Zig-zag. A quiet story

Preface

. A few words of introduction may be devoted to the subject of this unpretending narrative, in which, as in the section of life it pictures — " Very tame our passions nestle, Very even seem our brows, Outward forces rarely wrestle, Soft the words the age allows." It was a fancy of the writer's to see whether anything could be done by drawing every-day characters in every-day life without any attempt at introducing the atmosphere of glamour and sensation which belong to those whom children call " people in books." In the choice of such a subject — the deliberate and conscious abstention from any effect not produced naturally upon those who (to me) lived and moved in the group I have drawn — and the selection of a group which by its place in Society is at the centre of many indicated movements, but does not move, — I may have made a mistake.

Yet, as Mr. James says : " We may believe that of a certain idea even the most sincere novelist can make nothing at all and the event may perfectly justify our belief; but the failure will have been a failure to execute." And so, while waiting to know whether or not I have failed in executing my purpose, I venture to plead that it is more difficult than may at first sight appear. " Nul ne sait qui n'essaye." Only, while thanking reviewers for the kind consideration they have on the whole given to a work of another class, written after, but published before, this present essay, may I point out that I am not responsible for all the crude theories, which, in conformity with age and date, each of my young characters asserts?

PREFACE.

. Throughout the narrative, as in real life, they are developing, each in his or her own fashion, from the simple entrance into Society to the period when their " Springtime " passes away for ever. In the later portion of the work I have endeavoured to link my tale with the actual life of the world by indications which I hope are in accordance with historical fact. In studying the years 1866-71 (" before my time " as much as any other period so far as knowledge is concerned) I have been immensely struck by changes of thought and opinion, which those who have consciously lived through them may have found imperceptible. But these changes are great, and in placing my tale at that period I had to think of them and to endeavour to catch their meaning. For the novelist in " thinking through his characters " is led by them, whilst he, or she, no matter how humble the work done, must, in proportion as that work is thorough, unite deliberate study to the mental vision which forms his situations and character sketches.

So my characters led me through the stages of blossom, ripening, and as far as might be, fruit, — each telling me in his or her own fashion of the ideal of life, formed, shattered, and reconstructed on a different plan. And so, though I should not try again, with the rashness of a beginner, to triumph over the difficulty — " the great difficulty — of the common-place," — I venture to hope that this my first essay of the kind may find some readers who like, what they do not always get, " the realism of refined life." So much for those who must pull works to pieces : the ordinary reader, if I find any, I hope will not recognise too easily the key in which my simple narrative is written ; but, like the writer, till near the end of her work, remain unconscious of what now may seem a deliberate, almost artificial, plan.

G. M. I. B. CONTENTS. PEEIOD I. Blossom. CHAPTER PAGE I. Introductory 3 II. Young Dreams 18 III. Ambition .30 IV. Girlish Eomances 41 V. Eestlessness 56 VI. Home Influences 71 VII. The Spell of Love 88 PEEIOD II. ElPENINQ. I. For Pity's Sake ....... 109 II. The World 124 III. A Woman's Reasons 141 IV. Equivocation 162 V. Revealed in the Storm 176 VI. " What Sequel ? " 193 VII. " Touched with desire for good " . . 213 VIII. " Unloving Love " CONTENTS. PEEIOD III. Fkuit. chapter page I. The World's Man and the Man's World . 257 II. Woman's Influence 281 III. " The High Tradition of the World " . . 301 IV. Unsharpened Tools 325 V. "Ask me no more, for at a touch I yield" 346 VI. "Pain of pleasure, pleasure of pain" . . 369 VII. Straws 390 VIII. " And, what then ? " 416 IX. Confidences ....... 436 X. "A sudden ripeness" PERIOD I. BLOSSOM.

" We would, indeed, be somewise as Thou art, — Not spring and bud, and flower, and fade and fall ; Nor fix our intellect on some secret part Of Nature, but enjoy or feel it all : We would assert the privilege of a soul — In that it knows — to understand the Whole. " If such things are within us, — God is good — , And flight is destined for the callow wing, And the high appetite implies the food, And souls must reach the level whence they spring : O Life of very Life ! set free our powers, Hasten the travail of the yearning hours ! " — Animus Mcndi. ■1 :o: Jambs Wolverton, John Melrose, Henkv Molyneux, of Blakemere, Clerk in Holy Orders, 5th Baron (Jlivecote, of Clivecote, d. 1839. d. 1822. Co—, etc., d. 1842. Cecil _ Mabel Francis _ Elizabeth Henry _ Isabella And tlireu (b. 1826). (d. 1867).

