Elinorhad not been three days gone, indeed her mother had but just received a hurried note announcing her arrival in London, when as she sat alone in the house which had become so silent, Mrs. Dennistoun suddenly became aware of a rising of sound of the most jubilant, almost riotous description. It began by the barking of Yarrow, the old colley, who was fond oflying at the gate watching in a philosophic way of his own the mild traffic of the country road, the children trooping by to school, who hung about him in clusters, with lavish offerings of crust and scraps of biscuit, and all the leisurely countryflâneurswhom the good dog despised, not thinking that he himself did nothing butflânerat his own door in the sun. A bark from Yarrow was no small thing in the stillness of the spring afternoon, and little Urisk, the terrier, who lay wrapt in dreams at Mrs. Dennistoun’s feet, heard where he lay entranced in the folds of sleep and cocked up an eager ear and uttered a subdued interrogation under his breath. The next thing was no bark, but a shriek of joy from Yarrow, such as could mean nothing in the world but “Philip!” or Pippo, which was what no doubt the dogs called him between following their mistress. Urisk heard and understood. He made but one spring from the footstool on which he lay and flung himself against the door. Mrs. Dennistoun sat for a moment and listened, much disturbed. When some troublous incident occurs in the deep quiet of domestic life how often is it followed by another, and her heart turned a little sick. She was not comforted even by the fact that Urisk was waggling not his tail only, but his whole little form in convulsions of joy, barking, crying aloud for the door to open, to let him forth. By this time all the friendly dogs about had taken up the sound out of sympathy with Yarrow’s yells of delight—and into this came the clang of the gate,the sound of wheels, an outcry in a human voice, that of Barbara, the maid—and then a young shout that rang through the air—“Where’s my mother, Barbara, where’s granny?” Philip, it may be imagined, did not wait for any answer, but came in headlong, Yarrow leaping after him, Urisk springing into the air to meet him—himself in too great a hurry to heed either, flinging himself upon the astonished lady who rose to meet him, with a sudden kiss, and a “Where’s my mother, granny?” of eager greeting.
“Pippo! Good gracious, boy, what’s brought you home now?”
“Nothing but good news,” he said, “so good I thought I must come. I’ve got it, granny: whereismy mother——”
“You’ve got it?” she said, so full of other thoughts that she could not recollect what it was he meant. Pippo thought, as Elinor sometimes thought, that his granny was getting slow of understanding—not so bright as she used to be in her mind.
“Oh, granny, you’ve been dozing: the scholarship! I’ve got it—I thought you would know the moment you heard me at the door——”
“My dear boy,” she said, putting her arms about him, while the tall boy stood for the homage done to him—the kiss of congratulation. “You have got the scholarship! notwithstanding Howard and Musgrave and the hard fight there was to be——”
Pippo nodded, with a bright face of pleasure.“But,” he said—“I can’t say I’m sorry I’ve got it, granny—but I wish there had been another for Musgrave: for he worked harder than I did, and he wanted so to win. But so did I, for that matter. And where is my mother all this time?”
“How delighted she will be: and what a comfort to her just now when she is upset and troubled! My dear, it’ll be a dreadful disappointment to you: your mother is in London. She had to hurry off the day before yesterday—on business.”
“In London!” cried Pippo. His countenance fell: he was so much disappointed that for a moment, big boy as he was, he looked ready to cry. He had come in bursting with his news, expecting a reception almost as tumultuous as that given him by the dogs outside. And he found only his grandmother, who forgot what it was he was “in for”—and no mother at all!
“It is a disappointment, Pippo—and it will be such a disappointment to her not to hear it from your own lips: but you must telegraph at once, and that will be next best. She has some worrying business—things that she hates to look after—and this will give her a little heart.”
“What a bore!” said Pippo, with his crest down and the light gone out of him. He gave himself up to the dogs who had been jumping about him, biding their time. “Yarrow knew,” he said, laughing, to get the water out of his eyes. “He gave me a cheer whenever he saw me, dear old fellow—and little Risky too——”
“And only granny forgot,” said Mrs. Dennistoun; “that was very hard upon you, Pippo; my thoughts were all with your mother. And I couldn’t think how you could get back at this time——”
“Well,” said the boy, “my work’s over, you know. There’s nothing for a fellow to do after he’s got the scholarship. I needn’t go back at all—unless you and my mother wish it. I’ve—in a sort of a way, done everything that I can do. Don’t laugh at me, granny!”
“Laugh at you, my boy! It is likely I should laugh at you. Don’t you know I am as proud of you as your mother herself can be? I am glad and proud,” said Mrs. Dennistoun, “for I am glad for her as well as for you. Now, Pippo, you want something to eat.”
The boy looked up with a laugh. “Yes, granny,” he said, “you always divine that sort of thing. I do.”
Mrs. Dennistoun did not occupy her mind with any thought of that little unintentional and grateful jibe—that she always divined that sort of thing. Among the other great patiences of her life she had learnt to know that the mother and son, loving and tender as they were, had put her back unconsciously into the proper place of the old woman—always consulted, always thought of, never left out; but divining chieflythat sort of thing, the actual needs, the more apparent thoughts of those about her. She knew it, but she did not dwell upon it—sometimes it made her smile, but it scarcely hurt her, and never made her bitter, she comprehended it all so well. Meanwhile Pippo, left alone, devoted himself to the dogs for a minute or two, making them almost too happy. Then, at the very climax of riotous enjoyment, cast them off with a sudden, “Down, Yarrow!” which took all the curl in a moment out of the noble tail with which Yarrow was sweeping all the unconsidered trifles off Mrs. Dennistoun’s worktable. The young autocrat walked to the window as he shook off his adoring vassal, and stared out for a little with his hands deeply dug into his pockets. And then a new idea came into Pippo’s head; the most brilliant new idea, which restored at once the light to his eyes and elevation to his crest. He said nothing of this, however, till he had done justice to the excellent luncheon, while his grandmother, seated beside him in the dining-room with her knitting, looked on with pride and pleasure and saw him eat. This was a thing, they were all of accord, which she always thoroughly understood.
“You will run out now and telegraph to your mother. She is in the old rooms in Ebury Street, Pippo.”
“Yes, granny; don’t you think now a fellow of my age, having done pretty well and all that, might be trusted to—make a little expedition out of his own head?”
“My dear! you have always been trusted, Pippo, you know. I can’t remember when your mother or I either have shown any want of trust——”
“Oh, it’s not that,” said Pippo, confused. “I knowI’ve had lots, lots—far more than most fellows—of my own way. It was not that exactly. I meant without consulting any one, just to do a thing out of my own head.”
“I have no doubt it will be quite a right thing, Pippo; but I should know better if you were to tell me.”
