_MR. ROBINSON PROMISES TO DO HIS BEST._
But all was false and hollow; though his tongue
Dropp'd manna, and could make the worse appear
The better reason, to perplex and dash
Maturest counsels.
"Let us look at the matter in this light, Mrs. Grey." The speaker was
Mr. Robinson, and his tone was particularly lively. "Your husband has
cause, fancied or real--for the sake of argument we must put that
part of the question aside--your husband, we shall say, has cause of
complaint against you. He has ceased to consider you a fit guardian for
his daughter after the first unconsciousness of childhood. What ought
to be his method of proceeding in such a case? Why, clearly this. He
should advertise you, through your solicitor, of his desire, and allow
him to negotiate between you. Had he done so, my advice no doubt would
have been of some service. I should have suggested that Miss Laura
should be placed, for the time being, in some educational establishment
where both parents could have had access to her, even, if Mr. Grey had
insisted upon this point, under certain restrictions on your side."
Mr. Robinson paused at this point as if for consideration. Mrs. Grey
shivered slightly, and drew her shawl more closely round her shoulders.
It was a beautiful July day. The sun was shining brightly, the birds
were singing, there was the warm breath of summer upon everything, but
Margaret was like one stricken with a chill. Her face was pale and
haggard, her dark mournful eyes were sunken, her long white fingers,
almost transparent, twitched nervously from time to time.
"But Mr. Grey has _not_ acted in this way," she said with some
fretfulness in her tone.
"Patience, my dear lady," he answered in the lively manner with
which he had entered upon the subject; "we are coming to that point
presently. Affliction, you know, cometh not forth of the dust. Job
suffered grievously, but held fast his integrity. In _this_ world
tribulation; your trials are sent; you must ask for the grace of
patience, that you may be enabled to bear them worthily. But to return.
The first point we should consider is this: Who was actually the person
that removed your daughter from your care? the second, How and in
what method was such removal accomplished? In this you must help me.
Will you try and make a concise statement of the events of the day
in question--what your occupations were, how your child came to be
alone--giving me also the grounds of your suspicion that Mr. Grey is a
party to the kidnapping of his child?--Rather amusing, by the bye, when
one comes to think of it--a father running away with his own daughter."
Mr. Robinson laughed pleasantly at his own joke, which did not seem to
impress his companion so agreeably.
Margaret rose from her chair impatiently, rang the bell and walked to
the door of the room: "I shall send you the servant, Mr. Robinson; she
was the only person in the house when my daughter was taken away."
She went out into the garden and stood under the trees. The sun was
falling on her hair, the soft wind swept it back from her brow, but
her pale lips quivered, and from her eyes came no responsive gladness
to meet the beauty of the summer morning. She was wondering why she
had sent for this man, why she had laid bare her bleeding heart. Would
it not have been better, a thousand times better, to have hidden this
last anguish as she had hidden the others--to have suffered and wept
in silence? For the lawyer's keen criticism and unsparing common sense
had been like a kind of analysis of her torture--had added to her
sorrow the agony of undeserved humiliation. Her husband _had_ insulted
her. This was the bitterest drop in her cup of anguish, and this Mr.
Robinson, a representative of the world, which is given to harsh
judgment of the weak, had not failed to bring clearly before her mind.
It was bitterly hard to be borne.
She thought, and bowed her head upon her breast with a sigh that seemed
to drain the life-blood from her heart. How was it that everything
grated upon her, wounded her? What had she expected, then? she
asked herself. That this man, a man of business, with interests and
affections of his own, would enter tenderly and religiously into the
sanctuary of her grief, would touch her wound lightly, would bring help
without adding suffering? Was it not folly, madness? But she would cast
this morbid sentimentality aside; Heaven would grant her in time the
hardness she needed.
She sat down on a seat under the tree. She could see through the
parlor-window that Jane was taking full advantage of her position.
She was interviewing the lawyer to some effect, talking volubly and
illustrating her statement with expressive gestures.
Margaret could not help smiling faintly. As a calmer mood returned
she felt she had put herself in a somewhat ridiculous position. She
returned to the house, breaking in upon a florid account of Jane's
terror on the night following Laura's disappearance. "That's quite
enough, Jane," she said, some of her old dignity in her voice and
manner; "you may go down stairs now."
The landlady by no means approved of the interruption. She had been
giving the lawyer her statement, in keen and hungry expectation of his.
He would probably, she thought, unfold to her some of the mysteries
that had been perplexing her, and now she was summarily dismissed.
There was some malignity in the glance she cast upon her mistress, but
Margaret was too much engrossed in the business upon which she was bent
to take the slightest notice of her. Jane retired--as far as the next
room, that is to say, hoping some fragments of the conversation would
reach her.
She was disappointed. Mrs. Grey opened the French window and led her
solicitor into the garden.
"That's a most sensible woman," Mr. Robinson said when they had seated
themselves outside; "she has a good head and evidently a good heart;
her feeling for you is quite remarkable. You see, Mrs. Grey, the
goodness of Providence?--friends raised up for the friendless. We are
all apt to overlook our mercies and over-estimate our trials. You don't
agree? Ah! one day I trust you will come round to my opinion. But to
business. Will you be kind enough to tell me what you wish me to do in
this matter?"
"I thought I had explained it already, Mr. Robinson." Mrs. Grey looked
tired and spoke with a certain languor. "I do not wish to dispute my
husband's will. If it is his desire to remove my daughter from my care
altogether, I submit. I wish simply to communicate with him on my own
account, and for this reason I want you to find out his address for me.
