CHAPTER III.

Two Kings in Brentford.

I'll take your part when you are wrong; I'll fight your battles to the end; I'll listen when you sing a song, And never count your tales too long; Because you are my friend.

It has a very pretty effect in dancing the Lancers when the dancers "set to corners"; but when our hearts, and the affections thereof, take it upon themselves to perform this particular figure, the effect is not so satisfactory. Yet it is a figure towards the dancing of which these members much incline. Therefore it happened that while Alice Martin was breaking her heart for love of Paul Seaton, Edgar Ford was breaking his for love of Alice Martin.

Surely Fate--when Fate is pleased to be ironical--displays a most ingenious and whimsical sense of humour. And it happened that Fate was just now sharpening this particular sense at the expense of Mr. and Mrs. Martin. This worthy couple generally liked things to be done at their expense, it sounded so lavish and princely; but this was carrying matters a little too far.

Paul, being poor, was anathema to Mr. and Mrs. Martin; and Edgar, being rich, was their hearts' desire; and yet Alice loved Paul and was indifferent to Edgar; and in consequence there appeared that disturbing little hollow in Alice's pretty cheek.

The Fords were the most important people in Chayford, and had been rich merchants there for several generations. Edgar's great-grandfather was a friend of John Wesley's; and the great little man had preached the gospel under the huge cedar on the lawn of Chayford House. Consequently at Chayford Chapel the Fords sat in the farthest-back pew, this being ever considered the most august seat--the Woolsack in fact--of Methodist chapels; and their place in the sanctuary was rendered yet more glorious by a brazen fence, wherefrom dangled a sort of short, red moreen petticoat, which ran all along the top of their pew, and so screened the prayers of the Ford family from the prying and plebeian eyes of the rest of the congregation. Mrs. Ford pronounced the "Open Sesame" at all the Wesleyan bazaars and sales-of-work within a radius of ten miles round Chayford; and on such occasions she was specially introduced to the divine notice by the officiating minister under the pseudonym of "an handmaid". As a child Edgar had no idea what this expression exactly meant (neither, perhaps, had the officiating minister), but he felt extremely proud of his mother when he heard her alluded to in this way; and when the minister's prayer was more than usually embracing, and included Edgar himself under the title of "her offspring," Edgar's spiritual arrogance knew no bounds.

If the Seatons were as the salt of Methodism, the Fords were as the cream of it. Their social position fitted them for this life, and their religious fervour for the next. They neither hated the world as did Mark Seaton, nor worshipped it as did Caleb Martin. On the whole they very fairly rendered to Cæsar the things that were Cæsar's, and to God the things that were God's; and to do this, men must know something about Cæsar and also something about God.

Edgar was now the only child of the house of Ford, two little sisters having exchanged earth for heaven, and taken their mother's heart along with them. Like all Nonconformists, Edgar Ford inclined to overscrupulousness rather than to laxity. He was ready to sacrifice everything to his principles--which was right; but he sometimes mistook his prejudices for his principles--which was tiresome. Looked at in the light of eternity, Edgar's conduct was always eminently satisfactory; but looked at in the light of earth, it was sometimes a little trying. A college friend of his once said that "Ford was suffering from fatty degeneration of the conscience"; and Edgar's conscience certainly was abnormally enlarged. When great issues were at stake, this extreme and sensitive conscientiousness made Edgar Ford a prince among men; but when one was dealing with less important matters, and lawfulness was not so much the question to be considered as expediency, Edgar's custom of hair-splitting was somewhat paralyzing in its effects. He would hardly let himself do right for fear of doing wrong; which morbid introspection was partly the result of a Puritan training and ancestry, and partly of a delicate digestion.

For the rest, Edgar was "a proper man as one shall see in a summer's day". He was fair and slight and good-looking; and the shyness and sensitiveness which caused his own feelings to be so often hurt, made him specially careful not to hurt other people's. He did not talk much; but always left one with the impression that he had been extremely interesting, though one could not recall a word that he had said. His silence was more interesting than most men's conversation; and his pride less aggressive than most men's humility. Yet he was very silent and excessively proud. For people in general he cared not at all; he was too shy to understand and too sensitive to defy them; but for the few for whom he did care, his patience was exhaustless and his love unfailing; nothing that they might do could estrange them from him.

Martha once remarked, "When Master Edgar dies of old age, Master Paul will shake in his shoes"; which was her cheerful and picturesque way of notifying the fact that Edgar was Paul's senior by only a few months. Owing to this similarity of age and diversity of temperament, a firm friendship had sprung up between the two boys, which grew with their growth and strengthened with their strength.

