DOUBTS AND FEARS.
The abruptness with which Edward Vernon retired from the discussion with
his partner and agent had a singular effect upon both. Neither accepted
it as done in good faith. It surprised and indeed startled them. What
they had looked for was a prolonged discussion, ending in all
probability in a victory for Edward, who was by far the most tenacious
of the three, and least likely to yield to the others. So easy a
conclusion of the subject alarmed them more than the most obstinate
maintenance of his own views. They were so much surprised indeed that
they did not communicate their astonishment to each other on the spot by
anything more than an interchange of looks, and parted after a few
bewildered remarks about nothing in particular, neither of them
venturing to begin upon a subject so delicate. But when they next met
reflection had worked upon both. Neither had been able to dismiss the
matter from his thoughts. They met indeed in a most inappropriate
atmosphere for any such grave discussion, at Ellen Merridew's house,
where they mutually contemplated each other from opposite sides of the
room, with an abstraction not usual to either. It had a great effect
upon both of them, also, that neither Hester nor Edward appeared. Roland
had known beforehand and reconciled himself as well as he could to the
former want: and Harry did not know it, and was full of curious and
jealous alarm on the subject, unable to refrain from a suspicion that
the two who were absent must have somehow met and be spending at least
part of the time together free from all inspection--a thing which was
really happening, though nothing could be more unlikely, more
unprecedented than that it should happen. Roland did not think thus; he
knew very well that Edward had not attempted to hold any intercourse
with Hester, and felt that as far as this was concerned there was no
extra danger in the circumstances: but Harry's alarm seemed to confirm
all his own ideas on the other matter. He missed Hester greatly for his
own part--not that he did not do his best to make several of the
Redborough young ladies believe that to recall himself to her individual
recollection was the special object of his visit--but that was a mere
detail of ordinary existence. It was Hester he had looked forward to as
the charm of the evening, and everything was insipid to him without her,
in the feminine society around him. It was not till after supper, when
the fun had become faster and more furious that he found himself
standing close to Harry whose countenance in the midst of all this
festivity was dull and lowering as a wintry sky. Harry did not dance
much; he was a piece of still life more than anything else in his
sister's house: loyally present to stand by her, doing everything she
asked him, but otherwise enduring rather than enjoying. This was not at
all Roland's _rôle_: but on this special evening when they got together
after midnight the one was not much more lively and exhilarating in
aspect than the other. They stood up together in a doorway, the
privileged retreat of such observers, and made some gloomy remarks to
each other. "Gets to look a little absurd, don't it, this sort of thing,
when you have a deal on your mind?" Harry said out of his moustache. And
"Yes. Gaiety does get depressing after a while," Roland remarked. After
which they relapsed again into dead silence standing side by side.
"Mr. Ashton, what do you mean by it?" cried Ellen. "I have given up
Harry: but _you_ usually do your duty. Good gracious! I see _three_
girls not dancing, though I always have more men on purpose. I don't
know what you boys mean."
"Let us alone, Ashton and I, Nell--we've got something to talk about,"
said Harry.
His sister looked up half alarmed in his face.
"I declare since you've gone so much into business you're
_insupportable_, Harry," she cried. It seemed to bring the two men a
little closer to each other when she whisked off again into the crowd.
"It's quite true," said Harry, "let's go into the hall, where there's a
little quiet. I do want awfully to talk to you. What do you think about
Ned giving up that business all at once, when we both stood up to him
about it? I was awfully grateful to you for standing by me. I scarcely
expected it; but as for Ned giving in like that, I can scarcely believe
it even now."
"It was not much like him, it must be confessed," Roland said.
"Like him! he never did such a thing in his life before; generally he
doesn't even pay much attention to what one says. He has a way of just
facing you down however you may argue, with a sort of a smile which
makes me fit to dance with rage sometimes. But to-day he was as meek as
Moses--What do you think? I--don't half like it, for my part."
"You think after all he was in the right perhaps?"
"No, I don't. I never could do that. To risk other people in that way is
what I never would consent to. But a fellow who is so full of fight and
so obstinate, to give in--that's what I don't understand."
