What Will He Do with It? Part 56

"Marry again," said Darrell, firmly. "Right. I am."

"I always felt sure you would marry again. Is the lady here too?"

"What lady?"

"The lady you have chosen."

"Tus.h.!.+ I have chosen none. I come here to choose; and in this I ask advice from your experience. I would marry again! I! at my age!

Ridiculous! But so it is. You know all the mothers and marriageable daughters that London--_arida nutrix_--rears for nuptial altars: where, amongst them, shall I, Guy Darrell, the man whom you think so enviable, find the safe helpmate, whose love he may reward with munificent jointure, to whose child he may bequeath the name that has now no successor, and the wealth he has no heart to spend?"

Colonel Morley--who, as we know, is by habit a matchmaker, and likes the vocation--a.s.sumes a placid but cogitative mien, rubs his brow gently, and says in his softest, best-bred accents, "You would not marry a mere girl? some one of suitable age. I know several most superior young women on the other side of thirty, Wilhelmina Prymme, for instance, or Janet--"

DARRELL.--"Old maids. No! decidedly no!"

COLONEL MORLEY (suspiciously).--"But you would not risk the peace of your old age with a girl of eighteen, or else I do know a very accomplished, well-brought-up girl; just eighteen, who--"

DARRELL.--"Re-enter life by the side of Eighteen! am I a madman?"

COLONEL MORLEY.--"Neither old maids nor young maids; the choice becomes narrowed. You would prefer a widow. Ha! I have thought of one; a prize, indeed, could you but win her, the widow of--"

DARRELL.--"Ephesus!--Bah! suggest no widow to me. A widow, with her affections buried in the grave!"

MORLEY.--"Not necessarily. And in this case--"

DARRELL (interrupting, and with warmth).--"In every case I tell you: no widow shall doff her weeds for me. Did she love the first man? Fickle is the woman who can love twice. Did she not love him? Why did she marry him? Perhaps she sold herself to a rent-roll? Shall she sell herself again to me for a jointure? Heaven forbid! Talk not of widows. No dainty so flavourless as a heart warmed up again."

COLONEL MORLEY.--"Neither maids, be they old or young, nor widows.

Possibly you want an angel. London is not the place for angels."

DARRELL.--"I grant that the choice seems involved in perplexity. How can it be otherwise if one's self is perplexed? And yet, Alban, I am serious; and I do not presume to be so exacting as my words have implied. I ask not fortune, nor rank beyond gentle blood, nor youth nor beauty nor accomplishments nor fas.h.i.+on, but I do ask one thing, and one thing only."

COLONEL MORLEY.--"What is that? you have left nothing worth the having to ask for."

DARRELL.--"Nothing! I have left all! I ask some one whom I can love; love better than all the world,--not the _mariage de convenance_, not the _mariage de raison_, but the _mariage d'amour_. All other marriage, with vows of love so solemn, with intimacy of commune so close,--all other marriage, in my eyes, is an acted falsehood, a varnished sin. Ah, if I had thought so always! But away regret and repentance! The future alone is now before me! Alban Morley! I would sign away all I have in the world (save the old house at Fawley), ay, and after signing, cut off to boot this right hand, could I but once fall in love; love, and be loved again, as any two of Heaven's simplest human creatures may love each other while life is fres.h.!.+ Strange! strange! look out into the world; mark the man of our years who shall be most courted, most adulated, or admired. Give him all the attributes of power, wealth, royalty, genius, fame. See all the younger generation bow before him with hope or awe: his word can make their fortune; at his smile a reputation dawns. Well; now let that man say to the young, 'Room amongst yourselves: all that wins me this homage I would lay at the feet of Beauty. I enter the lists of love,' and straightway his power vanishes, the poorest b.o.o.by of twenty-four can jostle him aside; before, the object of reverence, he is now the b.u.t.t of ridicule. The instant he asks right to win the heart of a woman, a boy whom in all else he could rule as a lackey cries, 'Off, Graybeard, that realm at least is mine!'"

COLONEL MORLEY.--"This were but eloquent extravagance, even if your beard were gray. Men older than you, and with half your pretensions, even of outward form, have carried away hearts from boys like Adonis.

Only choose well: that's the difficulty; if it was not difficult, who would be a bachelor?"

