W I L D R O E .
A ‘
Zfiomanze.
J O H N H I L L .
Sah e in Kn ab’
e in Résle in étehn ,Rdsle in a lif d e r H eiden ,
War so jun g 11n d m o rge n scho n ,
Lief e r schn e ll e s n ahzusehe n ,
Sab's m it vie le n Freuden
Rosle in , Ro slem ,Rdsle in ro th
Rtislem auf d e r H eiden .
’
J . W. v. GOETH E.
IN TH REE VOLUMES.
VOL . I .
L O N D O N
TINSLEY BROTH ERS , 8 , CATH ERINE STREET,
STRAND.
1882 .
H ss a mv .21.
321372531211
T O M Y F R I E N D,
E. S . C .,
WH O APPRECIATES
‘
SZSZ'
I L D R O S E S .
II.
III.
VI.
CONTENTS OF VOL . I .
PAGE
PRELIMINARY
BAPTISM IN WINE AND FIRE
EAVE LODGE,WINTERDALE
J ACK MILLER
JACK’S ACADEMIC LIFE
ALMA PIA—DURA MATER
ROSA ENTERS SOCIETY
DOMESTIC
MAX LAURENCE
WH AT J ACK SAW IN CH URCH
ARTH UR RADFORD—MILES GLORIOSU S
W I L D RO S E .
CHAPTER I.
PRELIMINARY.
IT wa s early in the morning o n e S ep
tember som e years ago,during the first
decade o f the Second Em pire , in the
Boulevard St . Miche l, in‘
Pa ris ; early
enough for industrial a nd professional
Paris only to be awake o r astir. Workmen
,robust
,rubicund and sun-tanned
,in
blouses,were going in that leisurely con
ve rsatio n a l style peculiar to workmen whengoing toward their task— to build
,to found
and to destroy in the world of stone and
VOL . I .1
2 WILD ROSE.
cement,minute particles o f the latter rest
ing o n the black bristles o f their unshaven
cheeks,serving as an unmistakable trade
m ark . Cabmen and carters were standingin the doorways or leaning o n the zinccovered counters of Commerces des Vins
,
talking and pondering,in all probability
,o n
the inadvisability o f ever doing work,and
critically watching the laden tramcars that
j ingled ponderously past them,bearing
other workmen,clerks and the like
,whose
work wa s o n o n e side o f the Seine,a n d
their abode o n the other. Nea tly dressedgirls
,inheritors o f the pos ition o f the n ow
extinct grisettes,w ere walking toward their
sewing-rooms, cigar counters, or other and
manifold scenes o f labour, carefully avoid
ing the puddles of the night’
s production,
which the sun ,shining through a washed
blue sky,with white clouds storm-torn
like combed-out wool,had as yet not the
stren gth to efface . It could display stains,
PRELIMINAR Y. 3
d iscolorations,and de file m e n ts
,but
,like
many a reformer,stopped at that, n o t
havin g the power o r energy to remove
them . The Seine itself was a mistymirror
,fading into ae rial perspective
,with
e ach further bridge and tall pile o f o ld city
buildings looking more hazily mysteriousthan the nearer. The mist wa s over the
surface o f the water everywhere, and
seemed like the breath of sleeping Paris .
Pleasure-seekin g Paris wa s asleep—i n
dustrious,discontented
,revolution-making
Paris wa s,as usual
,wide awake but the
time had not arrived for the latter to
strangle the former as it slept,and pay o ff
o ld debts so .
The Boulevard St. Michel is,a s the
reader to whom Paris is familiar wellknows
,o n e o f those large
,n e w and rigid
roads o f the south side o f the river,divert
ing and collecting the dark and crowded
streams o f people from the dark and crowded
1— 2
4 WILD ROSE.
m ain arteries o f the Quartier Latin , suchas the Rue
,St. Jaque s, or the Rue de la
Harpe . The Boulevard St. Germ ain is
j ust such another,nearly at right angles to
it. These two are the forerunners o f the
great work o f destruction so ably begun
under Napoleon II I .,a n d other rulers and
their talented advisers,destined ultimately
to eliminate antiqu ity and picturesquenessfrom the Latin Quarter (which they n ow.
with their m athematical and statisticalprecision choose to split into the Arron
disse m e n ts da Pa n theo n a n d da Luxem
bourg), and with them the oldest histo ricalstreets
,and the shades o f the great de
parted—Musset,Murge r, Mimi Pin son ,
ct 7200 ge n us om n e— and all the literary
and romantic halo which the m ighty
a n d the darling dead have left behindthem . They are gone . Their memory
clings to the dear, dirty, tall o ld streets .
Why not leave them for o n e generation
PRELIMINAR Y. 5
m ore at least,till we have a ll been turned
,
by compulsory education and modern u tili
ta ria n ism,into m athematicians
,moralists
,
a n d meddlesome monomaniacs o f sanitary
reform,ready to sacrifice all beauty and
poetry to remodelled drainage,and all
artistic irregularity and Gothic quaintnessto canons of art
,in which every elemen t o f
art except'
rigid perspective is omitted
It is po ssible that the engineers o r archi
teets o f the o ld streets drew the designs
when their hands were in a state o f
bibulous tremor, and that the workmen
faithfully copied the pattern (both o f archi
tecture and conduct therewith). It is pos
sible that they showered down chimneys
o ut o f a supernatural and Brobdignagian
pepper-castor,letting them stick where
they would o n the roofs,totally irre spe c
tive o f the needs o f the coal-consuming
population below them,thus obliging these
last to bore holes in the walls,and stick
6 WILD ROSE.
black tubes through to let the smoke out,
and thus giving extra o ppo rtun ite s fo r
sentimental sufferers to suicidally suffocate
themselves . It is possible that drains were
as the mystery o f iniquity and the ab om i
n ation o f desolation to these m ediaeval
constructors . Still , face to face with thesem ighty and m anifold faults, which a
carping criticism could carry further,and
indefinitely multiply,an irresistible
,un
reasonable and unreasoning affection,like
that o f man for woman,unites those who
know the quarter,o r what remains o f it
through its poetic past,to that region o f
learning and love,gaiety and despair
,
fame and destitution,poetry and painting
,
folly a n d vice,kindness and brotherly
affection , and eternal romance, o n the south
side of the Seine .In the Boulevard St . Michel
,in the
m idst o f the said region,are many ca fes
a n d brasseries,patronised mainly by the
PRELIMINAR Y. 7
students of the University, and the misce llan e o us literary and artistic population
o f the n eighbourhood. These are different
from the ca fes to which you, wealthy and
aristocratic Briton,soj ourning in the Land
o f Philistia and plenty on the other side,
’
are accustomed,and unless you ca n put up
with seedy apparel,pipes
,saucy female
waiters who will be happy to share yourbreakfast
,and the rather free and ‘realistic ’
conversation o f the quarter,principally
con sisting o f m edical and legal shop ,’ the
fair sex,and the theatres
, you had better
stay o n the ‘other side,’ and n o t intrude
your spectacled nose into society in com
prehensible to yo u, whose shibboleths are
as hieroglyphics to you, and then write an
arti cle o n the depravity of the French .
In o n e o f' these ca fes
,two men— not
workmen this time— are sitting, eagerly
conversing with o n e another. The pur
pose o f this chapter is not, as the reader
8 WILD ROSE.
supposes,to diffuse opinions o n archi
te ctura l and social reform,but to explain
who these two 1n dividuals are,why they
are there,and what they are talking about .
To effect this, we will,if you please, go
back half an hour o r so into the earlier
part o f this September morning,and enter
a s tudio o n the fourth floor o f an o ld house
in the Rue de la Harpe,o n whose door is
n ailed a visiting card
PAUL FEL IX,
Artiste—Pe in tre .
’
Through the studio,which is untidy, large,
and full of work mostly un finished, w e
will walk,and find ourselves in the bed
room (if your sense of propriety ha s not
already m ade you hesitate,n o t knowin g
him as I do)o f the said Paul Felix ,and
behold him,in a shirt and a pair o f
trousers,leisurely balanc ing o n the side of
his bed,with a cigarette dangling lazily
from the corner o f his mouth. The sun
PRELIMDVAR Y.
shines fully and cruelly on the n o t n u
comely but worn face of a quite young man,
remorselessly displaying a complexion indicative o f late hours
,and those habits
usually described by the vague euphemism‘irregular.
’ His hair is long,leonine and
curly,and deep red ; a moustache feline
and bristly decorates his upper lip . His
cheeks and chin are,or rather soon will be
,
shaved,his nose is aquiline and his eyes
brown . The whole expression looks care
less,sensible to humour
,and unutterably
lazy,if you can imagine all that packed
into o n e expression . On a chair sits his
friend,Dr. Ivor T aylor
,an American
Parisian, completely e nf o mt de Pa ris, but
preserving always,throughout his fluent
French , inaccuracy o f accent and grammar,and his American straightforward
,hit-and
slash style o f diction . His appearance isas antithetic as possible to that o f Felix .
He is perhaps a y ear older, but his dark
lO WILD ROSE.
grizzled hair and the eternal Parisian
m oustache,also iron grey
,wrinkled eyelids ,
and thin lantern-Jawed face, n o t unhand
some w ithal,and a pair o f spectacles, give
him the air o f at least ten years ’ seniority.
His frame is strongly built,and he looks
the personification o f force,candour, and
energy—s omething about him always sug
ge sting a calm and courageous house-dog
o f massive proportions and gentle eyes .
His close-cropped hair adds to the illusion . Their conversation wa s o f course in
French,but as -this story is En glish
, n o t
French, it is advisable to translate it,Well, n ow that you have deprived me
o f hours o f my well-deserved rest,
’ began
the painter, what have you to tell me 2
Is there any news ' o r did you merely
come to annoy me,by protruding before
m e the horrible regularity and industry o f
your life,as a n example which yo u know I
never can o r will follow
12 WILD ROSE.
It is as if you had successfully coloureda meerschaum pipe . It is no satisfactionexcept to draw the envious admiration o f
your friends .‘All very well in pipes ; not my notion
to treat girls quite the same way.
’
Why not They are very much a likeboth pretty— both easily go to de struc
tion,and both you get tired of when you
have burned the beauty o ut o f them‘Well
,w e won’t discuss ethics . We shan ’t
alter the eternal unfitn e ss of things much,
that way , I guess . Where’s the story‘The story ' Ah
,yes. By the way
your visit,you know
,has charmed me in
every respect,but it has not removed my
appetite. Suppose we go a n d breakfast '
The story w ill go better with a glass o f
wine and a cigarette,preceded by
, we’ll say
,
bread and butter,and perhaps cheese as
you are with me— for which meal, and for
this occasion only,I will permit you to
PRE LIAIINAR Y. 3
pay,my own resources havin g an unusual
strain upon them at this moment . Shallw e go ’
4’
Do you think of going a s you are ’
4’
Why not ' It is picturesque,and has
a certain savage beauty about it,which it
takes a true artist to appreciate . ’
‘I , not bein g a true artist, would press
you to a little less picturesque,and a little
more civilised,if I am going to walk o ut
with you.
’
I sacrifice myself to prejudice and
Philistinism . Come into the studio a m in ute .
I have a surprise fo r you.
’
Felix got up and strode from the b e d
room to the studio,where he stooped over
and appeared to unravel a kind of nest,
composed mainly of blan ket, and disclosed
in this,in the seat of his own arm -chair, a
m inute, pallid, brown-eyed infant , o f the
female sex . You wanted to see m y
newly discovered be zZe a m ie . There she is I
14 WILD ROSE.
Whether she can a ccommodate herself to
an atmosphere o f carbonate of lead, varnish ,
cognac and caporal tobacco,I know not.
We are going to try.
’
Dr. Taylor put on his glasses and ih
spe cte d it minutely, as if it were a sea
anemone,o r a cancer. It feebly and
helplessly waved small tentacle-like limbs,
and finally anchored its fingers in his
grizzly black moustache,and hauled at it .
N o t the first o f its sex that’s done tha t,
m e n cher,
’ remarked the painter,laughin g.
‘Where in thunder did he get thatexclaimed the bewildered American in hisnative tongue .
Entirely m y own opinion,
’ replied the
other,in his native tongue .
What’s this asked Taylor, relapsing
into French.
‘A human being ; youn g
specimen ; sex, female. Rare in this
locality— a t that age , at any rate .’
Where did you get it
PRELIMINAR Y. 15
That , my friend , is the story .
’
D r. Taylor gazed at it with a n expres
s ion o f gloom and embarrassment,and
a fter some silence remarkedI suppose it’s pretty
Pretty ' Good heaven s,she’s per
fe ctly beautiful ' But it takes an artist’s
e y e— min e
,for example— to see that . ’
‘Doubtless. I don’t know anything
about that kind o f being,except pro fe s
sio n ally .
‘Except professionally. Of course,
neither do I ; but then my profession
leads me to study the outsides o f beings,
yours merely the insides ; which re
minds me that our own insides require
speedy replenishment . Therefore I‘,will
adorn myself ; I am about to shave .
N ow don’t speak to me,o r make me
laugh,o r bang the door or stick pins into
the infant,o r anything calculated to m ake
me cut my throat. ’
l 6 WILD ROSE.
Some moments passed ; after whichFélix appeared in a rather ancient frock
coat, his hair combed, and o n his head a
tall hat,slightly o n o n e side
,and bearing
an appearance of antiquity equal at leastto that o f the coat
,and wearin g round
his neck a flowing crimson handkerchief,
which toned down the rather conflagration
suggesting hue of his hair.
H ow do I look n ow'’ asked he
,turning
up his moustaches and striking an atti
tude .
‘Just the same hopeless mixture of
vagabond and baby that you always do ;come along.
’
You,aristocratic Briton from the other
side,
’
whom I have previously had the
honour o f apostrophising, had you seen
Paul Felix,would have pronounced him a
thorough cad . That only shows that you
are too hasty in forming judgments from
external appearances,and have not a suffi
PRELIMINAR Y. 17
cie n tly wide acquaintance with mankind
to possess sympathy and largeness of
mind. For Paul Felix was nothing Of
the sort ; and c
n
ould enj oy a Greek play
as m uch and more than an opera b oufi’
e ,
’
a nd that is m ore than you c a n say.
Excuse plain language .‘N ow w e will go into the Boulevard, to
Madame Triboulet,and have coffee
,and
ask Cesarin e’
s advice ; I will take your
a rm, as that seems to irritate you more
than anything else in public .
’
As they walked along the pavement,in
the morning sunlight,Taylor said '
‘Has it ever occurred to you to ask
yourself what is going to becom e Of you '
What are you going to do ' H OW are yo u
going to live ' You can’t keep up this
sort o f existence for ever,you know.
’
I never speculate on such a very unsafe
and unpleasant subj ect as my future ; and
no o n e but an outspoken o ld bear like
VOL . I . 2
18 WILD ROSE.
yourself would have wounded me by
alluding to it. I am having an idle fit
just now. I sometimes do .
’
‘I believe your last idle fit has lasted
about three-and-twen ty years .’
‘Idleness is necessary to the artistictemperament. ’
Artistic blague‘Besides
,I have n o t been idle. What
wa s I to do ' I came here,ostensibly
,to
study medicine— at least such wa s the
intention Of my guardians,who hoped that
som e day the Faculty, in a fit Of temporary
aberration Of intellect,might make me a
doctor. But dissections a n d Operations
had not the attraction for me they have
for more fortunate and more utilitarian
minds,and I devoted myself to human and
mental physiology,giving my attention
chiefly to its phenomena as m an ifested by
the other sex— also to the consumption Of
the excellent beer a n d tobacco of the
20 WILD ROSE.
produced the journal. My story wa s o f a
nature calculated to wither to the marrowand shake o n their thrones all the crowned
heads Of Europe— if they had only read it,
which they,in their blindness
,failed to do .
I imitated Victor Hugo,and wrote in
short,possibly pithy sentences, and talked
about the giants and spe ctres Of ’
93 o n
every other page . Here,however
,the
resemblance ceased. Victor Hugo did n o t
write to inform me that I wa s an
Apocalypse,though the sub-editor forged
a letter from him to that effect. Gambetta
did not give me the notice and patron age
due to my influence and sentiments . The
crowned heads remained o n their thrones,
and the paper fell through from lack o f
support before the editor had time to
realise his pet ambition o f getting im
prisoned fo r sedition,which would have
sold the paper a thousand a day. A fine
would have been nothing to him. You
PRELIMINARY. 21
cannot fine a man who has no money . SoI came to the conclusion that literature
was not the pathw pro vide d fo r me by the
fates,and returned to my Old study Of
human psycho logy,and here I am . I ’ve
7got an idea
You have got a tongue,anyhow. N ow
,
suppose you listen to me. I am not moral
and all that sort o f thing, as yo u know,but
I have certain sentiments,and prej udices
as yo u will call them ,and I ’ve been in the
world a trifle lon ger than yo u have , and
I ’ll tell you this much . Paris is not the
whole world,as you seem to think , and
my sympathies spread beyond the Barriere
de l’
EtOile,even across the Atlantic
,
where I know certain o ld folks at home— not educated like us
,though they had
me educated ; not looking at thin gs the
way we do, perhaps , but seeing the world
through Old-fashioned spectacles have
sent m e here at their expense,with
22 WILD ROSE.
the money they’ve worked for a n d I
haven’t,to learn things
,and come back
from Europe a better and a wiser man .
They think I ’m working hard,and b e
havin g proper,a n d going to church with a
high hat o n Sundays . Well, I can’t goto church n ow. You and your modern
thought and scepticism and progress and
all that have taken away from me all that
the Old folks believe in but I am entirely
blasted if I don’t do something— not much,
but what I can— to come up to their ex
pe ctatio n s. NO o n e ever does come up to
his parents’ expectations, but I guess I’m
trying. H o w am I to account for my grey
hairs a n d knowledge Of the world to my
mother Just think Of that . You know
how o n e gets grey hairs here . You know
what sort o f a world o n e gets knowledge Of
here,and I confess I like that world. But
you can enj oy life a n d work too . Now,
just chuck Off that cursed don’t care,don ’
t
PRELIMINAR Y. 23
believe sort of tone you are putting o n,and
put yourself in the same position with
regard to your\
relations,and honestly
say if you ain’t behavin g like a d —d
ungrateful young fool‘My dear sir, your words contain all
the rude w isdom Of the Bible,together
with all the impracticable principles o f
that va luable work . Yo u,in spite o f
your dissections and nasal accent,are a
poet, minus the power Of writing verse .
I know you like sunsets,fo r you never go
into eloquent rapture when you see o n e ,
but keep still . You also love humanity
and revere women,in spite Of your rather
inconsistent b ehavm ur to them . N ow,with
all this,it is perfectly natural that your
sentiments should be what they are . I
am not Of the same constitution I do n o t
feel any particular affection for humanity
at large,and I believe the feeling is pretty
m utual . As regards Obligations to others,
24 WILD ROSE.
I have n o such embarrassments as ex
pe cta n t fathers and mothers ; and the
only relations I have, would say, with a
sigh Of relief,I told you so '
” if I were
guillotined at three this afternoon . SO
that Obj ection to my conduct falls to the
ground. Your world may go beyond
Paris. Mine does not. At least, n o t
further than Asnieres by steamboat o n
Sunday afternoons . My whole life is
bound up w ith Paris . Have I never had
any human feelings ' Good heavens,yes
—but they have been cauterised out Of
me . Did you ever see the only girl you
ever loved,when you believed in love
,
lying o n a marble table in the Amphi
theatre Of Anatomy,with a score O f
students grinning at the exhibition through
eyeglasses,and saying
,
“You knew her,
Felix ,didn’t you '
”N ow you can realise
that I do not feel vehemently attracted
towards that place . I don’t respect
PRELIMINARY. 25
women . There is very little to respect about
them . They, like men, follow their desires
and feelin gs,and do n o t succeed in veiling
that fact so easily as men that is the
only difference . The devil alone knows
what there is in your society that always
m akes me serious and sentimental. Here
is our cafe ; come in, and change the
subj ect. ’
Here they entered o n e Of the above
a lluded to brasseries,solitary at this early
hour,but destined to be filled later in the
day , and most Of all later in the night,with a jovial, laughing, reckless crowd Of
s tudents,and those flirting waitresses
who are such a characte ristic Of suchplaces
,some o f whom are attractive
,all
Of whom possess ready tongues and eyes
a n d,I m ay add, ready appetites , and
a n eternal thirst,and who make their
breakfasts,dinners and suppers
,and sundry
interposed and miscellaneous courses o f
26 WILD ROSE.
refreshments,Off the charity o f their sworn
friend, allies and protectors, the students .