“That would scarcely be doing it out of my own head, would it, granny? But I can’t keep a thing to myself; now Musgrave can, you know; that’s the great difference. I suppose it is having nobody but my mother and you, who always spoil me, that has made me that I can’t keep a secret.”
“It is something about making it up to Musgrave for not winning the scholarship?”
Philip grew red all over with a burning blush of shame. “What a beast I am!” he said. “You will scarcely believe me, but I had forgotten that—though I do wish I could. I do wish there was any way—— No, granny, it was all about myself.”
“Well, my dear?” she said, in her benignant, all-indulgent grandmother’s voice.
“It is no use going beating about the bush,” he said. “Granny, I’m not going to telegraph to mamma. I’ll run up to London by the night mail.”
“Pippo!”
“Well, it isn’t so extraordinary; naturally I should like to tell her better than to write. It didn’t quite come off, my telling it to you, did it? but my mother will be excited about it—and then it will be a surpriseseeing me at all—and then if she is worried by business it will be a good thing to have me to stand by her. And—why there are a hundred reasons, granny, as you must see. And then I should like it above all.”
“My dear,” said Mrs. Dennistoun, trembling a little. She had time during this long speech to collect herself, to get over the first shock, but her nerves still vibrated. “In ordinary circumstances, I should think it an excellent plan. And you have worked well for it, and won your holiday; and your mother always enjoys wandering about town with you. Still, Pippo——”
“Now what can there be against it?” the boy said, with the same spark of fire coming into his blue eyes which had often been seen in Elinor’s hazel ones. He was like the Comptons, a refined image of his father, with the blue eyes and very dark hair which had once made Phil Compton irresistible. Pippo had the habit, I am sorry to say, of being a little impatient with his grandmother. Her objections seemed old-world and obsolete at the first glance.
“The chief thing against it is that I don’t think your mother—would wish it, Pippo.”
“Mamma—think me a bore, perhaps!” the lad cried, with a laugh of almost scornful amusement at this ridiculous idea.
“She would never, of course, think you a bore in any circumstances—but she will be very much confined—she could not take you with her to—lawyers’ offices. She will scarcely have any time to herself.”
“What is this mysterious business, granny?”
“Indeed, Pippo, I can scarcely tell you. It is something connected with old times—that she wishes to have settled and done with. I did not inquire very closely; neither, I think, should you. You know your poor mother has had troubles in her life——”
“Has she?” said Pippo, with wide open eyes. “I have never seen any. I think, perhaps, don’t you know, granny, ladies—make mountains of molehills—or so at least people say——”
“Do they?” said Mrs. Dennistoun, with a laugh. “So you have begun to learn that sort of thing already, Pippo, even here at the end of the world!”
Pippo was a little mortified by her laugh, and a little ashamed of what he had said. It is very tempting at eighteen to put on a man’s superiority, yet he was conscious that it was perhaps a little ungenerous, he who owed all that he was and had to these two ladies; but naturally he was the more angry because of this.
“I suppose,” he said, “that what is in every book that ever was written is likely to be true! But that has nothing to do with the question. I won’t do anything against you if you forbid me absolutely, granny; but short of that I will go——”
Mrs. Dennistoun looked at the boy with all the heat in him of his first burst of independence. It is only wise to compute the forces opposed to one before one launches a command which one may not have force to ensure obedience to. He said that he would not disobey her “absolutely” with his lips; but his eyes expressed a less dutiful sentiment. She had no mind to be beaten in such a struggle. Elinor had complained of her mother in her youth that she was too reasonable, too unwilling to command, too reluctant to assume the responsibility of an act; and it was not to be supposed that she had mended of this, in all the experience she had had of her impatient daughter, and under the influence of so many additional years. She looked at Philip, and concluded that he would at least find some way of eluding her authority if she exercised it, and it did not consist with her dignity to be either “absolutely” or partially disobeyed.
“You forget,” she said, “that I have never taken such authority upon me since you were a child. I will not forbid you to do what you have set your heart upon. I can only say, Philip, that I don’t think your mother would wish you to go——”
“If that’s all, granny,” said the boy, “I think I can take my mother into my own hands. But why do you call me Philip? You never call me that but when you are angry.”
“Was I ever angry?” she said, with a smile; “but if we are to consider you a man, looking down upon women, and taking your movements upon your own responsibility, my dear, it would be ridiculous that you should be little Pippo any more.”
“Not little Pippo,” he said, with a boyish, complacent laugh, rising up to his full height. A young mannearly six feet high, with a scholarship in his pocket, how is he to be expected to take the law from his old grandmother as to what he is to do?
And young Philip did go to town triumphantly by the night mail. He had never done such a thing before, and his sense of manly independence, of daring, almost of adventure, was more delightful than words could say. There was not even any one, except the man who had driven him into Penrith, to see him away, he who was generally accompanied to the last minute by precautions, and admonitions, and farewells. To feel himself dart away into the night with nobody to look back to on the platform, no gaze, half smiling, half tearful, to follow him, was of itself an emancipation to Pippo. He was a good boy and no rebel against the double maternal bond which had lain so lightly yet so closely upon him all his life. It was only for a year or two that he had suspected that this was unusual, or even imagined that for a growing man the sway of two ladies, and even their devotion, might make others smile. Perhaps he had been a little more particular in his notions, in his manners, in his fastidious dislike to dirt and careless habits, than was common in the somewhat rough north country school which had so risen in scholastic note under the last head master, but which was very far from the refinements of Eton. And lately it had begun to dawn upon him that a mother and a grandmother to watch over him and care for him in everything might be perhaps a little absurd for a youngman of his advanced age. Thus his escapade, which was against the will of his elder guardian, and without the knowledge of his mother—which was entirely his own act, and on his own responsibility, went to Philip’s head, and gave him a sort of intoxication of pleasure. That his mother should be displeased, really displeased, should not want him—incredible thought! never entered into his mind save as an accountable delusion of granny’s. His mother not want him! All the arguments in the world would never have got that into young Pippo’s head.
Mrs. Dennistoun waking up in the middle of the night to think of the boy rushing on through the dark on his adventurous way, recollected only then with much confusion and pain that she ought to have telegraphed to Elinor, who might be so engaged as to make it very embarrassing for her in her strange circumstances to see Pippo—that the boy was coming. In her agitation she had forgotten this precaution. Was it perhaps true, as the young ones thought, that she was getting a little slower in her movements, a little dulled in her thoughts?
