“Good morning, Miss Stainforth.”
“Good morning,” Dolly replied, with a forbidding face.
“Is there any room in your carriage? I am going only as far as
Birtwood.”
“There is always room in my carriage,” said Dolly, “for it is a ladies’
carriage. This gentleman got in in a hurry just as we were starting, but
he is to leave if any ladies come and want his place. I could not let
any other gentleman come in, but if Ada is with you----”
George Westland’s countenance fell. It was a heavy and not a lovely
face, but there was feeling in it, and a flicker of hope and pleasure
had made his eyes bright. Now the light went out of it suddenly. He
uttered a blank “Oh!” of disappointment, and stood looking at her with
a vacant look. Her companion in the carriage was not a likely person to
excite any young lover’s jealousy, but yet----
“No, Ada is not with me,” he said, fixing an anxious look upon the
stranger, who had retired to the other window, and was ostentatiously
abstracting himself from the conversation. (She would surely never have
anything to say to a bit of a little old fellow like that, poor George
thought within himself.) He lingered at the window, not knowing what to
say more, for conversation was not his forte. At last he remembered a
subject which could not fail to be successful. “Have you heard,” he
said--“but of course you must have heard--that Sir William is ill? He
has been to Oxford--something about Paul. What Paul has been doing, I
don’t know,” the young man went on with increasing vigour, “but
something to make his people uneasy. And Sir William is ill; some one
said just now they were bringing him home to-day.”
“Sir William ill! Oh, no, I have not heard anything about it. It must be
a mistake,” said Dolly, “for I am sure the children did not know, and
they would be sure to hear.”
“I am afraid it is quite true,” said the young man. But with this he had
to make an abrupt disappearance, as the train was about setting off
again. When he had gone, Mr. Markham Gaveston drew near from the other
end of the carriage.
“I did not want to interfere with your conversation,” he said, with
comical demureness. “He was not so bold as I; I did not ask leave. But
indeed, poor young man, as I am already in possession, it would not have
done him very much good.”
Dolly did not think it necessary to take any notice, and the distance to
Birtwood was very short and left little time for further talk. Her
companion, on his side, did not take any notice of the news about Sir
William, which Dolly hoped was not true. “The Westlands always know
before any one else if there is anything the matter with the Markhams;
they seem to like to tell one,” she complained, with a contradiction of
her own hope. But though he had been so profuse in his inquiries before,
the stranger said nothing more now. A certain sternness had crept into
his brown face; the habitual smile, half mocking, half complacent, died
away from his mouth, his upper lip set firmly upon the other. But Dolly,
who was not very deeply interested in the Markhams’ relation, did not
notice these changes.
Birtwood was a railway junction, an important place in those regions.
All the traffic of the district, all the comings and goings, had to
concentrate there. Through all the county it was well known that you
were more apt to see your friends at Birtwood than anywhere else. It did
not matter where they were going, everybody passed by this point of
union. People met as they crossed each other to take the trains up and
down; there were all sorts of little services which one could render to
another; and it was said that many marriages had been made and
friendships cemented during the intervals of waiting which were
inevitable, in the tedium of that new ill which modern flesh is heir
to--the necessity of waiting for your train. The train in which Dolly
and Mr. Markham Gaveston were was a little local train, and therefore
used with indignity. It was pushed about, now to one side, now to the
other, before it was permitted to approach the platform, another more
important line of carriages being brought up and allowed to disgorge
its passengers before the very eyes of the humble travellers who were
kept behind, making little runs up and down, though they had arrived
before the train which was thus preferred to them. Dolly, though she was
used to this, felt it incumbent upon her to put on a show of
indignation, for she did not want a stranger to suppose that this was
how the trains from Markham Royal were always used. “I will make papa
write about it,” she said. She was standing in front of the window when
at last the train drew up, obscuring the scene for the little man
behind, who took it patiently enough. When, however, Dolly uttered a
little cry, and, leaning out head and shoulders, made eager signs to
some one already standing on the platform, exclaiming, “Oh, Alice!
Alice! wait a moment,” his interest was instantly roused. As soon as the
carriage stopped, the girl precipitated herself out of it, and rushed
towards two ladies who were waiting. Mr. Markham Gaveston made no
attempt to follow. He placed himself at the window of the carriage and
looked out, his brown face wholly changed in aspect, his eyebrows
contracted, his lips set firm. Two women, mother and daughter, one in
full maturity, the other in the sweetest bloom of youth, with their
face turned towards a third person, who came slowly along leaning upon
the arm of a young man. Dolly, rushing towards them, was received by the
other girl with a hurried gesture of her hand, half salutation, half
intended to draw the new-comer out of the way; while the elder lady took
no notice, her face, which was full of anxiety, being turned towards the
advancing group. All the people about followed more or less that anxious
look, and the officials of the place were crowding round in respectful
attendance. The spectator at the window, who had grown very pale through
his brownness, saw an old man walking slowly and feebly along, leaning
heavily upon his companion’s arm. He seemed to say something as they
made their way along, for the young man turned round and waved his
disengaged hand to warn the bystanders away. The blood rushed into Gus
Markham’s ears, tingling and throbbing, as he saw this little procession
pass, so close to where he sat at his window that he could have touched
the chief figure. Sir William was ashy pale, his under lip drooped, one
of his hands hung with a look of useless limpness by his side, he
shuffled slightly with one foot. The air of a man stricken and broken
down as by some great blow was upon him. The spectator gazed with the
strangest pang, eagerly, keenly at the face he had never consciously
seen before. Not a doubt of who it was crossed his mind. He had expected
to meet him coldly, perhaps to be received with doubt and antagonism;
but it had never occurred to Gus’s somewhat superficial but not
unamiable spirit that anything tragical would be involved in the
encounter. Gradually indeed, a sense of issues more serious than any
that had ever occurred to him before had been invading the kindly
self-satisfaction of his nature. Now he sat and gazed as under a spell.
