ON the evening of the same day Durant told his tale to Lady Curtis. She and her daughter had come to London on hearing the news of Arthur’s “entanglement,” as many an alarmed mother and sister have done before them. Sir John either could not, or would not join them. He had less faith than women have in the efficacy of personal remonstrances, and indeed he had no great faith in the delinquency to start with, and gave his son credit for “more sense,” if less virtue, than they believed him capable of. To hear that Arthur was on the eve of marriage had stunned Sir John. He had written with indignant vehemence, and he had commissioned his “man of business” to go and see the “young fool;” and he had forbidden his wife to go to her son as she desired. “Get him to come to you if you can,” he had said; but he was afraid for the results of a visit from his wife with the possibility of an introduction of the girl, and a melting of my lady’s heart over her son’s love. Sir John gave his wife credit for much more sentiment than she possessed; and as for Lucy, she of course was sentimental enough to be sympathetic at once without any preliminaries. “You had better leave him to the lawyers,” Sir John said, having a strong confidence in people who could make themselves disagreeable; but he consented that the ladies should go to town to be near the spot, if the other functionaries managed to “unearth” the culprit. Once away from that temptation, once delivered from the syren who had “entangled” him, no doubt Arthur would be safer with his mother and sister than anywhere else. And Lady Curtis had acquiesced, though with reluctance, in this prohibition. She had felt that to go and see him might bring her into painful collision with the other people about him, and at the best would expose Arthur to what a young man likes least, the shame of being interfered with, and worried by his family in full sight of the world. Sir John, however, had nothing to do with the mission of Durant; he was the emissary of the ladies called by them to their aid in the emergency. No other messenger had seemed to them so suitable. His dearest friend, his ami de l’enfance, what more natural than that they should have recourse to his aid? And in these circumstances it may be supposed how hard it was for Durant to tell the story of his own defeat. He did it in the library in Berkeley Square in the waning afternoon, just before the evening fell. The room itself which seemed to him half as big as the whole town of Underhayes, was full of ghostly books, showing here and there in a streak of gilding, in a bit of white vellum, which caught the remains of the red October sunshine. The thinned trees waved slowly across the windows, and when a gust of wind came, a shower of falling leaves swept over the firmament outside. Lady Curtis sat between the fire and the nearest window, listening intently with her eyes fixed on his face. Lucy was in one of the window-seats, almost behind their visitor. She could not watch his face openly as her mother did; but she was not less anxious than her mother. When he turned round to her, as he did often, she shrank a little further back, preferring to watch him unobserved; for to Lucy, as to many other women, it seemed that half the story was told by the countenance of the teller. Lady Curtis had been a beautiful woman in her day, and had the beauty of her age now, as perfect an example of forty-five as could be desired. She was ample in form, but her head and face had retained all their delicacy and refinement; and if there was a slight hollow in the cheek, and a slight fulness about the throat, neither was sufficient to tell against her; and modified by youth, and by a somewhat softer disposition, Lucy’s face was as her mother’s. They were neither of them brilliant in colour. Lady Curtis had acquired something in this way with the matronly increase of her figure; but Lucy had no more than the rose tint which health gives, and her hair was soft light brown, a shade or two lighter than her eyes, hair which in her mother’s case was so daintily sprinkled with grey as to appear only lighter in tint than it had once been. Whoever desired to see Lady Curtis as she was at twenty had but to look at her daughter, and whoever wanted to make sure what Lucy would look like a quarter of a century hence could see it in Lady Curtis’s face. It gives an additional charm to both when this resemblance is carried out as it was in these two. It makes both youth and age more fair, bringing them together in a tender half mist of illusion, one face in two representations; the mother and the child both profited by it; Lady Curtis showing at her best in her darling’s brown eyes, and disclosing in her own how little there was to alarm the warmest admirer in that darling’s future. And they were proud of their resemblance, a little for the beauty’s sake, perhaps, but a great deal more for the love’s. Durant felt all around him a subtle air of witchery between the mother and the daughter. The very atmosphere was Lucy, sweet, soft, yet penetrating. And the two ladies seemed to look at each other through him as if he had been made of glass, and knew his inmost heart.
At present they were much cast down by what he said. He had described to them the Bates household, the little stuffy parlour, the rum and water, and Sarah Jane; and worst of all Arthur’s determined adherence to his love, and his promise. It seemed incredible to them that their son and brother should be satisfied in such a place. Some occult influence, something uncanny, seemed to be in the “infatuation” altogether. “And, Mr. Durant, do you really think nothing, nothing will make him give it up?”
“Indeed I do think so,” said Durant, “I cannot say otherwise, and I am sure you would not wish to hear anything less than the truth. He is—very much attached—to her.”
