RECKONING WITHOUT THEIR HOST.
Mrs. Russell Penton was not without her share of the general
embarrassment. There was never any quarrel in the stately,
well-regulated house. An angry look, a hot word, were things unknown.
But still she knew very well when her husband was not in accord with
her. His smile was quite enough. Matters had gone very far indeed before
he whistled, but sometimes things did even go so far as that. This time
there was no such climax. His lips had never even formed themselves into
the shape of a whistle; and in his countenance there was no suspicion of
a sarcastic meaning. But she knew that his thoughts were not as her
thoughts. She knew even, which was a rare thing, that he was against
her, that he meant to act more or less in a contrary sense. The young
people whom she had invited against her will, whom she meant to be--not
unkind to, that was not in her nature, but to treat at least no better
than was necessary, he meant to take up and show the greatest attention
to. She was aware of this and it troubled her. How was it possible that
it should not trouble her? It was an accusation, nay, more, a verdict
delivered against herself. And she saw even that little Mab was of the
same way of thinking, that she was interested in the new-comers, that
her questions had a meaning, and that even that little thing was
critical of her attitude, and blamed her, actually blamed her, though of
course she did not venture to say anything. This made Alicia Penton
angry and sore within herself; and there was something still more
disagreeable which lent a sting to all the rest; and that was that she
was her own worse critic, and felt herself poor and small and petty,
and acting an ignoble part.
But there was yet a deeper depth to which she never had expected to
descend. Sir Walter in his great age changed his habits for nobody. He
was never seen in the drawing-room except on rare occasions for an hour
after dinner, when he felt better than usual. He thought the library the
most cheerful as well as the warmest room in the house, and when
visitors came it was expected that they should pay their respects to him
there. Sir Walter had been a little restless on the day the young
Pentons arrived. It had not seemed to Alicia that they were important
enough to be presented to her father in a solemn interview. “There is no
reason why you should trouble about them,” she said. “You will see them
at dinner, that will be soon enough.” And the old gentleman had made no
particular reply. Therefore when they arrived, as has been related, Mrs.
Penton led them upstairs to the drawing-room and gave them tea. This
room was very light, very bright, with its long range of large windows,
of which the great breadth of the landscape below seemed to form a part,
and the pillars which divided it into a sort of nave and aisles gave
occasion for many little separate centers for conversation and the
intercourse of congenial groups in a large company. Ally and Walter
entered the room with dazzled eyes. It was to them as a dwelling of the
gods. Had this visit been paid only a few weeks before they would have
secretly taken possession, imagining how here and here each should have
their special corner. The effect it produced on Walter now, as he looked
round, too proud to show that it was new to him, too intent upon keeping
all trace of anger out of his countenance to be otherwise than
preternaturally grave, and on Ally, regarding its grandeur with an awe
that was beyond words, was very different, but in both cases it was very
profound. Ally thought with a movement of mingled regret and
thankfulness how right mother was! What could we have done, she said to
herself, in this great room? It would have been delightful indeed for
the children, who on wet days would never have wanted to go out with
such a place to play in. But then how could any one have had the heart
to give this up to the children? She could not talk to Mrs. Penton, who
maintained a little formal conversation, her mind was so full of this
thought. It was beautiful. It was a magnificent room. It was wonderful
to think that it might have belonged to _us_. But mother was right--oh,
how right mother was! What could we have done with it? How could we even
have furnished it? Ally said to herself; but she knew that Wat was
annoyed when she allowed herself to say, “What a lovely room!”
“It is a very handsome room. I don’t think there is anything like it in
the county,” said Mrs. Russell Penton. “I ought not perhaps to say so,
for we have done a great deal to it ourselves. But I may allow that it
is very perfect. You have never seen it before?”
“The view is fine,” said Wat, going to the window before his sister
could answer; “it is so extensive that it makes any room look small.” He
was so much out of temper and out of heart that he could not help making
an attempt to “take” this serene great lady “down.”
