AN APPARITION.
Thus Randolph overcame Nello’s opposition to school, to his own extreme
surprise. Though he had a child of his own, and all the experiences of a
middle-aged clergyman, he had never yet learned the A B C of childhood.
But it may be supposed that the conversation generally had not made him
love his nephew more dearly. He shook his fist at the boy as he ran
along the water-side, suddenly seized by the delight of the novelty and
the thought of Johnny Pen’s envy. “If I had you, my boy!” Randolph said,
between his teeth, thinking grimly of the heirship which the child was
so sure of. Pride would have a fall in this as in other cases. The
child’s pretensions would not count for very much where he was going. To
be flogged out of all such nonsense would be far the best thing for him;
and a good flogging never did a boy much harm. Randolph, though he was
not a bad man, felt a certain gratification in thinking of the change
that would occur in Nello’s life. There was nothing wrong about the
school; it was a very humble place, where farmers’ sons were trained
roughly but not unkindly. It would make a man of the delicate little
half-foreign boy, who knew nothing about cricket. No doubt it would be
different from anything he was used to; but what of that? It was the
best thing for him. Randolph was not cruel, but still it gave him a
little pleasure to think how the impudent little wretch would be brought
to his senses; no harm done to him--no _real_ harm--but only such a
practical lesson as would sweep all nonsense out of his head. If Nello
had been a man of his own age, a rival, he could not have anticipated
his humiliation with more zest. He would have liked to be a boy himself
to fag the little upstart. There would be probably no fagging at the
farmers’ school, but there would be--well! he smiled to himself. Nello
would not like it; but it would bring the little monkey to his senses,
and for that good purpose there was no objection to be taken to the
means.
And as he walked through the Chase, through the trees, seeing in the
distance before him the blunt turret-chimneys, all veiled and dignified
with ivy, of the old house, many thoughts were in Randolph’s heart. He
was a Musgrave, after all, if not a very fine example of the race. His
wife was well off. If it had not been for John, who was a criminal, and
this boy--what he would have done for the old place! What he might do
still, if things went---- well! Was that, perhaps, the word to
use--well? That is, if John could be somehow disposed of, prevented from
coming home, and the boy pushed quietly to one side. As for John, he
could not come home. It would be death--perhaps; certainly renewed
disgrace. He would have to stand his trial, and, if he fled from that
trial once, how was he likely to be able to face it now? He would stay
abroad, of course--the only safe place for him. If he could but be
communicated with, wherever he was, and would send for his son and
daughter, some arrangement might be made: a share of the income settled
upon him, and the family inheritance left for those who could enjoy it.
This would be, in every way, the best thing that could be done; best for
John himself; best for the house which had been always an honourable
one, and never connected with disgrace. It is so easy to believe what
one wishes that Randolph, after a while, going over the subject in his
mind, succeeded in smoothing away all difficulties, except, indeed, the
initial one of getting into correspondence, one way or another, with
John. If this could be done, surely all the rest was smooth enough! John
was not a fool; he must see that he could not come home. He must see how
difficult it would be to prove his marriage and his son’s birth, and
make everything clear (though why this should be so difficult Randolph
did not explain even to himself). Then he must see equally well that, to
put the property and the old castle into the hands of a man with money,
who could really do something to improve them, would be far better for
the family than to go on as he (John) must do, having no money, if even
he could come lawfully into possession. All this was so evident, no man
in his senses could refuse to see it. And as for communicating with
John: there was, of course, one way, which seemed the natural way, and
which surely must be infallible in that case as in most other cases--the
_Times_. However far out of the world John might be, surely he would
have opportunities from year to year of seeing the _Times_! No
Englishman, even though banished, could live without that. And, sooner
or later, if often enough repeated, the advertisement must reach him.
Suppose it to be put something in this form:--“J. M., of P.--His brother
R. wishes to communicate with him on urgent business connected with the
death of their father.” This would attract no particular attention from
any one, and John could not fail to perceive that he was meant. Thus he
had, to his satisfaction, made everything clear.
It was just when he came to this satisfactory settlement of the
difficulty, so perfectly easy in theory, though no doubt there might be
certain difficulties about carrying it out, that Randolph suddenly saw,
a little way before him, some one making his way through the trees. The
Chase was private, and very few people had the right of coming here;
neither did Randolph see whence this unexpected passenger had come, for
there was no tributary path by which he might have made his way down to
the foot-walk through the elms and oaks. He was within easy sight,
obscured a little by the brushwood, and with his back to the spectator;
but the sight of him gave Randolph a great start and shock, which he
could not very well explain. The man was in dark clothes, with a broad
felt hat, quite unlike anything worn in this district; and there was
something about his attitude and walk (no doubt a merely fantastic
resemblance, or some impression on his mind from his pre-occupation with
the idea of John) which recalled his brother to Randolph’s mind. He was
more startled than words could say. For a moment he could not even think
or move, but stood open-mouthed, staring at the figure before him, which
went on straight, not turning to the right or to the left.
