The Days of his Vanity: a passage in the life of a young man ... A new edition

Preface

The production of my play ' Sowing the Wind ' has revived inquiry for this book, by which it was in some measure suggested. Origincdly published in 1876, it must be borne in mind that such picture of theatrical life as the story presents is a picture of twenty years ago. hi reprinting it, I have only to remark that it does not purport to be a novel, but ' a passage in the life of a young man.' I have, therefore, taken no pains to suppress or amend that 'juvenility ' which was of the essence of my purpose. 'i SYDNEY GRUNDY. Dec. 1893. CONTENTS BOOK THE FIRST ciiai-tei: rA(}E I. ERNEST TEMPEST . ...... 1 II. GEORGE DRUMMOND ' III. THE VANES 10 TV. ' SEEING LIFE ' 18 V. A SHADOW 23 VI. CORNFIELD 27 VII. THE GREYS ......... 32 VIII. MR. POTTS 44 IX. ' THE OWLS ' 49 X. MR. COOKE 57 XI. SICKNESS 04 XII.

DEATH *>8 BOOK THE SECOND I. DIFFICULTY . . • • • • • .79 II. DOUBT 87 III. HARRY BONAMY 97 IV. DISAPPOINTMENT ........ 105 V. THE LITTLE WHITE HOUSE 114 VI. POOR HUMANITY . 120 VII. THE RIVALS 124 VIII. DELIRIUM 131 IX. MRS. VANE 140 X. THE OLD PROBLEM ...•■•■• 147 XI. JUSTICE I*'-**1 XII. IN LOVE I61 BOOK THE THIRD CHArTILR PAGE I. DISGUST ■ ... 169 II. MRS. CLARKE 174 III. WILD OATS ......... 185 IV. NELLY O'NEILL 193 V. CHANGE ......... 202 VI. MISS BRABANT ........ 210 VII. THE REWARD OF VIRTUE ...... 222 VIII. A SURPRISE ......... 229 IX. A FIRST NIGHT ........ 240 X. A GOOD MAN'S SIN 251 XI. THE OLD STORY 256 BOOK THE FOURTH I. DESPAIR 206 II. FORGIVENESS ........ 271 III. AT LAST .......... 279 IV. THE WORLD GOES ON ...... 287 V. RETRIBUTION 293 VI. MARRIAGE BELLS ....... 304 VII. THE LAST THE DAYS OF HIS VANITY BOOK THE FIRST

Chapter I Ernest Tempest

The sun is shining on the river, and the river is streaming on. Away to the east the sun shines on the golden cross of St. Paul's ; away to the west, it glistens on the gilt work of the Westminster clock-tower. About midway between them, it is lighting up old Middle Temple Hall. The fountain is playing quietly amongst the trees ; and but a court or two away, St. Clement Danes is chiming the old tune. The tall, quaint chambers of the Templars cluster round, looking half cheerful in the morning sun. Upon the door of one of these, the name of ' Ernest Tempest ' is inscribed ; and Ernest Tempest is the gentle man of whom we are in search. Come up this staircase — mind your head against that archway — and don't fear lest he should think you an attorney. Being a barrister, just called, an attorney is the last sort of person who is likely to visit him.

True, there were plenty of them here last month, con gratulating him on his approaching dignity, and over whelming him with protestations of the piles of papers they should soon be bringing him. But now, the student has developed into the practitioner ; and the liberal B promises have fallen due. It is remarkable, what has become of those attorneys. Ernest might have feared some shocking epidemic had carried off the whole profession, if he hadn't one day chanced to see the most enthusiastic gentleman of all, armed with a sheaf of papers, disappearing in the chambers of old Blenkinsop, next door. None of them come near him. Moreover, it is Sunday, and the attorneys are saying their prayers. Why isn't Tempest ? I'm afraid he doesn't trouble churches very much. At first he attended pretty regularly at the far-famed Temple — chiefly, I think, from that vague sort of conviction, which he felt in common with so many people, that there is something praiseworthy in going to church, no matter to what church you go or what you hear — but he never cared much for sacred concerts, and the sight of the head-porters at the gate, and the fine ladies and gentlemen being passed in by tickets, shocked and finally disgusted him with the whole business.

