CHAPTER XXXSERMON, BY A SINNER
Gilbert had said to Roger that he was only remaining a few days longer at Thorsgarth; but as a matter of fact, he stayed till over the New Year,—being able, seemingly, to put off the business which, he every now and then remarked in a casual way, called aloud to him from London. He could hardly have enjoyed himself much, during the latter portion of his visit—at least, that was Eleanor’s feeling, as she uneasily watched the course of events after the concert. For a few days she was quite in the dark as to the exact state of things. Of course she lay awake a long time on that particular night, feeling uneasy about every subject to which her thoughts turned,—Otho, Gilbert, Magdalen, Ada; she felt no sense of security or comprehension with regard to any one of them. Why did Magdalen, after behaving so well at first under the insult which Otho had put upon her, fall off so lamentably afterwards—tamely submitting to his behest, and allowing him to drive home with her?
And Gilbert—in whom, to a certain extent, she had put her trust—was no more than a broken reed. He had promised to see that all should go right, and, on the contrary, everything had gone wrong—just as wrong as it could possibly go; and he seemed neither vexednor uneasy about it, but allowed things to take their course.
When she met Otho at lunch, after his quarrel with Roger, and saw his sullen look, and heard his sulky, curt remarks and replies, she felt miserable, in spite of telling herself that it was no affair of hers; and she did not venture to inquire what had angered him. She vaguely dreaded to hear his reply. The Christmas Day, which happened also to be a Sunday, came; and the doctor’s Christmas-tree was to be on the twenty-sixth. She had not seen Mrs. Johnson since the concert, and was therefore in ignorance as to what had happened at the mills, and it suited Gilbert for a day or two to say nothing to her. So she lived on in uneasiness, and sometimes caught herself thinking of her former life, which she had left six weeks ago, as if it were a hundred years away from her; and of her uncle and cousin Paul on their travels, as if they were inhabitants of another world, journeying on seas and in lands unheard of.
Things were in this condition on Monday afternoon, and she was sitting alone in her parlour in the waning daylight, when Barlow came in with a message from Gilbert, to know if she would see him. Her thoughts, which had strayed away from the painful present, were suddenly pulled back again to their post. Instinctively bracing herself to meet something disagreeable, she bade Barlow show Mr. Langstroth up, and then sat and waited for him.
In a minute, however, he was with her; and, as usual, his presence, unwished for, and even dreaded in anticipation, proved in reality soothing, almost agreeable. Eleanor struggled against this power of Gilbert to make himself agreeable to her; resented it deeply in her heart,as a sort of disloyalty to his brother, to whom she had in her soul given irrevocably and for ever, the place of master of her heart and destiny. This last was as strong a feeling as anything which could be experienced; but, nevertheless, Gilbert possessed this power of being agreeable to her when he came, and the fact puzzled and annoyed her more than she would have cared to own.
‘You are very kind to let me see you,’ he said at once, as he took the chair she pointed to. ‘I have been wanting to speak to you for a day or two—about Otho.’
‘Ah, I knew it was about Otho. Say on, and let us have done with it.’
‘Perhaps that will not be so easy, either. However, I will say on, as you suggest. Before I could speak to you, I wished to accomplish a certain piece of business. I have now done so, and am free to say what I like. I suppose you have been noticing how angry Otho looks, without being able in your own mind to assign a cause for it?’
‘Unless the cause is that he is unhappy because he has been doing wrong.’
Gilbert repressed a smile.
‘I am afraid I cannot comfort you by confirming that theory of yours. By “doing wrong,” I suppose you mean his little escapade at the concert the other night. Yes, I see. Well, I imagine he has forgotten all about that by now. He is angry, or “unhappy,” if you like, because he has been, and is being, put to great inconvenience, and he doesn’t like it; it makes him uncomfortable.’
Then he told her about the quarrel between Otho and Roger, with a sort of amused carelessness, as if he had been diverted by the combat, and somewhat contemptuousof the combatants, which tone puzzled and did not reassure his hearer.
