Charles, though no genius, had a certain amount of common sense, and, indeed, more of that commodity than most people gave him credit for. Therefore he did not pursue the subject with William. Firstly, because he did not think he could get any more out of him (for William had a certain amount of sturdy obstinacy in his composition); and secondly, because he knew William was, in the main, a sensible fellow, and loved the ground he stood on. Charles would never believe that William would serve him falsely; and he was right.
He told Marston of the curious words which William had used, and Marston had said —
“I don’t understand it. The devil is abroad. Are you coming into any money at your father’s death?”
“I am to have ￡180 a year.”
“I wouldn’t give ￡50 a year for your chance of it. What is this property worth?”
“￡9,000 a year. The governor has lived very extravagantly. The stable establishment is fit for a duke now; and, then, look at the servants!”
“He is not living up to ten thousand a year now, I should say.”
“No; but it is only the other day he gave up the hounds. They cost him two thousand a year; and, while he had them, the house was carried on very extravagantly. The governor has a wonderful talent for muddling away money; and, what is more, I believe he was bit with the railways. You know, I believe, the estate is involved.”
“Bathershin. But still, Cuthbert won’t marry, and his life is a bad one, and you are a heretic, my poor little innocent.”
“And then?”
“Heaven only knows what then. I am sure I don’t. At what time does the worthy and intellectual Welter arrive?”
“He will be here about six.”
“Two hours more rational existence for one, then. After that a smell as of ten thousand stables and fifty stale copies of Bell’s Life in one’s nose, till his lordship takes his departure. I don’t like your cousin, Charles.”
“What an astounding piece of news! He says you are a conceited prig, and ‘jive yourself airs.”
“He never said a wiser or truer thing in his life. I am exactly that; and he is a fifth-class steeplechase rider, with a title.”
“How you and he will fight!; ’
“So I expect. That is, if he has the courage for battle, which I rather doubt. He is terribly afraid of me.”
“I think you are hard on poor Welter,” said Charles; “I do, indeed. He is a generous, good-hearted fellow.”
“Oh! we are all generous, good-hearted fellows,” said Marston, “as long as we have plenty of money and good digestions. You are right, though, Charley. He is what you say, as far as I know; but the reason I hate him is this: — You are the dearest friend I have, and I am jealous of him. He is in eternal antagonism to me. I am always trying to lead you right, and he is equally diligent in leading you into wrong.”
H Well, he sha’n’t lead me into any more, I promise you now. Do be civil to him.”
“Of course I will, you gaby. Did you think 1 was going to show fight in your house?”
When Marston came down to dinner, there was Lord Welter sitting beside old Densil, and kindly amusing him with all sorts of gossip — stable and other.
“How do, Marston?” said he, rising and coming forward.
“How d’ye do, Lord Welter?” said Marston.
“I am very glad to meet you here,” said Lord Welter, with a good-humoured smile, “although I am ashamed to look you in the face. Marston, my dear Mr. Ravenshoe, is Charles’s good genius, and I am his evil one; I am always getting Charles into mischief, and he is always trying to keep him out of it. Hitherto, however, I have been completely successful, and he has made a dead failure.”
Old Densil laughed “You are doing yourself injustice, Welter,” he said. “Is he not doing himself an injustice, Mr. Marston?”
“Not in the least, sir,” said Marston. And the two young men shook hands more cordially than they had ever done before.
That’evening Lord Welter fulfilled Mary’s prophecy, that he would smoke in his bedroom, and not only smoked there himself, but induced Charles to come and do so also. Marston was not in the humour for the style of conversation he knew he should have there, and so he retired to bed, and left the other two to themselves.
“Well, Charles,” said Welter. “Oh, by-the-bye, I have got a letter for you from that mysterious madcap, Adelaide. She couldn’t send it by post; that would not have been mysterious and underhand enough for her. Catch hold.”
Charles caught hold, and read his letter. Welter watched him curiously from under the heavy eyebrows, and, when he had finished, said —
“Come put that away, and talk That sort of thing is pretty much the same in all cases, I take it. As far as my own experience goes, it is always the same. Scold and whine and whimper; whimper, whine, and scold. How’s that old keeper of yours?”
“He has lost his wife.”
“Poor fellow! I remember his wife — a handsome Irish woman.”
“My nurse?”
“Ay, ay. And the pretty girl, Ellen; how is she?”
“Poor Ellen! She has run away, Welter; gone to the had, I fear.”
Lord Welter sat in just the same position, gazing on the fire. He then said, in a very deliberate voice:—
“The deuce she is! I am very sorry to hear that. I was in hopes of renewing our acquaintance.”
The days flew by, and, as you know, there came no news from Ellen. The household had been much saddened by her disappearance and by Nora’s death, though not one of the number ever guessed what had passed between Mary and Marston. They were not a very cheerful household; scarce one of them but had some secret trouble. Father Tiernay came back after a week or so; and, if good-natured kindly chatter could have cheered them at all, he would have done it. But there was a settled gloom on the party which nothing could overcome. Even Lord Welter, boisterous as his spirits usually were, seemed often anxious and distraught; and, as for poor Cuthbert, he would, at any time, within the knowledge of man, have acted as a “damper” on the liveliest party. His affection for Charles seemed, for some reason, to increase day by day, but it was sometimes very hard to keep the peace between Welter and him. If there was one man beyond another that Cuthbert hated, it was Lord Welter; and sometimes, after dinner, such a scene as this would take place.
You will, perhaps, have remarked that I have never yet represented Cuthbert as speaking to Mary. The real fact is, that he never did speak to her, or to any oman, anything beyond the meresl common places — a circumstance which made Charles very much doubt the truth of Ellen’s statement — that the priest had caught them talking together in the wood. However, Cuthbert was, in his way, fond enough of the bonny little soul (I swear I am in love with her myself, over head and ears); and so, one day, when she came crying in, and told him — as being the first person she met — that her little bantam-cock had been killed by the dorking, Cuthbert comforted her, bottled up his wrath, till his father had gone into the drawingroom with her after dinner, and the others were sitting at their wine. Then he said, suddenly: —
“Welter, did you have any cock-fighting today?”
“Oh, yes, by-the-bye, a splendid turnup. There was a noble little bantam in an inclosed yard challenging a great dorking, and they both seemed so very anxious for sport that I thought it would be a pity to baulk them; so I just let the bantam out. I give you my word, it is my belief that the bantam would have been the best man, but that he was too old. His attack was splendid; but he met the fate of the brave.”
“You should not have done that, Welter,” said Charles; “that was Mary’s favourite bantam.”
“I don’t allow any cock-fighting at Ravenshoe. Welter,’” said Cuthbert.
“You don’t allow it!” said Lord Welter, scornfully.
“No, by heaven,” said Cuthbert, “I don’t allow it!”
“Don’t you?” said Welter; “you are not master ere, nor ever will be. No Ravenshoe was ever master of his own house yet.”
“I am absolute master here,” said Cuthbert, with a rising colour. “There is no appeal against me here.”
“Only to the priest,” said Welter. (I must do him justice to say that neither Mackworth nor Tiemay was iu the room, or he would not have said it.)
“You are insolent, Welter, and brutal. It is your nature to be so,” said Cuthbert, fiercely.
Marston, who had been watching Welter all this time, saw a flash come from his eyes, and, for one moment, a terrible savage setting of the teeth. “Ha, ha! my friend,” thought he, “I thought that stupid face was capable of some such expression as that. I am obliged to you, my friend, for giving me one little glimpse of the devil inside.”
“By gad, Cuthbert,” said Lord Welter, “if you hadn’t been at your own table, you shouldn’t have said that, cousin or no cousin, twice.”
“Stop now,” said Charles; “don’t turn the place into a bear-pit. Cuthbert, do be moderate. Welter, you shouldn’t have set the cocks fighting. Now don’t begin quarrelling again, you two, for heaven’s sake!”
And so the peace was made: but Charles was very glad when the time came for the party to break up; and he went away to Ranford with Welter, preparatory to his going back to Oxford.
His father was quite his own old self again, and seemed to have rallied amazingly; so Charles left him ithout much anxiety; and there were reasons we know of why his heart should hound when he heard the word Ranford mentioned, and why the raging speed of the Great Western Eailway express seemed all too slow for him. Lord Ascot’s horses were fast, the mail-phaeton was a good one, and Lord Welter’s worst enemies could not accuse him of driving slow; yet the way from Didcot to Ranford seemed so interminably long that he said:—
“By Jove, I wish we had come by a slower train, and gone on to Twyford!”
“Why so?”
“I don’t know. I think it is pleasanter driving through Waigrave and Henley.”
Lord Welter laughed, and Charles wondered why. There were no visitors at Ranford; and, when they arrived, Welter of course adjourned to the stables, while Charles ran upstairs and knocked at Lady Ascot’s door.
He was bidden to come in, by the old lady’s voice. Her black and tan terrier, who was now so old that his teeth and voice were alike gone, rose from the hearth, and went through the motion and outward semblance of barking furiously at Charles, though without producing any audible sound. Lady Ascot rose up and welcomed him kindly.
“I am so glad to see your honest face, my dear boy I have been sitting here all alone so long. Ascot is very kind, and comes and sits with me, and I give him ome advice about his horses, which he never takes. But I am very lonely.”
“But where is Adelaide, aunt dear?”
“She’s gone.”
“Gone! My dear aunt, where to?”
“Gone to stay ten days with Lady Hainault.”
Here was a blow.
“I know you are very disappointed, my poor boy, and I told Welter so expressly to tell you in my last letter. He is so shockingly careless and forgetful!”
“So Welter knew of it,” said Charles to himself.
Ami that is what made him laugh at my hurry. It is very ungentlemanly behaviour.”
But Charles’s anger was like ‘a summer cloud. “I think, aunt,” he said, “that Welter was having a joke with me; that was all. When will she be back?”
“The end of next week.”
“And I shall be gone to Oxford. I shall ride over to Casterton and see her.”
“You knew Hainault at Shrewsbury? Yes. Well, you had better do so, child. Yes, certainly.”
“What made her go, aunt, I wonder?”
“Lady Hainault was ill, and would have her, and I was forced to let her go.”
Oh, Lady Ascot, Lady Ascot, you wicked old fibster! Didn’t you hesitate, stammer, and blush, when you said that? I am very much afraid you didn’t. Hadn’t you had, three days before, a furious fracas with Adelaide about something, and hadn’t it ended by her declaring hat she would claim the protection of Lady Hainault? Hadn’t she ordered out the pony-carriage and driven off with a solitary bandbox, and what I choose to call a crinoline-chest? And hadn’t you and Lady Hainault had a brillant passage-of-arms over her ladyship’s receiving and abetting the recalcitrant Adelaide?
Lady Ascot was perfectly certain of one thing — that Charles would never hear about this from Adelaide; and so she lied boldly and with confidence. Otherwise, she must have made a dead failure, for few people had practised that great and difficult art so little as her ladyship.
That there had been a furious quarrel between Lady Ascot and Adelaide about this time, I well know from the best authority. It had taken place just as I have described it above. I do not know for certain the cause of it, but can guess; and, as I am honestly going to tell you all I know, you will be able to make as good a guess as I hereafter.
Lady Ascot said furthermore, that she was very uneasy in her mind about Ascot’s colt, which she felt certain would not stay over the Derby course. The horse was not so well ribbed up as he should be, and had hardly quarter enough to suit her. Talking of that, her lumbago had set in worse than ever since the frost hod come on, and her doctor had had the impudence to tell her that her liver was deranged, whereas, she knew it proceeded from cold in the small of her back. Talking of the frost, she was told that there had been a very ood sheet of ice on the carp-pond, where Charles might have skated, though she did hope he would never go on the ice till it was quite safe — as, if he were to get drowned, it would only add to her vexation, and surely she had had enough of that, with that audacious chit of a girl, Adelaide, who was enough to turn one’s hair grey; though for that matter it had been grey many years, as all the world might see.
“Has Adelaide been vexing you, aunt dear?” interrupted Charles.
“No, my clear boy, no,” replied the old woman. “She is a little tiresome sometimes, but I dare say it is more my fault than hers.”
“You will not be angry with her, aunt dear? You will be long-suffering with her, for my sake?”
“Dear Charles,” said the good old woman, weeping, “I will forgive her till seventy times seven. Sometimes, dear, she is high-spirited, and tries my temper. And I am very old, dear, and very cross and cruel to her. It is all my fault, Charles, all my fault.”
Afterwards, when Charles knew the truth, he used to bless the memory of this good old woman, recalling this conversation, and knowing on which side the fault lay. At this time, blindly in love as he was with Adelaide, he had sense enough left to do justice.
“Aunt, dear,” he said, “you are old, but you are neither cross nor cruel. You are the kindest and most generous of women. You are the only mother I ever had, aunt. I dare say Adelaide is tiresome sometimes; ear with her for my sake. Tell me some more about the horses. God help ns, they are an important subject enough in this house now!”
Lady Ascot said, having dried her tears and kissed Charles, that she had seen this a very long time: that she had warned Ascot solemnly, as it was a mother’s duty to do, to be careful of Eamoneur blood, and that Ascot would never listen to her; that no horse of that breed had ever been a staying horse; that she believed, if the truth could be got at, that the Pope of Rome had been, indirectly perhaps, but certainly, the inventor of produce stakes, which had done more to ruin the breed of horses, and consequently the country, than fifty reform bills. Then her ladyship wished o know if Charles had read Lord Mount-E's book on the Battle of Armageddon, and, on receiving a negative answer, gave a slight abstract of that most prophetical production, till the gong sounded and Charles went up to dress for dinner.
The road from Ranford to Casterton, which is the name of Lord Hainault’s place, runs through about three miles of the most beautiful scenery. Although it may barely come up to Cookham or Cliefden, yet it surpasses the piece from Wargrave to Henley, and beats Pangbourne hollow. Leaving Ranford Park, the road passes through the pretty village of Ranford. And in the street of Ranford, which is a regular street, the principal inn is the White Hart, kept by Mrs. Foley.
Here, in summer, all through the long glorious days, which seem so hard to believe in in winter time, come anglers, and live. Here they order their meals at impossible hours, and drive the landlady mad by not coming home to them. Here, too, they plan mad expeditions with the fishermen, who are now in all their glory, wearing bright-patterned shirts, scornful of half-crowns, and in a general state of obfuscation, in consequence of being plied with strange liquors by their patrons, out of flasks, when they are out fishing. Here, too, come artists, with beards as long as your arm, and pass the day under white umbrellas, in pleasant places by the waterside, painting.
