VALENTINE, poor boy, was in his room dressing for dinner, fearing and knowing nothing of all that was happening, when Violet made that hapless visit to throw herself on Lady Eskside’s mercy. He was whistling softly before his glass, tying his necktie and chafing at the thought that to-morrow must again be a blank day on which he could not see her—and that only after the election could everything be settled. He was uneasy and restless, he did not know why, with a sensation of something in the air which he did not understand, but which made him by moments vaguely unhappy. When he began to dress he had seen from his window, or thought he saw, old Jean Moffatt, with a huge umbrella, standing at the corner of the path which led into the woods, and had sent down his man in great eagerness to ask if any note had come for him, thinking the old woman might have been Love’s messenger for lack of a better. But there was no note, and Val consoled himself, in that delicious sense of the poetic elevation of being in love which is so sweet to girls and boys, with thinking that his Violet was so much the centre of his thoughts as to throw her sweet shadow upon everything. Few people fully estimate the happiness of a young lover, even when separated from the beloved object, in being able to make such delightful reflections. Val dressed and came down-stairs, all unconscious of what it was which had made the rain beat in upon the carpet in the drawing-room. “Why, you must have had the windows open! What an idea in such a night—with the wind due west!” he said. But even Mary, though she gave him a warning look which he could not understand, said nothing to him; and dinner passed off as usual, though somehow more quietly. Lord Eskside was tired—worn out with his long day’s work. “And I am tired too,” said my lady; “it is the weather, I suppose. I think we should all go early to bed, to be fresh for to-morrow.” When the gentlemen were left alone, the old lord called Val to him. “We will take our wine in the library; I have a great deal to say to you, my boy,” he said, leading the way into his own particular retirement. And then the worst moment of Val’s life came to him unawares. He felt already that there was something to be revealed, from the moment they entered the room in which he had always received his admonitions when a child, and which was associated to him—but up to this time how lightly!—with all the clouds and shadows of his early life.
“Sit down here, Val,” said the old lord. “You must pluck up a heart, for there’s something unpleasant coming. Not of any consequence, or that can affect you seriously—but very unpleasant. Val, in every election there’s things of this kind,” he continued, slowly unfolding a paper. “I’ve seen a great deal worse. I’ve seen ill deeds, that a man had forgotten for twenty or thirty years, raked up to bring shame on his grey hairs. Thank God, there’s nothing of that kind possible with you! But it’s unpleasant enough, unpleasant enough.”
“For heaven’s sake, sir, tell me what it is at once! Don’t keep me in this suspense.”
“Val,” said the old lord, almost sternly, “no passion, sir! none of your outbursts! I’ll almost think it’s true, and that you’re not of my race, if you cannot set your teeth and bear it like a man.”
After this adjuration, which was very necessary, I think Val would have let himself be torn to pieces sooner than “give way.” He read the paper in the dim library, lighted only round the table at which they sat, the wall all dark with books, the dark curtains drawn over the windows, the fire without a glimmer in it. Lord Eskside sat watching the lad from under his shaggy eyebrows. So far as he was himself concerned, the old lord had worn out all capacity of feeling in the work he had gone through that day. He had revealed to his friends, in full detail, what he considered as the shame of his family, and had done so like a Stoic, without showing any emotion; but now he watched Val, tender as a mother over her baby, following the boy’s eyes from line to line, his starts of indignation and pain, the furious colour that came over his face, the quick-drawn panting breath, which showed the immense constraint he put on himself. Lord Eskside put out his hand once or twice, and laid it on Val’s arm with an instinctive caress, which from him was more than an embrace would have been from another. Val took a long time to read it, for the struggle was hard; not that the sense of it did not flash into his mind almost in a moment, with all those curious sensations of familiarity—as if it had happened before, or as if we had known and expected it all our lives—which so often attend a great event. When he laid it down at last, he turned to his grandfather, his face partially distorted by that strange dilation of suppressed pain which seems to change every line of the countenance. “This, then, I suppose, was what my father meant,” he said.
“Your father! What did he say? Did he warn you? Val, I would not be hard upon your father—but we are reaping the whirlwind, you and me, for the wind he has sown.”
“He told me that all a man’s antecedents, all the secrets of his life were raked up. He should have said, the secrets of other people’s lives,” said Val, with a short and bitter laugh. Then he added, dropping his voice, “I suppose it is all true.”
“All true to the facts, that is the devilishness of it. Val, can your recollection carry you further back than your coming here?”
Val shook his head. A deep, hot, crimson flush covered his face. How could he put into shape the vague reminiscences as of a dream—of childish wanderings, sports, and troubles. He recollected nothing that could be put into words, and yet something like the confused images of a dream.
