Эдвард Бульвер-Литтон
Pelham — Complete
CHAPTER LXXII
Good Mr. Knave, give me my due,
I like a tart as well as you;
But I would starve on good roast beef,
Ere I would look so like a thief.
—The Queen of Hearts.
Nune vino pellite curas;
Cras ingens iterabimus aequor.
Horace.
The next morning I received a note from Guloseton, asking me to dine with him at eight, to meet his chevreuil. I sent back an answer in the affirmative, and then gave myself wholly up to considering what was the best line of conduct to pursue with regard to Lord Dawton. “It would be pleasant enough,” said Anger, “to go to him, to ask him boldly for the borough so often pledged to you, and in case of his refusal, to confront, to taunt, and to break with him.”
“True,” replied that more homely and less stage effect arguer, which we term Knowledge of the world; “but this would be neither useful nor dignified—common sense never quarrels with any one. Call upon Lord Dawton, if you will—ask him for his promise, with your second best smile, and receive his excuses with your very best. Then do as you please—break with him or not—you can do either with grace and quiet; never make a scene about any thing—reproach and anger always do make a scene.” “Very true,” said I, in answer to the latter suggestion—and having made up my mind, I repaired a quarter before three to Lord Dawton’s House.
“Ah, Pelham,” said the little minister; “delighted to see you look so much the better from the country air; you will stay in town now, I hope, till the end of the season?”
“Certainly,” my lord, “or, at all events, till the prorogation of parliament; how, indeed, could I do otherwise with your lordship’s kind promise before my eyes. Mr.—, the member for your borough of—, has, I believe, accepted the Chiltern Hundreds? I feel truly obliged to you for so promptly fulfilling your promise to me.”
“Hem! my dear Pelham, hem!” murmured Lord Dawton. I bent forward as if in the attitude of listening respect, but really the more clearly to perceive, and closely to enjoy his confusion. He looked up and caught my eye, and not being too much gratified with its involuntary expression, he grew more and more embarrassed; at last he summoned courage.
“Why, my dear Sir,” he said, “I did, it is true, promise you that borough; but individual friendship must frequently be sacrificed to the public good. All our party insisted upon returning Mr. V—in place of the late member: what could I do? I mentioned your claims, they all, to a man, enlarged upon your rival’s: to be sure, he is an older person, and his family is very powerful in the Lower House; in short, you perceive, my dear Pelham—that is, you are aware—you can feel for the delicacy of my situation—one could not appear too eager for one’s own friends at first, and I was forced to concede.”
Lord Dawton was now fairly delivered of his speech; it was, therefore, only left me to congratulate him on his offspring.
“My dear lord,” I began, “you could not have pleased me better: Mr. V. is a most estimable man, and I would not, for the world, have had you suspected of placing such a trifle as your own honour—that is to say—your promise to me, before the commands—that is to say, the interests—of your party; but no more of this now. Was your lordship at the Duke of—‘s last night?”
Dawton seized joyfully the opportunity of changing the conversation, and we talked and laughed on indifferent matters till I thought it time to withdraw; this I did with the most cordial appearance of regard and esteem; nor was it till I had fairly set my foot out of his door, that I suffered myself to indulge the “black bile,” at my breast. I turned towards the Green Park, and was walking slowly along the principal mall with my hands behind me, and my eyes on the ground, when I heard my own name uttered. On looking back, I perceived Lord Vincent on horseback; he stopped, and conversed with me. In the humour I was in with Lord Dawton, I received him with greater warmth than I had done of late; and he also, being in a social mood, seemed so well satisfied with our rencontre, and my behaviour, that he dismounted to walk with me.
“This park is a very different scene now,” said Vincent, “from what it was in the times of ‘The Merry Monarch;’ yet it is still, a spot much more to my taste, than its more gaudy and less classical brother of Hyde. There is something pleasingly melancholy, in walking over places haunted by history; for all of us live more in the past than the present.”