The dark old porch of the inn stands ont in the street, but the back of the ouse goes down to the river. At this porch there is generally a group of idlers, or an old man sunning himself, or a man on horseback drinking. On this present occasion there were all three of these things, and also Lord Ascot’s head-keeper with a brace of setters.
As Charles rode very slowly towards the group, the keeper and the groom on horseback left off talking. Charles fancied they had been talking about him, and I, who know every thing, also know that they had. When Charles was nearly opposite him, the keeper came forward and said —
H I should like to show you the first trout of the season, sir. Jim, show Mr. Ravenshoe that trout.”
A beautiful ten-pounder was immediately laid on the stones.
“He would have looked handsomer in another month, Jackson,” said Charles.
“Perhaps he would, sir. My lady generally likes to get one as soon as she can.”
At this stage the groom, who had been standing apart, came up, and touching his hat, put into Charles’s hand a note.j
It was in Adelaide’s handwriting. The groom knew it, the keeper knew it, they all knew it, and Charles knew they knew it; but what cared he — all the world might know it. But they knew and had been talking of something else before he came up, which
Charles did not know. If anything is going wrong, all the country side knows it before the person principally concerned. And all the country side knew that there had been a great and scandalous quarrel between Adelaide and Lady Ascot — all, except Charles.
He put the note in his pocket without opening it; he gave the groom half-a-crown; he bade goodbye to the keeper; he touched his hat to the loiterers; and then he rode on his way toward Casterton, down the village street. He passed the church among the leaf-less walnut-trees, beneath the towering elms, now noisy with building rooks; and then, in the broad road under the lofty chalk downs, with the elms on his left, and glimpses of the flashing river between their stems, there he pulled up his horse, and read his love-letter.
“Dear Charles, —
“Ain’t you very cross at my having been away when you came? I don’t believe you are, for you are never cross. I couldn’t help it, Charles, dear. Aunt wanted me to go.
“Aunt is very cross and tiresome. She don’t like me as well as she used. You mus’n’t believe all she says, you know. It ain’t one word of it true. It is only her fancy.
“Do come over and see me. Lord Hainault” (this, I must tell you, reader, is the son, not the husband, of Lady Ascot’s most cherished old enemy) “is going to be married, and there will be a great wedding. She is hat long Burton girl, whom you may remember. I have always had a great dislike for her; but she has asked me to be bridesmaid, and, of course, one can’t refuse. Lady Emily Montfort is ‘with me’ as the lawyers say, and, of course, she will have her mother’s pearls in her ugly red hair.” —
Charles couldn’t agree as to Lady Emily’s hair being red. He had thought it the most beautiful hair he had ever seen in his life. —
“Pour mot, I shall wear a camelia, if the gardener will give me one. How I wish I had jewels to beat hers! She can’t wear the Cleveland diamonds as a bridesmaid; that is a comfort. Come over and see me. I am in agony about what aunt may have said to you.
“Adelaide.”
The reader may see more in this letter than Charles did. The reader may see a certain amount of selfishness and vanity in it: Charles did not. He took up his reins, and rode on; and, as he rode, said, “By Jove, Cuthbert shall lend me the emeralds!”
He hardly liked asking for them; but he could not bear the idea of Lady Emily shining superior to Adelaide in consequence of her pearls. Had he been a wise man (which I suppose you have, by this time, found out that he is decidedly not. Allow me to recommend this last sentence in a grammatical point of view), he would have seen that, with two such glorious creatures as Adelaide and Lady Emily, no one would have seen whether they ere clothed in purple and fine linen, or in sackcloth and ashes. But Charles was a fool. He was in love, and he was riding out to see his love.
The Scotchman tells us about Spey leaping out a’ glorious giant from among the everlasting hills; the Irishman tells you of Shannon rambling on past castle, and mountain, gathering new beauty as he goes; the Canadian tells you of the great river which streams over the cliff between Erie and Ontario; and the Australian tells you of Snowy pouring eternally from his great curtain of dolomite, seen forty miles away by the lonely traveller on the dull grey plains; but the Englishman tells you of the Thames, whose valley is the cradle of Freedom, and the possessors of which are the arbiters of the world.
And along the Thames valley rode Charles. At first the road ran along beneath some pleasant sunny heights; but, as it gradually rose, the ground grew more abrupt, and, on the right, a considerable down, with patches of gorse and juniper, hung over the road; while, on the left, the broad valley stretched away to where a distant cloud of grey smoke showed where lay the good old town of Casterton. Now the road entered a dark beech wood beneath lofty banks, where the squirrels, merry fellows, ran across the road and rattled up the trees, and the air was faint with the scent of last year’s leaves. Then came a break in the wood to the right, and a vista up a long-drawn valley, which ended in a chalk cliff. Then a break in the wood to the left, and a lance at the flat meadows, the gleaming river, and the dim grey distance. Then the wood again, denser and darker than ever. Then a sound, at first faint and indistinct, but growing gradually upon the ear until it could be plainly heard above the horse’s footfall. Then suddenly the end of the wood, and broad open sunlight. Below, the weirs of Casterton, spouting by a hundred channels, through the bucks and under the mills. Hard by, Casterton town, lying, a tumbled mass of red brick and grey flint, beneath a faint soft haze of smoke, against the vast roll in the land called Marldown. On the right, Casterton Park, a great wooded promontory, so steep that one can barely walk along it, clothed with beech and oak from base to summit, save in one place, where a bold lawn of short grass, five hundred feet high, stoops suddenly down towards the meadows, fringed at the edges with broom and fern, and topped with three tall pines — the landmark for ten miles along the river.
A lodge, the white gate of which is swung open by a pretty maiden; a dark oak wood again, with a long vista, ended by the noble precipitous lull on which the house stands; a more open park, with groups of deer lying about and feeding; another dark wood, the road now rising rapidly; rabbits, and a pot-valiant cock-pheasant standing in the middle of the way, and "currucking,” under the impression that Charles is in possession of all his domestic arrangements, and has come to disturb them; then the smooth gravel road, getting teeper and steeper; then the summit; one glimpse of a glorious panorama; then the front door and footmen.
Charles sent his card in, and would be glad to know if Lady Hainault could see him. While he waited for an answer, his horse rubbed its nose against its knee, and yawned, while the footmen on the steps looked at the rooks. They knew all about it too. (The footmen I mean, not the rooks); though I wouldn’t swear against a rook’s knowing anything, mind you.
Lady Hainault would see Mr. Ravenshoe — which was lucky, because, if she wouldn’t have done so, Charles would have been obliged to ask for Adelaide. So Charles’s horse was led to the stable, and Charles was led by the butler through the hall, and shown into a cool and empty library, to purge himself of earthly passions, before he was admitted to The Presence.
Charles sat himself down in the easiest chair he could find, and got hold of “Euskin’s Modern Painters.” That is a very nice book: it is printed on thick paper, with large print; the reading is very good, full of the most beautful sentiments ever you heard; and there are also capital plates in it. Charles looked through the pictures: he didn’t look at the letterpress, I know — for, if he had, he would have been so deeply enchained with it that he wouldn’t have done what he did — get up, and look out of the window. The window looked into the flower-garden. There he saw a young Scotch gardener, looking after his rose-trees. His child, a toddling bit of a thing, four years old (it must have been his first, for he was a very oung man), was holding the slips of matting for him; and glancing up between whiles at the great facade of the house, as though wondering what great people were inside, and whether they were looking at him. This was a pretty sight to a good whole-hearted fellow like Charles; but he got tired of looking at that even, after a time; for he was anxious, and not well at ease. And so, after his watch had told him that he had waited half an hour, he rang the bell.
The butler came, almost directly.
“Did you tell Lady Hainault that I was here?” said Charles.
“My lady was told, sir.”
“Tell her again, will you?” said Charles, and yawned.
Charles had time for another look at Euskin, and another look at the gardener and his boy, before the butler came back and said, “My lady is disengaged, sir.”
Charles was dying to see Adelaide, and was getting very impatient; but he was, as you have seen, a very contented sort of fellow: and, as he had fully made up his mind not to leave the house without a good half-hour with her, he could afford to wait. He crossed the hall behind the butler, and then went up the great staircase, and through the picture-gallery. Here he was struck by seeing the original of one of the prints he had seen downstairs, in the book, hanging on the wall among others. He stopped the butler, and asked, “What picture is that?”
“That, sir,” said the butler, hesitatingly, “that, sir — that is the great Turner, sir. Yes, sir,” he repeated, after a glance at a Francia on the one side, and a Rembrandt on the other, “yes, sir, that is the great Turner, sir.”
Charles was shown into a boudoir on the south side of the house, where sat Lady Hainault, an old and not singularly agreeable looking woman, who was doing crochet-work, and her companion, a strong-minded and vixenish-looking old maid, who was also doing crochet-work. They looked so very like two of the Fates, weaving woe, that Charles looked round for the third sister, and found her not.
“How d’ye do, Mr. Ravenshoe?” said Lady Hainault. “I hope you haven’t been kept waiting?”
“Not at all,” said Charles; and if that was not a deliberate lie, I want to know what is.
If there was any one person in the world for whom Charles bore a cherished feeling of dislike, it was this virtuous old lady. Charles loved Lady Ascot dearly, and Lady Hainault was her bitterest enemy. That would have been enough; but she had a horrid trick of sharpening her wit upon young men, and saying things to them in public which gave them a justifiable desire to knock her down and jump on her, as the Irish reapers do to their wives; and she had exercised this talent on Charles once at Eanfurd, and he hated her as much as he could hate any one, and that was not much. Lord Saltire used to say, that he must give her the credit of being the most infernally disagreeable woman in Europe.
Charles thought, by the twitching of her long fingers over her work, that she was going to be disagreeable now, and he was prepared. But, to Charles’s great astonishment, the old lady was singularly gracious.”
“And how,” she said, “is dear Lady Ascot? I have been coming, and coming, for a long time, but I never have gone so far this winter.”
“Lucky for aunt!” thought Charles. Then there was a pause, and a very awkward one.
Charles said, very quietly, “Lady Hainault, may I see Miss Summers?”
“Surely! I wonder where she is. Miss Hicks, ring the bell.”
Charles stepped forward and rang; and Miss Hicks, as Clotho, who had half-risen, sat down again, and wove her web grimly.
Atropos appeared, after an interval, looking as beautiful as the dawn. So Charles was looking too intently at her to notice the quick, eager glances that the old women threw at her as she came into the room. His heart leapt up as he went forward to meet her; and he took her hand and pressed it, and would have done so if all the furies in Pandemonium were there to prevent him.
It did not please her ladyship to see this; and so Charles did it once more, and then they sat down together in a window.
“And how am I looking?” said Adelaide, gazing at him full in the face. “Not a single pretty compliment for me after so long? I require compliments; I am used to them. Lady Hainault paid me some this morning.”
Lady Hainault, as Lachcsis, laughed and woved, Charles thought, “I suppose she and Adelaide have been having a shindy. She and aunt fall out sometimes.”
Adelaide and Charles had a good deal of quiet conversation in the window; but what two lovers could talk with Clotho and Lachesis looking on, weaving? I, of course, know perfectly well what they talked of, but it is hardly worth setting down here. I find that lovers’ conversations are not always interesting to the general public. After a decent time, Charles rose to go, and Adelaide went out by a side door.
Charles made his adieux to Clotho and Lachesis, and departed at the other end of the room. The door had barely closed on him, when Lady Hainault, eagerly thrusting her face towards Miss Hicks, hissed out —
“Did I give her time enough? Were her eyes red? Does he suspect anything?”
“You gave her time enough, I should say,” said Miss Hicks, deliberately. “I didn’t see that her eyes were reel But he must certainly suspect that you and she are not on the best of terms, from what she said.”
“Do you think he knows that Hainault is at home? Did he ask for Hainault?”
“I don’t know,” said Miss Hicks.
“She shall not stop in the house. She shall go back to Lady Ascot. I won’t have her in the house,” said the old lady, furiously.
“Why did you have her here, Lady Hainault?”
“You know perfectly well, Hicks. You know I only had her to spite old Ascot. But she shall stay here no longer.”
“She must stay for the wedding now,” said Miss Hicks.
“I suppose she must,” said Lady Hainault; “but, after that, she shall pack. If the Burton people only knew what was going on, the match would be broken off.”
“I don’t believe anything is going on,” said Miss Hicks; “at least, not on his side. You are putting yourself in a passion for nothing, and you will be ill after it .”
“I am not putting myself in a passion, and I won’t be ill, Hicks! And you are impudent to me, as you always are. I tell you that she must be got rid of, and she must marry that young booby, or we are all undone. I say that Hainault is smitten with her.”
“I say he is not, Lady Hainault. I say that what there is is all on her side.”
“She shall go back to Ranford after the wedding. I was a fool to have such a beautiful vixen in the house at all.”
We shall not see much more of Lady Hainault. Her son is about to marry the beautiful Miss Burton, and make her Lady Hainault, We shall see something of her by-and-bye.
The wedding came off the next week. A few days previously Charles rode over to Casterton and saw Adelaide. He had with him a note and jewel-case. The note was from Cuthbert, in which he spoke of her as his future sister, and begged her to accept the loan of “these few poor jewels.” She was graciously pleased to do so; and Charles took his leave very soon, for the house was turned out of the windows, and the next day but one “the long Burton girl ” became Lady Hainault, and Lady Ascot’s friend became Dowager. Lady Emily did not wear pearls at the wedding. She wore her own splendid golden hair, which hung round her lovely face like a glory. None who saw the two could say which was the most beautiful of these two celebrated blondes — Adelaide, the imperial, or Lady Emily, the gentle and the winning.
But, when Lady Ascot heard that Adelaide had appeared at the wedding with the emeralds, she was furious. “She has gone,” said that deeply injured lady — “she, a penniless girl, has actually gone, and, without my consent or knowledge, borrowed the Ravenshoe emeralds, and flaunted in them at a wedding. That girl would dance over my grave, Brooks.”
“Miss Adelaide,” said Brooks, “must have looked very well in them, my lady!” for Brooks was good-natured, and wished to turn away her ladyship’s wrath.
Lady Ascot turned upon her and withered her. She only said, “Emeralds upon pink! Heugh!” But Brooks was withered nevertheless.
I cannot give you any idea as to how Lady Ascot said “Heugh!” as I have written it above. We don’t know how the Greeks pronounced the amazing interjections in the Greek plays. We can only write them down.
“Perhaps the jewels were not remarked, my lady said the maid, making a second and worse shot.
