Julian Home Part 41

"Nay, nay, let us stay here for a moment," he cried, as she rose up; "let me realise the joyful sensation which your words have given me; let me sit here, Violet, a few moments at your feet, and feel the touch of your hand in mine, and look at your face, that I may recover strength again."

They sat there in silence, and the thoughts of both recurred to that other scene where they had sat on the great boulder under the shadow of the Alps, and watched the rose-film steal over their white summits on the golden summer eve. It was the same love that still filled their souls--the same love, but more sober, more quiet, more like the love of maturer years, less like the pa.s.sionate love of boy and girl. It was more of an autumnal love than of old; and if the departing summer had flung new hues over the forest and the glen, they were the duller hues that recalled to mind the greater glory of the past. It was round a dying year that Autumn was "folding his jewelled arms." Yet they were happy--very happy, and they felt that, come what might, nothing on earth could part them now.

When Kennedy had grown more calm, Violet called for Cyril, and bade him break the fact of Edward's presence to her mother and Julian. The boy bounded off to do her bidding, and in a few moments Kennedy was seated among the Homes as one of them. They received him with no simulated affection; Frank and Cyril helped to take away all awkwardness from the meeting by their high spirits, and when they all sat down on the velvet mosses to their rural meal, every one of them had banished the painful hauntings of the past. Of course Kennedy accompanied them home; they drove back in the quiet evening, and Kennedy sat by Violet's side.

He stayed at Ildown till Julian returned to Saint Werner's, and, as was natural, he revolved in his mind continually his future course. At last he determined to talk it over with Violet, and told her of all his heroic longings for a life of toil and endeavour, if need were, even of banishment and death--all the high thoughts that had filled his heart as he sat alone in the island by Orton-on-the-Sea.

"Let us wait," she said, "Edward. G.o.d will decide all this for us in time, and if duty seems to call you to the hard life of missionary or colonist, I am ready to go with you."

"But don't you feel yourself, Violet, a kind of commonplace-ness about English life; a silver-slippered religion, a pettiness that does not satisfy, a sense of comfort incompatible with the strong desire to do the work which others will not do in the neglected corners of the vineyard?"

"No," she answered, smiling, "I am content:--

"'The trivial round, the common task Should furnish all we ought to ask; Room to deny ourselves--a road To bring us daily nearer G.o.d.'"

"True," he said; "well, I must try not to carry ambition into my religion."

"Of course you return to Saint Werner's next autumn?"

He mused long. "Ah, Violet, you cannot conceive how awful to my imagination that place has grown. And to return after rustication, and live among men who will regard me with galling curiosity, and dons who will look at me sideways with suspicion--can I ever bear it?"

"Why not, Edward? They cannot affect _you_ by their opinion. I heard you say the other day that your heart was becoming an island, and the waters round it broadening every day. If the island itself be beautiful and happy, it need not reck of the outer world."

"You are right, Violet. I will return if need be, and bear all meekly which I have deserved to bear. The one sorrow will be gone," he said, as he drew her nearer to his side, "that drove me into--Yes, you are right. I will go away home to-morrow, when Julian starts, and begin from the very first day to read with all my might. Hitherto I have had only the bitter lessons of Camford; let us see if I cannot gain some of her honours too."

CHAPTER THIRTY ONE.

BRUCE IN TROUBLE.

"Nuda nec arva placent, umbrasque negantia molles, Nec dudum vet.i.ti me laris augit amor."

Milton.

Bruce, when expelled from Saint Werner's, thought very little of his disgrace. It hardly ruffled the calm stream of his self-complacency, and, for some reasons, he was rather glad that it had happened. He did not like Camford; he had never taken to reading, and being thus debarred from all intellectual pleasures, he had grown thoroughly tired of late breakfasts, boating on the muddy Iscam, noisy wines, and interminable whist parties. Moreover, he had made far less sensation at Camford than he had expected. Somehow or other he had a dim consciousness that men saw through him; that his cleverness did not conceal his superficiality, nor his easy manners blind men's eyes to his ungenerous and selfish heart. Even his late phase of popular scepticism was less successful at Camford than it would have been at places of less steady diligence and less sound acquirements. In fact, Bruce imagined that he was by no mean appreciated. The sphere was too narrow for him; he was quite sure that in the arena of London society and political life he was qualified to play a far more conspicuous part.

