CHAPTER V.
THE OLD WOOD HOUSE.
LOUIS passed the night in the Rector’s library. He had no inclination for sleep; indeed, he was almost scornful of the idea that he could sleep under his new and strange circumstances; and it was not until he roused himself, with a start, to see that the pale sheen of the moonlight had been succeeded by the rosy dawn of morning, that he knew of the sudden, deep slumber, that had fallen upon him. It was morning, but it was still a long time till day; except the birds among the trees there was nothing astir, not even the earliest labourer, and he could not hear a sound in the house. All the events of the previous night returned upon Louis’s mind with all the revived freshness of a sudden awaking. A great change had passed upon him in a few hours. He started now at once out of the indefinite musings, the flush of vain ambition, the bitter brooding over wrong which had been familiar to his mind. He began to think with the earnest precision of a man who has attained to a purpose. Formerly it had been hard enough for his proud undisciplined spirit, prescient of something greater, to resolve upon a plan of tedious labour for daily bread, or to be content with such a fortune as had fallen to such a man as Mr Atheling. Even with love to bear him out, and his beautiful Marian to inspire him, it was hard, out of all the proud possibilities of youth, to plunge into such a lot as this. Now he considered it warily, with the full awakened consciousness of a man. Up to this time his bitter dislike and opposition to Lord Winterbourne had been carried on by fits and starts, as youths do contend with older people under whose sway they have been all their life. He took no reason with him when he decided that he was not the son of the man who opposed him. He never entered into the question how he came to the Hall, or what was the motive of its master. He had contented himself with a mere unreasoning conviction that Lord Winterbourne was not his father; but only one word was wanted to awaken the slumbering mind of the youth, and that word had been spoken last night. Now a clear and evident purpose became visible before him. What was Lord Winterbourne’s reason for keeping him all his life under so killing a bondage? What child was there in the world whom it was Lord Winterbourne’s interest to call illegitimate and keep in obscurity? His heart swelled—the colour rose in his face. He did not see how hopeless was the search—how entirely without grounds, without information, he was. He did not perceive how vain, to every reasonable individual, would seem the fabric he had built upon a mere conviction of his own. In his own eager perception everything was possible to that courage, and perseverance indomitable, which he felt to be in him; and, for the first time in his life, Louis came down from the unreasonable and bitter pride which had shut his heart against all overtures of friendship. Friendship—help—advice—the aid of those who knew the world better than he did—these were things to be sought for, and solicited now. He sat in the Rector’s chair, leaning upon the Rector’s writing-table; it was not without a struggle that he overcame his old repugnance, his former haughtiness. It was not without a pang that he remembered the obligation under which this stranger had laid him. It was his first effort in self-control, and it was not an easy one; he resolved at last to ask counsel from the Rector, and lay fully before him the strange circumstances in which he stood.
The Rector was a man of capricious hours, and uncertain likings. He was sometimes abroad as early as the earliest ploughman; to-day it was late in the forenoon before he made his appearance. Breakfast had been brought to Louis, by himself, in the library; in this house they were used to solitary meals at all hours—and he had already asked several times for the Rector, when Mr Rivers at last entered the room, and saluted him with stately courtesy. “My sister, I find, has detained your sister,” said the Rector. “I hope you have not been anxious—they tell me the young lady will join us presently.”
Then there was a pause; and then Mr Rivers began an extremely polite and edifying conversation, which must have reminded any spectator of the courtly amity of a couple of Don Quixotes preparing for the duello. The Rector himself conducted it with the most solemn gravity imaginable. This Lionel Rivers, dissatisfied and self-devouring, was not a true man. Supposing himself to be under a melancholy necessity of disbelieving on pain of conscience, he yet submitted to an innumerable amount of practical shams, with which his conscience took no concern. In spite of his great talents, and of a character full of natural nobleness, when you came to its foundations, a false tone, an artificial strain of conversation, an unreal and insincere expression, were unhappily familiar enough to the dissatisfied clergyman, who vainly tried to anchor himself upon the authority of the Church. Louis, on the contrary, knew nothing of talk which was a mere veil and concealment of meaning; he could not use vain words when his heart burned within him; he had no patience for those conversations which were merely intended to occupy time, and which meant and led to nothing. Yet it was very difficult for him, young, proud, and inexperienced as he was, without any invitation or assistance from his companion, to enter upon his explanation. He changed colour, he became uneasy, he scarcely answered the indifferent remarks addressed to him. At length, seeing nothing better for it, he plunged suddenly and without comment into his own tale.
“We have left Winterbourne Hall,” said Louis, reddening to his temples as he spoke. “I have long been aware how unsuitable a home it was for me. I am going to London immediately. I cannot thank you enough for your hospitality to my sister, and to myself, last night.”