They had shown him Sir William’s portrait at the Chase. Was it he that
had made the difference between that self-possessed, dignified, imposing
little statesman and this broken and suffering old man? Gus gazed as one
who cannot detach his eyes. The whole scene passed before him like a
picture. The beautiful, anxious woman, gazing with such circles of
trouble round her eyes, watching every step her husband made; the
beautiful girl, putting her young companion aside, watching her father
creep along through the sunshine; the young man--but here Gus’s
thoughts broke off short. Was that Paul? It did not seem to him like the
idea of Paul which he had got from all that had been said. The young man
was not like any of the others. He had none of that “family look” which
distinguishes even in unlikeness members of the same race. His face was
serious, but not anxious like the others; he had an air of kind
solicitude, not of family trouble. Was it Paul? Was it Sir William’s
heir? They passed slowly before him, all the rest of the faces round
looking after them, turned towards them, making them the centre, as this
far more deeply interested spectator did.
He felt himself drawn after them, he could not tell how, and stole quite
quietly out of the carriage as soon as they had passed. They were going
further on to another train--a special one--which was going back to
Markham Royal. Gus followed slowly among the other bystanders, walking
as near the principal persons as he could, following as at a funeral.
Was it his doing? Was it his fault? He heard the murmurs of the people
with a strange sense of guiltiness. “He’s aged ten years,” he heard one
say to another, “since the other day.” “Ah, sons has a deal to answer
for,” said another. This speech went buzzing through his mind like a
winged and stinging insect. It hurt him, though nobody could have
thought of him in saying it. He saw the sick man put carefully into the
carriage, watching every movement, and feeling as if he himself were
hurt by the little stumble of his foot as he went in--the jar of
unexpected motion in the train. Lady Markham passed him slowly, as he
stood looking with a woful face, deadly serious and awe-stricken, after
the sufferer, and gave him a grateful glance, seeing what she thought
the sympathy in his eyes. But it was not sympathy; it was a far
stronger, more personal feeling. He stood gazing while everything was
arranged for Sir William’s comfort, and started to hear his voice coming
out of the midst of the anxious group. It was not much he said--nothing,
indeed, but a “That will do--that will do!” half querulous, half
grateful. But the sound gave the looker-on a shock; it sounded to him
reproachful, almost terrible. He kept standing there, staring, seeing
nothing except the man whom he had never seen before--whom, for all he
knew--was it possible?--his letter had killed.
Then suddenly the sound of other voices came to his ears--a whispering
conversation. The two girls were behind him, not conscious of his
presence.
“Very ill,” one was saying. “Oh, Dolly, yesterday we thought he would
have died. But he is so much better now. The doctor was quite perplexed;
he said he never saw anything so momentary; he could not call it a
fit--it lasted so short a time. He thinks in a day or two he will be
quite well again.”
“Alice!” said the other’s whispering voice, “don’t tell me if it vexes
you; but I will never--never say a word. Oh, tell me! I can’t think of
anything else--was it Paul?”
“Paul!” with a tone of indignation. Then the voice softened. “Dolly,
dear, I know why you ask. Paul has been--very--wilful: he has given us a
great deal of grief. I don’t know how to tell you. But it was not Paul.
Oh, there have been so many things! and he had letters--that worried
him.”
“Was that all?”
She was standing close by the man into whose heart these words sank like
a stone.
“Everybody,” said Dolly, “is worried by letters; and now that he is
safely here, you and your mamma will be able to take care of him, and
keep everything that is bad for him out of his way.”
“I hope so,” said Alice doubtfully. And then she passed Gus Markham so
closely that her dress touched him. He withdrew from the touch hastily,
and looked at her with anxious eyes. If she had known! but she did not
look at him; far less had she any thought that he was involved in the
catastrophe that had happened. He stood quite still, paying no attention
to Dolly, watching them as Alice joined her mother in the carriage. Then
he hurried on to another compartment and got in. What a home-coming it
would be!--the children that had been so merry subdued and silenced at
once--the big house that had looked so peaceful, filled full of
apprehension and trouble. He got into one of the carriages that
followed, with a sense that nothing could disassociate him henceforward
from this troubled family.
Dolly, standing wistful on the platform to watch her friend go away,
caught sight of him, too, as the train passed, and a gleam of wonder
shot over her little pale face. Yes, they would all wonder, no doubt. It
would seem strange--very strange to everybody. But it was clear that
wherever this party went he must follow them. His lot was cast in with
theirs, once for all.