Thebustle of this afternoon’s occupation, which left her no time to think before she was deposited at her hotel for her late dinner, put serious thoughts out of Evelyn’s mind; and even when that hasty meal, over which she had no inclination to linger, was ended, and she had relapsed into the comfort of a dressing gown, and lay extended in an easy chair beside the open windows, hearing all the endless tumult of town, half with a sense of being left out, and half with self-congratulations over her quiet, she was little inclined to reflection. The echo of all that she had been doinghung about her, and that pleasant little commotion of choice, of arrangement and organization, which is involved in a new house and new settlement, absorbed her thoughts. They went very fast, setting a thousand things stirring. There is nothing that moves the woman of to-day more than the task of making a house pretty and harmonious, and forming a version of home out of any spare hired dwelling. Evelyn had anticipated having this to do for Rosmore. But James had somehow taken it out of her hands. He had gone to prepare it for her, not thinking that she would have liked much better to have a share in the doing. And now to think of having her little essay for herself, and setting up a temporary home out of her own fancy, turning a few bare rooms into a place full of fragrance and brightness, pleased her fancy. She listened to the carriages flying past with an endless roll of sound, so many of them conveying society to its favourite haunts, to one set of brilliant rooms after another, to new combinations of smiling faces and beautiful toilettes, with a half melancholy half pleasing excitement. To be above, and listen to that sound, is always slightly melancholy, and Evelyn could not but think a little of the pleasure of emerging from the silence of solitude, of seeing and being seen, of finding friends from whom she had been long parted, and a dazzling vision of life which was all the brighter from being partially forgotten, and never very perfectly known. From where she sat she could see the glare of the carriage lamps, and now and then some glimpses of the persons within—a lady’s white toilette surging up at the windowor a brilliant shirt front looking almost like another lamp inside. It amused her to watch that stream flow on.
And then there came over her a dark shadow, the vision of the man who had been so young and so full of life when she saw him last, and who was so death-like and fallen now. The thought chilled her suddenly to the heart. She drew back from the window, and wrapped herself in a shawl, with the shudder of a cold which was not physical but spiritual. In the midst of all that ceaseless loudness of life and movement and pleasure, and of the vision which had visited her own brain of lighted rooms, and animated faces, and brilliant talk—to drop back to that wreck of existence, the helpless man leaning upon his servant’s arm, bundled up like a piece of goods, unresisting, compelled to submit to those cares which were an indignity, yet which were necessary to very existence! The echo came back to Evelyn’s heart. If there was in her mind, who in reality cared for none of these things, a little sentiment of loneliness as she saw the stream of life go by, what must there be in his, to whom society was life, and who was cut off from all its pleasures? Her imagination followed him to the prison of his weakness, his melancholy home, with this imperative servant who tended and ruled all his movements, for his sole society. God help him! What a condition to come to, after all the experiences of his life!
Should she ever meet him again, she had asked herself, partly with a vaguely formed wish of sayingsome word of kindness to so great a sufferer, partly with a shrinking reluctance to give herself the pain of looking upon his humiliation again? But it was almost as great a shock as on the first meeting to see him coming along the park as she walked to Lady Leighton’s next day. He was being drawn along in his wheeled chair by the man who had bundled him up so summarily on the previous occasion. Evelyn would have hurried on, but he held out his hand appealingly, and even called her name as she endeavoured to pass. “Won’t you stop and speak to me?” he said. It was impossible to resist that appeal. She stood by him looking down upon his ashy countenance, the loose lips and half-open mouth which babbled rather than talked, and which it required an effort at first to understand. “Will you sit down a little and talk?” he said. “It’s a pleasure I don’t often have, a talk with an old friend. Sit there, and I’ll have my chair drawn beside you. I hope you won’t think yourself a victim, as I fear some of my friends do——”
“Oh no,” she said anxiously, “don’t think so: I—was going to see Madeline—but it will not matter——”
“Oh, she can spare you for half an hour.”
It was with dismay that Evelyn heard this, but how could she resist the power of his weakness and fallen estate? He had his chair drawn up in front of the one she had taken, very near her, and with a gesture dismissed his servant, who went and took up his position with his back against a tree, and his eyes upon the master who was also his patient. The sight of thisreminder of his extreme weakness and precarious condition was almost more than Evelyn’s nerves could bear.
“We are a wonderful contrast, you and I,” he said; “you so young and fair, just entering upon life, and I leaving it, a decrepid old man.”
“You know,” she said, “that I am not young and fair any more than you are old. I am grieved to see you so ill; but I hope——”
“There is no room for hope. To go on like this for many years, which they say is possible, is not much worth hoping for, is it? Still, I would bear it for various reasons. But I am not likely to be tried. I am a wreck—and my wife only lived two years—I suppose you knew that.”
“I had heard that Mrs. Saumarez died.”
“Yes—I’d have come to you for consolation had I dared.”
“It was better not,” said Evelyn, while a subdued flash of indignation shot out much against her will from her downcast eyes.
“That was what I thought. When a thing does not succeed at first it is better not to try to get fire out of the ashes,” he said didactically; “but between us two, there is no difficulty in seeing which has the best of it. I should like to call and make Mr. Rowland’s acquaintance. But you see the plight in which I am. It is almost impossible for me to get up a stair——”
“My husband—does not mean to remain in London,” she said hurriedly. “We are going to Scotland at once.”
“To a place he has bought, I suppose? I hear that he has a great fortune—and I am most heartily glad of it for your sake.”
She replied hurriedly, with a slight bow of acquiescence. It was the strangest subject to choose for discussion: but yet it was very difficult to find any subject. “You told me the other day,” she said, “about your children.”
“I am very thankful to you for asking. I wanted to speak of them. I have a boy and girl, with only a year between them—provided for more or less; but who is to look after them when I am gone? Their mother’s family I never got on with. They are the most worldly-minded people. I should not like my little Rosamond to fall into their hands.”
There was a pause: for Evelyn found that she had nothing to say. It was so extraordinary to sit here, the depositary of Edward Saumarez’s confidences, listening to the account of his anxieties—she who was so little likely to be of any help.
“How old is she?” she managed to ask at last.
“Rosamond? How long is it since we were—so much together? A long time. I dare say more than twenty years.”
“Something like that.”
“Ah well,” he said with a sigh, “I married about a year after. They’re nineteen and twenty, or thereabouts. Rosamond, they tell me, ought to be brought out; but what is the good of bringing out a girl into the world who has no one to protect her? Nobody but a worldly-minded aunt who will sell her for whatshe will bring—marry her off her hands as quickly as possible; that is all she will think of. It may seem strange to you, but my little girl is proud of me, dreadful object as I am.”
