That night Charlie had need of all his diplomatic talents. Before he
returned from Oxford, his mother, by way of precaution lest Agnes should
betray the sudden and mysterious visit of Miss Anastasia to Marian,
contrived to let her elder daughter know mysteriously, something of the
scope and object of the sudden journey for which it was necessary to
prepare her brother, driving Agnes, as was to be supposed, into a very
fever of suppressed excitement, joy, triumph, and anxiety. Mrs Atheling,
conscious, hurried, and studying deeply not to betray herself—and Agnes,
watching every one, stopping questions, and guarding off suspicions with
prudence much too visible—were quite enough of themselves to rouse every
other member of the little company to lively pursuit after the secret.
Charlie was assailed by every shape and form of question: Where was he
going—what was he to do? He showed no cleverness, we are bound to
acknowledge, in evading these multitudinous interrogations; he turned an
impenetrable front upon them, and made the most commonplace answers,
making vast incursions all the time into Hannah’s cakes and Mamma’s
bread-and-butter.
“He had to go back immediately to the office; he believed he had got a
new client for old Foggo,” said Charlie, with the utmost coolness;
“making no secret of it at all,” according to Mamma’s indignant
commentary.
“To the office!—are you only going home, after all?” cried Marian.
“I’ll see when I get there,” answered Charlie; “there’s something to be
done abroad. I shouldn’t wonder if they sent _me_. I say, I wish you’d
all come home at once, and make things comfortable. There’s my poor
father fighting it out with Susan. I should not stand it if it was me.”
“Hold your peace, Charlie, and don’t be rude,” said Mrs Atheling. “But,
indeed, I wish we were at home, and out of everybody’s way.”
“Who is everybody?” said Louis. “I, who am going myself, can wish quite
sincerely that we were all at home; but the addition is mysterious—who
is in anybody’s way?”
“Mamma means to wish us all out of reach of the Evil Eye,” said Agnes, a
little romantically.
“No such thing, my dear. I daresay we could do _him_ a great deal more
harm than he can do us,” said Mrs Atheling, with sudden importance and
dignity; then she paused with a certain solemnity, so that everybody
could perceive the grave self-restraint of the excellent mother, and
that she could say a great deal more if she chose.
“But no one thinks what I am to do when you are all gone,” said Rachel;
and her tearful face happily diverted her companions from investigating
and from concealing the secret. There remained among them all, however,
a certain degree of excitement. Charlie was returning home
to-morrow—specially called home on business!—perhaps to go abroad upon
the same! The fact stirred all those young hearts with something not
unlike envy. This boy seemed to have suddenly leaped in one day into a
man.
And it was natural enough that, hearing of this, the mind of Louis
should burn and chafe with fierce impatience. Charlie, who was perfectly
undemonstrative of his thoughts and imaginations, was a very boy to
Louis—yet there was need and occasion for Charlie in the crowd of life,
when no one thought upon this fiery and eager young man. It was late
that night when Louis left this only home and haven which he had ever
known; and though he would fain have left Rachel there, his little
sister would not remain behind him, but clung to his arm with a strange
presentiment of something about to happen, which she could not explain.
Louis scarcely answered a word to the quiet talk of Rachel as they went
upon their way to the Hall. With difficulty, and even with impatience,
he curbed his rapid stride to her timid little footsteps, and hurried
her along without a glance at the surrounding scene, memorable and
striking as it was. The broad moonlight flooded over the noble park of
Winterbourne. The long white-columned front of the house—which was a
great Grecian house, pallid, vast, and imposing—shone in the white light
like a screen of marble; and on the great lawn immediately before it
were several groups of people, dwarfed into minute miraculous figures by
the great space and silence, and the intense illumination, which was far
more striking and particular than the broader light of day. The chances
were that Louis did not see them, as he plunged on, in the blindness of
preoccupation, keeping no path, through light and shadow, through the
trees and underwood, and across the broad unshaded greensward, where no
one could fail to perceive him. His little sister clung to his arm in an
agony of fear, grief, and confidence—trembling for something about to
happen with an overpowering tremor—yet holding a vague faith in her
brother, strange and absorbing. She said, “Louis, Louis!” in her tone of
appeal and entreaty. He did not hear her, but struck across the broad
visible park, in the full stream of the moonlight, looking neither to
the right hand nor to the left. As they approached, Rachel could not
even hear any conversation among the groups on the lawn; and it was
impossible to suppose that they had not been seen. Louis’s abrupt direct
course, over the turf and through the brushwood, must have attracted the
notice of bystanders even in the daylight; it was still more remarkable
now, when noiseless and rapid, through the intense white radiance and
the perfect stillness, the stately figure of the young man, and his
timid, graceful little sister, came directly forward in face of the
spectators. These spectators were all silent, looking on with a certain
fascination, and Rachel could not tell whether Louis was even conscious
that any one was there.