"You think perhaps--he has not given in," Roland said.
Harry gave him a bewildered look, half grateful, half angry. "Now I
wonder what I've said that has made you think that!"
"Nothing that you have said--perhaps only an uneasy feeling in my own
mind that it isn't natural, and that I don't understand it any more than
you."
"Well," said Harry, with a long breath of relief, "that is just what I
think. I don't believe for a moment, you understand, that Ned, who is a
real good fellow all through"--here he made a slight pause, and glanced
at Roland with a sort of defiance, as if expecting a doubt, which
however was not expressed--"means anything underhand, you know. Of
_course_ I don't mean that. But when a man knows that he is cleverer
than another fellow, he'll just shut up sometimes and take his own way,
feeling it's no use to argue--I don't mean he thinks himself cleverer
than you, Ashton; that's a different affair. But he hasn't much opinion
of me. And in most things no doubt he's right, and I've never set up to
have much of an opinion."
"There you are wrong, Vernon," said Roland, "you have the better
judgment of the two. Edward may be cleverer as you say, but I'd rather
throw in my lot with you."
"Do you really say so?" cried Harry, lighting up; "well, that is very
kind of you anyhow. My only principle is we've got others to consider
besides ourselves."
"Precisely so," said Roland, who had heard this statement already, "and
you were quite right to stick to it: but I confess I am like you, not
quite comfortable about the other matter. Has he means enough of his own
to go in for it? If so, I should think that was what he intended."
Harry shook his head. "We had none of us any means," he said. "Aunt
Catherine took us, as you might say, off the streets. We were not even
very near relations. She's done everything for us: that's why I say
doubly, don't let us risk a penny of her money or of what she prizes
above money. You may think we were not very grateful to her," Harry
continued, "but that's only Ellen's way of talking. If there was
anything to be done for Aunt Catherine that little thing has got as true
a heart as any one. But we were not wanted, as you may say. Ned was
always the favourite, and so Nell set up a little in opposition, but
never meaning any harm."
"I feel sure of that," said Roland, with a warmer impulse than perhaps
Mrs. Ellen in her own person would have moved him to. And then he added,
after a pause, "I think I'll open the subject again. If Edward Vernon
means to do anything rash, it's better he should be in my hands than in
some, perhaps, that might be less scrupulous. I'll see him to-morrow
about it. There's no time lost, at least----"
"That's capital!" cried Harry, warmly; "that's exactly what I wanted. I
didn't like to ask you; but that's acting like a true friend: and if, as
a private person, there's anything I could do to back him up--only not
to touch Vernon's, you know----"
Their privacy was broken in upon by the swarm of dancers pouring into
the coolness of the hall as the dance ended; but up to the moment when
the assembly broke up Harry continued, by an occasional meaning look now
and then across the heads of the others, to convey his cheerful
confidence in Roland, and assurance that now all would go well. Ashton,
too, had in himself a certain conviction that it must be so. He was not
quite so cheerful as Harry, for the kind of operations into which
Edward's proposal might bring him were not to his fancy. But the very
solemn charge laid upon him by the old people had never faded from his
memory, and Catherine Vernon in herself had made a warm impression upon
him. He had been received here as into a new home--he who knew no home
at all; everybody had been kind to him. He had met here the one girl
whom, if he could ever make up his mind to marry (which was doubtful),
he would marry. Everything combined to endear Redborough to him. He had
an inclination even (which is saying a great deal) to sacrifice himself
in some small degree in order to save a heartbreak, a possible scandal
in this cheerful and peaceful place. Edward Vernon, indeed, in himself
was neither cheerful nor peaceable; but he was important to the
preservation of happiness and comfort here. Therefore Roland's
resolution was taken. He had come on purpose to dissuade and prevent; he
made up his mind now to further, and secure the management of this
over-bold venture, since no better might be. He knew nothing, nor did
any but the writer of it know anything, of the letter which Catherine
Vernon's butler had carefully deposited in the postbag, and sent into
Redborough an hour or two before this conversation, to be despatched by
the night mail. The night express from the north called at Redborough
station about midnight, and many people liked to travel by it, arriving
in town in the morning for their day's business, not much the worse if
they had good nerves--for there was only one good train in the day.
