Of all the persons involved at this crisis, I think the most to be
sympathised with was honest Dick, who wrote the letter over which Mrs
Pringle pondered out of such a maze and confusion of feeling as seldom
arises without personal guilt in any mind. From his very first glimpse
of the new personage introduced into his little world--the stranger who
had suddenly appeared to him when he went to open his own door to Lady
Eskside, standing between him and her, anticipating and forestalling
him--a glimmering instinctive knowledge who this stranger was had
flashed into Dick’s mind. Already the reader is aware he had thought it
probable that Valentine’s father was also his own father, and had
endeavoured to account to himself for his mother’s strange behaviour on
this score. I cannot quite describe the feelings with which Dick, with
his tramp-traditions, regarded such a supposed father. What could “the
gentleman,” who had been his mother’s lover, be to him? Nothing, or less
than nothing--not “the author of his being,” as our pious grandfathers
used to say; but something much more like an enemy, a being half
malignant, half insulting, with whom he had nothing to do, and towards
whom his feelings, if not those of mere indifference, would be feelings
of repulsion and instinctive dislike. He felt no shame on his mother’s
account or his own; but for the other who had left that mother and
himself to take their chance in the woods or on the streets, he was
ashamed of his connection with him, and felt mortified and humbled by
the mere suggestion of his existence. So long as he kept out of the way,
Dick could refrain from thinking of this unknown parent; but the moment
he appeared, he woke a hundred lively emotions in the bosom of his son.
Dislike, annoyance, a sense of pride injured, and secret humiliation,
came to him at the first glance of Richard Ross. This was his feeling
before any hint of the real state of affairs had reached him. The old
lord had not made the disclosure that first day, but waited until the
crisis of Valentine’s fever was over. Then he called to Dick to go out
with him, and there, on the bank of that river which had witnessed all
the changes in his fortune, this last and most extraordinary change was
revealed to the bewildered young man. Dick’s mind was already excited by
the painful interval of suspense which had occurred; and when this
revelation was made to him, the confusion in his thoughts was
indescribable. That he was Valentine’s brother--not secretly and
guiltily, but in the eye of day--that the great house which he had
looked upon with so much awe and admiration was his home--that all the
accessories and all the realities of wealth and rank were his, actually
his--relatives, connections, leisure, money, luxury,--was more than he
could understand. He did not believe it at first. He thought the old
lord had gone mad, that he had been seized with some sudden frenzy, that
he had altogether misconceived the relationship between his son, the
gentleman whom Dick disliked and suspected of being his father, and the
poor lad who never had known what a father was. “I think I know what you
mean. I had got to suppose he was my father for some time,” said Dick,
bluntly, “but not in that way. You are mistaken, sir; surely you are
mistaken.”
“How could I be mistaken? are there more ways of being your father than
one?” said the old lord, half amused by the lad’s incredulity. Dick
shook his head; he was better informed than Lord Eskside, who was so
much his senior. He knew things which it was impossible the other could
know--but how was he to say them? It did not occur to him even now that
there was any relationship between the father of Richard Ross and
himself, even though he was prepared to believe that he himself was
Richard Ross’s son.
“I don’t understand you, any more than you understand me,” said Lord
Eskside, “and I don’t wonder that you’re confounded; but, nevertheless,
what I have told you is true. I am your grandfather, Dick. Ah, that
takes you by surprise? Now, why, I would like to know? since you believe
my son is your father, though ‘not in that way’----”
“My lord,” said Dick, “I beg your pardon; but there’s ways of being a
man’s son without being anything to his relations, and that’s what I am
thinking of. In my class we understand that such things are--though
perhaps they oughtn’t to be.”
