Anthony Langsyde. A modern love story

Chapter I

Anthony Langsyde was a Scotsman by origin, an Englishman by habit, whose misfortunes at the time we begin to follow his history, may be described as cruel though far from unique. " She is not the first," said Mephistopheles, when Faust resented the fate of Mar garet, but only the devil could find consolation in such a hideous sneer. Langsyde knew that he had many com panions whose ships had been wrecked on the same rock as his own, and the knowledge brought him no comfort, though it sealed his lips when tempted to utter com plaint. His history can be briefly told. He was the son of an Indian civil servant, and had suffered the usual fate of such children, being tossed about from school to school, sometimes allowed to spend his holidays with a friend, sometimes taken home by a relation, but looked upon as a nuisance wherever he went.

When he was told his parents were dead, the news made more impression upon him than might have been expected. He liked to think that his father and mother were in existence somewhere on the planet, though he could not see them. Besides, they used to send notes and parcels and never forgot his birthday. After they were gone life sank altogether to a B lower level. He ceased to trouble himself about the quality of his school reports, and never wrote or received any letters. They left a younger child than Anthony, a girl called Barbara, but this deserted, and in the eyes of her relatives most unnecessary infant, did not take kindly to the world. At the age of six she contracted one childish complaint after another, and died at Tunbridge Wells from exhaus tion, following whooping cough. Her brother missed her sadly, since her death left him absolutely alone.

People never grasp the meaning ofthe word "loneliness" as long as a single human being exists whose thoughts are sure to turn lovingly in their direction, at least once a day. True solitude begins when we realize that no one in the world is thinking of us, with solicitude. Anthony being a sensitive boy, shivered, when he first became aware of the awful change in his life. Then, being a healthy one, he tried to forget his circumstances, and succeeded in a manner which astonished himself. His three aunts possessed so many children of their own that it was useless to expect much enthusiasm from them on the subject of other people's. Anthony was moreover a plant of slow intellectual development, who did not early give promise of producing a brilliant flower. Physically he grew fast, as fast as a weed, and this also proved unfortunate.

A boy who measured five feet ten and a half inches, before reaching the age of fifteen, could not with propriety be sent to take tea in the nursery. He had one relative, who bestowed attention on him. This was a great aunt, Lady Craven, a very rich widow, without posterity, whose friendship was a good deal sought after by her kith and kin. She always showed kindness to Anthony, partly, it is to be feared, because the fact of her doing so, vexed such of her sisters-in-law as owned children. " Don't talk to me of the unselfishness of mothers," she used to say. " The wolfish look I see in my nieces' eyes, when I praise a child that does not belong to them, makes me shudder for human nature." Then she would call Anthony to her side and ask him in a distinct clear voice, whether he were not higher in his form than Freddy Elliot, whose mother, she knew, was present.

All things come to an end, and so did the poor boy's days of tutelage. Some results remained of this home less up-bringing. To the last hour of his life he refused to believe that he could be an object of interest to more than three people. This was one result. Another was, that in common with most sensitive persons who have found life hard, he developed a decided touch of cynicism. After leaving Cambridge, he came to London and began, like other young men of no decided bent, to read for the Bar. He read and ate his dinners at the same time. The reading was dull and the meat tough, but he plodded through both with equal patience, trying to hope that the reward would prove worth the labour. When he was called and had ordered his wig, anxiety took the edge off dulness. " If I have nothing else to do, I add up my debts," he said once to George Cathcart, the friend who shared a dusty chamber with him.

Cathcart had also begun to take preliminary steps toward reaching the Woolsack, but, unlike Langsyde, voted the scheme a bore. " If my people expect me to sit grubbing all day in a dingy room with that solemn owl, Lord Thurlow, staring at me from the chimney-piece, they are mistaken," he said. " Life is too short and too serious to be wasted in this fashion." " We must waste it somewhere," said Langsyde. " Since Fate was not kind enough to give me genius (an B oversight for which I owe her a grudge), I suppose I must make up my mind to pass a dull existence. Why not here as well as in Calcutta ? " " I can show you a thousand reasons," said Cathcart. " Here is one. I like to see the sun occasionally, just once or twice a week, by way of change. The atmosphere of the Inn is infernal. Think how gloriously the stars are shining at this moment in the East !

