when did the giver of good, sound, unpalatable, wholesome advice ever receive his due? who does not possess, amongst the multitude of acquaintances, a friend who says, "such and such are my difficulties: i come to you because i want advice;" and who, after having heard all that, after a long struggle with yourself, you bring yourself to say, wrings your hand, goes away thinking what an impertinent idiot you are, and does exactly the opposite of all you have suggested? all men, even the most self-opinionated and practical, are eager for advice. none, even the most hesitating and diffident, take it, unless it agrees with their own preconceived ideas. there are, of course, exceptions by which this rule is proved; but there are two subjects on which no man was ever yet known to take advice, and they are horses and women. depreciate your friend's purchase as delicately as agag came unto saul; give every possible encomium to make and shape and breeding; but hint, _per contra_, that the animal is scarcely up to his weight, or that that cramped action looks like a possible blunder; suggest that a little more slope in the shoulder, a little less cowiness in the general build, might be desirable for riding purposes, and your friend will smile, and shake his head, and canter away, convinced of the utter shallowness of your equine knowledge. in the other matter it is much worse. you must be very much indeed a man's friend if you can venture to hint to him, even after his iterated requests for your honest candid opinion, that the lady of his love is any thing but what he thinks her. and though you iterate and reiterate, moralise as shrewdly as ecclesiasticus, bring chapter and verse to support your text, he must be more or less than a man, and cast in very different clay from that of which we poor ordinary mortals are composed, if he accepts one of your arguments or gives way one atom before your elucidations.
did william bowker's forlorn story, commingled with his earnest passionate appeal, weigh one scruple with geoffrey ludlow? not one. geoff was taken aback by the story. there was a grand human interest in that laying bare before him of a man's heart, and of two persons' wasted lives, which aroused his interest and his sympathy, made him ponder over what might have been, had the principal actors in the drama been kept asunder, and sent him into a fine drowsy state of metaphysical dubiety. but while bowker was pointing his moral, geoff was merely turning over the various salient points which had adorned his tale.
he certainly heard bowker drawing a parallel between his own unhappy passion and geoff's regard for the original owner of that "scylla head;" but as the eminent speaker was arguing on hypothetical facts, and drawing deductions from things of which he knew absolutely nothing, too much reliance was not to be placed on his arguments. in bowker's case there had been a public scandal, a certain betrayal of trust, which was the worst feature in the whole affair, a trial and an _exposé_, and a denunciation of the--well, the world used hard words--the seducer; which--though bowker was the best fellow in the world, and had obviously a dreadful time of it--was only according to english custom. now, in his own case, margaret (he had already accustomed himself to think of her as margaret) had been victimised by a scoundrel, and the blame--for he supposed blame would, at least in the minds of very strait-laced people, attach to her--was mitigated by the facts. besides--and here was his great thought--nothing would be known of her former history. her life, so far as any one in his set could possibly know any thing about it, began on the night when he and charley potts found her in the street. she was destitute and starving, granted; but there was nothing criminal in destitution and starvation, which indeed would, in the eyes of a great many weak and good-natured (the terms are synonymous) persons, bind a kind of romance to the story. and as to all that had gone before, what of that? how was any thing of that love ever to become known? this leonard brookfield, an army swell, a man who, under any circumstances, was never likely to come across them, or to be mixed up in geoff's artist-circle, had vanished, and with him vanished the whole dark part of the story. vanished for ever and aye! margaret's life would begin to date from the time when she became his wife, when he brought her home to----ah, by the way, what was that bowker said about her worthiness to associate with his mother and sister? why not? he would tell them all about it. they were good women, who fully appreciated the grand doctrine of forgiveness; and yet--he hesitated; he knew his mother to be a most excellent church-going woman, bearing her "cross" womanfully, not to say rather flaunting it than otherwise; but he doubted whether she would appreciate an introduction to a magdalen, however penitent. to subscribe to a charity for "those poor creatures;" to talk pleasantly and condescendingly to them, and to leave them a tract on visiting a "home" or a "refuge," is one thing; to take them to your heart as daughters-in-law is another. and his sister! well, young girls didn't understand this kind of thing, and would put a false construction on it, and were always chattering, and a great deal of harm might be done by til's want of reticence; and so, perhaps, the best thing to be done was to hold his tongue, decline to answer any questions about former life, and leave matters to take their course. he had already arrived at that state of mind that he felt, if any disagreements arose, he was perfectly ready to leave mother and sister, and cleave to his wife--that was to be.