“But, you gomeral, you belong to my class, and not to your own!” said
the old lord, feeling, with a mixture of pain and amusement and
impatience, his own ignorance before the superior and melancholy
knowledge of life possessed by this boy. “What must I say to convince
you? You are Valentine’s twin brother; do you not see what that means?
and can you suppose that anything in the world but a boy’s mother would
nurse Val as that woman is doing?--besides, he’s her living picture,”
said Lord Eskside, abruptly, and not without a grudge. He said it to
convince this boy, who was a genuine Ross, without dispute or doubt; but
even now it gave him a pang to acknowledge that his Val was like the
tramp-mother, and not like the noble race of which his father came.
Dick stopped short, and put out his hand blindly as if to save himself
from falling. This was a new view of the subject altogether. He could
understand the relationship through the father; but--his mother!
Valentine! What did it all mean? He caught his breath, and something
like a sob came from his breast “I can’t understand it--I can’t
understand it!” he cried, feeling choked as well as blinded; air failing
him, sight failing him, and the whole steady earth turning round and
round. When he recovered himself a little he turned to Lord Eskside, who
was watching him closely from under his shaggy eyebrows. “Don’t say
anything more, sir,” he cried with an effort which was almost piteous.
“Let me try to make it out--I can’t all at once.”
“Go home, my lad,” said the old lord, kindly patting him on the
shoulder, “and think it out at your leisure.”
“Thank you, sir--thank you,” cried Dick; and he turned back without
another word, and hurried to his little bedroom, which was next door to
the one in which Valentine lay. Ought he to have been overwhelmed with
delight and joy? Instead of being a nobody, Dick Brown, Styles’s
head-man, he was Richard Ross, Lord Eskside’s grandson, a person of
importance, the son of a future baron; superior to all his old
surroundings, even to most of his old patrons. But Dick was not glad at
first, not even when he had fully realised this wonderful news, and
allowed to himself that, Lord Eskside having told it, it must be true.
He had found a family, a name, a position in the world; but he seemed to
have lost himself. He sat down on his bed in the small room which he had
himself furnished with a hundred little graces and conveniences, and of
which a week ago he had been proud, and covered his face with his hands.
But for his manhood, he could have sobbed over this extraordinary break
and stop in his life; and at the first he was no more able to reconcile
himself to being Dick Brown no longer, than Mr Richard Ross would have
been able to reconcile himself to descending into the place of Styles’s
head-man! The change was as great one way as another; indeed I think the
higher might have been better able to come down than the lower, who did
not understand how he was to mount up, and in whose modest, simple soul
there rose on the moment impulses of pride he had never been conscious
of possessing. Here, in his natural sphere, he was respected, thought
well of, and everybody was aware how well he fulfilled his duties,
bearing himself like a man, whatever he had to do. But this new world
was all dark to him, a place in which he would have no guidance of
experience, in which he would be judged according to another standard,
and looked down upon. I do not mean to paint Dick as a perfect being,
and this sense of natural pride, this personal humiliation in his social
rise, gave him a pang which was at least as respectable as other pangs
of pride. He did not know how long he sat there pondering blankly,
forecasting with sombre thoughts an unknown future. He had lost himself,
whom he knew, and he could not tell how the new self whom he did not
know would be able to harmonise his life. He was still sitting there,
with his hands over his eyes, when a faint sound in the room roused him,
and, looking up, he saw his mother, who had entered softly, and now
stood looking at him. He returned her look seriously for a moment before
he spoke.
“Mother, is this true?”
“Yes,” she said, clasping her hands as if she would have wrung them.
“Yes, boy, yes; it’s true. I gave up the one, because I thought he had a
right to one; and I kept you, Dick. I was your mother that bore you, and
sure I had a right to you.”
“Just a word more, mother,” said Dick, softly, “not to vex you: the
little chap that died--was it _him_?--the one that you said died?”
“He died to me,” she cried--“to me and to you. I never, never thought to
set eyes on him again. I gave him up, free. Dick, that night on the
river, when you helped him with his boat----”
“Yes, mother?”
