Weighed and Wanting Part 22

"No, no, never mind your mother; I daresay she is busy, or lying down.

She always went to lie down at this time of the day; she was never very strong you know, though I don't doubt it was quite as much to get rid of me. I shouldn't wonder if she thought me troublesome in those days. But I bear no malice now, and I hope she doesn't either. Tell her I say so.

It's more than five and twenty years ago, though to me it don't seem more than so many weeks. Don't disturb your mother, my dear. But if you insist on doing so, tell her old Harry is come to see her--very much improved since she turned him about his business."

Hester told a servant to take the sherry and the water to the drawing-room, and, much amused, ran to find her mother. "There's the strangest gentleman down-stairs, mamma, calling himself old Harry. He's having some sherry and water in the drawing-room! I never saw such an odd man!" Her mother laughed--a pleased little laugh. "Go to him, Hester dear, and say I shall be down directly." "Is he really a cousin, mamma?"

"To be sure--my second cousin! He was very fond of me once." "Oh, he has told me all about that already. He says you sent him about his business." "If that means that I wouldn't marry him, it is true enough.

But he doesn't know what I went through for always taking his part. I always stood up for him, though I never could bear him near me. He was such an odd, good-natured bear! such a rough sort of creature! always saying the thing he ought not to, and making everybody, ladies especially, uncomfortable! He never meant any harm, but never saw where fun should stop. You wouldn't believe the vulgar things Harry would say out of pure fun!--especially if he got hold of a very stiff old maid; he would tease her till he got her in a pa.s.sion. But if she began to cry, then Harry had the worst of it, and was as penitent as any good child. I daresay he's much improved by this time." "He told me to tell you he was. But if he is much improved--well, what he must have been! I like him though, mamma--I suppose because you liked him a little. So take care you are not too hard upon him; I'm going to take him up now."

"I make over my interest in him, and have no doubt he will be pleased enough with the change, for a man can't enjoy finding an old woman where he had all the time been imagining a young one. But I must warn you, Hester, as he seems to have made a conquest of you already, that he has in the meantime been married to a black--or at least a very brown Hindoo woman."

"That's nothing to his discredit with you, mamma, I hope. Has he brought her home with him, I wonder."

"She has been dead now for some ten years. I believe he had a large fortune with her, which he has since by judicious management increased considerably. He is really a good-hearted fellow, and was kind to every one of his own relations as long as there was one left to be kind to."

"Well, I shall go back to him, mamma, and tell him you are coming as soon as you have got your wig and your newest lace-cap on, and your cheeks rouged and pearl-powdered, to look as like the lady that would none of him as you can."

Her mother laughed merrily, and pretended to box her daughter's ears. It was not often any mood like this rose between them; for not only were they serious in heart, but from temperament, and history, and modes and direction of thought, their ways were serious as well. Yet who may so well break out in childlike merriment as those whose life has in it no moth-eaten Mammon-pits, who have no fear, no greed, and live with a will--rising like the sun to fill the day with the work given them to do!

"Look what I have brought you, cousin," said major Marvel, the moment Hester re-entered the room, holding out to her a small necklace. "You needn't mind taking them from an old fellow like me. It don't mean that I want to marry you off-hand before I know what sort of a temper you've got. Take them."

Hester drew near, and looked at the necklace.

"Take it," said the major again.

"How strangely beautiful it is!--all red, pear-shaped, dull, scratched-looking stones, hanging from a savage-looking gold chain! What are they, Mr. Marvel?"

"You have described it like a book!" he said. "It is a barbarous native necklace--but they are fine rubies--only rough--neither cut nor polished."

"It is beautiful," repeated Hester. "Did you really mean it for me?"

"Of course I did!"

"I will ask mamma if I may keep it."

"Where's the good of that? I hope you don't think I stole it? Though faith there's a good deal that's like stealing goes on where that comes from!--But here comes the mother!--Helen, I'm so glad to see you once more!"

