“You are convinced of that?”
“Quite convinced,” said Val, with magnificent calm. Indeed I rather think the boy was of opinion that this was the case in the world generally, and that however outward circumstances might compel an individual here and there to appear to oppose him, by way of keeping up his party or otherwise, yet in their hearts the whole human race wished him well.
Itwas on a bright spring morning that the nomination of a knight of the shire to represent Eskshire in Parliament took place in Castleton, the quiet little country town which was not far from the Duke’s chief seat, and tolerably central for all the county. The party from Eskside drove over in state, my lord and my lady, with Miss Percival and Val, in the barouche, and with four horses in honour of so great an occasion. They were all in high spirits, with hopes as bright as the morning, though I think Valentine thought more than once how pleasant it would have been to have had little Vi sitting bodkin on the front seat of the carriage between himself and his grandfather. There would have been plenty of room for her, though I don’t know that this would have been considered quite a dignified proceeding by my lady. The little town was all astir, and various cheers were raised as Lord Eskside and Val went into the committee room; and my lady and Mary went on to the hotel which was in their interest,—a heavy, serious, old, grey stone house in the market-place close to the hustings, from one of the windows of which they were to witness the nomination. On the opposite side stood the other hotel where Mr Seisin’s supporters congregated. When Lady Eskside took her place at the window specially reserved for her, there was a flutter of movement among the crowd already assembled, and many people turned to look at her with interest scarcely less than that with which they welcomed the candidate and his supporters. Lady Eskside was a great deal older than when we saw her first; indeed, quite an old lady, over seventy, as was her husband. But she had retained all her activity, her lightness of figure and movement, and the light in her eyes, which shone almost as brightly as ever. The beauty of age is as distinct as, and not less attractive in its way than, the beauty of youth; the one extremity of life having, like the other, many charms which fail to us commonplace persons in the dull middle-ages, the period of prose which intervenes in every existence. Lady Eskside was a beautiful old woman; her eyes were bright, her colour almost as sweet and fresh, though a little broken and run into threads, as when she was twenty; her hair was snowwhite, which is no disadvantage, but the reverse, to a well-tinted face. She had a soft dove-coloured bonnet of drawn or quilted satin coming a little forward round her face, not perched on the top of the head as ladies now wear that necessary article of dress; and a blue ribbon, of Val’s colours, round her throat,—though I think, as a matter of choice, she would have preferred red, as “more becoming” to her snowy old beauty. Mary, you may be sure, was in Val’s colours too, and was the thorough partisan of the young candidate, however little she had been the partisan of the boy himself in his natural and unofficial character. There was a bright fire blazing in the room behind them to which they could retire when they pleased; and the window was thrown wide open, so that they might both see and hear.
The hotel opposite—not by any mean such a good one as the Duke’s Head—was of course in the opposition interest, and blazed with yellow flags and streamers. At the window there, just before the commencement of proceedings, several ladies appeared. They did not come in state like Lady Eskside, for Mr Seisin had no womankind belonging to him; and these feminine spectators were wives and daughters of his supporters, and not so enthusiastic in his cause as they were about their own special relations who intended to perform on the occasion. Among them, in a prominent position, but keeping back as much as possible, Mrs Pringle and Violet were soon descried by the ladies opposite. Neither of them wore anything yellow, as Lady Eskside, with sharp old eyes, undimmed by age, discovered in a moment. “They are both fair, and yellow is unbecoming to fair people,” she said, with involuntary cynicism. I do not much wonder that she was severe upon them; for indeed had they not pretended all manner of kindness and friendship for her boy? “It is not their fault,” said Mary, apologetically. “I wonder what you mean by telling me it is not their fault!” cried Lady Eskside. “Is a man’s wife just his housekeeper, that she should have no power over him? They should not have let Sandy Pringle make a fool of himself. They should not have given their consent, and stuck themselves up there in opposition to the family. I have no patience with such women.” It was not wonderful that my lady should disapprove; and I don’t think that two greater culprits in feeling than Mrs Pringle and herdaughter were to be found in all Eskside. They had the satisfaction of knowing that the husband and father who had driven them to make this appearance was not unaware of the sentiments with which they regarded it; but that, I think, was all the comfort these poor ladies had.
Then there came a stir in the crowd, and a thickening and increase of its numbers, as if more had been poured into a vessel nearly full; and the candidates and their supporters came up to the hustings. How Lady Eskside’s heart swelled and fluttered as her handsome boy, a head taller than his old grandfather, appeared on that elevation over the crowd, detached from the rest, not only by his position as the hero of the day, but by his fresh youth, and those advantages of nature which had been so lavishly bestowed upon him! Lady Eskside looked at him with pride and happiness indescribable, and kissed her hand to him as he turned to salute her at her window; but I will not venture to describe the feelings of the other ladies, when Val, with, they thought, a reproachful look on his handsome face, took off his hat to them at their opposite window. Mrs Pringle blushed crimson, and pushed back her chair; and Violet, who was very pale, bent her poor little head upon her mother’s shoulder and cried. “Oh, how cruel of papa to set us up here!” sobbed Vi. Mrs Pringle was obliged to keep up appearances, and checked her child’s emotion summarily; but she made up her mind that the cause of this distress and humiliation should suffer for it, though she would not fly in his face by refusing absolutely to appear. These agitated persons did not find themselves able to follow the thread of the proceedings as Lady Eskside did, who did not lose a word that was said, from the speech of Sir John who proposed Val, down to the young candidate’s own boyish but animated address, which, and his good looks, and the prestige and air of triumph surrounding him, completely carried away the crowd. Sir John’s little address was short, but very much to the purpose. It gave a succinct account of Val. “Born among us, brought up among us—the representative of one of the most ancient and honourable families in the county; a young man who has distinguished himself at the university, and in every phase of life through which he has yet passed,” said Sir John, with genial kindness. Mr Lynton, who seconded Val’s nomination, was more political and more prosy. He went into the policy of his party, and all it meant to do, andthe measures of which he was sure his young friend would be a stanch supporter, as his distinguished family had always been. Mr Lynton was cheered, but he was also interrupted and assailed by questions from Radical members of the crowd, and had a harder time of it than Sir John, who spoke largely, without touching abstract principles or entering into details. Mr Lynton was a little hustled, so to speak, and put through a catechism, but on the whole was not badly received.
Val’s, however, was the speech of the day. He rushed into it like a young knight-errant, defying and conciliating the crowd in the same breath, with his handsome head thrown back and his young face bright and smiling. “He has no end of way on him,” Lord Hightowers said, who stood by, an interested spectator—or rather, metaphorically, ran along the bank, as he had done many a day while Val rowed triumphant races, shouting and encouraging. Val undertook everything, promised everything, with the confidence of his age. He gave a superb assurance to the Radicals in the crowd that it should be the aim of his life to see that the intelligence of the working classes, which had done so much for Great Britain, should have full justice done to it; and to the tenant-farmer on the other side, that the claims of the land, and those who produced the bread of the country, should rank highly in his mind as they ought always to do. The young man believed that everything could be done that everybody wanted; that all classes and all the world could be made happy;—what so easy? And he said so with the sublime confidence of his age, promising all that was asked of him. When Mr Seisin’s supporters and himself came after this youthful hero, it is inconceivable what a downfall everybody felt. I am bound to add that Mr Seisin’s speech read better than Val’s in the paper, and so did that of his own proposer. But that mattered very little at the moment. Val carried the crowd with him, even those of them who were a little unwilling, and tried to resist the tide. The show of hands was triumphantly in his favour. He was infinitely more Liberal than Mr Seisin, and far more Tory than Sir John. He thought every wrong could be redressed, and that every right must conquer: there was no compromise, no moderation, in his triumphant address.
