"Dear little Jane—I'm off to be a soldier. Good-bye, dear, and love fromHARRY."CHAPTER XVIIIAFTERWARDSLady Brent and Wilbraham sat by the fire in the hour before dinner. The summer had quite gone now. The rain, driven by a gale of wind, was lashing the window panes. There was an impression of luxury and shelter in the handsome closely curtained room with the wood fire on the hearth and the soft light of lamps and candles. But there was little sense of comfort in the hearts of its occupants. Lady Brent knitted as she talked, and to outside view there was no sign of the sadness and emptiness which lay upon her and over the whole house. Wilbraham was in frowning, sombre mood. They talked in low voices. It was a week since Harry had left them, but they had not yet begun to get used to his absence. Their life went on, but it seemed now to be devoid of all meaning. It was almost as if death had come to the house and its shadow still lay on it."I hope you won't go," Lady Brent was saying. "After all, your tutorship of Harry was only part of your life here. You have been one of our little family for over ten years. I should feel Harry's going more if you went, too; and so, of course, would Charlotte."Wilbraham stirred uneasily. "It is very kind of you to put it like that," he said. But her words had not removed the frown from his face, and he did not say that he would stay.There was silence for a time. Then Wilbraham said, suddenly: "Do you remember that evening at dinner when Harry asked about hurrying up his training, and you told him that enlistment wouldn't be the course for him to follow, whatever it might be for others?""Oh, yes, perfectly. Why do you ask?""Because afterwards, when we were alone together, he came back to it.""Ah!" she said. "Why didn't you tell me?"He gave a short laugh. "I thought you'd ask that," he said. "I wish I had, sometimes, though I doubt if it would have made any difference.""What did he say?""He began by saying that he was going to ask me to do something for him. I could do it or not, as I thought right, but I wasn't to tell you about it in either case."She was silent, and her needles clicked steadily. But there had been the slightest pause in the regular sound of them."It was only to save you and his mother anxiety," Wilbraham hurried to say. "I had to give the promise, or he wouldn't have told me what was in his mind. It was to find out for him whether it was possible to get his commission sooner by enlisting. Well, I said at once that I couldn't do that behind your back, and I told him that it was impossible in any case for him to enlist before he was eighteen. He seemed to be satisfied. In fact, he said that he had only wanted to be quite sure that he was leaving nothing undone that he could do. I thought it was off his mind. He never said anything more to me about it.""Well, I think you acted rightly," she said, after a pause. "I had thought it all out. It had seemed to me possible that he might come to think it was his duty to enlist, as the war went on. I had asked myself whether it would be right to keep him back, if that happened, and had come to the conclusion that there was nothing to be gained by his enlisting—from his point of view, I mean. It seemed to me as I said then, on the first opportunity for saying anything, that—well, you heard what I said. I thought he had accepted it.""So did I. I'm glad I've told you, but I'm not sure that you could have done anything. I believe he was satisfied to leave it alone then. It came to him afterwards—not that he could hurry up his training as an officer, but that it was his duty to go off and get into the lines as quickly as possible. He knew you wouldn't sanction that, and I'd already told him that you'd have the power to stop his enlisting. So he thought it all out for himself, and kept his own counsel.""That is what happened," she said, calmly. "I have thought that out, too. I think he was right, you know—dear Harry."He looked up in surprise at this."I couldn't have sanctioned it," she said. "And yet I should have sympathized with him—much more than he had any idea of. I'm proud of him. But, oh, how I wish he could have trusted me a little more."She laid down her work on her lap and gazed into the fire. Wilbraham was stirred by her utterance, so unlike her, with her calm self-control and entire command over all her emotions, to which even now, after years of knowing her, and the springs of her conduct, he had small clue.She took up her work again, and spoke with as much calmness as before. "I've sometimes asked myself," she said, "whether I wasn't getting so much interested in carrying out a great experiment as to forget what it all tended to. But I don't think I can fairly lay that to my charge. I have loved the boy too much to treat him just as the object of an experiment. If at any time I had thought that I—that we—were not doing rightly by him in keeping him here away from everything that might have prepared him for the future, in the way that other boys are prepared for it—I should have given up the idea, and let the world in on us—and on him. At the beginning I don't think I had any thought of carrying the seclusion as far as I have done. That was only to have been for his childhood. But it has been so fascinating to see him grow up here and only become stronger and finer as he got older. I don't think he has missed anything that would have been for his good. Anything that he has missed has been made up to him in other ways. His intense love of nature—none of us have been able to share that with him to increase his love for it, but I have watched it with a glad heart. It has seemed as if my plan had been helped by it, in a way I couldn't have expected—or at least not to that extent. And the way the people all love him here! He had got right down into their hearts as he couldn't have done unless he had lived with them day after day, all the year round, and for year after year, so that they have been his friends outside his home, and not people away from here or coming here from time to time with whom they could have no concern. Everything has encouraged me to go on. Even the extra freedom that he has taken to himself of late has pleased me. He hasn't felt himself fettered. He has had the life he wanted, and surely it must have been the best life one could have given him, if it has made him so happy.""Yes," said Wilbraham. "He has made himself happy, and he can be trusted."The unhappy look on his face had not lightened during her long speech, and he spoke now as if to reassure himself that what she had said was true. Ever since Harry had gone off before dawn on that morning a week ago, leaving messages of love and farewell for his mother and grandmother, he had been asking himself the meaning of it, and whether it was right for him any longer to keep back from Lady Brent what he knew about Harry and she didn't.How much had Viola had to do with it? Nothing, he was sure, in persuasion of Harry. But Wilbraham knew that his love for her had changed the whole current of his life. Perhaps he wouldn't have gone off like that if he had never seen her.If Wilbraham could have made up his mind to tell Lady Brent everything, he would have been able to gain from her some consolation in return. He needed it at this time. She was the only person who knew of his temptation, and she had been good to him about it in the past.The poor man was going through a bad time on his own account. Perhaps he was just emerging from it, but its effects were still heavy on him. After seeing Viola and her father together, in an atmosphere so different from that in which he had first seen Bastian alone, he had had a vivid sense of shame, which had increased after he had seen Harry. The idealism of their fresh youth had made his own lapse look very ugly to him, and still more the knowledge which he had not admitted to himself until later that he was still playing with the idea of drinking with Bastian, though rejecting the possibility of being caught once more in the toils.But the toils had caught him, though that first glass of whisky that he had drunk with Bastian had also been the last. Village gossip, if it connected his name with that of Bastian as a big drinker, had done him an injustice. He had gone to see Bastian two or three times, and had told him straight out the first time the truth about himself. Bastian had treated the confidence with ready sympathy, and Wilbraham had never seen the whisky bottle while he was with him. He had said that he didn't really care about it himself, which Wilbraham took as a speech of politeness. If there was foundation for village gossip, he must have given cause for it at other times of the day.Bastian might be able to drink or refrain from drinking at pleasure, but for poor Wilbraham the mischief had been done with that one glass. He had had periods of longing of late years, always at rarer intervals, but none of them had been so strong as this. He was tortured; sometimes he was on the point of asking Bastian for God's sake to give him something. He was drawn there in a way he could not explain; his irritated brain rejected reasoning, and he would not keep away. It was certainly the fact that he had drunk spirits at the cottage that attracted him, and yet he was fighting the desire all the time. But once again he talked to Viola there, and he had thoughts of Harry always before him. When for the last time he saw Bastian and said good-bye to him he knew that the danger of a fall was over.But the craving had continued. Bastian had been gone nearly a month, and he still felt it, though now it was at last getting weaker. There was no danger of falling at Royd. There was no public house there, no wine or spirits were drunk at the Castle, and he had attained enough mastery of himself to have no temptation to go further where he could get drink.His own troubles had prevented his mind from being filled with thoughts of Harry, and he was now blaming himself for a possible carelessness towards signs which might have shown him what the boy must have been making up his mind to during the last month. He had seen him sad, after Viola's departure, and he had never mentioned her name to Wilbraham, as he had done once or twice before. So far as Wilbraham knew, no letters passed between them. The post-bag came to the Castle once a day and was unlocked by Lady Brent. It would have been unlike Harry to arrange for letters to be sent to him through a secret source; Wilbraham was pretty sure that he had not done so.In his effort to distract his mind from the urgency that was riding it, Wilbraham had gone about among the tenantry more than usual. He had kept his ears open for signs that Harry's meetings with Viola had become known, and could find none. He had gone to see Mrs. Ivimey once since Bastian's departure, and she had been loud in her praises of "the young lady." She had even said that if things hadn't been as they were, by which he imagined her to be alluding chiefly to Bastian's drinking habits, she and Sir Harry would have made "a pretty pair." Wilbraham was sure, from her way of saying it, that she had no idea, or suspicion, of their having met. The woods were of great extent, and, apart from a few rarely frequented paths and rides, almost as little known as when they had been primeval forest. A few woodmen were employed in them, but at this time they were at work felling at the other end of the manor. It seemed almost certain that no one had ever seen the two together.Harry's sadness would pass. He was still a boy, in years hardly more than a child, and Viola was no older. If they were thrown together over years, their young love might ripen into the love of a life-time; as it was, it would probably