When Randolph came to himself, he tried to laugh at his own folly--then
coughed loudly and meaningly, by way of catching the stranger’s
attention, and seeing who it was. But his cough attracted no manner of
attention from the wayfarer, who went on pushing through the trees, like
one who knew every turn and winding. Randolph was at the end of his
invention. If he called out “Hi!” it might turn out to be somebody of
importance. If he spoke more politely, and called the stranger to halt,
he might be a nobody--if indeed it was not----. A vague impression, half
of fear, came upon him. What nonsense it was! In broad daylight, in so
well-known and familiar a place. Had it been in the dark, in any of the
ghostly passages of the old house! but out here in the sunshine, in the
open air!
Randolph took off his hat, to let the air blow freely about him for he
had grown hot and uncomfortable. His hand with the hat in it dropped for
a moment between him and the other who was so near him. When he raised
it again there was no one there. He rubbed his eyes, looked again, and
darted forward to see whether the man was hiding among the trees; but
there was no one there. Randolph took off his hat once more, to wipe his
streaming forehead; his hand trembled so that he could scarcely do it.
What did it mean? When he had convinced himself there was no one to be
seen, he turned and hurried away from the place, with his heart beating
loudly in his breast. He never looked behind him, but hastened on till
he had got to the broad road, where there was not a bush to hide an
apparition. Then he permitted himself to draw breath.
It would be doing Randolph injustice to suppose that after he was out of
the shadow of the trees, and in safety, with a broad level bit of road
before him, on which everything was distinctly visible all round, he
could be capable of believing that he had seen a ghost. Nothing of the
kind. It must have been one of the people about the place, poking among
the bushes, who had disappeared under the branches of the trees, and
whom he thought like John only because he had been thinking of John--or
perhaps his thought of John had produced an optical delusion, and
imagination had painted some passing shadow as a substantial thing, and
endued it with his brother’s image. It might have been merely an
eccentric tree, on the outline of which fancy had wrought, showing a
kind of grotesque resemblance. It might be, and probably was, just
nothing at all. And it was supremely ridiculous that his heart should so
thump for such an absurd delusion; but thump it did, and that in the
most violent manner. He was out of breath, though he had made no
exertion. And he could not pick up his thoughts where he had dropped
them, when he saw that--figure. A thrill as of guilt was in his soul; he
was afraid to begin again where he had left off. He found himself still
rather breathless before the house, looking up at the veiled windows of
his father’s room. For the first time Randolph thought with a little awe
of his father lying there between life and death. He had not thought of
him at all in his own person, but rather of the Squire officially, the
old life who kept a younger generation out of the estate. It was time
the elders were out of the way, and age superseded by middle age. But
now for a moment he realized the man lying helpless there, in the very
pathway of death--not freed by the Great Deliverer, but imprisoned by
Him, all his senses and faculties bound up, a captive tied hand and foot
by the grim potency who conquers all men. Randolph was frightened
altogether by the mysterious encounter and impressed with awe. If there
had been daily service he would have gone to church, but as there was
nothing of the sort in Penninghame, he went into the library to read a
good book as the next best thing to do. But he could not stay in the
library. The silence of it was awful. He seemed to see his father,
seated there in his usual chair, silent, gazing at him with eyes of
disapproval that went through and through him. After five minutes he
could stand it no longer. He took his good book, and went out to the
side of the water, within sight of the road where people were coming
and going. It was a comfort to him to see even the doctor’s boy with his
phials, and the footman who came with his mistress’s card to inquire how
the Squire was. And he looked out, but looked in vain, with mingled
eagerness and fear for the broad hat he had seen so mysteriously
appearing and disappearing. Who could it be?--some stranger
astray in the Chase--some one of the many tourists who wander
everywhere--or--Randolph shuddered in spite of himself.
