VIOLET went back to Edinburgh the day after her meeting in the woods with Dick. Her heart was so full of what she had heard, that it was all she could do to keep the particulars from old Jean, who was her guardian and companion when, in her trouble, poor child, she managed to escape for a day or two to the Hewan. By a strong effort she kept from talking over the details with her homely old friend; but she could not keep from her the fact that Val was ill. I need not say that Jean knew well enough that there was “something wrong” between the two families—a thing she had been aware of, with the curious instinct which all our servants possess—almost before they knew it themselves. And by this time, of course, Jean knew all that popular opinion said about Mr Pringle’s supposed guilt in respect to the election; and she was aware that there had been painful scenes in the house, and that neither his wife, nor his sons, nor his daughter “held with” the unlucky culprit, who, since the election, had gone about with drooping head “as if he was gaun to be hanged,” old Jean said. Jean was very much shocked and distressed when she heard of Val’s illness. “I thought there was something out o’ the ordinary,” she said; “him away when there was yon grand dinner, and a strange look about the house a’thegether. Ye may aye ken when the family’s in trouble by the look o’ the house. Poor callant! there’s naething like trouble of mind for bringing on thae fevers; you may take my word, Miss Violet, it’s something about that weary election. Eh, what creatures men are! Can they no fecht fair, and take their neives to ane anither, instead of casting up auld ill stories? They say that’s women’s way; for my part, I’m of the opinion that if women are ill with their tongues, men are waur.”
“But fevers are not brought on by trouble of mind,” said Violet, endeavouring to argue against her own inmost convictions. “Fevers are brought on by—oh, by very different things, by bad air, and—— you may read it all in the papers—— Oh, I hope, I hope it is not that, Jean!”
“If you put your faith in the papers,” said Jean, contemptuously, “that say one thing the day, and another the morn, just as it suits them! Oh ay, they’ll tell you an honest midden is waur than an ill story, that creeps into the heart and saps the strength. I’m fond o’ the fresh air mysel. We’re used to it here up at the Hewan, and it’s like meat and drink; but if some ill-wisher was to rake up a nasty story about my auld man that’s in heaven, or my John, what do you think would harm me maist, Miss Vi’let—that, or a’ the ill smells in Lasswade? and I’ll no say but what that corner by the smiddy is like to knock you down—though Marion Miller’s bairns, so far as I can see, are no a prin the waur.”
Violet did not venture upon any reply, for, indeed, it seemed to her innocent soul that mental causes were far more likely to make one ill than those vulgar evils upon which the newspapers insisted. For her own part, she felt very sure, as old Jean did, that Val’s illness arose from the misery and excitement of the election, and not from any lesser cause. I suppose this was quite foolish, and that the poor young member for Eskshire must have gone into some cottage, or passed by some drain in the course of his canvassing, which was the real occasion of his fever. My ignorance is too great on such subjects to warrant me in venturing the supposition that the other part of him, that mental part so much discredited and put out of court in the present day—the one thing about us which nobody can quite account for—had anything to do with it. But Violet and old Jean, both of them as ignorant as myself though more courageous—and both convinced in their different ways that this special development of protoplasm called by ignorant persons their mind, is the most important part of us—unhesitatingly ignored the drain, which no doubt did the mischief, and set down Val’s fever to his misery with all the evident precision of cause and effect. Violet could not say any more to the old woman whose remarks she neither dared to be sympathetic with or irritated by, since either demonstration would have betrayed her father, who had done it all. So she hurried home next morning, attended by her maid, breathless till she reached the mother, the natural receiver of all her plaints and troubles. Mrs Pringle saw there was something to tell from the first glance at Violet’s countenance, in which all her emotions writ themselves easily to the accustomed eye. She sent her up-stairs to “take off her things,” and followed her, hoping that old Lady Eskside might perhaps have met the child somewhere, and melted towards her, the only imaginable way in which any renewal of friendship could be possible. When she heard what it was, however, Mrs Pringle shook her head. “My dear,” she said, “you are letting your feelings run away with you. Men don’t get ill and take fevers from excitement except in novels. No doubt there must be something wrong about Rosscraig; these old houses are never quite to be depended upon. God knows that letter has done you and me harm enough, more harm than it could do to Valentine—but we have taken no fever. I am very sorry for him, poor fellow; but he’s young, and has a good constitution—no doubt he’ll pull through; and my Vi must not cry like this for a man that is nothing to her,” the good mother said, proudly—putting her handkerchief and her hand, which was still softer, across Violet’s streaming eyes to stop her tears.
