Slowly the omnibus rumbled over the wooden bridge, and then with a sudden impulse it thundered up to the front door.
Albinia jumped out, and caught Sophy in her arms, exclaiming, ‘And how are you all, my dear?’
‘We had quite given you up,’ Gilbert was saying. ‘The fire is in the library,’ he added, as Mr. Kendal was opening the drawing-room door, and closing it in haste at the sight of a pale, uninviting patch of moonlight, and the rush of a blast of cold wind.
‘And how is grandmamma? and the children? My Sophy, you don’t look well, and where’s Lucy?’
Ere she could receive an answer, down jumped, two steps at a time, a half-dressed figure, all white stout legs and arms which were speedily hugging mamma.
‘There’s my man!’ said Mr. Kendal, ‘a good boy, I know.’
‘No!’ cried the bold voice.
‘No?’ (incredulously) what have you been doing?’
‘I broke the conservatory with the marble dog, and—’ he looked at Gilbert.
‘There’s my brave boy,’ said Mr. Kendal, who had suffered so much from his elder son’s equivocation as to be ready to overlook anything for the sake of truth. ‘Here, Uncle Maurice, shake hands with your godson, who always tells truth.’
The urchin folded his arms on his bosom, and looked like a young Bonaparte.
‘Where’s your hand? said his uncle. ‘Wont you give it to me?’
‘No.’
‘He will be wiser to-morrow, if you are so good as to try him again,’ said Albinia, who knew nothing did him more harm than creating a commotion by his caprices; ‘he is up too late, and fractious with sleepiness. Go to bed now, my dear.’
‘I shall not be wiser to-morrow,’ quoth the child, marching out of the room in defiance.
‘Monkey! what’s the matter now?’ exclaimed Albinia; ‘I suppose you have all been spoiling him. But what’s become of Lucy?’
‘Gilbert said she was at the Dusautoys,’ replied Sophy; ‘but if you would but come to grandmamma! She found out that you were expected, and she is in such a state that we have not known what to do.’
‘I’ll come, only, Sophy dear, please order tea and something to eat. Your uncle looks ravenous.’
She broke off, as there advanced into the room a being like Lucy, but covered with streams and spatters of flowing sable tears, like a heraldic decoration, over face, neck, and dress.
All unconscious, she came with outstretched hands and words of welcome, but an astonished cry of ‘Lucy!’ met her, and casting her eyes on her dress, she screamed, ‘Oh goodness! it’s ink!’
‘Where can you have been? what have you been doing?’
‘I—don’t know—Oh! it was the great inkstand, and not the scent—Oh! it is all over me! It’s in my hair!’ shuddering. ‘Oh, dear! oh dear! I shall never get it out!’ and off she rushed, followed by Gilbert, and was soon heard calling the maids to bring hot water to her room.
‘What is all this?’ asked Mr. Kendal.
‘I do not know,’ mournfully answered Sophy.
Albinia left the library, and taking a candle, went into the empty drawing-room. The moonlight shone white upon the table, and showed the large cut-glass ink-bottle in a pool of its own contents; and the sofa-cover had black spots and stains as if it had partaken of the libation.
Sophy saw, and stood like a statue.
‘You know nothing, I am sure,’ said Albinia.
‘Nothing!’ repeated Sophy, with a blank look of wretchedness.
‘If you please, ma’am,’ said the nurse at the door, ‘could you be kind enough to come to Mrs. Meadows, she will be quieter when she has seen you?’
‘Sophy dear, we must leave it now,’ said Albinia. ‘You must see to their tea, they have had nothing since breakfast.’
She hastened to the sick room, where she found Mrs. Meadows in a painful state of agitation and excitement. The nurse said that until this evening, she had been as usual, but finding that Mrs. Kendal was expected, she had been very restless; Miss Kendal was out, and neither Miss Sophy nor Mr. Gilbert could soothe her.
She eagerly grasped the hand of Albinia who bent down to kiss her, and asked how she had been.
‘Oh! my dear, very unwell, very. They should not leave me to myself so long, my dear. I thought you would never come back,’ and she began to cry, and say, ‘no one cared for an old woman.’
Albinia assured her that she was not going away, and restrained her own eager and bewildered feelings to tranquillize her, by prosing on in the lengthy manner which always soothed the poor old lady. It was a great penance, in her anxiety to investigate the mysteries that seemed to swarm in the house, but at last she was able to leave the bedside, though not till she had been twice summoned to tea.
Sophy, lividly pale, was presiding with trembling hands; Gilbert, flushed and nervous, waiting on every one, and trying to be lively and at ease, but secret distress was equally traceable in each.
She durst only ask after the children, and heard that her little namesake had been as usual as good and sweet as child could be. And Maurice?
‘He’s a famous fellow, went on capitally,’ said Gilbert.
‘Yes, till yesterday,’ hoarsely gasped Sophy, sincerity wrenching out the protest by force.
‘Ah, what has he been doing to the conservatory?’
‘He let the little marble dog down from the morning-room window with my netting silk; it fell, and made a great hole,’ said Sophy.