“Not remarked, you foolish woman!” said the angry old lady. “Not remark a thousand pounds’ worth of emeralds upon a girl who is very well known to he a pensioner of mine. And I daren’t speak to her, or we shall have a scene with Charles. I am glad of one thing, though; it shows that Charles is thoroughly in earnest. Now let me get to bed, that’s a good soul; and don’t be angry with me if I am short tempered, for heaven knows I have enough to try me! Send one of the footmen across to the stable to know if Mahratta has had her nitre. Say that I insist on a categorical answer. Has Lord Ascot come home?” “Yes, my lady.”
“He might have come and given me some news about the horse. But there, poor boy, I can forgive him.”
Oxford. The front of Magdalen Hall, about which the least said the soonest mended. On the left, further on, All Souls, which seems to have been built by the same happy hand winch built the new courts of St. John’s Cambridge, (for they are about equally bad). On the right, the Clarendon and the Schools, blocking out the western sky. Still more to the right, a bit of Exeter, and all Brazenose. In front the Radcliff, the third dome in England, and, beyond, the straight facade of St. Mary’s, gathering its lines upward ever, till, tired of window and buttress, of crocket, finial, gargoyle, and all the rest of it, it leaps up aloft in one glorious crystal, and carries up one’s heart with it into the heaven above.
Charles Ravenshoe and Marston. They stood side by side on the pavement, and their eyes roamed together over the noble mass of architecture, passing from the straight lines, and abrupt corner of the Radcliff, on to the steeple of St. Mary’s. They stood silent for a moment, and then Marston said —
“Serve him right,”
“Why?” said Charles.
“Because he had no business to be driving tandem at all. He can’t afford it. And, besides, if he could, why should he defy the authorities by driving tandem? Nobody would drive tandem if it wasn’t forbidden.”
“Well, he is sent down, and therefore your virtue may spare him.”
“Sent down!” said Marston, testily, “he never ought to have come up. He was only sent here to be pitch-forked through the schools, and get a family living.”
“Well, well,” said Charles; “I was very fond of him.”
“Pish!” said Marston. Whereat Charles laughed uproariously, and stood in the gutter. His mirth was stopped by his being attacked by a toothless black and tan terrier, who was so old that he could only bark in a whisper, but whose privilege it was to follow about one of the first divinity scholars of the day, round the sunniest spots in the town. The dog having been appeased, Charles and Marston stood aside, and got a kindly smile from the good old man, in recognition of their having touched their caps to him.
“Charley,” said Marston, “I am so glad to hear of your going on so well. Mind you, if you had stuck to your work sooner, you would have had more than a second in Moderations. You must, and you shall, get a first, you know. I will have it.”
“Never, my boy, never; ” said Charles; “I haven’t head for it,”
“Nonsense. You are a great fool; but you may get your first.”
Thereupon Charles laughed again, louder than before, and wanted to know what his friend had been eating to upset his liver. To which Marston answered “Bosh!” and then they went clown Oriel Lane, “And so by Merton,” as the fox-hunters say, to Christ Church Meadow.
“I am glad you are in the University eight,” said .Marston; “it will do you a vast deal of good. You used to over — value that sort of thing, but I don’t think that you do so now. You can’t row or ride yourself into a place in the world, but that is no reason why you should not row or ride. I wish I was heavy enough to row. Who steers today?
“The great Panjandrum.”
“I don’t like the great Panjandrum. I think him slangy. And I don’t pardon slang in any one beyond a very young bachelor.”
“I am very fond of him,” said Charles, “and you are bilious, and out of humour with every one in heaven and earth, except apparently me. But, seriously speaking, old man, I think you have had something to vex you, since you came up yesterday. I hav’n’t seen you since you were at Ravenshoe, and you are deucedly altered, do you know?”
“I am sure you are wrong, Charles. I have had nothing — Well, I never lie. I have been disappointed in something, but I have fought against it so, that I am sure you must be wrong. I cannot be altered.”
“Tell me what has gone wrong, Marston. Is it in money matters? If it is, I know I can help you there.”
“Money. Oh! dear, no; ” said Marston. “Charley, you are a good fellow. You are the best fellow I ever met, do you know? But I can’t tell you what is the matter now.”
“Have I been doing anything?” said Charles eagerly.
“You have been doing a great deal to make me like and respect you, Charles; but nothing to make me unhappy. Now, answer me some questions, and let us change the subject. How is your father?”
“Dear old dad is very well. I got a letter from him today.”
“And how is your brother?”
“Well in health, but weak in mind, I fear. I am very much afraid that I shall be heir of Ravenshoe.”
“Why 1 is he going mad?”
“Not a bit of it, poor lad. He is going into a religious house, I am afraid. At least he mentioned that sort of thing the last time he wrote to me, as if he was trying to bring me face to face with the idea; and be sure my dearly beloved Father Mackworth will never let the idea rest.”
“Poor fellow! And how is Adelaide the beautiful?”
“Shes all right,” said Charles. “She and Aunt are the best friends in the world.”
“They always were, weren’t they?”
“Why, you see,” said Charles, “sometimes Aunt was cross, and Adelaide is very high-spirited, you know. Exceedingly high-spirited?’
“Indeed?”
“Oh, yes, very much so; she didn’t take much nonsense from Lady Hainault, I can tell you.”
“Well,” said Marston, “to continue my catechizing, how is William?”
“He is very well. Is there no one else you were going to ask after?”
“Oh, yes. Miss Corby?”
“She is pretty well, I believe, in health, but she does not seem quite so happy as she was,” said Charles, looking at Marston, suddenly.
He might as well have looked at the Taylor building, if he expected any change to take place in Marston’s face. He regarded him with a stony stare, and said —
“Indeed. I am sorry to hear that.”
“Marston,” said Charles, “I once thought that there was something between you and her.”
“That is a remarkable instance of what silly notions get into vacant minds,” said Marston steadily. Whereat Charles laughed again.
At this point, being opposite the University barge, Charles was hailed by a West-countryman of Exeter, whom we shall call Lee, who never met with Charles without having a turn at talking Devonshire with him. He now began at the top of his voice, to the great astonishment of the surrounding dandies.
“Where be gwine? Charles Ravenshoe, where be gwine?”
“We’ni gwine for a ride on the watter, Jan Lee.”
“Be gwine in the Varsity eight, Charles Ravenshoe?”
“Yes, sure.”
“How do’e feel? Dont’e feel afeard?"
“Ma dear soul, I’ve got such a wambling in my innards, and — ”
“We are waiting for you, Ravenshoe,” said the Captain; and, a few minutes after, the University eight rushed forth on her glorious career, clearing her way through the crowd of boats, and their admiring rowers, towards Iffley.
And Marston sat on the top of the University barge, and watched her sweeping on towards the distance, and then he said to himself —
“Ah! there goes the man I like best in the world, who don’t care for the woman I love best in the world, who is in love with the man before mentioned, who is in love with a woman who don’t care a hang for him. There is a certain left-handedness in human affairs.”
The short description of the University boat-race which begins this chapter was written two years ago, from the author’s recollections of the race of 1852. It would do for a description of this year’s race, quite as well as of any other year, substituting “Cambridge” for “Oxford,” according to the year.
Putney Bridge at half an hour before high tide; thirteen or fourteen steamers; five or six thousand boats, and fifteen or twenty thousand spectators. This is the morning of the great University race, about which every member of the two great Universities, and a very large section of the general public, have been fidgeting and talking for a month or so.
The bridge is black, the lawns are black, every balcony and window in the town is black; the steamers are black with a swarming, eager multitude, come to see the picked youths of the upper class try their strength against one another. There are two friends of ours nearly concerned in the great event of the day. Charles is rowing three in the Oxford boat, and Marston is steering. This is a memorable day for both of them, and more especially for poor Charles.
Now the crowd surges to and fro, and there is a cheer. The men are getting into their boats. The olice-boats are busy clearing the course. Now there is a cheer of admiration. Cambridge dashes out, swings round, and takes her place at the bridge.
Another shout. Oxford sweeps majestically out and takes her place by Cambridge. Away go the police-galleys, away go all the London club-boats, at ten miles an hour down the course. Now the course is clear, and there is almost a silence.
Then a wild hubbub; and people begin to squeeze and crush against one another. The boats are off; the fight has begun; then the thirteen steamers come roaring on after them, and their wake is alive once more with boats.
Everywhere a roar and a rushing to and fro. Frantic crowds upon the towing-path, mad crowds on the steamers, which make them sway and rock fearfully. Ahead Hammersmith Bridge, hanging like a black bar, covered with people as with a swarm of bees. As an eyepiece to the picture, two solitary flying-boats, and the flashing oars, working with the rapidity and regularity of a steam-engine.
“Who’s in front?” is asked by a thousand mouths; but who can tell? We shall see soon. Hammersmith Bridge is stretching across the water not a hundred yards in front of the boats. For one half — second a light shadow crosses the Oxford boat, and then it is out into the sunlight beyond. In another second the same shadow crosses the Cambridge boat. Oxford is ahead.
The men with light-blue neckties say that, “By George, Oxford can’t keep that terrible quick stroke going much longer;” and the men with dark-blue ties say, “Can’t she, by Jove!” Well, we shall know all about it soon, for here is Barnes Bridge. Again the shadow goes over the Oxford boat, and then one, two, three, four seconds before the Cambridge men pass beneath it. Oxford is winning! There is a shout from the people at Barnes, though the crowd don’t know why. Cambridge has made a furious rush, and drawn nearly up to Oxford; but it is useless. Oxford leaves rowing, and Cambridge rows ten strokes before they are level. Oxford has won!
Five minutes after, Charles was on the wharf in front of the Ship Inn at Mortlake, as happy as a king. He had got separated from his friends in the crowd, and the people round him were cheering him, and passing flattering remarks on his personal appearance, which caused Charles to laugh, and blush, and bow, as he tried to push through his good-natured persecutors, when he suddenly, in the midst of a burst of laughter caused by a remark made by a drunken bargeman, felt somebody clasp his arm, and turning round, saw William.
He felt such a shock that he was giddy and faint. “Will!” he said, “what is the matter?”
“Come here, and I’ll tell you.”
He forced Iris way to a quieter place, and then turned round to his companion, — “Make it short, Will; that’s a dear fellow. I can stand the worst.”
“Master was took very bad two days ago, Master Charles; and Master Cuthbert sent me off for you at once. He told me directly I got to Paddington to ask for a telegraph-message, so that you might hear the last accounts; and here it is.”
He put what we now call a “telegram ” into Charles’s hand, and the burden of it was mourning and woe. Densil Ravenshoe was sinking fast, and all that steam and horseflesh could do would be needed, if Charles would see him alive.
“Will, go and find Mr. Marston for me, and I will wait here for you. How are we to get back to Putney?”
“I have got a cab waiting.”
William dashed into the inn, and Charles waited. He turned and looked at the river.
There it was winding away past villa and park, bearing a thousand boats upon its bosom. He looked once again upon the crowded steamers and the busy multitude, and even in his grief felt a rush of honest pride as he thought that he was one of the heroes of the day. And then he turned, for William was beside him again. Marston was not to be found.
“I should like to have seen him again,” he said; “but we must fly, Will, we must fly!”
Had he known under what circumstances he was next to see a great concourse of people, and under what circumstances he was next to meet Marston, who knows but that in his ignorance and short-sightedness he would have chosen to die where he stood in such a moment of triumph and honour?
In the hurry of departure he had no time to ask questions. Only when he found himself in the express train, having chosen to go second-class with his servant, and not be alone, did he find time to ask how it had come about.
There was but little to be told. Densil had been seized after breakfast, and at first so slightly that they were not much alarmed. He had been put to bed, and the symptoms had grown worse. Then William had been despatched for Charles, leaving Cuthbert, Mary, and Father Mackworth at his bedside. All had been done that could be done. He seemed to-be in no pain, and quite contented. That was all. The telegraph told the rest. Cuthbert had promised to send horses to Crediton, and a relay forty miles nearer home.
The terrible excitement of the day, and the fact that he had eaten nothing since breakfast, made Charles less able to bear up against the news than he would otherwise have been. Strange thoughts and fears began to shape themselves in his head, and to find voices in the monotonous jolting of the carriage.
Not so much the fear of his father’s death. That he did not fear, because he knew it would come; and, as to that, the bitterness of death was past, bitter, deeply bitter, as it was: but a terror lest his father should die without speaking to him — that he should never see those dear lips wreathe into a smile for him any more.
Yesterday he had been thinking of this very journey — of how, if they won the race, he would fly down on he wings of the wind to tell them, and how the old an would brighten up with joy at the news. Yesterday he was a strong, brave man; and now what deadly terror was this at his heart?
“William, what frightens me like this?” “The news I brought you, and the excitement of the race. And you have been training hard for a long time, and that don’t mend a man’s nerves; and you are hungry.” “Not I.”
“What a noble race it was! I saw you above a mile off. I could tell the shape of you that distance, and see how you was pulling your oar through. I knew that my boy was going to be in the winning boat, Lord bless you! before the race was rowed. And when I saw Mr. C come in with that tearing, licking quick stroke of his, I sung out for old Oxford, and pretty nearly forgot the photograph for a bit.”
“Photograph, Will? what photograph?”
“Telegraph, I mean. It’s all the same.”
Charles couldn’t talk, though he tried. He felt an anxiety he had never felt before. It was so ill-defined that he could not trace it to its source. He had a right to feel grief, and deep anxiety to see his father alive; but this was sheer terror, and at what?
At Swindon, William got out and returned laden with this and with that, and forced Charles to eat and drink. He had not tasted wine for a long time; so he had to be careful with it; but it seemed to do him no good.
But, at last, tired nature did something for him, and he fell asleep.
When he awoke it was night, and at first he did not remember where he was. But rapidly his grief came upon him; and up, as it were out of a dark gulf, came the other nameless terror and took possession of his heart.
There was a change at Exeter; then at Crediton they met with their first relay of horses, and, at ten o’clock at night, after a hasty supper, started on their midnight ride. The terror was gone the moment Charles was on horseback.
The road was muddy and dark, often with steep banks on each side; but a delicious April moon was over head, and they got on bravely. At Bow there was a glimpse of Dartmoor towering black, and a fresh puff of westerly wind, laden with scents of spring. At Hatherleigh, there were fresh horses, and one of the Ravenshoe grooms waiting for them. The man had heard nothing since yesterday; so at one o’clock they started on again. After this, there were none but cross-country roads, and dangerous steep lanes; so they got on slowly. Then came the morning with voice of ten thousand birds, and all the rich perfume of awaking nature. And then came the woods of home, and they stood on the terrace, between the old house and the sea.
The white surf was playing and leaping around the quiet headlands; the sea-birds were floating merrily in he sunshine; the April clouds were racing their purple shadows across the jubilant blue sea; but the old house stood blank and dull. Every window was closed, and not a sound was heart 1.