“Why should it seem strange? It would be very unnatural if she was not.”
“She is the only one in the world who cares a brass farthing whether I live or die.” As Evelyn raised her eyes full of pity, she was suddenly aware that he was watching her, watching for some tell-tale flush or gesture which should give a tacit denial to what he said. He, like Lady Leighton, was of opinion that a woman never forgets, and dreadful object as he allowed himself to be, the man’s vanity would fain have been fed by some sign that the woman beside him, whom he had abandoned so basely, whose heart he had done his best to break, still cherished something of the old feeling, and was his still. He was disconcerted by the calm compassion in her eyes.
“Eddy is as cold as a stone,” he said; “he is like his mother’s people. He doesn’t see why an old fellow like me should keep dragging on. He minds no more than Jarvis does—less, for I am Jarvis’s living, and to keep me alive is the best thing for him. But it would be better for Eddy, he thinks, if I were out of the way.”
“Please do not speak so; I don’t believe that any son really entertains such thoughts.”
“Ah, that shows how little you know. You have not been in society all these years. Eddy is philosophical, and thinks that I have very little good of mylife, which is true enough, and that he would have a great deal, which is quite as true.”
“Even if it were so, he would not be his own master—at nineteen,” Evelyn said.
“Twenty—he is the eldest. Of course he would be better off in that case. He would have more freedom, and a better allowance; and he would be of more importance, not the second but the first.”
“Oh,” she cried with horror, “do not impute such dreadful motives to your own child.”
He shook his head, looking at her with an air of cynical wisdom—a look which made the countenance, so changed and faded with disease, almost diabolical to contemplate. Evelyn turned her eyes away with a movement of horrified impatience. And this was not at all the feeling with which Saumarez meant to inspire the woman who had once loved him. He was unwilling even now to believe that she had entirely escaped out of his power.
“Evelyn,” he said, putting forth again that large nerveless hand, from the touch of which she shrank—“let me call you so, as in the old days. It can do no one any harm now.”
“Surely not,” she said; “it could do no one any harm.”
He had not expected this reply; if she had shrank from the familiarity and refused her permission, he would have been better pleased. Helpless, paralytic, dreadful to behold, he would fain have considered himself a danger to her peace of mind still.
“I have to accept that,” he said, “like all the rest.That it doesn’t matter what I say, no man could be jealous of me. Evelyn!—I like to say the name—there’s everything that’s sweet and womanly in it. I wish I had called my little girl by that name. I thought of it, to tell the truth.”
“Nothing could have been more unsuitable,” cried Evelyn, with a flush of anger. “I hope you did not think of it, for that would have been an insult, not a compliment to me. Mr. Saumarez, I think I must go on. Madeline expected me at——”
“Oh, let Madeline wait a little! She has plenty of interests, and I have something very serious to say. You may think I am trying to lead you into recollections—which certainly would agitate me, if not you. You are very composed, Evelyn. I ought to be glad to see you so, but I don’t know that I am. I remember everything so well—but you—seem to have passed into another world.”
“It is true. The world is entirely changed for me. I can scarcely believe that it was I who lived through so many experiences twenty-two years ago.”
“I feel that there is a reproach in that—and yet if I could tell you everything—but you would not listen to me now.”
“I am no longer interested,” she said gently, “so many things have happened since then: my father’s death, and Harry’s. How thankful I was to be able to care for them both! All these things are between me and my girlhood. It has died out of my mind. If there is anything you want to say to me, Mr. Saumarez, I hope it is on another subject than that.”
The attempt in his eyes to convey a look of sentiment made her feel faint. But fortunately his faculties were keen enough to show him the futility of that attempt. “Yes,” he said, “it is another subject—a very different subject. I shall not live long, and I have no friends. I care for nobody, and you will say it is a natural consequence of this that nobody cares for me.”
She made a movement of dissent in her great pity. “It cannot be so bad as that.”
“But itis. My sister’s dead, you know, and there is really nobody. Evelyn, I have a great favour to ask you. Will you be the guardian of my boy and girl?”
“The guardian—of your children!” She was so startled and astonished that she could only gaze at him, and could not find another word to say.
“Why should you be so much surprised? I never thought so much of any woman as I do of you. I find you again after so many years, unchanged. Evelyn, you are changed. I said so a little while ago: but yet you are yourself, and that’s the best I know. I’d like my little Rosamond to be like you. I’d like Eddy, though he’s a rascal, to know some one that would make even him good. Evelyn, they are well enough off, they would not be any trouble in that way. Will you take them—will you be their guardian when I am gone?”
Evelyn was not only astonished but frightened by what he asked of her. She rose up hastily. “You must not think of it—you must not think of it! What could I do for them? I have other duties of my own.”
“It would not be so much trouble,” he said, “only to give an eye to them now and then; to have them with you when you felt inclined to ask them—nothing more. For old friendship’s sake you would not object to have my children on a visit once a year or so. I am sure you would not refuse me that?”
“But that is very different from being their guardian.”
“It would not be, as I should arrange it. You would give them your advice when they wanted it. You would do as much as that for any one, for the gamekeeper’s children, much more for an old friend’s—and see them now and then, and inquire how they were getting on? I should ask nothing more. Evelyn, you wouldn’t refuse an old friend, a disabled, unhappy solitary man like me?”
“Oh, Mr. Saumarez!” she cried. He had tried to raise himself up a little in the fervour of his appeal, but fell back again in a sort of heap, the exertion and the emotion being too much for his strength. The servant appeared in a moment from where he had been watching. “He oughtn’t to be allowed to agitate himself, ma’am,” said the man reproachfully. Evelyn, alarmed, walked humbly beside the chair till they came to the gate of the Park, terrified to think that perhaps he had injured himself, that perhaps she ought to humour him by consenting to anything. He was not allowed to say any more, nor did she add a word, but he put out his hand again and pressed hers feebly as they parted. “Can I doanything?” she had asked the servant in her compunction. “Nothing but leave him quite quiet,” said the man. “It might be as much as his life is worth. I don’t hold with letting ‘em talk.” Saumarez was one of a class, a mere case, to his attendant. And Evelyn felt as if she had been guilty of a kind of murder as she hurried away.
She found Lady Leighton waiting for her for lunch, and slightly disturbed by the delay. “I have a thousand things to do, and the loss of half-an-hour puts one all out,” she said, with a little peevishness; “but I’m sure you had a reason, Evelyn, for being so late.”