(d. 1843). (d, 1845). 6th baron" (nee Vivian), other Barnster-atlaw, (b. 1804). daughter daught'rs. of 4th I | Duke of | Blantree. HELEN THOMAS GRET i œ p , — .2 Q * bd bd p 5 al ■2» GENEALOGICAL TABLE. ZIG-ZAG. CHAPTEE I. INTRODUCTORY. " After all, people may really have in them some vocation which is not quite plain to themselves, may they not ? They may seem idle and weak because they are growing. We should be very patient with each other, I think." — George Eliot. " A life-like tale." What does that mean? Very little romance sometimes. Imperfect knowledge of the real bearing of events, or of characters, as they act upon each other ; " rough-hewn ends," mingled pain and pleasure, poetry and prose, beginnings never iinished, ends which seem to have no beginning, half truths and mysteries which scarcely are noticed because they are hidden in the shade, deep feelings that can find no utterance, or are too sacred to be spoken of. — Such are the things we meet with in real life.

And that life which is lived by those who are placed in the golden mean of circumstances, — has that any romance in it ? The compassion aroused for the poor or the sick ; the interest felt in the criminal, detected or successful ; the appreciation of the worker's struggles ; the pleasure of recognising hits at social manners, a little caricatured for effect, perhaps; the leading up ofthe soul to the higher aims of life, — all have often been called forth by the artists of " human portraiture in words.''' B ZIG-ZAG Mine is a humbler task, though, perhaps, a more difficult one, to depict a group of characters, who led the ordinary lives of those who are, half-unconsciously, touched by the influences of a time, which tends to the diffusion of increased sensibility, united to a greater reserve in the expression of feeling than was ever before known.

And the old puzzles of life press on the young in fresh forms, and more than ever, perhaps, they feel tbe difficulty of seeing whether or not all those fair visions which inspire some of them, are only unpractical dreams. Taught to analyse themselves and others, they work upon their own and other people's characters, longing to find goodness and purity, and are perplexed by the " chequered souls," the incon sistent words and actions, which are revealed to their disappointed gaze. Their early thoughts are very crude, and they are restless and uneasy, and in the course of trying to form their character and to map out their destiny, there is much mental suffering, and sometimes strange conduct. They seem to zig-zag between paths leading in many different directions, like carrier-pigeons wheeling round the spot where they have been set free, before they have recognised where their distant and unseen home lies. . . .

Every one shows a different side of his or her character to each observer, without, in any way being hypocritical of necessity, and that friend is the most intimate who is able to see in another the greatest number of his very conflicting moods, and whose scrutiny is not resented as impertinence, but aided by him or her, who wTould be known by that sympathiser as neither better nor worse than he is in reality. We do know something of others, and they of us, after all — something, but not much. Every now and then, however, we meet with characters who seem to go beyond the usual incon sistency of our nature, and are not only changeable, but as it were dual. That of Bacon is not the only INTRODUCTORY. mind best described in antithesis. Such a one is the poetess, Florence Molyneux. She was the fifth daughter of Henry, Lord Clivecote (a well-known statesman of the last generation).

She might have been taken as a study in contrasts, for she, too, was often the "wisest" or "meanest" of women, according to the mood in which she was found. As a young girl, she had but one friend, Helen Wolverton, to whom she was passionately devoted (as the only person who would bear with her), and yet, as years went on, Helen had to exert all the force of her noble nature to make herself forgive an innumerable heap of petty slights and rankling insults, which her old playmate never seemed tired of inflicting upon her. Why these were at once seemingly unbearable, and yet, like many seemingly unbearable experiences, had to be endured, will be shown as our story progresses. We do not purpose to give long accounts of the families of Wolverton, Melrose, and Molyneux. By the genealogical table, on page 2, it will be seen that Thomas Grey Melrose, an orphan, and ward of his uncle, Cecil Wolverton, of Blakemere, was the only first cousin of Helen Wolverton, the heiress of Blakemere, and equally closely related to the numerous family of Lord and Lady Clivecote.* In spite of these aristocratic connections, Tom Melrose was not well off.

His father had left him sufficient to provide for his education at Eton and Oxford, and to start him at the Bar with a very small private income to fall back upon in case of failure. His home had been at Blakemere all his life, and Helen had been to him like a very well loved younger sister. Cousinhood was no cover for romance in that case. As they grew up, the old familar relationship (though becoming more equal, as Helen, from being a pet, was promoted to something like companionship) was maintained by the * The latter being, before her marriage, Lady Isabella Vivien, a daughter of one of the Dukes of Blantree. b2 ZIG-ZAG. fact that they each found other objects on which to lavish the wealth of affection that two richly gifted and warm-hearted natures had to bestow on those who attracted their youthful fancies.