Lady Eskside and Mary made a progress down the High Street when the gentlemen went to the committee rooms,and saw the Duchess and the Dowager-Duchess, who were both most complimentary. These great ladies had heard Val’s speech, or rather had seen it, being too far off to hear very much, from their carriage, where they sat on the outskirts of the crowd. “What fire, what vigour he has!” said the Dowager. “I congratulate you, dear Lady Eskside; though how you could ever think that boy like his father——”
“He is not much like your family at all, is he?” said the Duchess-regnant, with a languid smile. This was the only sting Lady Eskside received during all that glorious day. The old lord and the young candidate joined them ere long, and their drive back was still more delightful to the old couple than the coming. Lord Eskside, however, growled and laughed and shook his head over Val’s speech. “You’re very vague in your principles,” he said. “Luckily you have men at your back that know what they are doing. You must not commit yourself like that, my man, wherever you go, or you’ll soon get into a muddle.”
“Never mind!” said my lady; “he carried everybody with him; and, once in the House, I have no fear of his principles; he’ll be kept all right.”
“Luckily for him, the county knows me, and knows he’s all right; though he’s a young gowk,” said the old lord, looking from under his bended eyebrows at his hope and pride. They were more pleased, I think, than if Val had made the most correct of speeches. His exuberance and overflow of generous youthful readiness for everything made the old people laugh, and made them weep. They knew, at the other end of life, how these enthusiasms settle down; but it was delicious to see them spring a perennial fountain, to refresh the fields and brighten the landscape, which of itself is arid enough. They looked at each other, and remembered, fifty years back, how this same world had looked to them—a dreary old world, battered and worn, and going on evermore in a dull repetition of itself, they knew; but as they had seen it once, in all the glamour which they recollected, so it appeared now to Val.
Val himself was so much excited by all that had happened, that he strolled out alone as soon as he had got free, for the refreshment of a long walk. It was the end of March: the trees were greening over; the river, softening in sound, had begun to think of the summer as his banks changed colour;and the first gowans put out their timid hopeful heads among the grass. Val went on instinctively to the linn, with a minute wound in his heart, through all its exhilarations. He thought it very hard that Vi should not have been near him, that she should not have tied up her pretty hair with his blue ribbon, that she should have been ranged on the other side. It was the only unpleasant incident in the whole day, the only drop in his cup that was not sweet. He explained to himself how it was, and felt that the reason of it was quite comprehensible; but this gives so little satisfaction to the mind. “Of course he must stick to his party,” Val murmured to himself between his teeth; and of course Mrs Pringle and Violet could not go against the head of the family in the sight of the world at least. When Val saw, however, a gleam of his own colour between the two great beech-trees he knew so well, he rushed forward, his heart beating lighter. He felt sure that it was Violet’s blue gown, which she must have put on, on her return, by way of indemnifying herself for wearing no blue in the morning. He quickened his step almost to a run, going softly over the mossy grass, so that she did not hear him. The sunset was glowing in the west, lighting up the woods with long slanting gleams, and clouds of gorgeous colour, which floated now and then over the trees like chance emissaries from some army where the cohorts were of purple and gold. Vi sat with her face to that glow in the west, under the old beech-tree where the Babes in the Wood had been discovered; but her face was hidden, and she was weeping quite softly, confident in the loneliness of the woods, through which now and then a long sobbing sigh like a child’s would break. The pretty little figure thus abandoned to sorrow, the hidden face, the soft curved shoulders, the golden hair catching a gleam of the sunset through the branches, and still more, the pathetic echo of the sob, went to Val’s heart. He went up close to her, and touched her shoulder with a light caressing touch. “Vi! what’s the matter?” said the boy, half ready to cry too out of tender sympathy, though he was nearly twenty-two, and just about to be elected knight of the shire.
“Oh Val, is it you?” She sprang up, and looked at him with the tears on her cheeks. “Oh, don’t speak to me!” cried Violet. “Oh, how can you ask me what is the matter, after what has happened to-day?”
“Is that what you are crying for?” said Val. “Never mind, Vi, dear. I know you have got to stick to your father, and he must stick to his party. It was hard to see you over there on the other side; but if you feel it like this, I don’t mind.”
“How did you think I should feel it?” cried the girl. “Oh no, you don’t mind! you have plenty, plenty better than me to be with you, and stand up for you; but I—I do mind. It goes to my heart.”
And here she sat down again, and covered her face once more. Val knelt beside her, and drew away her hands.
“Here was where we sat when we were children,” he said softly, to comfort her. “We have always cared more for each other than for any one else; haven’t we, Vi? How could I have plenty, plenty to stand by me? wasn’t it unkind to say so—when you know you are the one I care for most?”
Violet did not lift up her head, but she cried more softly, letting the voice of the charmer steal into her heart.
“I was savage when I saw you over there,” said Val, with his lips very close to her ear. “But you did not put on their ugly colours at least; and now you are all dressed out in mine, and I don’t care,” said the youth; and he stooped and kissed her blue gown prettily, as a young knight-errant might.
“Oh Val!” cried Violet, with a fresh outburst, but turning towards him; “I thought you would be angry.”
“How could I be angry with you, Vi? Should you have been angry if it had been me?”
“Yes,” she said quickly; “if I had thought you didn’t care.” And here she stopped and grew crimson, and turned away her head.
“But you could not suppose that I didn’t care,” said Val; “that would have been impossible. If you only knew how often I have thought of you while I have been away! It was cruel of you not to let me see you before I went; but when I was gone, I am sure there never was a day, seldom an hour, that I did not think of you, Vi.”
She turned round her head to look at him for a moment: there were tears still in her eyes, but very soft ones, a kind of honey-dew. “Did you, Val?” she said, half under her breath.
“Always,” said the lad. “I wanted you to see everything I saw. I thought how sweet it would be if we could go everywhere together, as we did when we were children—but not just like that either. You know, don’t you, how fond I am of you, Vi?”
“Oh Val!” She was almost as near him as when she fell asleep on his shoulder. “But you must not speak to me so now,” she cried suddenly, making an effort to break the innocent spell which seemed to draw them closer and closer; “it makes me wretched. Oh Val, it is not only that we were on the other side this morning. My heart is breaking. I am sure papa means to do something against you, and I cannot stop him. I think my heart will break.”
“What can he do against me?” said Val, in his light-hearted confidence; “and he would not if he could. Don’t think of such nonsense, Vi, but listen to me. We are not children now, but I am fonder of you than of anybody in the world. Why shouldn’t we go everywhere together, be always together. If I might go to your father now and say you belonged to me, he could not carry you off to the other side—could he? Vi,” said the lad, a little chilled and anxious, “don’t turn your head away, dear. Won’t you have me, Vi?”
“Oh Val, wait a little—I daren’t listen to you now. I should be afraid to say a word.”
“Afraid, Vi, to say anything to me—except that you don’t care for me!” said Valentine, holding her fast. “Look me in the face, and you could never have the heart to say that.”
Violet did not say anything good or bad, but she turned softly to him: her face met his eyes as a child turns to a mother or a flower to the sun, and they kissed each other tenderly under the great beech boughs where they had sat leaning against each other, two forlorn babies, ten long years before. The scene now was the completion of the scene then. What explanations were wanted between the children? they had loved each other all along; no one else had so much as come within the threshold of either heart. They clung together, feeling it so natural, murmuring in each other’s ears with their heads so close; the sunset glowing, then fading about them, till the green glade under the beeches was left in a silvery grey calm of evening, instead of that golden glow. The Babes in the Wood had forgotten themselves. Violet at last discovered with a start,how changed the light was and how embrowned the evening. She started from her young lover’s arm.
“Oh, how late it is!” she cried. “Oh, what will they think at home? I must go. I must go at once, or they will think I am lost.”
“We have been lost before now,” said Val, taking it much more easily. “But itislate, and there’s a dinner and fine people at Rosscraig. Oh Vi, what a bore, what a bore! Can’t you come with me?—not this night when so much has happened, not this one night?”
