The Ides of March

Chapter I. His Father

Absolute. — S ure, sir, this is not very reasonable, to summon my affections for a lady I know nothing of!

Sir Anthony. — I am sure, sir, ’tis more unreasonable in you to object to a lady you know nothing of !

Feverell Chase, in all the comfort and solidity of its compact antiquity, nestled in its obscure position, rather too far below the brow of the hill, as modern sanitation would opine. At the base of its gardens, and clearly discernible from its windows, flowed the Bourne, a considerable tributary of the Severn.

This morning the waters were flashing and dimpling in all the radiance of a cloudless day ; and formed a lovely prospect for the two people seated at the small, sunny breakfast-table in the window of the big hall.

There were four windows along this warm, south side of the hall. Three of them were tall, double lancet shafts, reaching almost to the vaulted ceiling with its fan tracery ; and were blazoned with coloured glass coats of arms belonging to all those women who had married into the Westmorland family, so that the morning sunshine flung crimson, purple, emerald, and amber stains upon the black and white paving-stones, and the Indian rugs, and on the backs of the sleepy, basking dogs who were grouped about the floor in various attitudes of bliss. But the fourth window had

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been cut down to the ground, so as to open on the terrace without ; and the glass was clear, to give a full view of the lovely landscape which stretched away in the distance; and here it was that the present owners of the Chase loved to breakfast, since here they could read their papers in the sun, here there was plenty of room for unlimited dogS, whips, hats, sticks, and other male necessities ; and here the butler did not wage war with pipes in the morning, and was prone to wink even at the presence of cigar-ash on the costly mats.

Both the persons now enjoying their trout and muffins, hot coffee, broiled ham and honey, were of the male sex. As a consequence, their breakfast-table was a silent one. One was deep in a newspaper, the other busy with a packet of letters which lay beside his plate. The only sound was the ticking of the great Dutch clock.

The two men were so curiously like each other, as to leave no doubt of their being father and son. There was the same rather peculiar type of feature, the swarthy skin and black hair contrasting noticeably with the clear eye of Irish grey and the delicate profile ; but the points of difference were quite as striking as those of likeness ; the pair might have been selected as a standing example of the manner in which a man’s disposition may work upon and transform his outward appearance.

The face of the younger man was not exactly genial ; the mouth was too serious, the lips too closely folded for that. The eye too, though candid enough, was not sparkling ; there was no impulsiveness, no spontaneity in its expression. Passion was evidently not a leading characteristic, indomitable persistency would more likely be the ruling quality.

In a sense, the father was the handsomer • his features were better cut, his eyes larger, his lashes longer, but he lacked the air of spruce and compact manliness which his military training had given to Major Westmorland.

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There was a certain air of effeminacy about the elder man. His hands were soft, he wore a velvet coat and a terra-cotta coloured neck-tie with a heavy gold ring. Something of the dilettante without doubt he affected ; and there were lines about his forehead which told of the irritability consequent on ill-health.

The Major, on the contrary, had a look of perfect physical soundness. His bronzed skin was clear, his chest broad, his expression tranquil. He was eating a good breakfast with evident appetite, while his father played with the contents of his plate, and threw large morsels to the dogs.

At last it seemed as though the young man's entire absorption in the contents of the post-bag became wearying to his companion. Laying aside the Times, he glanced across the table, and remarked,

“ Indian letters, Evelyn, I see.”

“ Yes,” said the Major, in a preoccupied voice.

“News evidently not satisfactory,” said his father, in his incisive, slightly affected tones. “The fair Lily not coming to England ? ”

Evelyn Westmorland barely looked up, and replied indifferently.

“No, there’s nothing about the Humes. This is from Disney.”

“ Disney? — Disney ? Now what was it you were telling me about that young man the other day ? Son of the Scotsdale Disneys, isn’t he ? I seem to connect his name with something in the nature of a romance. ”

“ I told you, probably, that he had had the folly to get engaged to the reigning belle in Colombo, and likewise the honour of being jilted by her six weeks afterwards, eh ? ”

“I believe I recall the facts, and doubtless I expressed my utter contempt, — the contempt I invariably feel — for any man who has not the ability to gain and to keep the affection of any woman he sets his mind upon.”

