CHAPTER XII.

A Feast of Good Things.

They talked of things created long, And things but lately come to pass, Down from the Swan of Avon's song To sounds evolved from glass.

With the exception of the Seatons, there was no one at Chayford that Isabel Carnaby liked so well as the Fords; for she felt--as most people did who were brought under the spell of its influence--the fascination of Chayford House. It was a most attractive home, with its huge stone gateway in front, forming the full-stop to Chayford High Street; and its beautiful park at the back, studded with fine old elms and sloping down to the river. And not the least picturesque feature in one of the prettiest parks in Mershire was Chayford Cottage, nestling among the trees, and covered with purple clematis and scarlet virginia-creeper in their season. Chayford House was equally interesting within and without; it was one of the delightful houses where the drawing-room is merely an _édition de luxe_ of the library; and, when all is said and done, there is no drawing-room paper as effective as vellum and half-calf.

Michael Ford had been, as the Irishman said, a rich man for several generations; and his home bore the hallmark of a century's refinement and luxury. He had all the geniality of a man who has never had a misunderstanding--much less a fight--with circumstances; and there was not a grain of bitterness in his composition. He was a Wesleyan, as his fathers had been before him; but he gave as generously to the Anglicans and the Independents in Chayford as he gave to his own Church--and his gifts to all were munificent. He was sensible rather than scholarly, and wise rather than learned. In politics he was a Whig of the old school; and the only disappointment of his otherwise successful life was that he had been compelled by business engagements to abandon his cherished desire for a parliamentary career. But he intended this for his son in his place; and the object of his ambition was to see Edgar member for Chayford on the Liberal side.

Edgar's character, inherited from some far-off Puritan ancestor, was incomprehensible to his father; but Mr. Ford shared the common and comfortable parental delusion that the perfect acquiescence of children in their parents' views is merely a question of time.

It was strange that while Mark Seaton's son made an idol of success, Michael Ford's son made a Moloch of conscience; yet Mark Seaton's affections were set entirely on things above, and Michael Ford possessed common-sense to a degree which almost raised it to the level of genius. But these things happen.

During Isabel's week at Chayford she saw a great deal of Edgar. He understood her better than Paul did, and therefore he did not fall in love with her. Mutual comprehension makes for friendship, and militates against love; for love--like modern society papers--must have a "puzzle column" for the mystification of those that take it in. Isabel's emotional temperament was nearer akin to Edgar's mysticism than to Paul's dogged determination; so she and Edgar became good friends, and there was no element of danger in their friendship.

It was characteristic of Edgar that in the days when he believed that Paul loved Alice, his conscience forbade him to speak to the girl, because he wanted to do so; but in the days when Paul loved Isabel, Edgar talked to her freely, simply because such conversation gave him no particular pleasure. To make himself miserable was an irresistible temptation to Edgar Ford.

On the eve of Isabel's return to town, there was a small dinner-party at Chayford House. In addition to the four Seatons and their guest, the company included the Reverend Henry Stoneley, Rector of Chayford, and his popular wife; Mr. Madderley (an artist who was painting Mrs. Ford's portrait), and Alice Martin.

After the migration into the dining-room, Mr. Ford began:

"Does any one know the result of the Sidbury election?"

"I have heard nothing authentic," replied the rector; "but I have good reasons for believing that the Conservative has been returned."

"That is what I expected," exclaimed his host; "the Liberals there are divided into two camps with two separate leaders, namely the regular Liberal and a Labour candidate; and if our people will persist in thus splitting up their forces, your people are always bound to get in."

"That is quite true," said Mrs. Ford, "Conservatives have learnt the lesson of obedience to their leaders."

"Have you ever noticed," remarked Isabel Carnaby, "that, when it comes to the point, a Conservative will vote for the worst Conservative rather than for the best Liberal; while a Liberal will rather not vote at all than support a candidate who does not share his every prejudice?"

Mr. Stoneley smiled. "Our people certainly know how to pull together."

"And our people don't," added Mr. Ford, "that is the weakness of the Liberal party; each individual is too fond of thinking out things for himself, and judging from his own limited observation, rather than from the experience of wiser men."

"I beg your pardon, father," said Edgar, "but I should call that the strength of the Liberal party. Surely conscientious and reasonable support is better than blind and unreasoning obedience."

