“I DO not know how he takes it, mother,” said Charlie. “I do not know if he takes it at all; he has not spoken a single word all the way home.”
He did not seem disposed to speak many now; he went into Miss Bridget’s dusky little parlour, lingering a moment at the door, and bending forward in reflection from the little sloping mirror on the wall. The young man was greatly moved, silent with inexpressible emotion; he went up to Marian first, and, in the presence of them all, kissed her little trembling hand and her white cheek; then he drew her forward with him, holding her up with his own arm, which trembled too, and came direct to Miss Anastasia, who was seated, pale, and making gigantic efforts to command herself, in old Miss Bridget’s chair. “This is my bride,” said Louis firmly, yet with quivering lips. “What are we to call you?”
The old lady looked at him for a moment, vainly endeavouring to retain her self-possession—then sprang up suddenly, grasped him in her arms, and broke forth into such a cry of weeping as never had been heard before under this peaceful roof. “What you will! what you will! my boy, my heir, my father’s son!” cried Miss Anastasia, lifting up her voice. No one moved, or spoke a word—it was like one of those old agonies of thanksgiving in the old Scriptures, when a Joseph or a Jacob, parted for half a patriarch’s lifetime, “fell upon his neck and wept.”
When this moment of extreme agitation was over, the principal actors in the family drama came again into a moderate degree of calmness: Louis was almost solemn in his extreme youthful gravity. The young man was changed in a moment, as, perhaps, nothing but this overwhelming flood of honour and prosperity could have changed him. He desired to see the evidence and investigate his own claims thoroughly, as it was natural he should; then he asked Charlie to go out with him, for there was not a great deal of room in this little house, for private conference. The two young men went forth together through those quiet well-known lanes, upon which Louis gazed with a giddy eye. “This should have come to me in some place where I was a stranger,” he said with excitement; “it might have seemed more credible, more reasonable, in a less familiar place. Here, where I have been an outcast and dishonoured all my life—here!”
“Your own property,” said Charlie. “I’m not a poetical man, you know—it is no use trying—but I’d come to a little sentiment, I confess, if I were you.”
“In the mean time there are other people concerned,” said Louis, taking Charlie’s arm, and turning him somewhat hurriedly away from the edge of the wood, which at this epoch of his fortunes, the scene of so many despairing fancies, was rather more than he chose to experiment upon. “You are not poetical, Charlie. I do not suppose it has come to your turn yet—but we do not want poetry to-night; there are other people concerned. So far as I can see, your case—I scarcely can call it mine, who have had no hand in it—is clear as daylight—indisputable. Is it so?—you know better than me.”
“Indisputable,” said Charlie, authoritatively.
“Then it should never come to a trial—for the honour of the house—for pity,” said the heir. “A bad man taken in the toils is a very miserable thing to look at, Charlie; let us spare him if we can. I should like you to get some one who is to be trusted—say Mr Foggo, with some well-known man along with him—to wait upon Lord Winterbourne. Let them go into the case fully, and show him everything: say that I am quite willing that the world should think he had done it in ignorance—and persuade him—that is, if he is convinced, and they have perfect confidence in the case. The story need not be publicly known. Is it practicable?—tell me at once.”
“It’s practicable if he’ll do it,” said Charlie; “but he’ll not do it, that’s all.”
“How do you know he’ll not do it?—it is to save himself,” said Louis.
“If he had not known it all along, he’d have given in,” said Charlie, “and taken your offer, of course; but he has known it all along—it’s been his ghost for years. He has his plans all prepared and ready, you may be perfectly sure. It is generous of you to suggest such a thing, but he would suppose it a sign of weakness. Never mind that—it’s not of the least importance what he supposes; if you desire it, we can try.”
“I do desire it,” said Louis; “and then, Charlie, there is the Rector.”
Charlie shook his head regretfully. “I am sorry for him myself,” said the young lawyer; “but what can you do?”
“He has been extremely kind to me,” said Louis, with a slight trembling in his voice—“kinder than any one in the world, except your own family. There is his house—I see what to do; let us go at once and explain everything to him to-night.”
“To-night! that’s premature—showing your hand,” said Charlie, startled in his professional caution: “never mind, you can stand it; he’s a fine fellow, though he is the other line. If you like it, I don’t object; but what shall you say?”
“He ought to have his share,” said Louis—“don’t interrupt me, Charlie; it is more generous in our case to receive than to give. He ought, if I represent the elder branch, to have the younger’s share: he ought to permit me to do as much for him as he would have done for me. Ah, he bade me look at the pictures to see that I was a Rivers. I did not suppose any miracle on earth could make me proud of the name.”
They went on hastily together in the early gathering darkness. The Old Wood House stood blank and dull as usual, with all its closed blinds; but the gracious young Curate, meditating his sermon, and much elated by his persecution, was straying about the well-kept paths. Mr Mead hastened to tell them that Mr Rivers had left home—“hastened away instantly to appear in our own case,” said the young clergyman. “The powers of this world are in array against us—we suffer persecution, as becomes the true church. The Rector left hurriedly to appear in person. He is a devoted man, a noble Anglican. I smile myself at the reproaches of our adversary; I have no fear.”
“We may see him in town,” said Louis, turning away with disappointment. “If you write, will you mention that I have been here to-night, to beg his counsel and friendship—I, Louis Rivers—” A sudden colour flushed over the young man’s face; he pronounced the name with a nervous firmness; it was the first time he had called himself by any save his baptismal name all his life.
As they turned and walked home again, Louis relapsed into his first agitated consciousness, and did not care to say a word. Louis Rivers! lawful heir and only son of a noble English peer and an unsullied mother. It was little wonder if the young man’s heart swelled within him, too high for a word or a thought. He blotted out the past with a generous haste, unwilling to remember a single wrong done to him in the time of his humiliation, and looked out upon the future as upon a glorious vision, almost too wonderful to be realised: it was best to rest in this agitated moment of strange triumph, humility, and power, to convince himself that this was real, and to project his anticipations forward only with a generous anxiety for the concerns of others, with no question, when all questions were so overwhelming and incredible, after this extraordinary fortune of his own.