Chapter VI

HOW ROSE BECAME ACQUAINTED WITH OUR UGLY HERO.

About three quarters of an hour before, Rose and Blanche were seated on an ottoman, between two elderly women, ugly enough to be erudite, and repulsive enough to forbid any attempt at conversation. Silent the girls sat, occasionally interchanging a remark respecting the dress of some lady; and as a witticism was sure to follow from Rose, which Blanche was afraid might be overheard, even this sort of conversation was sparing, though so much food was offered. Not a soul spoke to them. They knew scarcely any one, for their stepmother studiously avoided introducing them. The consequence was, that many habitual visitors at their father's knew them by sight, but had no idea who they were; and many were the invitations in which they were not included, simply because their existence as young ladies who were "out" was not suspected.

While they sat thus alone, it was some relief to them to espy Mrs. St. John, whom they knew slightly, and who had recently purchased the Grange, an estate adjoining Wytton Hall. She came towards them, leaning on the arm of a young man, whom she introduced as her son; and one of the erudite women rising at that moment to go, Mrs. St. John took possession of her seat, next to Blanche, leaving her son standing talking to Rose. In a very few minutes, a withered little man in large gold spectacles came up, and offering his arm to the other erudite female, carried her off, thus leaving a place, which Mr. St. John at once seized upon.

Julius St. John had not a person corresponding to the beauty of his name. Do not, my pretty reader, turn away your head; do not shrug your shoulders; do not skip the next page or so, because truth bids me inform you Julius was remarkably plain. I would have him handsome if I could. You may believe me, for I am perhaps a greater worshipper of beauty than you are; but it is, nevertheless, true, that I am now going to demand your admiration for a young man, who is undisguisedly, unequivocally plain. Not ugly--ugliness implies meanness, or moral deformity--yet absolutely without any feature which could redeem him from being familiarly called "a fright." Strikingly plain is the proper expression; so striking as, perhaps, to be the next best thing to beauty, from the force of the impression created. No one ever forgot his face. No one could casually perceive it without having the gaze arrested for a moment. Let me hasten to add, that the effect was almost repulsive, it was so powerful. I add this, lest you should suppose that I am going to trifle with the truth, and to soften my description by certain intimations of an expression of such exquisite sweetness and such delicate sensibility--such ideality--or such intellectual fire illuminating his face, that to all intents and purposes, my plain hero becomes a handsome man. No, reader, no; while I am perfectly aware that some plain features are rendered handsome by the expression, I am also aware that some faces--and the faces of very noble creatures--are irredeemably plain; and such was Julius St. John's. Judge:--

A head of enormous size was set upon the miserable shoulders of a diminutive body, which, though not deformed, was so thin and small, that an energetic deformity would have been preferable. This head was covered with a mass of black, crisp, curly hair, which fell carelessly over a massive but irregular forehead, ornamented with two thick eyebrows, which, meeting over the nose, formed but one dark line. The eyes that looked underneath these were bright, but small. They looked through you; but what they expressed themselves it was seldom easy to guess. The nose was insignificant; the mobility of the nostrils alone attracted attention to it. The mouth was large--not ill-cut--but the lips full and sensual. The chin large; firmly, boldly cut. The complexion dark and spotted.

These features were not even redeemed by the look of a gentleman, or the look of an artist. Common he did not look, nor vulgar, but striking; and, on the whole, repulsive. The best point about him was his consciousness of his ill looks, and the freedom from any coxcombical effort to disguise it. He did not bring out his ugliness into relief by a foolish attention to dress, as most ugly men do. He was neither a dandy nor a sloven. That he was a "fright" he knew, and accepted his fate with manliness.

"Have you been looking at those?" he said to Rose, as he sank into the chair by her side, and pointed to the table on which the inventions were laid. "Perhaps you can explain them to me?"

"No, indeed, not I. I never understand anything of that sort."

"Seriously?"