"More gratifying to the individual perhaps," replied his father, "but disastrous to the party."

"Moreover," added the rector, "it does not do for every man to be a law unto himself. Liberty carried too far degenerates into anarchy."

"If every man does what is right in his own eyes, what becomes of law and order?" suggested Mr. Seaton. "Strength is shown by self-suppression rather than by self-glorification."

"Precisely," agreed the rector. "The whole crux of civilization seems to me to lie in the fact that the savage does what is best for himself, and the civilized man what is best for the community at large."

"And government is but a great mutual insurance society against human selfishness," added Mr. Seaton.

"I quite agree with that," said Mrs. Ford, "the suppression of self is the end and aim of civilization as well as of Christianity."

"Just so, my dear madam, just so. Nevertheless I should not say that Conservatives do not think out matters for themselves," objected the rector, "for they do."

"Oh! don't say that," cried Isabel, "do not, at one fell swoop, take away the one virtue of the Conservative party."

The rector smiled. "Loyal old Tory as I am, I should not wish to recommend my party to alien eyes by assuming virtues when it has them not, my dear young lady."

"But," persisted Edgar, "I never can understand why what is wrong for an individual can be right for a party or a State."

"That is beside the mark," interpolated Mr. Ford.

Edgar looked puzzled. Things were always so clear to his father, and they were hardly ever clear to him. He groped after the truth, but he often failed to grasp it.

"Obedience is right in all men," said Mr. Seaton, "whether they be taken as individuals or as communities. To submit to authority is one of man's highest and most important duties."

"Quite so, quite so," agreed the rector; "yet now-a-days people are in sad danger of forgetting this."

"Do you think so?" said Paul Seaton. "For my part I consider that the modern enthusiasm for games and athletics of all kinds is a powerful antidote to individualism and faddism and their attendant follies. Therefore, if I had my way, I would insist on every man's taking up a game of some kind, and becoming proficient in it."

"And a very good plan," cried the rector heartily; "a very good plan, indeed!"

"You see," continued Paul, "as long as England had to fight for her existence among the nations, there was no talk about each particular Englishman's special prejudices and crotchets; this is one of the evils following in the train of peace and plenty. But by teaching our boys to go in for games, we in a measure obviate this. A man who is good at rowing or cricket or football has had to some extent a soldier's training, and so will probably possess a soldier's virtues."

"My son," said Mr. Seaton, "never say a word in favour of war. It is an invention of the devil, and no good can ever come of it."

"Still, good has come of it," persisted Paul; "the full-grown sons of a warlike State are neither women nor children--they are essentially manly."

"Our idea of manliness is not the true one," said Mr. Seaton; "physical courage has done so much for man that it has won undue admiration from both barbarism and civilization. Yet it is but a savage's virtue at the best."

"That is quite true!" exclaimed Edgar Ford.

Mr. Seaton continued: "My son has just pointed out that war makes men the very opposite of women and children. There I agree with him. But I cannot forget that it is written: 'Except ye become as little children ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven'."

"War is a terrible thing!" sighed Mrs. Ford, "I never can understand how Wordsworth could write a poem in favour of it."

"I expect he was sick of behaving prettily, and writing about primroses and pet lambs and weathercocks, and felt he should like to have a regular flare-up just for once and shock every one," suggested Isabel, "I have often felt like that myself."

Everybody laughed, and then the rector said to Paul: "You are quite right in what you say about athletics being a good antidote against fads."

"Fads being the ruin of any political party," added Mr. Ford.

"But a man's duty to his own conscience comes before his duty to the State," said Edgar; "and I cannot see that any one is justified in defending a course of action which he considers wrong, simply because his party is pledged to that course."

"In politics, as in scene-painting," murmured Mr. Madderley, "I suppose one has to consider general effects rather than minute details."

"And the pre-Raphaelite school would not be effective from a political standpoint," added Mr. Ford.

The artist shrugged his shoulders. "I am not sure that it is from an artistic one."

"Are you not? Then I am afraid I shall have to quarrel with you, Mr. Madderley," said his hostess.

"Then you will have to quarrel with the rector too, and I will help you," remarked Mrs. Stoneley, "although I have been a devoted wife to him for forty years, he quarrels regularly with me every Academy because I like looking at pictures that he says are without perspective."

