The Egoist

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"From Miss Dale."

"Ah!" Clara drooped. "She told me that once."

"'Tis the fact that tells it now."

"You have not seen him since you left the house?"

"Darkly: clear enough: not unlike the hand of destiny--through a
veil. He offered himself to Miss Dale last night, about between the
witching hours of twelve and one."

"Miss Dale . . ."

"Would she other? Could she? The poor lady has languished beyond a
decade. She's love in the feminine person."

"Are you speaking seriously, Colonel De Craye?"

"Would I dare to trifle with you, Miss Middleton?"

"I have reason to know it cannot be."

"If I have a head, it is a fresh and blooming truth. And more--I
stake my vanity on it!"

"Let me go to her." She stepped.

"Consider," said he.

"Miss Dale and I are excellent friends. It would not seem
indelicate to her. She has a kind of regard for me, through
Crossjay.--Oh, can it be? There must be some delusion. You have
seen--you wish to be of service to me; you may too easily be
deceived. Last night?--he last night ... ? And this morning!"

"'Tis not the first time our friend has played the trick, Miss
Middleton."

"But this is incredible, that last night ... and this morning, in
my father's presence, he presses! ... You have seen Miss Dale?
Everything is possible of him: they were together, I know.
Colonel De Craye, I have not the slightest chance of concealment
with you. I think I felt that when I first saw you. Will you let
me hear why you are so certain?"

"Miss Middleton, when I first had the honour of looking on you, it
was in a posture that necessitated my looking up, and morally so
it has been since. I conceived that Willoughby had won the
greatest prize of earth. And next I was led to the conclusion that
he had won it to lose it. Whether he much cares, is the mystery I
haven't leisure to fathom. Himself is the principal consideration
with himself, and ever was."

"You discovered it!" said Clara.

"He uncovered it," said De Craye. "The miracle was, that the world
wouldn't see. But the world is a piggy-wiggy world for the
wealthy fellow who fills a trough for it, and that he has always
very sagaciously done. Only women besides myself have detected
him. I have never exposed him; I have been an observer pure and
simple; and because I apprehended another catastrophe--making
something like the fourth, to my knowledge, one being public . .
."

"You knew Miss Durham?"

"And Harry Oxford too. And they're a pair as happy as blackbirds
in a cherry-tree, in a summer sunrise, with the owner of the
garden asleep. Because of that apprehension of mine, I refused the
office of best man till Willoughby had sent me a third letter. He
insisted on my coming. I came, saw, and was conquered. I trust
with all my soul I did not betray myself, I owed that duty to my
position of concealing it. As for entirely hiding that I had used
my eyes, I can't say: they must answer for it."

The colonel was using his eyes with an increasing suavity that
threatened more than sweetness.

"I believe you have been sincerely kind," said Clara. "We will
descend to the path round the lake."

She did not refuse her hand on the descent, and he let it escape
the moment the service was done. As he was performing the
admirable character of the man of honour, he had to attend to the
observance of details; and sure of her though he was beginning to
feel, there was a touch of the unknown in Clara Middleton which
made him fear to stamp assurance; despite a barely resistible
impulse, coming of his emotions and approved by his maxims. He
looked at the hand, now a free lady's hand. Willoughby settled,
his chance was great. Who else was in the way? No one. He
counselled himself to wait for her; she might have ideas of
delicacy. Her face was troubled, speculative; the brows clouded,
the lips compressed.

"You have not heard this from Miss Dale?" she said.

"Last night they were together: this morning she fled. I saw her
this morning distressed. She is unwilling to send you a message:
she talks vaguely of meeting you some days hence. And it is not
the first time he has gone to her for his consolation."

"That is not a proposal," Clara reflected. "He is too prudent. He
did not propose to her at the time you mention. Have you not been
hasty, Colonel De Craye?"

Shadows crossed her forehead. She glanced in the direction of the
house and stopped her walk.

"Last night, Miss Middleton, there was a listener."

"Who?"

"Crossjay was under that pretty silk coverlet worked by the Miss
Patternes. He came home late, found his door locked, and dashed
downstairs into the drawing-room, where he snuggled up and dropped
asleep. The two speakers woke him; they frightened the poor dear
lad in his love for you, and after they had gone, he wanted to run
out of the house, and I met him just after I had come back from my
search, bursting, and took him to my room, and laid him on the
sofa, and abused him for not lying quiet. He was restless as a
fish on a bank. When I woke in the morning he was off. Doctor
Corney came across him somewhere on the road and drove him to the
cottage. I was ringing the bell. Corney told me the boy had you on
his brain, and was miserable, so Crossjay and I had a talk."

