Search for the missing boys had been made everywhere over Raynham, and
Sir Austin was in grievous discontent. None had seen them save Austin
Wentworth and Mr. Morton. The baronet sat construing their account of
the flight of the lads when they were hailed, and resolved it into an
act of rebellion on the part of his son. At dinner he drank the young
heir’s health in ominous silence. Adrian Harley stood up in his place
to propose the health. His speech was a fine piece of rhetoric. He
warmed in it till, after the Ciceronic model, inanimate objects were
personified, and Richard’s table-napkin and vacant chair were invoked
to follow the steps of a peerless father, and uphold with his dignity
the honour of the Feverels. Austin Wentworth, whom a soldier’s death
compelled to take his father’s place in support of the toast, was tame
after such magniloquence. But the reply, the thanks which young Richard
should have delivered in person were not forthcoming. Adrian’s oratory
had given but a momentary life to napkin and chair. The company of
honoured friends, and aunts and uncles, remotest cousins, were glad to
disperse and seek amusement in music and tea. Sir Austin did his utmost
to be hospitably cheerful, and requested them to dance. If he had
desired them to laugh he would have been obeyed, and in as hearty a
manner.
“How triste!” said Mrs. Doria Forey to Lobourne’s curate, as that most
enamoured automaton went through his paces beside her with professional
stiffness.
“One who does not suffer can hardly assent,” the curate answered,
basking in her beams.
“Ah, you are good!” exclaimed the lady. “Look at my Clare. She will not
dance on her cousin’s birthday with anyone but him. What are we to do
to enliven these people?”
“Alas, madam! you cannot do for all what you do for one,” the curate
sighed, and wherever she wandered in discourse, drew her back with
silken strings to gaze on his enamoured soul.
He was the only gratified stranger present. The others had designs on
the young heir. Lady Attenbury of Longford House had brought her
highly-polished specimen of market-ware, the Lady Juliana Jaye, for a
first introduction to him, thinking he had arrived at an age to
estimate and pine for her black eyes and pretty pert mouth. The Lady
Juliana had to pair off with a dapper Papworth, and her mama was
subjected to the gallantries of Sir Miles, who talked land and
steam-engines to her till she was sick, and had to be impertinent in
self-defence. Lady Blandish, the delightful widow, sat apart with
Adrian, and enjoyed his sarcasms on the company. By ten at night the
poor show ended, and the rooms were dark, dark as the prognostics
multitudinously hinted by the disappointed and chilled guests
concerning the probable future of the hope of Raynham. Little Clare
kissed her mama, curtsied to the lingering curate, and went to bed like
a very good girl. Immediately the maid had departed, little Clare
deliberately exchanged night attire for that of day. She was noted as
an obedient child. Her light was allowed to burn in her room for
half-an-hour, to counteract her fears of the dark. She took the light,
and stole on tiptoe to Richard’s room. No Richard was there. She peeped
in further and further. A trifling agitation of the curtains shot her
back through the door and along the passage to her own bedchamber with
extreme expedition. She was not much alarmed, but feeling guilty she
was on her guard. In a short time she was prowling about the passages
again. Richard had slighted and offended the little lady, and was to be
asked whether he did not repent such conduct toward his cousin; not to
be asked whether he had forgotten to receive his birthday kiss from
her; for, if he did not choose to remember that, Miss Clare would never
remind him of it, and to-night should be his last chance of a
reconciliation. Thus she meditated, sitting on a stair, and presently
heard Richard’s voice below in the hall, shouting for supper.
“Master Richard has returned,” old Benson the butler tolled out
intelligence to Sir Austin.
“Well?” said the baronet.
“He complains of being hungry,” the butler hesitated, with a look of
solemn disgust.
“Let him eat.”
Heavy Benson hesitated still more as he announced that the boy had
called for wine. It was an unprecedented thing. Sir Austin’s brows were
portending an arch, but Adrian suggested that he wanted possibly to
drink his birthday, and claret was conceded.
The boys were in the vortex of a partridge-pie when Adrian strolled in
to them. They had now changed characters. Richard was uproarious. He
drank a health with every glass; his cheeks were flushed and his eyes
brilliant. Ripton looked very much like a rogue on the tremble of
detection, but his honest hunger and the partridge-pie shielded him
awhile from Adrian’s scrutinizing glance. Adrian saw there was matter
for study, if it were only on Master Ripton’s betraying nose, and sat
down to hear and mark.
“Good sport, gentlemen, I trust to hear?” he began his quiet banter,
and provoked a loud peal of laughter from Richard.
“Ha, ha! I say, Rip: ‘Havin’ good sport, gentlemen, are ye?’ You
remember the farmer! Your health, parson! We haven’t had our sport yet.
