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 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES 
 
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 MRS. JIM TULLY
 
 I 
 
 V

 
 BOOKS BY MAURICE HEWLETT 
 
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 BENDISH 
 
 A STUDY IN PRODIGALITY
 
 BENDISH 
 
 A STUDY IN PRODIGALITY 
 
 
 t 
 
 BY 
 
 MAURICE HEWLETT 
 
 'Alieni profusus, sui appetens" 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 NEW YORK : : : : 1913
 
 Copyright, 1913, by 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 
 Published September, 1913
 
 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 
 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. 
 
 FATE AND MR. HENIKER . 
 
 
 
 3 
 
 II. 
 
 IDYLL IN A MASK .... 
 
 
 
 12 
 
 in. 
 
 BENDISH OF BENDISH 
 
 
 
 33 
 
 IV. 
 
 EFFLUENTS OF "tHE BILLIAd" 
 
 
 
 42 
 
 V. 
 
 LORD BENDISH IN THE UPPER AIR 
 
 
 
 55 
 
 VI. 
 
 " OUTRE-TOMBE " .... 
 
 
 
 67 
 
 VII. 
 
 THE MANTLE OF MIRABEAU 
 
 
 
 80 
 
 vni. 
 
 DISTRACTION OFFERS 
 
 - 
 
 
 . 90 
 
 IX. 
 
 HOW NOT TO LEAVE A MISTRESS 
 
 
 
 lOI 
 
 X. 
 
 TO RAPALLO .... 
 
 
 
 1X2 
 
 XI. 
 
 THE WEDDED LOVERS 
 
 
 
 125 
 
 XII. 
 
 THREATENED INTERIOR 
 
 
 
 • 131 
 
 XIII. 
 
 THE INVADING SEED 
 
 
 
 . 143 
 
 XIV. 
 
 "the vision OF revolt" 
 
 
 
 . 154 
 
 XV. 
 
 THE BLOOD-PACT 
 
 
 
 . 159 
 
 XVI. 
 
 TFK LORD AS DEMAGOGUE 
 
 
 
 . 182 
 
 XVII. 
 
 THE GAME AND THE PIECES 
 
 
 
 . 201 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 LORD BENDISH IN FLOOD AND EBB 
 
 
 
 . 213 
 
 XIX. 
 
 A LETTER FROM GEORGIANA . 
 
 
 
 229 
 
 8iJ5'158
 
 vi CONTENTS 
 
 CHAP. PAGE 
 
 XX. "the wanderer" 235 
 
 XXI. "the wanderer" examined .... 246 
 
 XXII. A budget 257 
 
 XXin. THE AFFAIR 272 
 
 XXIV. THE MEETING . . . '. . . . 282 
 
 XXV. LAST THROW BUT ONE 29O 
 
 XXVI. QUIETUS FROM OLD MR. HENIKER . . . 302
 
 BENDISH 
 
 A STUDY IN PRODIGALITY
 
 BENDISH 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 FATE AND MR. HENIKER 
 
 On a misty Tuesday morning in the autumn of 
 that year which saw WilHam the Fourth King of 
 England, a broad-shouldered young man of pleasant 
 though fiery aspect, blundered late into the Mill Hill 
 stage at Holbom Bars and trod upon the toes of a 
 young lady, its only passenger. She shuddered, and 
 he apologised as he tumbled into the corner op- 
 posite. The coach was already lurching over the 
 slippery stones when this event occurred. It had 
 reached Lamb's Conduit Street before the young 
 man had swum from the waves of agitation into 
 the smooth waters of consciousness: in simpler words, 
 it had taken him ten minutes or more to be done 
 with fanning himself with his hat, flapping the wings 
 of his great coat, steadying and unsteadying his lit- 
 tle black bag, puffing and blowing, appealing for 
 witness to the roof of the stage-carriage, and then to 
 have observed how pretty a lady he had put to pain 
 and annoyance. Whether it was her charm which 
 compunged liim, or the comparative calm into which 
 
 3
 
 4 BENDISH 
 
 he had now brought himself, is not to be known. It 
 is certain that he leaned forward, hat in hand, and 
 said, "Ten thousand pardons, Madame, for my 
 abominable clumsiness I" In the act he showed a 
 head of Heehos, a head which looked as if it had 
 been dipped in sunset : but his eyes were very blue, 
 and he had a pleasant, gentleman's face. 
 
 The young lady bowed her head, and a becoming 
 blush mantled her fair cheeks. For one moment 
 her serious gaze lit upon him; it appeared to him 
 that her eyes dilated and swam all about him, that 
 he drowned. "Pray do not think of it, sir," she 
 said. "I am glad that you were no later." 
 
 His face Ht up, his own blue eyes flashed. He 
 smiled; his teeth were good and very white. "You 
 cannot be more glad than I am, I assure you," he 
 said: a promising beginning. But the lady's re- 
 serve resumed its hold upon her. No more was to 
 be permitted. She gazed upon her gloved and 
 folded hands, she was pensive, but not standing-off . 
 She showed no fear of possible advances, but rather 
 assumed that, as a matter of course, there could be 
 none; and soon she became so engrossed in her own 
 thoughts as to be positively unaware of Mr. Heniker 
 — for Roger Heniker was our young man. Not 
 even a disorderly crowd near Pancras Church, a 
 crowd of hoarse and inflamed persons with tattered 
 flag and braying horn surrounding an orator in a 
 cart, was able to disturb her reclusion. This mob 
 came flooding about the coach; one heard harsh 
 cries thrown up. "Reform, Reform!" "Give us
 
 FATE AND MR. HENIKER $ 
 
 the Bill!" "To Hell with the Duke!" "Grey for 
 ever!" She raised her arching eyebrows, she glanced 
 out of window, and drew back from a beery grin. 
 "God bless you, miss, we won't hurt you. It's the 
 Bill' we want — " These were parlous times, remem- 
 ber; rick-burning in the country and bill-clamouring 
 in town. 
 
 "The lady hasn't got it — nor have I," said Mr. 
 Heniker. "Off with you, my man." He spoke 
 pleasantly, and was so received. The coach lunged 
 forward, and his Httle bag rolled on to the floor. 
 When he had bestowed it upon his knee again he 
 found himself no better able to carry on conversation. 
 
 This young lady, whose face was pure oval and 
 divinely coloured, whose eyes were grey, and whose 
 lips were sweetly bunched together for seriousness, 
 looked what she was, the thrifty owner of charms too 
 rare for vulgar husbandry. By instinct, you would 
 have said, she knew her worth. She was lovely in 
 form and colour, neatly and even severely dressed, 
 without a trace of coquetry. There was a quaker 
 tinge upon her; a dovelike habit. One could not 
 consider her and allure together. She was like a 
 bird, but did not trail a wing. Mr. Heniker found 
 himself recalling scraps of the psalter as he was 
 swayed along the Camden Road: "My darling from 
 the lions, " and similar phrases. She inspired pious 
 thoughts; one was the better for having been in her 
 company. He did not like to think of the straw which 
 her feet had touched being hereafter trampled by 
 drovers' boots or spat upon by bagmen. Profana-
 
 6 BENDISH 
 
 tion! It seemed to him that the coach should be 
 solemnly burned at the end of the journey, with a 
 clergyman to read the committal of it to the flames, 
 and possibly a quire of virgins in white ready with 
 a hymn in the background. The Annunciation came 
 into his mind, and then Susannah and the Elders. 
 But though he was observing her closely at the time, 
 and she must needs (you would say) have been 
 aware of it, it did not occur to him that the coach 
 was empty but for himself and her, and that the 
 guard, swaying by the boot, could hardly view more 
 than the point of her knee. You see he was very 
 conscious of the elevation of his thoughts. If she 
 was Susannah, the world at large; through which 
 she went in hourly peril, stood for the libidinous old 
 couple. 
 
 They were now in the country, rolling between 
 drip-spangled hedgerows, the guardians of fog and 
 dim grass, ghostly elms and shrouded cattle. Here 
 and there a newish villa stood glimmering white in 
 the haze; here and there a warm brick wall half hid 
 a pedimented, more considerable house. They were 
 in North Middlesex, having topped the ridge of 
 Hampstead, and near their journey's end. The 
 coach pulled up in a straggHng village between a 
 duck-pond fenced by white palings and the porch 
 of a weather-boarded inn. The guard opened the 
 door, and the young lady slipped quickly out. 
 
 "Bunch of Feathers, sir," he told Heniker. 
 "Golder's Green." The young man had no moment
 
 FATE AND MR. HENIKER 7 
 
 to reflect upon the vanishing of his charmer, nor 
 upon the bhssful fact that the same village was to 
 hold him near her for an hour. 
 
 "Uulloa! I get down here," he said, and tum- 
 bled out, with a shilling for the man. 
 
 He stood confused upon the gravel. "Now — 
 Myrtle Cottage— Mrs. Welbore— how do I—?" 
 He addressed the foggy air, but a loafer by the porch 
 coughed and spat. 
 
 "Down the street, sir, to the church; up Church 
 Lane, and you'll find it opposite Mr. Jaskins' farm- 
 house. A matter of ten minutes — and I'll be thank- 
 ful for the price of a half-pint." 
 
 Heniker bestowed his alms and hastened after the 
 retreating form of the lady which he could just see 
 about to be swallowed up in fog. He saw his way 
 to a question and answer, and almost certainly to 
 another look from her fine grey eyes. She was ac- 
 tually now turning up by the churchyard into a lane 
 which, with fortune to help, must needs be his. 
 Long legs served him well; he drew level with her 
 before she was past the church. 
 
 Assuredly she had been aware of pursuit; there 
 had been a gleam of the ear and cheek, a flying set 
 of the shoulder; she had seemed to be before the 
 wind, to have been leaving a wake. But extreme 
 caution, not alarm, made her eyes so bright; and 
 the vivid rose of her cheek may well have been the 
 flush of her speed. 
 
 Heniker drew level, and she tired. The game 
 was up; she was his; her eyes met his in appeal.
 
 8 BENDISH 
 
 Youth, his length of limb, the lonely lane, the fog, 
 were all pleading in her soft glance. The red and 
 naked sun at this moment loomed low in the mist 
 like a flat disk of copper, but showed her glowing 
 like a morning sky. From that beating moment he 
 was at her feet. 
 
 His hat was in his hand; he was very red. 
 
 "I intrude upon you again, Madam," he said; 
 "this time for a kindness. I'm a stranger in these 
 parts, and am trying to find Myrtle Cottage. Could 
 you perhaps direct me?" 
 
 He was sure afterwards that it was Fate, and was 
 pleased with the notion; but just at the moment 
 other things involved him: her swift comprehension 
 of him and his question together, as if the one set 
 the other in a new hght; a new gleam in her fine 
 eyes; her loss, for the minute, of suspicion. She 
 was thrown off her guard, and became a fellow- 
 creature, not a hunted thing. 
 
 "Oh, yes, indeed," she said. "I can show you 
 the house. I Hve there." 
 
 This was much too serious for his stock of small 
 talk. "You live there!" he cried out. "How ex- 
 traordinary!" 
 
 Her simple "Why is it extraordinary?" knocked 
 him flat. 
 
 "I beg your pardon; it is not in the least extraor- 
 dinary, of course. But you'll aUow that it's odd 
 we should have travelled from town together, and 
 should be going to the same house in Golder's 
 Green."
 
 FATE AND MR. HENIKER 9 
 
 But she did not seem ready to admit even a coin- 
 cidence between them; so he ran on in a hurry: 
 
 "I ought to tell you, perhaps, that I had been 
 hoping to see a friend of mine there — a Mr. Bendish. 
 He is Staging at Myrtle Cottage — at least I think so 
 — the guest of Mrs. Welbore. Is it possible that 
 you are — ?" 
 
 She could meet him here, speaking with decision. 
 
 "Mrs. Welbore is my aunt," she said. "I live 
 with her. And you will find your friend there too. 
 He is not her guest, but her lodger. We are quite 
 poor people." 
 
 He murmured something — anything — and turned 
 the conversation. 
 
 "Mr. Bendish is younger than I am, but a great, 
 a good friend — " He tried hard to be easy and rele- 
 vant. "We've known each other aU our Hves. We 
 were at school together. And since then — Oh, 
 well, we've had a good deal of business, you must 
 understand." 
 
 There he stopped, partly because he was in diffi- 
 culties, partly because he felt that she was not in- 
 terested. He hoped ardently that she was not, at 
 any rate. For he pictured his friend Bendish very 
 clearly, with his calm, imperial look, appraising this 
 heavenly creature, arrogating her to himself by droit 
 de seigneur. His good honest heart was Hke lead 
 within him. 
 
 They walked on without more words for some 
 little way; but she broke the silence with some 
 deprecation of the forlorn look of things — sodden
 
 10 BENDISH 
 
 fields, flattened layers of leaves, dripping trees. He 
 agreed, but insisted that the town was worse. It 
 had rained, he said, for a week. Last Friday, for 
 instance — , and she laughed agreement. 
 
 "Last Friday," she said, "1 was soaked — Uter- 
 ally soaked, and had to come home as I was. And 
 the Tuesday before that — to-day week — " 
 
 He looked at her quickly. "Oh, you are often in 
 town, then?" 
 
 She nodded her bright head. "Yes, twice a week. 
 I teach drawing to a young lady in Bloomsbury 
 Square on Tuesdays and Fridays. We are not very 
 well-to-do, you see. I am glad to earn what I 
 can." 
 
 He was concerned. "It is very courageous of 
 you, I think." He saw her blush; but at that mo- 
 ment they stood before Myrtle Cottage — so pro- 
 claimed on the white wicket gate which opened to 
 a flagged way and a door within a porch of trelKs. 
 A modest buflding enough, to contain the imperial 
 Bendish. Heniker smiled awry to think of it — to 
 picture his arrogating friend and this maidenly 
 beauty, so to speak, under his covering hand, held 
 down during pleasure as a boy holds a mouse or 
 Httle bird. 
 
 Mrs. Welbore's niece knocked briskly, and was 
 quickly answered. The round-eyed maid stared like 
 a foolish kitten to see the tall and red-headed stranger. 
 "Oh, Susan," said she, "do you know if Mr. Bendish 
 is in?" 
 
 Susan gasped her "Oh, yes, Miss Rose." Miss
 
 FATE AND MR. HENIKER il 
 
 Rose! Ah, beautifully named, most gentle lady! 
 She turned her last to Heniker. 
 
 "Your friend is here. The maid will announce 
 you at once. Susan," she said, "please take this 
 gentleman to Mr. Bendish." She looked shyly at 
 him, gravely smiling with eyes and sober hps, bowed 
 her head, and passed quickly into the house and up 
 the stair. Heniker gazed after her. 
 
 "What name, if you please, sir?" says Susan, and 
 recovered him for this world of chance and change. 
 
 "Eh? Oh, of course. Say Mr. Roger Heniker, 
 if you please." 
 
 She knocked at the door immediately on the left. 
 The occupant roared his " Come in," and she opened. 
 Blue clouds streamed outwards and hid her up. 
 Then he heard his welcome. 
 
 "Roger, by Heaven! Come in, Roger, and be 
 
 d d to you." Heniker plunged into the blue 
 
 mist of Latakia, httle bag in hand.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 IDYLL IN A MASK 
 
 The room reeked tobacco and was shrouded in it. 
 The fire was muffled; the window stared up like a 
 white sheet; the table was a menace, the chairs were 
 snares. It was some time before any human tenant 
 could be seen, but a pale dim outHne was presently- 
 discovered — a recumbent form upon a sofa, swathed 
 in white robes. His knees made a pyramid, a kind 
 of sugar-loaf mountain; their top in strong light was 
 like a snow-cap. The mountain appeared volcanic; 
 for the blue wreaths shot up from it, and broke and 
 hung, while a fierce bubbling and gurghng heralded 
 each outburst. 
 
 But Heniker advanced, nothing doubting. "I 
 hope that 'Mr.' Bendish keeps his health," he said, 
 with jocular emphasis upon the title. ''I see that 
 he has his hubble-bubble in order." 
 
 A marble-faced young man with a dark head of 
 curly hair and intensely dark eyes lay absorbed upon 
 the sofa. Every feature of him was as sharp and 
 still as statuary; if he assumed rapture in his work, 
 he assumed it well. Enveloped in a white Turkish 
 gown, he was writing, with his knees for desk. Open 
 books were strewn about him; he blew and sucked 
 at a water-pipe which stood in visible commotion 
 
 .12
 
 IDYLL IN A MASK 13 
 
 upon the floor beside him. He was very handsome, 
 and subHmely uninterested in his visitor, although 
 at the same time acutely aware of him. Heniker 
 stood) half amused, half impatient, while he finished 
 a phrase, scratched out a word, put in another, then 
 stabbed in a full stop. Heniker watched him as if 
 he knew that all this was acting, and excellent of its 
 kind. 
 
 At the period he said drily, "Got him, George?" 
 The young man hfted his fine eyebrows. 
 
 "Who knows? It seems good to me. Do you 
 care for Homer, by the way?" 
 
 Heniker laughed, being of the kind that considers 
 poetry a weakness. 
 
 "Homer!" he said. "I haven't thought about 
 him since I left school. What are you at, George? 
 Homer?" 
 
 "The Ihad," said his friend. "By God, it's 
 superb. I may be wrong, but I think I've done it 
 this time. I've been at it now for a fortnight. I 
 read the thing right through — once — in a week. 
 Finished it yesterday. This morning I began this. 
 It's moving, you know, it's mo\'ing." 
 
 Heniker sat down plumbly on the end of the sofa. 
 "What is moving? Homer? Or you? You are 
 translating him — Uke Pope? Or is Mr. Cowper your 
 model?" 
 
 Mr. Bendish was looking at his sheets. "You 
 shall judge," he said. "You shall judge. I'll give 
 you a bit in the middle of the first book. Do you 
 remember Agamemnon and Achilles?"
 
 14 BENDISH 
 
 Heniker nodded. "I have heard of both of them. 
 ^Eurukreion Agamemnon — ^Podasokus Achilleus.' 
 Go on, George." 
 
 Mr. Bendish was occupied with his manuscript, 
 entreating it lovingly, with a dot to an i, a cross to 
 at. "You remember the quarrel? They pitch into 
 each other! It is all splendid, of course; but the 
 cHmax comes after Athene has heartened Achilles. 
 She goes, and he breaks out — ' Oinobares, kunos om- 
 mat' echon, kradien d'elaphoio' — Oh, you must re- 
 member that. Now here am I: — " 
 
 He began to read, with fierce emphasis upon the 
 consonants — finely and savagely — 
 
 Drunken and dog-faced, hearted like a deer! 
 Who never yet didst dare arm for the war 
 Among thy people, nor lay ambuscade 
 With chiefs of Hellas — that were death to thee! 
 Thy chosen way, to range the far-spread host, 
 Snatching the store of him who counters thee — 
 Eater of men! . . . 
 
 There he stopped with a half laugh, and let the 
 pages fall as they would. Not that he thought the 
 work bad — far from that; but that he felt sure that 
 it did not seem superb to his companion. 
 
 " That's the kind of thing," he said hghtly. " My 
 'elegant leisure!' But these things don't amuse 
 you." 
 
 "Some of them," Heniker said, "amuse me ex- 
 tremely; yourself, if I may say so, chiefly and always. 
 Let me ask you now how long this masquerade is to
 
 IDYLL IN A MASK 15 
 
 go on? It is getting awkward for us. My father is 
 disturbed, and begins to talk about noblesse oblige. 
 Your mother, I may tell you, has been writing about 
 that every day for a month. She writes a good deal 
 when you are with her, but nothing to this." 
 
 The young man in white sucked at his pipe, star- 
 ing straight before him. He would have been much 
 more handsome if he had not known with every 
 breath that he took exactly how handsome he was. 
 
 "You don't care for my IHad? You find it like 
 Cowper's? H'm." 
 
 Heniker frowned. "My dear George, if it will 
 make you serious, or attentive, I'll teU you at once 
 that I don't give a snap of the forefinger for Homer 
 — ^yours or his own. I've got your business on my 
 hands, and ticklish enough some of it is. You for- 
 get that your friend's — an attomey-at-law." 
 
 Bendish gazed at him calmly. "I do my best, 
 Roger, as you see." 
 
 Heniker straightened himself. "I'm not at all 
 obHged to you. I wish, indeed, that you would re- 
 member it." Then he opened his black bag. "I've 
 got a dozen things for you to look at." He dived 
 for papers, fished up one. "Here's Milsom's mort- 
 gage — he writes of foreclosure. We'll have to do 
 something with Faintways." He fished again: 
 " Shadrach won't renew except at a monstrous figure. 
 Oh, and here are the Newbiggin accounts. Two of 
 the best are behindhand : they plead bad times. And 
 there are assignments for you to sign, and a deputa- 
 tion or two. I'll get you to afiirm those, George."
 
 1 6 BENDISH 
 
 Mr. Bendish reached out for these documents. 
 "I'll sign anything you please," he said, spread out 
 the parchments, dipped his quill, and wrote in a 
 black upright hand, in very large and even lettering 
 — Bendish. Roger Heniker watched him, twinkling 
 with amusement. 
 
 "You write a fine frank to a letter, George. You 
 shall give me some before I go. Now, let me ask 
 you — do these ladies here know that they are enter- 
 taining a lord? " 
 
 Lord Bendish looked at him as if such a question 
 had never occurred to his mind. "Upon my soul, 
 I don't know. I don't see why they should not have 
 taken my word for it. I gave them to understand 
 that I was a — ^just an ordinary person." 
 
 "You might be both, you know," said Heniker. 
 Lord Bendish flinched, and replied to this mild 
 pleasantry with quite unnecessary seriousness and 
 heat. 
 
 "I am much obliged to you. Doubtless I am, but 
 in neither case is the fault my own. However — I 
 did not mention my rank to Mrs. Welbore — nor shall 
 I — nor shall you, by your leave — or by mine." He 
 stopped there as if out of conceit with his own ve- 
 hemence. A new train of thought took him. Pres- 
 ently he said, " Of course they may have been looking 
 at one's things — ^brushes, bottles, gimcrackery of that 
 kind. I can't help that — but they are simple, good 
 souls, not prone to prying; and I doubt it." 
 
 Heniker, prick-eared for any patronage of the clear- 
 eyed young goddess of the house, said nothing more
 
 IDYLL IN A MASK 17 
 
 of his friend's masquerade, but turned to affairs, 
 and contrived to get himself heard upon urgent 
 business. With this I do not concern the reader 
 beyqnd saying that this young lord's money-matters 
 werd not in good trim and could have been in no 
 trim at all if the Henikers, father and son, had not 
 been both honest and capable. That they were so 
 will appear in the course of this book; that their 
 noble cHent was difficult, at one time exceedingly 
 shrewd and keen upon his profit, at another vexed 
 beyond endurance at the very word Business, must 
 also appear if I am to do any justice to the fluxes of 
 his mood. At this time he lent an occasional, and 
 very unwilhng ear to his friend. The distaste which 
 he showed for finance was grounded upon idealism 
 and expressed with rhetoric. He wanted no money; 
 his needs were but one. "Peace, my dear Roger, 
 leisure of mind is what I need. I came here to get 
 them. For what other reason do you suppose I 
 jumped out of town, cut the clubs, the silly clatter 
 and candlelight of the Opera, the undressed women 
 and unsexed men of Society? For what other reason 
 did I drop my lordship, leave my coronet on the flags 
 of St. James's Street — but to be quiet? I have tal- 
 ent — I know it. I will be heard of one of these days 
 — but not as a learned peer, not as a young lord with 
 elegant accomplishments. No, no, my good friend, 
 I won't get up Parnassus in a state-coach, nor take 
 my seat before Apollo with a herald to cry out my 
 titles, or produce my writ of summons. And it will 
 take more than Lady O or Lady J to get
 
 1 8 BENDISH 
 
 me there, let me remind you. Work, sir, work! 
 Brain-work will do it for me. Bah, my good fellow, 
 what was I doing with all those people — blacklegs, 
 blackguards, rips, demireps? And that other lot — 
 the Halcro set, the Melmerby set, the Louvers, 
 
 Lady O , Lady J ; all those damned pretty 
 
 women, as false as they are frail! Suddenly I sick- 
 ened. Stomach, do you say? Liver? Not at all. 
 Heart, sir. I discovered that I had a conscience. I 
 said, ' You infernal ass, Bendish. Here you are with 
 a head hard enough to break the Tables of Stone, 
 and you turn it into a footstool for strumpets.' I 
 said I'd none of it, and I left it all. It's all there 
 still, I doubt not. The pasteboard, the bills, the 
 billets-doux, tumbling in at the slit in the door. Let 
 'em lie for me. I have Homer — and something else 
 which I'll show you if you're worthy of it. A thing 
 which — I don't know — ^which may perhaps — not all 
 die. How can I tell? I'm very young, you know, 
 but — " Here he touched his breast — "I feel it in 
 me." 
 
 To all of this, and to a good deal more of the sort, 
 Roger Heniker listened, as he needs must, well know- 
 ing that for this expensive escapade also the money 
 must be found. Such listening was of his profession. 
 Before it was well over he saw that his lordship must 
 be humoured for the present — the more so as his 
 lordship, with a good deal of the mule in him too, 
 positively declined to budge. His mother ! Let the 
 Heniker pair deal with his mother. True, she didn't 
 like it, but then she didn't like anything. She never
 
 IDYLL IN A MASK 19 
 
 had. If he stayed at home, she took it ill; if he 
 went away, she took it ill; but if he was at home she 
 quarrelled viva voce, and when he was away she took 
 to the twopenny post. He, Bendish, infinitely pre- 
 ferred the latter, because he had no need to read 
 her letters. He answered them — yes; but he did not 
 read them. 
 
 One beat remained, and Heniker tried it. Ben- 
 dish had been moved by it more than twice before; 
 it touched him in a tender place. That was his 
 peerage. He had succeeded to it unexpectedly and 
 late enough in Ufe to have been permanently im- 
 pressed by it. Heniker had been present when the 
 accolade fell, as it were, from Heaven upon his boy- 
 ish back, and had been very much impressed, boy 
 as he too had been at the time. So now he urged 
 his peerage upon him. Bendish was of age — would 
 he not take his seat? 
 
 But Lord Bendish shook his handsome head. Not 
 yet, he said — not yet. He had something to do first 
 — something definite — something (possibly) decisive. 
 Let that be done first, at any rate. Decidedly, no 
 seat-taking yet awhile. 
 
 But, said Heniker — and it was his last throw — 
 here we were hard upon the year of a coronation. 
 There would be a Court of Claims, to sit almost at 
 once. Was it not Bendish's duty to consider the 
 reasonable expectation of his successors? Was the 
 Bendish pri\dlege to sink for want of user? The pale 
 face certainly glowed for answer, the proud small 
 head certainly stiffened at that. But Lord Bendish
 
 20 BENDISH 
 
 did not commit himself. We would see — there was 
 time enough. Then he stretched, yawned, and 
 looked over his shoulder at the mantelpiece. "By 
 the Lord, half -past five! And I dine at seven, and 
 haven't dressed yet. I don't rise, you know, Roger, 
 till two in the afternoon — you'll excuse me. By the 
 way, stay and dine with me. You must — I'll not 
 be denied. And after dinner I'll get leave to show 
 you one of the prettiest, gentlest, pleasant-spoken, 
 modest girls you ever clapped eyes upon. It's a fact; 
 she's like a nymph of Athene's. She's my landlady's 
 niece, and born as much a lady as you please. 
 What!" he broke oflf here, impatient to be stopped — 
 for Heniker had looked down at his boots — "Pooh, 
 man, what will they care about your boots? We're 
 not going to Almack's. I tell you they are simple, 
 honest people — not bandbox fine women. Be- 
 sides — Oh, leave all that to me! I'll explain you and 
 your boots in a breath. I advise you to stay — in 
 fact you must, if only to be conquered. You'll fall 
 in love with her, it's a thousand to one. I did imme- 
 diately. But you'll be too late, Roger, for I believe 
 she has a kindness for your poor servant. Now I'm 
 off to my bath. They know me here. Amuse your- 
 self well — turn over my Iliad. I declare some of it 
 is tolerable. But the other thing — ah, I'll talk to 
 you about that. That will make your hair stand 
 on end." He went off whistling to his toilette, leav- 
 ing Mr. Heniker to face his darkest forebodings. 
 
 If his heart was touched already, he had every 
 reason to be dark. He knew Bendish very well, had
 
 IDYLL IN A MASK 21 
 
 known him from a boy. There had always been a 
 love-affair, and it had always been a point of per- 
 sonal honour with his lordship to succeed in it. 
 What success meant depended upon the mood with 
 which he entered the Usts. Very often, nothing 
 gross. Bendish was not yet a sensuaHst — at his 
 age he would have been a monster if he had been. 
 No; but sometimes he rode for a fall, sometimes 
 nothing but despair, misery, starvation, a white 
 face and a lonely death in the near future would 
 content him. Then, you might depend upon it, 
 however much he suffered — and he would require 
 to wallow in suffering — the cruel fair would suffer 
 ten times more. Not one minim of her cruelty might 
 escape her. Remorse? Ah, she should be drenched 
 with remorse. Or again, he might go in to win, to 
 be the fortunate knight — and then good-bye to 
 virtue. But while you could never tell with Bendish 
 which way it was to be, except that he must have it 
 whichever it was, you could never for a minute be 
 in doubt as to the ultimate fate of the lady. She 
 must suffer horribly — either for virtue lost or virtue 
 retained; and Heniker, his life on it, didn't know 
 where she was most to be pitied. There had been a 
 Miss Mary Winton, there had been a Miss Sophia, 
 a Miss Sara, a Miss Susan, a Lady Kitty; and then 
 
 there had been lately the blonde Lady O , the 
 
 too easy and far too blonde. But she had a hus- 
 band, and experience, and Heniker fancied that his 
 lordship had had a tumble, that this idyll of Golder's 
 Green was the consequence, and that once more
 
 22 BENDISH 
 
 balms of Araby were to be applied to the cleansing 
 of the gentleman's amour propre. What that might 
 mean to a beautiful, sensitive, modest-minded girl 
 he dared not think; but it was no good telling him- 
 self that he didn't care — he cared extremely; or that 
 the thing must go on — because of course it would. 
 Please Heaven it might be ended before irremediable 
 mischief. One thing was clear: he must get the Ben- 
 dish privilege before the Court of Claims as soon as 
 might be. That was the only card he had to play. 
 So he sat on in the dark, waiting for his friend, 
 wringing out his heart, frowning and biting his nails. 
 
 The candles heralded him; but the cloth had been 
 laid and the Irish stew was smoking on the board 
 before he appeared, curled and anointed, resplendent 
 in his evening dress. To an exact taste his resplen- 
 dence might have seemed excessive for a retirement 
 so coy as to own but one sitting-room, or, indeed, to 
 companion a man who must spend the evening in 
 boots; but Lord Bendish was not minute in his con- 
 sideration, and Heniker had other things to consider, 
 for his part. But the dinner was very gay. His 
 lordship would not be denied. He poured out his 
 comments on men and affairs in one long and seem- 
 ingly endless chain. Hope was high in him and be- 
 lief in himself. The tonic air of Hampstead was your 
 only physic, it was clear. Roger should try it — 
 take a lodging near by and ride every morning into 
 town on his hired hackney. Who knows? they might 
 be capping verses after a few evenings. Bendish
 
 IDYLL IN A MASK 23 
 
 would welcome that, because the evenings, he must 
 own, were long and dull. Mrs. Welbore was exactly- 
 like any one of them — or say three of them, all Sun- 
 days, on end; and — worthy woman though she were 
 — she was a dragon for virtue. The lovely Rose 
 could not be seen of an evening, unguarded. Not 
 for a moment. That was a bore, but it made the 
 snatched moments, accidental meetings on the stair, 
 ghmpses through the open door — oh, enchanting! 
 After all, provocation was the \dtal thing in love; 
 passion needed a sting. The dart of Eros was 
 barbed, Roger must recollect. 
 
 Welbore, the happily late Welbore, had been, Ben- 
 dish understood, a clergyman, very often tipsy. He 
 had left the widow badly off — or indeed found her 
 so and left her no better, except for his own depar- 
 ture. She had betaken herself to this way of hfe, 
 and called up to help her a sister's child, this fair 
 Rose Pierson, with whom Roger was bound to fall 
 in love. Miss Rose gave lessons — drawing, water- 
 colours, other accomphshments of the kind. Ben- 
 dish found that an added charm, because humihty 
 was a fine thing in itself, and especially becoming to 
 beauty in the eyes of one who worshipped beauty 
 as he did. It was an entrancing sight — let Roger 
 remark: a girl with the bearing of a young queen 
 bending to help brats spoil paper. So the young 
 epicure rolled Rose Pierson over his tongue, and in 
 the act kept his friend sizzhng on the grid. 
 
 Mackintosh of the combed whiskers, the wise, the 
 elderly, the soft-footed Mackintosh, was behind his
 
 24 BENDISH 
 
 master's chair. It was understood that he lodged in 
 the village and played bowls with the villagers when 
 the weather was fine. He too had need of the art 
 of making himself as snug as might be — for Lord 
 Bendish was as restless as the wind, and never moved 
 without Mackintosh. He alone was in the secret, 
 except for Mrs. Bendish herself, his lordship's mother, 
 and the two Henikers. It was fine now to see him 
 marshalHng the Welbore maid-servant. He did it 
 entirely with his eyebrows and a very occasional pro- 
 trusion of the lower lip. The girl watched his face 
 with the pathetic dependence of a performing dog 
 upon the showman's whip. Her eyes were wild with 
 anxiety; tears stood in them; she was on the verge 
 of nervous hysteria — so great was Mackintosh, so 
 potential. With this little comedy of belowstairs as 
 with everything else, and himself most of all, Lord 
 Bendish was delighted. 
 
 Meantime the ladies would receive the gentlemen, 
 and there should be tea and conversation. The gen- 
 tle Mackintosh, with the sober voice of one who 
 relieves himself of a secret of State, reported so much 
 to his master, who paused wine-glass in the air, to 
 flash out upon it, "Very good, Mackintosh — but will 
 they overlook Mr. Heniker's boots?" 
 
 Mackintosh felt sure, but Bendish would push his 
 rallying of Roger to the extreme point. 
 
 "You had better make sure, Mackintosh. Pre- 
 sent my compHments — Mr. Bendish's compliments 
 — to the ladies; and will they please to excuse Mr. 
 Heniker's boots?"
 
 IDYLL IN A MASK 25 
 
 "Oh, confound it, George!" Heniker protested, but 
 the farce was solemnly played. A high-spirited lord 
 can do what he will with his attorney — or he could 
 in 1830. 
 
 Then they went up, Bendish talking (rather loudly 
 — for he had taken his wine) to the very threshold. 
 There by a small fire, with fancy work hfted towards 
 the candles, sat Mrs. Welbore in black silk and a 
 lace cap; there at the tea-table, intent upon her urn 
 and cups, stood the tall Rose. Roger had a vision 
 of her sHm neck and white shoulders, of her bent 
 head and glowing cheek, even as he advanced to 
 make his bow to the lady of the house. Bendish 
 introduced him simply — his good friend, Mr. Hen- 
 iker — and left his boots alone. Mrs. Welbore in- 
 chned monumentally; and then came the moment 
 for which our young man had been preparing him- 
 self. To Miss Pierson's full-orbed gaze he bowed, 
 and said very plainly that he had had the honour of 
 traveUing with her that afternoon. Bendish caught 
 the remark, stared and frowned at it. Very easily, 
 as Roger knew (knowing his man well), he might 
 have been thrown out. He was capable of being 
 mortified by such a little thing, of being silenced for 
 the evening — and the silence of such a man as Ben- 
 dish could be as shattering to the nerves as a brass 
 band: his sulks were contagious, slew their tens of 
 thousands. But luckily he was in too good fettle. 
 Roger had met her? Pooh, old Roger — there was 
 nothing in that.
 
 26 BENDISH 
 
 And a chance remark of Heniker's, as it hap- 
 pened, set him off for an evening's fireworks; for the 
 young man, face to face with the pretty tall girl, had 
 congratulated her and himself that nothing worse 
 than noise had ensued upon the Radical mob which 
 had beset their progress. She had smilingly agreed, 
 with another momentary shaft from her fine eyes, 
 when Bendish caught the allusion, and, stationed 
 upon the hearth, held forth upon politics. 
 
 Heniker, seated by the younger lady, watched 
 him rather than listened. He leaned his elbows to 
 his knees, and clasped his hands to hold his chin. 
 Sideways, as it were, he could be conscious of Rose 
 Pierson's quickened bosom, and could guess but too 
 well what impression the chiselled pale face, with its 
 proud nose, proud and scornful lip and burning dark 
 eyes, must make upon her. This young lord had 
 everything, by Heaven! But poor Heniker was no 
 rebel, being too well schooled for that. He was 
 vaguely troubled, not dreaming of resistance. As 
 for Mrs. Welbore, she sat at her work Hke an apa- 
 thetic hillock, solemn in twilight — a broad-browed, 
 flat-haired lady of dark hues. Such was her appear- 
 ance; but she hid behind it an acute timidity which 
 betrayed itself in httle jerks of her needle, snatches 
 at her gown, little flickerings of the fingers, twitch- 
 ings of the lip — here, and in her darting eyes, like 
 those of a field-mouse at a meal. She was imme- 
 diately below the orator, within the first flush of 
 his golden shower, a heavy and submissive Danae. 
 Ever since her birth she had accepted the doctrine
 
 IDYLL IN A MASK 27 
 
 that men must talk and women seem to listen. Had 
 she not been wedded to a pulpiteer? 
 
 Bendish was implying that but for accident (he 
 meaiijt the peerage) he had been leading those hon- 
 est men into the House of Commons. Yet he de- 
 plored their short sight — for of what use would the 
 vote be to them with the powers behind parliament? 
 Did Mrs. Welbore guess, did his good Roger — but his 
 eye was for Rose, who wondered, softly glowing, — • 
 the might of Society, of the King and his friends, of 
 the Duke, as Duke, or my Lord Marquis This, or 
 my Lady The-Other? Beheve Bendish, the mob 
 needed pikes, not votes. (Here Mrs. Welbore shut 
 her eyes and shuddered.) But for every gilded 
 Mumbo- Jumbo stuck up by rascals to overawe them, 
 there were a thousand prostrate wretches hailing it 
 for God and Lord. That was so, she might take his 
 word for it; and that being so, what was the part for 
 a man of observation, some small powers of reason- 
 ing, some fancy and moral force, to play on such a 
 scene? The whip! The whip! Mrs. Welbore cow- 
 ered. Hit folly as it flies, smartly, across the back, 
 or even lower still. Mock them into sense, flog self- 
 esteem into them. Well! that might yet be done 
 again, as it had been done already. The whip stung 
 doubly: it stung the body, but it stung the mind 
 too — for it was a puny weapon to fight with, and 
 humiliated the victim even while it routed him. 
 Cervantes, Voltaire had not disdained it. It had, 
 he might add, cleansed the Temple of old. He need 
 not say that he disclaimed comparison — but let
 
 28 BENDISH 
 
 them see. Who knows what a mouse may not do 
 with an altar-candle? He paused: it was Heniker's 
 cue. 
 
 "Out with it, George," he said. "We must hear 
 you now. What is it? A satire? A mock-epic? I 
 know you've been at something." 
 
 Bendish laughed it off — but not very far off. It 
 came fluttering back. "Oh, I don't know that I'm 
 ready — I don't know that I have the face — but — 
 Well! the fact is I have been thinking about these 
 things in my — out in this happy quiet. But really 
 — Mrs. Welbore — I don't know whether — " 
 
 Mrs. Welbore was flattered, and would have been 
 more so if she had known more exactly what all this 
 meant. Roger entered the field again, 
 
 "My friend Mr. Bendish has been scourging the 
 vices of Society, ma'am, in a poem. Pray let him 
 read it to us." He turned to Rose Pierson, whose 
 eyes sparkled. 
 
 "I am sure," said Mrs. Welbore, rather scared, it 
 must be owned, at the word vice, "we shall be more 
 than interested. It will be most kind of Mr. 
 Bendish." 
 
 Bendish played with the notion. He took it up, 
 as it were, in the palm of his hand and rootled in it, 
 as if it had been snuff. "Well," he said at last, "on 
 your heads be it. You shall hear me upon our pleas- 
 ant vices." With which he excused himself and 
 went to fetch his manuscript. 
 
 Mrs. Welbore, excited at the prospect and a Httle 
 awed, turned impressed eyes upon Heniker.
 
 IDYLL IN A MASK 29 
 
 "What a flow!" she said. "Most impassioned. 
 I had no idea — " 
 
 Heniker agreed with her. He desired keenly to 
 know^what Rose Pierson thought; but she kept her 
 looks for the fire. 
 
 Mrs. Welbore had resumed her needlework; and 
 Heniker, seeing that if he spoke at all it must be of 
 Bendish, and if of Bendish, to invite his praises, sat 
 silent. The poet returned to his place on the hearth 
 and declaimed a good part of The Billiad: a Satire. 
 
 Billy was, of course, our new King; the Billiad 
 (reflex of his recent Homeric studies) was a forecast, 
 put in mock retrospect, of his fails el gesles; rather 
 of those of his ministers. Done with astonishing 
 verve, with a ridicule which occasionally defeated 
 itself, but a keenness of sight which omitted nothing, 
 it had, with all that, a real Uterary flavour. Its 
 fault — and it was a fault of youth — was that it spared 
 nothing, but mocked the evil with the good. It was, 
 in fact, as nihihstic as a young man can make it who 
 enjoys the sense of doing a thing rather than the 
 thing doing, and has a sharper eye upon the effect 
 than the cause. There was unfortunately nobody 
 present who knew how good it was. To Mrs. Wel- 
 bore, the Duke of Devizes was not only a hero, but 
 a Duke and a Prime Minister. References therefore 
 to his unsafe seat in the hunting-field, to his indis- 
 criminate gallantries, to his dry manner and sensi- 
 biUty to the tears of ladies passed over her head. 
 These things did not happen to the great — for were 
 they not great? How can you make ridiculous that
 
 30 BENDISH 
 
 which is not so? She comfortably assumed that she 
 had mistaken Bendish's meaning, and let it go at 
 that. To her the wonder rather was to realise that 
 the English language contained so many words which 
 rhymed, and the chief pleasure she took the reflec- 
 tion that this young gentleman of fashion should give 
 himself so much trouble in honour of her household. 
 Heniker listened with a heavy heart. It was not at 
 all in his hne, but he saw that this kind of rattle 
 must crumple him up. He guessed what it must 
 mean to a simple home-dwelling lady. He could not 
 help chuckling at some of the hits, to be sure. To 
 
 have Lord B 's snuffling nasal so neatly, to have 
 
 Lord G 's state of heart (with his hand upon it), 
 
 and Lord S 's state of the nation (with his foot 
 
 upon it) coupled in two absurd lines; to get old Lord 
 Maxonby's matrimonial squabbles and his gout so 
 neatly as in the couplet, 
 
 And goaded M by still clings to life, 
 
 Ridden by seven devils — and one wife; 
 
 to have Ward's thunder and Minors' penny whistle, 
 the Poodle's strut and Alvanly's thumping stride, 
 to have the Cock at Sutton face to face with the 
 Pavilion, and a picture of the Foundling besieged 
 by ill-matched erring couples picking out heirs at 
 the eleventh hour: one must grin at such things. 
 But by the Lord Harry, George went too far. Hen- 
 iker was a gentleman, up in arms for his ideal. The 
 ears of his lady must be guarded from the mere hint
 
 IDYLL IN A MASK 31 
 
 that this was a wricked world. She walked in fairy- 
 land: let all nerves be strained to prove this place 
 the Eden she proclaimed it by her presence in it. 
 He ;Adshed to God that George would stop — but 
 George did not. 
 
 When the ladies had retired, dazzled into silence, 
 and Heniker had gleaned what his friend had let 
 fall from the harvest of Rose's fine eyes, the poet was 
 by no means for bed. Mackintosh of the combed 
 whisker supplied a passable claret and a devilled 
 bone; Heniker must hear his projects. 
 
 He was full of \dsion, the vital young lord, full, 
 too, of claret before he had done. His reading had 
 discovered him a new role — a new Cynic was born 
 in that heady hour. Here, in Myrtle Cottage, was 
 his tub. From it should stream satire after satire, 
 till England itself felt Hke this good bone, slashed 
 into streaks, and every gaping wound raw with 
 cayenne. A new Diogenes for a new age! A cynic 
 of fashion, a cynic with a Mackintosh, with plenty 
 of clean Hnen and passable claret — and a whip, by 
 Heaven, a whip for bare shoulders and gartered legs. 
 The Court of Claims might go hang, the House of 
 Lords might go howl. The Bendishes came over 
 with the First William and flicked the Fourth out of 
 the sunlight. This was the dream — to which Hen- 
 iker could only listen ruefully. 
 
 He learned that The Billiad was in the press, would 
 be upon the town in six weeks at the furthest, pro- 
 claimed as by Lord Bendish. This, then, was cer- 
 tain, there was an end to concealment. The ladies
 
 32 
 
 BENDISH 
 
 here would know whom they had entertained. 
 " Dammy, and why not? " cried Bendish. " I shan't 
 bite 'em. I can't help being a peer." He added, 
 "My impression is that they'll rather Uke it." Hen- 
 iker was sure that they would. 
 
 It was three in the morning before he could set 
 out on a six-mile trudge through the miry lanes. 
 He forged along under foggy stars with much to 
 think of. But he was a simple as well as an honest 
 young man. The best he could do for himself, that 
 he did. He thought of Rose Pierson's face and clear 
 grey eyes. He told himself that she was a glory to 
 the Earth. To thank God for her and to do his 
 duty seemed all the service he could render her as 
 yet. 
 
 But he remembered that she gave lessons in town 
 on Tuesdays and Fridays. Now this had been a 
 Tuesday.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 BENDISH OF BENDISH 
 
 Argent, a Bend engrailed, sable, was the Bendish 
 coat, and the badge, now used as crest, a Peacock in 
 Pride, with the motto Numen inest — which wags put 
 thus into old Enghsh, into the mouth of the bird — 
 Nu, men, I nest. They averred that the cuckoo had 
 been the properer ensign for his present lordship, 
 George, tenth Baron, and many an honest gentle- 
 man agreed with them before his career was closed. 
 
 There seems to be no doubt about the Norman 
 pedigree. Giles de Bendes is in the Battle Abbey 
 Roll, and there is or was a bastide in Normandy 
 called La Ferte Bendes, which is quite near enough 
 for modern genealogy. 
 
 You don't get them again with any certainty till 
 the fourteenth century, when you find them in the 
 Midlands — the Grafton country, it is called — in a 
 stronghold called after them Castle Bendish. Peter 
 de Bendish or Bendysshe, if you will have it, was 
 Escheator of the shire in 1375. It was his grandson, 
 another Giles, who was summoned to Parliament by 
 Henry IV., anno prinio, as Giles Bendysshe de 
 Bendysshe, chivaler, and sat and voted accordingly. 
 That was the beginning of a comfortable and com- 
 
 33
 
 34 ' BENDISH 
 
 petent dignity which after events never seriously 
 disturbed until near our own day. 
 
 Nevertheless the Bendishes took the losing side 
 in most compHcations of public affairs. They were 
 Lancastrians, and lost heads in the Wars of the Roses; 
 then, what must they do but turn their coats before 
 the time and rank with Richard at Bosworth? Yet 
 Henry VIII. saw them rise again; and fat abbey 
 lands were added to the Bendish fee. Bloody Mary 
 kept them Catholics, and EUzabeth fleeced them for 
 it. Charles found them EpiscopaHans and stoutly 
 on his side. Under Cromwell they lost everything; 
 but the George Bendish of Charles II. was the "wild 
 lord" of their legend, and may well have sown the 
 wind of our young man's whirlwind harvesting. 
 
 Tories under Anne, Jacobites in the '45, it wanted 
 but the Jacobinism of our man (to say nothing of 
 his rhymes) to finish the Hne; but so far as gear 
 went, lands and tenements, flocks and herds, the 
 George Lord Bendish of this chronicle inherited little 
 but debts and tradition. He was not the son, but 
 the great-nephew, of the ninth lord. His father had 
 been the son of an Honourable Richard- William, 
 brother of Adolphus-Charles, the ninth lord, by name 
 and station plain John Bendish, Esquire, a man about 
 town, too much about town, sometimes in • the 
 lock-up, sometimes in the sponging-house; a com- 
 panion of the Prince — the Prince and Poins — who 
 had finally abandoned his wife and child and set- 
 tled down upon a shoal at Calais, where perhaps he 
 soothed the last hours of Mr. Brummell. They had
 
 BENDISH OF BENDISH 35 
 
 much in common. There in due course an influenza 
 aggravated his gout and floated him out of the 
 reach of duns. 
 
 Mrs. Bendish, his widow, after a course of lodgings 
 at watering-places — she was known at Bath, Mat- 
 lock, Tunbridge, and the hke — had set up her rest at 
 Cheltenham, when, in 1822 or thereabouts, she re- 
 ceived, first a letter, then a visit from Mr. Robert 
 Heniker, the senior partner in the firm of Heniker 
 and Breakspear, and father of our Roger Heniker.. 
 He had to tell her that her uncle by marriage, Lord 
 Bendish, was failing (as she knew, he was childless), 
 and that provision was to be made for the education 
 of the heir to title and estates. Her George, who 
 was then a fine boy of thirteen, must be taken from 
 his grammar-school — it was his third or fourth — and 
 replanted, it was thought, at Harrow. There he 
 would mix with gentlemen of his own degree, future 
 law-makers, generals, bishops, and chief-justices, fu- 
 ture peers and gentlemen of the House of Commons, 
 future holders indeed of everything worth having in 
 England. He did not add — for he knew Mrs. Ben- 
 dish at once — that Mr. George would also meet there 
 his own son Roger, already an Harrovian; but there's 
 no earthly harm in saying that when Mr. Heniker 
 decided to send his son to Harrow he also decided 
 that the next Lord Bendish should go there too. He 
 did not mention his son to Mrs. Bendish, but he did 
 mention the young Marquis of Pointsett, who was the 
 Duke of Kendal's son, he did mention the Bendishcs' 
 distant kinsman the Earl of Twyford; he forgat not
 
 36 BENDISH 
 
 Lord Ambleby, he forgat not the Earl of Dare. Of 
 Mrs. Bendish I shall speak with more reticence than 
 her son ever did even if I assert that these names had 
 weight. They had so much that she did not stay to 
 consider what more numerous, more splendid names 
 might not be on the roll of Eton. She fell incon- 
 tinent into the little shallow pit digged for her by 
 Mr. Robert Heniker — and she never found him out, 
 oddly enough. 
 
 To Harrow, then, went young Bendish, and, again 
 oddly enough, became the close friend of Roger 
 Heniker, nominally his servant, but really his patron 
 and benefactor. Roger Heniker did not see it in that 
 light at all; but his father did, gladly, and Bendish 
 himself did. Bendish, who was very intelligent, per- 
 fectly understood that his fagmaster was to be his 
 servant in a few years' time, and this knowledge 
 served as salt to his present porridge. Roger Hen- 
 iker enjoyed the youngster — he liked his passionate 
 enthusiasms, his absurd seriousness, his high spirits 
 and quick-quenching. Himself was good-tempered 
 to a fault, tender-hearted, and tolerant. He had no 
 claim upon the world but to be let alone with its 
 fauna. Man excepted, he was interested in every- 
 thing on legs. He loved his fellow-men, but never 
 studied them or knew anything of them. They were 
 his equals, therefore (probably) like himself — but a 
 squirrel on the nibble, a mole fanning out the black 
 earth, a bird on the bough or aflock over the stubble 
 — here was his paradise of delight. 
 
 He was not observant of men, yet one thing caught
 
 BENDISH OF BENDISH 37 
 
 his fancy, and thereafter never left him. He was at 
 Bill on the first occasion after Bendish's accession of 
 degree. The lad had received the news that morning 
 early j^ and Roger had not seen him at close hand since 
 it had come upon him. Of course there was no sur- 
 prise in the thing — it had been common knowledge 
 from the days of his entry; but between Becoming 
 and Being there is a gap, and it is interesting to see 
 a man cross it. Then came Bill — a rainy, squally 
 afternoon, the boys' faces, flushed beneath their tum- 
 bled hair, making an irregular circle in the yard, 
 crowded there for a moment of tedium before the 
 plunge headlong again into their passionate quests 
 — for all the world, Roger thought, hke a pack of 
 hounds held up by the huntsman's whip, and all 
 their tongues hanging out! 
 
 The caUing began: it was all an old routine, and 
 you got used to hearing one fellow called Lord 
 So-and-so, and another Mr. So-and-so, and another 
 plain So-and-so. Plain Bendish, Hke plain Heniker, 
 it had always been. 
 
 But at last — towards the end — Roger caught his 
 breath. "Lord Bendish" was called, and he saw 
 the quick and curious faces flash as they turned all 
 one way. The name was answered clearly; Roger 
 looked at his young friend. Bendish was as white 
 as a dish-clout except for his eyes. They were as 
 black as your hat. He saw the head sway, and the 
 neck stiffen. Next minute the child was over. It 
 wasn't long — he was round again in a minute; but 
 there was one thing Heniker never, never ventured
 
 38 BENDISH 
 
 to do, and that was to hint that Bendish had fainted 
 on that occasion. Instinct told him that that would 
 have been a mortal affront. I am not aware that 
 anybody ever used that handy little weapon against 
 him. Bendish would hkely have killed him. 
 
 Heniker left Harrow at eighteen and went straight 
 into his father's office under articles. The business 
 of his life was laid before him, to which Harrow had 
 been a prelude. He was put in charge of a nest of 
 japanned boxes, entitled (in white paint) "Bendish 
 Estates," "Bendish v. Rewby and Others," "New- 
 biggin Lands," and the like. In and about these tin 
 tombs he hopped, at first, like a monkey on a long 
 chain, but as the years went over him sobered down 
 to the semblance of that more decent figure, the 
 blinkered donkey who plods round and round the 
 beaten path of a draw-well. Before young Bendish 
 had flung through his year at Oxford, and been given 
 to understand by authority that it could not possibly 
 be repeated, Heniker was the patient, decent man of 
 business his father had been before him — with this 
 difference, that he had been able to save a quiet 
 relish of his patron, to view him apart as a freakish 
 human creature as well as a purse-with-a-hole-in-it, 
 which it was the task of his life to keep brimming 
 with money. 
 