DARRELL.--"Guide my choice. Pilot me to the haven."

COLONEL MORLEY.--"Accepted! But you must remount a suitable establishment; reopen your way to the great world, and penetrate those sacred recesses where awaiting spinsters weave the fatal web. Leave all to me. Let Mills (I see you have him still) call on me to-morrow about your menage. You will give dinners, of course?"

DARRELL.--"Oh, of course; must I dine at them myself?"

Morley laughed softly, and took up his hat.

"So soon!" cried Darrell. "If I fatigue you already, what chance shall I have with new friends?"

"So soon! it is past eleven. And it is you who must be fatigued."

"No such good luck; were I fatigued, I might hope to sleep. I will walk back with you. Leave me not alone in this room,--alone in the jaws of a fish; swallowed up by a creature whose blood is cold."

"You have something still to say to me," said Alban, when they were in the open air: "I detect it in your manner; what is it?"

"I know not. But you have told me no news; these streets are grown strange to me. Who live now in yonder houses? once the dwellers were my friends."

"In that house,--oh, new people! I forget their names,--but rich; in a year or two, with luck, they may be exclusives, and forget my name. In the other house, Carr Vipont still."

"Vipont; those dear Viponts! what of them all? Crawl they, sting they, bask they in the sun, or are they in anxious process of a change of skin?"

"Hus.h.!.+ my dear friend: no satire on your own connections; nothing so injudicious. I am a Vipont, too, and all for the family maxim, 'Vipont with Vipont, and come what may!'"

"I stand rebuked. But I am no Vipont. I married, it is true, into their house, and they married, ages ago, into mine; but no drop in the blood of time-servers flows through the veins of the last childless Darrell.

Pardon. I allow the merit of the Vipont race; no family more excites my respectful interest. What of their births, deaths, and marriages?"

COLONEL MORLEY.--"As to the births, Carr has just welcomed the birth of a grandson; the first-born of his eldest son (who married last year a daughter of the Duke of Halifax),--a promising young man, a Lord in the Admiralty. Carr has a second son in the Hussars; has just purchased his step: the other boys are still at school. He has three daughters too, fine girls, admirably brought up; indeed, now I think of it, the eldest, Honoria, might suit you, highly accomplished; well read; interests herself in politics; a great admirer of intellect; of a very serious turn of mind too."

DARRELL.--"A female politician with a serious turn of mind,--a farthing rushlight in a London fog! Hasten on to subjects less gloomy. Whose funeral achievement is that yonder?"

COLONEL MORLEY.--"The late Lord Niton's, father to Lady Montfort."

DARRELL.--"Lady Montfort! Her father was a Lyndsay, and died before the Flood. A deluge, at least, has gone over me and my world since I looked on the face of his widow."

COLONEL MORLEY.--"I speak of the present Lord Montfort's wife,--the Earl's. You of the poor Marquess's, the last Marquess; the marquisate is extinct. Surely, whatever your wanderings, you must have heard of the death of the last Marquess of Montfort?"

"Yes, I heard of that," answered Darrell, in a somewhat husky and muttered voice. "So he is dead, the young man! What killed him?"

COLONEL MORLEY.--"A violent attack of croup,--quite sudden. He was staying at Carr's at the time. I suspect that Carr made him talk! a thing he was not accustomed to do. Deranged his system altogether. But don't let us revive painful subjects."

DARRELL.--"Was she with him at the time?"

COLONEL MORLEY.--"Lady Montfort? No; they were very seldom together."

DARRELL.--"She is not married again yet?"

COLONEL MORLEY.--"No, but still young and so beautiful she will have many offers. I know those who are waiting to propose. Montfort has been only dead eighteen months; died just before young Carr's marriage.

His widow lives, in complete seclusion, at her jointure-house near Twickenham. She has only seen even me once since her loss."

DARRELL.--"When was that?"

MORLEY.--"About six or seven months ago; she asked after you with much interest."

DARRELL.--"After me!"

COLONEL MORLEY.--"To be sure. Don't I remember how constantly she and her mother were at your house? Is it strange that she should ask after you? You ought to know her better,--the most affectionate, grateful character."

DARRELL.--"I dare say. But at the time you refer to, I was too occupied to acquire much accurate knowledge of a young lady's character. I should have known her mother's character better, yet I mistook even that."