CHAPTER XLI.
A MORE CHEERFUL VIEW.
SIR EDWARD, with more than the usual irritation in his countenance, contemplated the new member of the family council. He had come in with a great deal to say, and the sight of Rochford was like a sudden check, unlooked for, and most unwelcome. He had, indeed, begun to speak, throwing himself into a chair. “I’ve got my trouble for my pains—” when he perceived that the weariness, the contrariety, the trouble in his face, had been betrayed to a stranger. He pulled himself up with a sudden effort. “Ah, Rochford,” he said, with an attempt at a smiling welcome, which was as much out of his usual habits as of his present state of mind.
“Edward,” said his wife, “Mr. Rochford has heard from Walter. He came to bring us the letter; he has some information, and he knows, oh, more than any of us—from the first.”
“What is it he knows?” cried the father, exasperated, with a start of energy in defense of his privacy and of his son. He looked with his angry, troubled eyes at the intruder with an angry defiance and contempt. Rochford the solicitor! the man of business, a man whom indeed he could not treat as an inferior, but who had no claim to place himself on the same level as a Penton of Penton. He had not hitherto shown any disposition to stand on his dignity to make the difference between the old level and the new. But that this young fellow should presume to bring information about his son, to thrust in a new and intrusive presence into a family matter, was more than he could bear. “I am very glad to consult Mr. Rochford on matters within his range,” he added, with an angry smile, “but this is a little, just a little, out of his sphere.”
“Edward!” cried Lady Penton, and “Father!” cried Ally; the latter with an indignation and resentment which surprised herself. But to hear him, so kind as he was, put down so, put aside when he wanted nothing but to help, had become suddenly intolerable to Ally. Why should Walter, who was behaving so unkindly, be considered so much above him, who had come out of his way to help? An impulse almost of indignation against Walter filled her mind, and she felt ready to silence her father himself, to demand what he meant. She did not herself comprehend the fervor of new feeling, the opposition, the resentment that filled her heart.
“When Sir Edward reads this letter he will understand,” said the young man, who kept his temper admirably. He was ready to bear a great deal more than that, having so much at stake. And he for his part was quite aware that for a Rochford of Reading to ally himself to the Pentons of Penton was a great matter, and one which might naturally meet with opposition. To have his part taken by Ally was a great matter—he could put up with her father’s scorn for a time.
Sir Edward read the letter, and his serious countenance grew more somber still. “From this it appears that my son has applied to you for money? I am sorry he has done it, but I don’t see that it tells any more. Walter has not made a confidant of you that I can see. My dear, I don’t mean to be disagreeable to Mr. Rochford; but he must see, any one might see, that a family matter—a—a consultation among ourselves—a question which has nothing to do with the public—”
“I am your man of business, Sir Edward,” said Rochford. “My family have known the secrets of yours long before my time. I don’t think we have ever betrayed our trust. Your son has put some information into my hands. I did not think I was justified in keeping it from you, and I think, if you will let me, that I can help you. Intrusion was not what I meant.”
He was the least excited of that tremulous party, and he felt that the object which was before him was well worth a struggle; but at the same time the young man was not without a certain generosity of purpose, a desire to help these troubled and anxious people. To Ally his attitude was entirely one of generosity and nobleness. He had come in the midst of the darkness to bring the first ray of light, and he was too magnanimous to be disgusted or repulsed by the petulance of her father’s distress. If he had a more individual motive it was that of pleasing her, and that was no selfish motive, surely. That added—how could it be otherwise?—a charm to all the rest in her dazzled eyes.
“Mr. Rochford is very kind, Edward,” said Lady Penton. “Why should we not take the help he offers? He is a young man, he understands their ways, not like you and me. The young ones understand each other, just as we understand each other. They haven’t the same way of judging. They don’t think how their fathers and mothers suffer at home. Oh, let him go! it isn’t as if he would talk of it and betray us. Listen to him. He has known of this all the time, and he hasn’t betrayed us. Oh, let him go.”
“Go! where is he to go?”
“To find Walter,” they all cried together.
“It is killing you,” said Lady Penton. “Let the young man—who doesn’t feel as we do, who doesn’t think of it as we do—let him go, Edward. It seems so dreadful to us, but not to him. He thinks that probably there is nothing dreadful in it at all, that it is a thing that—a thing that—boys do: they are so thoughtless—they do it, meaning no particular harm.”
“There is something in that,” said Sir Edward, with relief. “I am glad you begin to see it in that way, my dear. It is more silly than wrong—I have thought so all along.”
“That is what Mr. Rochford says. He is a young man himself. He thinks the boy will never have considered—and that as soon as he thinks, as soon as he finds out—Edward, we mustn’t be tragical about it. I see it now as you say. Stay at home—you have so many things to think of—and let the young man go. They understand each other between themselves,” Lady Penton said, with a somewhat wan smile.
