A short time after their return, Valentine made up his youthful mind
that he could bear his share of these uncertainties no longer. He had
been to the Hewan again and again; now he set off to Moray Place itself,
saying nothing to his relations, except to Dick, who winced, but kept
his counsel. But all the ardent young lover made by his persistence was
an interview with Mrs Pringle, who received him stiffly, and declined to
answer any inquiries about Violet, who was absent from home. “I do not
suppose your family would be pleased if they knew; and my family would
be still less pleased, that Violet should be held cheap,” said Mrs
Pringle. “If you will believe me, Valentine, I think it is much better
that there should be no more about it;” and all Val’s remonstrances and
pleadings were of no avail. He came back miserable and dejected, and
strayed out to the woods, in which there is always some consolation for
a heart-broken lover. Val went as far as the linn, that he might see the
place at least where he had been so happy. Was it possible, after all he
had gone through, that his love and his happiness were to end like a
dream, and every link to be snapt between him and Vi? When he approached
that spot which was so full of associations, he too heard sounds, as
Dick had done, which told of some human intrusion into this realm of
woodland and waters. It was not a sob this time that Val heard. It was a
sound of low voices--women’s voices--talking in a half-whisper, as if
they feared to be discovered. Drawing near, trembling, like a thief, he
saw under the big beech-branches a corner of a blue dress, showing from
behind one of them. This made his heart beat; but the blue gown might
not be Vi’s blue gown; and anyhow there were two of them, as the voices
testified, so that caution was needful. Another step, however, relieved
him of his doubts. In front of him, on the green bank on the
river-side, sat Mary Percival, with her face turned towards some one
unseen, to whom she was talking. “My dear, he has had plenty of time to
write to you, and he has not done so. If you will believe me, Vi, I
think it is a great deal better there should be no more about it.” These
were, though Mary did not know it, the self-same words under which Val
was suffering. The repetition of them drove him beyond himself. He gave
a shout of indignant protestation, and rushing between the two
astonished ladies, caught her of the blue dress rudely, suddenly, in his
arms.
But do not think Violet was half so much surprised as middle-aged Mary
was, to whom this interruption was quite unlocked for. She did not know
even that “the family” had arrived at Rosscraig--Lady Eskside, amid all
this tumult of events, having become remiss in her correspondence, and
Val’s letters to Violet having been, if not suppressed, yet detained at
Moray Place during the girl’s absence. Even if the family had returned,
Mary felt there were a hundred chances to one that Val would not be
there precisely at the right moment to meet her and her companion. In
Mary’s own case things had never happened just at the right moment; and
therefore she had acquiesced with little difficulty in Violet’s prayer
that she might be allowed “one look” at the linn. Violet had been sent
to Mary to be taken care of--to be kept out of danger; and this, I am
ashamed to say, was how Miss Percival, who had a strong vein of romance
in her, notwithstanding all her good sense, fulfilled her trust. She saw
her folly now when it was too late.
“Valentine!” she cried, “how dare you--how dare you do _that_--when her
parents do not know?”
“Her parents!” said Val, equally indignant; “what do I care for her
parents, or any one’s parents? I am a man, old enough to know my own
mind, and so is Vi. Can parents make us happy?” said the young man, with
that cruel frankness which seems so easy to the young, and is so hard
upon the old. “Vi, my darling, you know you are mine--you won’t let
parents or any one come between you and me?”
Vi did not say a word--there was no need for anything so feeble as
words. She clung to him, gazing at him, holding one of his arms fast
with her small hands clasped round it. She had been sure he would come;
in her heart she had been so wicked as to smile at Mary’s faith the
other way, though she did not say a word of the sweet confidence in her
own mind. And Mary, who had not been so treated by Providence, and whose
love had not been happy, felt a hot flush of anger against the girl who
stood there before her with ineffable smiles, not objecting to the young
man’s impetuosity, not even answering him a word.