“Indeed you are very bold to speak of such a thing,” said Vi, with dignity; “and you must not come with me either,” she said, mournfully. “Oh Val, I am afraid we have gone and made things worse. I told you not to speak.”
“Very likely that I should not speak!” said Val. “But, Vi, look here; now that it is settled, you may come with grandmamma on Thursday, mayn’t you? I cannot have you on the other side now.”
“But Iamon the other side,” said Vi, with some loftiness. “I am a Liberal myself. I should never have opposed you, Val, or worn anybody else’s colours, even if I had not—cared for you; but I am a Liberal as well as papa.”
“You must be a Tory when you belong to me,” said Val.
“Never!” cried Violet; and she shook his arm away and stood independent, with eyes glowing and cheek flushing. Valentine was half angry, half amused, with a man’s instinctive sense of the futility of such protestations. How delightful it was! almost a first quarrel, though their engagement was not an hour old!
“Well, then, you shall be a little Radical if you like—so long as you come,” he said. “I give in; but you must come with us for the election. I have set my heart on that; otherwise I shall stand up on the hustings,” cried Val, “and say, That young lady is going to be my wife, and this is how she treats me. I swear, if you are not with grandmamma, I will——”
“How foolish you boys are!” said Vi; and she took his arm, as if, they both thought, they had been old engaged people, or married people (it did not much matter which). And in this way they made their charmed progress through the wood, forgetting the passage of time till they came to thebrae at the Hewan, where Violet, with some terror, dismissed her lover. “You shall not come any farther,” she said; “you shall not. I don’t mean you to see papa to-night. Oh Val, Val! what shall I do if he means to do you any harm?”
“Tell him he will be harming you,” said Val; but how lightly he took her terror! what could Mr Pringle or any man do to him? He was at the high topgallant of success and happiness, almost intoxicated with all the good things that had come to him, and with the young innocent love which rose warm as a summer stream and as soft, fed by all the springs of his heart, growing with all the growth of his life. It was very hard to leave her there, and make his way to his dinner and his politics; but still it had to be done, though Violet stamped her little foot in impatience before he would go. When they parted at last, Val sped along the twilight woods like an arrow, with nothing but triumph and delight in him. He had plucked the last flower of happiness, to wear in his bosom for ever; there seemed to be nothing wanted to the perfection of the moment, and of his life.
As for Violet, she was far from being so happy. She went up the brae more leisurely, in no hurry to go in. Poor child! all her anxieties came back to her with double force. How was she to tell this, how to keep it secret? the one was almost as hard as the other. And then the great chimera in her mind, which she tried to say to herself was nothing, nothing! that dread which she could not explain or define—the consciousness that her father was going to do something against Val. What could she do to hinder him? She shrank from encountering his sharp looks, from telling him her story,—and yet was it not her duty to make one final effort? She went round the new buildings to the little old front of the cottage, which still commanded that view over the Esk which Violet loved so well. Her father was walking about alone smoking his cigar. No one else was visible. The peace of evening had fallen upon the house; but it was cold after the sunset, and Mrs Pringle had not come out to cheer her husband while he smoked his cigar; indeed, to tell the truth, he was not sufficiently in his wife’s good graces to have this indulgence. If Vi, his favourite child, could do anything, now was the moment. Her heart began to beat violently as she stood and looked at him,hesitating, drawn forward by one impulse and back by another. A mere chance movement settled the question. He held out his hand to her as she stood looking at him. “Come, Vi, give me your company,” he said; “your mother thinks it too cold to come out. Where have you been, child, so late?”
“I have been down at the linn,” said Violet; “it is always so pretty there.”
“But you need not have forgotten your dinner, my dear; your mother does not like it; and I thought you were tired after your drive to Castleton,” said Mr Pringle, in slightly reproachful tones.
“I am not tired, papa; I was a little—troubled in my mind. Papa, must we go on the election day, and put ourselves up again, against Val? Oh papa, why? might we not stay at home at least? That is what I was thinking of. Valentine never did any harm to us, papa.”
“Has not he?” said Mr Pringle, fiercely. “You are a goose, Vi, and know nothing about it; you had better not speak of what you don’t understand.”
“Why shouldn’t I understand?” said Violet, roused. “I am just as able to understand as anyone. The only harm Val has done is by being born, and how could he help that? But papa, dear,” said the girl, twining her arm suddenly within his, and leaning on him closely—“that was not what I was thinking of. Down at the linn, where we used to be so much together, how could I help thinking? Val was always so——” Vi paused, with injudicious words on her lips which she stopped just in time—“nice to me,” she added, with a quick breath of fright at her own temerity. “Even the boys were never so good to me; they never took me out into the woods to play truant. Oh papa, if you could only know how delightful it was!”
“He might have broken your neck,” said the obdurate father. “I owe him something for the fright he gave us that day.”
“What fright did he give you? Mamma has told me since she was not a bit frightened. It was the very sweetest—no, almost the very sweetest,” said Violet, a little thrill of tremulous happiness going through her heart, which told of a sweeter still—“day of my life. He took as much care of me as if I had been—his sister; more than the boysever take. Oh papa! and to sit up yonder against him, as if we were not friends with Val. He is the only one who does not blame you a bit,” said Violet, unused to secrets, and betraying herself once more.
“He! you have seen him, then? It is very kind of him certainly not to blame me,” said Mr Pringle, with a smile.
“He says, of course you must stick to your party,” said Violet. “I just met him—for a moment—in the wood. He was not angry, though I should have been angry in his place. He said it was very hard to see mamma and me over there, but that of course we could not help it; and that he was sure you would not really harm him even if you could.”
Mr Pringle was not a bad man, and his whole being was quaking at that moment with something he had done. Like many another amiable person, led astray by a fixed idea, he had brooded over his injury till it filled all earth and heaven, and made every kind of revenge seem lawful and natural, until, as the climax of a world of brooding, he had launched the deadly shaft he had been pointing and preparing so long. Now it was done, and a cold chill of doubt lest it were ill done had seized upon him. He had called Violet to him on purpose to escape from this, and lo! Violet seized upon him too, like an angel of penitence. He paused a moment, casting a perturbed glance towards Lasswade, whence probably by this time his shaft had been launched—poor little innocent village, under its trees! Had there been time to draw back I almost think he would have done it; but as there was not time, Mr Pringle took the only alternative. He shook off his daughter’s arm, and told her to go in to her mother, and concern herself with things she understood; and that when he wanted her advice and her friend Val’s, he would ask for it, not sooner. “A couple of babies!” he said contemptuously, not perceiving, in his remorse, and resentment, and sore impatience, that even now he had linked the name of his young enemy, upon whom he had revenged himself, with that of his favourite child.
Soearly as next morning the messenger of vengeance had gone like a fiery cross all over Eskside—up the water and down the water, placarded in the hamlets, sent flying by the post over all the county. It came by the morning’s post to Rosscraig itself. The man who went for the letters got a copy from somebody, which was given with much solemnity and secrecy to Harding the butler for his private information. The upper servants laid their heads together over it in the housekeeper’s room with fright, and yet with that almost agreeable excitement which moves a little community when any great event happens to the heads of it. Excitement is sweet, howsoever it comes; and the grim pleasure which servants often seem to enjoy even in “a death in the family,” is curious to behold. This was much more piquant than a death, and nobody could tell to what it might lead; and then there was the thrilling suspense as to who should venture to tell it to my lord and my lady, and how they would take it when they found it out.