For Charles had come too late. Densil Ravenshoe was dead.
In the long dark old room with the mullioned windows looking ont on the ocean, in the room that had been Charles’s bedroom, study, and play-room, since he was a boy, there sat Charles Ravenshoe, musing, stricken down with grief, and forlorn.
There were the fishing rods and the guns, there were the books and the homely pictures in which his soul had delighted. There was “The Sanctuary and the Challenge,” and Bob Coombes in his outrigger. All were there. But Charles Ravenshoe was not there. There was another man in his place, bearing his likeness, who sat and brooded with his head on his hands.
Where was the soul which was gone? Was he an infant in a new cycle of existence? or was he still connected with the scenes and people he had known and loved so long? Was he present? Could he tell at last the deep love that one poor foolish heart had borne for him? Could he know now the deep, deep grief that tore that poor silly heart, because its owner had not been by to see the last faint smile of intelligence flutter over features that he was to see no more?”
“Father! Father 1 Where are you. Don’t leave me ll alone, father.” No answer! only the ceaseless heating of the surf upon the shore.
He opened the window, and looked out. The terrace, the woods, the village, and beyond the great unmeasureable ocean! What beyond that?
What was this death, which suddenly made that which we loved so well, so worthless? Could they none of them tell us? One there was who triumphed over death and the grave, and was caught up in His earthly body. Who is this Death that he should triumph over us? Alas, poor Charles! There are evils worse than death. There are times when death seems to a man like going to bed. Wait!
There was a picture of Mary’s, of which he bethought himself. One we all know. Of a soul being carried away by angels to heaven. They call it St. Catherine, though it had nothing particular to do with St. Catherine, that I know of; and he thought he would go see it. But, as he turned, there stood Mary herself before him.
He held out his hands towards her, and she came and sat beside him, and put her arm round his neck. He kissed her! Why not? They were as brother and sister.
He asked her why she had come.
“I knew you wanted me,” she said.
Then she, still with her arm round his neck, talked to him about what had just happened. “He asked for you soon after he was taken on the first day, and told Father Mackworth to send off for you. Cuthbert had ent two hours before, and he said he was glad, and hoped that Oxford would win the race ”
“Charles,” said Mary again, “do you know that old James has had a fit, and is not expected to live?”
“No.”
“Yes, as soon as he heard of our dear one’s death he was taken. It has killed him.”
“Poor old James!”
They sat there some time, hand in hand, in sorrowful communion, and then Charles said suddenly —
“The future, Mary? The future, my love?”
“We discussed that before, Charles, dear. There is only one line of life open to me.”
“Ah!”
“I shall write to Lady Ascot tomorrow. I heard from Adelaide the other day, and she tells me that young Lady Hainault is going to take charge of poor Lord Charles’s children in a short time; and she will want a nursery governess; and I will go.”
“I would sooner you were there than here, Mary. I am very glad of this. She is a very good woman. I will go and see you there very often.”
“Are you going back to Oxford, Charles?”
“I think not”
“Do you owe much money there?”
“Very little, now. He paid it almost all for me.”
“What shall you do 1 ”
“I have not the remotest idea. I cannot possibly con’ ceive. I must consult Marston.”
There passed a weary week — a week of long brooding days and sleepless nights, while outside the darkened house the bright spring sun flooded all earth with light and life, and the full spring wind sang pleasantly through the musical woods, and swept away inland over heather and crag.
Strange sounds began to reach Charles in his solitary chamber; sounds which at first made him fancy he was dreaming, they were so mysterious and inexplicable. The first day they assumed the forms of solitary notes of music, some almost harsh, and some exquisitely soft and melodious. As the day went on they began to arrange themselves into chords, and sound slightly louder, though still a long way off. At last, near midnight, they seemed to take form, and flow off into a wild, mournful piece of music, the like of which Charles had never heard before; and then all was still.
Charles went to bed, believing either that the sounds were supernatural or that they arose from noises in his head. He came to the latter conclusion, and thought sleep would put an end to them; but, next morning, when he had half opened the shutters, and let in the blessed sunlight, there came the sound again — a wild, rich, triumphant melody, played by some hand, whether earthly or unearthly, that knew its work well.
“What is that, William?”
“Music.”
“Where does it come from?”
“Out of the air. The rjixies make such music at imes. Maybe it’s the saints in glory with their golden harps, welcoming Master and Father.”
“Father!”
“He died this morning at daybreak; not long after his old master, eh? He was very faithful to him. He was in prison with him once, I’ve heard tell. I’ll be as faithful to you, Charles, when the time comes.”
And another day wore on in the darkened house, and still the angelic music rose and fell at intervals, and moved the hearts of those that heard it strangely.
“Surely,” said Charles to himself, “that music must sound louder in one place than another.”, And then he felt himself smiling at the idea that he half believed it to be supernatural.
He rose and passed on through corridor and gallery, still listening as he went. The music had ceased, and all was still.
He went on through parts of the house he had not been in since a boy. This part of the house was very much deserted; some of the rooms he looked into were occupied as inferior servants’ bedrooms; some were empty, and all were dark. Here was where he, Cuthbert, and William would play hide-and-seek on wet days; and well he remembered each nook and lair. A window was open in one empty room, and it looked into the courtyard They were carrying things into the chapel, and he walked that way.
In the dark entrance to the dim chapel a black figure stood aside to let him pass; he bowed, and did so, but as barely in the building when a voice he knew said, “It is Charles,” and the next moment he was clasped by both hands, and the kind face of Father Tiernay was beaming before him.
“I’m so glad to see you, Father Tiernay. It is so kind of you to come.”
“You look pale and worn,” said the good man; “you have been fretting. I won’t have that, now that I am come. I will have you out in the air and sunshine, my boy, along the shore “’
The music again! Not faint and distant as heretofore, but close overhead, crashing out into a mighty jubilate, which broke itself against rafter and window in a thousand sweet echoes. Then, as the noble echoes began to sink, there arose a soft flute-like note, which grew more intense until the air was filled with passionate sound; and it trilled and ran, and paused, and ran on, and died you knew not where.
“I can’t stand much of that, Father Tiernay,” said Charles. “They have been mending the organ, I see. That accounts for the music I have heard I suppose there will — be music at the funeral, then.”
“My brother Murtagh,” said Father Tiernay, “came over yesterday morning from Lord Segur’s. He is organist there, and he mended it. Bedad he is a sweet musician. Hear what Sir Henry Bishop says of him.”
There came towards them, from the organ-loft, a young man, wearing a long black coat and black bands with white edges, and having of his own one of the sweetest, indliest faces eye ever rested on. Father Tiernay looked on him with pride and affection, and said —
“Murty, me dear brother, this is Mr. Charles Ravenshoe, me very good friend, I hope you’ll become acquaintances, for the reason that two good fellows should know one another.”
“I am almost afraid,” said the young man, with a frank smile, “that Charles Ravenshoe has already a prejudice against me for the disagreeable sounds I was making all day yesterday in bringing the old organ into work again.”
“Nay, I was only wondering where such noble bursts of melody came from,” said Charles. “If you had made all the evil noises in Pandemonium, they would have been forgiven for that last piece of music. Do you know that I had no idea the old organ could be played on. Years ago, when we were boys, Cuthbert and I tried to play on it; I blew for him, and he sounded two or three notes, but it frightened us, and we ran away, and never went near it again.”
“It is a beautiful old instrument,” said young Tiernay; “will you stand just here, and listen to it?”
Charles stood in one of the windows, and Father Tiernay beside him. He leant his head on his arm, and looked forth eastward and northward, over the rolling woods, the cliffs, and the bright blue sea.
The music began with a movement soft, low, melodious, beyond expression, and yet strong, firm, and regular as of a thousand armed men marching to victory.
It grew in volume and power till it was irresistible, yet still harmonious and perfect. Charles understood it. It was the life of a just man growing towards perfection and honour.
It wavered and fluttered, and threw itself into sparkling sprays and eddies. It leapt and laughed with joy unutterable, yet still through all the solemn measure went on. Love had come to gladden the perfect life, and had adorned without disturbing it.
Then began discords and wild sweeping storms of sound, harsh always, but never unmelodious; fainter and fainter grew the melody, till it was almost lost. Misfortunes had come upon the just man, and he was bending under them.
No. More majestic, more grand, more solemn than ever the melody reasserted itself: and again, as though purified by a furnace, marched solemnly on with a clearness and sweetness greater that at first. The just man had emerged from his sea of troubles ennobled. Charles felt a hand on his shoulder. He thought it had been Father Tiernay. Father Tiernay was gone. It was Cuthbert.
“Cuthbert! I am so glad you have come to see me. I was not surprised because you would not see me before. You didn’t think I was offended, brother, did you? I know you. I know you!”
Charles smoothed his hair and smiled pleasantly upon him. Cuthbert stood quite still and said nothing.
“Cuthbert,” said Charles, “you are in pain. In bodily pain I mean.”
“I am. I spent last night on these stones praying, and the cold has got into my very bones.”
“Yon pray for the dead, I know,” said Charles. “But why destroy the health God has given you because a good man has gone to sleep?”
“I was not praying for him so much as for you.”
“God knows I want it, dear Cuthbert. But can you benefit me by killing yourself?”
“Who knows? I may try. How long is it since we were boys together, Charles?”
“How long? Let me see. Why, it is nineteen years at least since I can first remember you.”,
“I have been sarcastic and distant with you sometimes, Charles, but I have never been unkind.”
“Cuthbert! I never had an unkind word or action from you. Why do you say this?”
“Because Charles, do you remember the night he Warren Hastings came ashore?”
“Ay,” said Charles wonderingly.
“In future, when you call me to mind, will you try to think of me as I was then, not as I have been lately. We slept together, you remember, through the storm, and he sat on the bed. God has tried me very hard. Let us hope that heaven will be worth the winning. After this you will see me no more in private. Goodbye!” Charles thought he knew what he meant, and had expected it. He would not let him go for a time.
Father Mackworth Brings Lord Saltire to Bay, and what came of it.
Old James was to be buried side by side with his old master in the vault under the altar. The funeral was to be on the grandest scale, and all the Catholic gently of the neighbourhood, and most of the Protestant, were coming. Father Mackworth, it may be conceived, was very busy, and seldom alone. All day he and the two Tiernays were arranging and ordering. When thoroughly tired out, late at night, he would retire to his room and take a frugal supper (Mackworth was no glutton) and sit before the fire musing.
One night, towards the middle of the week, he was sitting thus before the fire when the door opened, and some one came in; thinking it was the servant, he did not look round; but, when the supposed servant came up to the fireplace and stood still, he cast his eyes suddenly up, and they fell upon the cadaverous face of Outhbert.
He looked deadly pale and wan as he stood with his face turned to the nickering fire, and Mackworth felt deep pity for him. He held an open letter towards Mackworth, and said —
“This is from Lord Saltire. He proposes to come here the night before the funeral and go away in Lord Segur’s carriage with Mm after it is over. Will you kindly see after his rooms, and so on? Here is the letter.”
“I will,” said Mackworth. “My dear boy, you look deadly ill.”
“I wish I were dead.”
“So do all who hope for heaven,” said Mackworth.
“Who would not look worn and ill with such a scene hanging over their heads?”
“Go away and avoid it.”
“Not I. A Ravenshoe is not a coward. Besides, I want to see him again. How cruel you have been! Why did you let him gain my heart? I have little enough to love.”
There was a long pause — so long that a bright-eyed little mouse ran out from the wainscot and watched. Both their eyes were bent on the fire, and Father Mackworth listened with painful intentness for what was to come.
“He shall speak first,” he thought, “How I wonder ”
At last Cuthbert spoke slowly, without raising his eyes —
“Will nothing induce you to forego your purpose?”
“How can I forego it, Cuthbert, with common honesty? I have foregone it long enough.”
“Listen now,” said Cuthbert unheedingly; “I have een reckoning up what I can afford, and I find that I can give you five thousand pounds down for that paper, and five thousand more in bills of six, eight, and twelve months. Will that content you?”
Father Mackworth would have given a finger to have answered promptly “No,” but he could not. The offer was so astounding, so unexpected, that he hesitated long enough to make Cuthbert look round, and say —
“Ten thousand pounds is a large sum of money, Father.”
It was, indeed; and Lord Saltire coming next week! Let us do the man justice; he acted with a certain amount of honour. When you have read this book to the end you will see that ten thousand pounds was only part of what was offered to him. He gave up it all because he would not lower himself in the eyes of Cuthbert, who had believed in him so long.
“I paused,” said he, “from astonishment, that a gentleman could have insulted me by such a proposition.”
“Your pause,” said Cuthbert, “arose from hesitation, not from astonishment. I saw your eyes blaze when I made you the offer. Think of ten thousand pounds. You might appear in the world as an English Roman Catholic of fortune. Good heavens! with your talent, you might aspire to the cardinal’s chair!”
“No, no, no!” said Mackworth, fiercely. “I did hesitate, and I have lied to you; but I hesitate no onger. I won’t haye the subject mentioned to me again, sir. What sort of a gentleman are you to come to men’s rooms in the dead of night,, with your father lying dead in the house, and tempt men to felony? I will not.”
“God knows,” said Cuthbert, as he passed out, “whether I have lost heaven by trying to save him.”
Mackworth heard the door close behind him, and then looked eagerly towards it. He heard Cuthbert’s footsteps die along the corridor, and then, rising up, he opened it and looked out. The corridor was empty. He walked hurriedly back to the fireplace.
“Shall I call him back?” he said. “It is not too late. Ten thousand pounds! A greater stake than I played for; and now, when it is at my feet, I am throwing it away. And for what? For honour, after I have acted the “(he could not say the word). “After I have gone so far. I must be a gentleman. A common rogue would have jumped at the offer. By heaven! there are some things better than money. If I were to take his offer he would know me for a rogue. And I love the lad. No, no! let the fool go to his prayers. I will keep the respect of one man at least.
“What a curious jumble and puzzle it all is, to be sure. Am I any worse than my neighbours? I have made a desperate attempt at power, for a name, and an ambition; and then, because the ball comes suddenly at my feet, from a quarter I did not expect, I dare not strike it because I fear the contempt of one single pair of eyes from which I have been used to receive nothing but love and reverence.
“Yet, he cannot trust me, as I thought he did, or he would not have made the offer to me. And then he made it in such a confident way that he must have thought I was going to accept it. That is strange. He has never rebelled lately. Am I throwing away substance for shadow? I have been bound to the Church body and soul from my boyhood, and I must go on. I have refused a cardinal’s chair this night. But who will ever know it?