“Is she living still—my mother?” he said, in a very low voice.
“For all we know,” said Lord Eskside. “If she was dead, I think we must have heard somehow. I have often thought you ought to be told, Val. God knows, many a hard hour’s thinking it’s given me. You had a brother, too. Probably he is dead long ago; for children die, I hear, like sheep, with all the exposure of that wild life.”
Val shuddered in spite of himself. His brother had faded away altogether out of his recollection, and he felt but little interest in the suggestion of him. No doubt he must be dead long ago. Val could not realise himself in such a relationship. It was impossible. He escaped from the thought of it. The thought of a mother, and such a mother, was sufficiently bewildering and painful.
“But there is time enough for considering this part of the subject,” said the old lord. “In the mean time, Val, I’ve been at Castleton, working hard all day. I have seen almost everybody it was important to see.”
“Why did you not take me with you? If I had but known——”
“It was better you should not know. I did better without you. They all know the true state of the case now—and you are prepared to meet them. And, Val, I may say to you, which is of more importance than saying it to them—that though that devilish paper is true enough, I am as sure you are my son Richard’s son, as if you had never left my sight since the day you were born.”
Val looked at him with hasty surprise. The tears came in a rush to the young man’s eyes. “Do you need to tell me this, grandfather?” he cried piteously, and covered his face with his hands. All that he had read had not made his position real to him, like those words from the old man, whom he had so confidently laid claim to all his life.
“No, no, no! I was wrong—forgive me,” cried the old lord. “But come, Val,” he added, quickly; “we must meet this difficulty with our best courage. We must not allow it to weigh us down. When you face the public to-morrow, there must be no sign either of depression or of passion. You must keep steady—as steady as you were before you knew a word of it—and confident as at the nomination; there must be no change. Can you trust yourself to meet your enemies so? It is the only way.”
The lad put his hand into the old man’s and grasped it, crushing the feeble fingers. “I will,” he said, setting his teeth. This was almost all that was said between them. When they parted for the night, the old lord took him by the shoulders, shaking him, as he pretended. This gentle violence was the greatest demonstration of tenderness of which, in his old-fashioned reserve, he was capable. “Go to your bed, my boy, and rest well before to-morrow’s trial,” he said.
All this time there had not been a word said about the author of the placard which, next morning as they drove into Castleton, was to be seen on every wall, in every village, near every house they passed. Valentine recognised, with a heightened colour, the first copy of it he saw, but said not a word, restraining himself, and turning his eyes away. In Castleton the whole town was placarded with it, and the streets brimming over with excitement. Wherever the carriage passed with its four horses, the groups which were gathered round, reading it, would stop, and pause, and turn to gaze at the handsome young fellow, the very flower of the country, who yet might not be Mr Ross after all, but only some chance child—a vagrant of the street. Valentine did all that man could do to banish from his face every appearance of knowing what these looks meant, or of being affected by them; but how hard it is to do this with the certainty that everybody around you knows that you know! He made a brave stand; he smiled and bowed to the people he knew, and spoke here and there a cheerful word, restraining his sense of shame, his wounded pride, the horror in his mind, with a strong hand. But his young face had lost its glow of healthful colour, the circles of his eyes seemed somehow expanded, and his nostrils quivered and dilated like those of a high-bred horse at a moment of excitement. The effect upon his face was curious, giving it a certain elevation of meaning and power—but it was the power of nature at its utmost strain, so quivering with the tension that one pull tighter of the curb, one step further, might burst the bond altogether. The polling had already begun when they reached Castleton, but the voters in the Ross interest flagged—nobody could tell how. Mr Seisin’s name was above that of Val when the state of the poll was published. This, everybody said, told for nothing; for, as it was well known, Mr Seisin had not the shadow of a chance. His supporters had been probably polled at once, to strike a bold keynote, and prove that there were still possibilities, even in Eskshire, for the Liberal party. It told for nothing, they all said to each other, surrounding Lord Eskside, who sat somewhat grim and silent, in the committee-room; but the men there assembled, though stanch as partisans could be, undeniably grew anxious as the moments went on. It was impossible there to ignore the attack, which had never been mentioned by any of his family to Valentine, except on the previous night, when he was told of it solemnly. Here it was of course the chief subject of discussion; and though he took no part in the talk, he had to hear it referred to without flinching. “Depend upon it,” said Sir John, “it’s a sign of weakness; it is an expedient of despair. They know their cause is desperate, and they don’t mind what they say.” But reassuring as this was, a cold shiver of alarm began to run through the party. One man stole out after another to see what news there was, to send off messengers hither and thither. The county was stanch;—of that there could be no doubt. Nothing would induce the Eskshire men to give their votes to Mr Seisin; but their minds might have been so affected by this sudden assault, coming just at the critical moment when there was no time to contradict it, that, bewildered and uncertain, they might refrain from voting at all.
