Queechy Volume I Part 24

There was no answer, and the absolute repose of all the lines of the young gentleman's face bordered too nearly on contempt to encourage the lady to pursue her jest any further.

The next day Fleda was well enough to bear moving. Mr.

Carleton had her carefully bundled up, and then carried her down stairs and placed her in the little light wagon which had once before brought her to the Pool. Luckily it was a mild day, for no close carriage was to be had for love or money.

The stage-coach in which Fleda had been fetched from her grandfather's was in use, away somewhere. Mr. Carleton drove her down to aunt Miriam's, and leaving her there he went off again; and whatever he did with himself it was a good two hours before he came back. All too little yet they were for the tears and the sympathy which went to so many things both in the past and in the future. Aunt Miriam had not said half she wished to say, when the wagon was at the gate again, and Mr. Carleton came to take his little charge away.

He found her sitting happily in aunt Miriam's lap. Fleda was very grateful to him for leaving her such a nice long time, and welcomed him with even a brighter smile than usual. But her head rested wistfully on her aunt's bosom after that; and when he asked her if she was almost ready to go, she hid her face there and put her arms about her neck. The old lady held her close for a few minutes, in silence.

"Elfleda," said aunt Miriam gravely, and tenderly, ? "do you know what was your mother's prayer for you?"

"Yes," ? she whispered.

"What was it?"

"That I ? might be kept ?"

"Unspotted from the world!" repeated aunt Miriam, in a tone of tender and deep feeling. "My sweet blossom! ? how wilt thou keep so? Will you remember always your mother's prayer?"

"I will try."

"How will you try, Fleda?"

"I will pray."

Aunt Miriam kissed her again and again, fondly repeating, "The Lord hear thee! ? the Lord bless thee! ? the Lord keep thee! ?

as a lily among thorns, my precious little babe; ? though in the world, not of it."

"Do you think that is possible?" said Mr. Carleton, significantly when a few moments after they had risen and were about to separate. Aunt Miriam looked at him in surprise, and asked, ?

"What, Sir? "

"To live in the world and not be like the world?"

She cast her eyes upon Fleda, fondly smoothing down her soft hair with both hands for a minute or two before she answered, ?

"By the help of one thing, Sir, yes!"

"And what is that?" said he, quickly.

"The blessing of G.o.d, with whom all things are possible."

His eyes fell, and there was a kind of incredulous sadness in his half smile which aunt Miriam understood better than he did. She sighed as she folded Fleda again to her breast, and whisperingly bade her "Remember!" But Fleda knew nothing of it; and when she had finally parted from aunt Miriam, and was seated in the little wagon on her way home, to her fancy the best friend she had in the world was sitting beside her.

Neither was her judgment wrong, so far as it went. She saw true where she saw at all. But there was a great deal she could not see.

Mr. Carleton was an unbeliever. Not maliciously, ? not wilfully, ? not stupidly; ? rather the fool of circ.u.mstance.

His scepticism might be traced to the joint workings of a very fine nature and a very bad education ? that is, education in the broad sense of the term; of course none of the means and appliances of mental culture had been wanting to him.

He was an uncommonly fine example of what nature alone can do for a man. A character of nature's building is at best a very ragged affair, without religion's finis.h.i.+ng hand; at the utmost a fine ruin ? no more. And if that be the _utmost_ of nature's handiwork, what is at the other end of the scale? ?

alas! the rubble stones of the ruin; what of good and fair nature had reared there was not strong enough to stand alone.

But religion cannot work alike on every foundation; and the varieties are as many as the individuals. Sometimes she must build the whole, from the very ground; and there are cases where nature's work stands so strong and fair that religion's strength may be expended in perfecting and enriching and carrying it to an uncommon height of grace and beauty, and dedicating the fair temple to a new use.

