A SHORT time after their return, Valentine made up his youthful mind that he could bear his share of these uncertainties no longer. He had been to the Hewan again and again; now he set off to Moray Place itself, saying nothing to his relations, except to Dick, who winced, but kept his counsel. But all the ardent young lover made by his persistence was an interview with Mrs Pringle, who received him stiffly, and declined to answer any inquiries about Violet, who was absent from home. “I do not suppose your family would be pleased if they knew; and my family would be still less pleased, that Violet should be held cheap,” said Mrs Pringle. “If you will believe me, Valentine, I think it is much better that there should be no more about it;” and all Val’s remonstrances and pleadings were of no avail. He came back miserable and dejected, and strayed out to the woods, in which there is always some consolation for a heart-broken lover. Val went as far as the linn, that he might see the place at least where he had been so happy. Was it possible, after all he had gone through, that his love and his happiness were to end like a dream, and every link to be snapt between him and Vi? When he approached that spot which was so full of associations, he too heard sounds, as Dick had done, which told of some human intrusion into this realm of woodland and waters. It was not a sob this time that Val heard. It was a sound of low voices—women’s voices—talking in a half-whisper, as if they feared to be discovered. Drawing near, trembling, like a thief, he saw under the big beech-branches a corner of a blue dress, showing from behind one of them. This made his heart beat; but the blue gown might not be Vi’s blue gown; and anyhow there were two of them, as the voices testified, so that caution was needful. Another step, however, relieved him of his doubts. In front of him, on the green bank on the river-side, sat Mary Percival, with her face turned towards some one unseen, to whom she was talking. “My dear, he has had plenty of time to write to you, and he has not done so. If you will believe me, Vi, I think it is a great deal better there should be no more about it.” These were, though Mary did not know it, the self-same words under which Val was suffering. The repetition of them drove him beyond himself. He gave a shout of indignant protestation, and rushing between the two astonished ladies, caught her of the blue dress rudely, suddenly, in his arms.
But do not think Violet was half so much surprised as middle-aged Mary was, to whom this interruption was quite unlocked for. She did not know even that “the family” had arrived at Rosscraig—Lady Eskside, amid all this tumult of events, having become remiss in her correspondence, and Val’s letters to Violet having been, if not suppressed, yet detained at Moray Place during the girl’s absence. Even if the family had returned, Mary felt there were a hundred chances to one that Val would not be there precisely at the right moment to meet her and her companion. In Mary’s own case things had never happened just at the right moment; and therefore she had acquiesced with little difficulty in Violet’s prayer that she might be allowed “one look” at the linn. Violet had been sent to Mary to be taken care of—to be kept out of danger; and this, I am ashamed to say, was how Miss Percival, who had a strong vein of romance in her, notwithstanding all her good sense, fulfilled her trust. She saw her folly now when it was too late.
“Valentine!” she cried, “how dare you—how dare you do that—when her parents do not know?”
“Her parents!” said Val, equally indignant; “what do I care for her parents, or any one’s parents? I am a man, old enough to know my own mind, and so is Vi. Can parents make us happy?” said the young man, with that cruel frankness which seems so easy to the young, and is so hard upon the old. “Vi, my darling, you know you are mine—you won’t let parents or any one come between you and me?”
Vi did not say a word—there was no need for anything so feeble as words. She clung to him, gazing at him, holding one of his arms fast with her small hands clasped round it. She had been sure he would come; in her heart she had been so wicked as to smile at Mary’s faith the other way, though she did not say a word of the sweet confidence in her own mind. And Mary, who had not been so treated by Providence, and whose love had not been happy, felt a hot flush of anger against the girl who stood there before her with ineffable smiles, not objecting to the young man’s impetuosity, not even answering him a word.
“Violet!” she cried, “come away this instant. Do you know that you are defying both your mother and me?”
“You have always been my enemy, Mary,” cried Val passionately, “and I don’t know why, for I have always liked you. Vi, you are not going to do what she tells you—to follow her instead of me?”
“I am not going to follow any one,” said Vi, detaching herself from his arm with much dignity; then she stood at a little distance, and looked at him with tender glowing eyes. “Oh, Val!” she cried, “but I am glad to see you! I thought you would never come. I knew you would be here to-day. Val, are you well—are you quite well? Oh, what a weary, weary time it has been, when I thought I would never see you more!”
