When a family is possessed of large landed property, the individual of
that family who shows least interest in its welfare; who is least fond
of home, least connected by his own sympathies with his relatives,
least ready to learn his duties or admit his responsibilities, is
often that very individual who is to succeed to the family
inheritance--the eldest son.
My brother Ralph was no exception to this remark. We were educated
together. After our education was completed, I never saw him, except
for short periods. He was almost always on the continent, for some
years after he left college. And when he returned definitely to
England, he did not return to live under our roof. Both in town and
country he was our visitor, not our inmate.
I recollect him at school--stronger, taller, handsomer than I was; far
beyond me in popularity among the little community we lived with; the
first to lead a daring exploit, the last to abandon it; now at the
bottom of the class, now at the top--just that sort of gay,
boisterous, fine-looking, dare-devil boy, whom old people would
instinctively turn round and smile after, as they passed him by in a
morning walk.
Then, at college, he became illustrious among rowers and cricketers,
renowned as a pistol shot, dreaded as a singlestick player. No wine
parties in the university were such wine parties as his; tradesmen
gave him the first choice of everything that was new; young ladies in
the town fell in love with him by dozens; young tutors with a tendency
to dandyism, copied the cut of his coat and the tie of his cravat;
even the awful heads of houses looked leniently on his delinquencies.
The gay, hearty, handsome young English gentleman carried a charm
about him that subdued everybody. Though I was his favourite butt,
both at school and college, I never quarrelled with him in my life. I
always let him ridicule my dress, manners, and habits in his own
reckless, boisterous way, as if it had been a part of his birthright
privilege to laugh at me as much as he chose.
Thus far, my father had no worse anxieties about him than those
occasioned by his high spirits and his heavy debts. But when he
returned home--when the debts had been paid, and it was next thought
necessary to drill the free, careless energies into something like
useful discipline--then my father's trials and difficulties began in
earnest.
It was impossible to make Ralph comprehend and appreciate his
position, as he was desired to comprehend and appreciate it. The
steward gave up in despair all attempts to enlighten him about the
extent, value, and management of the estates he was to inherit. A
vigorous effort was made to inspire him with ambition; to get him to
go into parliament. He laughed at the idea. A commission in the Guards
was next offered to him. He refused it, because he would never be
buttoned up in a red coat; because he would submit to no restraints,
fashionable or military; because in short, he was determined to be his
own master. My father talked to him by the hour together, about his
duties and his prospects, the cultivation of his mind, and the example
of his ancestors; and talked in vain. He yawned and fidgetted over the
emblazoned pages of his own family pedigree, whenever they were opened
before him.
In the country, he cared for nothing but hunting and shooting--it was
as difficult to make him go to a grand county dinner-party, as to make
him go to church. In town, he haunted the theatres, behind the scenes
as well as before; entertained actors and actresses at Richmond;
ascended in balloons at Vauxhall; went about with detective policemen,
seeing life among pickpockets and housebreakers; belonged to a whist
club, a supper club, a catch club, a boxing club, a picnic club, an
amateur theatrical club; and, in short, lived such a careless,
convivial life, that my father, outraged in every one of his family
prejudices and family refinements, almost ceased to speak to him, and
saw him as rarely as possible. Occasionally, my sister's interference
reconciled them again for a short time; her influence, gentle as it
was, was always powerfully felt for good, but she could not change my
brother's nature. Persuade and entreat as anxiously as she might, he
was always sure to forfeit the paternal favour again, a few days after
he had been restored to it.
At last, matters were brought to their climax by an awkward love
adventure of Ralph's with one of our tenants' daughters. My father
acted with his usual decision on the occasion. He determined to apply
a desperate remedy: to let the refractory eldest son run through his
career in freedom, abroad, until he had well wearied himself, and
could return home a sobered man. Accordingly, he procured for my
brother an attache's place in a foreign embassy, and insisted on his
leaving England forthwith. For once in a way, Ralph was docile. He
knew and cared nothing about diplomacy; but he liked the idea of
living on the continent, so he took his leave of home with his best
grace. My father saw him depart, with ill-concealed agitation and
apprehension; although he affected to feel satisfied that, flighty and
idle as Ralph was, he was incapable of voluntarily dishonouring his
family, even in his most reckless moods.
After this, we heard little from my brother. His letters were few and
short, and generally ended with petitions for money. The only
important news of him that reached us, reached us through public
channels.
He was making quite a continental reputation--a reputation, the bare
mention of which made my father wince. He had fought a duel; he had
imported a new dance from Hungary; he had contrived to get the
smallest groom that ever was seen behind a cabriolet; he had carried
off the reigning beauty among the opera-dancers of the day from all
competitors; a great French cook had composed a great French dish, and
christened it by his name; he was understood to be the "unknown
friend," to whom a literary Polish countess had dedicated her "Letters
against the restraint of the Marriage Tie;" a female German
metaphysician, sixty years old, had fallen (Platonically) in love with
him, and had taken to writing erotic romances in her old age. Such
were some of the rumours that reached my father's ears on the subject
of his son and heir!
