Evan Harrington — Complete. George Meredith
in him.
On deck the Countess paced with Evan, and was for a time pleasantly diverted by the admiration she could, without looking, perceive that her sorrow-subdued graces had aroused in the breast of a susceptible naval lieutenant. At last she spoke:
'My dear! remember this. Your last word to Mr. Jocelyn will be: “I will do myself the honour to call upon my benefactor early.” To Rose you will say: “Be assured, Miss Jocelyn 'Miss Jocelyn—' I shall not fail in hastening to pay my respects to your family in Hampshire.” You will remember to do it, in the exact form I speak it.'
Evan laughed: 'What! call him benefactor to his face? I couldn't do it.'
'Ah! my child!'
'Besides, he isn't a benefactor at all. His private secretary died, and I stepped in to fill the post, because nobody else was handy.'
'And tell me of her who pushed you forward, Evan?'
'My dear sister, I'm sure I'm not ungrateful.'
'No; but headstrong: opinionated. Now these people will endeavour—Oh! I have seen it in a thousand little things—they wish to shake us off. Now, if you will but do as I indicate! Put your faith in an older head, Evan. It is your only chance of society in England. For your brother-in-law—I ask you, what sort of people will you meet at the Cogglesbys? Now and then a nobleman, very much out of his element. In short, you have fed upon a diet which will make you to distinguish, and painfully to know the difference! Indeed! Yes, you are looking about for Rose. It depends upon your behaviour now, whether you are to see her at all in England. Do you forget? You wished once to inform her of your origin. Think of her words at the breakfast this morning!'
The Countess imagined she had produced an impression. Evan said: 'Yes, and I should have liked to have told her this morning that I'm myself nothing more than the son of a—'
'Stop! cried his sister, glancing about in horror. The admiring lieutenant met her eye. Blandishingly she smiled on him: 'Most beautiful weather for a welcome to dear England?' and passed with majesty.
'Boy!' she resumed, 'are you mad?'
'I hate being such a hypocrite, madam.'
'Then you do not love her, Evan?'
This may have been dubious logic, but it resulted from a clear sequence of ideas in the lady's head. Evan did not contest it.
'And assuredly you will lose her, Evan. Think of my troubles! I have to intrigue for Silva; I look to your future; I smile, Oh heaven! how do I not smile when things are spoken that pierce my heart! This morning at the breakfast!'
Evan took her hand, and patted it.
'What is your pity?' she sighed.
'If it had not been for you, my dear sister, I should never have held my tongue.'
'You are not a Harrington! You are a Dawley!' she exclaimed, indignantly.
Evan received the accusation of possessing more of his mother's spirit than his father's in silence.
'You would not have held your tongue,' she said, with fervid severity: 'and you would have betrayed yourself! and you would have said you were that! and you in that costume! Why, goodness gracious! could you bear to appear so ridiculous?'
The poor young man involuntarily surveyed his person. The pains of an impostor seized him. The deplorable image of the Don making confession became present to his mind. It was a clever stroke of this female intriguer. She saw him redden grievously, and blink his eyes; and not wishing to probe him so that he would feel intolerable disgust at his imprisonment in the Don, she continued:
'But you have the sense to see your duties, Evan. You have an excellent sense, in the main. No one would dream—to see you. You did not, I must say, you did not make enough of your gallantry. A Portuguese who had saved a man's life, Evan, would he have been so boorish? You behaved as if it was a matter of course that you should go overboard after anybody, in your clothes, on a dark night. So, then, the Jocelyns took it. I barely heard one compliment to you. And Rose—what an effect it should have had on her! But, owing to your manner, I do believe the girl thinks it nothing but your ordinary business to go overboard after anybody, in your clothes, on a dark night. 'Pon my honour, I believe she expects to see you always dripping!' The Countess uttered a burst of hysterical humour. 'So you miss your credit. That inebriated sailor should really have been gold to you. Be not so young and thoughtless.'
The Countess then proceeded to tell him how foolishly he had let slip his great opportunity. A Portuguese would have fixed the young lady long before. By tender moonlight, in captivating language, beneath the umbrageous orange-groves, a Portuguese would have accurately calculated the effect of the perfume of the blossom on her sensitive nostrils, and know the exact moment when to kneel, and declare his passion sonorously.
'Yes,' said Evan, 'one of them did. She told me.'
'She told you? And you—what did you do?'
'Laughed at him with her, to be sure.'
'Laughed at him! She told you, and you helped her to laugh at love! Have you no perceptions? Why did she tell you?'
'Because she thought him such a fool, I suppose.'
'You never will know a woman,' said the Countess, with contempt.
Much of his worldly sister at a time was more than Evan could bear. Accustomed to the symptoms of restiveness, she finished her discourse, enjoyed a quiet parade up and down under the gaze of the lieutenant, and could find leisure to note whether she at all struck the inferior seamen, even while her mind was absorbed by the multiform troubles and anxieties for which she took such innocent indemnification.
The appearance of the Hon. Melville Jocelyn on deck, and without his wife, recalled her to business. It is a peculiarity of female diplomatists that they fear none save their own sex. Men they regard as their natural prey: in women they see rival hunters using their own weapons. The Countess smiled a slowly-kindling smile up to him, set her brother adrift, and delicately linked herself to Evan's benefactor.
'I have been thinking,' she said, 'knowing your kind and most considerate attentions, that we may compromise you in England.'
He at once assured her he hoped not, he thought not at all.
'The idea is due to my brother,' she went on; 'for I—women know so little!—and most guiltlessly should we have done so. My brother perhaps does not think of us foremost; but his argument I can distinguish. I can see, that were you openly to plead Silva's cause, you might bring yourself into odium, Mr. Jocelyn; and heaven knows I would not that! May I then ask, that in England we may be simply upon the same footing of private friendship?'
The diplomatist looked into her uplifted visage, that had all the sugary sparkles of a crystallized preserved fruit of the Portugal clime, and observed, confidentially, that, with every willingness in the world to serve her, he did think it would possibly be better, for a time, to be upon that footing, apart from political considerations.
'I was very sure my brother would apprehend your views,' said the Countess. 'He, poor boy! his career is closed. He must sink into a different sphere. He will greatly miss the intercourse with you and your sweet family.'
Further relieved, the diplomatist delivered a high opinion of the young gentleman, his abilities, and his conduct, and trusted he should see him frequently.
By an apparent sacrifice, the lady thus obtained what she wanted.
Near the hour speculated on by the diplomatist, the papers came on board, and he, unaware how he had been manoeuvred for lack of a wife at his elbow, was quickly engaged in appeasing the great British hunger for news; second only to that for beef, it seems, and equally acceptable salted when it cannot be had fresh.
Leaving the devotee of statecraft with his legs crossed, and his face wearing the cognizant air of one whose head is above the waters of events, to enjoy the mighty meal of fresh and salted at discretion, the Countess dived below.