so geoffrey ludlow, tossing like a reed upon the waters, but ever, like the same reed, drifting with the resistless current of his will, made up his mind; and all the sage experience of william bowker, illustrated by the story of his life, failed in altering his determination. it is questionable whether a younger man might not have been swayed by, or frightened at, the council given to him. youth is impressible in all ways; and however people may talk of the headstrong passion of youth, it is clear that--nowadays at least--there is a certain amount of selfish forethought mingled with the heat and fervour; that love--like the measles--though innocuo us in youth, is very dangerous when taken in middle life; and geoffrey ludlow was as weak, and withal as stubborn, an in-patient, as ever caught the disease.
and yet?--and yet?--was the chain so strong, were the links already so well riveted, as to defy every effort to break them? or, in truth, was it that the effort was wanting? an infatuation for a woman had been painted in very black shadows by william bowker; but it was a great question to geoff whether there was not infinite pleasure in the mere fact of being infatuated. since he had seen margaret dacre--at all events, since he had been fascinated by her--not merely was he a different man, so far as she was concerned, but all life was to him a different and infinitely more pleasurable thing. that strange doubting and hesitation which had been his bane through life seemed, if not to have entirely vanished, at all events to be greatly modified; and he had recently, in one or two matters, shown a decision which had astonished the members of his little household. he felt that he had at last--what he had wanted all through his life--a purpose; he felt that there was something for him to live for; that by his love he had learned something that he had never known before; that his soul was opened, and the whole aspect of nature intensified and beautified; that he might have said with maud's lover in that exquisite poem of the laureate's, which so few really appreciate--
"it seems that i am happy, that to me
a livelier emerald twinkles in the grass,
a purer sapphire melts into the sea."
then he sat down at his easel again, and worked away at the scylla head, which came out grandly, and soon grew all a-glow with margaret dacre's peculiar expression; and then, after contemplating it long and lovingly, the desire to see the original came madly upon him, and he threw down his palette and brushes, and went out.
he walked straight to mrs. flexor's, and, on his knocking, the door was opened to him by that worthy dame, who announced to him, with awful solemnity, that he'd "find a change upstairs."
"a change!" cried geoffrey, his heart thumping audibly, and his cheek blanched; "a change!"
"o, nothin' serious, mr. ludlows; but she have been a worritin' herself, poor lamb, and a cryin' her very eyes out. but what it is i can't make out, though statin' put your trust in one where trust is doo, continual."
"i don't follow you yet, mrs. flexor. your lodger has been in low spirits--is that it?"
"sperrits isn't the name for it, mr. ludlows, when downer than dumps is what one would express. as queer as dick's hatband have she been ever since you went away yesterday; and i says to her at tea last evening--"
"i can see her, i suppose?"
"of course you can, sir; which all i was doing was to prepare you for the--" but here mrs. flexor, who had apparently taken something stronger than usual with her dinner, broke down and became inarticulate.
geoffrey pushed past her, and, knocking at the parlour-door, entered at once. he found margaret standing, with her arms on the mantelshelf, surveying herself in the wretched little scrap of looking-glass which adorned the wall. her hair was arranged in two large full bands, her eyes were swollen, and her face was blurred and marked by tears. she did not turn round at the opening of the door, nor, indeed, until she had raised her head and seen in the glass geoff's reflection; even then she moved languidly, as though in pain, and her hand, when she placed it in his, was dry with burning heat.
"that chattering idiot down stairs was right after all," said geoff, looking alarmedly at her; "you are ill?"