“That is nothing,” said the Rector, with a motion of his hand. “Some time since I had the pleasure of saying to your friends in the Lodge that it would gratify me to be able to serve you. I do not desire to pry into your plans; but if I can help you in town, let me know without hesitation.”
“So far from prying,” said Louis, eagerly, interrupting him, “I desire nothing more than to explain them. All my life,” and once again the red blood rushed to the young man’s face,—“all my life I have occupied the most humiliating of positions—you know it. I am not a meek man by nature; what excuse I have had if a bitter pride has sometimes taken possession of me, you know——”
The Rector bowed gravely, but did not speak. Louis continued in haste, and with growing agitation, “I am not the son of Lord Winterbourne—I am not a disgraced offshoot of your family—I can speak to you without feeling shame and abasement in the very sound of your name. This has been my conviction since ever I was capable of knowing anything—but Heaven knows how subtly the snare was woven—it seemed impossible, until now when we have done it, to disengage our feet.”
“Have you made any discovery, then? What has happened?” said the Rector, roused into an eager curiosity. Here, at the very outset, lay Louis’s difficulty—and he had never perceived it before.
“No; I have made no discovery,” he said, with a momentary disconcertment. “I have only left the Hall—I have only told Lord Winterbourne what he knows well, and I have known long, that I am not his son.”
“Exactly—but how did you discover that?” said the Rector.
“I have discovered nothing—but I am as sure of it as that I breathe,” answered Louis.
The Rector looked at him—looked at a portrait which hung directly above Louis’s head upon the wall, smiled, and shook his head. “It is quite natural,” he said; “I can sympathise with any effort you make to gain a more honourable position, and to disown Lord Winterbourne—but it is vain, where there are pictures of the Riverses, to deny your connection with my family. George Rivers himself, my lord’s heir, the future head of the family, has not a tithe as much of the looks and bearing of the blood as you.”
Louis could not find a word to say in face of such an argument—he looked eagerly yet blankly into the face of the Rector—felt all his pulses throbbing with fiery impatience of the doubt thus cast upon him—yet knew nothing to advance against so subtle and unexpected a charge of kindred, and could only repeat, in a passionate undertone, “I am not Lord Winterbourne’s son.”
“I do not know,” said the Rector, “I have no information which is not common to all the neighbourhood—yet I beg you to guard against delusion. Lord Winterbourne brought you here while you were an infant—since then you have remained at the Hall—he has owned you, I suppose, as much as a man ever owns an illegitimate child. Pardon me, I am obliged to use the common words. Lord Winterbourne is not a man of extended benevolence, neither is he one to take upon himself the responsibility or blame of another. If you are not his son, why did he bring you here?”
Louis raised his face from his hands which had covered it—he was very pale, haggard, almost ghastly. “If you can tell me of any youth—of any child—of any man’s son, whom it was his interest to disgrace and remove out of the way,” said the young man with his parched lips, “I will tell you why I am here.”
The Rector could not quite restrain a start of emotion—not for what the youth said, for that was madness to the man of the world—but for the extreme passion, almost despair, in his face. He thought it best to soothe rather than to excite him.
“I know nothing more than all the world knows,” said Mr Rivers; “but, though I warn you against delusions, I will not say you are wrong when you are so firmly persuaded that you are right. What do you mean to do in London—can I help you there?”
Louis felt with no small pang this giving up of the argument—as if it were useless to discuss anything so visionary—but he roused himself to answer the question: “The first thing I have to do,” he said quickly, “is to maintain my sister and myself.”
The Rector bowed again, very solemnly and gravely—perhaps not without a passing thought that the same duty imposed chains more galling than iron upon himself.
“That done, I will pursue my inquiries as I can,” said Louis; “you think them vain—but time will prove that. I thank you now, for my sister’s sake, for receiving us—and now we must go on our way.”
“Not yet,” said the Rector. “You are without means, of course—what, do you think it a disgrace, that you blush for it?—or would you have me suppose that you had taken money from Lord Winterbourne, while you deny that you are his son? For this once suppose me your friend; I will supply you with what you are certain to need; and you can repay me—oh, with double interest if you please!—only do not go to London unprovided—for that is the maddest method of anticipating a heartbreak; your sister is young, almost a child, tender and delicate—let it be, for her sake.”
“Thank you; I will take it as you give it,” said Louis. “I am not so ungenerous as you suppose.”
There was a certain likeness between them, different as they were—there was a likeness in both to these family portraits on the walls. Before such silent witnesses Louis’s passionate disclaimer, sincere though it was, was unbelievable. For no one could believe that he was not an offshoot of the house of Rivers, who looked from his face and the Rector’s to those calm ancient faces on the walls.