 George, Lord Bendish, at the hour of his majority 
 was a young man who could do everything but see. 
 He could feel intensely, think incisively and sum- 
 marily, act in a flash, and bide his time with extreme
 
 BENDISH OF BENDISH 39 
 
 tenacity; but discernment was denied him. He 
 could not gauge values, he could not tell the real 
 from the appearance. He had a fund of emotion, a 
 fount of passion in him which might have set up 
 another Shakspeare for EngHshmen to worship when 
 he was well dead — he turned them both to melo- 
 drama or gave them out in ten-gallon jars to any 
 painted minx who would take one, or a dozen of 
 them. He valued most of all his possessions his 
 peerage: that was a mark upon him he never lost 
 sight of. He might have been the most distinguished 
 peer in England but for his conviction that it was 
 distinction enough to be a peer at all. Other careers 
 attracted him for a time, and he pursued them with 
 a zest that soon tired: poetry, pohtics, love, phi- 
 losophy, affairs. He found them and their rewards 
 flimsy stuff beside the sohd fact of being a lord among 
 commoners. It is almost incredible that a young 
 man so gifted could be so dull, that a man so sensi- 
 tive to fine things could be so vulgar-minded — but 
 so it was. WTien he became — as he did become — an 
 acknowledged poet he hugged the consciousness that 
 he was first a lord; when he had men behind him 
 who might have stormed and carried Westminster 
 he thrilled to remember that a peer led them. 
 
 One of the simpler results of this flaw in his intelli- 
 gence was that he did not mix much with his own 
 class. He had much acquaintance but little inti- 
 macy with the great families. The Lansdownes, the 
 Devonshires, the Wakes and Carylls, the Tiptofts 
 and Botetorts would have merged his little barony
 
 40 BENDISH 
 
 and smothered his poems in red books. He must 
 have guessed at that by instinct. He never knew 
 them well, and was never quite comfortable in their 
 company. That means to say that he could not be 
 certain of his own superior quahty. He would love 
 their daughters or dazzle their sons — that was easy; 
 but themselves he kept for The Billiad and suchHke. 
 He affected to despise them, but was really over- 
 awed. Their hues outshone his own; their ease 
 made him uneasy. He had an affair of the heart, 
 or head — he had just got over the worst of it when 
 
 we met him at Golder's Green — with Lady O . 
 
 Her ladyship was both fair and frail, and would have 
 followed as far as he would. What froze his passion 
 at the source was the amused witness which Lord 
 
 O himself, a good-tempered, bulky Hbertine of 
 
 admitted prestige in Corinthian circles, bore to his 
 lady's entanglement. Bendish shivered and froze, 
 then fairly fled. Golder's Green revived him — sim- 
 plicity, the love of \drgin for virgin, the whip for 
 Society's shoulders were the results. We may thank 
 
 the s for them — and sincerely, for some of 
 
 them bore good fruits. The Billiad made him fa- 
 mous, and is first-rate fun. 
 
 He was inspired when he did it — and whether in- 
 spired by other men's labours or not doesn't matter: 
 he was inspired both to see and to report. He missed 
 nothing ridiculous, and made much ridiculous which 
 was nothing of the kind. He spread anger and con- 
 sternation abroad, he enjoyed himself hugely, and he 
 risked nothing of his own. He stretched himself out,
 
 BENDISH OF BENDISH 41 
 
 as it were, in the sun, and revelled in the result of 
 his short if fiery labour. So it was to be with him 
 while he lasted: fierce delight in work, fierce enjoy- 
 mentj quick satiety. He flung over the troubled 
 grey skies of England like a meteor or, as some say, 
 a rocket that bunches out with a puff into coloured 
 stars; and what he left behind him — fools to pay for 
 their folly, honest men for their creduhty, Rose Pier- 
 sons ravished, Henikers impotent in misery — he 
 neither knew nor cared to think. He had Hved 
 greatly and enjoyed himself vastly. 
 
 But most of this is to come. At the moment we 
 may consider him happy — not in love with Rose 
 Pierson at all, but very much with the idea of him- 
 self as her stooping lover, her prince in disguise. 
 The Billiad would be out in a few weeks — and then 
 we should see. 
 
 Meantime we have, I hope, seen something.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 EFFLUENTS OF "tHE BILLIAD" 
 
 Gray's Inn is fatally near to Holborn Bars, and 
 you must not expect a young man enamoured, with 
 offices in the one, to forget that on Tuesdays and 
 Fridays, happening by the other, he might see if 
 not be seen by, if not even saluted by, the lady of 
 his heart. Roger Heniker neither forgot it, nor 
 desired to forget it, but a virgin reticence withheld 
 him for at least two weeks; and as all men are of all 
 creatures begotten the most easily imposed upon, 
 that hoary imposition that he who does not work 
 neither shall he eat, found (and kept) him convinced 
 that he must not break routine for all the urgency 
 of his fever. 
 
 He loved; but he was in that first stage of the 
 passion when the great vocation Hes before him Kke 
 a clear, shining, white road into the world seen from 
 a mountain-top. The upHfting was, so far, enough. 
 He could tell over the syllables of her name, glorify 
 his parchments with her magic initials; he could 
 bathe his heart (on Tuesdays and Fridays at one 
 of the clock in the afternoon) with the Ught of her 
 shed about Holborn Bars and wafted, surely, into 
 Field Place where he sat at work. The need to see, 
 
 42
 
 EFFLUENTS OF "THE BILLIAD" 43 
 
 to hold with the eyes upon the eyes, to confess and 
 receive confession; the need to touch — all these things 
 were as yet far from him. The Sacred Image was 
 hidd^ yet in shimmering veils, fold upon fold; the 
 thought that one of them could be drawn was im- 
 piety. 
 
 However — these delicate hesitations gave way like 
 mist before the mountain sun, and within ten days 
 of his visit to Golder's Green he did happen to be 
 passing Holborn Bars when Rose Pierson happened 
 to be hastening up to the coach door. Then there 
 was a startled gaze, a becoming blush, a timid smile 
 to reward his deep salutation. He was absurdly 
 breathless, but after the first moment her self-pos- 
 session was absolute. She thanked him, she did 
 very well. Her aunt was well. Golder's Green was 
 fast losing its leaves; the frost had killed the last of 
 the dahlias only that morning. But the sun had 
 been quite strong when she travelled up to town. 
 The fine weather had set in very shortly after Mr. 
 Heniker's visit. We might usually hope for a fine 
 October — Saint Luke's Summer. Heniker said that 
 the fine weather had set in that very night, and was 
 aghast at his gallantry, but not more than she was. 
 He told Miss Pierson that he had left Myrtle Cot- 
 tage at three in the morning, under stars. Miss Pier- 
 son was interested. Gentlemen, she supposed, had 
 a great deal to say to each other, especially school 
 friends. Heniker did not find that he could talk to 
 her of Bendish — either for fear of surprising admis- 
 sions out of her, or by pure instincts of honour, one
 
 44 BENDISH 
 
 doesn't know. He was absorbed, too, in her pres- 
 ence. She seemed to draw his nature to herself. 
 
 "You are happy in your work? They are learn- 
 ing of you?" She had answered the first question 
 by a shining look. The second she waived. 
 
 "They are dear children. I delight in them. I 
 don't know that they have real talent. Of course, 
 they are very young. But I have a pupil at home 
 who is extraordinary, at least to me, who am very 
 ordinary. I think that I learn of her, rather than 
 teach her." 
 
 Heniker thought that there was no better way 
 of learning, and she agreed. They sketched to- 
 gether, she said, from Nature. The fine weather 
 allowed it. 
 
 The coach was to start, and she left him with a 
 kind look. He was carried all day upon exalted 
 waves of air, being a simple soul. The menace of 
 Bendish was forgotten in the pressure of Bendish's 
 affairs. 
 
 There was Mrs. Bendish to see, and placate, so 
 far as might be. She Hved, chiefly upon grudges, 
 in a dismal old white house smothered in laurels at 
 Ongar in Essex — a heavy-browed, flushed, and fat 
 woman, of the kind that can only be quickened to 
 live at all by a sense of intolerable injury. The 
 fact is that she had been plentifully injured. Her 
 husband had been unfaithful, savage, biting, and 
 ruinous; she had spoilt her son until he despised 
 her; and now he was discarding the only things in
 
 EFFLUENTS OF "THE BELLIAD" 45 
 
 the world which she was capable of valuing. She 
 flamed and gloomed by turns upon the young lawyer, 
 fumed and surged like a black satin volcano from 
 her s^fa. She saw everything that George did as a 
 studied insult to herself. Thus and thus he repaid 
 her privations and incredible pains — by stab after 
 stab. He was hke his wicked father, profligate, 
 spendthrift, a mocking spirit. Was there a female 
 at the back of all this? She was certain there was a 
 female. Would Heniker (she called father and son 
 alike Heniker, putting them in their places) be so 
 good as to relate Lord Bendish's establishment at 
 Golder's Green? Heniker did, omitting Rose Pier- 
 son. .\nd what was this she read in the Morning 
 Post ? Stay — she had it cut out. "It is rumoured 
 that a young gentleman of rank — whisper has it 
 
 L d B sh — is about to surprise his friends and 
 
 acquaintances by a publication of a seasoned order, 
 where the salt of wit is heightened by the pepper 
 of vivacious personal comment. His lordship will 
 spare neither age nor sex, we learn. Even the Mon- 
 arch, who politically hath neither parts nor passions, 
 must take his turn! We tremble." What was the 
 meaning of that? let her ask — what could its meaning 
 be but one more sword in her bosom? If this scan- 
 dalous business were to go on she must die in the 
 ruins of Society. She presumed that her son did 
 not seek the name of murderer. Yet what was left 
 to her but to die — or live to be hissed in the very 
 streets as the mother of a Blasphemer? 
 
 In extenuation Heniker could only put forward his
 
 46 BENDISH 
 
 lordship's high spirits and youth. He did his best 
 for The Billiad, avoiding the confession that he had 
 listened to it, and chuckled. He admitted that it 
 was now binding, owned that it must appear, but 
 suggested that possibly it would fall flat — and in- 
 flamed the dowager. Her smouldering, heavy eyes 
 flashed; she heaved hke the sea. It was hardly 
 likely that the work of Lord Ben dish would fall flat, 
 and hardly became a retainer to suggest it. Did 
 Heniker think that a Lord Bendish was a nobody? 
 By these means he diverted her fury to himself, and 
 presently sHd it deftly out of sight by talking of the 
 Coronation and the Court of Claims. He thought 
 that his lordship would take an interest in that; and 
 if he did, the taking of his seat would follow; and 
 upon that, who knew? It was possible that his lord- 
 ship's interest might Hght upon politics. He was 
 wayward, impulsive, very young, no doubt, but — 
 Here he shrugged. Mrs. Bendish, absurd creature, 
 was all on edge, and now passionately defensive. 
 
 "My son," she said, "will do what becomes him, 
 I can't doubt. We need not discuss his political or 
 social career. We will confine ourselves to the busi- 
 ness of the Estate, if you please." 
 
 Really, Heniker thought, he had guided the old 
 beast pretty neatly. 
 
 And it seemed that he had. Her mood persisted, 
 and not only survived the appearance of The Billiad, 
 but complacently accepted its roaring success. For 
 the dare-devil, precocious, irresistible thing flung 
 itself upon the town, and was in all men's mouths in
 
 EFFLUENTS OF "THE BILLIAD" 47 
 
 a week. Diners capped each other with it across 
 great tables; a Hne of it flew about the House of 
 Commons. Leigh Hunt had two columns of it in 
 The Examiner, and wrote, warmly enthusiastic, to the 
 noble author. The Tories laughed, the Jacobins 
 cheered; the Whigs were glum. But there was no 
 doubt of the wit of the thing, nor of its stinging merit. 
 Mrs. Bendish, declaring that she had always pre- 
 dicted this, and had been waiting for it, was gloomily 
 happy for a week and forgot to be bored. There 
 were the Reviews to come, of course; but Mrs. Ben- 
 dish knew nothing of the Reviews, and would have 
 cared less. And she was quite right. No amount 
 of drenching from Gifford or Lockhart would put out 
 a fire which every breath in London was fanning. 
 Lord Bendish was a hard hitter, young though he 
 were; and a noble youth who could cut at the Duke, 
 and draw blood — for that he did, they said — must 
 be taken gravely by the Reviews. But of all that 
 in its place. A week after publication, in the height 
 of the ferment, Heniker took to the Mill Hill stage 
 — on a Tuesday. 
 
 He saw immediately that Rose Pierson knew all. 
 She was too serious to care to hide it from him. She 
 was too serious to care whether she met Heniker or 
 not. You may say that there is always a something 
 discernible — a flutter, a momentary waver of the 
 blood — when a girl meets an infrequent acquaint- 
 ance who admires her. But there was nothing of 
 the sort; she was preoccupied, very grave. She be- 
 came aware of him and his hat in hand, she bowed,
 
 48 BENDISH 
 
 smiled faintly, and let him take her hand for a 
 moment. She didn't seem at all interested in his 
 traveUing clothes — took his company as a matter of 
 course. Here was the worst of all misfortunes! 
 Heniker fought the sinking of his heart, like a man 
 and a gentleman. He chattered away and ignored 
 her silence. Then he did a bold and very right thing. 
 He gave Bendish his title. "I hope I shall find Lord 
 Bendish at home," he said. "I had no time to write 
 for an appointment." 
 
 The effect was to open the floodgates. A happy 
 move of his. Rose was grateful. 
 
 "Yes, oh, yes," she said. "He is at home — for 
 the present." Then she strained her pretty head 
 away from him; and then turned it sharply his way. 
 Her eyes were large, full of questioning. "You 
 know him — his lordship — well?" 
 
 "I'm his family lawyer," Heniker said, "or my 
 father is. It's hereditary in our family, since my 
 great-grandfather's time. Yes, I know him very well. 
 I was sent to school with him that I might. You 
 may say that I was bred up to know him well. But 
 perhaps I know him better than you might have ex- 
 pected. He took to me at Harrow. There was no 
 reason why he should." 
 
 She looked gently at him and enheartened him to 
 proceed. 
 
 "I suppose he's elated with the success of his poem. 
 It's very clever indeed; it's made an enormous hit. 
 Even we professional people know that. He told 
 you as much, I expect?"
 
 EFFLUENTS OF "THE BILLIAD" 49 
 
 "He gave me a copy of it," she said. *'It was 
 very kind of him." 
 
 "He would naturally give it to you," Heniker ad- 
 mitted. "You admire it?" 
 
 Her reserve was growing again. "I don't under- 
 stand it all, of course. It is about great people I 
 have only read of in the newspapers — or heard of. 
 Lord Bendish has explained some of it. It's very 
 wonderful, I think." 
 
 Heniker laughed. "It will make him famous, or 
 notorious. Everybody ^vill want to see him." 
 
 She was now very serious: he noticed that — not 
 alarmed, not unprepared, but serious. 
 
 " I am sure of that. He will have to take his place 
 in the world." 
 
 Heniker nodded. "I think so. He won't like 
 leaving Golder's Green, but — he must take his seat, 
 you see. There's to be the Coronation next year — 
 he must walk in that. There's a ceremony to be 
 performed by the Lord Bendish of the time. We 
 think he should take his seat first." 
 
 She knew that. "Yes, he has said so." Then she 
 sighed, very lightly, and looked down at her gloved 
 hands. They resumed conversation by and by, but 
 only fitfully; and there was no getting away from 
 Bendish. He filled the poor girl's sky. 
 
 A stroke of good fortune was in store for him, 
 however. His lordship was out, he was told, on 
 horseback. So a horse was now added to the idyll! 
 Heniker immediately asked his companion if he might 
 pay his respects to Mrs. Welbore, and this was al-
 
 50 BENDISH 
 
 lowed. The solemn lady was glad to see him, for she 
 had much to say — upon the invariable subject. She 
 had had her suspicions, she said at once; there had 
 been an air about his lordship, a kind of habit of 
 ascendancy. Not but what he had always been the 
 soul of courtesy to herself and her niece. Perfectly 
 the gentleman from first to last — grateful, ludi- 
 crously grateful for what, after all, was his due as a 
 tenant in the house. But she had not been deceived, 
 though she perfectly appreciated his lordship's 
 reason for retirement. However, that was all over. 
 Some talents could not be hid, some lights burned 
 their bushels. Mr. Heniker must forgive her. She 
 was naturally interested in her distinguished guest. 
 Then followed a string of more or less oblique ques- 
 tions, whose drift poor Heniker could not fail to 
 see. 
 
 He made the best of his lordship and his pros- 
 pects, and opened out wherever he thought it safe 
 to do so. Mrs. Welbore, endlessly stitching, drank 
 deep draughts of wonder. Rose, pale and grave- 
 eyed, said nothing, but pondered her case. In the 
 midst of it all a mighty baying of dogs broke out, 
 then growlings, scufilings, his lordship's voice in wild 
 command, finally piercing yells from the van- 
 quished. Heniker looked up, and Rose flashed to 
 the window. 
 
 Mrs. Welbore explained that Lord Bendish had 
 brought down two wolf-hounds of late, terrific crea- 
 tures. The farmer's dog opposite was the victim. 
 So his lordship was making himself comfortable after
 
 EFFLUENTS OF "THE BILLIAD" 51 
 
 his manner, which demanded that everybody else 
 should be uncomfortable! Heniker rose to take 
 leave. 
 
 Mr^. Welbore beamed upon him. " It has been a 
 great pleasure to us, Mr. Heniker — we are so much 
 interested. It is natural. Lord Bendish will be 
 leaving us, I fear — ^but he speaks very kindly of 
 future meetings. We have very few friends — neigh- 
 bours we have, but hardly friends." 
 
 Heniker hoped that she would count upon him. 
 
 "We shaU, Mr. Heniker," said the lady, "if— 
 there may be an occasion." Here she sighed and 
 glanced at Rose's stiff young back. "Indeed I hope 
 you will visit us again." 
 
 "You may be sure of me," Heniker said warmly, 
 and shook hands. Rose faced him, but not with the 
 eyes. He took her hand, bowed over it, and left 
 her sorrowing. 
 
 Outside the door, upon the stair-head, stood the 
 meditative Mackintosh, twirling a whisker. His 
 lordship had returned and would see Mr. Heniker at 
 his convenience. 
 
 "I'm going to his lordship now," Heniker said; but 
 Mackintosh still twirled and meditated. At last he 
 gave out. Mackintosh knew that we were going 
 to take our place in the great world again. Not that 
 anything had been said, or any orders given. Not a 
 word. But — "His lordship have had Mr, Stultz 
 here. Twice he have been down, fitting his lord- 
 ship." 
 
 That settled it. Mr. Stultz was the fasliiona-
 
 52 BENDISH 
 
 ble tailor — of Cork Street. There lived no greater 
 than he. 
 
 But Bendish kept his counsel. He hailed his 
 friend cheerfully, and received his congratulations 
 as a matter of course. It was far from him to be 
 congratulated except as a matter of poHte conven- 
 tion. You might as well congratulate the Sun upon 
 giving men sunstrokes. Success of the thing had 
 been a matter of course. Dammy, the thing was 
 good. Those rascals knew a good thing. Let 'em 
 praise, so long as they wriggled— and the more they 
 wriggled the louder they would praise. Success of 
 the kind, after all, did not mean very much. It was 
 all very well to whip the rascals, but who was going 
 to drill 'em, who to lead 'em? That was what we 
 wanted: leadership. Look at this Reform absurdity. 
 What were they doing— raving at the Duke! Yes, 
 but the Duke was a good drill-sergeant; there was no 
 better. It's no good railing at a man, wagging your 
 chin at him, shaking your fist at him when the mo- 
 ment he calls out Attention ! in goes the one to your 
 stock, and your other opens out and feels for the 
 seam of your breeches. He had the habit of com- 
 mand, didn't Roger see? and the mob had the habit 
 of obedience. There's an end of it. The fellows 
 wanted a leader of that kind, a man who could 
 handle men. Lord Bendish stiffened his fine small 
 head and stared at Heniker, pausing for a reply. He 
 looked every inch the leader at the moment, and 
 felt it. Heniker observed him keenly. So that was
 
 EFFLUENTS OF "THE BILLIAD" 53 
 
 what he was after! That was the very latest out- 
 crop of The Billiad ! 
 
 The taking of his seat was discussed — by Heniker. 
 Bendjsh hstened as if it was some other man's seat, 
 any other man's, which was in question. Peers 
 would have to be found to introduce him, two barons. 
 Heniker had been wondering whether The Billiad 
 might not make it rather difificult. Had he left any 
 barons unwhipt? And if he had, would the unwhipt 
 feel grateful for their omission, or much more whipt 
 because of it? That's the worst of the personal note 
 in literature. It seemed that Bendish had grimly 
 relished the dilemma. Mrs. Bendish had named 
 Lords Ravage and Ryehouse. Lord Bendish flung 
 up his head. Then there was Lord Newtimber, a dis- 
 tant connexion. Lord Bendish turned on his heel. 
 
 He faced the fire. "I can't help you in these sort 
 of things," he said. "They are not within my range. 
 I don't suppose it matters a curse what fools do fools' 
 work. I should have said — mind you, I know noth- 
 ing about it — that the officials would manage it all. 
 It's only a thing of routine, I imagine." Heniker 
 now pointed out that the Lord Chancellor himself 
 had by no means escaped the whip of The Billiad. 
 Bendish shrugged his shoulder, bored. If he was 
 really interested — and Heniker believed it — he was 
 concealing it very closely. His own notion was that 
 his lordship was rather scared lest he should get no- 
 body to support him, and was throwing up earth- 
 works in haste. But the truth is that Bendish was 
 mortified by his own isolation. He was a peer with
 
 54 BENDISH 
 
 very few peers, and the friendship of what few he 
 had was imperilled by The Billiad. The success of 
 that work would easily have consoled him for their 
 loss; but here was another matter. Here was Hen- 
 iker witness to the nakedness of his estate. A peer 
 casting about for friends — a triumphant poet beg- 
 ging at the door! Bendish was, as we now say, very 
 sick indeed. He had been too caustic by half. 
 
 There was no pressure put upon Roger to stay 
 to dinner to-night. The six o'clock stage was caught.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 LORD BENDISH IN THE UPPER AIR 
 
 Supporters in the House were found by the 
 joint exertions of Mrs. Bendish, who wrote tragic 
 letters of many sheets, of old Mr. Heniker, to whom 
 practice had given a wheedhng slope of the shoulder, 
 hard to be resisted, and by Roger with his square 
 chin and humorous eyes. Lord Ravage refused 
 flatly, calling Bendish a chimney-sweep. "If he 
 smothers himself with soot from my front chimney," 
 said his lordship, "let him wash it off. I'm not in- 
 clined for the work." An official in the Lord Chan- 
 cellor's department admitted that two barons might 
 be found — and named one — but went on to say that 
 friends or poHtical sympathisers were more usual 
 and more acceptable. "Your noble friend, Mr. Hen- 
 iker, holds rather fantastical notions of politics," he 
 then said. "I don't know that many of their lord- 
 ships are prepared to go his length." Roger sup- 
 p«ged that a good many of their lordships neither 
 knew nor cared what lengths Lord Bendish could 
 attain. "Yes, yes," said the gentleman, "but he's 
 been talking about their Httle weaknesses — and un- 
 commonly neatly he's done it. Some of them are 
 rather sore, Mr. Heniker, as I happen to know." 
 
 55
 
 56 BENDISH 
 
 "Lord Bendish is very young, sir," Roger pleaded; 
 but did not help his cause. 
 
 The gentleman said, "I know he is. But they are 
 not so young as they might be, some of 'em. And 
 they don't Uke it." 
 
 However, the thing was done. Lord Ryehouse, a 
 scarlet and incredibly irascible old peer, was one. 
 
 "Bl 1 him, I'll do it for the sake of his rascal of 
 
 a father, who's dead. But I'll cut him dead after- 
 wards for his own sake." So said Lord Ryehouse. 
 As for Lord Newtimber, he was very young and very 
 foolish. He would have done anything for anybody. 
 So there you were. 
 
 These results were communicated to Bendish at 
 Golder's Green, and answered after many days — 
 from Hartford Bridge Hall! Now Hartford Bridge 
 Hall was the Hampshire house of the Earl and 
 
 Countess of , where Bendish had better not 
 
 have been. Alas, for the Rose of Golder's Green — 
 alas, for her honest lover! Heniker's heart bled for 
 her; but business had to be done. The Winchester 
 coach took him down to the great winged house 
 spread out like a pink-and- white fan in a clearing of 
 the woods — with a lake and mirrored swans, with 
 a Temple of Vesta, and a copy of John of Bologna's 
 "Mercury," and deer in a park about it — and ter- 
 races to walk upon when it was dry, and long ranges 
 of white-and-gold chambers within. 
 
 Here his lordship received his lawyer in a room full 
 of guns and whips and back numbers of the Annual 
 Register. Here his lordship was the young man of
 
 LORD BENDISH IN THE UPPER AIR 57 
 
 fashion, with brains added. His dress was hand- 
 some, and yet distinctive. He was the dandy with 
 a difference — the dandy with a poet's negHgence 
 about the shirt-collar, which was open to the breast, 
 with "a suggestion of the statue of Sophocles about 
 the superfine black cloak which hung from his 
 shoulders and could be folded about him with a 
 sweep of the covered arm. 
 
 He was affable, but not to be touched. "Ah, my 
 dear Roger, tliis is good of you! Punctual to the 
 minute. I anticipated it, and took my precautions. 
 You are two hours before my usual time for rising. 
 Here we play late — and deep, confound it. I must 
 ask for suppHes, my dear fellow. Now, what were 
 we to discuss?" 
 
 Roger, taking things as they came, produced his 
 papers and proposals. But Bendish was in pick- 
 some mood. He scoffed at his two noble supporters, 
 procured with such pains; he called Lord Ryehouse 
 an old Pan-in-breeches, and as for my Lord New- 
 timber, averred that a better peer could be made out 
 of the crumb of bread and a couple of currants. Be- 
 sides, his modern patent put him out of the question. 
 He was only the third peer really — indeed, since no- 
 body knew who his father was or was not, was he 
 even so much? "I must get better furniture than 
 that, Roger, if you please," he said finally, his back 
 to the fire. "I'll take Ryehouse for my father's 
 sake — but I refuse Newtimber for my mother's. 
 His mother was a cousin of mine's — but not famous 
 for discretion, or taste. There's no reason for calling
 
 58 BENDISH 
 
 remark upon our parents — it's hardly decent. No, 
 no, out with him." Finally, he thought of a man 
 for himself. There was Lord Bar wise here, in the 
 house, a grandson of that old Lady Morfa, the 
 beaked Dowager of the Midlands, guardian of the 
 fair virgin Hermia Chambre — bitterly old, but ex- 
 tremely famous. Barwise would do. Take Barwise. 
 
 Lord Barwise was found somewhere in the house 
 before Heniker left it, and agreed. He told Bendish 
 that he'd be dehghted, and Bendish, in reporting 
 this to his lawyer, sneered at him for his pains — that 
 he was easily pleased. 
 
 Other matters, the Court of Claims and the like, 
 were put off till after the House of Lords. The writ 
 must issue, of course, the robes and coronet must be 
 provided, the coach be put in order; and Bendish 
 must have plenty of notice. His address was here 
 for the present, but St. James's Street would always 
 find him. Golder's Green was not mentioned. It 
 might never have existed. Plainly the idyll was 
 over, and Rose Pierson thrown into the corner with 
 the other toys, the masks, the Iliad, the passable 
 claret, and Turkish dressing-gown. But she had 
 served to inspire the Scourge of Society, of her had 
 sprung, light and fierce and irresistible, The Billiad. 
 What more could she want? There was nothing for 
 Heniker to do but acquiesce in his patron's motions, 
 and the less flicker he betrayed in his light blue eyes 
 the better for business. He departed, charged with 
 commissions which urgently related to the finding of 
 money.
 
 LORD BENDISH IN THE UPPER AIR 59 
 
 His heart bled for Rose, but he hterally dared not 
 haunt Holborn Bars just yet, and had no time for a 
 call. It was mid-November, wanted a month to 
 Christmas when, happening to pass the coach-office, 
 he suddenly caught at his breath to recognise the 
 Mill Hill stage about to start. His brain spun. It 
 was a Tuesday! The coachman had gathered up his 
 reins and given a final poke with the butt of his whip 
 to his apron of blanket. The guard swung up to his 
 perch and slapped-to the door. Roger's eyes darted 
 into the recesses of the coach. It was empty. Rose 
 came no more to town then! On Friday he went, 
 beatingly but deliberately, to the place. She was 
 not there. A week after that he had a letter from 
 Mrs. Welbore asking the favour of a short interview. 
 He replied that he would wait upon her on a near 
 evening; and on Monday, having hired a horse, rode 
 down to Golder's Green. A store of tender concern, 
 such as he had not guessed himself to possess, went 
 with him. He found himself losing the lover in the 
 friend, vowing that he would by all means bring 
 Bendish back to Rose's arms — cost what it might, 
 feeHng that the cost would be as nothing to the joy 
 of drying her tears. 
 
 Mrs. Welbore did not affect disguise of her con- 
 cern. She did not affect anything at all. She 
 seemed very troubled. Lord Bendish, she said, had 
 paid court to her Rose. They had exchanged vows, 
 locks of hair. From the very first he had been at- 
 tracted to her, and latterly she (Mrs. Welbore) had 
 been prevailed upon — by his lordship's eloquence —
 
 6o BENDISH 
 
 to look at it as a settled thing. It was madness, 
 perhaps, but — "I assure you, Mr. Heniker, his lord- 
 ship sat there, just where you are, and spoke of Rose 
 most affectionately — with tears in his eyes. He said 
 that she had changed his whole being. He implored 
 me to sanction his addresses. He spoke of me also 
 in terms of the greatest deference and respect, far 
 above my deserts. What could I do? " 
 
 Nothing — Heniker knew it well. He asked, where 
 was Miss Rose? Mrs. Welbore said that she was 
 here, going about her duties as usual; but sadly cast 
 down. She knew that Mr. Heniker was coming, but 
 had begged to be excused. Heniker bowed his head 
 to that. 
 
 Then he said, with grave signs of disturbance in 
 his honest face, "I should tell you, ma'am, that I 
 had hoped for your leave to become suitor for your 
 niece. I can't profess to call myself anything more 
 than an honest man, a gentleman, I hope. It is 
 not splendid — but there's a competency, and it 
 may be more. I work hard, and there's plenty 
 work for me to do. I am to be my father's partner. 
 But in your troubles — well, it seemed right to tell 
 you.". 
 
 He did not lift his eyes from the carpet, to see the 
 shining pity in the lady's. She indeed pitied while 
 she shone. A peer had offered himself, and this poor 
 young man had hopes — Welladay! Of this, how- 
 ever, nothing in her reply. 
 
 "Dear, dear me! But nothing to Rose of this, 
 Mr. Heniker. Of course — these are early days.
 
 LORD BENDISH IN THE UPPER AIR 6i 
 
 His lordship's attentions could not have been more 
 pronounced. The devotion of a noble poet! One 
 cannot believe that he — my poor Rose — no, no!" 
 She jvas very much disturbed; but presently be- 
 thought her of immediate duty. "I shall respect 
 your confidence, Mr. Heniker, you may be assured. 
 If it had been God's will — but we must not question 
 His judgments. My wounded Rose!" She found 
 her pocket-handkerchief and applied it. Heniker, 
 in great trouble, asked, should he speak to his lord- 
 ship? Mrs. Welbore gasped. 
 
 "Really — I hardly know. Not as from us, Mr. 
 Heniker — on no account. But I need not say that, 
 I am sure. But if you think — it would be gener- 
 ous — under the circumstances more than generous. 
 The fact is, I must tell you, that we have never had 
 to do with a gentleman of rank — but you will know 
 best. My husband, as a clergyman, had a great ac- 
 quaintance among the rich and powerful. There was 
 Admiral Gibsley, and Sir Richard Vinney — I remem- 
 ber him well, a Knight of the Bath. We were almost 
 intimate in that house. But he was quite an elderly 
 man at the time. Then there used to be Foxhall — 
 Squire Foxhall they called him — whose daughter Ann 
 married Sir Wilkin Blythe. They lived well — very 
 expensively : in fact too well. It couldn't have lasted 
 longer than it did. I used to see what went down 
 into the servants' hall. You would hardly believe it. 
 Whole joints — with just a snick out of them. But 
 Lord Bendish, of course! — One felt that that was a 
 very different matter, and — " She shook her head
 
 62 BENDISH 
 
 and blinked over her needle. "I really don't know 
 what to do for the best. Ah, my poor child!" 
 
 Heniker went his ways, more than troubled how 
 to act. As a lover he was passionate for his Rose's 
 uplifting. What peerage could be tribute enough to 
 her beauty and exquisite simplicity? What sacri- 
 fice enough could he make to her? Would liis own 
 heart suffice, torn out and flung under Bendish's 
 spurning heel? Yes, but if his judgment were to go 
 after his heart, would that serve her? Her sim- 
 plicity in the whirlpool of Bendish! He saw her 
 standing piteous in a thin gown, distraught by the 
 gusty eddies of the town — the town and Bendish in 
 it, a white-faced, mocking King of Revels. Hateful! 
 And he had undertaken to further it! He shook his 
 head, tightened his lips, and swore that he must be 
 false to his heart for her sake. Luckily he was spared 
 his pains. The next day brought him a letter from 
 Mrs. Welbore. Rose had gathered what was afoot, 
 and would have none of it. "She is quite positive," 
 Mrs. Welbore wrote, "that nothing is to be done, 
 not a word said. She tells me that she relies upon 
 you. What more can I say?" Nothing, thank 
 the Lord! His conscience was clear, and he felt a 
 load off him. 
 
 So to the House of Lords, on a raw January noon. 
 There are finer portraits of Lord Bendish than that 
 which Spee, R.A., did of him in his robes — young, 
 bullet-headed, and quick-contemptuous, one white 
 silk leg in advance, the crimson robe cascading about
 
 LORD BENDISH IN THE UPPER AIR 63 
 
 in the background, one hand to hold it back, in the 
 other the balled and tasselled coronet; but it was so 
 that he appeared — a very noble figure of a young 
 maA, if a thought too conscious of his different clay — • 
 to his mother and his friends, on the morning of that 
 day of epiphany. Heniker, obscurely in the throng, 
 admitted his different clay, and grudged him nothing. 
 Literary friends, like bright-eyed Mr. Hunt, like 
 twinkling, twirling Mr. Moore, admitted it with en- 
 thusiasm — honest enthusiasm that case so splendid 
 should hold a dashing poet. The one glowed, the 
 other positively crowed to see. There were dandies 
 there too — Berdmore Wilkes was one, a lean and 
 tanned Corinthian; Sir Camaby Hodges of Leicester- 
 shire, crimson and bulging between his buttons; 
 Mordaunt, the darkly smiling; and Poodle Byng, the 
 
 very fair; but there were no peers. Lord had 
 
 promised, but he had not come. Mrs. Bendish had 
 counted upon Lord Appleby up to the last minute. 
 But The Billiad had been too much for him — he had 
 figured in it with his Keepsake carollings, and at the 
 last minute was d d if he would, and didn't. 
 
 But Bendish was in a conquering mood, and all 
 was well. He went down to the House in his coach, 
 a Jacobin to the core. The Marquis de Mirabeau 
 was the hero of the dreaming mind, a spot of intense 
 light in the flame-coloured field — beside him the 
 Marquis de Lafayette. These two gentlemen were 
 his ghostly supporters, shadowing my Lords Rye- 
 house and Barwise up to the very Woolsack. 
 
 The body of the House was rather empty; but the
 
 64 BENDISH 
 
 galleries were filled with ladies. One waved a hand- 
 kerchief, I understand. 
 
 Society engulfed the new peer, who swam gaily 
 among the painted craft upon the flood. Roger 
 Heniker went about his business hke a man, not for- 
 getting his love, and, it was to appear, not forgotten. 
 She had resumed her lessons in London; he hap- 
 pened upon her upon an afternoon returning to catch 
 the stage, was smiled upon gravely, and allowed to 
 turn back upon her way. She was quiet and pen- 
 sive, but not so reserved. She seemed to have lost 
 some of her maiden prickles in her recent grapple 
 with Hfe. It did not seem impertinence in him to 
 question her, not impossible for her to ask him ques- 
 tions. They parted hke old friends, and he felt 
 absurdly elate. There was no appointment, of 
 course, but certainly an understanding that she was 
 due in town on certain named days. He had re- 
 minded her of Tuesdays and Fridays — whereupon she 
 had told him clearly that now her days were Mondays 
 and Thursdays. He thought himself very bold (he 
 remembered afterwards how bold he had felt) when 
 he had repeated after her, "Ah, Mondays and Thurs- 
 days!" Her eyes had not wavered as she had bowed 
 her confirmation. He beheved that a good sign — 
 not an appointment, of course, but an understanding 
 that he should see her on Monday. And so he did; 
 and on Thursday too. By and by it became almost 
 as of course that they should meet, and sometimes 
 he thought that she looked out for him. If Bendish
 
 LORD BENDISH IN THE UPPER AIR 65 
 
 was swimming in a flood these late winter, early 
 spring days, his family lawyer was oaring the upper 
 air. Not once was his lordship touched upon in 
 their talk, nor poetry either. It was all very simple, 
 no aoubt, made up of little things, dear only to 
 lovers. They were gathering, however, quite a store 
 of trifles about which you can ask. Do you remem- 
 ber — ? There's a deal for a lover in that. It's a 
 step in advance. 
 
 Then he rode down one Sunday and saw the la- 
 dies. He accompanied them to church in the morn- 
 ing, dined, and took Rose for a walk in the sere 
 fields. In a woodland, sheltered from the wind, he 
 stammered out his question and got his answer. 
 
 He made his essay gaUantly, extenuating himself, 
 excusing also his temerity. He gave her to under- 
 stand that he was her servant for life, whether she 
 would or not. Might he hope, at any rate? Rose 
 looked at him presently — gently, with brimming eyes 
 and shaking head. 
 
 "You are very kind. You make me proud — and 
 contented, I think. But I can't." Then she cried 
 and all his fire was turned to cover her retreat. He 
 forgot his hopes entirely before this dreadful fact of 
 her tears and very present trouble. He calmed her, 
 worked himself up to a fine strain of small talk, and 
 brought her home to Myrtle Cottage. There he sat, 
 talking nineteen to the dozen of anything, everything, 
 and nothing at all. He succeeded. She grew calmer, 
 suffered him to take her to evening church, and 
 smiled a friendly and grateful farewell to him at the
 
 66 BENDISH 
 
 parting hour. In fact, the poor girl did her best to 
 thank him. "You have been very, very kind to me. 
 I can't speak about it — " "For God's sake, don't 
 try," he had interposed. She shook her head. "No, 
 no, I can't. Good-bye." "You will be in town 
 to-morrow?" he had asked. She had nodded, still 
 smihng, and stood to see him go. With that he 
 must be content.
 
 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 " OUTRE-TOMBE " 
 
 In April, when lambs frisk and ladies' eyes are 
 bright with promise, Lord Bendish lent himself to 
 amorousness, and was imderstood to be certainly 
 suitor for a very fair person, the flaxen Lady Ann 
 
 H , daughter of the Earl of , who was as 
 
 dumb, and some said as cold, as a piece of sculptor's 
 work, but incredibly handsome and very well off. 
 Rumours of this sounded in the newspapers; and in 
 club windows high-stocked gentlemen assured each 
 other with nudges, winks, and whispers behind the 
 hand. A taint of scandal helped to make the affair 
 compUcated and savoury at once. Matre pulchrd filia 
 pulchrior was quoted: first, I believe, by Mr. Moore, 
 Anacreon Moore, in a whisper which could have been 
 heard across St. James's Street; but very soon all the 
 pack had it, and cried it from Highbury Barn to 
 Peckham Rye. It is probable that some far-borne 
 echo of all this reached Golder's Green, where the 
 good Henikcr diligently served. He himself knew 
 all about it, of course, hoped that the main fact was 
 true, and left the rest to the judgment of Heaven. 
 He watched his beloved like a terrier waiting at a 
 rat-hole, but never tried to get behind her reserve, 
 
 67
 
 68 BENDISH 
 
 which she, for her part, never broke. The name of 
 Bendish was unheard between them. 
 
 But just about that time a matter of business was 
 put into Roger's hands which was important enough 
 to keep Lord Bendish out of his head for a while. 
 He was sent for by the Duke of Devizes, who, in a 
 letter written in his own sprawhng hand, presented 
 his comphments to Mr. Heniker the younger, and 
 desired his attendance at Wake House on Thursday 
 morning at ten of the clock, in the forenoon, "upon 
 a matter of private business, for which his services 
 have been recommended to the Duke by Mr. Tre- 
 menheer, his legal adviser," Now Mr. Tremenheer 
 was a great man in the law, one of the hierarchy, 
 whose offices were in Mayfair, but the limits of his 
 power over all the Inns of Court. To be put forward 
 by Mr. Tremenheer was honour enough for a young 
 man not long admitted; to be put forward into the 
 Duke's notice was a thunderclap of honour. For if 
 Tremenheer was a great lawyer, the Duke was a 
 great man. It would be hard to name a greater in 
 England. He was a man who by his personal force 
 alone had held off Reform, and continued to hold it, 
 though towns flamed and armed hordes besieged 
 Palace Yard. He was much more famous than the 
 King. When you spoke of the Lords, you implied 
 the Duke of Devizes; when you named England to 
 the Councils of Europe you as good as named him. 
 Upon young Heniker and his little particular eddy 
 in the great river of affairs you could not have had a 
 greater effect if you had sent a scarlet rider from
 
 "OUTRE-TOMBE" 69 
 
 Windsor into Field Place. Such a summons as this 
 might have made even Bendish forget his different 
 clay for a minute or two, though he would have died 
 sooner than admit it, even to himself. Old Mr. 
 Heniker, rounding his chin with his soft pink hand 
 or furrowing in his white whiskers, was a study in 
 twinkles and quirks when Roger brought him in the 
 stiff, gilt-edged sheet. Sly pleasure flickered about 
 his face like the Hghtning of summer nights. "Aha, 
 my boy, we are making way in the world ! Now we 
 see what Harrow may be worth to a young man of 
 parts! Now let me tell you that this is — aha! — not 
 wholly unexpected." He was fond of double nega- 
 tives, especially when he was pleased. They seemed 
 to let down his dignity gently into jocularity, as you 
 use rollers to launch a liner. 
 
 "No, no," he went on, leaning at ease over his 
 elbow-chair and looking up to the ceiling, tossing also 
 his foot as you might dance a baby — "the fact is 
 that I and Tremenheer happened to meet, not so 
 long ago, at the Cutlers' Feast. We were vis-a-vis; 
 he is always very fair-spoken to me — Tremenheer — 
 sour-faced old boy, too much the great man, but — 
 no, no, I have nothing to complain of. By and by 
 he asked me about you — spoke of his boy Jack too. 
 I reminded him you had been schoolfellows on the 
 hill. 'To be sure they were,' says he. 'That's how 
 I have your Roger in mind now. Steady fellow, I 
 hear.' I said that there was nothing to quarrel 
 with in that quarter, but I was easy with the old 
 boy, you know, for I hear that Jack Tremenheer's
 
 70 BENDISH 
 
 in the cavalry, and that we don't altogether like the 
 life he's leading. No, no, we are not too happy 
 about Master Jack and his fine friends. Well, then, 
 after one thing and another, he ups and mentions 
 this matter of the Duke's. Says he can't take it up 
 — has no one to send — delicate job, he tells me. I 
 rather fancy, you know, it's not altogether uncon- 
 nected with the Lancelot divorce — sad affair that 
 was — his Grace has never been quite the same man, 
 they tell me. But, you know, his Grace is — well, 
 well! Sunt quos curriculis pulverem Olympicum — 
 hey, you rascal? His Grace was never averse to 
 the ladies, let's admit. To put it no stronger, hey? 
 But, by Heaven, that don't make him Hghter-handed 
 with the men. The reins of State, hey? He's a 
 whip, is the Duke. But now Mr. Lancelot's dead 
 I don't know what may be in the wind. He may be 
 for another installation at Wake House. However, 
 that will be for you to tell me, unless your mouth is 
 sealed, of course." He gazed pleasantly before him 
 and recalled himself with an effort to present affairs. 
 Roger replied to his summons that he would wait 
 upon his Grace at the hour appointed. 
 
 He found the great man, locally remote in his vast 
 house, at the end of a long, thick-piled corridor, 
 behind folding mahogany doors, and then at the 
 farther end of a library of many windows. He was 
 standing to write with a turkey quill, a spruce figure 
 of a frosty, elderly gentleman, spare on his white 
 poll, trim and spare in the white whisker which was
 
 "OUTRE-TOMBE" 71 
 
 brushed forward to his cheek and cut off straight to 
 a point level with the cheek-bone. He wore a dark- 
 blue frock, canary-yellow waistcoat, and nankeen 
 trousers tightly strapped. His face was brick-red 
 and his eyes were cold blue — the blue of a glacier 
 in the sun. His manner was easy, but very dry. 
 He took snuff daintily, and was distressed at a speck 
 remaining on his sleeve. He had a thin-Hpped 
 mouth, like a trap, and seldom looked at you when 
 he talked. K by any chance he did, it was a signal 
 for your instant obedience. 
 
 He nodded pleasantly, glancing up at his visitor, 
 finished his letter and signed it with care. Then he 
 left his desk and went towards the fire, holding out 
 his fine hands to it. The sun was full upon it and 
 made it a garish thing; yet the Duke seemed chilly. 
 
 Presently he turned his back to it and began: 
 "My friend Charles Lancelot died last Christmas 
 and made me his executor. I wish he hadn't, but 
 it's one of those things a man doesn't refuse his 
 friend. Now I don't know whether you know it, 
 but it's necessary for me to tell you' that I was very 
 fond of his wife, and still am. She's ahve and living 
 abroad, in Italy, married to the man she ran away 
 with, a young fellow named Poore — Gervase Poore. 
 My friend Lancelot behaved romantically in the 
 affair. He didn't condone it — though I do, myself 
 — but he accepted it as a beating. More than that, 
 he went home and put a divorce through as decently 
 and quietly as such a thing can be done; and then 
 did his best to renounce her marriage-settlement, and
 
 72 BENDISH 
 
 get her money resettled on her new marriage. How- 
 ever, nothing came of that, because the Poores 
 wouldn't hear of it. The young man's as poor as a 
 rat, but he's got the pride of the devil, and I like 
 him for it. As for her, you mustn't ask me to say 
 much. I'm not a fair judge of her. We'll leave her 
 out as far as we can. . . . Well, now Lancelot dies. 
 He dies with her name on his Hps — it was Uterally 
 the last word he breathed (for I was with him and 
 heard it) — and with her affairs, it's evident, in his 
 head, or heart, whichever you please. He makes me 
 his executor, and leaves all his property, I'll trouble 
 you, to this fellow Poore — not to her, but to Poore — 
 in trust for her and the children of the marriage, if 
 there be any; and there are, you know — and if there 
 ain't as many more as you please it will be a very- 
 odd thing, in my opinion. Well, Mr. Heniker, here's 
 what I want of you. I want you to go out to Ra- 
 pallo, where the Poores live, and get them to take 
 this gift from the grave. They ought to do it. I've 
 said so in writing — but I have my doubts and fears. 
 My friend will walk if they don't; the grass won't 
 grow on him. I think she'd do it, but for him; and 
 I desire you to get hold of her, rather than him. If 
 you succeed in putting her right with the dead man's 
 view of the thing, you may leave her to talk over the 
 hving man. Trust a woman to do that, when once 
 she sees what she ought to do. . . . 
 
 Here the Duke paused, took snuff prodigiously, 
 and then a turn or two up and down the Turkey 
 carpet. Heniker watched him, feeHng sure that
 
 "OUTRE-TOMBE" 73 
 
 there was more to come, and that what was to come 
 was more important. And evidently it was. The 
 Duke returned to the fire, and spoke with studious 
 detachment, which in itseK was significant. " There's 
 another thing you can do while you're at it. You'll 
 use your discretion. There's no valid reason that 
 I can see against her coming back to England. She's 
 a widow as well as a wife; she can make herself 
 doubly a wife if she sets so much store by the Church 
 as all that comes to — and I don't say she's wrong in 
 that, mind you. I'd let a woman go to church \\4th a 
 man once a week, so long as it was the same man, if it 
 helped her to bear with him and his airy ideas." 
 Here the Duke blinked, then cleared his throat, 
 stiffened himself, and said, "Damme, she ought to 
 come home. She don't know how much her friends 
 want to see her again." 
 
 Heniker began to perceive — though he couldn't 
 articulate his vision — that his part was to be more 
 diplomatic than legal. It was probable that, to do 
 his business efficiently, he must urge pity for this 
 very unpitiable great man. Here he was, master of 
 England, sufficient unto himself if ever man was, 
 and asserting sufficiency in every line of his upright 
 body, and in every dry phrase of his upright mind — 
 and yet, even Roger could see, he wanted this lady 
 to complete his well-being. 
 
 Roger, after waiting a moment for the Duke to 
 continue, said, "I'll go, my Lord, as soon as may 
 be. If your Grace will let me see Mr. Lancelot's 
 will, and the marriage-settlement, I shall be obliged."
 
 74 BENDISH 
 
 "You shall have 'em," the Duke said. "As for 
 your starting, take your time. You've plenty. But 
 it's apt to be hot there towards the end of May. I 
 was out there in June, when she — "; but he didn't 
 finish the phrase. He had been remembering it was 
 in June that she had left Lancelot and him alone in 
 a great castle in the woods, had joined Poore, her 
 lover, and fled with him no farther than Rapallo. 
 There the pair of them had awaited the two gentle- 
 men, and there Poore had confronted them and their 
 pistols and routed them without a shot fired. The 
 Duke was not likely to have forgotten that, but never 
 spoke of it except to himself. He had forgotten at 
 this moment that he wasn't alone. 
 
 Heniker hastened to assure his Grace that he 
 should be off long before the end of May. He had 
 one or two Bendish matters to put through. The 
 Coronation claim was one; but that was as good as 
 done. He thought that he should certainly be ready 
 in a month. The Duke nodded once or twice. 
 
 "That's excellent. I'll write to her to-day to an- 
 nounce you, and you shall take letters from me. 
 Now I needn't keep you any longer. Ask for my 
 secretary as you go out, and he'll give you every- 
 thing you want. Good morning." 
 
 He had pulled the bell and was by now answered. 
 "Take this gentleman to Mr. Shorthope," was the 
 order. Two more friendly nods, Roger was out 
 of the room, and himself again at his standing desk. 
 
 A few days after this interview, perhaps a week,
 
 "OUTRE-TOMBE" 75 
 
 it so happened that the name of Poore cropped up 
 at a dinner-party given by Lord Bendish, at which 
 Roger was present w4th some hterary celebrities. 
 Mr. IJunt and Mr. Moore were capping verses across 
 the table — Bendish sitting glum to his port, as he 
 was apt to do when the verses were not his verses. 
 Hunt had cried up to the skies the graphic power of 
 his poor friend Keats in the line — 
 
 So the two brothers and their murdered man, 
 
 used of a man whose doom was fixed, but the stroke 
 not yet fallen. 
 
 Moore had chirrupped agreement. "I can't beat 
 it, Mr. Hunt — it would puzzle even our noble friend 
 here to beat it. But that word murdered, let me 
 tell you, drips with horror, wets you with the clammy 
 stuff of its own force. Now do you remember the 
 pome of me friend Poore — poor Gervase Poore, the 
 impetuous lover — ? 'Tis a classical piece where he's 
 talking of the red Gods of the time before Olympus 
 was made golden by Vulcan, and he recalls 'em and 
 their tragedy in a line — 
 
 Kronos, and Ge, and murdered Ouranos. 
 
 'Tis a proof of what I'm saying. How now, Ben- 
 dish?" He turned to his moody host, who gloomed 
 upon him, and presently said, "I've read Poore. 
 If he knew more he'd write less. But he's not a 
 dunce."
 
 76 BENDISH 
 
 Hunt subscribed to that. "Not he, my lord. 
 He's a white heat, who turns his learning into ash 
 the minute he has it, and roars for more." 
 
 Bendish hfted his eyebrows: "A volcanic bard!" 
 
 ''An apostle!" cried Hunt. "He will lift and 
 carry the fiery cross." Bendish frowned. He had 
 his own ideas at this moment about fiery crosses; and 
 one couldn't have two apostles at the same time in 
 England. The country's too small for it. So he 
 frowned, and then showed himself supercilious. 
 
 "Whither, my good Hunt?" Mr. Moore, always 
 tactful, cut in on a slant. 
 
 "He made me poor friend Lancelot blench before 
 it — his white heat — not so long ago," he said. "Did 
 your lordship ever meet the Lancelots? Hardly. 
 They were in the enemy's camp. Wake House was 
 their citadel." Bendish tossed his fine head. He 
 considered the Duke as his only serious rival for the 
 headship of Britain. But Moore ran on. "She was 
 a lovely woman, upon my soul. Like a wisp of rosy 
 cloud, a scarf upon the blue. But the ether shows 
 no such blue over Britain as her fine pair of eyes. 
 Now the Duke, saving your lordship's presence (who 
 like him not), was her first conquest, but Gervase 
 was her second, and 'twas he that led captivity cap- 
 tive. Begad, he got her, and has her yet. 'Tis a 
 strenuous poet." 
 
 Heniker, happening to catch the eye of the speaker, 
 allowed himself to ask, What part the husband had 
 played in this affair? Mr. Moore flacked his fingers 
 at the dead Lancelot.
 
 ''OUTRE-TOMBE" 77 
 
 "A shadowy third, me dear sir, a skeleton at the 
 feast. He grew unsubstantial under me very eyes, 
 from the very first a shawl-bearer, the poor man, he 
 hovered in the background. He looked always in the 
 glass of his mind and saw himself there the suffering 
 gentleman. That pleased him so much that I doubt 
 he forgot his sufferings in satisfied contemplation. 
 He had no chance with the Duke — nor, if you'll be- 
 lieve me, gentlemen, the Duke with Gervase. Ger- 
 vase was, let me say, the most male of the three. 
 Nature favours the male, being herself of the other 
 sex, we believe. Now they tell me that Lancelot 
 when he died left her a little plum, and so the way's 
 clear for her to come home. There's one great man 
 not a mile from Wake House will be glad to see 
 her. But will she come? WTiat will Gervase say 
 to ut? If he will, well and good! Then she comes, 
 you may be sure. Nature, me dear sir, favours 
 the male." 
 