“Then you were thinking of me? and you don’t mean to cast me off, Vi?”
“I—cast you off!—that is likely! Mary, you never were Val’s enemy, though he says so, in his hasty way—he was always hasty. He made me give him my promise here, beneath this tree. I cannot take back my word; I cannot say one thing to you and another to him; and you never scolded me when I said—I—cared for Val, Mary! not a word! She only cried and gave me a kiss.”
“And she ought to give me a kiss too,” said bold Val, going up to Miss Percival, whose heart was melting altogether away in her bosom, and whose efforts to look stern were becoming almost ludicrous. The audacious boy went up to her, while Vi looked on thunderstruck at his boldness, and kissed Mary’s cheek, which flushed crimson under the touch, making that middle-aged woman look a girl again. “How dare you?” she cried, putting up her hand to push him away; but Mary’s strength was not able to resist this. “God bless you!” she said, next moment, the tears coming to her eyes, “you bold boy! How dare you kiss me? Though I am your enemy, I’ve thought of you and prayed for you morning and night ever since I parted from you, Val.”
“I know that very well,” said the young man, composedly; “for whatever you may say, how could you be my enemy when I am fond of you? You have not the heart not to help us, Mary. Come and sit down again and let us think what to do. Here is where we played truant when we were children. Here is where you brought us, Mary—you—when we were older; and here is where Vi gave me her promise. This is the place of all others to meet again. As for any pretence of separating us, how can any one do it? Think a little,” said Val, standing before the fallen tree on which Vi had sat with poor Dick, and from which she now regarded him with soft eyes suffused with light and happiness. “Could they be hard upon her, for the first time in her life, and break her heart? Is that reasonable? As for me,” the young man said, raising his head, while the two women looked at him with tender envy and admiration, “there is no interference possible. I am a man and my own master. So now that you are convinced,” cried Valentine, putting himself beside Violet on the old trunk, which, old as it was, had put forth young shoots of life and hope to make itself fit for the throne of so much love and gladness, “let us consider what is the best means to clear these trifling temporary obstructions out of our way.”
I don’t think there is anything so silken-green, or that makes so tender a canopy over your head, and shows the sky so sweetly through them, as young beech-leaves in May, just shaken out of their brown busks, and reclothing, as if with tenderest ornaments of youth, the big branches that bear them. Stray airs rustled through them; stray sunbeams, for the day was cloudy, came and went, penetrating now and then through the soft canopy—punctuating with sudden glow of light some one or other of those bold arguments of Val’s, which told so well upon his sympathetic audience. Though Violet was not one of the worshipping maidens of modern story, but thought of Val only as Val, and not as a demigod, the soft transport of reunion, the glow of tender trust and admiration with which she regarded that delightful certainty of his, which no terrors shook, gave to her soft face a look of absolute dependence and devotion. She looked up to him, as they sat together holding each other’s hands like two children, with a sentiment which went beyond reason. He was no wiser nor cleverer, perhaps, than she was; but he looked so strong and so sure, so much above feminine doubts and tremblings, that the mere sight of him gave confidence. As for Mary, seated on the green bank in front of these two, who was ever so much wiser and cleverer than Val (he had few pretensions that way), she, too, felt, with a kind of philosophical amusement at herself, the same sense of added confidence and moral strength as she looked at the boy whom she had watched as he grew up, and chided and laughed at—whose opinion on general subjects had no particular weight with her, yet who somehow gave to her experienced and sensible middle-age a sensation of support and certainty, which the wisest reason does not always communicate. Mary looked at the two seated there together, hand in hand, half-children, half-lovers, under the soft shadow of the young beech-leaves, with that “smile on her lip and tear on her eye” which is the most tender of all human moods. Pity and envy, and amusement, and an almost veneration, were in her thoughts. How innocent they were! how sure of happiness! how absolute in their trust in each other! and, indeed (when the case was fairly set before them), in everybody else. Notwithstanding the one terrible shock his faith had received—a shock which happily had worked itself out in bodily illness, the most simple way—Val was still of opinion that, if you could but get to the bottom of their hearts, all the world was on his side. He had no fear of Violet’s mother, though for the moment she had crushed him; and, to tell the truth, after his fever, Val had altogether forgotten Mr Pringle’s offence against him, and all the harm it had brought. Now that offence was more than past, for had it not been confessed and atoned for, a thing which makes a sin almost a virtue? Nor was he alarmed when he thought of the old people at Rosscraig, who had humoured and served him all his life. What was there to fear? “It would be against all reason, you know,” said Val, “if our course of true love had run quite smooth. We were miserable enough one time to make all right for the future; but if you mean to be miserable any more, Vi, you must do it by yourself, for I shan’t take any share.”
