A Noble Life Part 22

Helen burst into tears.

After that day it came to be a general rule that, when she could not manage him herself, which not infrequently happened--for the very similarity in temperament and disposition between the mother and son made their conflicts, even at this early age, longer and harder--Helen brought Boy up to the Castle and left him, sometimes for hours together, in the library with Lord Cairnforth. He always came home to the Manse quiet and "good."

And so out of babyhood into boyhood, and thence into youth, grew the earl's adopted son; for practically it became that relationship, though no distinct explanation was ever given, or any absolute information vouchsafed, for indeed there was none who had a right to inquire; still, the neighborhood and the public at large took it for granted that such were Lord Cairnforth's intentions toward his little cousin.

As for the boy's mother, she led a life very retired--more retired than even Helen Cardross, doing all her duties as the minister's daughter, but seldom appearing in society. And society speculated little about her. Sometimes, when the Castle was full of guests, Mrs.

Bruce appeared among them, still in her widow's weeds, to be received by Lord Cairnforth with marked attention and respect--always called "my cousin," and whoever was present, invariably requested to take the head of his table; but, except at these occasional seasons, and at birthdays, new years, and so on, Helen was seldom seen out of the Manse, and was very little known to the earl's ordinary acquaintance.

But every body in the whole peninsula knew the minister's grandson, young Master Bruce. The boy was tall of his age--not exactly handsome, being too like his mother for that; nevertheless, the robustness of form, which in her was too large for comeliness, became in him only manly size and strength. He was athletic, graceful, and active; he learned to ride almost as soon as he could walk; and, under Malcolm's charge, was early initiated in all the mysteries of moor and loch. By fourteen years of age Cardross Bruce was the best shot, the best fisher, the best hand at an oar, of all the young lads in the neighborhood.

Then, too, though allowed to run rather wild, he was unmistakably a gentleman. Though he mixed freely with every body in the parish, he was neither haughty nor over-familiar with any one. He had something of the minister's manner with inferiors--frank, gentle, and free--winning both trust and love, and yet it was impossible to take liberties with him. And some of the elder people in the clachan declared the lad had at times just "the merry glint o' the minister's e'en" when Mr. Cardross first came to the parish as a young man with his young wife.

He was an old man now, "wearin' awa'," but slowly and peacefully; preaching still, though less regularly; for, to his great delight, his son Duncan, having come out creditably at college, had been appointed his a.s.sistant and successor. Uncle Duncan--only twelve years his nephew's senior--was also appointed by Lord Cairnforth tutor to "Boy"

Bruce. The two were very good friends, and not unlike one another.

"Ay, he's just a Cardross," was the universal remark concerning young Bruce. No one had ever hinted that the lad was like his father.

He was not. Nature seemed mercifully to have forgotten to perpetuate that type of character which had given Mr. Menteith formerly, and others since, such a justifiable dread of the Bruce family, and such a righteous determination to escape them. Lord Cairnforth still paid the annuity, but on condition that no one of his father's kindred should ever interfere, in the smallest degree, with Helen's child.

This done, both he and she trusted to the strong safeguards of habit and education, and all other influences which so strongly modify character, to make the boy all that they desired him to be, and to counteract those tendencies which, as Lord Cairnforth plainly perceived, were Helen's daily dread. It was a struggle, mysterious as that which visible human free-will is forever opposing (apparently) to invisible fate, the end of which it is impossible to see, and yet we struggle on.

Thus laboring together with one hope, one aim, and one affection, all centered in this boy, Lord Cairnforth and Mrs. Bruce pa.s.sed many a placid year. And when the mother's courage failed her--when her heart shrank in apprehension from real terrors or from chimeras of her own creating, her friend taught her to fold patiently her trembling hands, and say, as she herself and the minister had first taught him in his forlorn boyhood, the one only prayer which calms fear and comforts sorrow--the lesson of the earl's whole life--"Thy will be done!"

Chapter 15

"Helen, that boy of yours ought to be sent to college."

"Oh no! Surely you do not think it necessary?" said Helen, visibly shrinking.

She and Lord Cairnforth were sitting together in the Castle library.

Young Cardross had been sitting beside them, holding a long argument with his mother, as he often did, for he was of a decidedly argumentative turn of mind, until, getting the worst of the battle, and being rather "put down"--a position rarely agreeable to the self-esteem of eighteen--he had flushed up angrily, made no reply, but opened one of the low windows and leaped out on the terrace. There, pacing to and fro along the countess's garden, they saw the boy, or rather young man, for he looked like one now. He moved with a rapid step, the wind tossing his fair curls--Helen's curls over again-- and cooling his cheeks as he tried to recover his temper, which he did not often lose, especially in the earl's presence.

Experience had not effaced the first mysterious impression made on the little child's mind by the wheeled chair and its occupant. If there was one person in the world who had power to guide and control this high-spirited lad, it was Lord Cairnforth. And as the latter moved his chair a little round, so that he could more easily look out into the garden and see the graceful figure sauntering among the flower-beds, it was evident by his expression that the earl loved Helen's boy very dearly.