John Tathamhad in vain attempted to persuade Elinor to come to his house, to dine there in comfort—he was going out himself—so that at least in this time of excitement and trouble she might have the careful service and admirable comfort of his well-managed house. Elinor preferred her favourite lodgings and a cup of tea to all the luxuries of Halkin Street. And she was fit for no more consultations that night. She had many, many things to think of, and some new which as yet she barely comprehended. The rooms in Ebury Street were small, and they were more or less dingy, as such rooms are; but they were comfortable enough, and had as much of home to Elinor as repeated visits there with all her belongings could give them. The room in which she slept was next to that in which her boy had usually slept. That was enough to make it no strange place. And I need not say that it became the scene of many discussions during the few days that followed. The papers by this time were full of the strange trial which was coming on: the romance of commercial life and ruin—the guilty man who had been absent so long, enjoying his ill-gotten gains, and who now was dragged back into the light to give an account of himself—and of other guilt perhaps less black than his own, yet dreadful enough to hear of. The story ofthe destroyed books was a most remarkable and picturesque incident in the narrative. The leading papers looked up their own account of the facts given at the time, and pointed out how evidently justified by the new facts made known to the public was the theory they had themselves given forth. As these theories, however, were very different, and as all claimed to be right, perhaps the conclusion was less certain than this announcement gave warrant to believe. But each and all promised “revelations” of the most surprising kind—involving some of the highest aristocracy, the democratic papers said—bringing to light an exciting story of the private relations between husband and wife, said those of society, and revealing a piquant chapter of social history hushed up at the time. It was a modest print indeed that contented itself with the statement that its readers would find a romance of real life involved in the trial which was about to take place. Elinor did not, fortunately, see all these comments. TheTimesand theMorning Postwere dignified and reticent, and she did not read, and was indeed scarcely cognisant of the existence of most of the others. But the faintest reference to the trial was enough, it need hardly be said, to make the blood boil in her veins.
It was a curious thing in her state of mind, and with the feelings she had towards her husband’s family, that one of the first things she did on establishing herself in her Ebury Street rooms, was to look for an old “Peerage” which had lain for several years she remembered on a certain shelf. Genteel lodgings in Ebury Street which did not possess somewhere an old “Peerage” would be out of the world indeed. She found it in the same corner as of old, where she had noted it so often and avoided it as if it had been a serpent; but now the first thing she did, as soon as her tray was brought her, and all necessary explanations given, and the door shut, was to take the book furtively from its place, almost as if she were afraid of what she should see. What a list there was of sons of Lord St. Serf! some she had never known, who died young: and Reginald in India, and Hal, who was so kind—what a good laugh he had, she remembered, not a joyless cackle like Mariamne’s, a good natural laugh, and a kind light in his eyes: and he had been kind. She could remember ever so many things, nothings, things that made a little difference in the dull, dull cloudy sky of a neglected wife. Poor Hal! and he too was gone, and St. Serf dying, and—— Pippo the heir!—Pippo was perhaps, for any thing she knew, Lord Lomond now.
To say that this did not startle Elinor, did not make her heart beat, did not open new complications and vistas in life, would be a thing impossible. Pippo Lord Lomond! Pippo, whom she had feared to expose to his father’s influence, whom she had kept apart, who did not know anything about himself except that he was her son—had she kept and guarded the boy thus in the very obscurity of life, in the stillest and mostprotected circumstances, only to plunge him suddenly at last, without preparation, without warning, into the fiery furnace of temptation, into a region where he might pardonably (perhaps) put himself beyond her influence, beyond her guidance? Poor Elinor! and yet she was not wholly to be pitied either. For her heart was fired by the thought of her boy’s elevation in spite of herself. It did not occur to her that such an elevation for him meant something also for her. That view of the case she did not take into consideration for a moment. Nay, she did not think of it. But that Pippo should be Lord Lomond went through her like an arrow—like an arrow that gave a wound, acute and sharp, yet no pain, if such a thing could be said. That he should discover his father had been the danger before her all his life, but if he must find out that he had a father that was a way in which it might not be all pain. I do not pretend that she was very clear in all these thoughts. Indeed, she was not clear at all. John Tatham, knowing but one side, had begun to think vaguely of Elinor what Elinor thought of her mother, that her mind was not quite as of old, not so bright nor so vivid, not so clear in coming to a conclusion; had he known everything he might not have been so sure even on that point. But then had he known everything that Elinor knew, and been aware of what it was which Elinor had been summoned by all the force of old fidelity and the honour of her name to do, John would have been too much horrified to have beenable to form an opinion. No, poor Elinor was not at all clear in her thoughts—less clear than ever after these revelations—the way before her seemed dark in whatever way she looked at it, complications were round her on every side. She had instinctively, without a word said, given up that idea of flight. Who was it that said the heir to a peerage could not be hid? John had said it, she remembered, and John was always right. If she was to take him away to the uttermost end of the earth, they would seek him out and find him. And then there was—his father, who had known all the time, had known and never disturbed her—— No wonder that poor Elinor’s thoughts were mixed and complicated. She walked up and down the room, not thinking, but letting crowds and flights of thoughts like birds fly through her mind; no longer clear indeed as she had been wont to be, no longer coming to sudden, sharp conclusions, admitting possibilities of which Elinor once upon a time would never have thought.
And day by day as he saw her, John Tatham understood her less and less. He did not know what she meant, what she was going to do, what were her sentiments towards her husband, what were her intentions towards her son. He had found out a great deal about the case, merely as a case, and it began to be clear to him where Elinor’s part came in. Elinor Compton could not have appeared on her husband’s behalf, and whether there might not arise a question whether,being now his wife, her evidence could be taken on what had happened before she was his wife, was by no means sure—“Why didn’t they call your mother?” John said, as Mrs. Dennistoun also had said—but he did not at all understand, how could he? the dismay that came over Elinor, and the “Not for the world,” which came from her lips. He had come in to see her in the morning as he went down to his chambers, on the very morning when Pippo, quite unexpected and also not at all desired, was arriving at Euston Square.
“It would have been much better,” he said, “in every way if they had called your mother—who of course must know exactly what you know, Elinor, in respect to this matter——”
“No,” said Elinor with dry lips. “She knows nothing. She—calculates back by little incidents—she does not remember: I—do——”
“That’s natural, I suppose,” said John, with an impatient sigh and a half-angry look. “Still—my aunt——”
“Would do no good at all: you may believe me, John. Don’t let us speak of this any more. I know what has to be done: my mother would twist herself up among her calculations—about Alick Hudson’s examination and I know not what. Whereas I—there is nothing, nothing more to be said. I thought I could escape, and it is your doing if I now see that I cannot escape. I can but hope that Providence will protect my boy. He is at school, where they have little time for reading the papers. He may never even see—or at least if he does he may think it is another Compton—some one whom he never heard of——”
“And how if he becomes Lord Lomond, as I said, before the secret is out?”