As was to be expected, it was through Harding’s elaborate care to keep it from his master that it was found out. Lord Eskside was in his library before breakfast, very busy with his lists of voters, and the calculations of each district and polling-place, all of which agreed so delightfully in the certain majority which must carry Val triumphantly to his place in Parliament—a triumph which, all the more perfect that it was late, filled the old lord’s heart. His wrinkled forehead was smoothed out as if he had swallowed an elixir of life; his shaggy eyebrows, almost white now, were still, or nearly so; his under lip had subsided peacefully. How many disappointments had passed over that rugged old head! His son Richard had been nothing but one disappointment from beginning to end, sometimes giving acute pain—always a dormant dissatisfaction to his parents. For years and years he had been lost to them altogether: he had sinned like a prodigal, bringing in a wild and miserable romance into the family records, without making up for his sin by the prodigal’s compensating qualities,—the readiness to confess, the humility of asking pardon. Richard had done badly by his family, yet was as proud, andtook up as superior a position, as if he had done well. He had not only disappointed but scorned his father’s hopes. Neither father nor mother had any comfort in him, any good of him, any more than if they had no son.
But there was recompense for all their suffering in Val; he was altogether their own, their creation: and the pleasure with which the old lord found all his hopes realising themselves in this boy, who was still young enough to be under his own influence, to take his opinions as a kind ofcredoand symbol of faith, to carry out his wishes, and take up the inheritance of the Rosses, as he had perfected and filled it up during his long life—was, I think, far greater, more perfect and delightful, than the success of any middle-aged man like Richard, who, as old Jean Moffatt said, was quite as old if not older than himself, could have given him. There were a hundred things in Richard’s character that jarred upon his father, which his good sense made him accept and submit to, knowing how hopeless it would be to attempt to shape a man of the world, who half despised even while he respected his rustic father, into anything like his own image. But there was nothing yet which was grieving or contradictory in Val. The boy was passionate, but then every boy had some defect; and a little wayward and wilful if roused, but always submissive as a child to the arguments of affection, and candid to understand when he was wrong. Lord Eskside saw with fond eyes of affection, and heard from every one—scholastic Grinders, and persons in society, and men of the world—that no more promising lad could be than this hero of his, who had accepted all his schemes and fallen in with all his views. To attain this rare pleasure in your old age is not a common blessing, and it was all the more exquisite because he knew how rare it was.
In this state of mind he rose from his library table and his lists of voters, and stalked out with his hands clasped under his coat tails, to look at the great registering thermometer which hung outside on the shady corner at the west wing. When he came into the hall, Lord Eskside saw Harding in the distance, poring over a paper which he held in his hand,—a large white broadsheet, very much like Val’s address, of which there were some copies about the house. Harding’s obtusity was a joke with the old lord. “Has he not got the sense of it into his old noddle yet?” hesaid to himself, half laughing, and watched with quiet amusement the butler’s absorption. Lord Eskside’s patience, however, was none of the longest, and he called Harding before many seconds had passed. The man was too much occupied to hear him, and did not stir. Then the old lord, half irritated, half laughing, called again. “If that’s Mr Ross’s address you are reading, bring it here, you haverel, and I’ll explain it to you,” he said. Harding turned round with a scared look, and, crushing up the paper in his hand, he thrust it into his pocket with hurried and almost ostentatious panic.
“It’s not Mr Ross’s address, my lord,” he said.
“Hey! what is it then?—let me see. Lord bless us, man!” said his irascible master, “why do you put on that look? What is it? Let me see!”
“I assure you, my lord, it’s nothing—nothing of the least consequence,” said Harding. “Your lordship would not look twice at it; it’s nothing, my lord.” And he put his hand upon his pocket, as if to defend that receptacle of treason, and stood with the air of the hero in the poem—
“Come one, come all, this rock shall flyFrom its firm base as soon as I.”
“Come one, come all, this rock shall flyFrom its firm base as soon as I.”
“Come one, come all, this rock shall flyFrom its firm base as soon as I.”
Harding, for the first time in his life, was melodramatic in his determination to give his blood sooner than the objectionable paper. While the old lord stood looking at him half alarmed, and becoming more and more impatient, Mrs Harding strayed from her room, which was within reach of the voices, as it was her habit to do when her husband was audible in too prolonged colloquy with my lord.
“Marg’ret,” said Lord Eskside, “what has that haverel of a man of yours got in his pocket? I never can get a word of sense out of him, as you well know.”
“Hoots, my lord, it’s some of his nonsense papers. What have you in your pocket, man? Cannot you give my lord a sensible answer? It’s some of the squibs or things about yon auld Seisin, the lawyer body that’s set up against us,—a bonnie like thing in our county, that has never had a Whig member as lang as I can mind.”
“That’s true,” said Lord Eskside, mollified; “it’s scarcely worth the trouble to publish any squibs. Let’s see it, Harding,—and don’t look so like a gowk, if you can help it. What is the matter with the man?”
“Give it him without more ado,” whispered Mrs Harding peremptorily to her spouse. “He maun see it sooner or later, and he’ll think we’ve something to do wi’ it if you keep it back. Here’s the paper, my lord. Na, it’s no a squib on auld Seisin. I’m thinking it’s something on the other side.”
“What do you mean by the other side?” said Lord Eskside, his eyebrows beginning to work as he snatched it out of her hand.
“Nae doubt they have their squibs too,” said Mrs Harding, making her escape with as unconcerned a face as possible. Her husband, on the contrary, stood gaping and pale with horror, not knowing what thunderbolt might burst upon him now.
The old lord smoothed the crumpled paper, and held it out before him at a distance to read it without his spectacles. He stood so for a moment, and then he went back into the library, and shut the door. About half an hour after he rang the bell, and asked that my lady should be called. “Ask Lady Eskside to be so good as to come to me here,” he said, in strange subdued tones, without looking up. This was a very unusual summons. In all the common affairs of life he went to her, and it was only when something more grave than usual happened in the house that Lord Eskside sent for his wife. He did not rise when she came in, which she did at once, her old face flushed with alarm. All the ruddy rustic colour had gone out of my lord’s face; his very hand was pallid which held the paper. He drew a chair close to him with his other hand, and called to her impatiently, “Come here, Catherine, come here!”
“What has happened?” Her eye ran over the papers on the table, looking for the yellow cover of a telegram—thinking of her absent son, as mothers do. If it was nothing about Richard, it could not be anything very terrible. Having satisfied herself on this point, she sat down by him, and put her hand upon his arm. “My dear, you are not well?”
“Never mind me,” he said; “I am well enough. Read that.”