“ Ah ! That’s one of your theories, I know,”

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returned his son, a little impatiently. “ But it's nonsense, you see, pure nonsense. Very often the mere fact of knowing that a man cares for her is enough to prevent a woman from returning the compliment.”

“Just so, but that does not touch my point. I still affirm what I affirmed before. The man, in the case you mention, goes to work the wrong way ; he should not allow the woman to know he cares for her. Women never value what they are sure of. Before or after marriage, it is just the same. But I repeat — the man who cannot win the affection of any woman, or retain the entire devotion of his wife, is a contemptible fool.”

“You should write an essay on marriage, the subject’s fashionable.”

“ One day, perhaps,” acquiesced Mr. Westmorland, leaning back in his chair with a smile. “And who was the Colombo belle who broke Disney’s heart ? ”

“A Miss Merrion — girl of good family, I believe. He used to write and rave about her perfect manners, her gentleness, and all that stuff, you know. His letter — the one in which he announced his engagement — was a perfect ecstasy. ‘ The birthday of his life had come,’ and all the rest of it. What are you smiling at.”

“Your phraseology, my son,” smiled Mr. Westmorland, sipping his coffee. “'All that stuff, \ you know ! All the rest of it l ’ You don’t talk like a man in love.”

“Iam not in love,” said Evelyn, shortly, “as everyone knows but yourself.”

“Oh, don’t mistake me. I know you are not really in love. You couldn’t be. You are not capable of it. Not one man in a hundred is. But I think you are fond of Lily Hume. I hope you will marry her ; and you will get on very well together, and neither of you discover, to the very end of your days, that you have missed the very core and root of life, the precious jewel which lies hid somewhere in this worlds dirty slough, the treasure which, if found,

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illumines, upholds, atones for all failures, all losses, — love. But love is so much rarer than people think. It can be excellently well counterfeited, but the reality is rare. People think that love is a thing of which all are capable, like hearing, seeing, etc., There are people, as we know, born without sight or hearing, but they are not nearly so numerous as those born without the capacity for love.”

“You had certainly better begin that essay I suggested, without delay/’ observed his son, wiping his raven black moustache carefully with his serviette, and leaning back in his chair. “I think the subject's rather fatiguing for breakfast time, myself. ”

‘ * I wonder, ” said Mr. Westmorland, studying him fixedly — “I wonder how it came about that I should have a son who has no imagination. It is a curious thing. Fate must have resented the passing of the estates to the younger branch of the family, in my person, and revenged herself by making my son as like my elder brother as possible. Poor Charles had no imagination.”

“Your remarks seem to me be a trifle disconnected,” said the Major, breaking into another egg. “ Must one be imaginative in order to love ? Is that your theory ? ”

“ Decidedly.”

“ I'm inclined to think you are conspicuously wrong,” said Evelyn ; “ but there's no need to discuss the point now. For my own part, taking a personal view of the subject, and apart, of course, from your wishes, I can tell you I don't feel like falling in love. I have a thorough contempt for women ! Look at this case ! Here is poor Disney, as good a fellow as ever stepped, completely bowled over by this disgraceful jilt. He can settle to nothing, cares for nothing, finds the world dust and ashes, means to throw up his commission and come home to rot, as he elegantly expresses it. And all for the sake of this girl. I see no reason to consider her an exception to the rule : I believe all women are so, more or less — all attractive

IO women, that is. A woman will break faith just as often as she has the chance to, in my opinion. If she sticks to one man, it is because she has never been tempted to do otherwise, only that. Fancy pinning one’s chances of happiness to that ! ”

His father pushed back his chair, took up a letter which lay beside his plate, and inserted a penknife into the envelope, carefully cutting the edge.

“ I tell you, every man can secure his happiness, if he only knows how to set about it/’ he said with conviction. “ Look at me. I was a younger son.

