F the strangest kind were Wilfrid’s sensations when he found himself in the streets of Carlisle on his extraordinary mission. It was the first time he had ever taken any step absolutely by himself. To be sure, he had been brought up in full possession of the freedom of an English boy, in whose honour everybody has confidence—but never before had he been moved by an individual impulse to independent action, nor had he known what it was to have a secret in his mind, and an enterprise which had to be conducted wholly according to his own judgment, and in respect to which he could ask for no advice. When he emerged out of the railway station, and found himself actually in the streets, a thrill of excitement, sudden and strange, came over him. He had known very well all along what he was coming to do, and yet he seemed only to become aware of it at that moment, when he put his foot upon the pavement, and was appealed to by cab-drivers, eager to take him somewhere. Here there was no time or opportunity for lingering; he had to go somewhere, and that instantly, were it only to the shops to execute his mother’s innocent commissions. It might be possible to loiter and meditate on the calm country roads about Kirtell, but the town and the streets have other associations. He was there to do something, to go somewhere, and it had to be begun at once. He was not imaginative, but yet he felt a kind of palpable tearing asunder as he took his first step onward. He had hesitated, and his old life seemed to hold out its arms to him. It was not an unhappy life; he had his own way in most things, he had his future before him unfettered, and he knew that his wishes would be furthered, and everything possible done to help and encourage him. All this passed through his mind like a flash of lightning. He would be helped and cared for and made much of, but yet he would only be Will, the youngest, of whom nobody took particular notice, and who sat in the lowest room; whereas, by natural law and justice, he was the heir. After he had made that momentary comparison, he stepped on with a firm foot, and then it was that he felt like the tearing asunder of something that had bound him. He had thrown the old bonds, the old pleasant ties, to the wind; and now all that he had to do was to push on by himself and gain his rights. This sensation made his head swim as he walked on. He had put out to sea, as it were, and the new movement made him giddy—and yet it was not pain; love was not life to him, but he had never known what it was to live without it. There seemed no reason why he should not do perfectly well for himself; Hugh would be affronted, of course—but it could make no difference to Islay, for example, nor much to his mother, for it would still be one of her sons. These were the thoughts that went through Wilfrid’s mind as he walked along; from which it will be apparent that the wickedness he was about to do was not nearly so great in intention as it was in reality; and that his youth, and inexperience, and want of imagination, his incapacity to put himself into the position of another, or realize anything but his own wants and sentiments, pushed him unawares, while he contemplated only an act of selfishness, into a social crime.
But yet the sense of doing this thing entirely alone, of doing it in secret, which was contrary to all his habitudes of mind, filled him with a strange inquietude. It hurt his conscience more to be making such a wonderful move for himself, out of the knowledge of his mother and everybody belonging to him, than to be trying to disgrace his mother and overthrow her good name and honour; of the latter, he was only dimly conscious, but the former he saw clearly. A strange paradox, apparently, but yet not without many parallels. There are poor creatures who do not hesitate at drowning themselves, and yet shrink from the chill of the “black flowing river” in which it is to be accomplished. As for Will, he did not hesitate to throw dark anguish and misery into the peaceful household he had been bred in—he did not shrink from an act which would embitter the lives of all who loved him, and change their position, and disgrace their name—but the thought of taking his first great step in life out of anybody’s knowledge, made his head swim, and the light fail in his eyes—and filled him with a giddy mingling of excitement and shame. He did not realize the greater issue, except as it affected him solely—but he did the other in its fullest sense. Thus he went on through the common-place streets, with his heart throbbing in his ears, and the blood rushing to his head; and yet he was not remorseful, nor conscience-stricken, nor sorry, but only strongly excited, and moved by a certain nervous shyness and shame.
Notwithstanding this, a certain practical faculty in Wilfrid led him, before seeking out his tempter and first informant, to seek independent testimony. It would be difficult to say what it was that turned his thoughts towards Mrs. Kirkman; but it was to her he went. The colonel’s wife received him with a sweet smile, but she was busy with much more important concerns; and when she had placed him at a table covered with tracts and magazines, she took no further notice of Will. She was a woman, as has been before mentioned, who laboured under a chronic dissatisfaction with the clergy, whether as represented in the person of a regimental chaplain, or of a Dean and Chapter; and she was not content to suffer quietly, as so many people do. Her discontent was active, and expressed itself not only in lamentation and complaint, but in very active measures. She could not reappoint to the offices in the Cathedral, but she could do what was in her power, by Scripture-readers, and societies for private instruction, to make up the deficiency; and she was very busy with one of her agents when Will entered, who certainly had not come about any evangelical business. As time passed, however, and it became apparent to him that Mrs. Kirkman was much more occupied with her other visitor than with any curiosity about his own boyish errand, whatever it might be, Will began to lose patience. When he made a little attempt to gain a hearing in his turn, he was silenced by the same sweet smile, and a clasp of the hand. “My dear boy, just a moment; what we are talking of is of the greatest importance,” said Mrs. Kirkman. “There are so few real means of grace in this benighted town, and to think that souls are being lost daily, hourly—and yet such a show of services and prayers—it is terrible to think of it. In a few minutes, my dear boy.”
