NOBODY in the sick-room said a word of the great consternation and wonder and fear that sprang to life in them at the appearance of the stranger. How could they, though their hearts were full of it? when all their care and skill were wanted for the patient, who, half-conscious, struggled with them to raise himself, to get out of bed. To find out what he wanted, to satisfy the hazy anxiety in his mind, and do for him the something, whatever it was, that he was so anxious to do, was the first necessity of the moment, notwithstanding the new excitement which was wild in their veins. Where did he come from? How had he got here?—familiar, unmistakable, as if he had been absent but a day. How did he know he was wanted? And was it he—really he—after all those dreary years? These questions surged through the minds of all the bystanders, in an impetuous, yet secondary current. The first thing, and the most urgent, was the Squire. Brother and sister, friend and friend, had not leisure to take each other by the hand, or say a word of greeting.
Mary and her newly-arrived assistant stood side by side, touching each other, but could not speak or make even a sign of mutual recognition. He took her place in supporting, and at the same time, restraining the patient. She held her father’s hand, with which he seemed to be appealing to some one, or using, in dumb show, to aid some argument.
“The little boy,” he said, hoarsely, “bring me the little boy.”
“Is it Nello he means?” the stranger asked, in a low voice.
“I—think so—I—suppose so,” said Mary, trembling, and wholly overcome by this strange ease and familiarity, and even by the sound of the voice so long silent in this place. But he took no notice—only followed his question by another.
“Why not bring the child then? That might satisfy him. Does he care for the child, or is it only a fancy, a wandering in his head? Anyhow, let them bring him. It might be of some use.”
“Do you think he—knows? Do you think he understands—and—means what he is saying?”
Mary faltered forth these words, scarcely knowing what she said, feeling that she could not explain how it was that Nello was not near—and finding it so strange, so strange to be talking thus to—John; could it be really John? After all that had sundered them, after the miseries that had passed over him, the price still set upon his head, was it he who stood so quietly, assuming his household place, taking his part in the nursing of the old man? She could not believe her senses, and how could she talk to him, calmly as the circumstances required, gently and steadily, as if he had never been away?
“Most likely not,” he said; “but something has excited his fancy, and the sight of my boy might calm it. Let some one bring Nello.”
He spoke with the air of one used to be obeyed, and whom also in this particular it would be easy to obey.
“We sent him to school. I am very sorry—I was against it,” said Mary, trembling more and more.
Mr. Pen was frightened too. It is one thing doing “for the best” with a little unprotected parentless child, and quite a different thing to answer the child’s father when he comes and asks for it. Mr. Pen paled and reddened ten times in a minute. He added, faltering—
“It was by my advice—John. I thought it was the best thing for him. You see I did not know—— ”
Here he broke off abruptly, in the confusion of his mind.
“Then it is needless saying any more,” said the stranger, hastily, with a tone in which a little sharpness of personal disappointment and vexation seemed to mingle.
This conversation had been in an undertone, as attendants in a sick-room communicate with each other, without intermitting their special services to the patient. The Squire had been still in their hands for the moment, ceasing to struggle, apparently caught in some dim confused way by the sound of their voices. He looked about him confusedly, like a blind man, turning his head slightly, as if his powers were being restored to him, to the side on which John stood. A gleam of half-meaning, of interest, and wavering, half-roused attention, seemed to come over his face. Then he sank back gently on his pillows, struggling no longer. The paroxysm was over. The nurse withdrew her hand with a sigh of relief.
“Now,” she said, “if we leave him perfectly quiet, he may get some sleep. I will call you in a moment if there is any change.”
The woman saw, with her experienced eyes, that something more than could be read on the surface was in this family combination. She put them gently from the bedside, and shaded the patient’s eyes from the light, for it was nearly noon by this time, and everything was brilliant outside. The corridor, however, into which they passed outside was still dark, as it was always, the glimmering pale reflections in the wainscot of the long narrow window on the staircase being its sole communication with the day.
Mary put out her hands to her brother as they emerged from the sick-room.
“Is it you—you, John?”
“Yes,” he said, grasping them, “it is I. I do not wonder you are startled—I heard my father was worse—that there was a change—and came in without warning. So Nello has been sent away? May I see my little girl? You have been good to her, I am sure, Mary.”
“I love her,” said Mary, hastily, “as if she were my own. John, do not take my little companion away.”