"no," she said, with a faint smile; "not ill, at all events not now. i have been rather weak and silly; but i did not expect you yet. i intended to remove all traces of such folly by the time you came. it was fit i should, as i want to talk to you most seriously and soberly."
"do we not always talk so? did we not the last time i was here--yesterday?"
"well, generally, perhaps; but not the last time--not yesterday. if i could have thought so, i should have spared myself a night of agony and a morning of remorse."
geoff's face grew clouded.
"i am sorry for your agony, but much more sorry for your remorse, miss dacre," said he.
"ah, mr. ludlow," cried margaret, passionately, "don't _you_ be angry with me; don't _you_ speak to me harshly, or i shall give way all together! o, i watched every change of your face; and i saw what you thought at once; but indeed, indeed it is not so. my remorse is not for having told you all that i did yesterday; for what else could i do to you who had been to me what you had? my remorse was for what i had done--not for what i had said--for the wretched folly which prompted me to yield to a wheedling tongue, and so ruin myself for ever."
her tears burst forth again as she said this, and she stamped her foot upon the ground.
"ruin you for ever, margaret!" said geoffrey, stealing his arm round her waist as she still stood by the mantelshelf; "o no, not ruin you, dearest margaret--"
"ah, mr. ludlow," she interrupted, neither withdrawing from nor yielding to his arm, "have i not reason to say ruin? can i fail to see that you have taken an interest in me which--which--"
"which nothing you have told me can alter--which i shall preserve, please god," said geoff, in all simplicity and sincerity, "to the end of my life."
she looked at him as he said these words with a fixed regard, half of wonder, half of real unfeigned earnest admiration.
"i--i'm a very bad hand at talking, margaret, and know i ought to say a great deal for which i can't find words. you see," he continued, with a grave smile, "i'm not a young man now, and i suppose one finds it more difficult to express oneself about--about such matters. but i'm going to ask you--to--to share my lot--to be my wife!"
her heart gave one great bound within her breast, and her face was paler than ever, as she said:
"your wife! your wife! do you know what you are saying, mr. ludlow? or is it i who, as the worldling, must point out to you--"
"i know all," said geoffrey, raising his hand deprecatingly; but she would not be silenced.
"i must point out to you what you would bring upon yourself--what you would have to endure. the story of my life is known to you and to you alone; not another living soul has ever heard it. my mother died while i was in italy; and of--the other person--nothing has ever been heard since his flight. so far, then, i do not fear that my--my shame--we will use the accepted term--would be flung in your teeth, or that you would be made to wince under any thing that might be said about me. but you would know the facts yourself; you could not hide them from your own heart; they would be ever present to you; and in introducing me to your friends, your relatives, if you have any, you would feel that--"
"i don't think we need go into that, margaret. i see how right and how honourable are your motives for saying all this; but i have thought it over, and do not attach one grain of importance to it. if you say 'yes' to me, we shall live for ourselves, and with a very few friends who will appreciate us for ourselves. ah, i was going to say that to you. i'm not rich, margaret, and your life would, i'm afraid, be dull. a small income and a small house, and--"
"it would be my home, and i should have you;" and for the first time during the interview she gave him one of her long dreamy looks out of her half-shut eyes.
"then you will say 'yes,' dearest?" asked geoff passionately.
"ah, how can i refuse! how can i deny myself such happiness as you hold out to me after the misery i have zone through!"
"ah, darling, you shall forget that--"
"but you must not act rashly--must not do in a moment what you would repent your life long. take a week for consideration. go over every thing in your mind, and then come back to me and tell me the result."
"i know it now. o, don't hesitate, margaret; don't let me wait the horrid week!"
"it is right, and so we will do it. it will be more tedious to me than to you, my--my geoffrey."
ah, how caressingly she spoke, and what a look of love and passion glowed in her deep-violet eyes!
"and i am not to see you during this week?"
"no; you shall be free from whatever little influence my presence may possess. you shall go now. goodbye."
"god bless you, my darling!" he bent down and kissed her upturned mouth, then was gone. she looked after him wistfully; then after some time said softly to herself: "i did not believe there lived so good a man."