“Oh, mamma, how can I help it?” sobbed poor Vi.
“My darling, you must help it. I am not saying it will be easy. Me myself, with children of my own that take up my mind, I find myself thinking of that poor boy when I have plenty other things to think of. Ah, Violet, you kiss me for that! but, my dear, ask yourself—after what has come and gone—how could it ever, ever be?”
“No one wants it to be!” said Violet, with one of her vehement impulses of maiden pride, raising her head from her mother’s shoulder with a hot angry flush covering her face; “but one does not cease—to take an interest—in one’s—friend, because of any quarrel. I am friends with him for ever, whatever happens. No one can say anything against that. And we are cousins, whatever happens. I told Mr Brown so.”
Mrs Pringle shook her head over the friendship and cousinship which continued to take so warm “an interest” in Val; but she was wise and made no further remark. “I wonder who this Mr Brown may be?” was all she said, and instantly set her wits to work to find something for Violet to do. In a house where there were so many boys this was not difficult; and it cannot be questioned that at this crisis of her young existence the Hewan would have been a much less safe residence for Violet than Moray Place.
The next two days were each made memorable by a note from Dick. These missives were couched almost in the same words, and Violet, reading them over and over again, could extract nothing from them more than met the eye. Dick, in a very careful handwriting, too neat perhaps, and legible, wrote as follows:—
“MADAM,—Mr Ross is just the same. This is not to be wondered at, as I told Miss Violet that there could be no change till Saturday. With your permission I will write again to-morrow.—Your obedient servant,
“RICHARD BROWN.”
Even Mrs Pringle could find nothing to remark upon in this brief epistle. “I wonder how he knows your name?” was all she said, and Violet did not feel it necessary to enter into any particulars on this point. The second bulletin was just like the first. Mrs Pringle had this note in her pocket in the evening after dinner when her husband came up to her with an excited look, and thrust the little local Eskside paper, the ‘Castleton Herald,’ into her hand. “Look at this!” he said, pointing out a paragraph to her with a hand that trembled. How glad she was then that the news conveyed no shock to her, and that Violet knew with certainty the state of the matter which the newspaper unfolded so mysteriously! “We regret to learn,” said the ‘Herald,’ “that the new member for the county, Mr Ross, whose election so very lately occupied our pages, lies dangerously ill in England of fever—we suppose of that typhoid type which has lately made so much havoc in the world, and threatened still greater havoc than it has made. We have no information as to how the disease was contracted, but in the meantime Lasswade and the neighbourhood have been thrown into alarm and gloom by the sudden departure of such members of the noble family of Eskside as were still remaining at Rosscraig. We trust before our next week’s issue to be able to give a better account of Mr Ross’s state.”
“I knew Val was ill,” said Mrs Pringle, composedly; “Violet heard of it at Eskside.” She could not refrain from a stroke of vengeance as she handed the paper back to him. “I hope you are satisfied with your handiwork now,” she said.
“My handiwork?”
“Just yours,” said Mrs Pringle—“just yours, Alexander; and if the boy should die—which as good as him have done—what will your feelings be?”
“My feelings!” said Mr Pringle; “what have I to do with it?—did I give him his fever? Of course it must have been bad air or some blood-poisoning—or something. These are the only ways in which fever communicates itself;” but as he spoke (for he was not a bad man) his lips quivered, and there was a tremor in his voice.
“It is easy to say that—very easy to say it—and it may be true; but if you take the heart and strength out of a man, and leave him no power to throw off the ill thing when it comes? Alexander,” said Mrs Pringle, solemnly, “I will never hold up my head again in this world if anything happens to Val!”
“You speak like a fool—or a woman! It comes to much the same thing,” cried her husband; and he went away down-stairs and shut himself into his library quivering with the hot sudden rage which belongs to his conscience-stricken state. How miserable he was, trying to study a case in which he had to speak next day, and able to understand nothing except that Valentine Ross was ill, perhaps dying, and through his means! He had never meant that. He had meant to have his revenge for an imaginary wrong, and many little imaginary slights, and perhaps to make his young supplanter lose his election; but that he might put Val’s life in danger or injure him seriously had never entered into Mr Pringle’s thoughts. He tried to persuade himself that it was no concern of his, pursuing in an undercurrent, as his eyes went over his law-papers, all the arguments about sanitary dangers he had ever read. “What a fool I am to think that could have had anything to do with it!” he cried, throwing away his papers when he could bear it no longer, and beginning to pace up and down his room. What a burning restless pain he had at his heart! He cast about him vaguely in a kind of blank hopelessness what he could do, or if he could do anything. This he had never meant. He would not (he said to himself) have hurt Val or any one, for all the Eskside estates ten times over; and if anything happened to the boy he could never hold up his head again, as his wife said.
