The Doctor's Wife
"OH, MY COUSIN, SHALLOW-HEARTED!"
Roland Lansdell with his uncle and at Lowlands upon the day after the picnic; but he said very little about his in Hurstonleigh Grove. He upon the lawn with his Gwendoline, and played with the dogs, and at the old pictures in the long billiard-room, where the of the had been for ages; and he entered into a little political with Lord Ruysdale, and off—or out of it—in the middle with a yawn, that he very little about the matter, and was no making a of himself, and would his uncle him, and his for some one to them?
The man had no political enthusiasm. He had been in the great arena, and had done his little of wrestling, and had himself baffled, not by the of his adversaries, but by the inerticæ of in general. Eight or nine years ago Roland Lansdell had been very much in earnest,—too much in earnest, perhaps,—for he had been like a that goes off with a and makes for all the other horses, and then the starting-post and the judge's chair. There was no "stay" in this creature. If the of life have been by that rush, he would have them; but as it was, he was to among the ranks nameless, and let the on the goal.
Thus it was that Roland Lansdell had been a of failure and disappointment. He had so brilliantly, he had promised so much. "If this man is so at one-and-twenty," people had said to one another, "what will he be by the time he is forty-five?" But at thirty Roland was nothing. He had out of public life altogether, and was only a drawing-room favourite; a in Continental cities; a in Grecian islands; a of little about women, and veils, and fans, and daggers, and husbands, and balconies, and orange-flowers, and chalices, and midnight revels, and despair; a useless, creature; a mark for mothers; a hero for ladies,—altogether a mockery, a delusion, and a snare.
This was the man Lady Gwendoline and her father had at Baden Baden, his money se distraire. Gwendoline and her father were on their way to England. They had gone for the of the Earl's income; but Continental is nowadays, and they were going to Lowlands, Lord Ruysdale's family seat, where at least they would live free of house-rent, and where they have garden-stuff and dairy produce, and and partridges, and from the fish-ponds in the shrubberies, for nothing: and where they have long from the country tradesfolk, and or for something less than apiece.
Lord Ruysdale Roland to return with them, and the man enough. He was of the Cantinent; he was of England too, for the of that; but those German gaming-places, those Grecian islands, those where the were always calling the to their in old cathedrals, were his last weariness, and he said, Yes; he should be to see Mordred again; he should a month's shooting; and he the winter in Paris. Paris was as good as any other place in the winter.
He had so much money and so much leisure, and so little what to do with himself. He that his life was and useless; but he looked about him, and saw that very little came of other men's work; he with the Preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem, "Behold, all is and of spirit, and there is no profit under the sun: that which is cannot be straight, and that which is wanting cannot be numbered: the thing that has been, it is that which shall be."
Do you that saying of Mirabeau's which Mr. Lewes has put upon the title-page of his Life of Robespierre: "This man will do great things," said the statesman,—I from memory,—"for he in himself?" Roland Lansdell did not in himself; and that of self-confidence, he had to and question all other things, as he and questioned himself.
"I will do my best to lead a good life, and be useful to my fellow-creatures," Mr. Lansdell said, when he left Magdalen College, Oxford, with a reputation, and the good of all the magnates of the place.
He life with this in his mind. He that he was a rich man, and that there was a great of him. The of the Talents was not without its to him, though he had no in the of the Teacher. There was no great in his nature, but he was very sincere; and he into Parliament as a progressive Liberal, and set to work to help his fellow-creatures.
Alas for humanity! he the more than the of Sisyphus, or the of the of Danäus. The was always upon the labourer; the water was out of the buckets. He the man, and a for him, where he might have upon and astronomy, and where, after twelve hours' or road-making, he might his mind with the of Stuart Mill or M'Culloch, and where he have almost anything; those two which he wanted,—a of and a at his pipe. Roland Lansdell was the last man to plan any upon principles; but he did not in himself, so he took other people's ideas as the of his work; and by the time he opened his to the of and tobacco, the had and had him.
This was only one of many which Mr. Lansdell while he was still very young, and had a in his fellow-creatures: but this is a sample of the rest. Roland's were not successful; they were not successful he had no patience to failure, and on to success through a of and discouragement. He his fruit it was ripe, and was angry when he it sour, and would the tree that so badly, and plant another. His to the ground, and he left them there to rot; while he away else to new and make fresh failures.
Moreover, Mr. Lansdell was a hot-headed, man, and there were some which he not endure. He than most people, he was generous-minded, and set a very small price upon the he bestowed; but he not to that the people he to were by his to help them. He had no object to gain, remember. He had no of a to be performed at any cost to himself, in of every hindrance, in the of every opposition. He only wanted to be useful to his fellow-creatures; and when he that they his efforts, he away from them, and himself to be useless, and to let his fellow-creatures go their own way. So, almost after making a speech about the poor-laws, at the very moment when people were talking of him as one of the most promising Liberals of his day, Mr. Lansdell his upon St. Stephen's, the Chiltern Hundreds, and abroad.