It cannot surely be a very difficult matter. These affairs, I know,
are sometimes expensive. I desire that no expense shall be spared. Let
any capital I may still possess be sold out and used. I believe I have
this power. I have some jewelry too; I had wished to keep it, but that
desire has gone entirely." She drew off two or three rings, one of
diamonds and emeralds apparently very valuable, and placed a casket in
his hands, saying as she did so, "Do what is to be done as quickly as
possible; there is no time to lose." Her cheek flushed painfully, and
she pressed her hand to her side.
Mr. Robinson had taken the jewelry with some empressement. He looked
at it curiously: "I shall have these trifles valued on my return, Mrs.
Grey. We shall hope to have no occasion for the use of them. Of course
these inquiries, especially when time is a matter of such moment, cost
something, and capital can scarcely be realized at so short a notice.
However, set your mind at rest: everything that lies in human power
to accomplish shall be done; the result we must leave to higher hands
than ours. And, by the bye, as we _are_ on the subject of business, you
will be glad to hear that your debtor the mortgagee--you will remember
if you cast your mind back to our last interview--is completely in my
power. I shall certainly realize the greater part of the sum lent. Do
you follow me, Mrs. Grey?" for Margaret's attention seemed to flag.
She had forgotten the mortgage, the debt, the threatened poverty, for
her whole force of mind was centred on the one anxiety--to find out
her husband, to appeal to his memories of the past, to persuade him at
least to see her; and that fainting-fit with the succeeding weakness
had frightened her, making her feel that possibly her time on earth
might be short.
"Yes," she said absently; "but, Mr. Robinson, tell me how soon you will
be likely to hear of Mr. Grey?"
"Impossible to say accurately, my dear lady, and it is quite against
my principles to encourage false hope. If I were a doctor, I should
frankly tell my patients of their danger, relying on a higher power
than mine to temper the wind and prepare the mind of my patient for the
shock, though, indeed, if we all lived in a state of preparation, the
approach of death would be little or no shock--shuffling off the mortal
coil, going home. But to return: I was saying, I think, that I make it
a rule never to encourage false hopes. I have lost clients by it, Mrs.
Grey; you would really be amazed at the pertinacity of some folks. It
is in this way: A man comes to me. 'Shall I succeed if I go to law in
this matter?' he asks. If hopeless, I answer candidly, No. Sometimes
my client will insist upon my taking up the business. If not against
the dictum of my conscience--an article, by the bye, which we lawyers
are not supposed to possess--I submit and do my best, leaving the
result. Sometimes he will go off to a more unscrupulous practitioner.
It matters very little. What, after all, is so much worth having as the
answer of a good conscience?"
Mrs. Grey sighed. This torrent of words wearied her beyond measure.
"You have not answered my question, Mr. Robinson," she said; "under
favorable circumstances how long would such an inquiry take?"
"And who is to guarantee us favorable circumstances?" replied the
lawyer, smiling pleasantly. "My dear lady, I must beg you to be
patient. We _may_ fail absolutely. Mind you, I do not mean to assert
that I apprehend we _shall_ fail. Come! a promise. As soon as ever
I receive intelligence of _any_ kind I will transmit it to you by
telegraph. Will that satisfy you?"
"I suppose it _should_," she replied sadly, but there was a feeling of
dissatisfaction at her heart that belied her words.
She had not quite the same confidence in Mr. Robinson as she had once
had.
In the light of that fever of anxiety which consumed her his trite
commonplaces, his rapidly-given assurances looked hollow and vague. She
felt as if another standing-point were being cut ruthlessly from under
her feet, and yet what could she do? She had no friend, no hope in the
wide world, but this man.
She looked up at him, fixing on his rather hard face her mournful eyes,
in which unshed tears were swimming. "Mr. Robinson," she said, "you are
a Christian man. I can trust you; you will do your very best for me."
He answered by a frank smile and a cordial hand-grip: "You are a little
upset, Mrs. Grey, or I should be apt to resent the want of confidence
which those words imply. Of course you can rely on me. Now good-bye: I
must be off to my wife. I left her at the hotel here, close at hand.
She came along with me merely for the trip, and is particularly anxious
for a drive before her return; but duty first, pleasure afterward, I
told her."
"Good-bye," said Mrs. Grey.
She was reassured once more, ready to blame herself for the momentary
distrust.
Mr. Robinson went away with a light swinging step and a cheerful smile.
He was no villain, at least in his own eyes, for his small villainies
were disguised under such pleasing names that he really thought himself
a very good man.
"Poor woman!" he said to himself as he walked along, "what an absurd
notion! She'll never find that husband of hers; and if she did, where
would be the use?"
And all this meant, "I shall take no particular pains to find him, and
certainly not yet; it might be awkward."
Thought is strange in its working. There is the surface action,
employed on that which holds it for the moment--the book, the work, the
occupation; that which flows under, memory of what has just passed,
planning for something in the new future; and often, beneath both
these, a deeper undercurrent, its existence scarcely acknowledged even
to the mind itself.
It was in this undercurrent that James Robinson hid thoughts which
would not hear the light, and thus to the world, to his family, and
even to himself, he continued to be an upright and strictly honorable
man.
It was a dangerous game. Thought has a volcanic tendency. It is apt to
force its way upward, to cleave suddenly the superincumbent strata that
holds it from the surface.
Many such a man as James Robinson, quiet, respectable and respected,
even to all appearance devout, has been astonished by waking up some
fine morning and finding himself a villain.