“Do you know anything about the law? Of what possible use could you be to us? No; you are a fancy article, entirely a fancy article. Government,” said the old lawyer, “Government is the thing for you.”
“Government does not seem to see it in that light,” said Edgar. “I have waited since October.”
“My dear Sir! October is but three months off. You can’t expect, like a child, to have your wants supplied the moment you ask for anything. A slice of cake may be given in that way, but not an appointment. You must have patience, Mr. Earnshaw, you must have patience,” said the old man.
“But I have spent the half of my hundred pounds,” Edgar was about to say; but something withheld him; he could not do it. Should he not furnish the old lawyer by so doing with an unquestionable argument against himself? Should he not expose his own foolishness, the foolishness of the man who thought himself able to give up everything for others, and then could do nothing but run into debt and ruin on his own account? Edgar could not do it; he resolved rather to struggle on upon nothing, rather to starve, though that was a figure of speech, than to put himself so much in anyone’s power; which was pride, no doubt, but a useful kind of pride, which sometimes keeps an erring man out of further trouble. He went back at once, and paid his landlord a portion of what he owed him, and removed his goods to a small upstairs room which he found he could have cheap, and might have had all the time had he been wise enough to ask. It was the room in which his own servant had slept when he travelled with such an appendage; but the new-born pride which had struggled into existence in Edgar’s mind had no such ignoble part in it as to afflict him on this account. He was quite happy to go up to his man’s room, where everything was clean and homely, and felt no derogation of his personal dignity. Thank Heaven, this was one thing done at least—a step taken, though nothing could be gained by it, only something spared.
In the afternoon Mr. Tottenham met him at his club, driving a pair of handsome horses in a smart phaeton, such a turnout as only a rich man’s can be, everything about it perfect. Edgar had not indulged in any luxurious tastes during his own brief reign; it had been perhaps too short to develop them; but he recognised the perfect appointments of the vehicle with a half sigh of satisfaction and reminiscence. He did not say, why should this man be lucky enough to have all this when I have nothing? as so many people do. He was not given to such comparisons, to that ceaseless contrast of self with the rest of the world, which is so common. He half smiled at himself for half sighing over the day when he too might have had everything that heart could desire, and smiled more than half at the whimsical thought that he had not taken the good of his wealth half so much then as he would have done now, had he the chance. He seemed to himself—knowing how short Edgar Arden’s tenure was—to be aware of a hundred things which Edgar might have done to amuse and delight him, which indeed Edgar Arden, knowing nothing of his own short tenure, and believing life to be very long and much delight awaiting him, never dreamt of making any haste to procure. A curious sense of well-being seemed to take hold of him as he bowled along the suburban roads by Mr. Tottenham’s side, wrapped in one of the fur coats which the chill and foggy evening made comfortable, watching the long lines of lamps that twinkled and stretched out like a golden thread, and then were left behind as in the twinkling of an eye. To hear of Lady Mary Tottenham, who was Lady Augusta’s sister, and aunt to all the young Thornleighs, seemed somehow like being wafted back to the old atmosphere, to the state of affairs which lasted so short a time and ended so suddenly; but which was, notwithstanding its brevity, the most important and influential moment of his life.
CHAPTER XIV.
The Enchanted Palace.
Tottenham’s was about five miles from London on the Bayswater side. It was a huge house, standing upon a little eminence, and surrounded by acres of park and clouds of thick but leafless trees, which looked ghostly enough in the Winter darkness. The fog had faded away from them long before they got so far, and had been replaced by the starlight clearness of a very cold evening; the sky was almost black, the points of light in it dead white, and all the landscape, so far as it was perceptible, an Indian ink landscape in faintly differing shades of black and deepest grey. Nevertheless it was a relief to breathe the fresh country air, after the damp fog which had clung to their throats and blinded their eyes. The roads were still hard, though there were signs of the breaking up of the frost, and the horses’ hoofs rang as they dashed along.