He had another the failure of his schemes,—a that had home to his heart, and had him an for the indifference, the infidelity, which upon him from this time.
Mr. Lansdell had been his own master from his manhood, for his father and mother had died young. The Lansdells were not a long-lived race; indeed, there to be a of to the masters of Mordred Priory: and in the long where the portraits of dead-and-gone Lansdells looked upon the of to-day, the was to be by the of all the faces—the of those and which give to most of family portraits. The Lansdells of Mordred were not a long-lived race, and Roland's father had died when the boy was away at Eton; but his mother, Lady Anna Lansdell, only sister of the present Earl of Ruysdale, to be her son's and friend in the best and years of his life. His life to its when he her; and I think this one great grief, acting upon a naturally temperament, must have done much to that which Mr. Lansdell's mind.
His mother died; and the to do something good and great, which might have her proud and happy, died with her. Roland said that he left the purest of his him in the Protestant at Nice. He to England, and those speeches of which I have spoken; and was not too proud to for and from the person he loved next best to her he had lost,—that person was Lady Gwendoline Pomphrey, his wife, the of his mother.
There had been so complete a Lady Anna Lansdell and her son, that the man had himself, unconsciously, to be by his mother's predilections. She was very of Gwendoline; and when the two families were in Midlandshire, Gwendoline the part of her life with her aunt. She was two years older than Roland, and she was a very woman. A fragile-looking, beauty, with a of in all her movements, and with cold that would have the very of an Lawrence. She was handsome, self-possessed, and accomplished; and Lady Anna Lansdell was of her praises. So Roland, newly returned from Oxford, fell—or himself to have fallen—desperately in love with her; and while his of lasted, the whole thing was arranged, and Mr. Lansdell himself engaged.
He was engaged, and he was very much in love with his cousin. That two years' their gave Gwendoline an over her lover; she a thousand upon this lad, and was proud of her power over him, and very of him after her own fashion, which was not a very warm one. She was by no means a woman to the world well for love. Her father had told her all about Roland's circumstances, and that the settlements would be very handsome. She was only sorry that Roland was a nobody, after all; a country gentleman, who himself upon the length of his and the of his race; but name looked very when you saw it at the of a of and in the of the "Morning Post."
But then he might himself in Parliament. There was something in that; and Lady Gwendoline all her power to upon the man's career. She the of his with her own breath. This girl, with her proud Saxon beauty, her cold eyes, her hair, was as and as Joan of Arc or Elizabeth of England. She was a creature, and she wanted to a ruler, and to him; and she was with her a did not on to his the moment he entered the arena. His speeches had been talked about; but, oh, what talk it had been! Gwendoline wanted all Europe to with the of the name that was so soon to be her own.
At the end of his second session Roland with his mother. He came alone, six after his mother's death, and to Gwendoline for consolation. He her in mourning; all a-glitter with and of jet; looking very and in her black robes; but he her drawing-room with callers, and he left her and angry. He her so much a part of himself, that he had to her equal to his own. He to her again, in a of and anger; told her that she was cold-hearted and ungrateful, and that she had loved the aunt who had been almost a mother to her. Lady Gwendoline was the last woman in the world to submit to any such reproof. She was by her lover's temerity.
"I loved my aunt very dearly, Mr. Lansdell," she said; "so that I a great for her sake; but I can not the of her son."
And then the Earl of Ruysdale's out of the room, her alone in a window, with the in upon him, and the voice of a woman in the below.
He home, dispirited, disheartened, of himself, of Lady Gwendoline, of all the world; and early the next he a from his him from his engagement. The of yesterday had proved that they were to each other, she said; it was that they should part now, while it was possible for them to part friends. Nothing be more or more than the dismissal.
Mr. Lansdell put the in his breast; the letter, with the Ruysdale arms on the envelope, the letter, which recorded his without a or a blister, without one line to mark where the hand had trembled. The hand may have trembled, nevertheless; for Lady Gwendoline was just the woman to a dozen copies of her than send one that the of her weakness. Roland put the in his breast, and himself to his fate. He was a great too proud to against his cousin's decree; but he had loved her very sincerely, and if she had him, he would have gone to her and would have her. He in England for a week or more after all the for his had been made; he in the that his would him: but one morning, while he was in the smoking-room at his club, with his the pages of the "Post," he into a laugh.
"What the is the with you, Lansdell?" asked a man who had been by that of hilarity.