I had three hundred a year ; there were two good lives between me and the property ; yet I carried off an heiress from under an earl’s nose, and for twenty years she worshipped me, happy if I smiled, dejected when I frowned.”

“ My mother was a saint,” burst out his son.

“ Oh no, Evelyn, she wasn’t ; your mother was a woman,” gently returned his father, ‘ ‘ and she was a very unruly one when I met her first. But you see, I understood her : I understand all women ; ” and the widower’s countenance broadened into a very satisfied smile. “For your own sake, I wish you took after me, dear boy, ” he said.

Evelyn did not reply. He finished his egg, drank off his coffee, pushed back his chair, and rose.

The dogs promptly rose also.

Major Westmorland went to the open window, and stood looking out, his hands in his pockets.

Seven dogs also went to the window and looked at the view, and, had they possessed hands and pockets, would doubtless have imitated that manoeuvre likewise ; but in their gentle canine minds they felt that human beings soared to heights they could not attain.

Their master passed out upon the sunny terrace, and strolled slowly to the left. The procession followed. The leader stopped, gazing into the sky for signs of weather. His seven satellites sniffed the air. Larrie, the Skye, was old and fat. He took advantage of the halt to be seated. The other six

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II looked calm disapproval, remaining erect, with stiffened backs, waiting for the next move.

When Evelyn had decided that the present brightness would hold, he returned leisurely to the window and looked in.

“ Here's an invitation for us both to Hesselburgh,” said his father, glancing at him over his pince-nez.

‘ ‘ Oh, is there ? I'm not sure I wouldn't like to go, ” wq,s the reply, in the truly British negative style of expressing a desire.

‘ ‘ Ah ! yes ! There is a daughter, is there not ? I have not seen her since she was a child,” said Mr. Westmorland, lifting his cold fine grey eyes to his son. “ She would be a good match now.”

There was a curious intentness in the scrutiny he bent upon the young man ; but Evelyn declined to see it.

“ Lily Hume and Muriel Saxon : I could hardly marry both,” he said, with an air of wishing to turn the subject lightly aside, and an ill-assured smile.

‘ ‘ I tell you what it is, sir, ” returned his father slowly, with a gradual hardening of features and a complete change of voice and manner. “It seems to me that there has been enough of this fooling. You are running it too fine. You have only this autumn in which to settle yourself.”

Major Westmorland stood stock-still, his dark face expressing an extreme distaste of the turn the conversation had taken.

“ Let us talk of something else,” he said.

A red spot glowed in the elder man’s cheek.

“Will you never believe that I am in earnest?” he said, in a voice shaking with passion.

The Major's shrug of the shoulders was divided between annoyance and contempt.

“ If I could think you in earnest, I should have to lower my idea of your mental powers considerably,” he said drily.

His father's eyes gleamed with a cold, steelly light ; his calm w^s more formidable than violence.

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“You do me the honour to despise me because I am fool enough to accept as valid a testimony whose genuineness, I will undertake to say, is more conclusively proved than anything in the Old and New Testament. A fool ! The folly, sir, rests with those who, in their insolent presumption, reject the warnings sent to them. We are so scientific nowadays, forsooth. We accept nothing that we cannot prove — anything that sounds unlikely is impossible ; yet look how Fate has worked to bring about this remarkable coincidence — how this old prophecy speaks across the centuries, describing you, describing me, describing the very movements of the stars ! Evelyn ! ” he rose, trembling, and laid an iron grip on his son’s muscular arm. “ Evelyn, when you put on that look of civil obstinacy, I hate you ! Confound you, sir, you are like your mother! But I tamed her,” the

Major started convulsively, “and by , I’ll tame

you ! I say I will ! If you refuse to gratify me in this, the one only request I have ever made to you, I’ll swear I’ll disherit you ! Do you understand ? ”

“No threats are likely to convince me, father,” said his son with dignity. “You ought to know that. Sit down now, let us talk this matter quietly over, for the hundredth time. It has been so long in abeyance now, that I thought — I hoped — the delusion had worn itself out. But it seems, ” wistfully, ‘ 4 that it’s as strong as ever ? ”

The elder man took off his pince-nez, and began to polish them with a shaking hand, his eyes fixed on vacancy. His moment of anger seemed to have temporarily added ten years to his age, his cheeks looked hollow, his jaw dropped.