We’re going to have some first-rate sport. Oh, well! we haven’t much
show of birds. We shot for pleasure, and returned them to the
proprietors. You’re fond of game, parson! Ripton is a dead shot in what
Cousin Austin calls the Kingdom of ‘would-have-done’ and
‘might-have-been.’ Up went the birds, and cries Rip, ‘I’ve forgotten to
load!’ Oh, ho!—Rip! some more claret.—Do just leave that nose of yours
alone.—Your health, Ripton Thompson! The birds hadn’t the decency to
wait for him, and so, parson, it’s their fault, and not Rip’s, you
haven’t a dozen brace at your feet. What have you been doing at home,
Cousin Rady?”
“Playing Hamlet, in the absence of the Prince of Denmark. The day
without you, my dear boy, must be dull, you know.”
“‘He speaks: can I trust what he says is sincere?
There’s an edge to his smile that cuts much like a sneer.’
“Sandoe’s poems! You know the couplet, Mr. Rady. Why shouldn’t I quote
Sandoe? You know you like him, Rady. But, if you’ve missed me, I’m
sorry. Rip and I have had a beautiful day. We’ve made new
acquaintances. We’ve seen the world. I’m the monkey that has seen the
world, and I’m going to tell you all about it. First, there’s a
gentleman who takes a rifle for a fowling-piece. Next, there’s a farmer
who warns everybody, gentleman and beggar, off his premises. Next,
there’s a tinker and a ploughman, who think that God is always fighting
with the devil which shall command the kingdoms of the earth. The
tinker’s for God, and the ploughman”—
“I’ll drink your health, Ricky,” said Adrian, interrupting.
“Oh, I forgot, parson;—I mean no harm, Adrian. I’m only telling what
I’ve heard.”
“No harm, my dear boy,” returned Adrian. “I’m perfectly aware that
Zoroaster is not dead. You have been listening to a common creed. Drink
the Fire-worshippers, if you will.”
“Here’s to Zoroaster, then!” cried Richard. “I say, Rippy! we’ll drink
the Fire-worshippers to-night won’t we?”
A fearful conspiratorial frown, that would not have disgraced Guido
Fawkes, was darted back from the plastic features of Master Ripton.
Richard gave his lungs loud play.
“Why, what did you say about Blaizes, Rippy? Didn’t you say it was
fun?”
Another hideous and silencing frown was Ripton’s answer. Adrian matched
the innocent youths, and knew that there was talking under the table.
“See,” thought he, “this boy has tasted his first scraggy morsel of
life today, and already he talks like an old stager, and has, if I
mistake not, been acting too. My respected chief,” he apostrophized Sir
Austin, “combustibles are only the more dangerous for compression. This
boy will be ravenous for Earth when he is let loose, and very soon make
his share of it look as foolish as yonder game-pie!”—a prophecy Adrian
kept to himself.
Uncle Algernon shambled in to see his nephew before the supper was
finished, and his more genial presence brought out a little of the
plot.
“Look here, uncle!” said Richard. “Would you let a churlish old brute
of a farmer strike you without making him suffer for it?”
“I fancy I should return the compliment, my lad,” replied his uncle.
“Of course you would! So would I. And he shall suffer for it.” The boy
looked savage, and his uncle patted him down.
“I’ve boxed his son; I’ll box him,” said Richard, shouting for more
wine.
“What, boy! Is it old Blaize has been putting you up!”
“Never mind, uncle!” The boy nodded mysteriously.
‘Look there!’ Adrian read on Ripton’s face, he says ‘never mind,’ and
lets it out!
“Did we beat to-day, uncle?”
“Yes, boy; and we’d beat them any day they bowl fair. I’d beat them on
one leg. There’s only Watkins and Featherdene among them worth a
farthing.”
“We beat!” cries Richard. “Then we’ll have some more wine, and drink
their healths.”
The bell was rung; wine ordered. Presently comes in heavy Benson, to
say supplies are cut off. One bottle, and no more. The Captain
whistled: Adrian shrugged.
The bottle, however, was procured by Adrian subsequently. He liked
studying intoxicated urchins.
One subject was at Richard’s heart, about which he was reserved in the
midst of his riot. Too proud to inquire how his father had taken his
absence, he burned to hear whether he was in disgrace. He led to it
repeatedly, and it was constantly evaded by Algernon and Adrian. At
last, when the boy declared a desire to wish his father good-night,
Adrian had to tell him that he was to go straight to bed from the
supper-table. Young Richard’s face fell at that, and his gaiety forsook
him. He marched to his room without another word.
