Sir William was better when he got home. When he reached his own house
he began to hold up his head, to hold himself, if not erect as of old,
yet in a way more like himself. He walked firmly into the house, always
with Fairfax’s arm, and said, “I am better, Brown; yes, much better,”
when Brown met him, very anxious and effusive, at the door. “I feel
almost myself,” he said, turning round to Lady Markham. And so he
looked--himself ten years older, but yet with something of the old
firmness and precise composure. How he could thus recover, though the
letter in his pocket-book bore the postmark of Markham Royal, and he had
come back into the very presence of the danger which at a distance had
overwhelmed him, it would be difficult to tell. “He’s picked up
wonderful,” Mr. Jarvis, Sir William’s own man, said to Mr. Brown; “but
for all that, he’s got notice to quit--he have. Just see if I ain’t
right.” Mrs. Fry was of the same opinion when she saw her master. She
had never had any comfort in her mind, she declared, since she heard of
these faintings. All the Markhams went like that. The late Sir Paul had
done just the same--nothing to speak of at first, and nobody
alarmed--but it was a thing that went fast, that was, Mrs. Fry said.
They were all very gloomy about Sir William down stairs, but in the
family there was no such alarm. He put away his trouble, or rather, as
he emerged out of the suffering of his attack into physical comfort
again, and no longer felt the blood ebbing, as it were, from his heart,
and consciousness failing in the giddy void into which he had seemed to
sink, nature in him declined to remember it, turned away from it. The
familiar house, the waving of the woods, the stately quiet about him,
healed him, and he would not allow himself to be pulled back. He came to
dinner, and occupied his place as usual, looking really, his wife and
daughter thought, almost quite himself. This almost made up to them,
poor ladies, for the moment--for all that it had cost them to leave
Oxford in such melancholy uncertainty about Paul.
But there was one of the party who was not at his ease. Fairfax, who had
come away on the spur of the moment without any provision for a visit,
and who felt his presence here to be mere accident, nothing more,
scarcely knew what to do or say. After he had helped Sir William up
stairs on their arrival, he came to Lady Markham, confused yet smiling,
with his hat in his hand. “I must take my leave now. I hope Sir William
will go on mending, and no longer have need of my arm as a
walking-stick.”
“Your leave!” said Lady Markham, “what does that mean? Do you think
after taking the use of you all the way here that I am going to let you
go away without making acquaintance with Markham? No, no; you are going
to stay.”
“I came as a walking-stick,” said the young man; “and I have brought
nothing,” he added, laughing. “That is the disadvantage of a
walking-stick which is human, which wants tooth-brushes and all kinds of
things. Besides, I am of no further use. Sir William is better, and
there are shoals of men here.”
“You make us out to be pleasant people,” said Lady Markham, “getting rid
of our friends as soon as we have need of them no longer. That will
never do. You must send for your things, and in the meantime there is
Paul’s wardrobe to fall back upon. He always leaves a number of things
here.”
“But----” said Fairfax, flushing very deeply. He was not handsome, like
Paul. There was a look of easy good-humour, kindness, sympathy about
him, a desire to please, a readiness to be serviceable. He had brown
eyes, which were clear and kind; brown hair, crisp and curling; a
pleasant mouth; but nothing in his features or his aspect that could be
called distinguished. Pleasure, embarrassment, difficulty, a desire to
say something, yet a reluctance to say it, were all mingled in his face;
but the pleasure was the strongest. He gave an appealing look at Alice,
as if entreating her to help him out.
“I want no buts,” said Lady Markham. “I want to go to Sir William, and
you are detaining me with a foolish argument which you know you cannot
convince me by. Send for your things, and Brown will show you your room:
and we can talk it all over,” she said, smiling, “as soon as your
portmanteau is here.”
