Lord Eskside was seated in a little dingy sitting-room in Jermyn Street.
Once upon a time, long years ago, the Esksides had possessed a
town-house in a region which is no longer habitable by lords and ladies;
but as they had ceased for years to come for even that six weeks in
London which consoles country families with a phantasmagoric glimpse of
“the world,” the town-house had long passed out of their hands. Lord
Eskside had spent this dreary week in rooms which overlooked the dreary
blank wall of St James’s, with its few trees, and the old gravestones
inside--not a cheerful sight for an old man whose last hopes seemed to
be dying from him. He had employed detectives, had advertised with
immense precaution in the newspapers, and himself had wandered about the
town, night and day, seeking his boy; while all the time, the few people
whom he met when he appeared at rare intervals in such streets as are
frequented by anybody worth speaking of, paid him compliments on his
grandson’s success, and hoped that Val, when he appeared in the House of
Commons, would show himself worthy of his race. “I expect him to do us
credit,” the old lord said, working his shaggy eyebrows in such a way
that his acquaintances thought he had some nervous complaint, and shook
their heads, and wondered that “in his state of health” he should be in
town alone. What bitter pangs were in his heart when he said these
words! The boy had done them credit all his life up to this moment. If
it was not the loftiest kind of reputation which Val had acquired, it
was yet a kind highly estimated in the world, and which young men
prized; and no stain had ever touched that bright young reputation, no
shadow of shame ever lighted upon it. And now! These congratulations,
which in other circumstances would have been so sweet to him, were gall
and bitterness. What if Val had disappeared like his mother, with the
same indifference to the claims of life and duty which that
undisciplined, uneducated woman had shown? What if, crushed by the
revelations so suddenly made to him, he were now--instead of taking the
manly way, facing the scandal and living it out--to give in, and fail,
and leave his place to be occupied by others? The thought of that
election declared void for which he had struggled so stoutly, and of
some one else coming in upon Val’s ruin, triumphing in his downfall, was
sharp as a poisoned sword in the old man’s heart. Lady Eskside thought
chiefly of the boy himself, and of what he might do in his despair; but
the public downfall which seemed imminent, added pangs even more bitter
to her husband’s sufferings. His adversary had done all that an
adversary might; but no adversary could harm Lord Eskside and break his
heart as his boy could. The old lord was very strong upon race. It was
one of the objects of his fullest faith. He believed not only in the
efficacy of being well-born, but extended that privilege far beyond the
usual limits allowed to it. He had faith in the race of a ploughman as
well as in that of his own noble house. But the blood in the veins of
his boy had come from a race of wanderers--a species, indeed, not a race
at all--made up by intermixtures of which neither law nor honour took
note; and how could he tell that the honest ichor of the Rosses would
predominate over the influence of that turbid mixture? Already it was
evident enough that the vagabond strain had not lost its power. He had
feared it all Val’s life, and sternly repressed it from his boyhood up;
but repression had now ceased to be possible, and here was the evil in
full force.
Lord Eskside had a very distinct ideal of life, and one of his theories
was that no man could be a man who was not capable of setting his face
hard against difficulty and fighting it out. To flee was a thing
impossible to him; but Valentine had fled, and what but his vagrant
blood could be to blame? It did not occur to the old lord that his own
son, in whom there was no vagrant blood, had fled more completely than
poor Val--turning his back upon his country, and hiding his shame in
unknown regions and unknown duties. Richard’s desertion had wounded his
father to the quick in its time; but Val had obliterated Richard, and
now he scarcely recollected that previous flight. It never occurred to
him to think that Richard’s example had put it into the boy’s mind to
abandon his natural place, and flee before the sudden mortification and
downfall. With strange pain, and anxiety deeper than words, he set
everything down to the unfortunate mother. Her wild blood--the blood of
a creature without reason, incapable of that supreme human faculty of
endurance, which was to Lord Eskside one of the highest of
qualities--was at the bottom of it all. If he could but find the boy in
time to exert his old influence over him, to induce him to make a stand
against the coward principle in his mind, to bring him back to his duty!