She smiled in her dignified way, which made the young critic feel very
small. “We seldom hear any fault found with its size,” she said.
And then, to the astonishment of Walter, the little person, whom he had
allowed of his grace to pass in before him, came into the room, and took
her place and addressed the great lady in the most familiar terms. “Aunt
Gerald,” she said, “we are all a kind of cousins, don’t you think? We
must be a kind of cousins, though we never saw each other before, for
you are aunt to them and you are aunt to me, so of course we are friends
by nature;” and with that she put out her hand not only to Ally, whose
face brightened all over at this cordial greeting, but to Wat, who stood
hanging over them like a cloud, not knowing what to say.
“You are mistaken, Mab,” said Mrs. Russell Penton; “I am not aunt but
cousin to--to--” she did not know what to call them--“to my young
relations,” she said at last.
“That comes exactly to the same thing--an old cousin is always aunt,”
said Mab, settling herself on her seat like a little pigeon. She was
very plump, pink and white, with very keen little blue eyes, not at all
unlike a doll. There was nothing imposing in her appearance. “I am Mab,”
she said, “and are you Alicia, like Aunt Gerald? Do all your brothers
and sisters call you so? It is such a long name. I have neither brothers
nor sisters.”
“Oh, what a pity,” said gentle Ally, who had brightened as soon as this
new companion came in with all the freemasonry of youth.
“Do you think so? but then they say it is very good in another way. I
have nobody to be fond of me though, nobody to bully me. Big brothers
bully you dreadfully, don’t they?” She cast a look at Walter, inviting
him to approach. She was not shy, and he was standing about, not knowing
what to do with himself. Walter would have been awkward in any
circumstances, having no acquaintance with strange ladies or habit of
attending them at tea. He drew a step nearer indeed, but her advances
did not put him at his ease; for had he not taken her for a lady’s-maid?
though this she did not know.
Mrs. Russell Penton left them thus to make acquaintance, as Mab said,
but not willingly. She had to obey a summons from Sir Walter. Sir Walter
had been a great deal more restless than usual for the last day or two.
There was nothing the matter with him, he said himself, and the doctor
said he was quite well, there was not the slightest reason for any
uneasiness; but yet he was restless--constantly sending for Alicia when
she was not with him, changing his position, finding fault with his
newspapers, and that all the little paraphernalia he loved was not
sufficiently at hand. Mrs. Russell Penton was always ready when her
father wanted her. She would have let nothing, not the most exalted
visitor, stand between her and her father, and though she was by no
means desirous of leaving these young people together, yet she got up
and left them without a word. It was, however, a little too much for her
when Sir Walter exclaimed almost before she got into the room, “Where
are those children? I suppose they have come, Alicia. Why are you hiding
them away from me?”
“The children!--what children? Father, I don’t know what you mean.”
“What children are there to interest me _now_, except the one set?” said
Sir Walter, peevishly. “Edward’s children of course I mean.”
“Edward’s children!”
“Am I growing stupid, or what is the matter with you, Alicia? I don’t
generally have to repeat the same thing a dozen times over. Naturally it
is Edward’s son I want. A man can scarcely help feeling a certain
interest in the boy who is his heir.”
“I am afraid I am very stupid, father. I thought we had settled--”
“Yes, yes, yes,” said the old man: “it is all settled just as you liked,
I know; but all the same the boy is my heir.”
Mrs. Russell Penton made no reply. Sir Walter was old enough to be
allowed to say what he would without contradiction; but the statement
altogether was extremely galling to her. “Settled just as you liked.” It
was not as she liked but as he liked. It was he who had moved in it,
though it was for her benefit. Though she could not deny that the desire
of her life was to possess Penton, to remain in her home, yet she was
proudly conscious that she would have taken no step in the matter, done
nothing, of her own accord. It was he who had settled it; and now he
turned upon her, and asked for the boy who was his heir! Everybody was
hard upon Alicia at this moment of fate. They all seemed to have united
against her--her husband, the little girl even whom she had wished to
defend from fortune-hunters--and now her father himself! If she had been
twenty instead of fifty she could not have felt this universal
abandonment more. But the practice of so many years was strong upon her.