 "And you also, Tom Moore," said Mr. Hunt, 
 beaming upon him. "All my feelings are with the 
 lady, whom I am incHned to pity. A man may be 
 too much of a male — and a poet should not be." 
 
 "You may spare your pity, me good Hunt," Moore 
 said warmly. "Me friends the Poores are, I believe, 
 as snug as fish in the sea. And how would you have 
 a poet hermaphrodite? A sonnet to her eyebrow's 
 well enough, or an epithalamy at the door. But 
 there's a wilder music for a married pair. And me 
 friend's the boy for the chune — or I mistake him." 
 
 Bendish was listening closely, though all his effort
 
 78 BENDISH 
 
 was to seem uninterested. '*You believe in him, 
 Tom?" Moore's black eyes stared. 
 
 "Believe in him!" he cried. "Why, I love him!" 
 He deHghted his friend Hunt. 
 
 "Tom, you are priceless. I never heard a worse 
 reason for beheving in a man, nor, by Heaven, a 
 better. It's the case with me too." 
 
 "We'll toast him and his fair lady together." He 
 lifted his glass. " To the Poet and Nausithoe ! " It 
 was drunk, but Bendish just touched the rim of his 
 glass and put it down. There was a good deal for 
 him to consider in all this. A Poet — a pretty woman 
 — and himself. Here he was, you see, with his foot 
 on the ladder, about to start upwards — and to be 
 told that he might expect to find a white-hot Poet 
 upon an upper rung, with a pretty woman under his 
 arm whom he had taken away from husband and 
 lover — that lover the Duke! All this was as serious 
 as you please. 
 
 Hunt began upon politics after this, speculating 
 how long the Duke would hold out, or the country 
 endure the spectacle of miUions of men held back 
 by one hand in a white buckskin glove. In its way 
 it was a fine spectacle, he said. Bonaparte had 
 dragooned a nation, led it headlong to victory, 
 drawn it orderly out of defeat — but he had worked 
 with the apparatus of kingship. Eagles had rocked 
 and tossed before his men's eyes, songs had inflamed 
 their hearts; purple and ermine, the Pope and the 
 Sacrament had lent their magic. But the Duke 
 stood up in a blue surtout, a cool elderly country
 
 "OUTRE-TOMBE" 79 
 
 gentleman — and marching myriads stood still. A 
 fine sight; but if there was blood left in England it 
 should boil to behold it. 
 
 Mcfore said, "Gervase's would boil were he here." 
 Then Lord Bendish rose up. 
 
 "The poet is a poor hand with the sword " 
 
 "There was Sophocles," INIr. Hunt observed, and 
 annoyed his host. 
 
 "We don't know, I fancy, very much about the 
 sword-play of Sophocles. A man must be bom to 
 lead. Mirabeau had the habit of command; La- 
 fayette had it." 
 
 "De\'izes has it," said Heniker, and Bendish 
 looked hard at him. 
 
 "We'll find him a Mirabeau one of these days, 
 my dear fello'w," he said. "Shall we go upstairs?" 
 They did, but found their host take a fit of silence 
 and gloom, which not even Tom Moore could break 
 through. Bendish was considering what steps were 
 necessary in order to wipe the Duke of Devizes out 
 of his poHtical path — and Gervase Poore out of his 
 poetical. He felt that he could not call his soul his 
 own until something decisive had been done in the 
 business.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE MANTLE OF MIRABEAU 
 
 Ardour and Ambition were partners in the mind 
 of young Lord Bendish, and worked well for him in 
 the main; but there was this queer defect in the 
 picture which they made for him, that they showed 
 him to himself passive, not active; receiving homage, 
 not compelling it. They overleaped themselves; 
 they took his merits for granted, and showed him 
 England, or Europe, acknowledging them with ac- 
 claim. In all the moving scenes, then, which he 
 called up at whim or upon some chance suggestioa 
 from outside, one was always omitted — that which 
 showed him procuring the triumphs of the rest. He 
 saw himself reading his poem, being hailed as chief 
 of poets, crowned with laurels and the rest — but not 
 writing the glorious work. He was drinking adora- 
 tion from a woman's eyes, but not compelling it 
 there. He was chosen leader of hosts, but not a 
 candidate. The peers sat spellbound when he re- 
 sumed his seat, or the thunder of acknowledgment 
 brake about him like a storm after a moment of 
 solemn hush; but he never heard the speech which 
 induced such ovation, nor felt himself make it. 
 That he took for granted. You see, his was a san- 
 
 80
 
 THE MANTLE OF MIRABEAU 8i 
 
 guine temperament. It raced to the mark, and once 
 there, saw itself the winner with perfect clearness. 
 
 When he had first projected the audacious Billiad, 
 he hq,d seen exactly how he would bear himself in 
 the rfioment of success, how calmly he would face 
 the irritation of men, how generously the open-eyed 
 approbation of women. All the clue he had had to 
 the detail of his hardy satire had been picked up 
 from the faces of the scourged, and from his own be- 
 holding them — but these had been as clear before 
 him as the face of day. He had argued cause from 
 effect. So he had gone to work, and on the whole 
 had succeeded in pleasing himself. His reception 
 had been happy — it tallied with the dream. 
 
 This sort of thing a man may do a dozen times, 
 if he happen to be right in his reading of the effect. 
 This wiU depend upon whether he knows the world 
 with which he works. Now smarting men and tribu- 
 tary women were familiar denizens of Bendish's 
 world; but he had no experience of men indifferent. 
 When, therefore, he began to meditate his maiden 
 speech in the House of Lords he worked by his usual 
 methods in a world unfamiliar. The result was a 
 cold bath. 
 
 He saw in his golden forecast the House cool and 
 undemonstrative, but keenly interested. He saw 
 himself sit down in the midst of a low murmur of 
 sound; he was surprised (in his day-dream) at his 
 own lack of emotion. He knew himself a cool hand 
 — but had thought that this might stir him. He no- 
 ticed how careful he was to keep his eyes away from
 
 82 BENDISH 
 
 galleries — to ignore the galleries altogether — where 
 plumed heads bent to each other, and white shoulders 
 shifted, and handkerchiefs fluttered, but in vain. 
 He saw the Duke of Devizes take snuff and rise to 
 answer him; he heard him rasp, guessed him put out. 
 He heard the warm commendations of Lord Grey, 
 and acknowledged them afterwards in the lobby w^th 
 just that mixture of self-respect and courtesy which 
 the honour demanded even of himself. From these 
 glowing visions he harked back to the speech he 
 intended to make — the speech of the author of The 
 Billiad to the victims of it, whose grudging admira- 
 tion he was destined to compel. He worked at it 
 with ardour, and took great pains, denying himself 
 to the world for a week or two. Nobody of impor- 
 tance was in his secret; when Bendish was deliberate, 
 he was very close. 
 
 But he confided in Heniker, who was of no impor- 
 tance, partly for that reason and partly because he 
 really had an affection for him. Heniker, calling 
 with leases to sign, found him immersed in books. 
 Bendish got up to receive him and pushed them away 
 from him with impatience. 
 
 " Pouf ! My good fellow, you come apropos. I've 
 been stuffing myself with wind. Please to blow some 
 of it out of me." 
 
 "What's all this?" Roger asked, handling a vol- 
 ume. "Demosthenes? Are you moulding your 
 taste?" 
 
 "Cleansing my palate, I hope," said Bendish. 
 "That old boy has an astringent quaHty. He'll do
 
 THE MANTLE OF MIRABEAU 83 
 
 me good. You know, Roger, I sicken of the world 
 very soon. It doesn't suit me." 
 
 "Well," Roger said, "you don't stint yourself." 
 "No, no — of course you're right, and of course I 
 overstep the bounds. But it amuses me — I can't 
 afford ennui. That maddens. But one is aware, 
 at one's wildest, just how much applause is worth. 
 One can always get back. I give you my word, I've 
 not dined out of these rooms for ten days. Nor have 
 I had a man in since you were here with our two 
 poets-about-to\\ai. By the by, what did you think 
 about the poet Poore? Did it strike you that they 
 pitched him rather high? I've been turning him 
 
 over since." 
 
 "I don't read poetry," Roger admitted. "But he 
 seems to have had a way wdth him." Bendish was 
 thoughtful. 
 
 "You mean that he faced old Devizes? Yes, he 
 did — in the boudoh:. But what could the fellow do 
 in the open? There's notliing here, you know, to 
 tell one." He rapped a thin green volume, picked 
 it up and let it drop again without looking at it. 
 "Liberty and Equahty are very fine things. You 
 may write of them or abstract a man's mistress in 
 their name. But can you lead men towards them? 
 Can you reprove the world of sin, righteousness, and 
 judgment by means of them? Ah, my good fellow, 
 the test is there. You must deal pubhcly with public 
 things." Once more he picked up the green book 
 and shook it in the air. "Do you think there's the 
 sijm of a tribune in NausUhoe and Other Poems ?
 
 84 BENDISH 
 
 There's neither Cleon nor Themistocles. I had his 
 Roland sent me — I picked that over, too. Oh, 
 Poore had force, I grant you. But — " He shrugged 
 Poore away. "The times want a leader." He 
 straightened himself and looked at his friend. "The 
 times must be obliged." 
 
 He went on after a short silence. " How does Lord 
 Grey strike you? You are a reformer, of course, and 
 so is he. But does he inspire you? Burdett too, and 
 his mob. He's at the head of them, I grant you. 
 But so's the pig you drive to market. Clanranald 
 might have done more. All his fire seems to have 
 gone out since he became a peer. Whom else have 
 
 we? Cobbett — pooh, the man's a boor. S ? 
 
 D ? old N ? Oh, my dear fellow, we can't 
 
 get on at this rate. ... I thought that one might 
 whip a spirit into 'em, — but it seems the brine is not 
 made which will sting their hides. Another way of 
 blowing up a house is from within. Well, we shall 
 
 o\^\^» • • • 
 
 Heniker gathered from all this, and a good deal 
 more, what was in the wind. It was no business of 
 his, however, and he thought little about it, little 
 knowing what the upshot was to be, or how it would 
 touch his private affairs. 
 
 There was a motion before their lordships' house 
 
 fixed for a certain day, a motion of Lord S 's to 
 
 "inquire into the State of the Nation," which that 
 amiable enthusiast produced every year, and had 
 solemnly debated and rejected. It was always
 
 THE MANTLE OF MIRABEAU 85 
 
 treated with the utmost parade of seriousness by 
 both sides of the House, and meant precisely noth- 
 ing at all. Into this sea of pretence Lord Bendish, 
 desperately in earnest, plunged with a resounding 
 smack; among its canvas waves he wallowed; and 
 finally he emerged as dry as he went in, tumbled and 
 somewhat dirty. It should have been a sobering 
 experience for him, but he was bitterly mortified. 
 The fact was that nobody took any notice; his fiery 
 periods, which had been fierier if they had been less 
 rhetorical, worked, with all the rest, into the dreary 
 decorum of the afternoon. The Duke was in his 
 place, reading and writing notes; Lord Grey chatted 
 with a noble friend behind him, sprawling over the 
 back of his bench. When the time came each of 
 these great men rose in his place and murmured a 
 few pohte and perfunctory phrases. The noble Earl 
 did, it is true, refer to Bendish, as "the noble lord, 
 new to your lordships' house, whose eloquence and 
 erudition, joined as these are to enthusiasm for the 
 liberty and enhancement of mankind, cannot have 
 failed to impress your lordships with his sincerity' ' ; 
 but the Duke said nothing about Bendish at all. His 
 point — his only point — was that the State of the 
 Nation was as good as could be expected under pres- 
 ent circumstances, and would be very much better 
 if amiable philosophers would leave it alone. The 
 Nation, it was his opinion, desired mainly to mind its 
 business, which was buying and selling. It was, he 
 suggested to their lordships, a case of too many 
 doctors. The patient was expected to put his tongue
 
 86 BENDISH 
 
 out twice an hour, when once a year would be better. 
 He was aware that the noble Earl who had moved 
 the House only called himself in precisely once a 
 year; but there were other and more diligent prac- 
 titioners than he. For this reason, if for no better, 
 he should vote as usual, against the motion. 
 
 One or two other noble lords spoke, but languidly, 
 and the debate guttered out like a spent candle. 
 Nothing at all about rick-burnings, machine-smash- 
 ings, and such bubblings of muddy pools. Not even 
 Bendish, new as he was to oratory, had ventured to 
 hint at the starving plough-hands. He had confined 
 himself to reform, and had been deliberately aca- 
 demic upon that topic. He had had an inward 
 prompting to let himself go — to be bitter, to be 
 caustic, to open his cloak for a moment and let their 
 lordships see the gleaming of the fiery cross. But 
 his heart had failed him. Really — to these yawning, 
 blinking, stale men-about-town ! No — this was a 
 case for Demosthenes, not Cleon. And so he went 
 on, and had his cold bath. The animated presence 
 of ladies in the gallery aggravated the impassivity of 
 
 their lordships. Lord S told him afterwards that 
 
 he was over their heads. "They don't like a man 
 to talk about Amurath and Solyman and the Tyrants 
 of Syracuse. They like to be fairly sure beforehand 
 what you're going to say. Look at me, you know. 
 They know me by heart, and are always glad to see 
 me. Within reason I say just what I like. And so 
 can you; but pray don't think that you'll draw them 
 by strong language. They'll sit as mum as fishes,
 
 THE MANTLE OF MIRABEAU 87 
 
 and draw you. I don't think the Duke ever answers 
 anybody but Grey. It's not worth his while, you 
 understand. He's a busy man, and I'm very idle. 
 But I hope I keep the cause moving — I hope I do." 
 Bendish left the House without further ado, and kept 
 to his own for some days. Failure infuriated him, 
 and he felt that he had failed badly. 
 
 He was very acute, and quite candid with him- 
 self. He had failed because he had tried for too 
 high a mark. He had tried to hft with him a dead 
 weight. He turned cold to think that he had very 
 nearly made a fool of himself by taking seriously 
 what was the merest routine. His face — he was 
 alone at the time — was white and wild, his eyes 
 were round and tragic as he realised the narrow 
 escape he had had. Then, as was always the case 
 with him, his fancy began to torment him into a 
 fury, first with himself, next with the men who had 
 put him in this phght. He disdained his order, 
 he was shocked at their cynicism, he vowed the 
 destruction of such a monstrous display of sneering 
 privilege. For the first time in his Hfe, it is prob- 
 able, he felt with the sweating and dragooned mil- 
 lions whom he had just professed himself in Cice- 
 ronian periods ready to lead. 
 
 He raged, mute and white. He knew himself 
 able, exorbitant in his claim upon fate and his gen- 
 eration and the generation after it. Yet he knew 
 also that no tribute of earthly powers could possibly 
 satisfy him. If the King and Princes of the Blood, 
 with the ministers and two archbishops, were to
 
 88 BENDISH 
 
 kneel in St. James's Street and fall upon their faces 
 when he appeared, he would spurn them and go 
 his way, looking for more absolute honour. But 
 even these poor silly things had not occurred. Far 
 from it, he reflected with a shiver that he had been 
 stripped — since in a case like his to withhold was 
 to take away — and it might well be that he would 
 soon be beating the bushes of the world looking for 
 a hospitable — he meant flattering — pair of eyes. 
 
 Flattery enough he could have had, from women, 
 but in such an hour as this he abhorred their shal- 
 low enthusiasm. They looked at you, these pretty, 
 plumed, bare-necked women, with eyes set wide for 
 any chance newcomer more worship-worthy than 
 yourself. They focussed about you, not upon you. 
 Now the tribute of a woman, to be worth anything, 
 must be without stint. If you are not the centre 
 of her world you were better nothing at all. Ben- 
 dish would have none of them. He had made a 
 bid for absolute power and it had been refused him. 
 Good. He would bide his time, which no doubt 
 would come, in its time. 
 
 He kept to his rooms, denied the door to every 
 comer, opened no letters, wrote none, and lived 
 chiefly upon soda water, tobacco, and the works of 
 Voltaire. For a week he was comforted, and then 
 nature had its way with the young man. A vision, 
 an apprehension rather, for touch seemed to mingle 
 with sight to make it palpable, stole upon him in 
 the pauses of the night, and thereafter grew in in- 
 tensity till he gave way to it. The vision was of a
 
 THE MANTLE OF MIRABEAU 89 
 
 tall, swaying and glowing girl whose ardour was 
 fanned by his own into a dehcately leaping fire. 
 Again he dreamed achievement rather than prom- 
 ise. He saw her veiled eyes, he saw her averted 
 head.'' Sweet distress to be so desired made her 
 humble. His arms were about her, soon her lips 
 were his. She cast herself with a sob upon his 
 breast, she confessed him king and lord. By heaven, 
 but such a tribute from a virgin heart was worth all 
 the acclamation of the world. And it was his to 
 pick up by mere stooping for it. 
 
 He rang the bell and was answered by discreet 
 Mackintosh. He ordered a horse to be round im- 
 mediately, a gfoom in attendance. In half an hour 
 he was pounding the North Road in the gathering 
 dusk of a spring day. In an hour and a half he had 
 Rose Pierson in his arms, sobbing upon his breast.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 DISTRACTION OFFERS 
 
 Bendish could be a great lover — for he was at 
 once ardent and imaginative; his natural fire kin- 
 dled his fancy, and his fancy could play with his 
 fire so long as he saw himself stooping splendidly. 
 His books of reference were the lady's looks, and 
 most of the work must be hers. The woman to 
 keep him would have to be perpetually on all fours, 
 perpetually needing benefit and perpetually adoring 
 him for bestowing it. If you can find a woman so 
 quadrupedahan as that all may be well. But if you 
 have to put her there before you can make your 
 splendid beneficent stoop, you must be careful lest 
 the mechanism of the thing become obvious even 
 to yourself. And you may happen to strike upon 
 a lady who doesn't care to be repeatedly plumped 
 into the mire in order to be raised splendidly to 
 your level. A natural groveller is your only real 
 chance of happiness — and there aren't too many of 
 them. 
 
 Rose Pierson was a proud girl by nature, but 
 by circumstance had been forced to keep her pride 
 in her pocket. She was also an intelligent girl who 
 knew her betters when she saw them. Long before 
 
 90
 
 DISTRACTION OFFERS 9 1 
 
 Bendish had declared himself a lord she had been 
 aware of his lordliness, and it hadn't needed the 
 tinge of urbane condescension upon his deaHngs with 
 her to make her feel the lift to her feet. She had 
 very likely been flattered into love. Bendish had 
 talked to her very unaffectedly in the beginning 
 of their acquaintance, for his temperament, I say 
 again, was ardent and his tastes naturally good. 
 He had talked poetry, he had read it to her — and 
 not only his own by any means. He had read her 
 Petrarch, and guided her timid tongue over the 
 sugary stuff; he had read her Tasso, the Pastor 
 Fido; Shakespeare, Milton, The Faerie Queen, and 
 the "Hymn to Beauty." Then there had been his 
 own things — "To Rose, with a book," "To Rose, 
 with a rose" and so on: very pretty indeed. All 
 this reading and hnagining had very simply led to 
 love-making. It is a short step from talking love 
 to acting it. Rose was flattered, and then moved; 
 once moved, she was immovable. She had a con- 
 stant mind, and now her pride, being enlarged, took 
 possession of it. Constancy became a standing 
 order and a point of honour too. WTiatever her 
 noble lover might do with her, there was one thing, 
 she vowed, he should never do, and that was kill 
 her love. He had told her of the state of his heart 
 before he revealed his rank. She was not at all 
 blinded by the new glory, because she was prepared 
 for it. That dismayed him a little; that cooled 
 him. He had, I think, expected her to souse down 
 again on all fours into the mud; but she had sim-
 
 92 BENDISH 
 
 ply bowed her head and then Hfted it again, that 
 she might show him faith and honour in her eyes. 
 "If you were the King," she had said, "I couldn't 
 love you any more." He had clasped her to his 
 heart; but he had not picked her up, because she 
 wasn't down. 
 
 When he left Myrtle Cottage for the mansions 
 of Mayfair (with The Billiad on every boudoir 
 table, and a castigated husband pacing every other 
 library carpet), she had gone tearless about her 
 humdrum business and kept her head very high. 
 He never wrote to her, and she couldn't write to 
 him, or thought that she couldn't. As time went 
 on she suffered; and then came Heniker's kindness 
 and broke down her defences. But she never 
 wavered, or lowered the flag; and when at last he 
 came back to her she was able to offer herseff to 
 him breast to breast, as the equal which he had 
 made her. "Oh, my lover, my lover, I knew that 
 you would come," she had said in his ear, cHnging 
 to him, her face hidden. By no means on all-fours, 
 you see. Far from it, she was high in the air. He 
 had justified her proud beHefs, and she credited 
 him with a share of her own glory. She made much 
 of him; her eyes and Hps and thrilling tones be- 
 trayed how much; and the more she made of him 
 on these terms the less he liked it. 
 
 Not thus does a hound at fault pick up the scent. 
 This is the way to chop foxes. Bendish had been 
 moved to return to Rose by two instincts: there 
 was the instinct of disgust at a stale old planet jog-
 
 DISTRACTION OFFERS 93 
 
 trotting round its everlasting sun, attended by its 
 everlasting satellites. This figure may stand for 
 the House of Lords, perhaps, parading about the 
 kingdom, with its futile Greys and Devizes trailing 
 after it. Round and round they go, so chained to 
 the blessed routine that they never heed the dash- 
 ing meteor out of space that comes rocketing into 
 them. Not at all; a shake of the head, a wag of 
 the blinkers, and on they go. Let us slant off in 
 a hurry to that Island of the Blest, Cythera, and 
 forget this hideous mill of a world. That was one 
 instinct — the revolt of stinging blood against pack- 
 horseism. The other was the imperious need he 
 felt to restore himself to himself, to recognise his 
 power again, to reshape his ambitions, to get in 
 touch once more with magnanimity. He must get 
 back to mew and sit there awhile, his burning eyes 
 fixed upon the sun and the far blue realms of his 
 dominion. And where so fit a perch for him as the 
 humble heart of Rose? 
 
 All very well — but Rose was no longer humble, 
 but proud with the pride he had taught her, and 
 received him (very nearly) as an equal. He had 
 been almost ludicrously dismayed. The romantic 
 rapture of his galloping return, of their meeting 
 in the scented dusk, of her warm-breathed beauty, 
 her chnging and her glad tears, lasted him just 
 long enough to uphold the proper note. They 
 burned together for an hour or so, and then she 
 bade him go from her. "Come back to me when 
 you will," she said. "You will find me here. But
 
 94 BENDISH 
 
 you must ask for Aunt Welbore, not for me. I 
 shall tell her that you have been here, of course." 
 
 Pack-horseism in Cythera! He couldn't have 
 that, but clasped her to his heart. "Love knows 
 nothing of aunts and uncles, my beloved. Love 
 sees the world as a flowery glade — with two persons 
 in it, the Lover and the Loved." 
 
 She smiled at him, gentle as a mother might be 
 gentle, pitying her child. "I know how these forms 
 must irk you," she said, "but, dearest, they keep 
 me from the cold. Oh!" and she clung to him, 
 "I shall wait upon your leisure. I know that you 
 have your part in great affairs — I know that my 
 lord is a lord of the world." He Uked that. Then 
 she told him that she had read of his speech in the 
 House; and that he didn't like at all, knowing well 
 that he had hit the wrong note, and hit it too hard. 
 He fumed inwardly, and needed no urging to be 
 gone. As he rode home through the dark he told 
 himself that that pretty bubble was pricked and 
 frittered into air. He tried to be cynical about it; 
 but he was too young to find that any comfort. 
 He felt lonely. 
 
 He was now alarmed about himself. All his sup- 
 ports seemed cut away. Poetry, PoHtics, Love — 
 Women, mind, ambition — all gone! The world was 
 but a conglomerate of bubbles; you prick one and 
 the whole filmy mass vanishes. He must travel — 
 he must see peoples and lands. He would go East, 
 where you get Passion and Reality, where you see 
 Passions as men walking, without a stitch to cover
 
 DISTRACTION OFFERS 95 
 
 them — naked and fierce as they were born. Among 
 them he would stalk, as a man among men, with 
 them wrestle for a throw; triumphing there, he 
 would pick up his chosen bride and lift her to his 
 saddle-bow. Then away with her into the hills, 
 into the silence and soHtude of nature, where only 
 the soaring eagle is co-tenant, and wed her there 
 in some rock-bound glade within sound of the thun- 
 der of the cataract. Et Venus in silvis. . . . ! Ele- 
 mental hfe for the man who feels the elements heave 
 wdthin him for utterance, like the fiery gas in the 
 womb of the volcano. Here he became himself 
 again, youth being quick to the rebound. Bendish 
 past the remnant of the night in a fever of unrest, 
 and so was found at ten o'clock in the morning by 
 his henchman Heniker, come to report the progress 
 of the Coronation claim. 
 
 Coronation claims — with eagles above the sol- 
 itudes! 
 
 Bendish, bright-eyed and pale, scoffed at him, 
 "But, my good Roger, all this is damned fool- 
 ishness. 'The Lord Bendish claims to walk as a 
 peer among his peers. . . . !' Great God, man, let 
 me tell you once for all that George Bendish claims 
 to walk as a man among free men. That claim, 
 it seems, is to be questioned! That's a thing no 
 man in England must claim. Oh, have done with 
 such dreary quackery ! You make me ashamed that 
 I stand upright on two legs — with two legs beneath 
 me and the well-worn stump of a tail. Who bit 
 that off for me? The doctor? the midwife? Pooh,
 
 96 BENDISH 
 
 sir, I come of a fighting stock. The thing went — 
 rubbed away — before we had our backs to the wall 
 and held our own against kings and robber-barons. 
 A peer among his peers. . . . ! My good Roger, I 
 tell you flatly I don't know what you're talking 
 about." The probabiUties are that, at the moment, 
 he really didn't. 
 
 The patient Heniker grinned, but said nothing. 
 Bendish paced the room with rapid strides, leaping 
 from cabbage to cabbage upon the carpet as if he 
 were crossing a torrent upon the scattered rocks 
 in its bed. "I tell you that I sicken of this fenced 
 island — this kitchen-garden within sea-walls. Roger, 
 I'm for the open, and invite you to tread with me. 
 We'll cross Spain on horseback — see them kill bulls 
 at Madrid, learn to play the guitar at Seville, un- 
 veil women at Granada, and shake Europe off our 
 footsoles at Gibraltar. Then for the gorgeous East 
 — Albania, Athens, Byzantium, Bagdad, Damascus. 
 In Syria we may find ourselves among our equals. 
 The desert should breed men. I, at any rate, have 
 made up my mind. I'll be no longer a plant in 
 this conservatory, syringed with warm water by 
 old Devizes and his men. There's dry rot in the 
 benches and mildew in the green stuff. The close 
 fetid air makes me sick. Pah ! I tell you I want to 
 breathe!" 
 
 Heniker looked at his papers with some concern. 
 "It's as you please, of course. I can only tell you 
 that I've given a deal of work to this thing — and 
 I should have been glad to have known earlier that
 
 DISTRACTION OFFERS 97 
 
 you — were thinking no more about it. I suppose 
 it had better go through now. In fact, it is as 
 good as through the Committee." 
 
 Beqdish chafed. "If a man's sincere impulse 
 towards honesty is to be stayed by a Committee 
 for Privileges — ! Roger, we are talking of different 
 things. I am talking about hfe and you about — 
 privileges." 
 
 "You forget," Heniker said, "that I get my liv- 
 ing that way. However, you needn't be troubled 
 any more. I suppose you'll exercise your rights 
 on the great day." 
 
 "Are you speaking of the Day of Judgment, my 
 friend?" Bendish asked severely. 
 
 Heniker met him with blandness. "The Coro- 
 nation, my dear Bendish, was in my mind. But 
 you may not be at home, it seems — and in fact I 
 hardly think that I shall be here either. I have 
 to go abroad almost at once." 
 
 Bendish cheered. "Hurrah, Roger! We'll go 
 together. Leave it all to me. How soon can you 
 be ready?" 
 
 Roger smiled. "Syria is too far, and I've no 
 time for the ladies of Granada. My lady of the 
 moment lives at Rapallo." 
 
 "Italy!" cried Bendish. "By God, we'll go to 
 Italy. There were men in Rome once. But — you 
 are after a lady?" He puzzled. "Who the devil's 
 your lady?" 
 
 Roger told him. "She's only mine in business 
 terms. She's married fast enough this time. You'll
 
 98 BENDISH 
 
 know her name I don't doubt. She is Mrs. Poore, 
 and was once Mrs. Lancelot. I'm to see her about 
 her first husband's will." 
 
 Bendish was highly and immediately interested. 
 He had had Mr. Poore in his mind ever since his 
 dinner-party when two poet-reformers had laid stress 
 upon the man's powers. Poore had been a possible 
 rival. Poore was to be reckoned with. He admit- 
 ted to himself that he had forgotten Poore for the 
 moment. Now, however, his mind was made up. 
 
 "I believe I'll see her too — and her master. They 
 said great things of Poore, you remember? I'd 
 like to meet him. I believe we might get on. There 
 are things to be done with England — even now! 
 Let it be Italy by all means. I can go on to the 
 East afterwards, by way of Venice, unless Poore 
 and I strike a partnership of insurrection. I should 
 say that was much on the cards. When Greek 
 meets Greek! Or steel strikes on steel — hey, Roger? 
 Well, I'm ready. I could start in half an hour — 
 if you're of that mind." 
 
 Heniker, his mind flashing about over his own 
 affairs, felt that he'd much rather have Bendish 
 with him, than leave him in England. He had 
 no notion of his recent dashing exploit at Golder's 
 Green, since he had not been there himself, nor 
 been able to see his lady in town. He believed 
 that all was well in that quarter; but with Bendish 
 you could never tell. The fellow veered like a 
 weathercock! Any sudden whim might send him 
 dashing down there, to carry his sweet Rose by
 
 DISTRACTION OFFERS 99 
 
 storm. He pondered the proposal for a moment, 
 but his mind was really made up. 
 
 "If you wish to join me, George, I shall be very 
 happy in your company, I don't doubt," he said, 
 "but you must understand that I'm one of your 
 pack-horses. No loitering in Spain for me. I shall 
 go by Paris to Marseilles and then on. I shall go 
 post, since I'm told that money is no difficulty." 
 
 He awoke the lord in the child of nature. 
 
 "Post!" cried Bendish with scorn. "By Heaven, 
 you'll do nothing of the sort. I shall take my car- 
 riage, of course. Now, my dear Roger, leave all 
 this to me. Believe me, I know the way to travel. 
 All I shall ask of you, or your father, is the where- 
 withal. See to it, will you? that the bankers be 
 warmed beforehand into civility. Whither away 
 now? Paris, Marseilles, Turin, Milan, Florence, 
 Rome, Venice? That wdll do for the present. Just 
 see to all this, there's a good fellow. And we start 
 to-day week. Is that understood? Good. Now 
 you can leave me to myself, if you will. I believe 
 I shall go to bed. Thirty-six hours is a good day. 
 Au revoir, my dear Roger." 
 
 He did not go to bed, however. He was much 
 too happy. Action was what he needed. Entirely 
 recovered, he saUied forth to dine, to talk high, 
 to play deep, to revel. Great with idea, there was 
 nothing he could not do, and do supremely well. 
 At two in the morning, returned from Crockford's, 
 he laid the scheme of a great travel poem in six 
 books, and found himself so fertile that much of
 
 lOO BENDISH 
 
 it was on paper before he was sure of his route. 
 A motive was a-wanting. Could that be Rose? 
 
 Or the siren Lady ? Or perhaps Lady Ann, 
 
 too chaste for his hero? The sketch here was hazy. 
 Quite possibly a motive would declare itself en 
 route. Meantime Nature and the works of Man 
 were to be dressed in a fine melancholy. He was 
 certified of that by his lively Muse before he went 
 to bed that morning — which he did nearly at the 
 hour when Rose at her window looked out to greet 
 the sun and pray for her lover. 
 
 \
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 HOW NOT TO LEAVE A MISTRESS 
 
 The fortnight — for it took the full of that — be- 
 tween decision and departure was full of comfort 
 to Lord Bendish, who could only gauge his own 
 happiness by the unhappiness of his friends. He 
 flew now from house to house taking intense fare- 
 wells. Every house which he left contained at least 
 one tear-dimmed lady. The burden of his exile — 
 for he put it at that — was felt to be her burden, all 
 the more grievous in that he invariably spoke more 
 in sorrow than in anger. "Fret not for me," said 
 Bendish — or he imphed it; "I do but fulfil my des- 
 tiny — that of a man born a rebel. The powers of 
 this world triumph for a time. Every self-interest 
 is concerned to hound me out. The voice of truth 
 must be smothered. But you and I know that we 
 dare not palter with the truth. You would not have 
 me otherwise — and I, my dear one, could not love 
 you so much did I think that you would see me 
 deny truth for the sake of our temporal bliss. I go, 
 I go, carrying in my heart enshrined the memory 
 of one noble woman. To you I leave, as consecra- 
 tion of your years of solitude, the vows of an in- 
 flexibly honest man — a small, clear flame for the 
 
 lOI
 
 I02 BENDISH 
 
 altar of your heart. Tend it anxiously for my sake 
 — and be sure of my service of our love. I am 
 henceforth the high priest of Memory. Adieu! 
 adieu!" 
 
 There were tears, kisses; generally a lock of hair 
 was his. He received it with sad satisfaction, and 
 bestowed it safely, after (at least) a twelve hours' 
 carriage upon his person, into a drawer in his cabinet. 
 There it joined a pretty numerous harem. 
 
 With men he took another line of discourse. This 
 accursed country was still at the bottom of it, but 
 on a more physical side. As he put it, its fogs 
 intercepted your breath, its government your let- 
 ters, its husbands your flirtations. You couldn't 
 eat its dinners, kiss its wives, write its poems, get 
 its votes. A handful of peers and fox-hunters ruled 
 its counsels, a few raddled old women set its fashions, 
 and a couple of magazines dictated its taste. Be 
 damned to oligarchy, he was for individuality. A 
 man should be worth the length of his arm, or his 
 head; Bendish didn't care which it was — he would 
 accept battle with anybody, and leave the choice of 
 weapons to his antagonist. Here was he, for instance, 
 in roaring youth, who had tried every diversion 
 which the world had to offer to a man of reason- 
 able parts: politics, literature, action, love; poetry, 
 rhetoric, battle, adultery — take it how you will. 
 They wouldn't have him, not because they didn't 
 like him (for they did), but because they couldn't 
 afford to disturb existing order. Let sleeping dogs 
 lie, said they. Once you let in ideas, who knows
 
 HE RIDES AWAY 103 
 
 where they will go? What becomes of the patrid 
 potestas ? What's the end of Privilege ? Where's 
 the King, Lords, and Commons? Where are the 
 Forms of the House; where's the Sublime and the 
 Beautiful? The Muses, pray! Here's Lord Ben- 
 dish with a pair of scissors to cut their petticoats. 
 Good God, if he ain't careful you may see their legs! 
 These ladies, like the Queen of Spain, are under- 
 stood to have none. Or take pohtics, he'll trouble 
 you. A man who, with all his faults, sees things 
 for what they are, goes down to the House of Lords 
 for the first time in his Hfe. What does he find? 
 His Majesty's Ministers and his Majesty's ex-Min- 
 isters debating the State of the Nation. Very well; 
 most proper subject of debate. He cuts in and de- 
 scribes that — as he sees it. With what result? 
 Discomfort, disrehsh, dismay, disgust on ever>^ side. 
 What! this upstart (whose forefathers, let him say, 
 in parenthesis, upstarted with the Conqueror) not 
 only denies that all is well, but tells us that nothing 
 can be well so long as we sit where we are! Assures 
 us that in these days it won't do for a score of men 
 to keep a score million marking time ! Bids us count 
 men, not acres, weigh brains and not breeches' 
 pockets! Back to school with him; he's not had 
 enough of the birch. Don't answer the fellow; pre- 
 tend he isn't there. H'm, h'm — where are we! 
 Ah, to be sure. "His Majesty's Ministers, secure 
 in the confidence of a beloved, because temperate, 
 monarch. . . ." Well, personally, he, Bendish, felt 
 that it was a case of one thing or another for him.
 
 I04 BENDISH 
 
 One stifled in England. Either you must open the 
 windows, or you must go outdoors. England de- 
 clined the first; remained the second. This was 
 how he put it, with great vivacity. It was hard to 
 see how he could have a better fortnight in any land 
 or under any conditions of life. 
 
 His humble, but very necessary friend Heniker 
 spent his fortnight differently. He had to pacify 
 the creditors, the mother, and one of the victims 
 of this brilliant young man. None of these were 
 easy matters, and one of them touched him nearly. 
 We may leave out of account the Jews, the dis- 
 counters, the tailors, carriage-builders, jewellers, 
 and dependents of the Bendish name; we may 
 touch lightly upon the smouldering gloom and omi- 
 nous seismics of Mrs. Bendish, and even upon her 
 ultimate eruption in storm — a storm so shattering 
 that Heniker felt himself a nameless outcast for 
 four-and-twenty hours after it and complained of 
 pains in the head. Poor Mrs. Bendish; her rage 
 knew no bounds because every other faculty of hers 
 was in rigid confinement. She could do nothing. 
 She had no money, nor authority to raise any. She 
 never saw her son, and never had her letters an- 
 swered. She had the power of dying, and before 
 very long exercised it; meantime she sheathed her 
 claws in Heniker' s respectable flesh and felt a mo- 
 mentary relief. It is his other task which concerns 
 me. He had to learn from the girl of his heart that 
 Bendish had been with her again; to see her own 
 heart bleeding and to staunch the flow. These
 
 HE RIDES AWAY 105 
 
 things he suffered and did with an honesty which 
 is much to his credit. 
 
 The occasion was that of the second confession 
 of his feehngs to Rose, which he made because he 
 was leaving her for two months certam. This time 
 he was fortified by Mrs. Welbore's good opinions 
 and offices. This worthy woman was now clearly 
 on his side, had invited him to her house and point- 
 edly left him alone with her niece. The tall young 
 girl stood dreaming by the window, dreaming, you 
 might say, defiantly, for she knew very well what 
 she had to face. So she remained while Roger 
 spoke to her of his departure and of his feelings at 
 lea\dng her. She listened, though she continued to 
 gaze and had dreams in her eyes. She smiled gen- 
 tly, but she shook her head in answer to his prayer 
 for hope. "I can only say what I said before. 
 You are more than kind. It is true that my thoughts 
 will go with you." 
 
 "Ah," said the young man ruefully, "but I'm 
 afraid they will be for my companion." 
 
 She did not deny it. "I shall never think of you 
 without kindness," she said. "But you know what 
 is the matter with me." 
 
 He nodded three or four times. "I have never 
 liked to speak to you of — of Lord Bendish. I felt 
 a delicacy. But — forgive me — I didn't think that 
 you could have seen much of him lately." 
 
 She kept her eyes fixed at gaze. "He came to 
 see me the other day. He asked me, did I care for 
 him still? He need not. He was answered before
 
 io6 BENDISH 
 
 he had finished. How can I help myself? He 
 taught me to care." Her voice trailed. She seemed 
 to have no lifting power. 
 
 Heniker cursed Bendish in his heart. But he 
 could not deny help to the woman he loved. "You 
 are steadfast, you have a noble heart. That is 
 your honour, and your very grief is your reward — " 
 
 But she wouldn't have that. "No, no/' she said, 
 "it is not so. But I can't help myseh." 
 
 He assented sadly. "He has a winning way with 
 him. I can see how he would affect you. But — 
 I think you ought to know — I feel bound to warn 
 you — he is very changeable. He forgets, you see. 
 He so delights in using his powers. He has so many 
 powers, so much charm, so much spirit; he sees so 
 many people " 
 
 She held up her head. "I understand you. It 
 is only to say that he is a person of consequence — 
 by birth, by abihty — and that I am a nobody " 
 
 He stopped her. "I can't hear you say that. 
 You are all the world to me. Your beauty and 
 nobihty of soul — no rank, no attainments can equal 
 that. Any honest man in the world must be on 
 his knees to you." 
 
 She rewarded him with a look where innocent 
 vanity and compassion were tenderly mixed; but 
 then she resumed her outward searching of the day. 
 "I value your good opinion of me, and want to 
 deserve it. You would think less of me if I was 
 fickle because he is. You don't care for me less 
 because I can't give you what you ask. I must
 
 HE RIDES AWAY 107 
 
 follow my heart, with my conscience. It may lead 
 me to unhappiness — but at least I shan't have 
 to reproach himself. Nor," she said with a full- 
 orbed flash upon him, "nor will you reproach me." 
 
 Hei took a step forward, lifted her hand and kissed 
 it. ""'Miss Pierson, I could never reproach you. I 
 love you with all my soul." 
 
 He pleased her; even he saw that. Certainly 
 she hked to be loved. The knowledge of his state 
 of mind, and of his knowledge of her own, put her 
 at her ease with him. It would be too much to 
 say that she patronised him, for she was most 
 gentle; but she had an almost matronly air. She 
 would be his sister if he pleased, but quite clearly 
 his elder sister. She was made older than he by 
 her sufferings past and to come. So much he was 
 obliged to see. 
 
 Meantime — chiefly desiring just now to distract 
 her — he told her as much as he felt at Hberty to 
 tell of his mission. It was common knowledge, 
 but not to her. His account of Mrs. Poore and 
 her poet interested her while she was shocked by 
 some of the details. She applauded them for re- 
 fusing ^Ir. Lancelot's money, and hoped that they 
 would hold out against Roger's pleading. "You 
 know very well that you would not take such money 
 yourself," she said. 
 
 He was not sure. "If, as I understand was the 
 case," he urged, "Poore convinced Mr. Lancelot 
 that it was he himself who had wronged the lady 
 — wronged her himself first, and wronged hfr again
 
 io8 BENDISH 
 
 by putting her wrong with the world, I think it 
 would be generous in the conqueror to accept rep- 
 aration. What else could the poor man do but 
 set her free? One more thing. He could enable 
 her to live with decent comfort. Well, why should 
 he not have that gratification?" 
 
 Rose was not convinced. "What does money 
 mean to her? She has the man of her heart. Noth- 
 ing in the world matters besides that. But — " She 
 thought, frowning over the position. "She ought 
 to have kept faith. I feel so sure about that." 
 
 "I am certain that you do," Roger said. "But 
 nobody is like you. You can't expect me to think 
 so." 
 
 At this moment of quiet intimacy both of them 
 were startled by the sound of wheels. A thunder 
 at the knocker confirmed their belief. In another 
 moment Bendish burst into the room, went quickly 
 to Rose and took her hand. He kissed it gallantly, 
 then held it. "This is my farewell, my dear," he 
 said. "We go abroad in two days' time." She 
 looked at him without a word. Then he saw 
 Heniker, 
 
 "Ha, Roger — you here? You will confirm me. 
 I suppose there's nothing to prevent us. I should 
 blow my brains out if I had another twelve hours 
 of this doghole of a country. Forty-eight hours is 
 my absolute limit of endurance. Think of it, Rose ! 
 My mother proposes to come to town. That were 
 the last touch. I have written positively forbid- 
 ding it. One must defend oneself. Roger, I must
 
 HE RIDES AWAY 109 
 
 say, you are very remiss. Why didn't you tell her 
 that I had gone?" 
 
 Roger, anxious himself to be out of this, grinned. 
 "She won't come, George. She's not well enough." 
 He turned to Rose. "I'll bid you good-bye, Miss 
 Pierson. And you shall wish me a good voyage." 
 
 Rose, blushing, disengaged her hand from her 
 lover's and held it out to Heniker. "I wish you 
 every good thing," she said, "you may be sure. 
 Must you really go?" 
 
 One would hardly have credited Bendish with 
 such obtuseness — to call it no worse — if one had 
 not understood how entirely he was held by one 
 idea at a time. The readiness of Heniker to leave 
 the field to him actually annoyed him. He fidgeted 
 during the little colloquy, and finally answered Rose 
 himself. "Absurd! There can be no earthly rea- 
 son. Give me ten minutes, give me five minutes, 
 and I'll drive you back to town. I've a hundred 
 things to say to you. Do you know that Pringle 
 hasn't sent those guns yet? If he don't look out, 
 the first use I make of one of 'em will be to blow out 
 his brains. I'll get you to see him about it first 
 thing in the morning." 
 
 Roger by the door said that he had booked his 
 seat in the St. Albans coach, and was for making 
 his escape. He was hot with rage on Rose's ac- 
 count; but Bendish was incredible. 
 
 "I daresay you have, my dear fellow, but I happen 
 to wish to speak to you; so you must oblige me." 
 
 Roger went out without a word. He knew that
 
 no BENDISH 
 
 he must wait for the fellow, being his hireling. 
 "G— d d— n him, oh, G— d d— n him!" He stood 
 tense with rage, tapping his foot on the doorstep. 
 
 Meantime Bendish held Rose in his arms and 
 kissed her. Her hps were cold, her eyes had no 
 tears. "Farewell, my love," he said. "Wish me 
 happy — " 
 
 She nodded her head, looking away from him. 
 
 "Wish me happy — and love me weU. Too few 
 do that." She couldn't speak to him. He held 
 her closely, roused to stir her feelings — but soon 
 gave over, conscious of failure, and sickened at it. 
 It would have needed real fire in him to have moved 
 her, and just now he had none whatever. "You'll 
 not forget me. Rose?" he said rather faintly. 
 
 She said very quietly, "There is no chance of 
 it," and then, as he looked at her, trying the power 
 of his eyes upon her, she shivered and withdrew 
 from his arm. "Please to go now," she said. "I 
 beg you to go. You are distressing me." 
 
 That satisfied his self-esteem. "My dear, I obey 
 you," he said. So they parted. He clattered down- 
 stairs and bustled Heniker into his phaeton. That 
 miserable young man kept his eyes astrain towards 
 the upper window, but without reward. Rose did 
 not show herself. As far as Bendish was concerned, 
 the place might have been an inn and she a cham- 
 bermaid, the toy of a minute to spare. 
 
 Yet on the road to London he was in a mood 
 of black despondency. He showed the butt of a
 
 HE RIDES AWAY ill 
 
 pistol shining in the mouth of a pocket. "There's 
 my truest friend," he said. "I tell you that, Roger, 
 having experienced every shift of fortune this world 
 can offer. Wine, women, cards, dice; ambition, 
 art, .thought. Their Hmitations, or my own, make 
 them worthless. There remains travel — to ex- 
 change one set of fools for another. I tell you, 
 however, that I feel like a transported con\nct. ..." 
 He gloomed for a time, then eyed the pistol again. 
 "My truest friend! Good God — and we live on!" 
 
 Presently he referred to Rose, and had poor 
 Heniker's teeth on edge. "You'll hardly believe 
 me, Roger, but I've left her dry-eyed — the only 
 being in this world for whom I care a rap. But 
 the greater fool I, you'll say, for giving my heart 
 into the charge of a woman. Women! You'll 
 hardly credit it, T daresay, but I've had them weep- 
 ing about me every day for a week. I have ringlets 
 enough for a Lord Chancellor's wig, and don't 
 want 'em; and she — 'wishes me well!' Good God, 
 Roger, isn't it a desperate business when a man is 
 ready to die for a cold-blooded mermaid of the sort? 
 I swear that she's got a fish's tail. A clear ichor — 
 amber-colour — flows in her veins. She asks me to 
 leave her — says I distress her! She wishes me well! 
 I shall get drunk to-night and go to Crockford's 
 and drop perhaps a cool thousand. So she shall 
 have her wish. Bah! And we live on!" 
 
 If Bendish lived on, it was by no desire of his 
 family adviser's. Heniker, too, eyed the silver heel 
 of the pistol-butt shining from the pocket of the cab.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 TO RAPALLO 
 
 The Duke's last words to Heniker were, ''Get 
 her to come home. Tell her that I'm old and lonely 
 and at a raw edge. I have the acquaintance of 
 all the world and not a friend in it. They hate me 
 in the country, chiefly because I stick to business 
 and don't deal in rhetoric. Don't say that I told 
 you so. I can't afford to beg and be refused — 
 that's my little weakness. She can't afford to grant 
 it either: that would put her wrong with Poore, 
 and I won't have that. Let it come from you. 
 And of course she ought to have the money — and 
 of course she won't." He had added as an after- 
 thought, "So you take Lord Bendish? Ah! I shall 
 like to know her opinion of that coxcomb. He's 
 been fluttering the dove-cotes, I understand." Then 
 he had given his messenger two fingers and turned 
 to his affairs. 
 
 Upon that Roger had set out, in Bendish's travel- 
 ling carriage, with Bendish himself, statue-faced and 
 hag-ridden, in the mood of the moment, with three 
 ser^^ants, two large dogs, and an eagle chained by 
 the leg — but this last was left behind at Dover be- 
 cause the mood which demanded it had by that 
 
 112
 
 TO RAPALLO 113 
 
 time evaporated. Nothing disgusted Bendish so 
 deeply as the sight of an old love. When that hap- 
 pened to be an eagle it didn't matter; but if it was 
 a woman, as mostly it was, she suffered, so that he 
 should not. 
 
 He remained in his marble gloom, speaking hardly 
 a word, for two days. In Paris, however, his spirits 
 rose, and he insisted upon a week's sight-seeing. 
 He had no acquaintance in that city, and did not 
 choose to inscribe his name at the Embassy, being 
 in a mood of war with municipaHties and powers; 
 but he gave Heniker orders to see that his arrival 
 was properly chronicled in Galignani. This brought 
 a heterogeneous assembly into his anteroom and 
 gratified him a good deal; he took on a literary mood, 
 spent his days in gardens and his nights with poets 
 and their loves. Heniker's assurance that he must 
 go on, and should go alone, moved him. Bendish 
 could stand anything but his own company in these 
 early days. 
 
 So they travelled swiftly through central and 
 into southern France, entered Savoy, and reached 
 Rapallo, a little serried town, hanging hke stone- 
 crop to the rocks about a river. There they took 
 up their quarters in the plan'' nohile of a palace; 
 horses were pro\dded for his lordship's exercise, and 
 Heniker sent on his credentials to the Villa Faesu- 
 lana, where the poet Poore and his stolen bride 
 were in lodging. Late in the afternoon of the day 
 fixed in reply he walked up the steep path and pen- 
 etrated the hedge of myrtle and dusty cypress which
 
 114 BENDISH 
 
 hid the lower floors of a square, yellow, broad- 
 eaved house from the few peasants and goat-herds 
 who might pass it. The garden within was spacious 
 and set out with order. A long flagged path led 
 up between lemon trees in square tubs to the open 
 doors of the house. A flight of steps midway took 
 the ascent; the house stood on a terrace; gera- 
 niums and roses rioted over the stone balustrade. 
 The place seemed empty, not a soul was to be seen. 
 It was so quiet there that you could hear the flack- 
 ing of a moth's wings in the cool darkness of the hall. 
 Heniker pufled at the beU, and heard it clang in the 
 distance. 
 
 A gray-haired peasant woman with careful pa- 
 tient face presently appeared. Heniker, being with- 
 out Itahan, smiled and mentioned the name of Mrs. 
 Poore. She identified and nodded at it. "Si, si, 
 si," she said in singsong, and added that the gentle- 
 man was expected, and that he would find the sign- 
 ori upstairs. "Studiano!" she said, and peered at 
 him to see how he took it. "Studiano i libri — 
 grandi cos! — " and she spread her arms out like a 
 cross. All this was lost upon our friend, as she 
 presently saw; so she shrugged him off with mut- 
 tered comments on the follies of lovers, signed to 
 him to enter, folded up her bleached old hands in 
 her apron, and shuffled up the broad stair, he fol- 
 lowing. 
 
 A long tiled corridor was at the head of the stair. 
 It stretched the whole depth of the house to a 
 loggia at the back of it. Standing here, in response
 
 TO RAPALLO 115 
 
 to the grinning invitation of hds old guide, who 
 jerked her head and hand towards the far-off open- 
 ing and said in a deHghted whisper, "Vedi — i Sign- 
 ori," Heniker looked, and saw a pretty sight. In 
 the level light of that evening hour two studious 
 figures sat close together at a long table, a broad- 
 shouldered man with his head thrown up, and a 
 slim and slender woman. One of his arms rested 
 the elbow on the table and the hand held open the 
 page of a huge folio from which he was reading; 
 the other arm was about his fellow-student. Her 
 head touched his shoulder, her hand, lax at her 
 side, played with a fan. Both were absorbed in the 
 open book, and a sound of chanting, now high, now 
 low, now fierce, now trailing, came from the man. 
 The delighted old serva exhibited them like a peep- 
 show. "Sempre lo stesso . . . scrivono la mat- 
 tina, leggono la sera. Eh, che . . . !" Then she 
 beckoned him forward the length of the long pas- 
 sage, and finally announced him as "quel' Signore 
 a servirgli." The interrupted students sprang apart; 
 both rose, and the man, covering the woman, faced 
 Heniker. So might Adam and Eve have behaved, 
 surprised in Eden by a son of God. Here was a 
 tall, high-coloured, shock-headed young man with 
 blue eyes and something of a scowl. He stood 
 frowning his enquiries, without any words ready. 
 From behind him there then appeared the slight 
 form of his fellow-student, a slim, grave, and round- 
 faced woman, hued like a morning rose, with very 
 clear and direct gray eyes, as round, as open, and as
 
 ii6 BENDISH 
 
 gray as Athena's own. Her manner was at once 
 sedate and direct, as if she knew in a flash what was 
 expected of her, and what she therefore must do, 
 and do at once. It was she who, bowing formally, 
 came to greet him with her hand. "I am Mrs. 
 Poore," she said in clear tones; "and you must be 
 Mr. Heniker. This is my husband." The tall 
 young man bowed, but did not offer his hand. 
 
