Chapter III: What Was Said of the Walton Sappho

"Is it not shocking?" said Mrs. Ruddles, the curate's wife, to Mrs. Spedley, the surgeon's better half, as she sipped the smoking bohea, and commented on the ongoings of Walton, and its "muse" in particular,--"Is it not shocking to witness such depravity? To think of his taking up with such trumpery as Hester Mason!"

"And to think of her encouraging the wicked, old villain!" ejaculated the indignant Mrs. Spedley.

"And her father to shut his eyes!" suggested the post-mistress of Walton.

"What can she expect will be the end of it?"

"I'm sure, I can't say."

"He's married, too," said Stone, angrily; for Stone was now utterly neglected: he had even turned up his shirt cuffs, with D'Orsay magnificence, on the preceding Sunday; and still Hester had not vouchsafed him a look.

"Married! yes; but he could get nobody to live with him; and his wife has been separated many years," observed Mrs. Ruddles; "and no wonder!"

"So that Hester falls with her eyes open ... she can't expect him to marry her--the minx!" said Mrs. Spedley.

"Oh, no. Besides, she looks upon marriage as immoral."

"Ah!"

"Yes, yes: very comfortable notions those are for some people."

"Very. _This_ comes of writing poetry!" gravely and philosophically remarked the surgeon's wife.

Her husband entered at that moment.

"Pretty poetry it is!" he said. "Hang me, if I can make head or tail of it. Long words and inflated sentiments--nothing else!"

"Such trash!" scornfully added Mrs. Ruddles.

"So frivolous!" chimed in Mrs. Spedley.

"As if there was anything in that, to cock up one's head about," pursued Mrs. Ruddles.

"And, to fancy herself so superior to every one else."

"Well, give me good, common sense in a woman," fervently ejaculated Spedley.

"And me."

"And me."

"Oh, and me."

"It was but last night," said Spedley, "that she took upon herself to set me right about the vote by ballot; and, instead of arguing the point, she told me that I was incapable of forming an opinion on it, ignorant as I was of the _rapid developments of humanity_. To be sure, I was,--how should I know what she meant by that?"

"He--he--he!" tittered Mrs. Spedley.--"Developments of humanity, indeed!"

"That is a philosophy _she_ understands," said Stone, sarcastically; "and will certainly give us an _illustration_ of it _herself_ shortly----"

Stone chuckled immensely at this _double entendre_; and the ladies, forgetting their prudery in their spite, laughed too, and declared that nothing was more likely.

That is only a sample of what was said in Walton. The whole town was busy with the event. Envy aided tittle-tattle; and not a voice was raised in Hester's defence. Sir Chetsom to visit her! Sir Chetsom to drive up to her door! Sir Chetsom to send her game! Sir Chetsom to take her drives in his curricle. It was enough to make an English community, like that of Walton, mad. How she escaped lapidation is a mystery.

Hester knew the scandal she occasioned, and triumphed in it. To be the mark for jealousy, was a condition affixed to superiority. Detraction was the tribute impotence paid to power. She was hated--she knew it--how could it be otherwise?--was she not a genius? At their gossip she laughed; with society and its _sophisms_ she was at open war.

Having had this one glimpse of the state of opinion in Walton, let us now turn our attention to the Hall. The St. Johns, Marmaduke, Tom Wincot, and the family, are in the drawing room. Julius holds the volume of Hester's poems in his hands, having just finished reading it aloud:--

"Now, Mr. Vyner," said Julius, "do you rescind your harsh judgment; will you not admit that there is at least great facility in these poems?"

"Facility?" replied Vyner. "Yes, yes,

Nempe incomposito dixi pede currere versus.

I find too much of it: fatal facility, betraying the want of that _labor limæ_, without which no work can have value."

"She will learn the difficult 'art to blot' in time," suggested Julius; "at present she is all exuberance."

"Is not over luxuriance," said Violet, "rather the property of weeds than of flowers?"

"Certainly," said Vyner. "The volume wants weeding sadly. You know what 'Horace' says?--

Ut brevitate opus, ut currat sententia, neu se
Impediat verbis lassas onerantibus aures."

"Well," interrupted Rose; "but not to be so critical, do you not think the volume shows great power?"

"Rather the _will_ to be great than the _power_," said Marmaduke. "It is daring and extravagant, but it does not seem to me to have the daring and extravagance of genius."

