The Egoist
George Meredith
CHAPTER XXV Page 2
"Then, never marry," said Clara, in an underbreath.
She glanced behind.
Sir Willoughby was close, walking on turf.
"I must be cunning to escape him after breakfast," she thought.
He had discarded his foolishness of the previous days, and the thought in him could have replied: "I am a dolt if I let you out of my sight."
Vernon appeared, formal as usual of late. Clara begged his excuse for withdrawing Crossjay from his morning swim. He nodded.
"There's a card in the smoking-room; eleven, one, and four are the hours, if you must go," said Willoughby.
"You leave the Hall, Colonel De Craye?"
She did not request him to stay: his announcement produced no effect on her. Consequently, thought he--well, what? nothing: well, then, that she might not be minded to stay herself. Otherwise she would have regretted the loss of an amusing companion: that is the modest way of putting it. There is a modest and a vain for the same sentiment; and both may be simultaneously in the same breast; and each one as honest as the other; so shy is man's vanity in the presence of here and there a lady. She liked him: she did not care a pin for him--how could she? yet she liked him: O, to be able to do her some kindling bit of service! These were his consecutive fancies, resolving naturally to the exclamation, and built on the conviction that she did not love Willoughby, and waited for a spirited lift from circumstances. His call for a book of the trains had been a sheer piece of impromptu, in the mind as well as on the mouth. It sprang, unknown to him, of conjectures he had indulged yesterday and the day before. This morning she would have an answer to her letter to friend, Miss Lucy Darleton, the pretty dark girl, whom De Craye was astonished not to have noticed more when he danced with her. She, pretty as she was, had come to his recollection through the name and rank of her father, a famous general of cavalry, and tactician in that arm. The colonel despised himself for not having been devoted to Clara Middleton's friend.
The morning's letters were on the bronze plate in the hall. Clara passed on her way to her room without inspecting them. De Craye opened an envelope and went upstairs to scribble a line. Sir Willoughby observed their absence at the solemn reading to the domestic servants in advance of breakfast. Three chairs were unoccupied. Vernon had his own notions of a mechanical service--and a precious profit he derived from them! but the other two seats returned the stare Willoughby cast at their backs with an impudence that reminded him of his friend Horace's calling for a book of the trains, when a minute afterward he admitted he was going to stay at the Hall another two days, or three. The man possessed by jealousy is never in need of matter for it: he magnifies; grass is jungle, hillocks are mountains. Willoughby's legs crossing and uncrossing audibly, and his tight-folded arms and clearing of the throat, were faint indications of his condition.
"Are you in fair health this morning, Willoughby?" Dr. Middleton said to him after he had closed his volumes.
"The thing is not much questioned by those who know me intimately," he replied.
"Willoughby unwell!" and, "He is health incarnate!" exclaimed the ladies Eleanor and Isabel.
Laetitia grieved for him. Sun-rays on a pest-stricken city, she thought, were like the smile of his face. She believed that he deeply loved Clara, and had learned more of her alienation.
He went into the ball to look into the well for the pair of malefactors; on fire with what he could not reveal to a soul.
De Craye was in the housekeeper's room, talking to young Crossjay, and Mrs. Montague just come up to breakfast. He had heard the boy chattering, and as the door was ajar he peeped in, and was invited to enter. Mrs. Montague was very fond of hearing him talk: he paid her the familiar respect which a lady of fallen fortunes, at a certain period after the fall, enjoys as a befittingly sad souvenir, and the respectfulness of the lord of the house was more chilling.
She bewailed the boy's trying his constitution with long walks before he had anything in him to walk on.
"And where did you go this morning, my lad?" said De Craye.
"Ah, you know the ground, colonel," said Crossjay. "I am hungry! I shall eat three eggs and some bacon, and buttered cakes, and jam, then begin again, on my second cup of coffee."
"It's not braggadocio," remarked Mrs. Montague. "He waits empty from five in the morning till nine, and then he comes famished to my table, and cats too much."
"Oh! Mrs. Montague, that is what the country people call roemancing. For, Colonel De Craye, I had a bun at seven o'clock. Miss Middleton forced me to go and buy it"
"A stale bun, my boy?"
"Yesterday's: there wasn't much of a stopper to you in it, like a new bun."