Next morning, accordingly, just after Hester had returned with Emma from
that guilty and agitated walk, which she had taken with the hope of
meeting Edward, and hearing something from him about his mysterious
communication of the previous night--Roland too set out with much the
same purpose, with a grave sense of embarking on an enterprise he did
not see the end of. He met the two girls returning, and stopped to speak
to them.
"Hester has been at Redborough this morning already," Emma said. "I tell
her she should have been at Mrs. Merridew's last night, Roland. It was a
very nice dance--the very nicest of all, I think; but perhaps that is
because I am so soon going away. A regular thing is so nice--always
something to look forward to; and you get to know everybody, and who
suits your steps best, and all that. I have enjoyed it so very much. It
is not like town, to be sure, but it is so friendly and homely. I shall
miss it above everything when I go away."
"It was unkind not to come last night, my only chance," said Roland. He
had no conception that Hester could have the smallest share in the grave
business of which his mind was full, and, grave as it was, his mind was
never too deeply engaged in anything for this lighter play of eye and
voice. She seemed to wake up from a sort of abstraction, which Emma's
prattle had not disturbed, when he spoke, and blushed with evident
excitement under his glance. There was in her, too, a sort of
consciousness, almost of guilt, which he could not understand. "I hope
you were sorry," he added, "and were not more agreeably occupied: which
would be an additional unkindness."
"I am afraid I can't say I am sorry."
Her colour varied; her eyes fell. She was not the same Hester she had
been even last night; something had happened to the girl. It flashed
across his mind for the moment that Edward had been absent too, which
gave a sting of pique and jealousy to his thoughts: but reassured
himself, remembering that these two never met except at the Merridews.
Where could they meet? Edward, who conformed to all Catherine Vernon's
ways, though with resentment and repugnance, and Hester, who would
conform to none of them. He was glad to remind himself of this as he
walked on, disturbed by her look, in which there seemed so much that had
not been there before. She seemed even to have some insight into his own
meaning--some sort of knowledge of his errand, which it was simply
impossible she could have. He told himself that his imagination was too
lively, that this little society, so brimful of individual interests,
with its hidden motives and projects, was getting too much for him. He
had not been in the habit of pausing to ask what So-and-So was thinking
of, what that look or this meant. In ordinary society it is enough to
know what people say and do; when you begin to investigate their motives
it is a sign that something is going wrong. The next thing to do would
be to settle down among them, and become one of the Redborough coterie,
to which suggestion Roland, with a slight shiver, said Heaven forbid!
No, he had not come to that point. Town and freedom were more dear to
him than anything he could find here. Hester, indeed (if he was sure he
could afford it), might be a temptation; but Hester by no means meant
Redborough. She would not cling to the place which had not been very
gracious to her. But he could not afford it, he said to himself,
peremptorily, as he went on. It was not a thing to be thought of. A
young man making his way in the world, living, as yet a bachelor life,
may have a little house at Kilburn with his sister; but that would not
at all please him with a wife. And Hester meant her mother as well. It
was out of the question; it was not to be thought of. But why did she
look so strangely conscious? why was she so pale, so red, so full of
abstraction and agitation to-day? If anything connected with himself
could have caused that agitation, Roland could not answer for it what he
might be led to do.
This thought disturbed him considerably from the other and graver
thoughts with which he had started; but he walked on steadily all the
same to the bank, and knocked at the door of Edward's room. Edward was
seated at his table reading the morning's letters with all the calm of a
reasonable and moderate man of business--a model banker, with the credit
and comfort of other men in his hands. He looked up with a smile of
sober friendliness, and held out his hand to his visitor. He did not
pretend to be delighted to see him. The slightest, the very most minute
shadow of a consciousness that this was not an hour for a visitor, was
on his tranquil countenance.
"You man of pleasure," he said, "after your late hours and your dances,
how do you manage to find your way into the haunts of business at this
time in the morning!" and he glanced almost imperceptibly at his letters
as he spoke.
