It is a noble thing to say that your
road is forward, and it befits a man of battles.
General Ople was too loyal a gentleman to think of
any other road. Still, albeit not gifted with
imagination, he could not avoid the feeling that he
had set his face to Winter. He found himself
suddenly walking straight into the heart of Winter,
and a nipping Winter. For her ladyship had proved
acutely nipping. His little customary phrases,
to which Lady Camper objected, he could see no harm
in whatever. Conversing with her in the privacy
of domestic life would never be the flowing business
that it is for other men. It would demand perpetual
vigilance, hop, skip, jump, flounderings, and apologies.
This was not a pleasing prospect.
On the other hand, she was the niece
of an earl. She was wealthy. She might be
an excellent friend to Elizabeth; and she could be,
when she liked, both commandingly and bewitchingly
ladylike.
Good! But he was a General Officer
of not more than fifty-five, in his full vigour, and
she a woman of seventy!
The prospect was bleak. It resembled
an outlook on the steppes. In point of the discipline
he was to expect, he might be compared to a raw recruit,
and in his own home!
However, she was a woman of mind.
One would be proud of her.
But did he know the worst of her?
A dreadful presentiment, that he did not know the
worst of her, rolled an ocean of gloom upon General
Ople, striking out one solitary thought in the obscurity,
namely, that he was about to receive punishment for
retiring from active service to a life of ease at
a comparatively early age, when still in marching trim.
And the shadow of the thought was, that he deserved
the punishment!
He was in his garden with the dawn.
Hard exercise is the best of opiates for dismal reflections.
The General discomposed his daughter by offering to
accompany her on her morning ride before breakfast.
She considered that it would fatigue him. ‘I
am not a man of eighty!’ he cried. He could
have wished he had been.
He led the way to the park, where
they soon had sight of young Rolles, who checked his
horse and spied them like a vedette, but, perceiving
that he had been seen, came cantering, and hailing
the General with hearty wonderment.
‘And what’s this the world
says, General?’ said he. ’But we all
applaud your taste. My aunt Angela was the handsomest
woman of her time.’
The General murmured in confusion,
‘Dear me!’ and looked at the young man,
thinking that he could not have known the time.
‘Is all arranged, my dear General?’
’Nothing is arranged, and I
beg I say I beg... I came out for fresh
air and pace.’..
The General rode frantically.
In spite of the fresh air, he was
unable to eat at breakfast. He was bound, of
course, to present himself to Lady Camper, in common
civility, immediately after it.
And first, what were the phrases he
had to avoid uttering in her presence? He could
remember only the ‘gentlemanly residence.’
And it was a gentlemanly residence, he thought as
he took leave of it. It was one, neatly named
to fit the place. Lady Camper is indeed a most
eccentric person! he decided from his experience of
her.
He was rather astonished that young
Rolles should have spoken so coolly of his aunt’s
leaning to matrimony; but perhaps her exact age was
unknown to the younger members of her family.
This idea refreshed him by suggesting
the extremely honourable nature of Lady Camper’s
uncomfortable confession.
He himself had an uncomfortable confession
to make. He would have to speak of his income.
He was living up to the edges of it.
She is an upright woman, and I must
be the same! he said, fortunately not in her hearing.
The subject was disagreeable to a
man sensitive on the topic of money, and feeling that
his prudence had recently been misled to keep up appearances.
Lady Camper was in her garden, reclining
under her parasol. A chair was beside her, to
which, acknowledging the salutation of her suitor,
she waved him.
‘You have met my nephew Reginald this morning,
General?’
’Curiously, in the park, this
morning, before breakfast, I did, yes. Hem!
I, I say I did meet him. Has your ladyship seen
him?’
‘No. The park is very pretty in the early
morning.’
‘Sweetly pretty.’
Lady Camper raised her head, and with
the mildness of assured dictatorship, pronounced:
‘Never say that before me.’
‘I submit, my lady,’ said the poor scourged
man.
’Why, naturally you do.
Vulgar phrases have to be endured, except when our
intimates are guilty, and then we are not merely offended,
we are compromised by them. You are still of
the mind in which you left me yesterday? You
are one day older. But I warn you, so am I.’
’Yes, my lady, we cannot, I
say we cannot check time. Decidedly of the same
mind. Quite so.’
’Oblige me by never saying “Quite
so.” My lawyer says it. It reeks of
the City of London. And do not look so miserable.’
‘I, madam? my dear lady!’
the General flashed out in a radiance that dulled
instantly.
‘Well,’ said she cheerfully,
‘and you’re for the old woman?’
‘For Lady Camper.’
’You are seductive in your flatteries,
General. Well, then, we have to speak of business.’