In every respect these two differed from each other. While Paul knew neither shyness nor self-consciousness, Edgar was a prey to both; while Paul took out his own feelings and examined them and talked about them, Edgar kept his shut up in the secret chambers of his soul. Paul was more sure of himself when he was in the wrong than Edgar was when he was in the right; and while Paul was inclined to ride rough-shod over other people, Edgar was as tender as the tenderest woman. When Paul made up his mind to take a certain path, he took it all the more determinedly if there were lions in the way, and regarded the worsting of these interfering beasts as the best part of the sport; but if there were lions in Edgar's way, he hesitated about taking that path at all--not because he was afraid of lions, or of anything else under the sun save sin, but because he regarded the presence of these "fearful wild-fowl" as a divine intimation that such a path was not for his treading. Consequently Paul possessed the elements of success, if by success one means fame and wealth and the getting of one's own way; while Edgar's was one of the natures foredoomed to failure, if by failure one means nothing in this world but knowledge of the truth, and in the world to come life everlasting. Which are the common interpretations of the words success and failure as used among men.

With all the intensity of a deep and refined and somewhat narrow nature, Edgar Ford loved Alice. He did not inwardly examine himself to see the why and wherefore of this love, as Paul would have done; he merely knew that Alice Martin was all the world to him, and would be so, as long as he and the world lasted. It was characteristic of the two men that Paul analyzed his feelings, but took his motives for granted; while Edgar carefully weighed and examined his principles, and left his feelings to take care of themselves--knowing that they were strong enough to do that, and a good deal more into the bargain. Edgar always knew what he wanted, but not always what he ought to do; Paul, on the contrary, always knew what he thought right, but not always what he thought desirable.

Now if Edgar had been as wise as he was good, he would have carried on his love-making regardless of Paul, and would then and there have won Alice for himself. And that plan would have been the best for everybody concerned; for Alice was not capable of holding Paul, even if she could win him; and she was not the woman to make Paul happy, even if he deluded himself into fancying that he loved her; while Edgar was quite equal to supplanting Paul in Alice's affection, and making her and himself thereby happy ever after, if only he had realized that "all is fair in love and war," and had set about things in the right way. But unfortunately it was not Edgar's habit to set about things in the right way. First, he reasoned with himself that Alice's happiness was the great thing to be considered, and that Alice's happiness was bound up in Paul; for poor Edgar's eye had been as quick as Mrs. Martin's to discover that telltale little hollow in Alice's cheek; and that therefore his very love for Alice constrained him not to come between her and the thing she coveted. Then he further decided that, as Paul's friend, he was in honour bound not to stand in Paul's light, should Paul eventually discover how extremely pretty Alice was. And finally he made up his mind to immolate himself upon the joint altar of love and friendship; and it never occurred to him that the flames of this sacrifice were likely to burn up Paul and Alice's happiness as well as his own.

In Edgar's anxiety to leave Alice quite free, he strove his utmost to hide from her the fact that he loved her; he had an idea that in so doing he was taking the most honourable course towards her and towards Paul. And he pursued this course with such success that Alice thought him stuck-up and ill-tempered, and confided the same to Paul, who--with more common sense and equally little perception--decided that he was only bilious.

As for Paul, he had as yet no more idea that Edgar cared for Alice than that Alice cared for himself. Such things were as yet unknown to him, though it was gradually dawning upon him that Alice was extremely good-looking and very easy to talk to.

But the rest of the world were not so blind as Paul; and even Miss Drusilla Dallicot, the spinster _par excellence_ of Chayford, had some inkling as to how matters stood.

Miss Drusilla's "mind to her a kingdom was," and she prided herself upon the elegance of her diction and the refinement of her style. She was a very learned little lady, and never used a word of one syllable it a synonym of three could be found in the dictionary. She lived entirely in the literature of the past, and resolutely refused--on any pretext whatever--to come down later than the eighteenth century.

In addition to the kingdom of her mind, Miss Dallicot ruled over a nice fortune of her own, and she gave freely to "the cause" at Chayford. She was extremely particular in her habits; and while her godliness was indisputable, her cleanliness was virulent. No visitors were allowed to enter her abode until they had been rubbed down with a clothes-brush and a duster in the back-hall; and even then they were rarely admitted into the sanctum of her drawing-room, lest they should by their presence soil the chintz covers therein. What was to be seen underneath those chintz covers was an impenetrable secret. It was rumoured in Chayford that grass-green satin was the underlying texture, but this was as purely traditional as the site of the Garden of Eden, or the date of the building of Babel. No living man or woman had seen Miss Dallicot's drawing-room furniture face to face.

