“All right, Mr Ross, all right! all right, my lord!” said one eager Castleton supporter. “The Lasswade men have come—Loanhead’s on the road—and there’s a perfect regiment coming up the water. Hurrah for Ross, and fair play for ever! Pringle will have little to brag of his day’s work.”
“He’ll have got us the best majority we’ve had yet,” cried another; “it was too barefaced, and him the next heir.” The room, which had been half empty, began all at once, no one knew how, to surge and overflow with enthusiastic supporters. Val felt himself tossed about on the crest of this wave of triumph. He began to get dizzy with excitement, with the sight of the groups pouring along the street towards the polling-booths, all in his interest, and with the agitation and tumult of talk about him. Long before the close of the poll his victory was secure.
But while the excitement of the crisis thus settled into assurance, another excitement rose in the young man’s mind. All round him, loud and low, in every different tone, he heard the name of Pringle identified with the assault which had shaken all the foundations of his life. He had said nothing about its effect upon his mind;—had even postponed realising it, at his grandfather’s entreaty, and the still greaterurgency of circumstances, which compelled him to put a bold face on the matter, and show no emotion to the world. But all the while he knew that the stroke, though he had no time to think of it, had struck at his very heart. He had not slept all the previous night; he had made such a tremendous effort of self-control as his young frame and undisciplined mind were scarcely capable of; and the reaction was beginning to set in. Every faculty, every feeling, began to concentrate in the sense of injury which he had shut out of his mind by such an effort while necessity required it—of injury, and of that passionate impulsive rage which was the weak point of his character. From the moment when he fully realised who it was that had struck this dastardly blow at him, his blood had begun to boil in every vein. Pringle! that was the man—his pretended friend, his relation, a man who had smiled upon him, eaten with him, called him by friendly names, sought him out. I cannot tell how it was that Violet, and everything connected with her, disappeared altogether at this crisis from the young man’s agitated mind. He never paused to think that it was Vi’s father against whom his whole passionate soul rose up in one longing to punish and avenge. She and everything gentle in his life disappeared and was swept away, the burning tide of fury being too strong for them. Before his confused eyes, while the very different scenes of the day were still going on around him, another panorama seemed to be passing, mixed up somehow with the actual events, the central figure in which was always this man, looking like a friend, yet preparing this deadliest sting for him. That burning sense of the intolerable which is in all human affairs the most intolerable of sensations, came upon Val with a force which he seemed helpless to resist. He felt that he could not bear this injury—he could not pass over it, let it go by as if it had not been. His arm tingled to make some stroke. An agitation of haste and anxiety to get through his present business, that he might be free for the other, took hold of him. He went on, doing everything required of him, smiling, shaking hands, speechifying, he could not tell what, answering to the necessities of his position like a man in a dream, and hearing a confused din in his ears of cheers and plaudits, of meaningless talk, congratulations, pæans of victory, through all of which he tried to rush, faster and ever faster, longing to have it over, to get away—to fly at thethroat of his enemy. And yet I don’t think that he betrayed himself. He was excited, but what so natural?—and perhaps worn out with his excitement, to the eyes of one or two close observers. “Get him away as soon as you can—he’s overdone,” Sir John said to the old lord. “Tut,” said Lord Eskside, himself feeling ten years younger in the fulness of his triumph, “no fear of Val; his blood is up, and he can stand anything.” Thus the triumphant day came to an end.
The carriage stood in front of the Duke’s Head, Lady Eskside and Mary Percival having already taken their places in it, awaiting the new Member and his party, who came up the street, a little murmuring crowd, buzzing forth satisfaction, pride, and mutual plaudits. Val was carried along in the midst of it, more silent than any, feeling almost at the end of his forces, and sick with eagerness to get free. It was at this unhappy moment that a party of young men, recently arrived, came down the street, meeting Valentine and his body-guard. The first of these was Sandy Pringle—the son, not the father. He had come straight from Edinburgh to ascertain the result of the election, knowing nothing whatever of all that had happened till he heard his own name in every mouth, denounced, by this time, by both sides alike. Sandy, as was natural, was deeply excited: he would not allow the universal censure. “If my father were here he would disprove it,” he had been saying, but vainly. He came straight up in front of Lord Eskside upon the narrow pavement, blocking up the way with his broad shoulders and well-developed form. “Lord Eskside,” he cried, “I appeal to you for justice. I hear my father’s name in every mouth——”
“Stand aside, sir!” cried Val, in a voice so loud and harsh, and so full of emotion, that it seemed to silence every sound about him. The bystanders felt as one man that something was coming. All the young man’s fictitious composure was gone, the veins were swollen on his forehead, his paleness changed into crimson, his eyes flashing fire. Sandy Pringle looked at him with angry surprise.
“I will stand aside when I please,” he said—“no sooner. Lord Eskside, my father——”
“Oh, your father!” cried Val. He stepped out from the group with a movement as swift as lightning. A few words were interchanged, too quick, too furious, for any one torecollect afterwards; and before any of their friends could interfere,—before, indeed, the little group around could divine what was wrong—young Pringle, who was twice as heavy a man as his opponent, fell suddenly without a word, struck down by one tremendous blow. “Pass on, gentlemen,” cried Valentine, quivering with passion; “no man shall stop Lord Eskside in the public streets while I am by!”
I must not attempt to describe the tumult which ensued, or how Val was surrounded and forced away by one party, and Sandy, who sprang to his feet with a mixture of amazement and rage which could not be put into words, was caught by another, everybody eager and vigilant as soon as the harm was done. “I am at Mr Pringle’s service, however he chooses and whenever he chooses,” cried Val, half mad with passion, as they hurried him away.
Mr Pringlehad prepared his stroke for years; he had pondered it in his mind ever since he knew of Lord Eskside’s hopes in respect to the election. He had written the letter itself over and over in his mind, getting a kind of secret joy out of it, all the more intense that nobody was in the least aware of this private vengeance of his own. Even now nobody was aware of it, except by conjecture. As it was intended for the gratification of his personal feelings rather than for the advantage of his party, he had taken none of them into his counsel: they were as much taken by surprise as were his opponents; and when they had time to reflect and to see the state of public feeling, Mr Seisin and his party condemned and repudiated the attack, though for one moment they had hesitated over it, not sure whether a stroke so telling might not be justifiable, seeing that, politically speaking, the means are justified by the end. Finding, however, as was soon apparent, that it brought about no revolution in the feeling of the county, but rather the reverse, the party to which Mr Pringle belonged denounced and repudiated the performance as heartily as could be desired;and Mr Seisin himself “begged emphatically to protest against an attack so thoroughly against his principles, and trusted his honourable opponent would not connect himself or his party with any such anonymous slander.” This was clearly theamende honorableon Mr Seisin’s part; and the Liberals turned as fiercely upon Mr Pringle for disgracing them, as their antagonists did for traducing their candidate. He was given up on all hands. I do not believe, however, that he either knew of, nor cared for this, at the moment at least. Something much more terrible had fallen upon the man—something which threatened him the moment he had let the winged shaft fly from his hand, but which came down with unimaginable force, now when it had flown into the world, never to be recalled. He had brooded over it, prepared it, taking a fearful joy out of the intention, for years; but the moment it was done, the man was penitent and ashamed. On the morning after its publication he was more completely struck down with horror and shame than even the family he attacked—so much so that he forgot to think of appearances, or to do anything which should divert suspicion from him. He who had taken so prominent a part hitherto did not even go to Castleton on the election day. He gave no vote; he abandoned his good name and his friends together. Some one of the old divines, in quaint familiarity with the Prince of Darkness, tells his readers, if I remember rightly, how Satan sometimes puts so big a stone into the hands of a sinner that it slays himself. This was what poor Mr Pringle had done. He might have got through a hundred little efforts of malice without much after-suffering, but this tremendous javelin struck himself first, not his enemy, to the ground.
