Walter was very late next morning as he had been very late at night. The
ladies had breakfasted long before, and there was a look of reproach in
the very table-cloth left there so much after the usual time, and
scrupulously cleared of everything that the others had used, and
arranged at one end, with the dish kept hot for him, and the small
teapot just big enough for one, which was a sermon in itself. His mother
was seated by the fire with her weekly books, which she was adding up.
She said scarcely anything to him, except the morning greeting, filling
out his tea with a gravity which was all the more crushing that there
was nothing in it to object to, nothing to resent. Adding up accounts of
itself is not cheerful work; but naturally the young man resented this
seriousness all the more because he had no right to do so. It was
intolerable, he felt, to sit and eat in presence of that silent figure
partly turned away from him, jotting down the different amounts on a bit
of paper, and absorbed in that occupation as if unconscious of his
presence. Even scolding was better than this; Walter was perfectly
conscious of all it was in her power to say. He knew by heart her
remonstrances and appeals. But he disliked the silence more than all. He
longed to take her by the shoulders, and cry, "What is it? What have you
got to say to me? What do you mean by sitting there like a stone figure,
and _meaning_ it all the same!" He did not do this, knowing it would be
foolish, and gave his constant antagonist a certain advantage; but he
longed to get rid of some of his own exasperation by such an act. It was
with a kind of force over himself that he ate his breakfast, going
through all the forms, prolonging it to the utmost of his power, helping
himself with deliberate solemnity in defiance of the spectator, who
seemed so absorbed in her own occupation, but was, he felt sure,
watching his every movement. It was not, however, until he had come to
an end of his prolonged meal and of his newspaper, that his mother
spoke.
"Do you think," she said, "that it would be possible for you to write
that letter to Mr. Milnathort of which I have spoken so often, to-day?"
"Oh, quite possible," said Walter, carelessly.
"Will you do it, then? It seems to me very important to your interests.
Will you really do it, and do it to-day?"
"I'll see about it," Walter said.
"I don't ask you to see about it. It is nothing very difficult. I ask
you to do it at once--to-day."
He gazed at her for a moment with an angry obstinacy.
"I see no particular occasion for all this haste. It has stood over a
good many days. Why should you insist so upon it now?"
"Every day that it has been put off has been a mistake. It should have
been done at once," Mrs. Methven said.
"I'll see about it," he said carelessly; and he went out of the room
with a sense of having exasperated her as usual, which was almost
pleasant.
At the bottom of his heart he meant to do what his mother had asked of
him: but he would not betray his good intentions. He preferred to look
hostile even when he was in the mind to be obedient. He went away to the
little sitting-room which was appropriated to him, where his pipes
adorned the mantelpiece, and sat down to consider the situation. To
write a letter was not a great thing to do, and he fully meant to do it;
but after he had mused a little angrily upon the want of perception
which made his mother adopt that cold and hectoring tone, when if she
had asked him gently he would have done it in a minute, he put forth his
hand and drew a book towards him. It was not either a new or an
entertaining book, but it secured his idle attention until he suddenly
remembered that it was time to go out. The letter was not written, but
what did that matter? The post did not go out till the afternoon, and
there was plenty of time between that time and this to write
half-a-dozen letters. It would do very well, he thought, when he came in
for lunch. So he threw down the book and got his hat and went out.
