IN family troubles such as that which we have indicated, it is generally a woman who is the chief sufferer. She stands between the conflicting parties, and, whether she is mother or sister, suffers for both, unable to soften judgment on one hand, or to reduce rebellion on the other; or else securing a ground of reconciliation by entreaties and tears which she would not use on her own behalf, and often by the sacrifice of her own reason and power of judging, and conscious humiliation to all the imbecilities of peace-making. A woman in such circumstances has to pledge herself for reformations in which, alas! her heart has but little faith. She has to persuade the angry father that his son has erred less than appears, to invent a thousand excuses, to exhaust herself in palliation of offences which are far more offensive and terrible to her than to him whose wrath she deprecates; and she has to convince the impatient and resentful son that his father is acting rather in love than in anger, and that his sins have wounded as much as they have exasperated. Those women who have no judgment of their own to exercise, and who can believe everything, are the happiest in this ever-returning necessity: and indeed in many complications of life it is much better for all parties that the woman should be without judgment, the soft and boneless angel of conventional romance. Winifred Chester was not of this kind. She was a just and tender-hearted woman, full of affection and compassion, to whom nature gave the hard task of mediating between two parties whose conflicting errors she was, alas! but too well able to estimate—the father, whose indignation and rage were in fact sufficiently just, yet so little righteous, and her brothers, of whom she knew that they neither felt any real compunction nor intended any amendment. There is, let us hope, some special indulgence for those luckless advocates of erring men who have to promise amendment which they can put no faith in, and plead excuses which to their own minds have no validity.
After the conversation which had been held in the great drawing-room, when Mr. Chester settled himself to a study of the evening papers which had just been brought in, Winifred left the room softly, and stole upstairs to the window of her brother’s room, which commanded the avenue, and from which she could see his approach. The room was faintly lit with firelight and full of all the luxurious contrivances for comfort to which a rich man’s sons are accustomed. Poor Tom! what would he do without them all, without the means of procuring them? Poor George! what was he doing, he who now had some years’ experience of work and poverty? She stole behind the drawn curtains and looked out upon the darkness and the falling rain. There was little light in the wild landscape, and no sound but that of the rain pattering upon the thick ivy which clothed the older part of the house, and streaming silently down upon the trees, which were still bare, though swelling at every point with the sap of spring. The air was soft and warm; the rain and the darkness full of a wild sense of fertility and growth. Winifred’s imagination depicted to her only too clearly the state of half-despair, yet unconviction, in which her brother’s mind would be. He would not believe it was possible, and yet he would know. He was very well aware that his father was remorseless, yet he would not be able to understand how ruin could overtake him. The circumstances brought back before her vividly the other occasion on which she had implored in vain the reversal of the sentence on her elder brother. George, too, had been taken by surprise. He had not believed it, and when at last he was convinced, had burst forth into wild defiance and consuming wrath. But Tom would probably be less simple, and not manly at all: he would never believe that all was over, that it was not possible to make another and another appeal.
Winifred stood and watched for his coming, feeling that if by any will of hers she could bring about an accident, either to delay her brother’s arrival, or even to bring him into the house in a condition which would compel a prolonged stay, she would have done it. Tom would have arrived, it is to be feared, with a broken leg, or the beginnings of a fever, could his sister have procured it or he would not have come at all. Railway accidents occur in many cases when they do harm without doing any good, but a railway accident which should awake some natural movement in her father’s mind, which should perhaps make him anxious, which would force him to exert himself on Tom’s behalf—what an advantage that would be! Alas! such things do not come when people wish for them. A broken arm or leg, what a small price to pay for the moral advantages of reawakened interest, anxiety, the softening charm of an illness and convalescence! No father could turn out of his house the wounded boy who was brought home to be cured.
But Winifred’s wishes, it need not be said, were quite unavailing. By and by she heard the steady tread of the horse, the roll of the wheels over those little heaps of gravel with which the avenue was being mended. Evidently Tom was coming, without any interposition of Providence, to his fate. She ran softly down the stairs to meet him and prevent any unnecessary sound or attempt to usher the returning prodigal into his father’s presence. The door was open, the waterproof of the groom glistening in the light, and Tom scrambling down from the dog-cart with that drenched and dejected look which is the result of a long drive through steady and persistent rain. He scarcely looked at the butler as he stepped past, saying, “Is my father in?” in a voice as despondent as his appearance, and not pausing to listen as the man began to explain—
“Master is at home, sir, but”—
“Tom! Oh, how wet you are! You must run upstairs and change first of all.”
