THE NEW-COMER.
Nobody in the sick-room said a word of the great consternation and
wonder and fear that sprang to life in them at the appearance of the
stranger. How could they, though their hearts were full of it? when all
their care and skill were wanted for the patient, who, half-conscious,
struggled with them to raise himself, to get out of bed. To find out
what he wanted, to satisfy the hazy anxiety in his mind, and do for him
the something, whatever it was, that he was so anxious to do, was the
first necessity of the moment, notwithstanding the new excitement which
was wild in their veins. Where did he come from? How had he got
here?--familiar, unmistakable, as if he had been absent but a day. How
did he know he was wanted? And was it he--really _he_--after all those
dreary years? These questions surged through the minds of all the
bystanders, in an impetuous, yet secondary current. The first thing, and
the most urgent, was the Squire. Brother and sister, friend and friend,
had not leisure to take each other by the hand, or say a word of
greeting.
Mary and her newly-arrived assistant stood side by side, touching each
other, but could not speak or make even a sign of mutual recognition.
_He_ took her place in supporting, and at the same time, restraining the
patient. _She_ held her father’s hand, with which he seemed to be
appealing to some one, or using, in dumb show, to aid some argument.
“The little boy,” he said, hoarsely, “bring me the little boy.”
“Is it Nello he means?” the stranger asked, in a low voice.
“I--think so--I--suppose so,” said Mary, trembling, and wholly overcome
by this strange ease and familiarity, and even by the sound of the voice
so long silent in this place. But he took no notice--only followed his
question by another.
“Why not bring the child then? That might satisfy him. Does he care for
the child, or is it only a fancy, a wandering in his head? Anyhow, let
them bring him. It might be of some use.”
“Do you think he--knows? Do you think he understands--and--means what he
is saying?”
Mary faltered forth these words, scarcely knowing what she said, feeling
that she could not explain how it was that Nello was not near--and
finding it so strange, so strange to be talking thus to--John; could it
be really John? After all that had sundered them, after the miseries
that had passed over him, the price still set upon his head, was it he
who stood so quietly, assuming his household place, taking his part in
the nursing of the old man? She could not believe her senses, and how
could she talk to him, calmly as the circumstances required, gently and
steadily, as if he had never been away?
“Most likely not,” he said; “but something has excited his fancy, and
the sight of my boy might calm it. Let some one bring Nello.”
He spoke with the air of one used to be obeyed, and whom also in this
particular it would be easy to obey.
“We sent him to school. I am very sorry--I was against it,” said Mary,
trembling more and more.
Mr. Pen was frightened too. It is one thing doing “for the best” with a
little unprotected parentless child, and quite a different thing to
answer the child’s father when he comes and asks for it. Mr. Pen paled
and reddened ten times in a minute. He added, faltering--
“It was by my advice--John. I thought it was the best thing for him. You
see I did not know----”
Here he broke off abruptly, in the confusion of his mind.
“Then it is needless saying any more,” said the stranger, hastily, with
a tone in which a little sharpness of personal disappointment and
vexation seemed to mingle.
This conversation had been in an undertone, as attendants in a sick-room
communicate with each other, without intermitting their special services
to the patient. The Squire had been still in their hands for the moment,
ceasing to struggle, apparently caught in some dim confused way by the
sound of their voices. He looked about him confusedly, like a blind man,
turning his head slightly, as if his powers were being restored to him,
to the side on which John stood. A gleam of half-meaning, of interest,
and wavering, half-roused attention, seemed to come over his face. Then
he sank back gently on his pillows, struggling no longer. The paroxysm
was over. The nurse withdrew her hand with a sigh of relief.
“Now,” she said, “if we leave him perfectly quiet, he may get some
sleep. I will call you in a moment if there is any change.”
The woman saw, with her experienced eyes, that something more than could
be read on the surface was in this family combination. She put them
gently from the bedside, and shaded the patient’s eyes from the light,
for it was nearly noon by this time, and everything was brilliant
outside. The corridor, however, into which they passed outside was still
dark, as it was always, the glimmering pale reflections in the wainscot
of the long narrow window on the staircase being its sole communication
with the day.
Mary put out her hands to her brother as they emerged from the
sick-room.
“Is it you--you, John?”
“Yes,” he said, grasping them, “it is I. I do not wonder you are
startled--I heard my father was worse--that there was a change--and came
in without warning. So Nello has been sent away? May I see my little
girl? You have been good to her, I am sure, Mary.”
“I love her,” said Mary, hastily, “as if she were my own. John, do not
take my little companion away.”