I shall go and trust to my luck to bring me a few adventures, before my head is bald and my temper soured." So he went to India, where he fell a victim to liver disorders, and never met with a single adventure worth naming, unless we except one day, when he found a cobra curled up fast asleep in his bed. Langsyde stayed in Lincoln's Inn and drudged continually. He missed Cathcart, for often when fogs prevailed outside, and clients were scarce within, the two friends had amused them selves by giggling and making giggle, as better lawyers have done before them. Langsyde's spirits at this period of his life were the marvel of his more solemn and self conscious contemporaries. His face never wore that sombre look which John Bunyan styled doggish, though why dogs should be accused of unpleasant qualities it is difficult to imagine.

This surly, heavily-weighted expres sion is almost entirely confined to the stronger sex, and perhaps is attributable to their sense of responsibility in the matter of making money. If this explanation be correct, Langsyde must have lacked an essential quality, for his mouth broke into smiles as easily as a woman's. Little things amused him, not because his mind was trivial, but because it was keenly awake. He looked sad, on occa sions, but never dull. Cathcart had found his cheery presence more comforting than a good fire on a wet day. It was he who first started the theory that clients were only prevented by obscurity from trooping up their stairs in battalions. When Cathcart lit a candle and placed it on a tin plate, Langsyde insisted on blowing it out. " Don't make our poverty visible," he said.

The clerk and Cathcart both knew that light would neither help business nor drive it away; so they submitted in silence, and the pleasant fiction that only a dark staircase hindered success, was allowed to hover in the air. No one but Langsyde would have known what to do, when this clerk, who was on the right side of twenty, committed a strange error in tact and appeared in a suit of knickerbockers. His laugh fairly chased misfortune out of doors, for few human beings having heard it once, could resist the desire to hear it again. Nevertheless Cathcart held fast to the impression that in matters where worldly wisdom was essential, he knew better how to act than his friend. " I hate to leave you," he said, the day before his ship sailed from Southampton. " I am afraid that without me, your splendid talents will be wasted and you will end by coming a cropper.

That's the way with men of your sort." " What do you mean ? " cried Langsyde angrily. " Men of my sort ! Explain yourself." " Oh, I will do that in a minute," said Cathcart. " You have the best and the worst temper of any man I know. You can't stand either contradiction or waiting, so I must speak as quickly as I can. Now I know that you pride yourself on having no amour propre. That is well enough, but I wish you would try to remember that other people possess their share. There's no need to ruffle their feathers the wrong way, especially when they are solicitors." " Hang solicitors ! " cried Langsyde. " Oh, I say hang them, too," exclaimed Cathcart. " At least I could say it, but I don't, because I need them to live by. And just at this moment, I am not prepared to die. That's my first piece of advice.

Be civil to attorneys. Give them comfortable chairs, and laugh at their jokes, never at your own. My second advice is more deadly serious. Beware of women." " Cathcart, you are a fool," said Langsyde. " No, I am a wise man," replied Cathcart, staring at his companion with solemn green eyes. " I know what you mean to say. You never flirt or write letters or mix yourself up with the sex. I wish you did. When a love affair comes to you, it will be devilish serious. You will believe all you hear, instead of discounting half and nurs ing doubts about the rest. Don't be taken in by tears. Women are happiest when they are crying, especially if they think it suits their complexions. Never marry until you have a practice worth two thousand a year, and don't do it then, unless you are forced." " This is much ado about nothing," said Langsyde.

" If any woman wants a dull life in some shabby-genteel quarter of London, let her marry me. I can promise she shall not be disappointed. Besides, I can go further than that and say I have never yet seen a female creature with whom I wasn't thankful I had nothing to do." " That's the right spirit ! " cried Cathcart. " Keep it up, old man. If you write to me in five years and say you are still safe from the sex, I shall hope to see you at the top of your profession." Six months after Cathcart left and a year after they were both called, Langsyde wrote to tell his friend that he was engaged to Celia Johnstone, the only child of an East Indian merchant, who had been a friend of his father's. Cathcart had met the lady, and groaned in spirit as he read the news.

Chapter II

Miss Johnstone was in her twenty-second year when Anthony made her acquaintance and fell in love with her beautiful face. There were a thousand excuses for him. Celia possessed that dangerous sort of loveliness, which turns the wisest man into a fool. Her hair was reddish gold, her eyes were hazel, her complexion white as milk. When she laughed she showed a perfect set of very small teeth, as white as pearls. Young as she was, every one felt that her friendship conveyed distinction ; she was so clever, so uncommon, so full of spirit and life. Her suitors were Legion, but it must be owned that like Penelope's they were not of very superior quality, and might have been consigned to Hades, without inflicting much loss on the world. One was an athletic curate ; another, a doctor whose practice had still to be made ; a third gambled un successfully on the Stock Exchange ; and a fourth had lost one eye at golf.