Fairfax made her an obeisance as he might have done to a queen. He stood
with his hat in his hand and his head bowed while she passed him going
out of the room. Every young man, it is to be supposed, has some
youthful feminine ideal in his mind, but to Fairfax Lady Markham was a
new revelation. He knew, if not by experience, yet from all the poets,
that there were creatures like her daughter in the world; that they were
the flower and blossom of humanity, supposed to be the most beautiful
things in life; but the next step from the Alices of creation was into a
darkness he knew nothing of. Age, or a youth that was pretended, false,
and disgusting, swallowed up all the rest. A mother (he had never known
his own) was an old stager or an old campaigner, a dragon or a
matchmaker, the gaoler or the executioner of her girls, the greatest
danger to all men; scheming with deadly wiles to get rid of her
daughters; then, in the terrible capacity of mother-in-law, using all
these wiles to get the girls who had escaped from her, back, and make
the lives of their husbands miserable. This is the conception which the
common Englishman gets from his light literature of all women who are
not young. Fairfax was no worse than his kind; he had never known his
own mother, and the name was not sacred to him. But when Lady Markham
came within his ken the young man was bewildered. He could understand
Alice, but he could not understand the woman who was so beautiful and
gracious, and yet Markham’s mother. She dazzled him, and filled him with
shame and generous compunction. Her very smile was a fresh wonder. He
was half afraid of her, yet to disobey or rebel against her seemed to
him a thing impossible. The revelation of this mother even changed the
character of his relations with Alice, for whom, on the first sight of
her, the natural attraction of the natural mate, the wondering interest,
admiration, and pleasure, which, if not love, is the first beginning of
the state of love--had caught him all at once. The mother brought a
softening as of domestic trust and affection into this nascent feeling.
Alice was brought the nearer to him, by some in explainable magic,
because of the dazzling superiority of this elder unknown princess,
whose very existence was a miracle to him. When Lady Markham had gone
out, with a smile and gracious bend of her head in answer to his
reverential salutation, Fairfax came back to Alice with a certain awe in
his look, which was half contradicted, half heightened, by the wavering
of the smile upon his face, in which there mingled something like
amusement at his own sense of awe.
“Miss Markham, may I ask your advice?” he said.
“You are frightened at mamma,” said Alice, with a soft laugh. “Oh, but
you need not! She is as kind--as kind--as if she were only old nurse,”
Alice said, in despair of finding a better illustration.
“Don’t be profane!” cried Fairfax, with uplifted hands. “Yes, I am
frightened. I never knew that anybody’s mother could be like that. But,
Miss Markham, will you give me your advice?”
“Is your mother--not living, Mr. Fairfax?”
“She never has been for me--she died so long ago; I am afraid I have
never thought much about her. Ought I to stay, Miss Markham?” He raised
his eyes to her with a piteous look, yet one that was half comic in its
earnestness, and a sudden blush, unawares, as their eyes met, flamed
over both faces. For why? How could they tell? It was so, and they knew
no more.
“Surely,” Alice said; “mamma wishes it, and we all wish it. After
showing us so much kindness, you would not go away the moment you have
come here?”
“But that is not the question,” said Fairfax. “The fact is, I am nobody.
Don’t laugh, or I shall laugh too, and I am much more disposed to cry. I
have a tolerable name, haven’t I? but alas! it does not mean anything. I
don’t know what it means, nor how we came by it. I am one of the
unfortunate men, Miss Markham, who--never had a grandfather.”
Alice had been waiting with much solemnity for the secret which made him
so profoundly grave (yet there was a twinkle, too, which nothing but the
deepest misfortune could quench, in the corner of his eye). When this
statement came, however, she was taken with a sudden fit of laughter.
Could anything be more absurd? And yet in her heart she felt a sudden
chill, a sense of horror. Alice would not have owned it, but this was a
terrible statement for any young man on the verge of intimacy to make.
No grandfather! It was a misfortune she could not understand.
“At least, none to speak of,” he said, the fun growing in his eyes.