“A reason which was much against my will,” said Evelyn, telling the story of her distress, to which her friend listened very gravely. “I should take care not to meet him again,” said Lady Leighton, with a cloud on her brow. “You listen to him out of pure pity, but weak and ailing as he is, it would be sweet to his vanity to compromise a woman even now.”
“I do not understand what you mean,” said Evelyn; “he could not compromise me, if that is it, by anything he could do, were he all that he has ever been.”
“You don’t know what your husband might think,” said her friend; “he wouldn’t like it. He might have every confidence in you—but a man of Ned Saumarez’s character, and an old lover, and all that—he might say——”
“My husband,” said Mrs. Rowland, feeling the blood mount to her head, “has no such ideas in his mind. He neither knows anything about Mr. Saumarez’s character, nor would he even if he did know. You mistake my feeling altogether. It is not anything about my husband that distresses me—it is the trust he wants me to undertake of his children.”
“Oh, you may make yourself easy about that, Evelyn. That was only a blind. It is little he thinks about his children. He’ll get you to meet him and to talk to him, professedly about them—oh, I don’t doubt that! but that’s not what he means. You don’t know Ned Saumarez so well as I do,” cried Lady Leighton, putting out her hand to stop an outcry of indignation; “you don’t know the world so well as I do; you have been out of it for years, and you always were an innocent, and never did understand—”
“Understand! that a man who is dying by inches should have—such ideas. A man on the edge of the grave—with a servant, a nurse, looking after him as if he were a child.”
“It’s very sad, my dear, especially the last, which is incredible, I allow. How a man like that can think that a woman would—But they do all the same. You might be led yourself by pity, or perhaps by a little lingering feeling—or—well, well, I will not say that, I don’t want to make you angry—perhaps by a little vanity then, if I may say such a word.”
“Madeline, I think you know far too much of the world.”
“Perhaps,” said Lady Leighton, not without a little self-complacence. “I have had a great deal of experience in life.”
“And too little,” said Evelyn, “of honest meaning and truth.”
“Oh, as for that! but if you think you will find truth or honest meaning, my dear, in Ned Saumarez, you will be very far wrong; and if he can lead you into a mess with your husband, or get you talked about——”
“He will never get me into a mess with my husband, you may be certain of that, Madeline.”
“Oh, if you will take your own way, I cannot help it,” cried Lady Leighton. “I have done all I can. And now come down to lunch. At all events we must not quarrel, you and I.”
The lunch, however, was not a very successful one, and Evelyn refused to take any further action about Chester Street, and was so determined in her resistance that her friend at last gave up the argument, and with something very like the quarrel she had deprecated, allowed Mrs. Rowland to depart alone for her hotel, which she did in great fervour of indignation and distress. But as she walked quickly along the long line of the park, she perceived with a pang of alarm and surprise, the invalid’s chair being drawn across the end of the ride, into the same path where she had met Saumarez an hour or two before. Was it possible that Madeline could be right? Was he going back to wait for her there? She stood but for a moment and watched the slow mournful progress of the chair, the worn-out figure lying back in it, the ashen face amid the many wraps. A certain awe came over her. She had been long out of the world, and had never beenvery wise in such matters: and who could believe that a man in the last stage of life should be able to amuse himself by schemes at once so base and so frivolous? She turned back half-ashamed of herself for doing so, and went home another way. It might be, she said to herself with a compunction, that all he meant was after all what he thought his children’s interest: then with a thrill of self-suspicion asked herself, was this the vanity by which Madeline, too clear sighted, had suggested she might be moved? Oh, clearly the world was not a place for her! The mere discussion of such possibilities abashed and shamed her. Her simple husband, who could not cope with these fine people, and upon whom probably they would look down—her home, far from all such ignoble suggestions, her own difficulties, which might be troublesome enough, but not like these—how much better they were! Her heart had been a little caught by the aspect of the old life from which she had been separated so long, and she had begun to think that with all the advantages her new position gave her, it might be pleasant to resume those of the old one, and venture a little upon the sea of society, which looked so bright at the first glance. Had she yielded to this temptation no doubt the good Rowland would have followed her guidance, pleased with anything she suggested, delighted for a time with the fine company, giving up his chosen life for her sake. And it is very probable that, had Lady Leighton foreseen the disgust with which her warning would fill her friend’s mind, she would have been chary about giving it, and wouldhave preferred to let Evelyn take her chance of compromise and danger. The worst of society is, that it deadens the mind to the base and vile, taking away all horror of things unclean, by inculcating a perpetual suspicion of their existence. But no such deadening influence had ever been in Evelyn’s mind. She sent another letter to her husband by that afternoon’s post, which, in the midst of various tribulations of his own, made that good man’s heart leap. She told him that she had changed her mind about staying in London, that it was odious to her: that she counted the hours till he should return, that she longed for Rosmore, and to see the Clyde and the lochs, and the children, and “our own home.” James Rowland, though he was not a sentimental man, kissed this letter; for he was in great need of consolation, having in full measure his own troubles too.
Evelynscarcely went out at all next day. She paid a visit to some of the old furniture shops in the morning, which was a direction quite different from that in which she would be subjected to any painful meeting—and realised once more her husband’s simple maxim that there was great diversion in buying. She did buy within a certain range, expensive articles—things which she knew Madeline Leighton would covet but could not afford, with a kind of pleasure in the unnecessary extravagance which she was half ashamedof, half amused by when she realised it. The old marqueterie was solid and beautifully made, and had borne the brunt of years of usage; it was not a hollow fiction like the fabric of society which Lady Leighton and such as she expounded as unutterably vile, yet clung to as if it were the only thing true. Evelyn declared to herself that she would have no house in Chester Street. To cover up the old faded carpets with pretty Persian rugs, and make the dingy rooms fine with temporary fittings up which did not belong to them, was, like all the rest, a deception and disgust. The pretty things should be for her own house, where they would be placed to remain as long as she lived, where they would be like herself, at home. But except the time she spent in these shops, which was not very long, she did not go out all day. And she had, it must be allowed, got very tired of her own company, when in the afternoon the door was opened suddenly, and a servant appeared to announce some one, a young lady, about whose name he was very doubtful, for Mrs. Rowland. He was followed into the room by the slim figure of a girl looking very young but very self-possessed and unabashed, with an ease of manner which Evelyn was not accustomed to see in her kind. This young lady was dressed very simply, as girls who are not “out” (as well as many who are) are specially supposed to be. The grey frock was spotless, and beautifully made, but it was absolutely unadorned, and she had not an ornament or a ribbon about her to break the severe grace of her outline. But to make amends for this, she had the radiantcomplexion which is so often seen in English girls—a complexion not yet put in jeopardy either by hot rooms and late hours, or by the experiences of Ascot and Goodwood and Hurlingham; her hair was very light, not the conventional gold. She came forward to Evelyn with the air of a perfect little woman of the world. “I am Rosamond Saumarez,” she said, holding out her hand; “my father told me I was to come to see you.” Evelyn stumbled up to her feet with a startled sensation, bewildered by a visit so absolutely unexpected. The young lady took her extended hand, and shook it affably, then with a little air of begging Mrs. Rowland to be seated, like a young princess, drew forth for herself a low chair.