Of religion, Mr. Carleton had nothing at all; and a true Christian character had never crossed his path near enough for him to become acquainted with it. His mother was a woman of the world; his father had been a man of the world; and what is more, so deepdyed a politician, that to all intents and purposes, except as to bare natural affection, he was nothing to his son, and his son was nothing to him. Both mother and father thought the son a piece of perfection, and mothers and fathers have very often indeed thought so on less grounds. Mr.

Carleton saw, whenever he took time to look at him, that Guy had no lack either of quick wit or manly bearing; that he had pride enough to keep him from low company and make him abhor low pursuits; if anything more than pride and better than pride mingled with it, the father's discernment could not reach so far. He had a love for knowledge too, that from a child made him eager in seeking it, in ways both regular and desultory; and tastes which his mother laughingly said would give him all the elegance of a woman, joined to the strong manly character which no one ever doubted he possessed. _She_ looked mostly at the outside, willing, if that pleased her, to take everything else upon trust; and the grace of manner which a warm heart and fine sensibilities, and a mind entirely frank and above-board, had given him, from his earliest years, had more than met all her wishes. No one suspected the stubbornness and energy of will which was in fact the back- bone of his character. Nothing tried it. His father's death early left little Guy to his mother's guardians.h.i.+p.

Contradicting him was the last thing she thought of, and of course it was attempted by no one else.

If she would ever have allowed that he had a fault, which she never would, it was one that grew out of his greatest virtue, an unmanageable truth of character; and if she ever unwillingly recognised its companion virtue, firmness of will, it was when she endeavoured to combat certain troublesome demonstrations of the other. In spite of all the grace and charm of manner in which he was allowed to be a model, and which was as natural to him as it was universal, if ever the interests of truth came in conflict with the dictates of society, he flung minor considerations behind his back, and came out with some startling piece of bluntness at which his mother was utterly confounded. These occasions were very rare; he never sought them. Always where it was possible he chose either to speak or be silent in an unexceptionable manner. But sometimes the barrier of conventionalities, or his mother's unwise policy, pressed too hard upon his integrity or his indignation; and he would then free the barrier and present the shut-out truth in its full size and proportions before his mother's shocked eyes. It was in vain to try to coax or blind him; a marble statue is not more unruffled by the soft airs of summer; and Mrs. Carleton was fain to console herself with the reflection that Guy's very next act after one of these breaks would be one of such happy fascination that the former would be forgotten; and that in this world of discordances it was impossible, on the whole, for any one to come nearer perfection. And if there was inconvenience, there were also great comforts about this character of truthfulness.

So nearly up to the time of his leaving the University, the young heir lived a life of as free and uncontrolled enjoyment as the deer on his grounds, happily led by his own fine instincts to seek that enjoyment in pure and natural sources.

His tutor was proud of his success; his dependants loved his frank and high bearing; his mother rejoiced in his personal accomplishments, and was secretly well pleased that his tastes led him another way from the more common and less safe indulgences of other young men. He had not escaped the temptations of opportunity and example. But gambling was not intellectual enough, jockeying was too undignified, and drinking too coa.r.s.e a pleasure for him. Even hunting and coursing charmed him but for a few times; when he found he could out-ride and out-leap all his companions, he hunted no more; telling his mother, when she attacked him on the subject, that he thought the hare the worthier animal of the two upon a chase; and that the fox deserved an easier death.

His friends twitted him with his want of spirit and want of manliness; but such light shafts bounded back from the buff suit of cool indifference in which their object was cased; and his companions very soon gave over the attempt either to persuade or annoy him, with the conclusion that "nothing could be done with Carleton."

