"It is strange, is it not?" she said, smiling at his effort to be impressive.
"Strange! It is calamitous. I trust I may be allowed to say so. And you sit there reading as calmly as though nothing had happened."
She handed him the book without a word.
""Ivanhoe"!" he said. "A novel!"
"Yes. Do you remember once, before you knew me very well, telling me that Scott"s novels were the only ones that you liked to see in the hands of ladies?"
"No doubt I did. But I cannot talk of literature just--"
"I am not leading you away from what you want to talk about. I was about to tell you that I came upon "Ivanhoe" by chance half an hour ago, when I was searching--I confess it--for something very romantic to read.
Ivanhoe was a prize-fighter--the first half of the book is a description of a prize-fight. I was wondering whether some romancer of the twenty-fourth century will hunt out the exploits of my husband, and present him to the world as a sort of English nineteenth-century Cyd, with all the glory of antiquity upon his deeds."
Lucian made a gesture of impatience. "I have never been able to understand," he said, "how it is that a woman of your ability can habitually dwell on perverse and absurd ideas. Oh, Lydia, is this to be the end of all your great gifts and attainments? Forgive me if I touch a painful chord; but this marriage seems to me so unnatural that I must speak out. Your father made you one of the richest and best-educated women in the world. Would he approve of what you are about to do?"
"It almost seems to me that he educated me expressly to some such end.
Whom would you have me marry?"
"Doubtless few men are worthy of you, Lydia. But this man least of all.
Could you not marry a gentleman? If he were even an artist, a poet, or a man of genius of any kind, I could bear to think of it; for indeed I am not influenced by cla.s.s prejudice in the matter. But a--I will try to say nothing that you must not in justice admit to be too obvious to be ignored--a man of the lower orders, pursuing a calling which even the lower orders despise; illiterate, rough, awaiting at this moment a disgraceful sentence at the hands of the law! Is it possible that you have considered all these things?"
"Not very deeply; they are not of a kind to concern me much. I can console you as to one of them. I have always recognized him as a gentleman, in your sense of the word. He proves to be so--one of considerable position, in fact. As to his approaching trial, I have spoken with Lord Worthington about it, and also with the lawyers who have charge of the case; and they say positively that, owing to certain proofs not being in the hands of the police, a defence can be set up that will save him from imprisonment."
"There is no such defence possible," said Lucian, angrily.
"Perhaps not. As far as I understand it, it is rather an aggravation of the offence than an excuse for it. But if they imprison him it will make no difference. He can console himself by the certainty that I will marry him at once when he is released."
Lucian"s face lengthened. He abandoned the argument, and said, blankly, "I cannot suppose that you would allow yourself to be deceived. If he is a gentleman of position, that of course alters the case completely."
"Very little indeed from my point of view. Hardly at all. And now, worldly cousin Lucian, I have satisfied you that I am not going to connect you by marriage with a butcher, bricklayer, or other member of the trades from which Cashel"s profession, as you warned me, is usually recruited. Stop a moment. I am going to do justice to you. You want to say that my unworldly friend Lucian is far more deeply concerned at seeing the phoenix of modern culture throw herself away on a man unworthy of her."
"That IS what I mean to say, except that you put it too modestly. It is a case of the phoenix, not only of modern culture, but of natural endowment and of every happy accident of the highest civilization, throwing herself away on a man specially incapacitated by his tastes and pursuits from comprehending her or entering the circle in which she moves."
"Listen to me patiently, Lucian, and I will try to explain the mystery to you, leaving the rest of the world to misunderstand me as it pleases.
