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PIIILN! tliiif
BOOKS BY MAURICE HEWLETT
BY CHARLES SCRJBNER'S SONS
Bendish ...... (postage extra) net $1,35
Lore of Proserpine ..... . . net SI. 35
The Song of Renny . ...... $1.6O
Brazenhead the Great ......... $1.SO
Open Country ...... ....... $1.5O
Halfway House ........... $1.5O
Rest Harrow ....... . , , , $1.50
The Fool Errant ..... ...... $ 1.5O
The Queen's Quair . . , . ..... S1.5O
New Canterbury Tales . , ..... . . 1.5O
The Life and Death of Richard Yea and Nay S1.5O
The Forest Lovers ....... ... S1.6O
Little Novels of Italy . . ....... $ 1.5O
Earthwork Out of Tuscany ....... S2.0O
The Road in Tuscany. Two Volumes, net $6.0O
Letters to Sanchia ........ net .90
The Agonists .... ..... , net $1.50
BENDISH
A STUDY IN PRODIGALITY
A STUDY IN PRODIGALITY
BY
MAURICE HEWLETT
"AUem frofusus, sui
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
NEW YORK : : ; ; 1913
T, 1913, BY
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
Published September, 1913
CONTENTS
CHAP.
I, FATE AND MR. HENIKER ..... 3
II. IDYLL IN A MASK ...... 12
III. BENDISH OF BENDISH ..... '33
IV. EFFLUENTS OF "THE BILLIAD" ... 42
V. LORD BENDISH IN THE UPPER AIR 55
vi. "OUTRE-TOMBED ...... 67
VII. THE MANTLE OF MIRABEAU 80
VIII, DISTRACTION OFFERS u 90
IX. HOW NOT TO LEAVE A MISTRESS . . . IOI
X. TO RAPALLO ....... 112
XI, THE WEDDED LOVERS ..... 125
XII. THREATENED INTERIOR ..... 13!
XIII, THE INVADING SEED . 143
XIV. **TH VISION OF REVOLT" . , . . 154
XV. THE BLOOD-PACT ...... 159
XVI. THE LORD AS DEMAGOGUE .... 182
XVII. THE GAME AND THE PIECES . . . . 2OI
XVIII, LORD BENDISH IN FLOOD AND EBB . . . 213
%
XIX. A LETTER FROM GEORGIAN A . . . .229
v
vi CONTENTS
CHAP,
xx. "THE WANDERER" 235
xxi. "THE WANDERER" EXAMINED .... 246
XXII. A BUDGET 257
XXIII. THE AITAIR , 272
XXIV. THE MEETING 282
XXV. LAST THROW BUT ONE 290
XXVI. QUIETUS FROM OLD MR. HENIKER . . .302
BENDISH
A STUDY IN PRODIGALITY
BENDISH
CHAPTER I
FATE AND ME., HENIKER
ON a misty Tuesday morning in the autumn of
that year which saw/ William the Fourth King of
England, a broad-shouldered young man of pleasant
though fiery aspect, blundered late into the Mill Hill
stage at Holborn Bars and trod upon the toes of a
young lady, its only passenger. She shuddered, tod
he apologised as he tumbled into the corner op-
posite. The coach was already lurching over the
slippery stones when, this event occurred. It had
readied Lamb's Conduit Street before the young
man had swum from the waves of agitation into
the smooth waters of consciousness: in simpler words,
it had taken him ten minutes or more to be done
with fanning himself with bis hat, flapping the wings
of Ms great coat, steadying and unsteadying his lit-
tle black bag, puffing and blowing, appealing for
witness to the roof of the stage-carriage, and then to
have observed how pretty a lady he had put to pain
and annoyance. Whether it was her charm which
compunged him, or the comparative calm into which
3
4 BENDISH
he had now brought himself, is not to be known. It
is certain that he leaned forward, hat in hand, and
said, "Ten thousand pardons, Madame, for my
abominable clumsiness!" In the act he showed a
head of Heelios, a head which looked as if it had
been dipped in sunset: but his eyes were very blue,
and he had a pleasant, gentleman's face.
The young lady bowed her head, and a becoming
blush mantled her fair cheeks. For one moment
her serious gaze lit upon him; it appeared to him
that her eyes dilated and swam all about him, that
he drowned. "Pray do not think of it, sir/' she
said. "I am glad that you were no later."
His face lit up, his own blue eyes flashed. He
smiled; his teeth were good and very white. "You
cannot be more glad than I am, I assure you/' he
said: a promising beginning. But the lady's re-
serve resumed its hold upon her. No more was to
be permitted. She gazed upon her gloved and
folded hands, she was pensive, but not standing-oil.
She showed no fear of possible advances, but rather
assumed that, as a matter of course, there could be
none; and soon she became so engrossed in her own
thoughts as to be positively unaware of Mr* Henikcr
for Roger Heniker was our young man. Not
even a disorderly crowd near Pancras Church, a
crowd of hoarse and inflamed persons with tattered
flag and braying horn surrounding an orator in a
cart, was able to disturb her reclusion. This mob
came flooding about the coach; one heard harsh
cries thrown up. "Reform, Reform!' 1 "Give us
FATE AND MR. HENIKER 5
the Bill!" "To Hell with the Duke!" "Grey for
ever ! " She raised her arching eyebrows, she glanced
out of window, and drew back from a beery grin*
" God bless you, miss, we won't hurt you. It's the
Bill we want " These were parlous times, remem-
ber; rick-burning in the country and bill-clamouring
in town.
"The lady hasn't got it nor have I," said Mr.
Heniker, "Off with you, my man." He spoke
pleasantly, and was so received. The coach lunged
forward, and his little bag rolled on to the floor.
When he had bestowed it upon his knee again he
found himself no better able to carry on conversation.
This young lady, whose face was pure oval and
divinely coloured, whose eyes were grey, and whose
lips were sweetly bunched together for seriousness,
looked what she was, the thrifty owner of charms too
rare for vulgar husbandry. By instinct, you would
have said, she knew her worth. She was lovely in
form and colour, neatly and even severely dressed,
without a trace of coquetry. There was a quaker
tinge upon her; a dovelike habit. One could not
consider her and allure together. She was like a
bird, but did not trail a wing. Mr. Heniker found
himself recalling scraps of the psalter as he was
swayed along the Camden Road: "My darling from
the lions, " and similar phrases. She inspired pious
thoughts; one was the better for having been in her
company. He did not like to think of the straw which
her feet had touched being hereafter trampled by
drovers* boots or spat upon by bagmen. Profana-
6 BENDISH
tion! It seemed to him that the coach should be
solemnly burned at the end of the journey, with a
clergyman to read the committal of it to the flames,
and possibly a quire of virgins in white ready with
a hymn in the background. The Annunciation came
into his mind, and then Susannah and the Elders.
But though he was observing her closely at the time,
and she must needs (you would say) have been
aware of it, it did not occur to him that the coach
was empty but for himself and her, and that the
guard, swaying by the boot, could hardly view more
than the point of her knee. You see he was very
conscious of the elevation of his thoughts. If she
was Susannah, the world at large, through which
she went in hourly peril, stood for the libidinous old
couple.
They were now in the country, rolling between
drip^spangled hedgerows, the guardians of fog and
dim grass, ghostly elms and shrouded cattle. Here
and there a newish villa stood glimmering white in
the haze; here and there a warm brick wall half hid
a pedimented, more considerable house. They were
in North Middlesex, having topped the ridge of
Hampstead, and near their journey's end. The
coach pulled up in a straggling village between a
duck-pond fenced by white palings and the porch
of a weather-boarded inn. The guard opened the
door, and the young lady slipped quickly out.
"Bunch of Feathers, sir," he told Heniker.
"Golder's Green/' The young man had no moment
FATE AND MR. HENIKER 7
to reflect upon the vanishing of bis charmer, nor
upon the blissful fact that the same village was to
hold him near her for an hour.
"Hulloa! I get down here/' he said, and tum-
bled out, with a shilling for the man.
He stood confused upon the gravel. "Now
Myrtle Cottage Mrs. Welbore how do I ?"
He addressed the foggy air, but a loafer by the porch
coughed and spat.
"Down the street, sir, to the church; up Church
Lane, and you'll find it opposite Mr. Jaskins' farm-
house. A matter of ten minutes and I'll be thank-
ful for the price of a half-pint."
Heniker bestowed his alms and hastened after the
retreating form of the lady which he could just see
about to be swallowed up in fog. He saw his way
to a question and answer, and almost certainly to
another look from her fine grey eyes. She was ac-
tually now turning up by the churchyard into a lane
which, with fortune to help, must needs be his.
Long legs served him well; he drew level with her
before she was past the church.
Assuredly she had been aware of pursuit; there
had been a gleam of the ear and cheek, a flying set
of the shoulder; she had seemed to be before the
wind, to have been leaving a wake. But extreme
caution, not alarm, made her eyes so bright; and
the vivid rose of her cheek may well have been the
flush of her speed,
Heniker drew level, and she tired. The game
was up; she was his; her eyes met his in appeal*
8 BENDISH
Youth, his length of limb, the lonely lane, the fog,
were all pleading in her soft glance. The red and
naked sun at this moment loomed low in the mist
like a flat disk of copper, but showed her glowing
like a morning sky. From that beating moment he
was at her feet,
His hat was in his hand; he was very red.
"I intrude upon you again, Madam/' he said;
"this time for a kindness, I'm a stranger in these
parts, and am trying to find Myrtle Cottage. Could
you perhaps direct me?"
He was sure afterwards that it was Fate, and was
pleased with the notion; but just at the moment
other things involved him: her swift comprehension
of him and his question together, as if the one set
the other in a new light; a new gleam in her fine
eyes; her loss, for the minute, of suspicion. She
was thrown off her guard, and became a fellow-
creature, not a hunted thing.
"Oh, yes, indeed," she said. "I can show you
the house. I live there."
This was much too serious for Ms stock of small
talk. "You live there!" he cried out. "How ex-
traordinary!"
Her simple "Why is it extraordinary?" knocked
him flat.
"I beg your pardon; it is not in the least extraor-
dinary, of course. But you'll allow that it's odd
we should have travelled from town together, and
should be going to the same house in Golder's
Green."
FATE AND MR. HENIKER 9
But she did not seem ready to admit even a coin-
cidence between them; so he ran on in a hurry:
"I ought to tell you, perhaps, that I had been
hoping to see a friend of mine there a Mr. Bendish.
He is staying at Myrtle Cottage at least I think so
the guest of Mrs. Welbore. Is it possible that
you are ?"
She could meet him here, speaking with decision.
"Mrs. Welbore is my aunt," she said. "I live
with her. And you will find your friend there too.
He is not her guest, but her lodger. We are quite
poor people."
He murmured something anything and turned
the conversation.
"Mr. Bendish is younger than I am, but a great,
a good friend " He tried hard to be easy and rele-
vant. "We've known each other all our lives. We
were at school together. And since then Oh,
well, we've had a good deal of business, you must
understand."
There he stopped, partly because he was in diffi-
culties, partly because he felt that she was not in-
terested. He hoped ardently that she was not, at
any rate. For he pictured his friend Bendish very
clearly, with his calm, imperial look, appraising this
heavenly creature, arrogating her to himself by droit
de seigneur. His good honest heart was Hke lead
within him*
They walked on without more words for some
little way; but she broke the silence with some
deprecation of the forlorn look of things sodden
io BENDISH
fields, flattened layers of leaves, dripping trees. He
agreed, but insisted that the town was worse. It
had rained, he said, for a week. Last Friday, for
instance , and she laughed agreement.
"Last Friday," she said, "I was soaked liter-
ally soaked, and had to come home as I was. And
the Tuesday before that to-day week "
He looked at her quickly. "Oh, you are often in
town, then?"
She nodded her bright head. "Yes, twice a week.
I teach drawing to a young lady in Bloomsbury
Square on Tuesdays and Fridays. We are not very
well-to-do, you see. I am glad to earn what I
can."
He was concerned. "It is very courageous of
you, I think." He saw her blush; but at that mo-
ment they stood before Myrtle Cottage so pro-
claimed on the white wicket gate which opened to
a flagged way and a door within a porch of trellis.
A modest building enough, to contain the imperial
Bendish. Heniker smiled awry to think of it to
picture his arrogating friend and this maidenly
beauty, so to speak, under his covering hand, held
down during pleasure as a boy holds a mouse or
little bird.
Mrs. Welbore's niece knocked briskly, and was
quickly answered. The round-eyed maid stared like
a foolish kitten to see the tall and red-headed stranger.
"Oh, Susan," said she, "do you know if Mr. Bendish
is in?"
Susan gasped her "Oh, yes, Miss Rose." Miss
FATE AND MR. HENIKER II
Rose! Ah, beautifully named, most gentle lady!
She turned her last to Heniker,
"Your friend is here. The maid will announce
you at once. Susan/' she said, "please take this
gentleman to Mr. Bendish." She looked shyly at
him, gravely smiling with eyes and sober lips, bowed
her head, and passed quickly into the house and up
the stair. Heniker gazed after her.
"What name, if you please, sir?" says Susan, and
recovered him for this world of chance and change.
"Eh? Oh, of course. Say Mr. Roger Heniker,
if you please."
She knocked at the door immediately on the left.
The occupant roared his " Come in," and she opened.
Blue clouds streamed outwards and hid her up.
Then he heard his welcome.
"Roger, by Heaven! Come in, Roger, and be
d d to you." Heniker plunged into the blue
mist of Latakia, little bag in hand.
CHAPTER II
IDYLL IN A MASK
THE room reeked tobacco and was shrouded in it.
The fire was muffled; the window stared up like a
white sheet; the table was a menace, the chairs were
snares. It was some time before any human tenant
could be seen, but a pale dim outline was presently
discovered a recumbent form upon a sofa, swathed
in white robes. His knees made a pyramid, a kind
of sugar-loaf mountain; their top in strong light was
like a snow-cap. The mountain appeared volcanic;
for the blue wreaths shot up from it, and broke and
hung, while a fierce bubbling and gurgling heralded
each outburst.
But Heniker advanced, nothing doubting. "I
hope tl\at 'Mr.' Bendish keeps his health/' he said,
with jocular emphasis upon the title. "I see that
he has his hubble-bubble in order."
A marble-faced young man with a dark head of
curly hair and intensely dark eyes lay absorbed upon
the sofa. Every feature of him was as sharp and
still as statuary; if he assumed rapture in his work,
he assumed it well Enveloped in a white Turkish
gown, he was writing, with his knees for desk. Open
books were strewn about him; he blew and sucked
at a water-pipe which stood in visible commotion
IDYLL IN A MASK 13
upon the floor beside him. He was very handsome,
and sublimely uninterested in his visitor, although
at the same time acutely aware of him. Heniker
stood, half amused, half impatient, while he finished
a phrase, scratched out a word, put in another, then
stabbed in a full stop. Heniker watched him as if
he knew that all this was acting, and excellent of its
kind.
At the period he said drily, "Got him, George?''
The young man lifted his fine eyebrows.
"Who knows? It seems good to me. Do you
care for Homer, by the way?"
Heniker laughed, being of the kind that considers
poetry a weakness.
"Homer!" he said. "I haven't thought about
him since I left school. What are you at, George?
Homer?"
"The Iliad," said his friend. "By God, it's
superb. I may be wrong, but I think Fve done it
this time, I've been at it now for a fortnight, I
read the thing right through once in a week.
Finished it yesterday. This morning I began this.
It's moving, you know, it's moving."
Heniker sat down plumbly on the end of the sofa,
"What is moving? Homer? Or you? You are
translating him like Pope? Or is Mr. Cowper your
model?"
Mr. Bendish was looking at his sheets. "You
shall judge," he said, "You shall judge. I'll give
you a bit in the middle of the first book. Do you
remember Agamemnon and Achilles?"
14 BENDISH
Heniker nodded. "I have heard of both of them.
* Eurukreion Agamemnon Podasokus Achilleus. '
Go on, George."
Mr. Bendish was occupied with his manuscript,
entreating it lovingly, with a dot to an i, a cross to
a t* "You remember the quarrel? They pitch into
each other! It is all splendid, of course; but the
climax comes after Athene has heartened Achilles.
She goes, and he breaks out ' Oinobares, kunos om~
mat' echon, kradien d'elaphoio' Oh, you must re-
member that. Now here am I: "
He began to read, with fierce emphasis upon the
consonants finely and savagely
Drunken and dog-faced, hearted like a deer!
Who never yet didst dare arm for the war
Among thy people, nor lay ambuscade
With chiefs of Hellas that were death to thee!
Thy chosen way, to range the far-spread host,
Snatching the store of him who counters thee
Eater of men! . . .
There he stopped with a half laugh, and let the
pages fall as they would. Not that he thought the
work bad far from that; but that he felt sure that
it did not seem superb to his companion.
" That's the kind of thing/ 3 he said lightly. " My
'elegant leisure! 7 But these things don't amuse
you,"
"Some of them," Heniker said, "amuse me ex-
tremely; yourself, if I may say so, chiefly and always.
Let me ask you now how long this masquerade is to
IDYLL IN A MASK 15
go on? It is getting awkward for us. My father is
disturbed, and begins to talk about noblesse oblige.
Your mother, I may tell you, has been writing about
that every day for a month. She writes a good deal
when you are with her, but nothing to this.' 7
The young man in white sucked at his pipe, star-
ing straight before him. He would have been much
more handsome if he had not known with every
breath that he took exactly how handsome he was.
"You don't care for my Iliad? You find it like
Cowper's? H'm."
Heniker frowned. "My deaf George, if it will
make you serious, or attentive, I'll tell you at once
that I don't give a snap of the forefinger for Homer
yours or his own. I've got your business on my
hands, and ticklish enough some of it is. You for-
get that your friend's an attorney-at-law."
Bendish gazed at him calmly. "I do my best,
Roger, as you see."
Heniker straightened himself. "I'm not at all
obliged to you. I wish, indeed, that you would re-
member it." Then he opened his black bag. "I've
got a dozen things for you to look at." He dived
for papers, fished up one. "Here's Milsom's mort-
gage he writes of foreclosure. We'll have to do
something with Faintways." He fished again:
" Shadrach won't renew except at a monstrous figure.
Oh, and here are the Newbiggin accounts. Two of
the best are behindhand : they plead bad times. And
there are assignments for you to sign, and a deputa-
tion or two. I'll get you to affirm those, George."
16 BENDISH
Mr. Bendish reached out for these documents.
"HI sign anything you please/' he said, spread out
the parchments, dipped his quill, and wrote in a
black upright hand, in very large and even lettering
Bendish. Roger Heniker watched him, twinkling
with amusement.
"You write a fine frank to a letter, George. You.
shall give me some before I go. Now, let me ask
you do these ladies here know that they are enter-
taining a lord? "
Lord Bendish looked at him as if such a question
had never occurred to his mind. "Upon my soul>
I don't know. I don't see why they should not have
taken my word for it. I gave them to understand
that I was a just an ordinary person."
"You might be both, you know," said "Heniker.
Lord Bendish flinched, and replied to this mild
pleasantry with quite unnecessary seriousness and
heat.
"I am much obliged to you. Doubtless I am, but
in neither case is the fault my own. However I
did not mention my rank to Mrs. Welbore nor shall
I nor shall you, by your leave or by mine." He
stopped there as if out of conceit with his own ve-
hemence. A new train of thought took him. Pres-
ently he said, "Of course they may have been looking
at one's things brushes, bottles, gimcrackery of that
kind. I can't help that but they are simple, good
souls, not prone to prying; and I doubt it."
Heniker, prick-eared for any patronage of the clear-
eyed youn jpdd^ss of the house, said nothing more
IDYLL IN A MASK 17
of his friend's masquerade, but turned to affairs,
and contrived to get himself heard upon urgent
business. With this I do not concern the reader
beyond saying that this young lord's money-matters
were not in good trim and could have been in no
trim at all if the Henikers, father and son, had not
been both honest and capable. That they were so
will appear in the course of this book; that their
noble client was difficult, at one time exceedingly
shrewd and keen upon his profit, at another vexed
beyond endurance at the very word Business, must
also appear if I am to do any justice to the fluxes of
bis mood. At this time he lent an occasional, and
very unwilling ear to his friend. The distaste which
he showed for finance was grounded upon idealism
and expressed with rhetoric. He wanted no money;
his needs were but one. "Peace, my dear Roger,
leisure of mind is what I need. I came here to get
them. For what other reason do you suppose I
jumped out of town, cut the clubs, the silly clatter
and candlelight of the Opera, the undressed women
and unsexed men of Society? For what other reason
did I drop my lordship, leave my coronet on the flags
of St. James's Street but to be quiet? I have tal-
ent I know it. I will be heard of one of these days
but not as a learned peer, not as a young lord with
elegant accomplishments. No, no, my good friend,
I won't get up Parnassus in a state-coach, nor take
my seat before Apollo with a herald to cry out my
titles, or produce my writ of summons. And it will
take more than Lady or Lady J to get
i8 BENDISH
me there, let me remind you. Work, sir, work!
Brain-work will do it for me. Bah, my good fellow,
what was I doing with all those people blacklegs,
blackguards, rips, demireps? And that other lot
the Halcro set, the Melmerby set, the Louvers,
Lady o ^ Lady J ; all those damned pretty
women, as false as they are frail! Suddenly I sick-
ened. Stomach, do you say? Liver? Not at all.
Heart, sir. I discovered that I had a conscience. I
said, ' You infernal ass, Bendish. Here you are with
a head hard enough to break the Tables of Stone,
and you turn it into a footstool for strumpets/ I
said I'd none of it, and I left it all. It's all there
still, I doubt not. The pasteboard, the bills, the
Uttets-donx, tumbling in at the slit in the door. Let
'em lie for me. I have Homer and something else
which I'll show you if you're worthy of it. A thing
which I don't know which may perhaps not all
die. How can I tell? I'm very young, you know,
but " Here he touched his breast "I feel it in
me."
To all of this, and to a good deal more of the sort,
Roger Heniker listened, as he needs must, well know-
ing that for this expensive escapade also the money
must be found. Such listening was of his profession.
Before it was well over he saw that his lordship must
be humoured for the present the more so as his
lordship, with a good deal of the mule in him too,
positively declined to budge. His mother! Let the
Heniker pair deal with his mother. True, she didn't
like it, but then she didn't like anything. She never
IDYLL IN A MASK 191
had. If he stayed at home, she took it ill; if he
went away, she took it ill; but if he was at home she
quarrelled mvd wee, and when he was away she took
to the twopenny post. He, Bendish, infinitely pre-
ferred the latter, because he had no need to read
her letters. He answered them yes; but he did not
read them.
One beat remained, and Heniker tried it. Ben-
dish had been moved by it more than twice before;
it touched him in a tender place. That was his
peerage. He had succeeded to it unexpectedly and
late enough in life to have been permanently im-
pressed by it. Heniker had been present when the
accolade fell, as it were, from Heaven upon his boy-
ish back, and had been very much impressed, boy
as he too had been at the time. So now he urged
his peerage upon him. Bendish was of age would
he not take his seat?
But Lord Bendish shook his handsome head. Not
yet, he said not yet. He had something to do first
something definite something (possibly) decisive.
Let that be done first, at any rate. Decidedly, no
seat-taking yet awhile.
But, said Heniker and it was his last throw
here we were hard upon the year of a coronation.
There would be a Court of Claims, to sit almost at
once. Was it not Bertdish's duty to consider the
reasonable expectation of his successors? Was the
Bendish privilege to sink for want of user? The pale
face certainly glowed for answer, the proud small
head certainly stiffened at that. But Lord Bendish
20 BENDISH
did not commit himself. We would see there was
time enough. Then he stretched, yawned, and
looked over his shoulder at the mantelpiece. "By
the Lord, half -past five! And I dine at seven, and
haven't dressed yet. I don't rise, you know, Roger,
till two in the afternoon you'll excuse me. By the
way, stay and dine with me. You must Til not
be denied. And after dinner I'll get leave to show
you one of the prettiest, gentlest, pleasant-spoken,
modest girls you ever clapped eyes upon. It's a fact;
she's like a nymph of Athene's. She's my landlady's
niece, and born as much a lady as you please.
What!" he broke off here, impatient to be stopped
for Heniker had looked down at his boots "Pooh,
man, what will they care about your boots? We're
not going to Almack's. I t^l you they are simple,
honest people not bandbox fine women. Be-
sides Oh, leave all that to me! I'll explain you and
your boots in a breath. I advise you to stay in
fact you must, if only to be conquered. You'll fall
in love with her, it's a thousand to one. I did imme-
diately. But you'll be too late, Roger, for I believe
she has a kindness for your poor servant. Now I'm
off to my bath. They know me here. Amuse your-
self well turn over my Iliad. I declare some of it
is tolerable. But the other thing ah, I'll talk to
you about that. That will make your hair stand
on end." He went off whistling to his toilette, leav-
ing Mr. Heniker to face his darkest forebodings.
If his heart was touched already, he had every
reason to be dark. He knew Bendish very well, had
IDYLL IN A MASK 21
known him from a boy. There had always been a
love-affair, and it had always been a point of per-
sonal honour with his lordship to succeed in it.
What success meant depended upon the mood with
which he entered the lists. Very often, nothing
gross. Bendish was not yet a sensualist at his
age he would have been a monster if he had been.
No; but sometimes he rode for a fall, sometimes
nothing but despair, misery, starvation, a white
face and a lonely death in the near future would
content him. Then, you might depend upon it,
however much he suffered and he would require
to wallow in suffering the cruel fair would suffer
ten times more. Not one minim of her cruelty might
escape her. Remorse? Ah, she should be drenched
with remorse. Or again, he might go in to win, to
be the fortunate knight and then good-bye to
virtue. But while you could never tell with Bendish
which way it was to be, except that he must have it
whichever it was, you could never for a minute be
in doubt as to the ultimate fate of the lady. She
must suffer horribly either for virtue lo$t or virtue
retained; and Heniker, his life on it, didn't know
where she was most to be pitied. There had been a
Miss Mary Winton, there had been a Miss Sophia,
a Miss Sara, a Miss Susan, a Lady Kitty; and then
there had been lately the blonde Lady , the
too easy and far too blonde. But she had a hus-
band, and experience, and Heniker fancied that Ms
lordship had had a tumble, that this idyll of Colder 's
Green was the consequence, and that once more
22 BENDISH
balms of Araby were to be applied to the cleansing
of the gentleman's amoitr propre. What that might
mean to a beautiful, sensitive, modest-minded girl
he dared not think; but it was no good telling him-
self that he didn't care he cared extremely; or that
the thing must go on because of course it would.
Please Heaven it might be ended before irremediable
mischief. One thing was clear: he must get the Ben-
dish privilege before the Court of Claims as soon as
might be. That was the only card he had to play.
So he sat on in the dark, waiting for his friend,
wringing out his heart, frowning and biting his nails.
The candles heralded him; but the cloth had been
laid and the Irish stew was smoking on the board
before he appeared, curled and anointed, resplendent
in his evening dress. To an exact taste his resplen-
dence might have seemed excessive for a retirement
so coy as to own but one sitting-room, or, indeed, to
companion a man who must spend the evening in
boots; but Lord Bendish was not minute in his con-
sideration, and Heniker had other things to consider,
for his part. But the dinner was very gay. His
lordship would not be denied. He poured out his
comments on men and affairs in one long and seem-
ingly endless chain. Hope was high in him and be-
lief in himself. The tonic air of Hampstead was your
only physic, it was clear. Roger should try it
take a lodging near by and ride every morning into
town on his hired hackney. Who knows? they might
be capping verses after a few evenings. Bendish
IDYLL IN A MASK 23
would welcome that, because the evenings, he must
own, were long and dull. Mrs. Welbore was exactly
like any one of them or say three of them, all Sun-
days, on end; and worthy woman though she were
she was a dragon for virtue. The lovely Rose
could not be seen of an evening, unguarded. Not
for a moment. That was a bore, but it made the
snatched moments, accidental meetings on the stair,
glimpses through the open door oh, enchanting!
After all, provocation was the vital thing in love;
passion needed a sting. The dart of Eros was
barbed, Roger must recollect.
Welbore, the happily late Welbore, had been, Ben-
dish understood, a clergyman, very often tipsy. He
had left the widow badly off or indeed found her
so and left her no better, except for his own depar-
ture. She had betaken herself to this way of life,
and called up to help her a sister's child, this fair
Rose Pierson, with whom Roger was bound to fall
in love. Miss Rose gave lessons drawing, water-
colours, other accomplishments of the kind. Ben-
dish found that an added charm, because humility
was a fine thing in itself, and especially becoming to
beauty in the eyes of one who worshipped beauty
as he did. It was an entrancing sight let Roger
remark: a girl with the bearing of a young queen
bending to help brats spoil paper. So the young
epicure rolled Rose Pierson over his tongue, and in
the act kept Ms friend sizzling on the grid.
Mackintosh of the combed whiskers, the wise, the
elderly, the soft-footed Mackintosh, was behind his
24 BENDISH
master's chair. It was understood that he lodged in
the village and played bowls with the villagers when,
the weather was fine. He too had need of the art
of making himself as snug as might be for Lord
Bendish was as restless as the wind, and never moved
without Mackintosh. He alone was in the secret,
except for Mrs. Bendish herself, his lordship's mother,
and the two Henikers. It was fine now to see him
marshalling the Welbore maid-servant. He did it
entirely with his eyebrows and a very occasional pro-
trusion of the lower lip. The girl watched his face
with the pathetic dependence of a performing dog
upon the showman's whip. Her eyes were wild with
anxiety; tears stood in them; she was on the verge
of nervous hysteria so great was Mackintosh, so
potential. With this little comedy of belowstairs as
with everything else, and himself most of all, Lord
Bendish was delighted.
Meantime the ladies would receive the gentlemen,
and there should be tea and conversation. The gen-
tle Mackintosh, with the sober voice of one who
relieves himself of a secret of State, reported so much
to his master, who paused wine-glass in the air, to
flash out upon it, "Very good, Mackintosh but will
they overlook Mr. Heniker's boots? "
Mackintosh felt sure, but Bendish would push his
rallying of Roger to the extreme point.
"You had better make sure, Mackintosh. Pre-
sent my compliments Mr. Bendish's compliments
to the ladies; and will they please to excuse Mr.
Heniker's boots? "
IDYLL IN A MASK 25
"Oh, confound it, George!" Heniker protested, but
the farce was solemnly played. A high-spirited lord
can do what he will with his attorney or he could
in 1830.
Then they went up, Bendish talking (rather loudly
f or he had taken his wine) to the very threshold.
There by a small fire, with fancy work lifted towards
the candles, sat Mrs. Welbore in black silk and a
lace cap; there at the tea-table, intent upon her urn
and cups, stood the tall Rose. Roger had a vision
of her slim neck and white shoulders, of her bent
head and glowing cheek, even as he advanced to
make his bow to the lady of the house. Bendish
introduced him simply his good friend, Mr. Hen-
iker and left his boots alone. Mrs. Welbore in-
clined monumentally; and then came the moment
for which our young man had been preparing him-
self. To Miss Pierson's full-orbed gaze he bowed,
and said very plainly that he had had the honour of
travelling with her that afternoon. Bendish caught
the remark, stared and frowned at it. Very easily,
as Roger knew (knowing his man well), he might
have been thrown out. He was capable of being
mortified by such a little thing, of being silenced for
the evening and the silence of such a man as Ben-
dish could be as shattering to the nerves as a brass
band: his sulks were contagious, slew their tens of
thousands. But luckily he was in too good fettle.
Roger had met her? Pooh, old Roger there was
nothing in that.
26 EENDISH
And a chance remark of Heniker's, as it hap-
pened, set him off for an evening's fireworks; for the
young man, face to face with the pretty tall girl, had
congratulated her and himself that 9 nothing worse
than noise had ensued upon the Radical mob which
had beset their progress. She had smilingly agreed,
with another momentary shaft from her fine eyes,
when Bendish caught the allusion, and, stationed
upon the hearth, held forth upon politics.
Heniker, seated by the younger lady, watched
him rather than listened. He leaned his elbows to
his knees, and clasped his hands to hold his chin.
Sideways, as it were, he could be conscious of Rose
Pierson's quickened bosom, and could guess but too
well what impression the chiselled pale face, with its
proud nose, proud and scornful lip and burning dark
eyes, must make upon her. This young lord had
everything, by Heaven! But poor Heniker was no
rebel, being too well schooled for that. He was
vaguely troubled, not dreaming of resistance. As
for Mrs. Welbore, she sat at her work like an apa-
thetic hillock, solemn in twilight a broad-browed,
flat-haired lady of dark hues. Such was her appear-
ance; but she hid behind it an acute timidity which
betrayed itself in little jerks of her needle, snatches
at her gown, little flickerings of the fingers, twitch-
ings of the lip here, and in her darting eyes, like
those of a field-mouse at a meal. She was imme-
diately below the orator, within the first flush of
his golden shower, a heavy and submissive Dana6,
Ever since her birth she had accepted the doctrine
IDYLL IN A MASK 27
that men must talk and women seem to listen. Had
she not been wedded to a pulpiteer?
Bendish was implying that but for accident (he
meant the peerage) he had been leading those hon-
est men into the "House of Commons. Yet he de-
plored their short sight for of what use would the
vote be to them with the powers behind parliament?
Did Mrs. Welbore guess, did his good Roger but his
eye was for Rose, who wondered, softly glowing,
the might of Society, of the King and his friends, of
the Duke, as Duke, or my Lord Marquis This, or
my Lady The-Other? Believe Bendish, the mob
needed pikes, not votes. (Here Mrs. Welbore shut
her eyes and shuddered.) But for every gilded
Mumbo- Jumbo stuck up by rascals to overawe them,
there were a thousand prostrate wretches hailing it
for God and Lord. That was so, she might take his
word for it; and that being so, what was the part for
a man of observation, some small powers of reason-
ing, some fancy and moral force, to play on such a
scene? The whip! The whip! Mrs. Welbore cow-
ered. Hit folly as it flies, smartly, across the back,
or even lower still. Mock them into sense, flog self-
esteem into them. Well! that might yet be done
again, as it had been done already. The whip stung
doubly: it stung the body, but it stung the mind
too for it was a puny weapon to fight with, and
humiliated the victim even while it routed him.
Cervantes, Voltaire had not disdained it. It had,
he might add, cleansed the Temple of old. He need
not say that he disclaimed comparison but let
28 BENDISH
them see. Who knows what a mouse may not do
with an altar-candle? He paused: it was Heniker's
cue.
"Out with it, George," he said. "We must hear
you now. What is it?* A satire? A mock-epic? I
know you've been at something."
Bendish laughed it off but not very far off. It
came fluttering back. "Oh, I don't know that I'm
ready I don't know that I have the face but
Well! the fact is I have been thinking about these
things in my out in this' happy quiet. But really
Mrs. Welbore I don't know whether "
Mrs. Welbore was flattered, and would have been
more so if she had known more exactly what all this
meant. Roger entered the field again.
"My friend Mr. Bendish has been scourging the
vices of Society, ma'am, in a poem. Pray let him
read it to us/' He turned to Rose Pierson, whose
eyes sparkled.
"I am sure," said Mrs. Welbore, rather scared, it
must be owned, at the word vice, "we shall be more
than interested. It wiH be most kind of Mr.
Bendish."
Bendish played with the notion. He took it up,
as it were, in the palm of his hand and rootled in it,
as if it had been -snuff. "Well," he said at last, "on
your heads be it. You shall hear me upon our pleas-
ant vices." With which he excused himself and
went to fetch his manuscript.
Mrs. Welbore, excited at the prospect and a little
awed, turned impressed eyes upon Heniker,
IDYLL IN A MASK 29
"What a flow!" she said. "Most impassioned.
I had no idea "
Heniker agreed with her. He desired keenly to
know what Rose Pierson thought; but she kept her
looks for the fire.
Mrs. Welbore had resumed her needlework; and
Heniker, seeing that if he spoke at all it must be of
Bendish, and if of Bendish, to invite his praises, sat
silent. The poet returned to his place on the hearth
and declaimed a good part of The Billiad: a Satire.
Billy was, of course, our new King; the Billiad
(reflex of his recent Homeric studies) was a forecast,
put in mock retrospect, of his fails el gesles; rather
of those of his ministers. Done with astonishing
verve, with a ridicule which occasionally defeated
itself, but a keenness of sight which omitted nothing,
it had, with all that, a real literary flavour. Its
fault and it was a fault of youth was that it spared
nothing, but mocked the evil with the good. It was,
in fact, as nihilistic as a young man can make it who
enjoys the sense of doing a thing rather than the
thing doing, and has a sharper eye upon the effect
than the cause. There was unfortunately nobody
present who knew how good it was. To Mrs. Wel-
bore, the Duke of Devizes was not only a hero, but
a Duke and a Prime Minister. References therefore
to his unsafe seat in the hunting-field, to his indis-
criminate gallantries, to his dry manner and sensi-
bility to the tears of ladies passed over her head.
These things did not happen to the great for were
they not great? How can you make ridiculous that
30 BENDISH
which is not so? She comfortably assumed that she
had mistaken Bendish's meaning, and let it go at
that. To her the wonder rather was to realise that
the English language contained so many words which
rhymed, and the chief pleasure she took the reflec-
tion that this young gentleman of fashion should give
himself so much trouble in honour of her household.
Heniker listened with a heavy heart. It was not at
all in his line, but he saw that this kind of rattle
must crumple him up. He guessed what it must
mean to a simple home-dwelling lady. He could not
help chuckling at some of the hits, to be sure. To
have Lord B 's snuffling nasal so neatly, to have
Lord G 's state of heart (with his hand upon it),
and Lord S ? s state of the nation (with his foot
upon it) coupled in two absurd lines; to get old Lord
Maxonby's matrimonial squabbles and his gout so
neatly as in the couplet,
And goaded M by still clings to life,
Ridden by seven devils and one wife;
to have Ward's thunder and Minors' penny whistle,
the Poodle's strut and Alvanly's thumping stride,
to have the Cock at Sutton face to face with the
Pavilion, and a picture of the Foundling besieged
by ill-matched erring couples picking out heirs at
the eleventh hour: one must grin at such things.
But by the Lord Harry, George went too far. Hen-
iker was a gentleman, up in arms for his ideal. The
ears of his lady must be guarded from the mere hint
IDYLL IN A MASK 31
that this was a wicked world. She walked in fairy-
land: let all nerves be strained to prove this place
the Eden she proclaimed it by her presence in it.
He wished to God that George would stop but
George did not.
When the ladies had retired, dazzled into silence,
and Heniker had gleaned what his friend had let
fall from the harvest of Rose's fine eyes, the poet was
by no means for bed. Mackintosh of the combed
whisker supplied a passable claret and a devilled
bone; Heniker must hear his projects.
He was full of vision, the vital young lord, full,
too, of claret before he had done. His reading had
discovered him a new r61e a new Cynic was born
in that heady hour. Here, in Myrtle Cottage, was
his tub. From it should stream satire after satire,
till England itself felt like this good bone, slashed
into streaks, and every gaping wound raw with
cayenne. A new Diogenes for a new age! A cynic
of fashion, a cynic with a Mackintosh, with plenty
of clean linen and passable claret and a whip, by
Heaven, a whip for bare shoulders and gartered legs.
The Court of Claims might go hang, the House of
Lords might go howl. The Bendishes came over
with the First William and flicked the Fourth out of
the sunlight. This was the dream to which Hen-
iker could only listen ruefully.
He learned that The Bittiad was in the press, would
be upon the town in six weeks at the furthest, pro-
claimed as by Lord Bendish, This, then, was cer-
tain, there was an end to concealment. The ladies
32 BENDISH
here would know whom they had entertained.
" Dammy, and why not? " cried Bendish. " I shan't
bite 'em. I can't help being a peer/' He added,
" My impression is that they'll rather like it. 3 ' Hen-
iker was sure that they would,
It was three in the morning before he could set
out on a six-mile trudge through the miry lanes.
He forged along under foggy stars with much to
think of. But he was a simple as well as an honest
young man. The best he could do for himself, that
he did. He thought of Rose Pierson's face and clear
grey eyes. He told himself that she was a glory to
the Earth. To thank God for her and to do his
duty seemed all the service he could render her as
yet.
But he remembered that she gave lessons in town
on Tuesdays and Fridays. Now this had been a
Tuesday.
CHAPTER III
BENDISH OF BENDISH
ARGENT, a Bend engrailed, sable, was the Bendish
coat, and the badge, now used as cresit, a Peacock in
Pride, with the motto Numen inest which wags put
thus into old English, into the mouth of the bird
Nu 9 men, I nesL They averred that the cuckoo had
been the properer ensign for his present lordship,
George, tenth Baron, and many an honest gentle-
man agreed with them before his career was closed.
There seems to be no doubt about the Norman
pedigree. Giles de BendSs is in the Battle Abbey
Roll, and there is or was a bastide in Normandy
called La Fert6 Bends, which is quite near enough
for modern genealogy.
You don't get them again with any certainty till
the fourteenth century, when you find them in the
Midlands the Grafton country, it is called in a
stronghold called after them Castle Bendish. Peter
de Bendish or Bendysshe, if you will have it, was
Escheator of the shire in 1375. It was his grandson,
another Giles, who was summoned to Parliament by
Henry IV., anno primo, as Giles Bendysshe de
Bendysshe, chivaler, and sat and voted accordingly.
That was the beginning of a comfortable and com-
33
34 BENDISH
patent dignity which after events never seriously
disturbed until near our own day.
Nevertheless the Bendishes took the losing side
in most complications of public affairs. They were
Lancastrians, and lost heads in the Wars of the Roses;
then, what must they do but turn their coats before
the time and rank with Richard at Bosworth? Yet
Henry VIII. saw them rise again; and fat abbey
lands were added to the Bendish fee. Bloody Mary
kept them Catholics, and Elizabeth fleeced them for
it. Charles found them Episcopalians and stoutly
on his side. Under Cromwell they lost everything;
but the George Bendish of Charles II. was the "wild
lord" of their legend, and may well have sown the
wind of our young man's whirlwind harvesting.
Tories under Anne, Jacobites in the '45, it wanted
but the Jacobinism of our man (to say nothing of
his rhymes) to finish the line; but so far as gear
went, lands and tenements, flocks and herds, the
George Lord Bendish of this chronicle inherited little
but debts and tradition. He was not the son, but
the great-nephew, of the ninth lord. His father had
been the son of an Honourable Richard- William,
brother of Adolphus-Charles, the ninth lord, by name
and station plain John Bendish, Esqftire, a man about
town, too much about town, sometimes in the
lock-up, sometimes in the sponging-house; a com-
panion of the Prince the Prince and Poins who
had finally abandoned his wife and child and set-
tled down upon a shoal at Calais, where perhaps he
soothed the last hours of Mr. Brummell. They had
BENDISH OF BENDISH 35
much in common. There in due course an influenza
aggravated his gout and floated him out of the
reach of duns.
Mrs. Bendish, his widow, after a course of lodgings
at watering-places she was known at Bath, Mat-
lock, Tunbridge, and the like had set up her rest at
Cheltenham, when, in 1822 or thereabouts, she re-
ceived, first a letter, then a visit from Mr. Robert
Heniker, the senior partner in the firm of Heniker
and Breakspear, and father of our Roger Heniker.
He had to tell her that her uncle by marriage, Lord
Bendish, was failing (as she knew, he was childless),
and that provision was to be made for the education
of the heir to title and estates. Her George, who
was then a fine boy of thirteen, must be taken from
his grammar-school it was his third or fourth and
replanted, it was thought, at Harrow. There he
would mix with gentlemen of his own degree, future
law-makers, generals, bishops, and chief- justices, fu-
ture peers and gentlemen of the House of Commons,
future holders indeed of everything worth having in
England. He did not add for he knew Mrs. Ben-
dish at once that Mr. George would also meet there
his own son Roger, already an Harrovian; but there's
no earthly harm in saying that when Mr. Heniker
decided to send his son to Harrow he also decided
that the next Lord Bendish should go there too. He
did not mention his son to Mrs. Bendish, but he did
mention the young Marquis of Pointsett, who was the
Duke of KendaFs son, he did mention the Bendishes'
distant kinsman the Earl of Twyford; he forgat not
36 BENDISH
Lord Ambleby, he forgat not the Earl of Dare. Of
Mrs. Bendish I shall speak with more reticence than
her son ever did even if I assert that these names had
weight. They had so much that she did not stay to
consider what more numerous, more splendid names
might not be on the roll of Eton. She fell incon-
tinent into the little shallow pit digged for her by
Mr. Robert Heniker and she never found him out,
oddly enough.
To Harrow, then, went young Bendish, and, again
oddly enough, became the close friend of Roger
Heniker, nominally his servant, but really his patron
and benefactor. Roger Heniker did not see it in that
light at all; but his father did, gladly, and Bendish
himself did. Bendish, who was very intelligent, per-
fectly understood that his fagmaster was to be his
servant in a few years' time, and this knowledge
served as salt to his present porridge. Roger Hen-
iker enjoyed the youngster he liked his passionate
enthusiasms, his absurd seriousness, his high spirits
and quick-quenching. Himself was good-tempered
to a fault, tender-hearted, and tolerant. He had no
claim upon the world but to be let alone with its
fauna. Man excepted, he was interested in every-
thing on legs. He loved his fellow-men, but never
studied them or knew anything of them. They were
his equals, therefore (probably) like himself but a
squirrel on the nibble, a mole fanning out the black
earth, a bird on the bough or aflock over the stubble
here was his paradise of delight.
He was not observant of men, yet one thing caught
BENDISH OF BENDISH 37
his fancy, and thereafter never left him. He was at
Bill on the first occasion after Bendish's accession of
degree. The lad had received the news that morning
early, and Roger had not seen him at close hand since
it had come upon him. Of course there was no sur-
prise in the thing it had been common knowledge
from the days of his entry; but between Becoming
and Being there is a gap, and it is interesting to see
a man cross it. Then came Bill a rainy, squally
afternoon, the boys 5 faces, flushed beneath their tum-
bled hair, making an irregular circle in the yard,
crowded there for a moment of tedium before the
plunge headlong again into their passionate quests
for all the world, Roger thought, like a pack of
hounds held up by the huntsman's whip, and all
their tongues hanging out!
The calling began: it was all an old routine, and
you got used to hearing one fellow called Lord
So-and-so, and another Mr. So-and-so, and another
plain So-and-so. Plain fiendish, like plain Heniker,
it had always been.
But at last towards the end Roger caught his
breath. "Lord fiendish " was called, and he saw
the quick and curious faces flash as they turned all
one way. The name was answered clearly; Roger
looked at his young friend. Bendish was as white
as a dish-clout except for his eyes. They were as
black as your hat. He saw the head sway, and the
neck stiffen. Next minute the child was over. It
wasn't long he was round again in a minute; but
there was one thing Heniker never, never ventured
38 BENDISH
to do, and that was to bint that Bendish had fainted
on that occasion. Instinct told him that that would
have been a mortal affront. I am not aware that
anybody ever used that handy little weapon against
him. Bendish would likely have killed him.
