“I cannot move him one step from his resolution,” said Lady Markham,
pressing her hands over her eyes. They were aching with tears, with the
sleeplessness of the past night, and that burning of anxiety which is
worse than either. “He does not seem to care for what I say to him. His
mind is made up, he declares. God help us! William, our eldest boy! And
he used to be so good, so affectionate; but now he will not listen to a
word I say.”
They were in a room in the hotel, one of those bare and loveless rooms,
denuded of everything that is warm or homelike, in which so often the
bitterest scenes of the tragedy of our life take place. Lady Markham sat
by the bare table; Sir William paced up and down between that and the
door. Outside was all the commotion of one of those big caravanserai
which have become so common in England, echoes of noisy parties below,
and a constant passage up and down of many feet. Trouble itself is made
harder vulgarised by such contact. They were far too much absorbed to
think of this, yet it made them a little more miserable unawares.
“Does he mean to marry her?” Sir William said.
“Oh!” cried Lady Markham, with a start as if she had received a blow; “I
cannot think it is that. He will not allow it is that. It is, what he
has always said, those new principles, those revolutionary ideas, I do
not know what those men are worthy of who fill a boy’s head with
ridiculous theories, who teach him to despise his home.”
“There are few who are much harmed by that. Isabel you must not be
squeamish. You must forget you are a delicate lady, and speak plainly. I
know what a young man is at Paul’s age; they can hold the wildest
theories without feeling any necessity to act upon them. It is a
privilege of youth; but against that other kind of influence, they are
helpless. And a woman like you does not understand the arts and the
wiles of these others. And he does not know how important it is,” said
Sir William, with a piteous tone in his voice; “he does not know----”
“He knows very well what he is to me and to you,” Lady Markham said. In
this particular she spoke with perfect calm, not fearing anything. “How
should he not know? I have not hidden it from him that a great part of
the happiness of my life hangs upon his. It seems ungrateful when one
has so many blessings; but, oh! if _one_ is in trouble, how can you be
comforted though all the others are well? All your heart goes to the
one. It is not that you love the others less, but _him_ more--_him_
more.”
Sir William listened to this outburst without a word. They were bearing
one burden between them, and yet each had a separate burden to bear. His
heart would not be racked like hers by the desertion of the boy. He
would not concentrate his whole soul on Paul because Paul was in
trouble. But on the other hand, she was altogether unaware of what was
in his thoughts, the doubtful position in which perhaps Paul might one
day find himself; the need there was that his future should be within
his own power to shape and form. Also Sir William was aware of the
disappointment and misery awaiting those who compromise their whole
lives in one fit of foolish passion, and secure their own misery by a
hasty marriage. These were the things he was thinking of. He saw his son
waking up to the realities of a life very different from anything he had
dreamed--and encumbered, he, so fastidious, so fantastical, with an
uneducated woman and all the miseries of premature fatherhood. He
groaned as this picture arose in his mind.
“Trouble,” he said. “Yes, I suppose if a young man allows himself to get
entangled, there is trouble involved in the breaking of the tie; but not
half so much trouble as will come after, when his life is dragged down
by association with a woman like that,--when he has a wretched home, a
sordid life, a hundred miserable necessities to provide for,--you don’t
know what it is, you can’t know what it is----”
He broke off abruptly. Would she perhaps suspect him--_him_, her
husband--of having learned by experience what these horrors were?
But no such notion entered Lady Markham’s mind. “No,” she said; “I think
you are wrong, William. I think it is not _that_ that is in my boy’s
mind. Oh, if one could know--if one could feel sure, that his heart was
open as it used to be!”
Here she paused; and there was silence between the two, Sir William
walking slowly up and down, with his head forward, and she sitting
wistful gazing into the dark air; her eyes enlarged with anxiety and
pain. They were such prosperous, happy people--so well off, so full of
everything that can make life smooth and sweet, that the silence of
their trouble was all the more impressive--so many things that harm
poorer people would have passed innocently over them. They had such a
stock (people might have said) of comfort and happiness to fall back
upon. Nevertheless, this blow was so skilfully dealt, that it found out
the weak places in their armour at once. To Sir William, indeed, it came
as a sort of retribution! but what had his wife done to have her
gladness thus stolen away from her? Fortunately those who suffer thus
innocently are not those who ask such questions. She shed her tears
silently, with many prayers for him who was the cause; but she did not
complain of the pain which was laid upon her for no fault of hers. They
had talked it all over in every possible aspect, and now they were
silent, saying nothing. What was there to say? They could do nothing,
however they might toil or struggle. It was not in their power to change
the circumstances. Even Sir William, though he was a man of much
influence, a great personage, of importance in Europe--capable perhaps
of stopping revolutions, of transforming the face of a country, and
modifying the fortunes of a race by the advice he might give--was
powerless before his boy. He could not turn Paul from the way he had
chosen, nor persuade him to think differently. He might be able to
destroy old corporations, to raise up new cities, to disestablish a
church, or disturb an empire; but he could not make a change in the
fancies of his son--whether it was in his opinions, or in his
inclinations; that was altogether beyond his power. He sighed heavily as
he went and came from the dull green-painted wall, to the dull table
covered with a green cloth. The Queen might listen to him, and the
country; but Paul would not listen. What wonder that his wife covering
her hot eyes with her hand, and knowing that Paul’s contumacy would
steal all the pleasure out of her life, should feel herself powerless
too?