 Was this the face, this the lady, who had fled 
 from duke's house and husband's bed, who had 
 braved her world, and all Christian worlds, and 
 faflen into the arms of love and poverty? Heniker 
 thenceforth and for ever banished all the usual con- 
 notations of elopement and divorce from his reason- 
 ings of Mrs. Lancelot, as she had been. Here was 
 no naughty lady. No unholy passion could contend 
 with the pale fire upon those cheeks, no scandal 
 sully eyes so bravely clear. To think of scandal 
 and her, so possessed by limpid purpose, was ab- 
 surd; but he judged her capable of enthusiasm, as 
 burning keenly in a guarded shrine, and forthwith 
 declared himself her knight. It does him much 
 credit that he was able to discover the inner, spirit- 
 ual beauty which made her bodily presence so fair 
 a tenement of it, as if her form had yielded to mould- 
 ing from within, and her colour of delicate fire was 
 the shining through of her flame-like spirit, as if her 
 flesh were of alabaster translucency. Report at 
 home spake the Duke of Devizes as a gross and 
 hardy lover; but if he loved this lady, Heniker 
 thought, it must have been a matter of the head
 
 TO RAPALLO 117 
 
 informing the heart. He remembered now how the 
 stoic old statesman had suffered a mellowing of the 
 voice when he spoke of her. 
 
 Like all people who live engrossed in each other 
 and their o\vn affairs the Poores had little small 
 talk, nothing to round off the edges of the business 
 upon which Heniker had come. Poore himself had 
 absolutely none. Heniker saw him look longingly 
 at his enormous book more than once. Presently 
 he turned about and sat on the parapet of the loggia 
 with folded arms, looking down into the deepening 
 gloom of the cypresses or up to the black mountains, 
 over which, in a green sky, trembled the evening 
 star. His wife spoke shyly of the journey, and then 
 Roger took heart and commented upon her garden. 
 She was pleased, and her eyes shone as she told him 
 that they worked at it themselves. "Every morn- 
 ing from five to eight we work there," she said. 
 "Then the sun comes over the hill and we have to 
 go in." 
 
 Heniker laughed. "You put me to shame, and 
 as for my fellow-traveller, I don't know what you 
 will think of him. Your hour of leaving off work is 
 usually his for going to bed." 
 
 She opened her eyes wide. "What does he do 
 all night?" was her enquiry — rash in any one but 
 she, who never thought evil of anybody. 
 
 "It is his time for reading or writing," Heniker 
 said. "Fitfully, he's a great reader, and still more 
 rarely a writer. He hopes to pay you his respects
 
 Ii8 BENDISH 
 
 under favour of a letter from friends of yours. Mr. 
 Moore is one of them." 
 
 She flushed at a name which recalled London 
 to her, but Poore caught the sound of it, turned, 
 and looked straightly at the speaker. His eyes had 
 a piercing power, as if they would read the mind. 
 "Tom Moore? Do you know Tom Moore? He 
 used to love me once." 
 
 "He does still," Heniker said, "but I wasn't 
 speaking of my own acquaintance with him, which 
 is almost none. It is my friend Lord Bendish who 
 knows him, and has travelled out with me with a 
 letter of Mr. Moore's in his pocket-book." 
 
 The poet considered this news. He frowned over 
 the name; then his brows cleared. "I read Lord 
 Bendish's poem," — he turned to his wife, his voice 
 noticeably gentle, — "Do you remember, Gina, I 
 read it to you?" 
 
 She smiled at him with her eyes. He went on. 
 "I thought it excellent. I envied him his good 
 temper. He laughed at things which I should break 
 my teeth in. Laughter's a great power, if you can 
 use it on yourself too. I should like to meet Lord 
 Bendish. How old is he?" 
 
 Heniker said, two-and-twenty. Poore took that 
 quite simply. It seemed to him a matter of course 
 that a man should be temperate, witty, a dextrous 
 rhymester, eloquent and omniscient at two-and- 
 twenty. He did not believe in miracles. That 
 which was, was natural, that which was natural 
 was reasonable. He repeated, "I shall like to see
 
 TO RAPALLO 119 
 
 him," and then turned to his wife, touching her 
 shoulder for a moment. "I know that you have 
 to talk with Mr. Heniker. I'll leave you then." 
 
 She looked up into his face. Heniker saw the 
 encounter of their eyes. "Here at least is a wedded 
 pair," he thought. 
 
 "Do you want to go? would you rather?" He 
 smiled, nodding his head, then looked at Heniker 
 as he laughed his "Much rather!" She accepted 
 it. He touched her shoulder again, shook hands 
 with Heniker, and went into the house. Mrs. 
 Poore sat looking at the deepening mountains. 
 There was a silence of some minutes, during which 
 the dusk crept about them. 
 
 Then she asked him quietly for news of the Duke, 
 and Heniker, encouraged by her simphcity and 
 directness, replied. 
 
 "He sent for me, you know," he said, "on the 
 recommendation of his own legal adviser, and gave 
 me his confidence so far as it was necessary I should 
 have it. He thought, and I agree with him, that 
 I should see you in the matter of the will, and that 
 Mr. Poore's decision should be made after discus- 
 sion with yourself. You have been informed, I 
 understand, of its provisions. I have the papers 
 here, however, and will leave them with you for 
 your consideration." There he stopped, not be- 
 cause she had interrupted him, but rather because 
 she hadn't. He could see no more than the outline 
 of her, the gleaming moon of her round face, in the 
 poise of which a something or other suggested ri-
 
 120 BENDISH 
 
 gidity. Her two hands made one white blur upon 
 her lap. He guessed her hostile, and waited for her 
 to declare herself. 
 
 By and by she spoke, and he knew by the tone 
 that she was not, as yet, hostile. "What papers 
 have you brought?" she asked him. 
 
 He said: "I used the word papers in a legal sense, 
 unthinkingly. Strictly speaking, there is only one 
 paper — the will." 
 
 "There was no letter? No message? Nothing 
 to say what he wished?" 
 
 "No, there was nothing at all. The Duke told 
 me that Mr. Lancelot did not confide in him. He 
 asked him to be executor, and the Duke agreed. 
 But his Grace never knew the terms of the will 
 until it was opened and read." It was not possible 
 for him to guess the urgency of her question, nor 
 its despair. If he had known the testator he might 
 have understood the hardness in her tone. 
 
 "I understand. It makes it very difficult. I 
 thought that there might have been some hint 
 given — it's all very — very difficult — " Then she 
 broke out. "Of course Gervase — my husband — 
 will never agree to take it. I know that quite well. 
 Indeed, I don't care to ask him " 
 
 "Perhaps," Heniker said, "you would prefer me 
 to ask him." 
 
 She immediately said, "I should prefer it of all 
 things, because — " then she broke off. "I don't 
 know that I need trouble you with reasons. But 
 we shall have to discuss it, I suppose. Will you
 
 TO RAPALLO 121 
 
 tell me what the Duke thought about it? Are you 
 free to do that?" 
 
 "Perfectly free," Heniker replied. "His Grace's 
 last words to me were, ' Of course she ought to take 
 the money, but of course she won't.'" SmiHng to 
 herself, though he couldn't know that, she cupped 
 her chin in her hand, and leaned forward, elbow 
 to knee, to consider the Duke and his quiddity. 
 
 "That is exactly hke him. It tells me everything 
 I want to know. His common sense stnigghng 
 mth his chivalry. He knows we cannot take it — " 
 There was glow in her tones, a kind of chuckle of 
 approval. 
 
 "He used one reason for your acceptance," Hen- 
 iker said then, "which I shall try to put before you, 
 though it is difficult. He suggested that— the tes- 
 tator may have wnshed to signify a certain indebted- 
 ness from himself to Mr. Poore, and that he would 
 have been happy to be sure that it would be so ac- 
 cepted by him. Do I make myself understood?" 
 
 "Perfectly well," she said. "I think that very 
 true. I am sure that that is what he wished to 
 say. I am so sure of it that, personally, I should 
 have been glad if Gervase could have taken it. 
 But — " then she got up. "I'm very sorry, Mr. 
 Heniker, that I can't talk to you more freely about 
 these things. If you leave the will here I'll talk to 
 Gervase about it. Will you tell me something of 
 the Duke, please? Is he well?" 
 
 Heniker was able to speak freely and enthusias- 
 tically about the great man; for not only did he
 
 122 BENDISH 
 
 admire him unfeignedly himself, but he was quite 
 certain that the lady's sympathy was with him. 
 He reported his Grace as "straight as a ramrod," 
 and immersed in the country's affairs. "He's very 
 unpopular just now, as I daresay you know; and 
 he is aware of it. He says that he has acquaintance 
 but no friends." She stirred uneasily, then said, 
 "He has more than he can remember." 
 
 This gave Heniker his cue. "Ah, but he does 
 remember, Mrs. Poore! He remembers perhaps 
 too well for his comfort." This brought her again 
 to her feet. She came and stood by the table, lean- 
 ing both hands upon it. "Please tell me everything 
 he said. I ought to know." 
 
 Heniker rose also and stood by her. "Our ac- 
 quaintance is very slight, but I venture to build 
 upon it. I will tell you exactly what he said. ' Get 
 her to come back. I'm old and lonely.' If a man 
 of his sort talks about his age it is because he feels 
 it; if of his loneliness, he's very lonely." 
 
 She agreed with him, speaking very softly. "Yes, 
 yes, you are right. I'm sure he wants me, but — " 
 Then she broke off. "Yes, I'll go. It is my duty 
 — I owe it him. Yes, I'll go. I'll talk to Gervase 
 about it. He'll understand it." 
 
 A sudden luminous flash from her, soft yet beat- 
 ing fire in her eyes, shone upon him. "It is difficult, 
 you see, because of the children. They are so young 
 to travel, and do so well here — but of course we 
 must risk that." 
 
 He had forgotten, or had never been told, that
 
 TO RAPALLO 123 
 
 there were children, and it came very strongly into 
 his mind that he would like to see them, or her with 
 them. She would look at her best with children, 
 he thought. 
 
 But now she turned to him, and gave him her 
 hand. "I am very much obliged to you. You 
 have been most kind and tactful. No one could 
 have been kinder. You will come again, of course, 
 before you go back. Perhaps you will dine with 
 us — or sup?" He professed himself at her call, 
 and then made liis httle enquiry. "The children 
 are abed, I suppose?" She gave him her full atten- 
 tion. 
 
 "Not yet; but it's bedtime." Then she flushed 
 and glowed. "Would you like to see them?" 
 
 "I should like it of all things." Her eyes laughed. 
 She beckoned him. to follow her. He felt as if she 
 was leading him by the hand. 
 
 Two round-eyed, flaxen Uttle creatures were being 
 washed by the old serva. The boy stood, stark as 
 he was born; the girl was on the woman's lap. 
 Both were rosy, sturdy, fine-fleshed, round-faced, 
 blue-eyed; both had their father's scowl, ridicu- 
 lously softened. When she stood in the door the 
 boy cried "Mother!" and ran to her. Then he saw 
 Heniker, and clutched at the gown of safety. She 
 picked him up and showed him with pride. "Italy 
 agrees with him." Her voice had cheer in it. "It 
 agrees with you too, I think," he said. She ignored 
 the obvious implication without embarrassment, 
 and took over her duties from the serva, covering
 
 124 BENDISH 
 
 herself first with a goodly apron. Heniker, with her 
 boy on his knee, sat out the ceremonial, and saw 
 the pair to bed. The boy stood up to his mother's 
 ear while he said his prayer. Heniker watched him, 
 his eyes dim. 
 
 Returned to his lodging, he found Bendish and 
 the poet in full debate, thoroughly interested in 
 each other, discussing the immortality of the soul 
 and similar high themes. Mr. Poore insisted that 
 his new friend must sup with him and his wife. 
 "You will love her," he said; "everybody must; 
 but if you do not you mustn't like me." 
 
 "Ah, my dear sir," Bendish said, "I assure you 
 that I am very prone to Hke my friends' wives. 
 On your head be it!" 
 
 "In my heart, I think," said Poore, and they 
 went off together, talking vehemently. Heniker 
 was asked, but dechned. He knew when he was 
 wanted. Besides, he had had his whack.
 
 , CHAPTER XI 
 
 THE WEDDED LOVERS 
 
 Mr. Gervase Poore, thus in happy exile at 
 Rapallo, was a poet of originaHty and force — force 
 both of conviction and of utterance. He was always 
 perfectly certain that he was right, and in its time, 
 but not in his, the world came to be much of his 
 opinion. For the world of his own day he was too 
 simple and too sincere. That world took his sim- 
 plicity for affectation, and his sincerity for crude 
 brutality. But he was neither affected nor brutal. 
 He was as far as technic goes an idealistic realist. 
 He saw ideas as palpable, breathing shapes, and 
 he wrote them down literally as he saw them, just 
 as a modem novehst will describe a Jew scratching 
 his head, or a shopgirl in a hysterical passion. He 
 saw them dreadful or beautiful, for pity or terror, 
 and believed them worth his pains of description. 
 The world thought them imtrue and improper, 
 when it thought about them at all, which was not 
 very often. For the most part it ignored Mr. 
 Poore, since he chose to express himself wholly in 
 verse; but there had been a time when, expressing 
 himself in sudden and dramatic action, it could not 
 ignore him. That was when, three years before 
 the time I am now dealing with, he had run away 
 
 I 25
 
 126 BENDISH 
 
 with Mrs. Lancelot, a very fair and very gentle 
 lady, who talked less and was more talked of than 
 any woman in the great world of politics and fash- 
 ion. Of her, in her day, the world of great and 
 small alike heard gladly, not only because she was 
 a very pretty woman who had eloped, nor again 
 because she had been the wife of the Right Hon- 
 ourable Charles Lancelot, M.P., but rather for that 
 she, beautiful, fashionable, unseeking and besought, 
 had been the close friend, and many said the more 
 than friend, of the Duke of Devizes, greatest man 
 in England. 
 
 The world said that she made a double elope- 
 ment in that twilight hour when she left husband 
 and friend together at Fontemagra in the Apennines 
 and joined her poet lover on the lower road. For 
 since the death of the Duchess in 1825 she and her 
 ci-devant lord had lived in the Duke's house, and 
 dared Rumour's thousand tongues. Every one of 
 these had been bravely at work ever since, wagging, 
 clanging, and booming like Florentine bells at Ave 
 Maria, proclaiming romance on the upstroke and 
 shame on the down; but she had gone her beautiful, 
 quiet and ordered wa}^, never far from the side of 
 her great ally, with never a sign of faltering from 
 the path of her destiny, never a hint that she had a 
 care of her own. It added to the choiceness of the 
 situation that she was one of your recluse, carven 
 women who have to be sought out to be discovered 
 lovely, who never flaunt themselves, who rarely 
 speak. You come to guess in time that they heed
 
 THE WEDDED LO\^RS 127 
 
 everything; that those guarded eyes can break down 
 every guard, that those grave Hps hold back ardent 
 breath, and what tender offices of heahng and mercy 
 he waiting in those still hands. It was a shock to 
 her \forld, which had so far taken Uttle stock of her, 
 when the Duke of De\dzes picked her out of a thou- 
 sand for unique devotion — deserting for her sake a 
 miscellaneous bev}^ chosen at random and held 
 Hghtly together for the whims of an appetite which, 
 even then, was thought to be gross; but that same 
 world stood astounded when Gervase Poore, un- 
 known and out-at-elbows, huddhng (one thought) 
 in the nameless crowd at great doors, flashed sud- 
 den eyes upon her, clove his way to her — in his old 
 coat — through the press of dandies and uniforms, 
 and summoned her to foUow him out into the foggy 
 dew. They said that he haunted her whereabouts; 
 hterally that he tracked her from great house to 
 great house and jostled with the mob at the doors 
 to see her entry and exit. A story was told of a 
 book of hot-pressed rhymes, all about her, which 
 came to her notice and brought him a card for a 
 ball at Wake House. They said that he went, saw 
 and conquered; that from that hour she was his. 
 He made no concessions, and she asked none. The 
 great assumption was implied and accepted. The 
 lovers, in Italy with the Duke, and the husband 
 too, fled to Rapallo. There was a pursuit, an inter- 
 view between the husband and lover, the Duke 
 being present; then came the return to England of 
 the two injured men; then the Divorce Bill; then
 
 128 BENDISH 
 
 the death of Lancelot, and this too magnanimous 
 will. That is, roughly speaking, the tale. Mean- 
 time, from Rapallo had come nothing but — rhymes. 
 Roland: an Epic, in 1827, a strange succession of 
 savage battle and white love scenes; and in 1829 
 The Vision of Argos, which was understood to be the 
 fruits of a voyage in the Levant which he and his 
 beloved had made in 1828. The curious in such 
 matters took pleasure in finding his mistress under 
 the veils of his fierce and exalted verse. She was, 
 they said, Roland's Aude the Fair — even her round 
 face was on Aude's shoulders; she walked through 
 The Vision, a shm, low-breasted Helen. How long 
 could this go on? They were married, of course, by 
 now! And do poets continue to sing of their wives? 
 They were married, and they were lovers, and 
 so far that exalted, so far-sought, so rarely-found 
 state of grace was theirs that no satisfaction appeased 
 desire, and no mingling of natures blended one in 
 the other; but each saw in each the crown of his 
 own. In an enchanted world, its only human ten- 
 ants, they walked handfasted. For ever must he 
 love, and she be fair. If she had been fair before 
 when care had drawn her cheeks, dimmed her eyes, 
 and wasted her form, she was radiant now, with 
 love to make her blood sting, to flush her cheeks, 
 ripen her breast, make her eyes to shine like dan- 
 cing water. But her beauty was rather spiritual 
 than bodily: it was of her soul, swift as a wind- 
 driven cloud, of her mind as true as a rare mirror, 
 of her heart as bountiful as the lap of Demeter.
 
 THE WEDDED LOVERS 129 
 
 All this, by the grace of God, transfiguring, glorify- 
 ing, making sacred her sweet body, he saw still and 
 adored. But Love to the Hke of Poore was a soar- 
 ing flight, which you flew carrying in your hands a 
 filmy f wonder which it behoved you, howsoever you 
 towered, to keep from harm. An adverse breath 
 might shatter it; yet it was very strong. It looked 
 like a bubble of foam; yet no shock would touch 
 it, to hurt — except it passed through yourself. 
 You yourself were its strength: it was just as strong 
 as you were. And at the topmost peak of your 
 rocket-flight, at your proudest moment of uphfting, 
 while you were in the very act to spurn the stars 
 with your footsoles, a thin cold stream of air might 
 thread a way through you, and puff! the treasure 
 was star-dust, and headlong down sped you, like 
 the stick of a rocket. Down, if you are lucky, you 
 break your neck and have done with it ; but it may 
 be that you five, a maimed, tortured sight, and drag 
 out a length of days hunting the world for your 
 scattered star-dust. Some doomed wretches so do; 
 and some of them seek it on dunghills, and some 
 about the altars of churches. But they never find 
 it again. 
 
 So Poore flew a perilous flight; but meantime 
 his head was among the stars, and his heart felt 
 the great air, and his mouth was a trumpet for 
 paean. As for her — but what is great love to a 
 woman? Pride in secret, treasure to hoard, largess 
 to give out by the lapful at a time. Georgiana 
 Poore was become a well of charity since she had
 
 I30 BENDISH 
 
 filled herself with Gervase. Loved by him, she felt 
 that she loved all the world. She had no fragile 
 vase to carry on her flight; rather, it carried her, 
 held her like a shrine. In it she stood, her hands 
 stretched out, holding her cloak wide, that all the 
 outcasts and naked of the world might come and 
 find shelter and warmth. To love Gervase was no 
 service; she breathed Gervase. To do the service 
 which she owed was impossible; she could not love 
 enough. 
 
 Such a woman, a wellspring of love, is born to 
 be the mate of a man, and will bear her children, 
 and love them too, for love's sake. I don't think 
 she loved them, as your inevitable mothers do, 
 because they were hers, but rather because they 
 were his. She was always a little remote from 
 them, never quite in their busy, teeming world. 
 She came down to them, as the Angel came to 
 Dante, in mercy, love, and charity; but she was 
 denizen of a thinner air, and could not help the 
 labouring of her breath as she served. To Poore 
 this effort in her way of service made her the more 
 adorable, emphasized her distinction, enhanced her. 
 She stooped, she pitied, she served, like Demeter. 
 It was an exquisite domestication, the taming of a 
 Goddess. And, if the Duke were right— and he 
 was a shrewd observer — this Goddess would be 
 thoroughly domesticated before her time was up. 
 
 So much preface is due to the after-doings of 
 this high-flying pair, upon whose present happy 
 state Bendish is now looming.
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 THREATENED INTERIOR 
 
 In the twilight hour when Heniker was exhibiting 
 his mission to Mrs. Poore, and making friends with 
 her children, her husband was gathering enthusiasm 
 as he walked with eager steps that valley road wliich 
 ran, like a narrow ledge, between precipice and abyss. 
 Quite suddenly, having reached a decisive point of 
 desire, he turned right about, to face the sea, and, 
 urging down the hill into the town, swept into Ben- 
 dish's lodgings like a crested wave and carried the 
 young lord off his feet. He strode towards him 
 with his hand out. "My lord," he said, "let me 
 shake hands with you. My name is Poore. I know 
 a good man when I hear of him, and can't afford to 
 miss the sight of him. We both love England and 
 hate her tyrants. You can laugh at them and I 
 can howl. Between us we might do something." 
 
 He spoke just as he felt at the moment, without 
 calculation; but that was the way to catch Ben- 
 dish : snatch him up before he had time to remember 
 that he was a victim of unrequited love, or a lonely 
 thinker exiled for his opinions, or before he could hit 
 upon the proper way of imposing himself upon a 
 man whom he suspected of strength. To this he 
 
 131
 
 132 
 
 BENDISH 
 
 would certainly have turned his effort if he had been 
 given time. He had been intimidated by the se- 
 rious way in which his friends had spoken of Poore : 
 there, at least, he had felt — out there at Rapallo 
 — was couched a spirit which might mate with his 
 own, or vie with it. He must keep an eye for any- 
 thing that came from Rapallo. He had done so, 
 and the constant outlook had fretted his nerves. 
 He was bad at waiting, as all imaginative men are. 
 When Heniker had declared his mission, then, he 
 decided to rush in. Like a terrier at the fox's earth, 
 he would grapple and have done with it. By the 
 time he reached Rapallo he was in such a state of 
 tense expectancy that Poore was become an enemy 
 to be stalked. Mentally, he drew towards him foot 
 by wary foot, throwing up earthworks as he went. 
 If the thing had gone its normal course, all the for- 
 malities of credentials observed, the odds are that 
 he would have been at his most inaccessible when 
 they finally met. He would have played the man of 
 fashion or the peer, and baffled the poet. 
 
 But nothing of this happened. Bendish, instead, 
 flushed and happy, shook hands with simple grati- 
 tude. "This is very kind of you, Mr. Poore. I 
 don't deserve it — as yet; but I am grateful." Poore, 
 already thinking of more important things, began at 
 once to talk of them. No diplomat could have gone 
 more skilfully to work. 
 
 He was at his favourite exercise, pacing the room 
 with light and lunging strides. His hands were 
 behind his back, his head thrust forward. He
 
 THREATENED INTERIOR 133 
 
 looked like a man breasting a gale of wind. "I 
 haven't heard an English voice or seen an Enghsh 
 face for three years and more — save one, save one 
 — the mirror of my own. You know, no doubt, so 
 much' of my history. I did a simple thing simply, 
 and abide by it in the land where such things can 
 be done still. I found a lovely and hapless creature 
 enmeshed in horrible circumstance. I cut the nets 
 away — what else could I do? Love, that power of 
 the wing, drew us up together out of sight and 
 sound of clamour and horror; but I believe I should 
 have done what I did out of pure pity and under- 
 standing. However that may be, the thing was 
 done, and here we have remained, shaping life to 
 the round, as two may do who have but one heart 
 between them. I think that the time is coming 
 when we must put ourselves to the test: we don't 
 want to shirk our business in the world. We fit 
 ourselves to do it here — but it lies, we know, over 
 there. . . . 
 
 "There is a sense in which I see England, the 
 venerable mother of us all, fettered and entangled, 
 as I saw my love, helpless in the snares of circum- 
 stance. I see, and I declare — and can I do more?" 
 He stopped in his pacing to look at his companion. 
 With his march his voice ceased its rhythmic beat. 
 He grew younger and less inspired. "I'm not pre- 
 pared to say that I can. There's cut-and-thrust 
 work out there for somebody — but the fisticuffs 
 of a mob! Cobbett's fists, Burdett's, do no more 
 than Dick's and Harry's — and lead them— whither?
 
 134 BENDISH 
 
 O Heaven! To a hustings! To vote like free men? 
 Not so. But to cheer while shopkeepers vote! 
 Reckon up the worth of that in blood and tears. 
 It's not so much a leader that they want as a seer. . . . 
 "If a poet can do anything — at least he can see. 
 He can undress notions and hold them up in their 
 nakedness as God made them. To some it is Hke 
 the unclouding of the sun; but some are left bleed- 
 ing raw — those which have never had any natural 
 covers of their own — and look like skinned rabbits. 
 Is not that, perhaps, our business in England? 
 Yes, it's our first, but not necessarily our last, be- 
 cause we are men as well as seers. We too are 
 throttled by tyrant circumstance. Somebody has 
 to act, some one must lead. Shall the bHnd lead 
 the blind? You see where they are tending — to 
 the hustings, to the lobby! And there are fields 
 to till, and grain to sow, and women to love, and 
 songs to sing, and children to get — and the stars 
 above us. O God, and we die and we die, that 
 shopmen may vote whig and tory!" He stopped, 
 throwing up his hands, then said finally, "So much 
 for the leadership of the blind." 
 
 Lord Bendish was very astute when he met a 
 man of mettle, and very quick. Half an eye told 
 him all that he needed. Kno\^^ng his man, you 
 could trust him to adapt himself, to find the key 
 which let him in by the private door. Gravity, 
 simplicity, directness characterised him throughout 
 the order of the night. If Poore was for resolving
 
 THREATENED INTERIOR 135 
 
 politics to the elements, he was ready for him. He 
 eschewed parties, and contemplated with his new 
 friend The Rights of ]\Ian, and Political Justice. 
 Between them they undressed the creature as bare 
 as he was born, — and barer by a good deal; for 
 when Heniker came in to dine he found them busy 
 about his soul, as has been revealed already. 
 
 Talking fiercely, they went up the hill and reached 
 the villa. There Georgiana stood within the door- 
 way, starry-eyed, and with face aflame for her lover. 
 And there Bendish became another person. Con- 
 fronted with woman, that beast of chase, he was 
 made man again — that untirable hunter. 
 
 But there was nothing apparent. The change 
 was internal. Presented, he saluted her with high 
 courtesy, and did not lose his accessibility. There 
 was no flagrancy about his interest in the fashion- 
 able lady who had demoded herself, nothing what- 
 ever to show that his vanity was piqued, and that 
 he was immediately prepared to pit himself against 
 the possessor of her heart. But it was so. His 
 vanity was all alight; every word that he used, 
 every gesture, every look was a move in a game 
 at which already he was insatiable and a good hand. 
 He had a keen eye too for women. He saw this 
 one to be of rare quality. Her reticence, her fru- 
 gality both of form and colour, her masked as well 
 as her revealed fire, the paradox she was — shy and 
 daring, guarded in word, yet heedless in action, 
 beautiful rather by implication than in fact: all this 
 he found infinitely provoking. He studied her parts
 
 136 BENDISH 
 
 like an amateur of statuary. Who was the cunning 
 artist who moulded this woman so slight and yet 
 so exquisite? She had the forms of a child upon 
 the model of a goddess. Nothing too much! was 
 his maxim as he worked. 
 
 Acutely sensitive to voluptuous suggestion, he 
 assured himself of these things as he gazed at her, 
 even in the moment of making his first bow; but 
 the impetuosity of his host swept him into the 
 house and to the supper-table, claimed him for his 
 own and lifted him into fields of abstract specula- 
 tion where he was expected to take his share of 
 the glorious game of tossing the spheres about like 
 shuttlecocks. Bendish did it well — did it indeed 
 the better for having a witness of his feats. In 
 spectatorship, as in all else, he found Georgiana 
 provocative. She said little, and betrayed rarely 
 what she felt as she listened and watched; but 
 nothing escaped Bendish, who felt himself now and 
 then rewarded by a gleam, by a flush of colour, by 
 a smile, as if she hardly cared to confess her pleas- 
 ure in the talk, even to herself. The meal was of 
 the simplest, Poore and his wife spare eaters, and 
 Bendish, very sensitive to suggestion, found himself 
 (to his amusement) as austere as they were. He 
 watched with all his eyes the messages which passed 
 between his host and hostess. 
 
 He had seen the look in Georgiana's eyes when 
 they came into the light; and Poore's quick move- 
 ment towards her. Their hands had encountered 
 and clasped for a moment. Her face had strained
 
 THREATENED INTERIOR 137 
 
 towards him, but there had been no kissing. "Dear- 
 est," Poore had said immediately, "I bring you 
 Lord Bendish," and she had immediately turned 
 to face her visitor. She had offered her hand — so 
 thin a hand — without a word, conventional or other- 
 wise. Her welcome had been in her eyes, he thought, 
 frank and friendly. Interested? Yes, he thought 
 so; and for the rest of the evening he devoted him- 
 self to calling up that first friendly, interested regard. 
 Poore was not an exorbitant speaker. When he had 
 delivered himself of the burden of his heart he was 
 apt to fall into brooding silences. During these 
 Bendish talked his best, addressing the pair, but 
 with his eye for the lady. He kept her attention, 
 he observed; and more than that, she necessitated 
 his. He had to be wary, for she was apt to flash 
 a sudden question upon him when something es- 
 caped him which she did not follow. He saw that 
 her mind was engaged, that she did not relish talk 
 for its own sake, but like a good hound kept to the 
 first scent and was not easily thrown out. Yet she 
 was very quick; few allusions escaped her. 
 
 After supper Poore came to himself and asked 
 her about the children. She smiled her assurance 
 that they were sound asleep, and when he went out 
 of the room, tiptoe already at the mere thought of 
 sleep, she did not go with him. Bendish saw his 
 way to establishing a relation. 
 
 "He loves them?" 
 
 Her eyes enveloped him. "He adores them." 
 
 "You have two children?"
 
 138 BENDISH 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "You are happy then," He said this as com- 
 mentary, not without the imphcation upon his own 
 lonehness which a sigh might afford. At the mo- 
 ment he undoubtedly felt that he was lonely. But 
 she did not take up the hint, and he found out that 
 her ears were set back for the return of Poore. 
 The poet presently re-entered the room. 
 
 His face was irradiate. "They are beautiful," 
 he said to Bendish. " Come and look at them." 
 
 Not even Bendish was offended by the simphcity 
 of this proposal. He immediately rose and stood 
 by the door. Georgiana slowly got up — as if un- 
 willingly — and passed between the two men. Ben- 
 dish saw her eyehds flicker as she went under her 
 husband's eyes. He missed nothing. 
 
 She led them into a long narrow white room lit 
 by a floating wick, and full of shadows and glooms. 
 An old white-haired peasant woman rose and hid 
 her hands under her apron. Georgiana was stand- 
 ing by the bed, lookuig down upon the rapt pair 
 within it. Two flaxen heads, two glowing cheeks 
 — Bendish from under his brows watched the mother. 
 
 He judged that she was not moved as Poore was. 
 He judged that she saw in them the fruit of pain 
 and weariness; but grudging none of it, seemed 
 above their needs, as if she knew their necessities 
 before they asked and their ignorance in asking. 
 It was odd to Bendish, and moved him strongly, 
 that she who had had all the suffering of the tillage 
 and the reaping should by that very fact be now
 
 THREATENED INTERIOR 139 
 
 so remote from it. They were of her very flesh and 
 blood, and yet she looked down upon them now 
 with gentle pity, with compassionate humour — as 
 if wondering that things so small could come out 
 of need so vast and love and anguish so untold as 
 that involved. Beneath her husband's eyes she 
 stood and looked, and all surrender, all the splendid 
 humble bounty of woman was upon her musing 
 face. "I give, I give, and still I give! Ah, so small 
 a thing, which seemed so great!" Bendish, indeed, 
 missed nothing. 
 
 Poore was looking at the dreaming pair through 
 misty eyes. "They are fast — fast; they are not 
 here. God knows where they are floating now." 
 Georgiana, seeing them intensely, smiled — a smile 
 at once tender and strange. Bendish thought her 
 almost dreadfully remote. As if her secret mind 
 was aware of his concern, presently she stooped 
 and daintily kissed the cheek of each. As she 
 straightened from the devotion, her husband's hand 
 touched her waist, just lit and touched her there; 
 and by a pretty gesture she leaned back until she 
 felt the support of him. She stood into him, Ben- 
 dish considered, as one might stand in the angle of 
 a wall, touching each face, protected from the winds. 
 It was only a momentary shelter that she took, for 
 soon she moved away, with a nod to the old watcher 
 of the room. 
 
 Shortly afterwards Bendish took his leave, and 
 the poet went with him to the gate. They stood 
 for a moment under the stars, upon whose flower-
 
 I40 BENDISH 
 
 * 
 
 strewn field cypresses made lagoons of deep black. 
 Neither man spoke, but Bendish knew that his host 
 was huge with exaltation, and saw that he was 
 restless with it. 
 
 As he went down the hill to his lodging a mo- 
 ment's pang disturbed him. This pretty interior — 
 he was then to break in upon it! He gloomed upon 
 his fate. The Man of Destiny! The Wrecker of 
 Hearths ! 
 
 Within the doomed house Poore had his wife 
 in his arms, while she told him of her interview 
 with Heniker. It was the fact that Poore himself 
 felt the approach of something Uke a doom, while 
 giving himself assurance after assurance that noth- 
 ing in what she told him could be a possible threat- 
 ening to his present happiness. How could it be? 
 Love and trust were in every fold of her clear voice, 
 they were implied in every note of her thought. 
 Yet what she said had the impress of a sobbed con- 
 fession, and so stabbed while it touched him. " Dear- 
 est," she said, "I feel that we owe him so much — " 
 She was, of course, speaking of the Duke — for the 
 dispositions of poor Charles Lancelot's money were 
 waved aside at the outset! — "so much that we can't 
 pay him enough. He gave me to you — he had 
 claims upon me from the very beginning, and made 
 nothing of them. He was very generous — he thought 
 nothing of himself — and now that he's getting 
 old, and is lonely, I do think it may be my duty to 
 do what I can. I didn't understand from Mr.
 
 THREATENED INTERIOR 141 
 
 Heniker that he asked me to go back, in 30 many 
 words — but Mr. Heniker beheved that he wanted 
 me — and I feel certain of it myself — so that, if you 
 could see your way — " 
 
 This was a perilous moment, though it didn't last 
 long. Here was the wife asking leave to go back 
 to succour an old lover — asking with a falter in her 
 voice, but with clear intention, with too clear desire. 
 And yet — and yet — not a doubt of her! Poore, 
 maybe, was still too much the lover to be enough 
 the mate of such a woman as this. For the mo- 
 ment he felt mortally stabbed. His hold upon her 
 relaxed, his arms fell from her. He plunged his 
 hands into his breeches' pockets. 
 
 "What do you want of me, my love?" he said. 
 "Permission to return? But — you are free as air." 
 
 She looked at him with wide-open, sad eyes. 
 "You know that I shouldn't go back unless you 
 said that it was right. It couldn't be right unless 
 you — unless we both saw it so." She strained 
 away her face; when she turned it to him again 
 there were tears in her eyes. "Oh, Gervase, we 
 must always see together — that means everything 
 to me." 
 
 He was touched immediately — "My love, my 
 love — " He had her to his breast again. "You 
 are the lamp to my feet. I was dismayed for a mo- 
 ment, and lost the way. But a word from you 
 brings me back. I trust your view of duty abso- 
 lutely. Say no more — we will go back — you shall 
 do whatever you feel to be due— I can't grudge
 
 142 BENDISH 
 
 any man or woman in the world the light of your 
 charity — ^but" — he clasped her fiercely — "love me, 
 for God's sake — love me for ever." 
 
 "My love, my love," she said, and gave him her 
 lips.
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 THE INVADING SEED 
 
 Heniker, summoned to the Villa, met the family 
 in conclave. The mother, in white, had the baby- 
 on her lap; the boy, shockheaded, flaxen and flushed, 
 with his father's scowl and sulky blue eyes beneath 
 it, sat on the floor and played with incredibly small 
 stones imported with grunts from the garden; the 
 father, hands deep in his pockets, forged about the 
 room while he uttered himself. He was very de- 
 tached — his thoughts came from him in jets, like 
 water from an intermittent pump. He had the air 
 of a giant irritated by gnats, surprised at his own 
 annoyance, quite unable to see what it was that 
 annoyed him so much. Heniker's eyes found a 
 haven of peace from the strong waters when they 
 turned to Georgiana looking benevolently down at 
 the child swarming at her breast after her string of 
 beads. She added nothing to what her husband 
 said or refrained from saying, but Heniker knew 
 that she was listening. 
 
 "We have discussed it, you know, and we con- 
 clude that it's quite impossible. ... It seems un- 
 gracious to refuse a dead man . . . yet he has a 
 better chance of understanding, I believe, than a 
 living one. ... I see his motive ... it had been 
 better not thrust into one's hands. ... It is like 
 
 143
 
 144 BENDISH 
 
 a plea — 'Take it, or you blame me again.' He 
 need not have thought it of us. . . . All that a man 
 could do — more than most would do — he did. But 
 to perpetuate his atonement — to keep his body on 
 the cross . . . before our eyes. . . . No, no. He 
 sees that we are right now — he knows better. . . . 
 It can't be. Money is an accursed thing ... it 
 falsifies relations, it puts you wrong with yourself, 
 and with your neighbours. We can have nothing 
 to do with it. ... But my wife's own money is 
 another matter. I don't see how she can avoid 
 having it. . . . You will no doubt do what may be 
 proper about that. She renounced it, of course, so 
 long as he lived . . . while it was, morally, subject 
 to settlement . . . but now ... I trust you to do 
 the right thing for her and her children. . . . 
 
 "Ah, and there's another thing which she wishes 
 me to say to you. We return to England shortly. 
 Pray tell that to the Duke . . . she has told me 
 that he is anxious . . . well, she will see him soon. 
 . . . My feeling is that there are troubles ahead. 
 ... I know very little about politics ... it hardly 
 seems to me a practical matter. Practical matters 
 — life, death, air to breathe and food to eat — are 
 going to intervene. You can't drill starving men. 
 This rick-burning, this machine-smashing, these 
 gaunt mobs about the fields — this means starvation. 
 The whole thing's wrong — not to be solved by a 
 trumpery Reform Bill. You might as well allay 
 brain-fever with a small-toothed comb! Oh, Mr. 
 Heniker, it's absurd. . . . But these things are not
 
 THE INVADING SEED 145 
 
 our immediate concern ... we will go back . . . 
 that's settled. ..." Then, quite suddenly, he 
 broke off and held his hand out. "Good-bye, Mr. 
 Heniker ... I must go and walk about." He 
 turned to his wife, picked up her hand and kissed 
 the tips of her fingers. She looked up, seriously 
 searching his face. Love and gratitude beamed 
 from her. He hovered, stooped suddenly and kissed 
 her, touched the head of the child in her arms and 
 went out. The room seemed strangely calm. 
 
 Heniker had a few words more wdth Georgiana. 
 She gave him a letter for the Duke. "Tell him 
 that I shall see him soon. We have talked it all 
 over. My husband agrees with me — I hope you 
 w^ill have a good journey. I suppose that we shall 
 go by sea — from Genoa. It costs much less, and 
 is easier \dth cliildren." 
 
 Heniker thought that that depended — on the sea. 
 No, no, she said, they both loved a sea-voyage. 
 She glowed gravely as he asked leave to kiss the 
 children, watched him do it, and was very friendly 
 as he went, going with him to the door encumbered 
 with the heavy child, and standing there, a slip of 
 a Madonna, to see him go. The last thing he saw 
 of the Villa was that slim shaft of grace, leaning 
 back to its burden — the sun upon her hair and the 
 blue of her eyes. He thought as he went, There is 
 a woman in whom is no guile. 
 
 Lord Bendish, having other things to think of, 
 bid him a light farewell. "I shall stay here," he
 
 146 BENDISH 
 
 said. "I like the place — I like the people. I shall 
 probably take a villa and get some servants. Horses 
 I must have too. If you could have stayed, I 
 should have been glad — but I suppose Mackintosh 
 can do what's absolutely necessary. You might 
 see that they pack my books for me. I have writ- 
 ten fully to Wybrow. You have the letter with 
 the others? Good. Nothing else, I think. Oh, 
 yes, money ! You must send me some immediately. 
 I may run short." Reminded of the Coronation, 
 he was scornful. He damned the Coronation. Free 
 men didn't walk behind kings, he said. He was in a 
 rising republican mood. Heniker chuckled to see 
 him pound up and down the room like Poore. Then 
 he set out for home, and Rose Pierson. 
 
 Here begins an association with which the Poores, 
 at any rate, had no call to reproach themselves, 
 though to Poore himself, reflecting upon it later, 
 the conjunction of Lord Bendish and the passage 
 homewards had a sinister effect, one upon the other. 
 Poore was too much the poet not to be an exorbi- 
 tant lover, giving all so long as all was given, see- 
 ing his love so high above him that should she really 
 come within reach she would hardly have seemed 
 the same rare creature to him. It is useless to deny 
 that he was wounded by her desire to comfort the 
 Duke. Perhaps he was more bruised than wounded. 
 He did not bleed at the heart; there was no loss 
 of virtue; but there was a soreness, the place was 
 tender. There was a note of despair now, making
 
 THE INVADING SEED 147 
 
 his passion fierce and spasmodic. He would clasp 
 her in a sudden frenzy, then renounce his hold, and 
 gloom apart. He told himself that she was no 
 longer whole-heartedly his, and his courage fainted 
 withiJi him at the thought that he might yet compel 
 her utter love. To faint at such a thought was to 
 renounce it. If he had not done it in these three 
 years of perfect companionship, of passion at its 
 keenest flame, of parentage — here in Rapallo, empty 
 of all but the pair of them — how could he hope to 
 do it in London, at the Duke's great house, at as- 
 sembHes, in the turmoil of the shifting crowds? 
 Yet he felt that he had never loved her so entirely 
 as when he now loved her in despair. 
 
 She, on her part, knew well what was the matter 
 with him; and while she could have laughed at his 
 fancies, seeing their entire absurdity, she was much 
 more ready to cry. Yet she could do nothing to 
 help him who could not help himself. Nothing 
 could alter facts to her candid vision — and here 
 were facts: the Duke was her friend; he was old, 
 he was lonely; he needed her; she must go. These 
 things to her were as clear as the sun at noon; they 
 were, in fact, as clear as that other outstanding 
 fact that she wholly loved Gervase and could love 
 no more. She knew, what a man never knows, that 
 women can love a dozen, each according to his need, 
 while she is possessed, gladly and proudly possessed, 
 by one only. She can love her children, her friends, 
 the world at large: indeed, the more she is pos- 
 sessed, the greater her treasure, the more glad she
 
 148 BENDISH 
 
 to spend it. But Georgiana knew that Gervase 
 could not understand that. She knew that in man 
 all the emotions concentred upon one object. She 
 knew that he had no thought for anybody in the 
 world but her. She knew that, with men, trust in 
 the woman loved may coexist with fear of losing 
 her. No security for a man of Gervase' s sort: she 
 knew that. As for herself, the more she loved him 
 the more she loved his fellows. She felt herself 
 so rich that there need be no end to her charity. 
 So she opened her arms thankfully to the world, 
 and would have fed the poor at her breast if need 
 were. 
 
 But now between them there lurked a Uttle pointed 
 seed, piercing the breast of each as they loved. In 
 him the very grief was that she could not love him 
 wholly since she acknowledged a duty to another 
 man; in her there was the pain that, loving him 
 utterly, he should misread her so. Why, how could 
 she so be in charity with all men if she were not 
 safely sealed in his heart? And how could he not 
 know that? But she saw that he could not, and 
 pitied him deeply. Her heart ached for him — but 
 she could not falter in what she had to do. She was 
 never, you see, out of touch with the world of sense, 
 and he practically never in touch with it at all. 
 She could walk, handfasted with him, his world of 
 dream; but he never, never, her world of sense. 
 This must be so — but hitherto she had always fol- 
 lowed him into dreams, and now he must follow her. 
 Waking while he slept, she turned it over and over
 
 THE INVADING SEED 149 
 
 in her mind, and vowed to herself how gently she 
 would guide him through the thorny wastes. 
 
 Into this paradise, then, invaded by the pointed 
 seed* came young Lord Bendish holding out hands 
 of adventure, promising greatly of England and 
 fine fun there. He had made himself acceptable 
 at the first to Poore; as time went on Georgiana 
 was glad enough of him for Poore's sake. On her 
 owTi account she withheld her judgment, which was 
 cool and shrewd at once, and based upon a knowl- 
 edge of the waking, ostensible world far more thor- 
 ough than Poore's had ever been or ever could be. 
 Politics, which to him were a matter of high theory, 
 were known to her for a great game, passionately 
 pursued by men who took life itself and everything 
 in it as a gam.e. She had been the wife of a politi- 
 cian since she left the schoolroom, and the close 
 friend of the greatest of them all. She had met 
 every pohtician in England, and the wives of them. 
 Of them all she only knew one who took the business 
 practically, as she took it herself (in spite of high 
 theory), and that one was her old friend the Duke 
 of Devizes. He very simply said, "This country 
 has got to be kept going in the face of Europe and 
 to its own face. The job is difficult, but it can be 
 done if everybody minds his own business. There's 
 no room for theory, which means that some people 
 will speculate and experiment with other people's 
 business. That's not practical, and it's not sense. 
 Let them dream in their beds, or howl to the stars,
 
 I50 BENDISH 
 
 if they must, on their roof-tops; but let me alone 
 and 111 keep England going." And so he had in 
 his plain unemotional way, and deep in her heart 
 Georgiana felt sure that he had done rightly and 
 well. She loved Gervase entirely, and saw him 
 winged and irradiate, a seraph soaring the upper 
 air. If he came down to earth what could happen 
 to him but battery and bruises? 
 
 But here was the young lord, presently flying 
 an avowedly lower level, and inviting Gervase to 
 join him there with a view to a descent upon Eng- 
 land. This was not obvious at first; at first poetry 
 and high theory seemed his only care. Great even- 
 ings were spent during which Gervase thundered 
 out his Vision of Argos, or staves of his Roland, 
 Bendish rapt at his feet or pacing the loggia with a 
 light tiptoe restlessness peculiar to him. Or Poore 
 expounded his theory of poetry, which insisted 
 rather on a rhythm of picture and image than of 
 music and melody, and Bendish listened attentively 
 and offered but few objections. He seemed con- 
 tent to be disciple, and did not offer to contribute 
 any of his own compositions to the symposium. I 
 think this unwonted frugality of his must be attrib- 
 uted rather to his waning interest in poetry, than 
 to acknowledgment that Gervase was his master. 
 He was certainly tending to something more tan- 
 gible than poetry, and gradually, then, during long 
 walks which the pair took together, the stream of 
 debate came to centre about politics, and Bendish's 
 real aims were to be discussed. Georgiana pres-
 
 THE INVADING SEED 151 
 
 ently saw that he intended for leadership of men, 
 and to be a breaker rather than a maker. She 
 seriously doubted whether he had anything to make; 
 but it seemed as if Gervase were going to take that 
 for granted. 
 
 Both these young men were agreed that the Re- 
 form Bill was little to the purpose except as a handle 
 for revolt. It might be a useful housebreaker's 
 tool. Bendish said, "The Duke means to throw 
 it out of our House. It's a serious question whether 
 anybody should try to stop him." 
 
 Gervase, very calm at the moment, with the calm- 
 ness of despair, thought that he should be let alone. 
 "No friend of liberty," he said, "can wish the Re- 
 form Bill to pass. The tyranny of the shopkeepers 
 will be infinitely straiter than that of the squires. 
 It will be a steel mill for a millstone. It will crush 
 the finer. There will be a despotism of petty facts 
 instead of one of broad principle. As things are 
 now, every right of man is defied, truly; but under 
 the tradesmen's House of Commons every law of 
 God will be smothered. I had rather things re- 
 mained as they were." 
 
 Bendish objected — "No man can look on tyranny 
 unmoved. If we break one, we can break all. We 
 can break the very tradition of tyranny. And ac- 
 quiescence in tyranny itself has become a habit. 
 I conceive it a good thing to break that down." 
 
 Gervase gloomed on. "How do you think to 
 set about it? What is your plan? "
 
 152 BENDISH 
 
 "Roughly, it is to excite public feeling to the 
 highest pitch of human endurance. Then, when 
 the Duke disregards that — as he will — let the Bill 
 be thrown out by the peers — and — " 
 
 Gervase was watching him out of cavernous, 
 smouldering eyes. "And — ?" he said. 
 
 Bendish leapt to his height. " — and the coun- 
 try is alight," he said, "and the torch is carried from 
 end to end." 
 
 Gervase nodded. "Yes, I see it. All goes down 
 in fire and smoke — but what comes out? You mean 
 a civil war?" 
 
 "I mean Revolt. England must be free." 
 
 "France," Gervase said, "was never free — for one 
 moment." 
 
 "We learn from that. We will have no Buona- 
 parte — with a Waterloo involved. Or if we have 
 him, he too will have learned." 
 
 There Gervase was with him. "I think that cer- 
 tain," he said. "No one, fit to be a leader of men, 
 can have failed to see that Buonaparte was a brig- 
 and. If the world can't be made to feel that it's 
 better to make one man than to kill fifty, I shall 
 despair of it. But I don't despair, because I think 
 the thing can be made plain. The eternal verities 
 are here, all about us. I see them as plainly as I 
 see you. Can I not open the eyes of men? I be- 
 lieve that I can." 
 
 "There shall be an Epic of Revolt," cried Ben- 
 dish — "and you shall sing it." 
 
 "Not so," said the other. "An epic chants a
 
 THE INVADING SEED 153 
 
 thing done. It is the Hymn of History. We need 
 to see, not to remember. Good God, let us forget 
 all that we can! No, no. Let there be a Vision 
 of Revolt." 
 
 "Dream you," said Bendish, "and sing your 
 dream; and I will serve it." Gervase fell into a 
 reverie which lasted out the night. Georgiana, 
 busy with her needle, Hstened and judged. From 
 the heights where love and motherhood had placed 
 her she looked down compassionate upon the antics 
 of men. Bendish too sat silent, watching her, see- 
 ing all the beauty that rayed from her bent-down 
 head and quiet breast, or flashed in the passes of 
 her hand. Presently, however, with a sigh he rose 
 and went away without formahties observed, leav- 
 ing Poore engrossed in his dream. Georgiana had 
 to sleep alone — for Poore carried his dreams out with 
 him, and walked with them under the stars.
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 "the vision of revolt" 
 
 I don't consider The Vision of Revolt — which a 
 scornful critic nicknamed *'The Hodgiad" — one of 
 Poore's great poems, though it is now the fashion 
 to praise it. It has many of his sledge-hammer 
 descriptions; scenes occur — one Hghts upon them 
 — which seem to have been hacked out of granite, 
 and terrifically undercut. These things are usual 
 in his poetry, and were plainly such a joy to him 
 in the doing that he could never resist them, how- 
 ever much he would have gained by so doing. It 
 is impassioned, it is sincere, and it has a cumulative 
 power in it which certainly carries one on beyond 
 the point where the wave itself spends. But, per- 
 sonally, I much prefer his Vision of an Argos, which 
 may or may not have been, to that of an England 
 which will never, surely, be while Englishmen pay 
 taxes and drink beer. Poore was essentially an 
 erotic poet, not in any weak or unworthy sense — 
 for his Eros was Plato's great god, or Dante's, 
 rather than the lascivious boy of the Romans or 
 the Elizabethan young rascal. Love to him was 
 a divine madness, sex an accident and not a cause. 
 But there is no love-theme in The Vision of Revolt, 
 
 IS4
 
 "THE VISION OF REVOLT" 155 
 
 and very little love-imagery — except the scene in 
 the garret: — 
 
 Where two pale lovers breast to breast, 
 ,. Cling to each other beneath the moon; 
 And of the garret make a nest 
 Wherein to take their still delight, 
 And in their rags spell out their rune — 
 
 and a few more of the kind where the love-imagery 
 is used for a definite purpose of showing that love, 
 Hke death, makes all men equal — except, I say, for 
 detached passages of that sort love is not the theme 
 of the poem. 
 
 His hero is Hodge, the EngHshman, and he tracks 
 him from the Conquest up the ages, past the pres- 
 ent and into the future. History sweeps by like a 
 series of crimson dreams; Hodge is always in the 
 foreground, bending to his field-work, on the down 
 with his sheep, munching his bacon under the hedge 
 while the withering northeaster screams through 
 the thorns, and earth and air are a parched drab — 
 all this while Norman squadrons and Plantagenet 
 bowmen, Tudor and Stuart Cavaliers, Roundheads, 
 Hanoverian le\aes, conscripts from his own stock 
 march and countermarch across the scene. It is 
 so far an Epic of Endurance, a dumb agony. Lurid 
 lights play about this earth-born Prometheus — 
 Black Death, Civil War, Lollardry, witch-burning; 
 Chaucer sings and passes; Spenser, Marlowe, Shake- 
 speare strut their hours. One Cromwell kills a God, 
 another kills a king; Hodge remains bound to his
 
 156 BENDISH 
 
 glebe, eating bacon, working all day, sleeping like 
 a log, loving his wife on Sunday afternoons, be- 
 getting and burying children. Masters drive him 
 to the furrows, kings drive him into battle, priests 
 bicker over his soul, the parish deals with his body. 
 But he remains doggedly in touch with the eternal 
 things — in a way not possible to any more glit- 
 tering co-tenant of his — Love, Work, and God — 
 and because of his foothold there he is immovable 
 by those other transient phantoms, and remains 
 the same while they change and pass. Even so he 
 bends stolidly to his tasks and holds grimly to his 
 instincts, while "thunder from France" passes over 
 him, and while Buonaparte, the arch- thief and king, 
 picks Europe's pocket. Triumphs and Dooms of 
 Kings touch him not. With Waterloo the first part 
 ends — the first twelve books of the poem. 
 