Heniker left Harrow at eighteen and went straight
into his father's office under articles. The business
of his life was laid before him, to which Harrow had
been a prelude. He was put in charge of a nest of
japanned boxes, entitled (in white paint) "Bendish
Estates," "Bendish v. Rewby and Others," "New-
biggin Lands," and the like. In and about these tin
tombs he hopped, at first, like a monkey on a long
chain, but as the years went over him sobered down
to the semblance of that more decent figure, the
blinkered donkey who plods round and round the
beaten path of a draw-well. Before young Bendish
had flung through his year at Oxford, and been given
to understand by authority that it could not possibly
be repeated, Heniker was the patient, decent man of
business his father had been before him with this
difference, that he had been able to save a quiet
relish of his patron, to view him apart as a freakish
human creature as well as a purse-with-a-hole-in-it,
which it was the task of his life to keep brimming
with money.
George, Lord Bendish, at the hour of his majority
was a young man who could do everything but see.
He could feel intensely, think incisively and sum-
marily, act in a flash, and bide his time with extreme
BENDISH OF BENDISH 39
tenacity; but discernment was denied Mm. He
could not gauge values, he could not tell the real
from the appearance. He had a fund of emotion, a
fount of passion in Mm wMch might have set up
another Shakspeare for Englishmen to worsMp when
he was well dead he turned them both to melo-
drama or gave them out in ten-gallon jars to any
painted minx who would take one, or a dozen of
them. He valued most of all Ms possessions Ms
peerage: that was a mark upon Mm he never lost
sight oi He might have been the most distinguished
peer in England but for Ms conviction that it was
distinction enough to be a peer at all. Other careers
attracted Mm for a time, and he pursued them with
a zest that soon tired: poetry, politics, love, pM-
losophy, affairs. He found them and their rewards
flimsy stuff beside the solid fact of being a lord among
commoners. It is almost incredible that a young
man so gifted could be so dull, that a man so sensi-
tive to fine tMngs could be so vulgar-minded but
so it was. When he became as he did become an
acknowledged poet he hugged the consciousness that
he was first a lord; when he had men beMnd him
who might have stormed and carried Westminster
he thrilled to remember that a peer led them.
One of the simpler results of tMs flaw in Ms intelli-
gence was that he did not mix much with Ms own
class. He had much acquaintance but little inti-
macy with the great families. The Lansdownes, the
DevonsMres, the Wakes and Carylls, the Tiptofts
and Botetorts would have merged his little barony
40 BENDISH
and smothered his poems in red books. He must
have guessed at that by instinct. He never knew
them well, and was never quite comfortable in their
company. That means to say that he could not be
certain of his own superior quality. He would love
their daughters or dazzle their sons that was easy;
but themselves he kept for The Billiad and suchlike.
He affected to despise them, but was really over-
awed. * Their hues outshone his own; their ease
made him uneasy. He had an affair of the heart,
or head he had just got over the worst of it when
we met him at Golder's Green with Lady .
Her ladyship was both fair and frail, and would have
followed as far as he would. What froze his passion
at the source was the amused witness which Lord
O himself, a good-tempered, bulky libertine of
admitted prestige in Corinthian circles, bore to his
lady's entanglement. Bendish shivered and froze,
then fairly fled. Golder's Green revived him sim-
plicity, the love of virgin for virgin, the whip for
Society's shoulders were the results. We may thank
the s for them and sincerely, for some of
them bore good fruits. The Billiad made him fa-
mous, and is first-rate fun.
He was inspired when he did it and whether in-
spired by other men's labours or not doesn't matter:
he was inspired both to see and to report. He missed
nothing ridiculous, and made much ridiculous which
was nothing of the kind. He spread anger and con-
sternation abroad, he enjoyed himself hugely, and he
risked nothing of his own. He stretched himself out,
BENDISH OF BENDISH 41
as it were, in the sun, and revelled in the result of
his short if fiery labour. So it was to be with him
while he lasted: fierce delight in work, fierce enjoy-
ment, quick satiety. He flung over the troubled
grey skies of England like a meteor or, as some say,
a rocket that bunches out with a puff into coloured
stars; and what he left behind him fools to pay for
their folly, honest men for their credulity, Rose Pier-
sons ravished, Henikers impotent in misery he
neither knew nor cared to think. He had lived
greatly and enjoyed himself vastly.
But most of this is to come. At the moment we
may consider him happy not in love with Rose
Pierson at all, but very much with the idea of him-
self as her stooping lover, her prince in disguise.
The Billiad would be out in a few weeks and then
we should see.
Meantime we have, I hope, seen something.
CHAPTER IV
EFFLUENTS OF "THE BIIXIAI)"
GRAY'S INN is fatally near to Holborn Bars, and
you must not expect a young man enamoured, with
offices in the one, to forget that on Tuesdays and
Fridays, happening by the other, he might see if
not be seen by, if not even saluted by, the lady of
Ms heart. Roger Heniker neither forgot it, nor
desired to forget it, but a virgin reticence withheld
him for at least two weeks; and as all men are of all
creatures begotten the most easily imposed upon,
that hoary imposition that he who does not work
neither shall he eat, found (and kept) him convinced
that he must not break routine for all the urgency
of his fever.
He loved; but he was in that first stage of the
passion, when the great vocation lies before him like
a clear, shining, white road into the world seen from
a mountain-top. The uplifting was, so far, enough.
He could tell over the syllables of her name, glorify
his parchments with her magic initials; he could
bathe his heart (on Tuesdays and Fridays at one
of the clock in the afternoon) with the light of her
shed about Holborn Bars and wafted, surely, into
Field Place where he sat at work. The need to see,
42
EFFLUENTS OF "THE BILLIAD" 43
to hold with the eyes upon the eyes, to confess and
receive confession; the need to touch all these things
were as yet far from him. The Sacred Image was
hidden yet in shimmering veils, fold upon fold; the
thought that one of them could be drawn was im-
piety.
However these delicate hesitations gave way like
mist before the mountain sun, and within ten days
of his visit to Golder's Green he did happen to be
passing Holborn Bars when Rose Pierson happened
to be hastening up to the coach door. Then there
was a startled gaze, a becoming blush, a timid smile
to reward his deep salutation. He was absurdly
breathless, but after the first moment her self-pos-
session was absolute. She thanked him, she did
very well Her aunt was well. Golder's Green was
fast losing its leaves; the frost had killed the last of
the dahlias only that morning. But the sun had
been quite strong when she travelled up to town.
The fine weather had set in very shortly after Mr.
Heniker's visit. We might usually hope for a fine
October Saint Luke's Summer. Heniker said that
the fine weather had set in that very night, and was
aghast at his gallantry, but not more than she was.
He told Miss Pierson that he had left Myrtle Cot-
tage at three in the morning, under stars. Miss Pier-
son was interested. Gentlemen, she supposed, had
a great deal to say to each other, especially school
friends. Heniker did not find that he could talk to
her of Bendish either for fear of surprising admis-
sions out of her, or by pure instincts of honour, one
44 BENDISH
doesn't know. He was absorbed, too, in her pres-
ence. She seemed to draw his nature to herself.
"You are happy in your work? They are learn-
ing of you?" She had answered the first question
by a shining look. The second she waived.
"They are dear children. I delight in them. I
don't know that they have real talent. Of course,
they are very young. But I have a pupil at home
who is extraordinary, at least to me, who am very
ordinary. I think that I learn of her, rather than
teach her."
Heniker thought that there was no better way
of learning, and she agreed. They sketched to-
gether, she said, from Nature. The fine weather
allowed it.
The coach was to start, and she left him with a
kind look. He was carried all day upon exalted
waves of air, being a simple soul. The menace of
Bendish was forgotten in the pressure of Bendish's
affairs.
There was Mrs. Bendish to see, and placate, so
far as might be. She lived, chiefly upon grudges,
in a dismal old white house smothered in laurels at
Ongar in Essex a heavy-browed, flushed, and fat
woman, of the kind that can only be quickened to
live at all by a sense of intolerable injury. The
fact is that she had been plentifully injured. Her
husband had been unfaithful, savage, biting, and
ruinous; she had spoilt her son until he despised
her; and now he was discarding the only things in
EFFLUENTS OF "THE BILLIAD" 45
the world which she was capable of valuing. She
flamed and gloomed by turns upon the young lawyer,
fumed and surged like a black satin volcano from
her sofa. She saw everything that George did as a
studied insult to herself. Thus and thus he repaid
her privations and incredible pains by stab after
stab. He was like his wicked father, profligate,
spendthrift, a mocking spirit. Was there a female
at the back of all this? She was certain there was a
female. Would Heniker (she called father and son
alike Heniker, putting them in their places) be so
good as to relate Lord Bendish's establishment at
Golder's Green? Heniker did, omitting Rose Pier-
son. And what was this she read in the Morning
Post ? Stay she had it cut out. "It is rumoured
that a young gentleman of rank whisper has it
<j B gh { about to surprise his friends and
acquaintances by a publication of a seasoned order,
where the salt of wit is heightened by the pepper
of vivacious personal comment. His lordship will
spare neither age nor sex, we learn. Even the M on-
arch, who politically hath neither parts nor passions,
must take his turn! We tremble. " What was the
meaning of that? let her ask what could its meaning
be but one more sword in her bosom? If this scan-
dalous business were to go on she must die in the
ruins of Society. She presumed that her son did
not seek the name of murderer. Yet what was left
to her but to die or live to be hissed in the very
streets as the mother of a Blasphemer?
In extenuation Heniker could only put forward his
46 BENDISH
lordship's high spirits and youth. He did his best
for The Billiad, avoiding the confession that he had
listened to it, and chuckled. He admitted that it
was now binding, owned that it must appear, but
suggested that possibly it would fall flat and in-
flamed the dowager. Her smouldering, heavy eyes
flashed; she heaved like the sea. It was hardly
likely that the work of Lord Bendish would fall flat,
and hardly became a retainer -to suggest it. Did
Heniker think that a Lord Bendish was a nobody?
By these means he diverted her fury to himself, and
presently slid it deftly out of sight by talking of the
Coronation and the Court of Claims. He thought
that his lordship would take an interest in that; and
if he did, the taking of his seat would follow; and
upon that, who knew? It was possible that his lord-
ship's interest might light upon politics. He was
wayward, impulsive, very young, no doubt, but
Here he shrugged. Mrs. Bendish, absurd creature,
was all on edge, and now passionately defensive.
"My son," she said, a will do what becomes him,
I can't doubt. We need not discuss his political or
social career. We will confine ourselves to the busi-
ness of the Estate, if you please."
Really, Heniker thought, he had guided the old
beast pretty neatly.
And it seemed that he had. Her mood persisted,
and not only survived the appearance of The Billiad,
but complacently accepted its roaring success. For
the dare-devil, precocious, irresistible thing flung
itself upon the town, and was in all men's mouths in
EFFLUENTS OF "THE BILLIAD" 47
a week. Diners capped each other with it across
great tables; a line of it flew about the House of
Commons. Leigh Hunt had two columns of it in
The Examiner, and wrote, warmly enthusiastic, to the
noble author. The Tories laughed, the Jacobins
cheered; the Whigs were glum. But there was no
doubt of the wit of the thing, nor of its stinging merit.
Mrs. Bendish, declaring that she had always pre-
dicted this, and had been waiting for it, was gloomily
happy for a week and forgot to be bored. There
were the Reviews to come, of course; but Mrs. Ben-
dish knew nothing of the Reviews, and would have
cared less. And she was quite right. No amount
of drenching from Giff ord or Lockhart would put out
a fire which every breath in London was fanning.
Lord Bendish was a hard hitter, young though he
were; and a noble youth who could cut at the Duke,
and draw blood for that he did, they said must
be taken gravely by the Reviews. But of all that
in its place. A week after publication, in the height
of the ferment, Heniker took to the Mill Hill stage
on a Tuesday.
He saw immediately that Rose Pierson knew all.
She was too serious to care to hide it from him. She
was too serious to care whether she met Heniker or
not. You may say that there is always a something
discernible a flutter, a momentary waver of the
blood when a girl meets an infrequent acquaint-
ance who admires her. But there was nothing of
the sort; she was preoccupied, very grave. She be-
came aware of him and his hat in hand, she bowed,
48 BENDISH
smiled faintly, and let him take her hand for a
moment. She didn't seem at all interested in his
travelling clothes took his company as a matter of
course. Here was the worst of all misfortunes!
Heniker fought the sinking of his heart, like a man
and a gentleman. He chattered away and ignored
her silence. Then he did a bold and very right thing.
He gave Bendish his title. "I hope I shall find Lord
Bendish at home," he said. "I had no time to write
for an appointment."
The effect was to open the floodgates. A happy
move of his. Rose was grateful.
"Yes, oh, yes," she said. "He is at home for
the present." Then she strained her pretty head
away from him; and then turned it sharply his way.
Her eyes were large, full of questioning. "You
know him his lordship well?"
"I'm his family lawyer," Heniker said, "or my
father is. It's hereditary in our family, since my
great-grandfather's time. Yes, I know him very well.
I was sent to school with him that I might. You
may say that I was bred up to know him well. But
perhaps I know him better than you might have ex-
pected. He took to me at Harrow. There was no
reason why he should."
She looked gently at him and enheartened him to
proceed.
"I suppose he's elated with the success of Ms poem.
It's very clever indeed; it's made an enormous hit.
Even we professional people know that. He told
you as much, I expect?"
EFFLUENTS OF "THE BILLIAD" 49
"He gave me a copy of it," she said. "It was
very kind of him."
"He would naturally give it to you/' Heniker ad-
mitted. ' ' You admire it ? ' '
Her reserve was growing again. "I don't under-
stand it all, of course. It is about great people I
have only read of in the newspapers or heard of.
Lord Bendish has explained some of it. It's very
wonderful, I think."
Heniker laughed. "It will make him famous, or
notorious. Everybody will want to see him."
She. was now very serious: he noticed that not
alarmed, not unprepared, but serious.
" I am sure of that. He will have to take his place
in the world."
Heniker nodded. "I think so. He won't like
leaving Golder's Green, but h& must take his seat,
you see. There's to be the Coronation next year
he must walk in that. There's a ceremony to be
performed by the Lord Bendish of the time. We
think he should take his seat first."
She knew that. " Yes, he has said so." Then she
sighed, very lightly, and looked down at her gloved
hands. They resumed conversation by and by, but
only fitfully; and there was no getting away from
Bendish. He filled the poor girl's sky.
A stroke of good fortune was in store for him,
however. His lordship was out, he was told, on
horseback. So a horse was now added to the idyll!
Heniker immediately asked his companion if he might
pay his respects to Mrs. Welbore, and this was al-
50 BENDISH
lowed. The solemn lady was glad to see him, for she
had much to say upon the invariable subject. She
had had her suspicions, she said at once; there had
been an air about his lordship, a kind of habit of
ascendancy. Not but what he had always been the
soul of courtesy to herself and her niece. Perfectly
the gentleman from first to last grateful, ludi-
crously grateful for what, after all, was his due as a
tenant in the house. But she had not been deceived,
though she perfectly appreciated his lordship's
reason for retirement. However, that was all over.
Some talents could not be hid, some lights burned
their bushels. Mr. Heniker must forgive her. She
was naturally interested in her distinguished guest.
Then followed a string of more or less oblique ques-
tions, whose drift poor Heniker could not fail to
see.
He made the best of his lordship and his pros-
pects, and opened out wherever he thought it safe
to do so. Mrs. Welbore, endlessly stitching, drank
deep draughts of wonder. Rose, pale and grave-
eyed, said nothing, but pondered her case. In the
midst of it all a mighty baying of dogs broke out,
then growlings, scufflings, his lordship's voice in wild
command, finally piercing yells from the van-
quished. Heniker looked up, and Rose flashed to
the window.
Mrs. Welbore explained that Lord Bendish had
brought down two wolf-hounds of late, terrific crea-
tures. The farmer's dog opposite was the victim.
So his lordship was making himself comfortable after
EFFLUENTS OF "THE BILLIAD" 51
his manner, which demanded that everybody else
should be uncomfortable! Heniker rose to take
leave.
Mrs. Welbore beamed upon him. "It has been a
great pleasure to us, Mr. Heniker we are so much
interested. It is natural. Lord Bendish will be
leaving us, I fear but he speaks very kindly of
future meetings. We have very few friends neigh-
bours we have, but hardly friends."
Heniker hoped that she would count upon him.
a We shall, Mr. Heniker/' said the lady, "if
there may be an occasion." Here she sighed and
glanced at Rose's stiff young back. "Indeed I hope
you will visit us again."
"You may be sure of me," Heniker said warmly,
and shook hands. Rose faced him, but not with the
eyes. He took her hand, bowed over it, and left
her sorrowing.
Outside the door, upon the stair-head, stood the
meditative Mackintosh, twirling a whisker. His
lordship had returned and would see Mr. Heniker at
his convenience.
"I'm going to his lordship now," Heniker said; but
Mackintosh still twirled and meditated. At last he
gave out. Mackintosh knew that we were going
to take our place in the great world again. Not that
anything had been said, or any orders given. Not a
word. But "His lordship have had Mr.' Stultz
here. Twice he have been down, fitting his lord-
ship."
That settled it. Mr. Stultz was the fashiona-
52 BENDISH
ble tailor of Cork Street. There lived no greater
than he.
But Bendish kept his counsel. He hailed his
friend cheerfully, and received his congratulations
as a matter of course. It was far from him to be
congratulated except as a matter of polite conven-
tion. You might as well congratulate the Sun upon
giving men sunstrokes. Success of the thing had
been a matter of course. Dammy, the thing was
good. Those rascals knew a good thing. Let 'em
praise, so long as they wriggled and the more they
wriggled the louder they would praise. Success of
the kind, after all, did not mean very much. It was
all very well to whip the rascals, but who was going
to drill 'em, who to lead 'em? That was what we
wanted: leadership. Look at this Reform absurdity.
What were they doing raving at the Duke! Yes,
but the Duke was a good drill-sergeant; there was no
better. It's no good railing at a man, wagging your
chin at him, shaking your fist at him when the mo-
ment he calls out Attention! in goes the one to your
stock, and your other opens out and feels for the
seam of your breeches. He had the habit of com-
mand, didn't Roger see? and the mob had the habit
of obedience. There's an end of it. The fellows
wanted a leader of that kind, a man who could
handle men. Lord Bendish stiffened his fine small
head and stared at Heniker, pausing for a reply. He
looked every inch the leader at the moment, and
felt it, Heniker observed him keenly. So that was
EFFLUENTS OF "THE BILLIAD" 53
what he was after! That was the very latest out-
crop of The Billiad !
The taking of his seat was discussed by Heniker.
Bendish listened as if it was some other man's seat,
any other man's, which was in question. Peers
would have to be found to introduce him, two barons.
Heniker had been wondering whether The Billiad
might not make it rather difficult. Had he left any
barons unwhipt? And if he had, would the unwhipt
feel grateful for their omission, or much more whipt
because of it? That's the worst of the personal note
in literature. It seemed that Bendish had grimly
relished the dilemma. Mrs. Bendish had named
Lords Ravage and Ryehouse. Lord Bendish flung
up his head. Then there was Lord Newtimber, a dis-
tant connexion. Lord Bendish turned on his heeL
He faced the fire. "I can't help you in these sort
of things," he said. " They are not within my range.
I don't suppose it matters a curse what fools do fools'
work. I should have said mind you, I know noth-
ing about it that the officials would manage it all.
It's only a thing of routine, I imagine." Heniker
now pointed out that the Lord Chancellor himself
had by no means escaped the whip of The Billiad.
Bendish shrugged his shoulder, bored. If he was
really interested and Heniker believed it he was
concealing it very closely. His own notion was that
his lordship was rather scared lest he should get no-
body to support him, and was throwing up earth-
works in haste. But the truth is that Bendish was
mortified by his own isolation. He was a peer with
54 BENDISH
very few peers, and the friendship of what few he
had was imperilled by The Billiad. The success of
that work would easily have consoled him for their
loss; but here was another matter. Here was Hen-
iker witness to the nakedness of his estate* A peer
casting about for friends a triumphant poet beg-
ging at the door! Bendish was, as we now say, very
sick indeed. He had been too caustic by half.
There was no pressure put upon Roger to stay
to dinner to-night. The six o'clock stage was caught.
CHAPTER V
LORD BENDISH IN THE UPPER AIR
SUPPORTERS in the House were found by the
joint exertions of Mrs. Bendish, who wrote tragic
letters of many sheets, of old Mr. Heniker, to whom
practice had given a wheedling slope of the shoulder,
hard to be resisted, and by Roger with his square
chin and humorous eyes. Lord Ravage refused
flatly, calling Bendish a chimney-sweep. . "If he
smothers himself with soot from my front chimney/*
said Ms lordship, "let him wash it off. I'm not in-
clined for the work." An official in the Lord Chan-
cellor's department admitted that two barons might
be found and named one but went on to say that
friends or political sympathisers were more usual
and more acceptable. "Your noble friend, Mr. Hen-
iker, holds rather fantastical notions of politics," he
then said. "I don't know that many of their lord-
ships are prepared to go his length." Roger sup-
posed that a good many of their lordships neither
knew nor cared what lengths Lord Bendish could
attain. "Yes, yes," said the gentleman, "but he's
been talking about their little weaknesses and un-
commonly neatly he's done it. Some of them are
rather sore, Mr. Heniker, as I happen to know."
55
5 6 BENDISH
"Lord Bendish is very young, sir/ 7 Roger pleaded;
but did not help Ms cause.
The gentleman said, "I know he is. But they are
not so young as they might be, some of 'em. And
they don't like it."
However, the thing was done. Lord Ryehouse, a
scarlet and incredibly irascible old peer, was one.
B1 1 him, I'll do it for the sake of his rascal of
a father, who's dead. But I'll cut him dead after-
wards for his own sake." So said Lord Ryehouse.
As for Lord Newtimber, he was very young and very
foolish. He would have done anything for anybody.
So there you were.
These results were communicated to Bendish at
Golder's Green, and answered after many days
from Hartford Bridge Hall! Now Hartford Bridge
Hall was the Hampshire house of the Earl and
Countess of , where Bendish had better not
have been. Alas, for the Rose of Golder's Green
alas, for her honest lover! Heniker's heart bled for
her; but business had to be done. The Winchester
coach took him down to the great winged house
spread out like a pink-and- white fan in a clearing of
the woods with a lake and mirrored swans, with
a Temple of Vesta, and a copy of John of Bologna's
"Mercury," and deer in a park about it and ter-
races to walk upon when it was dry, and long ranges
of white-and-gold chambers within.
Here his lordship received his lawyer in a room full
of guns and whips and back numbers of the Annual
Register. Here his lordship was the young man of
LORD BENDISH IN THE UPPER AIR 57
fashion, with brains added. His dress was hand-
some, and yet distinctive. He was the dandy with
a difference the dandy with a poet's negligence
about the shirt-collar, which was open to the breast,
with a suggestion of the statue of Sophocles about
the superfine black cloak which hung from his
shoulders and could be folded about Mm with a
sweep of the covered arm.
He was affable, but not to be touched. "Ah, my
dear Roger, this is good of you! Punctual to the
minute. I anticipated it, and took my precautions.
You are two hours before my usual time for rising.
Here we play late and deep, confound it. I must
ask for supplies, my dear fellow. Now, what were
we to discuss?"
Roger, taking things as they came, produced his
papers and proposals. But Bendish was in pick-
some mood. He scoffed at his two noble supporters,
procured with such pains; he called Lord Ryehouse
an old Pan-in-breeches, and as for my Lord New-
timber, averred that a better peer could be made out
of the crumb of bread and a couple of currants. Be-
sides, his modern patent put him out of the question.
He was only the third peer really indeed, since no-
body knew who his father was or was not, was he
even so much? "I must get better furniture than
that, Roger, if you please," he said finally, his back
to the fire. "I'll take Ryehouse for my father's
sake but I refuse Newtimber for my mother's.
His mother was a cousin of mine's but not famous
for discretion, or taste. There's no reason for calling
5 8 BENDISH
remark upon our parents it's hardly decent. No,
no, out with him/ 3 Finally, he thought of a man
for himself. There was Lord Barwise here, in the
house, a grandson of that old Lady Morfa, the
beaked Dowager of the Midlands, guardian of the
fair virgin Hermia Chambre bitterly old, but ex-
tremely famous. Barwise would do. Take Barwise.
Lord Barwise was found somewhere in the house
before Heniker left it, and agreed. He told Bendish
that he'd be delighted, and Bendish, in reporting
this to his lawyer, sneered at him for his pains that
he was easily pleased.
Other matters, the Court of Claims and the like,
were put off till after the House of Lords. The writ
must issue, of course, the robes and coronet must be
provided, the coach be put in order; and Bendish
must have plenty of notice. His address was here
for the present, but St. James's Street would always
find him. Golder's Green was not mentioned. It
might never have existed. Plainly the idyll was
over, and Rose Pierson thrown into the corner with
the other toys, the masks, the Iliad, the passable
claret, and Turkish dressing-gown. But she had
served to inspire the Scourge of Society, of her had
sprung, light and fierce and irresistible, The Billiad.
What more could she want? There was nothing for
Heniker to do but acquiesce in his patron's motions,
and the less flicker he betrayed in his light blue eyes
the better for business. He departed, charged with
commissions which urgently related to the finding of
money.
LORD BENDISH IN THE UPPER AIR 59
His heart bled for Rose, but he literally dared not
haunt Holborn Bars just yet, and had no time for a
call. It was mid-November, wanted a month to
Christmas when, happening to pass the coach-office,
he suddenly caught at his breath to recognise the
Mill Hill stage about to start. His brain spun. It
was a Tuesday! The coachman had gathered up his
reins and given a final poke with the butt of his whip
to his apron of blanket. The guard swung up to his
perch and slapped-to the door. Roger's eyes darted
into the recesses of the coach. It was empty. Rose
came no more to town then! On Friday he went,
beatingly but deliberately, to the place. She was
not there. A week after that he had a letter from
Mrs. Welbore asking the favour of a short interview.
He replied that he would wait upon her on a near
evening; and on Monday, having hired a horse, rode
down to Golder's Green. A store of tender concern,
such as he had not guessed himself to possess, went
with him. He found himself losiiig the lover in the
friend, vowing that he would by all means bring
Bendish back to Rose's arms cost what it might,
feeling that the cost would be as nothing to the joy
of drying her tears.
Mrs. Welbore did not affect disguise of her con-
cern. She did not affect anything at all. She
seemed very troubled. Lord Bendish, she said, had
paid court to her Rose. They had exchanged vows,
locks of hair. From the very first he had been at-
tracted to her, and latterly she (Mrs. Welbore) had
been prevailed upon by his lordship's eloquence
60 BENDISH
to look at it as a settled thing. It was madness,
perhaps, but "I assure you, Mr. Heniker, his lord-
ship sat there, just where you are, and spoke of Rose
most affectionately with tears in his eyes. He said
that she had changed his whole being. He implored
me to sanction his addresses. He spoke of me also
in terms of the greatest deference and respect, far
above my deserts. What could I do? "
Nothing Heniker knew it well. He asked, where
was Miss Rose? Mrs. Welbore said that she was
here, going about her duties as usual; but sadly cast
down. She knew that Mr. Heniker was coming, but
had begged to be excused. Heniker bowed his head
to that.
Then he said, with grave signs of disturbance in
his honest face, "I should teU you, ma'am, that I
had hoped for your leave to become suitor for your
niece. I can't profess to call myself anything more
than an honest man, a gentleman, I hope. It is
not splendid but there's a competency, and it
may be more. I work hard, and there's plenty
work for me to do. I am to be my father's partner.
But in your troubles well, it seemed right to tell
you/'
He did not lift his eyes from the carpet, to see the
shining pity in the lady's. She indeed pitied while
she shone. A peer had offered himself, and this poor
young man had hopes Welladay! Of this, how-
ever, nothing in her reply.
"Dear, dear me! But nothing to Rose of this,
Mr. Heniker. Of course these are early days.
LORD BENDISH IN THE UPPER AIR 61
His lordship's attentions could not have been more
pronounced. The devotion of a noble poet! One
cannot believe that he my poor Rose no, no!"
She was very much disturbed; but presently be-
thought her of immediate duty. "I shall respect
your confidence, Mr. Heniker, you may be assured.
If it had been God's will but we must not question
His judgments. My wounded Rose!" She found
her pocket-handkerchief and applied it. Heniker,
in great trouble, asked, should he speak to his lord-
ship? Mrs. Welbore gasped.
" Really I hardly know. Not as from us, Mr.
Heniker on no account. But I need not say that,
I am sure. But if you think it would be gener-
ous under the circumstances more than generous.
The fact is, I must tell you, that we have never had
to do with a gentleman of rank but you will know
best. My husband, as a clergyman, had a great ac-
quaintance among the rich and powerful. There was
Admiral Gibsley, and Sir Richard Vinney I remem-
ber him well, a Knight of the Bath. We were almost
intimate in that house. But he was quite an elderly
man at the time. Then there used to be Foxhall
Squire Foxhall they called him whose daughter Ann
married Sir Wilkin Blythe. They lived well very
expensively : in fact too well. It couldn't have lasted
longer than it did. I used to see what went down
into the servants' hall. You would hardly believe it.
Whole joints with just a snick out of them. But
Lord Bendish, of course! One felt that that was a
very different matter, and " She shook her head
62 BENDISH
and blinked over her needle. "I really don't know
what to do for the best. Ah, my poor child!"
Heniker went his ways, more than troubled how
to act. As a lover he was passionate for his Rose's
uplifting. What peerage could be tribute enough to
her beauty and exquisite simplicity? What sacri-
fice enough could he make to her? Would his own
heart suffice, torn out and flung under Bendish's
spurning heel? Yes, but if his judgment were to go
after his heart, would that serve her? Her sim-
plicity in the whirlpool of Bendish! He saw her
standing piteous in a thin gown, distraught by the
gusty eddies of the town the town and Bendish in
it, a white-faced, mocking King of Revels. Hateful!
And he had undertaken to further it! He shook his
head, tightened his lips, and swore that he must be
false to his heart for her sake. Luckily he was spared
his pains. The next day brought him a letter from
Mrs. Welbore. Rose had gathered what was afoot,
and would have none of it, " She is quite positive,"
Mrs. Welbore wrote, "that nothing is to be done,
not a word said. She tells me that she relies upon
you. What more can I say?" Nothing, thank
the Lord! His conscience was clear, and he felt a
load off him.
So to the House of Lords, on a raw January noon.
There are finer portraits of. Lord Bendish than that
which Spee, R.A., did of him in his robes young,
bullet-headed, and quick-contemptuous, one white
silk leg in advance, the crimson robe cascading about
LORD BENDISH IN THE UPPER AIR 63
in the background, one hand to hold it back, in the
other the balled and tasselled coronet; but it was so
that he appeared & very noble figure of a young
man, if a thought too conscious of his different clay
to his mother and his friends, on the morning of that
day of epiphany. Heniker, obscurely in the throng,
admitted his different clay, and grudged him nothing.
Literary friends, like bright-eyed Mr. Hunt, like
twinkling, twirling Mr. Moore, admitted it with en-
thusiasm honest enthusiasm that case so splendid
should hold a dashing poet. The one glowed, the
other positively crowed to see. There were dandies
there too Berdmore Wilkes was one, a lean and
tanned Corinthian; Sir Carnaby Hodges of Leicester-
shire, crimson and bulging between his buttons;
Mordaunt, the darkly smiling; and Poodle Byng, the
very fair; but there were no peers. Lord had
promised, but he had not come. Mrs. Bendish had
counted upon Lord Appleby up to the last minute.
But The Billiad had been too much for him he had
figured in it with his Keepsake carollings, and at the
last minute was d d if he would, and didn't.
But Bendish was in a conquering mood, and all
was well. He went down to the House in his coach,
a Jacobin to the core. The Marquis de Mirabeau
was the hero of the dreaming mind, a spot of intense
light in the flame-coloured field beside him the
Marquis de Lafayette. These two gentlemen were
his ghostly supporters, shadowing my Lords Rye-
house and Barwise up to the very Woolsack.
The body of the House was rather empty; but the
64 BENDISH
galleries were filled with ladies. One waved a hand-
kerchief, I understand.
Society engulfed the new peer, who swam gaily
among the painted craft upon the flood, Roger
Heniker went about his business like a man, not for-
getting his love, and, it was to appear, not forgotten.
She had resumed her lessons in London; he hap-
pened upon her upon an afternoon returning to catch
the stage, was smiled upon gravely, and allowed to
turn back upon her way. She was quiet and pen-
sive, but not so reserved. She seemed to have lost
some of her maiden prickles in her recent grapple
with life. It did not seem impertinence in him to
question her, not impossible for her to ask him ques-
tions. They parted like old friends, and he felt
absurdly elate. There was no appointment, of
course, but certainly an understarTding that she was
due in town on certain named days. He had re-
minded her of Tuesdays and Fridays whereupon she
had told him clearly that now her days were Mondays
and Thursdays. He thought himself very bold (he
remembered afterwards how bold he had felt) when
he had repeated after her, "Ah, Mondays and Thurs-
days ! " Her eyes had not wavered as she had bowed
her confirmation. He believed that a good sign
not an appointment, of course, but an understanding
that he should see her on Monday. And so he did;
and on Thursday too. By and by it became almost
as of course that they should meet, and sometimes
he thought that she looked out for him. If Bendish
LORD BENDISH IN THE UPPER AIR 65
was swimming in a flood these late winter, early
spring days, his family lawyer was oaring the upper
air. Not once was his lordship touched upon in
their talk, nor poetry either. It was all very simple,
no doubt, made up of little things, dear only to
lovers. They were gathering, however, quite a store
of trifles about which you can ask, Do you remem-
ber ? There's a deal for a lover in that. It's a
step in advance.
Then he rode down one Sunday and saw the la-
dies. He accompanied them to church in the morn-
ing, dined, and took Rose for a walk in the sere
fields. In a woodland, sheltered from the wind, he
stammered out his question and got his answer.
He made his essay gallantly, extenuating himself,
excusing also his temerity. H<e gave her to under-
stand that he was her servant for life, whether she
would or not. Might he hope, at any rate? Rose
looked at him presently gently, with brimming eyes
and shaking head.
"You are very kind. You make me proud and
contented, I think. But I can't." Then she cried
and all his fire was turned to cover her retreat. He
forgot his hopes entirely before this dreadful fact of
her tears and very present trouble. He calmed her,
worked himself up to a fine strain of small talk, and
brought her home to Myrtle Cottage. There he sat,
talking nineteen to the dozen of anything, everything,
and nothing at all. He succeeded. She grew calmer,
suffered him to take her to evening church, and
smiled a friendly and grateful farewell to him at the
66 BENDISH
parting hour. In fact, the poor girl did her best to
thank him. " You have been very, very kind to me.
I can't speak about it " "For God's sake, don't
try," he had interposed. She shook her head. "No,
no, I can't. Good-bye." "You will be in town
to-morrow?" he had asked. She had nodded, still
smiling, and stood to see him go. With that he
must be content.
CHAPTER VI
"OUTRE-TOMBE"
IN April, when lambs frisk and ladies 5 eyes are
bright with promise, Lord Bendish lent himself to
amorousness, and was understood to be certainly
suitor for a very fair person, the flaxen Lady Ann
H , daughter of the Earl of , who was as
dumb, and some said as cold, as a piece of sculptor's
work, but incredibly handsome and very well off.
Rumours of this sounded in the newspapers; and in
club windows high-stocked gentlemen assured each
other with nudges, winks, and whispers behind the
hand, A taint of scandal helped to make the affair
complicated and savoury at once. M atre pulchra filia
pukhrior was quoted: first, I believe, by Mr. Moore,
Anacreon Moore, in a whisper which could have been
heard across St. James's Street; but very soon all the
pack had it, and cried it from Highbury Barn to
Peckham Rye. It is probable that some far-borne
echo of all this reached Golder's Green, where the
good Heniker diligently served. He himself knew
all about it, of course, hoped that the main fact was
true, and left the rest to the judgment of Heaven.
He watched his beloved like a terrier waiting at a
rat-hole, but never tried to get behind her reserve,
67
68 BENDISH
which she, for her part, never broke. The name of
Bendish was unheard between them.
But just about that time a matter of business was
put into Roger's hands which was important enough
to keep Lord Bendish out of his head for a while.
He was sent for by the Duke of Devizes, who, in a
letter written in his own sprawling hand, presented
his compliments to Mr. Heniker the younger, and
desired his attendance at Wake House on Thursday
morning at ten of the clock, in the forenoon, "upon
a matter of private business, for which his services
have been recommended to the Duke by Mr. Tre-
menheer, his legal adviser." Now Mr. Tremenheer
was a great man in the law, one of the hierarchy,
whose offices were in Mayf air, but the limits of his
power over all the Inns of Court. To be put forward
by Mr. Tremenheer was honour enough for a young
man not long admitted; to be put forward into the
Duke's notice was a thunderclap of honour. For if
Tremenheer was a great lawyer, the Duke was a
great man. It would be hard to name a greater in
England. He was a man who by his personal force
alone had held off Reform, and continued to hold it,
though towns flamed and armed hordes besieged
Palace Yard. He was much more famous than the
King. When you spoke of the Lords, you implied
the Duke of Devizes; when you named England to
the Councils of Europe you as good as named him.
Upon young Heniker and his little particular eddy
in the great river of affairs you could not have had a
greater effect if you had sent a scarlet rider from
"OUTRE-TOMBED 69
Windsor into Field Place. Such a summons as this
might have made even Bendish forget his different
clay for a minute or two, though he would have died
sooner than admit it, even to himself. Old Mr.
Heniker, rounding his chin with his soft pink hand
or furrowing in his white whiskers, was a study in
twinkles and quirks when Roger brought him in the
stiff, gilt-edged sheet. Sly pleasure flickered about
his face like the lightning of summer nights. "Aha,
my boy, we are making way in the world! Now we
see what Harrow may be worth to a young man of
parts! Now let me tell you that this is aha! not
wholly unexpected." He was fond of double nega-
tives, especially when he was pleased. They seemed
to let down his dignity gently into jocularity, as you
use rollers to launch a liner.
"No, no," he went on, leaning at ease over his
elbow-chair and looking up to the ceiling, tossing also
his foot as you might dance a baby "the fact is
that I and Tremenheer happened to meet, not so
long ago, at the Cutlers 5 Feast. We were vis-a-ws;
he is always very fair-spoken to me Tremenheer
sour-faced old boy, too much the great man, but
no, no, I have nothing to complain of. By and by
he asked me about you spoke of his boy Jack too.
I reminded him you had been schoolfellows on the
hill. 'To be sure they were/ says he. ' That's how
I have your Roger in mind now. Steady fellow, I
hear.' I said that there was nothing to quarrel
with in that quarter, but I was easy with the old
boy, you know, for I hear that Jack Tfemenheer's
70 BENDISH
in the cavalry, and that we don't altogether like the
life he's leading. No, no, we are not too happy
about Master Jack and his fine friends. Well, then,
after one thing and another, he ups and mentions
this matter of the Duke's. Says he can't take it up
has no one to send delicate job, he tells me. I
rather fancy, you know, it's not altogether uncon-
nected with the Lancelot divorce sad affair that
was his Grace has never been quite the same man,
they tell me. But, you know, his Grace is well,
well! Sunt quos curriculis pulverem Olympicum
hey, you rascal? His Grace was never averse to
the ladies, let's admit. To put it no stronger, hey?
But, by Heaven, that don't make him lighter-handed
with the men. The reins of State, hey? He's a
whip, is the Duke. But now Mr. Lancelot's dead
I don't know what may be in the wind. He may be
for another installation at Wake House. However,
that will be for you to tell me, unless your mouth is
sealed, of course." He gazed pleasantly before him
and recalled himself with an effort to present affairs.
Roger replied to his summons that he would wait
upon his Grace at the hour appointed.
He found the great man, locally remote in his vast
house, at the end of a long, thick-piled corridor,
behind folding mahogany doors, and then at the
farther end of a library of many windows. He was
standing to write with a turkey quill, a spruce figure
of a frosty, elderly gentleman, spare on his white
poll, trim and spare in the white whisker which was
"OUTRE-TOMBE" 71
brushed forward to Ms cheek and cut off straight to
a point level with the cheek-bone. He wore a dark-
blue frock, canary-yellow waistcoat, and nankeen
trousers tightly strapped. His face was brick-red
and his eyes were cold blue the blue of a glacier
in the sun. His manner was easy, but very dry.
He took snuff daintily, and was distressed at a speck
remaining on his sleeve. He had a thin-lipped
mouth, like a trap, and seldom looked at you when
he talked. If by any chance he did, it was a signal
for your instant obedience.
He nodded pleasantly, glancing up at his visitor,
finished his letter and signed it with care. Then he
left his desk and went towards the fire, holding out
his fine hands to it. The sun was full upon it and
made it a garish thing; yet the Duke seemed chilly.
Presently he turned his back to it and began:
"My friend Charles Lancelot died last Christmas
and made me his executor. I wish he hadn't, but
it's one of those things a man doesn't refuse his
friend. Now I don't know whether you know it,
but it's necessary for me to tell you that I was very
fond of his wife, and still am. She's alive and living
abroad, in Italy, married to the man she ran away
with, a young fellow named Poore Gervase Poore.
My friend Lancelot behaved romantically in the
affair. He didn't condone it though I do, myself
but he accepted it as a beating. More than that,
he went home and put a divorce through as decently
and quietly as such a thing can be done; and then
did his best to renounce her marriage-settlement, and
7 2 BENDISH
get her money resettled on her new marriage* How-
ever, nothing came of that, because the Poores
wouldn't hear of it. The young man's as poor as a
rat, but he's got the pride of the devil, and I like
him for it. As for her, you mustn't ask me to say
much. I'm not a fair judge of her. We'll leave her
out as far as we can. . . . Well, now Lancelot dies.
He dies with her name on his lips it was literally
the last word he breathed (for I was with him and
heard it) and with her afiairs, it's evident, in his
head, or heart, whichever you please. He makes me
his executor, and leaves all his property, I'll trouble
you, to this fellow Poore not to her, but to Poore
in trust for her and the children of the marriage, if
there be any; and there are, you know and if^there
ain't as many more as you please it will be a very
odd thing, in my opinion. Well, Mr. Heniker, here's
what I want of you. I want you to go out to Ra-
pallo, where the Poores live, and get them to take
this gift from the grave. They ought to do it. I've
said so in writing but I have my doubts and fears.
My friend will walk if they don't; the grass won't
grow on him. I think she'd do it, but for him; and
I desire you to get hold of her, rather than him. If
you succeed in putting her right with the dead man's
view of the thing, you may leave her to talk over the
living man. Trust a woman to do that, when once
she sees what she ought to do. . . . "
Here the Duke paused, took snuff prodigiously,
and then a turn or two up and down the Turkey
carpet Heniker watched him, feeling sure that
"OUTRE-TOMBE" 73
there was more to come, and that what was to come
was more important. And evidently it was. The
Duke returned to the fire, and spoke with studious
detachment, which in itself was significant. " There's
another thing you can do while you're at it. You'll
use your discretion. There's no valid reason that
I can see against her coming back to England, She's
a widow as well as a wife; she can make herself
doubly a wife if she sets so much store by the Church
as all that comes to and I don't say she's wrong in
that, mind you. I'd let a woman go to church with a
man once a week, so long as it was the same man, if it
helped her to bear with him and his airy ideas."
Here the Duke blinked, then cleared his throat,
stiffened himself, and said, " Damme, she ought to
come home. She don't know how much her friends
want to see her again."
Heniker began to perceive though he couldn't
articulate his vision that his part was to be more
diplomatic than legal. It was probable that, to do
his business efficiently, he must urge pity for this
very unpitiable great man. Here he was, master of
England, sufficient unto himself if ever man was,
and asserting sufficiency in every line of Ms upright
body, and in every dry phrase of his upright mind
and yet, even Roger could see, he wanted this lady
to complete his well-being.
Roger, after waiting a moment for the Duke to
continue, said, "I'll go, my Lord, as soon as may
be. If your Grace will let me see Mr. Lancelot's
will, and the marriage-settlement, I shall be obliged."
74 BENDISH
"You shall have 'em," the Duke said. "As for
your starting, take your time. You've plenty. But
it's apt to be hot there towards the end of May. I
was out there in June, when she "; but he didn't
finish the phrase. He had been remembering it was
in June that she had left Lancelot and him alone in
a great castle in the woods, had joined Poore, her
lover, and fled with him no farther than Rapallo.
There the pair of them had awaited the two gentle-
men, and there Poore 'had confronted them and their
pistols and routed them without a shot fired. The
Duke was not likely to have forgotten that, but never
spoke of it except to himself. He had forgotten at
this moment that he wasn't alone.
Heniker hastened to assure his Grace that he
should be off long before the end of May. He had
one or two Bendish matters to put through. The
Coronation claim was one; but that was as good as
done. He thought that he should certainly be ready
in a month. The Duke nodded once or twice.
"That's excellent. I'll write to her to-day to an-
nounce you, and you shall take letters from me.
Now I needn't keep you any longer. Ask for my
secretary as you go out, and he'll give you every-
thing you want. Good morning."
He had pulled the bell and was by now answered.
"Take this gentleman to Mr. Shorthope," was the
order. Two more friendly nods, Roger was out
of the room, and himself again at his standing desk.
A few days after this interview, perhaps a week,
"OUTRE-TOMBE" 75
It so happened that the name of Poore cropped up
at a dinner-party given by Lord Bendish, at which
Roger was present with some literary celebrities*
Mr. Hunt and Mr. Moore were capping verses across
the table Bendish sitting glum to his port, as he
was apt to do when the verses were not his verses*
Hunt had cried up to the skies the graphic power of
his poor friend Keats in the line
So the two brothers and their murdered man,
used of a man whose doom was fixed, but the stroke
not yet fallen.
Moore had chirrupped agreement. "I can't beat
it, Mr. Hunt it would puzzle even our noble friend
here to beat it. But that word murdered, let me
tell you, drips with horror, wets you with the clammy
stuff of its own force. Now do you remember the
pome of me friend Poore poor Gervase Poore, the
impetuous lover ? 'Tis a classical piece where he's
talking of the red Gods of the time before Olympus
was made golden by Vulcan, and he recalls 'em and
their tragedy in a line
Kronos, and Ge, and murdered Ouranos.
'Tis a proof of what I'm saying. How now, Ben-
dish?" He turned to his moody host, who gloomed
upon him, and presently said, "I've read Poore.
If he knew more he'd write less. But he's not a
dunce,"
76 BENDISH
Hunt subscribed to that. "Not he, my lord.
He's a white heat, who turns his learning into ash
the minute he has it, and roars for more."
Bendish lifted his eyebrows: "A volcanic bard!"
"An apostle!" cried Hunt "He will lift and
carry the fiery cross." Bendish frowned. He had
his own ideas at this moment about fiery crosses; and
one couldn't have two apostles at the same time in
England. The country's too small for it. So he
frowned, and then showed himself supercilious.
"Whither, my good Hunt?" Mr. Moore, always
tactful, cut in on a slant.
"He made me poor friend Lancelot blench before
it his white heat not so long ago," he said. "Did
your lordship ever meet the Lancelots? Hardly.