He had been grave enough, and but little moved hitherto by the meeting,
which was not so strange or unlooked-for to him as to them. Now his
countenance beamed suddenly, lighting all over, and a tender moisture
came to his eyes.
“It is what I have desired most for her,” he said, and took his sister’s
hands again and kissed her cheek. “But send for my little Lily,” he
added, with an indescribable softening in his voice.
Here Miss Brown, who had been following, came out from the dusk of the
room behind. “I beg your pardon, ma’am. I did not like to tell you in
your trouble; but I’m very uneasy about Miss Lily.”
“Has she never come in yet? You said she had gone out for a walk.”
“I said whatever I could think of to save you, Miss Mary. We none of us
know where she’s gone. I’ve sent everywhere. She is not at the Vicarage,
nor she’s not at the village; and--oh, what will Mr. John think of us?”
cried the woman in tears. “Not one in the house has seen her since
yesterday, and Martuccia, she’s breaking her heart. She says Miss Lily
has gone after her brother; she says----”
“Is Martuccia here?”
“Yes, sir,” said Miss Brown, with a curtsey. She could not take her eyes
off him, as she afterwards said. More serious, far more serious than
when he was a young gentleman always about the house, but the same
man--still the same man.
“Then send her to me at once. It is you, Martha, the same as ever,” he
said, with a momentary smile in the midst of his anxiety. Just as Mr.
John used to do--always a kind word for everybody and a smile. She made
him another curtsey, crying and smiling together.
“And glad, glad, sir, to see you come home,” she said. There was this
excuse for Miss Brown’s lingering, that Mary had rushed off at once to
find Martuccia. John bowed his head gravely. He had grown very serious.
The habit of smiling was no longer his grand characteristic. He went
downstairs into the library, the nearest sitting-room in his way, the
door of which was standing open. Eastwood was there lingering about,
pretending to put things in order, but in reality waiting for news of
the old Squire. Eastwood knew that he had not let this man in. He had
not got admission in any legitimate way. “I beg your pardon, sir,” he
began, not altogether respectfully, with the intention of demanding what
he did there.
“What?” said the stranger, looking up with a little impatience.
Eastwood drew back with another “Beg your pardon, sir!” and his tone was
changed. He did not know who it was, but he dared not say anything more.
This was the strangest house in the world surely, full of suspicions,
full of new people who did not come in at the front door.
When Martuccia came, her story, which, had been almost inarticulate in
her broken English, flowed forth volubly enough to her master, whom she
recognized with a shriek of delight. She gave him a clear enough account
of what had happened. How an old woman had come, a peasant of the
country, and told Miss Lily that her little brother was in _trouble_.
This word she transferred to her narrative without attempting to
translate it, so that Mary, standing by, who did not understand the
rest, seemed to hear nothing but this word recurring again and again.
“Trouble!” it was an ominous word. Nothing but trouble seemed to
surround them. She stood and listened anxiously, though she did not
understand.
“It is clear, then,” said her brother, turning to her, “that Lily has
gone after her little brother, supposed to be in some mysterious
trouble. When did he go, and where did he go, and who persuaded you to
send him away?”
“It was Randolph--Randolph has been here. I believe he wanted to be
kind. He said Nello was being ruined here, and so did Mr. Pen. It was
against my will--against my wish.”
“Randolph!” he said. This alarmed him more than all the rest. “Both my
children! I thought I should find them safe--happy in your hands,
whatever happened to me----”
“Oh John, what can I say?” cried Mary, wringing her hands. No one could
be more guiltless of any unkind intention, but, as was natural, it was
she who bore the blame. A man may be pardoned if he is a little unjust
in such circumstances. John was ready to rush out of the house again
directly to go after his children, but what could be done unless the
railway helped him? Mary got the time-tables and consulted them
anxiously; and Mr. Pen came in and stood by; very serious and a little
crestfallen, as one of the authors of the blunder. And it was found, as
so often happens, that nothing was to be done at the moment. The early
train was going off as they talked, the next did not go till the
evening, the same by which Lilias had travelled on the night before. And
in the mean time, what might be happening to the little girl, who was
wandering about the world in search of her brother? While the brother
and sister consulted, Mr. Pen looked sorrowfully over their heads, which
were bent over these time-tables. He did not himself pretend to
understand these lines of mysterious figures. He looked from one face to
another to read what they meant. He was too much abashed by his own
share in the misfortune to put forward his advice. But when he saw that
they were both at their wits’ end, Mr. Pen suggested that the place
where Nello was was nearer to Randolph than to themselves, and that he
might get there that night if he was informed at once, and give them
news, at least let them know whether Lilias had reached the house where
her brother was. “And I will go by the first train,” Mr. Pen said
timidly. “Let me go, as I have had a hand in it. John knows I could not
mean any harm to his boy----.”
