Lord Byron's Novel (10 page)

‘Madam,’ he said, ‘I cannot read.’

‘Then you shall learn,’ said the lady, rising in her bed, ‘for who cannot read or hear, cannot be saved.’

‘Saved?’ Ali inquired, at the reiteration of this word, which is so pregnant with meaning—or
meanings
—indeed, with a varied and contrary offspring. The lady touched a place on the broad bed, indicating that there he should sit by her, and when he had with care and some trepidation taken that seat, she regarded him the more closely with her melting eyes. ‘I see you are in want of a friend,’ she said, ‘and so am I; let us pledge to each other, that we will be each the other’s support, and protection.’

‘If you wish it,’ Ali said in all gentleness. Indeed he knew not how this lady might protect him—nor how he would repay that service in turn—as it seemed she might well require of him: and yet for sure he stood in need of such a one, and no other champion had appeared, or seemed likely to—none but his own
soul,
upon which he dared not wholly lean. And so he made a soft answer, and took her hand fat as a pluck’d quail, and as cold; and pitied her, as he would not deign to pity himself. And soon the lady sent him away, with a promise,
when she felt stronger,
to send for him again.

T
HUS WAS ALI PUT
to school with Lady Sane, to learn the meaning of those signs and symbols he had at first begun to recognize in the company of the Circular Tutor aboard the Navy brig that brought him at first to Albion. Lord Sane was not entirely pleased to learn that his son had been invited to spend much time in his wife’s company, and look’d upon Ali with his
reptilian
consideration—and yet said nothing to forbid it—and soon enough he was gone from home, if that humble but dear name be applicable to the House he occupied. He had spent but a month there—feeding and teasing his Menagerie—by day riding at breakneck speed over the fields of his hard-press’d Tenantry, or disputing with his Steward—at night drinking his own hock and Claret, knocking the heads off the bottles with a poker, the drawing of corks being too mean a labour for him, and the summoning of his
man
too
tough a job
. ‘Enough!’—then cried he—and called for his Coach, and his brutish Coachman, large as a Patagonian, and the four matched blacks which that Coachman alone could control—and he betook himself South to the Fleshpots, and the companions he delighted in.

Each morning Ali mounted the stairs that led from the ancient Abbey where Lord Sane presided—even in
absence
—to the modern house, where Lady Sane was in residence—tho’ seemingly not always
present,
for her thoughts turned often from the books and the papers upon which Ali indited his crude letters, to dwell on past times, or in dreams, or in Heaven, to which she meant to lead the son of her husband. But often, in going about in that far realm, her imagination lit upon Heaven’s
opposite,
and she trembled at a thing she could not say—a tale she would not tell—and seemed to fear.

When Ali, alarmed, asked her what was the matter, and what it was she feared, she answered only, ‘Why, to be
damn’d,
and suffer for aye!’—and would not say, upon what grounds the divine Judge might make such a disposition. Ali, not disposed to consider his
own
after-fate, no matter how Lady Sane pressed the matter upon him, could not but ponder, and grieve for that gentle lady’s suffering.

Of the other souls who haunted that palace in Limbo, there were housemaids, who shied from him like deer, as they had learned to fear the attentions of the Master of the house, and thus whoever might stand in his stead—and a Cook, and scullery-maids and footmen, a sullen one or two—and a lady’s maid nearly as ghostly as her Lady was. Ali, who had no knowledge of the right manner of treating with servants, alarmed them sometimes by sitting silently among them in their kitchens and shops—where he learned much that, when he began at school, he would be required to
unlearn,
though he would not
forget
—and unwittingly affronted them by not suffering them to wait upon him, but rather doing for himself what was needful. Happier was he alone and abroad, with no company but a black Newfoundland dog, chosen by him from a litter out of his father’s favourite bitch. This animal would come to seem a part of himself—his own best self, ready to stand and run and sleep beside him, ever loyal, without
motive,
without reservation, with all his strong heart.
Thy warden,
Lady Sane called this companion of her son’s when Ali brought him even to her chamber; and when Ali had ascertained the right meaning of the word, it became the beast’s name, as it was his nature. With him Ali strode for leagues over the naked hills and through the new-sprung woods; oft he was observed far from the Abbey, careless of the weather, without occupation and—for a time, a day, a blessed Hour!—without
thought,
save for the ache in his joints, and the air in his lungs, until he truly seemed to have returned to the hills of Albania (which to his eyes these of Scotland resembled, except in respect of
moisture
) and was again following his goats, with his people, and his beloved.