“Violet!” she cried, “come away this instant. Do you know that you are
defying both your mother and me?”
“You have always been my enemy, Mary,” cried Val passionately, “and I
don’t know why, for I have always liked you. Vi, you are not going to do
what she tells you--to follow her instead of me?”
“I am not going to follow any one,” said Vi, detaching herself from his
arm with much dignity; then she stood at a little distance, and looked
at him with tender glowing eyes. “Oh, Val!” she cried, “but I am glad to
see you! I thought you would never come. I knew you would be here
to-day. Val, are you well--are you quite well? Oh, what a weary, weary
time it has been, when I thought I would never see you more!”
“Then you were thinking of me? and you don’t mean to cast me off, Vi?”
“I--cast you off!--that is likely! Mary, you never were Val’s enemy,
though he says so, in his hasty way--he was always hasty. He made me
give him my promise here, beneath this tree. I cannot take back my word;
I cannot say one thing to you and another to him; and you never scolded
me when I said--I--cared for Val, Mary! not a word! She only cried and
gave me a kiss.”
“And she ought to give me a kiss too,” said bold Val, going up to Miss
Percival, whose heart was melting altogether away in her bosom, and
whose efforts to look stern were becoming almost ludicrous. The
audacious boy went up to her, while Vi looked on thunderstruck at his
boldness, and kissed Mary’s cheek, which flushed crimson under the
touch, making that middle-aged woman look a girl again. “How dare you?”
she cried, putting up her hand to push him away; but Mary’s strength was
not able to resist this. “God bless you!” she said, next moment, the
tears coming to her eyes, “you bold boy! How dare you kiss me? Though I
am your enemy, I’ve thought of you and prayed for you morning and night
ever since I parted from you, Val.”
“I know that very well,” said the young man, composedly; “for whatever
you may say, how could you be my enemy when I am fond of you? You have
not the heart not to help us, Mary. Come and sit down again and let us
think what to do. Here is where we played truant when we were children.
Here is where you brought us, Mary--_you_--when we were older; and here
is where Vi gave me her promise. This is the place of all others to meet
again. As for any pretence of separating us, how can any one do it?
Think a little,” said Val, standing before the fallen tree on which Vi
had sat with poor Dick, and from which she now regarded him with soft
eyes suffused with light and happiness. “Could they be hard upon _her_,
for the first time in her life, and break her heart? Is that reasonable?
As for me,” the young man said, raising his head, while the two women
looked at him with tender envy and admiration, “there is no interference
possible. I am a man and my own master. So now that you are convinced,”
cried Valentine, putting himself beside Violet on the old trunk, which,
old as it was, had put forth young shoots of life and hope to make
itself fit for the throne of so much love and gladness, “let us consider
what is the best means to clear these trifling temporary obstructions
out of our way.”