“Oh, John,” cried Elinor, wringing her hands—“don’t, don’t torment me with that idea now—let only this be past and then: Oh, I see, I see—I am not a fool—I perceive that I cannot hide him as you say if that happens. But oh, John, for pity’s sake let this be over first! Let us not hurry everything on at the same time. He is at school. What do schoolboys care for the newspapers, especially for trials in the law courts? Oh, let this be over first! A boy at school—and he need never know——”
It was at this moment that a hansom drew up, and a rattling peal came at the door. Hansoms are not rare in Ebury Street, and how can one tell in these small houses if the peal is at one’s door or the next? Elinor was not disturbed. She paid no attention. She expected no one, she was afraid of nothing new for the present. Surely, surely, as she said, there was enough for the present. It did not seem possible that any new incident should come now.
“I do not want to torment you, Elinor—you may imagine I would be the last—I would only save you if I could from what must be—— What! what? who’s this?—Philip!the boy!”
The door had burst open with an eager, impatienthand upon it, and there stood upon the threshold, in all the mingled excitement and fatigue of his night journey, pale, sleep in his eyes, yet happy expectation, exultation, the certainty of open arms to receive him, and cries of delight—the boy. He stood for a second looking into the strange yet familiar room. John Tatham had sprung to his feet and stood startled, hesitating, while young Philip’s eyes, noting him with a glance, flashed past him to the other more important, more beloved, the mother whom he had expected to rush towards him with an outcry of joy.
And Elinor sat still in her chair, struck dumb, grown pale like a ghost, her eyes wide open, her lips apart. The sight of the boy, her beloved child, her pride and delight, was as a horrible spectacle to Elinor. She stared at him like one horrified, and neither moved nor spoke.
“Elinor!” cried John, terrified, “there’s nothing wrong. Don’t you see it’s Philip? Boy, what do you mean by giving her such a fright? She’s fainting, I believe.”
“I—give her a fright!” cried, half in anguish, half in indignation, the astonished boy.
“No, I’m not fainting. Pippo! there’s nothing wrong—at home?” Elinor cried, holding out her hand to him—coming to herself, which meant only awakening to the horror of a danger far more present than she had ever dreamt, and to the sudden sight not of her boy, but of that Nemesis which she had so carefullyprepared for herself, and which had been awaiting her for years. She was not afraid of anything wrong at home. It was the first shield she could find in the shock which had almost paralysed her, to conceal her terror and distress at the sight of him from the astonished, disappointed, mortified, and angry boy.
“I thought,” he said, “you would have been glad to see me, mother! No, there’s nothing wrong at home.”
“Thank heaven for that!” cried Elinor, feeling herself more and more a hypocrite as she recovered from the shock. “Pippo, I was saying this moment that you were at school. The words were scarcely off my lips—and then to see you in a moment, standing there.”
“I thought,” he repeated again, trembling with the disappointment and mortification, wounded in his cheerful, confident affection, and in his young pride, the monarch of all he surveyed—“I thought you would have been pleased to see me, mother!”
“Of course,” said John, cheerfully, “your mother is glad to see you: and so am I, you impetuous boy, though you don’t take the trouble of shaking hands with me. He wants to be kissed and coddled, Elinor, and I must be off to my chambers. But I should like to know first what’s up, boy? You’ve got something to say.”
“Pippo, what is it, my dearest? You did give me a great fright, and I am still nervous a little. Tell me,Pippo; something has brought you—your uncle John is right. I can see it in your eyes. You’ve got something to tell me!”
The tired and excited boy looked from one to another, two faces both full of a veiled but intense anxiety, looking at him as if what they expected was no good news. He burst out into a big, hoarse laugh, the only way to keep himself from crying. “You don’t even seem to remember anything about it,” he cried, flinging himself down in the nearest chair; “and for my part I don’t care any longer whether any one knows or not.”
And Elinor, whose thoughts were on such different things—whose whole mind was absorbed in the question of what he could have heard about the trial, about his father, about the new and strange future before him—gazed at him with eyes that seemed hollowed out all round with devouring anxiety. “What is it?” she said, “what is it? For God’s sake tell me! What have you heard?”
It goes against all prejudices to imagine that John Tatham, a man who never had had a child, an old bachelor not too tolerant of youth, should have divined the boy better than his mother. But he did, perhaps because he was a lawyer, and accustomed to investigate the human countenance and eye. He saw that Philip was full of something of his own, immediately interesting to himself; and he cast about quickly in his mind what it could be. Not that the boy was heir to a peerage: he would never have come likethisto announcethat: but something that Philip was cruelly disappointed his mother did not remember. This passed through John’s mind like a flash, though it takes a long time to describe. “Ah,” he said, “I begin to divine. Was not there something about a—scholarship?”
“Pippo!” cried Elinor, lighting up great lamps of relief, of sudden ease and quick-coming joy, in her brightened eyes and face. “My boy! you’ve won your battle! You’ve got it, you’ve got it, Pippo! And your foolish, stupid mother that thought for a moment you could rush to her like this with anything but good news!”
It took a few moments to soothe Pippo down, and mend his wounded feelings. “I began to think nobody cared,” he said, “and that made me that I didn’t care myself. I’d rather Musgrave had got it, if it had not been to please you all. And you never seemed so much as to remember—only Uncle John!” he added after a moment, with a half scorn which made John laugh at the never-failing candour of youth.
“Only the least important of all,” he said. “It was atrocious of the ladies, Philip. Shake hands, my boy, I owe you five pounds for the scholarship. And now I’ll take myself off, which will please you most of all.”
He went down-stairs laughing to himself all the way, but got suddenly quite grave as he stepped outside—whether because he remembered that it does not become a Q.C. and M.P. to laugh in the street, or for other causes, it does not become us to attempt to say.
And Elinor meanwhile made it up to her boy amply, and while her heart ached with the question what to do with him, how to dispose of him during those dreadful following days, behaved herself as if her head too was half turned with joy and exultation, only tempered by the regret that Musgrave, who had worked so hard, could not have got the scholarship too.