The Hewan was a miserable house during the night previous to the election, after the letter, which was the source of all this trouble, came into it. “This is your writing, Alexander!” his wife had cried, when she read it. She waited for a denial, but none came. It was his writing, then! She had thought it, but she had hoped to be contradicted. I dare not repeat what this good wife and upright woman said to her husband after so terrible a discovery. I should not like to describe such a punishment. Mrs Pringle fell upon the unfortunate culprit, in all the mingled wrath of his own wife, compromised by his personal disgrace, and Vi’s mother, concerned for her child’s happiness. “Youhave shamed us all; you have put a stigma on my boys that years will not wear out; and you have ruined my Violet, and broken her heart!” she cried, indignant. It was after this scene that poor little Vi, lonely and miserable, stole down through the rain, old Jean bearing her company, to beg Lady Eskside’s pardon. No one knew of this forlorn expedition except old Mrs Moffatt, who knew that poor Vi was in trouble without knowing why. When Violet left the house her mother had retired to her room with a headache; her father had shut himself up in the new dining-room. The house was wretched, and the child still more wretched. No such domestic commotion had ever happened before in the house. Violet had not known what to do. She had her private misery to swell to overbrimming the trouble which her friendly young soul would have felt even in a case less intimately affecting her. She gave up her own happiness without a struggle, or at least so she thought, as she hastened down the rough paths through the woods, with her hood over her bright hair, and old Jean toiling after her with her big umbrella. She thought she gave it up without hope or question. Poor Vi! for when the old lady, who had always been so kind, made no movement of affection towards her, when she turned away without a sign, Violet felt for the first time all the bitterness of being without hope. She had meant to give Val up, and her happiness and her life—but, alas, poor little Violet! I fear she had not thought of being taken at her word. In her little breaking heart there had survived an unspoken hope that Lady Eskside would gather her up into her kind old arms, kiss her, forgive her, and make everything again as though this misery had never been. At twenty it is so easy to believe that everything can be made up, if only those who have the power could be persuaded to have the will also. It was not till Lady Eskside turned away that Violet felt that this thing was, and could not be mended. She rushed out again into the rain and night in a real despair, of which her former anguish had only been the similitude. Wretchedly, in a silence which she could scarce keep from breaking with sobs, she fought her way through the rain among the bare trees, her eyes so full of bitter tears that she could see nothing. Ah, what a difference from the day before, when Val was by her side, whom her father had injured, striking at him cruelly in the dark, slandering him before all the world! “One thing is good,at least—it is soon over, soon over!” poor Vi said in her heart.
Next day this unhappy family met estranged, saying nothing to each other, and worn out with the tumult of the past night. Mrs Pringle waited, expecting her husband to set off to Castleton for the election all the morning through, but she would not condescend to ask him if he were going. He did not go. Shame had taken hold upon the man. He shut himself up in the room which he had built, and saw no one except at luncheon, when they met and sat down together, making a pretence to eat, without exchanging a word which could be avoided.
“How long is this to last, mamma?” said Violet, as they sat together on the embankment, looking down the vale of Esk, with all its trees beginning to grow green, and the turrets of Rosscraig shining in the sun.
“How can I tell?” said Mrs Pringle; “as long as your father chooses, I suppose. God knows what has come over him, Vi. He has done this for his party, destroying all our peace of mind, and now he will not even go to give his vote. I do not know what can have come over him. Sometimes I think it must be illness,” said poor Mrs Pringle, drying her eyes. Compunctions were beginning to steal upon her too, and meltings of heart towards the sufferer.
“By this time it must be settled,” said Violet, looking down the valley with tears in her eyes which hid it from her, and with quivering lips; “and oh, mamma, if Val has lost!”
“He has not lost,—you may be sure of that,” said her mother. “But, Violet, my darling, don’t say Val any more. You must make up your mind thatthat’sall over, Vi. They would never suffer it—I could not myself in their place.”
Violet looked at her mother with her lips quivering more and more. “I know,” she said, with an attempt at a smile. Too well she knew. She had not said anything about her visit to Lady Eskside. Why should she? Her heart was too sick and sore to be able to enter into prolonged confidences; and what was the use?
Sandy got home almost as soon as the Eskside party did with their four horses. He had thrown himself free as soon as he could of the friends who had flung themselves upon him to “hinder mischief,” as they said. “Mischief? whatmischief?” he cried, fiercely; “do you think I am going to make a fool of myself fighting a duel with Val Ross?” He was too dangerous an antagonist, notwithstanding the humiliation which, taken at unawares, he had sustained, to dispose any one to renew the quarrel on Val’s behalf; and he had shaken them off and hastened home, possessed by many painful thoughts. It was not until he had got miles from Castleton on an unfrequented road that he ventured to stop and read the paper which, up to this moment, he had only glanced at. Deeply though he felt the affront he had received, I think the wound this paper gave him was deeper still. He too judged, as everybody did, that it was his father’s writing, his father’s attempt anonymously and under pretext of serving his party, to give a deadly personal blow to the young man whom he had always looked upon as his own and his son’s supplanter. Sandy’s sense of humiliation, of bitter pain and discomfiture, grew as he approached home. How was he to meet his father, to meet them all; for what more likely than that mother and sister in the heat of controversy had taken his father’s side? Every step he took towards the Hewan made him think less of Val’s sin against him and more of his father’s, which was a worse sin against him (Sandy) and all his brothers than it was against Val. The time of dinner was approaching when he reached the Hewan, and no one was visible. Sandy went to his room to dress, and I need not say that his mother went to him there and told him her story, and had his in return. They exchanged sentiments as they exchanged confidences; for Mrs Pringle, forgetting her husband’s offence, on which she had dwelt so long, was seized with a violent indignation against Val, who had insulted her boy. But Sandy, poor fellow, forgot Val’s offence altogether, and forgave him, in horror of the greater offence. Never had there been such a dinner eaten by the Pringle family, who up to this moment had been a model of family union. “I suppose you have heard how things went at Castleton,” the father said, not looking at his son. “I have been there,” said Sandy, pointedly, “and I am glad to say that Val Ross was returned by the largest majority that has been known since ’32.” “Glad! why should you be glad?” cried Mr Pringle; and this was all that was said. Afterwards, when he withdrew again into his loneliness, Mrs Pringle’s heart failed her. She had never quarrelled withher husband before, and she could not bear it. She went to the room where he had shut himself up, and after an hour or two emerged again tearful but smiling. During this interval the brother and sister were left alone, and Sandy told Violet his story, over which she wept, poor child, crying, “Oh, dear Sandy!” and “Oh, poor Val!” “I think you think as much of him as you do of me,” her brother said, not knowing whether to be offended with Violet, or to take the side of his assailant too.
