He that will not when he may; vol. II

by Mrs. Oliphant

It was a little relief to get out of reach of the other’s hand. He stood up against the narrow little mantelpiece behind Spears’s chair. It was heaped with picture-frames, and the drawing which Spears had been making in the morning stood there propped up against the wall; the great foxglove from which he had designed it lay in a heap along with the other flowers which he had rejected, swept up into the fireplace. A faint odour of crushed stalks and broken flowers came from them. They were swept up carelessly with the dust, their bright petals peeping from under all the refuse of the shop, dishonoured and broken. Paul thought it was symbolical. He stood and looked—more dispassionately from a distance—at the rough, forcible head of the demagogue, and the countenance all seamed and grimy of the Scotsman, who was concentrating the keen light of his eyes upon Spears. The clerk, on the other hand, clean, neat, and commonplace, did not seem to belong to the same world, while the feeble, long head of Weaver was as the ghost and shadow of the other animated and vigorous faces. The light of the mean little paraffin lamp threw a yellow glow on them, but left in darkness all the corners of the shop, the large shuttered window, full of picture-frames, and the cavernous opening of the stairs which led to Spears’s house—and filled the place with an odour which the accustomed senses of the others took no notice of, but which to Paul was almost insupportable. He had assisted at these conferences before; but however he had busied himself in the details of the meetings, however earnestly and gravely he had posed (to his own consciousness) as one of them, yet he had never been one of them. He had been a spectator not an actor in the drama, little referred to, scarcely believed in by the others; and he had taken them calmly, as it is so easy to take those with whom we have nothing to do. But now that he was entirely committed to their society, now that he had burnt his ships, and shut every door of escape behind him, a new light seemed to shine upon them. The smoky lamp, the smell of the paraffin, the grimy haze about Fraser, the feeble whiteness of the other, the little clerk, all smooth and smug, with his talk of capital and interest—Paul seemed never to have seen them before. These were to be henceforward his companions, fellow-founders of a new society.

Paul felt himself grow giddy where he stood. Their talk went on; they discussed and argued, but it was only a kind of hum in his ears. He did not care what conclusion they came to—they themselves struck him like a revelation. Perhaps if any other four men in the world had thus been separated from all others as the future sharers of his life, his feelings would have been much the same. Four Dons for instance; suppose a group out of the Common-room put in the place of these workmen, would they have been more supportable? He asked himself this question vaguely, wistfully. Could he have put his future in their hands with more confidence? or was it simply that the contemplation of any such group as representing all your society for the rest of your life was alarming? Paul put this question to himself with a curious dizziness and sense of weakness.

The stair, which has been several times referred to, went straight up like a ladder from the side of the shop opposite the door, and the upper part of it was of the most primitive description, mounting as through a large trap-door to the floor above. As he stood listening without hearing, seeing through a mist, Paul caught sight in the darkness of some one standing under the shadow of this stair watching and listening. The men at the table were closely engaged. They took no further notice of the young man whom they could not believe in as one of themselves. Even Spears, in the fervour of discussion, forgot Paul. He stood in all the freedom of a bystander, thinking his own thoughts, while his eyes rested upon the group, taking in the whole picture before him vaguely, as a picture; and it was at this moment that he became aware, not only of this vague and shadowy figure, but of a head put out round the corner of the stair, with a dart and tremble of curiosity. It was the fair head of Janet Spears, with all its frizz of loose locks. At first it was but a dart, rapid and frightened; then, as she perceived the absorption of the others, and saw that she had caught Paul’s attention, she took courage. She gave a glance at them as Paul was doing, but with a hundred times more conscious scorn, and then put all the contempt and ridicule of which eyes were capable into the look with which she turned to Paul, shrugging her shoulders at the group. Her next proceeding was to point to the door, and invite him, as plainly as signs could do it, to meet her there. Paul grew red as he received these signs, with wonder and alarm, and a curious kind of shamefacedness. Was it the strangest unpardonable liberty the girl was taking? or had she a right to do it? With a rapid gesture she gave him to understand that he must come out, and that he would find her at the door.