Mrs. Methven, who was on the watch, hearing his every movement, came
into his room after he was gone, and looked round with eager eyes to see
if the letter was written, if there was any trace of it. Perhaps he had
taken it out with him to post it, she thought: and though it was
injurious to her that she should not know something more about a piece
of business in which he was not the sole person concerned, yet it gave
her a sort of relief to think that so much at least he had done. She
went back to her books with an easier mind. She was far from being a
rich woman, but her son had known none of her little difficulties, her
efforts to make ends meet. She had thought it wrong to trouble his
childhood with such confidences, and he had grown up thinking nothing on
the subject, without any particular knowledge of, or interest in, her
affairs, taking everything for granted. It was her own fault, she said
to herself, and so it was to some extent. She would sometimes think that
if she had it to do over again she would change all that. How often do
we think this, and with what bitter regret, in respect to the children
whom people speak of as wax in our hands, till we suddenly wake up and
find them iron! She had kept her difficulties out of Walter's way, and
instead of being grateful to her for so doing, he was simply
indifferent, neither inquiring nor caring to know. Her own doing! It was
easier to herself, yet bitter beyond telling, to acknowledge it to be
so. Just at this time, when Christmas was approaching, the ends took a
great deal of tugging and coaxing to bring them together. A few of
Walter's bills had come in unexpectedly, putting her poor balance
altogether wrong. Miss Merivale contributed a little, but only a little,
to the housekeeping; for Mrs. Methven was both proud and liberal, and
understood giving better than receiving. She went back to the
dining-room, where all her books lay upon the table, near the fire. Her
reckoning had advanced much since she had begun it, with Walter sitting
at breakfast. Her faculties had been all absorbed in him and what he was
doing. Now she addressed herself to her accounts with a strenuous
effort. It is hard work to balance a small sum of money against a large
number of bills, to settle how to divide it so as that everybody shall
have something, and the mouths of hungry creditors be stopped. Perhaps
we might say that this was one of the fine arts--so many pounds here, so
many there, keeping credit afloat, and the wolf of debt from the door.
Mrs. Methven was skilled in it. She went to this work, feeling all its
difficulty and burden: yet, with a little relief, not because she saw
any way out of her difficulties, but because Walter had written that
letter. It was always something done, she thought, in her simplicity,
and something might come of it, some way in which he could get the means
of exercising his faculties, perhaps of distinguishing himself even
yet.
Walter for his part strolled away through the little town in his usual
easy way. It was a fine, bright, winterly morning, not cold, yet cold
enough to make brisk walking pleasant, and stir the blood in young
veins. There was no football going on, nor any special amusement. He
could not afford to hunt, and the only active winter exercise which he
could attain was limited to this game--of which there was a good deal at
Sloebury--and skating, when it pleased Providence to send ice, which was
too seldom. He looked in upon one or two of his cronies, and played a
game of billiards, and hung about the High Street to see what was going
on. There was nothing particular going on, but the air was fresh, and
the sun shining, and a little pleasant movement about, much more
agreeable at least than sitting in a stuffy little room writing a
troublesome letter which he felt sure would not do the least good.
Finally, he met Captain Underwood, who regarded him with a look which
Walter would have called anxious had he been able to imagine any
possible reason why Underwood should entertain any anxiety on his
account.
"Well! any news?" the captain cried.
"News! What news should there be in this dead-alive place?" Walter said.
The other looked at him keenly as if to see whether he was quite
sincere, and then said, "Come and have some lunch."
He was free of all the best resorts in Sloebury, this mysterious
man. He belonged to the club, he was greatly at his ease in the
hotel--everything was open to him. Walter, who had but little money
of his own, and could not quite cut the figure he wished, was not
displeased to be thus exhibited as the captain's foremost ally.
"I thought you might have come into that fortune, you are looking so
spruce," the captain said, and laughed. But though he laughed he kept an
eye on the young man as if the pleasantry meant more than appeared.
Walter felt a momentary irritation with this, which seemed to him a very
bad joke; but he went with the captain all the same, not without a
recollection of the table at home, at which, after waiting three
quarters of an hour or so, and watching at the window for his coming,
the ladies would at last sit down. But he was not a child to be forced
to attendance at every meal, he said to himself. The captain's
attentions to him were great, and it was a very nice little meal that
they had together.
"I expect you to do great things for me when you come into your fortune.
You had better engage me at once as your guide, philosopher, and
friend," he said, with a laugh. "Of course you will quit Sloebury, and
make yourself free of all this bondage."
"Oh, of course," said Walter, humouring the joke, though it was so bad a
one in every way.
He could not quarrel with his host at his own table, and perhaps after
all it was more dignified to take it with good humour.
"You must not go in for mere expense," the captain said; "you must make
it pay. I can put you up to a thing or two. You must not go into the
world like a pigeon to be plucked. It would effect my personal honour if
a pupil of mine--for I consider you as a pupil of mine, Methven, I think
I have imparted to you a thing or two. You are not quite the simpleton
you used to be, do you think you are?"
Walter received this with great gravity, though he tried to look as if
he were not offended.
"Was I a simpleton?" he said. "I suppose in one's own case one never
sees."
"Were you a simpleton!" said the other, with a laugh, and then he
stopped himself, always keenly watching the young man's face, and
perceiving that he was going too far. "But I flatter myself you could
hold your own at whist with any man now," the captain said.
