It would have been difficult to imagine a more embarrassed and
embarrassing party than were the Markham family, when they assembled to
dinner that evening. Sir Gus and the little girls had met Fairfax going
down the avenue, and had tried every persuasion in their power to induce
him to return with them; but he would not do so. “I am coming back
to-morrow,” he said; but for this evening he was bound for the Markham
Arms, where he had been before, and nothing would move him from his
determination.
When Gus went into the drawing-room with his little companions, the tea
was found there, all alone in solitary dignity; the table set out, the
china and silver shining, the little kettle emitting cheerful puffs of
steam, but no one visible. What can be more dismal than this ghost of
the cheerfullest of refreshments--the tea made and waiting, but not a
woman to be seen? It impressed this innocent group with a sense of
misfortune.
“Where can they be?” Bell cried; and she ran upstairs, sending her
summons before her: “Mamma--mamma--please come to tea.”
By and by, however, Bell came down looking extremely grave.
“Mamma has a headache,” she said. This was a calamity almost unknown at
Markham. “And Alice has a headache too,” she added, after a moment’s
pause.
Bell’s looks were very serious, and the occasion could scarcely be
called less than tragical. The little girls themselves had to make Gus’s
tea--they did it, as it were, in a whisper--one putting in the sugar,
the other burning her fingers with the tea-pot. It was not like
afternoon tea at all, but like some late meal in the schoolroom when
Mademoiselle had a headache. It was only Mademoiselle who was given to
headache at Markham. It was Brown who told Sir Augustus of Paul’s
arrival. Lady Markham had been wounded by Brown’s behaviour from the
first. He had not clung to the “family” to which he had expressed so
much devotion. He had gone over at once to the side of the new master of
the house. He had felt no indignation towards the interloper, nor any
partisanship on behalf of Paul. He came up now with his most obsequious
air, as Gus came out of the drawing-room.
“I beg your pardon, Sir Augustus, but Mr. Paul has come.”
“Oh, he has come, has he?” Gus said.
Brown stood respectfully ready, as if he would undertake at the next
word to turn Mr. Paul out of the house; no wonder Lady Markham was
indignant. Gus understood it all now--the headaches and the deserted
tea-table. No doubt the mother and sister were with Paul, comforting and
consoling him. He gave forth a little sigh when he thought of it.
Whatever might happen, no one would ever console him in that way. Paul
had always the better of him, even when disinherited. But when they went
into the drawing-room before dinner, he was very anxious to be friendly
to Paul. He went up to him holding out his hand.
“I am very glad that we meet like this,” he said. “Your mother has
taken me in, for which I am grateful to her; and I am very glad that we
have met. I hope you will not think any worse of me than you can help.”
“I do not think worse of you at all,” Paul said, briefly; but he would
not enter into conversation. And the whole party were silent. Whether it
was the influence of the son’s return, who was nothing now but a
secondary person in the house where he had been the chief, or whether
there was any other cause beside, Gus could not tell. Even the mother
and daughter did not talk to each other. When dinner was over, and Mr.
Brown, with his too observant eyes, was got rid of, the forlorn little
stranger, who was the new baronet, the conqueror, the master of the
situation, could almost have wept, so lonely and left out did he feel.
“Is anything going to happen?” he said. “I know I am no better than an
outsider among you, but I would like to enter into everything that
concerns you, if you would let me. Is anything going to happen?”
“I don’t know of anything that is going to happen,” said Paul; and the
ladies said nothing. There was no longer that intercourse of looks
between them, of half-words and rapid allusions, which Gus admired.
They sat, each wrapped as in a cloud of her own. And rarely had a night
of such confused melancholy and depression been spent at Markham. Alice,
who feared to encounter any examination by her mother, went upstairs
again, scarcely entering the drawing-room at all. And Lady Markham sat
alone amid all the soft, yet dazzling, lights, which again seemed to
blaze as they had blazed when Sir William was dying, suggesting the
tranquil household peace which seemed now over for ever. Was it over for
ever? The very room in which she was seated was hers no longer. Her son
was hers no longer, but about to be lost to her--separated by wide seas,
and still more surely by other associations, and the severance of the
heart. And even Alice--Lady Markham could not reconcile herself to the
thought that while her husband was dying, and she watching by his side,
Alice had allowed herself to be drawn into a new life and new thoughts.