But before they could turn aside into the road which led to the Hall
door—a road to which Rachel most anxiously endeavoured to guide her
brother—they were suddenly arrested by the voice of Lord Winterbourne.
“I must put a stop to this,” said his lordship suddenly and loudly, with
so evident a reference to themselves, that even Rachel stopped without
knowing it. “Here, young fellow, stop and give an account of
yourself—what do you mean by wandering about my park at midnight, eh? I
know your poaching practices. Setting snares, I suppose, and dragging
about this girl as a protection. Get into your kennel, you mean dog; is
this how you repay the shelter I have given you all your life?”
“It would be a fit return,” said Louis. He did not speak so loud, but
with a tremble of scorn and bitterness and intense youthful feeling in
his voice, before which the echo of his persecutor’s went out and died,
like an ignoble thing. “If I were, as you say,” repeated the young
man—“setting snares for your game, or for your wealth, or for your life,
you know it would be a fit return.”
“Yes, I live a peaceful life with this villanous young incendiary under
my roof!” said Lord Winterbourne. “I’ll tell you what, you young
ruffian, if nothing better can restrain you, locks and bars shall. Oh,
no chance of appealing to _my_ pity, with that fool of a girl upon your
arm! You think you can defy me, year after year, because I have given
charity to your base blood. My lad, you shall learn to know me better
before another week is over our heads. Why, gentlemen, you perceive, by
his own confession, I stand in danger of my life.”
“Winterbourne,” said some one over his shoulder, in a reproving tone,
“_you_ should be the last man in the world to taunt this unfortunate lad
with his base blood.”
Lord Winterbourne turned upon his heel with a laugh of insult which sent
the wild blood dancing in an agony of shame, indignation, and rage even
into Rachel’s woman’s face. “Well,” said the voice of their tyrant, “I
have supported the hound—what more would you have? His mother was a
pretty fool, but she had her day. There’s more of her conditions in the
young villain than mine. I have no idea of playing the romantic father
to such a son—not I!”
Louis did not know that he threw his sister off his arm before he sprang
into the midst of these half-dozen gentlemen. She did not know herself,
as she stood behind clenching her small fingers together painfully, with
all the burning vehemence of a woman’s passion. The young man sprang
forward with the bound of a young tiger. His voice was hoarse with
passion, not to be restrained. “It is a lie—a wilful, abominable lie!”
cried Louis fiercely, confronting as close as a wrestler the ghastly
face of his tyrant, who shrank before him. “I am no son of yours—you
know I am no son of yours! I owe you the hateful bread I have been
compelled to eat—nothing more. I am without a name—I may be of base
blood—but I warn you for your life, if you dare repeat this last insult.
It is a lie! I tell every one who condescends to call you friend; and I
appeal to God, who knows that you know it is a lie! I may be the son of
any other wretch under heaven, but I am not yours. I disown it with
loathing and horror. Do you hear me?—you know the truth in your heart,
and so do I!”
Lord Winterbourne fell back, step by step, before the young man, who
pressed upon him close and rapid, with eyes which flamed and burned with
a light which he could not bear. The insulting smile upon his bloodless
face had not passed from it yet. His eyes, shifting, restless, and
uneasy, expressed nothing. He was not a coward, and he was sufficiently
quick-witted on ordinary occasions, but he had nothing whatever to
answer to this vehement and unexpected accusation. He made an
unintelligible appeal with his hand to his companions, and lifted up his
face to the moonlight like a spectre, but he did not answer by a single
word.
“Young man,” said the gentleman who had spoken before, “I acknowledge
your painful position, and that you have been addressed in a most
unseemly manner—but no provocation should make you forget your natural
duty. Lord Winterbourne must have had a motive for maintaining you as he
has done. I put it to you calmly, dispassionately—what motive could he
possibly have had, except one?”
“Ah!” said Louis, with a sudden and violent start, “he must have had a
motive—it is true; he would not waste his cruel powers, even for
cruelty’s sake. If any man can tell me what child it was his interest to
bastardise and defame, there may be hope and a name for me yet.”
At these words, Lord Winterbourne advanced suddenly with a singular
eagerness. “Let us have done with this foolery,” he said in a voice
which was certainly less steady than usual; “I presume we can all be
better employed than listening to the vapourings of this foolish boy. Go
in, my lad, and learn a lesson by your folly to-night. I pass it over,
simply because you have shown yourself to be a fool.”
“I, however, do not pass it over, my lord,” said Louis, who had calmed
down after the most miraculous fashion, to the utter amazement of his
sister. “Thank you for the provision you have given us, such as it is.
Some time we may settle scores upon that subject. My sister and I must
find another shelter to-night.”