"My dear young friend," said Miss Drusilla to Joanna Seaton one day, when the minister's daughter was having tea with her in her spotless dining-room; preparation for the feast having been made by the spreading of a serviette all over the visitor's lap, and of a small floorcloth under the visitor's chair, lest an unwary crumb should escape from its moorings and rush headlong on to the carpet: "has it ever presented itself to your imagination that an attachment of a sentimental character might possibly arise between your gifted and talented brother and that amiable young creature, Alice Martin?"

"I believe that Alice thinks Paul very clever, and I know that Paul thinks Alice very pretty," replied Joanna guardedly.

"Perhaps it is scarcely seemly of me to introduce so romantic, though interesting, a subject to a person as yet as youthful and innocent as yourself; yet my deep reverence for my spiritual pastor, and my sincere attachment to his attractive family, cause me to experience the warmest concern in anything which affects either his interest or theirs."

"It is very good of you, dear Miss Dallicot, to take so friendly an interest in all of us; and your kind sympathy is fully appreciated. Father was saying only yesterday that he counts you among his truest, as well as his cleverest, friends; for he has never been disappointed either in your heart or your head. You know how he enjoys a chat about books with you, and how much good it does him."

"Your words, thus fitly spoken, are indeed as apples of gold in pictures of silver. The praise of so gifted a man as your father is too high a tribute to such feeble powers as I may possess; yet the suffrage of one who combines the noble qualities of a true gentleman with the high vocation of a minister of religion, is an encouragement to any thoughtful mind to follow his guidance into the realms of knowledge."

Now Joanna detested gossip above all things, having already learnt that no good can come of it, but much evil: so she wisely endeavoured to drive her hostess still further into the realms of knowledge, so as to keep her from inquisitively wandering into the fields of romance.

"Have you been reading anything new lately?" she asked with much subtlety.

"Nay, my dear Joanna, new books and new writers are alike abhorrent to my literary taste; and I dislike the one as cordially as I despise the other. To me my Plato and my Aristotle are ever fresh; and if I desire to provide my mind with suitable relaxation, are not Walter Scott and Jane Austen ever at hand to plume my wings for a flight into the world of fiction?"

"But don't you think that novels of all kinds--provided of course that they are good ones--help one to understand human nature?"

"You must first prove to me that a fuller understanding of human nature is a 'consummation devoutly to be wished'; for my own part I cannot see that it forms a specially interesting or instructive branch of study. That human nature is in but a sorry condition at present, is my conviction: that it will some day rise to a height unmeasured as yet, is my hope; but to watch it in its dilatory and intermittent ascent--to count its countless failures and to number its innumerable falls--is a pastime which does not recommend itself to my intelligence, nor render itself attractive to my fancy."

"Yet human nature is the most interesting thing and the most important thing in the whole world--except divine nature."

"To me, my dear Joanna, too lively an interest in the thoughts and emotions of one's fellow-creatures betokens a somewhat frivolous and unstable mind; and would be in danger of gradually degenerating into a gossiping habit, not becoming nor seemly in a professor of the Christian religion."

Joanna looked thoughtful. "Edgar Ford says that Alice and I talk and think too much about feelings," she said; "and that it is morbid and unhealthy of us."

"And doubtless, my dear child, there is some truth in the statement; sufficient, at any rate, to warn you against giving unbridled licence to a custom which, though innocuous at present, might eventually develop into a pernicious and dissipating habit of mind. Edgar Ford is a young man of excellent parts; as a son he is irreproachable, as a friend unexceptionable. And that reminds me, my love, have you ever perceived that he evinces a more tender interest than is consistent with mere friendship in our dear young friend, Alice Martin?"

Joanna's eyes opened wide with astonishment. "Good gracious, Miss Drusilla, such an idea never entered my head!"

"Well, take note when next you see the handsome young couple in each other's company, and I feel certain you will arrive at the conclusion that my suspicion is not without foundation."

"I am sure you are wrong--quite wrong! Edgar never speaks to Alice if he can help it. In fact, I don't think he likes her much. Alice is not at all clever, and Edgar thinks so much of cleverness."