"Crossjay did not repeat to you the conversation he had heard?"
said Clara.

"No."

She smiled rejoicingly, proud of the boy. as she walked on.

"But you'll pardon me, Miss Middleton--and I'm for him as much as
you are--if I was guilty of a little angling."

"My sympathies are with the fish."

"The poor fellow had a secret that hurt him. It rose to the
surface crying to be hooked, and I spared him twice or thrice,
because he had a sort of holy sentiment I respected, that none but
Mr. Whitford ought to be his father confessor."

"Crossjay!" she cried, hugging her love of the boy.

"The secret was one not to be communicated to Miss Dale of all
people."

"He said that?"

"As good as the very words. She informed me, too, that she
couldn't induce him to face her straight."

"Oh, that looks like it. And Crossjay was unhappy? Very unhappy?"

"He was just where tears are on the brim, and would have been
over, if he were not such a manly youngster."

"It looks..." She reverted in thought to Willoughby, and doubted,
and blindly stretched hands to her recollection of the strange old
monster she had discovered in him. Such a man could do anything.

That conclusion fortified her to pursue her walk to the house and
give battle for freedom. Willoughby appeared to her scarce human,
unreadable, save by the key that she could supply. She determined
to put faith in Colonel De Craye's marvellous divination of
circumstances in the dark. Marvels are solid weapons when we are
attacked by real prodigies of nature. Her countenance cleared. She
conversed with De Craye of the polite and the political world,
throwing off her personal burden completely, and charming him.

At the edge of the garden, on the bridge that crossed the haha
from the park, he had a second impulse, almost a warning within,
to seize his heavenly opportunity to ask for thanks and move her
tender lowered eyelids to hint at his reward. He repressed it,
doubtful of the wisdom.

Something like "heaven forgive me" was in Clara's mind, though she
would have declared herself innocent before the scrutator.

CHAPTER XLIII

In Which Sir Willoughby Is Led to Think That the Elements Have
Conspired Against Him

Clara had not taken many steps in the garden before she learned
how great was her debt of gratitude to Colonel De Craye.
Willoughby and her father were awaiting her. De Craye, with his
ready comprehension of circumstances, turned aside unseen among
the shrubs. She advanced slowly.

"The vapours, we may trust, have dispersed?" her father hailed
her.

"One word, and these discussions are over, we dislike them
equally," said Willoughby.

"No scenes," Dr. Middleton added. "Speak your decision, my girl,
pro forma, seeing that he who has the right demands it, and pray
release me."

Clara looked at Willoughby.

"I have decided to go to Miss Dale for her advice."

There was no appearance in him of a man that has been shot.

"To Miss Dale?--for advice?"

Dr Middleton invoked the Furies. "What is the signification of
this new freak?"

"Miss Dale must be consulted, papa."

"Consulted with reference to the disposal of your hand in
marriage?"

"She must be."

"Miss Dale, do you say?"

"I do, Papa."

Dr Middleton regained his natural elevation from the bend of body
habitual with men of an established sanity, paedagogues and
others, who are called on at odd intervals to inspect the
magnitude of the infinitesimally absurd in human nature: small,
that is, under the light of reason, immense in the realms of
madness.

His daughter profoundly confused him. He swelled out his chest,
remarking to Willoughby: "I do not wonder at your scared
expression of countenance, my friend. To discover yourself engaged
to a girl mad as Cassandra, without a boast of the distinction of
her being sun-struck, can be no specially comfortable
enlightenment. I am opposed to delays, and I will not have a
breach of faith committed by daughter of mine."

"Do not repeat those words," Clara said to Willoughby. He started.
She had evidently come armed. But how, within so short a space?
What could have instructed her? And in his bewilderment he gazed
hurriedly above, gulped air, and cried: "Scared, sir? I am not
aware that my countenance can show a scare. I am not accustomed to
sue for long: I am unable to sustain the part of humble
supplicant. She puts me out of harmony with creation--We are
plighted, Clara. It is pure waste of time to speak of soliciting
advice on the subject."

"Would it be a breach of faith for me to break my engagement?" she
said.

"You ask?"

"It is a breach of sanity to propound the interrogation," said her
father.

She looked at Willoughby. "Now?"

He shrugged haughtily.

"Since last night?" she said.

"Last night?"

"Am I not released?"

"Not by me."

"By your act."

"My dear Clara!"

"Have you not virtually disengaged me?"

"I who claim you as mine?"

"Can you?"

"I do and must."

"After last night?"

