The sentiments of the spectators in such a grand alteration of fortune
may be interesting enough, and it is in general more easy to get at them
than at those which fill the mind of the principal actor. In the present
case it is better to say of the principal subject of the change, for
Walter could not be said to be an actor at all. The emotions of the
first evening it would indeed be impossible to describe. To come in from
his small country-town society, to whom even he was so far inferior that
every one of them had facilities of getting and spending money which he
did not possess, and to sit down, all tremulous and guilty, feeling
himself the poorest creature, opposite to the serious and important
personage who came to tell him, with documents as solemn as himself,
that this silly youth who had been throwing away his life for nothing,
without even the swell of excitement to carry him on, had suddenly
become, without deserving it, without doing anything to bring it about,
an individual of the first importance--a peer, a proprietor, a great
man. Walter could have sobbed as his mother did, had not pride kept him
back. When they sat down at table in the little dining-room there were
two at least of the party who ate nothing, who sat and gazed at each
other across the others with white faces and blazing eyes. Mr.
Milnathort made a good dinner, and sat very watchful, making also his
observations, full of curiosity and a certain half-professional
interest. But Cousin Sophy was the only one who really got the good of
this prodigious event. She asked if they might not have some champagne
to celebrate the day. She was in high excitement but quite
self-controlled, and enjoyed it thoroughly. She immediately began in her
thoughts to talk of my young cousin Lord Erradeen. It was a delightful
advancement which would bring her no advantage, and yet almost pleased
her more than so much added on to her income; for Miss Merivale was not
of any distinction in her parentage, and suddenly to find herself cousin
to a lord went to her heart: it was a great benefit to the solitary lady
fond of society, and very eager for a helping hand to aid her up the
ascent. And it was she who kept the conversation going. She even flirted
a little, quite becomingly, with the old lawyer, who felt her, it was
evident, a relief from the high tension of the others, and was amused by
the vivacious middle-aged lady, who for the moment had everything her
own way. After dinner there was a great deal of explanation given, and a
great many facts made clear, but it is to be doubted whether Walter knew
very well what was being said. He listened with an air of attention,
but it was as if he were listening to some fairy tale. Something out of
the _Arabian Nights_ was being repeated before him. He was informed how
the different branches of his family had died out one after another.
"Captain Methven was aware that he was in the succession," the lawyer
said; and Mrs. Methven cast a thought back, half-reproachful,
half-approving upon her husband, who had been dead so long that his
words and ways were like shadows to her, which she could but faintly
recall. Would it have been better if he had told her? After pursuing
this thought a long time she decided that it would not, that he had done
wisely--yet felt a little visionary grudge and disappointment to think
that he had been able to keep such a secret from her. No doubt it was
all for the best. She might have distracted herself with hopes, and worn
out her mind with waiting. It was doubtful if the support of knowing
what was going to happen would really have done her any good; but yet it
seemed a want of trust in her, it seemed even to put her in a partially
ridiculous position now, as knowing nothing, not having even an idea of
what was coming. But Walter did not share any of these goings back upon
the past. He had scarcely known his father, nor was he old enough to
have had such a secret confided to him for long after Captain Methven
died. He thought nothing of that. He sat with an appearance of the
deepest attention, but unaware of what was being said, with a vague
elation in his mind, something that seemed to buoy him up above the
material earth. He could not bring himself down again. It was what he
remembered to have felt when he was a child when some long-promised
pleasure was coming--to-morrow. Even in that case hindrances might come
in. It might rain to-morrow, or some similar calamity might occur. But
rain could not affect this. He sat and listened and did not hear a word.