‘What, as a form of dawdling at his lessons?’
‘Yes, but he has not been at all tiresome about them except to-day and yesterday.’
‘And he has told the exact truth,’ said Mr. Kendal, ‘his gallant confession has earned the little cannon I promised him.’
‘I believe,’ said Albinia, ‘that it would be greater merit in Maurice to learn forbearance than to speak truth and be praised for it. I have never seen his truth really tried.’
‘I value truth above all other qualities,’ said Mr. Kendal.
‘So do I,’ said Albinia, ‘and it is my greatest joy in that little fellow; but some time or other it must cost him something, or it will not be tested.’
Mr. Kendal did not like this, and repeated that he must have his cannon. Albinia fancied that she heard something like a groan from Gilbert.
When they broke up for the night, she threw her arm round Sophy as they went upstairs, saying, ‘My poor dear, you look half dead. Have things been going very wrong?’
‘Only these two days,’ said Sophy, ‘and I don’t know that they have either. I am glad you are come!’
‘What kind of things?’ said Albinia, following her into her room.
‘Don’t ask,’ at first began Sophy, but then, frowning as if she could hardly speak, she added, ‘I mean, I don’t know whether it is my own horrid way, or that there is really an atmosphere of something I don’t make out.’
‘Didn’t you tell me Lucy was at the Vicarage?’ said Albinia, suddenly.
‘Gilbert said yes, when I asked if she could be with the Dusautoys,’ said Sophy, ‘when grandmamma wanted her and she did not come. Mamma, please don’t think of what I said, for very likely it is only that I am cross, because of being left alone with grandmamma so long this evening, and then Maurice being slow at his lessons.’
‘You are not cross, Sophy; you are worn out, and perplexed, and unhappy.’
‘Oh! not now you are come home,’ and Sophy laid her head on her shoulder and cried with relief and exhaustion. Albinia caressed her, saying,
‘My trust, my mainstay, my poor Sophy! There, go to bed and sleep, and don’t think of it now. Only first tell me one thing, is that Algernon at home?’
‘No!’ said Sophy, vehemently, ‘certainly not!’
Albinia breathed more freely.
‘Everybody,’ said Sophy, collecting herself, ‘has gone on well, Gilbert and Lucy have been as kind as could be, and Maurice very good, but yesterday morning he went on in his foolish way at lessons, and Gilbert took him out riding before he had finished them. They came in very late, and I think Maurice must have been overtired, for he was so idle this morning, that I threatened to tell, and put him in mind of the cannon papa promised him; but somehow I must have managed badly for he only grew more defiant, and ended by letting the marble dog out of window, so that it went through the roof of the conservatory.’
‘Yes, of course it was your fault, or the marble dog’s,’ said Albinia, smiling, and stroking her fondly. ‘Ah! we ought to have come home at the fixed time, and not left you to their mercy; but one could not hurry away from William, when he was so much more sorry to leave us than we ever expected.’
‘Oh! mamma, don’t talk so! We were so glad. If only we could help being such a nuisance!’
Albinia contrived to laugh, and withdrew, intending to make a visit of inquiry to Lucy, but she could not refuse herself the refreshment of a kiss to the little darling who could have no guile to hide, no wrong to confess. She had never so much realized the value of the certainty of innocence as when she hung over the crib, and thought that when those dark fringed lids were lifted, the eyes would flash with delight at meeting her, without one drawback.
Suddenly a loud roar burst from the little room next to Gilbert’s, in which Maurice had lately been installed. She hurried swiftly in that direction, but a passage and some steps lay between, and Gilbert had been beforehand with her.
She heard the words, ‘I don’t care! I don’t care if it is manly! I will tell; I can’t bear this!’ then as his brother seemed to be hushing him, he burst out again, ‘I wouldn’t have minded if papa wouldn’t give me the cannon, but he will, and that’s as bad as telling a lie!’ I can’t sleep if you wont let me off my promise!’
Trembling from head to foot, her voice low and quivering with concentrated, incredulous wrath, Albinia advanced. ‘Are you teaching my child falsehood?’ she said; and Gilbert felt as if her look were worse to him than a thousand deaths.
‘O mamma! mamma! Gilbert! let me tell her,’ cried the child; and Albinia, throwing herself on her knees, clasped him in her arms, as though snatching him from the demon of deceit.
‘Tell all, Maurice,’ said Gilbert, folding his arms; ‘it is to your credit, if you would believe so. I shall be glad to have this misery ended any way! It was all for the sake of others.’
‘Mamma,’ Maurice said, in the midst of these mutterings of his unhappy brother, ‘I can’t have the cannon without papa knowing it all. I couldn’t shake hands with Uncle Maurice for telling the truth, for I had not told it.’
‘And what is it, my boy?’ tell me now, no one can hinder you.’
‘I scratched and fought him—Mr. Cavendish Dusautoy—I kicked down the decanter of wine. They told me it was manly not to tell, and I promised.’
He was crying with the exceeding pain and distress of a child whose tears were rare, and Albinia rocked him in her arms.