It seemed an impiety to him who was gone. Everything was impiety to him:
the stranger in his place, though that stranger was his son; the
shattering of his image, though it was his own hand that had done it;
the dispersion of his children. Thank God! three were still the little
ones. She thought, with a forlorn pang in her heart, that she would
withdraw herself with them to the contracted life of the Dower-house,
and there reconstruct her domestic temple. Bell and Marie, Harry and
Roland, would retain the idea of their father unimpaired, as Paul and
Alice could not do. But what does it matter that all is well with the
others when one of your children is in trouble? it is always the lean
kine that swallow up those that are fat and flourishing. Her heart was
so sore with the present that she could not console herself with the
future. How could it be that Job was comforted with other sons and
daughters, instead of those he had lost? How many a poor creature has
wondered over this! Can one make up for another? Lady Markham sat all
alone, half suffocated with unshed tears. Paul was going away, and she
had not the courage to go to Alice, to question her, to hear that in
heart she also had gone away. Thus she sat disconsolate in the
drawing-room, while Gus took possession of the library. The poor little
gentleman was still sadder than Lady Markham; not so unhappy, but
sadder, not knowing what to do with himself. The long evening alone
appalled him. He took a book, but he was not very fond of reading. The
children had gone to bed. He went to the window once, and, looking out,
saw a red spark, moving about among the trees, of Paul’s cigar.
Probably, if he joined him, it would only be to feel more the enormity
of his own existence. Gus went back to his chair, and drawing himself
close to the fire (which Mr. Brown had caused to be lighted, reflecting
that Sir Augustus was a foreigner, and might feel chilly), fell asleep
there, and so spent a forlorn evening all by himself. Was this what he
had come to England for, to struggle for his rights, and make everybody
unhappy? It was not a very lofty end after all.
And next day there was so much to be settled. Paul was astir early,
excited and restless, he could not tell why. It seemed to him that one
way or other his fate was to be settled that day. If Janet Spears clung
to him, if she insisted on keeping her hold upon him, what was he to do?
He went down very early to the village, wandering about all the places
he had known. He had never been very genial in his manners with the poor
people, but yet he had been known to them all his life, and received
salutations on all sides. Some of them still called him Sir Paul. They
knew he was not his father’s successor--that there was another and
altogether new name in the Markham family--but the good rustics, many of
them, could not make out how, once having been Sir Paul to their certain
consciousness, he could ever cease to bear that title. The name brought
back to the young man’s mind the flash of finer feeling, the subdued and
sorrowful elation with which he had walked about these quiet roads on
the morning of his father’s funeral. He had meant to lead a noble life
among these ancestral woods. All that his father was and more, he had
intended to be. He had meant to show his gratitude for having escaped
from the snare of those follies of his youth which had nearly cast him
away, by tolerance and help to those who were like himself. In politics,
in the management of the people immediately within his influence, he had
meant to give the world assurance of a man. But now that was all over.
In his place was poor little Gus: and he himself had neither influence
nor power. What a change it was! He strayed into the churchyard to his
father’s grave, still covered with flowers, and then--why not?--he
thought he would go up to the rectory and ask them to give him some
breakfast. Though he did not care enough for Gus to avoid his presence,
yet it was a restraint; there never, he thought, could be any true
fellowship between them. He went and tapped at the window of the
breakfast-room which he knew so well, and where Dolly was making the
tea. She opened it to him with a little cry of pleasure. Dolly had not
made any pretence of putting on mourning when Sir William died, but ever
since she had worn her black frock; nobody could reproach her with
encroaching upon the privileges of the family by this, for a black frock
was what any one might wear; but Paul, who was ignorant, was touched by
her dress. She had been looking pale when she stood over the table with
the tea-caddy, but when she saw who it was Dolly bloomed like a
winter-rose. It was October now, the leaves beginning to fall, and a
little fire made the room bright, though the weather was not yet cold
enough for fires. Paul had never once considered himself in love with
Dolly in the old days. Perhaps it was only the contrast between her and
Janet Spears that moved him now. He knew that one way or other the
question about Janet Spears would have to be concluded before the day
was done; and this consciousness made Dolly fairer and sweeter to him
than ever she had been before.
And the rector was very glad to see Paul. He understood the young man’s
early visit at once. Mr. Stainforth had never entertained any doubt on
the subject. To talk over his affairs with a man of experience and good
sense must be a very different thing from discussing them with ladies,
however sensible; and he plunged into good advice to the young man
almost before he began his tea.