"I know the sort," cried Isabel, "dear little scriptural things, like tame and domestic church-windows."

"It is just like men to bother about perspective," added Mrs. Stoneley, "they are so literal, poor dears! that it is not safe to leave anything to their imaginations. Besides you cannot leave anything to something which does not exist."

The rector smiled. "Pardon me, my love, this consideration never hinders me from leaving many things to your discretion."

"Well, Henry, you never heard me fussing about perspective, whatever else I may have done."

"Certainly not, my love; a desire for perspective presupposes a sense of proportion."

"Never mind him, Miss Carnaby," said his wife; "you and I will go to the Academy together, and leave him at home to study perspective from the rectory windows."

The rector turned to Edgar. "I think that the idea of duty to one's own conscience is growing to abnormal proportions, and is in great danger of degenerating into a morbid and unhealthy egotism. As far as my experience goes, if a man fulfils his duty towards God and his duty towards his neighbour, he will not have much time left for works of supererogation."

"But are not one's duty towards God and one's duty towards one's own conscience synonymous?" asked Edgar.

Mr. Stoneley thought for a moment. "Not necessarily, I should say. One's duty towards God is clearly defined in our good old Church catechism; but one's duty towards one's own conscience is an elastic term, which may include anything from religious persecution to anti-vaccination."

Mr. Ford chuckled approvingly. "Quite true!"

"As a distinguished politician once said: 'Politics is the science of the second best,'" remarked Paul, "therefore we must recognize the truth that in political strife we can only approximately approach an ideal."

"Precisely," agreed his host, "everything in this world is a matter of compromise."

"I cannot admit that," cried Edgar with eagerness; "to me, compromise is a detestable word. It is our business to aim at perfection, and to be satisfied with nothing less. The fact that we may fail in our endeavour to attain our ideal, in no way lessens our obligation to follow after it."

"But the danger is," said his mother, "that if we go in for perfection or nothing, we shall in all probability get nothing."

"I am afraid we must all be content with the second best in this world," remarked Mrs. Seaton.

"Yes," added Isabel, "like the man who said that as perfection in female beauty did not exist, he was looking out for a wife who could cook a potato properly."

"Certainly half a loaf is better than no bread," suggested Paul.

Edgar shook his head. "As long as people are content with half loaves they will never get whole ones."

"First let them be sure that they want whole ones," suggested Mr. Madderley.

"Exactly," cried Mrs. Stoneley. "People spend half their lives crying for things which would make them cry still more if they got them."

"Whole loaves would be very fattening, in the first place," continued the artist, "nothing would induce me to take one."

"Are you afraid of getting fat?" inquired Isabel, "I never think of it."

"This dread is the one cloud on my horizon, dear lady, the one discord in my life's harmony. You happy thin people do not know what troubles flesh is heir to, nor what fears."

"Do you think bread so dangerous?" asked Isabel.

"The most fattening thing in the world. I had a friend who said he once inadvertently asked for bread, and he gained a stone in a week."

Isabel laughed. "Then let us be content with only half a loaf; and, if we value our figures, we had better have that toasted."

"Contentment is often only a euphemism for cowardice," said Edgar.

"I am afraid S. Paul did not agree with you," remarked Mr. Seaton.

Edgar smiled; one of the reasons why he was so lovable was that he never lost his temper nor turned rusty in an argument. "S. Paul added godliness to the prescription, however, before he recommended it for general use," he said pleasantly.

Mr. Seaton laughed.

"It seems to me," continued Edgar, "that to bind oneself down to follow any particular party through thick and thin, is to do despite to one's own individuality."

"You know nothing at all about it," exclaimed his father.

The rector looked serious. "Individualism carried to excess soon becomes rebellion."

"Nevertheless," persisted Edgar, "it is one's duty to do what we think right, regardless of results. We know what was said of them who did evil that good might come; now we are afraid to do good lest evil may come, and I think that our condemnation is as just as theirs."

"I should be sorry to lead a party composed entirely of Edgars," Paul remarked, "there would be a regular Giants' Causeway of rocks ahead."

Mr. Ford nodded. Paul's straightforward common sense always appealed to him.

"There you go again!" cried Edgar. "Caution is your watchword, and it is a word I hate."

