“I had rather cut off my right hand than make a harmless, good-natured old lady unhappy,” said Laura, warmly.
“Turn up your cuff, Mr. Treverton, and prepare your wrist for the chopper,” cried Celia. “But really now, if Lady Barker’s figure is like a dilapidated mould of jelly, she ought to know it. Did not one of those seven old plagues of Greece whose names nobody ever could remember, resolve all the wisdom of his life into that one precept, ‘Know thyself?’ ”
Celia rattled on gaily; Laura and Edward both joined in her careless talk; but John Treverton sat grave and silent, looking at the fire.
XXIII
“In the Meanwhile the Skies ’Gan Rumble Sore”
After that portrait of Lady Barker, John Treverton drew no more caricatures. It seemed as if he had laid aside the pen of the caricaturist in deference to his wife’s dislike of that somewhat ill-natured art. But he had not abandoned the higher walks of art, for he had made himself a studio out of one of the spare bedrooms that looked northward, and was engaged on a portrait of his wife, an altogether fanciful and ideal picture, which he worked at for an hour or two daily with infinite delight. He had many pleasant labours and occupations at this period of his life. The farm, the hunting field, the business details of a large property, which he wished to conduct in an orderly manner, not hiding his talents in a napkin, but improving the estate, which Jasper Treverton had considerably increased during his long life, but upon which the old man had been somewhat loth to spend money. It was altogether a full and happy life which John Treverton led with his wife in this first year of their union, and it seemed to both that nothing was wanting to perfect their happiness. And yet, by-and-bye, when there came the prospect of a child being born in the grave old house which had so long been undisturbed by the patter of childish feet, the fulfilment of this sweet hope seemed the one thing needed to fill their cup of joy.
While at the Manor House all was bliss, life dawdled on comfortably enough at the Vicarage, where the good, easy-tempered, hardworking vicar had begun to be reconciled to the idea that his only son was to be an idler all his life; until perchance this seemingly barren plant should some day put forth the glorious flower of genius. And then the father’s patience, the mother’s love, would be rewarded all at once for weary days of waiting and despondency.
Edward had contrived to make himself particularly agreeable since his return to the family roof tree. He was less cynical than of old; less apt to rail against fate for not having set his lines in pleasanter places.
Even Celia was beguiled into the belief that her brother was completely cured of his attachment to Laura.
“I suppose his passion was like that poor sentimental old Petrarch’s,” mused Celia, who had read about half a dozen sonnets of the illustrious Italian’s in the whole course of her life, “and he will go on spinning verses about the lady of his love for the next twenty years, without feeling any the worse for his platonic affection. He seems to enjoy being at the Manor House; and he and John Treverton get on very well together, considering how different they are in character.”
Edward made himself very comfortable in his rural home. He had tried London life, and had grown heartily sick of it; and he was now less disposed than of old to grumble at the dullness of a Devonshire village. What though he saw the same stolid bovine faces every day? Were they not better and fairer to look at than the herd of strange faces—keen and sharpened as if the desire for gain was an absolute physical hunger—that had passed him by in the smoke-tainted streets of London? These faces knew him. Here hats were touched as he passed by. People noticed whether he looked well or ill. Here, at least, he was somebody, an important figure in the sum of village life. His death would cause a sensation, his absence would make a blank. Edward did not care a straw about these simple villagers; but it pleased him that they should care for him. He settled himself down in his old home—the good substantial old Vicarage, a roomy house with stone walls, high gables, and heavy chimney stacks, shut in from the road by a holly hedge of a century’s growth, sheltered at the back by the steep slope of the moor, while its front windows faced undulating pastures and distant woods.
Here Edward made himself a study, or den, where he could work at his magnum opus, and where his solitude was undisturbed by intrusion. It was understood that his labours in this sanctuary of genius were of the hardest. Here he gave up his soul to convulsive throes and struggles, as of Pythoness on her tripod. The chamber was at the end of a long passage, and had a lattice overlooking the moor. Here tobacco was not forbidden, although the Vicar was no smoker, and had an old-fashioned detestation of cigars. Edward found a good deal of smoke necessary to relax the tension of his nerves, during the manufacture of his poem. If the door was suddenly opened by Celia or Mrs. Clare, the poet was apt to be discovered reclining in his rocking chair, with a cigar between his lips, and his eyes fixed dreamily upon the topmost ridge of moorland. At such times he told his mother and sister he was doing his thinking. The scored and blotted manuscript on his writing-table testified to the severity of his labours; but the sharp-eyed Celia perceived that the work progressed but slowly. There