“I should ha’ gone away then. I should have taken you off, my boy, and
never let you know him; but it got into my head like wine,” she cried;
“the sight of him, Dick, so handsome and so kind! and to think he was
my lad, mine, all the same as you. And he’d look at me in such a way,
wondering like, as nobody but him ever looked--as if he wanted to ask,
who are you? who are you?--what are you to me? Many and many a day I’ve
caught his eye; and nobody but me knew why the lad looked like that--him
least of all--only me. It got into my head, Dick, watching him. I
couldn’t go. And then to see you two together that were never meant to
be together all your lives!”
“You mean, mother, that were born never to be separate?” said Dick.
“Yes, lad, yes; that is what I mean,” she cried, dropping into a chair,
and covering her face with her apron. For a moment there was that in
Dick’s heart which kept him from speaking, from trying to comfort her.
The best of us now and then must think of ourselves. Dick was too much
confused in mind to blame his mother, but it gleamed across him, among
so many other thoughts--if it was to be that he was not Dick Brown, how
much better it would have been that he had never been Dick Brown; this
is a confused sentence, but it was thus that the thought passed through
his mind. The loss of himself, and even of “the little chap that died,”
pained him--and this loss was for no reason, it seemed--for how much
better would it have been had he always known the truth! This kept him
for a moment from saying anything to her--but only for a moment; then he
rose and went to his mother, laying his hand on her shoulder--
“It’s all very confusing, mother,” he said; “but it’s best you did not
go away. I’ve got most of my happiness in life from knowing--him. The
pity is you ever did go away, mother dear; but never mind; anyhow,
though all the rest is changed, there’s nothing changed between you and
me.”
“Oh, my lad!” she cried, “they’ll take you from me--they’ll take you
both from me, Dick.”
“They can’t do that,” he said with a smile, soothing her; “you forget
we’re _men_, mother. Take heart. So he’s the little chap that died? I
always thought there was something about him different from all the
other gentlemen,” said Dick, melting. “The first time I set eyes on him,
I fancied him--and he me,” he added after a little pause, the moisture
creeping to his eyes; “which was more strange; for what was I that he
should take notice of me? The first time he saw you, mother, he was so
struck he could scarcely speak; and said, Why didn’t I tell him you were
a lady----”
“Me!” she cried, looking up; “me--a lady----”
“That was what he said--he knew better than the like of us,” said Dick.
Then, after a pause, the good fellow added, with self-abnegation like
that of old Lord Eskside, for he did not like to acknowledge this any
more than his grandfather did; “and they say he’s your living picture,
mother--and it’s true.”
“Oh, Dick! oh, my boy, my Val, that I’ve carried in my arms and nursed
at my breast!--but he’ll never know his mother. Come, Dick, come, as
long as we’ve the strength. We’ll go away, lad, you and me----”
“Where, mother?”
“Out, out, anywhere--to the road. It’s there I belong, and not in
houses. Before they take you both from me--Dick, Dick, come!--we’ll go
away, you and me.”
She started up as she spoke and caught at his arm--but, giddy and weak
with long watching and the fatigue, which in her excitement she had not
felt, dropped heavily against him, and would have fallen had he not
caught her. “It’s nothing; it’s a dizziness,” she murmured. “I’ll rest a
moment, and then we’ll go.”
Dick laid her tenderly upon his bed. “You’re overdone, mother dear,” he
said; “and this house is mine whatever happens, and you’re the queen in
it, to do what you please. When you’re rested, we’ll think what to do.
Besides, he may want us yet,” he added, forcing a smile; “he is not out
of the wood yet that we should run away from him. Mother, though he’s
my--brother, as you all say, I don’t seem to know his name.”
The mother, lying down on her son’s bed, with Dick’s kind face bending
over her, gave way to a soft outburst of tears. “He is Val,” she said.
“Dick and Val--Dick and Val. Oh, how often I’ve said them over!--and one
to him and one to me. That was just; I always knew that was just!” she
cried.
