Tales and Fantasies
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Robert Louis Stevenson >> Tales and Fantasies
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What an afternoon it was for Esther!
'Ah!' she said at last, 'it's good to hear all this! My
aunt, you should know, is narrow and too religious; she
cannot understand an artist's life. It does not frighten
me,' she added grandly; 'I am an artist's daughter.'
With that speech, Dick consoled himself for his imposture;
she was not deceived so grossly after all; and then if a
fraud, was not the fraud piety itself? - and what could be
more obligatory than to keep alive in the heart of a daughter
that filial trust and honour which, even although misplaced,
became her like a jewel of the mind? There might be another
thought, a shade of cowardice, a selfish desire to please;
poor Dick was merely human; and what would you have had him
do?
CHAPTER IV - ESTHER ON THE FILIAL RELATION
A MONTH later Dick and Esther met at the stile beside the
cross roads; had there been any one to see them but the birds
and summer insects, it would have been remarked that they met
after a different fashion from the day before. Dick took her
in his arms, and their lips were set together for a long
while. Then he held her at arm's-length, and they looked
straight into each other's eyes.
'Esther!' he said; you should have heard his voice!
'Dick!' said she.
'My darling!'
It was some time before they started for their walk; he kept
an arm about her, and their sides were close together as they
walked; the sun, the birds, the west wind running among the
trees, a pressure, a look, the grasp tightening round a
single finger, these things stood them in lieu of thought and
filled their hearts with joy. The path they were following
led them through a wood of pine-trees carpeted with heather
and blue-berry, and upon this pleasant carpet, Dick, not
without some seriousness, made her sit down.
'Esther!' he began, 'there is something you ought to know.
You know my father is a rich man, and you would think, now
that we love each other, we might marry when we pleased. But
I fear, darling, we may have long to wait, and shall want all
our courage.'
'I have courage for anything,' she said, 'I have all I want;
with you and my father, I am so well off, and waiting is made
so happy, that I could wait a lifetime and not weary.'
He had a sharp pang at the mention of the Admiral. 'Hear me
out,' he continued. 'I ought to have told you this before;
but it is a thought I shrink from; if it were possible, I
should not tell you even now. My poor father and I are
scarce on speaking terms.'
'Your father,' she repeated, turning pale.
'It must sound strange to you; but yet I cannot think I am to
blame,' he said. 'I will tell you how it happened.'
'Oh Dick!' she said, when she had heard him to an end, 'how
brave you are, and how proud. Yet I would not be proud with
a father. I would tell him all.'
'What!' cried Dick, 'go in months after, and brag that I had
meant to thrash the man, and then didn't. And why? Because
my father had made a bigger ass of himself than I supposed.
My dear, that's nonsense.'
She winced at his words and drew away. 'But when that is all
he asks,' she pleaded. 'If he only knew that you had felt
that impulse, it would make him so proud and happy. He would
see you were his own son after all, and had the same thoughts
and the same chivalry of spirit. And then you did yourself
injustice when you spoke just now. It was because the editor
was weak and poor and excused himself, that you repented your
first determination. Had he been a big red man, with
whiskers, you would have beaten him - you know you would - if
Mr. Naseby had been ten times more committed. Do you think,
if you can tell it to me, and I understand at once, that it
would be more difficult to tell it to your own father, or
that he would not be more ready to sympathise with you than I
am? And I love you, Dick; but then he is your father.'
'My dear,' said Dick, desperately, 'you do not understand;
you do not know what it is to be treated with daily want of
comprehension and daily small injustices, through childhood
and boyhood and manhood, until you despair of a hearing,
until the thing rides you like a nightmare, until you almost
hate the sight of the man you love, and who's your father
after all. In short, Esther, you don't know what it is to
have a father, and that's what blinds you.'
'I see,' she said musingly, 'you mean that I am fortunate in
my father. But I am not so fortunate after all; you forget,
I do not know him; it is you who know him; he is already more
your father than mine.' And here she took his hand. Dick's
heart had grown as cold as ice. 'But I am sorry for you,
too,' she continued, 'it must be very sad and lonely.'
'You misunderstand me,' said Dick, chokingly. 'My father is
the best man I know in all this world; he is worth a hundred
of me, only he doesn't understand me, and he can't be made
to.'
There was a silence for a while. 'Dick,' she began again, 'I
am going to ask a favour, it's the first since you said you
loved me. May I see your father - see him pass, I mean,
where he will not observe me?'