At present he is lounging over a late breakfast, trying to extract some information or amusement from a Sunday newspaper. He is a rather tall, well-knit, young man of five-and twenty; of a light complexion, and an open but grave countenance — not handsome. With the enthusiasm of youth, and animated by the spirit of the ancient rule that barristers must be clean-shaved — in the old days, when a barrister meant a speaker, and not a man who never finishes a sentence, and who can't be heard for his moustache— he has relieved his face of that embroidery which makes most men so commonplace. Perhaps the most noticeable things about him are his eyes, which are not large or brilliant, but of that clear grey there is no getting to the bottom of, which stamp him at a glance as being of an intellect above the average.

Add to this that rarest and most advantageous of all physical endow ments, a voice that can be heard, and there is Ernest Tempest. ERNEST TEMPEST 3 Possessed of natural gifts like these, just five-and twenty, launched in London, with the world before him, his own master, and a member of a proud profession — should he not be happy ? According to the universal evi dence of age, youth is always happy. I think, when men grow old, they must forget their young experiences. No age has a monopoly either of happiness or of sorrow. The child has his sorrows just as surely, quite as keenly, as a man ; and he is less able to bear them. Yea, is any the pro foundest grief of manhood quite so dreadful as the blank, helpless terrors of a child ? And if the carking cares and stern anxieties of manhood, if the grief of disappointed hopes and frustrated ambitions, if the loss of wife and the going astray of child, the silent passing away of old friends, and the regretful retrospect of age, be hard to bear — if it be sad to sit surveying our past life, and see the bricks and stones, with which we meant to build our castle in the air, lying in wild disorder on the plain — has youth no pangs, has the young man no sorrows ?

Ah yes, con ceited age, God's world, even of woe, is not all yours. If with your knowledge of mankind and your experience of life you could be young again, the world would be your football ; but remember, the young man has these things to learn : and is there any grief in life more desolating than the beginning of that learning ? There is, under the sun, nothing so saddening as disillusion. Pains may be borne, anxieties may be endured, but disillusion saps the very life ; and disillusion is the young man's lot. I imagine that nobody who is anybody reaches the age of five-and-twenty without having been inspired with some ideal of Use, and some ambition to live worthily and do some good in his generation ; and probably, nobody has attained that age without having had his ideal knocked on the head, and without getting involved in the utmost per plexity as to what is living worthily, and how it is possible to do any good to anybody.

It is a sad day for a thoughtful child — and there are many thoughtful children — when he b2 first begins to see that all the moral stories his religious parents have instilled in him are just so many lies. It is a melancholy day for the youth when he discerns the falsity of the poetical justice of fiction— when he first begins to understand that the hero doesn't marry the heroine at the end of Ihe third volume of his real life, but marries quite another person, and has many children. Not only is the knowledge painful in itself," but his whole idea of exist ence is confounded. Similarly, it is a woeful day for the young man when he begins to see that his ideal of life is founded on false premises, and that the superstructure is a house of cards — when first he understands that nearly all the recognised ways of doing good are merely so many ingenious, indirect ways of doing harm ; and that to know how to be of any use to anybody is just the one most difficult problem in the world.

Tempest was in this condition. Educated in the best of schools, and brought up under the influence of the most liberal and least mischievous of all religions, he had grown up in a noble admiration of all that he considered good, and a proud scorn of all that he considered base. Doctrine had never troubled him much : he had long since swept aside those cobwebs. He had quite got rid of any lingering respect for great authorities : for had he not heard bishops, noted for their piety and learning, invested with all the solemnity of their high office, talking stuff which would have shamed a schoolboy ? He had been quite cured of the pernicious notion, that a man ought not to think much of this world ; and was persuaded that the one good thing was just to do his duty in the world in which his God had caused him to be born.