die down to a fragrant memory—a love-idyll of summer woods, happy and innocent, but no more than the budding of love in the tender hearts of two pretty children. Wilbraham even thought that Harry might have put it aside from him, at least for a time. His poise of mind was so in advance of his years that it would not be surprising if that were so. He had thrown himself ardently into the three months' work asked of him, and if he was no longer merry and light-hearted, as he had been, he seemed to be in full possession of himself and concentrated in purpose. By and by, when Wilbraham had passed through his own troubles, he might talk to him about Viola, and find out how it lay with them. At present there seemed to be nothing to do but to follow Harry's example and concentrate his mind upon the important business in hand, which was Harry's preparation for his coming examination.So Wilbraham had thought and so he had acted, with a troubled longing for the time when he should once more be free of his own burden. But now he doubted. One thing was fairly clear. By going away Harry would be in touch again with Viola as he could not be at Royd. Wilbraham did not suppose that to be the sole or even the chief reason for his going away, but it had probably counted in his decision.Harry had ridden off on his horse, before dawn, probably some hours before dawn, for nothing had been seen of him in the country in which he was known. He had worn his oldest riding suit, and as far as could be said had taken scarcely anything with him. His short note to his grandmother, and longer letter to his mother had said that he was going to enlist, and it was supposed that he intended to offer himself and his horse to a cavalry regiment. He begged that no attempt should be made to follow or to stop him doing what he had fully made up his mind to. He would write in a few days, when affairs had been settled for him, but after that he would not write at all until he had won his commission in the field. He made no apology for taking the decision into his own hands, and offered no explanation of it. But it was plain that he meant to run no risk of being prevented from following out the course he had laid down for himself.Mrs. Brent had been full of lamentations. Lady Brent had taken it very calmly, though the shock it was to her had been apparent in the seriousness and sadness of her manner. A few inquiries were made as to whether Harry had been seen riding away, and then they had waited for his promised letter.It came on the fourth day, with a London postmark. He had been accepted for enlistment. He was in barracks, well and happy. His letter—to his mother—was of the shortest, but contained expressions of affection which did something to soothe her trouble.On the outside his action was that of a spirited boy who had made up his mind to go off and fight and was not to be hampered by the fears and objections of his elders. But to Wilbraham there was more in it than that. He thought that Harry might have made up his mind to the course he had taken if he had not met Viola, but that he would not have carried it out in quite the same way. Then, his mother and grandmother would have been the only people whom he had to consider. Now they hardly counted. He had acted, if not with want of kindness, still with something of the insensibility of youth towards the claims of its elders. They would not hear from him again for months, perhaps for years—though a lapse of years seemed unlikely at that time. But Viola would hear from him. It was hard on the older people who loved him. Wilbraham knew that it was bearing hardly upon Lady Brent."I might find out something about him if I went to London," Wilbraham said, after neither of them had spoken for a time.She looked up at him quickly, and laid down her work. "I should be so glad to know where he is," she said. "I should like him to know—if it were only possible to get it to him—that I should make no effort now to go against him. I could, you know. It would not be difficult to find him; at least, it would not be impossible. But I shall take no steps to override his will. If he knew that, surely he would not want to keep himself cut off from us! He could write, and before he was sent abroad he could come here for a few days. Oh, if only you could find out where he is, and let him know that!""I'll go up and try, if you like," said Wilbraham.It had surprised him a little that she had not asked how or where he would try. He would go straight to Bastian, whose address he knew, and see Viola. In making the offer he had half intended, if she pressed him, to unburden himself to her about Viola. He did not know whether he was relieved or disappointed that she asked him no questions. She seemed to be too excited to think about it, though she did say, later on, that he could go to Mr. Gulliver, the Brent solicitor, but that if he did so Mr. Gulliver was to be told not to interfere with Harry's actions."The sooner the better," said Wilbraham. "I'd better go up to-morrow."She made no demur, and was silent for a time. Then she looked at him kindly, and said: "There's no danger for you now, is there?"He was overcome with a wave of self-pity, brought out by the sympathy of her tone. "I've been through a bad time," he said. "I think it's coming to an end. I don't think there's any danger now.""I've seen it, of course," she said, "and have been very sorry for you."He had not thought that she had noticed. Some explanation seemed due to her. "I did drink some spirits," he said, with a gulp. "Just once. I thought I was safe, but it brought on the craving. I've had my lesson. I know that I'm different from other men now. It's not in my power to be temperate. It has to be nothing at all from now onwards.""I think it's the only way," she said. "And for years together here you haven't missed it, have you?""No," he said. "It was very wrong to do it at all. I'm ashamed of myself—after you've done what you have for me."One thing she had done was to go without wine at table, except on the rare occasions on which there had been guests at the Castle. That had been for his sake, and he knew it well enough, though she had never mentioned it. She deserved his confidence."It was when I went to see Bastian—the artist," he said. "After the first time I told him how it was with me, and he never drank anything himself while I was with him.""In the village they say he was a heavy drinker."It surprised him to hear that she had heard about Bastian. When he had told her that there was no necessity to ask him to the Castle, she had seemed to lose all interest in him, and had never mentioned his name since."I should think he drinks a lot," he said. "He did when I was with him. But he seems to be one of those men who don't get caught by it. To say he is a heavy drinker would be rather unfair. He has his young daughter to look after, and I think he'd be careful what he did for her sake. He's a gentleman, though he seems to have come down in the world, and a man of refinement."He was feeling his way towards a confession. She had been so kind to him, and so wonderful in her understanding of what had impelled Harry to the course he had taken, though it had hit her hard, that his inclination was to tell her, and trust her to take the view of it that he had taken himself. But there was a fence to take before he could make a clean breast of it. He had given no promise to Harry, but Harry had trusted him to keep his secret. It might be right to tell Lady Brent of what had happened, but Harry would not think so. It wanted just the slight pressure, unconscious on her part, of what it would bring forth, to overcome his reluctance to give away Harry's secret.So he gave her an opening to ask him about Bastian, and about Viola. But she did not take it. She seemed to be thinking of something else. "It would be sad," she said, half indifferently, "if his drinking were to affect a young daughter. I think I should like you to go to London to-morrow. It would be a great comfort to poor Charlotte to know where Harry is; and to me, too. And to be able to get messages to him."CHAPTER XIXWILBRAHAM IN LONDONIn the region that lies to the north of Regent's Park there are quiet little streets, aside from the ugly crowded main thoroughfares, which date back from the time, not so very long since, when there were pleasant suburbs here, and the open country lay within a walk of the centre of London. Wilbraham found himself unexpectedly in one of them in his search for the address that Bastian had given him, and, as he waited for admission at the door upon which he had knocked, looked about him with a sense of relief. He had expected something almost approaching squalor, and at least noise and unrest. But it was not painful to think of the girl whom Harry loved living in one of these quiet little houses.They were all alike, built at a time when some of the quality of eighteenth century architecture, which hung about the simplest building, had disappeared, but had not yet given way to the deadness and ugliness that followed it. Nothing could have been simpler than this regular street of small houses, each with one window and a door on the ground floor, two windows on the first, two windows on the second, and a basement with a narrow area; but their very monotony was restful, and they indicated a respectability that was almost aggressive. The paint was nowhere shabby, the brass door handles shone, and here and there the dirty brick of one of the houses had been cleaned and the mortar pointed. They were not beneath the occupation of people who took a pride in the appearance of their dwellings, and might even have money enough to have the faces of them washed and their interiors modernized before they made their homes in them.As Wilbraham stood at the top of the few steps that led to the entrance, a door to the area beneath him opened and a woman looked up at him, and then immediately disappeared. Mrs. Ivimey's sister, evidently, by the likeness. Somehow the fact of this relationship had been forgotten. Here was a link with Royd. If Harry had been to the house, or should come there—! He had no time to formulate his thoughts before she opened the door to him.He introduced himself to her at once, before asking for Bastian. She was a clean neat woman and gave him smiling respectful welcome when he told her who he was. "It's many years since I was down in those parts, sir," she said. "But I hear sometimes from my sister, and Mr. Bastian, the gentleman who lodges with me, has been there lately and told me a good deal about it.""It's him I've come to see," said Wilbraham. "Is he in?""Miss Viola is in, sir," she said. "I dare say you saw her when she was at Royd.""Yes," said Wilbraham. "I should like to see her now, if you'll tell her who I am."Here was a lucky chance. It was Viola he wanted to see, and apart from her father, if possible. Mrs. Clark led him at once upstairs, talking volubly as she did so. But she did not mention Harry. Wilbraham thought she would have done so if he had been to the house.She showed him into a room on the first floor, after knocking at the door and receiving no answer. "I expect Miss Viola is upstairs," she said, opening the door. "I don't think she's gone out again. If you'll kindly step in, sir, I'll go and tell her you're here."Wilbraham entered the room with some curiosity. It was larger than he had anticipated, extending to the whole width of the house and lit by the two windows. Its main furniture was good and solid, of about the date of the house, when furniture had lost its simplicity of line and ornament, but still showed some pride of craftsmanship. Except for an upright piano with a front of faded fluted red silk, which might or