“Yes,” he said, nervously, “of course it is as strong as ever! The time has come to talk plainly, once and for all. What I ask you to do is so simple, that you can be actuated by nothing but pure perversity in refusing me. Marry before the ist of March next, and bring home your wife. Why, it seemed such an obvious thing. I have never insisted upon it ! I

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thought the surest way of securing what I wanted was to let you alone. I determined that I would not, like so many fools, defeat my own purpose by insisting too strongly upon it. Every man who can afford it marries before he comes to your age. I have always let you know I would make you a sufficient allowance. It is nothing in the world but sheer perversity that makes you decline. ”

Evelyns face had a weary, patient look, as of one who has been forced many times to go over the same distasteful ground.

The starting veins in his father’s forehead, the restless eye, the feverish aspect, suggested vividly enough the nature of the Westmorland family skeleton. He was a different being, utterly transformed from the handsome, lazy, elderly cynic, who had discussed the marriage question with his son over the breakfast-table.

“Come, stroll in the garden,” said the son, soothingly, passing an arm through his. “ Let us have a weed on the lawn, and talk this fairly out. There must be more in it. This old saw, this relic of mediaeval superstition, is not enough to upset a man of your talent. A piece of rhyming jingle could hardly be of force to impress your mind so profoundly. Shake it off, sir. It embitters your life.”

“Embitters my life? You are right there. It does — it does,” said Mr. Westmorland, shivering. “I will put it only on that ground, if you choose. Consider the whole thing a delusion, if you must. But grant that my life is really embittered by your refusal to do so simple a thing as this I demand. Will you really still be obstinate ? ”

He sighed heavily as he stepped out into the garden.

Evelyn walked to one of the untidy tables, and took up the cloth cap which lay there among the whips and sticks.

The phalanx of dogs had, during the foregoing discussion, hung about in disconsolate uncertainty,

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wondering how the situation would develop itself. Now they set up a glad howl of delight, and with no further ceremony rushed violently out of doors in a body, rolling over and over, yapping and playing, rioting in the exhilarating fragrance of the morning air. In the distance the misty woods which flanked the dancing river were in the meridian of their leafy splendours. Near by, the dew lay on the berberis and on the gorgeous geraniums and roses of the garden, the sun was drawing up the sweetness from the beds of mignonette. The scene was as soul-satisfying as an English summer knows how to be.

“ So the ist of March next is the fatal date ? ” said Evelyn, as he came forth, lighting his cigar.

“The ist of March,” said his father, mechanically, gazing before him with a fixed air.

“The Ides of March! It should be a fortnight later,” laughed the Major, dropping his fusee and extinguishing it with his foot as he turned with a look of bored politeness to his companion.

Chapter II. A General Practitioner

Pelting glee, as frank as rain On cherry-blossoms.

E. B. Browning.

“ My dear boy ! I was on the point of bringing you up your breakfast in bed. Poor thing ! You do look sleepy ! You were up all night, were you not?”

“ Superintending the arrival of Mrs. Jessop’s twins,” solemnly replied the doctor, as he sat down to the table and lifted the cover of the bacon dish.

The slim, impetuous girl who leaned against his chair gave a sympathetic moan.

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“Oh, poor Dick ! ” she lamented, “poor Mrs. Jessop ! Poor twins ! I really haven't pity enough to go on any further, ’or I would add, poor Mr. Jessop ! ”

“ I don’t think the twins want pitying,” said Dick, applying himself vigorously to the loaf. “They are both stout, well-to-do young people, of the male persuasion, and it’s a jolly time of year for them to get acclimatised. Pour out my coffee, Leo.”

The girl turned away to her place at the head of the little round table, sank into a chair, and complied with her brother’s request.

“What does Mr. Jessop say?” she asked after a pause.

