Endymion by Benjamin Disraeli (best books to read for beginners .TXT) 📕

might see the apartments. He was a young man, apparently not more than one or two and twenty, of a graceful figure, somewhat above the middle height, fair, with a countenance not absolutely regular, but calm and high-bred. His dress was in the best taste, but to a practised eye had something of a foreign cut, and he wore a slight moustache.

"The rooms will suit me," he said, "and I have no doubt the price you ask for them is a just one;" and he bowed with high-bred courtesy to Sylvia, who was now in attendance on him, and who stood with her pretty hands in the pretty pockets of her pretty apron.

"I am glad to hear that," said Sylvia. "We have never let them before, except to a yearly tenant."

"And if we suit each other," said the gentleman, "I should have no great objection to becoming such."

"In these matters," said Sylvia, after a little hesitation, "we give and receive references. Mr. Rodney is well known in this neighbourhood and in Westminster generally; but I dare say," she adroitly added, "he has many acquaintances known to you, sir."

"Not very likely," replied the young gentleman; "for I am a foreigner, and only arrived in England this morning;" though he spoke English without the slightest accent.

Sylvia looked a little perplexed; but he continued: "It is quite just that you should be assured to whom you are letting your lodgings. The only reference I can give you is to my banker, but he is almost too great a man for such matters. Perhaps," he added, pulling out a case from his breast pocket, and taking out of it a note, which he handed to Sylvia, "this may assure you that your rent will be paid."

Sylvia took a rapid glance at the hundred-pound-note, and twisting it into her little pocket with apparent _sangfroid_, though she held it with a tight grasp, murmured that it was quite unnecessary, and then offered to give her new lodger an acknowledgment of it.

"That is really unnecessary," he replied. "Your appearance commands from me that entire confidence which on your part you very properly refuse to a stranger and a foreigner like myself."

"What a charming young man!" thought Sylvia, pressing with emotion her hundred-pound-note.

"Now," continued the young gentleman, "I will return to the station to release my servant, who is a prisoner there with my luggage. Be pleased to make him at home. I shall myself not return probably till the evening; and in the meantime," he added, giving Sylvia his card, "you will admit anything that arrives here addressed to Colonel Albert."

The settlement of Colonel Albert in Warwick Street was an event of no slight importance. It superseded for a time all other topics of conversation, and was discussed at length in the evenings, especially with Mr. Vigo. Who was he? And in what service was he colonel? Mr. Rodney, like a man of the world, assumed that all necessary information would in time be obtained from the colonel's servant; but even men of the world sometimes miscalculate. The servant, who was a Belgian, had only been engaged by the colonel at Brussels a few days before his departure for England, and absolutely knew nothing of his master, except that he was a gentleman with plenty of money and sufficient luggage. Sylvia, who was the only person who had seen the colonel, was strongly in his favour. Mr. Rodney looked doubtful, and avoided any definite opinion until he had had the advantage of an interview with his new lodger. But this was not easy to obtain. Colonel Albert had no wish to see the master of the house, and, if he ever had that desire, his servant would accordingly communicate it in the proper quarter. At present he was satisfied with all the arrangements, and wished neither to make nor to receive remarks. The habits of the new lodger were somewhat of a recluse. He was generally engaged in his rooms the whole day, and seldom left them till the evening, and nobody, as yet, had called upon him. Under these circumstances, Imogene was instructed to open the matter to Mr. Waldershare when she presided over his breakfast-table; and that gentleman said he would make inquiries about the colonel at the Travellers' Club, where Waldershare passed a great deal of his time. "If he be anybody," said Mr. Waldershare, "he is sure in time to be known there, for he will be introduced as a visitor." At present, however, it turned out that the "Travellers'" knew nothing of Colonel Albert; and time went on, and Colonel Albert was not introduced as a visitor there.

After a little while there was a change in the habits of the colonel. One morning, about noon, a groom, extremely well appointed, and having under his charge a couple of steeds of breed and beauty, called at Warwick Street, and the colonel rode out, and was long absent, and after that, every day, and generally at the same hour, mounted his horse. Mr. Rodney was never wearied of catching a glimpse of his distinguished lodger over the blinds of the ground-floor room, and of admiring the colonel's commanding presence in his saddle, distinguished as his seat was alike by its grace and vigour.

In the course of a little time, another incident connected with the colonel occurred which attracted notice and excited interest. Towards the evening a brougham, marked, but quietly, with a foreign coronet, stopped frequently at Mr. Rodney's house, and a visitor to the colonel appeared in the form of a middle-aged gentleman who never gave his name, and evaded, it seemed with practised dexterity, every effort, however adroit, to obtain it. The valet was tried on this head also, and replied with simplicity that he did not know the gentleman's name, but he was always called the Baron.