There was one thing however that threw a little light on Lady Markham’s
thoughts--one person to whom she could still appeal. She did not speak
of this to her husband, who might, she felt, oppose her purpose. But she
told Alice, with whom her consultations were still more confidential and
detailed.
“He was made welcome in our house,” she said; “he was received as well
as if he had been--any one else; and he is not a man without sense or
feeling. If it is put before him as it ought, he will understand. I will
go and speak to Mr. Spears----”
“About--his daughter?” Alice faltered.
Lady Markham did not make any reply. She would not say anything about
the chief object of her mission. What she wanted above all things was to
test the truthfulness of her son’s assertion that this daughter was
nothing to him. Sir William put no faith in these assertions; but Paul’s
mother believed in him with trembling, even while she feared, and longed
for some indirect testimony which would convince her husband. She
thought over it all night, while she lay awake listening to the clocks
answering each other with hour after hour.
Paul had not responded to his mother’s inquiries, as they had all hoped.
He had resisted her questions proudly, and he had not attempted to
explain.
“You have made up your mind, you and my father, that I have not spoken
the truth,” he said. “Why should I repeat what you will not believe? I
have nothing to say but what I have said.”
“Oh, Paul, look in my face, and tell me--tell me!” she said. “I will not
doubt you.” But he was obdurate.
“I have told you,” he said, “and you have doubted.”
There was something even in this pride and indignant resistance of her
entreaties which moved his mother to believe in him; but Sir William was
of a different opinion. Her heart was torn asunder with doubt and fear;
and here was the one way in which she could know. Her husband might
think of Spears as a dangerous demagogue, but to her he was a man whose
face had brightened at the sight of her children, a man to whom she had
given her own ready sympathy--a human creature, whom she knew. Had she
not a right to go to him, to appeal to him to relinquish his hold on her
boy? Whether it was by his arguments, or by something less abstract, he
had, it seemed, power which was almost absolute over her boy. Lady
Markham did not mean to say anything to him about his daughter, to ask
of him whether it was love for her which was leading Paul away; but
could any one doubt that she would discover the truth if she could see
him, and speak to him without any one to interfere between them? She
could not endure the doubts of Paul which rose in her own mind, nor to
be obliged to listen to his father’s doubts of him, and say no word in
his defence.
Notwithstanding her sleepless night, she got up very early in the
morning, full of this idea, and stole out of the inn unperceived. It was
not till the morning air blowing in her face, and the looks of the
passers-by, which, like any one unaccustomed to go about alone, she
thought specially directed to her, had fully roused her out of the mist
of thought in which she was enveloped, that she remembered that she did
not know where Spears was to be found. What was she to do? She went
along vaguely, unwilling to return, past Paul’s college, with all its
vacant windows twinkling in the sun, by the way which her husband had
taken when he went to seek Paul the day before. Her heart gave a little
leap as she passed the gate to see some one come out whose face seemed
familiar to her. Was it Paul so early? Had he changed his habits like
everything else? But she saw very well it was not Paul; it was his
friend who had guided Sir William in search of him on the previous day.
Young Fairfax took off his hat respectfully, and would have passed, but
she stopped and beckoned to him to come to her. Here, too, Providence
had thrown in her way a witness who might corroborate Paul. She was out
of breath with agitation when he came across the street.
“Can I--be of any use, Lady Markham?” the young man said.
“If it will not detain you--if it is not out of your way,” she said,
with anxious politeness, “would you show me where Mr. Spears lives--Mr.
Spears--I think my husband said you knew him--the--the public
speaker--the--very great Radical--he whom my son knows?”
