CHAPTER XIV.
The Enchanted Palace.
TOTTENHAM’S was about five miles from London on the Bayswater side. It was a huge house, standing upon a little eminence, and surrounded by acres of park and clouds of thick but leafless trees, which looked ghostly enough in the Winter darkness. The fog had faded away from them long before they got so far, and had been replaced by the starlight clearness of a very cold evening; the sky was almost black, the points of light in it dead white, and all the landscape, so far as it was perceptible, an Indian ink landscape in faintly differing shades of black and deepest grey. Nevertheless it was a relief to breathe the fresh country air, after the damp fog which had clung to their throats and blinded their eyes. The roads were still hard, though there were signs of the breaking up of the frost, and the horses’ hoofs rang as they dashed along.
“It’s a nice place,” Mr. Tottenham said, “though I, of course, only bought it from the old people, who fortunately were not very venerable nor very desirable. It had a fine name before, and it was Mary’s idea to call it Tottenham’s. As we cannot ignore the shop, it is as well to take the full advantage of it. The worst thing is,” he added lowering his voice, “it hurts the servants’ feelings dreadfully. We have at last managed to get a butler who sees the humour of it, and acknowledges the shop with a condescending sense that the fact of his serving a shopkeeper is the best joke in the world. You will notice a consciousness of this highly humorous position at once in his face; but it is a bitter pill to the rest of the household. The housemaids and our friend behind us, cannot bear any reference to the degradation. You will respect their feelings, Earnshaw? I am sure you will take care to show a seemly respect for their feelings.”
Edgar laughed, and Mr. Tottenham went on. He was a very easy man to talk with; indeed he did most of the conversation himself, and was so pleasantly full of his home and his wife and his evident happiness, that no one, or at least no one so sympathetic as Edgar, could have stigmatized with unkind names the lengthened monologue. There was this excuse for it on the other hand, that he was thus making himself and his belongings known to a stranger whom he had determined to make a friend of. Few people dislike to talk about themselves when they can throw off all fear of ridicule, and have a tolerable excuse for their fluency. We all like it, dear reader; we know it sounds egotistical, and the wiser we are the more we avoid exposing our weakness; but yet when we can feel it is safe and believe that it is justified, how pleasant it is to tell some fresh and sympathetic listener all about ourselves! Perhaps this is one of the reasons why youth is so pleasant a companion to age, because the revelations on each side can be full and lengthened without unsuitability or fear of misconstruction. Edgar, too, possessed many of the qualities which make a good listener. He was in a subdued state of mind, and had no particular desire to talk in his own person; he had no history for the moment that would bear telling; he was glad enough to be carried lightly along upon the stream of this other man’s story, which amused him, if nothing else. Edgar’s life had come to a pause; he lay quiescent between two periods, not knowing where the next tide might lift him, or what might be the following chapter. He was like a traveller in the night, looking in through a hospitable open window at some interior all bright with firelight and happiness, getting to recognise which was which in the household party round the fire, and listening with a gratitude more warm and effusive than had the service been a greater one, to the hospitable invitation to enter. As well might such a traveller have censured the openness which drew no curtains and closed no shutters, and warmed his breast with the sight of comfort and friendliness, as Edgar could have called Mr. Tottenham’s talk egotistical. For had not he too been called in for rest and shelter out of the night?