"Doesn't it stwike you as vewy stwange that a young woman should wite in such twemendous misewy? Nothing but seductions, delusions, bwoken hearts, pwostwated spiwits, agonies of wemorse, tewible pwedictions, wetched wevewies, and all that sort of thing! Besides, what does she pwopose when she wepeatedly weitewates the necessity of some better and more weflective Chwistianity?"

"Those are the extravagances I speak of."

"I confess," said Violet, "I do not like the tricks she plays with language: surely all those uncouth compounds, and those obtrusive vowels which everybody else consents to drop, are useless affectations?"

"Those are the conquests of the New School," said Marmaduke.

"I thought that our great poets had found the language harmonious and flexible enough."

"You see, Mr. St. John," said Rose, laughing, "they are determined to pull your poetess to pieces. Don't hear any more. I will admire her with you, and we shall form the fit audience, though few."

The conversation did not cease here; but we have heard enough. Let us hurry, therefore, to Belgravia, where resides Sir Chetsom Chetsom, who has been forced to run up to town for a few days, and is now seated opposite his brother, his hand upon the claret decanter, listening to a brotherly remonstrance.

"I tell you, Chet, she is _une intriguante_: underneath all that romance and extravagance, I see a very cool calculation. In the letter you have just read me, I divine her character."

"What is there in that to make you suspicious?"

"Oh! no single passage, but the whole tone. Do but consider for a moment. Here are you, a married man, writing love-letters to an unmarried girl; she does not repulse you--she does not even _pretend_ to be offended--she says nothing about your wife, nothing about the unmistakeable nature of your intentions."

"But I tell you, Tom, the giarl is decidedly fond of me."

"Humph."

"You doubt it?"

"Considerably."

"Very well, very well. I, who see her, who watch her, and who flatter myself know _something_ of women--_I_ think so, and that is enough."

"Do you ever look in the glass, Chet?"

"Often."

"And the result is?"

"Very different from what must occur in your case, Tom, if ever you venture on such a piece of temerity."

"And you think yourself still capable of inspiring a passion?"

"The thing is done."

"And _you_ are done, Chet," said Tom Chetsom, placing one bulbous finger at the side of his vinous nose, and closing one oystery eye, by way of pantomimic comment on his words.

"You don't know women, Tom."

"Well, let us grant for a moment that you have made an impression; don't you see the imprudence of having an intrigue so near your home, in a little place where every action is noticed and discussed?"

"I don't care a fig what they discuss. That's the giarl's look out, not mine, damme! If neither she nor her father object to my visits, why should I be squeamish?"

"Why? Because you will be the laughter of the county."

"Thank ye, Tom."

"I'm serious, Chet. Your age is tolerably well known _there_, and you may imagine the gossip and the ridicule which will attach to any affair of yours with a young girl. It will be the talk of the whole county."

Sir Chetsom knew that quite as well as his knowing brother; but what his brother did not know, was that the great attraction in this intrigue consisted in the very fact so distinctly enunciated: "It will be the talk of the whole county!" He wished it to be so. He anticipated the scandal, and rejoiced thereat. He heard the chorus of virtuous matrons declaiming against his "wickedness," and the sound was exquisitely flattering. He shook his head with an air of knowing satisfaction as he read (in his mind's eye) the paragraphs in the local papers upbraiding him for his villainy. The phrase "The wretch! at _his_ age to be seducing women!" flattered his anticipative ear more sweetly than any strain from Beethoven or Mozart could lull the spirit of a musician.

Tom Chetsom, frank old fellow, never once attempting to conceal a wrinkle, or to disguise a bald patch, could not comprehend his brother's secret pride in being made a butt. He understood the vanity of his brother's dandyism and juvenility: he saw specimens enough of that at his club. But knowing how all men, and above all men Sir Chetsom, shrunk from ridicule, it was a puzzle to him that the inevitable ridicule of his intrigue with Hester should not be a bugbear to frighten him away. He forgot that amidst all the ridicule and reprobation, there would be a tacit acknowledgment of Sir Chetsom's lady-killing powers; and for that acknowledgment he could scarcely pay too dearly.

As a mere safeguard for his vanity, and not out of any illiberality, he had from the first determined upon making no settlement on Hester, in case she should consent to live with him. If his intrigue cost him anything, the laugh would justly be turned against him as a dupe. If it cost him nothing, the world would storm at his meanness, but they would believe in his power.