The Inn Album/II

II

So, they ring bell, give orders, pay, depart Amid profuse acknowledgment from host Who well knows what may bring the younger back. They light cigar, descend in twenty steps The  'calm acclivity,'  inhale—beyond Tobacco's balm—the better smoke of turf And wood fire,—cottages at cookery I' the morning,—reach the main road straitening on 'Twixt wood and wood, two black walls full of night Slow to disperse, though mists thin fast before The advancing foot, and leave the flint-dust fine Each speck with its fire-sparkle. Presently The road's end with the sky's beginning mix In one magnificence of glare, due East, So high the sun rides,—May's the merry month. They slacken pace: the younger stops abrupt. Discards cigar, looks his friend full in face.

"All right; the station comes in view at end; Five minutes from the beech-clump, there you are! I say: let's halt, let's borrow yonder gate Of its two magpies, sit and have a talk! Do let a fellow speak a moment! More I think about and less I like the thing— No, you must let me! Now, be good for once! Ten thousand pounds be done for, dead and damned! We played for love, not hate: yes, hate! I hate Thinking you beg or borrow or reduce To strychnine some poor devil of a lord Licked at Unlimited Loo. I had the cash To lose—you knew that!—lose and none the less Whistle to-morrow: it's not every chap Affords to take his punishment so well! Now, don't be angry with a friend whose fault Is that he thinks—upon my soul, I do— Your head the best head going. Oh, one sees Names in the newspaper—great this, great that, Gladstone, Carlyle, the Laureate:—much I care! Others have their opinion, I keep mine: Which means—by right you ought to have the things I want a head for. Here's a pretty place, My cousin's place, and presently my place. Not yours! I'll tell you how it strikes a man. My cousin's fond of music and of course Plays the piano (it won't be for long!) A brand-new bore she calls a  'semi-grand,'  Rosewood and pearl, that blocks the drawing-room. And cost no end of money. Twice a week Down comes Herr Somebody and seats himself. Sets to work teaching—with his teeth on edge— I've watched the rascal.  'Does he play first-rate?'  I ask:  'I rather think so,'  answers she—  'He's What's-his-Name!'—'Why give you lessons then?'—  'I pay three guineas and the train beside.'—   'This instrument, has he one such at home?'—  '' 'He? Has to practise on a table-top, '' '' When he can't hire the proper thing.'—'I see!  You've the piano, he the skill, and God '' The distribution of such gifts.'  So here: After your teaching, I shall sit and strum Polkas on this piano of a Place You'd make resound with Rule Britannia!"

"Thanks! I don't say but this pretty cousin's place, Appendaged with your million, tempts my hand As key-board I might touch with some effect."

"Then, why not have obtained the like? House, land, Money, are things obtainable, you see. By clever head-work: ask my father else! You, who teach me, why not have learned, yourself? Played like Herr Somebody with power to thump And flourish and the rest, not bend demure Pointing out blunders—' Sharp, not natural!  Permit me—on the black key use the thumb!'  There's some fatality, I'm sure! You say  'Marry the cousin, that's your proper move!'  And I do use the thumb and hit the sharp: You should have listened to your own head's hint. As I to you! The puzzle's past my power. How you have managed—with such stuff, such means— Not to be rich nor great nor happy man: Of which three good things where's a sign at all? Just look at Dizzy! Come,—what tripped your heels? Instruct a goose that boasts wings and can't fly! I wager I have guessed it!—never found The old solution of the riddle fail!  'Who was the Woman?'  I don't ask, but—' Where I' the path of life stood she who tripped you?'  "

"Goose You truly are! I own to fifty years. Why don't I interpose and cut out—you? Compete with five-and-twenty? Age, my boy!"

"Old man, no nonsense!—even to a boy That's ripe at least for rationality Rapped into him, as may be mine was, once! I've had my small adventure lesson me Over the knuckles!—likely, I forget The sort of figure youth cuts now and then, Competing with old shoulders but young head Despite the fifty grizzling years!"