In the middle of June a packet arrived one day by the coach, from the rector of Hurstley, addressed to Endymion, announcing his father's dangerous illness, and requesting him instantly to repair home. Myra was too much occupied to write even a line.


CHAPTER XXIX

It was strange that Myra did not write, were it only a line. It was so unlike her. How often this occurred to Endymion during his wearisome and anxious travel! When the coach reached Hurstley, he found Mr. Penruddock waiting for him. Before he could inquire after his father, that gentleman said, "Myra is at the rectory; you are to come on there."

"And my father?"----

"Matters are critical," said Mr. Penruddock, as it were avoiding a direct answer, and hastening his pace.

It was literally not a five minutes' walk from the village inn to the rectory, and they walked in silence. The rector took Endymion at once into his study; for we can hardly call it a library, though some shelves of books were there, and many stuffed birds.

The rector closed the door with care, and looked distressed; and, beckoning to Endymion to be seated, he said, while still standing and half turning away his head, "My dear boy, prepare yourself for the worst."

"Ah! he is gone then! my dear, dear father!" and Endymion burst into passionate tears, and leant on the table, his face hid in his hands.

The rector walked up and down the room with an agitated countenance. He could not deny, it would seem, the inference of Endymion; and yet he did not proffer those consolations which might be urged, and which it became one in his capacity peculiarly to urge.

"I must see Myra," said Endymion eagerly, looking up with a wild air and streaming eyes.

"Not yet," said the rector; "she is much disturbed. Your poor father is no more; it is too true; but," and here the rector hesitated, "he did not die happily."

"What do you mean?" said Endymion.

"Your poor father had much to try him," said the rector. "His life, since he was amongst us here, was a life, for him, of adversity--perhaps of great adversity--yet he bore up against it with a Christian spirit; he never repined. There was much that was noble and exalted in his character. But he never overcame the loss of your dear mother. He was never himself afterwards. He was not always master of himself. I could bear witness to that," said the rector, talking, as it were, to himself. "Yes; I could conscientiously give evidence to that effect"----

"What effect?" asked Endymion, with a painful scrutiny.

"I could show," said the rector, speaking slowly, and in a low voice, "and others could show, that he was not master of himself when he committed the rash act."

"O Mr. Penruddock!" exclaimed Endymion, starting from his chair, and seizing the rector by the arm. "What is all this?"

"That a great sorrow has come upon you, and your sister, and all of us," said Mr. Penruddock; "and you, and she, and all of us must bow before the Divine will in trembling, though in hope. Your father's death was not natural."

Such was the end of William Pitt Ferrars, on whom nature, opportunity, and culture appeared to have showered every advantage. His abilities were considerable, his ambition greater. Though intensely worldly, he was not devoid of affections. He found refuge in suicide, as many do, from want of imagination. The present was too hard for him, and his future was only a chaotic nebula.

Endymion did not see his sister that evening. She was not made aware of his arrival, and was alone with Mrs. Penruddock, who never left her night or day. The rector took charge of her brother, and had a sofa-bed made for him in the kind man's room. He was never to be alone. Never the whole night did Endymion close his eyes; and he was almost as much agitated about the impending interview with Myra, as about the dark event of terror that had been disclosed to him.

Yet that dreaded interview must take place; and, about noon, the rector told him that Myra was in the drawing-room alone, and would receive him. He tottered as he crossed the hall; grief and physical exhaustion had unmanned him; his eyes were streaming with tears; he paused for a moment with his hand upon the door; he dreaded the anguish of her countenance.

She advanced and embraced him with tenderness; her face was grave, and not a tear even glistened.

"I have been living in a tragedy for years," said Myra, in a low, hollow voice; "and the catastrophe has now arrived."

"Oh, my dear father!" exclaimed Endymion; and he burst into a renewed paroxysm of grief.

"Yes; he was dear to us, and we were dear to him," said Myra; "but the curtain has fallen. We have to exert ourselves. Energy and self-control were never more necessary to two human beings than to us. Here are his keys; his papers must be examined by no one but ourselves. There is a terrible ceremony taking place, or impending. When it is all over, we must visit the hall at least once more."

The whole neighbourhood was full of sorrow for the event, and of sympathy for those bereft. It was universally agreed that Mr. Ferrars had never recovered the death of his wife; had never been the same man after it; had become distrait, absent, wandering in his mind, and the victim of an invincible melancholy. Several instances were given of his inability to manage his affairs. The jury, with Farmer Thornberry for foreman, hesitated not in giving a becoming verdict. In those days information travelled slowly. There were no railroads then, and no telegraphs,