The school that Valentine Ross, Lord Eskside’s grandson and heir, was
sent to was, naturally, Eton. His father had been educated there, but
not his grandfather, who belonged to an older fashion in education as in
everything else, and was Scotch to his fingers’ tips, and to every shade
of idea in his mind. Valentine was placed with the brother of the tutor
who had succeeded so indifferently with his early training--a kind of
mingled compensation for that failure, and keeping up of old
associations--for Mr Grinder’s father had been Richard’s tutor--which
satisfied Lord and Lady Eskside. The boy’s departure was no small trial
to the old people. Each of them said something to him privately before
he went away. Lord-Eskside took him out for a last walk, and showed
him the new feus that had been marked out, and told him
confidentially--recognising for the first time his partially grown-up
condition--of the improvements he had been making, and the addition to
the rent-roll of the estate which the feus would give--“enough to pay
your school expenses, Val,” he said; and then he gave his grandson his
parting advice.
“You have not to make your living by learning,” said the old lord,
“therefore I don’t bid you give every moment to it that health allows;
but a good scholar is always a credit to every rank in life; and if a
thing is worth doing at all, it’s worth doing well. But there are other
things at Eton besides books. A man in the position you will hold
should know men like himself--not only the outside of them, but their
ways of thinking, and what’s working in their heads. The working of
young heads is a sign how the tide’s going; and I want you, if it’s in
you, Val, some time or other, to go on the top of the tide--not just to
be dragged with the swing of it, like common lads. You’re too young for
that at present, but when you’re old enough you must try to get into
what societies they have--debating, or the like. I don’t know very well
what you’re going to turn to. You have good abilities--very good
abilities--and plenty of spirit when you like; and mind, to give
yourself over to play, and nonsense games, is bairnly, not manly--I
would have you recollect that.”
“Do you mean cricket, grandpapa?” said Valentine, with astonished eyes.
“I mean everything that turns a gentleman into a player, sir,” said the
old lord, knitting his brows; “setting sport above the honest concerns
of this life and the ruling of the world--which is what young men of
good family are born for, if they like to put their hand to their work.
To set up a game in the highest place is bairnly, Val--mind what I say
to you--and not manly. If you mean to put your life into cricket, you
had better make up your mind to earn your bread by it, and give up the
other trade I’m speaking of--which is not to say you may not play to
amuse yourself,” he added, dropping from the seriousness of the previous
address, “and, in moderation, as much as you like; only never make a
business of a mere pleasure. I am taking you into my confidence,” Lord
Eskside continued, after a little pause. “I want you to go into public
life at home. Your father will not, and he has his reasons, which are
perhaps good enough; and I had not the time nor the possibility when I
was young like you. I succeeded early, for one thing; and a Scotch
representative peer does not cut much of a figure in politics. But you,
my boy, have little chance of succeeding early. If your father lives to
be as old as I am, you have a long career before you--and you’ll mind my
advice.”
“Yes, grandpapa,” said the boy, bewildered. Valentine was proud, yet
much confounded, to be thus advanced to the position of his
grandfather’s confidant, and spoken to as if he were on the verge of the
university, instead of entering at fourteen a public school. He did his
best to understand, with eyes intent upon the old man’s face.
“The secret of all success, Val,” said the old lord, “is to know how to
deny yourself. It does not matter very much what the object is. That’s
one advantage about even these games I was speaking of. Training, as
they call it, is a good thing, an excellent thing. If you once learn to
get the whip-hand of yourself, that’s the best education. There is
nothing in this world like it, Val. Prove to me that you can control
yourself, and I’ll say you’re an educated man; and without this, all
other education is good for next to nothing. Other people, no doubt, can
do you harm more or less, but there is no living creature can do you the
harm yourself can. I would write that up in gold letters on every
school, if I had it in my power. Not that I like asceticism--far from
it--but a man is no man that cannot rule himself.”
Lord Eskside paused with a sigh, while the boy looked at him with eyes
and ears intent, taking in the words, but not all or indeed much of
their meaning. And here I think Val’s attention began to wane a little;
for he had not the slightest clue to the thoughts into which the old man
plunged, almost against his will--the dismal recollections of shipwreck
which crowded into his mind as he spoke. “We won’t enter into the
subject at length,” he resumed; “but, Val, you have more than ordinary
occasion to be upon your guard.”
“Why have I more than ordinary occasion?” said the boy, wondering and
curious; this mysterious intimation immediately roused him up.
“Ah, well, we’ll say nothing about that. You’ve wild blood in you, my
boy; and when you’re a man, you’ll remember that I gave you sound
advice. These are the great things, Val. I don’t need to tell you to be
good, for I hope you know your duty. Try and never do anything that you
would think shame to have told to us; you may be sure sooner or later
that it will be told to us, and to every soul you want it kept from.