Twelve o’clock! The business of the election seemed to have come to a pause. One individual now and then came up to the polling-booths. Already a great yellow placard, “What has become of the Tory voters?” had flashed out upon the walls. A dramatic pause fell into the midst of the excitement. The people of Castleton looked on curiously, as if they had been at a play. Even the crowds in the streets slackened—almost disappeared. When Valentine walked up the High Street to speak to Lady Eskside, who sat trembling and pale at the window of the Duke’s Head, looking on, he was taken no more notice of than on the most ordinary occasion. For one thing, a smart shower had come on, and the idlers had taken refuge under the porches of the houses, and at the shop-doors, where they gazed at him calmly, without a cheer, without a salutation. Lady Eskside, looking out of the window, watched all this with an aching heart. It seemed to her that all was over. She could not take her eyes from the impertinent placard opposite on the Liberal headquarters—“Seisin, 355; Ross, 289.” The yellow ribbons seemed to flaunt at her; her very heart was sick; and the dullness of mental suffering crept over her old frame. “Oh, Val, my dear, I wish this was over,” she said, taking his hand between hers. “Never fear, grandma,” he said, smiling at her dimly, as if from the midst of a dream. He scarcely knew what he was saying; and so far as he was conscious of the words, he did not believe them. The young man gave a glance across at the other window, but Violet was not there, which was a kind of vague consolation to him. He held the old lady’s hand, and tried to smile, and talk, and encourage her, without the least idea what he said.
At that moment the tide turned. The impatient little rattle of a small pony-carriage came up the long street, heard rattling over every particular stone all the way up, so great was the stillness of this strange moment of suspense. The pony-carriage drew up before the Duke’s Head, and Dr Rintoul, who lived in one of the new villas on Lord Eskside’s feus, got out and walked towards the polling-booth. His daughter, who had driven him, stood up—a large woman, bigger than the pony she drove—with a wave of her whip, on which there streamed a blue ribbon. “Good morning, Lady Eskside,” cried Miss Rintoul. “We are all Liberals, but we hate a mean advantage, and all blows in the dark. I’ve driven papa over to vote for Ross for ever, against all your sneaking enemies!” Miss Rintoul was not afraid of the sound of her own voice—she had outlived all such weaknesses. She said out what she had to say roundly, seeing no reason to be ashamed of it, standing up as on a platform, and waving her whip with the blue ribbon. Her vigorous voice caught the capricious ear of the crowd; for just at that moment the shower had stopped, the sun shone out, and the bystanders began to burst out from their hiding-places. “Ross for ever!”—two or three caught up the cry. It was echoed with a lusty roar from the Edinburgh road, whence a string of hackney-cabs, and an old coach which had once plied between Lasswade and Princes Street, and bore their names emblazoned on it, came clattering full speed round the corner. “Down with Pringle, and Ross for ever!” cried the Lasswade men, packed like herrings in their cabs. Blue flags streamed from the dusty roofs; familiar faces, hot and breathless, but beaming, looked up at the old lady and her boy. The shout ran down the length of the High Street, and called out the committee-men to their balcony. When Val turned away, moved by the restlessness of excitement, his way down the street was a triumph: the crowd divided to let him pass, cheered him, held out damp hands to be shaken, and strewed his path, so to speak, with smiles. He was received by his committee almost with embraces, with shaking of hands, and general tumult, half-a-dozen speaking together.
“All right, Mr Ross, all right! all right, my lord!” said one eager Castleton supporter. “The Lasswade men have come—Loanhead’s on the road—and there’s a perfect regiment coming up the water. Hurrah for Ross, and fair play for ever! Pringle will have little to brag of his day’s work.”
“He’ll have got us the best majority we’ve had yet,” cried another; “it was too barefaced, and him the next heir.” The room, which had been half empty, began all at once, no one knew how, to surge and overflow with enthusiastic supporters. Val felt himself tossed about on the crest of this wave of triumph. He began to get dizzy with excitement, with the sight of the groups pouring along the street towards the polling-booths, all in his interest, and with the agitation and tumult of talk about him. Long before the close of the poll his victory was secure.
