GUY DARRELL'S VIEWS IN THE INVITATION TO WAIFE.
Lionel had but inadequately represented, for he could but imperfectly
comprehend, the profound impression made upon Guy Darrell by George
Morley's disclosures. Himself so capable of self-sacrifice, Darrell was
the man above all others to regard with an admiring reverence, which
partook of awe, a self-immolation that seemed almost above humanity--
to him who set so lofty an estimate on good name and fair repute. He had
not only willingly permitted, but even urged Lionel to repair to Waife
and persuade the old man to come to Fawley. With Waife he was prepared
to enter into the full discussion of Sophy's alleged parentage. But
apart even from considerations that touched a cause of perplexity which
disquieted himself, Darrell was eager to see and to show homage to the
sufferer, in whom he recognised a hero's dignity. And if he had sent by
Lionel no letter from himself to Waife, it was only because, in the
exquisite delicacy of feeling that belonged to him, when his best
emotions were aroused, he felt it just that the whole merit and the whole
delight of reparation to the wrongs of William Losely should, without
direct interposition of his own, be left exclusively to Charles
Haughton's son. Thus far it will be acknowledged that Guy Darrell was
not one of those men who, once warmed to magnanimous impulse, are cooled
by a thrifty prudence when action grows out of the impulses. Guy Darrell
could not be generous by drachin and scruple. Not apt to say, "I
apologise,"--slow to say, "I repent"; very--very--very slow indeed to
say, "I forgive"; yet let him once say, "I repent," "I apologise," or "I
forgive," and it was said with his whole heart and soul.
But it must not be supposed that, in authorising Lionel to undertake the
embassy to Waife, or in the anticipation of what might pass between Waife
and himself should the former consent to revisit the old house from which
he had been so scornfully driven, Darrell had altered, or dreamed of
altering, one iota of his resolves against a Union between Lionel and
Sophy. True, Lionel had induced him to say--
"Could it be indisputably proved that no drop of Jasper Losely's blood
were in this girl's veins--that she were the lawful child of honest
parents, however humble--my right to stand between her and yourself would
cease." But a lawyer's experience is less credulous than a lover's hope.
And to Darrell's judgment it was wholly improbable that any honest
parents, however humble, should have yielded their child to a knave like
Jasper, while it was so probable that his own persuasion was well
founded, and that she was Jasper's daughter, though not Matilda's.
The winter evening had closed, George and Darrell were conversing in the
library; the theme, of course, was Waife; and Darrell listened with vivid
interest to George's graphic accounts of the old man's gentle playful
humour--with its vague desultory undercurrents of poetic fancy or subtle
wisdom. But when George turned to speak of Sophy's endearing, lovely
nature, and, though cautiously, to intimate an appeal on her behalf to
Darrell's sense of duty, or susceptibility to kindly emotions, the proud
man's brow be came knit, and his stately air evinced displeasure.
Fortunately, just at a moment when further words might have led to a
permanent coldness between men so disposed to esteem each other, they
heard the sound of wheels on the frosty ground--the shrill bell at the
porch-door.