The Egoist

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"And here," said Willoughby, "is my hand."

Clara recoiled.

He stepped on. Her father frowned. She lifted both her hands from
the shrinking elbows, darted a look of repulsion at her pursuer,
and ran to her father, crying: "Call it my mood! I am volatile,
capricious, flighty, very foolish. But you see that I attach a
real meaning to it, and feel it to be binding: I cannot think it
an empty ceremony, if it is before you. Yes, only be a little
considerate to your moody girl. She will be in a fitter state in a
few hours. Spare me this moment; I must collect myself. I thought
I was free; I thought he would not press me. If I give my hand
hurriedly now, I shall, I know, immediately repent it. There is
the picture of me! But, papa, I mean to try to be above that, and
if I go and walk by myself, I shall grow calm to perceive where my
duty lies . . ."

"In which direction shall you walk?" said Willoughby.

"Wisdom is not upon a particular road," said Dr. Middleton.

"I have a dread, sir, of that one which leads to the
railway-station."

"With some justice!" Dr. Middleton sighed over his daughter.

Clara coloured to deep crimson: but she was beyond anger, and was
rather gratified by an offence coming from Willoughby.

"I will promise not to leave his grounds, papa."

"My child, you have threatened to be a breaker of promises."

"Oh!" she wailed. "But I will make it a vow to you."

"Why not make it a vow to me this moment, for this gentleman's
contentment, that he shall be your husband within a given period?"

"I will come to you voluntarily. I burn to be alone."

"I shall lose her," exclaimed Willoughby, in heartfelt earnest.

"How so?" said Dr. Middleton. "I have her, sir, if you will favour
me by continuing in abeyance.--You will come within an hour
voluntarily, Clara; and you will either at once yield your hand to
him or you will furnish reasons, and they must be good ones, for
withholding it."

"Yes, papa."

"You will?"

"I will."

"Mind, I say reasons."

"Reasons, papa. If I have none ..."

"If you have none that are to my satisfaction, you implicitly and
instantly, and cordially obey my command."

"I will obey."

"What more would you require?" Dr. Middleton bowed to Sir
Willoughby in triumph.

"Will she..."

"Sir! Sir!"

"She is your daughter, sir. I am satisfied."

"She has perchance wrestled with her engagement, as the
aboriginals of a land newly discovered by a crew of adventurous
colonists do battle with the garments imposed on them by our
considerate civilization;--ultimately to rejoice with excessive
dignity in the wearing of a battered cocked-hat and trowsers not
extending to the shanks: but she did not break her engagement,
sir; and we will anticipate that, moderating a young woman's
native wildness, she may, after the manner of my comparison, take
a similar pride in her fortune in good season."

Willoughby had not leisure to sound the depth of Dr. Middleton's
compliment. He had seen Clara gliding out of the room during the
delivery; and his fear returned on him that, not being won, she
was lost.

"She has gone." Her father noticed her absence. "She does not
waste time in her mission to procure that astonishing product of a
shallow soil, her reasons; if such be the object of her search.
But no: it signifies that she deems herself to have need of
composure--nothing more. No one likes to be turned about; we like
to turn ourselves about; and in the question of an act to be
committed, we stipulate that it shall be our act--girls and
others. After the lapse of an hour, it will appear to her as her
act. Happily, Willoughby, we do not dine away from Patterne
to-night."

"No, sir."

"It may be attributable to a sense of deserving, but I could plead
guilty to a weakness for old Port to-day."

"There shall be an extra bottle, sir."

"All going favourably with you, as I have no cause to doubt," said
Dr Middleton, with the motion of wafting his host out of the
library.

CHAPTER XLII

Shows the Divining Arts of a Perceptive Mind

Starting from the Hall a few minutes before Dr. Middleton and Sir
Willoughby had entered the drawing-room overnight, Vernon parted
company with Colonel De Craye at the park-gates, and betook himself
to the cottage of the Dales, where nothing had been heard of his
wanderer; and he received the same disappointing reply from Dr.
Corney, out of the bedroom window of the genial physician, whose
astonishment at his covering so long a stretch of road at night
for news of a boy like Crossjay--gifted with the lives of a cat--
became violent and rapped Punch-like blows on the window-sill at
Vernon's refusal to take shelter and rest. Vernon's excuse was
that he had "no one but that fellow to care for", and he strode
off, naming a farm five miles distant. Dr. Corney howled an
invitation to early breakfast to him, in the event of his passing
on his way back, and retired to bed to think of him. The result of
a variety of conjectures caused him to set Vernon down as Miss
Middleton's knight, and he felt a strong compassion for his poor
friend. "Though," thought he, "a hopeless attachment is as pretty
an accompaniment to the tune of life as a gentleman might wish to
have, for it's one of those big doses of discord which make all
the minor ones fit in like an agreeable harmony, and so he
shuffles along as pleasantly as the fortune-favoured, when they
come to compute!"