Of these only o n e, Césarin e , wa s present,
fixing o n an apron leisurely before a
mirror, and rectifying the set o f her hair,her m outh full o f pins. Her Félix
accosted‘Césa rin e , thOu o f the classical name,
w ilt thou bring us certain portions Of
bread, butter, cheese, salt and wine— as
usual ' The only unusual element about
the repast is,that it will be paid for
,and
that by our learned friend here .
’
What w ill you have yourself, Césa rm e
asked Dr. Taylor.
Césarin e confessed a longing for herfavourite beverage
,
‘Vermouth gommé.
’
Dr. Taylor said‘Very bad for you so early. However,
it is no use , I suppose, to tell you that.
Bring it quick,with the other things
there’s a dear. ’
28 WILD ROSE.
Hear,hear from Césa rin e .
I lit a cigarette,turned up the collar Of
my coat,and strolled o ut under the stars
into the wide world,especially that portion
o f it bordering o n the Seine . I paused
under a lamp-post,ostensibly w ith the a im
Of looking at my watch, really to look at a
remarkably pretty woman who was passin g .
under the lamp at the sam e time . Shecarried a bundle
,and wore o n e o f those
coffee-coloured mantles which forty thou
sand other women wear j ust n ow,and
which consequently is no identification .
She went o n to the Pont St. Michel . SO
did I . She deposited the bundle o n the
pavem ent in the middle o f the bridge. I
looked at it. It wa s an infant. Of course
I picked it up,overtook her
,took o ff my
ha t,and Observed : Pardon
,but madam
has dropped something.
”
She looked at me and it in some surprise
,a n d replied ' Monsieur is exceed
PRELIMINAR Y. 29
ingly polite . As a co n sidera tiOn for his
attention,I make over to his charge and
protection that,
”
p ointing to the bundle .
May I ifiquire madame’s name and
address '’
“‘I regret that circumstances prevent
my giving either the o n e o r the other,and
would suggest that I will trust to the sense
Of chivalry which monsieur has already
shown he possesses , to prevent his follow
ing me further. Good-night .”
‘What wa s I to do ' In your own
poetic language,I vow ,
it wa s a go .
”
Figure to yourself me,alone and un pro
te cte d, in the middle Of the night, in the
clutches Of a remorseless baby ' TO drop
it quietly over the parapet,a n d stroll away
whistling as I passed the police,wo uld
have been convenient, but a crime— besides ,these things are always found out. I put
my hat forward, rounded my back, limped
and tried to look as much like some one
30 WILD ROSE.
e lse as possible,in case any friend should
find me in such compromising society,and
put up an umbrella, although it was not
rain ing,and got into the first cab I met
and went home. The infant complicated
matters by beginning to wail and lament .
N ow it is in my armchair, and will soon
die Of inanition if you don’t tell me what
I am to give it. I Offered it brandy and
beer,last night—excellent beer
,but it
rej ected it with some violence . I ask your
advice,as a friend
, Césarin e .
’
Césarin e , choking with laughter at the
idea Of a young bachelor of the Quartier
raising an infant o n beer,said Give it
m ilk .
’
H ow much '’
Oh,as much as it will take, I suppose .
I don’t know.
’
GO and get some , will yo u You must
come and see and criticise it, and display
that mad and animal idolatry which all
PRELIMINAR Y. 31
young women have fo r the very youn g Of
their species . ’ And the good-natured girl
disappeared,to inquire if such a fluid ex
iste d in the establishment. When she was
gone,Félix said
‘N ow I have a proposition to make .
Don’t be surprised o r come o ut with Ob
j e ctio n s till I have don e . It is that you
a n d I , under the direction a n d advice Of
Césarin e , do undertake herewith and hence
forward the up-bringing
,physica l and
moral,Of the said female child, n ow re
siding in an armchair,fourth floor
,NO 2 5
,
Rue de la Harpe,Quartier Latin
,Paris .
Your m edical knowledge will be occasion
ally useful. More than this . You know
what sort Of life,and education , and morals,
girls in this quarter usually acquire. They
are like the flowers fallen from the jasmine
tree,that I saw at Asnieres this autumn ,
some still fa ir,and fresh and beautiful
lying there,some utterly withered and
32 WILD ROSE.
destroyed, but with enough o f the flower’s
soul and body about them to remind o n e
that they were once beautiful j asm ine blos
soms, filling the summer with scent. Now
I want to protect her, with your help, from
all this . I want to carve out for her an’
ideal, artistic existence, untainted alike bythe prejudices Of the rigidly righteous o r
the foulness o f the hopelessly fallen ; and I
want y ou to enter into a bargain or con
tract with me, that whichever of us lives
longest is to continue to care for and pre
serve our small jasmine flower,who pro
m ises to be pretty, and whom the fates
have cast in o ur path . Will you dothis
By the Lord in whom I don’t believe,
I will ' Shake hands, sir ; there’
s a m a n
alive in your body yet . ’
We will give her a name I will bap
tiz e her in champagne, which Madame
Triboulet here will give on tick for such a
PRELIMINAR Y. 3
charitable,not to say religious, purpose ,
and the provision for her future will be a
s timulus to us to work hard,and a slight
recompense to her’
sex fo r the many wrongs
we have done them,and the many hard
things we have said o f them .
’
Césarin e here entered with a dark w ine
bottle,through which cam e the greenish
gleams o f milk.
Hum 'doesn’t look nice . NO account
ing for tastes,
’ commented Fe lix You’re
a good fellow, Cesarin e proud to
know you -give m e a kiss . ’ And he
told her his plan with the eloquence o f a
s incere m a n,and castin g aside his habitual
tone Of bantering flippa n cy .
Césarin e was silent for a while,then
said
I ’ll help where I can .
’
She wa s thinking o f her own life,though
Felix purposely spared any allusions which
m ight bring her lost past too promin en tly
VOL . I. 3
3 t WILD ROSE.
before this frivolous foam-born girl of the
Quarter .
The whole undertaking wa s strange,
original,and to an unimaginative
mind impracticable. It wa s founded by
two m e n,purely and solely o ut o f their
own instincts, uncontrolled by sense Of
duty, m orality, o r religion,and as such
would surely be predicted to fail . Whetherit did or not we shall see . Felix took Ivor
Taylor’s arm under his own o n o n e side,
and the black bottle under the other,and
went away.
Césa rin e Observed to Old Madame Tri
boulet,the proprietress
,who wa s engaged
in the useful if prosaic occupation o f peelingpotatoe s in an inn er room
I think, M. Paul Felix is rather mad
,
but I like him all the same .
’
36 WILD ROSE.
select company o f Paul’s most intimate
friends in his studio,he himself o f course
Officiatin g. He produced champagne a nd
handed it round in glasses, accompanied
by cigarettes . Césarin e Obtained a holi
day,and was present . She took an
immense interest in the child,and con
stituted herself m a rm in e . Paul made a
short speech,o f course . NO action wa s
satisfactory o r complete with him unless
accompanied by a short speech . He ex
plained his purpose with regard to the
just then sleeping Rosa,and invited them
a ll to co -operate and constitute themselves
her guardians . They waved their glasses
and exclaimed,Nous le jurons
The presence o f the unconscious child
seemed to recall everything that wa s pure,
virtuous, past and gone a n d for ever out
Of their reach to the three or four reckless,
billiard-playing,Bullier-frequentin g young
men present, a n d they really meant in ~ a ll
BAPTISM IN WINE AND FIRE . 37
honour to b e ‘ moral guardian s to Rosa.
Paul went o n :
I n ow baptize thee,Rosa la Rose
,
w ith the first foam o f my w ine, in hopes
that you may grow to be like the glorious
mother Of gods a n d men who wa s born
from the foam Of the ocean . May your
life be happy. I call you Rosa
Parce que le s plus be lle cho se s,Comme le s lis e t le s ro se s
,
N’out qu
’
un saison d’
ete .
”
Vive Rosa,fille da Quartier Latin '’
‘Vive Rosa,fille du Quartier Latin '’
replied everyone,emptyin g his glass.
Rosa awoke. She looked round at a ll
the stran ge faces with a stare Of surprise .
Oughtn’t some o n e to kiss her a sked
a student,whose acquaintance with the
ancient and religious cerem ony o f baptism
was somewhat rudimentary and vague in
details .
38 WILD ROSE .
NO man o f us shall k is s her,’ sa id Paul ,
until she can give him leave o r signify
her wish tha t he should do so . Cesarin e
may,if she likes . ’
I had rather not,
’
sa id Césarin e , ra ther
sadly. I would like to . I am n o t m ore fit
to kiss her tha n a nyone here,simply b e'
cause I am a woma n a n d you are all men.
’
[She went and looked a t Rosa,lyin g in the
a rm cha ir of honour . Rosa knew be st who
wa s fit to kiss her,a n d stretched o ut her
a rms towards Césa rin e ’
s neck a n d smile d .
Cesarino overcame all scruples,a n d e m
braced the baby Rosa in tha t gree dy
manner peculia r to women dealing w ith
children o r other animals o f whom they
are specia lly fond' ‘I wonder if you
will show as much cha rity to o n e like
me whe n you are older,’ sa id Cesarin e ,
laughing .
I thin k the godfathers , Taylor a n d
myself,
’ said Paul,ought to kiss the
BAPTISM IN WINE AzVD FIRE.
godmother as a natural part Of the cere
mony.
He saw Césarin e wa s depressed and
saddened about somethin g. It was pos
sible to guess what,and wanted to change ‘
the subject.‘I fail to see the doctrine Of that
,
’ said
the student, who had previously spoken ,
who wa s n o t a godfather. Paul began
e laborately to argue the point,
a nd
threatened to appeal to the Fathers,when
Césarin e settled the matter by saying au
revoir,messieurs and leaving the room .
S O Rosa has become Rosa,’ remarked
Paul. N ow the question remains, what in
the world is to become o f he r further Can
w e control a destiny, o r is she to control
o urs ' It seems rather like the latter,
hitherto. Taylor,I shall depend o n you
to assist in her education and amusement.
I will work— I have been prom ised a con
n e ctio n with a comic pap e r’
o f importance
40 WILD ROSE.
—and shall sell pictures,and work like a
fever. On Sundays we will take her to
the Luxembourg and the Tuileries . ’‘Shall w e buy a perambulator asked
Dr. Taylor.
I think not . You would look very well,
though,disguised as a bon n e . They Often
have m oustaches . ’
We can bring her up to speak two languages
,
’ said the other. You always
speak French to her,and I will a lwavs
speak American .
’
This really happened . Rosa learned
gradually both these languages .
Rosa gradually grew to the age Of ten .
Dr. Taylor postponed his return to America
till he had heard her speak distinct and
intelligible American,and then foun d '
him
self obliged to leave. He and Paul took
the child, then aged about eight, for their
last excursion together to the ChampsElysees o n e Sunday afternoon. She rode
BAPTISM IN WINE AND FIRE. 41
in a carrousel . They rode to o,merely o f
course to encourage her. In the interval
between o n e Of these rides,Taylor made
the new and original ObservationWhat an extraordinary couple we areWe are
,
’ replied Paul solemnly. He
then added :‘But how is Rosa to
keep up her American when you are
gone '’
‘I don’t know. D epends o n luck . I
will come and see her again some day.
Look here,if any necessity arises
, you send
to m e,will you
I will. Y ou are Rosa’s other god
father,and I believe she likes us both
e qually. I do not know what sort Of a
girl she will turn into, after o ur bringin g
her up . It seems to me inculcating moralprinciples is not our line . Her m orality is
o ur morality- that is,nothin g particular.
Her rules o f life are ours,that o n e m ust do
what o n e is compelled to do,and if o n e
42 WILD ROSE.
likes it,so much the better. When there
is any choice,do what is pleasantest. ’
She is goin g to be pretty, too,’ sa id
Taylor.
Rose wa s small and dark, with a pale
face and brown eyes . She looked as if shewould be pretty
,later.
Well,my friend
, we have done what we
could. It may have been a Quixotic
undertakin g,and proba bly was ; but it has
made her happy,and
,I think
,has made us
rather different. Fate and the future will
do what they please . ’
Dr. Ivor Taylor went home to the
United Stat e s . Rosa sat on Paul’s knee,
and cried a good deal quietly,in the cab
that brought them back from the railwaystation .
She then became more than ever thea ttached friend o f Paul . She had alwaysloved him
,and the studio
,the pictures
,and
the armcha ir which had been giv en up to
44 WILD ROSE.
bons generally,and to regard them as the
m ore serious and n ecessary ingredients o f
life . At the age Of ten she smoked
cigarettes .
At this period the happiness and tran
quillity Of Paris wa s rather marred by the
advance o f the German army upon that
city, little as they,
believed,in Paris
,in an
ultimate German success. S till, annihilated
as they were double ss destined to be by a
patriotic nation rising e n m a sse to defend
its hearths and homes,the Prussians con
trive d in the meantime,durin g the winter
Of ”70, to give Paris considerable em
b arra ssm e n t by surroundin g it,taking its
star-forts , and occasionally dropping shellsinto its suburbs, and, worst Of all, cutting
Off its supplies .
All this was o f course new and interest
ing to Rosa . Paul told her she was going
to enj oy all the a dvantages Of a real wa r,
with real Obuses, which really damaged
BAPTISM IN WINE AN D FIRE . 45
bricks and mortar and imprudent hum an
b eings,and that it wa s all far superior,
from an artistic standpoint, to the Battle
o f Solferin o at the Circus .Rosa quite fell in with this View, un
aware that Paul sold half his portion Of
daily food to buy her chocolate,and rather
e nj oyed the siege, until o n e day, walkingo ut for some purpose o r other with Césarin e ,
she saw some soldiers carrying a hideously
mutilated mass,clothed in a torn uniform
,
into a church . This wa s the remains o f a
sentry who had been standing in the range
o f a shell battery,o n the ramparts . This
wa s the first real symptom Of war Rosa
had seen . She had heard guns in the
d istance,and knew that Paris looked
rather different and more dull than usual,
but o n seeing the horrible reality Of that
wounded man,she woke up to a conscious
ness that war wa s n o t Wholly picturesque .
Matters gradually grew worse . Instead
46 WILD ROSE .
o f the bright boy-like man that Paul the
painter had been,Rosa n ow saw a gaunt,
grizzly-bearded,sad-looking creature
,who ,
as Paul the National Guard,went peri
odically to do sen try o n snowy ramparts
under that unsympathetic starry winter
sky,which shines its brightest o n human
sorrow and wo e . He sat over the stove
in the studio,occasionally b e com lng j ocular
in a spasmodic way when Rosa wa s present,
and smoked cigarettes when he could ge t
them . Rosa took this occasion,when
nourishment was so scarce,to grow a good
deal and become rather weak. She alsodreamed frequently that Paul would be
brought home like that wounded soldier,
some night from his post. The fact Of
being a sentinel brought him home with a
renewed appetite,given hIm by the frosty
a ir. He once said If I had known long
ago how easy it was to get a healthy
hunger in the m orning,I should have tried
BAPTISM IN WINE AN D FIRE . 47
it before . I shall recommend a siege a s
an excellent rem edy to persons sufferingfrom dyspepsia and loss Of appetite .
’
SO matters went o n , week after week,
until a catastrophe came.A sortie was m ade from Paris : a very
badly m ade sortie,o n e among many such
,
and an utterly ineffectual o n e . Paul
Felix went out in it,and came back with
a bullet in his chest. , H e was brought to
a church full,like the rest
,o f wounded .
Césarin e was in some m anner made aware
o f it, and came to fetch Rosa .
What does he look like '’ asked Rosa,shivering with terror is he like thatman
we saw
I don’t know . He has a bullet in the
chest . That ought n o t to show much .
’
Rosa sile n tly'
fput o n some clothes, to pro
tee t her from j t
the cold,as if she were
going out fo r a walk—a furred jacket Paul
had given he r, as he had given her most
48 WILD ROSE.
other things— and went Off with Césarin e .
It wa s a long walk, a nd they did not speak
much by the way. They found the
church . At the door a sentry asked what
they wanted. Rosa spoke .
We want to see Paul FélixA young doctor wa s talking to a S ister
Of Charity in the doorway. He looked
round,and said
‘You can admit her, entry : it is Rosa
la Rose . Paul Félix is her father . ’
This wa s not true,but it served its
purpose,and Rosa and Césarin e went in .
You w ill find him at the other end,
n ear the altar, o n the left-hand side . You
had better look neither to the right nor
to the left till you get there . Poor child
he added to himself.
It wa s o n e Of the students who had been
present at Rosa ’s baptism. Rosa shut her
eyes and took Césarin e ’s arm . The atmo
sphere Of chloroform,carbolic acid
, an d other
BAPTISA/ IN WINE AN D FIRE. 49
miscellaneous I a n d worse odours,confined
by want Of ventilation,were suflicie n t to
bear,without seeing what lay to the right
and left Of he r.
'
A well-known voice atlast came from the dark heap near the
altar,saying in a feeble tone
‘Rosa '’
Rosa saw the poor painter lyIng o n his .
back, with great hollow eyes, into whichthe Old gay smile came
,as he looked at her.
An overcoat was lying o n his body. He
then said‘The game is played out. SO am I .
Césarin e, you will write , o r telegraph
,as
soon as possible to Taylor,in N e w York,
and tell him all this . Are you warm
enough, Rosa, in that fur thing '
Car c’e st l’étui d’une pe rle fin eLa robe de Mimi Pinson.
Tell Taylor that is the last song I sang.
Tell him I am gone to meet Miirge r, and
Musset, a n d Mimi, and Musette in such a
VOL. I . 4
50 WILD ROSE.
Quartier Latin as they may have in
Tartarus . Doctor says I am to die
could not have done it better than n ow
Listen 'I b e g to correct myself, Césarin e .
Tell Taylor this is the last song I sang
And the noise of a passin g crowd o f
soldiers,hurrying to the ramparts
,wa s
heard shouting the memorable and fo rm id
able words
‘Aux arme s,citoye ns'
Fo rme z vo s bata illons
Paul raised himself on both elbows,and
sang with a blaze Of j oy in his dark eyes
Marchons, ca ira
Marcho ns, ca ira'
Qu’un sang impur
Abre uve n o s sillo ns.
And then the blood came up into his
mouth,and he fell back dead. Césarin e
wa s crying quietly. Rosa wa s n o t. Shewa s very pale , and in a cold perspiration .
Césarin e took her away. She fainted
CHAPTER III .
EAVE LODGE,WINTERDALE .
‘I want a he ro an uncommon wantWhe n eve ry ye ar a nd month se nds forth a n ew o n e .
’
BYRON.
IN a county in the south Of England , thename o f which Is Immaterial— say Damp
shire o r D irtshire— there is an antique littletown
,once Of historic importance, but n ow
alm ost completely insignificant from a publicpoint o f View
,called Winterdale . It con
tains a gaol , a cathedral, a barrack, a bishop ,
several minor canons, four churches, fourteen chapels
,and at least forty public
houses . The churches and chapels are full
o n o n e day in the week, the public-houseso n six
,the gaol o n seven. The barrack is
EAVE L GD GE ,WIN TERDALE . 53
n ever quite full,as it has to contribute to
keep the other above-me ntioned institutions
filled,in varying ‘proportions. The bishop
is, o rwa s whenWinterdale became involvedin this story
,a tall
,dignified man
,Of com
m anding and ascetic presence,and possess
ing a resonant voice . H e gave garden
parties , and sermons and addresses ; wa s
bullied by his junior clergy, wa s very
a ffable , and in every respect resembled any
other commonplace bishop,and signed him
s elf John James H ie m val. His real name
wa s Green,but it is a customary piece Of
e piscopal playfulness to name one’s self after
the diocese,translating the n ame Of the
latter into dubious Latin, which imposeso n the unlettered (who constitute the
majority o f the population Of any diocese),a n d would cause much honest mirth to any
ancient Roman who m ight read it, and
recognise the fine,Old
,widespread canine
dialect to be found pervading ecclesiastic
54 WILD ROSE .
literature throughout all the years in which
there wa s any church at all that had a
literature .
The cathedral wa s mostly m the early
perpendicular style , with a stumpy square '
tower in the middle .
The gaol wa s in the modern rectangular
a n d utilitarian style , Of black-brick walls ,
and apertures richly ornate with iron
work usually taking the form o f bars and
spikes .
0
The streets Of Winterdale were quaintand irregular, and c ontained comfortable
looking inns Of indefinite age, with court
yards and wooden o r brick colonnades ,
under which persons might, and frequentlydid
,sit roun d tables when the temperature
permitted . When some Of the soldiers continually being localised inWinterdale wereseen stand in g about and swaggering w ith
boots andwhips in the doorways,or gathered
round beer in the verandas o f these Old
EAVE L GD GE,WIN TERDALE . 55
inns,they had an exceedingly characteristic
and picturesque appearance . The beer a nd
other entertainment there provided was
usually very good,so much as to be ‘rather
celebrated in the county .