“What I want is of the greatest importance, too,” said Wilfrid, turning doggedly away from the table and the magazines.
Mrs. Kirkman looked at him, and thought she saw spiritual trouble in his eye. She was flattered that he should have thought of her under such interesting circumstances. It was a tardy but sweet compensation for all she had done, as she said to herself, for his mother; and going on this mistaken idea she dismissed the Scripture-reader, having first filled him with an adequate sense of the insufficiency of the regular clergy. It was, as so often happens, a faithful remnant, which was contending alone for religion against all the powers of this world. They were sure of one thing at least, and that was that everybody else was wrong. This was the idea with which her humble agent left Mrs. Kirkman; and the same feeling, sad but sweet, was in her own mind as she drew a chair to the table and sat down beside her dear young friend.
“And so you have come all the way from Kirtell to see me, my dear boy?” she said. “How happy I shall be if I can be of some use to you. I am afraid you won’t find very much sympathy there.”
“No,” said Wilfrid, vaguely, not knowing in the least what she meant. “I am sorry I did not bring you some flowers, but I was in a hurry when I came away.”
“Don’t think of anything of the kind,” said the colonel’s wife, pressing his hand. “What are flowers in comparison with the one great object of our existence? Tell me about it, my dear Will; you know I have known you from a child.”
“You knew I was coming then,” said Will, a little surprised, “though I thought nobody knew? Yes, I suppose you have known us all our lives. What I want is to find out about my mother’s marriage. I heard you knew all about it. Of course you must have known all about it. That is what I want to understand.”
“Your mother’s marriage!” cried Mrs. Kirkman; and to do her justice she looked aghast. The question horrified her, and at the same time it disappointed her. “I am sure that is not what you came to talk to me about,” she said coaxingly, and with a certain charitable wile. “My dear, dear boy, don’t let shyness lead you away from the greatest of all subjects. I know you came to talk to me about your soul.”
“I came to ask you about my mother’s marriage,” said Will. His giddiness had passed by this time, and he looked her steadily in the face. It was impossible to mistake him now, or think it a matter of unimportance or mere curiosity. Mrs. Kirkman had her faults, but she was a good woman at the bottom. She did not object to make an allusion now and then which vexed Mary, and made her aware, as it were, of the precipice by which she was always standing. It was what Mrs. Kirkman thought a good moral discipline for her friend, besides giving herself a pleasant consciousness of power and superiority; but when Mary’s son sat down in front of her, and looked with cold but eager eyes in his face, and demanded this frightful information, her heart sank within her. It made her forget for the moment all about the clergy and the defective means of grace; and brought her down to the common standing of a natural Christian woman, anxious and terror-stricken for her friend.
“What have you to do with your mother’s marriage?” she said, trembling a little. “Do you know what a very strange question you are asking? Who has told you anything about that? O me! you frighten me so, I don’t know what I am saying. Did Mary send you? Have you just come from your mother? If you want to know about her marriage, it is of her that you should ask information. Of course she can tell you all about it—she and your Aunt Agatha. What a very strange question to ask of me!”
Wilfrid looked steadily into Mrs. Kirkman’s agitated face, and saw it was all true he had heard. “If you do not know anything about it,” he said, with pitiless logic, “you would say so. Why should you look so put out if there was nothing to tell?”
“I am not put out,” said Mrs. Kirkman, still more disturbed. “Oh, Will, you are a dreadful boy. What is it you want to know? What is it for? Did you tell your mother you were coming here?”
“I don’t see what it matters whether I told my mother, or what it is for,” said Will. “I came to you because you were good, and would not tell a lie. I can depend on what you say to me. I have heard all about it already, but I am not so sure as I should be if I had it from you.”
This compliment touched the colonel’s wife on a susceptible point. She calmed a little out of her fright. A boy with so just an appreciation of other people’s virtues could not be meditating anything unkind or unnatural to his mother. Perhaps it would be better for Mary that he should know the rights of it; perhaps it was providential that he should have come to her, who could give him all the details.
