AN UNLOOKED-FOR VISITOR.
Mr. Pennithorne went home thoughtful, and Miss Musgrave remained behind,
if not exactly turned in a new direction, yet confused and excited in
her mental being by the introduction of a new element. Randolph
Musgrave, though her brother, was less known to Mary than he was to the
tutor who had travelled and lived with him in the interval during which
he had made his nearest approach to friendship with his own family. He
had been brought up by an uncle on the mother’s side who did not love
the Musgraves, and had succeeded to the family living belonging to that
race, and lived now, as he had been brought up, in an atmosphere quite
different from that which belonged to his nominal home in the north.
Except now and then, in a holiday visit, Randolph had scarcely spent any
portion of his life at Penninghame, except the short period just before,
and for a little time after, his university career, when he shared with
his brother John the special instructions of Mr. Pennithorne. The two
young men had worked together then, or made believe to work, and they
had travelled together; but being of very different dispositions, and
brought up in ways curiously unlike, they had not been made into cordial
friends by this period of semi-artificial union. Randolph had been
trained to entertain but a small opinion of everything at Penninghame,
and when Penninghame became public property, and John and all his
affairs and peculiarities were discussed in the newspapers, the younger
son did something very like the Scriptural injunction--shaking the dust
from off his feet as he departed. He went away after some painful scenes
with his father. It was not the old Squire’s fault that his eldest son
had become in the eyes of the world a criminal; but Randolph was as
bitter at the ignominy brought upon his name as if it had been a family
contrivance to annoy and distress him, and had gone away vowing that
never again would he have anything to do with his paternal home. There
had been a long gap in their relations after that, but at his marriage
there had been a kind of reconciliation, enough to give a decorous
aspect to his relations with his “people.” He had brought his bride to
his father’s house, and since then he had written, as Mary said, now and
then, once or twice in the year, to inquire after his father’s health.
This was not much, but it saved appearances, and prevented the open
scandal of a family quarrel. But Mary, who replied punctiliously to
these questions, did not see the need of making a further intimation to
him of anything that affected the family. What had he to do with John’s
children? She would no more have thought of informing him of any private
event in her own history, or of looking to him for sympathy, than she
would have stopped a beggar on the road to communicate her good or evil
fortune. But the very name of Randolph suggested new complications. She
was glad to escape from the whole matter and listen to the account of
the lessons when Lilias and Nello came back from one of their earliest
experiences of the instruction given by Mr. Pennithorne. The children
came in breathless with the story they had to tell. “Then he made me
read out of all the books,” said Lilias, her dark eyes shining; “but
Nello, because he was so little, one book was enough for him.”
“But it was not a girl’s book,” said Nello; “it was only for Johnnie and
me.”
“And I looked in it,” said his sister; “it is all mixed with
Italian--such funny Italian: instead of _padre_ it was put _payter_--Mr.
Pen called it so. But it would not do for Nello, when we go back, to say
his Italian like that. Even Martuccia would laugh, and Martuccia is not
educated.”
“It was Latin,” said Nello; “Mr. Pen said so. He said girls didn’t want
Latin. Girls learn to dance and sing; but I--and Johnnie----”
“Will Mr. Pen teach me to dance--and sing, Mary?” said Lilias, with a
grave face.
“And me, I wrote a copy,” said Nello, indifferent to the interruption;
“look!” and he held up fingers covered with ink. “You cannot read it
yet, but you will soon be able to read it, Mr. Pen says. And then I will
write you a letter, Mary.”
“It would be better to write letters to some one far off,” said Lilias,
half scornful of his want of information. “You can _talk_ to Mary,
Nello. It is to far-off people that one makes letters.”
“We have nobody that is far off,” said Nello, shaking his head with the
sudden consciousness of a want not hitherto realized. “Then I need not
write copies any more.”
“Your father is far off, Nello,” said Mary; “your poor papa, who never
hears any news of you. Some time I hope you will be able to write to
him, and ask him to come home.”
“Oh,” cried Lilias, “you need not be sorry about that, Mary. He will
come home. Some day, in a moment when you are thinking of nothing, there
will be a step on the stair, and Martuccia will give a shriek; and it
will be as if the sun came shining out, and it will be papa! He is
always like that--but you never know when he will come.”
