CHAPTER XXIV.
THE SQUIRE AT HOME.
THE Squire went home after his game of ducks and drakes in the most curious, bewildered state of mind. The shock of all these recent events had affected him much more than any one was aware, and Randolph’s visit and desire to make sure about “family arrangements,” had filled up the already almost overflowing measure of secret pain. It had momentarily recalled, like a stimulant too sharp and strong, not only his usual power of resistance, but a force of excitement strong enough to overwhelm the faculties which for the time it invigorated; and while he walked about his woods after his first interview with his son, the Squire was on the edge of a catastrophe, his brain reeling, his strained powers on the verge of giving way. The encounter with little Nello on the lake-side had exercised a curious arresting power upon the old and worn edifice of the mind which was just then tottering to its fall. It stopped this fall for the moment. The trembling old walls were not perhaps in a less dangerous state, but the wind that had threatened them dropped, and the building stood, shaken to its foundation, and at the mercy of the next blast, but yet so far safe—safe for the moment, and with all the semblance of calm about it. To leave metaphor, the Squire’s mind was hushed and lulled by that encounter with the soft peacefulness of childhood, in the most curious, and to himself, inexplicable way. Not, indeed, that he tried to explain. He was as unconscious of what was going on in himself as most of us are. He did not know that the various events which had shaken him had anything more than pain in them—he was unaware of the danger. Even Randolph’s appearance and the thought of the discussions which must go on when his back was turned, as to the things that would happen after his death—he was not aware that there was more in them than an injury against which his whole spirit revolted. He did not know that this new annoyance had struck at the very stronghold of vitality, the little strength left to him. Which of us does know when the coup-de-grâce is given? He only knew the hurt—the wound—and the forlorn stand he had made against it, and the almost giddy lightness with which he had tried to himself to smile it down, and feel himself superior. Neither did he know what Nello had done for him. His meeting with the child was like the touch of something soft and healing upon a wound. The contact cooled and calmed his entire being. It seemed to put out of his mind all sense of wounding and injury. It did more; it took all distinctness at once from the moral and the physical landmarks round him. The harsher outlines of life grew blurred and dim, and instead of the bitter facts of the past, which he had so long determined to ignore, and the facts of the present which had so pushed themselves upon him, the atmosphere fell all into a soft confusion. A kind of happiness stole over him. What had he to be happy about? yet he was so. Sometimes in our English summers there is a mist of heat in the air, confusing all the lines of the landscape as much as a fog in winter—in which the hills and lakes and sky are nothing but one dazzle and faint glory of suppressed light and warmth—light confusing but penetrating: warmth perhaps stifling to the young and active, but consolatory to those whose blood runs chill. This was the mental condition in which the Squire was. His troubles seemed to die away, though he had so many of them. Randolph, his middle-aged son, ceased to be an assailant and invader, and dropped into the dark like other troublesome things—not a son to be proud of, but one to put up with easily enough. John? he did not remember much about John; but he remembered very distinctly his old playfellow little Johnny, his little brother. “Eighteen months—only eighteen months between them:” he almost could hear the tone in which his mother said that long ago. If Johnny had lived he would have been—how old would he have been now? Johnny would have been seventy-four or so had he lived—but the Squire did not identify the number of years. There was eighteen months between them, that was all he could remember, and of that he sat and mused, often saying the words over to himself with a soft dreamy smile upon his face. He was often not quite clear that it was not Johnny himself, little Johnny, with whom he had been playing on the water-side.