There’s no such thing as a secret in this world; and the more you want
to hide a thing the more it’s known--mind that. For lesser matters, I’ll
see you have enough of pocket-money, and I hope you’ll take care to
spend it like a gentleman--which does not mean to throw it away with
both hands, mind; and you’ll keep your place, and learn your lessons
like a man; and you’ll write regularly to your grandma; and God bless
you, Val!”
Saying this, the old lord wrung the boy’s hand, and turned off down a
side path, leaving him alone in the avenue. Lord Eskside’s shaggy
eyebrows were working, and something strangely like tears welled up
somehow from about his heart, and stood in two pools, unsheddable, under
these penthouses. Not for all he had in the world would he have let that
moisture drop in sight of living man.
Val was somewhat startled by this abrupt withdrawal, and tried hard,
without being quite able, to make it out, what it meant; for the notion
that he himself was supremely loved by his old grandfather was one that
did not immediately enter into the boy’s mind, far from all sentimental
consciousness as boys’ minds generally are. He went up thoughtfully to
the house, but I am afraid it was not the wisdom of his grandfather’s
advice or the contagion of his emotion which moved him. He was wondering
what it meant--why he, Valentine, should have more than ordinary reason
to take care; and what was the wild blood he had in his veins? The
wonder was vague; I cannot say that the boy was possessed by any eager
longing to penetrate the mystery; but still he wondered, having arrived
at a kind of crisis in his life, a thing which makes even a child think.
He went in to his grandmother serious, and, as she thought, sad; and
Lady Eskside was pleased by the cloud over his face, and set it down to
his sorrow at leaving home, putting her own sentiments into Valentine’s
mind, as we all do.
“You must not be down-hearted, Val,” she said, drawing him close to her,
and speaking with a quiver in her lip. “When once the shock is over, you
will find plenty of new friends, and be very happy. It is natural at
your age. It is us that will miss you, oh my bonnie boy! far, far more
than you will miss my old lord and me.”
Val did not say anything; he felt his breast swell with a certain soft
sympathy, but he was not deeply dismayed at the thought of leaving home,
as she supposed. Lady Eskside put her arm round him, and drew her boy
close. She was not ashamed of the tears that came heavily to her eyes.
“My bonnie boy!” she said, “my darling! Ye cannot think what you have
been to us, Val--like light to them in darkness; you’ve made God’s
providence clear to me, though you’re too young to understand why. When
you are away, Val, you’ll think of that. If anything ill were to happen
to you in body or soul, it would break my heart--you’ll remember that?
Oh, my own boy, be good! There are all kinds at a great school, some not
innocent lads like you. You’ll shut your ears to bad words and wicked
things for my sake? Don’t listen to them--but say your prayers night and
morning, and read your chapter, and God will protect my boy. Nobody can
make you do wrong, Val, except yourself.”
“But I don’t mean to do wrong, grandma,” said Valentine, with a little
self-assertion. “Why should you think I would? Is there anything
particular about me?”
“There is a great deal particular about you,” said the old lady; “you
are the hope and the joy of two old folk that would never hold up their
heads again in this world if any harm came to you. Is not that enough?
But I am not afraid of my boy,” she added, seeing that the admonition
had gone far enough, and smiling a wintry watery smile, the best she
could muster. “Mind all that Mr Grinder says, and don’t be too rough in
your play. You’re a very stirring boy, Val; but I want my boy to be
always a gentleman, and not too rough. Your manners are not so nice as
they once were----”
“I’m not a baby any longer,” said the boy. “I don’t know how to speak to
ladies and grand people; but I don’t mean to be rough.”
“Well, dear, perhaps that is true,” said Lady Eskside, with a sigh; “but
you’ll mind, Val, to be very particular about your manners as well as
other things. It’s more important than you think.”
“I wish you would tell me something, grandma,” said Val; “why is it more
important than I think? and what do grandpapa and you mean by saying
that I need to be on my guard more than others? There must be something
particular about me.”
“Then your grandpapa has been speaking to you!” said the old lady, with
a little vexation, feeling herself forestalled. “I suppose, being old,
we are more particular than most people, and more anxious. Your father,
you see, makes no such fuss.”
“I don’t know anything about my father, grandma.”
“Oh, Val, hush! he is at a distance, where duty keeps him; he has never
been at home but that once since you came, and he is not a good
correspondent; but now that you are at school you must write to him
direct, and be sure he will answer. He knows you are safe in our hands.”
“That may be,” said Val, seriously; “but still, you see, grandma, it’s a
fact that I don’t know much about my father--nor my mother either,” he
added, suddenly dropping his voice. Since he had been a small child, he
had not mentioned her before. Lady Eskside could not restrain a startled
movement, which he felt, standing so close to her. The boy lifted his
eyes and fixed them on her face.