Iman! She could not fade from his heart, but her image—undimm’d—could not alter, either, nor grow, nor change: she became a painted picture—a single mood—a gesture—or but a few—her voice, the same, still heard, but like the voice of one who walked away, and looked not back. In the Park, not far from the Abbey, there grew an Elm with a double trunk—two
sundered
limbs that had sprung from a single root, and had grown year by year farther apart. Upon the two uplifted arms, Ali, with the point of the sword he had brought from the land of their birth, carved his own name, and
hers
—in the letters of
this
land—the only he would ever learn.

One other among that house’s inhabitants showed him kindness, and bent his mind to make him welcome. ‘Old Jock’, as this ancient was known, was formerly a retainer of the ‘auld Laird’, Lady Sane’s father—indeed, he seemed to carry with him, in the bright roses of his cheeks, his ready smile, and the frost upon his curling hair and whiskers, the spirit of a merrier age, and a happier house. The smoke of his long pipe, and the touch of his rough hands, reminded Ali of the old goatherd who had raised him, and predisposed him to love the man. With him Ali learned the making of bullets, and the cleaning and care of pistols and guns, and when at length he left the old Abbey and its guardian spirit, he had learned to put out a candle with a pistol-shot at forty paces. By Old Jock’s fire, seated upon a ‘creepie’, or Scotch stool, Ali listened to tales that reached back to the Covenanters, and in the repeated hearing of them added a Scotch burr to his English that not all his later schooling would rub off. From Old Jock he learned of the wayward lords and the noble ones who, though he shared no blood with them, stood now in a row behind him like the parade of Banquo’s sons in the witch’s mirror, he being the heir of the house.

‘There is nae other
naw
,’ said he. ‘And naw will never be, none but thee; for a curse fell upon the house long ago, that it would be barren, and produce none.’

‘A curse?’

‘There was but a single child born to my Lady,’ said Old Jock, and his voice had sunk to a whisper, as though someone—someone he need not name—might overhear. ‘The birth was not easy, and the child was soon dead. And after that time, my Lady shut herself up, out of the world—or was
put
awa’—it mak’s nae
muckle
difference, how ’tis said.’

‘This amounts to no curse. Many a one is born to die.’

‘Ah,’ said Old Jock. ‘Ah, young Sair. We
make
a curse of what befalls us, if we are certain ’tis meant to be. The old Laird, blessings be upon him: on his own death-bed, he was heard to say, that his only daughter’s marriage would bring about the downfall of his house.’

‘It still stands,’ said Ali.

‘And here art thou, as well,’ said Old Jock, and the glitter in his eye was kind, and yet too wise for kindness. ‘Aye, aye:
here art thou
!’

Yet it is not sufficient to make an English gentleman, that he learn his letters at a pious Dame’s side, and the crafts of life from a Countryman. There came a time when Ali must go to school—he was already superannuated. Lord Sane and his wife were of different minds on the subject—for Lady Sane wanted to have the boy
near,
and Lord Sane cared nothing for that, so his situation be an
approved
one, where his fellows would bring him out, and
polish
him, as though he were a gem found by the wayside. The school chosen for him (Lady Sane in feeble opposition notwithstanding) was far to the South, nearly as far as London.