“You should not laugh, Miss Markham. Don’t you think it is hard upon a
man? To come to an enchanted palace, where he would give his head to be
allowed to stay, and to feel that for no fault of his, for a failure
which he is not responsible for, which can be laid only to the score of
those ancestors who did not exist----”
“Mr. Fairfax, no one was thinking of your grandfather.”
“I know that; but, dear Miss Markham, you know very well that to-night,
or to-morrow night, or a year hence, your mother, before whom I feel
disposed to go down upon my knees, will say with her smile, ‘Are you of
the Norfolk Fairfaxes, or the Westchester family, or----?’ And I, with
shame, will begin to say, ‘Madam, of no Fairfaxes at all.’ What will she
think of me then? Will not she think that I have done wrong to be
here--that I had no right to stay?”
“Oh, Mr. Fairfax!” cried Alice, somewhat pale and troubled; “how can I
advise you? Mamma is not a fanatic about family. She does not build upon
it to that extent. I do not see why she should ever ask you. It is no
business of ours.” Alice was not strong enough to have such a
tremendous question thrown upon her to decide. As a matter of fact, she
knew that her mother would very soon make those inquiries about the
Westchester family and the Norfolk Fairfaxes. Already Lady Markham had
indulged in speculations on the subject, and had begun to remember that
in the one case she “used to know” a cousin of his, and in the other had
met his uncle, the ambassador, and saw a great deal of him once in
Paris. She grew quite pale, and her eyes puckered up and took the most
anxious aspect. Besides, it was a shock to herself. That absence of a
grandfather was a want which was almost indecent. She did not understand
it, and she was extremely sorry for him. He had no home then--no house
that his people had lived in for ages--no people. Poor boy!
And Fairfax’s countenance also fell, in reflection of hers. However deep
may be one’s private consciousness of one’s own deficiencies, there is
always a little expectation in one’s mind that other people will make
light of them; but when you see your own dismay, and more than your own
dismay, in the eyes of your counsellor, then is the moment when you sink
into the abyss. His lip quivered for a moment, and though it eventually
succeeded in forming into a smile, the smile was very tremulous and
uncertain.
“I see,” he said; “no need for another word. Good-bye. I have had a
glimpse into--the garden of Eden, though I must not stay.”
“Mr. Fairfax!” cried Alice, as he turned away. “Come back--come back
this moment! How dare you take me up so? Do you want to get me into
trouble,” she cried, half crying, half laughing, “with mamma? Would you
like to have her--beat me?”
“She does so sometimes?”
“To be sure,” cried Alice, with an unsteady laugh. “Oh, Mr. Fairfax,
what a fright you have given me! You have made my heart beat!”
“Not so much as mine,” he said. They had their laugh, and then they
stood once more looking at each other. “It is all very well,” said the
young man; “you want to spare my feelings; you would not hurt any one.
But beyond that, you know as well as I do that Lady Markham, knowing who
I am, would not like to have me here.”
“Who are you?” said Alice, with a little renewed alarm; and in her mind
she tried to remember whether there had been any trials in the papers,
any criminals who bore this name.
“I am nobody at all,” said Fairfax. “I haven’t even the distinction of
being improper, or belonging to people who have made themselves notable
either for evil or good. I am nobody. That is precisely what I want Lady
Markham to understand.”
“I think, Mr. Fairfax,” said Alice, “you had better go and send for your
things, as mamma said.”
“You think I may?”
He looked at her with eyes full of pleasure and gratitude, putting more
meaning into her words than they would bear, and getting a thrill of
conscious happiness out of the little arbitrary tone which, half in jest
and half to hide her real doubts, Alice put on. He was so glad to obey,
to say to himself that it was their own doing and that they could not
blame him for it, so happy to be made to remain as he persuaded himself.
