PAUL did not at first obey the call thus sent to him. He lingered, angry that his friend should interfere as he said. He knew it was not interference, but the pride which was so strong in him, notwithstanding all his theories, resented haughtily the intrusion of a stranger into his family. Paul’s theory was far from being complete. He was ready himself to abandon all he possessed, and to assert it as a necessity that every honest man should do the like, receive his share and nothing more; but he did not contemplate the idea of a general descent of his family into the wider ranks of common brotherhood. That his father should share his ideas, and resign his wealth and position, was a thing incredible he well knew; and curiously enough he had never thought of it. Whatever happened in the way of levelling, it had never seriously occurred to him to think that the Markhams would be as the Spears, as the grocers or the hatters. (Grocers and hatters by the way are always excluded in visionary schemes of revolution. One must draw a line somewhere; and both the rich and poor draw it at the shopkeeper.) Such a thing could not be; it was impossible. Were there a republic proclaimed in England to-morrow, was there a general confiscation and redistribution of everything, making all men the same, the Markhams could not be as the Spears. It was not possible.
But still more hotly, as in the presence of real danger, Paul’s pride stood up against the possibility of the Markhams being as the Fairfaxes.
Richard Fairfax was his friend; he was a gentleman—yes, no doubt, in himself a gentleman—but not as the Markhams were gentlemen. He was a nobody; he was the son of a nobody. He did not belong to the Fairfaxes of the north or of the south. He had a good name, but no more. What had such a fellow to do in Alice Markham’s company? Spears at the Chase was an eccentricity of his own, which made Paul feel himself above prejudice, and nobly superior to the conventional maxims of society; but Fairfax there affronted his pride. The two things were quite different. The same rules did not seem to apply to the noble working man, who was above them, as to the gentleman who was only a gentleman in his own right. That his mother should have formed a kind of alliance with this young man (though his own friend) irritated him beyond measure. Women were so easily taken in. Good manners, and a look of good breeding—so easily acquired nowadays when everybody is formed in the same mould, and all kinds of people can achieve the hall-mark of public schools and universities,—was enough to take in a woman. Had Paul been consulted, no such person should have entered the sacred precincts.
Yet Paul was a democrat, on the verge of surrendering everything, and throwing in his fortunes with a little communistic party! The inconsistency did not strike him, or if it ever stole across his mind, he repelled the consciousness with a hot protestation within himself that it was not at all the same thing. That Spears should be his equal was a thing to fight for, a thing that could never derange the inborn sense of aristocracy; but that Fairfax, who was so near his equal, should be his equal—therein lies the danger, which instinct seizes upon, which rouses pride in arms.
This proud distaste and discontent occupied his mind at first to the exclusion of every other feeling. And when that faded, it may be allowed that Paul had some cause for a disinclination to see his mother. What had she done? She had dragged down upon his head the humble roof under which he had intended to find shelter. She had thrown him into the arms of those with whom indeed he was eager to consort, but whose embrace was no way attractive—nay, was repulsive to him. She had changed all his circumstances, vulgarised his plans, degraded him from the rank of a political apostle into that of a wretched besotted lover. Young men who are not in love, and in whom the intellect predominates, are apt to be very hard upon what they consider the delusion, the incredible folly of such a passion. To sacrifice freedom, personal independence, the unencumbered lightness of manhood, for the sake of a woman, seems to them the most ridiculous of mockeries until the moment comes when they share it. This was Paul’s way of thinking. It was an outrage to his nature and mental powers to make him appear to be doing that for Janet Spears which he was doing from the highest principle. And this was what his mother, with her womanish interpretation of his high aims and wishes, had made appear. He could not forgive her; and in this he was not without reason. He made many efforts before he could think with patience of the strange morning’s work which had changed everything for him. No, he could not go to her so soon. He went to his rooms and shut himself in, sitting down among his books like any Roman among any ruins. Read! why should he read? These were useless tools of an old world, which he was about throwing off. “Honours!” what were they to him? The schools and the struggle had retreated into dim distance. A degree would be of far less consequence to him than a gun, and all his studies not worth half so much as the simplest lesson of his country breeding. To sit there, however, among all those relics of a time which was over, which had no more hold upon him, was gloomy work. And every refuge seemed taken from him. He did not want to go to the rooms of any other “man” where he might meet Fairfax. He could not go back to Spears; his heart revolted at the thought of going (as habit made him call the place where his parents were) home. He was walking about in this gloomy way, now gazing out of one window, now out of another, when a little tap came to his door, a light foot, a soft voice, and agitated face.
“Oh, Paul, may I come in?” Alice said. “Have you not seen Mr. Fairfax? He was to tell you papa was ill. We want you—oh, we want you, Paul.”
“What has Fairfax got to do with it?” growled Paul.
“Mr. Fairfax! Oh, nothing, but that he was so kind; he helped papa up stairs. He came for you when mamma sent him. I do not know what we should have done without him; for—you were not there, Paul!”
“Not much wonder if I was not there!”
“Why? Mamma does nothing but blame herself. She cries and says we should not have come. Oh, Paul! and papa, I told you, has had one of his faints. Will you come?” cried Alice, moved to tears, yet flushing high with a generous impatience; “or are we to be left to shift for ourselves?”