‘Otho does not like office work,’ he went on, smiling openly. ‘He has not had much of it yet; but the factories reopen to-morrow, after the holiday, and then he will have to try a little of it. I have telegraphed to a man whom I know to send down some one suitable, and I have promised Otho to wait until the some one comes, and just to put him in the way of business; but it may be a week or so before my friend can hit upon the right kind of man. That makes him very angry——’
‘You don’t seem to think anything of the way in whichhehas behaved,’ burst forth Eleanor, indignantly, the colour high in her cheeks. ‘I think it is the most abominable thing I ever heard of—his treating Mr. Camm in that way. It is—it is——’
Words failed her. She felt as if she would choke with anger and disgust. Gilbert’s eyes were fixed upon her face; the slight smile was still hovering about his lips.
‘You talk about what makeshimangry, as if it mattered. He deserves to be put to inconvenience. He does not deserve to be helped out of it. What becomes of Mr. Camm?’
‘Oh, I have seen Roger. We understand each other. But don’t you want to hear all that I have to tell you? I have another piece of news.’
‘What is it?’ she asked, feeling from the way in which he spoke that it must be news of some importance, and staying her anger to hear it.
‘Something else has happened, which ought to have made him forget his anger, one would think. I told him he ought to tell you about it, but he says he won’t; it isall between him and her. He does not feel inclined to talk about it, and, in short, I see you half guess already. Yes; it is quite true. He got engaged to Miss Wynter the other night.’
‘Engaged—to—Miss—Wynter!’ Eleanor stared at him incredulously. ‘She took him—after what he had done?’
Gilbert laughed aloud.
‘She took him, it would appear. I thought you ought to be informed of it. Probably all the neighbourhood is gossiping over it by now, and you would have looked ridiculous if you had heard people talking about it, and had not understood.’
‘I—oh, to be ridiculous is nothing, it seems to me, if one is not disgraceful,’ said Eleanor, and paused, because she could not help wondering what Gilbert felt about it himself. If she were to judge from his present manner, she would have said that he regarded it all from a superior standpoint, as a kind of joke amongst some unsophisticated creatures, whose habits it amused him to study; but, recollecting the very different tone he had lately taken, and his present avowed conviction that he thought it serious enough to come and tell her about it, since Otho would not, she felt that his motives were quite beyond her comprehension. So she ceased to speculate upon them, and turned her attention to another point.
‘It is all very extraordinary to me, and most disagreeable—the way in which it has been done,’ she said, and again caught the curious expression, half amusement, half—what? in Gilbert’s look. ‘You know them both much better than I do. Do you think it will be for his good?’
‘In a way, I am sure it will. It is perfectly certainthat whatever kind of woman Miss Wynter may be, as a woman, she is the only one who has, or ever had, any shadow of influence over him. She knows him thoroughly. She knows the frightful risks she is running,—perhaps she does not feel them frightful—and she knows the precarious state of his fortunes at the present time. With her eyes open she has taken him. If they would or could be married at once she might do a great deal to retrieve his affairs.’
‘I did not mean that exactly,’ said Eleanor, going on with what she did mean, despite what seemed to her Gilbert’s look of mockery. ‘I was thinking more of the moral influence. I should have thought that a woman of higher mind—one who would have roused him to better things——’
‘Yes, that is a very fine idea,’ said Gilbert, with ready benevolence—‘that theory of overcoming evil with good. The thing is, how far is it practicable? You speak as a woman, and a good woman. I see as a man, and a man of the world. And speaking from my knowledge of men in general, and of your brother Otho in particular, I should say Miss Wynter would make him a far more suitable wife than the best of women, filled with high aspirations and noble aims. Magdalen Wynter understands him by reason of being composed of a similar clay. Understanding him, she will lead him—at least, very often. A saint would simply exasperate him into something ten times worse than he is. You do not know the ease, the comfort, and the help it is to be understood; how it can keep a wavering man in the right, and drag a sinning man out of the wrong. Good people don’t need half as much understanding as bad ones, and with due respect to you and to current notionson the subject, saints and people who never do wrong are not those who are the most sympathetic and comprehending. It sounds very degrading, I daresay, but it is true—true as anything can be.’
