The house in Bloomsbury became vacant and silent.
The people who had given it interest and importance were dispersed and
gone. Dr. Roland only remained, solitary and discontented, feeling
himself cast adrift in the world, angry at the stillness overhead, where
the solid foot of Gilchrist no longer made the floor creak, or the
lighter step of her mistress sent a thrill of energy and life through
it; but still more angry when new lodgers came, and new steps sounded
over the carpet, which, deprived of all Miss Bethune’s rugs, was thin
and poor. The doctor thought of changing his lodging himself, in the
depression of that change; but it is a serious matter for a doctor to
change his abode, and Janie’s anæmia was becoming a serious case, and
wanted more looking after than ever would be given to it were he out of
the way. So he consented to the inevitable, and remained. Mrs. Simcox
had to refurnish the second floor, when all Mr. Mannering’s pretty
furniture and his books were taken away, and did it very badly, as was
natural, and got “a couple” for her lodgers, who were quite satisfied
with second-hand mahogany and hair-cloth. Dr. Roland looked at the new
lodgers when he met them with eyes blank, and a total absence of
interest: but beginning soon to see that the stock market was telling
upon the first floor, and that the lady on the second had a cough, he
began to allow himself a little to be shaken out of his indifference.
They might, however, be objects of professional interest, but no more.
The Mannerings were abroad. After that great flash in the pan of a
return to the Museum, Nature had reclaimed her rights, and Mr. Mannering
had been obliged to apply for a prolonged leave, which by degrees led to
retirement and a pension. Miss Bethune had returned to her native
country, and to the old house near the Highland line which belonged to
her. Vague rumours that she was not Miss Bethune at all, but a married
lady all the time, had reached Bloomsbury; but nobody knew, as Mrs.
Simcox said, what were the rights of the case.
In a genial autumn, some years after the above events, Dr. Roland, who
had never ceased to keep a hold upon his former neighbours, whose
departure had so much saddened his life, arrived on a visit at that
Highland home. It was a rambling house, consisting of many additions and
enlargements built on to the original fabric of a small, strait, and
high semi-fortified dwelling-place, breathing that air of austere and
watchful defence which lingers about some old houses, though the
parlours of the eighteenth century, not to say the drawing-rooms of the
nineteenth, with their broad open windows, accessible from the ground,
were strangely unlike the pointed tall gable with its crow steps, and
the high post of watchfulness up among the roofs, the little balcony or
terrace which swept the horizon on every side. There Miss Bethune, still
Miss Bethune, abode in the fulness of a life which sought no further
expansion, among her own people. She had called to her a few of the most
ancient and trusted friends of the family on her first arrival there,
and had disclosed to them her secret story, and asked their advice. She
had never borne her husband’s name. There had been no break, so far as
any living person except Gilchrist was aware, in the continuity of her
life. The old servants were dead, and the old minister, who had been
coaxed and frightened into performing a furtive ceremony. No one except
Gilchrist was aware of any of those strange events which had gone on in
the maze of little rooms and crooked passages. Miss Bethune was strong
in the idea of disclosing everything when she returned home. She meant
to publish her strange and painful story among her friends and to the
world at large, and to acknowledge and put in his right place, as she
said, her son. A small knot of grave county gentlemen sat upon the
matter, and had all the evidence placed before them in order to decide
this question.
Harry Gordon himself was the first to let them know that his claims were
more than doubtful--that they were, in fact, contradicted by his own
recollections and everything he really knew about himself; and Mr.
Templar brought his report, which made it altogether impossible to
believe in the relationship. But Miss Bethune’s neighbours soon came to
perceive that these were nothing to her own fervid conviction, which
they only made stronger the oftener the objections were repeated. She
would not believe that part of Mr. Templar’s story which concerned the
child; there was no documentary proof. The husband’s death could be
proved, but it was not even known where that of the unfortunate baby had
taken place, and nothing could be ascertained about it. She took no
notice of the fact that her husband and Harry Gordon’s father had
neither died at the same place nor at the same time. As it actually
happened, there was sufficient analogy between time and place to make it
possible to imagine, had there been no definite information, that they
were the same person. And this was more than enough for Miss Bethune.
She was persuaded at last, however, by the unanimous judgment of the
friends she trusted, to depart from her first intention, to make no
scandal in the countryside by changing her name, and to leave her
property to Harry, describing him as a relation by the mother’s side.
“It came to you by will, not in direct inheritance,” the chief of these
gentlemen of the county said. “Let it go to him in the same way. We all
respect the voice of nature, and you are not a silly woman, my dear
Janet, to believe a thing that is not: but the evidence would not bear
investigation in a court of law. He is a fine young fellow, and has
spoken out like a gentleman.”
“As he has a good right--the last of the Bethunes, as well as a Gordon
of no mean name!”
