CHAPTER XXXIX.

“I have so many reasons I couldn’t tell you all. In the first place I must, which perhaps will do: like the fool that had a hundred reasons for not saluting—but first of all because he had neither powder nor shot.”

“What is themust?” said Evelyn, “your father perhaps coming back——”

“Oh, I know,” said Eddy, “that the governor would refuse you nothing, Mrs. Rowland—though I am next to nothing in his estimation, to be sure. No, there’s other reasons, pecuniary and otherwise.”

“I am afraid, Eddy, you are a very reckless boy.”

“Rather,” he said, with an uneasy and embarrassed laugh; “but I am going to turn over a new leaf, and not be so any more.”

A tender impulse moved the woman, who had a faint underlying recollection which she could not quite quench, though she was ashamed of it, that she might have been Eddy’s mother. “I am not very rich in my own person,” she said, “though my husband is: but if there is anything, Eddy, that I could do, or James either, I am sure——”

“Oh, good heavens!” cried Eddy, under his breath. “Don’t, for pity’s sake, say such a thing to me,” hecried. “You don’t know how it hurts—what an unutterable cad it makes me feel.”

“Why?” she asked, with a smile; but she did not pursue the subject. “I wish you could stay a little longer. If Archie does not come home in a day or two, my husband will sadly want some one to cheer him. I wish you could stay.”

“Is Archie coming home in a day or two?”

“I don’t know,” she said, faltering. “I can’t tell—I hope so with all my heart. I need not try to hide from you, Eddy, that his father and he—have had a disagreement.”

“Mrs. Rowland, don’t think me impertinent: can you tell me what it was about?”

“It is their secret, not mine,” she said; then with a troubled smile, “You know what fathers and sons most generally disagree about?”

“Money,” he said, with so disturbed a look, that Mrs. Rowland felt in her heart she had been unjust in thinking Eddy callous to anything that did not concern himself.

“My husband—is too suspicious. I believe in him, poor boy. I hope time,” she said, with a sigh, “will clear it up and bring everything right.”

It gave her pleasure to think better of Eddy after that interview. The boy, after all, she thought, must have a heart.

But he was not like himself: his face, which was usually so full of fun and mischief, was clouded and unhappy. When it was understood, though not without a struggle, that he must go that evening—and evenMr. Rowland resisted it with a certain terror (though he was very glad at the same time to get all the strangers out of the way) of being left alone with his trouble and his wife and daughter, who could so ill soothe it—Eddy’s aspect startled everybody. He seemed, he who was so easy-minded, to be troubled by some doubt, and unable to make up his mind what he ought to do. A dozen times during the afternoon he was seen to cross the hall towards the library, where Rowland had shut himself up. But his courage failed him by the time he reached the door. Marion, who kept her eyes upon his movements, knew, she flattered herself, perfectly what Eddy meant. He wanted to lay his hopes before her father, to find out whether his consent was possible, to lay a sort of embargo upon herself before she was even seen in society, or had her chance. Marion had quite made up her mind what to say in case she should be called in to the library and questioned on the subject. She would say that she was not a person averse to a little fun when it presented itself. But that as for serious meaning, she never had thought there was anything in it. Marion did not at all dislike the idea of being called in, and having to say this; and she was not angry with Eddy for the supposed appeal against her cruelty, which she believed him about to make. She did not want him to be permanently dismissed, either, nor was she unwilling that her father should be warned as to future contingencies, for, after all, there was no telling how things might turn out.

The question was solved so far as Eddy was concerned by the sudden exit of Rowland from his room, just as the young man was summing up all his courage to enter it.

“Are you ready, my boy?” Rowland said; “your things packed—since you will go? for the steamboat, you know, will wait for no man. Come out, and take a turn with me.”

They walked together across the lawn to the spot where the trees opened and the Clyde below the bank weltered, gray in the afternoon light—a composition of neutral tones. Rowland said nothing for a minute. He stood looking at his favourite view, and then he gave vent to a long and deep sigh.

“Here’s a lesson for you, Eddy, my man,” he said. “For as many years as you’ve been in being I’ve coveted this bonnie house, and that view among the trees. And a proud man I was when I got them—proud; and everybody ready to take up my parable and say, ‘See what a man’s exertions, when he has set his heart upon a thing, will do.’ Oh, laddie, the vanity of riches! I have not had them half a year nor near it. And now I would give the half of my substance I had never come nigh the place or heard its name.”

“I am very sorry,” said Eddy; “but had the place anything to do with it? Would things have gone better if you had not been here?”

Rowland gave him a quick look, and stopped in what he seemed about to say. Then he resumed after a moment.

“That’s true too; you are right in what you say.It has nothing to do with the place, or any place. It was fixed, I suppose, before the beginning of the earth, that so it was to be.”

“Mr. Rowland,” said Eddy, “I’ve been wanting to say something, and I have never had the chance—that is, I am frightened to say it in case you should think it impudent or—presuming. When Archie refused the money to that poor beggar, I ought to have spoken: I was a wretched coward; it was because he had given all his money—to me.”

“Ah!” cried the father, with a slight start; “he had given his money—to you?” He had almost forgot, in the strain and stress of the other question, which was so much more important, what this meant about the poor beggar whom Archie had refused.

“Every penny,” said Eddy, with considerable emotion. If that avowal would only do, if it would be enough without any other! “He found me down on my luck about some bets and things, and he immediately offered to help me. I had not the courage to tell you when you spoke to him—that night; and he, like the fine fellow he is——”

“Ah!” said Rowland again; and then he gripped Eddy’s slight hand, and wrung it till the lad thought the blood must come. “And you’re a fine fellow,” he said, “to stand up for him you think your friend.”

A cold dew came out on Eddy’s brow: oh how miserable, what a caitiff he felt—a fine fellow—he! If the man only knew!

“But,” said Rowland, “if that had been all! I had forgotten that offence. Thank you, though, forspeaking. If I can find any ground for a more favourable judgment, I’ll remember what you have said. Let’s think of your own affairs: if you will allow me to speak—so recent a friend; but my wife knew you before you were born.” He stopped to laugh at this jest, but in reality to recover a little from his embarrassment “My lad, you spoke of bets. You shouldn’t bet, a young fellow of your age.”