Mr Pringle had been wretched enough since that miserable election day. He had been conscious that even his own friends looked coldly upon him, suspecting him of something which went too far for ordinary political animosity or the fair fighting of honourable contest; and feeling that his own very family, and even the wife of his bosom, were against him, though Mrs Pringle, after her first very full and indignant expression of her opinion, had said no more on the subject. Still he had not her moral support, a backing which had scarcely ever failed him before; and he had the sense of having broken all the ties of friendship with the Eskside family—old ties which, though he did not love the Rosses, it was painful altogether to break. He had thrown away those ties, and made his adversaries bitter and his friends suspicious. So little was Mr Pringle a bad man, that he had pursued these thoughts for a long time in his secret heart without recollecting that, should Valentine die, he would be reinstalled in his position as heir-presumptive. When this suddenly flashed upon him, he threw himself in his chair and covered his face with his hands. In that case it would be murder, mere murder! it would be as if he had killed the boy for the sake of his inheritance. This startled him beyond anything I can say. Perhaps the profoundest and most impassioned of all the prayers that were said that night for Val’s recovery rose in a sudden anguish of remorse and surprised guilt from the heart of Val’s enemy. He shook like a man struck with palsy; his nerves contracted; the veins stood out on his forehead. He had never meant to harm the boy—never, never, God knows!—except in some momentary way, by a little shame, a little disappointment, which could have made no real difference in so happy and prosperous a life. The pain of this thought gripped him as with the crushing grasp of a giant. What could he do, he said to himself, writhing in his chair—what could he do to make amends? If he could but have believed in pilgrimages, how gladly would he have set out bare-footed to any shrine, if that would have brought back the young life that was in danger! Heaven help him! of all the people concerned there was no one so entirely to be pitied as poor Mr Pringle, lying there prostrate in his chair without any strength left in him, bodily or mental, or any one to back him up, saying to himself that perhaps it might be that he had murdered Val. He seemed to see before his eyes the bold handsome boy, the fine young fellow all joyous and triumphant in the glory of his youth; and was it his hand—a man with children of his own whom he loved—that had stricken Valentine down?
Next day—next “lawful day,” as we say in Scotland, for a Sunday intervened—Mr Pringle broke down in his case before the courts, and looked so distracted and miserable that the very Lords of Session took notice of it. “Sandy Pringle is breaking up early,” Lord Birkhill said to Lord Caldergrange; “he never had any constitution to speak of.” “Perhaps it is family affection and anxiety about young Ross of Eskside,” said Lord Caldergrange to Lord Birkhill; and these two learned authorities, both old enough to have been Sandy Pringle’s father, chuckled and took snuff together over his family affection and his early breakdown. The news from the ‘Castleton Herald’ about Val’s illness was copied that morning into all the Edinburgh papers. Mr Pringle himself, being of the Liberal party, saw only the ‘Scotsman,’ where it was simply repeated; but when he was leaving the Parliament House, his son Sandy came to him with the ‘Courant,’ which, as everybody knows, is the Conservative paper,—the one in which a communiqué from the Eskside party would naturally appear. “Have you seen this, sir?” said Sandy, not, his father thought, without a glimmer of vindictive satisfaction. They were all against him, wife and children, friends and circumstances. But the paragraph in the ‘Courant’ was one of a very startling description, and had already woke up the half of Edinburgh—everybody who knew or professed to know anything of the Eskside family—to wonder and interest. The ‘Courant’ gave first the paragraph from the ‘Herald,’ then added another of its own. “We are glad to be able to add that more favourable news has been received this morning of Mr Ross’s condition. The crisis of the fever is now past, and all the symptoms, we understand, are hopeful.” Then came the further information, which took away everybody’s breath. “We are authorised to state,” said the ‘Courant,’ “that Mr Ross, whose severe illness at such an interesting juncture of his life has called forth so much public interest and sympathy, was fortunately at the house of his mother, the Hon. Mrs Richard Ross, in Oxford, when the first symptoms of fever made their appearance, and accordingly had from the first every medical attention, as well as the most devoted nursing which affection could give.”
