Chapter 23 - Page 2

blazing fire, his cup of coffee sent up in the rare old china that had belonged to the Hall for generations; his dress finished, as dress of Osborne's could hardly fail to be. One could hardly have thought that this elegant young man, standing there in the midst of comfort that verged on luxury, should have been turning over that one great problem in his mind; but so it was. 'What can I do to be sure of a present income? Things cannot go on as they are. I should need support for two or three years, even if I entered myself at the Temple, or Lincoln's Inn.' It would be impossible for live on my pay in the army; besides, I should hate that profession. In fact, there are evils attending all professions - I couldn't bring myself to become a member of any I've ever heard of. Perhaps I'm more fitted to take orders than anything else, but to be compelled to write weekly sermons whether one had anything to say or not, and, probably, doomed only to associate with people below one in refinement and education! Yet poor Aimee must have money. I can't bear to compare our dinners here, overloaded with joints and game and sweets, as Morgan will persist in sending them up, with Aimee's two little mutton-chops. Yet what would my father say if he knew I'd married a Frenchwoman? In his present mood he'd disinherit me, if that is possible; and he'd speak about her in a way I couldn't stand. A Roman Catholic, too! Well, I don't repent it. I'd do it again. Only if my mother had been in good health, if she could have heard my story, and known Aimee! As it is, I must keep it secret; but where to get money? Where to get money?'

Then he bethought him of his poems - would they sell, and bring him in money? In spite of Milton, he thought they might; and he went to fetch his MSS. out of his room. He sate down near the fire, trying to study them with a critical eye, to represent public opinion as far as he could. He had changed his style since the Mrs Hemans' days. He was essentially imitative in his poetic faculty; and of late he had followed the lead of a popular writer of sonnets.' He turned his poems over: they were almost equivalent to an autobiographical passage in his life. Arranging them in their order, they came as follows: -

'To Aimee, Walking with a Little Child.'
'To Aimee, Singing at her Work.'
'To Aimee, turning away from me while I told my Love.'
'Aimee's Confession.'
'Aimee in Despair.'
'The Foreign Land in which my Aimee dwells.'
'The Wedding Ring.'
'The Wife.'
When he came to this last sonnet he put down his bundle of papers and began to think. 'The wife.' Yes, and a French wife. and a Roman Catholic wife - and a wife who might be said to have been in service! And his father's hatred of the French, both collectively and individually - collectively, as tumultuous brutal ruffians, who murdered their king, and committed all kinds of bloody atrocities: individually, as represented by 'Boney,' and