Next morning Walter awoke very early, before the wintry day had fully
dawned. He opened his eyes upon a sort of paling and whitening of
everything--a grey perception of the walls about him, and the lines of
the window marked upon the paleness outside. What was it that made even
these depressing facts exhilarate him and rouse an incipient delight in
his mind, which for the moment he did not understand? Then he sat up
suddenly in his bed. It was cold, it was dark. There was no assiduous
servant to bring hot water or light his fire--everything was chilling
and wretched; and he was not given to early rising. Ordinarily it was an
affair of some trouble to get him roused, to see that he was in time for
a train or for any early occupation. But this morning he found it
impossible to lie still; an elasticity in him, an elation and buoyancy,
which he almost felt, with a laugh, might float him up to the ceiling,
like the mediums, made him jump up, as it were in self-defence. It
buoyed him, it carried him as on floating pinions into a limitless
heaven. What was it? Who was he? The chill of the morning brought him a
little to himself, and then he sat down in his shirt-sleeves and
delivered himself up to the incredible, and laughed low and long, with a
sense of the impossibility of it that brought tears to his eyes. He Lord
Erradeen, Lord Anything! He a peer, a great man! he with lands and money
and wealth of every sort, who last night had been pleased to win two
sixpences! After the buoyancy and sensation of rising beyond the world
altogether, which was a kind of physical consciousness of something
great that had happened before he was awake, came this sense of the
ludicrous, this incredulity and confused amusement. He dressed himself
in this mood, laughing low from time to time, to himself, as if it were
some game which was being played upon him, but of which he was in the
secret, and not to be deceived, however artfully it might be managed.
But when he was dressed and ready to go down-stairs--by which time
daylight had fully struggled forth upon a wet and clammy world--he
stopped himself short with a sudden reminder that to-day this curious
practical joke was to extend its career and become known to the world.
He laughed again, but then he grew grave, standing staring at the closed
door of his bedroom, out of which he was about to issue--no longer a
nobody--in a new character, to meet the remarks, the congratulations of
his friends. He knew that the news would fly through the little town
like lightning; that people would stop each other in the streets and
ask, "Have you heard it?--is it true?" and that throughout the whole
place there would be a sort of revolution, a general change of
positions, which would confuse the very world. He knew vaguely that
whatever else might happen he would be uppermost. The people who had
disapproved of him, and treated him _de haut en bas_, would find this to
be impossible any longer. He would be in a position which is to be seen
on the stage and in books more frequently than in common life--possessed
of the power of making retribution, of punishing the wicked, and
distributing to the good tokens of his favour. It is a thing we would
all like to do, to avenge ourselves (within due Christian and social
limits) on the persons who have despised us, and to reward those who
have believed in us, showing the one how right they were, and the other
how wrong they were, with a logic that should be undeniable. There is
nobody who has ever endured a snub--and who has not?--who would not
delight in doing this; but the most of us never get such a supreme
gratification, and Walter was to have it. He was going to see everybody
abashed and confounded who had ever treated him with contumely. Once
more he felt that sensation of buoyancy and elation as if he were
spurning earth with his foot and ready to soar into some sort of
celestial sphere. And then once more he laughed to himself. Was it
possible? could it be? would anybody believe it? He thought there would
be an explosion of incredulous laughter through all the streets; but
then, when that was over, both friends and foes would be forced to
believe it--as he himself was forced to believe.
With that he opened his door, and went down-stairs into the new world.
He stumbled over the housemaid's pail, of course, but did not call forth
any frown upon that functionary's freckled forehead as he would have
done yesterday. On the contrary, she took away the pail, and begged his
pardon with awe--being of course entirely blameless. He paused for a
moment on the steps as he faced the raw morning air going out, and lo!
the early baker, who was having a word with cook at the area over the
rolls, turned towards him with a reverential look, and pulled off his
cap. These were the first visible signs of Walter's greatness; they gave
him a curious sort of conviction that after all the thing was true.
There was scarcely anybody about the Sloebury streets except bakers and
milkmen at this hour. It was a leisurely little town, in which nothing
particular was doing, no manufactures or business to demand early hours;
and the good people did not get up early. Why should they? the day was
long enough without that: so that Walter met no one in his early
promenade. But before he got back there were symptoms that the
particular baker who had taken off his cap had whispered the news to
others of his fraternity, who, having no tie of human connection, such
as supplying the family with rolls, to justify a salutation, only
stared at him with awe-stricken looks as he went past. He felt he was
an object of interest even to the policeman going off duty, who being an
old soldier, saluted with a certain grandeur as he tramped by. The young
man took an aimless stroll through the half-awakened district. The roads
were wet, the air raw: it was not a cheerful morning; damp and
discouragement breathed in the air; the little streets looked squalid
and featureless in shabby British poverty; lines of low, two-storied
brick, all commonplace and monotonous. It was the sort of morning to
make you think of the tediousness to which most people get up every day,
supposing it to be life, and accepting it as such with the dull content
which knows no better; a life made up of scrubbing out of kitchens and
sweeping out of parlours, of taking down shutters and putting them up
again; all sordid, petty, unbroken by an exhilarating event. But this
was not what struck Walter as he floated along in his own wonderful
atmosphere, seeing nothing, noting everything with the strange vision of
excitement. Afterwards he recollected with extraordinary vividness a man
who stood stretching his arms in shirt sleeves above his head for a
long, soul-satisfying yawn, and remembered to have looked up at the
shop-window within which he was standing, and read the name of Robinson
in gilt letters. Robinson, yawning in his shirt-sleeves, against a
background of groceries, pallid in the early light, remained with him
like a picture for many a day.