“Oh, Sandy, have I not reason?” cried poor Vi, hiding in her soft heart the deeper reason which only her mother knew. “Was he not always like another brother to me—and to us all?”
“That’s true,” said Sandy, softened and thoughtful; “he was always fond of you.”
This was balm to poor Vi, who could suffer herself to cry a little when Sandy was so ignorant and so kind. “He was fond of—us all,” said Violet; “do you mind how good he was to the children? Never till now was he unkind to any one. I am sure he is like to break his heart already for what he has done.”
“He must say so then. He was a hasty beggar always,” Sandy admitted, “and it was enough to drive a man out of his wits; but why should he have laid hands on me? What had I done? You are a girl, Vi, you don’t understand; but, by Jove! to stand being struck—by another fellow, you know.”
“And hadn’t he been struck, and far deeper? Oh Sandy, only think—all that about his mother, and about his coming here! I don’t think he knew of it, or remembered. And to be exposed to the whole county, everybody, all these great people, and all the poor folk—everybody! Oh, poor Val, poor Val!”
Sandy was half inclined to cry too, he was so miserable. He got up and walked about the room, his mind disturbed between the insult to himself and the far deeper insult which Val had first received.
Violet got up too after a while, and stole her arm softly within his. “What shall you do?” she said, looking up to him with her appealing eyes.
“Oh, Vi, how can I tell?” cried the young man. “I’d like to kick him, and I’d like to go down on my knees to him. What am I to do? Till to-day I would have stoodup for Val Ross against the world. Why did he insult me before everybody? I forgive him; but I know no more what to do than you can tell me. One thing,” he said, with a short laugh of disdain, “I certainly shall not make a fool of myself, and fight a duel, which is what I suppose he meant. I am not such a ridiculous idiot as to do that.”
“A duel!” cried Violet, with a suppressed scream, holding fast by his arm.
“No, I am not such an idiot as that,” said Sandy; “though I suppose that is what he must have meant.”
“He did not know what he was saying,” said Violet. “Oh, Sandy dear, you are brave enough and strong enough to be able to forgive him. Oh, Sandy, will you forgive him? I should not be quite so miserable to-night if you would promise: forgive him, that he may forgive poor papa.”
“Why should you be so miserable, Vi?” said her brother, looking earnestly into her face; but fortunately for poor Violet, her mother here made her appearance, and the conversation was stopped. The girl stole away to her little room soon after—the room with the attic window which commanded the view of Esk and its valley, which had been hers since she was a child. It was a moonlight night, and the sometimes golden turrets of Rosscraig shone out silvery from among the clouds of leafless trees. Vi pretended to be asleep when her mother came into her room on her way to her own, feeling unable to bear another word; but after that visitation was over, the girl got up in her restlessness and wrapped herself in her warm dressing-gown, and sat by the window watching the steadfast cloudless shining of that white moon in the great, blue, silent heavens, over the dark and dreamy earth. How different it was from the sunshine, with all its sudden gleams and shadows, its movements of life and mirth, its flutterings and happy changes! The moon was as still as death, and as unchangeable, throwing her paleness over everything. The girl’s sad soul played with this fancy in a melancholy which was deep as the night, yet, like the night, not without its charm. She sat thus so long that she lost note of time, too wretched to go to bed,—sleepless, hopeless, as she thought; now and then looking wistfully at the silver turrets, thinking, oh if she could only speak one word to Val! only say good-bye to him, though it must be for ever. Notwithstanding these thoughts, it waswith a pang of fright beyond description that she saw, quite suddenly, a dark figure rising over the dyke on to the little platform upon which the Hewan stood. Violet was so much alarmed that it did not occur to her who it was who thus invaded the safe retirement of the place in the middle of the night. She would have screamed aloud had she not been too much frightened to scream. Was it a ghost? was it a robber? She forgot her misery for the moment in her terror; then suddenly felt her misery flood back upon her heart, changed into a desperate joy. It was no ghost nor robber, but Val, poor Val. He climbed up noiselessly and sat down upon the edge of the dyke, with his face turned to the house—in all that quiet, silent, lifeless world, the only living thing, doing nothing to attract attention, scarcely moving, looking at her window in the moonlight. She watched him for a time, with her heart leaping wildly to her mouth. All was perfectly still, the household asleep, not a stir to be heard anywhere but that of the soft night-wind sighing through the trees. Her heart yearned over her young lover in the pathetic silence of this night-visit, which seemed made without any hope of seeing her, without hope of anything—only, like herself, out of the sick restlessness of misery. She opened her window softly, and put out her head. When he saw this, he rose with a start and came towards her. The night-wind blew softly, the trees rustled, a whisper of sound was in the air, like the breath of invisible spectators standing by.
“Oh, Val, is it you?”
“It is me,” said Val “I came to look at your window before I went away.”
“Where are you going?” she whispered in alarm.
“Somewhere. I don’t know; I don’t care,” said the lad. “I cannot bear it. How can I face the world any more? I wish I could die and be done with it all; but you can’t die when you please. I wanted to say good-bye to you somehow. Vi, dear Vi, don’t forget me altogether; and yet it would be better that you should forget me,” he added, drearily. Oh, if she had been but near to him to console him! It was hard to hear him speak in this miserable tone, and have no power so much as to touch his hand.
“How can you speak of forgetting?” said poor Vi; “as if I could ever forget! But, Val, I know you ought not to think of me any more.”
“I wish I might not think of anything long,” he said. “God help us, Vi! everything seems over. Tell Sandy I am sorry I struck him. I was mad. He can call me a coward if he likes, and say I ran away.”
“Oh, Val, Sandy is sorry too; he would ask your pardon too. Val, for pity’s sake try and think of us no more; but don’t go away—don’t go away!” cried Vi.
Another faint sound, as of some one stirring in the house, here caught the ears of both. Val looked up in the moonlight, which shone for a moment upon his face, holding out his hands and waving a farewell to her. “Good-bye, good-bye,” his moving lips seemed to say; or was it a tremulous kiss they sent her through the sorrowful sighing night? In another moment he had disappeared as he came. Vi sat trembling and weeping silently at her window, watching him disappear into the darkness—trembling as if with guilt when she heard another window thrown open, and the sound of her mother’s voice. “I am sure I heard a step on the gravel,” Mrs Pringle said, looking out. But the white moonlight shone so full and broad over the cottage and its surroundings, that it was evident no nocturnal visitor was there. “I suppose it must have been my imagination,” she added, drawing in her head, and bolting and barring the window. It was long before Violet dared do the same, or dared to make even so much noise as rise from her chair. She sat there half the night through, crying silently, chilled and miserable. Only two nights before, how happy had she lain down!—happy as a child—far happier than any queen! and now it was all over. Even Val himself saw and acknowledged that it was so;—all over, as if it had been a tale read out of a book; and how soon the longest tale comes to an end!
