At sunrise I went down into the sitting-room, having resolved to write
to my father to join us; for I felt how much Roland needed his comfort
and his counsel, and it was no great distance from the old Tower. I was
surprised to find Lord Castleton still seated by the fire; he had
evidently not gone to bed.
"That's right," said he; "we must encourage each other to recruit
nature;" and he pointed to the breakfast-things on the table.
I had scarcely tasted food for many hours, but I was only aware of my
own hunger by a sensation of faintness. I ate unconsciously, and was
almost ashamed to feel how much the food restored me.
"I suppose," said I, "that you will soon set off to Lord N--'s?"
"Nay, did I not tell you that I have sent Summers express, with a note
to Lady Ellinor begging her to come here? I did not see, on reflection,
how I could decorously accompany Miss Trevanion alone, without even a
female servant, to a house full of gossiping guests. And even had your
uncle been well enough to go with us, his presence would but have
created an additional cause for wonder; so as soon as we arrived, and
while you went up with the Captain, I wrote my letter and despatched my
man. I expect Lady Ellinor will be here before nine o'clock. Meanwhile
I have already seen that infamous waiting-woman, and taken care to
prevent any danger from her garrulity. And you will be pleased to hear
that I have hit upon a mode of satisfying the curiosity of our friend
Mrs. Grundy--that is,'the World'--without injury to any one. We must
suppose that that footman of Trevanion's was out of his mind,--it is but
a charitable, and your good father would say a philosophical,
supposition. All great knavery is madness! The world could not get on
if truth and goodness were not the natural tendencies of sane minds. Do
you understand?"
"Not quite."
"Why, the footman, being out of his mind, invented this mad story of
Trevanion's illness, frightened Lady Ellinor and Miss Trevanion out of
their wits with his own chimera, and hurried them both off, one after
the other. I, having heard from Trevanion, and knowing he could not
have been ill when the servant left him, set off, as was natural in so
old a friend of the family, saved her from the freaks of a maniac,--who,
getting more and more flighty, was beginning to play the Jack o'
Lantern, and leading her, Heaven knows where, over the country,--and
then wrote to Lady Ellinor to come to her. It is but a hearty laugh at
our expense, and Mrs. Grundy is content. If you don't want her to pity
or backbite, let her laugh. She is a she-Cerberus,--she wants to eat
you; well stop her mouth with a cake.
"Yes," continued this better sort of Aristippus, so wise under all his
seeming levities, "the cue thus given, everything favors it. If that
rogue of a lackey quoted Shakspeare as much in the servants' hall as he
did while I was binding him neck and heels in the kitchen, that's enough
for all the household to declare he was moon-stricken; and if we find it
necessary to do anything more, why, we must induce him to go into Bedlam
for a month or two. The disappearance of the waiting-woman is natural;
either I or Lady Ellinor send her about her business for her folly in
being so gulled by the lunatic. If that's unjust, why, injustice to
servants is common enough, public and private; neither minister nor
lackey can be forgiven if he help us into a scrape. One must vent one's
passion on something. Witness my poor cane,--though, indeed, a better
illustration would be the cane that Louis XIV. broke on a footman
because his Majesty was out of humor with the prince, whose shoulders
were too sacred for royal indignation."
"So you see," concluded Lord Castleton, lowering his voice, "that your
uncle, amongst all his other causes of sorrow, may think at least that
his name is spared in his son's. And the young man himself may find
reform easier when freed from that despair of the possibility of
redemption which Mrs. Grundy inflicts upon those who--Courage, then;
life is long!"
"My very words!" I cried; "and so repeated by you, Lord Castleton, they
seem prophetic."
"Take my advice, and don't lose sight of your cousin while his pride is
yet humbled, and his heart perhaps softened. I don't say this only for
his sake. No, it is your poor uncle I think of,--noble old fellow! And
now I think it right to pay Lady Ellinor the respect of repairing, as
well as I can, the havoc three sleepless nights have made on the
exterior of a gentleman who is on the shady side of remorseless forty."
Lord Castleton here left me, and I wrote to my father, begging him to
meet us at the next stage (which was the nearest point from the high
road to the Tower), and I sent off the letter by a messenger on
horseback. That task done, I leaned my head upon my hand, and a
profound sadness settled upon me, despite all my efforts to face the
future and think only of the duties of life--not its sorrows.