Chapter V

He that is born is listed. Life is war.
YOUNG’S NIGHT THOUGHTS.

Clare Abbey was sold, and sold well; which was a satisfaction to Mr. De Grey’s creditors, though it was of no advantage to him. It was bidden for and eagerly purchased by a gentleman of large property in the county, whose house was inadequate to the size of his estates, and who had often contemplated the antique beauty of the house, grounds, and park of Clare Abbey (speaking as they did of an ancient family and a far descent), with the eyes of hopeless envy. The sale was a private one; the house was not dismantled; pictures, books, furniture, with few exceptions, everything was sold. Mr. De Grey, with his family and household, departed in the month of September, and in the month of October his successor, with his family and household, took possession of the Abbey. There was little noise or conversation on the subject. The change was so quietly made, that few remembered how, in that change, the hopes of a young life were shattered, and a young man’s buoyant heart was saddened for ever.

“Oh, mamma! what a pretty, pretty place!” said a lovely little girl of about six years old, springing up in the barouche, which was conveying the new family to their new abode.

“So it is, Camilla;” and Lady Vere, for the first time indolently raised her veil and looked around her. “What a fine avenue! I wonder how many trees there are. I dare say there are fifty.”

“Fifty! my lady,” said the nurse, “there must be three hundred at the very least.”

“Dear, you don’t say so?” and Lady Vere opened her beautiful eyes. “What a quantity!”

“Oh, Reginald! isn’t it pretty?” said the little girl, springing up again, as they came in sight of the house. “What a nice garden, and what nice grass, and what nice bushes! Oh, Reginald! a’n’t you glad that we are coming to live here?”

“You always like everything new, Camilla,” said the boy, coldly; and there was a cloud on his brow.

“Sit still, Camilla; you rumple all my silk,” remarked her mother.

The carriage stopped. Camilla was lifted from the carriage, and the brother followed her.

“Oh, Reginald, pigeons!” she screamed; and, seizing her brother’s hand, she scampered off into the stables, from whence she had observed the top of a pigeon-house. He stood by her side in silence, neither joining in, nor noticing, the screams of delight with which she watched and endeavoured to seize the pigeons that were picking up the grain around her.

“Miss St. Maur! Miss St. Maur! come back directly;” called the fat nurse, waddling towards the place where they stood. “Your mamma never does allow the stableyard, as you know very well.”

“But I _must_ look at the pigeons, nurse. Look there! look there!” clapping her hands, and screaming, as seven or eight flew together, with one movement and one sound, to the top of the pigeon-house. “Oh, nurse, what a nice place this is! how glad I am papa bought it. I like it fifty times better than our stupid old house.”

“And in a week, Camilla, you will be wishing for a new one again,” Reginald said, still gravely.

“And if I do,” replied the child, looking wistfully up in his face, “what does it matter? Why shouldn’t I wish, and what is it that makes you cross to-night, Reginald?”

“I’m not cross,” he said, with an emphasis on the word.

“Now, Mr. St. Maur, do you please to take Miss St. Maur into the garden. Here comes the carriage, and the stablemen, and the servants, and it isn’t at all a proper place for a young lady.”

“I’m not a young lady, nurse, and I won’t be a young lady. But I’ll go into the garden with Reginald, if he likes it better, and if he will play with me there. Come along,” seizing his hand; “do come along; and goodbye you pretty pigeons till to-morrow.”

But when they reached the garden, Reginald was as indisposed for play as he had been before. He sate down on a garden-seat, looking about him with an air of grave contemplation, while the child flew from bed to bed, from bush to bush, from vista to vista, in an ecstasy of delight. She came at last,--her bonnet thrown back, her long curls floating, her cheeks crimson,--and threw herself at her brother’s feet.

“Oh, Reginald! what _do_ you sit here for, and what _is_ the matter, you silly, silly boy?”

“I was thinking of the people who are gone away, Camilla.”

“What people?” and she looked up eagerly in his face.

“Didn’t you hear what Margaret was telling me last night, about the lady and the boy who used to live here?”

“No, I didn’t. What sort of a boy? was he as big as you?”

“I don’t know. Margaret said a boy; and she said he was fonder of this place than ever you can be, Camilla, and that it had quite broken his heart to leave it. I know she made me wish never to come near the place.”

“How does a heart break, Reginald? Does it crack?”

“I don’t know what it does; but I feel what she means by it. She said he had everything in the world that he could wish for; and such a pony, that knew him, and ate out of his hand; and all the people so fond of him, that when he went, everybody was crying, she said, as if they had lost a child....”

“Then, what a silly boy to go,” Camilla said, emphatically.

“But he couldn’t help it. Margaret said they were too poor to live here any longer, and that the boy must go and learn to earn his bread.”

“What is, to earn his bread?”

“To work, I suppose, Camilla; not to play any more.”

“Oh, poor, poor boy!” she said, pityingly.

“I should not mind the working, Camilla; but the going away and never coming back; and leaving all his things, his dogs, and his pony, and....”

“Oh, look, look at the pigeons!” screamed Camilla, jumping up and running along the lawn, while the pigeons flew over her head.

