He that will not when he may; vol. III

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Title: He that will not when he may; vol. III
Author: Oliphant, Mrs. (Margaret)
Language: English
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III ***

HE THAT WILL NOT
WHEN HE MAY

MRS. OLIPHANT

_IN THREE VOLUMES_

VOLUME III.

London
MACMILLAN AND CO.
1880

_The Right of Translation and Reproduction is Reserved_

LONDON:
R. CLAY, SONS, AND TAYLOR,
BREAD STREET HILL.

CONTENTS.

PAGE

CHAPTER I. 1

CHAPTER II. 12

CHAPTER III. 27

CHAPTER IV. 46

CHAPTER V. 70

CHAPTER VI. 88

CHAPTER VII. 108

CHAPTER VIII. 127

CHAPTER IX. 148

CHAPTER X. 166

CHAPTER XI. 190

CHAPTER XII. 211

CHAPTER XIII. 230

CHAPTER XIV. 255

HE THAT WILL NOT WHEN HE MAY.

CHAPTER I.

It was late, quite late, when Mr. Gus was “got to go away.” And it might
have proved impossible altogether, but for some one who came for him and
would not be denied. Mr. Scrivener was sitting alone with him in the
library, from which all the others had gone, when this unknown summons
arrived. The lawyer had done all he could to convince him that it was
impossible he could remain; but Gus could not see the impossibility. He
was hurt that they should wish him to go away, and still more hurt when
the lawyer suggested that, in case of his claims being proved, Lady
Markham would evacuate the house and leave it to him.

“What would she do that for?” Gus cried. “Did I come here to be left in
a great desert all by myself? I won’t let them go away.”

Between these two determinations the lawyer did not know what to do. He
was half-exasperated, half-amused, most reluctant to offend a personage
who would have everything in his power as respected the little Markhams,
and might make life so much happier, or more bitter, to all of them. He
would not offend him for their sake, but neither could he let him take
up his abode in the house and thus forestal all future settlement of the
question. When the messenger came Mr. Scrivener was very grateful. It
left him at liberty to speak with the others whose interests were much
closer to his heart. To his surprise the person who came for Gus
immediately addressed to him the most anxious questions about Lady
Markham and Alice.

“I daren’t ask to see them,” this stranger said, who was half hidden in
the obscurity of the night. “Will you tell them Edward Fairfax sends
his--what do you call it?” said the young man--“duty, the poor people
say: my most respectful duty. I stayed for to-day. I should have liked
to help to carry him, but I did not feel I had any right.” His eyes
glimmered in the twilight as eyes shine only through tears. “I helped to
nurse him,” he said in explanation, “poor old gentleman.”

At this moment Gus, helped very obsequiously by Brown, who had got scent
of something extraordinary in the air, as servants do, was getting
himself into his overcoat.

“Have you anything to do with _him_?” the lawyer replied.

“No further than being in the inn with him. And I thought from what he
said they might have a difficulty in getting him away. So I came to
fetch him; but not entirely for that either,” Fairfax said.

“Then you never did them a better service,” said the lawyer, “than
to-night.”

“I don’t think there is any harm in him,” Fairfax said.

The lawyer shook his head. There might be no harm in him; but what harm
was coming because of him! He said nothing, and Gus came out, buttoned
up to the throat.

“You’ll not go, I hope, till it is all settled,” he said.

“Settled--it may not be settled for years!” cried the lawyer, testily.
And then he turned to the other, who might be a confederate for anything
he knew, standing out in the darkness, “What name am I to tell Lady
Markham--Fairfax? Keep him away as long as you can,” he whispered; “he
will be the death of them.” He thought afterwards that he was in some
degree committing himself as allowing that Gus possessed the power of
doing harm, which it would have been better policy altogether to deny.

Thus it was not till nightfall that the lawyer was able to communicate
to his clients his real opinion. All the exhaustion and desire of repose
which generally follows such a period of domestic distress had been made
an end of by this extraordinary new event. Lady Markham was sitting in
her favourite room, wrapped in a shawl, talking low with her brother and
Alice, when Mr. Scrivener came in. He told them how it was that he had
got free, and gave them the message Fairfax had sent. But it is to be
feared that the devotion and delicacy of it suffered in transmission. It
was his regards or his respects, and not his duty, which the lawyer
gave. What could the word matter? But he reported the rest more or less
faithfully. “He thought there would be a difficulty in getting rid of
our little friend,” Mr. Scrivener said, “and therefore he came. It was
considerate.”

“Yes, it was very considerate,” Lady Markham said, but, unreasonably,
the ladies were both disappointed and vexed, they could not tell why,
that their friend should thus make himself appear the supporter of their
enemy. Their hearts chilled to him in spite of themselves. Paul had gone
out; he was not able to bear any more of it; he could not rest. “Forgive
my boy, Mr. Scrivener,” his mother said; “he never was patient, and
think of all he has lost.”

“Mr. Paul,” said the lawyer coldly, “might have endured the restraint
for one evening, seeing I have waited on purpose to be of use to him.”

The hearts of all three sank to their shoes when Mr. Scrivener, who was
his adviser, his supporter, the chief prop he had to trust to--who had
called the young man Sir Paul all the morning--thus changed his title.
Lady Markham put out her hand and grasped his arm.

“You have given it up, then!” she said. “You have given it up! There is
no more hope!”

And though he would not allow this, all that Mr. Scrivener had to say
was the reverse of hopeful. He was aware of Sir William’s residence in
Barbadoes, which his wife had never heard of until the Lennys had
betrayed it to her, and of many other little matters which sustained and
gave consistence to the story of Gus. They sat together till late, going
over everything, and before they separated it was tacitly concluded
among them that all was over, that there was no more hope. The lawyer
still spoke of inquiries, of sending a messenger to Barbadoes, and
making various attempts to defend Paul’s position. After all, it
resolved itself into a question of Paul. Lady Markham could not be
touched one way or another, and the fortunes of the children were
secured. But Paul--how was Paul to bear this alteration in everything,
this ruin of his life?

“It is all over now,” Lady Markham said to her daughter, as after this
long and terrible day they went up stairs together. “Whatever might have
been, it is past hoping now. He will go with those people, and I shall
never see my boy more.”

What could Alice say? She cried, which seemed the only thing possible.
There was no use in tears, but there is sometimes relief when no other
outlet is possible. They wept together, thankful that at least there
were two of them to mingle their tears. And Paul had not come in. He was
wandering about the woods in the moonlight, not caring for anything, his
head light, and his feet heavy. He had fallen, fallen, he scarcely knew
where or when. Instead of the subdued and sad happiness of the morning,
a sense of wounding and bruising and miserable downfall was in him and
about him. He did not know where he was going, though he was acquainted
with every glade and tangled alley of those familiar woods. Once (it was
now September) he was seized by the gamekeepers, who thought him a
poacher, and whose alarmed apologies and excuses when they discovered
that it was Sir Paul, gave him a momentary sensation of self-disgust as
if it were he who was the impostor. “I am not Sir Paul,” was on his lips
to say, but he did not seem to care enough for life to say it. One
delusion more or less, what did it matter?

He walked and walked, till he was footsore with fatigue. He went past
the Markham Arms in the dark, and saw his supplanter through the inn
window talking--to whom?--to Fairfax. What had Fairfax to do with it?
Was it a scheme invented by Fairfax to humble him? Then the unhappy
young fellow strayed to his father’s grave, all heaped up and covered
with the flowers that shone pale in the moonlight, quite detached from
the surrounding graves and upturned earth. He sat down there, all alone
in the silence of the world, and noticed, in spite of himself, how the
night air moved the leaves and grasses, and how the moonlight slowly
climbed the great slope of the skies. When the church tower came for a
little while between him and the light, he shivered. He dropped his head
into his hands and thought he slept. The night grew tedious to him, the
darkness unendurable. He went away to the woods again, with a vague
sense that to be taken for a poacher, or even shot by chance round the
bole of a tree, would be the best thing that could happen. Neither Sir
Paul nor any one--not even a poacher: what was he? A semblance, a
shadow, a vain show--not the same as he who had walked with his face to
heaven in the morning, and everything expanding, opening out around
him. In a moment they had all collapsed like a house of cards. He did
not want to go home; home! it was not home--nor to see his mother, nor
to talk to any one. The hoot of the owl, the incomprehensible stirring
of the woods were more congenial to him than human voices. What could
they talk about? Nothing but this on which there was nothing to say.
Supplanted! Yes, he was supplanted, turned out of his natural place by a
stranger. And what could he do? He could not fight for his inheritance,
which would have been a kind of consolation--unless indeed it were a
law-fight in the courts, where there would be swearing and
counter-swearing, and all the dead father’s life raked up, and perhaps
shameful stories told of the old man who had to-day been laid in his
grave with so much honour. This was the only way in which in these days
a man could fight.

But it was only now and then, by intervals, that Paul’s thoughts took
any form so definite. He did not want to think. There was in him a vague
and general sense of destruction--ruin, downfall, and humiliation which
he could not endure. But, strangely enough, in all this he never thought
of the plans which so short a while ago he had considered as shaping
his life. He did not think that now he could go back to them, and, free
from all encumbrances of duty, pursue the way he had chosen. The truth
was, he did not think of them at all. In the morning Spears and his
colleagues had come to his mind as something from which he had escaped,
but at night he did not think of them at all. They were altogether wiped
out of his mind and obliterated by the loss of that which he had never
possessed.

When he went home all the lights in the great house seemed extinguished
save one candle which flickered in the hall window, and the light in his
mother’s room, which shone out like a star into the summer darkness. It
was Alice who came noiseless, before he could knock, and opened the
great door.

“Mamma cannot sleep till she has seen you,” said the girl. “Oh, Paul, we
must think of her now. I sent all the servants to bed. I have been
watching for you at the window. I could not bear Brown and the rest to
think that there was anything wrong.”

“But they must soon know that everything is wrong. It is not a thing
that can be hid.”

“Perhaps it may be hid, Paul. It may turn out it is all a delusion--or
an imposture.”

“Let us go to my mother’s room,” said Paul.

He said nothing as he went up the stairs, but when he got to the landing
he turned round upon the pale girl beside him carrying the light, whose
white face illuminated by her candle made a luminous point in the gloom.
He turned round to her all at once in the blackness of the great vacant
place.

“It is no imposture; it is true. Whether we can bear it or not, it is
true!”

“God will help us to bear it, Paul; if you will not desert us--if you
will stay by us----”

“Desert you--was there ever any question of deserting you?” he said. He
looked at his sister with a half-complaining curiosity and surprise, and
shrugged his shoulders, so foolish did it sound to him. Then he took the
candle from her hand, almost rudely, and walked before her to their
mother’s room. “You women never understand,” he said.

CHAPTER II.

After this a sudden veil and silence fell upon Markham. Nothing could be
more natural than that this should be the case. Paul went to town with
his uncle Fleetwood and the family lawyer, and shortly after the boys
went back to school, and perfect silence fell upon the mourning house.
The woods began to be touched by that finger of autumn which is chill
rather than fiery, notwithstanding Mr. Tennyson--a yellow flag hung out
here and there to warn the summer world, still in full brightness, of
what was coming; but no crack of gun was to be heard among the covers.
The county persistently and devotedly came to call, but Lady Markham was
not yet able to see visitors. She was visible at church and sometimes
driving, but never otherwise, which was all quite natural too, seeing
that she was a woman who had always been a tender wife. No whisper of
any complication, of anything that made grief harder to bear had escaped
from the house. Or so at least they thought who lived an anxious life
there, not knowing what was to happen. But nevertheless by some strange
magnetism in the air it was known from one end to another of the county
that there was something mysterious going on. The servants had felt it
in the air almost before the family themselves knew. When Brown helped
“the little furrin gentleman” on with his coat on the evening of the
funeral day do you think he did not know that this was his future
master? The knowledge breathed even about the cottages and into the
village, where generally the rustic public was obtuse enough in
mastering any new fact. The young master who had been Sir Paul for one
brief day sank into Mr. Paul again, nobody knowing how, and what was
still more wonderful, nobody asking why. Among the higher classes there
was more distinct curiosity, and many floating rumours. That there was a
new claimant everybody was aware; and that there was to be a great trial
unfolding all the secrets of the family for generations and showing a
great many respectable personages to the world in an entirely new
light, most people hoped. It was generally divined and understood that
the odd little foreigner (as everybody thought him) who had made himself
conspicuous at the funeral, and whom many people had met walking about
the roads, was the new heir. But how he came by his claim few people
understood. Sir William was not the man to be the hero of any doubtful
story, or to leave any uncertainty upon the succession to his property.
This was just the one evil which no one, not even his political enemies,
could think him capable of; therefore the imagination of his county
neighbours threw itself further back upon his two brothers who had
preceded him. Of these Sir Paul was known to have borne no spotless
reputation in his youth, and even Sir Harry might have had antecedents
that would not bear looking into. From one or other of these, the county
concluded, and not through Sir William, this family misfortune must have
come.

One morning during this interval, when Paul was absent and all the
doings of the household at Markham were mysteriously hidden from the
world, a visitor came up the avenue who was not of the usual kind. She
seemed for some time very doubtful whether to go to the great door, or
to seek an entrance in a more humble way. She was a tall and slim young
woman, dressed in a black alpacca gown, with a black hat and feather,
and a shawl over her arm, a nondescript sort of person, not altogether a
lady, yet whom Charles, the footman, contemplated more or less
respectfully, not feeling equal to the impertinence of bidding her go
round to the servants’ door; for how could any one tell, he said? there
were governesses and that sort that stood a deal more on their dignity
than the ladies themselves. Mrs. Fry, who happened to see her from a
window in the wing where she was superintending the great autumn
cleaning in the nursery, concluded that it was some one come about the
lady’s-maid’s place, for Alice’s maid was going to be married. “But if
you get it,” said Mrs. Fry mentally, “I can tell you it’s not long
you’ll go trolloping about with that long feather, nor wear a bit of a
hat stuck on the top of your head.” While, however, Mrs. Fry was forming
this rapid estimate of her, Charles looked at the young person with
hesitating respect, and behaved with polite condescension, coming
forward as she approached. When she asked if she could see Lady Markham,
Charles shook his head. “My lady don’t see nobody,” he replied with an
ease of language which was the first symptom he showed of feeling
himself on an equality with the visitor. It was the tone of her voice
which had produced this effect. Charles knew that this was not how a
lady spoke.

“But she’ll see me, if she knows who I am,” said the girl. “I know
she’ll see me if you’ll be so kind as to take up my name. Say Miss Janet
Spears--as she saw in Oxford--”

“If you’ve come about the lady’s-maid’s place,” said Charles, “there’s
our housekeeper, Mrs. Fry, she’ll see you.”

“I haven’t come about no lady’s-maid’s place. You had better take up my
name, or it will be the worse for you after,” cried the girl angrily.
She gave him such a look that Charles shook in his shoes. He begged her
pardon humbly, and went off to seek Brown, leaving her standing at the
door.

Then Brown came and inspected her from the further side of the hall. “I
don’t know why you should bother me, or me go and bother my lady,” said
Brown, not satisfied with the inspection; “take her to Missis Fry.”

“But she won’t go. It’s my lady she wants, and just you look at her,
what she wants she’ll have, that’s sure; she says it’ll be the worse for
us after.”

“What name did you say?” asked Brown. “I’ll tell Mrs. Martin, and she
can do as she thinks proper.” Mrs. Martin was Lady Markham’s own maid.
Thus it was through a great many hands that the name of Janet Spears
reached Lady Markham’s seclusion. Charles was very triumphant when the
message reached him that the young person was to go up stairs. “I told
you,” he said to Mr. Brown. But Brown on his part was satisfied to know
that it was only “a young person,” not a lady, whom his mistress
admitted. His usual discrimination had not deserted him. As for Janet,
the great staircase overawed her more than even the exterior of the
house; the size and the grandeur took away her breath; and though she
felt no respect for Charles, the air as of a dignified clergyman with
which Mr. Brown stepped out before her, to guide her to Lady Markham’s
room, not deigning to say anything, impressed her more than words could
tell. No clergyman she had ever encountered had been half so imposing;
though Janet from a general desire to better herself in the world, and
determination not to lower herself to the level of her father’s
companions, had always been a good churchwoman and eschewed Dissenters.
But Mr. Brown, it may well be believed, in the gloss of his black
clothes and the perfection of his linen, was not to be compared with a
hardworking parish priest exposed to all weathers. By the time she had
reached Lady Markham’s door her breath was coming quick with fright and
excitement. Lady Markham herself had made no such strong impression. Her
dress had not been what Janet thought suitable for a great lady. She had
felt a natural scorn for a woman who, having silks and satins at her
command, could come out in simple stuff no better than her own. Mrs.
Martin, however, had a black silk which “could have stood alone,” and
everything combined to dazzle the rash visitor. Now that she had got so
far her knees began to tremble beneath her. Lady Markham was standing
awaiting her, in deep mourning, looking a very different person from the
beautiful woman whom Janet had seen standing in the sunshine in her
father’s shop. She made a step forward to receive her visitor, a
movement of anxiety and eagerness; then waited till the door was shut
upon her attendant. “You have come--from your father?” she said.

“No, my lady.” Now that it had come to the point Janet felt an unusual
shyness come over her. She cast down her eyes and twisted her fingers
round the handle of the umbrella she carried. “My father was away: I had
a day to spare: and I thought I’d come and ask you----”

“Do not be afraid. Tell me what it is you want; is it----” Lady Markham
hesitated more than Janet did. Was it something about Paul? What could
it be but about Paul? but she would not say anything to open that
subject again.

“It is about Mr. Paul, my lady. There isn’t any reason for me to
hesitate. It was you that first put it into my head----”

Now it was Lady Markham’s turn to droop. “I am very sorry,” she said
involuntarily. “I was--misled----”

“Oh, I don’t know as there’s anything to be sorry about. Mr. Paul--I
suppose he is Sir Paul, now?”

As Janet’s gaze, no longer shy, dwelt pointedly on her dress by way of
justifying the question, Lady Markham shrank back a little. “It is
not--quite settled,” she said faintly; “there are some--unexpected
difficulties.”

“Oh!” Janet’s eyes grew round as her exclamation, an expression of
surprise and profound disappointment went over her face. “Will he not be
a baronet then, after all?” she said.

“These are family matters which I have not entered into with any one,”
said Lady Markham, recovering herself. “I cannot discuss them
now--unless----” here her voice faltered, “you have any right----”

“I should think a girl just had a right where all her prospects are
concerned,” said Janet. “It was that brought me here. I wanted you to
know, my lady, that I’ve advised Mr. Paul against it--against the
emigration plan. If he goes it won’t be to please me. I don’t want him
to go. I don’t want to go myself--and that’s what I’ve come here for. If
so be,” said Janet, speaking deliberately, “as anything is to come of it
between him and me, I should be a deal happier and a deal better pleased
to stay on at home; and I thought if you knew that you’d give up
opposing. I’ve said it to him as plain as words can say. And if he will
go, it will be your blame and not mine. It will be because he thinks
you’ve set your face so against it, that _that’s_ the only way.”

Lady Markham trembled so much that she could not stand. She sank down
upon a chair. “Pardon me,” she said involuntarily, “I have not been
well.”

“Oh, don’t mention it, my lady,” said Janet, taking a chair too. “I was
just a going to ask you if you wouldn’t sit down and make yourself
comfortable.” She had got over her shyness; but that which liberated her
threw Lady Markham into painful agitation. It seemed to her that she had
the fate of her son thrown back into her hands. If she withdrew all
opposition to this marriage, would he indeed give up his wild ideas and
stay at home? If she opposed it, would he persevere? and how could she
oppose anything he had set his heart upon after all he had to renounce
on his side, poor boy? She did not know how to reply or how to face such
a dilemma. To help to make this woman Paul’s wife--or to lose Paul
altogether--what a choice it was to make! Her voice was choked by the
fluttering of her heart.

“My son,” she said, faintly, “has never spoken to me on the subject.”

“It is not likely,” said Janet, “when he knows he would meet with
nothing but opposition. For my part I’m willing, very willing, to stay
at home. I never went in with the emigration plan. Father is a good man,
and very steady, and has been a good father to us; but whenever it comes
to planning, there’s no telling the nonsense he’s got in his head.”

“Does your father know that you have come to see me?” Lady Markham said.
With Spears himself she had some standing-ground. She knew how to talk
to the demagogue, understood him, and he her; but the young woman she
did not understand. Paul’s mother, notwithstanding all her experience,
was half afraid of this creature, so straightforward, so free of
prejudice, so--sensible. Yes, it was sense, no doubt. Janet did not want
to go away. She had no faith in her father, nor in the man who was
going, she hoped, to be her husband. Lady Markham, herself capable of
enthusiasm and devotion, and who could so well, in her maturity, have
understood the folly of a girl ready to follow to the end of the world
for love, was almost afraid of Janet. She was cowed by her steady look,
the bargain she evidently wished to make. She took refuge as it were,
in Spears, mentally appealing to him in her heart.

“No,” said Janet, “no one knows. He is away from home on one of his
speechifyings. Don’t think I hold with that, my lady. England’s good
enough for me, and things as they are; and if so be as you will make up
your mind not to go against us, Mr. Paul shall never go to foreign parts
through me. But he is Sir Paul, ain’t he?” the young woman said.

“I will do nothing--to make my son unhappy,” said Lady Markham. How
could she help but sigh to think that this was the woman that could make
him happy? “He is not at home,” she added with a tone of relief.

“But he is Sir Paul? What is the good of deceiving me, when I can hear
from any one--the gentleman down stairs, or any one.”

“Is there a gentleman down stairs?” Lady Markham thought some one must
have come bringing news, perhaps, while she was shut up here.

Janet blushed crimson. Now she had indeed made a mistake. She avoided
all reply which might have led to the discovery that Brown was the
gentleman she meant; but this glaring error made her humbler.

“You are very kind, my lady, to speak so reasonable,” she said. “And if
you like to tell Mr. Paul that I’m as set against emigration as you
are--I am not one that will be put upon,” said Janet; “but if we’re both
to be the same, you and me, both Lady Markhams,” here she paused a
moment to draw a long breath, half overcome by the thought which in this
scene became so dazzlingly real and possible, “I think it would be a
real good thing if we could be friends.”

This thought, which fluttered Janet, made Lady Markham faint. The blood
seemed to ebb away from her heart as she heard these words. She could
not make any reply. It was true enough what the girl said, and if she
should ever be Paul’s wife, no doubt his mother would be bound to be her
friend. But she could not speak in reply. There was a pause. And Janet
looked round the richly-furnished, luxurious room which was not indeed
by any means so fine as she would have thought natural, with much
curiosity and interest. The sight of all its comforts revealed to her
the very necessities they were intended to supply, and which had no
existence in her primitive state. Janet was not unreasonable. She was
content with the acquiescence she had elicited. Lady Markham had not
resisted her nor denounced her, as it was quite on the cards that she
might have done. “You have a very grand house, and a beautiful place
here, my lady,” she said. Lady Markham, more than ever subdued, made a
faint sound of assent in reply. “I should like to see over it,” Janet
said.

“Miss--Spears!”

“Oh, I don’t mind, if you would rather not! Some people don’t like them
that is to come after them. I have said all I came to say, my lady. So
perhaps I had better just say good-bye.”

And Janet rose and put forth a moist hand in a black glove. She had got
these black gloves and the hat out of compliment to the family. Never
had a friendly and hospitable woman been in a greater difficulty. “I am
not seeing any one,” Lady Markham faltered; “but--should you not like
some refreshment before you go?”

Janet paused. She would have liked to have eaten in such a house. What
they eat there must be different from the common fare with which she
was acquainted, and a man in livery to wait behind her chair was an idea
which thrilled her soul; but when Lady Markham rang the bell, and
ordered Mrs. Martin to have a tray brought up stairs, she started in
high offence.

“No, my lady; if I’m not good enough to take my meals with you, I’ll
have nothing in this house,” she cried, and flounced indignant out of
the room. This was the summary end of the first visit paid to Markham by
Janet Spears.

CHAPTER III.

The day after Paul’s departure for London with his lawyer and his uncle,
Mr. Gus left the Markham Arms. By a fatality Fairfax thought, he too was
going away at the same time. He had gone up to Markham in the morning
early for no particular reason. He said to himself that he wanted to see
the house of which he had so strangely become an inmate for a little
while and then had been swept out of, most probably for ever. To think
that he knew all those rooms as familiarly as if they belonged to him,
and could wander about them in his imagination, and remember whereabouts
the pictures hung on the walls, and how the patterns went in the carpet,
and yet never had seen them a month ago, and never might see them
again! It is a strange experience in a life when this happens, but not a
very rare one. Sometimes the passer-by is made for a single evening, for
an hour or two, the sharer of an existence which drops entirely into the
darkness afterwards, and is never visible to him again. Fairfax asked
himself somewhat sadly if this was how it was to be. He thought that he
would never in his life forget one detail of those rooms, the very way
the curtains hung, the covers on the tables: and yet they could never be
anything to him except a picture in his memory, hanging suspended
between the known and the unknown. The great door was open as he had
known it (“It is always open,” he said to himself), and all the windows
of the sitting-rooms, receiving the full air and sunshine into them. But
up stairs the house was not yet open. Over some of the windows the
curtains were drawn. Where they still sleeping, the two women who were
in his thoughts? He cared much less in comparison for the rest of the
family. Paul, indeed, being in trouble, had been much in his mind as he
came up the avenue; but Paul had not been here when Fairfax had lived
in the house, and did not enter into his recollections; and Paul he knew
was away now. But the two ladies--Alice, whom he had been allowed to
spend so many lingering hours with, whom he had told so much about
himself--and Lady Markham, whom he had never ceased to wonder at; they
had taken him into the very closest circle of their friendship; they had
said “Go,” and he had gone; or “Come,” and he had always been ready to
obey. And now was he to see no more of them for ever? Fairfax could not
but feel very melancholy when this thought came into his mind. He came
slowly up the avenue, looking at the old house. The old house he called
it to himself, as people speak of the home they have loved for years. He
would never forget it though already perhaps they had forgotten him. His
foot upon the gravel caught the ear of Mr. Brown, who came to the door
and looked out curiously. When things of a mysterious character are
happening in a house the servants are always vigilant. Brown came down
stairs early; he suffered no sound to pass unnoticed. And now he came
out into the early sunshine, and looked about like a man determined to
let nothing escape him. And the sight of Fairfax was a welcome sight,
for was not he “mixed up” with the whole matter, and probably able to
throw light upon some part of it, could he be got to speak.

“I hope I see you well, sir,” said Mr. Brown. “This is a sad house,
sir--not like what it was a little time ago. We have suffered a great
affliction, sir, in the loss of Sir William.”

“I am going away, Brown,” said Fairfax. “I came up to ask for the
ladies. Tell me what you can about them. How is Lady Markham? She must
have felt it terribly, I fear.”

“Yes, sir, and all that’s happened since,” said Brown. “A death, sir, is
a thing we must all look forward to. That will happen from time to time,
and nobody can say a word; but there’s a deal happened since, Mr.
Fairfax--and that do try my lady the worst of all.”

Fairfax did not ask what had happened, which Mr. Brown very shrewdly
took as conclusive that he knew all about it. He said half to himself,
“I will leave a card, though that means nothing;” and then he mused long
over the card, trying to put more than a message ever contained into
the little space at his disposal. This was at last what he produced--

When he had written this--and only when he had written it--it occurred
to him how much better it would have been to have written a note, and
then he hesitated whether to tear his card in pieces; but on reflection,
decided to let it go. He thought the crowded lines would discourage
Brown from the attempt to decipher it.

“You will give them that, and tell them--but there is no need for
telling them anything,” Fairfax said with a sigh.

“You are going away, sir?”

“Yes, Brown”--he said, confidentially, “directly,” feeling as if he
could cry; and Brown felt for the poor young fellow. He thought over the
matter for a moment, and reflected that if things were to go badly for
the family, it would be a good thing for Miss Alice to have a good
husband ready at hand. Various things had given Brown a high opinion of
Fairfax. There were signs about him--which perhaps only a person of Mr.
Brown’s profession could fully appreciate--of something like wealth.
Brown could scarcely have explained to any one the grounds on which he
built this hypothesis, but all the same he entertained it with profound
conviction. He eyed the card with great interest, meaning to peruse it
by and by; and then he said--

“I beg your pardon, sir, but I think Miss Alice is just round the
corner, with the young ladies and the young gentlemen. You won’t
mention, sir, as I said it--but I think you’ll find them all there.”

Fairfax was down the steps in a moment; but then paused:

“I wonder if it will be an intrusion,” he said; then he made an abject
and altogether inappropriate appeal, “Brown! do you think I may venture,
Brown?”

“I would, sir, if I was you,” said that personage with a secret chuckle,
but the seriousness of his countenance never relaxed. He grinned as the
young man darted away in the direction he had pointed out. Brown was not
without sympathy for tender sentiments. And then he fell back upon those
indications already referred to. A good husband was always a good thing,
he said to himself.

And Fairfax skimmed as if on wings round the end of the wing to a bit of
lawn which they were all fond of--where he had played with the boys and
talked with Alice often before. When he got within sight of it, however,
he skimmed the ground no longer. He began to get alarmed at his own
temerity. The blackness of the group on the grass which he had seen only
in their light summer dresses gave him a sensation of pain. He went
forward very timidly, very doubtfully. Alice was standing with her back
towards him, and it was only when he was quite near that she turned
round. She gave a little startled cry--“Mr. Fairfax!” and smiled; then
her eyes filled with tears. She held out one hand to him and covered her
face with the other. The little girls seeing this began to cry too. For
the moment it was their most prevailing habit. Fairfax took the
outstretched hand into both his, and what could he do to show his
sympathy but kiss it?--a sight which filled Bell and Marie with wonder,
seeing it, as they saw the world in general, through that blurred medium
of tears.

“I could not help coming,” he said, “forgive me! just to look at the
windows. I know them all by heart. I had no hope of so much happiness as
to see--any one; but I could not--it was impossible to go
away--without----”

Here they all thought he gave a little sob too, which said more than
words, and went to their hearts.

“But, Mr. Fairfax,” said Bell, “you were here before--”

“Yes; I could not go away. I always thought it possible that there might
be some errand--something you would tell me to do. At all events I must
have stayed for----”

The funeral he would have added. He could not but feel that though Alice
had given him her hand, there was a little hesitation about her.

“But, Mr. Fairfax,” Bell began again, “you were staying at the inn
with--the little gentleman. Don’t you know he is our enemy now?”

“I don’t think he is your enemy,” Fairfax said--which was not at all
what he meant to say.

“Hush, Bell, that was not what it was; only mamma thought--and I--that
poor Paul was your friend and that you would not have put yourself--on
the other side.”

“_I_ put myself on the other side!” cried the young man. “Oh, how little
you know! I was going to offer to go out to that place myself to make
sure, for it does not matter where I go. I am not of consequence to any
one like Paul; but----”

“But--what?”

Alice half put out her hand to him again.

“You will not think this is putting myself on the other side. It all
looks so dreadfully genuine,” said Fairfax, sinking his voice.