 The rest is prophecy: Hodge is to be seen King 
 of England, if you can talk of kingship where every 
 man is a king. Here the poet is vehement, but 
 shadowy. The sharper his words bite, the less, it 
 seems to me, have they to bite upon. It is a dream 
 of pure Anarchy; of a Golden Age, if you will — 
 where the whole world is Eden, and God once more 
 walks in His garden in the cool of the day. The 
 great Reform Bill naturally plays a very small part 
 in bringing all this about, as you may imagine. He 
 keeps that well in focus. That is a remarkable 
 fact; for writing when he did, it was almost impos- 
 sible not to see the Reform agitation distorted out 
 of all proportion. But several steps are omitted;
 
 "THE VISION OF REVOLT" 157 
 
 the poem gathers in swing as it goes on, and rather 
 carries you with it on a flood of rhetoric than guides 
 you over the mountain pass. Once surrender your- 
 self to it and you may reach the poet's goal, some- 
 what out of breath and with a bruise here and there 
 where you have been bumped against a jutting rock. 
 If you try, however, any of your school-strokes of 
 swimming, you will find yourself swept into an eddy 
 before you are aware, and then in shoal water with 
 your knees scraping the sand. I regret that I can't 
 give a better analysis of Poore's apocalypse, but 
 I confess that I don't follow it all. His Epic of 
 EngUsh History I admire — his "Hodgiad" in fact. 
 Hodge is a fine giant, worthy to be King — but I 
 should like to know how he reached his throne. 
 
 The composition of this strange and vehement) 
 of this savage and ruthless poem, as swift as he 
 himself v/as when once at work, occupied Poore the 
 better part of six months. During a great part of 
 that time he was very invisible to his wife and chil- 
 dren and to his new friend Lord Bendish. He dis- 
 appeared directly he was out of his bed and, it was 
 beheved, betook himself to the hills where occa- 
 sionally he was seen ranging level places, his hands 
 behind his back, his shoulders thrust forward, his 
 eyes wild, his head bare to the sun. Strange boom- 
 ings came from him, torrential hummings, occa- 
 sionally savage cries. The native goatherds crossed 
 themselves and watched him in apprehension from 
 behind rocks. He took no food with him — but was
 
 158 BENDISH 
 
 sometimes seen to drink of mountain pools, or tarns, 
 — and returned late in the evening, exhausted but 
 in good spirits, still absorbed in his thoughts, to 
 write down, with a red-hot pen, what he had com- 
 posed during his solitary tramplings of the wilds. 
 He ate a meal of minestra and vegetables, drank 
 two glasses of wine and was ready for work. He 
 wrote furiously, far into the night, then tumbled on 
 to his bed and slept like a log. He seemed not to 
 be aware of his surroundings, knew not his lovers 
 and friends. Georgiana waited on him closely, dis- 
 cerned every need, said nothing, watched every- 
 thing and hoped all things. She was anxious to go 
 to England; she had the Duke on her conscience 
 — ^but nothing could be done while the fit was on 
 her husband. And this was a fit of unusual se- 
 verity, and had one unique symptom, which was 
 that when he began to write, he went to work with 
 a secrecy quite strange to him, which could not 
 suffer that a soul should see one word until he had 
 emptied himself of all. She knew by that sign that 
 he was less than usually absorbed in his task al- 
 though knit to it, by force of will, in every fibre of 
 his body — for by ordinary he had read his poems 
 to her as they progressed, and had asked, and some- 
 times taken, her advice. But with this one he was 
 strict to keep his own counsel, and Georgiana, whom 
 love had made divinely intelligent, suspected the 
 truth — which was that he doubted of her agree- 
 ment and dared not prove how rightly he doubted. 
 He hoped, certainly, to overwhelm her judgment
 
 "THE VISION OF REVOLT" 159 
 
 by the momentum of the whole rushing thing, but 
 would not risk the failure of a part of it. She did 
 not resent that, but she had a sinking of the heart 
 whenever she remembered it; for it was a true in- 
 stinct in him. The fact was that, so far as she could 
 guess what he was at, she did not approve of the 
 project. She was afraid of what would follow it. 
 Bendish, she had seen, was for practice more than 
 theory. She dishked Bendish and distrusted him. 
 She knew that Gervase was not fitted for politics, 
 and didn't want him to be. The Blessed Isles 
 towards which he steered every barque of his were 
 never to be compassed by politicians. She found 
 herself watching the lover whom she admired as 
 much as adored with a sickening certainty of fail- 
 ure and loss ahead of him. 
 
 The effect of Poore's sudden frenzy of compo- 
 sition upon his vivacious and suggestive friend was 
 rather comic. It left him with nothing whatever 
 to do in the matter. He was rather in the position 
 of a hardy rider who puts his blood-horse at a stiff 
 line of country — say, stone walls and water, or bare 
 rolling hiUs with deepish bottoms of plough-land 
 in between them. The noble beast sniffs the dan- 
 ger through his red nostrils, pricks his thin ears and 
 shakes his fine small head; and then, as a prelim- 
 inary to action, unseats his rider, deposits him on 
 the turf, and leaps forward to the adventure. So 
 sat Lord Bendish now while Gervase careered at 
 large.
 
 l6o BENDISH 
 
 Another thing which made him ill at ease was 
 that Georgiana took no particular interest in him. 
 There was a polite affectation of interest; she talked 
 with him, walked with him occasionally, listened 
 to what he had to say and occasionally laughed at 
 him. In fact, she was not at all uneasy in his 
 company, rather, she was too easy by half. This 
 was new to his experience. He began to desire her 
 extremely. He had found her situation — as the 
 heroine of a recent scandal — and her person ahke 
 provocative of most romantic inclinations. He was 
 poet enough himself to see that she was rarely beau- 
 tiful, but not to understand that it was really her 
 mind which transfigured her body. He had not 
 been apt to suppose that women had minds at all; 
 his approaches to the attack had been of the usual 
 kind, therefore, and had failed. Not only had he 
 failed but the lady had not even known that she 
 was beleaguered. Assuredly this state of things 
 must be altered or Bendish would have to admit 
 his own failure. 
 
 Georgiana was essentially simple; Bendish was 
 not at all simple. When he talked to her about 
 common acquaintance in the great world where she 
 had once played a conspicuous part he had credited 
 her with all sorts of complicated feelings, none of 
 which she had. He thought that she would hail 
 him thankfully as a brilliant reminder of what she 
 had lost: she was not at all conscious of loss, and 
 did not observe his brilliancy. He had built much 
 upon that, seeing her in his mind's eye cling to him
 
 "THE VISION OF REVOLT" i6r 
 
 that she might get back something of the grace 
 which had been hers. Nothing of the kind oc- 
 curred. She talked of the K s and the O s 
 
 as she might have talked of the Browns and the 
 Robinsons; she seemed to have no historic imagi- 
 nation. She dechned to be treated as a woman of 
 fashion, she did not swim in Bendish as in her 
 element. 
 
 He shoved off on another tack, and circled about 
 her. He told himself that he was very much in 
 love, and vowed that he didn't care to conceal it. 
 He saw her every day and thought of her most of 
 the night. Verses came easily to him. He wrote 
 of her, guardedly, obHquely at first, and read her 
 what he had done. At first she was taken in. She 
 thought that he had left his heart in England, and 
 wondered what kind of lady had attracted this but- 
 terfly lord. Presently, however, she saw that he was 
 adoring herself, very respectfully, and snug in her 
 tower of strength she was amused, and allowed her- 
 self to be interested. It's extraordinary how far a 
 woman, deeply and safely in love, deeply and abid- 
 ingly beloved, can afford to let another man go. 
 Georgiana in this may be blamed by some, but 
 never by me. Love with women is a permanent 
 possession and defence — it is at once treasure and 
 treasure-house. Nothing can touch it, nothing de- 
 preciate it. Indeed, tribute from another height- 
 ens its value. So this beautiful, watchful, critical 
 woman went about her ordinary business, and left 
 her heart with her Gervase in his mountains or at
 
 i62 BENDISH 
 
 his desk, while with a wary and amused eye she 
 watched Lord Bendish at his antics. 
 
 Words, words, words! And very pretty words 
 they were — tender, glowing with sentiment, sHghtly 
 rococo, very insincere, but as comphmentary as you 
 please. This went on for a couple of weeks, and 
 then there came a day when he was at her feet, 
 with her hand at his lips. "0 you are beautiful! 
 Pity me, I die!" That kind of thing — by a seat 
 in a myrtle thicket. 
 
 That was a panting moment. She was pale and 
 very quiet, having quickly regained her hand. 
 
 "I think you are forgetting. Lord Bendish." 
 
 "I forget God when I see you — ." He was still 
 on his knees. 
 
 But she was dry. ''You forget me too, I think. 
 Please to get up." 
 
 "What," he cried, "may I not hope—?" He 
 could not take defeat. 
 
 She sickened of him in a moment. "Ah, you 
 may hope — for honesty," she said, and left him. 
 He was deeply mortified, and never forgave her. 
 Had she been honest with him? He felt that she 
 had led him on, which was not true. She had let 
 him go on, which is a different thing — but he couldn't, 
 or wouldn't, see that, and came in time to hate her. 
 
 Meantime he withdrew to his house — for he had 
 taken a great house at Porto Fino and kept state 
 there — and was no more seen at the villa. But 
 this was for a very short time. Presently — seeing 
 that Poore was invisible, and Poore's wife only too
 
 "THE VISION OF REVOLT" 163 
 
 visible, going about the business of the house as if 
 nothing had happened — he took to the road, leav- 
 ing word that he should return, and lumbered into 
 Italy, where I propose to leave him. Genoa, Milan, 
 Florence, Rome, Venice, heard of him. Many dis- 
 tractions assailed him; but it is to be said that he 
 remained clear in his impressions of Gervase Poore 
 and a common enthusiasm. He could not think 
 of Georgiana without disgust, but he was honestly 
 an admirer of her husband's genius — and as such he 
 saw Italy through Poore's eyes, put like glasses upon 
 his own. He saw it too, I must go on to say, "in 
 character." Italy posed for him, but not before he 
 had ardently posed for Italy. 
 
 Italy moved him very much. He became a 
 tourist, firstly to distract himself, but soon because 
 he was genuinely interested. He saw everything, 
 read, thought, grew excited. His thoughts became 
 winged words. He returned to his design of a 
 Poem, rehandled his notes, reshaped them, got bit- 
 ten and began. He wrote fluently, and was elated 
 by what he wrote. The thing grew under him. 
 It was The Wanderer. Now it is hardly necessary 
 at this stage to say of The Wanderer that it is con- 
 cerned much more with the writer than with the 
 places in which he wandered. Let that be so, if 
 he had left it at that his fame would have suffered, 
 perhaps — and perhaps that is all we need be con- 
 cerned about now. But he did not. He was, of 
 course, inherently a rhetorician. He did not feel 
 so much as know what others might be made to
 
 1 64 BENDISH 
 
 feel. But any stick will do to beat a dog with, and 
 any art — even cookery — may be a vent for the va- 
 pours. Here, then, his sense of rhetoric told him 
 that there must be a motive — a causa causans, and 
 being the young man he was, the only possible mo- 
 tive for so much passionate discomfort in the pres- 
 ence of nature must be a woman. Therefore a 
 woman looms malefic in the Wanderer's page; and 
 I will do The Wanderer this much credit, as to say 
 that he had not the slightest notion how bitten-in 
 as with vitriol her portrait is. He was smarting, 
 of course, from a recent encounter; she was fresh 
 upon his mind; his wounds were raw, gaping at 
 the edges. She might have been Lady Ann, she 
 might have been poor Rose; but she happened to 
 be Mrs. Poore. Therefore Mrs. Poore is the "care- 
 worn Circe" of The Wanderer, whose malignant 
 wiles gave so much satisfaction to the noble victim 
 of them that he really might have come to be grate- 
 ful to her for inflicting upon him woes which could 
 be so luxuriously healed. I doubt if Bendish ever 
 enjoyed himself so much as when in Rome, Flor- 
 ence, Naples, and Venice, he was seeing himself a 
 victim to a false, beautiful, and ruthless woman. 
 Rhetorical fiction! That may be — but The Wan- 
 derer remains to testify to a bleeding heart. And 
 next to having a bleeding heart in being, to have 
 had one is still food for your rhetorician; and next 
 to that again, no doubt, is to think that you have 
 had one. Be all this as it may for the moment. 
 The Wanderer pleased its noble author at the time,
 
 "THE VISION OF REVOLT" 165 
 
 and fully occupied his time, without removing at 
 all from his mind his dream that he might become 
 a leader of men. It served his purpose, which was 
 to rid him, as by phlebotomy, of a fever; and when 
 he had written himself out he felt better, and re- 
 turned with zest to his ambitious reveries. Re- 
 turned to Rapallo in the late autumn, he had for- 
 gotten all about his verses. Georgiana little knew 
 how near she had gone to accompHshing the de- 
 sire of her heart. If Gervase had not finished his 
 "Hodgiad" when he did, and had not rekindled in 
 Bendish the fire he had got from him, the young 
 lord had gone home to England and these pages 
 never been devoted to him. But she neither knew 
 nor cared. Bendish, once out of her house, did not 
 exist so far as she was concerned. He had made 
 love to her, it is trae; but wantonly, she judged, 
 for the simple reason that the field had been open 
 to him. There had been no hedges to break; the 
 field lay wide to the road. He had looked at it in 
 passing. It was full of flowers, smelt of honey; 
 but they were wild flowers, not worth plucking. 
 She thought him a fopling and forgot him. She 
 was bored, but not at all disturbed by his reap- 
 pearance. 
 
 Just as easily as she had forgotten him, so did 
 he forget his poem, and that she had been the rea- 
 son of it; but he had not at all renounced his ambi- 
 tions. He still saw his way to political adventure, 
 and indeed had maintained throughout his travel 
 an extensive correspondence with England, which
 
 1 66 BENDISH 
 
 assured him of it. The country was full of unease; 
 the excitement of the centre was fervent, but at the 
 circumference explosive. England was like a boil- 
 ing pot which seethes and heaves in the midst, and 
 at the edges breaks into bubbles. Bendish had let- 
 ters from all parts of the country, and invited more 
 by the answers he wrote. So far as he could judge, 
 the times were ripe for revolution, and nothing now 
 was wanting but a born leader of men to set a host 
 flooding the country like a tidal wave — that had 
 been his own figure when he was setting Poore afire, 
 and as he spoke it he had seen himself on its crest. 
 
 He had his manifesto at the tip of his tongue. 
 If Georgiana had encouraged him ever so Httle it 
 would have been in England by this time; for Ben- 
 dish was that kind of man who responds imme- 
 diately to opinion, and is a good poet if you beheve 
 him to be one — or a good anything else. As it was, 
 however, she had chilled him, and he had to wait 
 for Gervase Poore, who didn't fail him, though he 
 very nearly did. 
 
 Just in time, as it happened, Poore appeared be- 
 fore him, some weeks after his return to Porto Fino 
 — haggard but illuminated by inner fire. The two 
 poets sprang together. 
 
 Poore said, "My poem is done. You shall come 
 and hear me " 
 
 "Let us have it now," said Bendish, "and then 
 we'll dine and discuss our plans." 
 
 Poore looked troubled — and was troubled. "I 
 think I will ask you to come to us. I wish Gina
 
 "THE VISION OF REVOLT" 167 
 
 to hear me too — I trust to her judgment. We 
 ought to have that " 
 
 Bendish, having no further use for Mrs. Poore, 
 said plainly, "A man writes for men, unless he is 
 writing about love — and then he writes for women. 
 But as you will. Women don't like politics. They 
 distrust its power over men." 
 
 Gervase was not in arms for his wife. He was 
 too much absorbed for that. But he considered 
 the proposition, dreaming over it, searching the blue 
 spaces of the sea. 
 
 "My wife is not a woman, I think," was his 
 conclusion; "she's a spirit in person. She reminds 
 me of a flame in a lantern. Let us go to her." 
 
 Bendish shrugged. "By all means. Let us go 
 to your lantern and tend the flame. But she won't 
 like this kind of oil, you'll find." 
 
 "She will like what is true in it," said Gervase, 
 still in his dream. So then they set out. 
 
 She saw them coming up the road from the sea 
 with the level rays of the declining sun upon them. 
 Her poet, taller than his companion, was bareheaded; 
 even at that distance, so well she knew him, she 
 could guess at his mood of intense, silent exaltation. 
 Lord Bendish walked beside him, very upright, very 
 stiff in the head, very much the little great man, 
 as she judged him in her strong distrust. She bore 
 him no grudge for his behaviour to herself, naturally 
 — for no woman ever does. But she feared his 
 friendship with Gervase, and wished him miles away.
 
 1 68 BENDISH 
 
 The day, which had been one of scirocco, hot and 
 still, was making a thundery close. Copper-edged 
 masses of cloud hung upon the sea; distant build- 
 ings — a church-tower, a lighthouse, the Castle on 
 its rocks — stared paper-white. She herself was in 
 a nervous mood, and wide-eyed for supernatural 
 warnings. Even as she stood fixedly watching, with 
 eyelids smarting at the strain she put upon them, 
 an omen flashed across the scene: two long- winged 
 hawks swept before her in flight, dipping, turning, 
 rocking as they flew, fighting and wrangling together. 
 They closed with shrill chattering, their wings beat 
 each other; then they parted, and one wheeled 
 upwards, towered and sped to the sea — the other 
 dipped to the earth and flew Umpingly into the hills. 
 
 While she was trembling under the excitement 
 of this, the two men were at the gate. 
 
 Lord Bendish saluted her with a flourish. "Fair 
 lady, I bring you your poet to be crowned." 
 
 She gave him her hand, which he kissed in courtly 
 fashion. He was in high spirits, not at all traitor 
 to his secret resentment. For if she bore no grudge, 
 he did. He both hated and despised and feared 
 her. His whole personal force was in the scale to 
 sky her up to the beam.
 
 f CHAPTER XV 
 
 THE BLOOD-PACT 
 
 They supped, the three of them, almost in si- 
 lence. There was a tension upon each. Bendish 
 was involved heart and soul in political dreamings. 
 His travels, his poem, his discomfiture were all for- 
 got. For some reason or another he counted greatly 
 upon the support — or opportunity — which Poore was 
 about to afford him. Nothing else, at the moment, 
 seemed to matter. Poore himself hardly ate any- 
 thing, and nearly all the time had his wife's hand 
 in his beneath the table-cloth. He had the sense 
 of returning, his sheaves with him. He was free, 
 deep-breathing from his labour of six months. If 
 his head was not upon her bosom, his mind was. 
 As for her, she made much of his hand, for she knew 
 what such testimonies meant in his case who was 
 prodigal of them, and entirely careless of outside 
 judgments when his mind was free. He had indeed 
 freed it of its burden now, and was all for returning 
 to her heart and side. So she saw, and knew that 
 the night would bring the renewing of their loves. 
 But she dreaded the ordeal that was first to come, 
 feehng it a bad sign that he had been so secret over 
 his work, knowing almost certainly that he mis- 
 doubted of her judgment. But ah, she told herself, 
 
 169
 
 I70 BENDISH 
 
 he need not! Did he not know how utterly she 
 loved, how utterly she had merged and drowned 
 herself in him? Her hand nestled in his palm, she 
 laughed softly to herself as she thought, O foolish, 
 noble, godlike Gervase who could suspect her of 
 disloyalty! But all that was over now, for he had 
 come back, and had her hand. 
 
 After supper he asked to see the children abed, 
 and she took him to them. Bendish sat on alone 
 over his wine, malignly smiUng. Children! They 
 remained away nearly half an hour. Bendish timed 
 them. 
 
 Then under the lamp the reading began, went 
 through and was not done till past midnight. Geor- 
 giana, in white, in a shadowed corner, motionless, 
 her chin in her thin hand; Bendish at the table, 
 his elbows upon it, his eyes astare, darkly revolv- 
 ing fate and doom; Poore standing to the Hght, a 
 savage reader, gnashing consonants as if he hated 
 them. 
 
 I find it impossible to give an idea of this ex- 
 traordinary historical poem which so reverses the 
 adjustments of History that Magna Carta drops 
 clean out, and the coming of the Friars Minor is 
 made more of than the exploits of the Black Prince. 
 It is perhaps too much to say that the weather and 
 the revolving of the seasons count for more in it 
 than the Armada or Marlborough's campaigns, or 
 Waterloo; but it is certain that these and the Hke 
 great events are sometimes lost sight of, while the 
 motions of the sun and moon never are. From his
 
 THE BLOOD-PACT 171 
 
 point of view these things are as they should be. 
 Given his point of view, Poore has got his values 
 exactly right; and that is his crowning achievement 
 in the first part of his book. The shocks and pound- 
 ings of history have just such a dim and distant sound 
 upon the ear as the rumour of the events themselves 
 may have had upon the pastoral folk who lived 
 through them. There is a harsher, more sinister, 
 more insistent rumour, the burden of Hodge at his 
 servitude : 
 
 The under-current to the drums, 
 
 The burden which the trampUng men 
 
 And shrilling trumpets drown in vain — 
 
 For still from loom and yard it hums, 
 
 And still you hear it far afield, 
 
 And down the hillside still it comes. . . . 
 
 Hodge afield, abed and at board is his hero. You 
 see the fellow grow as you Hsten. He gets your 
 conviction. For good or ill, at the end you have 
 a man before you — a man with whom, as you have 
 made him, you will soon have to reckon. You have 
 him whole: such as he is you have seen him grow; 
 such as you know him now, you can guess what 
 work he is likely to make. 
 
 Your first impression is one of strangeness. Yet 
 there are great beauties in the poem — homely pic- 
 tures, pastoral scenes, landscape pieces inset, gleams 
 of blue sky and sunlit hillsides seen through rents 
 in the murk or rolling cloud. And hope is never 
 quite absent, nor pride, nor the triumph of pride: —
 
 172 BENDISH 
 
 They shall perish, but thou endure; 
 
 Yea, like a garment they wax old; 
 
 Thou shalt change them like a vesture. 
 
 But thou art the same, thy years untold; 
 
 And thy children's children shall hold 
 
 The land whereon thou wast bought and sold. . . . 
 
 So far he carried Georgiana with him. She was 
 thrilled, she was proud, she was happy. He read 
 these messages in her eyes, but was too much moved 
 himself to need them then. Of the three people 
 concerned he carried conviction most deeply into 
 himself. He became his hero incarnate, but magni- 
 fied by the height and depth of his own inspiration. 
 He felt in his own person the huge blundering pro- 
 tagonist of his drama. And as such he began im- 
 mediately upon the Second Part. 
 
 Here he becomes prophetic and foretells the revo- 
 lution which will throne Hodge upon the seat of 
 our foreign kings. No time is specified for this 
 event, and none of the exact means by which it is 
 to be done. There is nothing of Mother Shipton 
 about his Vision of Revolt. He does not anticipate 
 steam traction or electric telegraph. He seems to 
 foresee a gradual rage rising very far off against 
 parliamentary government, rolling like a wave to- 
 wards Westminster and finally crashing upon it and 
 swallowing it up. He writes of "waves of men, 
 league upon league." There is no bloodshed; ap- 
 parently the tyrants and their symbols, kings and 
 their sceptres, bishops and their crosiers, parlia- 
 ments and armies — all simulacra of authority — go
 
 THE BLOOD-PACT 173 
 
 down ^dthout a struggle. Parliamentary govern- 
 ment is swept away; folk-moots are restored; there 
 is a Cormnittee of Public Weal; the land is resumed 
 and parcelled out among the people; local govern- 
 ment is strengthened — he sees beyond the county 
 into the parish; the parish is autonomous in local 
 affairs. Taxation is voluntar}'-, a matter of personal 
 and local honour. He expects, in fact, a general 
 enhghtenment and then a sudden illumination which 
 is irresistible. It is easy to travel when you see 
 the way. I am inclined to see an anticipation of 
 the power of the Strike in one passage: — 
 
 And the War of Waiting and standing still, 
 
 Fighting famine without a cry, 
 
 Broad-spread battle from hill to hill — 
 
 As if a man in his own blood 
 
 Should crown his foe, and hold on high 
 
 His own heart for an oriflamme, 
 
 And see the rally before he die. . . . 
 
 What else can that mean? He has a great passage 
 upon the Rights of Man which I should like to 
 quote, but do not. He ends with a vision of Eng- 
 land held by Englishmen. Hodge stands upon a 
 hill, where in the beginning we saw him crouching 
 from the wind, and gazes over England — fold upon 
 fold of it, softly gray and green, 
 
 Tilth and pasture and farm-steading, 
 
 White villages, red-roofed towns, 
 
 Grey manors in folds of the downs. . . .
 
 174 BENDISH 
 
 The land is his to possess it, enriched by his 
 bones for two thousand years, and bought with his 
 blood. Here, as on his throne, we leave King Hodge, 
 and the old song with whose first stave The Vision 
 began, closes it with its last: — 
 
 The shepherd upon the hill was laid, 
 The dog to his girdle was taid; 
 He had not slept but a httle braid 
 But Gloria in Excelsis was to him said. 
 
 Ut hoy! 
 For in his pipe he made so much joy! 
 
 When he had done, he sat trembling, while Ben- 
 dish sprang to his feet. 
 
 "By God, Poore, we ought to sweep the country 
 with it. If we fail we fail. But I can't think it." 
 
 Poore said, "It's a cause to die for. Many a 
 man will die before these things come about." 
 
 "Well," Bendish said, "I am ready. Let us be- 
 gin when you please. I am for England to-morrow. 
 Entrust me that and it shall be printed by the time 
 you arrive." 
 
 Poore, without another word, gave it into his 
 hands. Bendish lifted it to his forehead. 
 
 " The new Gospel," he said. " In hoc signo vinces ! " 
 
 Georgiana sat on white and motionless. She felt 
 as if Hfe was behind her. But Bendish went on, 
 gathering rhetoric as he went. 
 
 "Brother," he said, "I shall serve under you, and 
 devote myself and my fortunes to your work. I 
 am entirely of your mind, and have no will but
 
 THE BLOOD-PACT 175 
 
 yours. Let us make no plans yet — it is too soon. 
 Ways will come, and chances; and the men to take 
 them. Meantime let you and me swear brotherhood. 
 If you will take me under you I shall be proud to 
 serve." 
 
 "I'll take any true man," Poore said, "and you 
 first of all." He was entirely serious, and did not 
 take his eyes off Bendish. He had not looked at 
 Georgiana once since he ended the Second Part of 
 the poem. 
 
 Bendish had gone to the sideboard and picked up 
 a wine-glass. In it he poured wine till it was half 
 full. He brought that forward now and put it be- 
 side them on the table. Then he pulled a short 
 dagger from the sheath at his belt, and showed it to 
 the light. His eyes glittered as he concentrated his 
 gaze upon it. 
 
 "A sacrament of fellowship," he said, with a half 
 laugh; but he was very pale. Gervase watched 
 him, frowning. Bendish pulled up the sleeve of his 
 right arm, and held it over the glass. He stuck the 
 point of the dagger suddenly into his flesh, then 
 dropped it and squeezed his arm. Two or three 
 drops of blood fell into the wine. He looked brightly 
 at Gervase, who suddenly rose, pulled back his 
 sleeve and held his arm over the glass. Bendish 
 drew near, held his arm and looked at it. Gervase 
 watched him, still frowning, and did not flinch when 
 he drove in the point. His blood flowed into the 
 glass. Georgiana sat as one turned to stone. Ben- 
 dish raised the glass.
 
 176 BENDISH 
 
 "To the Rights of Man," he said, and drank, and 
 handed on the glass. 
 
 Poore held it, but said nothing audible; he looked 
 at his wife, hesitation in his looks. Bendish was 
 watching with glittering eyes. Georgiana had turned 
 very white. She saw the glass, she saw her husband's 
 intention, she knew that he called her — she could 
 not do it. She was at the moment the slave of her 
 judgment. Her love called upon her — her judgment 
 did not approve. She turned away her head, as it 
 seemed to her by superhuman effort. Then Poore 
 without another effort upon her drained the glass. 
 The deed — some deed — was done. Things between 
 her and her lover could never again be as they had 
 been before. Bendish had intervened. 
 
 To her the act was symbolical; there was nothing 
 left for her to do, but as she did. Her head ached, 
 and her heart was sick unto death. She got up, 
 saying that she would go to bed. Gervase, suddenly 
 aware of her, said, "Yes, yes, go, my love. It's 
 very late and we have much still to talk of." He 
 was very kind, with his hand on her shoulder; but 
 she felt an alien. She hfted him her face — he kissed 
 her cold lips. Then without a word she left the 
 room. Bendish held the door open for her and 
 bowed her out. Then he shut it again upon him- 
 self and her husband. 
 
 The one thought she had as she undressed herself 
 was, "This evening — before all this began — he was 
 mine. He took me — he was all mine. When he
 
 THE BLOOD-PACT 177 
 
 came home I saw it in his eyes, that he was mine 
 and wanted me. I gave him my hand — he knew, 
 he knew. Then he brought me here, and took me. 
 Never, never again, my heart! But then you were 
 mine!" What had happened since, exactly what 
 had happened she could not now examine. She had 
 neither the heart nor the head; but it was most cer- 
 tain that the ceremony decreed by Bendish had cut 
 a definite trench between Gervase and her. She 
 didn't realise that Bendish had intended that it 
 should, had been inspired to it by his instinct to 
 work against her; she thought that, in fact, Ger- 
 vase had cut it himself, that he had been digging as 
 he read. As for the poem, she admired it. It was 
 Gervase's heart's blood: of course she admired it. 
 It was not that she couldn't follow his thought, or 
 not see the fineness of it; not that she hadn't been 
 moved by it, or cried to herself. Ah, if these things 
 could be! Not at all. As a song it made her blood 
 sting her. But she knew Gervase; she knew his fac- 
 ulty for identifying himself with what he imagined. 
 He would go leaping out, after his poem, into the 
 world. And of course it was all hopeless, all utterly 
 absurd. If he took his poetry into the world, to 
 live and get it lived — she couldn't follow him. A 
 sense of futihty would clog her feet. And he would 
 do it, she knew; and she must watch and agonise. 
 
 Standing by her open window, peering wide-eyed 
 into the night, she prayed for him, but without con- 
 viction. She was fearful of letting herself go even 
 under the starry brows of her God. Then she laid
 
 1 78 BENDISH 
 
 herself beside her sleeping boy, not daring to enter 
 again that bed where so lately she had been as a 
 bride. She fell into a troubled doze, tossing herself 
 about, throwing out her arms; but she was deep 
 when he came to her in the gray of the morning 
 hours. 
 
 She was right in her certainty that Poore was that 
 dangerous kind of poet to whom the fictions of his 
 heart and brain are facts. He was an ideaUst of the 
 most naked kind, an enthusiast, of the stuff of 
 martyrs, a dangerous man. What to Bendish was 
 a safety-valve for his vitality, to him was mere light 
 and air. Having once stated Revolution, it became 
 a Hfe-and-death matter to him. He saw nothing 
 else sohd in a world of dreams. But, that assump- 
 tion once granted him, he was very practical. 
 
 He said to Bendish, "This poem will never reach 
 the people whom you and I have to work with, but 
 there's a chance that it will reach those who can 
 best reach them. Let schoolmasters have it, and 
 ministers of religion; get it into debating-clubs; 
 let any workman who can read have a chance of 
 seeing it. It is not a thing for the reviews: those 
 who read reviews are convinced already that I am 
 a proper object for the gallows. We gain nothing 
 by having it burnt by the common hangman. Re- 
 member that our revolution must come through men 
 who do not vote, and can't hope to vote for another 
 hundred years. The Reform Bill will pass, no doubt, 
 within a Httle time. If it does, our work will be the
 
 THE BLOOD-PACT 179 
 
 harder. If it does not, which is what I pray for, 
 we shall gain by the discontent its rejection pro- 
 duces. We shall have to speak at election meet- 
 ings — but we must always speak beyond the elector- 
 ate. We have to convince the serfs, not the free 
 men. It's the rick-burners to whom we must go, 
 not the town-burners. It's not going to be done 
 wdthin our Ufetime. These people have been cowed 
 for a thousand years. They have the suspicion of 
 hunted beasts: they will suspect you and me. I 
 see clearly that you are sanguine of something sud- 
 den. My friend, if you can't be patient and work 
 for your grandchildren you had better not work at 
 all. Don't you realise where we stand? We are 
 still ruled by your Norman robbers; but between 
 them and the EngHsh there's another great class, 
 more timid, more selfish, more obstinate than 
 themselves. A revolution — the first revolution — will 
 bring them to the top inevitably. The Reform 
 Bill will perhaps do that. Then our work will 
 begin. We must have manhood suffrage, annual 
 parliaments, the ballot before we can hope for an- 
 other parliamentary revolution. But I still hope 
 we can avoid that. If the Duke rejects Reform, I 
 still hope we can make that sort of reform out of 
 the question." 
 
 Bendish Ustened and said little, but his brain was 
 on fire. He was at his favourite trick of imagining 
 ovations. He saw the breakfast table of Holland 
 House husht while he thundered out Epics; he saw 
 old Rogers working his sour gums together, grudging
 
 i8o BENDISH 
 
 the admiration which was forced out of him. He 
 heard Tom Moore's shouts of rapture. ' He saw the 
 House of Lords — rows of pale faces waiting on his 
 words. ... "I shall start to-morrow," he told Ger- 
 vase, then added, "It will make people stare, to 
 have me at this work." 
 
 "That can't be helped," Gervase said. 
 
 "It may do good." He invited an opinion which 
 he held very strongly himself, but Gervase was too 
 simple to be caught. 
 
 "It will seem to do good at first, but in the long 
 run character tells, and not accident. When life 
 and death come into play it won't be your lordship 
 — which means nothing — but your lordliness which 
 will determine the issue." 
 
 Bendish moved about. "I suppose that blood 
 counts for something." His heart jumped respon- 
 sive: of course it did! 
 
 "It counts for as much as you have of it," Ger- 
 vase said. "You will want it every drop." He 
 was too grim for compliments, too fresh with his 
 own convictions. 
 
 Put upon his mettle, Bendish took the wisest 
 course. He held out his hand. 
 
 "Good-bye, my friend. I shan't see you again. 
 But you will hear of me in England." 
 
 Gervase took his hand. " I shall follow you soon," 
 he said. He was dog-tired. 
 
 The dawn was gray over the room where Georgi- 
 ana and the children lay asleep. Poore stood some 
 minutes watching them. He saw that she lay with
 
 THE BLOOD-PACT i8i 
 
 the child, and approved it. It was true that some- 
 thing had happened. Bendish, in fact, had hap- 
 pened. He did not even feel the impulse to waken 
 her, to clasp her and learn from her clinging arms 
 whether he had approved himself. He was too sure 
 — from Bendish — that he had, and for this moment 
 of triumph too satisfied with that. He had no no- 
 tion that anything severed him from her, no sus- 
 picion of the tragic significance of her act. All his 
 thoughts of her were tender. So deeply asleep — a 
 child with her child! A pure refuge for him, when 
 need was, from the turmoil, blood, passion, dust and 
 heat to come! He breathed thanksgiving upon her, 
 and stole out of the room, and out of the house into 
 the air. The goatherds climbing up the mountain 
 paths saw him above them, tall and cloaked, erect 
 against the sky.
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 THE LORD AS DEMAGOGUE 
 
 Bendish was true to his word. He left Rapallo 
 on the morrow of the pact, but chose for the sea, 
 taking only Mackintosh with him. The rest of his 
 household might travel as it would, or could. A 
 local bark took him to Genoa, where he shipped 
 himself aboard a merchantman. Here, provided 
 with a stateroom and private dining quarters, he 
 played the Exiled-for-opinions to a great tune, keep- 
 ing himself rigidly apart from those he was coming 
 to redeem. Folded in an ample cloak of black, 
 marble-faced and inscrutable, he sat upon the taff- 
 rail and brooded upon the ocean. Mackintosh, pre- 
 pared for most vagaries, was puzzled by his lord- 
 ship's present manner. "There's three handsome 
 women on board, and his lordship's not so much as 
 known it — not so much as called their attention. ..." 
 It was Mackintosh's private opinion that his lord- 
 ship, at the moment, was "in the skin" of Mr. 
 Poore, of whom he had seen so much at Rapallo; 
 and Mackintosh was right. Bendish, never really 
 happy unless he was trying to be something which 
 he was not, or to get something which somebody 
 else had, was a very chameleon for lapping up atmos- 
 
 182
 
 THE LORD AS DEMAGOGUE 183 
 
 phere. Just now he was filled with a sense of 
 Poore's power of conviction, swiftness of grasp and 
 singleness of purpose, all of which, as he had ob- 
 served, resulted in a fine abstraction from the affairs 
 of this world. He was more filled with that than 
 with what they were aimed at; but it did very well. 
 The handsome women preened themselves in vain 
 in the sun. He had no more eye for them than 
 Poore would have had — or so it certainly seemed to 
 them. 
 
 Abstracted he remained until the dim cliffs of 
 England loomed low down in the northern sky; and 
 then he became feverishly ahve, and as he had to 
 talk to somebody, he fell back upon Mackintosh. 
 He gave that subservient functionary to understand 
 that he intended to stay a month at least at Castle 
 Bendish, where he had never yet stayed for two 
 nights together in his Hfe. Mackintosh was to pro- 
 ceed thither at once and put everything in order. 
 ^'I shall have several guests," his lordship said, 
 "pohtical gentlemen, I fancy. There will be no 
 women — at least, no ladies. You had better take 
 Wimble down to see about the horses — though prob- 
 ably we shall walk a good deal." At this surprising 
 contingency Mackintosh blinked. "And see to the 
 wine, will you. Mackintosh? We shall want plenty 
 of wine — claret and burgundy mostly. And a good 
 deal of brandy — just see to all that. Then — let me 
 think — Oh, yes, of course. I wish the gardens 
 to be seen to. They ought to be in good order, you 
 know — and the park too. I shall probably have
 
 1 84 BENDISH 
 
 some public meetings down there — I shall throw 
 the grounds open two or three times a week. It 
 must be made proper for that kind of thing. Get in 
 whatever men may be necessary, and have it all in 
 first-class order by the autumn. Servants? You'll 
 want a great many servants. Mrs. — what's my 
 housekeeper's name? — ah, Mrs. Timmins — she'll look 
 to that. I'll see Mr. Heniker directly I am in town, 
 but you had better not wait for that. Lambert will 
 do for me while you are away. I shall have to give 
 some dinner-parties — which is a bore — but that can't 
 be helped." 
 
 This was the beginning of commissions for the 
 unfortunate man which hardly ceased until the ves- 
 sel stood into the Thames. He thought of some 
 new diversion for the pohtical gentlemen every hour 
 of the slow day. Mackintosh took their general 
 sense to be that Castle Bendish was to be thrown 
 open for a house-warming or something of the kind, 
 with no expense spared. Beyond that he did not 
 inquire; but Bendish found his "Very good, my 
 lord," soothing to the nerves. He would have had 
 them in plenty if he had gone on to expound his 
 present pohtical doctrines, which insisted upon the 
 emancipation of Mackintosh and the likes of Mack- 
 intosh, and the obhteration to their advantage of all 
 the lordships in England; but I think that he dimly 
 perceived their incongruity. At any rate Mackin- 
 tosh was spared such liberality of assent. 
 
 But Roger Heniker was not. Summoned to St. 
 James's Street within a week of his patron's arrival,
 
 THE LORD AS DEMAGOGUE 185 
 
 he found Bendish at the opening of his campaign. 
 The Vision of Revolt lay upon the table, and wet 
 sheets of an "Address to the British people" in an 
 upright hand Uttered the floor. Letters, unfolded 
 and ..unsealed, were abundant, and another was in 
 progress. Bendish looked up from his task and 
 hailed liis visitor. 
 
 "Ha, Roger, my dear fellow! You find me hard 
 at work — by the by, you must get me a secretary 
 as soon as may be. I can't think and write letters. 
 There are a thousand things to be done at once — 
 the Epic to print — meetings to arrange for in the 
 country — the House — Castle Bendish (Ah, I must 
 speak to you about that — don't let me forget — ). 
 Then I'm busy mth a Manifesto — look here," he 
 held up the dripping sheet. "Listen to this — 
 
 "'For nothing is more certain than that your 
 tyrants are calling up reserves with which to bind 
 your chains closer about you. What, pray, can the 
 enfranchisement of two miUion employers of labour 
 mean to ten million driven slaves but so many pliers 
 of the whip and goad, so many stewards and over- 
 seers of injustice and oppression? If you submit to 
 it, the name of Englishman is gone, and with it the 
 hope of the free. Let them go, however, on such 
 terms. But if your servitude began with the land- 
 ing of the Norman upon your shores, your hope has 
 endured until now, when, I tell you, its justification 
 is within the hollow of your hands. . . .' " He 
 flicked a page or two, then threw the whole aside, 
 and took the Epic in his hands.
 
 1 86 BENDISH 
 
 "There's good reading here — but you don't feel 
 poetry. I spare you." He turned over the sheets 
 in sections. " You shall try some of the Notes. By 
 heaven, they ought to move you. Listen to this 
 one, on the House of Commons: 'An Assembly, 
 chiefly self-elected, which can interrupt urgent busi- 
 ness — business of life and death to you and your 
 families — to consider whether a man is speaking 
 with a hat on his head or in his hand must either be 
 in senile decay, or so youthfully exuberant as to be 
 wholly unworthy of your credit. It matters not to 
 you or me how it is become frivolous, if frivolous it 
 is. Away with it. . . .' Damme," said Bendish, 
 "that's Poore all over; but it's devilish good." 
 
 Heniker's jaw was square — it jutted. "That's 
 scandalous, Bendish. You'll get him into trouble 
 for that, if you let it go." 
 
 Bendish cheered. "'Vogue la galere,' old Roger! 
 Trouble is what we want. We're for pikes and 
 barricades. Listen to this one: — 
 
 "'A coronation will inspire a sentimentalist of 
 imagination and sympathy to the highest flights of 
 emotion of which he is capable. "Te Deum lauda- 
 mus" on any such occasion will draw the tears to 
 his eyes. The King in question may be a little 
 wind-bag, as was Louis XIV. of France, a sack of 
 blubber and pretence like our George IV., or a 
 brigand like Napoleon; but the sentimentalist will 
 magnify the man crowned at the expense of the 
 kingship conferred, take out of kingship a part of 
 its essential glory and pour it like a sacring oil upon
 
 THE LORD AS DEMAGOGUE 187 
 
 a rogue's head. But your pure idealist, who exalts, 
 because he sees it excellent, kingship itself, and 
 reahses the King because he sees him naked, is 
 morally shocked at the tragic travesty. He fights 
 his way out of church into the air and cries to the 
 people, "What in the name of wonder are you about? 
 Will you crown a hog? Will you prostitute a holy 
 thing to make more hideous a vile one? What man 
 among you is worthy of kingship? Let each man 
 ask himseK. Yet because you desire a king, you 
 lift up this son of his father and teach yourselves to 
 beheve that his office will ennoble him. You say, 
 'He was foul half an hour ago, but now he is glori- 
 ous.' I tell you that you lie to yourselves, and 
 make this wretch the victim of your vice. . . ." '" 
 
 Roger Hstened with blank dismay. "Quem Deus 
 vult perdere." . . . Was Poore mad? Had Ben- 
 dish ravished his mind? Or was Poore the devil? 
 Or was it Bendish? He had Hked Poore. He re- 
 membered the flushed face of the tall, stooping 
 poet; he remembered his beautiful pale wife. Good 
 Heavens, here was a kettle of fish! But he didn't 
 attempt to argue with Bendish. He knew nothing 
 could come of that. 
 
 Meantime the youth had stopped, for Heniker's 
 plain face did not encourage him to proceed. . . . 
 "That must be broadcast over the country within 
 the next few weeks — meantime I am getting out my 
 Broadside first, and seeking alliances high and low. 
 To-morrow I breakfast at Holland House. On 
 Thursday Burdett, Hunt, and some of the politicians
 
 1 88 BENDISH 
 
 dine with me. Then I must go to Castle Bendish 
 and open the eyes of the country. The hunt is up, 
 Roger, I tell you! What was it old Latimer said? 
 . . . 'We shall this day light such a candle in Eng- 
 land' . . . I'm in very good fettle, as you see. 
 There's nothing like hard work to put a man right 
 with himself. If I can only keep away from women, 
 I shall leave a name behind me. How do you con- 
 trive to keep out of their meshes, hey, Roger? To 
 me there's a lure in their die-away glances that's — 
 well, thank God, I am too busy even to look out of 
 the window. ... I assure you, I can walk up Bond 
 Street now without knowing there's a petticoat in 
 it. . . . And yet men of action, they say, have 
 always confessed to the power of that sex. . . . Nel- 
 son, Napoleon — ah, and Caesar, Alexander, Pericles 
 . . . ! Now — as I said — I can give you half an hour, so 
 let's to business. I must see Murray at noon about 
 the Epic. That's urgent. So fish out your parch- 
 ments, old fellow, and make the most of me. . . .'' 
 Here was Bendish in a hopeful mood, which a 
 tete-a-tete dinner with Tom Moore certainly did 
 nothing to minish. This was a great meal. There 
 was nobody like Tom to draw the best out of a man : 
 he drew everything out of Bendish, the best with the 
 worst. Out came the love-affair with Georgiana 
 Poore, but with the name left out. She figured as 
 "a woman I met in Italy." "There was a haunted, 
 frail look about her — a sidelong call of the eyes, 
 which drew me on. ... I confess that I can't stand 
 out against your slim pale women. . 
 
 J)
 
 THE LORD AS DEMAGOGUE 189 
 
 Tom shut his eyes, compressed his Hps, and nodded. 
 Ee knew! He could love them all; but if he had 
 a preference it was for the more exuberant type. 
 And yet he had been a slave of Mrs. Lancelot in her 
 heyday. 
 
 Bendish moistened his lips. "I loved her, Tom 
 ... oh, madly ... I own it. . . . And she led me 
 on . . . and on. . . . And then, by God, she played 
 the prude. Sir, I was damnably hurt. I left her 
 without a word ... I went ... I roamed the 
 earth ... a wounded beast ... as you say, ^^(oare 
 \t9 77U7eWi09. ..." Well, it's over. But it set me 
 writing. I used my heart-strings for a harp. . . . 
 Wait a moment." He went to his desk, and pro- 
 duced a bundle of papers. "Take this home with 
 you. I call it The Wanderer. God knows what 
 you'll make of it. I believed in it once — and it did 
 me good. Now I'm home for action. I'll show the 
 world what I can do. Poore and I met — and pro- 
 duced this red-hot stuff. ..." It was now the 
 Epic's turn. 
 
 "Jesus!" cried Tom, "here's activity. WTiy, 
 Bendish, you're a volcano, not a man." 
 
 "Most of this is Poore's; but I've done a flaming 
 preface — and added considerably to his notes. More- 
 over, the idea is mine. I put Poore to it. But he 
 was at it for six months while I was " 
 
 "Enslaved by Calypso in an island! But — so you 
 met Gervase and set him afire! And you mean to 
 tell me that you were proof against his lovely wife!" 
 Tom held up his hands.
 
 190 
 
 BENDISH 
 
 So it was that Bendish, having discovered his 
 friend was in the dark, thought it well to let him 
 stay there. "His wife? She doesn't exist for me. 
 I assure you, Tom, I can be serious. She Hves in 
 her children, I believe. We had nothing to say to 
 one another. . . ." He frowned. "There was a 
 woman, as I told you, who singed my wings. . . ." 
 Here he looked pained. "Enough of her. Let her 
 rest — she has her reward. I can't grudge it her. 
 You'll find her in The Wanderer, if you care to look 
 it over. Damn her — she made me suffer. ... But 
 now to the Epic. It's great, you know, Tom. 
 Poore's a strong arm. Now listen to some of this. 
 Ballad-jingle, you may call it: doggerel, you may 
 call it even. By Gad, sir, he's called the right tune 
 for rural England." 
 
 He began to read — fitfully, here and there, as the 
 fancy took him. He read well, with devilry, and 
 with conviction, which grew as his mind caught fire. 
 The spirit of Poore entered him, and he caught up 
 some of Poore's fierce tricks — his digging at conso- 
 nants, for instance. Those were days when poetry 
 still flamed, and men were still kindling-wood. Tom, 
 who had a genuine love for Gervase, was greatly 
 moved by the Vision of Revolt, though very sure that 
 Mr. Murray would have nothing to say to it. " 'Tis 
 not to be expected, Bendish, my dear. Murray 
 swims with the gold-fish in still pools; he's got a 
 gleam on himself — you'll find a scale or two of the 
 precious metal. And with his Quarterly Trapa firjpoOl 
 Take it across the way, my dear. Longman will
 
 THE LORD AS DEMAGOGUE 191 
 
 swallow it whole — though the King's Bench and the 
 Attorney-General yawn for him. Let me have that 
 bit again . . . 
 
 He sees therein his homely God 
 
 With earth-clods clinging to his side . . . 
 
 how does it go? 
 
 And while he hymns the King of kings 
 And high Te Deum. . . . 
 
 Bendishj you have ht a candle with your flint and 
 tinder. ..." Which was just what Bendish had 
 told Heniker. 
 
 The Manifesto, signed "Bendish," was in the 
 printer's hands that day. The Poem with the 
 Preface, signed "Bendish," and containing, with 
 much lofty rhetoric about it, a rather too urbane 
 patronage of "my ingenious friend Mr. Poore" — 
 that too was arranged for — but not with Mr. Murray. 
 The conclusion of the preface was thought very fine : 
 
 "I know not what the issue of Mr. Poore's 'Vi- 
 sion' and of my own conclusions upon it may be. 
 I abide by what I have written, and am prepared to 
 defend it. My forefathers fought at Hastings, and 
 fenced about with steel the land which was another's 
 inheritance — at least, the antiquaries tell me so. If 
 it be my lot to side with those who break down these 
 hedges, so be it. They have served their turn, and 
 I, for one, have done with them. By so much the 
 less as I am a tenant in capile, by so much the more
 
 192 BENDISH 
 
 I claim to be an honest man. And so the whirHgig 
 of time brings his revenges." Then, in large type, — 
 "Bendish." 
 
 The proofs were to go through Bendish's hands; 
 he was to have them immediately, he was told. No 
 narrower promise would allay his present fever. So 
 much for the first week of his return to these shores. 
 
 But Holland House gave him a check, and not 
 Tom himself, who was present, with his infectious 
 gallantry, could find him a fine among the academic 
 whigs of that breakfast-table. 
 
 Holland House was not prepared for Poore's short 
 way with Parhaments; but it gave Bendish his head 
 and allowed him extracts from the "Vision." He 
 read with fire and conviction. The table heard him 
 out. 
 
 At the close there was a heavy silence. Then 
 Lady Holland coughed and looked down the table. 
 This was a cue. Sydney Smith leaned forward, 
 flushed in the jowl. 
 
 "I'll give your lordship a title for your friend's 
 Apocalypse," he said. "You shall call it 'Beyond 
 This Last.' " 
 
 "And dedicate it to Gifford, who'll be delighted," 
 said Mr. Rogers with a rasp in his throat, and a 
 look about him to see how his shot had told. Now 
 Mr. Gifford was fabled to have been bred up a cob- 
 bler, and so was fair game. But Holland House 
 took good shooting for granted. 
 
 Mr. Allen said nothing; but he bhnked, and looked 
 as if he might be profound or witty at any moment.
 
 THE LORD AS DEMAGOGUE 193 
 
 Bendish was rather put out. Tom Moore jumped 
 into the fray. 
 
 "Too bad, too bad. Is Gervase Poore to be the 
 only poet kept out of politics? May Mr. Words- 
 worth be heard on Cintra, and Bob Southey call 
 Wat Tyler his brother, and poor Gervase not have 
 opinions? 'Tis not in reason. The fine young man's 
 full of opinions," 
 
 "As a bladder of wind," said Mr. Rogers. Ben- 
 dish, looking very much the Norman imp, now said 
 haughtily that his friend's opinions were his own, 
 and that he was prepared to defend them here or 
 elsewhere. 
 
 "In Another Place?" he was asked. This was 
 from Lord Holland in his wheeled chair, raising his 
 fine eyebrows at his brother peer. Bendish looked 
 the questioner down, through glinamering Hds. 
 
 "Certamly, I shall defend them from my place," 
 he said, "when the time comes." 
 
 Lord Holland bowed. "The time will undoubt- 
 edly come," he said. "I shall hear you with inter- 
 est." 
 
 "It will make poor Charles Lancelot rise from his 
 place," some one thought; but this was denied. 
 
 "Charles! Did you ever know Charles give up 
 place?" Here a lady tossed her feathered head. 
 
 "He gave up one place, I understood " 
 
 "He was translated, my lady, let us put it " 
 
 Lady Holland put an end to this. "No harsh 
 judgments, I beg. I always liked her." 
 
 "That's in her favour!" cried Tom. "Brava, my
 
 194 BENDISH 
 
 Lady! She was a lovely person — and so she will be 
 now, I'll warrant her — with her children at her 
 bosom." Then he chuckled. " ' Beyond This Last ' ! 
 Good for you, Doctor. I'll remember that for Bo- 
 wood. But, for all of you, I'll engage that Poore is 
 heard of one of these days. . . . And he snatched the 
 rose from the cap of the greatest man in England — 
 you'll not forget that. Nor wiU the great man, I 
 fancy. They tell me he's inconsolable." 
 
 "But," cried her ladyship, "he'll console himself, 
 or let her console him when they come back! For 
 I suppose your friend means to preach his absurd- 
 ities in person?" 
 
 Bendish imphed stiffly that that was Poore's in- 
 tention. 
 
 "Very well, then," said her ladyship, "that will 
 do very nicely. While the husband is thumping his 
 tubs, the Duke will be making love to the wife. 
 And it will begin all over again." 
 
 But Moore knew better. "No, no, my lady. 
 You're out there. Gervase swept her out of Wake 
 House like a fiery wind, and she'll never go back. 
 Now I wonder if you remember a certain ball there. 
 'Twas a year — maybe two — after the Duchess died. 
 I know the Lancelots had been in the house a year. 
 Stay — I'll fix it for your ladyship. 'Twas the year 
 that Lady Geraldine O'Meara ran away with Jack 
 Pixton — and 'twas at that very ball that she danced 
 with him first. Are you there now? Ye are? Very 
 well then: now 'twas Gervase's first introduction 
 into the great world — and 'twas I got him the card
 
 THE LORD AS DEMAGOGUE 195 
 
 from the lady herself — Nausithoe he called her, a 
 pretty name for her gallant breasting of the waves 
 of this world! Now I went to his lodgings dressed 
 in my best to take him along with me — and my 
 hackiiey-coach at the door — and find him in his shirt 
 and breeches writing verses — 'Laggard!' says I, 
 *and the daintiest lady in London straining her fine 
 eyes to the door for your coming.' 'I'm writing 
 about her now,' says he, and wouldn't budge. And 
 he was telling her in flaming metre what he thought 
 about her and what he was going to do with her — 
 and bedad, he sent me packing, and finished his 
 screed in his own time, and read it to her at Wake 
 House that very night — and their first meeting, that 
 was! Oh, but Sir Walter himself never figured a 
 bolder young man! Now, my lady, if such a youth 
 takes a fancy to England, and falls in love with her, 
 it's not the House of Lords will stop him from pick- 
 ing her up. So 'Lovers, beware,' I tell the Duke 
 when next I see his Grace." 
 
