A Noble Life Part 24

"And what does he say to you? To me little enough, merely complaining how dull he finds Edinburg now, and wishing he were back again among us all."

"I do not wonder," said Helen, in a hard tone, and with that hard expression which sometimes came over her face: the earl knew it well.

"Helen, I am certain something is very wrong with you. Why do you not tell it out to me?"

"Hush! Here comes my father!"

And she hurried to him, gave him her arm, and helped his feeble steps back into the house, where for some time they three remained talking together about the little chit-chat of the parish, and the news of the family, in its various ramifications, now extending year by year. Above all, the minister like to hear and to talk about his eldest and favorite grandchild--his name-child, too--Alexander Cardross Bruce.

But on this subject, usually the never-ceasing topic at the Manse, Helen was for once profoundly silent. Even when her father had dropped asleep, as in his feebleness of age he frequently did in the very midst of conversation, she sat restlessly fingering her wedding-ring, and another which she wore as a sort of guard to it, the only jewel she possessed. It was a very large diamond, set in a plain hoop of gold.

The earl had given it to her a few months after she came back to Cairnforth, when her persistent refusal of all his offered kindnesses had almost produced a breach between them--at least the nearest approach to a quarrel they had ever known. She, seeing how deeply she had wounded him, had accepted this ring as a pledge of amity, and had worn it ever since--by his earnest request--until it had become as familiar to her finger as the one beside it. But now she kept looking at it, and taking it off and on with a troubled air.

"I am going to ask you a strange question, Lord Cairnforth--a rude one, if you and I were not such old friends that we do not mind any thing we say to one another."

"Say on."

"Is this ring of mine very valuable?"

"Rather so."

"Worth how much?"

"You certainly are rude, Helen," replied the earl, with a smile. "Well, if you particularly wish to know, I believe it is worth two hundred pounds."

"Two hundred pounds!"

"Was that so alarming? How many times must I suggest that a man may do what he likes with his own? It was mine--that is, my mother's, and I gave it to you. I hope you are worth to me at least two hundred pounds."

But no cheerfulness removed the settled cloud from Mrs. Bruce's face.

"Now--answer me--you know, Helen, you always answer me candidly and truly, what makes you put that question about the ring?"

"Because I wished to sell it."

"Sell it! why?"

"I want money; in fact, I must have money--a good large sum," said Helen, in exceeding agitation. "And as I will neither beg, borrow, not steal, I must sell something to procure that sum, and this diamond is the only thing I have to sell. Now you comprehend?"

"I think I do," was the grave answer. "My poor Helen!"

She might have held out, but the tenderness of his tone overcame her.

She turned her head away.

"Oh, it's bitter, bitter! After all these years!"

"What is bitter? But you need not tell me. I think I can guess. You did not show me your boy's letter of this morning."

"There it is!"

And the poor mother, with her tears fast flowing--they had been restrained so long that now they burst out like a tide--gave way to that heart-break which many a mother has had to endure--the discovery that her son was not the perfect being she had thought him; that he was no better than other women's sons, and equally liable to fall away.

Poor Cardross had been doing all sorts of wrong and foolish things, which he had kept to himself as long as he could, as long as he dared, and then had come, in an agony of penitence, and poured out the whole story of his errors and his miseries into his mother's bosom.

They were, happily, only errors, not sins--extravagancies in dress; amus.e.m.e.nts and dissipations, resulting in serious expenses; but the young fellow had done nothing absolutely wicked. In the strongest manner, and with the most convincing evidence to back it, he protested this and promised to amend his ways, to "turn over a new leaf," if only his mother would forgive him, and find means to pay the heap of bills which he enclosed, and which amounted to much more than would be covered by his yearly allowance from the earl.

"Poor lad!" said Lord Cairnforth, as he read the letter twice over, and then carefully examined the list of debts it enclosed. "A common story."

"I know that," cried Helen, pa.s.sionately. "But oh! That it should have happened to my son!"

And she bowed her face upon her hands, and swayed herself to and fro in the bitterest grief and humiliation.

The earl regarded her a little while, and then said, gently, "My friend, are you not making for yourself a heavy burden out of a very light matter?"

"A light matter? But you do not see--you can not understand."

"I think I can."

"It is not so much the thing itself--the fact of my son's being so mean, so dishonest as to run into debt, when he knows I hate it--that I have cause to hate it, and to shrink from it as I would from--But this is idle talking. I see you smile. You do not know all the--the dreadful past."

"My dear, I do know--every thing you could tell me--and more."

"Then can not you see what I dread? The first false step--the fatal beginning, of which no one can foresee the end? I must prevent it. I must s.n.a.t.c.h my poor boy like a brand from the burning. I shall go to Edinburg myself to-morrow. I would start this very day if could leave my father."

"You can not possibly leave your father," said the ear, gently but decisively. "Sit down, Helen. You must keep quiet."

For she was in a state of excitement such as, since her widowed days, had never been betrayed by Helen Bruce.

"These debts must be paid, and immediately. The bare thought of them nearly drives me wild. But you shall not pay--do not think it," she added, almost fiercely. "See what my son himself says--and thank G.o.d he had the grace to say it--that I am on no account to go to you; that he 'will turn writer's clerk, or tutor, or any thing, rather than encroach farther on Lord Cairnforth's generosity.'."

"Poor boy! poor boy!"

"Then you don't think him altogether a bad boy?" appealed Mrs. Bruce, pitifully. "You do not fear that I may live to weep over the day when my son was born?"

The earl smiled, and that quiet, half-amused smile, coming upon her in her excited state, seemed to soothe the mother more than any reasoning could have done.

"No, Helen, I do not think any such thing. I think the lad has been very foolish, and we may have been the same. We kept him in leading-strings too long, and trusted him out of them too suddenly. But as to his being altogether bad--Helen Cardross's son, and the minister's grandson--nonsense, my dear."

Mr. Cardross might have heard himself named, for he stirred in his peaceful slumbers, and Helen hastily took her letter from Lord Cairnforth's hand."

"Not a word to him. He is too old. No trouble must ever come near him any more."

"No, Helen. But remember your promise to do nothing till you have talked with me. It is my right, you know. The boy is my boy too. When will you come up to the Castle?" To-morrow? Nay, to-night, if you like."

"I will come to-night."

So, at dusk, in the midst of a wild storm, such as in these regions sometimes, nay, almost always succeeds very calm, mild autumn days, Helen appeared at the Castle, and went at once into the library where the earl usually sat. Strange contrast it was between the s.p.a.cious apartment, with its lofty octagon walls laden with treasures of learning; book-shelves, tier upon tier, reaching to the very roof, which was painted in fresco; every ornamentation of the room being also made as perfect as its owner's fine taste and lavish means could accomplish, and this owner, this master of it all, a diminutive figure, sitting all alone by the vacant fireside--before him a little table, a lamp, and a book. But he was not reading; he was sitting thinking, as he often did now; he said he had read so much in his time that he was rather weary of it, and preferred thinking. Of what? the life he had pa.s.sed through--still, uneventful, and yet a full and not empty human life?

Or it might be, oftener still, upon the life to come?

Lord Cairnforth refused to let his visitor say one word, or even sit down, till he had placed her in Mrs. Campbell's charge, to be dried and reclothed, for she was dripping wet with rain--such rain as come nowhere but at Loch Beg. By-and-by she reappeared in the library, moving through its heavy shadows, and looking herself again--the calm, dignified woman, "my cousin, Mrs. Bruce," who sometimes appeared among Lord Cairnforth's guests, and whom, though she was too retiring to attract much notice, every body who did notice was sure to approve.