What Helen was not, Eveline Molyneux was, to her cousin Tom : — a being whom he could at once worship from afar as the idol of his dream, and treat as a relation. Tom was devoted to his pen very early in life, and to little Helen, seven years his junior, his letters were always of a most unbrotherly length. Those of his namesake, Lord Macaulay, to his sister Hannah, are not to be taken by foreigners as the ordinary production of the affectionate, home-loving Englishman or boy. Later on in life, Helen, one day found a letter, written during the summer after Tom had been called, giving a description of his first visit to Clivecote, for the benefit of the young girl : " 2nd October, 1863. " . . . . Yes, I like Clivecote. I went there, as you know, rather ungraciously, feeling, thai if I had been asked at all, I should not have been ignored till now.

However, though a sea-anemone, when the tide is out, can't shut itself up more completely than I do under such circumstances, I could not help expanding again, and am really enjoying myself. My uncle is kind to me. He is a good-natured, easy-going man of moderate abilities, who thinks like his party, and never for himself; he would never have troubled himself much with politics, had it not been that he was a peer, and had an ambitious wife. Lady Clivecote ('Aunt Isabella' seems ugly and unnatural so far) is the ruling spirit of the house, and I suppose that I may consider myself lucky that she does not apparently dislike me. She will not get her own way in one matter, however, with her hopeful son, James. She wants him to go to Baliot, en route to the diplomatic service, and can't understand that to read for honours INTRODUCTORY. requires more ability and more inclination than that young cub is possessed of.

He is a bear at present. I remember him at Eton for one term (his career was not cut short, but it did not go on). I could not help indulging my ' republican notions,' as uncle Cecil calls them, and thinking it a little hard that I, who could make use of the advantages of position which he has, should not have them — I could do so much if I were in his shoes ! No matter, my conceit makes me hope to get on without them ! The eldest daughter is going to marry Lord Dulmorey ; Mildred, the second, is pretty, delicate and quiet ; Maud is a beauty, though Grace is the handsomer ; after James, comes Eveline, the most bewitching little creature I ever saw. She is not ' out ' yet. I am not going to shock your innocent mind by saying anything of Lady Clivecote's views about her daughters. She probably will get her own way with them, — all clever, intelligent, and lovely in various ways, like the sisters in a fairy tale.

But there is an ugly duckling — your friend Florence. Is she quite an idiot or entirely a genius ? Seriously, I have no idea. Evie took me to the schoolroom one day. (They have a very bad style of governess, I think.) Just before we got to the door somebody called her, and she exclaimed, ' Oh ! do go in ; I'll be back in a minute.' A screen was drawn inside, and hearing, as I thought, I might enter, I opened it. But that was a mistake ; a wild voice was chanting some impassioned poetry ; and I, waiting a moment, stopped the torrent of a furious declamation by going further into the room. I saw the ugliest girl of about sixteen that I could have imagined. She had hair which is almost best described as scarlet (the others have a faint tinge of warm colour just enough to make it a lovely shade of red gold) ; this ' hung in dishevelled masses ' (as novelists say when they want to paint something attractive, but I assure you this was the reverse), her skin was not delicately fair like her sisters', but waxen and sickly-looking, and her pale green eyes might have been lit up with poetic fire, ZIG-ZAG. but looked rather mad.

However, till Evie came back, her passion cooled to such an extent that frigidity is no word for it. She answered me only in mono syllables. Yet Evie showed me some extremely clever verses. What do you think of her ? What a long scrawl I have written. I always do when I am busiest. You are so idle that you won't have time to write a long letter ; only don't (like everyone else who has nothing to do, and like no one who is overworked) fill your sheet with apologies for everything connected with your writing. I don't count polite fictions like those letters- Mind this, and write properly to your affectionate " Old Tom." To which epistle, Helen, then about fifteen, had replied : My dear Tom, " I liked your letter about Clivecote ; but I don't think it is at all nice of you to say that Florence is an idiot.

I ought to know ; last year, when father and mother went abroad for the winter, I was at school for six months in town, and we shared the same room. She is curious and very ugly, but she can be so nice to those whom she likes. I can quite imagine your tete-a-tete ; it must have been funny ; you getting shyer and shyer (for I know you can be shy, though nobody else thinks so), and Florence in her' iron mood.' But, if you were really to hear her recite. She can't do it well in one way, but she makes one creep and cry, and feel shivery all over — just what we like. You know that I don't care for all poetry, in spite of your lessons. (I can't see how any one can be in love, so that they can't be sensible, as they say for instance, and if they were, would they write it in such verses?) But her's I do like.