"Aha? Then that means—just the bullet in the blade Which brought Dalmatia on the brain,—that, too. Came of a fatal creature? Can't pretend Now for the first time to surmise as much! Make a clean breast! Recount! a secret's safe 'Twixt you, me and the gate-post!"

"—Can't pretend, Neither, to never have surmised your wish! It's no use,—case of unextracted ball— Winces at finger-touching. Let things be!"

"Ah, if you love your love still! I hate mine."

"I can't hate."

"I won't teach you; and won't tell You, therefore, what you please to ask of me: As if I, also, may not have my ache!"

"My sort of ache? No, no! and yet—perhaps! All comes of thinking you superior still. But live and learn! I say! Time 's up! Good jump! You old, indeed! I fancy there's a cut Across the wood, a grass path: shall we try? It's venturesome, however!"

"Stop, my boy! Don't think I'm stingy of experience! Life —It's like this wood we leave. Should you and I Go wandering about there, though the gaps We went in and came out by were opposed As the two poles, still, somehow, all the same, By nightfall we should probably have chanced On much the same main points of interest— Both of us measured girth of mossy trunk, Stript ivy from its strangled prey, clapped hands At squirrel, sent a fir-cone after crow, And so forth,—never mind what time betwixt. So in our lives; allow I entered mine Another way than you: 't is possible I ended just by knocking head against That plaguy low-hung branch yourself began By getting bump from; as at last you too May stumble o'er that stump which first of all Bade me walk circumspectly. Head and feet Are vulnerable both, and I, foot-sure, Forgot that ducking down saves brow from bruise. I, early old, played young man four years since And failed confoundedly: so, hate alike Failure and who caused failure,—curse her cant!"

"Oh, I see! You, though somewhat past the prime, Were taken with a rosebud beauty! Ah— But how should chits distinguish? She admired Your marvel of a mind, I'll undertake! But as to body ... nay, I mean ... that is, When years have told on face and figure...."

"Thanks, Mister Sufficiently-Instructed! Such No doubt was bound to be the consequence To suit your self-complacency: she liked My head enough, but loved some heart beneath Some head with plenty of brown hair a-top After my young friend's fashion! What becomes Of that fine speech you made a minute since About the man of middle age you found A formidable peer at twenty-one? So much for your mock-modesty! and yet I back your first against this second sprout Of observation, insight, what you please. My middle age, Sir, had too much success! It's odd: my case occurred four years ago— I finished just while you commenced that turn I' the wood of life that takes us to the wealth Of honeysuckle, heaped for who can reach. Now, I don't boast: it's bad style, and beside, The feat proves easier than it looks: I plucked Full many a flower unnamed in that bouquet (Mostly of peonies and poppies, though!) Good nature sticks into my button-hole. Therefore it was with nose in want of snuff Rather than Ess or Psidium, that I chanced On what—so far from  'rosebud beauty' .... Well— She's dead: at least you never heard her name; She was no courtly creature, had nor birth Nor breeding—mere fine-lady-breeding; but Oh, such a wonder of a woman! Grand As a Greek statue! Stick fine clothes on that, Style that a Duchess or a Queen,—you know, Artists would make an outcry: all the more, That she had just a statue's sleepy grace Which broods o'er its own beauty. Nay, her fault (Don't laugh!) was just perfection: for suppose Only the little flaw, and I had peeped Inside it, learned what soul inside was like. At Rome some tourist raised the grit beneath A Venus' forehead with his whittling-knife— I wish,—now,—I had played that brute, brought blood To surface from the depths I fancied chalk! As it was, her mere face surprised so much That I stopped short there, struck on heap, as stares The cockney stranger at a certain bust With drooped eyes,—she's the thing I have in mind,— Down at my Brother's. All sufficient prize— Such outside! Now,—confound me for a prig!— Who cares? I'll make a clean breast once for all! Beside, you've heard the gossip. My life long I've been a woman-liker,—liking means Loving and so on. There's a lengthy list By this time I shall have to answer for— So say the good folk: and they don't guess half— For the worst is, let once collecting-itch Possess you, and, with perspicacity, Keeps growing such a greediness that theft Follows at no long distance,—there's the fact! I knew that on my Leporello-list Might figure this, that, and the other name Of feminine desirability, But if I happened to desire inscribe, Along with these, the only Beautiful— Here was the unique specimen to snatch Or now or never. 'Beautiful' I said— 'Beautiful' say in cold blood,—boiling then To tune of  'Haste, secure whate'er the cost This rarity, die in the act, be damned, So you complete collection, crown your list!'  It seemed as though the whole world, once aroused By the first notice of such wonder's birth, Would break bounds to contest my prize with me The first discoverer, should she but emerge From that safe den of darkness where she dozed Till I stole in, that country-parsonage Where, country-parson's daughter, motherless, Brotherless, sisterless, for eighteen years She had been vegetating lily-like. Her father was my brother's tutor, got The living that way: him I chanced to see— Her I saw—her the world would grow one eye To see, I felt no sort of doubt at all!  'Secure her!'  cried the devil:  'afterward Arrange for the disposal of the prize!'  The devil's doing! yet I seem to think— Now, when all's done,—think with  'a head reposed'  In French phrase—hope I think I meant to do All requisite for such a rarity When I should be at leisure, have due time To learn requirement. But in evil day— Bless me, at week's end, long as any year, The father must begin  'Young Somebody, Much recommended—for I break a rule— Comes here to read, next Long Vacation.'  'Young!'  That did it. Had the epithet been  'rich,'  ' Noble,' ' a genius,' even ' handsome,'—but —'Young! ' "

