The Pillars of the House Part 31

Lance's desire to cheer took the more material form of acting as Fernando's special waiter at the consumption of the turkey, which Mr.

Audley had insisted on having from home, and eating in company with the rest, to whom it was a 'new experience,' being only a faint remembrance even to Felix and Wilmet; but Fernando had no appet.i.te, and even the sight of his little friend gave him a pang.

'Do you want any one to stay with you!' asked Lance. 'If Cherry _would_ do--for Felix said he would take Fulbert and me out for a jolly long walk, to see the icicles at Bold's Hatch.'

'No, I want no one. You are better without me.'

'I'll stay if you do want it,' said Lance, very reluctantly. 'I don't like your not having one bit of Christmas. Shall I sing you one Christmas hymn before I go?' And Lance broke into the 'Herald Angels'

again.

'Mild He lays His glory by, Born that man no more may die; Born to raise the sons of earth, Born to give them second birth.'

Fernando's face was bathed in tears; he held out his arms, and to little Lance's great amazement, somewhat to his vexation, he held him fast and kissed him.

'What did you do that for?' he asked in a gruff astonished voice.

'Never mind!' said Fernando. 'Only I think I see what this day can be! Now go.'

Presently Mr. Audley came softly in. The lad's face was turned in to his cushion, his handkerchief over it; and as the young priest stood watching him, what could be done but pray for the poor struggling soul? At last he turned round, and looked up.

'I saw it again,' he said with a sigh.

'Saw what!'

'What you all mean. It touched me, and seemed true and real when Lance was singing. What was it--"Born to save the sons of earth"? Oh!

but such as I am, and at my age, too!'

And with a few words from Mr. Audley, there came such a disburthening of self-accusation as before to Felix. It seemed as if the terrible effects of his wilfulness at the inn--horrified as he was at them-- were less oppressive to his conscience than his treachery to his host in his endeavour to gamble with the little boys. He had found a pair of dice in his purse when looking for the price of a Bible, and the sight had awakened the vehement hereditary Mexican pa.s.sion for betting, the bane of his mother's race. His father, as a clever man of the world, hated and prohibited the practice; but Fernando had what could easily become a frenzy for that excitement of the lazy south, and even while he had seen it in its consequences, the intense craving for the amus.e.m.e.nt had mastered him more than once, when loathing the dulness and weariness of his confinement, and shrinking from the doctrines he feared to accept. He knew it was dishonourable- --yet he had given way; and he felt like one utterly stained, unpardonable, hopeless: but there was less exaggeration in his state of mind than in the early morning, and when Mr. Audley dwelt on the Hope of sinners, his eyes glistened and brightened; and at the further words that held out to him the a.s.surance that all these sins might be washed away, and he himself enabled to begin a new life, his looks shone responsively; but he shook his head soon--'It went away from him,' he said; poor boy! 'it was too great and good to be true.'

Then Mr. Audley put prayer before him as a means of clinging even blindly to the Cross that he was barely beginning to grasp, and the boy promised. He would do anything they would, could he but hope to be freed from the horrible weight of sense of hopeless pollution that had come upon him.

For some days he did not seem able to read anything but the Gospels and the Baptismal Service; and at length, after a long silence, he said, 'Mr. Audley, if your sermon is finished, can you listen to me?

May I be baptized?'

Then indeed the Curate's heart bounded, but he had to keep himself restrained. The father's consent he had secured beforehand, but he thought Fernando ought to write to him; and it was also needful to consult the Rector as to the length of actual preparation and probation.

Then, when the question came, 'Can I indeed be like Felix and Lancelot' the reply had to be cautious. 'You will be as entirely pardoned, as entirely belonging to the holiness within and without, as they; but how far you will have the consciousness, I cannot tell; and it is very probable that your temptations may be harder. Guilt may be forgiven, while habits retain their power; and they have been guarded, taught self-restraint, and had an example before them in their father, such as very few have been blessed with.'

Fernando sighed long and sadly, and said, 'Then you do not think it will make much difference.'

'The difference between life and death! But you must expect to have to believe rather than feel. But go on, and it will all be clear.'

The Rector was at first anxious to wait for definite sanction from the father; but as Mr. Audley was sure of the permission he had received, and no letter could be had for several months, he agreed to examine the lad, and write to the Bishop--a new Bishop, who had been appointed within the last year, and who was coming in the spring for a Confirmation.

Mr. Bevan was really delighted with the catechumen, and wrote warmly of him. The reply was, that if the Baptism could take place the day before the Confirmation, which was to be in a month's time, the Bishop himself would like to be present, and the youth could be confirmed the next day. There was much that was convenient in this, for it gave time for Fernando to make progress in moving about. He had made a start within the last week or two, was trying to use crutches, and had been out on fine days in a chair; and once or twice Lady Price had taken him for a drive, though she had never thought of doing so by Geraldine. The doctor said that change of air would probably quite restore his health; and he had only to wait to be a little less dependent before he was to go to a tutor, an old friend of the Audley family.

Everything promised well; but one wet afternoon, in the interim between the end of Lance's and that of Fulbert's holidays, Mr.

Audley, while coming down from a visit to Mrs. Underwood, fancied he heard an ominous rattle, and opening the door suddenly, found Fernando and Fulbert eagerly throwing the dice and with several shillings before them.

Both started violently as he entered, and Fulbert put his arm and hand round as if to hide the whole affair; while Fernando tried to look composed.

All that the Curate said in his surprise was one sharp sentence.

'Fernando Travis, if you are to renounce the devil, you will have to begin by throwing those dice into the fire.'