He had a definite idea what was right, and what was wrong : he worshipped good men, and he hated bad. Alas for his ideas and his resolutions, he has just begun to find out that there are no good men, and no bad men either ; that good and evil are inextricably interwoven in the composition of all men and things ; that right and wrong are not marked out by ERNEST TEMPEST 5 any boundary ; and that the difficulty is, to know what is one's duty. No man can be happy, when his whole idea of life turns out to be a fallacy, and all his guides and monitors ' blind leaders of the blind.' But Tempest was not miserable. His experience was only just beginning, and he had not yet arrived at more than the first stage of that ' increase of knowledge ' which is ' increase of sorrow.' And he had, at any rate, found his own legs.

If he had lost confidence in those upon whom he had hitherto relied, he was relieved of the op pression of the admonitions he had hitherto obeyed, even where he had failed to understand them. He exercised his own discretion as to what he did, or did not. He no longer felt wicked if he omitted to go to church, or to say his prayers when he was disinclined. He felt the satisfaction as well as the responsibility of being his own master, and he ' walked in the ways of his heart and in the sight of his eyes.' Upon the whole, however, the ' ways of his heart ' were not evil ways. Not only was he inspired with an abstract respect for what is good, when what is good can be divined with a reasonable amount of probability — a condition of mind which is quite compatible with considerable latitude of conduct — but he was influenced by that most powerful of all deterrents from evil, the reflection that the consequences of wrong-doing are for the most part visited, not on the wrong-doer himself, but upon others.

He had quite got over the moral story notion that to do wrong means to be unhappy, either in this world or some other world to come ; he had learnt, on the contrary, that evil consequences were the last things to be dreaded, so far as his own person was concerned ; but, on the other hand, he had the knowledge, that whatever seed of evil he might sow would certainly be reaped and harvested by some one else. At the same time he was very human, and he fell far short of his own principles. He was unable always to withstand temptation. Gross sins bad no fascination for him, but sin is not always gross. What fool first gave the devil his horns and tail ? Alas, he generally comes to us in the guise of an angel ! Still, his conscience was not very troublesome. Whose conscience is? That restless and uncomfortable feeling which is ascribed by moralists to an uneasy conscience will, if analysed, resolve itself in the majority of instances into nothing more moral than the terror of detection.

Conscience is a very torpid organ, and requires a mon strous deal of stirring up. It is a most immoral but irre fragable fact, that natural disposition has a great deal more to do with happiness than either guilt or innocence. Some men could make themselves perfectly comfortable after murdering their mothers ; others find it impossible to be thoroughly happy under any circumstances : and the latter are but too often the best and most virtuous of men. Probably, the most blessed gift under the sun is the gift of a cheerful disposition : and this was not Ernest's. His mind was by nature of a pensive turn, and all his thoughts inclined to melancholy. And thus it came about that he was seldom altogether happy, though he was not wretched. He could enjoy the social intercourse of his companions, who were none of the bar-parlour or the dinner-party class ; but, when he was alone, his mind was just about attuned to the dropping of the fountain and the chime of old St. Clement's. Dear old St. Clement's, with its ' oranges and lemons ! ' Does any Templar live who has not chiming in some corner of his heart that old refrain ?

Hear it but casually in the noisy Strand, and it may have no great effect upon your mind ; but live within the sound of those quaint bells, hear them at noon amidst the glare of day, hear them at night amidst the stillness of the stars, noon after noon, night after night, hour after hour, for months and years ; and they will sink into your heart ; and the childish catch phrase, which probably enough some silly nurse-girl first invented, will come to have a depth of meaning, a strange ERNEST TEMPEST 7 subtle influence, and a halo of association, which is lacking in the finest poem. It had sunk deep into the heart of Ernest Tempest. Sometimes, when he was excited, the bells rang quite jauntily, and ' oranges and lemons ' seemed the merriest tune out ; but as a rule they had a soft, sad sound, which, everlastingly repeated in the same sweet monotone, grew melancholy : and it seemed to him as if the old bells sympathised with him in all his troubles, and sang to him, until he got to love them, like a sort of mother, in his sohtude, and ' oranges and lemons ' always seemed to him attuned to the beginning of his life,