Gilbert spoke with much more emphasis than usual, and with a shade of bitterness in his tone. Had Roger Camm been there, he would have understood it in a moment; it would have confirmed some vague suspicions long entertained by him. But to Eleanor, it seemed as if Gilbert were composing an apology for wrong-doing; making it out as being rather meritorious than otherwise. With emphasis equal to his own, and with some bitterness in her tone also, she replied—
‘I daresay you may be right. Men of the world usually are right, on the outside, at any rate; but I look inside, and it seems to me that all this is very sad and dreadful, too. Life is full of these horrible contradictions, and it appears as if you can never have any good or beautiful thing without, as it were, a heap of dust and ashes beside it, spoiling it all.’
Gilbert laughed a little, and she felt chilled—not vexed with him—as she was conscious she ought to have been, but discouraged by the fact that he was about to differ from her.
‘Why, of course,’ he admitted. ‘Is it not in the very nature of life, as we know life, that it should be so? What are the good and beautiful things, as you call them, except sacrifices and aspirations or struggles after something higher and better than our everyday fight and grind? And how can you have beautiful sacrifices without something bad and mean to call them out? and how can you aspire after the better, without a worse which makes the better desirable to you? But for the dustheaps,I do not really see how the shrines and temples would ever get their due share of admiration.’
‘Admiration!’ repeated Eleanor, indignantly; ‘as if oneadmireda holy place! I daresay you have risen superior to all such superstitious considerations, but I say again, I think it is horrible; and I maintain that I do not think Miss Wynter is a good or a high-principled woman, and I am very sorry Otho is going to marry her.’
‘Which of them do you look upon as the temple, and which as the cinder-heap?’ asked Gilbert politely, but with a queer look. Eleanor was furious with herself for laughing out, quickly and readily; but she had to admit that Gilbert had the best of it. Then a sudden gravity came over her; she caught her breath, and looked at him in renewed bewilderment. In what light did he wish her to see him; how did he desire her to view him, that he, who had cheated his brother, and undermined his father’s integrity, should have the effrontery to sit there and talk lightly about wrong being necessary to call forth the higher life, and to say that temples could not be properly ‘admired,’ unless there were sordid details close to them, to emphasise their beauty? Seen from her point of view, his conversation was sickening in its hypocrisy and unreality; and yet—again the feeling of surprise came over her—she was interested in it; she could not feel revolted. Was the man’s personal influence really so potent as to nullify all the effect of what she knew to his disadvantage?
Gilbert had listened to her last words with an amused smile, betraying by nothing whether she hurt him or not; his gaze met hers steadily, and he continued to watch her while she silently reflected. At last he said, lightly still, and coldly—
‘I see you are wondering what to make of me. It is very natural—in you; and if you can trust me far enough to believe that anything disinterested can proceed out of my mouth, I would suggest to you not to go on wondering any more, but to listen to me, and attentively consider what I have to say to you.’
Eleanor started, reddening with confusion, and feeling, with a sudden revulsion, as some child might, which, instead of attending to its professor’s discourse, had been speculating about the wrinkles on the brow of the learned man, and was suddenly called to order. An immense distance seemed to open up at once between her and Gilbert. She remembered the sentiments she had attributed to him of admiration for herself, and felt that egregious vanity must have led her very far astray.
‘Indeed, I will listen to whatever you have to say. I think you are very kind to take so much trouble about—poor Otho.’
‘“Poor Otho,” as you call him, is my oldest friend; I know him better than any one else does, except perhaps the lady we have been speaking of, whose acquaintance with him dates from the very same time. You laughed just now—you could not help it. Does not your common sense now explain to you that it is much better to take men as they are, and provide them with the best that circumstances will allow, instead of wanting to insist on their having for mate an ideal which does not suit, and which they would hate if they had to live with it? That is my view of the case.’
‘Very well,’ said she, resignedly. ‘Go on.’
‘I was about to observe that though Otho certainly appears disposed just now to kick over the traces altogether, and not listen to anything that any one hasto say to him, yet I think I may still say, I have more influence over him than any one else has. But upon my soul, I do not know how long it may last. He has got some notion into his head which, for a wonder, he has not confided to me, and I cannot answer for the freaks which it may inspire him to play. I wonder if you will think me impertinent for asking, did you know much about Otho and his character before you came to live here?’