And then Sir Edward began to relax a little. “Rochford is right there,” he said. “It is perhaps a good thing to have a man’s view. You, of course, were always unduly frightened, my dear. As for not writing, that is so common a thing—I could have told you all that. But, naturally, seeing you in such a state has affected me. When you are married,” he said, turning to Rochford with a faint smile, “you will find that though you may think it weak of her, or even silly, the color of your thoughts will always be affected by your wife’s.”
This speech produced a curious little momentary dramatic scene which had nothing to do with the question in hand. Rochford’s eyes instinctively flashed a glance at Ally, who, though hers were cast down, saw it, and flamed into sudden crimson, the consciousness of which filled her with shame and confusion. Her blush threw a reflection instantaneous, like the flash of a fire, over him, and lighted up his eyes with a glow of delight, to conceal which he too looked down, and answered, with a sort of servile respect, “I have no doubt of it whatever, sir; and it ought to be so.”
“Well, perhaps theoretically it ought to be so,” Sir Edward said, who noticed nothing, and whose observation was not at any time quick enough to note what eyes say to eyes. Now that it was all explained and settled, and he felt that it was by his wife’s special interposition that Rochford had been taken into favor, there could be no doubt that it was a comfort to have a man, with all the resources of youth and an immediate knowledge of that world which Sir Edward was secretly aware he had almost forgotten, to take counsel with. His spirits rose. His trouble had been greatly intensified by that sensation of helplessness which had grown upon him as he wandered about the London streets, sick at heart, obstinate, hopeless, waiting upon chance, which is so poor a support. This day he had been more hopeless than ever, feeling his impotence with that sickening sense of being able to do nothing, to think of nothing, which is one of the most miserable of sensations. It was so far from true that he had taken the color of his thoughts from his wife, or felt Walter’s absence more lightly than she had done, that it was he who had been the pessimist all along, whose imagination and memory had furnished a thousand stories of ruin and the destruction of the most hopeful of young men, and to whom it was almost impossible to communicate any hopefulness. But a partnership of any kind is of great use in such circumstances, and above all the partnership of marriage, in which one can always put the blame upon the other with the advantage of being himself able to believe that the matter really stands so. Lady Penton did not complain. She was willing enough to bear the blame. Her own heart was much relieved by Rochford’s cheerful intimation that Walter’s little escapade was the commonest thing in the world, and most probably meant nothing at all. If it might but be so! If it were only his thoughtlessness, the folly of a boy! At least if that could not be believed it was still a good thing and most fortunate that people should think so, and the man who suggested it endeared himself to the mother’s heart.
And then another and more expansive consultation began. On ordinary occasions Sir Edward allowed himself to be questioned, giving brief answers, sometimes breaking off impatiently, shutting himself up in a troubled silence, from which an unsatisfactory scrap of revelation unwillingly dropped would now and then come. Sometimes he drove them all away from him with the morose irritation of his unsuccess. What did it matter what he had done in town, when it all came to nothing, when it was of no consequence, and brought no result? But to-day he spoke with a freedom which he had never shown before. Everything was more practical, more possible. The new agent had to be informed of all the facts upon which perhaps his better knowledge of such matters might throw new light. Sir Edward confessed that he had extracted from old Crockford the address of the girl’s mother, “Though I could not allow—though I mean I feel sure that the boy never mixed himself up with people of that sort,” he added, with his little air of superiority; then described Mrs. Sam Crockford to them, and her declaration that she knew nothing of the young gentleman. In his heart of hearts Sir Edward did not believe this any more than Rochford did, but it gave him a countenance, it supported his new theory, the theory so adroitly suggested to him that Walter after all was probably not much to blame. This theory was a greater consolation than can be told to all of them. Not much to blame! Careless only, amusing himself, a thing which most youths of his age did somehow or other. “Of course,” Rochford said, “there are some preternatural boys who never tear their pinafores or do anything they ought not to do.” Thus he conveyed to their minds a suggestion that it was in fact rather spirited and fine of Walter to claim the emancipation which was natural to his kind. The load which was thus lifted from their gentle bosoms is not to be described. Lady Penton indeed knew better, but yet was so willing to be deceived, so ready to be persuaded! And Sir Edward knew—oh, a great many variations of the theme, better and worse—but yet was willing too to take the young man’s word for it, the young man who belonged to Walter’s generation and knew what was in the minds of the boys as none of the others could do. He brought comfort to all their hearts, both to those who had experience of life and those who had none, by his bold assumption of an easy knowledge. “I have no doubt, if truth were told, he is dying to come home,” Rochford said, “and very tired of all the noise and nonsense that looks so pleasant at a distance. I know how one feels in such circumstances—bored to death, finding idleness and the theaters and all that sort of thing the dreariest routine, and yet ashamed to own it and come back. Oh, he only wants to see a little finger held up to him from home, I know!” said the young fellow, with a laugh. He did himself the greatest injustice, having been all his life of the order of those who have the greatest repugnance to dirtying their pinafores. But love and policy, and pity as well, inspired him, and his laugh was the greatest comfort in the world to all those aching hearts. He took down Mrs. Sam Crockford’s address, and all the information which could be given to him; the very sight of his little note-book inspiring his audience with confidence. “The thing for me to do,” he said, “is to take him myself the money he wants. Though the address he gives is only at a post-office I shall find him out—and perhaps take a day or two’s amusement in his company,” he added, with a smile.