When he got back the breakfast table was spread, and his mother taking
her place at it. Mr. Milnathort had not gone away as he intended by the
night train. He had remained in Mrs. Methven's spare room, surrounded by
all the attentions and civilities that a household of women, regarding
him with a sort of awe as a miraculous messenger or even creator of good
fortune, could show to a bachelor gentleman, somewhat prim and
old-fashioned in his habits and ways. It was his intention to leave
Sloebury by the eleven o'clock train, and he had arranged that Walter
should meet him in Edinburgh within a week, to be made acquainted with
several family matters, in which, as the head of the house, it was
necessary that he should be fully instructed. Neither Walter nor his
mother paid very much attention to these arrangements, nor even remarked
that the old lawyer spoke of them with great gravity. Mrs. Methven was
busy making tea, and full of anxiety that Mr. Milnathort should
breakfast well and largely, after what she had always understood to be
the fashion of his country; and as for Walter, he was not in a state of
mind to observe particularly any such indications of manner. Cousin
Sophia was the only one who remarked the solemnity of his tone and
aspect.
"One would suppose there was some ordeal to go through," she said in her
vivacious way.
"A young gentleman who is taking up a large fortune and a great
responsibility will have many ordeals to go through, madam," Mr.
Milnathort said in his deliberate tones: but he did not smile or take
any other notice of her archness. It was settled accordingly, that after
a few days for preparation and leave-taking, young Lord Erradeen should
leave Sloebury. "And if I might advise, alone," Mr. Milnathort said,
"the place is perhaps not just in a condition to receive ladies. I would
think it wiser on the whole, madam, if you deferred your coming till his
lordship there has settled everything for your reception."
"_My_ coming?" said Mrs. Methven. The last twelve hours had made an
extraordinary difference in her feelings and faith; but still she had
not forgotten what had gone before, nor the controversies and struggles
of the past. "We must leave all that for after consideration," she said.
Walter was about to speak impulsively, but old Milnathort stopped him
with a skilful interruption--
"It will perhaps be the wisest way," he said; "there will be many things
to arrange. When Lord Erradeen has visited the property, and understands
everything about it, then he will be able to----"
Walter heard the name at first with easy unconsciousness: then it
suddenly blazed forth upon him as his own name. His mother at the other
end of the table felt the thrill of the same sensation. Their eyes met;
and all the wonder of this strange new life suddenly gleamed upon them
with double force. It is true that the whole condition of their minds
was affected by this revelation, that there was nothing about them that
was not full of it, and that they were actually at this moment
discussing the business connected with it. Still it all came to life now
as at the first moment at the sound of this name, Lord Erradeen! Walter
could not help laughing to himself over his coffee.
"I can't tell who you mean," he said. "You must wait a little until I
realise what Walter Methven has got to do with it."
Mrs. Methven thought that this was making too much of the change. She
already wished to believe, or at least to persuade Mr. Milnathort to
believe, that she was not so very much surprised after all.
"Lord Erradeen," she said, "is too much amused at present with having
got a new name to take the change very seriously."
"He will soon learn the difference, madam," said Mr. Milnathort.
"Property is a thing that has always to be taken seriously: and of all
property the Erradeen lands. There are many things connected with them
that he will have to set his face to in a way that will be far from
amusing."
The old lawyer had a very grave countenance--perhaps it was because he
was a Scotchman. He worked through his breakfast with a steady routine
that filled the ladies with respect. First fish, then kidneys, then a
leg of the partridge that had been left from dinner last night; finally
he looked about the table with an evident sense of something wanting,
and though he declared that it was of no consequence, avowed at last,
with some shyness, that it was the marmalade for which he was looking:
and there was none in the house! Mr. Milnathort was full of excuses for
having made such a suggestion. It was just a Scotch fashion he declared;
it was of no consequence. Mrs. Methven, who held an unconscious
conviction that it was somehow owing to him that Walter had become Lord
Erradeen, was made quite unhappy by the omission.