He had been grave enough, and but little moved hitherto by the meeting, which was not so strange or unlooked-for to him as to them. Now his countenance beamed suddenly, lighting all over, and a tender moisture came to his eyes.
“It is what I have desired most for her,” he said, and took his sister’s hands again and kissed her cheek. “But send for my little Lily,” he added, with an indescribable softening in his voice.
Here Miss Brown, who had been following, came out from the dusk of the room behind. “I beg your pardon, ma’am. I did not like to tell you in your trouble; but I’m very uneasy about Miss Lily.”
“Has she never come in yet? You said she had gone out for a walk.”
“I said whatever I could think of to save you, Miss Mary. We none of us know where she’s gone. I’ve sent everywhere. She is not at the Vicarage, nor she’s not at the village; and—oh, what will Mr. John think of us?” cried the woman in tears. “Not one in the house has seen her since yesterday, and Martuccia, she’s breaking her heart. She says Miss Lily has gone after her brother; she says—— ”
“Is Martuccia here?”
“Yes, sir,” said Miss Brown, with a curtsey. She could not take her eyes off him, as she afterwards said. More serious, far more serious than when he was a young gentleman always about the house, but the same man—still the same man.
“Then send her to me at once. It is you, Martha, the same as ever,” he said, with a momentary smile in the midst of his anxiety. Just as Mr. John used to do—always a kind word for everybody and a smile. She made him another curtsey, crying and smiling together.
“And glad, glad, sir, to see you come home,” she said. There was this excuse for Miss Brown’s lingering, that Mary had rushed off at once to find Martuccia. John bowed his head gravely. He had grown very serious. The habit of smiling was no longer his grand characteristic. He went downstairs into the library, the nearest sitting-room in his way, the door of which was standing open. Eastwood was there lingering about, pretending to put things in order, but in reality waiting for news of the old Squire. Eastwood knew that he had not let this man in. He had not got admission in any legitimate way. “I beg your pardon, sir,” he began, not altogether respectfully, with the intention of demanding what he did there.
“What?” said the stranger, looking up with a little impatience.
Eastwood drew back with another “Beg your pardon, sir!” and his tone was changed. He did not know who it was, but he dared not say anything more. This was the strangest house in the world surely, full of suspicions, full of new people who did not come in at the front door.
When Martuccia came, her story, which, had been almost inarticulate in her broken English, flowed forth volubly enough to her master, whom she recognized with a shriek of delight. She gave him a clear enough account of what had happened. How an old woman had come, a peasant of the country, and told Miss Lily that her little brother was in trouble. This word she transferred to her narrative without attempting to translate it, so that Mary, standing by, who did not understand the rest, seemed to hear nothing but this word recurring again and again. “Trouble!” it was an ominous word. Nothing but trouble seemed to surround them. She stood and listened anxiously, though she did not understand.
“It is clear, then,” said her brother, turning to her, “that Lily has gone after her little brother, supposed to be in some mysterious trouble. When did he go, and where did he go, and who persuaded you to send him away?”
“It was Randolph—Randolph has been here. I believe he wanted to be kind. He said Nello was being ruined here, and so did Mr. Pen. It was against my will—against my wish.”
“Randolph!” he said. This alarmed him more than all the rest. “Both my children! I thought I should find them safe—happy in your hands, whatever happened to me—— ”
“Oh John, what can I say?” cried Mary, wringing her hands. No one could be more guiltless of any unkind intention, but, as was natural, it was she who bore the blame. A man may be pardoned if he is a little unjust in such circumstances. John was ready to rush out of the house again directly to go after his children, but what could be done unless the railway helped him? Mary got the time-tables and consulted them anxiously; and Mr. Pen came in and stood by; very serious and a little crestfallen, as one of the authors of the blunder. And it was found, as so often happens, that nothing was to be done at the moment. The early train was going off as they talked, the next did not go till the evening, the same by which Lilias had travelled on the night before. And in the mean time, what might be happening to the little girl, who was wandering about the world in search of her brother? While the brother and sister consulted, Mr. Pen looked sorrowfully over their heads, which were bent over these time-tables. He did not himself pretend to understand these lines of mysterious figures. He looked from one face to another to read what they meant. He was too much abashed by his own share in the misfortune to put forward his advice. But when he saw that they were both at their wits’ end, Mr. Pen suggested that the place where Nello was was nearer to Randolph than to themselves, and that he might get there that night if he was informed at once, and give them news, at least let them know whether Lilias had reached the house where her brother was. “And I will go by the first train,” Mr. Pen said timidly. “Let me go, as I have had a hand in it. John knows I could not mean any harm to his boy——.”