Elinormade much of her boy during that day and the following days, to take away the sense of disappointment which even after the first great mortification was got over still haunted young Philip’s mind. It surprised him beyond measure to find that she did not wish to go out with him, indeed in so far as was possible avoided it altogether, save for a hurried drive to a few places, during which she kept her veil down and sheltered herself with an umbrella in the most ridiculous way. “Are you afraid of your complexion, mother?” the boy asked of her with disdain. “It looks like it,” she said, but with a laugh that was full of embarrassment, “though it is a little late in the day.” Elinor was perhaps better aware than Pippo was that she had a complexion which a girl might have envied, and wasstill as fresh as a rose, notwithstanding that she was a year or two over forty; but I need not say it was not of her complexion she was thinking. She had been careful to choose her time on previous visits to London so as to risk as little as possible the chance of meeting her husband. But now there was no doubt that he was in town, and not the least that if he met her anywhere with Pippo, her secret, so far as it had ever been a secret, would be in his hands. Even when John took the boy out it was with a beating heart that his mother saw him go, for John was too well known to make any secret possible about his movements, or who it was who was with him. Perhaps it was for this reason that John desired to take him out, and even cut short his day’s work on one or two occasions to act as cicerone to Philip. He took him to the House, to the great excitement and delight of the boy, who only wished that the entertainment could have been made complete by a speech from Uncle John, which was a point in which his guide, philosopher, and friend, though in every other way so complaisant, did not humour Pippo. On one occasion during the first week they had an encounter which made John’s middle-aged pulses move a little quicker. When they were walking along through Hyde Park, having strolled that way in the fading of the May afternoon, when the carriages were still promenading up and down, before they returned to Halkin Street to dinner, where Elinor awaited them—it happened to Mr. Tatham to meet the roving eyes of LadyMariamne, who lay back languidly in her carriage, wrapped in a fur cloak, and shivering in the chill of the evening. She was not particularly interested in anything or any person whom she had seen, and was a little cross and desirous of getting home. But when she saw John she roused up immediately, and gave a sign to Dolly, who sat by her, to pull the check-string. “Mr. Tatham!” she cried, in her shrill voice. Lady Mariamne was not one of the people who object to hear their voice in public or are reluctant to make their wishes known to everybody. She felt herself to be of the cast in which everybody is interested, and that the public liked to know whom she honoured with her acquaintance. “Mr. Tatham! are you going to carry your rudeness so far as not to seem to know me? Oh, come here this moment, you impertinent man!”
“Can I be of any use to you, Lady Mariamne?” said John, gravely, at the carriage door.
“Oh, dear no; you can’t be of any use. What should I have those men for if I wanted you to be of use? Come and talk a moment, that’s all; or get into the carriage and I’ll take you anywhere. Dolly and I have driven round and round, and we have not seen a creature we cared to see. Yes! there was a darling, darling little Maltese terrier, with white silk curls hanging over his eyes, on an odious woman’s lap; but I cannot expect you to find that angel for me. Mr. Tatham, who is that tall boy?”
“Pippo,” said John, quickly (though probably he hadnever in his life before used that name, which he disapproved of angrily, as people often do of a childish name which does not please them), “go on. I’ll come after you directly. The boy is a cousin of mine, Lady Mariamne, just from school.”
“Mr. Tatham, I am quite sure it is Nell’s boy. Call after him. What’s his name? Bring him back! John Thomas, run after that young gentleman, and say with my compliments——”
“Nothing,” said John, stopping the footman with a lifted hand and a still more emphatic look. “He is hastening home to—an engagement. And it’s evident I had better go too—for your little friend there is showing his teeth.”
“The darling!” said Lady Mariamne, “did it show its little pearls at the wicked man that will not do what its mummy says? Dolly, can’t you jump down and run after that boy? I am sure it is your Uncle Philip’s boy.”
“He is out of sight, mother,” said Miss Dolly, calmly.
“You are the most dreadful, wicked, unkind people, all of you. Show its little teeth, then, darling! Oo’s the only one that has any feeling. Mr. Tatham, do tell me something about this trial. What is going to be done? Phil is mixed up in it. I know he is. Can they do anything to anybody—after all this time? They can’t make you pay up, I know, after a certain time. Oh, couldn’t it all be hushed up and stopped and kept out of the newspapers? I hate the newspapers, alwayschuckling over every new discovery. But this cannot be called a new discovery. If it’s true it’s old, as old as the old beginning of the world. Don’t you think somebody could get at the newspaper men and have it hushed up?”
“I doubt if you could get hold of all of them, their name is legion,” said John.
“Oh, I don’t care what their name is. If you will help me, Mr. Tatham, we could get hold of most of them—won’t you? You know, don’t you, poor St. Serf is so bad; it may be over any day—and then only think what a complication! Dolly, turn your head the other way; look at that silly young Huntsfield capering about to catch your eye. I don’t want you to hear what I have got to say.”
“I don’t in the least way want to hear what you have got to say, dear mamma,” said Dolly.
“That would have made me listen to every word,” said Lady Mariamne; “but girls are more queer nowadays than anything that ever was. Mr. Tatham”—she put her hand upon his, which was on the carriage door, and bent her perfumed, powdered face towards him—“for goodness’ sake—think how awkward it would be—a man just succeeding to a title and that sort of thing put in all the papers about him. Do, do stop it, or try something to stop it, for goodness’ sake!”
“I assure you,” said John, “I can do nothing to stop it. I am as powerless as you are.”
“Oh, I don’t say that I am powerless,” said Lady Mariamne, with her shrill laugh. “One has one’s little ways of influence.” Then she put her hand again upon John with a sudden grip. “Mr. Tatham,” she said, “tell me, in confidence, was that Phil’s boy?”
“I have told you, Lady Mariamne, it is a nephew of mine.”
“A nephew—oh, I know what kind of a nephew—à la mode de Bretagne!”
She turned her head to the other side, where her daughter was gazing calmly in front of her.
“Dolly! I was sure of it,” she cried, “don’t you hear? Dolly, don’t you hear?”
“Which, mamma?” said Dolly, gravely; “of course I could not help hearing it all. Which part was I to notice? about the newspapers or about the boy?”
Lady Mariamne appealed to earth and heaven with the loud cackle of her laugh. “He can’t deny it,” she said; “he as good as owns it. I am certain that’s the boy that will be Lomond.”
“Uncle St. Serf is not dead yet,” said Dolly, reprovingly.
“Poor Serf!—but he’s so very bad,” said Lady Mariamne, “that it’s almost the same thing. Mr. Tatham, can’t we take you anywhere? I’m so glad I’ve seen Nell’s boy. Can’t we drive you home? Perhaps you’ve got Nell there too?”
John stood back from the carriage door, just in time to escape the start of the horses as the remorselessstring was touched and the footman clambered up into his seat. Lady Mariamne’s smile went off her face, and she had forgotten all about it, to judge from appearances, before he had got himself in motion again. And a little farther on, behind the next tree, he found young Philip waiting, full of curiosity and questions.
“Who was that lady, Uncle John? Was she asking about me? I thought I heard her call. I had half a mind to run back and say ‘Here I am.’”
“It was much better that you didn’t do anything of the kind. Never pay any attention when you think you hear a fine lady calling you, Philip. It is better not to hear the Siren’s call.”
“When they’re elderly Sirens like that!” said the boy, with a laugh. “But I say, Uncle John, if you won’t tell me who the lady is, who is the girl? She has a pair of eyes!—not like Sirens though—eyes that go through you—like—like a pair of lancets.”
“A surgical operation in fact: and I shouldn’t wonder if she meant to be a doctor,” said John. “The mother has done nothing all her life, therefore the daughter means to do much. It is the natural reaction of the generations. But I never noticed that Miss Dolly had any eyes—to speak of,” said the highly indifferent middle-aged man.