Violet told her mother next morning of this nocturnal visit. She would rather, had she dared, have told Sandy, and kept it back from her mother, who was too angry in consequence of Val’s assault upon her son to do him full justice—but dared not, fearing her brother’s questions, to which she could give no answer. And then dead silence—one of those blank intervals of existence which are perhaps the hardest to bear—fell upon the poor little girl at the Hewan. When the rest of the family went back to Edinburgh, she begged to be allowed to stay behind for a day or two. I cannot tell for what reason, for probably Vi wouldhave been less miserable at home among her brothers and her occupations. But at Vi’s age one does not wish to forget one’s misery—one prefers to take the full good of it. She secured that advantage, poor child! After the events, which had crowded on each other, came silence and stillness, so complete that they weighed upon her like a positive burden, not a mere negation of movement or sound. The long spring days, bright and cold—the long days of rain, when she stood at the window and watched the showers falling over the valley with all its trees, sometimes crossed by a sunbeam, and gleaming under it, but most frequently falling in a mist of moisture, dull, persistent, untouched by any light. Even the news of the village scarcely reached her, and nearly a week elapsed before Violet heard as a piece of public news that Mr Ross had been obliged to leave home on business—that he had not even been present at the great dinner at Castleton, which was given in honour of his election. But not even Mary Percival came up to the Hewan through the woods in that first week of silence, which almost killed Vi. They were all too angry, too deeply offended, and at the same time too anxious about Val, concerning whom Lady Eskside smiled and told stories of the urgent business which compelled his absence, but of whose whereabouts they knew nothing, and had heard nothing since the night when he went away.
Onthe evening of the day after the election, Richard Ross, in Florence, received two telegrams,—one from his father, announcing the result of the election, sent off from the nearest telegraphic station, in Lord Eskside’s own name, and with full official pomp. The other was from Edinburgh, from “Catherine Ross,” asking “Is the boy with you? He has left us, and we don’t know where he has gone. Write at once, or come.” These two announcements threw the clearest light upon each other to Richard. He said to himself that what he had predicted had happened—that his son had been assailed by the story of his birth, and that in shameand rage he had fled asshedid. Valentine had not paid his father that long visit for nothing. Thedilettantehad found out that he was a man after all, with some remnants in him of human feeling. A man’s child brings back this consciousness more easily than his parents do, by some strange law of nature which is very hard upon the old. Probably had Richard gone back to Eskside, he would have been impatient of the old house and its unchangeable order before he had been two days there, and as glad as ever to get away. But Valentine had interfered with none of his habits; he had amused him, he had aroused a spark of paternal pride in his mind, which was so little affected by such emotions; and when the boy went away he missed him, and wondered at himself for doing so. And he had taken an interest of a much stronger character than he could have believed possible in the election. He said to himself now, that he knew and had always predicted what would happen, and a pang of anxiety sprang up within him, the strangest feeling to make itself felt within the polished bosom of a man of the world. Tut! he said to himself; what was he anxious about? a boy who was not a simple rustic from the country, but a man of Eton and Oxford, “up” to everything. He laughed at his own weakness. That very night he was dining out at a brilliant party, the most brilliant that could be collected in the highest circle of Florence at the time of her last revived and temporary magnificence. He was astonished at himself to think how dull he found it. The ladies were less fair, the talk less witty, the diamonds less bright, than he had ever known them. What was the matter with Richard? “You look depressed and out of sorts,” some one said to him next morning. “Oh no, not I; it is a bad dinner I had yesterday.” A bad dinner! He trembled after he had said it, wondering if perhaps his questioner would take the trouble to inquire where he dined. But it was not the dinner which was in fault. He felt himself asking himself in the midst of it—where was the boy? what had become of him? What might Valentine have done if he had been assailed by something specially hard to bear? He was uneasy and restless all night, slept badly, and again asked himself, as soon as he woke, where was the boy? “Confound the boy! he can take care of himself better than I could,” Richard said to himself under his breath; but all his reasoning didnothing for him. He was anxious, uneasy, as parents so often are; his imagination in spite of him strayed into a thousand wonderings; he had to call himself back, even when in the middle of a despatch, from those ridiculous questionings about Val; and at last the commotion in his mind became more than he could comfortably bear.
Nor was it only Valentine who had roused the life which had half congealed within his father’s veins. The photograph which chance had thrown into his hands had not been without its effect in rousing him. When he murmuredmaladetta!between his closed teeth, he was as much in earnest as a man can be when he looks, disenchanted, and with all the glamour gone out of his middle-aged eyes, upon the fair face, no longer so fair, which had made havoc with his youth. But somehow the knowledge that he had that scrap of paper in his desk affected Richard in a way which no one who knew him could have believed possible. He had no portrait of her—nothing by which he could recall her face; and this glimpse of her—so unexpected, so changed, and yet so unmistakable—the face of the woman who was her, yet not her—the same creature whom he had married, yet another being of whom he knew absolutely nothing—had moved him as I suppose nothing else connected with her could have done. He would have been as intolerant now of any attempt to recall his affections to her as when Lady Eskside tried, and failed, to rouse him to interest in his wife. Even had any other creature been aware of the existence of the portrait—had any one known that he had kept and secured it, and would take it out now and then, with a half sneer on his face, to look at it, when he was certain no one could disturb him—Richard would have been as hard, as unyielding, as defiant as ever. But the fact that no one knew opened his heart so far. Sometimes he would say to himself with a curious subdued laugh, “Looks as if she had been a lady!” The thought filled him with a strange amusement, a satirical sense of the incongruities of life. She whom it had been impossible to tame into any semblance of quiet, vagrant-born and vagrant-bred, a wild creature of the woods as long as she was in the atmosphere where a lady’s demeanour was necessary; and now, in a sphere where it was not necessary—where it brought remark upon her—facing him with that still look, which (he could not deny) was full of a wild gravity and dignity;—helaughed at the strange thought, but the sentiment his laugh expressed was not mirthful: it was the only way in which he could embody the grotesque sense of confusion and bewilderment that rose in his mind. Would she bear that same aspect of dignity, he wondered, if he saw her? Would she know him at a glance, as he had recognised her? Did she know Val? The little picture was like a romance to him. It worked upon him as nothing in his life had done for years.