The paper fell out of Mr Pringle’s hand when he had read this. Sandy grasped him by the arm, thinking he would have fallen too. “For heaven’s sake,” cried Sandy, in a fierce whisper, “don’t make an exhibition of yourself here!” Mr Pringle did not answer a word, not even to the apologies with which, when they were safe out of the crowded precincts of the Parliament House, his son followed these hasty unfilial words. He went home to Moray Place in a condition of mind impossible to describe, feeling himself like a man caught in a snare. The Hon. Mrs Richard Ross, his mother! Had he really read those words in black and white? Were they no fiction, but true? His heart was relieved a little, for Val was better; but how could he ever extricate himself from the labyrinth he had got into? He had defied the Rosses to produce this mother, and her appearance seemed to Mr Pringle to close up every place of repentance for him, and to put him so terribly in the wrong that he could never face his friends again, or the public which knew him to be the author of that fatal letter to the electors of Eskshire. Surely no sin ever had such condign and instantaneous punishment. He was not a murderer, that was a thing to be thankful for; but he could be proved a liar—a maker of cruel, unfounded statements—a reporter of scandals! He shut himself up in his library, making some pretence of work to be done. As for Sandy, he did not go in at all, being angry and unhappy about the whole business. That Valentine’s mother should be found, and his rights, which Sandy had never doubted, fully established, he was heartily glad of. Mrs Pringle’s wise training had saved Sandy from even a shadow of that folly of expectation which had so painfully affected his father; but Sandy was indignant beyond description, hurt in his pride, and mortified to the heart, that his father should have put himself in such a mean position. I do not think there was any tingling recollection in him of the blow Val had given him. If he had borne malice, it would have vanished utterly at the first mention of Val’s illness; but he did not bear any malice. He bore another burden, however, more heavy—the burden of shame for his father’s unwarrantable assault, which, out of respect for his father, he could not openly disown, but must share the disgrace of, though he loathed the offence. I think Sandy may be excused if he felt himself too cross, too wretched in his false position, to face the rest of the household, and convey to them this startling news.
They had, however, their news too, scarcely less startling. It was the Monday after the Saturday on which Val had passed the crisis of his fever, and Sunday had been very trying to these two women in its entire cessation of news, as Sunday so often is in cases of anxiety. When Dick’s letter at last came, there was something in it which they scarcely noticed in their first agitation of joy, but which, by dint of much reading, came out very strongly at last to their puzzled perceptions. There was an indescribable indefinite change in their correspondent’s style. But the reader shall judge for himself what this was.
“DEAR MADAM,—I am happy to be able to tell you that the crisis is over, and Valentine is decidedly better. Perhaps you are aware that all the family are here. He has recognised us all, and, though weak, will soon regain his strength, the doctor thinks. Other things have happened, of a very wonderful kind, which I can scarcely write about; but I hope it may now be possible that I may one day see you, and explain everything to Miss Violet which she may wish to know. I do not like to run the risk of agitating Valentine by telling him that I am writing, but, if you will permit me, I will write again; and I hope you will always be so very kind as to think of me, whatever may be the change in circumstances, as yours and Miss Violet’s obedient servant,
“RICHARD.”
“What does it mean?” said Mrs Pringle. “I am afraid the young man is taking too much upon himself. To sign himself just ‘Richard’ to you and me, is a piece of presumption, Vi; and to call Lord Eskside’s grandson ‘Valentine!’ I am not bigoted about rank, as you know; but this is too much.”
Violet was confounded too. “Perhaps in nursing he has got familiar without knowing it,” she said. “Oh, mamma, you could not think he was presumptuous if you had seen Mr Brown.”
“That is all very well, my dear,” said Mrs Pringle. “I believe he is a good young man; but perhaps it was a little rash to take him into your confidence. I think I heard your papa come in. Go and see if he is in the library. It might be a comfort to him to know that Val is better. Go; and if you see an opportunity, tell him. Say I have had a letter;—that is all that it is needful to say.”
