“GOOD morning, Miss Stainforth.”
“Good morning,” Dolly replied, with a forbidding face.
“Is there any room in your carriage? I am going only as far as Birtwood.”
“There is always room in my carriage,” said Dolly, “for it is a ladies’ carriage. This gentleman got in in a hurry just as we were starting, but he is to leave if any ladies come and want his place. I could not let any other gentleman come in, but if Ada is with you——”
George Westland’s countenance fell. It was a heavy and not a lovely face, but there was feeling in it, and a flicker of hope and pleasure had made his eyes bright. Now the light went out of it suddenly. He uttered a blank “Oh!” of disappointment, and stood looking at her with a vacant look. Her companion in the carriage was not a likely person to excite any young lover’s jealousy, but yet——
“No, Ada is not with me,” he said, fixing an anxious look upon the stranger, who had retired to the other window, and was ostentatiously abstracting himself from the conversation. (She would surely never have anything to say to a bit of a little old fellow like that, poor George thought within himself.) He lingered at the window, not knowing what to say more, for conversation was not his forte. At last he remembered a subject which could not fail to be successful. “Have you heard,” he said—“but of course you must have heard—that Sir William is ill? He has been to Oxford—something about Paul. What Paul has been doing, I don’t know,” the young man went on with increasing vigour, “but something to make his people uneasy. And Sir William is ill; some one said just now they were bringing him home to-day.”
“Sir William ill! Oh, no, I have not heard anything about it. It must be a mistake,” said Dolly, “for I am sure the children did not know, and they would be sure to hear.”
“I am afraid it is quite true,” said the young man. But with this he had to make an abrupt disappearance, as the train was about setting off again. When he had gone, Mr. Markham Gaveston drew near from the other end of the carriage.
“I did not want to interfere with your conversation,” he said, with comical demureness. “He was not so bold as I; I did not ask leave. But indeed, poor young man, as I am already in possession, it would not have done him very much good.”
Dolly did not think it necessary to take any notice, and the distance to Birtwood was very short and left little time for further talk. Her companion, on his side, did not take any notice of the news about Sir William, which Dolly hoped was not true. “The Westlands always know before any one else if there is anything the matter with the Markhams; they seem to like to tell one,” she complained, with a contradiction of her own hope. But though he had been so profuse in his inquiries before, the stranger said nothing more now. A certain sternness had crept into his brown face; the habitual smile, half mocking, half complacent, died away from his mouth, his upper lip set firmly upon the other. But Dolly, who was not very deeply interested in the Markhams’ relation, did not notice these changes.
Birtwood was a railway junction, an important place in those regions. All the traffic of the district, all the comings and goings, had to concentrate there. Through all the county it was well known that you were more apt to see your friends at Birtwood than anywhere else. It did not matter where they were going, everybody passed by this point of union. People met as they crossed each other to take the trains up and down; there were all sorts of little services which one could render to another; and it was said that many marriages had been made and friendships cemented during the intervals of waiting which were inevitable, in the tedium of that new ill which modern flesh is heir to—the necessity of waiting for your train. The train in which Dolly and Mr. Markham Gaveston were was a little local train, and therefore used with indignity. It was pushed about, now to one side, now to the other, before it was permitted to approach the platform, another more important line of carriages being brought up and allowed to disgorge its passengers before the very eyes of the humble travellers who were kept behind, making little runs up and down, though they had arrived before the train which was thus preferred to them. Dolly, though she was used to this, felt it incumbent upon her to put on a show of indignation, for she did not want a stranger to suppose that this was how the trains from Markham Royal were always used. “I will make papa write about it,” she said. She was standing in front of the window when at last the train drew up, obscuring the scene for the little man behind, who took it patiently enough. When, however, Dolly uttered a little cry, and, leaning out head and shoulders, made eager signs to some one already standing on the platform, exclaiming, “Oh, Alice! Alice! wait a moment,” his interest was instantly roused. As soon as the carriage stopped, the girl precipitated herself out of it, and rushed towards two ladies who were waiting. Mr. Markham Gaveston made no attempt to follow. He placed himself at the window of the carriage and looked out, his brown face wholly changed in aspect, his eyebrows contracted, his lips set firm. Two women, mother and daughter, one in full maturity, the other in the sweetest bloom of youth, with their face turned towards a third person, who came slowly along leaning upon the arm of a young man. Dolly, rushing towards them, was received by the other girl with a hurried gesture of her hand, half salutation, half intended to draw the new-comer out of the way; while the elder lady took no notice, her face, which was full of anxiety, being turned towards the advancing group. All the people about followed more or less that anxious look, and the officials of the place were crowding round in respectful attendance. The spectator at the window, who had grown very pale through his brownness, saw an old man walking slowly and feebly along, leaning heavily upon his companion’s arm. He seemed to say something as they made their way along, for the young man turned round and waved his disengaged hand to warn the bystanders away. The blood rushed into