Chapter VI: Some New Friends

Days passed, and largely in the glamour of those expeditions which were to breed in the boy something more than a reconcilement with his destiny. And indeed, what with vigorous exercise, health, a mighty appetite and fine weather, Brion was soon in the mind to welcome solitude, though in a desolate mansion, as a condition as admirable as any which could have befallen him. He and Clerivault, his constant companion, were for ever on foot or on horseback, galloping over the moors, penetrating to town or village, or scrambling over rock and fell in search, pedantically, of the picturesque. They climbed the great tors, and swung the famous logging-stone; they explored the loveliest ravines, and overhung, from the rocky salient guarding Holne Chase, the waters of one of the fairest rivers in England. They fished--with small success, and shot--with none, at fowl of sorts, using for the latter purpose Clerivault’s pistols, which were short Italian ‘daggs,’ so called, heavy weapons with wheel-locks, and the last to prove effective against nimble game. Then in the early evening they would return, fagged and happy, to a great delectable meal, served up in Phineas cook’s most incomparable manner.

This Phineas, like the true artist he was, never condescended to be less than himself, though in such minor matters as the gratifying of a green palate. He had been long with the Judge--who, in the business of the table, was something of an epicure--and, like the other three lealties, was sufficiently his devoted henchman to be ready to follow his fortunes into virtual exile. He was a little long-faced man, with a pointed scrap of beard, and a serene conceit of himself so equable as to be impervious to provocation. His hands were very white and capable, and he habitually wore round his neck the gold chain with which the Lord Chancellor had decorated him on the occasion of a famous banquet given by his master to the Benchers of Gray’s Inn. A cook by profession, he was a genius by intuition, and handled his tools, as a supreme painter his brushes, with the unerring vision which in a few touches will give form and distinction to another’s mediocre design. An ordinary recipe became with him one of those plagiarisms which transcend their originals. In matters of sauce he was a rigid purist, holding that selection was the keynote of efficiency, and greatly abominating those indiscriminate jumbles of ingredients with which lesser cooks sought to cover up their ignorance and achieve a chance applause. As every soul was said to have its affinity in the world, so every dish, in his creed, had its certain complement, and it was no more right or moral to introduce a fifty different herbs and other garnishes into the pot, in the hope of the right one being there, than it would be to furnish a man who wanted a wife with a harem to seek amongst. Such Apician miscellanies as ‘lovage, coriander, mint, rue, anchovies, pepper, pine-nuts, raisins, wine, sweet cheese and oil,’ as a relish to boiled goose, he regarded as enormities, and to be counted only with the filthy potions brewed by Mrs Harlock and her like; but the cook who aspired to the term master should aim rather at the perfect sympathy of meat and seasoning, whereby each, like a loving partner, should prove its own value by emphasising the virtues of the other. To this end simplicity was the first and surest of means, combined with a perfect instinct for the hypostatic union of flavours, and for that psychologic moment reached by the revolving spit when ‘done to a turn’ was inaudibly announced from its well-basted burden. There was none could make plain roast and boiled more delectable than Phineas; as indeed Brion and his companion had good reason to know. He loved to have a hearty appetite to operate on, and would stand and expound his views to the boy, much entertaining that young gentleman, while watching his vigorous enjoyment of the good things provided for him. He liked the youngster, as indeed all associated with him came to do, at first for the master’s sake, but soon enough for his own. He was a prepossessing stripling, in truth, comely in appearance, but attractive more by reason of his gentleness and native urbanity than his looks. And at the same time he had a courageous spirit, to which Phineas loved to supply the animal fuel. There was no stint of that, at least, at the Grange. The bills of fare comprised haunch of venison, wild boar’s cheek, boiled leg of pork, salt buttock of beef (outside cut), sheep’s head (served with an electuary of unknown composition, but entertaining honey), oyster of veal, and other such goodly pièces de resistance. There was a certain ‘Karum’ pie, hoarding in its ambrosial depths treasure of beccaficoes and savoury jellies, to which Brion was mightily partial; and fish there was in plenty, turbots and soles and lobsters from the coasts, and lampreys from the rivers; while, for game, they had moorland partridges, and knots and godwits and hares. To enumerate the delicacies would be idle, though mention must be made of a peculiarly appetising broth with a boned duck floating in it, of a thoughtful hash of calves’ feet, and of a ragout of cocks’-combs with savoury balls which had to be eaten to be understood. But these were kickshaws, and, in Phineas’s philosophy, less illustrative of the culinary art than the plain joint made beautiful. His crowning achievement in their respect was a particular cream sauce, which, like the relish invented by the Marquis de Béchamel, was of that seductiveness that it could have made a mother-in-law, with all her bitterness, ‘go down.’