A gleam of mischievous light shot from Eddy’s eyes.

“I am aware of that, sir,” he said, with much humility; “and if you knew all the good resolutions I have made——”

“Never mind making them: you can’t keep them. Just do it, and don’t amuse yourself with saying you will do it. From all I can learn, your family is not rich, and you will have a place to keep up. Mind, that’s a great responsibility. You must eschew betting as you would eschew the devil.”

“I’ll try, sir, to get the better of them both,” said Eddy, much relieved by this change of subject.

“I hope you’ll continue in that mind; and recollect this: you have been very friendly and pleasant in this house at a time when I was scarcely my own man, and took the entertainment on your shoulders, and were just the life and soul—— If I can give you a day in harvest, as the country folks say, another time—” He smote Eddy on the shoulders a genial blow, but it made his slight figure quiver. “You may not understand thathomely form of speech; but if I can serve you, my boy, at a pinch—— I never grudge anything I can do for a man that’s served me in time of need. What’s the matter with you, boy? are you ill?”

“No,” said Eddy, after a pause. “No—I’m not ill; it was only something in my throat. You’re too good, sir. I can’t look you in the face when I think——”

“Well, well,” said Rowland. It pleases a man to make an impression—to bring repentance to a careless soul. “You must just never do it again, as the children say. It’s a bad thing from beginning to end: even gambling in business I never could agree with. Honest work, that’s the only salvation—in this world. Don’t forget what I’ve said. And now we’ll go in to the ladies, who are waiting to give you your tea, and purr over you. For the steamboat will wait for no man, and you should leave here when we see her starting from the head of the loch.”

They went in together with a wonderful look of friendship, and there were curious signs of emotion in Eddy’s face. Had he spoken to papa? Marion asked herself. If he had done so, it was clear that the answer had not been unfavourable; but in that case, why was Eddy in so dreadful a hurry to get away?

Eddyhad gone, and a silence, that seemed to radiate round the house like a special atmosphere, fell upon Rosmore. Winter, which had been only threatening, dropped all at once in torrents of sweeping rainand wild winds that shook the house. It requires a lively spirit at any time to stand up against the pale downpour which falls in sheets from the colourless sky between the large dull windows and the cowering trees, and shuts out every other prospect: but when there is misery within, the climax afforded by that dismal monotony without is appalling. The two girls scarcely knew what it was; it was the re-action after the ball, which had been such a great thing to look forward to, and now was over, and everything connected with it: no more preparations or consultations—everything swept away and ended. It was the departure of everybody, even “the boys,” as Marion called them, Archie and Eddy, who had been the constant companions of “the girls” in all their walks and talks: quite enough to account for the dismal dullness which fell over these two unfortunate young women like a pall. Rosamond had not gone with her brother, partly because she was under her father’s orders to remain, and partly because a great fear of some discovery, she did not know what, which might be made after Eddy was gone, and for which he would need an advocate and champion on the spot, was in her mind. Eddy had so often wanted a defender; there had been so often discoveries made after he had got himself out of reach of censure; and it was so much more likely in this particular matter, which was disturbing the house, whatever it might be, that it was Eddy and not Archie who was to blame. Rosamond thought, with a little contempt of Archie, that it was so little likely he would be to blame. He had not spirit enough to go wrong. He was so tame,so unaccustomed to do anything—and to do something, even if it were wrong, seemed so much better than the nullity of such a limited life. It seemed to Rosamond that Eddy, who was always in scrapes, always doing something, and mostly wrong things, was twenty times more interesting than the other, but far more likely to be the author of this trouble which hung so heavy on the house than Archie was. It seemed to the experienced sister that something was sure to happen in a day or two to prove this; to bring back Archie and place her in her accustomed position as her brother’s defender. That anticipation, and a deep knowledge of the dreariness of the London house, all shut up and dusty, with the dreadful ministrations of the charwoman, and the gloom of the closed rooms from which she could not escape to any cheerfulness of a club, kept her in Rosmore, though she was exceedingly tired of it and of the society of Marion, now her chief companion. They were as unlike each other as girls could be. Rosamond’s aspirations were not perhaps very lofty, but that hope of departing from all the conventionality (as she thought) of life, and setting up with Mabel Leighton in lodgings like two young men, to work together at whatever fantasy might be uppermost, was an opening at least to the imagination which Marion’s limited commonplace had no conception of. Marion thought of the glories of the coming spring, of going to Court and the dress she should wear, and the suitors who would come to her feet. That duke!—she had not made acquaintance with any dukes, and wondered whether there was one young enough and free,so as to realize Eddy’s prophecy. She did not even know that all that information could be acquired fromDebrett, nor was there aDebrettin the house, had she been aware of its qualities. The duke was a sort of Prince Charming,—always possible. If it could only come about by any combination of fortune that Eddy should turn out to be one! but that was a contingency which Marion knew to be impossible, and upon which she did not suffer herself to dwell.

It was in reality a sign of her simplicity and unsophisticated mind that she gave herself up so unhesitatingly to this dream. Rosamond knew a great deal better: she knew for one thing that there was no duke in the market—a fact hidden from poor Marion—and that suitors do not precipitate themselves at the feet even of a rich young woman in society, unless she is a fabulously rich young woman. Rosamond was also much too experienced to imagine for a moment, as the simple Marion did, that whatever Archie had done he would be summarily disinherited and all his advantages handed over to his sister. There had been a row, Rosamond was aware, but it would pass over as rows did in families, and the son would have his natural place, and May would but be a prettyish underbred girl the more, with a good deal of money, but not that fabulous fortune which alone works miracles. Rosamond did not think very highly of Marion’s chances; and all that she thought about Archie was a hope that her father might not see him and build any plans upon him in respect to herself.

