Randolph Musgravewas extremely annoyed at the turn things had taken. On the day of his father’s seizure indeed a kind of serene solemnity came over him. He would not have been so indiscreet or indecorous as to admit that he was glad of the “stroke” which might terminate the Squire’s life; such an evil sentiment was far from him. Still if his dear father was indeed in the providence of God to be taken away from this mortal scene, there was a sad satisfaction in having it happen while he was still at the Castle and ready to be of use. As the only male member of the family, it was indeed very important that he should be there on such a melancholy occasion. Mary would have enough on her hands with the nursing and the strictly feminine duties, and he was the only one to turn to, the only one who could do anything. He telegraphed to his wife what the sad occasion wasthat detained him, and went to bed with a comfortable sense that his visit had not been in vain. It was melancholy to think that all might be over before the morning; but yet he could do no good by staying up and wearing himself out. If it should so happen that his own sad prognostications were correct, why then he had occasion for all his strength, for he it would be who must do everything. And no martyr could have contemplated the stake with more elevated resignation and satisfaction than Randolph looked at the labours and troubles he would have to take upon him. He lay down, solemnly going over them in his mind—the details of the funeral, the reading of the will, the taking possession of the estate. He resolved that he would take possession in his brother’s name. No one knew where John was; he could not be called at a moment’s notice like respectable men. Nor, indeed, would it be kind to think of such a thing as bringing him here to the endangerment of his life. No, he would take possession for his brother. He would put his brother’s little son to school. The girl of course would go with Mary, who for her part must, he supposed, have the house on the way to Pennington, which was called the Dower-house, though he did not think an unmarried sister had any real right to a place which was intended for the widow of the previous Squire. But that might pass: Mary had been accustomed to have everything her own way, and she should have the Dower-house by grace at least, if not by right. He fell asleep as he was arranging all these things with a great deal of serious satisfaction. Of course it was sad: what is there in this vale of tears that is not mixed with sadness? But it was not (he said to himself) as if his father were a young man, or carried off in the midst of his work. He was old, he had lived out the life of man, he had arrived at the time when a man has a right to expect that his day is over, and must know that in the course of nature he ought to give place to his successors. And as things were to take such a serious turn, how well it was that he, Randolph, should be on the spot to do everything! His satisfaction in this was really the foremost feeling in his mind.
But all was not over in the morning, as Randolph had so certainly anticipated. He got up in the same solemnized butresigned and serene condition, and wondered a little to see how late it was. For indeed the turn things had taken, though so serious, had been peace-inspiring, removing anxiety from his mind, and he had slept later than usual in consequence. And it was clear that as yet there had been “no change.” Eastwood, who was late too, having stayed up late on the previous night indulging the solemn excitement which was natural to this crisis, came in with profound seriousness and an air as solemn as Randolph’s. “Just the same, sir,” he said; “the doctor is with him now.” Randolph could not help a slight sensation of disappointment. He had made up his mind so distinctly what was to happen, and there are cases in which even good news are out of place. It was with less resignation and more anxiety that he hurried out to hear what the doctor said.
And he was much provoked and annoyed when a week later there was still no progress made, and it became apparent that no such easy solution of all difficulties as he had expected was to be looked for. The Squire was in much the same state on the next Saturday and the next, and it was apparent that the illness was to be a lingering and tedious one—the kind of thing which wears out everybody round. When people are going to die, what a pity that they should not do it speedily, relieving both themselves and others! But nature, so often acting in a manner contrary to all prognostications, was not to be hurried. To jog her gently on, and relieve the sufferer authoritatively from his troubles, is not yet permissible in England. On the contrary, medical science acts just the other way, with questionable mercy, prolonging lives in which there is nothing but suffering, and stimulating the worn-out machinery of the frame to go on a little longer, to suffer a little more, with all that wheezing and creaking of the rusty wheels which bears witness to the unnaturalness of the process. This was what Randolph felt with much restrained warmth of annoyance. It was unnatural; it was almost impious. Two doctors, a professional nurse, and Mary, who was as good, all labouring by every possible invention to keep mere life in their patient. Was it right to do so? Providence had evidently willed to release the old man, but science was forcing him to remain imprisoned in the flesh. It was very hard upon theSquire, and upon Randolph too, especially as the latter could not venture to express his real sentiments on this matter, but was compelled to be glad of every little sign of tenacity and vitality which the patient gave. If it had been recovery indeed, he said to himself, there might have been some reason for satisfaction; but as it was only holding by life, mere existing and nothing more, what ground was there for thankfulness? It would be better for the sufferer himself, better for everybody, that it should be over soon. After this state of things had lasted for a fortnight, Randolph could not bear it any longer. He sent for Mary from the sick room, and gave her to understand that he must go.
“Had I expected he would last so long,” he said, “I should have gone last week. Of course it does not matter for you who have nothing else to do; but my work and my time are of importance. If anything were likely to happen directly, of course I should think it my duty to stay; but, so far as I can see, nothing is likely to happen,” said Randolph in an aggrieved tone. Mary was too sad to laugh and too languid to be angry, but there came a gleam of mingled resentment and amusement into her eyes.
“It is not for us to wish that anything should happen,” she said.
“Wish? Did I talk of wishing? I stated a fact. And in the meantime my parish is being neglected and my work waiting for me. I cannot hang on here for ever. Of course,” Randolph added, “if anything should happen, you have only to telegraph, and I will come.”
“I don’t see that it is necessary, Randolph. My father may rally, or he may linger for months, the doctors say; and whatever happens—of course you shall hear immediately; but so far as I am concerned, it does not seem necessary to disturb your work and unsettle your parish—— ”
“That is ridiculous; of course I shall come the moment I am summoned. It is quite essential that there should be some man to manage matters. And the boy is all ready,” he added; “you had his outfit prepared before my father’s attack came on. Let them pack up for him, and on Friday we shall go.”
“The boy! How could I send him away now, when my father might recover his consciousness, and want him?”
“My father want him? This is too much,” said Randolph—“my father, from whom you concealed his very existence—who never cared for children at any time. Myfather? What could he possibly want with the boy? He should have gone a fortnight ago. I wrote to enter his name of course, and the money is running on. I can’t afford to pay for nothing whatever you may do, Mary. Let his things be packed up, and let him go with me.”
“I think your brother is right,” said the Vicar, who was present. “Nello is doing no good with me. We have been so much disturbed with all that has taken place; and Emily has been so poorly—you know how poorly she has been—and one feels with one’s own children the time can always be made up somehow. That is the worst of lessons at home,” said Mr. Pen, with a sigh.
“But my father sent for him—wanted him; how can I send the child away! Mr. Pen, you know, if Randolph does not, that he is the heir, and his grandfather has a right to have him close at hand.”
“It is no use arguing with women,” said Randolph, white with rage. “I don’t understand this nonsense about my father wanting him. I don’t believe a word of it. But I tell you this, Mary, if he is the heir, I am his uncle, his next friend; and I say, he sha’n’t lose his time here and get ruined among a pack of women. He must go to school. Supposing even that my father did want him (which is absolute absurdity; why, my father pretends not to know of his existence!) would you put a selfish old man’s fancy against the boy’s good?”
