"If you want your cigar, papa – " said Katie getting up, "and you can't live without that, any of you gentlemen – I had better go. Let laws and learning, wit and wisdom die, so long as you have your cigars. But the carriage is ordered at a quarter to ten, and Lord Erradeen is coming, he says. In any case
you
must come, papa, you know. I can't go without you," she said, with a little imperative air. It was enough to make any one laugh to see the grand air of superiority which this little person took upon her, and her father greeted her exit with a loud laugh of enjoyment and admiration.
"She is mistress and more, as we say in Scotland," he said, "and there must be no trifling where my Katie is concerned. We will have to keep to the minute. So you are coming with us, Lord Erradeen? What will you do, Underwood? I'm doubting if what they call the poetical dramaw will be much in your way."
To which Underwood replied with some embarrassment that it certainly was not at all in his way. He liked Nelly Somebody in a burlesque, and he was always fond of a good ballet, but as for Shakespeare and that sort of thing, he owned it was above him. Good Mr. Williamson disapproved of ballets, utterly, and administered a rebuke on the spot.
"I hope you are not leading Lord Erradeen into the like of that. It is very bad for a young man to lose respect for women, and how you can keep any after those exhibitions is beyond me. Well, I will not say I take a great interest, like Katie, in poetry and all that. I like a good laugh. So long as it is funny I am like a bairn, I delight in a play: but I am not so sure that I can give my mind to it when it's serious. Lord! we've enough of seriousness in real life. And as for your bare-faced love-making before thousands of people, I just can't endure it. You will think me a prejudiced old fogey, Lord Erradeen. It makes me blush," said the elderly critic, going off into a laugh; but blush he did, through all the honest red upon his natural cheeks, notwithstanding his laugh, and his claret, and his cigar. Was he a world behind his younger companion who glanced at him with a sensation of mingled shame, contempt, and respect, or was he a world above him? Walter was so confused in the new atmosphere he had suddenly begun to breathe, that he could not tell. But it was altogether new at all events, and novelty is something in the monotony of life.
"I'll see you at the club after," said Underwood, as they loitered waiting for Miss Williamson at the hotel door. But Walter made no reply.
Now Lord Erradeen, though he had been perverse all his life, and had chosen the evil and rejected the good in many incomprehensible ways, was not – or this history would never have been written – without that finer fibre in him which responds to everything that is true and noble. How strange this jumble is in that confusion of good and evil which we call the mind of man! How often may we see the record of a generous action bring tears to the eyes of one whose acts are all selfish, and whose heart is callous to sufferings of which he is the cause: and hear him with noble fervour applaud the self-sacrifice of the man, who in that language by which it is the pleasure of the nineteenth century to make heroism just half-ridiculous, and to save itself from the highflown, "never funked and never lied; I guess he didn't know how: " and how he will be touched to the heart by the purity of a romantic love, he who for himself feeds on the garbage – and all this without any conscious insincerity, the best part of him more true and real all the time than the worst! Walter, to whom his own domestic surroundings had been so irksome, felt a certain wholesome novelty of pleasure when he set out between the father and daughter to see what Mr. Williamson called the "poetical dramaw," a thing hitherto much out of the young man's way. He had been of late in all kinds of unsavoury places, and had done his best to debase his imagination with the burlesques; but yet he had not been able to obliterate his own capacity for better things. And when he stood looking over the head of Katie Williamson, and saw the lady of the poet's tale come into the poor house of her chivalrous lover, the shock with which the better nature in him came uppermost, gave him a pang in the pleasure and the wonder of it. This was not the sort of heroine to whom he had accustomed himself: but the old Italian romancer, the noble English poet, and the fine passion and high perception of the actors, who could understand and interpret both, were not in vain for our prodigal. When that lady paused in the humble doorway clothed in high reverence and poetry, not to speak of the modest splendour of her mature beauty and noble Venetian dress, he felt himself blush, like good Mr. Williamson, to remember all the less lovely images he had seen. He could not applaud; it would have been a profanation. He was still pure enough in the midst of uncleanness, and high enough though familiar with baseness, to be transported for the moment out of himself.