They were in the enemy's camp. Wake House was
their citadel." Bendish tossed his fine head. He
considered the Duke as his only serious rival for the
headship of Britain. But Moore ran on. " She was
a lovely woman, upon my soul. Like a wisp of rosy
cloud, a scarf upon the blue. But the ether shows
no such blue over Britain as her fine pair of eyes.
Now the Duke, saving your lordship's presence (who
like him not), was her first conquest, but Gervase
was her second, and 'twas he that led captivity cap-
tive. Begad, he got her, and has her yet. 'Tis a
strenuous poet."
Heniker, happening to catch the eye of the speaker,
allowed himself to ask, What part the husband had
played in this affair? Mr, Moore flacked his fingers
at the dead Lancelot.
"OUTRE-TOMBE" 77
"A shadowy third, me dear sir, a skeleton at the
feast. He grew unsubstantial under me very eyes,
from the very first a shawl-bearer, the poor man, he
hovered in the background. He looked always in the
glass of his mind and saw himself there the suffering
gentleman. That pleased him so much that I doubt
he forgot his sufferings in satisfied contemplation.
He had no chance with the Duke nor, if you'll be-
lieve me, gentlemen, the Duke with Gervase. Ger-
vase was, let me say, the most male of the three.
Nature favours the male, being herself of the other
sex, we believe. Now they tell me that Lancelot
when he died left her a little plum, and so the way's
clear for her to come home. There's one great man
not a mile from Wake House will be glad to see
her. But will she come? What will Gervase say
to ut? If he will, well and good! Then she comes,
you may be sure. Nature, me dear sir, favours
the male."
"And you also, Tom Moore," said Mr. Hunt,
beaming upon him. "All my feelings are with the
lady, whom I am inclined to pity. A man may be
too much of a male and a poet should not be."
"You may spare your pity, me good Hunt," Moore
said warmly. "Me friends the Poores are, I believe,
as snug as fish in the sea. And how would you have
a poet hermaphrodite? A sonnet to her eyebrow's
well enough, or an epithalamy at the door. But
there's a wilder music for a married pair. And me
friend's the boy for the chune or I mistake him."
Bendish was listening closely ? though all his effort
78 BENDISH
was to seem uninterested. "You believe in him,
Tom?" Moore's black eyes stared.
"Believe in him!" he cried. "Why, I love him!"
He delighted his friend Hunt.
"Tom, you are priceless. I never heard a worse
reason for believing in a man, nor, by Heaven, a
better. It's the case with me too."
" We'll toast him and his fair lady together." He
lifted his glass. " To the Poet and Nausithoe ! " It
was drunk, but Bendish just touched the rim of his
glass and put it down. There was a good deal for
him to consider in all this. A Poet a pretty woman
and himself. Here he was, you see, with his foot
on the ladder, about to start upwards and to be
told that he might expect to find a white-hot Poet
upon an upper rung, with a pretty woman under his
arm whom he had taken away from husband and
lover that lover the Duke! All this was as serious
as you please.
Hunt began upon politics after this, speculating
how long the Duke would hold out, or the country
endure the spectacle of millions of men held back
by one hand in a white buckskin glove. In its way
it was a fine spectacle, he said. Bonaparte had
dragooned a nation, led it headlong to victory,
drawn it orderly out of defeat but he had worked
with the apparatus of kingship. Eagles had rocked
and tossed before his men's eyes, songs had inflamed
their hearts; purple and ermine, the Pope and the
Sacrament had lent their magic. But the Duke
stood up in a blue surtout, a cool elderly country
"OUTRE-TOMBE"
79
gentleman and marching myriads stood still. A
fine sight; but if there was blood left in England it
should boil to behold it.
Moore said, "Gervase's would boil were he here."
Then Lord Bendish rose up.
"The poet is a poor hand with the sword "
"There was Sophocles/' Mr. Hunt observed, and
annoyed his host.
"We don't know, I fancy, very much about the
sword-play of Sophocles. A man must be born to
lead. Mirabeau had the habit of command; La-
fayette had it."
"Devizes has it," said Heniker, and Bendish
looked hard at him.
"We'll find him a Mirabeau one of these days,
my dear fellow," he said. "Shall we go upstairs?"
They did, but found their host take a fit of silence
and gloom, which not even Tom Moore could break
through. Bendish was considering what steps were
necessary in order to wipe the Duke of Devizes out
of his political path and Gervase Poore out of his
poetical. He felt that he could not call his soul his
own until something decisive had been done in the
business.
CHAPTER VII
THE MANTLE OF MIRABEAU
ARDOUR and Ambition were partners in the mind
of young Lord Bendish, and worked well for him in
the main; but there was this queer defect in the
picture which they made for him, that they showed
him to himself passive, not active; receiving homage,
not compelling it. They overleaped themselves;
they took his merits for granted, and showed him
England, or Europe, acknowledging them with ac-
claim. In all the moving scenes, then, which he
called up at whim or upon some chance suggestion
from outside, one was always omitted that which
showed him procuring the triumphs of the rest. He
saw himself reading his poem, being hailed as chief
of poets, crowned with laurels and the rest but not
writing the glorious work. He was drinking adora-
tion from a woman's eyes, but not compelling it
there. He was chosen leader of hosts, but not a
candidate. The peers sat spellbound when he re-
sumed his seat, or the thunder of acknowledgment
brake about him like a storm after a moment of
solemn hush; but he never heard the speech which
induced such ovation, nor felt himself make it.
That he took for granted. You see, his was a san~
80
THE MANTLE OF MIRABEAU 81
guine temperament. It raced to the mark, and once
there, saw itself the winner with perfect clearness.
When he had first projected the audacious Billiad,
he had seen exactly how he would bear himself in
the moment of success, how calmly he would face
the irritation of men, how generously the open-eyed
approbation of women. All the clue he had had to
the detail of his hardy satire had been picked up
from the faces of the scourged, and from his own be-
holding them but these had been as clear before
him as the face of day. He had argued cause from
effect. So he had gone to work, and on the whole
had succeeded in pleasing himself. His reception
had been happy it tallied with the dream.
This sort of thing a man may do a dozen times,
if he happen to be right in his reading of the effect.
This will depend upon whether he knows the world
with which he works. Now smarting men and tribu-
tary women were familiar denizens of Bendish's
world; but he had no experience of men indifferent.
When, therefore, he began to meditate his maiden
speech in the House of Lords he worked by his usual
methods in a world unfamiliar. The result was a
cold bath.
He saw in his golden forecast the House cool and
undemonstrative, but keenly interested. He saw
himself sit down in the midst of a low murmur of
sound; he was surprised (in his day-dream) at his
own lack of emotion. He knew himself a cool hand
but had thought that this might stir him. He no-
ticed how careful he was to keep his eyes away from
82 BENDISH
galleries to ignore the galleries altogether where
plumed heads bent to each other, and white shoulders
shifted, and handkerchiefs fluttered, but in jvain.
He saw the Duke of Devizes take snuff and rise to
answer him; he heard him rasp, guessed him put out.
He heard the warm commendations of Lord Grey,
and acknowledged them afterwards in the lobby with
just that mixture of self-respect and courtesy which
the honour demanded even of himself. From these
glowing visions he harked back to the speech he
intended to make the speech of the author of The
Billiad to the victims of it, whose grudging admira-
tion he was destined to compel. He worked at it
with ardour, and took great pains, denying himself
to the world for a week or two. Nobody of impor-
tance was in his secret; when Bendish was deliberate,
he was very close.
But he confided in Heniker, who was of no impor-
tance, partly for that reason and partly because he
really had an affection for him. Heniker, calling
with leases to sign, found him immersed in books.
Bendish got up to receive him and pushed them away
from him with impatience.
"Pouf ! My good fellow, you come apropos. I've
been stuffing myself with wind. Please to blow some
of it out of me."
"What's all this?" Roger asked, handling a vol-
ume. "Demosthenes? Are you moulding your
taste?"
"Cleansing my palate, I hope," said Bendish.
"That old boy has an astringent quality. He'll do
THE MANTLE OF MIRABEAU 83
me good. You know, Roger, I sicken of the world
very soon. It doesn't suit me"
"Well," Roger said, "you don't stint yourself."
"No, no of course you're right, and of course I
overstep the bounds. But it amuses me I can't
afford ennui. That maddens. But one is aware,
at one's wildest, just how much applause is worth.
One can always get back. I give you my word, I've
not dined out of these rooms for ten days. Nor have
I had a man in since you were here with our two
poets-about-town. By the by, what did you think
about the poet Poore? Did it strike you that they
pitched him rather high? I've been turning him
over since."
"I don't read poetry," Roger admitted. "But he
seems to have had a way with him." Bendish was
thoughtful.
"You mean that he faced old Devizes? Yes, he
did in the boudoir. But what could the fellow do
in the open? There's nothing here, you know, to
tell one." He rapped a thin green volume, picked
it up and let it drop again without looking at it.
"Liberty and Equality are very fine things. You
may write of them or abstract a man's mistress in
their name. But can you lead men towards them?
Can you reprove the world of sin, righteousness, and
judgment by means of them? Ah, my good fellow,
the test is there. You must deal publicly with public
things." Once more he picked up the green book
and shook it in the air. "Do you think there's the
sign of a tribune in Nausithoe and Other Poems?
84 BENDISH
There's neither Cleon nor Themistocles. I had his
Roland sent me I picked that over, too. Oh,
Poore had force, I grant you. But 77 He shrugged
Poore away. "The times want a leader/' He
straightened himself and looked at his friend. " The
times must be obliged."
He went on after a short silence. " How does Lord
Grey strike you? You are a reformer, of course, and
so is he. But does he inspire you? Burdett too, and
his mob. He's at the head of them, I grant you.
But so's the pig you drive to market. Clanranald
might have done more. All his fire seems to have
gone out since he became a peer. Whom else have
we? Cobbett pooh, the man's a boor. S ?
D ? old N ? Oh, my dear fellow, we can't
get on at this rate. ... I thought that one might
whip a spirit into 'em, but it seems the brine is not
made which will sting their hides. Another way of
blowing up a house is from within. Well, we shall
see. . . ."
Heniker gathered from all this, and a good deal
more, what was in the wind. It was no business of
his, however, and he thought little about it, little
knowing what the upshot was to be, or how it would
touch his private affairs.
There was a motion before their lordships' house
fixed for a certain day, a motion of Lord S 's to
*' inquire into the State of the Nation," which that
amiable enthusiast produced every year, and had
solemnly debated and rejected. It was always
THE MANTLE OF MIRABEAU 85
treated with the utmost parade of seriousness by
both sides of the House, and meant precisely noth-
ing at all. Into this sea of pretence Lord Bendish,
desperately in earnest, plunged with a resounding
smack; among its canvas waves he wallowed; and
finally he emerged as dry as he went in, tumbled and
somewhat dirty. It should have been a sobering
experience for him, but he was bitterly mortified.
The fact was that nobody took any notice; his fiery
periods, which had been fierier if they had been less
rhetorical, worked, with all the rest, into the dreary
decorum of the afternoon. The Duke was in his
place, reading and writing notes; Lord Grey chatted
with a noble friend behind him, sprawling over the
back of his bench. When the time came each of
these great men rose in his place and murmured a
few polite and perfunctory phrases. The noble Earl
did, it is true, refer to Bendish, as "the noble lord,
new to your lordships' house, whose eloquence and
erudition, joined as these are to enthusiasm for the
liberty and enhancement of mankind, cannot have
failed to impress your lordships with his sincerity";
but the Duke said nothing about Bendish at all. His
point his only point was that the State of the
Nation was as good as could be expected under pres-
ent circumstances, and would be very much better
if amiable philosophers would leave it alone. The
Nation, it was his opinion, desired mainly to mind its
business, which was buying and selling. It was, he
suggested to their lordships, a case of too many
doctors. The patient was expected to put his tongue
86 BENDISH
out twice an hour, when once a year would be better.
He was aware that the noble Earl who had moved
the House only called himself in precisely once a
year; but there were other and more diligent prac-
titioners than he. For this reason, if for no better,
he should vote as usual, against the motion.
One or two other noble lords spoke, but languidly,
and the debate guttered out like a spent candle.
Nothing at all about rick-burnings, machine-smash-
ings, and such bubblings of muddy pools. Not even
Bendish, new as he was to oratory, had ventured to
hint at the starving plough-hands. He had confined
himself to reform, and had been deliberately aca-
demic upon that topic. He had had an inward
prompting to let himself go to be bitter, to be
caustic, to open his cloak for a moment and let their
lordships see the gleaming of the fiery cross. But
his heart had'failed him. Really to these yawning,
blinking, stale men-about-town! No this was a
case for Demosthenes, not Cleon. And so he went
on, and had his cold bath. * The animated presence
of ladies in the gallery aggravated the impassivity of
their lordships. Lord S told him afterwards that
he was over their heads. "They don't like a man
to talk about Ainurath and Solyman and the Tyrants
of Syracuse. They like to be fairly sure beforehand
what you're going to say. Look at me, you know.
They know me by heart, and are always glad to see
me. Within reason I say just what I like. And so
can you; but pray don't think that you'll draw them
by strong language. They'll sit as mum as fishes,
THE MANTLE OF MIRABEAU 87
and draw you. I don't think the Duke ever answers
anybody but Grey. It's not worth his while, you
understand. He's a busy man, and I'm very idle.
But I hope I keep the cause moving I hope I do."
Bendish left the House without further ado, and kept
to his own for some days. Failure infuriated him,
and he felt that he had failed badly.
He was very acute, and quite candid with .him-
self. He had failed because he had tried for too
high a mark. He had tried to lift with him a dead
weight. He turned cold to think that he had very
nearly made a fool of himself by taking seriously
what was the merest routine. His face he was
alone at the time was white and wild, his eyes
were round and tragic as he realised the narrow
escape he had had. Then, as was always the case
with him, his fancy began to torment him into a
fury, first with himself, next with the men who had
put him in this plight. He disdained his order,
he was shocked at their cynicism, he vowed the
destruction of such a monstrous display of sneering
privilege. For the first time in his life, it is prob-
able, he felt with the sweating and dragooned mil-
lions whom he had , just professed himself in Cice-
ronian periods ready to lead.
He raged, mute and white. He knew himself
able, exorbitant in his claim upon fate and his gen-
eration and the generation after it. Yet he knew
also that no tribute of earthly powers could possibly
satisfy him. If the King and Princes of the Blood,
with the ministers and two archbishops, were to
88 BENDISH
kneel in St. James's Street and fall upon their faces
when he appeared, he would spurn them and go
Ms way, looking for more absolute honour. But
even these poor silly things had not occurred. Far
from it, he reflected with a shiver that he had been
stripped since in a case like his to withhold was
to take away and it might well be that he would
soon be beating the bushes of the world looking for
a hospitable he meant flattering pair of eyes.
Flattery enough he could have had, from women,
but in such an hour as this he abhorred their shal-
low enthusiasm. They looked at you, these pretty,
plumed, bare-necked women, with eyes set wide for
any chance newcomer more worship-worthy than
yourself. They focussed about you, not upon you.
Now the tribute of a woman, to be worth anything,
must be without stint. If you are not the centre
of her world you were better nothing at all. Ben-
dish would have none of them. He had made a
bid for absolute power and it had been refused him.
Good. He would bide his time, which no doubt
would come, in its time.
He kept to his rooms, denied the door to every
comer, opened no letters, wrote none, and lived
chiefly upon soda water, tobacco, and the works of
Voltaire. For a week he was comforted, and then
nature had its way with the young man. A vision,
an apprehension rather, for touch seemed to mingle
with sight to make it palpable, stole upon him in
the pauses of the night, and thereafter grew in in-
tensity till he gave way to it. The vision was of a
THE MANTLE OF MIRABEAU 89
tall, swaying and glowing girl whose ardour was
fanned by his own into a delicately leaping fire.
Again he dreamed achievement rather than prom-
ise. He saw her veiled eyes, he saw her averted
head. Sweet distress to be so desired made her
humble. His arms were about her, soon her lips
were his. She cast herself with a sob upon his
breast, she confessed him king and lord. By heaven,
but such a tribute from a virgin heart was worth all
the acclamation of the world. And it was his to
pick up by mere stooping for it.
He rang the bell and was answered by discreet
Mackintosh. He ordered a horse to be round im-
mediately, a groom in attendance. In half an hour
he was pounding the North Road in the gathering
dusk of a spring day. In an hour and a half he had
Rose Pierson in his arms, sobbing upon his breast.
CHAPTER VIII
DISTRACTION OFFERS
BENDISH could be a great lover for he was at
once ardent and imaginative; his natural fire kin-
dled his fancy, and his fancy could play with his
fire so long as he saw himself stooping splendidly.
His books of reference were the lady's looks, and
most of the work must be hers. The woman to
keep him would have to be perpetually on all fours,
perpetually needing benefit and perpetually adoring
him for bestowing it. If you can find a woman so
quadrupedalian as that all may be well. But if you
have to put her there before you can make your
splendid beneficent stoop, you must be careful lest
the mechanism of the thing become obvious even
to yourself. And you may happen to strike upon
a lady who doesn't care to be repeatedly plumped
into the mire in order to be raised splendidly to
your level. A natural groveller is your only real
chance of happiness and there aren't too many of
them.
Rose Pierson was a proud girl by nature, but
by circumstance had been forced to keep her pride
in her pocket. She was also an intelligent girl who
knew her betters when she saw them. Long before
90
DISTRACTION OFFERS 91
Bendish had declared himself a lord she had been
aware of his lordliness, and it hadn't needed the
tinge of urbane condescension upon his dealings with
her to make her feel the lift to her feet. She had
very likely been flattered into love. Bendish had
talked to her very unaffectedly in the beginning
of their acquaintance, for his temperament, I say
again, was ardent and his tastes naturally good.
He had talked poetry, he had read it to her and
not only his own by any means. He had read her
Petrarch, and guided her timid tongue over the
sugary stuff; he had read her Tasso, the Pastor
Fido; Shakespeare, Milton, The Faerie Queen, and
the a Hymn to Beauty." Then there had been his
own things " To Rose, with a book/' "To Rose,
with a rose" and so on: very pretty indeed. All
this reading and imagining had very simply led to
love-making. It is a short step from talking love
to acting it. Rose was flattered, and then moved;
once moved, she was immovable. She had a con-
stant mind, and now her pride, being enlarged, took
possession of it. Constancy became a standing
order and a point of honour too. Whatever her
noble lover might do with her, there was one thing,
she vowed, he should never do, and that was kill
her love. He had told her of the state of his heart
before he revealed his rank. She was not at all
blinded by the new glory, because she was prepared
for it. That dismayed him a little; that cooled
him. He had, I think, expected her to souse down
again on all fours into the mud; but she had sim-
92 BENDISH
ply bowed her head and then lifted it again, that
she might show him faith and honour in her eyes.
"If you were the King," she had said, "I couldn't
love you any more." He had clasped her to his
heart; but he had not picked her up, because she
wasn't down.
When he left Myrtle Cottage for the mansions
of Mayfair (with The Billiad on every boudoir
table, and a castigated husband pacing every other
library carpet), she had gone tearless about her
humdrum business and kept her head very high.
He never wrote to her, and she couldn't write to
him, or thought that she couldn't. As time went
on she suffered; and then came Heniker's kindness
and broke down her defences. But she never
wavered, or lowered the flag; and when at last he
came back to her she was able to offer herself to
him breast to breast, as the equal which he had
made her. "Oh, my lover, my lover, I knew that
you would come/' she had said in his ear, clinging
to him, her face hidden. By no means on all-fours,
you see. Far from it, she was high in the air. He
had justified her proud beliefs, and she credited
him with a share of her own glory. , She made much
of him; her eyes and lips and thrilling tones be-
trayed how much; and the more she made of him
on these terms the less he liked it.
Not thus does a hound at fault pick up the scent.
This is the way to chop foxes, fiendish had been
moved to return to Rose by two instincts: there
was the instinct of disgust at a stale old planet jog-
DISTRACTION OFFERS 93
trotting round its everlasting sun, attended by its
everlasting satellites. This figure may stand for
the House of Lords, perhaps, parading about the
kingdom, with its futile Greys and Devizes trailing
after it. Round and round they go, so chained to
the blessed routine that they never heed the dash-
ing meteor out of space that comes rocketing into
them. Not at all; a shake of the head, a wag of
the blinkers, and on they go. Let us slant off in
a hurry to that Island of the Blest, Cythera, and
forget this hideous mill of a world. That was one
instinct the revolt of stinging blood against pack-
horseism. The other was the imperious need he
felt to restore himself to himself, to recognise his
power again, to reshape his ambitions, to get in
touch once more with magnanimity. He must get
back to mew and sit there awhile, his burning eyes
fixed upon the sun and the far blue realms of his
dominion. And where so fit a perch for him as the
humble heart of Rose?
All very well but Rose was no longer humble,
but proud with the pride he had taught her, and
received him (very nearly) as an equal. He had
been almost ludicrously dismayed. The romantic
rapture of his galloping return, of their meeting
in the scented dusk, of her warm-breathed beauty,
her clinging and her glad tears, lasted him just
long enough to uphold the proper note. They
burned together for an hour or so, and then she
bade him go from her. "Come back to me when
you will/' she said. "You will find me here. But
94
BENDISH
you must ask for Aunt Welbore, not for me. I
shall tell her that you have been here, of course."
Pack-horseism in Cythera! He couldn't have
that, but clasped her to his heart. "Love knows
nothing of aunts and uncles, my beloved. Love
sees the world as a flowery glade with two persons
in it, the Lover and the Loved."
She smiled at him, gentle as a mother might be
gentle, pitying her child. " I know how these forms
must irk you," she said, "but, dearest, they keep
me from the cold. Oh!" and she clung to him,
"I shall wait upon your leisure. I know that you
have your part in great affairs I know that my
lord is a lord of the world." He liked that. Then
she told Mm that she had read of his speech in the
House; and that he didn't like at all, knowing well
that he had hit the wrong note, and hit it too hard.
He fumed inwardly, and needed no urging to be
gone. As he rode home through the dark he told
himself that that pretty bubble was pricked and
frittered into air. He tried to be cynical about it;
but he was too young to find that any comfort.
He felt lonely.
He was now alarmed about himself. All his sup-
ports seemed cut away. Poetry, Politics, Love
Women, mind, ambition all gone! The world was
but a conglomerate of bubbles; you prick one and
the whole filmy mass vanishes. He must travel
he must see peoples and lands. He would go East,
where you get Passion and Reality, where you see
Passions as men walking, without a stitch to cover
DISTRACTION OFFERS 95
them naked and fierce as they were born. Among
them he would stalk, as a man among men, with
them wrestle for a throw; tritunphing there, he
would pick up his chosen bride and lift her to his
saddle-bow. Then away with her into the hills,
into the silence and solitude of nature, where only
the soaring eagle is co-tenant, and wed her there
in some rock-bound glade within sound of the thun-
der of the cataract. Et Venus in silris. . . . ! Ele-
mental life for the man who feels the elements heave
within him for utterance, like the fiery gas in the
womb of the volcano. Here he became himself
again, youth being quick to the rebound. Bendish
past the remnant of the night in a fever of unrest,
and so was found at ten o'clock in the morning by
his henchman Heniker, come to report the progress
of the Coronation claim.
Coronation claims with eagles above the sol-
itudes!
Bendish, bright-eyed and pale, scoffed at him.
"But, my good Roger, all this is damned fool-
ishness. 'The Lord Bendish claims to walk as a
peer among his peers. . . . !' Great God, man, let
me tell you once for all that George Bendish claims
to walk as a man among free men. That claim,
it seems, is to be questioned! That's a thing no
man in England must claim. Oh, have done with
such dreary quackery! You make me ashamed that
I stand upright on two legs with two legs beneath
me and the well-worn stump of a tail. Who bit
that off for me? The doctor? the midwife? Pooh,
96 BENDISH
sir, I come of a fighting stock. The thing went
rubbed away before we had our backs to the wall
and held our own against kings and robber-barons.
A peer among his peers. . . . 1 My good Roger, I
tell you flatly I don't know what you're talking
about." The probabilities are that, at the moment,
he really didn't.
The patient Heniker grinned, but said nothing.
Bendish paced the room with rapid strides, leaping
from cabbage to cabbage upon the carpet as if he
were crossing a torrent upon the scattered rocks
in its bed. "I tell you that I sicken of this fenced
island this kitchen-garden within sea-walls. Roger,
I'm for the open, and invite you to tread with me.
We'll cross Spain on horseback see them kill bulls
at Ma,drid, learn to play the guitar at Seville, un-
veil women at Granada, and shake Europe off our
f ootsoles at Gibraltar. Then for the gorgeous East
Albania, Athens, Byzantium, Bagdad, Damascus,
In Syria we may find ourselves among our equals.
The desert should breed men. I, at any rate, have
made up my mind. I'll be no longer a plant in
this conservatory, syringed with warm water by
old Devizes and his men. There's dry rot in the
benches and mildew in the green stuff. The close
fetid air makes me sick. Pah! I tell you I want to
breathe!"
Heniker looked at his papers with some concern.
"It's as you please, of course. I can only tell you
that I've given a deal of work to this thing and
I should have been glad to have known earlier that
DISTRACTION OFFERS 97
you were thinking no more about it. I suppose
it had better go through now. In fact, it is as
good as through the Committee. 35
Bendish chafed. "If a man's sincere impulse
towards honesty is to be stayed by a Committee
for Privileges 1 Roger, we are talking of different
things. I am talking about life and you about
privileges."
"You forget/' Heniker said, "that I get my liv-
ing that way. However, you needn't be troubled
any more. I suppose you'll exercise your rights
on the great day."
"Are you speaking of the Day of Judgment, my
friend?" Bendish asked severely.
Heniker met him with blandness. "The Coro-
nation, my dear Bendish, was in my mind. But
you may not be at home, it seems and in fact I
hardly think that I shall be here either. I have
to go abroad almost at once."
Bendish cheered. "Hurrah, Roger! We'll go
together. Leave it all to me. How soon can you
be ready? "
Roger smiled. "Syria is too far, and I've no
time for the ladies of Granada. My lady of the
moment lives at RapaUo."
"Italy!" cried Bendish. "By God, we'll go to
Italy. There were men in Rome once. But you
are after a lady?" He puzzled. "Who the devil's
your lady?"
Roger told him. "She's only mine in business
terms. She's married fast enough this time. You'll
98 BENDISH
know her name I don't doubt. She is Mrs. Poore,
and was once Mrs. Lancelot. I'm to see her about
her first husband's will."
Bendish was highly and immediately interested.
He had had Mr. Poore in his mind ever since his
dinner-party when two poet-reformers had laid stress
upon the man's powers. Poore had been a possible
rival. Poore was to be reckoned with. He admit-
ted to himself that he had forgotten Poore for the
moment. Now, however, his mind was made up.
" I believe I'll see her too and her master. They
said great things of Poore, you remember? I'd
like to meet him. I believe we might get on. There
are things to be done with England even now!
Let it be Italy by all means. I can go on to the
East afterwards, by way of Venice, unless Poore
and I strike a partnership of insurrection. I should
say that was much on the cards. When Greek
meets Greek! Or steel strikes on steel hey, Roger?
Well, I'm ready. I could start in half an hour
if you're of that mind."
Heniker, his mind flashing about over his own
affairs, felt that he'd much rather have Bendish
with Mm, than leave him in England. He had
no notion of his recent dashing exploit at Golder's
Green, since he had not been there himself, nor
been able to see his lady in town. He believed
that all was well in that quarter; but with Bendish
you could never tell. The fellow veered like a
weathercock! Any sudden whim might send him
dashing down there, to carry his sweet Rose by
DISTRACTION OFFERS 99
storm. He pondered the proposal for a moment,
but Ms mind was really made up.
"If you wish to join me, George, I shall be very
happy in your company, I don't doubt," he said,
"but you must understand that I'm one of your
pack-horses. No loitering in Spain for me. I shall
go by Paris to Marseilles and then on. I shall go
post, since I'm told that money is no difficulty."
He awoke the lord in the child of nature.
"Post!" cried Bendish with scorn. "By Heaven,
you'll do nothing of the sort. I shall take my car-
riage, of course. Now, my dear Roger, leave all
this to me. Believe me, I know the way to travel.
All I shall ask of you, or your father, is the where-
withal. See to it, will you? that the bankers be
warmed beforehand into civility. Whither away
now? Paris, Marseilles, Turin, Milan, Florence,
Rome, Venice? That will do for the present. Just
see to all this, there's a good fellow. And we start
to-day week. Is that understood? Good. Now
you can leave me to myself, if you will. I believe
I shall go to bed. Thirty-six hours is a good day.
Au revoir, my dear Roger."
He did not go to bed, however. He was much
too happy. Action was what he needed. Entirely
recovered, he sallied forth to dine, to talk high,
to play deep, to revel. Great with idea, there was
nothing he could not do, and do supremely well.
At two in the morning, returned from Crockford's,
he laid the scheme of a great travel poem in six
books, and found himself so fertile that much of
100 BENDISH
it was on paper before he was sure of Ms route.
A motive was a-wanting. Could that be Rose?
Or the siren Lady ? Or perhaps Lady Ann,
too chaste for his hero? The sketch here was hazy.
Quite possibly a motive would declare itself en
route. Meantime Nature and the works of Man
were to be dressed in a fine melancholy. He was
certified of that by his lively Muse before he went
to bed that morning which he did nearly at the
hour when Rose at her window looked out to greet
the sun and pray for her lover.
CHAPTER IX
HOW NOT TO LEAVE A MISTRESS
THE fortnight for it took the full of that be-
tween decision and departure was full of comfort
to Lord Bendish, who could only gauge his own
happiness by the unhappiness of his friends. He
flew now from house to house taking intense fare-
wells. Every house which he left contained at least
one tear-dimmed lady. The burden of his exile
for he put it at that was felt to be her burden, all
the more grievous in that he invariably spoke more
in sorrow than in anger. "Fret not for me/ 3 said
Bendish or he implied it; "I do but fulfil my des-
tiny that of a man born a rebel. The powers of
this world triumph for a time. Every self-interest
is concerned to hound me out. The voice of truth
must be smothered. But you and I know that we
dare not palter with the truth. You would not have
me otherwise and I, my dear one, could not love
you so much did I think that you would see me
deny truth for the sake of our temporal bliss. I go,
I go, carrying in my heart enshrined the memory
of one noble woman. To you I leave, as consecra-
tion of your years of solitude, the vows of an in-
flexibly honest man a small, clear flame for the
102 BENDISH
altar of your heart. Tend it anxiously for my sake
and be sure of my service of our love. I am
henceforth the high priest of Memory. Adieu!
adieu!"
There were tears, kisses; generally a lock of hair
was his. He received it with sad satisfaction, and
bestowed it safely, after (at least) a twelve hours'
carriage upon his person, into a drawer in his cabinet.
There it joined a pretty numerous harem.
With men he took another line of discourse. This
accursed country was still at the bottom of it, but
on a more physical side. As he put it, its fogs
intercepted your breath, its government your let-
ters, its husbands your flirtations. You couldn't
eat its dinners, kiss its wives, write its poems, get
its votes. A handful of peers and fox-hunters ruled
its counsels, a few raddled old women set its fashions,
and a couple of magazines dictated its taste. Be
damned to oligarchy, he was for individuality. A
man should be worth the length of his arm, or his
head; Bendish didn't care which it was he would
accept battle with anybody, and leave the choice of
weapons to his antagonist. Here was he, for instance,
in roaring youth, who had tried every diversion
which the world had to offer to a man of reason-
able parts: pglitics, literature, action, love; poetry,
rhetoric, battle, adultery take it how you will.
They wouldn't have him, not because they didn't
like him (for they did), but because they couldn't
afford to disturb existing order. Let sleeping dogs
lie, said they. Once you let in ideas, who knows
HE RIDES AWAY 103
where they will go? What becomes of the patrid
potestas ? What's the end of Privilege ? Where's
the King, Lords, and Commons? Where are the
Forms of the House; where's the Sublime and the
Beautiful? The Muses, pray! Here's Lord Ben-
dish with a pair of scissors to cut their petticoats.
Good God, if he ain't careful you may see their legs!
These ladies, like the Queen of Spain, are under-
stood to have none. Or take politics, he'll trouble
you. A man who, with all his faults, sees things
for what they are, goes down to the House of Lords
for the first time in his life. What does he find?
His Majesty's Ministers and his Majesty's ex-Min-
isters debating the State of the Nation. Very well;
most proper subject of debate. He cuts in and de-
scribes that as he sees it. With what result?
Discomfort, disrelish, dismay, disgust on every side.
What! this upstart (whose forefathers, let him say,
in parenthesis, upstarted with the Conqueror) not
only denies that all is well, but tells us that nothing
can be well so long as we sit where we are! Assures
us that in these days it won't do for a score of men
to keep a score million marking time! Bids us count
men, not acres, weigh brains and not breeches'
pockets! Back to school with him; he's not had
enough of the birch. Don't answer the fellow; pre-
tend he isn't there. H'm, h'm where are we!
Ah, to be sure. "His Majesty's Ministers, secure
in the confidence of a beloved, because temperate,
monarch. . . ." Well, personally, he, Bendish, felt
that it was a case of one thing or another for him.
104 BENDISH
One stifled In England. Either you must open the
windows, or you must go outdoors. England de-
clined the first; remained the second. This was
how he put it, with great vivacity. It was hard to
see how he could have a better fortnight in any land
or under any conditions of life.
His humble, but very necessary friend Heniker
spent his fortnight differently. He had to pacify
the creditors, the mother, and one of the victims
of this brilliant young man. None of these were
easy matters, and one of them touched him nearly.
We may leave out of account the Jews, the dis-
counters, the tailors, carriage-builders, jewellers,
and dependents of the Bendish name; we may
touch Hghtly upon the smouldering gloom and omi-
nous seismics of Mrs. Bendish, and even upon her
ultimate eruption in storm a storm so shattering
that Heniker felt himself a nameless outcast for
lour-and-twenty hours after it and complained of
pains in the head. Poor Mrs. Bendish; her rage
knew no bounds because every other faculty of hers
was in rigid confinement. She could do nothing.
She had no money, nor authority to raise any. She
never saw her son, and never had her letters an-
swered. She had the power of dying, and before
very long exercised it; meantime she sheathed her
claws in Heniker's respectable flesh and felt a mo-
mentary relief. It is his other task which concerns
me. He had to learn from the girl of his heart that
Bendish had been with her again; to see her own
heart bleeding and to staunch the flow. These
HE RIDES AWAY 105
things he suffered and did with an honesty which
is much to his credit.
The occasion was that of the second confession
of his feelings to Rose, which he made because he
was leaving her for two months certain. This time
he was fortified by Mrs. Welbore's good opinions
and offices. This worthy woman was now clearly
on his side, had invited Mm to her house and point-
edly left him alone with her niece. The tall young
girl stood dreaming by the window, dreaming, you
might say, defiantly, for she knew very well what
she had to face. So she remained while Roger
spoke to her of his departure and of his feelings at
leaving her. She listened, though she continued to
gaze and had dreams in her eyes. She smiled gen-
tly, but she shook her head in answer to his prayer
for hope. "I can only say what I said before.
You are more than kind. It is true that my thoughts
will go with you."
"Ah/' said the young man ruefully, "but I'm
afraid they will be for my companion."
She did not deny it. "I shall never think of you
without kindness," she said, "But you know what
is the matter with me."
He nodded three or four times. "I have never
liked to speak to you of of Lord Bendish. I felt
a delicacy. But forgive me I didn't think that
you could have seen much of him lately."
She kept her eyes fixed at gaze. "He came to
see me the other day. He asked me, did I care for
him still? He need not. He was answered before
io6 BENDISH
he had finished. How can I help myself? He
taught me to care." Her voice trailed. She seemed
to have no lifting power.
Heniker cursed Bendish in his heart. But he
could not deny help to the woman he loved. " You
are steadfast, you have a noble heart. That is
your honour, and your very grief is your reward "
But she wouldn't have that. "No, no/' she said,
"it is not so. But I can't help myself."
He assented sadly. "He has a winning way with
him. I can see how he would affect you. But
I think you ought to know I feel bound to warn
you he is very changeable. He forgets, you see.
He so delights in using his powers. He has so many
powers, so much charm, so much spirit; he sees so
many people "
She held up her head. "I understand you. It
is only to say that he is a person of consequence
by birth, by ability and that I am a nobody "
He stopped her. "I can't hear you say that.
You are all the world to me. Your beauty and
nobility of soul no rank, no attainments can equal
that. Any honest man in the world must be on
his knees to you."
She rewarded him with a look where innocent
vanity and compassion were tenderly mixed; but
then she resumed her outward searching of the day.
"I value your good opinion of me, and want to
deserve it. You would think less of me if I was
fickle because he is. You don't care for me less
because I can't give you what you ask. I must
HE RIDES AWAY 107
follow my heart, with my conscience- It may lead
me to unhappiness but at least I shan't have
to reproach himself. Nor," she said with a full-
orbed flash upon him, "nor will you reproach me."
He took a step forward, lifted her hand and kissed
it. "Miss Pierson, I could never reproach you. I
love you with all my soul."
He pleased her; even he saw that. Certainly
she liked to be loved. The knowledge of his state
of mind, and of his knowledge of her own, put her
at her ease with him. It would be too much to
say that she patronised him, for she was most
gentle; but she had an almost matronly air. She
would be his sister if he pleased, but quite clearly
his elder sister. She was made older than he by
her sufferings past and to come. So much he was
obliged to see.
Meantime chiefly desiring just now to distract
her he told her as much as he felt at liberty to
tell of his mission. It was common knowledge,
but not to her. His account of Mrs. Poore and
her poet interested her while she was shocked by
some of the details. She applauded them for re-
fusing Mr. Lancelot's money, and hoped that they
would hold out against Roger's pleading. "You
know very well that you would not take such money
yourself," she said.
He was not sure. "If, as I understand was the
case," he urged, "Poore convinced Mr. Lancelot
that it was he himself who had wronged the lady
wronged her himself first, and wronged her again
io8 BENDISH
by putting her wrong with the world, I think it
would be generous in the conqueror to accept rep-
aration. What else could the poor man do but
set her free? One more thing. He could enable
her to live with decent comfort. Well, why should
he not have that gratification?"
Rose was not convinced. "What does money
mean to her? She has the man of her heart. Noth-
ing in the world matters besides that. But " She
thought, frowning over the position. "She ought
to have kept faith. I feel so sure about that."
"I am certain that you do," Roger said. "But
nobody is like you. You can't expect me to think
so."
, At this moment of quiet intimacy both of them
were startled by the sound of wheels. A thunder
at the knocker confirmed their belief. In another
moment Bendish burst into the room, went quickly
to Rose and took her hand. He kissed it gallantly,
then held it. "This is my farewell, my dear," he
said. "We go abroad in two days' time." She
looked at him without a word. Then he saw
Heniker.
"Ha, Roger you here? You will confirm me.
I suppose there's nothing to prevent us. I should
blow my brains out if I had another twelve hours
of this doghole of a country. Forty-eight hours is
my absolute limit of endurance. Think of it ; Rose!
My mother proposes to come to town. That were
the last touch. I have written positively forbid-
ding it. One must defend oneself. Roger, I must
HE RIDES AWAY 109
say, you are very remiss. Why didn't you tell her
that I had gone?' 1
Roger, anxious himself to be out of this, grinned.
"She won't come, George. She's not well enough."
He turned to Rose. "I'll bid you good-bye, Miss
Pierson. And you shall wish me a good voyage."
Rose,, blushing, disengaged her hand from her
lover's and held it out to Heniker. "I wish you
every good thing," she said, "you may be sure.
Must you really go?"
One would hardly have credited Bendish with
such obtuseness to call it no worse if one had
not understood how entirely he was held by one
idea at a time. The readiness of Heniker to leave
the field to him actually annoyed him. He fidgeted
during the little colloquy, and finally answered Rose
himself., " Absurd 1 There can be no earthly rea-
son. Give me ten minutes, give me five minutes,
and I'll drive you back to town. Fve a hundred
things to say to you. Do you know that Pringle
hasn't sent those guns yet? If he don't look out,
the first use I make of one of 'em will be to blow out
his brains. I'll get you to see him about it first
thing in the morning."
Roger by 1 the door said that he had booked his
seat in the St. Albans coach, and was for making
his escape. He was hot with rage* on Rose's ac-
count; but Bendish was incredible.
"I daresay you have, my dear fellow, but I happen
to wish to speak to you; so you must oblige me."
Roger went out without a word. He knew that
no BENDISH
he must wait for the fellow, being his hireling.
"G d d n him, oh, G d d n him!" He stood
tense with rage, tapping his foot on the doorstep.
Meantime Bendish held Rose in his arms and
kissed her. Her lips were cold, her eyes had no
tears. "Farewell, my love, 3 ' he said. "Wish me
happy "
She nodded her head, looking away from him.
"Wish me happy and love me well. Too few
do that." She couldn't speak to him. He held
her closely, roused to stir her feelings but soon
gave over, conscious of failure, and sickened at it.
It would have needed real fire in him to have moved
her, and just now he had none whatever. "You'll
not forget me, Rose?" he said rather faintly.
She said very quietly, "There is no chance of
it," and then, as he looked at her, trying the power
of his eyes upon her, she shivered and withdrew
from his arm. "Please to go now," she said. "I
beg you to go. You are distressing me."
That satisfied his self-esteem. "My dear, I obey
you," he said. So they parted. He clattered down-
stairs and bustled Heniker into his phaeton. That
miserable young man kept his eyes astrain towards
the upper window, but without reward. Rose did
not show herself. As far as Bendish was concerned,
the place might have been an inn and she a cham-
bermaid, the toy of a minute to spare.
Yet on the road to London he was in a mood
of black despondency. He showed the butt of a
HE RIDES AWAY in
pistol shining in the mouth of a pocket. " There's
my truest friend/ 5 he said. "I tell you that, Roger,
having experienced every shift of fortune this world
can offer. Wine, women, cards, dice; ambition,
art, thought. Their limitations, or my own, make
them worthless. There remains travel to ex-
change one set of fools for another. I tell you,
however, that I feel like a transported convict. . . ."
He gloomed for a time, then eyed the pistol again*
"My truest friend! Good God and we live on!"
Presently he referred to Rose, and had poor
Heniker's teeth on edge. "You'll hardly believe
me, Roger, but I've left her dry-eyed the only
being in this world for whom I care a rap. But
the greater fool I, you'll say, for giving my heart
into the charge of a woman. Women! You'll
hardly credit it, I daresay, but I've had them weep-
ing about me every day for a week. I have ringlets
enough for a Lord Chancellor's wig, and don't
want 'em; and she ' wishes me well!' Good God,
Roger, isn't it a desperate business when a man is
ready to die for a cold-blooded mermaid of the sort?
I swear that she's got a fish's tail. A clear ichor
amber-colour flows in her veins. She asks me to
leave her says I distress her! She wishes me well!
I shall get drunk to-night and go to Crockford's
and drop perhaps a cool thousand. So she shall
have her wish. Bah! And we live on!"
If Bendish lived on, it was by no desire of his
family adviser's. Heniker, too, eyed the silver heel
of the pistol-butt shining from the pocket of the cab.
CHAPTER X
TO RAPALLO
THE Duke's last words to Heniker were, "Get
her to come home. Tell her that I'm old and lonely
and at a raw edge. I have the acquaintance of
all the world and not a friend in it. They hate me
in the country, chiefly because I stick to business
and don't deal in rhetoric. Don't say that I told
you so. I can't afford to beg and be refused
that's my little weakness. She can't afford to grant
it either: that would put her wrong with Poore,
and I won't have that. Let it come from you.
And of course she ought to have the money and
of course she won't." He had added as an after-
thought, "So you take Lord Bendish? Ah! I shall
like to know her opinion of that coxcomb. He's
been fluttering the dove-cotes, I understand." Then
he had given his messenger two fingers and turned
to his affairs.
Upon that Roger had set out, in Bendish's travel-
ling carriage, with Bendish himself, statue-faced and
hag-ridden, in the mood of the moment, with three
servants, two large dogs, and an eagle chained by
the leg but this last was left behind at Dover be-
cause the mood which demanded it had by that
112
TO RAPALLO 113,
time evaporated. Nothing disgusted Bendish so>
deeply as the sight of an old love. When that hap-
pened to be an eagle it didn't matter; but if it was
a woman, as mostly it was, she suffered, so that he
should not.
He remained in his marble gloom, speaking hardly
a word, for two days. In Paris, however, his spirits
rose, and he insisted upon a week's sight-seeing*
He had no acquaintance in that city, and did not
choose to inscribe his name at the Embassy, being
in a mood of war with municipalities and powers;
but he gave Heniker orders to see that his arrival
was properly chronicled in GalignanL This brought
a heterogeneous assembly into his anteroom and
gratified him a good deal; he took on a literary mood,
spent his days in gardens and his nights with poets
and their loves. Heniker's assurance that he must
go on, and should go alone, moved him. Bendish
could stand anything but his own company in these
early days.
So they travelled swiftly through central and
into southern France, entered Savoy, and reached
Rapallo, a little serried town, hanging like stone-
crop to the rocks about a river. There they took
up their quarters in the pian' nobile of a palace;
horses were provided for his lordship's exercise, and
Heniker sent on his credentials to the Villa Faesu-
lana, where the poet Poore and his stolen bride
were in lodging. Late in the afternoon of the day
fixed in reply he walked up the steep path and pen-
etrated the hedge of myrtle and dusty cypress which
114 BENDISH
hid the lower floors of a square, yellow, broad-
eaved house from the few peasants and goat-herds
who might pass it. The garden within was spacious
and set out with order. A long flagged path led
up between lemon trees in square tubs to the open
doors of the house. A flight of steps midway took
the ascent; the house stood on a terrace; gera-
niums and roses rioted over the stone balustrade.
The place seemed empty, not a soul was to be seen.
It was so quiet there that you could hear the flack-
ing of a moth's wings in the cool darkness of the hall.
Heniker pulled at the bell, and heard it clang in the
distance.
A gray-haired peasant woman with careful pa-
tient face presently appeared. Heniker, being with-
out Italian, smiled and mentioned the name of Mrs.
Poore. She identified and nodded at it. "Si, si,
si," she said in singsong, and added that the gentle-
man was expected, and that he would find the sign-
on upstairs. "Studiano!" she said, and peered at
him to see how he took it. "Studiano i libri
grandi cosi " and she spread her arms out like a
cross. All this was lost upon our friend, as she
presently saw; so she shrugged him off with mut-
tered comments on the follies of lovers, signed to
him to enter, folded up her bleached old hands in
her apron, and shuffled up the broad stair, he fol-
lowing.
A long tiled corridor was at the head of the stair.
It stretched the whole depth of the house to -a
loggia at the back of it. Standing here, in response
TO RAPALLO 115
to the grinning invitation of Ms old guide, who
jerked her head and hand towards the far-off open-
ing and said in a delighted whisper, "Vedi i Sign-
ori," Heniker looked, and saw a pretty sight. In
the level light of that evening hour two studious
figures sat close together at a long table, a broad-
shouldered man with his head thrown up, and a
slim and slender woman. One of his arms rested
the elbow on the table and the hand held open the
page of a huge folio from which he was reading;
the other arm was about his fellow-student. Her
head touched his shoulder, her hand, lax at her
side, played with a fan. Both were absorbed in the
open book, and a sound of chanting, now high, now
low, now fierce, now trailing, came from the man.