“Randolph! how do you dare, when he is so ill,” cried Mary, with trembling lips, “to speak of my father so!”
“It is true enough anyhow,” said the undutiful son. “When he is so ill! Why, that is the reason I can speak freely. One would not hurt his feelings if he could ever know it. But he was always known to be selfish. I did not think there was any doubt about that. The boy must not be ruined for an old man’s whim, even if it is true.”
“It is dreadful to go against you,” said the Vicar, looking at her with piteous eyes, beseeching her forgiveness; “but Randolph is in the right. Nello is losing his time; he is doing no good; he ought to go to school.”
“You too!” cried Mary. She could not but smile, though the tears were in her eyes. And poor Mr. Pen’s dissent from her cost the good man so much. He looked at her, his eyes too filling, with deprecating, beseeching, wistful looks, as a dog does. When he thus took part so distinctly against Mary, conscience, it was clear, must have been strong within Mr. Pen. He had tried hard for her sake to overcome the habit of irregular hours and desultory occupation which had grown upon him, and to give the children their lessons steadily, at the same hours, day by day. But poor Mr. Pen had not known how hard it would be to accomplish this. The idea of being able to make up the failing lessons at any odd moment which made the children at the Vicarage so uncertain in their hours, had soon returned after the first bracing up of duty towards Lilias and Nello had come to an end. And then Mrs. Pen had been ill, and could not bear the noise of the children; and then the Squire had been ill, upsetting everybody and everything; and then—the Vicar did not know what more to say for himself. He had got out of the way of teaching, out of the habit of exact hours, and Emily had been very poorly, and, on the whole, Randolph was right, and the boy ought to go to school.
Several of these discussions, however, took place before Mary gave way. The account Randolph had heard of the last scene in the library, before the Squire had his “stroke,” had not been at all satisfactory to his mind. He sincerely believed (though with an uneasy sense of something in it that sounded like truth) that this story was a fabrication to suit a purpose. But, on the other hand, his own intentions were very distinct. The mere fact that such a story had been invented showed the meaning on the other side. This boy was to be foisted into the place which, for years, he had supposed himself to occupy. John not being possible, who but Randolph could fill that place? Another heir was ridiculous, was shameful, and a wrong to him. He would not suffer it. What right had John, an outlaw and exile, to havea son, if it came to that? He would not allow the child to stay here to be petted and pampered, and made to believe himself the heir. For, in the end, Randolph had made up his mind that the boy could not and should not be admitted to the advantages of heirship without a very different kind of proof of identity from any they possessed. And it would be ruin to the child to be allowed to fill such a false position now. The mere idea of it filled him with suppressed rage. He did not mean the boy any harm—not any real harm. On the contrary, it would be a real advantage to him in any case to be bred up frugally and industriously; and this he would insist upon, in spite of every resistance. He would not leave the child here to have him wormed into the old man’s affections, made a tool of by Mary in John’s interests, and to his own detriment. He was determined to get rid of Nello, whatever it cost him: not to do him harm, but to get him out of the way. This idea began to possess him like a mania—to get rid of the child who was more dangerous, a great deal more dangerous, than John himself. And all the circumstances of the house favoured his removal at this moment, when the Squire’s illness occupied everybody’s attention. And then it was a great point to have enlisted on his side the reluctant and abashed, yet conscientious support of Mr. Pen.
As for the children themselves, a subtle discomfort had stolen into their life. The old gentleman’s illness, though it did not affect them, affected the house. The severe and dangerous illness of an important member of any household has always a confusing influence upon domestic life. It changes the centre of existence, so that everything, which once radiated from the cheerful hearth becomes absorbed in the sick-chamber, making of it the temporary and fictitious centre of the dwelling. In this changed orbit, all the stars of the household firmament shine, and beyond it everything is left cold, and sunless, and neglected. Children are always the first to feel this atmospheric change, which affects them more than it does the watchers and nurses, whose time and minds are absorbed in the new occupation. It was as if the sun had gone out of the sky to the children at Penninghame. They were left free indeed, to go and come as they liked, nobody attempting to hustle them out of the way, tosay, “Run, children, some one is coming.” All the world might go and come, and it did not matter. Neither did it matter to them now where they went, for every room was equally dreary and empty. Mary, who meant home to them, and to whom they carried all their grievances and pleasures, had disappeared from their view; and Miss Brown, who was their directress in minor matters, had become invisible too, swallowed up by that sick-room, which absorbed everything. It was no pleasure to roam about the drawing-room, generally forbidden ground, and even through and through the passages from the hall to the dining-room, though they had so often longed to do it, when nobody was to be found there, either to laugh with them, or to find fault. Even Eastwood was swept up in the same whirlpool; and as for Mary, their domestic divinity, all that was seen of her was when she passed from one room to another, crossing the corridor, disappearing within the door of the mysterious chamber, where doctors and nurses, and every sort of medicine, and drinks, and appliances of all kinds, were being taken. How could the old gentleman want so much? Twice over a new kind of bed was taken into that strange gulf of a sick-room, and all so silently—Eastwood standing on the stairs, deprecating with voice and gesture, “No noise, no noise!” That was what everybody said. Mary would smile at them when she met them, or wave her hand from the end of the corridor, or over the stairs. Sometimes she would pause and stoop down and kiss them, looking very pale and worn out. “No, dear, he is no better,” she would say. Except for these encounters, and the accounts which the servants gave them of their grandfather’s state,—how he was lying, just breathing, knowing nobody, not able to speak,—accounts which froze the children’s blood in their veins—they had no life at all; only dull meals which they ate under this shadow, and dull hours in which, having nothing to do, they huddled together, weary and lonely, and with nothing before them but to go to bed. Out of doors it was not much better. Mr. Pen had fallen into all the old disorder of his ways, out of which he had made a strenuous effort to wake for their benefit. He never was ready for them when they went with their lessons. “I will hear you to-morrow,” he would say, looking at them with painfulhumility, feeling the grave countenance of Lilias more terrible than that of any judge; and when to-morrow came, there were always a hundred excuses. “Go on to the next page and learn the next lesson. I have had such a press of work—and Mrs. Pennithorne is so poorly,” the poor man would say. All this shook the pillars of the earth to Lilias and Nello. They were shaken out of everything they knew, and left to blunder out their life as best they could, without any guide.
And this was hardest upon the one who understood it least. Lilias, whose mind was open to everything, and who sat looking out as from a door, making observations, keenly interested in all that went on, and at the same time with a reserve of imagination to fall back upon, was fully occupied at least if nothing more. Every day she watched for “Mr. Geoff” with news of her father. The suspense was too visionary to crush her with that sickening depression which affects elder minds. All had a softening vagueness and confusion to the child. She hoped and hoped, and cried with imaginative misery, then dried her eyes and hoped again. She thought everything would come right if Mr. Geoff would only bring papa; and Mr. Geoff’s ability sooner or later to find and bring papa she never doubted. It was dreadful to have to wait so long—so long; but still every morning, any morning he might come. This hope in her mind absorbed Lilias, and made her silent, indisposed for play. At other times she would talk eagerly, demanding her brother’s interest and response to things he did not understand. Children can go on a long time without understanding, each carrying on his or her monologue, two separate streams, which, flowing tranquilly together, feel like something mutual, and answer all the ends of intercourse; and in this way neither of them was aware how far apart they were. But Nello was dull; he had so little to do. He had no pony, he could not play cricket as Johnny Pen did with the village boys. He was small, even for his age, and he had not been educated in the art of knocking about as English boys are. He was even a little timid of the water and the boats, in which other boys might have found solace. Half of his time he wandered about, listless, not knowing what to make of himself.