The other two formed a somewhat comical counterbalance to Walter's emotion; not that they were by any means unfeeling spectators. Mr. Williamson's interest in the story was unfeigned. As Mrs. Kendal poured forth that heartrending plea of a mother for her child, the good man accompanied her words by strange muffled sounds which were quite beyond his control; and which called forth looks of alarm from Katie, who was his natural guardian, and who herself maintained a dignified propriety as having witnessed this moving scene before. But the running commentary
sotto voce
, which he kept up throughout, might have furnished an amusing secondary comedy to any impartial bystander. "Bless us all!" said Mr. Williamson, "two useless servants doing nothing, and not a morsel in the house! How do ye make that out!" "Lordsake! has he killed the hawk? but that's just manslaughter: and a tough morsel I would say, for the lady, when all's done." "What is it she's wanting – just the falcon he's killed for her. Tchick! Tchick! Now I call that an awful pity, Katie. Poor lady! and poor fellow! and he has to refuse her! Well, he should not have been so hasty. After all she did not eat a morsel of it; and what ailed that silly old woman there to toss up a bit omelette or something, to save the bird – and they're so clever at omelettes abroad," the good man said, with true regret. "Oh, papa, how material you are! Don't you know it's always like that in life?" cried Katie. "I know nothing of the kind," said her father, indignantly. "What is the use of being a poet, as you call it, if ye cannot find some other way and not break their hearts? Poor lad! Now that's a thing I can't understand – a woman like that come pleading to you, and you have to refuse her!" Katie looked round upon her father with her little air of oracle. "Don't you see, papa, that's the story! It's to wring our hearts he wrote it." Mr. Williamson paid no attention to this. He went on softly with his "Tchick! tchick!" and when all was over dried his eyes furtively and got up with haste, almost impatience, drawing a long breath. "It's just all nonsense," he said. "I'll not be brought here again to be made unhappy. So she's to get
him
instead of the bird – but, bless me! what good will that do her?
that
will never save her bairn."
"It will satisfy the public, more or less," said a voice behind.
Walter had been aware that some one else had come into the box, who stood smiling, listening to the conversation, and now bent forward to applaud as if aware that his applause meant something. Katie turned half round, with a little nod and smile.
"Did you hear papa?" she said. "Oh, tell Mr. Tennyson! he is quite unhappy about it. Are you unhappy too, Lord Erradeen? for you don't applaud, or say a word."
"Applaud!" Walter said. "I feel that it would be taking a liberty. Applaud what? That beautiful lady who is so much above me, or the great poet who is above all? I should like to go away and draw breath, and let myself down – "
"Toots!" said Mr. Williamson, "it is just all nonsense. He should not have been so hasty. And now I would just like to know," he added, with an air of defiance, "what happened to that bairn: to want a falcon and get a stepfather! that was an ill way to cure him. Hoots! it's all nonsense. Put on your cloak, Katie, and let us get away."
"But I like you, Lord Erradeen, for what you say," cried Katie. "It was too beautiful to applaud. Oh, tell Mrs. Kendal! She looked like a picture. I should like to make her a curtsey, not clap my hands as you do."
"You will bid me tell Boccaccio next?" said the new-comer. "These are fine sentiments; but the actors would find it somewhat chilly if they had no applause. They would think nobody cared."
"Lord Innishouran," said Katie, "papa has forgotten his manners. He ought to have introduced to you Lord Erradeen."
Walter was as much startled as if he had been the veriest cockney whose bosom has ever been fluttered by introduction to a lord. He looked at the first man of his rank (barring those damaged ones at Underwoods club) whom he had met, with the strangest sensation. Lord Innishouran was the son of the Duke – the great potentate of those northern regions. He was a man who might make Walter's career very easy to him, or, alas! rather might have made it, had he known him on his first coming to London. The sense of all that might be involved in knowing him, made the young man giddy as he stood opposite to his new acquaintance. Lord Innishouran was not of Walter's age. The duke was the patriarch of the Highlands, and lived like a man who never meant to die. This gentleman, who at forty-five was still only his father's heir, had taken to the arts by way of making an independent position for himself. He was a
dilettante
in the best sense of the word, delighting in everything that was beautiful. Walter's enthusiasm had been the best possible introduction for him; and what a change there seemed in the young man's world and all his prospects as he walked home after taking leave of the Williamsons with Innishouran's, not Underwood's, arm within his own!
"I cannot understand how it is that we have not met before. It would have been my part to seek you out if I had known you were in town," his new friend said. "I hope now you will let me introduce you to my wife. The duke has left town – he never stays a moment longer than he can help. And everything is coming to an end. Still I am most happy to have made your acquaintance. You knew the Williamsons, I suppose, before? They are excellent people – not the least vulgarity about them, because there's no pretension. And Katie is a clever girl, not without ambition. She is quite an heiress, I suppose you know – "
"I don't know – any one, or anything," Walter said.