On Saturday afternoon,when a m arket
wa s held,the streets and alehouses becam e
especially lively,and every lane wa s full o f
yokels and soldiers striving their rather
feeble best to ‘keep ‘ in de middle Ob de
road,
’ by closing-time o n Saturday evenings .There was on such occasion s plenty Of the
honest home-brewed ale floating about that
the Old school Of novelists affect so much ,
and plenty Of honest home-brewed head
ache a n d biliousness with it, assisted by the
more deleterious and less honest spirits ,
which are theoretically manufactured in
Nantes o r Holland by the un scrupulous
foreigner,which the British publican is too
honest to manufacture,and can co n scie n ti
o usly only permit himself to sell , and that
56 WILD ROSE .
at a considerable profit . All the features
Of fine Old English life,which have passed
away in m any places to such a lamentable
extent, were to be found here. The coun
trym e n wore smock-frocks,discarde d e lse
where save by men who pick pockets inFleet Street
,and the associate Of the
thimble-rigger a n d the stage.
They Observed with superstitious re
ve re n ce and wonderful saturnalia the greatChristian and Protestant festival Of what
they called ‘Guyfo x-day,
’ and the less im
portant a n d pagan one Of Yule-tide . They
had holidays,made a hideous din w ith all
the available church-bells,burned fires ;
cheered and sang,and eat and drank fa r
to o much on both Of these occasions .
Their idea Of outward a n d visible m a n ife s
tatio n o f j oy o r religious exaltation tookthe form Of excessive eating and drinking.
These were their religious festivals re
ferring Of course to that portion Of the
EA VE LODGE,WINTERDALE. 57
population which patronised the m arket
a n d the alehouse . The other and minor
portion OfWinterdale society,consisting Of
the clergy,military (active and retired),
a n d gentry,might observe harvest thanks
givings and such things if they liked , which
the bulk o f the rural population did n o t
‘hold w ith .
’ They felt’
that the harvest
was entirely a merit Of their own,to be
grumbled at if bad , a n d sold as dear as
possible if good,and failed to see what was
the use Of the clergy and gentry coating
the churches internally w ith corn enough
t o m ake a rick, and grapes , and apples , and
p otatoes. and such other fruits as the season
y ielded, and then holding services in the
m idst Of all this profusion, which were
a ttended by everyone except those inter
e ste d and concerned in the production Of a
harvest . They scornfully tolerated suchthings
,and Observed
,perhaps in lofty in
d ignation If passon don’t know no better
5 3 W'ILD ROSE .
what to do w ith the cam and that, than to
make a litter and dirty mess with it in t’
church,he can give ’em to me .
’
So’
ciety at Winterdale, as has beenhinted, consisted Of the clergy
,a few re
tired Oflice rs w ith families,
a n d some
scattered country gentlemen whose pro
fe ssio n in the main wa s to o wn land,chase
vermin w ith horses and dogs,and fill
‘chairs ’ at sessions and meetings o f
Guardians,and Local Boards
,and such
lik e distin guished and in telligent bodies ,and to give each other large dinner-parties .
The younger portion Of society,the
tennis - playin g,dancing
,flirting portion
,
consisted entirely and almost exclusively
o f curates and young Officers , and those
who hoped to be curates o r young Officers
some day ,w ith very fe w exceptions . The
d ifference between the curates and the
Officers wa s n o t great,consistin g mainly in
the difference Of uniform,and Of the fact
60 WILD ROSE.
and overpowered with the consequence o f
themselves and their opinion s. There
wa s a club at Winterdale, where the localgentry m e t
,and talked long
,eagerly and
fiercely about nothing,fo r hours o r
,a less
innocent amusement,dissected their neigh
bour’s characters and financial upright
n ess,and circulated with the most innocent
and sincere intentions most fearful andatrocious lies
,which no o n e wa s responsible
for,which did perhaps some little harm ,
but did not usually Obtain any n otice o r
credit.
The m ost entertaining a n d intelligent
m an actually in Winterdale wa s Old Mr.Andrew McSwin e y , M.D . the
Doctor. ’ He wa s a short,sturdy man Of
the globular type,had a burnt
,weather
beaten face like a coastguard,and a bald
head and a fringe o f iron-grey hair round
it. He wa s the life a n d soul Of any
e ntertainment o r con versation . TO ladies
EA VE LODGE, WINTERDALE. 61
he wa s kind and polite and with the men
he could relate stories over tobacco and
Kin aha n’
s L .L\
till they n early choked
with laughter.”
He never got drunk,but
could calmly absorb wine and spirits lik e wa
large round sponge,o r like any Of Mr.
Charles Lever’s Irish country gentlemen .
He wa s very kind and'
charitable,rather
impulsive,but withal possessed Of great
acuteness and self - reliance ; was no re
specter o f persons, feared not D ean o r
Devil o r D isease,and wa s universally
abused , laughed at, a n d loved .
About a mile outside Winterdale city,
among the rising down s and undulatingmeadow and woodland, in the district o f
St . Wotan,wa s an o ld country house
,
called Eave Lodge,o f lichenous grey lime
stone, patched in many places with ivy,
and roofed with thin slabs o f shaly
stone .
The date o f the house was uncertain,
62 WILD ROSE .
likewise the style of architecture . It stood
On a piece Of grass-ground which rose
e astward,where the wind cam e from
,into
a sm all down,and westward stretched
level, with irregularly placed trees and
shrubs till it developed into a group o f fir
trees,o n a slight eminen ce
,which sent
their stiff,slender spires and branches
straight athwart the sunsets .
A path,paved accidentally with brown
needles a n d fir-cones,led under these over
arching firs to an Old wooden five -barred
gate,covered with worm -tracks and snail
trails,with n ames e n carve n by the kni fe
Of youth,and softened and b e autifie d by
the lichen of age. A person leaning o n
this gate could see undulating,corn-pro
ducing country extending far to the west ,a n d ending in cloudy woods o n the distant
horizon .
The grass grew right up to the walls of
the house,and except for o n e square patch
EAVE LODGE, WINTERDALE. 63
O f shaven lawn , intersected by a mysticpattern of white-washed lines for lawntennis
, wa s allowed to grow freely and
long away und’em the yews and cypresses .
Yellow irises,tall lilies
,and thistles and
sunflowers,a n d the miscellaneous herbage
known generally to gardeners as weeds,
’
grew in the grass , under the trees , and
fringin g this square lawn,in their seasons .
There was also o n o n e side Of the house
a n Old rose-garden with gra ss walks and
wooden seats , and beyond it an old apple
o rchard.
The house wa s fortified On the north
west corner by a stone terrace,extending
round portions o f the western and northern
side,o n to which French windows Opened
from the house. On its walls and parapet
hung heavy,rich clusters o f jasmine ,
clematis,and passion-flowe r. Theoretically
this terrace wa s destined by the architect,n o doubt
,to be walked o n when the grass
64 W'ILD ROSE.
wa s too w e t. As a m atter Of fact, the
grass wa s usually the first to dry after
rain, since the o ld stone pavement wa s
hollowed,separated a n d broken into a
series o f receptacles for puddles,only to b e
removed by the b e n e fice n t natural law o f
evaporation.
Just n ow,September, 187 1, autumn wa s
beginning to make itself very apparent
around Eave Lodge . This was an annual
occurrence,although from the seemingly
surprised and unprepared state Of the
neighbourhood,o n e might be led to sup
pose that such wa s n o t the case .
Old D iggo ry ,who wa s called the
gardener here,a n d who condescended to
accept wages for occasionally visiting andseverely criticising
,spade in hand
,the
garden,if it might be so called , remarked
sententiously that the ‘days was gettin’
in,
’ by‘
which mysterious announcementhe doubtless imagined him self to be con
EA VE LODGE, WINTERDALE. 65
veying information o f a new and usefuldescription . He also delicately referred
to the advent Of rheum atism in what he
wa s pleased to term his ‘lines,
’ and person
generally ; and admitted, o n cross-e xam i
n ation,that port-wine
,o r even rum (for
strictly external application), would n o t be
wholly unacceptable as a remedy.
The deciduous trees were becoming
bronze, and the evergreens looked greener
in contrast. The sun set gradually m ore
to the southward Of west. The mornings
began with a chill m ist,developing into a
calm cool fine day,ending in a shower and
a sunset behind scattered,ragged-edged
black clouds,with glimpses o f golden , red,
and peach-coloured light at their underedges
,o r through wind-torn holes, o n a
ground Of white sky, becoming pale blue
towards the zenith . Or else,perhaps, it
blew hard,and acorns and leaves descended
in heaps,and the heave n becam e grey and
VOL . I . 5
66 WILD ‘ROSE.
overcast,the wind south-east, and the
temper o f the fraction o f humanity sub
j e cte d to such weather deteriorated.
The fire -places,filled durin g the summer
m onths with that truly awful form of de
co ratio n in which housemaids appear to
delight,made o f strips o f paper o f various
colours and tinsel, became brilliant and
inviting with burning coal and wood and
it became almost comforting, as the weeks
wore o n,to read descriptions Of disastrous
fires in the papers,ascents Of Mount
Vesuvius,and sermons o n eternal punish
ment .
Having so far touched on the external
appearance and surroundings Of EaveLodge a n d its neighbourhood
,it will n ow
perhaps be as well to examine the internal
o r soul-part o f the house,and the aspect
o f its inhabitants . It will be favourable to
do so,and will give a characteristic View
o f these, by glancing at the drawing-room
6S WILD ROSE.
manufacture,and expressed comfort rather
than any rigid adherence to high-art dictation . Little tables stood around, bearingthe materials for afternoon-tea
,which wa s
administered in charmingly minute china
cups,always a cause Of trembling to the
nervous visitor,unwilling to destroy his
neighbours’ goods .
Brackets and shelves in corners bore
various useful and ornamental Obj ects, such
as brass candlesticks with ecclesiastical
looking,twisted stems
,and cup-shaped
upper extremities w ith scalloped edges ;
a lso bronze figures,flowe r-vases
,Pompeian
lamps,match-holders ; and lastly, a clock,
of some dark, polished and heavy-lookingmaterial
,apparently Of mineral origin
,so
constructed as to give the public a painful,
if not indecent,insight into its throbbing
Vital organs— a sort Of Alexis St. Martinamong clocks.
Of course,a fe w ‘library ’ books were
EAVE L 01)GE , WIN TERDALE . 09
lying about, together with the Co n tem
p ora ry Review,Pun ch
,and the I llustra ted
Lo ndo n N e ws.
N ow let us glance at the occupants o f
this room in detail. There wa s,first of all;
in an arm-chair o n one side o f the fire
place,a n elderly gentleman Of spare frame
a n d strikingly intelligent appearance, and
having rather long grey hair,grizzled
brown whiskers clipped short,a long face
,
aquiline nose,bright blue eyes a n d rough
grey-brown eyebrows, and a rather wide,
thin-lipped mouth,with the wrinkles pro
duce d by frequent speech and laughter at
the corners,and a prominent
,gracefully
shaped chin and lower maxillary bone.
This wa s Professor John Miller, the Own er
o f the house, a great comparative ana
tom ist,and recently retired from a pro
fe sso rship he had for some years held in
the medical faculty of a celebrated and
ancient Scotch university. He occupied
70 WILD ROSE.
himself in writing treatises for the scientificperiodicals
,a n d in e nj oym g the society Of
his family. A m a n o f great general
attainments,S cotch
,kind-hearted
,humor
o us,carelessly good—nature d
,and afraid o f
no man ’s opinion o r Of anything else . He
wa s regarded as a man Of some consequence
by the scientific world,as a genius by his
family,and as a kind o f harmless lunatic
by the m aj ority ofWinterdale society.
Conversing with him o n a paper . on
Evolution in the review that lay betweenthem o n a table
,sat a man Of near his own
age , tall, portly, bald, with regular features ,long expressive dark eyes
,and a long black
beard. He wa s laying down the law with.
that decision peculiar to people Imperfectlyacquainted w ith their subj ect. This was
Mr. James Exeter,vicar Of the n e w parish
Of St. Wotan .
He and Professor Miller had been
fellow-students at an English university
EAVE LODGE, WINTERDALE. 7 1
together . They were so very antithetic in
their tastes,opinions
,and pursuits that
they became fast friends .
Jam es ExeterIn those days pronouncedJohn Miller to be a loose freethinker,though a pleasant en ough fellow and
clever in his way.
John Miller spoke Of J ames Exeter asa good fellow ,
and clever in his way a n d
well-read,though extraordinarily sup e rsti
tious , and impervious to a j oke .
James Exeter learned Hebrew and
other ancient ton gues,and became a o
qua in te d intimately with the Fathers, the
Talmud,and the Septuagint
,and studied
decorative religious art,and crawled about
the floors Of Old churches with a long
sheet Of paper, tak ing impre ssions o f
brasses and grew into a country vicar o f
apostolic and picturesque appearance .
John Miller plunged into acids and
dissections and German poets and philo
7 2 WILD ROSE.
so phers all at once,drank beer
,sat up
all night smoking clay pipes and singing
songs with kindred spirits,m ade love to
every available pretty girl,and grew into
a retired professor,rather invalided
,but
with the fire o f intellect burning fierce inhis grey head
,and keen and kindly fun
glancing out o f his Scotch blu e eyes.He had married a n English lady
,who
was n ow present,a handsome o ld lady
with white hair and black e ve brows, con
versing with her sister the Marquise deTo rto le o n e
,who had married a French
man,and wa s very French indeed, even
to her accent,in consequence
,and was as
young,beautiful
,and fashionable as human
efforts could m ake her,though only a
few years younger in reality than Mrs .
Miller. She had been staying in Englandlately
,in . consequence Of the war o f the
Commune in Paris . Her so n,a regular
featured , dark, expressionless lad Of fifteen
EA VE LODGE,WINTERDALE. 73
was silently devourin g currant-cake in acorner .
Professor Miller had a son , n ow aged
e ighteen— a handsome, fair, slender youth ,
with his father’s long face and blue eyes,
a n d determined jaw,and his mother’s
s traight nose—who just n ow was lounging
against the mantelpiece With a cup Of tea
in his hand,and gazing through the
window at the sunset . He was just at
the end o f his school career,and had been
a pupil o f Mr. Exe te r’s for some little
time,with the a im o f going in the ensuing
O ctober to the university.
It is worth while to look carefully a t
this youth with the far-gazin g eyes,the
short yellow hair,and the invisible mous
tache which he nervously feels for,for he ,
if any, is the hero Of this story.
His sister,o n e year younger than him
self, wa s occupied in the practice , which
since the publication Of Werther has b e
74 WILD ROSE .
come memorable,o f cutting thin slices Of
brown bread and butter. She wa s a prettygirl
,with light-brown hair plaited into a
tail,with the dignified air o f o n e who
imagines herself grown up, having just
got past the uninteresting s tage Of girl
hood and arrived at that physical change
late,as is usual in fair pers
’
on s,which pro
duces all that natural development in a
girl which changes her from an uninterest
ing and ungraceful nonentity to a very
interestin g and graceful entity. She wasa good-natured
,rather lazy girl
,brought
up at home , very properly and religiously,
under her mother’s eye
,as any girl in
early life ought to be,and instructed
tolerably in the French and German lan
guages— n o t in the Stratford-atte-B ow
style,but by n atives and visits to the
various countries— also in music an d
ordinary drawin g. She wa s generally
liked,and few ventured to say a word
7 6 WILD ROSE.
Old friend and then because both their
heads were replete with that earnest tragi
comic muddle Of noble aspirations and
form al trivialities which it pleases someladies to term religion
,and Mr. Exeter
was just the man to encourage them . He
wa s picturesque and grandiloquen t in the
pulpit, and his services were co n sum matelysupreme. D O not let it be supposed from
this that Mrs . Miller wa s a fool . Go tt
bewahre ' She wa s an estimable lady o f
m ore than average abilities,but
,as her so n
respectfully remarked,Her o n e loose slate
is religion,alias High Churchism .
’
Mr. Exeter wa s not married. He had
believed in the celibacy o f the clergy ever
since a young lady,an Obj ect Of particular
admiration to him in his curate days,had
cruelly thrown him over in favour Of a tall
gentleman with very short hair,a very
long,very drooping
,and very silky
’
moustache (viole fem inine rom ance o f the
EA VE LODGE,WINTERDALE. 7 7
day, p a ssim), large stan d-up collars, and
an uncontrollable habit of saying‘By
Jove whose profession was to defend his
country,or attack some o n e else’s if ordered
by his sovereign . Mr. Exeter, by a n
exquisite cruelty Of the Parcae,had been
asked to assist in j oining these two to
gether at St. George’s, H anover Square ,a labour which o n e clergyman appeared
insufficient to perform . He had still a
vivid recollection o f hearing the bride
groom mutte r an audible ‘By Jove '’
when he (James Exeter)pronounced in duecourse ‘that these two be man and w ife
together. ’
If Mr. Exeter had perused the maximsOf the impious but amusing M. de la
Rochefoucauld,he would have discovered
another reason why he remained celibateIf we resist our passions it is because
they are weak,rather than because we are
strong.
7 8 WILD ROSE .
It is apparently a law Of nature that
d isappointed lovers sho uld take to dissipation Of some form
,sometim es of more tha n
o n e form,as a temporary relief to the
feeling . Som e choose ‘Our Lady o f
Pain,
’ others brandy,both more o r less
rapid forms of moral suicide if persisted in .
James Exeter plun ged into the fiercest
excesses of Anglo-Catholicism.
His mind and time were n ow pretty
fully occupied with services,sermon s ,
Sunday - schools,and sundry such like
forms of duty,and he had withal the con
soling conviction that his time wa s being
use fullv as well as pleasantly spent .He had found some of his parishione rs
largely prepared to assist in the practical
carrying out of his views,as any e n thusi
astio good-looking man will find supporters,
particularly among the fem ales of a com
munity, if even to get up a Guild for the
Propagation Of ‘Hymns Ancient and
EA VE LODGE,WINTERDALE. 7 9
Modern in the Moon . So Mrs . and MissMiller taught in the Sunday-school
,of
which the little b oys and girls Of the parishwere the Victims . The said Sundayschool
,by dint Of illustrated tickets,
’
treats,teas
,buns
,bunting
,bands
,and pro
cessions,and sermons plain for children ’
(and coloured for adults , added the flippa n t)became well attended, to the intense
gratitude o f the parents who go t rid in thisway Of their noisy and rowdy Offspring fo r
a fraction o f the day.
The Vicar also played cricket,without
being in the least a muscular Christian,
’
though decidedly muscular and undeniablya Christian . This endeared him to the
Older lads Of the parish,who respected him
far m ore because he could bowl them o ut
than because he was— according to hispulpit assertions a successor Of theapostles .
Finding Professor Miller apparently to o
80 WILD ROSE .
lazy this afternoon to contradict him o n
Huxley a n d -Darwin, Mr. Exeter adaptedhis conversation to the supposed scale Of
intelligence Of a female audience,and
inquired if Miss Miller were going to the
Bishop’s garden-party. Miss Miller hoped
so,but was n o t sure it depended o n how
mamma was . ‘Would Mr. Exeter haveanother cup Of tea
Thank you, if you please ; half a cup
will be plenty. Yes I wa s going to say ,
Miss Miller,that you must persuade your
mamma to abstain from all risks Of ailments till then . I should be sorry for
you to m iss it. The Bishop is to give an
address . ’
And when it is over and my duty
as chaperon done,
’ said Mrs . Miller, ‘I
suppose I am at liberty to relapse again
in to neuralgia a n d quietude to my heart’s
content
I believe,
’ said Jack, Hel never
WIN TERDALE . 8 1
d iscovered that paren ts w ere o f any use
in life till just n ow, when she is always
wanting chaperons . ’
The Pro fessor’s quick Scotch tones wereheard retorting
And yo u,Jack
,have n o t found a use
fo r us at all yet,except the o n e that
o ccurred to you in earliest infancy,that
w e were a ready source of cash . Just
think,Exete r
,he began by soliciting pence
t o buy bull’s-eyes and chocolate,
o n the
in genious pretext that they were for Helo r a beggar
, o r som e equally deservingperson
,just to take away a n y lurking sus
picio n Of greed o n his own part, which o f
c ourse had never entered our heads . Then
he grew Older,and required shillings fo r
m aterials wherewith to compound fire
works and for other em inently scientific
purposes . Six months ago he became
ambitious to ride a bicycle,and having
surreptitiously obtained o n e,permitted the
VOL . I . 6
52 WILD ROSE .
bill to fall into my hands . I admit,w ith
some pleasure,that he suffered a good deal
in learning to ride it, and has n o t succeeded
in destroying the instrument yet. He
has recently discovered that colouring,
and incidentally breaking,clay pipes is a
manly and desirable accomplishment and
I have reason to suppose has undergone
m uch private anguish in acquiring It.