The children rushed in as he went away to obey what he called to himself
the order he had received, eager to know who he was, and making a
hundred inquiries about all kinds of things--about papa’s illness, why
he looked so grey, and what was the matter with him; about Paul, why he
did not come home; about Mr. Fairfax, who he was, what he was, what he
was doing there, whether he was going to stay. There was scarcely a
question that could be put on these subjects which the ingenious
children did not ask; and Alice was glad finally to suggest that they
should walk to the village with Mr. Fairfax and show him where the
post-office was, that he might telegraph for his portmanteau. They were
quite willing to take this on themselves. “We shall be sure to see the
little gentleman,” Bell said. “Who is the little gentleman?” asked
Alice; but she had so many things to think of that she did not pay any
attention to the reply, which was made by all the four voices at once.
What did it matter? She had a hundred things so much more important to
think of.
And when the children had been sent off, forming a guard of honour about
Fairfax, cross-examining him to their heart’s content, and in their turn
communicating much information which was quite novel to him, Alice
thought she was very glad of the quiet and the interval of rest. Sir
William was resting, declaring himself much better; and Lady Markham, in
the relief of this fact, was lying down on the sofa, getting half an
hour’s doze after her sleepless night. Alice had not slept much more
than her mother, but she could not doze. After a while a sensation of
regret stole into her mind that she had not accompanied the others.
There was a soft breeze blowing among the trees which freshened the
aspect of nature, and the sky was blue and tender, doubly blue after the
smoky half-colour of a town. Alice sat by the window and watched the
flickering of the leaves, and wished she had gone with them. Something
seemed wanting to her. To be alone and free to rest, did not seem the
privilege she had thought it. She wanted--what? Some one to speak to,
some one’s eyes to meet hers. The leaves ruffled and seemed to call her;
the little breeze came and whispered at the edge of the window, blowing
the lace curtains about. All the world invited her, wooed her, to go out
into the fresh air, into the green avenue, into the joyful yet silent
world. “The air would have done me good,” Alice said to herself; and her
voice came back to her out of the silence as if it had been somebody
else’s voice. Then by degrees it came into her head that the air would
still do her good if she went out now, which somehow did not exactly
hit her wishes. After this, however, it occurred to her that to stroll
down the avenue and meet them as they came back would not be amiss, and
much comforted by this suggestion she ran to get her hat. Would they be
glad to see her, or would they ask her loudly why she came out now, when
nobody wanted her. Brothers and sisters under fourteen are apt to
express opinions of this sort very plainly. Alice felt angry at the
idea, but afterwards melted, and represented to herself that to meet
them in the avenue was of all the courses open to her the best.
Sir William was able to come down stairs to dinner, which was more than
any one had hoped, and after dinner he came into the dining-room with
the ladies, and saw the children, as he had always been in the habit of
doing, while he took his coffee. A recovery of this kind from a sudden
fit of illness has often the most softening and happy effect. He had a
great deal of care on his mind, but the sensation of getting better
seemed to chase it all away. He seemed to be getting better of that too,
to be getting over it, before it ever came to anything. Had he been in
his usual condition he would have known very well that he had got over
nothing, that it was all waiting for him round the corner of the very
next day, or even hour; but Sir William convalescent was not in his
usual state of mind. He felt as if he had got over it, as if it all lay
behind him--the perplexity, and the trouble, and alarm. He sat in his
great chair, with cushions placed about him, looking so much older, and
so much softer, more indulgent and more talkative. A kind of
garrulousness had come upon him. He told his children stories of his own
childhood. He was not put out by their restlessness, by their
interruptions, as he generally was. Never had he been so gentle, so
amiable. He told them all about an adventure of his in the woods with
his brothers, when he had been about Roland’s age. It was like the story
of old Grouse in the gun-room to the little Markhams; they knew exactly
where to laugh, and what questions to ask to show their interest, and
they conducted themselves with the greatest propriety, not even putting
him right when he deviated from the correct routine of the story, which
they remembered better than he did. It was only after this wonderful
tale was over that Bell made the unfortunate remark which brought a new
transformation. How should the child know there was any harm in it?
“Oh,” she cried suddenly, “look, Harry! look, Marie! As papa sits there,
now! Did you ever see anything so like the little gentleman?” and Bell
clasped her hands together in admiring contemplation of this strange
fact.