One might imagine that, with all this gastronomic petting, Brion would end by thinking too much of his food; but, indeed, in his healthy young mind, he regarded it only as he regarded sleep, a need of nature the better for being sound. And that was Phineas’s own view.

‘A dinner remembered,’ said he, ‘is a dinner discredited, and that forgotten as soon as eaten does best honour to the cook. For it is honour to be the begetter of generous thoughts, which spring from good digestion; and a man if he be fed well, and as a proper cook should desire him, ponders not on that he hath consumed, but rather on the great visions which arise from his content and satisfaction. Whereas, should the food itself linger in his mind, it is odds but what he will presently have cause to wish both it and himself at the devil. All human functions are tolerable only to the moment when one is conscious of them: and that is digestion, to which your cook is physician in trust, as it were, to prevent what the others seek to cure.’

‘Methinks,’ said Brion, ‘the best physician is plainness and frugality. The Spartans lived on black broth alone, and were brave soldiers and healthy men.’

‘Anan?’ said Phineas.

‘They were a race,’ answered the boy; and added, with a twinkle: ‘other than that one who, tasting their broth, declared he no longer wondered over their indifference to death, seeing that this was all they had to live for. Good Master Angell, too, was wont to say that Heaven blesses a simple appetite.’

Phineas struck his nose with his forefinger three several times.

‘These Churchmen,’ said he--‘they will dogmatise. What mandate had he from Heaven to speak for it? I could say that Heaven loves to encourage good eating; and could give you book for it too.’

‘Give it,’ said Brion.

‘Hast heard of St Patrick,’ answered Phineas--‘the apostle of the Kerns? Well, God quit him for that--he was a good and holy man, for all he had his moments of weakness. One came to him on a fast day, when the sight of two fat pork chops on a platter was too much for his resolution. But he had no sooner helped himself thereto than, his conscience smiting him, with a prayer to Heaven for forgiveness he cast them from him into a pail of water standing by, whereon they were instantly converted, by God’s grace, into a brace of lusty trout. Nothing less, look you--no red herrings from Heaven. And what, I would ask you, of Cana its feast? Was it your black broth Christ changed the water into? Go to, for your plainness and frugality--and with your mouth full of my veal pasty!’

Brion laughed: ‘If it had been that to tempt St Patrick!’

He was popular with them all, as said: but with none so much as Clerivault, who regarded him as his especial trust and intimate, and was jealous of any fancied encroachment by another on his preserves. He taught the boy the use of arms, and practised him in sword play, against the time when he should have a ‘rapier and a baselard with a sheath of red’ of his own to hang at his side. That was a reminiscence not unreferred to, you may be sure. Brion, as he grew in confidence with this comrade, would open his sedate young heart to him, and ever a little and a little less shyly; until once he ventured on a direct question:--

‘I have often wondered and wanted to ask you, Clerivault. You remember that day, so long ago, when we first met?’

‘Ay,’ answered the other curtly, and with a watchful manner, as if he foresaw what was coming and prepared himself with his guard.

‘You would know of me, would you not,’ said Brion, ‘where Master Angell lived?’

‘Ay,’ was the short answer again.

‘Yet you had no need to learn.’

‘Had I not? Your reason, an it please you?’

‘Because you knew already; else had Master Angell not asked astonied what brought you there, and, out of your wont, by day.’

Clerivault made an acrid face.

‘A certain Grecian was heard to remark,’ said he, ‘that he detested a boon-companion with a memory. Are my sins, then, to find me out, and in the name of friendship?’

‘So you own you meant to deceive me?’

‘It would seem so.’

‘Why, Clerivault?’

‘I will tell you, like an honest man. It was not in his Honour’s then design to confess your relationship, and I, who acted as his purse-bearer, judged it advisable to give your sharp infancy no chance scent to nose on. Wherefore, though I had been there many times before, I appeared ignorant.’

‘And you came, out of your wont, by day? Why?’

‘These whys are like house-flies. Brush one away and another settles. I came, if you would know, to bring a message. There’s a simple answer to a simple question.’

Brion pondered awhile, his clear eyes fixed on the other’s conscious face.

‘Had the message aught to do, I marvel,’ said he suddenly, ‘with two that accosted me at the Queen’s passing the next day? They were the Lord of Leicester for one, and with him a sweet lady.’

Clerivault gave a little gasp, and looked up, and down again.