The boy flushed with a sense of indignation. “Perhaps you think the old lady’s were finer?” he said.
“I never admired the old lady, as you call her,” said John, shortly; and then he turned Philip’s attention tosomething, possibly with the easily satisfied conviction of a spectator that the boy thought of it no more.
“We met my Lady Mariamne in the park,” he said to Elinor when they sat at dinner an hour later at that bachelor table in Halkin Street, where everything was so exquisitely cared for. It was like Elinor, but most unlike the place in which she found herself, that she started so violently as to shake the whole table, crying out in a tone of consternation, “John!” as if he did not know very well what he might venture to say, or as if he had any intention of betraying her to her son.
“She was very anxious,” he said, perhaps playing a little with her excitement, “to have Philip presented to her: but I sent him on—that is to say, I thought I sent him on. The fellow went no farther than to the next tree, where he stood and watched Miss Dolly, not feeling any interest in the old lady, as he said.”
“Well, Uncle John—did you expect me to look at the old lady? You are not so fond of old ladies yourself.”
“And who is Miss Dolly?” said Elinor, trying to conceal the beating of her heart and the quiver on her lips with a smile; and then she added, with a little catch of her breath, “Oh, yes, I remember there was a little girl.”
“You will be surprised to hear that we are by way of being great friends. Her ladyship visits me in my chambers——”
Again Elinor uttered that startled cry, “John!” butshe tried this time to cover it with a tremulous laugh. “Are you becoming a flirt in your old age?”
“It appears so,” said John. And then he added, “That aphorism, which struck you as it struck me, Elinor, by its good sense—about the heir to a peerage—is really her production, and not mine.”
“Miss Dolly’s? And what was the aphorism, Uncle John?” cried Philip.
“No, it was not Miss Dolly’s, my young man. It was the mother’s, and so of course does not interest you any more.”
It did not as a matter of fact: the old lady was supremely indifferent to Pippo; but as he looked up saying something else which did not bear upon the subject, it occurred to the boy, as it will sometimes occur by the merest chance to a young observer, to notice his mother. She caught his eye somehow in the most accidental way; and Pippo was too well acquainted with her looks not to perceive that there was a thrill in every line of her countenance, a slight nervous tremble in her hands and entire person, such as was in no way to be accounted for (he thought) by anything that had been said or done. There was nothing surely to disquiet her in dining at Uncle John’s, the three alone, not even one other guest to fill up the vacant side of the table. Philip had himself thought that Uncle John might have asked some one to meet them. He should have remembered that he himself, Philip, was now of an age to dine out, and see a little society, and go into theworld. But what in the name of all that was wonderful was there in this entertainment to agitate his mother? And John Tatham had a look—which Philip did not understand—the look of a man who was successful in argument, who was almost crushing an opponent. It was as if a duel had been going on between them, and the man was the victor, which, as was natural, immediately threw Philip violently on the other side.
“You’re not well, mother,” he said.
“Do you think not, Pippo? Well, perhaps you are right. London is too much for me. I am a country bird,” said Elinor, with smiling yet trembling lips.
“You shall not go to the theatre if you are not up to it,” said the boy in his imperious way.
She gave him an affectionate look, and then she looked across the table at John. What did that look mean? There was a faint smile in it: and there was a great deal which Philip did not understand, things understood by Uncle John—who was after all what you might call an outsider, no more—and not by him, her son! Could anything be so monstrous? Philip blazed up with sudden fire.
“No,” said John Tatham; “I think Philip’s right. We’ll take her home to be coddled by her maid, and we’ll go off, two wild young fellows, to the play by ourselves.”
“No,” said Philip, “I’ll leave her to be coddled by no maid. I can take care of my mother myself.”
“My dear boy,” said Elinor, “I want no coddling,But I doubt whether I could stand the play. I like you to go with Uncle John.”
And then it began to dawn upon Philip that his mother had never meant to be of the party, and that this was what had been settled all along. He was more angry, more wounded and hurt in his spirit than he had of course the least occasion to be. He was of opinion that his mother had never had any secrets from him, that she had taken him into her confidence since he was a small boy, even things that Granny did not know! And here all at once there was rising between them a cloud, a mist, which there was no reason for. If he had done anything to make him less worthy he would have understood; had there been a bad report from school, had he failed in his work and disappointed her, there might have been some reason for it. But he had done nothing of the kind! Never before had he been so deserving of confidence; he had got his scholarship, he had finished the first phase of his education in triumph, and fulfilled all her expectations. And now just at this point of all others, just when he was most fit to understand, most worthy of trust, she turned from him. His heart swelled as if it would burst, with anger first, almost too strong to be repressed, and with that sense of injured merit which is of all things the most hard to bear. It is hard enough even when one is aware one deserves no better. But to be conscious of your worth and to feel that you are not appreciated, that is indeed too much for any one. There was not even the satisfaction of giving up the play which he had looked forward to, making a sacrifice of it to his mother, in which there would have been a severe pleasure. But she did not want him! She preferred that he should leave her by herself to be coddled by her maid, as Uncle John (vulgarly) said. Or perhaps was there somebody else coming, some old friend whom he knew nothing of, somebody, some one or other like that old witch in the carriage whom Pippo was not meant to know?
It ended, however, in the carrying out of the plan settled beforehand by those old conspirators. The old conspirators do generally manage to carry out their plans for the management of rebellious youth, however injured the latter may feel. Pippo wound himself up in solemn dignity and silence when he understood that it was ordained that he should proceed to the play with John Tatham. And the pair had got half way to Drury Lane—or it may have been the Lyceum, or the Haymarket, or any of half-a-dozen other theatres, for here exact information fails—before he condescended to open his lips for more than Yes or No. But Philip’s gloom did not survive the raising of the curtain, and he had forgotten all offences and had taken his companion into favour again, and was talking to Uncle John between the acts with all the excitement of a country youth to whom a play still was the greatest of novelties and delights, when he suddenly saw a change come over John Tatham’s countenance and a slight bow of recognition directed towards a box, which made Philip turn round and looktoo. And there was the old witch of the carriage, and, what was more interesting, the girl with the keen eyes, who looked out suddenly from the shade of the draperies, and fixed upon Philip—Philip himself—a look which startled that young hero much. Nor was this all; for later in the evening, after another act of the play, some one else appeared in the same box, and fixed the dark and impassive stare of a long pair of opera-glasses upon Philip. It amused him at first, and afterwards it half frightened him, and finally made him very angry. The gazer was a man, of whom, however, Philip could make nothing out but his white shirt front and his tall stature, and the long black tubes of the opera-glass. Was it at him the man was looking, or perhaps at Uncle John? But the boy thought it on the whole unlikely that anybody should stare in that way at anything so little out of the ordinary as Uncle John.
“I say,” he said, in the next interval, “who is that fellow staring at us out of your old lady’s box?”
