LADY MARKHAM, when she thus received Sir Augustus, did so with no intention of herself remaining in the house which had been her home for so long. In any case, when the lawyer had pronounced that there was no longer any room for resistance, she would have yielded; she would not have prolonged a vain struggle, or given the new owner any trouble in gaining possession of his house. When she lay down that night for the first time under the same roof with the interloper, he who had, she said to herself, ruined her son’s prospects, and taken his inheritance from him, she had not that satisfaction in her mind of having done her duty which is supposed to be the unfailing recompense of a good action. She had done her duty, she hoped. She did not think that she was justified in refusing Sir Gus’s overtures, or in turning him into an enemy; but it was with a sore heart and mind, much exercised with doubt, that she thought of what she had done. It was right in one way, but was it right in another? What would Paul think of her apparent alliance and friendship with the man who certainly had been his supplanter, and so far as any one could see had spoiled his life? Paul was Lady Markham’s dearest son, but he was the darkest place in her landscape, the subject which she dwelt upon most, yet had least comfort in contemplating. Notwithstanding the love and anxiety which he called forth in her, all the questions connected with him were so painful that, if she could, she would have avoided them altogether. What was he going to do? Was he on the eve of the voyage which might separate him from her for ever? Was he on the eve of the marriage that would separate them still more? She longed and pined every day for letters from him, and yet when the post brought none, she was almost relieved. At least he was not going yet, at least he was not married yet. She wrote to him almost every day, and lavished upon him a thousand tendernesses, and yet it was no pleasure to her to think of Paul. His very name brought an additional line to her forehead and quiver to her lip.
Next morning she was more undecided than ever. What was she to do? Again the post had come in, and Paul had not added a word to the information she had received. He had not said whether he was coming, or what he was going to do. It occurred to her as she was dressing that the presence of his stepbrother in the house might keep him away—that indeed it was almost certain to keep him away, and that this afforded an urgent reason for speedy removal. The idea gave her a sensation of hurry and nervous haste. There was a dower-house on the estate near the town of Farborough to which perhaps it would be well for her to retire. But when she thought of all that would be involved in the removal, Lady Markham’s courage failed her. Why did not this man keep away? A few months she might at least have had to detach herself, to accustom herself to the change. It seemed hard, very hard, to face everything at once. Had she really been right after all in yielding? Ought she not to have stood out and made her bargain for time enough to prepare her removal tranquilly? In the days when a glow of satisfaction followed every good action, there must have been more absolute certainty upon the subject, what was good and what was evil, than exists now. The kindness, the self-sacrifice of her act had made it appear the best, the only thing to do; but now came the cold shadow of doubt. Had not she compromised her dignity by doing it? Had not she done something that would offend and alienate Paul? The night not only had not brought counsel, but it had made all her difficulties worse.
When Lady Markham went downstairs, however, the first sight which met her eyes was one of at least a very conciliatory character. In the hall stood one of Gus’s larger packing-cases, those cases which had been lying at the station for so long, opened at last, and giving forth its riches. The floor was covered with West Indian sweetmeats, pots of guava jelly, and ginger, and many other tropical dainties; while the two little girls, in high excitement, were taking out the stores which remained, the scented neck-laces and bark-lace, and all the curious manufactures of the island; they were speechless with delight and enthusiasm, yet bursting out now and then into torrents of questions, asking about everything. Gus sat complacently in the midst of all the rubbish in the big bamboo-chair, stretching out his little legs and rubbing his hands. “I told you I brought them for you,” he was saying. Bell and Marie could not believe their eyes as they saw the heaps that accumulated round them. “I thought you would like to give presents to your little friends; there is plenty for everybody.”
“But oh! Mr. Gus,” cried Marie, dancing about him, “how could you know just what we wanted? how could you tell we should have friends?”
It was pretty to see him sitting among the litter, his brown countenance beaming.
“I knew, of course, you must be nice children,” he said; “I knew what you would want. But you must not call me Mr. Gus any longer. Call me Gus without the mister.”
The two little girls looked at each other and laughed.
“But you are so old,” they said.
“It’s a pity, isn’t it?” said the little gentleman.
They were as much at their ease together as if they had known him all their lives. What mother could resist such a scene? She paused on the stairs and looked over the banisters and watched them. If it had not been for the tragedy involved, for her husband’s death and her son’s disinheritance, what more pleasant than this domestic scene! The children had never been so much at their ease with their father, nor would it have occurred to them to use half so much freedom with Paul as they did with the stranger Gus. Lady Markham’s heart thrilled with pleasure and pain, and when at last she went downstairs, there was a tone of cordiality in spite of herself in her morning greeting.
“I fear I am a little late. I have kept you waiting,” she said.
“Oh mamma! he has had his breakfast with us,” cried the little girls.