The delighted old serva exhibited them like a peep-
show. "Sempre lo stesso . * . scrivono la mat-
tina, leggono la sera. Eh, che . , . !" Then she
beckoned him forward the length of the long pas-
sage, and finally announced him as "queF Signore
a servirgli." The interrupted students sprang apart;
both rose, and the man, covering the woman, faced
Heniker. So might Adam and Eve have behaved,
surprised in Eden by a son of God. Here was a
tall, high-coloured, shock-headed young man with
blue eyes and something of a scowl. He stood
frowning his enquiries, without any words ready.
From behind him there then appeared the slight
form of his fellow-student, a slim, grave, and round-
faced woman, hued like a morning rose, with very
clear and direct gray eyes, as round, as open, and as
n6 BENDISH
gray as Athena's own. Her manner was at once
sedate and direct, as if she knew in a flash what was
expected of her, and what she therefore must do,
and do at once. It was she who, bowing formally,
came to greet him with her hand. "I am Mrs.
Poore," she said in clear tones; "and you must be
Mr. Heniker. This is my husband." The tall
young man bowed, but did not offer his hand.
Was this the face, this the lady, who had fled
from duke's house and husband's bed, who had
braved her world, and all Christian worlds, and
fallen into the arms of love and poverty? Heniker
thenceforth and for ever banished all the usual con-
notations of elopement and divorce from his reason-
ings of Mrs. Lancelot, as she had been. Here was
no naughty lady. No unholy passion could contend
with the pale fire upon those cheeks, no scandal
sully eyes so bravely clear. To think of scandal
and her, so possessed by limpid purpose, was ab-
surd; but he judged her capable .of enthusiasm, as
burning keenly in a guarded shrine, and forthwith
declared himself her knight. It does him much
credit that he was able to discover the inner, spirit-
ual beauty which made her bodily presence so fair
a tenement of it, as if her form had yielded to mould-
ing from within, and her colour of delicate fire was
the shining through of her flame-like spirit, as if her
flesh were of alabaster translucency. Report at
home spake the Duke of Devizes as a gross and
hardy lover; but if he loved this lady, Heniker
thought, it must have been a matter of the head
TO RAPALLO 117
informing the heart. He remembered now how the
stoic old statesman had suffered a mellowing of the
voice when he spoke of her.
Like all people who live engrossed in each other
and their own affairs the Poores had little small
talk, nothing to round off the edges of the business
upon which Heniker had come. Poore himself had
absolutely none. Heniker saw him look longingly
at his enormous book more than once. Presently
he turned about and sat on the parapet of the loggia
with folded arms, looking down into the deepening
gloom of the cypresses or up to the black mountains,
over which, in a green sky, trembled the evening
star. His wife spoke shyly of the journey, and then
Roger took heart and commented upon her garden.
She was pleased, and her eyes shone as she told him
that they worked at it themselves. " Every morn-
ing from five to eight we work there/' she said.
"Then the sun comes over the hill and we have to
go in."
Heniker laughed. "You put me to shame, and
as for my fellow-traveller, I don't know what you
will think of him. Your hour of leaving off work is
usually his for going to bed."
She opened her eyes wide. "What does he do
all night?" was her enquiry rash in any one but
she, who never thought evil of anybody.
"It is his time for reading or writing," Heniker
said. "Fitfully, he's a great reader, and still more
rarely a writer. He hopes to pay you his respects
Ii8 BENDISH
under favour of a letter from friends of yours. Mr.
Moore is one of them."
She flushed at a name which recalled London
to her, but Poore caught the sound of it, turned,
and looked straightly at the speaker. His eyes had
a piercing power, as if they would read the mind.
"Tom Moore? Do you know Tom Moore? He
used to love me once."
"He does still," Heniker said, "but I wasn't
speaking of my own acquaintance with him, which
is almost none. It is my friend Lord Bendish who
knows him, and has travelled out with me with a
letter of Mr. Moore's in his pocket-book."
The poet considered this news. He frowned over
the name; then his brows cleared. "I read Lord
Bendish's poem," he turned to his wife, his voice
noticeably gentle, "Do you remember, Gina, I
read it to you? "
She smiled at him with her eyes. He went on.
"I thought it excellent. I envied him his good
temper. He laughed at things which I should break
my teeth in. Laughter's a great power, if you can
use it on yourself too. I should like to meet Lord
Bendish. How old is he? "
Heniker said, two-and-twenty. Poore took that
quite simply. It seemed to him a matter of course
that a man should be temperate, witty, a dextrous
rhymester, eloquent and omniscient at two-and-
twenty. He did not believe in miracles. That
which was, was natural, that which was natural
was reasonable. He repeated, "I shall like to see
TO RAPALLO 119
him," and then turned to his wife, touching her
shoulder for a moment. "I know that you have
to talk with Mr. Heniker. I'll leave you then."
She looked up into Ms face. Heniker saw the
encounter of their eyes. "Here at least is a wedded
pair/ 7 he thought.
"Do you want to go? would you rather? " He
smiled, nodding his head, then looked at Heniker
as he laughed his "Much rather!" She accepted
it. He touched her shoulder again, shook hands
with Heniker, and went into the house. Mrs.
Poore sat looking at the deepening mountains.
There was a silence of some minutes, during which
the dusk crept about them.
Then she asked him quietly for news of the Duke,
and Heniker, encouraged by her simplicity and
directness, replied.
"He sent for me, you know," he said, "on the
recommendation of his own legal adviser, and gave
me his confidence so far as it was necessary I should
have it. He thought, and I agree with him, that
I should see you in the matter of the will, and that
Mr. Poore's decision should be made after discus-
sion with yourself. You have been informed, I
understand, of its provisions. I have the papers
here, however, and will leave them with you for
your consideration." There he stopped, not be-
cause she had interrupted him, but rather because
she hadn't. He could see no more than the outline
of her, the gleaming moon of her round face, in the
poise of which a something or other suggested ri-
320 BENDISH
-gidity. Her two hands made one white blur upon
her lap. He guessed her hostile, and waited for her
to declare herself.
By and by she spoke, and he knew by the tone
that she was not, as yet, hostile. "What papers
have you brought?" she asked him.
He said: "I used the word papers in a legal sense,
unthinkingly. Strictly speaking, there is only one
paper the will."
"There was' no letter? No message? Nothing
to say what he wished?"
"No, there was nothing at all. The Duke told
me that Mr. Lancelot did not confide in him. He
asked him to be executor, and the Duke agreed.
But his Grace never knew the terms of the will
until it was opened and read." It was not possible
for him to guess the urgency of her question, nor
its despair. If he had known the testator he might
have understood the hardness in her tone.
"I understand. It makes it very difficult. I
thought that there might have been some hint
given it's all very very difficult " Then she
broke out. "Of course Gervase my husband
will never agree to take it. I know that quite well. .
Indeed, I don't care to ask him "
"Perhaps," Heniker said, "you would prefer me
to ask him.' 7
She immediately said, "I should prefer it of all
things, because " then she broke off. "I don't
know that I need trouble you with reasons. But
- we shall have to discuss it, I suppose. Will you
TO RAPALLO 121
tell me what the Duke thought about it? Are you
free to do that?"
"Perfectly free/' Henibter replied. "His Grace's
last words to me were, 'Of course she ought to take
the money, but of course she won't.' 3 ' Smiling to
herself, though he couldn't know that, she cupped
her chin in her hand, and leaned forward, elbow*
to knee, to consider the Duke and his quiddity.
"That is exactly like him. It tells me everything
I want to know. His common sense struggling
with his chivalry. He knows we cannot take it "
There was glow in her tones, a kind of chuckle of
approval.
"He used one reason for your acceptance," Hen-
iker said then, "which I shall try to put before you,
though it is difficult. He suggested that the tes-
tator may have wished to signify a certain indebted-
ness from himself to Mr. Poore, and that he would
have been happy to be sure that it would be so ac-
cepted by him. Do I make myself understood?"
"Perfectly well," she said. "I think that very
true. I am sure that that is what he wished to
say. I am so sure of it that, personally, I should
have been glad if Gervase could have taken it.
But " then she got up. "I'm very sorry, Mr.
Heniker, that I can't talk to you more freely about
these things. If you leave the will here I'll talk to
Gervase about it. Will you tell me something of
the Duke, please? Is he well?"
Heniker was able to speak freely and enthusias-
tically about the great man; for not only did he
122 BENDISH
admire him unfeignedly himself, but he was quite
certain that the lady's sympathy was with him.
He reported his Grace as "straight as a ramrod,"
and immersed in the country's affairs. "He's very
unpopular just now, as I daresay you know; and
he is aware of it. He says that he has acquaintance
but no friends." She stirred uneasily, then said,
"He has more than he can remember."
This gave Heniker Ms cue. "Ah, but he does
remember, Mrs. Poore! He remembers perhaps
too well for his comfort." This brought her again
to her feet. She came and stood by the table, lean-
ing both hands upon it. "Please tell me everything
he said. I ought to know."
Heniker rose also and stood by her. "Our ac-
quaintance is very slight, but I venture to build
upon it. I will tell you exactly what he said. * Get
her to come back. I'm old and lonely/ If a man
of his sort talks about his age it is because he feels
it; if of his loneliness, he's very lonely."
She agreed with him, speaking very softly. "Yes,
yes, you are right. I'm sure he wants me, but "
Then she broke off. "Yes, I'll go. It is my duty
I owe it him. Yes, I'll go. I'll talk to Gervase
about it. He'll understand it."
A sudden luminous flash from her, soft yet beat-
ing fire in her eyes, shone upon him. "It is difficult,
you see, because of the children. They are so young
to travel, and do so well here but of course we
must risk that."
He had forgotten, or had never been told, that
TO RAPALLO 123
there were children, and it came very strongly into
his mind that he would like to see them, or her with
them. She would look at her best with children,
he thought.
But now she turned to him, and gave him her
hand. "I am very much obliged to you. You
have been most kind and tactful. No one could
have been kinder. You will come again, of course,
before you go back. Perhaps you will dine with
us or sup?" He professed himself at her call,
and then made his little enquiry. "The children
are abed, I suppose?" She gave him her full atten-
tion.
"Not yet; but it's bedtime." Then she flushed
and glowed. "Would you like to see them?"
"I should like it of all things." Her eyes laughed.
She beckoned him to follow her. He felt as if she
was leading him by the hand.
Two round-eyed, flaxen little creatures were being
washed by the old serva. The boy stood, stark as
he was born; the girl was on the woman's lap.
Both were rosy, sturdy, fine-fleshed, round-faced,
blue-eyed; both had their father's scowl, ridicu-
lously softened. When she stood in the door the
boy cried "Mother!" and ran to her. Then he saw
Heniker, and clutched at the gown of safety. She
picked him up and showed him with pride. "Italy
agrees with him." Her voice had cheer in it. "It
agrees with you too, I think," he said. She ignored
the obvious implication without embarrassment,
and took over her duties from the serva, covering
124 BENDISH
herself first with a goodly apron. Heniker, with her
boy on his knee, sat out the ceremonial, and saw
the pair to bed. The boy stood up to his mother's
ear while he said his prayer. Heniker watched him,
his eyes dim.
Returned to his lodging, he found Bendish and
the poet in full debate, thoroughly interested in
each other, discussing the immortality of the soul
and similar high themes. Mr. Poore insisted that
his new friend must sup with him and his wife.
"You will love her/' he said; "everybody must;
but if you do not you mustn't like me."
"Ah, my dear sir," Bendish said, "I assure you
that I am very prone to like my friends' wives.
On your head be it!"
"In my heart, I think," said Poore, and they
went off together, talking vehemently, Heniker
was asked, but declined. He knew when he was
wanted. Besides, he had had his whack.
CHAPTER XI
THE WEDDED LOVERS
MR. GERVASE POORE, thus in happy exile at
Rapallo, was a poet of originality and force force
both of conviction and of utterance. He was always
perfectly certain that he was right, and in its time,
but not in his, the world came to be much of his
opinion. For the world of his own day he was too
simple and too sincere. That world took his sim-
plicity for affectation, and his sincerity for crude
brutality. But he was neither affected nor brutal
He was as far as technic goes an idealistic realist.
He saw ideas as palpable, breathing shapes, and
he wrote them down literally as he saw them, just
as a modern novelist will describe a Jew scratching
his head, or a shopgirl in a hysterical passion. He
saw them dreadful or beautiful, for pity or terror,
and believed them worth his pains of description.
The world thought them untrue and improper,
when it thought about them at all, which was not
very often. For the most part it ignored Mr.
Poore, since he chose to express himself wholly in
verse; but there had been a time when, expressing
himself in sudden and dramatic action, it could not
ignore him. That was when, three years before
the time I am now dealing with, he had run away
125
I 2 6 BENDISH
with Mrs. Lancelot, a very fair and very gentle
lady, who talked less and was more talked of than
any woman in the great world of politics and fash-
ion. Of her, in her day, the world of great and
small alike heard gladly, not only because she was
a very pretty woman who had eloped, nor again
because she had been the wife of the Right Hon-
ourable Charles Lancelot, M.P., but rather for that
she, beautiful, fashionable, unseeking and besought,
had been the close friend, and many said the more
than friend, of the Duke of Devizes, greatest man
in England.
The world said that she made a double elope-
ment in that twilight hour when she left husband
and friend together at Fontemagra in the Apennines
and joined her poet lover on the lower road. For
since the death of the Duchess in 1825 she and her
ci-devant lord had lived in the Duke's house, and
dared Rumour's thousand tongues. Every one of
these had been bravely at work ever since, wagging,
clanging, and booming like Florentine bells at Ave
Maria, proclaiming romance on the upstroke and
shame on the down; but she had gone her beautiful,
quiet and ordered way, never far from the side of
her great ally, with never a sign of faltering from
the path of her destiny, never a hint that she had a
care of her own. It added to the choiceness of the
situation that she was one of your recluse, carven
women who have to be sought out to be discovered
lovely, who never flaunt themselves, who rarely
speak. You come to guess in time that they heed
THE WEDDED LOVERS 127
everything; that those guarded eyes can break down
every guard, that those grave lips hold back ardent
breath, and what tender offices of healing and mercy
lie waiting in those still hands. It was a shock to
her world, which had so far taken little stock of her,
when the Duke of Devizes picked her out of a thou-
sand for unique devotion deserting for her sake a
miscellaneous bevy chosen at random and held
lightly together for the whims of an appetite which,
even then, was thought to be gross; but that same
world stood astounded when Gervase Poore, un-
known and out-at-elbows, huddling (one thought)
in the nameless crowd at great doors, flashed sud-
den eyes upon her, clove his way to her in his old
coat through the press of dandies and uniforms,
and summoned her to follow him out into the foggy
dew. They said that he haunted her whereabouts;
literally that he tracked her from great house to
great house and jostled with the mob at the doors
to see her entry and exit. A story was told of a
book of hot-pressed rhymes, all about her, which
came to her notice and brought him a card for a
ball at Wake House. They said that he went, saw
and conquered; that from that hour she was his.
He made no concessions, and she asked none. The
great assumption was implied and accepted. The
lovers, in Italy with the Duke, and the husband
too, fled to Rapallo. There was a pursuit, an inter-
view between the husband and lover, the Duke
being present; then came the return to England of
the two injured men; then the Divorce Bill; then
128 BENDISH
the death of Lancelot, and this too magnanimous
will. That is, roughly speaking, the tale. Mean-
time, from Rapallo had come nothing but rhymes.
Roland: an Epic, in 1827, a strange succession of
savage battle and white love scenes; and in 1829
The Vision of Argos, which was understood to be the
fruits of a voyage in the Levant which he and his
beloved had made in 1828. The curious in such
matters took pleasure in finding his mistress under
the veils of his fierce and exalted verse. She was,
they said, Roland's Aude the Fair even her round
face was on Aude's shoulders; she walked through
The Vision, a slim, low-breasted Helen. How long
could this go on? They were married, of course, by
now! And do poets continue to sing of their wives?
They were married, and they were lovers, and
so far that exalted, so far-sought, so rarely-found
state of grace was theirs that no satisfaction appeased
desire, and no mingling of natures blended one in
the other; but each saw in each the crown of his
own. In an enchanted world, its only human ten-
ants, they walked handfasted. For ever must he
love, and she be fair. If she had been fair before
when care had drawn her cheeks, dimmed her eyes,
and wasted her form, she was radiant now, with
love to make her blood sting, to flush her cheeks,
ripen her breast, make her eyes to shine like dan-
cing water. But her beauty was rather spiritual
than bodily: it was of her soul, swift as a wind-
driven cloud, of her mind as true as a rare mirror,
of her heart as bountiful as the lap of Demeter.
THE WEDDED LOVERS 129
All this, by the grace of God, transfiguring, glorify-
ing, making sacred her sweet body, he saw still and
adored. But Love to the like of Poore was a soar-
ing, flight, which you flew carrying in your hands a
filmy wonder which it behoved you, howsoever you
towered, to keep from harm. An adverse breath
might shatter it; yet it was very strong. It looked
like a bubble of foam; yet no shock would touch
it, to hurt except it passed through yourself.
You yourself were its strength: it was just as strong
as you were. And at the topmost peak of your
rocket-flight, at your proudest moment of uplif ting >
while you were in the very act to spurn the stars
with your footsoles, a thin, cold stream of air might
thread a way through you, and puff! the treasure
was star-dust, and headlong down sped you, like
the stick of a rocket. Down, if you are lucky, you
break your neck and have done with it; but it may
be that you live, a maimed, tortured sight, and drag
out a length of days hunting the world for your
scattered star-dust. Some doomed wretches so do;
*and some of them seek it on dunghills, and some
about the altars of churches. But they never find
it again.
So Poore flew a perilous flight; but meantime
his head was among the stars, and his heart felt
the great air, and his mouth was a trumpet for
paean. As for her but what is great love to a
woman? Pride in secret, treasure to hoard, largess
to give out by the lapful at a time. Georgiana
Poore was become a well of charity since she had
130 BENDISH
filled herself with Gervase. Loved by him, she felt
that she loved all the world. She had no fragile
vase to carry on her flight; rather, it carried her,
held her like a shrine. In it she stood, her hands
stretched out, holding her cloak wide, that all the
outcasts and naked of the world might come and
find shelter and warmth. To love Gervase was no
service; she breathed Gervase. To do the service
which she owed was impossible; she could not love
enough.
Such a woman, a wellspring of love, is born to
be the mate of a man, and will bear her children,
and love them too, for love's sake. I don't think
she loved them, as your inevitable mothers do,
because they were hers, but rather because they
were his. She was always a little remote from
them, never quite in their busy, teeming world.
She came down to them, as the Angel came to
Dante, in mercy, love, and charity; but she was
denizen of a thinner air, and could not help the
labouring of her breath as she served. To Poore
this effort in her way of service made her the more
adorable, emphasized her distinction, enhanced her.
She stooped, she pitied, she served, like Demeter.
It was an exquisite domestication, the taming of a
Goddess. And, if the Duke were right and he
was a shrewd observer this Goddess would be
thoroughly domesticated before her time was up.
So much preface is due to the after-doings of
this high-flying pair, upon whose present happy
state Bendish is now looming.
CHAPTER XII
THREATENED INTERIOR
IN the twilight hour when Heniker was exhibiting
his mission to Mrs. Poore, and making friends with
her children, her husband was gathering enthusiasm
as he walked with eager steps that valley road which
ran, like a narrow ledge, between precipice and abyss.
Quite suddenly, having reached a decisive point of
desire, he turned right about, to face the sea, and,
urging down the hill into the town, swept into Ben-
dish's lodgings like a crested wave and carried the
young lord off his feet. He strode towards him
with his hand out. "My lord/ 5 he said, "let me
shake hands with you. My name is Poore. I know
a good man when I hear of him, and can't afford to
miss the sight of him. We both love England and
hate her tyrants. You can laugh at them and I
can howl. Between us we might do something. 3 '
He spoke just as he felt at the moment, without
calculation; but that was the way to catch Ben-
dish: snatch him up before he had time to remember
that he was a victim of unrequited love, or a lonely
thinker exiled for his opinions, or before he could hit
upon the proper way of imposing himself upon a
man whom he suspected of strength. To this he
131
BENDISH
would certainly have turned his effort if he had been
given time. He had been intimidated by the se-
rious way in which his friends had spoken of Poore:
there, at least, he had felt out there at Rapallo
was couched a spirit which might mate with his
own, or vie with it. He must keep an eye for any-
thing that came from Rapallo. He had done so,
and the constant outlook had fretted his nerves.
He was bad at waiting, as all imaginative men are.
When Heniker had declared his mission, then, he
decided to rush in. Like a terrier at the fox's earth,
he would grapple and have done with it. By the
time he reached Rapallo he was in such a state of
tense expectancy that Poore was become an enemy
to be stalked. Mentally, he drew towards him foot
by wary foot, throwing up earthworks as he went.
If the thing had gone its normal course, all the for-
malities of credentials observed, the odds are that
he would have been at his most inaccessible when
they finally met. He would have played the man of
fashion or the peer, and baffled the poet.
But nothing of this happened. Bendish, instead,
flushed and happy, shook hands with simple grati-
tude. "This is very kind of you, Mr. Poore. I
don't deserve it as yet; but I am grateful." Poore,
already thinking of more important things, began at
once to talk of them. No diplomat could have gone
more skilfully to work.
He was at his favourite exercise, pacing the room
with light and lunging strides. His hands were
behind his back, his head thrust forward. He
THREATENED INTERIOR 133
looked like a man breasting a gale of wind. "I
haven't heard an English voice or seen an English
face for three years and more save one, save one
the mirror of my own. You know, no doubt, so
much of my history. I did a simple thing simply,
and abide by it in the land where such things can
be done still. I found a lovely and hapless creature
enmeshed in horrible circumstance. I cut the nets
away what else could I do? Love, that power of
the wing, drew us up together out of sight and
sound of clamour and horror; but I believe I should
have done what I did out of pure pity and under-
standing. However that may be, the thing was
done, and here we have remained, shaping life to
the round, as two may do who have but one heart
between them. I think that the time is coming
when we must put ourselves to the test: we don't
want to shirk our business in the world. We fit
ourselves to do it here but it lies, we know, over
there. . . ,
" There is a sense in which I see England, the
venerable mother of us all, fettered and entangled,
as I saw my love, helpless in the snares of circum-
stance. I see, and I declare and can I do more?"
He stopped in his pacing to look at his companion.
With his march his voice ceased its rhythmic beat.
He grew younger and less inspired. "I'm not pre-
pared to say that I can. There's cut-and-thrust
work out there for somebody but the fisticuffs
of a mob! Cobbett's fists, Burdett's, do no more
than Dick's and Harry's and lead them whither?
134 BENDISH
O Heaven! To a hustings! To vote like free men?
Not so. But to cheer while shopkeepers vote!
Reckon up the worth of that in blood and tears.
It's not so much a leader that they want as a seer. . . .
"If a poet can do anything at least he can see.
He can undress notions and hold them up in their
nakedness as God made them. To some it is like
the unclouding of the sun; but some are left bleed-
ing raw those which have never had any natural
covers of their own and look like skinned rabbits.
Is not that, perhaps, our business in England?
Yes, it's our first, but not necessarily our last, be-
cause we are men as well as seers. We too are
throttled by tyrant circumstance. Somebody has
to act, some one must lead. Shall the blind lead
the blind? You see where they are tending to
the hustings, to the lobby! And there are fields
to till, and grain to sow, and women to love, and
songs to sing, and children to get and the stars
above us. God, and we die and we die, that
shopmen may vote whig and tory!" He stopped,
throwing up his hands, then said finally, "So much
for the leadership of the blind."
Lord Bendish was very astute when he met a
man of mettle, and very quick. Half an eye told
him all that he needed. Knowing his man, you
could trust him to adapt himself, to find the key
which let him in by the private door. Gravity,
simplicity, directness characterised him throughout
the order of the night. If Poore was for resolving
THREATENED INTERIOR 135
politics to the elements, lie was ready for him; He
eschewed parties, and contemplated with his new
friend The Rights of Man, and Political Justice.
Between them they undressed the creature as bare
as he was born, and barer by a good deal; for
when Heniker came in to dine he found them busy
about his soul, as has been revealed already.
Talking fiercely, they went up the hill and reached
the villa. There Georgiana stood within the door-
way, starry-eyed, and with face aflame for her lover.
And there Bendish became another person. Con-
fronted with woman, that beast of chase, he was
made man again that untirable hunter.
But there was nothing apparent. The change
was internal. Presented, he saluted her with high
courtesy, and did not lose his accessibility. There
was no flagrancy about his interest in the fashion-
able lady who had demoded herself, nothing what-
ever to show that his vanity was piqued, and that
he was immediately prepared to pit himself against
the possessor of her heart. But it was so. His
vanity was all alight; every word that he used,
every gesture, every look was a move in a game
at which already he was insatiable and a good hand.
He had a keen eye too for women. He saw this
one to be of rare quality. Her reticence, her fru-
gality both of form and colour, her masked as well
as her revealed fire, the paradox she was shy and
daring, guarded in word, yet heedless in action,
beautiful rather by implication than in fact: all this
he found infinitely provoking. He studied her parts
136 BENDISH
like an amateur of statuary. Who was the cunning
artist who moulded this woman so slight and yet
so exquisite? She had the forms of a child upon
the model of a goddess. Nothing too much! was
his maxim as he worked.
Acutely sensitive to voluptuous suggestion, he
assured himself of these things as he gazed at her,
even in the moment of making his first bow; but
the impetuosity of his host swept him into the
house and to the supper-table, claimed him for his
own and lifted him into fields of abstract specula-
tion where he was expected to take his share of
the glorious game of tossing the spheres about like
shuttlecocks. Bendish did it well did it indeed
the better for having a witness of his feats. In
spectatorship, as in all else, he found Georgiana
provocative. She said little, and betrayed rarely
what she felt as she listened and watched; but
nothing escaped Bendish, who felt himself now and
then rewarded by a gleam, by a flush of colour, by
a smile, as if she hardly cared to confess her pleas-
ure in the talk, even to herself. The meal was of
the simplest, Poore and his wife spare eaters, and
Bendish, very sensitive to suggestion, found himself
(to his amusement) as austere as they were. He
watched with all his eyes the messages which passed
between his host and hostess.
He had seen the look in Georgiana's eyes when
they came into the light; and Poore's quick move-
ment towards her. Their hands had encountered
and clasped for a moment. Her face had strained
THREATENED INTERIOR 137
towards him, but there had been no kissing. " Dear-
est/' Poore had said immediately, "I bring you
Lord Bendish," and she had immediately turned
to face her visitor. She had offered her hand so
thin a hand without a word, conventional or other-
wise. Her welcome had been in her eyes, he thought,
frank and friendly. Interested? Yes, he thought
so; and for the rest of the evening he devoted him-
self to calling up that first friendly, interested regard.
Poore was not an exorbitant speaker. When he had
delivered himself of the burden of his heart he was
apt to fall into brooding silences. During these
Bendish talked his best, addressing the pair, but
with his eye for the lady. He kept her attention,
he observed; and more than that, she necessitated
his. He had to be wary, for she was apt to flash
a sudden question upon him when something es-
caped him which she did not follow. He saw that
her mind was engaged, that she did not relish talk
for its own sake, but like a good hound kept to the
first scent and was not easily thrown out. Yet she
was very quick; few allusions escaped her.
After supper Poore came to himself and asked
her about the children. She smiled her assurance
that they were sound asleep, and when he went out
of the room, tiptoe already at the mere thought of
sleep, she did not go with him. Bendish saw his
way to establishing a relation.
" He loves them?"
Her eyes enveloped him. "He adores them."
"You have two children?"
138 BENDISH
"Yes."
"You are happy then. 3 ' He said this as com-
mentary, not without the implication upon his own
loneliness which a sigh might afford. At the mo-
ment he undoubtedly felt that he was lonely. But
she did. not take up the hint, and he found out that
her ears were set t$ck for the return of Poore.
The poet presently re-entered the room.
His face was. irradiate. "They are beautiful,"
he said to Bendish. " Come and look at them/ 3
Not even Bendish was offended by the simplicity
of this proposal. He immediately rose and stood
by the door. Georgiana slowly got up as if un-
willingly and passed between the two men. Ben-
dish saw her eyelids flicker as she went under- her
husband's eyes. He missed nothing.
She led them into a long narrow white room lit
by a floating wick, and full of shadows and glooms.
An old white-haired peasant woman rose and hid
her hands under her apron. Georgiana was stand-
ing by the bed, looking down upon the rapt pair
within it. Two flaxen heads, two glowing cheeks
Bendish from under his brows watched the mother.
He judged that she was not moved as Poore was.
He judged that she saw in them the fruit of pain
and weariness; but grudging none of it, seemed
above their needs, as if she knew their necessities
before they asked and their ignorance in asking.
It was odd to Bendish, and moved him strongly,
that she who had had all the suffering of the tillage
and the reaping should by tha,t very fact be now
THREATENED INTERIOR 139
so remote from it. They were of her very flesh and
blood, and yet she looked down upon them now
with gentle pity, with compassionate humour as
if wondering that things so small could come out
of need so vast and love and anguish so untold as
that involved. Beneath her husband's eyes she
stood and looked, and all surrender, all the splendid
humble bounty of woman was upon her musing
face. "I give, I give, and still I give! Ah, so small
a thing, which seemed so great!" Bendish, indeed,
missed nothing.
Poore was looking at the dreaming pair through
misty eyes. "They are fast fast; they are not
here. God knows where they are floating now."
Georgiana, seeing them intensely, smiled a smile
at once tender and strange. Bendish thought her
almost dreadfully remote. As if her secret mind
was aware of Ms concern, presently she stooped
and daintily kissed the cheek of each. As she
straightened from the devotion, her husband's hand
touched her waist, just lit and touched her there;
and by a pretty gesture she leaned back until she
felt the support of him. She stood into him, Ben-
dish considered, as one might stand in the angle of
a wall, touching each face, protected from the winds.
It was only a momentary shelter that she took, for
soon she moved away, with a nod to the old watcher
of the room.
Shortly afterwards Bendish took his leave, and
the poet went with him to the gate. They stood
for a moment under the stars, upon whose flower-
140 BENDISH
strewn field cypresses made lagoons of deep black.
Neither man spoke, but Bendish knew that his host
was huge with exaltation, and saw that he was
restless with it.
As he went down the hill to his lodging a mo-
ment's pang disturbed him. This pretty interior
he was then to break in upon it! He gloomed upon
his fate. The Man of Destiny! The Wrecker of
Hearths!
Within the doomed house Poore had his wife
in his arms, while she told him of her interview
with Heniker. It was the fact that Poore himself
felt the approach of something like a doom, while
giving himself assurance after assurance that noth-
ing in what she told him could be a possible threat-
ening to his present happiness. How could it be?
Love and trust were in every fold of her clear voice,
they were implied in every note of her thought.
Yet what she said had the impress of a sobbed con-
fession, and so stabbed while it touched him. "Dear-
est," she said, "I feel that we owe him so much "
She was, of course, speaking of the Duke for the
dispositions of poor Charles Lancelot's money were
waved aside at the outset! "so much that we can't
pay him enough. He gave me to you he had
claims upon me from the very beginning, and made
nothing of them. He was very generous he thought
nothing of himself and now that he's getting
old, and is lonely, I do think it may be my duty to
do what I can. I didn't understand from Mr.
THREATENED INTERIOR 141
Heniker that lie asked ine to go back, in so many
words but Mr. Heniker believed that he wanted
me and I feel certain of it myself so that, if you
could see your way "
This was a perilous moment, though it didn't last
long. Here was the wife asking leave to go back
to succour an old lover asking with a falter in her
voice, but with clear intention, with too clear desire.
And yet and yet not a doubt of her! Poore,
maybe, was still too much the lover to be enough
the mate of such a woman as this. For the mo-
ment he felt mortally stabbed. His hold upon her
relaxed, his arms fell from her. He plunged his
hands into his breeches' pockets.
"What do you want of me, my love?" he said.
"Permission to return? But you are free as air."
She looked at him with wide-open, sad eyes.
"You know that I shouldn't go back unless you
said that it was right. It couldn't be right unless
you unless we both saw it so." She strained
away her face; when she turned it to him again
there were tears in her eyes. "Oh, Gervase, we
must always see together that means everything
to me."
He was touched immediately "My love, my
love " He had her to his breast again. "You
are the lamp to my feet. I was dismayed for a mo-
ment, and lost the way. But a word from you
brings me back. I trust your view of duty abso-
lutely. Say no more we will go back you shall
do whatever you feel to be due I can't grudge
142 BENDISH
any man or woman in the world the light of your
charity but" he clasped her fiercely "love me,
for God's sake love me for ever."
"My love, my love," she said, and gave him her
lips.
CHAPTER XIII
THE INVADING SEED
HENIKER, summoned to the Villa, met the family
in conclave. The mother, in white, had the baby
on her lap; the boy, shockheaded, flaxen and flushed,
with his father's scowl and sulky blue eyes beneath
it, sat on the floor and played with increcjibly small
stones imported with grunts from the garden; the
father, hands deep in his pockets, forged about the
room while he uttered himself. He was very de-
tached his thoughts came from him in jets, like
water from an intermittent pump. He had the air
of a giant irritated by gnats, surprised at his own
annoyance, quite unable to see what it was that
annoyed him so much. Heniker's eyes found a
haven of peace from the strong waters when they
turned to Georgiana looking benevolently down at
the child swarming at her breast after her string of
beads. She added nothing to what her husband
said or refrained from saying, but Heniker knew
that she was listening.
"We have discussed it, you know, and we con-
clude that it's quite impossible. . . .* It seems un-
gracious to refuse a dead man . / . yet he has a
better chance of understanding, I believe, than a
living one. ... I see his motive ... it had been
better not thrust into one's hands. ... It is like
143
144
BENDISH
a plea 'Take it, or you blame me again/ He
need not have thought it of us. ... All that a man
could do more than most would do he did. But
to perpetuate his atonement to keep Ms body on
the cross . . . before our eyes. . . . No, no. He
sees that we are right now he knows better. . . .
It can't be. Money is an accursed thing ... it
falsifies relations, it puts you wrong with yourself,
and with your neighbours. We can have nothing
to do with it. ... But my wife's own money is
another matter. I don't see how she can avoid
having it. . . . You will no doubt do what may be
proper about that. She renounced it, of course, so
long as he lived . . . while it was, morally, subject
to settlement . . . but now ... I trust you to do
the right thing for her and her children. . . .
"Ah, and there's another thing which she wishes
me to say to you. We return to England shortly.
Pray tell that to the Duke ... she has told me
that he is anxious . . . well, she will see him soon.
. . . My feeling is that there are troubles ahead.
. . . I know very little about politics ... it hardly
seems to me a practical matter. Practical matters
life, death, air to breathe and food to eat are
going to intervene. You can't drill starving men.
This rick-burning, this machine-smashing, these
gaunt mobs about the fields this means starvation.
The whole thing's wrong not to be solved by a
trumpery Reform Bill. You might as well allay
brain-fever with a small-toothed comb! Oh, Mr.
Heniker, it's absurd. . . . But these things are not
THE INVADING SEED 145
our immediate concern ... we will go back . . .
that's settled. . . ." Then, quite suddenly, he
broke off and held his hand out. "Good-bye, Mr.
Heniker ... I must go and walk about." He
turned to his wife, picked up her hand and kissed
the tips of her fingers. She looked up, seriously
searching his face. Love and gratitude beamed
from her. He hovered, stooped suddenly and kissed
her, touched the head of the child in her arms and
went out. The room seemed strangely calm.
Heniker had a few words more with Georgiana.
She gave him a letter for the Duke. "Tell him
that I shall see him soon. We have talked it all
over. My husband agrees with me I hope you
will have a good journey. I suppose that we shall
go by sea from Genoa. It costs much less, and
is easier with children."
Heniker thought that that depended on the sea.
No, no, she said, they both loved a sea-voyage.
She glowed gravely as he asked leave to kiss the
children, watched him do it, and was very friendly
as he went, going with him to the door encumbered
with the heavy child, and standing there, a slip of
a Madonna, to see him go. The last thing he saw
of the Villa was that slim shaft of grace, leaning
back to its burden the sun upon her hair and the
blue of her eyes. He thought as he went, There is
a woman in whom is no guile.
Lord Bendish, having other things to think of,
bid him a light farewell. "I shall stay here," he
146 BENDISH
said. "I like the place I like the people. I shall
probably take a villa and get some servants. Horses
I must have too. If you could have stayed, I
should have been glad but I suppose Mackintosh
can do what's absolutely necessary. You might
see that they pack my books for me. I have writ-
ten fully to Wybrow. You have the letter with
the others? Good. Nothing else, I think. Oh,
yes, money! You must send me some immediately.
I may run short." Reminded of the Coronation,
he was scornful. He damned the Coronation. Free
men didn't walk behind kings, he said. He was in a
rising republican mood. Heniker chuckled to see
frim pound up and down the room like Poore. Then
he set out for home, and Rose Pierson.
Here begins an association with which the Poores,
at any rate, had no call to reproach themselves,
though to Poore himself, reflecting upon it later,
the conjunction of Lord Bendish and the passage
homewards had a sinister effect, one upon the other.
Poore was too much the poet not to be an exorbi-
tant lover, giving all so long as all was given, see-
ing his love so high above him that should she really
come within reach she would hardly have seemed
the same rare creature to him. It is useless to deny
that he was wounded by her desire to comfort the
Duke. Perhaps he was more bruised than wounded.
He did not bleed at the heart; there was no loss
of virtue; but there was a soreness, the place was
tender. There was a note of despair now, making
THE INVADING SEED 149
in her mind, and vowed to herself how gently she
would guide him through the thorny wastes.
Into this paradise, then, invaded by the pointed
seed, came young Lord Bendish holding out hands
of adventure, promising greatly of England and
fine fun there. He had made himself acceptable
at the first to Poore; as time went on Georgiana
was glad enough of him for Poore's sake. On her
own account she withheld her judgment, which was
cool and shrewd at once, and based upon a knowl-
edge of the waking, ostensible world far more thor-
ough than Poore's had ever been or ever could be.
Politics, which to him were a matter of high theory,
were known to her for a great game, passionately
pursued by men who took life itself and everything
in it as a game. She had been the wife of a politi-
cian since she left the schoolroom, and. the close
friend of the greatest of them all. She had met
every politician in England, and the wives of them.
Of them all she only knew one who took the business
practically, as she took it herself (in spite of high
theory), and that one was her old friend the Duke
of Devizes. He very simply said, "This country
has got to be kept going in the face of Europe and
to its own face. The job is. difficult, but it can be
done if everybody minds his own business. There's
no room for theory, which means that some people
will speculate and experiment with other people's
business. That's not practical, and it's not sense.
Let them dream in their beds, or howl to the stars,
150 BENDISH
if they must, on their roof-tops; but let me alone
and I'll keep England going." And so he had in
Ms plain unemotional way, and deep in her heart
Georgiana felt sure that he had done rightly and
well. She loved Gervase entirely, and saw him
winged and irradiate, a seraph soaring the upper
air. If he came down to earth what could happen
to him but battery and bruises?
But here was the young lord, presently flying
an avowedly lower level, and inviting Gervase to
join him there with a view to a descent upon Eng-
land, This was not obvious at first; at first poetry
and high theory seemed his only care. Great even-
ings were spent during which Gervase thundered
out his Vision of Argos, or staves of his Roland,
Bendish rapt at his feet or pacing the loggia with a
light tiptoe restlessness peculiar to him. Or Poore
expounded his theory of poetry, which insisted
rather on a rhythm of picture and image than of
music and melody, and Bendish listened attentively
and offered but few objections. He seemed con-
tent to be disciple, and did not offer to contribute
any of his own compositions to the symposium. I
think this unwonted frugality of his must be attrib-
uted rather to his waning interest in poetry, than
to acknowledgment that Gervase was his master.
He was certainly tending to something more tan-
gible than poetry, and gradually, then, during long
walks which the pair took together, the stream of
debate came to centre about politics, and Bendish's
real aims were to be discussed. Georgiana pres-
THE INVADING SEED 151
ently saw that he intended for leadership of men,
and to be a breaker rather than a maker. She
seriously doubted whether he had anything to make;
but it seemed as if Gervase were going to take that
for granted.
Both these young men were agreed that the Re-
form Bill was little to the purpose except as a handle
for revolt. It might be a useful housebreaker's
tool. Bendish said, "The Duke means to throw
it out of our House. It's a serious question whether
anybody should try to stop him."
Gervase, very calm at the moment, with the calm-
ness of despair, thought that he should be let alone.
"No friend of liberty," he said, "can wish the Re-
form Bill to pass. The tyranny of the shopkeepers
will be infinitely straiter than that of the squires.
It will be a steel mill for a millstone. It will crush
the finer. There will be a despotism of petty facts
instead of one of broad principle. As things are
now, every right of man is defied, truly; but under
the tradesmen's House of Commons every law of
God will be smothered, I had rather things re-
mained as they were."
Bendish objected "No man can look on tyranny
unmoved. If we break one, we can break aU. We
can break the very tradition of tyranny. And ac-
quiescence in tyranny itself has become a habit.
I conceive it a good thing to break that down."
Gervase gloomed -on. "How do you think to
set about it? What is your plan? "
1 52 BENDISH
"Roughly, it Is to excite public feeling to the
highest pitch of human endurance. Then, when
the Duke disregards that as he will let the Bill
be thrown out by the peers and "
Gervase was watching him out of cavernous,
smouldering eyes. "And ?" he said.
Bendish leapt to his height. " and the coun-
try is alight/' he said, "and the torch is carried from
end to end."
Gervase nodded. "Yes, I see it. All goes down
in fire and smoke but what comes out? You mean
a civil war?"
"I mean Revolt. England must be free."
"France," Gervase said, "was never free for one
moment."
"We learn from that. We will have no Buona-
parte with a Waterloo involved. Or if we have
him, he too will have learned."
There Gervase was with him.. "I think that cer-
tain," he said. "No one, fit to be a leader of men,
can have failed to see that Buonaparte was a brig-
and. If the world can't be made to feel that it's
better to make one man than to kill fifty, I shall
despair of it. But I don't despair, because I think
the thing can be made plain. The eternal verities
are here, all about us. I see them as plainly as I
see you. Can I not open the eyes of men? I be-
lieve that I can."
"There shall be an Epic of Revolt," cried Ben-
dish "and you shall sing it."
"Not so," said the other. "An epic chants a
THE INVADING SEED 153
thing done. It is the Hymn of History. We need
to see, not to remember. Good God, let us forget
all that we can! No, no. Let there be a Vision
of Revolt."
"Dream you," said Bendish, "and sing your
dream; and I will serve it." Gervase fell into a
reverie which lasted out the night. Georgiana,
busy with her needle, listened and judged. From
the heights where love and motherhood had placed
her she looked down compassionate upon the antics
of men. Bendish too sat silent, watching her, see-
ing all the beauty that rayed from her bent-down
head and quiet breast, or flashed in the passes of
her hand. Presently, however, with a sigh he rose
and went away without formalities observed, leav-
ing Poore engrossed in his dream. Georgiana had
to sleep alone for Poore carried his dreams out with
him, and walked with them under the stars.
CHAPTER XIV
"THE VISION or REVOLT "
I DON'T consider The Vision of Revolt which
scornful critic nicknamed "The Hodgiad" one of
Poore's great poems, though it is now the fashion
to praise it It has many of his sledge-hammer
descriptions; scenes occur one lights upon them
which seem to have been hacked out of granite,
and terrifically undercut. These things are usual
in his poetry, and were plainly such a joy to him
in the doing that he could never resist them, how-
ever much he would have gained by so doing. It
is impassioned, it is sincere, and it has a cumulative
power in it which certainly carries one on beyond
the point where the wave itself spends. But, per-
sonally, I much prefer his Vision of an Argos, which
may or may not have been, to that of an England
which will never, surely, be while Englishmen pay
taxes and drink beer. Poore was essentially an
erotic poet, not in any weak or unworthy sense
for his Eros was Plato's great god, or Dante's,
rather than the lascivious boy of the Romans or
the Elizabethan young rascal. Love to him was
a divine madness, sex an accident and not a cause.
But there is no love-theme in The Vision of Revolt,
"THE VISION OF REVOLT" 155
and very little love-imagery except the scene in
the garret:
Where two pale lovers breast to breast,
Cling to each other beneath the moon;
And of the garret make a nest
Wherein to take their still delight,
And in their rags spell out their rune
and a few more of the kind where the love-imagery
is used for a definite purpose of showing that love,
like death, makes all men equal except, I say, for
detached passages of that sort love is not the theme
of the poem.
His hero is Hodge, the Englishman, and he tracks
him from the Conquest up the ages, past the pres-
ent and into the future. History sweeps by like a
series of crimson dreams; Hodge is always in the
foreground, bending to Ms field-work, on the down
with his sheep, munching his bacon under the hedge
while the withering northeaster screams through
the thorns, and earth and air are a parched drab
all this while Norman squadrons and Plantagenet
bowmen, Tudor and Stuart Cavaliers, Roundheads,
Hanoverian levies, conscripts from Ms own stock
march and countermarch across the scene. It is
so far an Epic of Endurance, a dumb agony. Lurid
lights play about tMs earth-born Prometheus
Black Death, Civil War, Lollardry, witch-burning;
Chaucer sings and passes; Spenser, Marlowe, Shake-
speare strut their hours. One Cromwell kills a God,
another kills a king; Hodge remains bound to his
156 BENDISH
glebe, eating bacon, working all day, sleeping like
a log, loving his wife on Sunday afternoons, be-
getting and burying children. Masters drive Mm
to the furrows, kings drive him into battle, priests
bicker over his soul, the parish deals with his body.
But he remains doggedly in touch with the eternal
things in a way not possible to any more glit-
tering co-tenant of his Love, Work, and God
and because of his foothold there he is immovable
by those other transient phantoms, and remains
the same while they change and pass. Even so he
bends stolidly to his tasks and holds grimly to his
instincts, while " thunder from France" passes over
him, and while Buonaparte, the arch-thief and king,
picks Europe's pocket. Triumphs and Dooms of
Kings touch him not. With Waterloo the first part
ends the first twelve books of the poem.
The rest is prophecy: Hodge is to be seen King
of England, if you can talk of kingship where every
man is a king. Here the poet is vehement, but
shadowy. The sharper his words bite, the less, it
seems to me, have they to bite upon. It is a dream
of pure Anarchy; of a Golden Age, if you will
where the whole world is Eden, and God once more
walks in His garden in the cool of the day. The
great Reform Bill naturaEy plays a very small part
in bringing all this about, as you may imagine. He
keeps that well in focus. That is a remarkable
fact; for writing when he did, it was almost impos-
sible not to see the Reform agitation distorted out
of all proportion. But several steps are omitted;
"THE VISION OF REVOLT" 157
the poem gathers in swing as it goes on, and rather
carries you with it on a flood of rhetoric than guides
you over the mountain pass. Once surrender your-
self to it and you may reach the poet's goal, some-
what out of breath and with a bruise here and there
where you have been bumped against a jutting rock.