“I must go about with my lord Saltire. I could go at him with more confidence if I had ten thousand pounds in the bank though, in case of a failure. I am less afraid of that terrible old heretic than I am of those great eyes of Cuthbert’s turned on me in scom. I have lived so long among gentlemen that I believe myself to be one. He knows, and he shall tell.
“And, if all fails, I have served the Church, and the Church shall serve me. What fools the best of us are! Why did I ever allow that straightforward idiot Tiernay into the house? He hates me, I know. I rather like the fool. He will take the younger one’s part on Monday; but I don’t think my gentleman will dare to say too much.”
After this soliloquy, the key to which will appear very shortly, Father Mackworth took off his clothes and got into bed.
The day before the funeral, Cuthbert sent a nies-sage to Charles, to beg that he would be kind enough to receive Lord Saltire; and, as the old man was expected at a certain hour, Charles, about ten minutes before the time, went down to the bottom of the hall-steps on to the terrace, to be ready for him when he came.
Oh the glorious wild freshness of the sea and sky-after the darkened house! The two old capes right and left; the mile-long stretch of sand between them; and the short crisp waves rolling in before the westerly wind of spring! Life and useful action in the rolling water; budding promise in the darkening woods; young love in every bird’s note!
William stood beside him before he had observed him. Charles turned to him, and took Iris arm in his.
“Look at this,” he said.
“I am looking at it.”
“Does it make you glad and wild?” said Charles. “Does it make the last week in the dark house look like twenty years? Are the two good souls which are gone looking at it now, and rejoicing that earth should still have some pleasure left for us?”
“I hope not,” said William, turning to Charles.
“And why?” said Charles, wondering rather what William would say.
“I wouldn’t,” said William, “have neither of their hearts broke with seeing what is to come.”
“Their hearts broke!” said Charles, turning full round on his foster-brother. “Let them see how we ehave under it, William. That will never break their hearts, my boy.”
“Charles,” said William, earnestly, “do you know what is coming?”
“No; nor care.”
“It is something terrible for you, I fear,” said William.
“Have you any idea what it is?” said Charles.
“Not the least. But look here. Last night, near twelve, I went down to the chapel, thinking to say an ave before the coffin, and there lay Master Cuthbert on the stones. So I kept quiet and said my prayer. And of a sudden he burst out and said, ' I have risked my soul and my fortune to save him: Lord, remember it!’”
“Did he say that, William?”
“The very words.”
“Then he could not have been speaking of me,” said Charles. “It is possible that by some means I may not come into the property I have been led to expect; but that could not have referred to me. Suppose I was to leave the house, penniless, tomorrow morning, William, should I go alone? I am very strong, and very patient, and soon learn anything. Cuthbert would take care of me. Would you come with me, or let me go alone?”
“You know. Why should I answer?”
“We might go to Canada and settle. And then Adelaide would come over when the house was ready; and you would marry the girl of your choice; and our boys would grow up to be such friends as you and I re. And then my boy should many your girl, and ”
Poor, dreaming Charles, all unprepared for what was to come!
A carriage drove on to the terrace at this moment, with Lord Saltire’s solemn servant on the box.
Charles and William assisted Lord Saltire to alight. His lordship said that he was getting devilish stiff and old, and had been confoundedly cut up by his old friend’s death, and had felt bound to come down to show Iris respect to the memory of one of the best and honestest men it had ever been his lot to meet in a tolerably large experience. And then, standing on the steps, went on —
“It is very pleasant to me to be greeted by a face I like as yours, Charles. I was gratified at seeing your name in the Times as being one of the winners of that great boat-race — the other clay. My man pointed it out to me. That sort of thing is very honourable to a young fellow, if it does not lead to a neglect of other duties, in which case it becomes very mischievous; in yours it has not. That young man is, I believe, your foster-brother. Will he be good enough to go and find Miss Corby, and tell her that Lord Saltire wants her to come and walk with him on the terrace? Give me your shoulder.” William ran right willingly on his errand.
“Your position here, Charles,” continued Lord Saltire, “will be a difficult one.”
“It will, indeed, my Lord.”
“I intend you to spend most of your time with me in future. I want some one to take care of me. In ret urn for boring you all day, I shall get you the run of all the best houses, and make a man of you. Hush! not a word now! Here conies our Robin Redbreast I am glad I have tempted her out into the air and the sunshine. How peaked you look, my dear! How are you?”
Poor Mary looked pale and wan, indeed, but brightened up at the sight of her old friend. They three walked and talked in the fresh spring morning an hour or more.
That afternoon came a servant to Lord Saltire with a note from Father Mackworth, requesting the honour of ten minutes’ conversation with Lord Saltire in private.
“I suppose I must see the fellow,”’ said the old man to himself.
“My compliments to Mr. Mackworth, and I am alone in the library. The fool,” continued he, when the man had left the room, “why doesn’t he let well alone? I hate the fellow. I believe he is as treacherous as his mother. If he broaches the subject, he shall have the whole truth.”
Meanwhile, Father Mackworth was advancing towards him through the dark corridors, and walking slower, and yet more slow, as he neared the room where sat the grim old man. He knew that there would be a fencing match; and of all the men in broad England he feared his lordship most. His determination held, however; though, up to the very last, he had almost determined to speak only about comparatively indifferent subjects, and not about that nearest to his heart.
“How do you do, my good sir?” said Lord Saltire, as he came in; “I have to condole with you on the loss of our dear old friend. We shall neither of us ever have a better one, sir.”
Mackworth uttered some commonplaces; to which Lord Saltire bowed, without speaking, and then sat with his elbows on the arms of his chair, making a triangle of his two fore fingers and thumbs, staring at Father Mackworth.
“I am going, Lord Saltire, to trouble you with some of my early reminiscences as a boy.”
Lord Saltire bowed, and settled himself easily in his chair, as one does who expects a good story. Mackworth went on —
“One of my earliest recollections, my lord, is of being at a French lycee.”
“The fault of those establishments,” said Lord Saltire, pensively, “is the great range of subjects which are superficially taught. I ask pardon for interrupting you. Do you take snuff?”
Mackworth declined, with great politeness, and continued —
“I was taken to that school by a footman in livery.”
“Upon my honour, then, I owe you an apology. I thought, of course, that the butler had gone with you. But, in a large house, one never really knows what one’s people are about.”
Father Mackworth did not exactly like this. It was perfectly evident to him, not only that Lord Saltire knew all about his birth and parentage, but also was willing to tell.
“Lord Saltire,” he said, "I have never had a parent’s care, or any name but one I believe to be fictitious. You can give me a name — give me, perhaps, a parent — possibly, a brother. Will you do this for me?”
“I can do neither the one thing nor the other, my good sir. I entreat you, for your own sake, to inquire no further.”
There was a troubled expression in the old man’s face as he answered. Mackworth thought he was gaining his point, and pressed on.
“Lord Saltire, as you are a gentleman, tell me who my parents were; ” and, as he said this, he rose up and stood before him, folding his arms.
“Confound the impudent, theatrical jackanapes!” thought Lord Saltire. “His mother all over . I will gratify your curiosity, sir,” he said aloud, angrily. “You are the illegitimate son of a French ballet-dancer!”
“But who was my father, my lord? Answer me that, on your honour;’
“Who was your father? Pardieu, that is far more than I can tell. If any one ever knew, it must have been your mother. You are assuming a tone with me, sir, which I don’t intend to put up with. I wished to spare you a certain amount of humiliation. I shall not trouble myself to do so now, for many reasons. Now isten to ine, sir — to the man who saved you from the kennel, sir — and drop that theatrical attitude. Your mother was my brother’s mistress, and a clever woman in her way; and meeting her here and there, in the green-room and where not, and going sometimes to her house with my brother, I had a sort of acquaintance with her, and liked her as one likes a clever brilliant woman of that sort. My brother died. Some time after your mother fell into poverty and disgrace under circumstances into which I should advise you not to inquire, and on her death-bed recommended you to my care as an old acquaintance, praying that. you might be brought up in her own religion. The request was, under the circumstances, almost impudent; but, remembering that I had once liked the woman, and calling to mind the relation she had held towards poor dear John, I complied, and did for you what I have done. You were a little over a twelvemonth old at the time of your mother’s death, and my brother had been dead nearly or quite five years. Your mother had changed her protector thrice during that time. Now, sir!”
Mack worth stood before Lord Saltire all this time as firm as a rock. He had seen from the old man’s eye that every word was terribly true, but he had never flinched — never a nerve in his face had quivered; but he had grown deadly pale. “When Lord Saltire had finished he tried to speak, but found his mouth as dry as dust. He smiled, and, with a bow, reaching past Lord Saltire, took up a glass of lemonade which stood at his elbow and drank it. Then he spoke clearly and well.
“Yon see how you have upset me, my lord. In seeking this interview I had some hopes of having forced a confession from your lordship of my relationship with you, and thereby serving my personal ambition. I have failed. It now remains to me to thank you heartily and frankly for the benefits I have received from you, and to beg you to forgive my indiscretion.”
“You are a brave man, sir,” said Lord Saltire. "I don’t think you are an honest one. But I can respect manliness.”
“You have a great affection for Charles Ravenshoe, my lord.”
“Yes,” said Lord Saltire; “I love Charles Ravenshoe more than any other human being.”
“Perhaps the time may come, my lord, when he will need all your love and protection.”
“Highly possible. I am in possession of the tenor of his father’s will; and those who try to set that will aside, unless they have a very strong case, had better consider that Charles is backed up by an amount of ready money sufficient to ruin the Ravenshoe estate in law.
“No attempt of the kind will be made, my lord. But I very much doubt whether your lordship will continue your protection to that young man. I wish you good afternoon.”
“That fellow,” said Lord Saltire, “has got a card to play which I don’t know of. What matter? I can adopt Charles, and he may defy them. I wish I could give him my title; but that will be extinct, I am glad little Mary is going to Lady Hainault. It will be the best place for her till she marries. I wish that fool of a boy had fallen in love with her. But he wouldn’t.”
Mackworth hurried away to his room; and, as he went, he said, “I have been a fool. A fool. I should have taken Cuthbert’s offer. None but a fool would have done otherwise. A cardinal’s chair thrown to the dogs!”
“I could not do it this morning; but I can do it now. The son of a figurante, and without a father. Perhaps he will offer it again.”
“If he does not, there is one thing certain. That young ruffian Charles is ruined. All, ah! my lord Saltire, I have you there. I should like to see that old man’s face when I play my last card. It will be a finer sight than Charles’s. You’ll make him your heir, will you, my lord? Will you make him your groom? “,
He went to his desk, took out an envelope, and looked at it. He looked at it long, and then put it back. “It will never do to tempt him with it. If he were to refuse his offer of this morning, I should be ruined. Much better to wait and play out the ace boldly. I can keep my hold over him; and William is mine, body and soul, if he dies.”
With which reflections the good Father dressed for dinner.
The funeral was over. Charles had waited with poor weeping Mary to see the coffin carried away tinder the dark grim archway of the vault, and had tried to comfort her who would not be comforted. And, when the last wild wail of the organ had died away, and all the dark figures but they two had withdrawn from the chapel, there stood those two poor orphans alone together.
It was all over, and they began for the first time to realize it; they began to feel what they lost. King Densil was dead and King Cuthbert reigned. When a prime minister dies the world is shaken; when a county member dies the county is agitated, and the opposition electors, till lately insignificant, rise suddenly into importance, and the possible new members are suddenly great men. So, when a mere country gentleman dies, the head of a great family dies, relations are changed entirely between some score or so of persons. The dog of today is not the dog of yesterday. Servants are agitated, and remember themselves of old impertinences, and tremble. Farmers wonder what the new Squire’s first move will be. Perhaps, even the old hound wonders whether he is to keep his old place by the fire or no, and younger brothers bite their nails and wonder too, about many things.
Charles wondered profoundly in his own room that afternoon, whither he retired after having dismissed Mary at her door with a kiss. In spite of his grief he wondered what was coming, and tried to persuade himself that he didn’t care. From this state of mind he was aroused by William, who told him that Lord Segur was going and Lord Saltire with him, and that the latter wanted to speak to him.
Lord Saltire had his foot on the step of the carriage. “Charles, my dear boy,” he said, “the moment things are settled come to me at Segur Castle. Lord Segur wants you to come and stay there while I am there.”
Lord Segur from the carriage hoped Charles would come and see them at once.
“And mind, you know,” said Lord Saltire, “that you don’t do anything without consulting me. Let the little bird pack off to Lady Ascot’s and help to blow up the grooms. Don’t let her stay moping here. Now, goodbye, my dear boy. I shall see you in a day or so.”
And so the old man was gone. And, as Charles watched the carriage, he saw the sleek grey head thrast from the window and the great white hand waved to him. He never forgot that glimpse of the grey head and the white hand, and he never will.
A servant came up to him, and asked him, Would he see Mr. Ravenshoe in the library? Charles answered Yes, but was in no hurry to go. So he stood a little longer on the terrace, watching the bright sea, and the gulls, and the distant island. Then he turned into the arkened house again, and walked slowly towards the library door.
Some one else stood in the passage — it was William, with his hand on the handle of the door.
“I waited for you, Master Charles,” he said; “they have sent for me too. Now you will hear something to your advantage.
“I care not,” said Charles, and they went in.
Once, in lands far away, there was a sailor lad, a good-humoured, good-looking, thoughtless fellow, who lived alongside of me, and with whom I was always joking. We had a great liking for one another. I left him at the shaft’s mouth at two o’clock one summer’s day, roaring with laughter at a story I had told him; and at half-past five I was helping to wind up the shattered corpse, which when alive had borne his name. A flake of gravel had come down from the roof of the drive and killed him, and his laughing and story-telling were over for ever. How terrible these true stories are! Why do I tell this one? Because, whenever I think of this poor lad’s death, I find myself not thinking of the ghastly thing that came swinging up out of the darkness into the summer air, but of the poor fellow as he was the morning before. I try to think how he looked, as leaning against the windlass with the forest behind and the mountains beyond, and if, in word or look, he gave any sign of his coming fate before he went gaily down into his tomb.
So it was with Charles Ravenshoe. He remembers art of the scene that followed perfectly well; but he tries more than all to recall how Cuthbert looked, and how Mackworth looked before the terrible words were spoken. After it was all over he remembers, he tells me, every trifling incident well. But his memory is a little gone about the first few minutes which elapsed after ‘he and William came into the room. He says that Cuthbert was sitting at the table very pale, with his hands clasped on . the table before him, looking steadily at him without expression on his face; and that Mackworth leant against the chimney-piece, and looked keenly and curiously at him.
