my fantastic and sublime romance, I looked out into that Great Beyond, saw myself orator, statesman, minister, ambassador – Heaven knows what; laying laurels, which I mistook for rent-rolls, at Fanny's feet.
Whatever Fanny might have discovered as to the state of my heart, it seemed an abyss not worth prying into by either Trevanion or Lady Ellinor. The first, indeed, as may be supposed, was too busy to think of such trifles. And Lady Ellinor treated me as a mere boy – almost like a boy of her own, she was so kind to me. But she did not notice much the things that lay immediately around her. In brilliant conversation with poets, wits, and statesmen – in sympathy with the toils of her husband – or proud schemes for his aggrandisement, Lady Ellinor lived a life of excitement. Those large eager shining eyes of hers, bright with some feverish discontent, looked far abroad as if for new worlds to conquer – the world at her feet escaped from her vision. She loved her daughter, she was proud of her, trusted in her with a superb repose – she did not watch over her. Lady Ellinor stood alone on a mountain, and amidst a cloud.
CHAPTER XXVII
One day the Trevanions had all gone into the country, on a visit to a retired minister, distantly related to Lady Ellinor, and who was one of the few persons Trevanion himself condescended to consult. I had almost a holiday. I went to call on Sir Sedley Beaudesert. I had always longed to sound him on one subject, and had never dared. This time I resolved to pluck up courage.
"Ah, my young friend!" said he, rising from the contemplation of a villanous picture by a young artist, which he had just benevolently purchased, "I was thinking of you this morning – Wait a moment, Summers, (this to the valet.) Be so good as to take this picture, let it be packed up, and go down into the country. It is a sort of picture," he added, turning to me, "that requires a large house. I have an old gallery with little casements that let in no light. It is astonishing how convenient I have found it!" As soon as the picture was gone, Sir Sedley drew a long breath as if relieved; and resumed more gaily —
"Yes, I was thinking of you; and if you will forgive any interference in your affairs – from your father's old friend – I should be greatly honoured by your permission to ask Trevanion what he supposes is to be the ultimate benefit of the horrible labours he inflicts upon you – "
"But, my dear Sir Sedley, I like the labours; I am perfectly contented – "
"Not to remain always secretary to one who, if there were no business to be done among men, would set about teaching the ants to build hills upon better architectural principles! My dear sir, Trevanion is an awful man, a stupendous man, one catches fatigue if one is in the same room with him three minutes! At your age, an age that ought to be so happy," continued Sir Sedley, with a compassion perfectly angelic, "it is sad to see so little enjoyment!"
"But, Sir Sedley, I assure you that you are mistaken. I thoroughly enjoy myself; and have I not heard even you confess that one may be idle and not happy?"
"I did not confess that till I was on the wrong side of forty," said Sir Sedley, with a slight shade on his brow.
"Nobody would ever think you were on the wrong side of forty!" said I with artful flattery, winding into my subject. "Miss Trevanion for instance – "
I paused – Sir Sedley, looked hard at me, from his bright dark-blue eyes. "Well, Miss Trevanion for instance? – "
"Miss Trevanion, who has all the best-looking fellows in London round her, evidently prefers you to any of them." I said this with a great gulp. I was obstinately bent on plumbing the depth of my own fears.
Sir Sedley rose; he laid his hand kindly on mine and said, "Do not let Fanny Trevanion torment you even more than her father does! – "
"I don't understand you, Sir Sedley!"
"But if I understand you, that is more to the purpose. A girl like Miss Trevanion is cruel till she discovers she has a heart. It is not safe to risk one's own with any woman till she has ceased to be a coquette. My dear young friend, if you took life less in earnest, I should spare you the pain of these hints. Some men sow flowers, some plant trees – you are planting a tree under which you will soon find that no flower will grow. Well and good, if the tree could last to bear fruit and give shade; but beware lest you have to tear it up one day or other, for then – what then? why, you will find your whole life plucked away with its roots!"
Sir Sedley said these last words with so serious an emphasis, that I was startled from the confusion I had felt at the former part of his address. He paused long, tapped his snuff-box, inhaled a pinch slowly, and continued with his more accustomed sprightliness.
"Go as much as you can into the world – again I say 'enjoy yourself.' And again I ask, what is all this labour to do for you? On some men, far less eminent than Trevanion, it would impose a duty to aid you in a practical career, to secure you a public employment – not so on him. He would not mortgage an inch of his independence by asking a favour from a minister. He so thinks occupation the delight of life, that he occupies you out of pure affection. He does not trouble his head about your future. He supposes your father will provide for that, and does not consider that meanwhile your work leads to nothing! Think over all this. I have now bored you enough."
I was bewildered – I was dumb: these practical men of the world, how they take us by surprise! Here had I come to sound Sir Sedley, and here was I plumbed, gauged, measured, turned inside out, without having got an inch beyond the surface of that smiling, debonnair, unruffled ease. Yet with his invariable delicacy, in spite of all this horrible frankness, Sir Sedley had not said a word to wound what he might think the more sensitive part of my amour propre– not a word as to the inadequacy of my pretensions to think seriously of Fanny Trevanion. Had we been the Celadon and Chloé of a country village, he could not have regarded us as more equal, so far as the world went. And for the rest, he rather insinuated that poor Fanny, the great heiress, was not worthy of me, than that I was not worthy of Fanny.
I felt that there was no wisdom in stammering and blushing out denials and equivocations; so I stretched my hand to Sir Sedley, took up my hat, – and went. Instinctively I bent my way to my father's house. I had not been there for many days. Not only had I had a great deal to do in the way of business, but I am ashamed to say that pleasure itself had so entangled my leisure hours, and Miss Trevanion especially so absorbed them, that, without even uneasy foreboding, I had left my father fluttering his wings more feebly and feebly in the web of Uncle Jack. When I arrived in Russell Street, I found the fly and the spider cheek by jowl together. Uncle Jack sprang up at my entrance, and cried, "Congratulate your father, congratulate him. No; congratulate the world!"
"What, Uncle!" said I, with a dismal effort at sympathising liveliness, "is the 'Literary Times' launched at last?"
"Oh, that is all settled – settled long since. Here's a specimen of the type we have chosen for the leaders." And Uncle Jack, whose pocket was never without a wet sheet of some kind or other, drew forth a steaming papyral monster, which in point of size was to the political "Times" as a mammoth may be to an elephant. "That is all settled. We are only preparing our contributors, and shall put out our programme next week or the week after. No, Pisistratus, I mean the Great Work."
"My dear father, I am so glad. What! it is really sold then?"
"Hum!" said my father.
"Sold!" burst forth Uncle Jack. "Sold – no, sir, we would not sell it! No; if all the booksellers fell down on their knees to us, as they will some day, that book should not be sold! Sir, that book is a revolution – it is an era – it is the emancipator of genius from mercenary thraldom; – THAT BOOK! – "
I looked inquiringly from uncle to father, and mentally retracted my congratulations. Then Mr Caxton, slightly blushing, and shyly rubbing his spectacles, said, "You see, Pisistratus, that though poor Jack has devoted uncommon pains to induce the publishers to recognise the merit he has discovered in the 'History of Human Error,' he has failed to do so."
"Not a bit of it; they all acknowledge its miraculous learning – its – "
"Very true; but they don't think it will sell, and therefore most selfishly refuse to buy it. One bookseller, indeed, offered to treat for it if I would leave out all about the Hottentots