When a young man thus makes light of all difficulties, what can a sympathetic woman do? Before many minutes had passed, Miss Percival found herself pledged to brave Violet’s father and mother and overcome their objections. “They have never crossed her in their lives, and why should they now?” said Valentine, with good sense, which no one could gainsay.
When this chief subject had been fully discussed, and all their plans settled, both the ladies drew close to him with breathless interest, while he told them the story of his own family. How Dick was his brother, which made Violet start and clasp her hands, saying, with a sudden outcry, “I always knew it!” and how his mother had come back with them—had come home. It was Mary who, much more than these two young people, who were so sure of each other, had her heart played upon like an instrument that day. She sat quite still and never said a word, while the story was told. I cannot describe her feelings towards the woman who (she felt, though she would not have acknowledged it) had been in the very bloom of her youth preferred to herself. It was not her fault; up to this moment the woman who was Richard’s wife had never so much as heard of Mary’s existence; no blame could possibly attach to her. A strange mingling of curiosity about her, interest, half-hostile, in her, wondering indignation, disapproval, proud dislike, all softening back into curiosity again, were in Miss Percival’s mind; but no one knew how she rung the changes upon these different sentiments as she sat quite still and quiet, listening, now and then asking a question, feeling as if her own life had come to some strange crisis, although she had absolutely nothing to do with it, not so much as one of the servants in the house. And then Valentine’s way of speaking of his mother—the lower, hushed, respectful tone, the half-mystery, half-reverence, which he seemed disposed to throw around this gipsy, this tramp who had given them all so much trouble—gave Mary a secret offence, all the more sharp that she felt his feeling to be quite right and just and natural, and would not for the world have expressed her own. Just now, half an hour ago, he had put her in the place of his mother—had taken her interest for granted, had kissed her (the spot burned on Mary’s cheek at the thought), and appealed to that strange sentiment in her heart which he seemed to be unconsciously aware of—that sense of the possibility that she might have been his mother, which was always more or less in her mind in Val’s presence. He had taken possession of her in this way, of her sympathy and help, telling her what she was to do, and how to do it, amusing her by his arbitrariness, while he melted her heart by his affectionate confidence. And now all at once, in the same breath almost, he began to talk of his real mother, this woman whom no one knew, who had done him and his family all the harm possible, and now was brought back almost in triumph to reap—not the whirlwind after having sown the wind—but happiness and calm weather, notwithstanding all her folly and ill-doing. Mary sat in a maze, in a dream, while all this went through her mind, yet with all her faculties alert, hearing everything and feeling everything. She was hurt even by Val’s description of his mother’s beauty, which filled Vi with such admiring interest. “Oh, how I should like to see her!” cried Violet. “You shall both see her,” said Valentine, with the arbitrary determination to give pleasure of a young prince. How Mary’s heart swelled! But if these two children had guessed what was going on in her mind, with what wondering grieved disapproval they would have looked upon her, troubled by a sense of natural incongruity that a woman of her age could possibly feel so! She felt this along with all the rest; and, in short, she was conscious of so many different sentiments, that all her vigour and natural power went out of her. Her heart was being lacerated by a hundred needle-points and pin-pricks—like a pin-cushion, she said, faintly trying to laugh to herself.