First, you will grant me that even a phoenix must marry some one in order that she may hand on her torch to her children. Her best course would be to marry another phoenix; but as she--poor girl!--cannot appreciate even her own phoenixity, much less that of another, she must perforce be content with a mere mortal. Who is the mortal to be? Not her cousin Lucian; for rising young politicians must have helpful wives, with feminine politics and powers of visiting and entertaining; a description inapplicable to the phoenix. Not, as you just now suggested, a man of letters. The phoenix has had her share of playing helpmeet to a man of letters, and does not care to repeat that experience. She is sick to death of the morbid introspection and womanish self-consciousness of poets, novelists, and their like. As to artists, all the good ones are married; and ever since the rest have been able to read in hundreds of books that they are the most gifted and G.o.dlike of men, they are become almost as intolerable as their literary flatterers. No, Lucian, the phoenix has paid her debt to literature and art by the toil of her childhood. She will use and enjoy both of them in future as best she can; but she will never again drudge in their laboratories. You say that she might at least have married a gentleman. But the gentlemen she knows are either amateurs of the arts, having the egotism of professional artists without their ability, or they are men of pleasure, which means that they are dancers, tennis-players, butchers, and gamblers. I leave the nonent.i.ties out of the question. Now, in the eyes of a phoenix, a prize-fighter is a hero in comparison with a wretch who sets a leash of greyhounds upon a hare. Imagine, now, this poor phoenix meeting with a man who had never been guilty of self-a.n.a.lysis in his life--who complained when he was annoyed, and exulted when he was glad, like a child (and unlike a modern man)--who was honest and brave, strong and beautiful. You open your eyes, Lucian: you do not do justice to Cashel"s good looks. He is twenty-five, and yet there is not a line in his face.
It is neither thoughtful, nor poetic, nor wearied, nor doubting, nor old, nor self-conscious, as so many of his contemporaries" faces are--as mine perhaps is. The face of a pagan G.o.d, a.s.sured of eternal youth, and absolutely disqualified from comprehending "Faust." Do you understand a word of what I am saying, Lucian?"
"I must confess that I do not. Either you have lost your reason, or I have. I wish you had never taking to reading "Faust.""
"It is my fault. I began an explanation, and rambled off, womanlike, into praise of my lover. However, I will not attempt to complete my argument; for if you do not understand me from what I have already said, the further you follow the wider you will wander. The truth, in short, is this: I practically believe in the doctrine of heredity; and as my body is frail and my brain morbidly active, I think my impulse towards a man strong in body and untroubled in mind a trustworthy one. You can understand that; it is a plain proposition in eugenics. But if I tell you that I have chosen this common pugilist because, after seeing half the culture of Europe, I despaired of finding a better man, you will only tell me again that I have lost my reason."
"I know that you will do whatever you have made up your mind to do,"
said Lucian, desolately.
"And you will make the best of it, will you not?"
"The best or the worst of it does not rest with me. I can only accept it as inevitable."
"Not at all. You can make the worst of it by behaving distantly to Cashel; or the best of it by being friendly with him."
Lucian reddened and hesitated. She looked at him, mutely encouraging him to be generous.
"I had better tell you," he said. "I have seen him since--since--"
Lydia nodded. "I mistook his object in coming into my room as he did, unannounced. In fact, he almost forced his way in. Some words arose between us. At last he taunted me beyond endurance, and offered me--characteristically--twenty pounds to strike him. And I am sorry to say that I did so."
"You did so! And what followed?"
"I should say rather that I meant to strike him; for he avoided me, or else I missed my aim. He only gave the money and went away, evidently with a high opinion of me. He left me with a very low one of myself."
"What! He did not retaliate!" exclaimed Lydia, recovering her color, which had fled. "And you STRUCK him!" she added.
"He did not," replied Lucian, pa.s.sing by the reproach. "Probably he despised me too much."
"That is not fair, Lucian. He behaved very well--for a prize-fighter!
Surely you do not grudge him his superiority in the very art you condemn him for professing."
"I was wrong, Lydia; but I grudged him you. I know I have acted hastily; and I will apologize to him. I wish matters had fallen out otherwise."
"They could not have done so; and I believe you will yet acknowledge that they have arranged themselves very well. And now that the phoenix is disposed of, I want to read you a letter I have received from Alice Goff, which throws quite a new light on her character. I have not seen her since June, and she seems to have gained three years" mental growth in the interim. Listen to this, for example."
And so the conversation turned upon Alice.