'Why?' asked Dick.
'It is a fancy; you forget, I am romantic about fathers.'
The hint was enough for Dick; he consented with haste, and
full of hang-dog penitence and disgust, took her down by a
backway and planted her in the shrubbery, whence she might
see the Squire ride by to dinner. There they both sat
silent, but holding hands, for nearly half an hour. At last
the trotting of a horse sounded in the distance, the park
gates opened with a clang, and then Mr. Naseby appeared, with
stooping shoulders and a heavy, bilious countenance,
languidly rising to the trot. Esther recognised him at once;
she had often seen him before, though with her huge
indifference for all that lay outside the circle of her love,
she had never so much as wondered who he was; but now she
recognised him, and found him ten years older, leaden and
springless, and stamped by an abiding sorrow.
'Oh Dick, Dick!' she said, and the tears began to shine upon
her face as she hid it in his bosom; his own fell thickly
too. They had a sad walk home, and that night, full of love
and good counsel, Dick exerted every art to please his
father, to convince him of his respect and affection, to heal
up this breach of kindness, and reunite two hearts. But
alas! the Squire was sick and peevish; he had been all day
glooming over Dick's estrangement - for so he put it to
himself, and now with growls, cold words, and the cold
shoulder, he beat off all advances, and entrenched himself in
a just resentment.
CHAPTER V - THE PRODIGAL FATHER MAKES HIS DEBUT AT HOME
THAT took place upon a Tuesday. On the Thursday following,
as Dick was walking by appointment, earlier than usual, in
the direction of the cottage, he was appalled to meet in the
lane a fly from Thymebury, containing the human form of Miss
M'Glashan. The lady did not deign to remark him in her
passage; her face was suffused with tears, and expressed much
concern for the packages by which she was surrounded. He
stood still, and asked himself what this circumstance might
portend. It was so beautiful a day that he was loth to
forecast evil, yet something must perforce have happened at
the cottage, and that of a decisive nature; for here was Miss
M'Glashan on her travels, with a small patrimony in brown
paper parcels, and the old lady's bearing implied hot battle
and unqualified defeat. Was the house to be closed against
him? Was Esther left alone, or had some new protector made
his appearance from among the millions of Europe? It is the
character of love to loathe the near relatives of the loved
one; chapters in the history of the human race have justified
this feeling, and the conduct of uncles, in particular, has
frequently met with censure from the independent novelist.
Miss M'Glashan was now seen in the rosy colours of regret;
whoever succeeded her, Dick felt the change would be for the
worse. He hurried forward in this spirit; his anxiety grew
upon him with every step; as he entered the garden a voice
fell upon his ear, and he was once more arrested, not this
time by doubt, but by indubitable certainty of ill.
The thunderbolt had fallen; the Admiral was here.
Dick would have retreated, in the panic terror of the moment;
but Esther kept a bright look-out when her lover was
expected. In a twinkling she was by his side, brimful of
news and pleasure, too glad to notice his embarrassment, and
in one of those golden transports of exultation which
transcend not only words but caresses. She took him by the
end of the fingers (reaching forward to take them, for her
great preoccupation was to save time), she drew him towards
her, pushed him past her in the door, and planted him face to
face with Mr. Van Tromp, in a suit of French country
velveteens and with a remarkable carbuncle on his nose.
Then, as though this was the end of what she could endure in
the way of joy, Esther turned and ran out of the room.
The two men remained looking at each other with some
confusion on both sides. Van Tromp was naturally the first
to recover; he put out his hand with a fine gesture.
'And you know my little lass, my Esther?' he said. 'This is
pleasant; this is what I have conceived of home. A strange
word for the old rover; but we all have a taste for home and
the home-like, disguise it how we may. It has brought me
here, Mr. Naseby,' he concluded, with an intonation that
would have made his fortune on the stage, so just, so sad, so
dignified, so like a man of the world and a philosopher, 'and
you see a man who is content.'
'I see,' said Dick.
'Sit down,' continued the parasite, setting the example.
'Fortune has gone against me. (I am just sirrupping a little
brandy - after my journey.) I was going down, Mr. Naseby;
between you and me, I was DECAVE; I borrowed fifty francs,
smuggled my valise past the concierge - a work of
considerable tact - and here I am!'
'Yes,' said Dick; 'and here you are.' He was quite idiotic.
Esther, at this moment, re-entered the room.