Charles went up silently and kissed his brother on the forehead. Cuthbert neither moved nor spoke. Charles greeted Mackworth civilly, and then leant against the chimney-piece by the side of him, and said what a glorious day it was. William stood at a little distance, looking uneasily from one to another.
Cuthbert broke silence. “I sent for you,” he said.
“I am glad to come to you, Cuthbert, though I think you sent for me on business, which I am not very well up to today.”
“On business,” said Cuthbert; “business which must be gone through with today, though I expect it will kill me.”
Charles, by some instinct (who knows what ( it was Dothing reasonable, he says) moved rapidly towards William, and laid his hand on his shoulder. I take it that it arose from that curious gregarious feeling that en have in times of terror. He could not have done better than to move towards his truest friend, whatever it was.
“I should like to prepare you for what is to come,” continued Cuthbert, speaking calmly, with the most curious distinctness; “but that would be useless. The blow would be equally severe whether you expect it or not. You two who stand there were nursed at the same breast. That groom, on whose shoulder you have your hand now, is my real brother. You are no relation to me; you are the son of the faithful old servant whom we buried today with my father.”
Charles said, Ho! like a great sigh. William put his arm round him, and, raising his finger, and looking inta his face with his calm honest eyes, said with a smile —
“This was it, then. We know it all now.”
Charles burst out into a wild laugh, and said, “Father Mackworth’s ace of trumps! He has inherited a talent for melodrama from his blessed mother. Stop. I beg your pardon, sir, for saying that; I said it in a hurry. It was blackguardly. Let’s have the proofs of this, and all that sort of thing, and witnesses too, if you please. Father Mackworth, there have been such things as prosecutions for conspiracy. I have Lord Saltire and Lord Ascot at my back. You have made a desperate cast, sir. My astonishment is that you have allowed your hatred for me to outrun your discretion so far. This matter will cost some money before it is settled.”
Father Mackworth smiled, and Charles passed him, and rang the bell. Then he went back to William and took his arm.
“Fetch the Fathers Tiernay here immediately,” said Charles to the servant who answered the bell
In a few minutes the worthy priests were in the room. The group was not altered. Father Mackworth still leant against the mantelpiece, Charles and William stood together, and Cuthbert sat pale and calm with his hands clasped together.
Father Tiernay looked at the disturbed group and became uneasy. “Would it not be better to defer the settlement of any family disagreements to another day? On such a solemn occasion ”
“The ice is broken, Father Tiernay,” said Charles. “Cuthbert, tell him what you have told me.”
Cuthbert, clasping his hands together, did so, in a low, quiet voice.
“There,” said Charles, turning to Father Tiernay, “what do you think of that? M
“I am so astounded and shocked that I don’t know what to say,” said Father Tiernay; “your mind must be abused, my dear sir. The likeness between yourself and Mr. Charles is so great that I cannot believe it. Mackworth, what have you to say to this?”
“Look at William, who is standing beside Charles,” said the priest, quietly, “and tell me which of those two is most like Cuthbert.”
“Charles and William are very much alike, certainly,” said Tiernay; but —
“Do you remember James Horton, Tiernay?” said Mackworth.
“Surely.”
“Did you ever notice the likeness between him and Densil Pavenshoe?”
“I have noticed it, certainly; especially one night. One night I went to his cottage last autuma Yes — well?”
“James Horton was Densil Ravenshoe’s half-brother. He was the illegitimate son of Petre.”
“Good God!”
“And the man whom you call Charles Ravenshoe, whom I call Charles Horton, is his son.”
Charles was looking eagerly from one to the other, bewildered.
“Ask him, Father Tiernay,” he said, “what proofs he has. Perhaps he will tell us.”
“You hear what Mr. Charles says, Mackworth. I address you because you have spoken last. You must surely have strong proofs for such an astounding statement.”
“I have his mother’s handwriting,” said Father Mack worth.
“My mother’s, sir,” said Charles, flushing up, and advancing a pace towards him.
“You forget who your mother was,” said Mackworth.
“Your mother was Norah, James Horton’s wife. She confessed the wicked fraud she practised to me, and has committed that confession to paper. I hold it. You have not a point of ground to stand on. Fifty Lord Saltires could not help you one jot. You must submit. You have been living in luxury and receiving an expensive education when you should have been cleaning out the stable. So far from being overwhelmed by this, you should consider how terribly the balance is against you.”
He spoke with such awful convincing calmness that Charles’s heart died away within him. He knew the man.
“Cuthbert,” he said, “you are a gentleman. Is this true?”
“God knows how terribly true it is,” said Cuthbert, quietly. Then there was a silence, broken by Charles in a strange thick voice, the like of which none there had heard before.
“I want to sit down somewhere. I want some drink.
Will, my own boy, take this d — d thing from round my neck! I can’t see; where is there a chair! Oh, God!”
He fell heavily against William, looking deadly white, without sense or power. And Cuthbert looked up at the priest, and said, in a low voice —
“You have killed him.”
Little by little he came round again, and rose on his feet, looking round him as a buck or stag looks when run to soil, and is watching to see which dog will come, ith a piteous wild look, despairing and yet defiant. There was a dead silence.
“Are we to be allowed to see this paper?” said Charles, at length.
Father Mackworth immediately handed it to him, and he read it. It was completely conclusive. He saw that there was not a loophole to creep out of. The two Tiernays read it, and shook their heads. William read it and turned pale. And then they all stood staring blankly at one another.
“You see, sir,” said Father Mackworth, “that there are two courses open to you. Either on the one hand, to acquiesce in the truth of this paper; or, on the other, to accuse me in a court of justice of conspiracy and fraud. If you were to be successful in the latter course, I should be transported out of your way, and the matter would end so. But any practical man would tell you, and you would see in your calmer moments, that no lawyer would undertake your case. What say you, Father Tiernay?”
“I cannot see what case he has, poor dear,” said Father Tiernay. “Mackworth,” he added, suddenly.
Father Mackworth met his eye with a steady stare, and Tiernay saw there was no hope of explanation there.
“On the other hand,” continued Father Mackworth, “if this new state of things, is quietly submitted to (as it must be ultimately, whether quietly or otherwise you ourself will decide), I am authorized to say that the very handsomest provision will be made for you, and that, to all intents and purposes, your prospects in the world will not suffer in the least degree. I am right in saying so, I believe, Mr. Ravenshoe?”
“You are perfectly right, sir,” said Cuthbert, in a quiet, passionless voice. “My intention is to make a provision of three hundred a year for this gentleman, whom, till the last few days, I believed to be my brother. Less than four and twenty hours ago, Charles, I offered Father Mackworth ten thousand pounds for this paper, with a view to destroy it. I would, for your sake, Charles, have committed an act of villany which would have entailed a life’s remorse, and have robbed William, my own brother, of his succession. You see what a poor weak rogue I am, and what a criminal I might become with a little temptation. Father Mackworth did his duty, and refused me. I tell you this to show you that he is, at all events, sincere enough in his conviction of the truth of tins.”
“You acted like yourself, Cuthbert. Like one who would risk body and soul for one you loved.”
He paused; but they waited for him to speak again. And very calmly, in a very low voice, he continued —
“It is time that this scene should end. No one’s interest will be served by continuing it. I want to say a very few words, and I want them to be considered as the words, as it were, of a dying man; for no one here resent will see me again till the day when I come back to claim a right to the name I have been bearing so long — and that day will be never.”
Another pause. He moistened his lips, which were dry and cracked, and then went on —
“Here is the paper, Father Mackworth; and may the Lord of Heaven be judge between us if that paper be not true 1 ”
Father Mackworth took it, and, looking him steadily in the face, repeated his words, and Charles’s heart sank lower yet as he watched him, and felt that hope was dead.
“May the Lord of Heaven be judge between us two, Charles, if that paper be not true! Amen.”
“I utterly refuse,” Charles continued, "the assistance which Mr. Ravenshoe has so nobly offered. I go forth alone into the world to make my own way, or to be forgotten. Cuthbert and William, you will be sorry for a time, but not for long. You will think of me sometimes of dark winter nights when the wind blows, won’t you? I shall never write to you, and shall never return here any more. Worse things than this have happened to men, and they have not died.”
All this was said with perfect self-possession, and without a failure in the voice. It was magnificent despair. Father Tiernay, looking at William’s face, saw there a sort of sarcastic smile, which puzzled him amazingly.
“I had better,” said Charles, “make my will. I should like William to ride my horse Monte. He has thrown a curb, sir, as you know,” he said, turning to William; “but he will serve you well, and I know you will be gentle with him.”
William gave a short, dry laugh.
“I should have liked to take my terrier away with me, but I think I had better not. I want to have nothing with me to remind me of this place. My greyhound and the pointers I know you will take care of. It would please me to think that William had moved into my room, and had taken possession of all my guns, and fishing-rods, and so on. There is a double-barrelled gun left at Venables’, in St. Aldate’s, at Oxford, for repairs. It ought to be fetched away.”
“Now, sir,” he said, turning to Cuthbert, ° I should like to say a few words about money matters. I owe about 150?. at Oxford. It was a great deal more at one time, but I have been more careful lately. I have the bills upstairs. If that could be paid ”
“To the utmost farthing, my dear Charles,” said Cuthbert; “but ”
“Hush!” said Charles, “I have five and twenty pounds by me. May I keep that?”
“I will write you a check for five hundred. I shall move your resolution, Charles,” said Cuthbert.
“Never, so help me God!” said Charles; “it only remains to say goodbye. I leave this room without a ard thought towards any one in it. I am at peace with all the world. Father Mackworth, I beg your forgiveness. I have been often rude and brutal to you. I suppose that you always meant kindly to me. Goodbye.”
He shook hands with Mackworth, then with the Tiernays; then he offered his hand to William, who took it smiling; and, lastly, he went up to Cuthbert, and kissed him on the cheek, and then walked out of the door into the hall.
William, as he was going, turned as though to speak-to Cuthbert, but Cuthbert had risen, and he paused a moment.
Cuthbert had risen, and stood looking wildly about him, then he said, “Oh, my God, he is gone!” And then he broke through them, and ran out into the hall, crying, “Charles, Charles, come back. Only one more word, Charles.” And then they saw Charles pause, and Cuthbert kneel down before him, calling him his own dear brother, and saying he would die for him. And then Father Tiernay hastily shut the library door, and left those two wild hearts out in the old hall together alone.
Father Tiernay came back to William, and took both his hands. “What are you going to do?” he said.
“I am going to follow him wherever he goes,” said William. “I am never going to leave him again. If he goes to the world’s end, I will be with him.”
“Brave fellow!” said Tiernay. “If he goes from here, and is lost sight of, we may never see him again. If you go with him, you may change his resolution.”
“That I shall never do,” said William; “I know him too well. But I’ll save him from what I am frightened to think of. I will go to him now. I shall see you again directly; but I must go to him.”
He passed out into the hall. Cuthbert was standing alone, and Charles was gone.
In the long watches of the winter night, when one has awoke from some evil dream, and lies sleepless and terrified mth the solemn pall of darkness around one — on one of those deadly, still dark nights, when the window only shows a murky patch of positive gloom in contrast with the nothingness of the walls, when the howling of a tempest round chimney and roof would be welcomed as a boisterous companion — in such still dead times only, lying as in the silence of the tomb, one realizes that some day we shall lie in that bed and not think at all: that the time will come soon when we must die.
Our preachers remind us of this often enough, but we cannot realize it in a pew in broad daylight. You must wake in the middle of the night to do that, and face the thought like a man, that it will come, and pome to inety-nine in a hundred of us, not in a maddening clatter of musquetry as the day is won; or in carrying a line to a stranded ship, or in such like glorious times, when the soul is in mastery over the body, but in bed, by slow degrees. It is in darkness and silence only that we realize this; and then let us hope that we humbly remember that death has been conquered for us, and that in spite of our unworthiness we may defy him. And after that sometimes will come the thought, “Are there no evils worse even than death?”
I have made these few remarks (I have made very few in this story, for I want to suggest thought, not to supply it ready-made) because Charles Ravenshoe has said to me in his wild way, that he did not fear death, for he had died once already.
I did not say anything, but waited for him to go on.
“For what,” he continued, “do you make out death even at the worst? A terror, then a pang, more or less severe; then a total severance of all ties on earth, an entire and permanent loss of everything one has loved. After that remorse, and useless regret, and the horrible torture of missed opportunities without number thrust continually before one. The monotonous song of the fiends, ‘Too late! too late!’ I have suffered all these things! I have known what very few men have known and lived — despair; but perhaps the most terrible agony for a time was the feeling of loss of identity — that I was not myself; that my whole existence from babyhood had been a lie. This at times, at times only, mind you, washed away from me the only spar to which I could cling — the feeling that I was a gentleman. When the deluge came, that was the only creed I had, and I was left alone as it were on the midnight ocean, out of sight of land, swimming with failing strength.”
I have made Charles speak for himself In this I know that I am right. Now we must go on with him through the gathering darkness without flinching; in terror, perhaps, but not in despair as yet.
It never for one moment entered into his head to doubt the truth of what Father [Mackworth had set up. If he had had doubts even to the last, he had none after Mackworth had looked him compassionately in the face, and said, “God judge between us if this paper be not true I “Though he distrusted Mackworth, he felt that no man, be he never so profound an actor, could have looked so and spoken so if he were not telling what he believed to be the truth. And that he and Norah were mistaken he justly felt to be an impossibility. ‘No. He was the child of Petre Ravenshoe’s bastard son by an Irish peasant girl. He who but half an hour before had been heir to the proud old name, to the noble old house, the pride of the west country, to hundreds of acres of rolling woodland, to mile beyond mile of sweeping moorland, to twenty thriving farms, deep in happy valleys, or perched high up on the side of lofty downs, was now just this — a peasant, an impostor.
The tenantry, the fishermeu, the servants, they ould come to know all this. Had he died (ah! how much better than this), they would have mourned for him, but what would they say or think now? That he, the patron, the intercessor, the condescending young prince, should be the child of a waiting woman and a gamekeeper. Ah! mother, mother, God forgive you!
Adelaide: what would she think of this? He determined that he must go and see her, and tell her the whole miserable story. She was ambitious, but she loved him. Oh yes, she loved him. She could wait. There were lands beyond the sea, where a man could win a fortune in a few years, perhaps in one. There were Canada, and Australia, and India, where a man needed nothing but energy. He never would take one farthing from the Ravenshoes, save the twenty pounds he had. That was a determination nothing could alter. But why need he? There was gold to be won, and forest to be cleared, in happier lands.