While, however, the girls, in waterproofs, took occasional walks together, not knowing how to make conversation, two creatures speaking different languages, and found time hang very heavy on their hands—indoors the elder pair also passed the days heavily, with an absence of all meaning and motive in their life, such as aggravates every trouble. It is always a difficult matter for a man who has led a busy life, full of work and its excitements, to settle down in the country, especially if he has no estate to manage,—nothing to do, as people say, but enjoy himself. And no doubt this first setting in of winter and the virtual separation from the world caused by the persistent bad weather, would have been, under any circumstances, a trial of James Rowland’s cheerfulness and patience. But enhanced as this was by the horror and shame of such a discovery—one that turned the wavering balance of disappointment and hope, sometimes swaying to one side and sometimes to the other, into an immovable bar of sharp despair and bitter rage against his only son, the unworthy and shameless boy who had left him so little in doubt as to his character and qualities—the effect was terrible. Sometimes Evelyn persuaded him to go out with her down the glistening gravel paths towards the woods, or even to the Manse and the village: for he now loathed “the view” which he had loved, and avoided that favourite peep of Clyde, as if it had a voice to taunt him with the disappointment of his hopes. The minister and his wife received them indeed with open arms, with the cordial “Come away in” of Scotch hospitality, and brewed, or rather “masked” (or perhaps Mrs. Dean, an advanced person, “infused”) the genialtea, and spread the steaming scones, which are a simple (and inexpensive) substitute for the fatted calf, gone out of fashion, for those rare guests. “Indeed, I thought we were never to see you again,” said the minister’s wife, not without a touch of offence. And when Evelyn put forward a hesitating excuse as to the bad weather, the west-country lady took her up a little sharply. “Lady Jean used never to mind. We are well used to the rain here, and it does no harm. You just put on a waterproof and you are quite safe. Indeed, I have heard people from the South say that though we have a great deal of rain, it’s very rare to find a day that you can’t go out sooner or later.”

“Mrs. Rowland will think, my dear,” said the minister, “that you are less glad to see her now than to upbraid her with not coming before.”

“That means that I am interfering with his department,” said Mrs. Dean. “I will not do that; and indeed, I have not seen you since the ball. Such a success as it was! I have seen very grand doings in the old times, when Lord Clydesdale had more heart to make a stir.”

“What was it that took away his heart?” said Rowland; “the old reason—want of money, I suppose?” It revived a little spirit in him, and the impulse of wealth to plume itself on its own advantages when he heard of this. It pleased him to think that he could do so easily without feeling it at all, what had cost Lord Clydesdale an effort which he no longer cared to take.

The Deans, husband and wife, regarded the otherpair before them with that mild disdain which people in society feel for those who do not know everything that everybody knows about the families and persons who form the “world.” They were not perhaps exactly in society themselves, but they did know at least about the Clydesdale family and all that had happened to them. “It was not precisely want of money,” Mr. Dean said cautiously, “though we all know, more’s the pity, that they are not rich.”

“Oh! nonsense, Alexander,” said his wife, “as if everybody didn’t know the whole story! It might be a struggle, but they always held up their heads, and never made a poor mouth. What it was that took the heart out of the Earl was a great disappointment in his family. Young Lord Gourock was a very fine boy: you would never have thought it of him, but he just fell into the hands of some woman. That’s the great danger with young lads of family. You must surely have heard of it?”

“You forget that we have been in India, both of us, for years,” Evelyn said quickly.

“Ah! that would account for it: but even in India these things are known, among——” Mrs. Dean was about to say the right kind of people—but she remembered to have heard that Mrs. Rowlandwasa lady—one of the Somethings of Northamptonshire—and forbore. “At all events,” she said, “it was well known here. I wonder you have not heard the whole story from Miss Eliza. She is a very clever person at finding out, and she always knows every detail, but all in the kindest spirit. I have always had a warm heart forpoor young Gourock myself. He was such a nice boy! I believe his father and Lady Jean don’t even know where he is,” she added in a lower voice.

“Oh,” said the minister, “they will easily find out where he is when he is wanted. You can always trace a man with a handle to his name.”

“When he has to come to take up the succession—which will be great comfort to his poor father!” said Mrs. Dean scornfully. “But this,” she added, “is but a melancholy kind of conversation; and your ball was just beyond everything—such luxury—and the decorations—and the band—and——”

Even Evelyn could scarcely bear any more, and Rowland did not even pretend to pay any attention; he put away the scones (though they were excellent) with a gesture that looked like disgust, and listened most impatiently to something the minister had to say about the Teinds, and the earnest need of an augmentation, and the objections of the heritors to do anything. He had a vague sense that money was wanted, and that he himself might get free if he made a large offer. “If there is anything I can do, command me,” he said. “I may not be of much use in other ways, but so far as money goes—Evelyn, don’t you think we should go before the rain comes on?”

“But you have had no tea!” said the minister’s wife, “and the sky is clearing beautifully over the hills, which is just the quarter the rain comes from. Let Mrs. Rowland finish her tea.”

“We must be going,” said Rowland, and he went out first, leaving his wife to follow. He said nothingtill they had walked far along the edge of the bay, and were once more in Rosmore woods, in a path overhung with low trees, from which occasionally came a big cold drop on their faces or on their shoulders. He had put his arm within his wife’s according to his usual fashion, and half-pushed her before him in the preoccupation of his thoughts. At last he spoke. He had made little or no reply to her remarks, scarcely wishing, it seemed, to hear them as they came along.

“It will just be some vile woman that has got possession of him,” he said abruptly, “like yon young lord.”

“Oh, James, we know nothing. I don’t believe that he is guilty at all.”

“Some vile woman,” he repeated, “just like yon young lord.” It seemed to give him a sort of comfort that it was like the young lord. Is it not indeed a kind of terrible comfort always to hear of other cases worse than our own?

“I won’t repeat what I said,” said Evelyn, “but you know what I think.”

“Think!—think!” he said impatiently, “of what use is thinking? The thing’s done: it was not done without hands. It will perhaps be something in the house.”

“Something in the house!”