Lady Eskside looked at it, wondering, then looked up at him, gave a low cry, and drew it towards her. This was what she read:—
“To the free and independent Electors of Eskshire.“Gentlemen,—You were called upon to listen to, applaud, and accept certain statements yesterday, coming from no less a person than Sir John Gifford, and other great personages of the county, which it may perhaps be well to examine dispassionately before acting on them so far as to send to Parliament as your representative a young man possessing no real right to such an honour.“I mean to say nothing against the gentleman calling himself, and called by others, Mr Valentine Ross. He is young and absolutely untried; therefore, though it cannot be said that he has done anything to justify his claims on your support, it is equally true that he has done nothing to invalidate them, so far as he possesses any. This, however, is the fundamental question which I wish to assist you to examine. What are his claims upon you? They are those of Lord Eskside’s grandson, heir of one of the most considerable families in the county—a family well known and respected by all of us, and about whose principles there can be no doubt, any more than of their high honour and estimation in the district. These are the pretensions of the party who support Mr Ross as a candidate for your suffrages. Sir John Gifford—and no one can respect Sir John more than I do, or would give more weight to his opinion—introduced his name to you with high eulogies, as ‘one born among us, brought up among us, the heir of one of the most ancient and honourable families in the county.’ Now the question I have to lay before you is straightforward and simple—‘Is this true?’ Sir John’s first statement is of course to be taken as a figure of speech, and I will not be so ungracious as to press it, for we all know that the young gentleman in question was not born among us. He made his first appearance at Eskside, as most of you are aware, when a child of about seven years old. How did he make his first appearance? Was he brought home carefully, out of one comfortable nursery into another, under the charge of suitable nurses and attendants, as our own children are, and as it is natural to suppose the son of the Honourable Richard Ross—a man holding an important appointment in Her Majesty’s diplomatic service, and the heir of an old title and very considerable estate—would be? I answer, unhesitatingly, No. Thechild, in the dress and with the appearance of a tramp-child, was brought to Lord Eskside’s door by a female tramp—a wandering vagrant—who lodged that night in a low tavern in the neighbourhood. He was thrust in at the door, and left there without a word; and equally without a word he was received. The persons who were present know that no message nor letter nor token of any kind was sent with the child. He was left like a parcel at Lord Eskside’s door. Lord Eskside immediately after announced to the world that his grandson had been sent to him, to be brought up at home. And the child thus strangely introduced, without mother, without pedigree, without resemblance, without a single evidence of his identity, is the young gentleman who is known to us by the name of Mr Valentine Ross, and who now asks our suffrages on his family’s merits rather than his own.“Gentlemen, I am not one to disregard any claim which a man, who has in any way served his country, makes upon his own merits. To such a man I reckon it an impertinence to ask any question as to his pedigree. But when a young man says to me, Elect me, because I am my father’s son, I ask, Is it certain that he is the son of the man he claims as father? All that we know of his history is against it. His reputed father has studiously kept out of the way. Why, if he is Richard Ross’s son, whom we all know, is not Richard Ross here to acknowledge him? Instead of Richard Ross, we have nothing but a fond old man who has adopted an ingratiating boy. Lord Eskside has a right to adopt whom he pleases; but he has no right to set up some base-born pretender—some chance child thrown on his bounty—as the heir of his honours and the representative of his family. Will you send to Parliament, as a Ross of Eskside, an old man’s pet and pensioner, a supposititious heir? or will you not rather demand a searching inquiry into a history so mysterious, before you strengthen, by your election of him, the pretended rights of an impostor? He may be an innocent impostor, for I say nothing against the young man in his own person; but until his claims have been investigated, and some reasonable evidence afforded, an impostor he must be considered by all Eskside men whose ambition it is to have everything about them honest and above-board.“An Eskside Elector.”
“To the free and independent Electors of Eskshire.
“Gentlemen,—You were called upon to listen to, applaud, and accept certain statements yesterday, coming from no less a person than Sir John Gifford, and other great personages of the county, which it may perhaps be well to examine dispassionately before acting on them so far as to send to Parliament as your representative a young man possessing no real right to such an honour.
“I mean to say nothing against the gentleman calling himself, and called by others, Mr Valentine Ross. He is young and absolutely untried; therefore, though it cannot be said that he has done anything to justify his claims on your support, it is equally true that he has done nothing to invalidate them, so far as he possesses any. This, however, is the fundamental question which I wish to assist you to examine. What are his claims upon you? They are those of Lord Eskside’s grandson, heir of one of the most considerable families in the county—a family well known and respected by all of us, and about whose principles there can be no doubt, any more than of their high honour and estimation in the district. These are the pretensions of the party who support Mr Ross as a candidate for your suffrages. Sir John Gifford—and no one can respect Sir John more than I do, or would give more weight to his opinion—introduced his name to you with high eulogies, as ‘one born among us, brought up among us, the heir of one of the most ancient and honourable families in the county.’ Now the question I have to lay before you is straightforward and simple—‘Is this true?’ Sir John’s first statement is of course to be taken as a figure of speech, and I will not be so ungracious as to press it, for we all know that the young gentleman in question was not born among us. He made his first appearance at Eskside, as most of you are aware, when a child of about seven years old. How did he make his first appearance? Was he brought home carefully, out of one comfortable nursery into another, under the charge of suitable nurses and attendants, as our own children are, and as it is natural to suppose the son of the Honourable Richard Ross—a man holding an important appointment in Her Majesty’s diplomatic service, and the heir of an old title and very considerable estate—would be? I answer, unhesitatingly, No. Thechild, in the dress and with the appearance of a tramp-child, was brought to Lord Eskside’s door by a female tramp—a wandering vagrant—who lodged that night in a low tavern in the neighbourhood. He was thrust in at the door, and left there without a word; and equally without a word he was received. The persons who were present know that no message nor letter nor token of any kind was sent with the child. He was left like a parcel at Lord Eskside’s door. Lord Eskside immediately after announced to the world that his grandson had been sent to him, to be brought up at home. And the child thus strangely introduced, without mother, without pedigree, without resemblance, without a single evidence of his identity, is the young gentleman who is known to us by the name of Mr Valentine Ross, and who now asks our suffrages on his family’s merits rather than his own.
“Gentlemen, I am not one to disregard any claim which a man, who has in any way served his country, makes upon his own merits. To such a man I reckon it an impertinence to ask any question as to his pedigree. But when a young man says to me, Elect me, because I am my father’s son, I ask, Is it certain that he is the son of the man he claims as father? All that we know of his history is against it. His reputed father has studiously kept out of the way. Why, if he is Richard Ross’s son, whom we all know, is not Richard Ross here to acknowledge him? Instead of Richard Ross, we have nothing but a fond old man who has adopted an ingratiating boy. Lord Eskside has a right to adopt whom he pleases; but he has no right to set up some base-born pretender—some chance child thrown on his bounty—as the heir of his honours and the representative of his family. Will you send to Parliament, as a Ross of Eskside, an old man’s pet and pensioner, a supposititious heir? or will you not rather demand a searching inquiry into a history so mysterious, before you strengthen, by your election of him, the pretended rights of an impostor? He may be an innocent impostor, for I say nothing against the young man in his own person; but until his claims have been investigated, and some reasonable evidence afforded, an impostor he must be considered by all Eskside men whose ambition it is to have everything about them honest and above-board.
“An Eskside Elector.”
“The demons!” cried Lady Eskside. Hot tears were shining in her eyes, forced there by pressure of rage and shame. She clenched her hand in spite of herself. “Oh, the word’s not bad enough! Devils themselves would have more heart.”
“It’s Sandy Pringle’s doing,” said the old lord. “I thought he was too mim and mild. He’s been preparing it these dozen years; and now the moment’s come, and he’s struck home.”
“It’s too bad for Sandy Pringle,” said the old lady, pushing her chair from the table. “Oh no, no; it’s too bad for that; the man has bairns of his own.”
And the tears ran down her cheeks with sheer pain. “We were never ill to anybody,” she moaned; “never hard-hearted that I know of. Oh, my poor old lord!—just when your heart was light, and you had your way!”
She turned upon him in the midst of her own pain with a pathetic pity, and the two pairs of tremulous old hands clasped each other closely with that sympathy which is far deeper than any words. I do not think it would have taken much to bring a tear down the old lord’s rugged cheek as well as his wife’s. The blow had gone straight to his heart. Pain—helpless, bitter, penetrating, against which the sufferer surprised by it can do nothing but make a speechless appeal to heaven and earth—was the chief sensation in his mind. He was so unprepared and open to attack, so happy and proud, glad and rejoicing in the last evening lights, which were so sweet. For the first moment neither of them could think—they could only feel the pain.
Then there came a sense of what had to be done, which roused the old pair from the pang of the first shock. “It will be all over the county this morning,” said Lord Eskside. “Of that we may be sure. A man could not be bad enough to do so much without being bad enough to do more. We’ll say nothing about it here, Catherine; especially, we’ll tell the boy nothing about it. Leave him at peace for the moment; to-morrow he is sure to hear; but in the mean time, as soon as breakfast is over, I’ll make some excuse, and drive over to Castleton. We’ll keep him out of the way. I’ll see Lynton, and Sir John, and as many more of the committee as I can, and consult what’s to be done.”
“You’ll tell them how false it all is, and how devilish,” said my lady; “devilish, that is the only word.”