Chapter II George

drummond A quick step, coming up the staircase at three bounds a flight, preludes a sturdy rap upon the chamber door. ' Come in,' shouted Tempest ; and an active-looking, dark-haired man, of eight-and-twenty, with a pair of mutton-chop whiskers, put his head inside the room. ' What, up already ? ' said the visitor ; ' it's only just eleven.' ' Come in, George,' said his host, not deigning to take any notice of this imputation. ' Well, how are you getting on ? ' inquired the other, in that cheerful tone in which a man who is beginning to see his way inquires about another who is not. ' Any briefs yet ? ' ' How am I getting on ? ' growled Tempest ; ' not at all. Nobody will trust me to do anything.' 'It was the same with me at the beginning,' said his friend. ' When I was in the hospitals, I did all sorts of ticklish jobs ; but when I started on my own account, I wasn't trusted to cure Mrs. Jones's gathered finger ; whilst as to the Smiths' baby ' THE DAYS OF HIS VANITY 8 ' Don't let's talk about it,' interrupted Ernest. ' I don't feel the slightest interest in the subject.' ' Neither do I,' laughed the surgeon, ' though it isn't half an hour since I was hugging it, and calling it the prettiest little baby ever anyone did see.' ' What, were you dosing it ? ' ' I had that pleasure ; and I rather think the Smiths are having a nice time of it this afternoon.' ' I'm afraid you have been visiting the sins of the father on the child, George.' ' Say the mother, and you're right.

She snubbed me for a long time, Ernest, and I'm always very civil and attentive to her ; but I've taken my revenge out of that baby, I can tell you ; ' and the surgeon rubbed his hands complacently. ' Well, will you have a smoke ? ' asked Tempest. ' Smoke, my dear fellow ! did you say a smoke '? with one of my professional coats on ! I couldn't think of such a thing.' ' That means that I mustn't either, I suppose.' ' Well, I don't go so far as to say that, you know. Suppose I put my coat in your blue bag,' replied the doctor, already in his shirt-sleeves. ' Y'ou can smoke now — and it just occurs to me that I can too.' The pipes are soon at work, and the two friends engrossed in that dead silence which so often is the best companionship. The doctor was the first to break it. It was character istic of the two, that he generally was.

By nature less contemplative and reticent than Tempest — though suffi ciently reflective and intelligent — George Drummond was at present in the fresh enjoyment of that first exhilaration of beginning to make way in one's profession. ' Ernest,' he resumed, ' I'm going to be married.' ' The devil ! ' exclaimed the barrister. ' This comes of getting on. The fact is, you've been making too much money lately, and it's turned your head,' GEORGE DRUMMOND 9 ' Well, Ernest,' said the doctor, apologetically, ' the fact is, it's necessary to be married to get on in medicine.' ' Bosh ! ' returned the barrister ; ' you've fallen in love with somebody.' ' I have,' confessed the surgeon. ' Well, who is it ? ' ' Her name's Vane — Agnes Vane ' And what's she like ? ' ' Oh, she's not beautiful — to look at.

I hate beauties. One gets so tired of looking at them. There's no relief to the eye. It's like looking at the sun — without the variety of the spots.' ' Well, if she isn't beautiful, what is she ? ' ' Ernest, have you ever seen an angel ? ' ' Y'es, a hundred ; and a commonplace lot they are, generally.' ' Ah, you evidently haven't seen a seraph ; but I'll show you one, this morning.' ' Do you mean Miss Vane ? ' 'I do. I promised to take you to dinner to her mother's.' ' But sha'n't I be interrupting — ' What ? ' ' The conversation of celestial beings ? ' ' Not at all, man ; you can entertain her sister— do you see ? ' ' She has a sister, has she ? ' ' Yes, a very pretty one : just turned seventeen. She'll do for you.' ' And where does Miss Vane live ? ' ' At Kensington.' ' Oh, not in heaven ? ' ' Man,' said the doctor, ' Kensington is heaven.