Hester slipped away with the necklace in her hand, and left her mother to welcome her old admirer before she would trouble her about the offered gift. They met like trusting friends whom years had done nothing to separate, and while they were yet talking of bygone times, Mr.

Raymount entered, received him cordially, and insisted on his remaining with them as long as he could; they were old friends, although rivals, and there never had been any ground for bitterness between them. The major agreed; Mr. Raymount sent to the station for his luggage, and showed him to a room.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

THE MAJOR AND VAVASOR.

As major Marvel, for all the rebuffs he had met with, had not yet learned to entertain the smallest doubt as to his personal acceptability, so he was on his part most catholic in his receptivity.

But there were persons whom from the first glance he disliked, and then his dislike was little short of loathing. I suspect they were such as found the heel of his all but invulnerable vanity and wounded it. Not accustomed to be hurt, it resented hurt when it came the more sorely. He was in one sense, and that not a slight one, a true man: there was no discrepancy, no unfittingness between his mental conditions and the clothing in which those conditions presented themselves to others. His words, looks, manners, tones, and everything that goes to express man to man, expressed him. What he felt that he showed. I almost think he was unaware of the possibility of doing otherwise. At the same time, he had very little insight into the feelings of others, and almost no sense of the possibility that the things he was saying might affect his listeners otherwise than they affected him. If he boasted, he meant to boast, and would scorn to look as if he did not know it was a good thing he was telling of himself: why not of himself as well as of another? He had no very ready sympathy with other people, especially in any suffering he had never himself experienced, but he was scrupulously fair in what he said or did in regard of them, and nothing was so ready to make him angry as any appearance of injustice or show of deception. He would have said that a man's first business was to take care of himself, as so many think who have not the courage to say it; and so many more who do not think it. But the Major's conduct went far to cast contempt upon his selfish opinion.

During dinner he took the greater part of the conversation upon himself, and evidently expected to be listened to. But that was nearly all he wanted. Let him talk, and hear you laugh when he was funny, and he was satisfied. He seemed to have no inordinate desire for admiration or even for approbation. He was fond of telling tales of adventure, some wonderful, some absurd, some having nothing in them but his own presence, and occasionally, while the detail was good the point for the sake of which it had been introduced would be missing; but he was just as willing to tell one, the joke of which turned against himself, as one amusing at the expense of another. Like many of his day who had spent their freshest years in India, he was full of the amus.e.m.e.nts and sports with which so much otherwise idle time is pa.s.sed by Englishmen in the East, and seemed to think nothing connected with the habits of their countrymen there could fail to interest those at home. Every now and then throughout the dinner he would say, "Oh, that reminds me!" and then he would tell something that happened when he was at such and such a place, when So-and-So "of our regiment" was out tiger-shooting, or pig-sticking, or whatever the sport might be; "and if Mr. Raymount will take a gla.s.s of wine with me, I will tell him the story"--for he was constantly drinking wine, after the old fas.h.i.+on, with this or that one of the company.

When he and Vavasor were introduced to each other, he glanced at him, drew his eyebrows together, made his military bow, and included him among the listeners to his tales of exploit and adventure by sea and land.

Vavasor was annoyed at his presence--not that he much minded a little boring in such good company, or forgot that everything against another man was so much in his own favor; but he could not help thinking, "What would my aunt say to such a relative?" So while he retained the blandest expression, and was ready to drink as many gla.s.ses of wine with the new comer as he wished, he set him down in his own mind not only as an ill-bred man and a boaster, in which there was some truth, but as a liar and a vulgar-minded man as well, in which there was little or no truth.

Now although major Marvel had not much ordinary insight into character, the defect arose mainly from his not feeling a deep enough interest in his neighbor; and if his suspicion or dislike was roused in respect of one, he was just as likely as any other ever is to arrive at a correct judgment concerning a man he does not love.