“I shall do nothing of the kind. I suppose there is a fire somewhere,” said Tom. “Where are you sitting? in the dining-room? No supper for me. I don’t want any supper. To arrive like this is calculated to give a fellow an appetite, don’t you think?”
Winifred put her arm through her brother’s, wet though he was. She whispered, “Don’t say anything before the servants,” as she led him towards the open door of the room in which the table was laid for him before the shining fire. Tom was mollified by the second glance at its comfort and brightness.
“It looks warm here,” he said, suffering her to guide him. “Though why I should mind warm or cold I don’t know. Look here, Winnie. There is this interview with the governor; I’d better get it over, don’t you think?”
“Oh, Tom, come in and get warmed and eat something.”
“Is it going to be very bad, then?” the young man said.
“I think,” said Winifred anxiously, “you had much better change those wet clothes; your room is ready.”
“Look here!” he cried; “all that about New Zealand, that’s all nonsense, of course?” He watched the changes of her countenance as he spoke.
Winifred shook her head. “Oh, Tom, I told you long ago you must never take what my father says as nonsense. He is not that sort of man. Come to the fire, then, if you will not change your clothes. And here is Hopkins coming with the tray. Don’t say anything before Hopkins, Tom.”
“Why shouldn’t I? If he means that, they’ll know soon enough. I don’t believe he means it. The governor—the governor”—Tom’s voice died away in his throat, partly because it trembled, partly because of Hopkins’ presence. “Yes, yes, that’ll do,” he said fretfully, as the butler placed a chair for him, and stood waiting. “I don’t want anything to eat, thank you. I’ll have a drink if you like. The governor,” he resumed, with a sort of laugh, as Hopkins, knowing the nature of the drink required, went off to fetch it, “would never repeat himself, Winnie. He is not such a duffer as that. All very well once perhaps; but to send George to Sydney and me to New Zealand—oh, that’s too much of a good thing! I can’t believe he means it. Thank you, that’s more to the purpose,” he added, as he took a large fizzing glass out of Hopkins’ hand.
“You need not wait. We have everything my brother will want,” said Winifred. “Oh, Tom, what can I say to you? You know how my father had set his heart on your success—success anyhow, he did not mind what kind.”
“Well, well,” said Tom sulkily; “you women are always harping on what is past. I know very well I have been an ass. But there is no such dreadful harm done after all. I’m not fifty, if you come to that, and this time I’ll work, I really will, and get through.”
Winifred said no more for the moment. She persuaded him to seat himself at the table, to fortify himself with food. “We can talk it all over when you have had your supper. There is plenty of time; and what a wretched journey you must have had, Tom!”
“Wretched enough, but nothing so bad as the drive from the station, with the rain pouring down upon one, and that fellow Short pitying one all the way. Talk of not speaking before the servants—he knew as well as I did I was in disgrace with the governor, and was sorry for me—my own groom! Why didn’t you let me get a fly from the station? It would have been twenty times more comfortable.”
“That is what my father said,” said Winifred, with a smile.
“Oh, he thought of that, did he? The governor has a great deal of sense,” said Tom, brightening a little. “He understands a fellow better than you can. I don’t say anything against you, Win; you are always as good as you know how.”
Winifred looked at her brother with a tremulous smile of wonder and pity. Nothing could be more forlorn than his appearance; the steam rising from his wet coat, his hair limp on his forehead, his colourless face more eloquent of anxiety and suspense than his words were. He swallowed with difficulty the dainty food, the dish he specially liked, and pushed his chair from the table with relief.
“Am I to see him to-night?” he said. “If it’s got to be, the sooner the better. It will be a thing well over.”
“Tom,”—Winifred’s voice faltered, she could hardly say what she had to say,—“I am afraid it is all a great deal worse than you think. He did not want to see you at all, and if he has consented at last, it is chiefly because he thinks you will then be convinced how little you have to expect.”
Tom’s countenance fell, and then he made an effort to recover himself, and laughed. “Nobody ever was so hard as the governor looks,” he said; “he wants to frighten me, I know that.”