Gilbert cautiously shut the door, and said sadly, ‘Maurice behaved nobly, if he would only believe so. You would be proud of your son if you had seen him. They wanted to make him drink wine, and he was fighting them off.’
‘And where were you, Gilbert, you to whom I trusted him?’
‘I could not help it,’ said Gilbert; then as her lip curled with contempt, and her eye spoke disappointment, he cast himself on the ground, exclaiming, ‘Oh, if you knew how I have been mixed up with others, and what I have gone through, you would pity me. Oh, Maurice, don’t cry, when I would give worlds to be like you. Why do you let him cry? why don’t you tell him what a brave noble boy he is?’
‘I don’t know what to think or believe,’ said Albinia, coldly, but returning vehemently to her child, she continued, ‘Maurice, my dear, no one is angry with you! You, at least, I can depend on. Tell me where you have been, and what they have been doing to you.’
Even with Gilbert’s explanations, she could hardly understand Maurice’s narrative, but she gathered that on Thursday, the brothers had ridden out, and were about to turn homewards, when Archie Tritton, of whom to her vexation Maurice spoke familiarly, had told Gilbert that a friend was waiting for him at the inn connected with the training stables, three miles farther on. Gilbert had demurred, but was told the matter would brook no delay, and yielded on being pressed. He tried to suppress the friend’s name, but Maurice had called him Mr. Cavendish Dusautoy.
While Gilbert was engaged with him, Tritton had introduced Maurice to the horses and stable boys, whose trade had inspired him with such emulation, that he broke off in the midst of his confession to ask whether he could be a jockey and also a gentleman. All this had detained them till so late, that they had been drawn into staying to dinner. Maurice had gone on very happily, secure that he was right in Gilbert’s hands, and only laying up a few curious words for explanation; but when he was asked to drink wine, he stoutly answered that mamma did not allow it.
Idle mischief prompted Dusautoy and Tritton to set themselves to overpower his resistance. Gilbert’s feeble remonstrances were treated as a jest, and Algernon, who could brook no opposition, swore that he would conquer the little prig. Maurice found himself pinioned by strong arms, but determined and spirited, he made a vigorous struggle, and so judiciously aimed a furious kick, that Mr. Cavendish Dusautoy staggered back, stumbling against the table, and causing a general overthrow.
The victory was with Maurice, but warned as he had often been against using his natural weapons, he thought himself guilty of a great crime. The others, including, alas! Gilbert, strove to persuade him it was a joke, and, above all, to bind him to silence, for Tritton and Dusautoy would never have ventured so far, could they have imagined the possibility of such terms as those on which he lived with his parents. They attacked the poor child on the score of his manly aspirations, telling him it was babyish to tell mamma and sisters everything, a practice fit for girls, not for boys or men. These assurances extracted a pledge of secrecy, which was kept as long as his mother was absent, and only rendered him reckless by the sense that he had forfeited the prize of good conduct; but the sight of her renewed the instinct of confidence, and his father’s reliance on his truth so acted on his sense of honour, that he could not hold his peace.
‘May I tell papa? and will he let me have the cannon?’ he finished.
‘You shall certainly tell him, my dear, dear little boy, and we will see what he says about the cannon,’ she said, fervently kissing him. ‘It will be some comfort for him to hear how you have behaved, my precious little man. I thank God with all my heart that He has saved you from putting anything before truth. I little thought I was leaving you to a tempter!’
The child did not fully understand her. His was a very simple nature, and he was tired out by conflicting emotions. His breast was relieved, and his mother caressed him; he cared for nothing more, and drawing her hand so as to rest his cheek on it, he looked up in her face with soft weary happiness in his eyes, then let the lids sink over them, and fell peacefully asleep, while the others talked on. ‘At least you will do me the poor justice of believing it was not willingly,’ said Gilbert.
‘I wish you would not talk to me,’ she answered, averting her face and speaking low as if to cut the heart; ‘I don’t want to reproach you, and I can’t speak to you properly.’
‘If you would only hear me, my only friend and helper! But it was all that was wanting! I have forfeited even your toleration! I wonder why I was born!’
He was taking up his light to depart, but Albinia’s fear of her own temper made her suspect that she had spoken vindictively, and she said, ‘What can I do, Gilbert? Here is this poor child, whom I trusted to you, who can never again be ignorant of the sound of evil words, and only owes it to God’s mercy on his brave spirit that this has not been the beginning of destruction. I feel as if you had been trying to snatch away his soul!’
‘And will you, can you not credit,’ said Gilbert, nearly inaudibly, ‘that I did not act by my free will? I had no notion that any such thing could befall him, and would never have let them try to silence him, but to shield others.’
‘Others! Yes, Archie Tritton and Algernon Dusautoy! I know what your free-will is in their hands, and yet I thought you cared for your brother enough to guard him, if not yourself.’
‘If you knew the coercion,’ muttered Gilbert. ‘I protest, as I would to my dying day, that I had no intention of going near the stables when I set out, and would never have consented could I have helped it.’
‘And why could not you help it?’