I t is a cheap amusement,however
I say,draw it mild
,father,
’ said Jack,
laughin g. You can’t invent many more
examples o f extortion.
’
I do not think,
’ said Mr . Exetergravely and pleadingly
,
‘that your son is
quite so mercenary as you seem to think .
’
Mr. Exeter wonders to this day why
both Jack and his father laughed so much
at this reply .
‘We were just discussing when yo u
came in,Exeter
,
’ continued the Professor,
in a differen t tone,what to do with this
84 WILD ROSE.
e xclaimed the Marquise,who had been
hitherto rather sile nt .‘D O you really think so, madam '' in
quired the Vicar,with some hesitation .
D O yo u not think that would be leadinga young man into many and unn ecessarytem ptations
Perhaps ; but it would give him the
best education in medicine o r in art,and
civilise him . I do not know what Englishuniversities are like
,but imagine they
must be rather barbarous,she wa s about
to say,had she not suddenly recollected
that the Professor, and probably his friend,were English university m e n
,and so modi
fie d he r termination to different,
’
which
wa s rather weak.
Ah said the Vicar ; I often wish for
m y three years at the dear o ld college
o ver again . You know , madam’
(he wa s
dubious how to address a marquise, and
fluk e d along), Professor Miller and my
WIN TERDALE. 85
self were fellow-students at Oxbridge,and
we, o r at any rate I , have the pardonable
Opinion that in an English university isfound the best intellectual and sociale ducation for a youn g man .
’
‘Yes ; and'
a moral o n e,
’ added the
Professor. I found it so ; didn’
t I ,ExeterThe Vicar smiled faintly
,and shook his
head reprovingly.
‘I did contemplate sending him to
Leipzig and Berlin,where I wa s myself
once ; but I incline to ParIs now,and so
does b e It is always well to study in a
European as well as an En glish o r Scotchuniversity . I t tends to remove the too
prevalent impression o f the immeasurable
superiority o f Great Britain in matters
social and intellectual . ’
‘Besides,
’ said the Marquise, ‘in Paris
I can keep an e y e o n him .
’
Two,if you like ,
’ replied the Profe ssor,
86 WILD ROSE .
‘though I fancy by that time it will be
considered immaterial by him whose eye is
fixed o n him .
’
‘Not altogether,I hope
,
’ said Mrs .
Miller gravely.
‘Hadn’t I better leave the room ,
’
in
te rpo se d Jack , with the delightful pertness
Of an only son,
‘if you are all going to
spend the afternoon talking about me '’
‘If there is any painting in him,
’ said
the Professor,
‘it w ill break o ut Of its own
accord, and in the meantime a little
general scientific education— o n the top
Of your IEschylus and Horace , Exeterwill be no disadvantage
,and may be even
an assistance in other professions thanmedicine . Anatomy n ow
,for example
Here the Marquise hastily changed the
conversation, well aware what was likely
to follow if her terrible and scientific
brother-in -law once go t the conversational
bit in his teeth o n anatomy,by a sking
WINTERDALE. 87
‘D O yo u have a musical service here ,
Mr. Exeter ' Y ou know I am a Catholic
but I take a gre at interest in these matters
(‘She didn’t the least, half-a n -hour ago,
’
muttered the snubbed Professor),‘a nd
would be happy to give any assistance I
could .
’
‘Certainly . We do what w e can with
o ur little choir. There is nothing w e
should welcome so much as a lady’s voice
in the singing. You,perhaps
,would be
unaccustomed partly to our music and style
Of chant,but that would come readily after
a fe w practices . We have a full choral
service twice o n Sundays,and an in com
ple te ly choral matins every week-day at
8’
a m . Besides which , w e have,of course
,
the frequent occasional festivals,with which
you must be as well acquainted as we, to
enlighten the comparatively monotonous
week,as well as the weddings a n d funerals .
Ah,what a lovely funeral wa s that la st
88 W'ILD ROSE.
Thursday ' I fancy you were not there,
Miller '’
I fancy not,Exeter. I have given up
assisting professionally at parish death-beds
n ow. Probably the next fun eral I per
so n a lly attend will be my own . Good
that ' Personally conducted funerals '
Might advertise an agency for them,a la
Cook .
’
‘You are incorrigibly flippan t, Pro
fe sso r. May I ask,
’ proceeded Mr. Exeterto the Marquise
,
‘if we may expect you
in o ur little church to -morrow— Sunday '
The Bishop will preach,and it will b e
rather a favourable occasion for gaining afirst impression .
’
Oh,certainly— thank you very much
,
’
replied the Marquise,as if accepting an
invitation to din ner. ‘I have no doubt
my sister will have great pleasure in taking
me there .
’
Hel and Jack were n ow sittin g o n a
WINTERDALE. 89
sofa,displayin g their discretion by talking
about their visitor,as wa s perfectly Obvious
from their low and cautious tones a n d fur
tive glances at the Obj ect o f the n discourse .
Mr. Exeter startled them by asking, durlnga lull in the conversation , if Miss Helenwould not favour him with a song, and
m ade rem arks ab out Ulysses and thesirens, intending, Of course, to institute a
comparison between Miss Miller and a
siren, it following n aturally that he re pre
sen ted the subtle and travelled Greek.
‘But I hope you are not going to stop
your ears , Mr. Exeter,’ replied Hel .
I think I am right in saying that
Ulysses stopped the ears o f his crew and
kept his own open . I shall follow his
example an d dispense with a crew.
’
Of course,Hel ' Wron g again
,a s
usual,
’ rem arked Ja ck with m asculine de
cisio n ,calculated to display the superiority
Of the British boy’s acqua intance with the
90 WILD ROSE.
ancient litera ture Of G reece over that o f
the British girl.
Hel darted a fiery glance at he r brother,
a n d Observed gravely,I am forgetting my
Homer dreadfully,
’ as if Bentley,Wolff,
Gladston e,and the inevitable Scholia st
were her intimate friends,and w ith the
satisfied tone Of o n e who could readily tell
you the shades Of difference between two
durup ém t
’
s in two consecutive sentences .
As a matter Of fact,she had once opened
Pope’s Homer’s Iliad in the course Of he r
e xistence,and in five minutes pronounced
it heavy and stupid— to which Opinion,as
she j ourneys through life,she will find
m any adherents.
Hel arranged herself before the piano.
Her particular enthusiasm just then wa s
Germany,so she gave in a clear
,expres
sive,though not powerful soprano, a
German song— a common song enough,
but beautiful when heard seldom . This
CHAPTER IV
JACK MILLER.
‘N o,n o I
’
d se nd him out be time s to co llege,
For the re it was I pick e d up m y own knowledge .
’
BYRON .
IT is n ow tim e to devote a fe w special
words to o ur youn g friend Jack Miller,
who will be a figure Of some importance in
these pages.
He wa s sent to school at the age Of
nine,where he remained till he wa s six
teen . It does n o t much signify which
school ; they are much alike. We will
call it Whippingham . But Jack wa s n o t
constructed quite after the pattern Of all
English schoolboys . He worked w ith
364CR MILLER. 93
facility,and spent his spare time in help
ing his friends . Of active games he wasn o t over-fond ; rH e preferred lo afing in
summ er with a novel, to playing cricket.C ricket meant fielding to him,
as he wa s asorry batsman and could n o t bowl . In
winter he'
o cca sio n ally played football with
valourand violence, but Without attainingm uch skill .
He read a Waverley novel at the age Ofn ine
,mispronouncing half the names
, a n d
gaining a somewhat hazy conception as to
the meaning and point of some Of the
a ction ; but, nevertheless, extracting a
good deal o f entertainment to himself
therefrom . He organised bands Of outlaws
am ong the lower boys,who assembled at
the sound o f a whistle from the leafy
glades o f Sherwood (Sherwood consistingOf a clump o f laurels). He besieged Tor
quilsto n e , and repulsed the captors Of Ro b
Roy with hard fallen chestnuts— o n e o f
WILD ROSE.
which’
n e arly put another boy’s eye out— and
so forth,until the dram atic representation
Of the Waverley novels was summarilyprohibited
,Dirk H atte ra ick having sur
re ptitiously procured a real pistol an d shoto n e Of his invaders in the left hand .
At the age Of twelve he read some
Tennyson,and pronounced ‘
it stupid and
affected— a n opinion he had’
he ard som e
one else enounce . At seventeen he thought
it beautiful,and wa s constantly discovering
imaginary Mauds ’ in the most commonplace people twice his age .
Shakespeare he found an unfathom ablemine Of delight . He had a great dea l Ofmis
ce llan e ous literature at his hand at home .
He read popular science,and messed
with nitric acid and fireworks . He pur
chased a sm all work on logic,at the insti
ga tio n Of n o b o dv when he was fifteen ;a n d what is more , read it.
He found his father’s collection o f
9 6 WILD ROSE.
course Of actors from the novels you have
read,and your blank verse is decidedly in
fe rio r to that Of Shakespeare,whatever
you may think to the contrary. Yo u ca n
draw,and you can work at science . Don’t
have tOO many irons in the fire,and don ’t
be too sure Of anything.
’
Jack,temporarily ann ihilated
,a n dwra th
ful,saw in tim e that there was sense and
truth in his father’s words,and ceased to
be a dramatic author. He went,however
,
to the Win terdale School o f Art,where
he worked hard , made m any friends,a n d
a cquired what skill in manipulation the
place could give him,which
, p lus his naturaltalen t, gave him a respectable power Of re
presentation .
At sixteen o r seventeen he left school,
a n d became a pupil of Mr. Exeter,residing
o f course at home. Naturally,his mind
wa s n o t what is usually understood by
pure, innocent, and moral . N O o n e'
e xce pt
31AGR MILLER.
his mother could believe that an Englishschoolboy Of seven years ’ standing could beall o r any o f these . If a proved specimen
is to be found,I should like to see it. He
had a certain code Of ethics,such as never
to tell a lie except to shield a friend,o r o n
such like urgent necessity ; never to hurt
o ther people if avoidable w ithout loss Of
prestige . He wa s with difficulty provoked ,
and took most things pretty calmly. He
wa s not shy
C’était la son mo indre de fant. ’
But he could not be called forward o r ill
mannered, and was seldom impertinent .
He had a strong sense Of justice,and
logic and Euclid combined to give him avery clear insight into arguments . Rever
ence he was almost absolutely devoid o f,
though he might admire and respect certain
persons and things .
Religion had been represented to him
VOL . I . 7
98 WILD ROSE.
at home,as well as at school , as a matter
Of authority,a foregone conclusion
,a
m atter o f course. His father had decided
n o t to dictate to him in favour Of, o r
against,distinct articles o f belief
,mean ing
to assist him when Old enough to com e to
rational conclusions by using his own
judgment. His mother had,Of course
,
decided nothing Of the kind,and instructed
him,contemporaneously w ith his A B C
,
o n the Bible and religion Of the Church
as matters to be believed, staggered and
horrified as she might be by his Occasional
naive matter-o f—fact questions . All the
preachers he had ever heard had done the
same .
But at sixteen,logic
,Euclid, curiosity and
a strong bia s for fact had set the ston e o f
free thought rollin g in Jack’s active brain ,
and authority in matters of opinion and fore
gone conclusions sank and were shattered
b eneath it. His mind at first got into a
100 WILD ROSE .
up a little too early. His tastes were not
y e t fully developed. He had been a o
quain te d with many intelligent persons,
among whom perhaps the most importa nt
wa s his o wn father,and wa s capable o f
sustaining a conversation with spirit and
sense . He could speak and read French
and German moderately well. It may
be further added,for the benefit Of the
curious,that his hair wa s short, yellow,
and parted in the middle ; his eye
brows n o t white,as everyone feared they
would ; that he wa s five feet ten inches
high,well shaped
,though slender, and
fond o f bird’s-eye. He could draw an d
colour well . At school he had covered
his books w ith devices and designs,to the
great ire of his masters. All schoolboys
convert the ir books into repositories forsuperfluous ink
,but fe w can draw b e
yond,perhaps
,a rude representation o f a
human figure depending stiffly from a
_
‘
7ACR MILLER. 101
gibbet, with the inscription ,‘This is Old
SO-and-so .
’
In the year 187 0,the Emperor o f the
French endeavoured to invade Germany ,
and in doin g so gave the King Of Prussia
an Opportunity Of invadin g France and
Of becomin g Emperor,Of German y. SO
much European history relates . But
European history omits to mention thatin that year Jack Miller fell in love , as
far as it is possible at least for a youth o f
seventeen to fall. This wa s as important
a page o f history to him as the invasionOf France to William vo n Hohenzollern .
It wa s less important to the obj ect Of hisadmiration
,though she too found amuse
men t in it .
She wa s a barmaid at the Winterdalerailway buffet . She wa s really pretty ,
and only three-and-twenty. N othin g pa r
ticular came Of it except a n inordinate
expen diture o n Jack’s part o n unwhole
102 WILD ROSE.
some food and beve rages between meals ,
which the stom ach Of a man reading at
Exe ter’
s,
’ aged seventeen,could easily
tolerate ; so the consequences were not as
serious as mothers might fear and doctors
hope .
The idea Of m arriage flitte d, perhap s ,
vaguely through his brain . It was,how
e ver,only what a sa va n t calls ‘a certain
m arshallin g and re -marshalling o f the
atoms ’ in his cranial cavity,and never
gave itself vent in articulate speech . I n
his literary lessons in the ga i scie n ce , more
over,all the gay Lothario characters and
French musketeers,and countless such
like,held marriage in ridicule and aversion
,
and he felt that he must adhere to the
lofty ideal thus portrayed,a n d not lower
himself by travelling in the well-worn rutso f the wain o f virtue and respectability.
Such a step as marriage here,he had also
,
apart from the Don Juan affectation,sens‘e
104 IVILD ROSE.
a t St . Audit College, in the university
usually described by Thackeray as Cx
bridge ,’ though its manners and customs
,
spirit a n d style Of learning,have somewhat
developed a n d differentiated since the
days o f Pendennis, Fok e r, Magnus Char
te rs, e t hoc ge nus om n e .
CHAPTER V.
JACK’
s ACADEM IC LIFE .
Vivat AcademiaVivant Profe sso re s
Old Studen ts’Song.
J ACK had n o t the advan tage Of an uncle
like Major Pendennis to guard his m oralwell-bein g
,a n d in troduce him to the
un iversity. Even his father wa s to o unwellat the time o f his starting to accompanyhim
,so he had to march into the world by
him self,armed with a letter Of in tro duc
tion to D r. Scalpel , the then Professoro f Pathology at O xbridge (Oxbridge,un like the sister university Of Cam fo rd,
possessed an active Faculty of Medicin e
106 WILD ROSE.
and a large hospital), who promptly
asked him '
to dinner o n his arrival,and
made him welcome to the n e w life,and
m ade him feel that he had a friend he
could respect and trust. Jack never forgot
the kin dness o f Professor Scalpel to afreshman in a strange world .
As has been already hinted,Oxbridge
wa s not then what it wa s in the reign o f
Thackeray and his friend George the
Fourth . The work was harder,more
extensive, and more rationally conducted
than in the Old days,the average o f culture
slightly higher,the gen eral spirit rather
more secular. The advance Of learning,
civilisation, and toleration had made thetone Of the insular university more
European , and some at least Of the Oldprejudices had fled into the eternal lim bo
prepared fo r such things . On e great
change had taken place a lmost before
Jack’s very eyes, and o n e Of which the
108 ll/I LD ROSE .
be able to state the interesting fact in somany modern languages . After his first
year,he saw through his o wn ambition
little pieces o f affectation , a n d began to
look the great realities Of nature and j oy
a n d w o e in the face . H e could find
delight in the scarlet autumn blaze o f
a Virginian vine,o r the dark
,graceful
,
stiff-twigged fir-trees outlined against thegreen pallor Of the western sky at his
home,as well as in the refined and wearied
sensuousness o f the m arble-fa ced Dionysos,
w ith vine-leaves wreathing his drooped
head in the Art Museum at Oxbridge,o r
in the less refined though perhaps equa lly
weary legs o f burlesque , ‘movin g to the
music Of passion,with a lithe a n d lascivious
regret,’ in a Hall Of Varieties in Leicester
Square . Fo r,be it remembered
,a uni
versity educa tion is incomplete in these
latter days w ithout frequent Visits to the
Metropolis,and to the various ‘shrines
7 ACR’
s ACAD EMI C LIFE.
where a sin is a prayer .’ He wa s com
ple te ly Of the earth, e a rthy ,’
a n d wa s n o t
ashamed o f’
it,but considered it as a
natural and inevitable fact that he should
be so. He said : If I ought to be other
w ise than I am,I should have been made
otherwise . I am a man,and act as fully
as possible up to my n ature . What elsecan you expect
He attended his college cha pel occasion
a lly. This fact,combined w ith his home
religious education,possibly in some part
accounts for the dislike he felt to the
popular religion Of England. For irre
ligious, it is to be feared , Jack Millercertainly was , and, lamentable as it may
sound, found many con genial spirits atOxbridge who sincerely and entirely dis
believed everythin g that deans hold
sacred.
He got-to have friends Of all sorts and
descriptions , Christian and Parsee , German
110 WILD ROSE.
and French,industrious and idle
,worthless
a n d worthy but gradua lly, in the lapse o f
time,he got more intimate w ith what som e
called the ‘modern fast set. ’ This wa s
a small circle,and utterly distinct from
the ancient fast set, which is composed Of
rich or noble idlers , app e titous athletes e t
hoc ge nus om n e , and which is as Old and
respected an academ ic institution as the’varsity sermon .
N O. Jack’s friends were men o f
moderate , some less than moderate,
means , who worked hard,mostly in his
o wn line o f study,some sen ior and some
junior to himself,possessing plenty Of
talent and wit,little o r no religion
,and
delighting in the ancient classics,Shake
speare, the Elizabethan and Restorationdramatists , Theophile Gautier, Baudelaire
Hugo,and a certain school Of modern
English ' poets : not that they were all
alike,Of course
,in these respects — a general
112 WILD ROSE.
He wa s some years older than Jack,
and possessed more experience o f the
world , and had more pronounced opinions
in consequence . He wa s naturally e h
dowed w ith a capacity for languages,and
wa s familiar with all Jack’s favourite
authors,and a great man y more beside .
He appreciated nature , music , and poetry
keenly,and they seemed to be the romantic
e lement in his nature , and the symptoms
Of the Hungarian blood . Perhaps it wa s
his Teutonic education that w a s responsible
for his attachment to pure reason and free
speculation,unfettered by the authority o f
men ’s Opinions and traditions . The Englishelement in his composition came out in hislove o f comfort, o f cavendish
,and Of
Shakespeare .
In the details Of the political and religious
disputes Of the day he took but slight
interest . He wa s n o t overj oyed o r afflicted
a t the existen ce o f an Established Church in
934CR’
S ACADEMIC LIFE. 113
England,though he thought it contrary to
the principles Of pure reason . He said
If I hoped o r struggled to see Englandgoverned by pure reason
,I should wear
out my body and mind,and leave England
such as I found it. ’
If you replied to him that if everyone
used such arguments there would be n o
progress at all,he would say
‘Perhaps . But everyone does not use
such arguments. ’
As long as there existed good theatres,
painters,musicians and poets
,tobacco
,
girls and beer,he said anEstablishedChurch
o r an established anything else in no wayaffected the stream Of his life . And a
sparkling,j oyous
,and intelligent stream it
was . He enj oyed life intensely,and almost
every man and woman who knew him liked
him,and every animal .
He wa s quite fearless in enunciating hisOpinions
,though he did n o t do so o n n u
VOL. I .
114 WILD ROSE.
called for occasions,and wa s careful to
avoid giving unnecessary Offence in his talk .
To sum Maxm ilia n Laurence up, he wa so n e o f those keen -minded
,strong-bodied ,
refined and en lightened young beings Of this
latter day , for whose existence w e may
largely thank,if thanks be due
,the authors
o f the new revolution— Voltaire,Goethe ,
Musset, Heine, and multitudinous others ,whose names will readily occur to the
reader,whose chief ally
,it may be added
,
in the spiritual regeneration (o r revolution,whichever the reader likes) may be safely
a sserted to be the Older mediaeval spirit
that .so Often asserts itself in fierce abusea gainst them.