He looked anxiously in her eyes, and Winifred’s eyes were not encouraging. Her brother broke out again with a stifled oath. “You can’t mean me to suppose that that about New Zealand is true, Winnie? You don’t mean that?”
“Dear Tom!” Winifred said, with tears in her eyes.
“Don’t dear Tom me! That’s not natural, you don’t mean it. Good heavens! I’d sooner you were taking your fun out of me, if it was a moment for that. I won’t go! I’m not a child to be ordered about like that. I tell you I won’t go!”
“Oh, Tom! if you could but do anything at home; if you would but let him see that you could manage for yourself! That might be of some use, if you could do it, Tom.”
“I won’t go,” he repeated hoarsely, “to the other end of the world, away from everything I care for! There is a limit to everything. You can tell him I won’t do that. And all for what? For having been unlucky about my books, as half the men in the university have been one time or the other. What does it matter being ploughed? It happens every day. Winnie, I swear to you I’ll work like—like a navvy, if I can only have another chance.”
“Oh, Tom, I have said everything, I have tried every way. I think if you were to do as you said just now, say to him that you won’t go to New Zealand, that you can manage for yourself at home, that would be your best chance. Show him that you can maintain yourself, do something, write something, it does not matter what it is”—
“Maintain myself?” said Tom. He had left his seat, and was standing in front of the fire, his pale face and dishevelled, damp hair showing against the black marble of the mantelpiece; his eyes had a bewildered and discomfited look. “Do something? It is so easy to talk. What am I to do? Write? I am not one of the fellows that can write. I have never been used to that sort of thing. I say, Winnie, for God’s sake speak to my father! I can’t, I can’t go to that dreadful place.”
“Oh, Tom!” she cried, turning her head away.
To see him standing there, helpless, feeble, sure only of one thing, and that that he himself was good for nothing, was like a sword in this young woman’s heart. It is the most horrible of all the tortures that women have to bear, to see the men belonging to them, whom they would so fain look up to, breaking down into ruinous failure. He gave her a distracted look, and when she withdrew her eyes, went and plucked her by the sleeve. “Winnie, for Heaven’s sake tell my father! It’s all dreadful to me: I can’t work in an office; I can’t go a long voyage. I hate the sea, I am not strong, not a man that can rough it and knock about. George was different, he was always that sort of fellow; and then he’s married. Winnie, speak for me. You can do it if you like.”
“I have done nothing else ever since he told me, Tom, and I dare not say any more. He will not listen, he says he will send me away too. I shouldn’t care for that if I could help you, but I can’t—I can’t. It is almost worse for me, for I can do nothing—nothing!”
“Oh no,” said Tom; “don’t make believe, Winnie. Worse for you?—Why, what does it matter to you? While I am out at sea, perhaps in danger of my life, you’ll be snug at home, with everything that heart can desire. And who is he going to leave his money to, if he casts me off? You? Oh, I see it all now! Why should you speak for me? It’s against your own interests. I see it all now.”
She could only look at him with an appeal for pity in her eyes. She could not protest that her own interests were little in her mind. There are some things which it is impossible to say, as it ought to be needless to say them. Tom for his part worked himself up to an outburst of miserable, artificial rage which it is to be supposed was a relief to his excitement.
“Oh, it is you that are to be his heir?” he cried. “A girl! I might have known. No wonder you don’t speak up for me, when it’s all in your own favour. I’m to be cut off, and George is to be cut off, all for you! Oh, I might have known! A girl is always at home, wriggling and wriggling into favour, cutting out the lawful heirs. And what does he think he’s going to make of you, that haven’t even a name of your own, that are no more good for the family than a stranger? George wasn’t enough, I might have had the sense to see that—there was me that had to be got rid of too, and now you’ve done it; now you have succeeded. Yes, yes! and this is Winnie!” he cried in a burst of despairing rage. “Winnie! I thought Winnie was my friend whoever failed me; and all this time you were plotting to get rid of me too!”
Tom had been advancing towards her, gesticulating with fury, his hand raised, his blood-shot eyes gleaming, when the door opened suddenly. In a moment he fell back, his hand dropped by his side, the look as of a beaten hound came into his eyes. Mr. Chester had come in, and set his back against the door.