GUS came into the hall with Bell and Marie, and waited there while they proceeded to plead his cause within. He walked about the hall softly, and looked at the pictures, the old map of the county, and other curiosities that were there. These things beguiled his anxiety about his reception, and filled him with an altogether novel interest. A thing which is quite indifferent to us while it belongs to our neighbour, gains immediate attraction when it becomes our own. He looked at everything with interest, even the cases of stuffed birds that decorated one corner. Then he came and seated himself in the great bamboo chair in which he had sat down the first time he came to Markham. It was not very long ago, not yet two months, but what a difference there was! Then, indeed, he had been anxious about his reception, and he was anxious about his reception now. But when he came first, he had been doubtful of his position altogether, not sure what his rights were, or what claim he could make—and now his anxieties were merely sentimental, and his rights all established. He sat where he had sat then, and saw everything standing just as he had seen it, the trees the same, except in colour, nothing altered except himself. Now it was all his, this noble domain. He had not known what welcome he might receive, whether his father would acknowledge him, or what would happen, and now his father’s possessions were his, and no one could infringe his rights. How strange it was! He sat sunk in the great bamboo chair, and listened to the faint sound of voices which he heard through the open door, the two little girls pleading his cause. He was very desirous that they should be successful, for if he was not successful, Markham would be a dull house—but still, successful or not, nothing any longer could affect him vitally. A poor stranger, a wanderer from the tropics, unused to England and English ways, with not much money, and a very doubtful prospect before him, he had been when he first came here. How could he help smiling at the change? He had no desire to do any one harm. All the evil that he had done was involuntary, but it could not be expected that he would give up his rights. He felt very much at his ease as he seated himself in that chair, notwithstanding the touch of anxiety in his mind. The prospect which was before him was enough to satisfy an ambitious man, but Gus was not ambitious. Indeed, the advantages he had gained were contracted in his eyes by his own inability fully to understand their extent. They were greater than he was aware, greater than his imagination could grasp. But, at least, they included everything that his imagination was able to grasp, and mortal man cannot desire more.
Bell had gone in very quietly, inspired by her mission, without pausing to think, and Marie had followed, as Marie always did. They went straight into the room where they were sure, they thought, of seeing their mother. It was in the recess, the west chamber, at the end of the drawing room, that they found her. But the circumstances did not seem very favourable to their plea. Lady Markham and Alice were reading a letter together, and Alice, it was very apparent, was crying over her mother’s shoulder, while Lady Markham was very pale, and her eyes red as if she had shed tears. “It is all over then,” she was saying as the children came in, folding the letter up to put it away. And Alice cried, and made no reply. This checked the straightforward fervour of Bell, who had walked straight into the room and halfway up its length before she discovered the state of affairs. “Mamma,” she had begun, “I have come from——” Then Bell paused, and cried, “Oh, mamma, dear, what is the matter?” with sudden alarm, stopping short in mid-career.
“Nothing very much,” said Lady Markham, “nothing that we did not know before. What is it, Bell? You may tell me all the same. We must face it, you know. We must not allow ourselves to be overcome by it,” she said with a little quiver of her lip, and a smile which made the little girls inclined to cry too.
“Oh mamma! I just came from—him,” Bell stopped short again, feeling as if involved in a sort of treason, and her pale little countenance flushed. Only then Lady Markham perceived the state in which the child was.
“What have you been doing to yourself, Bell? You have hurt yourself. You have got a blow on the forehead. What was it? Let me look at you. You have been up in one of those trees.”
“Oh mamma,” cried Bell, finding in this the very opportunity she wanted, “I fell, and I think I might have killed myself: but all at once, I don’t know where he came from, I never saw him coming, there was the—little gentleman! He picked me up, and he spoiled all his handkerchief bathing my forehead. He was very kind, he always was very kind—to us children,” said Bell.
“Oh Bell! how can you speak of that odious little man? how can you bother mamma about him? We have heard a great deal too much about him already,” cried Alice with an indignation that dried her tears.
“It is not his fault,” said Lady Markham, “we must be just. What could he do but what he has done? If we had known of it all along, we should never have thought of blaming him—and it is not his fault that it all burst upon us in a moment. It was not his fault,” she said, shaking her head, “but you must not think I blame your dear papa. He meant it for the best. I can see how it all happened as distinctly—— At first he thought it would wound me to hear that he had been married before. And then—he forgot it altogether. You must remember how young he was, and what is a baby to a man? He forgot about it. I can see it all so plainly. The only thing is my poor Paul!” And here, after her defence of his father, the mother broke down too.