might not have belonged to the tenants, it was all probably the property of the landlady, and the nondescript wall paper and dark green curtains were also probably her taste and not theirs. But the books in shelves on either side of the fireplace, the pictures on the walls and the clutter of photographs and little objects for use or ornament on the mantelpiece and elsewhere about the room struck a different note. No attempt had been made to make it other than it was by nature, but it had the air of a permanent home, occupied by people of some refinement.Viola's work-basket was on a small table by the wall, and there were other signs of feminine occupancy in the room. It looked cozy enough, with a bright fire burning, the curtains drawn and the gas lit; for it was getting dark outside. Bastian evidently made use of the large shabby easy chair by the fire, for there was a tobacco jar and an array of pipes on the table by its side, and a book or two. With his daughter sitting opposite to him, on a winter evening, it was possible to imagine him taking pleasure in his home life. It would be quieter and less marked by poverty than Wilbraham had pictured it. A faint odour of the tobacco that Bastian used hung about, but there were flowers in a vase on Viola's table, and fruit in a plaited basket on the sideboard. The sideboard, apt to be so much in evidence in furnished lodgings, had none of the paraphernalia of meals on it in the way of cruets or bottles. In fact, there were no bottles to be seen anywhere. Wilbraham noticed that at once, for his own trouble had made him acutely sensitive; he had no fears now of succumbing to a temptation to drink, but the signs of drinking by Bastian would have affected him unhappily. He was inclined to believe that he had to some extent misread Bastian, on his first acquaintance with him. It could not be his habitual custom to drink as much as he had done on that afternoon, or Viola would be more affected by it than she was. She had none of the air of a girl whose life had been saddened by a father's gross intemperance; and if Bastian had been kept down in the world by this failing of his, as he had said he had, his poverty was shown by this room to be more relative than actual.Wilbraham dismissed the unpleasant question of intemperance, in relief at the signs of comfort and refinement that he saw about him. The table in the middle of the room was laid for tea, as if that was the chief evening meal here. Wilbraham hoped that Bastian would not come in for it until he had talked to Viola.He made his way to the mantelpiece, upon which were a good many photographs. The photographs in a room tell you more than anything about its occupants.Something was told in this instance by the fact that they were all a good many years old. It meant, for one thing, that Viola and her father must have lived here for some time, and for another that they could have made few friends of late years.Wilbraham's eye was caught by one of Bastian as a very young man in a group with three others, taken by a Cambridge photographer. His first thought as he looked at it, was to wonder whether he himself had changed so much in twenty years. Bastian appeared as a young man fashionably dressed and judging by his smile pleased with the world in general and with his own lot in it in particular. He had been more than usually good-looking in those days. There was another one of him on a horse, taken at about the same time, but not at Cambridge. Wilbraham wished afterwards that he had noticed the name and habitation of the photographer. Bastian had never told him from what part of the country he came, or anything about his early home and upbringing. But it was evident that he came from what it is customary to call "good people." It was hardly fair to keep Viola in ignorance of her parentage, which might possibly prove to be of some importance to her.There was a photograph of Viola herself at the age of about ten—a pretty child, but without the exceptional beauty into which she had grown. In a large frame was one of her mother, and there were others of her at different stages. Wilbraham examined them with some attention. She was certainly beautiful, with the same sort of beauty as Viola's, though Wilbraham thought that if he had not known the facts about her he would yet have detected an absence of race, which seemed to him to be apparent in Viola, and perhaps also in her father. He tried to find in her support for Bastian's praise of her character and temperament, but all he could have said was that there was nothing to show that she had not deserved it. She smiled sweetly in these photographs, some of which were in theatrical costume; she was young and beautiful and happy, and her early death added pathos to these presentments of her.There were other photographs of girls and young women carelessly propped up on the mantelpiece, some of them hidden. They were probably mostly theatrical friends of Mrs. Bastian's, and it seemed likely that she had lived in these rooms, or they would not have been left there. Wilbraham's eyes roamed over them without interest, but just as he was about to turn away were caught by the signature of one of them. "With love from Lottie" in a sprawling hand. It was of Mrs. Brent, taken in that youth of which she was still proud but which she had left behind her.Wilbraham looked at it fascinated. For some reason or other Mrs. Brent had never shown him a photograph of herself taken during her stage career. For the moment he was more interested in seeing her as she had been than in the fact of finding her photograph here—Harry's mother, in Viola's room.The photograph made her almost as pretty as Mrs. Bastian. She was a gay light-hearted girl too. Harry's father might be excused for having fallen in love with her. And there was a look of Harry in her young face, which Wilbraham had never noticed in the flesh. He wondered whether Viola had noticed the likeness, which seemed to him quite plain. But probably she did not look at these old photographs to notice anything about them at all once in six months, though she saw them every day.Viola came in as he was standing looking at them. He thought she looked more beautiful than ever, as she greeted him with a smile and a blush. Her entrance into the room seemed to bring light with it, and softness and charm. Its commonplace features sank into the background; the flowers became of more importance than anything, and the books and the music.Wilbraham had seen Viola in a pretty simple frock suitable for the country, but although her clothes now had the same air of simplicity to his unsophisticated eyes, they were even to him something exceptional. One would not have expected a girl who lived in that room to enter it dressed as she was. The calling in which she earned her living stood her in good stead. Wilbraham had not been told what it was, and had the idea of her doing something or other with a typewriter. He thought that the figure she presented was owing to her taste, and did not know that it would also have meant a good deal of money if there had been nothing more than her taste to account for it. What he did feel was that she might have entered any rich room in London as she was and been taken for granted as belonging to it. She was worthy of Harry even in this respect, which would probably weigh more with the world even than it weighed with him."Father will be in in about half an hour," she said. "You will stay and have some tea with us, won't you? I'm sure he will be glad to see you."He had been looking at her searchingly. She gave him the impression of being older than when he had seen her at Royd, a woman full grown and no longer half a child, though the delicacy and freshness of youth still marked her. She had, in fact, ceased to arrange her hair as still growing girls wear it, and there was some to him indefinable difference in her clothes.He said he would stay until her father came in, and she motioned him to her father's chair, and sat down in her own on the other side of the fire, facing him.She seemed to wait for him to speak first. He could tell nothing by her manner, which was smiling and self-possessed, though her self-possession was not more than is becoming to a young girl, secure in her youth and charm."I suppose you know that Harry has left home to enlist in the army," he said.Her colour deepened a little upon the mention of her lover's name, but she did not shrink from his gaze, and the faint smile was still on her lips as she said: "I thought that he might, although he didn't say he would." So of course she knew, and had been prepared for the question."Probably he had not quite made up his mind by the time you left Royd," he said.She did not reply to this, and he thought he could see that she had decided not to admit anything, probably under Harry's directions. Again there came to him the sense of dislike at interfering with what Harry had decided. He could not fence with her to make her say what Harry didn't want her to say, or force her to say that she could not answer his questions. She was frank and innocent. It would seem an impertinence to put her into the position of defending a reticence."We have been very anxious about him at home," he said. "We are anxious still—not to get him to come back, but that he should not cut himself off from us. I've come up to London on purpose to get a message to him if I can. I didn't tell Lady Brent I should come here, or say anything about you. She thinks I have only come to see Mr. Gulliver, the family solicitor, and ask him to find out, if he can, where Harry is. His mother can hardly bear the thought of not hearing from him for months, and not knowing where he is. Lady Brent was not altogether unprepared for his enlisting. She couldn't have been a party to it, as he's not even of an age to enlist yet, and I suppose he's had to represent himself as older than he is in order to get taken. But she told me herself that she was proud of him for doing it, and she certainly wouldn't do anything to interfere with him, now he's taken the matter into his own hands. If he knew that——"He did not finish his sentence, which was on the note of appeal to her. Nor did he look at her.There was a pause. Then she said, "I haven't seen Harry, you know, Mr. Wilbraham."He looked at her then, and saw that there were tears in her eyes. So his appeal had not been without its effect."I think his mother ought to know," she said, "and that he ought to write to her."In a flash of understanding, he saw that he had got all that he had come for, and that he would get no more. Or at least that he must not exercise pressure to get more, or put her in the position of refusing to give it. She would tell Harry what he had told her, and she would tell him that she thought he ought to write to his mother. Of Lady Brent she had said nothing. It was probable that Lady Brent appeared in her eyes in a different light from that in which Wilbraham saw her.As for everything else—it was their secret, to be treated by him with respect. He would probe into it no further; and indeed it was better that he should not know more than he knew already of how it was between them. There was quite enough on his mind that he had kept from Lady Brent."Yes, I think he should write," he said. "I shall see Mr. Gulliver to-morrow."The two statements had no apparent bearing upon one another, but Viola seemed to accept them with relief, and was beginning to talk to him pleasantly, but with no reference to Harry, when Bastian came in.He was nearly half an hour earlier than his usual time, it appeared, and Wilbraham was inclined to be disappointed at having his talk with Viola cut short. Whenever he was with her he felt himself almost