It was a violent beginning; but perhaps it was as well, on the whole,
that the idea of Theo's future supremacy should have been got into the
heads of the duller portion of the family. Warrender was so anxious that
there should be no unnecessary haste in his mother's departure, and
so ready to find out a pleasant place where they could all go, that
everything that had been harsh was forgotten. Indeed, it is very possible
in a family that a great many harsh things may be said and forgotten,
with little harm done--boys and girls who have been brought up in the
same nursery having generally insulted as well as caressed each other
with impunity from their earliest years. This happy effect of the bonds
of nature was no doubt made easier by the placid characters of the girls,
who had no inclination to brood over an unkindness, nor any habit of
thinking what was meant by a hasty word. On the contrary, when they
remembered it in the morning, after their sound night's sleep, they said
to each other that Theo could not possibly have meant it; that he must
have been out of temper, poor fellow. They even consented to listen and
to look when, with unusual amiability, he called them out to see what
trees he intended to cut down, and what he meant to do. Minnie and
Chatty indeed bewailed every individual tree, and kissed the big,
tottering old elm, which had menaced the nursery window since ever they
could remember, and shut out the light. "Dear old thing!" they said,
shedding a tear or two upon its rough bark. "It would be dear indeed if
it brought down the wall and smashed the old play-room," their brother
said,--an argument which even to these natural conservatives bore, now
that the first step had been taken, a certain value. Sometimes it is
not amiss to go too far when the persons you mean to convince are a
little obtuse. They entered into the question almost with warmth at
last. The flower garden would be so much improved, for one thing; there
never had been sun enough for the flowers, and the big trees had taken,
the gardener said, all the goodness out of the soil. Perhaps after all
Theo might be right. Of course he knew so much more of the world!
"And, mother, before you go, you should see--Lady Markland," Theo said.
There was a little hesitation in his voice before he pronounced the
name, but of this no one took any notice, at the time.
"I have been wondering what I should do. There has been no intimacy, not
more than acquaintanceship."
"After what has happened you surely cannot call yourselves mere
acquaintances, you and she."
"Perhaps not that: but it is not as if she had thrown herself upon my
sympathy, Theo. She was very self-contained. Nobody could doubt that she
felt it dreadfully; but she did not fling herself upon me, as many other
women would have done."
"I should not think that was at all her character," said Warrender.
"No, I don't suppose it is her character; and then there were already
two of her, so to speak,--that child----"
"The only thing I dislike in her," he said hastily, "is that child. What
good can a creature of that age do her? And it must be so bad for the
boy."
"I don't know about the good it can do her. You don't any of you
understand," Mrs. Warrender said, with a moistening of her eyes, "the
good there is in a child. As young people grow up they become more
important, no doubt,--oh yes, far more important,--and take their own
place. But a little thing that belongs to you, that has no thoughts but
what are your thoughts, that never wants to be away from you----"
"Very unnatural," said the young man severely, "or else fictitious. The
little thing, you may be sure, would much rather be playing with its own
companions; or else it must be an unhealthy little sentimental----"
Mrs. Warrender shook her head, but said no more. She gave him a look
half remonstrating, half smiling. I had a little boy once, it was on her
lips to say: but she forbore. How was the young man, beginning his own
individual career, thinking of everything in the world rather than of
such innocent consolation as can be given to a woman by a child, to
understand that mystery? She whose daughters, everybody said, must be
"such companions," and her son "such a support," looked back wistfully
upon the days when they were little children; but then she was an
unreasonable woman. She was roused from a little visionary journey back
into her own experiences by the sound of Theo's voice going on:--
"----should call and ask," he was saying. "She might want you. She must
want some one, and they say she has no relations. I think certainly you
should call and ask. Shall I order the brougham for you this afternoon?
I would drive you over myself, but perhaps, in the circumstances, it
would be more decorous----"
"It must be the brougham; if you think I ought to go so soon----"
"Well, mother, you are the best judge; but I suppose that if women can
be of any use to each other it must be at such a--at a time when other
people are shut out."
Mrs. Warrender was much surprised by his fervour: but she remembered that
her husband had been very punctilious about visiting, as men in the
country often are, the duty of keeping up all social connections falling
upon their wives, and not on themselves. The brougham was ordered,
accordingly, and she set out alone, though Minnie would willingly have
strained a point to accompany her. "Don't you think, mamma, that as I am
much nearer her own age she might like me to go?" that young lady said.
But here Theo came in again with his newly acquired authority. "Mother
is the right person," he said.
She did not feel much like the right person as she drove along. Lady
Markland had not wanted consolation; the shock had turned her to stone.
And then she had her child, and seemed to need no other minister. But if
it pleased Theo, that was motive enough. Mrs. Warrender reflected, as
she pursued her way, upon the kind of squire he would make, different
from his father,--oh, very different; not the ordinary type of the
English country gentleman. He would not hunt, he would shoot very
little; but her husband had not been enthusiastic in either of these
pursuits. He would not care, perhaps, for county business or for the
quarter sessions; he would have too much contempt for the country
bumpkins to be popular with the farmers or wield political influence.