Gilbert gasped. ‘Tritton brought me a message from Dusautoy, insisting on my meeting him there. It was too late to take Maurice home, and I could not send him with Archie. I expected only to exchange a few words at the door. It was Tritton who took Maurice away to the stables.’
‘I hear, but I do not see the compulsion, only the extraordinary weakness that leads you everywhere after those men.’
‘I must tell you, I suppose,’ groaned Gilbert; ‘I can bear anything but this. There’s a miserable money entanglement that lays me under a certain obligation to Dusautoy.’
‘Your father believed you had told him of all your debts,’ she said, in a tone of increased scorn and disappointment.
‘I did—I mean—Oh! Mrs. Kendal, believe me, I intended to have told him the utmost farthing—I thought I had done so—but this was a thing—Dusautoy had persuaded me into half consenting to have some wine with him from a cheating Portuguese—then ordered more than ever I knew of, and the man went and became bankrupt, and sent in a great abominable bill that I no more owned, nor had reason to expect than my horse.’
‘So you preferred intriguing with this man to applying openly to your father?’
‘It was no doing of mine. It was forced upon me, and, in fact, the account was mixed up with his. It was the most evil hour of my life when I consented. I’ve not had a moment’s peace or happiness since, and it was the promise of the bill receipted that led me to this place.’
‘And why was this place chosen for the meeting? You and Mr. Cavendish Dusautoy live only too near one another.’
‘He is not at the Vicarage,’ faltered Gilbert.
Albinia suddenly grew pale with apprehension. ‘Gilbert,’ she said, ‘there is only one thing that could make this business worse;’ and as she saw his change of countenance, she continued, ‘Then it is so, and Lucy is his object.’
‘He did not speak, but his face was that of a convicted traitor, and fresh perceptions crowded on her, as she exclaimed, horror struck, ‘The ink! Yes, when you said she was with the Dusautoys! I understand! He has been in hiding, he has been here! And this expedition was to arrange a clandestine meeting between them under your father’s own roof! You conniving! you who said you would sooner see your sister sold to Legree!’
‘It is all true,’ said Gilbert, moodily, his elbows on the table and his face in his hands, ‘and if the utmost misery for weeks past could be any atonement, it would be mine. But at least I have done nothing willingly to bring them together. I have only gone on in the hope and trust that I was some protection to poor Lucy.’
‘Fine protection,’ sighed Albinia. ‘And how has it been? how does it stand?’
‘Why, they met at Brighton, I believe. She used to walk on the chain pier before breakfast, and he met her there. If he chooses, he can make any one do what he likes, because he does not understand no for an answer. Then when she came home, he used to meet her on the bridge, when you sent her out for a turn in the evening, and sometimes she would make me take her out walking to meet him. Don’t you see how utterly miserable it was for me; when they had volunteered this help all out of kindness, it was impossible for me to speak to you.’
Albinia made a sound of contempt, and said, ‘Go on.’
‘That time when you and Mr. Hope saw them, Lucy was frightened, and they had a quarrel, he went away, and I hoped and trusted it had died out. I heard no more till yesterday, when I was dragged into giving him this meeting. It seems that he had only just discovered your absence, and wanted to take the opportunity of seeing her. I was in hopes you would have come back; I assured him you would; but he chose to watch, till evening, and then Lucy was to meet him in the conservatory. Poor Lucy, you must not be very angry with her, for she was much averse to it, and I enclosed a letter from her to forbid him to come. I thought all was safe, till I actually heard their voices, and grandmamma got into an agitation, and Sophy was running about wild to find Lucy. When you came home, papa’s opening the door frightened Lucy, and it seems that Dusautoy thought that she was going to faint and scream, and laid hold of the ink instead of the eau-de-cologne. There! I believe the ink would have betrayed it without me. Now you have heard everything, Mrs. Kendal, and can believe there is not a more wretched and miserable creature breathing than I am.’
Albinia slowly rose, and put her hand to her brow, as though confused with the tissue of deceit and double dealing.
‘Oh! Mrs. Kendal, will you not speak to me?’ I solemnly declare that I have told you all.’
‘I am thinking of your father.’
With a gesture of acquiescent anguish and despair, he let her pass, held open the door, and closed it softly, so as not to awaken the happy sleeper.
‘Good night,’ she said, coldly, and turned away, but his mournful, resigned ‘Good night,’ was so utterly broken down that her heart was touched, and turning she said, ‘Good night, Gilbert, I am sorry for you; I believe it is weakness and not wickedness.’
She held out her hand, but instead of being shaken, it was pressed to his lips, and the fingers were wet with his tears.
Feeling as though the bad dreams of a night had taken shape and life, Albinia stood by the fire in her sitting-room the next morning, trying to rally her judgment, and equally dreading the sight of those who had caused her grief, and of those who would share the shock she had last night experienced.
The first knock announced one whom she did not expect—Gilbert, wretchedly pale from a sleepless night, and his voice scarcely audible.
‘I beg your pardon,’ he said; ‘but I thought I might have led you to be hard on Lucy: I do believe it was against her will.’