Val went with them to their carriage, which was waiting at the lower edge of the woods, in the opposite direction from Rosscraig, and took a farewell, which he declared to be the merest temporary good-bye, but which once more made Violet’s eyes tearful. Vi grew less certain as she lost sight of him. Various unexpected results had followed the publication of that Apology, which in her youthful heat and energy she had almost forced her father into writing. Even Mrs Pringle had not seen the necessity for it so clearly as Violet did; and the world in general on both sides of the question had taken it, as Lord Eskside did, as a formal retractation, a bringing down to his marrow-bones of Sandy Pringle, rather than as the prompt and frank and generous apology of one gentleman to another. Some had said that it was fear of an action for libel which had moved him to such a step; others, with a frank malediction, had d——d him for not standing to what he said. Nobody had appreciated his motive, or understood Violet’s childlike reasoning on the abstract principle, that when you have done wrong and know it, there is no course possible but to confess, the wrong and ask pardon of the injured person. This, I fear, is not a course of action at all congenial to the ordinary code; and Mr Pringle, though carried away by the impetuosity of his daughter, had by this time repented his amende honorable quite as much as he repented the evil he had done. To suffer for doing wrong is reasonable; but it is hard to be punished for doing right, and fills the sufferer’s heart with bitterness.
Mr Pringle had been very penitent towards poor Val before the days of the Apology; but now, in the sharpness of the sting of unappreciated virtue, he was furious against him. Violet knew this only too well, and her courage oozed out of her finger-ends as she saw the young hero disappear into the woods. “Do you think—do you really think—it is all as certain as he says?” she said to Miss Percival, with tears in her soft eyes, which had been so bright with happiness and courage a moment before.
As for Valentine, he strode home through the woods very triumphant and joyful, as became a young lover; but sobered as he drew near home. He made up his mind to go at once into the matter, and extort a consent from everybody; but as he drew near and nearer to the turrets of Rosscraig, it became more and more apparent to him that there would be no small trouble and pain involved; and he began to feel how disagreeable it is to displease and vex the people most near to you, even in order to secure for yourself the person dearest and nearest of all. This thought did not subdue his resolution, but it subdued his step, which became less and less rapid. Nothing in this world would have induced him to give up Vi; but he did not like to defy his old grandfather, to make my lady set her lips firm in that way he knew so well. He wished intensely that Vi and he could have been happy without that; but still, as it had to be done some time or other, it was better, much better, that it should be done at once. So, after walking very slowly the last mile of the way, he suddenly, to use his own phraseology, “put on a spurt,” and skimmed over the last quarter of a mile, making up his mind, as if for an operation, to get it over. He walked straight into the library, still flushed from his long walk, and somewhat to his surprise found all the family authorities collected there, my lord and my lady and his father, all apparently engaged in some mysterious consultation. Val remarked with bewilderment that his father, so placid usually and indifferent, was flushed like himself,—though with speech, not exercise,—and that Lord and Lady Eskside had both a doubtful tremulous aspect, and looked morally cowed, not convinced. To tell the truth, they had been arguing the question over again, whether it was possible to keep the secret of Dick’s seniority from the two young men. It was Richard’s desire that this should be done; but he had not convinced the others either of the possibility or expediency of it, though, for the moment, they had come to a conditional bargain to say nothing unless circumstances should arise which made the disclosure necessary. This supposed emergency was to be left to each one’s private judgment, I suppose, and therefore the secret was pretty sure of rapid revelation; but still the old pair were not satisfied. “Good never came of falsehood, or even, that I know, of the mere suppressio veri,” Lord Eskside had said, shaking his head, just as Val came in; and they all turned to look at him, with a little wonder and excitement; for he looked indeed very like a man who had found something out, coming in hot haste to tell it, and ask, Is this true? The old lord and his wife looked at each other, both of them leaping to the conclusion that this was so, and that Val had discovered the secret; and they were not sorry, but gave a little nod of secret intelligence to each other. Poor Val! poor boy! it was another trial for him; and yet it was best, far best, that he should know.
“Grandfather,” said Val, plunging at once into the subject, bringing in an atmosphere of fresh air and youthful eagerness with him, “I have come to tell you at once of something that has happened to me. It is strange to find you all sitting here, but I am heartily glad of it. My lady, you know how long it is since I first spoke to Violet——”
“Oh, Violet!” cried my lady, with an impatient movement of her head and stamp of her foot upon the carpet; “Lord bless us! is it this nonsense he has got in his head again?”