“Oh, he’s rather pleased than otherwise. You see the other four are all girls. Twin boys are a novelty, and novelty is dear to the human heart. Throw me another lump of sugar, Leo,”

“My housekeeping will exceed my weekly allowance, if you consume sugar at this rate, Richard,” said Miss Forde, severely.

‘ ‘ I expect so. Where’s the paper, you young humbug?”

“I’m sitting on it,” pleadingly.

“Then, however unwillingly, I’m afraid I must trouble you to rise.”

“No, Dick, dear ,” persuasively, “don’t read the paper yet. There’s a letter for you,” producing one mysteriously from under the tea-cosy. ‘ ‘ It is such a nice one, and I do so want you to read it.”

“ How do you know it’s a nice one, you naughty, inquisitive little girl ? ”

“Only by the look ! It is a rough, thick, square envelope, bluey-grey. On it is printed ‘ Feverell Chase, Barnisham.’ It looks as if it might be an invitation.”

“Barnisham? It’s from Westmorland! Give it up at once.”

“Barnisham is not in Westmorland, Dick.”

“Who said it was? It’s the man’s name. Hand it over, darling.”

Leo reluctantly relinquished her “ bluey-grey ”

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treasure, and remained, with elbows on the table, and frank chin supported in two pink hands, gazing straight at her brother in breathless interest, as he broke the seal of his letter and began to read eagerly.

“ If it is an invitation, I wonder if it will include me,” sighed she. “Everybody hereabouts knows that the doctor’s sister has come to live with him ; but Barnisham is nowhere near here. Feverell Chase ! How nice it sounds ! ”

She gave an eager, impatient twist to the whole of her slim, long frame. Leo Forde was nineteen, with every one of life’s possibilities before her. It was enchanting to find herself mistress of the doctor’s unpretentious abode in the Cathedral town of Norchester. True, the neighbourhood was deadly dull, quite conspicuously without any charms of a social kind. But the tea-parties and tennis-parties, with their undue preponderance of her sex, and the subduing, chastening influence of the presence of the Minster clergy, were so many feasts of the gods, absolute saturnalia to Leo, who emerged from a nursery full of youthful cousins in a remote vicarage, the glad time having arrived when Dick, her darling Dick, her idol, the brother more than ten years older than herself, should be able to make a home for her.

Richard Forde was a man of more than average ability. He had been temporarily employed as doctor to a regiment whose own doctor was disabled, and in that capacity had so pleased the colonel that he received from him an introduction to the old doctor who had physicked most of Norchester for nearly fifty years, and was at last convinced that he must resign his practice. Richard became nominally his partner, virtually his successor, and at once sent for his little sister from the rustic seclusion of the vicarage schoolroom, to share his home as long as she cared to do so.

Mrs. Roper, his aunt, prophesied misfortune for this arrangement. She did not like to lose Leo, for

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two reasons. First, the Ropers were poor, and would miss the allowance made them for her maintenance ; secondly, the girl had been unspeakably useful, her sweet temper and her quick wits making her both an able and a willing aide-de-camp to the harassed vicar’s wife, with a large family and a large parish on her hands.

To the girl, the new life was like fairyland. She was as happy as the day was long. She went about in her plain frocks and linen shirts, from lawn to to lawn, tennis racquet in hand, and already the young ladies of Norchester were beginning to feel annoyed at the admiration she excited in this simple attire.

“My dear, how nice you look,” many a kind-hearted host or hostess would say, as Leo walked fearlessly in, her complexion fair as a June rose, her dark dewy eyes sparkling with expected pleasure, her brown hair all fluffy, under its neat hat with fresh band of spotless ribbon.

It takes but little to adorn youth and happiness. Leo’s untrimmed skirts and clean cottons would scarcely have harmonized with anything less young and blooming.

Her brother daily marvelled at the untold difference which the introduction of this “little chit” made in his life. A companion who invariably sees the funny side of everything is a boon the greatness of which is apt to be undervalued.