I don’t think there is anything so silken-green, or that makes so tender
a canopy over your head, and shows the sky so sweetly through them, as
young beech-leaves in May, just shaken out of their brown busks, and
reclothing, as if with tenderest ornaments of youth, the big branches
that bear them. Stray airs rustled through them; stray sunbeams, for the
day was cloudy, came and went, penetrating now and then through the soft
canopy--punctuating with sudden glow of light some one or other of those
bold arguments of Val’s, which told so well upon his sympathetic
audience. Though Violet was not one of the worshipping maidens of modern
story, but thought of Val only as Val, and not as a demigod, the soft
transport of reunion, the glow of tender trust and admiration with which
she regarded that delightful certainty of his, which no terrors shook,
gave to her soft face a look of absolute dependence and devotion. She
looked up to him, as they sat together holding each other’s hands like
two children, with a sentiment which went beyond reason. He was no
wiser nor cleverer, perhaps, than she was; but he looked so strong and
so sure, so much above feminine doubts and tremblings, that the mere
sight of him gave confidence. As for Mary, seated on the green bank in
front of these two, who was ever so much wiser and cleverer than Val (he
had few pretensions that way), she, too, felt, with a kind of
philosophical amusement at herself, the same sense of added confidence
and moral strength as she looked at the boy whom she had watched as he
grew up, and chided and laughed at--whose opinion on general subjects
had no particular weight with her, yet who somehow gave to her
experienced and sensible middle-age a sensation of support and
certainty, which the wisest reason does not always communicate. Mary
looked at the two seated there together, hand in hand, half-children,
half-lovers, under the soft shadow of the young beech-leaves, with that
“smile on her lip and tear on her eye” which is the most tender of all
human moods. Pity and envy, and amusement, and an almost veneration,
were in her thoughts. How innocent they were! how sure of happiness! how
absolute in their trust in each other! and, indeed (when the case was
fairly set before them), in everybody else. Notwithstanding the one
terrible shock his faith had received--a shock which happily had worked
itself out in bodily illness, the most simple way--Val was still of
opinion that, if you could but get to the bottom of their hearts, all
the world was on his side. He had no fear of Violet’s mother, though for
the moment she had crushed him; and, to tell the truth, after his fever,
Val had altogether forgotten Mr Pringle’s offence against him, and all
the harm it had brought. Now that offence was more than past, for had it
not been confessed and atoned for, a thing which makes a sin almost a
virtue? Nor was he alarmed when he thought of the old people at
Rosscraig, who had humoured and served him all his life. What was there
to fear? “It would be against all reason, you know,” said Val, “if our
course of true love had run quite smooth. We were miserable enough one
time to make all right for the future; but if you mean to be miserable
any more, Vi, you must do it by yourself, for I shan’t take any share.”
When a young man thus makes light of all difficulties, what can a
sympathetic woman do? Before many minutes had passed, Miss Percival
found herself pledged to brave Violet’s father and mother and overcome
their objections. “They have never crossed her in their lives, and why
should they now?” said Valentine, with good sense, which no one could
gainsay.
When this chief subject had been fully discussed, and all their plans
settled, both the ladies drew close to him with breathless interest,
while he told them the story of his own family. How Dick was his
brother, which made Violet start and clasp her hands, saying, with a
sudden outcry, “I always knew it!” and how his mother had come back with
them--had come home. It was Mary who, much more than these two young
people, who were so sure of each other, had her heart played upon like
an instrument that day. She sat quite still and never said a word, while
the story was told. I cannot describe her feelings towards the woman who
(she felt, though she would not have acknowledged it) had been in the
very bloom of her youth preferred to herself. It was not her fault; up
to this moment the woman who was Richard’s wife had never so much as
heard of Mary’s existence; no blame could possibly attach to her. A
strange mingling of curiosity about her, interest, half-hostile, in her,
wondering indignation, disapproval, proud dislike, all softening back
into curiosity again, were in Miss Percival’s mind; but no one knew how
she rung the changes upon these different sentiments as she sat quite
still and quiet, listening, now and then asking a question, feeling as
if her own life had come to some strange crisis, although she had
absolutely nothing to do with it, not so much as one of the servants in
the house. And then Valentine’s way of speaking of his mother--the
lower, hushed, respectful tone, the half-mystery, half-reverence, which
he seemed disposed to throw around this gipsy, this tramp who had given
them all so much trouble--gave Mary a secret offence, all the more sharp
that she felt his feeling to be quite right and just and natural, and
would not for the world have expressed her own. Just now, half an hour
ago, he had put her in the place of his mother--had taken her interest
for granted, had kissed her (the spot burned on Mary’s cheek at the
thought), and appealed to that strange sentiment in her heart which he
seemed to be unconsciously aware of--that sense of the possibility that
she might have been his mother, which was always more or less in her
mind in Val’s presence. He had taken possession of her in this way, of
her sympathy and help, telling her what she was to do, and how to do
it, amusing her by his arbitrariness, while he melted her heart by his
affectionate confidence. And now all at once, in the same breath almost,
he began to talk of his real mother, this woman whom no one knew, who
had done him and his family all the harm possible, and now was brought
back almost in triumph to reap--not the whirlwind after having sown the
wind--but happiness and calm weather, notwithstanding all her folly and
ill-doing. Mary sat in a maze, in a dream, while all this went through
her mind, yet with all her faculties alert, hearing everything and
feeling everything. She was hurt even by Val’s description of his
mother’s beauty, which filled Vi with such admiring interest. “Oh, how I
should like to see her!” cried Violet. “You shall both see her,” said
Valentine, with the arbitrary determination to give pleasure of a young
prince. How Mary’s heart swelled! But if these two children had guessed
what was going on in her mind, with what wondering grieved disapproval
they would have looked upon her, troubled by a sense of natural
incongruity that a woman of her age could possibly feel so! She felt
this along with all the rest; and, in short, she was conscious of so
many different sentiments, that all her vigour and natural power went
out of her. Her heart was being lacerated by a hundred needle-points and
pin-pricks--like a pin-cushion, she said, faintly trying to laugh to
herself.