Nobody had meant any harm, but the fact that the two children were both gone, and one, a girl like Lilias, wandering by herself no one knew where, was as bad as if they had meant it a hundred times over. Who could it be who had beguiled her with this story of Nello’s trouble? If John, who had suffered so much, and who had come from the country where feuds and vengeance still flourish, suspected an enemy in it, suspected even his brother who had never been his friend, who could wonder? They telegraphed to Randolph, and to Mr. Swan, and to the stations on the way, John himself hurrying to Pennington to do so. And then when all this was done, which made an exciting bustle for a moment, there was nothing further possible but to wait till evening for the train. Such pauses are due to the very speed and superior possibilities of modern life. A post-chaise was slower than the railway, but it could be had at once, and those long and dreary hours of delay, of time which one feels to be lost, and in which, while we wait, anything fatal may happen, are the reverse side of the medal, the attendant disadvantage upon headlong speed and annihilation of distance. What a miserable house it was during all that eternal day! Anxieties of every kind filled their minds—those which concerned life and the living coming uppermost and shutting out the solemn interest of the chamber over which death had been hovering. The Squire slept, but only his nurse, unmoved in professional calm, watched over him; and when he woke, still wrapped in a mist and haze of half-consciousness which subdued all his being, yet with an aspect less deathlike, Mary came and went to and from his room, in an enforced stillness almost beyond bearing, not daring to stay long in one place lest she should betray herself. She dared not allow herself to think of little Lilias, perhaps in evil hands, perhaps wandering alone. Her little Lily! Mary felt it would be impossible to sit still, impossible to endure at all if she did not thrust away this thought. A little woman-child, at that tender age, too young for self-protection, too old for absolute impunity from harm. Mary clasped her hands tightly together and forced her thoughts into another channel. There was no lack indeed of other channels for her anxieties; her father thus lying between life and death, and her brother with all the penalties of old on his head, going and coming without concealment, without even an attempt to disguise himself. It would have been better even for John, Mary felt instinctively, if the Squire had been visibly dying instead of rallying. What if he should wake again to full consciousness, and order the doors of his house to be closed against his son as he had done before? What if, seeing this, and seeing him there without attempt at concealment, rejected by his own family, the old prosecution should be revived and John taken? After that—But Mary shuddered and dropped this thread of thought also. The other, even the other was less terrible. Thus passed this miserable day.
Randolph had been alarmed even before the family were, though in a different fashion. Almost as soon as he had seated himself at his respectable clergymanly breakfast-table, after prayers and all due offices of the morning, a telegram was put into his hand. This made his pulse beat quicker, and he called to his wife to listen, while a whole phantasmagoria of possibilities seemed to rise like a haze about the yellow envelope, ugliest of inclosures. What could it be but his father’s death that was thus intimated to him—an event which must have such important issues? When he had read it, however, he threw it on the table with an impatient “Pshaw! The little boy, always the little boy,” he cried; “I think that little boy will be the death of me.” Mrs. Randolph, who had heard of this child as the most troublesome of children, gave all her sympathy to her husband, and he contented himself with another message back again, saying that he had no doubt Mr. Swan would soon find the little fugitive, who had not come to him as the schoolmaster supposed. The day, however, which had begun thus in excitement, soon had other incidents to make it memorable. Early in the afternoon other telegrams came. The one he first opened was from Mr. Pen; this at least must be what he hoped for. But instead of telling of the Squire’s death, Mr. Pen telegraphed to him an entreaty which he could not understand. “Lilias is missing too—for God’s sake go at once to the school and ascertain if she is there.” What did he mean—what did the old fool mean?
“Here is another, Randolph,” said his wife, composing her face into solemnity. “I fear—I fear this at least must be bad news from the Castle.”
In the heat of his disappointment and impatience Randolph was as nearly as possible exclaiming in over-sincerity, “Fear!—I hope it is, with all my heart.” But when he opened it he stood aghast; his brother’s name stared him in the face—“John Musgrave.” How came it there—that outlawed name? It filled him with such a hurry and ferment of agitation that he cared nothing what the message was; he let it drop and looked up aghast in his wife’s face.
“Is it so?” she said, assuming the very tone, the right voice with which a clergyman’s wife ought to speak of a death. “Alas, my poor dear husband, is it so? is he gone indeed?”