Some Of Laurence’s Oxbridge friendscalled him ‘Der Geist de r stets verneint
and others,
‘Der Kritik der reinen Ver
n un ft.
’
His influence enlarged Jack’s literarytaste
,and stimulated him to study the
116 WILD ROSE.
doubtful if his parents would have felt all
the gratitude to his guide that Jack him
self felt. SO progressed his academic life .It is unnecessa ry to do more than just giveon e real extract from his career there
,
tending to give more definite ideas Of Ox
bridge and its associations for Jack thanwould be given by pages Of description .
To this a separate chapter is due, which
will bring us to the termination o f his third
a cademic year,and the twenty-first a n d
twe n ty-second o f his life .
CHAPTER VI .
ALMA PIA— DURA MATER.
IT is just possible to become tired Of
Oxbridge,isn ’t it asked Jack Of Max, as
they walked slowly arm-in -arm , in the
dusk Of a March evening,towards the
latter’s rooms,where he had invited a few
friends to a sort o f formal farewell assem
blage,previous to their both leaving Ox
bridge,and subsequently to their both
having taken their degrees.
I think it is possible at certain momentsto absolutely hate it
,
’ the other replied.
‘However,this is our last Bumm e l in
these streets . Let us look at it with akindly and pitying eye . ’
118 WILD ROSE .
It wa s a Saturday evening,about half
past eight,and the sky wa s clear and star
lit after a very we t afternoon,which had
left a thin layer Of sticky,dark slime o n
the pavement,interrupted at intervals by
a puddle glittering in the gaslight,through
which the numerous passers-by splashed
carelessly ; The large gutters , for whichOxbridge is so famous
,were filled to over
flowing with rushing clear water, and the
oath o f some o n e accidentally treading in
one wa s occasionally audible.
Jack and Laurence were in a long
irregular street which extends from the
heart Of the town to its uttermost outskirt,
and whose pavement in the evening, par
ticula rly Saturday evening,is usually
crowded. At every step they were j ostled
by Old peasants in lon g smock-frocks,who
were goin g home from their marketing,
usually slightly unsteady from beer and
gin undergrown youths from shops, from
120 WILD ROSE.
young girls,leaning with their backs to
the wall,talking
, laughin g, and addressing
rem arks Of a personal a n d chaffy ’ nature
to passing students . N ow and then a
hussar was visible,from the neighbourin g
garrison-town o f Sho re dale,in a great
cloak, with crimson legs showing under itmuch spur and swagger
,and
,o f course
,
like the rest Of the world o n such an evening
,slightly drunk .
At o n e side o f the street was the bril
liant gas-lit descent to a skating-rink,
where the sounds Of a bad piano and fiddle
were fain tly audible,playing a well-known
and popular polka,nearly drowned in the
grinding Of the wheels of the skaters. I f
o n e were to glance inside, o n e would see a
crowd Of men in four-cornered caps,and
girls set free from their shop-counters,etc . ,
for the evening, going round and round
their prescribed course,like the heavenly
bodies,in a hot
,gassy atm osphere
,which
ALMA PIA— DORA MATER. 12 1
appeared to have permanently deprived the
poor,pale
,j deform ed pianist o f a com
plexion . In its entrance-passage m ore
youths in square caps were to be seen ,smokin g cigarettes a n d drinkin g beer sent
in large shining pewter p ots from a neigh
b o uring public-house. -(As a m atter Of
fact,there was always a n eighbouring
’
public-house and a neighbouring to
ba cco n ist in any part o f Oxbridge .)By Jove said Jack
,I thin k we really
have slummed along these streets about
enough . About as much as the exigencieso f our education demand. It is rather
terrible,isn’t it
,to thin k how much time
m e n waste here '’
‘Pity that idea doesn’t occur to thewould-b e dissipated freshman a little earlier
in his academic career,
’ said the other.
Let’s go home . ’
And they went to Laurence’s rooms inSt. Audit’s College— large
,comfortable
122 WILD ROSE .
rooms, with an artistic and refined lookabout them
,and containing a great number
Of books and a piano . Laurence wa s a nenthusiastic and talented musician. Regi
ments Of claret bottles were o n a side-table,
flanked by squadrons of soda-water bottles .
On a table in the middle Of the room were
large beakers of glass,borrowed from o n e
Of the laboratories,to hold claret-cup,
which Laurence and Jack,denuded Of their
coats,were hastening to make . The kettle
wa s boiling o n the fire,and an em pty china
bowl for the later manufacture o f whisky
punch wa s in the background . The
groceries ’ strewed the table. The latter
day paganism,with all its culture , does
not despise the ancient and j ovial in stitu
tions Of cup and punch and ringing song,
nor even pipes and tobacco,a b o x of which
wa s Open o n the table . Just as Laurencehad lit a magnificent German porcelain
pipe, w ith a stem o f immense length, the
124 WILD ROSE .
tall,bearded handsome man
,who had just
been giving his ideas o n egoistic Hedo
nism, H egal and‘uvver fings,
’ suddenlysaid
By the way,apropos o f Hedonism, wa s
anyone at Thompson’s drunk,day before
yesterday
N o ; were you '’
‘Oh yes . I am thinking Of writing a
College Drinking-party ” in emulation Of
George Eliot’s College Breakfast-party,
”
which,as yo u all know,
gives such a truly
accurate and realistic notion of the waymen converse
,here
,o n such occasions . ’
What wa s the drunk like,Villars
asked Jack ; ‘wa s it interesting, o r wa s
there anything original about it Rather
surprised, you know,
to hear that you
should have connection with such a per
fo rm a n ce .
’
Well,
’ said Villars,
‘it is not a frequent
amusement Of m ine,as you are aware .
Thompson, you know,
has recently m ade a
ALMA PIA— D (IRA MATER . 125
valiant and praiseworthy attempt to take a
degree in honours, which has met with that
cruel form ‘Of repulse from the examiners,
In honour
apparently o f this, he decided to have a
wine,
” and invited me among others. I
popularly called a“plo ug
had no decent excuse for refusing, and
n o t to hurt his feelings,went . It wa s
crowded,as anything Of that sort given in
lodgings is likely to be . There wa s a
great deal o f the brutal athlete elementpresent
,more particularly in the form Of
Sloane. Know Sloane,don’t you ' enor
mous m an whose rooms are furnished
principally with rowing and athleticphotos
I know,
’ said Jack great pal Of LilyJones Of the Pig and Whistle bar
,in
Watergate Lane. ’‘I know nothing o f his amorous ex
ploits, but I can readily suppose it . I
only know that he got fearfully o n at this
126 WILD ROSE.
entertainment I am speaking o f very early
in the evening,and it took many men
and much labour to keep him within some
bounds ’
‘I believe that man will have D .T .
soon,
’ said Jack ;‘he can’t do an hour’s
reading without bottled beer,even In the
morning. His fingers speak a lcoholism in
every attempt to lift a gla ss or light a
pipe . ’
He amused him self for a fe w minutes ,’
continued Villars,
‘in throwing chairs
downstairs,and his conversation wa s Of
the most hair-raisin g description .
’
I ’ll bet it wa s,
’ said the l ittle demonstrato r Of anatomy, taking his short blackpipe from his mouth
,and blowing an
additional puff Of the perfume Of burnt
shag through the already clouded atmo
sphere .
’
After a. while,when o n e o r two rather
quiet m e n had gone, Dawkins went to the
128 WILD ROSE.
fo rm a n ce wa s getting Sloane home,
’ went
o n Villars . He had firmly decided,with
that determination which is so strong in a
drunken man,tha t going home was a
foolish and unnecessary proceeding,and
argum ent and persuasion had very littleeffect . He placed his great back against awall, and se t his beastly dog at us . He
lives in som e back street,to which the
route is rather involved,and it took som e
three quarters Of an hour before we couldget him into the hands Of a philanthropic
policeman som ewhere in his n eighbour
hood,who promised to see him hom e. I
hope he enj oyed the j ob .
’
‘I hope it hasn ’t dem oralised you , and
given you tha t taste for vinous excess
Horace so viciously encourages '’ askedJack.
I hOpe not. When are you going
down
TO-morrow m orning. This is—I say it
ALMA FIA-DURA MATER . 29
with som e feeling, m ade up o f a little
pride,som e pain
,and much satisfaction
the last D Ight Of my Oxbridge career.
Max and I go to town to-morrow.
’
‘The devil yo u do said Villars.
‘Where you are going to be Faust andMephistopheles, Max a n d Moritz
,com
panions in iniquity,I suppose . ’
Oh yes, go o n Villars : David and
‘Jonathan, Crosse and Blackwell, Hell
and Tomm y,’ cried some voice from the
corner Of a sofa.
We have what the knights Of Old ca lleda quest
,
’ said Laurence,
‘to follow for a
few days . After that,Gra s inge n s
scire n ef a s.
’
‘What’s the quest in this case '’ a sked
the demonstrator,with a sm ile in his dark,
vivacious eyes .
N ous so n ge ons qu a nous réjo uir7) 7
La grande a ffaire e st le pla isir.'And the nature Of that pleasure
VOL. I . 9
130 WILD ROSE .
Soyo ns toujours amoure uxC
’e st lo moye n d’etre he ure ux.
‘Ah,I went in for that sort o f thing
when I wa s your age .
’
Really That must be about two
years ago,when you were my present age ; ’
You are very full o f quotation to-night
what have you been reading
A work entitled M. de Pource augn a c
by Moliere . Would yo u like -One more
short moral lesson from the same
I’m n o t very keen o n it,but I suppose
you will not be satisfied till y o u haveem itted it . ’
Aimo ns jusque au trépasLa ra ison n o us y convieH élas si l
’On n
’a im ait pas
Q ue se ra it-ce de la vieAh pe rdo ns plutOt le j our,Q ui se pe rdre no tre amour.”
‘Hear,hear said Jack .
‘Alm ost thou persuadest me to be a
heathen,
’ said Villars,
o n your pattern .
’
132 WILD ROSE.
through the still n ight,startling stray
passers and policemen,fo r the rooms
looked o n to the street.
Between the songs came general refresh
m ent and confused j ocular conversation,in
the midst o f which Laurence began tom ake the punch
,and a sprightly young
Frenchman,after distinguishing himself in
a contest with Jack with a pair of foils,
sa t down to the piano and began the well
known o ld song
Mo n pere e st ‘
a Pa ris,
Ma m ere e st a Ve rsa ille,
Et m o i j e suis iciMe couchant sur la pa ille .
Just as the deafening chorus o f L ’amour,
la n uit comme le j our wa s b ein g rendered
by the whol e force o f the com pany,the
punch wa s placed o n the table,and the
college porter came to the door to request
mitigation o f the ro w.
Who sent you '’ asked Laurence .
ALMA PIA— D (IRA IlIATER.
The master,sir
Take this glass o f punch fo r yourself,
and tell the m aste r,if he has a n y complaint
to make to me he can make it in person at
King’s Cross to -morrow,at where
I shall be . In a ny case, tell him to
faireL
’
amo ur,
La nuit comme le j our
shouted the multitude. The porter
grinned, swallowed his punch and withdrew.
Some o n e volunteered to drop a mouse
through the letter-slit in the m aster’s door,
a nd wa s restrained with some difficulty
from carryin g out the project,which would
have'
p e rille d his prospects rather, as hewould be certain to be detected in his
present condition .
Laurence filled glasses round, and the
o ld English song Three Jolly Post-boys’
followed,and several m ore . Finally,
Auld Langsyne wa s sun g w ith very n u
134 WILD ROSE.
steady Highland honours,
’ and the party
broke up, and went whooping home o n a
continuous slide,the street having frozen
in the night . Max and Jack instan tly
calmed down,closed the piano
,a n d sat
pensively smokin g in armchairs before the
fi re .
S trange isn’t it '’ observed the former ;‘any visitor would have fancied himself
strayed into a barrack or a private asylum ,
who had come here half an hour ago, and
would never have guessed that some o f the
best and cleverest fellows in the ’varsity
were here,j oking
,drinkin g punch
,and
generally raising Hades in the way theydid . Villars will get a professorship bfmetaphysics in Scotland ; Smith is a
le cturer, a n d prosector and fellow o f his
college already the other men are going to
ge t high places , if they have not go t them,
except y ou and I , who remain and lament
Mimi Pinson,and the temp s p erdu.
’
136 WILD ROSE.
whom we pay to do nothing except send
us down if necessary, and the chaplains
that m ake services a caricature o f religion,
and the deans who would force us toattend them .
’
‘And we shall n o t forget the few good
friends we have made,and the real good
tim es we have had .
’
Have you packed up‘N o .
’
When do you m ean to Because thetrain’s at ten
,and you won’t be in a hurry
to r ise to morrow,
“when later larks giv e
warning the later lark bein g regardeda s j ust over. ’
‘Oh , I
’
ll m anage in time . I’
m not
drunk , and there’s a whole n ight y e t.
’
‘Stay with m e, and help make som e
anchovy toast and coffee . ’
It’s o n e a m . I ’m n o t such a bird o f
night as you .
’
‘You’
d better stay. I want to show
ALMA PIA— DURA MATER. 137
yOu some n ew books— Spinoza in Dutchlinguistic exercise .
’
d,at this hour in the
morn ing ; as he probably is from a -theo'
Spinoza be (1
logical standpoint . No, sir ' I ’m goingto pack and sleep— perchance to dream .
Then there’s my tub ' We will meet atPhilippi— that is to say
,in m y rooms, where
you will breakfast later in the course o f
the m orning. Good-night. ’
Good-night. ’
And Laurence sat up reading Spinoz aa mong the remains o f claret-cup , punch,bits o f lemon
,an d tobacco ashes .
CHAPTER VI I .
R O S A E N T E R S S O C I ETY.
AFTER the Germ an war, Dr. Taylor, on
receipt o f a letter from Césarin e , a n d a
posthumous o n e from Felix ,written in case
o f his death,sailed fo r Europe uia’ Ham
burg, and went, as he said, as straight as
railroad cars could take him to the Rue de
la Harpe,and the Boulevard St. Michel,
a n d found Rosa,overj oyed to see him,
grown into a tall, lithe girl o f fourteen,
w ith the experiences o f wa r and starvation
o n her pale face and thin limbs, and look
ing at him with unlimited affection o ut of
hollow large brown eyes. He a t once
140 WILD ROSE.
after some protector o f her o wn sex, more
efficient,though none could be more willing
o r kind-hearted,than Césarin e . He ex
plained this to the latter as delicately as
possible, and she assen ted, with some
tears,o n the condition that she was to be
occasionally visited by Rosa.
SO Rosa wa s transferred to the care o f
Mrs . Maston Frankland,who wa s the
acme o f elegance and propriety, and who,
after listening to the true story o f Rosa,as
told by her brother— who , in his direct,
simple-minded way , expected the sam eenthusiastic approval from this lady-like
sister o f his that he go t from Césarin e , the
brasserie waitress saidWell
,if you ain
’t the oddest kind , Ivor
However, I suppose I must try what I can
do .
’
Mrs . Frankland wa s too weak to refuse to
do what she wa s even slightly unwilling to
do . Taylor went o n ,in a hesitating voice
ROSA ENTERS SOCIETY. 141
Say,you’ll dress her properly, won
’t
you—way other smart girls a re dressed '
I ’ll stand that and,see here
,she’s learnt
a whole crowd o f things already— I don’
t
know that it’s exactly n ecessary that she
should go to school— see
I see. ’
‘And you’ll give her a good time,a s
much as you can
I ’ll try.
’
And Rosa came,shy a n d anxious-look
ing,to a n ew and
,to her eyes
,magnificent
quarter o f Paris, and drove about in one of
those carriages she had sometimes admired
and envied,as they splashed her while
crossing.
the Boulevard des Capucines .
Mrs . Frankland liked Rose in her own
gelatinous, lazy way ,but wa s a little afraid
o f her direct fearless eyes,and direct fear
less questions and sayin gs . Rosa had been
brought up to habits of outspoken sincerity
from the example of Taylor himself, and it
142 WILD ROSE.
made Mrs . Frankland lament that she had
not had the charge o f her sooner,so as to
have made her more elegant and hightoned in her opinions . She resolved thatit m ust be still possible to reform Rosa
,and
turn her into an elegant and high-toned
girl,with proper respect for rank and
fashion and money. She believed in
dollars , did Mrs . Frankland, and had
plenty o f them,and had no objection to
expending them o n Rosa’s improvement.
She firmly believed that money, generously
and”
j udiciously laid o ut, could, in some
mysterious way ,instil a spirit o f proper
opinion and proper reverence for great and
good things,such as dresses , dinners ,
dances and dollars , in to Rosa’s mind , and
resolved to have a consultation w ith her
friend the Marquise de To rto le o n e on the
subj ect .The Marquise de To rto le o n e , o n her
m arriage, wa s not the prettiest woman in
144 WILD ROSE.
supplies were under his control, and that
the Marquise’s love o f flirtation wa s to o
universal,and her discretion too great
,to
permit her,under the circumstances, to go
in any sense too far. Besides,he could
find m eans o f consoling himself,while
living so long apart from her and n u
noticed by her,as he generally did.
The Marquis wa s French . Before he
became,by right o f purchase
,the possessor
o f the Italian estate and title o f To rto le o n e,
his n am e had been Jean Bouvier. He wa s
a lucky speculator,a man ignorant in all
m atters outside the Bourse,and in society
the perfection o f snobbery. The Bourse
was his Paradise,and the demoniac yells of
the frequenters of that Institution were to
him a s angels’ son gs . The god he wo r
shipped was called ‘Rentes,
’ and wa s a
near relation,with modern improvements
,
o f the deity to which Shadrach,Meshach
,
and Abednego refused to b ow down on the
ROSA ENTERS S OCIE TY 145
plain of Dura. Society sneered at him’
but tolerated him . His means were an
apology for his m anners . He knew the
celebrity one can ga in from being the pro
prietor o f a pretty wife, when o n e can
afford to pay M. Worth and his like todress her, a n d
,o n the strength o f this
knowledge and his own affluence, he went'
into the ‘Babylonian m arket,
’ and,after
some bargaining, procured the article re
quired . The n ew speculation wa s a
success . People grew tired o f asking who
the Marquise wa s,because no o n e could
answer the question . But she wa s unde
n iably a beauty. After looking at her and
talking to her in a surprised and almost
reverent way for a fe w days, the Marquis
returned to his o ld love , the Bourse , and
left his w ife to amuse herself in her own
way, which she was n o t slow to do. In
due time the NIarquise became the mother
o f a son . This wa s Alfred de To rto le o n e ,
VOL. I. 10
146 WILD ROSE.
who has been n oticed slightly in a form er
chapte r.
After five years o f conjugal bliss,the
Marquis disappeared entirely,leavin g a
polite note to say that pressing business
required his immediate presence in a part
o f the world which he vaguely described
a s the East. ’ The uncharitable,and par
ticularly his creditors,hinted that the
business alluded to wa s carried o n in the
Levant,o r consisted in raising a harem
somewhere in Roumelia. The affliction o f
the Marquise at his loss wa s not over
whe lmm g,and w a s alleviated by the fact
that he had se ttled a comfortable income
o n her,o n her wedding-day. She showed
a glimmer o f common sense by sending
her boy to be educated in England,say ing
that if he were sent to a French school
he would grow up a n insufferable little
fool : a rash prediction,perhaps , a n d
foun ded o n a hasty generalisation from
WILD ROSE .
w itty comedies and ‘proverbes,’
a n dfancied
herself to resem ble the charming and
epigrammatic marquises and coun te ssesw ith which they were populated . She
had a ‘salon ’ and receptions,and endea
voure d to be a species o f female Maecenas .
She wa s not unpopular. H e r talents were
few,but the greatest of them wa s one of a
n ature calculated to win popularity .
This wa s a marvellous capacity o f simu
latin g an enthusiasm for whatever . might
interest the person she wa s conversingw ith
,and dexterously inserting compli
ments at the same time . Her friends
called this capacity amicability and large
m m de dn e ss. It was what is known in
the S ister Isle as ‘blarney,
’ and in thiscountry by the more downright if more
coarse name o f humbug.
’
It was to this lady that Mrs . Frankland
w ent for advice in her difficulty about
Rosa,and laid her case confidently before
ROSA ENTERS SOCIETY. 149
he r. The Marquise said she perfectlycomprehended the whole situation, and
a dvised the sending o f Rosa to a con
ve n tua l educational institution with which
she wa s acquainted . This wa s j ust what
Mrs . Frankland wanted an excuse and e u
courage m e n t for doing,and the Marquise
soon persuaded her that it would b e a
most benevolent act,and o n e in no way
coming under Dr. Taylor’s prohibition
anent schools . The two ladies embra ced,
a n d . parted with expressions o f mutual
e steem . Rosa wa s unsuspectingly led to
suppose,in a vague way , that she wa s
going where Dr. Taylor thought proper,
a n d entered this pension,conducted by
re’
ligieuse s .