Only Alice heard what he said. She was unreasonable, as girls are.

“In that case we will not say anything more on the subject, Mr. Fairfax;
you cannot expect us to agree with you,” she said. “Good-bye. I will
tell mamma you have called.”

She turned away from him as she spoke, then cast a glance at him from
under her eyelids, angry yet relenting. They stood for a moment like the
lovers in Molière, eying each other timidly, sadly--but there was no one
to bring them together, to say the necessary word in the ear of each.
Poor Fairfax uttered a sigh so big that it seemed to move the branches
round. He said--

“Good-bye then, Miss Markham; won’t you shake hands with me before I
go?”

“Good-bye,” said Alice faintly. She wanted to say something more, but
what could she say? Another moment and he was gone altogether, hurrying
down the avenue.

“Oh, how nasty you were to poor Mr. Fairfax,” cried Bell. “And he was
always so kind. Don’t you remember, Marie, how he ran all the way in the
rain to fetch the doctor? even George wouldn’t go. He said he couldn’t
take a horse out, and was frightened of the thunder among the trees; but
Mr. Fairfax only buttoned his coat and flew.”

“The boys said,” cried little Marie, “that they were sure he would win
the mile--in a moment----”

“Oh, children,” cried Alice, “what do you know about it? you will break
my heart talking such nonsense--when there is so much trouble in the
house. I am going in to mamma.”

But things were not much better there, for she found Lady Markham with
Fairfax’s card in her hand, which she was reading with a great deal of
emotion. “Put it away with the letters,” Lady Markham said. They had
kept all the letters which they received after Sir William’s death by
themselves in the old despatch-box which had always travelled with him
wherever he went, and which now stood--with something of the same
feeling which might have made them appropriate the greenest paddock to
his favourite horse--in Lady Markham’s room. Some of them were very
“beautiful letters.” They had been dreadful to receive morning by
morning, but they were a kind of possession--an inheritance now.

“Put it with the letters,” Lady Markham said; “any one could see that
his very heart was in it. He knew your dear father’s worth; he was
capable of appreciating him; and he knows what a loss we have had. Poor
boy--I will never forget his kindness--never as long as I live.”

“But, mamma,” said Alice, loyal still though her heart was melting, “you
know you thought it very strange of Mr. Fairfax to take that horrid
little man’s part against Paul.”

“I can’t think he did anything of the sort,” Lady Markham said, but she
would not enter into the question.

It was not wonderful, however, if Alice was angry. She had sent him away
because of the general family anger against him; and lo, nobody seemed
to feel that anger except herself.

But it may be easily understood how Fairfax felt it a fatality when he
found Gus’s portmanteaux packed, and himself awaiting his return to go
by the same train.

“Why should I stay here?” he said. “I did not come to England to stay in
a village inn. I will go with you, and go to that lawyer, and get it all
settled. Why should they make such a fuss about it? I mean no one any
harm. Why can’t they take to me and make me one of the family? except
that I should be there instead of my poor father, I don’t know what
difference it need make.”

“But that makes a considerable difference,” said Fairfax. “You must
perceive that.”

“Of course it makes a difference; between father and son there is always
a difference--but less with me than with most people. I do not want to
marry, for instance. Most men marry when they come into their estates.
There was once a girl in the island,” said Gus, with a sigh; “but things
were going badly, and she married a man in the Marines. No, if they will
consent to consider me as one of the family--I like the children, and
Alice seems a nice sort of girl, and my stepmother a respectable
motherly woman----, eh?”

Some hostile sound escaped from Fairfax which made the little gentleman
look up with great surprise. He had not a notion why his friend should
object to what he said.

But the end was that the two did go to town together, and that it was
Fairfax who directed this enemy of his friends’ where to go, and how to
manage his business. Gus was perfectly helpless, not knowing anything
about London, and would have been as likely to settle himself in Fleet
Street as in Piccadilly--perhaps more so. Fairfax could not get rid of
his companion till he had put him in communication with the lawyer, and
generally looked after all his affairs. For himself nothing could be
more ill-omened. He went about asking himself what would the Markhams
think of him?--and yet what could he do? Gus’s mingled perplexity and
excitement in town were amusing, but they were embarrassing too. He
wanted to go and see the Tower and St. Paul’s. He wanted Fairfax to tell
him exactly what he ought to give to every cabman. He stood in the
middle of the crowd in the streets folding his arms, and resisting the
stream which would have carried him one way or the other.

“You call this a free country, and yet one cannot even walk as one
likes,” he said. “Why are these fellows jostling me; do they want to rob
me?”

Fairfax did not know what to do with the burden thus thrown on his
hands.

And it may be imagined what the young man’s sensations were, when having
just deposited Gus in the dining-room of one of the junior clubs of
which he was a member, he met Paul upon the steps of the building coming
in. Paul was a member too. Fairfax was driven to his wits’ end. The
little gentleman was tired, and would not budge an inch until he had
eaten his luncheon and refreshed himself. What was to be done? Paul was
not too friendly even to himself.

“Are you here, too, Markham? I thought there was nobody in London but
myself,” Fairfax said.

“There are only a few millions for those who take them into account; but
some people don’t----”

“Oh, you know what I mean,” Fairfax said. And then they stood and looked
at each other. Paul was pale. His mourning gave him a formal look, not
unlike his father. He had the air of some young official on duty, with a
great deal of unusual care and responsibility upon him.

“You look as if you were the head of an office,” said Fairfax,
attempting a smile.

“It would not be a bad thing,” said the other languidly; “but the tail
would be more like it than the head. I must do something of that kind.”

“Do you mean that you are going into public life?”

“That depends upon what _you_ mean by public life,” said Paul. “I am
not, for instance, going into Parliament, though there were thoughts of
that once; but I have got to work, my good fellow, though that may seem
odd to you.”

“To work!” Fairfax echoed with dismay; which dismay was not because of
the work, but because the means of getting him out of the place, and out
of risk of an encounter with Gus, became less and less every moment.
Paul laughed with a forced and theatrical laugh. In short, he was
altogether a little theatrical--his looks, his dress, everything about
him. In the excess of his determination to bear his downfall like a man,
he was playing with exaggerated honesty the part of a fallen gentleman
and ruined heir.

“You think that very alarming then? but I assure you it depends
altogether on how you look at it. My father worked incessantly, and it
was his glory. If I work, not as a chief, but as an underling, it will
not be a bit less honourable.”

“Markham, can you suppose for a moment that I think it less honourable?”
said Fairfax; “quite otherwise. But does it mean----? Stop, I must tell
you something before I ask you any questions. That little beggar who
calls himself your brother----”

“I believe he is my brother,” said Paul, formally; and then he added
with another laugh: “that is the noble development to which the house of
Markham has come.”

“He is there. Yes, in the dining-room, waiting for his luncheon. One
moment, Markham!--we were at the inn in the village together, and he has
hung himself on to me. What could I do? he knew nothing about London; he
is as helpless as a baby. And the ladies,” said Fairfax, his countenance
changing, “the ladies--take it as a sign that I am siding with him
against you.”

He felt a quiver come over his face like that of a boy who is
complaining of ill-usage, and for the moment could scarcely subdue a
rueful laugh at his own expense; but Paul laughed no more. He became
more than ever like the head of an office, too young for his post, and
solemnised by the weight of it. His face shaped itself into still more
profound agreement with the solemnity of those black clothes.

“Pardon me, my good fellow,” he said. Paul was not one of the men to
whom this mode of address comes natural. There was again a theatrical
heroism in his look. “Pardon me; but in such a matter as this I don’t
see what your siding could do for either one or the other. It is fact
that is in question, nothing else.”

And with a hasty good day he turned and went down the steps where they
had been talking. Fairfax was left alone, and never man stood on the
steps of a club and looked out upon the world and the passing cabs and
passengers with feelings more entirely uncomfortable. He had not been
unfaithful in a thought to his friend, but all the circumstances were
against him. For a few minutes he stood and reflected what he should do.
He could not go and sit down at table comfortably with the unconscious
little man who had made the breach; and yet he could not throw him over.
Finally he sent a message by one of the servants to tell Gus that he had
been called unexpectedly away, and set off down the street at his
quickest pace. He walked a long way before he stopped himself. He was
anxious to make it impossible that he should meet either Gus again or
Paul. Soon the streets began to close in. A dingier and darker part of
London received him. He walked on, half interested, half disgusted. How
seldom, save perhaps in a hansom driven at full speed, had he ever
traversed those streets leading one out of another, these labyrinths of
poverty and toil. As he went on, thinking of many things that he had
thought of lightly enough in his day, and which were suggested by the
comparison between the region in which he now found himself and that
which he had left--the inequalities and unlikeness of mankind, the
strange difference of fate--his ear was suddenly caught by the sound of
a familiar voice. Fairfax paused, half thinking that it was the muddle
in his mind, caused by that association of ideas with the practical
drama of existence in which he found himself involved, which suggested
this voice to him; but looking round he suddenly found himself, as he
went across one of the many narrow streets which crossed the central
line of road, face to face with the burly form of Spears.

CHAPTER IV.

“You here, too,” said the demagogue; “I thought this was a time when all
you fine folks were enjoying yourselves, and London was left to the
toilers and moilers.”

“Am I one of the fine folks? I am afraid that proves how little you know
of them, Spears.”

“Well, I don’t pretend to know much,” said Spears. “Markham’s here, too.
And what is all this about Markham? I don’t understand a word of it.”

“What is about him?”

Fairfax was determined to breathe no word of Paul’s altered
circumstances to any one, sheltering himself under the fact that he
himself knew nothing definite. The orator looked at him with a gaze
which it was difficult to elude.

“I thought you had been with the family at that grand house of theirs?
However! Paul was hot upon our emigration scheme, you know; he would
hear no reason on that subject. I warned him that it was not a thing for
men like him, with soft hands and muscles unstrung; but he paid me no
attention. There was another thing, I believe, a secondary motive,” said
Spears, with a wave of his hand, “a thing that never would have come
into my head, which his mother found out--the kind of business that
women do find out. Well! His father is dead, and I suppose he has come
into the title and all that. But here’s the rub. We are within a
fortnight of our start, and never another word from Paul. What does he
mean by it? has he been persuaded by the women? has he thrown us
overboard and gone in for the old business of landlord and aristocrat? I
have told him many a time it was in his blood; but never was there one
more hot for better principles. Now look here, Fairfax, you’re not the
man to pretend ignorance. What do you know?”

“Nothing but that Sir William is dead.”

“Sir William is dead, that means, long live Sir Paul: _lay roy est
mortt, veeve lay roy_,” said Spears, with honest English pronunciation.
“Yes, the papers would tell you that. If he’s going to give it all up,”
he went on, a deep colour coming over his face, “I sha’n’t be surprised.
I don’t say that I’ll like it, but I sha’n’t be surprised. A large
property--and a title--may be a temptation: but in that case it’s his
duty to let us know. I suppose you and he see each other sometimes?”

“By chance we have met to-day.”

“By chance? I thought you were always meeting. Well, what does he mean?
I acknowledge,” said Spears, with very conscious satire, “that a Sir
Paul in our band will be an oddity. It wouldn’t be much more wonderful
if it was St. Paul,” he added, with a laugh; “but one way or other I
must know. And I don’t mind confessing to you,” he said, turning into
the way by which Fairfax seemed to be walking, and suddenly striking him
on the shoulder with an amicable but not slight blow, “that it will be a
disappointment. I had rather committed the folly of setting my heart on
that lad. He was the kind of thing, you know, that we mean in our class
when we say a gentleman. There’s you, now, you’re a gentleman, too; but
I make little account of you. You might just as well have been brought
up in my shop or in trade. But there’s something about Paul, mind
you--that’s where it is; he’s got that grand air, and that hot-headed
way. I hate social distinctions, but he’s above them. The power of money
is to me like a horrible monster, but he scorns it. Do you see what I
mean? A man like me reasons it all out, and sees the harm of it, and the
devilry of it, and it fires his blood. But Paul, he holds his head in
the air, and treats it like the dirt below his feet. That’s fine, that
takes hold of the imagination. I don’t mean to hurt your feelings,
Fairfax,” said Spears, giving him another friendly tap on the shoulder,
“but you’re just a careless fellow, one thing doesn’t matter more than
another to you.”

“Quite true. I am not offended,” said Fairfax, laughing. “You
discriminate very well, Spears, as you always do.”

“Yes, I suppose I have a knack that way,” said the demagogue, simply. “I
shouldn’t wonder,” he added, “though it is not a subject that a man can
question his daughter about, that it was just the same thing that
attracted my girl.”

Fairfax turned round upon him with quick surprise; he had not heard
anything about Janet. “What!” he said, “has Markham----” and then
paused; for Spears, though indulgent to freedom of speech, was in this
one point a dangerous person to meddle with. He turned round, with all
the force of his rugged features and broad shoulders, and looked the
questioner in the face.

“Yes,” he said, “Markham has--a fancy for my Janet. There is nothing
very wonderful in that. His mother tried to persuade me that this was
the entire cause of his devotion to my principles and me. But that is a
way women have. They think nothing comparable to their own influence. He
satisfied me as to that. Yes,” said Spears, with a softened, meditative
tone, “that is the secondary motive I spoke of; and, to tell the truth,
when I heard of the old fellow’s death I was sorry. I said to myself,
the girl will never be able to resist the temptation of being ‘my
lady.’”

A smile began to creep about the corners of his mouth. For himself, it
is very likely that Spears would have had virtue enough to carry out his
own principles and resist all bribes of rank had they been thrown in his
way; but he contemplated the possible elevation of his child with a
tender sense of the wonderful, and the ludicrous, and incredible which
melted all sterner feelings. The idea that Janet might be “my lady”
filled him with a subdued pleasure and amusement, and a subtle pride
which veiled itself in the humour of the notion. It made him smile in
spite of himself. As for Fairfax, this had so completely taken his
breath away that he seemed beyond the power of speech, and Spears went
on musingly for a minute or two walking beside him, his active thoughts
lulled by the fantastic pleasure of that vision, and the smile still
lingered about his closely-shut lips. At last he started from the
weakness of this reverie.

“There is to be a meeting to-night,” he said, “down in one of these
streets--and I’m going to give them an address. I’ve got the name of the
street here in my pocket and the house and all that--if you like to
come.”

“Certainly I will come,” said Fairfax with alacrity. He had not much to
occupy his evenings, and he took a kind of careless speculative
interest, not like Paul’s impassioned adoption of the scheme and all its
issues, in Spears’s political crusade. The demagogue patted him on the
shoulders once more as he left him. He had always half-patronised, half
stood in awe of Fairfax, whose careless humour sometimes threw a
passing light of ridicule even on the cause. “If you see Markham, bring
him along with you; and tell him I must understand what he means,” he
said.

But Fairfax did not see Paul again. He did not indeed put himself in the
way of Paul, though his mind was full of him, for the rest of the day.
Janet Spears was a new complication in Paul’s way. The whole situation
was dreary and hopeless enough. His position as head in his house and
family, the importance, his wealth, his power of influencing others, all
taken from him in a day, and Spears’s daughter--Janet Spears--hung round
his neck like a millstone. Paul! of all men in the world to get into
such a vulgar complication, Paul was about the last. And yet there could
be no mistake about it. Fairfax, who honestly felt himself Paul’s
inferior in everything, heard this news with the wondering dismay of one
whose own thoughts had taken a direction as much above him (he thought)
as the other’s was beneath him. With a painful flush of bewilderment, he
thought of himself floated up into regions above himself into a
different atmosphere, another world, by means of the woman who had been
Paul’s companion all his life, while Paul---- He had heard of such
things; of men falling into the mire out of the purest places, of
rebellions from the best to the worst. They were common enough. But that
it should be _Paul_!

When evening came he took his way to the crowded quarter where he had
met Spears, and to the meeting, which was held in a back room in an
unsavoury street. It had begun to rain, the air was wet and warm, the
streets muddy, the floor of the room black and stained with many
footsteps. There was a number of men packed together in a comparatively
small space, which soon became almost insupportable with the flaring
gaslights, the odour from their damp clothes, and their breath. At one
end of it were a few men seated round a table, Spears among them.
Fairfax could only get in at the other end, and close to the door, which
was the saving of him. He exercised politeness at a cheap cost by
letting everybody who came penetrate further than he. Some of the men
looked at him with suspicion. He had kept on his morning dress, but even
that was very different from the clothes they wore. They were not very
penetrating in respect to looks, and some of them thought him a
policeman in plain clothes. This was not a comfortable notion among a
number of hot-blooded men. Fairfax, however, soon became too much
interested in the proceedings to observe the looks that were directed to
himself. There was a good deal of commonplace business to be gone
through first--small subscriptions to pay, some of which were weekly;
little books to produce, with little sums marked; reports to be given
in, on here and there a wavering member, a falling back into the world,
a new convert. It looked to Fairfax at first like a parochial meeting
about the little charities of the parish, the schools, and the
almshouses. Perhaps organisation of every kind has its inherent
vulgarities. This movement felt grand, heroic, to the men engaged in it,
how much above the curate and his pennies who could say; but it seemed
inevitable that it should begin in the same way.

The walls were roughly plastered and washed with a dingy tone of colour.
The men sat on benches which were very uncomfortable, and showed all the
independent curves of backs which toil had not straightened, the rough
heads and dingy clothes. Over all this the gas flickered, unmitigated
even by the usual glass globe. There was a constant shuffling of feet,
a murmur of conversation, sometimes the joke of a privileged wit
whispered about with earthquakes of suppressed laughter. For the men, on
the whole, suppressed themselves with the sense of the dignity of a
meeting and the expectation of Spears’s address. “He’s a fellow from the
North, ain’t he?” Fairfax heard one man say. “No, he’s a miner fellow.”
“He’s one of the cotton spinners.” While another added authoritatively,
“None of you know anything about it. It’s Spears the delegate. He’s been
sent about all over the place. There’s been some talk of sending him to
Parliament.” “Parliament! I put no faith in Parliament.” “No more do I.”
“Nor I,” the men said. “And yet,” said the first speaker, “we’ve got no
chance of getting our rights till they’ve got a lot like him there.”

At this moment one of the men at the table rose, and there was instant
silence. The lights flared, the rain rained outside with a persistent
swish upon the pavement, the restless feet shuffled upon the floor, but
otherwise there was not a sound to interrupt the stillness. This was
somewhat tried, however, by the reading of a report, still very like a
missionary report in a parish meeting. There was a good deal about an
S. C. and an L. M. who had been led to think of higher principles of
political morality by the action of the society, and who had now finally
given in their adhesion. The meeting greeted the announcement of these
new members by knocking with their boot-heels upon the floor. Then some
one else got up and said that the prospects of the society were most
hopeful, and that the conversion of L. C. and S. M. were only an earnest
of what was to come. Soon the whole mass of the working classes, as
already its highest intelligence, would be with them. The meeting again
applauded this “highest intelligence.” They felt it in themselves, and
they liked the compliment. “Mr. Spears will now address the meeting,”
the last speaker said, and then this confused part of the proceeding
came to an end, and everything became clear again when Spears spoke.

And yet Fairfax thought, looking on, it was by no means clear what
Spears wanted, or wished to persuade the others that they wanted. Very
soon, however, he secured their attention which was one great point; the
very feet got disciplined into quiet, and when a late member came down
the long passage which led straight into this room, there was a
universal murmur and hush as he bustled in. Spears stood up and looked
round him, his powerful square shoulders and rugged face dominating the
assembly. He took a kind of text for his address, “not from the Bible,”
he said, “which many of you think out of date,” at which there was a
murmur, chiefly of assent; “mind you,” said the orator, “I don’t; that’s
a subject on which I’m free to keep my private opinion; but the other
book you’ll allow is never out of date. It’s from the sayings of a man
that woke up out of the easy thoughts of a lad, the taking everything
for granted as we all do one time or another, to find that he could take
nothing for granted, that all about was false, horrible, mean, and
_sham_. That was the worst of it all--sham. He found the mother that
bore him was a false woman and the girl he loved hid his enemy behind
the door to listen to what he was saying, and his friends, the fellows
he had played with, went off with him on a false errand, with letters to
get him killed, ‘There’s something rotten,’ says he, ‘in this State of
Denmark--’ that was all the poor fellow could get out at first,
‘something rotten;’ ay, ay, Prince Hamlet, a deal that was rotten. We’re
not fond of princes, my friends,” said Spears, stopping short with a
gleam of humour in his face, “but Shakspeare lived a good few years ago,
and hadn’t found that out. We’ve made a great many discoveries since his
day.”

At this the feet applauded again, but there was a little doubtfulness
upon the faces of the audience who did not see what the speaker meant to
be at.

“‘There’s something rotten in the state of Denmark,’ that’s what he
said. He didn’t mean Denmark any more than I mean Clerkenwell. He meant
this life he was living in, where the scum floated to the top, and
nothing was what it seemed. That was Hamlet’s quarrel with the world,
and it’s my quarrel, and yours, and every thinking man’s. It was a grand
idea, my friends, to make a government, to have a king. Yes, wait a bit
till I’ve finished my sentence. I tell you it was a noble idea,” said
the orator, raising his voice, and cowing into silence half a dozen
violent contradictions, “to get hold of the best man and set him up
there to help them that couldn’t help themselves, to make the strong
merciful and the weak brave. That was an idea! I honour the man that
invented it whoever he was; but I’d lay you all a fortune if I had it,
I’d wager all I’m worth (which isn’t much) that whoever the first king
was, that was made after he had found out the notion, it wasn’t he! And
it was a failure, my lads,” said Spears.

At this there was a tumult of applause. “I don’t see anything to stamp
about for my part,” he said shaking his head. “That gives me no
pleasure. It was a grand idea, but as sure as life they took the wrong
man, and it was a failure. And it has always been a failure and always
will be--so now there’s nothing for it but to abolish kings----”

The rest of the sentence was lost in wild applause.

“But the worst is,” continued the speaker, “that we’ve done that
practically for a long time in England, and we’re none the better.
Instead of one bad king we’ve got Parliament, which is a heap of bad
kings. Men that care no more for the people than I care for that fly.
Men that will grind you, and tax you, and make merchandise of you, and
neglect your interest and tread you down to the ground. Many is the
cheat they’ve passed upon you. At this moment you cheer me when I say
down with the kings, but you look at one another and you raise your
eyebrows when I say down with the parliament. You’ve got the suffrage
and you think that’s all right. The suffrage! what does the suffrage do
for you? It’s another sham, a little stronger than all the rest. They’ll
give more of you, and more of you the suffrage, till they let in the
women (I don’t say a word against that. Some of the women have more
sense than you have, and the rest you can always whop them) and the
babies next for anything I can tell. And it will all be rotten, rotten,
rotten to the core. And then a great cry will rise out of this poor
country, and it will be Hamlet again,” cried the orator, pouring out the
full force of his great melodious voice from his broad chest--“‘Oh,
cursed spite, that ever I was born to set it right!’”

There was a feeble stamp or two upon the floor; but the audience, though
curious and impressed, were not up to the level of the speaker, and did
not know what to make of him. He saw this, and he changed his tone.

“I read the other day of the kind of parliament that was a real
parliament of the people. Once every two months the whole population met
in a great square; and there they were asked to choose the men that were
to govern them. They voted all by word of mouth--no ballot tickets in
those days--for there was not one of them that was afraid to give his
opinion. They chose their men for two months, no more. They were men
that were known to all the place that had been known from their cradles;
no strangers there, but men they could lay their hands on if they went
wrong. It was for two months only, as I tell you, and then the
parliament came together again, and the men they had chosen gave an
account of what they had done. In my opinion--I don’t know what you may
think--that was as perfect a plan of government, and as true a rule of
the people as ever existed on this globe. Who is that grumbling behind
there? If it is you, Paul Markham, stand up like a man and say what
you’ve got to say.”

There was a pause for a moment, and everybody looked round; but as no
reply was made, the hearers drowned all attempts at opposition in a
tumult of stamping feet and approving exclamations. “That was something
like,” they cried. And “Go on. Go on! Bravo, Spears!”

“Ah, yes. You say ‘Bravo, Spears!’ because I humour you. But that young
fellow there at the back, I know what he meant to say. It was all
rotten, rotten, rotten to the core; that peoples’ parliament was the
greatest humbug that ever was seen; it was the instrument of tyrants; it
was the murderer of freedom; there was nothing too silly, nothing too
wicked for it; its vote was a sham, and its wisdom was a sham. Ah! you
don’t cry ‘Bravo, Spears!’ any more. The reason of all this is that we
never get hold of the right men. I don’t know what there is in human
nature that makes it so. I have studied it a deal, but I’ve never found
that out. The scum gets uppermost, boils up and sticks on the top.
That’s my experience. The less honest a man is, the more sure he is to
get up to the top. I don’t speak of being born equal like some folks;
but I think every man has a right to his share of the place he’s born
in--a right to have his portion wherever he is. One man with another,
our wants are about the same. One eats a little more, one drinks a
little more (and we all do more of that than is good for us), than the
rest. But what we’ve got a right to is our share of what’s going.
Instead of great estates, great parks, grand palaces where those who
call themselves our masters live and starve us, we have a right, every
man, to enough of it to live on, to enough----”

Here the speaker was interrupted by the clamour of the cheering. The
men rose up and shouted; they drowned his voice in the enthusiasm of
their delight. Paul had come in behind after Spears began to speak.
Though there had been in him a momentary movement of offence when he saw
Fairfax, yet he had ended by remaining close to him, not seated,
however, by leaning against the doorway in the sight of all. And it was
likewise apparent in the sight of all that he was dressed, not like
Fairfax in morning clothes, which offered a less visible contrast with
the men surrounding him, but in evening dress, only partially covered by
his light overcoat. He had come indeed to this assembly met to denounce
all rights of the aristocrat, in the very livery of social superiority.
Fairfax, who was anxious about the issue, could not understand what it
meant. Paul’s eyes were fixed upon Spears, and there was a half smile
and air of something that might be taken for contempt on his face.

The applause went to the orator’s head. He plunged into violent
illustrations of his theory, by the common instances of riot, impurity,
extravagance, debt, and general wickedness which were to be found in
what were called the higher classes. Perhaps Spears himself was aware
that his arguments would not bear a very close examination: and the face
of his disciple there before him, the face which had hitherto glowed
with acquiescence, flushed with indignation, answered every appeal he
made, but which was now set, pale, and impassive, without any response
at all, with indeed an evident determination to withstand him--filled
him with a curious passion. He could not understand it, and he could not
endure to see Paul standing there, Paul, his son in the faith, his
disciple of whom he was unconsciously more proud than of all the other
converts he had made, with that air of contradiction and defiance. The
applause excited him and this tacit opposition excited him still more.
Fairfax had produced no such effect upon the demagogue; he had been but
a half believer at the best, a critic more interested than convinced. He
was one of those whom other men can permit to look on, from whom they
can accept sympathy without concurrence, and tolerate dissent. But with
Paul the case was very different. Every glance at him inflamed the mind
of Spears. Was it possible (the idea flashed across his mind in full
torrent of his speech) that this beloved disciple was lost to him? He
would not believe it, he would not permit it to be; and with this
impulse he flung forth his burning accusations, piled up sham and
scandal upon the heads of aristocrats, represented them as standing in
the way of every good undertaking, of treading down the poor on every
side, of riding roughshod everywhere over liberties and charities alike,
robbers of their brethren, destroyers of their fellow-creatures. And as
every burning period poured forth, the noise, the enthusiasm became
indescribable. The men who listened were no more murderous rebels than
English landlords and millionaires are sanguinary oppressors, but they
shouted and stamped, and rent their throats with applause, all the more
that they were well acquainted with these arguments. Hamlet and “the
cursed spite” of his position were of doubtful interest; but here was
something which they understood. Thus they went on together, mutually
exciting each other, the speaker and the listeners--until suddenly in
the midst of the hubbub a strange note, a new voice, struck in, and
caught them all in full uproar.

“What’s that?” cried Spears, with the quick hearing of offended
affection. “You behind there--some one spoke.”

The men all turned round--the entire assembly--to see what the
interruption was. Then they saw, leaning carelessly against the wall,
his grey overcoat open, showing the expanse of fine linen, the silk
lapels of the evening coat in which Paul had chosen to array himself,
the young aristocrat, looking his part to the fullest perfection, with
scorn on his face, and proud indifference, careless of them and their
opinions. The mere sight of him brought an impulse of fierce hostility.

“I said, that’s not so,” said Paul, distinctly, throwing his defiance
over all their heads at his old instructor. Spears was almost beside
himself with pain and passion.

“Do you give me the lie,” he said, “to my face--you, Paul? Oh, you shall
have your title--that’s the meaning of the change! you, Sir Paul
Markham, baronet,--Do you give me the lie?”

“If you like to take it so, Spears. You know as well as I do that men
are not monsters like that in one rank and heroes in another. Title or
no title, that’s the truth, and you know it--whatever those men that
take in everything you are saying may think. You know that’s not so.”

The excited listeners saw Spears grow pale and wince. Then he shouted
out with an excited voice--

“And that’s a lie whoever said it. I! say one thing and mean another!
The time has been when a man that said that to me would have rued it. He
would have rued it----”

“And he shall rue it!” said a voice in the crowd. The people turned
round with a common impulse. Fairfax, when he saw what was coming, had
risen too, and thrown himself in front of Paul. He was not so tall a
man, and Paul’s dark hair towered over his light locks. He tried to push
him out into the narrow-flagged passage, and called to him to go--to go!
But Paul’s blood was up; he stood and faced them all, holding his arm
before him in defence against the raised fists and threatening looks.
“I’m one against a hundred,” he said, perfectly calm. “You can do what
you please. I will not give in, whatever you do. I tell you what Spears
says is not true.”

And then the uproar got up again and raged round them. There was a
hesitation about striking the first blow. Nobody liked to begin the
onslaught upon one single man, or a man with but one supporter. Fairfax
got his arm into his, and did his best to push and drag him away into
the paved passage. But it was not till Spears himself, breaking through
the angry crowd, gave him a thrust with his powerful arm that he
yielded. What might have happened even then, Fairfax did not know; for
the passage was narrow, and the two or three people hanging about the
door sufficed to make another angry crowd in their way. While, however,
he was pushing his way along by the wall, doing all he could to impel
before him Paul’s reluctant figure, a door suddenly opened behind them,
a light flashed out, and some one called to them to come in. Paul
stumbled backwards, fortunately, over the step, and was thus got at a
disadvantage; and in two minutes more Fairfax had struggled in, bringing
his companion with him. The place into which they were admitted was a
narrow passage, quite dark--and the contrast from the noise and crowd
without to this silence bewildered the young men. Even then, however,
the voice of Spears reached them over the murmur of the crowd.

“There’s a specimen for you!” cried the orator, with a harsh laugh. “The
scum come uppermost! What did I tell you? that, take what pains you
like, you never get the right man. I loved that lad like my son; and
all I said was gospel to him. But he has come into his title, he has
come into the land he swore he never would take from the people, and
there’s the end. Would you like a better proof of what I said? Oh,
rotten, rotten, rotten to the core!”

CHAPTER V.