Did she know Val?—how curious was the inquiry!—had she any intentions, any hopes, about the other boy—he whose figure, stooping on the little pier to push off somebody’s boat, was all his father knew of him? His father! Can you imagine, dear reader, the strange thrill that went through the man of the world, in spite of himself, when he thought of this “other boy”? The elegant calm of the accomplished diplomatist, who had lived for nothing but the State and society, fine talk and fine people, and pictures and china, for years, was completely disturbed and broken up by this invasion of unusual thought, and something which he tried to persuade himself was simply curiosity and not feeling. He had written at once, as I have said, to his confidential solicitor, bidding him to inquire into all the particulars he had learned from Val, and to ascertain the facts in strictest secrecy, without doing anything to awaken the woman’s suspicions, and to keep an eye upon the mother and son, taking care that they did not escape him again, but were always within reach if wanted. When he had done this, he thought that he had done all it was his duty to do. They did not require anything from him—neither help nor supervision. They had sufficed to themselves for so many years, and doubtless could do so still; and all thathewanted (he said to himself) was to know where to lay his hand upon them for Val’s sake—to be able to prove his complete identity at any moment. For this purpose it was enough to know where the mother was, and to take care that she never again stole out of their ken, either by her wandering tastes or by the final way of death. This was all that was necessary in Val’s interest. And yet, after a while, it did not content Richard. He felt an uneasiness take possession of him; not that he wanted anything to say to the woman who had worked him so much harm, or wished to acknowledge and bind to himself the uncultured young tradesman, who was his son alsoas well as Val. No instinct of paternity moved him here. “The other boy” could, he was sure, be nothing but a bore to him—a creature whom he must be ashamed of. A girl might have been different,—might have been capable of training; but a boy who had spent all his youth as, at best, a working man, earning his bread day by day—no, he could not suppose himself to be moved by any inclination towards these unknown persons. He was only anxious to know where they were, to be able to lay his hand upon them when necessary, nothing more. All that he desired was that they should remain unknown in the condition they had chosen, neither troubled by him nor troubling him, only ready to be produced on Val’s behalf, should that be needful. What other feeling could he be expected to entertain.
But, reasonable as all this sounded, some disturbance, for which he could not account, had got into Richard Ross’s soul. He could not tell what he wanted. Movement he supposed, change, even the bore of giving up the life he preferred, and visiting home, and seeing with his own eyes what had happened and what was happening. He would not like it, he knew, when he was there, but still, perhaps, it would do him good to go. His digestion (he thought) must have got out of order—a certain monotony had crept into his life. That which he possessed seemed less desirable than usual; that which was out of his reach more attractive. The telegram about Val gave the last touch to his uneasiness. Yes, he thought it would be better to go. He could bring Val to his senses, no doubt, better than anybody else could, and it would please the old people, and the change would be good for his own health. He made up his mind quite suddenly, and concluded all his arrangements in twenty-four hours, and set out for England. But in order to do what he intended quite effectually he made a curiousdétouron the way. He went to the little village on the coast where his children had been born. I think it was the lovely little town of Santa Margherita, on the eastern Riviera, or some other of the little glimpses of Paradise there. The children had been baptised by the English chaplain from Genoa, and he turned aside to get the register of their baptism with a business-like precaution for which he smiled at himself. He felt that he could do this more quietly, with less likelihood of attracting curiosity, in his own person, than if he had done it by letter. He got the copy and attestation properlydrawn out and in full legal form, and carried them away with him, without even examining the packet, intending to hand it over to his father, whose orderly soul would be satisfied. And thus prepared and ready for any emergency, he went home.
He found only his mother at Rosscraig. The old lord had gone, very unhappy and anxious, to London, hoping for some news of the boy. He had now been nearly a week absent, and nothing had been heard of him; and Lady Eskside met her son with worn looks and a miserable excitement, which already seemed to have worn her strength out more than the pressure of years had done. Even in the act of welcoming her son, her eyes and ears were on the alert, watching doors and windows with feverish eagerness. “I know I am foolish,” she said, with a wan smile; “for, indeed, Val is well enough able to take care of himself, as you say. He is not a rustic—no, nor a simpleton, nor one unused to the world. No, Richard, I know: nothing of all that. Of course, his training has just been of the kind to make him able to take care of himself; and for a young man at his age to be away from home a week is nothing so wonderful. Yes, yes; you are right. I know you are right, and I am foolish, very foolish; but I cannot help it, my dear—it is my nature. You can’t reason anxiety down. Oh, I wish I could help it! I know I am unjust to my poor Val.”
“Well, mother, boys will be boys, and they must have their swing, you know,” said Richard, despising himself for the words without meaning, which were no more satisfactory to himself than to her. “Besides, I suppose he has always been a steady fellow hitherto,” he added, “which should make you less anxious now.”
“Oh, always, always,” she cried, almost with tears; “no one could be more trustworthy. My poor old lord is very unhappy, Richard; he is as foolish as me; because he has always been so good, we think he should continue the same for ever—never step out of the beaten path for a moment, or take his own way;” and she tried to laugh at her own foolishness, but breaking down in that, was so much nearer crying that she walked to the window instead, and looked out with an eager wistfulness that had become habitual to her, looking if possibly some one at that very moment might be arriving with news.
“Does anybody know?” he asked.
“We have taken every precaution,” said Lady Eskside. “We gave it out he had been called away by you on family business. I drove into Edinburgh myself, and went to the telegraph office on foot, Richard, and gave them the family name—no title, as you would see, that the telegraph people might not know—for how could I tell if they might spread it? I don’t think anything is suspected out of doors, but I could not say for the servants. They always find out what is doing. They read it in your face, in the hour you go to bed, in the way you take your dinner. That Margaret Harding knows I am unhappy is plain enough; but I am not sure that she knows what is the cause.”
“Oh, you may take that for granted too,” said Richard; “they find out all one is thinking. Never mind, mother; everything in this world is like the dew. It dries up and disappears, so that you could not tell where it had been. Now tell me what clue you have, and where you think he is likely to have gone.”
“We have no clue at all,” said the old lady. “Had he gone to see any of his friends we should have heard of him ere now; and had he gone abroad, Richard, he would have gone to you. That is one of the hardest things of all—we don’t know where to look for him. Your father is in London, wandering about.”
“Did you ever think of Oxford?” said Richard.
“Oxford?—what would he do in Oxford? He has no friends he is fond of there. His friends were lads of his own standing, who left Oxford when he did. It never occurred to me; but, my dear, if you think it’s a likely place, we’ll send there at once.”
Lady Eskside put out her hand to ring the bell. If Siberia or Egypt had been suggested to her, I think she would have rung the bell all the same, and directed some one at a half-hour’s notice to go.
“What are you going to do, mother? do you mean to send Harding to Oxford to look for Val?”