“He said I need not explain who I was, for that you would know.”
“Yes,” said Evelyn, “you must forgive me for being a little confused.”
“Oh, I dare say you were having a little doze. It is so warm; and don’t you find the noise soothing? There is never any break in it: it goes on and on, and puts one to sleep.”
“I don’t find it has that quality,” said Evelyn, half affronted to have it supposed that she was dozing. “It is strange for me,” she said, “to meet your father’s children. I knew him only as a young man.”
“Oh yes, I know,” said the young lady, nodding her head with an air of knowing all about it, which confused Evelyn still more.
“He told me he had two children, I think. Are you the eldest?” she asked almost timidly.
“Oh no, Eddy is the eldest: but I’m the most serious. I have got the sense of the family, everybody says. Eddy is with a crammer trying hard to pass the army examination; but he never will: he hates books, and is very fond of his fun. That may be natural, but you will agree that it is not very good for getting on in life.”
“I suppose not,” said Evelyn.
“No, certainly; and so much is thought of doing something now-a-days. I suppose father was not very much in the way of working when you knew him, Mrs. Rowland: and yet he is as hard upon Eddy as if he had done nothing but what was good all his life.”
“Your father is a very great sufferer, I fear,” said Evelyn, who had entirely lost her presence of mind, and did not know what to say.
“Oh no, not so much as you would think. Of course he’s very helpless: Jarvis has to do everything for him. But I don’t think he really minds—not so much as people would think. He likes to be pitied and sympathized with, and to look interesting. Poor father; he thinks he looks interesting; but perhaps you thought it went too far for that. Some people are quite afraid of him as if he might die on their hands.”
“Oh no,” cried Evelyn, faltering; “nobody would be so cruel; but it must be very terrible for you.”
“Well,” said Miss Saumarez, “we have been used to it a long time, it looks quite natural to us. But some people are frightened. It isn’t a thing, however, that kills, I believe. It may go on for years and years.”
“And you”—Evelyn felt that it was almost an irreverence to talk to this young lady as to a school-girl, but still it was to be supposed she was one—“you are still in the school-room, busy with lessons yet?”
“I don’t think I have ever been much in the school-room,” said the girl. “It has been rather difficult to manage my education. Father liked to have me at home when I was a little thing. I used to make him laugh. We tried several governesses, but they were not very successful; either they preferred to take care ofhimor they quarrelled with me. I don’t think I was a very nice child,” said Miss Rosamond impartially. “It wasn’t a good school, was it, to have all kinds of pettings and bon-bons because I was funny and could make him laugh, and then turned out, as if I had been a little dog, when he was cross.”
“My dear!” said Evelyn, dismayed.
“Oh, I am afraid you think meawful,” said Rosamond, “but really it is all quite true.”
“It is a long time since I was a girl like you,” said Mrs. Rowland, “and we were not allowed to be so frank and speak our mind; that is the chief difference, I suppose.”
“Oh, I have always heard from all the old ladies that I am dreadful. But certainly the thing we do now-a-days is to speak our mind—rather a little more than less, don’t you know. We don’t carry any false colours, or pretend to pretty feelings, like the girls in the story-books. What humbugs you must have been in your time!”
“I don’t think we were humbugs,” said Evelyn. She was beginning to be amused by this frank young person, who made her feel so young and inexperienced. It was Evelyn who was the little girl, and Rosamond the sage, acquainted with the world and life.
“Father says so; but then, he thinks all people are humbugs. He says we really can think of no one but ourselves, whatever we may pretend.”
“But you mustn’t believe in that,” said Evelyn. “It is a dreadful way of looking at the world. Nobody can tell how much kindness and goodness there is unless they have been in circumstances to try it, which I have. You must not enter upon life with that idea, for it is quite false.”
“What! when father says so? Oughtn’t I to believe that he knows best?”
“Oh, when your father says so!” said Evelyn, startled. “My dear, I don’t think your father can mean it. He may say it—in jest——”
“Oh, don’t be afraid, Mrs. Rowland,” cried the girl, cheerfully. “I don’t take everything he says for gospel. He’s a disappointed man, you know. He never got exactly what he wanted. Mother and he did not get on, I am told: and there is every appearance that Eddy will be a handful, as I suppose father was himself in his day. And then he’s paralysed. That should be set against a lot, shouldn’t it? I always say so to myself when he is nasty to me.”
“I am very glad that you do,” said Evelyn, with tears in her eyes. “It should indeed stand against a great deal. And as you grow older you will understand better how such dreadful helplessness affects the mind——”
“Oh,” cried Rosamond, breaking in, “if you think there’s any softening of the brain or that sort of thing, you are very very much mistaken. If you only knew how clever he is! I have heard him take in people—people, you know, like my uncle the bishop, and that sort of person, with an account of pious feelings, and how he knows it is all for his good, and so forth. You would think he was a saint to hear him—and the poor bishop looking so bothered, knowing too much toquitebelieve it, and yet not daring to contradict him. It was as good as a play. I shrieked with laughter when he was gone, and so did father. It was the funniest thing I ever saw.”
“My dear!” cried Evelyn again, wringing her hands in protestation; but what could she say? If she had been disposed to take in hand the reformation of Edward Saumarez’s daughter, it could not be by adding to her unerring clear sight and criticism of him. “Do you see much,” she said, in a kind of desperation, “of the bishop?” with a clutch at the moral skirts of some one who might be able to help.
“Oh no, only when he comes to town. They don’t ask us now to the Palace, for I am sure he never can make up his mind about father, whether he is a real saint or—the other thing. Aunt Rose is the relation you know, not the bishop. It is by mother’s side, so they naturally disapprove of papa.”
Evelyn did not at all know how to deal with this girl, who was so cognisant of the world and all itsways. Rosamond was even more a woman of the world than Madeline Leighton. She believed in less, and she seemed to know more, and her calm girlish voice, and the pearly tints of her infantine radiance of countenance produced upon the middle-aged listener a sensation of utter confusion impossible to describe. She asked hurriedly, with an endeavour to divert the easy stream of words to another subject, “Have you any friends of your own age, my dear, to amuse yourself with?”