They were in a small, dingy room, lighted with one feeble candle--still
within hearing of the tumult close by. Paul had twisted his foot in the
stumble, which was the only thing that had saved him from a scuffle and
possible fight. He was paler than before with the pain. He had put his
foot up upon a chair at Fairfax’s entreaty, who feared a sprain; but
himself, in his excitement, did not seem to feel it.

“My title and my lands!” he said, with a laugh which was more bitter
than that of Spears. “You heard him, Fairfax. I’ve come into my
property; that is what has caused this change in my opinions.”

“Never mind, the man’s a fool,” said Fairfax angrily.

“He is not a fool,” said Paul, “but it shows how well you can judge a
man when you do not know his circumstances.”

Fairfax, however, it must be owned, was as much puzzled as Spears. What
was it, that had caused the change? It was not much more than a month
since Paul’s devotion to Spears and his scheme had kept him from his
father’s death-bed. He had been intent then on giving up his whole life
to the creed which this evening he had publicly contradicted in the face
of its excited supporters. Fairfax could not make out what it meant any
more than the deserted demagogue could. If Paul, indeed, had reached the
high top-gallant of his fortunes--if he had held the control of a large
property in his hands--a position like that of a prince--there might
have been reason in such a change of faith. Though it gave a certain
foundation for Spears’s bitter sneer, yet there was reason in it. A
young man might very well be justified in abandoning the society of
revolutionaries, when he himself entered the ranks of those who are
responsible for the safety of the country and have a great deal to lose.
But he did not understand Paul’s position now, and a change so singular
bewildered him. It was not, however, either necessary or expedient to
enter into that question; and he addressed himself with more
satisfaction to rubbing the injured ankle. He had asked the woman who
admitted them, and who was in great terror of “the meeting,” to get a
cab, but had been answered that she dared not leave the house, and that
they must not think of leaving the house till all was over in the
“Hall.” It was not a cheerful prospect. To his surprise, however, Paul
showed less impatience than he did. He was full of the place and the
discussion they had just left.

“He is no fool,” Paul said, “that is the most wonderful of all. A man
may go on telling a pack of lies for years, and yet be as true in
himself as all the rest is false. I understand your looks, Fairfax. You
think I have gone as far as most men.”

“Keep your foot still, my good fellow,” was all Fairfax said.

“That is all very well; you want an explanation of my conduct,” said
Paul. “You want to know what this inconsistency means; for it is
inconsistency. Well, then, there’s just this, that I don’t mean to tell.
I am as free as another man to form my own opinions, I hope.”

“Hark! they’re cheering again,” said Fairfax. “What fellows they are to
cheer! He has got them into a good humour. They looked savage enough
half an hour ago. It’s a little absurd, isn’t it, that you and I, Paul,
who have been considered very advanced in our political opinions, should
be in a kind of hiding here?”

“Hiding! I will go back at once and make my profession of faith,” cried
Paul; but when he sprang up to carry out his intention, the pain of his
foot overpowered him. “Have I sprained it, do you think?--that is an
affair of four or five weeks,” he said, with a look of dismay.

After this very little passed. They sat on each side of the little deal
table with the coarse candle sputtering between them, and listened to
the hoarse sounds of the voices, the tumultuous applause on the other
side of the wall. This was still going on, though in subdued tones, when
the door suddenly opened. It was not easy at first to see who had come
in, till Spears’s face appeared over the flickering light. It was angry
and dark, and overclouded with something like shame.

“I am glad you are here still, you two,” he said in subdued tones.

Neither of the young men spoke. At last Fairfax, who was not the one on
whom his eyes were bent, said--

“We were waiting till the meeting was over. Till then, it appears, we
can’t have a cab sent for. Markham has hurt his foot.”

“Good Lord! How did he do that?” Spears came round and looked at it
where it lay supported on the chair. He looked as if he would have liked
to stroke and pet the injured limb like a child. “I hope it was none of
those fellows with their pushing and stupid folly,” he said.

“It was not done by any refinement of politeness, certainly.”

These were the first words Paul had said, and they were uttered with the
same half mocking smile.

“They’re rough fellows, that’s the truth,” said Spears; “and they have
an idiot for a guide,” he went on in a low voice. “Look here, Paul, you
aggravated me with those grand looks of yours, and that sneer. You know
as well as I do what puts me out. When it’s a fellow I care for, I can’t
stand it. All the asses in Rotten Row might come and haw-haw at me, and
I shouldn’t mind; but you! that are a kind of child of my soul, Paul!”

“I hope your other children will get more mercy from you, then,” said
Paul, without looking at him. “You have not had much for me, Spears.”

“I, lad? What have I ever done but cherish you as if you were my own! I
have been as proud of you--! All your fine ways that I’ve jibed about
have been a pleasure to me all the time. It went to my heart to think
that you, the finest aristocrat of all the lot, were following old
Spears for love of a principle. I said to myself, abuse them as we like,
there’s stuff in these old races--there’s something in that blue blood.
I don’t deny it before you two, that may laugh at me as you please. I
that have just been telling all those lads that it’s the scum that comes
uppermost (and believe it too). I that have sworn an eternal war against
the principle of unequal rank and accumulation of property--”

Spears paused. There was nothing ludicrous to him in the idea of this
eternal war, waged by a nameless stump orator against all the kingdoms
of the world and the power of them. He was too much in earnest to be
conscious of any absurdity. He was as serious in his crusade as if he
had been a conqueror with life and death in his hands, and his voice
trembled with the reality of this confession which he was going to make.

“Well!” he said, “I, of whom you know all this as well as I do myself,
I’ve been proud of your birth and your breeding, Paul, because it was
all the grander of you to forget them for the cause. I’ve dwelt on these
things in my mind. I’ve said, there’s the flower of them all, and he’s
following after me! Look here! you’re not going to take it so dreadfully
amiss if, after not hearing a word from you, after not knowing what you
were going to do, seeing you suddenly opposite to me with your most
aggravating look (and you can put on an aggravating look when you like,
you know you can, and drive me wild,” Spears said with a deprecating,
tender smile, putting his hand, caressingly, on the back of Paul’s
chair)--“if I let out a bitter word, a lash of ill-temper against my
will, you are not going to make that a quarrel between you and me.”

The man’s large mobile features were working, his eyes shining out under
their heavy brows. The generous soul in him was moved to its depth. He
had, being “wild,” as he said, with sudden passion, accused Paul of
having yielded to the seductions of his new rank--but in his heart he
did not believe the accusation he had made. He trusted his young
disciple with all the doting confidence of a woman. Of a woman! his
daughter Janet, though she was a woman, and a young one, had no such
enthusiasm of trust in her being. She would have scorned his weakness
had she been by--very differently would Janet have dealt with a
hesitating lover. But the demagogue had enthroned in his soul an ideal
to which, perhaps, his very tenderest affections, the deepest sentiments
he was capable of, had clung. He had fallen for the moment into that
madness which works in the brain when we are wroth with those we love.
And he did not know now how to make sufficient amends for it, how to
open wide enough that window into his heart which showed the quivering
and longing within. But he had said for the moment all he could say.

And for a time there was silence in the little room. Fairfax, who
understood him, turned away, and began to stare at a rude-coloured print
on the wall in order to leave the others alone. He would himself have
held out his hand before half this self-revelation had been made, and
perhaps Spears would have but lightly appreciated that naïve response.
But Paul was by no means ready to yield. He kept silence for what seemed
to the interested spectator ten minutes at least. Then he said, slowly--

“I think it would be wise to inquire into the facts of the case before
permitting yourself to use such language, Spears--even if you had not
roused your rabble against me.”

He said these strident words in the most forcible way, making the r’s
roll.

“Rabble?” Spears repeated, with a tone of dismay; but his patience was
not exhausted, nor his penitence. “I know,” he said, “it was wrong. I
don’t excuse myself. I behaved like a fool, and it costs a man like me
something to say that. Paul--come! why should we quarrel? Let bygones be
bygones. They should have torn me to pieces before they had laid a
finger on you.”

“A good many of them would have smarted for it if they had laid a finger
on me,” said Paul. “That I promise you.”

Spears laughed; his mind was relieved. He gave his vigorous person a
shake and was himself again.

“Well, that is all over,” he said. “It will be a lesson to me. I am a
confounded fool at bottom after all. Whatever mental advantages you may
have, that’s what the best of us have to come to. My blood gets hot, and
I lose my head. There’s a few extenuating circumstances though. Have you
forgotten, Paul, that we were to sail in October, and it’s the 20th of
September now? Not a word have I heard from you since you left Oxford,
three weeks ago. What was I to think? I know what’s happened in the
meantime; and I don’t say,” said Spears, slowly, “that if you were to
throw us overboard at the last moment, it would be a thing without
justification. I told you at the time you would be more wise to let us
alone. But you never had an old head on young shoulders. A generous
heart never counts the cost in that way; still---- And the time, my dear
fellow, is drawing very near.”

“I may as well tell you,” said Paul, tersely, “I am not going with you,
Spears.”

The man sat firm in his chair as if he had received a blow, leaning back
a little, pressing himself against the woodwork.

“Well!” he said, and kept upon his face a curious smile--the smile, and
the effort alike, showing how deeply the stroke had penetrated. “Well!”
he repeated, “now that I know everything--now you have told me--I don’t
know that I have a word to say.”

Paul said nothing, and for another minute there was again perfect
silence. Then Spears resumed--

“I thought as much,” he said. “I have always thought it since the day
you went away. A man understands that sort of thing by instinct. Well!
it’s a disappointment, I don’t deny; but no doubt,” said Spears, with a
suppressed tone of satire in his voice, “though I’ve no experience of
the duties of a rich baronet, nor the things it lays upon you, no doubt
there’s plenty to do in that avocation; and looking after property
requires work. There’s a thousand things that it must now seem more
necessary to do than to start away across the Atlantic with a set of
visionaries. I told you so at the beginning, Paul--or Sir Paul, I
suppose I ought to say; but titles are not much in my way,” he added,
with a smile, “as you know.”

“You may save yourself the trouble of titles here, for I am not Sir
Paul, nor have I anything in the way of property to look after that
will give me much trouble. It appears--” said Paul, with a smile that
was very like that of Spears, which sat on his lips like a grimace, “it
appears that I have an elder brother who is kind enough to relieve me
from all inconvenience of that sort.”

Spears turned to Fairfax with a look of consternation, as if appealing
to him to guarantee the sanity of his friend.

“What does he mean?” he cried, bewildered.

“We need not go into all the question,” said Paul. “Fairfax, haven’t
they got that cab yet? My foot’s better--I can walk to the door, and
these gentlemen seem to be dispersing. We need not enter into
explanations. I’m not a rich baronet, that is about all. The scum has
not come uppermost this time. You see you made a mistake in your
estimate of my motives.”

This time he laughed that harsh, bitter, metallic laugh which is one of
the signs of nervous passion. He had such a superiority over his
assailant as nothing else could have given him. And as for Spears,
shame, and wonder, and distress, struck him dumb. He gasped for breath.

“My God!” he said; “and I to fall upon you for what had never happened,
and taunt you with wealth when you were poor. Poor! are you actually
poor, Paul?”

“What is the use of searching into it? the facts are as I have told you.
I shan’t starve,” said the young man, holding his head high.

Spears looked at him with a mixture of grief and satisfaction, and held
out a large hand.

“Never mind,” he said, his face melting and working, and a smile of a
very different character gleaming over it, “you would have been out of
place with us if you had been Sir Paul; but come now, my lad, come now!
It’s not money we want, but men. Come with us, you’ll be as welcome as
the sunshine, though you have not a penny. For a rich man, I could see
myself the incongruity; but for a poor man, what could be better than a
new country and a fair field. Come! don’t bear malice for a few hasty
words that were repented of as soon as they were said. I would have
scorned to pay a word had you been kept back by your new grandeur. But
now that you’re disinherited--why, Paul, come--Australia is the place
for such as you. Young and strong with a good heart, and all the world
before you! Why, there’s a new country for you to get hold of, to
govern, if you like. Come! I’ll not oppose any dignity you may gain out
there; and I tell you, you’ll have the ball at your foot, and the whole
world before you! Come with us, I ask this time as a favour, Paul.”

He had held out his hand with some wavering and doubt, though with
enthusiasm. But gradually a curious expression of wonder came to his
face; his hand dropped at his side. Paul made no motion towards taking
it; the demagogue thought it was resentment. A flush of vivid colour
came over him. “Come, this is a little too much for old friends,” he
said, getting up hastily from his chair, with a thrill of wounded
feeling in his voice.

“Don’t wrong him, Spears,” said Fairfax. “He has had a great deal to
bother him, and his foot is bad. You can meet another time and settle
that. At present, let us get him out of this place. If he is angry, he
has a right to be; but never mind that now. Let us get him out of here.”

Spears did not say another word. He stalked away into the house to
which this room belonged, and the “hall” beyond it. It was a little
tavern of the lower class in which he was living. By and by the woman
came to say there was a cab at the door. And Paul limped out, leaning on
Fairfax.

All was quiet outside, the meeting dispersed; only one or two men
sitting in the room down stairs, who cast a curious look upon the two
young men, but took no further notice. As for Spears, he did not appear
at all. He was lurking behind, his heart wrung with various feelings,
but too much wounded, too much disappointed, too sore and sad to show
himself. If Paul had seemed to require help, the rejected prophet was
lingering in the hope of offering it; but nothing of the kind seemed the
case. He limped out holding Fairfax’s arm. He did not even look round
him as the other did, or show any signs of a wish to see his former
friend. Spears had not got through the world up to this time without
mortification; but he had never suffered so acutely as now.

“Poor Spears,” Fairfax contrived to say, as they jolted along, leaving
the mean and monotonous streets behind them. “I think you might have
taken his hand.”

“Pshaw!’ said Paul, “I am tired to death of all that. I don’t mean to
say he is not honest--far more honest than most of them--but what is the
meaning of all that clap-trap? Why, Spears ought to know as well as any
man what folly it is. Bosh!” said the young man with an expression of
disgust. The milder spectator beside him looked at him with unfeigned
surprise.

“I thought you went as far as he did, Markham. I thought you were out
and out in your principles, accepting no compromise: I thought----”

“You thought I was a fool,” said Paul, bitterly, “and you were right
enough, if that is any satisfaction to you; but I had a lesson or two
before my poor father’s death--and more since. Don’t let us speak of it.
When a man has made an ass of himself, it is no pleasure to him to dwell
upon it. And I am not free yet, and I don’t know when I shall be,” he
cried, with an irrepressible desire for sympathy, then closed his mouth
as if he had shut a book, and said no more.

Thus they went jolting and creaking over the wet pavements all gleaming
with muddy reflections. London was grim and dismal under that autumn
rain, no flashing of carriages about, or gleams of toilette, or signs
of the great world which does its work under the guise of pleasure; only
a theatre now and then in the glare of gas with idle people hanging
about, keeping themselves dry under the porch; and afterward the great
vacant rooms at the clubs with a vague figure scattered here and there,
belated “men,” or waiters at their ease; the foot-passengers hurrying
along under umbrellas, the cabs all splashed with mud, weary wayfarers
and muddy streets. There was scarcely a word exchanged between them as
they went along.

“Where are you living?” said Fairfax at last.

“The house is shut up,” said Paul, giving the name of his hotel.

“But my place is not. Will you come with me and have your foot looked
to? I wish you would come, Markham. There are heaps of things I want to
say to you, and to ask you----”

Paul was in so fantastic and unreasonable a condition of mind that these
last words were all that was necessary to alter his decision. He had
thought he would go--why not?--and escape a little from all the
contradictions in his own mind by means of his friend’s company. But
the thought of having to answer questions made an end of that impulse of
confidence. He had himself taken to the hotel instead, where, he said to
himself with forlorn pride, at least there was nobody to insist upon any
account of his thoughts or doings, where he should be unmolested by
reason of being alone.

CHAPTER VI.

The visit of Janet Spears had made a great impression upon Lady Markham.
She abstained as long as she could from speaking of it to Alice, but
what is there which a woman can keep from her closest companion, her
daughter, who is as her own soul? Up to this moment Alice had known
nothing whatever about Janet Spears, not even of her existence. Perhaps
Lady Markham’s discretion, and the painful sense that she had interfered
injudiciously in Paul’s affairs, might not have sufficed to keep her
secret; but Sir William’s illness had carried the day over everything,
and not a word had been said between the mother and daughter on this
subject. Even now Lady Markham made a heroic effort. Full as was her
mind of the visit, she kept it to herself for two long days, thinking
over everything that had been said, and wondering if she had done as
she ought, or if she should have been more kind to the girl whom (was it
possible?) Paul loved, or more severe upon the creature who had
enthralled him. At one time she thought of Janet in one way, at another
in the other. The girl he loved (was it possible?), or the woman who had
put forth evil arts and got him in her power. It is hard for a woman to
be quite just to any one, male or female, who has injured her son: and
people say it is hardest to be just, to a woman who has done so. [In
this point I do not feel qualified to judge; but men say so who know
women better, naturally, than they know themselves.] Lady Markham
struggled very hard to be just: but it was difficult; and in a moment of
pressure, when Alice came upon her suddenly, and with a soft arm round
her and a soft cheek laid against hers, entreated to know if there was
any fresh trouble--how could she help but tell her everything? Alice
justified all vulgar sentiment on the subject by being triumphantly
unjust.

“He must have been cheated into it,” she cried. “Paul--_Paul!_ so
fastidious as he is, how could he ever, ever, have thought of a girl
like that?”

But Lady Markham, anxious to keep the balance even, shook her head.

“My dearest, you don’t know much about men. I can’t tell why it is. They
choose those whom you would think they would fly from, and fly from
those whom you would think--I don’t know, Alice, perhaps they get tired
of the kind of women like you and me, whom they see every day.”

“Mamma!”

“I have thought so often, dear. _We_ don’t feel so, but men--they get
tired of one kind of woman. They think they will try something
different. It has always been a mystery. And you must not think this was
a--was not a good girl. I saw nothing wrong about her. Perhaps a little
more---- no, I don’t know what to say. She was not saucy, or bold,
or---- Perhaps it was only that she was not a lady,” Lady Markham said
with a sigh.

“But that Paul should care for any one who was not a lady,” Alice said,
clasping her hands together with mingled despair and impatience; and
then she cried suddenly, “Poor little Dolly!”

“Dolly!” said Lady Markham. Nothing could exceed her surprise. The air
of grieved doubt and hesitation which had been in her face while they
discussed Janet gave way to lively astonishment and displeasure. “What
do you mean by Dolly?” she said.

Then Alice faltered forth an ashamed confession--that she thought--that
she had supposed--that she did not know anything about it--did not
believe there was anything in it--but only, Dolly----

Nothing was to be made of this hesitating speech.

“Dolly,” said Lady Markham, drawing herself up, “is a dear little girl.
I am very fond of her. In her proper place she is charming; but my dear
Alice, Dolly is scarcely more suitable for Paul, in his position.
Ah!----”

Lady Markham stopped short and hid her face in her hands.

During the time that these conversations--the visit of Janet and all its
attendant circumstances, and the explanation of it thus given to
Alice--were going on, these ladies lived upon the post which brought
frequent communications from the people in London who were carrying on
such inquiries as could be made about the intruder into the family, he
who had so suddenly and decisively blighted all the prospects of Paul.
Colonel Fleetwood wrote, and Mr. Scrivener, and Paul himself, though
less frequently. The former was the only one that was hopeful; he was
perfectly ready to believe that Gus was an impostor, and the whole thing
“a got up affair.” Was it likely, he argued, that Sir William, the most
steady-going old fellow, could be guilty of such a tremendous mistake?
Had it only been a wickedness! but it was such a folly, such an error in
judgment. A statesman, a man in parliament, one of the rulers of the
country, how could any one suppose him capable of a thing so foolish?
Mr. Scrivener was far less confident. He knew what a lawyer’s law was in
his own private affairs, and he had not much more confidence in a
stateman’s wisdom. He had not sent any one to Barbadoes, but he was
making careful inquiries among all sorts of people who knew--West Indian
agents, ancient governors, and consuls. And he had heard of Gus from
more than one of these referees, and found his story confirmed in all
points as to his life in Barbadoes. About his connexion with Sir William
Markham, these people did not know, but they gave him the highest
character, and confirmed his statement in many important details. The
lawyer did not conceal from Lady Markham his complete conviction.
Neither did Paul, who had given up his own cause at once, though he
dragged on in London, dancing attendance at the lawyer’s office and
hearing from day to day some fresh and, as he thought, unmeaning piece
of additional proof. “Of course it is all right,” Paul wrote; “I never
for a moment doubted that the man was all right. He may be a cad, but he
was speaking the truth. I stay here to humour them; but I know very well
that they will discover nothing which will shake his credit; and the
best thing I can do is to get myself as soon as I can out of Sir Gus’s
way.” This way of speaking of it was to both the ladies like turning the
sword round in the wound. Where was it he meant to take himself, out of
the way? They had neither of them any clue to Paul’s changed sentiments,
and if he had vowed to go away while all was well with him, when he had
fortune and splendour within reach, with those socialist emigrants whose
very name was enough to alarm them, what would he do now when this
horrible downfall and disappointment had loosed the bonds between him
and his native country? A wild desire to call for help, even upon the
least desirable of auxiliaries, upon Janet Spears herself, came to Lady
Markham’s mind. If the girl could keep him at home, she felt herself
able to receive even Janet to her heart.

While their mother’s mind was thus occupied, the two little girls had
languidly resumed their lessons. It is no reproach to the children to
say that it was not very long before the impression made by their
father’s death would have died out naturally, in an occasional tender
recollection, or sudden burst of crying when something recalled him to
their memory. It was not grief that made them languid, but the sense of
something going on, a living agitation, and the shadow of a still
greater disturbance to come. It was whispered vaguely between them that
no doubt they would have to leave Markham, a thing which they sometimes
felt like a deathblow and sometimes like a deliverance. When Bell and
Marie thought of leaving their woods, their gardens, their “own house,”
in which they had been born, the desolation of the thought overwhelmed
them; but when, on the other hand, they thought of going away, perhaps
to London, perhaps “abroad,” a thrill of guilty rapture ran through
their bosoms. They had never come to such a pitch of wickedness as to
say this to each other, but already in the rapid communion of the eyes
each had guessed that the other thought there might be something to be
said for such a possibility; and the idea made them restless, unable to
settle to their work, and very trying to Mademoiselle, who, poor lady,
had to put up with this reverberation of the troubles of the house
without really having any share in them, or taking any very lively
interest in these family concerns. Sometimes she had a headache, caused,
as she said, by nothing but the continued disturbance of her nerves
through their endless rustlings and changes. And when this headache got
very bad and Mademoiselle betook herself to bed, it cannot be said that
her pupils were sorry. They put their books away (having been brought up
in the strictest habits of tidiness), and hastened out to their
favourite haunts. The air and the movement stilled their nerves, which
were as much at fault as those of Mademoiselle. They were seated on, or
rather in, a tree near the fishpond, the favourite centre of all their
games when the next great event occurred to them. Bell had brought out a
book with her, which she held embraced in her arms, but had not opened.
She was seated well up in the tree, dangling her feet close to Marie’s
head, who was seated on a lower branch. Marie had no book--her tastes
were not literary; and she was very near the edge of that great
discovery which both had made, but neither avowed, that under some
circumstances it might be “nice” to go away.

“Were you ever in a great big, big place--in a city, Bell?”

“You little silly, of course I have been in Farboro’. I have been with
mamma a hundred times, and so have you.”

“Farboro’ is not what I mean. Farboro’ is only a town. There are not so
very many people in it, and the cathedral is the chief place. It is not
noisy or wicked at all. I mean a great horrid place where there are
crowds everywhere, and policemen, and where nobody goes to church. That
is what they call a city in books. London is a city,” said Marie.

“I have never been in London, you know. I wonder if we shall ever see
it,” said Bell. “I wonder if mamma will ever take us there. I wonder if
you and I will be quite different from Alice when we grow up. _She_ has
been presented. I wonder if it makes a difference when poor girls are
like us--without any father,” she added, with a little choke of tears.

“Do you think we shall be poor?” said Marie. “There is not much
difference now. We have all the same servants, and as much to eat, and
Mademoiselle just the same.”

“It will not make any difference in what we have to eat,” said Bell,
approaching the dangerous subject. “But--perhaps we may not be able to
stay at Markham. Oh, Marie! what would you think if mamma were to give
up Markham altogether and go away?”

Marie looked up with large eyes, stretching her neck, as her sister was
at an elevation almost perpendicular. She said, in a tone of awe, “Oh, I
don’t know! What would _you_ think, Bell?”

Neither of the children liked to commit themselves. At length Bell, who
felt that her superior age required of her that she should lead the way,
assumed the privilege of her years. “I don’t know either,” she said,
reflectively. “If it was in summer, when everything is bright, I should
not like it at all; but if, perhaps,” she added, slower and slower, “it
was in the rainy weather--when you can’t go out, when the grass is so
wet you sink in it, when there is nothing but sleet and slush, and the
trees drop cold drops upon you even when it’s not raining, and you get
your frock all wet even in the avenue----”

Marie’s eyes opened bigger and bigger after every step of this
hypothesis. She followed them with a movement of her lips and a gasp of
excitement at the end.

“Then--” said Bell, “perhaps--I think--it might be rather nice, Marie.”

“Oh, Bell! that is what I sometimes thought--but I never liked to say
it.”

“Nor me,” said Bell, more courageous, indifferent to grammar--and going
on with hardihood after she had made the first plunge. “There would be
Madame Tussaud’s, and the Crystal Palace, and the British Museum, and
Westminster Abbey, and all the bazaars. However bad the weather was,
there would always be something. I dare say mamma would take us to the
theatre.”

“But not just now,” said Marie. “It would not be nice to go just now.
It would look as if we had forgotten----”

“Did I say _now_? At present it is only autumn, and everybody is in the
country. But when the days get short and dark, and you have to light the
candles directly--What is it?” cried Bell, for Marie had shaken herself
off her branch, and, with a cry of dismay, stood looking apparently at
something which was coming. “Is it Mademoiselle?” said the little girl
under her breath.

Mademoiselle had a particular objection to that nest in the tree. Bell’s
seat was one which was usually occupied by a boy, not one of the girls’
places, as Roland and Harry contemptuously called the lower branches. It
required some ingenuity to clamber into it, and more to get down
again--and not only ingenuity, but an absence of petticoats would have
been desirable. Bell felt herself catching here and there as she tried
to get down hastily. Then came the sound of a long rent, which sent her
brain all whirling. Her new black frock! and what would nurse say? The
idea of nurse and Mademoiselle both waiting, full of fury, for her
descent, was enough to obscure the perceptions of any child. Her foot
slipped from a mossy and treacherous twig; she caught wildly at
something, she did not know what, and with a sudden whirr and whirl and
blackness lost herself altogether for a moment. When she became aware of
what was going on again, she found herself seated at the foot of the
tree, staring across the fishpond, with a lump on her forehead and a
singing in her ears. Marie was crying, bending over her, and saying,
“Oh! what can we do--what shall I do? Do you think she will die, Mr.
Gus?”

“Oh, what a little goose you are!” murmured Bell, gradually coming to
herself. “What should I die for? I have only got a knock--on my head.”
She felt the lump on her forehead wonderingly as she spoke, for it hurt
her, and nature directed her hand to the spot. “I have got a _dreadful_
knock on my head,” she added, not without satisfaction. Then Bell leaned
back on something, she did not know what, and saw a hand come round from
behind with a wet handkerchief to lay upon her forehead. The hand was a
brown hand with a big ring on it, at which Bell vaguely wondered where
she had seen it before. Then, all of a sudden, she jumped up, upon her
feet, though she felt very queer and giddy. “It is that little
gentleman! You have been talking to him, Marie!”

“And won’t you talk to me, too?” said Gus, following her with his wet
handkerchief. “Well, never mind, put on this. The water is out of your
own fishpond; it cannot do you any harm.”

Bell was not able to resist, and he made her sit down again and have her
forehead bathed. By degrees as she became aware of everything around
her, Bell perceived that the little gentleman was very kind. His thin,
brown hand touched her so gently, and he was not angry, though she had
been angry. By and by she said, “I am better. Please, oh, please go
away, Mr. Gus. I don’t want to be disagreeable, but how can _I_ have
anything to say to you, when you have been so----”

“Yes, my dear,” said Mr. Gus. “What have I been?” For Bell paused, not
knowing what to say.

The little girl did not continue. She contented herself with throwing
down Mr. Gus’s wet handkerchief from her forehead, which was not so bad
now. You are our enemy,” she said.

“I am nobody’s enemy. I am your brother. I want to do everything I can
for you, if you will let me. Don’t you remember what friends we made,
and how fond we were of each other before you knew who I was; and why
should you hate me now you know I am your brother?” said Gus.

It was wonderful to see him standing there, so like their father: and it
was very hard for two little girls to keep up an argument with a
grown-up gentleman. But Bell, who had a great spirit, was not disposed
to throw down her arms. She said, “Paul is my brother, and you are his
enemy,” feeling at last that she was on steady ground.

“I am no more Paul’s enemy than I am yours. Now listen, little girls. If
some one were to leave you something, Bell--if it was to be put in the
will that this was for Sir William Markham’s second daughter--how should
you feel if it were taken from you and given to Marie?”

“I would not put up with it all,” said Bell promptly. Then perceiving
how she had committed herself, “It is not the same. It was Paul’s, and
you want to take it from Paul.”

“But I am the heir, and not Paul,” said the little gentleman. “I am the
eldest. You are very fond of your little sister, but you would not give
up what was yours to Marie.”

This time Bell was more wise. “You don’t know anything about it. What
would it matter? for when anything is given to me, I always give half to
Marie,” she said, with sparkling eyes.

The little gentleman owned himself discomfited. “There you have the
better of me,” he said. “But I should like to give a great part to Paul.
I would give him everything in reason. And I have come now to see you,
to ask you to do me a very great favour.”

They looked at him with eyes that grew bigger and bigger, and as Bell
was very pale, with a lump on her forehead, her aspect with her heroic
gaze was tragi-comical, to say the least. They were both greatly melted
and softened by the idea of having a favour asked of them, and Marie,
who was entirely gained over, did nothing but nudge and pull her
sister’s dress by way of recommending her to be merciful. Bell leant
back upon the tree like a little image of Justice, with the bandage
momentarily pushed off, but very much needed. It lay at her feet in the
shape of Mr. Gus’s white handkerchief; but all the severity, yet
candour, of an entire Bench was in her eyes.

“I want you to make my peace with your mother. I want you to persuade
her to stay at Markham; to let me stay here to; to let me live among you
like your brother, which I am. If you all run away as soon as I come
near the place, what good will it do me?” said Gus. “I want you all.
When the boys come home, we should have all kinds of fun, and as for
you, I should not let anyone bother you. Fancy, I have nobody belonging
to me but you. You are my family. I am more like an old uncle than your
brother, but I should be very fond of you all the same. If your mother
would only listen to me, it would be very nice for us all. I am sure you
can be generous, Bell. You are old enough to understand. And I think
Alice would be on my side if she would hear what I have got to say.”

