One nail strikes out another, the Italians say. It was not wonderful
that Richard Ross should feel this, seeing that the subject which
concerned his own individual life most closely was that which drove out
of his mind all immediate recollection of the other which was the object
of his journey. But that the strange and startling apparition of the new
figure which suddenly confronted her should have driven the recollection
of Valentine out of Lady Eskside’s head, was much more wonderful--for
her heart was rent with anxiety about Val; whereas Richard was only
vaguely, lightly affected by that anxiety; and there was no such magic
of old associations, old passions, curiosity, and that baffled sense of
impotence which provokes the mind to put forth its whole powers, in her
mind as in his. But for the moment Lady Eskside forgot her beloved boy,
and her devouring anxiety; forgot everything but the shock and startling
sensation produced upon her by this face which suddenly looked at her,
meeting her gaze calmly, unaware of its own power. When she brought Dick
Brown to a stop in his explanations by her eager, almost wild question,
“Who are you?” the subject which up to that moment had been engrossing
her whole mind departed wholly out of it. Poor Val, lying upon his
mother’s bed! He was wronged even by those who loved him best--he was
forgotten, if only for a moment, in the strain and stress of affairs
more urgent; but happily did not know it. Dick was very much
embarrassed, good fellow, to find himself suddenly elevated into a place
of such importance, and to be asked so passionately, so urgently, who he
was. Nothing in the world more easy than to give an account of himself.
He smiled, involuntarily, at the anxiety in Lady Eskside’s face.
“It is very easy to tell you that, ma’am,” he said. “I didn’t send my
name, thinking you wouldn’t know. I’m Richard Brown, head man now at Mr
Styles’s, the boat-builder at Oxford, and for three years at Goodman’s,
at Eton. That is all about me.”
“What is it?” said the old lady. “No, I am not deaf--you need not speak
loud; but say it again. Richard? Yes, yes; of course it could be
nothing but Richard. And you came to tell me that? Is your mother
living? is she still living? and where is she? Was it she that sent you
here?”
“I came to tell you about Mr Ross----”
“Boy,” said Lady Eskside, “don’t trifle with me. This was what drove my
darling away. Is the woman living, and do you know where she is? Your
face tells a great deal,” she went on, “but not all. Where is your
mother? Did she send you? Is she near? Oh, for God’s sake, if you have
any pity, tell me! What with one trouble and another, I am near at an
end of my strength.”
“Mr Ross is ill, ma’am,” said Dick, much bewildered, but holding fast to
his mother’s _consigne_, not to say anything about her. “He is lying ill
at our--at my house.”
“What could he be but ill,” cried the old lady, drying her eyes, “after
all that has come and gone? But don’t think that I’ll let you go now.
Richard, perhaps you are ignorant, perhaps you don’t know how important
it is--but oh, for God’s sake, tell me? Have you got her? have you got
her safe this time? Come near to me; you have a kindly face,” my lady
went on, looking closely at him with the tears in her eyes. “A face I
knew as well as I know myself; but kind and young, like what he was
before the world touched him. Sit down here; and oh, my bonnie man, have
confidence in me!”
She laid her delicate old hand upon his arm; she bent towards him, her
face all tremulous with emotion, tears in her eyes, her lips quivering,
her voice pathetic and tender as the cooing of a dove. Dick looked at
her in return with respectful sympathy, with natural kindness, but with
a half smile of wonder. What was it she wanted of him? What could he
respond to such an appeal?
“I don’t know, ma’am, what I can do for you, what I can tell you,” he
said; “I’m but a working man, not educated to speak of. There is nothing
particular about me that I should confide in any one; but if you’ll tell
me what it is you want, I’ve nothing to conceal neither,” the young man
said with a gentle pride, so innocent and honest that it made his smile
all the brighter. “You are welcome, ma’am, if you care for it, to know
everything about me.”
“I do care for it,” she said, keeping her hand upon his arm. She had
made him sit beside her on the little sofa, and her eyes were so intent
upon his face, that he scarcely knew how to sustain the gaze. He paused
a little to think what he could say first.
“I don’t know what to tell you, ma’am,” he said, with a laugh; “it’s all
in what I’ve said already. Except about Mr Ross--perhaps that is what
you mean; I can’t say, and you can’t think what he’s done for me. My
life is more a story about him than anything about me,” said Dick, with
a generous glow coming over his face, “since the day I first met him on
the river----”
“That was--how long ago?”