This was the condition of mind in which Randolph met himon one of these lingering afternoons. The child had strayed out all by himself; he was standing by the water-side at his old amusement, but not enjoying it this time. “What are you doing?” said his uncle, calling out to him as he approached. Randolph was not a favourite with the children; but it was half an amusement to see any one coming near, and to have to answer a question. He said “Nothing,” with a sigh; not a single skip could he get out of those dull slates. The water would not carry them; they would not go; they went to the bottom with a prosaic splash and thud. How different from that day with the old gentleman, when they flew as if they had been alive! Perhaps this new comer might have luck, and do as well as the old gentleman. “Will you have a try?” he said; “here is a good one—it ought to be a good one; but I can’t make them go to-day.”
“I—have a try?” Randolph was startled by the suggestion. But he was anxious to conciliate the little fellow whom he wanted so much to get rid of. And it was only for once. He took suspiciously (for he was always suspicious) the stone Nello held out to him, and looked at it as if it might be poison—or it might be an attempt on his dignity got up by somebody. When he had satisfied himself that it was a common piece of slate, he took courage, and, with a smile that sat very awkwardly upon his face, threw it, but with the most complete unsuccess.
“Ah! you are not good, like the old gentleman; his skipped seven times! He was so clever at it! I wish he was not ill,” said Nello, checking an incipient yawn. It was, perhaps, the first time any one had uttered such a wish. It had been taken for granted, even by his daughter, that the Squire’s illness was the most natural thing in the world.
“Did he really come and play with you? But old men are no better than children,” said Randolph. “I suppose he had nothing else to do.”
“It is very nice to have somebody to play with when you have nothing else to do,” said Nello, reflectively. “And he was clever. You—you don’t know even how to throw; you throw like a girl—like this. But this is how the old gentleman did,” cried Nello, suiting the action to the word, “and so do I.”
“Do you know nothing but these baby-games? I suppose you never played cricket?” said Randolph, with, though he was a man, a pleasurable sense of being thus able to humiliate the little creature beside him. Nello coloured to the roots of his hair.
“I do not like cricket. Must every one like the same things? It is too hot; and one cannot play by oneself,” the boy added with a sigh.
“You ought not to play by yourself, it is not good for you. Have you no one to play with, little boy?”
“Nobody,” said Nello, with emphasis; “not one person. There is Lily; but what does it matter about a girl? And sometimes Johnny Pen comes. He is not much good; he likes the green best, and all the village boys. Then they say I am too little;—and I don’t know them,” the boy added with a gleam of moisture in his eyes. The village boys had not been kind to Nello; they had laughed at him for a little foreigner, and made remarks about his hair, which was cut straight across his forehead. “I don’t want to know them.” This was said with vehemence; for Nello was sore at the want of appreciation which had been shown him. They did not care forhim, but they made a great deal of Johnny Pen!
“You should go to school; that is where all boys should go. A boy should not be brought up like a little girl; he should learn to use his hands, and his fists even. Now, what should you do if there was a fight?”
“A fight?” Nello grew pale and then grew red. “If it was—some one else, I would walk away; but if it was me—if any one touched me, I should kill him!” cried the child, setting his little white teeth.
Randolph ought professionally to have improved the occasion; but he only laughed—that insulting laugh which is offensive to everybody, and specially exasperates a child. “How could you kill him? That is easier said than done, my boy.”
“I would get a gun, or a sword; but first,” said Nello, calming down, “I would tell him to go away, because I should notwishto kill him. I have seen people fighting with guns and swords—have you?”
Here Randolph, being obliged to own himself inferior, fell back upon what was right, as he ought to have done before.
“Fighting is very wrong,” he said. “It is dreadful to think of people cutting each other to pieces, like wild beasts; but it is not so bad if you defend yourself with your fists. Only foreigners fight with swords; it is thoroughly un-English. You should never fight; but you would have to defend yourself if you were at school.”
Nello looked at his uncle with an agreeable sense of superiority. “But I have seenrealfighting,” he said; “not like children. I saw them fighting the Austrians—that was not wrong. Papa said so. It was to get back their houses and their country. I was little then, and I was frightened. But they won!” cried the boy, with a gleam in his dark eyes. What a little savage he was! Randolph was startled by the sudden reference to “papa,” and this made him more warm and eager in his turn.
“Whoever has trained you to be a partisan has done very wrong,” he said. “What do you know about it? But look here, my little man. I am going away on Friday, and you are to come with me. It will be a great deal better for you than growing up like a little girl here. You are exactly like a little girl now, with your long hair and your name which is a girl’s name. You would be Jack if you were at school. I want to make a man of you. You will never be anything but a little lady if you don’t go to school. Come; you have only to put on a frock like your sister. Nelly! Why, that’s a girl’s name! You should be Jack if you were at school.”
“I am not a girl!” cried Nello. His face grew crimson, and he darted his little brown fist—not so feebly as his size promised—in his uncle’s face. Randolph took a step backwards in his surprise. “I hate you!” cried the child. “You shall never, never come here when I am a man. When the old gentleman is dead, and papa is dead, and everything is mine, I will shut up all the doors, I will turn out the dogs, and you shall never come here. I know now it is true what Lily says—you are the bad uncle that killed the babes in the wood. But when I am a big man and grown up, you shall never come here!”
“So!” said Randolph, furious but politic; “it is all to beyours? I did not know that. The castle, and the woods, and everything? How do you know it will be yours?”
“Oh! everybody knows that,” said Nello, recovering his composure as lightly as he had lost it; “Martuccia and every one. But first the old gentleman must be dead, and, I think, papa. I am not so sure about papa. And do you think they would teach me cricket at school, and to fight? I don’t really care for cricket, not really. But Johnny Pen and the rest, they think so much of it. I should like to knock down all their wickets, and get all the runs; that would teach them! and lick them after!” said the bloodthirsty Nello, with gleaming eyes.
ThusRandolph overcame Nello’s opposition to school, to his own extreme surprise. Though he had a child of his own, and all the experiences of a middle-aged clergyman, he had never yet learned the A B C of childhood. But it may be supposed that the conversation generally had not made him love his nephew more dearly. He shook his fist at the boy as he ran along the water-side, suddenly seized by the delight of the novelty and the thought of Johnny Pen’s envy. “If I had you, my boy!” Randolph said, between his teeth, thinking grimly of the heirship which the child was so sure of. Pride would have a fall in this as in other cases. The child’s pretensions would not count for very much where he was going. To be flogged out of all such nonsense would be far the best thing for him; and a good flogging never did a boy much harm. Randolph, though he was not a bad man, felt a certain gratification in thinking of the change that would occur in Nello’s life. There was nothing wrong about the school; it was a very humble place, where farmers’ sons were trained roughly but not unkindly. It would make a man of the delicate little half-foreign boy, who knewnothing about cricket. No doubt it would be different from anything he was used to; but what of that? It was the best thing for him. Randolph was not cruel, but still it gave him a little pleasure to think how the impudent little wretch would be brought to his senses; no harm done to him—norealharm—but only such a practical lesson as would sweep all nonsense out of his head. If Nello had been a man of his own age, a rival, he could not have anticipated his humiliation with more zest. He would have liked to be a boy himself to fag the little upstart. There would be probably no fagging at the farmers’ school, but there would be—well! he smiled to himself. Nello would not like it; but it would bring the little monkey to his senses, and for that good purpose there was no objection to be taken to the means.