“There is one thing I am certain you ought to do,” Mr. Stainforth said,
“I told your mother so yesterday. I am an old man and I cannot stand
long in any one’s way. Paul, you must take orders; that is what you must
do: and succeed me in the living. It is a thing which has always been
considered an excellent provision for a second son; among your own
people--and you know that this is an excellent house. Dolly will show
you all over it. For a man of moderate tastes it is as good as Markham,
and not expensive to keep up. And as for the duty, depend upon it, my
dear boy, you would find no difficulty about that. Why, Dolly does the
most part of the parish work. Of course you could not have Dolly,” said
the old man, at his ease, not thinking of how the young ones felt, “but
somebody would turn up. It is a good position and it is not a hard life.
As soon as I heard what had happened I said to myself at once, the
living is the very thing for Paul.”
Paul could not help a furtive glance round him, a momentary review of
the position, a rapid imperceptible flash of his eyes towards Dolly, who
sat very demurely in front of the tea-urn. How glad she was of that
tea-urn! But he shook his head.
“I am afraid I shall not be able to settle myself so easily as that,” he
said.
“But why not, why not?” asked the old man; and he went on expatiating
upon the advantages of this step, “I would retire as soon as you were
ready. I have often thought of retiring. It is Dolly rather than I that
has wanted to remain. Dolly seems to think that she cannot live away
from Markham Royal.”
“Oh, no, papa,” Dolly cried, “it was only because there was no reason. I
could live--anywhere.”
“I know what you will do,” said the old man, “when I am gone, you will
come back and flutter like a little ghost about your schools and your
poor people: you will think nobody can manage them but yourself; unless
you marry, you know--unless you marry. That would make a difference. For
the peace of the new rector I must get you married, Dolly, before I
receive notice to quit, my dear.”
And he laughed with his old shrill laugh, not thinking what might be
going on in those young bosoms. That Dolly should marry anybody was a
joke to her father, and that Paul should have any feeling on the subject
never occurred to him. He cackled and laughed at his own joke, and then
he became serious, and once more impressed all the advantages of the
living upon his visitor. The curious mingling of confusion,
embarrassment, distress, and pleasure with which the two listened it
would be difficult to describe. Even Dolly, though she was abashed and
horrified by the two simple suggestions which the old man neither
intended nor dreamt of, felt a certain vague shadowy pleasure in it, as
of a thing that never could come true but yet was sweet enough as a
dream; and because of the tea-urn which hid her from Paul, felt safe,
and was almost happy in the thrill of consciousness which ran to her
finger tips. They did not see each other, either of them: and this was a
thing which was impossible, never to be. But yet it put them by each
other’s side as if they were going to set out upon life together, and
the sensation was sweet.
Paul turned it over and over in his head as he went home. It was not the
life he would have chosen, but the old man’s materialistic view of it
had for the moment a charm. The sheltered quiet life, the mild duty, the
ease and leisure, with no struggle or trouble to attain to them--was it
a temptation? He laughed out as he asked himself the question. No! Paul
might perhaps have been a missionary after the apostolic model; but a
clergyman with very little to do and a wife to do the great part of that
little for him--no, he said to himself, no! And then he sighed--for the
rectory, under those familiar skies, and little Dolly, whom he had known
since she was a baby, were very sweet.
It was something very different for which he had to prepare himself now.
As he walked towards home he suddenly came in sight, as he turned the
village corner into the high road, of a pair who were walking on before
him from the station. Paul’s heart gave a sudden leap in his breast, but
not with joy. He stood still for a moment, then went on, making no
effort to overtake them. A man and a woman plodding along the dusty
road: he with the long strides and clumsy gait of one who was quite
destitute of that physical training which gives to the upper classes so
much of their superiority, his arms swinging loosely from his shoulders;
she encumbered with the skirt of her dress, which trailed along the
dusty road. The sun was high by this time, and very warm, and they felt
it. Paul did not take his eyes from them as they went along, but he made
no effort to make up to them. This was what he had played with in the
time of his folly--what he thought he had chosen, without ever choosing
it. What could he do, what could he do, he cried out in his heart with
the vehemence of despair, to be clear of it now?