This pleased the young man; his gravity unbended a little; there was a
visible relaxation of the corners of his mouth. To be praised is always
agreeable. Moral applause, indeed, may be taken with composure, but who
could hear himself applauded for his whist-playing without an
exhilaration of the heart? He said, with satisfaction, "I always was
pretty good at games," at which his instructor laughed again, almost too
much for perfect good breeding.
"I like to have young fellows like you to deal with," he said, "fellows
with a little spirit, that are born for better things. Your
country-town young man is as fretful and frightened when he loses a few
shillings as if it were thousands. But that's one of the reasons why I
feel you're born to luck, my boy. I know a man of liberal breeding
whenever I see him, he is not frightened about a nothing. That's one of
the things I like in you, Methven. You deserve a fortune, and you
deserve to have me for your guide, philosopher, and friend."
All this was said by way of joke; but it was strange to see the steady
watch which he kept on the young man's face. One would have said a
person of importance whom Underwood meant to try his strength with, but
guardedly, without going too far, and even on whom he was somehow
dependent, anxious to make a good impression. Walter, who knew his own
favour to be absolutely without importance, and that Underwood above
all, his host and frequent entertainer, could be under no possible
delusion on the subject, was puzzled, yet flattered, feeling that only
some excellence on his part, undiscovered by any of his other
acquaintances, could account for this. So experienced a person could
have "no motive" in thus paying court to a penniless and prospectless
youth. Walter was perplexed, but he was gratified too. He had not seen
many of the captain's kind; nobody who knew so many people or who was so
much at his ease with the world. Admiration of this vast acquaintance,
and of the familiarity with which the captain treated things and people
of which others spoke with bated breath, had varied in his mind with a
fluctuating sense that Underwood was not exactly so elevated a person as
he professed to be, and even that there were occasional vulgarities in
this man of the world. Walter felt these, but in his ignorance
represented to himself that perhaps they were right enough, and only
seemed vulgar to him who knew no better. And to-day there is no doubt he
was somewhat intoxicated by this flattery. It must be disinterested, for
what could he do for anybody? He confided to the captain more than he
had ever done before of his own position. He described how he was being
urged to write to old Milnathort. "He is an old lawyer in Scotland--what
they call a writer--and it is supposed he might be induced to take me
into his office, for the sake of old associations. I don't know what the
associations are, but the position does not smile upon me," Walter said.
"Your family then is a Scotch family?" said the captain with a nod of
approval. "I thought as much."
"I don't know that I've got a family," said Walter.
"On the contrary, Methven is a very good name. There are half-a-dozen
baronets at least, and a peer--you must have heard of him, Lord
Erradeen."
"Oh yes, I've heard of him," Walter said with a conscious look.
If he had been more in the world he would have said "he is a cousin of
mine," but he was aware that the strain of kindred was very far off, and
he was at once too shy and too proud to claim it. His companion waited
apparently for the disclosure, then finding it did not come opened the
way.
"If he's a relation of yours, it's to him you ought to write; very
likely he would do something for you. They are a curious family. I've
had occasion to know something about them."
"I think you know everybody, Underwood."
"Well, I have knocked about the world a great deal; in that way one
comes across a great many people. I saw a good deal of the present lord
at one time. He was a very queer man--they are all queer. If you are one
of them you'll have to bear your share in it. There is a mysterious
house they have--You would think I was an idiot if I told you half the
stories I have heard----"
"About the Erradeens?"
"About everybody," said the captain evasively. "There is scarcely a
family, that, if you go right into it, has not something curious about
them. We all have; but those that last and continue keep it on record. I
could tell you the wildest tales about So-and-so and So-and-so, very
ordinary people to look at, but with stories that would make your hair
stand on end."
"We have nothing to do with things of that sort. My people have always
been straightforward and above-board."
"For as much as you know, perhaps; but go back three or four generations
and how can you tell? We have all of us ancestors that perhaps were not
much to brag of."
Walter caught Underwood's eye as he said this, and perhaps there was a
twinkle in it, for he laughed.
"It is something," he said, "to have ancestors at all."