He felt as in a dream when he entered the house, and was led through the great hall and staircase, and into the bright rooms to be presented to Lady Mary, who came forward to meet her husband’s new friend with the kindest welcome. She was a little light woman with quantities of fair hair, lively, and gay, and kind, with nothing of the worn look which distinguished her husband, but a fresh air, almost of girlhood, in her slight figure and light movements. She was so like some one else, that Edgar’s heart beat at sight of her, as it had not beat for years before. Gussy Thornleigh had gone out of his life, for ever, as he thought. He had given her up completely, hopelessly—and he had not felt at the time of this renunciation that his love for her had ever reached the length of passion, or that this was one of the partings which crush all thoughts of possible happiness out of the heart. But, notwithstanding, her idea had somehow lingered about him, as ideas passionately cherished do not always do. When he had been still and musing, the light little figure, the pretty head with its curls, the half laughing, half wise look with which this little girl would discourse to him upon everything in earth and heaven, had got into a way of coming up before him with the most astonishing reality and vividness. “I was not so very much in love with Gussy,” he had said to himself very often at such moments, with a whimsical mixture of surprise and complaint. No, he had not been so very much in love with her; yet she had haunted him all these three years. Lady Mary was only her aunt, which is not always an attractive relationship; generally, indeed, the likeness between a pretty girl and a middle-aged woman is rather discouraging to a lover, as showing to what plump and prosaic good condition his ethereal darling may come, than delightful; but Edgar had no sham sentiment about him, and was not apt to be assailed by any such unreal disgusts, even had there been anything to call them forth. Lady Mary, however, was still as lightfooted and light-hearted as Gussy herself. She had the same abundant fair hair, the same lively sweet eyes, never without the possibility of a laugh in them, and never anything but kind. She came up to Edgar holding out both her hands.
“You are not a stranger to me,” she said, “don’t introduce him, Tom. The only difficulty I have about you, is how to address you as Mr. Earnshaw—but that is only for the first moment. Sit down and thaw, both of you, and I will give you some tea—that is if you want tea. We have nobody with us for a day or two fortunately, and you will just have time to get acquainted with us, Mr. Earnshaw, and know all our ways before any one else comes.”
“But a day or two ought to be the limit—” Edgar began, hesitating.
“What! you have said nothing?” said Lady Mary, hastily turning to her husband. He put his finger on his lip.
“You are a most impetuous little person, Mary,” he said, “you don’t know the kind of bird we have got into the net. You think he will let you openly and without any illusion put salt upon his tail. No greater mistake could be. Earnshaw,” he added calmly, “come and let me show you your room. We dine directly, as we are alone and above ceremony. You can talk to my wife as much as you like after dinner—I shall go to sleep. What a blessing it is to be allowed to go to sleep after dinner,” he went on as he led the way upstairs, “especially on Saturday night—when one is tired and has Sunday to look forward to.”
“Why should it be especially blessed on Saturday night?”
“My dear fellow,” said the host solemnly, ushering his guest into a large and pleasant room, brilliant with firelight, “it is very clear that you have never kept a shop.”
And with these words he disappeared, leaving Edgar, it must be allowed, somewhat disturbed in his mind as to what it could all mean, why he had been thus selected as a visitor and conducted to this fairy palace; what it was that the wife wondered her husband had not said—and indeed what the whole incident meant? As he looked round upon his luxurious quarters, and felt himself restored as it were to the life he had so long abandoned, curious dreams and fancies came fluttering about Edgar without any will of his own. It was like the adventure (often enough repeated) in the Arabian nights, in which the hero is met by some mysterious mute and blindfolded, and led into a mysterious hall, all cool with plashing fountains and sweet with flowers. These images were not exactly suited to the wintry drive he had just taken, though that was pleasant enough in its way, and no bed of roses could have been so agreeable as the delightful glimpse of the fire, and all the warm and soft comfort about him. But had he been blindfolded—had he been brought unawares into some beneficent snare? Edgar’s heart began to beat a little quicker than usual. He did not know and dared not have whispered to himself what the fancies were that beset him. He tried to frown them down, to represent to himself that he was mad, that the curious freak of his new friend, and his own long fasting from all social intercourse had made this first taste of it too much for his brain. But all that he could do was not enough to free him from the wild fancies which buzzed about him like gnats in Summer, each with its own particular hum and sting. He dressed hurriedly and took a book by way of escaping from them, a dry book which he compelled himself to read, rather than go crazy altogether. Good heavens, was he mad already? In that mysterious palace where the hero is brought blindfold, where he is waited on by unseen hands, and finds glorious garments and wonderful feasts magically prepared for him, is there not always in reserve a princess more wonderful still, who takes possession of the wayfarer? “Retro, Satanas!” cried poor Edgar, throwing the book from him, feeling his cheeks flush and burn like a girl’s, and his heart leap into his throat. No greater madness, no greater folly could be. It was no doing of his, he protested to himself with indignation and dismay. Some evil spirit had got hold of him; he refused to think, and yet these dreamy mocking fancies would get into his head. It was a relief beyond description to him when the dinner bell rang and he could hurry downstairs. When he went into the drawing-room, however, all the buzzing brood of thoughts which fluttered within him, grew still and departed in a moment; his heart ceased to thump, and an utter quiet and stillness took the place of the former commotion. Why? Simply because he found Lady Mary and Mr. Tottenham awaiting him calmly, without a vestige of any other convive, except a boy of twelve and a girl two years younger, who came up to him with a pretty demure frankness and put out their hands in welcome.