She smiled a forlorn smile as she saw the foolishness of her instinctive movement; and then Richard explained to her that he would go, having some reasons of his own for thinking it possible that Val might have gone to Oxford, as well as some business to do there in his own person. “But you will let no business detain you if you do not find the boy?” Lady Eskside said, and listened with an impatienceshe could not conceal while Richard explained that business must be done whatever Valentine might do. “Besides, you don’t think that a young man like Valentine—a newly elected member of Parliament, and your grandson—can be lost like a child, mother?” he said, half laughing, though he was not without anxiety too. I am afraid the old lady felt his ease, and gentle way of taking this tremendous calamity, jar upon her; and she was so anxious that he should set out at once to look for her lost child, that Richard was affronted too, and with some reason. He was less annoyed by her evident preference of Val to himself than he had been fifteen years ago; but it still struck him half whimsically, half painfully. He remained all night after his long journey, almost against her will. She could think of nothing but Val; and when he was ready to start next day, all that she said and seemed to think was about her darling. “You will telegraph to me at once, if you hear anything? Oh, my dear, think how hard it is to be left here in the quiet, hearing nothing, not able to do anything, but wait!” she said; and was restless all the morning, and afraid that he would be late for the train. Richard could not help making a few reflections on the subject as he went away. He was not so deeply attached to his son as to tremble for his safety as Lady Eskside did: and he was not so much devoted to his mother as to feel very deeply her abandonment of himself altogether, and substitution of Valentine in his stead. But in his comparative calm he noted and made reflections on the subject more than he could have done had his interest been more deeply engaged. It was a curious psychological inquiry to him;—and at the same time he felt it a little. It gave him an odd prick which he had not expected. “After all,” he said to himself, “the Palazzo Graziani is the place for me.”
He set out for Oxford about noon. His mother could scarcely forgive him that, because of mere unwillingness to be disturbed a little earlier than usual, he had missed the early train. “Oh,” she said to herself, “when would I have been kept from my boy for the sake of an hour’s longer lie in the morning!” She was relieved to get him out of the house at last, bearing a hundred messages for Val if he should be found, and under solemn charges to telegraph at once to her the result of his mission—glad, very glad, to get him out of the house, though he was her only son, whom she had not seen for years. I suppose few things could make a man feelmore small than the fact that his mother was absolutely indifferent to him,—could scarcely even see him, indeed, except by the borrowed light of his son. Richard went away smiling to himself over this curious fact, but slightly wounded at the same time, and set off for Oxford with many thoughts in his heart. He was letting himself drift unconsciously to the place in which that woman was. Should he see her? and if he saw her, should he make himself known to her? or what would happen? He could not tell. There was no love, not even the ashes of a dead one, in his heart. What could that love be which Richard Ross once felt for a tramp-girl, without education of any kind—a fair weed without any soul? It had dried up and left no remnant behind. But he was curious, very curious; what had time done, perhaps, for the creature whomhehad been able to do nothing for? “Looks as if she had been a lady once.” These careless words of Val’s had influenced his father more than anything more serious. He wanted to know how this strange result had come about.
Lady Eskside watched the carriage roll over the Lasswade bridge, on its way to the railway station; and after it had passed, still sat musing at the high window of the turret, from whence she could see it. She saw people, too far off to be distinguishable, passing the bridge from time to time, and watched them with a feverish anxiety till she could see which way they took—the road to Rosscraig, or away on the other side to the village, and to Castleton. She thought no longer of her son, her Richard, who had once been the most important object in the world to her. Her heart went past him, impatiently thinking of another more dear—of her boy who was in danger or trouble somewhere, the child of her heart and her old age. While she still sat thus musing, with a sick heart and longing eyes, at the window, she heard Harding’s slow steps, with his creaking boots, come toiling up-stairs to call her. There had been so many false alarms, that she sat still languidly with her hands crossed in her lap, and her eyes still fixed on the bridge, till he came to the door of the turret-room, and it was only when her ear detected something strange in the sound of his voice that she looked round. Harding certainly did not look himself; he had a startled half-scared expression in his eyes, and his rosy cheeks were paled, as with a tint of blue over the pink. “If you please, my lady,”—he began in a tremulous voice.
“What is it, Harding?” She rose up very alert and ready, trembling too, but not showing it, for she had not taken any one into her confidence, nor permitted it to be seen how anxious she was.
“There is a young—gentleman down-stairs, my lady; wishes to speak to you—if you please.”
“A young gentleman! who, Harding?”
“I don’t know, my lady; leastways, his face it is familiar to me, I won’t deny, but I can’t put a name to it. It’s familiar to me, but I don’t know as I ever saw him before.”
“How can you know him, then?” said my lady, trying to smile; “you have perhaps seen a picture in these days when everybody is photographed. And, Harding, what does he want with me?”
“Very likely your ladyship is right,” said Harding; “everybody has their photograph, it is true. I’d like to know what your ladyship thinks. I’ve put him in the morning-room to wait.”
“If he is a gentleman, you should have taken him to the library or the drawing-room,” said Lady Eskside, going calmly down-stairs. I wonder if it is any news? she said to herself, and did not, I think, give any further attention to old Harding’s apparent curiosity about the visitor. What time had she to think about any stranger, except to consider whether he brought her news or not? and quite likely it was but some tradesman from Edinburgh—some indifferent person. She turned round as she went down-stairs to ask if he had given his name.
“He said his name was Brown; but your ladyship wouldn’t know it, as he was a stranger to your ladyship,” said Harding. This quickened Lady Eskside’s step. It might then be news after all.
The little morning-room was small and bare, a room in which tradespeople and visitors on business were received. Over the mantelpiece there hung a boyish portrait of Val, an indifferent picture, banished here as not worthy a place elsewhere. When Lady Eskside entered the room, her visitor had his back to her, looking at this picture. He did not hear her come in, and she stood a second, silent, waiting till he should observe her; but getting impatient, said hastily, “You wanted to see me?”
“I beg your pardon,” said the young man, turning sharply round. Good God! who was it? The old lady fellback as far as the wall would let her, with a loud cry. She held out her hands, half holding him off, half inviting his approach. “Who are you? who are you?” she cried, her heart leaping to her throat.
“I beg your pardon, ma’am,” said the youth. He did not know whether he ought to have said “my lady,” and hesitated. “I hope I have not frightened you. I came to say that Mr Ross——”
Was it possible that Val, her darling, had gone out of her mind in that moment of wonder? She scarcely heard what he said, though they were words which would have raised her to the height of excitement had any one else said them. She came forward to him with the same wild wonder in her eye, with her hands uplifted. “For God’s sake, boy, who are you? who are you?” she said.
Richard had gone away from her only an hour before, a middle-aged man for whom her feelings were scarcely those of a mother’s impassioned love; yet here Richard stood before her, her true Richard, the boy who had been her adoration and her pride a quarter of a century ago. Her head reeled; the light swam in her eyes; life seemed to turn round with her; and everything became a dream. “For the love of God! who are you?” she cried.
