THIS time Sir William did not get better as he had done before. His third fainting-fit proved the beginning of an illness at which the village doctor looked very grave. It was still but a very short time since he had come down from London, relieved at the end of the session, to enjoy his well-earned leisure, with everything prosperous around him, nothing but the little vexation of Paul’s vagaries to give him a prick now and then, a reminder that he too was subject to the ills of mortality. What a happy house it had been to which the tired statesman had come home! When he had taken his seat by the side of Alice in the little pony-carriage there had been nothing but assured peace and comfort in his mind. Paul:—yes—Paul has been a vexation; but no more. Now all that brightness was overcast; the happy children in their holiday freedom were hushed in their own corner of the house no longer allowed to roam through it wherever they pleased. Lady Markham, with all pretty gowns, her lace and ornaments put away, lived in her husband’s sick-room, or came down stairs now and then with an anxious smile, “like someone coming to call,” the little girls said. Alice had become not Alice, but a sort of emissary between the outside world and that little hidden world up stairs in which the life of the house seemed concentrated. As for Sir William, he lay between life and death. First one, then another great London physician had come down to see him—but all that they could suggest had done him little or no good. All over the country messengers came every day for news of him; the head of the government, and even the Queen herself, and all the leading members of the party sent telegrams of inquiry; and there were already flutters of expectation in the town he represented as to the chances of the Liberal interest, “should anything happen.” Even into Lady Markham’s mind, as she sat in the silent room, often darkened and always quiet, trying hard to keep herself from thinking, there would come thoughts, dreary previsions of change, floating like clouds across her mental firmament, against her will, in spite of all her precautions—visions of darkness and blackness and solitude which she tried in vain to shut out. Her husband lying so still under the high canopies of the bed, from which all curtains and everything that could obstruct the free circulation of air had been drawn aside, capable of no independent action, but still the centre of every thought and plan—was it possible to imagine him absent altogether, swept away out of the very life in which he had been the chief actor! These thoughts did not come by any will of hers, but drifted gloomily across her mind as she sat silent, sometimes trying to read, mechanically going over page after page, but knowing nothing of the meaning of the words that were under her eyes. To realise the death of the sufferer whom one is nursing is, save when death is too close to be any longer ignored, not only a shock, but a wrong, a guilt, a horror. Is it not like signing his sentence, agreeing that he is to die? Lady Markham felt as if she had consented to the worst that could happen when these visions of the future drifted across her mind.
Meanwhile who can describe the sudden dreariness of the house upon which in full sunshine of youth and enjoyment this blight came? The boys wished themselves at school—could there be any stronger evidence of the gloom around them?—the girls grew sad and cross, and cried for nothing at all. Fairfax lingered on, not knowing what to do, afraid to trouble the anxious ladies even by proposing to go away, obliterating himself as much as he could, though doing everything that Paul, had he been there, would have been expected to do. Paul did not come till a week after, though he was written to every day—but in that week a great many things had happened. For one thing Lady Markham had seen and spoken with the stranger who was living at the Markham Arms in the village, and who had introduced himself to the children as a relation. She had heard nothing of Mr. Gus except that one mention of him by little Bell on the night of the return, and that had made no great impression on her mind. It had been immediately before the recurrence of Sir William’s faint, which had naturally occupied all her thoughts, and how could it be supposed that Lady Markham would remember a thing of such small importance? It surprised her much to meet in the hall that strange little figure in light, loose clothes, standing hat in hand, as she went from one room to another. Sir William then had been but a few days ill, and Lady Markham had hitherto resolutely kept herself from all those drifting shadows of fear. It was one of the days when she had come to “make a call” on her children. Sir William was asleep, and she persuaded herself that he was better, she had come down, as she said, to tell them the good news; but her smile as she told it was so tremulous, that little Bell, whose nerves had got entirely out of order, began to cry. And then they all cried together for a minute, and were a little eased by it. Alice protested that she was crying for joy because papa was better, and that it was very silly, but she could not help it; and Lady Markham had all the brightness of tears in her eyes as she came out into the hall on her way back to the sick-room; and lo, there before her in the hall, stood the little gentleman, bowing, with his hat in his hand.
“I think you must have heard of me, Lady Markham,” he said.
She looked at him, with a kind of horror that a stranger should be able to find and detain her—she who ought to be by her husband’s bedside. In her capacity of nurse it seemed almost as great a crime to intercept her as it would be to disturb Sir William; but she was too courteous to express her horror.
“I do not think so,” she said, with a conciliatory smile which was intended to take off any edge of offence that might be found in her profession of ignorance. Then she looked at the card which he handed to her. “Perhaps this ought to be given to Brown. Ah! but now I remember. You are related to some kind people, the Lennys, who were here.”