Celia was too beautiful not to be ambitious. She felt it cruelly hard that the doors of society should be closed against her, merely because her parents were too indolent to open them. Other girls, not a quarter so handsome as she, sat for their portraits to great artists and were mentioned in newspapers, while only a limited number of human beings knew the fact of her existence. Mr. Johnstone was as yellow as an orange and very irascible in temper. His wife had become lazy from long residence in the East, and they both liked to spend every winter in the Isle of Wight. Was ever young beauty placed in such adverse conditions ? The elder Johnstones had taken a house in Kensington Park Gardens, when they came home from Bombay, because it was near Celia's boarding-school, and there, from pure inertia, they continued to live, long after blackboards and slates had passed from their daughter's recollection.

When Langsyde spoke of the future, she gave him briefly to understand that the house in which they lived together must be remote from Notting Hill Gate. " I nearly die of the blues when I pass that station," she said. " Those light green omnibuses have been my portion ever since I wore a pigtail. Let us go where we can ride in white ones. Nature abhors sameness, much more than a vacuum." Langsyde conceded this point and every other. He was madly in love with his pale-faced beauty, even to the extent of believing that life spent in her company must be blessed, however rough the outward conditions. In this belief he was wholly mistaken, but fate being merciful, gave him no chance of discovering his error by experience. Perhaps if we could see what might have been, we should gladly accept what is.

Aster their engagement had lasted a year and pre parations for their wedding were being made, Celia went on a journey to Paris. She was chaperoned by the Hon ourable Mrs. West, a lady whose acquaintance she had made in Sandown the winter before and cultivated with great assiduity ever since. Her letters were rapturous and brief. Anthony wished they were less ecstatic and a trifle longer. He felt so much irritated after reading one of them, that without due consideration he wrote a few lines of remonstrance, begging her to desist from teasing him by repeating the compliments of empty headed ball-room partners. Nevertheless, when Lady Craven, who had taken a furnished house in Eaton Place for twelve months, made some sarcastic remarks on the subject of Celia's absence, he fired up angrily. " She is frisking about all day and dancing all night, I suppose," said the old lady.

" I suppose so." " And being introduced by that goose of a woman, Mrs. Aubrey West." " They have agreed not to quarrel till the visit is over." " Anthony, your are a fool." " Because I came to dine with you and hoped to enjoy the evening ? " " No, because you are going to marry a red-haired beauty and expect to live a quiet life." " Oh come, Aunt Rhoda," said Anthony. " We have gone into that question before, remember, and agreed to let it drop. You were a beauty yourself once, and liked to see the world and dance, instead of staying at home to spin." " Yes, I did," said Lady Craven thoughtfully. " I was in Paris, in the time of Charles the Tenth, and they used to call me the prettiest girl in the whole city. Dear me, what an antiquity I do get ! But I was very unworldly for all that. I threw myself away the first time I married.

My husband had scarcely a shilling. He was a young English officer who fell in love with me at a ball. We defied all our friends in order to keep our word to each other. I have told you the story a dozen times." " You can tell me again," said Anthony, " I like an old-fashioned love story." " Give me my stick," said Lady Craven. " I want to walk about a little. No. I didn't ask for your arm. I asked for my stick. There ; that will do." She began to move up and down while Anthony leant back in an easy chair and watched the firelight playing over the furniture and shining on his aunt's white hair and clearly chiselled features, handsome even now, in advanced old age. The diamonds on her fingers had been given by her second husband, Sir Peter, who was a great speculator and left a large fortune behind him, to be held in trust for his widow.

Captain Meredith, the officer with whom she eloped at the age of seventeen, had died in the Crimea, worth nothing at all, as far as money goes. But Anthony observed that her hands always began to tremble when she spoke of him. After a few minutes she stopped suddenly in front of her nephew and asked an abrupt question, — " How much did your father leave you ? " " About ten thousand pounds, Aunt Rhoda." " And you make at your profession ? " " That's a very home thrust," said Anthony wincing. " This year I have made two hundred and twenty, only you need not tell my creditors." " Nonsense ! Don't paint yourself blacker than you are. So, you propose to marry on six hundred a year ? " " Mr. Johnstone has promised his daughter an allow ance of three hundred more." " I wish he had not," said Lady Craven.

" I wish circumstances had come between you and your heart's desire. Oh, you think me a hard-hearted wretch, I know. I cannot help wishing. You are as sensitive as your mother, though you hide the fact pretty well on the whole. She was a very sensitive woman. Most women are tolerably tough. Nine out of every ten would look in the glass to make sure that their bonnets were set straight before going to see their husbands executed. I don't blame them, I might have done the same myself." " What is the drift of all this ? " asked Anthony, half laughing, half provoked. " I shall go away as fast as I can. You are talking riddles to-night." Lady Craven patted his shoulder with her thin white hand. "I mean just this," she said. "Your beauty does not know what sort of a man she is going to marry. She has looked at outside things, but not any further.