Sir Willoughby was the fortune-favoured in the little doctor's
mind; that high-stepping gentleman having wealth, and public
consideration, and the most ravishing young lady in the world for
a bride. Still, though he reckoned all these advantages enjoyed by
Sir Willoughby at their full value, he could imagine the ultimate
balance of good fortune to be in favour of Vernon. But to do so,
he had to reduce the whole calculation to the extreme abstract,
and feed his lean friend, as it were, on dew and roots; and the
happy effect for Vernon lay in a distant future, on the borders of
old age, where he was to be blessed with his lady's regretful
preference, and rejoice in the fruits of good constitutional
habits. The reviewing mind was Irish. Sir Willoughby was a
character of man profoundly opposed to Dr. Corney's nature; the
latter's instincts bristled with antagonism--not to his race, for
Vernon was of the same race, partly of the same blood, and Corney
loved him: the type of person was the annoyance. And the
circumstance of its prevailing successfulness in the country where
he was placed, while it held him silent as if under a law, heaped
stores of insurgency in the Celtic bosom. Corney contemplating Sir
Willoughby, and a trotting kern governed by Strongbow, have a
point of likeness between them; with the point of difference, that
Corney was enlightened to know of a friend better adapted for
eminent station, and especially better adapted to please a lovely
lady--could these high-bred Englishwomen but be taught to
conceive another idea of manliness than the formal carved-in-wood
idol of their national worship!

Dr Corney breakfasted very early, without seeing Vernon. He was
off to a patient while the first lark of the morning carolled
above, and the business of the day, not yet fallen upon men in the
shape of cloud, was happily intermixed with nature's hues and
pipings. Turning off the high-road tip a green lane, an hour
later, he beheld a youngster prying into a hedge head and arms, by
the peculiar strenuous twist of whose hinder parts, indicative of
a frame plunged on the pursuit in hand, he clearly distinguished
young Crossjay. Out came eggs. The doctor pulled up.

"What bird?" he bellowed.

"Yellowhammer," Crossjay yelled back.

"Now, sir, you'll drop a couple of those eggs in the nest."

"Don't order me," Crossjay was retorting. "Oh, it's you, Doctor
Corney. Good morning. I said that, because I always do drop a
couple back. I promised Mr. Whitford I would, and Miss Middleton
too."

"Had breakfast?"

"Not yet."

"Not hungry?"

"I should be if I thought about it."

"Jump up."

"I think I'd rather not, Doctor Corney."

"And you'll just do what Doctor Corney tells you; and set your
mind on rashers of curly fat bacon and sweetly smoking coffee,
toast, hot cakes, marmalade, and damson-jam. Wide go the fellow's
nostrils, and there's water at the dimples of his mouth! Up, my
man."

Crossjay jumped up beside the doctor, who remarked, as he touched
his horse: "I don't want a man this morning, though I'll enlist
you in my service if I do. You're fond of Miss Middleton?"

Instead of answering, Crossjay heaved the sigh of love that bears
a burden.

"And so am I," pursued the doctor: "You'll have to put up with a
rival. It's worse than fond: I'm in love with her. How do you like
that?"

"I don't mind how many love her," said Crossjay.

"You're worthy of a gratuitous breakfast in the front parlour of
the best hotel of the place they call Arcadia. And how about your
bed last night?"

"Pretty middling."

"Hard, was it, where the bones haven't cushion?"

"I don't care for bed. A couple of hours, and that's enough for
me."

"But you're fond of Miss Middleton anyhow, and that's a virtue."

To his great surprise, Dr. Corney beheld two big round tears force
their way out of this tough youngster's eyes, and all the while
the boy's face was proud.

Crossjay said, when he could trust himself to disjoin his lips:

"I want to see Mr. Whitford."

"Have you got news for him?"

"I've something to ask him. It's about what I ought to do."

"Then, my boy, you have the right name addressed in the wrong
direction: for I found you turning your shoulders on Mr. Whitford.
And he has been out of his bed hunting you all the unholy night
you've made it for him. That's melancholy. What do you say to
asking my advice?"

Crossjay sighed. "I can't speak to anybody but Mr. Whitford."

"And you're hot to speak to him?"

"I want to."

"And I found you running away from him. You're a curiosity, Mr.
Crossjay Patterne."