Lord Eskside thought of Val as an old soldier might think of a
descendant who had turned his back upon an enemy. Shame, and love eager
to conceal the shame--sharp personal mortification and the sting of
wounded pride, battling with tenderness unspeakable, and anxious longing
at any cost, at all hazards, to wipe out this stain and inspire the
unfortunate to redeem himself: these were the feelings in his mind. The
sharpest ingredient in such a cup of bitterness is, that the parent well
knows he cannot work out redemption for his boy. No other but the boy
himself can do that. Prayers, and tears, and atonements, and
concealments, and all the piteous expedients of human love and misery,
cannot do it. No man can redeem his brother. The coward must himself
prove that he has overcome his cowardice; the man who has failed must
himself turn back the tide of fortune and win. And I do not know
anything more pathetic in nature than the brave old hero trying hard to
put his own heart of gold into the leaden bosom of some degenerate boy;
or the pure strong woman labouring to inspire with her own white fervent
soul some lump of clay that has been given to her--God knows how--for a
daughter. This was how the old lord felt. If he could but put himself,
his old steadfast heart, his obdurate courage, his dogged strength of
purpose, into the boy! If there was but any way to do it!--transfusion
of spirit like that fanciful medical notion of transfusion of blood.
Lord Eskside would have given his old veins to be drained--his aged
frame to be hacked as any physician pleased--would have had his very
heart taken out of his breast had that been possible--to give the best
of it to Val; but could not, heaven help us!--could only sit and think
what impotent words to say, what arguments to use, when he should find
him, to make the boy stand and endure like a man.
He was sitting thus, his head leaning on his hand, his shaggy eyebrows
so bent over his eyes that you scarcely could see them glimmer in the
caverns below, though there was a painful suffusion in them which
glistened when the light caught it. A claret-jug was on the table and a
single glass. He had dined late, after being out all day, and was worn
out by the sickness of hope deferred, and the heaviness of
disappointment. There was a little fire smouldering in the grate, but he
had thrown the window open with an irritable impatience of the close
small shut-up room. The distant sounds of the streets still came in,
though the full tide of traffic was over. There was still a roll and
murmur of distant carriages and voices, the hum of that sea which calls
itself London. The old lord paid no attention. He was going over ideas
which he had pondered again and again, anxiously, but with a certain
languor and hopelessness in his heart. If he heard the carriage stop
below, the sound of the opening door, he took no notice. What was it to
him? Carriages stopped continually all through the evening. People were
always coming and going. What could it matter to him--a stranger, alone?
He sat facing the door; it was a habit he had fallen into since he came
here--not with any expectation, but only in case--for, to be sure, some
visitor might come, some one with news might come, though he did not
look for anything. Even the sound of steps and voices coming up-stairs
did not excite him, it was so usual. All at once, however, he roused
himself. The door was thrown wide open, without any preliminary, and
Lady Eskside walked straight in, her old eyes shining, her figure
dilating with triumph, like a figure in a procession. The sight of her
startled her husband beyond expression, yet not so much as did the other
figure behind her. “You, Catherine, you? and you’ve got him!” he cried;
for there was a certain general resemblance in height and form between
Dick and Val. “I’ve got him!” said Lady Eskside, standing aside with
that extraordinary air of triumph, to show to her husband the figure of
a timid young man, respectful and hesitating, who looked at him with
blue eyes, half deprecating, half apologetic. Lord Eskside’s heart,
which had jumped high, sank down in his breast. He gave but one look at
the stranger whom, at first, he had taken for Valentine. “Good Lord! do
you mean to drive me mad? My lady! is this what you bring me for Val?”
he cried; and turned his back upon the new-comer with feverish
irritability, feeling the disappointment go to his very heart.
“Oh, my dear, forgive me!” cried Lady Eskside; “I was not thinking of
Val for the moment. Look at him, look at him! look at the boy again!”
“You were not thinking of Val? In the name of heaven, who else was there
to think of?” said her husband. He was almost too angry to speak--and so
sick with his disappointment, that he could have done something cruel to
show it, had the means been in his way.
“Forgive me!” said my lady, putting her hand upon his arm; “but there’s
news of Val. I have brought you news of him. He’s ill--in his bed with
fever; oh! when I think of it, I am half frantic to find how long it
takes, with all their bonnie railways! But he’s safe. It had been more
than he could bear. My poor boy!--he’s been ill since the day he left
us. What ails you? what ails you, my old man?”