The same wants that had displeased him in the sports soon led him to decline the company of those who indulged in them. From the low-minded, from the uncultivated, from the unrefined in mind and manner, ? and such there are in the highest cla.s.s of society, as well as in the less favoured, ? he shrank away in secret disgust or weariness. There was no affinity. To his books, to his grounds, which he took endless delight in overseeing, to the fine arts in general, for which he had a great love, and for one or two of them a great talent, ? he went with restless energy and no want of companions.h.i.+p; and at one or the other, always pus.h.i.+ng eagerly forward after some point of excellence, or some new attainment not yet reached, and which sprang up after one another as fast as ever "Alps on Alps," he was happily and constantly busy. Too solitary, his mother thought, ? caring less for society than she wished to see him.; but that, she trusted, would mend itself. He would be through the University, and come of age, and go into the world, as a matter of necessity.

But years brought a change ? not the change his mother looked for. That restless active energy which had made the years of his youth so happy, became, in connection with one or two other qualities, a troublesome companion, when he had reached the age of manhood, and, obeying manhood's law, had "put away childish things." On what should it spend itself? It had lost none of its strength; while his fastidious notions of excellence, and a far-reaching clear-sightedness, which belonged to his truth of nature, greatly narrowed the sphere of its possible action. He could not delude himself into the belief that the oversight of his plantations, and the perfecting his park scenery, could be a worthy end of existence; or that painting and music were meant to be the stamina of life; or even that books were their own final cause. These things had refined and enriched him; ? they might go on doing so to the end of his days; ? but _for what?_ For what?

It is said that everybody has his niche, failing to find which n.o.body fills his place or acts his part in society. Mr.

Carleton could not find his niche, and he consequently grew dissatisfied everywhere. His mother's hopes from the University and the World were sadly disappointed.

At the University he had not lost his time. The pride of character, which, joined with less estimable pride of birth, was a marked feature in his composition, made him look with scorn upon the ephemeral pursuits of one set of young men; while his strong intellectual tastes drew him in the other direction; and the energetic activity which drove him to do everything well that he once took in hand, carried him to high distinction. Being there he would have disdained to be anywhere but at the top of the tree. But out of the University, and in possession of his estates, what should he do with himself and them?

A question easy to settle by most young men! very easy to settle by Guy, if he had had the clue of Christian truth to guide him through the labyrinth. But the clue was wanting, and the world seemed to him a world of confusion.

A certain clearness of judgment is apt to be the blessed hand- maid of uncommon truth of character; the mind that knows not what it is to play tricks upon its neighbours is rewarded by a comparative freedom from self-deception. Guy could not sit down upon his estates and lead an insect-life like that recommended by Rossitur. His energies wanted room to expend themselves. But the world offered no sphere that would satisfy him; even had his circ.u.mstances and position laid all equally open. It was a busy world; but to him people seemed to be busy upon trifles, or working in a circle, or working mischief; and his nice notions of what _ought to be_ were shocked by what he saw was, in every direction around him. He was disgusted with what he called the drivelling of some unhappy specimens of the Church which had come in his way; he disbelieved the truth of what such men professed. If there had been truth in it, he thought they would deserve to be drummed out of the profession. He detested the crooked involvements and double- dealing of the law. He despised the b.u.t.terfly life of a soldier; and as to the other side of a soldier's life, again he thought, what is it for? ? to humour the arrogance of the proud, ? to pamper the appet.i.te of the full, ? to tighten the grip of the iron hand of power; and though it be sometimes for better ends, yet the soldier cannot choose what letters of the alphabet of obedience he will learn. Politics was the very shaking of the government sieve, where, if there were any solid result, it was accompanied with a very great flying about of chaff indeed. Society was nothing but whip syllabub, ? a mere conglomeration of bubbles, ? as hollow and as unsatisfying. And in lower departments of human life, as far as he knew, he saw evils yet more deplorable. The Church played at shuttlec.o.c.k with men's credulousness; the law, with their purses; the medical profession, with their lives; the military, with their liberties and hopes. He acknowledged that in all these lines of action there was much talent, much good intention, much admirable diligence and acuteness brought out ? but to what great general end? He saw, in short, that the machinery of the human mind, both at large and in particular, was out of order. He did not know what was the broken wheel, the want of which set all the rest to running wrong.