violently in sympathy with Harry in his love for her. He was observing her all the time, and there was nothing that she said or did that did not deepen his first impression of her. He wanted to feel like that about her, for Harry's sake; championship of her as one who was in all essentials fit to mate with him, might stand Harry in good stead later on.But she would show herself, perhaps with less need for carefulness in what she said, with her father there as without him. Bastian gave him a cordial welcome. He was again, in appearance, a gentleman, merely indifferent to the shabbiness of his attire, but the younger healthier look he had had during the latter part of his stay at Royd no longer marked him. Wilbraham thought he had been drinking, but he was not drunk, or anything near it, and it seemed probable that he kept his habits in check in the home that he must have valued. He drank tea, rather copiously, at the meal which soon followed his entrance, and there was no preparation apparent for anything stronger to be drunk later on.It was not long before Wilbraham became as anxious to be alone with Bastian as he had before wished to be alone with Viola. Bastian knew, and Viola was distressed at the signs he showed of wishing to talk about what he knew.It became plain to Wilbraham now that the poor child was not unaffected by her father's intemperance. If the worst of it was kept from her, and he had the self-command not to soil the home in which she lived with it, still there were times when she saw him not quite himself.This was one of them. Wilbraham saw the suspicion and then the certainty dawn upon her, with a droop, and a shadow on her brightness, and a stiffening of manner that was not quite displeasure, but yet something near it. She had enough influence over him, apparently, to be able to prevent his saying what she did not want said, but his hints and smiles made Wilbraham as uncomfortable as they evidently made her. Immediately the meal was over she said good-bye to Wilbraham and went out of the room. Perhaps this was her usual way of dealing with these lapses. Her father expostulated, but she took no notice, except by saying as she went out: "I'll tell Mrs. Clark not to clear away just yet.""She's a dear child, Viola—but she's difficult sometimes," said Bastian. "I hope she hasn't taken a dislike to you.""I don't think so," said Wilbraham, shortly. "What she obviously does dislike is having her secrets talked about before a comparative stranger. I should have thought you might have seen that."Bastian threw a look at him as he went to the side table to take up a pipe. Wilbraham's tone seemed to surprise him, but it did not subdue the agreeable humour in which he found himself. "We don't look on you as a stranger," he said, "and if there's a secret, you're in it. I think you want mellowing, my dear Wilbraham. I don't keep anything to drink here, but if you'd like something I can send out for it.""You seem to forget what I told you about myself," said Wilbraham. "I can't drink without losing control of myself. You seem to be in much the same case. I think it's a damned shame to show it before that child."This brought Bastian up short. He frowned in offence, but apparently he was one of those people whom a rebuke moves more to sorrow than to anger, for he said: "That's a hard thing to say to a man, Wilbraham. I do drink more than's good for me sometimes, I know; but if there's one thing I've always been careful about all my life it is not to let it affect Viola.""Well, it does affect her," said Wilbraham. "You'd have seen how it affected her just now, if you hadn't been drinking. It's not for me to preach, God knows. But if you're able to control it at all, you've got something to be very thankful for, and you ought to control it absolutely as far as she's concerned.""I've had very little to drink to-day, as a matter of fact," said Bastian, rather sulkily, "and I don't want to be lectured about it, Wilbraham. Sit down and have a talk. You won't find my powers of expression affected by the little I have had."He ended on a smile. He was an attractive creature, Wilbraham thought, in spite of his culpable weakness. Most men would have quarrelled with him for what he had said, if they had been in Bastian's state. But the extent to which he was affected by drink was a puzzle. As he talked Wilbraham could mark no signs of it, though they had seemed so evident up to this time. There was an absence of cautiousness in what he said, but that was native to him. It may have been slightly enhanced now, but Wilbraham would not have put it down to the loosening of tongue brought about by liquor if they had started with this conversation. His own irritation subsided. He had said his say. He sat down in Viola's chair, opposite to Bastian, and lit his cigarette, taking rather a long time to do so, in order to leave the opening with Bastian, who was not slow to take it."It wouldn't do for my little failing to become known, would it?" he said with a smile. "If I can't do without alcohol altogether—and I don't see why I should—I shall have to keep in the background."Wilbraham was conscious of a return of irritation. He disliked this half-jocular allusion to a subject of such serious importance. "Oh, don't talk of it like that," he said, impatiently. "I suppose you know that Harry Brent and Viola have met and have fallen in love with one another. Nobody else knows it but me, and perhaps it's important that nobody else should. At any rate you can talk quite straight about it to me."Bastian received this with a change of manner. "All right," he said, "I will talk straight. Viola's a girl in a thousand—in a million. I'd trust her anywhere. But for a young man to be meeting her again and again, and keeping it secret—! Well, you see my point, I suppose."It was quite a new point to Wilbraham, as far as he did see it. But his brain, edged by his long struggle with himself, and now again working with its normal quickness, seized upon its essential insincerity at once. There was a barely perceptible pause before he said: "If you mean that Harry has done anything that you can take exception to why have you been smiling and hinting about it up till now?"Perhaps Bastian did not quite take this in. "Oh, I don't mean to say that there has been anything wrong," he said. "As I say, I trust Viola—absolutely. Ifshe'ssatisfied with herself, as she is, that's enough for me.""Very well," said Wilbraham, keeping command. "Then that applies to Harry too. You don't know him. I do. I found it out by chance, and he made no attempt to persuade me to keep it secret. He left it to me, and I decided to do so. If he wanted it kept secret, so did she; and they both wanted it for the same reasons, whatever they were. If she was right, he was right, and——""Yes, that's all very well——," said Bastian, but Wilbraham over-rode his interruption. "I suppose you didn't know of it till after you'd come to London. How did you know of it?"Bastian allowed himself to be diverted. "I found it out on the last night," he said. "I went out to look for her, and she came in crying, poor child! Something suddenly struck me. She had been out such a lot alone, and she hadn't done that before when we'd been away together—at least not so much. And she'd been different somehow. I hadn't thought about it before, but it came to me suddenly all together. And she wouldn't have been crying like that just because we were going home. There was something—somebody. I dare say I should have got at it by thinking it over; but she told me. I love her, and she loves me, and knows that she can tell me anything. That's how it was, Wilbraham. You're not a father, but you can imagine, perhaps, what a father feels about these things, when his daughter is the chief thing in the world to him.""I suppose I can," said Wilbraham. "But all the same you're not treating her in the way you boast of if you're not prepared to look upon Harry in the same light. You'll agree that on the outside of things they're not equal—those two.""I don't agree to that," said Bastian, dogmatically."I said on the outside of things," Wilbraham persisted. "You've been where he belongs, and you know what sort of position he's in. You may have belonged to the same sort of thing once. I don't know. You've never told me who your people were. But you say yourself that you've come down in the world, and it's pretty obvious that you're not in anything like the position the Brents are now. So you can see how it would have been likely to strike me when I first found it out. But Harry is what he is. I trusted him, just as you trusted Viola. And afterwards I saw Viola. If I can think of her as I do, you ought to be able to think of Harry in the same way, though you haven't seen him.""Very well, then," said Bastian. "Let's take it that, leaving out things that don't matter, they're to be looked at in the same way. Of course I know, really, that he's something quite out of the common. I've heard the people there talk about him. If I hadn't thought there was no harm in it—for Viola—I shouldn't have treated it as I have. But you see, Wilbraham, as a father I've got to look a little farther ahead than you do. I suppose to you it's just a boy and girl falling in love with one another in all their innocence, and if nothing comes of it no harm will be done. Well, it wouldn't to him. But it's rather different with her, isn't it?"Wilbraham was silent. That was exactly as he had looked at it, on Harry's behalf. And it would be different for Viola."If he's what you say he is," said Bastian, pursuing his advantage, "he won't want to throw her off when he gets older. But his people will want him to, and when they know they'll try to bring it about. Harry and Viola! Yes. But it's me and Lady Brent, you see, as well—as she seems to be the one that counts most. I don't know anything about the boy's mother; they don't talk about her much down there. It's his grandmother who seems to count for everything. Who was his mother, by the by?"Wilbraham had forgotten until that moment the photograph on the mantelpiece. He awoke to its realization with a mental start. If Bastian had not shown himself ignorant of Mrs. Brent's origin he might have succumbed to the instinct for the dramatic and surprised him by pointing her out in reply to his question. But when the question came he had just received the impression of loyalty on the part of Mrs. Ivimey, or anybody else to whom Bastian may have talked about "the family." They had not given Mrs. Brent away. He wouldn't either, at least at this stage."Nobody in particular," he said with a half truth. "They were only married for a few weeks. Lady Brent is Harry's guardian, and of course she's had most to do with bringing him up more or less in seclusion at Royd. I suppose you know that he has gone off to enlist.""Yes, and I suppose you've come here to find out from Viola where he is, and haul him back again."Wilbraham told him why he had come up. "I shall go and see Gulliver to-morrow," he said, "and get him to make inquiries. Then I hope in a few days Harry will write. She'll be satisfied with that, and whether Gulliver finds him or not she won't make any attempt to get him back.""Well, you're a funny crew altogether," said Bastian, after they had talked a little longer. "As far as I'm concerned, Wilbraham, I'm going to keep my eyes open. You needn't look to me to back up your ideas, if it doesn't suit me to do so. Better have all your cards on the table. They're both much too young yet to think about anything further, and I suppose he'll be too young for another few years. You can hug your secret for the present."
"Dear little Jane—I'm off to be a soldier. Good-bye, dear, and love from
HARRY."