If you try, however, any of your school-strokes of
swimming, you will find yourself swept into an eddy
before you are aware, and then in shoal water with
your knees scraping the sand. I regret that I can't
give a better analysis of Poore's apocalypse, but
I confess that I don't follow it all. His Epic of
English History I admire his "Hodgiad" in fact.
Hodge is a fine giant, worthy to be King but I
should like to know how he reached'his throne.
The composition of this strange and vehement^
of this savage and ruthless poefn, as swift as he
himself was when once at work, occupied Poore the
better part of six months. During a great part of
that time he was very invisible to his wife and chil-
dren and to his new friend Lord Bendish. He dis-
appeared directly he was out of his bed and, it was
believed, betook himself to the hills where occa-
sionally he was seen ranging level places, his hands
behind his back, his shoulders thrust forward, his
eyes wild, his head bare to the sun. Strange boom-
ings came from him, torrential hummings, occa-
sionally savage cries. The native goatherds crossed
themselves and watched him in apprehension from
behind rocks. He took no food with him but was
158 BENDISH
sometimes seen to drink of mountain pools, or tarns,
and returned late in the evening, exhausted but
in good spirits, still absorbed in his thoughts, to
write down, with a red-hot pen, what he had com-
posed during his solitary tramplings of the wilds.
He ate a meal of minestra and vegetables, drank
two glasses of wine and was ready for work. He
wrote furiously, far into the night, then tumbled on
to his bed and slept like a log. He seemed not to
be aware of his surroundings, knew not his lovers
and friends. Georgiana waited on him closely, dis-
cerned every need, said nothing, watched every-
thing and hoped all things. She was anxious to go
to England; she had the Duke on her conscience
but nothing could be done while the fit was on
her husband. And this was a fit of unusual se-
verity, and had one unique symptom, which was
that when he began to write, he went to work with
a secrecy quite strange to him, which could not
suffer that a soul should see one word until he had
emptied himself of all. She knew by that sign that
he was less than usually absorbed in his task al-
though knit to it, by force of will, in every fibre of
his body for by ordinary he had read his poems
to her as they progressed, and had asked, and some-
times taken, her advice. But with this one he was
strict to keep Ms own counsel, and Georgiana, whom
love had made divinely intelligent, suspected the
truth which was that he doubted of her agree-
ment and dared not prove how rightly he doubted.
He hoped, certainly, to overwhelm her judgment
"THE VISION OF REVOLT" 159
by the momentum of the whole rashing thing, but
would not risk the failure of a part of it. She did
not resent that, but she had a sinking of the heart
whenever she remembered it; for it was a true in-
stinct in him. The fact was that, so far as she could
guess what he was at, she did not approve of the
project. She was afraid of what would follow it.
Bendish, she had seen, was for practice more than
theory. She disliked Bendish and distrusted him.
She knew that Gervase was not fitted for politics,
and didn't want him to be. The Blessed Isles
towards which he steered every barque of his were
never to be compassed by politicians. She found
herself watching the lover whom she admired as
much as adored with a sickening certainty of fail-
ure and loss ahead of him.
The effect of Poore's sudden frenzy of compo-
sition upon his vivacious and suggestive friend was
rather comic. It left him with nothing whatever
to do in the matter. He was rather in the position
of a hardy rider who puts his blood-horse at a stiff
line of country say, stone walls and water, or bare
rolling hills with deepish bottoms of plough-land
in between them. The noble beast sniffs the dan-
ger through his red nostrils, pricks his thin ears and
shakes his fine small head; and then, as a prelim-
inary to action, unseats his rider, deposits him on
the turf, and leaps forward to the adventure. So
sat Lord Bendish now while Gervase careered at
large.
l6o BENDISH
Another thing which made him ill at ease was
that Georgiana took no particular interest in him.
There was a polite affectation of interest; she talked
with him, walked with him occasionally, listened
to what he had to say and occasionally laughed at
him. In fact, she was not at all uneasy in his
company, rather, she was too easy by half. This
was new to his experience. He began to desire her
extremely. He had found her situation as the
heroine of a recent scandal and her person alike
provocative of most romantic inclinations. He was
poet enough himself to see that she was rarely beau-
tiful, but not to understand that it was really her
mind which transfigured her body. He had not
been apt to suppose that women had minds at all;
his approaches to the attack had been of the usual
kind, therefore, and had failed. Not only had he
failed but the lady had not even known that she
was beleaguered. Assuredly this state of things
must be altered or Bendish would have to admit
his own failure.
Georgiana was essentially simple; Bendish was
not at all simple. When he talked to her about
common acquaintance in the great world where she
had once played a conspicuous part he had credited
her with all sorts of complicated feelings, none of
which she had. He thought that she would hail
him thankfully as a brilliant reminder of what she
had lost: she was not at all conscious of loss, and
did not observe his brilliancy. He had built much
upon that, seeing her in his mind's eye cling to him
"THE VISION OF REVOLT" 161
that she might get back something of the grace
which had been hers. Nothing of the kind oc-
curred. She talked of the K s and the s
as she might have talked of the Browns and the
Robinsons; she seemed to have no historic imagi-
nation. She declined to be treated as a woman of
fashion, she did not swim in Bendish as in her
element.
He shoved off on another tack, and circled about
her. He told himself that he was very much in
love, and vowed that he didn't care to conceal it.
He saw her every day and thought of her most of
the night. Verses came easily to him. He wrote
of her, guardedly, obliquely at first, and read her
what he had done. At first she was taken in. She
thought that he had left his heart in England, and
wondered what kind of lady had attracted this but-
terfly lord. Presently, however, she saw that he was
adoring herself, very respectfully, and snug in her
tower of strength she was amused, and allowed her-
self to be interested. It's extraordinary how far a
woman, deeply and safely in love, deeply and abid-
ingly beloved, can afford to let another man go.
Georgiana in this may be blamed by some, but
never by me. Love with women is a permanent
possession and defence it is at once treasure and
treasure-house. Nothing can touch it, nothing de-
preciate it Indeed, tribute from another height-
ens its value. So this beautiful, watchful, critical
woman went about her ordinary business, and left
her heart with her Gervase in his mountains or at
162 BENDISH
Ms desk, while with a wary and amused eye she
watched Lord fiendish at his antics.
Words, words, words! And very pretty words
they were tender, glowing with sentiment, slightly
rococo, very insincere, but as complimentary as you
please. This went on for a couple of weeks, and
then there came a day when he was at her feet,
with her hand at Ms lips. "0 you are beautiful!
Pity me, I die!" That kind of thing by a seat
in a myrtle tMcket.
That was a panting moment. She was pale and
very quiet, having quickly regained her hand.
"I think you are forgetting, Lord Bendish."
"I forget God when I see you." He was still
on Ms knees.
But she was dry. "You forget me too, I think.
Please to get up."
"What," he cried, "may I not hope?" He
could not take defeat.
She sickened of Mm in a moment. "Ah, you
may hope for honesty," she said, and left Mm.
He was deeply mortified, and never forgave her.
Had she been honest with Mm? He felt that she
had led him on, wMch was not true. She had let
him go on, wMch is a different tMng but he couldn't,
or wouldn't, see that, and came in time to hate her.
Meantime he withdrew to Ms house for he had
taken a great house at Porto Fino and kept state
there and was no more seen at the villa. But
this was for a very short time, Presently seeing
that Poore was invisible, and Poore's wife only too
"THE VISION OF REVOLT" 163
visible, going about the business of the house as if
nothing had happened he took to the road, leav-
ing word that he should return, and lumbered into
Italy, where I propose to leave him! Genoa, Milan,
Florence, Rome, Venice, heard of Mm. Many dis-
tractions assailed him; but it is to be said that he
remained clear in his impressions of Gervase Poore
and a common enthusiasm. He could not think
of Georgiana without disgust, but he was honestly
an admirer of her husband's genius and as such he
saw Italy through Poore's eyes, put like glasses upon
his own. He saw it too, I must go on to say, "in
character." Italy posed for him,_but not before he
had ardently posed for Italy.
Italy moved him very much. He became a
tourist, firstly to distract himself, but soon because
he was genuinely interested. He saw everything,
read, thought, grew excited. Has thoughts became
winged words. He returned to his design of a
Poem, rehandled his notes, reshaped them, got bit-
ten and began. He wrote fluently, and was elated
by what he wrote. The thing grew under him.
It was The Wanderer. Now it is hardly necessary
at this stage to say of The Wanderer that it is con-
cerned much more with the writer than with the
places in which he wandered. Let that be so, if
he had left it at that his fame would have suffered,
perhaps and perhaps that is all we need be con-
cerned about now. But he did not. He was, of
course, inherently a rhetorician. He did not feel
so much as know what others might be made to
164 BENDISH
feel But any stick will do to beat a dog with, and
any art even cookery may be a vent for the va-
pours. Here, then, his sense of rhetoric told him
that there must be a motive a causa causans, and
being the young man he was, the only possible mo-
tive for so much passionate discomfort in the pres-
ence of nature must be a woman. Therefore a
woman looms malefic in the Wanderer's page; and
I will do The Wanderer this much credit, as to say
that he had not the slightest notion how bitten-in
as with vitriol her portrait is. He was smarting,
of course, from a recent encounter; she was fresh
upon his mind; his wounds were raw, gaping at
the edges. She might have been Lady Ann, she
might have been poor Rose; but she happened to
be Mrs. Poore. Therefore Mrs. Poore is the " care-
worn Circe" of The Wanderer, whose malignant
wiles gave so much satisfaction to the noble victim
of them that he really might have come to be grate-
ful to her for inflicting upon him woes which could
be so luxuriously healed. I doubt if Bendish ever
enjoyed himself so much as when in Rome, Flor-
ence, Naples, and Venice, he was seeing himself a
victim to a false, beautiful, and ruthless woman.
Rhetorical fiction! That may be but The Wan-
derer remains to testify to a bleeding heart. And
next to having a bleeding heart in being, to have
had one is still food for your rhetorician; and next
to that again, no doubt, is to think that you have
had one. Be all this as it may for the moment.
The Wanderer pleased its noble author at the time,
"THE VISION OF REVOLT" 165
and fully occupied his time, without removing at
all from his mind Ms dream that he might become
a leader of men. It served his purpose, which was
to rid him, as by phlebotomy, of a fever; and when
he had written himself out he felt better, and re-
turned with zest to his ambitious reveries. Re-
turned to Rapallo in the late autumn, he had for-
gotten all about his verses. Georgiana little knew
how near she had gone to accomplishing the de-
sire of her heart. If Gervase had not finished his
"Hodgiad" when he did, and had not rekindled in
Bendish the fire he had got from him, the young
lord had gone home to England and these pages
never been devoted to him. But she neither knew
nor cared. Bendish, once out of her house, did not
exist so far as she was concerned. He had made
love to her, it is true; but wantonly, she judged,
for the simple reason that the field had been open
to him. There had been no hedges to break; the
field lay wide to the road. He had looked at it in
passing. It was full of flowers, smelt of honey;
but they were wild flowers, not worth plucking.
She thought him a fopling and forgot him. She
was bored, but not at all disturbed by his reap-
pearance.
Just as easily as she had forgotten him, so did
he forget his poem, and that she had been the rea-
son of it; but he had not at all renounced his ambi-
tions. He still saw his way to political adventure,
and indeed had maintained throughout his travel
an extensive correspondence with England, which
1 66 BENDISH
assured him of it. The country was full of unease;
the excitement of the centre was fervent, but at the
circumference explosive. England was like a boil-
ing pot which seethes and heaves in the midst, and
at the edges breaks into bubbles. Bendish had let-
ters from all parts of the country, and invited more
by the answers he wrote. So far as he could judge,
the times were ripe for revolution, and nothing now
was wanting but a born leader of men to set a host
flooding the country like a tidal wave that had
been his own figure when he was setting Poore afire,
and as he spoke it he had seen himself on its crest.
He had his manifesto at the tip of his tongue.
If Georgiana had encouraged him ever so little it
would have been in England by this time; for Ben-
dish was that kind of man who responds imme-
diately to opinion, and is a good poet if you believe
him to be one or a good anything else. As it was,
however, she had chilled him, and he had to wait
for Gervase Poore, who didn't fail Mm, though he
very nearly did.
Just in time, as it happened, Poore appeared be-
fore him, some weeks after his return to Porto Fino
haggard but illuminated by inner fire. The two
poets sprang together.
Poore said, "My poem is done. You shall come
and hear me "
"Let us have it now," said Bendish, "and then
well dine and discuss our plans."
Poore looked troubled and was troubled. "I
think I will ask you to come to us. I wish Gina
"THE VISION OF REVOLT" 167
to hear me too I trust to her judgment. We
ought to have that "
Bendish, having no further use for Mrs. Poore,
said plainly, "A man writes for men, unless he is
writing about love and then he writes for women.
But as you will. Women don't like politics. They
distrust its power over men."
Gervase was not in arms for Ms wife. He was
too much absorbed for that. But he considered
the proposition, dreaming over it, searching the blue
spaces of the sea.
"My wife is not a woman, I think," was his
conclusion; "she's a spirit in person. She reminds
me of a flame in a lantern. Let us go to her."
Bendish shrugged, "By all means. Let us go
to your lantern and tend the flame. But she won't
like this kind of oil, you'll find."
"She will like what is true in it," said Gervase,
still in his dream. So then they set out*
She saw them coming up the road from the sea
with the level rays of the declining sun upon them.
Her poet, taller than his companion, was bareheaded;
even at that distance, so well she knew him, she
could guess at his mood of intense, silent exaltation.
Lord Bendish walked beside him, very upright, very
stiff in the head, very much the little great man,
as she judged him in her strong distrust. She bore
him no grudge for his behaviour to herself, naturally
for no woman ever does. But she feared his
friendship with Gervase, and wished him miles away.
168 BENDISH
The day, which had been one of scirocco, hot and
still, was making a thundery close. Copper-edged
masses of cloud hung upon the sea; distant build-
ings a church-tower, a lighthouse, the Castle on
its rocks stared paper-white. She herself was in
a nervous mood, and wide-eyed for supernatural
warnings. Even as she stood fixedly watching, with
eyelids smarting at the strain she put upon them,
an omen flashed across the scene: two long-winged
hawks swept before her in flight, dipping, turning,
rocking as they flew, fighting and wrangling together.
They closed with shrill chattering, their wings beat
each other; then they parted, and one wheeled
upwards, towered and sped to the sea the other
dipped to the earth and flew limpingly into the hills.
While she was trembling under the excitement
of this, the two men were at the gate.
Lord Bendish saluted her with a flourish. "Fair
lady, I bring you your poet to be crowned."
She gave Mm her hand, which he kissed in courtly
fashion. He was in high spirits, not at all traitor
to his secret resentment. For if she bore no grudge,
he did. He both hated and despised and feared
her. His whole personal force was in the scale to
sky her up to the beam.
CHAPTER XV
THE BLOOD-PACT
THEY supped, the three of them, almost in si-
lence. There was a tension upon each. Bendish
was involved heart and soul in political dreamings.
His travels, his poem, his discomfiture were all for-
got. For some reason or another he counted greatly
upon the support or opportunity which Poore was
about to afford him. Nothing else, at the moment,
seemed to matter. Poore himself hardly ate any-
thing, and nearly all the time had his wife's hand
in his beneath the table-cloth. He had the sense
of returning, his sheaves with him. He was free,
deep-breathing from his labour of six months. If
his head was not upon her bosom, his mind was.
As for her, she made much of his hand, for she knew
what such testimonies meant in his case who was
prodigal of them, and entirely careless of outside
judgments when his mind was free. He had indeed
freed it of its burden now, and was all for returning
to her heart and side. So she saw, and knew that
the night would bring the renewing of their loves.
But she dreaded the ordeal that was first to come,
feeling it a bad sign that he had been so secret over
his work, knowing almost certainly that he mis-
doubted of her judgment. But ah, she told herself,
169
170 BENDISH
he need not! Did lie not know how utterly she
loved, how utterly she had merged and drowned
herself in him? Her hand nestled in Ms palm, she
laughed softly to herself as she thought, foolish,
noble, godlike Gervase who could suspect her of
disloyalty! But all that was over now, for he had
come back, and had her hand.
After supper he asked to see the children abed,
and she took him to them. Bendish sat on alone
over his wine, malignly smiling. Children! They
remained away nearly half an hour. Bendish timed
them.
Then tinder the lamp the reading began, went
through and was not done till past midnight. Geor-
giana, in white, in a shadowed corner, motionless,
her chin in her thin hand; Bendish at the table,
his elbows upon it, his eyes astare, darkly revolv-
ing fate and doom; Poore standing to the light, a
savage reader, gnashing consonants as if he hated
them.
I find it impossible to give an idea of this ex-
traordinary historical poem which so reverses the
adjustments of History that Magna Carta drops
clean out, and the coming of the Friars Minor is
made more of than the exploits of the Black Prince.
It is perhaps too much to say that the weather and
the revolving of the seasons count for more in it
than the Armada or Marlborough's campaigns, or
Waterloo; but it is certain that these and the like
great events are sometimes lost sight of, while the
motions of the sun and moon never are. From his
THE BLOOD-PACT 171
point of view these things are as they should be*
Given Ms point of view, Poore has got his values
exactly right; and that is his crowning achievement
in the first part of his book. The shocks and pound-
ings of history have just such a dim and distant sound
upon the ear as the rumour of the events themselves
may have had upon the pastoral folk who lived
through them. There is a harsher, more sinister,
more insistent rumour, the burden of Hodge at his
servitude:
The under-current to the drums,
The burden which the trampling men
And shrilling trumpets drown in vain
For still from loom and yard it hums,
And still you hear it far afield,
And down the hillside still it comes. . . .
Hodge afield, abed and at board is his hero. You
see the fellow grow as you listen. He gets your
conviction. For good or ill, at the end you have
a man before you a man with whom, as you have
made him, you will soon have to reckon. You have
him whole: such as he is you have seen him grow;
such as you know him now, you can guess what
work he is likely to make.
Your first impression is one of strangeness. Yet
there are great beauties in the poem homely pic-
tures, pastoral scenes, landscape pieces inset, gleams
of blue sky and sunlit hillsides seen through rents
in the murk or rolling cloud. And hope is never
quite absent, nor pride, nor the triumph of pride:
172
BENDISH
They shall perish, but thou endure;
Yea, like a garment they wax old;
Thou shalt change them like a vesture,
But thou art the same, thy years untold;
And thy children's children shall hold
The land whereon thou wast bought and sold. . . .
So far lie carried Georgiana with him. She was
thrilled, she was proud, she was happy. He read
these messages in her eyes, but was too much moved
himself to need them then. Of the three people
concerned he carried conviction most deeply into
himself. He became his hero incarnate, but magni-
fied by the height and depth of his own inspiration.
He felt in his own person the huge blundering pro-
tagonist of his drama. And as such he began im-
mediately upon the Second Part.
Here he becomes prophetic and foretells the revo-
lution which will throne Hodge upon the seat of
our foreign kings. No time is specified for this
event, and none of the exact means by which it is
to be done. There is nothing of Mother Shipton
about his Vision of Revolt. He does not anticipate
steam traction or electric telegraph. He seems to
foresee a gradual rage rising very far off against
parliamentary government, rolling like a wave to-
wards Westminster and finally crashing upon it and
swallowing it up. He writes of "waves of men,
league upon league. " There is no bloodshed; ap-
parently the tyrants and their symbols, kings and
their sceptres, bishops and their crosiers, parlia-
ments and armies all simulacra of authority go
THE BLOOD-PACT 173
down without a struggle. Parliamentary govern-
ment is swept away; folk-moots are restored; there
is a Committee of Public Weal; the land is resumed
and parcelled out among the people; local govern-
ment is strengthened he sees beyond the county
into the parish; the parish is autonomous in local
affairs. Taxation is voluntary, a matter of personal
and local honour. He expects, in fact, a general
enlightenment and then a sudden illumination which
is irresistible. It is easy to travel when you see
the way. I am inclined to see an anticipation of
the power of the Strike in one passage:
And the War of Waiting and standing still,
Fighting famine without a cry,
Broad-spread battle from hill to hill
As if a man in his own blood
Should crown his foe, and hold on high
His own heart for an oriflamme,
And see the rally before he die. . . .
What else can that mean? He has a great passage
upon the Rights of Man which I should like to
quote, but do not. He ends with a vision of Eng-
land held by Englishmen. Hodge stands upon a
hill, where in the beginning we saw him crouching
from the wind, and gazes over England fold upon
fold of it, softly gray and green,
Tilth and pasture and farm-steading,
White villages, red-roofed towns,
Grey manors in folds of the downs. . . .
174 BENDISH
The land is bis to possess it, enriched by his
bones for two thousand years, and bought with his
blood. Here, as on his throne, we leave King Hodge,
and the old song with whose first stave The Vision
began, closes it with its last:
The shepherd upon the hill was laid,
The dog to his girdle was taid;
He had not slept but a little braid
But Gloria in Excelsis was to him said.
Ut hoy!
For in his pipe he made so much joy!
When he had done, he sat trembling, while Ben-
dish sprang to his feet.
"By God, Poore, we ought to sweep the country
with it If we fail we fail. But I can't think it."
Poore said, "It's a cause to die for. Many a
man will die before these things come about."
"Well," Bendish said, "I am ready. Let us be-
gin when you please. I am for England to-morrow.
Entrust me that and it shall be printed by the time
you arrive."
Poore, without another word, gave it into his
hands. Bendish lifted it to his forehead.
" The new Gospel/' he said. " In hoc signo vinces ! ' '
Georgiana sat on white and motionless. She felt
as if life was behind her. But Bendish went on,
gathering rhetoric as he went.
"Brother," he said, "I shall serve under you, and
devote myself and my fortunes to your work. I
am entirely of your mind, and have no will but
THE BLOOD-PACT 175
yours. Let us make no plans yet it is too soon.
Ways will come, and chances; and the men to take
them. Meantime let you and me swear brotherhood.
If you will take me under you I shall be proud to
serve."
"I'll take any true man," Poore said, "and you
first of all." He was entirely serious, and did not
take his eyes off Bendish. He had not looked at
Georgiana once since he ended the Second Part of
the poem.
Bendish had gone to the sideboard and picked up
a wine-glass. In it he poured wine till it was half
full. He brought that forward now and put it be-
side them on the table. Then he pulled a short
dagger from the sheath at his belt, and showed it to
the light. His eyes glittered as he concentrated Ms
gaze upon it.
"A sacrament of fellowship," he said, with a half
laugh; but he was very pale. Gervase watched
him, frowning. Bendish pulled up the sleeve of his
right arm, and held it over the glass. He stuck the
point of the dagger suddenly into his flesh, then
dropped it and squeezed his arm. Two or three
drops of blood fell into the wine. He looked brightly
at Gervase, who suddenly rose, pulled back his
sleeve and held his arm over the glass. Bendish
drew near, held his arm and looked at it. Gervase
watched him, still frowning, and did not flinch when
he drove in the point. His blood flowed into the
glass. Georgiana sat as one turned to stone. Ben-
dish raised the glass.
r 7 6 BENDISH
"To the Rights of Man," he said, and drank, and
handed on the glass.
Poore held it, but said nothing audible; he looked
at Ms wife, hesitation in his looks. Bendish was
watching with glittering eyes. Georgiana had turned
wry white. She saw the glass, she saw her husband's
intention, she knew that he called her she could
not do it. She was at the moment the slave of her
judgment. Her love called upon her her judgment
did not approve. She turned away her head, as it
seemed to her by superhuman effort. Then Poore
without another effort upon her drained the glass.
The deed some deed was done. Things between
her and her lover could never again be as they had
been before. Bendish had intervened.
To her the act was symbolical; there was nothing
left for her to do, but as she did. Her head ached,
and her heart was sick unto death. She got up,
saying that she would go to bed. Gervase, suddenly
aware of her, said, "Yes, yes, go, my love. It's
very late and we have much still to talk of." He
was very kind, with his hand on her shoulder; but
she felt an alien. She lifted Mm her face he kissed
her cold lips. Then without a word she left the
room. Bendish held the door open for her and
bowed her out. Then he shut it again upon him-
self and her husband.
The one thought she had as she undressed herself
was, "This evening before all this began he was
mine. He took me he was all mine. When he
THE BLOOD-PACT 177
came home I saw It in Ms eyes, that he was mine
and wanted me. I gave him iny hand he knew,
he knew. Then he brought me here, and took me.
Never, never again, my heart! But then you were
mine!" What had happened since, exactly what
had happened she could not now examine. She had
neither the heart nor the head; but it was most cer-
tain that the ceremony decreed by Bendish had cut
a definite trench between Gervase and her. She
didn't realise that Bendish had intended that it
should, had been inspired to it by his instinct to
work against her; she thought that, in fact, Ger-
vase had cut it himself, that he had been digging as
he read. As for the poem, she admired it. It was
Gervase's heart's blood: of course she admired it
It was not that she couldn't follow his thought, or
not see the fineness of it; not that she hadn't been
moved by it, or cried to herself, Ah, if these things
could be! Not at all. As a song it made her blood
sting her. But she knew Gervase; she knew his fac-
ulty for identifying himself with what he imagined.
He would go leaping out, after his poem, into the
world. And of course it was all hopeless, all utterly
absurd. If he took his poetry into the world, to
live and get it lived she couldn't follow him. A
sense of futility would clog her feet. And he would
do it, she knew; and she must watch and agonise.
Standing by her open window, peering wide-eyed
into the night, she prayed for him, but without con-
viction. She was fearful of letting herself go even
under the starry brows of her God. Then she laid
178 BENDISH
herself beside her sleeping boy, not daring to enter
again that bed where so lately she had been as a
bride. She fell into a troubled doze, tossing herself
about, throwing out her arms; but she was deep
when he came to her in the gray of the morning
hours.
She was right in her certainty that Poore was tjiat
dangerous kind of poet to whom the fictions of his
heart and brain are facts. He was an idealist of the
most naked kind, an enthusiast, of the stuff of
martyrs, a dangerous man. What to Bendish was
a safety-valve for his vitality, to him was mere light
and air. Having once stated Revolution, it became
a life-and-death matter to him. He saw nothing
else solid in a world of dreams. But, that assump-
tion once granted him, he was very practical.
He said to Bendish, "This poem will never reach
the people whom you and I have to work with, but
there's a chance that it will reach those who can
best reach them. Let schoolmasters have it, and
ministers of religion; get it into debating-clubs;
let any workman who can read have a chance of
seeing it. It is not a thing for the reviews: those
who read reviews are convinced already that I am
a proper object for the gallows. We gain nothing
by having it burnt by the common hangman. Re-
member that our revolution must come through men
who do not vote, and can't hope to vote for another
hundred years. The Reform Bill will pass, no doubt,
within a little time. If it does, our work will be the
THE BLOOD-PACT 179
harder. If it does not, which is what I pray for,
we shall gain by the discontent its rejection pro-
duces. We shall have to speak at election meet-
ings but we must always speak beyond the elector-
ate. We have to convince the serfs, not the free
men. It's the rick-burners to whom we must go,
not the town-burners. It's not going to be done
within our lifetime. These people have been cowed
for a thousand years. They have the suspicion of
hunted beasts: they will suspect you and me. I
see clearly that you are sanguine of something sud-
den. My friend, if you can't be patient and work
for your grandchildren you had better not work at
all. Don't you realise where we stand? We are
still ruled by your Norman robbers; but between
them and the English there's another great class,
more timid, more selfish, more obstinate than
themselves. A revolution the first revolution will
bring them to the top inevitably. The Reform
Bill will perhaps do that. Then our work will
begin. We must have manhood suffrage, annual
parliaments, the ballot before we can hope for an-
other parliamentary revolution. But I still hope
we can avoid that. If the Duke rejects Reform, I
still hope we can make that sort of reform out of
the question."
Bendish listened and said little, but his brain was
on fire. He was at his favourite trick of imagining
ovations. He saw the breakfast table of Holland
House husht while he thundered out Epics; he saw
old Rogers working his sour gums together, grudging
i8o BENDISH
the admiration which was forced out of him. He
heard Tom Moore's shouts of rapture. He saw the
House of Lords rows of pale faces waiting on his
words. ... "I shall start to-morrow/ 3 he told Ger-
vase, then added, "It will make people stare, to
have me at this work."
"That can't be helped/' Gervase said.
"It may do good." He invited an opinion which
he held very strongly himself, but Gervase was too
simple to be caught.
"It will seem to do good at first, but in the long
run character tells, and not accident. When life
and death come into play it won't be your lordship
which means nothing but your lordliness which
will determine the issue."
Bertdish moved about. "I suppose that blood
counts for something." His heart jumped respon-
sive: of course it did!
"It counts for as much as you have of it," Ger-
vase said. "You will want it every drop." He
was too grim for compliments, too fresh with his
own convictions.
Put upon his mettle, Bendish took the wisest
course. He held out his hand.
"Good-bye, my friend. I shan't see you again.
But you will hear of me in England."
Gervase took his hand. "I shall follow you soon,"
he said. He was dog-tired.
The dawn was gray over the room where Georgi-
ana and the children lay asleep. Poore stood some
minutes watching them. He saw that she lay with
THE BLOOD-PACT 181
the child, and approved it. It was true that some-
thing had happened. Bendish, in fact, had hap-
pened. He did not even feel the impulse to waken
her, to clasp her and learn from her clinging arms
whether he had approved himself. He was too sure
from Bendish that he had, and for this moment
of triumph too satisfied with that. He had no no-
tion that anything severed him from her, no sus-
picion of the tragic significance of her act. All Ms
thoughts of her were tender. So deeply asleep a
child with her child! A pure refuge for him, when
need was, from the turmoil, blood, passion, dust and
heat to come! He breathed thanksgiving upon her,
and stole out of the room, and out of the house into
the air. The goatherds climbing up the mountain
paths saw him above them, tall and cloaked, erect
against the sky.
CHAPTER XVI
THE LORD AS DEMAGOGUE
BENDISH was true to Ms word. He left Rapallo
on the morrow of the pact, but chose for the sea,
taking only Mackintosh with him. The rest of his
household might travel as it would, or could. A
local bark took him to Genoa, where he shipped
himself aboard a merchantman. Here, provided
with a stateroom and private dining quarters, he
played the Exiled-f or-opinions to a great tune, keep-
ing himself rigidly apart from those he was coming
to redeem. Folded in an ample cloak of black,
marble-faced and inscrutable, he sat upon the taff-
rail and brooded upon the ocean. Mackintosh, pre-
pared for most vagaries, was puzzled by his lord-
ship's present manner. "There's three handsome
women on board, and his lordship's not so much as
known it not so much as called their attention. . . ."
It was Mackintosh's private opinion that his lord-
ship, at the moment, was "in the skin" of Mr.
Poore, of whom he had seen so much at Rapallo;
and Mackintosh was right. Bendish, never really
happy unless he was trying to be something which
he was not, or to get something which somebody
else had, was a very chameleon for lapping up atmos-
182
THE LORD AS DEMAGOGUE 183
phere. Just now lie was filled with a sense of
Poore's power of conviction, swiftness of grasp and
singleness of purpose, all of which, as he had ob-
served, resulted in a fine abstraction from the affairs
of this world. He was more filled with that than
with what they were aimed at; but it did very well.
The handsome women preened themselves in vain
in the sun. He had no more eye for them than
Poore would have had or so it certainly seemed to
them.
Abstracted he remained until the dim cliffs of
England loomed low down in the northern sky; and
then he became feverishly alive, and as he had to
talk to somebody, he fell back upon Mackintosh.
He gave that subservient functionary to understand
that he intended to stay a month at least at Castle
Bendish, where he had never yet stayed for two
nights together in his life. Mackintosh was to pro-
ceed thither at once and put everything in order.
"I shall have several guests," his lordship said,
"political gentlemen, I fancy. There will be no
women at least, no ladies. You had better take
Wimble down to see about the horses though prob-
ably we shall walk a good deal." At this surprising
contingency Mackintosh blinked. "And see to the
wine, will you, Mackintosh? We shall want plenty
of wine claret and burgundy mostly. And a good
deal of brandy just see to all that. Then let me
think Oh, yes, of course. I wish the gardens
to be seen to. They ought to be in good order, you
know and the park too, I shall probably have
BENDISH
some public meetings down there I shall throw
the grounds open two or three times a week. It
must be made proper for that kind of thing. Get in
whatever men may be necessary, and have it all in
first-dass order by the autumn. Servants? You'll
want a great many servants. Mrs. what's my
housekeeper's name? ah, Mrs. Timmins she'll look
to that. I'll see Mr. Heniker directly I am in town,
but you had better not wait for that. Lambert will
do for me while you are away. I shall have to give
some dinner-parties which is a bore but that can't
be helped."
This was the beginning of commissions for the
unfortunate man which hardly ceased until the ves-
sel stood into the Thames. He thought of some
new diversion for the political gentlemen every hour
of the slow day. Mackintosh took their general
sense to be that Castle Bendish was to be thrown
open for a house-warming or something of the kind,
with no expense spared. Beyond that he did not
inquire; but Bendish found his "Very good, my
lord," soothing to the nerves. He would have had
them in plenty if he had gone on to expound his
present political doctrines, which insisted upon the
emancipation of Mackintosh and the likes of Mack-
intosh, and the obliteration to their advantage of all
the lordships in England; but I think that he dimly
perceived their incongruity. At any rate Mackin-
tosh was spared such liberality of assent.
But Roger Heniker was not. Summoned to St.
James's Street within a week of his patron's arrival,
THE LORD AS DEMAGOGUE 185
lie found Bendish at the opening of his campaign.
The Vision of Revolt lay upon the table, and wet
sheets of an "Address to the British people" in an
upright hand littered the floor. Letters, unfolded
and unsealed, were abundant, and another was in
progress. Bendish looked up from his task and
hailed his visitor.
"Ha, Roger, my dear fellow! You find me hard
at work by the by, you must get me a secretary
as soon as may be. I can't think and write letters.
There are a thousand things to be done at once
the Epic to print meetings to arrange for in the
country the House Castle Bendish (Ah, I must
speak to you about that don't let me forget ).
Then I'm busy with a Manifesto look here," he
held up the dripping sheet. "Listen to this
"'For nothing is more certain than that your
tyrants are calling up reserves with which to bind
your chains closer about you. What, pray, can the
enfranchisement of two million employers of labour
mean to ten million driven slaves but so many pliers
of the whip and goad, so many stewards and over-
seers of injustice and oppression? If you submit to
it, the name of Englishman is gone, and with it the
hope of the free. Let them go, however, on such
terms. But if your servitude began with the land-
ing of the Norman upon your shores, your hope has
endured until now, when, I tell you, its justification
is within the hollow of your hands. . . .'" He
flicked a page or two, then threw the whole aside,
and took the Epic in his hands.
186 BENDISH
"There's good reading here but you don't feel
poetry. I spare you." He turned over the sheets
in sections. "You shall try some of the Notes. By
heaven, they ought to move you. Listen to this
one, on the House of Commons: 'An Assembly,
chiefly self-elected, which can interrupt urgent busi-
nessbusiness of life and death to you and your
families to consider whether a man is speaking
with a hat on his head or in his hand must either be
in senile decay, or so youthfully exuberant as to be
wholly unworthy of your credit. It matters not to
you or me how it is become frivolous, if frivolous it
is. Away with it . . .' Damme," said Bendish,
"that's Poore all over; but it's devilish good."
Heniker's jaw was square it jutted. "That's
scandalous, Bendish. You'll get him into trouble
for that, if you let it go."
Bendish cheered. "'Vogue la galere/ old Roger!
Trouble is what we want. We're for pikes and
barricades. Listen to this one:
*"A coronation will inspire a sentimentalist of
imagination and sympathy to the highest flights of
emotion of which he is capable. "Te Deum lauda-
mus" on any such occasion will draw the tears to
his eyes. The King in question may be a little
wind-bag, as was Louis XIV. of France, a sack of
blubber and pretence like our George IV., or a
brigand like Napoleon; but the sentimentalist will
magnify the man crowned at the expense of the
kingship conferred, take out of kingship a part of
its essential glory and pour it like a sacring oil upon
THE LORD AS DEMAGOGUE 187
a rogue's head. But your pure idealist, who exalts,
because he sees it excellent, kingship itself, and
realises the King because he sees him naked, is
morally shocked at the tragic travesty. He fights
bis way out of church into the air and cries to the
people, "What in the name of wonder are you about?
Will you crown a hog? Will you prostitute a holy
thing to make more hideous a vile one? What man
among you is worthy of kingship? Let each man
ask himself. Yet because you desire a king, you
lift up this son of his father and teach yourselves to
believe that his office will ennoble him. You say,
'He was foul half an hour ago, but now he is glori-
ous/ I tell you that you lie to yourselves, and
make this wretch the victim of your vice. . . " * "
Roger listened with blank dismay. "Quern Deus
vult perdere." . . . Was Poore mad? Had Ben-
dish ravished his mind? Or was Poore the devil?
Or was it Bendish? He had liked Poore. He re-
membered the flushed face of the tall, stooping
poet; he remembered his beautiful pale wife. Good
Heavens, here was a kettle of fish! But he didn't
attempt to argue with Bendish. He knew nothing
could come of that.
Meantime the youth had stopped, for Heniker's
plain face did not encourage him to proceed^ . . .
"That must be broadcast over the country within
the next few weeks meantime I am getting out my
Broadside first, and seeking alliances high and low.
To-morrow I breakfast at Holland House. On
Thursday Burdett, Hunt, and some of the politicians
1 88 BENDISH
dine with me. Then I must go to Castle Bendish
and open the eyes of the country. The hunt is up,
Roger, I tell you! What was it old Latimer said?
'We shall this day light such a candle in Eng-
land' . . . I'm in very good fettle, as you see.
There's nothing like hard work to put a man right
with himself. If I can only keep away from women,
I shall leave a name behind me. How do you con-
trive to keep out of their meshes, hey, Roger? To
me there's a lure in their die-away glances that's
well, thank God, I am too busy even to look out of
the window. ... I assure you, I can walk up Bond
Street now without knowing there's a petticoat in
it. ... And yet men of action, they say, have
always confessed to the power of that sex. . . . Nel-
son, Napoleon ah, and Caesar, Alexander, Pericles
. . . ! Now as I said I can give you half an hour, so
let's to business. I must see Murray at noon about
the Epic. That's urgent. So fish out your parch-
ments, old fellow, and make the most of me. . . ."
Here was Bendish in a hopeful mood, which a
tUe-a-tete dinner with Tom Moore certainly did
nothing to minish. This was a great meal. There
was nobody like Tom to draw the best out of a man:
he drew everything out of Bendish, the best with the
worst. Out came the love-affair with Georgiana
Poore, but with the name left out. She figured as
"a woman I met in Italy." " There was a haunted,
frail look about her a sidelong call of the eyes,
which drew me on. ... I confess that I can't stand
out against your slim pale women. . . ."
THE LORD AS DEMAGOGUE 189
Tom shut Ms eyes, compressed his lips, and nodded.
He knew! He could love them all; but if he had
a preference it was for the more exuberant type.
And yet he had been a slave of Mrs. Lancelot in her
heyday.
Bendish moistened his lips. "I loved her, Tom
. . . oh, madly ... I own it. ... And she led me
on ... and on. . . . And then, by God, she played
the prude. Sir, I was damnably hurt. I left her
without a word ... I went ... I roamed the
earth ... a wounded beast . . * as you say, "So-re
AJs yjvyevews. . . ." Well, it's over. But it set me
writing. I used my heart-strings for a harp. . . .
Wait a moment/' He went to his desk, and pro-
duced a bundle of papers. "Take this home with
you. I call it The Wanderer. God knows what
you'll make of it. I believed in it once and it did
me good. Now I'm home for action. I'll show the
world what I can do. Poore and I met and pro-
duced this red-hot stuff. . . ." It was now the
Epic's turn.
"Jesus!" cried Tom, "here's activity. Why,
Bendish, you're a volcano, not a man."
"Most of this is Poore's; but I've done a flaming
preface and added considerably to his notes. More-
over, the idea is mine. I put Poore to it. But he
was at it for six months while I was "
"Enslaved by Calypso in an island! But so you
met Gervase and set him afire! And you mean to
tell me that you were proof against his lovely wife!"
Tom held up his haacb*
190 BENDISH
So it was that Bendish, having discovered his
friend was in the dark, thought it well to let him
stay there. "His wife? She doesn't exist for me.
I assure you, Tom, I can be serious. She lives in
her children, I believe. We had nothing to say to
one another. . . ." He frowned, " There was a
woman, as I told you, who singed my wings. . . ."
Here he looked pained. "Enough of her. Let her
rest she has her reward. I can't grudge it her.
You'll find her in The Wanderer, if you care to look
it over. Damn her she made me suffer. . * . But
now to the Epic. It's great, you know, Tom.
Poore's a strong arm. Now listen to some of this.
Ballad- jingle, you may call it: doggerel, you may
call it even. By Gad, sir, he's called the right tune
for rural England."
He began to read fitfully, here and there, as the
fancy took him. He read well, with devilry, and
with conviction, which grew as his mind caught fire.
The spirit of Poore entered him, and he caught up
some of Poore's fierce tricks his digging at conso-
nants, for instance. Those were days when poetry
still flamed, and men were still kindling-wood. Tom,
who had a genuine love for Gervase, was greatly
moved by the Vision of Revolt, though very sure that
Mr. Murray would have nothing to say to it. " 'Tis
not to be expected, Bendish, my dear. Murray
swims with the gold-fish in still pools; he's got a
gleam on himself you'll find a scale or two of the
precious metal. And with his Quarterly irapk wpovl
Take it across the way, my dear. Longman will
THE LORD AS DEMAGOGUE IQI
swallow it whole though the King's Bench and the
Attorney-General yawn for him. Let me have that
bit again . . .
He sees therein Hs homely God
With earth-clods clinging to his side . . *
how does it go?
And while he hymns the King of kings
And high Te Deum. . . .
Bendish, you have lit a candle with your flint and
tinder. . . ." Which was just what Bendish had
told Heniker.
The Manifesto, signed "Bendish/' was ^ in the
printer's hands that day. The Poem with the
Preface, signed "Bendish," and containing, with
much lofty rhetoric about it, a rather too urbane
patronage of "my ingenious friend Mr. Poore"
that too was arranged for but not with Mr. Murray.
The conclusion of the preface was thought very fine:
"I know not what the issue of Mr. Poore's ' Vi-
sion' and of my own conclusions upon it may be.
I abide by what I have written, and am prepared to
defend it. My forefathers fought at Hastings, and
fenced about with steel the land which was another's
inheritance at least, the antiquaries tell me so. If
it be my lot to side with those who break down these
hedges, so be it. They have served their turn, and
I, for one, have done with them. By so much the
less as I am a. tenant in capite, by so much the more
BENDISH
I claim to be an honest man. And so the whirligig
of time brings his revenges." Then, in large type,
"BENDISH."
The proofs were to go through Bendish's hands;
he was to have them immediately, he was told. No
narrower promise would allay his present fever. So
much for the first week of Ms return to these shores.
But Holland House gave him, a check, and not
Tom himself, who was present, with his infectious
gallantry, could find him a line among the academic
wMgs of that breakfast-table.
Holland House was not prepared for Poore's short
way with Parliaments; but it gave Bendish his head
and allowed him extracts from the "Vision." He
read with fire and conviction. The table heard him
out.
At the close there was a heavy silence. Then
Lady Holland coughed and looked down the table.
This was a cue. Sydney Smith leaned forward,
flushed in the jowl.
"I'll give your lordship a title for your friend's
Apocalypse," he said. "You shall call it 'Beyond
This Last.' "
"And dedicate it to Gifford, who'll be delighted,"
said Mr. Rogers with a rasp in his throat, and a
look about him to see how his shot had told. Now
Mr. Gifford was fabled to have been bred up a cob-
bler, and so was fair game. But Holland House
took good shooting for granted.
Mr. Allen said nothing; but he blinked, and looked
as if he might be profound or witty at any moment.
THE LORD AS DEMAGOGUE 193
Bendish was rather put out. Tom Moore jumped
into the fray.
"Too bad, too bad. Is Gervase Poore to be the
only poet kept out of politics? May Mr. Words-
worth be heard on Cintra, and Bob Southey call
Wat Tyler his brother, and poor Gervase not have
opinions? 'Tis not in reason. The fine young man's
full of opinions."
"As a bladder of wind/' said Mr, Rogers. Ben-
dish, looking very much the Norman imp, now said
haughtily that his friend's opinions were his own,
and that he was prepared to defend them here or
elsewhere.
"In Another Place?" he was asked. This was
from Lord Holland in his wheeled chair, raising his
fine eyebrows at his brother peer. Bendish looked
the questioner down, through glimmering lids*
"Certainly, I shall defend them from my place,"
he said, "when the time comes."
Lord Holland bowed. "The time will undoubt-
edly come," he said. "I shall hear you with inter-
est."
"It will make poor Charles Lancelot rise from his
place," some one thought; but this was denied.
"Charles! Did you ever know Charles give up
place?" Here a lady tossed her feathered head.
"He gave up one place, I understood "
"He was translated, my lady, let us put it "
Lady Holland put an end to this. "No harsh
judgments, I beg. I always liked her."
"That's in her favour!" cried Tom. "Brava, my
I 9 4 BENDISH
Lady! She was a lovely person and so she will be
now, I'll warrant her with, her children at her
bosom. " Then he chuckled. " ' Beyond This Last ' I
Good for you, Doctor. I'll remember that for Bo-
wood. But, for all of you, I'll engage that Poore is
heard of one of these days* . . . And he snatched the
rose from the cap of the greatest man in England
you'll not forget that. Nor will the great man, I
fancy. They tell me he's inconsolable."
"But," cried her ladyship, "he'll console himself,
or let her console him when they come back! For
I suppose your friend means to preach his absurd-
ities in person? "
Bendish implied stiffly that that was Poore's in-
tention.
"Very well, then," said her ladyship, "that will
do very nicely. While the husband is thumping his
tubs, the Duke will be making love to the wife.
And it will begin all over again."
But Moore knew better. "No, no, my lady.
You're out there. Gervase swept her out of Wake
House like a fiery wind, and she'll never go back.
Now I wonder if you remember a certain ball there.
'Twas a year maybe two after the Duchess died.
I know the Lancelots had been in the house a year.
Stay I'll fix it for your ladyship. 'Twas the year
that Lady Geraldine O'Meara ran away with Jack
Pixton and 'twas at that very ball that she danced
with him first. Are you there now? Ye are? Very
well then: now 'twas Gervase's first introduction
into the great world and 'twas I got him the card
THE LORD AS DEMAGOGUE 195
from the lady herself Namithoe he called her, a
pretty name for her gallant breasting of the waves
of this world! Now I went to his lodgings dressed
in my best to take him along with me and my
hackney-coach at the door and find him in his shirt
and breeches writing verses ' Laggard!' says I,
'and the daintiest lady in London straining her fine
eyes to the door for your coming/ 'I'm writing
about her now/ says he, and wouldn't budge. And
he was telling her in flaming metre what he thought
about her and what he was going to do with her
and bedad, he sent me packing, and finished his
screed in his own time, and read it to her at Wake
House that very night and their first meeting, that
was! Oh, but Sir Walter himself never figured a
bolder young man! Now, my lady, if such a youth
takes a fancy to England, and falls in love with her,
it's not the House of Lords will stop him from pick-
ing her up. So * Lovers, beware,' I tell the Duke
when next I see his Grace."