Val went with them to their carriage, which was waiting at the lower
edge of the woods, in the opposite direction from Rosscraig, and took a
farewell, which he declared to be the merest temporary good-bye, but
which once more made Violet’s eyes tearful. Vi grew less certain as she
lost sight of him. Various unexpected results had followed the
publication of that Apology, which in her youthful heat and energy she
had almost forced her father into writing. Even Mrs Pringle had not seen
the necessity for it so clearly as Violet did; and the world in general
on both sides of the question had taken it, as Lord Eskside did, as a
formal retractation, a bringing down to his marrow-bones of Sandy
Pringle, rather than as the prompt and frank and generous apology of one
gentleman to another. Some had said that it was fear of an action for
libel which had moved him to such a step; others, with a frank
malediction, had d----d him for not standing to what he said. Nobody
had appreciated his motive, or understood Violet’s childlike reasoning
on the abstract principle, that when you have done wrong and know it,
there is no course possible but to confess, the wrong and ask pardon of
the injured person. This, I fear, is not a course of action at all
congenial to the ordinary code; and Mr Pringle, though carried away by
the impetuosity of his daughter, had by this time repented his _amende
honorable_ quite as much as he repented the evil he had done. To suffer
for doing wrong is reasonable; but it is hard to be punished for doing
right, and fills the sufferer’s heart with bitterness.
Mr Pringle had been very penitent towards poor Val before the days of
the Apology; but now, in the sharpness of the sting of unappreciated
virtue, he was furious against him. Violet knew this only too well, and
her courage oozed out of her finger-ends as she saw the young hero
disappear into the woods. “Do you think--do you really think--it is all
as certain as he says?” she said to Miss Percival, with tears in her
soft eyes, which had been so bright with happiness and courage a moment
before.