She would not oppose or make any objections to what he wished, though it
was of the last repugnance to herself.
“I should have liked,” said the old man, “to see Edward too; when one
has advanced so far as I have on the path of life, Alicia, likes and
dislikes die away--and prejudices. I may have been too subject to
prejudice. Edward never was very much to calculate upon. He had no
character; he never could hold his own; but there was very little harm
in him, as little harm as good you will perhaps say. Bring me the boy.
He will be the same as I, Sir Walter Penton, when his turn comes, and it
will not be long before his turn comes. Edward will never last to be an
old man like me. He hasn’t got it in him; he hasn’t stuff enough. The
young one will be Sir Walter--Sir Walter Penton, the old name. The
tenth, isn’t it--Walter the tenth--if we were to count as some of the
foreign houses do?’
“Oh, father, don’t!” cried Alicia. To think he could talk, almost jest,
about another Walter!
He looked up at her quickly, as if out of a little gathering confusion,
seeing for the moment what she meant.
“Eh! well, we must not always dwell on one subject--must not dwell upon
it. Let me see the boy.”
Mrs. Russell Penton rang the bell and gave a message, out of which it
was almost impossible to keep an angry ring of impatience. “Tell the
young gentleman who is in the drawing-room, he who arrived half an hour
ago--you understand--that Sir Walter would like to see him. Show him the
way.”
“Why don’t you speak of him by his name, Alicia? Young Mr. Penton, Mr.
Walter Penton, my successor, you know, Bowker, that is to be. Say I
seldom leave my room, and that I should be pleased to see him here. My
dear,” he went on, “the servants always act upon the cue you give them,
and they ought to be very respectful to the rising sun, you know. It is
bad policy to set them out of favor with the rising sun.”
Alicia’s heart was too full for speech. She kept behind her father’s
chair, arranging one or two little things which required no arrangement,
keeping command over herself by a strong effort. A little more, she
felt, and she would no longer be able to do this. That even the servants
should have such a suggestion made to them, that Edward’s boy was the
heir! Had her father departed from the resolution which was, she
declared to herself passionately, his own resolution, not suggested by
her? Had he forgotten? Was this some wavering of the mind which might
invalidate all future acts of his? She felt on the edge of an outbreak
of feeling such as had rarely occurred in her reserved and dignified
life, and at the same time she felt herself turned to stone. The old man
went on talking, more than usual, more cheerfully than usual, as if
something exhilarating and pleasant was about to happen, but she paid
little attention to what he said. She stood behind, full of a new and
anxious interest, when the door opened and Wat, timid, but on his guard,
not knowing what might be wanted with him, half defiant, and yet more
impressed and awed than he liked to show, came into the room. Mrs.
Russell Penton gave him no aid. She said, “This is Edward’s son,
father.” It annoyed her to name him by his name, though there was no
doubt that he had a right to it, as good a right as any one. She could
not form her lips to say Walter Penton. But what she failed in Sir
Walter made up. He half rose from his chair, which was a thing he rarely
did, and held out both his hands. “Ah, Walter! I’m glad to see you, very
glad to see you,” he said. He took the youth’s hands in those large,
soft, aged ones of his, and drew him close and looked at him, as he
might have looked at a grandson: and there was enough resemblance
between them to justify the suggestion. “So this is Walter,” he went on,
“I’m very glad to see you, my boy. You’re the last of the old stock--no,
not the last either, for I hear there’s plenty of you, boys and girls,
Alicia”--the old man’s voice trembled a little, tears came into his
eyes, as they do so easily at his age--“Alicia, don’t you think he has a
look of--of--another Walter? About the eyes--and his mouth? He is a true
Penton. My dear, I’m very sorry if I’ve vexed you. I--I like to see it.
I could think he had lived and done well and left us a son to come after
him, my poor boy!”