Gus Markham’s ears, tingling and throbbing, as he saw this little procession pass, so close to where he sat at his window that he could have touched the chief figure. Sir William was ashy pale, his under lip drooped, one of his hands hung with a look of useless limpness by his side, he shuffled slightly with one foot. The air of a man stricken and broken down as by some great blow was upon him. The spectator gazed with the strangest pang, eagerly, keenly at the face he had never consciously seen before. Not a doubt of who it was crossed his mind. He had expected to meet him coldly, perhaps to be received with doubt and antagonism; but it had never occurred to Gus’s somewhat superficial but not unamiable spirit that anything tragical would be involved in the encounter. Gradually indeed, a sense of issues more serious than any that had ever occurred to him before had been invading the kindly self-satisfaction of his nature. Now he sat and gazed as under a spell. They had shown him Sir William’s portrait at the Chase. Was it he that had made the difference between that self-possessed, dignified, imposing little statesman and this broken and suffering old man? Gus gazed as one who cannot detach his eyes. The whole scene passed before him like a picture. The beautiful, anxious woman, gazing with such circles of trouble round her eyes, watching every step her husband made; the beautiful girl, putting her young companion aside, watching her father creep along through the sunshine; the young man—but here Gus’s thoughts broke off short. Was that Paul? It did not seem to him like the idea of Paul which he had got from all that had been said. The young man was not like any of the others. He had none of that “family look” which distinguishes even in unlikeness members of the same race. His face was serious, but not anxious like the others; he had an air of kind solicitude, not of family trouble. Was it Paul? Was it Sir William’s heir? They passed slowly before him, all the rest of the faces round looking after them, turned towards them, making them the centre, as this far more deeply interested spectator did.
He felt himself drawn after them, he could not tell how, and stole quite quietly out of the carriage as soon as they had passed. They were going further on to another train—a special one—which was going back to Markham Royal. Gus followed slowly among the other bystanders, walking as near the principal persons as he could, following as at a funeral. Was it his doing? Was it his fault? He heard the murmurs of the people with a strange sense of guiltiness. “He’s aged ten years,” he heard one say to another, “since the other day.” “Ah, sons has a deal to answer for,” said another. This speech went buzzing through his mind like a winged and stinging insect. It hurt him, though nobody could have thought of him in saying it. He saw the sick man put carefully into the carriage, watching every movement, and feeling as if he himself were hurt by the little stumble of his foot as he went in—the jar of unexpected motion in the train. Lady Markham passed him slowly, as he stood looking with a woful face, deadly serious and awe-stricken, after the sufferer, and gave him a grateful glance, seeing what she thought the sympathy in his eyes. But it was not sympathy; it was a far stronger, more personal feeling. He stood gazing while everything was arranged for Sir William’s comfort, and started to hear his voice coming out of the midst of the anxious group. It was not much he said—nothing, indeed, but a “That will do—that will do!” half querulous, half grateful. But the sound gave the looker-on a shock; it sounded to him reproachful, almost terrible. He kept standing there, staring, seeing nothing except the man whom he had never seen before—whom, for all he knew—was it possible?—his letter had killed.
Then suddenly the sound of other voices came to his ears—a whispering conversation. The two girls were behind him, not conscious of his presence.
“Very ill,” one was saying. “Oh, Dolly, yesterday we thought he would have died. But he is so much better now. The doctor was quite perplexed; he said he never saw anything so momentary; he could not call it a fit—it lasted so short a time. He thinks in a day or two he will be quite well again.”
“Alice!” said the other’s whispering voice, “don’t tell me if it vexes you; but I will never—never say a word. Oh, tell me! I can’t think of anything else—was it Paul?”
“Paul!” with a tone of indignation. Then the voice softened. “Dolly, dear, I know why you ask. Paul has been—very—wilful: he has given us a great deal of grief. I don’t know how to tell you. But it was not Paul. Oh, there have been so many things! and he had letters—that worried him.”
“Was that all?”
She was standing close by the man into whose heart these words sank like a stone.
“Everybody,” said Dolly, “is worried by letters; and now that he is safely here, you and your mamma will be able to take care of him, and keep everything that is bad for him out of his way.”
“I hope so,” said Alice doubtfully. And then she passed Gus Markham so closely that her dress touched him. He withdrew from the touch hastily, and looked at her with anxious eyes. If she had known! but she did not look at him; far less had she any thought that he was involved in the catastrophe that had happened. He stood quite still, paying no attention to Dolly, watching them as Alice joined her mother in the carriage. Then he hurried on to another compartment and got in. What a home-coming it would be!—the children that had been so merry subdued and silenced at once—the big house that had looked so peaceful, filled full of apprehension and trouble. He got into one of the carriages that followed, with a sense that nothing could disassociate him henceforward from this troubled family.
Dolly, standing wistful on the platform to watch her friend go away, caught sight of him, too, as the train passed, and a gleam of wonder shot over her little pale face. Yes, they would all wonder, no doubt. It would seem strange—very strange to everybody. But it was clear that wherever this party went he must follow them. His lot was cast in with theirs, once for all.