You wouldn't call her an idiot if you read them. Where she gets her ideas from I don't know ; but you, as a struggling man, as you always tell me you are, might INTRODUCTORY. recognise unknown genius when you see it. They don't at her home, I know. I haven't been to Clivecote yet. Mother won't let me go alone, till I am out at all events, and she isn't well enough to go. I don't think she likes your aunt much better than you do, even though they aren't relations. I don't quite understand what you mean about her ' views ' aud her ' daughters.'" Helen was scarcely likely to do so. At the time she wrote that note she was a perfect child. Except for the few months alluded to when she had met Florence Molyneux at school, she had been left much to herself. Her father had a theory that he taught her all she knew, except her " accomplishments," as they used to be called.

His library was her teacher in reality. The liberty she enjoyed in her reading never hurt one who shrink from all that could harm her. Tom, half in earnest at first, took upon himself to make her, or she volunteered to become, his most interested pupil in general literature. Mrs. Wolverton was a delicate invalid, and scarcely interfered in her husband's plans and theories, which never came to more, for the education of tbeir only child. While they were being discussed the years slipped away, and Helen, wise and foolish, deeply read and very ignorant, a rather dreamy, but also bright and loving girl, grew up before either of her parents realised it. Amidst all her speculations and wonders, Helen had never troubled herself about social matters. She promised to be a beauty. She was an heiress, — not a great heiress perhaps — but still, as the only representa tive in that generation of the old family of Wolverton, would certainly be known as a " girl with lots of tin," in the elegant language of the day.

Of this, she literally had never thought. She had formed no connection between her books and her life. Who would wish to tell a girl like that anything which could touch her in her freshness and purity of soul ? How could any one say, " You, beyond others, must suspect all those who seemed to like to be with ZIG-ZAG. you?" The ideals of youth are so beautiful and so fleeting, that they seem worth leaving alone.' And could anything of the pain, which buys experience, be spared ? ' Romance is not charming in real life ; that of an heiress, in many cases, least of all: Helen's first romance was like that of so many others — " of no value except to the owner." Lady Clivecote had arranged to have a brilliant party on the occasion of the coming of age of James Molyneux, the only son, and heir to the Clivecote estates.

She always arranged everything. Matters somehow 6eemed to fall into her methods, and if people did not conform to her views and plans, so much the worse for the people. Somehow or another. Lady Clivecote always got what she wished. Except in great matters she never was disappointed, simply because she refused to be. Others might give in. Lady Clivecote never doubted her own wisdom, and hiding much selfishness under the cover of such wisdom, and pertinacity under her stately graceful way of courteously waiting till others agreed with her, as if that was inevitable sooner or later, — she ruled the greater number of the world she moved among. To her grief, she had no less than seven daughters, cf all ages, as her first subjects. But her husband was her only perfectly obedient one. Young as he was, James Molyneux had already given her some trouble.

His mother was anxious that he should marry as soon as possible. Helen Wolverton was of good family, would be good looking, and was an heiress. Jim might do better. Very probably he would do worse. Perhaps both sides thought there would be no harm in such a marriage. It would have its advantages for either, though each would doubtless believe the other would be the better satisfied. Perfectly unconscious of this half-formed scheme, Helen entered into society for the first time in January,' 1866. She was to be presented in the following May' INTRODUCTORY. but hitherto she had seen absolutely nothing of the world. Here was' a good beginning. The party at Clivecote was a typical one. She was the only young girl, excepting those belonging to the family, ("quite enough," Lady Clivecote said,) Mildred, Maud, Eveline, and the lanky Florence, who appeared on this occasion ; but Grace, Lady Dulmorey, who had compen sated herself for the constrains ofher girlhood by her later development, had brought down with her her own special friend for the time being, Lady Kenworth.

There were also two or three " semi-attached" men, besides her husband, who did not (as they seemed to do, by instal ments of one) form part of her suite. She had always one, but never the same man, for too long, in devoted attendance. Helen was, of course, a little shocked at Lady Dulmorey ; but it is quite evident that at the time of the Clivecote party, her ladyship was most discreet. Even her husband received no tokens ot attention testifying to the fact of her caring for him. It is logical to suppose that others had less ; though it may be remarked that in 1866 women did not study logic as a rule. Then came all the guests Lady Clivecote had arranged to have. People of some consideration in the world, and in the political world ; generally brilliant men with dull wives, these latter ; in the former class, both man and wife were of the kind of human beings which takes precedence at dinner-parties, but would scarcely do so elsewhere were anything required but birth and wealth.