As for Valentine, he strode home through the woods very triumphant and
joyful, as became a young lover; but sobered as he drew near home. He
made up his mind to go at once into the matter, and extort a consent
from everybody; but as he drew near and nearer to the turrets of
Rosscraig, it became more and more apparent to him that there would be
no small trouble and pain involved; and he began to feel how
disagreeable it is to displease and vex the people most near to you,
even in order to secure for yourself the person dearest and nearest of
all. This thought did not subdue his resolution, but it subdued his
step, which became less and less rapid. Nothing in this world would have
induced him to give up Vi; but he did not like to defy his old
grandfather, to make my lady set her lips firm in that way he knew so
well. He wished intensely that Vi and he could have been happy without
that; but still, as it had to be done some time or other, it was better,
much better, that it should be done at once. So, after walking very
slowly the last mile of the way, he suddenly, to use his own
phraseology, “put on a spurt,” and skimmed over the last quarter of a
mile, making up his mind, as if for an operation, to get it over. He
walked straight into the library, still flushed from his long walk, and
somewhat to his surprise found all the family authorities collected
there, my lord and my lady and his father, all apparently engaged in
some mysterious consultation. Val remarked with bewilderment that his
father, so placid usually and indifferent, was flushed like
himself,--though with speech, not exercise,--and that Lord and Lady
Eskside had both a doubtful tremulous aspect, and looked morally cowed,
not convinced. To tell the truth, they had been arguing the question
over again, whether it was possible to keep the secret of Dick’s
seniority from the two young men. It was Richard’s desire that this
should be done; but he had not convinced the others either of the
possibility or expediency of it, though, for the moment, they had come
to a conditional bargain to say nothing unless circumstances should
arise which made the disclosure necessary. This supposed emergency was
to be left to each one’s private judgment, I suppose, and therefore the
secret was pretty sure of rapid revelation; but still the old pair were
not satisfied. “Good never came of falsehood, or even, that I know, of
the mere _suppressio veri_,” Lord Eskside had said, shaking his head,
just as Val came in; and they all turned to look at him, with a little
wonder and excitement; for he looked indeed very like a man who had
found something out, coming in hot haste to tell it, and ask, Is this
true? The old lord and his wife looked at each other, both of them
leaping to the conclusion that this was so, and that Val had discovered
the secret; and they were not sorry, but gave a little nod of secret
intelligence to each other. Poor Val! poor boy! it was another trial for
him; and yet it was best, far best, that he should know.
“Grandfather,” said Val, plunging at once into the subject, bringing in
an atmosphere of fresh air and youthful eagerness with him, “I have come
to tell you at once of something that has happened to me. It is strange
to find you all sitting here, but I am heartily glad of it. My lady, you
know how long it is since I first spoke to Violet----”
“Oh, Violet!” cried my lady, with an impatient movement of her head and
stamp of her foot upon the carpet; “Lord bless us! is it this nonsense
he has got in his head again?”
“You may call it nonsense if you like,” said Val, seeing somehow that
what he had said was not what they expected, and unconsciously, in an
under-current of thought, wondering what it was they had expected; “it
is not nonsense to me. I went to Moray Place this morning, having heard
nothing of her for a long time--and there Mrs Pringle received me very
coldly----”
“That was unfortunate,” said Richard with a smile, which his son called
a sneer; “that an Edinburgh lawyer’s wife should receive Lord Eskside’s
grandson coldly, was, no doubt, something very miserable indeed--enough,
I suppose, to justify this excitement,” and he looked at Val with an
amused scrutiny from head to foot, which made the young man wild with
irritation. He had stumbled into a burn on his way home, and had left,
there was no denying it, one huge muddy foot-print on the spotless
carpet, which had at once caught his father’s fastidious eye.
“The Edinburgh lawyer’s wife may not be much to you, sir,” said Val,
“but she is a great deal to me; for she has my future wife’s comfort and
happiness in her hand. I want to let you know at once that my mind is
quite made up and decided. I told you so before. What is the use of
wearing our hearts out by waiting and waiting?” cried Val, turning from
one to another. “You are good and kind, why should you make me
miserable? In everything else you have always tried to make me happy;
you have listened to what I had to say; you have been always reasonable;
why should you shut your hearts against me now, in the one matter that
is most important to me, in that which must decide my happiness or
misery all my life?”
“The argument is well put,” said the old lord, with exasperating
composure; “but, Val, how can you tell at your age what is, or what is
not, to decide the happiness of your life?”
“And don’t you see, Val,” said my lady, more sympathetically, “that it
is just because it is so important that we cannot give our consent so
easily? Oh, my dear, if you had wanted the moon we would have tried to
get it for you; think, then, how strong a motive it must be that makes
us cross you now!”