“Well!” he said querulously, “you need not repeat what I say. I have heard of a curse upon a house, and that nothing throve that ever was in it.” He paused with an effort, and then said with his hard laugh, “I am speaking like a fool, but people used tobelieve in that in the old times. What’s that fellow wanting?” he added angrily, “a man from the stables! What right has he to speak to you?”

It was Sandy the groom, who touched his cap, and stood on the edge of the path, desiring an audience. Sandy had no fear of being supposed impertinent. He had spoken to Lady Jean, wherever he had met her, with the familiarity of a respect which required no proof, and he regarded Mrs. Rowland, who had shown claims to a similar treatment, with much of the same confident and friendly feeling. Accordingly, he paid no attention to his master’s threatening looks (“The auld man was in a very ill key: he was giving it to her, het and strong, puir leddy,” was his after-comment). “It’s just auld Rankin, mem,” said Sandy, who spoke a little thick, turning over his words like a sweet morsel under his tongue, as the minister said in his prayer, “he’s awfu’ anxious just to have a word wi’ your leddyship.”

“Old Rankin!” said Evelyn surprised, “a word with me?”

“What do you want with Mrs. Rowland,” cried Rowland angrily, “do you think she has time to go after every fool in the place? You can tell your wants to me.”

“Oh, ay, sir, I could do that,” said Sandy, “but it’s no you he’s wanting, it’s the leddy,—he’s terrible keen to see the leddy. We wad be nae satisfaction to him, neither you nor me.”

“Tell him I’ll come and see him,” said Evelyn hurriedly. “You know he is a very uncommon person,James. I will just walk with you as far as the house, and then I will come back.”

“You had better go now,” he said loosing his arm. “You are getting like all the other Rosmore people, taking every crow for a dove. I can go home very well by myself.”

“But James!—”

He waved his hand to her, walking quickly away. Her company was a consolation; and then to be without her company was a relief. He had got to that restless stage.

“It’s just the gospel truth,” said Sandy, “the maister would have been nae comfort to the auld man. It’s just the leddy, the leddy, he’s been deaving us a’ with the haill day.”

“Is he ill, Sandy?”

“Na, nae waur than usual. He’s very frail, but nae waur nor usual. Hey, Janet, here’s the leddy. She’s just coming, and I had nae trouble with her ava.”

The cold drops on the trees came in a little deluge over Evelyn as she crossed the little glen under the ash tree: she was half amused in the midst of her trouble by the summons, thinking it might be a demand for some comfort, or a complaint of some inconvenience which was about to be made to her, things to which she had been accustomed in the country life of old. Rankin lay as usual with his picturesque head and beard rising from the mass of covering. He held out the large hand with which he fished in the nest beside him for puppies, and gave it to Evelyn to shake.

“I am sorry to hear you are not well,” she said.

“Oh, I’m just in my ordinary’,” said Rankin, “naething to brag of, but naething to find fault with either—just warstling on as pleases the Lord, and I dinna complain. Give the leddy a chair, Janet woman, and just go ben the house yoursel, and bring me particular word what the thermometer was last night. You can take a pencil and a bit of paper and write it down, for I’m very particular to have the figures exact.”

“Oh, you needna make any of your fuil’s errands for me,” said Janet. “I ken what you mean weel enough,” and the brisk little wife went away, carefully shutting the door behind her. What did he mean? Evelyn grew a little alarmed in spite of herself.

“I hear, mem,” said Rankin, confidentially leaning towards her out of his bed, “that you’re in some trouble at the Hoose?”

“You hear—that we’re in trouble!” cried Evelyn in the last astonishment. “If we are,” she said, “which I don’t allow, you would not expect me to come and speak of it to you.”

“Wherefore no?” said Rankin. “Do you think, madam, that because I’m held fast here, I’m no a man with sympathies, and a heart to feel for my neebours? You’ll maybe think I’m taking too much upon me, calling the like of you my neebours. But it was One greater than any of us that did that. We’re a’ neebours in the sight of God.”

“That is quite true, no doubt,” said Evelyn, with a gleam of faint amusement in the midst of her trouble, “but I don’t know—”

“Madam,” said Rankin, “I would take it very illif ye kent something to my advantage or that would maybe save a heart-break, and keepit it to yoursel’.”

“I hope I would not do so in any circumstance,” said Evelyn.

“I think you wad not, and therefore I’m fain to speak. I’m a real observant person, and given to muckle study of my fellow-creatures. I’ve taken a great notion of you, Mistress Rowland. My opinion is that you’re no the stepmother familiar to us in fiction, but a person with a real good meaning towards your good gentleman and all belonging to him.”

“I hope so,” said Evelyn, half-amused, half-disturbed, by this strange address.

“And we’ve heard you’re in trouble up bye, and Mr. Archie, a fine quiet lad, sent out o’ the house in disgrace.”

“Mr. Rankin,” said Evelyn, “you really must excuse me for saying that any gossip about my house——”

He held up his hand, bidding her to silence, and made a gesture as of putting her back in her chair. “Whisht,” he said, “never mind that;” then bending forward, in a tone so low as to be almost a whisper: “It’s a’ lees,” he said, “it’s not true; it’s just a’ a parcel of lees.”

“What do you know about it?” cried Evelyn, greatly excited. “For God’s sake, if you know anything, tell me,” she added, forgetting her precautions in the shock. What use was there in pretending that his information was not correct? He did not ask anything: he knew.

“I will do that,” said Rankin. “There is a younggentleman at the house that is called Mr. Sawmaries, a very queer name.”

“Saumarez—yes—but he is gone.”

“Oh, he is gone? to rejoin the ither no doubt. I might have expected that.”

“What other?” cried Evelyn, in great excitement.

“There was another,” said Rankin, “but not at the house; not a person, maadam, to be presented to you—though I was muckle astonished to hear of him at the ball: but nae doubt he just slippit in, favoured by yon lad, when nobody was looking. Well, as I was saying, there was another, a shabby creature, just a bit little disreputable Jew, or something of that kind. What gave me a kind of insight into the Saumarez lad (that was a clever laddie and no an ill callant, but ill guided) was his trying to foist off this creature upon me as Maister Johnson of St. Chad’s—a mistaken man and very confused in his philology, but still, I have nae reason to doubt, a gentleman, and maybe a kind of a scholar too, in his way.”

