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CHAPTER 29.

NOEL received a reply from his friends of the Fleet long before he could expect one from Maynard. The position of the allied forces in Mexico and the terms of the ‘Convention of La Soledád’ made it impossible for them to visit the capital at that time, but they proposed a meeting at the head-quarters of the British Minister near Orizaba. This was one of the three places in the highlands which Juarez had assigned to the Allies out of consideration for the health of their troops during the interval necessary for reference to their home governments. It was this concession that had offended the pride of the Mexicans.

The proposition fell in very happily with Noel’s humour and plans, for it promised a healthy distraction for his own thoughts, which he acknowledged to himself were becoming somewhat morbid. It would enable him to see the most beautiful part of the whole country without going out of his way for the express purpose of doing so; and it would place him within reach of the British plenipotentiary whenever Maynard’s answer might come. He had already made up his own mind as to what was best to be done, and he had little doubt of being backed in it by Maynard’s letter.

The brief history of this excursion will be best gathered from Noel’s letter to Maynard, into parts of which he purposely infused an esoteric meaning for Margaret’s exclusive apprehension.

‘Orizaba, March, 1862.

‘I found myself partaking the common decay in Mexico, and was glad of an excuse for coming here. I know now why I was unable to share the general admiration for the city and plain of the ancient Anahuac. I approached it from the wrong side, and approached it too nearly. And I blamed it for lacking the rare faculty of being perfect from all points of view and at all distances, – as if aught purely mundane could be thus perfect. I have long been convinced of it: levels and plains do not suit me, in any respect whatever. Man needs facility for mental drainage as much as the city does for physical. I don’t believe in equability. Moods are our refuge against morasses. Give me eagles versus turtles; even tumbler-pigeons versus mud-larks. How you must be anathematising the mood

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which makes me at this moment doff the world of Mexican politics aside, and indulge in metaphysics; That is because you are caring more for public affairs than for me and mine. Now, I like my friend’s letter to be a photograph of himself, showing how he is at the moment of his writing. But then, perhaps, this is owing to what you call the feminine element in my character. Pray, then, regard this as a joint letter, and let the feminine portion of the recipients appropriate her kindred share.

‘You have both seen the scenery amid which I am sojourning. But you saw it in passing, and without leisure to dwell upon its beauties. You came up to it from the lowlands. I have come down to it from the heights. My friends here, capital light-hearted fellows, as sailors are wont to be, are, after their roasting and stewing in the tierra caliente, in ecstasy with the keen bracing air, and wild mountain views, with cloud and cascade, and, ever dominant ever all, the white perpetual peak of Orizaba. Having gone no farther, they are prepared on their return home to swear that Mexico is the most beautiful country in the world. Wouldn’t it be a pity that they should go farther; that they should pass the beauteous portal and behold the hideous wilderness and reeking charnel-house beyond? The very country itself is to me but a mockery of life. The only fair portion lies in the betweens. Above and below, all is either barrenly bare, or poisonously luxuriant. Moralists say that goodness consists in doing, not in being; so that I suppose one has a right to look for excellence only in processes of transition, such as this passage from one altitude to another.

‘History and tradition say that the upper lands here were once magnificently wooded, and that the Spaniards brought the barrenness with them, or made it. It is somewhat curious, but why should a Spaniard Late a tree? It may be said of them, as it was so often said of the Jewish reformers of old, that they “cut down the groves.” Now, considering that those graves were for the worship of the queen of heaven of their day, the Virgin Ashtoreth, and that the Spaniards are so especially devoted to the corresponding worship of our day, it does seem to me very inconsistent in them not to have spared the necessary trees. But perhaps it is their love of home that has made them reproduce the naked table lands of Castile on the plain of Mexico. The Indians set tem a more orthodox example in the neighbouring town of Cholula. There, on the summit of the

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largest teocalli in Mexico, stands a chapel dedicated to the Virgin. In it priests of Indian descent only are allowed to officiate, and multitudes of pilgrims come yearly from all parts of the country to celebrate her festival. The worship of the Virgin on the Pyramid is a combination which ought to content even such an exacting votary of primeval antiquity as James Maynard. Ha! have I truly divined the source of the impulse which controlled the selection of your own abode?

‘I must confess that Mexico has a charm for me only so long as above and across the desolation shines that one bright spot of light, el Real de Dolóres, were the hearts and brains of friends beat in pleasant accord with the pulses of my own. Did you remember Bunyan’s Evangelist asking the Pilgrim, “Do you see yonder shining light?” Well, it is only such a loadstar as I see glimmering across the waste that would ever lure me back again to your heights. Your friendship has made it seem a natural home to me, and I see nought across the Atlantic to make Europe more attractive. I suppose I shall have to go some day; but I shall wait for a “call.”

