Henry, meanwhile, had arrived in London in some elation of mind. There
is a common expression of a person’s being “on his high horse,” and he
was on the high horse as he travelled from Riddlemere homewards. He
thought he had acted with spirit and dignity. What he had done he had
done with passionate impulse; but looking back on his conduct, it struck
him as being dignified. He admired himself; he hoped others would
admire. Above all, one. He did not name her; he did not allow his
thoughts to frame the idea consciously; but there ran and tingled about
his veins a pleasurable sense of joy in the feeling that she would
admire the spirit of his conduct.
It was in this mood that he went home, and he was altogether in good
spirits. Careless and affectionate, five months’ absence had washed from
his memory all unpleasant thoughts connected with his home; and
bestowing on it his own more amiable qualities, he fancied he should see
and be seen with pleasure. He longed to kiss his mother, and hear her
soft drawling voice; to tumble about a little sister of whom he was
fond--in fact, to be at home again.
It was past ten before he got in, and at the first aspect of the party
in the drawing-room his fair hopes faded; he began to dismount from his
steed, and instead of elation of mind, to feel uneasiness and doubt.
His sister’s sharp “Didn’t I say it was Henry’s bell? Nobody but Henry
would make such a noise!”--his father’s silent stare of surprise--and
his mother’s “Oh! Henry, why didn’t you let us know?” were all so like
his old receptions, that the illusions absence had fostered faded away.
Not even his mother’s fond embrace, none the less fond because of the
peevish speech, could do away the impression. He felt blank, and sat
down hardly knowing how to explain his return.
But Letitia was really very glad to see him, and her questions, rapidly
poured out, soon drew from him a history of the fire. And as he
detailed the events of the night, again his spirits rose, for all sat
listening to him with wrapt attention. With the extinction of the fire
his narrative came to an end. Of the events of the morning he said
nothing.
“How brave you must be!” said his mother admiringly. Not that Henry had
boasted of his doings. He had simply related all that had taken place.
“The very sight of the flames would have taken all my brains
away,”--which was no doubt true enough.
“I must say I am glad,” Letitia observed. “Just as she was going to step
into her grandeur, to be baffled in this way! It shows, I think----”
“Letitia!” Henry cried in a tone of disgust.
“But I will speak. I say it shows on whose side the elements are. But
how did it happen? Who did it--or who is supposed to have done it?”
“I am,” Henry said, shortly and bitterly.
“You!” with a scream, in which even his father joined, laying down the
book he held, in his surprise.
“They choose to say so. And if people choose to say a thing in this
world, they will say it. That I have learnt. It is no more use to talk
to the world than it is to preach a sermon on Algebra in Bedlam. I will
tell you what they say;” and, unable to control his excitement, he
again, with eagerness, made a narrative of the unfortunate visit he had
paid to Nora’s room.
“I don’t say it is quite impossible,” he concluded. “I suppose it is
just within the limits of possibility, and so it must be left. It was a
most unfortunate accident to happen to anybody; but I really hardly see
how it could have been helped.”
“Are you sure it was an accident?” said Mr. Devereux, looking at him
with cold scrutiny.
Henry stared--stared so ludicrously, so totally without understanding
what his father meant to say, that Letitia burst out laughing.
“Oh! papa, no. How can you imagine such a thing? You might have done it,
and would, I believe, with great pleasure; but Henry would not--Henry
could not.”
“Could not, indeed!” he cried fiercely, as he saw the meaning. “Who
dares say such things?”
“Nobody. At least, _I_ say you could not do it. You would have been
burning your own heart and hope and future home. There would have been
no sense in it.”
He rose up with an impatient, impetuous movement. Less than ever could
he bear that imputation. He would at the moment almost have taken the
suggestion of his father to escape from it.
“A pleasant place this is to come to!” he cried, as he rose; and banging
the door, he left the room.
Mr. Devereux took up his book. Letitia continued to laugh. Mrs. Devereux
sat uneasily. She was thinking of Henry’s comfort, and longing to get to
him.
“I wonder if Henry expected dinner?” she said at last.
“He may expect it in vain,” replied her husband, “for he will not have
it at home.”
“No,” she said; “and so I think I had better tell him. If he wants
dinner he had better go and get it.”
Mr. Devereux made no objection, and she left the room. This was the
cleverest thing Mrs. Devereux had ever done in her life. It was a little
plan to get to Henry, and it was successful.
She found him helping the housemaid to put his room to rights. As soon
as that loud bell rang, guessing, as well as Letitia, whose it was, the
faithful housemaid had flown to make it ready; and by dint of good will,
and assistance from the nurse and the cook, it was, when he came up, no
longer quite as it had lately been, the family lumber-room. While he
helped, he was making a variety of droll observations, and he received
his mother with perfect good temper.
She found that he had dined, and that a cup of tea would satisfy him.
This she got him with her own hands, and sat down with him while he
drank it; and, recurring again to her admiration for his bravery,
soothed his ruffled spirit, and received from him at parting one of
those embraces she prized so dearly.
After breakfast the following morning Henry pursued his father as he was
leaving the house to communicate the fact that he had thrown up his
appointment under Nora. He felt cowardly about making the
communication. The elation of mind had given place to an unpleasant
sensation that perhaps he had acted hastily, and like a fool.
His father’s words, however--his cool contempt--his compliment to Henry
on his superlative wisdom, sufficed to rouse his spirit again; and with
the same dignity with which he had explained his motives to Nora, he
laid them before his father. A man who was watched with suspicion could
not properly perform the duties of an overseer of others. This was his
apology, and the dignity and warmth with which he spoke were not
assumed. He felt from his heart what he said. He might not have acted as
a wise man; but conscientiousness, if nothing else, was written on his
face, and heard in his explanation.