“And how exactly alike in all ages,” said I, “men have been. On the very spot we are on now, how many have been actuated by the same feelings that now actuate us—how many have made perhaps exactly the same remark just made by you. It is this universal identity, which forms our most powerful link with those that have been—there is a satisfaction in seeing how closely we resemble the Agamemnons of gone times, and we take care to lose none of it, by thinking how closely we also resemble the sordidi Thersites.”
“True,” replied Vincent, “if wise and great men did but know, how little difference there is between them and the foolish or the mean, they would not take such pains to be wise and great; to use the Chinese proverb, ‘they sacrifice a picture to get possession of its ashes.’ It is almost a pity that the desire to progress should be so necessary to our being; ambition is often a fine, but never a felicitous feeling. Cyprian, in a beautiful passage on envy, calls it ‘the moth of the soul:’ but perhaps, even that passion is less gnawing, less a ‘tabes pectoris,’ than ambition. You are surprised at my heat—the fact is, I am enraged at thinking how much we forfeit, when we look up only, and trample unconsciously, in the blindness of our aspiration, on the affections which strew our path. Now, you and I have been utterly estranged from each other of late. Why?—for any dispute—any disagreement in private—any discovery of meanness—treachery, unworthiness in the other? No! merely because I dine with Lord Lincoln, and you with Lord Dawton, voila tout. Well say the Jesuits, that they who live for the public, must renounce all private ties; the very day we become citizens, we are to cease to be men. Our privacy is like Leo Decimus; [Note: See Jovius.] directly it dies, all peace, comfort, joy, and sociality are to die with it; and an iron age, ‘barbara vis et dira malorum omnium incommoda’ [Note: See Jovius.] to succeed.”
“It is a pity, that we struck into different paths,” said I; “no pleasure would have been to me greater, than making our political interests the same; but—” “Perhaps there is no but,” interrupted Vincent; “perhaps, like the two knights in the hacknied story, we are only giving different names to the same shield, because we view it on different sides; let us also imitate them in their reconciliation, as well as their quarrel, and since we have already run our lances against each other, be convinced of our error, and make up our difference.”
I was silent; indeed, I did not like to trust myself to speak. Vincent continued:
“I know,” said he, “and it is in vain for you to conceal it, that you have been ill-used by Dawton. Mr. V. is my first cousin; he came to me the day after the borough was given to him, and told me all that Clandonald and Dawton had said to him at the time. Believe me, they did not spare you;—the former, you have grievously offended; you know that he has quarrelled irremediably with his son Dartmore, and he insists that you are the friend and abettor of that ingenuous youth, in all his debaucheries and extravagance—tu illum corrumpi sinis. I tell you this without hesitation, for I know you are less vain than ambitious, and I do not care about hurting you in the one point, if I advance you in the other. As for me, I own to you candidly and frankly, that there is no pains I would spare to secure you to our party. Join us, and you shall, as I have often said, be on the parliamentary benches of our corps, without a moment of unnecessary delay. More I cannot promise you, because I cannot promise more to myself; but from that instant your fortune, if I augur aught aright from your ability, will be in your own hands. You shake your head—surely you must see, that there is not a difference between two vehemently opposite parties to be reconciled—aut numen aut Nebuchadrezar. There is but a verbal disagreement between us, and we must own the wisdom of the sentence recorded in Aulus Gellius, that ‘he is but a madman, who splits the weight of things upon the hair-breadths of words.’ You laugh at the quaintness of the quotation; quaint proverbs are often the truest.”
If my reader should think lightly of me, when I own that I felt wavering and irresolute at the end of this speech, let him for a moment place himself in my situation—let him feel indignant at the treachery, the injustice, the ingratitude of one man; and, at the very height of his resentment, let him be soothed, flattered, courted, by the offered friendship and favour of another. Let him personally despise the former, and esteem the latter; and let him, above all, be convinced as well as persuaded of the truth of Vincent’s remark, viz. that no sacrifice of principle, nor of measures, was required—nothing but an alliance against men, not measures. And who were those men? bound to me by a single tie—meriting from my gratitude a single consideration? No! the men, above all others, who had offered me the greatest affront, and deserved from me the smallest esteem.