It seemed to Dick when he went out of the room, leaving her behind him
to rest, that years had passed over him since he took refuge there.
Already this strange disclosure was an old thing of which there could be
no doubt. Already he was as certain that he was no longer Dick Brown of
Styles’s, as he was of his existence--and would have been sharply
surprised, I think, had any one called him by that name: and as a
consequence of this certainty he had ceased to consider the change in
himself. Something else more interesting, more alarming, lay before
him--a new world, a family of which he knew nothing, a father whom he
disliked to think of. Even Val, whom he knew, would be changed to him.
He had felt for him as a brother before he knew; would he be a brother
now? or would the very bond of duty, the right Dick had to his
affection, quench that warm sweet fountain of boyish kindness which had
risen so spontaneously, and brightened the young wanderer’s life? Then
there was his mother to think of among all these strange unknown people.
He had understood very imperfectly the story Lord Eskside had told him;
and now he came to think of it, why was it that she, so young as she
must have been, had fled from her husband? What reason could she have
had for it, unless her husband treated her unkindly? This idea roused
all the temper (there was not much) in Dick’s honest nature. No one
should treat her unkindly now, or look down upon her, or scorn her
lowliness! With a swelling heart Dick made this vow to himself. He would
have to defend her, to protect her honour, and credit, and independence;
and then, on the other hand, he would have to stand against herself, her
wild impulse of flight, her impatience of control. Already he felt that,
though it was but an hour or two since he had been Dick Brown, he could
never be Dick Brown again; and though he would not have his mother
crossed or troubled, still she must not, if he could help it, fly and
turn everything into chaos any more.
Care thus rose upon Dick on every side as he forecasted his new life;
but it had to be faced, and he did so with steady valour. He went softly
to the door of the sick-room and looked in to see if anything was
wanted. Val, very weak and spent, but conscious, and noting what went on
with eager curiosity, saw him, and, smiling faintly, beckoned to him
with his hand. Lady Eskside was seated in the place so long occupied by
his other nurse, bending fondly over her boy. She said, “Come in,” but
with a half-jealous, half-fretful tone. She thought it was the mother,
and the old lady was jealous, though she would not have willingly
betrayed it, longing just for one hour to have her boy to herself. Val
held out his thin hand, and said, “Brown, old fellow! how pleasant it
is to see you again!” “I am glad you are better,” said Dick, feeling
cold and hard as the nether millstone. It was not Val who had changed,
but himself. Then he went out of the room with a sensation of meanness
and misery, and going down-stairs, wrote that letter in which, for the
first time, he called his brother by his name. In the midst of this a
sudden softening came to him. He put down his pen, and his dry eyes grew
moist, and an infinite sweetness stole into his heart. Now he should see
her again, speak to her perhaps, be a friend of hers. He finished his
letter hastily, but how could he sign it? What name had he but his
Christian name? He could not put a false name to her; so he ended his
letter hastily, and went out to post it, as he always did, himself. And
then another thing happened to him, a new step in his career.
In the little dark passage at the foot of the stairs, he met Richard
face to face: they had scarcely met before, but they could not pass each
other now that they knew each other, and each knew that the other knew.
It was a strange meeting to be the first between a father and son, but
yet there was a kind of advantage in getting it over, which Richard was
quick to perceive. In his heart he was little less embarrassed than his
son was; but he was a man of the world, and knew how to behave in an
emergency with that ease of speech, which looks half miraculous to the
inexperienced. He held out his hand to his son at first without saying
anything, and poor Dick felt in spite of himself the strangest thrill of
unexpected feeling when he put out with hesitation his hard workman’s
hand into that white and soft yet vigorous clasp. Then Richard spoke:
“My father has told you what we are to each other,” he said. “My boy, I
do not blame your mother; but it is not my fault that I see you now for
the first time. But I know you a little--through Val, your brother: who
found you by instinct, I suppose, after we had all searched for you in
vain.”