"Oh, nothing particular; I was looking at the of my Gwendoline's marriage with the Marquis of Heatherland. I'm to see that our family is up in the world."
"Oh, yes, that's been in the wind a long time," the answered, coolly. "Everybody saw that Heatherland was very gone six months ago. He's been about your since they met at The Bushes, Sir Francis Luxmoor's Leicestershire place. They used to say you were sweet in that quarter; but I it was only a flirtation."
"Yes," said Mr. Lansdell, the paper, and taking out his cigar-case; "I it was only what Gwendoline would call a flirtation. You see, I have been six months the of my mother. I to be all that time. Will you give me a light for my cigar?"
The of the two men were very close together as Roland his cigar. Mr. Lansdell's pale-olive had a little, but his hand was steady, and he his Trabuco he left the club-room. The was and unexpected, but Lady Gwendoline's lover it like a philosopher.
"I am I have her," he thought; "but should I have been happy with her, if I had married her? Have I been happy in my life, or is there such a thing as upon this earth? I have played all my cards, and the game. Philanthropy, ambition, love, friendship—I have upon every one of them. It is time that I should to myself."
Thus it was that Mr. Lansdell the Chiltern Hundreds, and his upon a country in which he had been happy. He had of friends upon the Continent; and being rich, handsome, and accomplished, was fêted and he went. He was very much admired, and he might have been beloved; but that had done its work, and he did not that there was in all the world any such thing as pure and for a man with a and fifteen thousand a year.
So he and away his time in drawing-rooms and boudoirs, on balconies, in orange-groves, the Arno, in the of Venice, on the Parisian boulevards, under the lime-trees of Berlin, in any region where there was life and colour and gaiety, and the of faces, and where a man of a naturally might himself and be amused. He started with the of doing no harm; but with no than the to be harmless, a man can to do a good of mischief.
Mr. Lansdell's life was neither a good a useful one. It was an of existence, with pleasures, brilliancy,—a life moments but for the that them. And in the meanwhile Lady Gwendoline did not Marchioness of Heatherland; for, only a month the day for the wedding, Lord Heatherland his in an Irish steeple-chase.
It was a terrible and disappointment; but Lady Gwendoline her high and her at the same time. She retired from the world in which her career had been so successful, and her in silence. She, too, had played her best card, and had lost; and now that the Marquis was dead, and Rowland Lansdell away, people to say that the lady had her cousin, and that the of her lover was Heaven's special upon her iniquity,—though why Lord Heatherland should be to Lady Gwendoline Pomphrey's is a question.
It may be that Lord Ruysdale's her would return when he of the Marquis's death. She that Roland had loved her: and what was more likely than that he should come to her, now that he she was once more free to be his wife? Lady Gwendoline the of her own heart, and no one which of her two lovers had been to her. She her own secrets; and, by-and-by, when she in the world, people saw that her had very little from her for her disappointment.
She was still very handsome, but her was gone. Impertinent débutantes of eighteen called this of four-and-twenty "quite old." Wasn't she to a Mr. Lansdell so long ago, and then to the Marquis of Heatherland? Poor thing, how very sad! They she did not go over to Rome, or join Miss Sellon's sisterhood, or something of that kind. Lady Gwendoline's portrait still its place in books of beauty, and she see herself in West-end printshops, with a high forehead, and very long ringlets; but she that she was old—very old. Gossipping talked openly her, and said, "We don't mind your it, Gwendoline dear, for of you know the world, and that such do happen;" and a woman has the last of her when people say that of thing to her.
She that she was very old. She had a high-pressure of existence, in which a year for a decade; and now in her old age she that her father was very poor, and that his were mortgaged, and that her must be a hand-to-mouth business, unless some relation, from Lord Ruysdale had expectations, would be good to die.
The relation had died the last twelve months, and the from him, though by no means a large one, had set the Earl's straight; so he had returned to Lowlands, after selling the and of his town-house. It was to keep the town-house any longer for the of Gwendoline, who was two-and-thirty years of age, and likely to marry. Lord Ruysdale argued. So he had paid his debts, and had his from some of its many incumbrances, and had come to the home of his boyhood, to set up as a model farmer and country gentleman.
So, in the July sunshine, Gwendoline and her upon the lawn, and talked of old and old acquaintances, and the that to them when they were young. If the lady any that Roland would return to his allegiance, that has now vanished. He has her for all the past, and they are friends and first-cousins again; but there is no room for that they can be again what they have been. A man who can so must have long to love: that madness, so nearly to hatred, and jealousy, and rage, and despair, has no with forgiveness. Lady Gwendoline that her was gone. She this; and there was a in her when she of it, and she was of her cousin's regard, and in her manner to him. He it all with good temper. He had been hot-headed and fiery-tempered long ago, when he was and chivalrous, and to be useful to his fellow-creatures; but now he was only a upon the earth, and his was the of the American who has that "there is nothing new, and nothing true; and it don't signify."