But, however human feelings might induce me to waver, I felt that it was not by them only I was to decide. I am not a man whose vices or virtues are regulated by the impulse and passion of the moment; if I am quick to act, I am habitually slow to deliberate. I turned to Vincent, and pressed his hand: “I dare not trust myself to answer you now,” said I: “give me till to-morrow; I shall then have both considered and determined.”
I did not wait for his reply. I sprung from him, turned down the passage which leads to Pall Mall, and hastened home once more to commune with my own heart, and—not to be still.
In these confessions I have made no scruple of owning my errors and my foibles; all that could occasion mirth, or benefit to the reader were his own. I have kept a veil over the darker and stormier emotions of my soul; all that could neither amuse nor instruct him, are mine!
Hours passed on—it became time to dress—I rung for Bedos—dressed with my usual elaborateness of pains—great emotions interfere little with the mechanical operations of life—and drove to Guloseton’s.
He was unusually entertaining; the dinner too was unusually good; but, thinking that I was sufficiently intimate with my host not to be obliged to belie my feelings, I remained distrait, absent, and dull.
“What is the matter with you, my friend?” said the good natured epicure; “you have neither applauded my jokes, nor tasted my escallopes; and your behaviour has trifled alike with my chevreuil, and my feelings.” The proverb is right, in saying “Grief is communicative.” I confess that I was eager to unbosom myself to one upon whose confidence I could depend. Guloseton heard me with great attention and interest—“Little,” said he, kindly, “little as I care for these matters myself, I can feel for those who do: I wish I could serve you better than by advice. However, you cannot, I imagine, hesitate to accept Vincent’s offer. What matters it whether you sit on one bench or on another, so that you do not sit in a thorough draught—or dine at Lord Lincoln’s, or Lord Dawton’s, so long as the cooks are equally good? As for Dawton, I always thought him a shuffling, mean fellow, who buys his wines at the second price, and sells his offices at the first. Come, my dear fellow, let us drink to his confusion.”
So saying, Guloseton filled my glass to the brim. He had sympathized with me—I thought it, therefore, my duty to sympathize with him; nor did we part till the eyes of the bon vivant saw more things in heaven and earth, than are dreamt of in the philosophy of the sober.
VOLUME VII
CHAPTER LXXIII
Si ad honestatem nati sumus ea aut sola expetenda est, aut certe omni pondere gravior est habenda quam reliqua omnia.
—Tully.
Cas. Brutus, I do observe you now of late:
I have not from your eyes that gentleness,
And shew of love as I was wont to have.
—Julius Caesar.
I rose at my usual early hour; sleep had tended to calm, and, I hope, also, to better my feelings. I had now leisure to reflect, that I had not embraced my party from any private or interested motive; it was not, therefore, from a private or interested motive that I was justified in deserting it. Our passions are terrible sophists! When Vincent had told me, the day before, that it was from men, not measures, that I was to change, and that such a change could scarcely deserve the name, my heart adopted the assertion, and fancied it into truth.
I now began to perceive the delusion; were government as mechanically perfect as it has never yet been (but as I trust it may yet be), it would signify little who were the mere machines that regulated its springs: but in a constitution like ours, the chief character of which—pardon me, ye De Lolmites—is its uncertainty; where men invariably make the measures square to the dimensions of their own talent or desire; and where, reversing the maxim of the tailor, the measures so rarely make the men; it required no penetration to see how dangerous it was to entrust to the aristocratic prejudice of Lincoln, or the vehement imbecility of Lesborough, the execution of the very same measures which might safely be committed to the plain sense of Dawton, and, above all, to the great and various talents of his coadjutors. But what made the vital difference between the two parties was less in the leaders than the body. In the Dawton faction, the best, the purest, the wisest of the day were enrolled; they took upon themselves the origin of all the active measures, and Lord Dawton was the mere channel through which those measures flowed; the plain, the unpretending, and somewhat feeble character of Lord Dawton’s mind, readily conceded to the abler components of his party, the authority it was so desirable that they should exert. In Vincent’s party, with the exception of himself, there was scarcely an individual with the honesty requisite for loving the projects they affected to propose, or the talents that were necessary for carrying them into effect, even were their wishes sincere; nor were either the haughty Lincoln, or his noisy and overbearing companion, Lesborough, at all of a temper to suffer that quiet, yet powerful interference of others, to which Dawton unhesitatingly submitted.