“Devilish, if you please,” said Lord Eskside; “but how am I to say it’s false! Half the county know it’s true.”
Lady Eskside stopped the contradiction which came to her lips. She wrung her hands in that impotence which it is so much harder on the strong to bear than on the weak.
“Oh, that woman! that woman!” she cried; “the harm she has done to me and mine!”
“I will lay the whole matter before them,” said Lord Eskside; “there is nothing else for it now—they must hear everything. At times it may be prudent to hold your peace; but when you must speak, you must speak freely. I will tell them everything. It would have been better to have done it long ago.”
“Oh, what is the need of telling them?” cried my lady—“do you think they don’t know? Ay, as well as we do; but do what seems to you good, my good man. It’s like to break my heart; but I am most sorry for you, my dear, my dear!”
“Dry your eyes now, Catherine,” he said, hoarsely; “we must not show our old eyes red to strangers. Come, the bell has rung, and we’ll all be the better of our prayers.”
They went in, arm in arm, to the great dining-room, where the servants were waiting, more curious than can be described, to see how my lord and my lady “were taking it.” They had no satisfaction, I am glad to say. The old lord read his short “chapter,” and the short prayer which followed, in a tone in which the most eager ear could detect no faltering. And my lady, if perhaps not so buoyant in her aspect as yesterday, did not betray herself even to Mary Percival, who knelt calmly by her side, and did not know how her old heart was sinking.
“We will give you a holiday to-day, Val,” Lord Eskside said, after breakfast; “but for me, I will drive over to Castleton and see how everything is going on.”
Val, who had visions of rushing up to the Hewan, and who felt himself perfectly safe in his grandfather’s hands, consented gaily. “If you are sure you don’t want me,” he said; and the old man drove off smiling, waving his hand to the ladies at the door. Harding and the other servants were very much puzzled by their master. They had thought it not unlikely that he might afford them still further excitement by fainting dead away or going off in a fit.
I do not know which had the hardest task—Lord Eskside telling the story of his son’s marriage, with all its unfortunate consequences, to the serious county magnates assembled round the table of the committee room, and looking as grave as though Valentine had committed high treason—or his wife at home, trying to look as if nothing had happened, and to keep Val by her side that he might not hear of the assault upon him. At one period of the day at least my lady’s work was the hardest. It was when Val insisted upon having from her a message to Violet Pringle or her mother, asking that the girl might accompany her next morning to see the election.
“Violet Pringle,” cried the old lady, tingling in every vein with resentment and indignation—“of all the people in the world, why should I take her father’s daughter about with me? You are crazy, Val.”
“Perhaps I am,” said Val, with unusual gravity and humility; “but if I am crazy, I am still more crazy than you think. Grandma, I want you to take Vi about with you everywhere. Don’t you know what friends she and I have always been? Listen, and don’t be angry, Granny dear. When all this is over, and there is time to think of anything, I want you to give your blessing to Vi and me. She is going to be my wife.”
The old lady gave a scream: it was nothing else. She was wild for the moment with wonder, and anger, and horror. “Never! never! it must never be! Your wife!” she cried. “Oh, Val, you are mad. It can never be!”
“How can you say it can never be, when itis?” said Val, gently, with the smile of secure and confident happiness. “Yes, I don’t mind Mary hearing, as she is there. Last night I met Vi in the woods. I was half mad, as you say, to think they had kept her away from me on such a day. I asked her to promise that it should never be so any more; and now nothing can come between us,” said the young man in the confidence of youth. The idea of any strenuous objections on the part of the old people, who had yielded to every wish he had formed all his life, did not occur to him. Why should they object? He knew no reason. He had not announced it last night because there was a great dinner-party, and the house was full of strangers, but not because he felt any alarm as to how his news would be received.
“Val, I tell you you are mad,” said Lady Eskside, deeplyflushed with anger, of which she did not venture to show all the causes. “Your grandfather will never hear of it for a moment. Sandy Pringle has always been your enemy—always! and has he not shown himself so, openly, now?”
“Oh, of course he must stick to his party,” said Val, lightly. “As for being myenemy, that is nonsense. Why should we be melodramatic? I am sure he wishes me well in his heart.”
“A likely story!” said the old lady, her old cheeks blazing hotter and hotter; and when Val announced his intention of going off at once to make his proposal known to Mr Pringle, and claim his consent, the passionate resentment and indignation which she strove to suppress were almost too much for her. She bade the boy remember that he owed it to his grandfather at least to tell him first of so important a step, but at last had to come down to arguments of convenience and expediency. “You may be sure Sandy Pringle is not at the Hewan to-day. He has too much mischief in hand to stay there in his hole. He is at work, doing you all the harm he can, the old sneck-drawer!” said the indignant old lady—not daring to put half her indignation into words.
“As he is to be my father-in-law, you must be more civil to him, grandmamma,” said Val, half laughing at her vehemence. He gave in at last, very reluctantly, to put off his going for the day. But even when this was attained, Lady Eskside’s work was but half done, for Val had to be kept at home if possible, kept occupied and amused, that he might not discover prematurely the cruel attack of which he was the victim. She was afraid he might do something rash, and compromise himself before the election. In the excitement of that day itself, and when the business was too near completion to be capable of being deranged by any hot-headed folly poor Val might be guilty of, the risk would be less—or so at least the old people thought.
Thus things went on until the evening. Lord Eskside had fortunately left some business behind him to be completed, which gave Val occupation, and my lady had a moment of ease in which she could confide all that had happened to Mary. This last complication about Violet made everything so much the worse. Lady Eskside would have thought Sandy Pringle’s daughter a poor enough match for her boy at any time; but now! Her only trust was that Mrs Pringlewas a sensible woman, and might see the necessity of putting a stop to it; but with the precedent of his father’s reckless marriage before him, and Val’s hot and hasty disposition, the old lady’s heart sank at the prospect. “Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof,” she said at last, letting fall a silent tear or two, as she sat with Mary waiting in the dusk of the evening for her husband’s return. “My poor old lord is long of coming; he’ll be worn to death with this terrible day.”
Lord Eskside was very late. The dressing-bell had rung, and the ladies were lingering, waiting for him in the pale dusk, which had come on earlier than usual. The time and the season and the hour were very much like that other bleak night, fifteen years ago, when Val came first to Rosscraig. There was no storm, but it had been raining softly all the afternoon, refreshing the country, but darkening the skies, and increasing the depression of all who were disposed to be depressed. Val had gone out in the rain into the woods after his day’s work, not knowing why it was that some uneasiness in the house had taken hold upon him, some sense of contradictoriness and contrariety. Were things going wrong somehow, that had been so triumphantly right? or what was it that irritated and oppressed him? The ladies, in their anxiety, which he was not allowed to share, were glad when he went away, releasing them from all necessity for dissimulation. They sat in different parts of the room, not even talking to each other, listening to the rain, to the taps of the wet branches upon the windows, and all the hushed sounds of a rainy night. Lady Eskside had her back to the window, but, for that very reason, started with the greater excitement when a sound more distinct than the taps of the branches—the knocking of some one for admission, and a low plaintive voice—came to her ear, mingled with the natural sounds of the night. Crying out, “Mary, for God’s sake! who is it?” she rose up from her chair. Just about the time and the moment when one of the boys was brought to her! I think for the time the old lady’s mind was confused with the pain in it. She thought it was Val’s mother come back at last with the other boy.