It is generally people without imagination, or with the most elementary
and rude embryo of that poetic faculty, who see ghosts. This sounds like
a paradox, yet there is reason in it. The people who are literal and
matter-of-fact in mind, are those to whom wonders and prodigies come
naturally; those who possess the finer eye of fancy do not need those
actual revelations. Randolph’s was as stolid a mind as ever asked for a
sign--and he had not asked for a sign in this case, nor felt that
anything of the kind was necessary; but his entire mental balance was
upset by what he had seen, or supposed himself to have seen; and he
could not free his mind from the impression. As he sat and read, or
rather pretended to read, his mind kept busy with the one question--What
was it? Was it a real person, a stranger who had got astray, and
stumbled into some copse or brushwood, which Randolph had forgotten--a
man with a chance resemblance to John, heightened by the pre-occupation
and previous reference to John in Randolph’s mind? or was it John
himself, come to look after his own interests--John--in the body, or out
of the body, who could tell?
As for Nello, he ran home by the water-side, his mind possessed by the
new thing that was about to be accomplished--school! Boys to play with,
novelty of all kinds, and then that cricket, which he pretended to
despise, but secretly admired and desired with all his heart--the game
which came to Johnny Pen by nature, but which the little foreign boy
could not master; all this buzzed through his little head. When he came
home from school he would know all about it; he would have played with
much better players than Johnny Pen ever saw. The revolution in his
thoughts was great and sudden. But as he ran home, eager to tell Lilias
about the change in his fortunes, Nello too met with a little
adventure. He came suddenly, just as he emerged from the woods upon the
water-side where it was open to the road, on a man whom he had
repeatedly seen before, and who was generally accompanied by a dog,
which was Nello’s admiration. The dog was not with his master now; but
he took a something white and furry out of his great pocket, which
stopped Nello even in the hot current of his excitement.
“Would you like to have this, my little gentleman?” the man said.
It was a white rabbit, with the biggest ears that Nello had ever seen.
How his eyes danced that had been all aglow before!
“But I have no money,” he said, disposed to cry in disappointment as
sudden as his delight.
“It’s not for money, it’s a present,” said the stranger, with a smile,
“and I’ll give you another soon. They tell me you’re going to school, my
young gentleman; is that true?”
“Am I to have it all for myself, or will you come back again for it, and
take it away? Oh yes, I’m going to school,” said Nello, drooping into
indifference. “Will it eat out of my hand? Has it got a name? And am I
to have it all for myself?” The rabbit already had eclipsed school for
the moment in Nello’s mind.
“It’s all for you, and better things than that--and what day are you
going, my bonnie little lad?”
“To-morrow; oh give it me! I want to show it to Lily,” cried the child.
“Thank you very much. Let me run and show it to Lily. We never, never
had a rabbit before.”
The man stood and looked after Nello with a tender illumination of his
dark face. “The old woman likes the other best; but this one is mine,”
he said to himself. As for Nello, he flew home with his precious burden,
out of breath. He said a man had given it to him; but thought of the
donor no more.
Randolph spent this, his last evening at home, in anything but an
agreeable way; he was altogether unhinged, nervous, and restless, not
caring to sit alone. In this respect he was in harmony with the house,
which was all upset, tremulous, and full of excitement and expectation.
Human nature is always impatient of the slow progress of fate. After
the thunderclap of a great event, it is painful to relapse into
stillness, and feel the ordinary day resuming its power without any
following out of the convulsion. But dramatic sequence, rapidity, and
completeness are rare in human affairs. All the little crowd of
lookers-on outside the Squire’s room watched eagerly for some change.
Two or three women were always hanging about the passages, ready, as
they said, to run for anything that might be wanted, and always in the
way to learn if anything occurred. They kept a little lamp burning on
the table against the wall, at either end of which was a chair, on which
sometimes Cook herself, sometimes lesser functionaries, would be found,
but always two together, throwing exaggerated shadows on the wall, and
talking in whispers of their own fears, and how well they had perceived
what was coming. There was not one of them that had not intended, one
time or other, to make so bold as to speak to Miss Mary. “But trouble is
always soon enough when it comes,” they said, shaking their heads. Then
Eastwood would come and join them, his shadow wavering over the
staircase. When the privileged persons who had the _entrée_ went or
came, Miss Brown or the nurse, or even Mary herself, there was a little
thrill and universal movement.
“Change! no, there’s no change--there never will be but one change,”
Miss Brown said, standing solemnly by the table, with the light on her
grave face; and it was upon this Rembrandtish group that Randolph came,
as he wandered about in a similar frame of mind, glad to find himself in
company with others, though these others were only the maids of the
house.
“Is my father worse?” he asked, pausing, with his arm upon the
banisters. Such a group of eager, pale faces! and the darkness all round
in which others still might be lurking unseen.