When Lucian returned to his chambers, he wrote the following note, which he posted to Cashel Byron before going to bed:
"Dear Sir,--I beg to enclose you a bank-note which you left here this evening. I feel bound to express my regret for what pa.s.sed on that occasion, and to a.s.sure you that it proceeded from a misapprehension of your purpose in calling on me. The nervous disorder into which the severe mental application and late hours of the past session have thrown me must be my excuse. I hope to have the pleasure of meeting you again soon, and offering you personally my congratulations on your approaching marriage. "I am, dear sir, yours truly, "Lucian Webber."
CHAPTER XV
In the following month Cashel Byron, William Paradise, and Robert Mellish appeared in the dock together, the first two for having been princ.i.p.als in a prize-fight, and Mellish for having acted as bottle-holder to Paradise. These offences were verbosely described in a long indictment which had originally included the fourth man who had been captured, but against whom the grand jury had refused to find a true bill. The prisoners pleaded not guilty.
The defence was that the fight, the occurrence of which was admitted, was not a prize-fight, but the outcome of an enmity which had subsisted between the two men since one of them, at a public exhibition at Islington, had attacked and bitten the other. In support of this, it was shown that Byron had occupied a house at Wiltstoken, and had lived there with Mellish, who had invited Paradise to spend a holiday with him in the country. This accounted for the presence of the three men at Wiltstoken on the day in question. Words had arisen between Byron and Paradise on the subject of the Islington affair; and they had at last agreed to settle the dispute in the old English fashion. They had adjourned to a field, and fought fairly and determinedly until interrupted by the police, who were misled by appearances into the belief that the affair was a prize-fight.
Prize-fighting was a brutal pastime, Cashel Byron"s counsel said; but a fair, stand-up fight between two unarmed men, though doubtless technically a breach of the peace, had never been severely dealt with by a British jury or a British judge; and the case would be amply met by binding over the prisoners, who were now on the best of terms with one another, to keep the peace for a reasonable period. The sole evidence against this view of the case, he argued, was police evidence; and the police were naturally reluctant to admit that they had found a mare"s nest. In proof that the fight had been premeditated, and was a prize-fight, they alleged that it had taken place within an enclosure formed with ropes and stakes. But where were those ropes and stakes?
They were not forthcoming; and he (counsel) submitted that the reason was not, as had been suggested, because they had been spirited away, for that was plainly impossible; but because they had existed only in the excited imagination of the posse of constables who had arrested the prisoners.
Again, it had been urged that the prisoners were in fighting costume.
But cross-examination had elicited that fighting costume meant practically no costume at all: the men had simply stripped in order that their movements might be unembarra.s.sed. It had been proved that Paradise had been--well, in the traditional costume of Paradise (roars of laughter) until the police borrowed a blanket to put upon him.
That the constables had been guilty of gross exaggeration was shown by their evidence as to the desperate injuries the combatants had inflicted upon one another. Of Paradise in particular it had been alleged that his features were obliterated. The jury had before them in the dock the man whose features had been obliterated only a few weeks previously. If that were true, where had the prisoner obtained the unblemished lineaments which he was now, full of health and good-humor, presenting to them?
(Renewed laughter. Paradise grinning in confusion.) It was said that these terrible injuries, the traces of which had disappeared so miraculously, were inflicted by the prisoner Byron, a young gentleman tenderly nurtured, and visibly inferior in strength and hardihood to his herculean opponent. Doubtless Byron had been emboldened by his skill in mimic combat to try conclusions, under the very different conditions of real fighting, with a man whose ma.s.sive shoulders and determined cast of features ought to have convinced him that such an enterprise was nothing short of desperate. Fortunately the police had interfered before he had suffered severely for his rashness. Yet it had been alleged that he had actually worsted Paradise in the encounter--obliterated his features.
That was a fair sample of the police evidence, which was throughout consistently incredible and at variance with the dictates of common-sense.
Attention was then drawn to the honorable manner in which Byron had come forward and given himself up to the police the moment he became aware that they were in search of him. Paradise would, beyond a doubt, have adopted the same course had he not been arrested at once, and that, too, without the least effort at resistance on his part. That was hardly the line of conduct that would have suggested itself to two lawless prize-fighters.