“Oh, Mr. Rochford, that would be kindness indeed!” Lady Penton said.
And Ally gave him a look—what did it say? Promises, pledges, a whole world of recompense was in it. He said, with another little laugh of confidence and self-satisfaction, not untouched with emotion, “Yes, I think that’s the best way. I’ll get him to take me about, I only a country fellow, and he up to all the ways of town; and it will be strange if we don’t get to be on confidential terms; and as I feel quite certain he is dying to come home—”
“Most likely, most likely,” said Sir Edward. It was, as Rochford felt, touch and go, very delicate work with Sir Edward. A word too much, a look even, might be enough to remind Walter’s father that he was the head of the house of Penton, and that this was only his man of business. The young lawyer was acute enough to see that, and wise enough to restrain the natural desire to enlarge upon what he could do, which the intoxication of feminine belief which was round him encouraged and called forth. He subdued himself with a self-denial which was very worthy of credit, but which no one gave him any credit for. And by this time the afternoon was spent, darkness coming on, and it was necessary he should go home: he felt this to be expedient in the state of affairs, though it was hard to go without a word from Ally, without a moment of that more intimate consultation, all in the erring brother’s interests, which yet drew these two so much closer together. “I will come this way,” he said, as they all went with him to the door where the dog-cart was standing, “to-morrow, on my way to town, to see if there are any last directions—anything you wish to suggest, Sir Edward—anything that may occur to you in the meantime, which I might carry out.”
“Yes, perhaps that will be well,” Sir Edward said.
“To go direct from you will give me so much more influence.”
“Yes, yes,” he said impatiently. It was very delicate work with Sir Edward. “Telegraph if I’m wanted. Of course I am ready—whatever is wanted.”
“And you will let us know at once, oh, at once, Mr. Rochford; you know how anxious, though foolishly, as you all say—”
“Not foolishly,” the young man said, pressing Lady Penton’s hand. He was very sorry for her wistful, tremulous looks, though his heart was bounding with satisfaction and elation in his own prospects. “Not foolishly,” he half whispered, “but soon to be over. I think I can promise you that—I feel sure I can promise you that.”
“God bless you!” said Walter’s mother, “and reward you, for I can’t—oh, if you bring me back my boy, Mr. Rochford!”
“I will,” he cried, but still in a whisper. “I will! and you can reward me, dear Lady Penton.” He kissed her hand in his emotion, which is a salutation very unusual in mild English households, and brought a little thrill, a sensation of solemnity, and strangeness, and possibilities unconceived, to her startled consciousness. Ally could not speak at all. She was half concealed in her mother’s shadow, clinging to her, still more full of strange sweet excitement and emotion. Her young eyelids seemed to weigh down her eyes. She could not look at him, but his words seemed to murmur in her ears and dwell there, returning over and over again, “You can reward me.” Ally at least, now, if not before, knew how.
“You’ve got a good horse there,” said Sir Edward, mechanically stroking the shining neck of the impatient animal, “you’ll not be long on the road.”
“No, she goes well; to-morrow then, sir, early.”
“As early as you please—you’ll have a cold drive. Thank you, Rochford.” He put out his hand to the young man with a hasty touch just as Rochford took the reins, and then turned away and shut himself up in his book-room, while the others stood watching the dash of the mare, the sudden awakening of sound in the silence, the glimmer of the lamp as the cart flew along the drive. Sir Edward retired to think it over by his dull afternoon fire, which was not made up till after tea. The night had fallen, but he did not immediately light his candles. He bent down over the dull red glow to think it over. His mind was relieved, there seemed now some possibility that this miserable anxiety might be over. But even though his object may be gained by other means, a man does not like to fail in his own person, and the chill of unsuccess was in his heart. Rochford, his man of business! well, princes themselves have to seek help from men of business. It was his trade to find out things. It was in the way of his profession that he should succeed. But then had not his ear caught something about a reward—a reward! what reward? except his charges, of course. A new contrariety came into Sir Edward’s mind, though he could not define it. He had not at all an agreeable half hour as he sat thinking it over in that dull moment before tea, over the dull book-room fire.