“Oh plenty,” said Rosamond, “quantities! There are such crowds of girls; wherever one goes, nothing but women, women, till one is sick of them. I have a very great friend whom I see constantly, and who is exactly of my way of thinking. As soon as we are old enough we both mean to take up a profession. I have not quite decided upon mine, but she means to be a doctor. She is studying a little now, whenever she can get a moment, and looking forward to the time when she shall be old enough to put down her foot. Of course they will try to forbid it, and that sort of thing. But she has quite made up her mind. As for me, I have not such a clear leading as Madeline. I am still quite in doubt.”
“Madeline,” said Evelyn. “I wonder if by chance that is Madeline Leighton whom I saw the other day?”
Miss Saumarez nodded her head. “But you must promise,” she said, “not to betray us to her mother. Of course we quite allow that we are too young to settle upon anything now. She is only seventeen. Iam nearly two years older, but then, unfortunately, I have not the same clear vocation. And of course something must be allowed for natural hindrances, as long as father lives.”
“I hope you will never leave him,” said Evelyn warmly. “It is true I am old-fashioned, and do not understand a girl with a profession; but everybody must see that in your case your duty lies at home.”
“If anybody who was a very good match wanted to marry me,” said the girl with a laugh, “would you then think that my duty lay at home?”
Evelyn felt herself reduced to absolute imbecility by this bewildering question. “My dear—my dear—you know a great deal too much; you are too wise,” she said.
“But that’s not an answer,” said Rosamond; “you see the logic of it, and you daren’t give me an answer. You just beg the question. I must go away now; but father told me I was to ask you if I might come again.”
“If you care to come to such an old-world, old-fashioned, puzzled person as I am,” said Evelyn, with a troubled smile.
“I should like it, if I may. Father says you are the real good, and a great many people I know only pretend. I should like to know better what the real good was like, so I will come again to-morrow, if I may.”
“Come, but not because I am the real good. I am a very puzzled person, and you who are only a little girl seem to know a great deal more than I.”
Rosamond smiled, for the first time, a bright and childlike smile. She had smiled and even laughed in the course of her prelections as the same required it. But for the first time her face lighted up. “Oh, perhaps you will find there is not so much in me as you think,” she said, giving her hand to the middle-aged and much-perplexed person before her, after the fashion of the time. I forget what the fashion of the time was in those days. People had not begun at that period to shake their friends’ hands high into the air as if they were grasping a pump handle. Evelyn stood and looked after her aghast, not capable of sitting down or changing out of that pose while the girl went away. She crept out, half ashamed of doing so, into the balcony, to watch her as she appeared in the crowded road outside: and after a moment, Rosamond came forth, accompanied by a large mastiff, who performed several gambols of joy about her as she stepped out into the stream of people. Evelyn watched her going along, keeping, so to speak, the crown of the causeway, she and her dog giving place to no one. She was on her right side of the pavement, and to be hustled out of her course was an impossibility. Her strong, confident step, her half masculine dress, jacket and hat like those of a youth, were wonderful and terrible to the woman who had never moved anywhere without an attendant. She stared after this wonderful young creature with a bewilderment which almost took from her the power of thought.
Later in the day Lady Leighton came in, penitentially, and in a softened mood. “I was very sillyto frighten you,” she said; “I can’t think what made me such a fool. I forgot that you were you, and not any one else. I was right enough so far as ordinary society goes, only not right in respect to Evelyn Ferrars.”
“Evelyn Rowland, doubly removed from your traps and snares of society,” said Evelyn with a smile.
“Well—be it so;—but I hope you are not really going to give up that delightful plan about the Chester Street house, because I was silly and spoke unadvisedly with my lips. If punishment were to come upon a woman for every time she did that——”
“No great punishment,” said Evelyn. “You will come and see me in my own house, and that will be better than seeing me at Chester Street—or not seeing me—you who have never a moment to yourself.”
“That is true. I never have a moment to myself,” said Lady Leighton. “I am going off now to St Roque’s to see about getting Mr. Pincem, the great surgeon, to look very specially after a favourite patient of mine: and then I must come back to Grosvenor Place to a drawing-room meeting: and then—but I can sandwich you in between the two, Evelyn, if you want to go over any of those houses again.”
“I don’t want to go over any of them again, thanks. I was quite satisfied with Chester Street if I had wanted any. Perhaps, however, I ought to let the people know.”
“Oh, never mind the people,” said Lady Leighton, “if you actually mean to give it up and throw meover; for it is me you ought to think of. And why? because I told you that Ned Saumarez, though he is paralysed, was as great a flirt as ever——”
“Don’t let us have it all over again,” said Evelyn, “I take no interest in it. By the way I have just had a strange visitor—his daughter, Madeline. She tells me that your daughter is her dearest friend.”
“His daughter? Oh, Rosamond! yes, she and Maddy run about everywhere together, and plot all manner of things.”
“Are you not afraid of their plottings, two wild girls together.”
“I afraid! oh dear, not I; they will probably both marry before they have time to do any mischief. That puts all nonsense out of their head. I know! they are going to walk the hospitals, and heaven knows what; relieve the poor and also see life. I never contradict them—what is the use? Somebody will turn up in their first or second season with enough of money and sufficiently presentable. And they will be married off, and become like other people, and we shall hear of their vagaries no more.”
“They will then have every moment occupied, and more things to do than hours to do them in, Madeline, like you.”
“Precisely like me,” said the woman of the world; “and an excellent good thing, too, Evelyn, if you would allow yourself to see it. Do you think it would be so good for me if I had more time to think? My dear, you know many things a great deal better than I do,but you don’t know the world. There are as many worries in a day in London as there are in a year out of it. That is, I mean there are in society, both in London and the country, annoyances such as you people in your tranquillity never can understand. I am not without my troubles, though I don’t wear them on my sleeve. I do what is far better. I am so busy, I have not time to think of them. There are troubles about money, troubles about the boys, troubles about—well, Leighton is not always a model husband, my dear, like yours. And it will be well for the girls if they do as I do, and don’t leave themselves too much time to think.”
“They seem,” said Evelyn, glad to turn the seriousness of this speech aside and not to seem curious (though she was) about her friend’s troubles, “to exercise the privilege of thinking very freely at their present stage. But this poor girl has no mother, and no doubt she has been left a great deal to herself.”
“I know you don’t mean that for a hit at me,” said her friend; “though you may perhaps think a woman with so much to do must neglect her children. Madeline is every bit as bad as Rosamond, my dear. They mean no harm either of them. They want, poor darlings, to work for their living and to see life. It is a pity their brothers don’t share their youthful fancies. The boys prefer to do nothing, and the kind of life they see is not very desirable. But by the blessing of Providence nothing very dreadfully bad comes of it either way. The girls find that they have to marry and settle down, like their mothers before them; and theboys—well, the boys! oh, they come out of it somehow at the end.”