Alas, poor Charles! He has never yet set foot out of England, and perhaps never will. He never thought seriously about it but this once. He never had it put before him strongly by any one. Men only emigrate from idleness, restlessness, or necessity; with the two first of these he was not troubled, and the last had not come yet. It would, perhaps, have been better for him to have gone to the backwoods or the diggings; but, as he says, the reason why he didn’t was that he didn’t. But at this sad crisis of his life it gave him comfort for little to think about; only for a little, then thought and terror came sweeping back again.
Lord Saltire? He would be told of this by others. It would be Charles’s duty not to see Lord Saltire again. With his present position in society, as a servant’s son, there was nothing to prevent his asking Lord Saltire to provide for him, except — what was it? Pride? Well, hardly pride. He was humble enough, God knows; but he felt as if he had gained his goodwill, as it were, by false pretences, and that duty would forbid his presuming on that goodwill any longer. And vs’onld Lord Saltire be the same to a lady’s-maid’s son, as he would to the heir-presumptive of Ravenshoe? No; there must be no humiliation before those stern grey eyes. Now he — began to see that he loved the owner of those eyes more deeply than he had thought; and there was a gleam of pleasure in thinking that, when Lord Saltire heard of his fighting bravely unassisted with the world, he would say, “That lad was a brave fellow; a gentleman after all.”
Marston? Would this terrible business, which was so new and terrible as to be as yet only half appreciated — would it make any difference to him? Perhaps it might. But, whether or no, he would humble himself there, and take from him just reproaches for idleness and missed opportunities, however bitter they might be.
And Mary? Poor little Mary! Ah! she would be safe with that good Lady Hainault. That was all. Ah, Charles 1 what pale little sprite was that outside your oor now, listening, dry-eyed, terrified, till you should move? Who saw you come up with your hands clutched in your hair, like a madman, an hour ago, and heard you throw yourself upon the floor, and has waited patiently ever since to see if she could comfort you, were it never so little? All, Charles! Foolish fellow!
Thinking, thinking — now with anger, now with tears, and now with terror — till his head was hot and his hands dry, his thoughts began to run into one channel. He saw that action was necessary, and he came to a great and noble resolution, worthy of himself. All the world was on one side, and he alone on the other. He would meet the world humbly and bravely, and conquer it. He would begin at the beginning, and find his own value in the world, and then, if he found himself worthy, would claim once more the love and respect of those who had been his friends hitherto.
How he would begin he knew not, nor cared, but it must be from the beginning. And, when he had come to this resolution, he rose up and faced the light of day once more.
There was a still figure sitting in his chair, watching him. It was William.
“William! How long have you been here?”
“Nigh on an hour. I came in just after you, and you have been lying on the hearthrug ever since, moaning.”
“An hour? Is it only an hour?”
“A short hour.”
“It seemed like a year. Why, it is not dark yet. The sun still shines does it?”
He went to the window and looked out. “Spring,” he said, “early spring. Fifty more of them between me and rest most likely. Do I look older, William?”
“You look pale and wild, but not older. I am mazed and stunned. I want you to look like yourself and help me, Charles. We must get away together out of this house.”
“You must stay here, William; you are heir to the name and the house. You must stay here and learn your duty; I must go forth and dree my weary weird alone.”
“You must go forth, I know; but I must go with you.”
“William, that is impossible.”
“To the world’s end, Charles; I swear it by the holy Mother of God.”
“Hush! You don’t know what you are sajing. Think of your duties.”
“I know my duty. My duty is with you.”
“William, look at the matter in another point of view. Will Cuthbert let you come with me?”
“I don’t care. I am coming.”
William was sitting where he had been in Charles’s chair, and Charles was standing beside him. If William had been looking at Charles, he would have seen a troubled thoughtful expression on his face for one moment, followed by a sudden look of determination. He laid his hand on William’s shoulder, and said, —
“We must talk this over again. I must go to Ranford and see Adelaide at once, before this news gets there from other mouths. Will you meet me at the old hotel in Covent Garden, four days from this time?”
“Why there?” said William. “Why not at Henley?”
“Why not at London, rather?” replied Charles. “I must go to London. I mean to go to London. I don’t want to delay about Ranford. No; say London.”
William looked in his face for a moment, and then said, —
“I’d rather travel with you. You can leave me at Wargrave, which is only just over the water from Ranford, or at Didcot, while you go on to Ranford. You must let me do that, Charles.”
“We will do that, William, if you like.”
“Yes, yes!” said William. “It must be so. Now you must come downstairs.”
“Why?”
“To eat. Dinner is ready. I am going to tea in the servants’ hall.”
“Will Mary be at dinner, William?”
“Of course she will.”
“Will you let me go for the last time? I should like to see the dear little face again. Only this once.”
“Charles! Don’t talk like that. All that this house contains is yours, and will be as long as Cuthbert and I re here. Of course you must go. This must not get out for a long while yet — we must keep up appearances.”
So Charles went down into the drawingroom. It was nearly dark; and at first he thought there was no one there, but, as he advanced towards the fireplace, he made out a tall, dark figure, and saw that it was Mackworth.
“I am come, sir,” he said, “to dinner in the old room for the last time for ever.”
“God forbid!” said Mackworth. “Sir, you have behaved like a brave man today, and I earnestly hope that, as long as I stay in this house, you will be its honoured guest. It would be simply nonsensical to make any excuses to you for the part I have taken. Even if you had not systematically opposed your interest to mine in this house, I had no other course open. You must see that.”
“I believe I owe you my thanks for your forbearance so long,” said Charles; “though that was for the sake of my father more than myself. Will you tell me, sir, now we are alone, how long have you known this?”
“Nearly eighteen months,” said Father Mackworth promptly.
Mackworth was not an ill-natured man when he was not opposed, and, being a brave man himself, could well appreciate bravery in others. He had knowledge enough of men to know that the revelation of today had been a bitter blow to a passionate, sensitive man like Charles, as he could well endure and live. And he new that Charles distrusted him, and that all out-of-the-way expressions of condolence would be thrown away; and so, departing from his usual rule of conduct, he spoke for once in a way naturally and sincerely, and said: “I am very, very sorry. I would have done much to avoid this.”
Then Mary came in and the Tiernays. Cuthbert did not come down. There was a long, dull dinner, at which Charles forced himself to eat, having a resolution before him. Mary sat scared at the head of the table, and scarcely spoke a word, and, when she rose to go into the drawingroom again, Charles followed her.
She saw that he was coming, and waited for him in the hall. When he shut the dining-room door after him she ran back, and, putting her two hands on his shoulders, said, —
“Charles! Charles! what is the matter?”
“Nothing, dear; only I have lost my fortune; I am penniless.”
“Is it all gone, Charles?”
“All. You will hear how, soon. I just came out to wish my bird goodbye. I am going to London tomorrow.”
“Can’t you come and talk to me, Charles, a little?”
“No; not tonight. Not tonight.”
“You will come and see me at Lady Hainault’s in town, Charles?”
“Yes, my love; yes.”
“Won’t you tell me any more, Charles?”
“No more, my robin. It is goodbye. You will hear all about it soon enough.”
“Goodbye.”
A kiss, and he was gone up the old staircase towards his own room. When he gained the first landing, he turned and looked at her once more, standing alone in the centre of the old hall in the light of a solitary lamp. A lonely, beautiful little figure, with her arms drooping at her sides, and the quiet, dark eyes turned towards him, so lovingly! And there, in his ruin and desolation, he began to see, for the first time, what others, keener-eyed, had seen long ago. Something that might have been, but could not be now! And so, saying, “I must not see her again,” he went up to his own room, and shut the door on his misery.
Once again he was seen that night. William invaded the stillroom, and got some coffee, which he carried up to him. He found him packing his portmanteau, and he asked William to see to this and to that for him, if he should sleep too long. William made him sit down and take coffee and smoke a cigar, and sat on the footstool at his feet, before the fire, complaining of cold. They sat an hour or two, smoking, talking of old times, of horses and dogs, and birds and trout, as lads do, till Charles said he would go to bed, and William left him.
He had hardly got to the end of the passage, when Charles called him back, and he came.
“I want to look at you again,” said Charles; and he put his two hands on William’s shoulders, and looked at him again. Then he said, “Good night,” and went in.
“William went slowly away, and, passing to a lower story, came to the door of a room immediately over the main entrance, above the hall. This room was in the turret above the porch. It was Cuthbert’s room.
He knocked softly, and there was no answer; again, and louder. A voice cried querulously, “Come in,” and he opened the door.
Cuthbert was sitting before the fire with a lamp beside him and a book on his knee. He looked up and saw a groom before him, and said angrily, —
“I can give no orders tonight. I will not be disturbed tonight.”
“It’s me, sir,” said William.
Cuthbert rose at once. “Come here, brother,” he said, “and let me look at you. They told me just now that you were with our brother Charles.”
“I stayed with him till he went to bed, and then I came to you.”
“How is he?”
“Very quiet — too quiet.”
“Is he going away?”
“He is going in the morning.”
“You must go with him, William,” said Cuthbert, eagerly.
“I came to tell you that I must go with him, and to ask you for some money.”
“God bless you. Don’t leave him. Write to me every day. Watch and see what he is inclined to settle to, and then let me know. You must get some education too. You will get it with him as well as anywhere. He must be our first care.”
William said yes. He must be their first care. He had suffered a terrible wrong.
“We must get to be as brothers to one another, William,” said Cuthbert. “That will come in time. We have one great object in common — Charles; and that will bring us together. The time was, when I was a fool, that I thought of being a saint, without human affections. I am wiser now. People near death see many things which are hidden in health and youth.”
“Near death, Cuthbert!” said William, calling him so for the first time. “I shall live, please God, to take your children on my knee.”
“It is right that you should know, brother, that in a few short years you will be master of Ravenshoe. My heart is gone. I have had an attack tonight.”
“But people who are ill don’t always die,” said William. “Holy Virgin! you must not go and leave me all abroad in the world like a lost sheep.”
“I like to hear you speak like that, William. Two days ago, I was moving heaven and earth to rob you of your just inheritance.”
“I like you the better for that. Never think of that again. Does Mackworth know of your illness?”
“He knows everything.”
“If Charles had been a Catholic, would he have concealed this?”
“No; I think not. I offered him ten thousand pounds to hush it up.”
” I wish he had taken it. I don’t want to be a great man. I should have been far happier as it was. I was half a gentleman, and had everything I wanted. Shall you oppose my manying when Charles is settled?”
“You must marry, brother. I can never marry, and would not if I could. You must marry, certainly. The estate is a little involved; but we can soon bring it right. Till you marry, you must be contented with four hundred a year.”
William laughed. “I will be content and obedient enough, I warrant you. But, when I speak of marrying, I mean marrying my present sweetheart.”
Cuthbert looked up suddenly. ”I did not think of that. “Who is she?”
“Master Evan’s daughter, Jane.”
“A fisherman’s daughter,” said Cuthbert. “William, the mistress of Ravenshoe ought to be a lady.”
“The master of Ravenshoe ought to be a gentleman,” was William’s reply. “And, after your death (which I don’t believe in, mind you), he won’t be. The master of Ravenshoe then will be only a groom; and what sort of a fine lady would he buy with his money, think you? A woman who would despise him and be ashamed of him. No, by St. George and the dragon, I will marry my old sweetheart or be single!”
“Perhaps you are right, William,” said Cuthbert; “and, if you are not, I am not one who has a right to speak about it. Let us in future be honest and straightforward, and have no more miserable esclandres, in God’s name. What sort of girl is she?”
“She is handsome enough for a duchess, and she is very quiet and shy.”
“All the better. I shall offer not the slightest opposition. She had better know what is in store for her.”
“She shall; and the blessing of all the holy saints be on you! I must go now. I must be up at dawn.”
“Don’t go yet, William. Think of the long night that is before me. Sit mth me, and let me get used to your voice. Tell me about the horses, or an3rthuig — only don’t leave me alone yet.”
William sat down with him. They sat long and late. When at last William rose to go, Cuthbert said, —
“You will make a good landlord, William. You have been always a patient, faithful servant, and you will make a good master. Our people will get to love you better than ever they would have loved me. Cling to the old faith. It has served us well so many himdred years. It seems as if God willed that Ravenshoe should not pass from the hands of the faithful. And now, one thing more; I must see Charles before he goes. When you go to wake him in the morning, call me, and I will go with you. Good night!”
In the morning they went up together to wake him
His window was open, and the fresh spring air was blowing in. His books, his clothes, his guns, and rods, were piled about in their usual confusion. His dog was lying on the hearthrug, and stretched himself as he came to greet them. The dog had a glove at his feet, and they wondered at it. The curtains of his bed were drawn close. Cuthbert went softly to them and drew them aside. He was not there. The bed was smooth.
“Gone! gone!” cried Cuthbert. “I had feared it: Fly, William, for God’s sake, to Lord Ascot’s, to Ranford; catch him there, and never leave him again. Come and get some money and begone. You may be in time. If we should lose him after all — after all!”
William needed no second bidding. In an hour he was at Stonnington. Mr. Charles Ravenshoe had arrived there at daybreak, and had gone on in the coach which started at eight. William posted to Exeter, and at eight o’clock ia the evening saw Lady Ascot at Ranford. Charles Ravenshoe had been there that afternoon, but was gone. And then Lady Ascot, weeping wildly, told him such news as made him break from the room with an oath, and dash through the scared servants in the hall and out into the darkness, to try to overtake the carriage he had discharged, and reach London.
The morning before, Adelaide had eloped with Lord Welter.
When William left Charles in his room at Ravenshoe, the latter sat down in his chair and began thiriking.
The smart of the blow, which had fallen so heavily at first, had become less painful. He knew by intuition that it would be worse on the morrow, and on many morrows; but at present it was alleviated. He began to dread sleeping, for fear of the waking.
He dreaded the night and dreams; and, more than all, the morrow and the departure. He felt that he ought to see Cuthbert again, and he dreaded that. He dreaded the servants seeing him go. He had a horror of parting from all he had known so long, formally. It was natural It would be so much pain to all concerned; were it not better avoided? He thought of all these things, and tried to persuade himself that these were the reasons which made him do what he had as good as determined to do an hour or two before, what he had in his mind when he called William back in the corridor — to go nway alone, and hide and mope Like a wounded stag for a little time.
It was his instinct to do so. Perhaps it would have been the best thing for him. At all events, he determined on it, and packed up a portmanteau and carpet-bag, and then sat down again, waiting.
“Yes,” he said to himself, “it will be better to do this. I must get away from William, poor lad. He must not follow my fortunes, for many reasons.”