'Are you glad to see him?' she whispered in his ear, the
pleasure in her voice almost bursting through the whisper
into song.
'Oh yes,' said Dick, 'very.'
'I knew you would be,' she replied; 'I told him how you loved
him.'
'Help yourself,' said the Admiral, 'help yourself; and let us
drink to a new existence.'
'To a new existence,' repeated Dick; and he raised the
tumbler to his lips, but set it down untasted. He had had
enough of novelties for one day.
Esther was sitting on a stool beside her father's feet,
holding her knees in her arms, and looking with pride from
one to the other of her two visitors. Her eyes were so
bright that you were never sure if there were tears in them
or not; little voluptuous shivers ran about her body;
sometimes she nestled her chin into her throat, sometimes
threw back her head, with ecstasy; in a word, she was in that
state when it is said of people that they cannot contain
themselves for happiness. It would be hard to exaggerate the
agony of Richard.
And, in the meantime, Van Tromp ran on interminably.
'I never forget a friend,' said he, 'nor yet an enemy: of the
latter, I never had but two - myself and the public; and I
fancy I have had my vengeance pretty freely out of both.' He
chuckled. 'But those days are done. Van Tromp is no more.
He was a man who had successes; I believe you knew I had
successes - to which we shall refer no farther,' pulling down
his neckcloth with a smile. 'That man exists no more: by an
exercise of will I have destroyed him. There is something
like it in the poets. First, a brilliant and conspicuous
career - the observed, I may say, of all observers, including
the bum-bailie: and then, presto! a quiet, sly, old, rustic
BONHOMME, cultivating roses. In Paris, Mr. Naseby - '
'Call him Richard, father,' said Esther.
'Richard, if he will allow me. Indeed, we are old friends,
and now near neighbours; and, A PROPOS, how are we off for
neighbours, Richard? The cottage stands, I think, upon your
father's land - a family which I respect - and the wood, I
understand, is Lord Trevanion's. Not that I care; I am an
old Bohemian. I have cut society with a cut direct; I cut it
when I was prosperous, and now I reap my reward, and can cut
it with dignity in my declension. These are our little
AMOURS PROPRES, my daughter: your father must respect
himself. Thank you, yes; just a leetle, leetle, tiny -
thanks, thanks; you spoil me. But, as I was saying, Richard,
or was about to say, my daughter has been allowed to rust;
her aunt was a mere duenna; hence, in parenthesis, Richard,
her distrust of me; my nature and that of the duenna are
poles asunder - poles! But, now that I am here, now that I
have given up the fight, and live henceforth for one only of
my works - I have the modesty to say it is my best - my
daughter - well, we shall put all that to rights. The
neighbours, Richard?'
Dick was understood to say that there were many good families
in the Vale of Thyme.
'You shall introduce us,' said the Admiral.
Dick's shirt was wet; he made a lumbering excuse to go; which
Esther explained to herself by a fear of intrusion, and so
set down to the merit side of Dick's account, while she
proceeded to detain him.
'Before our walk?' she cried. 'Never! I must have my walk.'
'Let us all go,' said the Admiral, rising.
'You do not know that you are wanted,' she cried, leaning on
his shoulder with a caress. 'I might wish to speak to my old
friend about my new father. But you shall come to-day, you
shall do all you want; I have set my heart on spoiling you.'
'I will just take ONE drop more,' said the Admiral, stooping
to help himself to brandy. 'It is surprising how this
journey has fatigued me. But I am growing old, I am growing
old, I am growing old, and - I regret to add - bald.'
He cocked a white wide-awake coquettishly upon his head - the
habit of the lady-killer clung to him; and Esther had already
thrown on her hat, and was ready, while he was still studying
the result in a mirror: the carbuncle had somewhat painfully
arrested his attention.
'We are papa now; we must be respectable,' he said to Dick,
in explanation of his dandyism: and then he went to a bundle
and chose himself a staff. Where were the elegant canes of
his Parisian epoch? This was a support for age, and designed
for rustic scenes. Dick began to see and appreciate the
man's enjoyment in a new part, when he saw how carefully he
had 'made it up.' He had invented a gait for this first
country stroll with his daughter, which was admirably in key.
He walked with fatigue, he leaned upon the staff; he looked
round him with a sad, smiling sympathy on all that he beheld;
he even asked the name of a plant, and rallied himself gently
for an old town bird, ignorant of nature. 'This country life
will make me young again,' he sighed. They reached the top
of the hill towards the first hour of evening; the sun was
descending heaven, the colour had all drawn into the west;
the hills were modelled in their least contour by the soft,
slanting shine; and the wide moorlands, veined with glens and
hazelwoods, ran west and north in a hazy glory of light.