“Mamma,” said Bell, “oh, don’t cry, please don’t cry! That is exactly what he says. He says he will do anything you like to tell him. He says he never wanted to do any harm. He is as sorry—as sorry! But how could he help being born, and being old—so much older than Paul? He says he is very fond of us all. He does not mind what he does if you will only let him come home and be the eldest brother. Mamma,” said Bell, solemnly, struck with a new idea, “he must have saved my life, I think. I might have broken my neck, and there was nobody but Marie to run and get assistance. It was a very good thing for me that he was there. If he had not been there, you would have had—only five children instead of six,” Bell said, with a gulp, swallowing the lump in her throat. She thought she saw herself being carried along all white and still, and the thought overcame her with a sense of the pathos of the possible situation. She seemed to hear all the people saying, “Such a promising child and cut off in a moment;” and “Poor Lady Markham! just after her other great grief;” so that Bell could scarcely help sobbing over herself, though she had not been killed.
“Oh Bell! it was not so bad as that! how could you be killed coming down head over heels from the old tree?” cried Marie, almost with indignation.
Lady Markham had satisfied herself in the meantime that the lump on the forehead was more ugly than serious.
“Let us be very glad you have not suffered more,” she said. “But, Bell, the right thing would be not to climb up there again.”
“Mamma, the right thing would be, if you care about me, at least, to let poor Mr. Gus come in, and thank him for saving my life. Oh, let him come in, mamma! How could he help being older than Paul? I dare say he would rather have been younger if he could; and I am sure by what he says he would give Paul anything—anything! to make it up to him, and to make friends with you. He says how miserable he would be if you left him here all alone. He could not bear to be down here thinking he had turned us out. Oh, if you had only seen him! he looked as if he could cry—Ask Marie. And he wanted to know if he might speak to Alice, if Alice would speak for him. But I said I didn’t think it, because Paul was Alice’s particular brother, and she could not bear anything that was hard upon him; and then he said,” cried Bell, with unconscious embellishment, “‘You are my two little sisters, oh, go and plead for me! Say I will do anything—anything—whatever she pleases.’ Oh mamma! who could say more than that? He has nobody belonging to him, unless we will let him belong to us. He is a poor little gentleman, not young, nor nice-looking, nor clever, nor anything. And, mamma, he is a little—or more than a little, a great deal—very like poor papa. Oh!” cried Bell, breaking off with a suppressed shriek, as a hand suddenly was laid upon her shoulder.
Nobody had observed him coming in. A light little man, with a soft step, and soft unobtrusive shoes that never had creaked in the course of their existence, upon a soft Turkey carpet, makes very little sound as he moves. He had got tired waiting outside, and the doors were open, and Mr. Gus had never been shy. He had walked straight in, guided by their voices; and the very fact that he had thus made his way within those curtains into this sanctuary seemed to give him at once a footing in the place. He put his hand upon Bell’s shoulder, and, though he was not much taller than she was, made a very respectful bow to Lady Markham over her head.
“I thought I might take the liberty to come in and speak for myself, Lady Markham,” he said. There was a flutter of his eyelids, giving that sidelong glance round him, which was the only thing that betrayed Gus’s consciousness that the place to which “he had taken the liberty” of coming in was his own. “My little sisters” (he put his other hand upon the shoulder of Marie, who was much consoled at thus being brought back out of the cold into which Bell’s superior gifts invariably sentenced her), “My little sisters can speak better for me than I can do; and won’t you take me in for the sake of the little things who have always been my friends? It is not my fault that this all came upon you as a surprise. Don’t you think it would be better for everybody—for the children, and for my poor father’s memory, and all, if you will just put up with having me in the house?”
Lady Markham grew very pale. She made a great effort, standing up to do it.
“Sir Augustus,” she said, and nobody knew what it cost her to give him this title; all the blood ebbed away from her face: “Sir Augustus, the house is your own, it appears. What I can put up with has nothing to do with it.”
“Yes,” he said, tranquilly, bowing in acknowledgment, “it is my own; but it has been yours for a great many years. Why can’t we be friends? I can’t help being their brother, you know, whatever happens.”