I was the more resolved to do all possible justice to Dawton’s party, from the inclination I naturally had to lean towards the other; and in all matters, where private pique or self-interest can possibly penetrate, it has ever been the object of my maturer consideration to direct my particular attention to that side of the question which such undue partizans are the least likely to espouse. While I was gradually, but clearly, feeling my way to a decision, I received the following note from Guloseton:—
“I said nothing to you last night of what is now to be the subject of my letter, lest you should suppose it arose rather from the heat of an extempore conviviality, than its real source, viz. a sincere esteem for your mind, a sincere affection for your heart, and a sincere sympathy in your resentment and your interest.
“They tell me that Lord Dawton’s triumph or discomfiture rests entirely upon the success of the motion upon—, brought before the House of Commons, on the—. I care, you know, very little for my own part, which way this question is decided; do not think, therefore, that I make any sacrifice when I request you to suffer me to follow your advice in the disposal of my four votes. I imagine, of course, that you would wish them to adopt the contrary side to Lord Dawton; and upon receiving a line from you to that effect, they shall be empowered to do so.
“Pray, oblige me also by taking the merit of this measure upon yourself, and saying (wherever it may be useful to you), how entirely, both the voters and their influence are at your disposal. I trust we shall yet play the Bel to this Dragon, and fell him from his high places.
“Pity me, my dear friend; I dine out to-day, and feel already, by an intuitive shudder, that the soup will be cold, and the sherry hot. Adieu.
“Ever your’s,
“Guloseton.”
Now, then, my triumph, my vanity, and my revenge might be fully gratified. I had before me a golden opportunity of displaying my own power, and of humbling that of the minister. My heart swelled high at the thought. Let it be forgiven me, if, for a single moment, my previous calculations and morality vanished from my mind, and I saw only the offer of Vincent, and the generosity of Guloseton. But I checked the risings of my heart, and compelled my proud spirit to obedience.
I placed Guloseton’s letter before me, and as I read it once more in order to reply to it, the disinterested kindness and delicacy of one, whom I had long, in the injustice of my thoughts, censured as selfish, came over me so forcibly, and contrasted so deeply with the hollowness of friends more sounding, alike in their profession and their creeds, that the tears streamed fast and gushingly from my eyes.
A thousand misfortunes are less affecting than a single kindness.
I wrote, in answer, a warm and earnest letter of thanks for an offer, the judicious kindness of which penetrated me to the soul. I detailed, at some length, the reasons which induced me to the decision I had taken; I sketched also the nature of the very important motion about to be brought before the House, and deduced from that sketch the impossibility of conscientiously opposing Lord Dawton’s party in the debate. I concluded with repeating the expressions my gratitude suggested, and after declining all interference with Lord Guloseton’s votes, ventured to add, that had I interfered, it would have been in support of Dawton; not as a man, but a minister—not as an individual friend, but a public servant.
I had just despatched this letter, when Vincent entered: I acquainted him, though in the most respectful and friendly terms, with my determination. He seemed greatly disappointed, and endeavoured to shake my resolution; finding this was in vain, he appeared at last satisfied, and even affected with my reasons. When we parted, it was with a promise, confirmed by both, that no public variance should ever again alter our private opinions of each other.
When I was once more alone, and saw myself brought back to the very foot of the ladder I had so far and so fortunately climbed; when I saw that, in rejecting all the overtures of my friends, I was left utterly solitary and unaided among my foes—when I looked beyond and saw no faint loophole of hope, no single stepping-stone on which to recommence my broken, but unwearied career—perhaps one pang of regret and repentance, at my determination, came across me: but there is something marvellously restorative in a good conscience, and one soon learns to look with hope to the future, when one can feel justified in turning with pride to the past.