“Was that her, grandma,” he said in a low voice, “that brought me here?
and why is she never here now? I know there is something strange about
me, for all you say.”
“Do you remember her, Val?”
“No,” said the boy, somewhat impatiently; “that is, I remember _her_,
but not to know her now if I saw her. Why do you never speak of her? why
is she never here? I think I ought to know.”
“Oh, my dear, it’s a long story--a long and a sad story,” said the old
lady. “I wish--I wish I could find her, Val. I have sought for her
everywhere, both now and when you were born; but I cannot find her. It
is not our fault.”
“Where is she?” said the boy. His face was flushed and agitated, his
utterance hurried and breathless as if with shame.
“I tell you we cannot find her, Val.”
“But she is alive, in the world, _like that_?” said the boy; and drew a
long painful breath. Lady Eskside could not tell, and dared not ask, how
much Val understood or remembered of his mother and her life when he
said these words; and indeed, I think the boy himself would have found
it very difficult to tell. He had lost all clear recollection of her in
those seven years past, which were just the years in which a child
forgets most easily--or remembers most tenaciously, when its
recollections are encouraged and cultivated. He recollected dimly his
coming to Eskside, and more dimly a life beyond, which was not as his
present life,--a curious dull chaos of wanderings and change, with a
woman in it and a playfellow, for whom he used to cry of nights. The
chief impression on his mind, however, was of the strange difference
between that life and his present one. He had escaped out of that into
this; and the thought of being made to go back again gave him a
sensation of vague alarm. If this woman was his mother, might she not
meet him somewhere, claim him, take him back again? This thought filled
him with a confused and indescribable horror. He had experienced this
strange feeling before now; when he saw caravans passing--when he met a
wandering party of tramps on the road--it had occurred to him more than
once, what if some one should claim him? though he scarcely knew the
ground of his own fears. This had given a curious inarticulate duality
to his life. There were two of him. One Valentine Ross, whom he could
identify boldly, who was happy and free and beloved--the other,
something he did not know. But after his conversation with his
grandmother, this vague terror suddenly took shape and form. His mother,
his _real_ mother, who had a right to him, might claim him, might seize
upon him and carry him away. The idea filled him for the moment with
mortal terror. He lost the security of childhood, and for the time felt
himself involved in that insecurity, that panic, which is more terrible
to a child than it ever can be in more mature life. A spasm came into
his throat--a pang of shame and outraged feeling--which added to the
terror, and made it very hard to bear. His eyes grew wet with a
hot-springing moisture, salt and bitter, which seemed to scorch his
eyelids. Lady Eskside, partially discovering the agitation in the boy’s
mind, pressed him closer to her in sympathy and tenderness; but he set
his elbows square, and repulsed the fond consoling movement. He was
angry with her, and with all the world, because he himself was thus
separated from all the world, though he was no more than a child.
“I am going out,” he said abruptly, with a slight struggle to be free,
“to say good-bye to Hunter and the rest. I promised to say good-bye to
them. Let me go, grandma; I shall not be long away.”
“Come back before dinner, dear. You are to have your dinner with us
to-night,” said the old lady, kissing his hot forehead as she let him
go. He ran from her, and out into the woods, and never drew breath till
he reached Hunter the gamekeeper’s cottage, which was two miles off. The
hot tears dried in the boy’s eyes as he ran, swift as an arrow from the
bow. It was a half-savage way of relieving the pain in him; yet it did
relieve it, probably because of the half-savage blood which was boiling
in his veins. He did not feel quite sure that he was safe even in the
woods, and flew as if some one were pursuing him. In this panic there
mingled no curiosity about his mother--no longing wish to see her--no
stirring of filial love, such as one would imagine natural in such a
case. Strangely enough, children show little curiosity in most cases
about the parents they have lost. It seems so natural to them to accept
what is, as absolutely unchangeable, the one only state of affairs they
have ever known, as the state which must be, and to which there is no
alternative. The very idea of an alternative disturbs the young mind,
and wounds it. And Valentine had more than ordinary cause to be
disturbed. He was afraid and he was ashamed of that duality in his
existence. It mortified him as only a child can be mortified. If he
could only forget it, shut it out of his mind for ever! He did not want
to hear any more upon the subject, which was hateful to him; he could
not bear even to think that any one was aware how much of it he knew.
The sight of the little colony of children and dogs at the gamekeeper’s
was a wholesome distraction to his burdened mind; and fortunately there
were many people to be shaken hands with, and to be told of his start
to-morrow. “To Edinburgh first, and then to London! My word, Mr
Valentine, but you’ll be far afore us all, country folk. And I wouldna
wonder but you would see the Queen and the House of Parliament, and a’
thing that’s splendid,” said the gamekeeper’s wife. The boy was pleased;
the thought of all the novelty to come moved him for a moment; but even
the delight of novelty could not banish from his mind his new horror and
fear.