WhenValentine disappeared in the moonlight from the Hewan, his mind was in a state happily very unusual to youth, but to which youth adds all the additional bitterness of which it is capable. He was not only outraged, wounded to the quick, every comfort and consolation taken from him for the moment, but his heart and imagination had no refuge to fall back upon, no safe shelter which he could feel behind him whatever might happen. Everything he was familiar with and every being he loved was involved in the catastrophe that had overwhelmed him. In other circumstances, had anything equally dreadful befallen him at home, he would have had his young love to fall back upon, and his tender, sympathising Violet, whose soft eyeswould have given a certain sweetness even to misery itself; or had Violet failed him, he might have had at least the tender peacefulness of the old home, the old people who adored him, and to whom he was all in all. But in this horrible crisis everything seemed gone from him. The very thought of home made his heart sick; he had been shamed in it, and made a shame to it; and poor Lord Eskside’s kind mistaken assurance, so tenderly and solemnly made, that in his own mind there was not a doubt of Val’s identity, had almost broken the poor young fellow’s heart. Heaven above! what must his condition be, when his grandfather, the old lord himself, whose idol he was, had to say this to him? When the recollection recurred to Val, it was with all the fainting sickness of soul with which a deathblow is received. It was not a deathblow, but in his misery this was how he felt it. And Violet was separated from him, it seemed for ever, by her father’s enmity and unprovoked assault; and if that had not been enough, by his own mad assault upon Sandy, who, he knew well enough, was his friend, and would never have harmed him. This completed, he felt, his isolation and miserable loneliness; he had nowhere to turn to for relief. Once indeed he thought of his father; but had not his father prophesied to him how it would be? and could he go now and tell him all had happened as he prophesied, and yet expect consolation?
Thus poor Val felt the ground cut from under his feet; he had nowhere to turn to, no one to fall back upon. For my part, I think this makes all the difference between the bearable and the unbearable in human trouble. This is what clothes in armour of proof a man who has a wife, a woman who has a child. Something to fall back upon, something to turn to, whatever your ill is, to find support, backing, consolation. Poor boy! he gazed round him with hot eyes, hopeless and unrefreshed, and saw nowhere to go, no one to throw himself on. It was not that he doubted the love of his grandparents, who had never given him a moment’s cause to distrust them; but there it was that his wound had been given him, and he wanted to get away, to get away! to look at it from a distance and see if perhaps it might be bearable—but found nowhere to go to, no one to receive him. And the kind reader must remember what blood Val had in his veins before he condemns him—wild blood, oftentimes almost more than he could struggle againsteven in his calmest moments, and a heart full of chaotic impulses, now fired by misery and left to torment him like a pack of demons. He did not know what to do, nor what he wanted to do; but something must be done, and at once, for to keep still was impossible. Therefore as movement was the best thing for him at all events, he walked to Edinburgh through the moonlight, through the tranquil country roads, on which he met no one, through still villages where all the world was asleep. Now and then a watchful dog, roused by the passing step, barked at him as he went along, which seemed somehow to give him an additional conviction of being a castaway, abandoned by all the world—but that was all. Deep silence surrounded him, a still, soft night, but chill with a cold that went to his heart; and the moon was cold and the world slept, and nobody cared what Valentine might do with himself—Val, who had been so loved, so cared for, and who was so sure three days ago that the whole world took an interest in him, and, in its heart, was on his side!
I do not know precisely why he went to Oxford—probably because he was accustomed to go there, and it gave him less trouble to think of that place than of anywhere else when the moment came to decide where he was going—for I don’t think it was any conscious recurrence of mind to friendly Dick and his mother. He was too unhappy to remember them. Anyhow he went to Oxford—where he arrived half dead with fatigue and misery. He had not eaten, he had not slept, since Lord Eskside gave him that paper in the library, and he had been subject to all the excitement of the election while in this state. He went to bed when he got to the hotel, to the astonishment of the inn people, for he had not even a bag with him, no change of dress, or any comfort—and spent the night in a confused stupor, full of dreams, which was not sleep. Next morning he got up late, went down to the river side, hardly knowing what he was about, and got into a boat mechanically, and went out upon the river. As it happened, of all days in the year this was Easter Monday, a day when many rude holiday parties are about, and when the Thames is generally avoided by well-informed persons. It was crowded with boats and noisy parties, heavy boatloads, with rowers unfit for the responsibility they had undertaken—the kind of people who cause accidents from one year’s end to another. Val didnot think of them, nor, indeed, of anything. I doubt even whether he was capable of thought: his pulse was galloping, his head throbbing, his eyes dull and red, and with an inward look, seeing nothing around.
Unfortunately, as it happened, Dick was not on the wharf at the moment to notice who was going or coming, and was quite unaware of the presence of his young patron. Dick’s mother, however, was standing in her little garden, looking out over the wall. She had no one to look for now, but still her eyes kept their wistful habit, and the even flow of the stream and perpetual movement seemed to soothe her. She was standing in her abstracted way, one arm leaning upon the little gate, gazing without seeing much,—not at the familiar Thames, but into the unknown. She came to herself all at once with a start, which made the gate quiver: came to herself? nay—for herself, poor soul, had not much share in her thoughts then—but came back to consciousness of the one thing which seemed to give life a certain reality for her. All in a moment, as if he had dropped from the skies, she saw Valentine stepping into his boat; how he had come there, where he was going, she could not tell; but there he stood, wavering slightly as he stepped into the light outrigger, swaying it dangerously to one side, in a way very unlike Val. Her heart sprang up in her breast, her whole nature came to life at the sight of him, and at something, she could not tell what, in the look of him—something uncertain, helpless, feeble. Her figure lost its droop, her head its musing attitude. She stood alert, in the intensest eager attention and readiness for everything, watching her boy.
Val paddled out into the stream, poising his long oars, I cannot tell how, in a vague uncertain way, as if he did not well know which end of them was in his grasp. Then he let himself float down past her, feebly steering himself, but doing little more; and then some sudden idea seemed to come to him—or was it rather a cessation of ideas, a trance, a faint? He stopped his boat in the middle of the crowded river, and lay there with long oars poised over the water—wavering, reflected in it like the long dragon-fly wings—his figure bent a little forward, his face, so far as she could see it, blank and without expression. There he came to a dead stop, of all places in the world—in the middle of the stream, in the middle of the crowd—taking no notice of passing boatmenwho shouted to him, “Look ahead!” and had all the trouble in the world to steer their course about him and keep out of his way. A thrill of strong anxiety came into the woman’s mind—anxiety such as had never moved her before. Heretofore she had been passive, doing nothing, taking no active part in any one’s affairs. This stir of life was such that it set her into sudden energetic movement almost unawares. She went outside her gate, and closed it behind her, watching intently, her heart beating high in her breast, and a sense as of some coming emergency upon her. There he sat in his boat, lying still upon the shining water, the long oars with a faint flutter in them as if held in unsteady hands, not straight and motionless as they ought to be—and crowds of unwary boats, ignorantly managed, stumbling about the stream, boats all ripe and ready for an accident, with people in them shouting, singing, jumbled together. There was a small green eyot, a bundle of waving willows, nothing more, just in front of Valentine’s boat, which was a partial shield to him; but what had happened to Val that he lay thus, taking no precaution, with the long oars trembling in his hands?