‘No—at least, my uncle, Mr. Stanley, used to say he was afraid Otho was rather fast, and told me not to let him bet. I think,’ added Eleanor, with rather a sad smile, ‘that if we had known him better, we should not have wasted our words in that way.’
‘I think something still more probable is, that you would not have wasted your time in coming here.’
‘I did not choose to come here. It so fell out that this was the right place for me to come to.’
‘You had nowhere else to go?’
‘Practically nowhere. My aunt died, and my uncle’s health had so given way that he and Paul—my cousin, and their only child—have gone to travel together for an indefinite time. Where should I have thought of coming to but to myhome?’
She raised her head, and looked at him both proudly and sadly. Gilbert’s eyes fell—not in confusion, but reflectively.
‘True,’ he admitted, after a moment. ‘And you intend to remain here?’
‘Certainly I do. Why should I go?’
‘Oh, there are many reasons. It is not a pleasant house for you to be in.’
Eleanor felt as if Otho’s conduct were being commentedupon, and she herself tutored by some one who was much more master of the situation than she was. She did not exactly like it, but she was powerless to resent it; she did not quite know whether she wished even to resent it.
‘It is a dreary house,’ said she at length. ‘It is depressing to me, too. But I don’t know that one may always leave a place just because it happens not to be pleasant.’
‘Ah! You know Otho is going away when I do?’
‘Yes.’
‘I will answer for it that you will not see much more of him till after the Derby Day, and perhaps not then. Don’t you think it would be advisable for you to have a change, too?’
‘A change—in the depth of winter—after being here just six weeks? No, I do not.’
‘You are very decided, I see. Pardon me for pressing the question again. Are you quite decided to stay here?’
‘Yes. Why not? Why should I go away? It is my home, as I said before,’ she said, looking at him rather impatiently.
‘You will be very dull. Otho, you see, has no scruples about leaving you, and will not return an hour the sooner from the knowledge that you are here alone.’
‘And if I like Bradstane, and wish to remain at Thorsgarth, in spite of this dulness, and in spite of what Otho does?’
He shrugged his shoulders.
‘Of course, in that case. There are compensations sometimes, which go a long way towards repaying a little dulness and solitude. Every one to his taste. If that is yours, I may as well proceed to tell you that my advice to you would be to prepare for reverses.’
‘Reverses?’
‘Yes. Racing, and the sort of horse-dealing in which Otho indulges—never to mention a dozen other expensive little trifles that he likes, are not profitable occupations, and he has not found them so. I speak plainly. You may live to see very evil days at Thorsgarth, if you choose to remain here. You may live to see Otho reduced to poverty, and, if your feelings are easily worked upon, your own fortune in danger—that is, if you should let yourself be deluded into the idea that you can help him out of his difficulties, and set him on his legs again.’
‘I think I could meet reverses, if they came, without too much lamenting.’
‘In addition to which he may at any time get married to your favourite, Magdalen Wynter, and request you to find another home.’
‘I have a house of my own, and I should not wait to be asked to go.’
‘Oh, you mean the Dower House—a nice old house, that. It stands quite near to my own old home, the Red Gables.’
‘Yes. I have thought sometimes it would be a pleasant house to live in, as——’
‘As you are so much alone,’ interposed Gilbert, almost eagerly. ‘Don’t you really think that it would be much better than for you to be here, alone, without chaperon or companion——’
‘Nay,’ interposed Eleanor, half-smiling; ‘don’t twit me with that. I don’t want a chaperon; but if I did, how could I have one, when you know very well that Otho says——’
She stopped. Otho had said that one petticoat in thehouse was more than enough for him, and he would put up with no more. Gilbert smiled.
‘Yes, I know what Otho says. I was not twitting you. I only wish you would see that reason tells you to leave him, and not mix yourself in his affairs.’
‘Your reason may. Mine does not. Mine tells me that Otho is my brother; and I’m sure he is wretched with his own wrong-doing, though you scoff at the idea. Do you mean to tell me that Otho is happy?—you cannot. And my reason tells me that, sometime, I might find a way of helping him. He might want to come home and have some one to be kind to him, sometime. And I might be away, and never hear of it till a long time afterwards. I don’t mean to say that nothing would induce me ever to go to the Dower House; that is a different thing. But I will not think of leaving Bradstane. Men’s reason is proverbially superior to women’s reason, you know. Perhaps that is why we don’t agree.’