Ida—so she shall here be named—was then the first, or it may be the second, Academy where those too old to learn from their Parents and too young to learn from the World were ensconced, to learn from Masters wise (or contrariwise), and much
more
—not all of it
lofty
—from their Fellows. Here Ali arrived, in the summer of his fourteenth year, late and ill-prepared for what might now become of him—for his protector Lady Sane could not, and his father had not cared to, describe it to him. The crowd of boys in their tall hats and tail-coats at once drew him in among them, and at the same time made clear to him his absolute difference from them, in experience and knowledge; he was tarred for being
young
and for being
too old,
for being
too tall
and too delicate, for being ignorant of things he could not have learned elsewhere. He was shocked to discover that as a junior scholar he would be the dependent, nay the
servant
of others, who might demand of him anything. Only a touchy and implacable combativeness—whereby he often bled, as much as he caused others to bleed—kept him from the worst indignities, as being too much trouble for his seniors to inflict. They found it easier, and found that it caused pain as great, to
mock
him, though not always to his face—they soon grew wary of that—and material suited for such teases was easily come by.

‘They have called me Turk, and what is more, Bastard,’ he wrote to his father, ‘which I am none—and I would rather they threaten my life than my honour. I will not appeal to the Masters, as those who have insulted me have all more influence with them than I, who have but newly come here, and am looked upon with suspicion, as a kind of Monster, tho’ I am able to answer to them in classes, and in examinations, well enough to show I am but a Man like them. I wish you to defend me, as you have not so far done, and inform those Masters, who have done nothing to sustain me in the face of these enemies, of the Insults I have borne, and to demand of them what Remedies they may apply. I am also in want of Money, whereby to buy small presents for those who may be of my party—it is the common thing—I want nothing for myself, but I am given gifts, and am not able to
give
any, which is to my shame.’

To this his father, not quickly, responded. ‘What!’ he wrote. ‘Do they call thee Turk, and contemn thy halting speech? Well all that is but the case—and naught truly wounds us but what
is
the case—and therefore, be wounded, as it suits thee—or give back as you have been given, with the Truth if truth be at hand, or what is
like
the truth if the truth suit not your purpose—and if none of this win for you the redress you seek, or inflict wounds painful enough to cause your tormentors to withdraw—then something more
sharp
may do so, and this you have brought from the land of your birth. That is the sum of my advice to you; ask me for no more till all these be tried. As for Money, I have swept all mine out of doors—you must apply to Lady Sane if she have any—or do without—or steal.’

Ali wrote again, after he had read (and torn to pieces) this communication of his father’s: ‘My Lord—If I am to be insulted and mocked
for what I cannot help
nor change, even if I would, which I
would not
—very well—I shall take the Help you offer—tho’ it be but
words
—and ask not for other. It matters not much. Others have begun with nothing and ended greatly. I will carve myself a way to greatness, but never with Dishonour.—I am, my Lord, your Lordship’s affectionate & obedient Son—A
LI
.’

So said he: and the Lord his father was not to know that, while in sunlight he braved his Fellows well enough, and even rallied them and won some hearts among them for his courage, and for his cheek too, and for how he spoke up to his Masters, whether gravely or in jest—yet in the dark alone he wept, and no one comforted him. He had never known a mother’s dear caresses, he hardly knew to ask Heaven for what he most desired, a Friend! His being was as tender and easily hurt as a snail’s soft seeking horn, and—for the snail’s selfsame reason—he built around himself a stony carapace. Oft would he slip away from his fellows and their occupations, to retire alone to a famous and ancient Church-yard—not to commune there with the dead (for Youth but rarely ponders its own mortality, and, even when gloomily asserting it, does not truly believe in it)—but to lay down there the burden of his imposture, as he saw it to be, of heedlessness and temerity—as a knight doffs his heavy armor in his tent, where no one sees.

Silence and old stones are good company for the solitary, but there came a time when Ali, slipping away to be with his granite companions, found another, as alive as himself, already in possession there, and reclining upon
his
favoured gravestone. He was known to Ali—and saluted Ali cheerily—and made room for him there upon the commodious breast of him interred below. But Ali in response only demanded what he did there—to which the boy answered with the same question turned round again—and for a moment Ali looked away, to the long view over field and valley, which he had also come to regard as his
own
.