“And she—is just like the others,” said Lady Curtis faintly, “a little better you said, not so vulgar? Heaven help us! that I should speak so of my son’s—no, Mr. Durant, not yet, I cannot call her my son’s bride. Something may come in the way, something must be thought of—”
“I don’t think you will find anything. I have used every argument;—and to tell the truth I do not know that I am quite sure, in my own mind—of course I did not say this to Arthur—I am not quite convinced in my own thoughts—”
“Of what, Mr. Durant?” Lady Curtis said this anxiously in front of him, and Lucy breathed it half under her breath behind. He looked at the mother, but turned his chair a little so as to come nearer the daughter, who eluded him, gliding still a little further back.
“Well,” he said, “you may not be pleased, but I must speak according to my conscience. I would give a year of my life to get Arthur free, you know that—”
“What are you going to tell us?” cried Lady Curtis, clasping her white hands. Lucy did not say anything, but leant forward, so intent that when he again turned to her, she did not as usual withdraw.
“It is just this,” he said, sinking his voice; and the evening air seemed to make a visible droop towards the darkening to increase the alarming effect: “that I dare not on my honour say any more to Arthur on the subject. He is a gentleman; I cannot even to save him from misery bid him break his word.”
“Good God!” cried Lady Curtis, starting to her feet, and her excitement was so strong that the exclamation may be forgiven her. “His word! when his whole career and happiness are at stake—to a creature like that!”
“I knew that was what you were going to say,” came to him, in a sigh, from the dim light in the window, against which, herself a shadow, Lucy was. And this, though there was no word of encouragement in it, gave Durant strength.
“I understand your feeling,” he said, addressing her mother, “I thought the same when I went there; but Lady Curtis—”
“Don’t speak to me, don’t speak to me!” she cried, “they have entrapped you too; you have encouraged him in his folly;—his word!”
She walked up and down the room in a fit of impatience, her hands clasped, and inarticulate moans came from her unawares. The firelight seemed to get stronger and warmer as the daylight waned, and it was against this glow that they saw her figure in her excitement. They—for Lucy kept still in the window putting up her hand furtively to dry her eyes, not joining herself to her mother. She had put herself silently, he felt it, on his side. In another minute Lady Curtis sat down again, dropping impatiently into her chair. “Well!” she said almost harshly, “how about his word?”
“Do not be angry with me,” said Durant quite humbly. He could afford to be humble with Lucy backing him up. “I have not betrayed to him this feeling, which—if it is fantastic I cannot help it.” Here Lucy made a slight movement which seemed to him to imply a “no, no,” “I have acted against it. It was not in my mind at first. But if you will consider the circumstances—There is nothing which can be called entrapping. Nothing has been done to deceive him, all the reverse; and he has engaged himself to this girl voluntarily, made every kind of promise to her. Can I bid him withdraw now, perjure himself, deceive her?”
“Tut! tut!” said Lady Curtis, “don’t deceive yourself with big words; all this solemnity is unnecessary. They are not accustomed to it in that class of society; a little arrangement with the family, an offer of so much—Do you really think more would be wanted? Mr. Durant, you are too romantic. How I wish I had gone myself!”
“You would have done no good had you gone yourself. Even if you could have persuaded the family, there is Arthur to deal with—and her—He loves her, Lady Curtis, there is no sham on Arthur’s part.”
“Fiddlesticks!” she cried, rising again in restless excitement. “Arthur, a boy, a light-hearted creature that would mend of any heartbreak in a week; and she—of course I don’t know her—but there is nothing so good for wounded feelings, or so healing, as banknotes.”
“Mamma!” said Lucy, holding out her hands with a mute entreaty; and then she added, “If you offered them money, what would Arthur say?”
“Oh, what would Arthur say? and what would Arthur do? and is he not bound to keep his word?” cried Lady Curtis. “How you worry me with your sentimentalizing! What should have been done was to bring him away, to hush it up. And it might have been done; but Mr. Durant has spoiled it all; he might have done it. Nobody has so much power with Arthur. If he had only brought him away for a single day all might have been well.”
“He would not have come,” said Durant, more to himself than to her, for he was vexed and angry, though he was most anxious not to show it. “I—power with him! He quarrelled with me outright, would not speak to me. I tried what I could. The family might have yielded, but she would not yield—not an inch. She told me—when I threatened that Sir John and you would withdraw or diminish his allowance, and that he might become poor—that there was all the more reason why she should hold by him—it would prove her sincerity.”
“I should have said the same thing,” said Lucy, holding her breath.
“You! you have been brought up very differently. So, she was disinterested, was she? Ah!” said Lady Curtis, calming a little, “that is more dangerous than I thought.”