And you do not know the sort of woman you are going to marry. She is a lovely creature, but when God made her, He for got to give her a soul. That's all. I do not blame her. She did not get one and throw it away. She never had one at all. But take a bit of advice from an old woman who has seen more of life than she cares to remember. Should it happen that Celia wrote to tell you she had met someone in Paris who suited her better than your self. . ." " Aunt Rhoda ! What do you mean ? " cried Anthony, springing back as far as the opposite wall. " You cannot understand what you say. You do not know Celia. Such a thing is impossible ; absolutely, totally impossible." He never quite knew how he escaped from the house, but a few minutes afterwards he was driving in a very rickety hansom towards his own rooms, feeling the rain beat against his face because he had forgotten to let down the glass.

On his writing table lay a letter from Celia and he tore it open, hungry for a word. The first sentence which caught his eye was this, " Whatever happens, the remembrance of your friendship will always be dear to me." " I wonder if Aunt Rhoda has been trying to frighten her too," he thought. " Poor child ! How unhappy she must have felt to write in this way." He stood beside the lamp, his coat and hair still wet, to read the rest of the letter, but the next sentence went to his heart with a stab. " I am sure when I tell you that my feelings have changed, you will agree with me that our engagement had better come to an end." He looked at his watch ; nine-thirty. Lady Craven and he had parted much earlier than usual. There was still time to reach Kensington Park Gardens and have an interview with Celia's mother.

Some horrible mistake must have caused this letter to be written ; some mistake of which Lady Craven had heard, though with the perversity of a very old woman, she had not chosen to speak out plainly. It was scarcely more than three weeks since Celia and he had parted on the best of terms, and until now, she had written affectionately. The rain was coming down in torrents, but he called another hansom and drove through it to the well-known door.

Chapter III

Mrs. Johnstone was a little fat woman with large brown eyes. She usually wore dressing-gowns of a very loose description, until seven o'clock in the evening, and only changed her attire then because Celia insisted upon it. Yellow was her favourite colour. " I am so glad to see you, Mr. Langsyde," she began, in a breathless fashion, peculiar to herself, " so glad. Thank you," as he drew forward a chair for her use, " not that one. It is too low. I never sit on a low chair. Ah, that will do ! I have been quite upset ever since receiving Celia's letter." " She has written to you ! " exclaimed Langsyde. " Yes, the child has written. What it all means, I am sure I do not know. Her father talks of letting this house furnished and going to Egypt for the winter. We have friends at Cairo." " Explain !

" cried Langsyde. " What is the cause of all this ? When Celia lest London three weeks ago " "Ah, my dear Anthony, a great deal may happen in three weeks. But we are very vexed. She should have known her own mind better. Her father is very much displeased." " I shall go to Paris by the night mail," said Langsyde. " I must see her at once. There is not a moment to lose." Mrs. Johnstone's expression changed. She rose up in her chair, a wondrous feat of energy for her, and then fell helplessly back. " You must not dream of such a thing," she said. " It would be shocking. I cannot guess what would happen." " We should have an explanation," said Anthony. " At present I do not know what is the cause of this sudden estrangement." "There is no estrangement," said Mrs. Johnstone. " At least there need not be.

Celia has acted quickly, but she is very young ; and after all in a case of this sort, where one wrong step would mean a lifetime's misery, perhaps she did for the best." " Since when has she begun to expect a life of misery, if she married me ? " said Langsyde. " You are speaking in riddles. I fail to understand." " Then she has not told you," said Mrs. Johnstone, feebly stammering. " She has left everything disagreeable to me." Langsyde rose from his seat and walked across the room to the chair in which Celia's mother sat writhing. He was a tall man, his height exceeding six feet by half an inch, with a massive head, short-sighted brown eyes and a fair complexion. Mrs. Johnstone shivered when she saw the expression in his eyes, wide open and straining hard in order to see distinctly. " What have you to tell me ?

" he asked, and his voice sounded unnatural. " Quick ! What is it ? " Mrs. Johnstone hesitated, but he put out his hand to seize hers, while his breath quickened. " She is on the point of being engaged to someone else," said the poor woman, choosing the most brutal words conceivable from pure hurry and bewilderment. " She waited until she should hear from you, that you released her from her promise." Anthony let her hand fall. " Engaged ! " he repeated. " Sir John Ledbrooke. No, Sir Ralph Ledbrooke. Sir John was his father. He is a baronet ; he has three country houses and a London one. It is a very old family. Celia came under his influence directly she went to Paris. He fell in love at first sight, as she stepped from the hotel to her carriage. Mrs. West writes that she never saw a man so completely swept away by a great passion.