"Seriously! it's very stupid, I know; but I am stupid. What I am able to understand it would, perhaps, be difficult to say; but there can be no hesitation in excluding everything like science or manufactures. They are my detestation."

"Whisper it not in Gath!" he said, with mock horror. "Only conceive where you are!"

"Very much out of place; but mama has a fancy for coming here, and we are obliged to like it."

"Well, it is a comfort for me to find some one as ignorant as myself. Everybody here is so alarmingly instructive. I find nobody ignorant of anything but their own ignorance. Even the young ladies have attended Faraday, and the Friday evenings at the Royal Institution, till----"

She held up her finger threateningly, and said, "Now don't be severe, I am one of those young ladies: I never miss a Faraday, and am never allowed to miss a Friday evening. Oh! you need not look astonished. I sleep very comfortably there, believe me."

He laughed, and continued,--

"Then I can forgive your attendance. Science ought to be quite content with female votaries of dubious ages. I am sure if it has the _bogies_, it may leave us idlers the beauties for our comfort. I quite sympathize with you in your aversion to manufactures. They are very wonderful, doubtless; but as I am not going to set up a mill or a factory of my own, the processes are superlatively uninteresting."

"And if I may be so bold as to ask it, why do I see you _here_?"

"Upon my word, I can hardly tell. Why does one go anywhere? Mere idleness and imitation. Wherever I go, it is almost always dull, and this house is duller than most; but one occasionally meets with a recompense, as I have this evening."

"In sitting next to me, eh? I accept the compliment, though it might have been newer."

"Well, at any rate, it bears out my confession of ignorance. I know not even how to turn a compliment!"

"Is not that Dr. Lindley?"

"I believe so. You are a disciple of his of course? One may know botany without being formidable."

"I am glad of that, because I am supposed to be learned in that department."

"Then you have not the claim I set up for the new degree of C.I.D."

"Pray, what is that?"

"Doctor of crass ignorance, for which my pretensions are better than yours, as I scarcely know a rose from a rhododendron."

"But I only told you I was _supposed_ to be learned, not that I am so. My reputation is very simply acquired. Whenever people are puzzling their memories about some flower, I boldly call it a something _spirans_, if it is of the twirligig kind, or else a something _elegans_, or if it is bright-coloured, a something _splendens_. My name is instantly adopted, and my wisdom meets with respect. Many other reputations are no better founded. Impudence may always reckon on the ignorance of an audience."

He laughed at this, and then said--

"Am I to presume you know something of Latin, then?"

"About as much as of botany. Papa, you know, is a great scholar, and has tried to teach us all Latin, though with mediocre success. But mind, it is a secret that I know even the little I do. Think of the injury it would do me. Who would waltz with a girl who was known to understand Latin?"

"True, true. Men don't like it. They are proud of their wives or lovers speaking all the continental languages, but a tinge of Latin is pronounced too _blue_. The secret of this male outcry is this: all men are supposed to understand Latin, and very few do; accordingly they resent any attempt to invade their prescriptive superiority. I remember my noble friend Leopardi used to say that only in a woman's mouth could the true beauty of Latin be properly recognised."

"Do you know Leopardi, then?"

"I did know him, poor fellow; but he has been dead these two years. He was a grand creature. Have you read his poems? I have never before met with any English who had heard of him."

"Read them, no. He is too difficult."

"Difficult?"

"Why, we girls, as you are perhaps aware, are taught to distinguish _sospiri_ from _ardiri_, and _lagrime_ from _affanni_, after which we sing Bellini, and are said to know Italian. But when a poet a little more difficult than Metastasio is placed into our hands, we are at a stand-still."

In this way they chatted merrily enough. Julius was eloquent in his praise of Leopardi, from whom he went to Dante, to Byron, to Bulwer, Scott, and Miss Austen. Rose was delighted to find so many tastes and opinions shared in common with this pleasant young man, and could have sat all night talking to him. She had forgotten his ugliness in the charm of his conversation; but he had not forgotten her beauty, which was shown to greater advantage by the liveliness of her manner.