“Staring at the ladies behind us, you mean,” said John. “Pippo, do you think we could make a rush for it the moment the play’s over? I’ve got something to look over when I get home. Are you game to be out the very first before the curtain’s down?”
“Certainly I’m game,” said Philip, delighted, “if you wish it, Uncle John.”
“Yes, I wish it,” said the other, and he put his hand on the boy’s shoulder as the act finished and the characters of the piece drew together for the final tableau.And the pair managed it triumphantly, and were the very first to get out at the head of the crowd, to Philip’s immense amusement and John Tatham’s great relief. The elder hurried the younger into the first hansom, all in the twinkling of an eye: and then for the first time his gravity relaxed. Philip took it all for a great joke till they reached Ebury Street. But when his companion left him, and he had time to think of it, he began to ask himself why?
I willnot say that Philip’s sleep was broken by this question, but it undoubtedly recurred to his mind the first thing in the morning when he jumped out of bed very late for breakfast, and the events of the past night and the lateness of the hour at which he got to rest came back upon him as excuses in the first place for his tardiness. And then, which was remarkable, it was not the scene in the play in which he had been most interested which came to his mind, but a vision of that box and the man standing in front of it staring at him through the black tubes of the opera-glass which came before Philip like a picture. Uncle John had said it was at the ladies behind, but the boy felt sure it was no lady behind, but himself, on whom that stare was fixed. Who would care to stare so at him? It faintly gleamed across his thoughts that it might besome one who had heard of the scholarship, but he dismissed that thought instantly with a blush. It also gleamed upon him with equal vagueness like a momentary but entirely futile light, consciously derived from story books, and of which he was much ashamed, that the inexplicable attention given to himself might have something to do with the girl who had such keen eyes. Philip blushed fiery red at this involuntary thought, and chased it from his mind like a mad dog; but he could not put away the picture of the box, the girl putting aside the curtain to look at him, and the opera-glass fixed upon his face. And then why was Uncle John in such a hurry to get away? It had seemed a capital joke at that moment, but when he came to think of it, it was rather strange that a man who might be Solicitor-General to-morrow if he liked, and probably Lord Chancellor in a few years, should make a schoolboy rush from the stalls of a theatre with the object of being first out. Philip disapproved of so undignified a step on the part of his elderly relation. And he saw now in the serious morning that Uncle John was very unlikely to have done it for fun. What, then, did it mean?
He came down full of these thoughts, and rather ashamed of being late, wondering whether his mother would have waited for him (which would have annoyed him), or if she would have finished her breakfast (which would have annoyed him still more). Happily for Elinor, she had hit the golden mean, and was pouringout for herself a second cup of coffee (but Philip was not aware it was the second) when the boy appeared. She was quite restored to her usual serenity and freshness, and as eager to know how he had enjoyed himself as she always was. He gave her a brief sketch of the play and of what pleased him in it as in duty bound. “But,” he added, “what interested me almost more was that we had a sort of a—little play of our own.”
“What?” she cried, with a startled look in her eyes. One thing that puzzled him was that she was so very easily startled, which it seemed to Philip had never been the case before.
“Well,” he said, “the lady was there whom Uncle John met in the park—and the girl with her—and I believe the little dog. She made all sorts of signs to him, but he took scarcely any notice. But that’s not all, mother——”
“It’s a good deal, Pippo——”
“Is it? Why do you speak in that choked voice, mother? I suppose it is just one of his society acquaintances. But the thing was that before the last act somebody else came forward to the front of the box, and fixed—I was going to say his eyes, I mean his opera-glasses upon us.”
Philip had meant to say upon me—but he had produced already so great an effect on his mother’s face that he moderated instinctively the point of this description. “And stared at us,” he added, “all the rest of the time, paying not the least attention to anything that was going on. It’s a queer sensation,” he went on, with a laugh, “to feel that black mysterious-looking thing like the eyes of some monster with no speculation in them, fixed upon you. Now, I want you to tell me—— What’s the matter, mother?”
“Nothing, Pippo; nothing,” said Elinor, faintly, stooping to lift up a book she had let fall. “Go on with your story. I am very much interested; and then, my dear?”
“Mother,” cried Philip, “I don’t know what has come over you, or over me. There’s something going on I can’t understand. You never used to have any secrets from me. I was always in your confidence—wasn’t I, mother?”
It was not a book she had let fall, but a ring that she had dropped from her finger, and which had to be followed over the carpet. It made her red and flushed when she half raised her head to say, “Yes, Pippo—you know—I have always told you——”
Philip did not remark that what his mother said was nothing after all. He got up to help her to look for her ring, and put his arm round her waist as she knelt on the floor.
“Yes, mamma,” he said, tenderly, protectingly, “I do know: but something’s changed; either it’s in me that makes you feel you can’t trust me—or else it is in you. And I don’t know which would be worst.”
“There is no change,” she said, after a moment, for she could not help the ring being found, and immediately when his quick, young eyes came to the search: but she did not look him in the face. “There is no change, dear. There is only some worrying business which involves a great many troubles of my old life before you were born. You shall hear—everything—in a little while: but I cannot enter into it all at this moment. It is full of complications and—secrets that belong to other people. Pippo, you must promise me to wait patiently, and to believe—to believe—always the best you can—of your mother.”
The boy laughed as he raised her up, still holding her with his arm. “Believe the best I can! Well, I don’t think that will be a great effort, mother. Only to think that you can’t trust me as you always have done makes me wretched. We’ve been such friends, haven’t we, mamma? I’ve always told you everything, or at least everything except just the nonsense at school: and you’ve told me everything. And if we are going to be different now——”
“You’ve told me everything!” the boy was as sure of it as that he was born. She had to hold by him to support herself, and it cost her a strong effort to restrain the shiver that ran through her. “We are not going to be different,” she said, “as soon as we leave London—or before—you shall know everything about this business of mine, Pippo. Will that satisfy you? In the meantime it is not pleasant business, dear; and you must bear with me if I am abstracted sometimes, and occupied, and cross.”
“But, mother,” said Philip, bending over her with that young celestial-foolish look of gravity and good advice with which a neophyte will sometimes address the much-experienced and heavily-laden pilgrim, “don’t you think it would be easier if it was all open between us, and I took my share? If it is other people’s secrets I would not betray them, you know that.”
Unfortunately Elinor here murmured, scarcely knowing what words came from her lips, “That is what John says.”
“John,” said the boy, furious with the quick rage of injured tenderness and pride, “Uncle John! and you tell him more, him, an outsider, than you tell me!”
He let her go then, which was a great relief to Elinor, for she could command herself better when he was a little farther off, and could not feel the thrill that was in her, and the thumping of her heart.