“I don’t suppose you can mean any harm,” she said. “Oh, Will, our hearts are all desperately wicked. The best of us is little able to resist temptation. You are right in thinking I will tell you the truth if I tell you anything; but oh, my dear boy, if it should be to lead you to evil and not good——”
“Never mind about the evil and the good,” said Will impatiently. “What I want is to know what is false and what is true.”
Mrs. Kirkman hesitated still; but she began to persuade herself that he might have heard something worse than the truth. She was in a great perplexity; impelled to speak, and yet frightened to death at the consequences. It was a new situation for her altogether, and she did not know how to manage it. She clasped her hands helplessly together, and the very movement suggested an idea which she grasped at, partly because she was really a sincere, good woman who believed in the efficacy of prayer, and partly, poor soul, to gain a little time, for she was at her wits’ end.
“I will,” she said. “I will, my dear boy; I will tell you everything; but oh, let us kneel down and have a word of prayer first, that we may not make a bad use of—of what we hear.”
If she had ever been in earnest in her life it was at that moment; the tears were in her eyes, and all her little affectations of solemnity had disappeared. She could not have told anybody what it was she feared; and yet the more she looked at the boy beside her, the more she felt their positions change, and feared and stood in awe, feeling that she was for the moment his slave, and must do anything he might command.
“Mrs. Kirkman,” said Will, “I don’t understand that sort of thing. I don’t know what bad use you can think I am going to make of it;—at all events it won’t be your fault. I shall not detain you five minutes if you will only tell me what I want to know.”
And she did tell him accordingly, not knowing how to resist, and warmed in the telling in spite of herself, and could not but let him know that she thought it was for Mary’s good, and to bring her to a sense of the vanity of all earthly things. She gave him scrupulously all the details. The story flowed out upon Will’s hungry ears with scarcely a pause. She told him all about the marriage, where it had happened, and who had performed it, and who had been present. Little Hugh had been present. She had no doubt he would remember, if it was recalled to his memory. Mrs. Kirkman recollected perfectly the look that Mary had thrown at her husband when she saw the child there. Poor Mary! she had thought so much of reputation and a good name. She had been so much thought of in the regiment. They all called her by that ridiculous name, Madonna Mary—and made so much of her, before——
“And did they not make much of her after?” said Will, quickly.
“It is a different thing,” said Mrs. Kirkman, softly shaking her long curls and returning to herself. “A poor sinner returning to the right way ought to be more warmly welcomed than even the best, if we can call any human creature good; but——”
“Is it my mother you call a poor sinner?” asked Will.
Then there was a pause. Mrs. Kirkman shook her head once more, and shook the long curls that hung over her cheeks; but it was difficult to answer. “We are all poor sinners,” she said. “Oh, my dear boy, if I could only persuade you how much more important it is to think of your own soul. If your poor dear mamma has done wrong, it is God who is her judge. I never judged her for my part, I never made any difference. I hope I know my own shortcomings too well for that.”
“I thought I heard you say something odd to her once,” said Will. “I should just like to see any one uncivil to my mother. But that’s not the question. I want that Mr. Churchill’s address, please.”
“I can truly say I never made any difference,” said Mrs. Kirkman; “some people might have blamed me—but I always thought of the Mary that loved much—— Oh, Will, what comforting words! I hope your dear mother has long, long ago repented of her error. Perhaps your father deceived her, as she was so young; perhaps it was all true the strange story he told about the register being burnt, and all that. We all thought it was best not to inquire into it. We know what we saw; but remember, you have pledged your word not to make any dispeace with what I have told you. You are not to make a disturbance in the family about it. It is all over and past, and everybody has agreed to forget it. You are not going to make any dispeace——”
“I never thought of making any dispeace,” said Will; but that was all he said. He was brief, as he always was, and uncommunicative, and inclined, now he had got all he wanted, to get up abruptly and go away.
“And now, my dear young friend, you must do something for me,” said Mrs. Kirkman, “in repayment for what I have done for you. You must read these, and you must not only read them, but think over them, and seek light where it is to be found. Oh, my dear boy, how anxious we are to search into any little mystery in connection with ourselves, and how little we think of the mysteries of eternity! You must promise to give a little attention to this great theme before this day has come to an end.”
