THE long avenue at Oakley was as dreary as the damp street of Underhayes. The rain drizzling, a constant soft downfall, half of the chilly shower, half of the yellow leaves, going on without intermission. Here and there one of the great oaks from which the place had its name, stood up all russet and solid, with the dry leaves clinging to its branches; here were feeble flutters of denuded sycamore and lime, there elms standing up in a forlorn faded greenness, all rusty, shabby, ragged, their year’s clothing worn out. The house itself appeared in glimpses as they drove along, grey and cold with its broad low front stretching along the damp terraces, which were so green with the wet as to put everything out of harmony. The neighbourhood was proud of Oakley Hall, which was said to be pure Italian, Palladian, or something finer still if there is any finer word. It had an imposing front with pediments and pillars, supposed to be white, but at present the very colour of cold, damp and mournful. Lady Curtis shivered as they drove along, sighting it by glimpses, now more, now less distinctly through the trees. It was her home, but there was not much sympathy between the lively quick-feeling woman and the blank splendour of the cold long-drawn-out house. She was never fond of it at any time. What she would have given for red brick! but Palladio was very much more dignified if not so kindly. “How dismal we shall be without Arthur,” she said as they approached. They had not talked very much to each other on the journey. All that could be said about Arthur had been said on the night of Lucy’s return from Underhayes, but it was not possible to keep absolute silence about him now. The house was so full of Arthur; they seemed to see him upon the steps, in the avenue, appearing across the park with his gun. And now he had disappeared from the place. Their own sudden departure, when they first heard of his folly, had broken up the lingering remnant of a shooting party which had assembled at Oakley, chiefly for Arthur’s pleasure, but which no persuasions had induced Arthur to join. Now the men and their guns were all gone, and there was an interval of quiet before them till Christmas, when Sir John’s habitual party of parliamentary friends would assemble. Nothing but mourning could interfere with that; and, “we can’t put on mourning for Arthur, though God knows we might, if separation was all that was meant by it,” said Lady Curtis.
“Oh, mamma!” said Lucy with her usual tone of gentle remonstrance.
Lady Curtis was very quick and outspoken. She said a great many things with her lips which people in general say only in the seclusion of their mind. Lucy faisait les cornes again when her mother spoke of mourning for Arthur. The suggestion was intolerable to her. It threw an additional cloud upon the dreary streaming avenue and the grey blank of the eyeless house.
Sir John, who was in reality expecting them anxiously, did not come to the door to meet them, being a little too late in moving from his chair in the library, which was his way. There were often advantages in it; and perhaps to-day, as on other occasions, it was just as well that it was in his library he received his wife and daughter, instead of meeting them in the full sight of the servants. Sir John was a tall grey-haired man with a sort of homely dignity about him. He was not clever, and often enough the ladies felt it was difficult to get an idea into his head—and when the idea was in his head, he was in the way of treating it somewhat hardly, as if it was a thing rather than an idea. He could not play with plans and intentions as his wife’s quick mind loved to do—and when he received a blow, it crushed him with a sort of solid monotony to which there was no relief. He had not believed it possible that Arthur would persevere with a marriage which was so seriously against his interests, and had thought it only “some of my lady’s nonsense,” to think that this very fact would make Arthur more decided in throwing himself away. But now that the thing was done, he would allow no hope in it. His son was lost—the prey probably of a bad, certainly of a designing woman, seeking her own interests alone. He might as well die at once for any good that was likely to come of him now. And in consequence of this determination, on the part of Sir John that such a thing could not happen, the final act in the drama having taken him entirely by surprise, notwithstanding all warnings, had shaken him enormously in his health as well as in his immediate comfort. “He might as well be dead,” he had said, after he knew that there was no more hope; and those were the words which he repeated by way of greeting to his wife and daughter.
“He might as well be dead at once—why did you let him do it?” he cried. “If I had ever thought he could have been such a fool, I should have taken care to be on the spot myself,” said Sir John.