The brilliant success o f this step
o n Mrs . Fra n klan d’
s part may be sur
m ise d from the following letter fro m the
Mother Superior,received a week after
the entrance o f Rosa,which reached Mrs .
150 WILD ROSE.
Frankland at breakfast sent her into wild
dismay and disarray
CHERE MADAME,
‘Mademoiselle your ward has this
afternoon left us,after defiantly refusing to
perform a punishm ent set her,o n the plea
that it wa s unjust ; which assertion in the
mouth o f o n e o f her years to her superiors,
is in itself an act o f insubordination . Whereshe has gone I know not ; but, dear Madame,I feel it my painful duty to add
,that fin d
ing Mademoiselle Rosa Taylor to be with
o ut religion,o r a distinct code o f disciplinary
morality,I cannot readmit he r here
,as
such a step would imply the total demora
lisa tio n o f my other charges,who have
already a tendency to sympathise with the
r ebellious conduct o f Mademoiselle Taylor .‘Agree , Madame, my considerations the
most distinguished,and believe me
,
Your always devoted
OLIVIA , Mere Sup e’
rie ure .
’
152 WILD ROSE.
I don’t mean to have the finishing o f her
run by nuns— see I have given her over
to you to have her kept pure,and if that is
your notion of ho w to do it,she might just
as well come back to the Quartier. I don ’t
suppose it’s your fault . Your mind ain’t
strong enough to take such a decided
s tep alon e,but I ’m particularly grateful to
w hoever put it in to your head, and would
like to have an opportunity o f expressing
my feelings to he r it must be her a
Well,all
right . I ’m not going to cuss,don’t put o n
that scared face . Do you like Rosa ' Do
you and she get along together
I like her very much . I think she
likes me .
’
Mrs . Frankland here sobbed.
Her brother said
I’
ve seen a good many cases of hysteria
man w ouldn’t be such a
and weeping women,in hospitals and out
‘
Of’ ’em , and they don
’t alter my feelin gs
ROSA ENTERS SOCIETY. 153
much by n ow. If you want to have Rosa
back, you shall ; but o n the distinct under
s tanding that yo u keep her w ith yourself.
She did quite right to leave that place yo usent her to , and an elegant scare she
’s
given them . They don’t quite know what
a Yankee-bred . girl means yet,there
,I
fancy— kind o f n e w and dangerous animal ;might encourage the French girls to be
riotous and playful,and shy their rosaries
a t o n e another’s heads . Perhaps you’ll
write to them to send back her traps . I ’ve
a lready sent them the stamps for the
quarter’s pay
,so they can’t complain that
Rosa defrauded them any. Do you under
s tand me '’
‘Yes,’
(Mrs. Frankland was frightened,
thrown o ff her dignity, and thoroughly
subdued .) Well,I ’ll sen d her back.
’
Rosa came back . The only remark she
ever condescended to make about her short
school experience wa s : They all liked
154 WILD ROSE.
me ; the girls, I m ean . I be lieve they
thought I was a sort o f boy.
’
She a n d Mrs. Frankland go t used tO
o n e another in time,and got o n quietly
and amicably. Rosa soon understood her
guardian . Mrs . Frankland soon gave uptrying to understand Rosa.
A few years later,when Rosa becam e
sixteen,Colonel Fran klan d suddenly died
and Mrs . Frankland,at the re com m e n da
tion o f her mentor,the Marquise
, deter
mined to go to England.
156 WILD ROSE.
step,Or rather to form an audience while
he pointed o ut to her the merits and
demerits o f various schools o f medicine ,
and laid down the law o n other things o n
which she was not competent to dis
pute .
He wa s determined to go to Paris and
when he wa s determined that a thing
should happen,it somehow generally did
happen. Having ann ounced his various
proj ects and their reasons,and discovered
the way in which his parents were likely
respectively to regard them,he went o n
to more general matters,in which Hel
could take a greater interest. Laurenc ewa s expected at Eave Lodge next day.
Jack had to answer numerous questions
about him , and give a minute description'
o f him to his sister .
I wonder if I shall like him said she.‘I fancy you will : you ought. Most
girls only care as long as a man is good
DOMESTIC. 157
looking. Max is undeniably good-looking,
and has got some w its as well . ’
‘What a stra nge way you have of
talking of most girls,
” as if they were '
a
class o f inferior animal whose habits y ou .
had been studying‘Just the state o f the case . And very
nice little animals they are ' What havethey done to prove the contrary I gra nt
you they have ambition— Lucifer’s own ;
but what does it produce ' Members o f
school-boards,Girto n ite s In sap-green with
silver chains round their wrists and double
eye-glasses . I believe in the higher cul
ture o f women , because it make s them
more agreeable to men . They recognise
themselves,perhaps unconsciously
,the
truth in a certain sense o f the saying,
“The wom an wa s made fo r the m a n .
”
One o f the most prominent female a rtists
o f o ur country devotes herself to the glori
fica tio n o n canvas o f men,particularly men
158 WI LD ROSE.
engaged in an unintellectual and savageprofession .
’
But soldiers needn’t be unintellectual‘Who mentioned soldiers ' However,
as y ou have assumed, presumably from the
accuracy o f my description,that I meant
soldiers,I may add that I didn’t say
soldiers were necessarily without intellect .
I said that the profession wa s eminentlysavage
,a profession o n lv existing in virtue
o f the imperfection o f civilisation,like that
o f the clergy
Oh, Jack‘Like that o f the clergy, and co n se
quently only advancing men’s minds in
the direction o f ingenuity o f destruction
o r subjugation o f other men,m ind and
body— the soldiers the body, the clergy the
m ind.
’
I don’t think that’s quite fair. ’
Well,no
,perhaps not. I apologise to
a ll your military and clerical partners in
160 WILD ROSE.
havinga squarishprotuberance in its middle .
This wa s Winterdale and its cathedra l
fields and downs were m oderately bright,
goin g away into grey and foggy per
spe ctive . Above all wa s the starlit sky.
Come and look at all this,Hel Jack
wa s drinking in the wonderful though
m elancholy a n d thought-bringing beauty
o f the scene .
Hel came to the w indow-sill alongside
him, and looked out.
‘Es stehe n un beweglich die S te rn e in cler
H ohe ,’ quoted Jack .
‘Heine might have
known,
’ he added,laughing that the
stars are n o t imm ovable at all . However,
they are immovable to human joy and
sorrow. In his sense it is true . They a re
the pitiless and passion less eyes o f heaven .
’
That doesn’t sound quite original,some
how,
’ observed Hel gently.
Jack looked at his watch .
‘Three minutes past twelve. On e
IDOALES I YCZ 161
begins to feel like Faust . It is Easterm orning. Let us listen for the chorus o f
angels . ’ And they were both mom entarily
silent . A long low wailing shriek came
borne upon the still air,from some distance .
Hel started, and said
What’s thatThe mail coming into Winterdale .
Seven minutes late,to o . I should think
you might know a railway whistle thistime in the nineteenth century. So muchfor that century’s answer to Faust. ’
‘I think the nineteenth century has
advanced to that stage properly called bed
time ,’ said Hel. Wait till my pipe ’s
done . Well,yes
,I ’ll go to Paris .
N ecessary part o f my education— also
to bed, necessary part o f m y physica l
maintenance—to sleep,perchance to dream
— perchance not. ’
These short, disjointed remarks were
em itted alternately with smoke-clouds .VOL . I . 11
162 WILD ROSE.
Jack then carefully knocked out and
otherwise extracted ashes and oily refuse
from his pipe,stroked it with a silk
handkerchief,and laid it in its case.
I think you’ll like Max,
’ he said, as
they separated for the night.‘Perhaps I shall . I hope so. Good
night. ’
Just a t this time another conclave had
been dissolved in another smoking-room,o r
rather study in which smoking was pra c
tise d. Professor Miller sat in his writing
chair,in a dressing-gown, with a lon g
German pipe in his hand. Opposite to
him o n the wall,wa s a copy o f Rem
brandt’s ‘Anatomy Lesson .
’ Around the
walls stood shelves bearing bottles o f what
Mrs . Miller and Hel called ‘things ,’ in
spirits, which gave the room a vague air of
alchemy,the Black Art
,a n d general
horror to unscientific Winterdale. Of
course there wa s a book-case, with several
164 WILD ROSE.
I f Faustus had gone to bed at the proper
time, instead o f talking blank verse a ll
night about things he didn’t understand,
matters would have taken a very different
course,and a great deal o f n n sfo rtun e
would have been averted . He would
have discovered the elixir o f life,and
swallowed a dose . The funeral would
probably -have taken place next day, and
the will would have been found to devis e
his whole hypothec, consisting of a furnace,two skulls, his manuscripts, and a small
phial o f poison ,w ith directions ‘for in
ternal application ,’ toWagner—who would
richly deserve it all,particula rly the last
item . Gretchen would have continued to
attend public worship,clothed in a white
dress and a bag,and would have married
some respectable young Philister,who
also habitually went to church,and would
have been the mother o f twelve children .
Valentine would have lived to be a general,
DOMESTIC. 165
and would come home and tell stories o f
the wars to his nephews and grand
nephews— fin e . o ld crusted lies which they
knew by heart,and he nearly believed at
last himself. What '’
I thought you were going to talk about
Jack .
’
Poor Mrs . Miller had patiently bornethe comparative merits o f German and
English poetry,and incidentally pipes ;
some funny remarks about the Bishop o f
Winterdale,which somehow contrived to
get into the conversation,and the import
an ce o f visceral arches in relation to the
segmentation of the skull ; and finallyFaust,
as a last straw,hoping all the time that he
would give her an opportun ity of uttering
advice a n d predictions concerning Jack.
‘Jack ' He wants to go to Paris . I
suppose he’d better go in the autumn .
’
Don ’t you think it rather a mistake to
let him go so far by himself,and so un pro
166 WILD ROSE.
te cte d, into the way o f all sorts o f te m pta
tions
He would have just as much temptation
in London,and o f a less civilised kind . H e
must learn medicine somewhere,
a nd it
can’t very well be here .
’
‘Couldn’t we go to Paris,too
,for a
while ' It would do Hel good to get an
outing,and we could then have Jack with
us.
’
‘And keep an eye o n him,and see that
he doesn’t go to theatres o n Sundays'
He’d thank you . You didn’t want to keep
an eye o n him at Oxbridge
But that is England,and so dif
fe re n t.
’
Unless Oxbridge has altered,largely
since my time,there are j ust as good
opportunities there as anywhere for trans
gre ssio n o f all laws moral and divine.
Temp tations, as people are pleased to call
them , are to be met WIth in large numbers .
168 WILD ROSE.
som ething for his amusement. Let’s invitethe Fran klan ds to dinner. ’
We’ll see. ’
An d Eave Lodge slept.
CHAPTER IX.
MAx LAURENCE .
ON Easter-day,a brilliant day, with an
east wind and dust,Mrs . Miller and Hel
deserted Mr. Ex e te r’s church in the morn
ing for the cathedral at Winterdale As
they came out of it,at the end of the ser
vice,they met two young men , ih ulsters
and hard round felt hats,with pipes in
their m o n ths.
One o f these wa s Laurence,the other
wa s Jack . The former asked the latter in
an undertone,
‘Who is that '’ as he saw
Hel, in a n ew olive-green costume , looking
quietly charming,with that submissive sort
170 WILD ROSE.
o f expression that young ladies wear o n
Sundays,and slightly flushed with the
warm , impure atmosphere o f the crowded
cathedral, and just in that kitten-like pur
suit o f her train Which always took placeat church doors .Jack replied by approaching his relations
and saying‘Allow m e to introduce Mr. Laurence ;my mother and sister.
’
Max hastily pocketed a hot pipe and
took Off his hat. Mrs . Miller a sked him if
his luggage were disposed o f,and Jack
explained that it had gon e o n to EaveLodge
,and that they proposed walking
home . Mrs . Miller engaged Laurence ina conversation about the weather and his
j ourney, and Jack talked to Hel .
Max’s last remark to Jack had been
Y ou know,it is an entirely n ew ex
p e rie n ce to me to be in an English familyresidence. I don’t know how I shall
17 2 I/VILD ROSE.
Magyar. I wa s a student for some two o r
three years In Vienna
Mrs . Miller then talked about Vienna,
and society there, a n d scenery, in a general
way . She had been there once for a week ,and made excursions into the environs .
Scenery Laurence knew a good deal about ,and the features o f the neighbourhood.
Society he knew only by sight and reputation (o r the absence o f it), but as Mrs .
Miller did n o t know even that much ,
he wa s equal to the situation . He
said‘You see
,a student does not know any
society in the English sense,unless he is a
prince,o r very noble
,o r very rich, and I
was none of these. But I can be a guide
book to you to every ca fe,theatre
, pro
menade,and music and art curiosity in the
place,if you should wish to obtain in fo r
m ation before visiting Vienna again ; but
I dare say you know much o f this already.
’
IlIAX LA[IRENCE 3
‘I am afraid n o t m uch . And how do
you like Oxbridge ' Jack seems very well
pleased with it. I should think itmust be rather different to you after
Vienna.
’
I thought so,certainly. At first
,the
costumes and the ancient character o f the
place struck and enchanted me. I seemed
to have lighted o n an island o f Middle
Age in the midst o f a sea o f N ineteenthCentury. I soon found that the form only
wa s mediaeval, and the spirit modern .
Modern,at least
,after allowing for in
sular peculiarities o f idea and method o f
studyl
a n d amusement . There seems still
to be a great deal o f religious spirit in
existence, however, for a modern uni
versity.
’
This was a slip o f Max’s, as he felt the
moment he had said it. He thought‘H o w could I say this to a woman just
coming o ut of an English cathedral o n a
174 WILD ROSE.
Sunday '’ and waited anxiously fo r the
result.‘Well
,I hope so
,
’ said Mrs . Miller,‘though I am afraid there is none toom uch o f it. I suppose there is very little
religion in the German universities
Oh,very little
,except in the faculties
o f theology,it always seem ed to me
,
’
re
plied this young philosopher,in a calm and
satisfied tone . I think,
’ he added,
‘they
are at a stage o f thought in Englandwhich has already been gone through byGermany .
’
Here Mrs . Radford passed with a b ow
a n d a sweet smile,and explained to he r
husband,at lunch
,that those Millers had
got a queer-looking young man with them
and that young Miller smoked pipes o n
S unday, and close to the cathedral door
to o ; and that she was so sorry for them,
a s she had a real regard for Mrs . Miller.
B ut it wa s to be expected, when their
176 WILD ROSE.
in an old brown suit, which might be called
a shooting-suit,if there had been the
slightest tra ce of eviden ce to show that hehad ever shot anything in his life
,except a
fo x that once managed to effect a raid o n
Hel’
s chickens when . she wa s a small girl .
(Which action, it is hardly n ecessary to
remark, confirmed the county gentry in
the opinion that ‘that ’ Miller wa s a
beastly Radical and an Atheist .)He wa s wondering why the pelvic girdle
in some fish is anterior to the pectoral,a t
this m oment,and also why an east wind
wa s so detrimental to the equanimity o f his
temper. These questions occupied him
until the lunch-bell rang. Hel fetched
him in .
During the meal they all had an oppo r
tun ity of studying their guest . Mrs .
Miller wa s relieved to find that he ate
with a fork , and did not look surprised
when it and his knife were renewed at
MAX LA URENCE . 17 7
each course,he r notions o f German habits
and customs bein g derived from ta ble s
cl’
hOte . She saw in Laurence a well-mann e re d
,well - info rmed youn g m a n
, with a
pleasant face,and perhaps slight symptoms
o f rather advanced ideas,with a quiet
,self
convinced decision about most things that
he said that sometim e s surprised her.‘Hel, Of course , noticed his appear
ance first. This w as not o f a style to
which she was accustom ed,but im
pressed her favourably ,notwithstanding.
She saw a pale,well-shaped face with a
straight nose (which she described as
Grecian su bsequently), dark eyes, deeply
placed un der black eyebrows,a low wide
forehead,and quantities o f curly wavy
black hair,rather longer than the prevail
ing fashion in En gland perm itted . The
mouth was a little wide, with good regular
white teeth, and surmounted by a small
black m oustache, scarcely deserving theVOL. I. 12
178 WILD ROSE.
name. Then his body,though thin
,wa s
well-shaped,and his hands were white ,
and his fingers long. When he talkedshe thought he must be very clever, an dseemed to know a good deal about places
and subj ects o f which she knew very little .
This impressed he r with a sense o f his
superiority. In short , Hel approved o f
the man instinctively,though she knew
very little about him .
The Professor thought Laurence wa s ayouth with some brains . He drew from
him- information concerning the present
state of learning in Oxbridge,the personal
appearan ce n o w of this and that professor
in German y whom he had known years
ago,and incidentally got scraps o f opinion
from him o n many topics,which made the
Professor say tohimself
You’ll some day run that good-looking
head o f yours against the rock o f British
Philistinism,young man , that Matthew
180 WILD ROSE.
m ind and youn ger ideas than mother
n aturally comes o f association w ith the
nin eteenth-century brother. ’
After lunch,Jack proposed going o ut o f
doors to smoke,and asked Hel to come .
‘Take a plaid,dear
,
’ said Mrs . Miller ;
you'
know there is an east w ind
Hel Obtained a plaid, and set o ut with
her brother and Laurence for the fir-grove.This rendered their tread silent
,with its
carpet o f re ddish -brown fir-n eedles mixed
w ith broken branches and fallen cones .
Where the tall,stiff stems of the trees
were not covered with rough scaly bark,
they were light-red in the sunlight,where
it arrived at them through the interstices
o f the branch-roof. They arrived at the
grey wooden five -barred frontier-gate,and
stopped and leaned on it,sheltered from
the wind . The three found themselves
looking westward and north-westwa rd overa fa r extending valley, with fields near
MAX LA (IREN CE . 81
a n d woods and down s in the distance,
looking far-Off and still,w ith the warm
spring mist upo n them . Church-bells and
sheep-bells were mingling together in the
distance,calling their several flocks
,as
Jack irreverently remarked.
‘L e t us stay here awhile said he,
immediately after this,
a n d talk o f some
thing sensible,and take in the scenery.
’
‘I am n o t surprised,’ said Laurence,
after a long look at the prospect,‘that
England has produced nature-poets likeShelley and Keats . And this is all so
English. Except these fir-trees . They ‘
carry o n e to Germany, in the mind, quickerthan the magic cloak o f Mephistopheles .
Have you been in Germany,Miss Miller '’
‘I have been up the Rhine once. It
was beautiful . ’
‘Did you read the Rhine stories and
the Nibelungen Lied” then ' That wa s
the time to do it. ’
l 82 WILD [6OSE .
I am afraid my Ge rman wa s not good
enough ; and w e had so many things to
think about that w e hadn ’t time to think
at all. ’
We thought o f time-tables,tariffs
,and
ta ble s-d’
hétc I believe principally,
’ said
Jack.
‘You read German,however
,n ow 9’
asked Laurence o f Hel .‘Yes ; but I haven
’t read much . I
read with a governess at first, and she
didn’t select the nicest pieces, I fancy.
I don’t suppose the Thirty Years’ War ”
is exactly the most interesting thing to a
girl that Schiller ever wrote, and I had
to read it. It took so long— almost as
long as the wa r,I think— that I haven ’t
had time to do much else but recover
from it since .
’
Goethe 7 ’
‘The “Erl-Konig,
se t to the piano .
The rest wa s pronounced beyond m y— that
184 WILD ROSE.
when you have lived a little longer, youw ill read Heine . You will not so m uch
care for him yet. He is Goethe ’s suc
cessor in literature .
’
I dare say I will begin soon ,’ replied
Hel . ‘I think papa has Goethe ’s and
Schiller’s works . ’
Probably. Y o u have perhaps many
things to do in the household which occupyyour time
,however ' In Germany young
ladies do not ‘have too much time to give
to literature. ’
“I have been decorating the church a
good deal lately. It has occupied me
nearly all the morning and all the after
noon for several days. You see,there
were so fe w people to do it We wouldhave made you help if you had been
there .
’
Decorate the church 7 What for ’
3’
asked this young heathen.
Hel’s turn to instruct n ow cam e .
MAX [A UREN CE . 185
‘This is Easter Day,you know
,
’ she
explained gently,as o n e breaking some
rather startling-tidings to an unprepared
person.