It was a delicious _tête-à-tête_. One of those accidental enjoyments which from time to time redeem the monotony of soirées, and for the chance of which one consents to be bored through a whole season. Not _what_ was said, but _how_ it was said, made the talk so delightful. The charm of sympathy, the comfort of finding yourself, as it were, mirrored in the soul of another, the easy unaffected flow of words dictated by no wish to shine, but simply suggested by the feeling, made Rose and Julius as intimate in that brief period, as if they had known each other many months.

Cannot Rose's unwillingness to leave now be appreciated? Cannot the reader understand her impatience at having such a _tête-à-tête_ disturbed? But there was no help for it. She was forced to say adieu, and she held out her hand to him with a frankness which almost compensated him for the pain of seeing her depart. He went home and dreamt all night of her.

Mrs. Meredith Vyner, followed by her daughters, sought her husband, who was listening to a humorous narrative given him by Cecil Chamberlayne, of the elopement of the wife of a distinguished professor, with an officer almost young enough to be her son. Meredith Vyner laughed mildly, brushing the grains of snuff from his waistcoat with the back of his hand, and observed:--

"Egad! I always suspected it would end in that way. Such an ill-assorted match! Well, well, as Horace says, you know,

"Felices ter et amplius
Quos ...."

Here he was interrupted by the appearance of his wife, who, hurriedly intimating that she felt the rooms too hot, desired him to take her home.

"Directly, my dear, directly," he said, and then turned to Cecil, to finish his quotation.

"Quos irrupta tenet copula, nec malis
Divulsus querimoniis
Suprema citius solvet amor die."

"Good-evening..... Now, my dear," offering his arm to his wife, "I am at your service."

"_He_ talks of ill-assorted marriages!" said Cecil Chamberlayne to himself, as they left the room.

The ride home was performed in silence. Meredith Vyner was trying to recollect a passage in Horace, which would have enabled him to make a felicitous pun on something Professor Forbes had said to him, and his forgetfulness of which had teazed him all the evening. His wife was meditating on the words, looks, and manner of her jilted lover, astonished at his calmness, and alarmed at his threats. The calmness of vehement men is always more terrible than their rage; and the vagueness of Marmaduke's threat made it more formidable, because it suggested a thousand things, and intimated none. What _would_ he do? What _could_ he do?

Rose was thinking of Julius St. John, and her charming _tête-à-tête_. Blanche was weary and sleepy.

Marmaduke, as he jumped into his cab, and drove to the club, reproached himself for having been led away by his anger so far as to threaten. He had put her on her guard, and thereby rendered his vengeance more difficult. It was, indeed, a proof of the violence of his agitation, that he should have so far forgotten himself; and he determined, if possible, to recover that false step.

Marmaduke Ashley was one of those

"Children of the sun whose blood is fire;"

and looked upon the treachery of his mistress with very different feelings from those of a calmer-blooded northern. His transports of rage and anguish when he heard of her infidelity almost killed him, and they only settled down into a fierce lust for vengeance. His father dying bequeathed to him a small fortune, which, instead of endeavouring to increase, he brought with him to England, and there awaited, with all the patience of an Indian, the hour when he should be able to wreak full vengeance on her who had humbled his pride, shattered his illusions, and lacerated his heart.

He had formed no plan. Time would, he doubted not, bring forth some opportunity, and for that he waited; enjoying himself, meanwhile, as a young man about town, with time on his hands and money in his pocket, best can enjoy himself. He was no moody Zanga, with one fixed idea. He did not go scowling through society like the villain of a tragedy, solacing himself with saturnine monologues, and talking of nothing, thinking of nothing, but of his wrongs and his revenge. Such monomaniacs may exist, but they are rare, and he was not of them. His heart swelled, and his temples throbbed, whenever he thought of his hated mistress, and the thirst for vengeance was not slaked by thinking of it. But this dark spot was only a spot in his life, other thoughts occupied him, other interests attracted him, throwing this quite into the background.