"The ways of men are as a sealed book to me; and I cannot say that it is my desire ever to have the seals broken. Yet I have been led to believe that masculine minds are so constituted that mental charms do not appeal to them as powerfully as do mere physical attractions."

Joanna shook her head. "Edgar is different from other men. Paul might be taken with a pretty face, he is so impulsive and impressionable; but Edgar is too good and wise to care for any woman who would not be a companion to him in all his intellectual interests and pursuits. And though Alice is very dear and sweet and pretty, she is extremely stupid, you know."

"Yet I have heard that even good and wise men will condone the emptiness of a female head on account of the beauty of the face that appertains to it."

On her way home from Miss Dallicot's, Joanna fell in with Alice, and the two girls walked on together. After what a chairman would call "a few preliminary remarks," Joanna blurted out:

"Alice, do you think that Edgar Ford admires you? Miss Drusilla says he does."

Joanna had yet to learn that truths, like parcels, have to be neatly wrapped up before their vendors can dispose of them.

Alice stood still, so great was her astonishment. "Oh, dear no! I'm perfectly certain he doesn't. What an absurd idea for that dear old thing to get into her head! But she is so busy finding long words that her wits are apt to go wool-gathering, don't you think?"

"Yes, I do. She was delicious to-day. I did wish that you and Paul had been there too. It seemed a pity for her sweetness to be wasted on the desert air of my solitary self."

"Was she really fine?" asked Alice.

"I should just think she was. She was like a penny-a-liner and an eighteenth-century poet rolled in one.

"That really was an idiotic thing to say about Edgar; because, do you know, Joanna? he has been positively horrid to me lately."

"Has he?"

"Yes, something awful. I can't make out why, because I've never been nasty to him, that I know of."

"You never are nasty to anybody, dear."

"I never want to be," said Alice. "I am always so dreadfully anxious to be liked that I try my best to be nice to people; and when they don't like me it makes me so wretched that I want to cry."

"I never mind whether people like me or not."

"I wish I didn't," sighed Alice, "but I do, more than anything."

"Well, you are so pretty that you are sure of being liked, whatever you do. People always like pretty women," said Joanna.

"I don't think so. I'd much rather have been clever. People get tired of prettiness, but they never do of cleverness."

"Then do you think it is because you are not clever, but only pretty, that Edgar has got tired of you?" inquired the blunt Joanna, showing her inexperience of the ways of men by the use of so absurd an expression as "only pretty".

"I don't think that explains it. Of course I know that Edgar could not care much for anybody as stupid as I am, but I think it is horrid of him to positively dislike me for not being clever. It really isn't my fault. I try awfully hard to be clever, but I find it so difficult to understand things. And Edgar is generally so just to people, and so tender to their failings, that it makes it all the nastier for me."

"But are you sure he positively dislikes you? Perhaps you only bore him," suggested Joanna.

"Oh! I should not be a bit surprised if I bored him; in fact I should be surprised if I did anything else. Most people bore Edgar, you know, and yet he is always kind and courteous to them."

"And isn't he kind and courteous to you?"

Alice's pretty eyes filled with tears. "No, he isn't, and that shows how much he must hate me. He is more civil to his mother's housekeeper than he is to me; and I mind it dreadfully, because he and I used to be such friends."

"What does he do?"

"He won't speak to me if he can help it," replied Alice, fairly crying by this time, "and when he is obliged to say anything he does so in such a queer, hard voice that everybody round can see how he detests me. I often dare not speak to him when other people are there, for fear he should snub me before them and make me die of shame."

"Why don't you ask him if he is offended with you?"

"I did; and he said: 'Why should you suppose I am offended with you, Miss Martin? If my conduct has given rise to this suspicion, I must have been sadly wanting in courtesy, and I humbly apologize.' Then I felt ready to sink into the earth."

"How horrid of him!"

"He and I used to be so fond of each other when we were children. But lately he has put up palings all round himself, as if he were a tree in a park, and won't let me come near him."

"It really is queer!" agreed Joanna.

"I begin to think the real reason is that he considers us common," sobbed Alice. "Of course I know we don't belong to a good old family, like the Fords; but we are just the same as we always were; and it is unkind and snobbish of Edgar to throw over his old friends because he is ashamed of them!"

And all that time Edgar Ford was congratulating himself on behaving as a man of honour towards Paul and Alice; and he was positively wearing himself out with his superhuman efforts to hide from the latter the fact that he cared for her.

Truly the ways of a conscientious man are sometimes difficult to fathom!