Nobody had meant any harm, but the fact that the two children were both
gone, and one, a girl like Lilias, wandering by herself no one knew
where, was as bad as if they had meant it a hundred times over. Who
could it be who had beguiled her with this story of Nello’s trouble? If
John, who had suffered so much, and who had come from the country where
feuds and vengeance still flourish, suspected an enemy in it, suspected
even his brother who had never been his friend, who could wonder? They
telegraphed to Randolph, and to Mr. Swan, and to the stations on the
way, John himself hurrying to Pennington to do so. And then when all
this was done, which made an exciting bustle for a moment, there was
nothing further possible but to wait till evening for the train. Such
pauses are due to the very speed and superior possibilities of modern
life. A post-chaise was slower than the railway, but it could be had at
once, and those long and dreary hours of delay, of time which one feels
to be lost, and in which, while we wait, anything fatal may happen, are
the reverse side of the medal, the attendant disadvantage upon headlong
speed and annihilation of distance. What a miserable house it was during
all that eternal day! Anxieties of every kind filled their minds--those
which concerned life and the living coming uppermost and shutting out
the solemn interest of the chamber over which death had been hovering.
The Squire slept, but only his nurse, unmoved in professional calm,
watched over him; and when he woke, still wrapped in a mist and haze of
half-consciousness which subdued all his being, yet with an aspect less
deathlike, Mary came and went to and from his room, in an enforced
stillness almost beyond bearing, not daring to stay long in one place
lest she should betray herself. She dared not allow herself to think of
little Lilias, perhaps in evil hands, perhaps wandering alone. Her
little Lily! Mary felt it would be impossible to sit still, impossible
to endure at all if she did not thrust away this thought. A little
woman-child, at that tender age, too young for self-protection, too old
for absolute impunity from harm. Mary clasped her hands tightly together
and forced her thoughts into another channel. There was no lack indeed
of other channels for her anxieties; her father thus lying between life
and death, and her brother with all the penalties of old on his head,
going and coming without concealment, without even an attempt to
disguise himself. It would have been better even for John, Mary felt
instinctively, if the Squire had been visibly dying instead of rallying.
What if he should wake again to full consciousness, and order the doors
of his house to be closed against his son as he had done before? What
if, seeing this, and seeing him there without attempt at concealment,
rejected by his own family, the old prosecution should be revived and
John taken? After that--But Mary shuddered and dropped this thread of
thought also. The other, even the other was less terrible. Thus passed
this miserable day.
Randolph had been alarmed even before the family were, though in a
different fashion. Almost as soon as he had seated himself at his
respectable clergymanly breakfast-table, after prayers and all due
offices of the morning, a telegram was put into his hand. This made his
pulse beat quicker, and he called to his wife to listen, while a whole
phantasmagoria of possibilities seemed to rise like a haze about the
yellow envelope, ugliest of inclosures. What could it be but his
father’s death that was thus intimated to him--an event which must have
such important issues? When he had read it, however, he threw it on the
table with an impatient “Pshaw! The little boy, always the little boy,”
he cried; “I think that little boy will be the death of me.” Mrs.
Randolph, who had heard of this child as the most troublesome of
children, gave all her sympathy to her husband, and he contented himself
with another message back again, saying that he had no doubt Mr. Swan
would soon find the little fugitive, who had not come to him as the
schoolmaster supposed. The day, however, which had begun thus in
excitement, soon had other incidents to make it memorable. Early in the
afternoon other telegrams came. The one he first opened was from Mr.
Pen; this at least must be what he hoped for. But instead of telling of
the Squire’s death, Mr. Pen telegraphed to him an entreaty which he
could not understand. “Lilias is missing too--for God’s sake go at once
to the school and ascertain if she is there.” What did he mean--what did
the old fool mean?
“Here is another, Randolph,” said his wife, composing her face into
solemnity. “I fear--I fear this at least must be bad news from the
Castle.”
In the heat of his disappointment and impatience Randolph was as nearly
as possible exclaiming in over-sincerity, “Fear!--I hope it is, with all
my heart.” But when he opened it he stood aghast; his brother’s name
stared him in the face--“John Musgrave.” How came it there--that
outlawed name? It filled him with such a hurry and ferment of agitation
that he cared nothing what the message was; he let it drop and looked up
aghast in his wife’s face.
“Is it so?” she said, assuming the very tone, the right voice with which
a clergyman’s wife ought to speak of a death. “Alas, my poor dear
husband, is it so? is he gone indeed?”