"I am in no hurry," said Roland. "Read your letters. You know I have
nothing particular to do here. I can wait your leisure; but I have
something to say to you, Vernon, if you will let me."
"My letters are not important. Of course I will let you. I am quite at
your disposal," Edward said; but there was still a shade of
annoyance--weariness--as at a person importunate who would not take a
hint and convey himself away.
"I wanted to speak to you about the subject of our conversation
yesterday."
"Yes, which was that?"
"It was important enough to have remained in my memory," said Roland,
with a little offence, feeling himself put in the wrong from the
beginning. "I mean the proposals we were discussing--your ideas on the
subject of the----"
"Oh _that_! but you put a stop to all my ideas, Harry and you in your
wisdom. I thought you must have meant that little matter about Aunt
Catherine's books. Yes, it seemed to me, so far as my lights went, that
the proposals were very promising: and I might have stood out against
Harry, who will never set the Thames on fire; till you came down upon me
with your heavy guns--you whom I expected to be on my side."
"Then you have really given it up?" cried Roland, with a sigh of relief.
"Didn't you mean me to do so? That is what I thought, at all events. You
were so determined about it, that I really don't see what else I could
have done, unless," he said, with a smile, "I had been a capitalist, and
completely independent, as you said."
"I am most thankful to hear it, Vernon. I had not been able to divest
myself of the idea that you were still hankering after it," said Roland;
"and I came, intending to say to you, that if your heart was really set
upon it--rather than that you should put yourself into hands, perhaps
not so scrupulous----"
"Ah! I see: rather than that a rival should get the business--let us
speak plainly," said Edward, with a pale smile.
"That is not speaking plainly. It is altogether different from my
meaning; but take it so, if you please. I am glad to know that there is
no necessity for my intrusion anyhow," Roland said; and then there was a
little pause.
At last Edward got up, and came forward, holding out his hand.
"Pardon the little spite that made me put so false an interpretation on
your motive, Ashton. I know that was not what you meant. I was annoyed,
I confess, that you did thwart me yesterday in a matter I had so much at
heart."
"I felt that you were annoyed; but what could I do? I can only advise
according to my judgment. Anyhow, Vernon, I came here intending to say,
'Let me do the best I can for you if you persist; don't throw yourself
among those who promote that kind of speculation, for they are not to be
trusted to.' But I am above measure glad to find that you have no
hankering after it. That is far the best solution. You take a weight off
my mind," Roland said.
Edward did not answer for the moment. He went back and reseated himself
at his table. When he showed his face again, Roland saw he was laughing.
"After all you said to me yesterday, and Harry! think of Harry's grand
argument coming down upon me like a sledge-hammer, as potent, and alas,
quite as heavy--how could you think it possible that I should persist? I
am not such a determined character. Besides, don't you know I have never
been trained to act for myself?"
His laugh, his look, were not very convincing, but at all events they
were conclusive. After another pause, Roland rose.
"I am interfering with your work," he said. "I thought it my duty to
come at once; but now that it's all over, I must not waste your time.
Pardon my officiousness."
"Nothing of the sort," said Edward, smiling cheerfully; "the kindest
feeling. I know it is. Are you going to see Harry? He is in his room, I
know."
"Yes, I think I'll just speak to him. There is some football match that
Emma wants to see."
"More pleasuring," said Edward, and laughed again. There was in him such
an air of having found his visitor out, that Roland could not divest
himself of a certain embarrassment. Edward, he felt, knew as well as he
did, that he was going to report his failure to Harry. It fretted him
beyond description to be thus seen through, he, who had thought himself
so much more than a match for any provincial fellow of them all. "But
you are quite right to consult Harry about football; he is the greatest
possible authority upon that subject," Edward said.
"Oh, it is not of the slightest importance; it is merely that Emma, who
does not really care a straw for football, and only wants something to
do, or see----"
"That is surely reason enough," said Edward, and his complaisance went
so far that he left his papers again, and led the way to Harry's room,
where he looked in, saying, "Here's Ashton come to inquire about that
match."