We are very sorry for you, Mr. Langsyde, but how could Celia resist a man of forty-five, with immense tact and knowledge of the world ? It was not to be expected. We blamed Mrs. West ; we blamed ourselves ; we blamed everyone. And the only fault lies in Celia's beauty, which seems to turn the head of every man who looks at her." Anthony remained dumb. " His first wife died eleven months ago," continued Mrs. Johnstone. " She was a daughter of Lord Teviot dale, purely a marriage of convention, Mrs. West says. He tells her he never was in love before. He never thought he could love any woman as he loves Celia. He imagined it was not in his nature." Langsyde rose up and moved towards the door, while Mrs. Johnstone struggled after him, becoming more and more cruel in her bewildered distress. " You will not try to see her, Mr. Langsyde.

You will be generous. It would make such a scandal, and perhaps spoil her complete understanding with Sir Ralph. Oh, do please promise not to see her ! " Anthony made a sign of assent. " And you will return the child's letters. Sir Ralph must be considered, though Celia has acted quite openly. She told him there had been an entanglement, but he asked no questions ; was willing to overlook." " A bridegroom whose wife has only been de^ad eleven months ought not to be squeamish," said Anthony with white lips. "I shall send back her letters. They are worth the paper they were written on ; nothing more." " And you will not do anything desperate," implored Mrs. Johnstone. " It would be so awful, for Celia, for us all." " I shall not kill myself, if that is what you mean," replied Anthony. " But do not say anything harsh, when you write.

Celia is so young, so ignorant." " Young," said Anthony, " not ignorant." " Ah, don't be harsh," urged Mrs. Johnstone. " Write to her kindly." " I shall not write at all," said Anthony. " If she asks for a message, tell her I am glad that we have each of us been saved from making a monstrous mistake. I would congratulate Sir Ralph if I could do so honestly, but I am afraid I only commiserate him. Good-evening." He ran down the stairs and passed into the street without another word. The suddenness of the shock had deadened his nerves and for some time prevented all sensation. Only aster a night of miserable tossing, he began to remember his message, and to wish it had been less biting. Love makes fifty tender excuses for the faults of those who lie next its heart. Langsyde made a fresh one every half hour.

Celia had been in fluenced by a worldly woman and an importunate man. She was blameless. Possibly even now her remorse and misery were extreme. He remembered the loving farewell she had given him the night before that fatal journey to Paris ; the cheerful notes she had written, full of fun and witticisms and expressions of tenderness. Could she have written those words while her heart was really cold ? He would not believe it. Nevertheless he packed up her letters and sent them as desired to her mother, hoping against hope that Celia would break through the nets which had been twined around her, in order to return to her first and only love. This delusion lasted forty-eight hours. At the end of the second miserable day he walked home from chambers, revolving bitter thoughts in his mind and ask ing himself for the hundredth time what steps he ought to take to deliver his beloved from the snares by which she had been entrapped.

He decided to insist on an interview, to learn from her mother whether she were in Paris or in London, and then to go to the place where she could be seen and assure her of his unfailing confidence. If they once more stood face to face, he thought her courage would revive, she would tell him it was all a miserable delusion, and that she had never swerved except in appearance, from loyalty to him. Before he reached his rooms, a landau passed, con taining two ladies, one was Celia, dressed in a travelling costume of black and heliotrope, with the neatest and prettiest of Paris bonnets on her head. She looked so unfeignedly joyous, so light-hearted, so free from care that Langsyde gazed at her in amazement. Those hours which had set such a mark on him, had passed over her without leaving a single trace.

He had been living in hell, and she, to all seeming, in one of the circles of Paradise. At that moment, faith in the reality of love, in truth, goodness and all things worth living for, gave way in his heart. It was the beginning of a new era. His face changed, becoming deeply marked with lines of worry. His character changed too, conspicuously for the worse, in the opinion of his friends. Instead of being distinguished for sweetness of temper and good-humoured tolerance of human follies, he was impatient, often savagely irritable. His interest in men and things com pletely forsook him, though he perplexed those who c knew him best by the anxiety he showed to possess creature comforts, as if the passing enjoyment of the moment helped to deaden his sense of overwhelming loss. At first people sympathized with his trouble and excused his change of bearing, but as time passed they forgot Celia Johnstone and judged him harshly in con sequence.