‘God’s ’slid!’ he exclaimed; and bit his lip. ‘What mad question is this?’

‘Is it mad?’ said the boy. ‘Well, then, it is mad. Yet there were the two, riding alone and seeming to look for my master and me, where we stood, by his directing, apart from the others. And when they espied us they drew rein, and the lady bade me to put foot in her stirrup; and she held me, and, as she held, she kissed my lips and whispered if I was happy.’

Clerivault cleared his throat, yet answered as if something still obstructed it:--

‘A mere casual impulse, Sir--take my word on’t. Something moved her in thy baby face: perchance she had lost a child. And, as to this Leicester, as you call him----’

‘Not I. It was one spake him so, riding back with a message from the Queen. And the lord was wrathful to be so confessed, and struck the man with his whip across the face, so that I could have struck him in his turn.’

Clerivault, with his mouth forming an answer, stared as if petrified. He had never yet seen such fire in this discreet dove’s eyes, and it opened his own.

‘In law, hearsay is no evidence,’ he began, muttering; but the dove stooped upon him with flaming vision:--

‘Do you dare to question my word?’

Clerivault started back.

‘Cry you mercy, Sir! Not for the wide world. I but spoke by instinct the fashion of the trade. Well, I see that blood will out. I must mind for the future my p’s and q’s.’

The boy was still incensed. There was, in truth, a little devil of pride in him, not often to be provoked, but, when it flared, significant of a thing or two. It was a lesson to Clerivault, in whose manner thenceforth some little show of patronage was exchanged for a greater deference.

‘It was the Lord of Leicester, I say,’ said Brion.

‘It was the Lord of Leicester, since you declare it,’ answered the other, with a downcast look.

‘Why do you not answer my question, then?’

‘What question, please your grace? My memory is consumed in this fire.’

‘What connection there might be between the message you brought and the appearance of those two on the road?’

Clerivault’s brow went down and his lower lip up. Desperation was making him sulky.

‘The message was not mine,’ he said, in a tone of chill civility. ‘As well ask the conduit what message it bears from the river to the fountain.’

Brion flung away. He was in a passion, and he had let his passion defeat his particular purpose. He had meant this question to Clerivault to serve as prelude to another even more curious and intimate; and now he could never put it. His pride would prevent him.

But reason soon reasserted itself, and with it came shame that he could have treated his so faithful henchman and comrade with such unkindness. And so, no sooner was his heat departed, but he sought out the poor fellow, and very sweetly asked forgiveness for his rudeness, saying that the fault was his own to have tempted an abuse of confidence, and that, in refusing him, Clerivault had not only vindicated his own honour, but had taught him a lesson in faith which he would not be quick to forget. All of which he said very feelingly, but with a stately manner, as though bestowing his own punishment on himself; but it so wrought on his hearer as quite to overcome him with emotion.

‘Thou dear soul!’ he cried. ‘If I might seek thy confidence without hurt to my trust!’

But Brion stayed him, with the action of a young prince.

‘It would hurt my honour more than thy trust. Say no more on it, I beseech you. I _wish_ no more, and that is enow.’

And they were friends again, but at changed angles; the boy was a little more the patron and the man the client.

Yet it is never to be supposed that these sober and dignified relations represented the all of their comradeship. There was another side to it, which, if less sedate, was infinitely more humorous.

If Clerivault was for one part in three a rational and incorruptible sobriety, he was for the other two a fantastic braggart, and a liar of that splendid order which soars easily above the possibilities, and will not be baulked in its romances for the insignificant reason that the evidences of their untruth are there for anyone who likes to consult them. And as to making himself the hero of his own imaginings, after all, if one _is_ inventing, it would be the merest quixotry to allot to another the brightest part in one’s extravaganzas. He was, in fact, exactly as his master had described him, a tridimensional mixture of gentleman, rhapsodist, and coxcomb, the whole being held together like a bunch of wind-giddy feathers in a jackanapes’ cap, by the steadfast jewel of fidelity.

Brion came very early to see into what was in truth a quite lovable transparency in his comrade, and, while measuring him leniently, to take a rather wicked pleasure in drawing him out and on, withal with a due consideration for his feelings. He was careful, for one thing, not again to offend that super-patriotism which was such a fervid quality in the dear fantastic--on the principle, possibly, that your convert is ever your ultra dogmatist. But, however that might be--and trustworthy evidence on his own part was not to be hoped of Harlequin; perhaps he himself was ignorant of his origin--love of his England glowed like a fierce fire in his bosom. He often rhapsodised on the great vague things he and Brion were destined in good time to accomplish for their country; he would rant and hyperbolise in mystic terms, touched with real vision, on her mighty destiny. The boy would mark him, with a whimsical gravity, and wonder what great place he supposed Fate had assigned him in her scheme of things. He hardly appeared the sort of instrument she would choose for carving a way to new dominion: even, soldierly, Brion had already a secret suspicion that he was not quite the shrewd swordsman he professed, since he himself, for all his inexperience, could sometimes better him at the foils. But certainly he was full of gas; and that might exalt him. The young rascal delighted to supply the fuel for that expansion.