If Dick had been, perforce, absent from one of the garden-parties, Leo’s account of it, when she returned, was better than to have been there himself. He was rather a silent man, but keenly appreciative. Leo kept him amused from the time her great eyes unclosed themselves in the sunny summer mornings, to the time when, like a tall, drooping poppy, she yawned herself, heavy-lidded, to bed.

“I had not been there five minutes,” she would say, her recital rendered vivid by the laughing eyes, the expressive hand, the evident relish of the trivial incident “ not five minutes before I saw Mrs. Hancock’s 2 sprigged foulard walking up the path, with Mrs. Hancock panting inside it. ‘ There’s Miss Forde ! ’ she gasped, as I knew she would. ‘Come and shake hands, my dear. What’s your Christian name?’ Now, Dick, you know it is a little fatiguing, dear. This was the ninth time she had asked me that. I felt so tempted to invent a new one and call myself Jemima, just for once , to see what she would say. However, I’m so truthful by nature that out it came.

‘ Leo, ’ I said sweetly. ‘ Leo ! That’s a boy’s name ! ’ Stereotyped objection ! ‘ It must be Leonora ! ’

1 No, I assure you my full name is Leone ! ’ ‘ Leone !

There is no such name. It’s Leonora, you may be sure. Your father and mother would never have given you such an extraordinary name as Leone ! ’ ‘ I am sure they would not, had they known how it would distress you, Mrs. Hancock.’”

“Leo, you never said that ! ”

“But indeed I did ! She goaded me up so ! She looked at me so vindictively. There was a fat man with a beard behind her, I believe he is her son, and that she meant to introduce me, but she refrained, to punish me, and swept on, and divided him between Etta Nash and the two Miss Petties. Wasn’t it tragic ? I was left to mourn in a comer for nearly five minutes, when Captain Rider came up and asked me to play, and I drowned my disappointment in three splendid sets, in two of which we beat the Precentor and Georgie Glynn. The fat man cast some longing looks in our direction, but he was helpless, for he was got up in his Sunday best, and I don’t think he knows one end of a racquet from the other ! ”

Recitals, such as this, amused Richard greatly. He was intimately acquainted with Mrs. Hancock, and the sprigged foulard, and was glad that his Leo did not elect to be patronised by her. He did not reflect that the girl’s acute sense of humour might be dangerous in a place where every one took everything seriously.

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Nobody in Norchester, except Leo herself, found Mrs. Hancock at all laughable.

Richard had perused and re-perused his “bluey-grey” letter with knitted brows, that betokened rather puzzled thoughtfulness. His sister grew more and more impatient.

“ Oh, Dick,” she burst out at last, in uncontrollable eagerness. “Do tell me! You are just keeping quiet on purpose to teaze me ! Is it an invitation ? ”

“ Oh, yes,” said Dick, drily, “ it’s an invitation, certainly. ”

“For what? For whom? For me?” she cried.

“For himself, to lunch here to-day,” said the doctor, replacing the letter in its envelope.

“Is that all ? v

How inadequate are words to render the absolute blankness of Miss Forde's tones !

‘ ‘ Who is he ? ” she presently asked, after an interval, during which she armed herself with fortitude.

“ He is Major Westmorland. He was in Colonel BarfFs regiment ; and hes staying at Hesselburgh. ”

“ Staying at Hesselburgh ! With the Saxons ? ”

“So he says. ”

Here was food for much thought. The Saxons had just come down in their might from London, for the summer season, at their country house. Mrs. Saxon belonged to the great plutocracy of to-day ; she was the presiding genius. Sole daughter and heiress of Melliship, the well-known provision merchant, she had married, nobody quite knew why, Mr. Saxon, an amiable and harmless little gentleman of good family. It could scarcely have been faute de mieux , for Mrs. Saxon, spite of personal disadvantages, had a fortune which could have easily secured her a very creditable position in the peerage. Perhaps she recognised, in his peculiarly malleable temperament, the one indispensable requisite for her happiness. It was always “Mrs. Saxon and her husband were there.” She was a large, stout woman, with a heavy jaw, and