This change affected him in all things. He had never been so entirely amiable. When Randolph returned to the assault, the Squire would smile and make no reply. He was no longer either irritated or saddened by anything his son might say—indeed he did not take much notice of him one way or another, but would speak of the weather, or take up a book, smiling, when his son began. This was very bewildering to the family. Randolph, who was dull and self-important, was driven half frantic by it, thinking that his father meant to insult him. But the Squire had no purpose of any kind, and Mary, who knew him better, at last grew vaguely alarmed without knowing what she feared. He kept up all his old habits, took his walks as usual, dressed with his ordinary care—but did everything in a vague and hazy way, requiring to be recalled to himself when anything important happened. When he was in his library, where he had read and written and studied so much, the Squire arranged all his tools as usual, opened his book, even began to write his letters, putting the date—but did no more. Having accomplished that beginning he would lean back in his chair and muse for hours together. It was not thinking even, but only musing; no subject abode with him in these long still hours, and not even any consistent thread of recollections. Shadows of the past came sailing—floating about him, that was all; very often only that soft, wandering thought about little Johnny, occupied all his faculties.—Eighteen months between them, no more! He rarely got beyond that fact, though he never could quite tell whether it was the little brother’s face or another—his son’s, or his son’s son’s—which floated through this mist of recollections. He was quite happy in the curious trance which had taken possession of him. He had no active personal feelings, except that of pleasure in the recollection and thought of little Johnny—a thought which pleased and amused, and touched his heart. All anger and harm went out of the old man; he spoke softly when he spoke at all, and suffered himself to be disturbed as he never would have done before. Indeed he was far too gentle and good to be natural. The servants talked of his condition with dismay, yet with that agreeable anticipation of something new which makes even a “death in the house” more or less desirable. “Th’ owd Squire’s not long for this world,” the Cook and Tom Gardener said to each other. As for Eastwood, he shook his head with mournful importance. “I give you my word, I might drop a trayful of things at his side, and he wouldn’t take no notice,” the man said, almost tearfully; “it’s clean again nature, that is.” And the other servants shook their heads, and said in their turn that they “didn’t like the looks of him,” and that certainly the Squire was not long for this world.
This same event of Randolph’s visit had produced other results almost as remarkable. It had turned little Lilias all at once into the slim semblance of a woman, grown-up, and full of thoughts. It is perhaps too much to say that she had grown in outward appearance as suddenly as she had done in mind; but it is no unusual thing in the calmest domestic quiet, where no commotion is, nor fierce, sudden heat of excitement to quicken a tardy growth, that the elder members of a family should wake up all in a moment, to notice how a child has grown. She had perhaps been springing up gradually; but now in a moment every one perceived it; and the moment was coincident with that in which Lilias heard with unspeakable wrath, horror, shame, pity, and indignation, her father’s story—that he would be put in prison if he came back; that he dared not come back; that he might be—executed. (Lilias would not permit even her thoughts to say hanged—most ignominious of all endings—though Miss Brown had not hesitated to employ the word.) This suggestion had struck into her soul like a fiery arrow. The guilt suggested might have impressed her imagination also; but the horrible reality of the penalty had gone through and through the child. All the wonderful enterprises she had planned on the moment are past our telling. She would go to the Queen and get his pardon. She would go to the old woman on the hills and find out everything. Ah! what would she not do? And then had come the weary pilgrimage which Geoff had intercepted; and now the ache of pity and terror had yielded to that spell of suspense which, more than anything else, takes the soul out of itself. What had come to the child? Miss Brown said; and all the maids and Martuccia watched her without saying anything. Miss Brown, who had been the teller of the story, did not think of identifying it with this result. She said, and all the female household said, that if Miss Lily had been a little older, they knew what they would have thought. And the only woman in the house who took no notice was Mary—herself so full of anxieties that her mind had little leisure for speculation. She said, yes, Lilias had grown; yes, she was changing. But what time had she to consider Lilias’ looks in detail? Randolph was Mary’s special cross; he was always about, always in her way, making her father uncomfortable, talking at the children. Mary felt herself hustled about from place to place, wearied and worried and kept in perpetual commotion. She could not look into the causes of the Squire’s strange looks and ways; she could not give her attention to the children; she could scarcely even do her business, into which Randolph would fain have forced his way, while her all-investigating brother was close by. Would he but go away and leave the harassed household in peace!
But Randolph for his part was not desirous of going away. He could not go away, he represented to himself, without coming to some understanding with his father, though that understanding seemed as far off as ever. So he remained from day to day, acting as a special irritant to the whole household. He had nothing to do, and consequently he roamed about the garden, pointing out to the gardener a great many imperfections in his work; and about the stables, driving well-nigh out of his wits the steady-going, respectable groom, who nowadays had things very much his own way. He found fault with the wine, making himself obnoxious to Eastwood, and with the made dishes, exasperating Cook. Indeed there was nothing disagreeable which this visitor did not do to set his father’s house by the ears. Finally sauntering into the drawing-room, where Mary sat, driven by him out of her favourite hall, where his comments offended her more than she could bear, he reached the climax of all previous exasperations by suddenly urging upon her the undeniable fact that Nello ought to go to school. “The boy,” Randolph called him; nothing would have induced him to employ any pet name to a child, especially a foreign name like Nello—his virtue was of too severe an order to permit any such trifling. He burst out with this advice all at once. “You should send the boy to school; he ought to be at school. Old Pen’s lessons are rubbish. The boy should be at school, Mary,” he said. This sudden fulmination disturbed Mary beyond anything that had gone before, for it was quite just and true. “And I know a place—a nice homely, good sort of place, where he would be well taught and well taken care of,” he added. “Why should not you get him ready at once? and I will place him there on my way home.” This was, to do him justice, a sudden thought, not premeditated—an idea which had flashed into his mind since he began to speak, but which immediately gained attractiveness to him, when he saw the consternation in Mary’s eyes.