"He is a fine fellow, and a good fellow as ever was born, that young man of yours. Still, as I have told you many a time, he would be all the better if he were sent to college."

"For his education?" I thought Duncan was fully competent to complete that."

"Not altogether. But, for many reasons, I think it would be advisable for him to go from home for a while."

"Why? Because his mother spoils him?"

The earl smiled, and gave no direct answer. In truth, the harm Helen did her boy was not so much in her "spoiling"--love rarely injures --as in the counteracting weight which she sometimes threw on the other side--in the sudden tight rein which she drew upon his little follies and faults--the painful clashing of two equally strong wills, which sometimes happened between the mother and the son.

This was almost inevitable, with Helen's peculiar character. As she sat there, the sun shining on her fair face--still fair; a clear, healthy red and white, though she was over forty--you might trace some harsh lines in it, and see clearly that, save for her exceeding unselfishness and lovingness of disposition, Mrs. Bruce might in middle age have grown into what is termed a "hard" woman; capable of pa.s.sionate affection, but of equally pa.s.sionate severity, and p.r.o.ne to exercise both alike upon the beings most precious to her on earth.

"I fear it is not a pleasant doctrine to preach to mothers," said Lord Cairnforth; "but, Helen, all boys ought to leave home some time. How else are they to know the world?"

"I do not wish my boy to know the world."

"But he must. He ought. Remember his life is likely to be a very different one from either yours or mine."

"Do not let us think of that," said Helen, uneasily.

"My friend, I have been thinking of it ever since he was born--or, at least, ever since he came to Cairnforth. That day seems almost like yesterday, and yet--We are growing quite middle-aged folk, Helen, my dear."

Helen sighed. These peaceful, uneventful years, how fast they had slipped by! She began to count them after the only fashion by which she cared to count any thing now. "Yes, Cardross will be a man--actually and legally a man--in little more than two years."

"That is just what I was considering. By that time we must come to some decision on a subject which you will never let me speak of; but by-and by, Helen, you must. Do you suppose that your son guesses, or that any body has ever told him, what his future position is to be?"

"I think not. There was n.o.body to tell him, for n.o.body knew. No,"

continued Helen, speaking strongly and decidedly, "I am determined on one point--nothing shall bind you as regards my son or me-- nothing, except your own free will. To talk of me as your successor is idle. I am older than you are; and you must not be compromised as regards my son. He is a good boy now, but temptation is strong, and,"

with an irrepressible shudder, "appearances are deceitful sometimes.

Wait, as I have always said--wait till you see what sort of man Cardross turns out to be."

Lord Cairnforth made no reply, and once more the two friends sat watching the unconscious youth, who had been for so many years the one object of both their lives.

"Ignorance is not innocence," said the earl at length, after along fit of musing. "If you bind a creature mortally hand and foot, how can it ever learn to walk? It would, as soon as you loosed the bonds, find itself not free, but paralyzed--as helpless a creature as myself."

Helen turned away from watching her boy, and laid her hand tenderly, in her customary caress, on the feeble hand, which yet had been the means of accomplishing so much.

"You should not speak so," she said. "Scarcely ever is there a more useful life than yours."

"More useful, certainly, than any one once expected--except you, Helen. I have tried to make you not ashamed of me these thirty years."

"Is it so many? Thirty years since the day you first came to the Manse?"

"Yes; you know I was forty last birthday. Who would have thought my life would have lasted so long? But it can not last forever; and before I am 'away' as your dear old father would say, I should like to leave you quite settled and happy about that boy."

"Who says I am not happy?" answered Mrs. Bruce, rather sharply.

"n.o.body; but I see it myself sometimes--when you get that restless, anxious look--there it is now! Helen, I must have it away. I think it would trouble me in my grave if I left you unhappy," added the earl, regarding her with that expression of yearning tenderness which she had been so used to all her days that she rarely noticed it until the days came when she saw it no more.

"I am not unhappy," she said, earnestly. "Why should I be? My dear father keeps well still--he enjoys a green old age. And is not my son growing up every thing that a mother's heart could desire?"

"I do believe it. Cardross is a good boy--a very good boy. But the metal has never been tested--as the soundest metal always requires to be--and until this is done, you will never rest. I had rather it were done during my lifetime than afterward. Helen, I particularly wish the boy to go to college."

The earl spoke so decidedly that Mrs. Bruce replied with only the brief question "Where?"

"To Edinburg; because there he would not be left quite alone. His uncle Alick would keep an eye upon him, and he could be boarded with Mrs.

Menteith, whose income would be none the worse for the addition I would make to it; for of course, Helen, if he goes, it must be--not exactly as my declared heir, since you dislike that so much, but--as my cousin and nearest of kin, which he is undeniably."

Helen acquiesced in silence.

"I have a right to him, you see," said Lord Cairnforth, smiling, "and really I am rather proud of my young fellow. He may not be very clever --the minister says he is not--but he is what I call a man. Like his mother, who never was clever, but yet was every inch a woman--the best woman, in all relations of life, that I ever knew."

Helen smiled too--a little sadly, perhaps--but soon her mind recurred from all other things to her one prominent thought.