“Look ahead there! look ahead, sir!” cried the men on the river. Val never moved, never turned to see what it was. What did it matter to him (the watcher thought), a capital swimmer, if anything did happen? How foolish she was to be afraid! Just then a great lumbering boat, with four oars waving out of it in delightful licence and impartiality, like the arms of a cuttlefish, full of holiday folk, came up, visible behind the eyot. There was a jar, a bump, a shout. “It ain’t nothing, he swims like a duck,” cried some voice near her. She could not tell who spoke; but through the dazzle in her eyes she saw that the long oars and the slim boat had disappeared, and that the holiday party—shouting, struggling about the river—were alone visible. Swim? Yes, no doubt he could swim; but the woman was his mother—his mother! She gave a great cry, and rushed with one spring into the punt that lay moored at the steps immediately in front of her door. She was not like one of you delicate ladies, who, all the same, would have done it too, had your boy been drowning. She knew how to do a great many rough, practical things. She pushed the big boat into the stream, and with her big pole, flying like a mad creature, was under the green willows looking for him before any one else could draw breath.
And it was well for Val, poor boy, that though he did not know it, his mother was by, with divination in her eyes. The best swimmer on the Thames could not have contended with the stupor of fever that was on him. When his boat was upset, rousing him out of a bewildering dream, he gave but one gasp, made one mechanical clutch at something, he knew not what, that was near him, and then was conscious of nothing more. His limbs were like steel, his head like lead. There was no power in him to struggle for his life. The boatmen about who knew him did not stir a step, but sat about in their boats, or watched from the rafts, perfectly easy in their minds about the young athlete, to whom a drench in the Thames was nothing. Only the woman, who was his mother, knew that on that particular day Val would sink like a stone. She was at the spot with the punt before any one knew what she was doing, but not before one and another had asked, calling to each other, “Where is he? He is too long under water. He don’t remember it’s March, and cold.” “He’ll get his death of cold,” said one old boatman. “Man alive!” cried out another, jumping over the boats that lay drawn up upon the rafts, “out with a boat!—he’s drowning. Out with your boat!”
What Val had clutched at was the root of one of the willows. He caught it without knowing, clenched it, and when he sank, sank with his drooping head on the damp soil of the eyot—into the water to his lips, but yet supported and moored, as it were, to life and safety by the desperate grasp he had taken of the willow. There the woman found him when she reached the spot. He had fainted with the shock, and lay there totally helpless, the soft wavelets floating over his dark curls, his face half buried in the soft, damp soil, like a dead man, making no effort to save himself.
She gave a cry which echoed over all the river. People a mile off heard it, and shivered and wondered—a cry of longing and despair. But before even that cry had roused the echoes, several boats had shot forth to her aid. The men did not know what had happened, but something had happened; they came crowding about her, while she, half sunk in the soft slime, dragged up in her arms out of the water the unconscious figure. She had his head on her arm, holding him up, half on land half in water, when they got to her. She was paler than he was, lying there upon her, marble white in his swoon. “Is he dead?” they said, coming upto her with involuntary reverence. She looked at them piteously, poor soul, and held the inanimate figure closer, dragging, to get him out of the water. Her pale lips gave forth a low moan. No one asked what right this strange woman had to look so, to utter that hopeless cry. No one even said, “He is nothing to her;” they recognised the anguish which gave her an unspoken, unasked right to him, and to them, and to all they could do. And nothing could be easier than to draw him from the river, to place him in the punt, where she sat down beside him, and with a gesture of command pointed to her house. They took him there without a word. “Carry him in,” she said, and went before to show them the room. “Go for a doctor.” They obeyed her as they would have obeyed Lady Eskside herself. They thought Val was dead, and so did she. She stood and looked at him, when they rushed away to get help for her, in a misery of impotence and longing beyond all words to say. Oh, could she do nothing for him! nothing! She would have given her life for him; but what is a poor mother’s life, or who would accept so easy a ransom? She could only stand and gaze at him in hopeless, helpless, miserable anguish, and wring her hands. She did not know what to do.
Fortunately, however, the doctor came very speedily, and soon engaged all her powers. He turned away the good fellows who had fetched him, and called the servant from the kitchen. “Quick, quick! every moment he remains in this state makes it worse for him,” said the man, who knew what could be done; and, though he was kind and pitiful, had no sword on his breast piercing him through and through. Val came back to life after a while, and to semi-consciousness. She had not expected it. She had obeyed the doctor’s orders in a stupor, docile but hopeless; but what a tumult, what a tempest woke and raged in her as she saw life come back! She kept quiet, poor soul, not daring to say a word; but her joy worked through her veins like strong wine; and she felt as if she could scarcely keep standing, scarcely hold her footing and her composure against the rapture that seemed to lift her up, to make a spirit of her. Saved! saved!—was it possible? She had borne speechless the passion of her anguish, but it was harder to fight with and keep down the tumult of her joy.
“Come here,” said the doctor, speaking in peremptorytones, as it was natural when addressing a person of her class. “I want to speak to you down-stairs. Sit down. Have you any wine in the house? where do you keep it? Be still, and I’ll get it myself. Now take this; what’s the matter with you? Did you never see a man nearly drowned before?”
“No,” she said, faintly, keeping up her struggle with herself. She wanted to cry out, to laugh, to dance, to shout for joy; but before the man who eyed her so strangely, she had to keep still and quiet. She put the wine aside. “I don’t want anything,” she said.
“Your pulse is going like a steam-engine,” said the doctor; “cry, woman, for God’s sake, or let yourself out somehow. What’s the matter with you? Can’t you speak?—then cry!”
She sank down on her knees; her heart was beating so that it seemed, to struggle for an exit from her panting, parched lips. “I think I’m dying—of joy!” she said, almost inaudibly, with a sob and gasp. “Poor creature, that is all you know,” said the doctor, shaking his head; “he is not round the corner yet, by a long way. Look here, do you know anything about nursing, or do you often give way like this? On the whole, I had better have him moved at once, and send for a nurse.”
“A nurse!” she said, stumbling up to her feet.
“Yes, my good woman. You are too excitable, I can see, to look after him. There’s something the matter with him. I can’t tell what it is till I see him again. Who is he? but how should you know? He had better go to the hospital, where he can be well looked to——”
“Sir,” she said, eagerly, “I’m myself now. I am not one to get excited. I thought he was dead; and you brought him back; God bless you! He has been as good as an angel to my boy. I’ll nurse him night and day and never give way. Let him stay here.”
“You are not strong enough; you’ll get ill yourself,” said the doctor. “Then you know who he is? Be sure you write to his friends at once. But he’d much better go to the hospital; you’ll get ill too——”
“No, no,” she said; “no, no. I never was ill. It was I who got him out of the water. I’m strong; look, doctor, what an arm I have. I can lift him if it’s wanted. Let him stay; oh, let him stay!”
“Your arm is all very well, but your pulse is a different thing,” said the doctor. “If you go and fret and excite yourself, I’ll have him off in an hour. Well, then, you can try. Come and let us see how he is getting on now.”
“They are as like as two peas,” he said to himself, as he went away. “He’s somebody’s illegitimate son, and this is his aunt, or his sister, or something, and he don’t know. God bless us, what a world it is! but I’d like to know which he’s going to have, that I may settle what to do.”