Dick’s countenance was all aglow with the conflict of feeling in him;
his voice laboured in his throat with words that would not come. The
contrast between his own difficulty of speech and the ease of the other
unmanned him altogether. “I--I have known--him--a long time,” was all he
could stammer forth.
“Thank heaven for that!” said Richard, with a gleam of real pleasure;
and with another pressure of his hand he let his new son go. Dick went
out to post his letter strangely excited but subdued. What it was to be
a gentleman, he thought! and this was his father, _his_ father! A new
pride unknown to him before came into existence within him, a glimmer
which lighted up that dim landscape. After all, the new world, though it
was so strangely mysterious and uncertain, was it not more splendid,
more beautiful to the imagination, than the old world could ever have
been?
Val made slow but sure progress towards recovery, and the family lived a
strange life in attendance upon him, occupying Dick’s little parlour all
day, and returning to the hotel for the night. The intercourse between
them was of a peculiar character. Dick, watching intently, jealous for
his mother, soon perceived that she was of much more importance to the
others than he thought possible, and had his fears appeased. He watched
her almost as if she had been his young sister, and Richard Ross her
lover, eager to note if they met, and when and how; but, as it happened,
they scarcely met at all, she keeping to the sick-room above, he to the
parlour below. As for Dick himself he became Val’s slave, lifting him
when he was first moved, helping him continually, indispensable to his
invalid existence. He called for “Brown” when he woke in the morning,
and ordered him about with an affectionate imperiousness which was at
once provoking and delightful to Dick. But Val was much more mysterious
in the looks with which he regarded “Brown’s mother.” He did not talk to
her much, but watched her movements about the room with a
half-reverential admiration. “She will wear herself out. She is too good
to me; you ought to make her go and rest,” he said to Dick; but he was
uneasy when she left him, and impatient of any other nursing. He
half-frightened half-shocked Lady Eskside by his admiration of her. “How
handsome she is, grandmamma!” he whispered in the old lady’s ear. “How
she carries herself! Where could Brown’s mother get such a way of
walking? I think she must have been a princess.” “Hush, my darling,
hush!” said my lady. “Nonsense! I am all right; I don’t mean to hush any
more,” said Val. “I think she is handsomer than any one I ever saw.”
This Lady Eskside put up with, magnanimously making up her mind that
nature spoke in the boy’s foolish words; but it was hard upon her when
her old lord began to blow trumpets in honour of Dick, who took walks
with him when he could be spared from Valentine, and whom in his
enthusiasm he would almost compare advantageously with Val! It was true,
that it was she herself who had first pressed Dick’s claims upon him;
but with Val just getting better, and doubly dear from that fact, who
could venture to compare him with any one? She liked Dick--but Lord
Eskside was “just infatuated” about him, my lady thought. “He reminds me
of my father,” said the old lord. Now this father was the tenth
lord--him of the dark locks, by means of whom she had always attempted
to account for Valentine’s brown curls, and whose portrait her son
Richard disrespectfully called a Raeburn. She gave a little gulp of
self-control when she heard these words. “Make no comparisons!” she
cried, “or you’ll make me like the new boy less, because I love the old
one more. To me there will never be any one in the world like my Val.”
Lord Eskside shrugged his old shoulders, and went out for another walk
with Dick.
At last the day arrived when Valentine was pronounced well enough to
have the great disclosure made to him. For two or three days in
succession he had been brought down-stairs and had enjoyed the sight of
the old world he knew so well, the river and the trees seen from the
window, and the change--with all the delight of convalescence. And
wonderfully sweet, and imperious, and seductive he was to them all, in
that moment while still he did not know, holding his _levée_ like a
sovereign, not enduring any absence. On that important morning when the
secret was to be disclosed to him, he noted with his usual imperious
friendliness the absence of “Brown’s mother” from the group that
gathered round him, and sent Dick off for her at once. “Unless she is
resting she must come. Ask her to come; why should she be left out?”