CHAPTER XVIII
AFTERWARDS
Lady Brent and Wilbraham sat by the fire in the hour before dinner. The summer had quite gone now. The rain, driven by a gale of wind, was lashing the window panes. There was an impression of luxury and shelter in the handsome closely curtained room with the wood fire on the hearth and the soft light of lamps and candles. But there was little sense of comfort in the hearts of its occupants. Lady Brent knitted as she talked, and to outside view there was no sign of the sadness and emptiness which lay upon her and over the whole house. Wilbraham was in frowning, sombre mood. They talked in low voices. It was a week since Harry had left them, but they had not yet begun to get used to his absence. Their life went on, but it seemed now to be devoid of all meaning. It was almost as if death had come to the house and its shadow still lay on it.
"I hope you won't go," Lady Brent was saying. "After all, your tutorship of Harry was only part of your life here. You have been one of our little family for over ten years. I should feel Harry's going more if you went, too; and so, of course, would Charlotte."
Wilbraham stirred uneasily. "It is very kind of you to put it like that," he said. But her words had not removed the frown from his face, and he did not say that he would stay.
There was silence for a time. Then Wilbraham said, suddenly: "Do you remember that evening at dinner when Harry asked about hurrying up his training, and you told him that enlistment wouldn't be the course for him to follow, whatever it might be for others?"
"Oh, yes, perfectly. Why do you ask?"
"Because afterwards, when we were alone together, he came back to it."
"Ah!" she said. "Why didn't you tell me?"
He gave a short laugh. "I thought you'd ask that," he said. "I wish I had, sometimes, though I doubt if it would have made any difference."
"What did he say?"
"He began by saying that he was going to ask me to do something for him. I could do it or not, as I thought right, but I wasn't to tell you about it in either case."
She was silent, and her needles clicked steadily. But there had been the slightest pause in the regular sound of them.
"It was only to save you and his mother anxiety," Wilbraham hurried to say. "I had to give the promise, or he wouldn't have told me what was in his mind. It was to find out for him whether it was possible to get his commission sooner by enlisting. Well, I said at once that I couldn't do that behind your back, and I told him that it was impossible in any case for him to enlist before he was eighteen. He seemed to be satisfied. In fact, he said that he had only wanted to be quite sure that he was leaving nothing undone that he could do. I thought it was off his mind. He never said anything more to me about it."
"Well, I think you acted rightly," she said, after a pause. "I had thought it all out. It had seemed to me possible that he might come to think it was his duty to enlist, as the war went on. I had asked myself whether it would be right to keep him back, if that happened, and had come to the conclusion that there was nothing to be gained by his enlisting—from his point of view, I mean. It seemed to me as I said then, on the first opportunity for saying anything, that—well, you heard what I said. I thought he had accepted it."
"So did I. I'm glad I've told you, but I'm not sure that you could have done anything. I believe he was satisfied to leave it alone then. It came to him afterwards—not that he could hurry up his training as an officer, but that it was his duty to go off and get into the lines as quickly as possible. He knew you wouldn't sanction that, and I'd already told him that you'd have the power to stop his enlisting. So he thought it all out for himself, and kept his own counsel."
"That is what happened," she said, calmly. "I have thought that out, too. I think he was right, you know—dear Harry."
He looked up in surprise at this.
"I couldn't have sanctioned it," she said. "And yet I should have sympathized with him—much more than he had any idea of. I'm proud of him. But, oh, how I wish he could have trusted me a little more."
She laid down her work on her lap and gazed into the fire. Wilbraham was stirred by her utterance, so unlike her, with her calm self-control and entire command over all her emotions, to which even now, after years of knowing her, and the springs of her conduct, he had small clue.
She took up her work again, and spoke with as much calmness as before. "I've sometimes asked myself," she said, "whether I wasn't getting so much interested in carrying out a great experiment as to forget what it all tended to. But I don't think I can fairly lay that to my charge. I have loved the boy too much to treat him just as the object of an experiment. If at any time I had thought that I—that we—were not doing rightly by him in keeping him here away from everything that might have prepared him for the future, in the way that other boys are prepared for it—I should have given up the idea, and let the world in on us—and on him. At the beginning I don't think I had any thought of carrying the seclusion as far as I have done. That was only to have been for his childhood. But it has been so fascinating to see him grow up here and only become stronger and finer as he got older. I don't think he has missed anything that would have been for his good. Anything that he has missed has been made up to him in other ways. His intense love of nature—none of us have been able to share that with him to increase his love for it, but I have watched it with a glad heart. It has seemed as if my plan had been helped by it, in a way I couldn't have expected—or at least not to that extent. And the way the people all love him here! He had got right down into their hearts as he couldn't have done unless he had lived with them day after day, all the year round, and for year after year, so that they have been his friends outside his home, and not people away from here or coming here from time to time with whom they could have no concern. Everything has encouraged me to go on. Even the extra freedom that he has taken to himself of late has pleased me. He hasn't felt himself fettered. He has had the life he wanted, and surely it must have been the best life one could have given him, if it has made him so happy."
"Yes," said Wilbraham. "He has made himself happy, and he can be trusted."
The unhappy look on his face had not lightened during her long speech, and he spoke now as if to reassure himself that what she had said was true. Ever since Harry had gone off before dawn on that morning a week ago, leaving messages of love and farewell for his mother and grandmother, he had been asking himself the meaning of it, and whether it was right for him any longer to keep back from Lady Brent what he knew about Harry and she didn't.
How much had Viola had to do with it? Nothing, he was sure, in persuasion of Harry. But Wilbraham knew that his love for her had changed the whole current of his life. Perhaps he wouldn't have gone off like that if he had never seen her.
If Wilbraham could have made up his mind to tell Lady Brent everything, he would have been able to gain from her some consolation in return. He needed it at this time. She was the only person who knew of his temptation, and she had been good to him about it in the past.
The poor man was going through a bad time on his own account. Perhaps he was just emerging from it, but its effects were still heavy on him. After seeing Viola and her father together, in an atmosphere so different from that in which he had first seen Bastian alone, he had had a vivid sense of shame, which had increased after he had seen Harry. The idealism of their fresh youth had made his own lapse look very ugly to him, and still more the knowledge which he had not admitted to himself until later that he was still playing with the idea of drinking with Bastian, though rejecting the possibility of being caught once more in the toils.
But the toils had caught him, though that first glass of whisky that he had drunk with Bastian had also been the last. Village gossip, if it connected his name with that of Bastian as a big drinker, had done him an injustice. He had gone to see Bastian two or three times, and had told him straight out the first time the truth about himself. Bastian had treated the confidence with ready sympathy, and Wilbraham had never seen the whisky bottle while he was with him. He had said that he didn't really care about it himself, which Wilbraham took as a speech of politeness. If there was foundation for village gossip, he must have given cause for it at other times of the day.
Bastian might be able to drink or refrain from drinking at pleasure, but for poor Wilbraham the mischief had been done with that one glass. He had had periods of longing of late years, always at rarer intervals, but none of them had been so strong as this. He was tortured; sometimes he was on the point of asking Bastian for God's sake to give him something. He was drawn there in a way he could not explain; his irritated brain rejected reasoning, and he would not keep away. It was certainly the fact that he had drunk spirits at the cottage that attracted him, and yet he was fighting the desire all the time. But once again he talked to Viola there, and he had thoughts of Harry always before him. When for the last time he saw Bastian and said good-bye to him he knew that the danger of a fall was over.
But the craving had continued. Bastian had been gone nearly a month, and he still felt it, though now it was at last getting weaker. There was no danger of falling at Royd. There was no public house there, no wine or spirits were drunk at the Castle, and he had attained enough mastery of himself to have no temptation to go further where he could get drink.
His own troubles had prevented his mind from being filled with thoughts of Harry, and he was now blaming himself for a possible carelessness towards signs which might have shown him what the boy must have been making up his mind to during the last month. He had seen him sad, after Viola's departure, and he had never mentioned her name to Wilbraham, as he had done once or twice before. So far as Wilbraham knew, no letters passed between them. The post-bag came to the Castle once a day and was unlocked by Lady Brent. It would have been unlike Harry to arrange for letters to be sent to him through a secret source; Wilbraham was pretty sure that he had not done so.
In his effort to distract his mind from the urgency that was riding it, Wilbraham had gone about among the tenantry more than usual. He had kept his ears open for signs that Harry's meetings with Viola had become known, and could find none. He had gone to see Mrs. Ivimey once since Bastian's departure, and she had been loud in her praises of "the young lady." She had even said that if things hadn't been as they were, by which he imagined her to be alluding chiefly to Bastian's drinking habits, she and Sir Harry would have made "a pretty pair." Wilbraham was sure, from her way of saying it, that she had no idea, or suspicion, of their having met. The woods were of great extent, and, apart from a few rarely frequented paths and rides, almost as little known as when they had been primeval forest. A few woodmen were employed in them, but at this time they were at work felling at the other end of the manor. It seemed almost certain that no one had ever seen the two together.