His father looked at him, and something like the passion of curiosity
might have been seen in his impassive face. Henry’s desire to do his
duty to Nora was altogether beyond his power to understand.
Of his curiosity, however, he said nothing. After a moment he observed,
“It was no will of mine, to have you take such a situation; but it is
still less my will to have you throw it up like a fool. How do you
propose to earn your bread in future?”
“By my own exertions,” Henry said, with a glow in his cheek. “I am no
longer the same man; I have been tried, and I know what I can do. Miss
Smith will bear witness that I can work, nor do I suppose Mr. Powderham
himself would deny it.”
“Does it never strike you that you have damaged your reputation by your
hasty conduct; that you have done the very thing to expose yourself to
suspicion.”
“To the suspicion of what?” asked Henry, with sharpness.
“Of having voluntarily set fire to Miss Smythe’s house!” his father said
slowly, fixing his eyes upon him.
“Of being an incendiary!” Henry cried, in his violent manner, the blood
of all the Devereux, counting from the one whom he fondly loved to
consider an ancestor, swelled to bursting in his veins.
“Even so,” replied his father, crossing his arms, and smiling a bitter
smile. “Are you sure there was no lingering hope of such a result in
the lucifer that was thrown away?”
“If you were not my father you should not dare----” Henry cried
passionately, and he flung out of the room.
As he crossed the hall, stamping off to his own regions, Letitia opened
the drawing-room door and called to him.
“I was watching for you,” she said. “Do come in here and talk a little.
Our house is not so lively that I am not glad of a change.”
He paused a moment; then remarking her face, which indeed looked pale
and dreary enough, his wrath evaporated in good-nature.
“What is the matter?” she said, as he followed her into the room, and
she saw his flushed countenance.
“Nothing, except that I think the world is infested by a plague of
demons.”
“There I agree with you;” and she spoke more soothingly than usual. “But
let the demons rest for a while. I want to talk. I want to hear about
things. What sort of a place is it down there? Come, do talk. I have not
spoken to a rational being for this month past, and I am very glad to
have you back.”
Henry’s nature was one which was affected by a word of love or kindness.
There may be a little vanity in the composition that is thus easily
pleased, yet the larger ingredient is affectionateness of nature. He was
gratified at his sister’s expression of pleasure in his society, and he
came further into the room, and very amiably answered the few questions
she carelessly put, about the house at Riddlemere and the sort of
scenery around it. He had been interested by the wild country, and
scarcely observing how careless her inquiries were, he entered heartily
into the subject.
“Well, and how did you get on with the work?” she then inquired, with
more zest. “Was it hard?”
“Not the least hard. Very interesting.”
Letitia laughed.
“Why laugh? If you think I don’t like work, Letitia, you utterly and
entirely misunderstand me. I am as sick of idleness as you are of
staring out of that window.”
“And that is saying a good deal. Well, don’t be angry, Henry. You know I
have yet to learn your new character. I did not mean to offend. And so
you got on well--found it all easy?”
“There was nothing in my work that I could not do with proper attention.
I should never have had any bother at all, if it had not been for the
people I had to deal with; and luckily I had not very much to say to
them.”
“What people?”
“Mr. Powderham and that James Field. They are enough to put an angel
into a tantarum. I defy a plain, honest man to live with them in peace.”
He was becoming excited, but in the midst of his excitement a faint
blush on his sister’s cheek opened his blind eyes to the cause of her
questioning. He paused, and then said,
“If you hoped I should become friends with James Field, Letitia, you
hoped wrong. It is a thing that could not be. He is not a gentleman.”
“What do you mean by a gentleman?” she asked.
“Nothing to do with birth or fortune. I have seen down there--among the
navvies, even, and much more among the country-people--men whose
feelings and manners would have done honour to princes. But James Field
is not a gentleman.”
“I suppose you quarrelled, if the truth was known.”
“No, we did not quarrel. I did not allow myself to quarrel. Once or
twice, when his insolence was more than I could bear, we had words; but
we are on as friendly terms now as we were on the first day we met.”
“And that is on no friendly terms at all.”
“Well, I don’t pretend to be a friend. I don’t like him, and I never
shall; and I warn you against him, Letitia.”
“I want no warning,” she said, petulantly. “I had better warn you. Take
care that he does not cut you out in Miss Smythe’s affections. You have
left him the field all to himself.”
“Cut me out!” he began, ever roused at that idea; then muttering only,
“a pretty home this is to come to!” he left the room with his usual
slam.
Letitia laughed; but then sighed; and the worn, harassed look returned
to her face. She was an odious girl, but she had excuses. The dreariness
of her life had embittered her mind. Few sought her; none loved her as
they had sought and loved Henry, and she lived and breathed only the
cold dull atmosphere of her own home.
One person had seemed to seek her, and to him such heart as she had had
been yielded. By occasional meetings with him, secret, not so much in
the outward form of meeting as in the motives which inspired them to
seek each other, a certain excitement had been given to her life. This
was now over, and a vague hope, vague and with few illusions about it,
was all that was left her. She had hoped to hear some pleasant words
from Henry. She had hoped he and Henry might have become friends. The
hope was disappointed. She clung to her one dream in spite of what
Henry said; yet she felt his words; she knew dimly that he was right,
and her one soft feeling was a bitter one.