“No change, sir,” said Miss Brown, shaking her head. She was impatient
too, like the rest, but yet felt a sort of superior resignation, as one
who was in the front of affairs. And she had something to say besides.
She gave a glance at the other women, who responded with secret nods of
encouragement, then cleared her throat and delivered her soul--“Mr.
Randolph, sir, might I make so bold as to say a word?”
“Say whatever you like,” said Randolph. He could not help but give a
little glance round him, to make sure that there was no one else about.
“It is just this, sir--when you see him lying there, that white, as if
he was gone already, and know that better he can’t be--oh, it brings a
many thoughts into the mind! I’ve stood by dying beds before now, and
seen them as were marked for death, but I never saw it more clear. And
oh, Mr. Randolph, if there were things that might lie on his mind, and
keep him from going quiet, as an old gentleman ought! If there were
folks he ought to see afore all’s over----!”
“I don’t see what you are driving at,” Randolph said hastily. “Speak out
if you’ve anything to say.”
“Oh, sir,” said Miss Brown, “don’t you think----. I am not one that
likes to interfere, but I am an old servant, and when a body has been
long about a place, it’s natural to feel an interest. If it wasn’t your
family at all--if it was another that your advice was asked
for--shouldn’t you say that Mr. John ought to know?”
This appeal startled Randolph. He had not been looking for it; and he
gave an uncomfortable look round him. Then he felt a strange irritation
and indignation that were more easy to express. “Am I my brother’s
keeper?” he said. “I don’t know where Mr. John is, that I should go and
hunt for him to let him know.”
“Oh, sir,” said Miss Brown, “don’t you be angry! Cook here is like me:
she thinks it’s only his due. I would say it to Miss Mary, not troubling
you that are ‘most a stranger, but she’s night and day, she never will
leave her father; she has a deal upon her. And a gentleman knows ways
that womanfolk don’t think of. If you would be but that kind, Mr.
Randolph! Oh, where there’s a will there’s always a way!”
“It is none of my business,” said Randolph; “and I don’t know where he
is,” he added, looking round him once more. He might be here already in
the dark, waiting till the breath was out of his father’s body--waiting
to seize possession of the house, felon as he was. And if Randolph was
the means of betraying him into the hands of justice, what would
everybody say? He went abruptly away down the uncarpeted, polished
stairs, on which his hasty step rang and slid. John, always John! he
seemed to be in the air. Even Eastwood, when he attended him with his
bed-candle, could not refrain from adding a word. “The doctor looks very
serious, sir,” Eastwood said; “and if there’s any telegraph to be sent,
I’ll keep the groom ready to go at a moment’s notice. ‘It would be well
to send for all friends,’ the doctor said.”
“I don’t know any one to send for,” said Randolph peremptorily; “let the
groom go to bed.” And he went to bed himself sooner than usual, to get
rid of these appeals and of equally imperative thoughts. He went to bed,
but he could not go to sleep, and kept his candle burning half the
night. He heard the watchers moving about in his father’s room, which
was over-head, all the night through. Sometimes there would be a little
rush of steps, and then he held his breath, thinking this might be at
last the “change” which was looked for. But then everything grew still
again, and he dozed, with the one poor candle, feeble but steadfast
watcher, burning on till it became a pale intruder into the full glory
of day.
Randolph, however, slept deeply in the morning, and got up with the
greater part of those cobwebs blown away. John lost his hold upon the
imagination in daylight, and he was able to laugh at his foolish alarm.
How could it be John whom he had seen? He durst not show himself in the
country where still his crime was so well remembered, and the sentence
out against him. And as for the appearance being anything more than
mortal, or less than human, Randolph laughed at the state of his own
nerves which rendered such an idea tenable for a moment. He was a
materialist by nature--as so many are; though he said his creed without
any intrusive doubts; and the absurdity was too patent after he had
slept and been refreshed. But no doubt it was bad for his health, bad
for his _morale_, to stay here. There was something in the atmosphere
that was demoralizing; the air had a creeping sensation in it as of
something more than met the eye. Death was in it; death, creeping on
slowly, silently--loitering about with faint odours of mortality and
sickening stillness. Randolph felt that he must escape into a more
natural and wholesome air before further harm was done.