“Alice would never be on your side,” said Bell with decision. “Paul is
Alice’s brother--her particular brother--and how could she bear to see
him put out? Don’t you know we are all in pairs at Markham? Harry is my
brother, and Roland is Marie’s.”

“Ye-es,” said Marie tired of being left out, “but he is not always
nice. He sends me away because I am a girl, as if it was my fault!”

“Well then,” said Mr. Gus, “if Alice will not stand my friend, I must
trust it all to you. The thing you must do is to go to your mamma, and
tell her your old brother is outside, very sorry to be the cause of any
trouble, but that he can’t help being your brother, and a great deal
older than Paul. How could I help that? I did not choose who my father
was to be; and tell her if she would only speak to me, I will explain it
all to her. And there is nothing she can ask me to do that I will not do
for Paul. And tell her--but I need not tell you, Bell, for I can see in
your eyes that you know quite well what to say.”

The conviction that she would indeed be a valuable and eloquent advocate
got into Bell’s mind as he went on. Yes, she felt she could say all that
to mamma and better than Mr. Gus had said it. She would use such
arguments that Lady Markham would be sure to yield. Bell was aware that
she was clever, and all her own opposition melted away in the delightful
mental excitement of this immense undertaking. She forgot the lump on
her forehead, the buzzing in her ears, and even more, she forgot the
family opposition to the interloper who was taking away Paul’s
birthright. “Oh yes, I know very well what to say,” she cried with a
change of sentiment which was as complete as it was rapid, and in her
excitement she set off at once for the house, framing little speeches as
she went, in which the case of Gus should be put forth with all the
devices of forensic talent. Oh what a pity I am not a boy! was the
thought which flew through her mind as on the sudden gale of inspiration
which swept through her. For the moment, perhaps, this fact, which would
for ever prevent her from being a special pleader by profession, was a
decided advantage to Bell. Little Marie did not like to be left behind.
She looked wistfully after her sister, then she said, “I will tell mamma
too,” and rushed after Bell. Finally, Mr. Gus himself completed the
procession walking behind them. He had chosen no unfit ambassadors of
peace, though the elder emissary looked very much as if she had been in
the wars. And the little man walked after them with a little tremor
varying the calm of self-satisfaction which usually reigned in his
bosom. He knew he was doing what was by far the best and most Christian
thing to do, and he felt that he had managed it very cleverly in
putting his cause into such hands. But notwithstanding these consolatory
reflections, and notwithstanding the natural calm of his bosom, it is
certain that Mr. Gus felt in that bosom an unaccustomed quiver of
timidity which might almost have been called fear.

CHAPTER VII.

Gus came into the hall with Bell and Marie, and waited there while they
proceeded to plead his cause within. He walked about the hall softly,
and looked at the pictures, the old map of the county, and other
curiosities that were there. These things beguiled his anxiety about his
reception, and filled him with an altogether novel interest. A thing
which is quite indifferent to us while it belongs to our neighbour,
gains immediate attraction when it becomes our own. He looked at
everything with interest, even the cases of stuffed birds that decorated
one corner. Then he came and seated himself in the great bamboo chair in
which he had sat down the first time he came to Markham. It was not very
long ago, not yet two months, but what a difference there was! Then,
indeed, he had been anxious about his reception, and he was anxious
about his reception now. But when he came first, he had been doubtful of
his position altogether, not sure what his rights were, or what claim he
could make--and now his anxieties were merely sentimental, and his
rights all established. He sat where he had sat then, and saw everything
standing just as he had seen it, the trees the same, except in colour,
nothing altered except himself. Now it was all his, this noble domain.
He had not known what welcome he might receive, whether his father would
acknowledge him, or what would happen, and now his father’s possessions
were his, and no one could infringe his rights. How strange it was! He
sat sunk in the great bamboo chair, and listened to the faint sound of
voices which he heard through the open door, the two little girls
pleading his cause. He was very desirous that they should be successful,
for if he was not successful, Markham would be a dull house--but still,
successful or not, nothing any longer could affect him vitally. A poor
stranger, a wanderer from the tropics, unused to England and English
ways, with not much money, and a very doubtful prospect before him, he
had been when he first came here. How could he help smiling at the
change? He had no desire to do any one harm. All the evil that he had
done was involuntary, but it could not be expected that he would give up
his rights. He felt very much at his ease as he seated himself in that
chair, notwithstanding the touch of anxiety in his mind. The prospect
which was before him was enough to satisfy an ambitious man, but Gus was
not ambitious. Indeed, the advantages he had gained were contracted in
his eyes by his own inability fully to understand their extent. They
were greater than he was aware, greater than his imagination could
grasp. But, at least, they included everything that his imagination was
able to grasp, and mortal man cannot desire more.

Bell had gone in very quietly, inspired by her mission, without pausing
to think, and Marie had followed, as Marie always did. They went
straight into the room where they were sure, they thought, of seeing
their mother. It was in the recess, the west chamber, at the end of the
drawing room, that they found her. But the circumstances did not seem
very favourable to their plea. Lady Markham and Alice were reading a
letter together, and Alice, it was very apparent, was crying over her
mother’s shoulder, while Lady Markham was very pale, and her eyes red as
if she had shed tears. “It is all over then,” she was saying as the
children came in, folding the letter up to put it away. And Alice cried,
and made no reply. This checked the straightforward fervour of Bell, who
had walked straight into the room and halfway up its length before she
discovered the state of affairs. “Mamma,” she had begun, “I have come
from----” Then Bell paused, and cried, “Oh, mamma, dear, what is the
matter?” with sudden alarm, stopping short in mid-career.

“Nothing very much,” said Lady Markham, “nothing that we did not know
before. What is it, Bell? You may tell me all the same. We must face it,
you know. We must not allow ourselves to be overcome by it,” she said
with a little quiver of her lip, and a smile which made the little girls
inclined to cry too.

“Oh mamma! I just came from--him,” Bell stopped short again, feeling as
if involved in a sort of treason, and her pale little countenance
flushed. Only then Lady Markham perceived the state in which the child
was.

“What have you been doing to yourself, Bell? You have hurt yourself.
You have got a blow on the forehead. What was it? Let me look at you.
You have been up in one of those trees.”

“Oh mamma,” cried Bell, finding in this the very opportunity she wanted,
“I fell, and I think I might have killed myself: but all at once, I
don’t know where he came from, I never saw him coming, there was
the--little gentleman! He picked me up, and he spoiled all his
handkerchief bathing my forehead. He was very kind, he always was very
kind--to us children,” said Bell.

“Oh Bell! how can you speak of that odious little man? how can you
bother mamma about him? We have heard a great deal too much about him
already,” cried Alice with an indignation that dried her tears.

“It is not his fault,” said Lady Markham, “we must be just. What could
he do but what he has done? If we had known of it all along, we should
never have thought of blaming him--and it is not his fault that it all
burst upon us in a moment. It was not his fault,” she said, shaking her
head, “but you must not think I blame your dear papa. He meant it for
the best. I can see how it all happened as distinctly---- At first he
thought it would wound me to hear that he had been married before. And
then--he forgot it altogether. You must remember how young he was, and
what is a baby to a man? He forgot about it. I can see it all so
plainly. The only thing is my poor Paul!” And here, after her defence of
his father, the mother broke down too.

“Mamma,” said Bell, “oh, don’t cry, please don’t cry! That is exactly
what he says. He says he will do anything you like to tell him. He says
he never wanted to do any harm. He is as sorry--as sorry! But how could
he help being born, and being old--so much older than Paul? He says he
is very fond of us all. He does not mind what he does if you will only
let him come home and be the eldest brother. Mamma,” said Bell,
solemnly, struck with a new idea, “he must have saved my life, I think.
I might have broken my neck, and there was nobody but Marie to run and
get assistance. It was a very good thing for me that he was there. If he
had not been there, you would have had--only five children instead of
six,” Bell said, with a gulp, swallowing the lump in her throat. She
thought she saw herself being carried along all white and still, and
the thought overcame her with a sense of the pathos of the possible
situation. She seemed to hear all the people saying, “Such a promising
child and cut off in a moment;” and “Poor Lady Markham! just after her
other great grief;” so that Bell could scarcely help sobbing over
herself, though she had not been killed.

“Oh Bell! it was not so bad as that! how could you be killed coming down
head over heels from the old tree?” cried Marie, almost with
indignation.

Lady Markham had satisfied herself in the meantime that the lump on the
forehead was more ugly than serious.

“Let us be very glad you have not suffered more,” she said. “But, Bell,
the right thing would be not to climb up there again.”

“Mamma, the right thing would be, if you care about me, at least, to let
poor Mr. Gus come in, and thank him for saving my life. Oh, let him come
in, mamma! How could he help being older than Paul? I dare say he would
rather have been younger if he could; and I am sure by what he says he
would give Paul anything--anything! to make it up to him, and to make
friends with you. He says how miserable he would be if you left him
here all alone. He could not bear to be down here thinking he had turned
us out. Oh, if you had only seen him! he looked as if he could cry--Ask
Marie. And he wanted to know if he might speak to Alice, if Alice would
speak for him. But I said I didn’t think it, because Paul was Alice’s
particular brother, and she could not bear anything that was hard upon
him; and then he said,” cried Bell, with unconscious embellishment,
“‘You are my two little sisters, oh, go and plead for me! Say I will do
anything--anything--whatever she pleases.’ Oh mamma! who could say more
than that? He has nobody belonging to him, unless we will let him belong
to us. He is a poor little gentleman, not young, nor nice-looking, nor
clever, nor anything. And, mamma, he is a little--or more than a little,
a great deal--_very_ like poor papa. Oh!” cried Bell, breaking off with
a suppressed shriek, as a hand suddenly was laid upon her shoulder.

Nobody had observed him coming in. A light little man, with a soft step,
and soft unobtrusive shoes that never had creaked in the course of their
existence, upon a soft Turkey carpet, makes very little sound as he
moves. He had got tired waiting outside, and the doors were open, and
Mr. Gus had never been shy. He had walked straight in, guided by their
voices; and the very fact that he had thus made his way within those
curtains into this sanctuary seemed to give him at once a footing in the
place. He put his hand upon Bell’s shoulder, and, though he was not much
taller than she was, made a very respectful bow to Lady Markham over her
head.

“I thought I might take the liberty to come in and speak for myself,
Lady Markham,” he said. There was a flutter of his eyelids, giving that
sidelong glance round him, which was the only thing that betrayed Gus’s
consciousness that the place to which “he had taken the liberty” of
coming in was his own. “My little sisters” (he put his other hand upon
the shoulder of Marie, who was much consoled at thus being brought back
out of the cold into which Bell’s superior gifts invariably sentenced
her), “My little sisters can speak better for me than I can do; and
won’t you take me in for the sake of the little things who have always
been my friends? It is not my fault that this all came upon you as a
surprise. Don’t you think it would be better for everybody--for the
children, and for my poor father’s memory, and all, if you will just
put up with having me in the house?”

Lady Markham grew very pale. She made a great effort, standing up to do
it.

“Sir Augustus,” she said, and nobody knew what it cost her to give him
this title; all the blood ebbed away from her face: “Sir Augustus, the
house is your own, it appears. What I can put up with has nothing to do
with it.”

“Yes,” he said, tranquilly, bowing in acknowledgment, “it is my own; but
it has been yours for a great many years. Why can’t we be friends? I
can’t help being their brother, you know, whatever happens.”

Alice had been sitting with her hand over her eyes. She had a special
enmity towards this interloper; but now she took courage to look at him.
They all looked at him, distinct among the little group of female faces.
He was _dans son droit_, and it is impossible to tell how much the
certainty that all belonged to him, that he was no mere claimant, but
the proud possessor of the place, changed the aspect of the little
gentleman, even to those who had most reason to be wounded by it. It
gave him a dignity he had never possessed before, and a magnanimity
too. When he saw Alice looking at him, he left the little girls and came
towards her, holding out his hands. He was a different man in this
interior from what he was outside.

“I should be very fond of you if you would let me,” he said. “Alice,
though you are Paul’s particular sister, you can’t help being my sister
too; and there is some one else who is a friend of mine, who has been
very kind to me,” the little man said significantly, sinking his voice.

What did he mean? Though she did not know what he meant; Alice felt a
flame of colour flush over her cheeks in spite of herself.

“We are not monsters to disregard such an appeal,” said Lady Markham.
“Whatever may happen, and however we may feel, we must all acknowledge
that you mean to be very kind. You will not ask us to say more just now.
If you will send for your things, I will give orders to have your rooms
prepared at once.”

“Mamma!” they all cried, in a chorus of wonder. Alice with something
like indignation, Bell and Marie with an excitement which was half
pleasure: for this was novelty, at least, if nothing else, which always
commends itself to the mind of youth.

“If it is his right, he shall have it,” said Lady Markham, with a quiver
in her voice. “Mr. Scrivener tells me we must resist no longer--and he
is your brother, as he says, and we have no right to reject his
kindness. Do you know, children,” she cried, suddenly clasping her hands
together with an impatient movement, “while we are talking so much at
our ease, it is not our own house we are in, but this gentleman’s house?
He can turn us out of it whenever he pleases, while we are arguing
whether we will let him come into it! Sir,” she said, rising up once
more (but she had done it once; she could not again give him the title,
which ought to have been Paul’s)--“Sir, I acknowledge that you are kind,
generous--far more than we have any right to expect--but you will
understand that such a position is not easy--that it is very strange to
me--and very new, and----”

“Certainly, ma’am,” said Gus. Her politeness (as he called it to
himself) put him on his mettle. “All you say is very true and just. If I
were a little monster, as Alice thinks, there are a great many things I
could do to make myself disagreeable; and if you were not a sensible
woman, as I always felt you to be, we might make a very pretty mess
between us. But as we are not fiends, but good Christians (I hope),
suppose you let the little ones come down with me to the village to see
after my things? It’s a nice afternoon, though a little dull. You ladies
ought to go out too and take the air. My little dears,” he said, “we’ll
have those big cases up; there are a lot of things in them I brought
from Barbadoes expressly for you. And those sweetmeats--I told you of
them the first time I came into this house.”

“You said they were for me,” said Marie, with a tone of reproach; “but
that cannot have been true, for you did not know of me.”

Gus had put one hand in Bell’s arm and the other on Marie’s shoulder. He
looked at his two little companions with the sincerest pleasure in his
little brown face.

“I did not know you were Marie, nor that this was Bell: but I knew that
you were you,” said the little gentleman, with a smile. “And,” he added,
looking round upon them all, “I knew we must be friends sooner or
later. Let’s go and see after the cases now.”

This was how it was all arranged, to the consternation and amazement of
all the world; and Lady Markham was not less astonished than all the
rest. She went to the Hall window when they were gone, and looked out
after them, scarcely believing her senses. Sir Augustus Markham (as he
must now be allowed to be) had put his arm into Bell’s, who was nearly
as tall as he was, and who had forgotten all about the bump on her
forehead and the tear in her frock; while Marie held his other hand, and
skipped along by his side, now in front, now behind, looking up into his
face and chattering to him. There was in Gus’s gait, in his trim little
figure, and his personality in general, a something which was much more
like Sir William than any of his other children. It had always been a
little private source of gratification to Lady Markham, notwithstanding
her sincere affection for her husband, that Paul was like the
Fleetwoods, who were much finer men. But this resemblance, which she had
not very much desired for her own children, had settled in the unknown
offspring of his youth. It added now another pang to her heartache, not
only to see how like he was, but to see how entirely the children had
adopted their new, yet old, brother. She withdrew from the window in a
bewilderment of pain and excitement. What would Paul say to the step she
had taken? It was right, she had felt. She had done what was the hardest
to do, because it seemed evident that it was the best; but what would
Paul say? And now that all hope and resistance was over, and nothing to
be done but to submit and make the best of it, what was to become of her
boy? Lady Markham had not the solace of knowing of the change that had
taken place in Paul’s mind. She expected nothing else than that her next
meeting with Paul would be to take leave of him, to see him go away with
his chosen associates; most likely the husband of Janet Spears, or about
to become so. Could Janet Spears even now secure her son to her? bring
him back? fix him in England?--at least within reach of her care and
help? And should she--could she--do anything to persuade the girl to
exercise her influence? That discussion, which had been broken by the
sudden appearance of Bell, and this strange episode altogether, returned
to her mind as she went sadly up stairs to consult with Mrs. Fry about
the rooms to be made ready for Sir Augustus. Poor Lady Markham! she
would have to speak of him by this name, and to acknowledge to the
servants the downfall of her own son, the descent of her own family to a
lower place--Sir William’s second family. It was hard--very hard--upon a
woman who had been strong in a pride which had nothing bitter in it, so
long as it had been unassailed, and all had gone well, but which gave
her pangs now that were sufficiently difficult to bear. And then there
was the dilemma in her heart still more difficult, still more painful.
She had done what she thought was the best, at much cost to herself, in
this matter; but ah, the other matter, which was still nearer her heart,
how was she, torn as she was by diverse emotions, to know in Paul’s case
what was the best?

It would be needless to attempt to describe the excitement raised in the
household by the announcement that “Sir Augustus” was “coming home,” and
that his rooms were to be got ready with all speed.

“My lady has give up the very best of everything,” Mrs. Fry said,
solemnly; “and as considerate, thinking which was to be the warmest,
seeing as he’s come from India, where it is _that_ warm. It would not
become us as are only servants, to be more particular than my lady, or
else I don’t know that I could make it convenient to stay with a
gentleman as has the blood of niggers in his veins.”

“I knowed it!” Mr. Brown said, slapping his thigh; he was usually more
guarded in his language, but excitement carries the day over grammar
even with persons of more elevated breeding. “The last time as ever I
helped him on with his coat there was something as told me it was him
that was the man, and not Paul. Well! I don’t say as I don’t regret it
in some ways, but pride must have a fall, as the Bible says.”

“I don’t see as it lays in your spere to quote the Bible on a any such
subject,” said Mrs. Fry with indignation. “If it’s Mr. Paul, I just wish
he had a little more pride. His dear mother would be easier in her mind
this day if he was one that held more by his own class. And if you’re
pleased, you that have eat their bread this fifteen years, to have a bit
of a little upstart that is only half an Englishman, instead of your
young master that you’ve seen grown up from a boy--and as handsome a boy
as one could wish to see--I don’t think much of your Christianity, and
quoting out of the Bible. It’s easier a deal to do that than to perform
what’s put down there.”

“I hope I knows my duty, ma’am,” said Mr. Brown, resuming the dignity
which excitement had momentarily shaken, “without instruction from you
or any one.”

“I hope you do, Mr. Brown,” said Mrs. Fry. And this little passage of
arms restored the equilibrium of these two important members of the
household. But when it became known in the village and at the station,
where the great cases which had been lying at the latter place were
ordered by Sir Augustus to be carried to the house, and his portmanteau
brought from the Markham Arms, and when slowly, through a hundred rills
of conflicting information, the news got spread about the country till
it flooded, like a rushing torrent, all the great houses and all the
outlying villages--drove the Trevors and the Westlands half out of their
senses, and communicated a sudden vertigo to the entire
neighbourhood--words fail us to describe the commotion. Everybody had
known there was something wrong, but who could have imagined anything so
sweeping and complete. “You see now, mamma, how right I was to let Paul
alone,” Ada Westland said with her frank cynicism. “We must see that
your papa calls upon Sir Augustus,” that far-seeing mother replied. As
for old Admiral Trevor, who was getting more and more into his dotage
every day, he ordered his carriage at once to go out and “putsh shtop to
it.” “Will Markham ought to be ashamed of himself,” the old sailor said.
The same impulse moved the inhabitants of the rectory, both father and
daughter. Mr. Stainforth did nothing but go about his garden all day
wringing his hands and crying, “Dear! dear!” and trying to recollect
something about it, some way of proving an _alibi_ or getting evidence
to show that it was impossible. He, too, felt that it was his duty to
put a stop to it. And as for Dolly, what could she do but cry her pretty
eyes out, and wish, oh so vainly, that she had a hundred thousand pounds
that she might give it all to Paul!

CHAPTER VIII.

Lady Markham, when she thus received Sir Augustus, did so with no
intention of herself remaining in the house which had been her home for
so long. In any case, when the lawyer had pronounced that there was no
longer any room for resistance, she would have yielded; she would not
have prolonged a vain struggle, or given the new owner any trouble in
gaining possession of his house. When she lay down that night for the
first time under the same roof with the interloper, he who had, she said
to herself, ruined her son’s prospects, and taken his inheritance from
him, she had not that satisfaction in her mind of having done her duty
which is supposed to be the unfailing recompense of a good action. She
had done her duty, she hoped. She did not think that she was justified
in refusing Sir Gus’s overtures, or in turning him into an enemy; but
it was with a sore heart and mind, much exercised with doubt, that she
thought of what she had done. It was right in one way, but was it right
in another? What would Paul think of her apparent alliance and
friendship with the man who certainly had been his supplanter, and so
far as any one could see had spoiled his life? Paul was Lady Markham’s
dearest son, but he was the darkest place in her landscape, the subject
which she dwelt upon most, yet had least comfort in contemplating.
Notwithstanding the love and anxiety which he called forth in her, all
the questions connected with him were so painful that, if she could, she
would have avoided them altogether. What was he going to do? Was he on
the eve of the voyage which might separate him from her for ever? Was he
on the eve of the marriage that would separate them still more? She
longed and pined every day for letters from him, and yet when the post
brought none, she was almost relieved. At least he was not going yet, at
least he was not married yet. She wrote to him almost every day, and
lavished upon him a thousand tendernesses, and yet it was no pleasure to
her to think of Paul. His very name brought an additional line to her
forehead and quiver to her lip.

Next morning she was more undecided than ever. What was she to do? Again
the post had come in, and Paul had not added a word to the information
she had received. He had not said whether he was coming, or what he was
going to do. It occurred to her as she was dressing that the presence of
his stepbrother in the house might keep him away--that indeed it was
almost certain to keep him away, and that this afforded an urgent reason
for speedy removal. The idea gave her a sensation of hurry and nervous
haste. There was a dower-house on the estate near the town of Farborough
to which perhaps it would be well for her to retire. But when she
thought of all that would be involved in the removal, Lady Markham’s
courage failed her. Why did not this man keep away? A few months she
might at least have had to detach herself, to accustom herself to the
change. It seemed hard, very hard, to face everything at once. Had she
really been right after all in yielding? Ought she not to have stood out
and made her bargain for time enough to prepare her removal tranquilly?
In the days when a glow of satisfaction followed every good action,
there must have been more absolute certainty upon the subject, what was
good and what was evil, than exists now. The kindness, the
self-sacrifice of her act had made it appear the best, the only thing to
do; but now came the cold shadow of doubt. Had not she compromised her
dignity by doing it? Had not she done something that would offend and
alienate Paul? The night not only had not brought counsel, but it had
made all her difficulties worse.

When Lady Markham went downstairs, however, the first sight which met
her eyes was one of at least a very conciliatory character. In the hall
stood one of Gus’s larger packing-cases, those cases which had been
lying at the station for so long, opened at last, and giving forth its
riches. The floor was covered with West Indian sweetmeats, pots of guava
jelly, and ginger, and many other tropical dainties; while the two
little girls, in high excitement, were taking out the stores which
remained, the scented neck-laces and bark-lace, and all the curious
manufactures of the island; they were speechless with delight and
enthusiasm, yet bursting out now and then into torrents of questions,
asking about everything. Gus sat complacently in the midst of all the
rubbish in the big bamboo-chair, stretching out his little legs and
rubbing his hands. “I told you I brought them for you,” he was saying.
Bell and Marie could not believe their eyes as they saw the heaps that
accumulated round them. “I thought you would like to give presents to
your little friends; there is plenty for everybody.”

“But oh! Mr. Gus,” cried Marie, dancing about him, “how could you know
just what we wanted? how could you tell we should have friends?”

It was pretty to see him sitting among the litter, his brown countenance
beaming.

“I knew, of course, you must be nice children,” he said; “I knew what
you would want. But you must not call me Mr. Gus any longer. Call me Gus
without the mister.”

The two little girls looked at each other and laughed.

“But you are so old,” they said.

“It’s a pity, isn’t it?” said the little gentleman.

They were as much at their ease together as if they had known him all
their lives. What mother could resist such a scene? She paused on the
stairs and looked over the banisters and watched them. If it had not
been for the tragedy involved, for her husband’s death and her son’s
disinheritance, what more pleasant than this domestic scene! The
children had never been so much at their ease with their father, nor
would it have occurred to them to use half so much freedom with Paul as
they did with the stranger Gus. Lady Markham’s heart thrilled with
pleasure and pain, and when at last she went downstairs, there was a
tone of cordiality in spite of herself in her morning greeting.

“I fear I am a little late. I have kept you waiting,” she said.

“Oh mamma! he has had his breakfast with us,” cried the little girls.

“You must not mind me. I am from the tropics. I always rise with the
dawn,” said the little man. “But I am quite happy so long as I have the
children.”

He followed her into the breakfast-room, Bell linking herself on to his
arm and Marie holding his hand. They brought in some of the sweetmeats
with them, and the little girls began with great importance to open
them, each making her offering to mamma. It was the first appearance of
anything like cheerfulness since grief had entered the house. While
this little bustle was going on, Alice came in after her mother very
quietly, hoping to avoid all necessity of speaking to the intruder. The
feeling that was in her mind was that she could not endure to see him
here, and that if her mother would not leave the place, she at least
must. When Gus saw her, however, her hope of escape was over. He came up
to her at once and took her hand, and made a little speech.

“You will not make friends with me as the children do,” he said; “but
you will find your old brother will always stand your friend if you want
one.”

Alice drew her hand away and escaped to her usual place with her cheeks
blazing. Why did he offer to “stand her friend?” what did he mean by his
reference last night to some one else? She knew very well what he
meant--it was this that made it impertinent. He had met her two or three
times with Mr. Fairfax, and no doubt had been so vulgar and disagreeable
as to suppose that Mr. Fairfax--not having the least idea of course how
they had been brought together, and that Mr. Fairfax’s presence at
Markham was entirely accidental! Alice knew perfectly well what Gus
meant. He thought the young man was an undistinguished lover, whom
probably Lady Markham would not accept, but whom Alice was ready enough
to accept, and it was in this light that he proffered his presumptuous
and undesired help. Alice could not trust herself to speak. It seemed to
her that besides the harm it had done Paul, there was another wrong to
herself in these injudicious, unnecessary offers of assistance. She
would not look at the curiosities the little girls carried in their
frocks, folding up their skirts to make great pockets, nor taste their
sweetmeats, nor countenance their pleasure. Instead of that, Alice
wrapped herself up in abstraction and sadness. To be able to hide some
sulkiness and a great deal of annoyance and bitter constraint under the
mask of grief is often a great ease to the spirit. She had the
satisfaction of checking all the glee of Marie and Bell, and of making
even Lady Markham repent of the smile into which she had been beguiled.

Thus, however, the day went on. When Lady Markham again watched her
children going down the avenue, one on either side of the new master of
the house, with a softened look in her face, Alice turned away from her
mother with the keenest displeasure; she forsook her altogether, going
away from her to her own room, where she shut herself up and began to
make a review of all her little possessions with the view of removing
them, somewhere, anywhere, she did not care where. And very dismal
visions crossed the inexperienced mind of Alice. She did not know how
this miserable change in the family affairs affected her own position or
her mother’s. She thought, perhaps, that they had lost everything, as
Paul had lost everything. And sooner than live on the bounty of this
stranger, Alice felt that there was nothing she could not do. She
thought of going out as a governess, as girls do in novels. Why not?
What was she better than the thousands of girls who did so, and rather
that a hundred times, rather that or anything! Then it occurred to her
that perhaps she might go with Paul. That, perhaps, would be a better
way. Even in the former days, out of the midst of luxury and comfort, it
had seemed to her that Paul’s dream of living a primitive life and
cultivating his bit of land, his just share of the universal possession
of man, had something fine, something noble in it. With her brother she
could go to the end of the world to sustain and comfort him. What would
she care what she did? Would she be less a lady if she cooked his dinner
or washed his clothes? Nay, not at all. What better could any woman
wish? But then there was this girl--the man’s daughter who had been at
Markham with Paul. Thus Alice was suddenly stopped again. Walls of iron
seemed to rise around her wherever she turned. Was it possible, was it
possible? Paul, who was so fastidious, so hard to please! Thus when
despairing of the circumstances around herself she turned to the idea of
her brother, her heart grew sick with a new and cruel barrier before
her. An alien had come into her home and spoiled it; an alien was to
share her brother’s life and ruin that. All around her the world was
breaking in with an insupportable intrusion--people who had nothing to
do with her coming into the very sanctuary of her life. Lady Markham was
going to put up with it, as it seemed, but Alice said to herself that
she could not, would not, put up with it. She could not tell what she
would do, or where she would flee, but to tolerate the man who had taken
Paul’s inheritance, or the woman who had got Paul’s heart, was above her
strength. Should she go out as a governess? this seemed the one outlet;
or--was there any other?

Now, how it was that Fairfax should have suddenly leaped into her mind
with as startling an effect as if he had come through the window, or
down from the sky in bodily presence, I cannot pretend to tell. For a
little while he had been her chief companion--her helpmate, so to
speak--and, at the same time, her servant, watching her looks to see
what he could do for her--ready to fly, on a moment’s notice, to
supplement her services in the sick-room--making of himself, indeed, a
sort of complement of her and other self, doing the things she could not
do. He had been, not like Paul at home, for Paul had never been so ready
and helpful, but like nothing else than a man-Alice, another half of
her, understanding her before she spoke--doing what she wished by
intuition. This had not lasted very long, it is true, but while it had
lasted, it had been like nothing that Alice had ever known. She had said
to herself often that she scarcely knew him. He had come into her life
by accident, and he had gone out of it just as suddenly, and with an
almost angry dismissal on her part. Scarcely knew him! and yet was there
anybody that she knew half so well? Why Fairfax should have suddenly
become, as it were, visible to her in the midst of her thoughts, she did
not know. One moment she could see nothing but those closing walls
around her--a barrier here, a barrier there; no way of escape. When all
at once, in the twinkling of an eye, there was a glimmer in the
darkness, an opening, and there he stood, looking at her tenderly,
deprecating, yet with a gleam of humour in his eyes. “You won’t have
anything to say to me,” he seemed to be saying; “but all the same, if
you should think better of it, I am here.”

It is impossible to tell the effect this sudden apparition, as confusing
as if he had actually come in person, had upon Alice. She was so angry,
that she beat her hands together in sudden rage--with whom--with
herself? for if the treacherous heart within her conjured up the young
man’s image, was it Mr. Fairfax’s fault? But it was against him that she
threw out all that unnecessary anger. How dared he come when she wanted
none of him! To intrude yourself into a girl’s presence when she does
not want you is bad enough, but to leap thus into her imagination! it
was insupportable. She struck her hands together with a kind of
fury--it was a way she had--her cheeks grew crimson, her heart thumped
quite unnecessarily against her breast. And all the time he seemed to
stand and look at her not tragically, or with any heroic aspect (which
did not belong to him), but with that half smiling, half upbraiding
look, and always a little gleam of fun in his eyes. “If you should think
better of it, I am always here.” The words she put into his mouth were
quite characteristic of him. No high-flown professions of faithfulness
and devotion could have said more.