Before she could answer, the door flew wide, and in rushed Maurice, shouting, ‘Good morning, mamma;’ and at his voice Mr. Kendal’s dressing-room door was pushed back, and he called, ‘Here, Maurice.’
As the boy ran forward, he was met and lifted to his father’s breast, while, with a fervency he little understood, though he never forgot it, the words were uttered,
‘God bless you, Maurice, and give you grace to go on to withstand temptation, and speak the truth from your heart!’
Maurice was impressed for a moment, then he recurred to his leading thought—
‘May I have the cannon, papa? I did kick—I broke the bottle, but may I have the cannon?’
‘Maurice, you are too young to understand the value of your resistance. Listen to me, my boy, for you must never forget this: you have been taken among persons who, I trust, will never be your companions.’
‘Oh!’ interrupted Maurice, ‘must I never be a jockey?’
‘No, Maurice. Horses are perverted to bad purposes by thoughtless men, and you must keep aloof from such. You were not to blame, for you refused to do what you knew to be wrong, and did not know it was an improper place for you.’
‘Gilbert took me,’ said Maurice, puzzled at the gravity, which convinced him that some one was in fault, and of course it must be himself.
‘Gilbert did very wrong,’ said Mr. Kendal, ‘and henceforth you must learn that you must trust to your own conscience, and no longer believe that all your brother tells you is right.’
Maurice gazed in inquiry, and perceiving his brother’s downcast air, ran to his mother, crying, ‘Is papa angry?’
‘Yes,’ said Gilbert, willing to spare her the pain of a reply, ‘he is justly angry with me for having exposed you to temptation. Oh, Maurice, if I had been made such as you, it would have been better for us all!’
It was the first perception that a grown person could do wrong, and that person his dear Gilbert. As if the grave countenances were insupportable, he gave a long-drawn breath, hid his face on his mother’s knee, and burst into an agony of weeping. He was lifted on her lap in a moment, father and mother both comforting him with assurances that he was a very good boy, and that papa was much pleased with him, Mr. Kendal even putting the cannon into his hand, as a tangible evidence of favour; but the child thrust aside the toy, and sliding down, took hold of his brother’s languid, dejected hand, and cried, with a sob and stamp of his foot,
‘You shan’t say you are naughty: I wont let you!’
Alas! it was a vain repulsion of the truth that this is a wicked world. Gilbert only put him back, saying,
‘You had better go away from me, Maurice: you cannot understand what I have done. Pray Heaven you may never know what I feel!’
Maurice did but cling the tighter, and though Mr. Kendal had not yet addressed the culprit, he respected the force of that innocent love too much to interfere. The bell rang, and they went down, Maurice still holding by his brother, and when his uncle met them, it was touching to see the generous little fellow hanging back, and not giving his own hand till he had seen Gilbert receive the ordinary greeting.
Though Mr. Ferrars had been told nothing, he could not but be aware of the symptoms of a family crisis—the gravity of some, and the pale, jaded looks of others. Lucy was not one of these; she came down with little Albinia in her arms, and began to talk rather airily, excusing herself for not having come down in the evening because that ‘horrid ink’ had got into her hair, and tittering a little over the absurdity of her having picked up the inkstand in the dark. Not a word of response did she meet, and her gaiety died away in vague alarm. Sophy, the most innocent, looked wretched, and Maurice absolutely began to cry again, at the failure of some manoeuvre to make his father speak to Gilbert.
His tears broke up the breakfast-party. His mother led him away to reason with him, that, sad as it was, it was better that people should be grieved when they had transgressed, as the only hope of their forgiveness and improvement. Maurice wanted her to reverse the declaration that Gilbert had done wrong; but, alas! this could not be, and she was obliged to send him out with his little sister, hoping that he would work off his grief by exercise. It was mournful to see the first shadow of the penalty of sin falling on the Eden of his childhood!
With an aching heart, she went in search of Lucy, who had taken sanctuary in Mrs. Meadows’s room, and was not easily withdrawn from thence to a tete-a-tete. Fearful of falsehood, Albinia began by telling her she knew all, and how little she had expected such a requital of trust.
Lucy exclaimed that it had not been her fault, she had always wanted to tell, and gradually Albinia drew from her the whole avowal, half shamefaced, half exultant.
She had never dreamt of meeting Algernon at Brighton—it was quite by chance that she came upon him at the officers’ ball when he was staying with Captain Greenaway. He asked her to dance, and she had said yes, all on a sudden, without thinking, and then she fancied he would go away; she begged him not to come again, but whenever she went out on the chain-pier before breakfast, there he was.
Why did she go thither? She hung her head. Mrs. Annesley had desired her to walk; she could not help it; she was afraid to write and tell what was going on—besides, he would come, though she told him she would not see him; and she could not bear to make him unhappy. Then, when she came home, she had been in hopes it was all over, but she had been very unhappy, and had been on the point of telling all about it many times, when mamma looked at her kindly; but then he came to the Vicarage, and he would wait for her at the bridge, and write notes to her, and she could not stop it; but she had always told him it was no use, she never would be engaged to him without papa’s consent. She had only promised that she would not marry any one else, only because he was so very desperate, and she was afraid to break it off entirely, lest he should go and marry the Principessa Bianca, a foreigner and Papist, which would be so shocking for him and his uncle. Gilbert could testify how grieved she was to have any secrets from mamma; but Mr. Cavendish Dusautoy was so dreadful when she talked of telling, that she did not know what would happen.