If we start now, we shall just catch them coming out of church.' ' Do angels go to church ? ' inquired the barrister. ' Mine does, at any rate. Put out your pipe, and help me on with my professional coat. I must call in and touch up the Smiths' baby as we pass.' ' Poor little cherub ! ' sighed the barrister, locking the door behind him. ' Cherub a fiddle ! ' snarled the surgeon. ' Seraph a fiddle, too ! Both have to have their dinner every day.' This there was no denying. That dreadful dinner argument takes the romance out of existence. It is a ' touch of nature ' which makes all men kin, be they barristers or doctors ; and so, law and medicine cried a truce, and went in search of dinner, arm-in-arm.

Chapter III The Vanes

Those objectionable people who have been all over the globe are uncommonly fond of telling us about the many glorious things which they have seen, and we have not. But it is all humbug. The fairest objects heaven has vouchsafed earth swarm in the streets of London every day. What is Niagara to a comely woman ? What is the Bay of Naples to a pretty girl '? Amongst the many churches which the sun is shining on is one in Kensington. The sun is streaming through the stained-glass windows, and the organ is reverberat ing through the building, with a grave ' Amen.' The sun is shining straight upon a little handkerchief, which is pressed against the ledge of a pew, and surmounted by a feathery little bonnet. Ah, what is any scenery to the face beneath it ? A fairy face, though too unformed as yet to bear the perfect beauty which it promises.

Too girlish to be yet supremely fair, not intellectual, but sunny as the sun. A face which scarcely looks the face of seventeen. Instinct with only half the feelings and per ceptions of a woman, frank with half the naivete of a girl. Freedom and constraint have each got part possession of it, and contend together on that sunny countenance, which is now staid with soberness, and now alight with glee. How good she looks, saying her prayers into her pocket handkerchief ! How good all girls — about to squander their glorious beauty upon fops and fools — look when they are saying their prayers ! But then, how good these other people look — these men who finance, and these women who marry for money — calling themselves ' miserable sinners ' with the most comfortable penitence imaginable ! There is a lady sitting by her side — not an old lady, but a lady with a white still face, which also has been beautiful, that has seen more than years.

Her eyes, too, are bent upon the pew ; but they seem to be looking through it, into the past. To that pale quiet face, you see at once, a story is attached : and she is looking back upon it, as we are looking forward upon ours. So the world wags. So we pass one another by — some stories ending and some beginning — each thinking of his own — these looking for ward with gladness, and those looking back with sadness. The sadness was gladness once, and pityingly gazed upon by sadness dead and gone : the gladness will be sadness some day, and will pityingly gaze on gladness yet unborn : while the sun shines on the river, and the river streams along. She has been merry in her time, this pale-faced lady. She has built stately castles in the air, and laid the gilt on with a lavish hand. She has sat with her bright eyes looking into the future, as she sits with her dull eyes looking into the past.

Poor pale-faced lady ! The castles have long since mouldered, and the gilt has vanished. Alas, not all this going to church, and all this saying of prayers, can hinder women being beautiful, and suffering. But hush ! The rector — a good, amiable, white-haired, worthy gentleman, whom we may meet again — is giving out the text ; and we must listen to the sermon. ' Then came Peter to Him, and said, Lord, how oft slw.ll my brother sin against me, and I forgive him ? till seven times ? Jesus saith unto him, I say not unto thee, Until seven times : but, Until seventy times seven.' And what do you think the good, amiable, white-haired, worthy gentleman had to say about these words of Jesus ? Posi tively this : that seventy times seven was four hundred and ninety, and that if we didn't forgive our neighbours at least four hundred and ninety times, we should incur the displeasure of heaven ; but Scripture being silent as to offence the four hundred and ninety-first, some latitude was left to human resentment.