As for Mary, the occupations of the sick-room, and the sudden problems
of the hereafter thus thrust upon her, were enough to fill her mind, and
make her even comparatively indifferent to the departure of Nello,
though it was against her judgment. It was not the hereafter of the
spirit, which thus lay death-bound on the verge of the unseen, which
occupied her. We must all die, everybody knows; but who thinks it true
in their own case until it comes? Mary had known very well that a man
much over seventy could not live very much longer; but it was only when
her father fell back in his chair unconscious, his body motionless, his
mind veiled within blinding mists, that she felt the real weight of all
that was to follow. It was for her to act as soon as the breath should
be out of his body. She did not trust her younger brother, and she did
not know what to do for her elder brother. The crisis had arrived while
she was still unprepared. She went down mechanically to see Randolph go
away, her eyes seeing many other things more clearly than she saw the
two figures actually before her; the man suspicious as usual, and
putting no faith in her--the boy in a subdued excitement, his eyes
sparkling with the light of novelty and adventure. Randolph had gone
into his father’s room that morning, and had walked suspiciously round
the bed, making quite sure that the “no change” was true. “I suppose he
may last like this for weeks yet?” he said, in a querulous
undertone--and yet not so low but that everybody heard it--to the
doctor. “Oh, hush, for Heaven’s sake, Randolph! How can you tell that he
does not hear?” said Mary. “Pshaw how can he hear?” Randolph replied,
turning with a certain contempt from the helpless and powerless frame
which lay there making no sign, yet living when it would be so much
better that he should die. The awe of such a presence gives way to
familiarity and weariness even with the most reverent watcher; but
Randolph, though he had no desire to be indecorous, could not help
feeling a certain irritation at his father, who balked him by this
insensibility just as he had balked him while yet he had all his wits
about him. It seemed incredible that this half-dead, half-living
condition, which brought everything to a standstill, should not be more
or less a man’s own fault.
Thus he went away, irritated and baffled, but still full of excitement;
the moment which must decide all could not be very far off. He left the
strongest charges upon the household, from his sister to Eastwood, to
send for him instantly when “any change” occurred. “If it should be
to-morrow,” he said; “I shall hold myself always ready.” He kept his
eyes fixed on the Castle as long as he could see it, feeling that even
now there might be a sign recalling him. And he thought he had made up
his mind what to do. He would bring his wife with him and take
possession at once. Mary would not be able to look after everything; or,
at least, if she should be, she ought not to be; no really
delicate-minded woman, no _lady_ should be able to make any exertion at
such a moment. He would come with his household, as a kindness to Mary,
and take possession at once.
As for Nello, he took leave very cavalierly of Lilias, who cried, yet
would not cry, angry at his desertion and deeply wounded by his
indifference, at the door. Poor little Lilias, it was her first
disappointment in life. He was not thinking of her, but a great deal of
his new portmanteau and the sandwiches put up for him, and the important
position as a traveller in which he stood--but neither was Nello unkind.
He took pains to console his sister.
“Don’t cry,” he said, “Lily I shall come back in the holidays, and
sometimes I will write you letters; and there is always the white rabbit
I gave you, and little Mary Pen for you to play with.”
“I don’t want to play,” said Lilias, with a burst of tears; “is play
everything? I am too old for that. But oh, Nello, you are going to leave
me, and you don’t care. You do not care for Mary, or Martuccia, or any
one. Me, I should not mind--but you do not love _any one_. You care for
nobody but yourself.”
“Oh yes I do,” said Nello, “everybody,” and he cracked the coachman’s
whip which was placed in readiness; “but boys have to go out and see the
world; Eastwood says so. If I don’t like being at school I shall come
back and stay at home, and then you will have me again; but I hope not,
and I don’t think so, for school is jolly, very jolly, so Uncle Randolph
says.”
“You can go with Uncle Randolph,” cried Lilias, in a blaze of sharp
anger, “and I hope you will not come back. I hope you will always stay
away, you cruel, cruel boy!”
This bewildered Nello for a moment, as did the hurried wiping of Lilias’
eyes and the tremulous quiver of her lip with which it was accompanied;
but there was no time for more. He laughed and waved his hand to her as
he was hurried into the carriage. He had scarcely ever looked so gay
before. He took off his hat and waved it as he went out of sight.
Hurrah! they heard his shrill little voice shouting. Lilias sat down on
the ground and cried her heart out. It was not only that he was
unkind--but Nello thus showed himself wanting to all the needs of the
situation. No little hero of a story had ever gone away without a
tribute to the misery of parting. This thought contracted her heart with
a visionary pang more exquisite than the real. Nello was no hero,
nothing but a little cruel, common, vulgar boy, not fit to put into any
story, to go away so.