“He wasn’t in the boats till the year after,” said Dick, availing
himself of the easiest mode of calculating. “It’s about seven years
since--we were both boys, so to speak. He took to me somehow, ma’am--out
of his own head--by chance--so some folks says----”
Under other circumstances no story could have been so interesting to
Lady Eskside, but at present her mind was too much disturbed to follow
it. She interrupted him hastily--“And your mother! what of her? You tell
me nothing about her! Was she there as well as you?”
Dick felt as it is natural to feel when you are interrupted in a
congenial story, and that your own story, the most interesting of all
narratives. He repeated--“My mother!” in a tone of disappointment. How
his mother could be more interesting to any one than Mr Ross and
himself, and that tale of their meeting, which he had already told
successfully more than once, Dick did not know.
“Yes, your mother! Tell me her name, and how she brought you up, and
where she is living--for she is living, you said? Tell me! and after
that,” said Lady Eskside, in an unconsciously insinuating tone, “I shall
be able to listen to you about my poor Val, and all that you have had to
do with him. Ah! be sure that is what I would like best! but the other,
the other is more important. Where is she? What does she call herself?
How did she bring you up? Oh! don’t lose time, my good boy, but tell me
this, for I must know!”
Dick became much confused and disturbed, remembering his mother’s
caution to him not to mention her. He could not understand why she
should thus be dragged into question. But she had evidently expected it,
which was very perplexing to him. He faltered a little in his reply.
“My mother--is just my mother, ma’am. She lives with me; she’s nursing
Mr Ross now.”
The old lady gave a cry, and grasped him by the arm. “Has she told him?”
she cried. “Does Val know?”
“Know what?” said Dick, in amaze. She gazed at him intently for a
moment, and then all at once fell a-crying and wringing her hands.
“Is my boy ill?” she said. “What is the matter with him? how soon can we
go to him? Will you take me there, Richard, as quick as we can go? Your
mother is nursing him--you are sure? and you don’t know anything she
could have told him? Oh, let us go! there is not a moment to lose.”
She got up hastily to ring the bell, then sat down again. “There will be
no train--no train till to-night or to-morrow; oh, these trains, that
have always to be waited for! In old days you could start in your
post-chaise without waiting a minute. And, poor lad, you will want a
rest,” she added, turning to look at him, “and food. Oh, but if you knew
the fever in my mind till I am there!”
“Don’t be too anxious,” said Dick, compassionately, understanding this
better; “the crisis cannot come for four days yet, and the doctor says
my mother is an excellent nurse, and that he’ll pull through.”
Lady Eskside rose again in her restlessness and rang the bell. “Bring
something for this gentleman to eat,” she said, when Harding appeared;
“bring a tray to the dining-room; and get me the paper about the trains;
and let none of the other fools of men come about me to stare and
stare!” she cried, fretfully. “Serve us yourself. And bid your wife come
here--I have something to say to her.”
“To the dining-room, my lady?”
“Didn’t I say here!” cried Lady Eskside. “You’re all alike, never
understanding. Send Marg’ret here.”
Mrs Harding must have been very close behind, for she followed almost
instantly. She gave a little cry at sight of Dick. I fear this was not
so independent a judgment as Lady Eskside supposed, for of course her
husband had suggested the resemblance she was called upon to remark;
but, at the same time, she had no unbounded confidence in her husband’s
judgment, and was upon the whole as likely as not to have declared
against him. Lady Eskside turned sharply round upon her. “What are you
crying out about, Marg’ret? I expected a woman like you to have more
sense. What I wanted to tell you was, that I am going away for a day or
two. Well; why are you staring at a stranger so?”
“Oh, my lady!” cried Mrs Harding, “it’s no possible but what you
see----”
“Ay, ay--I see, I see,” cried Lady Eskside, moved to tears; “well I see!
and if it please God,” she added, devoutly, “I almost think the long
trouble’s over. Marg’ret, you’ll not say anything; but I have no doubt
you know what it has been this many a year.”
“Oh, my lady! yes, my lady! How could I be in the house and no know?”