When he went away, and she thought it was all over—mamma might recollect how hard it was for her to keep up, and what a force she put upon herself—but she would rather have pined to death than have said one word to bring him back, and was quite shocked when Gilbert gave her his note, to beg her to let him see her that evening, before the party returned; she said, with all her might, that he must not come, and when he did, she was begging him all the time to go away, and she was so dreadfully frightened when they actually came, that she had all but gone into hysterics, or fainted away, and that was the way he came to throw the ink at her—she was so very much shocked, and so would he be—and really she felt the misfortune to the beautiful new sofa-cover as a most serious calamity and aggravation of her offence.
It was not easy to know how to answer; Albinia was scornful of the sofa-cover, and yet it was hard to lay hold of a tangible subject on which to show Lucy her error, except in the concealment, which, by her own showing, she had lamented the whole time. She had always said no, but, unluckily, her noes were of the kind that might easily be made to mean yes, and she evidently had been led on partly by her own heart, partly by the force of the stronger will, though her better principles had filled her with scruples and misgivings at every stage. She had been often on the point of telling all, and asking forgiveness; and here it painfully crossed Albinia, that if she herself had been less hurried, and less disposed to take everything for granted, a little tenderness might have led to a voluntary confession.
Still Lucy defended herself by the compulsion exercised on her, and she would hear none of the conclusions Albinia drew therefrom; she would not see that the man who drove her to a course of disobedience and subterfuge could be no fit guide, and fired up at a word of censure, declaring that she knew that mamma had always hated him, and that now he was absent, she would not hear him blamed. The one drop of true love made her difficult to deal with, for the heart was really made over to the tyrant, and Albinia did not feel herself sufficiently guiltless of negligence and imprudence to rebuke her with a comfortable conscience.
Mr. Kendal had been obliged to attend to some justice business—better for him, perhaps, than acting as domestic magistrate—and meanwhile the Vicar of Fairmead found himself forgotten. He wanted to be at home, yet did not like to leave his sister in unexplained trouble, though not sure whether he might not be better absent.
Time passed on, he finished the newspaper, and wrote letters, and then, seeing no one, he had gone into the hall to send for a conveyance, when Gilbert, coming in from the militia parade, became the recipient of his farewells, but apparently with so little comprehension, that he broke off, struck by the dejected countenance, and wandering eye.
‘I beg your pardon,’ Gilbert said, passing his hand over his brow, ‘I did not hear.’
‘I was only asking you to tell my sister that I would not disturb her, and leaving my good-byes with you.’
‘You are not going?’
‘Thank you; I think my wife will grow anxious.’
‘I had hoped’—Gilbert sighed and paused—‘I had thought that perhaps—’
The wretchedness of his tone drove away Mr. Ferrars’s purpose of immediate departure, and returning to the drawing-room he said, ‘If there were any way in which I could be of use.’
‘Then you do not know?’ said Gilbert, veiling his face with his hand, as he leant on the mantel-shelf.
‘I know nothing. I could only see that something was amiss. I was wishing to know whether my presence or absence would be best for you all.’
‘Oh! don’t go!’ cried Gilbert. Nobody must go who can be any comfort to Mrs. Kendal.’
A few kind words drew forth the whole piteous history that lay so heavily on his heart. Reserves were all over now; and irregularly and incoherently he laid open his griefs and errors, his gradual absorption into the society with which he had once broken, and the inextricable complication of mischief in which he had been involved by his debt.
‘Yet,’ he said, ‘all the time I longed from my heart to do well. It was the very thing that led me into this scrape. I thought if the man applied to my father, as he threatened, that I should be suspected of having concealed this on purpose, and be sent to India, and I was so happy, and thought myself so safe here. I did believe that home and Mrs. Kendal would have sheltered me, but my destiny must needs hunt me out here, and alienate even her!’
‘The way to find the Devil behind the Cross, is to cower beneath it in weak idolatry, instead of grasping it in courageous faith,’ said Mr. Ferrars. ‘Such faith would have made you trust yourself implicitly to your father. Then you would either have gone forth in humble acceptance of the punishment, or else have stayed at home, free, pardoned, and guarded; but, as it was, no wonder temptation followed you, and you had no force to resist it.’
‘And so all is lost! Even dear little Maurice can never be trusted to me again! And his mother, who would, if she could, be still merciful and pitying as an angel, she cannot forget to what I exposed him! She will never be the same to me again! Yet I could lay down my life for any of them!’
Mr. Ferrars watched the drooping figure, crouching on his chairs, elbows on knees, head bowed on the supporting hands, and face hidden, and, listening to the meek, affectionate hopelessness of the tone, he understood the fond love and compassion that had often surprised him in his sister, but he longed to read whether this were penitence towards God, or remorse towards man.