His dog had been watching him, looking, with his bright loving eyes, first at him and then at his baggage, wondering what journey they were going on now. When Charles had done packing, and had sat down again in his chair before the fire, the dog leapt up in his lap unbidden, and laid his head upon his breast
“Grip, Grip!” said Charles, “I am going away to leave you for ever, Grip. Dogs don’t live so long as men, my boy; you will be quietly under the turf and at rest, when I shall have forty long years more to go through with.”
The dog wagged his tail, and pawed his waistcoat He wanted some biscuit. Charles got him some, and then went on talking.
“I am going to London, old dog. I am going to see what the world is like. I sha’n’t come back before you are dead. Grip, I expect. I have got to win money and a name for the sake of one who is worth “svinning it for. Very likely I shall go abroad, to the land where the stuff comes from they make sovereigns of, and try my luck at getting some of the yellow rubbish. And she will wait in the old house at Ranford.”
He paused here. The thought came upon him, “Would it not be more honourable to absolve Adelaide rom her engagement? Was he acting generously iu demanding of her to waste the best part of her life in waiting till a mined man had won fortune and means?”
The answer came. “She loves me. If I can wait why not she?”
“I have wronged her by such a thought, Grip. Haven’t I, my boy?” — and so on. I needn’t continue telling you the nonsense Charles talked to his dog. Men will talk nonsense to their dogs and friends when they are in love; and such nonsense is but poor reading at any time. To us who know what had happened, and how worthless and false Adelaide was, it would be merely painful and humiliating to hear any more of it. I only gave you so much to show you how completely Charles was in the dark, poor fool, with regard to Adelaide’s character, and to render less surprising the folly of his behaviour after he heard the news at Ranford.
Charles judged eyevy one by his own standard She had told him that she loved him; and perhaps she did, for a time. He believed her. As for vanity, selfishness, fickleness, calculation, coming in and conquering love, he knew it was impossible in his own case, and so he conceived it impossible in hers. I think I have been very careful to impress on you that Charles was not wise. At all events, if I have softened matters so far hitherto as to leave you in doubt, his actions, which we shall have to chronicle immediately, will leave not the slightest doubt of it. I love the man. I love his very faults in a way. He is a reality to me, though I ay not have the art to make him so to you. His mad, impulsive way of forming a resolution, and his honourable obstinacy in sticking to that resolution afterwards, even to the death, are very great faults; but they are, more or less, the faults of many men who have made a very great figure in the world, or I have read history wrong. Men with Charles Ravenshoe’s character, and power of patience and application superadded, turn out very brilliant characters for the most part. Charles had not been drilled into habits of application early enough. Densil’s unthinking indulgence had done him much harm, and he was just the sort of boy to be spoilt at school — a favourite among the masters and the boys; always just up to his work, and no more. It is possible that Eton in one way, or Eugby in another, might have done for him what Shrewsbury certainly did not. At Eton, thrown at once into a great, free republic, he might have been forced to fight his way up to his proper place, which, I believe, would not have been a low one. At Eugby he would have had his place to win all the same; but to help him he would have had all the traditionary school policy which a great man has left behind him as an immortal legacy. It was not to be. He was sent to a good and manly school enough, but one where there was for him too little of competition. Shrewsbury is, in most respects, the third of the old schools in England; but it was, unluckily, not the school for him. He was too great a man there.
At Oxford, too, he hardly had a fair chance. Lord
“Welter was there before him, and had got just such a set about him as one would expect from that young gentleman’s character and bringing up. These men were Charles’s first and only acquaintances at the University. What chance was there among them for correcting and disciplining himself? None. The wonder was that he came out from among them without being greatly deteriorated. The only friend Charles ever had who could guide hitn on the way to being a man was John Marston. But John Marston, to say the truth, was sometimes too hard and didactic, and very often roused Charles’s obstinacy through want of tact. Marston loved Charles, and thought him better than the ninety and nine who need no repentance; but it did not fall to Marston’s lot to make a man of Charles. Some one took that in hand who never fails.
This is the place for my poor apology for Charles’s folly. If I had inserted it before, you would not have attended to it, or would have forgotten it. If I have done my work right, it is merely a statement of the very conclusion you must have come to. In the humiliating scenes which are to follow, I only beg you to remember that Charles Horton was Charles Ravenshoe once; and that, while he was a gentleman, the people loved him well.
Once, about twelve o’clock, he left his room and passed through the house to see if all was quiet. He heard the grooms and footmen talking in the servants’ hall. He stole back again to his room and sat before the fire.
In half an hour he rose again, and put his portmanteau and carpet-bag outside his room door. Then he took his hat, and rose to go.
One more look round the old room! The last for ever! The present overmastered the past, and he looked round almost without recognition. I doubt whether at great crises men have much time for recollecting old associations. I looked once into a room, which had been my home, ever since I was six years old, for five-and-twenty-years, knowing I should never see it again. But it was to see that I had left nothing behind me. The coach was at the door, and they were calling for me. Now I could draw you a correct map of all the blotches and cracks in the ceiling, as I used to see them when I lay in bed of a morning. But, then, I only shut the door and ran down the passage, without even saying “goodbye, old bedroom.” Charles Ravenshoe looked round the room thoughtlessly, and then blew out the candle, went out, and shut the door.
The dog whined and scratched to come after him; so he went back again. The old room bathed in a flood of moonlight, and, seen through the open window, the busy chafing sea, calling to him to hasten.
He took a glove from the table, and, laying it on the hearthrug, told the dog to mind it. The dog looked wistfully at him and lay down. The next moment he was outside the door again.
Through long moonlit corridors, down the moonlit hall, through dark passages, which led among the sleeping household, to the door in the priest’s tower. The household slept, old men and young men, maids and matrons, quietly, and dreamt of this and of that. And he, who was yesterday nigh master of all, passed out from among them, and stood alone in the world, outside the dark old house, which he had called his home.
Then he felt the deed was done. Was it only the night-wind from the north that laid such a chill hand on his heart? Busy waves upon the shore talking eternally, — “We have come in from the Atlantic, hearing messages; we have come over foundered ships and the bones of drowned sailors, and we tell our messages and die upon the shore.”
Shadows that came sweeping from the sea, over lawn and flower-bed, and wrapped the old mansion like a pall for one moment, and then left it shining again in the moonlight, clear, pitiless. Within, warm rooms, warm beds, and the bated breath of sleepers, lying secure in the lap of wealth and order. Without, hard, cold stone. The great world around awaiting to devour one more atom. The bright unsympathizing stars, and the sea, babbling of the men it had rolled over, whose names should never be known.
Now the park, with herds of ghostly startled deer, and the sweet scent of growing fern; then the rush of the brook, the bridge, and the vista of woodland above; and then the sleeping village.
Passing out of the park, Charles set down his burden at the door of a small farmhouse at the further end of the village, and knocked. For some time he stood waiting for an answer, and heard no sound save the cows and horses moving about in the warm straw-yard. The beasts were in their home. No terrible new morrow for them. He was without in the street; his home irrevocable miles behind him; still not a thought of flinching or turning back. He knocked again.
The door was unbarred. An old man looked out, and recognised him with wild astonishment.
“Mr. Charles! Good lord-a-mercy! My dear tender heart, what be doing out at this time a-night? With his portmantle, too, and his carpet bag! Come in, my dear soul, come in. An, so pale and wild! Why, you’m overlooked. Master Charles.”
“No, Master Lee, I ain’t overlooked. At least not that I know of ”
The old man shook his head, and reserved his opinion.
“But I want your gig to go into Stonnington,”
“Tonight?”
“Ay, tonight. The coach goes at eight in the morning; I want to be there before that.”
“Why do’ee start so soon? They’ll be all abed in the Chichester Arms.”
“I know. I shall get into the stable. I don’t know where I shall get. I must go. There is trouble at the Hall.”
“Ay! ay! I thought as much, and you’m going away into the world?”
“Yes.”
The old man said, “Ay! ay!” again, and turned to go upstairs. Then he held his candle over his head, and looked at Charles; and then went upstairs muttering to himself.
Presently was aroused from sleep a young Devonshire giant, half Hercules, half Antinolis, who lumbered down the stairs, and into the room, and made his obeisance to Charles with an air of wonder in his great sleepy black eyes, and departed to get the gig.
Of course his first point was Ranford. He got there in the afternoon. He had in his mind at this time, he thinks (for he does not remember it all very distinctly), the idea of going to Australia. He had an idea, too, of being eminently practical and business-like; and so he did a thing which may appear to be trifling, but which was important — one cannot say how much so. He asked for Lord Ascot instead of Lady Ascot.
Lord Ascot was in the library. Charles was shown in to him. He was sitting before the fire, reading a ovel. He looked very worn and anxious, and jumped up nervously when Charles was announced. He dropped his book on the floor, and came forward to him, holding out his right hand.
“Charles,” he said, “you will forgive me any participation in this. I swear to you ”
Charles thought that by some means the news of what had happened at Ravenshoe had come before him, and that Lord Ascot knew all about Father Mackworth’s discovery. Lord Ascot was thinking about Adelaide’s flight; so they were at cross purposes.
“Dear Lord Ascot,” said Charles, “how could I think of blaming you, my kind old friend?”
“It is devilish gentlemanly of you to speak so, Charles,” said Lord Ascot. “I am worn to death about that horse, Haphazard, and other things; and this has finished me. I have been reading a novel to distract my mind. I must win the Derby, you know; by Gad, I must.”
“Whom have you got. Lord Ascot?”
“Wells.”
“You couldn’t do better, I suppose?”
“I suppose not. You don’t know — I’d rather not talk any more about it, Charles.”
“Lord Ascot, this is, as you may well guess, the last time I shall ever see you. I want you to do me a favour.”
“I will do it, my dear Charles, with the greatest pleasure. Any reparation —”
“Hush, my lord! I only want a certificate. Will you read this which I have written in pencil, and, if you conscientiously can, copy in your own hand, and sign it. Also, if I send to you a reference, will you confirm it?”
Lord Ascot read what Charles had written, and said —
“Yes, certainly. You are going to change your name, then?”
“I must bear that name, now; I am going abroad.”
Lord Ascot wrote —
“The undermentioned Charles Horton I have known ever since he was a boy. His character is beyond praise in every way. He is a singularly bold and dexterous rider, and is thoroughly up to the management of horses.
“Ascot.”
“You have improved upon my text. Lord Ascot,” said Charles. “It is like your kindheartedness. The mouse may offer to help the lion, my lord; and, although the lion may know how little likely it is that he should require help, yet he may take it as a sign of good will on the part of the poor mouse. Now, goodbye, my lord; I must see Lady Ascot, and then be off.”
Lord Ascot wished him kindly goodbye, and took up his novel again. Charles went alone up to Lady Ascot’s room.
He knocked at the door, and received no answer; so he went in. Lady Ascot was there, although she had not answered him. She was sitting upright by the fire, taring at the door, with her hands folded on her lap. A line brave-looking old lady at all times, but just now, Charles thought, with that sweet look of pity showing itself principally about the corners of the gentle old mouth, more noblelooking than ever!
“May I come in, Lady Ascot?” said Charles.
“My dearest own boy! You must come in and sit down. You must be very quiet over it. Try not to make a scene, my dear. I am not strong enough. It has shaken me so terribly. I heard you had come, and were with Ascot. And I have been trembling in every limb. Not from terror so much of you in your anger, as because my conscience is not clear. I may have hidden things from you, Charles, which you ought to have known.” And Lady Ascot began crying silently.
Charles felt the blood going from his cheeks to his heart. His interview with Lord Ascot had made him suspect something further was wrong than what he knew of, and his suspicions were getting stronger every moment. He sat down quite quietly, looking at Lady Ascot, and spoke not one word. Lady Ascot wiping her eyes, went on; and Charles’s heart began to beat with a dull heavy pulsation, like the feet of those who carry a coffin.
“I ought to have told you what was going on between them before she went to old Lady Hainault. I ought to have told you of what went on before Lord Hainault was married. I can never forgive myself, Charles. You may upbraid me, and I will sit here and make not one excuse. But I must say that I never for one moment thought that she was anything more than light-headed. I, — oh Lord! I never dreamt it would have come to this.”
“Are you speaking of Adelaide, Lady Ascot?” said Charles.
“Of course I am,” she said, almost peevishly. “If I had ever ”
“Lady Ascot,” said Charles, quietly, “you are evidently speaking of something of which I have not heard. What has Adelaide done?”
The old lady clasped her hands above her head. “Oh, weary, weary day! And I thought that he had heard it all, and that the blow was broken. The cowards! they have left it to a poor old woman to tell him at last.”
“Dear Lady Ascot, you evidently have not heard of what a terrible fate has befallen me. I am a ruined man, and I am very patient. I had one hope left in the world, and I fear that you are going to cut it away from me. I am very quiet, and will make no scene; only tell me what has happened.”
“Adelaide! — be proud, Charles, be angry, furious — you Ravenshoes can! — be a man, but don’t look like that. Adelaide, dead to honour and good fame, has gone off with Welter!”
Charles walked towards the door.
“Tliat is enough. Please let me go. I can’t stand any more at present. You have been very kind to me and to her, and I thank you and bless you for it. The on of a bastard blesses you for it. Let me go — let me go.”
Lady Ascot had stepped actively to the door, and had laid one hand on the door, and one on his breast, “You shall not go,” she said, “till you have told me what you mean.”
“How? I cannot stand any more at present.”
“What do you mean by being the son of a bastard?”
“I am the son of James, Mr. Ravenshoe’s keeper. He was the illegitimate son of Mr. Petre Ravenshoe.”
“Who told you this?” said Lady Ascot.
“Cuthbert.”
“How did he know it?”
Charles told her all.
“So the priest has found that out, eh?” said Lady Ascot. “It seems true; ” and, as she said so, she moved back from the door. “Go to your old bedroom, Charles. It will always be ready for you while this house is a house; and come down to me presently. Where is Lord Saltire?”
“At Lord Segur’s.”
Charles went out of the room, and out of the house, and was seen no more. Lady Ascot sat down by the fire again.
“The one blow has softened the other,” she said. “I will never keep another secret after this. It was for Alicia’s sake and for Petre’s that I did it, and now see what has become of it, I shall send for Lord Saltire. The boy must have his rights, and shall, too.”
So the brave old woman sat down and wrote to Lord Saltire. We shall see what she — svrote to him in the proper place. Not now. She sat calmly and methodically writing, with her kind old face wreathing into a smile as she went on. And Charles, the madman, left the house, and posted off to London, only intent on seeking to lose himself among the sordid crowd, so that no man he had ever called a friend should set eyes on him again.