The bystanders were half disposed to smile at the young man’s heroical
withdrawal—but they were all somewhat amazed to find that Lord
Winterbourne was as far as possible from sharing their amusement. He
called out immediately in an access of passion to stop the young
ruffian, incendiary, mischief-maker;—called loudly upon the servants,
who began to appear at the open door—ordered Louis to his own apartment
with the most unreasonable vehemence, and finally turned upon Rachel,
calling her to give up the young villain’s arm, and for her life to go
home.
But Rachel was wound to the fever point as well as her brother. “No, no,
it is all true he has said,” cried Rachel. “I know it, like Louis; we
are not your children—you dare not call us so now. I never believed you
were our father—never all my life.”
She exclaimed these words hastily in her low eager voice, as Louis drew
her arm through his, and hurried her away. The young man struck again
across the broad park and through the moonlight, while behind, Lord
Winterbourne called to his servants to go after the fugitives—to bring
that fellow back. The men only stared at their master, looked helplessly
at each other, and went off on vain pretended searches, with no better
intention than to keep out of Louis’s way, until prudence came to the
aid of Lord Winterbourne. “I shall scarcely think my life in safety
while that young fool wanders wild about the country,” he said to his
friends, as he returned within doors; but his friends, one and all,
thought this a very odd scene.
Meanwhile Louis made his rapid way with his little sister on his arm out
over the glorious moonlit park of Winterbourne, away from the only home
he had ever known—out to the night and to the world. Rachel, leaning
closely upon him, scarcely so much as looked up, as her faltering
footstep toiled to keep up with her brother. He, holding his proud young
head high, neither turned nor glanced aside, but pressed on straight
forward, as if to some visionary certain end before his eye. Then they
came out at last to the white silent road, lying ghostlike under the
excess of light—the quiet road which led through the village where all
the houses slept and everything was still, not a curl of smoke in the
moonlight, nor a house-dog’s bark in the silence. It was midnight, vast
and still, a great desolate uninhabited world. There was not a door open
to them, nor a place where they could rest. But on pressed Louis, with
the rapid step and unhesitating course of one who hastened to some
definite conclusion. “Where are we going—where shall we go?” said poor
little Rachel, drooping on his shoulder. Her brother did not hear her.
He was not selfish, but he had not that superhuman consideration for
others which might have broken the fiery inspiration of his own
momentous thoughts, and made him think of the desolate midnight, and the
houseless and outcast condition which were alone present to the mind of
Rachel. He did not see a vast homeless solitude—a vagabond and
disgraceful wandering, in this midnight walk. He saw a new world before
him, such as had never glanced before across his fancy. “He must have
had a notion” he muttered to himself. Rachel heard him sadly, and took
the words as a matter of course. “Where are we to go?”—that was a more
immediately important question to the simple mind of Rachel.
The Old Wood Lodge was as deep asleep as any house in the village. They
paused, reluctant, both of them, to awake their friends within, and went
back, pacing rapidly between the house of the Athelings and that of the
Rector. The September night was cold, and Rachel was timid of that
strange midnight world out of doors. They seemed to have nothing for it
but pacing up and down upon the grassy road, where they were at least
within sight of a friendly habitation, till morning came.
There was one light in one window of the Old Wood House; Rachel’s eye
went wandering to it wistfully, unawares: If the Rector knew—the Rector,
who once would have been kind if Louis would have let him. But as if in
very response to her thoughts, the Rector, when they came back to this
point again, was standing, like themselves, in the moonlight, looking
over the low wall. He called to them rather authoritatively, asking what
they did there—but started, and changed his tone into one of wondering
interest and compassion when Rachel lifted her pale face to him, with
the tears in her eyes. He hastened to the gate at once, and called them
to enter. “Nay, nay, no hesitation—come in at once, that she may have
rest and shelter,” said the Rector in a peremptory tone, which for the
first time in his life Louis had no thought of resenting. He went in
without a word, leading his little sister. Perhaps it was the first
great thing that ever had been done in all her life for Rachel’s
sake—for the sake of the delicate girl, who was half a child though a
woman in years,—for sake of her tenderness, her delicate frame, her
privilege of weakness. The two haughty young men went in silently
together into this secluded house, which never opened its doors to any
guest. It was an invalid’s home, and some one was always at hand for its
ailing mistress. By-and-by Rachel, in the exhaustion of great
excitement, fell asleep in a little quiet room looking over that moonlit
park of Winterbourne. Louis, who was in no mood for sleep, watched
below, full of eager and unquiet thoughts. They had left Winterbourne
Hall suddenly; the Rector asked no further questions, expressed no
wonder, and left the young man who had repelled him once, with a lofty
and dignified hospitality, to his meditations or repose.