"If they were the greatest blackguards in the world," the captain said
with a responsive laugh, "that's what I think. You don't want any more
of my revelations? Well, never mind, probably I shall have you coming to
me some of these days quite humbly to beg for more information. You are
not cut out for an attorney's office. It is very virtuous, of course, to
give yourself up to work and turn your back upon life."
"Virtue be hanged," said Walter, with some excitement, "it is not
virtue, but necessity, which I take to be the very opposite. I know I'm
wasting my time, but I mean to turn over a new leaf. And as the first
evidence of that, as soon as I go home I shall write to old Milnathort."
"Not to-day," said Underwood, looking at his watch; "the post has gone;
twenty-four hours more to think about it will do you no harm."
Walter started to his feet, and it was with a real pang that he saw how
the opportunity had escaped him, and his intention in spite of himself
been balked; a flush of shame came over his face. He felt that, if never
before, here was a genuine occasion for blame. To be sure, the same
thing had happened often enough before, but he had never perhaps so
fully intended to do what was required of him. He sat down again with a
muttered curse at himself and his own folly. There was nothing to be
said for him. He had meant to turn over a new leaf, and yet this day was
just like the last. The thought made his heart sick for the moment. But
what was the use of making a fuss and betraying himself to a stranger?
He sat down again, with a self-disgust which made him glad to escape
from his own company. Underwood's talk might be shallow enough, perhaps
his pretence at knowledge was not very well founded, but he was safer
company than conscience, and that burning and miserable sense of moral
impotence which is almost worse than the more tragic stings of
conscience. To find out that your resolution is worth nothing, after you
have put yourself to the trouble of making it, and that habit is more
strong than any motive, is not a pleasant thing to think of. Better let
the captain talk about Lord Erradeen, or any other lord in the peerage.
Underwood, being encouraged with a few questions, talked very largely on
this subject. He gave the young man many pieces of information, which
indeed he could have got in Debrett if he had been anxious on the
subject; and as the afternoon wore on they strolled out again for
another promenade up and down the more populous parts of Sloebury, and
there fell in with other idlers like themselves; and when the twilight
yielded to the more cheerful light of the lamps, betook themselves to
whist, which was sometimes played in the captain's rooms at that immoral
hour. Sloebury, even the most advanced portion of it, had been
horrified at the thought of whist before dinner when the captain first
suggested it, but that innocent alarm had long since melted away. There
was nothing dangerous about it, no stakes which any one could be hurt by
losing. When Walter, warned by the breaking up of the party that it was
the hour for dinner, took his way home also, he was the winner of a
sixpence or two, and no more: there had been nothing wrong in the play.
But when he turned the corner of Underwood's street and found himself
with the wind in his face on his way home, the revulsion of feeling from
something like gaiety to a rush of disagreeable anticipations, a crowd
of uncomfortable thoughts, was pitiful. In spite of all our boastings of
home and home influence, how many experience this change the moment they
turn their face in the direction of that centre where it is conventional
to suppose all comfort and shelter is! There is a chill, an abandonment
of pleasant sensations, a preparation for those that are not pleasant.
Walter foresaw what he would find there with an impatience and
resentment which were almost intolerable. Behind the curtain, between
the laths of the Venetian blind, his mother would be secretly on the
outlook watching for his return; perhaps even she had stolen quietly to
the door, and, sheltered in the darkness of the porch, was looking out;
or, if not that, the maid who opened the door would look reproachfully
at him, and ask if he was going to dress, or if she might serve the
dinner at once: it must have been waiting already nearly half an hour.
He went on very quickly, but his thoughts lingered and struggled with
the strong disinclination that possessed him. How much he would have
given not to go home at all! how little pleasure he expected when he got
there! His mother most likely would be silent, pale with anger, saying
little, while Cousin Sophia would get up a little conversation. She
would talk lightly about anything that might have been happening, and
Walter would perhaps exert himself to give Sophia back her own, and show
his mother that he cared nothing about her displeasure. And then when
dinner was over, he would hurry out again, glad to be released. Home:
this was what it had come to be: and nothing could mend it so far as
either mother or son could see. Oh, terrible incompatibility,
unapproachableness of one soul to another! To think that they should be
so near, yet so far away. Even in the case of husband and wife the
severance is scarcely so terrible; for they have come towards each other
out of different spheres, and if they do not amalgamate, there are many
secondary causes that may be blamed, differences of nature and training
and thought. But a mother with her child, whom she has brought up, whose
first opinions she has implanted, who ought naturally to be influenced
by her ways of thinking, and even by prejudices and superstitions in
favour of her way! It was not, however, this view of the question which
moved the young man. It was the fact of his own bondage, the compulsion
he was under to return to dinner, to give some partial obedience to the
rules of the house, and to confess that he had not written that letter
to Mr. Milnathort.