“It is just like you all!” cried Lady Eskside, with another sudden
change of sentiment; “prying into other folk’s business, instead of
being attentive to your own; just like you all! But keep your man quiet,
Marg’ret Harding, and hold your tongue yourself. That’s what I think,”
she went on, softly, “but nothing’s clear.”
Dick sat and listened to all this, wondering. He thought she was a very
strange old lady to change her tone and manner so often; but there was
enough of sympathetic feeling in him to show that, though he could not
tell how she was moved, she was much moved and excited. He was sorry for
her. She had so kind a look that it went to his heart. Was it all for
Val’s sake? and what did she mean about his mother? Somehow he could not
connect his own old suspicions as to who his father was with this
altogether new acquaintance. He got confused, and felt all power to
think abandoning him. In everything she said, it was his mother who
seemed to have the first place; and Dick felt that he knew all about his
mother, though his father was a mystery to him. Of what importance could
she be--a tramp, a vagrant, a woman whom he himself had only been able
to withdraw from the fields and roads with difficulty--what could she be
to this stately old lady? Dick, for his part, was deeply confounded, and
did not know what to think.
She came up to him with a tremulous smile when the housekeeper went
away. “Richard,” she said, speaking to him as if (he thought) she had
known him all his life--“if I am right in what I think, you and I will
be great friends some day. Was it you that my boy wrote about, that he
was so fond of when he was at Eton?--oh, how blind I have been!--that
had a mother you were very good to? My man, was that you?”
“Yes, ma’am--my lady--I suppose it was me----”
“That worked so well, and raised yourself in the world? that he was
going to see always, till some fool, some meddling fool that knew no
better,” cried Lady Eskside, “wrote to my old lord to stop it? But I
thank God I did not stop it!” said my lady, the tears running down her
cheeks. “I thank the Lord I had confidence in my boy! Richard! it was
you that all this happened about? You are sure it was you?”
“There could not be two of us,” he said, his face lighted up with
feeling; for Dick, good fellow, though he did not know why she was
crying, felt something rise in his throat at the sight of the old lady’s
tears. “Yes, ma’am--I mean, my lady.”
“Don’t call me my lady, my bonnie man! call me--but never mind--we’ll
wait awhile; we’ll do nothing rash,” cried Lady Eskside. “You’re hungry
and tired all this time, while I’ve been thinking of myself and of Val,
and not of you. Come and have something to eat, Richard; and then you’ll
take me to my boy.”
But Lady Eskside was two or three years over seventy. She was worn out
with anxiety, and now with the sudden excitement of this visitor. She
had taken neither food nor sleep, much as her years required all natural
support, since Val had disappeared; and before her preparations could be
made, she herself allowed that to attempt to travel by the night train
would be foolish and unavailing. “I don’t want to die before it’s all
settled,” she said, smiling and crying. “We’ll have to wait till
to-morrow.” And Dick, who had travelled all night, was very willing to
wait. She sat by him and talked to him while he had his meal, and for an
hour or more after; and though Dick was not stupid, he was a child in
the hands of the clever old lady, who recovered all her spirit now that
her anxiety was removed, and this wonderful power of setting everything
right was put into her hands. Lady Eskside was but human, and, so far as
she was aware, no one but herself had the faintest inkling of this
blessed way of clearing up the troubles of the family, or knew anything
of Dick Brown and his mother. She felt that she had found it out, that
it would be her part to clear it all up, and the thought was sweet to
her. And as for her anxiety, Dick made so light of Valentine’s illness,
which he had himself ceased to be alarmed about, that Lady Eskside felt
almost happy to hear of the fever which supplied her with a reason for
Val’s silence without communicating any alarm to her mind. Very soon she
knew everything about Dick,--more than he knew himself--his tramp-life,
his wanderings with his mother, his longings for something better, for a
home and settled dwelling-place. And Dick, without knowing, made such a
picture of his mother as touched the old lady’s heart. “She used to sit
at the window and watch for the boat. That was the first thing that
reconciled her a bit,” said Dick. “She used to watch and watch for Mr
Ross’s boat, and sit like a statue when we’d started him, to see him
come back. She always took a deal of interest in Mr Ross.”
“Did she ever tell you why?”