“Have the Lennys been here?” said Mr. Gus, with unfeigned surprise. “Yes, I am a relation of theirs also; but in the meantime there is a much nearer relationship.”
“I am sure Mr. Gaveston,” said Lady Markham, with a smile by which she begged pardon for what she was saying, “that you will not think it rude if I leave you now. I don’t like to be long away from Sir William. When he wakes he may miss me.”
“Lady Markham,” said Mr. Gus, “I wish you would let me speak to you. I do wish it indeed. It would be so much easier afterwards——”
She looked at him with genuine surprise, then with a glance round her up the great staircase, where she wished to go, and round the open doors by which no one came for her deliverance, she yielded unwillingly. “I fear I can only give you a few minutes,” she said, and led the way into the library. She had done so without for the moment thinking that her husband’s room was scarcely a place in which, at this moment, to discourse placidly with a stranger on subjects of which she was ignorant. It was so full of him. His books, his papers, all arranged as if he had that moment left them; his chair at its usual angle, as if he were seated in it unseen; everything marked with the more than good order, the precision and formal regularity of all Sir William’s habits. The things which mark the little foibles of character, the innocent weaknesses of habit, are those which go most to the heart when death is threatening a member of a household. The sight of all these little fads, which sometimes annoyed her, and sometimes made her laugh when all was well, gave Lady Markham a shock of sudden pain and sudden attendrissement. Her heart had been soft enough before to her husband; it melted now in a suffusion of tender love and grief. Her eyes filled. Might it be that he never should sit at that table again?
“I am sure,” she said, making once more the same instinctive appeal to the sympathy of the stranger, “that you will not detain me longer than you can help, for my husband is very ill. I cannot help being very anxious——” She could not say any more.
“I am very sorry, Lady Markham—but that is the very thing that makes it so important. May I ask if it is possible you have never heard of me? Never even heard of me!—that is the strangest thing of all.”
In her surprise she managed better to get rid of her tears. She gave a startled glance at him, and then at the card she still held in her hand. “I cannot quite say that—for Mrs. Lenny and the Colonel both spoke—I cannot say of you—but of a family called Gaveston whom Sir William had known. You are the son, I presume, of an old friend? My husband, Mr. Gaveston,” said Lady Markham, with warmth, “is not a man to be indifferent to old friends. You may be sure he would have been glad to see you, and done his best to make Markham pleasant to you:—but the circumstances—explain——”
“Then,” said her strange companion with a certain air of sternness which changed the character of his face, “that is all you know?”
She looked at the card again. How was it she had not noticed the second name before? “I see you have Markham in your name,” she said; “I had not noticed. Is there then some distant relationship? But Mrs. Lenny never claimed to be a relation: or perhaps—I see! you are Sir William’s godson,” Lady Markham said, with a smile which was somewhat forced and uncomfortable. She kept her eyes upon him, uneasy, not knowing what might come next, vaguely foreseeing something which must wound her.
Mr. Gus’s brown countenance grew red—he gave forth a sharp and angry laugh. “His godson,” he said; “and that is all you know?”
Lady Markham grew far more red than he had done. Her beautiful face became crimson. The heat of shame and distress upon it seemed to get into her eyes. What was this suspicion that was flung into her mind like a fire-brand? and in this place where her husband’s blameless life had been passed, and at this moment when he was ill, perhaps approaching the end of all things! “Mr. Gaveston,” she said, trembling, “I cannot, I cannot hear any more. It is not to me you ought to come, and at such a time! Oh, if you have been put in any false position—if you have been subjected to humiliation, by anything my husband has done——” Her voice was choked by the growing heat and pain of her agitation; even to have such a horrible thought suggested to her now seemed cruelty incredible. It was wrong on her part to allow it to cross the threshold of a mind which was sacred to him. “Oh,” she cried, wringing her hands, “if you have had anything to suffer, I am sorry for you, with all my heart! but I cannot hear any more now—do not ask me to hear any more now! Another time, anything we can do for you, any amends that can be made to you—but oh, for God’s sake, think of the state he is lying in, and say no more now!”
Mr. Gus listened with wonder, irritation, and dismay. That she should be excited was natural, but with respect to their meaning, her words were like raving to him. He could not tell what she meant. Do anything for him, make him amends!—was the woman mad? He only stared at her blankly, and did not make any reply.
Then she held out her hand to him, trying to smile, with her eyes full of tears. “It shall not do you any harm eventually,” she said, “your kindness now. Thank you for not insisting now. I have not left—Sir William for so long a time since he was ill.”
She made a pause before her husband’s name. If it were possible that there might be a link between him and this stranger—a link as strong as——! It made her heart sick to think upon it; but she would not think upon it. It flashed upon her mind only, but was not permitted to stay there: and half because of real anxiety to get back to the sick-room, half from a still greater eagerness to get rid of her visitor, she made a step towards the door.