 Her ladyship, with whom Tom was a favourite, 
 twinkled at his high-flying. "Bring him to see me 
 when he comes," she said, and Tom made her a 
 fine bow. 
 
 "I'll do it, ma'am, though I die for it, and give 
 England a chance. 'Tis a wayward eye he has, and 
 a susceptible heart. But your ladyship's is infinitely 
 benevolent — and who knows?" Her ladyship swal- 
 lowed even this with complacency. 
 
 At this rate there was not much to be made of the 
 Whigs. Bendish had himself swept away in his
 
 196 BENDISH 
 
 carriage, where he sat with folded arms, looking un- 
 commonly like Napoleon after Waterloo. But op- 
 position of the sort settled his back. It was neglect 
 or indifference which stung him to folly. For all 
 that, it was a check. 
 
 He did not fare much better with the Radicals. 
 He had Sir Francis to dine; he had Vipont, the in- 
 transigeant member for Midport; he had Lord 
 Sandgate and Lord Stanhope; he went into the 
 highways and hedges and fished up Orator Hunt, 
 who got very drunk and shed tears after dinner. 
 He leavened them with Tom Moore, and another 
 Mr. Hunt, Mr. Leigh Hunt, the Liberal editor, who 
 had been primed with the "Vision" ahready and 
 admired as a poet what he deplored as a politician. 
 The dismay of these worthy men, when Bendish 
 hinted at his friend's plans, should have been com- 
 ical to a detached observer, who would have been 
 able to discount the possible mischief by allowance 
 for the naivete of the proposals. These plans, he 
 told them, Reformers to a man, contemplated with 
 great satisfaction the almost certain rejection of the 
 Bill by the Lords, and proposed, mth that in view, 
 a popular demand for a share in government which 
 should sweep away the Estates of the Realm and 
 substitute a National Committee of Delegates 
 chosen by ballot upon a basis of manhood suffrage. 
 The King, too, Bendish thought, should be elected, 
 upon the Anglo-Saxon plan. You need, as I say, 
 to be detached, not to say fond of abstraction, to 
 be captivated by this kind of thing; but Sir Francis
 
 THE LORD AS DEMAGOGUE 197 
 
 was not at all detached just then, and was therefore 
 very much concerned. It is probable that Sir 
 Francis was shocked. He had been too long in the 
 House of Commons to conceive of salvation outside 
 its provision thereto. How could you have salva- 
 tion indeed, until it had been read a third time? He 
 entrenched himself within the Constitution like any 
 Whig. No such plan as the poem foreshadowed, he 
 roundly told Bendish, could have his support. It 
 thwarted the will of the people. 
 
 "How so," said Lord Bendish, "when, on your 
 own showing, the people are not yet represented?" 
 My lord," said Burdett, "they are at our back." 
 Tradesmen," said Bendish. "They are not the 
 people. They exploit the people." 
 
 "They are entitled to be heard, my lord." 
 
 "By all means. Let them join in the chorus. But 
 your Bill makes them soloists. Now we say that 
 they are harder masters than the landowners." 
 
 Sir Francis frowned very shghtly, and shook his 
 head. "I cannot, I fear, lend myself to Mr. Poore's 
 generalisations. I adhere to the Constitution, which, 
 in my view, is dangerously strained by the Tory 
 party, but not to breaking-point. In its defence I 
 go all lengths — but not to its destruction. And I 
 trust the merchants and farmers of England. Com- 
 merce is our backbone. Self-respect is founded upon 
 property, and property upon integrity. Mr. Poore 
 is a visionary, and nourishes himself upon the 
 dreams of the French — which they themselves have 
 found to be a yeasty fare. That is not our English 
 way." 
 
 III
 
 198 BENDISH 
 
 Orator Hunt, mellow with wine, cheered him.' 
 "There speaks the Tribune of the People! There 
 speaks my friend and my leader! My lord, I say, 
 God bless the House of Commons! The proudest 
 title a man can look for in this country is that of 
 M.P." Then he went on to speak of the Yeomanry 
 of England, our spine and marrow, and proposed its 
 health with three times three. But nobody took 
 any notice. 
 
 Mr. Vipont said nothing. Lord Sandgate said 
 nothing. Lord Clanranald, a fiery-haired, square- 
 faced man who had been a sailor, some said a buc- 
 caneer, in his day, agreed with Bendish. "Party 
 is master," he said, "the House of Commons servant. 
 The thing will be made worse instead of better by 
 the Bill. We all know that. But what are you to 
 do? They've set their minds on it. It has taken 
 thirty years to get it there — and how are you going 
 to get it out again and something else in its place 
 in three? They won't rise.— I know them. You 
 may get a few more ricks burnt in the country and 
 a few more windows broken here — there are always 
 people to be had who enjoy that kind of thing— but 
 you'll do no more — under a century. We don't fire 
 ricks for better ideas in England, but for better 
 wages. You are perfectly right, however — or your 
 poet is. The House of Commons is the thing to 
 sweep away. You'll never do anything while that 
 lasts. It's too old and too childish at once. If I 
 were younger, and not a husband and father, as 
 thank God I am at last, I'd be with you, trailing 
 pikes. We all know that you're right, I beUeve "
 
 THE LORD AS DEMAGOGUE 199 
 
 Sir Francis shook his head, but Lord Sandgate's 
 dark eyes glowed — however, the speaker turned off 
 what seriousness he had had into an easy pleasantry. 
 
 "But you've come among men of forty, my dear 
 lord,' he said, "and you must find men of thirty 
 or less. You can't make revolution after thirty. 
 Digestion means too much to you " 
 
 Bendish found himself speechless among these 
 gentlemen, to his extreme annoyance. The reason 
 was simple. He could only be what he was believed 
 to be. What added rage to impotence, however, 
 was that they treated Poore throughout as the man 
 to. be reckoned with. Again, the reason was simple. 
 Poore, however ridiculous, was in dead earnest; 
 Bendish, however much in earnest, was afraid of 
 being ridiculous. 
 
 But for the present he persevered. The Manifesto 
 came back from the printer's; he drank freely of his 
 own eloquence and was greatly moved. "By God, 
 I have 'em!" he told himself. "By God, I have 'em!" 
 The Vision of Revolt looked cold and lumpy, like a 
 stale jelly-fish, beside this reeking thing — wet with 
 ink, though its blood was no wetter. 
 
 He read it again, and would not alter a fine — he 
 liked its very defects. Here was an awkward rela- 
 tive: let it stand. Here was a limping simile — it 
 was the nearer to nature! He sent it to be struck 
 off and distributed among his agents. They were 
 not, in fact, his own agents; but had been found for 
 him by his secretary, who had been found by Heni- 
 ker. Bendish could not get out of the way of doing
 
 200 BENDISH 
 
 his work by deputy. "Get that thing printed off, 
 and pubHshed," he said in his lordly way. That 
 was done. 
 
 "BEYOND THIS LAST." 
 
 AN ADDRESS TO THE PEOPLE OF ENGLAND 
 
 BY 
 LORD BENDISH 
 
 was in the newspapers within a week. The title 
 was very happy. Holland House was stirred. Mr. 
 Allen said, "This should never have been written." 
 Sydney Smith saw his joke forestalled. That had 
 been really clever of Bendish, and the wit had the 
 wit to laugh at himself. We could never afford it. 
 
 I don't know that it was taken seriously; but it 
 was talked about, and its author even more so. 
 The Billiad was re-read. Ladies asked Lord Ben- 
 dish to evening parties. He became a popular Revo- 
 lutionary — among those who cared for revolution- 
 aries and thought little of revolution. These, they 
 said, were not possible in England. But a revolu- 
 tionary never came amiss to an evening party. 
 
 The Duke of Devizes read it after breakfast, 
 standing by the long window of his library, dressed 
 for his morning ride. His keen blue eyes twinkled. 
 "Master Poore has had a hand in this," he thought 
 to himself. "I should Hke to know what my poor 
 girl thinks of it all."
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 THE GAME AND THE PIECES 
 
 On that morning of Bendish's departure Georgiana 
 had risen at six and left Poore deeply asleep. It 
 must have been near five when he had come in and 
 thrown himself as he was upon his bed. She had 
 feigned sleep in her misery, but the fact that he had 
 stooped over her, watched her closely and then 
 kissed her cheek had gone near to lose her her re- 
 serves. He fell asleep the moment he was down, 
 and presently she stole away tiptoe, and did her 
 washing and dressing in the closet next door. She 
 got the children up and out on to the loggia where 
 they were to play while she boiled their milk and 
 made herself some coffee. While all these domestic 
 affairs were getting themselves done with her usual 
 neatness and hght touch upon them, her mind was 
 full of care; but there was the memory of that kiss 
 to comfort her. She clung to that, and made des- 
 perate play with it. But foreboding lay upon her 
 heart Hke a memory of dread. She felt sick with 
 nerves. Breakfast over, she took her children with 
 her, one in her arm and one by the hand, and sought 
 the deep of the garden, where it still lay shadowed 
 from the sun, where the air still had the freshness of 
 dawn in it, and a httle brook came tinkling over 
 
 20I
 
 202 BENDISH 
 
 rocks on its way to the river and the sea. By that 
 she sat herself and, deUberately confronting it, 
 mused over her affair. 
 
 She knew her poet through and through, for 
 though she loved him for his very faults, which 
 made him what he was, she was cool enough to 
 judge whither these might lead him if he were not 
 guided. A woman can always judge the man she 
 loves, for love is to her a possession and not a need. 
 She holds it — it is a vantage-ground, and having 
 that safe, she can look about her and take observa- 
 tions. So far, as she saw, Gervase had been content 
 to express himself in Art — except once, and that was 
 when he expressed himself by running away with 
 her. But since that she and art had filled up the 
 bowl of life — deep draughts of love had been taken, 
 and the issue had been much burning poesy. Four 
 wondrous years they had had — a four-years' honey- 
 moon — and now, it seemed, he was on the edge of 
 action, and of action which could only hurt him, and 
 was doomed by its very gallantry to complete fail- 
 ure. She felt as she sat here alone, her chin cupped 
 in her hand, frowning as she looked down at her 
 tossing foot — she felt that she could bear any hard 
 measure the world might mete out but that Gervase 
 should try a thing and fail in it — fail, that is, in her 
 eyes; for the opinion of the world she cared nothing. 
 The world had been deaf to his music — but she had 
 heard it: but now if he adventured after Lord Ben- 
 dish in this political quest, whether the world saw 
 him or not, admired him or not, she would see him
 
 THE GAME AND THE PIECES 203 
 
 futile and absurd — and she could not bear that. It 
 would be as if she watched him strangle love with 
 his own hands. Let him do what the spirit bade 
 him, in God's name; but let him succeed. She 
 could not afford that he should fail. Now in this 
 business she knew that he must fail. 
 
 She was not a politician — no woman is; but she 
 had lived in the world where poHtics is the air of 
 the room, and she knew what could be done, and 
 what not. The Reform Bill would, of course, be 
 carried. Her friend, the rigid old buckram Duke, 
 must give way sooner or later — but there could be 
 no revolution. Neither Gervase nor a House full 
 of him could bring that about. His Vision of Revolt 
 was \'itiated for her by that one fact, that he had 
 seen what was not there, and prophesied what would 
 never come to pass. He might sing himself to death 
 — but there would be no Revolt. She had heard 
 him read that part of it overnight wdth a sick heart. 
 Splendid failure, generous blunder! Alas, for such 
 noble, pure-hearted, single-hearted heroes. Cruci- 
 fixion is the end of them — and for her the foot of 
 the Cross. 
 
 Judging him, with a bleeding heart, she judged 
 the other, but with scorn. Poore, her poet, was in- 
 deed what Bendish thought himself to be, a man of 
 a single idea. One idea filled his mind at a time, 
 and he pursued that to its death, or his own. That 
 was how Lord Bendish flattered himself he did also, 
 but it was not so. She knew his kind, her world 
 had been full of them. Side by side with any idea
 
 204 BENDISH 
 
 hunted by Bendish went, in the mind of the hunts- 
 man, a clear image of Bendish in pursuit of it. If 
 that got blurred, or was made ridiculous, the chase 
 of the other was abandoned; but you could never 
 make Poore ridiculous in his own eyes, or bafSe him, 
 because he never saw himself at all, but only the 
 thing he was chasing. That made him a much 
 more redoubtable hunter — might, and very often did, 
 make him an infernal nuisance. It brought him also, 
 upon occasion, to enormous grief, as will be seen. 
 It made him possibly a very fine poet — and I have 
 no doubt about that; it made him certainly an im- 
 possible politician, because he, viewing his single 
 idea, came in conflict with men who could see half 
 a dozen ideas at the same time. Like Patroclus, 
 who thought of nothing but the slaying of Hector, 
 he was liable to be struck by Euphorbus unaware. 
 Then, while he was turned half about, maddened by 
 a flank attack, Hector jumped in and despatched 
 him. All this she saw, and that some such by-blow 
 must be the end of her Gervase, and the end of her; 
 but long before the tragic crisis came, Bendish would 
 be safely away, making love to some man's wife. 
 As this particular image came into her mind, her 
 eyes concentrated and grew bitter-bright. The wretch 
 had been tender with her; and Gervase knew 
 nothing of it. She had never said a word of it for 
 reasons which, at the time, had seemed to her ex- 
 cellent. Now she was not so sure. If she had told 
 him she had murdered The Vision of Revolt. And 
 had that not been merciful? . . .
 
 THE GAME AND THE PIECES 205 
 
 Meantime she saw that she could not yet go to 
 England, whether her old friend needed her or not. 
 Too much was at stake. Gervase in England atop 
 of his Poem was an impossible thought. She fore- 
 saw, with desperate certainty, every stage of his 
 ruinous chase. He would spend himself like the 
 wind among the trees, lash himself to pieces like 
 waves against the black rocks. He would be re- 
 viled, hounded about, persecuted, arrested, tried, 
 pilloried — God knew what they would not do to him. 
 You see, she knew the Governors of England — while 
 he, her poor boy, knew nothing but the idea. She 
 had lived in the world which thought of idealists as 
 vermin. She did not think of them so herself — 
 that is, she did not allow herself to think so of them; 
 but she was of the world which did, and she could 
 not for her life admire them for futihty. A poet 
 who tried to realise poetry must be futile. Revolu- 
 tion in England must be futile. She was no Pharisee, 
 with rancour in her heart; but, like Pilate, she was 
 of the ruling class, and had learned to wash her 
 hands of Jacobins. 
 
 She thought now with a half-humorous pity of 
 her Gervase, as if he was her son rather than her 
 lover and spouse. Dear, generous, wild, absurd boy 
 — she must save him at any cost. Her eyes were 
 misty, but her lips smiled. She looked very wise 
 as she sat there, nursing her chin, looking into the 
 eddying water, 
 
 A quick footfall startled her. She turned about 
 quickly and saw Gervase coming. The morning was
 
 2o6 BENDISH 
 
 in his face. She saw that something was there 
 which had not been there yesterday, and that some- 
 thing had gone from it which had clouded it before. 
 It called her up. She left her rock and went to 
 meet him. His eyes were alight as he met her, 
 clasped and kissed her. They said nothing but mth 
 their touching Ups; but she knew by the way he 
 held her all he had to tell her. Instantly she sur- 
 rendered. He was her lover and lord. He must do 
 as he must. . . . He must do as he must — yes; but 
 she must coax him to do as she would. And that 
 would be easy if he was still hers. It would be a 
 game, a serious game — ^but how she would revel in 
 the playing of it! 
 
 When they had breakfasted and the children were 
 abed, the game began. He, with that sense of free- 
 dom and enlargement which the accomplishment of 
 a task always gives a poet, talked freely of his work 
 — more freely than for some months. Her rehef to 
 have him again in undivided communion hid up her 
 latent disapproval. Her heart consented to him 
 though her judgment did not. He said that it 
 would be well if they went to England as soon as 
 might be. First of all, she wanted to go — and she 
 did not for the moment attempt to deny it. Then 
 there was the poem to be put through the press; 
 there might be work consequent upon its appear- 
 ance, for another thing. He might have to face 
 prosecution — who knew? At any rate, he was in 
 dead earnest, he assured her, and intended to do 
 what he could to bring his visions to pass. She had
 
 THE GAME AND THE PIECES 207 
 
 guessed as much, but was very faint in her opposi- 
 tion. The time for opposition was not yet, nor the 
 way of it plain. She was held by his arm, her head 
 against his high heart. "Dearest," she had mur- 
 mured, "but what can you do? " He had laughed as 
 he replied, "Why, ver>' Httle." And then she found, 
 to her reHef , that he took a soberer view of himself 
 than she had imagined in him. 
 
 "The Reform Bill will pass, of course," he said, 
 "in spite of your Duke; no intrigue can stop it now. 
 It will threaten a sterner tyranny upon the English 
 than they have ever known, because it will be that 
 of their own race. A rich Englishman is a harder 
 master than a rich Norman any day. The House of 
 Commons will be filled with successful business men. 
 Government will be by Boards and Committees 
 far more inaccessible than any peer or country- 
 gentleman, and far more doctrinaire. The work of 
 anybody who has liberty really at heart is behind the 
 reformed House, and all that he can do at present is 
 to make the poor discontented. Even that will take 
 a couple of generations, for they are used to oppres- 
 sion, and don't understand that they have any rights 
 at all. Duties they see, but not rights. Imagine, 
 my love, of this task. To convince a nation of 
 slaves, who have been slaves for a thousand years, 
 that they have voices! Yet how can one be con- 
 vinced of that, and not dare say so? How can one 
 have the face to write that, publish it, get it read by 
 the ruling caste, and shrink from telling the ruled 
 that they are free the moment they choose to say
 
 2o8 BENDISH 
 
 so? Impossible! A man denies his God if he 
 denies the revelations his God sends him. No, no, 
 I am not a renegade. I have always done what I 
 thought proper to be done. Can you deny that, 
 knowing what you know?" He stooped to meet her 
 eyes, but she would not look at him then. She 
 snuggled the deeper, on the contrary, and listened, 
 knowing her time would come. 
 
 "There was a moment," he went on, "when I 
 thought that my work was done by writing what 
 came into my heart; when I thought I might leave 
 action to Bendish. That moment has gone, and 
 the thought with it. After he left me, I went up 
 the hill — and saw the sun come up out of the sea. 
 It was then that I found out what I had to do. It 
 will be very little — ridiculous, indeed. Yet one 
 must begin. I suppose I can do what Wychf did, 
 what Wesley did. Why not? I beheve, as they 
 beheved; I am young, I am strong; truth is on my 
 side. I am ready to sacrifice everything, except 
 love — and that I can't, for that is myself. When 
 that goes, I go, and my task will be over. But with 
 you, my heart, at home, with you to come to, with 
 your pure flame to cherish, I feel that I can do my 
 utmost. I see my way clear now. I shall go on, 
 and you shall be with me." He turned her in his 
 arm until they were breast to breast; and then she 
 looked at him and saw him inspired. There was 
 that in him which she could adore, but that in him 
 also which could be cajoled. It is only women who 
 can love and criticise in the same long look.
 
 THE GAME AND THE PIECES 209 
 
 He surprised her next by sa}ang that he had small 
 behef in Bendish. She, of course, had never had 
 any at all, but she had supposed Gervase hoodwinked. 
 But Gervase now told her that he thought every 
 mood of that young man's was dictated by vanity. 
 "Bendish doesn't need to carry a looking-glass about 
 with him," he said. "He finds one wherever he 
 goes — in anybody with whom he is for ten minutes. 
 He turns and poses — and judges exactly by our looks 
 what sort of a fit his new coat is. The shghtest oppo- 
 sition \\all put him out of conceit with himself. He'll 
 throw away — not himself but his looking-glass, and 
 look for another, and try it with new posturings. 
 Now there are plentiful rebuffs in this business — 
 and he won't be able to stand them. May I predict 
 for you what he'll do when he gets to England? 
 He'll arrive filled with ideas — all the bubbles of the 
 broth we've been brewing here will be in his head. 
 He'll exhibit these to his own people — to peers, whigs, 
 parliament men, court poets, pretty women, men of 
 Brooks's and Almack's; and when they take them 
 coolly, and break a few with a little laughter, or a 
 poke of fun — Bendish will be mortified, and out of 
 heart with the thing. I think that, unless he settle 
 with a publisher before he begins to talk, our poem 
 stands a small chance. It will Ue in his desk and 
 be forgotten. But I'll make sure of it by writing to 
 Tom Moore. That will ensure it if it ever reach Eng- 
 land. But as Bendish must talk or die, I shouldn't 
 be surprised if some chance traveller on the road 
 were the occasion of my Uodgiad going into the sea."
 
 2IO BENDISH 
 
 She was amazed. All this was so exactly her own 
 opinion. 
 
 "Oh," she cried, "how did you find all this out?" 
 
 He laughed gaily. "What a dolt you must think 
 me, my love, in your heart of hearts! I think I 
 knew it all after the first five minutes. But, you 
 see, he excited me to work, and so I kept him up as 
 long as I wanted him." 
 
 "But last night, my dearest? Your dreadful 
 ceremony — the blood and the glass. I hated it." 
 
 "I knew that you did. I was wrong — I was play- 
 ing. But I was excited. I had been reading — and 
 I had really touched him. He has parts, you know. 
 There's a man underneath. I had got to it. I 
 know that. Well — that excited me — so I played." 
 
 She nestled to him, stroked his face. "Oh, you 
 child — you dear, absurd child." He lifted his head 
 out of reach. 
 
 "Everything can be made a game," he said. 
 
 "Oh, but — " she was serious. "Is all that you 
 have been telling me to be a game?" 
 
 He nodded solemnly. "It will be played as a 
 game — but there'll be life and death in it." Then 
 he kissed her. . . . 
 
 But at the love-game she was easily his master, 
 as she had need to be whose stake was so much the 
 heavier. She set herself to woo him from the 
 thought of England, and as the days slipped into 
 weeks his hold upon it relaxed. No news came, of 
 course, from Bendish. That was not to be expected;
 
 THE GAME AND THE PIECES 211 
 
 and every day without news was a gain. WTiat 
 helped her was the root-instinct of penmen that a 
 thing on paper is a thing done. Freedom, that jewel 
 of price, freedom of mind is gained so; and that once 
 caught the fortunate hunter is slow to the yoke again. 
 Poore began to talk of Italy, and she abetted him. 
 Suppose they took ship to Leghorn, and went to 
 Pisa for the winter. Then Florence in the spring, 
 the Baths of Lucca in the heats — there would still 
 be time for England in the autumn. Georgiana re- 
 called Florence to him. Did he remember that it 
 had been there — four years ago — that all their happi- 
 ness had been planned? He did indeed. 
 
 But had she not wanted to see the Duke? For 
 Gerv^ase's sake, she denied it. She should be glad 
 to see him, she said, but could not weigh him against 
 Italy. She thought the game was won. 
 
 Then came a letter from Bendish, written in the 
 first flush of his arrival. The Vision was in Long- 
 man's hands, the preface written, the Manifesto was 
 out. Everything was in train — and when did Poore 
 arrive? 
 
 That lettier came about the end of November and 
 was very nearly fatal to Georgiana's game. Ger- 
 vase reproached himself for liis slackness, and was 
 for starting immediately. It was no time for half 
 measures. Georgiana played her strongest card. 
 "Dearest, if you feel that you must — But I can't 
 come with you." 
 
 He looked at her with sudden shock. "You can't 
 come with mc? But what on earth ?"
 
 212 BENDISH 
 
 And then she told him why. 
 
 It is very odd that the more in love a man is the 
 less is he able to play this great and noble game. 
 
 The Poores went to Pisa by sea, and thence to 
 Settignano, from which terraced village over Arno 
 we shall hear from them again.
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 LORD BENDISH IN FLOOD AND EBB 
 
 The month following the publication of his Mani- 
 festo proved to be the very greatest of Bendish's 
 variegated life. It suited him in every way. He 
 was always happier talking about things than doing 
 them; he was happier still when he had other peo- 
 ple talking about him. For this month, at least, 
 everybody talked about him. They talked at him 
 when he was present, of him when he was not. Even 
 the Duke talked about Bendish, who was brought 
 under his notice as a Reformer who was against the 
 Reform Bill. But what set the Tories chuckling 
 drew rage and dismay from the Whigs. The ex- 
 plosions of their journals were highly complimentary. 
 As for the women, there's no end to the folhes that 
 were committed in the name of Liberty and Bendish. 
 He received Phrj^gian caps, in knitted silk, by every 
 post. He allowed himself to be crowned with bays 
 in one fine house. A certain Lady Hetty offered 
 herself to him as a footman — or anything else he 
 [)lcased. To do him credit, he decHned her. He 
 knew his own weaknesses. 
 
 The Vision of Revolt was put in hand. There was 
 no trouble about a publisher. It was to have a 
 
 213
 
 214 BENDISH 
 
 Preface by his Lordship, and this document was 
 finally written and in proof long before the Poores 
 left Rapallo. I reserve my comments upon the 
 document for a later page. It was a curious and 
 artful combination of the fiery and the urbane, and 
 did not altogether avoid that pitfall of the urbane 
 — patronage. But there was that very fine passage 
 about Hastings and his ancestry — that still stood. 
 Mr. Leigh Hunt, who honestly loved Liberty, Liter- 
 ature and Lords, saw to the proof sheets. Another 
 Mr. Hunt, the orator, was responsible for Bendish's 
 demagogy. He was hat in hand before the new 
 Mirabeau the moment success was undoubted, and, 
 so long as he was sure of election, ready to damn 
 the House of Commons with anybody. It was under 
 his auspices that Bendish made his first public utter- 
 ance, "Come with me to New Sarum, my lord," 
 said the hearty gentleman. "Saxon England will 
 clasp you to her bosom. She's a fine woman, God 
 bless her! and will allow you any freedoms you 
 please." Bendish stiffened his fine head and curled 
 his upper lip at him. "The freedom I desire, Mr. 
 Hunt, is of contract, not of contact." Mr. Hunt 
 swore that this was the best joke he had ever heard 
 — which it may have been. 
 
 But he drove down to New Sarum, with Mr. 
 Hunt by his side; and there was a meeting in the 
 Corn Exchange of that city with a great deal of 
 shouting. Reform was by that time the only cry, 
 and Bendish found himself a hero for advocating 
 what he was vowed to prevent. He spoke explicitly
 
 IN FLOOD AND EBB 215 
 
 against the Bill; he attacked it with vehemence. 
 Nothing could induce his audience to see what he 
 wanted, and nobody was present to whom his adjura- 
 tions could have been of value; but he knew nothing 
 of these things. Mr. Hunt acclaimed him as a 
 Tribune of the People, and called him, several times, 
 his noble friend; shopkeepers and farmers roared 
 their applause. God bless Lord Bendish and the 
 Bill! was the cry. The meeting broke up with " God 
 Save the King," and so much for Revolt at New 
 Sarum. 
 
 Thence to Andover, to Ludgershall, to Newbury, 
 to Hungerford, and home to London — flags, drums, 
 and speeches everywhere, and everywhere his Lord- 
 ship and the Bill. Mr. Hunt stuck to his flank like 
 a horse-leech; the farmers waved their hats and 
 thumped with their sticks; beer swam; the Reform 
 newspapers shrilled for the noble young orator; the 
 Manifesto, with its scorn of the Bill and its passion 
 for pikes and barricades, disappeared from view; 
 Party resumed him. It was maddening. In vain 
 he struggled with it. Every speech he made was 
 more emphatically anti-party, and by party the 
 more applauded. Never was a Reformer like his 
 Lordship. The Bill must pass. The Bill, the whole 
 BiU, and nothing but the Bill . . . and so, God save 
 the King! At the close of every meeting, amid 
 thunders of cheering, Mr. Hunt, in a white hat, 
 struck Bendish on the back, and roared above the 
 tumult, "(iod bless his Lordship and the Bill!" 
 There was enough in this to sicken any Mirabeau.
 
 2i6 BENDISH 
 
 Bendish returned to his quarters pale and deeply 
 mortified, hoping against hope for a summons to 
 the Tower. He found instead a note (one of many) 
 from Lady Holland, bidding him to breakfast, as if 
 nothing had happened. He received also a belated, 
 enthusiastic letter, beginning, "My friend," from 
 Poore, who was in Pisa, enquiring about the run of 
 affairs. On the top of all this he received a visit 
 from Roger Heniker on business. Anti-climax. 
 
 Now it is not to be denied that his exertions in 
 the cause of Ultra-Reform had fatigued him. En- 
 thusiasm was on the ebb. He was tired of shaking 
 hands with Mr. Hunt, and had begun to be conscious 
 that in playing that worthy's game he had been a 
 piece in it himself. Expecting Poore momently, he 
 was irritated in advance by his expressive shrugs and 
 scowls, foreseeing that he would shrug and scowl. 
 He was inclined to damn Poore for criticisms which 
 he suspected to be just. Poore, he said to himself, 
 was an infernal visionary. The thing was tolerable 
 in Italy, absurd in England. How the devil could 
 one prevent farmers and shopkeepers from coming 
 to a meeting? And when they came how the devil 
 expect them to understand idealistic anarchy? How 
 the devil could one get the peasantry to come? But 
 Poore wouldn't see that. Poore would have wanted 
 him to trudge from village green to village green like 
 one of the Wycliffite poor priests he was always talk- 
 ing about — and Poore might do it. He could see, 
 proleptically, the gleam of scornful mirth in Poore's 
 hot eyes when he heard of Bendish's recent progress
 
 IN FLOOD AND EBB 217 
 
 in Wilts and Berks in a chariot with four horses, and 
 Mr. Hunt beside him in a white hat with a red favour 
 on his breast. To say that Poore was a cockney 
 poet was no answer. He wasn't, to begin with; and 
 there was the Manifesto already upon the towTi and 
 country; and there were the Preface and the Poem 
 to come. Caught in reaction, he fainted at the 
 heart to reaHse what was before him. 
 
 Instant escape was in his mind when Roger Heni- 
 ker came to wait upon him, and found him at the 
 breakfast table. 
 
 "Look here, Roger," was his greeting, "here's 
 Poore, red-hot, writing about his poem." 
 
 Roger's very blue eyes twinkled. "I should say 
 that he had better come home to correct the proofs," 
 he said. 
 
 Bendish scowled at his cold bird. "I daresay he 
 had. Well, as a matter of fact, there are none here. 
 Leigh Hunt may have them, but I don't know. I 
 haven't had time to see about them. And I must 
 revise my own Preface, of course, I must have time 
 to reconsider it. I've been away, infernally worried. 
 You know what politicians are. Hunt — ! Good 
 God, I wonder we don't pistol ourselves — in fact, 
 we do now and then. But I've been too busy even 
 to do that. He used to slap me on the back, d — 
 his eyes. He must have done it fifty times, I 
 could have taken him by the throat and wrenched 
 out his gullet. Poems! Proof-sheets! I daresay 
 Poore thinks that the world must stand still while 
 his poem's getting printed ; but it won't, you know 
 — and he must understand that."
 
 2i8 BENDISH 
 
 "I should put it to him," Heniker said. "I 
 thought him a very reasonable man." 
 
 "The fact is, you know," Bendish said, leaning 
 back and surveying mankind through the window, 
 'there's nothing in that kind of thing. I've tried it 
 lately in the country, and there's no kick in it. They 
 won't hear of anything else. They won't consider it. 
 They say that Reform must go through " 
 
 "Doesn't Poore say so too?" Heniker asked. "I 
 thought you said " 
 
 "Yes, yes, yes; I daresay he does. But there 
 was talk, you know, of working to get the thing 
 thrown out." 
 
 "Who talked of that?" Roger asked. He was in 
 a dry mood. Bendish was a Httle flurried. 
 
 "Eh? Why, who should talk of it? Don't play 
 the fool with me, my dear fellow, if you please. I'm 
 infernally out of humour to-day. Now, look here, 
 I suppose you'll be writing to the Poores shortly. 
 Haven't you got some business relations with the 
 lady?" Roger nodded. "I thought there was 
 something. Well, I'll get you to recall my Preface 
 from the printer and hand it over to me. You 
 might tell Poore that I am thinking it over. I sup- 
 pose — No, that won't do. I was going to say I 
 suppose you couldn't say I was out of town — I ought 
 to be, you know; I'm very much out of health. 
 They've been waiting for me down at Bendish these 
 two months. Eating their heads off. Eh, what do 
 you think?" 
 
 Heniker thought he could very easily do that — 
 if Bendish went out of town. Hardly otherwise.
 
 IN FLOOD AND EBB 219 
 
 "No, no. I must stay, of course. But you might 
 tell him how I've been driven about. I'll write to 
 him. Tell him I'll write. We must meet, no doubt 
 — later on. He's certain to be over here. I can't 
 say that I think there's much to be done; but, of 
 course, if he wants a meeting he must have it. I 
 hold to any engagements I may have made — natu- 
 rally. That's my way. But if he thinks that I am 
 going to put my name to a thing that's doomed to 
 failure, he's egregiously mistaken." 
 
 "It would only bear the author's name, of course," 
 said Heniker. Bendish started. 
 
 "What the deuce do you mean?" 
 
 "You refer, I suppose, to Poore's poem?" 
 
 "I refer to nothing of the sort. Upon my life, 
 Roger, I sometimes think — I refer, naturally, to my 
 Preface." 
 
 "Good," said Heniker. "I'll tell him." 
 
 "Tell him what you please," said his Lordship, 
 and yawned, and drank his tea. Then he stared 
 moodily at his friend. 
 
 "I think, you know," he said, "that I shall be off 
 again shortly. England don't agree with me. It's 
 all nonsense. She and I will never get on." 
 
 Roger chuckled, but said nothing. He was a 
 plain man, and did not realise that Bendish could 
 be at once bored with a thing and bored without it. 
 
 "A man can't be simple in this damned country," 
 Bendish went on, querulous. " A man must always 
 do what's expected of him. If he's a peer he must 
 toe the hne — or if he's a ploughman. But there are
 
 220 BENDISH 
 
 some things — there's Hunt, for instance — oh, the 
 devil! I was an enormous fool not to have pushed 
 on to the East when I was out with you. But you 
 know me — women, Lord! She was the siren. I 
 listened to her singing — and so it went on." 
 
 Heniker now understood him to refer to Mrs. 
 Poore, and concentrated his gaze upon his friend. 
 "Now, you know," Bendish continued, beginning 
 to enjoy himself, "I hold to the full in the right of 
 man to experience in every direction open to faculty. 
 He is the better of it too — all natural right apart. 
 Nor should the woman regret it, for she, after all, 
 is ultimately the gainer. Let him range; give him 
 his fling. If he comes back to her, it is because she 
 has always been in his heart — his strayings and wan- 
 derings are actually testimony to his constancy. 
 That sounds to you a paradox? Examine it — you'll 
 find it a truism. Now I suppose that I have sounded 
 the depths of passion as deep as any man, but I 
 declare to you upon my conscience that I shall bring 
 the riper nature to the woman I marry. It will have 
 been annealed, it will have passed through the fire. 
 But she too has rights. I don't forget them. She 
 says, I give my hands, I yield my person, I devote 
 my nature to a man — as such — not to a peer. Naked 
 I go — simplex munditiis. Let him too strip himself. 
 What! At birth and at the hour of death all men 
 are equal. It should always be so — and so, indeed, 
 it always is if men could only see it. You may not 
 be able to see it, you poor shackled convenience — 
 but I see it, and I accept her conditions — and ac-
 
 IN FLOOD AND EBB 221 
 
 cept them, mind you, more logically than she may 
 suspect. I put her to the test, it may be, in the very 
 act of submitting to her own test. For if she say 
 to me. Strip you of your accidental trappings; stand 
 up before me plain George Bendish, the son your 
 mother brought forth, the issue of the love of man 
 and woman — I reply, 'I do it — the thing is done: I 
 vnU. take you to a land where such frippery is nothing. 
 But do you come undecked also, except with your 
 beauty and honour. Come to me clothed in your 
 innate purity — and don't cover your nakedness with 
 a wedding-ring.' If she is the woman I beUeve her, 
 she will follow me over the world." 
 
 The young man, flushed with his own eloquence, 
 rose from the table and strode to the window giving 
 on to the dusty to^Ti. He stood there at gaze, trem- 
 bling and excited. Heniker, bag in hand, gaped at 
 him. Accustomed as he was to his patron's vagaries, 
 he was now completely off the scent. Was there — 
 had there been an intrigue with Mrs. Poore? It was 
 hardly possible, but — you never knew with Bendish 
 what there may or may not have been. 
 
 He thought this kind of windy talk very out- 
 rageous, though he was by no means more squeam- 
 ish than men of his own age. "I must say, George, 
 I don't know why you address yourself to me in 
 such a matter. I'm not at all ready to advise you, 
 and to tell you the truth I have no sympathy with 
 it. If you propose to make some lady your mistress, 
 the thing may be done, I believe. But fluid talk 
 about innate purity has a nasty taste to me; and
 
 22 2 BENDISH 
 
 as for the wedding-ring, you'll find that that is a 
 garment no woman will go without if she can pos- 
 sibly help herself. However — you didn't ask my 
 advice, and I'm giving it you for nothing — which is 
 against my business instincts." 
 
 Bendish listened in high good humour. "My 
 dear old Roger, you'd dress every bride in parch- 
 ments, and tie her up in red tape — I see your point. 
 The Rights of Man are nothing to you, who watch 
 over the rights of property. Either a man has 
 property — and rights, or none — and duties. Either 
 he is owed, or he owes. Pooh! what a world you 
 lawyers have made for us creatures of simple appe- 
 tites! But there — go your ways — I've done with 
 you. I'll be free of this galley-hulks in a week or 
 so. Off with you and comfort your poet." So 
 Heniker found himself dismissed, and shrugged 
 Bendish out of mind. 
 
 He did not know, and could not have reaHsed 
 what a lonely creature this young lord was, how 
 much he needed, and how much fell short of human 
 companionship. Bendish was one of those men with 
 a capacity inferior to his understanding. He saw 
 what fools or bunglers most men were and was not 
 able to do any better than any of them. He was 
 shy and arrogant at once. He was eager for sym- 
 pathy and yet for ever making it impossible. With 
 sympathy he could have done anything, and yet he 
 would only have it on his own terms, which were 
 exorbitant. He had been set on fire by Poore at
 
 IN FLOOD AND EBB 223 
 
 their first meeting; his enthusiasm had burned with 
 a clear flame — until Poore set to work to do some- 
 thing tangible. The moment that happened he began 
 to think Poore a dullard, and he ended by scorning 
 him for an ass. Of course it is true that he had 
 failed to do anything to impress Poore, and that he 
 knew it. There was that side to him. If Poore had 
 sat at his feet he might have run off his own version 
 of The Vision of Revolt — which would have been just 
 as good as Poore was able to think it — exactly as 
 good as that. But Poore did not sit there, but in- 
 stead, at his desk. Bendish was chilled — and drew 
 in his horns. 
 
 It is difficult to realise, but quite necessary, how 
 much through his own quaUties and the accidents of 
 his birth and upbringing this young man stood alone. 
 He had not one intimate of his own rank in all Eng- 
 land. Men, his equals, he had always misdoubted; 
 men, his inferiors, he used, but despised. As for 
 women, he either made love to them, or thought 
 nothing about them. If he made love to them, 
 they gave him his desire, or they did not. If they, 
 did — well, then they were husks, not women at all. 
 If they did not, he hated them. Prodigal of others, 
 miser of himself, he was worse-conditioned than 
 CatiHne; but the world is wide and full of people — 
 and he had never yet failed of candidates for dis- 
 bursement. 
 
 But at the time of this recorded interview with 
 Heniker, though he was at a low ebb, and lay gasp-
 
 224 BENDISH 
 
 ing, derelict on the sands, he had cast his eye upon 
 a way of escape. To bolt from his ennui would not 
 do: he knew that. That would only mean dragging 
 it about with him. But a pursuit with zest might 
 enhearten him to do what had to be done in this 
 dreary business of pohtics, into which, he now felt, 
 he had been inveigled by Poore. Poore, confound 
 him, had played with his emotions — and so had 
 Georgiana, and be d — d to her. Speechless with 
 rage, he saw these two join the ranks of his unfriends, 
 and just as he felt the cold of this cruel defection, 
 and while his mind, panic-struck, was ranging the 
 universe for one human heart left it to stable in, it 
 lit — ^in a flash — upon Rose Pierson's, and saw itself 
 stabled there. Instantly the universe became a 
 hideous waste — a place of broken sepulchres — and 
 Golder's Green a City of Refuge again. Why it was 
 that the glowing face and gracious form of this 
 young woman rose before him at the moment of 
 Heniker's entry he had no notion; but so it was — 
 and his harangue about innate purity was directed, 
 of course, at her's, which he intended to attack as 
 soon as might be. 
 
 Not, of course, that he put it so, or thought so of 
 it. For the moment he felt himself very simply like 
 a lost soul, and of her bosom as his home. For the 
 moment he knew not where else to turn for the love 
 and adoration which he absolutely must have if life 
 was to be Hved at all. For the moment also the 
 security he felt within the aura of her gentle beauty 
 was so blessed and so healing that he was as near
 
 IN FLOOD AND EBB 225 
 
 loving her as he had ever been or ever could be. 
 But that feehng was not at all what he understood 
 love to be. In his own sense of the term, he was 
 not in love with her. No passion, no need to hold, 
 was involved. He was intending to go to her for 
 the assurance that he might have her again. But 
 for that, she could wait for him — since she would. 
 
 He did not, in fact, go, because he was inter- 
 rupted. His horses were at the door, his boots and 
 spurs were on, when his friend Tom Moore came 
 bustling upstairs and burst in upon him. 
 
 Bendish in a lightning glance saw that his errand 
 was good — in other words, comfortable. "By God, 
 Bendish," was his greeting, "you'll break me heart 
 with pride and joy one of these days of grace." 
 
 Bendish flushed wdth hope. "WTiy, Tom, what's 
 the matter?" 
 
 "The matter is yourself, me friend and brother — 
 elder brother in Apollo as you are. My lord — " 
 and he thrust his hand into the bosom of his frock, 
 "I lay at your feet the laurel crown in the name of 
 the Camoenae. Amant alterna, does he say? Not 
 they! They're for the best man of his hands — and 
 bedad 'tis yourself." 
 
 Bendish was ridiculously pleased, and quite un- 
 able to conceal it. "You hke my — Wajiderer?^' 
 
 "Like ut!" cried Tom. "I've been bathing me 
 heart in ut. I've been wallowing in the honey and 
 wine of ut. O fie, Bendish! Fie upon your politics 
 and stuff. 'Tis to lime your wings. But this is to 
 make you famous, don't you understand? Gcrvase's
 
 226 BENDISH 
 
 Vision is a fine thing — oh, I'll not turn me back on 
 Gervase Poore. No, no, 'tis a fervent, magnificent, 
 wrong-headed young hobbled archangel in a two- 
 pair back — and so he always was and will be. Set 
 him singing his fair Georgiana in his shirt-sleeves, 
 and he'll have the roof afire — more blood to his pas- 
 sion ! And his politics are Hke a south-westerly wind 
 — blusterous, with a tingle, and a dash of furious 
 rain. Fine, fine, fine. But for Parnassus — bah! 
 You'll never find a poHtical poet above the foothills 
 of that mountain, except he's a satirist. Dryden's 
 there safe enough — I won't say Butler's far behind 
 him. In me poor way — hem, hem! But you — with 
 your Wanderer — don't need to scale the rocks. No, 
 no, — you take the way of the air — the eagle's way. 
 Now see here, Bendish — Murray, the rogue, has put 
 his nose into this — sub rosa, you know, sub rosa. 
 He's snuffed the savoury gale, and he's agog, sir. 
 Three thousand guineas was named — three — thou- 
 sand — guineas — named before me who stand here. 
 Take 'em — throw 'em into the draught — fling 'em 
 after the ivories at Crock's — it's all one. You walk 
 before us all. By God and His blessed Mother, me 
 friend, I never thought you had it in you." 
 
 There he stopped, beaming, moist in the eye, a 
 blessed little visitor for any poet. 
 
 Bendish, blown out of range of his looking-glass, 
 was much affected. He turned away to conceal his 
 tears. He gulped his emotion — but it was some 
 time before he could speak. 
 
 When he did speak, he drew himself up, and threw
 
 IN FLOOD AND EBB 227 
 
 his head back. "My dear Tom, you are more than 
 kind. I am greatly touched. You are generous — 
 I was hardly prepared for such an outburst — you 
 give with both hands. Of course — I don't mind ad- 
 mitting it — to you — a great deal of \irtue went out 
 of me into that thing. I had been in love — and you 
 know what that means as well as I do. Never mind 
 how I fared — never mind the lady's pleasure of my 
 suit — you know what women are! There it was. I 
 do think — I always did think — that there was per- 
 haps a something in me — God knows!" 
 
 "It's a d — d fine poem," said Tom, having ex- 
 hausted his superlatives already. 
 
 "As for pohtics and all that," Bendish went on, 
 more at his ease, "I give you up politics. I've had 
 my say — not as I wished it. It's a dirty business, 
 and I'm glad to be rid of it." 
 
 Tom looked sharply. "Oh, then you are rid of 
 it? I thought you were involved with Gervase. I 
 heard you speak of a Preface." 
 
 But Bendish now had everything well in hand. 
 "There was some thought of it. I half promised him 
 something. I can give it him, of course. My opin- 
 ions are exactly what they were. Poore is all for 
 extreme action, and I " 
 
 "I would be for extreme unction, if I were author 
 of The Wanderer,'' cried Tom. 
 
 "Certainly, certainly," said Bendish. "He shall 
 die with the rites of the Church." 
 
 Tom said that he would be writing the dear fellow 
 within a day or two, and would gladly play priest
 
 2 28 BENDISH 
 
 in so pious a work. Then Bendish proposed dinner 
 together, and a visit to Holland House afterwards. 
 Agreed. The chilled horses were sent back to sta- 
 ble, and Rose Pierson pigeon-holed once more.
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 A LETTER FROM GEORGIANA 
 
 Settignano, December 20th. 
 
 My dear Duke, — You see that we are by some miles 
 further apart, and I have to tell you that we don't expect to 
 be in England for some time. I know that this will grieve 
 you, as it does your friend; but you are so wise that you 
 can understand her even when she says nothing. She can 
 only tell you now that it is far better as it is, and expect you 
 to read what is not there. 
 
 Gervase is very well and in high spirits about his Vision, 
 which Lord Bendish took with him to England and is to see 
 through the press. Or rather, he was, but we now hear that 
 Mr. Leigh Hunt has it in charge, and personally I am very 
 glad of it. It should be out very soon now. I know that 
 you will disapprove of it — for it is political, and you don't 
 think that poets ought to interfere in politics. I need not 
 tell you that it is sincere. You know Gervase so well, and love 
 him in spite of his opinions. I think the first part will please 
 you. It is very beautiful and most touching. He under- 
 stands the poor. I don't myself know what to say of the 
 second part; but am rather afraid of what the critics may say, 
 and of what the politicians may do\ I know that you will 
 be kind about it, because — perhaps I need not say why. You 
 are our friend. I can hardly remember the time when you 
 were not my friend. 
 
 Gervase, of course, was very anxious to go to England 
 and take the consequences, whatever they may be. I am 
 thankful to say that I have persuaded him at last to stay here. 
 
 229
 
 230 BENDISH 
 
 The children are so young to travel, and I confess that I 
 shirk the journey just now, for myself. But for him — though 
 I have not told him this — it might be dreadful. I am very, 
 very nervous. He wrote his poem straight off, as if with his 
 own blood. I have never seen him so possessed; and the 
 presence of Lord Bendish was so much provocation to him. 
 They excited each other. I don't like Lord Bendish at all, 
 and I cannot imagine that you do either. I should like to 
 know your opinion of him, and dread what you may think 
 of the Poem. All this is a very selfish letter, but I think you 
 will understand. If any harm come to Gervase I shall be 
 very unhappy. I love him more every day, but he requires 
 more attention than the children. To me, of course, nobody 
 in the world, or out of it, could be sweeter or kinder. One 
 great friend comes near him. Between them I shall be 
 spoiled. But it is what he does to himself that I fear. He 
 is unsparing there. He drives himself with whip and spur. 
 Just now he is calm and happy. He goes into Florence every 
 day and sits in front of Niobe and her children. He is going 
 to make a poem about her. Ah, he is safer with the Greeks 
 than with the Anglo-Saxons! 
 
 I wish, oh, how I wish that you would come to Florence 
 again, when you have killed the Reform Bill and can be 
 spared. Isn't it extraordinary? Gervase now hopes that 
 you will kill it. You will see why in the Poem. That is 
 part of his prophecy. But seriously, won't you come and 
 see us? You could hardly stay with us here, of course, 
 though we have a charming house by the church. It is 
 called La Canonica, and belongs to the parroco of Settignano. 
 There is a garden looking right over the Val d'Arno, and 
 shelter from all the cold winds — but no! I can't see you in it. 
 I don't know what you would do with Ingles — least of all, 
 what Ingles would do with himself in such a tiny house. He 
 would say, "I assure you. Madam, there's no place fit to 
 grill His Grace's cutlet in" — and he'd believe it. I daresay 
 it is true too. We live on macaroni and white cheese, mostly. 
 Gervase eats no meat at all. We have had great trouble
 
 A LETTER FROM GEORGIANA 231 
 
 about the children's milk; but there is a Princess Rospigliosi 
 in a great villa near by, who has a herd of Jersey cows, and 
 is very kind. We used to meet her four years ago when we 
 were here with you — do you remember? And once before 
 that (at, Devonshire House, I think) — still longer ago, in the 
 days when my Gervase used to stand in the street with the 
 crowd — to see me come and go! Oh, my dear friend, the 
 strange, beautiful, dreadful life I have had! Thank God it 
 is all safe now — thank God that all who really are concerned 
 in it must understand. For I am sure — in fact, your mes- 
 senger, and his message from the other world proved it — that 
 Charles understood. I cannot tell you what a comfort it 
 was to me that he should have thought of me as he did 
 towards the end. We couldn't possibly accept his gift — 
 but we took the precious part of it. 
 
 Yes, Duke, I am happy, and blessed among women — 
 please God I may deserve it by being a good wife to Gervase, 
 and mother to his children. Pray for me always — and God 
 bless you, my best and oldest friend. 
 
 Georgiana. 
 
 P.S. — I am worried about the Poem, and pray that no 
 harm may come of it. They may prosecute! If that happen 
 nothing will keep Gervase here — nothing ! I detest, and dread, 
 Lord Bendish. I think of him as Gervase's evil genius— 
 and believe that Gervase begins to realise it. My love to 
 any who remember me. 
 
 P.P.S. (Written across).— Lord B. hates me. I certainly 
 hope he does. 
 
 The Duke stood at his library and tapped his 
 chin with this letter. 
 
 "Bendish! A popinjay! I'll bleed him if he's 
 been at her. There's something behind all this. 
 Now I'll write to her."
 
 232 BENDISH 
 
 He went to his standing desk, mended his quill, 
 and began. He wrote fast, in a great sprawling 
 hand. 
 
 Wake House, 30//? January. 
 
 My dear Georgey— You write a good letter, which I 
 understand very well. As things are with you, you are 
 perfectly right not to travel. God bless you when the time 
 comes. 
 
 You may leave Master Bendish to me with confidence. 
 I know more than you do of the young man, though I dare- 
 say you know more than you see fit to declare. He's been 
 blazing about town and country of late, spluttering froth 
 and folly. The women run after him — but you know what 
 they will do. If a man is short of a finger they want him 
 for an oddity. They're collectors, these fashionable women. 
 But Bendish is a very pretty fellow, I'll allow, looking in- 
 different well in a flame-coloured stock. He's all red politics 
 just now — but I hear that he's been rather stuffed in the 
 country. A fellow called Himt yoked him to his car. That's 
 enough to turn a stouter stomach than Bendish's. I saw 
 Tom Moore at a party the other night, who prepared me 
 for a new display of coxcombical fireworks. You're not the 
 only owner of a Poet. Bendish is about to let out in that 
 direction. Tom was bubbling with it. 
 
 Now, Georgey, I doubt your Mr. Gervase has cooked him- 
 self a pot of trouble. He's not the first poet to do that, nor 
 will you be the first poet's wife to bum your fingers getting 
 it off the fire, I'll do what I can for him: you may trust 
 me. He was never famous for contingency, I must say; but 
 I should not have suspected him of Bendishry. We shall 
 see what we shall see. His blessed Epick is not out yet, or 
 I should have heard of it, seeing it's my business to know 
 everything. I can see very well that you are disturbed, and 
 therefore I hasten to tell you that you have no cause for that. 
 I'm nobody in the political world, of course, being in Oppo-
 
 A LETTER FROM GEORGIANA 233 
 
 sition, and likely to remain so by all I can see; but thank 
 God, I'm a somebody -with the grandees, and by no means 
 above a job for my friends. I admire your man, as you 
 know. He's a fine Don Quixote of a fellow and makes a 
 brave figure out in the sun. He and I used to understand 
 each otfier, and so we shall again. If he tilts against some 
 of my windmills I'll pick him up and give him the free run 
 of my vinegar and brown paper, but he'll know as well as 
 you do that I can't stop the mills to oblige him. Tell him 
 I said so. 
 
 He stopped there in his writing, and stood staring 
 into space. Every word he had given her had his 
 love behind it. He had always loved her, and the 
 older he grew (and he was an old man now) the more 
 he wanted her, and the less able he felt to cope with 
 desire. He told himself that he doted — he said he 
 was going to be that miholy spectacle, a fond old 
 impotent. But by that very plainness of deaHng 
 he knew at the bottom of his heart that he was not. 
 