A little figure, young and light, was standing outside the window in the rain,—not Val’s mother, in her worn and stormy beauty, but poor little Violet in her blue cloak, the hood drawn over her golden hair—her eyes, which had beenpathetic at their gayest moment, beseeching now with a power that would have melted the most obdurate. “Oh, my lady, let me in, let me in!” cried Vi. Lady Eskside stood for a minute immovable. “Her heart turned,” as she said afterwards, against this trifling little creature that was the cause of so much trouble (though how poor Vi, who suffered most, could be the cause, heaven knows!—people are not logical when they are in pain). Then I think it was the rain that moved her, and not the child’s pleading face. She could not have left her enemy’s dog, let alone his daughter, out in that drenching rain. She went across the room, slow and stately, and opened the window. But when Violet in her wet cloak came in, Lady Eskside gave her no encouragement. “This is a wet night for you to be out,” was all she said.
“Oh, Lady Eskside!” said poor Violet, throwing herself down in a heap at the old lady’s feet—“I have come to ask your pardon on my knees. Oh, you cannot think we knew of it, mamma and I. She is ill, or she would have been here too. Oh, my lady, my lady, think a moment! if it is hard for you, it is worse for us. It will kill mamma; and my heart is broken, my heart is broken!” cried poor little Vi.
“Miss Pringle, I do not think, on the spur of the moment, that there is much to be said between you and me.”
“Oh, my lady!” Violet cried out, as if she had been struck, at the sound of her own name.
“Nothing to be said,” continued Lady Eskside, though her voice wavered. “Who would blame you, poor thing—or your mother either? but between your father’s family and mine what can there be to say? That is not a fit posture for a young lady. We are not in a theatre, but private life,” said the old lady, severely calm. “If you will rise up and put off your wet cloak, I will order the carriage to take you home.”
“Oh, no, no!” cried Violet, rising to her feet. Her soft eyes sent forth an answering flash; her pale little face flushed over. “If you will not have any pity—I meant nothing else, my lady—will you tell—Val,” she added, with a hysterical sob rising in her throat, “that he is not to think any more of what he said last night. I’ll—forget it. It cannot be now, whatever—might have been. Oh, Mary,” cried the girl, turning to Miss Percival, whom she saw forthe first time—“tell him! I never, never can look him in the face again.”
“If you please, my lady,” said Harding, appearing at the door in the darkness, “my lord has just come home; and he would be glad to see your ladyship in his own room.”
Lady Eskside hurried away. She did not pause even to look again at the suppliant whom she had repulsed. Violet stood looking after her, wistful, incredulous. The girl could not think it was anything but cruelty; perhaps at the bottom of her poor little distracted soul she had hoped that the old lady, who was always so kind to her, would have accepted her heart-broken apology, and refused to accept her renunciation. She could not believe that such a terrible termination of all things was possible, as that Lady Eskside should leave her without a word. She turned to Mary, and tottered towards her, with such a look of surprised anguish as went to Miss Percival’s heart.
“My dear, my dear, don’t look so heart-broken! She has gone to hear what has happened. She is very, very anxious. Come to my room, and change your wet things, my poor little Vi.”
“No, no! Not another moment! Let me go, let me go!” cried the girl, escaping from her hold; and, with the swiftness of youth and passion, Violet turned and fled, through the open window by which she had entered, out into the darkness, the rain, and the night.
Valentine, poor boy, was in his room dressing for dinner, fearing and knowing nothing of all that was happening, when Violet made that hapless visit to throw herself on Lady Eskside’s mercy. He was whistling softly before his glass, tying his necktie and chafing at the thought that to-morrow must again be a blank day on which he could not see her—and that only after the election could everything be settled. He was uneasy and restless, he did not know why, with a sensation of something in the air which he did not understand, but which made him by moments vaguely unhappy. When he began to dress he had seen from his window, or thought he saw, old Jean Moffatt, with a huge umbrella, standing at the corner of the path which led into the woods, and had sent down his man in great eagerness to ask if any note had come for him, thinking the old woman might have been Love’s messenger for lack of a better. But there was no note, and Val consoled himself, in that delicious sense of the poetic elevation of being in love which is so sweet to girls and boys, with thinking that his Violet was so much the centre of his thoughts as to throw her sweet shadow upon everything. Few people fully estimate the happiness of a young lover, even when separated from the beloved object, in being able to make such delightful reflections. Val dressed and came down-stairs, all unconscious of what it was which had made the rain beat in upon the carpet in the drawing-room. “Why, you must have had the windows open! What an idea in such a night—with the wind due west!” he said. But even Mary, though she gave him a warning look which he could not understand, said nothing to him; and dinner passed off as usual, though somehow more quietly. Lord Eskside was tired—worn out with his long day’s work. “And I am tired too,” said my lady; “it is the weather, I suppose. I think we should all go early to bed, to be fresh for to-morrow.” When the gentlemen were left alone, the old lord called Val to him. “We will take our wine in the library; I have a great deal to say to you, my boy,” he said, leading the way into his own particular retirement. And then the worst moment of Val’s life came to him unawares. He felt already that there was something to be revealed, from the moment they entered the room in which he had always received his admonitions when a child, and which was associated to him—but up to this time how lightly!—with all the clouds and shadows of his early life.
“Sit down here, Val,” said the old lord. “You must pluck up a heart, for there’s something unpleasant coming. Not of any consequence, or that can affect you seriously—but very unpleasant. Val, in every election there’s things of this kind,” he continued, slowly unfolding a paper. “I’ve seen a great deal worse. I’ve seen ill deeds, that a man had forgotten for twenty or thirty years, raked up to bring shame on his grey hairs. Thank God, there’s nothing of that kind possible with you! But it’s unpleasant enough, unpleasant enough.”
“For heaven’s sake, sir, tell me what it is at once! Don’t keep me in this suspense.”
“Val,” said the old lord, almost sternly, “no passion, sir! none of your outbursts! I’ll almost think it’s true, and that you’re not of my race, if you cannot set your teeth and bear it like a man.”
After this adjuration, which was very necessary, I think Val would have let himself be torn to pieces sooner than “give way.” He read the paper in the dim library, lighted only round the table at which they sat, the wall all dark with books, the dark curtains drawn over the windows, the fire without a glimmer in it. Lord Eskside sat watching the lad from under his shaggy eyebrows. So far as he was himself concerned, the old lord had worn out all capacity of feeling in the work he had gone through that day. He had revealed to his friends, in full detail, what he considered as the shame of his family, and had done so like a Stoic, without showing any emotion; but now he watched Val, tender as a mother over her baby, following the boy’s eyes from line to line, his starts of indignation and pain, the furious colour that came over his face, the quick-drawn panting breath, which showed the immense constraint he put on himself. Lord Eskside put out his hand once or twice, and laid it on Val’s arm with an instinctive caress, which from him was more than an embrace would have been from another. Val took a long time to read it, for the struggle was hard; not that the sense of it did not flash into his mind almost in a moment, with all those curious sensations of familiarity—as if it had happened before, or as if we had known and expected it all our lives—which so often attend a great event. When he laid it down at last, he turned to his grandfather, his face partially distorted by that strange dilation of suppressed pain which seems to change every line of the countenance. “This, then, I suppose, was what my father meant,” he said.
“Your father! What did he say? Did he warn you? Val, I would not be hard upon your father—but we are reaping the whirlwind, you and me, for the wind he has sown.”
“He told me that all a man’s antecedents, all the secrets of his life were raked up. He should have said, the secrets of other people’s lives,” said Val, with a short and bitterlaugh. Then he added, dropping his voice, “I suppose it is all true.”
“All true to the facts, that is the devilishness of it. Val, can your recollection carry you further back than your coming here?”
Val shook his head. A deep, hot, crimson flush covered his face. How could he put into shape the vague reminiscences as of a dream—of childish wanderings, sports, and troubles. He recollected nothing that could be put into words, and yet something like the confused images of a dream.
“Is she living still—my mother?” he said, in a very low voice.
“For all we know,” said Lord Eskside. “If she was dead, I think we must have heard somehow. I have often thought you ought to be told, Val. God knows, many a hard hour’s thinking it’s given me. You had a brother, too. Probably he is dead long ago; for children die, I hear, like sheep, with all the exposure of that wild life.”