“It’s a nice place,” Mr. Tottenham said, “though I, of course, only bought it from the old people, who fortunately were not very venerable nor very desirable. It had a fine name before, and it was Mary’s idea to call it Tottenham’s. As we cannot ignore the shop, it is as well to take the full advantage of it. The worst thing is,” he added lowering his voice, “it hurts the servants’ feelings dreadfully. We have at last managed to get a butler who sees the humour of it, and acknowledges the shop with a condescending sense that the fact of his serving a shopkeeper is the best joke in the world. You will notice a consciousness of this highly humorous position at once in his face; but it is a bitter pill to the rest of the household. The housemaids and our friend behind us, cannot bear any reference to the degradation. You will respect their feelings, Earnshaw? I am sure you will take care to show a seemly respect for their feelings.”
Edgar laughed, and Mr. Tottenham went on. He was a very easy man to talk with; indeed he did most of the conversation himself, and was so pleasantly full of his home and his wife and his evident happiness, that no one, or at least no one so sympathetic as Edgar, could have stigmatized with unkind names the lengthened monologue. There was this excuse for it on the other hand, that he was thus making himself and his belongings known to a stranger whom he had determined to make a friend of. Few people dislike to talk about themselves when they can throw off all fear of ridicule, and have a tolerable excuse for their fluency. We all like it, dear reader; we know it sounds egotistical, and the wiser we are the more we avoid exposing our weakness; but yet when we can feel it is safe and believe that it is justified, how pleasant it is to tell some fresh and sympathetic listener all about ourselves! Perhaps this is one of the reasons why youth is so pleasant a companion to age, because the revelations on each side can be full and lengthened without unsuitability or fear of misconstruction. Edgar, too, possessed many of the qualities which make a good listener. He was in a subdued state of mind, and had no particular desire to talk in his own person; he had no history for the moment that would bear telling; he was glad enough to be carried lightly along upon the stream of this other man’s story, which amused him, if nothing else. Edgar’s life had come to a pause; he lay quiescent between two periods, not knowing where the next tide might lift him, or what might be the following chapter. He was like a traveller in the night, looking in through a hospitable open window at some interior all bright with firelight and happiness, getting to recognise which was which in the household party round the fire, and listening with a gratitude more warm and effusive than had the service been a greater one, to the hospitable invitation to enter. As well might such a traveller have censured the openness which drew no curtains and closed no shutters, and warmed his breast with the sight of comfort and friendliness, as Edgar could have called Mr. Tottenham’s talk egotistical. For had not he too been called in for rest and shelter out of the night?
He felt as in a dream when he entered the house, and was led through the great hall and staircase, and into the bright rooms to be presented to Lady Mary, who came forward to meet her husband’s new friend with the kindest welcome. She was a little light woman with quantities of fair hair, lively, and gay, and kind, with nothing of the worn look which distinguished her husband, but a fresh air, almost of girlhood, in her slight figure and light movements. She was so like some one else, that Edgar’s heart beat at sight of her, as it had not beat for years before. Gussy Thornleigh had gone out of his life, for ever, as he thought. He had given her up completely, hopelessly—and he had not felt at the time of this renunciation that his love for her had ever reached the length of passion, or that this was one of the partings which crush all thoughts of possible happiness out of the heart. But, notwithstanding, her idea had somehow lingered about him, as ideas passionately cherished do not always do. When he had been still and musing, the light little figure, the pretty head with its curls, the half laughing, half wise look with which this little girl would discourse to him upon everything in earth and heaven, had got into a way of coming up before him with the most astonishing reality and vividness. “I was not so very much in love with Gussy,” he had said to himself very often at such moments, with a whimsical mixture of surprise and complaint. No, he had not been so very much in love with her; yet she had haunted him all these three years. Lady Mary was only her aunt, which is not always an attractive relationship; generally, indeed, the likeness between a pretty girl and a middle-aged woman is rather discouraging to a lover, as showing to what plump and prosaic good condition his ethereal darling may come, than delightful; but Edgar had no sham sentiment about him, and was not apt to be assailed by any such unreal disgusts, even had there been anything to call them forth. Lady Mary, however, was still as lightfooted and light-hearted as Gussy herself. She had the same abundant fair hair, the same lively sweet eyes, never without the possibility of a laugh in them, and never anything but kind. She came up to Edgar holding out both her hands.