Her ladyship, with whom Tom was a favourite,
twinkled at his high-flying. "Bring him to see me
when he comes," she said, and Tom made her a
fine bow.
"I'll do it, ma'am, though I die for it, and give
England a chance. 'Tis a wayward eye he has, and
a susceptible heart. But your ladyship's is infinitely
benevolent and who knows?" Her ladyship swal-
lowed even this with complacency.
At this rate there was not much to be made of the
Whigs. Bendish had himself swept away in his
1 96 BENDISH
carriage, where he sat with folded arms, looking un-
commonly like Napoleon after Waterloo. But op-
position of the sort settled his back. It was neglect
or indifference which stung him to folly. For all
that, it was a check.
He did not fare much better with the Radicals.
He had Sir Francis to dine; he had Vipont, the in-
transigeant member for Midport; he had Lord
Sandgate and Lord Stanhope; he went into the
highways and hedges and fished up Orator Hunt,
who got very drunk and shed tears after dinner.
He leavened them with Tom Moore, and another
Mr. Hunt, Mr. Leigh Hunt, the Liberal editor, who
had been primed with the "Vision" already and
admired as a poet what he deplored as a politician.
The dismay of these worthy men, when Bendish
hinted at his friend's plans, should have been com-
ical to a detached observer, who would have been
able to discount the possible mischief by allowance
for the natvete of the proposals. These plans, he
told them, Reformers to a man, contemplated with
great satisfaction the almost certain rejection of the
Bill by the Lords, and proposed, with that in view,
a popular demand for a share in government which
should sweep away the Estates of the Realm and
substitute a National Committee of Delegates
chosen by ballot upon a basis of manhood suffrage.
The King, too, Bendish thought, should be elected,
upon the Anglo-Saxon plan. You need, as I say,
to be detached, not to say fond of abstraction, to
be captivated by this kind of thing; but Sir Francis
THE LORD AS DEMAGOGUE 197
was not at all detached just then, and was therefore
very much concerned. It is probable that Sir
Francis was shocked. He had been too long in the
House of Commons to conceive of salvation outside
its provision thereto. How could you have salva-
tion indeed, until it had been read a third time? He
entrenched himself within the Constitution like any
Whig. No such plan as the poem foreshadowed, he
roundly told Bendish, could have his support. It
thwarted the will of the people.
"How so/ 7 said Lord Bendish, "when, on your
own showing, the people are not yet represented?"
"My lord," said Burdett, "they are at our back."
"Tradesmen," said Bendish. "They are not the
people. They exploit the people."
"They are entitled to be heard, my lord."
" By all means. Let them join in the chorus. But
your Bill makes them soloists. Now we say that
they are harder masters than the landowners."
Sir Francis frowned very slightly, and shook his
head. "I cannot, I fear, lend myself to Mr. Poore's
generalisations. I adhere to the Constitution, which,
in my view, is dangerously strained by the Tory
party, but not to breaking-point. In its defence I
go all lengths but not to its destruction. And I
trust the merchants and farmers of England. Com-
merce is our backbone. Self-respect is founded upon
property, and property upon integrity. Mr. Poore
is a visionary, and nourishes himself upon the
dreams of the French which they themselves have
found to be a yeasty fare. That is not our English
way."
198 BENDISH
Orator Hunt, mellow with, wine, cheered him..
" There speaks the Tribune of the People! There
speaks my friend and my leader! My lord, I say,
God bless the House of Commons! The proudest
title a man can look for in this country is that of
M.P." Then he went on to speak of the Yeomanry
of England, our spine and marrow, and proposed its
health with three times three. But nobody took
any notice.
Mr. Vipont said nothing, Lord Sandgate said
nothing. Lord Clanranald, a fiery-haired, square-
faced man who had been a sailor, some said a buc-
caneer, in Ms day, agreed with Bendish. "Party
is master," he said, "the House of Commons servant.
The thing will be made worse instead of better by
the Bill. We all know that. But what are you to
do? They've set their minds on it. It has taken
thirty years to get it there and how are you going
to get it out again and something else in its place
in three? They won't rise. I know them. You
may get a few more ricks burnt in the country and
a few more windows broken here there are always
people to be had who enjoy that kind of thing but
you'll do no more under a century. We don't fire
ricks for better ideas in England, but for better
wages. You are perfectly right, however or your
poet is. The House of Commons is the thing to
sweep away. You'll never do anything while that
lasts. It's too old and too childish at once. If I
were younger, and not a husband and father, as
thank God I am at last, I'd be with you, trailing
pikes. We all know that you're right, I believe "
THE LORD AS DEMAGOGUE 199
Sir Francis shook Ms head, but Lord Sandgate's
dark eyes glowed however, the speaker turned off
what seriousness he had had into an easy pleasantry.
"But you've come among men of forty, my dear
lord," he said, "and you must find men of thirty
or less. You can't make revolution after thirty.
Digestion means too much to you J>
Bendish found himself speechless among these
gentlemen, to his extreme annoyance. The reason
was simple. He could only be what he was believed
to be. .What added rage to impotence, however,
was that they treated Poore throughout as the man
to be reckoned with. Again, the reason was simple.
Poore, however ridiculous, was in dead earnest;
Bendish, however much in earnest, was afraid of
being ridiculous.
But for the present he persevered. The Manifesto
came back from the printer's; he drank freely of his
own eloquence and was greatly moved. "By God,
I have 'em! " he told himself. "By God, I have 'em! "
The Vision of Revolt looked cold and lumpy, like a
stale jelly-fish, beside this reeking thing wet with
ink, though its blood was no wetter.
He read it again, and would not alter a line he
liked its very defects. Here was an awkward rela-
tive: let it stand. Here was a limping simile it
was the nearer to nature! He sent it to be struck
off and distributed among his agents. They were
not, in fact, his own agents; but had been found for
him by his secretary, who had been found by Heni-
ker. Bendish could not get out of the way of doing
200 BENDISH
his work by deputy. "Get that thing printed off,
and published/' he said in his lordly way. That
was done.
"BEYOND THIS LAST."
AN ADDRESS TO THE PEOPLE OF ENGLAND
BY
LORD BENDISH
was in the newspapers within a week. The title
was very happy. Holland House was stirred. Mr.
Allen said, "This should never have been written."
Sydney Smith saw his joke forestalled. That had
been really clever of Bendish, and the wit had the
wit to laugh at himself. We could never afford it.
I don't know that it was taken seriously; but it
was talked about, and its author even more so.
The Billiad was re-read. Ladies asked Lord Ben-
dish to evening parties. He became a popular Revo-
lutionary among those who cared for revolution-
aries and thought little of revolution. These, they
said, were not possible in England. But a revolu-
tionary never came amiss to an evening party.
The Duke of Devizes read it after breakfast,
standing by the long window of his library, dressed
for his morning ride. His keen blue eyes twinkled.
"Master Poore has had a hand in this," he thought
to himself. "I should like to know what my poor
girl thinks of it all."
CHAPTER XVII
THE GAME AND THE PIECES
ON that morning of Bendish's departure Georgiana
had risen at six and left Poore deeply asleep. It
must have been near five when he had come in and
thrown himself as he was upon his bed. She had
feigned sleep in her misery, but the fact that he had
stooped over her, watched her closely and then
kissed her cheek had gone near to lose her her re-
serves. He fell asleep the moment he was down,
and presently she stole away tiptoe, and did her
washing and dressing in the closet next door. She
got the children up and out on to the loggia where
they were to play while she boiled their milk and
made herself some coffee. While all these domestic
affairs were getting themselves done with her usual
neatness and light touch upon them, her mind was
full of care; but there was the memory of that kiss
to comfort her. She clung to that, and made des-
perate play with it. But foreboding lay upon her
heart like a memory of dread. She felt sick with
nerves. Breakfast over, she took her children with
her, one in her arm and one by the hand, and sought
the deep of the garden, where it still lay shadowed
from the sun, where the air still had the freshness of
dawn in it, and a little brook came tinkling over
202 BENDISH
rocks on its way to the river and the sea. By that
she sat herself and, deliberately confronting it,
mused over her affair.
She knew her poet through and through, for
though she loved him for his very faults, which
made him what he was, she was cool enough to
judge whither these might lead him if he were not
guided. A woman can always judge the man she
loves, for love is to her a possession and not a need.
She holds it it is a vantage-ground, and having
that safe, she can look about her and take observa-
tions. So far, as she saw, Gervase had been content
to express himself in Art except once, and that was
when he expressed himself by running away with
her. But since that she and art had filled up the
bowl of life deep draughts of love had been taken,
and the issue had been much burning poesy. Four
wondrous years they had had a four-years' honey-
moon and now, it seemed, he was on the edge of
action, and of action which could only hurt him, and
was doomed by its very gallantry to complete fail-
ure. She felt as she sat here alone, her chin cupped
in her hand, frowning as she looked down at her
tossing foot she felt that she could bear any hard
measure the world might mete out but that Gervase
should try a thing and fail in it fail, that is, in her
eyes; for the opinion of the world she cared nothing.
The world had been deaf to his music but she had
heard it: but now if he adventured after Lord Ben-
dish in this political quest, whether the world saw
him or not, admired him or not, she would see him
THE GAME AND THE PIECES 203
futile and absurd and she could not bear that. It
would be as if she watched him strangle love with
his own hands. Let him, do what the spirit bade
him, in God's name; but let him succeed. She
could not afford that he should fail. Now in this
business she knew that he must fail.
She was not a politician no woman is; but she
had lived in the world where politics is the air of
the room, and she knew what could be done, and
what not. The Reform Bill would, of course, be
carried. Her friend, the rigid old buckram Duke,
must give way sooner or later but there could be
no revolution. Neither Gervase nor a House full
of him could bring that about. His Vision of Revolt
was vitiated for her by that one fact, that he had
seen what was not there, and prophesied what would
never come to pass. He might sing himself to death
but there would be no Revolt. She had heard
him read that part of it overnight with a sick heart.
Splendid failure, generous blunder! Alas, for such
noble, pure-hearted, single-hearted heroes. Cruci-
fixion is the end of them and for her the foot of
the Cross.
Judging him, with a bleeding heart, she judged
the other, but with scorn. Poore, her poet, was in-
deed what Bendish thought himself to be, a man of
a single idea. One idea filled his mind at a time,
and he pursued that to its death, or his own. That
was how Lord Bendish flattered himself he did also,
but it was not so. She knew his kind, her world
had been full of them. Side by side with any idea
204 BENDISH
hunted by Bendish went, in the mind of the hunts-
man, a clear image of Bendish in pursuit of it. If
thai got blurred, or was made ridiculous, the chase
of the other was abandoned; but you could never
make Poore ridiculous in his own eyes, or baffle him,
because he never saw himself at all, but only the
thing he was chasing. That made him a much
more redoubtable hunter might, and very often did,
make him an infernal nuisance. It brought him also,
upon occasion, to enormous grief, as will be seen.
It made him possibly a very fine poet and I have
no doubt about that; it made him certainly an im-
possible politician, because he, viewing Ms single
idea, came in conflict with men who could see half
a dozen ideas at the same time. Like Patroclus,
who thought of nothing but the slaying of Hector,
he was liable to be struck by Euphorbus unaware.
Then, while he was turned half about, maddened by
a flank attack, Hector jumped in and despatched
him. All this she saw, and that some such by-blow
must be the end of her Gervase, and the end of her;
but long before the tragic crisis came, Bendish would
be safely away, making love to some man's wife.
As this particular image came into her mind, her
eyes concentrated and grew bitter-bright. The wretch
had been tender with her; and Gervase knew
nothing of it. She had never said a word of it for
reasons which, at the time, had seemed to her ex-
cellent. Now she was not so sure. If she had told
him she had murdered The Vision of Revolt. And
had that not been merciful? . . .
THE GAME AND THE PIECES 205
Meantime she saw that she could not yet go to
England, whether her old friend needed her or not.
Too much was at stake. Gervase in England atop
of his Poem was an impossible thought. She fore-
saw, with desperate certainty, every stage of Ms
ruinous chase. He would spend himself like the
wind among the trees, lash himself to pieces like
waves against the black rocks. He would be re-
viled, hounded about, persecuted, arrested, tried,
pilloried God knew what they would not do to him.
You see, she knew the Governors of England while
he, her poor boy, knew nothing but the idea. She
had lived in the world which thought of idealists as
vermin. She did not think of them so herself
that is, she did not allow herself to think so of them;
but she was of the world which did, and she could
not for her life admire them for futility. A poet
who tried to realise poetry must be futile. Revolu-
tion in England must be futile. She was no Pharisee,
with rancour in her heart; but, like Pilate, she wa,s
of the ruling class, and had learned to wash her
hands of Jacobins.
She thought now with a half-humorous pity of
her Gervase, as if he was her son rather than her
lover and spouse. Dear, generous, wild, absurd boy
she must save him at any cost. Her eyes were
misty, but her lips smiled. She looked very wise
as she sat there, nursing her chin, looking into the
eddying water.
A quick footfall startled her. She turned about
quickly and saw Gervase coming. The morning was
206 BENDISH
in Ms face. She saw that something was there
which had not been there yesterday, and that some-
thing had gone from it which had clouded it before.
It called her up. She left her rock and went to
meet him. His eyes were alight as he met her,
clasped and kissed her. They said nothing but with
their touching lips; but she knew by the way he
held her all he had to tell her. Instantly she sur-
rendered. He was her lover and lord. He must do
as he must. ... He must do as he must yes; but
she must coax him to do as she would. And that
would be easy if he was still hers. It would be a
game, a serious game but how she would revel in
the playing of it!
When they had breakfasted and the children were
abed, the game began. He, with that sense of free-
dom and enlargement which the accomplishment of
a task always gives a poet, talked freely of his work
more freely than for some months. Her relief to
have him again in undivided communion hid up her
latent disapproval. Her heart consented to him
though her judgment did not. He said that it
would be weU if they went to England as soon as
might be. First of all, she wanted to go and she
did not for the moment attempt to deny it. Then
there was the poem to be put through the press;
there might be work consequent upon its appear-
ance, for another thing. He might have to face
prosecution who knew? At any rate, he was in
dead earnest, he assured her, and intended to do
what he could to bring his visions to pass. She had
THE GAME AND THE PIECES 207
guessed as much, but was very faint in her opposi-
tion. The time for opposition was not yet, nor the
way of it plain. She was held by his arm, her head
against his high heart. "Dearest/ 5 she had mur-
mured, "but what can you do?" He had laughed as
he replied, "Why, very little." And then she found,
to her relief, that he took a soberer view of himself
than she had imagined in him.
"The Reform Bill will pass, of course/' he said,
"in spite of your Duke; no intrigue can stop it now.
It will threaten a sterner tyranny upon the English
than they have ever known, because it will be that
of their own race. A rich Englishman is a harder
master than a rich Norman any day. The House of
Commons will be filled with successful business men.
Government will be by Boards and Committees
far more inaccessible than any peer or country-
gentleman, and far more doctrinaire. The work of
anybody who has liberty really at heart is behind the
reformed House, and all that he can do at present is
to make the poor discontented. Even that will take
a couple of generations, for they are used to oppres-
sion, and don't understand that they have any rights
at all. Duties they see, but not rights. Imagine,
my love, of this task. To convince a nation of
slaves, who have been slaves for a thousand years,
that they have voices! Yet how can one be con-
vinced of that, and not dare say so? How can one
have the face to write that, publish it, get it read by
the ruling caste, and shrink from telling the ruled
that they are free the moment they choose to say
208 BENDISH
so? Impossible! A man denies Ms God if he
denies the revelations his God sends him. No, no,
I am not a renegade. I have always done what I
thought proper to be done. Can you deny that,
knowing what you know? " He stooped to meet her
eyes, but she would not look at him then. She
snuggled the deeper, on the contrary, and listened,
knowing her time would come.
"There was a moment/' he went on, "when I
thought that my work was done by writing what
came into my heart; when I thought I might leave
action to Bendish. That moment has gone, and
the thought with it. After he left me, I went up
the hill and saw the sun come up out of the sea.
It was then that I found out what I had to do. It
will be very little ridiculous, indeed. Yet one
must begin. I suppose I can do what Wyclif did,
what Wesley did. Why not? I believe, as they
believed; I am young, I am strong; truth is on my
side. I am ready to sacrifice everything, except
love and that I can't, for that is myself. When
that goes, I go, and my task will be over. But with
you, my heart, at home, with you to come to, with
your pure flame to cherish, I feel that I can do my
utmost* I see my way clear now. I shall go on,
and you shall be with me." He turned her in his
arm until they were breast to breast; and then she
looked at him and saw him inspired. There was
that in him which she could adore, but that in him
also which could be cajoled. It is only women who
can love and criticise in the same long look.
THE GAME AND THE PIECES 209
He surprised her next by saying that he had small
belief in Bendish. She, of course, had never had
any at all, but she had supposed Gervase hoodwinked.
But Gervase now told her that he thought every
mood of that young man's was dictated by vanity*
" Bendish doesn't need to carry a looking-glass about
with him/' he said. "He finds one wherever he
goes in anybody with whom he is for ten minutes.
He turns and poses and judges exactly by our looks
what sort of a fit his new coat is. The slightest oppo-
sition will put him out of conceit with himself. He'll
throw away not himself but his looking-glass, and
look for another, and try it with new posturings.
Now there are plentiful rebuffs in this business
and he won't be able to stand them. May I predict
for you what he'll do when he gets to England?
He'll arrive filled with ideas all the bubbles of the
broth we've been brewing here will be in his head.
He'll exhibit these to his own people to peers, whigs,
parliament men, court poets, pretty women, men of
Brooks's and Almack's; and when they take them
coolly, and break a few with a little laughter, or a
poke of fun Bendish will be mortified, and out of
heart with the thing. I think that, unless he settle
with a publisher before he begins to talk, our poem
stands a small chance. It will lie in his desk and
be forgotten. But I'll make sure of it by writing to
Tom Moore. That will ensure it if it ever reach Eng-
land. But as Bendish must talk or die, I shouldn't
be surprised if some chance traveller on the road
were the occasion of my Hodgiad going into the sea."
210 BENDISH
She was amazed. All this was so exactly her own
opinion.
"Oh," she cried, "how did you find all this out?"
He laughed gaily. "What a dolt you must think
me, my love, in your heart of hearts! I think I
knew it all after the first five minutes. But, you
see, he excited me to work, and so I kept him up as
long as I wanted him."
"But last night, my dearest? Your dreadful
ceremony the blood and the glass. I hated it."
"I knew that you did. I was wrong I was play-
ing. But I was excited. I had been reading and
I had really touched him. He has parts, you know.
There's a man underneath. I had got to it. I
know that. Well that excited me so I played."
She nestled to him, stroked his face. "Oh, you
child you dear, absurd child." He lifted his head
out of reach.
"Everything can be made a game," he said.
"Oh, but" she was serious. "Is all that you
have been telling me to be a game?"
He nodded solemnly. "It will be played as a
game but there'll be life and death in it." Then
he kissed her. . . .
But at the love-game she was easily his master,
as she had need to be whose stake was so much the
heavier. She set herself to woo him from the
thought of England, and as the days slipped into
weeks his hold upon it relaxed. No news came, of
course, from Bendish. That was not to be expected;
THE GAME AND THE PIECES 211
and every day without news was a gain. What
helped her was the root-instinct of penmen that a
thing on paper is a thing done. Freedom, that jewel
of price, freedom of mind is gained so; and that once
caught the fortunate hunter is slow to the yoke again.
Poore began to talk of Italy, and she abetted him.
Suppose they took ship to Leghorn, and went to
Pisa for the winter. Then Florence in the spring,
the Baths of Lucca in the heats there would still
be time for England in the autumn. Georgiana re-
called Florence to him. Did he remember that it
had been there four years ago that all their happi-
ness had been planned? He did indeed.
But had she not wanted to see the Duke? For
Gervase's sake, she denied it. She should be glad
to see him, she said, but could not weigh him against
Italy. She thought the game was won.
Then came a letter from Bendish, written in the
first flush of his arrival. The Vision was in Long-
man's hands, the preface written, the Manifesto was
out. Everything was in train and when did Poore
arrive?
That letter came about the end of November and
was very nearly fatal to Georgiana's game. Ger-
vase reproached himself for his slackness, and was
for starting immediately. It was no time for half
measures. Georgiana played her strongest card.
"Dearest, if you feel that you must But I can't
come with you/ 3
He looked at her with sudden shock, "You can't
come with me? But what on earth ?"
212 BENDISH
And then she told him why.
It is very odd that the more in love a man is the
less is he able to play this great and noble game.
The Poores went to Pisa by sea, and thence to
Settignano, from which terraced village over Arno
we shall hear from them again*
CHAPTER XVIII
LORD BENDISH IN FLOOD AND EBB
THE month following the publication of his Mani-
festo proved to be the very greatest of Bendish's
variegated life. It suited him in every way. He
was always happier talking about things than doing
them; he was happier still when he had other peo-
ple talking about Mm. For this month, at least,
everybody talked about him. They talked at him
when he was present, of him when he was not. Even
the Duke talked about Bendish, who was brought
under his notice as a Reformer who was against the
Reform Bill. But what set the Tories chuckling
drew rage and dismay from the Whigs. The ex-
plosions of their journals were highly complimentary.
As for the women, there's no end to the follies that
were committed in the name of Liberty and Bendish.
He received Phrygian caps, in knitted silk, by every
post. He allowed himself to be crowned with bays
in one fine house. A certain Lady Hetty offered
herself to him as a footman or anything else he
pleased. To do him credit, he declined her. He
knew his own weaknesses.
The Vision of Revolt was put in hand. There was
no trouble about a publisher. It was to have a
213
214
BENDISH
Breface by his Lordship, and this document was
finally written and in proof long before the Poores
left Rapallo. I reserve my comments upon the
document for a later page. It was a curious and
artful combination of the fiery and the urbane, and
did not altogether avoid that pitfall of the urbane
patronage. But there was that very fine passage
about Hastings and his ancestry that still stood.
Mr. Leigh Hunt, who honestly loved Liberty, Liter-
ature and Lords, saw to the proof sheets. Another
Mr. Hunt, the orator, was responsible for Bendish's
demagogy. He was hat in hand before the new
Mirabeau the moment success was undoubted, and,
so long as he was sure of election, ready to damn
the House of Commons with anybody. It was under
his auspices that Bendish made his first public utter-
ance. "Come with me to New Sarum, my lord,"
said the hearty gentleman. " Saxon England will
clasp you to her bosom. She's a fine woman, God
bless her! and will allow you any freedoms you
please." Bendish stiffened his fine head and curled
his upper lip at him. "The freedom I desire, Mr.
Hunt, is of contract, not of contact." Mr. Hunt
swore that this was the best joke he had ever heard
which it may have been.
But he drove down to New Sarum, with Mr.
Hunt by his side; and there was a meeting in the
Corn Exchange of that city with a great deal of
shouting. Reform was by that time the only cry,
and Bendish found himself a hero for advocating
what he was vowed to prevent. He spoke explicitly
IN FLOOD AND EBB 215
against the Bill; he attacked it with vehemence.
Nothing could induce his audience to see what he
wanted, and nobody was present to whom his adjura-
tions could have been of value; but he knew nothing
of these things. Mr. Hunt acclaimed him as a
Tribune of the People, and called him, several times,
his noble friend; shopkeepers and farmers roared
their applause. God bless Lord Bendish and the
Bill I was the cry. The meeting broke up with " God
Save the King," and so much for Revolt at New
Sarum.
Thence to Andover, to Ludgershall, to Newbury,
to Hungerford, and home to London flags, drums,
and speeches everywhere, and everywhere his Lord-
ship and the Bill. Mr. Hunt stuck to his flank like
a horse-leech; the farmers waved their hats and
thumped with their sticks; beer swam; the Reform
newspapers shrilled for the noble young orator; the
Manifesto, with its scorn of the Bill and its passion
for pikes and barricades, disappeared from view;
Party resumed him. It was maddening. In vain
he struggled with it. Every speech he made was
more emphatically anti-party, and by party the
more applauded. Never was a Reformer like his
Lordship. The Bill must pass. The Bill, the whole
Bill, and nothing but the Bill . . . and so, God save
the King! At the close of every meeting, amid
thunders of cheering, Mr. Hunt, in a white hat,
struck Bendish on the back, and roared above the
tumult, "God bless his Lordship and the Bill!"
There was enough in this to sicken any Mirabeau.
ai6 BENDISH
Bendish returned to his quarters pale and deeply
mortified, hoping against hope for a summons to
the Tower. He found instead a note (one of many)
from Lady Holland, bidding him to breakfast, as if
nothing had happened. He received also a belated,
enthusiastic letter, beginning, "My friend," from
Poore, who was in Pisa, enquiring about the run of
affairs. On the top of all this he received a visit
from Roger Heniker on business. Anti-climax.
Now it is not to be denied that his exertions in
the cause of Ultra-Reform had fatigued him. En-
thusiasm was on the ebb. He was tired of shaking
hands with Mr. Hunt, and had begun to be conscious
that in playing that worthy's game he had been a
piece in it himself. Expecting Poore momently, he
ivas irritated in advance by his expressive shrugs and
scowls, foreseeing that he would shrug and scowl.
He was inclined to damn Poore for criticisms which
he suspected to be just. Poore, he said to himself,
was an infernal visionary. The thing was tolerable
in Italy, absurd in England. How the devil could
one prevent farmers and shopkeepers from coming
to a meeting? And when they came how the devil
expect them to understand idealistic anarchy? How
the devil could one get the peasantry to come? But
Poore wouldn't see that. Poore would have wanted
him to trudge from village green to village green like
one of the Wycliffite poor priests he was always talk-
ing about and Poore might do it. He could see,
proleptically, the gleam of scornful mirth in Poore's
liot eyes when he heard of Bendish's recent progress
IN FLOOD AND EBB 217
in Wilts and Berks in a chariot with four horses, and
Mr. Hunt beside him in a white hat with a red favour
on his breast. To say that Poore was a cockney
poet was no answer. He wasn't, to begin with; and
there was the Manifesto already upon the town and
country; and there were the Preface and the Poem
to come. Caught in reaction, he fainted at the
heart to realise what was before him.
Instant escape was in his mind when Roger Heni-
ker came to wait upon him, and found him at the
breakfast table.
"Look here, Roger/' was his greeting, "here's
Poore, red-hot, writing about his poem."
Roger's very blue eyes twinkled. "I should say
that he had better come home to correct the proofs,"
he said.
Bendish scowled at his cold bird. "I daresay he
had. Well, as a matter of fact, there are none here.
Leigh Hunt may have them, but I don't know. I
haven't had time to see about them. And I must
revise my own Preface, of course. I must have time
to reconsider it. IVe been away, infernally worried.
You know what politicians are. Hunt ! Good
God, I wonder we don't pistol ourselves in fact,
we do now and then. But I've been too busy even
to do that. He used to slap me on the back, d
his eyes. He must have done it fifty times. I
could have taken him by the throat and wrenched
out his gullet. Poems! Proof-sheets! I daresay
Poore thinks that the world must stand still while
his poem's getting printed; but it won't, you know
and he must understand that."
218 BENDISH
"I should put it to him/ 5 Heniker said. "I
thought him a very reasonable man. 77
"The fact is, you know," Bendish said, leaning
back and surveying mankind through the window,
"there's nothing in that kind of thing. Fve tried it
lately in the country, and there's no kick in it. They
won't hear of anything else* They won 7 t consider it.
They say that Reform must go through "
"Doesn't Poore say so too?" Heniker asked. "I
thought you said "
"Yes, yes, yes; I daresay he does. But there
was talk, you know, of working to get the thing
thrown out. 7 '
"Who talked of that?" Roger asked. He was in
a dry mood, Bendish was a little flurried.
"Eh? Why, who should talk of it? Don't play
the fool with me, my dear fellow, if you please. I'm
infernally out of humour to-day. Now, look here,
I suppose you'll be writing to the Poores shortly.
Haven't you got some business relations with the
lady?" Roger nodded. "I thought there was
something. Well, I'll get you to recall my Preface
from the printer and hand it over to me. You
might tell Poore that I am thinking it over. I sup-
pose No, that won't do. I was going to say I
suppose you couldn't say I was out of town I ought
to be, you know; I'm very much out of health.
They've been waiting for me down at Bendish these
two months. Eating their heads off. Eh, what do
you think?"
Heniker thought he could very easily do that
if Bendish went out of town. Hardly otherwise.
IN FLOOD AND EBB 219
" No, no. I must stay, of course. But you might
tell him how I've been driven about. I'll write to
him. Tell him I'll write. We must meet, no doubt
later on. He's certain to be over here. I can't
say that I think there's much to be done; but, of
course, if he wants a meeting he must have it. I
hold to any engagements I may have made natu-
rally. That's my way. But if he thinks that I am
going to put my name to a thing that's doomed to
failure, he's egregiously mistaken."
"It would only bear the author's name, of course,"
said Heniker. Bendish started.
"What the deuce do you mean?"
"You refer, I suppose, to Poore's poem?"
"I refer to nothing of the sort. Upon my life,
Roger, I sometimes think I refer, naturally, to my
Preface."
"Good," said Heniker. "I'll tell him."
"TeH him what you please,' 7 said his Lordship,
and yawned, and drank his tea. Then he stared
moodily at his friend.
"I think, you know," he said, "that I shall be off
again shortly. England don't agree with me. It's
all nonsense. She and I will never get on."
Roger chuckled, but said nothing. He was a
plain man, and did not realise that Bendish could
be at once bored with a thing and bored without it.
"A man can't be simple in this damned country,"
Bendish went on, querulous. "A man must always
do what's expected of him. If he's a peer he must
toe the line or if he's a ploughman. But there are
220 BENDISH
some things there's Hunt, for instance oh, the
devil! I was an enormous fool not to have pushed
on to the East when I was out with you. But you
know me women, Lord! She was the siren. I
listened to her singing and so it went on."
Efeniker now understood him to refer to Mrs.
Poore, and concentrated his gaze upon his friend.
"Now, you know/* Bendish continued, beginning
to enjoy himself, "I hold to the full in the right of
man to experience in every direction open to faculty.
He is the better of it too all natural right apart.
Nor should the woman regret it, for she, after all,
is ultimately the gainer. Let him range; give him
his fling. If he comes back to her, it is because she
has always been in his heart his strayings and wan-
derings are actually testimony to his constancy.
That sounds to you a paradox? Examine it you'll
find it a truism. Now I suppose that I have sounded
the depths of passion as deep as any man, but I
declare to you upon my conscience that I shall bring
the riper nature to the woman I marry. It will have
been annealed, it will have passed through the fire.
But she too has rights. I don't forget them. She
says, I give my hands, I yield my person, I devote
my nature to a man as such not to a peer. Naked
I go simplex munditiis. Let him too strip himself.
What! At birth and at the hour of death all men
are equal. It should always be so and so, indeed,
it always is if men could only see it. You may not
be able to see it, you poor shackled convenience
but I see it, and I accept her conditions and ac-
IN FLOOD AND EBB 221
cept them, mind you, more logically than she may
suspect. I put her to the test, it may be, in the very
act of submitting to her own test. For if she say
to me, Strip you of your accidental trappings; stand
up before me plain George Bendish, the son your
mother brought forth, the issue of the love of man
and woman I reply, ' I do it the thing is done: I
will take you to a land where such frippery is nothing.
But do you come undecked also, except with your
beauty and honour. Come to me clothed in your
innate purity and don't cover your nakedness with
a wedding-ring.' If she is the woman I believe her,
she will follow me over the world."
The young man, flushed with his own eloquence,
rose from the table and strode to the window giving
on to the dusty town. He stood there at gaze, trem-
bling and excited. Heniker, bag in hand, gaped at
him. Accustomed as he was to his patron's vagaries,
he was now completely off the scent. Was there
had there been an intrigue with Mrs. Poore? It was
hardly possible, but you never knew with Bendish
what there may or may not have been.
He thought this kind of windy talk very out-
rageous, though he was by no means more squeam-
ish than men of his own age. "I must say, George,
I don't know why you address yourself to me in
such a matter. I'm not at all ready to advise you,
and to tell you the truth I have no sympathy with
it. If you propose to make some lady your mistress,
the thing may be done, I believe. But fluid talk
about innate purity has a nasty taste to me; and
222 BENDISH
as for the wedding-ring, you'll find that that is a
garment no woman will go without if she can pos-
sibly help herself. However you didn't ask my
advice, and I'm giving it you for nothing which is
against my business instincts."
Bendish listened in high good humour. "My
dear old Roger, you'd dress every bride in parch-
ments, and tie her up in red tape I see your point.
The Rights of Man are nothing to you, who watch
over the rights of property. Either a man has
property and rights, or none and duties. Either
he is owed, or he owes. Pooh! what a world you
lawyers have made for us creatures of simple appe-
tites! But there go your ways I've done with
you. I'll be free of this galley-hulks in a week or
so. OS with you and comfort your poet." So
Heniker found himself dismissed, and shrugged
Bendish out of mind.
He did not know, and could not have realised
what a lonely creature this young lord was, how
much he needed, and how much fell short of human
companionship. Bendish was one of those men with
a capacity inferior to his understanding. He saw
what fools or bunglers most men were and was not
able to do any better than any of them. He was
shy and arrogant at once. He was eager for sym-
pathy and yet for ever making it impossible. With
sympathy he could have done anything, and yet he
would only have it on his own terms, which were
exorbitant. He had been set on fire by Poore at
IN FLOOD AND EBB 223
their first meeting; his enthusiasm had burned with
a clear flame until Poore set to work to do some-
thing tangible. The moment that happened he began
to think Poore a dullard, and he ended by scorning
him for an ass. Of course it is true that he had
failed to do anything to impress Poore, and that he
knew it. There was that side to him. If Poore had
sat at his feet he might have run off his own version
of The Vision of Revolt which would have been just
as good as Poore was able to think it exactly as
good as that. But Poore did not sit there, but in-
stead, at his desk. Bendish was chilled and drew
in his horns.
It is difficult to realise, but quite necessary, how
much through his own qualities and the accidents of
his birth and upbringing this young man stood alone.
He had not one intimate of his own rank in all Eng-
land. Men, his equals, he had always misdoubted;
men, his inferiors, he used, but despised. As for
women, he either made love to them, or thought
nothing about them. If he made love to them,
they gave him his desire, or they did not. If they
did well, then they were husks, not women at all.
If they did not, he hated them. Prodigal of others,
miser of himself, he was worse-conditioned than
Catiline; but the world is wide and full of people
and he had never yet failed of candidates for dis-
bursement.
But at the time of this recorded interview with
Heniker, though he was at a low ebb, and lay gasp-
224 BENDISH
ing, derelict on the sands, he had cast his eye upon
a way of escape. To bolt from his ennui would not
do: he knew that. That would only mean dragging
it about with him. But a pursuit with zest might
enhearten him to do what had to be done in this
dreary business of politics, into which, he now felt,
he had been inveigled by Poore. Poore, confound
him, had played with his emotions and so had
Georgiana, and be d d to her. Speechless with
rage, he saw these two join the ranks of his unfriends,
and just as he felt the cold of this cruel defection,
and yrhile his mind, panic-struck, was ranging the
universe for one human heart left it to stable in, it
lit in a flash upon Rose Pierson's, and saw itself
stabled there. Instantly the universe became a
hideous waste & place of broken sepulchres and
Golder's Green a City of Refuge again. Why it was
that the glowing face and gracious form of this
young woman rose before him at the moment of
Heniker's entry he had no notion; but so it was
and his harangue about innate purity was directed,
of course, at her's, which he intended to attack as
soon as might be.
Not, of course, that he put it so, or thought so of
it. For the moment he felt himself very simply like
a lost soul, and of her bosom as his home. For the
moment he knew not where else to turn for the love
and adoration which he absolutely must have if life
was to be lived at all. For the moment also the
security he felt within the aura of her gentle beauty
was so blessed and so healing that he was as near
IN FLOOD AND EBB 225
loving her as he had ever been or ever could be.
But that feeling was not at all what he understood
love to be. In his own sense of the term, he was
not in love with her* No passion, no need to hold,
was involved. He was intending to go to her for
the assurance that he might have her again. But
for that, she could wait for him since she would.
He did not, in fact, go, because he was inter-
rupted. His horses were at the door, his boots and
spurs were on, when his friend Tom Moore came
bustling upstairs and burst in upon him.
Bendish in a lightning glance saw that his errand
was good in other words, comfortable. "By God,
Bendish," was his greeting, " you'll break me heart
with pride and joy one of these days of grace."
Bendish flushed with hope. "Why, Tom, what's
the matter?"
"The matter is yourself, me friend and brother-
elder brother in Apollo as you are. My lord "
and he thrust his hand into the bosom of Ms frock,
"I lay at your feet the laurel crown in the name of
the Camoenae. Amant alterna, does he say? Not
they! They're for the best man of his hands and
bedad 'tis yourself."
Bendish was ridiculously pleased, and quite un-
able to conceal it. "You like my Wanderer?"
"Like ut!" cried Tom. "I've been bathing me
heart in ut. I've been wallowing in the honey and
wine of ut. fie, Bendish! Fie upon your politics
and stuff. 'Tis to lime your wings. But this is to
make you famous, don't you understand? Gervase's
226 BENDISH
Vision is a fine thing oh, I'll not turn me back on
Gervase Poore. No, no, 'tis a fervent, magnificent,
wrong-headed young hobbled archangel in a two-
pair back and so he always was and will be. Set
him singing his fair Georgiana in his shirt-sleeves,
and he'll have the roof afire more blood to his pas-
sion ! And Ms politics are like a south-westerly wind
blusterous, with a tingle, and a dash of furious
rain. Fine, fine, fine. But for Parnassus bah!
You'll never find a political poet above the foothills
of that mountain, except he's a satirist. Dryden's
there safe enough I won't say Butler's far behind
him. In me poor way hem, hem! But you with
your Wanderer don't need to scale the rocks. No,
no, you take the way of the air the eagle's way.
Now see here, Bendish Murray, the rogue, has put
his nose into this sub rosa, you know, sub rosa.
He's snufied the savoury gale, and he's agog, sir.
Three thousand guineas was named three thou-
sand guineas named before me who stand here.
Take 'em throw 'em into the draught fling 'em
after the ivories at Crock's it's all one. You walk
before us all. By God and His blessed Mother, me
friend, I never thought you had it in you."
There he stopped, beaming, moist in the eye, a
blessed little visitor for any poet.
Bendish, blown out of range of his looking-glass,
was much affected. He turned away to conceal his
tears. He gulped his emotion but it was some
time before he could speak.
When he did speak, he drew himself up, and threw
IN FLOOD AND EBB 227
his head back. "My dear Tom, you are more than
kind. I am greatly touched. You are generous
I was hardly prepared for such an outburst you
give with both hands. Of course I don't mind ad-
mitting it to you a great deal of virtue went out
of me into that thing. I had been in love and you
know what that means as well as I do. Never mind
how I fared never mind the lady's pleasure of my
suit you know what women are! "There it was. I
do think I always did think that there was per-
haps a something in me God knows!"
"It's a d d fine poem," said Tom, having ex-
hausted his superlatives already.
"As for politics and all that," Bendish went on,
more at his ease, "I give you up politics. I've had
my say not as I wished it. It's a dirty business,
and I'm glad to be rid of it."
Tom looked sharply. "Oh, then you are rid of
it? I thought you were involved with Gervase. I
heard you speak of a Preface."
But Bendish now had everything well in hand.
" There was some thought of it. I half promised him
something. I can give it him, of course. My opin-
ions are exactly what they were. Poore is all for
extreme action, and I "
"I would be for extreme unction, if I were author
of The Wanderer" cried Tom.
"Certainly, certainly," said Bendish. "He shall
die with the rites of the Church."
Tom said that he would be writing the dear fellow
within a day or two, and would gladly play priest
228 BENDISH
in so pious a work. Then Bendish proposed dinner
together, and a visit to Holland House afterwards.
Agreed. The chilled horses were sent back to sta-
ble, and Rose Pierson pigeon-holed once more.
CHAPTER XIX
A LETTER FROM GEORGIANA
SETTIGNANO, December 2oth.
MY DEAR DUKE, You see that we are by some miles
further apart, and I have to tell you that we don't expect to
be in England for some time. I know that this will grieve
you, as it does your friend; but you are so wise that you
can understand her even when she says nothing. She can
only tell you now that it is far better as it is, and expect you
to read what is not- there.
Gervase is very well and in high spirits about his Vision,
which Lord Bendish took with him to England and is to see
through the press. Or rather, he was, but we now hear that
Mr. Leigh Hunt has it in charge, and personally I am very-
glad of it. It should be out very soon now. I know that
you will disapprove of it for it is political, and you don't
think that poets ought to interfere in politics. I need not
tell you that it is sincere. You know Gervase so well, and love
him in spite of his opinions. I think the first part will please
you. It is very beautiful and most touching. He under-
stands the poor. I don't myself know what to say of the
second part; but am rather afraid of what the critics may say,
and of what the politicians may do\ I know that you will
be kind about it, because perhaps I need not say why. You
are our friend. I can hardly remember the time when you
were not my friend.
Gervase, of course, was very anxious to go to England
and take the consequences, whatever they may be. I am
thankful to say that I have persuaded him at last to stay here.
229
230 BENDISH
The children are so young to travel, and I confess that I
shirk the journey just now, for myself. But for him though
I have not told Mm this it might be dreadful. I am very,
very nervous. He wrote his poem straight off, as if with his
own blood. I have never seen him so possessed; and the
presence of Lord Bendish was so much provocation to Mm.
They excited each other. I don't like Lord Bendish at all,
and I cannot imagine that you do either. I should like to
know your opinion of him, and dread what you may think
of the Poem. All this is a very selfish letter, but I think you
will understand. If any harm come to Gervase I shall^ be
very unhappy. I love Mm more every day, but he requires
more attention than the cMldren. To me, of course, nobody
in the world, or out of it, could be sweeter or kinder. One
great friend comes near him. Between them I shall be
spoiled. But it is what he does to himself that I fear. He
is unsparing there. He drives himself with whip and spur.
Just now he is calm and happy. He goes into Florence every
day and sits in front of Niobe and her cMldren. He is going
to make a poem about her. Ah, he is safer with the Greeks
than with the Anglo-Saxons!
I wish, oh, how I wish that you would come to Florence
again, when you have killed the Reform Bill and can be
spared. Isn't it extraordinary? Gervase now hopes that
you will kill it. You will see why in the Poem. That is
part of his prophecy. But seriously, won't you come and
see us? You could hardly stay with us here, of course,
though we have a charming house by the church. It is
called La Canonica, and belongs to the parroco of Settignano.
There is a garden looking right over the Val d'Arno, and
shelter from all the cold winds but no! I can't see you in it.
I don't know what you would do with Ingles least of all,
what Ingles would do with Mmself in such a tiny house. He
would say, "I assure you, Madam, there's no place fit to
grill His Grace's cutlet in" and he'd believe it. I daresay
it is true too. We live on macaroni and white cheese, mostly.
Gervase eats no meat at all. We have had great trouble
A LETTER FROM GEORGIANA 231
about the children's milk; but there is a Princess Rospigliosi
in a great villa near by, who has a herd of Jersey cows, and
is very kind. We used to meet her four years ago when we
were here with you do you remember? And once before
that (at Devonshire House, I think) still longer ago, in the
days when my Gervase used to stand in the street with the
crowd to see me come and go! Oh, my dear friend, the
strange, beautiful, dreadful life I have had! Thank God it
is all safe now thank God that all who really are concerned
in it must understand. For I am sure in fact, your mes-
senger, and his message from the other world proved it that
Charles understood. I cannot tell you what a comfort it
was to me that he should have thought of me as he did
towards the end. We couldn't possibly accept his gift
but we took the precious part of it.
Yes, Duke, I am happy, and blessed among women
please God I may deserve it by being a good wife to Gervase,
and mother to his children. Pray for me always and God
bless you, my best and oldest friend.
GEORGIANA.
PS. I am worried about the Poem, and pray that no
harm may come of it. They may prosecute ! If that happen
nothing will keep Gervase here nothing ! I detest, and dread,
Lord Bendish. I think of him as Gervase's evil genius
and believe that Gervase begins to realise it. My love to
any who remember me.
P.P.S. (Written across). Lord B. hates me. I certainly
hope he does.
The Duke stood at his library and tapped his
chin with this letter.
"Bendish! A popinjay! I'll bleed him if he's
been at her. There's something behind all this.
Now 111 write to her/'
232 BENDISH
He went to Ms standing desk, mended his quill,
and began. He wrote fast, in a great sprawling
hand*
WAKE HOUSE, $otk January.
MY DEAR GEORGEY You write a good letter, which I
understand very well. As things are with you, you are
perfectly right not to travel. God bless you when the time
comes.
You may leave Master Bendish to me with confidence.
I know more than you do of the young man, though I dare-
say you know more than you see fit to declare. He's been
blazing about town and country of late, spluttering froth
and folly. The women run after him but you know what
they will do. If a man is short of a finger they want him
for an oddity. They're collectors, these fashionable women,
But Bendish is a very pretty fellow, Til allow, looking in-
different well in a flame-coloured stock. He's all red politics
just now but I hear that he's been rather stuffed in the
country. A fellow called Hunt yoked him to his car. That's
enough to turn a stouter stomach than Bendish's. I saw
Tom Moore at a party the other night, who prepared me
for a new display of coxcombical fireworks. You're not the
only owner of a Poet. Bendish is about to let out in that
direction. Tom was bubbling with it.
Now, Georgey, I doubt your Mr. Gervase has cooked him-
self a pot of trouble. He's not the first poet to do that, nor
will you be the first poet's wife to burn your fingers getting
it off the fire. I'll do what I can for him: you may trust
me. He was never famous for contingency, I must say; but
I should not have suspected him of Bendishry. We shall
see what we shall see. His blessed Epick is not out yet, or
I should have heard of it, seeing it's my business to know
everything. I can see very well that you are disturbed, and
therefore I hasten to tell you that you have no cause for that.
I'm nobody in the political world, of course, being in Oppo-
A LETTER FROM GEORGIANA 233
sition, and likely to remain so by all I can see; but thank
God, I'm a somebody with the grandees, and by no means
above a job for my friends. I admire your man, as you
know. He's a fine Don Quixote of a fellow and makes a
brave figure out in the sun. He and I used to understand
each other, and so we shall again. If he tilts against some
of my windmills I'll pick him up and give Mm the free run
of my vinegar and brown paper, but he'll know as well as
you do that I can't stop the mills to oblige him. Tell him
I said so.
He stopped there in his writing, and stood staring
into space. Every word lie had given her had Ms
love behind it. He had always loved her, and the
older he grew (and he was an old man now) the more
he wanted her, and the less able he felt to cope with
desire. He told himself that he doted he said he
was going to be that unholy spectacle, a fond old
impotent. But by that very plainness of dealing
he knew at the bottom of his heart that he was not.
He resumed his pen.
Georgey (he laughed here at his fondness for writing her
name. There was a caress in the act it was like touching
her) Georgey, do you stick to him whatever happens
through thick and thin. If he's going into action, where
the stones and mud will be flying trust him, believe in Mm.
