A Country Gentleman and his Family Part 13

"Theo thinks," said his mother, "that a first cla.s.s is not everything in the world as it is in the University."

"But my dear Mrs. Warrender! that is precisely one of the things that ladies never understand."

"I have no chance of one, so I agree with Warrender," said d.i.c.k. "The Dons will bother, but what does that matter? They have no souls beyond the cla.s.s lists."

"This is all extremely unnecessary," said Warrender, with an air of suppressed irritation. "Perhaps you will allow me to know best. I have no more chance of a first cla.s.s than you have, Cavendish. I have not worked for it, and I have no expectation of it. All that was over long ago. I thought every one knew."

"Every one knew that you could have whatever you chose to have, Warrender. Some thought it foolish, and some fine; but every one knew exactly the cause."

"Fine!" said the young master of the house, growing red. "But it is of no consequence to me what they say. I may go back, or I may not; it is not of the slightest importance to any one but myself." He added in a tone which he tried to make lighter, "What use is a cla.s.s of any kind to a small country gentleman? To know the cost of cultivation and what pays best is better than a dozen firsts. I want to find out how to cut my trees, and how to manage my farmers, and how not to make a fool of myself at petty sessions. Neither Plato nor Aristotle could throw any light on these subjects."

"For the last you must come to me," said d.i.c.k; "on that point you'll find me superior to all the sages put together. And as for drawing leases--but I suppose you have some beggar of a man of business who will take the bread out of a poor beginner's mouth."

"Though Mr. Cavendish talks in that way," said Mrs. Wilberforce aside to Minnie, "as though he wanted employment so much, he has a very nice little fortune of his own. It is just his way of talking. And as for connection, there is no one better. His father is a cousin--it may be a good many times removed, but still it is quite traceable--of the Duke.

I am not sure, even, that they are not in the peerage as collaterals; indeed, I am almost sure they are, and that we should find him and everything about him, if we looked."

"Of course everybody knows he is very well connected," said Minnie, "but young men all talk nonsense. Listen to Theo! Why shouldn't he go back to Oxford and take his degree, like other people? I don't care about the cla.s.s. A gentleman need not be particularly clever; but if he has been at the University and does not take his degree, it is always supposed that there is some reason. I don't think it is respectable, for my part."

"Ah, my dear, the young men of the present day, they are a law to themselves," said her friend. "They don't care for what is respectable.

Indeed, so far as I can see, they make it a sort of reproach; they let n.o.bodies pick up the prizes. And what do they expect it is all to end in? I could tell them very well, if they would listen to me. The French Revolution is what it will end in; but of course they will not listen to anything one can say."

"Oh, you know we are Liberals," cried Minnie; "we don't go in with that."

"If you are going to town to-morrow, Cavendish, I don't mind if I go with you," said Warrender. "I have some business to look after. At least, it is not exactly business," for he saw his mother's eyes turned on him inquiringly; "it is a commission from a friend. I shall only stay a night, mother; you need not look so surprised."

"It will do you good," she said quietly. "And why should you hurry back?

You will be the better for the change."

He gave her a suspicious, half-angry look, as if he saw more in her words than met the eye. "I shall only be gone a single night," he said.

"I will do all I can to upset his good resolutions, Mrs. Warrender. He shall go to all sorts of notorious places, to keep me in countenance. If he can be beguiled into any little improprieties, I am your man."

"Don't be afraid," said the rector. "d.i.c.k's wickednesses are all theoretical. I'd trust Georgie in the worst haunt he knows."

d.i.c.k looked up with a laugh, with some light word of contradiction, and in a moment there gleamed before him, as by the touching of a spring, as by the opening of a door, the real state of the case so far as he was himself concerned. The present scene melted away to give place to another,--to others which were burnt upon his memory in lines of fire; to one which he could see in his imagination, with which he had a horrible connection, which he could not dismiss out of his thoughts, though he was in reality a fugitive from it, flying the vicinity, the possible sight, the spectre of a ruin which was beyond description.