And old Sir Walter for a moment broke down, and lifted up his voice and
wept, running the little wail of irrepressible emotion into a cough to
veil it, and swinging Wat’s hand back and forward in his own. Alicia
stood as long as she could behind him, holding herself down. But when
her father’s voice broke, and he called her attention to that
resemblance, she could bear it no longer. She walked away out of the
room without a word. Had she not seen it--that resemblance? and it was
an offense to her, a bitter injury. He had neither lived nor done well,
that other Walter, the brother of her love and of her pride. He had
crushed her heart under his feet, beaten down her pride, torn her being
asunder; and now to have it pointed out to her that this insignificant
boy, who was not even to be the heir, whose birthright was being sold
over his head, that he was a true Penton and like her brother! She could
bear it no longer. Not even the recollection that this emotion might
injure her father, that he wanted care to soothe him, sufficed to make
her capable of restraining the passion which had seized possession of
her. She went away quickly, silent, saying nothing. It was more than she
could bear.
In the corridor she met her husband, between whom and her there was, she
was conscious, a certain mist, also on account of this boy. Had all been
as usual in other ways she would have passed him by with a sense in her
heart of a certain separation and injury: but a woman must have some
one to claim support from, and after all he was her husband, bound to
stand by her, whatever questions might arise between them. She went up
to him with an instinctive feeling of having a right to his sympathy in
any case, even if he should disapprove, and put her hand within his arm
with a hasty appealing movement, quite unusual with her. No man was more
easily affected than Russell Penton by such an appeal. He put his hand
upon hers, and looked at her tenderly. “What is it, my dear?” he said.
“Nothing, Gerald; except that I want to lean upon you for a moment
because I have more than I can bear; though you disapprove of me,” she
said.
He held her close to him, full of pity and tenderness. “Lean, Alicia,
whether I approve or disapprove;” and he added, “I know that all this is
hard upon you.” He sympathized with her at least, if not with the tenor
of her thoughts.
She made no further explanation, nor did he ask for it. After a moment
she said, “Gerald, do you know whether a sudden change of mind,
abandoning one way of thinking for another, is supposed to be a bad
sign--of health, I mean?”
He paused a moment and looked at her, with an evident question as to
whether it was she who had changed her mind. But that look was enough to
show that, though she was suffering she was firm as ever, and a glance
she gave toward the closed door of the library enlightened him. “I
should not think it was a very good sign--of health,” he said.
“It shows a weakening--it shows a relaxation of the fiber--a--that is
what I think. And so complete a change! Gerald, my father shall do
nothing he does not wish to do for me.”
“I never supposed you would wish that, my dear. What is it? Don’t form
too hasty a judgment. Has he said that he does not want to do anything
that has been spoken of between you?”
“No, he has spoken of nothing. He has got Edward Penton’s boy with him,
and he is quite affectionate, talking of a resemblance--”
“Alicia, is it Penton you are thinking so much of?”
“No, no,” she cried, leaning upon his shoulder, bursting at last into
sudden, long-repressed tears. “No, no! It is my brother, my brother!
_my_ Walter! He who should have been, who ought to have been--Gerald, it
may be wrong, but I can’t bear it, I can’t bear it. He talks of a
resemblance--”
“Alicia, I see it too. I thought it would soften your heart.”
“Oh!” she cried, “how little you know;” and, flinging herself from him,
with a cry of mortification and disappointment, she flew into her own
room and closed the door.
Russell Penton stood looking after her with a troubled countenance, and
then he began to walk slowly up and down the corridor. He did not
approve, and perhaps, as she said in her passion, did not understand
this strange revulsion of all gentle sentiments. But it went to his
heart to leave her to herself in a moment of pain, even though the pain
was of her own inflicting. He did not follow or attempt to console her.
She was not a girl to be soothed and persuaded out of this outburst of
passionate feeling. He respected her individuality, her age, her power
to bear her own burdens; but because his heart was very tender, though
he did not disturb Alicia, he walked up and down, waiting till she
should return to him, outside that closed door.