“What is the motive?” said Val, with sudden dramatic force, waiting
solemnly for an answer. The two old people looked at each other again
and trembled. What could they answer to this impetuous boy? The motive
was that Violet was not a great match for him, such as they had hoped
for--not any one who would bring him wealth or distinction, but only a
girl whom he loved; and they quailed before the boy’s look. If they had
been a worldly pair the answer would have been easy; but these two
high-minded old people, who had trained him to scorn all that was mean,
and to hold love high and honour, how were they to state this plain fact
to a young lover of three-and-twenty? They did not know what words to
use in which to veil their motive and give it some sort of grandeur
worthy the occasion; and, unfortunately, Val saw his advantage as
clearly as they saw the disadvantage under which they lay.
“You speak like a foolish boy,” said his father. “It is enough that we
think this match a very unfit one for you, and I hope you have sense
enough yourself to see its unsuitability. Who is this girl? an Edinburgh
lawyer’s daughter--a man who has attacked your family in the basest and
most treacherous way----”
“But who has apologised!” cried Val; “who has confessed he was wrong and
begged pardon----”
“The more fool he,” said Richard, “not to have strength of mind to stick
to his slander when he had committed himself to it. Apology!--you mean
retractation--extorted, no doubt, from him by fear of his pocket. It
would be more dignified, no doubt, to pay the twopence-ha’penny he can
afford to give her, as his daughter’s portion, rather than as damages in
a court of law.”
“If it is a question of twopence-ha’penny,” said Val, with a violent
flush of sudden anger.
“My boy, you must not use that tone here,” Lord Eskside interposed.
“Your father is right. Is it your enemy that you want to ally yourself
with? he that raked up the whole old story of your coming here, and
tried to ruin you with it, using his falsehood for your destruction----”
“Grandfather,” said Val, still flaming with nervous passion, “the sting
of that story, I have always understood, was that it was not false but
true.”
“Val!” cried Lady Eskside; but there was a pause after this--and I think
in the very heat of the discussion the old lord felt with secret
pleasure that his boy had already made more than one point, even though
it was against himself. Twice over Val had silenced the opposing forces.
Now, but to live to see him facing the House of Commons like this, who
could tell, from the Treasury bench itself! This delightful secret
suggestion crept into Lord Eskside’s heart, like a warm wind loosening
the frosts.
“Then if you will only consider,” said Val, changing his indignant tone
for one of soft conciliation and pleading, “there is no one in Scotland,
so far as I can see, so free to choose for myself as I am. If you were
not what you are, sir, the first man in the county, as you ought to
be--if my father were not what he is, distinguished in other circles
than ours--then, perhaps, I, who as yet am nobody, might have required
to look outside, to get crutches of other people’s distinctions; but as
it is, what does it matter? We are rich enough, we are more independent
than the Queen, who, poor lady, must always consider other people, I
suppose; whereas I, who am your grandson--and your son, sir--I,” cried
Val, “am more free than a prince to ask for love only and happiness!
Give them to me,” he said, holding out his hands with natural eloquence
to the two old people, who sat looking at him, afraid to look at each
other; “you never in all my life refused me anything before!”
I cannot tell how it was that this natural noble attitude in which his
son stood, asking, like a loyal soul as he was, for that consent,
without which he could not be wholly happy, to his happiness--affected
almost to rage the mind of Richard, whose mode had been entirely the
reverse; who had plucked in hot haste, without sanction or knowledge of
any one, the golden apples which had turned to ashes and bitterness. To
marry as he had done, wildly, hotly, in sudden passion,--is not that
much more easily condoned by the great world in which he lived, which
loves a sensation, than a respectable mediocre marriage, equally removed
from scandal and from distinction? To marry a gipsy, or an opera-dancer,
or a maid-of-all-work, is more pardonable, as being a piquant rebellion
against all law and order, than it is to marry a virtuous person out of
the lower circles of good society, sufficiently well-born and well-bred
to make no sensation. The lawyer’s daughter was gall to Richard. He
interposed with one of those sudden fits of passionate irritability to
which his smooth nature was liable.