And to the great amazement of Evelyn, this woman of the world, this busy idler and frivolous fine lady suddenly fell into a low outburst of crying, as involuntary as it was unexpected, saying, amid her tears: “Oh, please God, please God, they will all come through at the end!”
Mrs. Rowland was a woman who had known a great deal of trouble, but when she was thus the witness of her friend’s unsuspected pain, she said to herself that she was an ignorant woman and knew nothing. She had not believed there was anything serious at all, not to say anguish and martyrdom, in Madeline Leighton’s life. She held her friend in her arms for a moment, and they kissed each other; but Evelyn did not ask any question. Perhaps Lady Leighton thought she had told her everything, perhaps she had that instinctive sense that everybody must know, which belongs to the class who are accustomed to have their movements chronicled, and all they do known. For she offered no explanation, but only said, as she raised her head from Evelyn’s shoulder and dried her eyes, with a little tremulous laugh in which the tears still lingered, “I am as sure of that as I am that I live. If we didn’t think so, half of us would die.”
Not two minutes after this she returned to the charge again about the house in Chester Street. “Will you really not think of it again, Evelyn? It would be such a pleasure to have you near: and, my dear, I should never say a word about any Platonic diversionthat amused you. On the contrary, I’d flirt with Mr. Rowland and keep him off the scent.—Oh, let me laugh: I must laugh after I have cried. Well, if you have decided, I don’t mind saying that you are quite as well out of Ned Saumarez’s way. Sending the girl to see you was a very serious step. And he is a man that will stick at nothing. Perhaps it is all the better that you are going away.”
“That is the strongest argument you could use,” said Evelyn, “to keep me here.”
“Perhaps that was what I intended,” said Lady Leighton; “but, dear, how late it is, I must go——” She had reached the door when she suddenly turned back. “What time did you fix for our visit to you, Evelyn? I must work it into our list. Without organisation one could never go anywhere at all. It must be between the end of October and the middle of December. Would the 10th November to the 20th suit you? or is that too long. One must be perfectly frank about these matters, or one never could go on at all.”
“It must be when you please, and for as long as you please, dear Madeline,” said Mrs. Rowland. She added, “I fear, you know, it will be rather dull I don’t know whether there is any society, and James——”
“I will put it down 10th to 15th,” said Lady Leighton, seriously noting this consideration. And then she gave her friend a hasty embrace, and hurried away.
How strange it all was! Evelyn felt as if she had peeped through some crevice behind the lively bustling stage, and suddenly seen what was going on behindthe scenes. There had been little behind the scenes in her own life. It had been sad, but it had all been open as the day. And now, when she stood at the beginning of a new life, she had nothing to wound, nothing to make her reluctant that any word should leap to light, even that story of hers which had been so near tragedy, of which Edward Saumarez had been the hero. She almost blushed at the importance she had given that story, now that she had seen again the man who had been the hero of it. It seemed to lose all the dignity and tragic meaning which had been the chief thing in her life for so long.
While Evelyn was thinking this, a letter was put into her hand, in which her husband bade her do exactly as she pleased about the Chester Street house. “If you like to stay there for a little, my dear, and see your old friends, I shall like that best; and if you prefer to come home with me at once, and take possession of Rosmore, that is what I shall like best. It is for you to choose: and in the meantime I am coming back to town, to do whatever you like to-morrow night.”
To-morrow of the day on which the letter was written meant that very day upon which Evelyn received it. She had not pretended to be in love with her good middle-aged husband, she, a subdued middle-aged woman. But what a haven of quiet, and plain honest understanding, and simple truth and right she seemed to float into when she realised that he was coming back to her to-night.
James Rowlandleft his wife in London with a certain satisfaction which was very unlike the great affection he had for her, and the delight which day by day he had learned more and more to take in her society. He was a man full of intelligence and quickness of mind notwithstanding various roughnesses of manner; and he never had known before what it was to have such a companion; a woman who understood almost all he meant, and meant a good deal which he was delightfully learning to understand: bringing illustrations to their life which his imperfect education had kept from him, and making him aware of a hundred new sources of satisfaction and pleasure. But his very admiration for Evelyn had deepened in his mind the first stab of anxiety which her hand had involuntarily given. He had never got over the shock of finding out that his children, instead of being the little things he had invariably gone on thinking them to be, had reached the age of early manhood and womanhood, and that he knew nothing whatever about them. He had tried at first to laugh at this as a simple evidence of his own folly, but the little puncture of that first wound had gone on deepening and deepening. He felt it only in occasional thrills at first, when it had given him about as much annoyance as a stray pang of rheumatism; but as he travelled home, every day’s nearer approach made the ache a little keener.It was the only thing in his experience of which he had said nothing to Evelyn—although from the day of their arrival in London it had begun to gnaw him like the proverbial fox under his mantle. He grew restless, unable to settle to anything, continually wondering what they would be like, how they would receive him, if they would be a credit to him or the reverse, how Evelyn would receive them, and how they would take to Evelyn. Their stiff little letters about his marriage, which were almost the first letters of theirs which he had read with any attention, had been received at Suez on the way home. And they had redoubled his anxiety and his restlessness. He did not show them to Evelyn, which was very significant of their unsatisfactory character to himself. Had they been “nice” letters, he would have been too anxious to place them in her hands, to see her face light up with interest. But they were not, alas, nice letters. They were very stiff formal productions. They acknowledged that their father had a right to please himself, and that they had no claim to be taken into consideration. “What we expected was different, but it is you, as aunt Jane says, that are the master, and we hope that your lady will not look down upon us, or keep us away from you.” This was not the sort of thing which he could show to Evelyn, anxious as she was to do everything a mother could do for his children. And all this made him very restless: he wanted to escape from her, to go and inspect them before she saw them, to try even, if that were possible, to lick them into shape before they came under her eyes. He had not been afraid of the venture of his new marriage, nor of the perils by land and sea to which he was continually exposed; but he was very much afraid of the effect of the boy and girl whom he felt himself to have neglected, and who were now rising up as giants in his path. In these circumstances Rowland snatched anxiously at the pretext of going to see Rosmore and prepare it for his wife’s reception. What he really wanted was to see the children and decide what could be done to prepare them.