“Oh, yes, I’ll read them,” said Will, and he thrust into his pocket a roll of tracts she gave him without any further thought what they were. The truth was, that he did not pay much attention to what she was saying; his head had begun to throb and feel giddy again, and he had a rushing in his ears. He had it all in his hands now, and the sense of his power overwhelmed him. He had never had such an instrument in his hands before, he had never known what it was to be capable of moving anybody, except to momentary displeasure or anxiety; and he felt as a man might feel in whose hand there had suddenly been placed the most powerful of weapons, with unlimited license to use it as he would—to break down castles with it or crowns, or slay armies at a blow—and only his own absolute pleasure to decide when or where it should fall. Something of intoxication and yet of alarm was in that first sense of power. He was rapt into a kind of ecstacy, and yet he was alarmed and afraid. He thrust the tracts into his pocket, and he received, cavalierly enough, Mrs. Kirkman’s parting salutations. He had got all he wanted from her, and Will’s was not a nature to be very expansive in the way of gratitude. Perhaps even, any sort of dim moral sense he might have on the subject, made him feel that in the news he had just heard there was not much room for gratitude. Anyhow he made very little pretence at those hollow forms of courtesy which are current in the elder world. He went away having got what he wanted, and left the colonel’s wife in a state of strange excitement and growing compunction. Oddly enough, Will’s scanty courtesy roused more compunctions in her mind than anything else had done. She had put Mary’s fate, as it were, into the hands of a boy who had so little sense of what was right as to withdraw in the most summary and abrupt way the moment his curiosity was satisfied; who had not even grace enough, or self-control enough, to go through the ordinary decorums, or pay common attention to what she said to him; and now this inexperienced undisciplined lad had an incalculable power in his hands—power to crush and ruin his own family, to dispossess his brother and disgrace his mother: and nothing but his own forbearance or good pleasure to limit him. What had she done?
Will walked about the streets for a full hour after, dizzy with the same extraordinary, intoxicating, alarming sense of power. Before, it had all been vague, now it was distinct and clear; and even beyond his desire to “right” himself, came the inclination to set this strange machine in motion, and try his new strength. He was still so much a boy, that he was curious to see the effect it would produce, eager to ascertain how it would work, and what it could do. He was like a child in possession of an infernal machine, longing to try it, and yet not unconscious of the probable mischief. The sense of his power went to his head, and intoxicated him like wine. Here it was all ready in his hands, an instrument which could take away more than life, and he was afraid of it, and of the strength of the recoil: and yet was full of eagerness to see it go off, and see what results it would actually bring forth. He walked about the town, not knowing where he was going, forgetting all about his mother’s commissions, and all about Percival, which was more extraordinary—solely occupied with the sensation that the power was in his hands. He went into the cathedral, and walked all round it, and never knew he had been there; and when at last he found himself at the railway station again, he woke up again abruptly, as if he had been in a dream. Then making an effort he set his wits to work about Percival, and asked himself what he was to do. Percival was nothing to Will: he was his Aunt Winnie’s husband, and perhaps had not used her well, and he could furnish no information half so clear or distinct as that which Mrs. Kirkman had given. Will did not see any reason in particular why he should go out of his way to seek such a man out. He had been no doubt his first informant, but in his present position of power and superiority, he did not feel that he had any need of Percival. And why should he seek him out? When he had sufficiently recovered his senses to go through this reasoning, Will went deliberately back to town again, and executed his mother’s commissions. He went to several shops, and gave orders which she had charged him with, and even took the trouble to choose the things she wanted, in the most painstaking way, and was as concerned that they should be right as if he had been the most dutiful and tender of sons; and all the while he was thinking to ruin her, and disgrace her, and put the last stigma upon her name, and render her an outcast from the peaceful world. Such was the strange contradiction that existed within him; he went back without speaking to any one, without seeing anybody, knitting his brows and thinking all the way. The train that carried him home, with his weapon in his hands, passed with a rush and shriek the train which was conveying Nelly, with a great basket of flowers in her lap, and a vague gleam of infinite content in her eyes, back to her nursery and her duties, with Hugh by her side, who was taking care of her, and losing himself, if there had been any harm in it. That sweet loss and gain was going on imperceptibly in the carriage where the one brother sat happy as a young prince, when the other brother shot past as it were on wings of flame like a destroying angel. Neither thought of the other as they thus crossed, the one being busy with the pre-occupation of young love, the other lost in a passion, which was not hate, nor even enmity, which was not inconsistent with a kind of natural affection, and yet involved destruction and injury of the darkest and most overwhelming kind. Contrasts so sharply and clearly pointed occur but seldom in a world so full of modifications and complicated interests; yet they do occur sometimes. And this was how it was with Mary’s boys.