"Ah! so'd anybody be who knew as much as I do," said Crossjay.
with a sober sadness that caused the doctor to treat him
seriously.

"The fact is," he said, "Mr. Whitford is beating the country for
you. My best plan will be to drive you to the Hall."

"I'd rather not go to the Hall," Crossjay spoke resolutely.

"You won't see Miss Middleton anywhere but at the Hall."

"I don't want to see Miss Middleton, if I can't be a bit of use to
her."

"No danger threatening the lady, is there?"

Crossjay treated the question as if it had not been put.

"Now, tell me," said Dr. Corney, "would there be a chance for me,
supposing Miss Middleton were disengaged?"

The answer was easy. "I'm sure she wouldn't."

"And why, sir, are you so cock sure?"

There was no saying; but the doctor pressed for it, and at last
Crossjay gave his opinion that she would take Mr. Whitford.

The doctor asked why; and Crossjay said it was because Mr.
Whitford was the best man in the world. To which, with a lusty
"Amen to that," Dr. Corney remarked: "I should have fancied Colonel
De Craye would have had the first chance: he's more of a lady's
man."

Crossjay surprised him again by petulantly saying: "Don't."

The boy added: "I don't want to talk, except about birds and
things. What a jolly morning it is! I saw the sun rise. No rain
to-day. You're right about hungry, Doctor Corney!"

The kindly little man swung his whip. Crossjay informed him of his
disgrace at the Hall, and of every incident connected with it,
from the tramp to the baronet, save Miss Middleton's adventure and
the night scene in the drawing-room. A strong smell of something
left out struck Dr. Corney, and he said: "You'll not let Miss
Middleton know of my affection. After all, it's only a little bit
of love. But, as Patrick said to Kathleen, when she owned to such
a little bit, 'that's the best bit of all!' and he was as right
as I am about hungry."

Crossjay scorned to talk of loving, he declared. "I never tell
Miss Middleton what I feel. Why, there's Miss Dale's cottage!"

"It's nearer to your empty inside than my mansion," said the
doctor, "and we'll stop just to inquire whether a bed's to be had
for you there to-night, and if not, I'll have you with me, and
bottle you, and exhibit you, for you're a rare specimen.
Breakfast you may count on from Mr. Dale. I spy a gentleman."

"It's Colonel De Craye."

"Come after news of you."

"I wonder!"

"Miss Middleton sends him; of course she does."

Crossjay turned his full face to the doctor. "I haven't seen her
for such a long time! But he saw me last night, and he might have
told her that, if she's anxious.--Good-morning, colonel. I've had
a good walk, and a capital drive, and I'm as hungry as the boat's
crew of Captain Bligh."

He jumped down.

The colonel and the doctor saluted, smiling.

"I've rung the bell," said De Craye.

A maid came to the gate, and upon her steps appeared Miss Dale,
who flung herself at Crossjay, mingling kisses and reproaches. She
scarcely raised her face to the colonel more than to reply to his
greeting, and excuse the hungry boy for hurrying indoors to
breakfast.

"I'll wait," said De Craye. He had seen that she was paler than
usual. So had Dr. Corney; and the doctor called to her concerning
her father's health. She reported that he had not yet risen, and
took Crossjay to herself.

"That's well," said the doctor, "if the invalid sleeps long. The
lady is not looking so well, though. But ladies vary; they show
the mind on the countenance, for want of the punching we meet with
to conceal it; they're like military flags for a funeral or a
gala; one day furled, and next day streaming. Men are ships"
figure-heads, about the same for a storm or a calm, and not too
handsome, thanks to the ocean. It's an age since we encountered
last, colonel: on board the Dublin boat, I recollect, and a night
it was."

"I recollect that you set me on my legs, doctor."

"Ah! and you'll please to notify that Corney's no quack at sea, by
favour of the monks of the Chartreuse, whose elixir has power to
still the waves. And we hear that miracles are done with!"

"Roll a physician and a monk together, doctor!"

"True: it'll be a miracle if they combine. Though the cure of the
soul is often the entire and total cure of the body: and it's
maliciously said that the body given over to our treatment is a
signal to set the soul flying. By the way, colonel, that boy has a
trifle on his mind."

"I suppose he has been worrying a farmer or a gamekeeper."

"Try him. You'll find him tight. He's got Miss Middleton on the
brain. There's a bit of a secret; and he's not so cheerful about
it."

"We'll see," said the colonel.

Dr Corney nodded. "I have to visit my patient here presently. I'm
too early for him: so I'll make a call or two on the lame birds
that are up," he remarked, and drove away.