Fairfax was puzzled for the moment by this respectful description.
“Oh, Spears!” he cried at last, suddenly waking to intelligence; he had
not heard him called Mr. Spears before. A laugh woke about the corners
of his mouth. He was apt to laugh at most things, and it amused him to
hear the softening politeness with which the great lady spoke of the
demagogue. But the next moment the wistful anxiety in Lady Markham’s
eyes made him ashamed of his smile.
“I will show you the place if you will let me go with you,” he said.
It seemed some strange negligence on the part of the race generally that
such a woman should be unattended wherever she might choose to go. He
was a democrat too, mildly, with less devotion to Spears than Paul, yet
with some interest in his teaching; but Paul’s mother roused within him
a natural loyalty and respect which was not in accordance with these
principles--loyalty in which a subtle unexpressed regard for her rank
mingled with reverence for herself. It was not as a mere woman and his
friend’s mother, but also as a lady--the kind that queens are made
of--that she affected his mind. The idea of her required an attendant, a
servant, a retainer. He put himself into the vacant place hastily, to
repair the neglect of the world.
Lady Markham took an unfair advantage of this devotion. She plied him
with questions--subtle and skilful--not always about Paul, but coming
back to Paul with many a wily twist and turn. She threw herself with the
warmest pretence of interest into his own career--what he was doing, how
his studies were being directed, what his future was to be? Was it a
pretence? No, it was not altogether a pretence. She could not but be
polite, and true politeness cannot but be interested. She was pleased
that he should tell her about himself, and a kind of shadow of an
anxiety that he too should do well came into her mind--a shadow faint
and vague of her great anxiety and longing that Paul should do well,
better than any one had ever done before. And like a lark descending in
circles of cautious approach to her home, she came back to Paul when her
young companion was off his guard, when she had beguiled him to babble
of himself.
“Ah!” she said, “I fear you are both idle, both Paul and you,” when
Fairfax had been making confession of sundry shortcomings.
“No, Markham is not like me,” he said. “Markham puts more of himself
into everything; he does not take things lightly as I do. He is a more
serious fellow altogether. That makes me rather fear Spears’s influence
over him, if you will let me say so.”
“Indeed I will let you say so,” Paul’s mother replied. “That is just
what makes me unhappy. He is a great deal with Mr. Spears?”
“One time and another--yes, they have seen a great deal of each other,”
Fairfax said. “Perhaps you don’t know, Spears is the most entertaining
fellow. He has his own opinion about everything. I think myself he is
wrong just as often as he is right; but he has his own way of looking at
things. I don’t go with him in half he says, but I like to hear him
talk----”
“And his house is a pleasant place to go to?” said the anxious mother.
“Excuse me if I don’t quite know. He is not in any kind of society, but
he has a family? It is a pleasant house?”
Fairfax stared and then he laughed.
“It is not a house at all, in the way you think of,” he said. “I don’t
suppose you can form any idea--we go and talk to him in his workshop.
There is no sort of ceremony. He will hold forth for the hour when he is
in the vein, and he is very entertaining--but as for what you understand
by a pleasant house----”
Lady Markham’s heart grew lighter every moment.
“But he has a family?” she said.
“Oh, yes--there are girls, I believe,” said Fairfax. Was he on his
guard? She almost feared the directness of this question had put him on
his guard. “One sees them sometimes running out and in, but that has
nothing to do with it,” he added, carelessly. “In his class it is not at
all the same as in other ranks of life.”
Here there was a pause. Not an inference was there in all this of any
other influence than that of the political visionary--the influence
which Paul acknowledged. Lady Markham’s heart had given a leap of
pleasure. Oh, if Sir William had but heard this careless, impartial
witness, every word of whose evidence supported that of Paul! But then a
chill breath of suspicion came over her. What if he were less
unconscious than she thought, skilfully arranging his replies so as to
back up Paul’s assertions? This discouraged and silenced her, in spite
of herself. How easy it is to learn the miserable alphabet of suspicion!
She went along with him doubtfully, sick at heart, asking no more
questions, not knowing whether there was anything in the whole matter
to which she could trust.
“There is Spears’s shop. You will find him at work already; he is always
early. May I come back again for you, Lady Markham, in case you should
miss the way to the hotel?”
“You are very kind,” she said; but the sight of the place where Paul had
spent so much of his time raised again a sick flutter in her bosom. She
waved her hand to him without any further reply, with a smile which went
to his heart; and then crossed over, dismissing him thus, and went
direct to the fountain-head of information--to Spears’s open door.