“I wish we never had left Evesham,” said Reginald, gloomily, as she rejoined him; “I never shall feel at home here. I feel as if I was taking the boy’s things.”

“I dare say he has got a prettier place, as we have,” suggested Camilla, consolingly.

“No, he hasn’t. He’s gone to London, to live in a dirty street.”

“Oh! I wish we could go to London, too. Mamma says they have such pretty things--such dogs, and horses, and dolls, and tea-things. What a happy boy to go to London!”

_Was_ Ernest De Grey happy in London? In answer to some such question regarding one of his heroines, Walter Scott has beautifully answered: “Reader, she _was_ happy; for, whatever may be alleged to the contrary, by the scorner and the sceptic, to each duty performed there is assigned a degree of mental peace, and high consciousness of honourable exertion, corresponding to the difficulty of the task accomplished. That rest of the body which succeeds to hard and industrious toil, is not to be compared to the repose which the spirit enjoys under similar circumstances.” The truth of this passage few will be disposed to doubt; and yet I am bound to say, that it was not perfectly exemplified in the case of Ernest de Grey. He had behaved most nobly. To his father, to his mother,--in all the painful tasks that were assigned him, without a word of murmur or repining--he had shown the same generous, dutiful disposition, which had characterized his childish years. He did not think of himself; he spoke little of the past, cheerfully of the present, hopefully of the future; and after the evening of the first announcement, even his mother’s eyes failed to read how deeply the sacrifice was felt. But when the excitement was over, and they were established in a small house, in one of those dull, uniform streets beyond the gay-looking world of Belgravia, his spirits and his resolution began to sink. He was too young, perhaps, to feel in its full force the blessing which the peace of an approving conscience brings, too restless with regrets for the past, and dreams of the future, to feel _peace_, in thoughts of peace of any kind. He could, as many can, heroically submit to one great trial; but he failed, as many fail, in the smaller trials of everyday existence.

Accustomed to the freedom of a country life, fond of all sports and active amusements, his spirit began to rebel against the imprisonment of London. He could have borne it, however, and borne it well, if there had been a prospect of future release; but one word, which once inadvertently had fallen from his father’s lips, haunted his imagination and oppressed his spirits night and day. That one word was _clerk_. To be tied to a desk in London for ever!--every feeling within him revolted from such a destiny. And yet perhaps even to this he would have taught himself to submit, if it had not been for the sudden reawakening of an old fancy, after a slumber of many years. Superseded by the love of his home, suppressed by the perfect satisfaction found in that home for all the adventurous tastes and active habits of his boyhood, his martial ardour had been lulled to rest--but it did but sleep; springing up in the monotony of the present, consoling for the disappointment of the past, it took possession of his fancy with a violence that startled and mastered him, gilding the future with visions as glittering as they were idle and delusive. He knew that it was impossible, during his father’s lifetime. Their only means of support was his mother’s fortune, a sum of £13,000; and the purchase of commissions from an annual income of barely £400 a year, even his vague imagination told him was not a very practicable scheme; but the imagination, especially of the young, is little bounded by the limits of possibility. Good sense and good feeling kept him silent; neither by word nor look did he betray the secret of his heart’s desire, but satisfied with this exertion, he repaid himself for the sacrifice by dreaming a never-ending dream. Instead of battling with the excitement of his mind, he fed it by every means in his power. Wherever soldiers were to be seen, or sounds of military music were to be heard, there his steps were wandering. Day by day unfailingly he presented himself at the Horse-Guards, to watch the mounting of the guard; hour after hour he would hang about Apsley-House, for one look at the Duke of Wellington--then would return home, to wile away the long dull evening by the perusal of the lives of highwaymen, pirates, and other celebrated and adventurous characters (picked up for a few pence at a book-stall), which sent him to bed in a fever at once of excitement and despair. So he passed the early days of his life in London; dissatisfied with all around him, and most of all dissatisfied with himself.

Mrs. De Grey saw her son’s failing spirits and sighed: of the cause of his greatest depression she was not aware. She did not know that the word “clerk” had reached his ears; for Mr. De Grey, unaccustomed to deal openly with Ernest, had forbidden the mention of the plan, until some hope of its success could be obtained,--and Ernest in the dread of hearing the certainty of his doom, forbore to make an inquiry. But she could guess from his restless deportment, the hopes and fears, the dreams and regrets that were agitating him, and she sighed. But though she sighed, it was _for_ him, not _over_ him. She was not one of those who groan at the least failure in human perfection--experience had taught her that, with rare exceptions, it is through mental struggle and mental failure that the character is formed and perfected; and though she sighed for him during the process--though she could not but sigh that disappointment should so early cloud his sunny brow and buoyant spirit--she felt no fear, no despondency as to the ultimate result.