"And where did you leave Miss Middleton when you went to buy the bun? You should never leave a lady; and the street of a country town is lonely at that early hour. Crossjay, you surprise me."
"She forced me to go, colonel. Indeed she did. What do I care for a bun! And she was quite safe. We could hear the people stirring in the post-office, and I met our postman going for his letter-bag. I didn't want to go: bother the bun!--but you can't disobey Miss Middleton. I never want to, and wouldn't."
"There we're of the same mind," said the colonel, and Crossjay shouted, for the lady whom they exalted was at the door.
"You will be too tired for a ride this morning," De Craye said to her, descending the stairs.
She swung a bonnet by the ribands. "I don't think of riding to-day."
"Why did you not depute your mission to me?"
"I like to bear my own burdens, as far as I can."
"Miss Darleton is well?"
"Will you try recollection for me?"
"It will probably be quite as lively as yours was."
"Shall you see her soon?"
"I hope so."
Sir Willoughby met her at the foot of the stairs, but refrained from giving her a hand that shook.
"We shall have the day together," he said.
Clara bowed.
At the breakfast-table she faced a clock.
De Craye took out his watch. "You are five and a half minutes too slow by that clock, Willoughby."
"The man omitted to come from Rendon to set it last week, Horace. He will find the hour too late here for him when he does come."
One of the ladies compared the time of her watch with De Craye's, and Clara looked at hers and gratefully noted that she was four minutes in arrear.
They were slightly dissenting as De Craye stepped into the hall.
"A present worth examining," Willoughby said to her: "and I do not dwell on the costliness. Come presently, then. I am at your disposal all day. I will drive you in the afternoon to call on Lady Busshe to offer your thanks: but you must see it first. It is laid out in the laboratory."
"There is time before the afternoon," said Clara.
"Wedding presents?" interposed De Craye.
"A porcelain service from Lady Busshe, Horace."
"Not in fragments? Let me have a look at it. I'm haunted by an idea that porcelain always goes to pieces. I'll have a look and take a hint. We're in the laboratory, Miss Middleton."
He put his arm under Willoughby's. The resistance to him was momentary: Willoughby had the satisfaction of the thought that De Craye being with him was not with Clara; and seeing her giving orders to her maid Barclay, he deferred his claim on her company for some short period.
De Craye detained him in the laboratory, first over the China cups and saucers, and then with the latest of London--tales of youngest Cupid upon subterranean adventures, having high titles to light him. Willoughby liked the tale thus illuminated, for without the title there was no special savour in such affairs, and it pulled down his betters in rank. He was of a morality to reprobate the erring dame while he enjoyed the incidents. He could not help interrupting De Craye to point at Vernon through the window, striding this way and that, evidently on the hunt for young Crossjay. "No one here knows how to manage the boy except myself But go on, Horace," he said, checking his contemptuous laugh; and Vernon did look ridiculous, out there half-drenched already in a white rain, again shuffled off by the little rascal. It seemed that he was determined to have his runaway: he struck up the avenue at full pedestrian racing pace.
"A man looks a fool cutting after a cricket-ball; but, putting on steam in a storm of rain to catch a young villain out of sight, beats anything I've witnessed," Willoughby resumed, in his amusement.
"Aiha!" said De Craye, waving a hand to accompany the melodious accent, "there are things to beat that for fun."
He had smoked in the laboratory, so Willoughby directed a servant to transfer the porcelain service to one of the sitting-rooms for Clara's inspection of it.
"You're a bold man," De Craye remarked. "The luck may be with you, though. I wouldn't handle the fragile treasure for a trifle."
"I believe in my luck," said Willoughby.
Clara was now sought for. The lord of the house desired her presence impatiently, and had to wait. She was in none of the lower rooms. Barclay, her maid, upon interrogation, declared she was in none of the upper. Willoughby turned sharp on De Craye: he was there.
The ladies Eleanor and Isabel and Miss Dale were consulted. They had nothing to say about Clara's movements, more than that they could not understand her exceeding restlessness. The idea of her being out of doors grew serious; heaven was black, hard thunder rolled, and lightning flushed the battering rain. Men bearing umbrellas, shawls, and cloaks were dispatched on a circuit of the park. De Craye said: "I'll be one."
"No," cried Willoughby, starting to interrupt him, "I can't allow it."
"I've the scent of a hound, Willoughby; I'll soon be on the track."