‘Sophia Bevan jokes in her letter about my uncle flirting with Lady Bevan. My new friends here say that the flirting is all between him and Sophia, and that they think it would be wise in me to go home and prevent mischief! Poor dear Sophy; everybody does not understand her expansive manner so well as I do. I should rejoice to see her well married, but I have not yet succeeded in discovering the kind of man she would suit. She piques herself on her adaptability. But I suspect that, without in the least intending it, she rather means her own power to compel a man to adapt himself to her. My doubt is whether any one man can do it. She could not wait upon his moods, or drill herself into waiting for him to acquire force and variety to follow hers. The fact is, no one man could marry the whole of her. Her idea of her own fittest sphere is probably the right one. As wife of a statesman, whose occupation lay much away from her, but who also was thereby called on to entertain a large and varied society, she would fulfil her part admirably. As queen of the salon, surrounded by the distinguished and the aspiring in all lines, she would reign supreme.

‘But I have not yet been able to imagine her as queen of a single heart, each supremely content with the other, and anxious only for liberty to develop love into worship. I have no fear of

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her closing with my uncle, or he with her. Lady Bevan is much more in his line, and I don’t think such a match would be an unwise one. Though why elderly folk should not enjoy each other’s society ad libitum without the ceremony of irrevocability, is by no means apparent to me. However, I am far from certain that I am not also biased in favour of like liberty for younger ones. Artificial restraints are but poor substitutes for moral ones, and no doubt have the effect sometimes of suggesting that the latter are altogether superfluous. In the multiplicity of human laws, people are apt to forget the divine; and so the sense of moral responsibility vanishes. I suspect the parliament of the future will go in for fewer laws, but more stringent fulfilment.

‘I have taken up my abode in Orizaba itself. The dons of the expedition are in the factory just outside; and as I don’t want to come into contact with our Minister until I hear from you, I have spent most of the time in taking my sailors on excursions in the neighbourhood. We made an attack on the seventeen thousand feet of Orizaba; but as the natives in charge of our provisions declined to go farther than their mules could carry them, and the season was against our going to the top unprovided, we had to be content with going only higher than the lazy folks here say any one else has ever been since Cortés got sulphur for making gunpowder out of the crater of Popocatapetl.

‘It is an odd thing to me, the interior life of these sailors. My friends have not the faintest conception of the meaning and prospects of the expedition which has brought them to Mexico; and they don’t pare to have any, save in so far as it may affect their chances of promotion and leave. I suspect they will be rather surprised when they know that I am here with a purpose beyond that of amusing myself and them, and see me bearding the British Minister in his den at Cocolapam.

‘I won’t entrust this letter with anything of importance, as it may miscarry. The return of the couriers from Europe is looked for with great anxiety. Neither our plenipo, nor the French one has yet betrayed any knowledge of what I told you. I can hardly think the President is mistaken, yet the scheme is the most preposterous ever imagined. It is difficult to believe that any man who is comfortable at home, as Archdukes are given to being, can be such an idiot. And what has France, or rather her ruler, to gain by it? It is a long price for a quiet life. Adios.’

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Maynard’s letter, which at length exhibited the utmost alarm at the prospect held out by the President. That prospect meant, it said, war to the knife against all foreigners, for the bulk of the people would never tolerate foreign interference in such form. The Liberals would rally round Juarez, much as they detested him, and the Americans would probably take advantage of the distraction to step in and aggravate the general anarchy. He begged Noel to press urgently upon the British Minister the views which they had already agreed upon, making it essential that Juarez should be kept in power, if the expedition was to result in anything but the total ruin of foreign interests.

He concluded by saying that they all missed him very much, and hoped to see him back as soon as possible.

Margaret also wrote a few lines to the effect that his return would be a real kindness to James, who since the receipt of the news had shown extraordinary anxiety and talked more than ever of abandoning the country; but that she fancied he had some scheme in view which he kept in the background.

Her note was written in a fine and delicate hand, and, somehow, indicated to Noel a mind that dwelt upon the thought to be expressed, rather than upon the manner of its expression. There was not a word of affection in it; but Noel saw in its very reticence the proof of the firmness of her love far more than in the strongest protestations. ‘No need,’ he thought, ‘to put words on paper when there is no doubt of constancy and truth. She writes with the calm confidence of one who knows herself and him whom she has trusted.’

He determined to lose no time in seeing the Minister and hastening back to Dolóres, whither the sight and touch of Margaret’s note excited in him the utmost eagerness to return.

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