Alice Lorraine: A Tale of the South Downs

“Married people have a right to please one another only. A narrow view, perhaps, of justice; but – however, that is different. Alice, you never will attend when I try to teach you anything.”

Sir Roland broke off lamely thus, because his child was attending, more than himself, to what he was talking of. Like other men, he was sometimes given to exceed his meaning; but with his daughter he was always very careful of his words, because she had lost her mother, and none could ever make up the difference.

“Papa!” cried Alice, with that appealing stress upon the paternity which only a pet child can throw, “you are not at all like yourself to-day.”

“My dear, most people differ from themselves, with great advantage. But you will never think that of me. Now let me know your opinion as to all this matter, darling.”

Her father softened off his ending suddenly thus, because he saw the young girl’s eyes begin to glisten, as if for tears, at his strange new way.

“What matter, papa? The caps? Oh no; the way you are now behaving. Very well then, are you quite sure you can bear to hear all you have done amiss?”

“No, my dear, I am not at all sure. But I will try to endure your most heartrending exaggerations.”

“Then, dear papa, you shall have it all. Only tell me when to stop. In the first place, did you or did you not, refuse to have Hilary home for your birthday, much as you knew that I wanted him? You confess that you did. And your only reason was something you said about Trinity term, sadly incomprehensible. In the next place, when I wanted you to have a little change to-day, Uncle Struan for dinner, and Sir Remnant, and one or two others – ”

“My dear, how could I eat all these? Think of your Uncle Struan’s size.”

“Papa, you are only trying now to provoke me, because you cannot answer. You know what I mean as well as I do, and perhaps a little better. What I mean is, one or two of the very oldest friends and relations to do what was nice, and help you to get on with your birthday; but you said, with unusual ferocity, ‘Darling, I will have none but you!’”

“Upon my word, I believe I did! How wonderfully women – at least I mean how children – astonish one, by the way they touch the very tone of utterance, after one has forgotten it.”

“I don’t know what you mean, papa. And your reflection seems to be meant for yourself, as everything seems to be for at least a week, or I might say – ”

“Come, Lallie, come now, have some moderation.”

“Well, then, papa, for at least a fortnight. I will let you off with that, though I know it is much too little. And when you have owned to that, papa, what good reason can you give for behaving so to me – me – me, as good a child as ever there was?”

“Can ‘me, me, me,’ after living through such a fortnight of mortification – the real length of the period being less than four hours, I believe – can she listen to a little story without any excitement?”

“Oh, papa, a story, a story! That will make up for everything. What a lovely pleasure! There is nothing I love half so much as listening to old stories. I seem to be living my old age over, before I come to any age. Papa, I will forgive you everything, if you tell me a story.”

“Alice, you are a little too bad. I know what a very good girl you are; but still you ought to try to think. When you were only two years old, you looked as if you were always thinking.”

“So I am now, papa; always thinking – how to please you, and do my best.”

Sir Roland was beaten by this, because he knew the perfect truth of it. Alice already thought too much about everything she could think of. Her father knew how bad it is when the bright young time is clouded over with unreasonable cares; and often he had sore misgivings, lest he might be keeping his pet child too much alone. But she only laughed whenever he offered to find her new companions, and said that her cousins at the rectory were enough for her.

“If you please, papa,” she now broke in upon his thinking, “how long will it be before you begin to tell me this beautiful story?”

“My own darling, I forgot; I was thinking of you, and not of any trumpery stories. But this is the very day of all days to sift our little mystery. You have often heard, of course, about our old astrologer.”

“Of course I have, papa – of course! And with all my heart I love him. Everything the shepherds tell me shows how thoroughly good he was.”

“Very well, then, all my story is about him, and his deeds.”

“Oh, papa, then do try, for once in your life, to be in a hurry. I do love everything about him; and I have heard so many things.”

“No doubt you have, my dear; but perhaps of a somewhat fabulous order. His mind, or his manners, or appearance, or at any rate something seems to have left a lasting impression upon the simple folk hereabout.”

“Better than a pot of money; an old woman told me the other day it was better than a pot of money for anybody to dream of him.”

“It would do them more good, no doubt. But I have not had a pinch of snuff to-day. You have nearly broken me, Alice; but still you do allow me one pinch, when I begin to tell you a good story.”