‘My affairs ’
General Ople was beginning, with perturbed forehead;
but Lady Camper held up her finger.
’We will touch on your affairs
incidentally. Now listen to me, and do not exclaim
until I have finished. You know that these two
young ones have been whispering over the wall for
some months. They have been meeting on the river
and in the park habitually, apparently with your consent.’
‘My lady!’
‘I did not say with your connivance.’
‘You mean my daughter Elizabeth?’
’And my nephew Reginald.
We have named them, if that advances us. Now,
the end of such meetings is marriage, and the sooner
the better, if they are to continue. I would
rather they should not; I do not hold it good for
young soldiers to marry. But if they do, it is
very certain that their pay will not support a family;
and in a marriage of two healthy young people, we
have to assume the existence of the family. You
have allowed matters to go so far that the boy is
hot in love; I suppose the girl is, too. She
is a nice girl. I do not object to her personally.
But I insist that a settlement be made on her before
I give my nephew one penny. Hear me out, for
I am not fond of business, and shall be glad to have
done with these explanations. Reginald has nothing
of his own. He is my sister’s son, and
I loved her, and rather like the boy. He has at
present four hundred a year from me. I will double
it, on the condition that you at once make over ten
thousand not less; and let it be yes or
no! to be settled on your daughter and go
to her children, independent of the husband cela
va sans dire. Now you may speak,
General.’
The General spoke, with breath fetched from the deeps:
’Ten thousand pounds! Hem!
Ten! Hem, frankly ten, my lady!
One’s income I am quite taken by
surprise. I say Elizabeth’s conduct though,
poor child! it is natural to her to seek a mate, I
mean, to accept a mate and an establishment, and Reginald
is a very hopeful fellow I was saying,
they jump on me out of an ambush, and I wish them every
happiness. And she is an ardent soldier, and a
soldier she must marry. But ten thousand!’
‘It is to secure the happiness of your daughter,
General.’
‘Pounds! my lady. It would rather cripple
me.’
’You would have my house, General;
you would have the moiety, as the lawyers say, of
my purse; you would have horses, carriages, servants;
I do not divine what more you would wish to have.’
’But, madam a pensioner
on the Government! I can look back on past services,
I say old services, and I accept my position.
But, madam, a pensioner on my wife, bringing next
to nothing to the common estate! I fear my self-respect
would, I say would...’
‘Well, and what would it do, General Ople?’
’I was saying, my self-respect
as my wife’s pensioner, my lady. I could
not come to her empty-handed.’
’Do you expect that I should
be the person to settle money on your daughter, to
save her from mischances? A rakish husband, for
example; for Reginald is young, and no one can guess
what will be made of him.’
’Undoubtedly your ladyship is
correct. We might try absence for the poor girl.
I have no female relation, but I could send her to
the sea-side to a lady-friend.’
’General Ople, I forbid you,
as you value my esteem, ever and I repeat,
I forbid you ever to afflict my ears with
that phrase, “lady-friend!"’
The General blinked in a state of insurgent humility.
These incessant whippings could not
but sting the humblest of men; and ‘lady-friend,’
he was sure, was a very common term, used, he was sure,
in the very best society. He had never heard Her
Majesty speak at levees of a lady-friend, but he was
quite sure that she had one; and if so, what could
be the objection to her subjects mentioning it as a
term to suit their own circumstances?
He was harassed and perplexed by old
Lady Camper’s treatment of him, and he resolved
not to call her Angela even upon supplication not
that day, at least.
She said, ’You will not need
to bring property of any kind to the common estate;
I neither look for it nor desire it. The generous
thing for you to do would be to give your daughter
all you have, and come to me.’
’But, Lady Camper, if I denude
myself or curtail my income a man at his
wife’s discretion, I was saying a man at his
wife’s mercy...!’
General Ople was really forced, by
his manly dignity, to make this protest on its behalf.
He did not see how he could have escaped doing so;
he was more an agent than a principal. ‘My
wife’s mercy,’ he said again, but simply
as a herald proclaiming superior orders.
Lady Camper’s brows were wrathful.
A deep blood-crimson overcame the rouge, and gave
her a terrible stormy look.
‘The congress now ceases to
sit, and the treaty is not concluded,’ was all
she said.
She rose, bowed to him, ‘Good
morning, General,’ and turned her back.
He sighed. He was a free man.
But this could not be denied whatever the
lady’s age, she was a grand woman in her carriage,
and when looking angry, she had a queenlike aspect
that raised her out of the reckoning of time.
So now he knew there was a worse behind
what he had previously known. He was precipitate
in calling it the worst. ‘Now,’ said
he to himself, ’I know the worst!’
No man should ever say it. Least
of all, one who has entered into relations with an
eccentric lady.