“You must not mind me. I am from the tropics. I always rise with the dawn,” said the little man. “But I am quite happy so long as I have the children.”
He followed her into the breakfast-room, Bell linking herself on to his arm and Marie holding his hand. They brought in some of the sweetmeats with them, and the little girls began with great importance to open them, each making her offering to mamma. It was the first appearance of anything like cheerfulness since grief had entered the house. While this little bustle was going on, Alice came in after her mother very quietly, hoping to avoid all necessity of speaking to the intruder. The feeling that was in her mind was that she could not endure to see him here, and that if her mother would not leave the place, she at least must. When Gus saw her, however, her hope of escape was over. He came up to her at once and took her hand, and made a little speech.
“You will not make friends with me as the children do,” he said; “but you will find your old brother will always stand your friend if you want one.”
Alice drew her hand away and escaped to her usual place with her cheeks blazing. Why did he offer to “stand her friend?” what did he mean by his reference last night to some one else? She knew very well what he meant—it was this that made it impertinent. He had met her two or three times with Mr. Fairfax, and no doubt had been so vulgar and disagreeable as to suppose that Mr. Fairfax—not having the least idea of course how they had been brought together, and that Mr. Fairfax’s presence at Markham was entirely accidental! Alice knew perfectly well what Gus meant. He thought the young man was an undistinguished lover, whom probably Lady Markham would not accept, but whom Alice was ready enough to accept, and it was in this light that he proffered his presumptuous and undesired help. Alice could not trust herself to speak. It seemed to her that besides the harm it had done Paul, there was another wrong to herself in these injudicious, unnecessary offers of assistance. She would not look at the curiosities the little girls carried in their frocks, folding up their skirts to make great pockets, nor taste their sweetmeats, nor countenance their pleasure. Instead of that, Alice wrapped herself up in abstraction and sadness. To be able to hide some sulkiness and a great deal of annoyance and bitter constraint under the mask of grief is often a great ease to the spirit. She had the satisfaction of checking all the glee of Marie and Bell, and of making even Lady Markham repent of the smile into which she had been beguiled.
Thus, however, the day went on. When Lady Markham again watched her children going down the avenue, one on either side of the new master of the house, with a softened look in her face, Alice turned away from her mother with the keenest displeasure; she forsook her altogether, going away from her to her own room, where she shut herself up and began to make a review of all her little possessions with the view of removing them, somewhere, anywhere, she did not care where. And very dismal visions crossed the inexperienced mind of Alice. She did not know how this miserable change in the family affairs affected her own position or her mother’s. She thought, perhaps, that they had lost everything, as Paul had lost everything. And sooner than live on the bounty of this stranger, Alice felt that there was nothing she could not do. She thought of going out as a governess, as girls do in novels. Why not? What was she better than the thousands of girls who did so, and rather that a hundred times, rather that or anything! Then it occurred to her that perhaps she might go with Paul. That, perhaps, would be a better way. Even in the former days, out of the midst of luxury and comfort, it had seemed to her that Paul’s dream of living a primitive life and cultivating his bit of land, his just share of the universal possession of man, had something fine, something noble in it. With her brother she could go to the end of the world to sustain and comfort him. What would she care what she did? Would she be less a lady if she cooked his dinner or washed his clothes? Nay, not at all. What better could any woman wish? But then there was this girl—the man’s daughter who had been at Markham with Paul. Thus Alice was suddenly stopped again. Walls of iron seemed to rise around her wherever she turned. Was it possible, was it possible? Paul, who was so fastidious, so hard to please! Thus when despairing of the circumstances around herself she turned to the idea of her brother, her heart grew sick with a new and cruel barrier before her. An alien had come into her home and spoiled it; an alien was to share her brother’s life and ruin that. All around her the world was breaking in with an insupportable intrusion—people who had nothing to do with her coming into the very sanctuary of her life. Lady Markham was going to put up with it, as it seemed, but Alice said to herself that she could not, would not, put up with it. She could not tell what she would do, or where she would flee, but to tolerate the man who had taken Paul’s inheritance, or the woman who had got Paul’s heart, was above her strength. Should she go out as a governess? this seemed the one outlet; or—was there any other?