“Do not let this folly go any further, Val. We all know what is meant by
these ravings about love and happiness. Whatever place I may have gained
among men it is not from having been my father’s son; neither will that
serve you as you think. Lord Eskside’s grandson!” said Richard, with
scorn on his lip; “how much will that do for the younger of you
two--the one who is not the heir,” he continued, with rising
energy--“the one who has a second son’s allowance, a second son’s
position; the one--whom we have all agreed in cheating out of his
rights----”
“Dick?” said Val, with hesitation and wonder. He looked round upon them
all, and saw something in their eyes which alarmed him he could not tell
why. “Is it Dick?”
“Valentine,” said his father, suddenly coming up to him, seizing his
arm, “it is not for me to speak to you of the miseries of a foolish
marriage; but look here. Give up this boyish folly. You have a
foundation, as you say, built up by those who have gone before you; you
may make any match you please; you may cover all that has gone before
with the world’s pardon and more than pardon. I look to you to do this.
I can give you opportunities--you will have countless opportunities;
give up this girl who is nobody--or if you refuse----”
“What then, sir, if I refuse?” Val loosed his arm from his father’s hold
and stood confronting him, steadfast and erect, yet surprised and with a
novel kind of pain in his eyes. The two old people gave one look at each
other, then paused breathless to hear what was to come next, both of
them aware that Richard, diplomatist as he was, forgot himself
sometimes, and perceiving that the crisis, which in their previous talk
they had prepared for, had now arrived.
“Then,” said Richard--he paused a moment, and all the old prick of a
jealousy which he had despised himself for feeling, all the old jars of
sensation at which he had tried to laugh, which had arisen out of the
perpetual preference of Val to himself, surged up for one moment in his
temper rather than his heart. The weapon lay at his hand so ready; the
boy was somehow so superior, so irritating in his innocence. His face
flushed with this sudden impulse to humiliate Val. “Then,” he said,
“perhaps you will pause when I tell you, for your good, that you have
totally mistaken your own position; that you are not the great man you
think yourself; that though you have condescended to your brother, and
patronised him, and been, as it were, his good genius, it is Dick who is
Lord Eskside’s heir, and not you.”
Lady Eskside started with a low cry. It was because Dick had come in a
moment before at the door, in front of which his father and brother
were standing; but Richard thought her exclamation was because of what
he said, and turned to her with a smile which it was not good to see.
“Yes, mother,” he said, “you wished him to know. _Benissimo_! now he
knows. He has been the grand seigneur, and Dick has been nobody. Now the
positions are reversed; and I hope his magnanimity will bear it. Anyhow,
now, with his second son’s allowance, he will be obliged to pause in
this mad career.”
“Is it so?” said Val, going forward to the table, and, I confess,
leaning upon it a hand which trembled--for he had been thunderstruck by
this revelation--“is it so?” No one spoke; and poor Val, standing there
with his eyes cast down, had, I avow it, a bitter moment; but the very
sting of the shock stimulated him, and called all his faculties
together. After that minute, which felt like a year, he raised his head
with a glimmer of painful moisture in his eyes, but a faint smile.
“Well,” he said, “at all events there can never more be any doubt about
me, who I belong to, or what position I hold. I wish Dick all the luck
in the world, and he deserves it. He’ll be sorrier than I am,” said Val.
“What, grandmamma, crying! Not a bit of it! I shall be as happy as the
day is long with my second son’s allowance; and Vi!--for of course,” he
added, with a bright defiant smile all round, “there can be no possible
objection to Vi now.”
Dick had been standing quite still behind, moved not by curiosity, but
by that respectful attention to the preoccupation of the others, which I
suppose his former lowliness had put into him, though it is the highest
grace of a gentleman. He had heard everything, indeed, but his mind was
too full of something else to care for what he had heard. He broke in
here, with a new subject, in a voice hoarse with anxiety and emotion.
“Has any one seen my mother?” said Dick. “I have been all over the house
looking for her, high and low.”