‘Perhaps it is,’ said he, tranquilly. ‘After what you have said it would be impertinence in me to urge anything further. Perhaps I have gone too far already. I was under the impression that you were very unhappy in Bradstane, but I am pleased to find that my fears were exaggerated. I am very glad you have found mitigating circumstances, and I hope the good may continue to outweigh the evil in your estimation.’
He spoke politely and coldly. Eleanor sat silent and almost breathless. Gilbert had never spoken to her thus before. She was alarmed at his tone, and it brought back to her recollection all the dissertations she had heard from Dr. Rowntree on the subject of his infernal cleverness, as the worthy Friend called it. At the samemoment she recalled a descriptive sentence which she had heard Otho utter not long ago. ‘Finding’—he had said, speaking of some acquaintance who had long unsuccessfully wooed a lady—‘finding the sentimental dodge no go, he took to intimidation, and fairly bullied her into it.’
A convulsive smile twitched her lips. She did not believe now that Gilbert’s altered tone arose from disappointed sentiment. A much more prosaic reason suggested itself to her, namely, that the sentiment had been assumed in order to amuse himself, and see what the effect would be upon her. He must stand sorely in need of some kind of amusement at Thorsgarth, she reflected, and that was the one nearest to his hand. His present demeanour and sentiments were probably those of the natural man. What he had just said convinced her that he did not more than half believe in her desire to remain in order to be of some possible service to Otho. She was more than ever sure of this when he rose and said—
‘I will not detain you any longer, I know you are going out this evening, and I know that children’s parties begin early, as a rule.’
‘Yes, that is——’
‘Oh, I know what a benevolent old gentleman Dr. Rowntree is, especially to those who are his favourites. He would like to give them all Christmas presents and kisses, young and old, big and little. I wish you a very pleasant evening.’
She was silent still. Gilbert wished her good afternoon, and departed.
From various allusions which he let fall before he went away, he gave her to understand that he knewMichael had been at the doctor’s party. Eleanor tried to ignore these hints, and to look openly at Gilbert when he spoke of his brother; but her heart was hot within her, with mingled fear and indignation; fear lest he should even yet harbour some scheme of harm against Michael; indignation at what she considered his audacity in naming him, and a miserable sense that she had better not provoke him, or the results might be bad for Otho. Gilbert sought her society no more; he had no more of those pleasant, gentle things to say to her, such as he had uttered on the night of the concert. She became convinced that he regarded her with dislike, if not with enmity, and she withdrew herself as much as possible from his and Otho’s society. Gilbert had yet another twist to give to the tangled coil into which her thoughts had got, concerning him, and he did it ingeniously. He was alone with her in the drawing-room, after dinner, on the evening before the day on which he and Otho were to depart.
He took a card case from his pocket, extracted a card from it, and gave it to her.
‘That is my London address,’ said he, with the blandest of smiles. ‘If you should ever—since you will remain at Thorsgarth—find yourself involved in difficulties with Otho, or in any other circumstances in which the advice of a—business man would be of any use to you, telegraph there to me, and I will be with you within four-and-twenty hours.’
‘Oh, Mr. Langstroth——’
‘Don’t, pray, trouble yourself to express any gratitude. How do you know what dark motives may lurk beneath my seeming kindness? We leave by the seven-thirty train in the morning, so I shall not be likelyto see you again. I will therefore wish you good-bye now.’
‘Good-bye,’ said she, hesitatingly, feeling as if she ought to add something to the baldness of the word, but utterly at a loss to know what that something should be.
‘I shall, I hope, be here again for the shooting, if not before,’ said Gilbert. ‘I shall hope to find you well, and as pleased with Thorsgarth—and Bradstane, too—as you are now.’
With which he left her, with his words, and the tone of them, echoing in her ears, and with the shadow of his shadowy smile floating still before her eyes. She was as far as ever from being able to decide whether he was a gross hypocrite, or only a man who had once done very wrong, and was now trying to do very right. That he might be something between the two did not occur to her.