But Randolph forgot that he was a clergyman and all proprieties. He threw down the hideous bit of paper and jumped to his feet and paced about the room in his excitement. “He has come, confound him!” he cried.
Not gone! that would have been nothing but good news—but this was bad indeed, something unthought of, never calculated upon; worse than any misgiving he had ever entertained. He had been uneasy about the child, the boy whom everybody would assume to be the heir; but John—that John should return—that he should be there before his father died—this combination was beyond all his fears.
After he had got over the first shock he took up the telegram to see what it was that “John Musgrave, Penninghame Castle,”—the name written out in full letters, almost with ostentation, no concealing or disguising of it, though it was a name lying under the utmost penalties of the law—had to say to him.
“My little daughter has been decoyed away under pretence that her brother was in danger. You can reach the place to-day. I cannot. Will you serve me for once, and go and telegraph if she is safe?” This was the communication. Randolph’s breast swelled high with what he felt to be natural indignation. “I serve him! I go a hundred miles or so for his convenience. I will see him—hanged first!” Hanged—yes, that was what would happen to the fellow if he were caught, if everybody were not so weakly indulgent, so ready to defeat the law. And this was the man who ventured to bid his brother “serve him for once,” treating him, Randolph, a clergyman, a person irreproachable, in this cavalier fashion. What had he to do with it if the little girl had been decoyed away? No doubt the little monkey, if all were known, was ready enough to go. He hoped in his heart they were both gone together, and would never be heard of more.
When he came as far as this, however, Randolph pulled himself up short. After all, he was not a bad man to rejoice in the afflictions of his neighbours; he only wished them out of his way, he did not wish any harm to them; and he felt that what he had just said in his heart was wicked, and might bring down a “judgment.” To come the length of a wish that your neighbour may not thrive is a thing that no respectable person should allow himself to do; a little grudging of your neighbour’s prosperity, a little secret satisfaction in his trouble, is a different matter,—but articulately to wish him harm! This brought him to himself and made him aware of his wife’s eyes fixed upon him with some anxiety. She was a gentle little believing sort of woman, without any brains to speak of, and she thought dear Randolph’s feelings had been too much for him. Her eyes were fixed on him with devout sympathy. How much feeling he had, though he did not speak much of it; what strong affections he had! Randolph paused a little to calm himself down. These all-trusting women are sometimes an exasperation unspeakable in their innocence, but still, on the other hand, a man must often make an effort not to dispel such belief. He said, “No, my dear, it is not what I thought; my father is not dead, but suffering, which is almost worse; and my brother whom you have heard of—who has been such a grief to us all—has come home unexpectedly.”
“Oh, Randolph!” The innocent wife went to him and took his hand and caressed it. “How hard upon you! How much for you to bear! Two such troubles at once.”
“Yes, indeed,” he said, accepting her sympathy, “and the little boy whom I told you of, whom I took to school,—well, he has run away—— ”
“Oh, Randolph dear, what mountains of anxiety upon you!”
“You may say so. I must go, I suppose, and look after this little wretch. Put me up something in the little portmanteau—and from thence I suppose I had better go on to Penninghame again. Who knows what trouble may follow John’s most ill-advised return?”
“And they all lean so on you,” said the foolish wife. Notwithstanding these dozen years of separation between him and his family, she was able to persuade herself of this, and that he was the prop and saviour of his race. There is nothing that foolish wives will not believe.
Randolph, however, wavered in his decision after he had made up his mind to go. Why should he go, putting himself to so much trouble at John’s order? He changed his mind half a dozen times in succession. Finally, however, he did go, sending two messages back on his way, one to John, the other to Mr. Pen. To John he said: “I am alarmed beyond measure to see your name. Is it safe for you to be there? Know nothing about little girl, but hear that little boy has run away from school and am going to see.” Thus he planted, or meant to plant, an additional sting in his brother’s breast. And as he travelled along in the afternoon, going to see after Nello, his own exasperation and resentment became so hot within him, that when he arrived at the junction, he sent a message of a very different tenor to Mr. Pen. He did not perhaps quite know what he was doing. He was furious with disappointment and annoyance and confusion, feeling himself cheated, thrust aside, put out of the place which he ought to have filled. Nello would have had harsh justice had he been brought before him at such a moment, “Little troublesome, effeminate baby, good for nothing, and now to be ruined in every way. But I wash my hands of him,” Randolph said.