"I say—just a word! I want to know— You are not married?"

"I?"

"Nor ever were?"

"Never! Why?"

"Oh, then—never mind! Go on! I had a reason for the question."

"Come,— You could not be the young man?"

"No, indeed! Certainly—if you never married her!"

"That I did not: and there's the curse, you'll see! Nay, all of it's one curse, my life's mistake Which, nourished with manure that's warranted To make the plant bear wisdom, blew out full In folly beyond field-flower-foolishness! The lies I used to tell my womankind, Knowing they disbelieved me all the time Though they required my lies, their decent due, This woman—not so much believed, I'll say, As just anticipated from my mouth: Since being true, devoted, constant—she Found constancy, devotion, truth, the plain And easy commonplace of character. No mock-heroics but seemed natural To her who underneath the face, I knew Was fairness' self, possessed a heart, I judged Must correspond in folly just as far Beyond the common,—and a mind to match,— Not made to puzzle conjurers like me Who, therein, proved the fool who fronts you, Sir, And begs leave to cut short the ugly rest!  'Trust me!'  I said: she trusted.  'Marry me!'  Or rather,  'We are married: when, the rite?'  That brought on the collector's next-day qualm At counting acquisition's cost. There lay My marvel, there my purse more light by much Because of its late lie-expenditure: Ill-judged such moment to make fresh demand— To cage as well as catch my rarity! So, I began explaining. At first word Outbroke the horror.  'Then, my truths were lies!'  I tell you, such an outbreak, such new strange All-unsuspected revelation—soul As supernaturally grand as face Was fair beyond example—that at once Either I lost—or, if it please you, found My senses,—stammered somehow—'' 'Jest! and now,'' ''Earnest! Forget all else but—heart has loved,'' ''Does love, shall love you ever! take the hand!' '' Not she! no marriage for superb disdain, Contempt incarnate!"

"Yes, it's different,— It's only like in being four years since. I see now!"

"Well, what did disdain do next, Think you?"

"That's past me: did not marry you!— That's the main thing I care for, I suppose. Turned nun, or what?"

"Why, married in a month Some parson, some smug crop-haired smooth-chinned sort Of curate-creature, I suspect,—dived down, Down, deeper still, and came up somewhere else— I don't know where—I've not tried much to know,— In short, she's happy: what the clodpoles call 'Countrified' with a vengeance! leads the life Respectable and all that drives you mad: Still—where, I don't know, and that's best for both."