And as he walked through the Chase, through the trees, seeing in the distance before him the blunt turret-chimneys, all veiled and dignified with ivy, of the old house, many thoughts were in Randolph’s heart. He was a Musgrave, after all, if not a very fine example of the race. His wife was well off. If it had not been for John, who was a criminal, and this boy—what he would have done for the old place! What he might do still, if things went—— well! Was that, perhaps, the word to use—well? That is, if John could be somehow disposed of, prevented from coming home, and the boy pushed quietly to one side. As for John, he could not come home. It would be death—perhaps; certainly renewed disgrace. He would have to stand his trial, and, if he fled from that trial once, how was he likely to be able to face it now? He would stay abroad, of course—the only safe place for him. If he could but be communicated with, wherever he was, and would send for his son and daughter, some arrangement might be made: a share of the income settled upon him, and the family inheritance left for those who could enjoy it. This would be, in every way, the best thing that could be done; best for John himself; best for the house which had been always an honourable one, and never connected with disgrace. It is so easy to believe what one wishes that Randolph, after a while, going over the subject in his mind, succeeded in smoothing away all difficulties, except, indeed, the initial one of gettinginto correspondence, one way or another, with John. If this could be done, surely all the rest was smooth enough! John was not a fool; he must see that he could not come home. He must see how difficult it would be to prove his marriage and his son’s birth, and make everything clear (though why this should be so difficult Randolph did not explain even to himself). Then he must see equally well that, to put the property and the old castle into the hands of a man with money, who could really do something to improve them, would be far better for the family than to go on as he (John) must do, having no money, if even he could come lawfully into possession. All this was so evident, no man in his senses could refuse to see it. And as for communicating with John: there was, of course, one way, which seemed the natural way, and which surely must be infallible in that case as in most other cases—theTimes. However far out of the world John might be, surely he would have opportunities from year to year of seeing theTimes! No Englishman, even though banished, could live without that. And, sooner or later, if often enough repeated, the advertisement must reach him. Suppose it to be put something in this form:—“J. M., of P.—His brother R. wishes to communicate with him on urgent business connected with the death of their father.” This would attract no particular attention from any one, and John could not fail to perceive that he was meant. Thus he had, to his satisfaction, made everything clear.
It was just when he came to this satisfactory settlement of the difficulty, so perfectly easy in theory, though no doubt there might be certain difficulties about carrying it out, that Randolph suddenly saw, a little way before him, some one making his way through the trees. The Chase was private, and very few people had the right of coming here; neither did Randolph see whence this unexpected passenger had come, for there was no tributary path by which he might have made his way down to the foot-walk through the elms and oaks. He was within easy sight, obscured a little by the brushwood, and with his back to the spectator; but the sight of him gave Randolph a great start and shock, which he could not very well explain. The man was in dark clothes, with a broad felt hat, quite unlike anything wornin this district; and there was something about his attitude and walk (no doubt a merely fantastic resemblance, or some impression on his mind from his pre-occupation with the idea of John) which recalled his brother to Randolph’s mind. He was more startled than words could say. For a moment he could not even think or move, but stood open-mouthed, staring at the figure before him, which went on straight, not turning to the right or to the left.
When Randolph came to himself, he tried to laugh at his own folly—then coughed loudly and meaningly, by way of catching the stranger’s attention, and seeing who it was. But his cough attracted no manner of attention from the wayfarer, who went on pushing through the trees, like one who knew every turn and winding. Randolph was at the end of his invention. If he called out “Hi!” it might turn out to be somebody of importance. If he spoke more politely, and called the stranger to halt, he might be a nobody—if indeed it was not——. A vague impression, half of fear, came upon him. What nonsense it was! In broad daylight, in so well-known and familiar a place. Had it been in the dark, in any of the ghostly passages of the old house! but out here in the sunshine, in the open air!
Randolph took off his hat, to let the air blow freely about him for he had grown hot and uncomfortable. His hand with the hat in it dropped for a moment between him and the other who was so near him. When he raised it again there was no one there. He rubbed his eyes, looked again, and darted forward to see whether the man was hiding among the trees; but there was no one there. Randolph took off his hat once more, to wipe his streaming forehead; his hand trembled so that he could scarcely do it. What did it mean? When he had convinced himself there was no one to be seen, he turned and hurried away from the place, with his heart beating loudly in his breast. He never looked behind him, but hastened on till he had got to the broad road, where there was not a bush to hide an apparition. Then he permitted himself to draw breath.
It would be doing Randolph injustice to suppose that after he was out of the shadow of the trees, and in safety, with a broad level bit of road before him, on which everything was distinctlyvisible all round, he could be capable of believing that he had seen a ghost. Nothing of the kind. It must have been one of the people about the place, poking among the bushes, who had disappeared under the branches of the trees, and whom he thought like John only because he had been thinking of John—or perhaps his thought of John had produced an optical delusion, and imagination had painted some passing shadow as a substantial thing, and endued it with his brother’s image. It might have been merely an eccentric tree, on the outline of which fancy had wrought, showing a kind of grotesque resemblance. It might be, and probably was, just nothing at all. And it was supremely ridiculous that his heart should so thump for such an absurd delusion; but thump it did, and that in the most violent manner. He was out of breath, though he had made no exertion. And he could not pick up his thoughts where he had dropped them, when he saw that—figure. A thrill as of guilt was in his soul; he was afraid to begin again where he had left off. He found himself still rather breathless before the house, looking up at the veiled windows of his father’s room. For the first time Randolph thought with a little awe of his father lying there between life and death. He had not thought of him at all in his own person, but rather of the Squire officially, the old life who kept a younger generation out of the estate. It was time the elders were out of the way, and age superseded by middle age. But now for a moment he realized the man lying helpless there, in the very pathway of death—not freed by the Great Deliverer, but imprisoned by Him, all his senses and faculties bound up, a captive tied hand and foot by the grim potency who conquers all men. Randolph was frightened altogether by the mysterious encounter and impressed with awe. If there had been daily service he would have gone to church, but as there was nothing of the sort in Penninghame, he went into the library to read a good book as the next best thing to do. But he could not stay in the library. The silence of it was awful. He seemed to see his father, seated there in his usual chair, silent, gazing at him with eyes of disapproval that went through and through him. After five minutes he could stand it no longer. He took his good book, and went out to the side of the water, within sight of the roadwhere people were coming and going. It was a comfort to him to see even the doctor’s boy with his phials, and the footman who came with his mistress’s card to inquire how the Squire was. And he looked out, but looked in vain, with mingled eagerness and fear for the broad hat he had seen so mysteriously appearing and disappearing. Who could it be?—some stranger astray in the Chase—some one of the many tourists who wander everywhere—or—Randolph shuddered in spite of himself.