"So do I," agreed Isabel; "all the mistakes of my life have arisen out of caution."

"So have all the successes of mine," added Mr. Ford drily.

Mrs. Ford looked anxiously at Isabel. "I trust that your horror of caution does not extend to matters affecting your health, my dear; it is never safe for any one to run risks, and you do not look at all strong."

Isabel laughed, and Paul felt a sudden tightening of the muscles round his heart, and a moment's unreasoning hatred of Mrs. Ford. Who does not know the bitter loathing that we all feel when some one suggests to us that our nearest and dearest are not looking well? Such speakers are probably kind, or, at worst, only careless; but we hate them more than we hate the foes who wish to injure us.

"Mrs. Ford has been looking after my health too," said the artist.

His hostess smiled. "I only said I would not allow him to work too hard while he was here, and I advised him to take a glass of new milk at tea-time."

"The new milk is making a new man of me," said Mr. Madderley, looking gratefully at Mrs. Ford for all his quizzing.

"Now milk really is a fattening thing," Isabel said, shaking her head, "so is water."

"Is it, dear lady? I never take it."

"Then you ought to; I always do."

"The fairest flowers demand their dew," murmured the artist, bowing to Isabel.

"And artists--like poets and muses and people of that sort--live upon nectar, I presume," she retorted.

"Certainly," replied Mr. Madderley, "it is always a case of nectar or nothing with us."

"I know it is ignorant of me," said Joanna, "but I always confuse nectar with manna."

"So do I," echoed Alice.

"I don't believe that people would be satisfied with manna now-a-days," said Isabel, "they would want something more spicy than angels' food."

"Other times, other mannas," murmured the artist.

Isabel laughed again; and Paul wondered how any man could be such an idiot as to make puns. He did not quite realize that he would have laughed himself if Isabel had not done so, and would have thought Madderley an amusing fellow; but he did not like Isabel's evident amusement at all.

The conversation flowed on pleasantly all through dinner, and everybody was happy except Alice; but the sight of Paul's obvious devotion to Isabel proved a large fly in her ointment. It did not make her wild with jealousy as it would have made some women, nor hard and bitter as it would have made others; it merely reduced her to a humble and pitiful condition of mind, in which she wanted her mother to comfort her--or else another man to make love to her as Paul was making love to Isabel.

It is so easy for a woman to create a new heaven and a new earth for herself--especially the former--out of whatever she may have at hand. She must have a heaven of some kind, however scanty may be the materials wherewith she has to build; just as a little girl must have a doll, if it be only a bundle of rags tied round with a string. But men do not understand this. To them the manufacture of the new heaven and the new earth is not so simple; they cannot so easily sweep away the historical ruins of their past, and erect a fresh fabric upon the old foundations; for men are strong to do--and (still harder task!) to do without. They can live--after a fashion--without a heaven at all; and would rather do so than have a jerry-built edifice made up out of scraps they have not themselves chosen. But to women, poor souls! a heaven of some kind is a necessity of their being; and though the new one may not be formed after their ideal pattern like the old, it is better than nothing, and will probably in the end make them quite as happy.

Therefore Alice, feeling herself left out in the cold when she saw Paul and Isabel together, was in the state of mind that she would have accepted--and actually fallen in love with--Edgar, had he availed himself of these circumstances to propose to her. But poor Edgar had never learnt the art of making slaves out of circumstances. He was a good man and chivalrous, and he always did the right thing--but he invariably chose the wrong time for doing it. Just then he felt particularly tender towards Alice. He saw that she saw how Paul's face softened at the sight of Isabel; and he realized that every sign of affection shown towards Isabel by Paul was a fresh thorn in Alice's path. Edgar argued that if he lost Alice, no other woman could comfort him; and that therefore, Alice having lost Paul, no other man could comfort her. He forgot that love to a man is like health--he can exist after a fashion without it, though he cannot attain to a high standard of happiness; but that love to a woman is like life--she must have it, in some form or another, or else she will die.

It is interesting to notice that the men who happen to be in love, always join the ladies in advance of the others; consequently Paul and Edgar did not sit long over their wine. Paul went straight up to Isabel; and Edgar--with his ready instinct to help anybody who was hurt--asked Alice to come and see a new and rare orchid that was in the conservatory. After they had duly admired the orchid, they sat down beside the cool marble fountain. Edgar longed to take Alice in his arms and kiss her, she looked so pretty and so sorrowful; but instead of that he began to talk about the Sidbury election.