Spears had come to settle his accounts with Paul. In the course of the
negotiation which had gone so far, which had gone indeed as far as
anything could go not to be settled and concluded, he had received money
from the young man for his share of the emigration capital. That Paul,
when he separated himself from the party meant to leave this with them
as a help to them, there was no doubt; and this was one reason why he
had avoided meeting with his old associates, or ending formally the
connection between them. And when Spears demanded that a place of
meeting should be appointed, Paul had with reluctance decided upon
Markham as a half-way house, where he would have the help of his mother
to smooth down and mollify the demagogue. Spears had been deeply
compunctious for the part he had taken against Paul in London, but was
also deeply wounded by Paul’s refusal to accept his self-humiliation;
and his object in seeking him now was not, as Paul thought, to reproach
him for his desertion, nor was it to call him to account on the subject
of Janet. Paul himself was not sufficiently generous, not noble enough
to understand the proud and upright character of the humble agitator,
who carried the heart of a prince under his working man’s clothes, and
to whom it was always more easy to give than to take. Spears was coming
with a very different purpose. With the greatest trouble and struggle he
had managed to reclaim, and separate from the other money collected, the
sum paid by Paul. It had been not only a wonderful blow to his personal
pride and his affections, but it diminished greatly his importance
among his fellows when it was discovered that the young aristocrat, of
whose adhesion they were inconsistently proud, was no longer under the
influence or at the command of Spears; and it had cost him not only a
great deal of trouble to collect Paul’s money, but a sacrifice of
something of his own; and he had so little! Nevertheless, he had it all
in his pocket-book when he prepared that morning to keep the rendezvous
which Paul had unwillingly given him.
Spears did not know till the last moment that his daughter meant to
accompany him. She walked to the station with him, and took his ticket
for him, and he suspected nothing. It was not until she joined him in
the railway carriage that he understood what she meant, and then it was
too late to remonstrate. Besides, his daughter told him it was Lady
Markham she was going to see. Lady Markham had been very kind to her. It
was right that she should go to say good-bye; “and besides, you know,
father--” Janet said. Yes, he knew, but he did not know much; and Janet
was aware, as Paul was not, that her father was far too delicate, far
too proud, to speak on her behalf. He would scorn to recall his
daughter to any one who had forgotten her; if there was anything to be
done for Janet; it was herself who must do it. And Spears was so
uncertain about the whole business, so unaware of what she was going to
do, that he did not even try to prevent her. He accepted her society
accordingly, and did not attempt to resist her will. She had a right, no
doubt, to look after her own affairs; and he who did not even know what
these affairs were, what could he say? They had a very silent journey,
finding little to say to each other. His mind was full of saddened and
embittered affection, and of a proud determination not to be indebted to
a friend who had deserted him. “Rich gifts grow poor when givers prove
unkind,” he was saying to himself. Undoubtedly it had given him
importance, the fact that the richest of all the colonists was under his
influence, and ready to do whatever he might suggest. Not for a moment,
however, would Spears let this weigh with him. Yet it made his heart all
the sorer in spite of himself. As for Janet, she had a still more
distinct personal arrangement on her hands. They scarcely exchanged a
word as they walked all that way along the high road, and up the avenue,
Paul following, though they did not see him. In the hall, Janet
separated herself from her father.
“It is Lady Markham _I_ want to see,” she said, with a familiarity and
decision which amazed her father, who knew nothing about her previous
visit. Janet recognised the footman Charles who had admitted her before.
“You know that Lady Markham will see me,” she said; “show me to Lady
Markham’s room, please.”
Spears did not understand it, but he looked on with a vague smile. He
himself was quite content to wait in the hall until Paul should appear.
He was standing there vaguely remarking the things about him when Paul
made his appearance. He gave his former friend his hand, but there was
little said between them. Paul took him into the library which for the
moment was vacant. It seemed to him that it would be easier to answer
questions there where already he had often suffered interrogation and
censure. And he did not know--he could not divine what Spears was about
to say.
“When do you go?” the young man said.
“We have everything settled to sail on the 21st. That is five days from
now.”
“I fear,” said Paul, “it must have been very inconvenient for you coming
here. I am sorry, very sorry, you have taken so much trouble. I should
have gone to you, but my mind has been in a whirl; the whole thing looks
to me like a dream.”
“It is a dream that has given some of your friends a great deal of
trouble. Take care, my good fellow, another time how you fall into
dreams like this. It is best to take a little more trouble at the
beginning to know your own mind,” he said slowly, tugging at his pocket.
“But after all you came to yourself before there was any harm done,
Markham. If it had happened in the middle of the ocean, or when we had
got to our destination, it would have been still more awkward. As it
was, it has been possible to recover your property,” said Spears, at
last producing a packet out of its receptacle with a certain glow of
suppressed disdain in his countenance. He got out a little bag of money
as he spoke, and laid it on the table, then produced his pocket-book,
which he opened, and took something out.
“What does this mean, Spears?”
“It means what is very simple, Paul--mere A B C work, as you should
know. It is the amount of your subscriptions--what you have contributed
in one way or another. I won’t trouble you with the items,” he said;
“they are all on a piece of paper with the bank notes. And now here is
the whole affair over,” said Spears with the motion of snapping his
fingers, “and no harm done. Few young men are able to say as much of
their vagaries. Perhaps if you had involved yourself with a higher
class, with people more like yourself, it might not have been equally
easy to get away.”