“You may call it nonsense if you like,” said Val, seeing somehow that what he had said was not what they expected, and unconsciously, in an under-current of thought, wondering what it was they had expected; “it is not nonsense to me. I went to Moray Place this morning, having heard nothing of her for a long time—and there Mrs Pringle received me very coldly——”
“That was unfortunate,” said Richard with a smile, which his son called a sneer; “that an Edinburgh lawyer’s wife should receive Lord Eskside’s grandson coldly, was, no doubt, something very miserable indeed—enough, I suppose, to justify this excitement,” and he looked at Val with an amused scrutiny from head to foot, which made the young man wild with irritation. He had stumbled into a burn on his way home, and had left, there was no denying it, one huge muddy foot-print on the spotless carpet, which had at once caught his father’s fastidious eye.
“The Edinburgh lawyer’s wife may not be much to you, sir,” said Val, “but she is a great deal to me; for she has my future wife’s comfort and happiness in her hand. I want to let you know at once that my mind is quite made up and decided. I told you so before. What is the use of wearing our hearts out by waiting and waiting?” cried Val, turning from one to another. “You are good and kind, why should you make me miserable? In everything else you have always tried to make me happy; you have listened to what I had to say; you have been always reasonable; why should you shut your hearts against me now, in the one matter that is most important to me, in that which must decide my happiness or misery all my life?”
“The argument is well put,” said the old lord, with exasperating composure; “but, Val, how can you tell at your age what is, or what is not, to decide the happiness of your life?”
“And don’t you see, Val,” said my lady, more sympathetically, “that it is just because it is so important that we cannot give our consent so easily? Oh, my dear, if you had wanted the moon we would have tried to get it for you; think, then, how strong a motive it must be that makes us cross you now!”
“What is the motive?” said Val, with sudden dramatic force, waiting solemnly for an answer. The two old people looked at each other again and trembled. What could they answer to this impetuous boy? The motive was that Violet was not a great match for him, such as they had hoped for—not any one who would bring him wealth or distinction, but only a girl whom he loved; and they quailed before the boy’s look. If they had been a worldly pair the answer would have been easy; but these two high-minded old people, who had trained him to scorn all that was mean, and to hold love high and honour, how were they to state this plain fact to a young lover of three-and-twenty? They did not know what words to use in which to veil their motive and give it some sort of grandeur worthy the occasion; and, unfortunately, Val saw his advantage as clearly as they saw the disadvantage under which they lay.
“You speak like a foolish boy,” said his father. “It is enough that we think this match a very unfit one for you, and I hope you have sense enough yourself to see its unsuitability. Who is this girl? an Edinburgh lawyer’s daughter—a man who has attacked your family in the basest and most treacherous way——”
“But who has apologised!” cried Val; “who has confessed he was wrong and begged pardon——”
“The more fool he,” said Richard, “not to have strength of mind to stick to his slander when he had committed himself to it. Apology!—you mean retractation—extorted, no doubt, from him by fear of his pocket. It would be more dignified, no doubt, to pay the twopence-ha’penny he can afford to give her, as his daughter’s portion, rather than as damages in a court of law.”
“If it is a question of twopence-ha’penny,” said Val, with a violent flush of sudden anger.
“My boy, you must not use that tone here,” Lord Eskside interposed. “Your father is right. Is it your enemy that you want to ally yourself with? he that raked up the whole old story of your coming here, and tried to ruin you with it, using his falsehood for your destruction——”
“Grandfather,” said Val, still flaming with nervous passion, “the sting of that story, I have always understood, was that it was not false but true.”
“Val!” cried Lady Eskside; but there was a pause after this—and I think in the very heat of the discussion the old lord felt with secret pleasure that his boy had already made more than one point, even though it was against himself. Twice over Val had silenced the opposing forces. Now, but to live to see him facing the House of Commons like this, who could tell, from the Treasury bench itself! This delightful secret suggestion crept into Lord Eskside’s heart, like a warm wind loosening the frosts.