Mary’s eyes filled in spite of herself. What long, long years it was
that she had thought but little of John! and yet there suddenly seemed
to come before her a vision of his arrival from school or from college,
all smiles and, making the old roof ring with his shout of pleasure. Was
it possible that this would happen over again--that he would come in a
moment, as his little daughter said? But Lilias did not know all the
difficulties, nor the one great obstacle that stood in John’s way, and
which perhaps he might never get over. She forgot herself in these
thoughts, and did not perceive that Lilias was gazing wistfully at her,
endeavouring with all her childish might to penetrate her mind and know
the occasion of these tears. Mary was recalled to herself by feeling the
child’s arm steal round her, and the soft touch of a little hand and
handkerchief upon her wet eyes. “You are crying,” said Lilias. “Mary,
is it for papa?--why should you cry for papa?”
“My darling, we don’t know where he is, nor anything about him--”
“That does not matter,” said Lilias, winking rapidly to throw off the
sympathetic tears which had gathered in her own eyes; “he is always like
that. We never knew where he was; but just when he could, just when it
was possible, he came home. We never could tell when it would be--it
might be any day. Some time when we are forgetting and not expecting
him. Ah----!” cried the child, with a ring of wonder in the sudden
exclamation. The hall-door was open as usual, and on the road was a
distant figure just visible which drew from Lilias this sudden cry. She
ran to the door, clutching her brother--“Come, Nello, Nello!” and rushed
forth. Mary sat still, thinking her heart had stopped in her breast--or
was it not rather suffocating her by the wildness of its beating? She
sat immovable, watching the little pair at the door. Could it be that
John had come home? John! he who would be the most welcome yet the most
impossible of visitors; he who had a right to everything, yet dared not
be seen in the old house. She sat and trembled, not daring to look out,
already planning what she could do, what was to be done.
But the children stopped short at the door. Lilias, with the wind in her
skirts and her ribbons, half-flying, stopped; and Nello stopped, who
went by her impulse, not by his own. They paused: they stood for a
moment gazing; then they turned back sadly.
“Oh no, no!” said Lilias. “No, Mary! no. It is a little, something
like--a very little; it is the walking, and the shape of him. But no,
no, it is not papa!”
“Papa!” said Nello, “was that why you looked? I knew better. Papa is all
that much more tall. Why are you crying, Lily? There is nothing that
makes cry.”
“I am disappointed,” said the little girl, who had seated herself
suddenly on the floor and wept. It was a sudden sharp shower, but it was
soon over; she sprang up drying her eyes. “But it will be for
to-morrow!” she cried.
Mary sat behind and looked on. She did not think again of the chance
resemblance Lilias had seen, but only of the children themselves, with
whom her heart was tuning itself more and more in sympathy. She had
become a mother late and suddenly, without any gradual growth of
feeling--leaping into it, as it were; and every response her mind made
to the children was a new wonder to her. She looked at them, or rather
at Lilias, who was always the leader in her rapid changes of sentiment,
with a half-amused adoration. The crying and the smiles went to her
heart as nothing else had ever done; and even Nello’s calm, the steadier
going of the slower, less developed intelligence, which was so often
carried along in the rush without any conscious intention, and which was
so ready to take the part of the wise and say, “I knew it,” moved Mary
with that mixture of pleased spectatorship and profound personal feeling
which makes the enthusiasm of parents. Nello’s slowness might have
seemed want of feeling in another child, and Lilias’s impetuosity a
giddy haste and heedlessness; but all impartiality was driven from her
mind by the sense that the children were her own. And she sat in a
pleased abstraction yet lively readiness, following the little current
of this swiftly-flowing, softly-babbling childhood which was so fair and
pleasant to her eyes. The two set up an argument between themselves as
she sat looking on. It was about some minute point in the day’s work
which was so novel and unaccustomed; but trivial as it was Mary listened
with a soft glow of light in her eyes. The finest drama in the world
could not have taken her out of herself like the two little actors,
playing their sincerest and most real copy of life before her. They were
so much in earnest, and to her it was such exquisite play and delicate
delightful fooling! And until the light in the open doorway was suddenly
darkened by some one appearing, a figure which made her heart jump, she
thought no more of the passer-by on the road who had roused the
children. Her heart jumped, and then she followed her heart by rising
suddenly to her feet, while the children stopped in their argument,
rushed together for mutual support, and stood shyly with their heads
together, the arrested talk still hovering about their lips. Seen thus
against the light the visitor was undecipherable to Mary. She saw him,
nothing but a black shadow, towards which she went quietly and said--
“I beg your pardon, this is a private door,” with a polite defence of
her own sanctuary.
“I came to look for--my sister,” said the voice, which was one which
woke agitating memories in her. “I am a--stranger. I came---- Ah! it is
Mary after all.”
“Randolph!” she cried, with a gasp in her throat.