Alice had been sitting with her hand over her eyes. She had a special enmity towards this interloper; but now she took courage to look at him. They all looked at him, distinct among the little group of female faces. He was dans son droit, and it is impossible to tell how much the certainty that all belonged to him, that he was no mere claimant, but the proud possessor of the place, changed the aspect of the little gentleman, even to those who had most reason to be wounded by it. It gave him a dignity he had never possessed before, and a magnanimity too. When he saw Alice looking at him, he left the little girls and came towards her, holding out his hands. He was a different man in this interior from what he was outside.
“I should be very fond of you if you would let me,” he said. “Alice, though you are Paul’s particular sister, you can’t help being my sister too; and there is some one else who is a friend of mine, who has been very kind to me,” the little man said significantly, sinking his voice.
What did he mean? Though she did not know what he meant; Alice felt a flame of colour flush over her cheeks in spite of herself.
“We are not monsters to disregard such an appeal,” said Lady Markham. “Whatever may happen, and however we may feel, we must all acknowledge that you mean to be very kind. You will not ask us to say more just now. If you will send for your things, I will give orders to have your rooms prepared at once.”
“Mamma!” they all cried, in a chorus of wonder. Alice with something like indignation, Bell and Marie with an excitement which was half pleasure: for this was novelty, at least, if nothing else, which always commends itself to the mind of youth.
“If it is his right, he shall have it,” said Lady Markham, with a quiver in her voice. “Mr. Scrivener tells me we must resist no longer—and he is your brother, as he says, and we have no right to reject his kindness. Do you know, children,” she cried, suddenly clasping her hands together with an impatient movement, “while we are talking so much at our ease, it is not our own house we are in, but this gentleman’s house? He can turn us out of it whenever he pleases, while we are arguing whether we will let him come into it! Sir,” she said, rising up once more (but she had done it once; she could not again give him the title, which ought to have been Paul’s)—“Sir, I acknowledge that you are kind, generous—far more than we have any right to expect—but you will understand that such a position is not easy—that it is very strange to me—and very new, and——”
“Certainly, ma’am,” said Gus. Her politeness (as he called it to himself) put him on his mettle. “All you say is very true and just. If I were a little monster, as Alice thinks, there are a great many things I could do to make myself disagreeable; and if you were not a sensible woman, as I always felt you to be, we might make a very pretty mess between us. But as we are not fiends, but good Christians (I hope), suppose you let the little ones come down with me to the village to see after my things? It’s a nice afternoon, though a little dull. You ladies ought to go out too and take the air. My little dears,” he said, “we’ll have those big cases up; there are a lot of things in them I brought from Barbadoes expressly for you. And those sweetmeats—I told you of them the first time I came into this house.”
“You said they were for me,” said Marie, with a tone of reproach; “but that cannot have been true, for you did not know of me.”
Gus had put one hand in Bell’s arm and the other on Marie’s shoulder. He looked at his two little companions with the sincerest pleasure in his little brown face.
“I did not know you were Marie, nor that this was Bell: but I knew that you were you,” said the little gentleman, with a smile. “And,” he added, looking round upon them all, “I knew we must be friends sooner or later. Let’s go and see after the cases now.”