It was consequently with a sense of escape that he waved his hand to Evelyn from the carriage window, thinking, with a touch of pride, what a lady she looked in her plain dress, standing there upon the platform to see him off, among the crowd, not one of whom was like her. He was very proud of his wife. He thought she looked like a princess standing there so simple, with no outward sign to show what she was, but a look, to which any one would bow down. But, as the train rushed away into distance, and the long lines of the houses and streets flew past, James Rowland laid himself back, and thanked Heaven that he had escaped, that he had found a pretence to get away, and that he would thus be able to see the worst for himself. Dwelling upon this view of the subject so long had made him scarcely conscious of any pleasure in the anticipation of meeting his children. Had he not been married, had he come back without any special direction of his thoughts towards them, he would no doubt have looked forward with a certain pleasure to meeting his two little things, and perhaps the disenchantment of finding them grown up would have amused him, andpaternal feeling excused the imperfections which he now so much feared to find. It never, however, could have pleased Rowland to find in his son a half-educated lout, or in his daughter a pert little girl, on the original level of the foundry, which was the haunting fear in his mind now; so that in any case a great disappointment would in all probability have awaited him. His apprehensions became stronger and stronger as he approached the end of his journey, when they would be proved right or wrong. He recalled to himself what the aunt had been, whom in his foolishness he had been so glad to confide them to, as one who would cherish them as if they were her own—a rosy-cheeked, cheerful lass, with a jest for any lad who addressed her; perfectly modest and good, but with the freedom of the overflowing young community, which above all things loved its fun—not equal to his Mary, who had always showed a little shrinking from the fun, and never kept company with any one but with him alone. Jane appeared very clearly before him as he searched the memories of his youth—a trig, comely, clever lass, full of health and spirits. She would be, no doubt, buxom now, terribly well off by means of the lavish cheques he had sent, and his daughter would be much as she had been. Oh, she had been a good steady lass, there had been nothing to find fault with; but to think of a daughter like Jane filled the good man with horror. What could he do with her? What could Evelyn do with her? Cold beads of perspiration came out on his forehead. And then the lout of a boy! This was how he had got to think of them who oughtto have been the stars of his horizon. And it would not be their fault, it would be his fault. He was thankful to the bottom of his heart that he would see them first, and get the shock over, and have time to think how it could be broken to Evelyn. But he was not the less afraid of the first sight of them, afraid of proving all his prognostications true.
He had not warned his sister-in-law of his arrival, and it was again an escape to him to postpone the meeting till next day, and in the meantime to go to the best hotel he could find. This was many years ago, and I don’t know what may be the case now: but then the hotels in Glasgow were not very excellent, that great city being, I suppose, too much occupied with its manifold business to make preparation for tourists and idle visitors as Edinburgh does; and Mr. Rowland did not find himself in the lap of luxury to which that masterful rich man was accustomed. This probably discouraged him still more, for it must be said that next morning, instead of going to see his children, he took an early train and went down to Rosmore, thus putting off for another day the possibility of ascertaining definitely what there was to fear. He was conscious that it was a cowardly thing to do: and it was an unnatural thing—heartless, even, some people might say; but then his terrors for the moment had taken the place of his merely instinctive and quite undeveloped paternal love.
Rosmore was not disappointing, that was certain! He took a steamer from the opposite side of the Clyde, in order that he might see it first, as he had beenused to do when he was a young man, and all such advancement seemed as far above him as the throne. His heart beat as the rustling, bustling, crowded steamboat came to the spot where the white colonnade had always been visible among the noble groups of trees, which withdrew a little just there, and stood about in clumps and gatherings to let the view be seen. There it stood upon its green knoll unchanged, the sloping greensward stretching down towards the salt, dazzling, water, the windows caught and shining out in the sun. It was by good fortune—which everybody knows is not invariable in these regions—a beautiful day, and to Rowland it seemed paradise to see the heavy clouds of the foliage open, and the white pillars come in view. He landed upon the side of the peninsula, where a little salt water loch runs up into the bosom of the hills. It is characteristic of a Scot in all countries that he never sees a landscape which does not remind him, to its own disadvantage, of some landscape at home. But Rowland, who had been a great deal about the world, went a step further and declared to himself that he had never seen anything to equal that “silver streak” of sea-water, with the noble line of mountains stretching across the upper end. They were beautiful in themselves, their outlines as grand against the sky and intense sunshine as if they had been as lofty as the Himalayas; but this was only half their fascination. It was the capricious Northern lights and shadows that made them so delightful, so unlike anything but themselves. In the East the sunshine drags and becomes tedious: it goes on blazing all day long without change.But the North is dramatic, individual, full of vicissitude, making a new combination every minute, never for half an hour the same. He stood and watched the clouds flying over the hills, like the breath of some spell-bound giant, now one point and now another coming into light; and the little waves dancing, and the soft banks reflected like another enchanted country under the surface of the water. The sight uplifted in his bosom the heart of the homely man who had no raptures to express, but felt the beauty to the depths of his being. “I’ve travelled far, but I never saw anything like it,” he said to the agent, who had met him on the little pier, and who backed him up with enthusiasm, partly because he was of the district too, and prone to believe that there was nothing equal to Rosmore in the world, and partly because he was a good man of business, and liked to see a wealthy tenant in such a good frame of mind.
But it would be difficult to describe the emotions of James Rowland as he walked through the beautiful woods and entered the house. He had never been in the house before. Naturally, at the time when he first conceived his passion for it, the young foundry man, however clever, could never have had any means of entering into such a place; and to tell the truth, he did not much know what was required by a family of condition in an English or rather Scotch house. He knew the luxury of the East, and how to make a bungalow comfortable, but the arrangements of a mansion at home were strange to him.
He followed the agent accordingly with a little awe,which he carefully concealed, through the suites of rooms, libraries, morning rooms, boudoirs, all sorts of lavish accommodation, with the uses of which he was practically unacquainted. But he did not betray his ignorance. On the contrary he was very critical, finding out the defects in the old-fashioned furniture as if he had been accustomed to such things all his life.
“This looks as old as Methuselah,” he said. “Why, the things must be mouldy. I should think they can’t have been touched for a hundred years.”
“More than that,” said the agent, “and that’s just why the ladies like it. It is called Countess Jean’s boudoir. Everything is just as it was when she came home a bride. The ladies will not have it touched.”
“Oh, I know that decayed style is the fashion,” said Mr. Rowland without winking an eyelid: “but you can’t imagine we will put up with these old hangings? You must have them cleared away.”
“Well do that, if it’s your desire; but the hangings are real tapestry—the oldest in Scotland. The Earl will be just delighted to have them back.”