"Tricks! shufflings! jabber of a barbarian woman upon the
evolutions of a serpent!" exclaimed Dr. Middleton. "You were to
capitulate, or to furnish reasons for your refusal. You have none.
Give him your hand, girl, according to the compact. I praised you
to him for returning within the allotted term, and now forbear to
disgrace yourself and me."

"Is he perfectly free to offer his? Ask him, papa."

"Perform your duty. Do let us have peace!"

"Perfectly free! as on the day when I offered it first."
Willoughby frankly waved his honourable hand.

His face was blanched: enemies in the air seemed to have whispered
things to her: he doubted the fidelity of the Powers above.

"Since last night?" said she.

"Oh! if you insist, I reply, since last night."

"You know what I mean, Sir Willoughby."

"Oh! certainly."

"You speak the truth?"

"'Sir Willoughby!'" her father ejaculated in wrath. "But will you
explain what you mean, epitome that you are of all the
contradictions and mutabilities ascribed to women from the
beginning! 'Certainly', he says, and knows no more than I. She
begs grace for an hour, and returns with a fresh store of
evasions, to insult the man she has injured. It is my humiliation
to confess that our share in this contract is rescued from public
ignominy by his generosity. Nor can I congratulate him on his
fortune, should he condescend to bear with you to the utmost; for
instead of the young woman I supposed myself to be bestowing on
him, I see a fantastical planguncula enlivened by the wanton
tempers of a nursery chit. If one may conceive a meaning in her,
in miserable apology for such behaviour, some spirit of jealousy
informs the girl."

"I can only remark that there is no foundation for it," said
Willoughby. "I am willing to satisfy you, Clara. Name the person
who discomposes you. I can scarcely imagine one to exist: but who
can tell?"

She could name no person. The detestable imputation of jealousy
would be confirmed if she mentioned a name: and indeed Laetitia
was not to be named.

He pursued his advantage: "Jealousy is one of the fits I am a
stranger to,--I fancy, sir, that gentlemen have dismissed it. I
speak for myself.--But I can make allowances. In some cases, it
is considered a compliment; and often a word will soothe it. The
whole affair is so senseless! However, I will enter the
witness-box, or stand at the prisoner's bar! Anything to quiet a
distempered mind."

"Of you, sir," said Dr. Middleton, "might a parent be justly
proud."

"It is not jealousy; I could not be jealous!" Clara cried, stung by
the very passion; and she ran through her brain for a suggestion
to win a sign of meltingness if not esteem from her father. She
was not an iron maiden, but one among the nervous natures which
live largely in the moment, though she was then sacrificing it to
her nature's deep dislike. "You may be proud of me again, papa."

She could hardly have uttered anything more impolitic.

"Optume; but deliver yourself ad rem," he rejoined, alarmingly
pacified. "Firmavit fidem. Do you likewise, and double on us no
more like puss in the field."

"I wish to see Miss Dale," she said.

Up flew the Rev. Doctor's arms in wrathful despair resembling an
imprecation.

"She is at the cottage. You could have seen her," said Willoughby.

Evidently she had not.

"Is it untrue that last night, between twelve o'clock and one, in
the drawing-room, you proposed marriage to Miss Dale?" He became
convinced that she must have stolen down-stairs during his
colloquy with Laetitia, and listened at the door.

"On behalf of old Vernon?" he said, lightly laughing. "The idea is
not novel, as you know. They are suited, if they could see it.--
Laetitia Dale and my cousin Vernon Whitford, sir."

"Fairly schemed, my friend, and I will say for you, you have the
patience, Willoughby, of a husband!"

Willoughby bowed to the encomium, and allowed some fatigue to be
visible. He half yawned: "I claim no happier title, sir," and made
light of the weariful discussion.

Clara was shaken: she feared that Crossjay had heard incorrectly,
or that Colonel De Craye had guessed erroneously. It was too
likely that Willoughby should have proposed Vernon to Laetitia.

There was nothing to reassure her save the vision of the panic
amazement of his face at her persistency in speaking of Miss Dale.
She could have declared on oath that she was right, while
admitting all the suppositions to be against her. And unhappily
all the Delicacies (a doughty battalion for the defence of ladies
until they enter into difficulties and are shorn of them at a
blow, bare as dairymaids), all the body-guard of a young
gentlewoman, the drawing-room sylphides, which bear her train,
which wreathe her hair, which modulate her voice and tone her
complexion, which are arrows and shield to awe the creature man,
forbade her utterance of what she felt, on pain of instant
fulfilment of their oft-repeated threat of late to leave her to
the last remnant of a protecting sprite. She could not, as in a
dear melodrama, from the aim of a pointed finger denounce him, on
the testimony of her instincts, false of speech, false in deed.
She could not even declare that she doubted his truthfulness. The
refuge of a sullen fit, the refuge of tears, the pretext of a
mood, were denied her now by the rigour of those laws of decency
which are a garment to ladies of pure breeding.