De Craye strolled through the garden. He was a gentleman of those
actively perceptive wits which, if ever they reflect, do so by
hops and jumps: upon some dancing mirror within, we may fancy. He
penetrated a plot in a flash; and in a flash he formed one; but in
both cases, it was after long hovering and not over-eager
deliberation, by the patient exercise of his quick perceptives.
The fact that Crossjay was considered to have Miss Middleton on
the brain, threw a series of images of everything relating to
Crossjay for the last forty hours into relief before him: and as
he did not in the slightest degree speculate on any one of them,
but merely shifted and surveyed them, the falcon that he was in
spirit as well as in his handsome face leisurely allowed his
instinct to direct him where to strike. A reflective disposition
has this danger in action, that it commonly precipitates
conjecture for the purpose of working upon probabilities with the
methods and in the tracks to which it is accustomed: and to
conjecture rashly is to play into the puzzles of the maze. He who
can watch circling above it awhile, quietly viewing, and
collecting in his eye, gathers matter that makes the secret thing
discourse to the brain by weight and balance; he will get either
the right clue or none; more frequently none; but he will escape
the entanglement of his own cleverness, he will always be nearer
to the enigma than the guesser or the calculator, and he will
retain a breadth of vision forfeited by them. He must, however, to
have his chance of success, be acutely besides calmly perceptive,
a reader of features, audacious at the proper moment.

De Craye wished to look at Miss Dale. She had returned home very
suddenly, not, as it appeared, owing to her father's illness; and
he remembered a redness of her eyelids when he passed her on the
corridor one night. She sent Crossjay out to him as soon as the
boy was well filled. He sent Crossjay back with a request. She did
not yield to it immediately. She stepped to the front door
reluctantly, and seemed disconcerted. De Craye begged for a
message to Miss Middleton. There was none to give. He persisted.
But there was really none at present, she said.

"You won't entrust me with the smallest word?" said he, and set
her visibly thinking whether she could dispatch a word. She could
not; she had no heart for messages.

"I shall see her in a day or two, Colonel De Craye."

"She will miss you severely."

"We shall soon meet."

"And poor Willoughby!"

Laetitia coloured and stood silent.

A butterfly of some rarity allured Crossjay.

"I fear he has been doing mischief," she said. "I cannot get him
to look at me."

"His appetite is good?"

"Very good indeed."

De Craye nodded. A boy with a noble appetite is never a hopeless
lock.

The colonel and Crossjay lounged over the garden.

"And now," said the colonel, "we'll see if we can't arrange a
meeting between you and Miss Middleton. You're a lucky fellow, for
she's always thinking of you."

"I know I'm always thinking of her," said Crossjay.

"If ever you're in a scrape, she's the person you must go to."

"Yes, if I know where she is!"

"Why, generally she'll be at the Hall."

There was no reply: Crossjay's dreadful secret jumped to his
throat. He certainly was a weaker lock for being full of
breakfast.

"I want to see Mr. Whitford so much," he said.

"Something to tell him?"

"I don't know what to do: I don't understand it!" The secret
wriggled to his mouth. He swallowed it down. "Yes, I want to talk
to Mr. Whitford."

"He's another of Miss Middleton's friends."

"I know he is. He's true steel."

"We're all her friends, Crossjay. I flatter myself I'm a Toledo when
I'm wanted. How long had you been in the house last night before
you ran into me?"

"I don't know, sir; I fell asleep for some time, and then I woke! .
. ."

"Where did you find yourself?"

"I was in the drawing-room."

"Come, Crossjay, you're not a fellow to be scared by ghosts? You
looked it when you made a dash at my midriff."

"I don't believe there are such things. Do you, colonel? You
can't!"

"There's no saying. We'll hope not; for it wouldn't be fair
fighting. A man with a ghost to back him'd beat any ten. We
couldn't box him or play cards, or stand a chance with him as a
rival in love. Did you, now, catch a sight of a ghost?"

"They weren't ghosts!" Crossjay said what he was sure of, and his
voice pronounced his conviction.

"I doubt whether Miss Middleton is particularly happy," remarked
the colonel. "Why? Why, you upset her, you know, now and then."

The boy swelled. "I'd do ... I'd go ... I wouldn't have her
unhappy ... It's that! that's it! And I don't know what I ought to
do. I wish I could see Mr. Whitford."

"You get into such headlong scrapes, my lad."

"I wasn't in any scrape yesterday."

"So you made yourself up a comfortable bed in the drawing-room?
Luckily Sir Willoughby didn't see you."

"He didn't, though!"

"A close shave, was it?"

"I was under a covering of something silk."

"He woke you?"

"I suppose he did. I heard him."