A thrill of terror, almost superstitious, came over her. What did it all
mean? Good Mr. Pennithorne in his innocence had spoken to her of John,
and that very day John’s children had arrived; he had spoken of
Randolph, and Randolph was here. Was it fate, or some mysterious
influence unknown? She was so startled that she forgot to go through the
ordinary formulas of seeming welcome, and said nothing but his name.
“Yes; I hope you are well,” he said, holding out his hand; “and that my
father is well. I thought I would come and see how you were all getting
on.”
“It is a long time since you have been here,” she said. What could she
say? She was not glad to see him, as a sister ought to be. And then
there was a pause.
The children stood staring open-mouthed while these chill greetings were
said. (“I wonder who it is?” said Lilias, under her breath. “It is the
one who is a little, a very little, like papa.” “It is a--gentleman,”
said Nello. “Oh you silly, silly little boy! not to know that at the
very first; but Mary is not very glad to see him,” said the little
girl.)
Mary did not even ask her visitor to come in; he stood still at the
door, looking round him with watchful, unfriendly eyes. This was not a
place for any one to come who was not tender of Mary, and of whomsoever
she might shelter there. She did not want him in that special place.
“Shall we go round to the house?” she said; “my father ought to know
that you are here, and he never comes into the hall.”
“I am very well where I am,” Randolph said. “I know it was always a
favourite place with you. Do not change your sitting-room for me. You
have it in very nice order, Mary. I see you share the popular passion
for art furnishing; and children too! This is something more novel
still. Who are the children, may I ask? They are visitors from the
neighbourhood I suppose?”
“No,” she said, faltering still more, “they are not
visitors--they--belong to us----” Mary could not tell how it was that
her lips trembled, and she hesitated to pronounce the name. She made an
effort at last and got it out with difficulty. “They are--John’s
children.”
“John’s children! here is a wonderful piece of news,” said Randolph; but
she saw by his countenance that it was no news. Howsoever he had heard
it, Mary perceived in a moment not only that he knew, but that this was
his real errand here. He stood with the appropriate gesture of one
struck dumb in amazement; but he was not really surprised, only watchful
and eager. This made his sister more nervous than ever.
“Children,” she said, “come here--this is your uncle Randolph; come and
speak to him.” Mary was so much perplexed that she could not see what
was best to do--whether to be anxiously conciliatory and convince
Randolph in spite of himself, without seeming to notice his opposition,
or to defy him; the former, however, was always the safest way. He did
not make any advance, but stood with a half-smile on his face, while the
children drew near with suspicious looks.
“It is the--gentleman who is--a little--not very much, just a little,
like papa,” said Lilias, going forward, but slowly, and with that look
of standing on the defensive which children unconsciously adopt to those
they do not trust.
Nello hung on to her skirts, and did as she did, regarding the stranger
with cloudy eyes. Randolph put out his hand coldly to be shaken; his
smile broadened into a half-laugh of amusement and contempt.
“So they are said to be his children, are they?”
“They _are_ his children,” said Mary.
Randolph shrugged his shoulders and laughed. “They look like foreigners
anyhow,” he said. “My father, I suppose, is delighted. It must be a new
experience both for him and you.”
“Go away, my darlings, go to Martuccia; you see I have some business
with--this gentleman.” She could not again repeat the title she had
given him. When the curious little spectators had gone, she turned to
Randolph, who stood watching their exit, with an anxiety she did not
attempt to conceal. “For Heaven’s sake do not talk to my father about
them! I ask it as a favour. He consents tacitly that they should be
here, but he takes no notice of them. Do not call his attention to them.
It is the only thing I ask of you.”
He looked at her fixedly still, with that set smile on his face with
which he had looked at the children.
“I am scarcely the person to be called upon to make things smooth with
my father,” he said. “Come, come; my father is old, and can be made to
believe anything, let us allow. But what do you mean by it, Mary, what
do _you_ mean? You were never any friend to me.”
“Friend to _you_! I am your sister, Randolph, though you don’t seem to
remember it much. And what have you to do with it?” asked Mary, with a
certain amount of exasperation in her voice; for of all offensive things
in the world there is none so offensive as this pretence of finding you
out in a transparent deception. Mary grew red and hot in spite of
herself.
“I have a great deal to do with it. I have not only my own interests to
take care of, but my boy’s. And why you should prefer to us, about whom
there can be no doubt, these little impostors, these supposed children
of John----”
“Randolph,” said Mary, with tears in her eyes, “there is no supposing
about them. Oh don’t go against us and against truth and justice! They
brought me a letter from their father. There was no room to doubt, no
possibility. John himself is most unfortunate----”
“Unfortunate! that is not the word I should use.”