Very likely (she thought), he would not live much at the Warren, but
keep rooms at Oxford, or perhaps go to London. She had no fear that he
would ever "go wrong." That was as great an impossibility as that he
should be prime minister or Archbishop of Canterbury. But yet it was
a little odd that he should be so particular about keeping up the
accidental connection with Lady Markland. This showed that he was not
so indifferent to retaining his place in the county and keeping up all
local ties as she thought. As for any other ideas that Theo might
associate with the young widow,--the widow whose husband lay still
unburied,--nothing of the kind entered Mrs. Warrender's head.
The nakedness of the house seemed to be made more conspicuous by the
blank of all the closed windows, the white blinds down, the white walls
shining like a sort of colourless monument in the blaze of the westering
sun. The sound of the wheels going up the open road which was called an
avenue seemed a kind of insult to the stillness which brooded over the
house of death. When the old butler came solemnly down the great steps,
the small country lady, who was not on Lady Markland's level, felt her
little pretence at intimacy quite unjustifiable. The butler came down
the steps with a solemn air to receive a card and inquiries, and to give
the stereotyped reply that her ladyship was as well as could be looked
for: but lifted astonished eyes, not without a gleam of insolence in
them, when Mrs. Warrender made the unexpected demand if Lady Markland
would see her. See _you_! If it had been the duchess, perhaps! was the
commentary legible in his face. He went in, however, with the card in
his hand, while she waited, half indignant, half amused, with little
doubt what the reply would be. But the reply was not at all what she
expected. After a minute or two of delay, another figure, quite different
from that of the butler, appeared on the steps: a tall man, with very
thin, unsteady legs, a face on which the ravages of age were visibly
repaired by many devices unknown to its simpler victims, with an
eye-glass in his eye and a hesitation in his speech. He was not unknown
to the society about, though he showed himself but rarely in it, and was
not beloved when he appeared. He was Lord Markland's uncle, the late
lord's only brother,--he who was supposed to have led the foolish young
man astray. Mrs. Warrender looked at him with a certain horror, as he
came walking gingerly down the steps. He made a very elaborate bow at
the carriage door,--if he were really Satan in person, as many people
thought, he was a weak-kneed Satan,--and gulped and stammered a good
deal (in which imperfections we need not follow him) as he made his
compliments. His niece, he said, had charged him with the kindest
messages, but she was ill and lying down. Would Mrs. Warrender excuse
her for to-day?
"She is most grateful for so much kindness; and there is a favour--ah, a
favour which I have to ask. It is, if you would add to your many kind
services----"
"I have rendered no kind services, Mr. Markland. The accident happened
at our doors."
"Ah, no less kind for that. My niece is very grateful, and I--and I,
too,--that goes without saying. If we might ask you to come to-morrow,
to remain with her while the last rites----"
"To remain with her! Are you sure that is Lady Markland's wish?"
"My dear lady, it is mine, and hers,--hers, too; again, that goes without
saying. She has no relations. She wants countenance,--countenance and
support; and who could give them so fitly as yourself? In the same
circumstances: accept my sincerest regrets. Mr. Warrender was, I have
alway heard, an excellent person, and must be a great loss. But you have
a son, I think."
"Yes, I have a son."
"Who has been here twice to inquire? Most friendly, most friendly, I am
sure. I see, therefore, that you take an interest--Then may we calculate
upon you, Wednesday, as early as will suit you?"
"I will come," said Mrs. Warrender, still hesitating, "if you are quite
sure it is Lady Markland's wish."
While he repeated his assurances, another member of the family appeared
at the door, little Geoff, in a little black dress, which showed his
paleness, his meagre, small person, insignificance, and sickliness more
than ever. He had been there, it would seem, looking on while his uncle
spoke. At this moment he came down deliberately, one step at a time,
till his head was on a level with the carriage window. "It is quite
true," he said. "Mother's in her own room. She's tired, but she wants
you, if you'll come; anyhow, _I_ want you, please, if you'll come. They
say I'm to go, but not mamma: and you know she couldn't be left by
herself; uncle thinks so, and so do I."
The little thing stood shuffling from one foot to another, his hands
in his pockets, his little gray eyes looking everywhere but at the
compassionate face turned to him from the carriage window. There was
a curious ridiculous repetition in the child's attitude of Theo's
assertion of his rights. But Mrs. Warrender's heart was soft to the
child. "I don't think she wants me," she said. "I will do anything at
such a time, but----"
"I want you," said Geoff. He gave her a momentary glance, and she could
see that the little colourless eyes had tears in them. "I shall have to
go and leave her, and who will take care of her? She is to have a thing
like yours upon her head." He was ready to sob, but kept himself in with
a great effort, swallowing the little convulsion of nature. His mother's
widow's cap was more to Geoff than his father's death; at least it was a
visible sign of something tremendous which had happened, more telling
than the mere absence of one who had been so often absent. "Come, Mrs.
Warrender," he said, with a hoarseness of passion in his little voice.
"I can leave her if you are there."