It is generally people without imagination, or with the most elementary and rude embryo of that poetic faculty, who see ghosts. This sounds like a paradox, yet there is reason in it. The people who are literal and matter-of-fact in mind, are those to whom wonders and prodigies come naturally; those who possess the finer eye of fancy do not need those actual revelations. Randolph’s was as stolid a mind as ever asked for a sign—and he had not asked for a sign in this case, nor felt that anything of the kind was necessary; but his entire mental balance was upset by what he had seen, or supposed himself to have seen; and he could not free his mind from the impression. As he sat and read, or rather pretended to read, his mind kept busy with the one question—What was it? Was it a real person, a stranger who had got astray, and stumbled into some copse or brushwood, which Randolph had forgotten—a man with a chance resemblance to John, heightened by the pre-occupation and previous reference to John in Randolph’s mind? or was it John himself, come to look after his own interests—John—in the body, or out of the body, who could tell?
As for Nello, he ran home by the water-side, his mind possessed by the new thing that was about to be accomplished—school! Boys to play with, novelty of all kinds, and then that cricket, which he pretended to despise, but secretly admired and desired with all his heart—the game which came to Johnny Pen by nature, but which the little foreign boy could not master; all this buzzed through his little head. When he came home from school he would know all about it; he would have played with much better players than Johnny Pen ever saw. The revolution in his thoughts was great and sudden. But as he ran home, eager to tell Lilias about the change in hisfortunes, Nello too met with a little adventure. He came suddenly, just as he emerged from the woods upon the water-side where it was open to the road, on a man whom he had repeatedly seen before, and who was generally accompanied by a dog, which was Nello’s admiration. The dog was not with his master now; but he took a something white and furry out of his great pocket, which stopped Nello even in the hot current of his excitement.
“Would you like to have this, my little gentleman?” the man said.
It was a white rabbit, with the biggest ears that Nello had ever seen. How his eyes danced that had been all aglow before!
“But I have no money,” he said, disposed to cry in disappointment as sudden as his delight.
“It’s not for money, it’s a present,” said the stranger, with a smile, “and I’ll give you another soon. They tell me you’re going to school, my young gentleman; is that true?”
“Am I to have it all for myself, or will you come back again for it, and take it away? Oh yes, I’m going to school,” said Nello, drooping into indifference. “Will it eat out of my hand? Has it got a name? And am I to have it all for myself?” The rabbit already had eclipsed school for the moment in Nello’s mind.
“It’s all for you, and better things than that—and what day are you going, my bonnie little lad?”
“To-morrow; oh give it me! I want to show it to Lily,” cried the child. “Thank you very much. Let me run and show it to Lily. We never, never had a rabbit before.”
The man stood and looked after Nello with a tender illumination of his dark face. “The old woman likes the other best; but this one is mine,” he said to himself. As for Nello, he flew home with his precious burden, out of breath. He said a man had given it to him; but thought of the donor no more.
Randolph spent this, his last evening at home, in anything but an agreeable way; he was altogether unhinged, nervous, and restless, not caring to sit alone. In this respect he was in harmony with the house, which was all upset, tremulous, and full of excitement and expectation. Human nature is alwaysimpatient of the slow progress of fate. After the thunderclap of a great event, it is painful to relapse into stillness, and feel the ordinary day resuming its power without any following out of the convulsion. But dramatic sequence, rapidity, and completeness are rare in human affairs. All the little crowd of lookers-on outside the Squire’s room watched eagerly for some change. Two or three women were always hanging about the passages, ready, as they said, to run for anything that might be wanted, and always in the way to learn if anything occurred. They kept a little lamp burning on the table against the wall, at either end of which was a chair, on which sometimes Cook herself, sometimes lesser functionaries, would be found, but always two together, throwing exaggerated shadows on the wall, and talking in whispers of their own fears, and how well they had perceived what was coming. There was not one of them that had not intended, one time or other, to make so bold as to speak to Miss Mary. “But trouble is always soon enough when it comes,” they said, shaking their heads. Then Eastwood would come and join them, his shadow wavering over the staircase. When the privileged persons who had theentréewent or came, Miss Brown or the nurse, or even Mary herself, there was a little thrill and universal movement.
“Change! no, there’s no change—there never will be but one change,” Miss Brown said, standing solemnly by the table, with the light on her grave face; and it was upon this Rembrandtish group that Randolph came, as he wandered about in a similar frame of mind, glad to find himself in company with others, though these others were only the maids of the house.
“Is my father worse?” he asked, pausing, with his arm upon the banisters. Such a group of eager, pale faces! and the darkness all round in which others still might be lurking unseen.
“No change, sir,” said Miss Brown, shaking her head. She was impatient too, like the rest, but yet felt a sort of superior resignation, as one who was in the front of affairs. And she had something to say besides. She gave a glance at the other women, who responded with secret nods of encouragement, then cleared her throat and delivered her soul—“Mr. Randolph, sir, might I make so bold as to say a word?”
“Say whatever you like,” said Randolph. He could nothelp but give a little glance round him, to make sure that there was no one else about.
“It is just this, sir—when you see him lying there, that white, as if he was gone already, and know that better he can’t be—oh, it brings a many thoughts into the mind! I’ve stood by dying beds before now, and seen them as were marked for death, but I never saw it more clear. And oh, Mr. Randolph, if there were things that might lie on his mind, and keep him from going quiet, as an old gentleman ought! If there were folks he ought to see afore all’s over——!”
“I don’t see what you are driving at,” Randolph said hastily. “Speak out if you’ve anything to say.”
“Oh, sir,” said Miss Brown, “don’t you think——. I am not one that likes to interfere, but I am an old servant, and when a body has been long about a place, it’s natural to feel an interest. If it wasn’t your family at all—if it was another that your advice was asked for—shouldn’t you say that Mr. John ought to know?”
This appeal startled Randolph. He had not been looking for it; and he gave an uncomfortable look round him. Then he felt a strange irritation and indignation that were more easy to express. “Am I my brother’s keeper?” he said. “I don’t know where Mr. John is, that I should go and hunt for him to let him know.”
“Oh, sir,” said Miss Brown, “don’t you be angry! Cook here is like me: she thinks it’s only his due. I would say it to Miss Mary, not troubling you that are ‘most a stranger, but she’s night and day, she never will leave her father; she has a deal upon her. And a gentleman knows ways that womanfolk don’t think of. If you would be but that kind, Mr. Randolph! Oh, where there’s a will there’s always a way!”
“It is none of my business,” said Randolph; “and I don’t know where he is,” he added, looking round him once more. He might be here already in the dark, waiting till the breath was out of his father’s body—waiting to seize possession of the house, felon as he was. And if Randolph was the means of betraying him into the hands of justice, what would everybody say? He went abruptly away down the uncarpeted, polished stairs, onwhich his hasty step rang and slid. John, always John! he seemed to be in the air. Even Eastwood, when he attended him with his bed-candle, could not refrain from adding a word. “The doctor looks very serious, sir,” Eastwood said; “and if there’s any telegraph to be sent, I’ll keep the groom ready to go at a moment’s notice. ‘It would be well to send for all friends,’ the doctor said.”