“Oh, thank you, Randolph,” she said, faintly. Had not Mr. Pen advised—had not she herself thought of asking her brother’s advice, who was himself the father of a boy, and no doubt knew better about education than she did? “But,” she added, faltering, “he could not be got ready in a moment; it would require a little time. I fear that it would not be possible, though it is so very kind.”
“Possible? Oh yes, easily possible, if you give your mind to it,” cried Randolph; and he pointed out to her at great length the advantages of the plan, while Mary sat trembling, in spite of herself, feeling that her horror of the idea was unjustifiable, and that she would probably have no excuse for rejecting so reasonable and apparently kind a proposal. Was it kind? It seemed so on the outside; and how could she venture to impute bad motives to Randolph, when he offered to serve her? She did not know what reply to make; but her mind was thrown into sudden and most unreasonable agitation. She got up at last, agitated and tremulous, and explained that she was compelled to go out to visit some of her poor people. “I have not been in the village since you came,” she said, breathless in her explanations; “and there are several who are ill; and I have something to say to Mr. Pen.”
“Oh, yes, consult old Pen, of course,” Randolph had said. “I would not deprive a lady of her usual spiritual adviser because she happens to be my sister. Of course you must talk it over with Pen.” This assumption of her dependence upon poor Mr. Pen’s advice galled Mary, who had by no means elected Mr. Pen to be her spiritual adviser. However, she would not stay to argue the question, but hurried away anxiously with a sense of escape. She had escaped for the moment; yet she had a painful sense in her mind that she could not always escape from Randolph. The proposal was sudden, but it was reasonable and kind—quite kind. It was the thing a good uncle ought to do; no one but would think better of Randolph that he was willing to take so much trouble. Randolph for his part felt that it was very kind; he had no other meaning in the original suggestion; but when he had thus once put it forth, a curious expansion of the idea came into his mind. Little Nello was a terrible bugbear to Randolph. He had long dwelt upon the thought that it was he who would succeed to Penninghame on his father’s death—at first, perhaps, nominally on John’s account. But there was very little chance that John would dare the dangers of a trial, and reappear again, to be arraigned for murder, of which crime Randolph had always simply and stolidly believed him guilty; and the younger brother had entertained no doubt that, sooner or later, the unquestioned inheritance would fall into his hands. But this child baffled all his plans. What could be done while he was there? though there was no proof who he was, and none that he was legitimate, or anything but a little impostor: certainly, he was as far from being a lawful and proper English heir—such as an old family like the Musgraves ought to have—such as his own boy would be—as could be supposed. And of course, the best that could be done for himself was to send him to school. It was only of Nello that Randolph thought in this way. The little girl, though a more distinct individual, did not trouble him. She might be legitimate enough—another Mary, to whom, of course, Mary would leave her money—and there would be an end of it. Randolph did not believe, even if there had been no girl of John’s, that Mary’s money would ever come his way. She would alienate it rather, he felt sure—found a hospital for cats, or something of that description (for Mary was nothing but a typical old maid to Randolph, who regarded her, as an unmarried woman, with much masculine and married contemptuousness), rather than let it come to his side of the family. So let that pass—let the girl pass; but for the boy! That little, small, baby-faced Nello—a little nothing—a creature that might be crushed by a strong hand—a thing unprotected, unacknowledged, without either power or influence, or any one to care for him! how he stood in Randolph’s way! But he did not at this moment mean him any harm; that is, no particular harm. The school he had suddenly thought of had nothing wrong in it; it was a school for the sons of farmers or poor clergymen, and people in “reduced circumstances.” It would do Nello a great deal of good. It would clear his mind from any foolish notion of being the heir. And he would be out of the way; and once at school, there is no telling what may happen between the years of ten and twenty. But of one thing Randolph was quite sure—that he meant no harm, no particular harm, to the boy.