"Well, that she did not like you, I conceive. But why should you hate her, I want to know?"

"My good young friend,—because or her or else Malicious Providence I have to hate. For, what I tell you proved the turning-point Of my whole life and fortune toward success Or failure. If I drown, I lay the fault Much on myself who caught at reed not rope, But more on reed which, with a packthread's pith, Had buoyed me till the minute's cramp could thaw And I strike out afresh and so be saved. It's easy saying—I had sunk before, Disqualified myself by idle days And busy nights, long since, from holding hard On cable, even, had fate cast me such! You boys don't know how many times men fail Perforce o' the little to succeed i' the large, Husband their strength, let slip the petty prey, Collect the whole power for the final pounce. My fault was the mistaking man's main prize For intermediate boy's diversion; clap Of boyish hands here frightened game away Which, once gone, goes forever. Oh, at first I took the anger easily, nor much Minded the anguish—having learned that storms Subside, and teapot-tempests are akin. Time would arrange things, mend whate'er might be Somewhat amiss; precipitation, eh? Reason and rhyme prompt—reparation! Tiffs End properly in marriage and a dance! I said 'We'll marry, make the past a blank'— And never was such damnable mistake! That interview, that laying bare my soul, As it was first, so was it last chance—one And only. Did I write? Back letter came Unopened as it went. Inexorable She fled, I don't know where, consoled herself With the smug curate-creature: chop and change! Sure am I, when she told her shaveling all His Magdalen's adventure, tears were shed, Forgiveness evangelically shown, 'Loose hair and lifted eye,'—as some one says. And now, he's worshipped for his pains, the sneak!"

"Well, but your turning-point of life,—what's here To hinder you contesting Finsbury With Orton, next election? I don't see...."

"Not you! But I see. Slowly, surely, creeps Day by day o'er me the conviction—here Was life's prize grasped at, gained, and then let go! —That with her—may be, for her—I had felt Ice in me melt, grow steam, drive to effect Any or all the fancies sluggish here I' the head that needs the hand she would not take And I shall never lift now. Lo, your wood— Its turnings which I likened life to! Well,— There she stands, ending every avenue, Her visionary presence on each goal I might have gained had we kept side by side! Still string nerve and strike foot? Her frown forbids: The steam congeals once more: I'm old again! Therefore I hate myself—but how much worse Do not I hate who would not understand, Let me repair things—no, but sent a-slide My folly falteringly, stumblingly Down, down and deeper down until I drop Upon—the need of your ten thousand pounds And consequently loss of mine! I lose Character, cash, nay, common-sense itself Recounting such a lengthy cock-and-bull Adventure—lose my temper in the act...."

"And lose beside,—if I may supplement The list of losses,—train and ten-o'clock! Hark, pant and puff, there travels the swart sign! So much the better! You're my captive now! I'm glad you trust a fellow: friends grow thick This way—that's twice said; we were thickish, though, Even last night, and, ere night comes again, I prophesy good luck to both of us! For see now!—back to  'balmy eminence'  Or  'calm acclivity,' or what's the word! Bestow you there an hour, concoct at ease A sonnet for the Album, while I put Bold face on, best foot forward, make for house, March in to aunt and niece, and tell the truth— (Even white-lying goes against my taste After your little story). Oh, the niece Is rationality itself! The aunt— If she's amenable to reason too— Why, you stooped short to pay her due respect, And let the Duke wait (I'll work well the Duke). If she grows gracious, I return for you; If thunder's in the air, why—bear your doom, Dine on rump-steaks and port, and shake the dust Of aunty from your shoes as off you go By evening-train, nor give the thing a thought How you shall pay me—that's as sure as fate, Old fellow! Off with you, face left about! Yonder's the path I have to pad. You see, I'm in good spirits, God knows why! Perhaps Because the woman did not marry you —Who look so hard at me,—and have the right, One must be fair and own."

The two stand still Under an oak.