Harry's sadness would pass. He was still a boy, in years hardly more than a child, and Viola was no older. If they were thrown together over years, their young love might ripen into the love of a life-time; as it was, it would probably die down to a fragrant memory—a love-idyll of summer woods, happy and innocent, but no more than the budding of love in the tender hearts of two pretty children. Wilbraham even thought that Harry might have put it aside from him, at least for a time. His poise of mind was so in advance of his years that it would not be surprising if that were so. He had thrown himself ardently into the three months' work asked of him, and if he was no longer merry and light-hearted, as he had been, he seemed to be in full possession of himself and concentrated in purpose. By and by, when Wilbraham had passed through his own troubles, he might talk to him about Viola, and find out how it lay with them. At present there seemed to be nothing to do but to follow Harry's example and concentrate his mind upon the important business in hand, which was Harry's preparation for his coming examination.
So Wilbraham had thought and so he had acted, with a troubled longing for the time when he should once more be free of his own burden. But now he doubted. One thing was fairly clear. By going away Harry would be in touch again with Viola as he could not be at Royd. Wilbraham did not suppose that to be the sole or even the chief reason for his going away, but it had probably counted in his decision.
Harry had ridden off on his horse, before dawn, probably some hours before dawn, for nothing had been seen of him in the country in which he was known. He had worn his oldest riding suit, and as far as could be said had taken scarcely anything with him. His short note to his grandmother, and longer letter to his mother had said that he was going to enlist, and it was supposed that he intended to offer himself and his horse to a cavalry regiment. He begged that no attempt should be made to follow or to stop him doing what he had fully made up his mind to. He would write in a few days, when affairs had been settled for him, but after that he would not write at all until he had won his commission in the field. He made no apology for taking the decision into his own hands, and offered no explanation of it. But it was plain that he meant to run no risk of being prevented from following out the course he had laid down for himself.
Mrs. Brent had been full of lamentations. Lady Brent had taken it very calmly, though the shock it was to her had been apparent in the seriousness and sadness of her manner. A few inquiries were made as to whether Harry had been seen riding away, and then they had waited for his promised letter.
It came on the fourth day, with a London postmark. He had been accepted for enlistment. He was in barracks, well and happy. His letter—to his mother—was of the shortest, but contained expressions of affection which did something to soothe her trouble.
On the outside his action was that of a spirited boy who had made up his mind to go off and fight and was not to be hampered by the fears and objections of his elders. But to Wilbraham there was more in it than that. He thought that Harry might have made up his mind to the course he had taken if he had not met Viola, but that he would not have carried it out in quite the same way. Then, his mother and grandmother would have been the only people whom he had to consider. Now they hardly counted. He had acted, if not with want of kindness, still with something of the insensibility of youth towards the claims of its elders. They would not hear from him again for months, perhaps for years—though a lapse of years seemed unlikely at that time. But Viola would hear from him. It was hard on the older people who loved him. Wilbraham knew that it was bearing hardly upon Lady Brent.
"I might find out something about him if I went to London," Wilbraham said, after neither of them had spoken for a time.
She looked up at him quickly, and laid down her work. "I should be so glad to know where he is," she said. "I should like him to know—if it were only possible to get it to him—that I should make no effort now to go against him. I could, you know. It would not be difficult to find him; at least, it would not be impossible. But I shall take no steps to override his will. If he knew that, surely he would not want to keep himself cut off from us! He could write, and before he was sent abroad he could come here for a few days. Oh, if only you could find out where he is, and let him know that!"
"I'll go up and try, if you like," said Wilbraham.
It had surprised him a little that she had not asked how or where he would try. He would go straight to Bastian, whose address he knew, and see Viola. In making the offer he had half intended, if she pressed him, to unburden himself to her about Viola. He did not know whether he was relieved or disappointed that she asked him no questions. She seemed to be too excited to think about it, though she did say, later on, that he could go to Mr. Gulliver, the Brent solicitor, but that if he did so Mr. Gulliver was to be told not to interfere with Harry's actions.
"The sooner the better," said Wilbraham. "I'd better go up to-morrow."
She made no demur, and was silent for a time. Then she looked at him kindly, and said: "There's no danger for you now, is there?"
He was overcome with a wave of self-pity, brought out by the sympathy of her tone. "I've been through a bad time," he said. "I think it's coming to an end. I don't think there's any danger now."
"I've seen it, of course," she said, "and have been very sorry for you."
He had not thought that she had noticed. Some explanation seemed due to her. "I did drink some spirits," he said, with a gulp. "Just once. I thought I was safe, but it brought on the craving. I've had my lesson. I know that I'm different from other men now. It's not in my power to be temperate. It has to be nothing at all from now onwards."
"I think it's the only way," she said. "And for years together here you haven't missed it, have you?"
"No," he said. "It was very wrong to do it at all. I'm ashamed of myself—after you've done what you have for me."
One thing she had done was to go without wine at table, except on the rare occasions on which there had been guests at the Castle. That had been for his sake, and he knew it well enough, though she had never mentioned it. She deserved his confidence.
"It was when I went to see Bastian—the artist," he said. "After the first time I told him how it was with me, and he never drank anything himself while I was with him."
"In the village they say he was a heavy drinker."
It surprised him to hear that she had heard about Bastian. When he had told her that there was no necessity to ask him to the Castle, she had seemed to lose all interest in him, and had never mentioned his name since.
"I should think he drinks a lot," he said. "He did when I was with him. But he seems to be one of those men who don't get caught by it. To say he is a heavy drinker would be rather unfair. He has his young daughter to look after, and I think he'd be careful what he did for her sake. He's a gentleman, though he seems to have come down in the world, and a man of refinement."
He was feeling his way towards a confession. She had been so kind to him, and so wonderful in her understanding of what had impelled Harry to the course he had taken, though it had hit her hard, that his inclination was to tell her, and trust her to take the view of it that he had taken himself. But there was a fence to take before he could make a clean breast of it. He had given no promise to Harry, but Harry had trusted him to keep his secret. It might be right to tell Lady Brent of what had happened, but Harry would not think so. It wanted just the slight pressure, unconscious on her part, of what it would bring forth, to overcome his reluctance to give away Harry's secret.
So he gave her an opening to ask him about Bastian, and about Viola. But she did not take it. She seemed to be thinking of something else. "It would be sad," she said, half indifferently, "if his drinking were to affect a young daughter. I think I should like you to go to London to-morrow. It would be a great comfort to poor Charlotte to know where Harry is; and to me, too. And to be able to get messages to him."
CHAPTER XIX
WILBRAHAM IN LONDON
In the region that lies to the north of Regent's Park there are quiet little streets, aside from the ugly crowded main thoroughfares, which date back from the time, not so very long since, when there were pleasant suburbs here, and the open country lay within a walk of the centre of London. Wilbraham found himself unexpectedly in one of them in his search for the address that Bastian had given him, and, as he waited for admission at the door upon which he had knocked, looked about him with a sense of relief. He had expected something almost approaching squalor, and at least noise and unrest. But it was not painful to think of the girl whom Harry loved living in one of these quiet little houses.
They were all alike, built at a time when some of the quality of eighteenth century architecture, which hung about the simplest building, had disappeared, but had not yet given way to the deadness and ugliness that followed it. Nothing could have been simpler than this regular street of small houses, each with one window and a door on the ground floor, two windows on the first, two windows on the second, and a basement with a narrow area; but their very monotony was restful, and they indicated a respectability that was almost aggressive. The paint was nowhere shabby, the brass door handles shone, and here and there the dirty brick of one of the houses had been cleaned and the mortar pointed. They were not beneath the occupation of people who took a pride in the appearance of their dwellings, and might even have money enough to have the faces of them washed and their interiors modernized before they made their homes in them.
As Wilbraham stood at the top of the few steps that led to the entrance, a door to the area beneath him opened and a woman looked up at him, and then immediately disappeared. Mrs. Ivimey's sister, evidently, by the likeness. Somehow the fact of this relationship had been forgotten. Here was a link with Royd. If Harry had been to the house, or should come there—! He had no time to formulate his thoughts before she opened the door to him.
He introduced himself to her at once, before asking for Bastian. She was a clean neat woman and gave him smiling respectful welcome when he told her who he was. "It's many years since I was down in those parts, sir," she said. "But I hear sometimes from my sister, and Mr. Bastian, the gentleman who lodges with me, has been there lately and told me a good deal about it."
"It's him I've come to see," said Wilbraham. "Is he in?"
"Miss Viola is in, sir," she said. "I dare say you saw her when she was at Royd."
"Yes," said Wilbraham. "I should like to see her now, if you'll tell her who I am."
Here was a lucky chance. It was Viola he wanted to see, and apart from her father, if possible. Mrs. Clark led him at once upstairs, talking volubly as she did so. But she did not mention Harry. Wilbraham thought she would have done so if he had been to the house.
She showed him into a room on the first floor, after knocking at the door and receiving no answer. "I expect Miss Viola is upstairs," she said, opening the door. "I don't think she's gone out again. If you'll kindly step in, sir, I'll go and tell her you're here."
Wilbraham entered the room with some curiosity. It was larger than he had anticipated, extending to the whole width of the house and lit by the two windows. Its main furniture was good and solid, of about the date of the house, when furniture had lost its simplicity of line and ornament, but still showed some pride of craftsmanship. Except for an upright piano with a front of faded fluted red silk, which might or might not have belonged to the tenants, it was all probably the property of the landlady, and the nondescript wall paper and dark green curtains were also probably her taste and not theirs. But the books in shelves on either side of the fireplace, the pictures on the walls and the clutter of photographs and little objects for use or ornament on the mantelpiece and elsewhere about the room struck a different note. No attempt had been made to make it other than it was by nature, but it had the air of a permanent home, occupied by people of some refinement.