After a long absence, he came home on a visit. How well I remember the
astonishment he produced in the whole household! He had become a
foreigner in manners and appearance. His mustachios were magnificent;
miniature toys in gold and jewellery hung in clusters from his
watch-chain; his shirt-front was a perfect filigree of lace and
cambric. He brought with him his own boxes of choice liqueurs and
perfumes; his own smart, impudent, French valet; his own travelling
bookcase of French novels, which he opened with his own golden key. He
drank nothing but chocolate in the morning; he had long interviews
with the cook, and revolutionized our dinner table. All the French
newspapers were sent to him by a London agent. He altered the
arrangements of his bed-room; no servant but his own valet was
permitted to enter it. Family portraits that hung there, were turned
to the walls, and portraits of French actresses and Italian singers
were stuck to the back of the canvasses. Then he displaced a beautiful
little ebony cabinet which had been in the family three hundred years;
and set up in its stead a Cyprian temple of his own, in miniature,
with crystal doors, behind which hung locks of hair, rings, notes
written on blush-coloured paper, and other love-tokens kept as
sentimental relics. His influence became all-pervading among us. He
seemed to communicate to the house the change that had taken place in
himself, from the reckless, racketty young Englishman to the
super-exquisite foreign dandy. It was as if the fiery, effervescent
atmosphere of the Boulevards of Paris had insolently penetrated into
the old English mansion, and ruffled and infected its quiet native
air, to the remotest corners of the place.
My father was even more dismayed than displeased by the alteration in
my brother's habits and manners--the eldest son was now farther from
his ideal of what an eldest son should be, than ever. As for friends
and neighbours, Ralph was heartily feared and disliked by them, before
he had been in the house a week. He had an ironically patient way of
listening to their conversation; an ironically respectful manner of
demolishing their old-fashioned opinions, and correcting their
slightest mistakes, which secretly aggravated them beyond endurance.
It was worse still, when my father, in despair, tried to tempt him
into marriage, as the one final chance of working his reform; and
invited half the marriageable young ladies of our acquaintance to the
house, for his especial benefit.
Ralph had never shown much fondness at home, for the refinements of
good female society. Abroad, he had lived as exclusively as he
possibly could, among women whose characters ranged downwards by
infinitesimal degrees, from the mysteriously doubtful to the
notoriously bad. The highly-bred, highly-refined, highly-accomplished
young English beauties had no charm for him. He detected at once the
domestic conspiracy of which he was destined to become the victim. He
often came up-stairs, at night, into my bed-room; and while he was
amusing himself by derisively kicking about my simple clothes and
simple toilette apparatus; while he was laughing in his old careless
way at my quiet habits and monotonous life, used to slip in,
parenthetically, all sorts of sarcasms about our young lady guests. To
him, their manners were horribly inanimate; their innocence, hypocrisy
of education. Pure complexions and regular features were very well, he
said, as far as they went; but when a girl could not walk properly,
when she shook hands with you with cold fingers, when having good eyes
she could not make a stimulating use of them, then it was time to
sentence the regular features and pure complexions to be taken back
forthwith to the nursery from which they came. For _his_ part, he
missed the conversation of his witty Polish Countess, and longed for
another pancake-supper with his favourite _grisettes._
The failure of my father's last experiment with Ralph soon became
apparent. Watchful and experienced mothers began to suspect that my
brother's method of flirtation was dangerous, and his style of
waltzing improper. One or two ultra-cautious parents, alarmed by the
laxity of his manners and opinions, removed their daughters out of
harm's way, by shortening their visits. The rest were spared any such
necessity. My father suddenly discovered that Ralph was devoting
himself rather too significantly to a young married woman who was
staying in the house. The same day he had a long private interview
with my brother. What passed between them, I know not; but it must
have been something serious. Ralph came out of my father's private
study, very pale and very silent; ordered his luggage to be packed
directly; and the next morning departed, with his French valet, and
his multifarious French goods and chattels, for the continent.
Another interval passed; and then we had another short visit from him.
He was still unaltered. My father's temper suffered under this second
disappointment. He became more fretful and silent; more apt to take
offence than had been his wont. I particularly mention the change thus
produced in his disposition, because that change was destined, at no
very distant period, to act fatally upon me.
On this last occasion, also, there was another serious disagreement
between father and son; and Ralph left England again in much the same
way that he had left it before.
Shortly after that second departure, we heard that he had altered his
manner of life. He had contracted, what would be termed in the
continental code of morals, a reformatory attachment to a woman older
than himself, who was living separated from her husband, when he met
with her. It was this lady's lofty ambition to be Mentor and mistress,
both together! And she soon proved herself to be well qualified for
her courageous undertaking. To the astonishment of everyone who knew
him, Ralph suddenly turned economical; and, soon afterwards, actually
resigned his post at the embassy, to be out of the way of temptation!
Since that, he has returned to England; has devoted himself to
collecting snuff-boxes and learning the violin; and is now living
quietly in the suburbs of London, still under the inspection of the
resolute female missionary who first worked his reform.
Whether he will ever become the high-minded, high-principled country
gentleman, that my father has always desired to see him, it is useless
for me to guess. On the domains which he is to inherit, I shall never
perhaps set foot again: in the halls where he will one day preside as
master, I shall never more be sheltered. Let me now quit the subject
of my elder brother, and turn to a theme which is nearer to my heart;
dear to me as the last remembrance left that I can love; precious
beyond all treasures in my solitude and my exile from home.
My sister!--well may I linger over your beloved name in such a record
as this. A little farther on, and the darkness of crime and grief will
encompass me; here, my recollections of you kindle like a pure light
before my eyes--doubly pure by contrast with what lies beyond. May
your kind eyes, love, be the first that fall on these pages, when the
writer has parted from them for ever! May your tender hand be the
first that touches these leaves, when mine is cold! Backward in my
narrative, Clara, wherever I have but casually mentioned my sister,
the pen has trembled and stood still. At this place, where all my
remembrances of you throng upon me unrestrained, the tears gather fast
and thick beyond control; and for the first time since I began my
task, my courage and my calmness fail me.
It is useless to persevere longer. My hand trembles; my eyes grow
dimmer and dimmer. I must close my labours for the day, and go forth
to gather strength and resolution for to-morrow on the hill-tops that
overlook the sea.