"Look here!" resumes the youth. "I never quite knew how I came to like You—so much—whom I ought not court at all; Nor how you had a leaning just to me Who am assuredly not worth your pains. For there must needs be plenty such as you Somewhere about,—although I can't say where,— Able and willing to teach all you know; While—how can you have missed a score like me With money and no wit, precisely each A pupil for your purpose, were it—ease Fool's poke of tutor's honorarium-fee? And yet, howe'er it came about, I felt At once my master: you as prompt descried Your man, I warrant, so was bargain struck. Now, these same lines of liking, loving, run Sometimes so close together they converge— Life's great adventures—you know what I mean— In people. Do you know, as you advanced, It got to be uncommonly like fact We two had fallen in with—liked and loved Just the same woman in our different ways? I began life—poor groundling as I prove— Winged and ambitious to fly high: why not? There's something in 'Don Quixote' to the point, My shrewd old father used to quote and praise—  'Am I born man?'  asks Sancho:  'being man, By possibility I may be Pope!'  So, Pope I meant to make myself, by step And step, whereof the first should be to find A perfect woman; and I tell you this— If what I fixed on, in the order due Of undertakings, as next step, had first Of all disposed itself to suit my tread, And I had been, the day I came of age, Returned at head of poll for Westminster —Nay, and moreover summoned by the Queen At week's end, when my maiden-speech bore fruit, To form and head a Tory ministry— It would not have seemed stranger, no, nor been More strange to me, as now I estimate, Than what did happen—sober truth, no dream. I saw my wonder of a woman,—laugh, I'm past that!—in Commemoration-week. A plenty have I seen since, fair and foul,— With eyes, too, helped by your sagacious wink; But one to match that marvel—no least trace, Least touch of kinship and community! The end was—I did somehow state the fact, Did, with no matter what imperfect words, One way or other give to understand That woman, soul and body were her slave Would she but take, but try them—any test Of will, and some poor test of power beside: So did the strings within my brain grow tense And capable of ... hang similitudes! She answered kindly but beyond appeal.  'No sort of hope for me, who came too late. She was another's. Love went—mine to her, Hers just as loyally to some one else.'  Of course! I might expect it! Nature's law— Given the peerless woman, certainly Somewhere shall be the peerless man to match! I acquiesced at once, submitted me In something of a stupor, went my way. I fancy there had been some talk before Of somebody—her father or the like— To coach me in the holidays,—that's how I came to get the sight and speech of her,— But I had sense enough to break off sharp, Save both of us the pain."

"Quite right there!"

"Eh? Quite wrong, it happens! Now comes worst of all! Yes, I did sulk aloof and let alone The lovers—I disturb the angel-mates?"

"Seraph paired off with cherub!"

"Thank you! While I never plucked up courage to inquire Who he was, even,—certain-sure of this, That nobody I knew of had blue wings And wore a star-crown as he needs must do,— Some little lady,—plainish, pock-marked girl,— Finds out my secret in my woful face, Comes up to me at the Apollo Ball, And pityingly pours her wine and oil This way into the wound:  'Dear f-f-friend, Why waste affection thus on—must I say, A somewhat worthless object? Who's her choice— Irrevocable as deliberate— Out of the wide world? I shall name no names— But there's a person in society, Who, blessed with rank and talent, has grown gray In idleness and sin of every sort Except hypocrisy: he's thrice her age, A by-word for "successes with the sex" As the French say—and, as we ought to say, Consummately a liar and a rogue, Since—show me where's the woman won without The help of this one lie which she believes— That—never mind how things have come to pass, And let who loves have loved a thousand times— All the same he now loves her only, loves ''Her ever! if by "won" you just mean "sold,"'' ''That's quite another compact. Well, this scamp,'' Continuing descent from bad to worse, Must leave his fine and fashionable prey (Who—fathered, brothered, husbanded,—are hedged About with thorny danger) and apply His arts to this poor country ignorance Who sees forthwith in the first rag of man ''Her model hero! Why continue waste'' On such a woman treasures of a heart Would yet find solace,—yes, my f-f-friend— In some congenial—fiddle-diddle-dee?'"