He had been relating a thrilling adventure with a man-eating tiger. He saw, as they listened, the eyes of little Mark and Saffy had almost surpa.s.sed the use of eyes and become ears as well. He saw Hester also, who was still child enough to prefer a story of adventure to a love-tale fixed as if, but for the way it was bound over to sobriety, her hair would have stood on end. But at one moment he caught also--surprised indeed a certain expression on the face of Vavasor, which that experienced man of the world never certainly intended to be so surprised, only at the moment he was annoyed to see the absorption of Hester's listening; she seemed to have eyes for no one but the man who shot tigers as Vavasor would have shot grouse.

The major, who upon fitting occasion and good cause, was quarrelsome as any turkey-c.o.c.k, swallowed something that was neither good, nor good for food, and said, but not quite so carelessly as he had intended:

"Ha, ha, I see by your eyes, Mr. Pa.s.sover, you think I'm drawing the long bow--drawing the arrow to the head, eh?"

"No, 'pon my word!" said Vavasor earnestly, "nothing farther from my thoughts. I was only admiring the coolness of the man who would actually creep into the mouth of the--the--the jungle after a--what-you-call-him--a man-eating tiger."

"Well, you see, what was a fellow to do," returned the major suspiciously. "The fellow wouldn't come out! and by Jove I wasn't the only fellow that wanted him out! Besides I didn't creep in; I only looked in to see whether he was really there. That I could tell by the s.h.i.+ning eyes of him."

"But is not a man-eating tiger a something tremendous, you know? When he once takes to that kind of diet, don't you know--they say he likes nothing else half so well! Good beef and mutton will no longer serve his turn, I've been told at the club. A man must be a very Munchausen to venture it."

"I don't know the gentleman--never heard of him," said the major: for Vavasor had p.r.o.nounced the name German-fas.h.i.+on, and none of the listeners recognized that of the king of liars; "but you are quite mistaken in the character of the man-eating tiger. It is true he does not care for other food after once getting a pa.s.sion for the more delicate; but it does not follow that the indulgence increases either his courage or his fierceness. The fact is it ruins his moral nature. He does not get many Englishmen to eat; and it would seem as if the flesh of women and children and poor cowardly natives, he devours, took its revenge upon him by undermining and destroying his natural courage. The fact is, he is well-known for a sneak. I sometimes can't help thinking the ruffian knows he is a rebel against the law of his Maker, and a traitor to his natural master. The man-eating tiger and the rogue-elephant are the devils of their kind. The others leave you alone except you attack them; then they show fight. These attack you--but run--at least the tiger, not the elephant, when you go out after him.

From the top of your elephant you may catch sight of him sneaking off with his tail tucked between his legs from cover to cover of the jungle, while they are beating up his quarters to drive him out. You can never get any sport out of him. _He_ will never fly at your elephant, or climb a tree, or take to the water after you! If there's a creature on earth I hate it's a coward!" concluded the major.

Said Vavasor to himself, "The man is a coward!"

"But _why_ should you hate a coward so?" asked Hester, feeling at the moment, with the vision of a man-eating tiger before her, that she must herself come under the category. "How can a poor creature made without courage help being one? You can neither learn nor buy courage!"

"I am not so sure about the learning. But such as you mean, I wouldn't call cowards," returned the major. "n.o.body thinks worse of the hare, or even the fox, for going away before the hounds. Men whose business it is to fight go away before the enemy when they have not a chance, and when it would do no good to stand and be cut down. To let yourself be killed when you ought not is to give up fighting. There is a time to run and a time to stand. But the man will run like a man and the coward like a coward."

Said Vavasor to himself, "I'll be bound you know when to run at least!"

"What can harmless creatures do but run," resumed the major, filling his gla.s.s with old port. "But when the wretch that has done all the hurt he could will not show fight for it, but turns tail the moment danger appears, I call him a contemptible coward. Man or beast I would set my foot on him. That's what made me go into the hole to look after the brute."

"But he might have killed you, though he was a coward," said Hester, "when you did not leave him room to run."