Adrian gave Sir Austin an able version of his son’s behaviour and
adventures; dwelling upon this sudden taciturnity when he heard of his
father’s resolution not to see him. The wise youth saw that his chief
was mollified behind his moveless mask, and went to bed, and Horace,
leaving Sir Austin in his study. Long hours the baronet sat alone. The
house had not its usual influx of Feverels that day. Austin Wentworth
was staying at Poer Hall, and had only come over for an hour. At
midnight the house breathed sleep. Sir Austin put on his cloak and cap,
and took the lamp to make his rounds. He apprehended nothing special,
but with a mind never at rest he constituted himself the sentinel of
Raynham. He passed the chamber where the Great-Aunt Grantley lay, who
was to swell Richard’s fortune, and so perform her chief business on
earth. By her door he murmured, “Good creature! you sleep with a sense
of duty done,” and paced on, reflecting, “She has not made money a
demon of discord,” and blessed her. He had his thoughts at Hippias’s
somnolent door, and to them the world might have subscribed.
A monomaniac at large, watching over sane people in slumber! thinks
Adrian Harley, as he hears Sir Austin’s footfall, and truly that was a
strange object to see.—Where is the fortress that has not one weak
gate? where the man who is sound at each particular angle? Ay,
meditates the recumbent cynic, more or less mad is not every mother’s
son? Favourable circumstances—good air, good company, two or three good
rules rigidly adhered to—keep the world out of Bedlam. But, let the
world fly into a passion, and is not Bedlam the safest abode for it?
Sir Austin ascended the stairs, and bent his steps leisurely toward the
chamber where his son was lying in the left wing of the Abbey. At the
end of the gallery which led to it he discovered a dim light. Doubting
it an illusion, Sir Austin accelerated his pace. This wing had
aforetime a bad character. Notwithstanding what years had done to
polish it into fair repute, the Raynham kitchen stuck to tradition, and
preserved certain stories of ghosts seen there, that effectually
blackened it in the susceptible minds of new house-maids and
under-crooks, whose fears would not allow the sinner to wash his sins.
Sir Austin had heard of the tales circulated by his domestics
underground. He cherished his own belief, but discouraged theirs, and
it was treason at Raynham to be caught traducing the left wing. As the
baronet advanced, the fact of a light burning was clear to him. A
slight descent brought him into the passage, and he beheld a poor human
candle standing outside his son’s chamber. At the same moment a door
closed hastily. He entered Richard’s room. The boy was absent. The bed
was unpressed: no clothes about: nothing to show that he had been there
that night. Sir Austin felt vaguely apprehensive. Has he gone to my
room to await me? thought the father’s heart. Something like a tear
quivered in his arid eyes as he meditated and hoped this might be so.
His own sleeping-room faced that of his son. He strode to it with a
quick heart. It was empty. Alarm dislodged anger from his jealous
heart, and dread of evil put a thousand questions to him that were
answered in air. After pacing up and down his room he determined to go
and ask the boy Thompson, as he called Ripton, what was known to him.
The chamber assigned to Master Ripton Thompson was at the northern
extremity of the passage, and overlooked Lobourne and the valley to the
West. The bed stood between the window and the door. Six Austin found
the door ajar, and the interior dark. To his surprise, the boy
Thompson’s couch, as revealed by the rays of his lamp, was likewise
vacant. He was turning back when he fancied he heard the sibilation of
a whispering in the room. Sir Austin cloaked the lamp and trod silently
toward the window. The heads of his son Richard and the boy Thompson
were seen crouched against the glass, holding excited converse
together. Sir Austin listened, but he listened to a language of which
he possessed not the key. Their talk was of fire, and of delay: of
expected agrarian astonishment: of a farmer’s huge wrath: of violence
exercised upon gentlemen, and of vengeance: talk that the boys jerked
out by fits, and that came as broken links of a chain impossible to
connect. But they awake curiosity. The baronet condescended to play the
spy upon his son.
Over Lobourne and the valley lay black night and innumerable stars.
“How jolly I feel!” exclaimed Ripton, inspired by claret; and then,
after a luxurious pause—“I think that fellow has pocketed his guinea,
and cut his lucky.”
Richard allowed a long minute to pass, during which the baronet waited
anxiously for his voice, hardly recognizing it when he heard its
altered tones.
“If he has, I’ll go; and I’ll do it myself.”
“You would?” returned Master Ripton. “Well, I’m hanged!—I say, if you
went to school, wouldn’t you get into rows! Perhaps he hasn’t found the
place where the box was stuck in. I think he funks it. I almost wish
you hadn’t done it, upon my honour—eh? Look there! what was that? That
looked like something.—I say! do you think we shall ever be found out?”
Master Ripton intoned this abrupt interrogation verb seriously.
“I don’t think about it,” said Richard, all his faculties bent on signs
from Lobourne.