"I shall know better another time," she said regretfully. They were all
still under the impression more or less that it was his doing. He was
not a mere agent to them, but the god, out of the machinery, who had
turned darkness into light. He justified this opinion still more fully
before he went away, putting into Walter's hand a cheque-book from a
London bank, into which a sum of money which seemed to the inexperienced
young man inexhaustible, had been paid to his credit. The old gentleman
on his side seemed half-embarrassed, half-impatient after a while by the
attention shown him. He resisted when Walter declared his intention of
going to the railway to see him off.
"That is just a reversal of our positions," he said.
At this Mrs. Methven became a little anxious, fearing that perhaps
Walter's simplicity might be going too far. She gave him a word of
warning when the cab drove up for Mr. Milnathort's bag. It was not a
very large one, and Walter was quite equal to the condescension of
carrying it to the station if his mother had not taken that precaution.
She could not make up her mind that he was able to manage for himself.
"You must remember that after all he is only your man of business," she
said, notwithstanding all the worship she had herself been paying to
this emissary of fortune. It was a relief to shake hands with him, to
see him drive away from the door, leaving behind him such an amazing,
such an incalculable change. Somehow it was more easy to realise it when
he was no longer there. And this was what Walter felt when he walked
away from the railway, having seen with great satisfaction the grizzled
head of the old Scotsman nod at him from a window of the departing
train. The messenger was gone; the thing which he had brought with him,
did that remain? Was it conceivable that it was now fixed and certain
not to be affected by anything that could be done or said? Walter walked
steadily enough along the pavement, but he did not think he was doing
so. The world around him swam in his eyes once more. He could not make
sure that he was walking on solid ground, or mounting up into the air.
How different it was from the way in which he had come forth yesterday,
idle, half-guilty, angry with himself and everybody, yet knowing very
well what to do, turning with habitual feet into the way where all the
other idlers congregated, knowing who he should meet and what would
happen. He was separated from all that as if by an ocean. He had no
longer anything to do with these foolish loungers. His mother had told
him a thousand times in often varied tones that they were not companions
for him; to-day he recognised the fact with a certain disgust. He felt
it more strongly still when he suddenly came across Captain Underwood
coming up eagerly with outstretched hands.
"I hope I am the first to congratulate you, Lord Erradeen," he said.
"Now you will know why I asked you yesterday, Was there any news----"
"Now I shall know? I don't a bit; what do you mean? Do you mean me to
believe that _you_ had any hand in it?" Walter cried, with a tone of
mingled incredulity and disdain.
"No hand in it, unless I had helped to put the last poor dear lord out
of the way. I could scarcely have had that; but if you mean did I know
about it, I certainly did, as you must if you had been a little more in
the world."
"Why didn't you tell me then?" said Walter. He added somewhat hotly,
with something of the sublime assumption of youth: "Waiting for a man to
die would never have suited me. I much prefer to have been, as you say,
out of the world----"
"Oh, Lord! I didn't mean to offend you," said the captain. "Don't get on
a high horse. Of course, if you'd known your Debrett as I do, you would
have seen the thing plain enough. However, we needn't quarrel about it.
I have always said you were my pupil, and I hope I have put you up to a
few things that will be of use on your entry into society."
"Have you?" said Walter. He could not think how he had ever for a moment
put up with this under-bred person. Underwood stood before him with a
sort of jaunty rendering of the appeal with which grooms and people
about the stable remind a young man of what in his boyish days they have
done for him--an appeal which has its natural issue in a sovereign. But
he could not give Underwood a sovereign, and it was perhaps just a
little ungenerous to turn in the first moment of his prosperity from a
man who, from whatever purpose, had been serviceable to him in his
poverty. He said, with an attempt to be more friendly: "I know,
Underwood, you have been very kind."
"Oh, by Jove! kind isn't the word. I knew you'd want a bit of training;
the best thoroughbred that ever stepped wants that; and if I can be of
any use to you in the future, I will. I knew old Erradeen; I've known
all about the family for generations. There are a great many curious
things about it, but I think I can help you through them," said the
captain with a mixture of anxiety and swagger. There had always been
something of this same mixture about him, but Walter had never been
fully conscious what it was till now.