When he came in sight of the house, however, he became aware insensibly,
he could scarcely tell how, of some change in its aspect: what was it?
It was lighted up in the most unusual way. The window of the spare room
was shining not only with candlelight, but with firelight, his own room
was lighted up; the door was standing open, throwing out a warm flood of
light into the street, and in the centre of this light stood Mrs.
Methven with her white shawl over her head, not at all concealing
herself, gazing anxiously in the direction from which he was coming.
"I think I will send for him," he heard her say; "he has, very likely,
stepped into Captain Underwood's, and he is apt to meet friends there
who will not let him go."
Her voice was soft--there was no blame in it, though she was anxious.
She was speaking to some one behind her, a figure in a great coat.
Walter was in the shadow and invisible. He paused in his surprise to
listen.
"I must get away by the last train," he heard the voice of the muffled
figure say somewhat pettishly.
"Oh, there is plenty of time for that," cried his mother; and then she
gave a little cry of pleasure, and said, "And, at a good moment, here he
is!"
He came in somewhat dazzled, and much astonished, into the strong light
in the open doorway. Mrs. Methven's countenance was all radiant and
glowing with pleasure. She held out her hand to him eagerly.
"We have been looking for you," she cried; "I have had a great surprise.
Walter, this is Mr. Milnathort."
Puzzled, startled, and yet somewhat disappointed, Walter paused in the
hall, and looked at a tall old man with a face full of crotchets and
intelligence, who stood with two great coats unbuttoned, and a comforter
half unwound from his throat, under the lamp. His features were high and
thin, his eyes invisible under their deep sockets.
"Now, you will surely take off your coat, and consent to go up-stairs,
and make yourself comfortable," said Mrs. Methven, with a thrill of
excitement in her voice. "This is Walter. He has heard of you all his
life. Without any reference to the nature of your communication, he must
be glad, indeed, to make your acquaintance--"
She gave Walter a look of appeal as she spoke. He was so much surprised
that it was with difficulty he found self-possession to murmur a few
words of civility. A feeling that Mr. Milnathort must have come to look
after that letter which had never been written came in with the most
wonderfully confusing, half ludicrous effect into his mind, like one of
the inadequate motives and ineffable conclusions of a dream. Mr.
Milnathort made a stiff little bow in reply.
"I will remain till the last train. In the mean time the young gentleman
had better be informed, Mrs. Methven."
She put out her hands again. "A moment--give us a moment first."
The old lawyer stood still and looked from the mother to the son.
Perhaps to his keen eyes it was revealed that it would be well she
should have the advantage of any pleasant revelation.
"I will," he said, "madam, avail myself of your kind offer to go
up-stairs and unroll myself out of these trappings of a long journey;
and in the mean time you will, perhaps, like to tell him the news
yourself: he will like it all the better if he hears it from his
mother."
Mrs. Methven bowed her head, having, apparently, no words at her
command: and stood looking after him till he disappeared on the stairs,
following the maid, who had been waiting with a candle lighted in her
hand. When he was gone, she seized Walter hurriedly by the arm, and drew
him towards the little room, the nearest, which was his ordinary
sitting-room. Her hand grasped him with unnecessary force in her
excitement. The room was dark--he could not see her face, the only light
in it being the reflection of the lamp outside.
"Oh, Walter!" she cried; "oh, my boy! I don't know how to tell you the
news. This useless life is all over for you, and another--oh, how
different--another--God grant it happy and great, oh, God grant it!
blessed and noble!--"
Her voice choked with excitement and fast-coming tears. She drew him
towards her into her arms.
"It will take you from me--but what of that, if it makes you happy and
good? I have been no guide to you, but God will be your guide: His
leadings were all dark to me, but now I see--"
"Mother," he cried, with a strange impulse he could not understand,
putting his arm round her, "I did not write that letter: I have done
nothing I promised or meant to do. I am sick to the heart to think what
a fool and a cad I am--for the love of God tell me what it is!"