And now the other old gentlemen begin to rouse them selves, and the old ladies thank heaven they have forgiven five hundred offences in the money to which they have married their daughters ; and the congregation, being duly blessed, begin to leave the building. As the sad lady and glad maiden turn out of the gate, the barrister and doctor turn the corner ; and the maiden's face, which was just now as long as a fiddle, is immediately electrical with glances. ' Just in time ! ' exclaimed the doctor. ' Mrs. Vane. I've brought a gentleman to dinner — my friend, Mr. Tempest — Mrs. Vane.' And when Mrs. Vane had shaken hands with Ernest — in a casual, off-hand way, the doctor added, ' Mr. Tempest — Miss Rosamond Vane,' — and in a casual, off-hand way, Ernest shook hands with her. It is in these casual, off-hand ways we meet our fates. ' But where is Agnes ? ' asked the surgeon, looking round. ' Oh, Agnes has been sitting upstairs with the Sunday scholars,' said her sister. ' And why haven't you ? ' ' Me ! ' cried the maiden, scornfully. ' Yes, you.' ' It's quite as much as Rosamond Can do to keep her self in order,' put in Mrs. Vane. ' More,' said the surgeon : and the little nose was still more elevated. ' I don't think she will be long,' continued Mrs. Vane ; and Agnes joined them as she spoke.

The surgeon was quite right. She was not beautiful — ■ that is to say, her features were not regular, or very finely formed. The only grace about her face was the grace of human goodness : but it did not need much other ornament. There was a likeness between the two sisters which was undeniable ; and yet one was pretty and the other was plain. It is strange, how frequently one child monopolises all the beauty of a family ; and stranger still, how wonderfully like it its plain sisters often are, and yet are very commonplace indeed. Rosamond was the beauty, undeniably ; yet it did not want two glances at the plainer face to tell you that the man had chosen wisely. Education is a powerful agent, but it cannot alter nature. You may draw out of a man all sorts of feelings and capacities, which were before unknown in him and un imagined ; but the germs of those capacities and feelings must be in his nature.

You can only foster and mature the mind and heart you have to deal with. You can only make it perfect of its sort : you cannot make it perfect of some other sort. The leopard cannot change his spots, and you can't do it for him. Here are two girls, brought up, so far as mortal observation goes, beneath precisely the same influences. The one is vain, ambitious, passionate, and charming : the other is meek, modest, gentle, and humane. Praise the latter, if you like ; but don't condemn the former. Virtue comes more easily to some of us than to others : and if there ever were a day of righteous judgment, much allowance would be made for those whom God created beautiful. As the five walk along, it is a pleasant sight to see the fondness of these girls for the sad lady by their side—fond ness expressed in many a hundred little ways of word, and glance, and gesture ; but all the same, it is not very difficult to guess whose love is worth the more.

Nor is it quite impossible to tell which of her daughters the sad lady worships. She loves both. Some moralists maintain that parents ought to have no favourites amongst their children ; but if love is to be something more than a mechanical performance, it is difficult to understand how mothers can help loving most the children who are the most lovable. This same love has a curious way of setting moralists at defiance, and the experience of life is against those philosophers. At the same time, let it not be thought that the sad lady manifests a partiality. There are few things she would not do for either of her daughters ; and it is evident only to the closest observation that in one of them she lives. The five walk slowTly on, under the sun, to where a small, white house shines through the leafy trees.

And while the ladies go through that protracted operation known as ' taking off their things,' a word or two about this same establishment. For many years has Mrs. Vane resided here ; and for as many has the neighbourhood been wondering where she came from, and on what she lives. WThy it should settle upon Mrs. Vane, as a focus of curiosity, sooner than upon any other widow lady with two daughters, living upon what her husband has bequeathed her, it is hard to say. It may have been because she did not shroud herself in crape, and besprinkle her conversation with affectionate allusions to the dear departed. Certain it is, she never mentioned him to strangers ; and her daughters were not able to give any information, either as to what he was, or where he came from. Neither of them had ever seen him to her know ledge ; therefore neither of them mourned him ; and all they seemed to know about him was, that he had died when they were very young.