“Three, papa; you shall have three now, and you may take them all at once, because you never told such a story, as I feel sure it is certain to be, in all the whole course of your life before. Now come here, where the sun is setting, so that I may watch the way you are telling every word of it; and if I ask you any questions you must nod your head, but never presume to answer one of them, unless you are sure that it will go on without interrupting the story. Now, papa, no more delay.”

CHAPTER V.

THE LEGEND OF THE ASTROLOGER

Two hundred years before the day when Alice thus sat listening, an ancestor of hers had been renowned in Anatolia. The most accomplished and most learned prince in all Lesser Asia was Agasicles Syennesis, descended from Mausolus (made immortal by his mausoleum), and from that celebrated king, Syennesis of Cilicia. There had been, after both these were dead, and much of their repute gone by, creditable and happy marriages in and out their descendants, at a little over and a little under, twenty-two centuries ago; and the best result and issue of all these was now embodied in Prince Agasicles.

The prince was not a patron only, but also an eager student of the more recondite arts and sciences then in cultivation. Especially he had given his mind to chemistry (including alchemy), mineralogy, and astrology. Devoting himself to these fine subjects, and many others, he seems to have neglected anthropology; so that in his fiftieth year he was but a lonesome bachelor. Troubled at this time of his life with many expostulations – genuine on the part of his friends, and emphatic on that of his relatives – he held a long interview with the stars, and taking their advice exactly as they gave and meant it, married a wife the next afternoon, and (so far as he could make out) the right one. This turned out well. His wife went off on the occasion of her first confinement, leaving him with a daughter, born A.D. 1590, and all women pronounced her beautiful.

The prince now spent his leisure time in thought and calculation. He had almost made his mind up that he was sure to have a son; and here was his wife gone; and how could he risk his life again so? Upon the whole, he made up his mind, that matters might have been worse, although they ought to have been much better, and that he must thank the stars, and not be too hard upon any one; and so he fell to at his science again, and studied almost everything.

In that ancient corner of the world, old Caria, the fine original Leleges looked up to the prince, and loved him warmly, and were ready by night or day to serve him, or to rob him. They saw that now was the finest chance (while he was looking at the stars, with no wife to look out for him) for them to do their duty to their families by robbing him; and this they did with honest comfort, and a sense of going home in the proper way to go.

Prince Agasicles, growing older, felt these troubles more and more. As a general rule, a man growing older has a more extensive knowledge that he must be robbed of course; and yet he scarcely ever seems to reconcile himself with maturing wisdom to the process. And so it happened to this good prince; not that he cared so very much about little trifles that might attract the eye of taste and the hand of skill, but that he could not (even with the aid of all the stars) find anything too valuable to be stolen. Hence, as his daughter, Artemise, grew to the fulness of young beauty, he thought it wise to raise the most substantial barrier he could build betwixt her and the outer world.

There happened to be in that neighbourhood then an active supply of villains. Of this by no means singular fact the prince might well assure himself, by casting his eyes down from the stars to the narrow bosom of his mother earth. But whether thus or otherwise forewarned of local mischief, the Carian prince took a very strong measure, and even a sacrilegious one. In or about the year of our reckoning, 1606, he walled off his daughter, and other goods, in a certain peninsula of his own, clearly displayed in our maps, and as clearly forbidden to be either trenched or walled by a Pythia skilled in trimeter tone, who seems to have been a lady of exceptionally clear conservatism.

The prince, as the sage of the neighbourhood, knew all about this prohibition, and that it was still in force, and must have acquired twenty-fold power by the lapse of twenty centuries; and as the sea had retreated a little during that short period, it was evident that Jove had been consistent in the matter. “He never meant it for an island, else he would have made it one.” Agasicles therefore felt some doubt about the piety of his proceeding, retaining as he did, in common with his neighbours, some respect for the classic gods. His respect, however, for the stars was deeper, and these told him that young Artemise was likely to be run away with by some bold adventurer. A peninsula was the very thing to suit his purpose, and none could be fairer or snugger than this of his own, the very site of ancient Cnidos, whereof Venus once was queen.

Undeterred by this local affection, or even the warnings of Delphi, the learned prince exerted himself, and by means of a tidy hedge of paliure and aspalathus made the five stades of isthmus proof against even thick-trousered gentlemen, a fortiori against the natives all unendowed with pantaloons. Neither might his fence be leaped by any of the roving horsemen – Turks, Cilicians, Pamphylians, Karamanians, or reavers from the chain of Taurus.