Viola's work-basket was on a small table by the wall, and there were other signs of feminine occupancy in the room. It looked cozy enough, with a bright fire burning, the curtains drawn and the gas lit; for it was getting dark outside. Bastian evidently made use of the large shabby easy chair by the fire, for there was a tobacco jar and an array of pipes on the table by its side, and a book or two. With his daughter sitting opposite to him, on a winter evening, it was possible to imagine him taking pleasure in his home life. It would be quieter and less marked by poverty than Wilbraham had pictured it. A faint odour of the tobacco that Bastian used hung about, but there were flowers in a vase on Viola's table, and fruit in a plaited basket on the sideboard. The sideboard, apt to be so much in evidence in furnished lodgings, had none of the paraphernalia of meals on it in the way of cruets or bottles. In fact, there were no bottles to be seen anywhere. Wilbraham noticed that at once, for his own trouble had made him acutely sensitive; he had no fears now of succumbing to a temptation to drink, but the signs of drinking by Bastian would have affected him unhappily. He was inclined to believe that he had to some extent misread Bastian, on his first acquaintance with him. It could not be his habitual custom to drink as much as he had done on that afternoon, or Viola would be more affected by it than she was. She had none of the air of a girl whose life had been saddened by a father's gross intemperance; and if Bastian had been kept down in the world by this failing of his, as he had said he had, his poverty was shown by this room to be more relative than actual.
Wilbraham dismissed the unpleasant question of intemperance, in relief at the signs of comfort and refinement that he saw about him. The table in the middle of the room was laid for tea, as if that was the chief evening meal here. Wilbraham hoped that Bastian would not come in for it until he had talked to Viola.
He made his way to the mantelpiece, upon which were a good many photographs. The photographs in a room tell you more than anything about its occupants.
Something was told in this instance by the fact that they were all a good many years old. It meant, for one thing, that Viola and her father must have lived here for some time, and for another that they could have made few friends of late years.
Wilbraham's eye was caught by one of Bastian as a very young man in a group with three others, taken by a Cambridge photographer. His first thought as he looked at it, was to wonder whether he himself had changed so much in twenty years. Bastian appeared as a young man fashionably dressed and judging by his smile pleased with the world in general and with his own lot in it in particular. He had been more than usually good-looking in those days. There was another one of him on a horse, taken at about the same time, but not at Cambridge. Wilbraham wished afterwards that he had noticed the name and habitation of the photographer. Bastian had never told him from what part of the country he came, or anything about his early home and upbringing. But it was evident that he came from what it is customary to call "good people." It was hardly fair to keep Viola in ignorance of her parentage, which might possibly prove to be of some importance to her.
There was a photograph of Viola herself at the age of about ten—a pretty child, but without the exceptional beauty into which she had grown. In a large frame was one of her mother, and there were others of her at different stages. Wilbraham examined them with some attention. She was certainly beautiful, with the same sort of beauty as Viola's, though Wilbraham thought that if he had not known the facts about her he would yet have detected an absence of race, which seemed to him to be apparent in Viola, and perhaps also in her father. He tried to find in her support for Bastian's praise of her character and temperament, but all he could have said was that there was nothing to show that she had not deserved it. She smiled sweetly in these photographs, some of which were in theatrical costume; she was young and beautiful and happy, and her early death added pathos to these presentments of her.
There were other photographs of girls and young women carelessly propped up on the mantelpiece, some of them hidden. They were probably mostly theatrical friends of Mrs. Bastian's, and it seemed likely that she had lived in these rooms, or they would not have been left there. Wilbraham's eyes roamed over them without interest, but just as he was about to turn away were caught by the signature of one of them. "With love from Lottie" in a sprawling hand. It was of Mrs. Brent, taken in that youth of which she was still proud but which she had left behind her.
Wilbraham looked at it fascinated. For some reason or other Mrs. Brent had never shown him a photograph of herself taken during her stage career. For the moment he was more interested in seeing her as she had been than in the fact of finding her photograph here—Harry's mother, in Viola's room.
The photograph made her almost as pretty as Mrs. Bastian. She was a gay light-hearted girl too. Harry's father might be excused for having fallen in love with her. And there was a look of Harry in her young face, which Wilbraham had never noticed in the flesh. He wondered whether Viola had noticed the likeness, which seemed to him quite plain. But probably she did not look at these old photographs to notice anything about them at all once in six months, though she saw them every day.
Viola came in as he was standing looking at them. He thought she looked more beautiful than ever, as she greeted him with a smile and a blush. Her entrance into the room seemed to bring light with it, and softness and charm. Its commonplace features sank into the background; the flowers became of more importance than anything, and the books and the music.
Wilbraham had seen Viola in a pretty simple frock suitable for the country, but although her clothes now had the same air of simplicity to his unsophisticated eyes, they were even to him something exceptional. One would not have expected a girl who lived in that room to enter it dressed as she was. The calling in which she earned her living stood her in good stead. Wilbraham had not been told what it was, and had the idea of her doing something or other with a typewriter. He thought that the figure she presented was owing to her taste, and did not know that it would also have meant a good deal of money if there had been nothing more than her taste to account for it. What he did feel was that she might have entered any rich room in London as she was and been taken for granted as belonging to it. She was worthy of Harry even in this respect, which would probably weigh more with the world even than it weighed with him.
"Father will be in in about half an hour," she said. "You will stay and have some tea with us, won't you? I'm sure he will be glad to see you."
He had been looking at her searchingly. She gave him the impression of being older than when he had seen her at Royd, a woman full grown and no longer half a child, though the delicacy and freshness of youth still marked her. She had, in fact, ceased to arrange her hair as still growing girls wear it, and there was some to him indefinable difference in her clothes.
He said he would stay until her father came in, and she motioned him to her father's chair, and sat down in her own on the other side of the fire, facing him.
She seemed to wait for him to speak first. He could tell nothing by her manner, which was smiling and self-possessed, though her self-possession was not more than is becoming to a young girl, secure in her youth and charm.
"I suppose you know that Harry has left home to enlist in the army," he said.
Her colour deepened a little upon the mention of her lover's name, but she did not shrink from his gaze, and the faint smile was still on her lips as she said: "I thought that he might, although he didn't say he would." So of course she knew, and had been prepared for the question.
"Probably he had not quite made up his mind by the time you left Royd," he said.
She did not reply to this, and he thought he could see that she had decided not to admit anything, probably under Harry's directions. Again there came to him the sense of dislike at interfering with what Harry had decided. He could not fence with her to make her say what Harry didn't want her to say, or force her to say that she could not answer his questions. She was frank and innocent. It would seem an impertinence to put her into the position of defending a reticence.
"We have been very anxious about him at home," he said. "We are anxious still—not to get him to come back, but that he should not cut himself off from us. I've come up to London on purpose to get a message to him if I can. I didn't tell Lady Brent I should come here, or say anything about you. She thinks I have only come to see Mr. Gulliver, the family solicitor, and ask him to find out, if he can, where Harry is. His mother can hardly bear the thought of not hearing from him for months, and not knowing where he is. Lady Brent was not altogether unprepared for his enlisting. She couldn't have been a party to it, as he's not even of an age to enlist yet, and I suppose he's had to represent himself as older than he is in order to get taken. But she told me herself that she was proud of him for doing it, and she certainly wouldn't do anything to interfere with him, now he's taken the matter into his own hands. If he knew that——"
He did not finish his sentence, which was on the note of appeal to her. Nor did he look at her.
There was a pause. Then she said, "I haven't seen Harry, you know, Mr. Wilbraham."
He looked at her then, and saw that there were tears in her eyes. So his appeal had not been without its effect.
"I think his mother ought to know," she said, "and that he ought to write to her."
In a flash of understanding, he saw that he had got all that he had come for, and that he would get no more. Or at least that he must not exercise pressure to get more, or put her in the position of refusing to give it. She would tell Harry what he had told her, and she would tell him that she thought he ought to write to his mother. Of Lady Brent she had said nothing. It was probable that Lady Brent appeared in her eyes in a different light from that in which Wilbraham saw her.
As for everything else—it was their secret, to be treated by him with respect. He would probe into it no further; and indeed it was better that he should not know more than he knew already of how it was between them. There was quite enough on his mind that he had kept from Lady Brent.
"Yes, I think he should write," he said. "I shall see Mr. Gulliver to-morrow."
The two statements had no apparent bearing upon one another, but Viola seemed to accept them with relief, and was beginning to talk to him pleasantly, but with no reference to Harry, when Bastian came in.
He was nearly half an hour earlier than his usual time, it appeared, and Wilbraham was inclined to be disappointed at having his talk with Viola cut short. Whenever he was with her he felt himself almost violently in sympathy with Harry in his love for her. He was observing her all the time, and there was nothing that she said or did that did not deepen his first impression of her. He wanted to feel like that about her, for Harry's sake; championship of her as one who was in all essentials fit to mate with him, might stand Harry in good stead later on.