“Nothing,” he said, fumbling, with his hands clasped, his shaggy
eyebrows concealing any gleam of the light underneath, his lips
quivering--“nothing.” It took him a minute to recover himself, to get
over the sudden stilling of the storm within him, and the sudden calm
that came after so much trouble. The change seemed to stop his breath,
but not painfully, and rolled off loads as of Atlas himself--more than
the world--from his shoulders. “Wait a moment,” said Lord Eskside, his
eyebrows gradually widening; “what did you say it was? I did not catch
it clearly; ill, in his bed?”
“But nothing to be frightened about--nothing to alarm us----”
“I am not alarmed, I am not alarmed!” said the old lord. To tell the
truth, he was giddy with the sudden cessation of pain. “There,
Catherine! it’s you I ought to think of, after such a journey,” he
added, quickly coming to himself. “Sit down and rest; no doubt you’re
very tired. Ill--in his bed? Then it’s all accounted for; and God be
thanked!” said Lord Eskside. He said this under his breath, and drew a
chair close to the smouldering fire, and put his old wife into it,
grasping her by both the arms for a moment, which was his nearest
approach to an embrace.
“But you have not given a look or a thought to--him I brought with me,”
said the old lady, grasping him in her turn with a forcible yet
tremulous hold.
“Him you’ve brought with you?” Lord Eskside turned round with a scowl
from under his shaggy eyebrows, which meant no harm, but was one of his
devices to conceal emotion. He saw a fair-haired timid young man
standing irresolute near the door, evidently very uneasy to find himself
there, and not knowing what to do. He had Lady Eskside’s shawl on his
arm, and a helpless, apologetic, deprecating look on his face. The old
lord did not know what to make of him. Was it a new servant, he asked
himself for a moment? But the stranger did not look like a servant.
“Here is somebody waiting,” he said, in as quiet a tone as possible, for
he did not want to show the impatience he felt.
“Is that all you say?” cried my lady, in keen tones of disappointment.
“Oh, look at him--look at him again!”
“Sit down,” said the old lord, abruptly. “It is clear Lady Eskside means
you to stay, though she is too tired to introduce you. I ask your pardon
for not knowing your name. My lady, as you and I have much to say to
each other, and the night is far on, could not this business wait?”
“Oh,” cried Lady Eskside with a groan, “is that all--is that all you
say?”
“My lady,” said Dick, emboldened to the use of this title by hearing it
used by no less a personage than Lord Eskside himself, “I beg your
pardon; but isn’t it best for me to go? I will come back for you in the
morning before the train starts. I would rather go, if you don’t mind.”
Dick had never felt himself so entirely out of his element, so painfully
_de trop_, in his life. He was not used to this feeling, and it wounded
him mightily--for he, too, had some pride of his own. And he had not
come seeking any favour, but rather conferring one, taking a great deal
of trouble voluntarily, of his own will, for what was no advantage to
him. And then Dick had been made much of these two days--he had found
himself elevated into a vague region of mystery, where he met with
nothing but kind interested looks, phrases full of meaning which he
could not penetrate, but which all tended to make him feel himself of
importance. He seemed now for the first time to come down to common life
after this curious episode, and the shock was rude. He did not like it;
he felt less inclined than usual to put up with anything that was
disagreeable. He felt angry even, though he did not wish to show it.
What was this old lord to him that he should linger about like a
servant, waiting for a word?
“Oh, hush, hush!” said the old lady; “look at him again! You don’t think
I would come all this way for nothing--me that have not travelled for
years. Look at him--look at him again.”
“Do you call Valentine nothing? or have you gone out of your wits?” said
the old lord, pettishly. “I think the young man is very sensible. Let
him come back to-morrow. We have plenty to think of and plenty to talk
of to-night.”
Lady Eskside was so deeply disappointed that her courage failed her; she
was very tired, and so much had happened to take away her strength. The
tears came into her eyes, and it was all she could do to keep herself
from mere feeble crying in her weakness. “Sit down, Richard,” she said.
“Oh, my dear, my dear, this is not like you! Can you see nothing in him
to tell the tale? I have it all in my hands. Listen to me: I know where
she is; I am going to find her: I can make everything clear. It’s
salvation for us all--for Val, God bless him! and for this one----”
“For what one?” cried Lord Eskside hoarsely under his breath.