“I don’t know any one to send for,” said Randolph peremptorily; “let the groom go to bed.” And he went to bed himself sooner than usual, to get rid of these appeals and of equally imperative thoughts. He went to bed, but he could not go to sleep, and kept his candle burning half the night. He heard the watchers moving about in his father’s room, which was over-head, all the night through. Sometimes there would be a little rush of steps, and then he held his breath, thinking this might be at last the “change” which was looked for. But then everything grew still again, and he dozed, with the one poor candle, feeble but steadfast watcher, burning on till it became a pale intruder into the full glory of day.
Randolph, however, slept deeply in the morning, and got up with the greater part of those cobwebs blown away. John lost his hold upon the imagination in daylight, and he was able to laugh at his foolish alarm. How could it be John whom he had seen? He durst not show himself in the country where still his crime was so well remembered, and the sentence out against him. And as for the appearance being anything more than mortal, or less than human, Randolph laughed at the state of his own nerves which rendered such an idea tenable for a moment. He was a materialist by nature—as so many are; though he said his creed without any intrusive doubts; and the absurdity was too patent after he had slept and been refreshed. But no doubt it was bad for his health, bad for hismorale, to stay here. There was something in the atmosphere that was demoralizing; the air had a creeping sensation in it as of something more than met the eye. Death was in it; death, creeping on slowly, silently—loitering about with faint odours of mortality and sickening stillness. Randolph felt that he must escape into a more natural and wholesome air before further harm was done.
As for Mary, the occupations of the sick-room, and the sudden problems of the hereafter thus thrust upon her, were enough to fill her mind, and make her even comparatively indifferent to the departure of Nello, though it was against her judgment. It was not the hereafter of the spirit, which thus lay death-bound on the verge of the unseen, which occupied her. We must all die, everybody knows; but who thinks it true in their own case until it comes? Mary had known very well that a man much over seventy could not live very much longer; but it was only when her father fell back in his chair unconscious, his body motionless, his mind veiled within blinding mists, that she felt the real weight of all that was to follow. It was for her to act as soon as the breath should be out of his body. She did not trust her younger brother, and she did not know what to do for her elder brother. The crisis had arrived while she was still unprepared. She went down mechanically to see Randolph go away, her eyes seeing many other things more clearly than she saw the two figures actually before her; the man suspicious as usual, and putting no faith in her—the boy in a subdued excitement, his eyes sparkling with the light of novelty and adventure. Randolph had gone into his father’s room that morning, and had walked suspiciously round the bed, making quite sure that the “no change” was true. “I suppose he may last like this for weeks yet?” he said, in a querulous undertone—and yet not so low but that everybody heard it—to the doctor. “Oh, hush, for Heaven’s sake, Randolph! How can you tell that he does not hear?” said Mary. “Pshaw how can he hear?” Randolph replied, turning with a certain contempt from the helpless and powerless frame which lay there making no sign, yet living when it would be so much better that he should die. The awe of such a presence gives way to familiarity and weariness even with the most reverent watcher; but Randolph, though he had no desire to be indecorous, could not help feeling a certain irritation at his father, who balked him by this insensibility just as he had balked him while yet he had all his wits about him. It seemed incredible that this half-dead, half-living condition, which brought everything to a standstill, should not be more or less a man’s own fault.
Thus he went away, irritated and baffled, but still full of excitement; the moment which must decide all could not be very far off. He left the strongest charges upon the household, from his sister to Eastwood, to send for him instantly when “any change” occurred. “If it should be to-morrow,” he said; “I shall hold myself always ready.” He kept his eyes fixed on the Castle as long as he could see it, feeling that even now there might be a sign recalling him. And he thought he had made up his mind what to do. He would bring his wife with him and take possession at once. Mary would not be able to look after everything; or, at least, if she should be, she ought not to be; no really delicate-minded woman, noladyshould be able to make any exertion at such a moment. He would come with his household, as a kindness to Mary, and take possession at once.
As for Nello, he took leave very cavalierly of Lilias, who cried, yet would not cry, angry at his desertion and deeply wounded by his indifference, at the door. Poor little Lilias, it was her first disappointment in life. He was not thinking of her, but a great deal of his new portmanteau and the sandwiches put up for him, and the important position as a traveller in which he stood—but neither was Nello unkind. He took pains to console his sister.
“Don’t cry,” he said, “Lily I shall come back in the holidays, and sometimes I will write you letters; and there is always the white rabbit I gave you, and little Mary Pen for you to play with.”
“I don’t want to play,” said Lilias, with a burst of tears; “is play everything? I am too old for that. But oh, Nello, you are going to leave me, and you don’t care. You do not care for Mary, or Martuccia, or any one. Me, I should not mind—but you do not loveany one. You care for nobody but yourself.”
“Oh yes I do,” said Nello, “everybody,” and he cracked the coachman’s whip which was placed in readiness; “but boys have to go out and see the world; Eastwood says so. If I don’t like being at school I shall come back and stay at home, and then you will have me again; but I hope not, and I don’t think so, for school is jolly, very jolly, so Uncle Randolph says.”
“You can go with Uncle Randolph,” cried Lilias, in a blaze of sharp anger, “and I hope you will not come back. I hope you will always stay away, you cruel, cruel boy!”
This bewildered Nello for a moment, as did the hurried wiping of Lilias’ eyes and the tremulous quiver of her lip with which it was accompanied; but there was no time for more. He laughed and waved his hand to her as he was hurried into the carriage. He had scarcely ever looked so gay before. He took off his hat and waved it as he went out of sight. Hurrah! they heard his shrill little voice shouting. Lilias sat down on the ground and cried her heart out. It was not only that he was unkind—but Nello thus showed himself wanting to all the needs of the situation. No little hero of a story had ever gone away without a tribute to the misery of parting. This thought contracted her heart with a visionary pang more exquisite than the real. Nello was no hero, nothing but a little cruel, common, vulgar boy, not fit to put into any story, to go away so.
Whilethese events were going on at the Castle, Lord Stanton, for his part, had come to a standstill in the matter which he had been drawn into so inadvertently, and which had become so very serious an occupation in his life. He was young, and unacquainted with the ways of the world, and he did not know what step to take next. And he too was paralyzed by the sudden catastrophe which had happened to the Squire. Was it his fault? He could scarcely help an uneasy sense that by agitating him unduly he had helped to bring on the sudden attack, and thus he had left the Castle that evening with a heavy burden on his mind. And Geoff, with entire unconsciousness of the lingering pangs of life and the tenacity of the human frame, believed, without any doubt, that Mr. Musgrave would die, and did not know what was to be done about the exile, whose condition would thus be completelychanged. In the mean time it seemed to him necessary to wait until the issue of this illness should be known. Thus his doubtfulness was supplanted by an apparent necessity, and the time went on with nothing done.