Fernando's eyes looked furious, and he swept the dice and the money into his pocket--all but three shillings. Fulbert stole out of the room quietly. No doubt these were his winnings, which he did not dare to touch.

Mr. Audley took up a book and waited, fully expecting that sorrow would follow; but Fernando did not speak; and when at length he did on some indifferent matter, it was in his ordinary tone. Well, there must be patience. No doubt repentance would come at night! No; the evening pa.s.sed on, and Fernando was ready for all their usual occupations. Perhaps it would come with Felix, or in the dawn after a troubled night. Alas! no. And moreover, Felix, to whom it was necessary to speak, was exceedingly angry and vexed, and utterly incredulous of there being any good in the character that could be so fickle, if not deceitful and hypocritical. His own resolute temper had no power of comprehending the unmanliness of erring against the better will; he was absolutely incapable of understanding the horrible la.s.situde and craving for excitement that must have tempted Fernando, and he was hard and even ashamed of himself for having ever believed in the lad's sincerity.

This anger, too, made him speak with such a threatening tone to Fulbert as to rouse the doggedness of the boy's nature. All that could be got out of Fulbert was that 'his going there was all Felix's doing,' and he would not manifest any sign of regret, such as would be any security against his introducing the practice among the clergy orphans, or continuing it all his life. He was not a boy given to confidences, and neither Wilmet nor Cherry could get him beyond his glum declaration that it was Felix's fault, he only wanted to keep out of the fellow's way. They could only take comfort in believing that he was really ashamed, and that he suffered enough within to be a warning against the vice itself.

As to Fernando, he made no sign, he went on as if nothing had happened; and nothing was observable about him, but that he showed himself intensely weary of his present mode of life, put on at times the manners that were either those of the Spanish Don or of the Indian Cacique, and seemed to shrink from the prospect of the English tutor. Yet he continued his preparation for baptism, and Mr. Bevan was satisfied with him; but Mr. Audley was perplexed and unhappy over the reserve that had sprung up between them, and could not decide whether to make another attempt or leave the lad to himself.

One afternoon, only ten days from the time fixed for the Bishop's visit, Mr. Audley returned from a clerical meeting to find an unexpected visitor in the room--namely, Alfred Travis, Fernando's uncle, a more Americanised and rougher person than his brother. He rose as he entered. 'Good morning, Mr. Audley; you have taken good care of your charge. He is fit to start with me to-morrow. See a surgeon in town--then to Liverpool--'

'Indeed!' Mr. Audley caught a deprecating look from Fernando. 'Do you come from his father?'

'Well--yes and no. His father is still in the Oregon; but he and I have always been one--and opening the boy's letters, and finding him ready to move, I thought, as I had business in England, I'd come and fetch him, and just settle any claim the fellow at yonder hotel may have cheek enough to set up, since Fernan was green enough to let it out.'

'May I ask if you have any authority from his father?'

'Authority! Bless you! William will be glad to see his boy; we don't go by authority between brothers.'

'Because,' continued Mr. Audley, 'I heard from your brother that he wished Fernando to remain with me to receive an English education.'

'All sentiment and stuff! He knew better before we had sailed! An English squire in this wretched old country, forsooth! when the new republic is before him! No, no, Mr. Audley, I'll be open with you. I saw what you were up to when I got your letter, and Fernan--Got his lesson very well, he had. And when I came down, a friend in London gave me another hint. It won't do, I can a.s.sure you. That style of thing is all very well for you spruce parsons of good family, as you call it in the old country; but we are not going to have a rising young fellow like this, with a prospect of what would buy out all your squires and baronets in the old country, bes...o...b..red and befooled with a lot of Puseyite cant. You've had your turn of him; it is time he should come and be a man again.'

Mr. Audley was dizzy with consternation. Fernando was no child. He was full sixteen, and he was so far recovered that his health formed no reason for detaining him. If he chose to go with his uncle, he _must_. If not--what then? He looked at Fernando, who sat uneasily.

'You hear what your uncle says?' he asked.

'I told him,' said Fernando, 'I must wait for a fortnight.' He spoke with eyes cast down, but not irresolutely.

His uncle broke out--He knew what that meant; it was only that he might be flattered by the Bishop and all the ladies, and made a greater fool of than ever. No, no, he must be out again by May, and he should just have time to take Fernan to one of the gay boarding- houses at Saratoga, and leave him there to enjoy himself.

'I have letters from my father,' said Fernando, looking up to Mr.

Audley, 'before he went to Oregon. He said nothing.'

'Do you wish to stay?' said Mr. Audley, feeling that all depended on that, and trying to hide the whirl of anxiety and disappointment he felt.

The answer was not what he expected. Fernando sat upright in his chair, looked up to him and then at his uncle, and said low but resolutely, 'I will stay.'

'Then you shall stay,' said Mr. Audley.

'You have worked upon him, I see, sir, with your old-world prejudiced superst.i.tion,' said Alfred Travis, evidently under the delusion that he was keeping his temper. 'A proper fool my brother was to leave him to you. But you do it at your peril. I shall see if there's power even in this old country to keep a boy from his own relations. You'll see me again, Fernan. You had better make ready.'

The words were not unaccompanied with expletives such as had never been personally uttered to Charles Audley before, and that brought the hot colour to his cheek. When he looked round, Fernando's face was covered with his hands. 'Oh! Mr. Audley,' he cried, as his uncle hastily shut the door, 'is he going to send for the police?'

'I do not believe he can do any such thing,' said Mr. Audley, seeing that Fernando was in great nervous agitation. 'I have authority from your father, he has none; and you are old enough to make your own decision. You really mean and wish to stay?' he added.