Val shuddered in spite of himself. His brother had faded away altogether out of his recollection, and he felt but little interest in the suggestion of him. No doubt he must be dead long ago. Val could not realise himself in such a relationship. It was impossible. He escaped from the thought of it. The thought of a mother, and such a mother, was sufficiently bewildering and painful.
“But there is time enough for considering this part of the subject,” said the old lord. “In the mean time, Val, I’ve been at Castleton, working hard all day. I have seen almost everybody it was important to see.”
“Why did you not take me with you? If I had but known——”
“It was better you should not know. I did better without you. They all know the true state of the case now—and you are prepared to meet them. And, Val, I may say to you, which is of more importance than saying it to them—that though that devilish paper is true enough, I am as sure you are my son Richard’s son, as if you had never left my sight since the day you were born.”
Val looked at him with hasty surprise. The tears came in a rush to the young man’s eyes. “Do you need to tell me this, grandfather?” he cried piteously, and covered his face with his hands. All that he had read had not madehis position real to him, like those words from the old man, whom he had so confidently laid claim to all his life.
“No, no, no! I was wrong—forgive me,” cried the old lord. “But come, Val,” he added, quickly; “we must meet this difficulty with our best courage. We must not allow it to weigh us down. When you face the public to-morrow, there must be no sign either of depression or of passion. You must keep steady—as steady as you were before you knew a word of it—and confident as at the nomination; there must be no change. Can you trust yourself to meet your enemies so? It is the only way.”
The lad put his hand into the old man’s and grasped it, crushing the feeble fingers. “I will,” he said, setting his teeth. This was almost all that was said between them. When they parted for the night, the old lord took him by the shoulders, shaking him, as he pretended. This gentle violence was the greatest demonstration of tenderness of which, in his old-fashioned reserve, he was capable. “Go to your bed, my boy, and rest well before to-morrow’s trial,” he said.
All this time there had not been a word said about the author of the placard which, next morning as they drove into Castleton, was to be seen on every wall, in every village, near every house they passed. Valentine recognised, with a heightened colour, the first copy of it he saw, but said not a word, restraining himself, and turning his eyes away. In Castleton the whole town was placarded with it, and the streets brimming over with excitement. Wherever the carriage passed with its four horses, the groups which were gathered round, reading it, would stop, and pause, and turn to gaze at the handsome young fellow, the very flower of the country, who yet might not be Mr Ross after all, but only some chance child—a vagrant of the street. Valentine did all that man could do to banish from his face every appearance of knowing what these looks meant, or of being affected by them; but how hard it is to do this with the certainty that everybody around you knows that you know! He made a brave stand; he smiled and bowed to the people he knew, and spoke here and there a cheerful word, restraining his sense of shame, his wounded pride, the horror in his mind, with a strong hand. But his young face had lost its glow of healthful colour, the circles of his eyes seemed somehow expanded, and his nostrils quivered and dilated like those ofa high-bred horse at a moment of excitement. The effect upon his face was curious, giving it a certain elevation of meaning and power—but it was the power of nature at its utmost strain, so quivering with the tension that one pull tighter of the curb, one step further, might burst the bond altogether. The polling had already begun when they reached Castleton, but the voters in the Ross interest flagged—nobody could tell how. Mr Seisin’s name was above that of Val when the state of the poll was published. This, everybody said, told for nothing; for, as it was well known, Mr Seisin had not the shadow of a chance. His supporters had been probably polled at once, to strike a bold keynote, and prove that there were still possibilities, even in Eskshire, for the Liberal party. It told for nothing, they all said to each other, surrounding Lord Eskside, who sat somewhat grim and silent, in the committee-room; but the men there assembled, though stanch as partisans could be, undeniably grew anxious as the moments went on. It was impossible there to ignore the attack, which had never been mentioned by any of his family to Valentine, except on the previous night, when he was told of it solemnly. Here it was of course the chief subject of discussion; and though he took no part in the talk, he had to hear it referred to without flinching. “Depend upon it,” said Sir John, “it’s a sign of weakness; it is an expedient of despair. They know their cause is desperate, and they don’t mind what they say.” But reassuring as this was, a cold shiver of alarm began to run through the party. One man stole out after another to see what news there was, to send off messengers hither and thither. The county was stanch;—of that there could be no doubt. Nothing would induce the Eskshire men to give their votes to Mr Seisin; but their minds might have been so affected by this sudden assault, coming just at the critical moment when there was no time to contradict it, that, bewildered and uncertain, they might refrain from voting at all.
Twelve o’clock! The business of the election seemed to have come to a pause. One individual now and then came up to the polling-booths. Already a great yellow placard, “What has become of the Tory voters?” had flashed out upon the walls. A dramatic pause fell into the midst of the excitement. The people of Castleton looked on curiously, as if they had been at a play. Even the crowds in thestreets slackened—almost disappeared. When Valentine walked up the High Street to speak to Lady Eskside, who sat trembling and pale at the window of the Duke’s Head, looking on, he was taken no more notice of than on the most ordinary occasion. For one thing, a smart shower had come on, and the idlers had taken refuge under the porches of the houses, and at the shop-doors, where they gazed at him calmly, without a cheer, without a salutation. Lady Eskside, looking out of the window, watched all this with an aching heart. It seemed to her that all was over. She could not take her eyes from the impertinent placard opposite on the Liberal headquarters—“Seisin, 355; Ross, 289.” The yellow ribbons seemed to flaunt at her; her very heart was sick; and the dullness of mental suffering crept over her old frame. “Oh, Val, my dear, I wish this was over,” she said, taking his hand between hers. “Never fear, grandma,” he said, smiling at her dimly, as if from the midst of a dream. He scarcely knew what he was saying; and so far as he was conscious of the words, he did not believe them. The young man gave a glance across at the other window, but Violet was not there, which was a kind of vague consolation to him. He held the old lady’s hand, and tried to smile, and talk, and encourage her, without the least idea what he said.
At that moment the tide turned. The impatient little rattle of a small pony-carriage came up the long street, heard rattling over every particular stone all the way up, so great was the stillness of this strange moment of suspense. The pony-carriage drew up before the Duke’s Head, and Dr Rintoul, who lived in one of the new villas on Lord Eskside’s feus, got out and walked towards the polling-booth. His daughter, who had driven him, stood up—a large woman, bigger than the pony she drove—with a wave of her whip, on which there streamed a blue ribbon. “Good morning, Lady Eskside,” cried Miss Rintoul. “We are all Liberals, but we hate a mean advantage, and all blows in the dark. I’ve driven papa over to vote for Ross for ever, against all your sneaking enemies!” Miss Rintoul was not afraid of the sound of her own voice—she had outlived all such weaknesses. She said out what she had to say roundly, seeing no reason to be ashamed of it, standing up as on a platform, and waving her whip with the blue ribbon. Her vigorous voice caught the capricious ear of the crowd; forjust at that moment the shower had stopped, the sun shone out, and the bystanders began to burst out from their hiding-places. “Ross for ever!”—two or three caught up the cry. It was echoed with a lusty roar from the Edinburgh road, whence a string of hackney-cabs, and an old coach which had once plied between Lasswade and Princes Street, and bore their names emblazoned on it, came clattering full speed round the corner. “Down with Pringle, and Ross for ever!” cried the Lasswade men, packed like herrings in their cabs. Blue flags streamed from the dusty roofs; familiar faces, hot and breathless, but beaming, looked up at the old lady and her boy. The shout ran down the length of the High Street, and called out the committee-men to their balcony. When Val turned away, moved by the restlessness of excitement, his way down the street was a triumph: the crowd divided to let him pass, cheered him, held out damp hands to be shaken, and strewed his path, so to speak, with smiles. He was received by his committee almost with embraces, with shaking of hands, and general tumult, half-a-dozen speaking together.