“Now I look at them,” said Rowland, “I believe my wife will like them. For my part I like fresh colours and rich stuffs. I like to have bright things about me, I find it all a little dingy, Mr. Campbell. You must put your best foot forward and have it put in complete order. And a great many other things will be wanted. We have got a boat load,” said the engineer with exhilaration, “of Indian toys and stuff. My wife’s fond of all that sort of thing. We have curios enough to set up a shop.”
“Ah,” said the agent respectfully, “you have had unusual opportunities, Mr. Rowland: and ladies are so fond of picking things up.”
“Yes,” said Rowland, “my wife has wonderful taste—she knows a good thing when she sees it.”
“Which is very far from being a general quality,” said the appreciative agent “Mrs. Rowland, I make no doubt, will turn Rosmore into a beautiful place.”
“It is a beautiful place to begin with,” said the new tenant; “and it would be a strange place that would not be improved when my wife got it into her hands,” he added with a glow of pride. He wanted much to confide to the agent that she was a lady of one of the best English families, and full of every accomplishment; but his better sense restrained him.
What exultation he felt in his bosom as he stood under the white colonnade and gazed at the great Clyde rushing upon the beach at the foot of the knoll, and the steamer crossing (which it did by the influence of some good fairy just at this moment) the shining surface, and all the specks of passengers turning in one direction to catch that glimpse of Rosmore. So many times had he gazed at it so—and now for the first time, in the other sense, here he was looking down upon the landscape from his own door. It was not the satisfied appetite of acquisition—it was something finer and more ethereal—a youthful ideal and boyish sentiment carried through a whole life. He had dreamed of this long before there had been any conscious aim at all in his mind; and now he had actually attained the thing which had so pleased his boyish thoughts.James Rowland took off his hat as he stood under the white colonnade. The agent thought he was saluting somebody in the passing steamer, and murmured, “They’ll not see you; it’s farther off than it looks;” but Rowland was saluting One who always sees, and who does not so often as ought to be receive thanks thus warm and glowing from a grateful heart. “And for Evelyn too, who is the best of all!” he said within himself.
The agent gleaned enough to perceive that Mr. Rowland was exceedingly proud of his wife, and formed an exaggerated, and consequently rather unfavourable opinion of this unknown lady. He thought she must be aconnoisseusewith her boat load of curiosities, which indeed, to tell the truth, were things that Rowland had “picked up” himself in many advantageous ways, before he had even seen his wife, and which Evelyn was not acquainted with at all. Mr. Campbell thought she must be a fantastic woman, and would, as he said, transmogrify the good honest old house, and turn it into a curiosity shop, or “chiney” warehouse—which was an idea he did not contemplate with pleasure. However, this was no reason why he should undervalue so rich and so easily pleased a tenant. He made the most ample promises as to what should be done, and the expedition with which everything should be accomplished—and accompanied Rowland to the boat, introducing him to the minister and to various local authorities on the way. “This is Mr. Rowland that has taken Rosmore. Ye’ll likely see a great deal of him, for he means to make his principal residencehere.—It’s the great Rowland, the Indian engineer and railway man,” he said aside, but not quite inaudibly, in each new-comer’s ear.
The local potentates looked with admiration and interest at the new-comer. Any possible inmate of Rosmore would have been interesting to the minister, who had not much society in the parish, and had a natural confidence in the social qualities of a man who was so rich. The “merchant” who had long dreamt of a railway up the side of the loch, which would bring Glasgow excursionists in their thousands to Rosmore, gazed with awe on the new inhabitant who had but to look upon a country destitute of means of locomotion, and lo, the iron way was there. Other points of interest abounded in the new inhabitant. He would quicken life in the parish in every way: probably his very name would secure that second delivery of letters for which the whole peninsula had been agitating so long. The steamboat would certainly call summer and winter at the pier, now that the House would be occupied and visitors always coming and going; and the decoration of the church, which was so much wanted, would, the minister thought, be secured now that such a wealthy inhabitant had been added to the resources of the parish. They all gave him a welcome which was as flattering as if he had been a royal prince. “It’s been a distress to us a’ to see the House standing empty so long, and I’m very glad to make Mr. Rowland’s acquaintance. It will be good for us a’ to have a man like him among us.” How did they know what manner of man he was, except that he was rich? ButJames Rowland did not ask himself that question. In his present mood he was very ready to believe that, as he was delighted to come, so his new neighbours would be delighted to have him there; and he knew as well as they did that it would be a good thing for them to have a rich and liberal new parishioner at hand. He liked the looks of the minister, and the schoolmaster, and the merchant, and he was pleased that they should like him. He walked down to the pier attended by a little train; and it was quite a feather in the cap of Mr. Foggo of Pitarrow, one of the smaller heritors of the parish, that he happened to be going across to the other side, and would consequently travel with the great man. “I’ll talk to him about the kirk and see what he’s willing to give,” said this gentleman, exhilarated by the thought that a good subscription from the newcomer would save a good deal of money to the heritors. “But only don’t be hasty; don’t be rash; don’t let him think that his siller is the first thing we are thinking of,” said the minister. “Gangrel body! what would we be thinking ofbuthis siller,” said the laird. But this, which was the only thing that was not complimentary, was not said aloud.
Thus Rowland was escorted to the boat, the frequent messenger between that solitude and the busy world, while Pitarrow followed, giving way to him as if he had been the Earl himself. The boat already felt as if it partially belonged to him, the crew, too, being all interested and impressed. He looked back from the deck upon the line of the Rosmore woods, and the profile of the house, which showed itself through them,a different view yet a delightful one: and listened with affability while the different places on the loch were pointed out to him. The evening was perfect as the day had been. The light had died off the deep waters of the loch, though it still played upon the hills, and its low rays struck full in the eyes, so to speak, of the white colonnade, bathing the house in a dazzle of light. What a place to come home to, to settle down in, to see from afar as he approached, and recognise as his own! He figured to himself returning from an absence, hastening through the woods, received by Evelyn at the door. What a beautiful dream to be fulfilled at last! What a refuge from all the labours and the tumults of life! He listened vaguely to what Pitarrow was saying, and granted cordially that it would henceforward be his duty to come to the aid of the parish and to help to beautify the church, and would have given him a cheque on the spot, had there been pen and ink handy. But of course he had not taken his cheque-book with him upon that day’s excursion, important as it was.
He got to the railway in this blissful state of mind, uplifted, his feet scarcely touching the ground. And then all at once his face grew sad and set. The light went out of it and a blank came in place of the animated and lively expression. He had done all that he wanted to do for the moment at Rosmore. Now another duty awaited him, a duty he should have turned to first, which was indeed the most important duty of all. Now there was no longer any escape for him: he must see his children, and that without any further delay.