But she would show herself, perhaps with less need for carefulness in what she said, with her father there as without him. Bastian gave him a cordial welcome. He was again, in appearance, a gentleman, merely indifferent to the shabbiness of his attire, but the younger healthier look he had had during the latter part of his stay at Royd no longer marked him. Wilbraham thought he had been drinking, but he was not drunk, or anything near it, and it seemed probable that he kept his habits in check in the home that he must have valued. He drank tea, rather copiously, at the meal which soon followed his entrance, and there was no preparation apparent for anything stronger to be drunk later on.
It was not long before Wilbraham became as anxious to be alone with Bastian as he had before wished to be alone with Viola. Bastian knew, and Viola was distressed at the signs he showed of wishing to talk about what he knew.
It became plain to Wilbraham now that the poor child was not unaffected by her father's intemperance. If the worst of it was kept from her, and he had the self-command not to soil the home in which she lived with it, still there were times when she saw him not quite himself.
This was one of them. Wilbraham saw the suspicion and then the certainty dawn upon her, with a droop, and a shadow on her brightness, and a stiffening of manner that was not quite displeasure, but yet something near it. She had enough influence over him, apparently, to be able to prevent his saying what she did not want said, but his hints and smiles made Wilbraham as uncomfortable as they evidently made her. Immediately the meal was over she said good-bye to Wilbraham and went out of the room. Perhaps this was her usual way of dealing with these lapses. Her father expostulated, but she took no notice, except by saying as she went out: "I'll tell Mrs. Clark not to clear away just yet."
"She's a dear child, Viola—but she's difficult sometimes," said Bastian. "I hope she hasn't taken a dislike to you."
"I don't think so," said Wilbraham, shortly. "What she obviously does dislike is having her secrets talked about before a comparative stranger. I should have thought you might have seen that."
Bastian threw a look at him as he went to the side table to take up a pipe. Wilbraham's tone seemed to surprise him, but it did not subdue the agreeable humour in which he found himself. "We don't look on you as a stranger," he said, "and if there's a secret, you're in it. I think you want mellowing, my dear Wilbraham. I don't keep anything to drink here, but if you'd like something I can send out for it."
"You seem to forget what I told you about myself," said Wilbraham. "I can't drink without losing control of myself. You seem to be in much the same case. I think it's a damned shame to show it before that child."
This brought Bastian up short. He frowned in offence, but apparently he was one of those people whom a rebuke moves more to sorrow than to anger, for he said: "That's a hard thing to say to a man, Wilbraham. I do drink more than's good for me sometimes, I know; but if there's one thing I've always been careful about all my life it is not to let it affect Viola."
"Well, it does affect her," said Wilbraham. "You'd have seen how it affected her just now, if you hadn't been drinking. It's not for me to preach, God knows. But if you're able to control it at all, you've got something to be very thankful for, and you ought to control it absolutely as far as she's concerned."
"I've had very little to drink to-day, as a matter of fact," said Bastian, rather sulkily, "and I don't want to be lectured about it, Wilbraham. Sit down and have a talk. You won't find my powers of expression affected by the little I have had."
He ended on a smile. He was an attractive creature, Wilbraham thought, in spite of his culpable weakness. Most men would have quarrelled with him for what he had said, if they had been in Bastian's state. But the extent to which he was affected by drink was a puzzle. As he talked Wilbraham could mark no signs of it, though they had seemed so evident up to this time. There was an absence of cautiousness in what he said, but that was native to him. It may have been slightly enhanced now, but Wilbraham would not have put it down to the loosening of tongue brought about by liquor if they had started with this conversation. His own irritation subsided. He had said his say. He sat down in Viola's chair, opposite to Bastian, and lit his cigarette, taking rather a long time to do so, in order to leave the opening with Bastian, who was not slow to take it.
"It wouldn't do for my little failing to become known, would it?" he said with a smile. "If I can't do without alcohol altogether—and I don't see why I should—I shall have to keep in the background."
Wilbraham was conscious of a return of irritation. He disliked this half-jocular allusion to a subject of such serious importance. "Oh, don't talk of it like that," he said, impatiently. "I suppose you know that Harry Brent and Viola have met and have fallen in love with one another. Nobody else knows it but me, and perhaps it's important that nobody else should. At any rate you can talk quite straight about it to me."
Bastian received this with a change of manner. "All right," he said, "I will talk straight. Viola's a girl in a thousand—in a million. I'd trust her anywhere. But for a young man to be meeting her again and again, and keeping it secret—! Well, you see my point, I suppose."
It was quite a new point to Wilbraham, as far as he did see it. But his brain, edged by his long struggle with himself, and now again working with its normal quickness, seized upon its essential insincerity at once. There was a barely perceptible pause before he said: "If you mean that Harry has done anything that you can take exception to why have you been smiling and hinting about it up till now?"
Perhaps Bastian did not quite take this in. "Oh, I don't mean to say that there has been anything wrong," he said. "As I say, I trust Viola—absolutely. Ifshe'ssatisfied with herself, as she is, that's enough for me."
"Very well," said Wilbraham, keeping command. "Then that applies to Harry too. You don't know him. I do. I found it out by chance, and he made no attempt to persuade me to keep it secret. He left it to me, and I decided to do so. If he wanted it kept secret, so did she; and they both wanted it for the same reasons, whatever they were. If she was right, he was right, and——"
"Yes, that's all very well——," said Bastian, but Wilbraham over-rode his interruption. "I suppose you didn't know of it till after you'd come to London. How did you know of it?"
Bastian allowed himself to be diverted. "I found it out on the last night," he said. "I went out to look for her, and she came in crying, poor child! Something suddenly struck me. She had been out such a lot alone, and she hadn't done that before when we'd been away together—at least not so much. And she'd been different somehow. I hadn't thought about it before, but it came to me suddenly all together. And she wouldn't have been crying like that just because we were going home. There was something—somebody. I dare say I should have got at it by thinking it over; but she told me. I love her, and she loves me, and knows that she can tell me anything. That's how it was, Wilbraham. You're not a father, but you can imagine, perhaps, what a father feels about these things, when his daughter is the chief thing in the world to him."
"I suppose I can," said Wilbraham. "But all the same you're not treating her in the way you boast of if you're not prepared to look upon Harry in the same light. You'll agree that on the outside of things they're not equal—those two."
"I don't agree to that," said Bastian, dogmatically.
"I said on the outside of things," Wilbraham persisted. "You've been where he belongs, and you know what sort of position he's in. You may have belonged to the same sort of thing once. I don't know. You've never told me who your people were. But you say yourself that you've come down in the world, and it's pretty obvious that you're not in anything like the position the Brents are now. So you can see how it would have been likely to strike me when I first found it out. But Harry is what he is. I trusted him, just as you trusted Viola. And afterwards I saw Viola. If I can think of her as I do, you ought to be able to think of Harry in the same way, though you haven't seen him."
"Very well, then," said Bastian. "Let's take it that, leaving out things that don't matter, they're to be looked at in the same way. Of course I know, really, that he's something quite out of the common. I've heard the people there talk about him. If I hadn't thought there was no harm in it—for Viola—I shouldn't have treated it as I have. But you see, Wilbraham, as a father I've got to look a little farther ahead than you do. I suppose to you it's just a boy and girl falling in love with one another in all their innocence, and if nothing comes of it no harm will be done. Well, it wouldn't to him. But it's rather different with her, isn't it?"
Wilbraham was silent. That was exactly as he had looked at it, on Harry's behalf. And it would be different for Viola.
"If he's what you say he is," said Bastian, pursuing his advantage, "he won't want to throw her off when he gets older. But his people will want him to, and when they know they'll try to bring it about. Harry and Viola! Yes. But it's me and Lady Brent, you see, as well—as she seems to be the one that counts most. I don't know anything about the boy's mother; they don't talk about her much down there. It's his grandmother who seems to count for everything. Who was his mother, by the by?"
Wilbraham had forgotten until that moment the photograph on the mantelpiece. He awoke to its realization with a mental start. If Bastian had not shown himself ignorant of Mrs. Brent's origin he might have succumbed to the instinct for the dramatic and surprised him by pointing her out in reply to his question. But when the question came he had just received the impression of loyalty on the part of Mrs. Ivimey, or anybody else to whom Bastian may have talked about "the family." They had not given Mrs. Brent away. He wouldn't either, at least at this stage.
"Nobody in particular," he said with a half truth. "They were only married for a few weeks. Lady Brent is Harry's guardian, and of course she's had most to do with bringing him up more or less in seclusion at Royd. I suppose you know that he has gone off to enlist."
"Yes, and I suppose you've come here to find out from Viola where he is, and haul him back again."
Wilbraham told him why he had come up. "I shall go and see Gulliver to-morrow," he said, "and get him to make inquiries. Then I hope in a few days Harry will write. She'll be satisfied with that, and whether Gulliver finds him or not she won't make any attempt to get him back."
"Well, you're a funny crew altogether," said Bastian, after they had talked a little longer. "As far as I'm concerned, Wilbraham, I'm going to keep my eyes open. You needn't look to me to back up your ideas, if it doesn't suit me to do so. Better have all your cards on the table. They're both much too young yet to think about anything further, and I suppose he'll be too young for another few years. You can hug your secret for the present."