Then the painter wakened in Van Tromp.
'Gad, Dick,' he cried, 'what value!'
An ode in four hundred lines would not have seemed so
touching to Esther; her eyes filled with happy tears; yes,
here was the father of whom she had dreamed, whom Dick had
described; simple, enthusiastic, unworldly, kind, a painter
at heart, and a fine gentleman in manner.
And just then the Admiral perceived a house by the wayside,
and something depending over the house door which might be
construed as a sign by the hopeful and thirsty.
'Is that,' he asked, pointing with his stick, 'an inn?'
There was a marked change in his voice, as though he attached
importance to the inquiry: Esther listened, hoping she should
hear wit or wisdom.
Dick said it was.
'You know it?' inquired the Admiral.
'I have passed it a hundred times, but that is all,' replied
Dick.
'Ah,' said Van Tromp, with a smile, and shaking his head;
'you are not an old campaigner; you have the world to learn.
Now I, you see, find an inn so very near my own home, and my
first thought is my neighbours. I shall go forward and make
my neighbours' acquaintance; no, you needn't come; I shall
not be a moment.'
And he walked off briskly towards the inn, leaving Dick alone
with Esther on the road.
'Dick,' she exclaimed, 'I am so glad to get a word with you;
I am so happy, I have such a thousand things to say; and I
want you to do me a favour. Imagine, he has come without a
paint-box, without an easel; and I want him to have all. I
want you to get them for me in Thymebury. You saw, this
moment, how his heart turned to painting. They can't live
without it,' she added; meaning perhaps Van Tromp and Michel
Angelo.
Up to that moment, she had observed nothing amiss in Dick's
behaviour. She was too happy to be curious; and his silence,
in presence of the great and good being whom she called her
father, had seemed both natural and praiseworthy. But now
that they were alone, she became conscious of a barrier
between her lover and herself, and alarm sprang up in her
heart.
'Dick,' she cried, 'you don't love me.'
'I do that,' he said heartily.
'But you are unhappy; you are strange; you - you are not glad
to see my father,' she concluded, with a break in her voice.
'Esther,' he said, 'I tell you that I love you; if you love
me, you know what that means, and that all I wish is to see
you happy. Do you think I cannot enjoy your pleasures?
Esther, I do. If I am uneasy, if I am alarmed, if - . Oh,
believe me, try and believe in me,' he cried, giving up
argument with perhaps a happy inspiration.
But the girl's suspicions were aroused; and though she
pressed the matter no farther (indeed, her father was already
seen returning), it by no means left her thoughts. At one
moment she simply resented the selfishness of a man who had
obtruded his dark looks and passionate language on her joy;
for there is nothing that a woman can less easily forgive
than the language of a passion which, even if only for the
moment, she does not share. At another, she suspected him of
jealousy against her father; and for that, although she could
see excuses for it, she yet despised him. And at least, in
one way or the other, here was the dangerous beginning of a
separation between two hearts. Esther found herself at
variance with her sweetest friend; she could no longer look
into his heart and find it written with the same language as
her own; she could no longer think of him as the sun which
radiated happiness upon her life, for she had turned to him
once, and he had breathed upon her black and chilly, radiated
blackness and frost. To put the whole matter in a word, she
was beginning, although ever so slightly, to fall out of
love.
CHAPTER VI - THE PRODIGAL FATHER GOES ON FROM STRENGTH TO
STRENGTH
WE will not follow all the steps of the Admiral's return and
installation, but hurry forward towards the catastrophe,
merely chronicling by the way a few salient incidents,
wherein we must rely entirely upon the evidence of Richard,
for Esther to this day has never opened her mouth upon this
trying passage of her life, and as for the Admiral - well,
that naval officer, although still alive, and now more
suitably installed in a seaport town where he has a telescope
and a flag in his front garden, is incapable of throwing the
slightest gleam of light upon the affair. Often and often
has he remarked to the present writer: 'If I know what it was
all about, sir, I'll be - ' in short, be what I hope he will
not. And then he will look across at his daughter's
portrait, a photograph, shake his head with an amused
appearance, and mix himself another grog by way of
consolation. Once I heard him go farther, and express his
feelings with regard to Esther in a single but eloquent word.