“Just so,” said the convener of the county; “there is nobody here that
will not give him his hand. But you have kept the secret so long, it is
my opinion you should keep it still. We all know--all that are worth
considering--and what is the use of making a scandal and an outcry among
all the silly auld wives of the countryside? And leave him your land by
will, as the nearest relation you care to acknowledge on his mother’s
side.”
This was the decision that was finally come to; and Miss Bethune was not
less a happy mother, nor Harry Gordon the less a good son, that the
relationship between them was quite beyond the reach of proof, and
existed really in the settled conviction of one brain alone. The
delusion made her happy, and it gave him a generous reason for
acquiescing in the change so much to his advantage which took place in
his life.
The Mannerings arrived at Beaton Castle shortly after the doctor, on
their return from the Continent. Dora was now completely woman-grown,
and had gradually and tacitly taken the command of her father and all
his ways. He had been happy in the certainty that when he left off work
and consented to take that long rest, it was his own income upon which
they set out--an income no longer encumbered with any debts to pay, even
for old books. He had gone on happily upon that conviction ever since;
they had travelled a great deal together, and he had completely
recovered his health, and in a great degree his interest, both in
science and life. He had even taken up those studies which had been
interrupted by the shipwreck of his happiness, and the breaking up of
his existence, and had recently published some of the results of them,
with a sudden lighting up once again of the fame of the more youthful
Mannering, from whom such great things had been expected. The more he
had become interested in work and the pursuits of knowledge, the less he
had known or thought of external affairs; and for a long time Dora had
acted very much as she pleased, increasing such luxuries as he liked,
and encouraging every one of the extravagances into which, when left to
himself, he naturally fell. Sometimes still he would pause over an
expensive book, with a half hesitation, half apology.
“But perhaps we cannot afford it. I ought not to give myself so many
indulgences, Dora.”
“You know how little we spend, father,” Dora would say,--“no house going
on at home to swallow up the money. We live for next to nothing here.”
And he received her statement with implicit faith.
Thus both the elder personages of this history were deceived, and found
a great part of their happiness in it. Was it a false foundation of
happiness, and wrong in every way, as Dr. Roland maintained? He took
these two young people into the woods, and read them the severest of
lessons.
“You are two lies,” he said; “you are deceiving two people who are of
more moral worth than either of you. It is probably not your fault, but
that of some wicked grandmother; but you ought to be told it, all the
same. And I don’t say that I blame you. I daresay I should do it also in
your case. But it’s a shame, all the same.”
“In the case of my--mistress, my friend, my all but mother,” said young
Gordon, with some emotion, “the deceit is all her own. I have said all I
could say, and so have her friends. We have proved to her that it could
not be I, everything has been put before her; and if she determines,
after all that, that I am the man, what can I do? I return her affection
for affection cordially, for who was ever so good to any one as she is
to me? And I serve her as her son might do. I am of use to her actually,
though you may not think it. And why should I try to wound her heart, by
reasserting that I am not what she thinks, and that she is deceived? I
do my best to satisfy, not to deceive her. Therefore, do not say it; I
am no lie.”
“All very well and very plausible,” said the doctor, “but in no wise
altering my opinion. And, Miss Dora, what have you got to say?”
“I say nothing,” said Dora; “there is no deceit at all. If you only knew
how particular I am! Father’s income suffices for himself; he is not in
debt to any one. He has a good income--a very good income--four hundred
a year, enough for any single man. Don’t you think so? I have gone over
it a great many times, and I am sure he does not spend more than
that--not so much; the calculation is all on paper. Do you remember
teaching me to do accounts long ago? I am very good at it now. Father
is not bound to keep me, when there are other people who will keep on
sending me money: and he has quite enough--too much for himself; then
where is the deceit, or shame either? My conscience is quite clear.”
“You are two special pleaders,” the doctor said; “you are too many for
me when you are together. I’ll get you apart, and convince you of your
sin. And what,” he cried suddenly, taking them by surprise, “my fine
young sir and madam, would happen if either one or other of you took it
into your heads to marry? That is what I should like to know.”
They looked at each other for a moment as it were in a flash of crimson
light, which seemed to fly instantaneously from one to another. They
looked first at him, and then exchanged one lightning glance, and then
each turned a little aside on either side of the doctor. Was it to hide
that something which was nothing, that spontaneous, involuntary
momentary interchange of looks, from his curious eyes? Dr. Roland was
struck as by that harmless lightning. He, the expert, had forgotten what
contagion there might be in the air. They were both tall, both fair, two
slim figures in their youthful grace, embodiments of all that was
hopeful, strong, and lifelike. The doctor had not taken into
consideration certain effects known to all men which are not in the
books. “Whew-ew!” he breathed in a long whistle of astonishment, and
said no more.
THE END.
End of Project Gutenberg's A House in Bloomsbury, by Margaret Oliphant