"Of course he might, my dear! Where else would be the fun of it? Without that the thing would be no better than this shooting of pigeons and pheasants by men who would drop their guns if a c.o.c.k were to fly in their faces. You _had_ to kill him, you know! He's first cousin--the man-eating, or rather woman-eating tiger, to a sort that I understand abounds in the Zoological Gardens called English society; if the woman be poor, he devours her at once; if she be rich he marries her, and eats her slowly up at his ease in his den."

"How with the black wife!" thought Mr. Raymount, who had been little more than listening.

But Mr. Raymount did not really know anything about that part of his old friend's history; it was hardly to his discredit. The black wife, as he called her, was the daughter of an English merchant by a Hindoo wife, a young creature when he first made her acquaintance, unaware of her own power, and kept almost in slavery by the relatives of her deceased father, who had left her all his property. Major Marvel made her acquaintance and became interested in her through a devilish attempt to lay the death of her father to her door. I believe the s.h.i.+ne of her gold had actually blinded her relatives into imagining, I can hardly say _believing_ her guilty. The major had taken her part and been of the greatest service to her. She was entirely acquitted. But although n.o.body believed her in the smallest degree guilty, _society_ looked askance upon her. True, she was rich, but was she not black? and had she not been accused of a crime? And who saw her father and mother married?

Then said the major to himself--"Here am I a useless old fellow, living for n.o.body but myself! It would make one life at least happier if I took the poor thing home with me. She's rather too old, and I'm rather too young to adopt her; but I daresay she would marry me. She has a trifle I believe that would eke out my pay, and help us to live decently!" He did not know then that she had more than a very moderate income, but it turned out to be a very large fortune indeed when he came to inquire into things. That the major rejoiced over his fortune, I do not doubt; but that he would have been other than an honorable husband had he found she had nothing, I entirely disbelieve. When she left him the widowed father of a little girl, he mourned sincerely for her. When the child followed her mother, he was for some time a sad man indeed. Then, as if her money was all he had left of her, and he must lead what was left of his life in its company, he went heartily into speculation with it, and at least doubled the fortune she brought him. He had now returned to his country to find almost every one of his old friends dead, or so changed as to make them all but dead to him. Little as any one would have imagined it from his conversation or manner, it was with a kind of heart-despair that he sought the cousin he had loved. And scarcely had he more than seen the daughter of his old love than, in the absence of almost all other personal interest, he was immediately taken possession of by her--saw at once that she was a grand sort of creature, gracious as grand, and different from anything he had even seen before. At the same time he unconsciously began to claim a property in her; to have loved the mother seemed to give him a right in the daughter, and that right there might be a way of making good. But all this was as yet only in the region of the feeling, not at all in that of the thinking.

In proportion as he was taken with the daughter of the house, he disliked the look of the fine gentleman visitor that seemed to be dangling after her. Who he was, or in what capacity there, he did not know, but almost from the first sight profoundly disliked him, and the more as he saw more sign of his admiration of Hester. He might be a woman-eater, and after her money--if she had any: such suspects must be watched and followed, and their haunts marked.

"But," said Hester, fearing the conversation might here take a dangerous turn, "I should like to understand the thing a little better. I am not willing to set myself down as a coward; I do not see that a woman has any right to be a coward any more than a man. Tell me, major Marvel--when you know that a beast may have you down, and begin eating you any moment, what is it that keeps you up? What have you to fall back upon? Is it principle, or faith, or what is it?"

"Ho, ho!" said the Major, laughing, "a meta-physician in the very bosom of my family!--I had not reckoned upon that!--Well, no, my dear, I cannot exactly say that it is principle, and I am sure it is not faith.

You don't think about it at all. It's partly your elephant, and partly your rifle--and partly perhaps--well, there I daresay comes in something of principle!--that as an Englishman you are sent to that benighted quarter of the world to kill their big vermin for them, poor things! But no, you don't think of that at the time. You've got to kill him--that's it. And then when he comes roaring on, your rifle jumps to your shoulder of itself."

"Do you make up your mind beforehand that if the animal should kill you, it is all right?" asked Hester.