"Talking?"

"He was talking."

"What! talking to himself?"

"No."

The secret threatened Crossjay to be out or suffocate him. De
Craye gave him a respite.

"You like Sir Willoughby, don't you?"

Crossjay produced a still-born affirmative.

"He's kind to you," said the colonel; "he'll set you up and look
after your interests."

"Yes, I like him," said Crossjay, with his customary rapidity in
touching the subject; "I like him; he's kind and all that, and
tips and plays with you, and all that; but I never can make out
why he wouldn't see my father when my father came here to see him
ten miles, and had to walk back ten miles in the rain, to go by
rail a long way, down home, as far as Devonport, because Sir
Willoughby wouldn't see him, though he was at home, my father saw.
We all thought it so odd: and my father wouldn't let us talk much
about it. My father's a very brave man."

"Captain Patterne is as brave a man as ever lived," said De Craye.

"I'm positive you'd like him, colonel."

"I know of his deeds, and I admire him, and that's a good step to
liking."

He warmed the boy's thoughts of his father.

"Because, what they say at home is, a little bread and cheese, and
a glass of ale, and a rest, to a poor man--lots of great houses
will give you that, and we wouldn't have asked for more than that.
My sisters say they think Sir Willoughby must be selfish. He's
awfully proud; and perhaps it was because my father wasn't dressed
well enough. But what can we do? We're very poor at home, and lots
of us, and all hungry. My father says he isn't paid very well for
his services to the Government. He's only a marine."

"He's a hero!" said De Craye.

"He came home very tired, with a cold, and had a doctor. But Sir
Willoughby did send him money, and mother wished to send it back,
and my father said she was not like a woman--with our big family.
He said he thought Sir Willoughby an extraordinary man."

"Not at all; very common; indigenous," said De Craye. "The art of
cutting is one of the branches of a polite education in this
country, and you'll have to learn it, if you expect to be looked
on as a gentleman and a Patterne, my boy. I begin to see how it is
Miss Middleton takes to you so. Follow her directions. But I hope
you did not listen to a private conversation. Miss Middleton would
not approve of that."

"Colonel De Craye, how could I help myself? I heard a lot before I
knew what it was. There was poetry!"

"Still, Crossjay, if it was important--was it?"

The boy swelled again, and the colonel asked him, "Does Miss Dale
know of your having played listener?"

"She!" said Crossjay. "Oh, I couldn't tell her."

He breathed thick; then came a threat of tears. "She wouldn't do
anything to hurt Miss Middleton. I'm sure of that. It wasn't her
fault. She--There goes Mr. Whitford!" Crossjay bounded away.

The colonel had no inclination to wait for his return. He walked
fast up the road, not perspicuously conscious that his motive was
to be well in advance of Vernon Whitford: to whom, after all, the
knowledge imparted by Crossjay would be of small advantage. That
fellow would probably trot of to Willoughby to row him for breaking
his word to Miss Middleton! There are men, thought De Craye, who
see nothing, feel nothing.

He crossed a stile into the wood above the lake, where, as he was
in the humour to think himself signally lucky, espying her, he
took it as a matter of course that the lady who taught his heart
to leap should be posted by the Fates. And he wondered little at
her power, for rarely had the world seen such union of princess
and sylph as in that lady's figure. She stood holding by a
beech-branch, gazing down on the water.

She had not heard him. When she looked she flushed at the
spectacle of one of her thousand thoughts, but she was not
startled; the colour overflowed a grave face.

"And 'tis not quite the first time that Willoughby has played this
trick!" De Craye said to her, keenly smiling with a parted mouth.

Clara moved her lips to recall remarks introductory to so abrupt
and strange a plunge.

He smiled in that peculiar manner of an illuminated comic
perception: for the moment he was all falcon; and he surprised
himself more than Clara, who was not in the mood to take
surprises. It was the sight of her which had animated him to
strike his game; he was down on it.

Another instinct at work (they spring up in twenties oftener than
in twos when the heart is the hunter) prompted him to directness
and quickness, to carry her on the flood of the discovery.

She regained something of her mental self-possession as soon as
she was on a level with a meaning she had not yet inspected; but
she had to submit to his lead, distinctly perceiving where its
drift divided to the forked currents of what might be in his mind
and what was in hers.

"Miss Middleton, I bear a bit of a likeness to the messenger to
the glorious despot--my head is off if I speak not true!
Everything I have is on the die. Did I guess wrong your wish?--I
read it in the dark, by the heart. But here's a certainty:
Willoughby sets you free."

"You have come from him?" she could imagine nothing else, and she
was unable to preserve a disguise; she trembled.