said Val, in his ignorance; which made the others look at each other
with wondering eyes. She came in at Dick’s call, and seated herself
behind backs. She had put off her nursing dress, and wore the black gown
and white net kerchief on her fine head, which added so much to the
impressive character of her beauty. Amid all these well-born people
there was no face in itself so striking and noble. The Rosses were all
quite ordinary, except Val, who had taken his dark beauty from her. She,
poor ignorant creature, made up of impulses, without a shadow of wisdom
or even good sense about her, looked like a dethroned queen among them:
which shows, after all, how little looks matter--an argument which would
be very powerful if it were not so utterly vain.
“Val,” said Lord Eskside, who was the spokesman, as became his position,
“I hope you are getting back your strength fast. The doctor tells us we
may now make a disclosure to you which is very important. I do not know
how you will take it, my boy; but it is so great, and of so much
consequence, that I cannot keep it from you longer. Val----”
“Is it something about Violet?” said Valentine, the little colour there
was paling out of his face.
“About--whom?”
“About Violet,” he repeated, with a stronger voice. “Listen, sir; let me
speak first;” and with the sudden flush of delicate yet deep colour
which showed his weakness, Val raised his head from the sofa, and swung
his feeble limbs, which looked so preternaturally long, to the ground.
“I have not said anything about her while I have been ill, but it is not
because I forgot. Grandfather, Violet and I made up our minds to marry
each other before that confounded election. If her father did write that
letter, it’s not her fault; and I can’t go on, sir, now I’ve come to
myself, not another day, without letting you know that nothing, nothing
in the world can make me change to Vi!”
There was a pause of astonishment so great that no one knew what to say:
this sudden introduction of a subject altogether new and unsuspected
bewildered the others, whose minds were all intent on one thing. Val was
as one-idea’d as they were; but his idea was not their idea; and the
shock of the encounter jarred upon them, so curiously sudden and out of
place it seemed. Lady Eskside, who sat close by him, and to whom this
was no revelation, was more jarred even than the rest. She put her fine
old ivory hand on his arm, with an impatient grasp. “This is not the
question--this is not the question,” she said.
Val looked round upon them all, and saw something in their looks which
startled him too. He put back his legs upon the sofa, and the flush
gradually went off his cheek. “Well,” he said, “well; whatever it is I
am ready to hear it--so long as I make sure that you’ve heard me
first.”
“Valentine,” said his father, “at your age some such piece of
foolishness always comes first; but this time you have got to see the
obverse of the medal--the other end of all this enthusiasm. It is my
story, not your own, that you have to think of. Kind friends of course
have told you----”
“Richard,” said Lord Eskside, “this is not the way to enter upon a
subject so important. Let me speak. He knows my way best.”
Richard turned away with a short laugh--not of amusement indeed, but
full of that irritated sense of incongruity which gives to anger a kind
of fierce amusement of its own. Lord Eskside cleared his throat--he
preferred to have the matter in his own hands.
“Friends have told you little,” he said; “but an enemy, Val, the enemy
whose daughter you have just told us you want to marry--but that’s
neither here nor there--let you know the story. Your father there,
Richard Ross, my son, married when he was young and foolish, like you.
It was not an equal marriage, and the--lady--took some false notion into
her head, I know not what, and left him--taking her two babies with her,
as you have heard. These two babies,” said the old lord, once more
clearing his throat, “were your brother and you--so much as this you
know.”
Here he stopped to take breath; he was gradually growing excited and
breathless in spite of himself.
“We could not find you, though we did our best. We spared no trouble,
either before you were brought home or after. Now, my boy, think a
little. It is a very strange position. You have a brother somewhere in
the world--the same flesh and blood, but not like you; a mother----” He
instinctively glanced at the woman who sat behind backs, like a marble
statue, immovable. The crisis became too painful to them all. There was
a stir of excitement when Lord Eskside came to this pause. His wife put
her hand on his, grasping it almost angrily in the heat of suspense.
