BOOK III.—CHAPTER I.
AN OLD STORY.
“NOW, mother,” said Charlie, “I’m in real earnest. My father would tell me himself if he were here. I want to understand the whole concern.”
Mrs Atheling and her son were in Charlie’s little room, with its one small lattice-window, overshadowed and embowered in leaves—its plain uncurtained bed, its small table, and solitary chair. Upon this chair, with a palpitating heart, sat Mrs Atheling, and before her stood the resolute boy.
And she began immediately, yet with visible faltering and hesitation, to tell him the story she had told the girls of the early connection between the present Lord Winterbourne and the Atheling family. But Charlie’s mind was excited and preoccupied. He listened, almost with impatience, to the sad little romance of his father’s young sister, of whom he had never heard before. It did not move him at all as it had moved Agnes and Marian. Broken hearts and disappointed loves were very far out of Charlie’s way; something entirely different occupied his own imagination. He broke forth with a little effusion of impatience when the story came to an end. “And is this all? Do you mean to say this is the whole, mother? And my father had never anything to do with him but through a girl!”
“You are very unfeeling, Charlie,” said Mrs Atheling, who wiped her eyes with real emotion, yet with a little policy too, and to gain time. “She was a dear innocent girl, and your father was very fond of her—reason enough to give him a dislike, if it were not sinful, to the very name of Lord Winterbourne.”
“I had better go on with my packing, then,” said Charlie. “So, that was all? I suppose any scamp in existence might do the same. Do you really mean to tell me, mother, that there was nothing but this?”
Mrs Atheling faltered still more under the steady observation of her son. “Charlie,” said his mother, with agitation, “your father never would mention it to any one. I may be doing very wrong. If he only were here himself to decide! But if I tell you, you must give me your word never so much as to hint at it again.”
Charlie did not give the necessary pledge, but Mrs Atheling made no pause. She did not even give him time to speak, however he might have been inclined, but hastened on in her own disclosure with agitation and excitement. “You have heard Papa tell of the young gentleman—he whom you all used to be so curious about—whom your father did a great benefit to,” said Mrs Atheling, in a breathless hurried whisper. “Charlie, my dear, I never said it before to any creature—that was him.”
She paused only a moment to take breath. “It was before we knew how he had behaved to dear little Bride,” she continued, still in haste, and in an undertone. “What he did was a forgery—a forgery! people were hanged for it then. It was either a bill, or a cheque, or something, and Mr Reginald had written to it another man’s name. It happened when Papa was in the bank, and before old Mr Lombard died—old Mr Lombard had a great kindness for your father, and we had great hopes then—and by good fortune the thing was brought to Papa. Your father was always very quick, Charlie—he found it out in a moment. So he told old Mr Lombard of it in a quiet way, and Mr Lombard consented he should take it back to Mr Reginald, and tell him it was found out, and hush all the business up. If your papa had not been so quick, Charlie, but had paid the money at once, as almost any one else would have done, it all must have been found out, and he would have been hanged, as certain as anything—he, a haughty young gentleman, and a lord’s son!”
“And a very good thing, too,” exclaimed Charlie; “saved him from doing any more mischief. So, I suppose now, it’s all my father’s blame.”
“This Lord Winterbourne is a bad man,” said Mrs Atheling, taking no notice of her son’s interruption: “first he was furious to William, and then he cringed and fawned to him; and of course he had it on his conscience then about poor little Bride, though we did not know—and then he raved, and said he was desperate, and did not know what to do for money. Your father came home to me, quite unhappy about him; for he belonged to the same country, and everybody tried to make excuses for Mr Reginald, being a young man, and the heir. So William made it up in his own mind to go and tell the old lord, who was in London then. The old lord was a just man, but very proud. He did not take it kind of William, and he had no regard for Mr Reginald; but for the honour of the family he sent him away. Then we lost sight of him long, and Aunt Bridget took a dislike to us, and poor little Bride was dead, and we never heard anything of the Lodge or the Hall for many a year; but the old lord died abroad, and Mr Reginald came home Lord Winterbourne. That was all we ever knew. I thought your father had quite forgiven him, Charlie—we had other things to think of than keeping up old grudges—when all at once it came to be in the newspapers that Lord Winterbourne was a political man, that he was making speeches everywhere, and that he was to be one of the ministry. When your father saw that, he blazed up into such an anger! I said all I could, but William never minded me. He never was so bitter before, not even when we heard of little Bride. He said, Such a man to govern us and all the people!—a forger! a liar!—and sometimes, I think, he thought he would expose the whole story, and let everybody know.”
“Time enough for that,” said Charlie, who had listened to all this without comment, but with the closest attention. “What he did once he’ll do again, mother; but we’re close at his heels this time, and he won’t get off now. I’m going to Oxford now to get some books. I say, mother, you’ll be sure, upon your honour, not to tell the girls?”
“No, Charlie,” said Mrs Atheling, with a somewhat faint affirmation; “but, my dear, I can’t believe in it. It can’t be true. Charlie, boy! if this was coming true, our Marian—your sister, Charlie!—why, Marian would be Lady Winterbourne!”
Charlie did not say a word in return; he only took down his little travelling-bag, laid it at his mother’s feet to be packed, and left her to that business and her own meditations; but after he had left the room, the lad returned again and thrust in his shaggy head at the door. “Take care of Marian, mother,” said Charlie, in a parting adjuration; “remember my father’s little sister Bride.”
So he went away, leaving Mrs Atheling a good deal disquieted. She had got over the first excitement of Miss Anastasia’s great intelligence and the sudden preparations of Charlie. She had scarcely time enough, indeed, to give a thought to these things, when her son demanded this history from her, and sent her mind away into quite a different channel. Now she sat still in Charlie’s room, pondering painfully, with the travelling-bag lying quite unheeded at her feet. At one moment she pronounced the whole matter perfectly impossible—at the next, triumphantly inconsequent, she leaped to the full consummation of the hope, and saw her own pretty Marian—dazzling vision!—the lady of Winterbourne! and again the heart of the good mother fell, and she remembered little Bride. Louis, as he was now, having no greater friends than their own simple family, and no pretensions whatever either to birth or fortune, was a very different person from that other Louis who might be heir of lands and lordship and the family pride of the Riverses. Much perplexed, in great uncertainty and pain, mused Mrs Atheling, half-resentful of that grand discovery of Miss Anastasia, which might plunge them all into renewed trouble; while Charlie trudged into Oxford for his Italian grammar—and Louis and Marian wandered through the enchanted wood, drawing homeward—and Rachel sang to the children—and Agnes wondered by herself over the secret which was to be confided only to Mamma.