'A minx, sir,' he said, not in anger, rather in amusement:
and he cordially drank her health upon the back of it. His
worst enemy must admit him to be a man without malice; he
never bore a grudge in his life, lacking the necessary taste
and industry of attention.
Yet it was during this obscure period that the drama was
really performed; and its scene was in the heart of Esther,
shut away from all eyes. Had this warm, upright, sullen girl
been differently used by destiny, had events come upon her
even in a different succession, for some things lead easily
to others, the whole course of this tale would have been
changed, and Esther never would have run away. As it was,
through a series of acts and words of which we know but few,
and a series of thoughts which any one may imagine for
himself, she was awakened in four days from the dream of a
life.
The first tangible cause of disenchantment was when Dick
brought home a painter's arsenal on Friday evening. The
Admiral was in the chimney-corner, once more 'sirrupping'
some brandy and water, and Esther sat at the table at work.
They both came forward to greet the new arrival; and the
girl, relieving him of his monstrous burthen, proceeded to
display her offerings to her father. Van Tromp's countenance
fell several degrees; he became quite querulous.
'God bless me,' he said; and then, 'I must really ask you not
to interfere, child,' in a tone of undisguised hostility.
'Father,' she said, 'forgive me; I knew you had given up your
art - '
'Oh yes!' cried the Admiral; 'I've done with it to the
judgment-day!'
'Pardon me again,' she said firmly, 'but I do not, I cannot
think that you are right in this. Suppose the world is
unjust, suppose that no one understands you, you have still a
duty to yourself. And, oh, don't spoil the pleasure of your
coming home to me; show me that you can be my father and yet
not neglect your destiny. I am not like some daughters; I
will not be jealous of your art, and I will try to understand
it.'
The situation was odiously farcical. Richard groaned under
it; he longed to leap forward and denounce the humbug. And
the humbug himself? Do you fancy he was easier in his mind?
I am sure, on the other hand, that he was acutely miserable;
and he betrayed his sufferings by a perfectly silly and
undignified access of temper, during which he broke his pipe
in several pieces, threw his brandy and water in the fire,
and employed words which were very plain although the drift
of them was somewhat vague. It was of very brief duration.
Van Tromp was himself again, and in a most delightful humour
within three minutes of the first explosion.
'I am an old fool,' he said frankly. 'I was spoiled when a
child. As for you, Esther, you take after your mother; you
have a morbid sense of duty, particularly for others; strive
against it, my dear - strive against it. And as for the
pigments, well, I'll use them, some of these days; and to
show that I'm in earnest, I'll get Dick here to prepare a
canvas.'
Dick was put to this menial task forthwith, the Admiral not
even watching how he did, but quite occupied with another
grog and a pleasant vein of talk.
A little after Esther arose, and making some pretext, good or
bad, went off to bed. Dick was left hobbled by the canvas,
and was subjected to Van Tromp for about an hour.
The next day, Saturday, it is believed that little
intercourse took place between Esther and her father; but
towards the afternoon Dick met the latter returning from the
direction of the inn, where he had struck up quite a
friendship with the landlord. Dick wondered who paid for
these excursions, and at the thought that the reprobate must
get his pocket money where he got his board and lodging, from
poor Esther's generosity, he had it almost in his heart to
knock the old gentleman down. He, on his part, was full of
airs and graces and geniality.
'Dear Dick,' he said, taking his arm, 'this is neighbourly of
you; it shows your tact to meet me when I had a wish for you.
I am in pleasant spirits; and it is then that I desire a
friend.'
'I am glad to hear you are so happy,' retorted Dick bitterly.
'There's certainly not much to trouble YOU.'
'No,' assented the Admiral, 'not much. I got out of it in
time; and here - well, here everything pleases me. I am
plain in my tastes. 'A PROPOS, you have never asked me how I
liked my daughter?'
'No,' said Dick roundly; 'I certainly have not.'
'Meaning you will not. And why, Dick? She is my daughter,
of course; but then I am a man of the world and a man of
taste, and perfectly qualified to give an opinion with
impartiality - yes, Dick, with impartiality. Frankly, I am
not disappointed in her. She has good looks; she has them
from her mother. So I may say I CHOSE her looks. She is
devoted, quite devoted to me - '
'She is the best woman in the world!' broke out Dick.
'Dick,' cried the Admiral, stopping short; 'I have been
expecting this. Let us - let us go back to the "Trevanion
Arms" and talk this matter out over a bottle.'
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