"Eh? Match?" cried Harry, in much surprise. Then his faculties kindled
at the sight of Roland's face. "Will you play for us, Ashton? I didn't
know you went in for football. I just wanted a man to be----"
"It was for Emma; your sister told her she must go and see it."
"I'll leave you to your explanations," said Edward, with a laugh of
triumph. And indeed the two conspirators looked at each other somewhat
crestfallen, when he had gone away.
"He takes it quite lightly," said Roland, with the sense of talking
under his breath, "as if he had never thought of the matter again--does
not conceal that he was vexed, but says of course there was an end when
I came down upon him with my heavy guns."
Then they looked at each other guiltily--ashamed, though there was
nothing to be ashamed of, like plotters found out.
"Well, that's something tided over," Harry said.
"I hope so: but I must not stay, to confirm his suspicions. Tell me when
the match is for Emma, for she does want to go and see it, that's quite
true."
"I don't care for girls about," said Harry; "they never understand the
game, and it makes fellows nervous. It's on Saturday, if she wants to
come."
"I'll tell her it makes fellows nervous," said Roland, as he went away.
He said it in a louder tone than usual, that he might be heard in
Edward's room, and then despised himself for doing so. Altogether he had
seldom felt more small or more completely baffled and seen through than
when he retired from those doors which he had entered with so kind a
purpose. It is embarrassing to have the tables turned upon you, even in
the smallest matters. He felt that he had been made to appear officious,
intrusive, deceitful, even to himself, making up plots with one man
against another, prying into that other's purposes, attributing
falsehood to him. This was how his generous intention was cast back upon
his hands. He tried to smile cynically, and to point out to himself the
foolishness of straining to do a good action; but he was not a cynic by
nature, and the effort was not successful. In any way, however, in which
it could be contemplated, it was evident that all had been done that it
was possible to do. If Edward had made up his mind to the risk, he could
not stand between him and ruin. The matter was taken entirely out of his
hands.
Edward, for his part, returned to his room, and shut himself in with
feelings much less victorious than those he made apparent. The
excitement of the great decision had a little failed and gone off. He
was in the chill reactionary stage, wondering what might befall, feeling
the tugs of old prejudice, of all the traditions of honour in which he
had been brought up, dragging at his heart. No man brought up as Edward
had been could be without prejudices on the side of right. It alarmed
and wounded him to-day to think that he had last night considered the
property of the bank and its customers as a foundation upon which to
start his own venture. The sophisms with which he had blinded himself in
his excitement failed him now--the daylight was too clear for them. He
perceived that it was other people's goods, other people's money, which
he was risking; that even to take them out, to look at them, to think of
them as in his power, was a transgression of the laws of honour. Those
chill drawings back of customary virtue, of the prejudices of honour,
from the quick march of passion which had hurried him past every
landmark in that haste to be rich, which would see no obstacle in its
way, plunged Edward into painful discouragement. He seemed to himself to
have fallen down from a height, at which he had been master of his fate,
to some deep-lying underground where he was its slave, and could only
wait till the iron car of necessity rolled on and crushed him. He had
set, he felt, machinery in motion which he could not stop, which might
destroy him. He sat and looked out affrighted upon all the
uncomprehended forces which seemed to have got into movement against
him. He, a poor adventurer, with nothing that was his own, to thrust
himself into the midst of the commercial movements in London, which
nobody out of them could understand fully; he to risk thousands who had
nothing; he to "go in to win" who had nothing to stand upon! He saw all
round him, not only destruction, not only ruin, but contempt and
outrage. He had once seen a miserable "welsher" hunted from a
racecourse, and the spectacle, so cruel, so barbarous, yet not unjust,
came back to his mind with a horrible fascination. He remembered the
poor wretch's hat battered down upon his head, blinding him--the clothes
torn from his back, the cruelty with which he was pursued, and still
more, the mud and dirt, that meant not only punishment but unutterable
contempt. Under that recollection Edward sat shivering. What was he
better than the welsher? Though he sat there, to all appearance, spruce
and cool, reading his morning's letters, he was already in this state of
miserable depression and terror when Roland came in. The post that
morning had brought him no fresh alarm, no new excitement. He was safe
for that day; nothing could yet have been done in his affairs that was
not remediable. It was possible even that by telegraphing now he could
stop all those horrible wheels of destiny, and undo the decision of last
night. As a matter of fact, no intention of doing so was in his mind;
but the idea came uppermost now and then in the boiling up and ferment
within him: to stop everything still, to relapse into the Edward of
three months ago--submissive, respectable, keeping every punctilio of
the domestic laws, as well as those of recognised honesty and prudence.