“Because he was so kind,” said Dick. “I’ve thought often there was more
in it than that; but what could a fellow say to his mother, ma’am? I
wasn’t one to worry her with questions. That’s how she used to sit
watching. Mother is strange often; but there never was any harm in her,”
said Dick, fervently--“never! The others would hold their tongues when
she was by--I’ve thought of it often since; and when she saw my heart
was set on settling down, she gave into it, all on my account--though
what she liked was different. That is what I call a good woman!” he
cried, encouraged by the attention and sympathy with which his story was
received. Lady Eskside thus learnt more in an hour of the woman who had
cost her so dear, than she could have done otherwise in years. She found
out everything about her. She even got to feel for and pity the
mother--ignorant, foolish, unwitting what harm she was doing--who thus
kept to her savage point of honour, and never betrayed herself nor
claimed her son. Dick, unconscious, told everything. It was only on
thinking it over after that he remembered again his mother’s charge not
to say anything of her. “Say only it’s your mother.” Well! he said to
himself, he had said no more. It was as his mother that he had spoken of
her, and as that alone. He knew her in no other character. He had spoken
of her life, her habits, her goodness; but he had told nothing more.
There was not, indeed, anything more to tell, had he wished to betray
her.
In the afternoon, Lady Eskside was persuaded to go and rest--a repose
which she wanted mightily--and Dick was left alone. It was then that he
began to think that possibly he had been indiscreet in his revelations;
and he was somewhat frightened, to tell the truth, when he found himself
left in the great drawing-room alone. He did not know whether it would
be right for him to wait there, where Lady Eskside left him, until she
came back. He felt a little doubtful whether he might examine the great
cabinets, and all the curious things he saw, and which fired him with
interest. He could not do them any harm, at last he reflected; and he
did not think the kind old lady would object. So he got out his
note-book, and made little drawings of various things that struck his
fancy. The wonder being over for the moment, and the pressure of Lady
Eskside’s questions, Dick’s mind gladly retired from it altogether, and
returned to easier everyday matters. That this discovery, whatever it
was, should make any difference in his life, did not seem to him at all
a likely idea; nor did such a notion seriously enter his mind. And no
thought of the possible transference of his own lowly and active life to
such surroundings as those which were now about him, ever occurred to
Dick. He would have been extremely amused by the idea. But he made a
note in his book--a rough little drawing, yet quite enough to be a guide
to him--of sundry little “details”--arrangements of brackets and
shelves, which he thought might be adapted even to his little place on a
small scale. He had his eyes always about him, ready to note anything of
the kind; and though he smiled to himself at the idea of copying in his
tiny parlour what he saw in this great room, yet he made his drawings
all the same, with his rough workman’s pencil. The drawings were very
rough, but he knew how to work from them, and in his mind’s eye already
saw a homely imitation of the objects he admired figuring upon his low
walls. He even thought it would amuse Val, when he got better, to see in
the boatman’s parlour a humble copy of the brackets in Rosscraig.
And after this, as one of the windows was open, he strayed out, with
some perturbation, lest he should be taking too much upon him, and
wandered through the shrubberies, and out into the woods. It was a soft
spring afternoon, the sun near its setting, the trees showing a faint
greenness, the sound of the Esk filling the air. The river was full and
strong, swelled by the spring rains, and by the melting of all the early
frosts. It made a continuous murmur, filling the whole soft universe
around with an all-pervading sound. Dick had almost forgotten what the
woods were like in the early spring; and the charm of the stillness and
the woodland rustle, the slanting lines of light, the bright gleams of
green, the tender depths of shadow, stole into his heart. He had a
still, profound, undemonstrative enjoyment of nature, loving her without
being able to put his love into words; and the beauty of those irregular
banks, all broken with light and shade, topped with trees which threw up
their tall columns towards the sky, waiting till the blessing of new
life should come upon them--delighted the young man, who for years had
known no finer scenery than the unexciting precincts of the Thames. Dear
Thames, kind river, forgive the words!--ungrateful words to come from
the lips of one who owes thee untold pleasures; but soft meadows and
weeping willows, and all the gentle lights and shadows of the level
stream, looked tame beside the foaming, tumbling river, rushing with
shouts among its rocks, singing over its pebbles, leaping and hurrying
onward through all those bold braes that hemmed it in, and played
perpetual chase and escape with the brown torrent. The trees on Eskside
were not the grand broad placid trees to which Dick was used. Red firs,
with the sun on their great russet pillars; white birches, poising
daintily on every fairy knowe; pale ash-trees, long-limbed and
bare--mixed with the few oaks and beeches, and gave a different
character to the scene; and here and there a bold bit of brown rock, a
slip of red earth, the stony course of a burn which went rattling in hot
haste to join the Esk, crossing the path and toppling down in dozens of
tiny waterfalls--all these were like nothing he had ever seen before. He
strayed on a little further and a little further, by bypaths of which
Val knew every curve and corner, under trees, every one of which, could
they have spoken, would have asked for news of their young lord.