But Randolph forgot that he was a clergyman and all proprieties. He
threw down the hideous bit of paper and jumped to his feet and paced
about the room in his excitement. “He has come, confound him!” he cried.
Not gone! that would have been nothing but good news--but this was bad
indeed, something unthought of, never calculated upon; worse than any
misgiving he had ever entertained. He had been uneasy about the child,
the boy whom everybody would assume to be the heir; but John--that John
should return--that he should be there before his father died--this
combination was beyond all his fears.
After he had got over the first shock he took up the telegram to see
what it was that “John Musgrave, Penninghame Castle,”--the name written
out in full letters, almost with ostentation, no concealing or
disguising of it, though it was a name lying under the utmost penalties
of the law--had to say to him.
“_My little daughter has been decoyed away under pretence that her
brother was in danger. You can reach the place to-day. I cannot. Will
you serve me for once, and go and telegraph if she is safe?_” This was
the communication. Randolph’s breast swelled high with what he felt to
be natural indignation. “I serve him! I go a hundred miles or so for his
convenience. I will see him--hanged first!” Hanged--yes, that was what
would happen to the fellow if he were caught, if everybody were not so
weakly indulgent, so ready to defeat the law. And this was the man who
ventured to bid his brother “serve him for once,” treating him,
Randolph, a clergyman, a person irreproachable, in this cavalier
fashion. What had he to do with it if the little girl had been decoyed
away? No doubt the little monkey, if all were known, was ready enough to
go. He hoped in his heart they were both gone together, and would never
be heard of more.
When he came as far as this, however, Randolph pulled himself up short.
After all, he was not a bad man to rejoice in the afflictions of his
neighbours; he only wished them out of his way, he did not wish any harm
to them; and he felt that what he had just said in his heart was wicked,
and might bring down a “judgment.” To come the length of a wish that
your neighbour may not thrive is a thing that no respectable person
should allow himself to do; a little grudging of your neighbour’s
prosperity, a little secret satisfaction in his trouble, is a different
matter,--but articulately to wish him harm! This brought him to himself
and made him aware of his wife’s eyes fixed upon him with some anxiety.
She was a gentle little believing sort of woman, without any brains to
speak of, and she thought dear Randolph’s feelings had been too much for
him. Her eyes were fixed on him with devout sympathy. How much feeling
he had, though he did not speak much of it; what strong affections he
had! Randolph paused a little to calm himself down. These all-trusting
women are sometimes an exasperation unspeakable in their innocence, but
still, on the other hand, a man must often make an effort not to dispel
such belief. He said, “No, my dear, it is not what I thought; my father
is not dead, but suffering, which is almost worse; and my brother whom
you have heard of--who has been such a grief to us all--has come home
unexpectedly.”
“Oh, Randolph!” The innocent wife went to him and took his hand and
caressed it. “How hard upon you! How much for you to bear! Two such
troubles at once.”
“Yes, indeed,” he said, accepting her sympathy, “and the little boy whom
I told you of, whom I took to school,--well, he has run away----”
“Oh, Randolph dear, what mountains of anxiety upon you!”
“You may say so. I must go, I suppose, and look after this little
wretch. Put me up something in the little portmanteau--and from thence I
suppose I had better go on to Penninghame again. Who knows what trouble
may follow John’s most ill-advised return?”
“And they all lean so on you,” said the foolish wife. Notwithstanding
these dozen years of separation between him and his family, she was able
to persuade herself of this, and that he was the prop and saviour of his
race. There is nothing that foolish wives will not believe.
Randolph, however, wavered in his decision after he had made up his mind
to go. Why should he go, putting himself to so much trouble at John’s
order? He changed his mind half a dozen times in succession. Finally,
however, he did go, sending two messages back on his way, one to John,
the other to Mr. Pen. To John he said: “_I am alarmed beyond measure to
see your name. Is it safe for you to be there? Know nothing about
little girl, but hear that little boy has run away from school and am
going to see._” Thus he planted, or meant to plant, an additional sting
in his brother’s breast. And as he travelled along in the afternoon,
going to see after Nello, his own exasperation and resentment became so
hot within him, that when he arrived at the junction, he sent a message
of a very different tenor to Mr. Pen. He did not perhaps quite know what
he was doing. He was furious with disappointment and annoyance and
confusion, feeling himself cheated, thrust aside, put out of the place
which he ought to have filled. Nello would have had harsh justice had he
been brought before him at such a moment, “Little troublesome,
effeminate baby, good for nothing, and now to be ruined in every way.
But I wash my hands of him,” Randolph said.