But while the excitement of the crisis thus settled into assurance, another excitement rose in the young man’s mind. All round him, loud and low, in every different tone, he heard the name of Pringle identified with the assault which had shaken all the foundations of his life. He had said nothing about its effect upon his mind;—had even postponed realising it, at his grandfather’s entreaty, and the still greater urgency of circumstances, which compelled him to put a bold face on the matter, and show no emotion to the world. But all the while he knew that the stroke, though he had no time to think of it, had struck at his very heart. He had not slept all the previous night; he had made such a tremendous effort of self-control as his young frame and undisciplined mind were scarcely capable of; and the reaction was beginning to set in. Every faculty, every feeling, began to concentrate in the sense of injury which he had shut out of his mind by such an effort while necessity required it—of injury, and of that passionate impulsive rage which was the weak point of his character. From the moment when he fully realised who it was that had struck this dastardly blow at him, his blood had begun to boil in every vein. Pringle! that was the man—his pretended friend, his relation, a man who had smiled upon him, eaten with him, called him by friendly names, sought him out. I cannot tell how it was that Violet, and everything connected with her, disappeared altogether at this crisis from the young man’s agitated mind. He never paused to think that it was Vi’s father against whom his whole passionate soul rose up in one longing to punish and avenge. She and everything gentle in his life disappeared and was swept away, the burning tide of fury being too strong for them. Before his confused eyes, while the very different scenes of the day were still going on around him, another panorama seemed to be passing, mixed up somehow with the actual events, the central figure in which was always this man, looking like a friend, yet preparing this deadliest sting for him. That burning sense of the intolerable which is in all human affairs the most intolerable of sensations, came upon Val with a force which he seemed helpless to resist. He felt that he could not bear this injury—he could not pass over it, let it go by as if it had not been. His arm tingled to make some stroke. An agitation of haste and anxiety to get through his present business, that he might be free for the other, took hold of him. He went on, doing everything required of him, smiling, shaking hands, speechifying, he could not tell what, answering to the necessities of his position like a man in a dream, and hearing a confused din in his ears of cheers and plaudits, of meaningless talk, congratulations, pæans of victory, through all of which he tried to rush, faster and ever faster, longing to have it over, to get away—to fly at the throat of his enemy. And yet I don’t think that he betrayed himself. He was excited, but what so natural?—and perhaps worn out with his excitement, to the eyes of one or two close observers. “Get him away as soon as you can—he’s overdone,” Sir John said to the old lord. “Tut,” said Lord Eskside, himself feeling ten years younger in the fulness of his triumph, “no fear of Val; his blood is up, and he can stand anything.” Thus the triumphant day came to an end.
The carriage stood in front of the Duke’s Head, Lady Eskside and Mary Percival having already taken their places in it, awaiting the new Member and his party, who came up the street, a little murmuring crowd, buzzing forth satisfaction, pride, and mutual plaudits. Val was carried along in the midst of it, more silent than any, feeling almost at the end of his forces, and sick with eagerness to get free. It was at this unhappy moment that a party of young men, recently arrived, came down the street, meeting Valentine and his body-guard. The first of these was Sandy Pringle—the son, not the father. He had come straight from Edinburgh to ascertain the result of the election, knowing nothing whatever of all that had happened till he heard his own name in every mouth, denounced, by this time, by both sides alike. Sandy, as was natural, was deeply excited: he would not allow the universal censure. “If my father were here he would disprove it,” he had been saying, but vainly. He came straight up in front of Lord Eskside upon the narrow pavement, blocking up the way with his broad shoulders and well-developed form. “Lord Eskside,” he cried, “I appeal to you for justice. I hear my father’s name in every mouth——”
“Stand aside, sir!” cried Val, in a voice so loud and harsh, and so full of emotion, that it seemed to silence every sound about him. The bystanders felt as one man that something was coming. All the young man’s fictitious composure was gone, the veins were swollen on his forehead, his paleness changed into crimson, his eyes flashing fire. Sandy Pringle looked at him with angry surprise.
“I will stand aside when I please,” he said—“no sooner. Lord Eskside, my father——”
“Oh, your father!” cried Val. He stepped out from the group with a movement as swift as lightning. A few words were interchanged, too quick, too furious, for any one to recollect afterwards; and before any of their friends could interfere,—before, indeed, the little group around could divine what was wrong—young Pringle, who was twice as heavy a man as his opponent, fell suddenly without a word, struck down by one tremendous blow. “Pass on, gentlemen,” cried Valentine, quivering with passion; “no man shall stop Lord Eskside in the public streets while I am by!”
I must not attempt to describe the tumult which ensued, or how Val was surrounded and forced away by one party, and Sandy, who sprang to his feet with a mixture of amazement and rage which could not be put into words, was caught by another, everybody eager and vigilant as soon as the harm was done. “I am at Mr Pringle’s service, however he chooses and whenever he chooses,” cried Val, half mad with passion, as they hurried him away.