This was how it was all arranged, to the consternation and amazement of all the world; and Lady Markham was not less astonished than all the rest. She went to the Hall window when they were gone, and looked out after them, scarcely believing her senses. Sir Augustus Markham (as he must now be allowed to be) had put his arm into Bell’s, who was nearly as tall as he was, and who had forgotten all about the bump on her forehead and the tear in her frock; while Marie held his other hand, and skipped along by his side, now in front, now behind, looking up into his face and chattering to him. There was in Gus’s gait, in his trim little figure, and his personality in general, a something which was much more like Sir William than any of his other children. It had always been a little private source of gratification to Lady Markham, notwithstanding her sincere affection for her husband, that Paul was like the Fleetwoods, who were much finer men. But this resemblance, which she had not very much desired for her own children, had settled in the unknown offspring of his youth. It added now another pang to her heartache, not only to see how like he was, but to see how entirely the children had adopted their new, yet old, brother. She withdrew from the window in a bewilderment of pain and excitement. What would Paul say to the step she had taken? It was right, she had felt. She had done what was the hardest to do, because it seemed evident that it was the best; but what would Paul say? And now that all hope and resistance was over, and nothing to be done but to submit and make the best of it, what was to become of her boy? Lady Markham had not the solace of knowing of the change that had taken place in Paul’s mind. She expected nothing else than that her next meeting with Paul would be to take leave of him, to see him go away with his chosen associates; most likely the husband of Janet Spears, or about to become so. Could Janet Spears even now secure her son to her? bring him back? fix him in England?—at least within reach of her care and help? And should she—could she—do anything to persuade the girl to exercise her influence? That discussion, which had been broken by the sudden appearance of Bell, and this strange episode altogether, returned to her mind as she went sadly up stairs to consult with Mrs. Fry about the rooms to be made ready for Sir Augustus. Poor Lady Markham! she would have to speak of him by this name, and to acknowledge to the servants the downfall of her own son, the descent of her own family to a lower place—Sir William’s second family. It was hard—very hard—upon a woman who had been strong in a pride which had nothing bitter in it, so long as it had been unassailed, and all had gone well, but which gave her pangs now that were sufficiently difficult to bear. And then there was the dilemma in her heart still more difficult, still more painful. She had done what she thought was the best, at much cost to herself, in this matter; but ah, the other matter, which was still nearer her heart, how was she, torn as she was by diverse emotions, to know in Paul’s case what was the best?
It would be needless to attempt to describe the excitement raised in the household by the announcement that “Sir Augustus” was “coming home,” and that his rooms were to be got ready with all speed.
“My lady has give up the very best of everything,” Mrs. Fry said, solemnly; “and as considerate, thinking which was to be the warmest, seeing as he’s come from India, where it is that warm. It would not become us as are only servants, to be more particular than my lady, or else I don’t know that I could make it convenient to stay with a gentleman as has the blood of niggers in his veins.”
“I knowed it!” Mr. Brown said, slapping his thigh; he was usually more guarded in his language, but excitement carries the day over grammar even with persons of more elevated breeding. “The last time as ever I helped him on with his coat there was something as told me it was him that was the man, and not Paul. Well! I don’t say as I don’t regret it in some ways, but pride must have a fall, as the Bible says.”
“I don’t see as it lays in your spere to quote the Bible on a any such subject,” said Mrs. Fry with indignation. “If it’s Mr. Paul, I just wish he had a little more pride. His dear mother would be easier in her mind this day if he was one that held more by his own class. And if you’re pleased, you that have eat their bread this fifteen years, to have a bit of a little upstart that is only half an Englishman, instead of your young master that you’ve seen grown up from a boy—and as handsome a boy as one could wish to see—I don’t think much of your Christianity, and quoting out of the Bible. It’s easier a deal to do that than to perform what’s put down there.”
“I hope I knows my duty, ma’am,” said Mr. Brown, resuming the dignity which excitement had momentarily shaken, “without instruction from you or any one.”
“I hope you do, Mr. Brown,” said Mrs. Fry. And this little passage of arms restored the equilibrium of these two important members of the household. But when it became known in the village and at the station, where the great cases which had been lying at the latter place were ordered by Sir Augustus to be carried to the house, and his portmanteau brought from the Markham Arms, and when slowly, through a hundred rills of conflicting information, the news got spread about the country till it flooded, like a rushing torrent, all the great houses and all the outlying villages—drove the Trevors and the Westlands half out of their senses, and communicated a sudden vertigo to the entire neighbourhood—words fail us to describe the commotion. Everybody had known there was something wrong, but who could have imagined anything so sweeping and complete. “You see now, mamma, how right I was to let Paul alone,” Ada Westland said with her frank cynicism. “We must see that your papa calls upon Sir Augustus,” that far-seeing mother replied. As for old Admiral Trevor, who was getting more and more into his dotage every day, he ordered his carriage at once to go out and “putsh shtop to it.” “Will Markham ought to be ashamed of himself,” the old sailor said. The same impulse moved the inhabitants of the rectory, both father and daughter. Mr. Stainforth did nothing but go about his garden all day wringing his hands and crying, “Dear! dear!” and trying to recollect something about it, some way of proving an alibi or getting evidence to show that it was impossible. He, too, felt that it was his duty to put a stop to it. And as for Dolly, what could she do but cry her pretty eyes out, and wish, oh so vainly, that she had a hundred thousand pounds that she might give it all to Paul!