He had no curiosity about his son, where he was going—what he was doing. He might as well have been dead. To be sure when he himself was dead, Arthur must come back and reign in his state; but then Sir John felt no necessity within himself that he should ever die. It was so far off, that it was unnecessary to calculate upon that remote contingency, and in the meantime it was his son who had departed out of this life, left it altogether without possibility of return. He had spent these last few days very mournfully in the solitude of his vast house. One or two intimate friends had come to see him, but he had not cared to receive their visits. The Rector had been there for a long time that very day preaching strange doctrines: that a thing being done could not be undone, and that it would be wise now to make the best of everything that happened. The Rector was a Curtis too, Sir John’s own nephew, and though he was shocked by this domestic incident, he was aware that it would be best not to allow it to come to anything scandalous. He had ventured to suggest that, perhaps, things might turn out better than they appeared. “Better!” said Sir John, “he might as well have been dead.” He had been able to think of nothing else since he had heard of it; and his thoughts of Arthur were all of the kind which come into the minds of those who have lost their children. All the old forgotten nursery stories came back to him. What a boy he was—so active, so strong, such a good shot for his years, ready to ride at any thing, and with an opinion of his own on politics and all that. While he sat in his library pretending to read and write (and what is it that elderly gentlemen find to do when they are shut up for day after day, pretending to read and write in their libraries?) these fancies came surging up about him exactly as if Arthur had been dead. He would put down his paper suddenly to think out a little joke of his when he was five, or a school-boy prank at fifteen. What promise, what ability, a hundred times cleverer than ever I was! and all to end in this. The dull surprise in his mind was inexhaustible; how could he be such a fool—how could he commit moral suicide in this way? And why had not his mother put a stop to it? This dull misery which he was suffering did not affect Sir John’s ordinary habits; he went on, to all outward appearance, just as usual. He fulfilled every duty he had been accustomed to; ate at the usual times, took all the usual courses at dinner, and presented an imperturbable countenance to the butler and the footman who waited upon him; but his heart was heavy with the thought of his son who was lost. Though he was so glad to have his wife and daughter back again, he met them almost with reproaches.
“You went away, but you have not done any good,” he said. “I expected little, but still you might have been of some use—and you have been of no use. It is exactly as if he were dead.”
“Oh, papa, not that,” cried Lucy; but Lady Curtis only cried as she dropped into the big chair by the fire to get a little warmth. She felt at first as if her husband had a right to reproach her, notwithstanding that she had done everything she could; for she had left him with perhaps a boast of her own influence, and with very high hopes. It had seemed to her that Arthur must yield; and not only had Arthur not yielded, but all the harm that had been threatened was accomplished, and their only son was lost to them. She could not contradict what Sir John said. She was humbled, she who had been so confident; she had gone away almost promising to bring him back with her, confident in her power over her boy. Never before had her husband gained such an advantage. He had a kind of right to jibe at her henceforward, if he chose to exercise it. She had nothing to answer to him. It was quite true what he had said. What difference would it have made had the boy died.
“I never thought it would come to this,” said Sir John, “not that I believed in your remonstrances; but I could not have believed that the fellow was such a fool. What does he suppose he will make by it? He had everything that heart could desire, a good allowance, a good home; and to go and cut his own throat as it were, to make an end of himself! He might just as well have done it at once. He will never be of any good again.”
“It is quite true, it is quite true,” said Lady Curtis, “all that your papa says is true.” Her heart was so wrung that she scarcely knew whom she was addressing, Arthur, who had gone away in his disobedience, or Lucy, in whom there were faint appearances of standing up for her brother. The mother would not divest herself of the sense of a domestic audience to be convinced, whom perhaps their papa might be effectual with, though she had failed herself.
“What he could think he was to gain by it!” Sir John resumed, encouraged by this support, which he did not always receive from his wife. “Debt and that sort of thing is bad enough, and we know how young men are drawn into it; but what could anybody suppose this was going to be but ruin and destruction; what could he think there was to gain?”
“Oh, papa!” Lucy could not keep silence any longer. It was not the habit of the house to allow papa to have everything his own way. When Arthur’s youthful peccadilloes had been discussed hitherto, Lady Curtis, however she might object to his conduct, had always been his champion with his father, and one of the greatest marvels and most confusing circumstances of all was this silence on her part, and surrender as it were of Arthur to be crushed as Sir John pleased. Lucy could not be still and hear it all. “Oh, papa!” she cried, “you speak as if poor Arthur thought of nothing but his own interest; was he so selfish? you know that he never thought of what was for his interest at all. Cannot you believe that he loved her, and that this was his motive?”
“My dear,” said Sir John, “I was not speaking to you. You stand up for one another as is natural. But see, even your mother has not a word to say.”
This roused Lady Curtis from her depression. “I disapprove of it all as much as you can do, John; I am as unhappy; but still I do not think there was any calculation in Arthur’s mind; how should there have been? It was the height of foolishness and wicked hastiness, but he knew he could get nothing by it—he knew it was ruin, as you say.”
“Why did he do it then?” cried Sir John with outspread hands, appealing to heaven and earth, his eyebrows raised, shaking his head and looking about as if for an answer. Perhaps he felt his son’s defection the most of all of them, although when all was well with Arthur he was not one of the fathers who cultivate their sons unduly, but on the contrary was often impatient of Lady Curtis’s interest in anything connected with the boy, and her anxiety about him. “What could happen to him?” Sir John was in the habit of saying, when, as sometimes happened, there would be a commotion in the house because Arthur did not write often enough. “Depend upon it he is all right.” This had been his mood before; but now he seemed to miss Arthur wherever he turned. A thousand questions seemed to arise on which he would have liked to consult him; he wanted him to shoot a too-well preserved preserve, he wanted him to say what he thought about those new cottages which had to be built. Sir John did not see the need of new cottages; he did not want a new house, he was contented with his old one; and why should not other people be content? but in case the cottages should be forced upon him he should have liked to know what Arthur thought. Now that he was gone, there seemed to arise some special reason for appealing to him almost every day. It was as if he had died.