He dined with his grand-parents that night as they had promised; and the
old people watched him with an anxious scrutiny, of which the child was
vaguely conscious. They had no insight into the tempest that was surging
in his childish bosom, but watched him as wistfully as if they had been
the children and he the man, wondering whether “his mother’s blood” was
working in him, and any wild desire of adventure and vagrancy like hers
arising in his mind, or whether he was thinking of and longing for her,
which seemed the most natural supposition. I think, had they known the
selfish shame and fear which had taken possession of him, both of them
would have been disappointed and shocked, even though satisfied. They
would have blamed the boy as without natural feeling, and they would
have been wrong. The feeling in Valentine’s heart was all chaotic,
undeveloped. He had found out what was the meaning of the contradiction
of two natures in him, the jar of which he had been dimly conscious,
without knowing what it was. The struggle itself had been going on
within him for years, since the time when, a mere child, he had suffered
and conquered that natural thirst for the out-of-door life to which he
had been born. He had stood by his nursery window many a day and gazed
out, and beaten his head and his hands against the panes, longing to
escape, with a longing which was only recognised as naughtiness, and
which by force of circumstances and some innate force of nature had been
restrained. His ductile infantine nature had been forced into the new
channel, and now he thought of the old one with a thrill and shiver of
imaginative terror: but no distinct enlightenment as to his own position
pierced the childish imbroglio of his thoughts. He felt rather than
thought that he was in danger; he had lost his happy sense of security;
but his mind had not gone further. All this, however, was as invisible,
as unrevealable, to the two old people, who watched him so anxiously, as
their eager watch was to him. He had not left their charge for a day for
seven long years, and yet they knew as little of him as you and I, dear
reader, know of the child who has never left our side, and has, as it
seems, no thought, no object in life apart from ours. How can we tell
what that unknown familiar creature will do when set out upon
independent life for itself? and how could they tell what was passing in
Val’s bosom, which had no window to it, any more than the rest of us
have?
They watched him, however, very closely, consulting each other now and
then with their eyes, and said things to him which meant more than the
words, but which Val received without thinking at all what they meant.
That last night at home was meant to be a solemn one, and would have
been so, had Val’s mind not been absorbed in its own excitement. Lord
Eskside gave him a watch, which made his heart jump for the moment--a
gold hunting-watch, such as Val had long admired and longed for, with
his initials and crest on the back; but even this affected him much less
than it would have done, had he received it a week--a day before. He was
to start early the next morning, and his portmanteaus were packed, and
everything ready that night. He went and looked at them before he went
to bed, and the higher pulsation of novelty and adventure began to swell
in his young veins. The shadow slid still a little further off his heart
when Lady Eskside came into his room on her way to her own, as she had
done every night for years. Val was not asleep, but only pretended to be
so, to avoid any self-betrayal. The boy, peering curiously through his
eyelashes, which showed him this little scene as through a veil of
tinted gauze, saw the old lady put down her candle, look at him closely,
and when she saw him, as she thought, fast asleep, kneel down by his
bedside. She said no audible words, but she put her hands together and
lifted her face, with tears standing full in her eyes. It was all Val
could do not to cry too, and betray himself; the water came welling up,
feeling warm within his eyelids, and blurring out the sight before him.
After a little while my lady rose, and put her hand softly on his
forehead and kissed him; then took up her candle and walked away,
closing the door carefully after her not to wake her boy. Val felt
strangely desolate for the first moment after the door closed, and the
soft light and the watchful presence went away. He did not say anything
tender within himself, for he was (or had become) a Scotch boy, totally
unused to the employment of endearing words. But his small heart
swelled, and a sense of soft security, of watchers round him, and
ever-wakeful all-powerful love, came to him unawares.
Thus Val dropped asleep on his last night at home; and he woke in the
morning cured of his first trouble, with as light a heart as any
schoolboy need have--the shock having gone off with all its
consequences, and his mind being too full of his new start, of his new
watch, of his long journey--the first he had ever taken--and of Eton at
the end most wonderful of all,--far too full of these things to be sad.
He gave his grandmother a hug when the moment came to go away. “I’ll be
back at Christmas, grandma,” he said, between laughing and crying. The
old lord was going with his heir, and this “broke the parting very much,
so that he bore up like a man,” Lady Eskside said afterwards, wishing, I
fear, that Val had been a little more “overcome.” She shed tears enough
for both of them after the carriage had driven away, with a large box of
game--to conciliate Mr Grinder--fastened on behind. From the window of
one of the turrets she could see it driving across the bridge at
Lasswade; and there she went, though the stairs tired her, and waved her
handkerchief out of the narrow window, and wept at thought of the
dreariness he left behind him. It seemed to my lady that there was not
one creature left in the great house, or on Eskside, up the water and
down the water, save herself; and thus Val made his first start in life.