“Johnson! yes: but I have seen him; he was asked to the ball; I never doubted—”

“Na, mem,” said Rankin, “I could swear ye doubted; but being a real lady, and no suspicious as the like of me is always, you couldna believe he was cheating. He might mean it only as a kind of a joke, ye never can tell with these callants. But, madam, this is all very indifferent and not to the purpose; what I’m wanting to tell is, that there was something going on that was no building kirks between these young men.”

Evelyn was not acquainted with the figurative language of the humble Scot, but she divined what he meant. She made a hurried gesture of entreaty that he would go on: “Well! that’s just about all I know; there was something the one wanted and the other was loathe to give. The shabby body was just full of threats, and no blate about saying them before me, a stranger; and young Saumarez, he was holding off, trying his jokes, and to take his attention with the dowgs and various devices. And syne they went out of my house in close colloquy. The wife is not a woman of much book-learning, but she has a wonderful judgment. She said to me, when she came in from showing them to the door. ‘Take you my word, John Rankin,’ says she, ‘if there’s ony mischief comes to pass, thae twa will have the wyte of it,’ which agreed entirely with my ain precognition. I wouldna say but we thought of mair vulgar crimes, being of the practical order ourselves. And I hear the trouble’s about a cheque, whether stolen or what I cannot tell. But my advice to you, maadam, as one educated person with another, is—just look for it there.”

“Eddy!” Evelyn said below her breath, “Eddy!” Long before Rankin’s speech had come to an end, her quick mind had realized the shock, felt it to the bottom of her heart, staggered out of the course of her thoughts for a moment in sheer dismay and horror; then with the sudden spring of intellectual power quickened by pain had returned to the simple question. Eddy! Eddy! who had been so sympathetic, so affectionate, such true feeling in his eyes, such real zeal forthe house, so good to James, so generous about Archie. Ah! generous! then she began to think and remember. If Rankin was right, he had introduced that man on a false pretence to her house, and it had been difficult to her to realize that Eddy was really so sympathetic. And surely there were things he had said! Her head began to buzz and ache with the rapid throng of thoughts, thoughts half understood, half seen only in the hurry and rush of bewildering and confusing suggestion. The old gamekeeper went on talking, but she did not hear him, and he perceived what processes he had set in motion, and for a moment was silent too.

“There is just one thing, mem,” he said, “before you go,”—when Evelyn rose, still bewildered, wading through the chaos of her own thoughts. “The night o’ the ball—there’s aye een on the watch in a house like yours—the body Johnson disappeared as soon as the gentleman arrived that came from the bank, him that arrived in a coach all the way round the land road. There was one that saw him leave go of the leddy that was dancing with him—the nasty toad to daur to ask a leddy to dance!—and jump out of the window behind the curtain, and was never seen more. And Mr. Archie to get the wyte of it, a fine, ceevil, well-spoken young man! Na, na, we will not bide that. Just you look in that direction, Mistress Rowland, for there the true culprit’s to be found.”

“I will—I will think of what you say,” cried Evelyn, faltering. “It is a dreadful light, but if it is a light—You are proud people, you Scotch, you don’t like your own secrets to be exposed to all the world. And youdon’t know all the story, Rankin, only a bit of it. Stop these people talking! you can surely do it, you who are so clever; think how you would like it. And my husband, my poor husband!”

“I feel for Maister Rowland,” said Rankin, “but a house with a score of servants a’ on the watch, how are ye to keep a thing secret? There are nae secrets in this world. If there’s a thing ye wish to keep quiet, that’s just the thing the haill countryside will jabber about. I’ll do what I can. I’ll do what I can,” he added hurriedly, “but the only thing to stop it is to bring the lad hame.”

WhenEvelyn returned to the house she found her husband engaged with a visitor—no less a person than Sir John Marchbanks—who had some works going on near Kilrossie, drainages and such like, on which he was very anxious to have Mr. Rowland’s opinion. And Rowland, recalled to himself by the touch of the practical, had recovered his spirits and energy for the moment at least. He agreed to go and inspect the work, and to add to that kindness, as Sir John said, with a little pompous politeness, by staying to dinner afterwards, as country neighbours use. Evelyn had therefore no means of confiding Rankin’s revelation to her husband, even had she wished; and she was not sure that she wished to do so. The whole matter wanted more thinking over than she could give it in the agitated walk home and the hurried interval before he left with his visitor to walk to Kilrossie and see the works. “I warn you, Mrs. Rowland, that I will keep him as long as I can,” said Sir John. “We have great schemes of public work before us in the peninsula, and there is nobody here whose opinion is worth a button in comparison with his.”

“I shall make no objection; it will do him good,” said Evelyn: but she followed her husband into the library, where he went for a moment to fetch some papers. “James,” she said, with a little timidity, “may I send for Archie home?”

“May you send for—the devil!” said James Rowland. “What do you mean? What’s the boy to you?”

“He is Mary’s son——”

“You seem to think more of that,” he said with his angry laugh, “than that he’s mine—and has brought shame on my name.”

“We don’t know that; you cannot prove that. It is being talked of among the servants. Let me send for him. If he comes while you are away, it will be easier. Even if it were true,” cried Evelyn, “you would have to forgive him some time, James.”

“I am not so sure of that,” said her husband, grimly. “Anyhow, he is gone, and there’s an end——”

“There can never be an end. Let me write; let me send——”

“And do you think, you simple woman,” said Rowland, “that a dour fellow like that, a lad that swore at me, and flew in my very face from the first, will come back for the holding up of your little finger?” Hetook her hand in his, with admiring affection; there was something like a gleam of moisture in his eyes. “It is a bonnie little finger,” he said, “and a kind—and I would follow it over the world: but you must not think to triumph over a young brute likeyon, as you do over me.”

“Oh, James, you are mistaken; he is not, he is not——”

“What is he not? I wish he was not a son of mine,” said the father, with darkening brow.