"Thank you," he said; "perhaps it will be better to let that develop
itself in a natural way. I am going to Scotland in a week, and then I
shall have it at first hand."
"Then I can tell you beforehand you will find a great many things you
won't like," said Underwood, abruptly. "It is not for nothing that a
family gets up such a reputation. I know two or three of your places.
Mulmorrel, and the shooting-box on Loch Etive, and that mysterious old
place at Kinloch-houran. I have been at every one of them. It was not
everybody, I can tell you, that old Erradeen would have taken to that
place. Why, there is a mystery at every corner. There is----"
Walter held up his hand to stay this torrent. He coloured high with a
curious sentiment of proprietorship and the shrinking of pride from
hearing that which was his discussed by strangers. He scarcely knew the
names of them, and their histories not at all. He put up his hand: "I
would rather find out the mysteries for myself," he said.
"Oh," cried Underwood, "if you are standing on your dignity, my lord, as
you like, for that matter. I am not one to thrust my company upon any
man if he doesn't like it. I have stood your friend, and I would again;
but as for forcing myself upon you now that you've come to your
kingdom----"
"Underwood," cried the other, touched in the tenderest point, "if you
dare to insinuate that this has changed me, I desire never to speak to
you again. But it is only, I suppose, one of the figures of speech that
people use when they are angry. I am not such a cad as you make me out.
Whether my name is Methven or Erradeen--I don't seem to know very well
which it is----"
"It is both," the other cried with a great laugh, and they shook hands,
engaging to dine together at the hotel that evening. Underwood, who was
knowing in such matters, was to order the dinner, and two or three of
"the old set," were to be invited. It would be a farewell to his former
comrades, as Walter intended; and with a curious recurrence of his first
elation he charged his representative to spare no expense. There was
something intoxicating and strange in the very phrase.
As he left Underwood and proceeded along the High Street, where, if he
had not waved his hand to them in passing with an air of haste and
pre-occupation, at least every second person he met would have stopped
him to wish him joy, he suddenly encountered July Herbert. She was going
home from the vicarage, out of which his mother had politely driven her;
and it seemed the most wonderful luck to July to get him to herself,
thus wholly unprotected, and with nobody even to see what she was after.
She went up to him, not with Underwood's eagerness, but with a pretty
frank pleasure in her face.
"I have heard a fairy tale," she said, "and it is true----"
"I suppose you mean about me," said Walter. "Yes, I am afraid it is
true. I don't exactly know who I am at present."
"Afraid!" cried July. "Ah, you know you don't mean that. At all events,
you are no longer just the old Walter whom we have known all our lives."
There was another girl with her whom Walter knew but slightly, but who
justified the plural pronoun.
"On the contrary, I was going to say, when you interrupted me----"
"I am so sorry I interrupted you."
"That though I did not know who I was in the face of the world, I was
always the old Walter, &c. A man, I believe, can never lose his
Christian name."
"Nor a woman either," said July. "That is the only thing that cannot be
taken from us. We are supposed, you know, rather to like the loss of the
other one."
"I have heard so," said Walter, who was not unaccustomed to this sort of
fencing. "But I suppose it is not true."
"Oh," said July, "if it were for the same reason that makes you change
your name, I should not mind. But there is no peerage in our family that
I know of, and I should not have any chance if there were, alas!
Good-bye, Lord Erradeen. It is a lovely name! And may I always speak to
you when I meet you, though you are such a grand personage? We do not
hope to see you at the Cottage now, but mamma will like to know that you
still recognise an old friend."
"I shall come and ask Mrs. Herbert what she thinks of it all," Walter
said.
July's brown eyes flashed out with triumph as she laughed and waved her
hand to him. She said--
"It will be too great an honour," and curtseyed; then laughed again as
she went on, casting a glance at him over her shoulder.
He laughed too; he was young, and he was gratified even by this
undisguised provocation, though he could not help saying to himself,
with a slight beat of his heart, how near he was to falling in love with
that girl! What a good thing it was that he did not--_now_!
As for July, she looked at him with a certain ferocity, as if she would
have devoured him. To think of all that boy had it in his power to give
if he pleased, and to think how little a poor girl could do!