They were all people invited for a reason. Lady Clivecote had one satisfaction in entertaining them. None of the women, and few of the men, but were much her inferiors. She never paraded her abilities any more than she talked of her diamonds. But she had a secret satisfaction in the possession of both, and also in her apparent forgetfulness that they were in any way remarkable. Those people may be left unpainted, since, naturally, Helen Wolverton's thoughts became occupied by that ZIG-ZAG. one of the whole party who was an exception to Lady Clivecote's rule of only asking those worth thinking of, whether old or young. Herbert Dayrell, late captain in the Carabineers, was known to be a needy man ; some called him an adventurer. Those, said Lady Clivecote, were probably women whom he had slighted by not continuing, or not paying, attentions to, or men jealous of him.

But some — no one knew who started the story — went further. They said he had sold out and gone on half-pay just when he thought his regiment would be despatched to the seat of war. This was a canard. It would have taken a man more indifferent than Captain Dayrell was to the opinion of his fellows to have pro claimed his cowardice in such a fashion. Besides, he was no coward. But that the rumour should have been hinted about at all (even of a man, who, having long resolved to leave the army, was gazetted out at au unlucky moment, really owing to an accidental delay at the Horse guards), showed that some people did not like him, or envied him, or feared him. It was probably not his fault that this was so. He had not yet a place in society sufficiently well established to allow him to be disagreeable.

He had the cheap cynic's contempt for mankind in general, and women in particular, but the man of the world's know ledge of, and respect for, the weight which the opinion of mankind in general, and of women in particular, has in helping him to get what he has set his heart upon. He was not likely to neglect that special weakness of his fellow-creatures — one, often not so misleading as usual — which ensures increasing popularity to a popular man. Lady Clivecote calculated on the popularity of Cap tain Dayrell when she asked him to her party of other wise " useful " people. He was useful too. He kept the useful people in good humour. He knew in some way all about every one, and somehow was related to INTRODUCTORY. " everybody." He was not in the least likely to propose to any of her daughters — Clivecote being entailed.

He would take his amusement, or any part of it which was risky, out of those of other people, if they allowed it. He told good stories with the polish of a man who keeps the faculty of the raconteur bright by use. He had admirable tact. He never forgot what he or others had said before ; but he also never remembered the latter inconveniently, which makes people more popular than any other exercise of benevolence, since often we suffer from an inconsistent fashion of speech, and from our want of ideas, with people who have good memories. He always was capable of fanning a quarrel or a flirtation to the right degree in which it was visible and amusing to the company. And, if worth while, he could smooth down the victims if they became troublesome. For organization and management he was even respected by Lady Clivecote.

Say what you will, it takes a great deal to make a clever woman respect a man's power of "savoir faire." Helen's mother had been obliged to send an excuse at the last moment, but she insisted on her husband andher daughter going to Clivecote. She " was indeed not fit for such a week, and though of course she would have liked to have been with her daughter at her first ball, this slight illness was really no reason to prevent Helen going with her father/' Lady Clivecote "had so many daughters of her own, and took such an interest in Helen." Mrs. Wolverton thought of Tom Melrose as if he had been the son who had not lived to grow up at Blakemere. She loved him little less than if he had been her own child, and, in her thoughts on the sub ject, reflected that " Helen will have her father, and Tom, and Florence — her friend."

And so Helen went. And Captain Dayrell, of course attracted her. And, of course, no one saw what was going on. If they did, Helen, equally of course, was not aware of it. ZIG-ZAG. Most people, who thought of her at all — and she was discussed, when not there, by the dowagers who did not feel equal to all that the younger ones enjoyed — put her down as the future Lady Clivecote. Those who knew much about " the ins and outs " of the family did not think it strange that in this case the present Lady Clivecote had no objection to the fact that Helen, young and new to the world, did not get on with the younger men, who were, what of course Captain Day rell could not be in the eyes of the experienced, likely to rival the destined bridegroom. We do not purpose to rival the eloquence of the county papers in describing the events of the week.

Indeed, the good old days even then were passing away, and the local papers no longer furnish us with speci mens of magnificent second-rate prose, which enshrined words rarely to be found elsewhere, and preserved so many lines of our very minor poets from oblivion, or recalled most familiar quotations. On this occasion, a retired reporter (who had written the father's panegyric in the days when peers were peers, for the love of the house of Clivecote, or perhaps of his own early articles) pleased himself and annoyed the younger men on the staff by giving the local world a taste of the old style. The young editor, glad to please his father's old assist ant, and quite willing that the Clivecote festivities should fall into the hands of a most appreciative critic, let the older man have as much space as he required for his glowing sentences.