Lady Markham had seen clearly enough that Alice was no longer in
sympathy with her, and her heart bled for the separation and for the
shadow in her child’s face, even while she could not refuse to feel a
certain satisfaction otherwise in the step she had taken. It is often
easier to justify one’s self to others than to respond to the secret
doubts that arise in one’s own bosom; but when the gloomy looks of Alice
proclaimed the indictment that was being drawn up against her mother in
her mind, Lady Markham, strangely enough, began to feel the balance
turn, and a little self-assertion came to her aid. But she was very glad
of the opportunity given her by a visit from the Rector to send for her
daughter, who had not come near her all the morning. The Rector was not
a very frequent visitor at the Chase, nor indeed anywhere. He was old,
and he was growing feeble, and he did not care to move about. It was,
however, so natural that he should make his appearance in the trouble
which existed in the house, that nothing but a visit of sympathy was
thought of. And Dolly was with him, upon whom Lady Markham looked with
different eyes--a little jealous, a little tender--ready to find out
every evidence the girl might show of interest in Paul. There was
abundant opportunity to judge of her feelings in this respect, for Paul
was the chief subject spoken of. Mr. Stainforth had come with no other
object. He led Lady Markham to the further end of the room while the two
girls talked.

“I want to say something to you,” he said. It was to ask what Paul was
going to do--what his intentions were. “It breaks my heart to think of
it,” said the old man; “but we must submit to fate.” He was something of
a heathen, though he was a clergyman, and this was how he chose to put
it: “What is he going to do?”

Alas! of all the subjects on which his mother could have been
questioned, this was the most embarrassing. She sighed, and said--

“I cannot tell. There were some schemes in his head--or rather he had
been drawn into some schemes--of emigration--before all this sorrow
came.”

“Emigration! before----!”

The rector could not make this out.

“You know, that his opinions gave us some trouble. It was a--visionary
scheme--for the advantage of other people,” Lady Markham said.

“Ah! there must be no more of that, my dear Lady Markham; there must be
no more of that. Socialism under some gloss or other, I know:--but life
has become too serious with Paul now for any nonsense like that.”

“I wish I could think he would see it in that light,” said his mother,
shaking her head.

“But he _must_; there is no choice left him. He must see it in that
light. I do not know whether this that I am going to suggest ever came
into your mind. Lady Markham, Paul must take the living, that is all
about it. He must take orders; and as soon as he is ready, I will
abdicate. I should have done so long ago had there been a son of the
house coming on. He must go into the Church--that is by far the best
thing to do.”

“The Church!” said Lady Markham, in extreme surprise. “I fear he would
never think of that, Mr. Stainforth.”

“Then he will be very foolish,” said the old Rector. “What do these
foolish young fellows mean? It is an excellent living, a good house, not
too much to do, good society, and a good position. Suppose they don’t
like visiting old women, and that sort of thing, they can always get
some one to do it for them--a curate at the worst, for that costs money;
but most likely the ladies about. If he marries, which of course he
would do, his wife would attend to that. There is Dolly, who saves me a
great deal of trouble. She is quite as good as a curate. Oh, for that
matter, there are as great drawbacks in the Church as in other
professions. What do the young fellows mean, Lady Markham, to reject a
very desirable life for such little annoyances as that?”

Lady Markham still shook her head notwithstanding the Rector’s
eloquence.

“Paul would not see it in that light,” she said. “Unless he could throw
himself into all the duties with his whole heart, he would never do it,
and I fear he would not be able to do that.”

“This is nonsense,” said Mr. Stainforth. The old man was very much in
earnest. “I would soon show him that all that is really necessary is
very easy to get through, and short of his natural position there would
be none so suitable. He must think of it. I cannot think of anything
that would be so suitable. The bar is overcrowded, he is not a fellow to
think of the army, though, indeed,” said the old man, with a
cold-blooded determination to say out all he meant, “if there was a war,
and men had a chance of good promotion, I don’t know that I should say
anything against that. But the Church, Lady Markham, the Church:--Almost
as good a house as this is, if not so big, and a great deal of leisure.
I assure you I could easily convince him that there is nothing he could
choose which would not afford drawbacks quite as great. And, short of
his natural position, the Rector of Markham Royal is not a bad thing to
look to. He might marry well, and as probably the other will never
marry----”

“Ah!” said Lady Markham, with her eyes full of tears, “it is easy to
talk; but Paul would never lend any ear to that. In all likelihood, so
far as I know, his decision is already made. That is to say,” she added
with a sigh, “it was all settled before. Why should he change now when
everything favours him? when Providence itself has moved all hindrances
out of his way?”

“But he must not, Madam,” cried the Rector, raising his voice. “What,
emigrate! and leave you here in your widowhood with no one to stand by
you! This is nonsense--nonsense, Lady Markham. I assure you, my dear
Madam, it is impossible, it must not be.”

Lady Markham smiled faintly through her tears. She shook her head. It
seemed to her that the old Rector, with all his long life behind him,
was so much less experienced, so much more youthful than she was. _Must_
not be! What did it matter who said that so long as the boy himself did
not say it? The Rector had so raised his voice that the two girls had an
excuse for coming nearer, for asking, with their eyes at least, what it
was.

“The Rector says Paul must not go; that he ought to go into the Church
and succeed to the living. Ah!” cried Lady Markham, “it is so easy to
say ‘ought’ and ‘must not.’ And what can I say? that he will do what he
thinks right, not what we think right. What does any one else matter? He
will do--what he likes himself.”

Her voice was choked--her heart was very sore. Never had she breathed a
word of censure upon Paul to other ears than perhaps those of Alice
before. Her usual strength had forsaken her. And Alice, who was
estranged and chilled, did not go near her mother. Dolly Stainforth had
never been brought up to neglect her duties in this particular. Her
business in life had always been with people who were in trouble; a kind
of professional habit, so to speak, delivered her from shyness even when
her own feelings were concerned. She went up quickly to the poor lady
who was weeping, without restraint, and took her hand in those soft
little firm hands which had held up so many. Not so much a shy girl full
of great tenderness as a little celestial curate, devoted everywhere to
the service of the sorrowful, she did not blush or hesitate, but with
two big tears in her eyes spoke her consolation.

“Oh dear Lady Markham,” Dolly said, “are you not proud, are you not
happy to know that it is only what he thinks right that he will do?
What could any one say more? Papa does not know him as--as _you_ do. He
thinks he might be persuaded, though his heart would not be in it; but
you--you would not have him do that? I--” said Dolly all unawares,
betraying herself with a little sob in her throat and her voice sinking
so low as almost to be inaudible--“I” (as if she had anything to do with
it! strong emotion gave her such importance) “would rather he should
go--than stay like that!”

Lady Markham clasped her fingers about those two little firm yet
tremulous hands. It was the kind of consolation she wanted. She put up
her face to kiss Dolly, who straightway broke down and cried, and was an
angel-curate no longer. By this time herself had come in, and her own
deep-seated, childish preference, which she had not known to be love.
“Tch--tch--tch,” said the Rector under his breath, thinking within
himself some common thought about the ridiculousness of women, even the
best. But already there were other spectators who had seen and heard
some portion of what was going on. It was the worst of Lady Markham’s
pretty room that it was liable to be approached without warning. Alice
suddenly sprang up with a cry of astonishment, dismay, and delight.
“Paul!” she cried, startling the whole party as if a shell had fallen
among them. The young man stood within the half-drawn curtains with a
pale and serious face, looking at the group. His mother thought of but
one thing as she looked up and saw him before her. He had come to tell
her that now all was over, and nothing remaining but the last farewell
to say.

The rest of the party did not see, however, what Alice, who was detached
from them saw, that there was some one beyond the curtains, hanging
outside as one who had no right to enter--a little downcast, but yet, as
always, faintly amused by the situation. The sight of him gave her a
shock as of a dream come true. “If you should think better of it,” he
seemed to be saying. The sudden apparition, with the smile about the
corners of his lips which seemed so familiar, startled her as much as
the appearance which her imagination had called forth a few hours
before.

CHAPTER IX.

The presence of Mr. Stainforth and his daughter added another
embarrassment to the sudden arrival of Paul. His mother did not know
what to say to him, how to restrain her questions,--how to talk of his
health and his occupations, if the journey had been pleasant, how he had
come from the station, and all the other trivialities which are said to
a visitor suddenly arriving. She had to treat Paul like a visitor while
the others were there. Paul for his part answered these matter-of-course
questions very briefly. He had an air of suffering both mentally and
bodily, and he was very pale. He looked at Dolly Stainforth, and said
nothing, sitting in the shade as far from the great window as possible.
And the Rector would not go away. He sat and put innumerable questions
to the new-comer. What he was going to do? What he thought of this
thing and the other? Of course he was going back to Oxford to take his
degree? that was the one thing that was indispensable. Paul gave the
shortest possible answers to every question, and they were not of a
satisfactory description. His mother, anxiously watching and fretting
beyond measure to be thus kept in suspense about his purposes, could get
no information from what he said to Mr. Stainforth, nor did the earnest
gaze she had fixed upon him bring her any more enlightenment. Alice had
gone out beyond the shade of the curtains to speak to Fairfax, and the
embarrassment of the four thus left together was extreme. Dolly had not
spoken a word since Paul entered. She had given him her hand, no more,
when he came in, but she did not speak to him or even raise her head,
except to listen with something of the same breathless anxiety as was
apparent in Lady Markham’s face, while the old Rector went on with his
questions and advices. The two women trembled in concert with a mutual
sense of intolerable suspense, scarcely able to bear it. Dolly knew,
however, that she would have to bear it, that she had nothing to do with
the matter, that the only service she could do them was to relieve the
mother and son of her presence and that of her father, who, however,
after she had at length got him to his feet, still stood for ten minutes
at least holding Paul’s hand and impressing a great many platitudes upon
his attention--with “Depend upon it, my dear boy,” and “You may take my
word for it.” Paul had no mind to depend upon anything he said or to
take his word for it in any way. He stood saying “Yes” and “No,” or
replying only with a nod of his head to his mentor. But Mr. Stainforth
was not at all aware that he had stayed a second too long. He blamed
Dolly for the haste with which she had hurried him away. “But I am glad
I had the opportunity of seeing Paul,” the old man said complacently, as
his daughter drove him down the avenue. “You must have seen how pleased
he was to talk his circumstances over with such an old friend as myself.
Poor fellow, that is just what he must most want now. The ladies are
very much attached to him, of course, but with the best intentions in
the world, how can they know? He wants a man to talk to,” said Mr.
Stainforth; and “I suppose so, papa,” Dolly said.

Lady Markham turned to her son as soon as the Rector’s back was turned,
her face quivering with anxiety. “Paul? Paul?” she said with the
intensest question in her tone, though she asked nothing, seizing him by
both hands.

“Well, mother?” He met her eye with something of the old impatience in
his voice.

“You have come to tell me----?” she said breathless.

“I don’t know what I have come to tell you. I have come to collect some
of my things. You speak as if I had some important decision to make. You
forget that there is nothing important about me, mother, one way or
another,” Paul said with a smile. It was an angry smile, and it did not
reassure his anxious hearer. He gave a little wave with his hand towards
the larger room. “Fairfax is with me,” he said.

“Mr. Fairfax! I thought we might have had you to ourselves for this time
at least.” There was a querulous tone in her voice. He did not know that
she was thinking of what he considered an old affair, of a separation
which might be for ever. All that had been swept away completely out of
Paul’s mind as if it had never been, and he could not comprehend her
anxiety. “But,” she added, recollecting herself, “I might have known
that could not be. Paul, I don’t know what you will say to me. I was in
a great difficulty. I did not know what to do. I have let _him_ come to
the house. He is here, actually staying here now.”

“_He!_ What do you mean by _he_?” Then while she looked at him with the
keenest anxiety, a gleam of understanding and contemptuous anger came
over his face. “Well!” he said, “I suppose you could not shut him out of
what is his own house.”

“I might have left it, my dear. I intend to leave it----”

“Why?” he said; “if you can live under the same roof with him, why not?
Do you think I will have any objection? It cannot matter much to me.”

It was all settled then! She looked at him wistfully with a smile of
pain, clasping her hands together. “He is very friendly, Paul. He wants
to be very kind. And it is better there should be no scandal. I have
your--poor father’s memory to think of--”

Paul’s face again took its sternest look. “It is a pity he himself had
not thought a little of what was to come after. I am going to put my
things together, mother.”

“But you will stay, you are not going away to-night--not directly,
Paul!”

“Shall I have to ask Sir Gus’s leave to stay?” he said with a harsh
laugh.

“Oh, Paul, you are very unkind, more unkind than he is,” said Lady
Markham, with tears in her eyes. “He has never taken anything upon him.
Up to this moment it has never been suggested to me that I was not in my
own house.”

“Nevertheless, it is his,” said her son. He made a step or two towards
the opening, then turned back with some embarrassment. “Mother, it is
possible--I do not say likely--but still it is possible: that--Spears
may come here to make some final arrangements to-morrow, before he
goes.”

“Oh Paul!” she said, with a low cry of pain: but there was nothing in
this exclamation to which he could make any reply. He hesitated for a
moment, then turned again and went away. Lady Markham stood where he had
left her, clasping her hands together against her bosom as if to staunch
the wounds she had received and hide them, feeling the throb and ache of
suffering go over her from head to foot. She felt that he was merciless,
not only abandoning her without a word of regret, but parading before
her his preparations for this mad journey, and the new companions who
were to replace his family in his life. But Paul only thought she was
displeased by the name of Spears. He went his way heavily enough, going
through the familiar place which was no longer home, to the room which
had been his from his childhood, but was his no longer. As if this was
not pain enough, there was looming before him, threatening him, this
shadow of a last explanation with Spears. What was there to explain to
Spears? He could not tell. Others had deserted the undertaking as well
as he. And Paul would not say to himself that there was another
question, though he was aware of it to the depths of his being. Not a
word had been said about Janet; yet it was not possible but that
something must be said on that subject. His whole life was still made
uncertain, doubtful, suspended in a horrible uncertainty because of
this. What honour demanded of him, Paul knew that he must do; but what
was it that honour demanded? It was the last question of his old life
that remained to be settled, but it was a bitter question. And just when
it had to be decided, just when it was necessary that he should brave
himself to do what might turn out to be his duty, why, why was he made
the hearer unawares of Dolly’s little address in his defence? She had
always stood up for him; he remembered many a boyish offence in which
Dolly, a mere baby, uncertain in speech, had stood up for him. If he had
to do _this_--which he did not describe to himself in other words--Dolly
would still stand up for him. With all these thoughts in his mind as he
went upstairs, Paul was far too deeply occupied to think much of the
personage whom he contemptuously called Sir Gus--Sir Gus was only an
accident, though a painful and almost fatal one, in the young man’s
path.

When Lady Markham had sufficiently overcome the sharp keenness of this
latest wound, her ear was caught by a murmur of voices in the other
room. This had been going on, she was vaguely sensible, for some time
through all Mr. Stainforth’s lingering and leavetaking, and through her
own conversation with Paul; voices that were low and soft--not
obtrusive; as if the speakers had no wish to attract attention, or to
have their talk interfered with. Perhaps this tone is of all others the
most likely to provoke any listener into interruption. A vague
uneasiness awoke in Lady Markham’s mind. She put back the curtains
which had partially veiled the entrance to her own room with a slightly
impatient hand. When one is wounded and aching in heart and mind, it is
so hard not to be impatient. Alice had seated herself in a low chair,
half hidden in one of the lace curtains that veiled a window, and
Fairfax was leaning against the window talking to her. There was
something tender and confidential in the sound of his voice. It was he
who spoke most, but her replies were in the same tone, a tone of which
both were entirely unconscious, but which struck Lady Markham with
mingled suspicion and alarm. How had these two got to know each other
well enough to speak in such subdued voices? She had never known or
realised how much they had been thrown together during her absence in
the sick room. When she drew back the curtain, Alice instinctively
withdrew her chair a hair’s breadth, and Fairfax stood quite upright,
leaning upon the window no longer. This alteration of their attitudes at
the sight of her startled Lady Markham still more. Fairfax came forward
hurriedly as she came into the drawing-room, a little flushed and
nervous.

“I hope you will not consider this visit an impertinence,” he said. “I
thought I must come with Markham to take care of him. He--twisted his
foot--did he tell you? It is all right now, but I thought it would be
well to come and take care of him,” Fairfax said, with that conciliatory
smile and unnecessary repetition which marked his own consciousness of a
feeble cause.

“I did not hear anything about it,” Lady Markham said. “He has been
writing me very short letters. You are very kind, Mr. Fairfax--very
kind; we know that of old.”

“That is the last name to give my selfish intrusion,” he said; then
added, after a pause, “And I had something I wanted to speak to you
about. Did Miss Markham,” he said, hesitating, shifting from one foot to
the other, and showing every symptom of extreme embarrassment--“Did Miss
Markham tell you--what I had been saying to her?”

Alice had taken occasion of her mother’s entry upon the scene to rise
from her chair and come quite out of the shelter of the curtain. She was
standing (as indeed they all were) immediately in front of the window,
with the light full upon her, when he put this question. He looked from
Lady Markham to her as he spoke, and by bad luck caught Alice’s eye.
Then--why or wherefore, who could say?--the countenances of these two
foolish young people suddenly flamed, the one taking light from the
other, with the most hot and overwhelming blush. Alice seemed to be
enveloped in it; she felt it passing over her like the sudden reflection
of some instantaneous flame. She shrank back a step, her eyes fell with
an embarrassment beyond all power of explanation. As for Fairfax, he
stole a second guilty look at her, and stopped short--his voice suddenly
breaking off with a thrill in it, like that of a cord that has snapped.
Lady Markham looked on at this extraordinary pantomime with
consternation. What could she think, or any mother? She felt herself
grow crimson, too, with alarm and distress.

“What was it you were saying, Mr. Fairfax? Alice has not said anything
to me.”

“O--oh!” he said; then gave a faint little laugh of agitation and
confusion, and something that sounded strangely like happiness. “It
was--nothing--not much--something of very little importance--only about
myself. Perhaps you would let me have a little conversation, when it is
quite convenient, Lady Markham, with you?”

“Surely,” she said, but with a coldness she could not restrain. What a
thing it is to be a mother! The sentiment has found utterance in Greek,
so it does not profess to be novel. If not one thing, then another;
sometimes two troubles together, or six, as many as she has
children--except that, in the merciful dispensation of Providence, the
woman who has many children cannot make herself so wretched about every
individual as she who has few contrives to do. Only Paul and Alice
however were old enough to give their mother this kind of discipline,
and in a moment she felt herself plunged into the depths of a second
anxiety. There was a very uncomfortable pause. Alice would have liked to
run away to her room, to hide herself in utter shame of her own
weakness, but dared not, fearing that this would only call the attention
of the others more forcibly to it--as if anything was wanted to confirm
that impression! She stood still, therefore, for a few minutes, and made
one or two extremely formal remarks, pointing out that the days were
already much shorter and the afternoon beginning to close in. Both her
companions assented, the one with tender, the other with suspicious and
alarmed glances. Then it occurred to Alice to say that she would go and
see if Paul wanted anything. The others watched her breathless as she
went away.

“Mr. Fairfax, what does this mean?” said Lady Markham, almost haughtily.

Was it not enough to make the politest of women forget her manners?
Fairfax did not know, any more than she did, what it meant. He hoped
that it meant a great deal more than he had ever hoped, and his heart
was dancing with sudden pride and happiness.

“It means,” he said, “dear Lady Markham, what you see: that I have
forgotten myself, and that being nobody, I have ventured to lift my
eyes--oh, don’t imagine I don’t know it!--to one who is immeasurably
above me--to one who--I won’t trust myself to say anything about
her--_you_ know,” said the young man. “How could I help it? I saw
her--though it was but for a little while--every day.”

“When her father was dying!” cried Lady Markham, with a sob. This was
what went to her heart. Her Alice, her spotless child--to let this
stranger woo her in the very shadow of her father’s death-bed. She
covered her face with her hands. Paul had not wrung her heart enough;
there was one more drop of pain to be crushed out.

“I did not think of that. I did not think of anything, except that I was
there--in a paradise I had no right to be in--by her side: heaven knows
how. I had so little right to it that it looked like heaven’s own doing,
Lady Markham. I did not know there was any such garden of Eden in the
world,” he said. “I never knew there was such a woman as you; and then
she--that was the crown of all. Do you think I intended it? I was
surprised out of my senses altogether. I should have liked to stretch
myself out like a bit of carpet for you to walk on: and she----”

“Mr. Fairfax, this is nonsense,” said Lady Markham, but in a softened
tone. “My daughter is just like other girls; but when I was compelled to
leave her, when my other duties called me, could I have supposed that a
gentleman would have taken advantage----”

“Ah!” he said, with a tone of profound discouragement, “perhaps that is
what it is--perhaps it may be because I am not what people call a
gentleman.”

“Mr. Fairfax!” cried Lady Markham, with horror in her voice.

“Yes,” he said, with a sigh, “it is out now; that is what I wanted to
ask if Miss Markham had told you. I am nobody, Lady Markham. I don’t
belong to the Wiltshire Fairfaxes, or to the Fairfaxes of the north, or
to any Fairfaxes that ever were heard of: I told her so. I did not want
to come into your house under false pretences; and it was _that_ that I
meant to ask Miss Markham when--I betrayed myself.”

“_You_ betrayed yourself?” Lady Markham was entirely bewildered; for to
her it appeared that it was Alice who had betrayed herself. But this new
statement calmed and restrained her. If he had not remarked, perhaps,
the agitation of Alice, it was not for her mother to point it out. “Am I
to understand, Mr. Fairfax, that you said anything to Alice, when you
were here in the midst of our trouble----?”

“No,” he cried out; “surely no. What do you take me for?”

She put out her hand to him with her usual gracious kindness: “For a
gentleman, Mr. Fairfax; and the kindest heart in the world. Of course I
knew there must be some mistake.”

But when they had gone through this explanation and reconciliation, they
came back simultaneously to a recollection of that blaze of sudden
colour on Alice’s face, and felt the one with rapture, the other with
great alarm and tribulation, that in respect to this there could not be
any mistake.

“But, Lady Markham,” said the young man, “all this does not alter my
circumstances. You are very kind and good to me; but here are the facts
of the case. I have seen her now; none of us can alter that. It was not,
so to speak, my doing. It was--accident, as people say. When a man has
had a revelation like this, he does not believe it is an accident; he
knows,” said Fairfax, with a slight quiver of his lip, “that something
higher than accident has had to do with it. And it can’t be altered now.
When that comes into a man’s heart, it is for his life. And, at the same
time, I confess to you that I am nobody, Lady Markham--not fit to tie
her shoe; but I might be a prince, and not good enough for that. What is
to be done with me? Am I to be put to the door once for all, and never
to come near her again? Whatever you say I am to do, I will do it. I
believe in you as I do in heaven. What you tell me, I will do it; though
it may make an end of me, it shall be done all the same.”

“Did you come to Markham all the way to say this to me, Mr. Fairfax?”
Lady Markham put the question only to gain a little time.

“No; I came pretending it was to take care of Paul, who _did_ twist his
foot--that is true; and pretending that it was to ask you to persuade
him to let me help him (I know a few people and that sort of thing,”
said Fairfax hurriedly); “but I believe, if I must tell the truth, it
was only just to have the chance of getting one look at her again. That
was all. I did not mean to be so bold as to say a word--only to see her
again.”

“You wanted to help Paul!” Lady Markham felt her head going round. If he
was nobody, how could he help Paul? The whole imbroglio seemed more than
she could fathom. And Fairfax was confused too.

“There are some little things--that I have in my power: I thought, if he
would let me, I might set him in the way----: I’ll speak of all that
another time, Lady Markham. When a thing like this gets the upper hand,
one can’t get one’s head clear for anything else. Now that I have
betrayed myself, which I did not mean to, tell me--tell me what is to be
done with me. I cannot think of anything else.”

What was to be done with him? It is to be feared that, kind as Lady
Markham was, she would have made but short work with Fairfax, had it
been he only who had betrayed himself. But the light that had blazed on
the face of Alice was another kind of illumination altogether. A hasty
sentence would not answer here.

CHAPTER X.

It would have been difficult to imagine a more embarrassed and
embarrassing party than were the Markham family, when they assembled to
dinner that evening. Sir Gus and the little girls had met Fairfax going
down the avenue, and had tried every persuasion in their power to induce
him to return with them; but he would not do so. “I am coming back
to-morrow,” he said; but for this evening he was bound for the Markham
Arms, where he had been before, and nothing would move him from his
determination.

When Gus went into the drawing-room with his little companions, the tea
was found there, all alone in solitary dignity; the table set out, the
china and silver shining, the little kettle emitting cheerful puffs of
steam, but no one visible. What can be more dismal than this ghost of
the cheerfullest of refreshments--the tea made and waiting, but not a
woman to be seen? It impressed this innocent group with a sense of
misfortune.

“Where can they be?” Bell cried; and she ran upstairs, sending her
summons before her: “Mamma--mamma--please come to tea.”

By and by, however, Bell came down looking extremely grave.

“Mamma has a headache,” she said. This was a calamity almost unknown at
Markham. “And Alice has a headache too,” she added, after a moment’s
pause.

Bell’s looks were very serious, and the occasion could scarcely be
called less than tragical. The little girls themselves had to make Gus’s
tea--they did it, as it were, in a whisper--one putting in the sugar,
the other burning her fingers with the tea-pot. It was not like
afternoon tea at all, but like some late meal in the schoolroom when
Mademoiselle had a headache. It was only Mademoiselle who was given to
headache at Markham. It was Brown who told Sir Augustus of Paul’s
arrival. Lady Markham had been wounded by Brown’s behaviour from the
first. He had not clung to the “family” to which he had expressed so
much devotion. He had gone over at once to the side of the new master of
the house. He had felt no indignation towards the interloper, nor any
partisanship on behalf of Paul. He came up now with his most obsequious
air, as Gus came out of the drawing-room.

“I beg your pardon, Sir Augustus, but Mr. Paul has come.”

“Oh, he has come, has he?” Gus said.

Brown stood respectfully ready, as if he would undertake at the next
word to turn Mr. Paul out of the house; no wonder Lady Markham was
indignant. Gus understood it all now--the headaches and the deserted
tea-table. No doubt the mother and sister were with Paul, comforting and
consoling him. He gave forth a little sigh when he thought of it.
Whatever might happen, no one would ever console him in that way. Paul
had always the better of him, even when disinherited. But when they went
into the drawing-room before dinner, he was very anxious to be friendly
to Paul. He went up to him holding out his hand.

“I am very glad that we meet like this,” he said. “Your mother has
taken me in, for which I am grateful to her; and I am very glad that we
have met. I hope you will not think any worse of me than you can help.”

“I do not think worse of you at all,” Paul said, briefly; but he would
not enter into conversation. And the whole party were silent. Whether it
was the influence of the son’s return, who was nothing now but a
secondary person in the house where he had been the chief, or whether
there was any other cause beside, Gus could not tell. Even the mother
and daughter did not talk to each other. When dinner was over, and Mr.
Brown, with his too observant eyes, was got rid of, the forlorn little
stranger, who was the new baronet, the conqueror, the master of the
situation, could almost have wept, so lonely and left out did he feel.

“Is anything going to happen?” he said. “I know I am no better than an
outsider among you, but I would like to enter into everything that
concerns you, if you would let me. Is anything going to happen?”

“I don’t know of anything that is going to happen,” said Paul; and the
ladies said nothing. There was no longer that intercourse of looks
between them, of half-words and rapid allusions, which Gus admired.
They sat, each wrapped as in a cloud of her own. And rarely had a night
of such confused melancholy and depression been spent at Markham. Alice,
who feared to encounter any examination by her mother, went upstairs
again, scarcely entering the drawing-room at all. And Lady Markham sat
alone amid all the soft, yet dazzling, lights, which again seemed to
blaze as they had blazed when Sir William was dying, suggesting the
tranquil household peace which seemed now over for ever. Was it over for
ever? The very room in which she was seated was hers no longer. Her son
was hers no longer, but about to be lost to her--separated by wide seas,
and still more surely by other associations, and the severance of the
heart. And even Alice--Lady Markham could not reconcile herself to the
thought that while her husband was dying, and she watching by his side,
Alice had allowed herself to be drawn into a new life and new thoughts.
It seemed an impiety to him who was gone. Everything was impiety to him:
the stranger in his place, though that stranger was his son; the
shattering of his image, though it was his own hand that had done it;
the dispersion of his children. Thank God! three were still the little
ones. She thought, with a forlorn pang in her heart, that she would
withdraw herself with them to the contracted life of the Dower-house,
and there reconstruct her domestic temple. Bell and Marie, Harry and
Roland, would retain the idea of their father unimpaired, as Paul and
Alice could not do. But what does it matter that all is well with the
others when one of your children is in trouble? it is always the lean
kine that swallow up those that are fat and flourishing. Her heart was
so sore with the present that she could not console herself with the
future. How could it be that Job was comforted with other sons and
daughters, instead of those he had lost? How many a poor creature has
wondered over this! Can one make up for another? Lady Markham sat all
alone, half suffocated with unshed tears. Paul was going away, and she
had not the courage to go to Alice, to question her, to hear that in
heart she also had gone away. Thus she sat disconsolate in the
drawing-room, while Gus took possession of the library. The poor little
gentleman was still sadder than Lady Markham; not so unhappy, but
sadder, not knowing what to do with himself. The long evening alone
appalled him. He took a book, but he was not very fond of reading. The
children had gone to bed. He went to the window once, and, looking out,
saw a red spark, moving about among the trees, of Paul’s cigar.
Probably, if he joined him, it would only be to feel more the enormity
of his own existence. Gus went back to his chair, and drawing himself
close to the fire (which Mr. Brown had caused to be lighted, reflecting
that Sir Augustus was a foreigner, and might feel chilly), fell asleep
there, and so spent a forlorn evening all by himself. Was this what he
had come to England for, to struggle for his rights, and make everybody
unhappy? It was not a very lofty end after all.