And he said nothing more, neither to forbid nor to permit. Perhaps there was an undercurrent in his heart of hope that she would try what that signal made with her little finger would do. He did not forbid it. His heart gave a heavy thump in his bosom at the proposal. She could do for them both what neither could do for himself—and if she might be right? Women, they say, have intuitions; perhaps she might be right! and the thundercloud might pass over, and he might yet live to believe, in time, that nothing had happened. But he shook his head as he went away. Anyhow, the little absence would be a good thing. It would break the spell of misery; he might be better able to think, to settle something that could be done, when he was away.

When the master of the house goes away, there is often a little sense of relief among the women, however beloved and prized he may be. It leaves them a great deal of freedom—freedom from the control of hours and seasons which, it is a law of the Medes and Persians, can never be infringed when he is at home.He may be no more punctual than the rest, but punctuality is imposed while he is there; and he may be as irregular as he pleases in his way, but the strictest regularity is enforced upon everybody else, out of respect to papa. When he goes away, there is a little slackening all round. Perhaps the mistress lingers in her room in the morning, does not come down to breakfast—and luncheon shades off into puddings and fruit instead of the copious meal of ordinary custom, or else is abolished altogether, the girls staying out, without warning, at some friendly neighbouring house. This was what happened at Rosmore on the morning after James Rowland’s departure. His wife did not come downstairs till it was late, feeling herself more safe to carry on her own thoughts in the seclusion of her own room, and when she appeared at lunch, Marion’s chair was empty, and Rosamond, alone, appeared to share that meal. The conversation languished between the two ladies, each of whom had questions to ask, which could not be put as long as Saunders and his satellite were in the room.

“I hope you have heard from Eddy,” Mrs. Rowland said.

“Oh, yes, I have heard from him. He has got back all right,” said Rosamond.

And then there was a silence, broken only by Evelyn’s recommendation of the pudding, which was one of Mrs. Wright’s best.

“Is your brother—very lonely, with nobody at home?” at length she said again.

“Eddy is never lonely, he has such heaps of friends;when one set is not in town, he falls back on another. When there’s no opera, there’s a music-hall—that sort of thing,” said Rosamond.

“I am afraid that means he is not very particular.”

“Not particular at all, so long as he is amused.”

“But that, unfortunately, my dear, is not the best rule in life.”

“Oh, I never thought it was a rule at all,” said Rosamond. “If it were, Eddy would detest it, you may be sure. He likes to do—what no one else does, or what he has never done before.”

“Did you know this Mr. Johnson—or some such name—Rosamond, whom he brought here?”

“Oh, Mrs. Rowland,” cried the girl, “I hope you will forgive him! He is such a little wretch for that. It must have been one of his silly practical jokes to bring that man here.”

“It is not the sort of practical joke which will get him friends,” said Evelyn seriously; the man was gone, and the embargo was removed. “He ought not to have brought him here. And didyouknow him, Rosamond?”

“Iknow him! but I know this, that Eddy told me not to dance with him; and I will say this much for Eddy,” said Rosamond, with a hot blush, “that he warned Marion too.”

“But both of you——”

“Yes, it is true. I did—that nobody might say I left my brother in the lurch—offered to dance when I saw him standing there, Eddy taking no notice. Even a—beast—like that, if you get him asked, you oughtto be civil to him.” Rosamond’s cheeks were flushed, and she held her head very high. “But Marion did it out of contradiction, because he had told her not——”

“There is not much to commend in the whole matter,” said Evelyn, with a sigh. “But I think, on the whole, you were the least wrong. And has he dealings with people like these? Would that man have been likely to get your brother—under his power?”

“I don’t know what you mean, Mrs. Rowland,” said Rosamond, with a glow on her cheeks.

“And yet it is plain enough, my dear. Is it possible that—about money or betting or anything of the kind, Eddy might have got under that man’s influence—in his power?”

Rosamond held her head higher than words could describe. “If you mean that he took money to introduce him into society——”

“I did not mean that,” said Evelyn in a parenthesis, but Rosamond did not pause to hear.

“—— as some people do,” the girl went on. “Oh the men one knows! There was Algy Holt, went about with an American, getting him asked out to places. Everybody knew it, and no one was so very severe! But if you think Eddy would do that, Mrs. Rowland! he may be silly—oh, I know he is! and spends money when he has not got it, and has to do all kinds of dreadful things to pay up;—but if you think he would do that——”

“My dear Rosamond, if you prefer to think it was a practical joke—but I don’t wish to be severe—Ishould like to know, if you know, what dreadful things he has to do to pay up, as you say?”

“Oh! he has to buy carriage wheels, and cigar-holders, and pictures, and one time he had a lot of paving-stones——”

Evelyn, who was very much wound up by this time, expecting terrible revelations without thinking how very unlikely it was that Rosamond would be the confidant of any guilty practices—here burst into a fit of unsteady laughter.

“There is nothing very dreadful in all that: though it is very ridiculous, and, I dare say, a horrid imposition,” she said.

“It is enough to break one’s heart!” cried Rosamond striking her hands together: “he borrows a certain sum and he gets the half of it or less, and that—and then he has to pay back the whole—— Oh how awful it is to be poor! for there is no end to it—it is going on for ever. And when he gets Gilston, he will have to sell it, and where will he be then? He sees it as well as I, but what can he do? Of course,” added Rosamond, drying her eyes, which were shining with fierce tears, “if he could marry somebody with a great deal of money, it might all come right.”

This was all that she got from Rosamond, with much sense of guilt in thus endeavouring to persuade the sister into betrayal of the brother’s secrets. And presently Marion returned, who had been amusing herself at Miss Eliza’s house with the young people there, and came back escorted by a large party, for whom it was necessary to provide tea and amusement till the earlydarkness had fallen. Evelyn, who could not rest, and who felt that the two or three days of her husband’s absence was all the time she had at her disposal to solve this problem in, threw a shawl over her head and followed the merry party down the avenue, when Marion re-escorted them to the first gate. She could not have told what help she expected to get from Marion, and yet it was possible that some spark might fall from the girl’s careless discourse. She met her coming quickly back, her white and pink cheeks glowing with the cold and the fun, echoes of which had scarcely yet died on the frosty air. It was almost dark, though a gray light still lingered in the sky, and the lamps were shining on the other side of the water in the villages and scattered houses along the opposite shore.