‘Miserable indeed, Gilbert,’ he said, ‘but if all were irretrievably offended, there still is One who can abundantly pardon, where repentance is true.’
‘I thought’—cried Gilbert—‘I thought it had been true before! If pain, and shame, and abhorrence could so render it, I know it was when I came home. And then it was comparative happiness; I thought I was forgiven, I found joy and peace where they are promised’—the burning tears dropped between his fingers—but it was all delusion; not prayers nor sacraments can shield me—I am doomed, and all I ask is to be out of the way of ruining Maurice!’
‘This is mere despair,’ said Mr. Ferrars. ‘I cannot but believe your contrition was sincere; but steadfast courage was what you needed, and you failed in the one trial that may have been sent you to strengthen and prove you. The effects have been terrible, but there is every hope that you may retrieve your error, and win back the sense of forgiveness.’
‘If I could dare to hope so—but I cannot presume to take home to myself those assurances, when I know that I only resolve, that I may have resolutions to break.’
‘Have you ever laid all this personally before Mr. Dusautoy?’
‘No; I have thought of it, but, mixed up as this is with his nephew and my sister, it is impossible! But you are a clergyman, Mr. Ferrars!’ he added, eagerly.
Mr. Ferrars thought, and then said,
‘If you wish it, Gilbert, I will gladly do what I can for you. I believe that I may rightly do so.’
His face gleamed for a moment with the light of grateful gladness, as if at the first ray of comfort, and then he said, ‘I am sure none was ever more grieved and wearied with the burden of sin—if that be all.’
‘I think,’ said Mr. Ferrars, ‘that it might be better to give time to collect yourself, examine the past, separate the sorrow for the sin from the disgrace of the consequences, and then look earnestly at the sole ground of hope. How would it be to come for a couple of nights to Fairmead, at the end of next week?’
Gilbert gratefully caught at the invitation; and Mr. Ferrars gave him some advice as to his reading and self-discipline, speaking to him as gently and tenderly as Albinia herself. Both lingered in case the other should have more to say, but at last Gilbert stood up, saying,
‘I would thankfully go to Calcutta now, but the situation is filled up, and my father said John Kendal had been enough trifled with. If I saw any fresh opening, where I should be safe from hurting Maurice!’
‘There is no reason you and your brother should not be a blessing to each other.’
‘Yes, there is. Till I lived at home, I did not know how impossible it is to keep clear of old acquaintance. They are good-natured fellows—that Tritton and the like—and after all that has come and gone, one would be a brute to cut them entirely, and Maurice is always after me, and has been more about with them than his mother knows. Even if I were very different, I should be a link, and though it might be no great harm if Maurice were a tame mamma’s boy—you see, being the fellow he is, up to anything for a lark, and frantic about horses—I could never keep him from them. There’s no such great harm in themselves—hearty, good-natured fellows they are—but there’s a worse lot that they meet, and Maurice will go all lengths whenever he begins. Now, so little as he is now, if I were once gone, he would never run into their way, and they would never get a hold of him.’
Mr. Ferrars had unconsciously screwed up his face with dismay, but he relaxed it, and spoke kindly.
‘You are right. It was a mistake to stay at home. Perhaps your regiment may be stationed elsewhere.’
‘I don’t know how long it may be called out. If it were but possible to make a fresh beginning.’
‘Did you hear of my brother’s suggestion?’
‘I wish—but it is useless to talk about that. I could not presume to ask my father for a commission—Heaven knows when I shall dare to speak to him!’
‘You have not personally asked his pardon after full confession.’
‘N-o—Mrs. Kendal knows all.’
‘Did you ever do such a thing in your life?’
‘You don’t know what my father is.’
‘Neither do you, Gilbert. Let that be the first token of sincerity.’
Without leaving space for another word, Mr. Ferrars went through the conservatory into the garden, where, meeting the children, he took the little one in his arms, and sent Maurice to fetch his mamma. Albinia came down, looking so much heated and harassed, that he was grieved to leave her.
‘Oh, Maurice, I am sorry! You always come in for some catastrophe,’ she said, trying to smile. ‘You have had a most forlorn morning.’
‘Gilbert has been with me,’ he said. ‘He has told me all, my dear, and I think it hopeful: I like him better than I ever did before.’
‘Poor feather, the breath of your lips has blown him the other way,’ said Albinia, too unhappy for consolation.
‘Well, it seems to me that you have done more for him than I ever quite believed. I did not expect such sound, genuine religious feeling.’
‘He always had plenty of religious sentiment,’ said Albinia, sadly.
‘I have asked him to come to us next week. Will you tell Edmund so?’
‘Yes. He will be thankful to you for taking him in hand. Poor boy, I know how attractive his penitence is, but I have quite left off building on it.’
Mr. Ferrars defended him no longer. He could not help being much moved by the youth’s self-abasement, but that might be only because it was new to him, and he did not even try to recommend him to her mercy; he knew her own heart might be trusted to relent, and it would not hurt Gilbert in the end to be made to feel the full weight of his offence.