When Mary left him in this hurried way, he strolled out in search of something to amuse or employ the lingering afternoon. Tom Gardener now gave him nothing but sullen answers, and the groom began to dash about pails of water, and make hideous noises as soon as he appeared, so that it did not consist with his dignity to have anything more to say to these functionaries; so that sheer absence of occupation, mingled with a sudden interest in the boy, on whose behalf he had thus been suddenly “led” to interfere, induced Randolph to look for the children. They were not in their favourite place at the door of the old hall, and he turned his steps instinctively to the side of the water, the natural attraction to everybody at Penninghame. When he came within sight of the little cove where the boats lay, he saw that it was occupied by the little group he sought. He went towards them with some eagerness, though not with any sense of interest or natural beauty such as would have moved most people. Nello was seated on the edge of the rocky step relieved against the blue water; Lilias placed higher up, with the wind ruffling her brown curls, and the slant sunshine grazing her cheek. The boy had a book open on his knees, but was trying furtive ducks and drakes under cover of the lesson, except when Lilias recalled him to it, when he resumed his learning with much demonstration, saying it over under his breath with visibly moving lips. Lilias had got through her own portion of study. Mr. Pen’s lessons were not long or severe, and she had a girl’s conscientiousness and quickness in learning. Her book was closed on her knee; her head turned a little towards that road which she watched with a long dreamy gaze, looking for some one—but some one very visionary and far away. Her pensive, abstracted look and pose, and the sudden growth and development which had so suddenly changed Lilias, seemed to have charmed the little girl out of childhood altogether. Was she looking already for the fairy prince, the visionary hero? And to say the truth, though she was still only a child, this was exactly what Lilias was doing. It was the knight-deliverer, the St. George who kills the dragon, the prince with shoes of swiftness and invisible coat, brought down to common life, and made familiar by being entitled “Mr. Geoff,” for whom, with that kind of visionary childish anticipation which takes no note of possibilities, she was looking. Time and the world are at once vaster, and vaguer, and more narrow at her age than at any other. He might come now, suddenly appearing at any moment; and Lilias could not but feel vaguely disappointed every moment that he did not appear. And yet there was no knowing when he would come, to-morrow, next year, she could not tell when. Meanwhile she kept her eyes fixed on the distance, watching for him. But Lilias was not thinking of herself in conjunction with “Mr. Geoff.” She was much too young for love; no flutter of even possible sentiment disturbed the serenity of her soul. Nevertheless her mind was concentrated upon the young hero as entirely as the mind of any dreaming maiden could be. He was more than her hero; he was her representative, doing for her the work which perhaps Lilias was not old enough or strong enough to do. So other people, grown-up people, thought at least. And until he came she could do nothing, know nothing. Already, by this means, the child had taken up the burden of her womanhood. Her eyes “were busy in the distance shaping things,” that made her heart beat quick. She was waiting already, not for love to come, of which at her age she knew nothing, but for help to come, which she would have given her little life to bestow, but could not, her own hand being too slight and feeble to give help. This thought gave her a pang, while the expectation of help kept her in that woman’s purgatory of suspense. Why could not she do it herself? but yet there was a certain sweetness in the expectation which was vague, and had not existed long enough to be tedious. And yet how long, how long it was even since yesterday! From daylight to dusk, even in August, what a world of time. Every one of these slow, big round hours floated by Lilias like clouds when there is no wind, moving imperceptibly; great globes of time never to be done with. Her heart gave a throb whenever any one appeared. But it was Tom Gardener, it was Mr. Pen, it was some one from the village, it was never Mr. Geoff; and finally here was some one quite antagonistic, the enemy in person, the stranger whom people called Uncle Randolph. Lilias gave her little brother a note of warning; and she opened her own book again.
When Randolph approached, they had thus the air of being very busily employed, both;—Lilias intent upon her book, while Nello, furtively feeling in his pocket for the stones which he had stored there for use, busied himself, to all appearance, with his lesson, repeating it to himself with moving lips. Randolph had taken very little notice of the children, except by talking at them to his sister. He came to a pause now, and looked at them with curiosity—or at least he looked at Nello; for after all, it did not matter about the girl. She might be John’s daughter, or she might not; but in any case she was not worth a thought. He did not see the humour of the preternatural closeness of study which the children exhibited; but it afforded a means of opening communications.