Violet, though reluctant, obeyed; and Mrs Pringle read Dick’s letter again, not knowing what to make of it. What did he mean by signing himself “Richard”? and calling Val by his Christian name? Her conclusion was, that this boatman, in whom Violet had so rashly put confidence, was presuming upon the girl’s openness and innocence. Mrs Pringle thanked heaven that her child “had the sense” to ask him to write to her mother, who was quite safe, and quite able to manage any presuming person. She could not make up her mind about this, feeling an uneasy consciousness in the letter of something unexplained, something more than met the eye, to which, however, she had no clue; but she resolved, at least, that this young man should have no further encouragement; that she would herself write to him, thanking him for his communication, and politely dropping him, as a woman of Mrs Pringle’s age and condition knows how to do. Perhaps it had been imprudent of Violet to refer to him at all; but happily it was an imprudence of which no further harm need come.
Meanwhile Violet went down-stairs to the library, somewhat tremulous, and half afraid of the morose tones and look into which of late her father had fallen. When she went in, he snatched up some of his papers, and pretended to be studying them very closely; the ‘Courant’ lay at his side upon the writing-table; but it was the law-papers, and not the ‘Courant,’ which Mr Pringle pretended to read. Violet made a shy circle round the table, not knowing if she might venture to speak. Her courage failed her, until she suddenly remarked, underneath the shadow of the hand which supported his head, that her father was watching her, and that his face was very grey and pallid in the noonday light. This gave her resolution enough to conquer her timidity. She went up to him, and put her hand softly on his shoulder.
“Papa,” she said, “I came to tell you that Valentine is better to-day. Mamma has just had a letter——”
“I know he is better,” said Mr Pringle, with a sigh; and then he pointed out to her the notice in the paper. “He is better; but there is more behind—more than we know.”
Vi read the paragraph wondering. It did not affect her except with surprise. “His mother?” she said; “I never knew——” and then she bethought herself suddenly of all that had passed, and of that fatal attack upon Valentine which had (no doubt) brought on his fever, and which threatened to separate him from her for ever. “Oh, papa!” she cried suddenly, with a flash from her eyes which seemed to scorch the culprit like a gleam of angry yet harmless lightning; then she added, looking at him fixedly, with indignant firmness: “But you are glad of this? glad he is better? glad his mother is found, and that everything will go well?”
Mr Pringle paused a moment looking at her. He was afraid to contradict her. He answered hurriedly, half servilely: “Yes, yes—I’m glad;” then, with a groan—“Vi, I am made a fool of. I am proved a poor, mean, paltry liar; that was never what I meant to be. Perhaps I said more than was right; but it was for justice, Vi—yes, it was for justice, though you may not believe what I say.”
If you consider all that Violet had suffered, you will perceive how hard it was for her all at once to look upon this question impartially, to believe what her father said. She turned away her head from him in natural resentment. Then her tender heart was touched by the tones of wretchedness in his voice.
“Yes,” he said, getting up from his chair, “you may think it was all ill feeling—and so many think; but it was for justice too. And now, apparently, things are turning out as I never expected. I did not believe in this woman, and God knows whether it may not be a cheat still. But if this is true that they are bold enough to put in the newspaper, then,” said Mr Pringle, with a groan, “I’m in the wrong, my dear—I am in the wrong, and I don’t know what to do.”
He sank down again, leaning his head on the table, and hiding his face in his hands. Vi’s heart melted altogether. She put her soft arm round his neck, and bent down her head upon his. She did not feel the bitterness of being in the wrong. It seemed to her innocent soul that there was so easy a way to shake off that burden. She clasped her father round the neck and whispered consolation. “Papa, dear! you have nothing to do but to say this to them. Oh, what makes you think you don’t know what to do? Say you were wrong, and that you are sorry! One is so certain that this must be the right thing.”
He shook her away not unkindly but with a little impatience. “You don’t know—you are too young to know,” he said.
“Papa, can there be any doubt?” said Violet, in the majesty of her innocence. “When one has done wrong, one undoes it, one confesses that it was wicked. What else? Is it not the first lesson one learns in life?” said the girl, serene in perfect certainty, and sadly superior to her age, in what she considered her experience of that existence of which she already knew the sorrows. She stood over him as grave and sweet as an angel, and spoke with entire and childlike confidence in her abstract code. “We all may be wrong,” said Violet, “the best of us; but when we find it out we must say so, and ask pardon of God and of those whom we have wronged, papa. Is there any other way?”