‘I must go,’ he said, ‘though I am sorry to leave you in perplexity. I am afraid I can do nothing for you.’
‘Nothing—but feel kindly to Gilbert,’ said Albinia. ‘I can’t do so yet. I don’t feel as if I ever could again, when I think what he was doing with Maurice. Yes, and how easily he could have brought poor Lucy to her senses, if he had been good for anything! Oh! Maurice, this is sickening work! You should be grateful to me for not scolding you for having taken me from home!’
‘I do not repent,’ said her brother. ‘The explosion is better than the subterranean mining.’
‘It may be,’ said Albinia, ‘and I need not boast of the good I did at home! My poor, poor Lucy! A little discreet kindness and watchfulness on my part would have made all the difference! It was all my running my own way with my eyes shut, but then, I had always lived with trustworthy people. Well, I wont keep you listening to my maundering, when Winifred wants you. Oh! why did that Polysyllable ever come near the place?’
Mr. Ferrars said the kindest and most cheering things he could devise, and drove away, not much afraid of her being unforgiving.
He was disposed to stake all his hopes of the young man on the issue of his advice to make a direct avowal to his father. And Gilbert made the effort, though rather in desperation than resolution, knowing that his condition could not be worse, and seeing no hope save in Mr. Ferrars’ counsel. He was the first to seek Mr. Kendal, and dreadful to him as was the unaltering melancholy displeasure of the fixed look, the steadily penetrating deep dark eyes, and the subdued sternness of the voice, he made his confession fully, without reserve or palliation.
It was more than Mr. Kendal had expected, and more, perhaps, than he absolutely trusted, for Gilbert had not hitherto inspired faith in his protestations that he spoke the whole truth and nothing but the truth, nor had he always the power of doing so when overpowered by fright. The manner in which his father laid hold of any inadvertent discrepancy, treating it as a wilful prevarication, was terror and agony; and well as he knew it to be the meed of past equivocation, he felt it cruel to torture him by implied suspicion. Yet how could it be otherwise, when he had been introducing his little brother to his own corrupters, and conniving at his sister’s clandestine correspondence with a man whom he knew to be worthless?’
The grave words that he obtained at last, scarcely amounted to pardon; they implied that he had done irreparable mischief and acted disgracefully, and such forgiveness as was granted was only made conditional on there being no farther reserves.
Alas! even with all tender love and compassion, no earthly parent can forgive as does the Heavenly Father. None but the Omniscient can test the fulness of the confession, nor the sincerity of ‘Father, I have sinned against Heaven and before Thee, and am no more worthy to be called Thy son.’ This interview only sent the son away more crushed and overwhelmed, and yearning towards the more deeply offended, and yet more compassionate Father.
Mr. Kendal, after this interview, so far relaxed his displeasure as to occasionally address Gilbert when they met at luncheon after this deplorable morning, while towards Lucy he observed a complete silence. It was not at first that she perceived this, and even then it struck more deeply on Sophia than it did on her.
Mr. Kendal shrank from inflicting pain on the good vicar, and it was decided that the wives should be the channel through which the information should be imparted. Albinia took the children, sending them to play in the garden while she talked to Mrs. Dusautoy. She found that keen little lady had some shrewd suspicions, but had discovered nothing defined enough to act upon, and was relieved to have the matter opened at last.
As to the ink, no mortal could help laughing over it; even Albinia, who had been feeling as if she could never laugh again, was suddenly struck by the absurdity, and gave way to a paroxysm of merriment.
‘Properly managed, I do think it might put an end to the whole affair,’ said Mrs. Dusautoy. ‘He could not stand being laughed at.’
‘I’m afraid he never will believe that he can be laughed at.’
‘Yes, that is unlucky,’ said Mrs. Dusautoy, gravely; but recollecting that she was not complimentary, she added, ‘You must not think we undervalue Lucy. John is very fond of her, and the only objection is, that it would require a person of more age and weight to deal with Algernon.’
‘Never mind speeches,’ sighed Albinia; ‘we know too well that nothing could be worse for either. Can’t you give him a tutor and send him to travel.’
‘I’ll talk to John; but unluckily he is of age next month, and there’s an end of our power. And John would never keep him away from hence, for he thinks it his only chance.’
‘I suppose we must do something with Lucy. Heigh-ho! People used not to be always falling in love in my time, except Fred, and that was in a rational way; that could be got rid of!’
The effect of the intelligence on the vicar was to make him set out at once to the livery-stables in quest of his nephew, but he found that the young gentleman had that morning started for London, whither he proposed to follow him on the Monday. Lucy cried incessantly, in the fear that the gentle-hearted vicar might have some truculent intentions towards his nephew, and was so languid and unhappy that no one had the heart to scold her; and comforting her was still more impossible.
Mr. Kendal used to stride away from the sight of her swollen eyes, and ask Albinia why she did not tell her that the only good thing that could happen to her would be, that she should never see nor hear of the fellow again.
Why he did not tell her so himself was a different question.
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