My horse came to the door at my usual hour for riding: with what gladness I sprung upon his back, felt the free wind freshening over my fevered cheek, and turned my rein towards the green lanes that border the great city on its western side. I know few counsellors more exhilarating than a spirited horse. I do not wonder that the Roman emperor made a consul of his steed. On horseback I always best feel my powers, and survey my resources; on horseback, I always originate my noblest schemes, and plan their ablest execution. Give me but a light rein, and a free bound, and I am Cicero—Cato—Caesar; dismount me, and I become a mere clod of the earth which you condemn me to touch; fire, energy, etheriality have departed; I am the soil without the sun—the cask without the wine—the garments without the man.
I returned home with increased spirits and collected thoughts; I urged my mind from my own situation, and suffered it to rest upon what Lady Roseville had told me of Reginald Glanville’s interference in my behalf. That extraordinary man still continued powerfully to excite my interest; nor could I dwell, without some yearning of the kindlier affections, upon his unsolicited, and, but for Lady Roseville’s communication, unknown exertions in my cause. Although the officers of justice were still actively employed in the pursuit of Tyrrell’s murderer, and although the newspapers were still full of speculations on their indifferent success, public curiosity had began to flag upon the inquiry. I had, once or twice, been in Glanville’s company when the murder was brought upon the tapis, and narrowly examined his behaviour upon a subject which touched him so fearfully. I could not, however, note any extraordinary confusion or change in his countenance; perhaps the pale cheek grew somewhat paler, the dreaming eye more abstracted, and the absent spirit more wandering than before; but many other causes than guilt, could account for signs so doubtful and minute.
“You shall soon know all,” the last words which he had addressed to me, yet rang in my ears, and most intensely did I anticipate the fulfilment of this promise. My hopes too—those flatterers, so often the pleasing antitheses of reason, whispered that this was not the pledge of a guilty man; and yet he had said to Lady Roseville, that he did not wonder at my estrangement from him: such words seemed to require a less favourable construction than those he had addressed to me; and, in making this mental remark, another, of no flattering nature to Glanville’s disinterestedness, suggested itself; might not his interference for me with Lord Dawton, arise rather from policy than friendship; might it not occur to him, if, as I surmised, he was acquainted with my suspicions, and acknowledged their dreadful justice, that it would be advisable to propitiate my silence? Such were among the thousand thoughts which flashed across me, and left my speculations in debate and doubt.
Nor did my reflections pass unnoticed the nature of Lady Roseville’s affection for Glanville. From the seeming coldness and austerity of Sir Reginald’s temperament, it was likely that this was innocent, at least in act; and there was also something guileless in the manner in which she appeared rather to exult in, than to conceal, her attachment. True that she was bound to no ties; she had neither husband nor children, for whose sake love became a crime: free and unfettered, if she gave her heart to Glanville, it was also allowable to render the gift lawful and perpetual by the blessing of the church.
Alas! how little can woman, shut up in her narrow and limited circle of duties, know of the wandering life and various actions of her lover. Little, indeed, could Lady Roseville, when, in the heat of her enthusiasm, she spoke of the lofty and generous character of Glanville, dream of the foul and dastardly crime of which he was more than suspected; nor, while it was, perhaps, her fondest wish to ally herself to his destiny, could her wildest fancies anticipate the felon’s fate, which, if death came not in an hastier and kinder shape, must sooner or later await him.
Of Thornton, I had neither seen nor heard aught since my departure from Lord Chester’s; that reprieve was, however, shortly to expire. I had scarcely got into Oxford-street, in my way homeward, when I perceived him crossing the street with another man. I turned round to scrutinize the features of his companion, and, in spite of a great change of dress, a huge pair of false whiskers, and an artificial appearance of increased age, my habit of observing countenances enabled me to recognize, on the instant, my intellectual and virtuous friend, Mr. Job Jonson. They disappeared in a shop, nor did I think it worth while further to observe them, though I still bore a reminiscetory spite against Mr. Job Jonson, which I was fully resolved to wreak, at the first favourable opportunity.