Richard Ross began to pace about the room with restless passion.
“Go on, oh, go on!” cried my lady, with a querulous quiver in her voice.
I am not sure that the old lord, though so much excited himself, had not
a certain pleasure in thus holding them all hanging on his breath.
“In good time--in good time,” he said. “Valentine, it may be a shock to
you to find out these relations: it cannot be but a great surprise. You
are not prepared for it--your mind is full of other things----”
“For God’s sake, sir,” cried Richard, “do not drive us all mad!
Valentine, make up your mind for what you have to hear. Your mother is
found----”
“And your brother,” cried Lady Eskside, rushing in unconsciously as the
excitement grew to a crisis. “Your brother, too! Oh, my boy, bear up!”
Dick had been standing by, listening with I know not what fire in his
heart: he could bear it no longer. The shock and suspense, which were as
great to him as to Valentine, had not been broken in his case by any
precautions; and it hurt his pride bitterly, on his mother’s account as
well as his own, that the knowledge of them should be supposed such a
terrible blow to Val. He stepped forth into the middle of the room (his
own room, in which they made so little of him), his honest face glowing,
his fair, good-humoured brows bent, almost for the first time in his
life,--
“Look here,” he said, hoarsely; “there is more than him to be thought
of. If it’s hard upon him, he’s a man, and he’ll bear it like a man. Mr
Ross, look here. I’m Dick Brown, sir, your humble servant; I’m the lad
you made a man of, from the time we were boys till now. You’ve done for
me as the Bible says one brother should do for another,” said Dick, the
tears suddenly starting into his eyes, and softening his voice, “without
knowing; and now they say we’re brothers in earnest. Perhaps you’ll
think it’s poor news; as for me, I don’t mind which it is--your brother
or your servant,” said Dick, his eyes shining, holding out both his
hands; “one way or other, I couldn’t think more of you than I do now.”
Valentine had been lying motionless on his sofa, looking from one to
another with large and wondering eyes. It is needless to say that amid
so many different narrators he had already divined, even before Dick
spoke, the solution of this mystery; and it had given him sufficient
shock to drive the blood back wildly to his heart. But he had time to
_prendre son parti_, and he was too much of a man not to bear it like a
man, as Dick said. When his new brother held out his hands, a sudden
suffusion of colour came to Val’s face, and a smile almost of infantile
sweetness and weakness. He took Dick’s hands and pulled himself up by
them, grasping them with an eager pressure; then changing, in his
weakness, took Dick’s arm, upon which he leant so heavily that the
young man’s whole heart was moved. Familiar tenderness, old brotherhood,
and that depth of absolute trust which no untried affection can possess,
were all involved in the heavy pressure with which Val leant on Dick’s
arm; but he did not say anything to him. His eyes went past Dick to the
other side of the room, whither he walked feebly, leaning on his
brother’s arm. When they came in front of their mother the two young men
stopped. With her old abstracted gaze modified by an indescribable
mixture of terror and longing, she turned to them, pushing back her
chair unconsciously, almost retreating as they approached. Val could not
speak all at once. He looked at her eagerly, tenderly. “Is it true?” he
said; “are you my--mother?” The words were spoken slowly one by one, and
seemed to tingle through the air _staccato_, like notes of music. All
the others turned towards this central scene. Lady Eskside sat leaning
forward in her chair, crying to herself, her streaming eyes fixed upon
them. The old lord walked to the window, and, turning his back, looked
out fiercely from under his shaggy eyebrows. Dick, supporting his
brother on his arm, stood very erect and firm, while Val wavered and
swayed about in his weakness. One great tear ran slowly down Dick’s
cheek. They were all spectators of what was about to happen between
these two.
The mother stood out as long as she could, holding herself back,
labouring to restrain herself. Then all at once her powers failed her.