Merely to think of this amid an innocent company, around this decorous table, brought a sickening sensation, a giddiness both mental and physical. He turned his head away from the eyes of the mother, who, he felt, must, in her experience, divine something from the expression in his, to meet the pleased and guileless look with which Chatty was listening to that laughing disclaimer which he had just made. She was sitting by his side, saying nothing herself, listening to the talk, amused and almost excited by the new voice, the little play of light intercourse; even the charm of a new voice was something to Chatty. And she was so certain that what the rector said was true, that Georgie, or even she herself, more delicate still, a simple-hearted young woman, might have been trusted in his worst haunt. He read her look with a keen pang of feelings contradictory, of sharp anguish and a kind of pleasure.

For indeed it was true; and yet--and yet---- Did they but know!

Warrender walked back with the party as far as the Rectory gate. Indeed, so simple was the place, the entire family came out with them, straying along under the thick shade of the trees to the little gate which was nearest the Rectory. It was a lovely summer night, as different as possible from the haze and chill of the preceding one, with a little new moon just disappearing, and everything softened and whitened by her soft presence in the sky. Mrs. Wilberforce and Minnie went first, invisible in the dimness of the evening, then the two solid darknesses of the rector and Warrender. d.i.c.k came behind with Mrs. Warrender, and Chatty followed a step in the rear of all. The mother talked softly, more than she had done as yet. She told him that their home henceforward would probably be in Highcombe, not here,--"That is, not yet, perhaps, but soon," she said, with a little eagerness not like the melancholy tone with which a new-made widow talks of leaving her home,--and that it would please her to see him there, if, according to the common formula, "he ever came that way." And d.i.c.k declared with a little fervour which was unnecessary that he would surely go, that it would be always a pleasure. Why should he have said it? He had no right to say it; for he knew, though he could not see, with once more that pang of mingled pleasure and misery, that there was a look of pleased satisfaction on Chatty's face as she came softly in the darkness behind.

CHAPTER XV.

d.i.c.k was astir very early next morning. He did his packing hurriedly, and strolled out in the freshness of the early day. But not to enjoy the morning sunshine. He walked along resolutely towards the house which had suddenly acquired for him so painful an interest. For why? With no intention of visiting it; with a certainty that he would see no one there; perhaps with an idea of justifying himself to himself for flying from its neighbourhood, for putting distance, at least the breadth of the island, between him and that place, which he could not henceforward get out of his mind. To think that he had come here so lightly two days ago with his old uncle's commission, and that now no inducement in the world, except death or hopeless necessity, could induce him to cross that threshold. If the woman were on her death-bed, yes; if she was abandoned by all and without other help, as well might be, as would be, without doubt, one time or another. But for nothing else, nothing less.

He walked along under the wall, and round the dark shrubberies behind which enveloped the house. All was quiet and peace, for the moment at least; the curtains drawn over the windows; the household late of stirring; no lively housewife there to rouse maids and men, and stir up a wholesome stir of living. The young man's cheerful face was stern as he made this round, like a sentinel, thinking of many things that were deep in the gulf of the past. Two years of his life which looked like a lifetime, and which were over, with all the horrors that were in them, and done with, and never to be recalled again. He was still young, and yet how much older than any one was aware! Twenty-seven, yet with two lives behind him: one that of youth, to which he had endeavoured to piece his renewed existence; and the other all complete and ended, a tragedy, yet like many tragedies in life, cut off not by death. Not by death, for here were both the actors again within reach of each other,--one within the sleeping house, one outside in the fresh air of the morning,--with a gulf like that between Dives and Lazarus, a gulf which no man might cross, of disgust and loathing, of pain and hatred, between.

The door in the wall opened stealthily, softly, and some one came out.

It was so early that such precautions seemed scarcely necessary. Perhaps it was in fear of seeing him, though that was so unlikely, that Lizzie looked round so jealously. If so, her precautions were useless, as she stepped out immediately in front of the pa.s.senger whom she most desired to avoid. He did not speak to her for a moment, but walked on, quickening his pace as hers fluttered into a run, as if to escape him. "Stop," he said at length. "You need not take the trouble to conceal yourself from me."