You don't suppose that I've any sympathy with his notions
I think them all moonlight but they won't do a ha'porth
of harm to anybody, except himself. If there was any vice
in him I'd tell you, but I tell you, on the contrary, that there's
none anc } y OU don't need to be told so. We must do what
we can for him give him his head and stand by with the
towel and sponge and a basket for the pieces. Now don't
you lose heart, my dear. Show me the stuff you're made of.
234 BENDISH
And let me tell you this when you and I and he are dead
and buried and your grandchildren are walking the woods
Gervase's will be a name to conjure with. You believe
in Heaven, and I hope that I do. Well, then you'll know all
about it. ... Keep your head upgive him of your smiles
and tears. He may be a thundering fool but damme he's
an honest one.
He folded and sealed his letter.
CHAPTER XX
"THE WANDERER"
"On, my dearest Rose," writes Miss Clara Smithers from
Russell Square (in an Italian hand) to a friend in the suburbs,
"have you see The Wanderer? But of course you have not.
It is the very latest thing, and more beautiful than you could
believe. I cried my eyes out over it last night, and Mamma
took it out of my hands as I went upstairs to bed. It would
have been under my pillow and I am sure I should have
dreamed of the Author all night. Poor Lord Bendish (for
that is his name!), how dreadfully he must have suffered.
You feel that he must have written with his heart's blood.
Who she was who caused him this anguish (so truly and beau-
tifully described) I cannot divine. Everybody is asking, and
the newspapers are full of initials with dashes and stars after
them. But they don't really know. I counted the asterisks
in three, and all were different. Lady is mentioned,
and Lady Hetty Masters; but I think myself that he met
her abroad. . . . And yet I feel sure that she is English!
Do beg or borrow it. You will be in agony; but such pain,
for another, is very good for the soul, I think. Sympathy
is surely an angelic quality. It is the height of fashion; no
one talks of anything else. The description of the Colosseum,
seen by the poet, through streaming tears, which he takes for
rain (the weeping of the skies), is the most touching thing I
have ever read. It can hardly be bought now, though it
has only been out a week. Mr. Farrow (you know how
fashionable he is) paid three guineas for his copy wasn't it
impulsive of him? Papa paid fifteen shillings for ours, which
is the proper price. Now I must tell you that I have seen
Lord Bendish! I am the proudest girl in the Square
235
236 BENDISH
nobody else has seen him in our circle. I was with Mamma
in Oxford Street We went to that nice woolwork shop near
the Pantheon, where you get those lovely shades of orange
and tawny don't you remember I had some once before,
and did that antimacassar" which Mrs. Welbore liked so much?
Well, we were at the door of the shop, matching our colours,
when the young man said, 'Pardon, ladies, but there goes
the most famous poet in England/ I knew at once who he
meant, and said, ' Where? Where?' And then he pointed
him out, driving himself in a phaeton and pair. My dear,
he has a divine face like the Apollo Bdvidere's but deathly
pale. He wore an enormous white coat. He looks very
haughty but Oh, so sad, and so stern! . . . When I got
home I rushed to the poem and read the bit about the Colos-
seum again. I could see Lord Bendish sitting there, looking
at it through his tears. It is wonderful how much such an
experience helps one to understand poetry more perhaps
than actual acquaintance would. I am sure that if I knew
Lord Bendish I should lose my heart to him. All ladies do,
I believe, but he is inconsolable, they say, and simply will
not talk about her. Mr. Farrow told Mamma that if she is
mentioned, he simply looks at the speaker, and then turns
away his head. Isn't that dreadfully tragic? He is very
proud, of course, and she has wounded him beyond recovery.
He looked to me as if he must die young and knew it, like
Pope's Achilles. Now I come to think of it, he is very much
like that splendid character. -I must say I don't envy her
her feelings at this moment. How women can be so wicked
I don't attempt to think. She led him on, you know,
and then rejected him. 'The prude with Circe's wile and
poisoned cup/ he calls her in one part. . . . and I don't
wonder. ... I saw your Mr. Heniker the other day, look-
ing very happy and I wondered. . . /'
This letter, addressed to Miss Rose Pierson at
Golder's Green, may well have stirred emotions in a
"THE WANDERER" 237
bosom charged with memories. It did. There was
a moment when Miss Pierson felt a stab of surmise
that she herself, she the abandoned and long faith-
ful, could be regarded as the unspeakable She of
her friend's abhorrence and the poet's grief. And
there succeeded moments of pang when she remem-
bered what had been, and what had promised to be
her relations with this tormented poet and peer.
But Miss Pierson, if I don't misread her, kept her
memories mostly in orderly cupboards of the mind,
where they lay, put up in lavender, for very occa-
sional tender visitations and besides, her reason
told her conscience not to be dismayed. Really, she
had not dismissed Lord Bendish; it had been quite
otherwise. And now, too, she had a balm at hand
for any such wounds. For neither Miss Pierson's
heart, nor anybody's heart, suburban or otherwise,
is able to stand quite still. You may gather from
the fragmentary ending of my extract from her cor-
respondence that she had finally accepted the good
Roger's homage and service; and you will gather it
truly.
Rose, therefore, was able to dismiss her reproaches,
and put away repining. But curiosity remained.
She must by all means see, hold, read The Wanderer]
and by this time of day she had the means of being
instantly gratified. She had learned much since we
saw her last, tearless in her stricken grief and con-
stancy. She had learned to see herself in Mr.
Roger Heniker's eyes, and to be pleased with the
reflection. She had learned the uses of the pout,
238 BENDISH
of the head askances, of the "hunching shoulder";
she had become sleek under the adoring gaze of her
young flame-headed lover. She knew very well
what she could do with him; she enjoyed her as-
sured position in the household, her enhancing as
a Well-beloved in the eyes of those to whom she
was merely a niece or an employer. These are les-
sons easily learned.
She got her book, no doubt, and absorbed and
put it away, with perhaps a sigh. Here had been
indeed a lover on paper.
The first edition of The Wanderer, a Poem, by
George, Lord Bendish, lies, as they say, before me.
It is a quarto volume bound in green morocco, with
gilt edges, and a border of gold olive-leaves about
its side. In the midst thereof is the Bendish coat
and motto, surmounted by a baron's coronet. It
has wide margins and thin-faced type, printed in
pale ink. Much of the delicate elegance of the i8th
century, fading but not yet vanished in the early
ipth, is upon the book, which makes it hard to be-
lieve that it ran so passionate a career. Tantaene
animis ! we say. Yet there is no doubt at all about
that.
It came upon a London still accustomed to look
to poetry for the nearest expression of the human
heart. One has given up the habit nowadays, be-
cause the heart of man expresses itself more readily
in action. Rhetoric is no longer relief to a man in
love, and where a man, wrung by emotion, would
"THE WANDERER" 239
have cried himself to quietness in verse in Bendish's
day, in our own he would probably trumpet on his
nose or run to open the window. If intolerably
moved he might go to Brighton, or even to Central
Africa he would not, I think, write a long narrative
poem in term rima all about himself; he would not,
if he were of Bendish's degree, even write a novel
But in the eighteen-twenties, and eighteen-thirties,
Society had a sharp eye for the publishers' windows;
and in the year which saw the Reform Bill become
the law it was rewarded by two successive displays.
The Wanderer came out first, and made its author
a famous man. He was already notorious, for the
Manifesto to the People of England had seen to
that. The great world and the small alike had read
the Manifesto and cheered or pished as might be.
He had, as a fact, irritated nearly everybody by it;
but everybody knew who Lord Bendish was, and had,
as it were, a skeleton of him in the mind's eye, ready
to be filled in upon occasion. The Wanderer gave
occasion, and immediately George Lord Bendish
stood before the town as a young man of tempestu-
ous passions, of sorrows, of grandiose ambitions, of
much miscellaneous and elegant learning, and of an
eloquence such as had not been heard in English
poetry since the times of great Elizabeth. So, at
least, it was declared.
The Wanderer is very eloquent. His music wells
out of him, now gushing forth with gurgitations and
breaking spray, now streaming steadily, now a
dropping fall of sound; but never ceasing to flow.
240 BENDISH
It handles the primal emotions in the grand manner;
it is very dignified but persistently despondent; it
deals with women more in sorrow than in anger; it
frequently appeals to Heaven. It borrows largely
from Nature in her more terrific moods and mani-
festations. Chasms and torrents, rainbows and roll-
ing clouds, mountain peaks and venerable towers on
the borders of lakes: these and other splendid wit-
nesses assist at the obsequies of the poet's massacred
affections. Italian skies, Claude-Lorraine landscapes,
with a happy and brightly-dressed peasantry in the
foreground, Michael Angelo, the ruins of Rome,
Vesuvius and the Island of Capri these phenomena
also, dipped in the heart's blood, made prismatic
with the tears, reverberating with the sighs of a
most unhappy young man of family and rank, are
more occasional accessories of the romantic funeral
of his passion. Never, you would have said, did a
poet mourn in more splendid company, and never
the heartless dealer of the mortal blow produce a
greater cataclysm in nature.
She is never directly referred to. We hear that
her dwelling was "in a sea-girt paradise/' and that
the mountains, like couchant lions, kept her secrets
inviolable. We hear of her "slim and pardlike
strength/' of her eyes "like the blue ice whose flame
is death." Her love is fatal, her touch paralyses,
her kiss makes to rave. "In stature dainty-small
like that lithe minion, Who wrought the ten years'
havoc in old Troy" helps to fix her for those who
knew that she had been Poore's model for his Helen
" r ;HE WANDERER" 241:
in The Vision ofArgos; but it was not general knowl-
edge in London when the poem was in everybody's
mouth, and need never have been, but for what fol-
lowed later and hastened the catastrophe of this
narrative. Rose Pierson, who had a painful interest
in The Wanderer, would have been little the wiser if
she had been told the name of this malign enchant-
ress. Roger Heniker, who had guessed it, kept his
own counsel. Whether Tom Moore had an inkling
is not to be known. He met the Duke of Devizes
at a great house not long after publication, we hear,
and had a short conversation with His Grace. The
poem was certainly mentioned between them, and
Bendish himself was, in fact, pointed out to the
great man.
"Ho/' the Duke had said, "that's the young man,
is it? " and gave him a keen and frosty look. " H'm,"
was his verdict. "I thought he was a coxcomb.
But he isn't."
"He has genius, Duke," said Tom, "and that's
rare." The Duke took snuff.
"It may be I don't know so much about that
as you do, Moore. But I do know a puppy when
I see one." He declined an introduction. It was
then that Tom mentioned his visit to Rapallo in
the spring, where he had seen "our friends the
Poores."
"So I hear," the Duke said but no more. He
had little doubt in his own mind but that Master
Bendish had been making love to Georgey and had
been snubbed. Hence these melodious wails. There
242
BENDISH
would be wails, he judged, less melodious if Poore
happened upon The Wanderer.
As for the noble author, his -overweening success
by no means corresponded with his inordinate am-
bition. He could, indeed, only be his own tributary,
and the utmost service he could do himself was to
spurn what the world offered him. Now to do this
adequately and continuously it was very necessary
that the world should go on offering; and so it did.
He used to hold levees wherever he went. Some
thought it rather ridiculous, and he said that he
thought it so; but he took it very seriously, and
liked it out of measure. People were brought up to
be presented to him, women as well as men. He
allowed that to be done. He had extremely little
to say to them, but made great play with scornful
eyelids, quivering nostrils, and the upper lip which
had reminded Miss Smithers of the Apollo Belvidere.
Yet he knew, as well as any royal personage, to a
hair's shade, the amount of deference that was paid
him, or that was due, and not Bruinmell himself in
his heyday could have been more exigent. At a
dinner-party he was mostly silent; with men about
him, unless they were his intimates (and that means
his inferiors), invariably so. He had got, in fact,
into that sulky way of accepting homage as if it
was long overdue which those who never can get
enough of it use as a kind of solatium to themselves.
He took it peevishly, but always looked about for
more.
Yet he had his troubles, as we all have even in
"THE WANDERER 55 243
this hour of apogee. The politicians pestered him.
Mr. Hunt was a difficult man to shake off. If any-
body could have quenched him it would surely have
been Bendish, who had the art of the cut direct at
his finger-ends. But Hunt's hand on the back was
not to be avoided but by flight, and it was comic to
see the young lord's terror of it. He fairly fled the
hearty orator. Then there was that infernal Mani-
festo to the People of England. The newspapers
made play with that, and the supply of it seemed
inexhaustible. He had agents pretty well all over
England buying it up. There's no saying what that
cost him: Heniker knew, who had to find the money.
But the atrocious thing had ways of its own. You
might be about Leicester Square and Fleet Street for
a week and see not one; and then one fine day the
whole town would seem fluttering with it, like
Hampstead on a washing day. Bendish was furious
it wasn't safe to mention Poore, or the Reform
Bill, or even Argos in these days.
Then again there was The Vision of Revolt which
was printing. He took a short way with that. He
sent back the sheets as they came, without looking
at them; but Leigh Hunt, as we know, was in charge
of that masterpiece, and passed every one of them
himself, unbeknown to his noble friend.
He cancelled the Preface, and wrote another,
which he signed, but unwillingly. The new Pref-
ace cost him a good deal of reflection, for all its
brevity. "Mr. Poore," it finally read, "is a learned
and intrepid explorer of English History, and has
244 BENDISH
reached certain conclusions which I admire. It is
not for me to speak of their justice or reason; the
greatest service I can do them is to let them speak
for themselves. Mr, Poore, however, has tempted
me to believe that a few words from me may serve
him for introduction into polite and instructed circles,
though I confess that I never read the work of a
man who needed less of his friends. My interest in
these strenuous pages is, I must be allowed to say,
literary rather than speculative. Mr. Poore thinks
hardly of the institutions of his country, and justi-
fies himself with such vigour that I am hopeful at
least of its literature so long as he is at hand to up-
hold it He is both bard and seer, poet as well as
politician. Let him take heart therefore. Telis,
Phoebe, tuis lacrymas ulciscere nostras! BENDISH."
It was pretty dexterous, really. The invocation
of Apollo at the end was as good a thing as Bendish
ever did. But certainly it was offensive, and I'm
not at all sure that it was not meant to be. Tom
Moore, the only person with whom it was discussed,
ventured a mild remonstrance. "I would expand it,
my dear Bendish; upon my honour I would. You
don't wish to hurt the feelings of a friend. Now,
you use the word admire in the right way but
surely you see that its very Tightness, its scrupulos-
ity, has a sting? Gervase has a quick temper hell
be hurt. I beseech you not to admire his conclu-
sions."
Bendish was very much pleased. That was the
sort of tribute he loved. "But that's just what I
"THE WANDERER" 245
do, Tom. I admire, but I don't applaud. I don't
applaud, and I won't/'
"But you did, my dear friend, you know you
did "
"Pooh," said Bendish, "I applauded him, not his
silly doctrine/'
"Fie," cried Tom, " fie, my dear soul. You are be-
littling your own generosity. I foresee a very peck of
trouble out of this. Better indeed have no preface
at all."
"There shall be this preface," said Bendish, with
a heavy brow, "or none at all; and you'll find that
they will prefer this one."
"There's your name, egad," Moore admitted rue-
fully. "It means money. Not that Gervase wants
the stuff"
"He wants readers, though, like every poet under
Heaven," said Bendish, "and they'll read him after
this. I flatter myself it's a provocative preface."
"By the Lord, you're right there," said the little
man.
CHAPTER XXI
WANDERER" EXAMINED
THE Duke read Bendish's book, and had no diffi-
culty. This was his beloved Georgey described by
a candidate for the dog-whip. His desire was to
administer it himself, but he knew that could not
be, since every lash on the rascal's shoulders would
flick those of the slandered lady. fiendish, he judged,
had made himself safe, and he had to hope so.
Should Poore catch sight of The Wanderer and get
an inkling of the truth what then? But Poore
was not suspicious by nature, and Georgey might
be trusted to keep her rueful counsel.
Meantime the town talked, and women's names
were bandied about like shuttlecocks in a country-
house on a winter's day. Certainly it had not been
Lady , it was maintained, for Bendish had
been seen since in her box at the Opera. The great
world had seen him there, the lesser read it under
the newspaper asterisks, which fell about like
showers of meteors on the day following publication.
Could it then have been Mrs. Maynard? What was
to be said of Mrs. Joicey? Her candidature was
warmly supported by her friends. The Duke, who
heard everything, caught no whisper of Georgiana's
name. All might yet be well, he thought, if Tom
246
"THE WANDERER" EXAMINED 247
Moore (whose knowledge he suspected) could be
taught discretion. But to teach Tom had been to
confess his own acquaintance with the truth. No,
no, never that. The thing must be risked.
Not a word, so far, from Florence. For the first
time in these years of dearth he was glad to be with-
out her words.
Six weeks or so after this hue and cry The Vision
of Revolt appeared, without puff preliminary or sub-
sequent explosion. It fell flat. Bendish's Preface
did its work well. Here was a poem, it said, which
had great technical merit. Leave out its politics
and it will amuse, even move you. But the public
is not moved by poetry unless it has been first moved
by the poet, and it had never been moved by Poore.
There is a technique also in the conduct of life, a
way of moving about, of holding yourself by which
only you can impose yourself upon the world. If
you write poetry in your shirt-sleeves your poetry
as well as you will want for a coat. Now Poore,
when he had been in London, had chosen for the
shade. Holland House knew him not, nor Fops'
Alley. He had had no clubs. Mr. Rogers, insti-
gated by Moore, once asked him to breakfast, but
he would not go. He was employed by an attorney
in those days, and so he remained until chance threw
him into the rays of Mrs. Lancelot's starry eyes.
From that hour his poetical life began a great
matter for himself, but nothing at all to the world.
When that life of his became a great and vital matter
1248 BENDISH
to Mrs. Lancelot, the world still ignored him. Then
he ran away with her; then came the divorce; but
even then such was his lack of imposing manner
his own obscurity was great enough to enwrap her
too. She never lifted him into notoriety rather
she was drawn down by him into the shade. Poems
appeared from time to time; publishers were found;
he may have had a hundred readers we know that
Tom Moore was faithful. It was through Tom that
Bendish had been struck by him. But, as has been
seen, he had not been able to impose upon the sen-
sitive Bendish for long. Bendish had wearied of
him, and now with a flack of the fingers spun him
back into his dark.
The Vision of Revolt was for a long time ineffec-
tive. Leigh Hunt rang its praises in The Reformer]
Tool was intoxicated by its power and incisive hand-
ling^and bubbled over with it in private life. Socially,
he found it of no use to him. It was contemptuously
rebuked in The Morning Chronicle as the slaver from
the mouth of an anarchist, not noticed at all by the
Times and Morning Post. To be sure, there were
the magazines and the quarterlies to come. These
might be trusted to take toll, but they were not
then, any more than they are now, supported by the
:paob; and as for the fashionable, we know that they
read what they please, and find in it what they
expect. All might have been well but for trivial
accidents. If Tom hadn't been indiscreet and Mr.
Hunt, the orator, officious, the fashionable world
had heard no more of Georgiana, nor the political
"THE WANDERER" EXAMINED 249
troubled itself with her husband; but these things
will occur. As for Orator Hunt, he had his reasons
too, but they need not concern us at the moment.
But Tom's intervention is another thing. It was
part chivalry and part terror. There was none of
the vulgar "I happen to know the truth " about it.
For he did not know; he only suspected. Bendish
had told him nothing, nor had he dared to ask any-
thing. But, putting two and two together, he felt,
rather than was convinced, that he was right. He
was not, however, angry with his noble friend, be-
cause, being a poet himself, he knew what these
things came to; he knew (none better) the uses of a
pretty peg for one's draperies of sentiment. At the
same time he was passionate to defend the fair lady,
and terrified lest her volcanic husband should come
home to do it himself. If that should happen, he
knew it would be necessary to take a line. Old
friends were best, and Bendish would have to be
given the go-by. But please the Powers that would
not happen, and lest it should he went tip-toe about
London in these days, ready to guffaw any breath
of Georgiana's name out of house.
He then, lighting, like the butterfly he was, upon
a group at a great house, found it discussing The
Wanderer, and hovered to listen. One said that he
happened to know that Bendish had been awkwardly
placed before his journey abroad. A lady's name,
never yet involved, was mentioned, and this lady,
it seemed, had been in Paris when Bendish left
England. Now what was to be said to that?
250 BENDISH
This was received with the seriousness it de-
manded. The lady was warrantable; she would
have done credit to any intrigue. She was mar-
ried; she had birth. She had not much beauty, it
was true but what was that? Instances were cited,
from Queen Margot to Madame de Stael. It was
contended that "The Wanderer" never spoke of his
Circe's beauty. Then Tom intervened, with un-
fortunate chivalry.
"But he does and he has reason. She's the most
lovely woman in England, and "
"What!" they cried him. "She's in England,
then?" He was checked and confused.
"She is not, then. But she was. And while I'm
upon it, ladies, I am constrained to say that my
friend Lord Bendish has been carried away. I can
understand a romantic attachment as well as any
man born; I can understand a bitterness of resent-
ment but here the two are not in reason. He can
never have been rejected because he can never have
offered the thing's impossible. So much I must
say on behalf of the lady."
"Your exquisite reason, Tom?"
"Ah!" cried he, flushed with his transport, "but
a wife and a mother! But a martyr herself to the
great passion! Oh, the thing is incredible! I have
never spoken to Bendish a word of this believe me.
I could not. Nor can anybody else that I can see, lest
untold mischief be the end. There are persons there
are even personages who, if they had an inkling
No more of it. I may have said too much "
"THE WANDERER" EXAMINED 251
"Torn/' said one, "you are warm."
"You are right/' he said, "I am warm and yet
sometimes my blood runs cold. The world would
be the poorer by a fine poem, but I could wish The
Wanderer had not been born." He turned to the
young man who had brought him into this and ad-
monished him with a wagging finger. "Havilot, let
me beg of you to stop this discussion. It's a serious
matter. I will add but this one observation. If
you knew as much as I do, you would " But here
came the most eloquent aposiopesis, surely, since
Neptune's Quos ego ; for the little man grew as
red as a turkeycock, stared with round eyes at one
door, and fled out of another. In that door of entry
stood, erect and beribboned, white-headed and be-
whiskered, the Duke of Devizes, side by side with a
lady, giver of the feast. The cat was out of the bag.
Before the rooms began to empty everybody in it
knew who Bendish's Circe had been. That much
the world was told, but Moore's indignant denial of
the fact was not recorded.
When that came to the Duke's ear, as come it
did, his blue eyes glittered like frosty stars, and he
wrote a note to Bendish,
"The Duke of Devizes' compliments to Lord Bendish.
He would be glad of a few moments' conversation with his
lordship if he can be allowed, and at any time convenient."
To that note Bendish, suspecting nothing, sent a
proper reply, and in due course was shown in to the
Duke.
252 BENDISH
The Duke bowed, but did not offer his hand.
"I am much obliged to you for coming/' he said.
" There is a private and personal matter connected
with your recent publication which concerns me
nearly ."
"I am curious/' Bendish said, "to know what
that can possibly be. Your Grace and I move in
different worlds."
"It's the same world, I fancy," the Duke said,
"and it's a small world. But this is the matter.
Gossip has lately been making free with the name
of a great and dear friend of mine, a lady. Her
name is Mrs. Poore, and she and her husband and
family live at Rapallo in Italy. Gossip, malice,
slander, what you will, make her conduct the turn-
ing-point of your Poem."
Bendish drew himself up. "I must deny your
Grace's right to cross-examine me," he said, "but I
will say this, that if the lady's conduct were indeed
the turning-point of my poem, it would not have
been published as such."
The eyes of the two men met. Bendish's were
steady. If he was lying, he was lying well. The
Duke saw that he would lie the thing out to the
end. He bowed his head slightly.
"I should have expected such an answer. The
lady in your Poem is imaginary? That is what
you would have me understand?"
"She is imaginary," said Bendish.
The Duke held out a couple of fingers. "I am
very much obliged to your lordship. The ascription
"THE WANDERER" EXAMINED 253
to my friend was made explicitly, and to me. In
the absence of the proper person, and as trustee of
an instrument of which Mrs. Poore is beneficiary,
I took upon myself to apply immediately to the
fountain-head. The slander once set afloat will be
difficult to overtake, and I can only hope that my
friend Poore, who is of a headstrong nature, won't
hear of it. I can, I am sure, rely upon your lordship
to correct what is a most unfortunate and, I am glad
to believe, unwarrantable handling of a lady's name."
It was Bendish's turn to bow. "Your Grace may
rest satisfied that I shall do what becomes me," he
said. After a few stiff phrases of a general nature
he withdrew.
Now let it be said in justice to him that, although
he lied, he did not think that he had. It is quite
true that his trivial affair with Georgiana had set
him off poetising, but fairly certain that there was
no deliberate portrait of her in The Wanderer. The
heartless enchantress were indeed ludicrous as a
portrait, and the weakness of the poem really is that
the occasion of all its portentous musings is so con-
ventional. The beguilements of Circe, the disen-
chantment of the youth were the merest peg for
rhetoric. Italy, an atmosphere of temperament, was
the real study: Italy was the real heroine, as surely
as Bendish was the hero.
But he was uncomfortable. He was disturbed. A
bitter something surged up in his heart. He had
been had up like a schoolboy to the headmaster's
study* He had almost seen the birch in the corner,
254 BENDISH
behind the great atlas. He hated the Duke more
than any man living, and vowed to revenge himself
if he could. Physically, he was not at all a coward;
but he was impressionable, like all poets, and it was
some time before he shook off the foreboding of
trouble which this visit had given him. He had
found himself face to face with inflexible honesty,
which, though he vowed that he was not a liar,
made him feel like one. He had a streak of caution
in him too which advised him to cast about in all
directions for safety, for a port of refuge should the
storm break suddenly upon him. He was comforted
by the thought that he had withdrawn the preface
to Poore's poem in time. There, at least, was a
patch of blue sky. He could not, then, be suddenly
confronted by political opinions which he had ceased
to hold. But for the other matter for a storm
blown up by his own "Wanderer" he had times of
feeling that he must travel far if that gale were to
be rode out. He must wander indeed, and see the
world through black and weeping glasses. It was
at such times that the image of Rose Pierson rose
before him her willowy grace, the quick weaving
of her hands, her adoring and trustful eyes. O looks
of devotion! pure, sorrowful mouth! His own
eyes filled with tears as he thought of her. His
gentle, faithful Rose! Thank God, there was a
haven in her ever open arms. He hoarded her
deeply and snugly within himself, and when the
world vext him used to steal away and look at his
treasure in secret. He got extraordinary comfort
"THE WANDERER" EXAMINED 255
from her in this way; but it never occurred to
him to pay her a visit. Enough to know that she
was there, waiting for him. Thank God for good
women! His eyes would fill with tears as he
breathed this prayer.
But you can't fill the public eye, and mouth,
without some annoyance to yourself. Hard upon
the troubles due to The Wanderer, came those of
The Vision. The unspeakable Hunt the orator
and not the poet blazed into speech about The
Vision of Revolt, and in defence of his "noble friend."
There were outrageous things in that work, he said,
which made his English blood boil. These were
those notes already quoted, about Parliament and
George IV. The House of Commons was insulted,
cried Mr. Hunt, the person of the Monarch assailed.
Could it be said that Lord Bendish had set his name
to such a scurrilous libel ! Never. His lordship had,
it seems, written a preface to the book. His lord-
ship, let him tell them, had written two. One he
had withdrawn when he had the work before him, and
had substituted another. Let them read before they
judged him. That was a preface which any lover of
literature might write to a book whose art he ad-
mired while he deplored its content. That, in truth,
was such a preface as the author of The Wanderer
might furnish to a brother poet. It was a task of
honour. His lordship had done his duty scrupu-
lously. "The great service I can do him," said he,
"is to let him speak for himself." There spoke the
man of honour, faithful to his promises but resolute
256 BENDISH
not to endorse by any one scratch of the pen the
reckless and impious reflections upon his country,
his King, and the Constitution, which Mr. Poore
has not hesitated, etc., etc. This speech made up
in warmth for what it lacked of matter, and received
a good deal of comment. Questions were asked in
the House of Commons. The offensive Note was
read. There was talk of Breach of Privilege. The
reference to King George IV. came up for discussion
also. That was referred to the Attorney-General
for a report.
Finally the Duke sent for The Vision of Revolt
and read it, preface and all. Having done that, he
thought for a little, and then he got up and wrote
a short note. It was addressed to the publisher of
the book, and contained a confidential request.
CHAPTER XXII
A BUDGET
i. Thomas Moore to Gervase Poore.
SLOPERTON, loth March.
MY DEAREST GERVASE, You are a terror to the
law-abiding, a sickness that destroyeth in the noon- ,
day. sir, how did you dare lay hands upon an
anointed, withal a dead, king? It will go hard with
you if the politicians read you. But there's worse
to come. When I read your note about the House
of Commons the hairs turned to bristles on my back.
Good for you to be in Italy with your fair lady and
babes about you! Here at least you have given a
foothold for all parties to stand and shoot at you.
For you have pleased devil a one, my boy neither
the Tories, since you hint at worse than Reform;
nor the Whigs, since you laugh at Reform; nor the
Radicals, since you call them sucklings. Why, what
the devil would you have? And to have made a
Tory of our friend Bendish! You see he will have
none of you. He admires, quotha! and fobs you off
with a tag from the classics! There will be a plank
loose in your barque, Gervase, if he turns rat so
soon. And if I shift the metaphor and say there's
a screw loose in your pate, you'll forgive the freedom
of a friend, who loves the poet, and execrates the
257
258 BENDISH
sansculotte, and trembles for the skin of the boldest
son of Priam that ever wooed Leda's daughter.
My dear, your Poem is a fine thing; it is even
damned fine. It is so fine indeed that you can afford
Bendish's flouting preface. Your Argos thrilled me;
but your Vision of England, gone, going, and to
come has ravished me of my wits. I see, I feel, I
believe, as I read you. If not thus, then not at all.
And your tenderness to all objects of pity! Your
great dim (for you have the sense of tears, Gervase,
and be d d to you), rolling, tragic pageant sweeps
by as beautiful or terrible a pastoral landscape as
ever I saw out of the best of us the very best.
'Tis as if Piers the Ploughman informed Colin Clout. .
True, you lack the Chaucerian gusto you have no
breath left for a frolic laugh. When you laugh
there's a bitter ring. man, your fellow in the
sun "without a face" ah, how could you have the
nerve! And bedad, he's there; he was there, and
we have him yet. But of all your foregrounds com-
mend me to Hodge at the blessed Mass, dumb before
his wooden Gods, while beyond him the monasteries
are tumbling, and the saints' bones littering the
cloister floors. For these readings of the soul your
own will live and a fico for your politics.
Bendish has the pas of you, howsoever. His
Wanderer caine out a month before you, and holds
the stage. Never was such a scramble after a poem
before. Indeed, the young lord hath a perennial
fount of poesy within him. He has been lionised to
his heart's content. All the pretty women aim to
A BUDGET 259
set him wandering again, each in her company.
The fate of Hylas is like to be his but that he
has the way of the Grand Turk with him. He sits
on a divan, and the candidates are brought up
by the chief eunuch. You would admire Ms cool
and critical eye, I misdoubt your opinion of The
Wanderer. 'Twill be too fervent for you, too tor-
rential, too much informed with himself. You have
your eye upon the object, he upon the subject of all
verse. If he suffers, look you, Mont Blanc has the
bellyache. He reminds me of the Jew in the fable,
who after a supper of liver and bacon was overtaken
by a thunderstorm on his way to bed. He quailed
at each crashing peal, his eyes showed white, he
sweated in fear. "God of Israel!" he cried in his
anguish, "what a fuss about a little bit of pork!"
There you have Bendish confronted by the marvels
of Nature. But 'tis a rolling stream of song, for
all that.
My salutations to your lady to you all my love.
Your friend, T. M.
2. Gervase Poore to Lord Bendish.
SETTIGNANO, zist March.
MY DEAR BENDISH Your Preface to my Poem is
perfunctory. You had served me better by none at
all. I do not say, however, that I am surprised by
your sudden coolness towards ideas by which, I re-
member, you were somewhat suddenly fired. I
have to thank you, at any rate, for making feasible
260 BENDISH
by your momentary enthusiasm a Poem with whose
scope and definite predictions I have no reason to
be dissatisfied; and I may even go so far as to con-
gratulate myself upon receiving your approbation of
its literary merits. Whether you might have ac-
corded it more generously is a matter for you to
reflect upon. You have, however, expressed your-
self clearly upon the only side of the book upon
which, I see, you are capable of a respectable opin-
ion.
I have not yet seen your own Poem. I have
asked my publishers for it, and don't doubt of
my admiration of it. It will not, I assure you, be
swayed in any degree by yours of mine. I am, yours
sincerely, GERVASE POORE.
The Right Honourable
Lord Bendish.
3. The Reverend Sydney Smith to Samuel Rogers.
COMBE FLOREY, itfh March.
MY DEAR ROGERS What think you of the Vision
of Revolt? Does it urge your bile? Mine has got
into my head, I can't see. I am like Homer's lion
after a meal, or Dante's cannibal Pisan. My jaws
yet drip from the savoury entrails. But now I'm
hungry for the poet's blood. We are to lay him out
soon. I hear that Christopher North will open the
ball in Maga; he is even now whetting his glaive.
Jeffrey, another Graffiacane, will be into him with
a prong. My own weapon is the sabre. You may
A BUDGET 261
guess whether Murray gives me a free hand. I'll
show you some of my wrist-work anon. You saw
Leigh Hunt's hysterics? The other Hunt the*
white-hatted unspeakable has taken the field in
defence of his noble friend Bendish. Terrible ally!
But u vw 'EzWXw Kai re Kraveovra KareKTO," I *Tis
the fortune of war, and the young man can't
have it all his own way. I say, "A plague on both
their houses" Bendish with his of ill-fame and
Poore with his Commons House. He has made me
a man-eater with his confounded savagery. You
have read his Note? 'Tis undoubtedly scandalous.
I suppose the Government will prosecute. Or .will
the House of Commons bring him to his knees? Or
Majesty's self, like the daughter of Herodias, dance
for his head on a charger? He wields an impartial
whip, odd rot him. There's not a shin in England
unoffended, I doubt. I hear that Tom Moore, the
little Whiteboy, is shouting with joy trailing his
coat and whirling his shillelagh. "Ere the King's
crown go down there are crowns to be broke." Auto
da fe, say I. "He will light this day a candle in
England," will he? He shall. We'll light Mm.
What says My Lady to all this pother? Does
she ask Poore to breakfast? Or is she of my mind
who wish for him for breakfast?
The season is wondrous mild. Daffodils begin to
peer already. But The Vision of Revolt engenders
a dangerous heat. You might say we were already
in the Dog Days. I wish I hadn't read it; I wish
it hadn't been written. I wish the fair Georgiana
262 BENDISH
had remained with her Duke. And I wish that
I could have written the thing myself. Sincerely
yours, my dear Rogers,
SYDNEY SMITH.
4. Georgiana Poore to the Duke of Devizes.
SETTIGNANO, izth March.
MY DEAR DUKE I long to know what you think
of Gervase's Poem, and I am sure that he does too,
though he is nervous. You know how much he
respects your opinion. Lord Bendish has behaved
very badly about it. When he was with us at Ra-
pallo he egged Gervase on indeed, he is responsible
for the writing of it, though it is quite true that
Gervase had been reading and thinking English his-
tory for a long time. Then, when he was at work,
something happened which I can't write about,
even to you, and Lord Bendish went away. He re-
turned when the poem was just upon finished, and
Gervase read it to him. Nobody could have been
more enthusiastic than he seemed to be. He under-
took the publishing, and to write a preface which
I admit he has done. But what a preface! It had
been far better if he had done nothing at all. Ger-
vase is very much offended and has written him a
good letter. We haven't seen Lord B.'s Wanderer.
He did not send it to us, but I think it must be on
its way, from our booksellers. We had no idea that
he had written it, as he said nothing of it when he
returned. He must have done it between his visits
A BUDGET 263
to us, and it's most odd that we heard nothing of
it, as he is generally so full of himself and his own
feelings.
You are in the thick of this endless Reform, I
feel sure. How much my thoughts are with you!
I remember so well that night when you were
mobbed in the street. I was told of it at a party
and Gervase took me back to Wake House. It
makes me very nervous, especially just now. I am
thankful that I have Gervase here, out of harm's
way. You know of course that he hopes you will
throw it out of the Lords again! Extremes meet!
I don't know what I wish myself, except that Ger-
vase would get as tired of politics as I am. I am
glad to say that he has been much less interested in
them since his Vision is off his hands. He is back
in his Greek myths now, and reads his Aeschylus all
day. He makes me read with him for an hour every
morning. I am really beginning to know a verb
when I see it now. He is so sweet about it not
naturally a patient man, but always so with me.
But you know what I think about Mm! I assure
you that you need not urge me to " stick to him."
I am a perfect limpet.
When your tiresome politics are over, you must
have a long holiday, and I shall be very much
offended if you don't pay us a visit. Your godson
is going to be tall, like his father. Gervase says he
is like me and I own he has a round face. Except
for that I see nothing but his father in Mm. He is
very masterful, the little monkey.
264 BENDISH
The weather is perfect a heavenly mild Spring.
The orchard below us is full of purple and red
anemones. Yesterday I found the first tulip a
dear little pointed bud, striped in red and white.
They call it Bandiera di Toscana.
We know quite a number of people here and in
Florence. The other evening at a party at the Tor-
rigiahis, I met the s-! I had not, of course, seen
her since the old days, and felt very shy: But she
came up directly she saw me and began to talk. I
never liked her, and don't find her improved in ap-
pearance. She is very large and flushed and blonde.
She talked a great deal about Lord fiendish and
The Wanderer , and wanted to know when and where
he composed it. I couldn't tell her. She was rather
odd about it, I thought. She came back, back, and
back to it. I hear that the Willoughbys are expected
and the Hollands even. Gervase has heard from
her already! A very pleasant Mr. Crabb Robin-
son paid us a visit, and stayed to supper. There was
no meat for him, but he pretended that he preferred
cheese. He and Gervase talked about German
poetry all night. He has not mastered the art of
eating spaghetti yet, and was wonderfully involved
in it.
I hear the children, and must fly. I daren't ask
you to write but if you could ! Always your
affectionate friend, GEOE.GIANA,
A BUDGET 265
5. The Duke of Devizes to Georgiana Poore.
Private.
WAKE HOUSE, 2$rd March.
MY DEAR GEOE.GEY I am so driven that I have
scarcely a moment for you. If you can &eep The
Wanderer out of Gervase's hands I recommend you
to do so. The writer of it is a puppy, though a
clever one. I had a short conversation with him the
other day. I am afraid the truth is not in him.
As for the Preface to your blessed Revolutionary
Poem, I have Master B. on the hip, as hell find out
one of these days if he don't look out. You mustn't
ask me what I think of the Vision. I'll do my best
for G. for your sake. I hear of the beginnings of
commotion, and am not surprised. You may think
what you like of the Commons, but you're a fool if
you write it down. Let him keep out of England,
whatever he does. B. is not worth Ms powder. He
may leave me to dock his tail. I am serious about
this. Keep Gervase with you, and keep The Wan-
derer out of his way.
Don't expect me to talk politics. I am sick to
death of them. Lord G. and his friends are frighten-
ing King Billy out of his wits. Creevey tells me
that he's going to be one of the new peers the slop-
shop lords who are to be brought out in batches to
pass the Bill. I can't say yet whether our cock will
fight. It depends how they press him. If they
aren't careful he'll up hackles. They have a spirit
in his family. They all have it. There no more
266 BENDISH
now. God bless you and your babies. Nothing
contents me so much as to know you are happy and
a joy to all who can look upon you. No more now.
Yours, D '
6. Thomas Moore to Gervase Poore.
DUKE STREET, $oth March
MY BEAR BOY I was never more serious than I
am now. The murder's out, I hear, and I am to
beseech you by all you hold sacred and I know
very well what that is to stay where you are and
possess your soul. There's a hue and cry after you.
I know not from what quarter exactly but I learn
that there will either be a prosecution by Informa-
tion or a warrant from the Speaker to attach you
for Breach of Privilege. 'Tis those blessed Notes
of yours. There may be both, for the Commons
are insatiable. The Duke will do what he can, of
course; but even he cannot quench the Commons.
Now I know that you will be itching to be in
England; I know what provocation you have re-
ceived. The thing is beyond belief. I have told
his Lordship plainly what I think, and you may be
sure of your friends, and of hers. But think of it,
Gervase. Suppose you come home and have him
out, there will be a scandal. Your arrest will follow
to a certainty and where are you then? Where
are your dear ones? It's sheer ruination to you,
No, no, let the unwholesome scoundrel alone in his
squalor. However, if you must you must, and you
may count upon me.
A BUDGET 267
I was with the Duke last night. It was at Bath
House. Bendish was there and bowed as he passed
us. He looked very pale but was crowded about
by the women in a monstrous way. Oh, leave him
in his bagnio, for God's sake. Think of her, that
angel of love and purity, think of her babes. My
dear boy, the truest honour you can do her is to
ignore the dirty dog. Your friend, T. MOORE.
7. Gervase Poore to Lord Bendish.
SETTIGNANO, i$th April.
Mr. Poore has received The Wanderer and read
it. He pays Lord Bendish the ill-merited courtesy
of telling him that he starts this day for London in
order to administer public chastisement upon his
Lordship as both a liar and a coward.
8. Lord Bendish to Thomas Moore.
ST. JAMES'S, jth May.
DEAR TOM I rather fancy that I may need your
friendly services one day soon. Our common ac-
quaintance, Poore the Poet, has flown, by letter, at
my throat for some fancied slight probably he has
discovered that I admired his wife and chooses not
to remember that I am one of many. At any rate,
he announces his proximate arrival in these islands
for purposes of satisfaction which I propose to
afford Mm. You and I have held many a field to-
gether, but not, I think, that of clreadM Ares. I
268 BENDISH
know nobody to whom I would sooner turn than
yourself, whether that god or the Cyprian Queen
were above the lists. I hope that I may refer the
fire-eater's friend to yourself. Yours ever,
BENDISH.
9. Thomas Moore to Lord Bendish.
DUKE STREET, 8th May.
MY DEAR LORD I regret infinitely that it is out
of my power to oblige your Lordship, but not more
than I regret the circumstance. Mr. Poore is an old
and valued friend of mine, the husband of a lady
whom I revere and honour as far as may be on this
side idolatry. He has, and must on every ground
have the first call upon my countenance, such as it
is. To say more would be intrusive, and imperti-
nent. I have the honour to be, my dear Lord, your
Lordship's most obedient T. MOORE.
10. Georgiam Poore to the Duke of Devizes.
SETTIGNANO, i$th April.
DEAREST FRIEND I am in dreadful trouble. A
terrible thing has happened. Gervase received yes-
terday a letter from Mr. Moore, and, by the same
post, Lord Bendish's shameful and wicked poem.
He read the letter first and came in to me for the
poem. I saw immediately that something serious
had upset him. He asked me, very quietly, had I
read The Wanderer? I said that I had looked at it.
He said, Give it to me, and took it and read some of
A BUDGET 269
it, standing by me. Then he threw it down and
turned to me where I was sitting. He put his hands
on my shoulders and asked me to tell him all. I
knew then what he meant, and told him everything.
It is true that Lord Bendish forgot himself when he
was with us at Rapallo. It was when Gervase was
working from morning till night at The Vision of
Revolt, and I used to see a good deal of him. He paid
me a great many compliments and used to read me
poems which might have been about anybody. I
thought him very foolish, but it did not occur to me
that he was wicked. I knew nothing about him
except that he had written a satire which Gervase
thought very good. And then one morning, after
being silent for some time, he suddenly fell on Ms
knees and tried to kiss my hands. I told him what
I thought about him, and he left Rapallo soon after-
wards, I believe. At all events we saw nothing of
him until late in the autumn. I said nothing to
Gervase about it because they were rather leagued
in this political affair, and Gervase was very much
interested in him. I should have thrown him out
in his writing I should have killed The Vision. I
acted for the best, as I thought. Well, I told all
this to Gervase, who was kindness itself to me, and
tried not to show me how angry he was. But of
course I knew. He wouldn't let me look at the
book, or look at any more himself, but burnt it
immediately on the hearth, and then came back to
me and kissed me. I cried, and he comforted me
and made me feel braver and more sensible.
270 BENDISH
This morning, however, directly I was awake he
told me that he must go to England and meet Lord
Bendish; and now he has gone, and I am torn to
pieces by anxiety and remorse. I am bitterly sorry,
on .every ground, that I didn't tell him at once
about it. I should have stopped The Vision, dead,
I know, but even that would have been better than
a duel. It was that which deterred me, that s and a
feeling that I could not bring myself to speak of
such a thing to one I love so much as I love Gervase.
You know how difficult I find it to speak about my
feelings. It is a great fault of mine. But it all
seemed so trivial and absurd when one knows
what love really is, or can be. I simply forgot it
as soon as I could. Oh, do be good to Gervase! I
know you will.
I am well looked after here, and have friends,
very kind people, the Merediths, staying with me
in the house. The Princess is close by, too, and
exceedingly pleasant and friendly. I knew that I
couldn*t go with him, and didn't even ask him to
let me. But you may imagine what my feelings
are. I can't sit still when I think and the only
thing to do is not to think. I made him promise
me that he would go to you directly he reached
London, and I know that he will. Oh, my dear
friend, save him for me if you can, I know by your
last letter that he is not safe in England; but I
rely upon you. Nobody could have a better or
more splendid friend than you are, and will be, for
my sake and Gervase's,
A BUDGET 271
The only consolation I have is that he will put
himself in your hands.
I enclose a scrap for him. Please give it to him
the moment it comes. He will be with you before
this reaches you. He will travel fast, I know.
If I am never to be happy again I must remem-
ber these four wonderful years no, this June will
make it five. And I have his children to care for
and bring up as he wishes. Really, in myself, I
am wonderfully well. I must try to keep so what-
ever happens. Always your loving, G.
CHAPTER XXIII
THE AFFAIR
POORE travelled post, day and night, without
stopping more than an hour anywhere. He reached
London on the 2nd of May, and went straight to
Wake House. Had he had eyes for anything but
one thing he would have observed the signs of the
times crowds in the streets, flags flying, bands bray-
ing. But he noticed nothing. He would have been
prudent, too, if he had provided himself with a pass-
port in some other name; but had he done that he
would not have been Gervase. One thought wasln
his head, and one only. If he had not promised Hs
Georgiana, he would have sought out his enemy,
travel-stained as he was. It did occur to him the
Duke being out when he arrived that he had ful-
filled the letter of the law, and might now go out
again and come to grips. But the memory of
Georgiana's wailing voice, the pressure of her arms,
her tearful eyes and wet lips, came upon him in a
waking dream and stabbed him to the heart. He
had a moment of weakness, and flung his arms up
as he paced the Duke's library, but soon regained
possession of himself.
The Duke found him when he came in towards
272
THE AFFAIR 273
the dusk of a fine spring day. He had not yet had
Georgiana's letter, but was prepared for him.