Nor did he believe that Sir Rollo Bruce would care for his expulsion any more than he did himself; he fancied that his father was quite above the middle-cla.s.s prejudices of respect and reverence for pedantry and pedagogues, and was too much a man of the world to be disturbed by a slight contretemps like this. He wrote home a careless note to mention the fact that his Saint Werner's career was ended, and attributed this result to a mere escapade at a wine-party, which had been distorted by rumour, and exaggerated by malice into a serious offence.

So when Vyvyan gaily entered his father's house, he felt rather light-hearted than otherwise. He expected that very likely some party would be going on, and quite looked forward to an agreeable dance. When he arrived, however, Vyvyan House was quite silent; a dim light came from a single window, but that was all.

"Sir Rollo and my mother not at home, I suppose," he said to the plushed and powdered footman.

"Yes, sir, they're in the library."

He entered; they were sitting on opposite sides of the fire, with a single lamp between them. They were not doing anything, and Lady Bruce appeared to have been crying; but neither of them took any notice of his entrance beyond turning their heads.

"How do you do?" he said, advancing gracefully; but not a little surprised at so silent and moody a greeting.

"How do you do?" was his father's cold reply.

"Dear me--I quite expected to find a party going on, but you seem quite gloomy. Is anything the matter?"

"Matter, sir!" exclaimed Sir Rollo, starting up vehemently from his chair, and angrily pacing the room. "Matter! Upon my word, Vyvyan, your impudence is sublime."

"You surprise me. What have I done?"

"Done!" retorted his father, with intense scorn. "You have been expelled from College; you have wasted your whole opportunities of education; you have thrown away the boundless sums which I have spent in your interest; you have lived the life of a puppy and a fool, and now you come back in the uttermost disgrace, with your name involved in I know not what infamy, and are as cool about it as if you returned to announce a triumph."

Not deigning a word more, Sir Rollo turned indignantly on his heel and left Bruce as much astounded by so unexpected a reception as if he had suddenly trodden on a snake. He relapsed into uncommon sheepishness, and hardly knew how to address his mother, who sat sobbing in her armchair.

"My dear mother," he said at last, "what can be the matter that I am met by such tornados as my welcome on returning?"

"Don't ask me, Vyvyan. Your father is naturally angry at your expulsion, and you have grieved us both. But, dear Vyvyan, do not put on such an impertinent and indifferent manner; it annoys Sir Rollo exceedingly. Do submit yourself, my dear boy, and he will soon recover his usual suavity."

"But I never saw him like this before."

"No; these violent fits of temper have only come over him of late, and I am afraid that there must be some cause for them of which I am unaware."

Bruce sat silent and unhappy. Expelled from college, and insulted, (as he called it), at home, he felt truly alone and miserable. He went up to his own room, supped there, and coming down next morning to the awkward meeting with his parents, spoke a few words of regret about his position. Sir Rollo barely listened to them, breakfasted in silence, and immediately afterwards set out for his office. He did not return till late in the evening, and continued for some time to spend the days in this manner, seeing next to nothing of his wife and son, but sternly forbidding any festivities or b.a.l.l.s.

One morning he called Vyvyan into his study before starting. Bruce laid aside his novel, yawned, and followed.

"Pray, sir, do you intend to spend _all_ your time in reading novels?"

said Sir Rollo.

"There's nothing else for me to do that I see."

"Very well. If you suppose that you are going to spend your days in idleness, you are mistaken. I give you a week to choose some occupation that will not involve me in further outlay."

Bruce took out his embroidered pocket-handkerchief, redolent with scent, and blew his nose affectedly. On doing so, an unopened envelope dropped on the floor, out of his pocket; picking it up, he glanced at it, tore it across, and flung it into the fire. Sir Rollo immediately picked up the pieces with the tongs and opened it.

"I see that this is a bill, and I shall proceed to look at it."

"Yes, if you like," said Bruce, in an indifferent tone--"it's from a dun."

It was a tailor's bill which had been sent after him, and it amounted to 150 pounds.

"And you suppose," said his father, "that I am going to pay these debts for you?"

"I suppose so, certainly--some day. Let the dogs wait."

Sir Rollo seemed on the point of a great burst of wrath; his lips positively quivered and his eye flashed with pa.s.sion. He seemed, however, to control himself,--darted at his son a look of wrath and scorn, and left the room. A note that evening informed Lady Bruce that business detained him from home, and that he might not return for some days.

A week after Bruce received a letter with foreign post-marks, to the following effect:--

DEAR VYVYAN--By the time you receive this, I shall be on the Continent, far beyond the reach of the law.

"I have been living for the last ten years on the money I embezzled from the company whose affairs I managed. The fraud cannot fail of being detected almost immediately.