“Oh!” cried Lady Eskside, almost with violence, thrusting her husband
away from her, “can you not see? must I summer it and winter it to
you--and can you not see? Richard, my man,” she added, rising up
suddenly, and holding out both her hands to Dick, “you’re full of sense,
and wiser than I am. Don’t stay here to be stared at, my dear, but go to
your bed, and get a good night’s rest. The woman told me there was a
room for you. See that you have everything comfortable; and good night!
We’ll go down to my boy in the morning, you and me; and God bless you,
my good lad! You’ll be a comfort to all of us, father and mother, and
your grandparents, though they may not have the sense to see. Good
night, Richard, my man--good night!”
“What does all this mean, my lady?” said Lord Eskside. He had watched
her proceedings with growing excitement, impatience, and an
uncomfortable sense of something behind which he did not understand.
“You’re not a foolish woman to torment me with nonsense at such a
moment. What does it mean?”
“If you had ever looked at the boy, you would have seen. It is Richard
himself come back,” cried the old lady: “Richard, not what he is now, as
old a man as you and me, and tashed and spotted with the world; but my
son as he was, when he was the joy of our hearts, before this terrible
marriage, before anything had happened, when he was just too good, too
kind, too stainless--or so at least you said; for me, I never can see,
and never will see,” cried Lady Eskside, indignantly, “that it is not a
man’s crown and glory, as well as a woman’s, to be pure.”
“My lady! my lady!” said the old lord. He was walking about the small
room in his agitation; his under lip thrust out, his eyebrows in motion,
his hands deep in his pockets. “What do you mean?” he cried. “Have you
any foundation, or is it all another wild fancy about a likeness? A
likeness!--as if in anything so serious you could trust to that.”
“Do you mean to tell me you did not see it?” she said.
“Oh, see it! My lady,” said the old lord, ungenerously, with a snort of
contempt, “you saw a likeness in Val when he came, a dark boy, with eyes
like black diamonds, and curly brown hair, to Richard. You said he was
his father’s image.” The old man ended with an abrupt short laugh.
“Catherine, for heaven’s sake, no more fancies! Have you any foundation?
and the lad not even a gentleman,” he added under his breath.
“If you go by the clothes and the outside,” cried the old lady,
contemptuous in her turn, “how could he be a gentleman? That poor
creature’s son--nothing but a tramp--a tramp! till the fine nature in
him came out, and he stopped his wandering and made a home for his
mother. Was that like a gentleman or not? He’s told me everything, poor
boy,” she went on, her tone melting and softening, “without knowing
it--every particular; and I am going to find her to clear it all up.
When Val gets well, there shall be no more mystery. We’ll take his
mother home in the eye of day. She must be a changed woman--a changed
woman! He’s told me everything in his innocence--how she would sit and
watch Val in his boat, but never said a word. God bless her! for she’s
been faithful to what light she had.”
“What is all this you are saying?” said Lord Eskside. He was utterly
subdued. He drew a chair close to hers and sat down, humbly putting his
hand on her arm. “Catherine, you would not speak to me so if there was
not something in it,” he said.
The old pair sat up together far into the night. She told him everything
she had found out, or thought she had found out; and he told her what he
had been doing, and something of the things he had been thinking--not
all, for my lady had never had those fears of Val’s courage and strength
which had undermined the old lord’s confidence. But when she told him,
weeping and smiling, of the alliance between the two boys, so unwitting
of their close relationship, and of the mother’s speechless adoration at
a distance of the child she had given up, Lord Eskside put his hand over
his face, and his old wife, holding his other hand, felt the quiver of
emotion run through him, and laid her head upon his shoulder, and wept
there; sweet tears! as when they were young and happiness sought that
expression, having exhausted all others. “My dear, we’ll have to die and
leave them soon,” she said, sobbing, in his ear.
“Ay, Catherine! but we’ll go together, you and me,” said the old lord,
pressing the hand that had held his for fifty years; and they kissed
each other with tremulous lips; for was not the old love, that outlasted
both sorrow and joy, more sacred, more tender, than any new?