‘Clerivault,’ he said once, ‘it would seem that my Uncle, from what he let fall to me, holds you in great esteem.’

He could venture on so much, while remembering the Judge’s warning. He would have liked to hear Clerivault’s own version of the dramatic happenings which had first outlawed, then inlawed him, so to speak, on the principle, one might assume, of setting a thief to catch a thief; but he could not admit a knowledge of the facts without betraying the great man’s confidence.

The other smoothed his chin, with an ineffably complacent expression.

‘Ha!’ said he. ‘He might admit he has reason.’

‘I know,’ said the boy, nodding his head soberly. ‘It is not every man’s good fortune to be gifted with a paragon.’

‘Nathless I would not grudge it him,’ said Clerivault; ‘for in truth no man deserves it better, or could more appreciate its moral and corporeal value. Yet was it good fortune, as thou sayest, to light on this fallen star, hung never in the constellation of the scales, but shed like a glittering gem from Mars his fiery breast. I had not been a lawyer but for love of one man.’

‘He found you fallen, you say, Clerivault? How?’

‘No matter. Kings fall: I have Kings’ blood in my veins, ha! He who hath commanded knows how to serve. I have served and do serve like a King. To the greater light the lesser is but a shadow; and yet it is a light. I am myself, Kingly; and yet I am no King. But when all men shall be Kings and all Kings men, then shall the world open its eyes and see the Millennium. And in the meantime I serve, Kingly.’

Brion opened _his_ eyes to this astonishing rodomontade. Laughter quivered in him, though he dared not yield to it.

‘In what way Kingly?’ said he.

‘As one who leads, Sir,’ answered Clerivault, ‘while feigning but to follow.’

‘And do you lead my Uncle, while so feigning?’

‘Soft, in your ear, now! Gray’s Inn might tell a tale.’

‘Gray’s Inn?’

‘Ha! You know not. ’Twas there we had our dwelling--no chambers nobler or more noted; and he who occupied them a fitting brilliant to such setting. Ancient, barrister, bencher--he had stood to reach the highest honour, that of duplex reader, but that sour Fortune tripped him. He shone, Sir; and, if like the carbuncle, which, being exposed to the sun, and thereafter set in darkness, repays the light it borrows, still--he shone. I say no more.’

He need not. The implication was plain to demonstration.

‘Wert thou the sun, Clerivault,’ said Brion, with a little gasp, ‘that made this carbuncle so to shine?’

The paragon coughed.

‘No sun, Sir, by your favour--I know my limitations--yet mayhap with some power to illuminate. He might consult me--I do not say--there have been judgments passed for his, which--but it ill becomes a man to praise his own wares. You have never heard speak of our “mootings”?’

‘No. What were they?’

‘Disputations, Sir, convened in the Great Hall to argue moot points of law. There would be a counterfeit case stated, and counsel appointed to represent both plaintiff and defendant. Then was the cream of legal subtleness displayed, and not least in the devising of new theses for discussion. I could tell of one that possessed a happy adroitness in such contrivings, though he might not appear in person to claim the credit of his own inventions. But, like the puppet-master who, himself unseen, pulls the strings that set his dolls a-dancing, he was the known originator of some debates most admired in their subjects. So with our masques and revels, wherein, were some great fresh device apparent, one would be named for its certain author who shall not be named by me. No, not rack nor the strappado should wring divulgement from these lips.’

So he would ‘gas,’ in the modern term, and to the infinite tickling of his young hearer, who, nevertheless, found his affection for the queer creature increased rather than diminished by this knowledge of his weakness. Ingenuous vanity is ever the most forgivable.

In the meantime the days went on, and passed into weeks, and still the master of the house delayed to appear. Brion wondered, and would sometimes put his wonder into words, seeking the reason of Clerivault. But it was so apparent that the man either knew of none, or, if he knew, meant to keep his own counsel in the matter, that soon the boy desisted, and resolved philosophically upon making the best of the situation as he found it, and leaving all conjecture for present content. And that was the wise course to take, however sudden the turn which brought it to an end.