This being fixed to his satisfaction, with a couple of sentries at the gate, and one at either end, prompt with matchlocks, and above all, the young lady inside provided with many proverbs, Prince Agasicles set forth on a visit to an Armenian sage, reputed to be as wise as himself almost. With him he discussed Alhasen, Vitellio, and their own contemporary, Kepler, and spent so many hours aloft, that on his return to his native place he discovered his own little oversight. This was so very simple that it required at least a sage and great philosopher to commit it. The learned man appears to have forgotten that the sea is navigable. So it chanced that a gay young Englishman, cruising about in an armed speronera, among the Ægæan islands, and now in the Carpathian sea, hunting after pirates, heard of this Eastern Cynosure, and her walled seclusion. This of course was enough for him. Landing under the promontory where the Cnidian Venus stood, he fell, and falling dragged another, into the wild maze of love.

Mazed they seemed of course, and nearly mad no doubt to other folk. To themselves, however, they were in a new world altogether, far above the level and the intellect of the common world. Artemise forgot her pride, her proverbs, and pretensions; she had lost her own way in the regions of a higher life; and nothing to her was the same as it had been but yesterday. Heart and soul, and height and depth, she trusted herself to the Englishman, and even left her jewels.

Therefore they two launched their bark upon the unknown waters; the damsel with her heart in tempest of the filial duties shattered, and the fatherland cast off, yet for the main part anchored firmly on the gallant fluke of love; the youth in a hurry to fight a giant, if it would elevate him to her.

Artemise, with all her rashness, fared much better than she deserved for leaving an adoring father the wrong side of the quickset hedge. The bold young mariner happened to be a certain Hilary Lorraine, heir of that old house or castle in the Southdown coombe. Possessed with the adventurous spirit of his uncles, the famous Shirley brothers, he had sailed with Raleigh, and made havoc here and there, and seen almost as much of the world as was good for himself or it.

Enlarged by travel, he was enabled to suppress rude curiosity about the wishes of the absent prince; and deferring to a better season the pleasure of his acquaintance, he made all sail with the daughter on board, as set forth already; and those two were made into one, according to the rites of the old Greek Church, in the classic shades of Ida. And to their dying day it never repented either of them – much.

When the prince returned, and found no daughter left to meet him, he failed for a short time to display that self-command upon which he had for years been wont to plume himself. But having improved his condition of mind by a generous bastinado of servants, peasants, and matchlock men, he found himself reasonably remounting into the sphere of pure intellect. In a night or two an interesting conjunction of heavenly bodies happened, and eclipsed this nebulous world of women.

In a few years’ time he began to get presents, eatable, drinkable, and good. Gradually thus he showed his wisdom, by foregoing petty wrath; and when he was summoned to meet a star, militant to his grandson, he could not help ordering his horse.

CHAPTER VI.

THE LEGEND CONTINUED

Although this prince knew so much more of the heaven above than the earth beneath, he did not quite expect to ride the whole of the way to England. At Smyrna he took ship, and after some difficulties and dangers, landed at Shoreham, full of joy to behold his four grandchildren, who proved to be five by the time he saw them. The Sussex roads were as bad as need be, and worse than could be anywhere else; but the sturdy oxen set their necks to drag through all things, thick or thin; and the prince stuck fast to his coach, as firmly as the coach stuck fast with him. Having never seen any roads before, he thought them a wonderful institution, and though misled by the light of nature to grumble at some of his worst upsets, a little reflection led him softly back into contentment. A mind “irretrievably analytic” at once distinguished wisdom’s element in the Sussex reasoners.

“Gin us made thase hyur radds gooder, volk ’ood be radin’ down droo ’em avery dai, a’most! The Lard in heaven never made radds as cud ever baide the work, if stranngers cud goo along, wi’out bin vorced to zit down, and mend ’un.”

When this was interpreted to his Highness, he was so struck with its clear sound sense, and logical sequence, that he fell back, and for the rest of his journey admired the grandeur of English character. This sentiment, so deeply founded, was not likely to be impaired by further acquaintance with our great nation. For more than a twelvemonth Prince Agasicles made his home in England, and many of his quaint remarks abode on Sussex shepherds’ tongues for generations afterwards, recommended as they were by the vantage of princely wisdom. For he picked up quite enough of the language to say odd things as a child does, and with a like simplicity. With this difference, however, that while the great hits of the little ones, by the proud mother chronicled, are the lucky outbursts of happy inexperience, the old man’s sage words were the issue of unhappy experience.