He went at first daily to inquire for the old man, and never failed to see Lilias somewhere waiting for him with serious, intent face, and eyes which questioned even when the lips did not speak. Lilias did not say much at any time. She examined his face with her eyes and said “Papa?” with a voice which trembled; but it became by degrees less easy to satisfy Lilias by telling her, as he did so often, that he had not forgotten, that he was doing everything that could be done, smoothing the way for her father’s return, or waiting till he could more successfully smooth the way. “You do not believe me, Lily,” Geoff said, with a sense of being doubted, which hurt him sadly. “Yes; but he is not your papa, Mr. Geoff, and you are grown up and don’t want any one,” Lilias said, with her lip quivering. The visionary child was deeply cast down by the condition of the house and the recollection of the melancholy rigid figure which she had seen carried past, with a pang of indescribable pain and terror. Lilias seemed to see him lying in his room, where Mary now spent almost all her time, pale with that deadly ashen paleness, his faded eyes half open, his helpless hands lying like bits of rag, all the grey fingers huddled together. Fright and sorrow together brought a sob out of her heart whenever she thought of this; not moving, not able to speak, or turn round, or look up at those who watched him; and still not dead! Lilias felt her heart stand still as she thought of her grandfather. And she had no one to take refuge with. Martuccia was frightened too, and would not go up or down stairs alone. Lilias, for her part, did all she could, out of pride, and shame of her own weakness, to conceal her terror; but oh, to have papa nigh to creep close to, to feel safe because he was there! A few tears dropped from her eyes. “You are grown up and you don’t want any one.” This went to Geoff’s heart.
“Oh Lily, don’t you think they would let you come to my mother?” he cried; “this is too sad for you, this dismal house; and if Nello goesaway as you said—— ”
“Do you think I would go and leave Mary all alone? Nobody is sorry for Mary except me—and Mr. Pen. When she comes out of her room I go and I kiss her hand, and she cries. She would be more ill and more weary,” said Lilias, with a precocious understanding, “if there was not some little thing to give her an excuse and make her cry.”
“My little Lily! who taught you all that? it must have been the angels,” cried Geoff, kissing in his turn the little hand.
But this touch had the same effect upon Lilias that her own kiss had on Mary. She cried and sobbed and did her best to swallow it down. “Oh Mr. Geoff! I want papa!” she cried, with that little convulsive break in her voice which is so pitiful in a child. She was seated on Mary’s chair at the door of the hall, and he on the threshold at her feet. Geoff did not know what kind of half-admiring, half-pitying sentiment he had for this child. He could not admire her enough, or wonder at her. She was but a child, not equal to him in his young manhood; and yet that very childhood in its unconsciousness was worlds above him, he thought. He felt like the man in the story who loved the fairy maiden—the young Immortal; would she give up her visionary paradise for his sake and learn to look at him, not as an angel but as a woman? but for that she must be a woman first, and at present she was but a child. When he kissed her hand it cost Lilias no blush. She accepted it with childish, angelical dignity. “She took the kiss sedately—” and the dark fountains of her eyes filled full, and two great tears tumbled over, and a piteous quiver came to her lips, and she said, “Oh, Mr. Geoff, I want papa!”
This was when the Squire had been ill about a week, six or seven days before Randolph took Nello away. Geoff went home riding, very full of thought. What could he do to please his little Lily? He preferred that she should creep close to himself and tell him her troubles, but he could not resist that plaint, and even though it should be against himself he must try what he could do to bring her father to her. Geoff thought a great deal on this subject, but it was very fatiguing and unsatisfactory, for he did not know what to do, and after a while he relapsed into the pleasanter path, and began to think of Lily. “Because of the angels,” he said to himself as he jogged softly along, muchmore slowly and reflectively than his horse liked to go. He forgot where he was going and the engagements he had, and everything that was practical and important, as he rambled on. The day was sweet in early autumn, the lake rippling musically upon the beach, the sky blue and crossed by floating atoms of snowy cloud. Everything in the world was sweet and pleasant to the young man. “Because of the angels;” he had never been quite clear what these words meant, but he seemed to see quite plainly now, though he could no more have explained than he could have writtenHamlet. “Because of the angels!” He seemed to make a little song of it as he went on, a drowsy, delicious burden like the humming of the bee. It was not he that said it, he thought, but it murmured all about him, wrapping him in a soft enchantment. Such a visionary love as his, perhaps, has need of those intoxications of ethereal fancy: for nothing can be so like the love of an angel as that of a young man possessed by a tender visionary passion for a child.
Geoff was so rapt in his own thoughts that he did not see for some time the beckonings and signals that were coming to him from a carriage drawn up on the road to which the path descended, along which he was moving so gently. When his attention was at last caught, he saw it was his Cousin Mary, leaning half out of the window in her eagerness.
“Give your horse to the footman and come in here—I have so much to say to you,” she said.
But when he had done as she told him and taken his seat beside her, Lady Stanton kept looking at her young cousin.
“What is it?” she said; “you keep on smiling, and there is a little drowsy, dreamy, intoxicated air about you; what has happened, Geoff?”
“Nothing; and it is unkind to say I look intoxicated. Could you not find a prettier word?”
“I believe you are really, really!—Geoff, I think I know what it means, and I hope it is somebody very nice. Tell me, who is she?”
“This is strange,” said Geoff; “indeed, it is true, I have been visiting a lady; but she is only twelve years old,” he said, turning to her with a vivid blush.
“Oh, Geoff!” Mary’s brow contracted, “you do not meanthatlittle girl?”
“Why shouldn’t I mean her? I will make you my confessor, Cousin Mary. I don’t think. I shall ever marry any one but little Lily. Of course she is very little, and when she is grown up she will probably have nothing to say to me; but I shall never care for any one else. Why should you shake your head? I never saw any one like her,” said Geoff, growing solemn, and shaking off his blush as he saw himself opposed.
“Oh, Geoff!” Mary shook her head and contracted her beautiful brow, “I do not think anything good can come out of that family; but I must not speak. I am jealous, I suppose. How did you know I did not want you for Annie or Fanny?” she went on with a smile that was a little strained and fictitious; for Mary knew very well that she was jealous, but not for Annie, or Fanny, or Geoff.
“Hush,” he said, “I loved you before Lily, but you could not have me; it is Lily, failing you. If you could but have seen her just now! The Squire is lying between life and death, and Miss Musgrave, who was so good to her, is with him night and day, and poor little Lily is so lonely and frightened. She looks at me with her little lip all quivering, and says, ‘Papa! I want papa.’”Geoff almost cried himself to recollect her piteous tone, and the tears came to Mary’s eyes.
“Ah! if she takes afterhim, Geoff! but that is just what I want to talk to you about. I have done something that you may think rash. I have spoken to Sir Henry. He is—well, he has his faults like the rest of us—but he is just; he would not do a wrong thing. I told him that you had found out something—— ”
“What did he say?” cried Geoff, breathless, for Lady Stanton made a sudden pause.
She was looking across him out at the window; her eyes had strayed past his face, looking away from him as people do with a natural artifice to allow the first signs of displeasure to blow over, before they look an offended person in the face. But as she looked, Lady Stanton’s countenance changed, her lips fell apart, her eyes widened out, her face paled, as if a cloud hadpassed over it. She gave a great cry, “Oh John,John!” she said.
“What is it?—who is it?” cried Geoff.