“If you will let me say so,” said Mr. Gus, “you oughtn’t to shut yourself up in a sick-room. You may think me an enemy, but I’m no enemy. I wish you all well. I like the children. I think I could be very fond, if she’d let me, of Alice, and I admire you——”
“Sir!” Lady Markham said. She turned her astonished eyes upon him with a blaze in them which would have frightened most men; then opened the door with great stateliness and dignity, ignoring the attempt he made to do it for her. “I must bid you good morning,” she said, making him a curtsey worthy of a queen—then walked across the hall with the same dignity; but as soon as she was out of sight, flew up stairs, and, before going to her husband, went to her own room for a time to compose herself. She felt herself outraged, insulted—a mingled sense of rage and wonder had taken possession of her gentle soul. Who was this man, and what could he mean by his claim upon her, his impudent expressions of interest in the family, as if he belonged to the family? Was it not bad enough to put a stigma upon her husband at the moment when he was dying, and when all her thoughts were full of the tenderest veneration for him, and recollection of all his goodness! To throw this shadow of the sins of his youth, even vaguely, upon Sir William’s honourable, beautiful age, was something like a crime. It was like desecration of the holiest sanctuary. Lady Markham could not but feel indignant that any man should seize this moment to put forth such a claim—and to make it to her, disturbing her ideal, introducing doubt and shame into her love, just at the moment when all her tenderness was most wanted! it was cruel. And then, as if that was not enough, to assume familiarity, to speak of her child as Alice, this stranger, this——! Delicate woman as she was, Lady Markham, in her mind, applied as hard a word to Mr. Gus as the severest of plainspoken men could have used. She seemed to see far, far back in the mists of distance, a young man falling into temptation and sin, and some deceitful girl—must it not have been a deceitful girl?—working upon his innocence. This is how, when the heart is sore, such blame is apportioned. He it was who must have been seduced and deluded. How long ago? some fifty years ago, for the man looked as old as Sir William. When this occurred to her, her heart gave a leap of joy. Perhaps the story was all a lie—a fiction. He did look almost as old as Sir William; how could it be possible? It must be a lie.
When she came as far as this she bathed her eyes and composed herself, and went back to her husband’s room. He was still asleep, and Lady Markham took her usual place where she could watch him without disturbing him, and took her knitting which helped to wile away the long hours of her vigil. If the knitting could but have occupied her mind as it did her hands! but in the quiet all her thoughts came back; her mind became a court of justice, in which the arguments on each side were pleaded before a most anxious, yet, alas, too clear-sighted judge. This stranger, who figured as the accuser, was arraigned before her, and examined in every point of view. He was strange; he was not like the men whom Lady Markham was used to see; but he did not look like an impostor. She tried to herself to prove him so, but she could not do it. He was not like an impostor. In his curious foreignness and presumption, he yet had the air of a true man. But then, she said to herself, how ignorant, how foolish he must be, how incapable of any just thought or feeling of shame. To come to her! If he had indeed a claim upon Sir William, there were other ways of making that claim; but that he should come to her—Sir William’s wife—and oh, at such a time! This was the refrain of her thoughts to which she came back and back. As she sat there in the darkened room, her fingers busy with her knitting, her ears intent to hear the slightest movement the sleeper made, this was how her mind was employed. Perhaps when they had gone through all these stages, her thoughts came back with a still more exquisite tenderness to the sick man lying there, she thought, so unconscious of this old, old sin of his which had come back to find him out. How young he must have been at the time, poor boy!—younger than Paul—and away from all his friends, no one to think of him as Paul had, to pray for him—a youth tossed into the world to sink or to swim. Lady Markham’s heart melted with sympathy. And to make up for that youthful folly, in which perhaps he was sinned against as well as sinning, what a life of virtue and truth he had led ever since. She cast her thoughts back upon the past with a glow of tender approval and praise. Who could doubt his goodness? He had done his duty in everything that had been given him to do. He had served his country, he had served his parish, both alike, well; and he had been the Providence of all the poor people dependent upon him. She went over all that part of his career which she had shared, with tears of melancholy happiness coming to her eyes. Nothing there that any one could blame: oh, far from that! everything to be praised. No man had been more good, more kind, more spotless; no one who had trusted in him had ever been disappointed. And what a husband he had been: what a father he had been! If this were true, if he had done wrong in his youth, had he not amply proved that it was indeed but a folly of youth, a temporary aberration—nothing more. Lady Markham felt that she was a traitor to her husband to sit here by his sick-bed and allow herself to think that he had ever been wicked. Oh, no, he could not have been wicked! it was not possible. She went softly to his bedside to look at him while he slept. Though he was sleeping quietly enough, there was a cloud of trouble on his face. Was it perhaps a reflection from the doubt she had entertained of him, from the floating shadows of old evil that had been blown up like clouds upon his waning sky?