"My dear Horace, I won't let you go."
"Adieu, dear boy! and if the lady's discoverable, I'm the one to find her."
He stepped to the umbrella-stand. There was then a general question whether Clara had taken her umbrella. Barclay said she had. The fact indicated a wider stroll than round inside the park: Crossjay was likewise absent. De Craye nodded to himself.
Willoughby struck a rattling blow on the barometer.
"Where's Pollington?" he called, and sent word for his man Pollington to bring big fishing-boots and waterproof wrappers.
An urgent debate within him was in progress.
Should he go forth alone on his chance of discovering Clara and forgiving her under his umbrella and cloak? or should he prevent De Craye from going forth alone on the chance he vaunted so impudently?
"You will offend me, Horace, if you insist," he said.
"Regard me as an instrument of destiny, Willoughby," replied De Craye.
"Then we go in company."
"But that's an addition of one that cancels the other by conjunction, and's worse than simple division: for I can't trust my wits unless I rely on them alone, you see."
"Upon my word, you talk at times most unintelligible stuff, to be frank with you, Horace. Give it in English."
"'Tis not suited, perhaps, to the genius of the language, for I thought I talked English."
"Oh, there's English gibberish as well as Irish, we know!"
"And a deal foolisher when they do go at it; for it won't bear squeezing, we think, like Irish."
"Where!" exclaimed the ladies, "where can she be! The storm is terrible."
Laetitia suggested the boathouse.
"For Crossjay hadn't a swim this morning!" said De Craye.
In the hopefulness of the idea, Willoughby suffered De Craye to go on his chance unaccompanied. He was near chuckling. He projected a plan for dismissing Crossjay and remaining in the boathouse with Clara, luxuriating in the prestige which would attach to him for seeking and finding her. Deadly sentiments intervened. Still he might expect to be alone with her where she could not slip from him.
The throwing open of the hall-doors for the gentlemen presented a framed picture of a deluge. All the young-leaved trees were steely black, without a gradation of green, drooping and pouring, and the song of rain had become an inveterate hiss.
The ladies beholding it exclaimed against Clara, even apostrophized her, so dark are trivial errors when circumstances frown. She must be mad to tempt such weather: she was very giddy; she was never at rest. Clara! Clara! how could you be so wild! Ought we not to tell Dr. Middleton?
Laetitia induced them to spare him.
"Any way," said De Craye. "I chuck up my head like a halfpenny, and go by the toss."
This enraging nonsense drove off Willoughby. De Craye saw him cast a furtive eye at his heels to make sure he was not followed, and thought, "Jove! he may be fond of her. But he's not on the track. She's a determined girl, if I'm correct. She's a girl of a hundred thousand. Girls like that make the right sort of wives for the right men. They're the girls to make men think of marrying. To-morrow! only give me a chance. They stick to you fast when they do stick."
Then a thought of her flower-like drapery and face caused him fervently to hope she had escaped the storm.
Calling at the West park-lodge he heard that Miss Middleton had been seen passing through the gate Master Crossjay; but she had not been seen coming back. Mr. Vernon Whitford had passed through half an hour later.
"After his young man!" said the colonel.
The lodge-keeper's wife and daughter knew of Master Crossjay's pranks; Mr. Whitford, they said, had made inquiries about him and must have caught him and sent him home to change his dripping things; for Master Crossjay had come back, and had declined shelter in the lodge; he seemed to be crying; he went away soaking over the wet grass, hanging his head. The opinion at the lodge was that Master Crossjay was unhappy.
"He very properly received a wigging from Mr. Whitford, I have no doubt," said Colonel Do Craye.
Mother and daughter supposed it to be the case, and considered Crossjay very wilful for not going straight home to the Hall to change his wet clothes; he was drenched.
Do Craye drew out his watch. The time was ten minutes past eleven. If the surmise he had distantly spied was correct, Miss Middleton would have been caught in the storm midway to her destination. By his guess at her character (knowledge of it, he would have said), he judged that no storm would daunt her on a predetermined expedition. He deduced in consequence that she was at the present moment flying to her friend, the charming brunette Lucy Darleton.
Still, as there was a possibility of the rain having been too much for her, and as he had no other speculation concerning the route she had taken, he decided upon keeping along the road to Rendon, with a keen eye at cottage and farmhouse windows.