Sometimes it occurred to him, with a sense of additional pleasure, that
all this would one day belong to his young patron. Would Val ever ask
him to come here, he wondered? then “Lord bless me!” said Dick to
himself, “why should he?” “He’ll always be kind and good as long as he
lives; but why should he ask the like of me?” and he laughed at his own
absurdity. But what with these thoughts, and what with no thought at
all, mere pleasure, which perhaps carries farthest, he went on, much
farther than he knew, as far as the linn and the two great beeches which
had played so great a part in Val’s life. Just before he reached that
point he was stopped by a sudden sound which startled him, which had a
distinct tone of humanity in it, and did not spring from the fresh and
free nature about. It was the sound of a sob. Dick stood still and
looked about him, with recollections of his own childhood rising fresh
into his mind, and a tender thought of finding some poor little tired
wanderer under some tree, crying for weariness. But he could see
nothing, and presently went on again, persuading himself that his ears
must have deceived him. He went on, himself rousing intermittent echoes,
for his step was sometimes inaudible on the mossy turf, and sometimes
sent thrills of sound all through the wood, as his foot crashed on a
fallen branch, or struck the pebbles aside in a little shower.
When he got to the linn he paused for some time on the edge of the
river, struck by the beauty of the place; and only when he was passing
on, perceived behind him, all at once, somebody sitting at the foot of
one of the trees--a little figure muffled in a blue cloak, and leaning
against the hole of one of the big beeches. Dick made an unconscious
exclamation--“I beg your pardon!”--and went hastily on, half frightened
lest he should have disturbed some one who had a better right to be
there than he had. But this incident broke the spell of his wandering,
and recalled him to the thought that he was far from Rosscraig, and that
it would be safer to turn back as he had come, than to risk losing his
way. Perhaps a little curiosity about the solitary figure under the tree
had something to do with this prudent thought; but his curiosity was
lessened by a second glance he had stolen through the trees, which
showed him that it was a lady who sat there. Had it been a tramp-woman,
Dick might have shown his sympathy; but upon a lady, even one in
trouble, he could not intrude; and yet he could not help being
interested. Could it be from her that the sob had come? and why should
she be crying here, all alone, like an enchanted princess? He knew
little about enchanted princesses, but he had a tender, heart, and the
sob had troubled him. He went back again, passing slowly, trying to make
out, without staring--which was not consistent with Dick’s idea of
“manners”--who it was, and what she was doing under the shadow of the
tree. The soft grass glade between these two giants of the wood was
lighted up by a slant ray of the sun which slid all the way down the
high bank on the other side of Esk, to pour that oblique line of glory
under the great sweeping boughs over the greensward. She was seated out
of the sunshine, but with her face turned towards the light, and it
seemed to Dick that it was a face he had seen before. I do not think the
fact that it was a young face, and a fair one, touched him so much as
that it was very pale and mournful, justifying his idea that the sob
must somehow have belonged to it. How he would have liked to linger, to
ask what was the matter! He would have done so, had she not been a lady;
but Dick knew his place. His surprise was great, however, when, as soon
as his back was turned, he heard a stir, a sound of footsteps, a faint
call, which seemed addressed to him. He turned round quickly. The girl,
whoever she was, had risen from her seat. She had come out of the shade
into the sunshine, and was standing between the trees, with the light
upon her, catching a glittering edge of hair, and giving a hem of
brightness to one side of her figure, and to the outlines of the blue
cloak. “I beg your pardon; did you call me?” said Dick, shy but eager.
Perhaps she had lost her way. Perhaps she wanted help of one kind or
another. Then the little woodland lady beckoned to him timidly. I think,
if it had not been for the anxiety and longing that swelled her heart
wellnigh to bursting, Violet would never have had the courage thus to
appeal to a stranger in the wood.