And next day there was so much to be settled. Paul was astir early,
excited and restless, he could not tell why. It seemed to him that one
way or other his fate was to be settled that day. If Janet Spears clung
to him, if she insisted on keeping her hold upon him, what was he to do?
He went down very early to the village, wandering about all the places
he had known. He had never been very genial in his manners with the poor
people, but yet he had been known to them all his life, and received
salutations on all sides. Some of them still called him Sir Paul. They
knew he was not his father’s successor--that there was another and
altogether new name in the Markham family--but the good rustics, many of
them, could not make out how, once having been Sir Paul to their certain
consciousness, he could ever cease to bear that title. The name brought
back to the young man’s mind the flash of finer feeling, the subdued and
sorrowful elation with which he had walked about these quiet roads on
the morning of his father’s funeral. He had meant to lead a noble life
among these ancestral woods. All that his father was and more, he had
intended to be. He had meant to show his gratitude for having escaped
from the snare of those follies of his youth which had nearly cast him
away, by tolerance and help to those who were like himself. In politics,
in the management of the people immediately within his influence, he had
meant to give the world assurance of a man. But now that was all over.
In his place was poor little Gus: and he himself had neither influence
nor power. What a change it was! He strayed into the churchyard to his
father’s grave, still covered with flowers, and then--why not?--he
thought he would go up to the rectory and ask them to give him some
breakfast. Though he did not care enough for Gus to avoid his presence,
yet it was a restraint; there never, he thought, could be any true
fellowship between them. He went and tapped at the window of the
breakfast-room which he knew so well, and where Dolly was making the
tea. She opened it to him with a little cry of pleasure. Dolly had not
made any pretence of putting on mourning when Sir William died, but ever
since she had worn her black frock; nobody could reproach her with
encroaching upon the privileges of the family by this, for a black frock
was what any one might wear; but Paul, who was ignorant, was touched by
her dress. She had been looking pale when she stood over the table with
the tea-caddy, but when she saw who it was Dolly bloomed like a
winter-rose. It was October now, the leaves beginning to fall, and a
little fire made the room bright, though the weather was not yet cold
enough for fires. Paul had never once considered himself in love with
Dolly in the old days. Perhaps it was only the contrast between her and
Janet Spears that moved him now. He knew that one way or other the
question about Janet Spears would have to be concluded before the day
was done; and this consciousness made Dolly fairer and sweeter to him
than ever she had been before.

And the rector was very glad to see Paul. He understood the young man’s
early visit at once. Mr. Stainforth had never entertained any doubt on
the subject. To talk over his affairs with a man of experience and good
sense must be a very different thing from discussing them with ladies,
however sensible; and he plunged into good advice to the young man
almost before he began his tea.

“There is one thing I am certain you ought to do,” Mr. Stainforth said,
“I told your mother so yesterday. I am an old man and I cannot stand
long in any one’s way. Paul, you must take orders; that is what you must
do: and succeed me in the living. It is a thing which has always been
considered an excellent provision for a second son; among your own
people--and you know that this is an excellent house. Dolly will show
you all over it. For a man of moderate tastes it is as good as Markham,
and not expensive to keep up. And as for the duty, depend upon it, my
dear boy, you would find no difficulty about that. Why, Dolly does the
most part of the parish work. Of course you could not have Dolly,” said
the old man, at his ease, not thinking of how the young ones felt, “but
somebody would turn up. It is a good position and it is not a hard life.
As soon as I heard what had happened I said to myself at once, the
living is the very thing for Paul.”

Paul could not help a furtive glance round him, a momentary review of
the position, a rapid imperceptible flash of his eyes towards Dolly, who
sat very demurely in front of the tea-urn. How glad she was of that
tea-urn! But he shook his head.

“I am afraid I shall not be able to settle myself so easily as that,” he
said.

“But why not, why not?” asked the old man; and he went on expatiating
upon the advantages of this step, “I would retire as soon as you were
ready. I have often thought of retiring. It is Dolly rather than I that
has wanted to remain. Dolly seems to think that she cannot live away
from Markham Royal.”

“Oh, no, papa,” Dolly cried, “it was only because there was no reason. I
could live--anywhere.”

“I know what you will do,” said the old man, “when I am gone, you will
come back and flutter like a little ghost about your schools and your
poor people: you will think nobody can manage them but yourself; unless
you marry, you know--unless you marry. That would make a difference. For
the peace of the new rector I must get you married, Dolly, before I
receive notice to quit, my dear.”

And he laughed with his old shrill laugh, not thinking what might be
going on in those young bosoms. That Dolly should marry anybody was a
joke to her father, and that Paul should have any feeling on the subject
never occurred to him. He cackled and laughed at his own joke, and then
he became serious, and once more impressed all the advantages of the
living upon his visitor. The curious mingling of confusion,
embarrassment, distress, and pleasure with which the two listened it
would be difficult to describe. Even Dolly, though she was abashed and
horrified by the two simple suggestions which the old man neither
intended nor dreamt of, felt a certain vague shadowy pleasure in it, as
of a thing that never could come true but yet was sweet enough as a
dream; and because of the tea-urn which hid her from Paul, felt safe,
and was almost happy in the thrill of consciousness which ran to her
finger tips. They did not see each other, either of them: and this was a
thing which was impossible, never to be. But yet it put them by each
other’s side as if they were going to set out upon life together, and
the sensation was sweet.

Paul turned it over and over in his head as he went home. It was not the
life he would have chosen, but the old man’s materialistic view of it
had for the moment a charm. The sheltered quiet life, the mild duty, the
ease and leisure, with no struggle or trouble to attain to them--was it
a temptation? He laughed out as he asked himself the question. No! Paul
might perhaps have been a missionary after the apostolic model; but a
clergyman with very little to do and a wife to do the great part of that
little for him--no, he said to himself, no! And then he sighed--for the
rectory, under those familiar skies, and little Dolly, whom he had known
since she was a baby, were very sweet.

It was something very different for which he had to prepare himself now.
As he walked towards home he suddenly came in sight, as he turned the
village corner into the high road, of a pair who were walking on before
him from the station. Paul’s heart gave a sudden leap in his breast, but
not with joy. He stood still for a moment, then went on, making no
effort to overtake them. A man and a woman plodding along the dusty
road: he with the long strides and clumsy gait of one who was quite
destitute of that physical training which gives to the upper classes so
much of their superiority, his arms swinging loosely from his shoulders;
she encumbered with the skirt of her dress, which trailed along the
dusty road. The sun was high by this time, and very warm, and they felt
it. Paul did not take his eyes from them as they went along, but he made
no effort to make up to them. This was what he had played with in the
time of his folly--what he thought he had chosen, without ever choosing
it. What could he do, what could he do, he cried out in his heart with
the vehemence of despair, to be clear of it now?

Spears had come to settle his accounts with Paul. In the course of the
negotiation which had gone so far, which had gone indeed as far as
anything could go not to be settled and concluded, he had received money
from the young man for his share of the emigration capital. That Paul,
when he separated himself from the party meant to leave this with them
as a help to them, there was no doubt; and this was one reason why he
had avoided meeting with his old associates, or ending formally the
connection between them. And when Spears demanded that a place of
meeting should be appointed, Paul had with reluctance decided upon
Markham as a half-way house, where he would have the help of his mother
to smooth down and mollify the demagogue. Spears had been deeply
compunctious for the part he had taken against Paul in London, but was
also deeply wounded by Paul’s refusal to accept his self-humiliation;
and his object in seeking him now was not, as Paul thought, to reproach
him for his desertion, nor was it to call him to account on the subject
of Janet. Paul himself was not sufficiently generous, not noble enough
to understand the proud and upright character of the humble agitator,
who carried the heart of a prince under his working man’s clothes, and
to whom it was always more easy to give than to take. Spears was coming
with a very different purpose. With the greatest trouble and struggle he
had managed to reclaim, and separate from the other money collected, the
sum paid by Paul. It had been not only a wonderful blow to his personal
pride and his affections, but it diminished greatly his importance
among his fellows when it was discovered that the young aristocrat, of
whose adhesion they were inconsistently proud, was no longer under the
influence or at the command of Spears; and it had cost him not only a
great deal of trouble to collect Paul’s money, but a sacrifice of
something of his own; and he had so little! Nevertheless, he had it all
in his pocket-book when he prepared that morning to keep the rendezvous
which Paul had unwillingly given him.

Spears did not know till the last moment that his daughter meant to
accompany him. She walked to the station with him, and took his ticket
for him, and he suspected nothing. It was not until she joined him in
the railway carriage that he understood what she meant, and then it was
too late to remonstrate. Besides, his daughter told him it was Lady
Markham she was going to see. Lady Markham had been very kind to her. It
was right that she should go to say good-bye; “and besides, you know,
father--” Janet said. Yes, he knew, but he did not know much; and Janet
was aware, as Paul was not, that her father was far too delicate, far
too proud, to speak on her behalf. He would scorn to recall his
daughter to any one who had forgotten her; if there was anything to be
done for Janet; it was herself who must do it. And Spears was so
uncertain about the whole business, so unaware of what she was going to
do, that he did not even try to prevent her. He accepted her society
accordingly, and did not attempt to resist her will. She had a right, no
doubt, to look after her own affairs; and he who did not even know what
these affairs were, what could he say? They had a very silent journey,
finding little to say to each other. His mind was full of saddened and
embittered affection, and of a proud determination not to be indebted to
a friend who had deserted him. “Rich gifts grow poor when givers prove
unkind,” he was saying to himself. Undoubtedly it had given him
importance, the fact that the richest of all the colonists was under his
influence, and ready to do whatever he might suggest. Not for a moment,
however, would Spears let this weigh with him. Yet it made his heart all
the sorer in spite of himself. As for Janet, she had a still more
distinct personal arrangement on her hands. They scarcely exchanged a
word as they walked all that way along the high road, and up the avenue,
Paul following, though they did not see him. In the hall, Janet
separated herself from her father.

“It is Lady Markham _I_ want to see,” she said, with a familiarity and
decision which amazed her father, who knew nothing about her previous
visit. Janet recognised the footman Charles who had admitted her before.
“You know that Lady Markham will see me,” she said; “show me to Lady
Markham’s room, please.”

Spears did not understand it, but he looked on with a vague smile. He
himself was quite content to wait in the hall until Paul should appear.
He was standing there vaguely remarking the things about him when Paul
made his appearance. He gave his former friend his hand, but there was
little said between them. Paul took him into the library which for the
moment was vacant. It seemed to him that it would be easier to answer
questions there where already he had often suffered interrogation and
censure. And he did not know--he could not divine what Spears was about
to say.

“When do you go?” the young man said.

“We have everything settled to sail on the 21st. That is five days from
now.”

“I fear,” said Paul, “it must have been very inconvenient for you coming
here. I am sorry, very sorry, you have taken so much trouble. I should
have gone to you, but my mind has been in a whirl; the whole thing looks
to me like a dream.”

“It is a dream that has given some of your friends a great deal of
trouble. Take care, my good fellow, another time how you fall into
dreams like this. It is best to take a little more trouble at the
beginning to know your own mind,” he said slowly, tugging at his pocket.
“But after all you came to yourself before there was any harm done,
Markham. If it had happened in the middle of the ocean, or when we had
got to our destination, it would have been still more awkward. As it
was, it has been possible to recover your property,” said Spears, at
last producing a packet out of its receptacle with a certain glow of
suppressed disdain in his countenance. He got out a little bag of money
as he spoke, and laid it on the table, then produced his pocket-book,
which he opened, and took something out.

“What does this mean, Spears?”

“It means what is very simple, Paul--mere A B C work, as you should
know. It is the amount of your subscriptions--what you have contributed
in one way or another. I won’t trouble you with the items,” he said;
“they are all on a piece of paper with the bank notes. And now here is
the whole affair over,” said Spears with the motion of snapping his
fingers, “and no harm done. Few young men are able to say as much of
their vagaries. Perhaps if you had involved yourself with a higher
class, with people more like yourself, it might not have been equally
easy to get away.”

“But this is impossible! this cannot be!” cried Paul. “I intended
nothing of the kind. Spears, you humble me to the dust. You must not--it
is not possible that I can accept this. I intended--I made sure----”

“You meant to leave us yourself, but to let your money go as alms to the
revolutionaries?” cried Spears, with a thrill of agitation in his voice
which seemed to make the room ring. “Yes, I suppose you might have
fallen among people who would have permitted it. (The strange thing was
that most of the members of the society had been of this opinion, and
that it was all that Spears could do to rescue the money which the
others thought lawfully forfeited.) But we are not of that kind. We
don’t want filthy money with the man away, or even with his heart away.”

The orator held his head high; there was a certain scorn about his
gestures, about his mouth. He tried to show by a careless smile and air
that what he was doing was of no importance, an easy and certain step of
which there could be no doubt; but the thrill of excited feeling in him
could not be got out of his voice. And Paul, perhaps, had even more
excuse for excitement.

“I will not take a farthing of the money,” he said.

“Then you will carry it back yourself, my lad. I have washed my hands of
it. If you think I will permit a penny of yours to go into our treasury
apart from yourself and your sympathy and your help! I would have taken
all that and welcome. I have told you already--to little use--what you
were to me, Paul Markham. The Bible is right after all about idols,
though many is the word I’ve spoken against it. I made an idol of you,
and lo! my image is broken into a thousand pieces. It is like giving the
thing a kick the more,” he said, with a sudden burst of harsh laughter,
“to think when it was all over and ended that I would take the money!
It shows how much you knew me.”

“Then it is a mere matter of personal offence and disappointment,
Spears?”

“Offence!” he cried. “Yes, offence if you like the word--as it is
offence when your friend puts a knife into you. The first thing you feel
is surprise. Who could believe it? He! to stab you, when you were
leaning upon him. It takes all a man’s credulity to believe that. But
when it is done--” he added with one of the sudden smiles which used to
illuminate his rugged countenance, but now lighted it up with a gleam of
angry melancholy, just touched with humour, “you don’t take money from
him, Paul.”

“Nor does he take it from you,” said Paul, quickly. “Spears, this is all
folly. It is not a matter of passion, as you make it. Say I am as much
in the wrong as you like. I did not know my own mind. I have had enough
to go through in the last six weeks to teach me many things more
important than my own mind. I can’t go with you; I have found out
that--but what then? I don’t lose my interest in you; we don’t cease to
be friends. As for stabbing you, putting a knife into you--that is
ludicrous,” he cried, with an angry laugh. “It is like a couple of
lovers in a French novel; not two Englishmen and friends.”

“I’ll tell you what, Paul,” said the other, taking no notice; “if all
had been going well with you, why I could have put up with it. A place
like this makes a man think. I’ve told you so before. It’s like being a
prince on a small scale. Had I been born a prince I might have been a
tyrant, but I shouldn’t have abandoned my throne; and no more would you,
I always thought, if you once felt the charm of it. But when all that
was over, Paul, when you had lost everything, come down from your high
estate, and felt,” cried Spears, with an outburst of vehement feeling,
“the burning and the bitterness of disappointment, that you should have
abandoned us, and the cause, and me--your friend and father, _then_!”

He turned away, and walked from end to end of the long room. As for
Paul, he did not say a word. What could he say? how could he explain
that it was precisely then, when he had lost everything, that those
strange companions had become most intolerable to him. They were
bearable when his choice of them was a folly, and his own position
utterly different from theirs; but as the distance lessened, the breach
grew more apparent. This however he could not say. Nor had he a word to
answer when Spears called himself his father. What did it mean? and
where was Janet, whom he had seen entering the house, but who had
disappeared? Paul’s thoughts veered away from the chief subject of the
interview, while Spears, walking up and down the room, talked on. The
money lay on the table, neither taking any further notice of it. It was
found there by Gus when he came in an hour after, lying upon the table
in the same spot. Gus thought it a temptation to the servants, and threw
it into a drawer. He was not used to careless dealing with money, and he
looked out very curiously at the strange man who was walking up and down
the avenue with Paul, talking much and gesticulating largely. This was a
kind of man altogether apart from all Sir Gus’s experiences, and his
curiosity was much exercised. Was it perhaps an electioneering agent
come here to talk of the representation of Farborough, and Sir William’s
vacant seat? Gus stood at the window and watched, for he had a great
deal of curiosity, with very keen eyes.

CHAPTER XI.

Alice and her mother kept apart for one night. They said good-night to
each other hurriedly, the one too much wounded to ask, the other too
proud to offer, her confidence. But when they had done this they had
reached the length of their respective tethers. Next morning the girl
stole into her mother’s room before any one was awake, and clinging
about her, begged her pardon--for what she did not say. And Lady Markham
kissed her and forgave her, though there was nothing to forgive. Words
after all are the poorest exponents of meaning; they knew a great deal
better what it was than if they had put it into words. And it was not
till long after this reunion that Lady Markham said, quite accidentally,
“Why did you not tell me Mr. Fairfax’s secret, Alice? He seems to be
much in earnest about it, poor boy.”

Said Alice, very seriously, “How could I speak to you, mamma, about
anything so--about anything that I was not obliged to speak of, at such
a time?”

“Oh, my dear, that is true, that is most true. But it hurt me a little,
for it made me feel as if--you were keeping something from me.”

“We all like Mr. Fairfax,” said Alice, courageously, “but it does not
matter, does it, about his family? He was very good, very kind, at a
time when we needed help; but to tell you about his want of a
grandfather----”

Feeling safe in the smile which such a want would naturally call forth,
Alice (rashly) ventured to meet her mother’s eyes. And then to her
confusion, the former accident repeated itself, notwithstanding every
precaution. It is very difficult indeed to take precautions against such
accidents. Once more an exasperating, but unpreventable blush, of doubly
died crimson, hot, sudden, scorching, flamed over Alice’s face.

Lady Markham saw it, and felt the shock thrill through her again; but
she was wise and took no notice. She shook her head. “I am not so sure
about that,” she said. “It is always of consequence to know to whom
your friends belong. I wish--I wish----

But what she was going to say--whether to wish for a grandfather to
Fairfax, or to wish that she had not opened her house to him, could
never be known; for just then Mrs. Martin opened the door with a little
impatience and annoyance, and begged to know whether her lady was
expecting again the young person who had been at Markham some time
ago--a young person who insisted that Lady Markham would be sure to see
her, and of whom Mrs. Martin evidently did not at all approve--by name
Spears.

Lady Markham cast a hurried glance at Alice. It was her turn now to
blush. “You can bring her in,” she said. Then a few words were hastily
exchanged between the mother and daughter. Alice seized upon some
needlework which lay by. Sheltered by that, she drew her seat away
towards the window out of her mother’s immediate neighbourhood. Janet
came in with a free and familiar step. She was elated by the readiness
of her reception, the power of once more crowing over the important and
dignified Mrs. Martin, and with something else which she was aware
enhanced her own position still more. She came quickly in, and, without
any of the timidity and awe of her first appearance, advanced to Lady
Markham with outstretched hand, and a countenance covered with smiles;
but notwithstanding, with instantaneous quickness noticed Alice, and
felt that to be thus made acquainted with Miss Markham added another
glory still. Was it not treating her as one of the family? When Janet
saw this she determined to sell her consent to become one of the family
still more dear.

“How do you do, my lady?” she said. “I thought as father was coming to
see Mr. Paul I might just as well come too and see your ladyship, and
speak about--the business that is between you and me.”

Here Janet, delighted to feel herself so entirely at home, took a chair
and drew it close to the table at which Lady Markham had been seated.
She put her umbrella down against the table, and undid the fastening of
her mantle.

“We have walked all the way from the station,” she said, with engaging
ease, “and it was so hot.”

Lady Markham did not know what to say; the words were taken out of her
mouth. She seated herself also, humbly, and looked at her visitor, who
had made so wonderful an advance in self-confidence since she saw her
first.

“Your father-has come with you?” she said.

“He thinks it is me that has come with him, my lady,” said Janet. Then
she looked pointedly at Alice bending over her work against the window.
“I may speak before the young lady? I would not wish what I’ve got to
say to go any further--not out of the family,” she said.

“It is my daughter,” said Lady Markham. “Alice, this is the daughter of
Mr. Spears.”

Janet smiled, and bowed her head graciously. She was in a state of great
suppressed elation and excitement.

“I don’t need to ask,” she said, “my lady, if you followed my advice?”

“Your advice?”

“About Sir Paul; it answered very quick, didn’t it? I thought that would
bring him to his senses. Father is as vexed! he thinks it is all my
fault, but I never pretended different. A gentleman that has everything
he can set his face to, and a title, and a beautiful property, why
should he emigrate? But now there is something else that I’ve come to
ask you about.”

“Do you mean that my son--has given up the idea?” Lady Markham could
scarcely articulate the words.

“Oh, yes, bless you, as soon as ever you let him know that it would not
make any difference. I knew very well that was what he meant all along.
What should he go abroad for, a gentleman with his fortune? it was all
nonsense. And Lady Markham,” said Janet, solemnly, “it would be mean to
leave him in the lurch, I know, after all that; but still, I’ve got
myself to look to. I don’t understand what all this story is about a new
gentleman, and him, after all, not having anything. I can’t feel easy in
my mind about it. I like Sir Paul the best, and always will; but I’ve
had another very good offer. It’s too serious to play fast and loose
with,” said Janet, gravely, “it’s something as I must take or leave. Now
there is nobody but you, my lady, that will tell me the truth. He is Sir
Paul, ain’t he? he has got the property? I wouldn’t take it upon me to
ask such questions if it wasn’t that I am, so to speak, one of the
family. And as for father--I can’t put no confidence in what father
says.”

Alice got up hurriedly from her chair and threw down her work; it was a
mere movement of impatience, but to Janet every movement meant
something. She kept her eyes upon the young lady who might, for anything
she could tell, be in a conspiracy to keep the truth from her.

“Father thinks of nothing but love,” she said, following Alice with her
eyes, “but there’s more in marriage than that. I can’t trust in father
to tell me true.”

“What is it you want me to tell you?” said Lady Markham, trembling with
eagerness.

She would have told her--almost anything that was not directly false.
She began to frame in her mind a description of Paul’s disinheritance,
but she feared to spoil her case by too great anxiety. As for Alice, she
stood by the window pale, speechless, indignant--too wildly angry on
Paul’s account to perceive what her mother saw so plainly, that here was
a chance of escape for Paul.

“Well, just the truth, my lady,” said Janet, “if it is true what folks
are saying. I can’t believe it’s true. You are Lady Markham, I never
heard anything against that, and he is your eldest. But they say he is
not Sir Paul and hasn’t the property. I can’t tell how that can be.”

“It is true, though,” said Lady Markham, speaking low; even when there
was an excellent use for it, it was not easy to repeat all the wrongs
that her son had borne. “My son is not Sir Paul,” she said, “nor has he
the Markham estates. He has an elder brother who has inherited
everything. This has only been quite certain for two or three days. My
boy--who had every prospect of being rich--is now poor. That is very
grievous for him; but to those who love him,” said the indiscreet woman,
her heart triumphing over her reason, “he is not changed; he is all he
ever was, and more.”

“Neither the property nor the title?” said Janet, with a blank
countenance. “Poor instead of being rich? Oh, it is not a thing to put
up with--it is not to be borne! But I can’t see how it can be,” she
cried; “poor instead of rich! If it wasn’t for one or two things, I
should think it was a plot to disgust me--to separate him and me.”

“But,” said Lady Markham--she had never perhaps in her life before
spoken with the cold energy of a taunt, with that desperate calm of
severity, yet trembling of suspense--“that is in your own hands, Miss
Spears. If you love him, no one can separate him from you.”

It was all she could do to get out the words; her breath went in the
tumult of her heart.

“Oh--love him!” The trouble and disappointment on Janet’s face were
quite genuine; every line in her countenance fell. “You know as well as
I do that’s not everything, Lady Markham. You may like a man well
enough; but when you were just thinking that all was settled, and
everything as you could wish--and to find as he has nothing--not even
the Sir to his name! Oh, it’s too bad--it’s too bad--it’s cruel! I would
not believe father, and I can hardly believe you.”

“It is true, however,” Lady Markham said.

She watched the girl with a keenness of contempt, yet a breathless gasp
of hope--emotions more intense than she had almost ever known before.
She was fighting for her son’s deliverance--she who had delivered him
into the toils. As for Alice, she stood with her face pressed against
the window, and her hands upon her ears. She did not want either to hear
or to see.

“Well!” said Janet, with a long breath, too deep for a sigh. “I am glad
I came,” she added after a moment; “I would never have believed it,
never! And I’m sure I am sorry for him--very, very sorry. After giving
up the colony for my sake, and all! But I could not be expected to ruin
all my prospects, could I, my lady? And me that had set my heart on
being Lady Markham like you!” she cried, clasping her hands. This was a
bitter reflection to Janet; her eyes filled with tears. “I don’t know
how I can face him to say ‘No’ to him,” she went on; “he will take it so
unkind. But if you consider that I have another offer--a very good
offer--plenty of money, and no need for me to trouble my head about
anything. That would be different--very different from anybody that
married Mr. Paul now.”

“Very different, Miss Spears. My son’s wife would be a poor woman; she
would have to struggle with poverty and care. And it would be all the
worse because he is not used to poverty; indeed, he could not marry--he
has no money at all. She would have to wait for years and years.”

“Oh, it’s too bad--it’s too bad--it’s cruel!” cried Janet once more.
Then she relapsed into a grateful sense of her escape. “But I am very
glad I came. I never would have believed it from any one but you. Oh,
dear, oh, dear!” cried Janet again, “what a downfall for him, poor young
gentleman--and he that was always so proud! I won’t say nothing to him,
Lady Markham, not to make him feel it more. I will give out that I only
came with father, and to see you, and ask you if you will recommend our
shop. Now that all this is settled, I may as well tell you that I’ve
almost quite made up my mind to marry Mosheer Lisiere, the new partner
at our shop. He is a French gentleman, but he’s very well off, and very
clever in the business. I think I cannot do better than take him,” said
Janet, adding with a sigh the emphatic monosyllable, “_now_.”

Notwithstanding, however, that this was so comfortably settled, Janet
turned round upon Lady Markham, who was going down stairs with her to
make sure that Paul had no hankering after this sensible young woman,
and to keep the government of the crisis generally in her own hands.
Janet turned round upon her as they were going out of the room.

“But he will have your money?” she said.

“His sisters,” said Lady Markham, with a little gasp, for she had not
expected this assault, and was not prepared for it--“his sisters,” she
said “will have my money.”

Janet looked at her searchingly, and then, convinced at last, went
slowly down stairs. She had lost something. Never more was she likely to
have the chance of being my lady--never would she strike awe into the
bosoms of the servants who had looked so suspiciously on her by
returning as young Lady Markham. On the other hand, there was a
satisfaction in being able to see her own way clear before her. She was
very thoughtful, but she was not dissatisfied with her morning’s work.
Supposing she had gone so far as to marry Paul Markham, a gentleman (she
used the word now in her thoughts as an expression of contempt) without
a penny! Janet shivered at the thought. Instead of that, she would step
at once into a good house with a cook and a housemaid, and everything
handsome about her. She was very glad that she had come to Lady Markham
and insisted on knowing the truth.

As for Lady Markham, she was still quivering with the conflict out of
which she had come victorious. But triumph was in her heart. She could
afford now to be magnanimous. “You went away without any refreshment
the last time you were here,” she said graciously, as she followed her
visitor down stairs; “but you must take some luncheon with us to-day,
your father and you.”

“Oh, thank you, my lady,” Janet cried, forgetting her dignity. This of
itself almost repaid her for giving up Paul.

Lady Markham did not forget Janet’s request to see the house, which had
been so boldly made when the girl had thought herself Paul’s future
wife. She took her into the great drawing-room with a little gleam of
malicious pleasure, to show her what she had lost, and watched her
bewildered admiration and awe. By this time the happiness of knowing
that her son was not going to forsake her had begun to diffuse itself
through Lady Markham’s being like a heavenly balsam, soothing all her
troubles. When they met going into the dining-room as the luncheon-bell
rang, she put her hand within his arm, holding it close to her side for
one moment of indulgence.

“You are not going away,” she said in his ear. “Thank God! Oh, why did
you not make me happy sooner--why did you not tell me, Paul?”

“Going away,” he said perplexed, “of course I am going away.” And then
her real meaning crossed him. “What, with Spears?” he said. “There has
not been any thought of that for many a day.”

Spears talked little at this meal; he was full of the discouragement and
mournful anger of disappointment. Up to the last moment he had hoped
that Paul would change his mind--perhaps on the ground of his supposed
love for Janet, if nothing else. But Paul had said nothing about Janet.
He did not understand it, but it made his heart sore. The rest of the
party were embarrassed enough, except Gus, who still thought this man
with the heavy brows was an electioneering agent yet did not like to
tackle him much, lest he should show his own ignorance of English
policy--(“Decidedly I must read the papers and form opinions,” Gus said
to himself); and Janet, who, seated at this beautiful table, with the
flowers on it and all the sparkling glass and silver, and Charles
waiting behind her chair, was sparkling with delight and pride. She was
seated by the side of Sir Augustus, and spoke to him, calling him by
that name. The dishes which were handed to her by the solemn assiduity
of Mr. Brown were food for the gods, she thought, though they were
simple enough. She made notes of everything for her own future guidance.
It was just possible, M. Lisiere had said, that he might keep a page to
wait upon his wife; thus the glory of a “man-servant” might still be
hers. In imagination she framed her life on the model of Markham; and so
full was her mind of these thoughts that Janet scarcely noticed Paul,
who, on his side, paid no attention to her. As for Lady Markham, she was
the soul of the party. She almost forgot her recent sorrow, and the
sight of Sir Augustus at the other end of the table did not subdue her
as usual. She asked Spears questions about his journey with the very
wantonness of relief--that journey which she had shuddered to hear
named, which had overshadowed her mind night and day was like a dead
lion to her; she could smile at it now.

“Ay, my lady, that’s how it’s going to end,” said Spears. “I don’t say
that it’s the way I could have wished. There was a time when the thought
of new soil and a fresh start was like a new life to me. But perhaps
it’s only because the time is so close, and a crisis has something in it
that makes you think. It’s a kind of dying, though it’s a kind of new
living too. Everything is like that, I suppose--one state ends and the
other begins. We don’t know what we are going to, but we know what we’re
giving up. Paul there--you see he has changed his mind. He had a right
to change his mind if he liked--I am saying nothing against it. But
that’s another sort of dying to me.”

“Oh, Mr. Spears, do not say so. To me it is new life. Did not I tell you
once, if we were in trouble, if we needed him to stand by us (God knows
I little thought how soon it would come true!), that my boy would never
forsake his family and his position then? Paul might have left us
prosperous,” said his mother with tears in her eyes, “but he would never
leave us in sorrow and trouble. Mr. Spears, I told you so.”

And who can doubt that she spoke (and by this time felt) as if her
confidence in Paul had never for a moment flagged, but had always been
determined and certain as now?

And Spears looked at her with the respect of a generous foe who owned
himself vanquished. “And so you did,” he said. “I remember it all now.
My lady, you knew better--you were wiser than I.”

“Oh, not wiser,” she said, still magnanimous; “but it stands to reason
that I should know my own boy better than you.”

Again he looked at her, respectful, surprised, half convinced; perhaps
it was so. After all his pride and sense of power, perhaps it was true
that the simplest might know better than he. He let a great sigh escape
from his breast, and rose in his abstraction from the table, without
waiting for the mistress of the house, which it was usually part of his
careful politeness to do.

“We must be going,” he said; “our hours are numbered. Good-bye, my Lady
Markham; you are a woman that would have been a stronghold to us in my
class. I am glad I ever knew one like you; though you will not say the
same of me.”

“Do not say that, Mr. Spears,” said Lady Markham again. It was true she
had often been disposed to curse his name; and yet she would have said
as he had said--she was glad she had ever known one like him. She put
out her hand to him with a genuine impulse of friendship, and did not
wince even when it was engulfed and grasped as in a vice by his strong
and resolute hand.

“God bless you, my lady,” he said, looking at her with a little moisture
coming by hard pressure into the corners of his eyes.