“Yes,” said Durant, pleased to have produced some effect, and carried beyond the bounds of prudence, “that is exactly what she said. It was her only chance to show that it was of himself she was thinking, not any wish to be rich or to become my lady.”
“To become my lady!” My Lady faltered as if a blow had been struck at her. Yes, to be sure, her son would be Sir Arthur in his turn, and his wife Lady Curtis, everybody knew that; but to feel that your end is anticipated, and your very name appropriated, this gives even to the old, much more to the middle-aged, a curious thrill of sensation. It was a shock to her. She felt as if she had been struck; then she recovered herself and laughed a little, short, hard laugh. “So,” she said, rubbing her hands feebly together, “she is looking forward to that. I did not think of that.”
Durant saw his mistake, but he did not see how to mend it. Lucy, darting upon him in the darkness what he felt to be a glance of reproach, rushed hastily past him to her mother. But by this time Lady Curtis had recovered herself.
“Never mind,” she said, “never mind, my dear. It was quite natural. But that was not Arthur. No, we know him better than to believe that.”
“And she does not know you—did not know what she was saying.”
“Oh, as for that! Ring the bell, Lucy. Let us have the lamp at least, if we can have no other light on the subject. It was just the thing, of course, that an ignorant under-bred girl would think of.”
“But, mamma! Yes, it was her ignorance; and she said—that was what you were telling us, Mr. Durant? that she would be glad to think there was no chance of this now?”
“Lucy,” said her mother, taking no notice of Durant, “the one thing that could vex me most in this would be that you, out of perverse youthful generosity, should take up the part of champion to this girl. Yes, you are beginning, I have noticed it. But I cannot bear this, it is the only thing wanting to fill up my cup.”
“I will not, mother dear. I will do nothing to vex you. You shall not have to struggle with me too. Has there ever been a time when we have not been in sympathy? But still we must be just,” said Lucy, with her arm round her mother’s waist. She said the last words almost in a whisper. They stood clinging together, relieved against the warm light from the fire. All the rest of the room had fallen into darkness, the windows but so many stripes of a pale glimmer, no real light coming from them, all gloom about, only this glow of warmth showing the two who held together. Durant had nothing to do with that warmth and union. He sat behind in the dark, neither taking any notice of him. And in his heart there was a certain bitterness. He had left his own concerns at their appeal. He had taken a great deal of trouble, and this was all the acknowledgment. He felt very sore and wounded in his heart.
Then lights were brought into the room, lamps which made two partial circles of illumination; and the presence of the servant who brought them, necessitated a few words on ordinary subjects. Lady Curtis resumed her seat with that anxious hypocrisy by which we show our respect for the curious world below stairs, and asked Mr. Durant if he meant to remain in town, or if he was going back to the country. And he told her, not without meaning, that having come to town, though a little earlier than he intended, he meant to stay. There was a pause when they were alone again, and then Durant rose to go away.
“I am afraid I have not succeeded in doing what you expected of me,” he said, somewhat drearily. “I did the best I could, and if you like I will go again, though I shall get but a poor reception. I am unfortunate,” he added, with a faint smile, which had its meaning too.
“Mamma,” said Lucy, “you are not going to let Mr. Durant go, thinking we are ungrateful to him! That can never be—when he has taken so much trouble.”
“Trouble when one has failed does not count for much,” he said, smiling. “It is unkind to talk to me of being grateful or ungrateful; am I not as much, I mean almost as much, very nearly as much, interested in Arthur as yourselves? as if he were my brother,” he said with vehemence. “He has been so; I can never think of him otherwise whatever happens.”
“And whatever happens you will always think of him so?” cried Lucy, for the moment forgetting her reserve. “Oh promise me, Mr. Durant! Even if this makes a difference to us, it will make none to you? If he is so wrong, if he is so foolish that we have to turn from him, you will not? It will make no change to you?”
“None!” he said, fervently. “None! I will stand by him whatever happens. You may trust me—especially now.”
Lucy knew that he meant especially since she had asked him, and got a sudden soft suffusion of colour which tinted her to her very hair; but Lady Curtis thought he meant, and how justly! especially now when there was need of every friendship to stand by her son. She answered him with a struggle between the gratitude which she ought to feel, and the annoyed disappointment and distress that filled her heart.
“We have no right to ask such a pledge from you, Mr. Durant. Yes, you have always been very kind, very kind. Forgive me,” she said, softening, “if I am too unhappy to say what I ought. I thought something might have been done. But to think that we must stand by calmly and see him accomplish his own destruction! Oh, think again!” she cried, with sudden tears, “can we do nothing, nothing more, to save my boy from this miserable fate?”
Durant put down his hat. He did not go till late, nearly midnight. They sat and talked of Arthur, nothing but Arthur, the whole evening through.