"I'm not concealing--anything," said Lizzie, half angry, half sullen, with a flush on her face. "I've done nothing wrong," she added quickly.

"I don't say you've done anything wrong; for what I can tell you may be doing the work of an angel."

She looked up at him eagerly, and the tears sprang to her eyes. "I don't know for that. I--I don't ask nothing but not to be blamed."

"Lizzie," he said, "you were always a good girl--and to be faithful as you seem, may, for anything I know, be angels' work. I could not do it, for my part."

"Oh no," she said, hurriedly. "It could not be looked for from you,--oh no, no!"

"But think if you were to ruin yourself," he said. "The rector saw you the other day, but he will say nothing. Yet think if others saw you."

"Sir," cried Lizzie, drawing back, "it will do me more harm and vex granny more to see a gentleman walking by my side and talking like that, as if he took an interest in me,--which you don't, all the same," she added, with a little bitterness, "only for--others."

"I do," he cried, "if I could help you without harming you. But it is chiefly for the other. I want you to act for me, Lizzie. If trouble should come, as come, of course, it will----"

"I am none so sure. You never saw her half so pretty--and he----"

"Silence!" cried d.i.c.k, with a voice that was like the report of deep guns. "If trouble comes, let me know. She must not want or be miserable.

There is my address. Do not apply to me unless there is absolute need; but if that comes, write, telegraph,--no matter which; help shall come."

"And what am I to do with a gentleman's card?" said Lizzie. "Granny or some one will be sure to see it. It will drop out of my pocket, or it will be seen in my drawers, or something. And if I were to die it would be found, and folks would think badly of me. I will not take your card."

"This is folly, Lizzie."

"If it is, folly's natural. I don't believe there will be any need; if there is, I'll find you out, if you're wanted, but I won't take the card. Will you please, sir, to walk on? I've got my character to think of."

The girl stopped short, leaning against the corner of the wall, defying him, though she was not hostile to him. He put back his card in his pocket, and took off his hat, which was a recognition which brought the colour to Lizzie's cheek.

"Go away, sir; I've got my character to think of," she said. Then she curtsied deeply, with a certain dignity in her rustic manners. "Thank you," she said, "all the same."

d.i.c.k walked into the rector's dining-room with little Georgie seated on his shoulder. "Fancy where we found him, mamma," said Flo. "Buying barley sugar from old Mrs. Bagley at the shop. What does a gentleman want with barley sugar? He is too old. You never eat it, nor papa."

"He give it all to me," said Georgie, "and Fluffy had some. Fluffy and me, we are very fond of Mr. Cavendish. Don't go away, Mr. Cavendish, or come back to-morrow."

"Yes, tum back to-morrow," cried the other little ones. Flo was old enough to know that the future had vistas deeper than to-morrow. She said, "Don't be so silly, all you little things. If he was coming back to-morrow, why should he go to-day? He will come back another time."

"When dere's need ob him," said his little G.o.dson gravely, at which there was much laughing. But for his part d.i.c.k did not laugh. He hid his serious countenance behind little d.i.c.k's curly head, and thus n.o.body knew that there was not upon it even a smile.

At Underwood, which is a very small village, there is no station; so that d.i.c.k had to be driven to the railway in the waggonette, the rector making this an occasion to give the children and the governess a drive, so that the two gentlemen could not say much to each other. They had a moment for a last word solely at the door of the railway carriage, in which Warrender had already taken his place. The rector, indeed, had to speak through the carriage window at the last moment. He said, hesitating, "And you won't forget? Tell Mr. Cornwall if he refuses to do anything, so as to drive these people away, it will be the kindest thing he can do for the parish. Tell him----" But here the guard interposed to examine the tickets, and there was a slamming of doors and a shriek of whistles, and the train glided away.

"I think I understand what the rector means," said Warrender. "He is speaking of _that_ house. Oh, you need not smile; nothing could be more entirely out of my way."

"I did not smile," said d.i.c.k, who was as grave as all the judges in a row.

"Perhaps you have not heard about it. It was there Markland spent the last afternoon before his accident, almost the last day of his life. It gives her a bitter sort of a.s.sociation with the place."