Now, how it was that Fairfax should have suddenly leaped into her mind with as startling an effect as if he had come through the window, or down from the sky in bodily presence, I cannot pretend to tell. For a little while he had been her chief companion—her helpmate, so to speak—and, at the same time, her servant, watching her looks to see what he could do for her—ready to fly, on a moment’s notice, to supplement her services in the sick-room—making of himself, indeed, a sort of complement of her and other self, doing the things she could not do. He had been, not like Paul at home, for Paul had never been so ready and helpful, but like nothing else than a man-Alice, another half of her, understanding her before she spoke—doing what she wished by intuition. This had not lasted very long, it is true, but while it had lasted, it had been like nothing that Alice had ever known. She had said to herself often that she scarcely knew him. He had come into her life by accident, and he had gone out of it just as suddenly, and with an almost angry dismissal on her part. Scarcely knew him! and yet was there anybody that she knew half so well? Why Fairfax should have suddenly become, as it were, visible to her in the midst of her thoughts, she did not know. One moment she could see nothing but those closing walls around her—a barrier here, a barrier there; no way of escape. When all at once, in the twinkling of an eye, there was a glimmer in the darkness, an opening, and there he stood, looking at her tenderly, deprecating, yet with a gleam of humour in his eyes. “You won’t have anything to say to me,” he seemed to be saying; “but all the same, if you should think better of it, I am here.”
It is impossible to tell the effect this sudden apparition, as confusing as if he had actually come in person, had upon Alice. She was so angry, that she beat her hands together in sudden rage—with whom—with herself? for if the treacherous heart within her conjured up the young man’s image, was it Mr. Fairfax’s fault? But it was against him that she threw out all that unnecessary anger. How dared he come when she wanted none of him! To intrude yourself into a girl’s presence when she does not want you is bad enough, but to leap thus into her imagination! it was insupportable. She struck her hands together with a kind of fury—it was a way she had—her cheeks grew crimson, her heart thumped quite unnecessarily against her breast. And all the time he seemed to stand and look at her not tragically, or with any heroic aspect (which did not belong to him), but with that half smiling, half upbraiding look, and always a little gleam of fun in his eyes. “If you should think better of it, I am always here.” The words she put into his mouth were quite characteristic of him. No high-flown professions of faithfulness and devotion could have said more.
Lady Markham had seen clearly enough that Alice was no longer in sympathy with her, and her heart bled for the separation and for the shadow in her child’s face, even while she could not refuse to feel a certain satisfaction otherwise in the step she had taken. It is often easier to justify one’s self to others than to respond to the secret doubts that arise in one’s own bosom; but when the gloomy looks of Alice proclaimed the indictment that was being drawn up against her mother in her mind, Lady Markham, strangely enough, began to feel the balance turn, and a little self-assertion came to her aid. But she was very glad of the opportunity given her by a visit from the Rector to send for her daughter, who had not come near her all the morning. The Rector was not a very frequent visitor at the Chase, nor indeed anywhere. He was old, and he was growing feeble, and he did not care to move about. It was, however, so natural that he should make his appearance in the trouble which existed in the house, that nothing but a visit of sympathy was thought of. And Dolly was with him, upon whom Lady Markham looked with different eyes—a little jealous, a little tender—ready to find out every evidence the girl might show of interest in Paul. There was abundant opportunity to judge of her feelings in this respect, for Paul was the chief subject spoken of. Mr. Stainforth had come with no other object. He led Lady Markham to the further end of the room while the two girls talked.
“I want to say something to you,” he said. It was to ask what Paul was going to do—what his intentions were. “It breaks my heart to think of it,” said the old man; “but we must submit to fate.” He was something of a heathen, though he was a clergyman, and this was how he chose to put it: “What is he going to do?”
Alas! of all the subjects on which his mother could have been questioned, this was the most embarrassing. She sighed, and said—
“I cannot tell. There were some schemes in his head—or rather he had been drawn into some schemes—of emigration—before all this sorrow came.”
“Emigration! before——!”
The rector could not make this out.
“You know, that his opinions gave us some trouble. It was a—visionary scheme—for the advantage of other people,” Lady Markham said.
“Ah! there must be no more of that, my dear Lady Markham; there must be no more of that. Socialism under some gloss or other, I know:—but life has become too serious with Paul now for any nonsense like that.”
“I wish I could think he would see it in that light,” said his mother, shaking her head.
“But he must; there is no choice left him. He must see it in that light. I do not know whether this that I am going to suggest ever came into your mind. Lady Markham, Paul must take the living, that is all about it. He must take orders; and as soon as he is ready, I will abdicate. I should have done so long ago had there been a son of the house coming on. He must go into the Church—that is by far the best thing to do.”
“The Church!” said Lady Markham, in extreme surprise. “I fear he would never think of that, Mr. Stainforth.”
“Then he will be very foolish,” said the old Rector. “What do these foolish young fellows mean? It is an excellent living, a good house, not too much to do, good society, and a good position. Suppose they don’t like visiting old women, and that sort of thing, they can always get some one to do it for them—a curate at the worst, for that costs money; but most likely the ladies about. If he marries, which of course he would do, his wife would attend to that. There is Dolly, who saves me a great deal of trouble. She is quite as good as a curate. Oh, for that matter, there are as great drawbacks in the Church as in other professions. What do the young fellows mean, Lady Markham, to reject a very desirable life for such little annoyances as that?”