I passed by Lady Roseville’s door. Though the hour was late, and I had, therefore, but a slight chance of finding her at home, yet I thought the chance worth the trouble of inquiry. To my agreeable surprise, I was admitted: no one was in the drawing-room. The servant said, Lady Roseville was at that moment engaged, but would very shortly see me, and begged I would wait.
Agitated as I was by various reflections, I walked (in the restlessness of my mood) to and fro the spacious rooms which formed Lady Roseville’s apartments of reception. At the far end was a small boudoir, where none but the goddess’s favoured few were admitted. As I approached towards it, I heard voices, and the next moment recognised the deep tones of Glanville. I turned hastily away, lest I should overhear the discourse; but I had scarcely got three steps, when the convulsed sound of a woman’s sob came upon my ear. Shortly afterwards, steps descended the stairs, and the street door opened.
The minutes rolled on, and I became impatient. The servant re-entered—Lady Roseville was so suddenly and seriously indisposed, that she was unable to see me. I left the house, and, full of bewildered conjectures, returned to my apartments.
The next day was one of the most important in my life. I was standing wistfully by my fireplace, listening to a broken-winded hurdy-gurdy, with the most mournful attention, stationed opposite to my window, when Bedos announced Sir Reginald Glanville. It so happened, that I had that morning taken the miniature I had found in the fatal field, from the secret place in which I usually kept it, in order more closely to examine it, lest any more convincing proof of its owner, than the initials and Thornton’s interpretation, might be discovered by a minuter investigation.
The picture was lying on the table when Glanville entered: my first impulse was to seize and secrete it; my second to suffer it to remain, and to watch the effect the sight of it might produce. In following the latter, I thought it, however, as well to choose my own time for discovering the miniature; and as I moved to the table, I threw my handkerchief carelessly over it. Glanville came up to me at once, and his countenance, usually close and reserved in its expression, assumed a franker and bolder aspect.
“You have lately changed towards me,” he said:—“mindful of our former friendship, I have come to demand the reason.”
“Can Sir Reginald Glanville’s memory,” answered I, “supply him with no probable cause?”
“It can,” replied Glanville, “but I would not trust only to that. Sit down, Pelham, and listen to me. I can read your thoughts, and I might affect to despise their import—perhaps two years since I should—at present I can pity and excuse them. I have come to you now, in the love and confidence of our early days, to claim, as then, your good opinion and esteem. If you require any explanation at my hands, it shall be given. My days are approaching their end. I have made up my accounts with others—I would do so with you. I confess, that I would fain leave behind me in your breast, the same affectionate remembrance I might heretofore have claimed, and which, whatever be your suspicions, I have done nothing to forfeit. I have, moreover, a dearer interest than my own to consult in this wish—you colour, Pelham—you know to whom I allude; for my sister’s sake, if not for my own, you will hear me.”
Glanville paused for a moment. I raised the handkerchief from the miniature—I pushed the latter towards him—“Do you remember this?” said I, in a low tone.
With a wild cry, which thrilled through my heart, Glanville sprung forward and seized it. He gazed eagerly and intensely upon it, and his cheek flushed—his eyes sparkled—his breast heaved. The next moment he fell back in his chair, in one of the half swoons, to which, upon any sudden and violent emotion, the debilitating effects of his disease subjected him.
Before I could come to his assistance he had recovered. He looked wildly and fiercely upon me. “Speak,” he cried, “speak—where got you this—where?—answer, for mercy’s sake!”
“Recollect yourself,” said I, sternly. “I found that token of your presence upon the spot where Tyrrell was murdered.”
“True, true,” said Glanville, slowly, and in an absent and abstracted tone. He ceased abruptly, and covered his face with his hands; from this attitude he started with some sudden impulse.
“And tell me,” he said, in a low, inward, exulting tone, “was it—was it red with the blood of the murdered man?”
“Wretch!” I exclaimed, “do you glory in your guilt?”
“Hold!” said Glanville, rising, with an altered and haughty air; “it is not to your accusations that I am now to listen: if you are yet desirous of weighing their justice before you decide upon them, you will have the opportunity: I shall be at home at ten this night; come to me, and you shall know all. At present, the sight of this picture has unnerved me. Shall I see you?”