“Mamma!” cried Marion,—a flush of anxiety came upon her face though it was scarcely visible—“did you hear how they were going on? But you must not think it was my fault.”

“I heard nothing,” said Evelyn, to Marion’s evident relief; “but I came out—to speak to you.—Have you heard anything of—your brother?”

“Archie?—oh, no,” said the girl. “He would not write to me, for he would know I could not approve of him, when he has gone like that and affronted papa.”

“Like what?” said Mrs. Rowland anxiously.

“Oh!” said Marion, with a pause for reflection,—“well, just like that! The servants have got a story that it’s about money, but Archie is not a spender,and I don’t know how it could be about money. But if papa has turned him out of the house, it could not be without reason, and that is enough for me.”

This was true enough and yet was not true, for Marion secretly had made a great many more investigations about Archie than anybody knew; and was quite aware where he was, and that Aunt Jane was profoundly indignant, and considered, as was not unnatural, that the whole matter was the stepmother’s doing from beginning to end.

“I have written to him,” said Evelyn, “but he has not replied. My dear, you are his only sister; you ought to help to make it up. Will you write to him and beg him to come home?”

“But I would maybe be flying in his papa’s face if I did that.”

“Your father would not blame you. Don’t you see he is very unhappy?—his only son! May, you are prejudiced against me, both of you. It is perhaps not unnatural; never mind that; but try and help me with Archie, to bring him back—to bring him home.”

“And how am I to know,” said Marion, “that it is not just to ruin me too with papa, and get me sent away as well, that you are giving me that advice?”

Evelyn had derived much temporal advantage from her union with James Rowland. She had been made the mistress of a great house, with much authority and surrounded with honour, instead of a poor dependent woman; but she paid for it dearly in this moment, while the girl stood with her little impertinent headlifted, discharging this little poisoned arrow straight into Mrs. Rowland’s heart.

There was a moment of intense silence, to which all the dulling influences of nature,—the night, the frost, the darkness—gave additional effect. The panting of Evelyn’s breath, which she could not conceal, was the only sound. Marion was cool as the air and entirely self-possessed, waiting to see how her missile told, and noting with triumph that quickened breath.

“Of course after these words I can ask nothing more of you,” said Mrs. Rowland when she had attained the command of her own voice.

“Oh I was not meaning to be disagreeable,” said Marion lightly; “but as I have nobody to take care of me, I am just obliged to take care of myself. In an ordinary way I will just do whatever you bid me, mamma: but when it’s to commit myself with papa, that is different. He might get the idea that both his children were turning upon him. And I will not do that, not for Archie or any person. Every herring,” said Marion sententiously, with a recollection of her Aunt Jane’s wise sentiments, “must just hang by its own head.”

“It is time to go in, I think,” said Mrs. Rowland shivering; her cold, however, was moral rather than physical. This cautious, much regarding young person of nineteen bewildered all her elder ideas. Was it pure selfishness, or was it some recondite covering of affection to scare the unfamiliar gazer? Evelyn made a movement aside to let the uncomprehended being pass before her into the house.

And it may be supposed that the evening circle formed by these three was not very sympathetic. Mrs. Rowland was full of the most painful uncertainty as to what she should do: or rather what could she do, she asked herself? Nothing but proof would content or in any way move her husband: and how was proof to be had, and what would move Archie, who would probably resent the very evidence which exculpated him, feeling it almost an additional grievance? What was she to do among all these conflicting objects? The natural thing, as it would have appeared to most women in her circumstances, would have been to sit still and wait, and do nothing. No one desired her interposition, not even her husband, who had laughed over the impotence of that little finger which she thought Archie would have obeyed. A reasonable woman does not like to be told, however tenderly, that she thinks she can move the world by the signal of her little finger. Would it not, she asked herself, be more dignified, more seemly to keep silence, and be patient and wait? But then, on the other hand, there was the possibility that the crime would sink into the pit of the undiscovered and never be found out. It had not even that chance of being found out which thorough examination and search after the criminal would give. Rowland had adopted it, homologated it, as the Scotch lawyers say, accepted the false cheque as his own to save his son: so that no questions could be asked at the bank to throw light upon the manner in which it was drawn, or the person from whom it came. If she only dared to go there herself to findout! if she only might venture to make certain inquiries!—but it was impossible. Archie was not to be appealed to, for he would not stir a step to clear himself. What then could she do? she who alone possessed a clue. And then what a clue was that, the suppositions of a servant, the inferences of a half-instructed person, half-acquainted with the story! She sat through the long evening, pretending to read, in the great drawing-room, which was full of ruddy fire-light and lamplight, the most sheltered and warm and cheerful place, while the wind blew fierce outside. In the inner room, Rosamond was playing chords upon the piano in a kind of grand but simple symphony, while Marion, by the table, in the light of the lamp, in a white dress, with a face not unlike a flower, insignificant but pretty, a little thing, innocent and simple, to all external appearances, the ideal of guileless youth—sat working at a piece of bright coloured “fancy work,” as she called it. Who could have dreamt that so dark a problem lay between them, and that the question, what to do in so complex a matter, involving so much, should be rending in sunder the heart of the dignified and graceful mistress of the house?

“Mamma!” said Marion softly. It may be supposed that Mrs. Rowland was not particularly disposed at this moment to hear any such appeal, and silence fell again on the party, broken only by the low but splendid rumble of the long-drawn notes.

“Mamma!” said Marion again. She edged her chair a little closer, and gave a look over her shoulder towards the piano, where Rosamond satunseen. “Did you ever think of asking Mr.——, her brother, about that cheque?”

“What cheque?” said Mrs. Rowland coldly.

“Oh,” said Marion, “it is all over the parish that it was a cheque, and the servants all know. If I were you, as you take so great an interest, I would just ask Eddy. He knows a lot of things.”