"Come, that is going too far," said the other, with a laugh. "I presume you don't care for society. That is a young man's notion; but society is not so bad a thing. It never answers to withdraw from it altogether. Yes, Katie is an heiress. She is to have all the Loch Houran property, I believe, besides a good deal of money."
"I thought," said Walter, "there were several sons."
"One – one only; and he has the business, with the addition also of a good deal of money. Money is a wonderful quality – it stands instead of a great many other things to our friends there. I am fond of intellect myself, but it must be allowed that the most cultivated mind would not do for any man what his money does at once for that good neighbour of ours – who is a most excellent fellow all the same."
"I have met him for the first time to-day," said Walter, "in the most accidental way."
"Ah! I thought you had known them; but it is true what I say. I look upon money with a certain awe. It is inscrutable. The most perfect of artists – you and I when we most look up to them, do also just a little look down upon them! No, perhaps that is too strong. At all events, they are there on sufferance. They are not of us, and they know it. Whether they care for us too much, or whether they don't care at all, there is still that uneasy consciousness. But with this good-natured millionnaire, nothing of the sort. He has no such feeling."
"Perhaps because his feelings are not so keen. Miss Williamson has just been telling me what you say – that her family are considered not vulgar because they never pretend to be better than they are."
"Ah!" cried Lord Innishouran, startled, "did Katie divine that? She is cleverer than I thought – and a very fine fortune, and an ambitious little person. I hope her money will go to consolidate some property at home, and not fall into a stranger's hands. I am all for the Highlands, you see, Erradeen."
"And I know so little about them," said Walter.
But nevertheless he knew very well what was meant, and there was a curious sensation in his mind which he could not describe to himself, as if some perturbation, whether outside or in he could not tell which, was calmed. He had a great deal of talk with his new friend as they threaded the noisy little circles of the streets, among the shouting link-boys and crowds of carriages, then reached the calm and darkness of the thoroughfares beyond. Lord Innishouran talked well, and his talk was of a kind so different from that of Underwood's noisy coterie, that the charm of the unusual, added to so many other novel sensations, made a great impression upon Walter's mind, always sensitive and open to a new influence. He felt a hot flush of shame come over him when walking thus through the purity of the night, and in the society of a man who talked about great names and things, he remembered the noise of the club, the heated air full of smoke and inanities, the jargon of the race-course and the stables. These things filled him with disgust, for the moment at least, just as the duets had given him a sense of disgust and impatience at Sloebury. His new friend only left him at the door of his rooms, which happened to lie in Lord Innishouran's way, and bade him good night, promising to call on him in the morning. Walter had not been in his rooms so early for many a day. He hesitated whether or not to go out again, for he had not any pleasure in his own society; but pride came to the rescue, and he blushed at the thought of darting out like a truant schoolboy, as soon as the better influence was withdrawn. Pride prevented him from thus running away from himself. He took a book out of the shelves, which he had not done for so long. But soon the book dropped aside, and he began to review the strange circumstances of the evening. In a moment, as it seemed, his horizon had changed. Hitherto, except in so far as money was concerned, he had derived no advantage from his new rank. Now everything seemed opening before him. He could not be unmoved in this moment of transition. Perhaps the life which was called fast had never contained any real temptation to Walter. It had come in and invaded the indolence of his mind and filled the vacant house of his soul, swept and garnished but unoccupied, according to the powerful simile of Scripture; but there was no tug at his senses now urging him to go back to it. And then he thought, with a certain elation, of Lord Innishouran, and pleasurably of the Williamsons. Katie, was that her name? He could not but laugh to himself at the sudden realisation of the visionary Miss Williamson after all that had been said. What would Julia Herbert say? But Julia Herbert had become dim to Lord Erradeen as if she had been a dozen years away.
CHAPTER VIII
Next morning Lord Innishouran fulfilled his promise of calling, and made his appearance almost before Walter, following the disorderly usages of the society into which he had fallen, was ready to receive him. The middle-aged eldest son was a man of exact virtue, rising early, keeping punctual hours, and in every way conducting himself as became one whose position made him an example to the rest of the world. And he was one who had a deep sense of the duties of his position. It seemed to him that this young man was in a bad way. "He is at a crisis, evidently at a crisis," he had said to his wife, "and a good influence may be everything for him." "He should marry Katie Williamson," said Lady Innishouran. "The Erradeens may be odd, as you say, but they always manage to do well for themselves." "Not always, not always, my dear; the property seems to grow, but the men come to little," Innishouran said, shaking his head; and he left his house with the full intention of becoming a "good influence" to Walter. He proposed at once to put him up at the most irreproachable and distinguished of clubs, and asked him to dinner on the spot. "I am afraid there is nobody of consequence left whom I can ask to meet you," he said; "but in any case Lady Innishouran is anxious to make your acquaintance."