’
‘And you decorat e your church at
Easter ' How is it done ' Might I
s e e it‘Yes ; you can come this afternoon, if
y ou like, when the service is over. Wecollect flowers and evergreens
,m ake
wreaths,bouquets and crosses
,and arran ge
them about the church . Jack is made to
go up very high ladders , to put up what
w e can’t reach . Have yo u never been
to an English church a t Easter,Mr .
Laurence '’ asked she suddenly, w ith an
inexplicable feeling o f sympathy for what
wa s to her a strange and foreign variety
o f indefinitely dreadful outer darkness .
I do not remember any such occasion,
’
replied he .
Don’t they decorate your chapels at
186 WILD ROSE.
Oxbridge ' I should think it would be a
nice occupation fo r you.
’
I am afraid it is not seen in that light
at Oxbridge . I believe it is not usual to
decorate college chapels ; but I cannot sayfor certain what deans
,in their poetic and
vacation moments,may be capable o f
doing . I seldom enter them myself. ’
‘Will you come to church with us
some day,here '’ asked Hel.
Max wa s in a dilemm a . Pure reason
within him said : Going to church is a
performance which you must admit to b e
idiotic,and therefore un necessary. It is
only to encourage the o ld,dark
,dead
creeds into galvanic life . You cannot
possibly gain aught by such a proceeding.
’
He listened to pure reason fo r a moment,
and then looked at Hel’s eyes . They
looked an xious,interested
,and blue .
There is nothing in pure reason that tells
why one will obey eyes like these, and
188 WYLD ROSE.
‘It is said to be the mother-land o f
moonshine,
’ observed Max. Read Hegel ,
and you will be convinced .
’
Maximilian Laurence and He len Millereach wa s a n ew experience to the other,
and likely to be such continually,in co n se
que n ce o f some newly apparent quality o r
feature in either,which only appeared
when summoned by occasion .
He was so entirely different to all the
young m e n she had known,who were
principally young officers in regiments
stationed atWinterdale,and curates . The
fact that it was almost exclusively tot hes e
that he wa s compared and contrasted wa s
naturally much to Laurence’s advantage .
He had brought n ew elem ents into con
versation, which was always a relief at
Winterdale,where the barometer (known
o f course as the and approaching
o r past dances, and remarks about the
peculiarities o f appearance and conduct o f
MAX [A UREN CE . 189
one’s neighbours,were the prevailing in
gre die n ts o f social 1n te rcourse . He ap
p e are d to Hel -as one a long way above
her in the intellectual world , and a person
o f some condescension to talk to her aboutRhine stories and church decorations
,
when he might have talked to the Pro
fesse r,o r even Jack , about bones, o r
Hegel,o r something more congenial to his
mental tastes,and more on his intellectual
level .
She still held to the doctrine o f the
omniscience of papa in matters philos ophic,
having had no opportunity of exercisingthe critical faculty
,from want o f know
ledge o f the subj ects . Jack she thought
clever, but a little too conscious of it, and
a little too fond o f what he called sitting
o n’ other people who were unfortunate
e nough to differ from him in opinion but,
nevertheless,more fit than herself to con
verse with o n e like the young An glo
190 WILD ROSE.
Magyar. The fact that the latter had a
good-looking,as well as an intelligent face
,
probably had,after all, some undefined in
flue n ce in his favour. Then came that
sense of pity for o n e evidently ‘brought
up without a n y religion . Hel had no doubt
he would be religious if it was only ex
plained to him and put before him in an
attractive form . She had unconscio uslyput before him religion in what he tempo
rarily thought its most attractive form
herself. She h oped,however
,by the
seductions o f Easter decoration , and Mr.Exe te r
’
s persuasive harangues (and her
o wn influence,perhaps
,a little), to effect a
con version . Elle n’
cstp a s la p rem iere .
Laurence wa s almost for the first time
brought in to the society of a pure and innocent
,and
,o n e may add, a High Church ,
girl. The c1rcum stan ce s o f his birth had
e xcluded him from society in Vien na , and
the opportunity of associating with English
192 WILD ROSE.
more beautiful parts of Germany and
Austria,
o f mountain inns,and moun
ta in e e r and huntsman innkeepers , o f
students sitting together in crowds,o n the
green glades o f the ThuringerWald, amongthe fir-trees
,round wooden tables with huge
krugs o f beer,and long pipes
,singing a
chorus o f farewell to the departing sun,
and shouting out their freedom and youth
and love to the listening starlight . Also
perhaps to the listening village girls,if
any. Then he talked o f the Harz and
o f the districts o f Schirk e and Elend,
where he had wandered with a friend the
whole night o n the first o f May , o n e year,
and described the appearance o f the place,
and told the story o f the Walpurgisnacht.Jack made remarks now and then
,
but wa s rather silent Hel wa s m uch
interested . German student life was some
thing distant,m ediaeval and romantic to
her, knowing it only by scraps o f allusion
MAX LAURE ZVCE . 3
in novels,songs
,and her father’s occasional
anecdotes. Legends too,had a great
fascination for ‘her, especially if well told
a nd Max’s were always lucidly and grace
fully told, with occasional interruption
from that dreadful realist Jack,who brought
down upon everything his irresistible sense
o f the ridiculous .So much time passed in this way that
the conversation wa s interrupted by a
sound in the distance,which at first was
mistaken fo r o n e o f the numerous sheep
bells,but which was found o n nearer in
ve stiga tio n to be produced by the Profe sso r
,who was standing o n the lawn
,
swm gm g the domestic tocsin, with somevigour
,to announce to straying members
o f the household that the season o f after
noon . tea was come . Hel,Max and
Jack wa lked into the drawing-room , to
find there Mrs. Radford . Jack shook
hands with a well simulated appearance
VOL . I. 13
194 WILD ROSE.
o f intense j oy and cordiality,a n d ‘Mr.
Laurence wa s introduced .
Mrs . Radford had several serious reasons
for calling,o n this particular afternoon .
The principal wa s curiosity,to know some
thing about the n ew youn g m a n . Sheparticipated in the very laudable desire fo r
news , which wa s such a distinctive featureamon g the later Athenians
,but did n o t
possess that reverence for accuracy o f
detail,without which
,the possession o f
n ew information , however desirable a thing
in itself,may become not o n lv a snare to
the possessor,but a bane to society at
large . In other words,Mrs . Radford
delighted in accumulating hypotheses abouther n eighbours
,and distributing them as
fa cts This sort o f person is ca lled a
gossip by the vulgar and those o f low
culture . A liar by the very vulgar, and
the utterly destitute of culture .
The Professor treated her with the
196 IVJ LD ROSE.
the idea o f a n obleman o r prince in dis
guise o r exile flitting through her head .
Max replied in excellent English that hehad just arrived from Oxbridge
,thus leav
ing his n ature a n d antecedents still a m atter
o f speculation . Mrs . Radford gave him up
fo r the present,and turned to other topics .
Have you called o n those Fra n kla n ds,
Mrs . Miller she inquired . I have n o t
yet; though every one seems to .
’
Mrs . Frankland came with a letter o f
i n troduction from my sister in Paris,so I
have n aturally called .
’
‘Ah 'then you can perhaps tell me ,which no o n e seems to know
,who is Mrs .
Frankland ' I know they are American,
and they seem to like her ; but that is
about the extent o f my information .
’
(Mrs.
Radfo rd wa s o n e o f those people who
a lways use a n ambiguous mixture of pro
n ouns )Colonel Frankland was attached to the
MAX LAUREN CE. 19 7
American Legation in Paris before hed ied for some time. I do n o t know Mrs .
Frankland very w ell yet ; but I think she
is very nice,and I think ladylike
,though
Americans a re rather different from us in
som e things . ’
Jack listened hard.
- H e had intended
to ask who these n e w people were who
had arrived while he wa s up at Oxbridge .
‘Y e s,to be sure . I have seen very
fe w,but they seem to have such strange
ways of looking at some things . And
the girl, n ow do yo u know ,is she Miss
Frankland —for,if so
,she is ve ry unlike
her mother ' People say a ll sorts o f
things about her here,but I daresay with
o ut foundation . My servants have it that
she wa s picked up in Paris,during the
war,by Mrs. Frankland, and that she wa s
seen carrying a flag am ongst the Com
m un ists and all sorts o f things,but o n e
can’t believe these things . I make it a
19 8 WYLD ROSE.
rule never to believe gossip . I always
tell m y se rvants n o t to repeat things theyhea r in this way .
’
The Professor chuckled grimly,a n d
saidThe young lady speaks very good
American for a Parisian petroleuse,
” and
I do not know that there were any of that
profession at the age of about thirteen,as
she must have been at the time .
’
I think I can explain,
’ said Mrs . Miller.
She is Mrs . Fra n kla n d’
s niece, daughtero f her brother
,Dr. Taylor, who lived in
Paris .
’
Oh,indeed replied Mrs . Radford,
apparently rather offended at the discoveryo f Miss Taylor’s comparatively respectable
o rigin .
‘Well,
’ added she,
‘I think we
will call . Dear Arthur has been urging meto do so for some time ; and he generally
has the right opinion after all, dear b oy .
I depend a good deal on him for a dvice .
200 WILD ROSE.
I don’t see why an o ld beast like
that should presume that,because she
has known you from infancy , she may say
any stupid impertinence she pleases o n
that account. It’s not the least funny,and very ineffective
,if she thinks it is
going to rouse my temper. ’
This wa s exactly what it did . Jack replied
a t this moment,in a matter of course
,
cheerful tone,which he trusted would
irritate his interlocutrix
Oh no I seldom go .
’
Mrs. Radford became serious and said‘Don’t you think that is rather a bad
preparation for that Sabbath which we aretold w ill be eternalBut w e aren’t told it will be an English
Sabbath,o r that the whole week will be
spent in a cathedral,listening to the ser
mons o f bishops,the reading o f canons
,
and the si nging of choirs in rhythmical
monotony.
’
MAX LAOREN CE. 201
Mrs . Miller saw a storm wa s brewing,
a n d said
Don’t be silly,Jack and then rapidly
,
to prevent Mrs . Radford’s crushing rej oin
d e r Let me give you another cup of tea‘Thank you ; I will take just o n e cup
more .
’
Max wa s talking to Hel quietly,and
being told that afternoon tea was a usual
m eal in English families,and telling her
how German families took meals. Hel felt
slightly uncomfortable from the conscious
n ess that Mrs. Radford had an eye upon
he r,a n d would talk about her in associa
tion with Laurence . This made her de fi
a n tly confidential and attentive to him,
from a mere feeling o f irritation .
It wa s a long time before the elimination
o f Mrs . Radford could be effected. Shehad a petition to the Home Secretarya dvisin g him
,as he valued his position and
the stability o f the Cabinet,to at once
202 WILD ROSE.
suppress entirely what the document somewhat tautologically described as the vivisection of live animals . This wa s to b e
signed by women only she explained.
‘Don’t yo u allow children to sign it '’
asked the Professor.
Oh,I don’t suppose the poor dear dogs
a n d things will ge t much sympathy from
you, Dr. Miller ' But I thought Mrs
Miller and Miss .Miller,and some o f your
servants might have a little more feeling
There is a pamphlet,Mrs . Miller, that
ought to go w ith the petition it has illustra tio n s
,which ought to convince anyon e
who hesitated to sign .
’ And she handed
all the docum ents,which resided tempora
rily in her black reticule,to Mrs . Miller
fo r inspection .
They certainly ought,as Mrs . Radford
remarked,to have convinced any wavering
sympathiser w ith the oppressed animal
kingdom .
204 WILD ROSE.
opinion,in matters not precisely what she
would call o f conscience .
’ Her'husband
did not,and amused himself in giving Mrs .
Radford, who had a faint but irritating sus
picio n that she wa s being made fun o f,
Opportunities o f describing him in glowing
S atanic colours, to the rather extensive
circle o f her acquaintance.Jack simply looked the superb contempt
which propriety prevented him from ex
pressing otherwise than guardedly. Laurawa s being shown roses by Hel, and talking
about them .
Mrs . Radford got up to go, after the
doctor’s startling remarks,anent the inqui
sitio n,looking rather warm— a phenomenon
for which the te a and the east wind were
perhaps responsible . Having ceremoniously
conducted her to the door,and carefully
shut it, Jack returned, performing a sort o f
ca n ccmdia bo liquc intended to express super
a bundant joy,and generally relieve his
MAX LAUREN CE. 205
mind from the oppression and irritation
under which it usually suffered, in the
presence o f the ir departing visitor. Hel
made an onslaught o n the pian o,forgetful
o f the day,a n d began a vivacious mazurka .
Mrs . Miller mildly said Hush,dear. ’
Hel revolved on the stool and saidYo u must not suppose
,Mr. Laurence,
that all our friends are like that . ’
I think this lady wa s rather interesting,’
he replied with a faint laugh .
That’s what I thought once,by Jove 1’
said Jack. It’s wonderful ho w time tires
us o f things . What rather fetched me wa she r extreme curiosity to have details as toyour individuality
,Max. I am rather
sorry I didn’t give her some . ’
I am not. ’
H ow do you young people propose to
amuse yourselves this evening asked the
doctor.
By going to church, I believe,’
said
206 WILD ROSE.
Jack,
‘for the e difica tio n o f Max s Pagan
mind . By the way ,Hel , you had better
go and ge t ready, as your pleasing sex
generally takes some time to do so. Put
that fur thing on your shoulders— it will
be cold coming back, and we shall have
a tendency to loiter and look at the moon,
and smoke pipes,I know.
’
208 WILD ROSE.
pression , apparently, that it is vitallyimportant to m ake their conversation a s
public as possible . Several villagers werewalking leisurely to church
,in the pictur
esque Sunday garb of the British peasant,
so suited to the sort o f Sabbath he usuallyspends, consisting o f very shiny black
clothes,a tall hat
,and a thick umbrella
w ith a thin cane stalk,with a weak looking
hooked handle . Jack,Hel
,and Max
walked in a row. Hel in the m iddle,
listening to the mixture o f sounds fillingthe air— cawings o f rooks
,singin g o f larks
,
and chimes o f churches resounding faintlythrough the still evening air
,all the way
from Winterdale, to which the small
edifice over which Mr . Exeter presided,replied with a rather weak , though de
te rm in e d and defiant tinkle.Hel looked very pretty
,with the green
boughs above her,and the grass grown
ground at her feet, with spots and flashes
WH AT 7 ACK SAW IN CH URCH . 209
and strokes o f yellow horizontal sunlight
o n her at intervals . She wore a black furtippet
,which sat well o n her rather square
shoulders,and harmonised pleasingly with
the dark green dress she wore,whose
train she bore in o n e hand, the other
being,o f course
,occupied with a prayer
book .
Her face wore a rather happy expression . Why not Was she not guiding the pale and handsome world-tired
youn g heathen by her side into the ways
o f righteousness and the paths of peace '
Though it must be acknowledged that she
wa s listening with interest to a story from
him at this moment o f ho w the heroes o f
the Nibelungen-Lied rode to rescue E riemhilde
,and how they accomplished their
task by miscellaneous and abundant slaugh
ter,giving a ground for the m instrels to
construct the great epic of their death.
All this wa s enchanting, n o doubt, but
VOL . I . 14
210 WILD ROSE.
scarcely a good preliminary for an Easterevening service .
Laurence n ow felt him self quite at homewith He'
,and had lost his embarrassing
fear o f saying that which he ought not,
finding it quite easy to converse with
an intelligent young English girl,even
when she lay under the disadvantages o f
comparative innocence and a sweet andamiable superstition .
Jack wa s knocking the vegetation about
vicio usly with an ash stick,and wondering
what had come over Max,to make him
loiter o ff to church in this lamb-like manner,
as a way o f spending the best part of the
evening.
It scarcely occurred to him that Hel,
although his own sister,wa s n o t Max’s
sister.
Don ’t suppose you will find the temp
tatio n sufficient to make you repeat the
performance,
’ he observed ; old Exeter
212 WILD ROSE.
sulphur,o r any other o f those devices that
their talented minds were so rich in .
’
It wa s Nero,wasn ’t it
,
’ said Hel,that
used to burn people with straw and sul
phur '’
I believe so,
’ replied Max . He was
not a lovable character,though some were
o f the contrary Opln lo n at the time .
’
S till,there is something rather mag
n ifice n t,though no doubt horrible
,about
him,
’ said Jack I can easily imagine the
ladies o f the period to have all had a sort
Of sneaking admiration for Nero,uttered
o r unexpressed— principally the latter.’
Here w e are a t church,
’ sa id Hel‘Perhaps
'
we shall hear some more about
it. ’
‘Take a farewell look at the sunlight l’
exclaimed Jack, as he rem oved his hat.
Hullo,Miller I’ said a voice in the porch .
Didn’t know you went in for church .
’
Jack turned round and observed the
WH AT yACR SAW H v CH URCH . 2 13
solid form and brick-coloured face o f young
Radford,who has been already partially
alluded to under the title o f dear
Arthur. ’
Well, I don’t go in for it as a rule,but
I am going in to it n ow. How are you'
How’s the GeneralOh
,I ’m all right
,so is the governor.
Croker is go ing to preach to -night,so I
thought he’d like me to come. ’ Generous
young man,to sacrifice yourself to please
your poor hard-working curate-coach '
Artful young man,to apologise an d
invent a motive for your presence I‘I am sure Croker will consider it a
graceful attention,
’ said Jack,as he followed
his sister into the church . By Jove
whispered he to young Radford,
‘who is
that‘Who 'Where '’ replied he
,in a very
audible tone,with the true tact of British
youth. Oh ' that’s those American
WILD ROSE.
people,I believe
,
’ he added,in a tone Of
uninterested uncertainty.
I see,
’ said Jack,as they walked up the
aisle . Well,I must go to my stall. See
yOu between the acts . Hope you’ll enjoy
Cro k e r’
s discourse. ’
‘What the devil brings Jack Miller
and that other fellow here ' I wonder
who the other fellow is. Some beastlyclever London fellow,
I suppose— intellect
and all that '’ were Mr. Arthur Radford’s
reflections,as he found a seat whence he
could see ‘those American people,
’
o f
whose identity he had j ust expressed a
careless uncertainty.
It is perhaps almost superfluous to re
mark that they were what brought him to
church , and that a desire to have his mind
improved by the Rev. Chrysostom Croker
wa s but a flimsy veil to conceal a deeper
rooted and more sentimental motive .
When Jack inquired Who is that '’ in
16 WILD ROSE .
j uvenility about her was the fact that her
curly black-brown hair was allowed to re
m ain o n he r back,in the shape o f a sort o f
half-open fan,being tied in at the back o f
he r Small sun-burnt neck with a piece o f
crimson ribbon .
She had taken Off a long pair o f black
gloves,and wa s em ploying a pair o f small
tawny hands in abstracting bon-bons from
a b o x which lay o n the book -shelf in front
o f her. Jack called Max’s attention to her,
who looked at her awhile,and then said
Half kitten a n d half snake . H iit’
dich,mein Freund
,vo r grimmen Teufels
Fratzen . Doch schlimm er sind die sanften
Enge lsfratz che n .
”
This wa s Rosa .
Mr. Crok e r’s sermon may have been
distinctly edifyin g, and m ay have co n
tain e d n ew facts,n e w ideas
,and n ew
Opinions o f the greatest solemnity and
significance, though it is highly probable,
WH AT 7 ACK SAW H V CH URCH : 217
judging from precedent,that itwas nothing
o f the sort . Either way ,it wa s entirely
thrown away upon Jack,as well as o n
Mr. Arthur Radford , in spite o f its having
been the ostensible inducement to thelatter to come to church ; for neither o f
them had the slightest idea what it had
been about when they came out . Jacksaid to Hel, as soon as they got outside
the door‘They are coming to dine w ith us, I
think some o n e said, a ren
’t they '’
‘Who Oh yes ' Those Americanpeople . To-morrow . Yo u noticed themin church
,I suppose
Yes. “D ear Arthur called my atten
tion to them . I suppose he is awfully
gone o n the girl— Miss Fra n kla n d‘Miss Taylor I really don
’
t know ,
I can’t say that I feel much interest in hi s
attachments . I shouldn ’t wonder if you
were awfully gone ” o n her yourself soon .
’
218 WILD ROSE.
What a charming sunset it is'’ observedJack in reply.
It was . It consisted o f a glowing golden
ground,cross streaked by numerous
narrow nebulous grey and purple bars o f
m any shades and shapes , finding their way
into the south -western blue, o n the one
side,and the northern leaden grey on the
other. Laurence was gazing abstractedlyinto it
,looking apparently for something he
had lost there . He wa s suddenly brought
back again to earth by a question from Hel .Mr. LaurenceFrauleinH ow did you like the service '
’
That is a difficult question to entirelyanswer. I have n o t been able to com
ple te lv analyse my opinions and reduce
them to intelligibility, o r to separate the
accidental from the essential features of
the entertainment,as it is o n e to which I
am not accustomed .