 He resumed his pen. 
 
 Georgey — (he laughed here at his fondness for writing her 
 name. There was a caress in the act — it was like touching 
 her) — Georgey, do you stick to him whatever happens — 
 through thick and thin. If he's going into action, where 
 the stones and mud vdW be flying — trust him, believe in him. 
 You don't suppose that I've any sympathy with his notions 
 — I think them all moonlight — but they won't do a ha'porth 
 of harm to anybody, except himself. If there was any vice 
 in him I'd tell you, but I tell you, on the contrary, that there's 
 none — and you don't need to be told so. We must do what 
 we can for him — give him his head — and stand by with the 
 towel and sponge — and a basket for the pieces. Now don't 
 you lose heart, my dear. Show me the stuff you're made of.
 
 234 
 
 BENDISH 
 
 And let me tell you this — when you and I and he are dead 
 and buried — and your grandchildren are walking the woods 
 — Gervase's will be a name to conjure with. You believe 
 in Heaven, and I hope that I do. Well, then you'll know all 
 about it. . . . Keep your head up — give him of your smiles 
 and tears. He may be a thundering fool — but damme he's 
 an honest one. 
 
 He folded and sealed his letter.
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 "the wanderer" 
 
 "Oh, my dearest Rose," writes Miss Clara Smithers from 
 Russell Square (in an Italian hand) to a friend in the suburbs, 
 "have you see The Wanderer'^ But of course you have not. 
 It is the very latest thing, and more beautiful than you could 
 believe. I cried my eyes out over it last night, and Mamma 
 took it out of my hands as I went upstairs to bed. It would 
 have been under my pillow and I am sure I should have 
 dreamed of the Author all night. Poor Lord Bendish (for 
 that is his name!), how dreadfully he must have suffered. 
 You feel that he must have written with his hearths blood. 
 Who she was who caused him this anguish (so truly and beau- 
 tifully described) I cannot di\ane. Everybody is asking, and 
 the newspapers are full of initials with dashes and stars after 
 them. But they don't really know. I counted the asterisks 
 
 in three, and all were different. Lady O is mentioned, 
 
 and Lady Hetty Masters; but I think myself that he met 
 her abroad. . . . And yet I feel sure that she is English! 
 Do beg or borrow it. You will be in agony; but such pain, 
 for another, is very good for the soul, I think. SjTnpathy 
 is surely an angelic quality. It is the height of fashion; no 
 one talks of anything else. The description of the Colosseum, 
 seen by the poet, through streaming tears, which he takes for 
 rain (the weeping of the skies), is the most touching thing I 
 have ever read. It can hardly be bought now, though it 
 has only been out a week. Mr. Farrow (you know how 
 fashionable he is) paid three guineas for his copy — wasn't it 
 impulsive of him? Papa paid fifteen shillings for ours, which 
 is the proper price. Now I must tell you that I have seen 
 Lord Bendish! I am the proudest girl in the Square — 
 
 235
 
 236 BENDISH 
 
 nobody else has seen him in our circle. I was with Mamma 
 in Oxford Street. We went to that nice woolwork shop near 
 the Pantheon, where you get those lovely shades of orange 
 and tawny — don't you remember I had some once before, 
 and did that antimacassar which Mrs. Welbore liked so much? 
 Well, we were at the door of the shop, matching our colours, 
 when the young man said, 'Pardon, ladies, but there goes 
 the most famous poet in England.' I knew at once who he 
 meant, and said, ' Where? Where? ' And then he pointed 
 him out, driving himself in a phaeton and pair. My dear, 
 he has a divine face — like the Apollo Belvidere's — ^but deathly 
 pale. He wore an enormous white coat. He looks very 
 haughty — but Oh, so sad, and so stem! . . . When I got 
 home I rushed to the poem and read the bit about the Colos- 
 seum again. I could see Lord Bendish sitting there, looking 
 at it through his tears. It is wonderful how much such an 
 experience helps one to understand poetry — more perhaps 
 than actual acquaintance would. I am sure that if I knew 
 Lord Bendish I should lose my heart to him. All ladies do, 
 I believe, — but he is inconsolable, they say, and simply will 
 not talk about her. Mr. Farrow told Mamma that if she is 
 mentioned, he simply looks at the speaker, and then turns 
 away his head. Isn't that dreadfully tragic? He is very 
 proud, of covu-se, and she has wounded him beyond recovery. 
 He looked to me as if he must die young — and knew it, like 
 Pope's Achilles. Now I come to think of it, he is very much 
 like that splendid character. I must say I don't envy her 
 her feelings at this moment. How women can be so wicked 
 I don't attempt to think. She led him on, you know, 
 and then rejected him. 'The prude with Circe's wile and 
 poisoned cup,' he calls her in one part. . . . and I don't 
 wonder. ... I saw your Mr. Heniker the other day, look- 
 ing very happy — and I wondered. ..." 
 
 This letter, addressed to Miss Rose Pierson at 
 Golder's Green, may well have stirred emotions in a
 
 "THE WANDERER" 237 
 
 bosom charged with memories. It did. There was 
 a moment when Miss Pierson felt a stab of surmise 
 that she herself, she the abandoned and long faith- 
 ful, could be regarded as the unspeakable She of 
 her friend's abhorrence and the poet's grief. And 
 there succeeded moments of pang when she remem- 
 bered what had been, and what had promised to be 
 her relations with this tormented poet and peer. 
 But Miss Pierson, if I don't misread her, kept her 
 memories mostly in orderly cupboards of the mind, 
 where they lay, put up in lavender, for very occa- 
 sional tender visitations — and besides, her reason 
 told her conscience not to be dismayed. Really, she 
 had not dismissed Lord Bendish; it had been quite, 
 otherwise. And now, too, she had a balm at hand 
 for any such wounds. For neither Miss Pierson's 
 heart, nor anybody's heart, suburban or otherwise, 
 is able to stand quite still. You may gather from 
 the fragmentary ending of my extract from her cor- 
 respondence that she had finally accepted the good 
 Roger's homage and service; and you will gather it 
 truly. 
 
 Rose, therefore, was able to dismiss her reproaches, 
 and put away repining. But curiosity remained. 
 She must by all means see, hold, read The Wanderer; 
 and by this time of day she had the means of being 
 instantly gratified. She had learned much since we 
 saw her last, tearless in her stricken grief and con- 
 stancy. She had learned to see herself in Mr. 
 Roger Heniker's eyes, and to be pleased with the 
 reflection. She had learned the uses of the pout,
 
 238 BENDISH 
 
 of the head askances, of the "hunching shoulder"; 
 she had become sleek under the adoring gaze of her 
 young flame-headed lover. She knew very well 
 what she could do with hun; she enjoyed her as- 
 sured position in the household, her enhancing as 
 a Well-beloved in the eyes of those to whom she 
 was merely a niece or an employer. These are les- 
 sons easily learned. 
 
 She got her book, no doubt, and absorbed and 
 put it away, with perhaps a sigh. Here had been 
 indeed a lover — on paper. 
 
 The first edition of The Wanderer, a Poem, by 
 George, Lord Bendish, lies, as they say, before me. 
 It is a quarto volume bound in green morocco, with 
 gilt edges, and a border of gold olive-leaves about 
 its side. In the midst thereof is the Bendish coat 
 and motto, surmounted by a baron's coronet. It 
 has wide margins and thin-faced type, printed in 
 pale ink. Much of the delicate elegance of the i8th 
 century, fading but not yet vanished in the early 
 19th, is upon the book, which makes it hard to be- 
 lieve that it ran so passionate a career. Tantaene 
 animis ! we say. Yet there is no doubt at all about 
 that. 
 
 It came upon a London still accustomed to look 
 to poetry for the nearest expression of the human 
 heart. One has given up the habit nowadays, be- 
 cause the heart of man expresses itself more readily 
 in action. Rhetoric is no longer relief to a man in 
 love, and where a man, wrung by emotion, would
 
 "THE WANDERER" 239 
 
 have cried himself to quietness in verse in Bendish's 
 day, in our own he would probably trumpet on his 
 nose or run to open the window. If intolerably 
 moved he might go to Brighton, or even to Central 
 Africa — he would not, I think, write a long narrative 
 poem in terza rima all about himself; he would not, 
 if he were of Bendish's degree, even write a novel. 
 But in the eighteen-twenties, and eighteen-thirties, 
 Society had a sharp eye for the publishers' windows; 
 and in the year which saw the Reform Bill become 
 the law it was rewarded by two successive displays. 
 
 The Wanderer came out first, and made its author 
 a famous man. He was already notorious, for the 
 Manifesto to the People of England had seen to 
 that. The great world and the small aUke had read 
 the Manifesto and cheered or pished as might be. 
 He had, as a fact, irritated nearly everybody by it; 
 but everj-'body knew who Lord Bendish was, and had, 
 as it were, a skeleton of him in the mind's eye, ready 
 to be filled in upon occasion. The Wanderer gave 
 occasion, and immediately George Lord Bendish 
 stood before the town as a young man of tempestu- 
 ous passions, of sorrows, of grandiose ambitions, of 
 much miscellaneous and elegant learning, and of an 
 eloquence such as had not been heard in English 
 poetry since the times of great Elizabeth. So, at 
 least, it was declared. 
 
 The Wanderer is very eloquent. His music wells 
 out of him, now gushing forth with gurgitations and 
 breaking spray, now streaming steadily, now a 
 dropping fall of sound; but never ceasing to flow.
 
 240 
 
 BENDISH 
 
 It handles the primal emotions in the grand manner; 
 it is very dignified but persistently despondent; it 
 deals with women more in sorrow than in anger; it 
 frequently appeals to Heaven. It borrows largely 
 from Nature in her more terrific moods and mani- 
 festations. Chasms and torrents, rainbows and roll- 
 ing clouds, mountain peaks and venerable towers on 
 the borders of lakes: these and other splendid wit- 
 nesses assist at the obsequies of the poet's massacred 
 affections. Italian skies, Claude-Lorraine landscapes, 
 with a happy and brightly-dressed peasantry in the 
 foreground, Michael Angelo, the ruins of Rome, 
 Vesuvius and the- Island of Capri — these phenomena 
 also, dipped in the heart's blood, made prismatic 
 with the tears, reverberating with the sighs of a 
 most unhappy young man of family and rank, are 
 more occasional accessories of the romantic funeral 
 of his passion. Never, you would have said, did a 
 poet mourn in more splendid company, and never 
 the heartless dealer of the mortal blow produce a 
 greater cataclysm in nature. 
 
 She is never directly referred to. We hear that 
 her dwelling was "in a sea-girt paradise," and that 
 the mountains, like couchant lions, kept her secrets 
 inviolable. We hear of her "slim and pardlike 
 strength," of her eyes "like the blue ice whose flame 
 is death." Her love is fatal, her touch paralyses, 
 her kiss makes to rave. "In stature dainty-small 
 like that lithe minion, Who wrought the ten years' 
 havoc in old Troy" — helps to fix her for those who 
 knew that she had been Poore's model for his Helen
 
 "THE WANDERER" 241 
 
 in The Vision of Argos; but it was not general knowl- 
 edge in London when the poem was in everybody's 
 mouth, and need never have been, but for what fol- 
 lowed later and hastened the catastrophe of this 
 narrative. Rose Pierson, who had a painful interest 
 in The Wanderer, would have been little the wiser if 
 she had been told the name of this malign enchant- 
 ress. Roger Heniker, who had guessed it, kept his 
 own counsel. Whether Tom Moore had an inkling 
 is not to be known. He met the Duke of Devizes 
 at a great house not long after publication, we hear, 
 and had a short conversation with His Grace. The 
 poem was certainly mentioned between them, and 
 Bendish himself was, in fact, pointed out to the 
 great man. 
 
 "Ho," the Duke had said, "that's the young man, 
 is it? " and gave him a keen and frosty look. " H'm," 
 was his verdict. "I thought he was a coxcomb. 
 But he isn't." 
 
 "He has genius, Duke," said Tom, "and that's 
 rare." The Duke took snuff. 
 
 "It may be — I don't know so much about that 
 as you do, Moore. But I do know a puppy when 
 I see one." He decHned an introduction. It was 
 then that Tom mentioned his visit to RapaUo in 
 the spring, where he had seen "our friends the 
 Poores." 
 
 "So I hear," the Duke said — but no more. He 
 had little doubt in his own mind but that Master 
 Bendish had been making love to Georgey and had 
 been snubbed. Hence these melodious wails. There
 
 242 BENDISH 
 
 would be wails, he judged, less melodious if Poore 
 happened upon The Wanderer. 
 
 As for the noble author, his overweening success 
 by no means corresponded with his inordinate am- 
 bition. He could, indeed, only be his own tributary, 
 and the utmost service he could do himself was to 
 spurn what the world offered him. Now to do this 
 adequately and continuously it was very necessary 
 that the world should go on offering; and so it did. 
 He used to hold levees wherever he went. Some 
 thought it rather ridiculous, and he said that he 
 thought it so; but he took it very seriously, and 
 liked it out of measure. People were brought up to 
 be presented to him, women as well as men. He 
 allowed that to be done. He had extremely httle 
 to say to them, but made great play with scornful 
 eyelids, quivering nostrils, and the upper lip which 
 had reminded Miss Smithers of the Apollo Belvidere. 
 Yet he knew, as well as any royal personage, to a 
 hair's shade, the amount of deference that was paid 
 him, or that was due, and not Brummell himself in 
 his heyday could have been more exigent. At a 
 dinner-party he was mostly silent; with men about 
 him, unless they were his intimates (and that means 
 his inferiors), invariably so. He had got, in fact, 
 into that sulky way of accepting homage — as if it 
 was long overdue — which those who never can get 
 enough of it use as a kind of solatium to themselves. 
 He took it peevishly, but always looked about for 
 more. 
 
 Yet he had his troubles, as we all have — even in
 
 "THE WANDERER" 243 
 
 this hour of apogee. The pohticians pestered him. 
 Mr. Hunt was a difficult man to shake o£f. If any- 
 body could have quenched him it would surely have 
 been-Bendish, who had the art of the cut direct at 
 his finger-ends. But Hunt's hand on the back was 
 not to be avoided but by flight, and it was comic to 
 see the young lord's terror of it. He fairly fled the 
 hearty orator. Then there was that infernal Mani- 
 festo to the People of England. The newspapers 
 made play with that, and the supply of it seemed 
 inexhaustible. He had agents pretty well all over 
 England buying it up. There's no saying what that 
 cost him: Heniker knew, who had to find the money. 
 But the atrocious thing had ways of its own. You 
 might be about Leicester Square and Fleet Street for 
 a week and see not one; and then one fine day the 
 whole town would seem fluttering with it, Uke 
 Hampstead on a washing day. Bendish was furious 
 — it wasn't safe to mention Poore, or the Reform 
 Bill, or even Argos in these days. 
 
 Then again there was The Vision of Revolt which 
 was printing. He took a short way with that. He 
 sent back the sheets as they came, without looking 
 at them; but Leigh Hunt, as we know, was in charge 
 of that masterpiece, and passed every one of them 
 himself, unbeknown to his noble friend. 
 
 He cancelled the Preface, and wrote another, 
 which he signed, but unwillingly. The new Pref- 
 ace cost him a good deal of reflection, for all its 
 brevity. ''Mr. Poore," it finally read, "is a learned 
 and intrepid explorer of English History, and has
 
 244 BENDISH 
 
 reached certain conclusions which I admire. It is 
 not for me to speak of their justice or reason; the 
 greatest service I can do them is to let them speak 
 for themselves. Mr. Poore, however, has tempted 
 me to believe that a few words from me may serve 
 him for introduction into pohte and instructed circles, 
 though I confess that I never read the work of a 
 man who needed less of his friends. My interest in 
 these strenuous pages is, I must be allowed to say, 
 literary rather than speculative. Mr. Poore thinks 
 hardly of the institutions of his country, and justi- 
 fies himself with such vigour that I am hopeful at 
 least of its literature so long as he is at hand to up- 
 hold it. He is both bard and seer, poet as well as 
 politician. Let him take heart therefore. Telis, 
 Phodbe, tuis lacrymas ulciscere nostras! — Bendish." 
 
 It was pretty dexterous, really. The invocation 
 of Apollo at the end was as good a thing as Bendish 
 ever did. But certainly it was offensive, and I'm 
 not at all sure that it was not meant to be. Tom 
 Moore, the only person with whom it was discussed, 
 ventured a mild remonstrance. "I would expand it, 
 my dear Bendish; upon my honour I would. You 
 don't wish to hurt the feelings of a friend. Now, 
 you use the word admire in the right way — but 
 surely you see that its very rightness, its scrupulos- 
 ity, has a sting? Gervase has a quick temper — he'll 
 be hurt. I beseech you not to admire his conclu- 
 sions." 
 
 Bendish was very much pleased. That was the 
 sort of tribute he loved. "But that's just what I
 
 "THE WANDERER" 245 
 
 do, Tom. I admire, but I don't applaud. I don't 
 applaud, and I won't." 
 
 "But you did, my dear friend, you know you 
 did-—" 
 
 "Pooh," said Bendish, "I applauded him, not his 
 silly doctrine." 
 
 " Fie," cried Tom, " fie, my dear soul. You are be- 
 littling your own generosity. I foresee a very peck of 
 trouble out of this. Better indeed have no preface 
 at all." 
 
 "There shall be this preface," said Bendish, with 
 a heavy brow, "or none at all; and you'll find that 
 they will prefer this one." 
 
 "There's your name, egad," Moore admitted rue- 
 fully. " It means money. Not that Gervase wants 
 the stuff—" 
 
 "He wants readers, though, like every poet under 
 Heaven," said Bendish, "and they'll read him after 
 this. I flatter myself it's a provocative preface." 
 
 "By the Lord, you're right there," said the Httle 
 man.
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 
 "the wanderer" examined 
 
 The Duke read Bendish's book, and had no diffi- 
 culty. This was his beloved Georgey described by 
 a candidate for the dog-whip. His desire was to 
 administer it himself, but he knew that could not 
 be, since every lash on the rascal's shoulders would 
 flick those of the slandered lady. Bendish, he judged, 
 had made himself safe, and he had to hope so. 
 Should Poore catch sight of The Wanderer and get 
 an inkhng of the truth — what then? But Poore 
 was not suspicious by nature, and Georgey might 
 be trusted to keep her rueful counsel. 
 
 Meantime the town talked, and women's names 
 were bandied about like shuttlecocks in a country- 
 house on a winter's day. Certainly it had not been 
 
 Lady O , it was maintained, for Bendish had 
 
 been seen since in her box at the Opera. The great 
 world had seen him there, the lesser read it under 
 the newspaper asterisks, which fell about like 
 showers of meteors on the day following publication. 
 Could it then have been Mrs. Maynard? What was 
 to be said of Mrs. Joicey? Her candidature was 
 warmly supported by her friends. The Duke, who 
 heard everything, caught no whisper of Georgiana's 
 name. All might yet be well, he thought, if Tom 
 
 246
 
 "THE WANDERER" EXAMINED 247 
 
 Moore (whose knowledge he suspected) could be 
 taught discretion. But to teach Tom had been to 
 confess his own acquaintance with the truth. No, 
 no, never that. The thing must be risked. 
 
 Not a word, so far, from Florence. For the first 
 time in these years of dearth he was glad to be with- 
 out her words. 
 
 Six weeks or so after this hue and cry The Vision 
 of Revolt appeared, without puff preHminary or sub- 
 sequent explosion. It fell flat. Bendish's Preface 
 did its work well. Here was a poem, it said, which 
 had great technical merit. Leave out its politics 
 and it will amuse, even move you. But the pubhc 
 is not moved by poetry imless it has been first moved 
 by the poet, and it had never been moved by Poore. 
 There is a technique also in the conduct of Hfe, a 
 way of moving about, of holding yourself by which 
 only you can impose yourself upon the world. If 
 you write poetry in your shirt-sleeves your poetry 
 as well as you will want for a coat. Now Poore, 
 when he had been in London, had chosen for the 
 shade. Holland House knew him not, nor Fops' 
 Alley. He had had no clubs. Mr. Rogers, insti- 
 gated by Moore, once asked him to breakfast, but 
 he would not go. He was employed by an attorney 
 in those days, and so he remained until chance threw 
 him into the rays of Mrs. Lancelot's starry eyes. 
 From that hour his poetical Ufe began — a great 
 matter for himself, but nothing at all to the world. 
 When that hfe of his became a great and vital matter
 
 248 BENDISH 
 
 to Mrs. Lancelot, the world still ignored him. Then 
 he ran away with her; then came the divorce; but 
 even then — such was his lack of imposing manner — 
 his own obscurity was great enough to enwrap her 
 too. She never Ufted him into notoriety — rather 
 she was drawn down by him into the shade. Poems 
 appeared from time to time; pubHshers were found; 
 he may have had a hundred readers — we know that 
 Tom Moore was faithful. It was through Tom that 
 Bendish had been struck by him. But, as has been 
 seen, he had not been able to impose upon the sen- 
 sitive Bendish for long. Bendish had wearied of 
 him, and now with a flack of the fingers spun him 
 back into his dark. 
 
 The Vision of Revolt was for a long time ineffec- 
 tive. Leigh Hunt rang its praises in The Reformer; 
 Tom was intoxicated by its power and incisive hand- 
 ling and bubbled over with it in private Hf e. Socially, 
 he found it of no use to him. It was contemptuously 
 rebuked in The Morning Chronicle as the slaver from 
 the mouth of an anarchist, not noticed at all by the 
 Times and Morning Post. To be sure, there were 
 the magazines and the quarterlies to come. These 
 might be trusted to take toll, but they were not 
 then, any more than they are now, supported by the 
 mob; and as for the fashionable, we know that they 
 read what they please, and find in it what they 
 expect. All might have been well but for trivial 
 accidents. If Tom hadn't been indiscreet and Mr. 
 Hunt, the orator, officious, the fashionable world 
 had heard no more of Georgiana, nor the political
 
 "THE WANDERER" EXAMINED 249 
 
 troubled itself with her husband; but these things 
 will occur. As for Orator Hunt, he had his reasons 
 too, but they need not concern us at the moment. 
 But Jom's intervention is another thing. It was 
 part chivalry and part terror. There was none of 
 the vulgar "I happen to know the truth" about it. 
 For he did not know; he only suspected. Bendish 
 liad told him nothing, nor had he dared to ask any- 
 thing. But, putting two and two together, he felt, 
 rather than was convinced, that he was right. He 
 was not, however, angry with his noble friend, be- 
 cause, being a poet himself, he knew what these 
 things came to; he knew (none better) the uses of a 
 pretty peg for one's draperies of sentiment. At the 
 same time he was passionate to defend the fair lady, 
 and terrified lest her volcanic husband should come 
 home to do it himself. If that should happen, he 
 knew it would be necessary to take a Hne. Old 
 friends were best, and Bendish would have to be 
 given the go-by. But please the Powers that would 
 not happen, and lest it should he went tip-toe about 
 London in these days, ready to guffaw any breath 
 of Georgiana's name out of house. 
 
 He then, Hghting, Hke the butterfly he was, upon 
 a group at a great house, found it discussing The 
 Wanderer, and hovered to Hsten. One said that he 
 happened to know that Bendish had been awkwardly 
 placed before his journey abroad. A lady's name, 
 never yet involved, was mentioned, and this lady, 
 it seemed, had been in Paris when Bendish left 
 England. Now what was to be said to that?
 
 250 
 
 BENDISH 
 
 This was received with the seriousness it de- 
 manded. The lady was warrantable; she would 
 have done credit to any intrigue. She was mar- 
 ried; she had birth. She had not much beauty, it 
 was true — but what was that? Instances were cited, 
 from Queen Margot to Madame de Stael. It was 
 contended that "The Wanderer" never spoke of his 
 Circe's beauty. Then Tom intervened, with un- 
 fortunate chivalry. 
 
 "But he does— and he has reason. She's the most 
 lovely woman in England, and " 
 
 "What!" they cried him. "She's in England, 
 then?" He was checked and confused. 
 
 "She is not, then. But she was. And while I'm 
 upon it, ladies, I am constrained to say that my 
 friend Lord Bendish has been carried away. I can 
 understand a romantic attachment as well as any 
 man born; I can understand a bitterness of resent- 
 ment — but here the two are not in reason. He can 
 never have been rejected because he can never have 
 offered— the thing's impossible. So much I must 
 say on behalf of the lady." 
 
 "Your exquisite reason, Tom?" 
 
 "Ah!" cried he, flushed with his transport, "but 
 a wife and a mother! But a martyr herself to the 
 great passion! Oh, the thing is incredible! I have 
 never spoken to Bendish a word of this — beHeve me. 
 I could not. Nor can anybody else that I can see, lest 
 untold mischief be the end. There are persons— there 
 are even personages — who, if they had an inkling — 
 No more of it. I may have said too much "
 
 "THE WANDERER" EXAMINED 251 
 
 "Tom," said one, "you are warm." 
 
 "You are right," he said, "I am warm — and yet 
 sometimes my blood runs cold. The world would 
 be the poorer by a fine poem, but I could wish The 
 Wanderer had not been born." He turned to the 
 young man who had brought him into this and ad- 
 monished him with, a wagging finger. "Ha\ilot, let 
 me beg of you to stop this discussion. It's a serious 
 matter. I will add but this one observation. If 
 you knew as much as I do, you would — " But here 
 came the most eloquent aposiopesis, surely, since 
 Neptune's Quos ego — ; for the Uttle man grew as 
 red as a turkey cock, stared \vith round eyes at one 
 door, and fled out of another. In that door of entry 
 stood, erect and beribboned, white-headed and be- 
 whiskered, the Duke of De\dzes, side by side with a 
 lady, giver of the feast. The cat was out of the bag. 
 Before the rooms began to empty ever}- body in it 
 knew who Bendish's Circe had been. That much 
 the world was told, but IMoore's indignant denial of 
 the fact was not recorded. 
 
 When that came to the Duke's ear, as come it 
 did, his blue eyes glittered like frosty stars, and he 
 wrote a note to Bendish. 
 
 "The Duke of Devizes' compliments to Lord Bendish. 
 He would be glad of a few moments' conversation with his 
 lordship if he can be allowed, and at any time convenient." 
 
 To that note Bendish, suspecting nothing, sent a 
 proper reply, and in due course was shown in to the 
 Duke.
 
 (I 
 
 252 BENDISH 
 
 The Duke bowed, but did not offer his hand. 
 I am much obhged to you for coming," he said. 
 
 There is a private and personal matter connected 
 with your recent publication which concerns me 
 nearly." 
 
 "I am curious," Bendish said, "to know what 
 that can possibly be. Your Grace and I move in 
 different worlds." 
 
 "It's the same world, I fancy," the Duke said, 
 "and it's a small world. But this is the matter. 
 Gossip has lately been making free with the name 
 of a great and dear friend of mine, a lady. Her 
 name is Mrs. Poore, and she and her husband and 
 family Hve at Rapallo in Italy. Gossip, mahce, 
 slander, what you will, make her conduct the turn- 
 ing-point of your Poem." 
 
 Bendish drew himself up. "I must deny your 
 Grace's right to cross-examine me," he said, "but I 
 will say this, that if the lady's conduct were indeed 
 the turning-point of my poem, it would not have 
 been published as such." 
 
 The eyes of the two men met. Bendish's were 
 steady. If he was lying, he was lying well. The 
 Duke saw that he would he the thing out to the 
 end. He bowed his head slightly. 
 
 "I should have expected such an answer. The 
 lady in your Poem is — imaginary? That is what 
 you would have me understand?" 
 
 "She is imaginary," said Bendish. 
 
 The Duke held out a couple of fingers. "I am 
 very much obhged to your lordship. The ascription
 
 "THE WANDERER" EXAMINED 253 
 
 to my friend was made explicitly, and to me. In 
 the absence of the proper person, and as trustee of 
 an instrument of which Mrs. Poore is beneficiary, 
 I took upon myself to apply immediately to the 
 fountain-head. The slander once set afloat will be 
 difficult to overtake, and I can only hope that my 
 friend Poore, who is of a headstrong nature, won't 
 hear of it. I can, I am sure, rely upon your lordship 
 to correct what is a most unfortunate and, I am glad 
 to beHeve, unwarrantable handling of a lady's name." 
 
 It was Bendish's turn to bow. "Your Grace may 
 rest satisfied that I shall do what becomes me," he 
 said. After a few stiff phrases of a general nature 
 he withdrew. 
 
 Now let it be said in justice to him that, although 
 he lied, he did not think that he had. It is quite 
 true that his trivial affair with Georgiana had set 
 him off poetising, but fairly certain that there was 
 no deliberate portrait of her in The Wanderer. The 
 heartless enchantress were indeed ludicrous as a 
 portrait, and the weakness of the poem really is that 
 the occasion of all its portentous musings is so con- 
 ventional. The beguilements of Circe, the disen- 
 chantment of the youth were the merest peg for 
 rhetoric. Italy, an atmosphere of temperament, was 
 the real study: Italy was the real heroine, as surely 
 as Bendish was the hero. 
 
 But he was uncomfortable. He was disturbed. A 
 bitter something surged up in his heart. He had 
 been had up like a schoolboy to the headmaster's 
 study. He had almost seen the birch in the corner,
 
 254 
 
 BENDISH 
 
 behind the great atlas. He hated the Duke more 
 than any man hving, and vowed to revenge himself 
 if he could. Physically, he was not at all a coward; 
 but he was impressionable, like all poets, and it was 
 some time before he shook off the foreboding of 
 trouble which this visit had given him. He had 
 found himself face to face with inflexible honesty, 
 which, though he vowed that he was not a liar, 
 made him feel Hke one. He had a streak of caution 
 in him too which advised him to cast about in all 
 directions for safety, for a port of refuge should the 
 storm break suddenly upon him. He was comforted 
 by the thought that he had withdrawn the preface 
 to Poore's poem in time. There, at least, was a 
 patch of blue sky. He could not, then, be suddenly 
 confronted by political opinions which he had ceased 
 to hold. But for the other matter — for a storm 
 blown up by his own "Wanderer" — he had times of 
 feeling that he must travel far if that gale were to 
 be rode out. He must wander indeed, and see the 
 world through black and weeping glasses. It was 
 at such times that the image of Rose Pierson rose 
 before him — her willowy grace, the quick weaving 
 of her hands, her adoring and trustful eyes. O looks 
 of devotion! O pure, sorrowful mouth! His own 
 eyes filled with tears as he thought of her. His 
 gentle, faithful Rose! Thank God, there was a 
 haven in her ever open arms. He hoarded her 
 deeply and snugly within himself, and when the 
 world vext him used to steal away and look at his 
 treasure in secret. He got extraordinary comfort
 
 "THE WANDERER" EXAMINED 255 
 
 from her in this way; but it never occurred to 
 him to pay her a visit. Enough to know that she 
 was there, waiting for him. Thank God for good 
 women! His eyes would fill with tears as he 
 breathed this prayer. 
 
 But you can't fill the pubHc eye, and mouth, 
 without some annoyance to yourself. Hard upon 
 the troubles due to The Wa^iderer, came those of 
 The Vision. The unspeakable Hunt — the orator 
 and not the poet — blazed into speech about The 
 Vision of Revolt, and in defence of his "noble friend." 
 There were outrageous things in that work, he said, 
 which made his English blood boil. These were 
 those notes already quoted, about Parliament and 
 George IV. The House of Commons was insulted, 
 cried Mr. Hunt, the person of the Monarch assailed. 
 Could it be said that Lord Bendish had set his name 
 to such a scurrilous hbel ! Never. His lordship had, 
 it seems, written a preface to the book. His lord- 
 ship, let him tell them, had wTitten two. One he 
 had withdrawn when he had the work before him, and 
 had substituted another. Let them read before they 
 judged him. That was a preface which any lover of 
 literature might write to a book whose art he ad- 
 mired while he deplored its content. That, in truth, 
 was such a preface as the author of The Wanderer 
 might furnish to a brother poet. It was a task of 
 honour. His lordship had done his duty scrupu- 
 lously. "The great service I can do him," said he, 
 "is to let him speak for himself." There spoke the 
 man of honour, faithful to his promises but resolute
 
 256 BENDISH 
 
 not to endorse by any one scratch of the pen the 
 reckless and impious reflections upon his country, 
 his King, and the Constitution, which Mr. Poore 
 has not hesitated, etc., etc. This speech made up 
 in warmth for what it lacked of matter, and received 
 a good deal of comment. Questions were asked in 
 the House of Commons. The offensive Note was 
 read. There was talk of Breach of Privilege. The 
 reference to King George IV. came up for discussion 
 also. That was referred to the Attorney-General 
 for a report. 
 
 Finally the Duke sent for The Vision of Revolt 
 and read it, preface and all. Having done that, he 
 thought for a little, and then he got up and wrote 
 a short note. It was addressed to the publisher of 
 the book, and contained a confidential request.
 
 CHAPTER XXII 
 
 A BUDGET 
 
 I. Thomas Moore to Gervase Poore. 
 
 Sloperton, loih March. 
 My Dearest Gervase, — You are a terror to the 
 law-abiding, a sickness that destroyeth in the noon- 
 day. sir, how did you dare lay hands upon an 
 anointed, withal a dead, king? It will go hard with 
 you if the poHticians read you. But there's worse 
 to come. When I read your note about the House 
 of Commons the hairs turned to bristles on my back. 
 Good for you to be in Italy with your fair lady and 
 babes about you! Here at least you have given a 
 foothold for all parties to stand and shoot at you. 
 For you have pleased devil a one, my boy — neither 
 the Tories, since you hint at worse than Reform; 
 nor the WTiigs, since you laugh at Reform; nor the 
 Radicals, since you call them suckhngs. Why, what 
 the devil would you have? And to have made a 
 Tory of our friend Bendish! You see he will have 
 none of you. He admires, quotha ! and fobs you off 
 with a tag from the classics! There will be a plank 
 loose in your barque, Gervase, if he turns rat so 
 soon. And if I shift the metaphor and say there's 
 a screw loose in your pate, you'll forgive the freedom 
 of a friend, who loves the poet, and execrates the 
 
 257
 
 258 BENDISH 
 
 sansculotte, and trembles for the skin of the boldest 
 son of Priam that ever wooed Leda's daughter. 
 
 My dear, your Poem is a fine thing; it is even 
 damned fine. It is so fine indeed that you can afford 
 Bendish's flouting preface. Your Argos thrilled me; 
 but your Vision of England, gone, going, and to 
 come has ravished me of my wits. I see, I feel, I 
 believe, as I read you. If not thus, then not at all. 
 And your tenderness to all objects of pity! Your 
 great dim (for you have the sense of tears, Gervase, 
 and be d — d to you), roUing, tragic pageant sweeps 
 by as beautiful or terrible a pastoral landscape as 
 ever I saw out of the best of us — the very best. 
 'Tis as if Piers the Ploughman informed CoHn Clout. 
 True, you lack the Chaucerian gusto — you have no 
 breath left for a frolic laugh. When you laugh 
 there's a bitter ring. man, your fellow in the 
 sun "without a face" — ah, "how could you have the 
 nerve! And bedad, he's there; he was there, and 
 we have him yet. But of all your foregrounds com- 
 mend me to Hodge at the blessed Mass, dumb before 
 his wooden Gods, while beyond him the monasteries 
 are tumbHng, and the saints' bones Httering the 
 cloister floors. For these readings of the soul your 
 own will live — and a fico for your politics. 
 
 Bendish has the pas of you, howsoever. His 
 Wanderer came out a month before you, and holds 
 the stage. Never was such a scramble after a poem 
 before. Indeed, the young lord hath a perennial 
 fount of poesy within him. He has been lionised to 
 his heart's content. All the pretty women aim to
 
 A BUDGET 259 
 
 set liim wandering again, each in her company. 
 The fate of Hylas is Hke to be his — but that he 
 has the way of the Grand Turk with him. He sits 
 on a divan, and the candidates are brought up 
 by the chief eunuch. You would admire his cool 
 and critical eye. I misdoubt your opinion of The 
 Watiderer. 'TwiQ be too fervent for you, too tor- 
 rential, too much informed with himseh. You have 
 your eye upon the object, he upon the subject of all 
 verse. If he suffers, look you, Mont Blanc has the 
 bellyache. He reminds me of the Jew in the fable, 
 who after a supper of Hver and bacon was overtaken 
 by a thunderstorm on his way to bed. He quailed 
 at each crashing peal, his eyes showed white, he 
 sweated in fear. "God of Israel!" he cried in his 
 anguish, "what a fuss about a Httle bit of pork!" 
 There you have Bendish confronted by the marvels 
 of Nature. But 'tis a rolling stream of song, for 
 all that. 
 
 My salutations to your lady — to you all my love. 
 —Your friend, T. M. 
 
 2. Gervase Poore to Lord Bendish. 
 
 Settignano, 215/ March. 
 My dear Bendish — Your Preface to my Poem is 
 perfunctory. You had served me better by none at 
 all. I do not say, however, that I am surprised by 
 your sudden coolness towards ideas by which, I re- 
 member, you were somewhat suddenly fired. I 
 have to thank you, at any rate, for making feasible
 
 26o BENDISH 
 
 by your momentary enthusiasm a Poem with whose 
 scope and definite predictions I have no reason to 
 be dissatisfied; and I may even go so far as to con- 
 gratulate myself upon receiving your approbation of 
 its literary merits. Whether you might have ac- 
 corded it more generously is a matter for you to 
 reflect upon. You have, however, expressed your- 
 self clearly upon the only side of the book upon 
 which, I see, you are capable of a respectable opin- 
 ion. 
 
 I have not yet seen your own Poem. I have 
 asked my publishers for it, and don't doubt of 
 my admiration of it. It will not, I assure you, be 
 swayed in any degree by yours of mine. — I am, yours 
 sincerely, Gervase Poore. 
 
 The Right Honourable 
 Lord Bendish. 
 
 3. The Reverend Sydney Smith to Samuel Rogers. 
 
 Combe Flore y, i^th March. 
 
 My dear Rogers — What think you of the Vision 
 of Revolt! Does it urge your bile? Mine has got 
 into my head, I can't see. I am like Homer's Hon 
 after a meal, or Dante's cannibal Pisan. My jaws 
 yet drip from the savoury entrails. But now I'm 
 hungry for the poet's blood. We are to lay him out 
 soon. I hear that Christopher North will open the 
 ball in Maga; he is even now whetting his glaive. 
 Jeffrey, another Graffiacane, will be into him with 
 a prong. My own weapon is the sabre. You may
 
 A BUDGET 261 
 
 guess whether Murray gives me a free hand. I'll 
 show you some of my wrist-work anon. You saw 
 Leigh Hunt's hysterics? The other Hunt — the 
 white-hatted unspeakable — has taken the field in 
 defence of his noble friend Bendish. Terrible ally! 
 But — " ^vvo<; 'Ei/i;a\io<? /cai're Kraveovra Kareura^^ ! — 'Tis 
 the fortune of war, and the young man can't 
 have it all his own way. I say, "A plague on both 
 their houses" — Bendish with his of ill-fame and 
 Poore with his Commons House. He has made me 
 a man-eater with his confounded savagery. You 
 have read his Note? 'Tis undoubtedly scandalous. 
 I suppose the Government wiU prosecute. Or will 
 the House of Commons bring him to his knees? Or 
 Majesty's self, like the daughter of Herodias, dance 
 for his head on a charger? He wields an impartial 
 whip, odd rot him. There's not a shin in England 
 imoffended, I doubt. I hear that Tom Moore, the 
 little Whiteboy, is shouting with joy — trailing his 
 coat and whirling his shillelagh. "Ere the King's 
 crown go down there are crowns to be broke." Auto 
 da fe, say I. "He wiU hght this day a candle in 
 England," will he? He shall. We'll light him. 
 
 What says My Lady to all this pother? Does 
 she ask Poore to breakfast? Or is she of my mind 
 who wish for him for breakfast? 
 
 The season is wondrous mild. Daffodils begin to 
 peer already. But The Vision of Revolt engenders 
 a dangerous heat. You might say we were already 
 in the Dog Days. I wish I hadn't read it; I wish 
 it hadn't been written. I wish the fair Georgiana
 
 262 BENDISH 
 
 had remained with her Duke. And I wish that 
 I could have written the thing myself. — Sincerely 
 yours, my dear Rogers, 
 
 Sydney Smith. 
 
 4. Georgiana Poore to the Duke of Devizes. 
 
 Settignano, 12th March. 
 My dear Duke — I long to know what you think 
 of Gervase's Poem, and I am sure that he does too, 
 though he is nervous. You know how much he 
 respects your opinion. Lord Bendish has behaved 
 very badly about it. When he was with us at Ra- 
 pallo he egged Gervase on — indeed, he is responsible 
 for the writing of it, though it is quite true that 
 Gervase had been reading and thinking English his- 
 tory for a long time. Then, when he was at work, 
 something happened which I can't write about, 
 even to you, and Lord Bendish went away. He re- 
 turned when the poem was just upon finished, and 
 Gervase read it to him. Nobody could have been 
 more enthusiastic than he seemed to be. He under- 
 took the publishing, and to write a preface — ^which 
 I admit he has done. But what a preface! It had 
 been far better if he had done nothing at all. Ger- 
 vase is very much offended and has written him a 
 good letter. We haven't seen Lord B.'s Wanderer. 
 He did not send it to us, but I think it must be on 
 its way, from our booksellers. We had no idea that 
 he had written it, as he said nothing of it when he 
 returned. He must have done it between his visits
 
 A BUDGET 263 
 
 to us, and it's most odd that we heard nothing of 
 it, as he is generally so full of himself and his own 
 feelings. 
 
 You are in the thick of this endless Reform, I 
 feel sure. How much my thoughts are with you! 
 I remember so well that night when you were 
 mobbed in the street. I was told of it at a party — 
 and Gervase took me back to Wake House. It 
 makes me very nervous, especially just now. I am 
 thankful that I have Gervase here, out of harm's 
 way. You know of course that he hopes you will 
 throw it out of the Lords again! Extremes meet! 
 I don't know what I wish myself, except that Ger- 
 vase would get as tired of poUtics as I am. I am 
 glad to say that he has been much less interested in 
 them since his Vision is off his hands. He is back 
 in his Greek myths now, and reads his Aeschylus all 
 day. He makes me read with him for an hour every 
 morning. I am really beginning to know a verb 
 when I see it now. He is so sweet about it — not 
 naturally a patient man, but always so with me. 
 But you know what I think about him! I assure 
 you that you need not urge me to "stick to him." 
 I am a perfect limpet. 
 
 When your tiresome politics are over, you must 
 have a long hoUday, and I shall be very much 
 offended if you don't pay us a visit. Your godson 
 is going to be tall, like his father. Gervase says he 
 is like me — and I own he has a round face. Except 
 for that I see nothing but his father in him. He is 
 very masterful, the little monkey.
 
 264 BENDISH 
 
 The weather is perfect — a heavenly mild Spring. 
 The orchard below us is full of purple and red 
 anemones. Yesterday I found the first tulip — a 
 dear little pointed bud, striped in red and white. 
 They call it Bandiera di Toscana. 
 
 We know quite a number of people here and in 
 Florence. The other evening at a party at the Tor- 
 
 rigianis, I met the s! I had not, of course, seen 
 
 her since the old days, and felt very shy. But she 
 came up directly she saw me and began to talk. I 
 never liked her, and don't find her improved in ap- 
 pearance. She is very large and flushed and blonde. 
 She talked a great deal about Lord Bendish and 
 The Wanderer, and wanted to knov/ when and where 
 he composed it. I couldn't tell her. She was rather 
 odd about it, I thought. She came back, back, and 
 back to it. I hear that the Willoughbys are expected 
 — and the Hollands even. Gervase has heard from 
 her — already! A very pleasant Mr. Crabb Robin- 
 son paid us a visit, and stayed to supper. There was 
 no meat for him, but he pretended that he preferred 
 cheese. He and Gervase talked about German 
 poetry all night. He has not mastered the art of 
 eating spaghetti yet, and was wonderfully involved 
 in it. 
 
 I hear the children, and must fly. I daren't ask 
 you to write — but if you could — ! — Always your 
 affectionate friend, Georgiana.
 
 A BUDGET 265 
 
 5. The Duke of Devizes to Georgiana Poore. 
 
 Private. 
 
 t Wake House, 2$rd March. 
 
 My dear Georgey — I am so driven that I have 
 scarcely a moment for you. If you can keep The 
 Wanderer out of Gervase's hands I recommend you 
 to do so. The writer of it is a puppy, though a 
 clever one. I had a short conversation with him the 
 other day. I am afraid the truth is not in him. 
 As for the Preface to your blessed Revolutionary 
 Poem, I have Master B. on the hip, as he'll find out 
 one of these days if he don't look out. You mustn't 
 ask me what I think of the Vision. I'll do my best 
 for G. for your sake. I hear of the beginnings of 
 commotion, and am not surprised. You may think 
 what you like of the Commons, but you're a fool if 
 you write it down. Let him keep out of England, 
 whatever he does. B. is not worth his powder. He 
 may leave me to dock his tail. I am serious about 
 this. Keep Gervase wdth you, and keep The Wan- 
 derer out of his way. 
 
 Don't expect me to talk politics. I am sick to 
 death of them. Lord G. and his friends are frighten- 
 ing King Billy out of his wits. Creevey tells me 
 that he's going to be one of the new peers — the slop- 
 shop lords who are to be brought out in batches to 
 pass the Bill. I can't say yet whether our cock will 
 fight. It depends how they press him. If they 
 aren't careful he'll up hackles. They have a spirit 
 in his family. They all have it. There — no more
 
 266 BENDISH 
 
 now. God bless you and your babies. Nothing 
 contents me so much as to know you are happy and 
 a joy to all who can look upon you. No more now. 
 — Yours, D. 
 
 6. Thomas Moore to Gervase Poore. 
 
 Duke Street, 2,0th March. 
 
 My dear Boy — I was never more serious than I 
 am now. The murder's out, I hear, and I am to 
 beseech you by all you hold sacred — and I know 
 very well what that is — to stay where you are and 
 possess your soul. There's a hue and cry after you. 
 I know not from what quarter exactly — but I learn 
 that there will either be a prosecution by Informa- 
 tion or a warrant from the Speaker to attach you 
 for Breach of Privilege. 'Tis those blessed Notes 
 of yours. There may be both, for the Commons 
 are insatiable. The Duke will do what he can, of 
 course; but even he cannot quench the Commons. 
 
 Now I know that you will be itching to be in 
 England; I know what provocation you have re- 
 ceived. The thing is beyond behef. I have told 
 his Lordship plainly what I think, and you may be 
 sure of your friends, and of hers. But think of it, 
 Gervase. Suppose you come home and have him 
 out, there will be a scandal. Your arrest will follow 
 to a certainty — and where are you then? Where 
 are your dear ones? It's sheer ruination to you. 
 No, no, let the unwholesome scoundrel alone in his 
 squalor. However, if you must you must, and you 
 may count upon me.
 
 A BUDGET 267 
 
 I was with the Duke last night. It was at Bath 
 House. Bendish was there and bowed as he passed 
 us. He looked very pale — but was crowded about 
 by the women in a monstrous way. Oh, leave him 
 in his bagnio, for God's sake. Think of her, that 
 angel of love and purity, think of her babes. My 
 dear boy, the truest honour you can do her is to 
 ignore the dirty dog. — Your friend, T. Moore. 
 
 7. Gervase Poore to Lord Bendish. 
 
 Settignano, i$th April. 
 Mr. Poore has received The Waiiderer and read 
 it. He pays Lord Ben-dish the ill-merited courtesy 
 of telHng him that he starts this day for London in 
 order to administer public chastisement upon his 
 Lordship as both a Har and a coward. 
 
 8. Lord Bendish to Thomas Moore. 
 
 St. James's, 7//; May. 
 Dear Tom — I rather fancy that I may need your 
 friendly services one day soon. Our common ac- 
 quaintance, Poore the Poet, has flown, by letter, at 
 my throat for some fancied sUght — probably he has 
 discovered that I admired his wife and chooses not 
 to remember that I am one of many. At any rate, 
 he announces his proximate arrival in these islands 
 for purposes of satisfaction — which I propose to 
 afford him. You and I have held many a field to- 
 gether, but not, I think, that of dreadful Ares. I
 
 268 BENDISH 
 
 know nobody to whom I would sooner turn than 
 yourself, whether that god or the Cyprian Queen 
 were above the lists. I hope that I may refer the 
 fire-eater's friend to yourself. — Yours ever, 
 
 Bendish. 
 
 9. Thomas Moore to Lord Bendish. 
 
 Duke Street, S>th May. 
 My dear Lord — I regret infinitely that it is out 
 of my power to oblige your Lordship, but not more 
 than I regret the circumstance. Mr. Poore is an old 
 and valued friend of mine, the husband of a lady 
 whom I revere and honour as far as may be on this 
 side idolatry. He has, and must on every ground 
 have the first call upon my countenance, such as it 
 is. To say more would be intrusive, and imperti- 
 nent. — I have the honour to be, my dear Lord, your 
 Lordship's most obedient T. Moore. 
 
 10. Georgiana Poore to the Duke of Devizes. 
 
 Settignano, i$th April. 
 Dearest Friend — I am in dreadful trouble. A 
 terrible thing has happened. Gervase received yes- 
 terday a letter from Mr. Moore, and, by the same 
 post. Lord Bendish's shameful and wicked poem. 
 He read the letter first and came in to me for the 
 poem. I saw immediately that something serious 
 had upset him. He asked me, very quietly, had I 
 read The Wanderer? I said that I had looked at it. 
 He said. Give it to me, and took it and read some of
 
 A BUDGET 269 
 
 it, standing by me. Then he threw it down and 
 turned to me where I was sitting. He put his hands 
 on my shoulders and asked me to tell him all. I 
 knew then what he meant, and told him everything. 
 It is true that Lord Bendish forgot himself when he 
 was with us at Rapallo. It was when Gervase was 
 working from morning till night at The Vision of 
 Revolt, and I used to see a good deal of him. He paid 
 me a great many compUments and used to read me 
 poems which might have been about anybody. I 
 thought him very fooHsh, but it did not occur to me 
 that he was wicked. I knew nothing about him 
 except that he had written a satire which Gervase 
 thought ver}^ good. And then one morning, after 
 being silent for some time, he suddenly fell on his 
 knees and tried to kiss my hands. I told him what 
 I thought about him, and he left Rapallo soon after- 
 wards, I beUeve. At all events we saw nothing of 
 him until late in the autumn. I said nothing to 
 Gervase about it because they were rather leagued 
 in this political affair, and Gervase was very much 
 interested in him. I should have thrown him out 
 in his writing — I should have killed The Vision. I 
 acted for the best, as I thought. Well, I told all 
 this to Gervase, w^ho was kindness itself to me, and 
 tried not to show me how angry he was. But of 
 course I knew. He wouldn't let me look at the 
 book, or look at any more himself, but burnt it 
 immediately on the hearth, and then came back to 
 me and kissed me. I cried, and he comforted me 
 and made me feel braver and more sensible.
 
 2 70 BENDISH 
 
 This morning, however, directly I was awake he 
 told me that he must go to England and meet Lord 
 Bendish; and now he has gone, and I am torn to 
 pieces by anxiety and remorse. I am bitterly sorry, 
 on every ground, that I didn't tell him at once 
 about it. I should have stopped The Vision, dead, 
 I know, but even that would have been better than 
 a duel. It was that which deterred me, that and a 
 feeling that I could not bring myself to speak of 
 such a thing to one I love so much as I love Gervase. 
 You know how difficult I find it to speak about my 
 feeHngs. It is a great fault of mine. But it all 
 seemed so trivial and absurd — when one knows 
 what love really is, or can be. I simply forgot it 
 as soon as I could. Oh, do be good to Gervase! I 
 know you will. 
 
 I am well looked after here, and have friends, 
 very kind people, the Merediths, staying with me 
 in the house. The Princess is close by, too, and 
 exceedingly pleasant and friendly. I knew that I 
 couldn't go with him, and didn't even ask him to 
 let me. But you may imagine what my feelings 
 are. I can't sit still when I think — and the only 
 thing to do is not to think. I made him promise 
 me that he would go to you directly he reached 
 London, and I know that he will. Oh, my dear 
 friend, save him for me if you can. I know by your 
 last letter that he is not safe in England; but I 
 rely upon you. Nobody could have a better or 
 more splendid friend than you are, and will be, for 
 my sake and Gervase's.
 
 A BUDGET 271 
 
 The only consolation I have is that he will put 
 himself in your hands. 
 
 I enclose a scrap for him. Please give it to him 
 the jnoment it comes. He will be with you before 
 this reaches you. He will travel fast, I know. 
 
 If I am never to be happy again I must remem- 
 ber these four wonderful years — no, this June will 
 make it jive. And I have his children to care for 
 and bring up as he wishes. Really, in myself, I 
 am wonderfully well. I must try to keep so what- 
 ever happens. — Always your loving, G.
 
 CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 THE AFFAIR 
 
 PooRE travelled post, day and night, without 
 stopping more than an hour anywhere. He reached 
 London on the 2nd of May, and went straight to 
 Wake House. Had he had eyes for anything but 
 one thing he would have observed the signs of the 
 times — crowds in the streets, flags flying, bands bray- 
 ing. But he noticed nothing. He would have been 
 prudent, too, if he had provided himself with a pass- 
 port in some other name; but had he done that he 
 would not have been Gervase. One thought wasjn 
 his head, and one only. If he had not promised his 
 Georgiana, he would have sought out his enemy, 
 travel-stained as he was. It did occur to him — the 
 Duke being out when he arrived — that he had ful- 
 fiUed the letter of the law, and might now go out 
 again and come to grips. But the memory of 
 Georgiana's wailing voice, the pressure of her arms, 
 her tearful eyes and wet lips, came upon him in a 
 v/aking dream and stabbed him to the heart. He 
 had a moment of weakness, and flung his arms up 
 as he paced the Duke's library, but soon regained 
 possession of himself. 
 
 The Duke found him when he came in towards 
 
 272
 
 THE AFFAIR 273 
 
 the dusk of a fine spring day. He had not yet had 
 Georgiana's letter, but was prepared for him. 
 
 Now the Duke was a man of method as well as of 
 business. The Reform Bill was before the Lords 
 for the last time; every man's eye was upon him. 
 Messengers came and went; great men sought m- 
 terviews; king's servants brought letters and re- 
 ceived answers. He came home directly from the 
 House to dine, and must return afterwards. But he 
 was ready with time for Gervase Poore. 
 