But he never meant it; he was alarmed at himself, shaken out of all that
ease which excitement gives, that possibility of believing what we wish;
but though everything that last night pointed to success seemed now to
point to despair, he felt himself clinging on to the chance with
desperation commensurate with the gloomy prospect. Whatever it was to
lead to, he must yet go on. After all, prudence itself sometimes fared
as badly as hardihood. An investment that had been calculated upon as
the surest and safest would sometimes turn out disastrous. Who could
tell? The chances of money were beyond all calculation. And, after all,
no one could say that the ruin of the bank would be for his good. It
would be ruin to himself. It was not a thing that anybody could suppose
he would risk without deliberation.
He was in this condition, surging and seething, when Roland visited him,
and brought him suddenly to himself with the force which an encounter
with the world outside so often gives to a struggling spirit. He felt,
with a wonderful sense of self-satisfaction, that he was equal to the
emergency, and confronted it with a sudden gain of calm and strength
which seemed to him almost miraculous, like what men engaged in holy
work are justified in considering help from above. It could not be help
from above which supplied Edward with self-possession and strength for
his first steps in the career of evil, but still the relief was great.
He got the better of Roland, he extinguished the little virtuous plot
which he divined between him and Harry, and he returned to his room with
a smile on his face. But once back again there he did not feel
triumphant. He felt that he was not trusted--that already they suspected
him of having broken loose from their society and acting for himself. He
said to himself angrily that but for this he would probably have
telegraphed to contradict that momentous letter of last night. But how
could he do it now? it would be pandering to their prejudices, owning
that he had taken an unjustifiable step. And how was it unjustifiable?
Was it not he who was the virtual head, upon whose judgment and insight
everything depended? Supposing Catherine to be consulted, as had ceased
to be the case for some time, partly with, partly against, her own
will--but supposing her to be consulted now, would not she certainly
give her adherence to Edward's judgment rather than Harry's? It was not
a question there could be a moment's doubt about. She would shake her
head, and say, "You are far more venturesome than ever I was, but if
Edward really thinks----" Was not that always what she had said? And ten
years of experience had given him a right to be trusted. He was acting
for the best; he looked for nothing but success. It was nerves, mere
nerves that had affected him--a reaction from the excitement of last
night.
And thus everything settled down. When he had got over it, Edward was
the most serene of all the doubtful group which surrounded him, not
knowing what to make of him. Harry, who took a matter-of-fact view, came
next. He now thought it highly probable, on the whole, that his cousin
had thought better of it. How could he do anything else?--he had not
means of his own to risk to such an extent, which was a thought very
satisfactory to Harry. Roland Ashton was as much dissatisfied as men
usually are who endeavour in vain to see into the minds of their
neighbours, and offer good offices which are not wanted. But the most
uneasy of all was Hester, who that day, for the first time, took upon
her the most painful burden of women--the half knowledge which is
torture, which the imagination endeavours to supplement in a thousand
unreal ways, knowing them to be unreal, and dismissing them as quickly
as they are formed--and the bitter suspense, the sensation that at any
moment things may be happening, news coming which will bring triumph or
misery, but which you cannot foresee or accelerate, or do anything but
wait for. She did her best to pray, poor girl! breathing broken
petitions for she knew not what, as she went about her little
occupations all that lingering day. Surely he would try to see her
again, to satisfy her, and tell what it was he had done, and how it
could be possible, winning or losing, to fly, as he had suggested, from
everything here. To fly--how could it be? Why should it be? All the
other mysteries came in that to wonder unspeakable and dismay.