“She deserves it,” he said. “What had she to do with it? Surely I am old enough to manage my own affairs.”
“Is it mamma you mean by she? Then stay—or go where you like. Oh, how dare you!” cried Alice, wildly angry. “Mamma!” This stung her so that she went to the door hurriedly, going away; but that little flash of wrath was soon over. She stopped and turned round upon him, making another appeal. “You don’t deserve that we should care for you; but we do care for you,” she said. “Oh, Paul! when I tell you papa has had one of his faints—for what? because to think of you going away, forsaking us, giving up home, and your own place, and the people that you ought to care for, was more than he could bear. Paul! how can you leave us—leave Markham and everything you were once fond of—leave your duty, and the place you were born to?”
“My dear little Alice,” he said, with a smile, glad to conceal a little melting of his own heart which was beyond his power of resisting, by this fine superiority, “speak of things you understand.”
Then Alice flashed upon him with all the visionary vehemence of a girl in her own defence.
“How should I not understand?” she cried, “Am I so stupid? It is you who make yourself little, pretending to despise us girls. What is there to despise in us? We do not fill our head with pride and fancies like you. We love those who belong to us, and serve them, and do our duty as we know how. It is not we who leave our old father to suffer, or tear our mother’s heart in two. It is not we that turn peace into trouble. There you stand,” cried Alice, “a man! fit to be in parliament making the laws better—fit to be doing something for them that belong to you, after learning, learning all your life, doing nothing but learn, that you might be good for something. And now, all you think you are good for is to emigrate, like the poor Irish. Is that all you are good for? Then you ought to be humble, and not dare to turn round and sneer and tell us to speak of things we understand. Understand! I understand that if you can do nothing better than that—if, after all, you can only betray us and forsake us, and be no use, no help to any one, it is a shame!”
Who can doubt that Alice’s eloquence was broken with sobs, and her fury all blind with tears? She would not, however, for pride, let him see them fall, but turned away from the door with passionate haste, and flew down the deserted staircase, swallowing her sobs as best she could, and dashing away the hasty torrent from her eyes. She heard him laugh as she got out into the air in all her agitation, and this sound stung Alice to the heart.
But if she had known it, Paul’s laugh was like the ploughboy’s whistle to keep his courage up. He had not expected any such onslaught, and he was not insensible to it, any more than she was to his scorn. For, after all, he did not in the least despise his sister, though it was so handy to pretend to do so. When he was left again among his ruins, though he stimulated himself, as by a sickly trumpet note of pretended victory by that laugh, Paul did not feel half so grand a personage as he could have wished, and for the next half hour or so there came and stabbed at him a little array of by no means pleasant thoughts.
In the afternoon, after some hours had elapsed, Paul walked into his father’s room with a little air of defiance, and without any apologies. Sir William was seated in an easy chair, looking aged and worn.
“I am very sorry to hear that you have been ill, sir,” his son said.
“Yes, I have been ill,” said Sir William, “but it will pass off. I think the best thing for me is to get home.”
“I should not think you could be very comfortable here,” Paul said.
His mother was in the room, and his grievance against her rose up bitterly, and quenched the softer feeling which had moved him at sight of his father’s pale face.
“It would perhaps have been better that we had not come. There are many things—that I must see after—in your interests. Paul, do you mean to come home with us? Whatever you may do hereafter, it would be best for you to come home now.”
There was a momentary pause.
Sir William put forward no arguments, not even that of his own condition—and used no reproaches. But behind him appeared Lady Markham’s face, pale and pathetic with entreaty. Her eyes were fixed upon her son with a look which he could scarcely withstand. And therefore Paul set his face like a rock, and would not yield.
“I don’t see what good it would do, sir,” he said. “You know my unalterable resolution. You know my principles, which are so much at variance with yours, and would prevent me from ever taking the position you wish. Why should we worry each other since we can’t agree? Besides, other circumstances have arisen,” he said, with a vengeful glance at his mother. “But before I sail I shall certainly come to say good-bye.”
His mother’s faint call after him, “Paul! Paul!” which sounded like a cry of despair, caught at his very heart, but did not bring him back. His feet felt like lead as he went down the stairs. Almost they would not carry him from everything that was in reality most dear to him; but the more nature held him back the more determined was his obstinate will to go. He would come back to say good-bye before he sailed. Was he leaving himself a place of repentance? But at present, though he was wretched, though his heart seemed to have an arrow through it, and his feet were like lead, he would not stay.
This was how it came about that Sir William appeared at Birtwood station, leaning upon the arm of a young man who was not his son. After Paul’s visit he had another attack of faintness; and Fairfax, who came back in the evening to put himself at the disposal of the ladies, found them in great agitation, eager to get home again, yet half afraid to venture on the journey. He came back in the morning to help them to get their patient to the railway; and when they got there, Sir William, feeling the advantage of his arm, so held by him, that without either invitation or preparation, the young man, so strangely united to these strangers came with them, not a word being said on the subject. He had not even a ticket, nor the smallest provision for a visit. What of that? The young fellow was of that light heart and easy temper to which no adventure comes wrong.