Now the Duke was a man of method as well as of
business. The Reform Bill was before the Lords
for the last time; every man's eye was upon him.
Messengers came and went; great men sought in-
terviews; king's servants brought letters and re-
ceived answers. He came home directly from the
House to dine, and must return afterwards. But he
was ready with time for Gervase Poore.
"Well, young gentleman," he said, "so you've
come over to fight? "
"Yes, sir/' said Gervase. "What else should I
do?"
The Duke shrugged. "Why, nothing else. But
it's to be a near-run thing. That damned Vision of
yours has emptied the hive. The Commons are out
for swarming. You'll be lucky if you bring your
meeting off before they get you."
"Prosecution?" Gervase asked, frowning.
"I believe the warrant will be out to-morrow.
You see, they know everything. It's their business.
Directly that young rapscallion's book was under-
stood they thought you'd be at him. I suppose you
gave them your own name at Dover?"
"Yes, sir," said Gervase. "I can't hide myself.
I'm not ashamed of anything I've done."
"I daresay you're not, confound you," said the
Duke. "But this is going to be a savage business.
Everybody's against you in it. You've managed to
offend every son of a gun in the country. Now,
274 BENDISH
you know, I can't do very much. I might see
Billy, or I might not. I can't see him now, that's
certain. And if I could, you can't expect much
allowance from a fellow if you call his dead brother
a hog."
Gervase laughed. "That was figurative/' he said.
"I might have chosen any king. Besides it was
illustrative. I was explaining what an idealist would
have said."
"It will be near enough for old Ellenborough, I
fancy," the Duke said drily. "The tendency of
your book is, I take leave to tell you, scandalous
and mischievous too. You can't get all these fine
things you look for by wanting 'em, and to do your
best to break up things as they are to make way for
your things as they might be is nonsense, and wicked
nonsense. That's my opinion. But luckily for you
I think better of you than I do of your writings, and
you've made an angel fall in love with you. I'll do
what I can. Now let me tell you something about
Bendish. I guessed at what he had been about the
moment I saw his piece, by something Georgey had
written about him a month or two before."
Poore's eyes pierced him. " What did she write? "
"She wrote that she detested him. Now, she
don't detest a fellow for nothing. I suppose you
didn't know that?"
Poore grew red. "I didn't notice anything es-
pecially "
"No, of course you didn't. You went sailing
about with your head in the moonlight, looking at
THE AFFAIR 275
the stars. And while you were making love to Clio
or Thalia or one of 'em, Bendish was making love to
her. Now let me remind you that that was pre-
cisely what you were doing once upon a time when
poor Charles Lancelot was building up a career for
himself and for her, mind you and for her."
Poore was frowning and scowling away, but the
Duke wouldn't have it.
"None of your sulks, damn your eyes," he said.
"Hold your head up, and confess like a man. That
was the size of it."
Then Gervase held his head up. "I confess it,
sir. I was engrossed in what I was doing I did
forget her, God forgive me. But I trusted her
and I was right. She is an angel of Heaven."
"I know she is," said the Duke, approving him.
But he went on with his chastening. "It was your
fault that that young Turk made her uncomfort-
able, and went away and spilt his silly feelings into
the inkpot. You think you're going to make it up
to her by tearing over Europe in order to screw him
by the ear; but you're not. You're going to make
things comfortable for yourself; and you leave her
behind in a delicate state of health, with two young
children, consumed with anxiety on your account.
You're a chivalrous lover, ain't you?"
Gervase now had tears in his eyes. "By Heaven,
sir, I'm a scoundrel- "
"Oh, no, you're not," said the Duke. "You're
only a man and any mother's son of us would have
done exactly the same. There's no man living but
276 . BENDISH
is a moral coward, and never was one who was fit
to tie a woman's shoe-string. Do you think she
would have fought a Bendish with all the rest at
stake? Not she! But she'll excuse you, and make
the best of you, because she's in love with you.
You are a lucky young devil, let me tell you."
"You may tell me what you will, Duke," he said.
" Nothing is too hard for me. But if I don't love
her "
"Of course, you do, young donkey/' the Duke
broke in. " That's your luck. Now go away and
change your clothes. Then you shall dine with me;
and to-morrow you shall give Bendish his licking.
He deserves it, and I wish I could do it for you.
But that wouldn't do."
"Not at all," said Gervase.
The odd pair dined, very well contented with
each other. Politics were taken for granted, but
the Duke allowed himself the liberty of a gibe now
and again and Poore had the wit to see that he
chastened whom he loved. The Duke said that the
Reform Bill would have to pass, because when once
public agitation reaches a certain point of ascen-
sion it must turn the corner and run down the other
side. There's no going back, he said, because of the
up-surging from below. He agreed with Poore that
it would bring about a despotism of the trading-
class infinitely more severe than anything the old
order had dared to exercise; but, said he, it's absurd
to suppose that the mob is any more fit to rule itself
THE AFFAIR 277
than the grocers and bakers are to rule it. Anarchy,
said Poore, is a matter of minding one's own busi-
ness: so it is, said the Duke; but who's to mind the
country's business? "You/' he said, "are about to
punch Bendish's head, and you say that that is
your business. It is also his, let me tell you. There's
nothing in the world which you can call 'your busi-
ness' which is not at once some other party's, and
the country's too. Now in this affair of yours and
Bendish's, the country's business is to see that you
don't do it or should be. You are only to be an
anarchist by favour of the Administration, Master
Poore. If it weren't for the constables you'd have
been in prison years ago." Then, in the coolest
way in life, he said, "The thing will be settled to-
night or to-morrow night."
"What thing, sir?" Gervase asked him.
"Why, Reform," said the Duke. "I've settled
it. I'm going to disoblige you. The thing shall go
through this time."
Gervase stared. " Reform ! It is in your House ! "
"It is and has been for two days."
"Good God, Duke!"
"What then, young man?"
Gervase laughed. "Why, I come over here full
of my affair, and press it upon you as if the world
swung by it and you are handling the destiny of
England at this moment. Lord God, what a worm
I am!"
"We are all worms, or shall be," said the Duke.
"These things are matters of relation. Now I
must be off."
278 BENDISH
Gervase got up and walked to the window.
Torches dipped and flared; there was upon the
dark that curious mottling which means a con-
course.
"Duke," he said, "there's a mob. Is it safe for
you?"
The Duke was putting letters into his breast-
pocket, "Eh? Oh, they won't hurt me yet. It's
to-morrow night, or even later, that the trouble
may be." Then he went away to his carriage,
which Gervase saw was guarded by Life Guards.
He heard the roar of the street as the door was
opened flooding the house.
After dinner Tom Moore was introduced and saw
his friend. He was ready to back up the quarrel,
though he owned that Bendish had called upon him
first. But Bendish had outraged his moral sense.
Love is a calamity which may befall any man, and
if an honest man chance to fall in love with his
, friend's wife he doesn't write a book about it. But
Bendish, he allowed, was not as other men. To
Bendish his pleasure was . a law of Nature, undevi-
ating and inevitable. Woe betide the man or woman
who interferes with laws of Nature! Bendish, he
told Gervase, would probably shoot him, unless he
were shot first. But Gervase said that he didn't
mean to shoot him. In fact, he said that the duel
would be entirely Bendish's affair. His own affair
was to chastise Bendish, publicly if possible, " That,"
cries Tom, "leaves him no alternative." "I dare-
say it doesn't," Gervase said. Nothing would shake
him in his determination to confront Bendish pub-
THE AFFAIR 279
licly and to confront him to-morrow, and that being
so, Tom was able to help him. Bendish, he said,
was a late riser. He would not breakfast till noon,
or leave his rooms till five. He usually went round
to the Coffee Tree at that hour, and left it, to dress,
at half-past seven. At eight or half-past he would
dine, and after dinner God knew where he might be.
He wrote when he did write from two in the
morning onwards, and might be in bed by six.
Gervase said that he would look out for him at
five to-morrow evening, and that after that, when
he had done with him, his lordship might choose to
vary his habits for a day.
So it befell that at a quarter-past five the next
afternoon Bendish came out into St. James's Street,
which was at its fullest. He was accompanied by
a friend, one Captain Count Wissendonk of one of
the Embassies, a tall, gaunt, high-buttoned man of
shining cheekbones. In the street stood Gervase
Poore, unaccompanied; a light switch in his hand,
a lady's riding-whip it looked to be.
Bendish saw him immediately, but did not falter.
Poore advanced to meet him and put two fingers
to the brim of his hat. Captain Count Wissendonk
stiffened and saluted. Bendish stiffened but did
not salute.
"Lord Bendish/' Poore said, "a word with you,
if you please."
Bendish looked him full. "One ought to be
enough," he said.
"One sentence will serve my turn," said Gervase.
280 BENDISH
"I have to tell you that you are a coward and a
Bar, and that I intend to treat you as such/ 7 Where-
upon he struck him sharply across the face with the
switch. Bendish grew grey as he stepped back, but
the streak stared white, and then flooded with red.
Captain Count Wissendonk said, "Ha, by God!"
The pupils of his pale eyes became specks.
"By God, you shall pay for that," Bendish said.
Count Wissendonk interposed.
"On behalf of this gentleman I will meet any
friend of yours you please, sir," he said.
"You may wait upon Mr. Thomas Moore, sir,"
said Poore, touched his hat again, and walked slowly
up the hill.
A score of people saw this, though it only lasted
twice as many seconds. But it was all over town in
an hour.
Bendish carried it off as well as could be. He
went to the Club, and played hazard. He paid two
calls, and visited Mr. Murray in Albemarle Street.
He dined out, and went on to two parties afterwards.
The places simply blazed with rumour, but not of
him: nobody spoke of anything or thought of any-
thing but the Bill. But Bendish couldn't stand
much of it. He thought they were all occupied
with himself, and the second party beat him. He
was acutely sensitive to fine shades of cognition, and
what he had suspected at his first party became, to
him, clear as noonday at the second. They eyed
him, they were at their whispers, his honour was im-
pugned. He couldn't stand that. He remained,
THE AFFAIR 281
however, for a quarter of an hour, fighting with his
tremors, in a cold sweat, speaking to nobody; and
then he left. As he went home, while all the world
was saying that the Duke meant to kill the Bill, he
knew that he must kill Poore.
Long after midnight Captain Count Wissendonk
came in to see him. It appeared that there was a
warrant out against Mr. Poore, so anything that
were done must be done at once, within a few hours.
Would this morning at seven be possible? The place
Wimbledon Common?
"Perfectly possible/' said Bendish. "I leave
everything to you." The Count glowed and shone,
suppressing a strange gloating noise by swallow-
ing it.
"The arm is your choice," Wissendonk said.
"I'll have pistols," said Bendish.
The other said, "I think you are right. Your
man has a long reach."
"I'm a good marksman," said Bendish. And
then, "There must be an end of this."
"By God," said the Count, "I should think so."
CHAPTER XXVI
THE MEETING
THE sun was over the trees and sparkling upon
grass and leaf when Bendish stept out of his car-
riage. Early as he was, the adversary was before-
hand. Another carriage stood in the shadow of the
woods, and three gentlemen apart from it in con-
versation. Captain Count Wissendonk, with a flat
oblong case under Ms arm, went on to meet one of
the party, a short and plump gentleman, black as
the deed they purposed from the stock to the toes.
The Count, who was tall and bony and had a
bleak grin between his whiskers, saluted him in
military fashion. "Ah, good day to you, me dear
Count," cried this little man in his rich voice "a
somewhat chancy light we have, but it betters every
moment and after all, let us hope that Mistress
Honour won't be too thirsty between such cham-
pions. Bedad, sir, the English Parnassus is emptied
this morning 'this pious morn/ as young Keats
had it," To this Count Wissendonk had no reply
ready, being filled with an awful solemnity, except
that Lord Bendish, his friend, had left everything
to him. Then he observed the third of Mr. Moore's
party, and asked who that might be. He was told
that it was "me friend/ 7 Doctor Porteous, who was
282
THE MEETING 283
acquainted with both parties, and had come "for
fun as much as anything else for fun and the air,
of a fine spring morning."
The preliminaries were not long in doing: the
ground was set off, twenty paces run north and south;
the pistols were loaded; and then each second re-
turned to his man. Moore found his somewhat agi-
tated. Gervase was no better at waiting than most
of his species. In imagination the thing was already
done twenty times over, and he was suffering from
the accumulated nerve-storm of so many encounters
with a man who hated him. But he was glad that
he could go to work and get the thing over. He
took off his coat and waistcoat and took them him-
self to the carriage. Then he returned, bareheaded,
and followed Torn. He and Bendish, who was pale
and impressively statuesque, bowed to each other
and took their places at the mark. The signal was
to be the fall of a handkerchief, which it was agreed
Dr. Porteous should give, a common friend.
Standing there in the dewy mildness, in the sun-
drenched mist, Gervase thought of Georgiana in her
Tuscan garden, and felt the heavenly peace which
her love and tender care had taught him. He was
perfectly calm now, and knew that his hand was
steady. He let himself feel the weight of the toy
in his hand, he let his eye appraise the form of the
young man confronted with him, admired his round
and curly head, his strong throat, exposed almost to
the midriff, his square shoulders and pronounced,
elegant waist. "A fine, high-bred young man, in-
284 BENDISH
deed but the pity of his upstart soul ! " God forbid
that he should blaze into so salient and beautiful a
thing and mar it with a red rent. He laughed to
himself at the same moment for so rhetorical a
thought and at that moment also the white patch
at the side of them flashed downwards.
As he threw his arm up to fire into the air there
was a flash of light before him, and he felt a pang.
Then came the crack. He was confused by the
noise and flare, as he thought he felt stupid and
discovered that his arm was limp at his side, his
pistol on the ground. He thought that his head was
full of blood, and was angry with himself for having
let his weapon drop. One had to do these things
properly he must apologise, he supposed. They
would have to begin again. He stooped to pick up
the thing; and then there was a surging upwards of
his blood, as it were in a huge curling wave; he felt
himself falling, and knew no more.
Bendish had shot him under the shoulder, clean
through the pectoral muscle. While Dr. Porteous
was kneeling beside the dropt body, he himself al-
lowed Count Wissendonk to help him on with his
coat and waistcoat. Then he said, "Fm very sorry,
you know. But he insulted me beyond bearing.
There was no other way. If IVe killed him, the
poor fellow has only himself to thank. He must
have known that I had no alternative. He was very
intelligent. I'm sorry for his wife, but " Count
Wissendonk said, "Excuse me," and left him rumi-
nating.
THE MEETING 285
Moore and the Doctor were on their knees by
the body. A third had joined them, a spare gentle-
man in a blue coat and nankeens tightly strapped.
Recognising him, the Count drew himself up and
saluted.
"Not fatal, I trust, your Grace."
"Can't say yet/ 7 the Duke answered.
Dr. Porteous looked up and shook his head. "No,
no. Hell be crippled for a month or two but I'll
engage that there's nothing vital been touched.
We'll lift him back directly I've strapped him
up."
The Duke's keen eye was ranging the sun-dappled
woodlands. Pausing in his search, he spoke to the
Count, "You would do well to take your friend up
to town. If he needs an explanation of my presence
you can give it him. I had some reason to expect
interruption of the meeting, and thought that I
might be useful. That's all. As for my friend here ?
you've heard what the surgeon, says. Good morn-
ing to you."
The Count clicked his heels together, saluted cere-
moniously and returned to his champion. Bendish
immediately asked, Who was the new-comer; and
was told. "Ah," he said, "I thought as much.
Very well since it must be so."
Count Wissendonk had no notion what he meant;
but all the way home Bendish was bracing himself
for another meeting. It must needs be, he knew,
that he and the Duke must be confronted before the
day was over. It seemed to him that this early
286 BENDISH
scene was but the prelude to a much more momen-
tous encounter.
Gervase, when he opened his eyes, looked eagerly
into the sky. " My love/' he said faintly, " my love,
it is the morning." Then he shut them again and
went to sleep. The doctor knelt by him, holding
his left wrist and watching him closely. The Duke
and Moore stood side by side; you could hear the
champing of the bits of the two horses. Then light
steps were heard and the Duke looked sharply
round. Two men in cloaks and cocked hats were
coming over the wet grass, brushing through the fern.
They came up to our pair, and saluted them.
" Excuse me, gentleman," said one of them. "Mr.
Gervase Poore is of your party, I believe."
"He is," the Duke said. "He's had an accident,
as you see." The man had recognised him.
"I am very sorry, your Grace, very sorry indeed."
"So am I," said the Duke, "but it can't be
helped."
"I am very sorry on all accounts, your Grace," he
said again. "The fact is that I have a warrant here
for his apprehension and I've no alternative ~"
"We'll see about that," the Duke said who had
come down for the very purpose "Whose warrant
have you there?"
"The Speaker's, your Grace the Speaker's of
the House of Commons." The Duke nodded.
"Privilege?"
"Breach of Privilege, your Grace." The Duke
nodded again.
THE MEETING 287
"Yes, Breach of Privilege. Well, officer, you see
what has occurred. Mr. Poore has no intention of
running away. There'll be no difficulty about it
when he's fit to move. Now, if you'll serve your
warrant on one of us two, we'll wait upon Mr.
Speaker in the course of the morning, or before the
magistrate, as the warrant may direct. Perhaps
you'll be good enough to serve me. I am going to
have Mr. Poore carried to my house at this moment
so that's the best thing I can do for you. Now
what do you say to that?"
The two officers consulted apart that is to say,
they drew apart and appeared to consult; but in
reality there was no gainsaying the Duke, as they
knew quite well. Returning, the warrant was handed
over without another word. Salutations were ex-
changed, and the thing was done.
The Doctor and the Duke's footman lifted Ger-
vase between them and carried him to the carriage.
He scarcely woke, though he opened his eyes, recog-
nised the Duke, and lazily smiled. You saw the
twinkling gleam between his half-shut lids. Tom
Moore got in beside him and waved his hand to
the Duke. "God bless you, Duke, for a true
friend."
"Get on with you, Moore," the Duke said, "and
eat a good breakfast. Dr. Porteous, I shall follow
you, I have a horse here." So they took Gervase
back to Wake House, sleeping like a child.
In the course of the forenoon Roger Henikcr, at
his desk in Grays Inn, received a written message
288 BENDISH
from the Duke. "Dear Sir, be so good as to call
upon me immediately. I have urgent business for
your attention." In half an hour he was in the
library, and received his two fingers of greeting.
"Good morning., Mr. Heniker. You find me in a
kettle of fish. My young friend Poore, whom you
will remember, is lying here shot through the shoulder
never mind how. These things will occur. There
are worse troubles over him than that, but I've got
them in hand. Now, I want you to post out to
Settignano, by Florence, and fetch home his wife and
children. She's in a delicate state of health at the
moment; but she can travel well enough if she does
it comfortably. You shall see to that, if you will,
taking your instructions from me. You can take
my carriage with you, and my horses as far as Dover.
After that, you can post through France and Savoy
and you ought to be there in a fortnight or three
weeks at the outside. I'll give you a draft on my
bankers which will see you through everything.
Now, can you oblige me?"
"Yes, your Grace, I can," said Roger, after a
moment's swift cogitation.
"I thought so," the Duke said, highly pleased to
find that he had not been mistaken in his choice.
"There's only one thing more to say and Fm
afraid that's an idle thought}. You can't take a
woman with you? A mother, for instance, or a
sister? Or have you got a wife, by chance?"
Roger grew red, but his eyes twinkled. "Well,
no, sir, I have not at the moment. But "
THE MEETING 289
"Hey?" said the Duke. " What do you mean by
'but?'"
Roger laughed. "Well, sir, I mean that I have
hopes before long "
"Oho, Master Heniker, so that's it." He thought
his eyes glittered. "Now look here, Heniker.
Here's a little proposition. If you want a galloping
honeymoon combined with a pretty liberal lift
towards expenses, and (I'll add) if you're the man I
take you to be, you'll be off to Doctor's Commons
hot-foot, and you'll be married to-morrow morning.
Mind you, I don't know your lady; but that's what
I should do in your place. What do you say to
that?"
Roger hesitated for one minute. Then he squared
his jaw, "I'll do it, sir."
"Bravo!" said the Duke. "Then you'll start-
say at four o'clock in the afternoon? Good. I'll
see to all that. Now you had better post off to
your young lady."
Roger left him immediately. The Duke's eyes
were aflame. For a moment or two he allowed
them to burn, as he thought "God bless her, I
shall see her again under my roof!" Then he shut
all down, and went out to deal with Mr. Speaker.
He heard that Gervase had had some broth.
There was fever, and would be more, but Dr. Por-
teous had ordered Tom out of the room, and had
now gone himself. He would be back in the after-
noon, he said.
CHAPTER XXV
LAST THROW BUT ONE
WHEN Bendish looked back and saw three men
about his fallen adversary where there had been
but two, he knew immediately who the third was,
and what Destiny required of him. He was, you
see, more than intelligent He was imaginative,
extremely impressionable; he had foreknowledge.
What he did upon the memorable evening following
upon this early morning encounter was done me-
chanically. He left Wimbledon Common a doomed
man, and he knew it.
It's impossible to say how these certainties come
upon men of a certain temperament. It may be
that second sight is given fitfully, unaccountably to
us; it may be that any one of us is of such weight
in the universe (though it sounds improbable) that
the indwelling soul thereof is willing to draw back
the curtain for a half-second or so, and show time-
coming as time-come. What is certain is that we
walk, with full consciousness, into a trap which we
know to be a trap and generally with a deadly
coolness and precision. Even so a man condemned
to death will walk unfalteringly down the flagged
passage which leads to death in the yard, and notice
290
LAST THROW BUT ONE 291
trifles as he goes a patch of mildew on the wall, the
glittering of damp-sweat there, perhaps the scuttle
of a cockroach will feel the balm of the outer air,
see the floating clouds, the bars of dust, the flight of
a bevy of sparrows, the twinkling leaves of a tree,
even the black apparatus itself and have no sensa-
tion of panic, suffer no instinctive shuddering of the
knees, know no mad impulse of flight. Even so
Bendish made his preparations to be in his place in
the House of Lords that evening, to speak upon
Reform, and to confront the supreme enemy of all
that he stood for and was. For so his instinct re-
garded the Duke of Devizes and very reasonably
after a late interview.
Second sight, or imagination (which is the same
thing) showed him the scene beforehand showed
him, indeed, successive scenes; all he had to do was
to play the part provided. But the play was like
an Italian comedy, which gives the actors the situa-
tion and leaves them to find the words. He had to
build up a speech to suit the dramatic moment and
he could be trusted. He mastered himself with
great determination and was able to make himself
perfect. He would speak without a scrap of paper
in his hand, and having said bis say, he would await
the answer of his enemy. He knew what a risk
there was in all this. Once before he had measured
himself with the Duke, who had ignored him. He
might very well do it again, and Bendish thought
there was no worse thing that he could do. He felt
that he could not survive that it would be a mortal
292
BENDISH
wound. No, no: he must so frame his words as to
compel an answer from the man. He must be an-
swered this timeit was a matter of life and death.
With this condition before his mind he laboured at
his oration. As for Reform, its merits or demerits,
I suppose he thought as much about that as he did
about England, or Peru, or mankind at large. He
was past such cases; he was concerned with his own
existence.
He had to fight, however, against a persistent de-
pression of spirits, which increased upon him as the
day wore on and nobody came to his door. This
silence of the knocker was like an omen. It got so
bad with him towards the afternoon that he penned
a note to Roger Heniker and sent it by Mackintosh,
with an invented matter of business to be discussed
or foreshadowed. But even Roger failed him to-day.
An answer was returned from Grays Inn that Mr.
Roger was out of town until further notice, but that
Mr. Heniker senior would do himself the honour of
waiting upon his Lordship to-morrow at ten o'clock
in the forenoon. Disloyalty from a servant! His
very household forsook Hm. He let it lie the note
where he had let it fall It stared at him when he
came back after dark, having received Ms wages.
He dressed himself with care and went down to
the House at six o'clock* The Chamber was very
full, with ladies in the gallery, and the Commons
crowded behind the bar. He found a seat with
great difficulty and sat in it, looking fixedly before
LAST THROW BUT ONE 293
him, very conscious that he was observed by many.
The Duke was in Ms place; a noble lord was reit-
erating amid sympathetic murmurs from his friends
all the sound old formulae for the Bill or against it
all was one. To Bendish, sitting there with folded
arms and hat a-tilt over his eyes, it was incredible
that men could live and move prosperously through
life uttering habitually such dull commonplaces, or
cheering each other as they made the stale old points.
As well make backgammon a career at this rate as
politics. Did Englishmen, then, never grow up?
Why, this was for all the world like a cricket match
at Harrow! The moment one lordship was down,
up sprang his brother, as like him as two peas, and
cried up the precise contrary, and received precisely
as much applause. And the Duke who was a man
even Bendish admitted it could sit it out. He,
a man, condescended to work with these worn-out,
spindle-shanked tools!
Scorn for his fellow-Christians made him stronger.
He felt so very much the better man.
At about seven or half-past came his opportunity.
There was a lull in. the flow of oratory, while the
orators yawned behind their fingers, or looked about
them for something to happen. Before they were
aware of him Bendish was upon his feet. They knew
it first by the thrill in the gallery. There was a
distinct rustling; and then white fingers ran along
the railings like a breaking wave on the sand.
He was received in absolute silence. Everybody
knew Mm, of course; everybody by this time also
294 BENDISH
knew that he had fought and wounded Poore that
morning and why.
Lord Bendish said that he should trouble their
lordships with a very few observations, and should
not have troubled them with any had not recent
events, in which he had a small share, rendered it
desirable that he should place beyond doubt the
meaning of the part he intended to take in the final
scene of this long drama. Whether or no this par-
ticular drama, which had lasted some fifty years or
more, were to be of the nature of a prologue, and
whether the stage were hereafter to be set for tragedy
or comedy, or broad farce, depended, perhaps, less
upon their lordships than noble lords imagined. It
might be and there were some among them who
proclaimed it with no doubtful voice that the au-
ditory of to-day would be the actors in that resulting
spectacle, that, pouring down from the gallery, stream-
ing up from the pit, they would trample out the
candles, disregard the screams of the prompter, and
possessing themselves of the actors' tinsel trappings,
enact therewith a grim mask of anarchy, for which
those baubles and bubbles of authority, in his humble
opinion, were very ill-adapted. It might be, on the
other hand, that the spectators, pit, gallery and
boxes, would be so spell-bound by the eloquence
poured out upon them by the present occupants of
the stage that they would endure with delight an-
other fifty years of it and if that indeed were so, he
(Lord Bendish) could do no more than say with
Moli&re's protagonist, Tu Vas wulu, Georges Dandinl
LAST THROW BUT ONE 295
He begged leave to point out, however, to their lord-
ships upon this auspicious night when, for a time at
least, the flood-water of rhetoric was to be let out
over the land, the dilemma in which the country
was placed. If the Bill should pass there must be
a despotism inflicted upon this country more serious,
heavier, more irrational, because proceeding from
more uninstructed tyrants, than we had ever known
yet; if it should fail to pass there would be anarchy,
which was in itself an aggravated despotism, since
it meant that every man must be tyrant over him-
self, and as many more souls as he could subdue with
his two fists. Upon which horn of this dilemma to
be impaled let each noble lord decide for himself.
For his own part (Lord Bendish), there had been a
time when he had desired to see the Bill rejected,
and had found himself, however unaccountably, on
the side of the noble Duke, with whom, it seemed,
the final arbitrament was allowed on all hands to
rest. He would not now stay to enquire into cause
or consequence of this enlargement of constitutional
precedent* For the moment he would pass it with-
out further question. He believed that he should
still have the honour of following his Grace, even
though rumour credited him with milder counsels.
If the noble Duke walked out of this House it would
be Ms privilege, on such an occasion, to walk behind
him. He could not bring himself to vote for a
measure which proposed to confer legislative powers
upon ignorant and prejudiced masses of men; still
less could he join in an act which would let loose
296 BENDISH
lawlessness and clamour broadcast over the land.
If these were his Grace's feelings in the matter, they
were his own also.
"My lords," he concluded, "I will take no part
with despots of any sort, nor however firmly rooted
in the land; and I will do nothing whatever to foster
anarchy. Common sense dictates to me the first
abstention, common honesty the other. Let a man
sow what he has earned, and reap what he has sown.
If my neighbour please, or have the power, to grow
fat upon what is in no sense his, it matters little to
me whom he robs, whether he justify his act by
right of charter or right of sword. His robbery shall
hurt him the more, for in the act of robbing me of
my substance he robs himself of his own honour. It
is bad to be without bread, but worse to die of a
surfeit of bread, I believe. I will be no party to
.such things. If the noble Duke say Content to this
Bill he is welcome to what will ensue; if he say Not-
content, he must abide that issue as best he may. I
take my stand, myself, upon the right of a plain man
to say, A plague on both your Houses and that,
I take leave to predict before your Lordships, may
be the ultimate utterance of the British people."
Bendisifsat down, as he had stood up, in the midst
of a sensible thrill. He had spoken in a tense silence;
the hum of private conversation was heard all over
the House immediately afterwards. The Duke made
no sign of having heard him, but now when the gen-
eral attention was shifted to the next speaker, and
before it had wearied of him, he drew a paper from
LAST THROW BUT ONE 297
his pocket, folded, and addressed it. By and by lie
beckoned to a messenger, and handed him the paper.
In due course, too, the messenger approached Ben-
dish and handed it over, saying, "From the Duke of
Devizes, my lord." He then withdrew.
Bendish opened it with a beating heart. Could
this possibly be the prelude to mighty adventure?
He felt that every eye was upon him, and summoned
every nerve in his body to his service. He played
indifference well. There was no fumbling, no sha-
king sign. His eyebrows kept up his eyelids kept
scornfully down, without a tremor. But he knew
the paper in a flash. His skin darkened he never
grew red. It was the cancelled preface to Poore's
Vision of Revolt. He caught sight though it was
not marked of the flaming paragraph: "I know
not what the issue of Mr. Poore's Vision . . . may
be. I abide by what I have written, and am pre-
pared to defend it. My forefathers fought at Has-
tings, and fenced about with steel the land which was
others' inheritance. * . . If it be my lot to side with
those who break down the hedges, so be it. They
have served their turn, and I for one have done with
them. By so much the less as I am a tenant in
capite, by so much the more I claim to be an honest
man. . . . And so," he read on, "the whirligig of
time brings his revenges."
Bendish sweated as he read. But his sweat ran
cold when it came upon him with conviction that
this was all the answer the Duke intended to make
him. He fought with the certainty; ludicrously
298 BENDISH
enough, he found himself telling himself that the
Duke was not malignant. He was a great man,
magnanimous: he would not humiliate his junior.
He sat on, obstinately, through the wearisomeness
of the debate. He was sickened to the very soul of
politics, could not believe in the reality of the nights
when, at Rapallo, he and Poore had burned with
Reform like brands, and when the smoke of Idealism,
Political Justice, and the Rights of Man had whirled
up, illumined with showers of sparks, into the con-
cave of the sky. Yet these memories recurred. He
could not but see Gervase's fire-hued face, and hear
the chanting of his dithyrambs, as he strode up and
down the loggia. And Georgiana too he saw, in
her white gown, bending her head over her needle-
work. And he remembered the fury of his longing
for her, and with hot anger her rejection of him and
Ms homage. God of heaven, how all these people
had injured him! And there was the Duke stooping
to hound a young poet out of England!
The speech of the Duke of Devizes, made towards
the end of this great debate, belongs to history, and
not to me. I shall only say of it here that it was
very general in terms, and, far from referring to
Lord Bendish, did not hint at the name of any noble
lord. The times were momentous, much more mo-
mentous than any noble lord; but Bendish really
could hardly believe that a man could ignore Mm so
completely. He could see the intention, in fact had
foreseen it, but that it should succeed really passed
belief. He was shocked to the soul. Nothing that
LAST THROW BUT ONE 299
had ever happened to him not Georgiana's sang-
froid, not Gervase's cut with the whip had humili-
ated him to this point. Humiliated? Ah, no he was
annihilated; he was as good as dead. And he was
impotent: it was absurd even to be in a rage. He
couldn't touch this arrogant chill-blooded bully,
who could toss down a young man's bleeding heart
and grind it under his heel. Before such atrocious
cruelty as this the noblest under heaven must be
still Tears scalded his eyes as he left the House
and walked unmarked or unrecognised into the dark.
He pushed his way through the packed Palace-yard,
through George Street, and into the Park. As he
went on, he knew that he was beaten, and that he
must leave England. He could never hold up his
head here again while that tyrant lived to rule it
with his whip and ramrod and intolerable silence.
Here was a man with whom he could not measure
himself. Your Poores he could shoot if they got in
his way; your Hollands and such he could afford to
despise. There were plenty ways of dealing with
the likes of them. But this man despised him, Ben-
dish, and didn't even trouble to show that he did.
Nay crowning injury! he even forebore to show
it. For Bendish knew that if he had thought it
worth his while he could have used that cancelled
preface with deadly effect. He had not cared to do
it. He had not cared to pull him out of his ditch
that he might shoot him. No. He had let him lie
where he had rolled himself lie there and starve
and rot. Bendish knew that he was mortally
300
BENDISH
wounded. And even in the flash of cognition his
mind went hunting hunting madly, far and wide,
for a haven.
What a cautious gambler, what a provident spend-
thrift was Bendish! Even as he gripped his stricken
breast, or cast up his dying eyes, he drew a small
and tender hand within his own; he turned his gaze
due north-west. There, through the violet dark of
the May night, he descried the litten panes of a
modest upper window, and above that could make
out a humble gable over which a honeysuckle tossed
its tendrils. Golder's Green, seen from the portals
of the House of Lords so small, so tender, so snug
an abiding-place! Ah, there was a merciful God in
heaven. The old fables had not lied. Domestic
peace brooded under those gentle eaves; and within,
perched like a nesting bird, sat love with sheltering
wings!
In the morning early he would arise and return to
his love. Not his first no, not that but his longest
and calmest and truest, because most assured, pas-
sion. He would return and say unto her, I have
sinned against heaven and before thee, and am no
more worthy to be called thy beloved; yet take me,
broken as I am, for I know that thou art mine.
And she would hold out her faithful arms and shelter
him, and heal his grievous wounds.
The best part of the night he sat at his window
looking out to the north over the houses of Picca-
dilly. The roaring street, the torches, the blaring
horns proclaimed Reform a thing well done. Surging
LAST THROW BUT ONE 301
bands flocked down the great road towards Wake
House. He heard the Duke's name, with curses
before it and after. The Guards came jingling and
glittering up the hill from the Palace to save the
fallen hero's person. Bendish took no joy in know-
ing the hour of his enemy's adversity. He was be-
yond this world; he walked with Rose in an Italian
garden where water was falling on moss, and cypresses
waved their plumy tops across the stars. He had
outsoared the shadow of our night. He would watch
it out, see the white dawn steal up over the house-
tops; and with the sun, with the sun he would ride
to his love.
CHAPTER XXVI
QUIETUS FROM OLD MR. HENIKER.
THE sun was pretty high, broad-splashed upon
the houses opposite; it was in fact ten of the clock
when Mr. Heniker was announced. Bendish, booted
for his romantic quest, and all agog for it, was put
out. "Damn it, Mackintosh, I'm busy. I'm going
out. Tell him that I won't see him."
"Beg pardon, my lord," says Mackintosh, "but
Mr. Heniker's here/' And so he was, beaming in
the doorway, flushed like a Ribstone, bowing, smi-
ling and rubbing his comfortable hands. This was
old Mr. Heniker, of course, true to his promise of
yesterday. He was resplendent. His blue coat had
brass buttons; his hat was of white beaver; his
trousers were of the lightest drab; his stock was of
bird's-eye blue.
"Your lordship is for an early canter! I saw the
horses and thought myself lucky to catch you. A
sweet spring morning for the young adventurers.
. . . It ver et Venus hey, my lord? The old, tag
comes back to me."
"Yes, yes, Heniker/' said his lordship shortly,
"that's aU very well, and devilish appropriate, I've
no doubt but the fact is, I'm in a hurry. Now
what can I do for you this morning?"
302
QUIETUS FROM MR. HENIKER 303
The elderly gentleman grew serious. " I beg your
lordship's pardon, but as you sent for my son Roger
at midday yesterday, and he was not available no,
no, not available, you know, for excellent reasons >
if your lordship will remember, I sent back word
that I would call in myself "
Bendish recollected. "Ah, yes, I sent for Roger
that's quite true. They told me he was busy."
Old Heniker, bursting with his news, broke out
in chuckles and gasps. "Ha ha! They might well
say so, my lord. Busy oh dear, oh dear! A young
man is only as busy as that once in a lifetime, my
lord! And not many young professional men have
an opportunity to make such a combination of busi-
ness and pleasure as has fallen into the way of my
son. He would have written to your lordship as a
matter of course to no man sooner, but that the
time was so short as really to forbid it. But as
things are, I must take upon myself to be the bearer
of his extraordinary news " But Bendish, who
had been pacing the room, broke in.
"Yes, yes, Heniker. You shall tell me what you
please about him, but not now. I've got an appoint-
ment out of town "
"So have I, my lord, so have I!" cried the old
gentleman in high delight.
1 i I daresay you have. You had better keep it ' '
"Oh, I must indeed, my lord/ 7 Mr. Heniker said,
preternaturally serious all of a sudden. "Oho! it
would never do to miss that,"
"Precisely," said Bendish. "We will neither of
304 BENDISH
us miss. Therefore, if you'll allow me " He took
up Ms hat, gloves and whip as he spoke, and actually
made for the door. Old Heniker was now concerned,
and rather hurt.
"I must really point out to your lordship that, at
some inconvenience, I have waited upon you, con-
ceiving that your business with Roger was some-
what urgent. I must be allowed to say "
Bendish reflected for a moment. "Yes well, it
was important, no doubt. I had intended to go
abroad again almost immediately "
But now Mr. Heniker was not to be controlled.
"Ha! and proposed to treat my son with the same
munificent hospitality! My dear Lord, my dear
Lord! God bless my soul, now, if that is not an
extraordinary thing! Why, my lord, you'll hardly
believe it, but at the moment you were thinking so
generously of Roger, another noble gentleman was
of the same mind. But Ms Grace came first
ha ha! " He paused, took off Ms glasses, and
wiped them with his bandana.
"Not only so," he went on, mastering Ms chuckles,
as he blinked over his work at the glasses "Not
only so, my lord, but his Grace sends him out as
before as before to Italy. Not only so but as
before to Mrs. Poore, For it seems that Mr.
Poore has come to London, and is likely to be very
much engaged ho ho! very particularly engaged,
they whisper to me. So that's how it is that Master
Roger couldn't keep your lordship's appointment
nor indeed keep any appointment with your lord-
QUIETUS FROM MR. HENIKER 305
ship for some time to come. But that's not the best
of the joke neither."
It was more than enough for Bendish, but there
was no denying Mr. Heniker now.
"It seems that the lady's in a delicate state of
health that was his Grace's own expression. 'A
delicate state of health, Heniker/ he said to Roger.
'Now I suppose,' he went on 'pon my soul, it's
rather good, as your lordship will see in a moment
'Now I suppose,' he says, 'you couldn't manage to
take a lady out with you you haven't a mother
handy, hey? Or a sister? Or,' he says, 'do you
happen to be a married man?' Ho ho! A married
man." He now looked at his victim, with the ex-
plosion at the ignition point, hoping that they might
burst together. But Bendish, who was quite in the
dark, was calm with annoyance.
"Well, well, Heniker do let's come to the point."
"But that is the point, my dear lord! 'No,' says
Roger, humming and hawing, 'not precisely.'" A
volley escaped him. " Ho ! f not precisely,' the young
rascal ! The Duke picks him up. ' What d'ye mean
by that, Heniker?' he says; and then the murder
was out. Roger tells him all about it. 'Not a mar-
ried man yet, sir,' says he; 'but well, I'm thinking
of it.' Thinking of it, hey? That was a good one."
"Is he thinking of it?" Bendish said mildly. "I
didn't know."
Old Heniker stared. "Is it possible? So good a
friend as your lordship? But I must finish my story
it's too good to miss a word of it. The Duke has
306 BENDISH
him by the button. 'If you take my advice/ he
says, 'you'll be off to Doctors' Commons after a
special licence/ he says; 'and you'll go now. Then
you'll go down and tackle the young lady, and she'll
be Mrs. Heniker by noon to-morrow. Now, what
do you say to that?' What indeed! What indeed!
Quick work, hey? But your lordship knows his
pace better than I do? What a man of men! Now
Roger don't take long about it either. In a thirty
seconds he looks at the Duke. Til do it, sir/ he
says; and the Duke says, 'I thought you would.
Away with you. 5 Now, my lord, that's my news.
I'm actually on my way to Colder 's Green "
Golder's Green! Bendish, as gray as wax, put up
his hand. Old Heniker stopped and blinked at him.
"My lord "
"Did you say Golder's Green?"
Old Heniker, recovered, was off again. " Golder's
Green exactly. A Miss Pierson, and a very charm-
ing young lady she is. Mrs. Heniker and I are de-
lighted about her. Not very well to do no, no.
Nothing to talk of in that way. But a modest,
sweet-spoken, good, pretty girl, living with her aunt,
who is a clergyman's widow and devoted to our
boy as I could see in a flash of the eye,"
There had been one trying moment in his recital
when Bendish had felt like falling on his knees to this
old babbler, and beseeching him by his own not to
forsake him utterly. But that was past. His mind
was now empty. Meantime his assassin was hard
at his fell work.
QUIETUS FROM MR. HENIKER 307
"Now it would be a happy surprise for these two
young people if I could persuade your lordship
hey? Really, it would be an act of great condescen-
sion to grace the wedding, and throw the white
slipper! They start immediately, you must know,
in the Duke's own travelling carriage for Florence.
Now, my lord, if you would be so benevolent "
I think he would have gone if he could to have
stared Rose into stone, to have had Roger by the
windpipe yes, he would have gone but for one
thing. It was Mr. Heniker who saved Golder's
Green from a fracas. Trapped, cornered, deserted
as he was, Bendish could not let this blabbing old
fool into his secret. On the contrary, he showed
him his stateliest and most urbane.
"I'm really very sorry, Heniker. This news of
yours is sudden. I wasn't at all prepared for it.
And I fear that my appointment won't stand over.
Be sure that I wish Roger very well all that more
than he deserves. I daresay it will turn out ex-
cellently. He shall hear from me of course.
That's of course. We are old friends at least I
had taught myself to believe it. But it's a queer
world. I must take your word for the lady. A
Miss Pierson, you say? And now, if you'll excuse
me, Heniker "
"Yes, yes, to be sure!" said the hearty man, and
looked up at the clock. "God bless my soul! I
haven't a moment." He held out his hand. ". Good-
morning to your lordship and many thanks. Be
sure that I shall give your kind messages to my boy
308 BENDISH
and girl as indeed I may call her. Pray, pray
don't disturb yourself, my lord." He bowed and
bustled himself out. Bendish was alone indeed.
He stood trembling for a few moments. He heard
the sudden burst of music. The Guards' Band was
at the Palace the heartless world was still twirling
and grinning round him. His trembling grew upon
him. His hand mechanically felt the knob of a
drawer in his writing table, pulled the drawer open,
and closed about the silver-handled pistol which
always lay there. In the act he looked up, and in
the mirror opposite had a sight of his own shocked
and wounded face. That sobered him. He flicked
his hand out of the drawer as if some one had caught
him unawares, and slammed it to. Mackintosh en-
tered the room.
"I beg pardon, my lord, but the horses "
Lord Bendish lifted his head, and looked at him.
"I shan't want the horses. I'm not riding."
"Very good, my lord." But the man remained
in the room. "I beg pardon, my lord "
"Well, Mackintosh, what is it?"
"I was about to say, my lord, that if I could be
spared, I should be glad of a hour or two this fore-
noon. Mr. Heniker, my lord Mr. Roger, I should
say is about to be married to that Miss Pierson;
and he have been good enough to say that he should
be glad of my presence. So I thought . . ."
Bendish broke down. Mackintosh was alarmed.
"My lord oh, my lord " The young man
QUIETUS FROM MR. HENIKER 309
wrenched himself about, faced the window, and
steadied himself by leaning upon the sill
"Look here, Mackintosh ... I shall be obliged
if you'll stay here for a little. . . . The fact is, I'm
not at all well. If you could make it convenient
... I should be grateful. . . ."
"Very good, my lord," said Mackintosh, and re-
mained, quiet but hovering, in the room.
It had really come to that.
On a farmhouse parlour window, one summer
afternoon, I was witness of a little paraphrase of
our world's doings, done by microcosmic actors.
One dusty pane of it was the stage of observation;
but no doubt the others would have furnished as
many more. In a corner some maggot or other,
metamorphosis of a moth, had built herself a tent of
silvery floss in which to spend the days of her separa-
tion; across another a spider had cast her filmy tri-
angles, and even now was cording a midge into a
bale with invisible threads. A humble-bee drowsily
climbed the heights by means of the leading; in
mid-field two house-flies made love, or paused be-
tween the orgasms to clean their legs, A ladybird
rested from her flight, a little bubble of dry blood;
a woodlouse coursed the lower slopes seeking dirt
to add unto dirt. All was as peaceful as a Claude
landscape, where happy toil and love and rest after
labour merge and interchange in the mellow haze.
Then, as I looked and considered, there was a
violent shock of commotion. A bluebottle fly
310 BENDISH
hustled into this busy little world with a bang, and
in a moment all was upset. For he parted the
lovers and scared them into space, and woke up the
ladybird, and flacked the woodlouse into a pill..
His bumming and guzzling stirred the bee to danger-
ous passion; between them they rocked the maggot's
kraal out of position it fell, and she with it, and
became so much refuse. The field was open to their
mad encounterings, except for the spider's gin; and
into that*finally they fell tumbling and bombinating,
to wreck its intricate geometry, drive the contriver
into hiding, and envelop themselves inextricably.
Tied and bound in impalpable chains they fell, the
instigator and the victim together; quivering, upon
their backs they lay, out of reach and out of reckon-
ing by the world in which they had wrought heedless
havoc. That swept world lay hushed and bare as a
ploughland in the winter cold.
The little drama speaks for itself; but to return
for a moment to George, Lord Bendish. Alieni pro-
fusuSj sui appetens. I may vary Sallust to account
for this young man. He had, for the moment,
emptied his own little world; but many things re-
main to be said of him, for he was inveterate at
spending, and there are as many worlds precisely as
there are men and women. For the moment he lay
upon his back, quivering advances to Mackintosh
to comfort him; but you may feel sure that he will
be up and out again before long for fresh worlds in
which to riot. Of him indeed I have many things
to report, but not now. He left England almost
QUIETUS FROM MR. HENIKER 311
immediately after the events above chronicled, and
thereafter his affairs mingle with European affairs.
But they were talking of him at the breakfast table
at Holland House a week or so after his departure,
and Sam Rogers said a good thing of him in his rasp-
ing voice. Somebody had commented upon his gift
of rhetorical penmanship and thought him a political
force turned off the track. Reform, surely, would
have been speedier if he had held his course. Where-
upon old Rogers croaked his epigram. "Bendish!"
he said; " Reform! Bah, my dear sir! Bendish
used Reform as a fork to scratch his back with."
THE END