“You must remember, Pippo,” she said, “what I have told you, that my present very disagreeable, very painful business is about things that happened before you were born, which John knew everything about. He was my adviser then, as far as I would take any advice, which I am afraid never was much, Pippo,” she said; “never, alas! all my life. Granny will tell you that. But John, always the kindest friend and the best brother in the world, did everything he could. And it would have been better for us all if I had taken his advice instead of always, I fear, always my own way.”
Strangely enough this cheered Pippo and swept thecloud from his face. “I’m glad you didn’t take anybody’s advice, mother. I shouldn’t have liked it. I’ve more faith in you than anybody. Well, then, now about this man. What man in the world—I really mean in the world, in what is called society, for that is the kind of people they were—could have such a curiosity about—me?”
She had resumed her seat, and her face was turned away from him. Also the exquisite tone of complacency and innocent self-appreciation with which Philip expressed this wonder helped her a little to surmount the situation. Elinor could have laughed had her heart been only a trifle less burdened. She said: “Are you sure it was at you?”
“Uncle John said something about ladies behind us, but I am sure it was no ladies behind. It might, of course,” the boy added, cautiously, “have beenhim, you know. I suppose Uncle John’s a personage, isn’t he? But after all, you know, hang it, mother, it isn’t easy to believe that a fellow like that would stare so at Uncle John.”
“Poor John! It is true there is not much novelty about him,” said Elinor, with a tremble in her voice, which, if it was half agitation, was yet a little laughter too: for there are scarcely any circumstances, however painful, in which those who are that way moved by nature are quite able to quench the unconquerable laugh. She added, with a falter in which there was no laughter, “and what—was the—fellow like?”
“All that I could see was that he was a tall man. I saw his large shirt-front and his black evening clothes, and something like grey hair above those two big, black goggles——”
“Grey hair!” Elinor said, with a low suppressed cry.
“He never took them away from his eyes for a moment, so of course I could not see his face, or anything much except that he was more than common tall—like myself,” Pippo said, with a little air of pleased vanity in the comparison.
Like himself! She did not make any remark. It is very doubtful whether she could have done so. There came before her so many visions of the past, and such a vague, confused, bewildering future, of which she could form no definite idea what it would be. Was it with a pang that she foresaw that drawing towards another influence: that mingled instinct, curiosity, perhaps admiration and wonder, which already seemed to move her boy’s unconscious mind? Elinor did not even know whether that would hurt her at all. Even now there seemed a curious pungent sense of half-pleasure in the pain. Like himself! So he was. And if it should be that it was his father, who for hours had stood there, not taking his eyes off the boy (for hours her imagination said, though Pippo had not said so), his father who had known where she was and never disturbed her, never interfered with her; the man who had summoned her to perform her martyrdom for him, never doubting—Phil, with grey hair! To say whatmingled feelings swept through Elinor’s mind, with all these elements in them, is beyond my power. She saw him with his face concealed, standing up unconscious of the crowded place and of the mimic life on the stage, his eyes fixed upon his son whom he had never seen before. Where was there any drama in which there was a scene like this? His son, his only child, the heir! Unconsciously even to herself that fact had some influence, no doubt, on Elinor’s thoughts. And it would be impossible to say how much influence had that unexpected subduing touch of the grey hair: and the strange change in the scene altogether. The foolish, noisy, “fast” woman, with hertourbillonof men and dogs about her, turned into the old lady of Pippo’s careless remark, with her daughter beside her far more important than she: and the tall figure in the front of the box, with grey hair——
Young Philip had not the faintest light or guidance in the discovery of his mother’s thoughts. He was much more easy and comfortable now that there had been an explanation between them, though it was one of those explanations which explained nothing. He even forgave Uncle John for knowing more than he did, moved thereto by the consolatory thought that John’s advice had never been taken, and that his mother had always followed her own way. This was an incalculable comfort to Pippo’s mind, and gave him composure to wait calmly for the clearing up of the mystery, and the restoration of that perfect confidence between hismother and himself which he was so firmly convinced had existed all his life. He was a great deal happier after, and gave her an excellent account of the play, which he had managed to see quite satisfactorily, notwithstanding the other “little play of our own” which ran through everything. At Philip’s age one can see two things at once well enough. I knew a boy who at one and the same moment got the benefit of (1st) his own story book, which he read lying at full length before the fire, half buried in the fur of a great rug; and (2nd) of the novel which was being read out over his head for the benefit of the other members of the family—or at least he strenuously asserted he did, and indeed proved himself acquainted with both. Philip in the same way had taken in everything in the play, even while his soul was intent upon the opera-glass in the box. He had not missed anything of either. He gave an account of the first, from which the drama might have been written down had fate destroyed it: and had noticed theminauderiesof the heroine, and the eager determination not to be second to her in anything which distinguished the first gentleman, as if he had nothing else in his mind: while all the time he had been under the fascination of the two black eyeholesbraquésupon him, the mysterious gaze as of a ghost from eyes which he never saw.
This occupied some part of the forenoon, and Philip was happy. But when he had completed his tale and began to feel the necessity of going out, and remembered that he had nowhere to go and nothing to do, the prospect was not alluring. He tried very hard to persuade his mother to go out with him, but this was a risk from which Elinor shrank. She shrank, too, from his proposal at last to go out to the park by himself.
“To the Row. I sha’n’t know the people except those who are inPunchevery week, and I shall envy the fellows riding—but at least it will be something to see.”
“I wish you would not go to the Row, Pippo.”
“Why, mother? Doesn’t everybody go? And you never were here at this time of the year before.”
“No,” she said, with a long breath of despair. No; of all times of the year this was the one in which she had never risked him in London. And, oh! that he had been anywhere in the world except London now!
Philip, who had been watching her countenance with great interest, here patted her on the shoulder with condescending, almost paternal, kindness. “Don’t you be frightened, mother. I’ll not get into any mischief. I’ll neither be rode over, nor robbed, nor run away. I’ll take as great care of myself as if you had been there.”
“I’m not afraid that you will be ridden over or robbed,” she said, forcing a smile; “but there is one thing, Pippo. Don’t talk to anybody whom you—don’t know. Don’t let yourself be drawn into—— If you should meet, for instance, that lady—who was in the theatre last night.”
“Yes, mother?”
“Don’t let her make acquaintance with you; don’t speak to her, nor the girl, nor any one that may be with her. At the risk even of being uncivil——”
“Why, mother,” he said, elevating his eyebrows, “how could I be uncivil to a lady?”
“Because I tell you,” she cried, “because you must—because I shall sit here in terror counting every moment till you come back, if you don’t promise me this.”
He looked at her with the most wondering countenance, half disapproving, half pitying. Was she going mad? what was happening to her? was she after all, though his mother, no better than the jealous foolish women in books, who endeavoured at all costs to separate their children from every influence but their own? How could Pippo think such things of his mother? and yet what else could he think?