Janet had never been presuming; she had not been a coquette; she had done nothing to call to herself the attention of the young theorists who frequented her father’s shop. But everything was different now, and she felt herself not only at liberty to make signals to Paul, but conferring a favour on him by so doing. He was sick of the consultation in which he did not care to take any part, and weary at heart of all the strange circumstances around him. And the paraffin was very disagreeable. Why should he not obey Janet’s signs, and go and meet her outside? At least it could not be any worse than this. After a few moments of struggle with himself. Paul announced quietly that he was going. “My presence can make no difference,” he said. They scarcely heard him, so busy were they with their argument. No Rembrandt could have surpassed the curious group of heads set in the surrounding darkness, with the light of the lamp so fully upon them, and all so intent and full of living interest. Spears turned round and gave him a good-humoured nod as he went away. He was half-vexed to be deserted; yet he smiled—was it not natural? Outside, though it was a little bye-street, and not immaculate, the air was sweeter than in that atmosphere of paraffin; but it was with a curious sense of humiliation and surprise at his own position, that Paul saw Janet’s dark, slim figure stealing out at another door. That he should meet a girl under the light of a street-lamp, jostled by passers-by, remarked upon as Janet Spears’s lover, seemed something incredible. Yet he was doing it; he scarcely could tell why. She came stealing close up to him, with just the attitude and gesture he had seen in other humble pairs of love-makers, and Paul could not help wondering, with a sharp sting of self-scorn, whether he was as like the ordinary hero of such encounters as she was like the heroine. Janet came up to him however with all the fervour of a purpose. She put out her hand, and gave a touch to his arm.

“Did you hear what I said?—did you think of what I was saying?” she asked. “Father came just when he wasn’t wanted. Perhaps you’ll think me a bold girl to call you out here; but it’s for your good. Oh, Mr. Paul, don’t listen to all that nonsense! What should you go away for? You’re a deal better off here than you ever would be there. Father may have some excuse. He thinks, I suppose, as he’s getting old, and as it would be better for me and the girls to be out there. I don’t think so. I’d rather be anything at home. I’d rather take a situation. Still, father has an excuse. But you—what do you want among men like them?—you that are a gentleman. You never could put up with them. And why should you go?—think a moment—why should you go?”

“It is very good of you to interest yourself about me,” said Paul, feeling himself so much stiffer and more solemn than he had ever been before, “but I have chosen with my eyes open. I have done what I thought best.”

“Oh, of course I interest myself in you. Who should I interest myself in?” cried Janet, “above everything! And that is why I say don’t meddle with them; don’t have anything to do with them. Oh, when you have a father that will give you whatever you like; when you have your pockets full of money; when, if you just wait a little, you will have a title, and everything heart could desire—why should you go a long sea voyage, and mix yourself up with a parcel of working men?” “Why?” cried Janet, with a wonderment that was slightly mingled with scorn, yet was impassioned in its vehemence. “I would not demean myself like that, not for all the world.”

Paul stood and looked at her almost moved to laughter by the strangeness of the position. Spears’s daughter! but the laughter would not have been sweet. That strange paradox, and the still stranger one of his own meeting with his supposed love under the lamp-post, filled him with the profoundest mortification, wonder, and yet amusement. It seemed beyond the power of belief, and yet it was true.

CHAPTER X.

Sir William was better when he got home. When he reached his own house he began to hold up his head, to hold himself, if not erect as of old, yet in a way more like himself. He walked firmly into the house, always with Fairfax’s arm, and said, “I am better, Brown; yes, much better,” when Brown met him, very anxious and effusive, at the door. “I feel almost myself,” he said, turning round to Lady Markham. And so he looked—himself ten years older, but yet with something of the old firmness and precise composure. How he could thus recover, though the letter in his pocket-book bore the postmark of Markham Royal, and he had come back into the very presence of the danger which at a distance had overwhelmed him, it would be difficult to tell. “He’s picked up wonderful,” Mr. Jarvis, Sir William’s own man, said to Mr. Brown; “but for all that, he’s got notice to quit—he have. Just see if I ain’t right.” Mrs. Fry was of the same opinion when she saw her master. She had never had any comfort in her mind, she declared, since she heard of these faintings. All the Markhams went like that. The late Sir Paul had done just the same—nothing to speak of at first, and nobody alarmed—but it was a thing that went fast, that was, Mrs. Fry said. They were all very gloomy about Sir William down stairs, but in the family there was no such alarm. He put away his trouble, or rather, as he emerged out of the suffering of his attack into physical comfort again, and no longer felt the blood ebbing, as it were, from his heart, and consciousness failing in the giddy void into which he had seemed to sink, nature in him declined to remember it, turned away from it. The familiar house, the waving of the woods, the stately quiet about him, healed him, and he would not allow himself to be pulled back. He came to dinner, and occupied his place as usual, looking really, his wife and daughter thought, almost quite himself. This almost made up to them, poor ladies, for the moment—for all that it had cost them to leave Oxford in such melancholy uncertainty about Paul.