if any one encouraged him, and then come home, perfectly sober perhaps, but staggering from mere weakness. He did not care for deep drinking in the least, but the number of magnums he had assisted in flooring, when on a regimen of “three glasses of sherry,” would have made a double row of nails round the coffin of a larger man. Nature, however, being a Dame, won’t stand being slighted, or having her admonitions disregarded, and the way she asserted herself on the morrow was retributive in the extreme. Harry was always so very ill after one of those nights “upon the war-path.” 5 On such occasions, his feelings, without being quite remorseful, were beautifully and curiously penitent; they manifested themselves chiefly by an extraordinary ebullition of the domestic affections. “Bring me my children” (he had two tiny ones), he would cry on waking, just as another man would call for brandy and soda; and, strange to say, the presence of those innocents seemed to have a similarly invigorating and refreshing effect: during all that day he would make pilgrimages to their cribs, and gaze upon them sleeping with the reverence of an old dévote kneeling before the shrine of her most efficacious saint. Then he would go forth, and return with a present for his wife, bearing an exact proportion in value to the extent and duration of the past misdemeanor; so that her jewel-case and writing-table soon became as prettily suggestive as the votive chapel of Nôtre Dame des Dunes. Very unnecessary were these peace-offerings; for that dear little woman never dreamt of “hitting him when he was down,” or taking any other low advantage of his weakness. She would make his breakfast beamingly, at all untimely hours, and otherwise pet and caress him, so that he might have been a knight returning wounded from some Holy War, instead of a discomfited scalp-hunter, bearing still evident traces of the “war-paint.” A stern old lady told her once that such condonation of offenses was unprincipled and immoral. It may be so, but I can not think the example is likely to be dangerously contagious. Whatever happens, there will always remain a sufficiency of matronly Dicæarchs, over whose judgment-seats the legend is very plainly inscribed, Nescia flecti.
These Ember days formed the only exceptions to the remarkably easy way in which Molyneux took every thing; there seemed to be no rough places about his disposition for trouble or care to take hold of. Hunting four days a week through the winter; six weeks in town during the season, with incidentals of Epsom, Goodwood, saumon à la Trafalgar, bouquets, and opera-stalls; living all the rest of the year at a mess curious as to the quality of its dry Champagne—these simple pleasures involve a certain expenditure hardly “fairly warranted by our regimental rate of pay.” To accomplish all this on about £500 a year, and yet to steer clear of ruin, is an ingenious process doubtless, but a sum not to be wrought out (most soldiers will tell you) without some anxiety and travail of mind. Now, in the very tightest state of the money-market, Harry was never known to disquiet himself in vain. He would not borrow from any of his comrades, refusing all such proffers of assistance gratefully but consistently. No Mussulman ever equaled his contented reliance on the resources of futurity, and his implicit belief in the same. He would anchor his hopes on some such improbability as “a long shot coming off,” or “his Aunt Agnes coming down” (a proverbially awful widow, who had forgiven him seven times already; and, after each fresh offense, had sworn unrelenting enmity to him and his heirs forever). Strong in this faith, he met condoling friends with a pleasant, reassuring smile: with the same demeanor he confronted threatening creditors. He used no arts, and condescended to no subterfuge in dealing with these last; but, as one of them observed, retreating from the barracks moneyless but gratified, “Mr. Molyneux seems to feel for one, at all events.” So he did. He sympathized with his tailor, not in the least because he owed him money, but because he was a fellow-creature in difficulties, regretting heartily it was not in his own power to relieve them; just as a very charitable but improvident person might feel on reading a case of real distress in the Times. Strange to say, hitherto he had always pulled through. Either the outsider did win, or the aunt, touched in the soft place of her heart through her ruffled feathers, was brought down by a “wild shot,” when considered quite out of distance, and “parted” freely.
The last and hardest trial of all—long debility and frequent illness—had failed to shake this intense serenity. He was never cross or unreasonable, and tried to give as little trouble as possible; but was grateful to a degree for every thing that was done for him: he could even manage to thank people for their advice, whether he took it not. So far as one could make out, he was nearly as much interested in the state of his own health, as one would be about that of any pleasant casual acquaintance.
It must be confessed, that poor Harry and his like are by no means strong-minded, or large-brained, or persevering men; they seldom or never rise to eminence, and rarely have greatness thrust upon them. They do not often volunteer to lead the vanguard of any great movement, shouting out on the slightest provocation the war-cry of “life is earnest;” for they are the natural subalterns of the world’s mighty battalia, and could hardly manœuvre one of its companies, without hopelessly entangling it, and exposing themselves: indeed, if they are useful at all in their generation, it is in a singularly modest and unobtrusive way. Yet there is an attraction about them, a power of attachment, that the great and wise ones of the earth have appreciated and envied, ere now. It is curious, too, to see what an apparent contradiction to themselves the extremes of the class—those who exaggerate nonchalance into insensibility, and softness into effeminacy—have shown, when brought face to face with imminent peril or certain destruction. France held few more terrible ferrailleurs than the curled painted minions of her third Henry: the sun never looked down on a more desperate duel than that in which Quélus, Schomberg, and Maugiron did their devoir manfully to the last. Nay, though he came delicately to his doom, the King of Amalek met it, I fancy, gallantly and gracefully enough, when once he read his sentence in the eyes of the pitiless Seer, who ordained that he “should be hewn in pieces before the Lord in Gilgal.”
R. I. P.
There was silence for some minutes after the few words that opened this story; and then Royston Keene spoke again.
“Hal, do you remember that miserable impostor in Paris being enthusiastic about Dorade and its advantages, describing it as a sort of happy hunting-ground, and so deciding us on choosing it in preference to Nice?”