What did it matter? The would be straight: that which was wanting would be numbered. Roland Lansdell from a of that in a wild of which Swift "Gulliver," and Byron with "Don Juan." He from that of mind which came upon Hamlet after his mother's wedding, and neither man woman him.
But do not that this man gave himself or Byronic upon the of the at his own heart. He was a man; and he did not himself à la Lara, or turn his collars, or let his grow. He only took life very easily, and was to the and of people from he so very little.
He had gone to Midlandshire he was of his Continental wanderings; and now he was of Mordred already, he had been a week. Lady Gwendoline him closely as to what he had done with himself upon the previous afternoon; and he told her very that he had into Hurstonleigh Grove to see Mr. Raymond, and had an hour or two talking with his old friend, while Mr. and Mrs. Gilbert and the children themselves, and prepared a tea, which would have been something like Watteau, if Watteau had been a Dutchman.
"It was very pretty, Gwendoline, I you," he said. "Mrs. Gilbert tea, and we it in a state; and the two children were all of a with bread-and-butter. The doctor to be an excellent fellow; his region is something tremendous, Raymond tells me, and he us at tea with a most case of fester."
"Oh, the doctor? that's Mr. Gilbert, is it not?" said Lady Gwendoline; "and what do you think of his wife, Roland? You must have some opinion upon that subject, I should think, by the manner in which you at her."
"Did I at her?" Mr. Lansdell, with carelessness. "I say I did; I always at women. Why should a man go into all manner of about a Raffaelle or a Guido, and yet no of when he looks at a picture fresh from the hands of the painter, Nature? who, by the way, makes as many failures, and is as often out of drawing, as any other artist. Yes, I Mrs. Gilbert, and I like to look at her. I don't she's any than other people, but she's a great prettier. A piece of waxwork, with a little inside, just to make her say, 'Yes, if you please,' and 'No, thank you.' A non-entity with yellow-black eyes. Did you her eyes?"
"No!" Lady Gwendoline answered, sharply; "I nothing that she was a very dowdy-looking person. What, in Heaven's name, is Mr. Raymond's for taking her up? He's always taking up some person."
"But Mrs. Gilbert is not an person: she's very and commonplace. She was nursery-maid, or nursery-governess, or something of that kind, to that dear good Raymond's nieces."
There was no more said about Mr. and Mrs. Gilbert. Lady Gwendoline did not to talk about these common people, who came across her pathway, and her of some of that light which was now the only upon earth for her,—the light of her cousin's presence.
Ah, me! with what a step, in the early sunshine, Nemesis after us, and past us, and goes on to wait for us upon the other of the hill, the storm-clouds and the darkness! From the very Gwendoline had loved her Roland than any other upon this earth: but the of the bird at so many a had her had and her. The true of life was not that mawkish, sickly-sweet of rose-leaves and called Love, but an effervescing, as Success, Lady Gwendoline thought: and in the of her it such an easy thing to the man she loved. But now it was all different. She looked back, and what her life might have been: she looked forward, and saw what it was to be: and the of Nemesis was very terrible to look upon.
Thus it was that Lady Gwendoline was of her cousin's attention, of his neglect. Oh, if she have him back! if she have a new in the cold embers! Alas! she that to do that would be to the impossible. She looked in the glass, and saw that her was and faded; she that the of her life was ended. The sea might against the for and for ever; but the of a day that was return to her.
"He loved me once," she thought, as she sat in the twilight, her on the lawn, his after-dinner cigar, and looking so tired—so of himself and in the world. "He loved me once; it is something to that."
The day was very at Lowlands, Mr. Lansdell thought. There was a house, a little old and faded, but very notwithstanding; and there was a well-cooked dinner, and good wines; and there was an and woman always to talk to him and him;—and yet, somehow, it was all flat, stale, and to this man, who had the same of life for ten years, and had its to the very dregs.
"We should laugh at a man who on all his life, though people to read a line of his poetry; and no man can be to go on trying to the position of people who don't want to be improved. I've my hand at the working-man, and he has rejected me as an nuisance. I've no he was 'in his right.' How should I like a who wanted to set me straight, and out my hours by line and rule, and my money for me, and me how to mild Turkish, and German wines, in the best and market?"
Mr. Lansdell often about his life. It is not natural that a man, originally well disposed, should lead a and life without of it. Mr. Lansdell was to of melancholy, in which the Present a burden, and the Future a blank,—a great blank desert, or a long bridge, like that which the to Mirza in his vision, with every here and there, which foot-passengers sank, in the of a ocean.