"I shall be sorry if the Tory has got in," he said, "it will vex my father, and I cannot bear to see him disappointed. He spoke at Sidbury last week, and made such a capital speech."

"Did he?" said Alice. She was wondering whether Paul would have loved her if she had been as clever as Isabel.

"But though it grieves me to see him disappointed," continued Edgar, "I am afraid it will some day be my duty to disappoint him more than any one. It will nearly break my heart, and yet I fear I shall be obliged to do it."

"How dreadfully sad!" murmured Alice. She was thinking that after all Isabel was not nearly as good-looking as she was, and that most men consider beauty far more important than brains in a woman.

"It is cruel work, Alice, when one's duty and one's affections clash! I sometimes wonder if my duty to my father is not more binding than my duty to my own conscience; yet if I acted as I thought wrongly, in order not to vex my father, I fancy such a course would be the doing of evil that good might come."

Alice sighed. "I expect it would." She was wishing she had been clever instead of pretty; it seemed to pay better in the long run after all.

Edgar went on: "I cannot help feeling that political life in a measure blunts one's finer perceptions and lowers one's ideals. Of course I see, with my father, that from the party point of view a certain amount of unanimity is imperative; but from the personal point of view I cannot see that a man is justified in sacrificing his own principles--and the expression of them--to any consideration whatever."

"Of course not," said Alice. She was wondering if Paul talked to Isabel about political and personal points of view, and if Isabel had any idea what it all meant.

"You see, Alice, the Sermon on the Mount is as binding now as it was eighteen centuries ago; yet who now gives his cloak to them that take his coat; or who strives to be meek and merciful and poor in spirit?"

Alice looked at Edgar. He was a handsomer man than Paul and much more religious; she wondered she did not like him as well.

"It is very difficult for me to talk about the things I really care for," he continued, his eyes bright with excitement. "I never do it to anybody except you, but you are different from everybody else. I cannot reconcile to my conscience the present attitude of the rich towards the poor--that is what troubles me so much."

"Does it? I am so sorry," said Alice gently. She was grieved for Edgar to be unhappy, but she wondered that he let a trifle such as this make him so.

"Yes; I cannot get it out of my mind. When the charge is brought against us, 'I was a stranger and ye took Me not in,' do you think it will be enough to answer: 'Lord, there were the workhouses and the poor rates; and indiscriminate charity was supposed to pauperize the lower classes'?"

Alice shook her head. "Of course not."

"Then what ought we to do?--or rather, what ought I to do? For it is my own beam that I must be looking after, and not my brother's mote. Oh! Alice, I think of this night and day, and yet I come to no satisfactory conclusion."

"Poor Edgar!" Alice was really sympathetic now. Conversation about politics did not interest her; it was completely over her head. But here was a man in trouble, crying out for help and comfort; this she understood well enough, and her woman's heart longed to comfort him.

"I cannot bear to grieve my father," sighed Edgar; "he has always been such a good father to me."

"And you have always been such a good son to him."

"I have tried to be; but that is not enough. The young man in the gospels had evidently been a good son, as he had kept all the commandments. Nevertheless he was called upon to sell all that he had and give to the poor."

"But there are lots of good men who don't sell all they have to give to the poor," suggested Alice, "and yet there is no doubt that they are quite as religious as you are, and quite as conscientious."

"I see that," agreed Edgar, "but every one is not called upon to make the same sacrifice. A man who is called to preach the gospel, has no right to disregard that call because some other man has not received it. We are each appointed to our separate work; and each man has got to do his own work, and not somebody else's because he thinks that would suit him better."

"Alice," called Mrs. Ford from the drawing-room; "come and give us some of your charming music, my dear."

So Alice went to the piano and sang "Robin Adair," in a voice to which Nature had given sweetness, and Sorrow had added expression. While she sang, Edgar felt a lump in his throat, and again longed to take her in his arms and console her; and Isabel's eyes filled with tears as she realized that what made London balls so fine and crowded assemblies so brilliant, was the presence of Paul Seaton; while Paul himself hoped that Alice's song would soon be over, so that he might go on talking to Isabel.