“My boy and my girl,” said Mr. Tottenham; “and Molly, as your mother is going in with Mr. Earnshaw, you must try to look very grown up for the nonce, and take my arm and walk with me.”
“And poor Phil must come alone!” said the little girl with mingled regret and triumph. No, it was very clear to Edgar that he himself was not only a fool of the first water, but a presumptuous ass, a coxcomb fool, everything that was worst and vainest. And yet it had not been his doing; it was not he who had originated these foolish thoughts, which had assailed, and swarmed, and buzzed about him like a crowd of gnats or wasps—wasps was the better word; for there was spitefulness in the way they had persisted and held their own; but now, thank heaven, they were done with! He came to himself with a little shudder, and gave Lady Mary his arm, and walked through the ordinary passage of an ordinary house, into a room which was a handsome dining-room, but not a mystic hall; and then they all sat down at table, the two children opposite to him, in the most prosaic and ordinary way.
“You think it wrong to have the children, Mr. Earnshaw?” said Lady Mary, “and so do I—though I like it. It is only when we are alone, and it is all their father’s doing. I tell him it will spoil their digestion and their manners—”
“If it spoils Molly’s manners to associate with her mother the more’s the pity,” said Mr. Tottenham, “we shall try the experiment anyhow. What we call the lower classes don’t treat their children as we do; they accept the responsibility and go in for the disagreeables; therefore, though we hate having those brats here, we go in for them on principle. Earnshaw, have you considered the matter of education? Have you any ideas on the subject? Not like your friend Lord Newmarch, who has the correct ideas on everything, cut and dry, delivered by the last post. I don’t want that. Have you any notions of your own?”
“About education?” said Edgar, “I don’t think it. I fear I have few ideas on any abstract subject. The chances are that I will easily agree with you whatever may be your opinions; heaven has preserved me from having any of my own.”
“Then you will just suit each other,” said Lady Mary, “which he and I—forgive me for letting you into our domestic miseries, Mr. Earnshaw—don’t do at all, on this point; for we have both ideas, and flourish them about us unmercifully. How happy he will be as long as he can have you to listen to him! not that I believe you will be half as good as your word.”
“Ideas are the salt of life,” said Mr. Tottenham; “that of course is what has made you look so languid for some time past.”
Edgar looked up in surprise. “Have I been looking languid? Have you been observing me?” he cried. “This is after all a fairy palace where I have been brought blindfolded, and where every action of my life is known.”
Upon this, Mr. Philip Tottenham, aged twelve, pricked up his ears. “Were you brought here blindfolded?” he said. “What fun! like the Arabian Nights. I wish somebody would take me like that into a fairy palace, where there would be a beautiful lady—”
“Phil, you are talking nonsense,” said his mother.
“Where the dinner would come when you clapped your hands, and sherbets and ices and black servants, who would cross their arms on their breasts and nod their heads like images—It was he began it,” cried Philip, breathless, getting it all out in a burst before anyone could interpose.
“You see how these poor children are spoilt,” said Lady Mary; “yes, he has been observing you, Mr. Earnshaw. I sent him into town three days in succession, on purpose.”