Lady Markham still shook her head notwithstanding the Rector’s eloquence.
“Paul would not see it in that light,” she said. “Unless he could throw himself into all the duties with his whole heart, he would never do it, and I fear he would not be able to do that.”
“This is nonsense,” said Mr. Stainforth. The old man was very much in earnest. “I would soon show him that all that is really necessary is very easy to get through, and short of his natural position there would be none so suitable. He must think of it. I cannot think of anything that would be so suitable. The bar is overcrowded, he is not a fellow to think of the army, though, indeed,” said the old man, with a cold-blooded determination to say out all he meant, “if there was a war, and men had a chance of good promotion, I don’t know that I should say anything against that. But the Church, Lady Markham, the Church:—Almost as good a house as this is, if not so big, and a great deal of leisure. I assure you I could easily convince him that there is nothing he could choose which would not afford drawbacks quite as great. And, short of his natural position, the Rector of Markham Royal is not a bad thing to look to. He might marry well, and as probably the other will never marry——”
“Ah!” said Lady Markham, with her eyes full of tears, “it is easy to talk; but Paul would never lend any ear to that. In all likelihood, so far as I know, his decision is already made. That is to say,” she added with a sigh, “it was all settled before. Why should he change now when everything favours him? when Providence itself has moved all hindrances out of his way?”
“But he must not, Madam,” cried the Rector, raising his voice. “What, emigrate! and leave you here in your widowhood with no one to stand by you! This is nonsense—nonsense, Lady Markham. I assure you, my dear Madam, it is impossible, it must not be.”
Lady Markham smiled faintly through her tears. She shook her head. It seemed to her that the old Rector, with all his long life behind him, was so much less experienced, so much more youthful than she was. Must not be! What did it matter who said that so long as the boy himself did not say it? The Rector had so raised his voice that the two girls had an excuse for coming nearer, for asking, with their eyes at least, what it was.
“The Rector says Paul must not go; that he ought to go into the Church and succeed to the living. Ah!” cried Lady Markham, “it is so easy to say ‘ought’ and ‘must not.’ And what can I say? that he will do what he thinks right, not what we think right. What does any one else matter? He will do—what he likes himself.”
Her voice was choked—her heart was very sore. Never had she breathed a word of censure upon Paul to other ears than perhaps those of Alice before. Her usual strength had forsaken her. And Alice, who was estranged and chilled, did not go near her mother. Dolly Stainforth had never been brought up to neglect her duties in this particular. Her business in life had always been with people who were in trouble; a kind of professional habit, so to speak, delivered her from shyness even when her own feelings were concerned. She went up quickly to the poor lady who was weeping, without restraint, and took her hand in those soft little firm hands which had held up so many. Not so much a shy girl full of great tenderness as a little celestial curate, devoted everywhere to the service of the sorrowful, she did not blush or hesitate, but with two big tears in her eyes spoke her consolation.
“Oh dear Lady Markham,” Dolly said, “are you not proud, are you not happy to know that it is only what he thinks right that he will do? What could any one say more? Papa does not know him as—as you do. He thinks he might be persuaded, though his heart would not be in it; but you—you would not have him do that? I—” said Dolly all unawares, betraying herself with a little sob in her throat and her voice sinking so low as almost to be inaudible—“I” (as if she had anything to do with it! strong emotion gave her such importance) “would rather he should go—than stay like that!”
Lady Markham clasped her fingers about those two little firm yet tremulous hands. It was the kind of consolation she wanted. She put up her face to kiss Dolly, who straightway broke down and cried, and was an angel-curate no longer. By this time herself had come in, and her own deep-seated, childish preference, which she had not known to be love. “Tch—tch—tch,” said the Rector under his breath, thinking within himself some common thought about the ridiculousness of women, even the best. But already there were other spectators who had seen and heard some portion of what was going on. It was the worst of Lady Markham’s pretty room that it was liable to be approached without warning. Alice suddenly sprang up with a cry of astonishment, dismay, and delight. “Paul!” she cried, startling the whole party as if a shell had fallen among them. The young man stood within the half-drawn curtains with a pale and serious face, looking at the group. His mother thought of but one thing as she looked up and saw him before her. He had come to tell her that now all was over, and nothing remaining but the last farewell to say.
The rest of the party did not see, however, what Alice, who was detached from them saw, that there was some one beyond the curtains, hanging outside as one who had no right to enter—a little downcast, but yet, as always, faintly amused by the situation. The sight of him gave her a shock as of a dream come true. “If you should think better of it,” he seemed to be saying. The sudden apparition, with the smile about the corners of his lips which seemed so familiar, startled her as much as the appearance which her imagination had called forth a few hours before.