The Innishourans belonged to the ranks of those very great people for whom the season ends much earlier than for others. The duke had gone home early in June, and his son held that in the end of that month there was nobody of consequence left, except, he said to himself, cabinet ministers, who were perhaps something too much for a young Highland lord.
"And you must take your seat," he said, "that is a matter of duty. If we had met earlier the duke would of course have been one of your supporters. I am sure my father will regret it very much. But, however, it can't be helped, and I, you know, don't occupy the necessary position; but there will be no difficulty in that respect."
This was very different from Walter's fine misanthropic Byronic idea of solitary grandeur, and defiance of the staring ranks of superannuated peers. "I am no politician," he said awkwardly. "I had scarcely thought it was worth the while." "It is always worth while to assume the privileges of your position," Lord Innishouran said. Walter was taken possession of altogether by this good influence. And forthwith his path lay in a course of golden days. It was characteristic of Walter that it gave him no trouble to break his old ties, perhaps because of the fact that he had not, so to speak, made them by any exercise of his will, but simply drifted into them by the exertions of those who meant to benefit by his weakness. He did not, perhaps, put this into words, but yet felt it with a sort of interior conviction which was deeper than all those superficial shades of sentiment which bind some men to the companions of the day, even when they care little for them. Perhaps it was selfishness, perhaps strength – it is difficult sometimes to discriminate.
Thus Captain Underwood, after his interrupted, but latterly almost unbroken, sway over the young man's time and habits, found himself suddenly left in the lurch, and quite powerless over his pupil. The captain tried in the first place the easy tone of use and wont.
"Come, Erradeen," he said, "we shall be late. You forget the engagement you made with So-and-so, and So-and-so – "
"I think it was you who made the engagement," Walter said. "I am not going to keep it anyhow. I am going with Innishouran to – "
"With Lord Innishouran!" the other cried, overawed. "So then," he said, with such a sneer as is often effectual with the young and generous, "now that you have got in with the big-wigs you mean to throw your old friends over."
"I don't know much about old friends," Walter said. "I don't call the fellows at your club old friends."
And then Captain Underwood made one of those mistakes which persons of inferior breeding are so apt to make. "You were glad enough to have them when you had nobody else to take any notice of you," he said. This was after two or three attempts to recover his old standing, and when he began to feel a certain exasperation. Walter, though he was irritable by nature, had so much the best of the argument at this moment that he kept his temper.
"I don't think," he said, "that I ever was very glad. I allowed myself to be drawn into it
faute de mieux
."
"And now I suppose you think you can throw
me
off too, like an old glove, in your infernal Scotch, cold-blooded way!" cried the captain.
"Am I Scotch?" said Lord Erradeen.
It was not much wonder, perhaps, if Underwood lost his temper. But another time he took matters more wisely. He would not give up in a fit of temper the hold he thought he had obtained upon the young man. He was very unwilling, as may be supposed, to resign his
protégé
and victim, and made spasmodic attempts to regain his "influence." At all times this "influence" had been held precariously, and had it been a virtuous one like that of Lord Innishouran, Walter's mentor and guide might have called forth the sympathy of the spectator; for he had many things to bear from the young man's quick temper, and the constantly recurring dissatisfaction with himself and all things around which made him so difficult to deal with. Underwood, however, after his first disappointment, did not despair. The changeable young fellow, upon whom no one could calculate, whose mind was so uncertain, who would shoot off at a tangent in the most unexpected way, might as suddenly, as he had abandoned, turn to him again.
Miss Williamson received her new acquaintance very graciously when he went to see her next day. She met him with all the ease of an old acquaintance.
"Papa has been so busy," she said, "putting John into the business, that we have only got here at the very end of the season. Yes, it is a nuisance; but think how many people there are much better than I, that never come at all. Oona Forrester for instance. You think perhaps she is too good even to wish to come? Not at all; there never was a girl so good as that. Besides, I don't think it would be good. A girl ought to see the world as much as a boy. When you don't know the world, it makes you uninteresting – afterwards; you don't know how to talk to people. Not Oona, you know. I don't think there is any want of interest about her; but most people. Well, did you like Lord Innishouran? He is very kind, and fond of exerting a good influence. I felt that he was the very person for you."