“But this is impossible! this cannot be!” cried Paul. “I intended
nothing of the kind. Spears, you humble me to the dust. You must not--it
is not possible that I can accept this. I intended--I made sure----”
“You meant to leave us yourself, but to let your money go as alms to the
revolutionaries?” cried Spears, with a thrill of agitation in his voice
which seemed to make the room ring. “Yes, I suppose you might have
fallen among people who would have permitted it. (The strange thing was
that most of the members of the society had been of this opinion, and
that it was all that Spears could do to rescue the money which the
others thought lawfully forfeited.) But we are not of that kind. We
don’t want filthy money with the man away, or even with his heart away.”
The orator held his head high; there was a certain scorn about his
gestures, about his mouth. He tried to show by a careless smile and air
that what he was doing was of no importance, an easy and certain step of
which there could be no doubt; but the thrill of excited feeling in him
could not be got out of his voice. And Paul, perhaps, had even more
excuse for excitement.
“I will not take a farthing of the money,” he said.
“Then you will carry it back yourself, my lad. I have washed my hands of
it. If you think I will permit a penny of yours to go into our treasury
apart from yourself and your sympathy and your help! I would have taken
all that and welcome. I have told you already--to little use--what you
were to me, Paul Markham. The Bible is right after all about idols,
though many is the word I’ve spoken against it. I made an idol of you,
and lo! my image is broken into a thousand pieces. It is like giving the
thing a kick the more,” he said, with a sudden burst of harsh laughter,
“to think when it was all over and ended that I would take the money!
It shows how much you knew me.”
“Then it is a mere matter of personal offence and disappointment,
Spears?”
“Offence!” he cried. “Yes, offence if you like the word--as it is
offence when your friend puts a knife into you. The first thing you feel
is surprise. Who could believe it? He! to stab you, when you were
leaning upon him. It takes all a man’s credulity to believe that. But
when it is done--” he added with one of the sudden smiles which used to
illuminate his rugged countenance, but now lighted it up with a gleam of
angry melancholy, just touched with humour, “you don’t take money from
him, Paul.”
“Nor does he take it from you,” said Paul, quickly. “Spears, this is all
folly. It is not a matter of passion, as you make it. Say I am as much
in the wrong as you like. I did not know my own mind. I have had enough
to go through in the last six weeks to teach me many things more
important than my own mind. I can’t go with you; I have found out
that--but what then? I don’t lose my interest in you; we don’t cease to
be friends. As for stabbing you, putting a knife into you--that is
ludicrous,” he cried, with an angry laugh. “It is like a couple of
lovers in a French novel; not two Englishmen and friends.”
“I’ll tell you what, Paul,” said the other, taking no notice; “if all
had been going well with you, why I could have put up with it. A place
like this makes a man think. I’ve told you so before. It’s like being a
prince on a small scale. Had I been born a prince I might have been a
tyrant, but I shouldn’t have abandoned my throne; and no more would you,
I always thought, if you once felt the charm of it. But when all that
was over, Paul, when you had lost everything, come down from your high
estate, and felt,” cried Spears, with an outburst of vehement feeling,
“the burning and the bitterness of disappointment, that you should have
abandoned us, and the cause, and me--your friend and father, _then_!”
He turned away, and walked from end to end of the long room. As for
Paul, he did not say a word. What could he say? how could he explain
that it was precisely then, when he had lost everything, that those
strange companions had become most intolerable to him. They were
bearable when his choice of them was a folly, and his own position
utterly different from theirs; but as the distance lessened, the breach
grew more apparent. This however he could not say. Nor had he a word to
answer when Spears called himself his father. What did it mean? and
where was Janet, whom he had seen entering the house, but who had
disappeared? Paul’s thoughts veered away from the chief subject of the
interview, while Spears, walking up and down the room, talked on. The
money lay on the table, neither taking any further notice of it. It was
found there by Gus when he came in an hour after, lying upon the table
in the same spot. Gus thought it a temptation to the servants, and threw
it into a drawer. He was not used to careless dealing with money, and he
looked out very curiously at the strange man who was walking up and down
the avenue with Paul, talking much and gesticulating largely. This was a
kind of man altogether apart from all Sir Gus’s experiences, and his
curiosity was much exercised. Was it perhaps an electioneering agent
come here to talk of the representation of Farborough, and Sir William’s
vacant seat? Gus stood at the window and watched, for he had a great
deal of curiosity, with very keen eyes.