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 eat 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 favours it. If that
rogue of a lackey quoted Shakspeare as much in the servant's 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 get 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 humour with a 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 leant 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.