This was a strange train of thought for a very young man; but Guy had lived much alone, and in solitude one is like a person who has climbed a high mountain; the air is purer about him, his vision is freer; the eye goes straight and clear to the distant view which below on the plain a thousand things would come between to intercept. But there was some morbidness about it too. Disappointment, in two or three instances, where he had given his full confidence and been obliged to take it back, had quickened him to generalize unfavourably upon human character, both in the ma.s.s and in individuals. And a restless dissatisfaction with himself and the world did not tend to a healthy view of things. Yet, truth was at the bottom; truth rarely arrived at without the help of revelation. He discerned a want he did not know how to supply. His fine perceptions felt the jar of the machinery which other men are too busy or too deaf to hear. It seemed to him hopelessly disordered.

This habit of thinking wrought a change very unlike what his mother had looked for. He mingled more in society, but Mrs.

Carleton saw that the eye with which he looked upon it was yet colder than it wont to be. A cloud came over the light, gay spirited manner he had used to wear. The charm of his address was as great as ever where he pleased to show it, but much more generally now he contented himself with a cool reserve, as impossible to disturb as to find fault with. His temper suffered the same eclipse. It was naturally excellent. His pa.s.sions were not hastily moved. He had never been easy to offend; his careless good-humour, and an unbounded proud self- respect, made him look rather with contempt than anger upon the things that fire most men; though when once moved to displeasure, it was stern and abiding in proportion to the depth of his character. The same good-humour and cool self- respect forbade him even then to be eager in showing resentment; the offender fell off from his esteem, and apparently from the sphere of his notice, as easily as a drop of water from a duck's wing, and could with as much ease regain his lost lodgment; but unless there were wrong to be righted, or truth to be vindicated, he was in general safe from any further tokens of displeasure. In those cases, Mr.

Carleton was an adversary to be dreaded. As cool, as unwavering, as persevering there as in other things, he there, as in other things, no more failed of his end. And at bottom these characteristics remained the same; it was rather his humour than his temper that suffered a change. That grew more gloomy and less gentle. He was more easily irritated, and would show it more freely than in the old happy times had ever been.

Mrs. Carleton would have been glad to have those times back again. It could not be. Guy could not be content any longer in the Happy Valley of Amhara. Life had something for him to do beyond his park palings. He had carried manly exercises and personal accomplishments to an uncommon point of perfection; he knew his library well, and his grounds thoroughly, and had made excellent improvement of both; it was in vain to try to persuade him that seed-time and harvest were the same thing, and that he had nothing to do but to rest in what he had done; show his bright colours and flutter like a moth in the suns.h.i.+ne, or sit down like a degenerate bee in the summer time and eat his own honey. The power of action which he knew in himself could not rest without something to act upon. It longed to be doing.

But what?

Conscience is often morbidly far-sighted. Mr. Carleton had a very large tenantry around him and depending upon him, in bettering whose condition, if he had but known it, all those energies might have found full play. It never entered into his head. He abhorred _business_, ? the detail of business; and. his fastidious tastes especially shrank from having anything to do among those whose business was literally their life. The eye, sensitively fond of elegance, the extreme of elegance, in everything, and permitting no other around or about him, could not bear the tokens of mental and bodily wretchedness among the ignorant poor; he escaped from them as soon as possible; thought that poverty was one of the irregularities of this wrong-working machine of a world, and something utterly beyond his power to do away or alleviate; and left to his steward all the responsibility that of right rested on his own shoulders.

And at last, unable to content himself in the old routine of things, he quitted home and England, even before he was of age, and roved from place to place, trying, and trying in vain, to soothe the vague restlessness that called for a very different remedy.

"On change de ciel, ? l'on ne change point de sol."

CHAPTER X

Faire Christabelle, that ladye bright, Was had forth of the towre: But ever she droopeth in her minde, As, nipt by an ungentle winde, Doth some faire lillye flowre.