"Pray, is the pleasant gentleman described Exact the portrait which my  'f-f-friends'  Recognize as so like? 'T is evident You half surmised the sweet original Could be no other than myself, just now! Your stop and start were flattering!"

"Of course Caricature's allowed for in a sketch! The longish nose becomes a foot in length, The swarthy cheek gets copper-colored,—still, Prominent beak and dark-hued skin are facts: And  'parson's daughter' — 'young man coachable' —  'Elderly party' — 'four years since' —were facts To fasten on, a moment! Marriage, though— That made the difference, I hope."

"All right! I never married; wish I had—and then Unwish it: people kill their wives, sometimes! I hate my mistress, but I'm murder-free. In your case, where's the grievance? You came last, The earlier bird picked up the worm. Suppose You, in the glory of your twenty-one, Had happened to precede myself! 't is odds But this gigantic juvenility, This offering of a big arm's bony hand— I'd rather shake than feel shake me, I know— Had moved my dainty mistress to admire An altogether new Ideal—deem Idolatry less due to life's decline Productive of experience, powers mature By dint of usage, the made man—no boy That's all to make! I was the earlier bird— And what I found, I let fall: what you missed Who is the fool that blames you for?"

"Myself— For nothing, everything! For finding out She, whom I worshipped, was a worshipper In turn of... but why stir up settled mud? She married him—the fifty-years-old rake— How you have teazed the talk from me! At last My secret's told you. I inquired no more, Nay, stopped ears when informants unshut mouth; Enough that she and he live, deuce take where, Married and happy, or else miserable— It's 'Cut-the-pack;' she turned up ace or knave And I left Oxford, England, dug my hole Out in Dalmatia, till you drew me thence Badger-like,— 'Back to London'  was the word—  'Do things, a many, there, you fancy hard,  I'll undertake are easy!' —the advice. I took it, had my twelvemonth's fling with you — (Little hand holding large hand pretty tight For all its delicacy—eh, my lord?) Until when, t'other day, I got a turn Somehow and gave up tired: and  'Rest!'  bade you,  'Marry your cousin, double your estate,  And take your ease by all means!'  So, I loll On this the springy sofa, mine next month— Or should loll, but that you must needs beat rough The very down you spread me out so smooth. I wish this confidence were still to make! Ten thousand pounds? You owe me twice the sum For stirring up the black depths! There's repose Or, at least, silence when misfortune seems All that one has to bear; but folly—yes, Folly, it all was! Fool to be so meek, So humble,—such a coward rather say! Fool, to adore the adorer of a fool! Not to have faced him, tried (a useful hint) My big and bony, here, against the bunch Of lily-coloured five with signet-ring, Most like, for little-finger's sole defence— Much as you flaunt the blazon there! I grind My teeth, that bite my very heart, to think— To know I might have made that woman mine But for the folly of the coward—know— Or what's the good of my apprenticeship This twelvemonth to a master in the art? Mine—had she been mine—just one moment mine For honour, for dishonour—anyhow, So that my life, instead of stagnant... Well, You've poked and proved stagnation is not sleep— Hang you!"

"Hang you for an ungrateful goose! All this means—I who since I knew you first Have helped you to conceit yourself this cock O' the dunghill with all hens to pick and choose— Ought to have helped you when shell first was chipped By chick that wanted prompting  'Use the spur!'  While I was elsewhere putting mine to use. As well might I blame you who kept aloof, Seeing you could not guess I was alive, Never advised me  'Do as I have done—  Reverence such a jewel as your luck  Has scratched up to enrich unworthiness!'  As your behaviour was, should mine have been, —Faults which we both, too late, are sorry for— Opposite ages, each with its mistake:  'If youth but would—if age but could,'  you know. Don't let us quarrel! Come, we're—young and old— Neither so badly off! Go you your way, Cut to the Cousin! I'll to Inn, await The issue of diplomacy with Aunt, And wait my hour on  'calm acclivity'  In rumination manifold—perhaps About ten thousand pounds I have to pay!"