One night, Ernest went to bed fresh from the attractive and exciting annals of the life of Claude Duval. Though within a day or two of November, the night was hot and close, and Ernest could not sleep; he tossed to and fro, restless and excited, and, turn where he would, the word _clerk_ presented itself to his eyes. There is, I think, no madness or wildness to be compared to the insanity of even the sanest of mortals in the course of a restless night. Small things assume such immense importance in the mind--the future, whether the dreams of that future be joyful or sorrowful, swells into such extraordinary magnitude. For “a solution of a bright hope,” it seems impossible to wait--a trial, a coming or a fancied trial it seems impossible to bear; we appear to have suddenly become all sensation, and with giant feelings to be waiting, or preparing for gigantic events. In such a mood of mind and such a state of nerves, Ernest was lying on this restless night, when there passed before him in dreamy vision, but in giant proportions, the life of a clerk:--he saw himself rising in the morning to the impenetrable gloom of a yellow November fog (it was in the month of November, that his imaginary life chose to picture itself), he saw himself at breakfast in the small dark dining-room of their present habitation; through the dismal misty streets he followed himself at ten o’clock to his office--there he passed his day in the midst of figures which it made his brain ache even to think of. He accompanied himself back to his home, when the scanty daylight had long since faded; and there with dizzy eyes and a bewildered brain, endeavoured to wile away six weary hours till night and sleep should come to his release. Again, and again, and again the vision passed before his fancy, till at length he saw himself a decrepid old man, feebly tottering along the streets to his hateful and hated task. I hope my readers can imagine the horrors of a life like this when presented through the magnifying-glass of sleepless and feverish eyes. Poor Ernest turned from side to side, endeavouring to find one ray of light to gild his dreary picture, but in vain; not even a sunshiny morning would come at his call. He sprang out of bed, looked round his tiny room, rushed to the window, and by the faint moonlight gazed upon the rows of roofs and chimneys,--the only prospect commanded by his room; then drawing back with a feeling of despair, and stamping with his foot upon the ground, he pronounced that it _could not, and it should not be_. If no other means of escape offered themselves he would enlist as a private soldier and win his way to distinction. He returned to bed calmed in mind, and possessed by the beauty of the new vision. Unlike the last--colours, bright colours, came thick and fast to add to its brightness. His late studies, which probably suggested the idea, suggested also the pictures in which to adorn it; he saw himself an object of interest and admiration; his short probation was quickly over, he was received amongst the officers, distinctions were showered upon him; he was captain, major, colonel, in less time than it takes to write the words, and he fell into a sweet sleep, a general officer in full uniform, leading on his troops to victory.

These seem childish dreams, but Ernest’s mind was youthful enough to be lulled and dazzled by dreams even more childish than these. He was still nothing but a boy.

With the dawn of day, something of the brilliancy of his last consolatory vision faded; nothing is more disappointing than a morning light on a midnight picture; but still, even considered in the sober colours of morning, it retained enough of its beauty and promise to induce him to repeat with calm resolve the feverish determination of his restless hours; it should be his last resource, but a resource it should be.

In such a mood and with such a purpose, he went down to breakfast; his night and morning meditations had made him late, and breakfast was half over before he appeared. His father was laughing as he entered the room; rather an unusual and as it might have seemed a gratifying occurrence; but Ernest was in no laughing mood, and irritated by the sound, he hurriedly kissed his mother, and sat down without raising his eyes.

“Half-past nine, Ernest,” said Mr. De Grey looking at his watch, “this will never do.”

Ernest finished the sentence to himself as he fancied had been intended, “_never do for a clerk_,” and he answered his father with some petulance.

“Are you ill, Ernest?” inquired his mother gravely. Ernest looked up and met her anxious affectionate gaze; his irritation vanished in a moment, and he said, colouring crimson,

“Not ill, mother; but I am afraid a little cross.”

“And why cross, my dear boy?” she asked smilingly.

He shook his head and said no more.

“Your father was laughing, Ernest, as you came in, at a strange letter I have had; it partly concerns you--will you read it?”

As she spoke she put into his hand, with a quiet smile, a strangely scrawled and tumbled letter.

Ernest looked over it, and as he read his colour deepened and his heart began to beat; it was as follows:--

“Berners-street, Oct. 26.

“MY DEAR GERTRUDE,--You don’t remember me; but I remember you.
The last time I saw you, you were in a dirty pinafore. I know
it was a dirty pinafore; your parents didn’t bedizen you as
the new generation are bedizened; I hate the sight of them.
Since I saw you I have been in India, and now I am come back.
Because I say I have been in India, don’t you suppose that
I’m come back a Nabob. I’m not. I’ve got enough and that’s
all. I want to see you and your son. I suppose he is a young
man by this time. I hate young men; they’re all coxcombs;
empty-headed coxcombs; very different to the young men in
my day; but as he’s your son, and my old and best friend’s
grandson, I want to see him. Come and see me if you think
it worth while. I’ve heard of your misfortunes and I’m sorry
for them, but I can’t help you. I tell you at once I’ve got a
relation, and I shan’t cut him out for anybody. But I shall be
glad to see you and your son, if you think it worth while to
visit an old, wizened, paralytic scarecrow.

“Your father’s old friend,
“MARK WATTS.”

“Shall we go, Ernest?” asked his mother quietly.

He looked at her in astonishment; bright visions were dancing before his eyes.

“Yes, I think you have no doubt,” she said smiling; and the letter was folded up, and the conversation changed.