"I will come for your sake, Geoff," she said, holding out her hand, and
with tears in her eyes. He was not big enough to reach it from where he
stood, and the tears in her voice affected the little hero. He dug his
own hands deeper into his pockets, and shuffled off without any reply.
It was the uncle, whose touch she instinctively shrank from, who took
and bowed over Mrs. Warrender's hand. The Honourable John bowed over it
as if he were about to kiss it, and might have actually touched the black
glove with his carmine lips (would they have left a mark?) had not she
drawn it away.
What a curious office to be thus imposed upon her! To give countenance
and support, or to take care of, as little Geoff said, this young woman
whom she scarcely knew, who had not in the depth of trouble made any
claim upon her sympathy. Mrs. Warrender looked forward with anything but
satisfaction to the task. But when she told her tale it was received
with a sort of enthusiasm. "Oh, how nice of her!" cried Minnie and
Chatty; and their mother saw, with half amusement, that they thought all
the more of her because her companionship had been sought for by Lady
Markland. And in Warrender's eyes a fire lighted up. He turned away his
head, and after a moment said, "You will be very tender to her, mother."
Mrs. Warrender was too much confused and bewildered to make any reply.
When the next day came she went, with reluctance and a sense of
self-abnegation, which was not gratifying, but painful, to fulfil this
office. "She does not want me, I know," Mrs. Warrender said to her son,
who accompanied her, to form part of the cortege, in the little brougham
which had been to Markland but once or twice in so many years, and this
last week had traversed the road from one house to another almost every
day. "I think you are mistaken, mother; but even so, if you can do her
any good," said Theo, with unusual enthusiasm. His mother thought it
strange that he should show so much feeling on the subject; and she went
through the great hall and up the stairs, through the depths of the vast
silent house, to Lady Markland's room, with anticipations as little
agreeable as any with which woman ever went to an office of kindness.
Lady Markland's room was on the other side of the house, looking upon
a landscape totally different from that through which her visitor had
come. The window was open, the light unshaded, and Lady Markland sat at
a writing-table covered with papers, as little like a broken-hearted
widow as could be supposed. She was dressed, indeed, in the official
dress of heavy crape, and wore (for once) the cap which to Geoff had
been so overpowering a symbol of sorrow; but, save for these signs, and
perhaps a little additional paleness in her never high complexion, was
precisely as Mrs. Warrender had seen her since she had risen from her
girlish bloom into the self-possession of a wife, matured and stilled by
premature experience. She came forward, holding out her hand, when her
visitor, with a reluctance and diffidence quite unsuitable to her
superior age, slowly advanced.
"Thank you," she said at once, "for coming. I know without a word how
disagreeable it is to you, how little you wished it. You have come
against your will, and you think against my will, Mrs. Warrender; but
indeed it is not so. It is a comfort and help to me to have you."
"If that is so, Lady Markland----"
"That is why you have come," she said. "It is so. I know you have come
unwillingly. You heard--they have taken the boy from me."
"But only for this day."
"Only for the hour, I hope. It is supposed to be too much for me to go."
Here she smiled, with a nervous movement of her face. "Nothing is too
much for me. You know a little about it, but not all. Do you remember
him when we were married, Mrs. Warrender? I recollect you were one of
the first people I saw."
This sudden plunge into the subject for which she was least prepared--for
all her ideas of condolence had been driven out of her mind by the young
woman's demeanour, the open window, the cheerful and commonplace air of
the room--confused Mrs. Warrender greatly. "I remember Lord Markland
almost all his life," she said.
"Here is the miniature of him that was done for me before we were
married," said Lady Markland, rising hurriedly, and bringing it from
the table. "Look at it; did you ever see a more hopeful face? He was so
fresh; he was so full of spirits. Who could have thought there was any
canker in that face?"
"There was not then," said the elder woman, looking through a mist of
natural tears--the tears of that profound regret for a life lost which
are more bitter, almost, than personal sorrow--at the miniature. She
remembered him so well, and how everybody thought all would come right
with the poor young fellow when he was so happily married and had a
home.
"Ah, but there was!--nobody told me; though if all the world had told me
it would not have made any difference. Mrs. Warrender, he is like that
now. Everything else is gone. He looks as he did at twenty, as good and
as pure. What do you think it means? Does it mean anything? Or is there
only some physical interpretation of it, as these horrible men say?"
"My dear," said Mrs. Warrender, quite subdued, "they say it means that
all is pardoned, and that they have entered into peace."
"Peace," she said. "I was afraid you were going to say rest; and he who
had never laboured wanted no rest. Peace,--where the wicked cease from
troubling, is that what you mean? He had no time to repent."
"My dear--oh, I am not clear, I can't tell you; but who can tell what
was in his mind between the time he saw his danger and the blow that
stunned him? If my boy had done everything against me, and all in a
moment turned and called to me, would I refuse him? And is not God,"
cried one mother to the other, taking her hands, "better than we?"
It was she who had come to be the comforter who wept, tears streaming
down her cheeks. The other held her hands, and looked in her face
with dry feverish eyes. "Your boy," she said slowly, "he is good and
kind,--he is good and kind. Will my boy be like him? Or do you think
there is an inheritance in that as in other things?"