And there was a long silence in the big still room where the family had met together after their misfortune. How few families are there which have not known such sorrowful silences: when there is one absent to be bitterly blamed, and some one in fretful anguish cries out, and the others heartbroken, try for excuses and find nothing to say. This was how it was. The mother and daughter had talked it over till there seemed no more to add, but Sir John had not had this relief. All his pain and anger had been locked up in his own bosom, and now they burst forth. “What did he do it for? What did he suppose he could make by it?” Sir John did not believe that his son thought anything could be made by it, but how was he to repress the intolerable pang in his own heart for Arthur’s loss and ruin? And yet he was angry that nobody defended Arthur when he stopped speaking. He was angry also when the women attempted to defend him. It did not much matter which it was. He was silent for a moment; and the dull sky outside, and the dull air with its double rain from the clouds and the trees filled up the great windows with dreariness, adding another element of depression, and Lady Curtis gazed drearily into the fire stooping over it, to get a little warmth, and Lucy stood by the table motionless with tears upon her cheek. Then Sir John burst forth again.
“If there had been anything to justify it, you know! One has heard of a man losing his head for a great beauty, something out of the way—a syren, you know. But a village girl, and, from all I hear, a virago, a temper—”
“Don’t let us speak of her,” said Lady Curtis, with a movement of disgust. “It’s enough that he has done it. Oh, the foolish, foolish boy! Separated himself entirely from his own sphere, and his natural life, and us.”
“Mamma,” said Lucy, breathless, “I don’t want to excuse Arthur; but what could you say worse of him, both papa and you, if he had done something wrong?”
They both turned upon her, furious: yet so thankful to her for standing up for him with whom both were wroth beyond words.
“Wrong!” they both cried in one breath. “Are you mad, child? Do you think he has not done wrong?”
“He has been very, very foolish,” cried Lucy, growing pale. “Yes, he is wrong; oh, yes, I know he is wrong. But if he had done something shameful, wicked, mother—people’s sons have done so—sin—crime—you could not take it more seriously, you could not say worse of him.”
“Sin!” said Sir John. “Lucy, you are a girl, you don’t understand things. A man might be sinful enough, and not cut himself off like this. It is worse, ever so much worse, both for him and us, than what girls like you call sin.”
“No, papa!” cried Lucy, with flashing eyes. “I will not hear you speak so of Arthur. He has been disobedient to you; but he is a man. God does not mean us always to be obedient like little children. And he has done nothing that is wrong. I will not hear anyone say so.”
“Wrong!” cried Lady Curtis, rising in her indignation and pain. “Do you call it right to bring misery and disgrace into a family, to break off all his old ties for a new one, to throw off father and mother, and duty and honour, for the sake of a fancy, for the sake of a pretty face? What does he know more of her than a pretty face? Love! is that what can be called love?—for the sake of his own will and self-indulgence, the unkind, selfish boy!”
And then she sat down again and cried bitterly, which was a relief to her. Sir John could not cry, but he got angry, which was a relief to him.
“Let me never hear you excuse him again,” he cried, “or you will make me fear that you are not to be trusted either. What, Lucy! you think children are not to be expected to obey their parents—you, a girl! Then, God help us, what have we to expect, your mother and I?—our only boy lost to us in a disgraceful connection, and our only girl ready to follow his example.”
“Papa!” cried Lucy, indignant, yet trembling.
“Is that the prospect before us? It is kind of you to give us warning: and to take such a moment for doing it, when we are crushed sufficiently, I should think.” Then he changed from this pathetic, sarcastic tone, and turned upon her with fierce and threatening looks. “But mind you, Lucy, I’ll shut you up, as fathers had a right to do once. I’ll keep you on bread and water—by Heaven, I will—before you disgrace yourself like Arthur, right or wrong!”
“Hush, hush!” cried Lady Curtis, roused. “Oh, John, you forget yourself. Lucy, Lucy, your papa does not mean it. We don’t distrust you. Fancy distrusting Lucy, our Lucy, John! Oh, we are not come to that!” and she went to her daughter, and kissed her, and held her close in her arms.
Lucy had not said a word, but she had raised her head as her father vituperated, and fixed her eyes upon him steadily. She was not a girl to be frightened; but her mother grew frightened looking at her, and seeing the pale indignation and firmness in her face.
“Of course, I never meant that,” said Sir John, fretfully, sitting down in his chair with an angry thud which seemed but an echo of his sigh. “Why do you put your fantastic meanings into a man’s plain words? Hadn’t you better go and get your things off, and make yourselves comfortable? And you can send me a cup of tea. It is all this wretched, depressing day.”