Dick presented himself next morning in time for the train; but he was
not quite like himself. He had been put on the defensive, which is not
good even for the sweetest nature. Lady Eskside had bewildered him, he
felt, with mysterious speeches which he could not understand--making
him, in spite of himself, feel something and somebody, he could not tell
why; and by so doing had put him in a false position, and subjected him
to unjust slight and remark. He had not wanted to thrust himself, a
stranger, into the interview between my lord and my lady. She had made
him follow her against his will, and Dick felt aggrieved. It was not his
doing. “Why did she drag me in where I was not wanted?” he said to
himself. He was too faithful and loyal not to keep his appointment with
her, though the idea of leaving a note and hurrying away to his work did
cross his mind. His work, after all, was the thing that was most
important. _That_ would not deceive him, as the ladies most likely
would, old and young, who had established a claim upon Dick’s services,
he knew not how. What were ladies to him? He must go back to his work.
It was with this sentiment clouding his face that he presented himself
next morning, having breakfasted half-sulkily by himself. It is hard for
the uninitiated to tell which is virtuous melancholy and which is
sulkiness, when an early access of that disorder comes on; Dick felt
very sad, and did not suspect himself of being sulky; he knocked very
formally at the door of Lord Eskside’s little sitting-room. The old lord
himself, however, came forward to meet him, with a changed countenance.
He held out his hand, and looked him in the face with an eager interest,
which startled Dick. “Come in, come in,” said Lord Eskside; “my lady is
getting ready. We are all going together.” The old man held his hand
fast, though Dick was somewhat reluctant. “I was startled last night,
and could not understand you--or rather I could not understand _her_.
But you must not bear me any malice,” he said, with a strange sort of
agitated smile, which was bewildering to the young stranger.
“I don’t bear any malice,” said Dick, brightening up; “it would not
become me; and to you that are--that belong to Mr Ross.”
“Yes, I belong to Mr Ross--or Mr Ross to me, it doesn’t much matter
which,” said Lord Eskside. “You’ll understand better about that
by-and-by; but, Richard, my lady’s old, you know, though she has spirit
for twenty men. We must take care of her--you and me.”
“Surely,” said Dick, bewildered; and then my lady herself appeared, and
took a hand of both, and looked at them, her bright old eyes shining. “I
can even see another likeness in him,” she said, looking first at Dick
and then at Lord Eskside; and the old lord bent his shaggy eyebrows with
a suppressed snort, and shook his head, giving her a look of warning.
“Time enough,” he said--“time enough when we are there.” Dick went in
the same carriage with them, and was not allowed to leave them, though
his own idea was that he ought to have travelled with Harding, who had
accompanied Lady Eskside; and they talked over him in a strain full of
strange allusions, which made him feel that he did not know what was
going to happen--speaking of “her” and “them,” and giving glances at
Dick which were utterly bewildering to him. “Here is a packet Richard
left for me, though I have never had the heart to look at it,” Lord
Eskside said--“the certificate of their birth and baptism.” “And that
reminds me,” said my lady, “where is Richard? did he go to you? did you
see him? I would not wonder but he is passing his time in London,
thinking little of our anxiety. God send that he may take this news as
he ought.”
Richard! there was then another Richard, Dick thought. He had been
roused, as was natural, by the sound of his own name, but soon
perceived, with double bewilderment, that it was not to him, but some
other Richard, that the conversation referred.
“You are doing him injustice,” said Lord Eskside; “he came yesterday,
but I did not see him. I was out wandering about like an old fool. He
left the packet and a note for me, and said he was going to Oxford. To
be sure, it was to Oxford he said; so we’ll see him, and all can be
cleared up, as you say, at once.”
“To Oxford!” cried Lady Eskside, a sudden pucker coming into her
forehead. “I mind now--that was what he said to me too. Now, what could
_he_ be wanting at Oxford?” said the old lady with an impatient look.
She said no more during the journey, but sat looking out from the window
with that line of annoyance in her forehead. It felt to her somehow
unjustifiable, unnecessary, that Richard should be there, in the way of
finding out for himself what she had found out for him. The thought
annoyed her. Just as she had got everything into her hands! It was not
pleasant to feel that the merest chance, the most trivial incident, a
meeting in the streets, a word said, might forestall her. My lady was
not pleased with this suggestion. “Talk of your railways,” she
said--“stop, stopping, every moment, and worrying you to death with
waiting. A post-chaise would be there sooner!” cried Lady Eskside.