"You think then that I stand in need of a good influence?" Walter said.
"Yes, after Captain Underwood," said Katie calmly. "I think it was very lucky that you met papa, and that Lord Innishouran was at the theatre and came into our box. Perhaps you will look back to it and think – if you had not happened to come here, what people call accidentally, as you passed – "
"I might go a step further," said Walter, "and say if I had not happened to be with Captain Underwood, who knew your father, I should never have known what good fortune was standing upon these steps, and never have made the acquaintance of Miss Williamson."
"You are making fun of me," said Katie. "I do not mind in the very least. But still it is just as well, perhaps, that you made the acquaintance of Miss Williamson. What were you going to do with yourself? Nothing so good I am sure as seeing the
Falcon
, and making friends with Lord Innishouran, who can be of a great deal of use to you.
We
cannot do much for you, of course. All sorts of people ask us, but still you know we are not of your class. We are only not vulgar, because – I told you last night."
Walter laughed with guilty amusement, remembering how Lord Innishouran had justified Katie's estimate of the world's opinion.
"I do not understand," he said, "how any one can think of you and vulgarity in the same day."
"Well," said Katie, calmly, "that is my own opinion. But still between me and Oona Forrester there is a great difference. I don't deceive myself about that. And why is it? I am – oh, some hundred times more rich. I can do almost whatever I like; that is to say, I can turn papa, as people say, round my little finger (that is rather vulgar, by the way). I come up here, I go abroad, I meet all kinds of interesting people: and yet I am not like Oona when all is said. Now how is that? It does not seem quite fair."
She looked at him with an honest pair of blue eyes out of a prepossessing, sensible little face, as she asked this question with all the gravity of a philosophical investigator. Notwithstanding a little figure which threatened in after life to be dumpy, and a profile of which the lines were by no means distinctly drawn, Katie Williamson at twenty had enough of the
beauté du diable
to make her rather an attractive little person. But as Walter looked at her, he too seemed to see a vision of the other with whom she compared herself. He always thought of Oona as she had stood watching his boat pushed off; his mind at the time had been too hurried and eager to remark her look; but that deeper faculty which garners up a face, a look, an act, which we do not seem to notice at the moment, and makes them afterwards more real and present to us than things that are under our eyes, had taken a picture of Oona as she stood in that profoundest deep of emotion, the most poignant moment of her life, with something of the wondering pang in her eyes which was in her heart. How many times since then had he seen her, though he had not seen her at the time! Looking at her in his mind's eye, he forgot altogether the question Katie was putting to him, and the necessity of protesting politely that she did herself wrong. Indeed he was not roused to this till Katie herself, after pausing for reply, said with a little sharpness, "You don't make me any answer, Lord Erradeen: you ought to tell me I have no reason to be so humble-minded, but that I am as good as Oona. That is what any polite person would say."
Thus challenged, Walter started with a certain sheepishness, and hastened to inform her, stammering, that comparisons were odious, but that there was nobody who might not be flattered, who ought not to be pleased, who, in short, would not be happy to think themselves on the same level —
Katie broke through his embarrassed explanations with a laugh. "You quite agree with me," she said, "and that is what I like you for. I am not a girl who wants compliments. I am an inquirer. And things are so funny in this world: everything about ourselves is so droll – "
"What is that you are saying about being droll, Katie?" said Mr. Williamson, coming in. "You do say very daft-like things, my dear, if that is what you mean. And how are you this morning, my Lord Erradeen? none the worse of that
Falcon
? Bless me, that falcon – that just set your teeth on edge the very sight of it. I am glad it was not served up to me. But you will stay to your lunch? We are just going to lunch, Katie and I; and we are both very fond of company. Now just stay. I will take it very kind if you have nothing better to do; and afterwards we'll stroll together to the Caledonian Club, which you ought to be a member of, Lord Erradeen, for auld Scotland's sake. I will put you up if that is agreeable to you. Come, Katie, show Lord Erradeen the way. I have been knocking about all the morning, and I am bound to say I'm very ready for my lunch."
And in this way affairs went on. Unaccustomed as he was to consider what any change of direction might lead to, it suited Walter very well to have a place where he was always welcome within his reach, and to be urged to stay to lunch, to go to the opera and the theatre, to be the audience for Katie's philosophies, which amused him. The atmosphere was new, and if not, perhaps, exciting, was fresh and full of variety. He had never in his life encountered anything like the easy wealthiness and homeliness, the power to do whatever