“And God bless you too, Mr. Spears--my friend,” she said with a
hesitation that almost made the words more expressive, and her long
eyelashes suddenly grew all bedewed and dewy, and shone with tears. The
demagogue wrung the delicate hand of the great lady, and strode away out
of the house, paying no attention to the calls of his daughter, who was
not quite ready to follow him. Paul rose too, and accompanied them
silently down the avenue. Janet talked a little, chiefly to assure her
father there was no hurry, and to upbraid him with hurrying her away. At
the gate Spears turned round and took Paul by the hands.

“Come no further,” he said. “She knew better than I. She said you would
never forsake your post, and I don’t deny your post is here. I am glad
to be convinced of it, lad, for it lets me think well of you, and better
than ever. It goes against me to say it, Paul; but if your heart melts
to me after I am gone, you may tell yourself Spears was the happier to
think it was your duty that kept you after all. If you should never
hear of me again----”

“But I shall hear of you again, and often,” cried Paul, with an emotion
he had never anticipated, grasping the other’s hand.

“God knows,” said Spears; “but I’m glad I came. Good-bye.”

And again he strode away, leaving Janet to follow, and Paul standing
looking after him, with a sudden pang in his heart.

Fairfax was coming along the road very seriously--coming to know his
fate too. He paused, surprised, at the sight of the pair. But Spears
took little notice of Fairfax. He gave him a grasp of his hand in
passing, and said; “Good-bye, my lad,” with a clear voice. The young man
stopped for a moment to look after them; then went on to where Paul was
standing, somewhat dreamily, looking after them too.

“I feel as if I had lost a friend,” Paul said, “though he has done me
more harm than good, I suppose. He has brought me back my money,
Fairfax; he will not take a penny from me; and that will be all the
worse for him among those others. What can I do?”

“Leave it to me,” said Fairfax--it was a way he had; “and good-bye to an
honest soul. I am glad that ugly place in Clerkenwell is not the last
place I have seen him in.”

Paul’s countenance darkened. “I wish you had not reminded me of that,”
he said.

And they walked up to the house together, saying little more. Fairfax
had but little leisure to think of Spears. He was going to his own
trial, and he did not know how he was to come out of it. The court had
sat upon his case for the last twenty-four hours, and no doubt had come
to a final decision. It would have been an important subject indeed
which could have done more than touch the edge of his anxious mind. Paul
left him in the hall; and Mr. Brown, divining that something more was
going on, and having, as has been said, a well-founded and favourable
estimate of Fairfax, for reasons of his own, showed him with great
solemnity into the sanctuary where Lady Markham sat alone. She did not
rise to meet him, but smiled, and held out her left hand to him, with
the pretty French fashion of acknowledging intimacy. It was a good sign.
He went up very eagerly to the beautiful, kind woman, in whose hands he
felt was his fate.

“You find me quite _emotionnée_,” she said, “parting from Mr. Spears.
Yes, you may smile--but I was more like crying. I am sure he is a good
man, though he may be--led astray.”

“He is not led astray,” said Fairfax; but then he remembered that it was
not his business to plead any cause but his own. He looked at her
wistfully, though there was always that under-gleam of humour in his
eyes. “I have come up for sentence, Lady Markham,” he said.

She smiled. “The sentence will not be very severe; there is not much
harm done.”

This was far worse than any severity could be. His countenance fell,
sudden despondency filled his heart; and now the humour fled altogether
from the mournful eyes with which he looked up into his judge’s face.

This time Lady Markham almost laughed. “You do not seem pleased to hear
it,” she said. “I thought it might ease your mind.”

“Oh, Lady Markham do not jeer at me! You may think it does not matter,
but to me----”

“It is sport to me, but death to you?” she said; “is that what you would
say? No, Mr. Fairfax--no; not so bad as that. And you must pardon me if
I am light-minded. I am happy. Paul is not going with those mad people;
he is safe; he is free.”

“I am very glad,” said Fairfax, “but may I say that Paul is irrelevant
just now? I have come up for my sentence. Is it to be banishment, or is
it----? Ah, Lady Markham, tell me--is there any hope?”

“Mr. Fairfax,” she said, with great gravity, “you ask me for leave to
get my Alice from me, if you can; and then you tell me you are nobody,
of no family, with no connections. Pardon me; my only informant in
yourself.”

“It is true--quite true.”

“Then,” she said, and paused, “judge for me, Mr. Fairfax, what can I
say?”

He made no reply, and there was an interval of silence, which was very
heavy, very painful to Lady Markham’s kind heart. She felt compelled to
speak, because of that stillness of expectation which made the moment
tragical.

“If,” she said, faltering, “there had been time enough for real love to
take possession of you--both of you--if it had come to _that_, that you
could not be parted, it would be a different matter, Mr. Fairfax; but
you have known each other so short a time, the plant cannot have very
deep roots. Cannot you be brave, and pluck it up, and bear the wrench?
In the end, perhaps, it would be better for you both.”

“Better!” he cried, with a bitterness never heard before in his voice.

“Mr. Fairfax, God knows I do not want to be hard upon you. My poor boy,
I am fond of you,” she said, with a sudden, tender impulse; “but what
can I say? A man who tells me he is obscure and humble, and not a match
for her--am I to give my Alice up to a struggling, harassed life?”

“There is one thing I forgot to say, Lady Markham. It is of no
consequence; it does not affect the question one way or another. Still,
perhaps I ought to tell you. It is that I am ridiculously, odiously,
abominably----”

“What?” she said, in alarm.

“Rich!” cried the young man. “You know the worst of me now.”

CHAPTER XII.

After these events an interval of great quiet occurred at Markham. Paul
went to town, where he was understood to be reading for the bar, like
most other young men, or preparing for a public office--opinions being
divided as to which it was. Naturally Sir William Markham’s son found no
difficulty in getting any opening into life which the mania of
examination permitted. Indeed there were friends of his father’s very
anxious to get him into parliament, and “push him on” into the higher
branches of the public service; but he had not yet sufficiently
recovered from the rending and tearing of the past to make this
possible. He was inseparable from one of his Oxford comrades, a young
fellow whom nobody knew, a young Crœsus, the son of some City man, who
had judiciously died and left him, unencumbered by any vulgar
relations, with an immense fortune. It already began to be said by
people who saw the young men together, that no doubt Lady Markham would
be wise enough to secure this fine fortune for Alice; but at present, of
course, in the first blackness of their mourning, nothing could be
definitely arranged on this subject. Paul lived in London, at first
moodily enough, resenting the great harm that had been done him, but
afterwards not so badly on the whole. He had lost a great deal
certainly, but not anything that takes the comfort out of actual life.
He was as well lodged, and had his wants as comfortably supplied as if
he had been Sir Paul Markham. Hard as his reverses had been upon him,
they had not plunged him into privations, and indeed it is possible that
young Paul in a public office would have as much real enjoyment of his
life as any landed baronet or county magnate, perhaps more; but then for
Paul, if he wanted to “settle,” for Paul married and middle-aged, the
case would be very different; unless indeed he married money, which he
showed very little inclination to do.

Spears sailed in the end of October with his younger daughters, Janet
having first been married with much solemnity to her master at the shop,
who gave her a very gorgeous house, with more gilding about it than any
house in the neighbourhood, and dressed her so that she was a sight to
see. Her father never pretended to understand the history of the tie
which had been formed, he could not tell how, and broken in the same
mysterious way. He had a vague consciousness that he ought to have done
or said something in the matter, but how was he to do it? And all is
well that ends well. Before the emigrants sailed, Fairfax appeared
suddenly and renewed his anxious desire to take those shares in the
undertaking which Spears had not permitted Paul to retain. Fairfax
protested that it was as a speculation he did it, and that nowhere could
he find a better way of investing his money. And though Spears was only
half deceived, he was at the same time, in spite of himself, elated by
this profession of confidence, which restored the _amour-propre_ which
had been so deeply wounded, and at the same time restored himself, as
the controller of so large an amount of capital, to his right place
among the adventurers. He would not have accepted a farthing from Paul,
but from that easy-going fellow Fairfax all seemed so natural! Whatever
happened _he_ would not mind; but there could be little doubt that the
estimate thus formed was entirely true.

Thus quiet fell upon Markham with the winter mists and rains. It was not
cheerful there in the midst of the wet woods, when the dark weather
closed in without any of the hospitalities and wholesome country
diversions which make winter bright. Their sorrow and their mourning
only began to reign supreme when all the agitation was stilled, and Paul
had settled into his strangely-changed existence, and Sir Augustus had
become the master of the house. The only variety the family had was in a
sudden visit from the Lennys, husband and wife, who had only heard of
all that had passed on her return from a round of the cheap places on
the Continent, which was their way of living when they had no visits to
make. Mrs. Lenny knew, what so few of us know, where these cheap places
were, and had eaten funny foreign dinners, and knew how to choose what
was the best in them, in many an out-of-the-way corner. They had been in
Germany and Switzerland, appearing now and then at a watering-place, as
a seal comes to the surface to take breath. And it was not till nearly
Christmas that they heard all that had happened. Mrs. Lenny came and
threw herself upon Lady Markham’s shoulder and wept. “If I had known, my
dear lady, if I had known the trouble that was coming on your dear
family through me and mine!” the good woman said. As for Colonel Lenny,
he could not speak to Lady Markham, but went off with the boys, who were
at home for the holidays, after one silent grasp of her hand; but his
wife talked and cried, and cried and talked all the afternoon through.

“And don’t blame poor Will Markham more than you can help,” she said.
“It was a baby when he left the island, and what does a young man think
of a baby? It doesn’t seem to count at all. And then my brother had
adopted the little thing. It didn’t seem as if it belonged to him.”

This appeal to her on behalf of her own husband, wounded Lady Markham
almost as much as blame.

“I understand how it was,” she replied with proud stoicism; though even
at that moment, in hearing him thus defended, there glanced across Lady
Markham’s mind a sense of the wrong he had done which was almost
intolerable to her. Thus the mind works by contradiction, seeing most
distinctly that which it is called upon not to see. Afterwards, Mrs.
Lenny told her the whole story of Gus’s young mother, and her love and
death, which she listened to with a strange feeling that she herself was
the girl who was being talked of, who had died so young.

“He was no better than a lad himself,” Mrs. Lenny said. “I don’t doubt
that it was like a dream to him. When Lenny and I talked to him first he
did not seem to understand about the boy.”

“You talked to him then--about--his son?”

“That was what we came for, surely,” said Mrs. Lenny, “that was what we
came for. We knew nothing about you, my dear lady, and we didn’t know
there was a family. When I heard of your fine young gentleman that was
to be the heir,--God bless him!--you might have knocked me down with a
straw; and I told Will he should make a clean breast of it. But do you
think a man, and a great statesman, would take a woman’s advice? They
think they know better, and he would not. He thought nothing would ever
happen, poor Will! And here it’s come upon you like a tempest, without a
word of warning.”

“We will say no more about it,” said Lady Markham.

If she could she would have obliterated the story from everybody’s
memory; instead of dwelling upon her wrongs it was her pride to ignore
them. It was intolerable to her to think that all the world of her
acquaintance must have discussed her and her husband, and all that had
happened, as Mrs. Lenny, with the best of intentions and the kindest of
thoughts, was doing. She put a stop to the conversation pointedly,
leading her companion to other subjects, and though she was more kind to
them than ever, and treated those kind and innocent Bohemians as if,
Mrs. Lenny said, they had been the governor and his lady, she did not
encourage any return to this subject. As for Gus, though he had scarcely
any recollection of them, he was very glad to see these relations, who
knew so much more about him than any of his family did. Colonel Lenny
was a godsend to him in the dark winter days. He could hardly make up
his mind to let them go. But the Lennys were too much accustomed to
wandering, and too determined, whatever might be wanting to them, that a
little amusement never should be wanting, to relish the gloom of Markham
in its mourning. When they went away, Mrs. Lenny whispered a solemn
intimation, of which it was difficult to say whether it was a warning or
a prophecy, into Lady Markham’s ear. “He’ll not stand it long,” she
said. Her note was half melancholy, half congratulatory, and she nodded
and shook her head alternately, looking back as the carriage went down
the avenue upon the group at the great door. Lady Markham, with a shawl
round her, was as fair in her matronly beauty as ever, though a little
paler than of old. She was not afraid of the chill, but stood there
waving her hand to her departing guests till they were out of sight. But
Sir Gus withdrew shivering to his fire, which roared up the chimney
night and day, and could never be made big enough to please him. He
could not understand what pleasure it could be to any one to encounter
that chill air, laden with moisture, out of doors.

The fact was that the English winter was a terrible experience for Sir
Gus. He had not contemplated anything so unlike all that he had
previously known. He had heard of it, of course, and knew that there was
cold to encounter such as he had never felt before, but he was not aware
what were the consequences of that cold, either mental or bodily. He
shrank visibly in the midst of his wrappings, and grew leaner and
browner as the year went on, and sat shivering close by his great fire
when the boys came in glowing with exercise, and the little girls, his
favourites, with brilliant roses of winter on their cheeks. “Come out,
come out, and you will get warm!” they all cried; but he would not leave
his fire. A man more out of place in an English country-house in a
severe winter could not be. Gus could do nothing that the other
gentlemen did. He neither hunted nor shot, nor even walked or rode. He
did not understand English law or customs, to occupy himself with the
duties of a magistrate; he did not care about farming; he knew nothing
about the preserving of the game, or even the care of the woods. He was
fretful when the agent or his clerk came to consult him on any of these
subjects. Go out and look at the timber! he only wanted more to burn, to
have better and better fires.

By this time the family at Markham had almost begun to forget that Gus
was an intruder. There was no more question of Lady Markham’s removal to
the dower-house. Nothing had been said about it by one or the other,
but it had been quietly, practically laid aside, as a visionary scheme
impossible in the circumstances. They all lived together calmly,
monotonously, in perfect family understanding. Even Alice, who stood out
so long against him, had learned to accept Gus. The little girls made
him their slave; he was always ready to do anything they wanted, to take
them wherever they pleased. But life got to be very heavy upon Gus’s
hands as these winter days went on. He had nothing to do; he did not
even read--that resource of the unoccupied; he had no letters to write,
or business to do like his father, and he soon began to hate the library
which had been appropriated to him, notwithstanding its huge fireplace.
He was more at home in the soft brightness of the drawing-room, with
velvet curtains drawn round him, and the lights reflected in the mirrors
and sparkling on-the pretty china and ornaments. The ladies found him in
their territories more than in his own. He interrupted nothing, but
notwithstanding, there, as everywhere, there was nothing for him to do.
It was only now and then, not once a day at the most, that there was a
skein of silk or of wool to hold for some one. Sometimes he would
volunteer to read aloud, but he soon tired of that. He bore this want of
occupation very well on the whole, sitting buried in the big bamboo
chair, which he had filled with soft cushions, at the corner of the fire
in the drawing-room, looking on at all that was doing, and more
interested in the needlework than those who worked at it. Poor little
gentleman! Sir Gus did not even care for the newspapers; he looked at
the little paragraphs of general interest, but turned with a grimace
from the long reports of the debates. “What good does all that do me?”
he said, when Lady Markham, who was somewhat horrified by his
indifference, endeavoured to rouse him to a sense of his duties.

“But it concerns the country,” she would say, “and few people have a
greater stake in the country.”

“That is how Paul would have felt,” said Sir Gus; “he would have read
all these speeches; he would have understood everything that is said. It
would have mattered to him----”

“Indeed it matters to us all,” said Lady Markham, with grave dignity. Of
all people in the world to listen while a parliamentary debate is talked
of with contempt, the wife of a man who was once a Cabinet minister is
the last--and all the more if her husband held but a secondary place.
She was half-offended and half-shocked; but Sir Gus could not see the
error of his ways. He got all the picture-papers, which he enjoyed along
with Bell and Marie; and sent to the boys after, when they were at
school. He cared nothing about the game, except to eat it when it was
set before him. From morn to chilly eve he would sit by that fire, and
note everything that happened. Not a letter arrived but he was there to
see how it was received, and what was in it. Lady Markham declared that
had she heard anywhere else, or read in a book, of a man who was always
in the drawing-room, who had no duties of his own, and who sat and
watched everything, the situation would have seemed intolerable. But it
was not so intolerable in reality. They got used, at last, to the big
bamboo chair and its inhabitant; they got used to his comments. There
was no harm in Mr. Gus; but life was hard upon him. Everybody else was
doing something--even the little girls in the school-room were learning
their lessons--but he, burying himself in the cushions of his chair,
showing nothing out of it but two little brown hands, twirling a
paper-knife, or a pencil, or anything else he had got hold of, had
nothing to do. Sometimes he would get up and walk to the window. When it
was fine it would give him much pleasure to watch the birds collecting
about the breadcrumbs, which he insisted on scattering everywhere.

“There is a lazy one, like me,” he would say; and a little pert robin
redbreast, a sort of little almoner, who came and superintended the
giving away of these charities, gave Sir Gus the greatest amusement. But
the people who came to call were not equally amusing. When a man came,
he expected Sir Gus to take an interest in the debates, or in the places
where the hounds met, and stared, when he knew that Gus, like Gallio,
cared for none of these things. And he was not even interested in the
parish. When Dolly Stainforth brought up a report of some village
catastrophe, Sir Gus was not the one who responded with the greatest
liberality. He was not used to have very much money to spare, and he was
careful of it. It was not that he loved money, but he had not the habit
of spending it lavishly, as we foolish people have. Sometimes he would
drive out in a close carriage, to the great contempt of everybody
concerned.

“The new master, he _be_ a muff,” the people in the porter’s lodge said.
Even from that mild exercise, however, he was glad to come in,
shivering, and call Brown to put on a great many more coals in the fire.
The house was full of schemes for warming it more effectually. Hot
water, hot air--all kinds of expedients; and never had so much fuel been
used in Markham in the memory of man.

“He will ruin my lady in coals,” Brown said; but Sir Gus did not take
this into consideration. It was about the greatest pleasure he had in
the good fortune which was to make him so happy.

In February there came, as there sometimes comes, a spell of bright
weather--a few soft, spring-like days--and the poor little gentleman
from the tropics brightened along with the crocuses. “It is over at
last,” he said, in beatific self-delusion; and he was persuaded to pay a
visit to town when Parliament was on the point of meeting, and the
general tuning up for the great concert of the season had begun to
begin. Here Sir Gus was confided to the charge of Fairfax, who took him
into his own house, and roasted him over huge fires, and made little
dinners for him, collecting other tropical persons to meet him. But
very soon Sir Gus found out that it was not over. He found out that not
to be interested in the debates, nor in society, nor in books and
pictures, and, above all, not to “know people,” were sad drawbacks to
life in London. He sat dumb while his companions talked of meeting
So-and-so at Lord What-d’ye-call-’em’s, and of the too-well-known
intimacy--“Don’t you know?”--between Sir Robert and Lady John. He stared
at the talkers, the poor little foreigner! and tired even of Fairfax’s
big fires. The skies that hang so low over the London streets, the rain
and muddy ways, or the east wind that parched them into whiteness, made
his very soul shrink. That was not at all a successful experiment. He
went back on Lady Markham’s hands in March, having ensconced himself now
in a coat lined with sables, which buried him still more completely than
the big chair.

“England is a very fine place,” he said, with his teeth chattering, as
he came in, out of a boisterous March wind, which carried upon it
bushels of that dust that is worth a king’s ransom. “It is a very fine
place but--only I don’t seem to agree with it.” But that summer must
certainly come some time--and spring was certainly come at this period,
though Gus did not recognise that pleasant season in its English
garb--they must all have given in altogether. But when the primroses
appeared in the woods Sir Gus began to get back a little of his courage.
Fortunately the summer opened brightly, promising to be as warm and
genial as the winter had been severe; and by degrees the little
gentleman let his fires go down, and left off his furs. Who can doubt
that the winter had been very long at Markham for the whole household?
They were living alone in their mourning, and Paul, though only in
London, was separated from them, and in a state of great uncertainty and
doubtful comfort. And other visitors were banished too. But when the
spring came back the household awoke, and broke the bonds of gloom. Even
Lady Markham began to smile naturally upon her children--not with the
smile of duty put on for their advantage, but with a little natural
rising of the clouds. And Alice brightened insensibly, knowing that
“they” were to come for Easter; that is, Paul and “one of his friends.”
Nothing had been said to Alice upon any subject that was likely to
agitate her prematurely, but it was pleasant to look forward to that
visit from Paul and his friend-from which fact it may be divined that
Lady Markham had been not unfavourably moved by the last item in
Fairfax’s confession.

Thus summer came again, communicating brightness; and Sir Gus began to
live again, and to believe that it might be possible to put up with
England after all.

CHAPTER XIII.

That summer was as bright as the winter had been cold. The hot weather
came on in May, and the country about Markham brightened into a perfect
paradise of foliage and blossom. Sir Gus came to life; he began to show
himself in the country, to move about, to accept the invitations which
were given to him. And it cannot be denied that his thoughts and plans
were much modified after he had made acquaintance with the county and
began to feel that people were inclined to pay him a great deal of
attention. He had wanted nothing better at first than to be received as
a member of Lady Markham’s family, to adopt, as it were, his brothers
and sisters, and to make them as little conscious as possible of the
change he had brought into their life. He had promised that he would
never marry, nor do anything to spoil Paul’s prospects further. But
before the summer was over his views in this respect had sensibly
modified. He began to think that perhaps the length and dreariness of
the winter had been partly owing to the fact that Lady Markham and her
children were less satisfactory than a wife and children of his own. Why
should he (after all) sacrifice himself to serve Paul? He was not old,
whatever those arrogant young people might think; and probably it was in
this way that happiness might come to him. Paul would no doubt get on
very well in society; he would marry well, and his younger son’s portion
was not contemptible; there really seemed no reason why his elder
brother should sacrifice himself on Paul’s account. And gradually there
dawned upon him an idea that before winter came on again he might have
some one belonging to him who should be his very own.

Gus dined out very solemnly by himself, making acquaintance with his
neighbours during the Easter recess, and when the great people of the
neighbourhood came back to the country after the season; and did not
scorn the tables of the less great who remained in the country all the
year round. He was not exclusive. The less great houses were still
great enough for Gus. He liked to go to the Rectory, where Mr.
Stainforth, who was a politic old man, often invited him; and indeed,
Sir Augustus, who everybody said was so exceedingly simple and
unpretentious, became quite popular in the district where at first
everybody had been against him as an intruder. Though it was no less
hard upon Paul than before, the new heir was pardoned in the county
because of his adoption of the family and his kindness and genuine
humility. There could not be any harm in him, people said, when he was
so good to the children, when he sought so persistently the friendship
of his stepmother, and endeavoured to make everything pleasant for her.

Then it became very evident that Sir Gus, though not so young as he once
was, was still marriageable and likely to marry, which naturally still
further increased his popularity; and as, instead of attempting any
stratagems of self-defence, he was but too eager to put himself into the
society of young ladies, and showed unequivocal signs of regarding them
with the eye of a purchaser, it was natural that the elder ladies should
accept this challenge, and on their parts do what they could to make
him acquainted with the stores the county possessed. Women do not give
themselves to this business of settling marriages in England with the
candour and honesty that prevail in other countries. The work is
stealthy and unacknowledged, but it is too natural and too just not to
be done with more or less vigour; and the county was not less active
than other counties. “Poor Paul!” some people said, who had at first
received the new baronet as a merely temporary holder of the title and
estates--one who, according to a legend dear to the popular mind, had
bound himself not to do anything towards the achievement of an heir; but
by and by they said, “Poor Sir Gus!” and could see no reason in the
world why he should sacrifice himself. This was a little after the time
when he had himself come to the same conclusion.

When all the families began to return at the end of July, he was asked
everywhere. Mourning is not for a man a very rigid bond, and it was now
nearly a year since Sir William died, so that there was nothing to
restrain him; indeed there were some who said that Lady Markham was too
punctilious in keeping Alice at home, never letting her be seen
anywhere--a girl who really _ought_ to marry, now that the family were
in so changed a position. Sir Gus went a great deal to Westland Towers,
where there had never been so many parties before--garden parties,
archery meetings, competitions at lawn-tennis, to which the entire
county was convoked; and at all these parties there was no more favoured
guest than Gus. This was a great change, and pleased him much. At “home”
he was not much more than put up with. They had come to like him, and
they had always been very kind to him; but he had been an intruder, and
he had banished the son of the house, and it was not to be supposed that
mortal forbearance should go so far as to admire and honour him as the
chief person in the household, even though he was its nominal head. When
he went elsewhere Gus was made more of than at Markham, and at the
Towers he felt the full force of his own position. His sayings were
listened for, his jokes were laughed at, and he himself was followed by
judicious flattery. All his little eccentricities were allowed and
approved, his light clothes extolled as the most convenient garments in
the world, and his distaste for sport and the winter amusements of
country life sanctioned and approved.

“How men of refined habits can do it has always been a mystery to me,”
said Lady Westland.

“You forget, mamma, that a taste for bloodshed is one of the most
refined tastes in the world,” said Ada, who was herself fond of hunting
when she had a chance, and never was better pleased than when she could
lunch with a shooting party at the cover-side. Ada made a grimace behind
Gus’s back, and said “Little monster!” to the other young ladies.

“Ah, poor Paul! We used to see so much of him,” she said, “when he was
the man, poor fellow, and no one had ever heard of this little Creole.
But parents are nothing if not prudent,” Miss Westland added; “and now
the tropics are in the ascendant, and poor Paul is nowhere. What can one
do?” she said with a shrug of her shoulders up to her ears.

Dolly Stainforth, who was of the party, but not old enough or important
enough to say anything, grew pale with righteous indignation. She was
very well aware that Paul had never “seen much” of the family at
Westland Towers: but that they should now pretend to hold him at arm’s
length stung her to the heart. This took place at a garden party, and
the explanation about Paul had been made in the midst of a great many
people of the neighbourhood, who had all been very sorry for Paul in
their day, yet were all beginning now to turn towards the new-risen sun.
Dolly had turned her back upon them, and gone off by herself in
bitterly-suppressed indignation, sore and wounded, though not for her
own sake, when she encountered Sir Gus, who had spied her in a turning
of the shrubbery. George Westland had spied her too, but had been
stopped by his mother on his way to her, and might be seen in the
distance standing gloomily on the outskirts of a group of notables, with
whom he was supposed to be ingratiating himself, gazing towards the
_bosquet_ in which the object of his affections had disappeared.

“What is the matter, Miss Dolly?” Sir Gus had said.

“Oh, nothing. I was not crying,” Dolly said, with a sob. “I am too
indignant to cry. It is the horridness of people,” she cried with an
outburst of wrath and grief. Sir Gus was distressed. He did not like to
see any one cry, much less this dainty little creature, who was almost
his first acquaintance in the place.

“Don’t,” he said, touching her shoulder lightly with his brown hand.
“Whatever it is it cannot be worth crying about. None of them can do any
harm to you.”

“Harm to _me_! I wish they could,” said Dolly; “that would not matter
much. But don’t believe them, don’t you believe them: a little while ago
they were all for Paul--nobody was so nice as Paul--and now it is all
you, and Paul, they say, is nowhere. Do you think it is like a lady to
say that poor Paul is ‘nowhere,’ only because he has lost his property,
and you have got it?” cried Dolly, turning with fury, which it was
difficult to restrain, upon the poor little baronet. He changed colour:
of course he knew that it was his position, and not any special gifts of
his own, which recommended him; yet he did not like the thought.

“That is not my fault, Miss Dolly,” he said. “You should not be unjust;
though it is your favourite who has been the loser, you ought not to be
unjust, for I have nothing more than what is my right.”

“Oh, Sir Augustus,” said Dolly, alarmed by her own vehemence, “it was
not you I meant. You have always been kind. It was those horrid people
who think of nothing but who has the money. And then, you know,” she
said, turning her tearful eyes upon him, “I have known them all my
life--and I can’t bear to hear them speak so of Paul.”

“And you can’t bear me, I suppose, for putting this Paul of yours out of
his place?” Gus said.

“No, indeed I don’t blame you. A woman might have given it up, but it is
not your fault if you are different from a woman--all men are,” said
Dolly, shaking her head. “When one knows as much about a village as I
do, one soon finds out that.”

“I suppose you think the women are better than the men,” said Sir Gus,
shaking his head too.

“I am for my own side,” said Dolly promptly, her tears drying up in the
impulse of war; “but I did not mean that,” she added, “only different.
Men and women are not good--or nasty--in the same way. I don’t
suppose--you--could have done anything but what you did.”

“I don’t think I could,” said Sir Gus, briefly.

“But the people here,” said Dolly, “oh, the people here!” She stamped
her foot upon the ground in her impatience and indignation; but when he
would have pursued the subject, Dolly became prudent, and stopped
short. She would say nothing more, except another appeal to heaven and
earth against “the horridness of people.” This, however, gave Sir Gus a
great deal to think of. Dolly did not in the least know what he had in
his mind. She was not aware that the little man was going about among
all the pretty groups of the garden party in the conscious exercise of
choice, noting all the ladies, selecting the one that pleased him. Two
or three had pleased him more or less--but one most of all: which was
what Dolly Stainforth never suspected. Sir Gus walked about with the air
of a man occupied with important business. He had no time to pay any
attention to the progress of the games that were going on; his own
affairs engrossed him altogether. Sometimes he selected one lady from a
number on pretence of showing her something, or of watching a game, or
hearing the band play a particular air, and carried her off with him to
the suggested object, talking much and earnestly. He did not pay much
court to the mothers and chaperons, but went boldly to the
fountain-head. And some of the pretty young women to whom he talked so
gravely did not quite know what to make of the little baronet. They
laughed among themselves, and asked each other, “Did he ask you whether
you liked town better or country? and if you would not like to take a
voyage to the tropics?” Dolly on being asked this question quite early
in their acquaintance, had answered frankly, “Not at all,” and had
further explained that life out of the parish was incomprehensible to
her. “I could not leave my poor people for months and months, with
nobody but papa to look after them,” Dolly had said.

It was only after he had enjoyed about half a dozen interviews of this
kind, amusing the greater part of his temporary companions, but
fluttering the bosoms of one or two who were quick-witted enough to see
the handkerchief trembling in the little sultan’s hand, that Sir Gus
allowed himself to be carried off in his turn by Ada Westland, who came
up to him in her bold way, neglecting all decorum.

“Come with me, Sir Augustus,” she said, “I have got a view to show you,”
and she led him to where among the trees, there was a glimpse of the
beautiful rich country, undulating, all wooded and rich with cornfields,
to where Markham Chase, with all its oaks and beeches, shut in the
horizon line. There was a glimpse of the house to be had in the
distance, peeping from the foliage: and in the centre of the scene, the
red roofs of the village and the slope of the Rectory garden in the
sunshine. “I used to be brought here often to have my duty taught me,”
said Ada. “Mamma made quite a point of it every day when we first came
here.”

“I am glad your duty makes you look at my house, Miss Westland,” said
Sir Gus, making her a bow.

“Oh, I don’t mean now,” said the outspoken young woman. “That is quite a
different matter. I was quite young then, you know, and so was Paul, and
my mother trained me up in the way that a girl should go. We are new
people, you know; we have not much distinction in the way of family.
What mamma intended to do with me was to make me marry Paul.”