“I do not see how he could know what is your father’s business.”

“Hush, you needn’t speak so loud! he knows a lot of things,” said Marion, with a little sigh. “He is far far cleverer than Archie. He might find out. If it were me, I would ask him,” the girl said.

“Your brother’s interests,” said Evelyn quietly, “are surely your business as much as mine.”

“I am not saying,” said Marion, “one way or another: but just it is him that I would ask if it were me.”

“About what—about what?” cried Evelyn, pressing her hands together. “If you know anything, tell me at least, what he has to do with it? What can I find out from him? what——”

“She has stopped playing,” said Marion and she added with a little severity, “You will see, if you think, that whether or no—— it’s best she should not hear.”

They said good-night to her shortly after, kissing her both of them, according to the formula which girls are trained to go through: and went upstairs, one after the other, slim girlish creatures, innocent neophytes in life, as one would have thought, devoid of its saddening knowledge, its disenchanting experiences—leaving behind them a woman who had seen much sorrow and trouble, yet who was less acquainted than either of them, it seemed, with certain mysteries and problems.

May left her in a state of agitation and excitement, such as Evelyn had not yet known in the trials of her own life. She felt that Archie’s future was in her hands, though he rejected her interposition so bitterly; and what was more, her husband’s future, the happiness of the good man who had so much trust in her. If she could restore his son to him and did not, because of any reluctance of hers, any shrinking from exertion, and mean or secondary feeling, as for instance, that no one would be grateful to her for what she did, how unworthy would that be. Gratitude! what is gratitude but a repayment, the return for which no generous spirit looks. It is as mercenary to insist upon gratitude as upon money or any other recompense. What would it matter if no one ever knew, if no one ever said, “thank you?” What was that when Archie’s young life, and still closer and dearer, her good husband’s happiness, were at stake.

Evelyn walked about the drawing-room for a long time with her hands clasped, and her head bent, and thoughts pursuing thoughts, a host of quickly succeeding and often conflicting resolutions and questionings, hurrying through her mind. The butler, weary of waiting, peeped in by a half-open door, and retreated again, overawed by her absorption, which neither saw nor heard. Her maid upstairs yawned and waited, astonished and indignant. She was not in the habit of keeping the household out of bed by any capriceof hers, and all the less could they excuse her for her forgetfulness now. It was almost midnight before she was roused with a start by the chiming of the clock, and hurrying out, found Saunders respectful, but displeased outside, to whom she proffered a hasty apology, which had to be repeated when her maid confronted her half asleep yet wholly indignant. For a ball, which the servants enjoy as much as their master, allowance may be made; but on a night when nothing was happening, when the master was away, and the ladies expected to be more easy to serve, less exacting, keeping earlier hours than usual! And next day consternation still more deep struck the house: for Mrs. Rowland went away, taking only a bag with her, and explaining briefly that she had business in London, but would be back on the third day. Rosamond proposed to go with her, and so did Marion. She only smiled at them both, and declared that she would be back again before they had packed their things. She did not even take her maid! which was a sort of insult to the house. A mistress who can “do” for herself, who can travel unattached, and dress her own hair, etc., is a disappointment in a house like Rosmore.

She went away on Tuesday, and late on Wednesday night James Rowland came home, a day or two earlier than he had been expected. To describe his astonishment and disappointment when he arrived, and found her gone, is more than words are capable of. He had almost turned back from his own door and disappeared again into the darkness, from which he had looked out with such a rising of comfort andhappiness in his home-coming, and of hope for what might have happened while he was away. “Mrs. Rowland not at home!” he said, stumbling across his own threshold as though the place was strange to him: “why, you must be dreaming,” but Saunders would not be driven from his explanation. The mistress had received news that she had to act upon at once, and the master being away, she had gone up to London instead of him, Saunders supposed. She expected to be home on Friday at the latest, which was the day on which he too was expected home. Rowland appeared at the dinner-table, to the great astonishment of the girls, and with a countenance of disgust and impatience difficult to describe. “So she has left you planted,” he said with a sharp laugh. It was impossible, indeed, that a man could return home much wanting his wife, calculating upon her, and find her gone, without feeling himself an injured man. He called Marion into the library after and questioned her. “Where has she gone? What has come over her? There is not a line, not a word to explain.”

“She was going to London on business—whatever that may mean,” said Marion. “She did not open her lips to me.”

“But at least you know where she is gone?”

“Papa,” said Marion, “you can have observed very little if you have not observed that mamma does not give her confidence to me.”

“Oh, confound your confidence. Where is my wife?” Rowland cried.

“I do not know,” said Marion primly. She addedafter a moment,staccato—“But I might give a guess: she was awfully taken up—- about Archie, papa.”

He uttered a sort of groan, looking fiercely at her, not missing a shade of meaning in Marion’s face.

“And she wanted me to interfere: but I just said that what papa decided must be right, and I would have nothing to do with it—against you. And then she was in great thought.—Did you ever hear, papa, that before she was married, mamma and Mr. Saumarez,theirfather, were great friends?”

“What has that to do with it?” he cried angrily.

“Well—there was some story Eddy always said, and he used to laugh; but he never would tell me right out: and he said he could make her do whatever he liked on that account. And last night she asked Rosamond a great many questions about when he was coming home and so forth, and I heard her say something about ‘your father’s advice.’”

James Rowland sprang to his feet with the suppressed roar of feeling, which in men of this kind does duty for the sigh or outcry of milder natures. There was something of the wild beast in it,—an impulse of rage, almost frenzy. Advice with that man onhisaffairs! take that vile cynic, that false traitor, that diseased atomy into her confidence on her husband’s decent concerns! His looks terrified his daughter; and as he paced about the room up and down, Marion took advantage of the first occasion on which he turned his back to her to escape. But Rowland did not even remark that she was gone. Oh, Evelyn! Evelyn! whom he trusted to the bottom of his heart, had she goneto expose the secrets of his house, his shame, and the breaking of his heart tothatman! This shaft went to his very soul.

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