There was a pause. Had it not been for the entire ignorance of the easy
household, calm, and fearing no evil, it might have been thought that a
shiver ran through the air, as this crisis suddenly developed itself out
of the quiet: every one was quite still. They all looked at the child
with amused curiosity--all but one. And though there was nothing meant
by it the effect was strange. It was left to Sir William to speak, which
he did in a clear, thin voice, suddenly becoming judicial and solemn.
“Whom do you mean by the little gentleman, Bell?”
“Oh, he is a relation--he told us so,” said the little girl.
“And he has brought me some sweetmeats from abroad--me!--though he
didn’t know my name. What sort of things would you call sweetmeats,
mamma?”
“And he is living down at the Markham Arms. We saw him to-day. He jumped
into the railway carriage with Dolly Stainforth.”
“Oh, but I saw him come back--following the carriage,” cried Roland. “He
stood at the station-gate to see you pass, papa, and looked so sorry.
That was him, Alice, that stopped us when we went to the village with
Mr. Fairfax. You saw him. He wanted to shake hands all round.”
The pause now, after this clamour of voices, was more curious than ever.
Lady Markham began to wonder a little.
“A relation!--who could it be? Do you know of any relation who would not
have come to us straight? I do not think it could be a relation. You
must have made a mistake.”
“Oh, no; we have not made any mistake,” cried the children with one
voice. “Besides, he was such friends with us. He promised to give us
quantities of things; and then he is like papa.”
“I don’t think Sir William is well,” said Fairfax, hurriedly. He rose
up with an exclamation of terror, and Lady Markham sprang to her feet
and rushed to her husband’s side.
“I am feeling--a little faint,” he said, in a half-whisper, with a
tremendous attempt to regain command of himself; but it failed. His head
drooped, his eyelids quivered, and then lay half-closed upon the dim
langour underneath that had lost all power of seeing; his breath
laboured, and came in gasps from his pale lips. All the sudden recovery
in which they had been so happy was over. Alice put the children hastily
out of the room, like a flock frightened, as she ran to call Jarvis, to
get what was necessary, to send for the village doctor. The boys and
girls got together into a corner of the hall and cried silently,
clinging together in fright and sorrow; or at least the girls cried,
wondering--
“Was it anything we said?”
“Oh, I wish--I wish!” cried Bell, but in a whisper, “that I had not said
anything about the little gentleman!”
But of all the family she was the only one that thought of this. The
others though they were much alarmed were not surprised. There was
nothing, alas! more natural than that these fits should come on again.
The doctor had expected it. They said to each other that he had been
more tired with the journey than they supposed--that indeed it was
certain in his state of health that he must be worn out by the journey:
the wonder only was that he had revived at all. He was carried to his
room after a while, the children looking on drearily from their corner,
full of dismay. To them nothing seemed to be too dreadful to be
expected.
“Oh, why does papa look so pale?” Marie sobbed, with that blighting
terror which seizes a child at the first sight of such signs of
mortality. Even the boys had much to do to rub away out of the corners
of their eyes the sudden burst of tears.
“I am better--much better,” the sick man said, when he came to himself,
“but very weak. You won’t allow me to be disturbed? I cannot see any
one--it is impossible for me to see any one, Isabel.”
“Do you think I will let you be disturbed?” said Lady Markham. “And who
would disturb you? Do you forget, William, that we are at home?”
But that word, so full of consolation, fell upon him with no healing in
it. Yes, he knew very well that he was at home, and that his enemy who
had been waiting for him all these years--his enemy who meant him no
harm, who meant no one any harm--the deadliest foe of the children and
their mother, his own reproach and shame--that innocent yet mortal enemy
was close to him, lurking among the trees, behind the peaceful houses in
the village, to disturb him as no one else could. His wife put back the
curtain so as to shield his feeble eyes from the lamp, and sat
down--anxious, yet serene--wondering at his strange fancy. Disturb him!
Who could disturb him here?