Once more Sir Augustus bowed his head quite gravely. He did not laugh at
the bold announcement, as she meant he should. “Was your heart in it?”
he said.

“My heart? Do you think I have got one? I don’t know--I don’t think it
was, Sir Augustus. ‘Look at all that sweep of country,’ mamma used to
say; ‘that may all be yours if you play your cards well--and a family
going back to the Conqueror.’ There have only been two generations of
_us_,” said Ada; “you may think how grand it would have felt to know
that there was a Crusader’s monument in the family. In some moods of my
mind, especially when I have been very much sat upon by the blue-blooded
people, I don’t think I should have minded marrying the Crusader
himself.”

“I can understand the feeling,” said Gus. He was perfectly grave, his
muscles did not relax a hairsbreadth. He stood and looked upon the woods
that were his own, and the house which he called home. It looked a
little chilly to him, even in the midst of the sunshine. The sky was
pale with heat, and all the colours of the country subdued in the
brilliant afternoon light, the trees hanging together like terrestrial
clouds, the stubblefields grey where the corn had been already cut, and
the roads white with dust. But it did not occur to him as he stood and
gazed at Markham that it would make him happy to live there with his
present companion by his side. “Beauty is deceitful, and favour is
vain.” She was one of the prettiest persons present. She was full of wit
and cleverness, and had far more wit and knowledge than half of her
party put together. But the heart of the little baronet was not gained
by those qualities. He stood quite unmoved by Ada’s side. She might have
married the Crusader for anything Sir Augustus cared. Ada waited a
little to see if no better reply would come, and then she made another
_coup_.

“Pity us for an unfortunate family, foiled on every side,” she said.
“Paul you know, has ceased to be a _parti_ altogether. Anybody may marry
him who pleases--and to a district in which men do not abound this is a
great grievance--but I don’t blame you for that, Sir Augustus, though
some do. And look there,” she said, suddenly turning round, “look at the
door of the conservatory. There are mamma’s hopes tumbling down in
another direction. I don’t feel the disappointment so much in my own
case, but about George, I do really pity mamma. She can’t marry me to
the next property, as she intended; and just look at George, making a
fool of himself with the parson’s daughter. Now, Sir Augustus, don’t you
feel sorry for mamma?”

“Miss Stainforth is a very charming young lady,” said Sir Gus, still as
grave as ever, “but I thought that she----” here he stopped in some
confusion, having nearly committed himself, he felt.

“I know what you were going to say,” said Ada, with a laugh. “You think
she had a fancy for Paul too. She might just as well have had a fancy
for the moon. The Markhams would never have permitted that; and as for
Paul himself, he thought no more of Dolly----! Fancy, Dolly! but my
brother does. It is a pity, a great pity, don’t you think, that brothers
and sisters can’t change places sometimes? George would have made a much
better young lady than I do. I am much too outspoken and candid for a
girl, but I should never have fallen in love with Dolly Stainforth. If
mamma could change us now, it would be some consolation to her still.”

“Miss Stainforth is a very charming young lady,” Sir Gus said again.

“A--ah!” said Ada, with a malicious laugh, “you admire Dolly too, Sir
Augustus? I beg a thousand pardons. I ought to have been more cautious.
But I never thought that a man who had seen the world, a man of
judgment, a person with experience and discrimination----”

“You think too favourably of me,” said Sir Gus. “It is true I have come
over a great part of the world; but I don’t know that of itself that
gives one much experience. You think too favourably of me.”

“That is a fault,” said Ada, “which most men pardon very easily,” and
she looked at him in a way that was flattering, Gus felt, but a little
alarming too.

This conversation too had its effect upon him. He felt that there was no
time to lose in making up his mind. If he was to secure for himself a
companion before the winter came on, it would be well not to lose any
time. And Miss Westland was very flattering and agreeable; she seemed to
have a very high opinion of him. Gus did not feel that she was the woman
he would like to marry; but if by any chance it might happen that she
was a woman who would like to marry him, he did not feel that she would
be very easy to resist. That such a woman might possibly wish to marry
him was of itself very flattering; still on the whole, Gus felt that he
would prefer to choose rather than to be chosen. And with a shrewd sense
of the difficulties of his position, he decided that to have another
young lady betrothed to him would be by far his best safeguard against
Ada. A woman who belonged to him would stand up for him; and the mere
fact that he belonged to her would be an effectual defence. As it
happened, fortune favoured him. Mrs. Booth, who had come with Dolly in
her little carriage to the Towers, wanted to get back early, as the
evening was so fine, and Dolly declared that there was nothing she would
like so much as to walk. There would certainly be somebody going her way
to bear her company. Then Sir Gus stepped forward and said he would
certainly be going her way, and would walk with her to the Rectory gate.
Dolly smiled upon him so gratefully when he said this that his heart
stirred in Gus’s bosom. She kept near him all the rest of the time,
coming up to him now and then to see if he was ready, if he wished to
go, with much filial attention; but Gus did not think of it in that
light. Nor did he think that it was by way of getting rid of George
Westland that she devoted herself to him. This is not an idea which
naturally suggests itself to a man who has never had any reason to think
badly of himself. Gus had always, on the contrary, entertained a very
good opinion of himself; he had known that, on the whole, he deserved
that mankind in general should entertain a good opinion of him, and
there was nothing at all out of the way, or even unexpected in the fact
that Dolly should be pleased by his care of her, and attracted towards
himself. It was a thing which was very natural and delightful, and
pleased him greatly. When the company began to disperse, he was quite
ready to obey Dolly’s indication of a wish to go, and to take leave of
Lady Westland when her son was out of the way, according to the girl’s
desire. They set out upon the dusty road together in the grateful cool
of the summer evening, carriage after carriage rolling past them, with
many nods and wreathed smiles from the occupants, and no doubt many
remarks also upon Dolly’s cavalier. But the pair themselves took it very
tranquilly. They went slowly along, lingering on the grassy margin of
the road to escape the dust, and enjoying the coolness and the quiet.

“How sweet it is,” Dolly said, “after the heat of the day.”

“You call that hot, Miss Dolly?” said Gus. “We should not call it hot
where I come from.”

“Well, I am glad I have nothing to do with the tropics,” Dolly said. “I
like the cool evening better than the day. One can move now--one can
walk; but I suppose you never can do anything there in the heat of the
day?”

“I am sorry you don’t like the tropics,” he said. “I think you would,
though, if you had ever been there. It is more natural than England.
Yes, you laugh, but I know what I mean. I should like to show you the
bright-coloured flowers, and the birds, and all the things so full of
colour--there’s no colour here. I tell Bell and Marie so, and they tell
me it is I that can’t see. And then the winter----” Gus shuddered as he
spoke.

“But you ought to have gone out more,” said Dolly, “and taken exercise;
that makes the blood run in your veins. Oh, I like the winter! We have
not had any skating here for years. It has been so mild. I like a good
sharp frost, and no wind, and a real frosty sun, and the ice bearing.
You don’t know how delightful it is.”

“No, indeed,” said Gus, with a shudder. “But, perhaps,” he added, “if
one had a bright little companion like you, one might be tempted to move
about more. Bell and Marie are delightful children, but they are a
little too young, you know.”

“But Alice----” said Dolly, with a little anxiety.

“Alice never has quite forgiven me, I fear; and then she has her mother
to think of; and they always tell me she cannot do this or that for her
mourning. It is very right to wear mourning, I don’t doubt,” said Gus,
“but never to be able to go out, or meet your fellow-creatures----”

“That would be _impossible!_” said Dolly, with decision. “It is not a
year yet. _You_ did not know poor Sir William. But next winter it will
be different, and we must all try to do our best”--for Lady Markham, she
was going to say--but he interrupted her.

“That will be very kind, Miss Dolly. I think you could do a great deal
without trying very much. I always feel more cheerful in your company.
Do you remember the first time we ever were in each other’s company, on
the railway?”

“Oh, yes,” cried Dolly. She was very incautious. “I thought you were
such a----” She did not say queer little man, but felt as if she had
said it, so near was it to her lips; and blushed, which pleased Gus
greatly, and made him imagine a much more flattering conclusion. “You
asked me a great deal about poor Paul,” she said, “and then we met them
coming home; and Sir William, oh! how ill he looked--as if he would
die!”

“You remember that day?” said Gus, much delighted, “and so do I. You
told me a great deal about my family. It was strange to talk of my
family as if I had been a stranger, and to hear so much about them.”

“I thought you were a stranger, Sir Augustus.”

“Yes, and you wished I had been one when you found out who I really was.
Oh, I don’t blame you, Miss Dolly--it was very natural; but I hope now,
my dear,” he said, with a tone that was quite fatherly, though he did
not intend it to be so, “that you are not so sorry, but rather glad on
the whole to know Gus Markham, who is not so bad as you thought.”

Dolly was surprised to be called “my dear;” but at his age was it not
quite natural?

“Oh,” she said, faltering, “I never thought you were bad, Sir Augustus;
you have always been very kind, I know.”

But she could not say she was glad of his existence, which had done so
much harm to--other people; even though in her heart she had a liking
for Sir Gus, the queerest little man that ever was!

“I have tried to be,” he said; “and I think they all feel I have done my
best to show myself a real friend; but there comes a time when one wants
something more than a friend, and, Dolly, I think that time has come
now.”

Well! it was a little odd, but she did not at all mind being called
Dolly by Sir Gus. She looked at him with a little surprise, doubtful
what he could mean. They were by this time quite near the village and
the Rectory gate.

“I think,” he said, “that if I don’t get married, my dear, I shall never
be able to stand another winter at Markham. It nearly killed me last
year.”

“Married!” she cried, her voice going off in a high quaver of surprise
and consternation. If her father had intimated a similar intention she
could scarcely have been more astonished. This is what everybody had
consoled themselves by thinking such a man was never likely to do.

“Yes, married,” he said. “Don’t you think you know, Dolly, a dear little
girl that would marry me, though I am not so young nor so handsome as
Paul? You see it is not Paul now, it is me; and though he was handsomer
and taller, I don’t think he was nearly so good-tempered as I am, my
dear. I give very little trouble, and I should always be willing to do
what my wife wanted to do--or at least almost always, Dolly--and you
would not get that with many other men. Haven’t you ever thought of it
before? Oh, I have, often. I went through all the others to-day, just to
give myself a last chance, to see if, at the last moment, there was any
one I liked better; but there was none so nice as you. You see, I have
not done it without thought. Now, my pretty Dolly, my little dear, just
say you will marry me before the winter, and to-morrow we can settle all
the rest.”

He had taken her hand as they stood together at the gate. Dolly’s
amazement knew no bounds. She was so bewildered that she could only
stand and gaze at him with open mouth.

“Do you mean me?” she cried at last--“me?” with mingled horror and
surprise. “I don’t know what you mean!” she said.

“Yes, my dear, I mean you. I tell you I looked again at all the rest,
and there was not one so nice. Of course I mean you, Dolly. I have
always been fond of you from the first. I will make you a good husband,
dear, and you will make me a sweet little wife.”

“Oh, no, no, no!” Dolly cried. The world, and the sky, and the trees,
seemed to be going round with her. She caught at the gate to support
herself. “No, no, no! It is all a dreadful mistake.”

“It cannot be a mistake. I know very well what I am doing, Dolly.”

“But oh dear! oh dear! Sir Augustus, let me speak. Do you think I know
what _I_ am doing? No, no, no, _no!_ You must be going out of your
senses to ask me.”

“Why? because you are so young and so little? But that is just what I
like. You are the prettiest of all the girls. You are a dear, sweet,
good little thing that will never disappoint me. No, no, it is no
mistake.”

To see him standing there beaming and smiling through the dusk was a
terrible business for Dolly.

“It _is_ a mistake. I cannot, cannot do it--indeed I cannot. I will not
marry you--never! I don’t want to marry anybody,” she said, beginning to
weep in her excitement.

Now and then a villager would lumber by, and, seeing the couple at the
porch, grin to himself and think that Miss Dolly was just the same as
the other lasses. It was a pity the gentleman was so little, was all
they said.

CHAPTER XIV.

At last the year of the mourning was over. The Lennys, the good colonel
and his wife, had come to Markham a few days before, and he was a great
godsend to the boys, who were vaguely impressed by the anniversary, but
could not but feel the grief a little tedious which had lasted a whole
year. They were very glad to go out quite early in the morning with the
colonel, not at all, as it were, for their own pleasure, but because his
visit was to be short, and the keeper was in despair about the birds
which no one shot, and which Sir Augustus was so utterly indifferent
about.

“He wouldn’t mind a bit if the place was given up to the poachers,”
Harry said. “He says, ‘What’s the good of the game--can’t we buy all we
want?’ I think he is cracked on that point.”

“I don’t mind Gus at all in some things,” said Roland. “He’s not half a
bad fellow in some things; but he’s an awful muff--no one can deny
that.”

“He has not been brought up as you have been,” the colonel said.

While they stole out in the early morning, the old man and the boys, all
keen with anticipated pleasure, Gus felt already the first _frisson_ of
approaching winter in the sunny haze of September, and had coverings
heaped upon him, and dressed by the fire when he got up two hours after.
Poor Sir Gus was not at all cheerful. Dolly’s refusal had not indeed
broken his heart, but it had disappointed him very much, and he did not
know what he was to do to make life tolerable now that this expedient
had failed. The anniversary oppressed him more or less, not with grief,
but with a sense that, after all, the huge change and advancement that
had come to him with his father’s death had not perhaps brought all he
expected it to bring. To be Sir Augustus, and have a fine property and
more money than he knew how to spend, and a grand position, had not
increased his happiness. On the contrary, it seemed to him that the
first day he had come to Markham, when the children had given him
luncheon and showed so much curiosity about him as a relation, had been
happier than any he had known since. He too had been full of lively
curiosity and expectation, and had believed himself on the verge of a
very happy change in his life. But he did not anticipate the death or
the trouble to others which were the melancholy gates by which he had to
enter upon his higher life. When he had dressed, he sat over the fire
thinking of it on that bright September morning. He was half angry
because he could not get rid of the feeling of the anniversary. After
all, there was nothing more sad in the fifteenth of September than in
any other day. But Lady Markham, no doubt, would shut herself up, and
Alice look at him as if, somehow or other, he was the cause of it; and
they would speak in subdued tones, and it would be a kind of sin to do
or say anything amusing. Gus could not but feel a little irritation
thinking of the long day before him, and then of the long winter that
was coming. And all the prophets said it was to be a hard winter. The
holly-trees in the park, where they grew very tall, were already crimson
with berries. Already one or two nights’ frost had made the geraniums
droop. A hard winter! The last had been said to be a mild one. If this
was worse than that, Sir Gus did not know what he should do.

The day, however, passed over more easily than he thought. His aunt,
Mrs. Lenny, was a godsend to him as the colonel was to the boys. She
made him talk of nothing but “the island” all the day long. It was long
since she had left it. She wanted to know about everybody, the old
negroes, the governor’s parties, the regiments that had been there. On
her side she had a hundred stories to tell of her own youth, which
looked all the brighter for being so far in the distance. They took a
drive together in the middle of the day, basking in the sunshine, and as
the evening came on they had a roaring fire, and felt themselves in the
tropics.

“Shouldn’t you like to go back?” Mrs. Lenny said. “If I were as rich as
you, Gus, I’d have my estate there, like in the old days, and there I’d
spend my winters. With all the money you’ve got, what would it matter
whether it paid or not? You could afford to keep everything up as in the
old days.”

“But there’s the sea. I would do it in a moment,” Gus said, his brown
face lighting up, “but for the sea.”

“You would soon get used to the sea--it’s nothing. You would get over
the sickness in a day, and then it’s beautiful. Take me with you one
time, Gus, there’s a darling. I’d like to see it all again before I
die.”

“I’ll think of it,” Gus said: and indeed for the next twenty-four hours
he thought of nothing else.

Would it be possible? Some people went to Italy for the winter, why not
to Barbadoes? No doubt it was a longer voyage; but then what a different
life, what a smoothed and warmed existence, without all this English
cold and exercise. He thought of it, neither more nor less, all the next
night and all the next day.

And no doubt it was a relief to the house in general when the
anniversary was over. A vague lightening, no one could tell exactly
what, was in the atmosphere. They had spared no honour to the dead, and
now it was the turn of the living. To see Bell and Marie in white frocks
was an exhilaration to the house. And it cannot be said that any one was
surprised when quite quietly, without any warning, Fairfax walked into
the hall where the children were all assembled next day. He had paid
them various flying visits with Paul during the past year, coming for a
day or two at Easter, for a little while in the summer. But there was
something different, they all thought, about him now. From the moment
when Lady Markham had been informed of that one little detail of his
circumstances mentioned in a previous chapter, the young man had taken a
different aspect in her eyes. He had no longer seemed the careless young
fellow of no great account one way or another, very “nice,” very simple
and humble-minded, the most good-humoured of companions and serviceable
of friends, which was how he appeared to all the rest. Mr. Brown had
judged justly from the first. The simplicity of the young millionaire
had not taken in his experienced faculties. He had always been
respectful, obsequious, devoted, long before any one else suspected the
truth. How it was, however, that Lady Markham--who was very different
from Brown, who considered herself above the vulgar argument of wealth,
one to whom the mystic superiority of blood was always discernible, and
a rich _roturier_ rather less agreeable than a poor one--how it was that
she looked upon this easy, careless, lighthearted young man, who was
ready to make himself the servant of everybody, and who made his way
through life like an obscure and trusted but careless spectator, rather
than an agent of any personal importance--with altogether different eyes
after the secret of his wealth had been communicated to her, is what we
do not pretend to explain. She said to herself that it did not, could
not; make any difference; but she knew all the same that it made an
immense difference. Had he been poor as well as a nobody, she would have
fought with all her powers against all and every persuasion which might
have been brought to bear upon her. She would have accorded him her
daughter only as it were at the sword’s point, if it had been a matter
of life and death to Alice. But when she knew of Fairfax’s wealth, Lady
Markham’s opposition gradually and instinctively died away. She said it
was the same as ever; but while she said so, felt the antagonism and the
dislike fading out of her mind, why, she did not know. His wealth was
something external to himself, made no difference in him; but somehow it
made all the difference. Lady Markham from that moment gave up the
struggle. She made up her mind to him as her son. She never thought
more about his grandfather. Was this worldly-mindedness, love of money
on her part? It was impossible to think so, and yet what was it? She did
not herself understand, and who else could do so?

But nobody else had been aware of this change in the standard by which
Fairfax was judged, and everybody had treated him easily, carelessly, as
before. Only when he appeared to-day the family generally were conscious
of a difference. He was more serious, even anxious; he had not an ear
for every piece of nonsense as before, but was grave and pre-occupied,
not hearing what was said to him. Mrs. Lenny thought she knew exactly
what was the matter. He attracted her special sympathies.

“Poor young fellow,” she said, “he’s come courting, and he might just as
well court the fairies at the bottom of the sea. My Lady Markham’s not
the woman I take her for if she’ll ever give her pretty daughter to the
likes of him.”

“He wants to marry Alice, do you think?” said Gus. “I wonder if _she’ll_
have nothing to say to him either?”

He was thinking of Dolly, but Mrs. Lenny understood that it was of Lady
Markham’s opposition he thought.

“I would not answer for the girl herself,” Mrs. Lenny said; “but Gus, my
dear, you have done harm enough in this house; here’s a case in which
you might be of use. You have neither chick nor child. Why shouldn’t you
settle something on your pretty young sister, and let her marry the man
she likes?”

“No, I have neither chick nor child,” Gus said.

It was not a speech that pleased him, and yet it was very true. He
pondered this question with a continually increasing depression in his
mind all day. He could not get what he wanted himself, but he might help
Fairfax to get it, and make up to him for the imperfections of fortune.
Perhaps he might even be asked, for anything he could tell, to serve
Paul in the same way. This made the little baronet sad, and even a
little irritated. Was this all he had been made a great man for, an
English landed proprietor, in order that he should use his money to get
happiness for other people, none for himself?

In the meantime Fairfax had followed Alice to the west room, her
mother’s favourite place, but Lady Markham was not there.

“I will tell mamma. I am sure she will be glad to see you,” Alice said.

“Just one moment--only wait one moment,” Fairfax said, detaining her
with his hand raised in appeal.

But when she stopped at his entreaty he did not say anything. What
answer could she make him? She was standing waiting with a little wonder
and much embarrassment. And he said nothing; at last--

“Paul is very well,” he said.

“I am very glad. We heard from him yesterday.”

Then there was another pause.

“Miss Markham,” said Fairfax, “I told your mother myself of _that_, you
know, and a great deal more. She was not so--angry as I feared.”

“Angry!” Alice laughed a little, but very nervously. “How could she be
angry? It was not anything that could----”

What had she been going to say? Something cruel, something that she did
not mean.

“Nothing that could--matter to you? I was afraid not,” said Fairfax;
“that is what I have been fearing you would say.”

“Of course it does not matter to us,” said Alice, “how should it? Why
should it matter to any one? We are not such poor creatures, Mr.
Fairfax. You think you--like us; but you have a very low opinion of us
after all.”

“No, I don’t think I like you. I think something very different. You
know what I think,” he said. “It all depends upon what you will say. I
have waited till yesterday was over and would not say a word; but now
the world had begun again. How is it to begin for me? It has not been
good for very much in the past; but there might be new heavens and a new
earth if---- Alice!” he cried, coming close to her, his face full of
emotion, his hands held out.

“Mr. Fairfax!” she said, drawing back a step. “There is mamma to think
of. I cannot go against her. I must do what she says.”

“Just one word, whatever comes of it, to myself--from you to me--from
you to me! And after,” he said, breathless, “she shall decide.”

Alice did not say any word. Perhaps she had not time for it--perhaps it
was not needed. But just then the curtains that half veiled the west
room were drawn aside with a fretful motion.

“If it is you who are there, Alice and Fairfax,” said Sir Gus--and in
his voice, too, there was a fretful tone, “I just want to say one word.
I’ll make it all right for you. You need not be afraid of mamma. I’ll
make it all right with her. There! that was all I wanted to say.”

When Sir Gus had delivered himself of this little speech he went off
again very hastily to the hall, not meaning to disturb any tender scene.
The idea had struck him all at once, and he carried it out without
giving himself time to think. It did him a little good; but yet he was
cross, not like himself, Bell and Marie thought. There was a fire in the
hall, too, which the children, coming in hot and flushed from their
games, had found great fault with.

“You will roast us all up; you will make us thin and brown like
yourself,” said Bell, who was always saucy.

“Am I so thin and so brown?” the poor little gentleman had said. “Yes,
I suppose so, not like you, white and red.”

“Oh, Bell, how could you talk so, to hurt his feelings?” said little
Marie, as they stood by the open door and watched him, standing sunning
himself in the warmth.

His brown face looked very discontented, sad, yet soft, with some
feeling that was not anger. The little girls began to draw near. For one
thing the autumn air was cool in the afternoon, and their white frocks
were not so thick as their black ones. They began to see a little reason
in the fire. Then Bell, always the foremost, sprang suddenly forward,
and clasped his arm in both hers.

“He is quite right to have a fire,” she said. “And I hate you for being
cross about it, Marie. He is the kindest old brother that ever was. I
don’t mind being roasted, or any thing else Gus pleases.”

“Oh, Gus, you know it wasn’t me!” cried Marie, clinging to the other
arm.

His face softened as he looked from one to another.

“It wasn’t either of you,” he said. “I was cross, too. It is the
cold--it is the winter that is coming. One can’t help it.”

It was not winter that was coming, but still there was a chill little
breeze playing about, and the afternoon was beginning to cloud over.
Lady Markham coming down stairs was struck by the group in the full
light of the fire, which threw a ruddy gleam into the clouded daylight.
Something touched her in it. She paused and stood beside them, looking
at him kindly.

“You must not let them bother you. You are too kind to them,” she said.

Just then the post-bag came in; and Mrs. Lenny along with it, eager, as
people who never have any letters to speak of always are, about the
post. They all gathered about while the bag was opened and the letters
distributed. All that Mrs. Lenny got was a newspaper--a queer little
tropical broadsheet, which was of more importance, as it turned out,
than all the letters which the others were reading. She put herself by
the side of the fire to look over it, while Lady Markham in the window
opened her correspondence, and Gus took the stamps off a foreign letter
he had received to give them to Bell and Marie. The little girls were
in all the fervour of stamp-collecting. They had a book full of the
choicest specimens, and this was just the kind of taste in which Sir Gus
could sympathise. He was dividing the stamps between them equally,
bending his little brown head to the level of Marie, for Bell was now
quite as tall as her brother. Their little chatter was restrained, for
the sake of mamma and Colonel Lenny, who were both reading letters, into
a soft hum of accompaniment, which somehow harmonised with the ruddy
glow of the fire behind them, warming the dull air of the afternoon.

“That will make the German ones complete,” Bell was saying. And, “Oh, if
I had only a Greek, like Bell, I should be happy!” cried Marie. The
little rustle of the newspaper in Mrs. Lenny’s hand was almost as loud
as their subdued voices. All at once, into the midst of this quiet,
there came a cry, a laughing, a weeping, and Mrs. Lenny, jumping up,
throwing down the chair she had been sitting on, rushed at Sir Gus,
thrusting the paper before him, and grasping his arm with all her force.

“Oh, Gus, Gus, Gus!” she cried, “Oh, Colonel, look here! Gavestonville
estate’s in the market. The old house is going to be sold again. Oh,
Colonel, why haven’t we got any money to buy it, you and me!”

“Give it here,” said Sir Gus.

He held it over Marie’s head, who stood shadowed by it as under a tent,
gazing up at him and holding her stamp in her hand. The little gentleman
did not say another word. He paid no attention either to Mrs. Lenny’s
half hysterics or the calls of little Marie, who had a great deal to say
to him about her stamp. His face grew pale with excitement under the
brown. He walked straight away from them, up the staircase and to his
own room; while even Lady Markham, roused from her letters, stood
looking after him and listening to the footstep ringing very clear and
steady, but with a sound of agitation in it, step by step up the stairs
and along the corridor above. It seemed to them all, young and old, as
if something had happened, but what they could not tell.

Sir Gus was very grave at dinner: he did not talk much--and though he
was more than usually kind, yet he had not much to say, even to the
children, after. But by this time the interest had shifted in those
changeable young heads to Fairfax, who was the last novelty, “engaged
to” Alice, a piece of news which made Bell and Marie tremulous with
excitement, and excited an instinctive opposition in Roland and Harry.
But when the evening was over Gus requested an interview with Lady
Markham, and conducted her with great solemnity to the library, though
it was a room he did not love. There he placed himself in front of the
fire, contemplating her with a countenance quite unlike his usual calm.

“I have something very important to tell you,” he said. “I have taken a
resolution, Lady Markham.” And in every line of the little baronet’s
figure it might be seen how determined this resolution was.

“Tell me what it is,” Lady Markham said, as he seemed to want her to say
something. And then Sir Gus cleared his throat as if he were about to
deliver a speech.

“It is--but first let me tell you that I promised to make it all right
for those young people, Alice and Fairfax. I hope you’ll let them be
happy. It seems to me that to be happy when you are young, when you can
have it is the best thing. I promise to make it all right with you. I’ll
settle upon her whatever you think necessary.”

“You have a heart of gold,” said Lady Markham, much moved, “and they
will be as grateful to you as if they wanted it. Mr. Fairfax,” she said
(and Lady Markham, though she was not mercenary, could not help saying
it with a little pride), “Mr. Fairfax is very rich. He has a great
fortune; he can give Alice everything that could be desired--though all
the same, dear Gus, they will be grateful to you.”

“Ah!” said Sir Gus, with a blank air of surprise like a man suddenly
stopped by a blank wall. He made a dead stop and looked at her, then
resumed. “I have taken a resolution, Lady Markham. I think I never ought
to have come here; at all events it has not done me very much good, has
it, nor any one else? And I daren’t face another winter. I think I
should die. Perhaps if I had married and that sort of thing it might
have been better. It is too late to think of that now.”

“Why too late?” said Lady Markham. Her heart had begun to beat loudly;
but she would not be outdone in generosity, and indeed nothing had been
more kind than poor Gus. She determined to fight his battle against
himself. “Why too late? You must not think so. You will not find the
second winter so hard as the first--and as for marrying----”

“Yes, that’s out of the question, Lady Markham; and at first I never
meant to, because of Paul. So here is what I am going to do. You heard
what old Aunt Katie said. The old house is for sale again; the old place
where she was born and I was born, my uncle’s old place that he had to
sell, where I am as well known as Paul is at Markham. I am going back
there; don’t say a word. It’s better for me, and better for you, and all
of us, I’ll take the old woman with me, and I’ll be as happy as the day
is long.”

Here Gus gave a little gulp. Lady Markham got up and went towards him
with her hand extended in anxious deprecation, though who can tell what
a storm was going on in her bosom, of mingled reluctance and
expectation--an agitation beyond words. He too raised his hand to keep
her silent. T “Don’t say anything,” he said; “I’ve made up my mind; it
will be a great deal better. Paul can come back, and I dare say he’ll
marry little Dolly. You can say I hope he will, and make her a good
husband. And since Fairfax is rich, why that is all right without me.
Send for Paul, my lady, and we’ll settle about the money; for I must
have money you know. I must have my share. And I’d like to give a sort
of legacy to the little girls. They’re fond of me, really, those two
children, they are now, though you might not think it.”

“We are all fond of you,” said Lady Markham, with tears.

“Well, perhaps that is too much to expect; but you have all been very
kind. Send for Paul, and make him bring the lawyer, and we’ll get it all
settled. I shall go out by the next steamer,” said Sir Gus, after a
little pause, recovering his usual tone. “No more of this cold for me. I
shall be king at Gavestonville, as Paul will be here. I don’t think,
Lady Markham, I have anything more to say.”

“But,” she cried clinging to her duty. “_But_--I don’t know what to say
to you. Gus--Gus!”

“I have made up my mind,” said the little gentleman with great dignity,
and after that there was not another word to say.

But there was a great convulsion in Markham when Sir Gus went away. The
children were inconsolable. And Dolly stood by the Rectory gate when his
carriage went past to the railway with the tears running down her
cheeks. He had the carriage stopped at that last moment, and stepped out
to speak to her, letting his fur cloak fall on the road.

“Marry Paul, my dear,” he said, “that will be a great deal better than
if you had married me. But you may give me a kiss before I go away.”

There was a vague notion in Sir Gus’s mind that little Dolly had wanted
to marry him, but that he had discouraged the idea. He spoke in
something of the same voice to the children as they saw him go away,
watched him driving off. “I can’t take you with me,” he said, “but you
shall come and see me.” And so, with great dignity and satisfaction, Sir
Gus went away.

Thus Paul Markham had his property again when he had given up all
thought of it; but the little gentleman who is the greatest man in
Barbadoes has not the slightest intention of dying to oblige him, and in
all likelihood the master of Markham will never be Sir Paul.

THE END.

LONDON: R. CLAY, SONS, AND TAYLOR, PRINTERS.

*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "He that will not when he may; vol. III" ***

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