“Then if you will only consider,” said Val, changing his indignant tone for one of soft conciliation and pleading, “there is no one in Scotland, so far as I can see, so free to choose for myself as I am. If you were not what you are, sir, the first man in the county, as you ought to be—if my father were not what he is, distinguished in other circles than ours—then, perhaps, I, who as yet am nobody, might have required to look outside, to get crutches of other people’s distinctions; but as it is, what does it matter? We are rich enough, we are more independent than the Queen, who, poor lady, must always consider other people, I suppose; whereas I, who am your grandson—and your son, sir—I,” cried Val, “am more free than a prince to ask for love only and happiness! Give them to me,” he said, holding out his hands with natural eloquence to the two old people, who sat looking at him, afraid to look at each other; “you never in all my life refused me anything before!”
I cannot tell how it was that this natural noble attitude in which his son stood, asking, like a loyal soul as he was, for that consent, without which he could not be wholly happy, to his happiness—affected almost to rage the mind of Richard, whose mode had been entirely the reverse; who had plucked in hot haste, without sanction or knowledge of any one, the golden apples which had turned to ashes and bitterness. To marry as he had done, wildly, hotly, in sudden passion,—is not that much more easily condoned by the great world in which he lived, which loves a sensation, than a respectable mediocre marriage, equally removed from scandal and from distinction? To marry a gipsy, or an opera-dancer, or a maid-of-all-work, is more pardonable, as being a piquant rebellion against all law and order, than it is to marry a virtuous person out of the lower circles of good society, sufficiently well-born and well-bred to make no sensation. The lawyer’s daughter was gall to Richard. He interposed with one of those sudden fits of passionate irritability to which his smooth nature was liable.
“Do not let this folly go any further, Val. We all know what is meant by these ravings about love and happiness. Whatever place I may have gained among men it is not from having been my father’s son; neither will that serve you as you think. Lord Eskside’s grandson!” said Richard, with scorn on his lip; “how much will that do for the younger of you two—the one who is not the heir,” he continued, with rising energy—“the one who has a second son’s allowance, a second son’s position; the one—whom we have all agreed in cheating out of his rights——”
“Dick?” said Val, with hesitation and wonder. He looked round upon them all, and saw something in their eyes which alarmed him he could not tell why. “Is it Dick?”
“Valentine,” said his father, suddenly coming up to him, seizing his arm, “it is not for me to speak to you of the miseries of a foolish marriage; but look here. Give up this boyish folly. You have a foundation, as you say, built up by those who have gone before you; you may make any match you please; you may cover all that has gone before with the world’s pardon and more than pardon. I look to you to do this. I can give you opportunities—you will have countless opportunities; give up this girl who is nobody—or if you refuse——”
“What then, sir, if I refuse?” Val loosed his arm from his father’s hold and stood confronting him, steadfast and erect, yet surprised and with a novel kind of pain in his eyes. The two old people gave one look at each other, then paused breathless to hear what was to come next, both of them aware that Richard, diplomatist as he was, forgot himself sometimes, and perceiving that the crisis, which in their previous talk they had prepared for, had now arrived.
“Then,” said Richard—he paused a moment, and all the old prick of a jealousy which he had despised himself for feeling, all the old jars of sensation at which he had tried to laugh, which had arisen out of the perpetual preference of Val to himself, surged up for one moment in his temper rather than his heart. The weapon lay at his hand so ready; the boy was somehow so superior, so irritating in his innocence. His face flushed with this sudden impulse to humiliate Val. “Then,” he said, “perhaps you will pause when I tell you, for your good, that you have totally mistaken your own position; that you are not the great man you think yourself; that though you have condescended to your brother, and patronised him, and been, as it were, his good genius, it is Dick who is Lord Eskside’s heir, and not you.”
Lady Eskside started with a low cry. It was because Dick had come in a moment before at the door, in front of which his father and brother were standing; but Richard thought her exclamation was because of what he said, and turned to her with a smile which it was not good to see.
“Yes, mother,” he said, “you wished him to know. Benissimo! now he knows. He has been the grand seigneur, and Dick has been nobody. Now the positions are reversed; and I hope his magnanimity will bear it. Anyhow, now, with his second son’s allowance, he will be obliged to pause in this mad career.”
“Is it so?” said Val, going forward to the table, and, I confess, leaning upon it a hand which trembled—for he had been thunderstruck by this revelation—“is it so?” No one spoke; and poor Val, standing there with his eyes cast down, had, I