 "Well, young gentleman," he said, "so you've 
 come over to fight?" 
 
 "Yes, sir," said Gervase. "What else should I 
 do?" 
 
 The Duke shrugged. "Why, nothing else. But 
 it's to be a near-run thing. That damned Vision of 
 yours has emptied the hive. The Commons are out 
 for swarming. You'll be lucky if you bring your 
 meeting off before they get you." 
 
 "Prosecution?" Gervase asked, frowning. 
 
 "I beheve the warrant will be out to-morrow. 
 You see, they knov/ everything. It's their business. 
 Directly that young rapscaUion's book was under- 
 stood they thought you'd be at him. I suppose you 
 gave them your own name at Dover?" 
 
 "Yes, sir," said Gervase. "I can't hide myself. 
 I'm not ashamed of anything I've done." 
 
 "I daresay you're not, confound you," said the 
 Duke. "But this is going to be a savage business. 
 Everybody's against you in it. You've managed to 
 offend every son of a gun in the country. Now,
 
 274 BENDISH 
 
 you know, I can't do very much. I might see 
 Billy, or I might not. I can't see him now, that's 
 certain. And if I could, you can't expect much 
 allowance from a fellow if you call his dead brother 
 a hog." 
 
 Gervase laughed. "That was figurative," he said. 
 "I might have chosen any king. Besides — it was 
 illustrative. I was explaining what an idealist would 
 have said." 
 
 "It will be near enough for old EUenborough, I 
 fancy," the Duke said drily. "The tendency of 
 your book is, I take leave to tell you, scandalous 
 and mischievous too. You can't get all these fine 
 things you look for by wanting 'em, and to do your 
 best to break up things as they are to make way for 
 your things as they might be is nonsense, and wicked 
 nonsense. That's my opinion. But luckily for you 
 I think better of you than I do of your writings, and 
 you've made an angel fall in love with you. I'll do 
 what I can. Now let me tell you something about 
 Bendish. I guessed at what he had been about the 
 moment I saw his piece, by something Georgey had 
 written about him a month or two before." 
 
 Poore's eyes pierced him. " What did she write? " 
 
 "She wrote that she detested him. Now, she 
 don't detest a fellow for nothing. I suppose you 
 didn't know that?" 
 
 Poore grew red. "I didn't notice anything es- 
 pecially " 
 
 "No, of course you didn't. You went saihng 
 about with your head in the moonlight, looking at
 
 THE AFFAIR 275 
 
 the stars. And while you were making love to Clio 
 or Thaha or one of 'em, Bendish was making love to 
 her. Now let me remind you that that was pre- 
 cisely what you were doing once upon a time when 
 poor Charles Lancelot was building up a career for 
 himself — and for her, mind you — and for her." 
 
 Poore was frowning and scowUng away, but the 
 Duke wouldn't have it. 
 
 "None of your sulks, damn your eyes," he said. 
 "Hold your head up, and confess like a man. That 
 was the size of it." 
 
 Then Gervase held his head up. "I confess it, 
 sir. I was engrossed in what I was doing — I did 
 forget her, God forgive me. But I trusted her — 
 and I was right. She is an angel of Heaven." 
 
 "I know she is," said the Duke, approving him. 
 But he went on with his chastening. "It was your 
 fault that that young Turk made her uncomfort- 
 able, and went away and spilt his silly feelings into 
 the inkpot. You think you're going to make it up 
 to her by tearing over Europe in order to screw him 
 by the ear; but you're not. You're going to make 
 things comfortable for yourself; and you leave her 
 behind in a delicate state of health, with two young 
 children, consumed with anxiety on your account. 
 You're a chivalrous lover, ain't you?" 
 
 Gervase now had tears in his eyes. "By Heaven, 
 sir, I'm a scoundrel " 
 
 "Oh, no, you're not," said the Duke. "You're 
 only a man — and any mother's son of us would have 
 done exactly the same. There's no man living but
 
 276 BENDISH 
 
 is a moral coward, and never was one who was fit 
 to tie a woman's shoe-string. Do you think she 
 would have fought a Bendish with all the rest at 
 stake? Not she! But she'll excuse you, and make 
 the best of you, because she's in love with you. 
 You are a lucky young devil, let me tell you." 
 
 "You may tell me what you will, Duke," he said. 
 ''Nothing is too hard for me. But if I don't love 
 her " 
 
 "Of course, you do, young donkey," the Duke 
 broke in. "That's your luck. Now go away and 
 change your clothes. Then you shall dine with me; 
 and to-morrow you shall give Bendish his licking. 
 He deserves it, and I wish I could do it for you. 
 But that wouldn't do." 
 
 "Not at all," said Gervase. 
 
 The odd pair dined, very well contented with 
 each other. Politics were taken for granted, but 
 the Duke allowed himself the liberty of a gibe now 
 and again — and Poore had the wit to see that he 
 chastened whom he loved. The Duke said that the 
 Reform Bill would have to pass, because when once 
 public agitation reaches a certain point of ascen- 
 sion it must turn the corner and run down the other 
 side. There's no going back, he said, because of the 
 up-surging from below. He agreed with Poore that 
 it would bring about a despotism of the trading- 
 class infinitely more severe than anything the old 
 order had dared to exercise; but, said he, it's absurd 
 to suppose that the mob is any more fit to rule itself
 
 THE AFFAIR 277 
 
 than the grocers and bakers are to rule it. Anarchy, 
 said Poore, is a matter of minding one's own busi- 
 ness: so it is, said the Duke; but who's to mind the 
 country's business? "You," he said, "are about to 
 punch Bendish's head, and you say that that is 
 your business. It is also his, let me tell you. There's 
 nothing in the world which you can call 'your busi- 
 ness' which is not at once some other party's, and 
 the country's too. Now in this affair of yours and 
 Bendish's, the country's business is to see that you 
 don't do it — or should be. You are only to be an 
 anarchist by favour of the Administration, Master 
 Poore. If it weren't for the constables you'd have 
 been in prison years ago." Then, in the coolest 
 way in life, he said, "The thing will be settled to- 
 night or to-morrow night." 
 
 "What thing, sir?" Gervase asked him. 
 
 "Why, Reform," said the Duke. "I've settled 
 it. I'm going to disoblige you. The thing shall go 
 through this time." 
 
 Gervase stared. " Reform ! It is in your House ! " 
 
 "It is — and has been for two days." 
 
 "Good God, Duke!" 
 
 "What then, young man?" 
 
 Gervase laughed. "Why, I come over here full 
 of my affair, and press it upon you as if the world 
 swung by it — and you are handling the destiny of 
 England at this moment. Lord God, what a worm 
 I am!" 
 
 ''We are all worms, or shall be," said the Duke. 
 "These things are matters of relation. Now I 
 must be off."
 
 278 BENDISH 
 
 Gervase got up and walked to the window. 
 Torches dipped and flared; there was upon the 
 dark that curious motthng which means a con- 
 course. 
 
 "Duke," he said, "there's a mob. Is it safe for 
 you?" 
 
 The Duke was putting letters into his breast- 
 pocket. "Eh? Oh, they won't hurt me yet. It's 
 to-morrow night, or even later, that the trouble 
 may be." Then he went away to his carriage, 
 which Gervase saw was guarded by Life Guards. 
 He heard the roar of the street as the door was 
 opened — flooding the house. 
 
 After dinner Tom Moore was introduced and saw 
 his friend. He was ready to back up the quarrel, 
 though he owned that Bendish had called upon him 
 first. But Bendish had outraged his moral sense. 
 Love is a calamity which may befall any man, and 
 if an honest man chance to fall in love with his 
 friend's wife he doesn't write a book about it. But 
 Bendish, he allowed, was not as other men. To 
 Bendish his pleasure was a law of Nature, undevi- 
 ating and inevitable. Woe betide the man or woman 
 who interferes with laws of Nature! Bendish, he 
 told Gervase, would probably shoot him, unless he 
 were shot first. But Gervase said that he didn't 
 mean to shoot him. In fact, he said that the duel 
 would be entirely Bendish 's affair. His own affair 
 was to chastise Bendish, publicly if possible. "That," 
 cries Tom, "leaves him no alternative." "I dare- 
 say it doesn't," Gervase said. Nothing would shake 
 him in his determination to confront Bendish pub-
 
 THE AFFAIR 279 
 
 licly and to confront him to-morrow, and that being 
 so, Tom was able to help him. Bendish, he said, 
 was a late riser. He would not breakfast till noon, 
 or leave his rooms till five. He usually went round 
 to the Coffee Tree at that hour, and left it, to dress, 
 at half-past seven. At eight or half-past he would 
 dine, and after dinner God knew where he might be. 
 He wrote — when he did write — from two in the 
 morning onwards, and might be in bed by six. 
 
 Gervase said that he would look out for him at 
 five to-morrow evening, and that after that, when 
 he had done with him, his lordship might choose to 
 vary his habits for a day. 
 
 So it befell that at a quarter-past five the next 
 afternoon Bendish came out into St. James's Street, 
 which was at its fullest. He was accompanied by 
 a friend, one Captain Count Wissendonk of one of 
 the Embassies, a tall, gaunt, high-buttoned man of 
 shining cheekbones. In the street stood Gervase 
 Poore, unaccompanied; a light switch in his hand, 
 a lady's riding-whip it looked to be. 
 
 Bendish saw him immediately, but did not falter. 
 Poore advanced to meet him and put two fingers 
 to the brim of his hat. Captain Count Wissendonk ^ 
 
 stiffened and saluted. Bendish stiffened but did 
 not salute. 
 
 "Lord Bendish," Poore said, "a word with you, 
 if you please." 
 
 Bendish looked him full. "One ought to be 
 enough," he said. 
 
 "One sentence will serve my turn," said Gervase.
 
 28o BENDISH 
 
 "I have to tell you that you are a coward and a 
 liar, and that I intend to treat you as such." Where- 
 upon he struck him sharply across the face with the 
 switch. Bendish grew grey as he stepped back, but 
 the streak stared white, and then flooded with red. 
 Captain Count Wissendonk said, "Ha, by God!" 
 The pupils of his pale eyes became specks. 
 
 "By God, you shall pay for that," Bendish said. 
 Count Wissendonk interposed. 
 
 "On behalf of this gentleman I will meet any 
 friend of yours you please, sir," he said. 
 
 "You may wait upon Mr. Thomas Moore, sir," 
 said Poore, touched his hat again, and walked slowly 
 up the hill. 
 
 A score of people saw this, though it only lasted 
 twice as many seconds. But it was all over town in 
 an hour. 
 
 Bendish carried it off as well as could be. He 
 went to the Club, and played hazard. He paid two 
 calls, and visited Mr. Murray in Albemarle Street. 
 He dined out, and went on to two parties afterwards. 
 The places simply blazed with rumour, but not of 
 him: nobody spoke of anything or thought of any- 
 thing but the Bill. But Bendish couldn't stand 
 much of it. He thought they were all occupied 
 with himself, and the second party beat him. He 
 was acutely sensitive to fine shades of cognition, and 
 what he had suspected at his first party became, to 
 him, clear as noonday at the second. They eyed 
 him, they were at their whispers, his honour was im- 
 pugned. He couldn't stand that. He remained,
 
 THE AFFAIR 281 
 
 however, for a quarter of an hour, fighting with his 
 tremors, in a cold sweat, speaking to nobody; and 
 then he left. As he went home, while all the world 
 was saying that the Duke meant to kill the Bill, he 
 knew that he must kill Poore. 
 
 Long after midnight Captain Count Wissendonk 
 came in to see him. It appeared that there was a 
 warrant out against Mr. Poore, so anything that 
 were done must be done at once, within a few hours. 
 Would this morning at seven be possible? The place 
 Wimbledon Common? 
 
 "Perfectly possible," said Bendish. "I leave 
 ever>lhing to you." The Count glowed and shone, 
 suppressing a strange gloating noise by swallow- 
 ing it. 
 
 "The arm is your choice," Wissendonk said. 
 
 "I'll have pistols," said Bendish. 
 
 The other said, "I think you are right. Your 
 man has a long reach." 
 
 "I'm a good marksman," said Bendish. And 
 then, "There must be an end of this." 
 
 "By God," said the Count, "I should think so."
 
 CHAPTER XXVI 
 
 THE MEETING 
 
 The sun was over the trees and sparkling upon 
 grass and leaf when Bendish stept out of his car- 
 riage. Early as he was, the adversary was before- 
 hand. Another carriage stood in the shadow of the 
 woods, and three gentlemen apart from it in con- 
 versation. Captain Count Wissendonk, with a flat 
 oblong case under his arm, went on to meet one of 
 the party, a short and plump gentleman, black as 
 the deed they purposed from the stock to the toes. 
 The Count, who was tall and bony and had a 
 bleak grin between his whiskers, saluted him in 
 mihtary fashion. "Ah, good day to you, me dear 
 Count," cried this little man in his rich voice — "a 
 somewhat chancy Hght we have, but it betters every 
 moment — and after all, let us hope that Mistress 
 Honour won't be too thirsty between such cham- 
 pions. Bedad, sir, the EngHsh Parnassus is emptied 
 this morning — 'this pious morn,' as young Keats 
 had it." To this Count Wissendonk had no reply 
 ready, being filled with an awful solemnity, except 
 that Lord Bendish, his friend, had left everything 
 to him. Then he observed the third of Mr. Moore's 
 party, and asked who that might be. He was told 
 that it was "me friend," Doctor Porteous, who was 
 
 282
 
 THE MEETING 283 
 
 acquainted with both parties, and had come "for 
 fun as much as anything else — for fun and the air 
 of a fine spring morning." 
 
 The prehminaries were not long in doing: the 
 ground was set off, twenty paces run north and south; 
 the pistols were loaded; and then each second re- 
 turned to his man. Moore found his somewhat agi- 
 tated. Gervase was no better at waiting than most 
 of his species. In imagination the thing was already 
 done twenty times over, and he was suffering from 
 the accumulated nerve-storm of so many encounters 
 with a man who hated him. But he was glad that 
 he could go to work and get the thing over. He 
 took off his coat and waistcoat and took them him- 
 self to the carriage. Then he returned, bareheaded, 
 and followed Tom. He and Bendish, who was pale 
 and impressively statuesque, bowed to each other 
 and took their places at the mark. The signal was 
 to be the fall of a handkerchief, which it was agreed 
 Dr. Porteous should give, a common friend. 
 
 Standing there in the dewy mildness, in the sun- 
 drenched mist, Gervase thought of Georgiana in her 
 Tuscan garden, and felt the heavenly peace which 
 her love and tender care had taught him. He was 
 perfectly calm now, and knew that his hand was 
 steady. He let himself feel the weight of the toy 
 in his hand, he let his eye appraise the form of the 
 young man confronted with him, admired his round 
 and curly head, his strong throat, exposed almost to 
 the midriff, his square shoulders and pronounced, 
 elegant waist. "A fine, high-bred young man, in-
 
 284 BENDISH 
 
 deed — but the pity of his upstart soul! " God forbid 
 that he should blaze into so salient and beautiful a 
 thing and mar it with a red rent. He laughed to 
 himself at the same moment for so rhetorical a 
 thought — and at that moment also the white patch 
 at the side of them flashed downwards. 
 
 As he threw his arm up to fire into the air there 
 was a flash of light before him, and he felt a pang. 
 Then came the crack. He was confused — ^by the 
 noise and flare, as he thought — he felt stupid and 
 discovered that his arm was limp at his side, his 
 pistol on the ground. He thought that his head was 
 full of blood, and was angry with himself for having 
 let his weapon drop. One had to do these things 
 properly — he must apologise, he supposed. They 
 would have to begin again. He stooped to pick up 
 the thing; and then there was a surging upwards of 
 his blood, as it were in a huge curling wave; he felt 
 himself falling, and knew no more. 
 
 Bendish had shot him under the shoulder, clean 
 through the pectoral muscle. While Dr. Porteous 
 was kneeling beside the dropt body, he himself al- 
 lowed Count Wissendonk to help him on with his 
 coat and waistcoat. Then he said, "I'm very sorry, 
 you know. But he insulted me beyond bearing. 
 There was no other way. If I've killed him, the 
 poor fellow has only himself to thank. He must 
 have known that I had no alternative. He was very 
 intelligent. I'm sorry for his wife, but — " Count 
 Wissendonk said, "Excuse me," and left him rumi- 
 nating.
 
 THE MEETING 285 
 
 Moore and the Doctor were on their knees bv 
 the body. A third had joined them, a spare gentle- 
 man in a blue coat and nankeens tightly strapped. 
 Recognising him, the Count drew himself up and 
 saluted. 
 
 "Not fatal, I trust, your Grace." 
 
 "Can't say yet," the Duke answered. 
 
 Dr. Porteous looked up and shook his head. " No, 
 no. He'll be crippled for a month or two — but I'll 
 engage that there's nothing vital been touched. 
 We'll lift him back directly I've strapped him 
 up." 
 
 The Duke's keen eye was ranging the sun-dappled 
 woodlands. Pausing in his search, he spoke to the 
 Count. "You would do well to take your friend up 
 to town. If he needs an explanation of my presence 
 you can give it him. I had some reason to expect 
 interruption of the meeting, and thought that I 
 might be useful. That's all. As for my friend here, 
 you've heard what the surgeon says. Good morn- 
 ing to you." 
 
 The Count clicked his heels together, saluted cere- 
 moniously and returned to his champion. Bendish 
 immediately asked. Who was the new-comer; and 
 was told. "Ah," he said, "I thought as much. 
 Very well — since it must be so." 
 
 Count Wissendonk had no notion what he meant; 
 but all the way home Bendish was bracing himself 
 for another meeting. It must needs be, he knew, 
 that he and the Duke must be confronted before the 
 day was over. It seemed to him that this early
 
 286 BENDISH 
 
 scene was but the prelude to a much more momen- 
 tous encounter. 
 
 Gervase, when he opened his eyes, looked eagerly 
 into the sky. "My love," he said faintly, "my love, 
 it is the morning." Then he shut them again and 
 went to sleep. The doctor knelt by him, holding 
 his left wrist and watching him closely. The Duke 
 and Moore stood side by side; you could hear the 
 champing of the bits of the two horses. Then hght 
 steps were heard and the Duke looked sharply 
 round. Two men in cloaks and cocked hats were 
 coming over the wet grass, brushing through the fern. 
 
 They came up to our pair, and saluted them. 
 "Excuse me, gentleman," said one of them. "Mr. 
 Gervase Poore is of your party, I believe." 
 
 "He is," the Duke said. "He's had an accident, 
 as you see." The man had recognised him. 
 
 "I am very sorry, your Grace, very sorry indeed." 
 
 "So am I," said the Duke, "but it can't be 
 helped." 
 
 "I am very sorry on all accounts, your Grace," he 
 said again. "The fact is that I have a warrant here 
 for his apprehension — and I've no alternative " 
 
 cc^ 
 
 'We'll see about that," the Duke said — who had 
 come down for the very purpose — "Whose warrant 
 have you there?" 
 
 "The Speaker's, your Grace — the Speaker's of 
 the House of Commons." The Duke nodded. 
 
 "Privilege?" 
 
 "Breach of Privilege, your Grace." The Duke 
 nodded again.
 
 THE MEETING 287 
 
 "Yes, Breach of Privilege. Well, officer, you see 
 what has occurred. Mr. Poore has no intention of 
 running away. There'll be no difficulty about it 
 when he's fit to move. Now, if you'll serve your 
 warrant on one of us two, we'll wait upon Mr. 
 Speaker in the course of the morning, or before the 
 magistrate, as the warrant may direct. Perhaps 
 you'll be good enough to serve me. I am going to 
 have Mr. Poore carried to my house at this moment 
 — so that's the best thing I can do for you. Now 
 what do you say to that?" 
 
 The two officers consulted apart — that is to say, 
 they drew apart and appeared to consult; but in 
 reahty there was no gainsaying the Duke, as they 
 knew quite well. Returning, the warrant was handed 
 over without another word. Salutations were ex- 
 changed, and the thing was done. 
 
 The Doctor and the Duke's footman Hfted Ger- 
 vase between them and carried him to the carriage. 
 He scarcely woke, though he opened his eyes, recog- 
 nised the Duke, and lazily smiled. You saw the 
 twinkhng gleam between his half-shut Hds. Tom 
 Moore got in beside him and waved his hand to 
 the Duke. "God bless you, Duke, for a true 
 friend." 
 
 "Get on with you, Moore," the Duke said, "and 
 eat a good breakfast. Dr. Porteous, I shall follow 
 you. I have a horse here." So they took Gervase 
 back to Wake House, sleeping like a child. 
 
 In the course of the forenoon Roger Pleniker, at 
 his desk in Grays Inn, received a written message
 
 288 BENDISH 
 
 from the Duke. "Dear Sir, be so good as to call 
 upon me immediately. I have urgent business for 
 your attention." In half an hour he was in the 
 library, and received his two fingers of greeting. 
 
 " Good morning, Mr. Heniker. You find me in a 
 kettle of fish. My young friend Poore, whom you 
 will remember, is lying here shot through the shoulder 
 — never mind how. These things will occur. There 
 are worse troubles over liim than that, but I've got 
 them in hand. Now, I want you to post out to 
 Settignano, by Florence, and fetch home his wife and 
 children. She's in a delicate state of health at the 
 moment; but she can travel well enough if she does 
 it comfortably. You shall see to that, if you will, 
 taking your instructions from me. You can take 
 my carriage with you, and my horses as far as Dover. 
 After that, you can post through France and Savoy 
 — and you ought to be there in a fortnight or three 
 weeks at the outside. I'll give you a draft on my 
 bankers which will see you through everything. 
 Now, can you oblige me?" 
 
 "Yes, your Grace, I can," said Roger, after a 
 moment's swift cogitation. 
 
 "I thought so," the Duke said, highly pleased to 
 find that he had not been mistaken in his choice. 
 ^'There's only one thing more to say — and I'm 
 afraid that's an idle thought. You can't take a 
 woman with you? A mother, for instance, or a 
 sister? Or have you got a wife, by chance?" 
 
 Roger grew red, but his eyes twinkled. "Well, 
 no, sir, I have not — at the moment. But "
 
 THE MEETING 289 
 
 "Hey?" said the Duke. "What do you mean by 
 'but?'" 
 
 Roger laughed. "Well, sir, I mean that — I have 
 hope$ — before long " 
 
 "Oho, Master Heniker, so that's it." He thought 
 — his eyes glittered. "Now look here, Heniker. 
 Here's a little proposition. If you want a galloping 
 honeymoon combined with a pretty liberal hft 
 towards expenses, and (I'll add) if you're the man I 
 take you to be, you'll be off to Doctor's Commons 
 hot-foot, and you'll be married to-morrow morning. 
 Mind you, I don't know your lady; but that's what 
 I should do in your place. What do you say to 
 that?" 
 
 Roger hesitated for one minute. Then he squared 
 his jaw. "I'll do it, sir." 
 
 "Bravo!" said the Duke. "Then you'll start- 
 say — at four o'clock in the afternoon? Good. I'll 
 see to all that. Now you had better post off to 
 your young lady." 
 
 Roger left him immediately. The Duke's eyes 
 were aflame. For a moment or two he allowed 
 them to bum, as he thought — "God bless her, I 
 shall see her again under my roof!" Then he shut 
 all down, and went out to deal with Mr. Speaker. 
 
 He heard that Gervase had had some broth. 
 There was fever, and would be more, but Dr. Por- 
 teous had ordered Tom out of the room, and had 
 now gone himself. He would be back in the after- 
 noon, he said.
 
 CHAPTER XXV 
 
 LAST THROW BUT ONE 
 
 When Bendish looked back and saw three men 
 about his fallen adversary where there had been 
 but two, he knew immediately who the third was, 
 and what Destiny required of him. He was, you 
 see, more than intelHgent. He was imaginative, 
 extremely impressionable; he had foreknowledge. 
 What he did upon the memorable evening following 
 upon this early morning encounter was done me- 
 chanically. He left Wimbledon Common a doomed 
 man, and he knew it. 
 
 It's impossible to say how these certainties come 
 upon men of a certain temperament. It may be 
 that second sight is given fitfully, unaccountably to 
 us; it may be that any one of us is of such weight 
 in the universe (though it sounds improbable) that 
 the indwelling soul thereof is willing to draw back 
 the curtain for a half-second or so, and show time- 
 coming as time-come. What is certain is that we 
 walk, with full consciousness, into a trap which we 
 know to be a trap — and generally with a deadly 
 coolness and precision. Even so a man condemned 
 to death will walk unfalteringly down the flagged 
 passage which leads to death in the yard, and notice 
 
 200
 
 LAST THROW BUT ONE 291 
 
 trifles as he goes — a patch of mildew on the wall, the 
 glittering of damp-sweat there, perhaps the scuttle 
 of a cockroach — will feel the balm of the outer air, 
 see the floating clouds, the bars of dust, the flight of 
 a bevy of sparrows, the twinkling leaves of a tree, 
 even the black apparatus itself — and have no sensa- 
 tion of panic, suffer no instinctive shuddering of the 
 knees, know no mad impulse of flight. Even so 
 Bendish made his preparations to be in his place in 
 the House of Lords that evening, to speak upon 
 Reform, and to confront the supreme enemy of all 
 that he stood for and was. For so his instinct re- 
 garded the Duke of Devizes — and very reasonably 
 after a late interview. 
 
 Second sight, or imagination (which is the same 
 thing) showed him the scene beforehand — showed 
 him, indeed, successive scenes; all he had to do was 
 to play the part provided. But the play was like 
 an Italian comedy, which gives the actors the situa- 
 tion and leaves them to find the words. He had to 
 build up a speech to suit the dramatic moment — and 
 he could be trusted. He mastered himself with 
 great determination and was able to make himself 
 perfect. He w^ould speak without a scrap of paper 
 in his hand, and having said his say, he would await 
 the answer of his enemy. He knew what a risk 
 there was in all this. Once before he had measured 
 himself with the Duke, who had ignored him. He 
 might very well do it again, and Bendish thought 
 there was no worse thing that he could do. He felt 
 that he could not survive that — it would be a mortal
 
 292 
 
 BENDISH 
 
 wound. No, no: he must so frame his words as to 
 compel an answer from the man. He must be an- 
 swered this time — it was a matter of hfe and death. 
 With this condition before his mind he laboured at 
 his oration. As for Reform, its merits or demerits, 
 I suppose he thought as much about that as he did 
 about England, or Peru, or mankind at large. He 
 was past such cases; he was concerned with his own 
 existence. 
 
 He had to fight, however, against a persistent de- 
 pression of spirits, which increased upon him as the 
 day wore on and nobody came to his door. This 
 silence of the knocker was like an omen. It got so 
 bad with him towards the afternoon that he penned 
 a note to Roger Heniker and sent it by Mackintosh, 
 with an invented matter of business to be discussed 
 or foreshadowed. But even Roger failed him to-day. 
 An answer was returned from Grays Inn that Mr. 
 Roger was out of town until further notice, but that 
 Mr. Heniker senior would do himself the honour of 
 waiting upon his Lordship to-morrow at ten o'clock 
 in the forenoon. Disloyalty from a servant! His 
 very household forsook him. He let it lie — the note 
 — where he had let it fall. It stared at him when he 
 came back after dark, having received his wages. 
 
 He dressed himself with care and went down to 
 the House at six o'clock. The Chamber was very 
 full, with ladies in the gallery, and the Commons 
 crowded behind the bar. He found a seat with 
 great difficulty and sat in it, looking fixedly before
 
 LAST THROW BUT ONE 293 
 
 him, very conscious that he was obsen^ed by many. 
 The Duke was in his place; a noble lord was reit- 
 erating amid sympathetic murmurs from his friends 
 all the sound old formulae for the Bill or against it — 
 all was one. To Bendish, sitting there \^'ith folded 
 arms and hat a-tilt over his eves, it was incredible 
 that men could live and move prosperously through 
 life uttering habitually such dull commonplaces, or 
 cheering each other as they made the stale old points. 
 As well make backgammon a career at this rate as 
 pontics. Did Englishmen, then, never grow up? 
 Why, this was for all the world like a cricket match 
 at Harrow! The moment one lordship was down, 
 up sprang his brother, as like him as two peas, and 
 cried up the precise contrary, and received precisely 
 as much applause. And the Duke — who was a man 
 — even Bendish admitted it — could sit it out. He, 
 a man, condescended to work with these worn-out, 
 spindle-shanked tools! 
 
 Scorn for his fellow-Christians made him stronger. 
 He felt so very much the better man. 
 
 At about seven or half-past came his opportunity. 
 There was a lull in the flow of orator}^, while the 
 orators yawned behind their fingers, or looked about 
 them for something to happen. Before they were 
 aware of him Bendish was upon his feet. They knew 
 it first by the thrill in the gallery. There was a 
 distinct rustling; and then white fingers ran along 
 the raihngs like a breaking wave on the sand. 
 
 He was received in absolute silence. Everybody 
 knew him, of course; everybody by this time also
 
 2 94 BENDISH 
 
 knew that he had fought and wounded Poore that 
 morning — and why. 
 
 Lord Bendish said that he should trouble their 
 lordships with a very few observations, and should 
 not have troubled them with any had not recent 
 events, in which he had a small share, rendered it 
 desirable that he should place beyond doubt the 
 meaning of the part he intended to take in the final 
 scene of this long drama. Whether or no this par- 
 ticular drama, which had lasted some fifty years or 
 more, were to be of the nature of a prologue, and 
 whether the stage were hereafter to be set for tragedy 
 or comedy, or broad farce, depended, perhaps, less 
 upon their lordships than noble lords imagined. It 
 might be — and there were some among them who 
 proclaimed it with no doubtful voice — that the au- 
 ditory of to-day would be the actors in that resulting 
 spectacle, that, pouring down from the gallery, stream- 
 ing up from the pit, they would trample out the 
 candles, disregard the screams of the prompter, and 
 possessing themselves of the actors' tinsel trappings, 
 enact therewith a grim mask of anarchy, for which 
 those baubles and bubbles of authority, in his humble 
 opinion, were very ill-adapted. It might be, on the 
 other hand, that the spectators, pit, gallery and 
 boxes, would be so spell-bound by the eloquence 
 poured out upon them by the present occupants of 
 the stage that they would endure with delight an- 
 other fifty years of it — and if that indeed were so, he 
 (Lord Bendish) could do no more than say with 
 Moliere's protagonist, Tm Vas voulu, Georges Dandinl
 
 LAST THROW BUT ONE 295 
 
 He begged leave to point out, however, to their lord- 
 ships upon this auspicious night when, for a time at 
 least, the flood-water of rhetoric was to be let out 
 over 4:he land, the dilemma in which the country 
 was placed. If the Bill should pass there must be 
 a despotism inflicted upon this country more serious, 
 heavier, more irrational, because proceeding from 
 more uninstructed tyrants, than we had ever known 
 yet; if it should fail to pass there would be anarchy, 
 which was in itself an aggravated despotism, since 
 it meant that every man must be tyrant over him- 
 self, and as many more souls as he could subdue with 
 his two fists. Upon which horn of this dilemma to 
 be impaled let each noble lord decide for himself. 
 For his own part (Lord Bendish), there had been a 
 time when he had desired to see the Bill rejected, 
 and had found himself, however unaccountably, on 
 the side of the noble Duke, with whom, it seemed, 
 the final arbitrament was allowed on all hands to 
 rest. He would not now stay to enquire into cause 
 or consequence of this enlargement of constitutional 
 precedent. For the moment he would pass it with- 
 out further question. He believed that he should 
 stiU have the honour of following his Grace, even 
 though rumour credited him with milder counsels. 
 If the noble Duke walked out of this House it would 
 be his privilege, on such an occasion, to walk behind 
 him. He could not bring himself to vote for a 
 measure which proposed to confer legislative powers 
 upon ignorant and prejudiced masses of men; still 
 less could he join in an act which would let loose
 
 296 BENDISH 
 
 lawlessness and clamour broadcast over the land. 
 If these were his Grace's feelings in the matter, they 
 were his own also. 
 
 "My lords," he concluded, "I will take no part 
 with despots of any sort, nor however j5.rmly rooted 
 in the land; and I will do nothing whatever to foster 
 anarchy. Common sense dictates to me the first 
 abstention, common honesty the other. Let a man 
 sow what he has earned, and reap what he has sown. 
 If my neighbour please, or have the power, to grow 
 fat upon what is in no sense his, it matters little to 
 me whom he robs, whether he justify his act by 
 right of charter or right of sword. His robbery shall 
 hurt him the more, for in the act of robbing me of 
 my substance he robs himself of his own honour. It 
 is bad to be without bread, but worse to die of a 
 surfeit of bread, I believe. I will be no party to 
 such things. If the noble Duke say Content to this 
 Bill he is welcome to what will ensue; if he say Not- 
 content, he must abide that issue as best he may. I 
 take my stand, myself, upon the right of a plain man 
 to say, A plague on both your Houses — and that, 
 I take leave to predict before your Lordships, may 
 be the ultimate utterance of the British people." 
 
 Bendish sat down, as he had stood up, in the midst 
 of a sensible thrill. He had spoken in a tense silence; 
 the hum of private conversation was heard all over 
 the House immediately afterwards. The Duke made 
 no sign of having heard him, but now when the gen- 
 eral attention was shifted to the next speaker, and 
 before it had wearied of him, he drew a paper from
 
 LAST THROW BUT ONE 297 
 
 his pocket, folded, and addressed it. By and by he 
 beckoned to a messenger, and handed him the paper. 
 In due course, too, the messenger approached Ben- 
 dish and handed it over, saying, "From the Duke of 
 Devizes, my lord." He then withdrew. 
 
 Bendish opened it with a beating heart. Could 
 this possibly be the prelude to mighty adventure? 
 He felt that every eye was upon him, and summoned 
 every nerve in his body to his service. He played 
 indifference well. There was no fumbhng, no sha- 
 king sign. His eyebrows kept up — his eyehds kept 
 scornfully down, without a tremor. But he knew 
 the paper in a flash. His skin darkened — he never 
 grew red. It was the cancelled preface to Poore's 
 Vision of Revolt. He caught sight — though it was 
 not marked — of the flaming paragraph: "I know 
 not what the issue of Mr. Poore's Vision . . . may 
 be. I abide by what I have written, and am pre- 
 pared to defend it. My forefathers fought at Has- 
 tings, and fenced about with steel the land which was 
 others' inheritance. ... If it be my lot to side with 
 those who break down the hedges, so be it. They 
 have served their turn, and I for one have done with 
 them. By so much the less as I am a tenant in 
 capite, by so much the more I claim to be an honest 
 man. . . . And so," he read on, "the whirligig of 
 time brings his revenges." 
 
 Bendish sweated as he read. But his sweat ran 
 cold when it came upon him with conviction that 
 this was all the answer the Duke intended to make 
 him. He fought with the certainty; ludicrously
 
 298 BENDISH 
 
 enough, he found himself teUing himself that the 
 Duke was not malignant. He was a great man, 
 magnanimous: he would not humiliate his junior. 
 He sat on, obstinately, through the wearisomeness 
 of the debate. He was sickened to the very soul of 
 politics, could not believe in the reahty of the nights 
 when, at Rapallo, he and Poore had burned with 
 Reform like brands, and when the smoke of IdeaHsm, 
 Political Justice, and the Rights of Man had whirled 
 up, illumined with showers of sparks, into the con- 
 cave of the sky. Yet these memories recurred. He 
 could not but see Gervase's fire-hued face, and hear 
 the chanting of his dithyrambs, as he strode up and 
 down the loggia. And Georgiana too he saw, in 
 her white gown, bending her head over her needle- 
 work. And he remembered the fury of his longing 
 for her, and with hot anger her rejection of him and 
 his homage. God of heaven, how all these people 
 had injured him! And there was the Duke stooping 
 to hound a young poet out of England! 
 
 The speech of the Duke of Devizes, made towards 
 the end of this great debate, belongs to history, and 
 not to me. I shall only say of it here that it was 
 very general in terms, and, far from referring to 
 Lord Bendish, did not hint at the name of any noble 
 lord. The times were momentous, much more mo- 
 mentous than any noble lord; but Bendish really 
 could hardly believe that a man could ignore him so 
 completely. He could see the intention, in fact had 
 foreseen it, but that it should succeed really passed 
 belief. He was shocked to the soul. Nothing that
 
 LAST THROW BUT ONE 299 
 
 had ever happened to him — not Georgiana's sang- 
 froid, not Gervase's cut with the whip — had humih- 
 ated him to this point. Humihated? Ah, no — he was 
 annihilated; he was as good as dead. And he was 
 impotent: it was absurd even to be in a rage. He 
 couldn't touch this arrogant chill-blooded bully, 
 who could toss down a young man's bleeding heart 
 and grind it under his heel. Before such atrocious 
 cruelty as this the noblest under heaven must be 
 still. Tears scalded his eyes as he left the House 
 and walked unmarked or unrecognised into the dark. 
 He pushed his way through the packed Palace-yard, 
 through George Street, and into the Park. As he 
 went on, he knew that he was beaten, and that he 
 must leave England. He could never hold up his 
 head here again while that tyrant lived to rule it 
 with his whip and ramrod and intolerable silence. 
 Here was a man with whom he could not measure 
 himseK. Your Poores he could shoot if they got in 
 his way; your Hollands and such he could afford to 
 despise. There were plenty ways of deahng with 
 the hkes of them. But this man despised him, Ben- 
 dish, and didn't even trouble to show that he did. 
 Nay — crowning injury! — he even forebore to show 
 it. For Bendish knew that if he had thought it 
 worth his while he could have used that cancelled 
 preface with deadly cifect. He had not cared to do 
 it. He had not cared to pull him out of his ditch 
 that he might shoot him. No. He had let him lie 
 where he had rolled himself — lie there and starve 
 and rot. Bendish knew that he was mortally
 
 300 BENDISH 
 
 wounded. And even in the flash of cognition his 
 mind went hunting — hunting madly, far and wide, 
 for a haven. 
 
 What a cautious gambler, what a provident spend- 
 thrift was Bendish! Even as he gripped his stricken 
 breast, or cast up his dying eyes, he drew a small 
 and tender hand within his own; he turned his gaze 
 due north-west. There, through the violet dark of 
 the May night, he descried the htten panes of a 
 modest upper window, and above that could make 
 out a humble gable over which a honeysuckle tossed 
 its tendrils. Golder's Green, seen from the portals 
 of the House of Lords — so small, so tender, so snug 
 an abiding-place! Ah, there was a merciful God in 
 heaven. The old fables had not lied. Domestic 
 peace brooded under those gentle eaves; and within, 
 perched like a nesting bird, sat love with sheltering 
 wings! 
 
 In the morning early he would arise and return to 
 his love. Not his first — no, not that — but his longest 
 and calmest and truest, because most assured, pas- 
 sion. He would return and say unto her, I have 
 sinned against heaven and before thee, and am no 
 more worthy to be called thy beloved; yet take me, 
 broken as I am, for I know that thou art mine. 
 And she would hold out her faithful arms and shelter 
 him, and heal his grievous wounds. 
 
 The best part of the night he sat at his window 
 looking out to the north over the houses of Picca- 
 dilly. The roaring street, the torches, the blaring 
 horns proclaimed Reform a thing well done. Surging
 
 LAST THROW BUT ONE 301 
 
 bands flocked down the great road towards Wake 
 House. He heard the Duke's name, with curses 
 before it and after. The Guards came jingHng and 
 glittering up the hill from the Palace to save the 
 fallen hero's person. Bendish took no joy in know- 
 ing the hour of his enemy's adversity. He was be- 
 yond this world; he walked with Rose in an Italian 
 garden where water was falling on moss, and cypresses 
 waved their plumy tops across the stars. He had 
 outsoared the shadow of our night. He would watch 
 it out, see the white dawn steal up over the house- 
 tops; and with the sun, with the sun — he would ride 
 to his love.
 
 CHAPTER XXVI 
 
 QUIETUS FROM OLD MR. HENIKER 
 
 The sun was pretty high, broad-splashed upon 
 the houses opposite; it was in fact ten of the clock 
 when Mr. Heniker was announced. Bendish, booted 
 for his romantic quest, and all agog for it, was put 
 out. ''Damn it, Mackintosh, I'm busy. I'm going 
 out. Tell him that I won't see him." 
 
 "Beg pardon, my lord," says Mackintosh, "but 
 Mr. Heniker's here." And so he was, beaming in 
 the doorway, flushed like a Ribstone, bowing, smi- 
 ling and rubbing his comfortable hands. This was 
 old Mr. Heniker, of course, true to his promise of 
 yesterday. He was resplendent. His blue coat had 
 brass buttons; his hat was of white beaver; his 
 trousers were of the hghtest drab; his stock was of 
 bird's-eye blue. 
 
 "Your lordship is for an early canter! I saw the 
 horses and thought myself lucky to catch you. A 
 sweet spring morning for the young adventurers. 
 . . , It ver et Venus — hey, my lord? The old tag 
 comes back to me." 
 
 "Yes, yes, Heniker," said his lordship shortly, 
 "that's ail very well, and devihsh appropriate, I've 
 no doubt— but the fact is, I'm in a hurry. Now 
 what can I do for you this morning?" 
 
 302
 
 QUIETUS FROM MR. HENIKER 303 
 
 The elderly gentleman grew serious. ''I beg your 
 lordship's pardon, but as you sent for my son Roger 
 at midday yesterday, and he was not available — no, 
 no, not available, you know, for excellent reasons — 
 if your lordship will remember, I sent back word 
 that I would call in myself " 
 
 Bendish recollected. "Ah, yes, I sent for Roger 
 — that's quite true. They told me he was busy." 
 
 Old Heniker, bursting with his news, broke out 
 in chuckles and gasps. "Ha ha! They might well 
 say so, my lord. Busy — oh dear, oh dear! A young 
 man is only as busy as that once in a lifetime, my 
 lord! And not many young professional men have 
 an opportunity to make such a combination of busi- 
 ness and pleasure as has fallen into the way of my 
 son. He would have written to your lordship as a 
 matter of course — to no man sooner, but that the 
 time was so short as really to forbid it. But as 
 things are, I must take upon myself to be the bearer 
 of his extraordinary news — " But Bendish, who 
 had been pacing the room, broke in. 
 
 "Yes, yes, Heniker. You shall tell me what you 
 please about him, but not now. I've got an appoint- 
 ment out of town " 
 
 "So have I, my lord, so have I!" cried the old 
 gentleman in high dehght. 
 
 " I daresay you have. You had better keep it " 
 
 "Oh, I must indeed, my lord," Mr. Heniker said, 
 preternaturally serious all of a sudden. "Oho! it 
 would never do to miss that." 
 
 "Precisely," said Bendish. "We will neither of
 
 304 
 
 BENDISH 
 
 us miss. Therefore, if you'll allow me — " He took 
 up his hat, gloves and whip as he spoke, and actually- 
 made for the door. Old Heniker was now concerned, 
 and rather hurt. 
 
 "I must really point out to your lordship that, at 
 some inconvenience, I have waited upon you, con- 
 ceiving that your business with Roger was some- 
 what urgent. I must be allowed to say " 
 
 Bendish reflected for a moment. "Yes— well, it 
 was important, no doubt. I had intended to go 
 abroad again — almost immediately " 
 
 But now Mr. Heniker was not to be controlled. 
 *'Ha! and proposed to treat my son with the same 
 munificent hospitaUty! My dear Lord, my dear 
 Lord! God bless my soul, now, if that is not an 
 extraordmary thing! Why, my lord, you'll hardly 
 believe it, but at the moment you were thinking so 
 generously of Roger, another noble gentleman was 
 of the same mind. But his Grace came first — 
 ha ha! — " He paused, took off his glasses, and 
 wiped them with his bandana. 
 
 "Not only so," he went on, mastering his chuckles, 
 as he blinked over his work at the glasses^ — "Not 
 only so, my lord, but his Grace sends him out — as 
 before — as before — to Italy. Not only so — but — as 
 before — to Mrs. Poore. For it seems that Mr. 
 Poore has come to London, and is likely to be very 
 much engaged — ho ho! very particularly engaged, 
 they whisper to me. So that's how it is that Master 
 Roger couldn't keep your lordship's appointment — 
 nor indeed keep any appointment with your lord-
 
 QUIETUS FROM MR. HENIKER 305 
 
 ship for some time to come. But that's not the best 
 of the joke neither." 
 
 It was more than enough for Bendish, but there 
 was no denying Mr. Heniker now. 
 
 "It seems that the lady's in a delicate state of 
 health — that was his Grace's own expression. 'A 
 dehcate state of health, Heniker,' he said to Roger. 
 'Now I suppose,' he went on — 'pon my soul, it's 
 rather good, as your lordship will see in a moment — 
 'Now I suppose,' he says, 'you couldn't manage to 
 take a lady out with you — you haven't a mother 
 handy, hey? Or a sister? Or,' he says, 'do you 
 happen to be a married man?' Ho ho! A married 
 man." He now looked at his victim, with the ex- 
 plosion at the ignition point, hoping that they might 
 burst together. But Bendish, who was quite in the 
 dark, was calm with annoyance. 
 
 "Well, well, Heniker — do let's come to the point." 
 
 "But that is the point, my dear lord! 'No,' says 
 Roger, humming and hawing, 'not precisely.'" A 
 volley escaped him. " Ho ! ' not precisely,' the young 
 rascal! The Duke picks him up. ' What d'ye mean 
 by that, Heniker?' he says; and then the murder 
 was out. Roger tells him all about it. 'Not a mar- 
 ried man yet, sir,' says he; 'but — well, I'm thinking 
 of it.' Thinking of it, hey? That was a good one." 
 
 "Is he thinking of it?" Bendish said mildly. "I 
 didn't know." 
 
 Old Heniker stared. "Is it possible? So good a 
 friend as your lordship? But I must finish my story 
 — it's too good to miss a word of it. The Duke has
 
 3o6 BENDISH 
 
 him by the button. 'If you take my advice,' he 
 says, 'you'll be off to Doctors' Commons after a 
 special licence,' he says; 'and you'll go now. Then 
 you'll go down and tackle the young lady, and she'll 
 be Mrs. Heniker by noon to-morrow. Now, what 
 do you say to that?' What indeed! What indeed! 
 Quick work, hey? But your lordship knows his 
 pace better than I do? What a man of men! Now 
 Roger don't take long about it either. In a thirty 
 seconds he looks at the Duke. 'I'll do it, sir,' he 
 says; and the Duke says, 'I thought you would. 
 Away with you.' Now, my lord, that's my news. 
 I'm actually on my way to Golder's Green " 
 
 Golder's Green! Bendish, as gray as wax, put up 
 his hand. Old Heniker stopped and blinked at him. 
 
 "My lord " 
 
 "Did you say Golder's Green?" 
 
 Old Heniker, recovered, was off again. " Golder's 
 Green — exactly. A Miss Pierson, and a very charm- 
 ing young lady she is. Mrs. Heniker and I are de- 
 lighted about her. Not very well to do — no, no. 
 Nothing to talk of in that way. But a modest, 
 sweet-spoken, good, pretty girl, living with her aunt, 
 who is a clergyman's widow — and devoted to our 
 boy as I could see in a flash of the eye." 
 
 There had been one trying moment in his recital 
 when Bendish had felt like falKng on his knees to this 
 old babbler, and beseeching him by his own not to 
 forsake him utterly. But that was past. His mind 
 was now empty. Meantime his assassin was hard 
 at his fell work.
 
 QUIETUS FROM MR. HENIKER 307 
 
 "Now it would be a happy surprise for these two 
 young people if I could persuade your lordship — 
 hey? Really, it would be an act of great condescen- 
 sion-^to grace the wedding, and throw the white 
 slipper! They start immediately, you must know, 
 in the Duke's own travelling carriage — for Florence. 
 Now, my lord, if you would be so benevolent " 
 
 I think he would have gone if he could — to have 
 stared Rose into stone, to have had Roger by the 
 windpipe — yes, he would have gone but for one 
 thing. It was Mr. Heniker who saved Golder's 
 Green from a fracas. Trapped, cornered, deserted 
 as he was, Bendish could not let this blabbing old 
 fool into his secret. On the contrary, he showed 
 him his stateliest and most urbane. 
 
 "I'm really very sorry, Heniker. This news of 
 yours is sudden. I wasn't at all prepared for it. 
 And I fear that my appointment won't stand over. 
 Be sure that I wish Roger very well — all that — more 
 than — he deserves. I daresay it will turn out ex- 
 cellently. He shall hear from me — of course. 
 That's of course. We are old friends — at least I 
 had taught myself to beheve it. But it's a queer 
 world. I must take your word for the lady. A 
 Miss Pierson, you say? And now, if you'll excuse 
 me, Heniker " 
 
 "Yes, yes, to be sure!" said the hearty man, and 
 looked up at the clock. "God bless my soul! I 
 haven't a moment." He held out his hand. "Good- 
 morning to your lordship — and many thanks. Be 
 sure that I shall give your kind messages to my boy
 
 3o8 BENDISH 
 
 and girl — as indeed I may call her. Pray, pray 
 don't disturb yourself, my lord." He bowed and 
 bustled himself out. Bendish was alone indeed. 
 
 He stood trembling for a few moments. He heard 
 the sudden burst of music. The Guards' Band was 
 at the Palace — the heartless world was still twirling 
 and grinning round him. His trembling grew upon 
 him. His hand mechanically felt the knob of a 
 drawer in his writing table, pulled the drawer open, 
 and closed about the silver-handled pistol which 
 always lay there. In the act he looked up, and in 
 the mirror opposite had a sight of his own shocked 
 and wounded face. That sobered him. He flicked 
 his hand out of the drawer as if some one had caught 
 him unawares, and slammed it to. Mackintosh en- 
 tered the room. 
 
 "I beg pardon, my lord, but the horses " 
 
 Lord Bendish hfted his head, and looked at him. 
 "I shan't want the horses. I'm not riding." 
 
 "Very good, my lord." But the man remained 
 in the room. "I beg pardon, my lord " 
 
 "Well, Mackintosh, what is it?" 
 
 "I was about to say, my lord, that if I could be 
 spared, I should be glad of a hour or two this fore- 
 noon, Mr. Heniker, my lord — Mr. Roger, I should 
 say — is about to be married to that Miss Pierson; 
 and he have been good enough to say that he should 
 be glad of my presence. So I thought ..." 
 
 Bendish broke down. Mackintosh was alarmed. 
 *'My lord — oh, my lord — " The young man
 
 QUIETUS FROM MR. HENIKER 309 
 
 wrenched himself about, faced the window, and 
 steadied himself by leaning upon the sill. 
 
 "Look here, Mackintosh ... I shall be obliged 
 if you'll stay here for a Httle. . . . The fact is, I'm 
 not at all well. If you could make it convenient 
 ... I should be grateful. ..." 
 
 "Very good, my lord," said Mackintosh, and re- 
 mained, quiet but hovering, in the room. 
 
 It had really come to that. 
 
 On a farmhouse parlour window, one summer 
 afternoon, I was witness of a little paraphrase of 
 our world's doings, done by microcosmic actors. 
 One dusty pane of it was the stage of observation; 
 but no doubt the others would have furnished as 
 many more. In a corner some maggot or other, 
 metamorphosis of a moth, had built herself a tent of 
 silvery floss in which to spend the days of her separa- 
 tion; across another a spider had cast her filmy tri- 
 angles, and even now was cording a midge into a 
 bale with invisible threads. A humble-bee drowsily 
 climbed the heights by means of the leading; in 
 mid-field two house-flies made love, or paused be- 
 tween the orgasms to clean their legs. A ladybird 
 rested from her flight, a Httle bubble of dry blood; 
 a woodlouse coursed the lower slopes seeking dirt 
 to add unto dirt. All was as peaceful as a Claude 
 landscape, where happy toil and love and rest after 
 labour merge and interchange in the mellow haze. 
 
 Then, as I looked and considered, there was a 
 violent shock of commotion. A bluebottle fly
 
 3IO BENDISH 
 
 hustled into this busy httle world with a bang, and 
 in a moment all was upset. For he parted the 
 lovers and scared them into space, and woke up the 
 ladybird, and flacked the woodlouse into a pill. 
 His bumming and guzzling stirred the bee to danger- 
 ous passion; between them they rocked the maggot's 
 kraal out of position — it fell, and she with it, and 
 became so much refuse. The field was open to their 
 mad encounterings, except for the spider's gin; and 
 into that finally they fell tumbling and bombinating, 
 to wreck its intricate geometry, drive the contriver 
 into hiding, and envelop themselves inextricably. 
 Tied and bound in impalpable chains they fell, the 
 instigator and the victim together; quivering, upon 
 their backs they lay, out of reach and out of reckon- 
 ing by the world in which they had wrought heedless 
 havoc. That swept world lay hushed and bare as a 
 ploughland in the winter cold. 
 
 The httle drama speaks for itself; but to return 
 for a moment to George, Lord Bendish. Alieni pro- 
 fusus, siii appetens. I may vary Sallust to account 
 for this young man. He had, for the moment, 
 emptied his own httle world; but many things re- 
 main to be said of him, for he was inveterate at 
 spending, and there are as many worlds precisely as 
 there are men and women. For the moment he lay 
 upon his back, quivering advances to Mackintosh 
 to comfort him; but you may feel sure that he will 
 be up and out again before long for fresh worlds in 
 which to riot. Of him indeed I have many things 
 to report, but not now. He left England almost
 
 QUIETUS FROM MR. HENIKER 311 
 
 immediately after the events above chronicled, and 
 thereafter his affairs mingle ^\dth European affairs. 
 But they were talking of him at the breakfast table 
 at Holland House a week or so after his departure, 
 and Sam Rogers said a good thing of him in his rasp- 
 ing voice. Somebody had commented upon his gift 
 of rhetorical penmanship and thought him a pohtical 
 force turned off the track. Reform, surely, would 
 have been speedier if he had held his course. WTiere- 
 upon old Rogers croaked his epigram. "Bendish!" 
 he said; "Reform! Bah, my dear sir! Bendish 
 used Reform as a fork to scratch his back with." 
 
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 PUBLISHED by CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 
 Little Novels of Italy 
 
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 The Road in Tuscany 
 
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 books of and on Italy should have this frank and 
 charming comment upon Tuscany." 
 
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 Earth^vork Out of 
 Tuscany 
 
 Being Impressions and Translations of 
 Maurice Hew^lett 
 
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