“Are these your lessons for Mr. Pennithorne?” he said.
Nello, to whom the question was addressed, made no answer. Was he not much to busy to answer? his eyes were riveted upon his book. Lilias kept silence too as long as politeness would let her; but at last the rudeness of it struck her acutely. This might be an enemy, but children ought not to be rude. She therefore said timidly, “Yes;” and added by way of explanation, “Nello’s is Latin; but me, it is only English I have.”
“Is it hard?” said Randolph, still directing his question to the boy.
Nello gave a glance out of the corner of his eyes at his questioner, but said nothing, only learned harder than ever; and again it became needful, for the sake of courtesy, that Lilias should answer.
“The Latin is not hard,” she said; “oh, not near so hard as the English. It is so easy to say; but Mr. Pen does not know how it goes; he says it all wrong; he says it like English. I hope Nello will not learn it that way.”
Randolph stared at her, but took no further notice. “Can’t you speak?” he said to Nello, “when I ask you a question? Stop your lesson and listen to me. Shouldn’t you like to go to school?”
Nello looked up with round and astonished eyes, and equally roundly, with all the force of the monosyllable, said “No,” as probably he would have answered to any question.
“No? but you don’t know what school is; not lessons only, but a number of fellows to play with, and all kinds of games. You would like it a great deal better than being here, and learning with Mr. Pennithorne.”
“No,” said Nello again; but his tone was less sure, and he paused to look into his questioner’s face. “Would Lily come too?” he said, suddenly accepting the idea. For from No to Yes is not a very long way at eight years old.
“Why, you don’t want to drag a girl with you,” said Randolph, laughing; “a girl who can’t play at anything, wherever you go?”
This argument secured Nello’s attention. He said, “N—no,” reddening a little, and with a glance at Lilias, against whose sway he dared scarcely rebel all at once; but the sense of superiority even at such an early age is sweet.
“He must not go without me,” cried Lilias, roused. “I am to take care of him always! Papa said so. Oh, don’t listen, Nello, to this—gentleman! You know what I told you—papa is perhaps coming home. Mr. Geoff said—Mr. Geoff knows something that will make everything right again. Mr. Geoff is going to fetch papa—— ”
“Oh!” cried Nello, reproachfully, “you said I was not to tell; and there you have gone and told yourself!”
“What is that? what is that?” asked Randolph, pricking up his ears.
But the boy and girl looked at each other and were silent. The curious uncle felt that he would most willingly have whipped them both, and that amiable sentiment showed itself in his face.
“And, Lily,” said Nello, “I think the old gentleman would not let me go. He will want me to play with; he has never had anybody to play with for—I don’t know how long—never since a little boy called little Johnny: and he said that was my name too—— ”
“Oh, Nello! now it is you who are forgetting; he said (you know you told me) that you were never, never to tell!”
Randolph turned from one to another, bewildered. What did they mean? Had they the audacity to play upon his fears, the little foundlings, the little impostors! He drew a long breath of fury, and clenched his fist involuntarily. “Children should never have secrets,” he said. “Do you know it is wicked, very wicked? You ought to be whipped for it. Tell me directly what you mean!”
But this is not the way to get at any child’s secret. The brother and sister looked at each other, and shut fast their mouths. As for Nello, he felt the edges of that stone in his pocket, and thought he would like to throw it at the man. Lilias had no stone, and was not warlike; but she looked at him with the calm of superior knowledge. “It would be dishonourable,” she said, faltering over the pronunciation, but firm in the sentiment, “to tell what we were told not to tell.”
“You are going to school with me—on Saturday,” said Randolph, with a virulence of irritation which children are just as apt to call forth as their elders. “You will be taught better there; you will not venture to conceal anything, I can tell you, my boy.”
And he left them with an angry determination to carry out his plans, and to give over Nello to hands that would tame him effectually, “the best thing for him.” The children, though they had secretly enjoyed his discomfiture, were a little appalled by this conclusion. “Oh, Nello, I will tell you what he is—he is the wicked uncle in the Babes in the Wood. He will take you and leave you somewhere, where you will lose yourself and starve, and never be heard of. But I will find you. I will go after you. I will never leave you!” cried Lilias with sudden tears.
“I could ask which way to go,” said Nello, much impressed, however, by this view. “I can speak English now. I could ask the way home; or something better!—listen, Lily—if he takes me, when we have gone ten miles, or a hundred miles, I will run away!”