She made him signs to have the carriage stopped; she could not speak. Geoff did what he could to make the coachman hear him; but it was by no means the affair of a moment to gain the attention of that functionary, and induce him to stop. When, however, this was accomplished, Geoff obeyed the passionate desire in Lady Stanton’s face, who all the time had been straining to look out, and jumped to the ground. He looked round anxiously, while she, half out of the carriage, gazed back, fixing her eyes upon one of those recesses in the road which are common in the north country. “I see no one,” said Geoff. He came back to the place on which her gaze was fixed, and looked behind the wall that bounded it, and all about, but could see nothing. When he returned he found that Mary had fallen back in her corner, and was weeping bitterly. “He looked at me with such reproachful eyes. Oh, he need not; there was no reason. I would have saved or served him with my life,” she cried; “and he had never any claim on me, Geoff, never any claim on me!—why should he come and look at me with such reproachful eyes? If he is dead, he ought to know better than that. Surely he ought to know—— ”
The carriage, standing in the middle of the road, the young man searching about, not knowing what he was looking for; the coachman superbly indifferent on the box, contemplating the agitation of his inferiors with god-like calm; the footman, on Geoff’s horse, with his mouth open, staring, while the beautiful lady wept inside, made the strangest picture. As a matter of course, the footman, riding on in advance, had seen nothing and nobody. He avowed frankly that he was not taking any notice of the folks on the road. He might have seen a man seated on the stones, he could not be certain. Neither had the coachman taken any notice. Foot passengers did not interest either of these functionaries. And Lady Stanton did not seem able to give any further explanation. The only thing to be done was to go on. She had been on her way to Stanton to give Geoff the advantage of Sir Henry’s advice and opinion, and thither,accordingly, they proceeded after this interruption. Geoff took his place again beside his cousin, perhaps a little impatient of the stoppage; but as she lay back in the corner, covering her face with her hands, Geoff’s heart was too soft not to forget every other sentiment. He thought only of consoling her.
“Tell me what it was,” he said, soothingly. “You saw—some one? Do not cry so bitterly. You never harmed anybody in your life. Tell me—you thought you saw——?”
“I sawhim, as plainly as I see you, Geoff; don’t tell me it was a fancy. He was sitting, resting, like a man tired with walking, dusty and worn out. I noticed his weary look before I saw his face, and just as we passed he raised his head. Oh, why should he have looked atmelike that, Geoff? No, I never did any one harm, much less him. I have always stood up for him, you know, since you first spoke to me. I have always said, always—even before this was found out: living people mistake each other continually; but the dead—the dead ought to know—— ”
“Who is dead?” said Geoff; “are you speaking of John Musgrave, who is as much alive as I am?”
“If he were a living man,” said Mary, solemnly, “how could I have seen him? Geoff, it is no mistake. I saw him, as I see you.”
“And is that why you think him dead?” said Geoff, with natural surprise.
Lady Stanton raised herself erect in her corner. “Geoff, oh, can you not understand?” she cried. But she did not herself quite understand what she meant. She thought from the suddenness of it, from the shock it gave her, and from the disappearance of the wayfarer, which was so inexplicable, that it was an apparition she had seen. John Musgrave could not be there, in the flesh, seated by the roadside; it was not possible; but when Geoff asked whether having seen him was an argument for thinking him dead, she had nothing to say. She wrung her hands. “I have seen him whether he is living or dead,” she repeated, “and he looked at me with such eyes. He was not young as he used to be, but worn, and a little grey. I came to tell you what Sir Henry said; but here is something far, farmore important. Know him! Could I mistake him, do you think?—how could I mistake him? Geoff, how could it behe, sitting there without any warning, without a word? but if it was he, if that was possible, why are we going on like this? Are we to desert him?—give him up? I am talking folly,” she said, again clasping her hands. “Oh, Geoff, a living man would not have looked at me with such eyes.”
“He has not very much right to happy eyes, has he?” said Geoff; “coming home an outlaw, not venturing to speak to any one. It would not be half so sad if he were a ghost. But to come back, and not to dare to trust even his friends, not to know if he has any friends, not to be able to go home and see his children like any other man, to rest on the stones at the roadside, he to whom all the land belongs! I don’t wonder he looked sad,” cried Geoff, half-sympathetic, half-indignant. “How was he to know even that he would find a friend in you?”
Mary was sobbing, scarcely able to speak. “Oh, tell them to go back again—tell them to go back,” she cried. There was no way of satisfying her but this: the carriage turned slowly round, rolling like a ship at sea. The coachman was disgusted and unwilling. “What did she want now?” he said, telegraphing with uplifted hands and eyes to the surprised footman on Geoff’s horse. Lady Stanton was not a hard mistress like her stepdaughters, nor fantastical and unreasonable as they were. She took the carriage humbly when she could get it, and would consult this very coachman’s convenience before bringing him out, which no one else thought of doing. Nevertheless Lady Stanton had her character in the house, and human nature required that it should be kept up. She was the stepmother, the scapegoat. “What is she after now?” the coachman said.
She got out of the carriage herself, trembling, to aid in the search, and the footman getting down, looked everywhere, even under the stones, and in the roadside hedges, but no one was there. When they resumed their way again, Mary lay back in her corner too much worn out with excitement and emotion to be able even to speak. Geoff could not tell whether she was glad or sorry to be brought to acknowledge that it was more likely to be John Musgrave whom she had seen than his ghost. She wasconvinced by his reasoning. Oh, yes; no doubt, she said, it must be so. Because you saw a man unexpectedly, that was no reason for supposing him to be dead. Oh, no—Geoff was quite right; she saw the reason of all he said. But Mary’s head and her heart and all her being thrilled with the shock. There was a ringing in her ears, and pulses were beating all over, and her blood coursing through her veins. The very country, so familiar, seemed to change its aspect. No stronger commentary could have been on the passage of time than the sudden glimpse of the face which she had seen just now on the roadside. But Mary did not think of that. The lake and the rural road that ran by it, and the hills in the distance, seemed to take again the colours of her youth. He was nothing to her, and never had been. She had not loved him, only had “taken an interest.” But all that was most poignant in her life came back to her, with the knowledge that he was here. Once more it seemed to be that time when all is vivid, when every day may be the turning-point of life—the time that was consciously but a drift and floating on of hour by hour when it existed, as is the present moment—but which, looking back upon it, seemed the time of free action, of choice, of every possibility. Was it so? Might he be met with round any corner—this man who had been banished so long? In the face of death and danger had he come back, he whom nobody had expected ever to come back? A strange half-question whether everything else had come back with him, and half-certainty that nothing for her could change, was in Mary’s mind as she lay back, quivering with emotion, hearing Geoff’s voice in her ears, not knowing a word he said. What had Geoff to do with it—young Geoff, to whom nothing had ever happened? She smiled vaguely to herself to think that the boy could think he knew. How was he to know?—he was not of that time. But all the people in the road, and the very water itself, and the villages and houses, seemed to ask her, Was it true?
This was all the evidence on the subject from which a judgment could be formed. Randolph Musgrave (who told no one) had seen, in his own words, a something, a some one, whose face he did not see, but who suggested John to him so strongly that his very heart seemed to stop beating—then disappeared. And LadyStanton from the window of the carriage, driving past, saw a face, which was John Musgrave’s face grown older and worn, with hair that was slightly grey, instead of the brown curls of former years, and which disappeared too in the twinkling of an eye, and being searched for, could be found no more. What was it?—an apparition conjured up by their interest or their fears? or John Musgrave, in his own person, come home?