“You have looked as languid as a young lady after the season,” said Mr. Tottenham calmly, “till I saw there was nothing for you but the country, and a sharp diet of talks and schemes, and the ideas you scorn. When a man is happy and prosperous, it is all very well for him to do nothing; but if you happen to be on the wrong side of the hill, my dear fellow, you can’t afford to keep quiet. You must move on, as Policeman X would say; or your friends must keep you moving on. To-morrow is Sunday, unfortunately, when we shall be obliged to keep moderately quiet—”
“Is it wrong to talk on Sunday?” said the little girl, appealing gravely to Edgar, whom for some time she had been gazing at.
“Not that I know of,” Edgar replied with a smile; but as he looked from one to the other of the parent pair, he said to himself that there was no telling what theory upon this subject these excellent people might have. They might be desperate Sabbatarians for anything he could tell.
“Why do you ask Mr. Earnshaw, Molly?” said Lady Mary.
“Because,” said Molly, “I saw his picture once. I knew him whenever I saw him, and when I asked who it was, they said it was a very good man. So I knew it must be quite right to ask him. Papa talks more on Sunday than on other days, though he always talks a great deal; and yet just now he said because it is Sunday we must be quiet. Then I said to myself, why must we be quiet on Sunday? is it wrong?”
“This child is too logical for our peace of mind,” said Mr. Tottenham; “if it were Phil it would not matter so much, for school would soon drive that out of him.”
“But he is not going to school,” said Lady Mary quickly.
“Not yet, perhaps—but some time or other, I hope; a boy has not half lived who has not been to school. I suppose politics are your strong point, Earnshaw? Foreign politics, to judge from what I heard Newmarch saying. That fellow wants to pick your brains. I should not think it a subject that would pay, unless you made it your cheval de bataille, like Gordon Grant, who knows everything that happens abroad better than the people themselves do—who never, he tells us, see half what is going on.”
“Quite true,” said Lady Mary, “they never do; one doesn’t in one’s own experience. One finds out all the little incidents afterwards, and pieces them into their places.”
“Only it is Earnshaw who is to find out the little incidents, and Newmarch who is to piece them into their places,” said her husband; “hard work for the one, great fun, and great glory besides, for the other. I don’t think I should care to be jackal to Newmarch; especially as he means all this to be done, not by a Secretary of Legation, but by a Queen’s Messenger. Do you know what kind of life that is?”
Edgar shook his head. He knew nothing about it, and at this moment he did not care very much. The buzzing and persecution of those thoughts which were none of his, which had a separate existence of their own, and tortured him for admission into his mind, had recommenced. What had he been brought here for? Why did they attempt to disgust him with the only career open before him? What did they intend to do with him? The father and his boy might be ordinary beings enough, with whom he could have kept up an ordinary intercourse; but Lady Mary and her little daughter had the strangest effect upon the young man. One of them was full grown, motherly, on the border of middle age—the other was but a child; yet the tone of their voices, the turn of their heads, all suggested to him some one else who was not there. Even little Molly had the family gestures, the throwing back of the light locks, the sweet brightness of the eyes, which were so playful and soft, yet so full of vivacious spirit and life. Poor Edgar was kept in a kind of confused rapture between the mother and the child; both of them reflected another face, and echoed another voice to him; between them they seemed to be stealing all the strength out of him, the very heart from his bosom. He had been absent three years and had it all come to this, that the soft strain of enchantment which had charmed him so softly, so lightly, never to any height of passion, had grown stronger with time, and moved him now more deeply than at first? These persecuting thoughts made a swoop upon him like a flight of birds, sweeping down through the air and surrounding him, as he sat there helpless. Why had he been brought to this magician’s palace? What did they mean to do with him now? The child had seen his portrait, the father had been sent to watch him, the mother asked had anything been said. What was about to be said? What were they going to do with him? Poor Edgar looked out as from a mist, gradually overwhelmed by his own excitement, and finally left the doors of his helpless heart open, as it were, making it a highway through which any kind of futile supposition might flit and dance. He sat helpless, excited and wondering. What were they going to do with him? He did not know.