"One more respite, papa," she implored him, bitterly conscious of
the closer tangle her petition involved, and, if it must be
betrayed of her, perceiving in an illumination how the knot might
become so woefully Gordian that haply in a cloud of wild events
the intervention of a gallant gentleman out of heaven, albeit in
the likeness of one of earth, would have to cut it: her cry
within, as she succumbed to weakness, being fervider, "Anything
but marry this one!" She was faint with strife and dejected, a
condition in the young when their imaginative energies hold revel
uncontrolled and are projectively desperate.

"No respite!" said Willoughby, genially.

"And I say, no respite!" observed her father. "You have assumed a
position that has not been granted you, Clara Middleton."

"I cannot bear to offend you, father."

"Him! Your duty is not to offend him. Address your excuses to
him. I refuse to be dragged over the same ground, to reiterate the
same command perpetually."

"If authority is deputed to me, I claim you," said Willoughby.

"You have not broken faith with me?"

"Assuredly not, or would it be possible for me to press my claim?"

"And join the right hand to the right," said Dr. Middleton; no, it
would not be possible. What insane root she has been nibbling, I
know not, but she must consign herself to the guidance of those
whom the gods have not abandoned, until her intellect is
liberated. She was once ... there: I look not back--if she it
was, and no simulacrum of a reasonable daughter. I welcome the
appearance of my friend Mr. Whitford. He is my sea-bath and supper
on the beach of Troy, after the day's battle and dust."

Vernon walked straight up to them: an act unusual with him,
for he was shy of committing an intrusion.

Clara guessed by that, and more by the dancing frown of
speculative humour he turned on Willoughby, that he had come
charged in support of her. His forehead was curiously lively, as
of one who has got a surprise well under, to feed on its amusing
contents.

"Have you seen Crossjay, Mr. Whitford?" she said.

"I've pounced on Crossjay; his bones are sound."

"Where did he sleep?"

"On a sofa, it seems."

She smiled, with good hope--Vernon had the story.

Willoughby thought it just to himself that he should defend his
measure of severity.

"The boy lied; he played a double game."

"For which he should have been reasoned with at the Grecian
portico of a boy," said the Rev. Doctor.

"My system is different, sir. I could not inflict what I would
not endure myself"

"So is Greek excluded from the later generations; and you leave a
field, the most fertile in the moralities in youth, unplowed and
unsown. Ah! well. This growing too fine is our way of relapsing
upon barbarism. Beware of over-sensitiveness, where nature has
plainly indicated her alternative gateway of knowledge. And now, I
presume, I am at liberty."

"Vernon will excuse us for a minute or two."

"I hold by Mr. Whitford now I have him."

"I'll join you in the laboratory, Vernon," Willoughby nodded
bluntly.

"We will leave them, Mr. Whitford. They are at the time-honoured
dissension upon a particular day, that, for the sake of dignity,
blushes to be named."

"What day?" said Vernon, like a rustic.

"THE day, these people call it."

Vernon sent one of his vivid eyeshots from one to the other. His
eyes fixed on Willoughby's with a quivering glow, beyond
amazement, as if his humour stood at furnace-heat, and absorbed
all that came.

Willoughby motioned to him to go.

"Have you seen Miss Dale, Mr. Whitford?" said Clara.

He answered, "No. Something has shocked her."

"Is it her feeling for Crossjay?"

"Ah!" Vernon said to Willoughby, "your pocketing of the key of
Crossjay's bedroom door was a master-stroke!"

The celestial irony suffused her, and she bathed and swam in it,
on hearing its dupe reply: "My methods of discipline are short. I
was not aware that she had been to his door."

"But I may hope that Miss Dale will see me," said Clara. "We are
in sympathy about the boy."

"Mr. Dale might be seen. He seems to be of a divided mind with his
daughter," Vernon rejoined. "She has locked herself up in her
room."

"He is not the only father in that unwholesome predicament," said
Dr Middleton.

"He talks of coming to you, Willoughby."

"Why to me?" Willoughby chastened his irritation: "He will be
welcome, of course. It would be better that the boy should come."

"If there is a chance of your forgiving him," said Clara. "Let
the Dales know I am prepared to listen to the boy, Vernon. There
can be no necessity for Mr. Dale to drag himself here."

"How are Mr. Dale and his daughter of a divided mind, Mr.
Whitford?" said Clara.