“But why remember it against _them_, poor little things, who have done
no harm? Oh, Randolph, I have never been otherwise than your friend when
I had the chance. Be mine now! There are a hundred things about which I
want to consult you. You have a family of your own; you have been
trained to it; you know how to take care of children. I wanted to ask
your advice, to have your help----”
“Do you think me a fool then,” he cried, “as silly as yourself? that you
try to get _me_ to acknowledge this precious deception, and give you my
support against myself? Why should I back you up in a wicked contrivance
against my own interests?”
“What is it you mean? Who has been guilty of wicked contrivances?” cried
Mary, aghast. She gazed at him with such genuine surprise that he was
arrested in his angry vituperation, and changed his tone to one of
mockery, which affected her more.
“Well,” he said, “let us allow that it is your first attempt, Mary, and
that is why you do it so clumsily. The mistakes good people make when
they first attempt to do badly are touching. Villany, like everything
else, requires experience. But it is too funny to expect _me_ to be the
one to stand up for you, to persuade my father to believe you.”
“Oh,” she said, clasping her hands, “do you think this is what I ask? It
is you who mistake, Randolph. It has never occurred to my father, or any
one else, not to believe. He never doubted any more than I was capable
of doubting. I will show you John’s letter.”
Randolph put up his hand, waving off the suggested proof.
“It is quite unnecessary. I am not to be taken in by such simple means.
You forget I have a stake in it--which clears the judgment. And I warn
you, Mary, that I am here to look after my personal interests, not to
foist any nondescript brat into the family. I give you notice--it is not
to help your schemes, it is for my own interests I am here.”
“What do interests mean?” she said wondering. “Your own interests!--what
does _that_ mean? I know _I_ have none.”
“No--it cannot make much difference to you whatever happens; therefore
you are free to plot at your leisure. I understand that fully; but, my
dear, _I_ am here to look after myself--and my boy. You forget I have an
heir of my own.”
Mary looked at him with a dulness of intelligence quite unusual to her.
There are things in the most limited minds which genius itself could not
divine. The honourable and generous, and the selfish and grasping, do
not know what each other mean. They are as if they spoke a different
language. And her brother was to Mary as if he veiled his meaning in an
unknown tongue. She gazed at him with a haze of dulness in her eyes.
What was it he intended to let her know? Disbelief of her, a suggestion
that she lied! and something more--she could not make out what, as the
rule of his own conduct! He looked at her, on the other hand, with an
air of penetration, a clever consciousness of seeing through and through
her and her designs, which excited Mary to exasperation. How could they
ever understand each other with all this between?
“I am going to see my father,” said Randolph; “that of course is the
object of my visit; I suppose he will not refuse to keep me for a day or
two. And in the mean time why should we quarrel? I only warn you that I
come with my eyes open, and am not to be made a dupe of. Good-bye for
the present--we shall meet no doubt at dinner the best of friends.”
Mary stood still where he left her, and watched him as he went slowly
down the slope and round the corner of the house. He was shorter than
John and stouter, with that amplitude of outline which a wealthy rural
living and a small parish are apt to confer. A comfortable man, fond of
good living, fond of his ease; yet taking the trouble to come here, for
what?--to baffle some supposed wicked contrivances and plots against
himself. Mary remembered that Randolph had taken the great family
misfortune as a special wrong to him. How dared the evil fates to
interfere with his comfort or rumour to assail his name? He had said
frankly that it could be nothing to the others in comparison. And was it
once more the idea that he himself was touched, which had roused him out
of his comfortable rectory to come here and assert himself? But how did
the arrival of John’s children affect that? Mary, in her long calm, had
not entered into those speculations about the future which most people
more or less think necessary when the head of the house is old. She had
not asked herself what would happen when her father died, except vaguely
in respect to herself, knowing that she would then in all likelihood
leave the old Castle. John was the heir. Somehow or other, she did not
know how, the inheritance would be taken up for him. This had been the
conclusion in her mind without reason given or required. And Randolph
had not come into the sphere of her imagination at all as having
anything to do with it. What should he have to do with it when there was
John? And even now Mary did not know and could not understand the reason
of his objection to John’s children. She stood and looked after him with
a dull beating of pain in her heart. And as he turned round the corner
of the old house towards the door, he looked back and waved his hand.
The gesture and look, she could scarcely tell why, gave her a sensation
of sickening dismay and pain. She turned and went in, shutting the door
in the sudden pang this gave her. And to shut the great door of the hall
was the strangest thing, except in the very heart of winter. While the
sun was shining and the air genial, such a thing had never happened
before. It seemed in itself a portent of harm.