Page:Once a Week, Series 1, Volume II Dec 1859 to June 1860.pdf/559

546 air, and showed him the world on a palm of a hand; and yet, as he dressed by the window, little chinks in the garden wall, and nectarines under their shiny leaves, and the white walks of the garden, were stamped on his hot brain accurately and lastingly. Ruth upon the lips of Rose: that voice of living constancy made music to him everywhere. “Thy God shall be my God.” He had heard it all through the night. He had not yet broken the tender charm sufficiently to think that he must tell her the sacrifice she would have to make. When partly he did, the first excuse he clutched at was, that he had only kissed her on the forehead. A brother might do as much; and he would be her brother, her guardian. Behold, Rose met him descending the stairs, and, taking his hand, sang, unabashed by the tell-tale colour coming over her face, a stave of a little Portuguese air that they had both been fond of in Portugal; and he, listening to it, and looking in her eyes, saw that his feelings in the old time had been hers, and the thought made his love irrevocable.

Rose, now that she had given her heart, had no idea of concealment. She would have denied nothing to her aunts: she was ready to confide it to her mother. Was she not proud of the man she loved? When Evan’s hand touched hers, she retained it, and smiled up at him frankly, as it were to make him glad in her gladness. If before others his eyes brought the blood to her cheeks, she would perhaps drop her eyelids an instant, and then glance quickly level again to reassure him. And who would have thought that this boisterous, boyish creature had such depths of eye! Cold, did they call her? Let others think her cold. The tender knowledge of her—the throbbing secret they held in common sung at his heart like a passionate nightingale. Rose, too, sat as if through the clatter of silly talk she at times heard a faint far music. She made no confidante, but she attempted no mystery. Evan should have risen to the height of the noble girl. Alas! the dearer and sweeter her bearing became, the more conscious he was of the dead weight he was dragging.

He was on the lawn with Rose, when a footman came and handed him a card. He read it, and asked Rose if Mr. Raikes should be shown out to them. Rose nodded.

“The gentleman wishes a private interview, sir,” said the footman.

Evan hurried to welcome Jack, not so much from kindness as to mask any preliminary eccentricities he might be guilty of, and to give him a few necessary instructions.

The voice of Mr. Raikes was resonant in the hall.

I thank you, no: her ladyship’s fair favour

Another day I’ll seek to win, but now

Let all men know I am on friendship’s mission.

Laugh’st thou, vile slave?”

It is possible that the presence of three or four of the male domestics somehow suggested the gallery to theatrical Jack. Undignified as it was, he was acting to the footmen of Beckley Court; his cheek was inflated; he stood as one whose calves are shining to the footlights. Evan, sick with disgust, approached him while he was declaiming,

“I tell thee, wretch, that friendship

More is than homage to sweet womankind.

It is the social cement. Damon, erst,

And, as the lawyers say, ‘with him another,’

These twain have friendship made; these twain

Ye see revived. What ho! a Harrington!”

As it was not easy to feel affright at the tragic emphasis and strutting frowns of this very small gentleman, the audience testified their sense of his merits by meeting his condescension half way, and sniggering. One especially tall footman gazed placidly at the performer, and said “Bravo.” He had seen London. Another, whose powder vainly attempted to conceal the shock head of the newly caught rustic, ventured to remark to his loftier comrade, “What’s a affarandship? I ent been to the sea.” Taken as a comment on the delivery of Mr. Raikes, it was not so bad.

Jack waved his hand to Evan, and was for continuing; but the latter pulled him violently into the dining-room, and crying, “Are you mad? are you drunk?” spun him clean round with an angry twist. Mr. Raikes spun himself back composedly.

“Now,” said Evan, “you will undertake instantly to behave decently and quietly, or I shall kick you out of the house.”

“Sir,” returned Jack, “your language is unseemly, sir,—most unseemly. But you are acting under a delusion, my friend, and I forgive you. For in this breast fair Magnanimity is charioteer!—or, doth sit enthroned! metre’s good in either case. Oh, I understand your meaning, my poor boy. In other days no one so aloof, so concentrated, in the presence of the serving-brood as myself. But I happen to be above all petty considerations of that sort now. The great who stoop are like angelic bodies, which, mixed with earth, base earth so elevate, and suffer no defilement. Va! an independent gentleman is one of the great to the plush gentry, I take it?”

Laughing at his friend’s mystification, Mr. Raikes fell into a chair, muttering of extreme haste and not a minute to lose. He was portentously attired. A magnificent frill of fine cambric swayed loosely over a gold-spotted satin waistcoat, and his coat and pantaloons were of the newest cut of the period. He remained for some time perfectly still, gazing up at Evan while the latter questioned him, and letting loose an occasional “ha! ha!” and “ho!” of amusement and derision. Then he got up, and settled his hat by the looking-glass. Jauntily shaking it, he came and stood before Evan, saying:

“A truce to this. You’re an excellent fellow, and I stand by you. Enough that in the solar beams of Luck I shine conspicuous. It’s no use asking me for prose. Hanged if I can keep upon my toes. I feel light,—I soar. And you, who talk of self-restraint. Why, I only show this before you. To the world, I am a statue,—a petrifaction. Gravely I smile as Fortune’s natural heir. And I’m not a lackered monkey, Mr. Harrington. Probably you require facts? Look yonder. That conveyance is called a curricle. You will observe two young gentlemen seated there. They, sir,—do not dispute my possession