She started to her feet with a great cry, and throwing her arms round
them both, pressed them together in a passionate embrace, kissing first
one and then the other, wildly. “My two lads!” she cried; “my two
babies!--my children--my own children! Only for once,--only for this one
time!”
“Mother!” cried Val, faintly, dropping on the floor in his weakness, and
drawing her into her seat. And there he lay for another moment, his head
upon her breast, his arms round her. Her face was like the face of a
saint in ecstasy. She pressed his dark curls against her bosom and
kissed them, lifting the heavy locks up one by one--her eyes brimming
with great tears which did not fall--saying again and again, under her
breath, “For once--only for this once!” while Dick stood over them,
sobbing, guarding them, as it seemed, from all other contact. I do not
know how many seconds of vulgar time this lasted. It was, and it was
over. Suddenly she raised Valentine from her lap, and loosened his arms.
“Dick, put him back upon the sofa; he’s overdone,” she said, putting him
into his brother’s charge. She stood perfectly still, her hands clasped
in nervous self-restraint, looking after the two for a moment; watching
till her patient was laid at ease upon his couch. Then she turned
suddenly, subdued and still, to Richard, who had been looking on like
the rest--“Now I’m ready,” she said, very low. “I’ll go where you
please. There is one for you and one for me. I will never go back of my
word to do you a wrong. It’s good of you to let me kiss my lad once,
only once! And now I’ll trouble him and you no more.”
“Myra!” said Richard, coming forward to her. She had risen up, and stood
like a stately wild creature, ready for flight. He took her hand in
spite of her resistance, and I cannot describe the strange emotion,
sympathy, almost tenderness, and hot provocation in Richard’s face. He
was more touched at heart than he had been for years, and he was more
angry and provoked at the same time. “Myra,” he said, “can you think of
nothing but your children? Have you forgotten that you are my wife, and
that I have some claim upon you too?”
She stood silent, holding back: then lifting her eyes looked at him
pathetically. I think a faint sense of duty had begun to dawn in her
mind; and her look was pathetic, because she knew of no response to make
to him. She had no desire to humiliate her husband by her
indifference--such a thought was far beyond her; but there was no reply
to him in her mind. Perhaps he perceived this, and made a sudden effort
to save his pride by appearing to ignore her silence. He drew her hand
suddenly and impatiently within his arm, and led her forward to his
mother’s side--“Myra,” he said quickly, “it is of the first importance
for your children--for Val and Dick whom you love--and especially for
Val, the eldest, that you should remain with us, and go away no more.”
Lady Eskside rose to receive her; they had met by Val’s bedside many
times before, but the old lady had feared to say anything to alarm the
worn-out watcher. She rose now, looking at her with wistful anxiety,
holding out her hands. My lady’s eyes were still full of tears, and her
fair old face tremulous with emotion and sympathy. She took into her
own the wanderer’s reluctant hands--“Oh,” she said, anxiously, “listen
to what Richard says to you, my dear! You will get to know us by-and-by,
and find out that we are your friends--my old lord and me; but your boys
you love with all your heart already. Myra, listen! It is of the
greatest importance to your children that you should stay with us and
never leave us more--and, above all, for the eldest--above all, my dear,
for Val.”
She gave one half-frightened glance round as if to see whether there was
any escape for her. Then she said, very low--“I will do whatever you
please--but it is Dick who is the eldest, not Val.”
“What!” they all cried, pressing round her--all but Val, who lay still
on his sofa, and Dick, who stood over him; the two young men did not
even notice what was going on. But Lord Eskside came from the window in
one stride, and Richard grasped her arm in sudden terror: “What is
that?--what is that she says?” cried the old lord.
“God bless _my_ lads!” she said, gaining possession of herself, looking
at the two with a smile on her face. She was calm, as utter ignorance,
utter foolishness could be; then she added, with a soft sigh, of
something that looked like happiness in her ignorant composure--“But it
is Dick who is the eldest, and not Val.”