’
220 WILD ROSE.
I am afraid it is,
’ replied he ; I
certainly feel more moved by that skythan anything I have heard this evening
in the church .
’
‘A sky like that,
’ said Jack,
‘always
m akes me despair o f ever being able to
paint. ’
‘It is wonderful how intimately asso
ciate d with the j oy and sorrow o f one’s
life the sky becomes,
’ observed Laurence .‘You speak as if you had known
both '’
‘I have had a little o f both . I have
Often sought the o n e— I have often found
the other. D O yo u know the lines o f the
son g
Man schafl’
t so ge rn nach So rg’ und Muh’,Sucht D o rne n auf
,und fin de t sie
Oh yes It always seemed to me that
most o f those German songs were very
sentimental and unreal,though they have
very pretty tunes,it is true .
’
WH AT yACR’
SAW IN CH URCH . 221
‘You find that ' I congratulate you.
Many o f us find them only too real. ’
D o you ever write son gs '’ asked Hel
suddenly,while Jack was staying behind to
light a pipe .
Max looked into her blue eyes,with
their interested expression Of inquiry,and
said
Sometimes . ’
Are they visible to the public
They are . They exist in print o n a
remote bookseller’s shelves in London,
and thence they disappear very slowly. I
fancy you would call them sentimental and
unreal,and the v have n o t the compensating
advantage o f tunes . ’
Yo u must give me an opportunity o f
j udging fo r myself. ’
Thank you,I will . ’
Jack’s prediction concerning the probab ility o f the evening bein g spent in loiter
ing and smoking wa s distinctly fulfilled .
2 22 WILD ROSE.
Hel suggested o f her own accord that
they should, go for a short walk . Max
said he should like to see the country
under the evening light . So they walked
over fields,and alongside hedges
,and under
trees,listening for nightingales
, which were
to be heard in large n umbers at this time
Of the year,and talking of various things,
Laurence being the principal speaker,as
Hel had more interest in listening,and
had not quite so much to say,and n o t
quite as large an experience to extractillustrations from . Jack pulled away
s ilently at a pipe, which gave out a
gurgling sound at every suck, and had
small beady drops of liquid matter on the
o utside . Hel said it wa s a ho rrid thing.
Jack retorted that it wa s Fine '’ Jack
was not communicative . At last he in
quired‘Who is coming to dinner to-morrow
besides these Americans
224 WILD ROSE.
ing does not draw the line at least a t
perj ury,’ said Jack.
Thus they walked o n,until the moon
became very brilliant an d the sky very
pale, with purple clouds streaked across it.
This wa s all that remained o f that flaming
golden sunset with grey bars. Hel gave
the word o f command to go back to EaveLodge . Max went into low-voiced
,con
fide n tial raptures over the beauties of the
scene,and Hel looked at his face and
listened . He looked paler than ever in
the twilight, and his eyes darker. He was
rather like a marble D ionysos,with nine
te e n th century clothes o n a Greek mind
and body. Jack said he looked like an
evil spirit who was m editating o n passingan examination for re -admission to Para
dise,and trym g to assume the proper
expression .
When they reached the house,Hel
said
WH AT y’ACK SAW IN CH URCH : 225
‘I am sure you must be hungry, Mr.
Laurence . You have had a long walk,
preceded by— a n entertainment to which
you are not accustomed,
’ she added, with a
quiet and rather sly smile .
‘Food had not entered into m y
head
Mouth, you mean,
’ said Jack.
Into my ideas,till you mentioned it.
It has been a beautiful walk,and o n e I
shall remember. The entertainm ent ” I
shall hope to repeat some day.
’
Will you help me to translate som e o f
Goethe to-morrow, if I find the book
asked Hel shyly,as they went through the
n ow darkened hall .
Of course . ’
.
‘7OL . I .
CHAPTER XI .
ARTH UR RADFORD—MILES cLo n ro sus.
MRS . RADFORD wa s sitting at her Daven
port writing letters,a n occupation which
generally occupied her Monday mornings .
Very long letters they generally were,
and crossed to a bewildering extent,for
that mysterious reason that makes all
women cross letters , although their meansallow them unlimited supplies o f paper.
When Mrs . Radford wrote letters,Winterdale might tremble . The amount Of ex
tra o rdin ary information, usually o f a per
sonal and unreliable nature,conveyed about
the British Isles by that fine,sloping
,neat
,
2 28 WILD ROSE.
educated in England at a public school,
and had been two years at Cam fo rd,where
he had succeeded after great struggles,
in passin g Mods,which would save him
his prelim inary e xam ln a tio n for the army.
His friends there had nicknamed him the‘Muscular Christian .
’ There is no deny
ing that they were justified in using the
first adj ective . He once ran a narrow
risk o f rowing in the University eight,
and was gr eat in football,cricket and
athletics,appearing occasionally atVVin te r
dale sports in costumes o f striking colours,
a n d doing unheard - o f things in high
jumps .
It wa s perhaps unfortunate that the
physical element had predominated over
the m ental in his education but that was
better than having neither. Not onlyLatin
,and Greek
,and m athem atics
,but
ordinary literature,in most o f its a spects
,
with the e xception o f a certain class o f
ARTH UR RADFORD. 29
novels and newspapers, dealing largely in
technical sporting terms,and ‘incidents o f
flood a nd field,
’
were to him unfamiliar, and
by him unappreciated .
Society,in its usually accepted sense
,
was n o t his element.
Of ladies he was possessed a s a rule o f
a wholesome dread,and wa s usually dumb
in their presence,oppressed by the con
sciousn e ss that they mus t b e either laugh
ing at him,or pumping ’ him
,or shocked
at him . This wa s,indeed
,frequently the
case. He had gradually formed a n
Opinion— and when Arthur Radford took
the effort to form an Opinion,no power
,
natural o r. supernatural, could alter it
that if ‘ladies,
’
were replaced by barmaids
—with bars—in the circle in which he
moved,life
,freed from the galling re
straint of convention ality and decorum ,
would be far more worth living.
The greatest failing in his philosophy o f
230' WILD ROSE.
life,and the o n e which caused him even
more mental discomfort and disappoint
ment than even the slowness Of develop
m ent o f his moustache,wa s the firm co n
victio n that the world wa s his oyster,’
and no o n e else’s oyster,and only an
oyster. His own self and the oyster were
a life-long antithesis . He consumed the
beer,beef and tobacco o f the oyster
,and
gave it nothing in return . It laughed,
knowing that it would laugh last,by
a n d-by .
Arthur considered himself the important
side Of the antithesis . The oy ster wa s o f
the contrary Opinion,and in its eternal
god-like scorn laughed o n,contenting
itself with occasionally nipping him b e
tween the shells .
In plain English,Arthur Radford wa s
rather selfish,rather conceited
,and rather
stupid,and wa s by no means unique am ong
young Englishmen in those respects .
232 WILD ROSE.
tions which he held in deepest reverence—the English public schools and Uni
ve rsitie s,fo r example .
Arthur,with all his short-sightedness
for the nature and merits o f others, wa s
obliged to admit to him self that Jack wa s
clever,after his fashion, and knew and
spoke o f topics which were as cuneiform
inscriptions to him .
He had a firm belief in consistency,as a
virtue by itself. Consequently his opinionsresembled, as has been hinted, those often
quoted laws of the Medes and Persians .
The proposition that it may be sometimes
consisten t to change a belief,he regarded
as a subtle and dangerous sophism . He
wa s much distracted by the freedom of
speech which Jack permitted himself in
political and religious questions,and would
listen to some half-nonsensical,half-serious
tirade of the latter against some respect
able and recognised prln clple , which he
ARTH UR RADFORD. 233
(Jack)would be heard vigorously defendm g a week afterwards, and reproduce it
triumphantly,and brandish it in his
antagonist’s face,with the prelude
Why,the other day you were say
ing
On which Jack would reply : Wa s I '
What then '’
This crippled Arthur momentarily. He
would soon,however
,retort
Well,which do you expect us to
believe a n d ‘lo ok round for applause at
his artful dilemma.
Whichever you like .
’
But don’t you mean what you say‘I have never completely satisfied m y
self o n that point . I generally leave it to
the person I am talking to,to find o ut.
’
Well then,
I suppose you don’t care
whether you are telling the truth o r not
This gratuitous assumption indicated
rapid rise o f temper o n Arthur’s part,and
234: WILD ROSE.
that a consequent descent to personalities
might be expected .
What is the particular obj ect o f tellingthe truth We should lose an immensed eal o f the charm o f this life if everyone
did. Fancy if no o n e said anything that
he did not know to be true ' Results
sudden disappearance o f novels,
“latest
intelligence,
” and special co rre spo n
dence dead silence at afternoon teas and
Dorcas meetin gs total cessation o f compli
ment and civility in conversation . Somewill say that there would be indisputably
beneficial results,for instance— sermons
would dwindle ; speeches in the Houses
o f Legislature would be shorter promiseswould cease to be made by candidates to
constituencies . In a general way,there
would be a refreshing silence about the
w ide earth, wherein o n e could m ore easily
pursue intellectual occupations . ’
Do yo u mean that yo u think it would
WILD ROSE.
he wa s a very hardworking, honest fellow,
who never had told a lie since boyhood
at least,very seldom ; who was afraid Of
nothin g in this world, and would probably
make a capital soldier if the inquisitors o f
the Civil Service Commission permittedhim to become o n e ; that he had a bass
voice and could sing music-hall songs (and
practised them alone,in secluded woods
,
w ith the spok e n s and had a very grate
ful and amiable disposition,though his
wrath wa s easily evoked. Just n ow he
wa s in a n ew and peculiar condition . H e
yawned,and put his Euclid face down
wards o n a footstool,and said
Mother‘Yes
,dear. ’
Have you called o n the Fra n kla n ds yet'’
The who,dear ' Oh
,those American
people — no,not yet. ’
Then why the
you '’I mean
,why don’t
ARTH UR RADFORD. 37
I don’
t think there is any hurry. Yo u
see,I hardly know who they are yet . ’
Well,it
’
s n o t fo r want Of asking,any
how .
’
That is rude and uncalled-for,Arthur
.
If I like to be sure that my acquaintancesare proper sort o f people
,I think it is only
right . -Besides , they have hardly had
time to settle down yet. ’
I don’t know what you mean by
settling do wn .
” They have had tim e
to go an d see the Millers and go to
church, and go o ut walks and buy things
in the shops in Winterdale . The Millers
seem to think them all right . They have
asked them to dinner to -night. ’
‘The Millers are excellent people,but
they have very strange ideas . ’
Well,they’ve go t some ideas ' Wish I
had Jack’s head fo r some things . ’
Mrs . Radford’s maternal pride wa s fired
I ’m sure,dear
,you could do very well if
238 WILD ROSE.
you tried . I hope you will never grow up
like young Miller. He has very loose
ideas , and an impertinent mocking way o f
expressing them, which gives a very bad
impression . He has a reckless,dissipated
appearance
Oh, come n ow,draw it mild
,mother
I repeat it. I am very sorry for him,
continued Mrs . Radford,in a cheerful tone,
‘and for his mother. Do you know who
that strange - looking young man with
them is
Queer,long-haired
,pallid fellow N0
,
n o t the least . Some Oxbridge -m a n
hasn’t quite ge t the’Varsity ” out about
him— a t least, our
’Varsity cut.’
N O,dear
,he has not. Miss Hel seems
to find something in him,though .
’
Well,about the Fran kla n ds. They
have heaps o f tin,I know. I wa s talking
to a fellow in Winterdale (Arthur just
prevented himself from saying the bil
240 WILD ROSE.
Indeed,he had some excuse . Having
seen nothing but barmaids and the youn g
ladies o f the n eighbourhood,who were
,
with the exception of Hel,n o t very a t
tractive,it is n o t surprising if he fell in
love, to such extent as his matter-o ffact soul wa s able
, with the rare and to
the sense enticing little morsel of humanity
put before him . He had a notion of
getting acquainted W1th her before Jack
had had the opportunity to do so , whichwould give him
,as it were
,a starting
handicap,in case Jack should feel a t
tracted in the same direction He in
tended to strike while the iron wa s ho t,
a n d induce his mother to call, o f course
with him,that very afternoon .
We will n ow,with the kind permission
Of the reader,chan ge the scene to the
sitting room o f Seymour Villa, Mrs .Fran kla n d
’
s n ew habitation . The time is
early o n the same afternoon . It is a very
ARTf IUR RADFORD . 241
warm April Monday. The room wa s ex
ce e dingly attractive and cool-looking. The
walls were dark green, with yellowish
brown decorative flowers,with very long
stalks and very curious leaves,wandering
almost imperceptibly over it,and bore
several small and strange pictures,mostly
the work of Paul Félix and brother artists .
The French windows were wide open,and
displayed a fringe o f white roses round
their apertures,and a pretty sloping lawn
,
covered with y e w and cypress, bushes o f
lilac and trees o f laburnum,under which
were chairs Of comfortable form,apparently
sunning themselves .In the room lVIrs . Frankland wa s sitting
at a grand piano,playing through Gounod’s
Faust with practised hands . On a dark
green velvet sofa,Rosa
,in a black dress
,
with her hair in an untidy but charmin g
curly mat,was lazily lying, smoking
cigarettes,and watching white clouds
VOL . I . 16
242 WILD ROSE.
wander slowly over the blue sky,occa
s1o n ally taking gulps o f very strong black
coffee from a,very pretty Dresden cup,
intermittently with sips o f m araschino from
a liqueur glass .
Mrs . Frankland left Off playing,and
said‘Say
,Rosie
,give me another cup
,will
you
Rosa,after a moment’s pause, rose a n d
poured out the desired coffee,and brought
it over to the piano . Mrs . Frankland
added‘Sorry to run against your principle o f
not making yourself useful, o f course .
Wonder what these English neighbours o fours would say
,if they came and found us
living like this
It don’t much matter,anyway, what
they would say o r think,’ replied Rosa.
Her French accent was getting alm ostentirely obliterated
,and being replaced by
244 WILD ROSE.
looking young m e n’s faces in church,
Rosie .
’
What else is there to do But I don’t
find them here much,anyhow. Mr.
Miller— if that’s him -looks nice. I ex
pe ct he would be rather j olly to talk
to.
’
Well,you w ill find out to-night. He
is safe to take yo u in to dinner.’
Here a ring at the bell wa s heard .
‘D O fo r gracious sake,Rosie
,get o ff
that sofa,and make yourself a little less
like a tame panther ' There’s some o n e
calling. Throw that cigarette away.
’
‘It don’t matter if they do see me
smoking,
’ replied Rosa,at the same time ,
however,obeying. If people disapprove
o f o n e fo r things like that, they can’t be
worth much for friends, anyway.
’
‘Mrs . and Mr . Radford were announced
as the door opened,and Arthur wa s intro
duce d to the n e w world .
ARTH UR RADFORD. 245
Mrs . Radford began with the timehonoured common-place o f first visits
anent the weather and the neighbourhood
and hoped she did not in any way disturb
Mrs . Frankland,who replied :
Oh,not in the least. We were just in
that stage Of languid stupidity which o n e
generally gets into after a late breakfast ’
(it wa s half past two),‘and are only too
glad to see some friends to arouse our
sleeping intellects .’
Mrs . Radford opened her eyes at the
w o rd breakfa st,
’ and said
I suppose yo u have been accustomed to
keeping very late hours in Paris‘Why
,yes . You see o n e seldom gets
to bed there before o n e o r two ; and here,
although there is no particular reason for
sitting up late,o n e does it o ut o f habit ,
and from inability to sleep early. Very
sad,isn’t it '’
Well,w e are all rather early here ,
WILD ROSE .
except,perhaps
,the Millers . I think you
know them And they are out,I believe
,
at all sorts o f s trange hours,when the stars
are out,and everyone else is in bed and
asleep, o r‘Or ought to be '’ added Mrs . Frank
land , smiling.
‘Well , I am afraid Our
habits are rather irregular. I confess”
I
am glad to fin d that there is some one else
rather like us in that way here one won’t
feel so kind o f strange and Bohemian .
’
Oh,I think it is quite interestin g
,
’ said
Mrs . Radford , who wa s willing to excuse
anybody’s eccentricities who could affordto have them .
Rosa wa s entertaining Arthur,and o n
discoverin g that he wa s readin g for the
army— a piece o f information he thought
fit to volunteer,said
‘Oh,I like soldiers awfully ; if I had
been a man,I should have gone into the
army
248 WILD ROSE.
m akin g statements beginning w ith ‘Mymother says . ’ He doesn’t care much
what he says o r does . ’
Arthur’s generously conceived attem pt
to prepossess Rosa against Jack did n o t
meet with entire success .
I like m e n like that— n o t afraid to
j o in in any sort o f lark,I suppose
Oh n o I believe he spent most o f his
time at Oxbridge in “j oining in larks.”
He knows a lot, and could pass exams ,
and have plenty o f time to muck about
as well . ’
N ow,do please tell me
,Mr . Radford,
what is Oxbridge, and what is muckin g
Arthur opened his eyes and m outh at
this unheard-o f ign orance .
‘You know I am in England fo r thefirst time , and want to know all about
everythin g .
’
Oh,Oxbridge is the university. The
ARTH UR RADFORD. 249
other o n e,you know
,
’ remarked Arthur
lucidly.
‘I see. I guess mucking about is
English fo r knocking around,isn ’t it
Very likely.
’
Arthur wa s getting rather tired o f con
versation o n Jack Miller. It was cruel o f
Rosa ; but then she did n o t know,and if
she had known ,would n o t have particu
larly cared .
What a charming place this is I’ saidMrs . Radford . I have never been here
before. ’
‘Well I hope you’ll come again, Mrs .
Radford,said Mrs . Frankland, good
naturedly. We have very few friends atpresent here .’
I hOpe we shall see you at our place
soon,when you have had a little m ore
time to look about yo u. I dare say you
will fin d the neighbours a little cold and
WILD ROSE.
restrained at first . They generally are
with strangers . ’
Well,I guess we ’ll bear it. We have
the Millers, who are among the best
people I ’ve ever m e t in England— n o t
much o f the Continental ideal of the
English about them .
’
‘N O,indeed . They are Old friends of
ours ; though I can’t help saying
’
(‘Why
can ’t you help it '’ thought Mrs . Fran k
land)‘that the children have been rather
loosely brought up . It is a pity.
’
‘Oh, do you think that ' I thoughtMiss Miller lo oked quite a sweet girl
,and
the pink o f propriety,when her mother
brought her round here . To be sure, I
don’t know anything about the youngman . Young men are always o dd
creatures . But I know n o t-hing against
him .
’
‘Jack is a dear good fellow,isn’t he
,
Arthur '’ said Mrs. Radford.
252 WILD ROSE.
with thanks. Arthur,to his own and his
mother’s surprise,had the audacity to a o
cept. H ow could he refuse when Rosa saidYo u are going to have some, aren
’t
you with the coffee-po t in her small sun
tanned hands ' He looked round for the
milk,and n o t seeing any, silently resigned
himself to the novel sensation o f caf é n o ir
(the coffee provided by Mrs. Radford at
breakfast being o f the wateriest and milki
est description,also o n principle looking
forward to a subsequent discourse from his
mother o n the unhealthy effects o f strong
coffee o n the nerves and body generally .
He fortified himself for this with a glass
o f maraschino . Rosa smiled, and remarked
to herself '‘Duffer as she saw him blink
a t the first mouthful . She wa s restraining h e rself with difficulty from beginning
a second cigarette out o f pure defiance .
Mrs . Radford, a t this stage o f the proce ed
ARTH UR RADFORD. 253
ings, thought fit to w ithdraw herself and
son,who departed with obvious unwilling
ne ss,and ventured
,o n the strength o f the
m araschino,to say to Rosa he hoped to
see her again soon,to which she re
plied
Oh,you’re sure to see lots o f us . We
are going to be here some time— good
bye . ’
Mrs. Radford disapproved o f Rosa a ll
the way home, an d discovered that her
heels were absurdly high,and stated the
important aesthetic fact that when she wa s
a girl (Arthur wa s used to referen ces to
this rather remote period,as a criterion for
everything in feminine manners and cos
tum e s)young ladies never wore their hair
in untidy fringes o n the tops o f their heads .
Arthur silently w ished that there were
more heels (and feet generally)like thosein Winterdale
,and that Jack Miller had
2 54 WILD ROSE.
obtained the position o f physician-in -o r
din ary to the Emperor of Brazil, in vo lvingimmediate residence in that o r any other
remote and antipodal l and.
END OF VOL . I .