Vernon simulated an uneasiness. With a vacant gaze that enlarged
around Willoughby and was more discomforting than intentness, he
replied: "Perhaps she is unwilling to give him her entire
confidence, Miss Middleton."

"In which respect, then, our situations present their solitary
point of unlikeness in resemblance, for I have it in excess,"
observed Dr. Middleton.

Clara dropped her eyelids for the wave to pass over. "It struck me
that Miss Dale was a person of the extremest candour."

"Why should we be prying into the domestic affairs of the Dales?"
Willoughby interjected, and drew out his watch, merely for a
diversion; he was on tiptoe to learn whether Vernon was as well
instructed as Clara, and hung to the view that he could not be,
while drenching in the sensation that he was:--and if so, what
were the Powers above but a body of conspirators? He paid Laetitia
that compliment. He could not conceive the human betrayal of the
secret. Clara's discovery of it had set his common sense adrift.

"The domestic affairs of the Dales do not concern me," said
Vernon.

"And yet, my friend," Dr. Middleton balanced himself, and with an
air of benevolent slyness the import of which did not awaken
Willoughby, until too late, remarked: "They might concern you. I
will even add, that there is a probability of your being not less
than the fount and origin of this division of father and daughter,
though Willoughby in the drawingroom last night stands accusably
the agent."

"Favour me, sir, with an explanation," said Vernon, seeking to
gather it from Clara.

Dr Middleton threw the explanation upon Willoughby.

Clara, communicated as much as she was able in one of those looks
of still depth which say, Think! and without causing a thought to
stir, takes us into the pellucid mind.

Vernon was enlightened before Willoughby had spoken.
His mouth shut rigidly, and there was a springing increase of the
luminous wavering of his eyes. Some star that Clara had watched
at night was like them in the vivid wink and overflow of its
light. Yet, as he was perfectly sedate, none could have suspected
his blood to be chasing wild with laughter, and his frame strung
to the utmost to keep it from volleying. So happy was she in his
aspect, that her chief anxiety was to recover the name of the star
whose shining beckons and speaks, and is in the quick of
spirit-fire. It is the sole star which on a
night of frost and strong moonlight preserves an indomitable
fervency: that she remembered, and the picture of a hoar earth and
a lean Orion in flooded heavens, and the star beneath Eastward of
him: but the name! the name!--She heard Willoughby indistinctly.

"Oh, the old story; another effort; you know my wish; a failure,
of course, and no thanks on either side, I suppose I must ask your
excuse.--They neither of them see what's good for them, sir."

"Manifestly, however," said Dr. Middleton, "if one may opine from
the division we have heard of, the father is disposed to back your
nominee."

"I can't say; as far as I am concerned, I made a mess of it."
Vernon withstood the incitement to acquiesce, but he sparkled with
his recognition of the fact.

"You meant well, Willoughby."

"I hope so, Vernon."

"Only you have driven her away."

"We must resign ourselves."

"It won't affect me, for I'm off to-morrow."

"You see, sir, the thanks I get."

"Mr. Whitford," said Dr. Middleton, "You have a tower of strength
in the lady's father."

"Would you have me bring it to bear upon the lady, sir?"

"Wherefore not?"

"To make her marriage a matter of obedience to her father?"

"Ay, my friend, a lusty lover would have her gladly on those
terms, well knowing it to be for the lady's good. What do you say,
Willoughby?"

"Sir! Say? What can I say? Miss Dale has not plighted her faith.
Had she done so, she is a lady who would never dishonour it."

"She is an ideal of constancy, who would keep to it though it had
been broken on the other side," said Vernon, and Clara thrilled.

"I take that, sir, to be a statue of constancy, modelled upon
which a lady of our flesh may be proclaimed as graduating for the
condition of idiocy," said Dr. Middleton.

"But faith is faith, sir."

"But the broken is the broken, sir, whether in porcelain or in
human engagements; and all that one of the two continuing
faithful, I should rather say, regretful, can do, is to devote the
remainder of life to the picking up of the fragments; an
occupation properly to be pursued, for the comfort of mankind,
within the enclosure of an appointed asylum."

"You destroy the poetry of sentiment, Dr. Middleton."

"To invigorate the poetry of nature, Mr. Whitford."

"Then you maintain, sir, that when faith is broken by one, the
engagement ceases, and the other is absolutely free?"

"I do; I am the champion of that platitude, and sound that knell
to the sentimental world; and since you have chosen to defend it,
I will appeal to Willoughby, and ask him if he would not side with
the world of good sense in applauding the nuptials of man or maid
married within a month of a jilting?" Clara slipped her arm under
her father's.