“Well, but,” Ripton persisted, “suppose we are found out?”
“If we are, I must pay for it.”
Sir Austin breathed the better for this reply. He was beginning to
gather a clue to the dialogue. His son was engaged in a plot, and was,
moreover, the leader of the plot. He listened for further
enlightenment.
“What was the fellow’s name?” inquired Ripton.
His companion answered, “Tom Bakewell.”
“I’ll tell you what,” continued Ripton. “You let it all clean out to
your cousin and uncle at supper.—How capital claret is with
partridge-pie! What a lot I ate!—Didn’t you see me frown?”
The young sensualist was in an ecstasy of gratitude to his late
refection, and the slightest word recalled him to it. Richard answered
him:
“Yes; and felt your kick. It doesn’t matter. Rady’s safe, and uncle
never blabs.”
“Well, my plan is to keep it close. You’re never safe if you don’t.—I
never drank much claret before,” Ripton was off again. “Won’t I now,
though! claret’s my wine. You know, it may come out any day, and then
we’re done for,” he rather incongruously appended.
Richard only took up the business-thread of his friend’s rambling
chatter, and answered:
“You’ve got nothing to do with it, if we are.”
“Haven’t I, though! I didn’t stick-in the box but I’m an accomplice,
that’s clear. Besides,” added Ripton, “do you think I should leave you
to bear it all on your shoulders? I ain’t that sort of chap, Ricky, I
can tell you.”
Sir Austin thought more highly of the boy Thompson. Still it looked a
detestable conspiracy, and the altered manner of his son impressed him
strangely. He was not the boy of yesterday. To Sir Austin it seemed as
if a gulf had suddenly opened between them. The boy had embarked, and
was on the waters of life in his own vessel. It was as vain to call him
back as to attempt to erase what Time has written with the Judgment
Blood! This child, for whom he had prayed nightly in such a fervour and
humbleness to God, the dangers were about him, the temptations thick on
him, and the devil on board piloting. If a day had done so much, what
would years do? Were prayers and all the watchfulness he had expended
of no avail?
A sensation of infinite melancholy overcame the poor gentleman—a
thought that he was fighting with a fate in this beloved boy.
He was half disposed to arrest the two conspirators on the spot, and
make them confess, and absolve themselves; but it seemed to him better
to keep an unseen eye over his son: Sir Austin’s old system prevailed.
Adrian characterized this system well, in saying that Sir Austin wished
to be Providence to his son.
If immeasurable love were perfect wisdom, one human being might almost
impersonate Providence to another. Alas! love, divine as it is, can do
no more than lighten the house it inhabits—must take its shape,
sometimes intensify its narrowness—can spiritualize, but not expel, the
old lifelong lodgers above-stairs and below.
Sir Austin decided to continue quiescent.
The valley still lay black beneath the large autumnal stars, and the
exclamations of the boys were becoming fevered and impatient. By-and-by
one insisted that he had seen a twinkle. The direction he gave was out
of their anticipations. Again the twinkle was announced. Both boys
started to their feet. It was a twinkle in the right direction now.
“He’s done it!” cried Richard, in great heat. “Now you may say old
Blaize’ll soon be old Blazes, Rip. I hope he’s asleep.”
“I’m sure he’s snoring!—Look there! He’s alight fast enough. He’s dry.
He’ll burn.—I say,” Ripton re-assumed the serious intonation, “do you
think they’ll ever suspect us?”
“What if they do? We must brunt it.”
“Of course we will. But, I say! I wish you hadn’t given them the scent,
though. I like to look innocent. I can’t when I know people suspect me.
Lord! look there! Isn’t it just beginning to flare up!”
The farmer’s grounds were indeed gradually standing out in sombre
shadows.
“I’ll fetch my telescope,” said Richard. Ripton, somehow not liking to
be left alone, caught hold of him.
“No; don’t go and lose the best of it. Here, I’ll throw open the
window, and we can see.”
The window was flung open, and the boys instantly stretched half their
bodies out of it; Ripton appearing to devour the rising flames with his
mouth: Richard with his eyes.
Opaque and statuesque stood the figure of the baronet behind them. The
wind was low. Dense masses of smoke hung amid the darting snakes of
fire, and a red malign light was on the neighbouring leafage. No
figures could be seen. Apparently the flames had nothing to contend
against, for they were making terrible strides into the darkness.
“Oh!” shouted Richard, overcome by excitement, “if I had my telescope!
We must have it! Let me go and fetch it! I Will!”
The boys struggled together, and Sir Austin stepped back. As he did so,
a cry was heard in the passage. He hurried out, closed the chamber, and
came upon little Clare lying senseless along the door.